tensions | Prompt - Crane Wife (alternative sidestory)

His bedroom is small but lived in, filled with unique personal items he's amassed throughout the years. It's a warm and private space, beloved and safe.

Monty bends to light a small lantern near the end of the bed and as its golden light spreads out around him, he stands again and all of a sudden, he looks genuinely shy, cautious, his features subdued in the firelight.

"Yes, I'm sure," he replies as he takes the few steps needed to close the distance between them once more, his hand coming up to touch Justin's broad chest, hovering over where his heart was.

It was strange. It's not that Justin had never seen him naked, bare, and willing before (in fact, he's seen Monty is extremely lewd and compromising positions many times over). So why was he feeling so...nervous?

He leans forward infinitesimally, against the barely there contact between them, Monty's hand over his heart, still clothed through all the layers he is still wearing, enough to respond, to show willing, eagerness, anticipation, in a way he'd never shown before.

In that other, not-so-long-ago life, an entirety different world and cast of characters, the lines had been clear - the observation of Monty's pleasure or pain or education at Justin's hands, an uneven exchange, a transaction, a ritual of questionable formality, founded on their differing positions and levels of power. The effect of Justin's demands and expectations on Monty's body and obedience, bought and paid for.

This was a meeting, a shared intimacy, a mutual experience, rather than an experiment. They were both involved, invested, even shy, in their own unique, particular ways.

"May I kiss you, Monty?" he asks, quiet, close, his breath stirring Monty's hair, ghosting warm over his face due to their proximity, his hands hovering around his shoulders, hesitant to close the distance, to turn touch into embrace.

He nods and tilts up on his toes to make up for their slight difference in height, his head tilting to the side so that their mouths could slot together. It felt tentative, careful, gentle, as if he was acutely aware that what they were trying to cultivate between each other right now was very fragile and required meticulous handling. It would be so easy to fall back into the contrived roles they inhabited before all of this. It would be easy to just let their bodies do what they already know how.

But Monty wanted more than those simple falsehoods. Even if he didn't quite know exactly how to get there yet.

He pulls back a moment after, running the back of his hand against the side of Justin's face as if he was seeing him for the very first time, up close. "Come to bed," he murmurs, and links Justin's fingers with his own, giving his hand a tender, welcoming tug.

He curls his fingers, secure but cautious, a slight tremble of want making its slow way down along his limbs, easily palpable to Monty where they are joined and linked. He dips his head in again, chasing Monty's parting lips for another gentle press of lips and tongue, a kiss between lovers, spouses, equals, exploring and learning each other in careful exchange.

"I'll stay the night, with you," he murmurs, "as long as you'll have me. But there's no need to -" He cuts himself off. He's not sure how he could end such a presumptuous sentence.

By the time Justin forces his own words back down his throat, Monty has already settled himself on the edge of the narrow bed (made really to accommodate only one person initially). He lets go of Justin's hand so he can start to undo the ties of his clothing, slowly, patiently. There's no inherent sensuality here, no forced seduction. It's simple and sweet, just a young man who was comfortable enough around the presence of another to undress himself and get comfortable without any semblance of shame or pudency.

He keeps his eyes on Justin's face as he says, "I know. Let's just see where things go, okay?" He shrugs off the thin haori, lets it pool onto the ground near his feet. The rest of his clothes are barely hanging onto him now, just soft waves of fabric wrapped around him, easily slipped off.

"Sit," he says, "and kiss me again."

He settles next to Monty on the narrow bed - the room was so different from those back at the brothel, a casual, personal kind of simplicity, of intimacy and preference, rather than the sumptuous but neutral furnishings that tended to characterize such places. He leans forward, his hands curled into loose fists, one settled in his lap while the other is braced against the bed, a subtle pressure against Monty, but carefully neutral, positioned so as not to box him in, and then kisses him, a sweet escalation from earlier, but nothing like the clinical or casually possessive kisses of their past interactions. It's an exploration, the caution of an experienced adventurer in a new place, utilizing known expertise, but taking nothing for granted.

He likes this, this quiet exploration of each other. A kind of relearning. He smiles against Justin's mouth, noticing how measured and calculated he's trying to be, making sure not to impose, not to overbear. There's a sweetness in that too.

As their kisses get deeper, open mouthed and searching tongues, Monty brushes his fingertips over Justin's knuckles, urging them to relax. Once he feels that start to happen, he takes Justin's much larger hands in his and guides them slowly across his body (his smooth thighs, now bare of any and all marks from other men, and his waist, his chest), allowing him to touch and explore.

"You're wearing entirely too much clothing, Dr. Baruch," he says suddenly with a little chuckle, pulling back to look into his eyes with an affectionate intensity. "You should really get more comfortable."

He lets his broad hands slide over Monty's skin - pale and smooth and almost completely unmarked - dipping in past the false modesty of the enfolding cloth of his attire, falling open. He's familiar with this body, with its curves and shapes and shadows, but his touch is reverent, appreciative, thumbs stroking gentle circles, unseen, in the depths of the cloth wrapped around him.

