Quiet

It always surprised him, that the loft could be so quiet. Cascade was a large city, but not so large that everything didn't calm down by 3 a.m. Not at all like some of the big cities he'd lived in. Cairo ran full-tilt night and day.
 

But here, in the loft, in Cascade, quiet reigned.
 

Quiet and peace.
 

When they weren't shattering it with the assorted shouts, screams, moans and bellows that so often accompanied their lovemaking.
 

But tonight would be different.
 

Blair knew it would.
 

Even though they hadn't discussed it openly in months, he knew his lover well enough to know when Jim was planning something. And tonight the older man had cooked dinner, done the
cleanup himself, and hustled them both to bed at least an hour early. And, to his own surprise, Blair had fallen asleep soon after, his most recent copy of Anthropology Today sliding down
into his lap as his eyes drifted shut and refused to open.
 

Like now.
 

He thought he'd opened his eyes, but only darkness met them as he came fully awake. There was a sensation on his face, he couldn't place it...and then Jim's fingers stroked feather-light
over his brow, smoothing the sudden wrinkle.
 

Blair would know that touch anywhere.
 

A tug at the back of his head and he recognized the blindness. It was Jim's sleeping mask, the one he wore to sleep during the day or when his senses were acting up. Made to block daylight, it was more than adequate to hide the pale moonlight that Blair knew was streaming from the skylight above the bed.
 

"Don't talk."
 

A too-soft kiss pressed to his forehead.
 

"Don't move."
 

Another, firmer, at the base of his throat as Jim's hands moved him with casual ease, arranging him spread-eagle on the bed.
 

The rasp of rope on cotton sheets made him shiver as his naked body was exposed to the cool night air.

The window must be open, he thought, oddly disconnected from that sensation.
 

Jim had measured the ropes one lazy, silly evening months ago, not long after they had that discussion. He teased and joked and after they had made love on the sofa, loudly.
 

As his body was stretched, just enough tension to keep his
limbs straight and taut -- Jim had rigged a double-tie system for
his feet that held them quite firmly at the corners of the bed --
Blair exhaled a long sigh.
 

This was the challenge. To feel everything Jim did to him
and be unable to react. There was even a broad swatch of stiff
leather, padded, that went over his lower abdomen--tightly -- to
prevent him from arching or thrusting.
 

The idea was to make him as sensitive as Jim was, if only
for a little while.
 

But he couldn't help wondering if maybe Jim just wanted to
drive him crazy.
 

Tied down tightly, he tested the bonds. There was almost no
give, although he could rotate his wrists and ankles.
 

"No, no." Jim scolded softly as he did just that. Blair
stopped. He would appreciate having even that much movement soon,
he was sure.
 

"Open your mouth."
 

The gag was soft and malleable. It fit his mouth, there was
no stretching or bruising of tender tissues, and no awkward, ugly
harness buckled over his head. Just a simple length of cloth tied
around it. He could work it free if he needed to.
 

If he needed to. Right now, at this moment, Blair was more
vulnerable than he ever had been in his life. Ellison -- or
anyone who found him like this -- could do whatever they wanted
to him.
 

There were no safe words. No nonverbal signals that would
tell the other man he needed to stop.
 

Once this began, it had to be seen through to the end.
 

They had agreed that this was the only way to make it real.
 

And he wasn't afraid.
 

Not even a tiny bit.
 

This was Jim, after all.

When he was bound to the other man's satisfaction Blair felt
Jim's weight lift from the bed beside him. Listening hard, he
could barely make out the sounds of cloth rustling...Jim had
taken off his own boxers, and folded them. From past experience
Blair knew they would be placed neatly on the chair at the desk
and not the desk itself. Jim didn't like crowding his work space,
even when he wasn't working at it.
 

Then Blair couldn't hear anything. Straining, his sturdy
body taut, he wished fruitlessly that *he* had a dial that could
be turned up and down and change the level of his hearing.
 

Holding his breath, he listened until he felt lightheaded
and was finally rewarded by the faint sound of Jim breathing.
Exhaling, actually, the inhalations were too faint for Blair to
pick up. But it was enough to reassure him -- not that he needed
it -- and he allowed himself to relax back into the single
pillow, a distance of perhaps two inches. If that much.
 

"So beautiful." The words brushed his face and Blair
flinched. He hadn't heard Jim move at all. A large hand, feeling
far too hot, spread over his shoulder, gripping gently. "So
strong, too, but the strength doesn't subtract from your beauty.
It enhances it."
 

Spoken in a calm, matter-of-fact tone, the words brought the
first flush of arousal to Blair's previously unsure body. He felt
his cock begin to fill and lengthen. The feeling was as powerful
as it had been when he was thirteen and really felt it for the
first time, when he wasn't so caught up in being embarrassed by
it that he couldn't enjoy it.
 

Now he was definitely enjoying it. Jim was kissing his face,
rimming his ear and then sucking behind it, that spot that made
Blair squirm. He tried to do so now and achieved only a
motionless wriggle. The tie that bound the gag had been fastened
securely to the rail behind the bed, so even his head was
somewhat restrained. But he could and did moan through the gag,
which was becoming soggy, and he knew Jim heard him.
 

