This is a work of erotic fiction. All participants are fictional, and are over eighteen years of age. If reading erotic fiction about adult male participants that involves sex, sexual servitude, bondage, and pain is illegal wherever you are, don't read any further. If possible, go back in time and don't click on the link that led to this file; that's probably illegal too. But then, time travel is probably illegal too. Ah, well. I welcome your feedback, and hope you enjoy the story.
A Number of Nights Chapter 04
The Tale of Honest John Part 1
Honest John was a legend, on a small scale. Everyone in town either knew him or had heard of him, or knew someone who had heard of him. He was that one guy who showed up at the poetry jams, looking a little bit more disheveled than the planned dishevelment of the regulars, shambled up to the mic, and completely amazed the audience. He was the one who the local bands considered a sort of a muse; when they were stuck on their lyrics, he'd be nearby, and have just the right set of words ready. There wasn't a slightly disreputable gallery downtown that didn't feature one of his paintings, strange landscapes with figures hidden spectrally within them. There were enough songs written about him in the area in the couple of decades that he was around that most people couldn't hear his name without imagining a melody line. He was somewhere on the border between creepy old man and legendary art figure, and seemed to enjoy the hell out of being there.
Part of his legend, of course, was that he never seemed to show any interest, sexually, in anyone. Or anything. He had a charisma to him, a wild magnetism that made people think that, even though he was not the sort of man they would ever usually think of bringing him home, he would be just amazing in bed, so maybe I'll buy him a beer...
Well, word started getting around. A couple of people who'd, well, made themselves available to him got to comparing notes at a party, and gradually it was discovered that most people at the party had shown some sort of interest in him or another. This was a party attended by a pretty spectacular assortment of people, ranging widely in age and gender and body type, and no-one who had tried had managed to get Honest John to drop trou.
It's not really difficult to imagine what happened next. Word spread, and it was open season on Honest John. In the next few weeks, he was approached with offers of sexual congress that would shock even actual congress. The most beautiful men, women, boys and girls in the city gave it a shot, with approaches ranging from subtle to borderline sexual assault. When that failed, and the rumors of its failure got around, things got weird. He was offered slaves, and toys, and slavery; he was probed for affinity to leather and rubber and barnyard animals. Potential partners approached him in pairs, in trios, in vast groups and singly, all hoping to break Honest John's reserve, and get in his oddly inaccessible pants.
Throughout it all, Honest John remained bemused. At first he was slightly baffled, in a pleased and surprised sort of way, and each time he was approached, he responded with a polite and flattered, "No, but thank you."
Others might have been angry or disturbed to find out that they had become the subject of what amounted to a communal bet, with a side of mass sexual speculation, but Honest John took it in stride. He only smiled wider as the offers came harder and faster, and wilder and weirder, but each time he responded, "No, but thank you." Throughout it all, Honest John remained bemused.
At one point, the circus came to town. Negotiations took place behind the scenes, deals played out, schemes were laid, and favors were exchanged. And one night, Honest John found himself presented with the opportunity to partake in any type of sexual shenanigans he might like with any of the circus folk. From perfectly sculpted trapeze artists to the oddest of the freaks, alone or all at once, he could have his choice of whom to do, and what to do with them. And presented with this vast cornucopia of possible sexual experience, Honest John said, "No, but thank you."
One more thing to know about Honest John is that, even though it was impossible to get him out of his pants, he was the kind of guy who would give you the shirt off his back. He'd take in strays of whatever species, animals who needed homes, people off the street; they'd stay a while at his odd little house downtown, and move on, somewhat wiser, it always seemed.
Just after being offered an entire sexual circus, wandering the pavilions bemusedly eating cotton candy, Honest John met up with a local scene kid named Adam. Adam had managed to find himself with no-place to live in the aftermath of failed relationships with his lover, his workplace, and his bank. He confessed that he was thinking about joining the circus, just to get a new start, but he'd been rejected already. Everyone, it seemed, was particularly busy that evening. He wasn't sure just how it happened, but without him even asking Honest John, he found himself living in a spare room in the strange little house. Honest John had even let him pay the rent by laying down some drum tracks for a project he was working on; he didn't even feel like he was beholden to him. That's just the kind of guy that Honest John was.
Now Adam was one of those drummers that's made out of wire and vigor and sweat; he had that wild, focused energy that makes you think that ending up in bed with him would leave you worn out, happy, but unable to move for a couple of hours. He knew it, too; he'd been with some of the most beautiful men and women in town; he'd sown, as it were, his seed far and wide. And he also knew that Honest John's orientation was the subject of much speculation, so he decided, as long as he was here, to join in the pursuit.
