Parts of this have been posted before, but I'm reposting it now as a whole - or at least as a series of interconnected snippets. Minor spoilers here for Flashback, Burning Down the House, Strange Bedfellows and Spy vs. Spy.

Rating: NC17

Warnings: m/m sex, voyeurism, bondage, prostitution

While this is erotica, this series is also a serious exploration of how we cope when the distance between what we want, what we can have and what we do have becomes immeasurable. All I'm doing is tracking Benton Fraser's journey, as a moral human being, through this emotional and ethical minefield. You may not like his answer; I'm not even sure he does.

Colin's my invention; Alliance created the rest.

***

Make Believe

by Jaime Arundel

***

Part 1: Fraser

Benton Fraser lay on his back, his eyes squeezed closed as he concentrated on the feel of the cock inside him. He didn't need his eyes open; he could see his lover's eyes perfectly in his own mind, the way they got wider and greener as he pumped into Ben's ass, that smug little smile as he came.

Ben felt the cock inside him spasming and arched his back, bearing down on it, trying to tighten his ass muscles around it, to intensify his partner's pleasure. He was so focussed on the small breathless sounds his lover made as he came that his own orgasm took him by surprise. He bit down on his lower lip to keep from screaming aloud as his body convulsed around its own centre, that wonderful, aching void that was filled with the other man's cock.

He didn't open his eyes as he lay back, arms flung out, and lowered his feet to the mattress. Distantly, it seemed, he felt the spent cock slide from his anus, heard the slick sound of lubricated latex as the condom was removed. He lay, body relaxing into post-coital languor, the cheap motel sheets wet under his back. He ran one hand through his sweat soaked hair and heaved a great sigh of relief to be lying slack-limbed and spent, all the accumulated tension momentarily dissipated from his body.

He felt the bed sway and dip as the other man shifted to the side and stood up. After a few moments, he heard the crash of urine in a toilet bowl, heard it flush, heard water running briefly in the sink. Footsteps returned to the room, but he kept his eyes closed, as if by simply not looking he could drag out the perfect moment, the one brief, flawless instant of suspended time when the body rests in the surcease of orgasm and the mind is quiet.

"Hey, you really dug that, huh man?"

Reluctantly he pried his eyes open, forced himself to make the requisite responses to the beautiful stranger who lounged against the drab motel wall-paper.

"Yes," he said. "I ... dug it."

"You wanna do anything else, man? Cause like, I'm good for another go-round, you want it."

"No, thank you." Slowly he swung himself into a sitting position, let his bare feet touch the ground, feeling the rough nubbins of industrial-strength carpeting against his soles.

He ran his hand through his hair again, knowing that he was probably only making it more dishevelled. The other man looked at him a little anxiously, seeming reluctant to leave. But Ben was hanging on to the threads of his own politeness, suddenly desperate to be alone in the sleazy room. He felt his cock move sluggishly against his thigh, momentarily sated but only too willing to have another ... what was it? ... another go-round.

"You sure, eh?"

For a moment the Canadianism, so foreign-sounding against the Midwest accent, spun him into a void of longing. How clean, how cold, how unforgiving his home country was -- and how he missed it.

He made himself get to his feet and moved slowly across to the chair where his jeans lay in a crumpled heap, along with his t-shirt and underwear. Fishing into the pocket, he pulled out the $100 bill and held it out.

The other man reached out one dark, elegant hand and took it from him gently. Ben expected him to pocket it and leave, but instead he stared at it, raising troubled brown eyes to meet his own. "C'mon, man, you paying me for the whole night. What you want me to go for? You done liked it, man, you know you did."

He nodded, taking in once again the slim, well-shaped figure of the young hustler. He was a perfect milk chocolate brown, his hair shaved nearly to his scalp, his big hands dangling from bony wrists and arms on a frame that had been meant to be bigger and heavier. Ben recognized the signs of childhood malnutrition. The boy was beautiful and his cock was half-hard again already and, for reasons Ben didn't want to think about, he wanted to stay.

"I'm sorry," Ben said. His apology was sincere but he saw the tremor that went through the boy's body as he recognized its finality. "Do you have some place to go?"

"'S early, man. I go back on the crawl, huh." He was turning, sorting his clothes, pulling them on too fast, his fingers fumbling with zips and buttons. Ben stood silently, watching him work the transformation from needy, naked child to street-tough punk. The hard-toed boots, the oversize khaki pants festooned with chains, the worn leather jacket ...

