Author's website: http://www.trickster.org/kass/

Disclaimer: The boys are theirs; the words are mine.

Author's Notes: Thanks to Sihaya, Starfish, Justine and Alanna for the beta-work.

Story Notes:

Control

by Kass

I. Beginning

I have a reputation for being stiff. Buttoned-up. A "control freak," as American vernacular might have it. In fairness, the reputation isn't entirely undeserved, though if you ask me, it's all a question of social nuance. Ironing my uniform smartly, keeping my boots clean: in the Territories these would be simple acts of sartorial pride. Neighbourly. Showing attention to those around me by presenting myself in an appropriate fashion. Here, these acts stand out. People notice.

Of course, they can say what they like; self-control is required in my profession. I may not carry a gun, but I am an officer of the peace, and I take my duties seriously.

I knew my control was doomed the day Ray entered my life. He was a chaos vector from moment one. His appearance didn't fit his name. My confusion eddied around us like the tail end of a fractal pattern. That was, too, the day the other Ray Vecchio's--the real Ray Vecchio's--car was set afire.

Packed in that small space, smelling the sweat of this man I didn't yet know, watching the flames unfurl: no sense of order could withstand that heat.

I was momentarily disoriented when I awoke. The cot was adequate; I had slept well...but the events of the previous day had apparently overwhelmed me. By long habit, I refrained from opening my eyes, and used the confusion as an opportunity to practice locating myself by sound. Diefenbaker's sleepy breathing in the corner, cars outside the window, ah, Constable Turnbull's familiar voice answering the phone, of course, the Consulate. That cleared up, I lay for a while reflecting on my first day back.

It wasn't long before my mind fixated on this new soi-disant Ray. The sudden pang of terror I'd felt when I'd thought he was shot. His surprised smile when I had awkwardly invited him to dinner. The conversation we'd had over pizza, remarkable only in how quickly we had slipped into a kind of familiar banter, as though we actually were the long-time friends we were pretending to be. He had seemed genuinely interested in whether I had enjoyed my sojourn in the "Northwest Areas," although he had become oddly distractable every time I attempted to describe something in detail. Still, it had been a pleasant evening.

Though part of me was quietly luxuriating in the memory, another part of me was clamping down. I knew what this was, and it couldn't be good.

It's not that I'd never felt desire before; far from it. I have been aware of my tendencies since before puberty. And although I have my share of...unorthodoxies, the fact of bisexuality is not as unusual as most Americans seem to think.

No: it was more than the prospect of unrequited desire that had me panicked. I couldn't explain it, but something in me that had always been submerged felt distressingly close to the surface. Something about Ray--his manner, his unpredictability, his energy--was capable of opening doors I was by no means comfortable allowing to be opened. It seemed that with him in my world, everything was slightly off-kilter, and that was terrifying.

"I told you, son, he's not bad for a Yank."

My eyes flew open; my father was sitting at the edge of the cot, his tunic by far the most vivid thing in the room. I have lived with his ghost for nearly two years, but I am always momentarily uncomfortable when he materializes--especially when it seems he may have overheard my thoughts. I have not asked him if telepathy is part and parcel of his ghostdom; I don't really want to know, especially if the answer is yes.

"I didn't say he was."I propped my head up on one elbow.

He clucked his tongue. "Now, now. Is that any way to greet your father?"

I could have retorted that he had hardly begun with 'Good morning' or 'Did you have a pleasant sleep,' but didn't. "My apologies."

"Accepted," he said, brightly.

There was a pause. "Look, I have nothing against him. I'm just...apprehensive." I let my head fall back and closed my eyes again. "It could be exceptionally awkward if--there are things you don't--it could end quite badly."

"I beg your pardon, Constable?" The voice was not my father's.

I opened my eyes to Turnbull's visage looming over me. He was leaning in the door; his eyes were concerned.

"Is everything all right, sir?"

"Yes, yes, of course. I was merely...talking to Diefenbaker," I finished lamely.

Turnbull cast a quick glance at the sleeping wolf, then nodded. "Indeed. Well. There's tea if you'd like it, and toast."

I thanked him, he retreated, and I waited a few moments for my father to reappear, but wherever he had vanished to, there he remained. I didn't want to admit it, but his absence left me strangely bereft.

