SIX
OF THE BEST
The first boy was called Jed;
they say you remember your first. Shit,
not my first fuck, of course not! I
can’t remember his name. Or face.
Or anything. He was a means to an
end, that’s all. No, I’m talking about
the first to play this particular game with me.
Jed was thin and pale and young – of course – and I remember being
surprised at how easy it was to persuade him back to the flat. I was careful to choose one I knew was over
the tenuous cusp of legality, then a couple of smokes and the promise of a
tenner and he came with me willingly enough.
It was important – the willingness.
He’d been a ‘sniffer’ – one of
those young men who sniffs habitually, like they have rampant hay fever, or snort
too many noxious substances I never
bothered asking which it was. It was a
background irritation, and I wanted to tell him to stop, but I couldn’t phrase
the words properly. When he dropped his
jeans and stood there, his naked body as pale and skinny as a bread stick, his
bony arms folded awkwardly over a still-developing chest… well, it seemed
churlish to be complaining about a bit of snot.
With him, I only took the game
to the first step. I strapped him to the
bed and he was only mildly nervous. I
suspect he’d dabbled in S&M before; he had the weary, bored look that often
comes from switching off when things get beyond your control. His passivity was intriguing. When I sat back and watched him lie there, he
got a bit restless.
“What’re you gonna do?” he
sniffed. Christ, it sounded like he
wanted to know what car I drove, not whether I was going to carve him up and
leave him in a gutter for the morning press to salivate over.
“It’s just a game,” I
replied. “Indulge me.”
He stared at me as if
realising for the first time I puzzled him.
I sat on the edge of the bed, barely touching his thigh. I watched the tic of muscle in his leg, a
trapped nerve protesting at the bondage.
I was still fully dressed. He
looked at my tented lap and licked his lips; that was the usual service for a
tenner, obviously. He watched my hand
stroke the object in my lap.
When he laughed aloud, it was
a bit of a shock. It was a thin, nasal
sound, like a sneer. “Where’d you get
that?”
“It’s mine,” I said,
slowly. I stroked; I slid my fingers
around it, clasped it loosely and pumped very lazily. It could have been my cock – but it wasn’t.
“I know guns,” he said,
defensively. “Dun’t scare me.”
I didn’t bother challenging
him. When I look back on that time, I
remember his wide, washed-out eyes, staring at it. The fascination was for the gun, not me. For a moment, his cock bobbed on his belly,
responding to the icy thrill of potential danger. I remember that it was a thin, bent little
shaft, only just starting to swell and poke out of the top of its tube of
skin. I had little interest in it then,
and maybe he could see that. The
puzzlement returned to his pinched little face.
When I rolled the chamber, he
jerked on the bed. His smirk looked like
it had stopped halfway across his lips; it was replaced with a grimace. There was a flicker of childlike shock in the
pale eyes.
“It’s just a game,” I
repeated. “There’s only one
bullet.” I leant over him slowly and the
mattress creaked beneath us. I stroked
the muzzle of the gun along his neck and watched the tendons tighten. “One in six chance that it even fires
something.” He twisted his head away
sharply, his face and neck flushing red with the effort.
“Fucker –“he grunted, or
something like that. I wasn’t really
listening. I hadn’t chosen him for his
witty repartee.
I watched his heart start to
speed up, his ribcage straining up and down to contain it. His veins bulged blue under his thin
skin. My gaze followed all the way from
his clenched toes to his sharp pelvic bones, to his tight, protuberant
nipples. One of them was pierced, I
remember that. I might even have tugged
at it, but not with any force. I was
interested to see that his budding erection went the way of all flesh. The shaft shrivelled quickly to mere creases
of pale, flaccid skin.
I knew then that this didn’t
work for me. Jed. This first one was only that; the first of
others.
