Archive of Our Own

The first fitting of the Taskmaster suit was scheduled for a week – exactly seven days – after Greg’s first, eventful, appointment with Mr. Horne.

Greg takes a deep breath – the familiar smell of the candles filling him, wrapping him in their heady warmth. The scent of it sets him swaying on his knees, and earns him a tiny crease above his closed eyes as he catches himself. His naked skin catches a breath of breeze and tingles, heightening his sensitivity, as he draws his hand up his own thigh to alight his fingertips on the very tip of his hard, hot, cock. He feels Mr. Horne then, guiding him, urging him to touch himself, explore himself under these strange, exciting circumstances. Under his scrutiny. Greg wraps his hand around himself, and his lips fall open – relief and need pumping through his veins.

When Mr. Horne touched him – with a dispassionate, arhythmic, pace meant to amuse himself – it wasn’t meant to bring Greg any sense of satisfaction. Greg tries to slow himself and imitate it for him. A few long, languid strokes too light, a devastating twist over the head where Greg’s precome is already dripping, and then short, hard, frustrating pumps that come so close to hurting that Greg cries out. His head falls forward – sweat already upon his hairline – and another shuddering breath does nothing to clear his arousal fogged mind.

He hopes this is what Mr. Horne wants of him. That he’s doing it right.

The absence of his touch, the silence where his voice should be, backed by the white noise beyond the windows, sends him spinning into anticipation and doubt. He feels something dry and textured in his other hand, and grasps it – finding Mr. Horne’s business card pressed into his palm. Grateful for anything of Mr. Horne, desperate for a touch, no matter how removed, Greg fumbles the card to his lips, drawing it over the sensitive skin there. The white textured paper skitters over his lip, rough and ticklish, before that flesh catches on the shiny gold pressed lettering of Mr. Horne’s name. It’s as close as Greg is permitted to get to him right now, no matter how much he craves it, and it drags his lip down whorishly.

Distracted, Greg’s hand has reverted to stroking how he likes it, how he’s always done it. He’s breathing harder and harder as the pleasure starts to twist and coil and tighten in him. He feels the muscles in his chest, his thighs, his hips, flex and shudder, and his hand moves faster and faster, losing himself in it. He’s getting close now and the world falls away, nothing but the hot slick feeling of his own hand tearing waves of desperate need through him, panting as the tidal wave approaches, closer and closer.

“Not yet,” Mr. Horne gasps at him, and Greg cries out wordlessly.

Not again, not now, not when he’s so close. But despite his agonised, choking, convulsions, Greg does in fact stop. His chest hurts from how tense his body is, flexing taut and shuddering as he falls forward, bracing against the soft bedclothes. His eyes snap open, seeing the fabric of his duvet close as he fights to breathe and stop, in his empty bedroom.

Two tight, frustrated breaths later, he falls forward – slamming his face into his pillow, smearing it with sweat and the beginnings of tears at the corners of his eyes. He twists at the last moment – something in his messed up imagination denying him even the friction of the bed against his poor, repeatedly denied, cock. It lays, much like Greg, hard and aching, twitching in the morning air.

With a quiet, crying, “Fuck.” Greg rolls onto his back on the bed. He shields his eyes with his arm, as his breathing slowly comes back to him. The thick scent of candles feels cloying and bitter to him now and he tilts his head to look at the side table. A half eaten muffin, wrapper partially peeled back, sits there – three half-burned birthday candles from the kitchen drawer stuck haphazardly into its top. Pathetic. He reaches out and pinches their flames out and goes back to curling in on himself.

It’s four more days until the fitting.

He arrives early.

It’s a fine, dark, autumn smelling evening with a gentle bite of cold – and the businesses along the street have been closed for an hour already – leaving no foot traffic to speak of, this far from the bars and nightclubs that might populate other parts of London’s night.

He arrives early and stands at the end of the street corner, trying not to look like he’s doing anything illegal, scrolling distractedly on his phone for fifteen minutes before he deems it close enough to the time to approach Mr. Horne’s tailor’s shop without looking desperate.

The blinds are down, leaving only thin blades of golden light on the pavement outside. It gives the golden lettering on the door a dark cast – faintly illuminated from within and casting it in shadow. It’s two minutes until his appointment time (checked a dozen times already on the card and his phone’s clock) and he knocks.

There’s no answer.

How long do you wait before you knock again? Two more checks of the card? Of the time on his phone? The minute ticks over and still nothing. Maybe he didn’t knock loud enough, or Mr. Horne wasn’t near enough to hear it. His fist hovers over the wooden surround of the door, hesitating, before he decides against it. He paces away to the curb and makes a show of looking up and around. The dark empty windows above and on either side don’t help him. He strides back to the door, clenching his hand in his pocket over and over again.

This is stupid, he thinks. He checks his phone again. He should knock.

He raises his hand to knock again – harder, louder, this time. Urgent and unable to be ignored, when suddenly the roller blind over the door shows the shadowed shape of a man, and then the snip of the lock undone.

The minute ticks over.

The door opens, and Mr. Horne is standing there – face mild and expressionless, backlit and shadowed.

“Mr. Davies. Right on time,” he greets him, as if it could have been anyone else.

Greg hesitates, unsure, before responding in kind. “Mr. Horne.” The name feels complicated in his mouth. He thinks he sees Mr. Horne relax a fraction.

He steps back and gestures for Greg to come in.

Greg finds himself staring. Mr. Horne – Alex – is wearing a teal shirt, black narrow tie tucked in below the third button, and his black leather braces are hanging off, dangling to his sides and over his black-trousered arse. The colour of the shirt works, Greg thinks, picking out his blue eyes and making the remaining auburn in his greying beard glow, but mostly he looks like he’s ready to work, rather than simply be looked at. Sleeves rolled up, tie tucked away, braces shrugged off – a man who could move.

Mr. Horne, however, simply locks the door behind Greg, and walks behind the counter, barely sparing Greg a second glance.

Greg had dithered over what to wear tonight for far too long, ultimately settling on a plain white shirt, navy jacket and black straight trousers. He’d buttoned only the top of the two on the jacket, of course, but left the top two buttons of his shirt undone after much deliberation. He knows he’s already sweating, and it’s nothing to do with the walk from the station.

“Lovely weather, we’re having,” Mr. Horne offers brightly. He ducks below the counter to bring out his ledger, as if he hadn’t had all the time in the world to have already done so.

Greg scowls. “I guess?”

Mr. Horne, rigid as a rod, eases open the book and slowly, carefully, licks a finger before leafing through the pages one by one. “Quite a few people view autumn as their favourite season though it can be tricky to know when exactly it starts...”

Greg can’t believe it. Mr. Horne is talking about the fucking weather?

“I think it changed this week though. Something about the air. A chill in the mornings, maybe?” He finds the page he’s looking for – Greg’s measurements in his spidery hand all down the lined page. He runs his fingers down the paper, slowly, mesmerizingly, silently mouthing each number in turn – Greg’s chest tightens, watching the movement of the lips, the tantalising glimpse of his tongue on teeth, the shine of his mouth. Then Mr. Horne smooths down both pages, rubbing his palms across them and Greg’s skin shivers in sympathy, before Mr. Horne lays a pen in the crease between the two, precise and deliberate, drawing a finger down the hard cylinder to settle it in place.

He finally looks up at an increasingly frustrated, confused, Greg.

“How was your week, Mr. Davies?” And he looks so god-damned pleasant about it all, that Greg can’t stand it.

“I don’t want to discuss my fucking week!” Greg barks.

Mr. Horne simply raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“No! I do not want to discuss the weather, or the ‘turn of the fucking seasons’ or whatever inane nonsense this is.” Greg waves his hand gesturing between where he’s standing on one side of the counter, and Mr. Horne on the other side. “And I absolutely don’t want to discuss my week, Mr. Horne.” He practically spits the last part.

