After the End Ch. 05

Author's note:

This is the fifth part of an original erotic novel set in a dystopian future about one hundred years from now. It is a fantasy about the progression of a romantic relationship, with a focus on fully-developed characters, emotional connection, and sizzling sex. Some elements explored are newly-discovered bisexuality, the complexities of trust, experiments in sexual power play, and healing from loss.

There are seven chapters in the main story, and I have plans to continue it further. Feel free to drop in on specific sections based on your mood or interest, but the dramatic tension is strongest if you start at the beginning.

The creative process has been slower than expected, but I am continuing to work on the rest of the story and will post it as soon as I can. These characters are very important to me, and I want to do my best by them and by you. I appreciate your patience and encouragement.

Thank you to each person who has sent feedback on my posted work! I am new to writing fiction, so I appreciate hearing your reactions and perspectives. It truly does help me create the best stories that I can for readers to enjoy.

Tags for this chapter include: #bisexual male, #romance, #gay romance, #future, #dystopian, #novel, #teasing, #denial, #edging, #submission

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Julian:

I was a credit to my profession, that day. I performed exactly the way I had been trained to, exactly the way four generations of military heritage dictated that I should. I missed no word spoken in my hearing, no detail of hue or motion on security rounds, no slight discrepancy in a report. I took no unnecessary risks and issued no unnecessary commands. I accepted no less than peak performance from anyone under my authority. Just like every day.

But all my thoughts that day, all my observations and calculations, were saturated with low-grade euphoria generated by the film reel playing constantly in the back of my head: Avery, moaning and dripping while I softly stroked his nipples. Avery, holding still while I teased his pulsing erection. Avery, leaving his most vulnerable places exposed to my touch. Avery, fucked to the brink of orgasm and denied release. Avery, horny and frustrated and loving it.

It was the most incredible, intense, deeply satisfying twenty-four hours we'd ever shared. The stratospheric-level eroticism was reason enough to pronounce the experiment a resounding success, but the voluntary giving and taking of control had bonded Avery and me in a new way. Fully yielding his body had required profound trust, catalyzing a more intimate connection than ever.

Even after five months, it wasn't easy for me to find that place with Avery, where he felt secure enough to let me through his elaborate emotional defenses. As he lay on my chest that morning, after I'd finally brought his desperate need to a screaming climax, I'd hoped it might be a turning point for us. Endless possibilities for what to explore next opened in my imagination, and I was eager to get through the day's work and back into bed with him.

Except it was the opposite: after that morning, Avery would have nothing to do with me.

It wasn't obvious, at first. When I couldn't find him for the training I'd planned, I discovered he had started a new defense project at the south outpost. He should have cleared it with me first, but it lined up with our strategic priorities, so I wasn't concerned. He didn't return until late that evening, and even when I retired for the night, he stayed in the command center making preparations for the next day. When he crawled into bed, hours later, he shrugged away from my caress and said he just wanted to sleep.

I woke early, as usual, but he was already gone. For the next three days, I barely saw him. He managed to be wherever I wasn't, and he stayed out late every night, always with some justification: He had to check on his project. He was covering someone's shift. It was a friend's birthday. If I caught him during the day, he brushed off my questions. At night, I didn't get so much as a kiss before he curled up on his side of the bed and cut me off with claims of being tired. Which he probably was, with the schedule he was keeping. Yet I heard him lying there awake, sometimes for hours.

Once I realized he was actively avoiding me, I tried to talk to him, but he insisted he was fine. I got the same excuses: busy, tired, friends, work. I might have believed him, except that he wouldn't even look at me, wouldn't let me close enough to touch him. Other than the fact that we slept in the same bed, our relationship might never have happened.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not well equipped to navigate these waters. There are reasons why I've rarely attempted a romantic commitment, and why my last one ended in disaster. Avery had fenced me out before, though never to this extent, so I waited, disappointed and confused, hoping he would work through it on his own. What else could I do if he refused to discuss it?

