JEAN-PIERRE

The pub was busy, and Jean-Pierre was in a good mood as he entered – even without his anticipation for what they hoped would come later on (though Jean-Pierre was rather intent on having his way whether Aimé made good on his attempts to sell him or not), there was a very good energy to the room, a great deal of excitement and happiness. Positioned so perfectly as the party was between Christmas and New Year’s, it wasn’t as frantic as student outings sometimes could be.

Jean-Pierre quite liked those frantic nights, sometimes, as they were not themselves a bad thing nor a sign of a poor showing, but tonight…

Tonight was different.

He greeted everyone he laid eyes on that he recognised. He was popular, but not extremely, not yet – he had rather hung back this year, thus far, so occupied as he’d been with Asmodeus being home and with the addition of Aimé into his life, and he was not as firmly embroiled in student life as he usually liked to be.

He knew which groups he was interested in ingratiating himself with, would be going along with a housing protest in the new year and of course he’d be involved in the year’s Pride celebrations, when came the summer, but that was a little ways off.

For now, he was something of a mystery to his fellow students, and there was a certain appeal in that – tonight would rather assist his reputation in that regard, he thought, and it would certainly add to what he had no doubt was already something of a mystery.

All these people had known him some four months now, and yet still they commented on his handsome clothes, his shoes, his shirt sleeves, the vests he wore; still they commented on the sweetness of his accent and spoke to him in their half-remembered Leaving Cert French; still some of them commented on how handsome he was, how tall, how blond, how blue were his eyes, as though his appearance were still a surprise.

Aimé had yet to arrive – he had insisted upon this. He had insisted upon rather a lot tonight, and while he hadn’t delivered the specifics of any speech he planned to make, Jean-Pierre had rather enjoyed the sense of command that exuded from him, the sense that he had a strategy, a plan of action, and expected Jean-Pierre to follow his lead.

More attractive even than that, which was really quite attractive already, was the way he had been able to see Aimé’s mind working: he had seen his two mismatched eyes turn cloudy and distant with thought, the mind behind whirring so much as to be almost audible, and his lopsided mouth had twisted into a distant smile, one of concentration and satisfaction, at being given such fine work on which to concentrate.

“Hullo, Gavin,” said Jean-Pierre cheerfully, and Gavin Swift turned to look at him, and grinned.

“Hi, Jean,” he said. He was a very big man – he was as tall as Asmodeus but even broader, built as a body builder ought be, and as always happened when Jean-Pierre greeted him face to face, there was a moment of surprise as he realised that Jean-Pierre wasn’t far off his own height. He was a Cavan man, and while his accent was not tremendously thick, he pronounced the “J” in Jean’s name with more hardness than it ought have, like the English equivalent. “What are you drinking?”

“Just a cocktail,” said Jean-Pierre, handing his card over to the barman as his drink was set on the bar in front of him, and Gavin turned to glance down at it.

Jean-Pierre beamed at him, fluttering his eyelashes slightly – his own lips were wet, and he knew they were shining in the warm light from the pub, especially the brighter lights over the bar. “Would you like to try?”

“Uh, cocktails aren’t really my thing,” said Gavin, but Jean-Pierre could see he was eager to try it, no matter that he held back his enthusiasm. For all his facial expression showed no desire or curiosity, he did not for a moment tear his gaze away from the tall glass and its gradient of yellows and reds.

Jean-Pierre made a show of putting the straw in his mouth, hollowing his cheeks out to suck some of it down, and Gavin’s lips twitched, his eyelids coming down a tiny bit.

“Here,” said Jean-Pierre, pulling out the cocktail umbrella and holding it up to Gavin’s mouth, and he laughed, but then he leaned in slightly, swiping a thick, heavy tongue over the wood.

“Huh,” he said. “That’s pretty good – can’t even taste the alcohol.”