Dad and I had never discussed romance when he was alive, although control was the subject of several of his sermons. I could still remember them. ("What keeps a man alive above the Arctic Circle, son, is a perfect sense of order. Lose track of your matches, and you'll die of cold. Tie a lash inefficiently, and you'll leave a trail of belongings across the pack ice...")

I couldn't help wanting to discuss control with him again. To see if, from the admittedly unexpected circumstances of his afterlife, he found unpredictability any less threatening.

Perhaps now that the identity confusion had been settled--now that I knew that I wasn't losing my mind, nor (permanently) losing my best friend--the chaos would evanesce. One could hope.

II. Middle

Perhaps predictably, I was both correct and incorrect on that score.

Things did become easier once I adjusted to having a new partner. I did miss Ray Vecchio, of course, but the second Ray turned out to be as admirable a police officer (and human being) as my browse through his records had suggested.

My sense of Ray gained a new dimension during the days when his ex-wife and her new paramour were in danger. Watching him suffer was painful, especially since enough hints had been dropped that I was beginning to suspect that he might be interested in me. Or, at least, that he might be capable of developing an interest in me, were he to consider the possibility; clearly falling in love with Stella at twelve had kept him from questioning his sexuality, and I wasn't sure he was inclined to do so now.

Having Dad's office appear in my coat closet was a little annoying, but every cloud has a silver lining; perhaps this meant he'd be on-hand more often to proffer advice. I preferred not to dwell on the oddity of having more of a relationship with my father's ghost than I'd ever had with his corporeal presence.

So I resolved to seek his counsel on Ray. Perhaps if I spoke plainly, he would answer me in the same fashion. But at the last second I flinched from complete honesty, and I asked for his advice on how to help Ray handle trouble with a woman, rather than on how I myself should handle my trouble with Ray.

Dad's answer--about throwing Snuffy Briggs in a snowbank--was unhelpful. I couldn't help speculating that sometimes he plays at incomprehension simply to thwart me.

More and more, evenings found me walking with Diefenbaker through Chinatown, between Canal Street and Lake Shore Drive. In my years here I have learned to filter out the smells and sounds of city streets when I am engaging in walking meditation. It's not a bright nighttime hike across the tundra, or a moonlit ski across a frozen ridge, but it suffices.

It was true that the chaos engendered by Ray's arrival was largely gone. Now we were dealing only with the standard chaos of law enforcement in a major American city: smugglers, hit men, the miscreants who neglect to snip the plastic rings which bind aluminum six-packs.

But after we'd arrested the man who'd tried to kill Ray's ex-wife, after Stella had gone inside her apartment without a word to Ray, his pain had been so obvious that words had almost bubbled out of my mouth. Declarations of desire, of intent; maybe even declarations of love, though I'd hardly known him long enough to say such things believably.

Instead I'd managed to wrest control of my mouth as it opened; I had asked if he wanted to eat. (He did not.) I had asked if he had meant what he'd said about never going back; he had claimed to have spoken out of necessity, not belief.

Shortly thereafter I'd walked away, but the conversation continued to plague me: not so much what had been said as what had remained unspoken. On the nights when the remembered silences were worst, I walked the pavement of Chinatown seeking clarity.

The words had wanted to leave my mouth. They had wanted to ravish his ears and make him weak in the knees. Holding the words back was becoming exhausting--but saying them, and having him reject them, would be worse. Would seem like a kind of annihilation. And that after only a few weeks; I could only imagine that the urgency would worsen, over the duration of our partnership.

"Fate is toying with me," I told Diefenbaker. "This is why I never wanted someone like Ray in my life. Falling in love with a chaos vector can only result in pain for someone with my personality type; it would be analagous to...to a cat falling in love with you."

He cocked his head momentarily, then dashed after a squirrel. So much for meaningful conversation there.

Perhaps Ray Vecchio would finish his assignment and return to his former identity. The thought of seeing him again gladdened me, of course...but my heart, traitorous, insisted that my reunion with the first Ray could wait. Frustrated though I was by the inadvisability of explaining my growing feelings for Ray Kowalski, I was not ready to contemplate giving him up.

III. End

Car chases and criminals by day; frequent long walks with Dief and Dad's ghost by night. Astonishingly, the first year of our partnership came and went, with very little variation on this theme.

I am, I suppose, prone to the same abandonment fears as anyone else. (This despite the fact that death actually brought my father closer to my side.) Having Ray Vecchio disappear--even for perfectly understandable reasons--did nothing to assuage these anxieties. But by the end of my first year with Ray Kowalski, I was finally beginning to relax. To feel safe. To trust that whatever uncontrolled energy drew me to him was at least something I could resist enough to maintain a comfortable working partnership; that I could exist in proximity to his innate chaos without losing my own sense of self.

