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“You can handle weird stuff, right?”

There wasn’t much more in this one room apartment than a bed, and a couch, and the object tonight’s client had just handed him. No posters on the walls. No lived-in mess. No plants on the windowsill, probably cause there were no windowsills, just sun-bleached vertical blinds all the way from ceiling to floor. But then dicksucking didn’t take a great amount of space, nor much in the way of equipment.

It wasn’t an expensive or classy place—frankly it was a bit of a shit hole—but this was the university's backyard, so still a lot safer than some of the places he went for a job. The client was nervous, though, and not in any way his clients tended to be, and that made Josh wonder if maybe he ought to think about getting nervous himself.

“Depending how weird? Might cost a little extra.” Josh answered. Tone sincere but not demanding, comforting but not cloying, which really was a testament to his professionalism given he still didn’t really know what he was supposed to be comforting this guy about.

“That’s fine.” The cougar, Graham Faulkner according to his FLRT profile, did seem to take some comfort from that. In great shape, no immediate red flags, something oddly familiar about his face but then his up north clients all did tend to look vaguely alike. He’d been surprised to get the message, from here, shouldn’t students be on break still? Or was this what they called “summer semester?” And then he’d expected younger, this close to the college: it wouldn’t have been his first appointment with a student for whom it had finally sunk in that his parents couldn’t control him anymore, that he could actually find out who he was. But maybe “summer semester” students were different, cause this Faulkner guy was. Must be in his thirties, late thirties, if Josh was any judge of the way a man’s body aged, which he was. But still in great shape, though. “I’ve just been lonely,” Faulkner said, the same way a man starving to death might say that he supposed he could go for a snack if you were getting one.

“Guys don’t usually hire someone like me for just ‘lonely,’” Josh said, playfully to hide his caution. Guys usually came to him because they had a raccoon fetish—thanks for that seventies, porn cliches—“If you’re looking for a relationship-”

“No. No relationship! I don’t want a relationship, what I want,” Faulkner said, very firmly, “it needs to be not for me.”

Josh held himself back from asking what that was supposed to mean.

“If I was gonna date you, or date a guy, if a guy was gonna sleep with me, then it’d be because he felt sorry for me.”

“Okay, c’mon,” even Josh’s reserve had limits, “if a man says he’s sleeping with you cause he feels sorry for you, then he’s just a-”

“They wouldn’t say it!” Faulkner rolled his eyes, “They’d say, oh, you’re hot, or oh, you’re my type, or oh I have a thing for older guys and used to be a really big fan back when you were a big deal and it’s so unfair how they treated you. That’s what someone says if he was only gonna fuck me cause he feels sorry for me! That’s why it needs to be, you know. Someone like you.” The anger disappeared back into whatever lair it had poked its head out from to bare its teeth. “If you’re spending the night with me for money, then I know it’s not for pity. It’s concrete, and simple, and fucking obvious, and on my terms. You can feel sorry for me all you want but it’ll be nothing to do with why you’re fucking me!”

Josh fought the impulse to roll his eyes in return. Christ, why’d he always wind up playing therapist? “And what about,” he held up the object he’d been handed, “this?”

“Same deal,” Faulkner had hunched back in on himself, in the corner of the couch, again, but his voice had gone rigid and cold like mid-winter concrete. “If you’re calling all the shots, if it’s all stuff I’m being ordered to do, and if whether I want it isn’t a question you ever ask, then I know you’re not just telling me what you think I want to hear out of fucking pity. For tonight, you just say what you want and I obey. And I don’t have to guess about anything, cause I’m gonna guess wrong, and I don’t have to question anything, cause I’m not gonna like any of the answers. Then in the morning, I dunno, figure it out if it comes I guess. But right now all I want is to stop thinking about goddamn all of it.”

The collar in the raccoon’s hand wasn’t fancy or expensive. Cheap shiny leather, probably actually vinyl, probably ordered online.

“I’ll pay whatever your weird stuff fee is,” the cougar sounded sullen and desperate and faintly familiar in the way that all his clients tended to blur into, “and then you never have to see my face again. Just for tonight, I just want you to… own me. Please.”

Already begging, then.

“Well, get on your knees then,” Josh sat up a little straighter, “and get your clothes off, Slave.”

Wasn’t like he hadn’t done weirder shit for a paycheck.

•••

Usually Josh had no trouble falling asleep. It was a skill, long practiced out of necessity: just get whatever sleep you can, when you can, you never know how long before the next ride or meal ticket or chance to charge your phone’ll roll past. Or else before some asshole decides he gets to tell you to move on just cause someone wrote the word “security” on his shirt.

But tonight his mind was racing.

He’d expected, once he had a grasp on what was going on, that the client wanted a little slave-play, probly some minor bossing around, a touch or two of light humiliation before they fucked, and then he’d feel better and it’d be done. That was usually how it went with a client who needed a kink-itch scratched.

That wasn’t how it had gone.

He sighed, and felt Faulkner’s arms tighten on his chest momentarily.

“You’re not asleep either, huh.”

“...no, Master,” the cougar’s breath brushed through the fur on the back of his neck.

The way it was supposed to work was that the sub called the shots. That was what made playing dom so much harder than it looked, you had to give them the reins in a way where they still felt like you were the one holding them. It took thought, and patience, and effort, and those were all things Josh hated. Much better to just go in, suck a dick, maybe fuck an ass, maybe get fucked, maybe all three if the client had the stamina, get paid, say goodnight, and not have to come up with ideas for things to do!

If he’d liked homework, he’d say, he would’ve finished high school!

Which would’ve been a joke. There had been plenty of reasons not to finish high school, but his liking, or lack thereof, for homework had not been a factor.

Josh had started, once the collar had gone on Faulkner, by making him stand to be inspected. The cougar had been silent and rigidly compliant. The only part of him that seemed to even be aware he was naked—that a man was circling him slowly, was running soft paws over his muscles to test their size (impressive) and firmness (very), was lifting his chin as if to check for defects on his (still frustrating not-quite-familiar) face, was squeezing his asscheeks and balls as if testing a pear for ripeness—was his cock. To judge by any other part of him he might as well have been standing in line at the airport.

It didn’t take an experienced eye to see what was going on, though. This was an eager, excited cock, one desperate for whatever might be about to happen to get going already. And Josh’s eyes were very experienced.

He had taken his time with the inspection, because that gave him time to think of what the hell he was going to do next. Faulkner had remained still and uncomplainingly compliant all the while.

“Are you alright, Master?” the naked cougar, whose bed this was, whispered.

“Yeah,” Josh said, even though he had no idea if that was true. “I’m fine.”

“Well, you’ve got some idea what obeying means, I’ll say that.” Josh had said. “But let’s see, Slave, if you know what your tongue is for.”

“Yes Master,” Faulkner’s answer had been immediate, flat, and businesslike, as if Josh had asked whether he wanted to spend eight more cents for a reusable plastic grocery bag. But by the time he was done giving that answer, he was already back on his knees.

His eyes had locked on Josh’s crotch when the racoon pulled down his fly.

“Eyes up here, Slave.”

But their eyes met as easily and promptly as if the two of them had rehearsed this whole routine.

“So,” the racoon sneered disdainfully. “You’re gonna obey me, huh?”

“Yes Master,” the cougar answered without hesitation.

“You know what that makes you?”

“Your slave, Master, and your property.”

Damn, he was completely into this, immediately. “Am I gonna have to,” Josh flexed his neck, the way you’d see the badass in a kung fu movie do: that usually went over well with clients who wanted him rough and dominant, “break your will?”

“No, Master,” but Faulkner answered matter-of-factly, “my will is your property.”

Well there went most of the ideas Josh’d come up with.

“We’ll see about that,” Well, when all else fails, fall back on something you saw a porno do, “Keep those eyes open, Slave. I don’t want my property to have any illusions about who and what he is.”

“I obey, Master.”

“Mouth open, then,” it didn’t take much stroking for Josh to get himself fully hard, “and tongue out.”

The only reason Faulkner didn’t say ‘yes Master’ again was that he would’ve had to stop obeying to do that.

“So that means your face is mine.”

The cougar nodded.

“And that mouth,” Josh did his best to loom over the man kneeling before him, “that’s mine too.”

Faulkner nodded, and his nostrils flared. The raccoon’s cock and balls were mere inches from his nose, but he didn’t move.

“And your tongue,” the raccoon held up his cock by the tip, with just two fingers, “I own that too.”

Faulkner didn’t even tremble. He stayed obediently on his knees, submissively still, tongue out as if in eucharistic anticipation.

Josh slapped his cock down on Faulkner’s tongue with a solid thud. “So do I own your tongue, Slave? Answer.” He raised it into position again.

“My tongue is your property, Master,” Faulkner’s voice, for the first time since the collar had gone on, was anything but calm.

The cougar immediately offered his tongue again, of course, and Josh’s cockhead smacked right in the center of it. “Say it again.”

“My tongue is your property,” the cougar’s voice had a bottomless ache in it, “Master.”

The cock came down like a gavel, rested a moment, rose. “Again.”

“My tongue,” it was a hollow ache, but not hollow as a dead thing is hollow, hollow with a craving so fierce, so alive, so desperately hungry that you’d think it was about to break into tears, “is your property, Master.”

“That’s a good boy,” Josh left his cock cushioned on Faulkner’s outstretched tongue. “Your tongue is my cockrest. Get used to the idea.”

The tiniest moan escaped the cougar, through his nose.

“Say it!” Josh lifted his cock again.

“My tongue is your cockrest Master!” Faulkner’s voice was nakedly hungry now, and the relief in his posture the moment his cockrest of a tongue was put back to use was palpable.

“Damn,” Josh huffed: Faulkner’s arousal was contagious. He gripped the cougar’s head in one paw, squeezed his own cock in the other to grind the tip up and down the center of Faulkner’s tongue, as if he meant to sign his name in slick clear ink. “You really do understand what you are, Slave. I think that deserves a reward.”

Faulkner’s tongue endured, motionless and supportive. But the cougar moaned again.

“Go on, Slave,” Josh had laughed, “suck it as much as you want.”

He had wanted it very much, it turned out.

“Seriously now, why do you want this?” Josh murmured in the darkness.

The pause was long enough that he could feel Faulkner considering whether to reply with something like ‘I desire only to serve and obey, Master.’

“I don’t want you to consider,” he admitted instead, “what I want.”

Josh had spent a very satisfying half hour with Faulkner’s compliant mouth. Struggling the rest of the way out of his clothes without withdrawing his cock from the cougar’s muzzle wasn’t an easy trick, but he was after all a professional.