He has to smile a little at that statement. He'd never stripped down fully, in their past meetings, always focused on Monty's reactions to his handling and provocation, rather than his own immediate physical pleasure. Generally he'd derived a more academic enjoyment from watching, listening, causing, without Monty ever really putting hands on him in return.

"Alright," he murmurs, dipping his head in a gentle nod of acquiescence, and tugs at the ties holding his own clothing on, shrugs the material off and lays it aside. He had been used, back in the city, to wearing western style attire - tailored suits and shirts, cuff-links and ties - but he dresses more traditionally here, forgoing style for practicality and comfort.

This is a rare treat and Monty knows it. He slides his own hands up over the newly exposed skin before him, fingertips tracing winding pathways along Justin's stomach, chest, clavicle, shoulder. He looks every bit as strong and broad as his presence and posture always suggested, underneath all of his clothes, which for a long time he had always diligently kept on, like some sort of physical representation of his mental and emotional restraint.

Monty never questioned it. Back at the brothel, that wasn't his place, nor was Justin the first client to ever try something like that with him. But here, he breathes a sigh of relief, happy to find that Justin was just as eager to try and let go of those pretenses and meet him in the middle of...whatever this was going to be. Monty doesn't know how to label it just yet and he wasn't going to try. All he wished to do was close this artificial distance that the two of them had built up in the past so that they had the chance to come together into something new.

"Come here," he says, leaning in again to kiss Justin on the mouth, chin, throat, while he eases them back to lie down. There's not a lot of space so they're forced to squeeze together and Monty automatically slings one long leg over Justin's hip so he can press himself fully against him, their bodies like two puzzle pieces, slotting together.

"We don't have to do anything," he continues, repeating Justin's earlier hesitation, saying the words practically right into Justin's parted mouth. But he leaves the sentence hanging open nonetheless, trailing off a bit near the end, gaze searching Justin's face for an answer.

He laughs softly, adjusting to both Monty's body against his and the narrow bed. It had been years since this had been prevalent in his life - his personal and professional successes had been such that beds of sufficient space were almost a given - and there's something charming and unstudied about this. Natural and uncoordinated. He wraps one arm around Monty's back to keep him pulled close, their bodies meeting through the tangle of half-on/half-off layers of cloth, and leans in to close the kiss, swallowing the last breath of Monty's quiet words.

"I want to," he says, half laughing, full of good humor. "But only if you're amenable." He shifts them both, so that Monty is balanced on top of him, one hand a steadying warmth at his bare hip, the other at his back.

He straddles Justin, their chests pressed close together as he shifts his hips automatically in a slow, easy circle. The distinct and obviously hard outline of Justin’s cock rubbing against his ass makes Monty bite his lip.

This could be so easy, he thinks. But he’s spent his whole life trying to make things easy for other men. These days, he’s kind of tired of it. These days, he wants some of that power back.

He digs his nails into Justin’s scalp as his fingers tangle in his hair and he relishes in the small grunt he gets as a response as if the sound were forcibly squeezed out of the man’s throat.

The thing is, Monty doesn’t trust himself in his own choices yet. He’s been taught to fall in love with anyone who so much as holds his hand and that’s hardly a good compass for the heart. He wants to be sure this one is right. For as long as he and Justin have known each other, this budding new kind of relationship was still fragile and strange. How could he be certain that Justin was who he said he was and that his intentions were real? It’s easy to give gifts and say pretty things and be kind in short periods of time, tiny moments like a held breath, when no one else was watching. And Monty wasn’t going to go back to being someone’s dirty little secret. Not when he now had the choice to refuse and the will to desire something more, something better.

So. He had to be sure.

“…I’d actually like to wait.” He doesn’t ask for confirmation or permission. He doesn’t phrase it as a question. But his words are still somewhat shaky and he can feel the weight of Justin’s hands on his body, the heat of his palms. He’s used to attaching a certain expectation to that feeling. But he shakes it off now.

He takes a deep breath. “Next weekend, could I come visit you? See where you live and work?” See if everything you’ve told me so far has been true?

He wonders idly how Justin will respond to this gentle rejection.

Edited 2022-06-13 19:13 (UTC)

He gazes up at Monty, his expression soft, thoughtful, steady. Whatever it is he sees in Monty's gaze makes him smile slightly and nod, even though his half-hard erection is pressed between their bodies, noticeable but not at all insistent. It was funny, in a way, both familiar and not. He's used to some level of dissociation with Monty, setting aside his own immediate physical pleasure. This contact between them is something new, and this tentative assertion even more so.

"I'd be happy to host you," he murmurs. "I should be back from making rounds to the villages on the other side of the mountain by then. How long did you want to stay?"

Prompt - Crane Wife (alternative sidestory)

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