Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2010-05-31 11:27 pm
ptahrrific) wrote2010-05-31 11:27 pm
Entry tags:
The Sword In His Mouth (3/4)
Title: The Sword In His Mouth (3/4)
Rating: R
Warnings: D/s; sex; mild religious content; gratuitous meta
Disclaimers: This is a work of parody. Although references is made to real persons, places, and events, the dialog, actions, and content are products of the author's imagination only. Fictional characters are property of The Colbert Report and its writers. All LJ usernames are fictional. Any resemblance to real LJ users, active or strikethrough'd, is purely coincidental.
Summary: Fic as written within the D/s 'verse ofsarcasticsra's The Way Things Need To Be. In which everyone gets their idea of their gender role shaken up a little.
Prologue | Part 1 | Part 2 |Part 3 | Epilogue
The Sword In His Mouth
Part 3
El Perro Fumando: Hey, I have a title idea for that fic.
El Perro Fumando: Or, at least, the source for one.
StarmasterShedemei: Let's hear it.
El Perro Fumando: Job 5:15:
El Perro Fumando: He saves the needy from the sword in their mouth;
he saves them from the clutches of the powerful.
StarmasterShedemei: . . . it's obnoxiously religious, pretentiously obscure, and vaguely phallic.
StarmasterShedemei: It's *perfect*.
For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.
—Psalm 109:22 (NIV)
Stephen was in full gentledom mode as he was ushered into the front room. He shook Brian's hand, kissed Jon's, and held out a bouquet of lilies and forget-me-nots that was very nearly larger than Jon was. The invitation had included the word "casual", which he had apparently interpreted as "full suit, except for the tie".
Jon himself was in his trademark grey and khaki. His dom was in jeans, which somehow still managed to look astoundingly classy.
"Let me take those," offered Brian, rescuing Jon from the awkwardly vast flower arrangement. "I'll go put them in some water, and finish up the snacks. You two, go sit over by the television. There's rope waiting."
Hardly had he nodded in the appropriate direction than Stephen was on the way over. Jon trailed in his wake, warmed by the suggestiveness of Brian's indirect order, hoping Stephen could sort out a comfortable place between them.
"All right, sit down and hold out your wrists," ordered Stephen when they reached the couch. Trying not to smile, Jon obeyed.
Keeping a straight face only got harder as Stephen fumbled with the velvet-blue ties. Either the other sub had no experience with knots, or he was nervous enough to have forgotten it all. At last he let go, a nascent smirk of triumph spreading across his features, only to have Jon give a twist and a wriggle and hold up the tangled length of rope with one free hand.
"Maybe you're just out of practice," offered Jon quickly when Stephen's face fell. "Mind if I give a demonstration?"
A sudden flash of interest, erased just as suddenly by a blush. "Wh-what would you know about tying people up?"
Jon shrugged demurely, focusing on his hands as they undid the confused knots. "Well, uh, I've used some of these things on Brian."
He could practically hear the widening of Stephen's eyes. "Brian? But he's so domly!"
"It's not about being a switch," explained Jon. "He just likes to have a better sense of how effective the bonds are. Their limits and so on. It helps him make things safer for me."
"Oh! So, then, if I got tied up by you, it wouldn't be a sub thing? Just a test?"
"It's whatever you want it to be, Stephen."
Stephen watched almost hungrily as Jon stretched the newly detangled rope in front of him. "O-okay. Go ahead."
When Brian came out of the kitchenette, a tray of fruit kebabs in one hand and a bowl of Doritos in the other, Stephen had taken up a comfortable spot on the couch, glasses off and wrists firmly lashed together.
He jumped when he spotted the dom, and began struggling against the bonds in earnest, a stark contrast to the halfhearted wiggling he had been employing a moment earlier. "This isn't what it looks like! I was just — Jon just wanted to—"
Brian cut him off with a word and a meaningful nod: "Jon?"
"Yes, sir." Jon tried to take a graceful seat, nearly tripped over the glass-paneled coffee table, and ended up half-tumbling onto the arm of the couch. Adjusting himself with a modest ahem, he began: "Stephen, calm down and listen to me a minute. Are you listening?"
