After the End Ch. 09

Author's note:

"After the End" Part 1 is 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. Part 1 consists of chapters 1-7.

Part 2 begins with chapter 8 and explores the addition of a new sexual partner to the central relationship between Avery and Julian. I can't make any promises about timing, but I will release chapters as they are completed. I anticipate that Part 2 will have a shorter story arc, totaling about 4 chapters.

Feel free to drop in on specific chapters or sections based on your mood or interest, but the dramatic tension is strongest if you start from the beginning of Part 1. As always, I appreciate hearing your reactions and feedback. It truly does help me create the best stories that I can for readers to enjoy.

I do want to add a content warning for this chapter: There is a brief but fairly graphic description of past family death and suicide as well as resulting traumatic emotions. Please proceed with caution if this could be upsetting for you.

Tags for this chapter include: #bisexual male, #threesome, #future, #dystopia, #novel, #romantic, #denial, #tickling, #submission, #male submissive

_______________

Avery:

"So what do you want to do with Vik tonight?" Julian asked. "Provided he's able to make it this time."

We were lying beneath our cotton coverlet on one of the first cooler mornings of the year. Outside our room, the sun would be breaking the horizon, but not much light seeped through the shutters on our window. A messenger had woken us in the night to warn of another wildfire sighted to the east, but we'd just gotten word that it was contained behind the river. Between one thing and another, it had been nearly two weeks since our first evening with Vik, and all we'd managed was a few dinners together.

"Uh...a lot of things..." I replied from my habitual position against Julian's warm bare side, my head pillowed against his powerful shoulder.

His palm rested with familiar weight on my arm. "Like what?"

A kaleidoscope of erotic images started rotating in my brain, combining and recombining beautiful, bright possibilities with our new lover: Lick him, kiss him, tie him up. Fuck him, tickle him, make him scream. Come in his mouth, in his ass, on his cock. With Julian in my mouth, in my ass, on my cock.

I wasn't sure what was appropriate to admit to, or ask for. I'd never had a committed relationship before Julian, let alone had I tried adding an extra sex partner to a marriage, so I was a little confused about what I was supposed to feel.

I shrugged and fell back on my trusty non-answer. "I don't know."

"You don't know what? If I want to hear your ideas? I promise I do."

I molded my hand to the hard muscle of Julian's chest. I'd always been jealous of his impressive physique. I counted several of his slow heartbeats, thudding dully beneath the layers of flesh and bone, before I replied.

"I just...want you to decide. What we do. It's easier for me."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." My hand stroked the contour of his pecs. It wasn't visible in the pre-dawn glow at the window, but one of my favorite tattoos was inscribed there -- a starkly stunning silhouette of songbirds and leafless branches. He'd gotten it in memory of his first squad, which had been blown to bits by an improvised explosive. Pure luck left him alone unscathed.

Julian's hand slid to my flank, then to where my hip bone jutted above my waistband. An edge of provocation entered his voice.

"Can I decide what we do this morning?"

I followed the valley between his pecs to his solid abs, also covered in layers of tattoos he'd acquired since age sixteen, before granting his wish. "Yes."

Sometimes I really didn't care what we did, as long as he was there and touching me. Even if it was going to leave me with blue balls. They were still something he gave me; aching testicles proved I was his as much as empty ones did. Maybe more so. Plus they made me think of him all day, which an epic orgasm, no matter how gratifying, did not.

He rolled me onto my back and kissed me for a minute, then he crawled down my body, slid off my trunks, and took my cock into his mouth. I relaxed and let him have his way. Either he'd finish me or he wouldn't, but regardless, right now it felt amazing.

I was falling deeply under the spell of pleasure when he broke away to speak. "I want to hear a fantasy. Just one. About Vik."

My pelvic muscles contracted involuntarily at the scene that flashed through my kaleidoscope.

"That one," Julian commanded. "The one that just made your cock jump. Tell me."

"Julian --" I protested. Heat was flowing into my face as well as into my genitals. That scene didn't involve him, and I doubted it was ok for me to want Vik to myself. Even in my fantasies.