Living in the house with the man himself, Adam had plenty of opportunity for attempted seduction. He started subtly, of course, wandering the house in just a pair of boxer shorts, giving John a chance to look at his not-unformidable package. He made sure to shower when John was home, and made sure that he wore just a towel for as long as he could. The towel was, apparently, unusually slippery, and kept sliding off of his hips.
Still Honest John was the model of civility; Adam didn't even catch him doing so much as staring at him. Now, you have to keep in mind about Adam; he was still pretty young, and he had always been beautiful; unlike men who've earned their looks over time, his was a gift that he'd never quite understood, and like many who are similarly privileged he wasn't used to being denied.
He became determined; worse, he became curious. Adam decided that he needed to redouble his efforts, but found himself confused as to which direction to proceed in, and so he determined that he needed to do some research. There had to be something that Honest John wanted, so way in which he got off, and Adam was bound to discover what, or who, it was.
He started by waiting until John was away, and carefully ransacked his room. Adam did his best to be subtle about it, but he knew that there was bound to be a stash of porn around somewhere, some clue as to what Honest John got off to, and Adam was the guy to find it.
Except, he wasn't. He couldn't. He didn't. He took a couple of hours, and all that he found was notes about stories, sketches for paintings, receipts from coffee shops and random thank you notes. Nothing to indicate Honest John was anything other than monkish.
This did not, however, deter Adam from his pursuit. He decided he needed to investigate further.
After straightening out the house, under the guise of cleaning it thoroughly, Adam laid his plans. He'd lurk in wait until Honest John went off to bed, and then sneak up and listen at his door, in the hopes that his masturbatory fantasy life was loud, and lent some clues as to where Adam could find the chink in Honest John's armor.
Yes, it was daft. Adam wasn't the smartest of people, and he was relatively frustrated, and he was out of other ideas. And so that night, he posted himself outside Honest John's door, and he listened. He didn't hear the gasps or moans or cries of someone's name, or whatever stupid thing he'd been expecting. Instead, he heard a door.
Which was odd, because he was outside the only door to Honest John's room.
There was silence after that, for way too long to hold Adam's attention, so he went off to bed, puzzled. The next day, when Honest John was gone, Adam re-explored his room, with a special eye towards anything that looked like a door. And lo and behold, there was a bookcase that, upon examination, was designed to swing forward; there was even a faint track on the floor in front of it where Adam could see where it moved.
And behind a row of books on ancient roman architecture, there was a latch.
"And isn't it getting near enough to midnight to be concerned, O Master?"
Master Ryan growled. "It is, as a matter of fact. Imagine that."
"Should Master wish, this slave would be happy to sum up what happened," said the boy, kneeling at his Master's feet.
"Go ahead."
The boy's body jerked subtly, and he took a breath. "Very well, Master. When Adam opened the door he'd found..."
"Stop," the Master commanded.
The boy stopped speaking, and knelt in silence a moment.
"You'll return the day after tomorrow. You'll finish your story." The Master rose, and smacked the boy on the head. "Expect to be tortured. You've definitely earned it."
"Yes, Master," the boy said. "Thank you, Master."
"Keep the ankle cuff until then. You're not allowed to touch yourself, or to cum for any reason. Understand?"
The boy fell to the Master's feet and began kissing them. "Thank you, Master, for showing interest in this slave. This slave is abundantly grateful to be of service to Master Ryan, and wishes nothing more than to please Master in whatever way Master should wish..."
"Enough, boy. Get dressed." The Master turned his back on the boy, and the boy began pulling his clothes on quickly, standing even to pull on his sneakers and socks, and then knelt again. The Master stood before him, and pulled the slave's face into his crotch. "Kiss it goodbye, boy."
The slave enthusiastically kissed and licked at the Master's cock, until the Master pushed him back. "Now go, and come back at nine, two nights from now. Slave boy." The Master shook his head. "I may need to find something to call you, other than 'slave boy' if this goes on..."
"Thank you for the opportunity to serve you, Master," said the boy, bowing his way out of the door. "This slave will eagerly return to do whatever Master desires, whenever Master wishes."
For a few moments after the door closed behind the boy, Master Ryan still stood, shaking his head bemusedly.
Two days later, there was a knock on the Master's door at precisely nine o'clock. This time, the door flew open immediately, and the Master grabbed the boy by his shirt and dragged him into the house. As the boy was recovering his balance, the Master locked the door, and then turned on the slave. He grabbed his shirt and lifted it off the boy's thin frame, fast. Then he pushed the boy back into the house, shoving him as he stumbled through the kitchen and into one of the bedrooms, where the leather shackles hung at the end of chains attached to the wall.
