Knife's Edge Pt. 04

"You must be thinking of opening your own place one day?" Miranda leant forward, lowering her voice.

"Not really, we have a lot of admiration for Lydia and Marty. And a lot to learn before we're ready for that." Joel beamed. Jesus he was good at this. I raised my eyebrows at him and he kicked me in the shin.

"Ouch." I muttered.

We got through a torturous hour or so of talking about our backgrounds and where we saw the future of cuisine in a dreadful economy with food shortages due to climate change. I answered the real questions and Joel had the grace to lie about anything that probed too deep into our personal life. We took some photos together, which I would have died over- except I kept telling myself this was fine. Just some cheap local rag and no one would read it anyway.

Miranda smiled and shook our hands.

"I'll send through a copy of 'Cuisine' when we publish." She promised on her way out. I frowned.

"Why Cuisine?" I glanced at Joel. He wrinkled his nose.

"Yeah. Ah, that WAS Cuisine."

"No it wasn't? You said it was no big deal?"

"Yeah, if you remembered you would have shat yourself." Joel put his arms over my shoulders. "It's still no big deal, baby."

"It's the biggest deal for wine and food across Australasia." I felt the colour drain from my face. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Deep breaths, honey." Joel kissed my forehead. "You did it."

"Oh shit." I cursed at myself. "I can't believe I..."

"Hey." Joel tilted my chin to look at him. "Deep breaths. Rubes. It's over. You did it. You don't need to worry about it until it's out."

"I don't need to, but I'm going to." I hung my head. "I really wish you'd told me."

"You would have hidden in the bathroom and denied the world your talent." He said.

"Still."

"Next time we get international interest I'll make sure it's crystal." He squeezed me and stepped away. "Love you, babe."

"You too."

"You'll be alright for service tonight?"

"Yes, chef."

"Good man." He clapped my shoulder.

---- ---- ----

"Dinner?" Joel glanced up at me from my lap where he was curled up with a book I'd leant him. I grunted and checked the time.

"It's 1am."

"Breakfast?" He joked. "You haven't eaten much since..."

"Can you stop tracking my eating?" I snapped. He slowly put his book down.

"Ah. I could." He gently pulled my book from my hands. "Can we... talk about the fact you're starving yourself?"

"What?" I flinched. "In no world am I..."

"You. Do not. Eat. Enough." He folded his arms. "You are losing weight like CRAZY."

"No I'm..."

"I want to stop this before it turns into something I can't stop." Joel stared at me. "You never used to be weird about food. When I started you LOVED my staffies."

"Well I was a fat sack of..."

"Hey. Stop that." He interrupted, his face falling. "Don't be so mean to yourself. I hate it when you do that."

"Sorry." I muttered.

"Do you ever talk about this with your therapist?" Joel took my hands.

"I... didn't know there was anything to talk about." I avoided his eyes.

"I think you should mention it." He said softly. "Say it's me being overly concerned if it helps you bring it up."

"Ok." I glanced at him. "I... I can, I guess."

"It would mean a lot to me."

"Well... ok. Sure. I will."

"Thank you." He sighed and reached for a beer, offering me one which I took gingerly. "And- since we're already doing hard talks.. I really wanted to talk about sex."

"Oh." I glanced around the room. "Ok. Can we do that... in your bedroom?"

"Yeah, come on baby." He helped me up gently, cradling me as we walked. I couldn't quite relax. Something was gnawing at me. I'd failed him. I stole a glance at his face and he smiled as our eyes met. He was mad at me. He hated me for being weird. Somehow I was going to have to eat more, without totally fucking up the weight that I'd lost... maybe I could just eat when I was in front of him... maybe I could try making myself throw up. Or laxatives. I don't know which sounded worse.

Oh my god. I heard my own thoughts rattling around in my brain. Maybe Joel was right. Maybe I did have a problem. Maybe I should mention this in therapy.

I realised we were sitting down, looking at each other on Joel's bed. He was saying something but I'd been too caught in my own head to hear it.

"Sorry... Joel, I was... somewhere else." I took his hand. "What were you saying?"

"I wanted to talk about..." He sighed. "I want you to feel very, very safe when we have sex. And I realised the other night that maybe you don't always. And we both know you aren't always the best at advocating for yourself. I thought maybe we could... have a bit of a... conversation. Maybe put some safe words in play. Talk about kinks, or insecurities..."

I stared at him.

The problem with therapy is, every now and then, especially when you're tired... your walls just come crashing down.

Joel's eyes widened and he caught me as I doubled over, sobbing.

