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Hux is rarely up before noon so he misses the first two times it happens. He wakes up on a Wednesday to a dull thump rattling the side of the wooden shed in the backyard. He watches from the window as the source of his twice-trampled herb garden and purloined heirloom tomatoes hops the fence separating Hux’s yard from his neighbor’s and strides across the lawn. It’s the kid from next door; the two professors and their only son, a long-limbed, sullen faced boy.
Hux whacks his knee on the side of his desk in his rush out of the room. He curses, grabbing a robe from its hook in the bedroom and reeling down the stairs.
“Excuse me!” Hux yells, yanking the door to the backyard open. He forgoes grabbing a pair of slippers. The sun has yet to dispel the early morning frost that lingers, and he shivers in the sudden chill of the open air.
“You. Yes, you,” Hux says. He hears the door bang against the wall behind him. He’s still tying his robe and pushing his hair out of his eyes as he begins to stride across the lawn, barefoot. The kid’s frozen next to the shed, the basketball he’d been retrieving tucked under one long arm. He blinks at Hux, like he has no idea what the fuss could be about.
“Uh, yes?”
“Uh,” Hux mocks, “hello, thief.” He points an accusatory finger at the greenery lining the perimeter of the fence. “My rose bushes? You’ve stomped around in them twice now. And the garden. Do they not feed you enough at home or were you just in the mood for a morning snack?”
The kid stares at him for a long moment, like Hux is speaking in another language. Hux searches his memory for a name, but he can count on one hand the number of times he’d crossed paths with anyone in the family enough to barely catch a nodded hello or a cheery, neighborly wave. The kid’s tall up close, only an inch or two more than Hux himself, but much broader in his chest and everywhere else, so that the effect is heightened. Annoyance chases quickly on the tails of this realization.
“What’s your name?” Hux asks, quickly smoothing any expression from his face. He pulls up to his full height, folding his arms across his chest.
“Um, my name’s Ben,” the kid mumbles. He sticks out a gigantic hand, shuffling in place. Hux gives the proffered limb a withering stare until it drops back to Ben’s side. He’s dressed in a tank that reveals the line of his collarbone and the defined muscle of his chest, and shorts that hit above knobby knees, dirty with grass stains like he’d been crawling around in the dirt before Hux made his appearance.
“Well, Ben,” Hux says, “what do you have to say for yourself?”
Ben shuffles awkwardly in place. He’s slightly pigeon toed, as finely modeled as the rest of his body is, it stands out, bafflingly endearing. Hux clears the thought away.
“Um,” Ben says, “I could bring you some tomatoes from home?”
Hux lets out a bark of laughter in surprise.
“Much good that will do. We’ll just reattach them to the vine, won’t we?” Hux says. “You’ll have to do better than that.”
He watches Ben swallow nervously, this overgrown, human St. Bernard that could probably easily reach out and crush Hux’s throat. His shoulders actually hunch down, like a chastised puppy, like he couldn’t just shoulder past Hux and hop back over the fence and fuck-all that Hux could do about it.
“Think about it,” Hux says, finally, after a long moment. The sun is beginning to peek out from behind the clouds, and the air is growing muggier by the second. “And don’t let me catch you knocking about here again.”
Hux leaves before Ben has the chance to answer, turning on his heel and striding back across the lawn. The house is cool and dimly lit inside, and he takes a moment after shutting the door to squint at the stovetop clock. Barely 7AM. An inhuman hour. He rinses his feet off in the giant metal laundry sink tucked into an alcove across from the kitchen. Then he walks the few feet to the living room sofa, pulls a throw pillow overhead, and sleeps until the afternoon.
*
Hux wakes to the mail arriving, jerking to consciousness at the sound of the mail slot’s metal door slamming shut. Millicent is curled up on the cushion near his head. She gives a curious mrrow as he stirs, blinking at him with her amber eyes.
“Hello, darlin,” Hux mumbles, rubbing at his face with the back of one hand. She pads after him to the kitchen, where he refreshes her water and upends a can of wet food into her bowl. Then Hux nukes a mug of black tea in the microwave, steadying his hands on the countertop. He groans as he stretches out the stiffness in his neck.
