Bound by Lies (17 page)

“Say it,” Brayden prods. “Humor me. Spell it out. Please.” It’s barely a whisper and Jenner can see his breathing quicken with anticipation.

“Okay. I want to dominate you, to become your Master and have you consent to be my slave. It would be a formal agreement between us, with clearly defined rules for safety, different levels of protocol which would be used at my discretion, determined by your needs and the situation. But, I need your active participation and to feel like you
want
this. You should want to kiss me, without being commanded or expected to do so. You seem unable to give me that. I want to know why. If you don’t trust me, or desire me like that, then none of this is going to work.”

“It’s not you. Or just you. It’s who you
are
—the type of person that you are.”

“What type of person am I?” Jenner demands, starting to get defensive despite efforts to the contrary. It’s clear that Brayden can hear it in his voice. The pushier Jenner gets, the more Brayden shuts down. It only makes it harder for Brayden to voice his thoughts, but Jenner resents the burden of having to be nothing but calm and diplomatic when he’s in emotional chaos. Telling himself that he needs to trust, too, Jenner tries to put Brayden’s wellbeing before his own.

“You-you’re bigger than me. Stronger than me. Faster than me. And you’re one of
them
. One of those guys that always had everything they could ever want in high school and weren’t afraid to take it. I had
nothing
in high school. I still don’t.”

“High school? What the hell does this have to do with high school? That was years ago! We didn’t even know each other then.”

“It has everything to do with it,” Brayden says morosely, gripping the chair, avoiding eye contact. “I’ve been trying to understand what I want, but it gets mixed up in my head sometimes. With Andre there was some separation because he wasn’t part of that time in my life. I wasn’t ‘that poor Clare boy’ to him. I was just me. No labels. It was different than it is here. He didn’t expect me to act a certain way, it was about getting to know each other on our own terms. But he was also my friend first and that made it harder in a different way. It didn’t feel right. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Not anymore. I left him in Florida. Now there’s you. I do want you. Maybe I should have recognized it earlier. Like, as in
before
I had sex with you and let you… whatever. Yes, at first I just wanted you to use me. It wasn’t personal. I was just hard up, I guess. Looking for something it seemed you could give me.”

“But what does this have to do with
high school
?” Jenner demands.

Brayden gives a stony, unblinking stare. “Don’t pretend that you don’t see it, that you don’t hear what they all say about me. I’m not stupid, or blind, and you aren’t either, so can we stop acting like it doesn’t happen? The customers, the people in this fucking town, they respect you, without a second thought, because you’re Jenner Parrish, the quarterback, the golden boy. I’m still just that weird kid with the weird parents. Maybe I haven’t moved on as much as I thought I did, okay? That whole span of years was a nightmare. It was awful in every way—my family, school, my utter lack of friends. People talked about me, and what had happened. Called me names. They still do. They do it every day.”

Jenner tries not to let on, but his usual success at masking thoughts doesn’t seem to manifest, because a faint sneer curls Brayden’s lip after he glances Jenner’s way.

“You know all about it, don’t you?”

Jenner grits his teeth, yells inwardly at himself not to look away, not to even think about it. Brayden gets slowly upset, the pain washing out the fury for a moment as he owns it, accepts the weight of it all.

“They called me a cry baby because I was upset a lot. I was
upset
. My father died in the blink of an eye, when I was already feeling bad about him and my mom splitting up, before I could apologize or say goodbye and if that wasn’t enough, I was treated like I had the plague, by the whole fucking
school
. Then they’d talk about my mother, how she’d lost it, how she was crazy. Is it really such a shock that I was a virgin? Huh? Everyone avoided me! Everyone except….”

Jenner waits, but Brayden’s eyes lose focus. He falls silent. “Except who? Brayden, except who? What happened? Did someone….” Suspicions and glimpsed truths light Jenner’s murky confusion, clearing it away, replacing it with rage. Layers of memory, of supposed friends mocking Brayden, bullying him, echo in his mind. Jenner knows what bullying can lead to when things cross a line, when no one keeps things in check. People get hurt. People like
Brayden
get hurt. “Someone hurt you.”