And then, out of the blue, came, "I say night and you say day." Came, "I swear to God I will punch you right in the face." Came, worst of all, the horrible finality of "Pleasure working with you."

When Ray told me to punch him in the jaw to seal the end of our partnership, I felt like some part of myself had died. Suddenly all the words I'd been struggling not to say were dead grass in my mouth, ashes blown through an abandoned town.

And then, as if to mock our separation, the body of Billy Butler slammed into the hood of Ray's car. Forcing us to remain together, but not-together, for the duration of one more case.

That last case--that's what it was supposed to be; our last case as partners--was excruciating. I was trapped behind glass, my words rendered useless by Ray's anger, his need to be away from me. I wondered if this were how my father feels when trying to speak with anyone else.

There were moments of connection--when my recounting the tale of the Robert MacKenzie convinced him to drive all night to Sault Ste. Marie, for instance. But they were rare. Mostly we seemed to be at loggerheads.

There was so much I wanted so desperately: for the transfers never to have been offered, for everything to have stayed the way it was. More than that, I found myself wishing I had taken the risk which had made itself apparent to me the day we met--but now it was too late. Everything I said came across wrong. I charmed Captain Smithers, I got the crew of the Henry Allen singing sea chanties, but every word I said to Ray earned a scowl.

Lines from the American poet Robert Frost ran circles around my head, rhythmic like the ship's rocking on the water. "Some say the world will end in fire/ Some say in ice...."

Ice is neat, crystalline. Ice is familiar. The Inuit celebrate the advent of winter because with the sea ice comes the possibility of transportation across the frozen bays.

Fire is unpredictable. Fire can't be trusted. And I never realized how bereft I would be without its warmth. When Ray's countenance froze, it was as though I had lost my sun.

That moment of buddy breathing was one of the longest of my life. Had I ever imagined rescuing Ray from a sinking ship, I would have imagined that buddy breath as joyful communion: his tongue in my mouth, ardor warming our blood against the cold waters of the Great Lake. The reality was no such thing. Ray was flailing, panicked. He tasted like lake water. There was no ardor. In that instant I was certain that he would never love me; that if we survived this ordeal, we might never speak again.

But somehow things started improving. On the Whaling Yankee, Ray urged me, aghast, to spit out my taste of arsenic-laced oil. I took comfort in the knowledge that while he might be angry with me, he didn't want to see me poisoned.

Our waters warmed again when I took my father's advice, in the submersible, and followed Ray's directional hunch.

The current seemed almost familiar when Ray appeared at just the right instant to help me apprehend Hester--and when he threw me the gun to point at Wallace, clinching the arrest, making it possible to not only survive the day but bring that man to justice. Rarely has the closure of a case felt so sweet.

Finally came our oblique conversation on the deck of the Bounty. Our collective admissions that both logic and instinct are each markedly lacking, taken alone. His asking, for the last time, whether I was going to take the transfer. And the fact that my heart finally started beating again when he confessed that no, he wasn't taking his either.

The watery trial was over. I grinned ridiculously. Ray did, too.

And I swore to myself that I would learn from this. That I would speak with him. That I would not let my fears prevent me from, as my father pointed out, taking necessary leaps.

The resolve was easier made than carried out.

Over the next few days I tried to find opportunity to speak up, but it's a rare conversation that leads directly into an analysis of control and its failings, the perfect marriage of logic and impulse, and my unending desire to ravish him day and night for the rest of our lives.

Besides, our falling-out had shown our partnership to be capable of dissolution. What if he didn't react well? What if I lost everything I now had, because I was too greedy to let it suffice?

A week after our short sail on the Bounty, Ray and I made plans for dinner and possibly a movie. I was standing in front of my mirror combing wet hair when my father appeared beside me.

"You're taking some care, there, son."

"It pays to look one's best."

Spoken precisely as he would have said it, and he knew it. He raised an eyebrow and nodded, contemplative. Then he changed direction.

"Big conversation tonight."

I stopped and looked at his reflection in the mirror. "Possibly," I said, cautiously.

He clapped me on the shoulder. "Three cheers," he said. "You know, I never got that far with Buck."