The Master pushed the slave up against the wall, pinning him there with his crotch against the boy's ass, and he raised up the boy's hands one at a time, and buckled them into the shackles. The boy was chained with some slack; he had no trouble reaching the floor with his feet, but there was no way he could reach to unbuckle his bonds.
Then Master Ryan reached around him from behind, first groping the boy's hard cock through his jeans, then unbuttoning and unzipping him. The boy felt the Master step back and then his jeans and underwear were pulled down to his ankles. With his sneakers still on, this effectively hobbled the boy's legs.
The Master pulled off his own belt. The boy barely had a second to tense himself, and then the first blow landed. The first was hard, laying across his ass with a force that made the boy gasp. The second landed on his shoulder blades, sending the boy against the wall. The third was just above the boy's waist, and that was the first one to elicit a yelp of pain from the slave.
There were thirty blows in total; most were softer than the initial flurry, but the intensity came and went in waves; the Master made sure the boy could never anticipate whether the next blow would hurt or would be agonizing. The boy was sobbing by the tenth blow, was sagging in his bonds by the eighteenth, and was begging Master for mercy by the end.
After the last blow fell, the Master stripped off his own clothes, snapped on a condom, lubed up his cock, and grabbed the still-sobbing boy by the hips. He dragged him back until the boy's arms were stretched out toward the wall, his ass was out, and his feet were struggling to retain purchase on the floor, and then he aimed his cock at the boy's asshole, and pushed.
The boy's quiet sobs turned to sharp intakes of breath as he tried to accommodate the man's cock invading him. The man shoved his way inside him, and started pumping immediately. The boy's breath was coming in great gasps that gradually came in time with the rhythm of the man fucking him; soon thereafter, he discovered that by raising himself up on his toes and pulling at his wrist chains, he could raise and lower himself with the thrusting of the man's cock.
The man gloried in the feeling of the boy's muscles moving beneath him as he fucked the boy, hard. He kept his arms around the boy's chest and belly while he pistoned into him, occasionally grabbing the boy's nipples, jerking his cock, or scratching his fingernails across the boy's new whip-marks. Each time he did that, the boy would yell, his ass would tighten, and the man would be spurred on to fuck him ever harder.
Soon, the Master was making the animalistic growling that preceded his orgasm, pulling the boy's body to him as he started a sequence of slower, harder thrusts, and then blasted his cum deep inside the slave's body. "Cum now, slave," he said as he finished, and began stroking the boy's cock. Feeling the Master's cock still inside him, the Master's hand on his cock, the Master's hairy chest pressed up against the whip marks on his back drove the boy to orgasm almost instantly, and then he was spurting, head thrown back onto Master Ryan's shoulder.
"Oh, god, Master, please, oh god..." the boy chanted as he went limp against the Master.
Master Ryan left the boy leaning against the wall, and went over to the bed and sat down. Gradually the boy slumped down into a half-kneeling position, his arms still chained to the wall above him. The Master leaned back, enjoying the view of the boy's striped back and ass, his arms stretched upward, his face, eyes closed, up against the wall.
"Okay, boy. What was that for?" Master Ryan asked.
The boy tried to collect himself. "This slave... deserved..."
"What was it for, boy?"
The slave looked over his shoulder at Master Ryan. "This slave does not know why Master Ryan was generous enough to punish it tonight."
"No guesses?" Master Ryan stood, and went over to the slave, looked down at him.
"This slave's stories don't please Master?" The boy looked up, craning his neck, pleading.
The Master unbuckled first one wrist cuff, then the other, and the boy slumped to his knees, still up against the wall. Master Ryan resumed his seat on the bed. "At my feet, boy."
His pants still around his ankles, the boy spun as best he could, and crawled over to Master Ryan's feet, and began licking.
"Your stories do please me, boy. But I know what you're doing. And so do you," said the Master.
Pause a moment. There's the scene. The boy is on his knees, his hands wrapped around one of his Master's feet, his eyes shut as if in bliss, his tongue scraping over the black leather Nike. The muscles in his arm stand out, and there are cuff marks on both his wrists. His back and ass are red, striped with marks from Master Ryan's belt. His jeans are bunched around his ankles, the toes of his sneakers digging into the carpet.
The Master above him, lounging, looking down on the boy with an expression mixed from triumph, lust, satiation, power, and control. His hand is in the act of reaching down to touch the boy's short hair.
The boy feels the Master's hand upon his head, ruffling his hair. He licks harder.
