FIC: LIWFY 16/25: Masks (RPF, Kris/Brad, NC-17)
Masks
Kink Bingo Square: anonymity
AI RPF. 2200 words. NC-17. Kris/Brad.
Kris doesn't need to know who's behind the mask, he just needs to know that he can trust him. [Story 16/25 of Life Is Waiting For You.]
Somehow, Kris always gets himself into trouble when costumes are involved. For a value of trouble that usually means 'naked somewhere' so it's not really the bad kind of trouble, just the kind of trouble where he's not doing what he's supposed to be doing and he's never quite sure how it happens.
It happens often enough, though, that he's starting to think it has to be him.
He always gets an invitation to parties at Cassidy's place now (and costumes weren't even involved when he was with Cassidy, though props certainly were) and his Mardi Gras party promises to be pretty spectacular. Kris even wears a real costume this time, thanks to Adam (and Kris thinks Stefani, or whatever she's going by now, has to have been involved somewhere in the background). There's a lot of gold and leather and velvet and, thankfully, not too much skin showing, because Kris's friends might push his boundaries but they respect his limits, too. Even though he thinks Adam would've preferred he wear the jacket without a shirt underneath.
"I'd know you anywhere," says Cassidy when Kris arrives, giving him a kiss on the jaw because Kris's mask, a truly elaborate affair even after he vetoed the feathers, covers his face all the way down to his mouth. "But nobody else will."
"Well, that's the idea, isn't it?" says Kris. Adam will know him, of course. And Stefani, if she's here and she really is involved. But if anyone else other than maybe Megan recognizes him, he'll bet it's because they've been tipped off and not because they can tell. He's even a couple of inches taller than usual, and his hair is almost completely obscured by the collar and the mask.
He's not quite sure what to do with himself now that he's here, but he's not really expected to say much at all so he silently mingles, smiling at strangers-or possibly friends-and making his way around the party.
"Do you dance?" he hears from behind him, a voice he doesn't know and a face he's not sure he'd recognize even without the black feathered mask.
"Badly," Kris says, "but I've never let that stop me."
"I like that in a guy," he says, setting his hand with an almost unsettling degree of familiarity on Kris's waist. But not unsettling in the bad way. Unsettling in the way where Kris isn't sure what's happening here but he wants to find out. "Don't let anything stand in your way."
"Words to live by," says Kris, and if he doesn't live by them himself then he's pretty sure this guy does, from the way he's unabashedly taken charge and is leading Kris closer to the speakers and the clusters of moving bodies, more like a club than a party in this corner.
Kris isn't a terrible dancer, though. He doesn't stand out, in the good way or the bad way, but he knows how to move to music and he's not afraid to do it. The other guy is better, but he also moves like he's had a lot more practice, and not with a guitar in his hands to mask the fact that he's not dancing so much as just moving to the beat.
It's nice, feeling freed from the obligation to find things to say to someone. In a place where it's expected he might stay silent to conceal his identity, he can avoid tripping over his tongue and making any missteps. The only missteps he's going to be making are on the dance floor, and when someone grabs hold of you and pulls you close and sways his hips against you, that's a dance Kris knows.
"Did you come here with anyone?" he asks after a long while, long enough for Kris to have gotten a feel for how he moves, and gotten interested in his physicality as much as his positive spirit.
He shakes his head, then answers, "No," just to make sure it's perfectly clear.
"That's the right answer," he says, and dances a little closer.
Kris's partners are usually only roughly the same height as him when they're women, so this being taller than a guy thing is kind of a novelty for him. He gives himself a moment to enjoy it as he leans in to whisper in the guy's ear, something about the song that's not particularly witty but he just wanted to move his lips in close, and he thinks the guy knows that too.
"I need another drink," he says finally, "and I know where Cassidy keeps all the good liquor. You want?" Kris declines, wanting to keep a clear head tonight when everything else is unclear. "Don't go anywhere. I will be right back."
Kris doesn't go nowhere, but he doesn't go any further than the few steps it takes to get to Adam's side. He wonders how long he's been watching, but he very clearly has been.
