Page 38 of Freshman

Alfie leaned closer with his eyebrow raised. “I’m not opening the hatch.”

“You don’t have to.”

Alfie bent down when he heard crinkling paper. Nate slipped it through the gap in the hatch, and Alfie caught it before it fell to the grated walkway. He unfolded the paper and swallowed hard at the pencil sketch of himself. No longer lipless, and not just of his face. He was lying down in the picture, his shirt was open, his tie loosened and askew, and his wrists were tied with something thin above his head. Shoelaces, his brain supplied. Again, there was no colour to the picture, but the shading on his cheeks hinted at a blush and the shine to his lips suggested they were wet. It was a sexualised picture of himself, and he didn’t know what to say or how to feel. Equal levels of unease and curiosity ran through his mind, and he didn’t know whether his crotch throbbed with interest or fear.

Alfie wetted his lips, thankful Nate couldn’t see his turmoil. “What’s this?”

“As you can see, Freshman, I didn’t know how your torso looks, whether you have muscles, whether you have body hair, dark or light nipples.”

All he had noticed was his bound hands and compliant face. He looked again and noticed that, unlike in the rest of the picture, there was no detail to his chest. It was blank.

“Why give it to me?” he asked.

“I needed your help. To fill in the blanks.”

Alfie breathed heavily through his nose and shook his head.

“Does it unnerve you, seeing yourself tied up and helpless, and knowing that’s how I see you, how I want to see you? If our little pub fantasy played out, this is how I’d want it to end.”

“Nate—”

“I’d have you like that, be above you while you rocked back and forth on my fingers, and I’d be…”

“Be?”

“Watching…waiting…”

Alfie knew he shouldn’t ask. He looked away, then back at the door. “For what?”

“You to come apart beneath me.”

“Enough.” Alfie took a step back.

“I can’t help but get carried away when thinking of you like that.”

Alfie pressed the picture to the clipboard and added his own detail. He drew three saggy boobs, hanging down to his belly button, then he folded it in two and shoved it back through the door.

“There you go. I’ve filled in the blanks.”

Alfie heard Nate unfold the paper and laugh lightly. He turned to leave, but Nate’s voice tugged him back.

“So how does it work with your boyfriends?”

Alfie frowned at Nate’s door. “What do you mean?”

“Do they share you? One has you first and then the other?”

A fierce blush grew in Alfie’s cheeks, and he swallowed. “Something like that…”

“What do they look like?”

“Why’d you want to know?”

Nate hummed into the gap of the door. “Want to see if you’ve got a type.”

Alfie closed his eyes and created an opposite of Nate in his mind. “Black hair, brown eyes, slim build…”

“Both of them?”

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