Conjunction by Hth They approached me with the idea at once, that one-two punch they do so fucking well. Benny sets me up, Ray knocks me down. Badda boom. TKO. They must've thought I was gonna fight them on it. Hell, I liked being wooed just fine - seduced by those blue eyes, that mocking smile. But I was always gonna do it. Not because I thought it was a very good idea. In fact, I thought it was a mistake. Because I'm a sucker for these men. Because I love the way they smile from the inside when I roll my eyes and say, "All right, enough, I'll do it." It takes them a little longer than it takes me to realize exactly how fucked up this great idea of theirs is. I gotta say, I like watching the light dawn on them, the way they look warily at each other across the bed, wondering exactly how to proceed. Wondering what they've gotten themselves into. And I'm not bailing them out of it this time. Hell, that's exactly why I'm where I am right now, tied with sturdy RCMP knots to the headboard of Ray and Benny's bed. It's always the Benny and Ray Hour around here, those two stubborn, crazy, gorgeous loons, and who's always there to talk them down, smooth it over, kick them into bed so they can patch it up all over again with sex and more sex? Ray Vecchio, that's who. So, yeah, I get back my own every now and then. So let them work it out between themselves this time, while I just lie here. Won't kill them, and it's the quietest this apartment has been in weeks. I just relax, put my face down on the pillow, wait for it. Ray breaks first, of course, impatient like always. I hear his voice almost dimly above me, and I can perfectly well imagine him pointing at Fraser's chest for emphasis like he does. "You gotta be fuckin' careful, Frase." "What exactly are you implying, Ray?" "Aw, you know what I'm applying. He's got this funny way of gettin' hurt when he plays with you, and I'm just saying, not on my time you don't." I can almost hear the dangerous arch of his eyebrow. I turn my head just a little - yeah, there it is. Do I know him, or what? "You know I would never hurt Ray." Yeah, Benny, whatever. In your head, you always go straight from your passion to my pleasure. You just edit out all that pain that works as the middleman. Not me, though. I love you for your strong right arm, my Benny. No one else ever hit me like you do, no one ever could. But I'm not gonna be the one to tell Ray that. I love him for the way he worries about me. Yeah, he can grind me into the ground, tie me up, blindfold me, gag me, smother me, clamp my nipples, call me his whore, burn me with wax, make me lick his boots, stroke me with his butterfly knife, put his goddamn fist inside me. He can take anything from me, do anything to me, make me feel like dirt and like a god at the same time, make me love him and hate him, make me crave him like a fucking line of coke. But he won't break my skin. He won't *hurt* me. I'm shaking all of a sudden; I just need them to negotiate this thing and get it over with. This was definitely a huge mistake, and I probably should have said so up front, TKO or not. These two can't top together. They're too different. I need them *because* they're so different. One hand strokes lightly, soothingly over my shoulder. Ray's, of course. Benny is deep in his own place by now. He's not my Mountie anymore. He just wants to hit something, preferably something that will hold him afterward and tell him it's still okay, he's still okay. God, you're such a sick fuck, Benny. Of course, if I actually realize that, doesn't it make me all the more sick for going along with it? Like an enabler, or something? "Besides," Fraser says in his perfectly reasonable voice, "that's why he has a safeword." Startled, Ray snorts a laugh. "Safeword? Yer such a fag, Fraser." Shit, that's it. Mountie's head is going to explode. "You - you don't -" He makes a little noise, twitches a little uncomfortably. "Naw. That's dumb." "Ray, you *can't* - it's so *irresponsible.* You really do need-" "Hey, don't tell me what I need, okay? I know what I'm doing, here. Besides, he's gonna be gagged. No point." Son of a bitch, I think he likes that part best of all. The way I can't scream out for him to stop, hurry, give it to me, let me come, make it last forever. Yeah, maybe even Ray, contrary bitch though he without question is, gets sick of fighting all the time. Maybe it's easier for him once he starts to believe that I'm always feeling just the way he is. He was always so afraid to be alone. Yeah, tough guy. I know you, too. "No gag." "Fuck *that.