For Destruction, Ice.

There was a sound at the door, and Jesse heard Frost come back into the room. A smell of hot food came with him, and Jesse's stomach rumbled in response.

He heard Frost drop what sounded like a pizza box in the kitchenette, and shortly afterwards Frost's fingers were against the ties at his right wrist.

As soon as his hand was untied, Jesse tried to pull off the blindfold, but Frost slapped his hand away.

"Leave it, or I'll tie you up and leave you for the rest of the day."

Jesse's heart sank.

Remember, do what he tells you to!

He did his best not to struggle when Frost ran a hand over his junk, just to tease him, before untying his legs. Finally, Frost untied his left wrist and he was free.

Jesse started to sit up, and Frost shoved him back against the bed with one hand, knocking the breath out of him.

"Ask."

Do what he tells you to do!

"Can I go to the bathroom?"

He waited, and could feel Frost considering him.

"Please?" he said.

More silence.

"I really need to take a piss," he said. "Please?"

Frost seemed to make a decision, and dragged him to his feet, propelling him towards the bathroom.

"Can I take the blindfold off?" Jesse asked. "Otherwise, it's going to get messy."

For a long, terrifying moment, he was afraid Frost would hold his cock while he pissed, but thankfully Frost pulled off the blindfold.

"Eyes down. If you look up, you lose your hair."

Jesse bridled at this, but he did as Frost said, and kept his eyes on what he was doing. He flushed, then washed his hands, keeping his eyes downcast, and as soon as he was done, Frost pulled the blindfold back over his eyes.

"Do you need anything else?" Frost asked, and Jesse knew what he meant.

"No." He hadn't eaten enough to need to use the bathroom that way.

"Good. Let's eat."

Frost guided Jesse back out to the main room and sat him on a stool at the breakfast bar. There was the scrape of a plate, and then Frost took Jesse's hand and placed it against the food. Jesse had been right, it was pizza.

He lifted it hungrily to his mouth, and Frost smacked the back of his hand.

"Ask."

Jesse felt the anger growing in him again. Every inch of him wanted that piece of pizza. He was starving, hadn't eaten properly in ages, and being tortured had made him very aware of his body's needs.

"Can I please eat now?" he asked, his voice still hoarse.

"Yes," said Frost.

Jesse lifted the slice of pizza to his mouth, and took a bite, chewing hungrily. He took another bite, and then heard Frost laugh.

He stopped, frozen. Why the fuck was Frost laughing? Had he done something to the food? Was that why Jesse was blindfolded?

He stayed there, unable to put the pizza back in his mouth but too hungry to just abandon it, at war with himself.

"What's wrong?" asked Frost, and there was mirth in his voice. "Does it not taste good?"

Jesse inhaled the scent of the pizza. It smelled like pizza. It tasted like pizza. It felt like normal pizza in his mouth.

He took another bite and Frost laughed again, a chuckle suppressed.

Swallowing hard, Jesse forced himself to take another bite, but now the food was losing its taste as he imagined all the things Frost might have done to it.

After five bites, he dropped the rest of the slice, feeling sick. Whether he was sick with hunger, or sick with fear that Frost was silently humiliating him, he wasn't sure. But he couldn't eat any more.

"Come on boy, don't waste it!" Frost put the slice of pizza back in Jesse's hand, wrapping the boys fingers around it. "I insist!"

"I'm not hungry," said Jesse, the words a rasped whisper, but Frost brought his hand to his mouth.

"Eat."

"I can't."

He heard a noise, the sound of a drawer opening, and flinched back seconds before Frost caught hold of his hair with one hand.

The older man pressed the flat of the scissors against Jesse's cheek.

"Eat, or I will cut off your hair right now."

Jesse felt despair welling inside him. Even if he refused to eat, there was nothing to stop Frost cutting off his hair afterwards and then finding other ways to torture him.

He put the slice of pizza back in his mouth and took a bite, chewing the now tasteless food, feeling it catch in his throat as he swallowed.

"Good boy," said Frost soothingly, stroking the scissor blades down the side of Jesse's neck to rest against his shoulder.

Trembling, Jesse finished the piece of pizza and put his hands flat against the breakfast bar.

Frost moved the scissor blades away from his shoulder and Jesse heard the drawer slide shut again.

"Was that nice?" Frost asked, a mocking lilt in his voice.

"Yes," said Jesse in a whisper.

"Say thank you."

