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