He crossed his arms against his chest, hugging himself, as he watched the youngster slump into the hard vinyl armchair to lace his boots. For a moment he wondered what his father -- what *Ray* -- would say if he knew that his son -- his friend -- paid strangers for sex. Long ago, in a land that seemed far, far away, before he'd come to Chicago, he'd thought that men who bought sex were sleazy and exploitative. He hadn't changed his mind.

"See ya 'round, man."

Ben nodded, watched the door shut behind him. The click of the lock mechanism echoed in his ears. At once, the stillness of the empty room descended on him and he shivered suddenly, before turning to crawl back into the bed. The sheet was still damp where he'd lain sweating on it as the boy fucked him into oblivion and the covers smelt of sex and warmth and human contact. His cock moved against his thigh again, swelling slowly.

He let his right hand drift down to it and closed his eyes and remembered ... green eyes, bulging with pleasure, that smug little smile, the sound of Ray's overloaded breathing in his ear, his name on Ray's lips, Ray's cock deep in the empty space that was himself ...

He pleasured himself slowly in the motel room, remembering Ray's love-making, the feel and taste and smell of Ray's body on his own, remembering what had never happened ...

***

"Earth to Fraser!" The words were accompanied by the stiff rap of an index finger on the top of his skull. Startled, Ben turned to the man sitting next to him in the car. It took him a moment to pull his mind back to the present and when he did, the wrongness of the situation flooded into him. Wrong smells in the car ... new plastic and some sort of fabric preservative; wrong sounds on the radio playing softly in the background. Worst of all, wrong man sitting next to him.

"What is it, Ray?" he asked, turning to look at his new partner. Or should that be fake partner? It wasn't even that he didn't like Kowalski. He has right from the beginning. Liked his brashness, his energy, his bizarre sense of humour. But he's not the man he's supposed to be.

Even as he half-listened to Kowalski's response, his mind was replaying Ray's last words to him, sifting them again and again for every nuance of tone and content. "As a friend." And again, "as a friend."

He shifted and imagined that he could feel the crinkle of cardboard against fabric from the postcard carefully buckled into the breast pocked of his uniform. Over his heart. It was a strange gesture for him; he was not usually given to sentiment. Pain, yes, but not sentimentality. Pain he was familiar with, knew - as much as anyone can - how to cope with.

"What's with you today, Frase?" And the impatience in his normally good-humoured friend's voice dragged him fully into the present.

"I ... didn't sleep well last night." It was not entirely a lie; just nine-tenths misdirection. After all, he could hardly tell Stanley Raymond Kowalski, aka Ray Vecchio, that he spent half the night in a cheap hotel room with a male hustler whom he picked up precisely because he didn't look anything like Ray Vecchio, the real Ray Vecchio. Or that it didn't work and that the instant he closed his eyes the young man's image had instantly been replaced with the one so familiar from his fantasies.

"As a friend." He had that, at least. Had had it even from that terrifying day when he'd finally confessed the true nature of his feelings to his friend. Because he'd been hit on the head and spent an entire day listening to Ray as to a stranger and hearing nothing but love in the voice of this man who insisted, paradoxically, that there was nothing between them. Even though his body had been suffused with need from the moment he opened his eyes and found the green-eyed stranger staring down at him, concern writ large on his striking features.

"Ya know, Frase, you can tell me what's bothering you." Ray Kowalski shifted in his seat, so that Fraser could see the concern in the other man's blue eyes. "It's not like I'm gonna freak or somethin'. After all, you put up with all my cr... all my concerns about Stella."

That was true. It had in a way been a fine distraction both from his own thoughts and the disturbing possibility that his mental state might be revealed by the psychologist's tests. And he had little faith in his current mental state, between the shock of Ray's disappearance, his feelings of loss, and the more bizarre eccentricities of his mind, which seemed to insist on making his father's image ... ghost ... whatever it was ... stranger with every passing day.

He looked out at the darkening sky. Surely their perpetrator would put in an appearance soon and he could escape from this Ray's all too perceptive scrutiny.

He could confess, of course. He doubted that Kowalski would be particularly bothered to discover that his apparently uptight Mountie partner had homosexual feelings for another man. If anything, his fears were rather otherwise, that despite his apparent obsession with his ex-wife, Kowalski was showing signs of an unwelcome interest in him

He wasn't as naive as he pretended to be. It was merely his first line of defence in a world that insisted on judging him first and foremost by his appearance. He could recognize attraction when he saw it and he was disturbingly aware of Kowalski's increasing attentions to him ... the pizzas in Ray's apartment, the coffees after work, the get-togethers at The Green Man, where the bartender served Ray bizarre herbal concoctions that the other man pretended to disdain.