*" Jesus, here we go. "We're going to have to compromise, Ray." "Fuck - fuck a *ton* of that. Compromise means one thing when it comes outta your mouth, Fraser, it means, 'here's a thought Ray, how about we do everything like I tell you to?'" "That is patently untrue." "Gag, no blindfold." "Blindfold, no gag." Ray takes a deep, steadying breath, runs his hand in frustration through his hair until it stands up even more than usual. "No gag. No whip." After a long moment, Benny does the unthinkable. "All right. I can agree to that." So much for letting them work it out on their own. Freaks. "No way." My voice sounds a little scratchy because of the dry cotton pillowcase that has been in my mouth. "Look, do I have to do everything for you two? Benny, you're going to use the signal whip, or I'm going home right fucking now and catching Jay Leno. Ray, *relax,* okay? I can take care of myself. You just do what you do best." Dammit. He tries to be stoic, but he sucks at it. He's hurt, and I can see it in technicolor on his face. "Ray," I whisper, trying to stroke him with my voice. "You're up to this. I know you are." He looks surprised that I get it. Of course he's not worried about how much I can take; he knows I've been down this road before, that nobody knows my limits like Benny does. He's worried about how much he can watch. How it might make him feel. Scared to death that he's gonna like seeing me scream. Scared to death that he's gonna want to save me. Gonna have to finally deal with the fact that he's in love with me. But I've dared him now. So he just nods and steps back. Benny's turn. And there's something in his eyes as he picks up the signal whip from the foot of the bed, lets all four feet of it uncoil in a sinuous wave. He's being watched. He's got something to prove. He's obviously been in America way too long, getting his macho up like this because of Ray's arms folded in silent challenge, Ray's eyes narrowed in defiance. Crack, in the air. Somewhere else in the apartment, Dief barks sharply, ready to pull where Benny drives him. Aren't we all, Diefenbaker, my friend. Aren't we all. He is swinging it wide, swirling it in graceful loops out in the open space. He's getting his shoulder loosened up, finding the limits of his flexibility. Ray turns his face away, just a little. Benny probably doesn't see it, but I do. I turn my own face back into the pillow. Sick fuck. I'm already moaning, just remembering the way it's always felt before. This is going to hurt like hell. Hiss - hiss - snick, in the air. Hiss - hiss - snap, and I brace, but it lands in the air again, sending a shot of cool breeze across my ass, making me grit my teeth against the already strong desire to beg for it. Hiss - hiss - crack, and this time it lands, and the sting is so sharp and quick that I don't feel it at first. Only after a second passes, and then I grind my face further into the pillow and hold very still. He's ready now. Now it won't let up for a good long time. Gotta hand it to those Mounties, they do procedure like nobody's business. There's an awful, sinking, thrilling feeling that comes with knowing exactly what's coming. Twelve along my back, high up across the shoulders. Then a rest, and then twelve across my ass. Set your watch by it. Count your crimes to it. I'm such a fucking cliche, such the repressed Catholic boy. I know, I know. Like everything else, it becomes a cliche because it's true so much of the time. Crack - that's three - or four. I always lose count, but not usually this early on. One more and I'm straining up, trying to pull my hands loose. I want out, I want out - only I don't, or I guess I must not, because I've got that goddamn safeword, and I couldn't make my mouth shape it if I tried. I know, I've tried. Fraser picked it for me, that fucking devious bastard, and I know he chose it because it's almost impossible for me to say even at the best of times, even though he says he chose it because just hearing it would bring him crashing back down no matter what kind of high he was on. So many times I've thought about using it, my whole body opened up and shrieking with the pain, hearing him gasp for breath and suspecting that he's not in control anymore, that neither of us are. I've screamed it inside my head -- *Victoria* -- but it's like I didn't even have a throat anymore, let alone one that would say what I needed it to say. I've never used that fucking safeword of his, but hell, yes I've wanted out. Of his sturdy RCMP knots, of his bedroom, of his life. Not usually on the sixth - seventh? - ahhh, shit, seventh or - eighth - lash though. Usually not in the first round at all. But this time he's got his back in it, and he's skinning me with that sharp goddamn whip that's nothing like what I've had before - floggers and paddles and even cats with their heavy, textured braids. They hit deep, you feel them all the way down through you and out the other side. But what Benny uses is a whip, a real one that you use for driving dogsleds, a far cry from some sex toy. What he's doing is whipping me until I bleed and scream. I am screaming already, crying out incoherently as I feel it carve deeper, and there's no way I'm not dotted with blood now too. When he stops I'll be able to feel a thin line of it trickling down between my shoulder blades. Have to get a grip, have to focus. I'll never get through this with sanity - such as I've gotten used to defining sanity, anyway - intact unless I get my head away from what's happening to me, get into that space where I can live with it. But there's no thought in my head right now that's not right here, right with the sting