Hux settles at the desk in his den. Stacks of opened mail, books, and old manuscripts litter its surface. The laptop screen blinks awake as Hux shakes at the mouse. The word document from the night before is still open. He stares at the blinking cursor, then scrolls up for a bit before abandoning any further edits for the deluge of email he’s been ignoring. Spam. Lots of spam. Correspondences that he marks to return to later. A hesitantly polite email from his editor reminding him of an upcoming deadline. Hux glances up in habit to the wall calender hanging above his desk, scrawled with reminders and circled dates.
He types out a one-handed reply, gulping down his tea with the other. He takes a few minutes to catch up with the news before setting his drink down and pulling the legal pad, its pages scrawled with his notes, down to his lap.
Hux has completely forgotten about the events of the morning, absorbed in his work, until the doorbell rings sometime that evening. He’s pulled to the present by its sound, loud in the otherwise solid hush of the house, as if out of a trance.
Ben’s figure looms through the miniscule peephole, warped by the fisheye lens. His head is tilted forward, like he’s looking down towards something at his feet, long black hair falling in a curtain to obscure his face. Hux can make out the jut of his nose and the line of his wide mouth.
“What is it?” Hux says, as soon as he opens the door.
Ben startles slightly.
“Um, hi. I brought you this - ” he says, bending down quickly to pick up what Hux can now see is a potted tomato plant, its limp green stem tied to a small stick. There’s a tag still stuck in the soil. “For your garden. To reimburse you for the ones I took.”
“Don’t you have school or something?” Hux asks, squinting up at Ben.
“I graduated,” Ben replies. He gives the plant dwarfed in his giant hands a tiny shake. Then he adds, nonsensically, “it’s after five, anyways.”
Hux cranes his head back into the house to read the wall clock in the foyer.
“So it is,” he answers, slightly disgruntled at the way the hours flew by. He pulls the door wider, and waves Ben inwards. “Come in.”
Ben steps inside. He waits as Hux shuts the door, then trails after him through the house.
“I really am sorry about your rose bushes,” Ben says. “The fence is kinda short between our yards.”
The fence is perfectly tall enough for most non-mammoth sized people, Hux thinks silently.
He waves away the apology.
“You can plant the one you have in hand and we’ll call it even,” he says, pulling the back door open. The sun is on the opposite side of where it was that morning, sinking down in the distance. “What were you doing up that early anyway?”
Hux turns in time to catch the snap of Ben’s eyes upwards. He smirks and Ben flushes, caught out.
“Got used to it during the semester,” Ben mumbles.
“Well you’d better get used to that fence height because it's not getting any taller,” Hux says. He waves Ben towards the small herb garden a few paces away from the back patio. “Tools in the barrow over there, I’ll be a minute.”
Ben wanders off in the direction Hux pointed as Hux disappears inside. He grabs a packet of cigarettes and a lighter from the kitchen and walks back out. Ben’s tall form is bent over the rusted wheelbarrow near the side of the house, the potted tomato plant grasped in the palm of one large hand while he sorts through the tools with the other. Hux snorts quietly to himself, deciding to forgo any shouted instructions. He wants to watch Ben figure it out, a tiny, mean curl of anticipation in his gut.
Hux takes a seat at the top of the wooden steps leading to the patio. He smokes and watches Ben make his way to the garden bed, stepping delicately next to the soft soil as he selects a place near its edge. It’s humid enough that sweat begins to bead at Hux’s temples within a few minutes.
A dark splotch forms in Ben’s tank at the inward curve of his spine as he works, and from his perch Hux can see his face slowly redden with his efforts, the muscles in his long arms and broad shoulders bunching and moving as he digs into the soil with a hand shovel. Hux vaguely notes his own body responding to the sight. His tastes are specific and finicky, and the effort that goes into getting what he wants, how he wants it, often outweigh the payoff. He watches silently.