He was implacable in his stupid hot way. "You said I could decide what we did." His lips closed around my glans and started massaging me again.

How did he always zero in on the one thing that would really get to me? I tried to steady my sprinting pulse with a couple of long breaths. "What if it's...bad?"

He freed his mouth again. "No one's thoughts can be morally wrong, regardless of the subject. But if you mean taboo...all the better."

I let him tongue the underside of my shaft for another minute while I gathered my courage. "It's about me and Vik -- alone," I confessed.

Julian's reply was darkly sensual. "Give me enough details and I'll make it worth your while."

I could refuse; I always had the option to refuse. It's not like he would be upset or retaliate in any way. But there was something...uniquely rewarding about letting him flay me to my most private depths. It made me feel closer to him than anything else. Safe, because it proved I could trust him with even my most embarrassing secrets, and he would still take care of me. And that rarely failed to supercharge my libido.

I closed my eyes against my vivid blush, even though thankfully there wasn't really enough light for us to see each other, and I gave him the details while he gave me decadent, slow-blooming pleasure between my legs, complete with a starburst climax.

When I was empty, he got up, grabbed his canteen to rinse me down, and cracked open the shutters. God, I couldn't face him in daylight. I pulled my trunks on and hid under the pillows like a child. After a moment, I felt him sit beside me.

A hand stroked my back soothingly. "You ok, babe?"

"Not really..."

"Why? That was super hot."

He didn't seem bothered, which didn't make a lot of sense. "Why do you think it's hot that I like another guy?" I mumbled into the mattress.

His hand journeyed gently across my shoulder blades. "I think it's hot when you're turned on. I don't expect to be the only person who ever achieves that." I pulled in another lungful, and he continued. "It doesn't change how you feel about me, does it?"

"No, of course not." It was difficult to imagine anything that could.

"So as long as you stick to the terms of our arrangement, there's nothing to worry about."

I considered for a minute, then I turned to the side and looked up to catch a fond smile on his lips. I was just about reassured when the implications of what he'd said sunk in. Something unsettled in my gut, snagged on the image.

"Do you think about being alone with him?" I waited nervously, not sure what I wanted to hear.

"Sure, sometimes."

My stomach wasn't liking that answer. Neither was my heart, or my brain. I felt queasy, my pulse picked up, and my thoughts went spinning. I wasn't like Julian, at the top of the food chain. Nearly anyone could replace me; Vik certainly could.

"It's just attraction, Avery. Beyond my control, or anyone's. It has no bearing on my relationship with you."

I lay silent on the bed, staring at Julian's knees. Paralyzed by the prospect of his daydreams.

"Isn't that what you just told me?" Julian tried again. "You like Vik, but it doesn't change how you feel about me?"

It was different. Completely different. I knew it was, even though a muted voice somewhere in my head suggested that it actually wasn't.

He took my shoulder and grew serious. "Avery, hey. If we're going to keep including Vik in our sex life, we need to be able to talk about this. Especially if it's upsetting you."

I swallowed some moisture back into my throat and sat up. I struggled to put words to the overpowering sense of alarm, but I only came up with three. "You like him."

Julian's tone was patient and reasonable. "We both like him. That's why we're sleeping with him."

The words were thick and sticky as peanut butter, but I squeezed a few out. "You said...it was for fun."

"Right..." He waited for me to go on, but I couldn't dislodge any other words. "I don't find it fun to have sex with people I'm not attracted to -- do you?"

"No." I kept my gaze fixed on the wood plank floor.

"So what's different today from two weeks ago? You seemed fine after we had him over."

"I don't know." The difference was that two weeks ago I hadn't been fucking nauseated.

Julian sighed, probably getting frustrated with my inability to explain. "I'm trying to understand, babe, but all I can see is that you're triggered. Can you at least tell me what emotions you're feeling?" He listed some options. "Angry, jealous, sad, hurt, scared, confused?"

I was terrible at this, and I hated doing it. But for his sake, I dug through the tangled garbage in my gut and brain. This wasn't how anger felt, or even hurt or jealousy. There was only one name for this sickening dread.