He’d ordered the cougar to join him in the shower, to wash him while he basked in the feeling of hot clean water running over his palm pads and between his fingers, and then brush his fur while he dried. By which time he was feeling recovered enough to lie back, spread his legs, and order his slave to suck him off again.

Every time, Faulkner had obeyed dutifully, eagerly, and immediately.

It was after midnight when Josh had finally called a halt. “I’m spent for tonight. I gotta get some sleep.”

“Of course Master,” Faulkner had knelt beside the bed.

“And you are planning to sleep,” the raccoon sighed, “where, exactly?”

“Wherever you order, Master.”

“So like, the couch? The floor?”

“If that’s what you say, Master.”

“What if I told you to sleep outside naked?” Josh clicked his tongue.

“I’d obey, Master.”

“Fuck’s sake,” the raccoon sighed thorugh his nose, because this was more than he would’ve wanted to deal with even if he hadn’t been worn out from four hours of sex. He groped for something to add to keep the fantasy going, “Ok: I order you to get in bed, and,” and sure, why not give himself a little treat too? Just on a whim, “and hold me.”

Faulkner had obeyed, but for the first time there’d been a moment of hesitation in his eyes.

“If you don’t want a guy who considers what you want,” Josh pulled gently but firmly away from Faulkner’s embrace, because they’d been over this already, “then maybe hiring sex workers isn’t the smartest move. ‘What you want’ is kinda the whole business.”

“No, I know, it’s not like,” the outline of Faulkner’s bulk, naked under the thin comforter, against the backlights of the window and the vertical blinds, shrank in on itself again, back to the way it had at the start of the evening. “Look. If we were doing what I want, because it’s what I want, then I couldn’t be… sure.”

“Sure of what?” Part of Josh was saying ignore it, just sleep, and in the morning you’ll walk away, debit card a little thicker, and none of it will be your problem ever again. “Sure you want to fuck a man? Sure you want to suck his dick? Sure you want this whole slave fetish?”

Faulkner seemed unable to reply.

“Is it gonna help if I order you to tell me?”

The cougar silhouette nodded.

“Answer the question: sure of what? That’s an order.”

“Sure that you want me.” Graham said quietly. “If we’re doing what I want, then maybe you’re only doing it to please me. To reassure me. Maybe you leave thinking, God, what a creep, he’s not even halfway hot enough to make the sick things he wanted worth it. But if you’re in charge, if everything is your orders that I have to obey, that I can’t say no, then everything you’re doing to me, I can be sure you want to do.”

“But,” Josh felt like he’d had the ending of the detective novel spoiled without having heard of the character who’d done it. “Earlier, you said that you could only do this because I was getting paid, that if I said I wanted it, you wouldn’t believe me. So which is it?”

“It’s both, or first one then the other, or I don’t know, I just,” Graham’s head disappeared from the outline against the window. Josh heard him press his face deep into the shared pillow. “I want to remember what it felt like to be wanted. Hell, what it felt like to think I was wanted. Not my fault there’s all this fucking baggage in the way.” The mattress springs, clearly unused to two, protested as his weight shifted. “Not your fault either. Look, I’ll pay you in full, you can go if you want, or stay if you want, but you don’t need to pretend-”

“Didn’t fuckin’ say I was pretending,” Josh grumbled, paused, then added, “did I, Slave?”

Faulkner was silent for a long moment. “No, Master.”

“It’s late, and I’m tired,” Josh huddled against the cougar’s chest, “and I told you to hold me.”

“...very well, Master.”

“And Slave?”

“Yes, Master?”

“Get some actual sleep.”

Faulkner obeyed.

•••

Josh was awakened by shafts of sunlight through the window, and the smell of coffee from the other end of the room.

There wasn’t much in the little kitchenette, but Faulkner had managed to assemble frozen waffles and imitation maple syrup. He was still wearing only the collar.

“You want me,” Josh laid a paw on it, “to take this off?” and Faulkner froze.

“...if Master wishes.” The cougar said, slowly.

The raccoon very carefully did not say anything along the lines of ‘but you want me to leave it on as long as possible, huh? Because once it’s off, then I’m out of here, and you’re back to being whatever it is you were yesterday, which means alone.’ He might not have had much education, but he was pretty sure he’d picked up how this game worked.

“Feed me breakfast, then.” He took a seat on the couch, since there was neither a table nor room for a table. “That’s an order. And gimme your phone.”

“I’m sorry, Master, I don’t think the cord is that long. It’s on the wall by the door.”

“No no, not a landline, your smartphone!”

“I don’t own one, Master.”

“Wha… then how did you-” Josh caught himself, rephrased. “How do you look up sex workers on hookup apps without a phone?”

The cougar’s eyes darted to the cheap particleboard bookshelves by the door, and the laptop on the middle shelf above the history textbooks.

Josh blinked. They made a version of FLRT for computers?

“Well, bring me something to write with, then.”

Faulkner obeyed.

By the time he’d finished breakfast—frozen waffles don’t take long to eat—he had his contact info on a notebook page, ready to leave on the arm of the couch. “I have to go, Slave.”

“I know, Master.”

“Then let me get this.” When his paws touched the collar, Graham’s landed atop his, and enveloped them.

“I really enjoyed this, Master. Being yours.”

“Yeah,” Josh almost chuckled, “I kinda noticed.”

The collar unfastened with a dull click.

“You can handle weird stuff, right?”

There wasn’t much more in this one room apartment than a bed, and a couch, and the object tonight’s client had just handed him. No posters on the walls. No lived-in mess. No plants on the windowsill, probably cause there were no windowsills, just sun-bleached vertical blinds all the way from ceiling to floor. But then dicksucking didn’t take a great amount of space, nor much in the way of equipment.

It wasn’t an expensive or classy place—frankly it was a bit of a shit hole—but this was the university's backyard, so still a lot safer than some of the places he went for a job. The client was nervous, though, and not in any way his clients tended to be, and that made Josh wonder if maybe he ought to think about getting nervous himself.

“Depending how weird? Might cost a little extra.” Josh answered. Tone sincere but not demanding, comforting but not cloying, which really was a testament to his professionalism given he still didn’t really know what he was supposed to be comforting this guy about.

“That’s fine.” The cougar, Graham Faulkner according to his FLRT profile, did seem to take some comfort from that. In great shape, no immediate red flags, something oddly familiar about his face but then his up north clients all did tend to look vaguely alike. He’d been surprised to get the message, from here, shouldn’t students be on break still? Or was this what they called “summer semester?” And then he’d expected younger, this close to the college: it wouldn’t have been his first appointment with a student for whom it had finally sunk in that his parents couldn’t control him anymore, that he could actually find out who he was. But maybe “summer semester” students were different, cause this Faulkner guy was. Must be in his thirties, late thirties, if Josh was any judge of the way a man’s body aged, which he was. But still in great shape, though. “I’ve just been lonely,” Faulkner said, the same way a man starving to death might say that he supposed he could go for a snack if you were getting one.

“Guys don’t usually hire someone like me for just ‘lonely,’” Josh said, playfully to hide his caution. Guys usually came to him because they had a raccoon fetish—thanks for that seventies, porn cliches—“If you’re looking for a relationship-”

“No. No relationship! I don’t want a relationship, what I want,” Faulkner said, very firmly, “it needs to be not for me.”

Josh held himself back from asking what that was supposed to mean.

“If I was gonna date you, or date a guy, if a guy was gonna sleep with me, then it’d be because he felt sorry for me.”

“Okay, c’mon,” even Josh’s reserve had limits, “if a man says he’s sleeping with you cause he feels sorry for you, then he’s just a-”

“They wouldn’t say it!” Faulkner rolled his eyes, “They’d say, oh, you’re hot, or oh, you’re my type, or oh I have a thing for older guys and used to be a really big fan back when you were a big deal and it’s so unfair how they treated you. That’s what someone says if he was only gonna fuck me cause he feels sorry for me! That’s why it needs to be, you know. Someone like you.” The anger disappeared back into whatever lair it had poked its head out from to bare its teeth. “If you’re spending the night with me for money, then I know it’s not for pity. It’s concrete, and simple, and fucking obvious, and on my terms. You can feel sorry for me all you want but it’ll be nothing to do with why you’re fucking me!”

Josh fought the impulse to roll his eyes in return. Christ, why’d he always wind up playing therapist? “And what about,” he held up the object he’d been handed, “this?”

“Same deal,” Faulkner had hunched back in on himself, in the corner of the couch, again, but his voice had gone rigid and cold like mid-winter concrete. “If you’re calling all the shots, if it’s all stuff I’m being ordered to do, and if whether I want it isn’t a question you ever ask, then I know you’re not just telling me what you think I want to hear out of fucking pity. For tonight, you just say what you want and I obey. And I don’t have to guess about anything, cause I’m gonna guess wrong, and I don’t have to question anything, cause I’m not gonna like any of the answers. Then in the morning, I dunno, figure it out if it comes I guess. But right now all I want is to stop thinking about goddamn all of it.”

The collar in the raccoon’s hand wasn’t fancy or expensive. Cheap shiny leather, probably actually vinyl, probably ordered online.

“I’ll pay whatever your weird stuff fee is,” the cougar sounded sullen and desperate and faintly familiar in the way that all his clients tended to blur into, “and then you never have to see my face again. Just for tonight, I just want you to… own me. Please.”

Already begging, then.

“Well, get on your knees then,” Josh sat up a little straighter, “and get your clothes off, Slave.”

Wasn’t like he hadn’t done weirder shit for a paycheck.

•••

Usually Josh had no trouble falling asleep. It was a skill, long practiced out of necessity: just get whatever sleep you can, when you can, you never know how long before the next ride or meal ticket or chance to charge your phone’ll roll past. Or else before some asshole decides he gets to tell you to move on just cause someone wrote the word “security” on his shirt.

But tonight his mind was racing.

He’d expected, once he had a grasp on what was going on, that the client wanted a little slave-play, probly some minor bossing around, a touch or two of light humiliation before they fucked, and then he’d feel better and it’d be done. That was usually how it went with a client who needed a kink-itch scratched.

That wasn’t how it had gone.

He sighed, and felt Faulkner’s arms tighten on his chest momentarily.

“You’re not asleep either, huh.”

“...no, Master,” the cougar’s breath brushed through the fur on the back of his neck.

The way it was supposed to work was that the sub called the shots. That was what made playing dom so much harder than it looked, you had to give them the reins in a way where they still felt like you were the one holding them. It took thought, and patience, and effort, and those were all things Josh hated. Much better to just go in, suck a dick, maybe fuck an ass, maybe get fucked, maybe all three if the client had the stamina, get paid, say goodnight, and not have to come up with ideas for things to do!

If he’d liked homework, he’d say, he would’ve finished high school!