Rather than being shocked, or angry, Mr. Horne seems to be fighting to control a smirk as he looks down for a moment. “Oh, I think you do want to talk about your week. What you’ve been up to. How you’ve been feeling. Or…” Mr. Horne looks up at Greg, slyly, through his eyelashes – blue eyes piercing. “I think you want to tell me all about it but just… not yet.”

And it’s not Greg’s imagination – Mr. Horne’s voice dropped for that last part. Turning a little husky. Greg inhales sharply – the memory of Mr. Horne bending him over the table and fucking him senseless, demanding he delay his orgasm until permitted with just those two words – those two words that had haunted his very sexually frustrating week, thrown back at him to punch him in the gut and leave him breathless.

Mr. Horne grins, gap tooth on display – very pleased indeed.

“Now wait a fucking minute…” Greg starts, waving his finger at Mr. Horne’s infuriating smugness. “You can’t just drop something like that on me, not after everything that’s happened.” Greg’s pacing around the shop, his long strides eating it up as he veers around tables and displays. “Not after I texted to confirm this appointment and you left me on fucking read. You couldn’t find a second to text back? Anything at all? Not even for politeness’ sake even?”

“Surely I deserved at least that? I spent days fucking jumping at every notification, wondering if you were finally going to talk about… this. Whatever it was. Is. Fuck.” Greg’s got a hand tearing at his own hair, not even looking at Mr. Horne now – instead lost in his own personal spiral.

“Ok. Fine. Mr. Horne. I had a rather confusing week, thank you for asking. Started out great. Felt pretty good about myself for a hot minute. Friend of mine said I was, and I quote, ‘Glowing like a radioactive slag heap, emphasis on the slag.’” He rounds on Mr. Horne, expecting him to interrupt and points imperiously at him. “Don’t ask!”

Mr. Horne closes his mouth with a clack, eyes twinkling.

“But that didn’t last, did it – not after ghosting me. No! Instead, I start going out of my fucking mind. Not just jumping every time my phone goes – no, that would be bad enough – but I can barely get dressed without thinking about it. Never mind your god damned two button rule.” Greg, red faced, furious and ashamed, is shouting now.

“I brushed up against some bloke on the tube and popped a semi right there – just because the soft fabric of his suit brushed against my wrist!” Hysteria creeps in.

“Was that before, or after, you stood opposite my shop for thirteen seconds and seventy-two minutes one lunchtime, before stomping off?” Mr. Horne asks, innocently.

“Aaarrgh!” Greg roars, anguish and frustration embodied. He’s a terrifying thing to behold – huge and stalking back and forth, hands fisted white at his sides. He’s pivoting and pacing so chaotically that he doesn’t see Mr. Horne come out from behind the counter and stand there, waiting, one eye on the clock at the back of the shop.

“This isn’t— This isn’t some fucking jo—”

Greg immediately stalls – Mr. Horne’s hand suddenly on his chest, warm and firm on the thin fabric of his white shirt in the v-shape of his jacket. It stops him in his tracks. He’s touching him. He’s touching him. He stares down at it, agog.

“Time’s up, Mr. Davies.” Mr. Horne gives him a little pat.

Blinking, he blurts, “What?”

“You asked for a minute – and your time’s up.” Mr. Horne walks to the hangers next to a curtained door frame, and unhooks and retrieves a jacket and pair of trousers. Greg watches him, stunned.

Mr. Horne hadn’t reacted at all. Hadn’t been startled or scared of his yelling. Hadn’t been shocked or shamed by his confessions. Hadn’t pitied him, mocked him, or avoided him.

Nothing.

Instead, Mr. Horne extends a hand and holds it a bare inch from Greg’s arm, guiding him in that uncanny way, to raise his hands and hold them out to receive the gently folded clothes. Then his hand moves to Greg’s back, and he starts walking where he guides. Mr. Horne pulls aside the curtain, and points to the changing room beyond.

“Try these on. Just in there, please, Mr. Davies.”

Then he lets go of the curtain, leaving it to brush against Greg’s back, and separate them both. Greg can hear him walk away.

The changing room is small – Greg couldn’t lie down in it in either direction without a crick in his neck or bending his knees up. Maybe diagonally? At one end, three angled full-sized mirrors stand ready to judge him, hooks and shelves for clothes old and new pepper the walls, and an oval-backed, arm-less, red, chair is nestled into one corner.

The curtain had fallen behind him with the finality of a slammed door, and Greg examined why that made him feel so terrible. It felt familiar, certainly, and with a creeping sense of dread, he realised why – he was being kept out of sight, hidden away, his nakedness undesirable again. And yeah, this was well trodden territory for Greg – he’d had decades to get used to his pasty white blob of a body, but he’d stupidly thought this might be different. That the way that Mr. Horne had looked at him last week was different.

Biting his lip, and looking anywhere but at the mirrors, Greg starts to get changed.

He hangs up his jacket, tucks his shoes under the chair, and hesitates over his trousers. Then he undoes the fly almost angrily and shucks them off, stomping them off his legs as they hit the carpeted floor. He very carefully keeps his back to the mirror when he awkwardly bends over in his grey boxer-briefs to pick them up and stuff them onto one of the shelves. He huffs, feeling unfinished and exposed, despite being more than half clothed still. His shirt feels damp still, and he wishes he’d worn something else – something more opaque.

When he reaches for the half made jacket and trousers, his traitorous fingers betray him. The feel of the fabric is electrifying, and he scowls down his own threatened gasp. That fabric, that fabric that had been so filthily christened just feet from where he’s standing is soft and smooth to the touch and he can’t help but rub it between thumb and finger, trace his fingers across the cuff, rest it softly on his own wrist. He takes the jacket off its hanger, letting it cascade over both of his hands. For a fraction of a second, it writhes like a living thing as gravity pulls at it before Greg grips it tightly. Pinning it. He takes a long blink as he feels himself filling out his pants. Inevitably. He holds the jacket out by the shoulders to see properly – and to look at, it’s a weird mix of messy and perfect. Contrasting loose white stitching runs up and down, across and around, connecting it temporarily with, Greg realises, a stiffening material across the inside of the chest and collar. The rest of the blazer is stitched together with wide, neat, delicate, hand-stitching in almost invisible black thread.

There’s no lining yet, so when Greg opens it up to put it on, his eyes fixate on the smudged, faded, crazed and desperate chalk marks on the inside of the fabric on the back. His chalk marks. He swallows dryly. With a glance at the curtains to check for privacy, he hesitantly brings it up to his face to take a terrified, excited, sniff. To his disappointment, it doesn’t smell especially strongly of anything – perhaps faintly musky – but maybe, he thinks, that’s because it smells of him.

The room feels too warm, and he can feel his shirt sticking to him.

Hurrying now, before Mr. Horne might come to check on him and see him like this, he starts to carefully shrug on the jacket. His hand brushes against the rough haircloth before reaching the smoother, softer, sleeves and Greg grits his teeth as the feeling goes straight to his crotch. Both arms in, and no buttons yet sewn on, he fumbles to step into the trousers and hide himself. He debates putting the shoes back on, and decides against it – turning and after a quick adjustment, awkwardly pulling back the curtain to find Mr. Horne.

Oh god. Walking in it is something else. It’s all over his skin – brushing his neck past his shirt collar, gently scuffing his wrists, and rubbing all along his legs. His inner thighs tingle with every step.

Greg feels like he’s a beacon of arousal; exposed and obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes. As if the electricity coursing through his veins must be lighting up the room.

But Mr. Horne doesn’t even look up at his return to the room – instead rummaging around behind the cutting table, half leaned over it with one leg in the air like a snooker player.

