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Chapter 9

The two drove back to the city, deciding to put something other than cum into Angel's belly. They took the scenic route that rimmed the Maw, ending near the boardwalk. The grey clouds overhead were pregnant with rain. The steely waters rushed the coast like some beast ready to snap up anyone careless enough to dip their toes in. A storm was brewing.

Even so, there was a sense of revelry here; those who lived here seemed to find everything worthy of celebration, so even now cheery music drugged the air. With no customers, the performers continued to dance and play, seemingly just for themselves. It was a strange, but always alluring place.

They stopped in a local pizzeria, ordering a mushroom and olive pie. James took a curious bite and grimaced before pushing his slice away.

"You a vegetarian or something?" James asked after a swig of soda. "That's disgusting!"

"Not really," Angel said numbly, taking a second slice to wolf down. "Master doesn't like this combination, so eating it by myself in secret is kind of a rebellion."

"How you prove to yourself that you're not completely brainwashed?" James mused. "That you're still your own man, and your feelings for him are real?"

"Something like that... Not like it really matters, right?" Angel scoffed.

James had no real answer for that, yet. "Hey... Mind telling me how you met?"

"Why do you wanna know that?" Angel tensed.

"He's a brat. Dismissive, arrogant, headstrong, and proud to he point of suicidal." James huffed. "Every boi wants a Man to serve, sure. But you aren't some slut. Not really. What makes you want to be with him so much?"

Angel wondered how to answer that. Where to begin? Probably with the truth.

"I tried to kill him," Angel stated. "Instead of getting rid of me, he tamed me instead."

James almost dropped his drink, stunned at the vitriolic sincerity of the statement. When Angel then lifted his bangs, the only way he could cover his first tattoo, James balked, flashing a familiar glare of disgust at it and at Angel.

"That... Official?" James asked, going red.

"No, despite my best efforts." Angel let his hair fall over his eyes again. "I grew up in a good family, no ties to any official groups or anything, but we were trying for one.... I was stupid, and angry, and.... I dunno, maybe I was mad I was gay, and that made me insecure? Whatever, anyone who behaved the way I thought 'they' did were obnoxious vermin, and the easiest folks to take everything out on." He laughed mirthlessly at the irony of thinking anyone group who defies their oppression deserves to be oppressed. "We didn't have the guts to do anything more than harass folks. And we had plenty of fights with just regular people."

"But him, him you tried to kill?" James said between sips of soda that barely concealed his growing discomfort.

Angel commended the other man's restraint. He'd been met with righteous fury for revealing the tattoo in the past, and he'd taken it. Othello had him grow his hair back out for Angel's protection as much as a way to bury the shit-head he used to be.

As much as Othello could dismiss a horrible past, others wouldn't.

Angel went on: "You've seen him," He said. "He fills a room!"

"Why I hired him," Jay nodded and snorted. "He speaks and trees bend to listen." Jay relaxed a little.

"And is oblivious enough to comment on how windy it is!" Angel snorted in something like amused frustration.

They laughed stifled giggles at that.

"Wait," Angel blinked. You're THAT James? And a wolf? What were you doing at Be Tempted??"

James put a hand up to stop the onslaught of queries. "Another time," he said. "We're discussing Othello, right?"

Angel frowned at that, but took a bite of pizza to remember where he'd left off.

"Presence like that is..." Angel struggled for an accurate word.

"Intimidating," Jay offered. "Alluring."

"Dangerous, for folks who think there's a totem pole that they're supposed to be on top of," Angel said soberly. "He really doesn't see it, but I did, and I hated him for it."

"So what did you do about it?"

"Jumped him with a couple of buddies," Angel said lightly. "He didn't beat us, per se, but held us off with just his belt. He couldn't actually end the fight, but he kept us at bay until we were too tired and frustrated to keep it up." Angel remembered there was still food and grabbed up another slice of pizza. He took a bite while his audience of one fixed on him an expectant scowl.

"Then he invited us to try again," Angel growled, the ghost of anger haunting the memory. "At this point, my friends and I weren't actually out to kill him... At least we weren't until one of them wound up in the hospital. He pulled a gun on him -- not in the plan!" He added when Jay snarled, "It was cowardly, and he deserved that broken jaw he got directly after. I stopped talking to him after that, but still... That was all we needed to see 'vengeance'..." He stopped talking, and waited for Jay to relax again before confessing further. "Sure, me and one other guy used that to excuse us going back after that, but aside from that one time it was just brawling, and it never ended differently. He humiliated us each and every time."

"And you still went back?" Jay picked up a slice and took a bite before he remembered what was on it, but he continued eating for lack of any other handy options.

"Oh, yeah..." Angel went pensive. "He was all I could think about. I told myself that if I couldn't beat him, I had no business taking up the war I wanted to be in. And he seemed to enjoy teaching me that I was right. At least, that was my assumption. Racists make everything about race, right?"