"Do you know who you've been dancing with?" says Adam, in a tone of voice that all but states that he does.
"No," says Kris, "and don't tell me. Just tell me whether I should go for it or not."
"You should go for it," says Adam. "I don't even need to know what's on offer."
"I can trust him?"
"You can trust him absolutely," Adam promises him, "and when he asks me the same question after seeing us talking-which he may or may not do-I'll tell him the exact same thing."
"You're a good friend," says Kris, and kisses him on the cheek and returns to his dance partner when he comes back with his drink. Kris likes watching his mouth as he sips it, and pauses just to watch without pretending he's doing anything else.
"Well, it's not hard to know what's on your mind," he says, wiping his lower lip with his thumb. "Finished with the dancing part of the evening?"
"I'm worried I was finished before I started," Kris says, "but if I haven't put you off with that, I think we're good to go."
"Do I look put off?" he says, and he really, really does not. "I don't think Cassidy will appreciate it if I appropriate his room again, though." Along with his familiarity with Cassidy's liquor cabinet, Kris files the 'again' away for later. Or maybe never. Maybe tonight will always be just exactly what it is right now. "And I don't want to drive with this mask on. Cab?"
"I'll even flag it down," says Kris.
They haven't talked about leaving the masks on to maintain the anonymity of this whole thing, but it seems to be by unspoken agreement. It's part of the whole night-not going home with a stranger, not exactly, but not knowing what to expect, not knowing anything other than what you need to. And going home afterwards not knowing quite what hit you. It's sort of the point, and the best part.
They don't have to go far from Cassidy's loft, no more than a ten minutes ride, but Kris feels every one of them. There's always a different kind of anticipation when sex doesn't just happen, when you're making an effort that's directly for the purpose of hooking up and nothing else. You get to feel that simmer of wanting and wondering and fantasizing and there's no immediate gratification.
When you're feeling like that, ten minutes is a long time.
"Here's what's going to happen," he says as he closes and locks the front door to his apartment, switching on the light in the kitchen so they have enough illumination to get around while leaving the rest of the apartment dim. There's not going to be a grand tour tonight, but Kris doesn't really need one. "You're going to take my clothes off, and I'm going to take your clothes off, and then you're going to fuck me blind."
As far as plans go, that one seems simple enough. Kris untucks his shirt and takes hold of the hem, and his mystery guy walks backwards to the bedroom. It's tiny, just a cubby with a bed and clothes everywhere, but it's exactly what they need right now. Kris unbuttons him quickly, fingers not fumbling once, and the guy makes equally quick work of Kris's costume. Whoever he is, he's done this before-not the sex part, which he's obviously done before, but the dealing with complicated costumes part.
Then again, most good friends of Adam's probably have.
They leave the masks, and just the masks, as they tangle with each other on the bed, no seduction necessary, no formalities, just touching and gripping and stroking. Kris isn't used to not being able to use his mouth during sex, the mask too much in the way for that, but his hands are good too, he's gotten a lot of experience with them over the past couple of years and he knows just how to use them.
"Condoms are beside you," says the guy, and whether he set everything up before going out tonight or whether he usually keeps condoms and lube by his bed, Kris doesn't care, he's just thankful that they're there.
He squirts the lube a little clumsily, getting a little on his wrist but mostly on his fingers as intended, and manhandles his partner until he's spread out on his back, hips up and ready. Which doesn't take a whole lot of manhandling at all. Kris doesn't get a lot of chance to finger people other than himself so he plays this for all it's worth, and he doesn't seem to be getting any complaints at all about that.
At least not until the guy starts saying, "Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me," like a mantra.
Kris can take a hint, and rolls the condom on without a hitch, thank God, before lubing himself up thoroughly. The guy took his fingers like a pro, but Kris isn't as experienced being on top and he takes it slow, hands on his hips, then his thighs, then his hips again, then pushing his knee up as he enters him.
