Author’s note:

This is the tenth and last chapter of After the End – Part 3, the final novel in my dystopian erotic romance trilogy. If you enjoy intensely provocative sex with a power play twist, handsome male heroes in emotionally satisfying relationships, and unconventional happily-ever-afters — you are in the right place! These books are full-length, publication-quality, and currently being offered free of charge. 🙂

At this time, the story has reached its planned conclusion and I do not anticipate releasing any additional material. It’s been a delight to develop these characters and their journeys over the past six years (of my life and theirs). Only time will tell whether my own journey includes any more creative writing.

Descriptions of each book can be found in my bio by clicking my user name. Feel free to drop in on specific chapters or sections based on your mood or interest, but the dramatic tension is strongest if you start from the beginning of Part 1. If you liked any of the books, I do recommend you check out the others. As always, special thanks to those who comment or email your reactions and feedback. It’s truly meaningful to be able to share these experiences with you.

Content warning: This chapter depicts characters processing intense, distressing emotions related to the following: violent armed conflict (war); gun violence, homicide, and traumatic grief; imminently life-threatening injury, emergency medical treatment, and hospitalization; and death of a committed romantic partner. This chapter also depicts a sex scene involving relatively demanding physical and psychological domination plus penetration under bondage (all executed consensually within loving, respectful relationships and agreed-upon boundaries).

Tags for this chapter include: #bisexual male, #dystopia, #novel, #romantic, #polyamory, #triad, #submission, #domination, #bound, #male submissive

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Graham:

When Avery told me how close I’d come to losing not just one but both of my partners, it made me physically ill. I could obviously see that Julian was deeply shaken by the events of last week, but it hadn’t occurred to my darkest dreams that he would have chosen to follow one loss immediately with another. Maybe it was morbid of me, but I’d always thought that was a benefit of having two partners: If something happened to one, at least you’d have the other. You wouldn’t be alone.

But I had been alone, completely. During those awful days and nights, during the hours of surgeries and transfusions and waiting to see if my sweet boy would survive the attack, I might as well have been a ghost myself. No one had been real to Julian except his spouse. I knew he was scared, but if the worst had transpired, the thought of him deserting me forever and weathering frigid New England winters on his own chilled my bones as if I, too, were stranded in a blizzard.

Whatever conversation they had that night without me thawed Julian at least enough to express remorse the next morning and to resume a semblance of our relationship. On the surface, things went back to normal — he withdrew his objections to sharing the bed, and he at least responded when I spoke to him. But the distance that had opened during last week’s crisis persisted. He busied himself with Avery’s care and with work, on the excuse of having missed so much, and he brushed off my attempts to talk to him about anything that actually mattered. Despite physically occupying the same bedroom, on an emotional level I still felt confined to the formal parlor, treated as a guest rather than family.

If I put aside my own sense of betrayal, I thought I understood why nearly losing one of us could have caused Julian to withdraw from the other. Acknowledging vulnerability had never been his strong suit, and few things make a person more vulnerable than the prospect of bereavement. Still, I found it…extraordinarily difficult, after all these months when I thought I’d finally succeeded at winning his heart, to watch him wall it off from me again. To deny himself the support he was entitled to, even while he offered it in unlimited quantities to Avery.

Julian seemed to accept my devotion to his husband. But I didn’t know how to make him see that what he and I felt for Avery, I felt for him too. As desperately as we’d both wanted to take away Avery’s suffering in the hospital, I’d wanted to take away Julian’s just as much. And no less than he hated even the briefest separation from his spouse, I hated this separation from him. It was so frustrating, not to be allowed to comfort him when he was obviously still hurting, as surely as our youngest partner’s bullet-torn belly was.

Worst of all was his total avoidance of physical contact. Not with Avery — only with me. Julian put forth a concerted effort not to let it look deliberate; he kept constantly on the go during the day, and at home he was clever in shielding himself behind post-surgical recovery logistics. Yet if I did manage to offer so much as a clasp on the shoulder, it only seemed to add to his distress. He wouldn’t show it openly, but his aversion to my touch was perfectly palpable, which pierced me as deep as any gunshot could.