“You know where to stand, Mr. Davies,” he calls over his shoulder.

Greg scowls at the dismissal, but fuck, he does know where to stand and despite himself he’s eager to return to it. He brings the sleeve up to his forehead unconsciously to wipe at the sweat there, and then panics when he feels it on his skin. He coughs to hide the sounds he almost makes, and walks to the short raised platform where Mr. Horne had taken his measurements, and so much more, last week.

And how he’s thought of this place, this position, for the last few days. Pictured it in his mind in the early morning, late night, and increasingly other times too. Seared into his memory, he feels his breathing deepen and his heart rate pick up. His socked feet find their place – he turns to face precisely the direction he’d been in before, the angle where the mirror is just blurrily visible out the corner of his glasses. He shakes out his arms, subtly, and lets his shoulders fall where they will. Like Mr. Horne had done to him last time.

Fuck. He’s still trying to be good. Maybe that isn’t what this is any more. Maybe Mr. Horne doesn’t deserve Greg’s best behaviour.

Mr. Horne simply leaves him there, without comment, as he bustles around the working side of the room – Greg can see him collecting a pair of scissors to hook to his hip, threading a needle with more of that thick white thread, and, Greg notes with a muffled gasp – a small flat cardboard box that he opens to reveal a brand new piece of rectangular, engraved, tailoring chalk. That last, he tucks into his shirt pocket, where it leaves a subtle hard bulge over his heart; just the ghost of white smudge on the bold teal fabric.

Finally, he brings the ledger from the counter, and places it on the lectern-like freestanding shelf, only then looking up at Greg properly, who has been frozen in place the whole time.

“Very good.” Mr. Horne nods and walks up to Greg, eyeing him critically. He seems to find little to object to in his stance – barely adjusting his shoulder as he smooths down the fabric across them, and giving the ends of the sleeves little tugs to even them up.

Greg doesn’t want to admit how much those small words of approval move him.

Mr. Horne reaches into his pocket and brings out the chalk – and Greg’s eyes follow it hungrily – but he palms it and uses it for its intended purpose, marking lengths on Greg’s cuffs and stepping back and in again.

“Just getting your sleeves the right length. Everyone’s body is different, after all.” He once again reaches out and pushes, moves, and settles Greg’s shoulder again, and then licks his thumb to rub out a smudge of chalk on one of the sleeves. Greg tries to focus on his breathing instead.

“Have you had an injury on this shoulder in the past? A surgery maybe?”

Greg nods, not initially trusting his voice. “Yeah. Years ago.”

Mr. Horne looks satisfied by the answer, and makes a final mark on the sleeve – firm and confident, as his warm fingers brush against Greg’s wrist to hold the cloth in place.

Then he moves to the chest, pressing and pushing so much like he did last week that Greg starts to overlay the events of then with now as he falls further and further into a feeling of fuzzy confusion.

“How have preparations for the Taskmaster role been coming, Mr. Davies?” Mr. Horne asks, surprising him.

Greg blinks back some focus. “Uhh. Right. Pretty good.” He clears his throat. “I suppose there’s a bit of an argument about the character, actually.”

“Oh?” Mr. Horne genuinely sounds interested, as he marks dashes and darts on Greg’s front, stepping back and forth to examine his work and craft from different angles.

“Yeah, one of the executive producers is arguing that the Taskmaster needs to be far more cruel to the contestants – the comedians – but the worry is that none of them have signed up for that.”

Despite himself, Greg sighs. A new show is a delicate thing – more likely to get cancelled than continued.

Mr. Horne hums. “Hmm.” It’s a pensive, thinking sound that Greg feels means he’ll have something to say soon, so he waits.

“How to prove how cruel and capricious the Master is, without simply telling people. Show don’t tell, isn’t it? Arms up, please.”

Greg moves his arm, Mr. Horne guiding him in his way, and Greg feeling that strange, powerful, magnetism to go where he puts him. “Yeah. Won’t work if we just threaten it during the intro and then treat everyone respectfully. Some fucking monster that’d be.”

Mr. Horne stops dead in his measurements and stares Greg straight in the eye, frowning. Greg’s eyes widen as he feels his stomach drop. He remembers.

“Lang–”

“—I meant, some crappy ‘monster’ that would be.” Greg quickly corrects himself.

Mr. Horne holds his gaze for one more heartbeat, before returning to his work, expressionless. “Well, the answer’s obvious, isn’t it? You need a victim.”

“What?” Greg can’t really believe what he’s hearing.

“You need someone else there to take it. Week after week, another member of the cast whose job is to suffer the worst of the Taskmaster’s cruelty. Weather his urges.”

Greg just stares, horror dawning on his face, as Mr. Horne continues matter-of-factly and moves around to Greg’s back, continuing to mark and measure.

“A subordinate to be mocked, ridiculed, even manhandled, so that the contestants can see – up close and very personal – what awaits them if they step out of line. Someone who suffers indignity upon indignity – just the very worst things that the Taskmaster can think of – and that your channel will tolerate, I suppose – every single episode and come back for more.”

Mr. Horne presses both thumbs into Greg’s lower back, and for a second his knees buckle before he rights himself – his mind so utterly separated from the sensations of his body as he listens to this shockingly matter-of-fact proposal of abuse.

Mr. Horne seems to be quite pleased with his suggestion as he concludes with, “Yes, you need an utterly repugnant toady for the Taskmaster to sharpen his teeth on, in front of everyone.”

Greg can’t stand it. Literally cannot stand it. He flinches, stepping forward, off the platform, and out of the reach of Mr. Horne’s hands. His expression is one of disgust as he backs off. “What the actual – and I don’t care about the language, fuck you very much – what the actual fuck? You’d have some unsuspecting bloke up on stage getting fucking bullied week in, week out? That’s not entertainment, mate, that’s abuse!”

Greg’s shouting by the time he’s finished his outburst. Red in the face.

Mr. Horne just raises an eyebrow, which just pours more outrage onto Greg’s fire, until Mr. Horne slyly replies, “Well, it’s not abuse if he likes it.”

“Wh— what?” Greg feels untethered again – the confidence his righteous fury brought him, wobbling dangerously.

Mr. Horne looks at him like he’s explaining it to a child. Then he steps towards Greg with purpose, getting up in his space, stepping down from the platform to fix him with an intense stare.

“I put it to you, Mr. Davies, that you know very well that the right person would take all of that humiliation, indignity, and punishment, and thank you for it. They’d in fact beg you for more.” Mr. Horne has a finger on his chest, poking him with those last, excruciatingly enunciated, words.

Oh.

“I feel like we covered the topic last week, in fact…” Mr. Horne turns on his heel and walks back over to the platform – exactly where he was before Greg baulked – and waits for him. Not an ounce of doubt in his expression that Greg will, absolutely, come back and stand where he wants him.

And Greg does. He does what he wants – all the air knocked out of him. Mouth again dry and an increasingly uncomfortable hardness in his pants as jumbled thoughts and twisted visions careen through his mind.

Someone who liked it. Who looked up at the Taskmaster and took whatever he got. Who just put himself at his mercy just for the sweet, intoxicating, pleasure of their attention, their mere consideration. Who’d thrill at a cruel look, a mean word, a touch filled with more pain than pleasure.

As he shuffles back to his spot, heart beating out of his chest, he can’t look Mr. Horne in the eye.

“Trust.” Greg mumbles.

“What was that, Mr. Davies? Speak up.”

Greg manages a deeper breath than the fast, shallow, ones he’s been gulping. “You said it was about trust.”

Even with his back to him, Greg can hear the smile in his voice. The satisfaction. “That’s right. With trust, you can do anything to a person.”

With that, Mr. Horne places his hands lightly on Greg’s hips from behind and he startles. But Mr. Horne just keeps ahold until he’s still again, and then runs them down the outside of his legs, brushing along the fabric, as he kneels. Greg’s torso trembles as he fights the urge to jackknife as his cock twitches at the touch.

