By Queen of Nails and Tom
21 December
“…Okay, mum. Alright, see you later. Bye. “ Paul hung up the phone, looking distinctly
alarmed.
“What was that all about? You look nervous.” Carlos remarked.
“We’re having a family get-together back home.”
“So?”
“Carlos, it’s in England!” Paul fretted.
“England? You’re not going to go, are you?” One immaculate eyebrow climbed Carlos’s
forehead.
“Do I have a choice?” He mumbled.
“I don’t know. Do you?”
“I want to spend Christmas with you.” Paul said into Carlos’s jumper as he pulled him close,
inhaling the soft perfume of the worn fabric.
“Then do.” Carlos wrapped long arms around Paul, smiling into his hair. “Stay with me.”
“Carlos, they’ve already bought my tickets for me. I leave tomorrow. Until the 26th.”
“What?” Carlos released Paul like a hot coal. “What d’you mean, you—”
“It’s not like I had a choice!”
“I’m coming with you, then.” Carlos said stiffly.
“Carlos—no, you can’t. I’m sorry. No.” Paul shook his head, and Carlos’s eyes darkened
furiously.
“Why not?” He asked dangerously.
“…Because you should stay here,” Paul muttered after a long pause.
“Why?”
“Because—because my parents expect me to bring home girls, not—you.”
“Oh, so you’re worried about your mommy and daddy’s reaction to me? What is it, Paul?
What the fuck is your game?”
Paul shook his head, tears beginning to form on his lower eyelids. “No, Carlos, that wasn’t
what I meant—”
“Well, it sure sounded like it!” Carlos’s voice was beginning to rise in pitch and volume,
and his immaculate hair was beginning to frizz slightly. He all but crackled with thunder.
Their eyes met, and there was a moment where neither of them would like anything more
than to slap the other into oblivion, to beat some sense into him.
“Carlos, please—” Paul began, tears running down his face freely now, but Carlos cut him
off aggressively.
“I’m going to bed. See you on the 26th. Merry fucking Christmas, Paul.” Carlos turned on
his heel and strode elegantly up the stairs, leaving Paul standing in the middle of the kitchen, shaking
and crying.
Carlos didn’t hear Paul come to bed, and he wouldn’t hear him leave in the morning.
“Merry fucking Christmas, Paul,” Carlos muttered to himself. He wasn’t sure whether he
regretted it dearly or still felt it with every nerve cell in his body. He sighed and reached for the
scissors, neatly tying a thick red ribbon round the box.
He let out a single bitter laugh as he surveyed the floor in front of him. He was sat in front of
a large tree, that he and Paul had struggled up three flights of stairs and into the apartment. Carlos had
insisted on a real fir, picking pine needles from Paul’s hair. The exertion had lead to making
delicious, sweet love on the carpet, before decorating the tree with beers in hand. There had been so
much love, so much hope. Always so ready to pick on Paul for any lack of commitment, Carlos still
felt so scared of making himself vulnerable. He had pinned his hopes on Christmas and had been
shopping for perfect presents since September. There was a jumper, soft as baby’s breath. A first
edition of a favourite book, signed by the author. A hard-to-find DVD, imported from abroad. All
that, and a long, slim package that Carlos stared at with increasing regret.
“What was I thinking?”
Carlos tidied away the scraps of wrapping paper and ribbon and took a cold glass of water to
bed with him. He wondered again if he should have hit a bar, but the thought of showing the world
how alone he was chilled him to the bone. Right now, he had never felt so isolated in his life. The one
person he thought would be here, would understand…he couldn’t have got on the plane faster, didn’t
even say goodbye.
“I needed you, Paul.” Carlos sobbed into the covers, startling himself with how ragged and
raw his tears were. He slid across the bed and indulged his guilty pleasure, breathing in the scent of
Paul’s pillow, of Paul’s hair. His heart was choked with rejection, but another part of his body cried
out for his blond love. Long slim fingers crept beneath the duvet and encircled a lonely, thickening
cock. Carlos fell asleep before nine.