By the fourth day, I grew worried that the sex game had been a terrible mistake. I'd pushed Avery pretty hard during his day of denial - teasing him into a frenzy, denying him relief, then starting again with more teasing. Although he'd seemed very into it at the time, it was possible that he'd submitted for my sake, rather than his own desire. Maybe he felt exploited, or betrayed. Maybe I'd lost his trust instead of gained it.

When he once again snuck under the covers without acknowledging me, I turned toward him.

"Avery, please tell me what's wrong. It's been four days. Was it too far, what we did - what I did? I had no intention of...mistreating you. If you feel that I did, I'm very sorry, and you should tell me so that it doesn't happen again. I promise I won't be offended. I just want to make it right."

He didn't reply for a minute, and I ached for contact, but reaching for him at this point was only likely to make things worse.

Finally, quiet words came back in the darkness. "You didn't do anything."

"It's hard to believe that, when it was the last thing that happened before you started avoiding me."

No answer. The silence thickened until I thought we'd both be entombed in our tent forever. It was nauseating to think that I could have done something so threatening, he was afraid even to name it.

"Do you want me to sleep somewhere else?" I offered at last, despair leaching my volume.

"What? Why?"

"You're clearly not comfortable being here with me. You don't have your own space anymore, but you can take this one, if it would help."

"No." I couldn't see him, but I heard him turn to face me. "It's not..." He trailed off. "I don't -" He stopped again with a sigh. "I'm sorry. It's me. Not you."

I tried to make sense of his stunted sentences. "Ok...even if that's true, you're not in this alone. What's bothering you?"

He didn't say anything, but suddenly he came to me, and I put my arm around him in relief, shifting so he could lay against my side. I let all the air empty from my lungs and filled them gratefully as his tangled waves brushed my neck. Four days was a long time to be physically separated from Avery.

"Is there something I can do?" I asked when he remained quiet.

"Just stay," he whispered.

"Of course. If that's what you want."

I didn't fall asleep until I was sure he had.

The next day was a little better. Avery at least let me kiss him before we left, and he trained with me for a while that afternoon. He still guarded himself closely around me, though, like I was a stranger again. Like he wanted to take back everything I knew about him and start over with nothing. He continued to avoid anything that might turn into sex, and when several more days had passed, I thought I should try again to figure out what had gone wrong.

I'd heard him volunteering to take Xander's watch that evening, so when most of the camp had settled down, I went to find him. Maybe he would have an easier time if we were fully clothed and not in bed.

Moonlight glowed faintly beneath the forest canopy, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere. Nothing else pierced the landscape: not a single streetlamp, headlight, or lit window. I was still getting used to the vastness of black in which we spent half our lives here.

I caught Avery's silhouette in one of the trees where we'd built a platform especially for this purpose. All kinds of predators stalked the woods at night. Rarely was it not an advantage to be off the ground.

I called out so he'd know it was me, then climbed up. From this vantage, in the daytime, the shape of the land was more perceptible - ebbing and flowing around streams and between cliffs. These forests were older than most, remnants of a reserve the government had protected before it gave up the gulf. The diversity of tree species, a blend of broadleaf and needle, made the ecosystem more resilient, and so far, it had mostly survived intact.

At night, of course, the forest was a sea of shadows. I could make out Avery's profile, but not his expression.

"Hey," I greeted him.

"What's going on?"

"I just thought this would be a good time to talk to you." He was standing beside the tree trunk, so I moved to the other end of the small platform, where he wouldn't feel crowded. "Is that ok?"

He hesitated. "I don't really know how to talk about anything."

"Will you at least let me try?"

Another beat of silence. "Ok."

I kept my gaze on the shifting tree shapes and spoke quietly. "Look, I know you've never been in relationship like this before. You're young, and you've had more than your fair share of abandonment and loss, and that probably makes it difficult to be close to someone." I paused for a moment. "But I am close to you. I don't stop caring about you just because you ignore me."

I ran a hand along a branch near me and pulled a slender shoot through my fingers, feeling buds only a few days from opening. "You said I hadn't done something to make you uncomfortable, but...you still are. You have been since our sex play last week, so I can't see how I'm not responsible."