"So what was it actually?" Jay asked, chewing distractedly.

"He doesn't lie or hide the truth very well, so when he says he can't explain it, I believe him," Angel smiled when the disappointment he always felt at this conclusion scowled back at him from the older man's face. "All he ever says was that he likes being underestimated, that he was bored, and that I kept coming back." Angel chewed over his next thought for a moment. "I think we were just feeding each other." He said at last. "But if he sees actual monsters all the time, we really were nothing to him. Hell, maybe he'd have been satisfied if we really had killed him..." Angel scowled at that. "Maybe he only felt sane when he had something 'real' he could put effort into." If that's the case, what is he doing now?

"Sounds untenable," Jay answered, nodding his understanding and interrupting Angel's thoughts. "Something had to give, what was it?"

Angel gave the question some practiced consideration. "One time I couldn't leave him afterwards," seeing that answer was unsatisfactory to Jay, he elaborated; "I was frustrated, and really fucking mad at myself at that point. I broke." Angel's eyes traced around the bulge of Jay's arms. "Like when you think you can do one more rep, and then blow something out, only it was my pride I overworked. It broke, and it hurt so bad I couldn't move."

Jay winced at the comparison.

"I physically couldn't leave, so the game had to stop. It wasn't fun for me, so he had no interest in it anymore, you know?" Angel frowned, trying to put into words that dizzying flow of events and emotions that powered the next series of events. "He kept me until I could move again.... He chained me up, but it felt more like a cast or a sling for my herniated self-worth. I know it looked like a kidnapping, but nothing was ever locked. I stayed because trying to go back to my old life was... It was unthinkable.

"And, it was kinda hot, thinking back on it..." He scratched the top of his head, careful not to disturb his bangs. "I mean, you don't think it would be, but I knew I was into him by now, and this was the best excuse I could hope for to explore those things that are supposed to be gross or frightening to me, right? No one can really explain BDSM, but when you're told that it's just normal for gay men, and the urges for guys crops up, well, the scary parts are where your mind goes, isn't it?"

James' laughter at that silly, roundabout reasoning made Angel smile. It really all was more complicated than it needed to be, wasn't it?

"I approached him, feeling like I didn't deserve to ask him anything," Angel's eyes lost focus as he remembered their first time together. "It was all vanilla, at first. I was new to it with guys, after all. It was nothing like fighting him. It never really hurt much even the first time. He pampered me, and I began to hate myself more and more. I was scum for wanting to hurt him. Worse for letting him top. I wanted him to hurt me, so I asked him to. It was like massaging my dislocated pride, instead of popping back in. I demanded he not hold back. He seemed like he expected it, was waiting for it, even. He only had two requirements of me." He raised one finger. "To say if it ever got to be too much," he raised a second finger, "and to call him Master from then on. He gave me my name, then. 'Angel' isn't on my birth certificate. Who I was, he'd said, would never serve him and would tear me up if I tried to force him to. So I became his Guardian Angel."

Finally Jay sat back, seemingly satisfied. "Good dick changes lives, doesn't it?" When Angel opened his mouth then closed it again in a hurry, insulted at the simplification, Jay sat up again eagerly "Go on! Out with it!" James grinned evilly.

Angel mulled it over for a bit before smiling and glancing away, realizing that nothing he could say would make that statement untrue, even if it was incomplete. Even so.... "He does much more than just that," He stated finally. "He punished me, to prove to me how strong I am. He didn't feel the need to 'forgive' me because I never successfully hurt him. He accepted me, and rebuilt me stronger. Guided me through my thoughts and feelings as honestly as he could. At one point, I used our safeword, just to see if I could, and he stopped. We talked, and I realized that I could just leave, but I didn't want to, because..." When he paused, Jay looked about ready to scream in anticipatory frustration. Angel wondered if that's what Othello felt when he denied Angel climax. It was invigorating, but even Othello would let him cum eventually.

"I wanted to see those horns more..." He said wistfully, letting go of a secret that, before today, seemed like fever-dream. "Sometimes, when we're, um... 'engaged' -- "

"FUCKING, boy!" Jay grinned, "Remember where we met, why don't you? Christ, That's what you blush about?"

"It's... sacred with him somehow, okay?" Angel blustered, but he smiled sheepishly. "Fucking, alright? When he's really, REALLY into it, making my head full and my skin too tight, I can't help imagining these horns. I can only see them in, like, steam, but seeing them makes me feel... both small and powerful, like I'm giving myself to a demon in exchange for power... It sounds damned stupid, right?"

James, finally satisfied,sighed and decided he'd had enough pizza and pushed the rest back over to Angel. "They aren't horns; they're antlers."