Of course, they could just be keeping up appearances. No doubt Ray Vecchio's file had contained the information that, as Francesca had once put it, he and Ray were joined at the hip. A sudden slacking off of relations could arouse suspicions ... so perhaps Kowalski's apparent interest in him was indeed purely professional.

"Well, Frase? You gonna say somethin' or am I just talkin' to myself here. 'Cause, ya know, I can do that. I can hold a perfectly good conversation with myself an' you can go back to brooding or meditatin' or whatever the hell it is you're doing there."

Oh dear. "I'm sorry, Ray. I just seem to be somewhat distracted today. It's nothing ... really."

***

He walked slowly down the street, only half-looking at the various figures slouched against walls or perched on the hoods of decrepit automobiles.

He'd promised himself he'd never do this again and he'd managed to keep that promise for ... months it felt like, although in reality it was five weeks and two days.

And now he was back, unable once again to sleep. Ray was in Nevada somewhere, impersonating a mob boss named Armando Langostini. It was the most information he'd ever had about Ray's undercover assignment and it terrified him. Why had Ray done it? Why had he abandoned his family ... and his friends ... to do something so inherently risky?

He'd spent hours on the cot in his office. Every time his eyes had drifted closed he'd seen images of Ray at the mercy of the Mafia, images of torture and violence and death. He'd seen them so clearly, in such precise detail, that he was actually afraid to sleep, frightened that he'd dream it, in that realistic mode some dreams take on, and that he'd believe the dream and it would somehow come true.

For a man not given to superstition, he'd managed to spook himself to a quite remarkable extent. Not even an attempted visit to his father, whose office was empty and cold, had calmed his spirit.

He needed distraction. He needed comfort. He needed Ray.

A horn blared at the far end of the street and he looked up. The young man he was searching for was right there, just across the next alleyway, leaning against a wall amongst a group of similarly dressed youths. A transvestite walked by, swaying on her high heels and made some comment to the young men. They whistled and cat-called, but she was still smiling when she passed by Ben, giving him a look that was little short of incandescent.

He stood there, feeling scorched and breathless. One hundred metres, that was all. One hundred metres, some money for a hotel room, and he could bury himself in his fantasies. He could taste the relief on his tongue, feel the need in his body, in the tripping of his heart and the throb of his penis.

The boy had enjoyed it. He'd wanted to stay and do it again. He had gone with Ben initially for the money, but he would have stayed for free. He wasn't unwilling ... he wasn't.

Ben swallowed hard, feeling the hot scald of unshed tears against his eyelashes. He turned in the darkness and walked back the way he'd come.

***

Part 2: Colin

Even this late in the evening the brick of the wall was still hot from the long summer's day; the sky still held the faintest hint of daylight as

Colin shifted position, leaning back against the wall, legs crossed at the ankles, thumbs hitched into his belt loops so that his long dark hands were spread splay-fingered around his groin.

The night air throbbed with the city's dark pulse: sirens somewhere in the distance, the insistent pulsing of a boombox further down the alley, voices raised, a man's and another shriller -- a woman? Colin couldn't tell.

He wiggled a little with boredom, yawned, moved his skull against the rough brick to scratch the persistent itch at the back of his scalp.

"Wanna smoke?"

"Sure." He reached for the cigarette that Tyler offered, giving the younger boy a quick grim. Tyler hunkered down, skinny ass on his heels, and Colin reached down to run his fingers through the dirty blonde dreads.

He took a puff on his cigarette and grinned. "Think you some sort of home boy, huh, Ty?"

"More 'n you."

"Least I a nigger." He ground the butt under the heel of his boot and grinned again. It was a favourite game, one they used to occupy their time when business was slow. He hunched in his jacket, feeling the sweat trickle slowly down his spine. Too fuckin' hot.

"Hey," Ty said, nodding up the alley. "Comp'ny."

Colin looked where Ty had indicated and caught his breath. Coming towards them were two white men, both in their late twenties, early thirties, the one with spiky hair gesturing wildly while the man in the stetson listened.