"Honey." He pressed his lips to my neck, cradling me. Rocking me gently. "Rubes." He mumbled. He made quiet little noises, stroking my back and mumbling nothings until my wails slowed down and my breathing grew steady.

"I'm so sorry." I pressed myself into him. "I'm so, so sorry."

"Please don't be." He stroked my hair. "Let it out, baby."

"I really love you. I feel really safe with you." I wrapped my arms around him. "I just... I'm scared of that guy inside me. The one who wants to just... use you. Your body I mean. He seems really nasty, and scary and... and you have one inside too, don't you? Like when we fuck? When you fuck me?"

"Ohhhh baby." Joel kept rocking me. "Oh Rubes. As long as you're not comfortable with that guy I will NEVER let him out." He pushed my hair off my face and frowned at me. "There is a huge, huge difference between consensual play- and it's play, baby, where we both like it- and meanness and brutality. And if those lines are hard for you we will stay well, well away from them ok?"

"But I really, really like it." I hid my face in his arms. "I liked it so much, fucking you. I wanted to fucking... god I don't know. I wanted to POSSESS you. And when you fuck me... I want you to tie me down and have your way with me... and it feels so good! But what if..."

"It's ok." He held me. "Tell me. What if?"

"What if we hurt each other?"

"That's why we're talking. So we don't do that." He pressed his head to my neck. "We talk about what we like. We talk about what we don't like. We talk about what we aren't sure about. We set up a traffic light. We check in. And we respect each other's boundaries, no matter how horny we are. We never, ever, push a boundary. And we don't even start fucking each other until we've had that talk. Now. In a week. In five years. I am ready when you are. And until then, I will hold you and love you and cherish you."

"Fuck." I choked on a half laugh. "Were you born knowing exactly what to say?"

"No." Joel smiled. "But I say what I mean. You know that."

---- ---- --- 3.

It didn't take five years. It took a couple of weeks though. I stayed home a bit more: being in bed next to him was hard. The first week Carl and I talked about my eating habits. Like most things, it seemed to swing back to AJ. I hadn't quite connected it. Not eating was a form of control. Like if I could control my body I could control how he saw me better. Only I'd been so broken with him I couldn't control my body. Loss of control was hard for me- harder now than it had ever been because with AJ I never learned about control of myself- he took very good care of that for me. Carl referred me to another psychologist, one who specialised in eating disorders, which I swore black and blue I didn't have. I hated having to take another hour out of my week to talk more about how fucked up I was.

But I felt less fucked up every day.

The next week my mind was fluttering around and I couldn't focus. Carl cleared his throat halfway through our session and looked at me thoughtfully over his frames.

"Your mind is in a lot of places today, Rueben." He told me. "Is it one thing? Or a lot of things?"

"It's one thing." I admitted.

"I see. Does it have a name?"

"Kind of." I mumbled. "I'm not sure it's... appropriate to talk about."

"I want this to be a space where everything is ok to talk about." Carl said. "Which you might not be ready for. But I do want you to get something out of this session. Is there anything small under that big umbrella we won't name that you're ok sharing?"

"It's... sex." I stared at the ground, feeling hot and uncomfortable.

"Oh. That's definitely a big one." He nodded. He put his notes aside and crossed his hands on his lap. "We won't record any of this. I think sex can be hard for the most well adjusted people, with the most blessed lives you could imagine. There are some very big emotions that come up. Some big words. Any words coming up for you?"

"Shame." I muttered.

"Yeah, that's a really big one." Carl smiled. "Shame. Wow, Reuben. That's wonderful that you can identify that. I'm very proud of you."

"Right." I snorted.

"No one on earth has never experienced some shame in an intimate relationship." He said. "And most people would never name that. You're doing amazing work here. You should be proud, honestly."

"Well.... How do I...fix it?"

"Rueben." Carl smiled warmly. "You're doing great already. Do you speak to Joel about this?"

"Yeah." I itched my knee. "He's good. He's really good. We actually aren't... at the moment because I was scared...."

"So fear is another word?"

"Um. Yeah. Fear. That feels right."

"Are you scared of him?"

"Not...exactly..." I sighed. "I feel like we both have... an evil person inside us. An evil horny guy who... thinks awful things and wants to do awful things and I'm scared of that."

"Mmmm." Carl nodded. "Yes. One's horny self is not always one's best self. You feel safe with Joel though?"

"I do."

"You promise me?"

"Yes." I shook my head with a smile. "He's almost as good as you actually. I feel very safe with him."