Finally – finally – after slashing at Greg’s legs and hips and across the creases at the top of the back of his thighs with that damned piece of chalk, Greg a vibrating mess with each unexpected, blunted, attack, Mr. Horne stands.

“Well, Mr. Davies, I think I’ve got most of what I need.”

“Uh huh,” Greg replies, the furthest from suave a man has ever been. He’s looking out the side of his eyes to the mirror and for once he sees, before he feels, Mr. Horne pressing close to his back, mouth close to his ear.

“But what about what you need? Mm?”

And oh fuck, Greg can feel Mr. Horne’s breath hot against his ear, and it’s just not fucking fair. None of it.

“Do you even know what you need, Mr. Davies?”

Greg slumps. “Fu— Yes. I want… I need what we had last time or— I want— I want you or at least, I want you to want me. I don’t even know if that’s different. I thought— I thought you did want me, but now I don’t…”

Greg is tearing at his hair again. He half turns to look at Mr. Horne, but chickens out before he gets there. “I need to feel what I felt and I don’t know how much of that is you, how much of it is me, how much of it is this fucked up dynamic you’ve got going!”

“We have.” Mr. Horne corrects.

Greg whips round to stare at him, exasperated beyond imagining – his expression both pleading and confused. He’s never been so aroused, so conflicted, so devastatingly untethered before in his life. He wants – he needs – with an undirected force that crushes his ribs and leaves the bone shards to press on his heart like pins.

“The fucked up dynamic we have going,” Mr. Horne clarifies. He bites his lip on the word ‘fucked’ and Greg almost flinches to hear the man actually curse, even if he is quoting him. Mr. Horne’s eyes are dark, and a hot red flush crawls down his ears to meet its match rising up from beneath his collar – clashing with the colour of his shirt.

“Yeah. That. This.” Greg holds his breath. Wondering what happens next.

“Maybe this is what you want?” And Mr. Horne brings his hand up to encroach on the electric space between their gazes, and held delicately between his index and ring finger like a card, is the piece of chalk, the engraving of Mr. Horne’s name facing Greg.

Greg’s eyes fixate on it, and then snap back to Mr. Horne as he nods violently. “Yes. Yes I want that.”

And Greg does want it – he’s wanted it all evening. All week. He wants that surrender of choice, of giving control to Mr. Horne again. He needs that all too brief freedom – like fixing an unset bone in his mind and giving him sweet relief until the old injury crept back in days later.

He wants to give that up.

He wants to be taken.

Mr. Horne reaches down and takes Greg’s hand in his own, and Greg watches stupidly, as he places the chalk in his hand like he’s laying a precious coin on his palm. The second Mr. Horne starts to curl his fingers around it, Greg grasps it tight – like a rope to a drowning man. And when Mr. Horne raises his hands to his shoulders, he wants to fall into it, relief washing through him like rain after a heatwave. He feels himself start to tip forward, eyes flickering shut and his lips already tingling in anticipation of a kiss so desperately wanted.

So when Mr. Horne instead turns him around bodily, moving him with the hands on his shoulders, to face the mirror, Greg is surprised.

“Look. In the mirror.” Mr. Horne is behind Greg, and meets his reflected, befuddled gaze. “It’s not your fault you don’t know what you want, Greg,” he says over his shoulder, breath tickling the hair of his beard.

Greg looks – sees himself in the unfinished, chalk marked suit. Tall and fat and hard as hell in his pants tenting the work-in-progress trousers, with Mr. Horne like some kind of flush faced devil on his shoulder.

“Is this where you ask me what I see when I look at myself in the mirror?” Greg attempts, embarrassed at the state of himself. “Because I’ve got enough stand-up material on—”

“No. It doesn’t matter what you see. It’s what others see that has you all twisted up.”

Greg suddenly feels Mr. Horne’s hands on his hips, holding him hard, and he jerks back at the feeling, but Mr. Horne turns him to the side, eyes still locked in the mirror, examining his profile. Then back again, just as firmly manhandled into position. Then he sees him reach up, arm under his own, to grasp him by the jaw – tilting his face up and to the side, then the other, posing and scrutinising him. Greg’s embarrassed, but Mr. Horne’s expression turns to one of concern and care, and Greg doesn't know how to feel about it.

“What we present to people what we become, Greg. Without really meaning to.” Mr. Horne sighs, seeming genuinely sad for a moment. “They want you as the Taskmaster, and I’ll make you a suit fit for the Taskmaster, but it’s just a costume you’ve fallen into. And even with my best efforts – the finest tailoring in the world – it’ll hang off you like a cheap, off-the-rack knockoff.”

Greg frowns. Not yet following, but not liking whatever’s going on here. The chalk feels sharper in his hand.

Mr. Horne moves around him, facing him now – back to the mirror. He reaches for one of Greg’s arms, holding it out as if to check the size of it, grasping him around the bicep and squeezing the muscles there. Not gently, either. Greg keeps looking in the mirror, watching this unsettling man treat him like an animal for sale; a piece of meat to be prodded and haggled down.

“A proper suit – like a role, like an identity – needs to be torn apart over and over again – remade until you know it better, and it fits you better, than your own skin. It should know you better than you know yourself – a representation of how you move, how you live, how you think, how you feel. Making a suit, Greg, you need to get personal, and I don’t think you’ve ever experienced that.”

Mr. Horne turns his head, looking at Greg in the mirror over his shoulder but continuing to face him. He’s close now, closer than arms reach, closer than kissing distance, but for all his prodding and grabbing and closeness, Greg is starting to feel something else coiling low in his stomach, and it’s not the arousal he’d been fighting for days.

This is something else. Something uncomfortable.

“You’re all surface, Greg. What you see is what you get – a giant man in a mirror.” Mr. Horne turns back, but doesn’t look at Greg’s face. He seems almost to be talking to himself now, quiet and sad. “I wonder what hopes and dreams you had for the man you’d become, before your teenage growth spurt stole them from you.”

Greg inhales. Surprised.

“Taken by a body that grew so big that clothes never fit again – never looked good off the shelf. Just finding something to wear was a struggle. Too hard to find, too expensive, too limiting. So, you ended up with whatever you could get – baggy, casual, awkward, unfashionable. It wasn’t your fault that you stuck out awkwardly among the well dressed. You couldn’t fit in with the respectable crowd; the respectable professions. Limiting your options without even realising”

Mr. Horne runs his hands down the lapels of Greg’s half-made suit jacket, frowning a little as he runs the fabric between his thumb and forefinger.

“A future your body stole from you.” And with a sudden, shocking movement, Mr. Horne tears both lapels off the jacket with a vicious ripping sound.

“What the f—” Greg startles badly, aghast at this sudden violence, his curse smothered as Mr. Horne slaps a hand over his mouth, still without eye-contact.

“Shh.” Mr. Horne urges, his other finger to his lips. When he takes back his hand, Greg is too raw to say anything. He doesn’t know what’s happening. He doesn’t know why Mr. Horne is saying these things. He’s never thought about how his difficulty in getting clothes to fit might have changed his future – his life. He doesn’t like it.

“People saw the giant instead and feared you, didn’t they,” Mr. Horne sighs. “Your strength, your awkwardness.” His hands move to Greg’s arms again, feeling the muscles beneath the fabric of his shoulders – broad and thick.

Greg feels the hair on the back of his neck rise.

“A shape to be envied and hated in equal measure – fought or feared, used or abused.” Suddenly, he flicks his eyes up to Greg’s and the sympathy Greg sees there makes his breath hitch. “You never had a chance.”

