24. Isaiah
Isaiah
December, Oxford
Isaiah had awoken in Chris Green’s arms for the second time in a row.
It was close to becoming a habit. A stupid habit that he didn’t have the luxury of indulging in, and that he’d come close to ruining the night before anyway with his ridiculous suggestion that Chris join him on screen.
Like it was a collab, like he was some kind of fucking influencer.
Isaiah snorted. Well, a fucking influencer, maybe.
He couldn’t even believe he’d let Chris watch. It had unmoored him, more so than any show he’d done before.
Chris began to stir, pulling Isaiah tight against him in his sleep. Morning wood brushed against his thigh and he cringed at the memory of how he’d left Chris hanging the night before.
God, he’d been a shit host. Though he was rarely interested in getting off again so quickly after finishing a show, last night had left him too raw to even consider it.
Now though…
Now there was a delicious, thick cock rubbing against him, and Isaiah had very good memories of how Chris tasted that he needed to confirm were real and not the haze of wedding endorphins and trauma bonding clouding his judgement.69
He extricated himself from Chris’s grip and slid a hand over his abdomen, letting his fingers catch on the tangle of hair just above his cock and breathing in the scent of him.
Then he wound his hand around and started to slowly stroke him as he peppered kisses over his thighs.
He felt the moment Chris’s breathing picked up.
Seconds later, there were gentle fingers combing through his hair.
Isaiah looked up, meeting Chris’s warm eyes.
“Morning,” he whispered.
Chris smiled. “Morning.”
Everything felt slow and gentle as Chris tugged him up towards him. They kissed languidly and stroked each other, not chasing anything, just savouring the moment.
“How are you so fucking perfect?” Chris mumbled against Isaiah’s skin.
“I’m not,” Isaiah replied, leaning into the touch as Chris sped up his strokes just a fraction. “But I give really fucking good head.”
Chris laughed and pushed himself up on his elbows. He looked like he was biting his tongue, holding something back.
“Well aware.”
“Nah, you ain’t seen nothing yet.” Isaiah winked.
Chris whimpered as Isaiah ghosted kisses down his chest.
“You’re probably still wound tight from yesterday, aren’t you, baby.”
“Yeah,” Chris gasped as Isaiah spread his legs apart and nuzzled his sack.
“I shouldn’t have left you like that, all aching and desperate.”
“Told you it was fine,” Chris replied between short breaths.
Isaiah smiled wickedly. “Still. You were so good, you deserve a reward.”
“Fuck.” Chris bucked his hips as Isaiah licked his slit while tracing a finger over his hole.
“I’m going to make you see god, baby.” Isaiah teased Chris’s hole with the tip of his index finger as he spoke. “But while I do, I want you to tell me what it was like, being here. Watching me.”
Isaiah laved his tongue over Chris’s frenulum, earning another deep moan.
“It was…it was so hard,” Chris grunted. “Hard not to reach out and touch you. Hard not to touch myself.”
Isaiah sucked Chris into his mouth, humming in agreement as he did.
“I’ve never wanted someone like that,” Chris continued, fisting the sheets as Isaiah sucked and teased.
Isaiah sucked a finger into his mouth alongside Chris’s cock, then let it pop out with an obscene smacking sound.
“Tell me what you wanted.” He said as he slid his finger slowly inside Chris, crooking it just enough to graze his prostate.
Chris’s moans bounced off the walls of the small room. “Wanted to be inside you. Wanted to kiss you and consume you. Throw that fucking dildo across the room and replace it with my cock.”
“Fuck, I’d have loved that.” Isaiah popped off Chris’s cock, gripping it hard at the base. “I’d really, really have loved that.” He crawled up next to Chris in bed and kissed him. “So, what do you want to do today?”
“Are you for real right now?” Chris asked. The pained look on his face made Isaiah smirk.
“Sometimes I don’t want quick and dirty,” he said, counteracting the statement by grinding his own hard cock against Chris. “Sometimes slow and sweet is just as nice.”
“There’s slow and sweet, and then there’s death by orgasm denial.”
Isaiah laughed. “Okay, I’ll go easy on you, my delicate flower.”
Chris narrowed his eyes. “I can handle it.”
“I don’t want you to handle it, I want you to enjoy it. To revel in it.”
“I can do that too,” Chris breathed. “I can revel in you.”
The way he looked into his eyes broke a dam inside Isaiah, and suddenly he was the one who couldn’t hold back. He straddled Chris’s chest, facing away from him just so he wouldn’t get lost in those deep, emotive eyes, and swallowed him down.
Chris didn’t stay passive as Isaiah sucked him.