I assumed initially that some kind of equilibrium would be restored once we adjusted to our new routines. As the days went by, I grew increasingly frightened, having to wonder if the change was permanent. It wasn’t Julian’s tolerance I yearned for; it was his love. The thought of having to settle for this half-measure twisted my gut as I lay awake for hours in the dark, Avery’s body a blockade between us. I ached to cross over, craving closeness so badly it was actually painful. But only Julian had the power to choose where I belonged in his life.

“I want to do a scene,” Avery announced one evening less than a week after his release from hospital. The three of us were sitting against the headboard, weaving our way through pre-bedtime space that never used to be awkward. Avery and I still chatted easily, but even when Julian participated rather than picking up a book he’d read five times, his responses too often came across stilted.

“A sex scene?” I asked, surprised. “Didn’t Vik say you’d need more recovery time?”

“It’s not for me,” he replied. “It’s for you two.”

I glanced at Julian, but he kept his features masked and his mouth shut.

“It might be…a little soon for that,” I offered warily. “But what did you have in mind?”

“It wouldn’t be today,” Avery said. “I would want you both to have time to prepare. But…I don’t like how things are.” He turned to the partner on his right. “Julian, you said you would still be with Graham, but you’re not. You’re in the same room, but you’re not together. I know that’s hard for him, and I’m pretty sure it’s hard for you too. It’s definitely hard for me. I don’t think you understand how it feels for us, that you basically cut him out of the triad when he hasn’t done anything wrong.”

I couldn’t agree more with that assessment, but I had yet to figure out how sex was supposed to fix this.

“I know you’re dealing with things the way you think you need to,” he continued. “But Graham is the same person he was two weeks ago. You trusted him then, and you can trust him now. I think it’ll be easier for you to see that when it’s tangible. So — I want you to submit to him. Not for fun, or for pleasure. More like a penance. You’ll do whatever Graham wants you to do until he releases you, even if it’s just standing in the corner for three hours. Let him give you the experience he decides you need.”

Damn. Sometimes I forgot how insightful Avery could be, when he stayed aware enough to deal more constructively with anxiety and trauma. But would Julian subject himself to my complete control, when right now he couldn’t even tolerate a hug?

He took Avery’s hand and didn’t look at me while he spoke, his voice quiet. “I don’t think it’s necessary, but if that’s what you want, I’m willing to do it.”

Guess I forgot to calculate in the fact that Julian would have found a way to lasso the moon, if his partner took a fancy to it. Especially after their brush with permanent separation.

“Thank you,” Avery told him, then looked to me. “Graham?”

“Yes, of course. And I think it’s a really smart idea.”

“Good. Can you be ready for tomorrow evening?”

“I can,” I answered. Julian looked a little like a prisoner being led to the gallows and still didn’t acknowledge my presence, but he nodded.

Well, he wouldn’t be able to ignore me tomorrow.

Avery wasn’t able to do anything except sit in bed and occasionally go for brief labored walks, and Julian tended to leave the command center early to pick up their dinner, so I would be the last one home. Once I’d eaten at the mess on base, I spent some time at my own quarters, finding the right headspace for what we were about to undertake. I wasn’t here very often these days; I thought of it sort of like a spare bedroom — available when two of us, or just one of us, wanted to get away alone. Or apparently when Julian had a fit of jealousy and exiled me.

After straightening the bedspread, left rumpled from the fitful night I’d recently spent under it, I sat against the wall with my eyes shut. I thought about my two men and how much they’d brought to my life, separately and together. I thought about Julian and what he might need from me in order to escape his fixation on Avery’s near-death experience. He was like an unmanned spacecraft that had been knocked off course and gotten trapped in a tight orbit around a planet he was only meant to pass by. He needed a jolt powerful enough to counteract the relentless gravitational pull of that event, if we were ever to move past it.

I hoped, if I did it right, this session would provide the juice. Because if I failed…if our beautiful three-fold relationship collapsed to a V, leaving Avery with two partners, but Julian and I each with only one… I didn’t want to think about that.