The edge of panic hadn't left Stephen's eyes, but once his attention was turned away from Brian, he managed to pull together an air of indulgent superiority in spite of it. "Yes, Jon."
"You're comfortable telling me off, right? You always have been before, anyway."
Stephen nodded, though he was starting to twitch.
"Well, Brian's not going to try to dom you, no matter what this 'looks like'. I'm the only one he wants to order around. And if there's anything you aren't interested in, don't worry about what he thinks. Just tell me. Can you do that?"
"What, are you afraid I might be intimidated by your ability to marginally avoid falling on your own face?"
Jon broke into a smile, beckoning Stephen forward with a jerk of the head. "That's what I like to hear. C'mere."
He could feel Stephen's heart pounding as the other sub settled gratefully against him in a kind of no-armed hug. For all his bravado, Stephen's head was buried against the crook of Jon's neck as if trying to block out the sight of anyone else in the room; Jon slipped one finger into the loops of the rope and tugged his hands an inch closer, not rough but possessive, before glancing over his shoulder to check in with Brian.
Switch, mouthed Brian, with that eighth-of-an-inch quirk of the lips that was, for him, the equivalent of falling over with laughter.
Jon smirked and flipped him a good-natured bird.
Brian spent the whole game giving Jon a stream of low-level orders, which, by a strange coincidence, all had to do with Stephen.
Although he was getting a definite charge out of Brian's careful and methodical organization, Jon found himself almost unconsciously elaborating on the directions. Told to let Stephen lie down, head on his lap, he added a possessive hand on Stephen's shoulder. He hand-fed Stephen slowly, easing grapes and blackberries and chunks of pineapple between the other sub's lips with careful deliberation. When the Doritos came by, he left his fingers in place until Stephen had licked off all the cheese dust, so thoroughly that there wasn't a speck of industrial-orange left.
Stephen asked haltingly to be untied during the seventh-inning stretch, then made a beeline for the bathroom. On his return, Brian only had to give Jon a meaningful nudge; he even moved the subtly-proffered wrists behind Stephen's back before securing the rope around them.
Okay, maybe Stephen's 'even the subs want to dom him' vibe was getting to him after all.
And for that matter, judging by Stephen's flared nostrils, hitching breath, and sudden awkward scrambling for a very particular way to sit, Jon wasn't the only one affected.
He glanced over to check whether his dom had noticed.
Brian, being Brian, was already wearing a knowing smirk. "Excuse us a minute, Stephen," he said mildly as he caught Jon's eye.
Jon didn't know what to expect until he found his wrists pinned against the cushions, and the rest of him pressed into a slow, languid kiss. He opened to it immediately, goosebumps rushing down his arms as every nerve sprang into action...
...and heard a groan wrest itself from his throat when he realized that Stephen was openly panting.
He slumped immediately when Brian released him, flushed and admittedly breathless himself, a few loose curls flopping across his forehead. Brian just smiled down at him, unruffled as ever. "Should I ask what you want me to do to you? Or would that be a little too much for Stephen?"
Jon put on his most winning smirk. "Well, if you must know, I was kinda hoping you would tell me to play with him. Sir."
"Can I?" burst out Stephen. "Please, sir, let me borrow him, just for a while, please?"
He flinched when they both turned to him, anxious gaze locked on Brian, and not even the dom's slow smile — a snark-free one this time, eyes warm and sparkling — seemed capable of unfreezing him. When Brian dropped his gaze back to Jon, it had picked up a touch of anxiety of its own.
"Sir," repeated Jon, as demure as one can be when one is middle-aged and rough-voiced and has, let's face it, a well-deserved reputation for ripping apart a group of people epitomized by the dom to whom one is talking. "Let me?"
At last Brian released his wrists, nodding him in Stephen's direction. "All right, off with you. Show us what you got."