In the end, Ben manages a halfway decent job, Hux’s cigarette by then finished and stubbed out against the wooden railing. Ben wipes at his face with his upper arm, pushing up to his feet. He collects the tools he’s used and leaves them back in the barrow under Hux’s watchful gaze.
“Where do you want this?” he asks, coming back to stand before Hux, holding out the empty pot in his hand.
“Leave it,” Hux says, motioning to the side.
Ben does so, then stands back in front of Hux until its apparent he’s still waiting for Hux’s instructions. Hux stares at him for a long moment.
“Did you need something else, Ben?” he asks.
Ben shifts in place. His adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows, and Hux can nearly see him navigating the still formless shape of his interest, not knowing what he wants, but knowing that he wants it.
“I guess not,” Ben says finally, with a small shake of his head. He frowns down at Hux, clearly unsatisfied with his own answer. He knocks the toe of his shoe against the wooden step before him, then gives Hux a last look before loping off and around the corner of the house.
*
It's a few days more before Ben shows up again. No basketball flies over the fence and no bushes are violated in the meantime. Hux wakes earlier on Friday and spends most of the day running errands. He returns in the evening with an armful of groceries and tense shoulders. The neighborhood is sedate for the most part. There’s a car in the driveway to Ben’s house and a light on in the first floor.
Hux drops the weighty plastic bags on the kitchen floor, careful not to trip over Millicent as she winds around his feet. He almost fails to catch the shadowy bulk of Ben’s form through the back window, sitting at the top of the patio steps.
Millicent chirps beseechingly when he steps away. She begins to sniff carefully at the abandoned bags as Hux moves to open the back door. Ben turns at the sound of the door whining open. Hux stares at him silently for a long moment, then steps back so Ben can follow him inside.
*
They settle in the den. Hux pours a finger of Scotch for himself and sits in the armchair across from Ben, who settles on the loveseat opposite.
“Do you know why you’re here, Ben?” Hux asks. He takes a sip from the amber liquid in his glass, and sets it in down his lap, fingers curled around the sides.
“I wanted to see you,” Ben says. He worries at his bottom lip with his teeth, expression mullish like it was somehow Hux’s fault.
“I’m not a very nice person,” Hux says. Ben’s gaze snaps to Hux’s face, dark eyes intent. “Do you like spending time with people who aren’t very nice to you?”
Hux expects a long silence, or another stupid shrug.
Instead, Ben speaks almost instantly.
“Yes.”
Hux blinks at him. He hides any further reaction by taking another sip from his glass.
“I’m not an easy person to be around,” Hux says. “I’m only happy when people do as I say.”
Now Ben actually pauses. His expression is indecipherable.
“Okay,” Ben says, slowly.
“Okay?” Hux repeats, lifting an eyebrow. The urge to press him is almost irresistible. Hux’s next words are careful. “Get up. Head towards the bookcase over there.”
Ben blinks once before rising slowly, hands on the cushions to either side of his body. He looks up at Hux as he does it, like Hux might stop him at any moment. Hux watches silently as Ben walks to the bookcase near the open doorway. The hallway outside could take him directly to the front door. He stops and turns facing Hux’s direction.
“Not towards me,” Hux snaps. Ben flinches, a nearly imperceptible movement.
“Turn around so I don’t have to see your face.”
And Ben obeys. His eyes flick down, then back up, then he turns in place so he’s facing away from Hux, rigid as a little toy soldier.
Hux stares at his broad back, the moment seeming to crystallize before him, coming into focus in exquisite detail. He can see every slight movement in Ben’s body as if magnified before him, a shiver that runs down his spine, the fitful gesture of his hands as he attempts to suppress flexing them. Hux is achingly hard in the span of a minute. He presses down with the heel of his palm at his crotch, and closes his eyes. When the urge is suppressed he reaches for a book and settles back in his seat.
The only sound for a long while is the turn of its pages in the silent room. After an hour Hux sets the book aside.
“Turn around,” he says.
Ben shuffles in place. His eyes fix straight ahead, somewhere over Hux’s head. Two high spots of color stain his cheeks. Hux finds the source of Ben’s embarrassment a second later; a telltale bulge at his crotch. He waits a moment before speaking, making Ben wait.