“I know,” said Jean-Pierre brightly, and put the cocktail umbrella in his mouth to suck it clean. Gavin liked that. He leaned back slightly on his heels, his elbow resting on the bar, his chin raising and his eyebrows raising slightly too – his feet, when Jean-Pierre glanced down at them, were widely spread on the floor, and both of them pointed squarely at Jean. Jean-Pierre wondered if his huge cock was already hardening in his loose jeans, stirring to interest.

“You a big drinker?” asked Gavin, and Jean-Pierre laughed, feigning bashfulness.

“I get a little messy when I drink,” he said in a tone of shamed admission, casting down his eyes. “So overexcited.”

“Oh, I like the idea of seeing you overexcited,” he said goodnaturedly. “I feel like you’re so… buttoned up.”

Jean-Pierre laughed again. It wasn’t true at all, but Gavin only saw him in choir practices, had never seen Jean-Pierre give a speech, chair a meeting, or kill a man, and he could be forgiven some petty ignorances. “Perhaps I am buttoned up for a reason – perhaps I am something of a menace, hm?”

“We could do with more menaces,” said Gavin, toasting him, and Jean-Pierre toasted him back before he went into the crowd to put himself among three sopranos, who all latched onto the presence of a gay man – a French one, at that – and brought him down to sit with them and talk about their boyfriends.

Jean-Pierre kept an eye on Gavin Swift, in the hour after this, watched him speak with his friends, nurse his glass of stout. He watched him laugh with his friends, talk back and forth, flirt with different girls…

He had been a choir boy at his church, at home – his mother taught music, and when his friends made jokes about his being in the choir, he insisted it was only natural to do things for one’s mammy, which Jean-Pierre thought was rather sweet.

His friends were not in the choir themselves, but when they came along, they fit right in with the other small band of heterosexual men, and Jean-Pierre smiled to himself as he waited…

And then saw Aimé come in.

Jean-Pierre put himself in the smoking area, still able to see the bar through the window. Sliding his headphones into his ears and answering the call from Aimé as soon as it popped up onto his phone, he turned so that he could use a reflection on the wall to watch them without it being obvious he was staring.

Beside Gavin Swift, Aimé looked very short indeed, At least at Jean-Pierre’s side, he didn’t look so diminutive – he was still stout, after all, and was thicker where Jean-Pierre was thinner. In the past few months, between returning to boxing and picking up his new interests in knife-throwing, wrestling, and whatever they threw at him next, Aimé had gained some weight and packed on a little more brawn, and his muscles were more finely defined, too, but not nearly as much as Gavin’s, who was an Atlas to Aimé’s Hephaestus.

Aimé leaned on the bar, caught the attention of the barman, ordered.

“You like craft beers?” asked Gavin. “I never got into those.”

“Some nights,” said Aimé. “The only reason I like to drink them when I come out is ‘cause the ABV is higher.”

“Higher than Guinness?”

“Yeah, it’s 8.5. Guinness is only like 4.”

“Shit,” said Gavin, and Aimé laughed. Jean-Pierre had observed Gavin do this at other parties and meet-ups, and he was glad his intel was proved right, having passed it onto Aimé: Gavin liked to control things, liked to be the one who kept track of other people’s comings and goings. He’d stay at the bar for most of the night, and his friends, the girls, everybody, would mostly go to him, and he’d talk.

He liked being the one on his feet instead of sitting down, liked being at the bar where he could strike up easy conversation, liked having a good view of everyone present, and it made it so much easier for Aimé to speak with him one on one, with no friends to juggle at the same time.

Jean-Pierre heard, through the phone on silent loudspeaker in Aimé’s pocket, “You’re not in the choir, are you? But I feel like I’ve seen you around.”

“Uh, no, I’m not,” said Aimé, looking up at Gavin, and he put out his hand. “Aimé. I’m at Trinity, just not in the soc.”

“Gavin. You’re friends with someone here?”

“Dating somebody actually,” said Aimé.