This time Jon managed not to fall on anything as he straddled Stephen's hips, bending down to capture his mouth. Stephen writhed under him, tongue wrestling with his so ferociously that Jon almost broke off to ask who the hell was fake-domming who here, anyway. Instead he bit Stephen's lip, getting a whimper and an ever more insistent arch for his efforts.
Head starting to spin, Jon lifted it and turned to Brian. Stephen tried to follow his gaze; Jon grabbed the other sub's head with both hands and twisted it away, then looked back at his dom. "Sir?"
Though his face held carefully deadpan, the warmth settled back into Brian's eyes. "Why don't you give him some Giant Head. I hear that's what all the stoned slackers are saying these days."
Jon's hips thrust forward of their own volition as he turned his attention back to Stephen. "How about it?"
Stephen's hair stuck out in loops and tendrils from between his fingers, shirt mussed enough that the glinting black collar poked out from under the silk, eyebrows unintimidating without the scaffolding of metal frames to hold them in place. In the midst of this tableau, Jon had never seen his eyes so calm.
"Please, sir," he panted.
A rush of something bright and fiery soared through Jon's chest.
He decided to worry about exactly what it meant later, and pushed Stephen down for another kiss.
They ended up in a sleepy knot under the same quilt: Jon in the middle, Brian's hand on his stomach, Stephen's cold feet pressed against his bare thigh.
Brian was definitely asleep, and Jon had almost drifted off, when Stephen, who he had thought was already out, whispered next to his ear, "Thank you, Sir. I needed that."
"Shhh," chided Jon, too worn-out to fight properly about how even collared subs still deserve their own credit. "Brian gets grouchy if you wake 'm up."
Stephen nudged him with what might have been irritation if he hadn't been so sated. "Wasn't talking to Brian."
"Oh." Jon blinked in the dark as the implications of this set in. "Um. Thanks."
"Go to sleep, Jon," murmured Stephen affectionately, tracing the dark metal torque he still refused to take off, although (or maybe because) it was bound to leave a mark in the morning. "Wasn't talking to you either."
As he curled his fingers around Jon's wrist, Jon figured he could live with that.
Rating: R
Warnings: D/s; sex; mild religious content; gratuitous meta
Disclaimers: This is a work of parody. Although references is made to real persons, places, and events, the dialog, actions, and content are products of the author's imagination only. Fictional characters are property of The Colbert Report and its writers. All LJ usernames are fictional. Any resemblance to real LJ users, active or strikethrough'd, is purely coincidental.
Summary: Fic as written within the D/s 'verse of
sarcasticsra's The Way Things Need To Be. In which everyone gets their idea of their gender role shaken up a little.Prologue | Part 1 | Part 2 |
The Sword In His Mouth
Part 3
El Perro Fumando: Hey, I have a title idea for that fic.
El Perro Fumando: Or, at least, the source for one.
StarmasterShedemei: Let's hear it.
El Perro Fumando: Job 5:15:
El Perro Fumando: He saves the needy from the sword in their mouth;
he saves them from the clutches of the powerful.
StarmasterShedemei: . . . it's obnoxiously religious, pretentiously obscure, and vaguely phallic.
StarmasterShedemei: It's *perfect*.
For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.
—Psalm 109:22 (NIV)
Stephen was in full gentledom mode as he was ushered into the front room. He shook Brian's hand, kissed Jon's, and held out a bouquet of lilies and forget-me-nots that was very nearly larger than Jon was. The invitation had included the word "casual", which he had apparently interpreted as "full suit, except for the tie".
Jon himself was in his trademark grey and khaki. His dom was in jeans, which somehow still managed to look astoundingly classy.
"Let me take those," offered Brian, rescuing Jon from the awkwardly vast flower arrangement. "I'll go put them in some water, and finish up the snacks. You two, go sit over by the television. There's rope waiting."
Hardly had he nodded in the appropriate direction than Stephen was on the way over. Jon trailed in his wake, warmed by the suggestiveness of Brian's indirect order, hoping Stephen could sort out a comfortable place between them.
"All right, sit down and hold out your wrists," ordered Stephen when they reached the couch. Trying not to smile, Jon obeyed.