Even from the far end of the alley, Colin could see the amusement in the second man's posture. He swallowed hard, remembering an unseasonably warm May evening, a hotel room, and a man spread-eagled for his pleasure, cock hard against his belly as Colin fucked his tight ass.

"Ty," he hissed. "Leave these guys 'lone, huh?"

"Why?"

"Jus' do it, man"

He didn't know how, but he knew that this man was not in this alley looking for a pick-up. Not this time. This one wasn't the type to hunt in pairs; hell, he didn't really seem like the type to hunt at all.

Colin kept his eyes on the ground as the two men passed, deep in conversation. The man's head was bent towards his companion and he was laughing softly at something the blonde had said.

Colin caught the reply. "Well, you do have to admit it is evidence, Ray."

The blonde's response caught Colin off-guard. It was a fucking good thing he'd kept his head down, he figured, or he'd have blown the man's cover for sure. What the hell was the moron doing walking through a notorious cruising spot with a cop in tow? Did he want to give himself away? Surely he wasn't a cop, too? But he'd been talking about evidence, in that lovely deep voice that Colin still remembered in his dreams. Maybe a lawyer.

They were on past now and Ty was looking up at him curiously, one hand digging insistently in his crotch. Shit, the little fuck better not have crabs again! Hadn't he been through the safe sex thing with him often enough? He was drawing breath for a rant, when a hand on his shoulder made him jump.

Looking up, he found himself staring into blue-grey eyes shaded by the brim of a stetson. He wanted to look away, but couldn't.

The man's companion was staring at him. "Fraser. Hey, Fraser, what's going on? What d'you want with the kid?"

Colin didn't know what to do. All his impulses were screaming at him to duck and run. They were cops. They were the kind of guys who got their kicks beating up on faggots, especially fag hustlers. Ty was whimpering at his feet and he knew the kid had to be carrying again. Fuckin' little fool! How many times did he hafta tell him, anyway?

"Fraser! Fraser! For chrissakes, Frase, what's the matter with you? You want the kid run in or somethin'? He don't got nothing to do with the case ... Fraser!"

Fuck, they had to have been standing here looking into each other's eyes for what, like an hour or something. Colin shuddered under the intensity of that gaze, feeling it almost as an assault. Whatever was in the man's eyes, Colin couldn't read it, only knew that he was reeling from their stare and the proximity of that well-remembered body. How many times had he jerked off remembering that one fuck? One out of hundreds, and his body wanted to relive it even while he cursed himself for a fool.

He was eighteen years old, fer chrissake. Too goddamn old to be gone on some john. Some guy who'd humped him and paid him and never wanted to see him again. Too old, too weary and too wise to believe that some queered-out version of Pretty Woman was going to come true for him.

He stared into the man's eyes, watching his friend's frenetic gesturing in his peripheral vision. The scuffed toe of his boot found Ty's haunch and dug into it. "Take off, Ty," he hissed.

Ty came out from under them and took off down the alley, doing, for once, what Colin told him. He didn't need to be hassled by the cops for hustling his skinny under-aged butt. Not with whatever it was that was bulging his pockets.

The blonde made as if to take off after him, more out of habit than conviction.

"No," the man said, firmly, and the blonde circled back, his arms still waving.

"You wanna tell me what's goin' on here, Fraser? 'Cause, like, I got better things to do than stand here watchin' you have a staring match with some street kid."

"Are you all right?" the man asked, all his concentration still on Colin.

Colin found himself nodding. Then shrugging. "Yeah. I guess."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah." Leave it, he thought, still staring into those beautiful eyes. Leave it before I say something you don't want your cop friend to hear. "I . . . I been thinkin' 'bout you." Oh shit! Too fuckin' late now. Colin cast one desperate glance at the man's friend and saw the look of amazement on his face and watched it turn into something else.

"Sorry," he whispered.

The man shook his head. He brought one hand up and touched it very gently to Colin's cheek. "I've ... thought about you, too." He looked over at his friend, for the first time, and smiled ruefully.

"You know this kid, Fraser?"

"Yes, Ray."

"How come?"

"We . . . had sex once, Ray." There was something in the man's face that Colin couldn't interpret, defiance maybe, or something else.

"Christ, Fraser! I mean the kid's fuckin' jailbait. Are you out of your tiny Canadian skull?"

"Probably." Colin wanted to protest that he was an adult, but something kept him mesmerized, just watching the interaction between the two men.

