Chapter 14 #2
Thomas winced. “You fell for a client, how cliché.”
“I didn’t fall for him, but he told me all about this guy he liked and how he wanted to look after him.” Scott shifted uncomfortably. “And in a moment of madness, I thought…I thought I’d like a guy like that. I liked how he described the life he wanted with this other guy.”
“What happened?”
“The plan worked. The guy got jealous, and they ended up together, and…we never spoke again.”
Thomas looked away. They didn’t speak for a long time, then Thomas nudged his shoulder into Scott’s.
“I think your ice cream flavour should be called…touch yourself.”
“What?” Scott scoffed.
Thomas shrugged. “I know you like the feel of your own hands. It seems appropriate.”
“Sex toys and control and touch yourself.” Scott shook his head. “They’ll never catch on.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Janice said from behind them. “I’d quite like a taste of both. Even better if they’re together, you know, two scoops in one cone. On second thought, it sounds like a good name for a candle. Sex toys, Control and Touch Yourself.”
Scott stuck out his tongue. “I don’t want to know what that would smell like.”
“It would smell like you two,” Janice replied.
“Thank you for your input, you crazy old bat,” Thomas mumbled. “Now will you not-so-kindly get upstairs and clean…like I pay you to.”
“I was going to get the pump out of the car, but if you don’t want it anymore –”
“Please,” Scott blurted. “I can’t blow up another balloon.”
Janice crossed her arms. “I’ll get it if Thomas apologises.”
Thomas got to his feet. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“I won’t apologise –”
“Then that pump stays locked in the back of my van.”
Scott touched Thomas’s trainer. “Please, Thomas.”
“But –”
“Please.”
Thomas slumped. “Fine. I’m sorry for speaking rudely to you, Janice, despite you deserving it.”
Janice narrowed her eyes. “I suppose that apology will have to do.” She hurried down the steps. “Follow me, Scott, unless you’re still out of air.”
She cackled again.
Scott pushed to his feet, swaying slightly. Thomas steadied him, then caught Scott’s eye as he asked. “You alright?”
“I’m good.” Scott smiled. “One hundred and one more to go.”
“Actually,” Janice called out. “Only one hundred. I blew up that last balloon you were having trouble with, damn near almost killed me, but I did buy the ones with the thickest rubber.”
“Of course you did…”
Janice winked. “I drew a smiley face on the one I did for you so you’d be able to find it.”
“I can’t wait to sit on your face,” Scott mumbled, trudging down to join her.
“It’s B-day,” Scott said, looking across a sea of balloons.
Thomas had given him a night to rest and recover the function of his lungs. For once, Scott hadn’t dreamed about Warren but balloons, and he had a score to settle.
Thomas stood beside him. “I’m pretty sure a B-day is a little sink for your arse.”
“Do you have one?”
“No.” Thomas frowned. “Why would I?”
“You own a mansion. It’s the kind of thing mansion dwellers own.”
“Dwellers? I’m not a goddamn troll.”
Scott stepped forward, and the draft he created made the balloons shudder in fear.
“Too right.”
Thomas sighed. “Stop threatening the balloons.”
Scott wasn’t 100 per cent recovered from the day before and still eyed them like the enemy. “Where do you want me?”
“If you make some space in the middle, you know, where you were yesterday when you lost your mind.”
Scott spotted the balloon with the big smiley face.
He evil-eyed it. “I’m coming for you.”
“Are you sure you don’t want an extra day?” Thomas asked. “We can make sure all your brain cells have had some oxygen.”
“Ha. Funny.”
“I’ll set the cameras up; you just…try not to kill that balloon.”
“We have two hundred –”
“Don’t kill the balloon.”
Scott cracked his knuckles. “It’s taking everything in me not to.”
Thomas snorted and busied himself with the tripod.
“Why this room?” Scott asked.
“I think your subscriber will appreciate how dramatic it is. They’ll see every balloon before you burst it.”
“And the one hundred extras in the background?”
“This room has a good echo too,” Thomas replied, ignoring Scott’s question completely.
“It does,” Scott agreed.
“And I don’t think we could’ve got this many in the upstairs bedroom.” He flicked the shutter off the main camera. “Can you squat a few times?”
“You mean slut-drop.”
“If that’s what you want to call it, then yes.”
Scott mimed bursting balloons with his arse cheeks while Thomas got the right zoom.
“Does he want me to moan each time?” Scott asked.
Thomas shrugged. “He didn’t specify. Do what comes naturally.”
Scott frowned at Thomas not giving him any direction. He had poetic licence over his vocals, and the same thought came back to him – there was nothing sexier than the sound of a man getting close.
“You ready?” Thomas asked.
Scott blinked. “Shouldn’t I take my clothes off?”
“Nah, he wants them on.”
“Oh…okay.”
“Set positions.”
Scott looked down the lens. “What?”
“And off we go.”
Scott grabbed the first balloon, Janice’s smiley face, and sat on it with more aggression than necessary.
He grabbed the next one, and the next, putting on a show that he was enjoying himself while popping balloons.
They’d looked up balloon fetish the day before, those partaking commonly referred to as ‘looners’.
There were two categories: those sexually excited by popping balloons, poppers, and those who enjoyed balloons being inflated and deflated, non-poppers.