“Are you kidding? My
life
was hurt.
Everything
hurt. It was just more of the same, until it wasn’t. I was bullied all of the time. I got used to it. But it… I don’t know. This one time, it was different. They thought it was all a joke. Pick on the little guy. You know. Happens in every school, everywhere. It just happened to be me, and it just happened to go too far.” He stops, dropping his gaze to his lap.

“Brayden,” Jenner coaxes. “Tell me. Now you have to tell me.”

“Three guys from the football team,” he blurts, speaking in short, stilted sentences. “Got me alone in the locker room. Pulled my shirt up over my head so I couldn’t see their faces. Wrestled me to the ground. One held my arms and another sat on my legs. They strung me out like that. The floor was really cold. Anyway, the biggest one, the one in charge… that was John. I recognized the voice. He was saying stuff like, ‘Maybe we should make sure he’s not just a faggot. Maybe he really is a girl.’ Then they pulled my pants and underwear down. He, uh, touched me. For a while. It didn’t hurt. It was pretty much the opposite of hurt. Then they got spooked by a sound, thought it was the janitor and took off. That’s it, except it screwed me up. A lot. I kept... I kept wishing they’d do it again.”

“John who?”

Brayden breathes out a jaded little laugh. Hair falls in front of his eyes as he bows his head. “Maybe I should have taken you up on that beer.”

“
John WHO?!
”

Out of the chair, fists balled up tightly, Jenner seethes.

“It’s all right,” Brayden tells him, too coolly, with too much resignation. “It’s not even about
John
. So what if they touched me and held me down? So what? All it did was help me learn some things about myself. Shit I tried to ignore until Miami… and Andre.”

“I will
find them
.”

Brayden gives him a moment, then says, “Now who’s stuck in high school? Don’t you get it? It wouldn’t help. What could you even do? Threaten some guy out of nowhere? Get the cops called on you? Start more people talking? I only told you so that you would know why. Why I can’t….” He rubs the heel of his hand into his eye socket and sighs. “I like you, Jenn. You’re a good guy. Problem is, I know what you’re capable of, and how much I’d let you do. I get off on being taken by force. It’s hard for me to accept that enough to willingly put myself in your hands, because if I start to care about you, I’ll never get better. Shouldn’t I be trying to get better? It’s not healthy to want to be made to obey like that, to like hurting just to hurt, to feel, to
belong
. I’ll just keep letting you make me do these, these
things,
and I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.”

“Let me help.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. I’ll figure it out.”

Brayden shakes his head. “You should be with someone who isn’t fucked in the head.”

“You’re not—” Jenner stops, forcing himself to calm down and try again. “I told you already. I care. I’ve… I want you. And I want to help. But you have to let me
try
.”

Now, Brayden does laugh, not bitterly but with real amusement. “We sound ridiculous.”

“I don’t care!” Jenner says, trying not to laugh with Brayden, because he’s right. They are ridiculous. Both of them. Completely. “God, I want to hurt them. I want to hurt them for scaring you a-and
touching
you. I’d rip them apart with my bare hands.”

Those guys, the ones who hurt Brayden, who scared him in a way that has echoed through years and years, making him question himself like he is—those are the same guys who were Jenner’s friends. They could be regulars at the bar. They could have been there that very night, watching Brayden from across the room, smiling to themselves at the memory of terrorizing him back in the high school locker room. It makes Jenner sick. All of it makes him sick.

Jenner knows he looks angry. He’s furious. Brayden just stares at him with something like awe, his small, near-constant, easygoing smile playing over his lips. “Wow. I don’t think anyone’s ever been this upset for me,
ever
. You do give a shit, don’t you?”

And, just like that, Jenner is on him. Pulling Brayden up out of the chair, Jenner holds him, but gently. Wrapping Brayden in his arms, Jenner feels Brayden’s instinct to fight and escape kick in. Brayden pulls back against the hold and Jenner simply keeps him in the embrace, his parted lips dragging over the silk of Brayden’s hair, the rich scent of him intoxicating.

“Let go,” Brayden asks, afraid. “Jenner, let go.”

“I promise not to hurt you. Stop means stop. Always. No matter what. Do you believe me?”

“I-I don’t… yes. Yeah, I believe you.”

“Do you trust me?”

Brayden pushes at him and twists, but Jenner keeps holding on.

“Do you
trust me
, Bray?”