"Alright, alright! It's your goddamn life, Fraser. But next time, tell me, huh? I mean I'm supposed to be your best friend and I don't even know you're a ... you're gay."

"I'm a faggot?" Fuck, the guy actually looked amused. "You've got a short memory, Ray. I bet you don't even remember where you were born."

"Don't you start that with me again, Fraser! I'm warning you . . . ."

"Understood, Ray." The man, Fraser, turned back to Colin and regarded him solemnly. "Would you like . . ."

Oh shit! "Yes!"

"I didn't finish what I was saying," he said, looking a little stunned. Colin thought he was maybe just now realising that he'd come out to his cop friend. And that he was here in a filthy alley with an eighteen year old whore. What he'd told his friend about him could get him in big shit with the cops. But Colin didn't care now. He was going to have this man again, if it killed both of them.

"Whatever," Colin said, stunned by the strength of his own need.

"Come on, then."

"You're out of your mind, Fraser. What is it with you and strays, anyways?"

"Where are we going?" He followed without a second glance, wondering if Ty could see them, hoping the boy would remember what he'd taught him.

"My place."

"Where's that?"

"The Canadian Consulate."

"We're gonna fuck there?" intercut with the blonde, Ray's, "You're not gonna fuck him there!"

"No."

"I don' understand."

Fraser swung around suddenly, pulling Colin into a strong embrace. Colin inhaled soft leather and soap as a mouth descended on his own, tongue tickling against his lips. A long kiss and not chaste at all. A promise.

"Not there and not now. But soon."

Ray was shaking his head at the two of them but Colin saw no disgust in his eyes. He was still trying to catch his own breath. "You're a strange man, Fraser," Ray said and Colin found himself echoing the sentiment exactly.

"I did something wrong, Ray, and now I have the opportunity to make up for it. I intend, if my young friend will allow it, to make restitution for my behaviour."

"Why? What did you do?" There was concern as well as curiosity in Ray's voice and Colin found himself rejoicing that Fraser, like Ty, had a friend who cared about him. At the same time, he'd grasped that there was likely to be some gap between the promise of that sweet kiss and its fulfilment.

"I allowed myself to become something I should not have been. I allowed myself to behave badly . . . . I need to make up for that. And I will . . . to?" His brows raised inquiringly.

"Colin," he muttered, his heart still pounding. This was too much like a fairy tale to be real, wasn't it? Too much like make believe?

"To Colin."

They were at a car, and Fraser was holding the door for him and he was standing, staring, frozen. And then there was that touch again, gentle on his arm and he slid into the car and knew that whatever happened, it would be different, it would be better.

***

Part Three: Ray

Gawd, what a day it had been! Stanley Raymond Kowalski, Ray to his friends and colleagues, rubbed the back of his neck, twisting his head in a futile attempt to erase some of the tension. With a sigh, he stepped out of the car. At least it was over. He had two whole days off.

On the other hand, he had three tickets to the Hawks' game and a friend with no phone. Hell, if he was gonna fork over a couple of the best tickets in town to Fraser - and the kid, too, if he wanted - then Fraser could at least have the decency to be reachable. Or even to live in a building with an elevator. In maybe even a decent neighbourhood.

With a sigh, he stepped over the trash heaped in the corner of the alley and made his way over to Fraser's new apartment building. Despite all his offers to help him find a decent place, somehow Fraser had ended up in yet another rat trap.

Not that Ray had ever seen the previous rat trap.

But if Frannie's accounts were to be believed, he was starting to sympathize with the real Ray Vecchio. The Mountie really was the most irritating man in the world.

The most bizarre, too, sometimes. Not that Ray had been particularly surprised to discover that his new and highly irregular partner was gay. No, nobody could be that bad with women and still be straight.

It was kind of weird to think that a guy with such a rigid moral code would pick up a hustler. And fuck him. And move in with him. Ray didn't want to think about what that implied, if anything. And knowing the Mountie, it could mean anything from fucking the boy senseless every night to chastely overseeing his homework.

Ray reached for the door, only to freeze in mid-gesture. Through the cracked glass of the entrance way, he could see that what passed for a lobby was hip-deep in junkies. Not the first time. No way he was going to wade through that lot! He thought about calling it in, but it was about as useful a gesture as attempting to dam a river with a fishing net.

He shrugged, turned, walked back past his car, down the alley to the fire escape. A little help from a convenient (and empty) trash can got him up to where the ladder was fastened at first floor level. From there it was an easy stroll up the stairs to Ben's fourth floor apartment.

