After the End Ch. 10

"Of course," he responded, his hands planted obediently on the bed. Unlike Avery and I, he'd fucked nothing but air.

"Which would be more frustrating for you: If I have you stroke yourself to the edge of orgasm while Avery's in your ass, and then stop? Or if Avery and I finish and we send you home without anything else touching your cock?"

I wished I could see or feel his nonverbal responses, but I could only go by his voice. It sounded tightly wound, almost anguished. "It's so hot that you're inside Avery while he's inside me, and I've been achingly hard since his hand was in my trunks... I think even edging myself would be better than getting nothing."

"Mmm," I approved. "So I think you know what's going to happen now."

"Yes --" His pitch climbed a few keys.

"Avery, you're allowed to move however you want until you climax."

Immediately he started pumping into Vik's channel. "You're so damn cruel to him, Julian," he said, but he sounded more turned on than ever.

"Yeah?" I braced myself so he could rock back and forth between my cock and Vik's ass. My fingers skimmed his bare side. "I wasn't finished yet."

I directed my attention to our submissive lover while Avery lost himself to double intercourse.

"Vik, even when you get home, I want you to wait. I want you to take off all your clothes and lay on your back, put your arms behind your head and spread your legs. Then I want you to replay in your mind everything we did here tonight, from the moment you walked through the door until Avery comes in your ass. And then you can finally touch your dripping, throbbing cock. Bonus points if you edge it before you let yourself come."

It was hard to say whose groans were more desperate by the time my speech finished. I wrapped an arm around Avery and thrust viciously into his tight anal passage.

"You love it when I'm cruel to him, don't you," I said into his ear, low and ominous.

His reply was to burst into atomic orgasm. His whole body seized and he gripped Vik's waist with heedless strength while his semen pumped out. I rammed him while he came until I was coming too, nearly as hard. And Vik was left moaning in frustration, his balls as full of jizz as his ass was.

We panted in a sweaty heap of conjoined bodies until I collected myself enough to pull out. Avery and Vik went to the washroom; I stayed in our room to clean up. We hadn't discussed making our relationship public, and a postcoital washroom trip as a trio could easily start rumors in a community as tightly-knit as this one.

The two of them were sharing a joke by the time they returned, but Vik seemed reluctant to leave.

"You want to stay for a bit?" Avery asked him. "I mean I wouldn't want to, if I were you, but you're welcome."

Vik's gaze shifted to me. "Maybe...for a minute?"

"Sure," I agreed. I knew physical release wasn't really a cure for emotional deprivation. "Come sit with us."

We settled against the headboard, Vik in the middle at Avery's prompting. I pulled our spare blanket over our knees and encouraged Vik to rest against my shoulder. Avery nestled against his other side, which ironically made me nearer to jealous than anything he'd done before. He'd shared himself sexually with many people, but intimate affection was special between us.

"What's going on at the med center?" I asked Vik. "Or if that's a stressful subject, we can talk about something else."

"It's not bad at the moment. Only two inpatient tonight."

Obviously he couldn't share anyone's personal medical information, but we talked for a while about the injuries and symptoms he'd been helping with lately. I was in Avery's camp; I wouldn't have been able to relax after the kind of tormenting need Vik had endured. But he seemed grateful for the company.

When he was ready to leave, I took his handsome face in my hand and kissed him fondly. "Thank you for giving Avery this experience. But remember that you're part of this equation too. If you find yourself needing something different from what we've agreed on, please don't hesitate to tell us."

He met my gaze and nodded. "Thank you, Julian."

Avery hugged and kissed him at the door. "Listen to him," he echoed. "When I don't, it usually blows up in my face."

Vik smiled slightly. "Thank you too. And I will."

We'd had an unusually early start to our evening, partially due to the shrinking late-October days, so Avery and I blew out the candles and lay in bed talking for a while after Vik left.

"There's something I'd like to try next time Vik comes over," I said eventually. "If you and he are up for it."

"Me? What would I have to do?"

"Well, you never have to do anything."

He shoved my shoulder in playful exasperation. "I know that."