When I felt clear and centered on my intentions, I made the short, sweltering trip to the room I usually considered home. Even this deep into July, summer was still building momentum. Sundown was a relief, but the temperature never approached cool. We were nearer to the tropics here than even the southernmost regions of California, and the difference could definitely be felt.

“Evening, boys,” I greeted them when I arrived. It looked like Julian had cleared their dinner dishes back to the main hall, and they were gathered around a battered paperback novel I’d recently traded for: one Avery hadn’t read yet, a rare find. With so many convalescent days still ahead, it was going to be a challenge to keep him entertained.

“Hi,” Avery said, closing the book in his lap. Julian offered only a slight nod, but something in his eyes hinted at the charged anticipation already building between us. He couldn’t know specifically what my plans were, but Avery’s instructions were submission and penance. It was surely possible to guess at the intimate, intrusive activities I might design to fit that bill.

“Are we ready to get started?” Receiving confirmation from each, I took a seat on the bed facing them. Echoes of previous critical conversations we’d had right here reminded me that tonight could very well be as important as the day I left their relationship, and the day I returned. With Avery a week past his crisis, I hoped this time it would be Julian who returned.

“Yesterday we discussed the purpose and rules of this session,” I opened. “Julian, I intend to take them completely literally: you will obey anything I instruct you, regardless of whether you find it reasonable, relevant, pleasant, or safe. My goal is your complete surrender, and you might not like how I get you there, but it’s what Avery wants, so we’re going to do it. Your only role is to accept whatever I give you, and to give me whatever I want to take. The scene doesn’t end until I call it, but we won’t go later than midnight. Do you agree to those terms?”

“Yes,” he replied simply. He was doing his best to conceal whatever mixture of emotions simmered beneath his impassive surface, but I got the strangest sense that although one ingredient was dread, another was relief.

I turned to my younger partner. “Avery, I don’t intend for you to be anything but a spectator, but do you agree not to interfere, and to follow my instructions as well if I need you to?”

“Yeah,” he affirmed.

“The nature of this scene requires that I be the one to determine what your limits are,” I resumed with Julian. “I hope you know that my intention would never be to abuse you. But if there’s any boundary you want to negotiate in advance, this is your chance.”

“I…” he started, but then seemed to change his mind. “No. None to set.”

“Ok. Avery? Any limits?”

He shook his head. “Can’t think of any.”

“You’ll always have access to the safe words, Julian, but I urge you not to use them unless it’s an absolute emergency. Not that I’m intending to do anything you can’t handle; I just want you to go in committed.”

“I understand,” he replied.

“We’ve all just been through a very difficult ordeal, and this may bring up some strong emotions. So Avery, if you get too triggered, please call ‘yellow’ and give me a chance to discuss it with you. Of course you can also end the session if you have to. Understand?”

He nodded, slightly more sobered. He probably hadn’t considered the possibility that he might have to safe-word out of Julian’s penance scene.

“Anyone have anything else to discuss?” I offered finally, but neither of them did. “Alright. Rules are in effect starting now.”

I surveyed Julian, judging his mood and how to begin. He was watching me, alert and wary, as if we were well-matched gladiators entering the arena. He kept his expression carefully neutral, but I had more than a year’s practice at reading through his habitual stoicism, plus the benefit of sharing some seriously intimate sex. What I saw in this instance was not rebellion, resentment, or jealousy. Instead I saw his pain, the heartbreakingly raw grief and terror he’d suffered, unabated since last week. Pain he was trying to keep locked up — trying to deny and forget, along with his love for me, out of fear he might suffer more.

I’d considered many routes through this session: Punishment. Humiliation. Bending him to my will. Making him kneel for me and call me “sir” and put himself into all kinds of degrading poses until he repented. Taking his submission by force. But now that we came to it, I thought what he needed most was my tenderness. To be soothed, not subdued. To be coaxed to a place where total loss of control could feel safe. I only prayed I possessed the skill and wisdom that would be required.