It wouldn't be the first time he'd resorted to going in through the window. Given Fraser's penchant - now *there* was a word Fraser might use, he grinned - Fraser's penchant for windows instead of doors, it was kind of appropriate, anyhow.

He'd spent so much time running around with Fraser that he wasn't even out of breath when he reached the top of the fire escape. He bent down to reach for the edge of the window frame and stopped dead. From where he was standing, he had a very clear view into Fraser's bedroom. Too clear. He didn't think he wanted to see what he was seeing. But he couldn't somehow move away, or even shut his eyes.

Oh my Geezus!

There was a figure slouched in a battered leather armchair, naked except for a red Mountie jacket, framing a muscular and very bare chest. Legs lolled, one over an arm of the chair, the other lazing out across the wood floor. The Stetson was pushed back from his head, almost dislodged as the head was tilted back in ecstasy.

Ray didn't think he'd ever seen anything more decadent.

Between the figure's legs, another body knelt, this one completely naked; that is, unless you counted the gleaming metal of the cuffs that held his hands behind his back. His head was working rhythmically as he sucked on the cock that sprang so eagerly from between sprawled thighs.

Ray's mouth went dry. For a second he had to close his eyes - and then he had to open them again to confirm that what he thought he saw was real: Benton Fraser, naked, bound, on his knees, giving what looked like one hell of a blow job to a black street kid.

As Ray watched, the boy's lips parted and he said something Ray couldn't hear. One long dark hand came forward and tangled itself in Ben's hair, guiding him. At the same time, the boy's hips began to pump upwards, so lazy and unhurried it was hard to reconcile it with the arousal in both men's faces.

Ray felt his own cock stiffen as he watched Colin deliberately sliding his hard dick backwards and forwards between Ben's lips. He watched Ben's cheeks hollow as he applied suction, saw the pink tip of his tongue snake out to caress the shaft as it was pulled away. Gawd, it was hard to believe Vecchio had turned this down.

Carefully, wary of Fraser's exceptional hearing, he eased the zipper of his pants down, rubbing his cock through the tightness of his briefs.

Colin moved suddenly, sitting more upright in his chair. The Stetson fell unnoticed to the floor as Ben shifted, trying to shuffle closer. His sucking barely faltered, but now Colin put both hands at the back of Ben's head and began fucking his mouth in earnest.

Ray shifted so that he was kneeling, legs apart on the fire escape. He pulled his cock free of the waistband of his briefs and ran two fingers lightly along it. He was almost dizzy from his feelings, shame and arousal making a potent cocktail in his belly. He licked his own lips, wondering what it would feel like to have his partner's beautiful mouth stretched around his cock.

It didn't matter, because he'd never find out. The man in that room, the one making slow, unbelievably hot love with an eighteen year old boy, was in love with his namesake. But Ray Vecchio was straight. Arrow straight. Oh, Ben had said he'd been sympathetic, even supportive, urging Ben to try and find friends in the gay community. A true friend, but never a lover. That was what Ben had told him, that night when they'd first picked the kid out from amongst the hookers and hustlers and pimps.

No, Ben loved Ray. Who wanted to spend time with him but didn't love him. And he, Ray's replacement, loved his ex-wife. Who loved him but couldn't bear to be with him. What a fucked up lousy world it was!

And then there was the kid, who looked right at the moment like he'd reached the seventh stage of paradise and was headed straight for Nirvana, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. What in hell did Ben intend to do with the kid? Other than giving him what looked like the best head Ray had seen this side of 'Deep Throat.'

Knowing Ben, whatever it was, it wasn't going to be straightforward. No wham, bam, thank you kid for Fraser. He just wasn't the type.

Both men were moving in frantic synchronicity now. Colin's movements had slewed Ben around far enough that Ray could see his thick cock, bobbing anxiously between his thighs. His balls looked so tight that Ray could feel their ache deep in his own groin. Ben's hands were fiercely clenched, tugging the short chain of the handcuffs tight against his back. And all the while Colin's cock plunged in and out of those willing lips, as Ben worked to give the kid everything he needed.

All Ray had to do to feel that hot, moist friction was close his own eyes. But to do that he would have had to stop watching the two of them and he doubted he could do that right now to save his soul.

He fisted his dick roughly, pounding his cock into his hand with short, abortive thrusts of his hips. The hard metal slats of the fire escape hurt his knees. He swiped his left hand roughly over his face, feeling stubble and sweat. It was hard to keep quiet like this, when he needed so much.

