“I-shaky. Hungry. Sad because coming down sucks. Glad to see you. Sore.” That was part of the need, wasn’t it? He could feel so much, all at once.
“Oh, Troy. Coming down shouldn’t suck. Geoff isn’t—” Saul sighed. “I’ll make it better. I’m glad to see you too.”
He reached out and slid his hand over Saul’s arm. Oh, he was feverish; Saul’s skin felt chilly to the touch.
“Jesus, Troy.” Saul covered his hand for a second. “We’re almost there.” The truck stopped soon after and Saul came around to help him out. “Easy.”
“God, that’s hard work. Good work, but it makes a man tired.”
Saul waited for him to open the front door. “I want to get you in the shower, boy, and find you something to eat. But first… come sit with me.”
“Of course, Sir.” Oh fuck. Was he in some sort of trouble? He hadn’t asked Geoff to call Saul. At all.
Saul sat deep into his sofa and held out an arm for him to snuggle under. “Come on. As close as you can get.”
So not in trouble. Excellent. He cuddled in, taking care to protect his skin on that side. He closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath, breathing Saul in.
“Coming back from your space—coming down from all those endorphins, and the adrenaline and the pain—” Saul breathed in deep and stroked his shoulders with gentle fingers. “After all that hard work—good work, you called it—you will feel tired, exhausted sometimes, drained yes. But you shouldn’t feel sad. You should feel loved.”
Troy wasn’t sure how to answer that. “I know that Geoff loves me dearly. He just—” Has a Master that he needs, that needs him. “—has to go home to Carter.”
“He does. I know he cares about you, but he isn’t what you need. He can’t be. How did this… ritual start?”
“You mean the ink? I came to Carter to give him Arnie’s buckles after he died. I was in a bad way, and they took me in. Geoff started working. An hour or two at first, then four or five. Now it’s six, sometimes eight.”
“I don’t… really mean the ink. I mean using the ink to find what you believe is your subspace. Letting Geoff use your body to… well, I assume to focus on his service. How long has it been that and not just art?”
“A while, I guess. When Carter started coming, so fifteen years? He got banned about ten years ago.” Something about Saul’s words read like they were doing something wrong, something almost off-putting. He wasn’t going to jump to conclusions, though. That got him in trouble, every fucking time.
“Wait. Carter used to be there when Geoff was working? What do you mean got banned?”
“At the beginning, yes, but… Carter has a lot of rules and… he’s my boss, not my Dom. It was uncomfortable. So Carter doesn’t come in. It means that Geoff hurries home more often, but…” It sounded so complicated. So hard to explain. “He’s doing me a favor. I was lonely and not sure how to get help.”
Saul sighed. “Well. You have a Dom now.” That sounded pretty final.
“Are we all right?” Something was wrong. Troy wasn’t sure what, but something was off.
“Yes. Yes, baby. We’re fine.” Saul hugged him tight and then shifted so he could see those blue eyes. “I’ll be very honest. I’m uncomfortable with this thing between you and Geoff, I don’t think it’s healthy. It has a… it goes against a lot of what I’ve learned and what I believe. I know there was no malice involved but… I don’t like it.”
“I don’t understand. No one’s ever suggested we were being…” He searched for words. “Inappropriate?”
A rush of emotions hit him like a freight train—worry, shame, anger, panic—and he forced them down, finding it hard as all get out to control them.
“Hey. Shh. I didn’t say that, Troy. You need food and rest and we will talk about this again, I promise. When you’re more yourself, okay? I shouldn’t… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. They’re your friends. I respect that.”
He squeezed Saul’s hand, held it for a long minute while he tried to put his head on straight. Priorities. Right. Feed Saul. Get the shirt and paper towel off. See if Saul would like to spend the night. “Would you like a pizza?”
Saul kissed him. “Sure. I’ll order. You get yourself some water and a banana or something and go take a shower.”
He grabbed his wallet and handed Saul a twenty and a ten. “That should cover it.”
Then he headed upstairs, stripping down.
He needed some cold water. He was burning alive.
11
Saul could hear his mother’s voice in the back of his mind. There are plenty of perfectly good seats to choose from and you’re on the damn floor again.
Well, yeah. He was. He was also on his third slice. Being the youngest, he grew up diving for the food, or he wouldn’t get any. He was particularly good at inhaling pizza. He took another bite, caught Troy watching him, and winked.
“You look better with some food in you, boy.” He didn’t think Troy could look any worse than when he’d shown up at Geoff’s shop. Pale, feverish, stressed, and he’d watched as a kind of depression weighed on his boy’s shoulders, in Troy’s eyes. This was better. Anything was better.
“I hadn’t eaten yet. I was getting hungry for sure.” Troy was in a tiny pair of shorts, the new ink on his chest a wild, blood red triskelion weaving its way around some others.
“That has to be a long day for Geoff too.” He’d been thinking about Geoff, not just today but ever since they’d first talked about Troy’s ink. About why Geoff did it.
“It is. He puts so much of himself into the art. By the end he’s usually losing his mind with needing Carter.”
“Why do you think he does it? Because after so many years, it’s not just for you anymore, right? If it ever was. He has to get something personal out of it.”
“It’s his calling. He’s an artist, yeah? And he understands what it’s like, to need that rush.” Troy leaned back into the cushions. “I let him use my skin, he lets me use his talent.”
Okay. The artist thing he could buy. “Humor me, and explain what you use his talent for again?”
“It’s all endorphins, right? I manage okay, for a while, but sometimes I need the buzz.” Saul couldn’t quite see Troy’s face with the sinking sun, but his boy didn’t sound defensive. “Maybe if I’d never had it, I wouldn’t know to miss it, but I did.”
“The buzz from the pain. You’re not talking about subspace.” Troy wasn’t equating it to subbing at all.
“It’s the closest thing I’ve had for a long time. Twenty years.”
“It’s not close at all. It’s not anything like subspace. There’s no purpose to the pain. What you’re talking about is an addiction.” An addiction Troy had quit smoking for.
Sometimes I need the buzz.
“A fix.”
Troy was quiet for a long minute before he answered. “Well, I suppose so. I wouldn’t do it if I wasn’t needing something I couldn’t give myself.”