Keeping a straight face only got harder as Stephen fumbled with the velvet-blue ties. Either the other sub had no experience with knots, or he was nervous enough to have forgotten it all. At last he let go, a nascent smirk of triumph spreading across his features, only to have Jon give a twist and a wriggle and hold up the tangled length of rope with one free hand.
"Maybe you're just out of practice," offered Jon quickly when Stephen's face fell. "Mind if I give a demonstration?"
A sudden flash of interest, erased just as suddenly by a blush. "Wh-what would you know about tying people up?"
Jon shrugged demurely, focusing on his hands as they undid the confused knots. "Well, uh, I've used some of these things on Brian."
He could practically hear the widening of Stephen's eyes. "Brian? But he's so domly!"
"It's not about being a switch," explained Jon. "He just likes to have a better sense of how effective the bonds are. Their limits and so on. It helps him make things safer for me."
"Oh! So, then, if I got tied up by you, it wouldn't be a sub thing? Just a test?"
"It's whatever you want it to be, Stephen."
Stephen watched almost hungrily as Jon stretched the newly detangled rope in front of him. "O-okay. Go ahead."
When Brian came out of the kitchenette, a tray of fruit kebabs in one hand and a bowl of Doritos in the other, Stephen had taken up a comfortable spot on the couch, glasses off and wrists firmly lashed together.
He jumped when he spotted the dom, and began struggling against the bonds in earnest, a stark contrast to the halfhearted wiggling he had been employing a moment earlier. "This isn't what it looks like! I was just — Jon just wanted to—"
Brian cut him off with a word and a meaningful nod: "Jon?"
"Yes, sir." Jon tried to take a graceful seat, nearly tripped over the glass-paneled coffee table, and ended up half-tumbling onto the arm of the couch. Adjusting himself with a modest ahem, he began: "Stephen, calm down and listen to me a minute. Are you listening?"
The edge of panic hadn't left Stephen's eyes, but once his attention was turned away from Brian, he managed to pull together an air of indulgent superiority in spite of it. "Yes, Jon."
"You're comfortable telling me off, right? You always have been before, anyway."
Stephen nodded, though he was starting to twitch.
"Well, Brian's not going to try to dom you, no matter what this 'looks like'. I'm the only one he wants to order around. And if there's anything you aren't interested in, don't worry about what he thinks. Just tell me. Can you do that?"
"What, are you afraid I might be intimidated by your ability to marginally avoid falling on your own face?"
Jon broke into a smile, beckoning Stephen forward with a jerk of the head. "That's what I like to hear. C'mere."
He could feel Stephen's heart pounding as the other sub settled gratefully against him in a kind of no-armed hug. For all his bravado, Stephen's head was buried against the crook of Jon's neck as if trying to block out the sight of anyone else in the room; Jon slipped one finger into the loops of the rope and tugged his hands an inch closer, not rough but possessive, before glancing over his shoulder to check in with Brian.
Switch, mouthed Brian, with that eighth-of-an-inch quirk of the lips that was, for him, the equivalent of falling over with laughter.
Jon smirked and flipped him a good-natured bird.
Brian spent the whole game giving Jon a stream of low-level orders, which, by a strange coincidence, all had to do with Stephen.
Although he was getting a definite charge out of Brian's careful and methodical organization, Jon found himself almost unconsciously elaborating on the directions. Told to let Stephen lie down, head on his lap, he added a possessive hand on Stephen's shoulder. He hand-fed Stephen slowly, easing grapes and blackberries and chunks of pineapple between the other sub's lips with careful deliberation. When the Doritos came by, he left his fingers in place until Stephen had licked off all the cheese dust, so thoroughly that there wasn't a speck of industrial-orange left.
Stephen asked haltingly to be untied during the seventh-inning stretch, then made a beeline for the bathroom. On his return, Brian only had to give Jon a meaningful nudge; he even moved the subtly-proffered wrists behind Stephen's back before securing the rope around them.