“Leave,” he says in Ben’s direction, and Ben obeys.
*
As if compelled, Ben returns the next day, and the day after that. Hux lets him tend the garden under his watchful gaze, taking the chance to break away from being hunched over his desk, re-writing lines until they begin to blur and swim together on the screen.
Ben waters and weeds and follows Hux’s few instructions carefully. Afterwards he stands before Hux, always on the edge of a question, brimming with parts naked desire and parts confusion, at himself or Hux, ready to spill over like an overfilled cup. Then Hux sends him away.
Ben’s visit two weeks later is ill timed. The doorbell rings as Hux is in the middle of a conference call, scowling at the flat surface of his phone screen as his editor recites a passage through the line. He presses the mute button and leaves his room quickly, striding to the door.
“Get in,” Hux says. Ben’s mouth snaps shut around the beginning of a greeting.
Hux can hear the distant, tinny sound of his editor from the office, still rattling on.
“Kneel,” Hux says, simply.
Ben’s face goes blank in surprise.
Then he drops to the ground before Hux, not taking so much as a step to the side, heedless of the floor below. His wide eyes flick from Hux’s face down to his crotch, then back up, clearly unsure of what to expect.
Hux snorts.
“Stay there. Keep your head down and don’t make a sound.”
A half hour later Hux thumbs the end call button on his phone, three pages full of barely legible scribbles added to the battered legal pad in his lap. He walks slowly towards the foyer, deep in thought, until he spots Ben again, exactly where he left him. Hux leans against the banister, and cocks his head to the side, watching. Ben has his head tucked down. He wobbles slightly in position but stays true to form. Hux approaches silently. He presses his fingers under Ben’s chin and lifts his head up.
“You did exactly as I said.” Hux says quietly. He presses his thumb to the corner of Ben’s wide lips. “Do you know what that means, Ben?”
Ben gives a minute shake of his head.
“You get a reward now,” Hux says. “What would you like that to be?”
Ben swallows visibly. His tongue darts out to lick at his lips. Hux chases the movement, pressing briefly at the center of Ben’s lips then rubbing the flat of his thumb across the soft swell of them.
“Whatever you want,” Ben says.
Hux barks out a laugh.
“Oh my. A dangerous sentiment,” Hux says. “I don’t think you’ve thought this through. What if my reward was to leave you here for a whole hour. Or two. Then make you walk out that door at the end of it? Would you like that?”
Ben blinks in surprise. Frustration passes like a shadow over his features.
“No,” he says stiffly.
“I didn’t think so,” Hux says. He withdraws his hand from Ben’s face. “Try again. Tell me what you really want.”
“I want you to touch me.”
“Like this?” Hux cups the side of Ben’s face. He feels the hot puff of Ben exhaling in annoyance against his wrist.
“No.”
“No? Where, then? Here?”
Hux moves his hand up the side of Ben’s face so his fingers card through the silken strands of his hair. Ben doesn’t respond.
“You can leave at any moment,” Hux says, quietly.
“Lower,” Ben bites out.
“Be specific.”
“Can you - I want you to touch my cock,” Ben says.
“How shocking, young Ben,” Hux taunts, feigning surprise. He lowers his hand to press a finger at Ben’s lips again. “Do you walk around all day with such filth in this head of yours?”
Ben flushes, shifting under Hux’s hand, and Hux looks down to see his cock has begun to harden in the last few seconds, jutting out against the fabric of his shorts.
“Up,” Hux says. Ben scrambles to his feet and Hux pushes him, one hand flat to Ben’s chest until his back hits the wall. He stands close to Ben’s side and slides his free hand into Ben’s shorts.
“Do you have a lot of experience in this area, Ben?”
“My hand and dick have been acquainted.”
Hux snorts.
“With another living, human body in the room.”
“No,” Ben answers.
“You may call me sir.”
A pause.
“No, sir.”
“What a surprise,” Hux says. He curls his hand around Ben’s cock and gives it a slow stroke. He’s as big as Hux expected, long and deliciously thick. Ben breathes out unsteadily. “A great, strapping boy such as yourself?”
