Some are Born to sweet Delight, Some are born to Endless Night. But we are led to Believe in Lies If we see not through truth’s Eyes --William Blake ~~~ Four Days Later Justin’s POV “Look, I realize this is bordering on the impossible, but could you keep still for three fucking seconds? You’re not supposed to be enjoying this. There…does that hurt?” I felt Brian’s long fingers moving deep inside me, gently pressing against the highly sensitive nerves surrounding my prostrate. It felt so fucking good that I had to grip the edges of the table so hard my knuckles ached to keep myself from rocking back into it. He’d only agreed to do this if I promised to let him do all the manoeuvring. “No.” I gasped, in response to his question, pressing my chest down flat against the table top and trying to suppress the desire to writhe in ecstasy. Brian’s other hand, the palm of which was pressed flat against the small of my back and exerting a slight pressure, helped a bit. I tried to douse the flames of erotic desire by telling myself that this is what some doctor with latex gloves would be doing to me during tomorrow’s scheduled ‘digital rectal examination’. Now didn’t that sound like a whole shitload of fun? Just the thought of it not only extinguished the ‘fire in the basement’, but additionally flooded the metaphysical room with a foot of water. The oncologist I’d be seeing was the same one who’d been in charge of me during my testicular cancer treatment. Dr. Owen Soffe was originally from Cornwall, and despite having been in Pitts for thirteen years, still sounded as if he’d just gotten off the boat from England yesterday. I’d always highly respected him because he had a way of making even the worst diagnosis seem bearable, and, more importantly, fixable. I had spoken with him briefly three days ago when I’d made the appointment for my physical examination at the John Hopkins Centre. Dr. Soffe had been between patients, so he could only spare a few seconds, but it didn’t matter. I only needed to know one thing; If there was a cancer, a tumour, it could obviously be detected manually (which was the point of tomorrow’s fun-filled examination). Could someone who wasn’t a doctor be able to feel the lump, and tell what it was? I think the question floored Dr. Soffe momentarily, but finally he’d said that, yes, if the examiner was careful and had the appropriate access, it could be done as long as they had an idea of what a normal prostrate felt like. I knew that he knew the ‘examiner’ would be Brian. I’d thanked him and hung up, feeling relief wash over me like a tidal wave. Brian, however, had not been so enthusiastic and had been very sceptical, afraid that he wouldn’t perform the task properly and would give me false hopes by not finding a lump if there was one to be found. I’d tried to argue back that he knew this part of my anatomy better than anyone, but he’d retorted that it certainly wasn’t through palpating my prostrate gland through the wall of my rectum. But I’d pressed on relentlessly, knowing that hearing the verdict, the truth- even if it wasn’t the whole truth- would be so much easier to bear coming from Brian. As I felt his fingertips probing deep inside me, I knew he wouldn’t lie to me- even for a second- if he found what we both desperately hoped he wouldn’t. I needed the truth, knowing that while it could destroy and devastate, it was infantry better than continuing to believe in false hope. ~~~ Three Days Earlier Brian’s POV “I’m an accountant, Bri, not a miracle worker. I can’t change the laws of mathematics to expressly suit the needs of Kinnetic.” T. Schmit, with his vile newly-dyed hair (which could have been better cut with a weed-whacker), followed me through the main foyer of Kinnetic like a lost puppy. A hideously ugly puppy that would refuse to go away until I’d either kicked it or fed it a doggie treat. “I don’t care, Theodore.” I finally snapped, going for the kicking option. “Do whatever you have to. Change some of the threes into eights or something. Just have it done by five.” I was seriously considering adding ‘That’s all’ to the end of all of my requests a la Miranda Priestly. May be I could even star in the sequel; ‘The Devil Wears Armani’. Ted however, seemed to get the point well enough by the look of venom I shot him, and he scuttled off back to his office. I turned to ream out on of my graphic artists who’d designing a mock-up board with a puke yellow background instead of the orange I’d