He mirrored the way Gavin stood at the bar, one elbow rested on its surface, body facing outward, and there was something tremendously enticing in seeing Aimé so easily copy someone else’s body language, mirror their way of being. Aimé exuded a confidence Jean-Pierre rarely saw him put out – and he didn’t he knew, because Aimé would find it embarrassing, to show this much confidence. It was a particularly masculine air, and he knew Aimé would call it an air because he’d laughed as Aimé mocked it in other men: it was cocky, commanding, contained in it an entitlement and an expectation of good service, a rich boy’s stance.

“Oh, shit,” said Gavin, grinning. “Wait, wait, let me guess.”

“Guess away,” said Aimé.

“Stephanie, is that her name? The one who rides that little moped thing? Or, uh, is it Muireann?”

Aimé laughed. It was a low, smoky sound – from Aimé’s ever-hoarse throat, of course, and a sound Jean-Pierre was familiar with, but he hadn’t heard this laugh before, not from Aimé’s mouth. It was self-deprecating, but not in the honest way Aimé was often self-deprecating: there was a haughtiness to it, self-deprecation over a knowledge someone else didn’t have, and at the way Aimé turned away from Gavin to tap his card, Jean-Pierre saw Gavin follow him with his eyes, head turning to watch him.

He was interested – curious.

Aimé had hooked his fish.

“Uh, no,” said Aimé. He was dressed in some of his nicest clothes – he’d pulled these out of the wardrobe at his own flat, a pair of dark red jeans he didn’t ordinarily wear, a dress shirt, a green jumper. He had made them scruffy by inhabiting them, of course, rolling up the sleeves, and his hair was uncombed, but anyone who knew at a glance knew that the jeans were pricy, and the shoes, too. “No, it’s actually the French one. Jean-Pierre Delacroix?”

“Oh,” said Gavin. He leaned back slightly, and as Aimé was concentrating on the barman, although Jean-Pierre was fairly certain that like Jean had, he was using the mirrored back wall to keep an eye on Gavin’s face, Gavin looked Aimé over again, as if looking for some clues he’d missed before. “Right, yeah, course.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Aimé. “I don’t look like a gay pride type.”

“Hey, nothing wrong with it.”

“I guess,” said Aimé shrugging his shoulders as he slid his card back into his pocket. “It’s a surprise to me as well.”

“You didn’t know you were gay until him?”

“Egh, I dunno,” said Aimé, and shrugged again. Such a lot of power in a shrug like that, to stir such intrigue in Gavin Swift, who seemed silently satisfied as Aimé returned to mirroring his position, one elbow back against the bar again. Aimé had ordered a cocktail for Jean-Pierre as well as a beer for himself – no wine tonight – and it rested, brightly coloured, on the bar between he and Gavin. “I don’t think I’d fuck other guys, but him, he’s… Well. You’ve seen his mouth.”

Gavin tilted back further at that, and Jean-Pierre studied his face, the raised eyebrows that then furrowed down, the mouth that opened, the jaw flexing, the head that tilted ever so slightly to the side, the nostrils that flared.

“Oh, shit,” said Aimé, suddenly apologetic. “Sorry, not that there’s anything against being, uh… You know. Gay, whatever. But him, he’s… Like, yeah, he’s a him, right? But his mouth is… Yeah.” Aimé did one short laugh, smirking, and Gavin’s mouth echoed his smile, his eyes narrowed as he looked from Aimé to the vision of Jean-Pierre outside. “And anyway, I don’t know if it counts as like, gay, gay. It’s not like I’m sucking someone’s dick.”

“What, ‘cause he only sucks yours?” asked Gavin. “Sounds like you’re just in denial.”

“Oh, I meant, uh…” Aimé looked at Gavin, looked him up and down, and then glanced back to Jean-Pierre in the window outside. “Sorry, I figured you knew.”

“Knew?” repeated Gavin. “What?”

“Well,” said Aimé, laughing. “Jean hasn’t got a dick. I guess you wouldn’t guess if you didn’t know, with him being so tall.”

