"I'm tired of emotions They bore me with distortions They cut me, saying 'fuck me' Wipe them all away, now, let me see through eyes made of stone." -- Front 242

You've got a smart mouth. It's the third thing I ever noticed about you. You rolled over on your back and propped yourself up on your elbows, giving me that prettyboy smile with just enough of the smirk under it to serve as a challenge. "What's the matter, old man? Too tired to do anything but go to sleep? I'd hate to keep you up past your bedtime."

I took my own sweet time toweling my hair dry before I dropped the towel on the floor and kicked it out of the way. "I didn't say that, now did I?" I asked, as mildly as I could.

You laughed that bedroom laugh of yours and rolled over again, sprawling out over the bed. I often think that it wouldn't matter how big the bed was; you'd still manage to spread out and take up all of the available space when I wasn't looking. "You sure didn't say anything else. It's enough to make a man think that he's just not good enough anymore." Your lips curved a little more, and you cast a glance over at me. "Or are you just getting tired of me?"

You've got a wonderful ass, too. It's the second thing I ever noticed about you. It's hard to miss it, particularly when you go to such lengths to show it off. "I didn't say that, either."

It's a good thing I know that you're not serious. Or rather, that I know you're only serious when you need to be. You tossed me one of those looks, lidded eyes over fuck-me grin, and propped your chin up on the palm of your hand. "Then what did you mean?"

I ran one hand along the curve of your calf as I stepped near the bed. Your muscles twitched beneath your skin, the only sign that you'd even noticed. "I figured I'd let you know that I was getting ready to go to bed some time soon. After all, that's the point of taking a shower before you go to bed. It means that you sleep afterwards."

You rolled gracefully onto your side and propped up your head with your hand again. "Oh, of course. I wouldn't ever stand between an old man and his sleep, you know. Hate to have you yawning on the parade grounds in the morning. It'd make such a bad impression on the men."

The bed dipped beneath my weight as I stretched out beside you. "Oh," I said softly, "I think I could stand to be awake for a little while longer. After all, I'd hate to send you to bed before your bedtime."

You tilted your head back as my lips grazed over your throat, replete with a soft trilling purr. "Think you could handle it?" you asked, voice rough and raspy. "It's poor form to spend a morning yawning in front of your prince, you know."

I laughed softly against your ivory skin. "Fuck my prince."

The laugh that produced from you was a delicate sound, shimmering up and down the scale of contentment as you rolled over onto your back. "I don't think you'd like to. It's not worth it."

I'd always wondered. If you had. Never asked; it never seemed worth the argument that I knew would follow. I still didn't know what it was that brought you to my bed, night after night, week after week. I'd always just resolved to ignore it and give you what you seemed to want. It must have been working. "I'll keep that in mind."

You crooked one of your ankles over the back of my calf, lifting a hand to cup my hip. "Will you, now?" you purred, in that voice that let me know you were thinking about sex. More precisely, that you were thinking about sex with me; with my weight leaning over you, my skin against yours, with me up against you and around you and inside of you.

I took the cue and shifted slightly, pushing your shoulderblades back against the bed and nipping at your collarbone. "I keep a lot of things in mind."

You arched your back and tossed your head, precisely like a graceful thoroughbred pawing the ground before a race. "I know you do," you murmurred as I stretched out on top of you. "There's just one other thing you need to start keeping in mind, old man."

Perhaps I was just a little too distracted by the taste of your skin under my mouth. "Hmm?"

You move damn quickly when you want to. That's the fourth thing that I ever noticed about you. It's also a fact that I forget until you show it off again. I didn't even notice that you were ready to move until all of a sudden I found myself flat on my stomach, my face buried in the pillows of the bed, with your knees in my kidneys, one of your arms pressed against the back of my neck, and the other hand pinned against my elbow. All of the good humor was leeched from your voice as you hissed against my ear, "Stop fucking underestimating me."

It hurt. I won't pretend that it didn't; stoicism can only be taken so far. Tentatively, I tensed my shoulders, prepatory to striking; it only served to make you grind my face further into the bed. "Seed..."

"Culgan," you mocked me, your tone an exact copy of mine. Your breath skimmed over my ear; I shivered, involuntarily. "Can't think so quickly now, hm?"

"What's this about?" I was thinking as quickly as I could -- my brain clicking over itself, tick tick tock as I could feel my pulse speeding up and the adrenalin starting to flow.

The tips of your hair skimmed over the curve of my shoulders. You needed a haircut. You always need a haircut. Your teeth closed on the back of my neck, and I jerked slightly, fighting the instinct to fight. When you're in a mood like this, whatever caused it, it's just safest not to tempt fate.

"You," you breathed, "have yet to learn --" Your weight shifted against my back, bearing me down harder, flattening out against my back. "--that just because I let you fuck me--" And there was no doubt in your tone, but no arrogance, either; in that half-second I realized that it was you letting me fuck you, and not anything more or less than that. "--does not mean--" Another bite, this one rougher than the last. "--that I am in any way inferior to you."

I held very still.

"I didn't think that it would be a problem at first." You shifted your weight, and your fingers bit into my upper arm. "Behind these doors, I don't care whether or not you treat me like your personal toy. I'm honest enough to admit that I rather enjoy it. But when you rescind my orders to men under my command, it has gone too far. We are equals. A fact which you might have forgotten."

I'd forgotten nothing. Once more, I made a tentative gesture to free myself; you responded by leaning your weight down harder on the back of my neck, and I gasped for air, getting only a mouthful of bedclothes. You'd gotten yourself into the best position you could have; nothing I did short of outright violence would free me, and perhaps not even that. "You were wrong," I spat out, turning my head just enough to keep the words from being lost.