He lets the tightness just grip him for a moment, stilling and sinking his fingers into the guy's leg, but they're both impatient. Their hands slip against one another, fingers grasping, legs moving restlessly, and before long Kris is moving with a steady rhythm. A steadily increasing rhythm, a little harder, a little faster, a little bit of pinching at his nipples, pressing a thumb against his pulse and breathing together, hot and desperate.
When the guy goes for his cock Kris bats him away with a wrist and takes control, jerking him off as he thrusts into him, contrasting rhythms until the guy chokes and comes and squeezes a leg around Kris as he does. It's all Kris can do not to come on the spot, but he manages to last a little longer, just a little longer, coming right when the guy's legs finally drop back to the bed.
He doesn't bask afterwards, resting only as long as he needs to before pulling out and taking care of the condom, but once he does that he does touch him, smearing sweat and come with his fingertips and brushing sensitive skin as he explores everything that's been offered to him, everything but a face.
Eventually, though, that's over too, and as they lie side by side on the bed, a cool breeze reaching them from the window, the inevitability of an ending sets in.
"I'll call you a cab," the guy says, contorting his body to reach the phone he's left beside the bed. Before he calls, though, he straightens Kris's mask and smiles up at him. "Well, Adam's friend, you've been a very good time."
"Thank you, Adam's other friend," says Kris, and now, after everything, now's when he has to resist the urge to take off their masks, to feel the bit of intimacy that's missing. But that would change everything, and he wants to remember tonight exactly as it was. "If I leave the belt and jacket here, can you get them back to Adam?"
"That won't be a problem," he says, and makes no move to put any of his own clothes back on, even as Kris struggles back into his pants, and the shirt that is thankfully at least a size too big so it doesn't stick too badly to his sweaty skin.
By the time he's dressed the cab's already on its way. "Maybe I'll see you around," he says before he goes.
"Who knows?" says the guy, and gives him a mysterious smile from behind the mask.
Kris only takes his own off on the stairs on his way out of the building, and it serves as a punctuation mark at the end of this encounter. Who knows if he'll ever see him again, or if he'll know it if he does, but tonight's been more than enough all on its own.
Period.
Next story: Substitution
Kink Bingo Square: anonymity
AI RPF. 2200 words. NC-17. Kris/Brad.
Kris doesn't need to know who's behind the mask, he just needs to know that he can trust him. [Story 16/25 of Life Is Waiting For You.]
Somehow, Kris always gets himself into trouble when costumes are involved. For a value of trouble that usually means 'naked somewhere' so it's not really the bad kind of trouble, just the kind of trouble where he's not doing what he's supposed to be doing and he's never quite sure how it happens.
It happens often enough, though, that he's starting to think it has to be him.
He always gets an invitation to parties at Cassidy's place now (and costumes weren't even involved when he was with Cassidy, though props certainly were) and his Mardi Gras party promises to be pretty spectacular. Kris even wears a real costume this time, thanks to Adam (and Kris thinks Stefani, or whatever she's going by now, has to have been involved somewhere in the background). There's a lot of gold and leather and velvet and, thankfully, not too much skin showing, because Kris's friends might push his boundaries but they respect his limits, too. Even though he thinks Adam would've preferred he wear the jacket without a shirt underneath.
"I'd know you anywhere," says Cassidy when Kris arrives, giving him a kiss on the jaw because Kris's mask, a truly elaborate affair even after he vetoed the feathers, covers his face all the way down to his mouth. "But nobody else will."
"Well, that's the idea, isn't it?" says Kris. Adam will know him, of course. And Stefani, if she's here and she really is involved. But if anyone else other than maybe Megan recognizes him, he'll bet it's because they've been tipped off and not because they can tell. He's even a couple of inches taller than usual, and his hair is almost completely obscured by the collar and the mask.
He's not quite sure what to do with himself now that he's here, but he's not really expected to say much at all so he silently mingles, smiling at strangers-or possibly friends-and making his way around the party.
"Do you dance?" he hears from behind him, a voice he doesn't know and a face he's not sure he'd recognize even without the black feathered mask.
"Badly," Kris says, "but I've never let that stop me."