Gavin was not a tremendously worldly man. He looked at Aimé uncomprehending for a few seconds, thinking deeply. Jean-Pierre wondered what thoughts were going through his head, imaginations of injury, of mutilation, of genetic defect – the obvious did not occur, being as it was almost unthinkable. “He’s got no dick?”

Aimé glanced at him, leaned closer, and Jean-Pierre heard his voice over the loudspeaker, but it was low: “Uh, you know, he’s like, trans? He’s not hairy or anything, though, I see videos of some of those guys online who are like, covered in hair, but he’s not. He’s got a cunt – you never realised, what with the jeans and leggings he wears all the time? He dresses like a girl, if he had a dick I bet it’d be uncomfortable, tight shit like he wears.”

Gavin blinked. Took this in. Glanced toward Jean-Pierre through the window, sitting alone with his headphones in, insensible, so he thought, of their conversation. “His voice is normal,” said Gavin. “He’s a nice baritenor.”

“Hormones,” said Aimé. “I don’t care how it works – don’t really care if people think I’m gay.”

“I don’t think I could ever do that,” said Gavin. “Fuck a guy. Even if he had a…” He trailed off, looked thoughtful, confused. He looked mildly overwhelmed, but not in a way that communicated any distress – merely that he wasn’t used to a great concentration of inward thought or introspection, and that this was wholly unusual.

“To each his own,” said Aimé. “I didn’t think I would either – but when he drinks, he gets sloppy. Desperate.” He laughed, a low, amused sound. “You should see him once there’s a few cocktails down his throat – he’ll suck every dick you put in front of him. Speaking of…” Aimé curled his hand around the stem of the cocktail glass between them, and Gavin looked down to it.

“Doesn’t that make you jealous?” asked Gavin.

“Jealous?” Aimé repeated, like he didn’t understand, and then he looked over to Jean-Pierre. “Oh, right. Uh… No. Sharing is caring, I guess. See you around, Gavin.”

Jean-Pierre saw the cogs turn behind Gavin’s eyes as Aimé walked away from him, didn’t look back, just picked his way through the crowd as he came out to the smoking area.

Without turning around, or even looking to the mirrored surface Jean-Pierre had been using, he asked, “He watching?”

“I think you know he is,” said Jean-Pierre, taking the mocktail and putting the straw in his mouth, hollowing his cheeks as to suck from the straw once again. At the bar, Gavin Swift adjusted his stance, and pulled at the fabric of his trousers, adjusting them, too. “You are a liar.”

“That’s only occurring to you now?”

“You,” said Jean-Pierre, pulling out his headphones as Aimé hung up on his phone and reaching across to jab his finger against Aimé’s chest, “have done that before.”

Aimé huffed out a laugh, and he met Jean-Pierre’s gaze, his mouth curving into half a grin even as he slid one hand over Jean-Pierre’s leg, squeezing his knee.

“Yeah, well,” he said. “This is easy mode. Plenty of times I’ve convinced a guy it’s not gay to let me suck him off – because I’m not just a man, I’m ugly. You, you’re a much easier sell.”

“You don’t think I’m a man?” asked Jean-Pierre, and Aimé looked at him, suddenly stricken.

“Oh, Jean, no, I was just saying that for him,” he said immediately, leaning closer, and Jean-Pierre almost laughed at how quickly his confidence and easy disregard evaporated, replaced with such concern. “Ange, I didn’t—”

“I’m not a man,” said Jean-Pierre. “I have told you this – I am not a woman, either. It does not bother me what he thinks one way or the other, so long as he fucks me. You think he will?”

“Yeah,” said Aimé, and reached out, putting two of his fingers on the bottom of Jean-Pierre’s glass and tilting it up toward his mouth. He kept his gaze locked with Jean-Pierre’s as Jean-Pierre once more began to drink.

He wondered, sitting outdoors with Aimé in the smoking area, if Aimé would mention smoking, if he would think about it – the smell was not extremely strong, and although Jean-Pierre could smell it, he didn’t think Aimé could.