I think I sighed when I
pressed my finger on the trigger. Maybe
I laughed. Maybe that’s what the loud
sound was, though it seemed like both of us had stopped breathing for that
second. I found my senses suddenly
clear, the sounds and smells of my sparse little flat very vivid. The sweat of the boy was acrid; my breath
scratched like the branches of a bush at a bathroom window.
Like I said, I only took it to
the first step with Jed.
*
Phil was the second.
God, what a porker he was
after the stripling body of Jed! As tall
as me, a little younger, his puppy fat plumping out over the waist of his
jeans. His eyes were bright, no
addiction scarring them yet. He’d found
me, rather than my usually more cautious approach. I was just hanging around, reading a paper or
something, and he came straight up to me and asked for money.
He even asked if I had
somewhere we could go. I could imagine
the tarmac of the shopping centre was rough on that soft flesh; he wouldn’t
still be grinning if he were pressed against the brick wall in the dark shadows
between the rental shop and the discount store.
Back at the flat, he stripped
slowly, confidently, the trousers needing to be tugged down from around his
hips. But I liked the look – I liked the
swell of his belly and the soft flesh around his shoulders. His nipples were dark and shallow and the
size of old pennies on the white of his chest.
Since my first, I’d had some
time to marinate the rules of my game; to stroke and savour and suppose. Whatever the conclusions, my arousal was
healthier than it had been for months. It was a different stimulation altogether.
I still bound him, but he
seemed to enjoy it. The light of his
eyes grew darker, as if he liked teetering on the unfamiliar brink of
masochism. I didn’t think he’d ever done
this before. I sat down on the edge of
the bed again, beside his strapped body.
The ties sank into his fleshy wrists.
“So what now?” he asked. He tried for insouciance, but his voice shook
a little.
“Watch me,” I murmured, as I
unzipped and pulled myself out of the confines of cotton underwear. It would be a pleasant change, to be observed
rather than the observer. “It’s just a
game.”
“Sure,” he said. “You the man.” He had a slight lisp, which was
distracting. I hoped he wasn’t going to
speak much; his words came from a cheap teenage novel.
The introduction of the gun
made him catch his breath a little, but there was a flash of cunning in his
eyes, and he stayed silent. I was
interested to see he had a good-sized, robust erection. I stroked myself with one hand and at the
same time I dragged the gun across his skin, keeping the same rhythm as my
pumping, watching how the cold metal tugged at the thin hairs of his
chest. The click of the trigger at the
first step made him shudder, but when I looked back down to his groin he’d stayed
hard; maybe it even swelled the more. I
kept the gun nuzzled in at his neck and I let myself enjoy my own firm touch.
By the time I felt the climax
uncurling in the pit of my groin, my other hand had crept down to the cushion
of his stomach and was resting on his navel.
The gun was palmed casually, but securely, its nose at the rim of his
dark curly pubic hairs.
For a second, my orgasm
distracted me. My body shook, though my
hand stayed in place. I grunted, letting
my seed spill out with sharp, shallow bursts of warmth and stickiness. Some of it spattered on to his belly, soft
white viscous pearls shivering on a smooth palette.
“One in six chance,” I
sighed. “For the second time.” I laid my warm, spent cock back on my lap,
and I squeezed the trigger again.
His eyes were blank with the
sudden onset of uncontrollable fear.
He’d never thought I would make that second shot. For a moment, I thought he might choke on his
own tongue as he bit it.
The second step. But still not right. I wouldn’t be going any further with Phil.
*
Danny had been a very biddable
man – Danny, my third. Older than my
previous choices; maybe from a home and family of his own. I saw it all in his eyes at the bar. Isolation; embarrassment; hunger. He was on his own and his gaze didn’t follow
the buxom strippers like every other male in the place.
When I went to the men’s room,
he followed me in. He was slim and
short, but surprisingly graceful, a lean body inside tight faded trousers and a
dull-coloured shirt. He hung back, maybe
waiting to see if anyone else came in, but his eyes darted over me, an eager
heat flickering there like a match’s sputtering flame in the pupils of a
smoker.