and the noise of my swearing and begging and a hard, thudding sound that I know is Ray's fist hitting the wall. He can't take much more of this. Thank God he doesn't have to, because it's over. The next blow doesn't fall, and I know that I've had my twelve. There's sweat in my eyes, and sweat in the cuts on my back which hurts like fuck all. I'm gasping and gasping, and it's not getting me any oxygen, but at least it's holding back the tears. I'm not gonna cry in front of Ray. Not if I can help it. The bed shakes, and for a horrifying second I think Benny's gonna try and do something to me before I have time to pull myself back together. But he's going right across me, going for Ray. I manage to turn my head, blink the haze of sweat out of my eyes, and there they are. Ray with his back to the wall, Benny holding their hands over Ray's head, palm against palm. I can see their tongues touring in and out of each other's mouths, and my half-hard dick goes immediately to achingly full. They're not touching anywhere else, just at the hands and the lips, but just because of that energy between them, it's as fierce and intense as a good hard fucking would be for most men. Benny pulls away, and he's holding the whip backwards, with the butt of it out away from him, and I have a couple of seconds of brain-freezing fear, because I can just see him pulling back and cracking Ray across the cheek with the solid butt of that whip, sending him down to his knees. I know a part of Benny would love that. These two alpha dogs together, these two fucking awesome tops - it's bound to lead nowhere good in the end. They keep it in balance, but one of them's gonna leave eventually, or one of them's gonna end up on his knees and everything will change. Not today, though. Today, like usual, I'm here to take the weight of their frustration. My turn again. Before he gets started, though, Fraser drags his fingers over the marks on my back, which should hurt, but actually it feels really amazingly good, my skin sensitized beyond belief by the blood rushing up to heal my injuries. I moan out his name as that unbearably gentle hand runs up the inside of my thigh and up to the crack of my ass, probing my hole but not entering it. I'm overcome with this twisted urge to say *Bless me, Father, for I have sinned - it's been almost three weeks since my last good, hard whipping...* I have. My life is full of things I regret, not that it makes me special. It just makes me like everyone else on the goddamn planet. I'm just maybe more chickenshit about them than most, because I can't really hold them in my head, can't think about all of them with pure honesty except when I'm running away from the pain. Hiss - hiss - *snick,* and he's starting lighter this time, making me wait for the next stroke, letting me know each one is going to be a little worse than the last. I start at the beginning with my confession. In high school I got Lisa Marazzo pregnant, and she didn't tell anyone but me, and she got this illegal abortion, which God knows wasn't my idea, but pretty much is still my fault. And she never talked about it, but she was out of school sick for a while, and I met up with her again a few years back and she still doesn't have any kids, which is maybe totally unrelated, but maybe not, you know? In the pit of my stomach, it's not unrelated at all. Three - four - My wife and I used to go to these sex parties, and I would get off on letting some woman flog me while I watched my own wife take it from three guys at once. I didn't make her, she always said she liked it, but sue me, it always felt fucked-up deep down, and no amount of logic can keep me from feeling guilty about it. Blame Catholic school, blame the double standard, blame whatever. I can do anything for Benny and Ray and love it down to my bones, but I can't ever feel right inside about what I led Angie into. Five - six - It wasn't the kink that broke up our marriage, though. It was cocaine. Even Benny doesn't know that, how I used to do so much coke that it's a fucking miracle I didn't die at twenty-seven on the bathroom floor. When I was really strapped for money and afraid to do anything that would let Angie know I was using again, I'd swipe some from evidence. Snort some of it, give the rest to my dealers to pay off what I'd borrowed from them. I met Ray in rehab, years before the body-switching deal went down, when he was drying out, and we've always kept each other's secret, ever since. Even from him. Seven - eight - I wanted my best friend dead for about two seconds, just stone cold wanted him to die for no fucking reason except that he didn't need me the way I needed him. I've been lying about it ever since, calling it an accident until even I almost believe it, but the truth is that for two psychotic seconds I would rather have seen him dead on the ground than walking out of my life, forgetting all about me when that bitch snapped her fingers. Two seconds, the absolute smallest possible fraction of my life, but long enough to pull the trigger. Nine - ten - With each stripe he lays across my ass, I can feel