And with another hard pinch and tear, he rips off the arms of the jacket from the shoulders in one massive yank. Mr. Horne’s own muscles apparent in the force needed. The remains of the sleeves hang loose off Greg, one falling to the floor where his unfisted hand lets it slip off.

Greg feels punched. It’s hard to breathe and his lungs hurt. He glances up at himself in the mirror again and sees a messed up, torn up, version of himself – a man he had too little choice in making. His mouth twists, bitter, and his eyes start to sting.

“I don’t— I don’t think I like this.” He mumbles.

Mr. Horne brings his hand up – the clenched one where the chalk still lives – and gives it a pat as he eases the sleeve over it. “I know.”

Instead, after releasing Greg’s hand to hang limply, still grasping the chalk, he takes a deep breath and places both hands flat on Greg’s chest.

“I bet you were loud, too. So loud! You wouldn’t have meant to be, at first, but the size of you – it’d be inevitable. You’d speak loud, yell loud, even laugh loud and that scared people.” Mr. Horne runs his hands down and around his chest, feeling out the shape of his ribcage, pressing down and releasing as Greg takes increasingly haggard breaths. “I watched some of your work, Greg – I’ve seen how you used your voice. Loud, barking, shocking shouts that simultaneously frighten and entertain – nervous laughter from your audience as you roar and yell and play a fool. That’s all they hear, and you can’t yell loud enough for them to actually listen.”

The jacket is torn open – front panels dangling from tattered threads and the whole blazer barely holding together.

Ruined as it is, it’s barely able to mirror the ragged feelings Greg is struggling with. The years of trying to be quiet and failing anyway. Of knowing that whenever he actually laughed – a real, uninhibited laugh – he earned scowls and funny looks. What that had done to him.

And yeah, the sense of loss hurts. It hurts and it’s unfair and it burns him up. His eyes are watering and he’s standing there in tatters with a deeply strange man with the most sympathetic eyes looking up at him, saying…

“It’s not your fault, Greg.”

Greg’s shaking. Staring back at Mr. Horne with anger and pain. Refusing to blink because it’ll start a torrent that he won’t be able to stop. So he sees very clearly when Mr. Horne stands on his tip toes, not touching him anywhere else, closes his eyes and places a small chaste kiss on the corner of Greg’s twisted mouth.

“Why?” is all Greg can croak. And he doesn’t really know what answer he wants. Or even which of the many questions he’s asking.

Mr. Horne doesn’t answer them anyway.

Instead he steps to the side of Greg without the chalk, and takes up his hand – uncoiling the clenched fingers there to rest palm to palm with his own, smaller hand. Then he guides it with his own to touch the trouser waistband over Greg’s hip, feeding his thumb beneath it with Mr. Horne’s own fingers. Greg glances at the mirror again, and realises where this is going, what Mr. Horne’s leading him towards. One last tear.

He closes his eyes, and the hot rivulets get lost in his beard.

Moments pass. Greg feels the fabric taut under his hand, Mr. Horne’s hand stilled but keeping it under tension. Ready. Waiting. The only grounding thing he has, now, as he looks back on himself and questions what parts of him are him, and what parts are just the roles he was given every day of his life. Is this the him he was supposed to be?

No, not the only grounding thing. In his other hand, he has his chalk. Even if he doesn’t trust his voice, even if his jaw is clenched so tight pain shoots up his face, he could… just drop it. A single spasm of his hand, and it’d leave him and this would stop. He could get away from this; run or curl up or punch something until he hurt himself. Drink, maybe. Pretend tomorrow that it never happened – that everything was fine. He was fine.

And fuck it, he has been fine. His life is good! Better than most. So what if he’d stumbled into this version of himself? Doesn’t everyone? If he’d never examined it before now, doesn’t that mean it’s never been a problem? If he’d never wondered about the layer of unexamined sadness he’d forgotten to feel, doesn’t that mean it wasn’t there?

Of course it doesn’t. Of course it’s always been there, and continuing to hurt just because others do too is some fucked up fake martyr shit that he’d slap out of anyone else. At least, he thinks he would. Maybe that’s a version of himself that doesn’t come from everyone else.

He feels movement – Mr. Horne’s moving his hand, loosening his grip and carefully extricating himself from Greg’s waistband – and Greg realises he’s been frozen in place for he doesn’t know how long. He opens his eyes and finds Mr. Horne looking back at him, worried. Afraid, even. Like when Greg had dropped the chalk the first time, and Greg realises Alex is scared he’s gone too far again.

Greg grabs him by the wrist. “No,” he urges. He gulps, and nods. “Finish it, please.”

Alex’s eyes widen, and he stalls there – Greg’s hand slowly loosening on his wrist. Greg can feel his pulse galloping under his finger, and somehow it makes it better; Alex is scared too.

Greg nods again, and moves his hand back to his hip, letting Alex wrap his hand around Greg’s at the waistband – stretching it tightly until it cuts into his stomach, threateningly.

Mr. Horne seems to rally then – his expression hardening, his grip tightening, and he steps up to pull Greg down for a short hard kiss. For reassurance, but whose it’s hard to tell.

Then he moves to look at Greg in the mirror, standing next to him on the platform, hand still threatening his trousers.

“You don’t— have to be what they see, Greg. Not here. Not with me. They…” And Mr. Horne trails off, moving instead to look him in the eyes directly.

“They look at you and see sex. They say ‘Do it rough’, ‘Take control’, ‘Throw me around’, ‘Fuck me harder’.” Mr. Horne raises his chin defiantly at each demand, spitting the phrases at him.

It feels wrong to hear them from Mr. Horne’s lips. Exciting, shocking, somehow forbidden. He’s heard it from so many others, but it’s not right here.

Mr. Horne raises his eyebrows. “And I bet you do. I bet you’re incredible at it, Greg. Because I don’t know you’ve had much chance to try anything else.”

Mr. Horne brings his free hand up over Greg’s chest, over his heart to pause there, feeling the beat through his thin shirt fabric.

Greg feels the familiar sense of uncertainty wash over him once more – barely suppressed – Mr. Horne keeping him unbalanced with praise and pity and unsettling insight.

“I saw something different last week, Greg, something new for you, and it was beautiful. You were beautiful.”

Oh no.

No this isn’t what Greg expected. No, no, no. Greg’s been called a lot of things, but not this. He can feel himself panicking. This is too much. He doesn’t have defences against this. Not when Mr. Horne is staring into his soul, hand possessive on his chest with his thumb lightly rubbing against him, holding him close by the grip on his trousers.

“You’re beautiful, Greg. And you’re allowed to be, if you want.” Mr. Horne takes a half step back, hand off Greg’s chest but tightening on his hip. His eyebrow raises almost imperceptibly, and Greg feels himself breathlessly nodding. Agreeing to something.

“I’ll tear you apart, Greg. Into little pieces. Find out what you’re like under all of this. Under this unasked for shell. And like your suit, we can put you back together again until it fits you perfectly.”

Mr. Horne yanks hard, ripping the trousers along temporary seams, as Greg struggles to remain upright. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror behind Mr. Horne – half naked, but entirely exposed, his identity in tatters hanging off him – and he coughs out a sob before he can slam his eyes shut again.

Then Mr. Horne has him in his arms – wrapped and warm and crushing around his chest and back – and that’s it. It’s all over for him. Greg bursts into tears, bending hard to bury his head in the neck of the shorter man.

He just holds him. Strong while Greg is weak, and he can’t remember when he last did this. When he could. And that makes the sobs come harder.

After an age, when Greg’s chest hurts but his breathing starts to steady, when Mr. Horne has just been whispering shushing sounds, comforting words, and wordless hums, Greg asks the question that dominates his mind, his voice small and ragged. “Who am I, then?”

Mr. Horne hugs him tighter, then lets him go – hands on his arms to hold him up. His expression is kind, but a little wry. “How would I know? I’ve barely met you.”