asked for, when I heard Cynthia call me. “Brian, it’s him.” Thank God. It was about bloody time; I’d been resisting the urge to call him all afternoon. I swept over to Cynthia’s desk and she pointed one of her perfectly manicured fingernails at the flashing light on the desk phone. “I’ll take it in my office. Thanks, Cynthi.” She gave me a knowing smile, and picked up the receiver to transfer the call to my office phone. The woman had been a saviour. She hadn’t asked about my absence yesterday, nor had she questioned my intellectual absence today. She knew it was something about Justin, because I’d told her to let me know immediately if he called. If Cynthia had thought this odd, she hadn’t said anything beyond asking me how Justin was doing. My answer, “We’ll be OK”, was not related to the question she’d asked , but was the closest I could come to telling her something was very wrong where Justin was concerned. Cynthia had taken this for what it was- a plea for help- and had picked up my professional slack without question. I had an ally, thank God. “Hey, Sunshine,” I said as soon as I snatched up the head set from my desk and punched the button to receive the call. “Hey.” His voice sounded oddly muffled, and I couldn’t decide whether or not it was him or the crappy landline connection. “You wanted me to call you.” “Yeah. Hey, are you OK?” I asked, deciding that the muffled nature of the sound was defiantly not associated with the phone line. “You’re not still crying, are you?” After the amount of tears he’d shed yesterday night, I was astonished he had any bodily fluid left. He was silent for a few seconds and then I heard him draw a shaky breath. “I’m at my Mom’s.” he told me, his voice warbling slightly, “I, um, I came to tell her about…and she…she started to cry, and…” Ah. Say no more. The ‘weeper gene’ in that family was undoubtedly maternally derived. Jennifer Taylor was a strong woman, but her infrequent tears always left Justin an emotional wreck of guilt and pain and helplessness. “Is she OK?” I asked gently, when his voice petered out weakly. I felt a pure, unadulterated sympathy for Mother Taylor. It was the third time in less than four years that she’d have to face such news about her only son. I knew that experience didn’t make it any easier for her. But she always put on a brave face and soldiered on. I just hoped, for her sake, that Molly didn’t share too many of her brother’s genes. “Yeah,” Justin sighed. I could here the tears thickening in his voice and wished I could reach through the phone line to comfort him, “Just a little…upset. I’m gonna stay with her for a while…She wants to see you.” “OK, Sunshine. Listen, I’ll come by your Mom’s place after work before I take you home. Then we can talk to her together, alright?” I heard him make a noise of agreement, “Did you call John Hopkins?” “Yeah, I have an appointment for Monday morning at nine…if that’s OK with you.” With one hand, I clicked on the monitor on my computer and opened the browser to my electronic day timer. Shit- I had an appointment with a rep. from In My Sole Shoe Company that morning. I’d been trying to nail that fucking account for months. “That’s fine.” I told Justin, firing off an e-mail to Cynthia to ask her to do what she could to reschedule the meeting. I knew where my priorities lay. “It’ll be with Dr. Soffe again, right?” “Yeah…Brian, I asked him if…” he trailed off. “If what?” I prompted, knowing that tone of voice. “If you could do something for me.” What, Sunshine? Climb Mt. Everest without oxygen? Run naked through the North Pole in the dead of winter? Eat a crocodile, just like Hamlet would for Ophelia (In Shakespeare’s option, I guess the consumption of large, dangerous reptiles was romantic. What a weird fucker.) “What’s that?” I asked, already knowing my answer. “I want you to find It for me. I want to hear the truth from you.” ~~~ Justin’s POV “Hold still, Sunshine, for fuck’s sake.” Brian warned, not harshly or unkindly, but certainly in a tone that declared he would take no nonsense. “This is important. Does this feel different than it should?” I tried to concentrate my thoughts on what I was feeling. Amid the blissed-out euphoria that I always felt when any part of Brian was inside me, there was a slight burn from not having been stretched like this for so long. I only ever bottomed for Brian, so it had been more than ten weeks. I found I was having a lot of trouble distinguishing pain from pleasure. “I can feel…a