22. Michael #2
Marc stepped back, surveying what he’d arranged. A smile touched his mouth. “Who do you belong to?”
Henri’s response came automatically, practiced: “You, Marc.”
“Good boy.” Marc turned his head slightly toward Michael. “Welcome our guest.”
Henri lifted his chin a fraction. “Welcome. I hope this pleases you.”
Michael felt his lip curl. How many times had Henri said that? To how many strangers?
Marc’s smile sharpened. He moved to the table, fingers brushing over the instruments until he chose a cane. He flexed it once, testing the give, then circled back to stand behind Henri.
Michael couldn’t breathe. Every inch of Henri’s back was already torn and bruised, the raised welts crossing one another. There was nowhere left for pain to land that hadn’t already been claimed.
The first strike cracked through the room, loud enough to make Michael flinch. Henri’s whole body jerked, his hands clenching hard into the fabric of the chaise. The sound that escaped him was small, bitten back, followed by a single word pushed through his teeth.
“One.”
The next hit landed lower. Henri’s knuckles went white where they gripped the brocade.
“Two.”
Michael’s stomach twisted. His throat felt raw, though he hadn’t spoken. The new welts rose red against the old bruises, the skin breaking in places where there was no strength left to take more. Henri’s breath came shallow, uneven, the numbers forced out between clenched teeth.
By five, his shoulders trembled with the effort to stay upright. By ten, sweat and blood slicked his back. By fifteen, his voice had gone hoarse, the count catching on every exhale.
Michael half rose before he realized it, his chair scraping faintly across the floor. He froze, unable to make himself sit or stand, watching helplessly as the rhythm continued. His heart pounded so violently that it drowned out everything else.
Marc still hadn’t looked at him. His voice came calm and cold. “Sit. Down.”
Michael gripped the chair arms until his fingers ached. He forced himself still.
The next strike fell across Henri’s shoulders. The sound tore through the silence.
“Sixteen,” Henri gasped. The number came broken, each syllable a battle to form.
Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen.
By twenty, Henri’s arms could no longer hold him. His knees hit the cushion, and his body sagged forward. He caught himself with shaking hands, breath coming in harsh sobs that he was still trying to control.
“Twenty,” he whispered, voice raw and nearly gone. “Thank you.”
Marc’s hand closed in his hair and dragged him upright.
Henri cried out, the sound small and helpless, his torn back pressing against the embroidered fabric as he was forced onto the chaise.
His body trembled from pain and exhaustion.
The marks that covered him deepened under the golden light, and Michael could not look away.
The slap came hard and fast across his face. Henri’s head snapped to the side, the blindfold holding firm.
Marc’s grip shifted, forcing Henri to spread his legs wide, arranging him for display once again. Cock exposed, thighs open, every line of his body offered to Michael’s gaze.
“Who do you belong to?” Marc asked again, voice almost fond.
Henri’s response came hollow, distant: “You. Always you.”
Marc’s hand dropped to Henri’s cock, rough and claiming. He squeezed and stroked until it leaked across his palm. “Look at him,” he said to Michael. “Laid out, hard as steel after twenty lashes. He lives for it. I can always send him under.”
Michael’s chest heaved, stomach twisting. Henri’s cock was weeping, his breath shallow and mechanical. To Marc it might look like euphoria, but Michael knew better. He’d seen subspace, gentle and blissful, built on trust. This wasn’t that. This was absence.
Henri was leaving.
Marc pulled the plug free and drove two fingers into Henri’s hole, rough and claiming. His other hand wrapped around Henri’s throat, not choking but holding, controlling. He worked his fingers deeper, harder, Henri’s hips jerking involuntarily with each thrust.
“See how open he is?” Marc taunted. “Such a slut. A whore for me.” He thrust his fingers brutally deeper. “Who owns this body?”
Henri gasped, the answer torn from his throat: “You own me.”
Marc glanced at Michael, smug. “He flies for me. Every time.”
Michael wanted to shout the truth: No, he doesn’t. He leaves you. He leaves his body because it’s the only way to survive you.
But he stayed silent, the deal tightening around his throat.
Marc pulled his fingers free and slapped Henri across the face, harder this time. Henri barely stirred, his expression slack.
“Now,” Marc said, smooth as poison as he stepped away, “fuck him.”
Michael didn’t move, hands locked on the chair arms. Horror crashed through him in waves. Henri was gone. Completely dissociated. His eyes might be covered but Michael could see it in every line of his body, the way he’d gone limp and empty.