Ben is silent in return. He shuts his eyes as Hux continues to pull at his cock gently. It fills even more in Hux’s grasp.
Hux’s voice lowers to a soft murmur against Ben’s neck.
“Or do you only like it when someone’s mean to you? Someone telling you what a stupid, dirty boy you are?”
Ben’s hardening cock jerks in Hux’s hand. He barely suppresses a moan, brow furrowing, eyes shutting tight. Hux moves close against Ben’s side, his own hardening dick pressing into the jut of Ben’s hip. He bites down gently at the curve where Ben’s shoulder meets his neck. He’s hard enough so that Hux takes him out of his shorts, pushing the elastic waistband down and under Ben’s balls and stiff length. He’s wet now, precome slick under Hux’s palm. Hux tilts his head down to watch the fascinating slide of Ben’s foreskin as he strokes him, the head of his flushed dick disappearing like a peepshow.
“Hux - ” Ben says pleadingly, the word surprisingly small and weak in his deep voice. Hux tightens his strokes around the swollen flesh and Ben makes a soft, helpless sound before his hips are jerking and he’s shaking and coming in Hux’s hand.
*
Ben cleans up afterwards. Hux makes himself a fresh mug of tea. He sets it on the counter when Ben emerges, tugging at the hem of his shirt.
“I don’t want you touching yourself, Ben,” Hux says quietly. “Not until I tell you so. Is that understood?”
Ben nods his head.
“Yes, sir.”
*
Three days later they’re sitting in the den. Hux pours himself a second drink from a glass decanter set on the low coffee table before him. There’s a pyramid of hardbound photo books on its surface which Hux hasn’t cracked open since their initial purchase.
Hux watches Ben’s eyes flick quickly to the first book in the stack, then away, a twist of several nude bodies emblazed on its front. Hux takes a sip from his glass with one hand and adjusts the tablet in his lap with the other, flicking at the screen with his thumb. Words scroll up in a blur, unseen as he looks up to catch Ben transfixed by the cover again.
“Go ahead,” Hux says.
Ben reaches for the book under Hux’s watchful eye, sliding carefully down the length of the sofa.
“Is this…?” Ben trails off, one big hand trailing down the thick, expensive binding.
“Yes,” Hux says, surmising the question.
Ben turns the cover page slowly. Hux watches as he takes in the contents, knowing without looking the bend and curve of naked torsos and limbs within. It was exquisitely shot, and as tasteful as a coffee table of erotic photographs could be, although Hux knows that would be up for debate should someone like his mother ever set foot in his house. But that was the great thing about being an adult, he could have whatever level of perverted photography he wanted lying about.
Hux turns back to his tablet and is absorbed for a few moments more, until he hears Ben shifting in his seat again. He looks out of the corner of his eye to see Ben practically white knuckling the hard corners of the big book in his lap, knees bobbing up then down in an antsy gesture as his feet go up on their toes then settle. The realization sweeps over him, baffling.
“Is that seriously doing it for you?” Hux asks, incredulous.
“No,” Ben replies automatically. A guilty flush crawls up his neck.
Hux huffs out a laugh.
“Get up,” he says. He recognizes the little mean ache in his chest as Ben stands immediately, the part of him that recognizes the pliable, soft, tractable mold of Ben, that wants to push at it like a bruise, or crush it underfoot.
Ben holds the book before him so its flat against his body, pages faced outward, shielding his lower half. Hux takes in the contents; faces obscure, two unmistakable male bodies taking up the entire two page spread. A corner of Hux’s mouth tilts up in a near smile.
“Put the book down,” he says, sitting back in his chair. Ben stands ramrod straight for a long moment, looking somewhere down at his feet. Then he folds, bending slowly at the waist and setting the book down flat on the coffee table at his shins. He keeps his arms dangling at his sides as he stands back up.