I don’t remember much more of
his features, to be honest, just those eyes.
Standing in the cold, white, cracked-tiled room, I looked at him,
questioningly.
“Just a hand job,” he said,
hurriedly. I shrugged, and he moved
quickly to the cubicle, watching my feet as they stepped in after him.
His hands were a little clumsy
with his zip – nerves, I guess – but he knew what he was after. It wasn’t money, not like the others. I pumped him rather lazily, but it didn’t
take long for him to grunt and ejaculate, and then I waited for him to ask for
more.
He came back to the flat without
any question. He stripped quickly, as if
he disliked wearing his clothes, moving co-operatively under my hands,
anticipating where I wanted him. I don’t
know what he thought about the first step, but he didn’t flinch. Much.
Of course, anything more would have been difficult with the bindings on
his wrists and ankles.
“Thank you,” he
whispered. It was ridiculous – of course
it was! – but he looked grateful for the attention.
I remained hopeful of more
from him. His body was athletic looking,
with wiry limbs and a scattering of dark hair down from his ribs to his
belly. The stomach muscles were
developed, though it looked like he’d neglected them over the years. At one point, my hand brushed over his cheek,
the gun clasped loosely and warmly between my fingers. His tongue slipped out and licked at the
barrel as it slid past his mouth.
I came over him quite quickly
– I enjoyed the growl he made in the back of his throat at each of my strokes –
and the second step didn’t seem to faze him.
I liked the way his back arched when I nudged the gun at his slackened
belly; his cock was broad and short but it bobbed enthusiastically, swollen
with its own eagerness. Then I untied
him and pushed him to his knees beside the bed.
I tugged his head to my groin.
His mouth was warm and wet and a welcome haven for my recovering cock.
He’d obviously done it plenty
of times before. It was enjoyable for us
both, and I felt the stirrings of sensation returning in my groin. I saw him pumping furiously away at his own
shaft, and I heard his breath grow faster and shallower as he got near to
climaxing. I felt the sensual grip of
his mouth on me, and heard the grunts of excitement from both of us, soft
hiccups in the otherwise silent room.
The muzzle of the gun nudged
at his ear, but he didn’t acknowledge it.
His lean body was bowed below me, his eyes were closed. I waited until I saw the shudder of surrender
run through his body and his head sink down against my groin, like a sexual
supplicant. For that second, he was
fully concentrated on the path of his own ecstasy.
“One in six chance,” I
hissed. “The third shot.”
He’d begun to moan with the
climax, but the sound was abruptly strangled in his throat. His head went back and he stared up at
me. His mouth opened in a wavering ‘o’
shape, and my glistening cock sprang back out.
The look of shock on his face was unmistakable. Seed spat itself out of him unheeded; his
body was rigid with another kind of tension.
He looked as if I’d betrayed him in the worst possible way.
Of course, there was nothing I
owed Danny.
The third step was as far as I
would go.
*
By the time I got to step
four, I thought I knew what type to seek.
I saw it all as a quest.
“What do you want?” I
asked. I could have meant a drink; or it
could have been a challenge.
“Something different,” he
replied, and it sounded as if he also meant it on several levels. I liked the way he didn’t bother me with
irritating chat. I paid for a round of
drinks, then he followed me out of there.
Away from the fluorescent
lights of the dance floor, he didn’t look as good; not so confident; not so
young. His dirty green eyes shifted
constantly, searching for assurance.
He didn’t belong. Or that’s what he thought about himself.
He was amusingly coy about
stripping, placing his clothes carefully on a chair, cautious yet embarrassed
at the same time. His body was
dark-hued, and there was the scar of an old operation on his torso where the
skin still glistened in a lighter shade.
There was dried sweat on his flesh from his earlier time in the club;
maybe he thought I’d offer him a shower.
The self-consciousness lasted
no time at all.