Which would’ve been a joke. There had been plenty of reasons not to finish high school, but his liking, or lack thereof, for homework had not been a factor.

Josh had started, once the collar had gone on Faulkner, by making him stand to be inspected. The cougar had been silent and rigidly compliant. The only part of him that seemed to even be aware he was naked—that a man was circling him slowly, was running soft paws over his muscles to test their size (impressive) and firmness (very), was lifting his chin as if to check for defects on his (still frustrating not-quite-familiar) face, was squeezing his asscheeks and balls as if testing a pear for ripeness—was his cock. To judge by any other part of him he might as well have been standing in line at the airport.

It didn’t take an experienced eye to see what was going on, though. This was an eager, excited cock, one desperate for whatever might be about to happen to get going already. And Josh’s eyes were very experienced.

He had taken his time with the inspection, because that gave him time to think of what the hell he was going to do next. Faulkner had remained still and uncomplainingly compliant all the while.

“Are you alright, Master?” the naked cougar, whose bed this was, whispered.

“Yeah,” Josh said, even though he had no idea if that was true. “I’m fine.”

“Well, you’ve got some idea what obeying means, I’ll say that.” Josh had said. “But let’s see, Slave, if you know what your tongue is for.”

“Yes Master,” Faulkner’s answer had been immediate, flat, and businesslike, as if Josh had asked whether he wanted to spend eight more cents for a reusable plastic grocery bag. But by the time he was done giving that answer, he was already back on his knees.

His eyes had locked on Josh’s crotch when the racoon pulled down his fly.

“Eyes up here, Slave.”

But their eyes met as easily and promptly as if the two of them had rehearsed this whole routine.

“So,” the racoon sneered disdainfully. “You’re gonna obey me, huh?”

“Yes Master,” the cougar answered without hesitation.

“You know what that makes you?”

“Your slave, Master, and your property.”

Damn, he was completely into this, immediately. “Am I gonna have to,” Josh flexed his neck, the way you’d see the badass in a kung fu movie do: that usually went over well with clients who wanted him rough and dominant, “break your will?”

“No, Master,” but Faulkner answered matter-of-factly, “my will is your property.”

Well there went most of the ideas Josh’d come up with.

“We’ll see about that,” Well, when all else fails, fall back on something you saw a porno do, “Keep those eyes open, Slave. I don’t want my property to have any illusions about who and what he is.”

“I obey, Master.”

“Mouth open, then,” it didn’t take much stroking for Josh to get himself fully hard, “and tongue out.”

The only reason Faulkner didn’t say ‘yes Master’ again was that he would’ve had to stop obeying to do that.

“So that means your face is mine.”

The cougar nodded.

“And that mouth,” Josh did his best to loom over the man kneeling before him, “that’s mine too.”

Faulkner nodded, and his nostrils flared. The raccoon’s cock and balls were mere inches from his nose, but he didn’t move.

“And your tongue,” the raccoon held up his cock by the tip, with just two fingers, “I own that too.”

Faulkner didn’t even tremble. He stayed obediently on his knees, submissively still, tongue out as if in eucharistic anticipation.

Josh slapped his cock down on Faulkner’s tongue with a solid thud. “So do I own your tongue, Slave? Answer.” He raised it into position again.

“My tongue is your property, Master,” Faulkner’s voice, for the first time since the collar had gone on, was anything but calm.

The cougar immediately offered his tongue again, of course, and Josh’s cockhead smacked right in the center of it. “Say it again.”

“My tongue is your property,” the cougar’s voice had a bottomless ache in it, “Master.”

The cock came down like a gavel, rested a moment, rose. “Again.”

“My tongue,” it was a hollow ache, but not hollow as a dead thing is hollow, hollow with a craving so fierce, so alive, so desperately hungry that you’d think it was about to break into tears, “is your property, Master.”

“That’s a good boy,” Josh left his cock cushioned on Faulkner’s outstretched tongue. “Your tongue is my cockrest. Get used to the idea.”

The tiniest moan escaped the cougar, through his nose.

“Say it!” Josh lifted his cock again.

“My tongue is your cockrest Master!” Faulkner’s voice was nakedly hungry now, and the relief in his posture the moment his cockrest of a tongue was put back to use was palpable.

“Damn,” Josh huffed: Faulkner’s arousal was contagious. He gripped the cougar’s head in one paw, squeezed his own cock in the other to grind the tip up and down the center of Faulkner’s tongue, as if he meant to sign his name in slick clear ink. “You really do understand what you are, Slave. I think that deserves a reward.”

Faulkner’s tongue endured, motionless and supportive. But the cougar moaned again.

“Go on, Slave,” Josh had laughed, “suck it as much as you want.”

He had wanted it very much, it turned out.

“Seriously now, why do you want this?” Josh murmured in the darkness.

The pause was long enough that he could feel Faulkner considering whether to reply with something like ‘I desire only to serve and obey, Master.’

“I don’t want you to consider,” he admitted instead, “what I want.”

Josh had spent a very satisfying half hour with Faulkner’s compliant mouth. Struggling the rest of the way out of his clothes without withdrawing his cock from the cougar’s muzzle wasn’t an easy trick, but he was after all a professional.

He’d ordered the cougar to join him in the shower, to wash him while he basked in the feeling of hot clean water running over his palm pads and between his fingers, and then brush his fur while he dried. By which time he was feeling recovered enough to lie back, spread his legs, and order his slave to suck him off again.

Every time, Faulkner had obeyed dutifully, eagerly, and immediately.

It was after midnight when Josh had finally called a halt. “I’m spent for tonight. I gotta get some sleep.”

“Of course Master,” Faulkner had knelt beside the bed.

“And you are planning to sleep,” the raccoon sighed, “where, exactly?”

“Wherever you order, Master.”

“So like, the couch? The floor?”

“If that’s what you say, Master.”

“What if I told you to sleep outside naked?” Josh clicked his tongue.

“I’d obey, Master.”

“Fuck’s sake,” the raccoon sighed thorugh his nose, because this was more than he would’ve wanted to deal with even if he hadn’t been worn out from four hours of sex. He groped for something to add to keep the fantasy going, “Ok: I order you to get in bed, and,” and sure, why not give himself a little treat too? Just on a whim, “and hold me.”

Faulkner had obeyed, but for the first time there’d been a moment of hesitation in his eyes.

“If you don’t want a guy who considers what you want,” Josh pulled gently but firmly away from Faulkner’s embrace, because they’d been over this already, “then maybe hiring sex workers isn’t the smartest move. ‘What you want’ is kinda the whole business.”

“No, I know, it’s not like,” the outline of Faulkner’s bulk, naked under the thin comforter, against the backlights of the window and the vertical blinds, shrank in on itself again, back to the way it had at the start of the evening. “Look. If we were doing what I want, because it’s what I want, then I couldn’t be… sure.”

“Sure of what?” Part of Josh was saying ignore it, just sleep, and in the morning you’ll walk away, debit card a little thicker, and none of it will be your problem ever again. “Sure you want to fuck a man? Sure you want to suck his dick? Sure you want this whole slave fetish?”

Faulkner seemed unable to reply.

“Is it gonna help if I order you to tell me?”

The cougar silhouette nodded.

“Answer the question: sure of what? That’s an order.”

“Sure that you want me.” Graham said quietly. “If we’re doing what I want, then maybe you’re only doing it to please me. To reassure me. Maybe you leave thinking, God, what a creep, he’s not even halfway hot enough to make the sick things he wanted worth it. But if you’re in charge, if everything is your orders that I have to obey, that I can’t say no, then everything you’re doing to me, I can be sure you want to do.”

“But,” Josh felt like he’d had the ending of the detective novel spoiled without having heard of the character who’d done it. “Earlier, you said that you could only do this because I was getting paid, that if I said I wanted it, you wouldn’t believe me. So which is it?”

“It’s both, or first one then the other, or I don’t know, I just,” Graham’s head disappeared from the outline against the window. Josh heard him press his face deep into the shared pillow. “I want to remember what it felt like to be wanted. Hell, what it felt like to think I was wanted. Not my fault there’s all this fucking baggage in the way.” The mattress springs, clearly unused to two, protested as his weight shifted. “Not your fault either. Look, I’ll pay you in full, you can go if you want, or stay if you want, but you don’t need to pretend-”

“Didn’t fuckin’ say I was pretending,” Josh grumbled, paused, then added, “did I, Slave?”

Faulkner was silent for a long moment. “No, Master.”

“It’s late, and I’m tired,” Josh huddled against the cougar’s chest, “and I told you to hold me.”

“...very well, Master.”

“And Slave?”

“Yes, Master?”

“Get some actual sleep.”

Faulkner obeyed.

•••

Josh was awakened by shafts of sunlight through the window, and the smell of coffee from the other end of the room.

There wasn’t much in the little kitchenette, but Faulkner had managed to assemble frozen waffles and imitation maple syrup. He was still wearing only the collar.

“You want me,” Josh laid a paw on it, “to take this off?” and Faulkner froze.

“...if Master wishes.” The cougar said, slowly.

The raccoon very carefully did not say anything along the lines of ‘but you want me to leave it on as long as possible, huh? Because once it’s off, then I’m out of here, and you’re back to being whatever it is you were yesterday, which means alone.’ He might not have had much education, but he was pretty sure he’d picked up how this game worked.

“Feed me breakfast, then.” He took a seat on the couch, since there was neither a table nor room for a table. “That’s an order. And gimme your phone.”

“I’m sorry, Master, I don’t think the cord is that long. It’s on the wall by the door.”

“No no, not a landline, your smartphone!”

“I don’t own one, Master.”

“Wha… then how did you-” Josh caught himself, rephrased. “How do you look up sex workers on hookup apps without a phone?”

The cougar’s eyes darted to the cheap particleboard bookshelves by the door, and the laptop on the middle shelf above the history textbooks.

Josh blinked. They made a version of FLRT for computers?

“Well, bring me something to write with, then.”

Faulkner obeyed.

By the time he’d finished breakfast—frozen waffles don’t take long to eat—he had his contact info on a notebook page, ready to leave on the arm of the couch. “I have to go, Slave.”

“I know, Master.”

“Then let me get this.” When his paws touched the collar, Graham’s landed atop his, and enveloped them.

“I really enjoyed this, Master. Being yours.”

“Yeah,” Josh almost chuckled, “I kinda noticed.”

The collar unfastened with a dull click.

“So you came back for another taste?” Josh was already smirking as the apartment door opened.

“You’re the one who’s back,” Faulkner grunted. “I didn’t go anywhere.”

Josh resisted the urge to say that that was the problem.

“So,” the big cougar scratched the back of his neck as an excuse to look away as Josh walked in. “Do you have any, like, regular customer fees or anything?”