I opened my mouth to demand an explanation, but he was gone.

IV. Beginning

We were the only Caucasians at Wah Xing; it wasn't crowded when we arrived, though our waiter told me it would fill up completely by eight. His English was minimal at best, which I realized belatedly might annoy Ray. I hadn't meant to put us in a position where he would be relying on my guidance; I'd merely wanted to show him someplace I liked, someplace he would never have seen.

Sometimes I feel less foreign in Chinatown than in Chicago proper--maybe because I expect to stick out like a sore thumb when surrounded by Asians, while some part of me is always surprised that America and I are so little alike.

I offered to order him a beer, but he shook his head. "I can handle it," he said, then began reciting what I took to be a list of the names of all the Asian beers he could think of. On his third try, the waiter nodded, and Ray held up one finger. I scanned the menu.

A kick under the table alerted me that I had missed something. I blinked and focused; Ray looked half-annoyed, half-amused. He jerked his head to his left, where our waiter stood, patiently.

"The beer was easy, but dinner's a little beyond me."

"Yes, yes, of course--my apologies," I said, then switched into Cantonese to order an assortment of dishes: two appetizers and a main course, all specialties of the house. The waiter smiled, nodded, and moved on to the next table.

I noticed that I was drumming a finger on the table, and stopped.

Ray poured his Tsing Tao into his glass and took a long, slow sip. "Frase," he said when the beer was one-third gone. "There something on your mind?"

It was that obvious, wasn't it. Of course it was; I had, as he would say, "spaced out" no fewer than three times, and I seemed to be acquiring his nervous-energy tics. Mutely I nodded.

"So why don't you tell me what it is?" His voice was surprisingly gentle.

I took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. I could do this. "You know I've always placed a high premium on predictability," I began. "In the Arctic, of course, it's a matter of life and death; and even in daily matters here, it's...calming, to me. Things have a necessary order."

God, it was like swimming with weights on my feet.

"People rely on my staying in control, which may be why I've resisted relinquishing it. With one...notable exception, I suppose." I cleared my throat and continued. "I'm nearly 40 years old, perhaps not the easiest time to be contemplating significant changes. Which is to say--"

I stopped. No. This was the wrong tack; his eyes would glaze before I got to the important part.

I tried again. "When we met--"

Ray cut in. "Fraser. Is this about us?"

"Yes," I said, so fast I was almost interrupting. Thank God; one hurdle cleared.

Ray raised his empty bottle; the waiter nodded and returned almost instantly with another, cold and already beading with condensation in the warmth of the room.

"Since we've been working together, our partnership has been--good for me. And I've been thinking about my need to be in control, whether it's necessarily useful--" Was this working at all? I had rehearsed the speech so many times in my mind I wasn't sure what I had said and what I had only imagined saying, not to mention whether Ray would understand.

Ray was shaking his head. I stopped talking. He moved my water glass aside and pushed his beer over in front of me. "Here: you drink for a second, let me give this a try."

I almost refused; almost told him he couldn't possibly say this for me; but I remembered that my correcting him had chafed enough to make him tire of our partnership, and was silent. Not knowing what else to do, I took a sip--bitter with hops, but not unpleasant--and let him speak.

"You wouldn't know it, but I think some about control, too." He was fidding with the paper wrapper which had held his chopsticks, folding it into some kind of formless anti-origami; I made myself watch his hands and not his mouth. It was easier to be silent that way.

"Especially on what you might call matters of the heart."

My glance whipped up to his face; I couldn't stop myself. He looked...ordinary. Not tortured, as I imagined my expression had been when I was trying to get words out.

"After the way things went down with Stella--" he shrugged lightly, "--I've been a little bit, ah, reluctant to give up control. You know, bridle-shy."

"Ray, it's never been my intent to bridle you," I burst out.

He grinned: a wicked grin that reached not only his mouth but the crinkles around his eyes. "You're getting a little ahead of yourself, there," he said. "Let's get through this conversation; the handcuffs and toys and, whaddayacall, accouter-ments can wait."

Dear God. Dear God. He knew what I'd been agonizing over--and he appeared all in favor. I wasn't sure whether to be terrified or relieved. Every drop of blood in my body veered either north, heating my face to what had to be a remarkable shade of red, or south, rendering my jeans uncomfortably snug.

He leaned lazily back in his chair, still grinning, waiting for me to say something. I collected myself. I had to sound unfazed. What would my response ordinarily have been, had Ray not just effectively propositioned me? I seized on his mispronunciation. "That's accoutrements, Ray."