At first he resisted the
bindings. The veins in his arms stood
out in a dark violet colour against his skin – his hips thrust up at me,
vainly. His thrashing about provoked a
thick, heavy erection that jutted aggressively from his groin, glistening
darkly against his black hairs. I moved
my position beside him so that when I came my seed spilled on his thighs rather
than his belly. The opaque whiteness
looked very striking against the dark colouring. My breath took longer to steady than before.
He had no other problems with
the steps. It seemed that
I moved him back on to the bed
and on to his belly. Fresh sweat ran
down between his shoulder blades and he wriggled awkwardly. His cock was uncomfortable under his prone
body. He’d not come yet; but his
expectations of me wouldn’t necessarily be met.
I knelt up over him,
restricting the movement of his legs, my own skin damp with sweat, my inner
thighs slick against his hips. I put my
free hand to his left buttock and pulled the cheeks apart. A dusting of dark hairs clung stickily to my
fingers, but I could see my way easily.
“Tease…” he ground out. “You gonna fuck me already…?”
I didn’t answer him. I ran the middle finger of my right hand
along the crack, listening to his sharp intake of frustrated breath. My cock was semi-erect, nestling comfortably at
the crease where his ass met the muscles of his leg. I moved my finger away and probed the gun
along the channel instead. Step four.
He gasped with the sudden cold
touch. “What the fuck’s that?” His voice was hoarse. I saw the tension in the muscles of his
shoulders as he went rigid beneath me.
“A one in six chance,” I said,
softly, as I watched the snub metal nose peel open his puckered hole. His skin seemed to shrivel back from it, in
shock or fear, I didn’t know. I rolled
the gun gently against the pink skin, watching the first centimetre of its
muzzle press its way through the initial resistance of the muscles.
“Step four,” I murmured,
almost to myself.
It seemed that my calculated
risk had one too many variables.
The steps stopped there.
*
I misjudged step five; I admit
it. It had been too long since four, and
maybe I chose with more desperation than decision. I don’t like to think that was the case.
Otto was young, and aimless,
and drunk. He said he wasn’t ready to go
home yet, that he’d not yet found the ‘buzz’ he craved. He laughed at each stage of his slurred
monologue. He was looking for some real
excitement, he whispered in my ear; he’d already done it all, been to every
game, ‘read every book of life’. I
continued to be disappointed at the lack of both imagination and conversational
skills in society today.
His companions had obviously
come to the end of their youthful tolerance and left him at a disused bus
stop. He wore a sports strip, he exuded
athleticism, his speech was full of references to competition and achievement. It was mildly entertaining. He had no idea where I took him, but he was
willing enough to shed his clothing and collapse his muscular body on to my
bed. I suspected that he’d played this game of life more than once; he’d
been past the first few chapters of this book. He just had no idea where the plot took him
in the end.
“I like fuck games,” he
announced cheerfully, like he drank beer, or he wore denim. I had tuned out most of his speech, and in
particular the grating bonhomie. Not for
the first time, I wondered what exactly he had been drinking – or what slice of
life had produced such a zealous participant.
Because – obviously – he did like games. The first four steps went well. His body appeared even younger than his attitude,
but it was well-kept, and lightly tanned from the good summer we’d had that
year. I liked the breadth of his
freckled shoulders and his strong neck; I liked the almost hairless chest and
the large cock that swelled quickly to a dark pink flush, straining from its
sheath and dripping generous drops on his belly in its eagerness.
The enthusiasm was wearing,
though. He tried to dictate his own
binding and was reluctant to be untied; he expected some kind of oral play with
my ejaculated seed, and was frustrated when I showed no interest in it after
its expulsion over his body. He sucked
well enough, though too quickly, and when the gun nudged at his head at step
three, he leant into it as a puppy might seek your hand to have its ears
scratched. He came himself after only a
few strokes. I watched with interest as
his cock spewed its fulsome contents on my carpet, his touch barely needed to
make it climax, its turgidity still maintained afterwards.
