Dex stroked his arm with a thoughtful expression. “We should tie him up then. Gag? Blindfold?”
“No gags, it’s more fun when they try to negotiate,” Hammer said, stalling when the brown eyes shone with excitement that matched his. Unlike many others, Dex understood what made him tick, and it was a revelation like no other in Hammer’s life to date. Could they perhaps share something yet more private? “I wrote down some… ideas.”
Dex’s smile widened, and he slapped Hammer’s arm. “Whaaat? Get out! You’re so fucking organized. Show me.”
“It’s not really a list or mind map. I do it… my own way,” Hammer said but was already taking out his phone.
“What do you mean?” Dex shifted closer, resting his chin on his shoulder to look at the device. “You paint your ideas?”
Hammer chuckled, waiting for the device to start with growing anticipation. “I wish. Just imagine being able to do all that exaggerated gore.” But he was already switching on his secret website.
“Right? It’s why I love horror movies, they’re so creative with it.” Dex stroked Hammer’s stomach, and it felt… nice. Back at Cora’s, their touching had been very sexual, always focused on arousal. Weirdly enough,thisfelt much more intimate and more like a hug than a prelude to fucking.
Hammer chewed on his lip and leaned in to press a kiss to Dex’s warm forehead. “And since I don’t have any artistic talent, I decided to express myself with fiction. You must have heard Lion thought a fragment I’ve written was actually about wanting to murder him, right?”
Dex snorted. “Must have been goddamn realistic then. No ghosts or werewolves? Do you just write about what you would do?”
“Or about the things I did,” Hammer said, remembering the bits of text he hadn’t shared withanyoneyet, like the one involving Dex and a lot of porny imagery. He wasn’t sure how his usual audience might react to this kind of content, so he was still keeping it to himself.
“Aren’t you worried it could be used against you? As evidence or something?
Hammer shrugged. “It’s just horror. It’s never perfectly aligned with how things happened, even if I’d fucking love to treat Ryker to exactly what I wrote down,” he said, opening the latest entry on his website. It was a popular one, even if just a work in progress, not part of the main story he was publishing in chapters. “Do you want to read it?”
Dex kissed the back of his shoulder. “Would you read it to me? I wanna hear it in your sexy voice.”
Hammer chuckled but rubbed his hand through Dex’s fluffy hair as the boy slid to the floor, resting his head against Hammer’s thigh. It felt as if he was getting ready for a bedtime story. “Just remember it’s not finished yet,” Hammer said, struck by worry that Dex might not appreciate his literary attempts and dismiss them. Hammer figured hewasgood at writing his chosen genre, or else he wouldn’t be getting so many positive comments under each chapter, but he didn’t really share his writing with people in real life since Cora, the one person he’d trusted with it had just… told him his prose was interesting and then moved on from it. She just didn’t get what he was trying to do, and since indifference was much worse than outright hate, he’d kept his audience strictly online since.
But Dex seemed genuinely excited and stroked Hammer’s calf through denim, for once not trying to get into Hammer’s pants. “That’s fine. You can polish it once you know what Ryker’s last words are.”
Breath caught in Hammer’s throat as his heartbeat quickened. “That’s exactly what I’ll do,” he said with a growing smile and placed his hand on Dex’s head before looking at the paragraph.
“Holden—that’s my nickname for Ryker—knew what was coming. The sweat beading on his face tasted tangy, like the blood that would soon start flowing, and there was nothing he could do about it. Executioner’s—that’s me—form towered over him like a giant about to gut him for dinner, but despite the tension in the air, it was so quiet Holden could hear his every frantic heartbeat. Tonight, he’d be ripped apart piece by piece, but as he stiffened in fear, something swished in the air, and the massive head of a sledgehammer descended on his hand, breaking every single bone.”
“Ooh, good one. Painful but not something that would kill him,” Dex said so fast he choked on air. He seemed hypnotized by the story, so Hammer read on, sparing no gory details.
Dex didn’t interrupt him with anything beyond the occasional gasp or nod, and once Hammer was finished, with ‘Holden’s’ life still hanging by a thread, he awaited Dex’s verdict, surprisingly nervous to hear his assessment.
It took Dex a moment to realize the bedtime story was over, and he sat up, squeezing Hammer’s knee. “And what then? What happens next?”
Relief made Hammer sag, but he smiled and pinched the boy’s cheek. “Maybe you should help me write the conclusion once we catch up with Ryker?”
Dex grinned in a way that appeared oddly sinister. “Fuck yes! I think Executioner needs a sidekick. He could be doing the cleanup and always complain that they should set up sheets of plastic first.”
Hammer found himself chuckling. He’d kind of hoped for a positive reaction but this showed real engagement. “For sure! And they’d kill between one blowjob and the next,” he said without thinking. When Dex’s eyes darkened, he wondered how the kid would react to Hammer’s brief rendezvous with gay erotica, but he wasn’t ready to share any ofthatyet. Not when he remained all sorts of confused about where his sex life was going.
“Ohh, so they’d be murder boyfriends. I like it. You know, I’m not a very good reader. And I don’t mean the reading the letters part, but I just get easily distracted. Butthis,” he pointed to the phone, “I could really get into. We need to come up with the sidekick’s name.”
Hammer’s face was boiling as he stroked Dex’s head. He hadn’t even realized how much he’d missed being around someone who understood him. “I think you should be the one to name him.”
Dex nodded, sitting up on the bed again and pushing off his boots. “Okay, it’s gotta be a good one. Let me think about it.” It was so cute how seriously he approached the task, and this mixture of bloodthirsty and adorable was doing something strange to Hammer’s chest. His mouth itched for kisses, but he needed to gather his thoughts before indulging that need, so he rose.
“Take your time. Gonna take a shower.”
“On your own?”
When Hammer nodded, Dex laid down with a deep sigh. For a moment, Hammer was tempted to descend on him and fuck him on the comfortable bed, but his mind was scrambled, which always meant he needed some time on his own.
He fled into the bathroom and found it equally gaudy as the rest of the suite. The massive corner bathtub had vents, like a hot tub, but the interior otherwise committed to the same aesthetic as the bedroom it was adjacent to and featured many unnecessary trims, including plaster cupids holding up the mirror, and a relief of a thinking philosopher above the toilet.