Author's note:
This is the fifth part of an original erotic novel set in a dystopian future about one hundred years from now. It is a fantasy about the progression of a romantic relationship, with a focus on fully-developed characters, emotional connection, and sizzling sex. Some elements explored are newly-discovered bisexuality, the complexities of trust, experiments in sexual power play, and healing from loss.
There are seven chapters in the main story, and I have plans to continue it further. Feel free to drop in on specific sections based on your mood or interest, but the dramatic tension is strongest if you start at the beginning.
The creative process has been slower than expected, but I am continuing to work on the rest of the story and will post it as soon as I can. These characters are very important to me, and I want to do my best by them and by you. I appreciate your patience and encouragement.
Thank you to each person who has sent feedback on my posted work! I am new to writing fiction, so I appreciate hearing your reactions and perspectives. It truly does help me create the best stories that I can for readers to enjoy.
Tags for this chapter include: #bisexual male, #romance, #gay romance, #future, #dystopian, #novel, #teasing, #denial, #edging, #submission
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Julian:
I was a credit to my profession, that day. I performed exactly the way I had been trained to, exactly the way four generations of military heritage dictated that I should. I missed no word spoken in my hearing, no detail of hue or motion on security rounds, no slight discrepancy in a report. I took no unnecessary risks and issued no unnecessary commands. I accepted no less than peak performance from anyone under my authority. Just like every day.
But all my thoughts that day, all my observations and calculations, were saturated with low-grade euphoria generated by the film reel playing constantly in the back of my head: Avery, moaning and dripping while I softly stroked his nipples. Avery, holding still while I teased his pulsing erection. Avery, leaving his most vulnerable places exposed to my touch. Avery, fucked to the brink of orgasm and denied release. Avery, horny and frustrated and loving it.
It was the most incredible, intense, deeply satisfying twenty-four hours we'd ever shared. The stratospheric-level eroticism was reason enough to pronounce the experiment a resounding success, but the voluntary giving and taking of control had bonded Avery and me in a new way. Fully yielding his body had required profound trust, catalyzing a more intimate connection than ever.
Even after five months, it wasn't easy for me to find that place with Avery, where he felt secure enough to let me through his elaborate emotional defenses. As he lay on my chest that morning, after I'd finally brought his desperate need to a screaming climax, I'd hoped it might be a turning point for us. Endless possibilities for what to explore next opened in my imagination, and I was eager to get through the day's work and back into bed with him.
Except it was the opposite: after that morning, Avery would have nothing to do with me.
It wasn't obvious, at first. When I couldn't find him for the training I'd planned, I discovered he had started a new defense project at the south outpost. He should have cleared it with me first, but it lined up with our strategic priorities, so I wasn't concerned. He didn't return until late that evening, and even when I retired for the night, he stayed in the command center making preparations for the next day. When he crawled into bed, hours later, he shrugged away from my caress and said he just wanted to sleep.
I woke early, as usual, but he was already gone. For the next three days, I barely saw him. He managed to be wherever I wasn't, and he stayed out late every night, always with some justification: He had to check on his project. He was covering someone's shift. It was a friend's birthday. If I caught him during the day, he brushed off my questions. At night, I didn't get so much as a kiss before he curled up on his side of the bed and cut me off with claims of being tired. Which he probably was, with the schedule he was keeping. Yet I heard him lying there awake, sometimes for hours.
Once I realized he was actively avoiding me, I tried to talk to him, but he insisted he was fine. I got the same excuses: busy, tired, friends, work. I might have believed him, except that he wouldn't even look at me, wouldn't let me close enough to touch him. Other than the fact that we slept in the same bed, our relationship might never have happened.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm not well equipped to navigate these waters. There are reasons why I've rarely attempted a romantic commitment, and why my last one ended in disaster. Avery had fenced me out before, though never to this extent, so I waited, disappointed and confused, hoping he would work through it on his own. What else could I do if he refused to discuss it?
By the fourth day, I grew worried that the sex game had been a terrible mistake. I'd pushed Avery pretty hard during his day of denial - teasing him into a frenzy, denying him relief, then starting again with more teasing. Although he'd seemed very into it at the time, it was possible that he'd submitted for my sake, rather than his own desire. Maybe he felt exploited, or betrayed. Maybe I'd lost his trust instead of gained it.
When he once again snuck under the covers without acknowledging me, I turned toward him.
"Avery, please tell me what's wrong. It's been four days. Was it too far, what we did - what I did? I had no intention of...mistreating you. If you feel that I did, I'm very sorry, and you should tell me so that it doesn't happen again. I promise I won't be offended. I just want to make it right."
He didn't reply for a minute, and I ached for contact, but reaching for him at this point was only likely to make things worse.
Finally, quiet words came back in the darkness. "You didn't do anything."
"It's hard to believe that, when it was the last thing that happened before you started avoiding me."
No answer. The silence thickened until I thought we'd both be entombed in our tent forever. It was nauseating to think that I could have done something so threatening, he was afraid even to name it.
"Do you want me to sleep somewhere else?" I offered at last, despair leaching my volume.
"What? Why?"
"You're clearly not comfortable being here with me. You don't have your own space anymore, but you can take this one, if it would help."
"No." I couldn't see him, but I heard him turn to face me. "It's not..." He trailed off. "I don't -" He stopped again with a sigh. "I'm sorry. It's me. Not you."
I tried to make sense of his stunted sentences. "Ok...even if that's true, you're not in this alone. What's bothering you?"
He didn't say anything, but suddenly he came to me, and I put my arm around him in relief, shifting so he could lay against my side. I let all the air empty from my lungs and filled them gratefully as his tangled waves brushed my neck. Four days was a long time to be physically separated from Avery.
"Is there something I can do?" I asked when he remained quiet.
"Just stay," he whispered.