The next few days passed for Carlos like molasses. He didn’t leave the house once, not even
to collect the post, and the suffocating dejection that pressed down on him stifled everything but the
image of Paul’s sweet face, the memory of sweat-slicked skin, the way he tasted. In everything he
felt, smelled, tasted Paul.
He had initially refused to jerk off after that night. His sense of rejected aloneness was being
intruded upon by a sense of insult, and he was fairly bothered that he needed Paul this much. Of
course, he had failed miserably, and rather than walk around with a perpetual hard-on, he succumbed
to the ephemeral sustenance of his flesh; it only made him feel worse afterward, but he felt damned if
he did and damned if he didn’t.
He wasn’t sure why he was so desperate. He felt as though Paul had moved out; after their
bitter exchange, no, his bitter words, he wouldn’t be half surprised if Paul did. The thought drowned
him.
Christmas eve. It had finally come, and Carlos dreaded it thoroughly. It wouldn’t
be Christmas without his Paul. He stacked the packages under the tree, towards the back so he didn’t
have to see their lonely beauty, waiting patiently to be shredded by eager hands—hands that Carlos
missed desperately.
He took a miserable shower, thirty minutes long, as there was no second body there to
prolong it for him. He remembered all the times he had slicked that particular bar of soap over Paul’s
skinny body, how many times Paul had fucked him up against the tiles, and vice versa. He couldn’t
ever remember feeling so lonely, so terrible in his life.
He blow-dried his hair and straightened it by ritual, seeking some small solace in his
grooming; it was not to be found. Finally he left the bathroom, too afraid of his tear-stained
reflection.
Sliding into bed, he pulled Paul’s pillow against his chest, unable to stop the tears.
He lay awake, wrapped around that pillow for what seemed hours until he cried himself to
sleep.
Carlos awoke, crumpled, for the fifth time in a few short hours. The alarm clock shouted
3am with its vicious red glow. Thirsty, he crawled out of bed, wrapped a black robe round his body
and padded to the kitchen. The apartment felt cold and empty. A colder beer was now clenched in
Carlos’ hands. He wandered into the lounge.
The tree was a dark green shadow in the corner. In a spirit of masochism, Carlos decided to
turn the lights on. He walked the short distance over to it, curling his toes into the thick pile of the
carpet as he walked. He knelt down, half-blind in the dark, his fingers fumbling towards the plug
socket. At the same time as one hand switched the lights on, another hand found…flesh.
Twinkling lights, red and yellow and blue and white, chased across the warm naked skin of
the man lying beneath the tree.
Paul.
“Paul?” Carlos whispered, scared that he was dreaming, and scared that the dream would
end. Paul’s naked body was half wrapped in the soft black cashmere blanket from the sofa. His arms
and chest were exposed. Carlos’ fingers slid the blanket from his body.
“Paul,” he whispered again, as he exposed the warmth of Paul’s skin to the cool air and
festive coloured light. The flickering bulbs were enough to illuminate the slight movement at the side
of Paul’s mouth. Carlos couldn’t echo this smile, he felt almost angry that Paul had returned like this,
without warning, without explanation. Staring down at Paul, he caught sight of Paul’s neck, a neck he
had so often taunted and bruised with ardent kisses and nipping teeth. A long silk ribbon was tied
around the singer’s neck, culminating in a rather garish bow. Something hung from the bow: a slip of
paper. There was writing on it.
Carlos leant forward, lifting the edge of the tag, squinting in the soft, multihued light to make
out the writing. It was in Paul’s elegant script.
Carlos.
I know I shouldn’t have left, but I was stupid. Please don’t be angry with me, I’m sorry. I
picked up a gift for you over there. It’s the one in the unwrapped box. Use your imagination and do
what you will with them… Love, Paul.
Carlos looked around him. There were new packages scattered around the living room
haphazardly, all hastily wrapped, but all for him. He selected the unwrapped box, smaller than the
rest, and picked it open carefully.