“You’re asking if I’m gonna charge you more,” Josh raised an eyebrow, “for being steady, reliable work?”

And now it was Faulkner who didn’t answer.

“If ‘regular customer’ is something we’re talking about, though,” the raccoon slumped on the couch as if he didn’t know how to merely sit, only how to lounge seductively, “then we oughta talk over a thing or two.”

“I won’t ask for anything for free,” Faulkner shrunk into his shoulders a little, “I wouldn’t do that to-”

“Not what I meant,” best to cut that topic off before it went places no topic should. “I mean like: what’re your limits?”

“If you’re asking how much I can afford, I’m not running out any-”

“No, I mean,” though Josh filed that detail away for later, “what kinda stuff’s off the table?”

Faulkner looked very confused.

Josh sighed deeply. “You’ve never had any kind of kink relationship before, have you?”

The cougar shook his head.

The raccoon took a moment to be silently grateful for the words ‘afford’ and ‘won’t run out.’ “Okay,” he said, “before we start, I need to know what kinds of things I can and can’t make you do. Like, if I stop in the middle of things go ‘hey, is it gonna be a turn off if I suddenly order you to lick my feet?’ it’s gonna bring the mood to a halt, right?”

“Oh, I get it,” Faulkner said. “It’s all fine. Just, like, don’t stop. Just go ahead and order me, you know?”

“No, ok, but,” Josh seethed. He shouldn’t have to explain this, this wasn’t his job, but then, not just money, a bed for the night. And breakfast in the morning. Fine. Okay. “Suppose you were allergic to something. Ketchup or something. And then I go and order you to eat a burger that has ketchup on it, cause I don’t know you’ve got an allergy! What then?”

“No really, I do get it,” Faulkner insisted. “I’m saying nothing’s off the table. I don’t want to have any choice about what I have to do.”

“Dude, that maybe works for a dom who knows you, really well,” Josh insisted, “but I don’t! Just think, for just a sec! If something happens to you because you wanted to be too hardcore to tell me what your boundaries are, if an ambulance or for fuck’s sake the cops have to show up, then what happens to me, huh?”

The cougar’s eyes went wide.

“Look, I won’t pretend I don’t need the work,” the raccoon sighed, “but I swear, if you’re not gonna take this serious I will turn my ass around, walk out, and tell every other escort I know never to touch you.”

“Ok, ok, I get it! Jeez.” Faulkner beat a tactical retreat. “I don’t care what you make me do, alright? I just care that you’re making me do it. So just stick to things you want to do. You just satisfy yourself, and don’t do anything dangerous, and if I don’t do anything but fuckin feed you grapes and kiss your balls, then ok! But if you own me, then you own me. That’s what I’m signing up for.”

“Please tell me you at least have a safeword.”

Faulkner rolled his eyes.

Josh took a deep breath, but by the time he’d finished it he knew what to do. “Whatever, man. Get those clothes off so I can collar you, cause at least then you won’t argue so damn much.”

Graham muttered something that might’ve been ‘finally’ and might’ve been ‘fine with me’ but it was hard to tell through the shirt coming over his head.

“Well,” Josh stepped back from the naked cougar on his knees, “you’ve been obstinate, Slave. And defiant.”

Graham looked shocked. “Master, I-”

“Silence!” Josh draped himself on the couch. “You need to be taught a lesson. You will remain in that spot for half an hour. Keep your hands behind your back. You will not touch me, or yourself. At the end of that time you’ll have a safeword to tell your Master, and you’ll apologize for being stubborn and defiant.”

The cougar’s mouth tightened.

“A slave shouldn’t be stubborn or defiant, should he?” Josh made himself comfortable. “Answer.”

“...no Master.”

“When your master tells you what kind of obedience he wants, what should a slave do?”

“...obey, Master.”

“That’s right, Slave. Now you sit there and think about that, and then we’ll see if you’ve figured out how to obey.” Josh pulled the phone and charger from his hoodie pocket, plugged it into the outlet over his shoulder. “And then if I decide you’ve learned your lesson we’ll see about that ‘feeding me grapes and kissing my balls’ idea.”

• ••

“Have you learned your lesson, Slave?”

“Yes, Master.”

Josh had piled his clothes atop his beat-up backpack, by the door, and taken the opportunity for a shower. Apart from the professional standards he hated feeling dirty, like there was oil and grit between his fingers and under his claws. “So the next time your owner tells you how to conduct yourself, what will you do?”

“I will obey, Master.”

Faulkner had remained at the edge of the kitchenette linoleum, motionless.

His pleading erection certainly looked like it hadn’t been touched.

“Now,” Josh stood naked and freshly showered, arms crossed, one foot a little to the side to show off his calves and thighs to their best advantage. He was proud, at least, of the ability to make a man look at him the way he wanted. “What were you to do?”

“I am deeply sorry for being stubborn and defiant, Master,” Faulkner said, as if in trance.

“And?”

Graham sighed through his nose. “I request, Master, that my safeword be “InsideScorez.”

“Granted,” something about that word prodded Josh’s memory, but now wasn’t the time, “Punishment’s done, Slave, you may kiss your owner’s feet.”

Faulkner turned out not to have any grapes in the apartment. Josh decided he’d had enough punishment, though. The cougar slave wasn’t the only one with a pretty damn urgent erection, and while there was probably a way he could punish Faulkner and have his dick sucked at the same time, Josh didn’t feel like trying to come up with it tonight.

• ••

“Master?”

For half a second, Josh had no memory where he’d just woken up and whose arms he was in.

“Master are you alright?”

But he recognized the smell of Graham’s fur, and all his locked up muscles relaxed, and he lay limp and damp-faced in the cougar’s arms till he had his breath back.

“Do you need a doctor, Master?”

“I’m fine,” Josh turned to press his face into Graham’s chest. “Just a dream.”

“How can I-”

“Just hold me.”

“Yes sir,” Graham already was, but he held tighter. “Isn’t there anything-”

“Just hold me!” Josh growled into Graham’s dense chestfur.

God, this was so fucking unprofessional. Josh dragged himself back under control as quickly as possible. “Alright, slave,” his voice was still a little raw and unsteady, but the best way to get back in control was to act like he was in control. “Since I guess we’re awake now, you might as well get back to work.” Shit, doing what? “Suck my cock. I want to feel myself getting hard in your mouth.”

It was impossible to read Faulkner’s face, in the darkness. But from the length of the pause before Josh heard the words “I obey, Master,” and felt lips and tongue surround his rehardening shaft, he had to assume it wasn’t the expression of a man whose escort for the evening had just gotten away with covering up their nightmare.

• ••

“You can ask a question, you know,” Josh explained once Faulkner’s neck was collarless in the morning again.

“I dunno,” the cougar towered over him again, once he rose off his knees. “It doesn’t feel appropriate.”

“Ok, again: if you need to say something, use the safeword!”

“It wasn’t about me,” Faulkner interrupted. “You went nowhere near too far for me.”

Josh finished bundling last night’s change of clothing into his beat-up backpack. According to his phone he didn’t have another appointment lined up till the afternoon, so there ought to be time to hit a laundromat. Assuming he didn’t waste time here.

“Well what was it then?” If it occurred to him that he could just leave, for some reason he didn’t act on that insight. “You’ve been pensive as hell ever since I woke up.”

Graham placed a wide paw on each of Josh’s shoulders. “Are you alright?”

Josh gently shrugged one of them off. “I can take care of myself, Faulkner. Been doing it long enough, no reason to stop now.”

“You were whimpering in your sleep-”

“You worry about you, ok?” Josh frowned. “If you’re hiring me to fuck your kinks out more than once, then you’re carrying more’n I am. What if I started asking if you were alright?”

Faulkner took an involuntary tenth of a step backward. “...I need to get to class.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Josh, his hand on the doorknob.

“It looked like you liked being punished.”

Graham had, when Josh had arrived for the night, insisted on ordering food. While Josh wouldn’t usually object to fried chicken, it set off warning lights that this man was clearly ignoring his demand that he only worry about himself.

Fried chicken was worth quashing them, though.

“Well, it’s part of the kink, you know?” Graham took another bite, apparently to give him time to mull over whether he had anything more to say. “If a guy is into slave stuff, he likes getting disciplined, right?”

“Nowhere near as often as you think,” Josh thoughts went to that nightmare twink of a whitetail stag, down in bayou country at the other end of a migratory bus ticket, who’d demanded and paid for three hours of ‘torment’ and then complained it hadn’t been enough. “Some guys want to be punished so much they’ll deliberately disobey to goad the dom into ‘breaking’ their spirit, but some guys’ll have a panic attack,” and his thoughts slid a couple counties west of that to the sheepdog in the refinery-shadowed suburbs who really only wanted to to hear the words ‘well done,’ “just from thinking the dom might be disappointed.”

This was, apparently, news to Faulkner. “Well that’s different. See, there was this one, uh, video. I saw it online.”

“I’m the sex worker you keep hiring, Faulkner, you can say “porno.”

“Right, yeah. But in this one the otter’s getting whipped by the lion, and the lion’s like ‘What did you do to deserve this?’ and the otter’s like ‘Nothing, Master!’” Graham’s ears were reddening at the memory of this video. “And the lion is like ‘That’s right! You get punished just because Master decides to punish you! Master doesn’t need a reason!’ and then the otter, uh…” Graham’s paws traced an illustrative gesture through the air in front of him. “It was hot.”

“You watched a lot of ‘videos’ on that subject, huh?”

Faulkner froze like he’d been slapped.

“It sounds,” Josh crumpled up the foiled paper wrapper, realized he didn’t know where the trash can was here, and so just kept it in his left paw, “like you’re one of the ones who wants it.”

“I… think so. Yeah.”

“Well, I’m not into torturing you,” Josh began, “but I’m inventive. And if I’m gonna own you again-”

“Oh fuck yes.”

“-then I should think of something.”

• ••

“You’re a pathetic crawling sniveling creature,” Josh snarled.

“As you say, Master,” Faulkner replied, placidly.

Josh crossed out the word ‘insults’ in the little notebook.

• ••

“Are you ready to be let out, slave?”

“Whatever you decide, Master.” Faulkner’s wrists and ankles had been bound with spare belts, from the closet, because Josh knew how to improvise without proper gear.

But the big cougar was still just calm.

Josh crossed out the word ‘restraints.’

• ••

“Well?” Josh reached past the curtain and turned off the knob. “Had enough?”

“Honestly, I’m alright Master,” Faulkner admitted, “I already take a cold shower every morning anyway.”

Josh crossed out ‘cold shower.’ At least it was convenient that Faulkner had so many spare notebooks lying around.