I watched evergreen needles glitter in the moonlight, considering how to make my request. "I've tried giving you space, but I miss you, Avery. When you shut me out, you're not the only one affected." I paused again to let that sink in. "Please tell me what's going on in your head. Unless you aren't planning on including me in your life anymore. And if so, I'd like to know that, too."

I kept my voice level, but I knew the chances of him choosing the second option were not inconsiderable, and stating my fear aloud shot adrenaline into my system. Before me, Avery had never been remotely serious with anyone, or even had an interest in it. I wasn't at all sure that he was ready for the commitment or emotional depth of a true partnership. It would really make more sense for him to go back to the easy, uncomplicated liaisons he was used to. Which would leave me in more pain than I wanted to contemplate.

"It's just...embarrassing," Avery said at last.

"What is?" I wished I could see his face better but knew he wouldn't talk to me if I could.

"What I did, what I let you do..." He took a deep breath. "How much I liked it. When I'm around you now, I feel...naked. More than when I actually am."

"Oh," I said, too surprised to think of anything else. I'd gotten past feeling ashamed about what I enjoyed sexually way back when I'd been with my first boyfriend. I supposed it should have occurred to me that I was Avery's first boyfriend.

"I can understand why you might feel that way, and I'm glad you told me," I said, recovering. "But there's nothing to be embarrassed about. I instigated it, and performed it, and got off on it four times, and I'm not embarrassed."

The blush, invisible on his cheeks, was still audible in his voice. "You weren't the one begging."

"That doesn't matter, babe. Sexual preferences are determined by the hardwiring of our body and brain. What excites us, or attracts us, or brings pleasure...it's really not within our control. Outside of making sure that all activities are desired by all parties, and that no one is being hurt, there's no reason to worry about what we enjoy."

"But...letting you tease me like that, letting you stop me from coming...doesn't it make me...weak or something? Why would I like that?"

The stress I'd carried all week was dissipating rapidly at the discovery that Avery's worries could be addressed so easily.

"No, it has nothing to do with weakness," I assured him. "It's a physiological fact that the right kind of stimulation at a high level of arousal can be extremely pleasurable. And it's a psychological fact that arousal can be significantly enhanced by mental factors such as anticipation and perception of need."

I stopped and laughed at how that must sound. "Not to reduce sex to science, but that's all that's happening. It's natural to like whatever makes us feel good; it isn't a character flaw. The more I know about what you like, the better I can make you feel. For me, I happen to find it more exciting to create the anticipation. But the principles are the same."

Avery took a minute to think that over. "Ok, yeah, I guess you're right," he concluded, and finally he sounded convinced.

I released the air from my lungs. "Why didn't you talk to me about this before, when I asked what was bothering you?"

"Because, I told you - I was embarrassed."

"So your solution was to avoid me forever?"

He didn't answer, and again I was frustrated by the darkness. It was difficult enough to navigate the minefield of his fears when the map of his face wasn't hidden.

"It's ok to have emotions, Avery."

"You don't," he accused.

My brow furrowed. "I know you know that's not true."

"I've literally never seen you upset," he persisted.

I drew in a long breath. Just when I thought we were getting somewhere. "Babe, that's not necessarily a desirable trait. I've been conditioned since infancy to suppress my reactions." I tried to figure out how to reassure him. "We have completely different backgrounds and personalities. You shouldn't compare yourself to me."

Avery stood silent, staring into the depths of the forest in front of us, but the lines of his body were tense: feet squared, back straight, arms crossed. "I don't want to talk about this anymore," he said eventually.

"Why?" I asked, thrown off by this turn.

"I just don't, ok?"

Instinctively, I took a step closer, longing for a way to soothe him. Avery in distress was the worst torment the gods could dream up for me. But he stiffened, angling his jaw away.

"I'll see you later, then," I sighed, defeated. I set one boot on the ladder to climb back down, but suddenly Avery's hand was on my arm.

"Julian..." With the three syllables of my name, his voice catching, he was abruptly defenseless. I moved in and wrapped his lean body in my embrace, the only protection I could offer. He molded himself to me, arms tight across my back, and all I could do was lay my head against his and hope he could find a way to trust me.