Scott fully understood the brief and fully intended to satisfy his looner popper.
Thomas counted down from a hundred at a pace that was hard to keep up with, but Scott tried his best, quickly getting out of breath.
He gave up moaning around balloon fifty.
He couldn’t fake getting aroused by a balloon, especially when he hated them, so his cock remained limp, but with his jeans on, no one could tell.
When Thomas finally said, one hundred, Scott collapsed on his hands and knees, gasping at the wooden floor.
“That was a lot harder than it looked,” he panted.
“And you made it look pretty damn hard.”
“All good?” Scott asked.
“Yeah, we’re…” Thomas bit his lip, staring at the camera screen. “Oh…”
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Don’t be mad…”
“I’m immediately fuming,” Scott growled. “What did you do?”
“I forgot to press record.”
“What!”
Scott looked around the room at all the remaining inflated balloons. They circled him, vibrating with laughter.
“Thomas!”
“It was an accident.”
“No, it wasn’t you… You bastard.”
Thomas abandoned his innocent facade. “Yep. Now take your clothes off. All of them.”
“What?”
“You’ve worked up a sweat, and you’re too exhausted to do that horrible fake moaning.”
“It wasn’t horrible.”
“It was. Your subscriber is paying ￡2000. He doesn’t want you to banshee cry each time your butt bursts a balloon; he wants to see you sweaty, messy and run ragged by the request. This isn’t for your enjoyment, it’s for his.”
“I’ll get you back for this,” Scott warned.
Thomas smiled. “I’m sure you will. Now stop bitching and take your clothes off.”
Scott huffed, then got undressed.
“Turn towards the window slightly,” Thomas said.
Scott glared as he shuffled until Thomas told him to stop. “Yeah, gleaming skin. Perfect. Grab your first balloon.”
Scott picked one. He didn’t imagine Janice’s face, but Thomas’s.
Every balloon had Thomas’s face.
Thomas’s smug fucking face.
“Go.”
Scott started popping.
He went at it like a man possessed.
By the time he was finished, only one Thomas face remained, and that was the one behind the camera.
Scott collapsed on the wooden floor, relishing in the cool surface against his sweaty skin.
His arse cheeks stung. His lungs burned, and his thighs ached.
He didn’t know how he was going to get back upstairs to his room, thought he might stay the night down here, surrounded by the remains of two hundred dead balloons.
It had been a massacre.
But he’d won.
“You did great, Scott.”
“Fuck you,” he replied, turning his head to face the other way to avoid Thomas’s smirk.
He closed his eyes and must’ve zoned out because the next thing he was aware of was Thomas crouching down next to him and brushing his hair behind his ear. “I mean it, those grunts and gasps at the end weren’t fake at all, and you’re tired yet determined expression was hot.”
Thomas smeared his hand across Scott’s wet forehead. “This is hot.”
Scott sighed at the touch. “My arse hurts.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet.” Thomas looked in that direction. It throbbed. Scott imagined it probably looked like a baboon’s arse.
“That’s why I made you practise with your clothes on.”
“That was cruel, making me burst all two hundred.”
Thomas’s snake eyes bore into him. “I know, but will you let me be kind to you now?”
“Do you have a kind setting?”
Thomas laughed and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a tube. “It’ll help. It’s got menthol in it; it will cool your heated skin.”
“That sounds nice,” Scott murmured, still with his cheek squished to the floor. He shut his eyes again. “If you put it next to me, I’ll use it…eventually.”
“I can put it on?”
Scott slowly opened his eyes. “Huh?”
“I can…” Thomas hesitated. He exhaled. “I’d like to…put it on.”
“Is it acid or something –”
“No, Scott, it’s soothing balm. It’ll feel nice.”
They stared at each other. Scott gave in. “Sure. Why not?”
He tensed, expecting Thomas to slap it on, but his touch was gentle.
“Relax for me…”
Scott did.
“That’s it,” Thomas rumbled. He rubbed circles into Scott’s stinging cheeks, and Scott exhaled with a blissful sigh.
“How does it feel?” Thomas asked.
“Good.” Scott rolled fully onto his front and rested his chin on his crossed forearms. Thomas massaged his sore cheeks before reaching down to rub the back of Scott’s aching thighs.
“This okay?”
“Yes,” Scott whispered.
Thomas’s hand was heaven on his skin. Scott inhaled the scent of mint.
“To hell with the walls.” Scott snorted. “I think the floor is melting, and taking me with it.”
Thomas chuckled, rubbing harder. Scott groaned.
“Who knew you had such a gentle touch,” he whispered.
“Everyone I’ve slept with knows. I’d like to amend my ice cream flavour.”
Scott smiled. “To what?”
“Sex toys, control, and aftercare.”
“You know what…”
“What?”
“I think it’s a flavour I’d like to try.”
Thomas snorted. “I’m not sure that would be a good idea.”
“Why not?”
Thomas didn’t answer, and Scott was too tired to pursue the question.
“I’m still going to get you back for today, though,” Scott murmured.
“I know you will, that’s why…”
“Why what?
“I’m going to end this massage like this…”
Scott turned to look at Thomas, who grinned, before slapping Scott hard on the arse.
“You bastard.”
“Yep.”
His stinging butt cheek gave Scott the motivation to get up off the floor and run at Thomas.