Jenner leans back, searching for a glimpse of Brayden’s face. He presses a kiss to Brayden’s temple, then his cheek, then his mouth. Pale terror is all Jenner can see at first. But then the kiss reaches through that instinct. Brayden starts to kiss him back, very tentatively, feeding off of Jenner’s passion.

“No one hurts you anymore. No one. Please, trust me,” Jenner whispers over his lips. Their mouths seal together and Brayden drinks in the urged words. Slowly, Jenner starts to let him go, holding Brayden less tightly, but the kiss goes on.

When they break, Jenner sees the realization spark in Brayden’s eyes that he trusted without even being aware of deciding to.

“Thank you,” Jenner smiles.

Shaken and speechless, Brayden holds on to Jenner, drawing strength and reveling in the freely given, abundant affection. Jenner lets himself care, lets it show, and the more he does, the more Brayden is drawn in. That’s the key, Jenner realizes. They both need to conquer their fears, and take what, until now, they’ve been unable to take.

“What’s in the bag?”

In the dead of night, the two men walk down the sidewalks. They’re a few blocks from Brayden’s house. Jenner offered to walk him home and, after minimal protest, Brayden agreed. The decision really had nothing to do with whether or not Brayden wanted Jenner to accompany him home, but what other people might think. After thinking it over, Brayden concluded that with most of the town asleep, it’s probably the safest time for him to be strolling in public with a male lover. Less chance of being caught, and have people witnessing how happy it makes him to have Jenner, in all of his possessive glory, by his side.

Brayden lifts the bag an inch from where it hangs on his shoulder, his thumb hooked underneath the strap. “This? Nothing.”

“Liar.”

Seeing the smile in Jenner’s dark eyes, Brayden fights against a rising blush.

“Oh my god,” Jenner chuckles. “It’s your overnight bag?”

“Shut up,” Brayden scowls, self-consciously. “It’s a…you know…towel. Clean clothes. Toothbrush.”

“It is your overnight bag!”

“No! It’s just in case. Last time I went to your apartment I had to walk home with lube dripping down my inner thighs.”

“So you
were
expecting to get laid. Why didn’t you tell me sooner, like before we left?” He nudges Brayden’s side, smirking. After a moment of hesitation, Jenner reaches out and tucks the curtain of golden brown hair behind Brayden’s ear for a less obstructed view of his face. The tenderness in the gentle touch causes a riotous reaction in Brayden and results in an even deeper blush. It thrills and terrifies in equal measure that Jenner is driven to touch him like that, and Brayden’s nervous shyness grows. His tongue feels heavy and awkward in his mouth, making speech seem impossible. He starts to focus more on his feet so that he doesn’t trip and fall on his face.

“That explains the towel and clothes,” Jenner continues. “What about the toothbrush?”

“Um, so my breath doesn’t reek?”

“Trying to impress me. I like it. Or is it in case I tell you to suck me off and you have to go home to Nana with cock breath?”

“Holy shit, I can’t believe you just said that.”

Jenner chuckles wickedly. “Avoiding the question. I think that means yes.”

“It does
not
mean yes,” Brayden says, not meeting Jenner’s eyes.

“So it means no?”

Silence descends, filled by crickets and the soft footfalls of their steps on the concrete.

“Whatever,” Brayden mumbles.

“Well, next time you come over, I think I’ll have to make sure you have a reason to use that toothbrush.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“
You’re
ridiculous,” Jenner counters. “How do you even still have a tan? It’s been months. Do you really go to a tanning salon?”

“If I was still in Florida, I wouldn’t have to,” Brayden says in his own defense. “I could just lie out naked on my balcony like I used to.”

Feeling the full force of Jenner’s stare, Brayden pulls him out of the way just as Jenner almost walks right into a telephone pole. With a belly laugh, Brayden watches Jenner try to keep a closer eye on where he’s going. His dark, lust-filled eyes flick to the side every few seconds to watch for more poles.

Jenner finally retorts, “If you were still in Florida, you’d still be a virgin.”

“A tan, warm virgin.”

“Seems you’ve taken care of the tan thing. I can take care of the warm virgin thing.”

“Apparently.”

They walk a little further without more conversation. When Brayden chances a glance at his companion, he sees Jenner’s far-away look and chuckles.