"It's ok. I'm here," I murmured. If only it would help.

When I awoke the next morning, I was encouraged to find Avery still in bed. I watched him sleep for a few minutes in the early sunlight already warming our tent. I had missed this peaceful expression, which he never seemed to wear anymore while conscious. Tentatively, I stroked his back, and his mocha eyes opened.

"Hey," I said gently, amazed as ever that anyone could be so beautiful. Over the winter months, the light layer of freckles across his cheeks had faded, but the subtle texture still adorned the striking features of his blended heritage. Dark lashes and brows balanced the exquisite shape of his lips, while the curling ends of his black hair and the firm line of his jaw framed his face.

"Hi." He watched me, cautious, but not bolting like last week.

"Can I kiss you?"

He hesitated, then nodded. I met his lips carefully at first, pressing softly, as if it were our first time all over again. His hot, sweet mouth pressed back, so I moved in closer. I ran my hand down the gorgeous sienna skin of his bare side, this time with a passionate rather than a comforting touch. When he still didn't pull away, I caressed a thumb over his nipple, making my intentions clear.

Avery gasped and curved a hand around the base of my skull. Then he rolled to his back, pulling me with him. I kissed and caressed him until he was thrusting his hips, then I worked down his body, stopping to lick along the furrows between muscle groups, which made him moan. Not wanting to overstay my welcome, I didn't linger long before removing his trunks and taking him into my mouth.

I've heard it before: cocksucker, fired at me like a missile, the dirtiest insult someone's underdeveloped brain could come up with. But the warhead never hits its mark. If teasing a cock with lips and tongue until every sensitive micrometer is swollen and tingling, until the owner is panting and babbling and consumed with lust, until your mouth becomes his whole universe, is a punishment - either you're doing it wrong, or your partner's an irredeemably selfish creep.

I sucked Avery's cock in all his favorite ways, until he cried out with his climax. He pushed me down in turn, treating me with equal care and swallowing seven days of hot memories.

I expected the tension to break, after that. It didn't. Avery resumed the routines of our relationship, working with me and sleeping with me, but some essential part of him remained out of reach. He was speaking to me again, but his responses seemed calculated, as if he were running all his thoughts through a filter, using algorithms I couldn't decipher. His behavior flipped from closed to clingy without warning, so I never knew whether it was safe to approach him. At work, he drove himself relentlessly and refused offers of help. Clearly something besides embarrassment was preying on his mind, but he shut himself away and barricaded every access point.

More days passed while I watched and worried. Was this the end? Had he decided that being with me cost too much after all, and he was just afraid to say so? I backed off as much as I could, trying to be available for him without making any demands, hoping it would be enough.

I was reading by lamplight when Avery came in one night - late, but not as late as some nights. He pulled off his boots and jacket, but instead of going to his side of the tent, he sat on the edge of the bed next to me.

"How are you?" I asked.

His eyes met mine, and to my amazement, the barricades were gone. No wonder he had built the extra fortifications. Inside, he was all raw fears and unhealed wounds, desperate loneliness and pure need. Before I could open my mouth, he reached over and switched off the light, shielding himself in darkness. He grabbed the book from my hand and laid it aside. Then he was on me, kissing me with naked passion, pressing in hungrily, pulling up my shirt to get to my flesh.

I let him show me what he needed, let him strip my torso and push me onto my back. He climbed over me, devouring my mouth and grinding his erection urgently through our pants until I was just as hard. I honestly thought I might be able to come like that, from the intensity of his thrusting and kissing. But Avery had other ideas.

He stopped to pull off the rest of our clothing, and suddenly an oil-slicked hand was lathering my shaft. A moment later, the tight ring of Avery's asshole stretched around the head of my cock. I gasped and fought the urge to press up into him. I desperately desired to take the pleasure he was offering, but I didn't want to hurt him, so I ran my hands down the taut muscle of his back while he worked me into his body. When his ass had swallowed me, I started thrusting, not very gently, taking my cues from Avery's eager moans and the roll of his hips.