"Finish your story, boy," the Master said.
"Thank you, Master." The slave sat back on his heels, rested his head on the Master's knee, and looking up at Master Ryan, continued his tale.
"If you recall, Master, when we left Adam his search of Honest John's house had just born fruit, in the form of a secret door built into a bookcase in a bedroom..."
Adam reached out, pressed the latch, and heard a loud click from a mechanism hidden within the bookcase; nothing else happened. He pulled at the bookcase one way, pushed another, pulled a third, and the bookcase came away from the wall smoothly, leaving an entrance perhaps two feet wide, with darkness beyond.
After feeling for a light switch and finding none, Adam ventured into the darkness, seeing only the vaguest of forms around him in the faint light leaking in from the doorway. He thought, perhaps, he heard someone breathing.
"Hello?" Adam said.
The voice he heard was young, he thought. It may have said 'help;' it may have said 'hello.'
"Is someone in here?" Adam ventured a few more steps into the darkness, and bumped against a large form; he heard the rattle of chains. And suddenly, it was very, very cold in the room, and Adam felt his whole body become instantly, completely covered in goosebumps. Terror surged through him. And he ran.
Out in the sunlight, the sensation faded immediately, but Adam ran to the room Honest John had let him stay in, and stopped short. He had no idea what to do; he stood in the middle of the room, breathing heavily, fists clenched, and tried to think about what had happened.
Gradually, as people tend to do, he convinced himself that he was being silly; he'd just freaked himself out. A secret room, darkness, a rattling chain, and his mind had reverted to Halloween mode, age 12. He was more mature than that, certainly. He knew better. He had to go back, not just because he needed to know what was there, but now he'd also put his pride on the line.
So he ransacked the junk drawer in Honest John's kitchen and came up with a little LED flashlight, a promotional keychain light from a dry cleaning chain. Armed with that, he returned to Honest John's bedroom, and approached the dark entrance to the secret room again.
The light was a lot feebler than Adam had hoped, and he entered the room almost as blind as he'd been before. In a few seconds, though, his eyes adjusted, and he recognized the thing he'd walked into earlier.
It was a St. Andrew's cross, complete with chains for ankles and legs. Behind it, chains hung down from the ceiling; a wooden table looked to be a replica of a medieval rack.
The beam of light caught the pullchain for a lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, and Adam reached up to pull on it. The sudden illumination revealed a dungeon; a bondage chair in one corner with straps on the arms, legs and head; a selection of whips, hanging on a wall; a variety of chains and shackles hanging from the ceiling and walls, or anchored to the floor; a sturdy metal cage in another corner.
Adam's face lit up with a grin; he'd discovered the secret to Honest John's sexual proclivities, long sought and discussed, and now his alone. He thought about who he could relate this story to, as he examined the bondage gear. He even took a seat in the bondage chair, wrapping the old stiff leather straps around his wrists loosely, wondering what had happened in this room in the past twenty-odd years Honest John had been living here.
When he rose, he noticed something. The seat of his pants had left an impression in the seat of the chair; it had been covered in dust. On further examination, everything in the room was dusty, disused. Leather straps were cracked and stiff, chains showed signs of rust, and everything had dust on it. The floor was clean, or at least had tracks worn in it.
Baffled, Adam turned to leave, reaching up to pull the light chain, and in that second, just before the light shut off, he thought he saw a figure, crouching in the cage. A boy with close-cropped hair, hands on the bars, looking at him, lost and forlorn. Adam fumbled for the chain again, but the light revealed an empty cage. Thoroughly freaked, Adam shone his flashlight on the cage, shut off the light, left the room, and closed the door behind him.
Adam left the house and walked the city until late at night, trying to make sense out of what he'd discovered. It was after midnight when he returned to Honest John's, and there were lights in the house. Honest John was waiting for him in the kitchen, a pot of tea on the table before him. He looked up at Adam, his eyes sadder than Adam had ever seen them.
"So, you found it," said Honest John.
Adam slumped into a chair opposite. "Yeah."
"And you saw him."
Adam was surprised a moment, then answered "Yeah."
"I don't owe you an explanation as much as you owe me an apology." Honest John rarely looked stern, but when he did, it was formidable.
"I just got carried away. You know how it is when you figure out that someone has a secret." Adam looked down at his hands on the table. "I'm sorry."
Honest John looked at the teapot a moment, then went over to the fridge and got out a couple of beers. "I suppose," he said, "That I've waited long enough to talk about it. Of all the stories I've told, this is the one I've gone over the most in my mind, and the only one no-one has ever heard."
"I call it...