Aimé never even looked toward the ashtrays or the others smoking. He had eyes only for Jean-Pierre.

* * *

AIMÉ

Victory was assured, Aimé knew, when an hour and half into the evening, when Jean-Pierre was giggling loudly over a fast-paced game of cards with some girls, pretending to be tipsy, Gavin came up to him.

He said, casually, “Hey, we’re thinking we’ll get out of here – we live nearby, so we’re actually thinking we might go home so we can smoke while we drink. You want to join us?”

“Sure, man,” said Aimé. “I’ll wait for him to finish this round and then extract him. Who’s coming?”

“Oh, no one much,” said Gavin, shrugging his shoulders. “Just the guys.”

Aimé grinned.

An hour after that, Jean-Pierre was wrestling his way out of his shirt. He was complaining loudly, fiercely, about being too hot as Aimé ineffectually caught his hands to prevent him from taking the shirt off – Jean-Pierre was good at acting drunk, had mastered the art of making his body go limp and loose in the way a drunk person’s did.

Aimé was just slightly buzzed, and was pretending to be drunker than he was himself, but Jean-Pierre was putting it on thick: his eyes were half-lidded as though he were struggling to keep them open, he was saying on his feet, and when he leaned on Aimé, he was heavy.

“Please—”

“Sweetheart, you’re embarrassing me,” said Aimé. “Just sit down and smoke with us, okay? Just—”

“No, I want to do something, I’m bored,” Jean-Pierre groaned, and Aimé gave him a nod at the right moment before he suddenly released his hands: Jean-Pierre stumbled backward as though he’d struggled free, and turned as he moved, falling into Gavin Swift’s chest and looking up at him.

It was amazing, how small Jean-Pierre could make himself look, when he wanted to.

“You guys fighting?” asked Gavin, looking down at Jean-Pierre. He didn’t shove Jean’s hands from his chest, letting Jean-Pierre stay with the whole of his body leaned up against him, his lips pouted out, his eyes wide.

“Pretty boy here wants to take all his clothes off,” said Aimé. “Says he’s too hot.”

“It’s your house, Gavin,” said Jean-Pierre. “Your rules. Would you mind?”

Aimé didn’t laugh, couldn’t, but there was something incredible about how artfully Jean-Pierre did that: his back arched slightly, chest up against Gavin’s, his lips curved into a pretty little moue, his eyes big, blue, and pleading, his head tipping back.

Gavin laughed. “Yeah, I don’t care,” he said casually.

Jean-Pierre turned on Aimé a look of drunken triumph, and Aimé retorted with a raised eyebrow, but he didn’t say anything as Jean-Pierre finally unlaced his shirt and slid it off.

Aimé just managed to stop his look of surprise as he saw Jean-Pierre’s body – he’d done something to obscure his scars, so that Aimé was looking at an expanse of pale, creamy skin with none of the bullet holes he had come to expect.

Gavin was looking too.

“Happy?” asked Aimé.

“No,” said Jean-Pierre brattily, leaning into Gavin again, and Gavin let him. The look on his face was interesting, one of studious interest: there was a slight frown on Gavin’s mouth as his eyes ran over the planes of Jean-Pierre’s chest and stomach, and then his shoulders. “I’m still bored.”

“You know what I think would help?” asked Gavin, and Jean-Pierre looked up at his face, so that their mouths were almost touching.

“What?” asked Jean-Pierre, the picture of innocence, his lips a curving O.

“Shots,” said Gavin, and Jean-Pierre giggled.

“Yes!” he said delightedly, drawing out the sibilant S, and Aimé picked up a bottle of vodka and the shot glasses, setting a few of them down. Jean-Pierre almost fell against him as he watched Aimé pour.

“Gimme a sec,” said Aimé in an undertone, kissing his cheek as they watched Gavin talk to some of his friends, taking a joint as they geared up for another round of poker. “I can pour you water.”

