Sex in C Major

"You're drunk," the man said. "There's your coat. Get out."

Stefan staggered, and tried to clutch for him. But his wrists were caught, the grip bruising, and then cold paving slabs were damp under his socks, and his coat and trainers were chucked down onto a damp lawn.

And the front door slammed.

Stefan's head was spinning, and he fell over trying to put his shoes on. It was cold. Another bus trundled by, schoolchildren gawking out of the windows. And Stefan didn't care. He wanted none of this outside world he just wanted to force his way back inside and enrage the man enough to fuck him bloody. To be punished, to thank him for taking Stefan home, to learn his name and his cock and the way he looked when he came, deep in Stefan's arse like Stefan was nothing more than a warm body for him to use...

Then Stefan shrugged his wet jacket on, and paper crumpled.

A note in his pocket.

He fumbled it out with shaking hands, and the last breath was driven out of his chest as though he'd been punched.

Call me when you're sober

Daz.

And a phone number. 3

The narrow street was in Middleton, as it turned out. And as Stefan lived in Harehills, it was a long walk home.

Stefan's flat was on the fifth floor of a grubby high-rise. The lifts never worked, and the stairwells always stank of piss. "Hey, pretty girl, fancy a fuck!" was shouted after him as he passed the bins near the communal door, and he jogged up the five flights with his skin crawling. His neighbours, when he reached his front door, were being arrested by a heavyset policeman with an exhausted air. Aware of the contents of his own flat, Stefan worked the locks quickly and barely opened the door a crack before slipping inside.

His flat was effectively a single, small room with a bathroom bolted onto the side. It was little more than a bedsit. His furniture consisted of a moth-eaten armchair and a mattress on the floor. The kitchenette was nothing more than a tiny fridge, a microwave oven, and a sink. His other possessions were either rammed into the closet off the bathroom, or scattered in boxes about the main room.

But it wasn't like he could afford anything better. He wasn't homeless, so the council figured their work was done. He had no job, and all his benefits went on his hormones. What choice did he have?

He stripped off and showered, the cold water a shock to the system-the gas had been cut off months ago after he'd stopped paying the bill-and scrubbed away the stench of booze. His lips felt swollen and sore from the stranger's-no, Daz's-kiss, and he rubbed his thumb absently over them as he slipped back into a T-shirt.

His hand hesitated over the boxers.

Daz hadn't punished him.

Stefan could vaguely remember the hand on his thigh in the bar, and thinking he was about to get something rough and brutal. And the kiss had been brutal, as had being literally thrown out, but...it wasn't enough. That wasn't what Stefan had wanted.

Now if Daz had fucked him on the hall floor, held him down with an arm twisted up behind his back and told him to scream all he liked because nobody would hear him...

Stefan dropped the boxers back on the clean clothes pile, and headed for the mattress. He stripped the sheets off, and opened the window wide. Cold November air rushed in, and goosebumps erupted up his thighs.

In only his T-shirt, and with the cage locked across the door to keep out intruders, the room suddenly looked like a home-made prison.

Like the kind of place a man with a partner would keep his plaything.

Daz had said he had another plaything, but what if he had a partner instead? What if Daz went on romantic dinners, and to his sister-in-law's wedding, and had holidays in Greece every year with some clever, good-looking guy who thought sex on the sofa was as kinky as it got?

And what if that wasn't enough for Daz?

What if he had Stefan on the side?

Only Daz was a normal, family kind of guy, and everyone respected him and liked him, and his sleeping with the likes of Stefan would be a scandal and ruin everything for him, so what if it had to be secret?

So secret...

Stefan lay down on the mattress and stared at the cage over the door as he began to touch himself, rubbing cold fingers along his hot cock.

So secret, Daz kept him locked in here? No phone, no keys, the buzzer for the door disabled. He'd come round every so often, sometimes several times a day, sometimes only once a week, and Stefan only had water and whatever food Daz brought with him.