• ••

“Ok, you’re gonna do the dishes naked.”

“Uh, there aren’t any dirty dishes, Master.”

Shit, right, takeout fried chicken, “Is there,” what about… “laundry?”

“I’m sorry Master, I’d have to take it around the block.”

“...vacuuming?”

“I did yesterday, Master, but if that’s what you command?”

“Not even, just,” Josh tried, even though a cursory look around could see it was in vain, “picking up?”

Faulkner was, apparently, very particular about things being in their proper places.

Josh crossed out ‘Naked house chores.’

• ••

“Ok, howbout,” Josh rubbed the bridge of his nose, “instead of me trying to guess, can you just tell me how I should punish you?”

“You don’t have to, Master. I can just obey.”

But that was less than nothing, Josh thought to himself. If this man’d hired him a second, not to mention a third, time, there had to’ve been a reason. Something he’d done that made the slave fantasy click and open up in a way that just telling a guy ‘undress and kneel’ wouldn’t: any escort could do that. Graham hadn’t wanted any escort, he’d wanted him. Why?

Graham was still just naked, on his knees, looking perfectly unbothered. That was the trick, wasn’t it? It wasn’t enough for him to feel submissive, he had to be made to feel vulnerable.

He must’ve done that somehow, the first night… Oh wait, yeah! “What if I just ordered you to tell me how to punish you?”

Graham’s eyes widened a little. “I don’t know what I would say, Master.”

That’s right, he’d had to be ordered to explain what he wanted, why he wanted it. And he was very hesitant to talk about himself, wasn’t he.

“Alright Slave,” well, might as well try. “You’re going to start worshiping my balls and cock with your mouth. We’ll see if you’re good enough at it, if you’re worthy. But every time I find you lacking, you’re going to have to answer a question.”

“I don’t understand, Master.”

“Oh, talking back instead of obeying?” Josh put a little aggression in his voice. “That’s question one: what’re you taking classes for? Answer.”

All Graham’s muscles tensed, just a little. “Uh, history. Master.”

“Now see, that wasn’t so hard?” Josh leaned back and relaxed on the couch. “It’ll get harder. Disappoint your master, and you’ll have to surrender all your secrets, one by one. No more getting to pretend the everyday version of you isn’t my slave too. I’ll know you front to back. You’ll be mine, front to back. You understand, slave?”

Graham nodded slowly. His eyes were wide and startled, his erection was trembling and leaking.

Josh spread his legs. “Then get to work.”

To his credit, Graham only hesitated a moment before he wrapped his mouth around the raccoon’s shaft. He was hungry, and tender, and moaning tentatively, like this was all some precariously balanced glass sculpture that a careless touch would bring crashing down.

It took longer than Josh had expected for any excuse to come up.

“Is that the best you can do with your tongue?” he, eventually, let a little bullying slip into his tone. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you to curl the tip when you pull back?”

Graham spent half a second, completely still, with a baffled look on his face and Josh’s dick hanging from the side of his mouth like a movie gangster’s cigarette before he realized what the raccoon was doing, and pulled back to settle on his knees. “I’m sorry, Master.”

“I don’t need sorry,” Josh smirked, “I need obedience. And you need punishment!”

Graham’s fists clenched over his knees, but his erection jumped.

“Tell me: what’re you doing going to classes? You’re older than some college kid, hell, you’re older than I am.”

“I,” The cougar lowered his head. His eyes went off to one side. “I didn’t get a chance to finish, Master. I was in college, when I was younger. Planned to major in history, but I got pulled out. So now that I actually can, I’m sure as hell gonna finish! Uh, Master.”

Interesting, that just raised more questions. Which was good, Josh would need those. “Very well, Slave. Back to work.”

The cougar’s tongue went right to the raccoon’s balls. Josh lay back, relaxed and let him enjoy it, because he was busy thinking. He got pulled out? Why? And by who? Clearly somebody he resented, if he was going back to college out of, uh, spite, it sounded like?

It was difficult to plan. Graham’s tongue was very distracting.

Josh felt a wet touch on his thigh, where his cock, formerly flopped across his slave’s—no, client’s! Don’t forget!—muzzle, had lain against his thigh.

“You let a drop of pre get on my fur, slave!” he pointed imperiously, “Lick it up!”

Graham obeyed, eagerly.

“Just look at how much you made me leak, it’d probly get everywhere,” Josh sneered. “Present my cockrest.”

The cougar’s tongue was ready before another drop could fall.

“Good boy,” Josh let a few more drops flow down his tip, let the taste soak into the cockrest, let Graham struggle with it for a moment. “You remember whose cockrest your tongue is. But you still need to be punished for getting pre on my fur.” He wiped his tip down Graham’s tongue and nudged the cougar back into kneeling with one foot. “What d’you mean, you got pulled out? Why?”

Graham panted a little before he could compose himself. “I was an athlete. Started in high school, baseball, was winning championships by college. It’s what I’d been, I mean, my parents had been steering me into sports all my life.”

“Wouldn’t that mean they wanted you in college, though?”

“They did, at first.” Graham had slipped seamlessly out of the subservient voice, for all that he was still naked, on his knees, and ragingly erect. “But I got scouted by a pro team. Just the minor leagues, but still. Usually they wait till after you graduate, but apparently the only point to college was to get me on some manager’s radar, and once that’d happened it was done. Never asked if I wanted...” He petered out. “Is that enough, Master?”

“That’s good for now.”

The cougar’s muzzle went back to work. He clearly hadn’t had as much practice as Josh: who had? But he was very enthusiastic.

• ••

Josh stared at the ceiling. There was only just enough light, through the blinds, to make it visible, but it was shocking how quickly the ceiling of Graham’s apartment had begun to feel familiar.

What the hell was he doing?

You weren’t supposed to let feelings get involved, or to get attached. That got dangerous. That was a recipe for heartbreak, at best. That could end badly, in ways that upended your entire life. And it would have to end, anyway, when the season turned and you took your yearly bus south to where a night outdoors wouldn’t be fatal. At least till he came back here where the late summer asphalt wouldn’t burn a bare pawpad. Assuming Faulkner was even still here.

But damned if falling asleep in Graham’s arms every night wasn’t soothing an appetite he’d been genuinely shocked to discover he still possessed. This, whatever this was, it gave him something different than he got from his other clients. So maybe it was alright to treat it differently. Just for now.

Graham didn’t break out of the role once he’d cum.

He stayed attentive, obedient, subservient. Not groveling, never groveling, but it was still like the only thing in the world he cared about was doing whatever Josh told him.

It was shocking how quickly he’d gotten used to a man still being interested in him post-orgasm. If only he didn’t have to maintain this ‘master’ routine.

And it was shocking how easy it was, even with worries such as these, to fall asleep in Graham’s arms.

Josh took a moment, once Graham was collared and undressing, to look around.

On the kitchenette counter, still in the plastic Pick’nSave bag, sat bunches of grapes. Green and purple.

Graham looked up at him, from his knees, his face an impassive mask, his whiskers not even twitching. His tail flicked once, just a whisper of movement.

The apartment was silent, save for a low, soft, grinding sound, barely audible above the hum of the ceiling fan. Was he -

Josh turned to examine the grapes once more. The noise got louder.

Yep. That was a purr.

Graham was purring.

“If you can afford me, night after night,” Josh asked, sternly, “how come you’re living in a one-room shit hole like this?”

Instead of going straight to the sexual submission, tonight he’d ordered Graham to undress him, and then follow him to the bathroom to scrub him thoroughly. The shower in this place had been very obviously not intended to fit any more than one person, if that.

“I said, Master,” Graham’s ear flicked, “that I’ve got plenty of-”

“That’s not what I asked,” Josh frowned, “and that disobedience is gonna get you another question’s-worth of punishment.”

“I’m sorry, Master.” Graham’s mouth apologized, but Josh could clearly feel a more honest bit of him hardening against his lower back.

Now he was lying face down and naked on the couch. Graham had been ordered to rub his back: if the man was apparently a former pro athlete, he ought to have at least some idea what a massage was supposed to be.

The cougar leaned back and sighed. “It seems stupid, I know, Master-”

“Hey,” Josh interrupted, “I didn’t say stop.”

“It seems stupid, I know,” Graham resumed, “Master. I don’t really know what I was thinking at the time. I maybe wasn’t thinking at all, I just, I’d just signed up for classes, and this was the first place listed under ‘student housing. I just,” he lapsed into silence, as if his mouth had reached for the next word and found nothing there. “I just went with it, sir. Like I said, I wasn’t really thinking, those days. And since then, I don’t know, Master, I just never had any reason to change it.”

“Like ‘not wanting to live in a shit hole?’”

“I guess that never occurred to me, Master.”

“You know what else hasn’t occurred to you?” Josh needed this to no longer be what they were talking about, “Your master’s needs.” He shifted, pulled forward under Graham, and lifted his tail—he took a great deal of professional pride in how alluring he could make that gesture, even on top of a lot of guys having a thing for raccoon tails—thanks again for that, porn cliches from the seventies.

He heard Graham gulp, and felt him, rock-hard and inadvertently lying between his cheeks, pulse.

“You know what to do with this, Slave,” Josh teased, cause Graham hadn’t hesitated last time, what was the problem now? “or do you need precise orders?”

“It seems above my place, sir.” Though it felt he wouldn’t need much persuading.

“Pft,” Josh scoffed. “You’ve got a beautiful cock, Slave, and it belongs to me and I’ll use it as I please. Understood?”

“Yes Master.”

“Then fuck me with it!”

“Yeah, I’m available,” Josh read the message he was sending aloud, as he typed it. “For the right guy, if you know what I mean. Question is whether that’s you.”

You might think saying something like that would make a client jealous. But given the little involuntary moan Faulkner strangled by sucking harder, for about the length of a heartbeat, it sounded like the idea appealed to him.

Josh had one leg over Faulkner’s shoulder, which was large and wide enough that his heel dangled comfortably against the cougar’s upper back. He’d explained that, well, he had a job to do, and if Faulkner was his slave, then he had every right to use Faulkner to help with that.

“Yes Master,” the cougar’s reply had been breathy and hushed, as if to avoid spooking a frightened animal.

So while he scrolled through FLRT’s(frankly pretty pitiful) listings this evening, he used Faulkner’s tongue as a cockrest, and when it was time to contact one he had him start sucking “for inspiration.”

He wasn’t gonna tell these prospective clients what he was doing while messaging them—unless they were into that—but he made sure Faulkner heard every word.

Josh woke, most of the way to panic, because he didn’t know where he was or where…

…and then muscular arms around him tightened, pulled him closer and tighter.

That’s right. Faulkner.