Jesse swallowed hard, feeling the food churning in his stomach. "Thank you."

Frost caressed his cheek. "Manners will get you a lot further in life than your foul mouth," said Frost. He pushed a hand through Jesse's hair, reminding him it was still attached to his head. "And you have a lot to be grateful for. Now, you have a choice. Where would you like to be chained? In the kitchen, with the food... on the bed as you were before, or in the bathroom?"

"What?" said Jesse, panic rising.

"I have things to do today, and I'm not leaving you to wander. So choose."

"When will you come back?" Jesse asked, each word rubbing his injured throat raw.

"Midnight," said Frost.

Once his wife was asleep.

Jesse felt despair. He was guessing it was early morning, and that meant Frost would be gone for up to eighteen hours or more. On the bed there was a chance he'd mess himself. In the kitchen, the same was true, but at least he'd have access to food and water. But he'd be chained on a cold, hard floor. If he chose the bathroom, he would at least have his dignity, and access to water.

"The bathroom," he said dejectedly.

"The bathroom it is," said Frost cheerfully. He pulled Jesse to his feet and guided him into the bathroom, shoving him down against the wall.

"You're lucky, this door had a deadlock, so I won't need to chain you."

"Can I take the blindfold off?" Jesse asked.

"There's a camera in this bathroom," said Frost. "If you take the blindfold off, the first thing I'll do when I come back is beat you. Do you understand?"

Jesse understood.

"Now be good."

A moment later Jesse heard the door lock, and Frost's retreating footsteps. He waited until the outer door shut behind his tormentor, then tore off the blindfold.

It was an incredible relief to be able to see. He looked anxiously around the bathroom, searching for a camera. And there it was. Frost hadn't been lying. A small red light blinked steadily on and off.

A moment later Jesse jumped as the outer door to the apartment opened again. There was the clatter of a key in the bathroom door, and Frost came into the bathroom.

"I warned you," he said. He held up his phone, and Jesse sat his own terrified face, the video feed from the IP camera in the corner of the room. "Now, I don't have time to punish you right now, as I have things to attend to," said Frost. "I'll punish you later tonight. If you keep the blindfold on for the rest of the day, I'll stick with ten lashes. If you take it off again, I'll stop when you pass out."

Jesse pulled the blindfold back over his eyes, and Frost slammed the bathroom door shut and locked it.

Once he'd gone against, Jesse put his arms around his knees and rested his head back against the bathroom wall. Eighteen hours locked in a bathroom. It seemed an obscene amount of time to be blind and alone.

He fumbled around behind him and found the damp towel Frost had used to dry him. It was mostly dry, and it would be better than just lying on the hard floor. He stretched the towel out and lay on his side. He needed to send his mind somewhere safe, somewhere far away from here, from the promise of Frost's beating, and the long, long day ahead.

There was only one place he wanted to be. Lying in bed beside Will, listening to him breathe, knowing when he woke up in the morning, Will would still be there.

And with that thought in his mind, his breathing deepened, and Jesse fell asleep.

* * * * *

Will found it impossible to concentrate on the in-flight entertainment. All he could think of was Jesse's despairing sob. Frost's deep breath of satisfaction. Somehow knowing Frost was the reason for Jesse's misery was less comforting than it should have been. Yes, Jesse's life was safe, but his mind? Will had seen a side of Frost that night at Oscar's that he hadn't realised was in him.

When Jesse had offered him that last moment's defiance after Frost had thought he'd won, Will had seen violence rise in the man. He knew Frost would have hit Jesse if he hadn't been there, and what worried him was that he wasn't sure when, or if, the man would have stopped.

As one flight ended and he waited for the next, he found a text from Lucy.

'Have you heard anything?'

Lucy didn't know about Frost, or Byron, or anything at all about that side of Jesse's life. Will didn't really want to introduce her to it now. It would only bring up the pain of the past.

'I think I know where he is. I'll go get him. I'll be there tomorrow morning your time.'

'Okay. But please let me know how he is.'

Will wasn't surprised that Lucy was concerned, and felt again the guilt he'd run from when he'd moved to Sydney. Guilt at separating Lucy and Jesse, when they'd so clearly loved each other. As certain as he was that it would have eventually ended anyway, and as right as he thought Lucy and Lyle were for each other, he knew the way he'd done it would always be a dark blight on their friendship.

But while Will prided himself on his self control, he didn't have infinite patience. And if he'd waited, Jesse might have made a bad decision with Lucy, something he couldn't reverse. And he might have left—

To go to Australia.