The erotic exploration of Jim's mouth was expanded to
include his hands as his fingers began trailing lightly over
Blair's ribs. One traveled the edge of the restraining belt,
bring a shiver and goosebumps to the soft skin, and now Blair
sighed. His eyes were closed again, and he was gathering and
studying the sensory information that was available to him.
 

The way Jim smelled. His breathing. His heartbeat, barely
there when he leaned close to Blair.
 

The sudden wash of heat from his big body when one hand
drifted beneath the belt to Blair's spread legs and found the
heavy erection waiting for him.
 

That must be what it feels like to him when he steps into a
room and my body jumps to attention. The thought pleased Blair,
but not as much as the hand that closed firmly around his cock
and pumped it slowly.
 

There was just enough give to let him move his hips in tiny
circles, and he used it all silently begging Jim to continue when
he stopped.
 

And then Jim was kissing his way down Blair's chest. The
younger man could *feel* his breath when it ruffled his chest
hair.
 

It was incredible.
 

Panting now, no breath left to grab for a moan, Blair hung
in his ropes, poised on the edge of some great precipice.
 

He fell over when Jim's hot mouth closed over his cock
without warning and swallowed it.
 

It was impossible to not arch into that overwhelming heat,
the fantastic pleasure. But the belt was placed in exactly the
right place to prevent that, the stiff leather having no give at
all. The tiny wriggles of his hips only disrupted Jim's rhythm,
so, after a minute or two of movement, Blair was still again.
 

And going crazy.
 

After their months as lovers, Jim knew exactly what would
make him the hottest the fastest, and he did it all. Sucking the
head of Blair's cock while slowly pumping the base with one hand,
he inserted a well-lubricated finger into Blair with the other,
stroking in time with his pumping hand. Trapped, all Blair could
do was lie there and feel it.
 

He shuddered, he shook. The sensations were so intense that
he briefly worried that he would pass out before it was done. He
wouldn't be able to come until Jim let him, the man was a master
at this; bringing Blair right to the edge and then backing off
again.
 

Words became mythical, thoughts were vague concepts, never
realized. Blair lay on the bed and his mind took up residence in
his cock and there was no thinking allowed.
 

At last, knowing, no doubt, that he had utterly destroyed
his young lover's mind, Jim increased the stroke one final time
and hollowed his cheeks with suction.
 

And Blair came, convulsing. The ropes pulled so tight there
seemed a chance they would snap, and then he collapsed back onto
the bed like a rag doll. Grubby, scruffy, worn and well-loved.

Gentle hands unclipped the restraints from his feet. Rubbed
at sore ankles for a few minutes before sliding up sturdy legs to
caress soft inner thighs. The legs were pushed apart, one finger
became two and then three and Blair's still-quaking body was
filled by the hardest, strongest part of Jim's.
 

He scarcely noticed. Busy trying to pick enough individual
cells from the scattered remains to form a single thought, this
new feeling canceled that effort and all he could do now was ride
the tide as Jim surged into him, alternately filling and leaving
him, the come-and-go so so very much...there were no words and no
thoughts and, in the end, there was only Jim.
 

All he could see, all he could hear, all he could touch,
taste, smell or remember. There had never been a time or place
where they were not making love, this was Blair's reality now.
 

Jim grunted and moaned, fingers digging into Blair's ass,
and ground himself closer, spreading those sweet cheeks so he
could get as far up inside his lover as physically possible, and
Blair, for the first time, was able to feel it when Jim came
inside him. The sudden wash of heat, the sensation of being even
further filled...it was wonderful.
 

Jim lay on top of Blair for a long while, until they both
caught their breath, although Blair still hadn't located his
mind. Feeling the further release as his hands, his torso and
finally his head were released, a strange, mewling, kitten-like
sound fell from his lips with the gag and he clung to Jim with
all of his strength, afraid of being washed away in the sudden
storm.
 

Spooning around him, holding him tightly enough to bruise,
Jim crooned wordlessly, petting his tangled hair, until the
irrational fear subsided and Blair was quiet again.
 

"Too much?" he asked at last, when the quiet had made them
part of itself once again.
 

"How do you stand it?" sighing, Blair turned in Jim's
embrace and kissed his mouth tenderly. "Trying to hear, to
feel....hearing and feeling it all, all the time."
 

"I have you." pausing to kiss him back, Jim squeezed Blair
affectionately. "If I can hear you, see you, smell you, taste
you, touch you...I can block the rest of it out when I have to.
When I need to."
 

"It's a good thing you're the Sentinel and I'm the Guide."
Blair smiled, oddly shy, "I don't think I could ever handle it as
well as you do."
 

"Chief, I wouldn't have it any other way." Punctuating the
sentiment with a deeper kiss, Jim settled deeper into the bed,
relaxing with a satisfied sigh. Reaching languidly, Blair got the
covers up over their sweaty, cooling bodies.
 

And they gave the night back to the quiet.

~ the end ~

                                                                                                                        saraid@wf.net