I smiled in the dark. He'd understand soon. "Vik mentioned before that he was experienced with rope bondage, and that he enjoys being restrained. I thought you might like to see him tied up. I definitely would."

Avery was quiet, and I figured I knew what film was playing in his head. I'd tried ropes on him, once. Very briefly. Simple, just his hands behind his back. We'd discussed it in advance, of course, and he'd seemed fine while I bound his wrists, until the moment I reached for his unprotected body. He'd panicked and recoiled from my touch like he never had before. Like he actually feared I would abuse him. I could barely calm him enough to untie him, and he immediately fled the room.

It had been an unnerving encounter for both of us. One of our rare failed experiments. When he didn't come home after half an hour, I went to find him. He was out by the creek, mortified and worried I was disappointed or angry with him, which of course I wasn't. He was at least able to talk about it a little, but I hadn't brought the subject up since then.

"I also thought," I went on, "if Vik were there, and you could see that it was safe, you might be interested in trying restraints again yourself. Loss of control usually turns you on, and I think you'd like it if you weren't so afraid." I let him consider for the space of a breath. "But it's also fine if you never want to, and if it'll bother you to use them with Vik, then I won't."

It was quiet again for so long, I started to get worried. Finally he spoke, soft and hesitant.

"I would like it, if you tied Vik up. I don't know...about me."

"Ok. I'll run it by Vik." I paused a moment. "Just so you have all the information, I would make it very easy for you, at least for your first time. Always, if you wanted. Pleasure only; nothing we don't do on a weekly basis."

He thought about that. "Then what's the point of ropes?"

"What is ever the point of me controlling your movement? Making you stay still, putting my weight on you, pinning you down?" Not that I did that last very often.

I didn't hear anything, and I guessed he was shrugging, the gesture lost to the night.

"Think about it, Avery," I encouraged. "What do you gain when you can't move, even if what I'm doing feels amazing?"

His reply was still quiet, wary. "I don't know. It's...more exciting. Everything feels...more intense." A brief silence. "I never know what you're going to do. I get...really hard."

"Exactly. You aren't in my head, so you never know what I'm going to do, whether you can move or not. But when you're restrained, I have more options, and it creates more suspense. Which makes even simple activities a lot more impactful."

I waited for a reply but didn't get one.

"It's just a tool, like anything," I said. "You know that I would never use it to hurt you." I turned toward him and laid a hand on his slim torso. "I'm strong; I'm a trained fighter, and I have a fair amount of mass on you. It would have been easier two years ago, but I could still overpower you and do anything I wanted, anytime. I don't need ropes."

There was still no response except Avery's body rising and falling by millimeters under my palm. I spoke more gently.

"You'd be just as safe bound as you are in bed with me right now. You'd just be more exposed, and I think that's what you're scared of. But if you remember, some of your best experiences have been when you've needed to trust me the most. So it's your decision, but give it some thought. I'd love to find out where it could take us."

He sighed deeply beside me. Then he moved closer, so our body heat mingled. Finally he spoke. "Now I'm hard again."

I laughed and rubbed his back. "You see."

"Have you ever been tied up?"

"Yes. During my military career, for practice and in the course of operations that went badly, and also recreationally, in a sexual context."

Avery breathed silently for a moment. "Trying to imagine what kind of person you would let immobilize you."

"Any responsible partner utilizing restraints should experience them first."

"Still."

"Someone I knew back west. He was well respected for his work, and when he practiced with me, I wasn't alone with him. Which is one reason I'm suggesting including Vik. I found it helpful to have that extra failsafe."

There was another lull. "You might have to tell me more about that sometime. But yeah, I'll think about it."

"Ok, babe." I kissed the part of him nearest my mouth, which happened to be his shoulder. "Gonna go to sleep, unless you want to keep talking."

He stretched beneath the covers. "Sleep sounds good. These sessions with Vik wipe me the fuck out."

I smiled and rolled over. "You're welcome."

"Night, Julian."

"Night."

* * * * *

Avery:

We'd just about escaped the riskiest part of hurricane season when one arrived. From late summer to mid-autumn, gulf waters were at their warmest, making massive storms the most likely. That time of year wasn't as nerve-racking as it used to be, when we lived further south and within direct range of winds that could shred our homes. But even here, two hundred miles from the coast, storms could reach us strong enough to double our annual rainfall in only a few days.