His ass pushed back at the gun
at step four. No perception of violation
there. Even I was surprised.
“Fuck me with it, man,” he
grunted. It aroused me, the bold, greedy
energy of him, and after I removed the muzzle, I forced myself into him and
fucked him to my completion. He shuddered
with it, as if he felt the spasm of my climax inside him.
I rolled him on to his back
and entered him again. He was still
tight, and my body shook slightly with the effort. The gun was between our hips, though held
securely in my hand. As I thrust, he
groaned. I traced the bunching muscles
of his lower belly, dragged the length of the barrel along the inside of his
left thigh, nudging his crinkling balls to one side then the other. There were
more freckles on his legs, like a spotting of summer sand.
He laughed again, though
breathlessly. “Do it, man! No bullets, right?”
I met his eyes and gave no
answer.
Realisation – or sobriety –
caught up with him suddenly. Christ, he
wept like a baby! He begged, he raged at
me; he couldn’t seem to make coherent sentences. No more laughs; no jokes. He had found the worst appendix to his ‘book
of life’. I looked down on his streaked
cheeks and the pool of grubby, childish tears in the hollow of his throat, and
the trigger slipped like a familiar friend against my finger.
Step five was as wrong as many
others had been.
*
Step six. What I’d always been leading up to. I had high hopes; certain aspirations.
It had been a long, tiring
time. The effort seemed
disproportionate; the rewards far from rich.
But by that time, the game played itself. There were occasions I
wondered whether I was the commander, or was commanded.
I was driven by it.
At first, Zander was nothing
but a shadow in the arcade, blending into the alleys between the deserted
shops, turning a hooded back to the passing spotlights of cars. I wasn’t sure I should be back here; this
world was unpredictable, with its population of strange and distorted
characters. It was attractive, too,
though.
He bumped against me, but I
didn’t fear a mugging. It was my
attention he wanted. Sharp, rat-like
eyes stared at me; surprisingly white teeth populated his grin.
“I need more than a tenner,”
he said, with no ceremony.
We were back to the money, of
course, and he negotiated like a merchant banker. It was foreplay of its own. He followed me as if he could have led the
way – if he’d chosen to.
Had I lost concentration? I didn’t think so. I enjoyed it all, for once. I followed the steps and he trod them along
with me. My senses were filled with it,
thrilled with it. His thin body folded
around the gun as it caressed him – his responses to me were fast and sharp and
instinctively satisfying. His expression
taunted me, every time my fingers stroked along the metal, and his grin
encouraged me. When I talked through the
steps, his whisper echoed me.
“It’s good,” he said, more
than once. “It’s fucking good.” There was a strange lack of vehemence in his
swearing. He was announcing, not denouncing.
He had the body of a wasted
child, but the worldly awareness of a much older man than I, and his strength
was surprising. It was the drugs, I
assumed. There were marks on his arms
and legs, in between the striking tattoos, and I caught the occasional flicker
of bestiality behind his pale, still eyes.
He didn’t confront me with it, and I had no interest myself, so the
details remained unknown. He didn’t see
himself as a victim.
Zander was totally
uninhibited. He saw no reason for any
kind of embarrassment or mutual moderation.
It was both refreshing and astonishing.
The gun joined us in our play, in our sex. He accepted it as he did my bindings, my
hands, my cock. His body bent and flexed,
thin and lithe and bony, and shining with sweat.
I liked his unequivocal
arrogance, his physical freedom; the way he stretched, allowing his chest to
expand and his cock to bob up between his slim hips. I liked to hear the occasional snap of a
stiff joint; to watch the way his tattoos followed the lines of his muscle,
accentuating them. He was careless of
his erection; he didn’t seem to want to climax quickly, though he looked
swollen and needy from the start.