Okay, maybe Stephen's 'even the subs want to dom him' vibe was getting to him after all.
And for that matter, judging by Stephen's flared nostrils, hitching breath, and sudden awkward scrambling for a very particular way to sit, Jon wasn't the only one affected.
He glanced over to check whether his dom had noticed.
Brian, being Brian, was already wearing a knowing smirk. "Excuse us a minute, Stephen," he said mildly as he caught Jon's eye.
Jon didn't know what to expect until he found his wrists pinned against the cushions, and the rest of him pressed into a slow, languid kiss. He opened to it immediately, goosebumps rushing down his arms as every nerve sprang into action...
...and heard a groan wrest itself from his throat when he realized that Stephen was openly panting.
He slumped immediately when Brian released him, flushed and admittedly breathless himself, a few loose curls flopping across his forehead. Brian just smiled down at him, unruffled as ever. "Should I ask what you want me to do to you? Or would that be a little too much for Stephen?"
Jon put on his most winning smirk. "Well, if you must know, I was kinda hoping you would tell me to play with him. Sir."
"Can I?" burst out Stephen. "Please, sir, let me borrow him, just for a while, please?"
He flinched when they both turned to him, anxious gaze locked on Brian, and not even the dom's slow smile — a snark-free one this time, eyes warm and sparkling — seemed capable of unfreezing him. When Brian dropped his gaze back to Jon, it had picked up a touch of anxiety of its own.
"Sir," repeated Jon, as demure as one can be when one is middle-aged and rough-voiced and has, let's face it, a well-deserved reputation for ripping apart a group of people epitomized by the dom to whom one is talking. "Let me?"
At last Brian released his wrists, nodding him in Stephen's direction. "All right, off with you. Show us what you got."
This time Jon managed not to fall on anything as he straddled Stephen's hips, bending down to capture his mouth. Stephen writhed under him, tongue wrestling with his so ferociously that Jon almost broke off to ask who the hell was fake-domming who here, anyway. Instead he bit Stephen's lip, getting a whimper and an ever more insistent arch for his efforts.
Head starting to spin, Jon lifted it and turned to Brian. Stephen tried to follow his gaze; Jon grabbed the other sub's head with both hands and twisted it away, then looked back at his dom. "Sir?"
Though his face held carefully deadpan, the warmth settled back into Brian's eyes. "Why don't you give him some Giant Head. I hear that's what all the stoned slackers are saying these days."
Jon's hips thrust forward of their own volition as he turned his attention back to Stephen. "How about it?"
Stephen's hair stuck out in loops and tendrils from between his fingers, shirt mussed enough that the glinting black collar poked out from under the silk, eyebrows unintimidating without the scaffolding of metal frames to hold them in place. In the midst of this tableau, Jon had never seen his eyes so calm.
"Please, sir," he panted.
A rush of something bright and fiery soared through Jon's chest.
He decided to worry about exactly what it meant later, and pushed Stephen down for another kiss.
They ended up in a sleepy knot under the same quilt: Jon in the middle, Brian's hand on his stomach, Stephen's cold feet pressed against his bare thigh.
Brian was definitely asleep, and Jon had almost drifted off, when Stephen, who he had thought was already out, whispered next to his ear, "Thank you, Sir. I needed that."
"Shhh," chided Jon, too worn-out to fight properly about how even collared subs still deserve their own credit. "Brian gets grouchy if you wake 'm up."
Stephen nudged him with what might have been irritation if he hadn't been so sated. "Wasn't talking to Brian."
"Oh." Jon blinked in the dark as the implications of this set in. "Um. Thanks."
"Go to sleep, Jon," murmured Stephen affectionately, tracing the dark metal torque he still refused to take off, although (or maybe because) it was bound to leave a mark in the morning. "Wasn't talking to you either."
As he curled his fingers around Jon's wrist, Jon figured he could live with that.
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However, this: 'even the subs want to dom him' made me realize that there is an alternate version of TV Tropes and now I want to waste hours of my life reading that one.
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...oh god, now I do too!