One of the boy's hands untangled itself from Ben's hair and moved slowly up his flat abdomen, fingers spread flat across the sweat-sheened skin. He tossed his head impatiently as he shoved at the thick red serge, exposing a peaked nipple rising from an aureole the colour of bitter chocolate. Ray licked his lips again at the sight of the boy slowly fingering that small nubbin of flesh into hardness, imagining the explosion of sweetness in his own mouth.

He struggled to keep his eyes focussed, watching as the boy's mouth fell open. He writhed on the chair, rubbing himself against leather and red serge, rubbing his dick against Ben's tongue and lips. Ray could see the strain in his face as he struggled to hold back his orgasm, prolonging the moment when he had to surrender to Ben's mouth.

Colin's chest was heaving and Ray saw him struggle to speak to Ben. When Ben continued to suck and suck, more and more frantically, Colin tossed his head once against the armchair, gritting his teeth; the hand in Ben's hair tightened, dragging Ben roughly inch by inch down the thick dark cock. Ben curled his tongue around the plump glans, trying desperately to tease it back into his mouth.

Ray squeezed hard on his own cock at the sight, torn between wanting to see Ben drink the kid's cum and the knowledge that it wasn't safe. He couldn't believe how out of control Ben was or how arousing he found it to see his friend like that.

He felt his own cock spasm against his palm, jism flowing between his clenched fingers and dripping onto the metal slats beneath him. At the same time, his eyes feasted on the sight of Colin's dark hand wrapped around his beautiful cock, pumping his opalescent cum over Ben's cheeks and chin, dribbling down onto his neck and chest. Red serge fell over his dark wrist, dark skin butting up against Ben's pale cheek and red lips, white cum pearling from the black velvet glans... the colours alone so erotic that Ray could scarcely hold in the moan that battered behind his closed lips.

Colin subsided back into the armchair, motionless save for the erratic rise and fall of his chest. Ben knelt before him, looking up, his lips still parted. As Ray watched, his tongue crept out, drawn by the unbearable temptation of taste, but Colin must have been expecting that, since even in the extremity of his orgasm, he'd let none of his cum fall within reach of that agile pink tongue.

Ray had known from the start that the boy felt something real for Fraser, but the tenderness of his care for the older man was shocking. In its own way it was just as arousing as the erotic scenario that had just unfolded before his eyes. He sat back on his own heels, automatically reaching into his pocket for tissues to clean the stickiness of his own semen from his fingers. Though he tried to stifle it, his own breath was coming in great panting gasps.

And Ben just knelt, his tongue running along his lower lip, his head up, eyes devouring the boy slouched in boneless satiation in the armchair. His cock was arched up, nodding against his belly with each shaky exhalation, a sticky thread of precum tautening each time it wavered away. He had to be hurting but he seemed content to wait, hands momentarily relaxed in their shackles.

Finally Colin moved, sitting up. The red uniform tunic fell forward, momentarily hiding everything from Ray's sight, save the motion of that one large hand, as it dragged tenderly down the side of Ben's head, caressing cheeks and jawbone. A dark thumb pressed against his lips, slid briefly inside, to be suckled and tongued.

Then Colin twisted out of the chair, sliding to his own knees behind Ben. He shrugged out of the overlarge jacket and brought it round between them. For a minute, he let the bunched material catch there, while he pressed himself against Ben's back, humping him, the red cloth slipping and catching between them as he thrust slowly back and forth. He let his head fall forward onto Ben's shoulder, his tongue drawing a moist path along collarbone to neck before trailing upwards to toy in the damp curls flattened against the base of his skull.

Teeth flashed as Colin nibbled gently at Ben's earlobe. Then he was drawing back, shaking the folds of cloth out from between them. He draped Ben's tunic around his shoulders, letting the fronts fall loosely down his chest and onto his thighs. Crushing himself tightly against Ben's back, he wrapped his hands around Ben, playing them across the serge, rubbing it against Ben's skin, teasing his nipples with the rough weave. Big black palms flat against red cloth, chafing it across sweat damp skin, teasing Ben until he was frantic.

Ray watched Colin grinning down the length of Ben's body, careful to make sure that he twitched the cloth over Ben's cock at intervals, sometimes so fast that Ben couldn't react until the sensation was already over, then back again, to drag luxuriantly along the length of his dick, catching on the tender head before lifting away. From the look on Ben's face, Ray thought he was close to fainting from the heady combination of too much stimulation and too little.

