COMPLETED | Take Me Down The Rabbit Hole (BDSM | 18+)

LXXIX

"There you go," Bram whispered tenderly into his ear. "Breathe."
A hand grabbed a fistful of Aspen's hair and tugged gently until Aspen lifted his head and allowed Bram to pull him up off the mattress and against his chest.
"How's that?"
"Tight, Sir," Aspen whimpered.
"I told you this would happen," Bram reminded him. "But this is what you're here for, isn't it?"
The ache was good. It made him feel alive.
And maybe... Just maybe, that meant he was someone after all.
"I am going to go slow to ease you into it," Bram said, shifting his grip so his hand was no longer in Aspen's hair but around his throat. "I want you to ask me nicely for what you need."
"Y-Yeah," Aspen gasped.
What he wanted was to close his eyes and put his cheek back on that pillow so he could—
"Oh, fuck—"
Had he spent a long time thinking about how paying Bram to have sex with him would be the first time since College that he was bottoming for someone who was fucking him with an actual dick?
No.
The thought that this would be a fundamentally different experience hadn't occurred to him once.
"You're alright," Bram promised him. "I've got you."
"I think," Aspen choked out between moans, "I need some... pain... to distract me—"
"Good boy," Bram praised.
A hand smacked down on Aspen's left ass-cheek and even though the pain made him wince, it did help. So much about preferring to be on the giving end when it came to pain.
"Ah! Thank you, Sir—"
"Another?" Bram offered, and Aspen felt the pressure of the man's fingers around his throat
"Please—"
This time, the pain made Aspen squeal, and Bram was laughing again. "There we go. Now you're yielding nicely, which means it's about due time I fucked you into that mattress, don't you think?"
Bram, Alan and Leo were all carved from the same cloth, really.
And Noah...
That fucker knew all about Aspen's previous relationships and had still decided to hook him up with their kinky cousin.
Oh well.
Aspen groaned into the pillow when Bram finally let go off his throat and pushed him back down against the mattress, face first into the pillows.
Yeah, this was the place to be.

*

"So, how was Bram?" Noah asked, sticking their tongue out at him while they placed the key to Aspen's playroom on the counter.
"Bram was fine," Aspen said evasively. "He's a really normal cousin to have for someone like you."
Noah choked on thin air. "Fuck off," they grumbled.
Aspen pulled his phone from the back pocket of his slacks, pretended to dial a number and then, while keeping eye contact with Noah, raised the phone to his ear and said, "Hi, Bram. Your cousin told me to fuck off, so I thought I'd go right back to who I came from—"
An ugly clacking sound filled the reception area because Noah had put their head down on their keyboard. "Aspen," they whined. "Ugh!"
"Yeah, yeah," Aspen said, pocketing his phone before he snatched his keys off the counter. "You can tell him I say hi, next time."

He was barely inside his playroom and had just opened the windows to let fresh air in after having abandoned these four walls for quite some time, when Thea appeared in the doorway.
"What's this I hear about Bram Berg?" they asked.
Aspen whirled around. "Oh," he said. "It's you. Hi."
"It is me," Thea confirmed, walking into the room and settling down in one of the armchairs. "Hi, darlin'."
Aspen pushed back another curtain, opened another window. "Bram Berg," he echoed. "You know him."
"I know lots of people," Thea said. "It's a small world."
"I ... I went on vacation to Amsterdam and before I boarded the plane I asked Noah if they knew anyone in the industry there. They apparently decided they needed to hook me up with their cousin, but..."
Aspen sat in the other armchair and ran a hand through his hair. "Bram and I clicked. It... He... was needed."
Thea was smiling that smile at him, and it made Aspen want to spill all his secrets. "He's... a lot like you, and Leo, and Alan, but also this is the first time in a while that I felt like what I was doing was wrong."
That seemed to put movement into Thea, who readjusted in their seat. "Wrong?" they echoed.
"Like cheating."
"Oh, darlin'," Thea said softly, after what felt like a suffocatingly long moment of silence, and then they were out of their seat and had pulled Aspen into a hug. "Taking care of yourself and doing things that you love is never wrong."
"It just feels like by now I should know who I am," Aspen objected.
"Yes," Thea said, "but that is a universal experience. We all look like we have our shit together on the outside, but we are also all capable of finding someone who has their shit even more together, who gives us the impression that one day you can reach the final level of adulthood. That you can be accomplished and happy."
They gave him another tight squeeze before they let go. "Chances are that is never going to happen to most of us. So we don't have to make ourselves unhappier than we already are. You are allowed to have nostalgia for what it was like for you to be with Alan or I, even if those situations or emotions may remain unattainable in the future, but just the same you are allowed to seek out new experiences."
Aspen can see the next question on their face before they ask it:
"Was the sex with Bram what you wanted? Did you get from it what you needed?"
"Yes," Aspen answered without hesitation. "It was like heaven."
"Then you have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of." They clapped Aspen on the back before turning back to the door. "Welcome back. It's good to see you."