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Gradiva
Warnings:
Some chapters are heavy on smut, others are not. Overall, NC-17.
A fair amount of angst.
A little S&M, but nothing major at all.
Not beta-ed and written between midnight and 5 AM b/c of lack of sleep.
Random Meta:
lenajill
wanted Biblical references. Blame her.
I didn't put too many otherwise it would be a philosophy paper. If you really
want me to do that, I will, but not in a fic. I found my old notes on the Bible
and Nietzsche, so ... yeah, you REALLY don't want that.
viola69 and lenajill better be satisfied b/c I ain't rewriting this again. Also, they gave me the plot... or some of it. And pointed out stuff wrong with the original.
I didn't do the thing where Justin confronts Joanie, because:
(a) Justin is far too WASPY for a real smackdown with a woman, IMHO.
(b) Justin is fairly non-confrontational unlike, for instance, Craig.
(c) Randall and Cael are doing a fair amount of drama and smackdown, so not
going to steal their thunder.
I didn't want to RESOLVE the ending, so it's as Myrna would say "Hopeful,
if not happy."
References are from Nietzsche's "The wanderer and his shadow," "The Birth of Tragedy," and the "Antichrist." And of course, the Bible. And Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead."
* * * * * * * * *
He knows how far he can go without bruising, and he's always been too bony to really bruise anyway, which is probably why nobody ever noticed anything when he was younger. He made the deal quickly and quietly, walked in to the club and found someone about one and a half times his weight, muscled, dark-skinned, dark-haired, quiet; explained his terms - the condoms, the regions, the safewords - negotiated and then made the payment on the room. He went in and took off his clothes, placing them in a corner before kneeling by the bed. The blindfold went on quickly, and the silk that bound his eyes and his wrists burned into his skin. He knew before the first blow landed how it would feel. He'd been on this end of another belt; except Jack never hit with the tail, always with the buckle.
He's done others the same way, even cuffed a cop and fucked him with his own night-stick; he winces as the steel enters him. The rod is removed and then replaced by a dick that splits him open; he bites down on the sheets to keep from screaming as he is ridden ruthlessly. From time to time he can feel either the thick slap of the belt or the thin piercing burn of the whip across his back, and an hour later he collapses on the floor, exhausted.
Fuck your martyrdom, he thinks, as he rubs his freed wrists to restore the circulation. He removes the blindfold and stares up at the ceiling, thinking that it doesn't count as redemption if you put yourself through it.
His first idea was to make a more useful martyr of himself. He envisioned looking up Craig Taylor, showing up at his doorstep, forcing his way in.
"I came to talk to you about Justin... you see, if he hadn't met me, he probably would have grown up to be a happy little home-maker... sort of. He'd probably have gotten married, and maybe slept with a few guys on the side... or he might have wound up with a really nice, little boy and they'd have kept house together. But see, he didn't. Because of me. Because I took him home and fucked his tight little virgin ass for hours, he worships me. I am twelve years older than he is, and I shoved the pretty little boy down to his knees and told him to suck my cock. I gave him his first hit of E. I fucked him on his knees, on the table, on the floor, hard and fast. I made him suck me off in the backroom of a gay club, in front of a bunch of other men, and then I stripped him and fucked him until he passed out. And all this while I never told him I loved him. Hell, I fucked other men in front of him to show him how little he meant to me."
He envisioned the blows to his side, the blood in his mouth the stars in his eyes, and wondered, if he made it through to the end of that revelation, whether Craig would kill him, and whether he'd finally make it up to Justin, whether either of them would.
He raises himself to the bed with a groan and starts pulling on his clothes gingerly. He's managed an hour, a whole hour without thinking about it. And now it's back. Claire, in his head, telling him through tears, "She's gone. Brian, she's gone! They're both gone, and we're all alone now." A sniffle. "Her last thoughts were of you. She said that if you found your way back to the Lord, she would have accomplished something with her life."
Fuck martyrdom. It was nothing but an elaborate way to accomplish with your death what you couldn't with your life.