Did Ben get off on this always, being so helpless before such provocation? Ray couldn't see his manacled hands, but he knew from the corded muscles in his arms that he was tugging and twisting against his restraints. Was it always like this, Ben held in thrall to this exotic creature? Or was it Ben who was the exotic here, his strange passions drawing from Colin exactly what he needed most?

He closed his eyes for a moment, praying that it wouldn't last much longer. His spent cock stirred sluggishly between his damp thighs, struggling to match pulse for pulse with the arousal that beat behind his eyes. It would hurt to come again so soon.

Ben was struggling in Colin's grasp, his hips thrusting his cock wildly into the air. He looked like something a Greek god might have created, playful and cruel at once, a paean to wildness and beauty and lust. And still Colin would give him nothing more than the random touch of serge, dark now where Ben's weeping cock had dampened the fabric.

Ben was keening against the twin touches of fabric, light on his cock, crushed roughly against his nipple. Colin's teeth nicked their way down his neck to the thick muscle at the juncture of neck and shoulder. He palmed the cloth around and around Ben's nipple as he licked and sucked at the exposed flesh of his neck, tongue dipping down into the hollow at the point of his collar bone, trailing back up along the straining tendons of his neck.

Ray could see Ben's lips moving and was sure, though he couldn't make out the words, that Ben was begging for something, anything, to release him from his torment. He ran one finger lightly over his own over sensitized cock, wincing as heady gusts of arousal pulsed across overloaded synapses.

Surely it had to end soon. Oh please. And he didn't know if he was begging for Ben's sake or his own.

Colin dropped the cloth he'd been teasing over Ben's cock, brought his hand up to Ben's mouth, fingers skimming open lips, dipping in to tantalize, withdrawing before Ben could wrap his tongue around them. Back in again, and out, and in again, mimicking what Colin's cock had so recently done to that hot, wet mouth.

Ray groaned.

Colin took his gleaming fingers from Ben's mouth, leaning over to whisper something in Ben's ear. Ray couldn't see what Colin was doing behind Ben's back, but guessed from the desperate toss of Ben's head and sudden heave of his chest, that Colin had slid his fingers into Ben's ass. Ben's hips were thrusting frenetically, pushing back against Colin.

Ray could barely stand to watch those knowing eyes, brown and gentle, laughing over Ben's shoulder as Colin drove him relentlessly onwards, hurtling out of control towards some erotic crescendo of unimaginable proportions.

Sweat trickled down Ben's abdomen, darkened the cloth of his tunic. His head shook incessantly back and forth, lips open, drawn back, tongue thrusting against his lower lip in rhythm with his gyrating hips. And still Colin worked behind him, leaving his purple, swollen cock swaying and nodding against his belly.

Some change in Ben, some minute alteration in the bowing arch of his neck, tendons strained white against already pale skin, must have alerted Colin. All of a sudden, his left hand dropped away from its steady teasing of Ben's nipple, gathered a great handful of red serge, folded it around his swollen cock, and squeezed hard. For one instant, Ray could see the purple head robed round with red serge, the slit oozing dampness down onto Colin's cloth-covered fingers. Then Ben was coming, pulse after pulse of semen arcing out to splatter on the wooden floor.

Ray looked down, his eyes closing briefly in relief. With some difficulty, he worked his tender, still-swollen penis back into his briefs, fought the zipper of his jeans shut.

When he looked up again, Colin had released Ben's hands and the cuffs lay abandoned on the floor, metal and semen glistening in a stray band of sunlight that lanced across the floorboards. The two men were lovingly entwined, Ben's hand curved around the back of Colin's head, kissing him with astounding tenderness. It was a tableau so poignant that Ray couldn't bear to watch it.

He crept as quietly as he could down the fire escape, wincing at each creak and scrape of the rusty treads. He would come back again once he could face them. In the meantime, he needed time to compose himself, get a bite to eat, perhaps jerk off in some diner's rest room.

Ray shook his head at his own perversity. It was hard to understand how he'd been so compelled by the sight of the two men fucking... making love, whatever it was they'd been doing. And so utterly unable to watch them in the tender, exhausted aftermath of their love. Why was the feeling so much harder than the act?

He thought about Stella and about Ray Vecchio and knew that he would never understand why love was not enough.

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THE END

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