The winds could still be severe, and the tornados were a bitch, but nothing's more terrifying than the flooding. It comes absolutely out of nowhere: one minute it's just raining like usual, and the next water is overflowing streams, filling hollows you didn't even know were there, and rising rapidly toward your doorstep. And there's no way of knowing whether it's going to rain for two hours or two weeks. If the flood's going to be nothing more than swiftly-flowing rivulets, or if it's going to wash the whole community away. Back in Acadiana, we had a storm once that engulfed our houses, drowned most of our livestock, and submerged our crops just days into the peak of harvest. We all try not to remember the gnawing hunger and needless deaths of that winter.

According to Julian, tropical storms used to be identified long before they threatened land, and the military still knew when, where, and how hard a hurricane was going to hit. Here, we had no warning other than what little guidance experience could offer. Weather was extremely erratic from month to month and year to year, so even the predictions of our oldest community members were often totally off base. However devastating a storm had been, a worse one was guaranteed to come along soon enough.

We'd only founded Fort Laurel two years ago, and we'd made it through last season without any major rain events, so no one knew exactly where or how flooding might occur. Julian and I, along with the original mission team, had done our best to site the fort on elevated ground that drained well into the surrounding creeks and rivers. But it always depended on how much moisture the heated atmosphere collected and where exactly the clouds wrung out. Plus, this location had been intended as a second base, not a home for all several thousand in our community. We'd had to set up living quarters and work buildings over substantially wider ground than we'd expected.

This flood hit like most of them: nothing, and then everything. Rain had been falling on and off for several days when the storm burst on the last Wednesday morning of October. With the ground already saturated and drainage channels full, the drenching inches had nowhere to go. Suddenly fields turned into bogs, deep ponds formed spontaneously, and normally harmless paths became dangerously swift streams.

It's disorienting, the way a single storm can transform the most familiar territory into a treacherous obstacle course. The constantly-falling rain only made it more difficult to see. I got drenched anytime I stepped outside, and by four in the afternoon when the sun started setting, the situation was growing serious.

I'd been in and out of the command center all day, checking the flooding around the settlement and making contingency plans and emergency decisions to salvage food supplies, stored goods, livestock, and critical processes. Every hour we prayed for it to stop raining, but every hour the water kept rising. I'd already relocated a number of work groups who might not be able to return to the fort if the overflow worsened. Everyone who lived outside the walls had been ordered inside, and a supply caravan from the farming collective in the valley had barely been rescued from the mud.

"We're missing some people," Tara reported to me on her next trip to the command center. Normally the deputy overseer of Fort Laurel's food supply, she was currently helping conduct a head count at the main hall. She kept her volume low, but I could hear the alarm. "The Monroes from the south outpost, the boar hunters who went out this morning, Ms. Lavinia, one of the herders...and Gavin's children."

"Marley and Parker? How? Weren't they with the other students?" They were about eight and ten years old -- not young enough to need constant supervision, but definitely too small to be out in the dark with torrential flooding. Their family was one who'd ended up with a home outside the walls as we'd expanded from the early temporary residences.

Tara shook her head, droplets splashing around her. "Madelyn thought they were, but there was some kind of mix-up. Their teacher thought they were with her, so they weren't accounted for during the evacuation. The two of them just connected to realize no one knows where they are."

"Shit." I was already pulling my raincoat back on. "Where's Gavin?" As our community's lead engineer, floods kept him busy day and night.

"Heading out to search for them. I told him I'd have someone meet him at the gate." No one was allowed outside the walls alone during an emergency.

"I'll go. Have Iris send teams for the others."

I grabbed my pack and left a message for Julian with the clerk, then I switched on my flashlight and splashed through the downpour to the gate. Gavin was just arriving. He looked more like an athlete than an engineer; he was a little taller than Julian, and when he wasn't at his desk, he preferred active hobbies that kept him fit -- rock climbing, canoeing, day trips with his kids to explore the woodlands.