sort of sting.” I replied, thinking how lame the words sounded to my own ears. “I don’t…I don’t think I’ve felt it before.” Christ. I hope he realized how hard it was to form multiple syllables when his fingers were up my ass. He preformed a few more sweeps of his fingers across the gland, doing a tactile survey through the thin rectum wall for the lump I thought must be there. I felt every millimetre that his fingers stroked across my g-spot magnified a thousand times and translated into pure orgasmic bliss. If this was what a rectal examination was really like, I didn’t see what everyone complained about. I could tell Brian was very focused on his task, taking it very seriously and making sure to do everything thoroughly. He gave me his verdict just before he pulled out, twisting is fingers to make one final sweep. “I can’t feel anything that shouldn’t be there; it feels the same as it always did. If there is anything there, it must be really fucking tiny.” Relief flooded over me as, much too soon for my liking, Brian pulled his lube-coated fingers out slowly and gave me a light slap on the ass with the other hand. I straightened up and turned around to face him, but made no move to retrieve the sweatpants that were trailing around my ankles. Hint, hint…Justin really, really wants to be fucked… Brian was wiping his fingers on a soft navy blue cloth when he sensed my attempt at telepathic begging, and looked up at me. I think I may have looked like a cross between Bambi and that cute little puppy dog in the pet shop window that no one seems to want. “Please?” I asked simply, suddenly wanting him so badly it hurt. We hadn’t had sex once since I’d got back from L.A. I’d been too distraught and shaken, and Brian had absolutely respected this. He’d held me and kissed me and touched me lovingly, but hadn’t made any move towards anything more sexual. I found suddenly that I was now no longer content to feel him on the outside, but wanted him inside, too. Brian gave an audible sigh and put down the cloth. He was hiding his true emotions well, but I thought I could detect regret and desire clashing with one another in his eyes. He pulled me to him and buried his nose in my hair. I could feel that he wanted me quite as much as I wanted him…but there was something powerful preventing him from doing what we were both inwardly begging for. “No.” he said gently, but with a tone of finality, “I won’t do something that I know will hurt you. I’m sorry, Sunshine.” For someone who didn’t believe in apologies, that one had sounded particularly heartfelt. But he was going to have to do better than that. “It won’t hurt me! It felt good, really good, just now. Please, Brian…please? I want you…I need you so badly.” The begging nearly always worked. I knew it drove him crazy, and it had always been my not-so-secret weapon. But his expression told me that this time, no matter how aroused I managed to get him (and it was obvious that I’d been doing a good job), he was going to stand firm on this one. Knowing that I was pushing the limits to the extreme, I switched tactics and pressed on. “You told me yourself pain was a part of it.” I whispered to him seductively; caressing his cheek softy with the back of my hand, while accidentally-on-purpose brushing my hard-on against his khaki-clad one. He made a move to interrupt- instinctively I knew it was to tell me that he’d been referring to a very different type of pain- but I jumped in first with my silver hammer to drive the point home. “I love you, Brian. You could never hurt me, even if you wanted to. Everything turns into pleasure, and if it doesn’t, I love it anyway because you’re giving it to me. What hurts me more than anything is not being with you…when we can’t be together.” It was a dirty, nasty, rotten guilt trip, but to my credit, it was entirely true. Brian looked absolutely tore, the inner struggle escaping from behind his mask of self assurance and manifesting itself all over his handsome face. I knew I was asking him to do something he really didn’t want to do…but I was just too desperate to stop. “OK,” he agreed, very grudgingly, after a long moment of visible inner turmoil. He put his hands on my waist and hoisted me up to sit on the edge of the table. I kicked the sweatpants off and away and started to lean back when Brian stopped me with both of his hands on my shoulders. “But only on one condition. Are you listening?” His voice was so serious I wondered suddenly if this was