"You're a pain in the ass, Fraser." Words notwithstanding, there was no rancor in his tone, merely amusement and recognition.

Despite the humid warmth of the room, I shivered slightly. It felt delicious.

The waiter took that moment to appear before us with the first of our dishes, a slow-cooked soup featuring pork, watercress, and almonds. "Ode," I said, automatically.

He murmured "Msoila" and dashed back to the kitchen.

Ray reached over and retrieved his glass of beer. For a few minutes the only sound was our occasional slurps as we devoured the hot soup.

"Mild," Ray noted mid-bowl.

"Classical Cantonese cooking is always light on spices." I was relieved to be able to switch the conversation to firmer ground. "Traditionally-speaking, hot peppers were more frequently used in warm climates, such as Thailand, because it was believed that the capsicum helped to preserve food. The Cantonese, in contrast, regarded hot pepper as useful only to disguise something rotting--so if a waiter offered you a spicy preparation for a given piece of fish, you knew that fish was bad, and should therefore opt for something else."

"Huh," Ray said, and took another swig of his beer, and grinned at me again.

Surely my flush was caused by the hot liquid I was spooning, not by any kind of reaction to Ray.

We were moving on to a pair of tiny braised squabs when I spoke up again. "You need to understand, it's not the...attraction that scares me."

He nodded. "Good."

Perhaps I had underestimated his flexibility; none of this seemed to surprise him at all. "It's the risk."

"Jeez, Fraser, we're cops. What day of our lives, what minute, are we not taking some kinda risk?"

His point was fair, and I acknowledged as much. "But this is a different kind of risk."

"So what made you decide to take it? Since you've apparently been chewing on this one a while."

I chose my words as carefully as I could. "Last week. When I thought our partnership was over. I realized--I'd always thought the danger lay in--in the ways we were different, the ways we could hurt each other. I thought that by avoiding the risk, I could--protect myself." The admission made me feel small. I stared down at my empty plate, painted with juices.

"And."

"And I was wrong."

Ray reached over and tapped my forearm gently. "Hey," he said, and waited until I looked up. "S'okay. I wasn't gonna say anything either."

The waiter whisked our plates away; on his heels, another appeared with our main course, plates of braised crispy chicken still steaming from the kitchen.

"What I'm trying to say..." Suddenly I had to get the words out; had to finish saying everything difficult, couldn't chance the possibility any more that he might not completely understand. A throng of customers had bustled in the door and were crowding around our table towards the back of the room, and I had to pitch my voice slightly louder than usual to ensure that he would hear me. "I think I love you."

Ray smiled. "I think I love you too," he said, calmly. "You know, you sound so serious. Bet that's gonna come out different when I have your dick in my mouth."

I dropped my chopsticks. "Ray!" Caught, again, between mortification and titillation.

"Hey, nobody here speaks English; they're not even listening. That's what got you to say it in the first place. Am I right?"

I retrieved my utensils, trying to keep a straight face but failing: I could feel the grin taking over. "Okay. Yes. You're right."

"I'm right," Ray repeated, a little smugly. "I like the sound of that." He lifted his fork and dug in.

As I was closing the door behind me, Ray shrugged out of his jacket.

"So," he said. "Back at the Waxing."

"Wah Xing, Ray." I could tell by the glint in his eye that he was teasing me, but I couldn't help the correction.

"Yeah, whatever." He sat at one end of the couch; I joined him, a safe distance apart. "I couldn't help noticing you got a little hot and bothered when I mentioned sucking you off."

I blushed again. The autonomic nervous system is a fascinating thing. "Mm-hmm."

"So I was wondering. Is it the blowjob specifically that gets you hot, or is it me talking about what I'd like to do to you?"

My skin seemed to be tingling. "Both," I managed, barely.

"So if I said--"

I couldn't take much more; I stopped his talking by pulling him towards me for a kiss.

It was good. It was so much more than good. Hands moving restlessly over each others' shoulders and backs; tongues exploring; breath almost unnecessary.

But there's only so long two people can kiss sitting side-by-side, and after a while my lower back and neck were complaining; I pulled away. Ray was gratifyingly flushed.

"Here--"

"You wanna--"

After a moment of moving and reorienting, I was sprawled on the couch on my back with Ray atop me.

"Mmm. That's better, yeah?"

