Page 27 of Save Me

“Maddox.” His voice has a bite of command, and I look up. His eyes are narrowed, and I quickly glance away. “Are you avoiding me?”

“No!”

Yes, but I’m being stupid, and fuck, the drinks are clouding my mind. I just need a moment to think.

“Then why won’t you look at me?”

I glance up at Arthur again, and his gaze is narrowed, making me want to shift away from him. “I just don’t feel good.” The excuse slips out.

“What?” He looks down at me. “You were fine earlier.”

“I had too much to drink.” I try to convince myself that this is the problem, because why else would I be acting this way?

“Seriously?” Arthur takes a step back. “I drove us here, man. I’ll have to leave too.”

Immediately, my anger rises. That’s all he cares about? Staying to chat with his new buddies for longer?

“Fine, I’ll call an Uber.” I stalk past him, but Arthur reaches out a hand and grabs me by the shoulder, ripping me back.

“Hey.”

I stumble to keep my footing. Damn, I must be more drunk than I thought.

“I’ll go, Jesus.” Arthur is fishing in his pocket. “No reason to throw a fit about it.”

The drive home is tense, and my cheeks burn with embarrassment. This is all my fucking fault. All I want to do is crawl into bed and close my eyes and forget this shit.

So that’s exactly what I do.

Only, I can’t stay asleep ‘cause Arthur never comes to bed, and we were supposed to have hot anniversary sex. Finally, after hours of tossing and turning, I open my phone. I just need to get off so I can go to sleep. I scroll through video after video, but my usual amateur, passionate love videos aren’t doing it for me. So I scroll to the one that makes me peek over the edge of my phone to see if Arthur is coming in.

Sounding.

I don’t see or hear any motion outside, although I can faintly hear the TV. He must have passed out on the couch.

I click on a video, and immediately, my dick hardens at the sight of a hard dick, throbbing in the hand of the person with the sounding rod. The small opening at the tip of the person’s dick is swollen, ready to be taken.

I glance over my phone again. I wonder if Arthur would let me do that to him? Let me do something that is forbidden? Something that would suspend time between us as he watched me do something that both felt good and hurt, something that would keep his full attention on me while my full attention was on him.

Wait, no, I’m mad at him.

Even better. Having him let me hurt him, just a little? My dick throbs.

I jack myself off, pissed and horny, and come into my hand. I get up to wash it off, thinking maybe he’ll hear me move and come to bed.

He doesn’t. Eventually, I fall into a restless sleep.

The next day, I wake up to Arthur drawing me a bubble bath. He apologizes for his behavior and says work has been getting to him. He says he should have left as soon as I said something, and he’s sorry for being upset. He said he has a patient–Larry–that reminds him of his dad, who’s fighting congenital heart failure, which is also how his dad died. Immediately, I understand the stress he must be under, and shame drops over me like a blanket.

I’ve been too hard on him.

Peace falls over the household again. But I have decided to stop drinking. I don’t like what it does to me. The person it makes me become.

Arthur and I haven’t had sex for a month.

Arthur is too tired and too stressed, and I don’t blame him. I can meet my own needs. I end up watching a lot of porn and find myself caught up in the moment between two people when one submits to the other. Sometimes it’s the moment before they do anything, sometimes it’s when they’re kissing and fighting for dominance, sometimes it’s the moment when they end up on the bottom, and sometimes it's right before they come. But in the good videos, there’s always that moment. It’s like a quiet explosion–pressure, pressure, then fireworks. And sometimes those fireworks are just the relaxation offered, that tiny moment where one lets the other take care of them.

Fuck, it gets me so hard, and I wonder if Arthur would find relief in letting go of control like that. He’s always in control, and I feel like he’d feel so much better letting me take care of him. Because I would.