Hux exhales quickly through his nose. His pulse leaps. Ben’s shorts are damnably tented again. Hux responds more to the humiliated slouch of Ben’s broad shoulders, skin going tight with anticipation. He hides his expression behind his glass, savoring a slow slip, the singe of alcohol down his throat.
“Did that really do it for you?” Hux asks, into the silence. “A world of pornography at your fingertips and this is what gets you going?”
“One doesn’t preclude the other,” Ben replies stiffly.
“Preclude,” Hux mimics, drawing out the word mockingly. Ben flushes further, ashamed so easily, for no other reason than Hux’s ability to make him feel so.
Ben’s hands fidget at his sides. He makes as if to cover his front in a belated move.
“Stop right there,” Hux says, cutting Ben off. “Hands at your sides.”
Ben’s arms fall back, and Hux’s pulse ratchets. His face feels warm, and his stomach tightens deliciously when he sees that Ben, under Hux’s eyes, hardens further. His cock jerks and swells slightly under the thin, shiny fabric of his shorts.
“Come here, Ben,” Hux says. He sets the tablet on the side table to his right. Ben hesitates for a second before stepping to the side and around the coffee table, then towards Hux, stopping a foot before Hux’s chair.
There’s a pause in which Hux simply stares at him, then he sets his glass down next to his table, and laces his fingers together in his lap.
“Pull your shorts down,” Hux says.
Ben’s mouth falls open like he’s going to speak, then snaps shut. His hands tuck under the hem of his tank, then slide the shorts down slowly.
“All the way,” Hux says, when it looks like Ben might pause midway at his thighs. The shorts puddle at his ankles. He’s wearing blue plaid boxers underneath, the thin fabric doing even less to hold back the push of his cock.
“Now the boxers,” Hux says, and Ben pulls those down as well. He’s nearly squirming in place, flushed and embarrassed and barely holding back the urge to cover himself. Hux feels his own anticipation buzzing under his skin.
Ben’s hard dick slips free of his boxers as he pushes them down. It bobs helplessly in the air. The head is flushed and wet. Ben shifts on his feet. His hands move hesitantly to the hem of his tank.
“No. That stays on. You don’t move unless I tell you,” Hux snaps.
Ben’s hands jerk away. He shifts in place anyway, and Hux nearly rolls his eyes.
“Do you have a habit of getting off in public, Ben? Like a filthy little pervert when you thought I wouldn’t notice?”
“It wasn’t - You told me not to - ” Ben begins. Three days without getting off must have seemed like an eternity. Hux cuts him off.
“I don’t want to hear your excuses.”
Ben bites down on his bottom lip.
“Yes, sir,” he mumbles miserably.
Hux nearly smiles.
“Step forward,” Hux says.
Ben shuffles forward awkwardly, shorts and boxers at his ankles hampering his movement, his dick flagging in the air with every step. Hux pulls his feet up and tucks them underneath his body. He stops Ben with a motion of his hand when Ben is nearly close enough to meet the chair with his shins.
“What an obscenely large penguin you’d make.”
Hux watches Ben flush deeper. He keeps his eyes on Ben’s face as he takes a finger to Ben’s length, sliding the very tip gently from the base to the head. It twitches under Hux’s touch, so he wraps his hand loosely at the bottom and gives it a loose stroke. It swells unbelievably fast. Ben’s hips jerk forward, once. Wet forms at the tip and drips down.
“How disgustingly easy,” Hux says, stroking Ben’s length again. Ben makes a low, bitten off sound in his throat. “You were ready to shoot off on that sofa, at the sight of a bare, limp dick. And then what were you going to do with me sitting here? Hope I didn’t notice?”
“I wasn’t going to - I was just gonna wait it out,” Ben chokes out. He lets out a moan as Hux squeezes at his swollen flesh.
“Of course you were,” Hux scoffs. He lets Ben go and sits back in his chair. Ben’s hard length twitches in the air in front of him, and Ben lets out a harsh breath at the loss of touch. “It's disgusting the size of you, do you know that? Answer me.”