actually a good idea…if I’d overstepped the line on this one. But deciding I’d come way too far to turn back, I looked him in the eye and nodded to show him he had my full and undivided attention. “You promise to tell me immediately if anything hurts or feels wrong. And don’t try to bullshit me. It’s not,” he cut off my attempt to interject, “because I don’t think you can handle it- I know you can- but because I don’t want to aggravate anything or fuck something up inside you. Got it?” I nodded again and, seeing his tiny nod of consent, I lay back on the table, its polished surface feeling cool and smooth under my shoulder blades. Despite my protests that I was ready, Brian spent a few more minutes preparing me with his fingers and the lube…I think he knew instinctively that this was my first time bottoming in a very long time. When at last he was satisfied, he quickly prepared himself before taking hold of my calves, proprietary to lifting my legs to his shoulders. I resisted this manoeuvre and locked my legs around his waist instead. It was position Brian never let anyone else assume, presumably because it rendered him less control, and it made me feel special that he accepted it without question. “Ready?” he asked softly, looking closely into my face. I nodded, and immediately felt him slide inside me, feeling that burning stretch that I had learned to love. He stopped and waited a few beats to give me time to adjust, before rocking forward and pushing himself most of the way inside of me. He started off slowly, giving shallow, sweeping thrusts, but I jerked my hips upwards against him, trying to establish the rapid, penetrating thrusts I wanted. He pinned my rebellious body down firmly with both hands, but increased the tempo and began to thrust more deeply. It was like being born again into sweet delight. And then I felt it. As the head of his cock pressed hard against my prostrate, there was a stinging stab of pain like nothing I’d felt before. It wasn’t unbearably painful, but it was persistent and refused to dissipate like the burn of the stretch had. As if it were a charcoal blotch on one of my sketches, I tried to mentally smear it away by blending it with the other feelings. It didn’t work. I had promised Brian I’d tell him if something felt wrong…but that would make him stop. And everything else felt so fucking good and the two of us were suddenly slipping into a colourful haze of orgasmic euphoria that made all other thought slow, fuzzy and dull. All I knew for sure was that I didn’t want him to stop. And so I broke my promise. When I felt Brian coming close, I reached between us to jerk myself off so we could ride it out together. Thank God he reached his climax a second before I did. He was distracted from seeing the look of agony that suddenly contorted my features as an excruciating, stabbing, piercing pain ripped through me when I came. Oddly, my concern was not for myself, but for what Brian might say or do if he saw how much pain I was in. I couldn’t bear the thought of him thinking it was his fault. I tried to stop my body from seizing up with the agony, because then Brian would know something was wrong…but I’d done it wrong already…I hadn’t gasped or cried out when I’d come, like I always did. He was gonna know from that, wasn’t he? Shit! Maybe he hadn’t noticed…he had been in the midst of his own climax… After the initial surge, the whiplashes of fire dulled slightly but jabbed at me harshly whenever Brian moved inside me. I had to bite my lip hard to keep from crying out. I tried desperately to relax and compose my face into a mask devoid of emotion, but I was shocked, and the pain was too much to make it at all convincing. Brian strengthened up and pulled out of me slowly, and I rolled my head to the side to obscure his view of my face. As he left my body, the pain subsidised considerably, reducing itself to a moderate stinging ache. By the time Brian actually looked down and focused on my face, I was able to give him a big, fake sunshine smile and tell him that he’d been great. He smiled back, and I felt a sea of guilt well in me at his look of immense relief. May be he hadn’t noticed anything after all… I waited until he turned his back to throw the condom in a nearby trash can before hastily dabbing and smearing the cum off my stomach and inner thighs with the navy cloth. I didn’t want to let Brian see that that the viscous, pearly-white fluid was streaked with crimson tendrils of blood.