“No need,” said Jean-Pierre, and turned his wrist so that Aimé could see the momentary glow of the symbols painted on the skin.

When Jean-Pierre brought a shot glass up to his mouth and tilted it, Aimé saw that the rim of the cup didn’t even touch his lips, and saw the liquid disappear without it ever entering Jean-Pierre’s mouth.

“Oh, you have to teach me that,” said Aimé, and Jean-Pierre giggled again, and then said, “Gavin, match me!”

“Match you?” asked Gavin. “What, you think you can beat me?”

“I know I can,” said Jean-Pierre, raising his chin.

Aimé poured a few more shots.

Half an hour later, Jean-Pierre was pretending to struggle to keep his head up, and he stumbled again. Gavin caught him, chuckling lowly, and this time he touched Jean-Pierre’s body, slid his hands up the flat of his back, feeling the skin under his palms.

“You’re strong,” said Jean-Pierre softly, mumbling the words.

Aimé glanced over from where he’d sat down again to play cards again with the others, four of them – Corey, the guy that kept sending Jean-Pierre nudes, and then the straight guys that lived here, John, Senan, and Paul. They all thought Jean-Pierre was a laugh, so far, and Aimé could see that they were interested in the way Gavin was giving him attention.

“You like that?” asked Gavin, and Jean-Pierre laughed.

“You think I would say no?” he asked, swaying on his feet. “I am supposed to not like a big strong man?”

Gavin looked over at Aimé, and he raised his eyebrows, nodding his chin down at Jean-Pierre, a silent request for permission; Aimé gestured with his hands, an equally silent “Please, go ahead.”

One of Gavin’s hands slid under the waistband of Jean-Pierre’s jeans, cupping his arse, and the other touched Jean-Pierre’s chest, sliding under his pec. He did it with interest, as if to see if it would be like a tit, but he didn’t look put off, even as Jean-Pierre laughed again, head lolling like he was a puppet with his strings cut.

He moaned, though, when Gavin’s fingers slid between his arse cheeks.

“Gav, the fuck are you doing?” asked John. “You gay now?”

“Not really,” said Gavin, and undid the front of Jean’s trousers, sliding them down. Jean-Pierre’s clit was bright pink and stood to attention, and Aimé watched the faces of all four of the guys as Jean-Pierre clumsily stumbled out of his jeans, so that he was just in his socks. “Hey, Jean, come here.”

“How will you reward me if I do?” asked Jean-Pierre. He played drunken seduction well: the words were sexy, but slurred, and he stood at an extreme angle as though he were struggling to remain on his feet.

Gavin reached out, curling his fingers in Jean-Pierre’s hair, and pulled him forward. He took his clit between his thumb and his forefinger, tugging on it interestedly, and Jean-Pierre gasped raggedly, spreading his legs apart, so that the wetness on his thighs shone in the light.

“Fuck,” muttered Paul.

“You mind?” asked Gavin – again, he asked Aimé, not Jean-Pierre, and under his skin, Aimé felt something surge. He wondered what it would be like, a night like this, if Jean-Pierre was really drunk – he knew Jean-Pierre couldn’t drink, but he remembered how out of it Jean had been on the coke at Halloween, wondered what he might be like on mushrooms.

“I don’t mind,” said Aimé. “He’ll fucking take anything you give him, once he’s drunk.”

Gavin bent Jean-Pierre over the table, and unzipped his jeans.

The mood went in the guys from mild curiosity and laughter to sudden interest, because Jean-Pierre heaved in a gasp when Gavin fucked inside him. Jean-Pierre sprawled over the table, legs spread, and Aimé felt arousal coil hot and tight in the base of his belly at Jean-Pierre’s face, his twisted mouth, his squeezed-shut eyes.

“Jesus,” hissed Gavin, smacking the side of Jean-Pierre’s arse as he sank in to the root, watching him twitch on the table. “Fuck, he’s tight.” He grunted as he drew back his hips and fucked forward again, and Jean-Pierre whined.

