Chapter 23
At last I'm free to disagree with the decree that I need company…
Vale
The morning after Vale announced Eliza’s visit, he was still drunk on the sound of Kieran’s laughter and the taste of his lips.
It didn’t make sense.
He dated in college. He had sex. He tried every type of relationship in every configuration.
And he felt nothing.
But the sound of Kieran laughing played in his head like a CD stuck on repeat. It made his toes tingle and his cock ache and there was a tightness in his throat that felt like the constriction before shedding tears.
It was irrational. It was stupid and inane and served no purpose and he would gladly empty every one of his bank accounts to hear it again.
He watched from his office doorway as Kieran moved through the parlor room, arms loaded with heavy hardbound volumes from the library. Philosophy texts, medical journals, architectural theory—dense books gathering dust for years, now positioned around the music room like offerings at an altar.
The collar sat against Kieran’s throat—dark leather against pale skin, soft padding Vale had commissioned for extended wear. Every time Kieran turned his head, the collar moved with him, a constant reminder that even in these soft moments, Kieran belonged to him.
Why did I put it on him?
The question circled Vale’s mind since the day he fastened the first collar around Kieran’s throat without explanation and walked away before his hands betrayed how badly he wanted to do more.
He didn’t know then. He didn’t understand the compulsion driving him to replace the old collar with something designed for permanence.
Vale’s hands trembled at his sides. Eight steps to cross this room. Eight steps to hook his fingers under that leather and pull until Kieran’s breath caught, until those brown eyes went wide with the understanding that gentleness was only one part of who they were together.
Not yet. Fourteen days of restraint for a reason.
Kieran set each book deliberately, testing positions, adjusting them left or right until the placement satisfied some internal choreography. His lips moved in silent recitation—practicing lyrics, working through timing, absorbed in the architecture of his performance.
You could have removed it. At any time this week, any moment I left you alone. You could have hidden it or at least tried to assert some boundary around your body.
Understanding hit Vale like a drug in his bloodstream.
Seeing you wear my mark while choosing to stay close to me is everything I’ve ever wanted.
The realization caught his breath. All the days of gentle touches, patient conversations, soft kisses ending before they became demands…
Kieran was finally relaxing into his new home.
There were hints of humor and his real personality emerging, he didn’t always need to be told to curl against Vale’s side when they watched TV together, and then initiating that kiss. ..
Vale feeling like his corneas were under constant assault by contact lenses was worth it in that one beautiful moment.
And through it all, the collar stayed around his bony, chokable throat—visible proof that even in soft spaces, Kieran knew he belonged to Vale.
Vale squeezed the doorframe, his knuckles white with the effort of restraint.
I could push you down right now. I could make you gasp and cry and remember what it feels like when I stop holding back. Not to break you—just to touch you the way I’ve been restraining myself from touching you.
The fantasy was vivid enough to make his pulse hammer—Kieran on his back, the collar pulled tight as Vale held him down. The sounds he would make, half protest and half plea, the way his stutter would fracture.
But you need the anger first. I can give us both what we need.
But God, the wanting was a living thing in his chest. It spurned him every morning to choose the contacts over the glasses that were an extension of himself for so long their absence felt like nakedness.
Because you might kiss me again.
It would happen again. Vale was certain.
The preparation was pathetic and necessary. Vale, who controlled every variable, wearing uncomfortable contacts on the slim chance that Kieran might initiate another kiss. He rearranged his entire sensory experience around the possibility of Kieran’s mouth.
Movement caught his eye—Kieran’s foot connected with the first book.
The heavy volume hit the floor with a thud that reverberated through the room’s perfect acoustics. It wasn’t accidental—it was purposefully timed to match whatever rhythm Kieran was hearing in his head, his body moving with unconscious grace.
Percussion. You’re turning the books into instruments.
The scattered books—each offering a different weight and different resonance when kicked—would become Kieran’s percussion section. It was ambitious and risky. Exactly the kind of choice that separated performers from artists.
And watching Kieran work through the logistics, watching the concentration on his face as he solved musical problems, Vale’s pulse quickened with something darker than appreciation for innovation.
Vale forced himself to breathe slowly and unclench his hands.
Control. The art requires this.
The truth beneath his justification was simple.
Yes, Kieran needed help accessing the rage his performance required.
But Vale was also desperate to touch Kieran, to make him cry and scream and reach emotions he was protecting himself from.
The art needed it. Vale craved it. Both things were true, and he saw no contradiction between wanting Kieran’s tears for the song and wanting them because the sound made his blood sing.
Kieran practiced with his guitar—the safe one with nylon strings despite the fact Vale had offered him use of his collection. Fear had crept in where fury should live. The boy was holding back, protecting himself from his own lyrics.
