Sex in C Major

"Next time you run away, that's it. No more second chances."

Stefan shuddered.

"It's now or never again. Best start playing by the rules."

Something creaked in Stefan's chest.

And sealed over.

Stitched up.

Healed.

"Yes, Sir." 33

Stefan slept that night in the spare room. It was just like crashing at a friend's house.

Except he was stripped, everything taken from him, and the door locked from the outside.

"We'll talk in the morning," Daz said before locking him in, and then Stefan was trapped.

And a little more securely than before, too-shutters had been fitted over the outside of the window, and were secured with a heavy padlock. Even the view of the garage roof had been removed.

And yet, Stefan couldn't bring himself to argue.

Whatever Daz did to him, Stefan had decided, it was better than what Stefan had tried to do to himself. He needed that control. He needed someone to set the boundaries for him. To own him. And without it-

He ended up sucking off drug dealers in exchange for any substance that would render him unable to feel.

So he slept in the spare room without complaint, and when he was let out in the morning, simply chose to follow Daz meekly downstairs to the living room, and ate what was put in front of him. Even though he really didn't like eggs.

"So, where do we go from here?" Daz asked when Stefan had finished eating.

"I don't know. Sir."

"Cut the crap. Talk to me properly. For once."

Stefan winced. "I don't know what you want me to say."

"The truth."

"I don't think I really know the truth."

"Then tell me what you do know."

Stefan took a deep breath.

Then: "I'm sick."

"With what?"

"I don't know. Sick in the head."

"Why?"

"I shouldn't want anything that you do to me. But I do. I want all of it. Even the scary stuff. But I shouldn't. And I should walk away, and be better for walking away. But I wasn't. I fucked up even more away. So it's...it's wanking in toilets and spending my life permanently drunk and high and unable to feel anything, or become a sex slave to you."

"It sounds like it's hate your life or enjoy it. That doesn't sound like a hard choice."

Stefan lifted his gaze from the table. "But-"

"And cut the crap," Daz said, raising his voice as the front door opened and closed, and Yannis came back in from his run, "about this wrong-for-liking-it bullshit. You're a submissive. So what. Millions of people are. There's nothing wrong with you."

"I can't be one!"

"Why, against your religion?" Yannis asked as he wandered in. He was sweaty, and sucked a water bottle dry.

For a moment, Daz simply watched him, and Stefan flushed at the look, even though it wasn't directed at him.

God, if he hadn't fucked everything up, Daz would be turning on him to fuck him bloody in response to that sight.

Stefan shook himself. Wrong thought. Wrong time.

"I can't be one," he said, "because men aren't submissive. And despite what I look like, I am a man."

Yannis rolled his eyes. Daz groaned.

"For the last time, St-"

"Men don't want this!" Stefan exploded. "Men don't-men don't want to be fucked and have their breasts bitten and be fucked so much their cunt is leaking cum all down their legs! I'm not a man if I like this, this is-I can't even go the clinic, I have to buy my hormones online, because if I said any of this, they'd kick me out of the clinic and tell me the truth, that if I want to be a man, then I can't want this! Men don't want to be sex toys and made to crawl around on the floor and I shouldn't like any of this, I shouldn't like you sucking on my nipples or fingering my cunt, I shouldn't want you to put me in chastity belts that look like knickers, I hate it and I love it and it's sick and-"

A sound broke through the tirade.

Laughter.

Stefan stopped, chest heaving. Daz was silent and staring. And Yannis-

Yannis was smirking, sniggering into his bottle like Stefan had just told the funniest, dirtiest joke in the world, but someone's grandma was next door and Yannis didn't want to explain his amusement.

"How the fuck is this funny to you?" Stefan whispered. He wanted to shout, but it came out in a cracked plea.

"Because I'm pretty sure I threw the same tantrum when I was sixteen. And it was stupid then, and it's stupid now."

"What?"

Yannis levelled him with a supremely unimpressed stare.