"That's wonderful to hear." Carl said.

We talked about communication. We talked about establishing boundaries. We talked about everything Joel had already said- but hearing it from Carl- who didn't know me that way, and who didn't love me- it felt like I was back on solid ground. I felt like maybe I could try again.

---- ----- -----

I didn't mean to go from zero to a thousand...

But a real talk about boundaries; clear yes's, clear no's- what we both found hot, what gave us the ick...

It ended up winding me up. Joel noticed and cleared his throat and smiled awkwardly.

"Maybe that's a good session one." He avoided looking at me.

"Mmm." We'd come from a late night gym session, and he had a sheen of sweat on his forehead. His pump was still present in his singlet that showed his arms and his abs and half his pecs underneath. His legs were tucked up underneath him, the muscles in his thighs bulging. My eyes were running over him and he was blushing.

"I might shower." He muttered.

"Yeah, sure." I reached for him and pulled him into me. He moaned as I parted his lips and kissed him, my tongue forcing its way in and my body wrapping around him.

"Baby..." He gently extracted himself. "Thought we were taking it slow." He ran his hand over my chest. I bit my lip.

"It's been two weeks."

"Two weeks, two days, 19 hours." His voice rumbled. "If we're being pedantic."

"That's pretty slow."

"You're about to eat me." He looked into my eyes. "If you fuck me right now it's going to be really intense."

"I want you."

"Yellow." I nodded and took a deep breath. I let my arms fall to his legs and stroked his thighs gently.

"Go on."

"We haven't had sex in two weeks. Last time you fucked me it brought up some really hard stuff. My suspicion is that if we wait until we're a bit level headed we can have a very safe, comfortable, vanilla love making session and you'll feel very good about yourself."

"You're..." I sighed, clenching his fists, "you're probably right."

"I probably am." He reached out and played with a strand of my hair. "Which isn't to say I don't want the absolute destruction I can see in your eyes. I just want it after a deep breath."

"Did you study psych?" I smiled at him. "Why are you so good at this?"

"Actually, before I went to Cordon Bleu I did half a year of Philosophy." He grinned. My eyes widened.

"You ass! And all the shit you gave me for music!"

"It's called 'insecurity', honey."

"You're not insecure."

"Oh, does my babygirl Rubes have a monopoly on insecurity?"

"Well. You hide it well."

"No, I hide it by lashing out at people who don't deserve it." He sighed. "I'm getting better though, yeah?"

"You haven't lashed out at anyone in months." I grinned. "I think I'm a good influence."

"I think you're an increíble influence." His eyes fluttered closed and he leant in. We kissed softly, our breath growing heavier. We shuffled closer to each other and my legs wrapped around him. I felt his erection pressing into me and I moaned as I pulled away.

"Shower?" I squeaked out.

"Well now you have to give me a minute." Joel groaned and pushed his hair off his face. "If Syd or Roy ever see me with a rock hard boner we'll have to move out and never see them again."

"Ok." I tried really hard not to look at his rock hard boner. I ended up having to close my eyes as we sat in silence, willing the waves of horniness away. My mind drifted a little. Anal. Anal. Anal isn't the be all end all.He said that. And that was awesome. We could totally take the edge off without going too far. I opened my eyes. "We do not have to fuck." I said.

"Let me blow you." Joel was already sliding off the bed.

"No, baby." I caught his arm and he looked up at me with big, dark eyes. "No, we need to get each other off." I pulled him up.

"Yeah, ok." He grinned and pounced on me. "Love you, Rubes."

"Love you." Our eyes closed and our mouths met. We rubbed our bodies against each other, our cocks straining. I reached into his shorts and he grunted as I wrapped my hand around him.

"Yessss." He groaned. "Fuck, baby." He fucked my hand gently, "Help me." He reached for my shirt and we stripped each other slowly, running our hands over each other's muscles, kissing the exposed skin. He pushed me back against the bed and straddled me, running his hands over my shoulders. He squeezed my pec and smiled as I moaned.

"You like that?'

"Yesssir." I rolled my hips. Our cocks gently bounced against each other. I handed Joel his lube and he wrapped both hands around us. He closed his eyes and I watched his abs tense as he masturbated us. He was grunting softly, and it was sending sparks through my abdomen. I reached for him, holding his cock in my hand and moaning as it throbbed. We thrust slowly into each others hands.