His face suddenly split into a grin. He reached into the box and pulled out two pair of fuzzy
handcuffs in black. Do what I will with them? With pleasure. He placed them back in the
box, walked over and picked up the long, thin package, and took both upstairs, along with a handful
of white taper candles and a Zippo. He lit the candles on the nightstand and went back downstairs,
still needing the crucial element of this whole scenario.
Trying to do it without Paul waking up was a trick. Carlos carefully slid his arms under
Paul’s body, under the knees and around the shoulders. Paul stirred but did not wake; Carlos
struggled up the stairs with his heavy load, excruciatingly careful not to bump or jostle him. He
wanted Paul asleep until the last moment. He pushed open the door to their dark bedroom, softly lit
by the golden glow of candle flame.
He lay Paul on the mussed covers and smiled at him. He looked beautiful, his blonde hair
splayed across the pillow and his pure lovely body half-encased by silky jet-black cashmere.
Carlos slowly, carefully moved Paul’s arms until he could attach them to the bedposts.
Click. The sound was so loud that Carlos froze, waiting; Paul remained still, so Carlos went
on with his work. Click. The other wrist was firmly anchored to the bedpost. Paul wasn’t
going anywhere for a while. Carlos ripped open the end of the slender package and began to
withdraw the implement inside.
Wait, not yet. He paused. Later. Letting it slide back into the package, he
instead reached for one of the burning candles. Paul twisted and murmured sleepily, and Carlos
grinned wickedly as he tipped the dripping wax stick over Paul’s body.
“Fuck! Fuck, that hurts! Carlos? What the fuck are you doing?!” The splash of scalding wax
woke Paul into a world of strange, searing pain: pain that disappeared so quickly that he was left
panting for breath and frowning in confusion. He spun his head round, taking in the bed, the cuffs,
and Carlos, staring at the cooling puddle of wax lying across Paul’s sternum.
“Carlos?” Paul’s voice had acquired a tremor. Whatever he had expected Carlos would do
with the cuffs, it wasn’t this. He turned his head away, but couldn’t avert his eyes. Some sick
curiosity, tinged with a supplicating guilt, kept his attention on Carlos’ hands as his lover tipped the
candle.
Paul shuddered as Carlos lifted the candle above his body again, trickling the molten wax
over both nipples. He yelped, his heartbeat pounding as he gasped through the pain. It was so
exquisitely, overwhelmingly hot and strange that his body felt an odd regret as the sting faded away.
His nipples lay as red as rose petals beneath the creamy hard layer of wax.
Paul thought to speak again, to break the silence. Carlos, usually so garrulous, stopped him
with a kiss: a kiss with more sharp tooth than soft lip. His tongue was an instrument of sweet torture,
pushing hard against Paul’s gums, stabbing into his throat and abrading Paul’s wide lips. Paul writhed
beneath such brutal pleasure, tugging at his metal bonds and speculating if it was possible to come
from such a kiss. The sharp jab of his cock made him wonder. He tugged again at the tight cuffs,
desperately trying to rub his body against Carlos’s.
Carlos leant away, absent-mindedly pressing a finger between Paul’s lips, which Paul sucked
on frantically. The bassist slowly turned and again lifted the candle from the nightstand. Brushing
aside the black blanket, he held the candle a hand span above Paul’s hungry cock. Paul held his
breath. The heat of the wax, as it ran in scorching runnels over his belly, was enough to knock the air
from his lungs in a desperate moan. The wax hardened, pooling in his navel. Carlos poured more hot
wax, while Paul whinnied and squirmed beneath the stream. Each time, the pain was almost too
much. Each time the pain faded, the hunger for more was overwhelming. Carlos’s fingertips traced
between Paul’s hipbones, looping his fingers around Paul’s ardent, desperate cock. He stared at
Paul’s cock with pupils of liquid jet before meeting Paul’s gaze. Paul glanced between Carlos’s hand,
his eyes and the burning candle. He swallowed.
“Do it.”