Greg’s mouth falls open, and for a second he feels tricked. Then Mr. Horne stops him before he can object. “I’m offering a way for you to find out for yourself. A way to explore those parts you didn’t get to try because no-one thought you’d want to.”

Mr. Horne smiles softly. “If you’d just like a suit, then we can do that. If you’d like me to simply fuck you till you see stars, I’m quite interested in that too.” Greg gulps. Someone really needs to remind his cock he’s busy having a crisis right now. “But I’d like to see all the sides of you, Greg, because I meant it. You’re beautiful. You’re beautiful when I’m tearing you apart, you’re beautiful in pieces, and you’ll be beautiful when you find the ‘you’ you want to be and I’d like to be there for that.”

Greg takes a few tries before he can speak. “I really— I really do need the suit…”

At that, Mr. Horne nods, settling it in his mind, and gives Greg a reassuring smile. Bringing his hand up to wipe some of the wetness from Greg’s cheek with care, but Greg isn’t finished, and it surprises even him.

“...But I think I’d like all of the above?” Greg’s voice is hesitant. So is his smile.

Mr. Horne’s smile however, broadens and turns into one of his toothy grins. “I don’t mind it,” he says.

Greg returns the smile more confidently, sniffing the remains of his recent sobbing away. He starts to bring his arm up to wipe his face, but Mr. Horne grabs his wrist, stopping him. Instead, he brings his own thumb to wipe the other side of Greg’s face, then brings it up to his mouth to slowly, deliberately, lick Greg’s tears off the flat pad of that thumb.

And, look, Greg’s been on edge for almost a week. So while he’s got some theories, no, he can’t fully explain why that’s one of the fucking hottest things he’s seen, but it is, and he once read that intimacy was sexy and…

Mr. Horne kisses him. Hard. His hands around Greg’s face, pulling him against his lips, and Greg falls into it. Wanting to be wanted. Relief, on some level, that messed up as he is, Mr. Horne is hungry for his mouth. He just lets him in – lets him devour him, his whimpers, his moans. Mr. Horne bites at his lip – almost too hard – and pulls away, breathlessly.

Greg feels like his cock’s got whiplash. Now he’s in almost exactly the state he was worried about in the changing room – hard in his pants, Mr. Horne looking him all over. But now the suit is hanging off him in tatters.

Mr. Horne already has it under control – he moves Greg, guides him, to step out of the remains of the torn apart trousers. Then he gently shucks the last pieces of the jacket off Greg’s shoulders, picking up the sleeves from the ground and taking them carefully back over to the shelf with the ledger on it.

Greg doesn’t see Mr. Horne look back at him – instead too fixated on the vision of himself in the mirror, too caught up in who he sees there. A mess in his translucent, sweat-soaked shirt and obscenely bulging pants.

He startles when Mr. Horne turns his head away from the mirror with a touch, making him focus on him, instead of his own reflection.

“None of that,” he admonishes, and Greg feels like he might blush. Mr. Horne reaches up and untucks his own black tie – forcefully grabbing and loosening it at the knot, leaving Greg to admire the movement and what it does to Mr. Horne’s forearms. Two more tugs, and the tie is free

“I’ll help you with that…” he says. He’s taking off Greg’s glasses and lays them on the ledger. Then he brings the tie up to Greg’s gratefully closing eyes. He feels that wave of relief overtake him again as the makeshift blindfold slips over his eyes. The silk feels cool on his tear-scalded face, and he sighs into it.

“Better,” Mr. Horne says quietly.

Greg sinks into the darkness behind Mr. Horne’s tie. His breath feels loud, and his skin tingles in anticipation of Mr. Horne’s touch – any touch.

He gets it.

Mr. Horne cups his dick through his pants, and Greg immediately jackknifes.

“Fuc—” He starts to yell, when Mr. Horne muffles his mouth again with his other hand, hugging Greg’s head against his chest and holding him there, bent double. He’s still rubbing Greg’s erection through his pants and making Greg’s legs shake.

“Language, Greg.”

But all Greg can focus on is the slow, torturous, strokes on his too-hard cock. He moans through Mr. Horne’s hand as his hips buck trying to make him touch him harder, faster, anything.

Distantly, he feels Mr. Horne’s chest rising and falling, breathing hard, but it’s hard to follow when Greg’s ears roar with his own quickened heartbeat. His tongue can taste the faintly salted skin of Mr. Horne’s fingers, as that delicious torture plays out over his boxer briefs.

Too soon, Mr. Horne squeezes him once and lets him go. Then he releases Greg’s head and moves him upright – only taking his hand off his mouth at the last, drawing his thumb over Greg’s red, shining, bottom lip.

“I’m going to move you now, Greg,” he says, and Greg tilts his head to listen in the dark.

He feels both of his hands, one empty and one full, taken, and though he barely knows up from down, he feels himself pulled along by them.

“Step down. That’s right. Good.”

Greg can’t tell the distance – socked feet shuffling across the hardwood floors, led this way and that. Distantly he worries he’ll stub a toe, but Mr. Horne leads him so confidently, so carefully, that he sinks into a deep sense of trust. Something soft brushes against his head, he feels carpet under his feet, and the sounds change around him.

They’re in the changing room.

He feels Mr. Horne change position, moving down, then gently urging him down too, onto his knees. His hands are released then, and he feels around with the free one – finding the leg of the chair, the carpet soft under his fingertips, and Mr. Horne’s shoe next to where he was kneeling. It all feels bigger than he expects, without his eyes to help him – closer than he’d expect it all.

From above him, Mr. Horne speaks, his voice quiet and low. “There you go. Down on the floor. It’s safe down there for you.” Greg feels Mr. Horne run a hand through his hair, gently scratching at his scalp, and it feels so good, sending tingles down his neck. Greg tilts his head, leaning into it, as Mr. Horne repeats the action – blunted fingernails raking the hair at the back of his skull all the way to his crown. He shivers. Then Mr. Horne’s hands move to either side of his head, cupping his ears, and he feels a kiss on the top of his head, and it makes him feel so small.

Mr. Horne’s hand moves to his chin, tilting his face up as if to the sun, and he feels damp kisses on his forehead. Greg lets his head fall back, delighting at the novelty of being able to do so while still getting kissed.

Then Mr. Horne is kissing his lips and oh. He’s wanted this.

Greg feels his back arch back into it – his neck exposed and curved – instead of the hunched form he’s always taken, and it’s freeing. It’s wanton. He feels entirely open. Moans just tumble out of him, and he feels his own Adam’s apple bobbing tight in his throat as he swallows. Mr. Horne is cradling his head so delicately – long fingers ghosting beneath his bearded jawline and he feels like he might just float away entirely.

He hangs there, entranced by the feeling – of being held, small and fragile – until Mr. Horne pulls away, and even then he doesn’t budge.

Greg feels a caress on his cheek, and he sighs into it.

“So lovely.” And Mr. Horne’s husky sincerity sends a shiver up Greg’s spine. He whispers, “I want to see you coming apart, Greg.” Greg gasps, the words so close he gets goosebumps. “I want you riding me – losing your mind – I want to see it all.” Mr. Horne’s breath is hot in his ear, but when he feels Mr. Horne nuzzle and lick the shell of his ear it sends a hundred thousand volts through his body.

Then Mr. Horne’s hands are at the back of Greg’s head again, on the blindfold. He growls into Greg’s ear, “And I want you to watch.”

“Uuughh,” Greg groans, tight and hot, and god, he wants nothing else in this world more than that right now.

Then the blindfold comes off.

He blinks, but the room is barely lit – just the light from the main shop creeping through the gaps in the curtain casting a reflected grey light on everything. But he can see the blackness of Mr. Horne’s pupils staring down at him, see the shape of his body sitting on the chair like a throne, the shape of his bulge in his trousers more visible from his wide seated pose, the shape of his hand moving to palm himself through his trousers. Even see the shine of his teeth as he bites his lip.