Indeed it was. His weight was welcome, and the press of his erection near mine even more so. We spent the next small eternity kissing and grinding against each other.

This time it was he who pulled back. "We could neck here all night like teenagers, or we could fuck on an actual bed."

The word was so dirty leaving his mouth that my whole body heated. "Are you sure you want to--have you ever--"

"What--oh, you mean," he interrupted, then stopped himself, grinning a little self-consciously. "Nah. I've never tried it. I didn't mean fuck exactly. I just figured, we can call it making love the second time. Right now I just really want to make you come."

I'm not sure whether it was hearing him say "making love," "second time," or "make you come," but I had to bite my lip and think of exceptionally unappealing things to keep from climaxing right then. "Bed, then."

His bedroom was dark, but I could see his dim form pausing to pull off his shirt, so I did the same. Next thing I knew he was pushing me down onto his unmade bed and climbing on top of me again. This time the kisses were serious: long, slow, hot kisses, with his body moving lightly against mine. Every time I tried to press up, he shifted his weight, leaving me little or nothing to rub against. It was maddening.

And then he was kissing my neck, moving down to play gently with my nipples, and I couldn't help sighing my approval.

"You like that, huh?"

"I've always been impressed by your...powers of detection," I managed. It was the last coherent sentence I would say for a while.

Because next he unzipped my pants and pulled them down my thighs, and when he bent to lick at the base of my erection I gasped. When he slid me into his mouth and started sucking, I groaned. And when he pulled away, leaving me wet and hard in the suddenly-cool air, I very nearly whimpered.

"Y'know what I really want to do, Benton?"

"Ray," I pleaded, fighting the temptation to thrust up.

"I want to make you totally lose control."

Waves of mingled fear and excitement passed through me, hot then cold. "I--tonight? I don't think I--"

"Doesn't have to be tonight." His mouth was right over me, and the vibrations made me twitch. "Doesn't even have to be this week. Or this year. I just wanna keep trying. 'Cause when you trust me enough to let it all go, when you want it so bad you almost forget your own name, it's going to be so hot." As if to remind me what heat felt like, he lifted my erection in one warm hand and in one smooth motion slid his mouth all the way down. My orgasm was immediate, and intense, and although I barely managed to choke his name out, inside choirs of angels were singing.

Some moments later I felt him remove my boots and my pants, then his own. When he slid back up the bed, it was my turn to push him onto his back, to hold him down with my weight. His strong, hairy legs next to mine made me want to shout with joy.

I dedicated my attention to making him as desperate as he had made me. I don't have his way with words--at least, not the explicit ones--but there were so many places on his body to taste, and I wanted to commit each one to memory: the soft skin of his earlobes. The faintly raspy stubble along his jaw. His collarbones, surprisingly prominent. His nipples, crinkling into tiny stones.

And then everywhere which had been licked could be blown-upon. When I reached his nipples the second time, he moaned. His penis was hot and hard against me, and naturally when I moved down his legs he assumed he knew why. Naturally, I had to prove him wrong, or at least keep him waiting.

When I rolled his thighs apart and licked a path towards his groin, he shuddered. I spent some time tracing his balls with my tongue, which reduced him to a steady sighing. When I pushed to turn him over he tensed, no doubt expecting some kind of penetration--a finger, perhaps--but instead I bestowed a kiss. He gasped in a breath, then groaned as I continued the tender assault.

"Oh, God, Ben." His words were muffled against the pillow. "I'm--"

I worked a hand under him and rubbed my thumb over the ridge at the crown of his cock; the combined sensation did it, he was pulsing under me, keening a long string of "oh"s.

I wrapped loosely around him; he pulled the coverlet over us.

"Crazy Mountie'll eat anything," he murmured.

I took a nibble of the back of his shoulder.

"Hey!" The protest sounded more undignified than indignant.

I placed a small kiss to soothe the mark my teeth had left.

For a moment there was silence.

"I really do love you," I said, presently.

"Yeah. Me too," he said, then yawned. "Sleep."

It was half an explanation, half a command. Happily I closed my eyes.

Relinquishing control would not come easily--not physical control, not emotional control, not even control of my daily surroundings.

But as I drifted towards sleep, I realized that while I couldn't abandon it altogether, I could rest knowing I could at least yield it, temporarily and occasionally and a little bit at a time, into Ray's capable hands.

End Control by Kass: kass@trickster.org

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