The cougar hadn’t entirely woken up, he’d apparently just clutched tighter out of pure reflex, but Josh was grateful. The less this guy saw of him, well, like this, the better. The less likely he’d start to get attached.

The raccoon himself of course knew better than to get attached. He was a professional.

But…

It wouldn’t do any harm to enjoy the fantasy a little, while this big fucker was asleep. He settled back against Graham’s chest, the way someone might huddle under a truck stop awning off the interstate, or alongside the vending machine in the corner of a greyhound station.

Within a few minutes he was asleep again.

“Master, are you all right?”

Josh lifted his head from the back of the couch. “What?”

“You seem tired, Master. Is there anything I can do?”

Was there?

Josh would admit to having had a long and frustrating day. A morning client had canceled on him, so he’d headed for the library downtown: free wifi and a place to sit inside while he waited, after all. But some snivelling, snot-nosed, couch-fucker of a pony had stomped up to the front desk, and started making a big scene about how “Um, excuse me, but how were Honest Upstanding Citizens supposed to feel safe if Dangerous Loiterers were allowed to Stalk the library? Didn’t they know that Families came here? With Children?” It hadn’t been necessary to ask who he was talking about. And by the time he’d gotten to “No wonder the country was falling apart, if they couldn’t be bothered to clean up trash like that, this is why public libraries needed to be defunded,” Josh had already collected his things and slunk quietly out the other exit.

No doubt the library would’ve been on his side. Probably. They woulda kicked this guy out, banned him too. Probably. But that was probably what he wanted, some story of how he had been silenced and blah blah blah as it always went.

Wasn’t worth the trouble when there were other places Josh could go.

“Just gimme a minute, I’ve been on my feet all day.”

“Do you need some water, Sir? Have you eaten?”

He’d gone for a coffee place next. He’d have to buy something, but Graham had been paying him well, he could get away with that. And once he’d had the cup, he could stay in the back as long as he needed, which wouldn’t have to be that long. Some convention guy, a lemur, was supposed to be around—no idea what business he was in, but whatever it was they had conventions in town, in the summer, and every time Josh got asked to visit his hotel suite. He could use the opportunity to get a shower before heading to Graham’s place in the evening.

But a message was waiting on his phone to tell him that “flight delayed wont get in till tomorrow sry” which meant if he wanted to clean up he’d have to hit the bathhouse, and that was across town.

No time for coffee.

“I haven’t had a chance, no.”

Graham withdrew into the kitchenette to put together a sandwich. Without being ordered to.

The bathhouse had been closed when he’d gotten there. “VIOLATION: Lewd conduct’ was posted on the front door, along with some city seal or other.

Of course there was lewd conduct! It was a bathhouse! That’s what those were for!

“Honestly, my feet are killing me.”

The bus line from there to the college neighborhood hadn’t been running.

“I just wanna rest for a minute and then we can-”

But Graham was ignoring him. The cougar had gone back to his knees, on the floor, and was carefully and methodically massaging his feet.

Now that was definitely too presumptuous for a slave! He’d have to hit him with a punishment question!

…but fuck if he wasn’t really good at foot massage. And the sandwich wasn’t half bad. And he- “I didn’t get a chance for a shower, though. You know, before we start.”

“I’ll scrub your back, Master.”

Ah, what the hell. If he could take it easy on himself, he could take it easy on Graham.

"So, uh, I don't know if you remember me."

Josh didn't know what he'd been expecting, as answer, to "why me?" but it wasn't that.

"I was, uh, the baseball player," fortunately Graham had gotten pretty used to this kind of punishment. He casually and without resistance answered the kinds of questions which, when the collar was off, made his back stiffen and his shoulders clench. "I mean, maybe that doesn't narrow it down. I remember you, is the point. There was that end of season party, years ago, and Jimenez, uh, I mean the first baseman-"

Was there really any need to know what position Jimenez had played?

"-he was making this huge deal about how he was gonna 'hire every last,'" the cougar stopped abruptly before he could reveal what inexcusable word Jimenez had used, "uh, 'sex worker in this town' to show up at it. The whole team spent the entire next season teasing him for not realizing that that wouldn't just be, you know, women."

And now Josh did, in fact, remember why he'd looked familiar.

"Wait," he said, "you're that Faulkner? That baseball player? The same as from the whole," shit, what had that even been? "Tabloid lawsuit thing?"

Graham shut his eyes, sighed, and nodded.

Josh would've said it was pretty rare for him to remember a client, even one whose picture had been in the checkout aisle next to the gum and the overpriced candy bars. The cougar slumped on the shabby couch, in the shabby studio apartment, lit only by whatever streetlights, whatever headlights, found their way through the vertical blinds on the only window in the room, he looked almost nothing like the cocky, disdainful, defiant athlete posed beside the word 'SCANDALOUS' on glossy newsprint.

"Well, I do remember you," he said. "I guess I'm pretty flattered you came back for seconds, even years later. If I'm that good at blowjobs maybe I oughta raise my rates."

"I saw you across the room." Graham continued, unprompted, though he'd already said more than enough to make up for the 'I felt teeth' that he was supposedly being punished for. "Looked like you were as frustrated, and as bored, as I was."

He'd been both those things, Josh recollected. All the girls had been having a very profitable evening, but he was about to make barely an hour's rate for the whole night, and that was assuming whatever asshole had blind-hired all of them didn't back out of paying him even that.

"Like, the way all the boys were laughing at, just, the very idea of a male, uh-"

"Whore?"

"Sex worker," Graham's posture had changed subtly, from the kneeling that said 'relaxed obedience' to a kind of kneeling that just wanted to not be here. "And I knew," he swallowed audibly, "someday they're gonna find me out. Then that's gonna be pointed at me. I only meant to like, get you outta there, pay you for your time, send you home. But I guess you thought I wanted privacy."

"You sure acted like you wanted privacy, once we got it." And Josh would admit he remembered the windowless, concrete, twelve-car garage, the closet at the back of it, going to his knees like the professional he was.

He remembered how this cougar tasted. Remembered how at first he'd mistaken his moans, just before the man had come, for sobs.

"I guess I must be pretty good with my muzzle," Josh smirked, "if all it took to have you carrying a torch for me was a rushed blowjob in some asshole's garage."

But when he looked down at the kneeling cougar, Graham's face was serious as a Newbery Medal for Most Depressing Pet-Death. "Is that all the punishment, Master?" he said, very quietly.

So of course Josh said yes, and of course he said he was tired and needed a nap. Of course he ordered Graham to climb over and behind him, to hold him, and of course he said it was to keep him warm and not because he'd stumbled onto a real mood killer of a question.

But all the while, Josh wondered.

If it was that hard to talk about this, why didn't this guy just use his safeword?

Josh preferred not to be the top, when it was time for anything anal. Bottoming was fine, and anything oral was great, but having to fuck a guy in the ass was always at least partially a chore.

Some of that was just preference. Some was because it was more work, and Josh firmly believed that the best word to go with the word "work" was always "less." But partly it was professional experience.

For one thing, the most common reason for a man to hire him was the ever-present socio-economic issue of Top Scarcity, and that left him tired of the act itself, from which he never quite got enough time to recover. For another, he knew better than anyone how easy it is to fake enjoyment in that position, and if anything completely sucked the pleasure out of his work it was the suspicion that the other man wasn't enjoying himself.

So he ought to have been grateful that Graham showed no inclination to bottom. But the nature of the fetish, the role Graham wanted him to play, and the cougar's frankly superhuman commitment to the role left the door unlocked for that suspicion again. If Graham did really want his tail fucked, he wouldn't say so.

He'd wait to be ordered to take it.

Well, wasn't that just too bad for him? Being the slave had been Graham's request, going at it so hard was his choice, not speaking up about what he wanted as do-you-really-want-me insurance policy had been his idea. If that meant his cravings went unsatisfied, well, that was nobody's fault but his own!

So why did he feel like he needed to do it anyway?

•••

"Wait, sir!"

Josh paused, two pawpads lubed, "what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, Master," Graham lifted his head, cautiously, from the couch armrest where he'd let it shelter between his forearms. "You just ought to know, uh, I'm... new at this. Sir."

"You mean you've never had it in your tail before?"

"...no Sir."

The cougar hung his head, as if expecting a questionful of punishment. And it would make sense to ask the obvious question: why not?

On the other hand, Josh really didn't feel like hearing about the kind of things that had almost come up the last time he asked the obvious question. And it wasn't as if Graham had virginned at him deliberately.

Whatever else Josh was, he was a professional. One could do much worse, for a first time, than a professional: well-trained, well-practiced, qualified and, well, not certified--the work he was doing wasn't exactly legal--but if there were certifications for this he'd be the first to have one.

"Alright, we'll take it slow."

Graham moaned real good with a finger or two inside of him. He gasped, reflexively arched his back, when he found out what it felt like for a claw to find his prostate. He apologized, meekly, for not keeping silent, and Josh laughed and told him to moan hard, really let his master know how good his cock felt.

And really, his ass turned out to be first class. Even for someone who didn't prefer to top!

Josh did his best to be gentle. He spent a good while just pressing slowly in and holding there, so the cougar could learn to enjoy feeling filled and owned from within. But not all that long: his client wanted to feel like a slave, wanted to feel like Josh was only interested in his own pleasure, so he didn't wait too long before his thrusts got faster, rougher, deeper.

"I just took your virginity," Josh whispered over the cougar's shoulder

"Oh fuck yes..." Graham gasped "I'm all yours..."

He really loved this, didn't he.

Josh's legs went ramrod-straight and he pressed himself in, to the hilt. He hissed and panted, just behind Graham's head, and wondered if his cock was pulsing hard enough for Graham to feel.

"I just came in you-!" he gasped, and Graham's ear twitched, "My cum's in you. Think about that, Slave!"

"Yes master!" Graham's breathing was fast and shallow, and when Josh slid a hand down and around to finish him off he was so hard his cock was quivering in time to his breath.

"And now you're gonna cum too," Josh's fingertips teased Graham's balls before wrapping around his cock, "With my cock still all the way inside you and my seed flooding your guts."

Graham just whimpered until Josh finished stroking him to the finish line. He did not whimper very long.

•••

Josh lay half awake and fully satisfied. He'd started the day determined not to have to fuck Graham's ass, but it'd turned out to be the best sex they'd had yet.

Maybe because Graham deserved some satisfaction, either for what he'd gone through these last few years, or for how much he'd taken care of his Master these last few days. Maybe because Graham had so clearly and sincerely enjoyed being fucked, and if anything really got Josh going it was knowing for certain that the other guy was enjoying himself. Maybe because it turned out the cougar had a fantastic ass. Maybe because Josh had professional standards, dammit. Maybe because every night for the last two weeks, he'd been held, all night, like he was being held now: tight, strong, soft, and close enough that he could feel Graham's breathing. Like he'd dreamed of, once, and had given up on ever getting.