"No," you contradicted, silkenly, and for half a moment I might have thought that we were having some discussion about opera, over tea -- were it not for your erection pressed into the curve of my hip, steadily more and more demanding. "I wasn't. And even if I had been, you had no right to call me into question in front of the men." In contrast to your harsh words, you ran your cheek gently along the back of my head. A strand of your silken hair slipped between my lips, and I spat it out. "You think that just because you have your dick up my asshole that I'm your slave. Think again, General Culgan."

I'd never heard you speak with such vulgarity before. I opened my mouth to refute the charges and got a grand total of half a syllable out before you bore your weight down on the back of my neck and the small of my back again. "Shut up," you growled. "I didn't tell you to talk. I didn't tell you to do anything. You need to learn that you're not the only one in charge around here."

Maybe I do underestimate you. I know that I always forget that just because you're so much younger than I doesn't mean that you're any less deadly. "I never had any doubt."

"Oh, yes, you have." You slid your hand down along my arm to close roughly around my wrist, dragging it backwards and pinning my arm between your body and mine. "You doubt that with every word out of your mouth. You doubt that every time you say a word in my presence. You doubt that every time you and I are standing in front of Luka Blight and I correct your mistakes and you give that smirk. That smirk that says 'he's young, I'll let it slide this time.' You doubt it every time you touch me with that sense that it's your God-given right." I didn't resist as you dragged the other arm up behind me as well, though it left my shoulders cramped and pinned uncomfortably behind me. "Well, it might very well be your right. But it wasn't God that gave it to you. It was me, and I can fucking well take it back away from you."

I should have struggled. What can I say? Even then, I still thought that you would grow tired of your temper tantrum any moment. "Is that what this is about? Are you trying to tell me that this is over?"

You actually growled at that; it was a sound that rose from deep in your throat and echoed in the scant inches between us. "Shut up," you repeated. You got a knee in between my legs and nudged them apart, the outer curves of your silken thighs resting against the inner curves of my own.

It was as you pinned my arms with one of your own and reached your other around my hip to close around my cock that I had to speak up. "This has gone far enough."

"Oh, I rather think that it needs to go much further." I could hear it in your voice, the same slow inexorable doom that your enemies faced on the battlefield. "I think it's time that you know precisely what you do to me."

I closed my eyes as your expert fingers teased me. I was as hard as a boulder. You seemed to find that amusing.

You were apparently done talking. Your teeth skimmed the outer edge of my earlobe, your breath taut and rasping in my ear. I could feel your heartbeat against my hands, still trapped awkwardly between us, as you ran your hand roughly up and down my cock. My hips twitched against your touch, and you shifted slightly,

I half-expected you to thrust inside me quickly, roughly. I could have handled that. No; you let go of your grip on me and brought your fingers to your mouth, before running one spit-slick finger down the line between my cheeks.

I struggled, then. I'm not sure why. Perhaps I thought that slow and careful would be worse than rough and unsteady. It didn't seem to affect you; all you did was bear your weight down on my pinned arms more firmly. "Stop," you purred, softly. "Just relax."

First one finger, then another. The circulation in my hands was beginning to go. I couldn't feel where I left off and where you began. My hands felt like someone else's. Every move you made speared right through me. I could feel the lines of your knuckles, sliding past my defenses. Then, slowly, inch by inch, your cock.

You paused when you were inside me. I could imagine the look on your face; I could hear your breath rasping behind me. You waited a long minute, letting me grow accustomed to the feeling -- and then, just as I thought that I could handle this, that I could hold on to that sense of self-control, you splayed your hand over my hip and took me in your palm again.

It's about control. It's always about control. I need to stay in control -- of the situation, of myself. You wouldn't accept that for an answer, wordless though it might be. I hadn't thought you would. Skillfully, demandingly, you demanded that I surrender that control to you.

It was a long time before I realized. Pinned between you and the bed, your hand closed around my cock, your cock inside of me, your breath rough and unsteady against my skin, your teeth nipping at the nape of my neck. You demanded.

I closed my eyes and let go.

For that eternity, I was yours. A body; a conduit for sensation, for your sensation, for the sensation that you were building. The burn spread from your hand on my cock to ignite inside my skin, taking sense and sensibility with it. I didn't have to move; I didn't have to think. All I had to do was feel.

By the time I realized where you had taken me, I was barely conscious of the fact that you were no longer pinning me down to the bed. My hands were loose, under my face, fingers clutching the bedclothes tightly and bracing me. I hadn't moved them. I didn't remember having moved them. Your hands were locked around my hips, tightly enough to bruise; I didn't care. That was where they belonged. My hips tilted upwards, your thighs beneath them; your hand pulled at my cock, roughly, over and over again, as you thrust into me. The rhythm was fast and furious, and I only dimly realized that I was rocking backwards into each of your strokes.

After an agonizing age of hanging on the edge, I came into your hand with a muffled roar. You must have followed me; I couldn't feel it.

I don't know how long it was until I was aware of sensation again. The world was dulled, grey-white and overexposed, after the knife-edge of the place you had led me to. I hurt all over, and my arms felt as though they were about to fall out of their sockets.

Clearing my throat, I was somewhat surprised that I managed to keep my voice even. "Point taken."

Your eyes were half-slitted shut in repose, and the grin on your face was sleek and sly. "Don't forget it."

And you rolled over -- taking up three-quarters of the entire damn bed, of course -- and were asleep within seconds.

I wasn't at all surprised to realize that you'd left me to sleep in the wet spot. You're a fucking brat. That's the first thing I ever noticed about you.

But I love you for it.