And he felt like a man reading from a script he'd long since memorized. Delivering lines correctly. Hitting every mark.
Performing.
He stopped.
Unclipped Leo's wrists. Turned the boneless boy over and knelt between his spread thighs. Leo's chest heaved, the blindfold askew, a dark tear-track cutting through the sweat at his temple.
Landen lowered his head and took Leo's weeping cock into his mouth. Swallowed him down to the root.
It was over in less than a minute.
Leo came with a shattered cry, his back bowing off the bench, hands fisting in Landen's hair. Landen took it all; the bitter salt on his tongue, the violent tremors, the raw and total surrender.
He pulled back. Wiped his mouth. Rose.
The blanket was soft. He wrapped it around Leo's shaking shoulders, guided him to the divan, brought water, murmured the aftercare.
You were perfect. So responsive. I'm proud of you; his hands gentle as he blotted the sweat from Leo's forehead.
The script. That word again, following him like a shadow he couldn't outpace.
Leo looked up at him. Eyes wrecked. Worshipful. "Thank you."
"Rest now." Landen said it warmly. Said it perfectly. Hated himself a little for how easy it was.
He sat beside Leo until the boy's breathing evened and his face smoothed into sleep. And felt the full weight of what he'd done settle over him.
Not guilt. Nothing as clean as guilt. Something murkier; the particular self-disgust of a man who has delivered something exquisite and knows, with absolute certainty, that his heart was never in the room.
Leo had given him everything. Every tremble, every cry, every shuddering breath.
Landen had given him a lie.
He stayed until Leo stirred and said he was good. Then he rose, quiet as smoke, and walked away.
The taste of another man's release was still sharp on his tongue. The echoes of pleasured cries still hung in his ears. His own blood still hummed with the play.
But it was just noise. Sensation without weight. Technically perfect and utterly hollow, like a song played in an empty concert hall.
He leaned against the wall in the corridor and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.
What are you doing?
The question arrived flat, without inflection.
What are you doing, and when did you start doing it, and why can't you stop?
He eventually found a seat at the bar, a long slab of black stone, lit from beneath like banked embers, and watched the amber liquid in his glass catch the low light. He didn't remember ordering. But there it was. Neat. Top-shelf. Waiting.
He lifted it. Let the first sip sit on his tongue.
Oak. Vanilla. Heat.
He catalogued it like evidence, as if naming every sensation precisely enough might locate the place where feeling had gone.
Around him, the lounge held that particular after-hours hush.
In a curtained alcove to his left, a man laughed. Low, exhausted, genuinely happy. The submissive in his lap burrowed closer, face pressed into the curve of his neck. Across the way, a Dominant's hand moved in slow, rhythmic strokes through their partner's hair. Eyes closed. Lips parted. Breathing in time with that gentle touch.