Carlos gave a barking laugh. “It’s not that easy, Paul.” He let little drips of wax trail down
Paul’s thighs, fiery points dotting his skin like a thousand tiny bites. Paul squirmed under the heat.
Carlos kissed him again, backing off on the sharpness a little, drinking Paul’s moans as the
candle dripped onto his belly, half-forgotten. Paul was caught between the sweet softness of Carlos’s
kiss and the sharpness of the heat. He fidgeted again, the hard wax uncomfortably stiff, pulling on his
skin as he moved.
Carlos laughed again, his face half-hidden in darkness. His eyes were devilishly black. He
raised the candle, higher this time, over Paul’s hardening cock, and tilted it.
Paul’s whole body rippled with pleasure-pain as the hot thick wax traced his dick. It was
more shocking than painful, and his moans grew desperate, breathless. If Carlos hadn’t taught him
the finer points of kink beforehand, he would have freaked out; but he knew that Carlos wouldn’t hurt
him. He just wasn’t that kind of man.
He started to rethink this, though, as Carlos took away the hot candle and reached over to a
long, slim package leaning against the wall and withdrew its contents.
Paul gasped as a shiny leather riding crop found its way out of the package and into Carlos’s
hands. The whole time, Carlos’s face had been thrown into stark relief by the gleaming candlelight,
half in shadow. There was no mistaking that fiendish smirk, the crooked line of one arched, one
furrowed eyebrow.
“I got you this for Christmas, Paul. I wasn’t expecting to be using it so early, but…” His
dark voice frayed into silence and he looked up at his blonde lover, smirking even wider.
Paul bit his lip, eyes flicking frantically back and forth from Carlos’s eyes to his lips to the
crop in his hands. He almost said get on with it already, but he had a feeling that it wasn’t
quite his turn to speak.
The supple, narrow switch lifted over Paul; the singer shut his eyes as it came down.
“ Fuck!” He cried as the hard wax on his belly cracked under the switch. It came
down again, shattering the solid mass in the center of his chest, again and again over both his nipples,
his thighs. The blows rained down, leather snapping loudly against skin until a good deal of Paul’s
body was crisscrossed with hot pink stripes.
Carlos idly flicked a stray fragment of wax from Paul’s belly with the end of the crop.
“Merry Christmas, Paul.”
Paul moaned a response. He howled into the gloom. The front of his body crackled
with sweet pain, each lick of the crop no crueler than Carlos’s sharpest kisses. His body was
emblazoned with white wax and the pink traces of the whip. Every cell in his body was aflame. He
had never felt more awake, more alive.
He moaned again. “Carlos? I’m so sorry, babe. I got confused and I thought I had to go
home…I was almost sick on the airplane, I missed you so much. I couldn’t spend Christmas without
you. I came back for you, babe, I couldn’t be away from you.”
Carlos had sat on the edge of the bed while Paul was talking, staring at him with a feline half
smile. The black cotton robe had slipped from his shoulders, pooling around his waist and showing
off the taut muscles of his upper arms. He leant forward and ran the tip of his thumb across Paul’s
lower lip, his fingers under the man’s chin.
“I’m sorry too, Paul.” His voice was dark and sweet. “But I’ve spent the last few days stuck
in this apartment, going out of my mind, planning what to do with you the moment you stepped foot
in this bedroom. I thought I’d lost you, Paul. You ran out on me. I have to punish you.”
Paul would have trembled at those words, but there was softness in Carlos’ eyes. His anger
was rapidly being replaced by his equally dangerous playfulness. He was all mischief. He was
smirking now.
Carlos flicked some more shards of wax from Paul’s nipples, lowering his head to nip at the
poor, reddened, tormented discs. “I think you’re done on this side, Mr. Banks.”
Before Paul could respond, Carlos was yanking on his ankles, pulling him straight, before
tugging on his hips, rolling him onto his front. Carlos nudged Paul’s thighs wide, and knelt between.
“Paul?”
Paul moaned a wordless response.
“The wax or the whip?”
There was a lengthy pause. When Paul replied the pillow and his twisted forearms muffled
his words.