“Get up here.” Mr. Horne commands, jerkily nodding his head, and Greg scrambles to obey.

He hesitates for a moment, suddenly aware of his size, his weight, again, but Mr. Horne grabs him and hauls him close to straddle his thighs and sit chest to chest with him. Greg barely sits down before Mr. Horne is pulling him down to kiss him with one hand, the other expertly moving from button to button on his shirt, popping them open.

Greg forgets about how heavy he is and just loses himself to this. He starts to work on Mr. Horne’s shirt too, but instead Mr. Horne shoves his hand down between them to work his cock through his trousers instead. With a thrill, he feels the small, slick, patch of precome over the head, and lets his fingers trace around it, grasp it, rub it with abandon.

Mr. Horne has his shirt undone and tears his lips from Greg’s only long enough to follow his grasping hands to Greg’s chest. He tears the shirt from Greg, then hauls him close so he can kiss and bite and suck at everywhere he can reach. Greg throws his head back, overwhelmed, his hand stalling between them.

Then Mr. Horne’s hands are on his hips, rocking Greg back and forth on his thighs, and crushing that hand between their two straining erections and they both gasp at the friction. Greg’s hand trembles as he searches for the fly of Mr. Horne’s trousers, until Mr. Horne takes control and moves his hand out of the way to free himself with a hiss of relief through his teeth.

Greg loses track of Mr. Horne’s hands then – so focused in the room’s twilight on the sight of that faintly glistening, wonderful, cock. He grabs it and strokes it, thumbing the end as he reaches it each time, loving the velvety feel in his hand. Hot and unfamiliar, aching for him the way he aches in return. He presses it to his own erection then – holding both in his hand, through the fabric, through his messy underwear, precome smearing and mixing from both.

So when Mr. Horne’s hand slips down the back of his underwear, it’s a surprise. When he hears the click of the bottle of lube close, he realises he’s missed a step. When Mr. Horne’s finger slips between his cheeks, slick and confident, he jerks forward with a gasp.

The feelings are overwhelming. Mr. Horne licks a stray drop of sweat running down Greg’s neck, his other hand reaching for Greg’s chest to pull them close and crush his face against his tits. It just presses their erections closer with Greg’s hand between them. The finger brushing against his hole sends shockwaves through Greg’s whole body, and is almost too much.

Greg takes a shuddering breath. Then another. Almost controlling himself, when on the third, Mr. Horne stops circling and pushes inside. Greg bucks, tenses, but Mr. Horne waits him out – whispering praise and filthy promises up at him until he relaxes into it. It’s still a lot – almost too much – as Mr. Horne moves his finger deeper, slowly, stretching and slicking him.

Another click, and before Greg can find the pieces of his mind again, a second finger joins the first and he’s bucking into his own hand – shuddering and without tempo, grasping them both while his other, tightly grasped hand curls around Mr. Horne’s shoulder to cling on for dear life. It’s hot and messy, and Greg gasps and cries out, when he’s not panting with his forehead on Mr. Horne’s head. Another finger, another anguished overwhelmed yell, and Mr. Horne surges in his chair to ravage Greg’s neck, hot lips and nipping bites on his skin tight and electric. Greg is stuttering – his body desperate to thrust forward into his hand and against Mr. Horne, but equally crying out with every nerve ending to push back onto the fingers fucking him.

Mr. Horne makes the choice for him.

He removes his fingers and Greg exhales so hard he practically folds forward.

“I want you. Now.” Mr. Horne demands, voice rough and growling.

Greg frantically nods, and moves to shuffle back and stand to get his pants off, but Mr. Horne grabs him by the front of his waistband and pulls him – keeps him in place – leaving the elastic taut and dangerous, ready to snap back at the head of his cock. Greg gasps, looking down.

“Wait.” He holds out his other hand, palm up. “Give me the chalk.” Greg baulks, shocked. “It’s okay - remember you can say it at any time.” Greg gulps, nodding. His fingers ache as he uncurls them to drop the square tablet into Mr. Horne’s hand, who slips it into his shirt pocket, close to his heart.

Greg is still fixated on the tension of his waistband below – threatening and suspenseful – as Mr. Horne unclips the scissors at his hip and slides the cold, hard, metal up Greg’s thigh. Then he squeezes – snipping the side of Greg’s briefs entirely open. Ruining them. He tosses the scissors into the corner, and hauls the remains of the useless fabric to the side. Released, relieved, scared and exposed, Greg shivers.

Mr. Horne rolls on the condom, and then grabs Greg by the ass, and with Greg’s feet on the floor, helps lift him up as he slides down the chair and under Greg. Greg can feel him, teasing at his entrance, arms straining to hold him there at the threshold, until Greg looks down to see him staring at him with nothing but raw lust – his shirt a mess, his eyes wide and desperate – and as soon as their eyes make contact, pulls him down.

It’s so good. It’s almost too much. Greg’s groan hitches in his throat as Mr. Horne slowly – so slowly – goes to the hilt, quarter inch by quarter inch.

Greg reaches, hands scrabbling at the walls for something, anything, and finds a shelf on one side, and one of the clothes hooks on the other and grabs them. The muscles of his arms tense taut, his chest tight, as his head falls forward. He’s panting as drops of sweat fall off his chin onto Mr. Horne’s shirt. When he looks up, he sees Mr. Horne’s eyes have shut, head tilted back in pleasure. Then they snap open, finding Greg’s again, and with a focused intensity that makes Greg want to turn away, Mr. Horne moves him. Raising him up, with Greg’s help, to fuck him agonisingly slowly on his lap. He’s eating Greg with his eyes, face twitching with each slow, grunting, pound.

He won’t look away.

And oh god, Greg wants to look away. He wants to throw his head back and cry out. He wants to fold himself into Mr. Horne’s shoulder, his own shuddering, as the breath comes ragged and raw. But he can’t. He can’t look anywhere but those glinting, black, eyes in the dim light. Those eyes that fight their own need to flicker shut with pleasure. That face so desperate for this, for him. Hissing through clenched, bared, teeth but not looking away.

They find it, together; the rhythm. Mr. Horne thrusts up to meet him with every slam down. Greg’s arms and legs working to draw him out on each quickening slide up.

“Oh god, fff— uh!” Greg yells, loud in the little room – too loud, far too loud – and he stops himself.

“Yes. Greg. I want to hear you.”

And it should be a relief, but now he’s too aware of it. He’s ashamed. Mr. Horne sees it – a flash of disappointment on his face – and Greg looks away at last. It’s why Greg doesn’t see him lunge forward on the next thrust and bite his nipple, hard.

But he feels it.

“FUCK!” he roars, shaking the walls and almost tearing the shelves down.

Greg is not in his head any more. Instead he’s unleashed, slamming himself down over and over, his body trembling, his cock slapping obscenely against his stomach. He roars a never-ending stream of profanity loud enough to shake his lungs.

So when Mr. Horne moves a hand to grasp him hard and pump his cock in time, hard and fast, he knows he won’t last. He feels it, tightening in him. He’s close now and part of him is terrified of how intense even this feels. He’ll be smashed into pieces when it takes him. Dashed on the rocks of this storm.

If only he’s allowed to be.

A desperate question rocks through him – what if Mr. Horne won’t let him again? What if this is all he gets. To be this close and no closer. What if he stops him?

He’s sure he’d die.

“Please!” he cries. “Please— please let me… God please, I need to…”

“Not—” Mr. Horne begins, and Greg can’t bear it.

“No! No please, pleasepleaseplease god I can’t, I have to, you can’t, oh god please…”

“GREG!” Mr. Horne manages to finally yell, getting through to Greg as he spirals. “Not until you watch. Watch yourself. Now.”