He brushed fingers over his taint, gripped his cock, and stroked him rhythmically, his hand slick with the lube he must have grabbed from the nightstand while Isaiah had been facing away.
His strokes grew erratic, and Isaiah pulled back just at the right moment to let Chris’s cum hit his tongue so he could taste it all before swallowing it down.
He was on the edge himself when Chris pulled him up and raggedly asked him to fuck his face.
Isaiah wasn’t impressing anyone with his stamina today as he rutted frantically into Chris’s mouth.
The feel of his tongue on him, his hands gripping his arse and guiding his movements had him coming in just a few short thrusts.
They lay together, tangled and breathless, neither one moving a muscle.
“I don’t want to move from this bed all day,” Chris announced once his breathing had steadied.
Isaiah groaned. “Neither do I, but…”
“You have work to do,” Chris finished for him.
Isaiah hated himself for saying it. For breaking the bubble they’d built here. “I need to at least get to the library and check in with my supervisor. Maybe we could do Sunday lunch at the pub though?”
Chris nodded, pulling Isaiah tight. “That sounds perfect.”
“Yeah, perfect.”
Isaiah felt even more guilty when he checked the time.
Chris was still half-reclined against the headboard, hair rumpled, scrolling absently through his phone while the late-morning light crept thinly around the curtains.
“I have to go in,” Isaiah said, already reaching for his jumper. “It won’t be long. Just a quick grant meeting.”
Chris looked up immediately. “Want me to entertain myself, then?”
“Is that alright?” It felt like he was drawing a barrier in that moment. As if Chris were something separate from his real life. He didn’t want that.70
“Of course.”
“I’ll meet you at the pub after?” Isaiah said. “Three? The King’s Arms.”
Chris nodded. “I’ll wander.”
Isaiah could picture it, Chris all bundled up in his coat, walking along the river like a romantic hero, hair blowing in the breeze. He leaned down and kissed him before he could overthink it. It was soft, lingering, a kiss with an apology folded into it.
“Don’t look so tragic,” Chris murmured against his mouth.
Isaiah huffed. “I don’t.”
“You do.”
He probably did.
Oxford felt sharper when he was alone. The corners he knew so well felt like walls closing in on him when all he wanted was to stay wrapped up in the fantasy he’d formed with Chris.
The morning frost hadn’t fully melted; it slicked the cobblestones and made the air sting in his lungs.
Students moved in clumps, laughing, but he felt outside of it all, like he was watching from behind glass.
Schmidt didn’t waste time. “There’s been an appeal lodged against you with the ethics committee.”
Isaiah blinked. “Excuse me?”
A pause. Papers sliding across a desk. “It appears my response to Matthew’s concerns about your thesis was not satisfactory, so he’s gone around me.”
Isaiah went very still, though his pulse had already begun to climb.
“He argued that your research focus, particularly its intersection with online sexual economies and embodied labour—”
“My work,” Isaiah cut in flatly.
“Yes. That your work risks reputational damage to the university. That it blurs ethical boundaries. That your methods including your own active work mean they lack informed consent of the participants who watch your streams.”
Isaiah felt heat climb up his neck, anger mixed with a long-repressed prickle of shame. “That’s bollocks.”
“I don’t disagree, Isaiah. But this isn’t going away. Whatever issues the two of you have, I need you to speak to him, personally. Ask him to revoke the complaint.”
Isaiah swallowed. Another confrontation with Matt was exactly the thing to bring this disaster of a year to its peak. He couldn’t help but wonder if it was worth it. If he should just give up on it all.
Maybe other people didn’t see sex work the way he did.
As labour, performance, autonomy; something worthy of study rather than shame.
71 Maybe they never would. He thought of the way Chris had baulked at the idea of collaborating with him, of being seen, even though it would go a long way to solving the financial problems he was staring down post-ban.
Maybe to everyone else his work was just something sordid and embarrassing that reflected poorly on ancient stone and Latin mottos.
He left the meeting vibrating, walking so quickly he barely felt the cold air nipping at his fingertips. He reached the pub just after three, jaw tight.
Chris was already there, a pint in front of him, sleeves pushed up, looking almost indecently at ease against the backdrop of dark wood and stained glass. The sight of him calmed the roar in Isaiah’s chest.
“Hey,” Chris said immediately, reading him. “That bad?”
Isaiah slid into the seat opposite and dragged a hand through his hair. “There’s been an official complaint.”
Chris frowned. “What? Why?”
“Matt, the one I was telling you about. He’s told the ethics board that my work ‘lacks informed consent.’”
Chris went very still. “Can he do that?”