“The wax. And then the whip.”
Carlos lifted the long slim candle above Paul’s buttocks.
Paul’s back arched like a drawn bow, and he writhed furiously as hot wax pooled in the
small of his back, down the channel of his spine, between his buttocks. His entire body was singing:
front side on fire as his flogged skin rubbed against the silky sheets, his backside covered in
thousands of tiny, hot pinches. He groaned voraciously into the pillow, his hands around the cuff
chains and squeezing tightly.
Carlos noticed and swatted Paul’s fingers with the crop. “Don’t.” He said, and Paul let go
immediately, letting his faintly purpling hands hang limp.
He continued to let the wax drip over Paul’s broad, smooth-skinned back, over his ass, until
he looked nothing so much like he had been frosted with sugar glaze, a decadent pastry hot and ready.
Carlos ran his fingers through a bead of still-liquid wax on the back of Paul’s thigh, dragging the hot
pool down the flesh and feeling it crawl beneath his fingers. Paul turned his head back, trying to
catch a glimpse of his lover. Carlos prodded him with the crop, and Paul looked back towards the
headboard obediently.
The candle had grown short, and Carlos set it back on the table with the others. It was nearly
dark now; the loss of the candle had darkened Carlos’s workspace. Luckily, accuracy was
unnecessary.
Snap. Paul cried out desperately as the wax on his back broke. Again, this time
across each thigh. Tears were forming and trickling from his eyes, but the pain was delicious and
Paul could feel his stomach warming, squirming, his cock throbbing hungrily. He bit into the pillow
hard, but could not bite back the next cry, for a sensation completely different than the previous
overwhelmed his senses.
Something slick was suddenly moving into him, inside him. It was not the touch of flesh,
not fingers or Carlos’s familiar cock…
The crop!
“Carlos!” Paul moaned wildly, bucking his hips backwards. Carlos’s quiet laughter filled
his ears even through his own heavy breathing. “Oh fucking Christ! Carlos!” He gasped again.
The handle of the crop was ridged and Paul could feel these bumps as Carlos slowly pushed
the oiled leather into his body. The singer writhed slightly, mussing his blond hair against the pillow;
Carlos stopped him with a sharp slap across the back of the thigh.
“Don’t, Paul.”
Carlos was knelt over Paul, one knee tucked tight between his lover’s legs, the other close by
his hip, holding him firmly in place. Paul tried to squirm—squirm against the unnatural invasion,
squirm against this perverted probing—only for Carlos to cruelly pinch the soft flesh of his inner
thigh.
Paul lay there, disbelieving, as the tight muscles of his arse stretched to let this hard leather
crop into his body. The whip not only stimulated the secret tight tunnel of his arse, but also pressed
Paul hard into the bed, pushing his rigid cock roughly against the mattress. As Carlos began to push
the crop back and forth a little way, Paul’s whole body carried the momentum, grinding his hard cock
against the bed.
Paul began to moan with undeniable pleasure. The sharp sweetness of the crop as it had
fallen on his skin, the hot kisses of wax, still clinging to his flesh, the ache of his wrists twisted taut
above his head and the horrendously arousing feeling of this strip of hard leather, as it rubbed back
and forth deep inside Paul’s body: too much. Far too much.
“Carlos!”
In a final writhe of ecstasy, Paul twisted to one side, pumping his hot brackish load over
Carlos’ thigh. Carlos was absolutely silent for a few moments, studying the aesthetic beauty of
creamy semen on black cotton. It was warm against his thigh. He lifted his head. Paul was breathing
with his whole body, panting heavily and still skewered by the crop. It stuck out of his body like a
flagpole.
“Shhh. It’s okay, Paul.” Carlos stroked the length of Paul’s spine, brushing the cracked
fragments of wax with his fingers as he tugged the crop sharply from Paul’s body. It fell to the floor.
“Shhh, come on Paul. It’s okay. I’m here. It’s okay.”