"I like that in a guy," he says, setting his hand with an almost unsettling degree of familiarity on Kris's waist. But not unsettling in the bad way. Unsettling in the way where Kris isn't sure what's happening here but he wants to find out. "Don't let anything stand in your way."
"Words to live by," says Kris, and if he doesn't live by them himself then he's pretty sure this guy does, from the way he's unabashedly taken charge and is leading Kris closer to the speakers and the clusters of moving bodies, more like a club than a party in this corner.
Kris isn't a terrible dancer, though. He doesn't stand out, in the good way or the bad way, but he knows how to move to music and he's not afraid to do it. The other guy is better, but he also moves like he's had a lot more practice, and not with a guitar in his hands to mask the fact that he's not dancing so much as just moving to the beat.
It's nice, feeling freed from the obligation to find things to say to someone. In a place where it's expected he might stay silent to conceal his identity, he can avoid tripping over his tongue and making any missteps. The only missteps he's going to be making are on the dance floor, and when someone grabs hold of you and pulls you close and sways his hips against you, that's a dance Kris knows.
"Did you come here with anyone?" he asks after a long while, long enough for Kris to have gotten a feel for how he moves, and gotten interested in his physicality as much as his positive spirit.
He shakes his head, then answers, "No," just to make sure it's perfectly clear.
"That's the right answer," he says, and dances a little closer.
Kris's partners are usually only roughly the same height as him when they're women, so this being taller than a guy thing is kind of a novelty for him. He gives himself a moment to enjoy it as he leans in to whisper in the guy's ear, something about the song that's not particularly witty but he just wanted to move his lips in close, and he thinks the guy knows that too.
"I need another drink," he says finally, "and I know where Cassidy keeps all the good liquor. You want?" Kris declines, wanting to keep a clear head tonight when everything else is unclear. "Don't go anywhere. I will be right back."
Kris doesn't go nowhere, but he doesn't go any further than the few steps it takes to get to Adam's side. He wonders how long he's been watching, but he very clearly has been.
"Do you know who you've been dancing with?" says Adam, in a tone of voice that all but states that he does.
"No," says Kris, "and don't tell me. Just tell me whether I should go for it or not."
"You should go for it," says Adam. "I don't even need to know what's on offer."
"I can trust him?"
"You can trust him absolutely," Adam promises him, "and when he asks me the same question after seeing us talking-which he may or may not do-I'll tell him the exact same thing."
"You're a good friend," says Kris, and kisses him on the cheek and returns to his dance partner when he comes back with his drink. Kris likes watching his mouth as he sips it, and pauses just to watch without pretending he's doing anything else.
"Well, it's not hard to know what's on your mind," he says, wiping his lower lip with his thumb. "Finished with the dancing part of the evening?"
"I'm worried I was finished before I started," Kris says, "but if I haven't put you off with that, I think we're good to go."
"Do I look put off?" he says, and he really, really does not. "I don't think Cassidy will appreciate it if I appropriate his room again, though." Along with his familiarity with Cassidy's liquor cabinet, Kris files the 'again' away for later. Or maybe never. Maybe tonight will always be just exactly what it is right now. "And I don't want to drive with this mask on. Cab?"
"I'll even flag it down," says Kris.
They haven't talked about leaving the masks on to maintain the anonymity of this whole thing, but it seems to be by unspoken agreement. It's part of the whole night-not going home with a stranger, not exactly, but not knowing what to expect, not knowing anything other than what you need to. And going home afterwards not knowing quite what hit you. It's sort of the point, and the best part.
They don't have to go far from Cassidy's loft, no more than a ten minutes ride, but Kris feels every one of them. There's always a different kind of anticipation when sex doesn't just happen, when you're making an effort that's directly for the purpose of hooking up and nothing else. You get to feel that simmer of wanting and wondering and fantasizing and there's no immediate gratification.
When you're feeling like that, ten minutes is a long time.