“Yes, sir,” Ben chokes out. He blinks rapidly. Hux reaches out and swats lightly at Ben’s dick. It jerks to the side and Ben can’t hold back a sudden, shocked moan. He grows damnably harder as Hux slaps at his cock, until it’s jutting up so stiff it barely moves, curled up against Ben’s stomach, flushed dark. Hux has to shift in his seat at the sight of it, grown hard himself. The weak, soft sounds Ben makes as he stands and takes it pull at a low point in Hux’s tightening groin.
“Look at you, filth,” Hux says. He takes Ben’s heavy balls in his hand and rolls them gently in his palm. “Tell me what you are.”
“I’m filth, sir,” Ben replies, hesitantly. His eyes are wet.
“That’s right. You’re scum. And you should be thankful to be standing before me.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Hux reigns himself back in, letting Ben go and settling back in his seat. He takes a moment to calm his breathing.
“I want you to touch yourself, Ben,” Hux says. “Stroke yourself to completion in front of me, and don’t get a single drop on the floor or my furnishing, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Ben says quickly. His hand fumbles to his front. He wraps his big hand around his cock and strokes it tightly in his fist, staring down at Hux wide eyed, mouth falling open. He’s so hard and turned on that it barely takes him a few, frantic pulls until he’s biting back a low groan and curling forward, free hand flying to cover the spurting head of his dick. Ben comes, face tucked down as his stomach contracts and his balls tighten and he squeezes out every last drop into the cupped palm of his hand. He stays like that afterwards, panting and bent at the waist, then stands back up slowly.
Hux watches Ben breathe and shiver for a long moment.
“Get on your knees,” he says.
Ben folds to his knees unsteadily, one leg at a time. He keeps his hand held before him like a hesitant offering.
“Lick it up,” Hux says, when Ben is kneeling before him. Ben hesitates, embarrassed despite himself, then ducks his head down like a kitten at a bowl of milk and licks at his own seed. Hux lets out a harsh exhale, watching the pink of Ben’s tongue dart out against his hand, the movement of his throat as he obediently swallows. He keeps his head down when he’s done, hand still cupped to his face, shaking slightly. Hux forces a breath out through his nose. He takes a hand to the side of Ben’s face.
“Good boy,” he says, carding his fingers into Ben’s hair, and Ben’s face does a funny thing, like he might suddenly cry.
“That’s enough for today,” Hux says.
Ben blinks up at him.
“Do you want me to - ” he begins. He clears his throat.
“No,” Hux says. “You’ve tired me. Leave, now.”
Hux makes a dismissive gesture with his hand, and turns back to his tablet as if Ben has simply disappeared. Ben hesitates before pushing up to his feet. Hux can feel Ben’s eyes on him as Ben pulls his shorts up. He keeps his eyes glued sightlessly to the screen in his hands as he listens to Ben move through the house, making his way to the front. There’s a soft, scuffing sound and Hux can nearly see Ben in his mind’s eye, leaning against the doorframe and stuffing his oversized feet into his shoes one at a time. The door shuts behind him with a muffled click.
*
Hux ignores the doorbell when it rings for nearly a week. He works through the evenings into the early hours of the morning, stopping to answer emails and scratch at Millicent’s chin and fill her food bowl, working his way steadily through his cache of caffeine, one tea bag at a time.
He’s sleeping late on a bright Sunday morning when he wakes to the sound of the front door shutting. He blinks up at Ben when he eventually appears in the door to the bedroom, standing just beyond the threshold. The house key Hux keeps in a hanging plant on the porch is in the palm of one big hand.
“You haven’t been answering,” Ben says, quietly.
“Busy,” Hux mumbles around a sleep-dry mouth. Ben grimaces, a flash of hurt quickly masked.
“Well,” he says, at a loss. He sets the key down on the nearby dresser.
Hux stares at him for a long moment.
“Get down there,” Hux says eventually, pointing at a spot near the side of the bed. Ben walks in the indicated direction and folds to his knees.
“Hands behind your back,” Hux says, and Ben obeys. His head falls forward beautifully, hair hiding most of his face from the side.
Hux pulls the covers overhead and turns away from Ben, falling back into sleep.