the shockwaves buzzing in my cock, and I'm dying to hump the mattress just for a little bit of good, strong sensation down there, but I know better than to move around while he's whipping me so precise and accurate. The eleventh never falls, and I figure the longer he makes me wait the more it's going to hurt when it happens, and even the thought of it hurting more than the last couple makes me go almost dizzy with panic. But it doesn't happen and it doesn't happen, and eventually I work up my courage to turn my head and see what's happening. They're locked in motionless conflict, Ray holding Benny's wrist, both of them glaring into each other's eyes with inner tooth and claw bared. It makes my heart jump inside me, like some part of me knows exactly what to think, even though most of me is totally lost at this point. My fucking defender. "I don't know where," Benny says, and he's in full-on snide mode, talking down from twenty feet over Ray's head, "you get this idea that Ray and I have never done this before." "I fucking well know you have," he growls, and the anger doesn't surprise me, but the bitterness does. "This is what he wants." Yeah, St. Benton the Generous. *I* want this. Yeah, I do, Benny. Lucky you. Ray's bare chest hitches a couple of times, and I know he's not far from breaking up on us completely, freaking out and crying or trying to break Benny's jaw or just taking off and maybe never coming back to us again. "Two fucks for what he wants," Ray says hoarsely. "I wanna know who you're doing this to." "I have no idea what you-" "Don't be such a fucking dick, Fraser, all right? All right? Look at him! You'd never do this to a friend no matter what, so I wanna know *who...you're...hitting.*" Fraser hangs his head, looking like he's trying to suddenly snap out of existence rather than face this right now. "You can't even look at him, can you? Fucking *look* at him if you're gonna do this to him! That's Ray, Ray Vecchio, your best friend. Say it!" "I - of course it's - Ray. I know that." Ray releases his arm with a little shove that sways Benny a little, but falls way short of knocking him down. His voice gets so low that I don't know if he wants either of us to hear it, so low that for a second I almost don't. "You and your fucking abandonment issues. He only went cause he knew you woulda done it." I think he may have ruined everything; some things just aren't meant to be put out on the table like that. Fraser sits down on the edge of the bed, puts his head down and laces his fingers behind his neck. Ray folds his arms across himself like he's suddenly cold. Funny, actually, when you stop and think about it. Fraser punishing me for leaving him, which I understand so much better than he would ever think I could, but because it's so irrational, so gut-level, he's the one who can't accept that it still has the power to make him feel hurt and angry. Me craving it for all these stupid, long-past reasons, things I did when I was young and fucked up, things I did in Las Vegas to serve my country and keep from getting killed, all of them things Benny would forgive me for in a second if I could just tell him about it. "Ray," Benny says with that heavy softness that he can put into his voice when he's sucked dry of everything, "maybe we should let you go home." "It's a little late to take the reasonable view, Benny. We're here. We're in this, and I don't wanna be in it part way." "See it through," Ray interprets, and his voice is mostly blank, but I think I can pick up a little note of satisfaction there. Benny doesn't move off the foot of the bed, and for the first time it occurs to me that he's not so sure he can take seeing what comes next any better than Ray did. Maybe I should say something to him, too, reassure him somehow. Except I think his fears may be real, and one thing I can't do is lie to the Mountie. I really am in love with his man. I know it breaks the oldest law known to guydom, and I've been holding it down for years, just to stay right with my Benny that I love too, my best friend ever -- but yeah. It's Ray and me in the way that counts, always has been, always will be. And sometimes I think all three of us know it. He runs the curve of his thumb down the curve of my cheek, and I close my eyes. That hand of his, hard with bones and tendons, so strong and so feathery light on my face  that always undoes me completely. I kiss the ball of his thumb, suck my way up to the knuckle. Ray, Ray, Ray. Good thing my arms are tied up, or I'd pull you down here with me, kiss you breathless, make all the games stop and make you admit that I do this to you, too. That I make you ache and fly at the same time. Always have, always will. But this is all about the games. I'm completely docile while he ties the blindfold around my eyes, and even though my heart is in my throat when he puts a thick piece of rope in my mouth and ties it behind my head, I stay quiet for that, too. He twists something in the back, a little stick or something, that pulls it even tighter, forces my jaw a little further open around it until I'm right where he