Michael couldn’t do this. Wouldn’t. Not while Henri was absent, not while he’d retreated so far inside himself that he wasn’t even present in his own body.
Marc moved back to the other chair and settled into it with languid ease, one leg crossed over the other. He watched with calculated patience, the picture of a man with all the time in the world.
“Do you need reminding of the consequences?” His voice was soft, dangerous. “Every day, every night, he’ll crawl and kneel and choke until there’s nothing left of him. Or...” He gestured lazily toward Henri’s spread body.
Michael’s stomach twisted. The choice was impossible. Touch Henri while he was gone, violate him in the worst way. Or leave him here to be destroyed slowly, piece by piece.
He stood on shaking legs, a third option crystallizing with desperate clarity. He would bring Henri back first.
Marc’s smile sharpened, satisfied, mistaking Michael’s movement for compliance.
Michael unfastened his belt with hands that didn’t feel like his own. The sound of the zipper filled the room. His cock sprang heavy into the air, flushed dark, slick at the tip. The arousal shamed him.
He crossed to Henri and bent low over him, pressing his body against his chest, burying his face against his throat. The scent of him hit, Henri’s skin, Henri’s sweat, Henri, and Michael shuddered.
Henri didn’t react. His head stayed angled away, body limp, breathing shallow. Gone.
Michael’s hand came up, fingers tracing the pattern he’d used every morning in London when Henri was still half-asleep and beautiful in the dawn light. Temple to cheekbone to jaw, gentle and deliberate, a touch Henri’s body knew even if his mind had fled.
“Get on with it,” Marc said from his chair, voice edged with impatience.
Michael ignored him, repeating the pattern. Temple to cheekbone to jaw. The same rhythm, the same pressure, the same path his fingers had traced a hundred times while Henri smiled sleepily up at him.
Henri went very still. Not the stillness of absence, but of attention suddenly caught.
Michael did it again, slower this time, more deliberate.
Henri’s head turned, no longer angled away. His nostrils flared, catching Michael’s scent. The soap he always used, the subtle cologne, the particular smell of his skin that Henri had buried his face in every night for three weeks.
Henri’s breathing changed. Quickened. His body shifted, no longer limp but tensing with recognition trying to surface through the dissociation.
Michael pressed closer, his lips finding Henri’s ear. He couldn’t speak, Marc’s rules still binding him to silence, but he breathed against Henri’s skin, let his presence speak for him.
Henri made a small sound, confused, his body trembling now with something other than fear. His lips moved, and Michael barely heard the whisper, so quiet it was almost nothing: “Michael?”
The blindfold stayed in place, but everything changed. Henri’s body came alive under Michael’s hands, no longer limp and absent. His hands reached up, finding Michael’s shoulders, gripping tight.
Michael kissed him then, hard and claiming, swallowing Henri’s quiet sob. Henri kissed back with fierce hunger, his body arching into Michael’s touch.
“Please,” Henri breathed against his mouth, the word barely audible.
Michael pushed into him, and Henri gasped, body welcoming him deeper.
His legs wrapped around Michael’s waist, pulling him closer, his hands sliding up to tangle in Michael’s hair.
Every movement deliberate, present, choosing this even without seeing, knowing Michael by touch and scent and the way he moved.
Michael moved in him with desperate intensity, hips driving harder than he meant, grief and rage and want tangled until he couldn’t tell one from the other.
This wasn’t what he’d wanted for them. Not like this.
Not with Marc watching. But Henri was here, truly here, clinging to him and gasping his name.
Henri came first, spilling hot between them, striping his stomach, a low moan torn from his throat. The sound shattered Michael. He groaned, shoved deep, and emptied inside him with a force that rattled his bones.
When he could breathe again, Michael looked down at Henri. The blindfold still covered his eyes, but his face was flushed, his breathing deep and steady.
Marc rose from his chair, stepped close, crouched beside them. His face was cold, controlled. “Who do you belong to?”
Silence stretched. Michael could feel Henri’s heart hammering against his chest, could feel the moment hanging, precarious.
Marc’s face darkened. “Say it.”
More silence. Henri’s breathing hitched once, twice. Michael held him tighter, willing him to have the strength for this final choice.
Henri’s lips parted. His voice came hoarse but steady, ringing through the room: “Michael.”
The word detonated in the silence.