And his voice goes right through Greg, grabbing his core with an iron grip. As well as his cock. Greg’s eyes flick open and he looks – he looks above Mr. Horne’s head and the chair and into the mirrors.

The low light does strange things – making him different, unfamiliar. A shadowed him exposed and devastated, ruined and ravaged. The light shines glints on his sweat and the blur of his glasses-less eyes makes him glow unearthly. A fallen angel rending itself apart, lost in ecstasy, twisting in sublime agony. He’s…

“You’re beautiful, Greg.”

And Greg’s gone. A crashing wave of ragged pleasure that spears him through the chest and tears his whole heart out. His body rigid, his mouth open in a yell that’s suddenly noiseless as his body tries to scream and gasp simultaneously.

He sees it all; him, in all his awful glory.

He sobs – convulses – each pulse shaking him as Mr. Horne pumps his orgasm out of him, squeezing every last drop as he shudders and shakes and clenches.

Then Mr. Horne is coming and Greg can feel those strong fingers dig hard into his hip, his other hand stuttering on Greg’s cock. Mr. Horne’s spine arches, almost throwing Greg backwards and Greg looks down at him – face screwed tight, teeth bared, as he rides out his own pleasure deep inside him.

Greg unclenches a hand, muscles aching, and hesitantly reaches down to cradle Mr. Horne’s face. Mr. Horne turns towards it, pressing hard, wanting his touch, and finally breathes again. The tension gone, his brow soft, a faint whimper on his lips.

Beautiful.

Greg’s a mess. Standing, legs trembling, with his cut open boxers dangling off his foot, a thin sheen of sweat all over, and a body aching and complaining. But at the same time, he’s glowing – his skin feels perfect, he feels a deep warmth in his chest – he feels fucking giddy. Like he might giggle at the slightest thing.

Mr. Horne has tucked himself away, but it does little to hide his own ravished state – streaks of white on his teal shirt now sticking to his chest, short hair flattened in places with sweat, sticking up dishevelled in others.

But he puts on the show, and Greg can see it now; how he straightens his back, swallows hard, and sets his shoulders before he walks to the curtain in the doorframe.

“Light on, or off?” He asks, voice still rough. His hand hesitates on the lightswitch, his back to Greg.

Greg doesn’t know what to say. The state of the lights so far from his mind, he feels a million miles away from it all. He looks around – his clothes on the shelf, shoes in the corner, pants a ruin at his feet. He sees himself reflected back in triplicate in the mirrors, despite the thin light. He—

“I’ll keep them off. Back in a bit.” And Mr. Horne walks out.

The light from the opened curtain almost blinds Greg, and he winces. Though, the shock of being left like this is far more unpleasant. He feels alone, and doesn’t like it. Like his heart is slipping down through his ribcage to sit, uncomfortably, on his stomach.

He turns from the mirrors and flops down onto the chair, bare arse on the velvet, dark red in the darkness, and puts his head in his hands. Momentarily annoyed, he kicks the pants off his foot and they fly across the tiny room to hit the curtain and fall onto the carpet.

Guess he’s going home commando.

He looks down. Wondering glumly where his shirt got to, when the room flares with light. Mr. Horne walks back through the curtain.

Greg blinks up at him.

“Sorry.” Mr. Horne holds out a glass of water, a look of discomfited concern on his face. “You should drink this.”

Greg takes it, and Mr. Horne lays his hand on Greg’s broad, naked shoulder – fingers still cold from the glass. Greg sits up a little, and takes a sip. Grateful in a way he’d rather not examine for the touch more than the water.

“Also, I, ah, made you these.” Mr. Horne brings his other hand from behind his back – a folded black bundle of cloth, sleek and shiny – and lays it on Greg’s hand. It’s silky – no, it is silk – and the bundle unfurls as soon as it lands on his palm, revealing it to be a pair of black, silk satin, boxer shorts.

“Oh. You… oh.” Greg’s kind of speechless. They feel so nice on his hand, and the glass of water goes forgotten in his other. Mr. Horne takes the glass, as Greg struggles to hold the pants up to get a better look. Mr. Horne watches, clasping the glass in both hands, fingers wrapped around it in a pose that could almost be mistaken for nervousness.

“Wait. You didn’t just make these. You planned this?”

“Not this exactly, but I certainly hoped to get your pants off.” Alex smirks. “I think you’ll find they’re your size.”

Greg stands, and Alex steps back a bit to give him room. He pulls on the boxers, really enjoying the feel of the soft silk sliding against his body. Of course they fit perfectly. He smooths them out, and finds some kind of texture catching on his hands over his thigh. He bends down to look – feeling the small shape with his thumb and forefinger, but he can’t make it out in the dark.

Alex just watches.

Greg steps to the lightswitch and turns it on, flinching when the light blinks on, and takes a proper look.

They’re embroidered – monogrammed; ‘AJJH’.

His head snaps up to look at Alex who looks somehow smug and bashful at the same time. He pops his eyebrows as if to say, ‘surprise!’.

“AJJH? That’s… That’s you then?” Greg asks, dumbly.

“Yep.”

“So they’ve got your name on them… but you made them for me.”

“Mmhm.” Alex takes a sip of Greg’s water, nodding around it.

Greg feels a certain sort of way. Touched. Confused. A rare blush spreads across his cheeks. He can’t stop rubbing the tiny black threads that mark him as… That mark out Alex’s name, between his fingers.

He clears his throat. “Alright then.” He bends to pick up the ruined pants from the floor, if only to hide his expression.

“Give us a twirl?” Alex asks, the grin very audible.

Greg throws the pants at him. “Fuck off,” he chuckles. He still feels weird, but this is okay.

“Language.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Sorry.” Greg looks past Alex, and sees himself in the mirror. Somehow he looks different, but he can’t put his finger on it. It’s still the same face, same hair, same beard. His arms are still long, his body huge, but it feels like he’s looking at a different version of himself. He’d be unsettled, but his eyes drift back to the black pants with their faint sheen in the light and he feels warm. The monogram may be invisible – black thread on black silk, but he can feel it. His voice sounds tight when he says, “Thank you, for these.”

“I’m glad you like them. I like how they look on you.”

Greg chuckles, embarrassed. “You’re not planning on tearing up any of my other clothes are you?”

“Not tonight, no.” Alex just smiles at him, taking a cross-legged seat on the chair and swirling the water around the glass as if it’s some high-end whisky. Quite content, it seems, to watch Greg get dressed.

Eventually they’re both in the main shop room again. Water drunk, clothes on, and only Greg’s glasses – still safely resting on the plinth with the ledger – left to return him to his previous appearance.

Greg’s chest feels tight.

It’s late. He can see the clock and he knows it’s late. The trains will stop running soon – he’ll need to hurry if he’s to catch the last one.

Alex quietly batts away Greg’s attempt to put his glasses on himself, so he lets him slide them onto his face, just like last time. Alex’s hands linger, holding the sides of his face, brushing against the hairs of his close trimmed beard.

Greg sighs.

He looks again, at the clock. The minutes ticking away cruelly. He needs to hurry.

“I should… The trains will be… Hmm.” Greg’s frustrated with himself. Frowning. Alex caresses his cheek, and his eyes flutter shut. He just wants to be here, now, and damn the clock. Damn the trains.

“Do I have to leave?” Greg asks, too afraid to open his eyes to see Alex’s reaction.

Instead, he feels hot breath on his lips, the brush of Alex’s beard on his own, and a gentle warm kiss pressed lightly on his lips.

Then Alex whispers, smiling, in his ear, “Not yet.”

A reluctant grin on his face, Greg mutters, “F— Fudge you, Alex Horne.” and kisses him properly.