wants me. And I'm waiting for the next move, but it's not like it is with Benny; I don't know when it's coming or what it'll be. Just that it'll tear me apart from the inside out, and I'll be that much further from ever getting free of him -- them. Them. Bitch and whine, bitch and whine. You know you love it, Vecchio. You know the last thing you want is to be free of either of them. The touch of his smooth lips on my back startles me, but then I figure, yeah, of course. Now that he's made such a big fucking deal with Benny about my safety (and don't worry, lover, I'm not gonna tell him about the way you wrap that hard-tendoned hand around my throat and squeeze, or the gouges you leave in my ankles from the steel restraints), he has to back it up with actions. He's gonna have to be nothing but tender, and break me at the same time. Not that he's never done it before. He moves away, to the stereo, I guess, because suddenly there's music, Queensryche so loud around me that for a second I can't think, sure as hell can't hear anything but that deep voice and that thrumming rhythm. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, huh, Ray? What are you afraid I'll say, think, brand into you with my eyes? Never mind. I guess I know, after all. Tentative and light, like a kitten, the tip of his tongue licks up the blood that's dripped here and there down my back. He scrapes his nails slowly along my ass, which really oughta hurt like hell, but somehow feels good, good, good instead, and he gives one quick chuckle as I push up against his touch. And it lasts forever, because Ray has infinite goddamn patience just as soon as he gets me like this. First he gives me something that feels just right -- like his tongue moving in slow circles, coaxing my asshole open wider and wider for it to slip in -- and then he gives me something that makes me cry out against the gag -- like one long line of clothespins up the sensitive underside of my arm. First he reaches around underneath me with something rough over his hand, like a dry washcloth or something, and runs it so lightly, back and forth, back and forth like dreaming of scratches, back and forth across my nipples. Then he starts filling me up, one hard, slippery little plastic ball after another, all different sizes and all the same cool, smooth texture, bound together on a string and producing the most incredible sensations inside me every time I shift my hips. God, I'm moaning myself hoarse, and even I can't hear it above the music -- *you're coming home to stay -- wouldn't that be nice, for a while --* He's got me, got me tied and blind and mute and deaf and stretched and throbbing and shaking and so fucking needy -- so in need of him to relieve this pressure, this ache of waiting and waiting for his touch. This is it, with Ray, this is the mindfuck I keep coming back for. The way he makes it so there's nothing in the world but him and the things he puts me through, until I'm so brave and desperate that I'd do anything, say anything to him, but then at the same time he's seeing to it that there's no way in the world I can. Not one sound, not one touch, not one soulful gaze from my eyes -- not one fucking thing I can do to fuck up the way we all three coexist, no matter how bad the need, the sheer fucking *want* gets. Oh, baby, I want you. I want you so bad, and you make me so helpless. Your way of defending me one more time, I guess, against myself this time around. I'm pulling like some panicked animal against the ropes that tie my arms together; I'd do anything to get to you, but it never happens. Nothing ever gets to you. Defending yourself, too, aren't you, lover? Do you run close to the ragged edge of control, too, just like Benny when he finds his groove with the whip and then goes on past it? Yeah, I've seen the look in your eyes, looking at me, stealing an honest glance every now and then when we don't think we can get caught at it. I know that starvation, that want, know it from both sides. I can keep it all in -- consummate fucking actor, undercover all my life it feels like -- but you, you're so raw. You have to push it back with all your strength, push me down until I barely exist, certainly can't crash down into your tidy little life and break you all the way down. So push me. It's the least of what my body can take, and as for my heart -- well, fuck. At least during moments like this, I'm your whole world. That's all I really want. And how many people have the thing they most want -- even for just one night a week? I don't know how long he's been leaving sharp, deep bites on the inside of my thighs, but the crazier I get, the more pure and clear my senses become, until I can separate all the sensations, tell all the varieties of tingling and burning and aching and craving apart. He knows just when the moment is right, when everything is so clean and on fire with righteousness, and he takes it all down piece by piece. The clothespins, strung together through their coiled centers, come off with one strong pull  pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, and God, that