“Someone’s gonna have to take his mouth, if you don’t want noise complaints,” said Aimé casually.

The others, who’d been sitting around frozen, almost not knowing what to do, what to say, looked at one another, and then Corey got to his feet, undoing belt.

“You don’t have a problem with this?” asked Senan.

“Why would I?” asked Aimé, getting to his feet and sipping at his beer. “Don’t you hear him? He likes it.”

Corey came before Gavin did, and Senan fucked Jean-Pierre’s mouth after – his cock was thick, and Jean-Pierre choked around it, but he didn’t struggle. He couldn’t, playing the drunk role, and he just gave himself over to it, let Senan drag his head around to fuck down his throat, and he hissed when Jean moaned around him.

Gavin was fucking Jean-Pierre like he was trying to bruise his organs, utterly focused on it: he was scowling in concentration, his hands gripping wonderful, red bruise marks into Jean-Pierre’s thighs and the sides of his hips.

When he slid his thumb against Jean-Pierre’s arse, Jean whined around Senan’s cock.

“You fuck him in the arse before?” asked Gavin.

“Sure,” said Aimé. “He can take it.”

What he didn’t expect was the way Gavin did it, pulling out of Jean-Pierre’s cunt and lining himself up against Jean’s arse straight away – no hesitation, no prep, and no caution when he did do it. He just sank into him again, forced himself inside, and hearing Jean-Pierre’s sharp, loud cry of pain and want and overwhelmed sensation, Aimé leaned back on his heels, palming over his cock.

“Fuck,” grunted Gavin, his face crumpling, and Aimé liked the look of his face as he came, liked the way Jean-Pierre choked and moaned around Senan’s dick, liked… This.

Once Gavin came, pulling back and leaving white streaked down Jean-Pierre’s arse and thighs, he took on the role of fucking set manager: told Paul and Senan to pull him off the table to properly spitroast him, and after Senan had come, got Paul and John to turn him face up.

“He can take it from the front and the back at once,” said Aimé. “If you guys want.”

“Fuck yeah,” said Gavin, and helped Paul pull Jean-Pierre upright, letting John get in behind him.

“Wait,” said Jean-Pierre raggedly, slurring his words. “Wait, wait, wait—”

“Don’t be a bitch, Jean,” said Aimé. “You let everyone else have a go – can’t leave John out.”

Jean-Pierre whined as John and Paul had him between them, because at the same time Gavin reached between his legs and pulled at his clit again, and Aimé grinned when Jean-Pierre’s head lolled, and he smirked at Aimé.

The protest had been for what, then, show? Just to see if Aimé would panic, try to get him out of everything, try to extricate him?

“Let me know if he gets too loose,” said Aimé, sipping his drink when Gavin came back to stand beside him. “Spanking him fixes that.”

“It’s… nice,” said Gavin lowly. “Him being a bloke. You can just fuck him and not worry about him breaking at all, he’s not fragile or anything. You don’t have to worry.”

That was an insight and a half, one Aimé didn’t exactly like – but he liked the way Jean-Pierre was limp between the other guys, taking the fuck from both sides.

“Will he remember this tomorrow?” asked Gavin.

“Probably not,” said Aimé. “But he’ll feel it.”

“Shit,” said Gavin, and palmed himself over.

It felt like a tease, almost. There was something incredibly, burningly hot about the whole situation, that Aimé and Jean-Pierre had come in with a plan, known exactly what they wanted, and that Gavin and his friends thought they were in control – Hell, Gavin still thought he was in control now – but there was also a part of Aimé, a real and constant and unforgettable part of him, that wanted it to be real. He wanted Jean-Pierre to truly be this powerless, truly be this reliant on him, truly be someone beholden to what Aimé wanted other people to do to him.

Jean-Pierre wasn’t really drunk – in a heartbeat he could have everyone in this room on the ground, dead, if he wanted them. How would it feel, if he was really so insensible he couldn’t move unless they puppeted him? How would it feel, if Aimé was holding his leash, and Jean-Pierre couldn’t so much as pull? If Aimé had him bound with something – with magic, with enchantment – and he couldn’t resist even if he wanted to?