"Scared," I told him, barely louder than a whisper. The emergency alarms clamored louder now that I'd identified them. Like my marriage was at stake; like my life was at stake. My fist clenched against my leg, but I couldn't outrun this type of threat.

"Ok." No doubt he was trying to be soothing. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do anything to scare you." I could feel him watching me, but I didn't look up. "Can I hold your hand?"

I nodded, so he loosened my fingers and closed them in his own. It didn't lessen my sense of foreboding.

When he spoke again, his voice was very gentle. "What are you scared of, babe? I'm sure there are plenty of fears; we all have them. But right now, when you think about us and Vik -- what's the outcome you're most afraid of?"

I didn't want to focus on it. I knew, on some primal level, that what lurked in this fear was too awful, too unfathomable to bear. That's why my body was preparing to flee. But Julian was trying to help me, and he couldn't unless I answered.

I followed the nightmarish maze in my head, searching for a description to match the worst-case-scenario images. But too many memories were knotted in with the anxieties. Cruel memories I tried never to look at.

My father, lying to four-year-old me, saying he'd be back soon when in fact he was abandoning me forever.

My sister, only ten years old, gasping in my arms until her heart stopped beating, pleading for help that none of us could give her.

My mother, her lifeless body curled up in the kitchen washtub in a gallon of her own blood, preferring to die rather than parent her son.

Julian, throwing me out of this very room last year, discarding our whole relationship without a backward glance.

In this moment, none of that was happening. Yet in a way, it still was. It always was.

What was I most afraid of? Same with Vik as it was with anything.

"That you don't want me," I told Julian. Tears had gotten into my eyes somehow and were spilling onto my cheeks. "That you leave me."

"Baby..." His voice was so kind and concerned, it melted me down some more. He pulled me into his arms, like he could body-shield me from all the terrors of my past and future. "I'm so sorry. I want you so much, and I'm not going anywhere. Not at all. Everything's ok. If anything did ever cause me to leave you, I really don't expect it would be Vik. Please don't worry."

He held me and kissed my head and told me he loved me. I clung to him and cried and tried to stop crying.

When I had marginally succeeded, Julian caressed the curls at the nape of my neck. "This isn't just about me, or him, is it," he suggested, still at his most gentle.

"I guess not," I whispered hoarsely. I swallowed some of the teary residue from my throat. "It just feels so real when...it seems like there's a reason for you not to want to be here." He stroked through my hair until I spoke again. "I know you married me and everything, and I know you love me, but it still seems like it could go away at any time. Like it did last year. Like it always does when..." I couldn't quite finish.

"Someone loves you?" he offered.

I nodded against his shoulder, fresh moisture stinging my eyes. It sounded pathetic out loud...but it had been my actual experience.

"I understand why it could feel like that." He was speaking quietly too. "I'm not a fortune-teller; I can't guarantee anything that will or won't happen in the future. But I have promised not to abandon you, and I can control that. I'm not any more likely to leave you for Vik now than I was when he first approached me. I've chosen you, and if the day ever came that I needed something different, it would only be after we'd tried everything to make our partnership work. A breakup would never just happen to you, without your input, like it did last year. Which you know I deeply regret."

I managed another nod. Worst fucking week of my life, not excluding the tragic deaths in my family.

"I know you've lost a lot of people," he went on. "I have too. The truth is, this world is dangerous. I could die tomorrow; so could you, or anyone. Even though I won't intentionally leave, you could lose me in that way, and there's nothing you or I could do about it."

The horrible knot in my gut tightened again. I had almost lost him that way already, more than once.

"So I understand that your fears about me are grounded in some genuine risks and truly awful past losses, and I'm not blaming you for them," he said. "But do you want to be ruled by fear for the rest of your life? Letting it crop up in our relationship over and over, even when I think we're at our best?"

I let out a full breath and stayed in Julian's embrace while I contemplated not living with this constant instinct to expect the worst, not always waiting for him to leave. Just the idea of being less afraid started to relax the tangle inside. It was like topping a ridge and sighting an idyllic valley spread out below. Maybe you were still in cliff country, and you didn't necessarily know how to find a path down, but at least the possibility was there.