Or maybe it was because he gave the orders here, so if he decided to fuck his slave's ass, then his slave's ass was getting fucked, never mind why! He'd started out this arrangement determined not to get attached, and he wasn't going to!

Thus reassured that he wasn't doing anything stupid like falling in love, Josh relaxed in Graham's arms and slept.

Josh was more than tired.

He’d had two clients already today. There had been the car dealer, the bull, obviously in the closet, who’d had him come in posing as a customer and then bustled him out without even a word after a quick perfunctory blowjob. And there’d been the skinny asshole rabbit in the mansion, out at the edge of town—which was a bitch to reach on the bus—who’d just wanted a warm hole he could call every insult and slur he knew—which wasn’t many—while he fucked it.

But neither was anything new. No, the problem was he was seeing Graham again tonight, and he was out of ideas.

Most kink things were, in his experience, a once-and-done affair. That’s why you had clubs for this shit: you could always change partners, get a volunteer from the audience, never run dry cause you were always refilling on inspiration off the next guy in line. It was the same reason he was in sex work—well, that and the poverty—because if every time is a first time, then nobody ever has to say the word ‘bored,’ and nobody has to run out of ideas.

This was why you don’t get attached!

And now here he was, scraping the bottom of the barrel. If he had to resort to—piss stuff!--that’d have to be the end of it! Graham was a dependable paycheck, and a reliable two meals a day, and a place to sleep for the night-

-and he held Josh, all night, every night, without objection or complaint-

-but it wasn’t worth piss stuff!

The bus rounded a corner and headed for the college.

Josh’s reflection in the window glared accusingly at him. What about how much of a hard time he’s had? You’ve gotten to know the man—and you never do that with clients—and if that’s the kinda shit he’s into, well what of it? That’s your job! And doesn’t he deserve a little comfort after what he’s been through?

Nice try, Josh would’ve said, if he were actually having this conversation. But I’ve been too much of a bastard, for a while now, to listen to that.

What about you, then? You’ve been through shit too, even if you’re never gonna tell him. How tired are you of guys who aren’t interested in anything but sex? Who just want a perfunctory muzzle on their coffee break, or a hole to fuck their insults into? Well, this one wants more, even if he doesn’t know how to say it. This one’s offering more. And you’re getting to know him! When was the last time you got to know-

But Josh was saved from the conversation he wasn’t actually having by the stop at the corner of Graham’s block.

•

“Uh, just so I can plan, how would doing, like,” the raccoon halted, the collar an inch from the cougar’s neck, “piss stuff work for you?”

“Watersports?” Graham’s nose wrinkled. “Uh, no thanks. Not into… that.”

“Alright, good to know.”

Thank fucking god!

“The team fired me as soon as I was out.”

“They fired you for coming out?”

“I didn’t come out,” Graham shook his head. “Coming out was the last thing I wanted to do.”

Josh had, the last two or three nights, deliberately refrained from issuing any punishments. After the last question, he’d been pretty sure Graham—still a client, don’t forget—didn’t want to revisit the subject.

But man did he ever want to find out the rest of that story.

“So there was this reporter from,” the cougar stopped short, muzzle pursed.

“You alright?” Josh raised an eyebrow.

“I’m fine, Master, it’s… the name of the magazine, it’s the safeword.”

He was really determined not to say it, huh. So Josh took care of it for him. “InsideScorez.”

“Yes Sir. It was this old Sports Tabloid. I think the internet put it out of business.” Graham’s expression darkened. “I hope the internet put it out of business.”

Unfortunately, with every night of no further questions Josh had noticed Graham seemed a little more uncomfortable, a little less intense, and frankly a little less aroused. So he’d opened, after giving him just less than a minute with his head between the raccoon’s legs, with a “punishment for your lack of enthusiasm, Slave” as a pretext to ask why.

So now Graham was telling him.

“This was when I’d played a few seasons. Won a lot of games, nothing spectacular, but the team was doing better than they had in a while, and I guess some people were saying it was because of me cause reporters were getting interested. Wanted to talk to me.” Graham had, apparently unconsciously, slumped a little to the side from his knees, and his head lay on Josh’s leg like he was a confessor in a medieval woodcut. “They kept throwing the words ‘world series’ at me, and I kept saying ‘how would I know?’ and ‘of course I’m gonna try,’ and ‘is that the only thing you people talk about?’ but really that was good, though. If they were asking me about this, it meant they hadn’t found out about Johnny.”

“Who was Johnny?” Josh stroked Graham’s ears, and didn’t mention that he’d stopped saying ‘master’ or ‘sir.’

“I wish you’d been there to ask me then,” the cougar muttered. “Johnny was supposed to just be a hookup. Discrete, confidential, the way I’d always done it. I didn’t mean to get attached. This was, like, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell days, if you remember those?”

“I’m only a few years younger than you, you know.”

“Well, people forget. Point is, the team management had a clause in the contract that said I’d be fired immediately if I ever came out, and it was long enough ago that seemed normal. I knew I couldn’t ever have a relationship, but that was nothing new, that was how I’d always been doing it. So I thought it was enough: we would meet at a bar maybe once a month, no more frequently—not a gay bar, I couldn’t risk going to one of those—just a sports bar. We’d talk, we’d catch up with eachother’s lives, and then we’d leave separately, at least five minutes apart. We’d sneak out to the car, I’d blow him, or he’d blow me, or both, and then we’d go separate ways and stay away for another month. I didn’t think I wanted more.” For just a moment, a sharp, brittle splinter of anger surfaced in his voice, “I was careful, god damn it.” and then it vanished again. “Didn’t matter.”

“So, something,” Josh was racking his memory for details, but he was pretty sure he’d just seen covers in the magazine rack, never actually read any of them, “happened to Johnny?”

“Johnny wasn’t real.” Graham’s headshake was so small that if his cheek hadn’t been resting on Josh’s leg, it would’ve gone undetected. “His name was Ried Ziegler, he was a reporter, he’d come across rumors about me, and I dunno what made him so determined to out me but he was, and he did. Course, he couldn’t just say he’d had sex with me. That’d out him too. So he waited,” the cougar let Josh pull him up onto the couch, and put his arms around him. “This woulda been, uh, about a year? maybe a little less? after I met you at the party. It was after midnight, I was drunk, and I thought I was invincible, and I thought I deserved at least to… I called him, and I told him I loved him.”

For a moment the cougar paused, as if waiting for someone to forbid him from going on. Nobody did.

“He recorded it.” So he pressed on. “There was an article outing me the next day, breaking news, no warning.” Graham heaved a deep breath, as if his composure had vaporized and escaped and he needed to draw it back in. “The rest is pretty straightforward. Management said I’d broken contract. I said no cause I hadn’t come out, I’d been outed. They said there was no difference. I said there was. They said it didn’t matter what I thought, I was fired, no severance, no argument, get out.” He pushed himself up off the couch and rose to his feet. “I told other reporters my side of it, some of them even believed me, but my career was over. So I sued the team. Sued the tabloid too. I dunno how I got lucky enough to win but I did, and I thought, well, I’m set for life.”

“I’d hope so, after all that.” Josh said. “What happened to… what’s his name?”

“Ried Ziegler,” Graham’s ears flattened. “I dunno. Never saw him again.”

“And when was this all happening?”

“Right after season opening, of all the damn times.”

That was March, right? Josh would’ve still been off south, the news would’ve been past, and the magazine covers would’ve been picked through and overripe by the time he’d scraped together a ride back up here.

“But these few years, since then, have been just,” Graham’s gaze drifted to the floor, “empty. I went back to college because I had no idea what else I could do, and I still don’t know what I’m doing once I finish. I tried dating, I tried hooking up, but every man I was with, they knew. I could feel them knowing. They knew I was pitiable and pitiful and they were just giving me what I wanted the way you give a prisoner a last meal. So now, now I just want a man who doesn’t know me, and doesn’t care, and his reasons for fucking my muzzle hard enough that I can’t hear myself think are nothing to do with me.”

Graham’s knees thudded to the floor as if onto a line drawn in the sand.

“Am I done being punished, Master?” he said, and for the first time in Josh’s memory there was sullen stubbornness in his voice.

Of course Josh said yes. And of course he fucked Graham’s muzzle, made a big show of being dominant and callous. Even tried to make it a little extra loud, as if trying to drown something out.

What else could he have done?

“It’s fine!”

“It’s sure not!”

“I’ll manage, it’s not like it’s the first time it’s happened!”

“That’s not better!”

When Josh had emerged to dry his fur, as much as possible, here—the City Rec Center only charged three bucks to use the gym and that meant getting the locker room and that meant the showers, so now that the bathhouse was (still) shut down they’d become a pretty necessary piece of civic infrastructure—it was to find that someone had stolen his shoes.

Taking the bus in bare feet hadn’t been fun, but it’s not like it was the first time for that, either.

“I mean, I can replace them. They sell shoes, you know, you can just buy them.”

“That’s not the point. The point is, why were your shoes just,” Graham said, apparently determined to be neither naked nor collared till this was hashed out, “available to steal?”

“I was in the shower.”

“Someone broke in?” Graham’s voice went alarmed and angry, and then subsided to puzzled, “and all they did was take your shoes?”

“In the shower at the Rec Center gym.”

Graham’s head tilted. His jaw worked back and forth a moment. This must be, Josh supposed, something like how it felt to go through the security line at an airport.

“Josh,” Oh no, Graham almost never actually said his name, “do you need a place to stay?”

Fuck.

“Nope, I am doing just fine on my own.” Don’t get attached! “The important question is, why are you still dressed? Slaves don’t wear clothes.”

“C’mon, I’m not gonna just,” but Faulkner didn’t take the bait, “stand by while you’re sleeping on the street.”

“I’m not sleeping on the street,” or at least he hadn’t been lately, “I’m sleeping in your arms, Slave! Because your arms are my property like the rest of your body.” He just had to get the fantasy to turn over and start-

“So why not,” the stiffening at the front of the cougar’s jeans was obvious, but he ignored it, “just keep doing that? You’re already sleeping here, just, you know, stay. If you need to.”

“And what,” Josh rolled his eyes, “keep you collared twenty-four seven?”

And that did make Faulkner squirm, a little. “Well,” his voice had softened, and his gaze had lowered, his stance just a little more submissive, “what’d be wrong with that?”

He had him.

“That’s enough, Slave,” he raised his chin and hardened his voice, “you’ve already earned a punishment for this defiance. You don’t make plans, your master makes plans and you obey them, you understand?”

