ONE
Roman
At moments like this, everything is fine. Lucas and I are in the library with our coffee. He’s in my lap with a book, reading silently. We’re safe and clean and comfortable. We’re together. So everything, really, is more than fine, or it should be.
But there’s too much house around us. Too many people. Too much world.
For a long time, none of that existed for me. There was only the prison and the arena. It was chaotic but small. The rules were simple. Existence was simple. Eat. Fight. Sleep. Endure.
I survived because I accepted that. I reduced myself to exist within that, cutting away everything that didn’t fit in that reality. By the time I waspurchased from that place, I wasn’t even human anymore—and didn’t want to be. Being a beast was easier and safer.
So it was a beast that went into another cage and an even smaller world. I never thought outside that space because nothing existed for me outside that space.
Not until Lucas was thrown into it with me.
Then, slowly, I began to realize that the things I had thought were cut away—my name, my … humanness—were actually buried. They were still there. And it turned out that I needed them to be, so that I could save him.
I had to get him out of there because a time would have come when I wouldn’t have been able to protect him. I had long since accepted my own death as inevitable, but I no longer could—because my death would have meant his.
And … I wanted more for him. I wanted this. Him in soft, clean clothes with a cup of coffee and a book. Him in a nice, safe space.
It’s not just fine—it’sgood.
So why doesn’t it feel good to me? Why am I so fucking overwhelmed by everything that I had to ask him to read silently? I love when he reads aloud to me. I love his voice. But I’m already so exhausted by everything around me, which is somehow sprawling out to infinity and suffocating me at the same time, that couldn’t handle hearing it.
It makes me really angry with myself because Iknowthat we’re safe. We’re in my family home. Andyet, I’m so fucking agitated that I can barely sit still in this leather armchair.
I don’t know what to do. I want this with Lucas, all of it. But I don’t belong in this safe space—and I’m so afraid of destroyingit.
Lucas closes the book. “Do you want to work out?”
We work out a lot. At least, I do. It helps me focus and calm down. The small, controlled, familiar actions draw in my awareness. For a little while, the world shrinks back down to a manageable size.
But I don’t want to work out right now. I want to dothis, to be here in the library with Lucas. I just want it to feel good, like it’s supposed to.
I shake my head to tell Lucas no. He doesn’t react to my wordlessness. Or maybe he does. He leans into me, pressing his face against my neck. He’s so patient with me.
I wish he didn’t have to be, but this does happen a lot. I spent years not speaking. I believed, all that time, that my silence was a choice. I think, in the beginning, it was. But when Lucas came into my life and I found myself wanting to speak for the first time in years, I found my silence hard to break. And even now, after we’ve been in this house for months, my voice gets locked up all the time.
I hate it. It makes me feel … broken.
Lucas breathes steadily against my throat. I focus on the rhythm and the soft, warm puffs of air. I start to settle in my body and feel the weight of his.
I close my eyes and try to shut us into a space that can hold only the two of us. That space is often sexual, and my body is quick to respond that way. When my cock hardens under Lucas, he starts gently nibbling at my throat.
I tilt my head to give him better access. I could never allow anyone but Lucas at my throat, but I like it with him. In my head, I know, always, that I trust Lucas, but when I show it like this, I actuallyfeelthat trust, and feeling it makes something ease inside me.
Setting the book on the end table by his cooling coffee, Lucas shifts in my lap so he can straddle me. We’re both wearing warmups, so it’s easy to feel the stiffness of his cock against mine when he starts to grind on me.
We’ve been having sex a lot lately. It’s always been a big part of our relationship. It’s not just that it feels good; it feelsclose. It’s a way to speak when words are hard.
Lucas reaches inside my warmups to curl his hand around my cock. I like when Lucas touches me—Ido. But sometimes I’m not relaxed enough. My eyes pop open.
At first, all I see is him: his light brown hair styled back from his beautiful face with its high cheekbones, his blue eyes soft but watchful. But then I see our surroundings. I can’t help it. My life has depended on my situational awareness too often for me to not take it in.
There’s no danger, of course. We’re in the library. The windows frame a view of the Boston estate’sgreen grass and distant trees. It’s peaceful outside, and inside too. The wallpapered room has comfortable furniture, glass-shaded lamps, and dark shelves full of books. They’re things that my mother chose before she died, long before I turned into something that she wouldn’t recognize.
Lucas senses my shift in mood. He releases my cock and tugs my waistband into place. His hands settle on my chest. I feel the heat of them through the thin fabric of my white t-shirt. I bring my eyes back to his. He’s unhappy. Worried.