Yes. The irony of that wasn't lost on him.

As he got onto his next flight and dropped into his seat, he hoped like hell that Jesse's mind would still be intact when he finally found him.

* * * * *

Jesse slept. Sometime during the day he was grateful he'd chosen the bathroom, even though the tiles were hard, and he was so cold.

Eventually it occurred to him that he could use hot water to stay warm, but there was no bathtub, and eventually the hot water ran cold, and he was forced to use the towel to dry himself. And now, with wet hair hanging around his face, he had nothing to put between him and the tiles except a wet towel.

He hung it up to dry, and sat on the closed lid of the toilet until his arse went numb, drifting in and out of his memories.

When Frost finally unlocked the door, Jesse was trembling with cold and stiff from sitting still so long.

Frost pulled him to his feet and pushed him against the wall.

"Stay there.

Jesse heard a plastic cap being screwed off a bottle, and then Frost put a hand in Jesse's hair and put something to his lips.

"Mouthwash. Don't swallow it."

Jesse let Frost pour it into his mouth and swilled it around, until Frost pushed his head forward and he spat it into the sink.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and then stood there with his arms at his sides, no idea what was now expected of him.

A moment later Frost pulled him around and kissed him, forcing his tongue into Jesse's mouth.

Jesse let him do what he wanted, and Frost pulled off the blindfold.

Jesse blinked in the harsh electric light, spots swimming in front of his eyes.

"How was your day?" Frost asked smoothly.

Jesse was about to retort, but thought better of it and said nothing.

"I said," said Frost, with a bright, manic smile, "How was your day?"

"Brilliant," said Jesse, and his sore, abused throat barely let him make the word.

"Good. I suppose we'd better get on with it."

Jesse suddenly remembered that Frost had promised to punish him.

"Please, no," he said, as Frost propelled him back into the main room.

"Lie on the bed face down," said Frost.

Jesse stopped where he was, staring dejectedly at the bed, and wrapped his arms across his chest. "Please, no."

"Well," said Frost. "There is another option."

Jesse spun back to him, hope in his eyes.

"You could drink what's in the cup."

Jesse closed his eyes. This was like being trapped with Jigsaw, if Jigsaw was a sexual sadist, instead of a murdering prick who had far too many movies devoted to him.

Jesse had no intention of drinking what was in the cup. And he sure as fuck didn't want to be beaten. His arse still hurt from the last beating, and when he'd felt back there, he'd found raised welts.

He remembered something cryptic Nate had once told him. His brother wouldn't tell him much about his life before the two of them had met, but from time to time when he was drunk or in a particularly good mood, Nate would come out with odd statements that made Jesse wonder what the hell his brother had gotten up to in his youth.

One of those statements had been, 'The best way out of a rock and a hard place, is to fuck the hard place until it goes soft'.

At the time, he'd thought Nate was just waxing poetic, but now he had a feeling that statement applied here.

When Jesse had found himself sobbing uncontrollably on the bed after Frost had humiliated him by reading back his texts, Frost had grown soft towards him. Had chosen to emotionally torture him, not physically torture him. Jesse sensed that this was because Frost found his misery intensely erotic.

He'd never tried to make himself cry before. In fact, avoiding crying at all costs was something he'd put far more effort into. But if he thought hard enough about how it felt to have a leather belt strike his balls, or how it might feel to have cold cum slide down his throat, he found an ability in himself he didn't know he had.

He broke into sobs, his arms wrapped around himself, and let the cold enter his bones, chill his body. Shivering uncontrollably, he looked up at Frost through the tangled tendrils of his hair and saw it. The lust in Frost's eyes. The hunger.

Frost put a hand to his belt and Jesse sobbed harder as the older man slid it through his belt loops with a whisper of leather. Frost stood there for a long moment, watching the boy in front of him dissolve, and then wrapped the belt around his hand.

He continued to undress, kicking off his shoes, pulling down his trousers, then pulling his dress shirt over his head in one easy movement so that Jesse never left his sight for more than a moment.

Jesse fell silent as Frost unspooled the belt and let it hang from his right hand. But before Frost could do anything else, Jesse fell to his knees in front of the other man and took Frost's mostly-soft cock into his mouth.

He looked up at his tormentor and found Frost gazing down at him with a mixture of manic hunger and satisfaction.