By step four, I was more
aroused than I’d ever been. I was
embedded in him; I could feel every muscle of his body tense on my flesh, my
climax coming fiercely from a deep pit inside me. He pulled himself up to his knees, clutching
at his own cock, a slim, long shaft, pierced with a ring of astonishing size
and brightness, pumping at it as I moved in and out of his ass, rearing up
behind him.
“Good…” he sighed. “It’s comin’ soon.”
I rolled him to his back, and
spread his legs, sinking back into him while I was still hard enough. He kept a hand on his cock, and I assumed he
must be close to coming by now. I
pressed the gun to his hip, but then I felt his free hand on top of mine,
adding its pressure. When I squeezed the
trigger, he laughed softly. His eyes
glazed momentarily; he licked at suddenly dry lips. He didn’t remove his grip from mine. I had passed step five.
Then the control suddenly
slipped from me, like mercury through grasping fingers.
I watched him begin to tease
the top of his cock in earnest; his breath started to speed up, sounding harsh
and shallow. The other hand grasped my
wrist, tighter than ever, and it began to push my arm – and the gun – back up
his body.
“Stop that,” I said.
He grinned. “Step six,” he said, slyly. He grunted slightly, and slowed the pace on
his cock. But he kept up the pressure on
my wrist, tugging me upwards. The gun
slid along his sweat-soaked skin, over the bumps of his thin ribs, around his
tensed shoulder and up to his cheek.
“The steps are for me to say,”
I said. My voice had a timbre to it that
I disliked.
His head went back and his
eyes were half closed. He was panting
now. “I’m close,” he said. “Let me have it.” I was reminded of his surprising strength,
for I couldn’t move my hand away. He
gripped me, and I gripped the gun, and its muzzle was nestling into the shallow
hollow of his temple.
He held it to his own head – I
had little control of it. He bent a bony
finger on top of mine, and together we braced them against the trigger. He bit at his lip, drawing a small circle of
dark red blood, which he licked away quickly.
The hand on his cock tightened visibly, and he groaned as the thick head
swelled up and viscous seed started to spit out of the slit. His body shuddered, the limbs forcing him up
off the mattress. He cried out once –
softly – and I was unable to stop his other hand controlling mine, his jagged
nails biting into the skin of my palm, forcing down my trigger finger at his
behest.
His neck bent sideways, his
head submitting to the pressure of the cold immutable barrel.
The sound of step six was a
snap of shock, a grunt of aggression, a click of cruel conclusion.
He left soon after.
*
He left soon after.
Of course, they all do
that. I’m still waiting for the one who
counts along with me, but who concedes my control; the one who twists
underneath me and cries out for the delicious tension of it, whilst provoking
my own satisfaction. The one who plays
by my rules, but matches my intelligence – who actually asks to see the bullet,
who questions whether it exists at all.
If it does, I wouldn’t waste
it on the boys; on the pawns in my game.
Not even on that one who would travel through every step with me and
laugh with appreciation at the ridiculous melodrama. The one who’s not drugged, or masochistic, or
apathetic, or earnest, or terrified. The
one who’s truly – not manically - fearless.
The one who fucks me back.
No, the bullet – if it exists
- is for me. For when the tedium grows
too much to bear; when the major pieces come into play, and yet I’m still
struggling to enjoy them. I play by my
own rules, didn’t I say so? I just
forget what they are now and then.
The main attraction isn’t the
sex. Christ, no. I can get that anywhere. It’s the reaction – the sudden flicker in
their eyes; the tension in the thighs; the way they lick at their cracked
lips. The sex will cease to stimulate me
soon – the physical fascination between the players will cease to be sufficient
for me. I will be left with only the
erotic, emotional reaction to entice me.
I place the pen down on the
desk and stretch my cramped fingers. The
pages of my notebook are full of smooth, elegant script. Occasional lines are underscored for
emphasis; some have been scratched out.
My eyes follow the flow of detail with a concentrated fervour.
After all, it’s only a game,
isn’t it?