“Aimé,” Jean-Pierre whined.

“What, sweetheart?” he asked.

“I’m thirsty.”

Aimé picked up the bottle of pineapple juice they’d picked up on the way over, and let him drink it without making the other guys put him down.

* * *

JEAN-PIERRE

He was tired in the taxi, curled into Aimé’s side with his face leaned on his shoulder, and once they got out Aimé carried him bridal style into the house, walking straight past Brigid as she started to bark and jump up, because she couldn’t follow them up the stairs. Jean-Pierre wrapped his arms more tightly around Aimé’s neck.

Jean-Pierre was covered over in bruises and sucked marks, and he stank of sex and spilt beer, his clothes stained with come, his cunt and his arse both still open. They’d surprised him with his stamina, Gavin Swift and all his friends, and Gavin himself had fucked Jean-Pierre twice – once over the table, and the second time he’d impaled Jean-Pierre in his lap and fucked his cunt with a beer bottle, all as Aimé and the others went back to playing cards.

Asmodeus had his gym bag over his shoulder and his ballet shoes hanging from around his neck as he met them at the top of the stairs, dressed already in leggings and a vest, his coat worn over the top.

“Have a good time?” he asked.

“I think so,” said Aimé when Jean-Pierre didn’t say anything, and Asmodeus reached out, cupping Jean-Pierre’s cheek and gently squeezing his chin before he went past the both of them.

Jean-Pierre could hear him speaking soothingly to Brigid as he came to the bottom of the stairs.

“I’m tired,” groaned Jean-Pierre when Aimé brought him not to the bed, but into the bathroom, and started the hot water.

“Sleep, then,” was Aimé’s retorted. “You think I can’t wash and dry you unconscious?”

He’d had a good time, Jean-Pierre thought. The whole of the evening he’d been watching him, and every time Jean-Pierre had let out a new sound of pain or pleasure he’d looked as though he were committing it to memory. Once or twice, when Jean-Pierre had feigned protest, Aimé had perked up, abruptly even more engaged.

Jean-Pierre liked that.

He went limp as a doll, allowing himself to be undressed.

“It was different with mundies,” said Jean-Pierre. “You could have overpowered every one of them, if you’d wanted to. I expect you’d like it better, to see me at the mercy of some beastly man neither of us might control.”

“You’re right,” said Aimé, voice dripping with irony. “What I want most is to see you ripped apart by monsters.”

“Not ripped apart,” said Jean-Pierre. “But filled, perhaps – fucked insensibly. Did a part of you not wish I was truly as vulnerable as I feigned to be, this evening?”

“I didn’t spank you tonight,” said Aimé as he pulled down Jean-Pierre’s jeans. “But I still could, sweetheart. I could give you an enema while we’re at it.”

“Your punishments are positively Victorian,” said Jean-Pierre, letting himself be tipped back under the hot spray of the water, and then he sighed, tipping his head back and feeling its soothing kiss on his skin. “I think I might need it.”

“A spanking?”

“The enema. I want the spanking.”

“Anything for you, ange,” said Aimé, and leaned under the spray, his clothes getting damp as well as his hair, to kiss him. When they broke apart, Jean-Pierre linked their hands, and squeezed.

“I would like that,” he said.

“The enema?”

“For you to give me over to some beast,” said Jean-Pierre.

Aimé’s lips parted, and he slightly shook his head. “Ange. I wouldn’t.”

Aimé’s body was stiff, his legs spread slightly apart where he crouched beside Jean-Pierre – he was envisioning it, imagining it, as Jean-Pierre did himself. Jean-Pierre looked into Aimé’s mismatched eyes, wondered what he was thinking of precisely, saw him lick his lips and then look away.

“Thank you,” said Jean-Pierre, and handed Aimé a washcloth.

Aimé, chuckling, got to work.