dane built the armor to my measurements and my measurements did not account for breathing.
“again,” he said, and i lifted my arms for the fourth time that night.
it was six weeks to the convention competition and the thing was almost done. dark steel paint, red leather underneath, a chest plate he’d vacuformed himself in the garage workshop behind his apartment. i was the model. i was supposed to just stand there and let him tuck and tighten while he muttered about tolerances.
his fingers slid under a strap at my ribs and i sucked in air without meaning to.
the strap tightened.
“too much?”
“no.”
his hand stayed. warm through the leather. he didn’t take it away.
i looked at him in the workshop mirror, the big warped one he’d dragged out of a thrift store, leaning against the pegboard between the heat guns and the spools of filament. he was looking at the strap. very hard. like it owed him money.
“you ask me that every single time,” i said.
“fit matters.”
“you like touching me.”
his hand went still. there was no soldering iron loud enough to hide behind and he knew it, i watched him know it.
“yeah,” he said.
“good.”
his eyes came up to mine in the glass. i’m not going to pretend i was calm. i’d been wearing this stupid harness for an hour and my cock had been half hard since the second buckle, tucked up in my little black briefs, and every time he said “turn” i got a little worse.
the costume made it easier to say things. that was the weird part. in the armor i looked bigger, sharper, like the version of me he’d drawn on paper at the start. in the mirror i looked like somebody who could say “you like touching me” and mean it. i wanted to keep being that guy.
“turn around,” dane said.
i did.
“hands up.”
i put them up. the plates shifted on my shoulders and i felt the whole rig settle on me like a hand.
“you like telling me what to do,” i said to the wall.
“only when you listen.”
“i can listen.”
he laughed, one short breath through his nose, and then he stopped laughing and got to work taking the rigid plates off. one latch. another. the chest piece came away and he set it on the bench like it was something breakable. he left the harness. red leather across my ribs, buckles at my waist, a strap running over each hip. the shape of the armor without any of the armor.
he stood behind me and i could feel him not touching me. that was louder than touching.
“turn,” he said.
i turned. my face was hot. he was so close i could see where he’d missed a patch of dried resin on his jaw.
he put his thumb on the strap at my ribs. same strap. same spot.
“you’re still pretending this is a fitting,” i said.
he held my eyes.
“hands up.”
i lifted them and my smile fell off my face, i felt it go.
he ran both palms down the harness the way he’d done a hundred times, same path, ribs to waist. only now it wasn’t a path for measuring anything. his thumbs hooked under the waist strap and pulled me an inch toward him.
“good,” he said.
my breath did something embarrassing.
he heard it. “that word?”
“keep using it.”
“good,” he said again, lower, right at my ear, and my head tipped back against his shoulder. i could feel his chest going. he was as wound up as i was. his hand slid down my stomach, flat, slow, and stopped at the waistband of the black briefs.
“say what you want.”
i laughed, a thin shaky sound. “now who’s being difficult.”
he just waited. hand on my stomach. mouth by my ear.
i looked in the mirror. me in red leather, arms up, a guy standing behind me with his hand where i wanted it. i could see how hard i was already, the wet spot spreading on the front of the briefs.
“i want your hand on me.”
“good,” dane said, and pulled the waistband down.
workbench · armor straps, fingers under back
his hand was rough from work, a little dry, and it wrapped around me like it had been planning to. i made a noise i didn’t have a name for. the mirror made everything worse. every buckle, every strap, the way my stomach jumped when he slid his fist down to the base.
“look at me,” he said.
i looked at him through the glass. he stroked me slow, tight, thumb dragging over the head on every upstroke until i was slick all over his knuckles.
“pretty,” he said.
“wrong fantasy.”
“really?”
he went faster and my knees nearly went. “fine. fine. keep talking.”
he laughed into my neck. “good boy.”
that one landed in my spine. i grabbed the edge of the workbench with both hands, my fingers crushing a sheet of sandpaper, and said “fuck” out loud to the pegboard.
he worked me harder. the harness shifted every time i rocked. one strap pulled tight across my ribs, another slid half an inch, and the leather creaked. the costume wasn’t decoration anymore. it was the frame around the whole thing.
when i got close he slowed down. of course he did.
“don’t.”
“don’t what?”
“stop.”
his eyes found mine in the mirror. “ask.”
i swallowed. my cock was throbbing in his fist, leaking all over his hand. “please.”
he kissed my shoulder. “good.”
and then, instead of finishing me, he let go.
i made a sound like i’d been robbed. he was already unbuckling his own belt. he spat in his palm and wet himself and then wet me, two fingers pushing at my hole from behind until the burn eased into something that made me push back on them.
“i’ve been wanting to do this since the second week,” he said into my hair.
“you said it was a fitting.”
“it was a fitting.”
“dane.”
“okay,” he said. “okay.”
he pressed in slow. i hissed at the stretch and gripped the bench harder and he stopped with just the head in, shaking. i said “all the way,” and he gave it to me, one long push, his hips against the leather straps over my ass, his cock thick and hot and so deep i saw white at the edges of the mirror.
for a second neither of us moved. i could hear the fluorescent tube buzzing. i could hear us breathing.
then he started to fuck me.
he held on to the harness. that was the thing. he hooked his fingers under the straps across my back and used them like handles, pulling me back onto him every time he thrust, and the leather cut into my ribs and i loved it. the buckles clinked. the bench scraped across the concrete an inch at a time. i watched us in the mirror, his face screwed up, my mouth hanging open, red leather and bare skin and his hips slapping into me.
“look at that,” he said, wrecked. “look at you.”
“keep going.”
“you’re so good. you’re so fucking good in this.”
i reached down and took my own cock because i couldn’t stand it and he slapped my hand away and took over, fist tight, matching his thrusts. the double feeling folded me over the bench. his cock dragging against the spot, his hand pulling me, his voice in my ear saying good, good, good, over and over like a latch clicking into place.
“i’m going to come,” i said.
“do it.”
“dane—”
“come for me.”
i did. it tore out of me, hot ropes across his fingers and onto the bottom of the bench, my ass clenching around him so hard he swore. he pushed in twice more, deep, and shoved his face into my back and came inside me with a groan i felt in my teeth. his hand stayed hooked under the red strap at my waist the whole time like he was afraid i’d leave.
floor · coat spread, boots creaking, six hours of no
afterward i lay half across the bench, harness crooked, legs not working. he pulled out carefully and i felt the mess slide down my thigh and didn’t care.
dane crouched and inspected me like an engineer surveying structural damage.
then he went very quiet.
“what.”
he held up a buckle. the waist one. it was hanging by a thread of leather, torn clean through.
i started laughing and couldn’t stop. i laughed until my stomach hurt and i had to cling to the bench again.
“professional failure,” i said.
“occupational stress test.”
“six weeks of work.”
“it’s a rivet. i’ve got rivets.” he was grinning, filthy, hair stuck to his forehead. he leaned in and kissed me, slow and sloppy, resin on his jaw, my taste still on his mouth.
we fixed it together before midnight. he held the strap, i hit the rivet with the little hammer, and neither of us talked about what happened until i was lacing my boots by the door.
“same time thursday?” i asked. “for the fitting?”
he looked at the pegboard. at the mirror. at me.
“i’m going to need to adjust the thigh straps,” he said.
“obviously.”