I wiped my eyes and nose on my sleeve and sat back. I didn't quite dare to meet his brilliantly azure gaze, so I studied his body art instead. "How would I...be different?"

He reached to caress the side of my face for a moment. "To be clear, I don't need you to be different. I just don't want you to suffer unnecessarily. There are many possible approaches that might help, and it's probably not something that would change overnight. I can give you some ideas, and you could also talk to Maurice. Dealing with the stress and trauma of military service was his focus in training."

He'd mentioned that before. I hadn't really connected Maurice's work with myself, but I was feeling pretty damn traumatized this morning.

"I think it starts with being aware of what thoughts are upsetting you," Julian said. "When I said that I'd had harmless fantasies about me and Vik, you apparently jumped immediately to thinking that I might leave you. If you can follow that jump, you'll have a better chance of realizing that the thought is just a possible future that has not happened and therefore is not real."

The early morning light at the window was stronger than it had been a few minutes ago. I stared at my hands and tried to process Julian's suggestion.

"I think it would also help if you can tell me what's going on when something starts bothering you," he added. "That way things are less likely to spiral and become overwhelming."

"I'll try," I told him. The fear was ebbing, which made it easier to see that I'd flipped out for no reason, again. "But then I feel like an idiot when it turns out to be nothing. Like now."

I still wasn't looking up, but I saw his smile from my peripheral. He placed a kiss at my temple.

"It's not nothing, babe. The emotion is real even if the thing you're worried about is not." He gave me a moment to ponder that logic puzzle. "I'm really glad we talked about this. What are you thinking about having Vik over tonight? We can always wait if you're at all uncomfortable."

I already knew that answer. "No, I want to see him. And I want to see...you with him. Yes, I'm sure," I added before he could ask. It was a habit of his that I knew was born of respect for consent but sometimes came across as doubting my self-efficacy.

"Alright." Julian glanced toward the door. "I wish I could stay in bed with you, but I'm surprised no one else has come looking for us yet."

"Yeah." I was too. It must be half past six, judging by the color of the sky.

"Can I kiss you?"

I looked at him finally, and some weight left my shoulders. He still loved me; he still wanted me. I nodded, and he took my lips tenderly.

"Thank you for talking to me," he said when the kiss ended. "And thank you for sharing your fantasy. I really did enjoy it."

I dropped my gaze, not totally over my embarrassment on that front. "Maybe you could tell me yours sometime?"

There was heat in his response. "If you'd like."

We got ready for the day finally, washing and dressing and re-supplying our packs. There were too many items it didn't pay to be without in the daily battle for survival: water, rations, knife, flint and tinder, first aid, compass, twine, gloves and hat, flashlight.

I hugged him one more time at the door. "I'm sorry," I felt compelled to say. I'd taken a perfectly harmless conversation and turned it into a counseling session.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, babe."

Instead of arguing, I tried to imagine that he was right. I let go of his body, but my fingers lingered on the brown pendant hanging at his throat. The one he'd chosen because it was the color of my eyes, mundane as that was.

"I love you," I told him.

"And I love you."

* * * * *

Julian:

"I'm glad we could finally do this again," I said when Avery, Vik, and I were gathered on the bed that evening. "I already have Avery's consent to control our session. Does anyone have limits they'd like to discuss? As a reminder, limits can change depending on what someone feels up to on a given day."

After this morning's unexpected ordeal, I'd been on the fence about proceeding with our plans, but Avery insisted he wanted to, and I didn't feel justified overruling him. He'd seemed ok the rest of the day, and Vik had arrived looking eager and at ease, so I resolved to monitor everyone's reactions with extra care and hoped that would be sufficient to avoid any further emotional damage.

"I don't have anything new," Vik replied.

"Me neither," Avery confirmed.

"Alright. Do we all agree to sexual contact this evening, on the same terms as last time?"

Upon hearing two "yes" responses, I added my own. "Safe word reminder -- Vik?"

He answered easily. "'Yellow' to pause, listen, and respond to any request. 'Scarlet' to stop all contact."

"Great. Let's get started." I checked my partner's non-verbals one more time; he seemed ready. "Both of you, stand by the bed."