The first step, certainly, was to separate him from his security blanket. “Avery, I need you to move over here,” I instructed, getting off the bed to make space. I helped support him, compensating for his severed abdominal muscles while he shifted to the side where I had been. Then I tilted his chin up for a brief kiss. He would need to trust me as much as Julian would.

Next I turned to my quarry. “Bring the stool to the foot of the bed,” I instructed, stepping around to meet him. Julian obeyed, his movements unerring as always. I sat at the edge of the mattress, knees apart, and indicated the space between them. “Sit here, facing the door.”

He complied again, settling in front of me, the lower profile of his seat erasing his three-inch height advantage. From here, he couldn’t see Avery or me, which I hoped would enable him to focus on where I needed him to go.

I took one slow breath before speaking, compassion gentling my tone.

“When I ask you a question, you’re to answer it honestly. That doesn’t replace your obedience, but it’s important that I can get accurate feedback from you while I’m in charge. Understood?”

“Understood,” Julian repeated.

“Good.” I’d planned on settling my hands at his shoulders to ground him, but wariness still emanated from him. With his back turned, he felt more like a wounded animal than a gladiator. Animals can’t tell the difference between attempts to help or hurt; if they feel trapped, they’re likely to bite. I needed to prove I wasn’t a threat before I could get close enough emotionally to bind any of his wounds.

“I’m going to put my hands on you,” I told him. “I’m confident you’re familiar with how it feels to hit a hard boundary, versus simply being pushed beyond your comfort zone. If you experience the first one, I want you to tell me.”

He didn’t say anything, so I placed one palm at each powerful deltoid. The anxious tension in them set my heart aching. I yearned to ease his fear far more than to achieve any other kind of surrender — to get back to a place where he welcomed my touch instead of distrusting it.

“Julian, I know that what happened last week brought you to a very dark place, and I know your concern for Avery has absorbed all your energy. But right now, Avery is fine. He’s right there behind us. He doesn’t need anything from you except your attention to this scene. He’s going to be present as a witness, but this is between you and me, ok? There’s nothing else you need to be worrying about.”

He nodded, but he didn’t relax any.

“I love you, very much,” I continued, letting the truth of it infuse my voice as well as my hands. “That’s the single reason for everything we’re going to do tonight. Yes, it hurts that you chose to shut me out during a tragedy that deeply affected us both. That you dedicated yourself to Avery’s well-being while ignoring mine. That you were even ready to abandon this relationship altogether. But we are all here now. We got through it. And I don’t think you’ve taken much time to acknowledge that.”

I waited for the space of another breath before issuing my orders. “So that’s what I want you to do. In this moment, just be here with me. You know this practice: Close your eyes. Attend to your breath. When other thoughts come, just notice and let them go. Let everything go except this, until I call you back. Will you do that for me?”

He was required to obey, but this wasn’t the kind of thing I could force compliance with. I couldn’t know what thoughts were in his head. He had to choose it.

“Yes,” he said, so I followed my own instructions through one breath, then another, then another. Every time a memory rose — Avery weak and pale in the hospital, Julian’s anguished loneliness — every time I started to worry what he was thinking about or what I should do next, I redirected my attention to the sensation of my torso expanding and contracting, pushing the old air out and pulling the new air in. A continuous process of nutrient exchange that unfolds eternally in the present.

It’s possible to sit in mindfulness for days, weeks, even years without exhausting its benefits. But it was probably about five minutes before I sensed Julian was with me.

“Thank you,” I told him quietly. “Take as long as you’d like, and let me know when you’re ready to move on.”

It was still for another minute or so before he said, “I’m ready.”

“Great. You can open your eyes. Then pull this off.” I indicated his fitted t-shirt.

He lifted it smoothly over his head, folded it, and tossed it onto the desk before returning his hands to his thighs.

“Avery, will you hand me the oil and towel?” I asked next.

When my other partner had retrieved the supplies from the nightstand and passed them over, I surveyed the magnificently muscular, skillfully inked canvas in front of me. We typically used this bottle to lubricate for anal sex, and sometimes for hand jobs, but after ten days with barely any contact, Julian and I needed to return to basics before we could attempt any intimate activities.