Paul was almost sobbing as every nerve in his body burned and sparked with sensation. His
body twitched as if electrocuted and he rolled on to his back, legs twisted around Carlos’s.
Carlos was stroking Paul’s face, his neck. Paul’s heart was starting to beat slower and
steadier. He drew in a ragged breath.
“See…see babe? See how much I love you, what I’d…what I do for you?” He smiled at
Carlos before breathing heavily again.
Carlos smiled back at him. “Well, you did take your punishment with good grace, although
you enjoyed it rather more than I expected.” He traced a finger through the spatters of semen on the
robe. “I guess it’s time for me to take my pleasure, now.”
Paul started to speak as Carlos slipped the robe from his body and revealed his own stiff
cock. Paul gasped at it, at how much he’d missed being provoked and tormented by that delicious
flesh. Before he could say anything, Carlos pushed the sticky edge of the robe between his lips,
forcing Paul to suck on his own taste.
Paul closed his eyes, sucking on that strange flavour, until Carlos took the robe away and
kissed Paul sloppily, almost desperately, having so intensely missed that sweet mouth. Paul arched
his back, rubbing his body a little against Carlos’s and setting his smoldering flesh alight all over
again. He groaned. His impatience was rising even more than his cock was.
“I missed you,” Carlos’s lips pressed against the dipped V between Paul’s collarbones, slid
up the lines of his neck, nibbled at the edge of his jaw before whispering into his ear. Paul shivered.
“Missed you too, babe.” He murmured in response.
Carlos paused and reached over to the bedside table for a small plastic tube, flipping the cap
open. Paul shuddered again with delightful anticipation, watching hungrily as Carlos slicked his cock
in preparation.
The feeling was as delicious as ever: the slightest razor-edge of pain blurring his senses
before being pushed aside by a sensuous stretching that went on and on and on. His mouth hung
open, his eyes closed. Carlos was pushing into him, into his belly, into his brain, completely through
him.
After what seemed a short eternity, Carlos’s hips met the backs of Paul’s thighs and he leant
down to kiss him. His hands on the blonde’s cheeks, he teased Paul with hard-to-pin-down kisses,
licking here, nipping there, moving on.
At the same time, he moved his hips. Paul wrenched his mouth away from Carlos’s, blonde
hair flying wildly as he thrashed from side to side, his whole body rippling and moving with his
lover’s motions. That was part of the reason Carlos had fallen in love with him in the first place: he
was so intensely responsive. He smiled.
Paul’s legs were tight around his waist, tighter still, his hands turning into fists in the black
handcuffs, clenching and unclenching with each motion of Carlos’s hips. Carlos moaned too, moaned
with Paul, thrusting himself deep. A tingling white heat began to tremble along his belly, up his
spine, tickle the edges of his brain. He tumbled into Paul, knowing it was only moments until he hit
the bottom.
“Carlos!” Paul cried, his words running together for lack of breath. “Oh Carlos I’m
gonna—”
Carlos pushed his hips forward as hard as he could, and Paul’s whole body corded with
surges and surges of hot ecstasy, coming from the inside once more and teasing Carlos over the edge
as well. He spilled himself inside Paul’s overwhelmingly hot, tight body, letting the taut heat arch his
whole body like a drawn bow.
They lay panting, groaning, Paul occasionally twitching in the aftermath of his debilitating
orgasm. “Carlos?” He whispered weakly.
“Mmm…?” Carlos moaned into Paul’s neck.
“Unlock me?”
“Oh,” He said sleepily. “Right. Of course.” He reached for the key and freed Paul’s
bruised wrists, ecstatic to feel those long pale arms wrap around him once more.
“Thank you.”
“I wasn’t too rough, was I?” Carlos asked drowsily after a long, comfortably silent
moment.
“I’ll survive.” Paul laughed, his eyelids drooping. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a better
Christmas, Carlos. Thank you.”
“Best Christmas ever,” Carlos mumbled incoherently.
But Paul had already fallen asleep.
Carlos closed his eyes and fell asleep too, listening to the comforting rhythm of Paul’s heart.