"They're probably just at the house," I told him over the sound of a million raindrops slapping the ground. "I'll go look with you."

He kept his tone even, but I caught the fear in his face. "Madelyn and our friends are searching the outbuildings, but it hasn't flooded like this in a few years. The kids were too young last time to learn how to stay safe."

"They're smart. I'm sure they figured it out," I said with what I hoped was encouraging conviction. "Did you bring rope, in case we need to get near the creek?" It was moving too fast to keep our footing even in the shallows.

Gavin's eyes focused on mine, and I could almost see the terrifying scenes painting themselves in his brain: If Marley or Parker had strayed too close to the channel, or even one of the rivulets pouring into it, they could be far downstream by now. Or their bodies could be.

"I have some," was all he said.

We made our way to their home as quickly as we dared while watching our own steps. We searched as we went, our flashlight beams slicing the thick curtain of rain, but we saw nothing. Gavin's family lived in one of the old buildings that had still been intact when we relocated to this abandoned area. The house, along with Madalyn's prize vegetable garden, was now standing in a foot of water. We waded carefully inside, but we found no one and heard no response to our shouts.

My blood ran colder, and it wasn't because of the tropical rain. How could we have lost two children?

"Shelby," Gavin said suddenly when we were back outside checking the yard.

"Who?"

"Our dog. She wasn't here when Madalyn came to pack our stuff. What if the kids went to look for her?" He stared into the black beyond the converted forestry station.

I considered the possibilities. They'd probably been here before the place was underwater. If they went toward the creek, they might have gotten trapped as the waters rose between them and the fort.

I stepped closer and gripped Gavin's arm through his poncho. "We'll find them," I tried to reassure him, even though I had no way to guarantee it. May as well not panic before we had to.

He knew as well as I did that it was an empty promise, but he just nodded.

We ventured toward the overflowing creek across ground made treacherous by slippery mud, fallen branches, and pools that could be concealing anything. We stayed within earshot of each other, which wasn't very far given the pounding rain, calling their names and pausing to listen for small voices responding.

My heart sank along with our distance from Fort Laurel. We could only go so far before we'd get cut off too.

Suddenly I froze -- I thought I'd heard something above the water roaring through the air and on the ground. My ears trained in the direction of the sound. There it was again -- that could be a child crying for help!

"Gavin!" I called to him. "I think I heard them! This way!"

At last our flashlights caught the quarry we so desperately sought -- two children in glistening jackets clinging to a young tree that had been engulfed by the swirling water.

"Marley! Parker!" Gavin yelled, relief mingling with fear. "I'm here! Hold on -- we're coming to get you!"

It wasn't going to be easy to reach them without getting swept away ourselves. We had to cross a deep channel before we could even get to the creek. I nearly lost an eye when I tripped over something submerged and splashed into water hiding the sharp points of a broken tree limb.

In the end, Gavin stayed on what used to be the bank to anchor the rope against a larger tree, and I half-waded, half-swam to reach the kids. It was always hard to believe how strong these normally placid waterways could run during flood conditions. Even with Gavin's help on the rope, it was a tough fight through heavy currents over unknown obstacles lurking beneath the surface, all while keeping a child's head above water. But we made it: Parker first, because he was younger; then Marley.

Gavin hugged and kissed them frantically and checked them for injuries. They were frightened, exhausted, and hungry, but intact. Thank god it was never very cold during these storms, but the temperature had dropped with nightfall. They had indeed been searching for the family dog, not realizing the difference between this rainstorm and the ones that swept through regularly.

"Thank you, Avery," Gavin told me as we slogged back to camp, each carrying one of the small siblings. "Truly." He wasn't an effusive person, but the fervent gratitude in his voice was clear enough.

"Of course. I'm really glad they're safe."

Parker had latched onto me like a koala, burrowed inside my rain jacket where he could be warmer, if not any drier. Poor little guy. I was struck by sudden memories of my own sister at this age. I'd carried her around a lot, and even though I'd been much younger then, her weakened heart had left her a manageable armful. Parker's damp blond head pressed against my neck, and I cuddled him closer, thankful he hadn't suffered Ariana's fate.