hurts like hell when the blood rushes back. His teeth find my balls, scrape across them until I can feel myself losing it, going crazy with give-me-this-or-let-me-die, and then he pulls on the other string, and the *other* balls, the ones filling my whole body, come out, rippling through me as they go, even though my body is locked up, trying to keep them in, loving every second of this, coming like a cannon. I feel like I'm never going to move again, like they might as well just roll me up in this come-stained sheet and drop me off on the steps of Mary of the Immaculate Conception for my funeral. First he cuts through the rope in my mouth, and I'm gasping for air, sucking it down like I've been underwater for two weeks, and I think I may even be gibbering a few words in there somewhere, something real suave like "Oh, God, oh, Ray, oh, God." His fingertips slide under the edges of my wide black blindfold, and as he eases it off me, his lips are by my ear, and because of the music I can still only barely hear him, even whispering dead into the center of my ear. Barely, but I can. "Mine," he's saying, and I don't think there's going to be anything left of me to wrap up, just a hissing little puddle of ex-cop. "Mine, Vecchio, I gotcha, you're mine." I nod helplessly as he pulls the blindfold away. There's sweat on his face, but mostly he looks pretty together, not at all wrung out and wild-eyed and half dead like I must look. He's using his knife again to cut the ropes that tied my wrists to each other and the headboard, and I hold very still so as not to screw him up. But he's not done with me, even though he's giving me a second to rub my wrists and flex them a little to work out the stiffness; his hand is possessive on the back of my head, not warm and glowy post-coital possessive, but quietly demanding. He's not rough, but he guides me along, gets me turned around and pushes my head down again toward Fraser's lap. Benny looks halfway between enraptured and terrified; he's lying flat across the foot of the bed now, and the bulge inside his pants is obvious even with his hand over it in a would-be discreet kind of way. I nudge his hands away and start to work his clothes open far enough to free his cock; he's trembling, but not in the guilt-wracked way he sometimes does after one of our nights together. Good trembling, like a million tiny erotic electrocutions screaming up and down his nervous system. It's been God only knows, one hell of a long time since I've seen or touched Benny's dick; it's always just the whip with us now, and I never asked why. Maybe it's some inner Benny-like endurance trial, or maybe he feels like he owes it to Ray to keep something sacred for him. Maybe he thinks it's the same with me and Ray, or maybe he knows that we fuck every single time, long and slow and wet with sweat, come, saliva. Maybe he just thinks he should be better than that. I never asked, because I never wanted the responsibility of knowing. But he's not holding me back now. I skip all the foreplay he used to be so crazy about, the sucking and licking through his pubic hair, around his balls, in the warm folds between his legs and his body. No, this time it's nasty and horny and fast, taking him all the way down to the root and sucking deep. My throat -- my whole body -- is more completely relaxed than I ever am at any other time, so it's easy. Goes down like silk, that silky, broad, blunt cock of his, perfectly smooth and featureless, not textured with veins like Ray's. No tongue, no teasing, just up and down, swallowing him over and over, listening to him groan loud enough to beat the band, as it were. My eyes flicker over, and I can see Ray standing against the wall, watching us with wide, soft eyes as he jerks his own dick to the rhythm I'm setting on Benny. There's an impact as he loses it, his come hitting the back of my throat like a smack, and then the second and third and fourth shots a little smoother and easier going down. I love the way his dick pulses in my mouth, surging under its own skin. They don't exactly wrap me up and drop me off, but the two of them sort of bundle me around until I'm lying warm and boneless in bed, cozied up to Benny's wide chest. Ray is at my back, and I can feel the tackiness of his come drying on his body. There's no apology phase, because Benny can't and Ray won't, but Benny lifts Ray's fingers across me, up to his lips and kisses them softly, which stands in for the words just fine, I guess, because Ray just playfully smacks him backhanded on the cheek, and I can feel him chuckling quietly. TKO. "I love you," I say quietly against Benny's chest. "And we love you, Ray," he says, very politely, so kindly that it makes me hurt inside, all the things he doesn't know or can't admit, and it fires me up again to play it cool, to keep him from ever knowing if I can, how deep and sweet I love him, and how wide and wild I love Ray, and how it's not two sides of the same coin, not at all. Ray just nestles his face against the back of my neck and holds onto me like one night a week really could last us forever.