Chapter Six #3
He tried to think of himself in Wes’ place, but then his hazy daydream shifted to Delauney under Wes, both of them taken in turns by the strange dominants with their colorful hair and sharp smiles.
He thought of holding Wes’ thighs while he was rocked forward on their cocks, of his lovely legs trembling.
Delauney stroked himself harder now, almost bucking into his fist. He could see Wes’ cock now, as though he’d truly been under him on that beach, taking him into his mouth...
Delauney tipped over the edge with a shuddering gasp as he realized, with a jolt that felt almost as powerful as the wave of pleasure rolling through him, why Wes’ bare legs had seemed so familiar.
He’d seen them on the other side of a brick wall the day before, while Delauney had his mouth on Wesley’s cock.
Delauney groaned through his release, grabbing a pillow with a spare hand and shoving it over his face.
The mortified sound he made was swallowed by feathers and linen as his traitorous cock spilled over his fist.
That had been Wes in the wall. Wes, whose tight ass had felt so perfect and hot around Delauney’s cock, who’d spent himself into Delauney’s mouth with a shiver.
Wes, with his sharp, intense gaze that seemed to peel back layers in Delauney’s soul that even he hadn’t known about.
The man who’d given Captain Lennox the beating he’d always deserved and had made himself indispensable in a few scant weeks, who thought Delauney was clever despite all evidence to the contrary.
And Delauney had fucked him through a wall.
Wes could never know that Delauney had figured it out. The conceit of the alley seemed to be the anonymity of the people stationed there, and it wasn’t as though Wes had invited Delauney to stumble down the beach to watch him cavort with strange dominants.
Delauney washed up in a basin and shook sand out of his clothes before putting them back on.
He considered going over his supplies, or even finding something to eat downstairs, but it seemed that time slipped away from him again.
He jumped as the door creaked open, revealing a clean, freshly-scrubbed Wes in slightly rumpled clothes.
His gaze was pleasantly vague, and as he fumbled to set a sack on the floor, it struck Delauney that he was probably still under.
Whoever those people were had clearly cleaned him up afterward, but they hadn’t bothered to draw him out of subspace.
Delauney suppressed a disappointed frown and walked over to sit Wes down on the bed.
“Got you dinner,” Wes said, flopping loose-limbed onto the mattress. “I hope you like fritters. They’re fried. Do nobles eat their food like that? My tutors said that your family is near the part of the country where they make those horrible heavy cakes, so I wouldn’t know.”
“I don’t remember any cakes with a particular heft,” Delauney said. He knelt to remove Wes’ shoes for him. Wes smiled drowsily.
“I hate cakes,” he said. “But I like you. It’s frustrating, really. Your family is blue-blooded enough that you should be an insufferable tyrant, but here you are.”
“Perhaps I’ve been at sea too long to be a tyrant.” Delauney glanced up at Wes, then tentatively rubbed the sole of his foot. Wes groaned and stretched like a cat, which Delauney took as permission to continue.
“Lennox was at sea longer than both of us,” Wes said. “But I don’t want to think about that. Spirits, you’re good at this. Do you believe in sirens?”
Delauney smiled to himself. It seemed that being under made Wes’ thoughts as scattered as Delauney’s. “Not really. If there were any, they’d have made themselves known by now, and I suspect that most accounts are just very dehydrated sailors mistaking a dolphin for a fish-person.”
“I ran into some people who claimed to be sirens,” Wes said.
Delauney moved up to his calves, kneading the hard muscle there.
“But they didn’t even have tails. That rather ruins the illusion, doesn’t it?
And where would they put their cocks, in any case?
You never see that in the wood-cuts people sell on the docks. ”
“Wherever dolphins put them, I suppose,” Delauney said. He was bemused despite himself. He should have still been mortified, but a fuck-drunk Wes was too disarming for that.
“Where do dolphins put them?” Wes asked. He swung his legs up onto the bed. “You should eat something.”
“Have you eaten?” Delauney asked.
Wes smiled to himself. “Well... maybe a little.”
He was probably thinking about cock. Delauney knew that’s what he’d be doing in Wes’ place. That meant that he probably hadn’t eaten at all, and he’d gone out of his way, while in the throes of subspace, to fetch Delauney something to eat instead.
Delauney divided the fritters in half and handed one to Wes. Thankfully, Wes seemed too under to protest. Delauney sat next to him on the bed, eating his own half while trying not to notice the way Wes licked his fingers.
“Did you know that in Kallistos,” Wes said, breaking the silence as though he’d been carrying on a full conversation in his head, “they used to have this week-long festival to search for the god of love?”
“But there isn’t a god of love,” Delauney said, handing Wes a cloth to wipe his hands.
While Staria had its spirits and folktales, Starians took a cavalier approach to the divine.
Other countries believed in the gods, but Delauney didn’t pay much attention to their temples or traditions.
The denizens of Diabolos seemed to think that the gods could walk around like ordinary people, but no one spoke of a god of love.
“That’s the thing,” Wes said. “Shouldn’t there be one?
But there isn’t, so some people in Kallistos decided that they’d gone into hiding.
So every few years, they’d have this huge festival to try and lure the god out, and people would sign up to be sacrifices.
They’d kill a rabbit and paint their faces with its blood, and everyone would know that they were marked, so they’d be...
” Wes waved a hand vaguely. “Available. You know, for anyone who wanted to take them. The theory was that the god would be drawn to whichever sacrifice had been used the most.”
“That sounds unpleasant,” Delauney said.
“Really?” Wes looked genuinely surprised. “I’d love that. A whole week to be used by everyone who wants you?”
“Yes, but the poor rabbit.”
Wes sighed. “All right, no rabbits. And I wouldn’t want what happened at the end of it all, either.
” Delauney frowned curiously. “During the last recorded festival, all the sacrifices disappeared,” Wes said.
“Every single one. That’s why they don’t have the festival anymore.
But the concept is still nice, that’s all I’m saying. ”
“So you’d like to be available,” Delauney said, “or is it that you’d like to be part of a religious ritual?”
“If the ritual’s fun, maybe both. I like being worshipped,” Wes said. “But worship can mean anything. So much of submission involves dominants doting on us, haven’t you noticed?”
“What about the sadists?” Delauney asked.
“Oh, they’re the most worshipful of all of them,” Wes said. “There’s very little difference between a sadist with a chain flogger and a priest kneeling before their god. And we’re the ones they want. They’re praying to us.”
“Don’t let any gods hear you talk like that,” Delauney said.
He’d never thought of submission in that way.
It had always just been a part of him, with no depths to plumb or shadowy corners to explore.
But it felt as though his experience at the alley had changed something in him, like a long-forgotten creature stirring the sediment at the ocean floor.
Wes fell asleep next to Delauney, smiling in the calm, satisfied way of a submissive who’d been thoroughly worked-over.
Rather than disturb him, Delauney gently eased himself a few inches closer to his edge of the bed.
He lay like that for some time, listening to Wes breathe as his whirling, scattered thoughts pulled him into restless dreams.