As Frost hardened in Jesse's mouth, the older man placed his hands against Jesse's hair.

"That's it," he said softly, "Good boy. You're learning."

Jesse put his hands on Frost's muscular thighs, kept his eyes fixed to Frost's, and was rewarded by Frost swelling hard and solid in his mouth. But before he could coax the man to cum, thereby winning himself precious hours of peace, Frost pulled himself free of Jesse's mouth.

Frost looked down at the boy kneeling at his feet and wondered how much of the younger man's spirit was left. So far, he'd seen Jesse shudder into terrified weeping several times now, and then continue to fight him. He needed proof the boy had finally submitted to him completely.

"Get up."

Jesse got to his feet.

"Get on the bed."

Jesse did as he Frost said, and knelt there facing him.

"Are you ready to do as you're told?" Frost asked.

Jesse paused for a brief moment, then nodded.

"What do you want most?" Frost asked. "Food, or sleep?"

Jesse was starving. And he'd been sitting down all day. As uncomfortable as he'd been, he'd managed to sleep.

"Food," he said. "Please."

Frost smiled. "All you have to do, if you want food, is make me cum without touching me. I'll give you," he checked his watch, "Forty-five minutes. If you haven't made me cum by then, I'll tie you to the bed and leave you there until tomorrow night."

Jesse's eyes widened with desperation. "How can I do that?" he asked, his hoarse voice on the verge of breaking.

Frost went to the side of the bed and pulled out his bag. In it were all manner of things Jesse had never seen before. Equipment made of metal, paddles, collars, crops, and dildos that looked even more terrifying than the one he'd already had inside him.

Forst dumped the bag on the bed, and stepped back.

Jesse glanced from the bag to Frost. "Will you touch me?"

Frost shook his head.

Jesse understood what he was being asked to do. Humiliate himself in a way that would get Frost off.

"Will you touch yourself?" he asked, his voice nearly a whisper.

"If I'm feeling inspired," said Frost.

Jesse sighed. He glanced towards the kitchen where the pizza box still sat on the bench. He no longer cared what might be in it. He was starving.

He looked back at the bag of toys, and did a stock take. What did Frost want to see?

He wants to own you.

Jesse steeled himself, and more of his brother's words came to him.

'The key to survival, is giving yourself permission to survive.'

He wondered if that was why Nate had disappeared, and let the thought slide away. He couldn't afford to drift right now.

Frost moved to sit in the chair beside the bed and waited.

Jesse knelt on the bed and selected two things from the bag then dropped the bag and the rest of its contents on the floor.

He sat back on his heels and tried to swallow back his anxiousness, his mouth painfully dry.

Frost raised his eyebrows, Get on with it, and Jesse wrestled with himself to do what needed to be done.

First, he picked up the collar. Made of lightweight vinyl, it was purely cosmetic. He'd chosen it because if he wanted it off, he was fairly sure he'd be able to break it. But unlike the other collars in Frost's bag, this one had an added detail the others didn't. Silver metal lettering that read 'owned'.

Jesse breathed into his humiliation, and fastened the collar around his neck, buckling it closed.

The effect on Frost was immediate. He let out a shuddering sigh and his lips parted. Jesse could see the man's fingers spasming against his leg as if he wanted to catch hold of his slowly thickening dick but was holding himself back.

Jesse knew he'd chosen wisely. He stayed there, his hands resting on his thighs for a moment, his eyes bleak and empty. This was bad enough. Knowing what lay ahead was killing him.

His stomach rumbled, and it brought him back to the present. One slice of pizza in two days.

Allow yourself to survive.

He picked up the other object. A dildo slightly larger than the one Frost had forced into him what seemed like a lifetime ago now. It was thick and purple and covered with rounded bumps. He'd chosen the smallest one that he thought would make Frost give in to his lust, without causing himself any serious injury.

Frost watched him intently as he picked up a small bottle of lube and squirted some onto the dildo. He slathered it as liberally as he could, and then saw Frost frown, and stopped.

It should be enough anyway. Besides, it didn't matter. There was nothing he could do to make taking this more comfortable.

Breathing high in his chest, and close to blacking out with nervousness at what he was about to do, he positioned the dildo at his entrance, and slowly pushed himself against it.

Frost couldn't believe the boy had chosen his favourite toy to fuck himself with. It wasn't the largest, but it was the largest Frost would ever use. The others were for show only. To threaten, to tame a wild brat who wouldn't come to heel.