"Here's what's going to happen," he says as he closes and locks the front door to his apartment, switching on the light in the kitchen so they have enough illumination to get around while leaving the rest of the apartment dim. There's not going to be a grand tour tonight, but Kris doesn't really need one. "You're going to take my clothes off, and I'm going to take your clothes off, and then you're going to fuck me blind."
As far as plans go, that one seems simple enough. Kris untucks his shirt and takes hold of the hem, and his mystery guy walks backwards to the bedroom. It's tiny, just a cubby with a bed and clothes everywhere, but it's exactly what they need right now. Kris unbuttons him quickly, fingers not fumbling once, and the guy makes equally quick work of Kris's costume. Whoever he is, he's done this before-not the sex part, which he's obviously done before, but the dealing with complicated costumes part.
Then again, most good friends of Adam's probably have.
They leave the masks, and just the masks, as they tangle with each other on the bed, no seduction necessary, no formalities, just touching and gripping and stroking. Kris isn't used to not being able to use his mouth during sex, the mask too much in the way for that, but his hands are good too, he's gotten a lot of experience with them over the past couple of years and he knows just how to use them.
"Condoms are beside you," says the guy, and whether he set everything up before going out tonight or whether he usually keeps condoms and lube by his bed, Kris doesn't care, he's just thankful that they're there.
He squirts the lube a little clumsily, getting a little on his wrist but mostly on his fingers as intended, and manhandles his partner until he's spread out on his back, hips up and ready. Which doesn't take a whole lot of manhandling at all. Kris doesn't get a lot of chance to finger people other than himself so he plays this for all it's worth, and he doesn't seem to be getting any complaints at all about that.
At least not until the guy starts saying, "Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me," like a mantra.
Kris can take a hint, and rolls the condom on without a hitch, thank God, before lubing himself up thoroughly. The guy took his fingers like a pro, but Kris isn't as experienced being on top and he takes it slow, hands on his hips, then his thighs, then his hips again, then pushing his knee up as he enters him.
He lets the tightness just grip him for a moment, stilling and sinking his fingers into the guy's leg, but they're both impatient. Their hands slip against one another, fingers grasping, legs moving restlessly, and before long Kris is moving with a steady rhythm. A steadily increasing rhythm, a little harder, a little faster, a little bit of pinching at his nipples, pressing a thumb against his pulse and breathing together, hot and desperate.
When the guy goes for his cock Kris bats him away with a wrist and takes control, jerking him off as he thrusts into him, contrasting rhythms until the guy chokes and comes and squeezes a leg around Kris as he does. It's all Kris can do not to come on the spot, but he manages to last a little longer, just a little longer, coming right when the guy's legs finally drop back to the bed.
He doesn't bask afterwards, resting only as long as he needs to before pulling out and taking care of the condom, but once he does that he does touch him, smearing sweat and come with his fingertips and brushing sensitive skin as he explores everything that's been offered to him, everything but a face.
Eventually, though, that's over too, and as they lie side by side on the bed, a cool breeze reaching them from the window, the inevitability of an ending sets in.
"I'll call you a cab," the guy says, contorting his body to reach the phone he's left beside the bed. Before he calls, though, he straightens Kris's mask and smiles up at him. "Well, Adam's friend, you've been a very good time."
"Thank you, Adam's other friend," says Kris, and now, after everything, now's when he has to resist the urge to take off their masks, to feel the bit of intimacy that's missing. But that would change everything, and he wants to remember tonight exactly as it was. "If I leave the belt and jacket here, can you get them back to Adam?"
"That won't be a problem," he says, and makes no move to put any of his own clothes back on, even as Kris struggles back into his pants, and the shirt that is thankfully at least a size too big so it doesn't stick too badly to his sweaty skin.
By the time he's dressed the cab's already on its way. "Maybe I'll see you around," he says before he goes.
"Who knows?" says the guy, and gives him a mysterious smile from behind the mask.
Kris only takes his own off on the stairs on his way out of the building, and it serves as a punctuation mark at the end of this encounter. Who knows if he'll ever see him again, or if he'll know it if he does, but tonight's been more than enough all on its own.
Period.
Next story: Substitution