"Oh..." Joel suddenly looked at me, his neck red. "Oh, shit..." He glanced down and I moaned as he twitched, his cock throbbing with cum, spilling over my hand. I moaned as I watched it, slowing my strokes down and squeezing him. "Shit." He mumbled. I pursed my lips, and rolled us over, pressing my body to his. I pressed my head to his neck and thrust my hips into his hand.

"Finger me." I whispered. I was pretty close. I whined as his thumb circled my asshole. It really wouldn't take much... I moaned and threw my head back. "Joel..." I moaned. He grunted deeply, breaching me in the softest way. He squeezed my hips as I humped his leg. "Joel...." I sighed. I let the tension build up, feeling it all over my body... and I sighed as I felt release. "Joel." I went limp in his arms.

We lay in silence, his hands gently drifting over the small of my back.

"Jesus, that's embarrassing." Joel said eventually. "Two weeks without you and I can't control myself."

"Shhh." I wrapped my arms around his neck. "It's so hot when you cum. Whenever you cum."

"Phew." He stroked my ass. "I guess you're the only person who matters."

We managed to get up, throw our clothes back on, and shower relatively unobtrusively. Joel grumbled as we returned to his room and inspected the sheets. They probably hadn't been changed in weeks and I sighed and grabbed some fresh ones. He could be pretty gross sometimes. We made the bed together and he moaned in delight as he pulled me to lie down.

"Fresh sheets." He nestled into my chest. "We should change them every day, this is lovely."

"Oh my god no." I winced. "There's too much laundry as it is." There was always too much laundry. I felt Joel shift, go a little stiff. I glanced at him and he sat up. He glanced at the laundry basket, and frowned at me.

"You're... you're doing my laundry."

"Doing our laundry." I corrected him.

"Well. Stop it." He scowled at me. "I managed it before you, I'll manage it now."

"I was just trying to be helpful." I pouted. Joel's mouth went thin.

"Yeah. No, I know." His face was dark and unreadable.

"Is something wrong?"

"Um." He stared into the room. "Maybe."

"Something you wanna talk about?" I nudged him.

"Just.... Don't take care of me." He mumbled. "If I want that I'll ask."

"Oh... Kay."

"I'm not him." He said suddenly. "I'm not like him at all." I frowned.

Joel had never felt the need to tell me that. I stared at the laundry. I took his hand and took a deep breath.

"About once a week; I do our laundry. About once a week you do our laundry. It's ok, Joel. We're partners."

"I just... I don't keep track of laundry. You could have been doing it all. I wouldn't have even noticed."

"Baby, you would have noticed if the laundry was magically completely disappearing. You're fucking gross sometimes but you aren't completely oblivious."

"You sure?"

"Yes." I squeezed his hand. "I'm not repeating history. You're not him. At all. And I'm not the guy I was with him. If you never did the laundry I'd probably throw a tantrum."

"Ok." He rubbed his face. "I worry."

"I know."

I couldn't stop him worrying. I knew that. But maybe one day he wouldn't need to.

---- ----

"What are you doing?" Joel mumbled early the next morning. I paused, my breath hitching.

"Ahhhh...."

"Having fun without me." I could hear his smile. He rolled over and grinned, pinning me down and looking at my stiff cock. "Hmmmm." He gave me a dark look through half lidded eyes. "Wanna tick off one of those little fantasies?"

"I thought you wanted to wait?"

"Until we weren't both exhausted and emotionally raw. I've just had a fucking good sleep, how are you feeling?" Joel stroked my dick slowly.

"What fantasy?" I blinked. We'd talked small- maybe me amping up the dirty talk- and then we'd also talked wildest, I totally wasn't ready for them but it made me a little horny anyway fantasies- with ropes, and paddles, and weekends away where one of us would control the others orgasms....

"This one's mine, and it's easy." He winked and leapt up. He returned half a second later, throwing me a vivid. He lay on his front and looked over his shoulder at me. I crawled over to him, and spread his legs, running my hands over him softly.

"Mine." I grinned.

"Yes, chef." He mumbled.

"Good." I arranged him so he was on all fours, gently pushing his ass out as I ran my hands over his thighs.

He mentioned it because I used the word 'possess'. He said it made his insides bubble. He said he wanted to submit to me. He said one day he wanted me to tie him up and blindfold him and use him all day- but he laughed and told me we'd probably work our way up to that one. He asked if I'd feel ok branding him.

"No?" My eyes widened. "What the fuck do you mean?"

"Oh, not for real." He said. "Just write on me. Property of Rueben Valentini. I find that so hot. Do you? At all?"

"Jesus." I moaned. "Where do you come up with these things?" But my dick was telling me that I agreed. It was really hot.