The song was about being dismissed, about having his authenticity questioned by strangers who’d never experienced seizures, who’d never understood the violation of having medical emergencies debated like entertainment.
Raw fury channeled into poetry, the kind of anger that burned clean and true when he’d written it.
But now, faced with performing that anger, Kieran was retreating into technical skill again. Playing it safe. Burying the rage under competence because rage meant vulnerability, and vulnerability was scary.
You’re scared of the fire you wrote into those words. They deserve your rage. Every ounce of fire you’re swallowing to protect yourself from me.
The song’s climax required blurring the line between sadness and anger, demanded emotional nakedness Kieran feared. And Vale knew exactly how to strip away those protective walls.
Vale’s phone buzzed with a text from Eliza: “Fifteen minutes out. Equipment loaded and ready to go.”
Perfect timing. Fate aligning with artistic necessity.
“Eliza,” Vale said when she answered his call, keeping his voice steady despite the way his pulse hammered. “I need you to make a quick stop. Can you grab some sodas? I don’t keep any in the house, but we’re going to be working for a while.”
“Of course! Any preferences?”
Vale looked toward the parlor room where Kieran knelt beside his arranged books, fine-tuning positions with obsessive attention to detail.
“What’s your favorite soda, Kier?” Vale called out.
Kieran looked up, confusion flickering across his features. “Dr. Pepper?”
Even your confusion is beautiful.
“Dr. Pepper,” Vale said into the phone. “And grab a variety pack in case we need caffeine for multiple takes.”
“No problem. See you in about forty-five minutes instead of fifteen.”
Forty-five minutes. That’s what I’m buying.
Vale ended the call and crossed to his office to retrieve the costume he’d prepared—simple black hoodie and mesh face covering.
There was already endless speculation around the identity of the hands that held Kieran through his seizure; a fully masked pianist accompanying him would drive people even more wild.
And they would let the internet theorize and wonder. The truth was more complex and more simple than they could imagine: Vale and his beautiful instrument, making art that mattered precisely because it cost so much to create.
He pulled on the hoodie and moved into the parlor room.
Kieran’s expression shifted from confused curiosity to dawning realization the moment Vale entered—the boy spent days learning to read Vale’s intentions, and something in Vale’s posture broadcast that their gentle routine was about to be interrupted.
There it is. You recognize this. Your body remembers what comes next.
“Kieran,” Vale called, “bring your guitar down to the basement.”
The color drained from Kieran’s face like someone had pulled a plug. His hands began trembling immediately, tears gathering in those expressive brown eyes.
“I—” Kieran’s hand drifted up to his own throat, touching the collar. “I’ve been good. I haven’t done anything w-wrong. I’ve been cooperative and I-I-I finished the song and I—”
Vale closed the distance between them, his hands finding Kieran’s face, and he pressed a kiss to Kieran’s forehead. It was soft, reassuring, designed to interrupt the spiral of desperate justification before it gained momentum.
Kieran’s lips quivered as he looked up at Vale, and Vale wanted to bite them and swallow every protest before it could form.
But he kept himself gentle and sweet and let Kieran taste safety for a few more moments before Vale stripped it away, because the contrast would make the lesson more effective.
“I know,” Vale murmured. “You’ve been such a good boy. So perfectly behaved. So beautiful when you let yourself be soft with me.”
“But we need to get this right,” Vale continued, his voice warm with patient understanding that masked the hunger threatening to consume him. “The song demands something deeper than what you’re protecting yourself from. You need to dig into that anger, let it burn through your careful control.”
And I need to touch you. I need to push you until you reach what the song requires. I need your tears and your rage and the sound you make when you finally let yourself feel it.
“I c-can access it without—” Kieran’s voice cracked, his tears spilling over. “I don’t n-need lessons. I c-can be angry enough on my own.”
“We both know that’s not true,” Vale said, his voice dropping into tone he reserved for the basement.
I’m going to help you find the rage you’re burying. I’m going to make you reach what the song needs, and I’m going to love every second of watching you burn.
“Twenty minutes,” Vale said, guiding Kieran toward the basement door with a hand on the small of his back as he whimpered and swallowed his sobs.
“Just enough time to push through whatever protections you’ve rebuilt this week.
Then when Eliza arrives, you’ll perform the song with the honesty it deserves, and we’re done. ”
Kieran moved like someone walking toward execution, his guitar clutched against his chest like armor that wouldn’t protect him. But he moved, because they both understood that resistance would only make the lesson more intensive, more thorough, more devastating.
The basement door closed behind them with a soft click—like the first note of a song that required blood to sing properly.