Ben is still there when he wakes, unmoving as if molded from marble. Hux blinks at him incredulously for a long moment. He doesn’t look up when Hux shifts.
“Up here next to me,” Hux says, sitting up and patting at the space next to him. Ben’s head snaps up. He gets to his feet, knees audibly creaking.
“Did you stay there the whole time?” Hux asks, quietly.
Ben lies back, gaze fixed to the ceiling.
“Yes, sir,” he says softly, voice slightly hoarse. His only movement is the dip in his throat as he swallows. Hux curls at his side, and slides a hand down the flat expanse of Ben’s stomach. He cups Ben’s crotch, and starts to rub his soft dick lightly through the fabric of his shorts. Ben breathes out slowly, stomach dipping underneath his shirt. Hux squeezes and strokes and feels Ben’s dick swelling in his hand. Ben’s mouth falls open.
“You’ve been very good,” Hux says, eyes on Ben’s face. Ben blinks rapidly.
“Thank you, sir.”
“I’m going to reward you, and you won’t forget your manners, will you?”
“No, sir. I won’t.”
“Push your shorts down.”
Ben wriggles in place, shifting so he can pull down his shorts. Hux reaches into the slit of his boxers and takes Ben’s hardening length out. It juts up stiffly. His eyelids slip shut as Hux takes him in hand, and Hux watches, fascinated, at the microexpressions that flit over Ben’s face.
“Are you mine, Ben?” Hux asks. He gives Ben a firm stroke and pauses at the head, rubbing his thumb through the wet forming at the slit.
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you thankful that I’m touching every filthy part of you? Putting my hand on this slutty cock?”
Ben moans at the new word, strung tighter to Hux’s voice than the firm hand kneading his flesh into full hardness.
“Yes, sir. Thank you for touching me,” Ben says quickly. Hux pauses to kiss at Ben’s open mouth. He slides the fingers of his free hand in Ben’s hair and turns his face towards him and Ben responds eagerly, opening for Hux’s tongue.
Hux kisses and sucks at the wide, plush swell of Ben’s bottom lip, hand returning to stroke at Ben’s cock.
“What a whore mouth you’ve got on you,” Hux says, pulling back to breathe.
“Thank you, sir,” Ben says, in a small voice, and Hux grins.
“Lie still, now. Don’t move,” Hux says, breathily.
He speeds the movement of his hand, pulling at Ben’s cock from root to tip, in steady, tight strokes. Ben breathes, and fidgets in place as he tries to quell the soft noises that increase in frequency at the base of his throat. His cock spits and drools precome from the tip as Hux strokes it, dribbling down the length and in between Hux’s fingers so the soft sounds of flesh on flesh become wet and obscene.
“You know what to say when you come,” Hux says, feeling the telltale, barely suppressed twitch of Ben’s hips. Ben’s face scrunches up tight, his stomach leaping in fitful jumps as he does his best to obey Hux’s orders.
Ben moans, head tossing back, and Hux has to steel the urge to bite at the long, beautiful line of his neck.
“Thank you. Oh - thank you, sir,” Ben says, and he’s coming, hot and wet over his stomach and Hux’s hand. Hux squeezes it out in endless gushes, watching Ben’s swollen balls draw up tight, the slit at the tip of his cock pulsing around every rush of come. When Ben’s done they’re both breathing hard. Hux loosens his grip with a final, delicate touch of his fingers up the underside of Ben’s softening length. Ben shivers, a sound like a sob clawing its way out.
“Shh,” Hux says. He watches Ben for a short time, eyes sweeping from the tips of his curled toes up to where he’s turned his head, hiding it in the crook of Hux’s elbow.
He moves slightly and Ben’s big hand grasps at Hux’s wrist.
“Don’t make me go,” he says, muffling the words into Hux’s clothing.
“Silly boy,” Hux says. He brushes a kiss to the side of Ben’s neck.
“Don’t - please, ” Ben says, voice sodden, face still turned away.
“Hush, now,” Hux says, simply. He wonders vaguely how far he can push Ben, that he would still return.
It’s a long moment more before he speaks.
*