Chapter Fourteen
Dominick
There were pizza crusts, paper plates, and napkins on the table, and Xavier held a plastic cup filled with some sugary drink he had ordered from the bar. He fiddled with the remote control self-consciously, pushing a few buttons as a screensaver of animated fish floated across the giant screens. But all I could look at was his face.
Tender. Nervous. But eager, too.
Something about his expression was so damn sexy to me. He didn’t have the cool, suave exterior I had come to expect from guys. Instead, it was like his desires were visible in every moment, no matter how much he tried to hide them. His lips trembled, and he struggled to keep eye contact, but when he did, his eyes were so open and clear, it was all I could do to stop myself from throwing him to the couch right there.
“How are you feeling after our scene the other night?” I asked. I had ordered a splash of whiskey, which was also served in a small plastic cup, and I swirled the liquid around while I talked.
He looked to me, his lips tight but pulled up in a smile. “Scene? Is that the word we’re supposed to use for it?”
I chuckled. “It does sound a bit formal, doesn’t it? You’re right. What we explored felt a little more… organic.”
Xavier’s eyelashes fluttered. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” he answered.
“And you felt good afterward?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding confidently. “When it was happening, the whole thing felt overwhelming. It was hot, but I was feeling a lot of things I couldn’t quite figure out, too. But when I woke up today, I just felt good. Like some stress had disappeared.”
“Good, good. I’m glad to hear that.”
“Is that what happens to you?” he asked hesitantly.
I crossed my ankle over my knee and turned to face him directly on the couch. “It’s similar,” I said. “Usually, I just get a physical release during a scene. I can feel a bit drained afterward, but in a good way. Like if I run a 5K or stay up all night and then crush a business presentation in the morning.” I took a sip of the whiskey and felt the burn in my throat. “Everyone is different, though. There’s no right or wrong way to feel. You just have to figure out what’s right for you.”
Xavier swung his legs up on the couch, folding them under his butt and turning to match my gaze. “I know this is right for me. I’ve always had fantasies about getting spanked.”
I smiled and knew a flash of hunger must have shot across my eyes. “Tell me about it,” I said. “Tell me about your fantasies.”
Immediately, a flush warmed Xavier’s cheeks, and he turned his eyes back toward the screens. “That’s hard,” he said. “I still feel embarrassed.”
I nodded, thinking carefully. I couldn’t blame him for being shy. I was the kind of guy who tended to know exactly what I wanted, and it had still taken me years to accept this aspect of my sexuality. “How about this?” I said. “You tell me a fantasy, and then I’ll tell you a fantasy.”
He giggled, wringing his hands together nervously. “But you’re not embarrassed about it! That’s not a fair trade.” Then he glanced back to the karaoke screen and bit down on his bottom lip. “I’ll tell you a fantasy if you sing me a song, too.”
A chuckle filled my chest, and I rubbed my hand across my beard. “I guess I set myself up for that, didn’t I? Two fantasies for a song. Deal?”
“Deal,” he said, sipping from his pink drink. “As long as you go first to get me started.” He looked down at his drink. “I think I’ll be too shy otherwise.”
“I should bring you along for my next negotiation,” I joked. “But okay, that sounds fair.” I took a deep breath, and my mind start tracing over memories, trying to find the right story that would reveal something about myself while also putting Xavier at ease.
“For me, the fantasy has always been about power, but not in the way most people expect. When I first started exploring my kinks at the clubs, I always went straight for the most masculine types of play, things like ropes and harnesses. And that was fun for a while, don’t get me wrong, but for some reason, it never scratched the itch.
“Even though I had always fantasized about spanking guys, at first, I didn’t pursue that kind of play. I think I worried it would seem silly, when all the guys I spent time with were obsessed with scenes that seemed much more extreme. But then I met this guy at the club who was just in town for the night. He was a businessman from Japan, about my age, and he wasn’t shy about asking for a spanking.”
Xavier swallowed. “Once you spanked him, you were sure that was your kink?”
“More like once I spanked him I was able to admit it to myself. But it wasn’t just the spanking. He wanted to do some roleplay where I pretended to be his boss, and he pretended to be an incompetent employee. We spent a good half an hour building up to the actual spanking. I scolded him, he apologized. I acted disappointed, he begged my forgiveness. And then, once we were both hot and worked up, we started. That’s when it all clicked into place for me.”
“Because you liked yelling at him?”
I shook my head, then finished off my whiskey. “No, what mattered to me was the power to bring him to all these different extremes of experiences. He felt shame, pleasure, pain, humiliation, and forgiveness and redemption, too. He gave control of his body and his emotions over to me, and because of that, I was able to lead him places neither of us had gone before. When I tied guys up, the physical exchange of power was there, but I discovered that it was the emotional exchange that mattered to me most.”
Xavier frowned, his pouty lips turning down. “But how did you trust each other enough to do that? He was a total stranger.”
“We didn’t, not really,” I answered. “We trusted each other enough to explore those feelings, but not to truly go there. That’s why, when I left the club that evening, I didn’t feel totally satisfied. I just felt hungry for more. I wanted someone who could trust me enough to give him discipline, to give him humiliation, and to give him redemption and release, too. Not by pretending, but by actually exploring those feelings together.”