“Yes Master.”

“Then why are you still wearing clothes?” He watched the cougar’s bare fur appear as shirt and pants were discarded, and yes, the man was already rigidly erect. “Now for your punishment: did you ever look at any of the other players in the locker rooms?”

Faulkner swallowed nervously. “Yes Master.”

“And did you,” Josh began undressing, slowly, he felt like he’d earned the right to tease a little, “ever wonder what their bodies felt like? Tasted like?”

Faulkner winced and dropped his gaze.

“Eyes on me, Slave. Now answer.”

“...yessir.”

“Did you ever offer any of them your mouth? Or your tail?”

Faulkner’s ears had gone feverishly red, inside, and his hips clenched involuntarily since his cock couldn’t get any harder. He shook his head, if only barely.

“Of course not. You were shirking your duties already, I see.” It was, at least, easier to get his pants off in bare feet. “You imagined doing it, didn’t you?”

“I did, Master.”

“Imagine it now,” Josh stepped out of his clothes and approached, and he was already pretty hard himself. “You’re back in the locker room, and whoever it was you most wanted is there, and you do what you were supposed to do then, you go to your knees, naked, in front of all of them and you say-”

Faulkner took the hint, “I’d really like to suck your cock, Sir.”

“Well, since you asked so nicely,” Lips closed around Josh’s shaft, and Faulkner was already moaning.

He let the cougar enjoy his work. He’d have Faulkner wash his feet after.

•

Josh relaxed, in Faulkner’s bed, in Faulkner’s arms. The cougar didn’t snore, he just breathed, softly.

That’d been a close call.

The temptation was there, of course, this wasn’t the first time it’d been there. But you couldn’t let your feelings get involved, you couldn’t get attached. Sex workers who got attached to a client, who did something stupid like moving in with them, well, there were probably ways to put yourself in a more vulnerable position than that, but Josh couldn’t think of any. Then if a partner turned abusive, turned jealous, turned cruel, well, if you were lucky, you could run, with nothing but the clothes on your back.

No, he’d definitely done the right thing by shutting that proposal down right away.

Josh rested his head against Graham’s chest and listened to his breathing till he too drifted off, confident in the certainty that hadn’t become at all emotionally involved.

•

Graham left early for some class or other. Josh could’ve taken his time, but he had another client, and the last thing he wanted was Graham thinking the whole “move in with me and I’ll be your slave for real” offer had tempted him into lingering.

When he got to the front door, Graham had left an extra pair of shoes there. Hiking boots, black and brown, lightly worn.

A little big for him, but they’d do.

“You made the purchases I ordered you to, slave?” Josh had to lean back so Graham could reply.

“Yes Master,” Graham answered, “but I don’t understand wh-”

Graham hastily presented his tongue again when the raccoon snapped his fingers.

“You don’t need to understand,” Josh said, once his cock was back on its designated cockrest. “you just need to obey.” He helped himself to a grape and let Graham whimper a little.

He’d texted, ahead of tonight’s visit, that he wanted Graham to go pick up a couple things. Grapes hadn’t been on the list, but the cougar was the efficient type, clearly, who didn’t like only running one errand at a time.

“Well,” he stretched and got to his feet, “I suppose we may as well get started. Slave, to the bed.”

The four belts, from some thrift store, didn’t match. But that was fine. The cargo straps, from some hardware store, were hi-vis orange, but that didn’t look half bad combined with black leather. And the jockstrap was utilitarian, rather than flattering, and new in-box.

The bed wasn’t fancy, but it did have legs. Josh had checked, a few nights ago, when this idea had occurred to him.

“Lie back,” Josh said, “and give me your wrist.”

“Like this, Sir?” Graham’s voice was all the kind of cautious excitement that is pretty sure where this is going, but not completely.

“Good boy,” Josh very quickly had the belt secure—but not tight—around Graham’s wrist and fastened to the bed leg with the cargo strap. Josh knew how to improvise without proper gear. And he could be efficient too.

Graham looked a little more sure where this was going. Eager obedience replaced meek.

Josh didn’t disabuse him of that assumption yet.

“I realized, Slave,” Josh stood up once the cougar was secured to all four corners of the bed, “that there was one specific thing I hadn’t done to you yet.”

“What’s that-” Graham’s tone went from eager back to confused, half way through the sentence, when Josh pulled on the jockstrap, “-Master?”

Josh just grinned.

He remembered how this cougar tasted.

Graham gasped and yowled when first lips, then tongue, slid down his shaft. Josh went only halfway down—if you start with the volume all the way up you’ve got nowhere to go—but when he got halfway he lingered. Graham tasted reliable, but in a way that craved being relied on, and strong, but a strength in desperate need of reassurance that what it was doing was worthwhile. He tasted like not being the one who had to worry about things, because he was going to worry for you whether you let him or not. He tasted like time spent wanting something, to do something, but not knowing what. He tasted like wanting both to belong, and to be belonged to. He tasted, Josh dared to imagine, like coming home.

Graham’s head was thrown back on the pillow, and his eyes closed, when Josh came back up. “You like that, Slave?”

“...yes Master…”

“We’ll see about that.” Josh scoffed. “Here’s what’s happening. I’m gonna suck you, and stroke you, as long as I decide. Keep you right on the edge. When you’re close, call out, because when you do I’ll stop.” He planted one foot between Graham’s thighs, on the edge of the bed. “If you come before I’ve given you permission, Slave, there will be punishment. Understood?”

Graham nodded hastily. “I obey, Master.”

“Course you do.”

And so Josh amused himself for a few while, getting reacquainted with the distinctive taste of cougar cock. He huffed hot breaths out through Graham’s pubic fuzz, dragged his tongue around the edge of his tip. He bobbed his head fast, then agonizingly slow, then with the occasional twist thrown in. He held his lips stationary and just pulled at the shaft with his whole tongue at once. He mixed things up, when he thought the man might be growing complacent, with a minute or so of stroking. Graham really had an incredible dick: just a little too big for Josh’s mouth—just enough to make it a challenge—and extremely sensitive and responsive. Good, workable position, too: some men, when they got their hardest, would stand at awkward angles that made sucking it a neck-cramping chore, but Graham kept some real flexibility.

It was almost a shame he was so submissive. He’d be an amazing top.

“Master!” Graham gasped, “I’m close!”

Josh pulled back, relaxed, stretched his neck, his shoulders, and watched the slave strapped to the bed shudder till he calmed.

And then he started again.

Graham’s moaning was very consistent. It only took Josh three more rounds, each a little shorter, passing him between palate and paw, till he was confident about the cougar’s tells. When Graham started to get close his thigh muscles clenched and quivered, he would grunt through clenched teeth and inhale, fast and sharp, through his nose, in a way one might understandably mistake for sobs.

Josh gave it one more round, to make sure. He was proven right. He was able to guess to himself—he couldn’t exactly do so out loud—that Graham was about to cry out for Master an instant before he did.

Which meant, “You’ve done well, Slave, good boy,” Josh circled the bed, and let his captive watch him slowly take off the jockstrap he’d been wearing for this entire exercise, “but now your real test begins.” And what the hell, why not, since he was there? He climbed up, next to the cougar’s face, let the poor man satisfy his own craving for dick a little while. He’d done enough to drive that to the boiling point.

He took Graham by the lower jaw, stuffed the jockstrap in his mouth and pulled the straps over the back of his head. “Since you seem to like how your owner tastes,” he chuckled. “Too bad that means you won’t be able to tell me when to stop. Guess you’ll just have to control yourself! Cause there’s still no cumming till I say you can.”

Graham moaned through the pre-soaked fabric.

Josh was impressed. He made it through three more rounds. In truth, Graham managed longer than he did: eventually even a professional tires. The raccoon’s jaw began to get sore, so when the cougar’s muscular thighs began to clench and shake for the fourth time Josh didn’t let up, he sucked harder, he stroked Graham’s balls, he teased the spot on the bottom of the shaft just behind the cocktip, and when Graham arched his back and yoweled, muffled though it was, he pressed his tongue to the underside so he could feel, as well as taste, the cock pulsing out each eruption of orgasm.

Josh dragged himself up onto the bed, draped himself over Graham’s chest.

“Master, I’m-” the cougar began the apology immediately when his mouth was set free, but Josh didn’t let him finish. He kissed him, roughly, hard, and deep, until the man was moaning almost as much as he had when he was about to come.

“And that,” he said when they finally released eachother, “is what your seed tastes like. Something every man ought to know, if you ask me.”

“I, oh Master, I-”

“I know.” Josh grinned. “Now, you came without permission, Slave, so here is your punishment.” He reached down to unbuckle Graham’s wrists, and while he was there, to whisper into his ear. “Was I as good as you remembered? Answer.”

Graham’s baffled look turned into a grateful smile. “Better, Sir.”

“Look,” Graham started talking the moment the collar was off, “I know you don’t want to be an object of concern, but-”

“What’s ‘an object of concern’ supposed to mean?”

“You don’t want me to be concerned about you!” Graham clarified huffily. “I get that. But you want to be held, all night, every night, you wake up in tears more nights than not-”

Oh Christ, not more of this.

“Just… are you ok?”

“Of course I’m ok.”

“You say that,” Faulkner crossed his arms like he expected an apology from an unruly child, “but I’m not, at present, duty-bound to take your word for it.”

Goddammit, this is what he’d been worried about. “Well, what do I care whether or not you believe me?” He’d made a point of telling himself, don’t get attached, and here he’d gone and let it happen anyway!

“Fuck’s sake, man, what happened to you?!”

“InsideScorez!” Josh snapped.

Faulkner recoiled as if he’d touched a hot stove. “What?”

“Safeword. InsideScorez.” Josh snarled. “It means stop, remember?”

“I know what it means!” Faulkner said, “But that’s not fair, if you get to use it to get out of answering questions but I have to-”

“Who says you can’t?” Josh advanced on him. “You coulda said it any time! But you didn’t, and that’s on you! Cause if you say it you’ve gotta just be you, and not mine, and there goes the crutch that lets you pretend none of this matters and I’m just using you for money or sex or both! Then you’d have to be you and you’d have to admit that you are concerned about me and that means it’s you that wants me, not just the other way around! You’re terrified of the idea that you want me because you want me, that it might matter to you how you get treated, that a guy you’re with might feel sorry for you, cause then you’d have to admit that what got done to you was wrong and you should probably get around to feeling bad about it instead of feeling nothing! And that’s worth more, clearly, than your precious little bunker of secrets!”

Faulkner had no answer.

That’s the last time, Josh fumed to himself as he headed down the stairs. That came too close. Can’t let feelings get involved. It was better for both of them if he never answered one of Faulkner’s messages again.