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And thanks :D
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That's our Stephen! =P
Yay, another chapter. I was starting to wonder when this would be up. I love it a lot, how you have the three of them working together. Gorgeous.
"Sir," repeated Jon, as demure as one can be when one is middle-aged and rough-voiced and has, let's face it, a well-deserved reputation for ripping apart a group of people epitomized by the dom to whom one is talking.
This is my favorite line. IDK why, but it really is.
Aaaaaaaawesome.
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The invitation had included the word "casual", which he had apparently interpreted as "full suit, except for the tie".
I laughed at that because it is so my personal fanon that Stephen tries to wear a suit everywhere. I even have a never-made-it-into-fic scene for the Needverse where he and Jon are going to be running errands (so, like, grocery shopping and whatnot) and Jon has to threaten to dress him before he puts on casual clothes. Which, considering Jon's fashion choices, was an extremely effective threat. =P
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BriWi is more than progressive enough to have a sub as independent-minded and intelligent as Jon, but he still has that slightly old-fashioned sense of chivalry. Which leads to a bit of a crisis of confidence here, when he turns on his best Stepford Domming and all Stephen does is freeze up. So Jon has to nudge him back to feeling that he's secure in his role - that, even though Jon is a satirist of his profession and an independent thinker and has a possibly switchy streak and appears to be providing the only domming Stephen wants right now, he's still very much Brian's sub, and very content with that fact.
And of course that all has to happen very quickly, because Stephen is still in the room and therefore must be attended to XD
And now I want to see Stephen in a Jon-mandated outfit. Just to find out how much it makes him squirm.
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(By which I mean, I was trying to figure out a way to better articulate why I love this dynamic after I left that comment. TY for doing it for me! =P)
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:D!
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I can't even imagine how wild AU Troper Tales would get. Working out these scenarios one fic at a time is hard enough XD
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So I'm guessing they're going to make this a permanent solution? I can't wait to read the Epilogue, and I'm hoping for some more meta! There will be more meta, right?
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The epilogue jumps back into the framing story. So, as in the prologue, the meta will be coming thick, fast, and undiluted.
Yay! ^^
This was surprisingly sexual. I'm guessing Jon had sex with Stephen and Brian had sex with Jon? Is Stephen freaked out by Brian because Brian is too much of a dom for him?
I have to say, starmastershedemei's fic sounds like it should be 30000 words long, delving deep into Stephen's childhood and gender role confusion with many chapters and sub-chapters. XD
I mean, what happened to Stephen to make him so sexist and un-dommable? Why does he accept Jon domming him so easily, and not Brian's? And won't his rigid view of gender roles cause troubles later? You know, with his insistance that the subs do all the housework and never say no. "Real subs don't have safe words."
Go to sleep, Jon," murmured Stephen affectionately, tracing the dark metal torque he still refused to take off, although (or maybe because) it was bound to leave a mark in the morning. "Wasn't talking to you either."
Is Stephen's dom God?? Or does he have DID and one of his alters is his dom?? LOL, I'm just guessing wildly. :-)
Looking forward to the meta. I wonder how the fans will take to Starmastershedemei's fic... Is sub!"Stephen" a popular trope? I mean this isn't even "real" straight sex (since Jon is a sub). It's faux gay sub sex!
Re: Yay! ^^
Stephen's in a pretty messed-up place. He's not attracted to subs, but he's triggered by intense domming; first he freezes, then goes into complete emotional breakdown mode. (There's probably a combination of "screwed-up family dynamics" and "abusive past experiences" feeding into that. The former predisposed him to the latter.) Here, he's getting a sort of lateral domming from BriWi, with Jon acting as a filter to screen out the scary elements. He's also getting domming from confusedly!genderqueer!Jon; in this case, their long friendship makes it easier for Stephen to trust Jon, which helps defuse the triggers.
...I don't know if I could produce that 30,000-word fic without falling back on rehashing stuff I've written before ^_^; But there is definitely more material than this fic (which was mostly just about pulling together the OT3) explored.
Stephen's rigid view of gender roles is causing trouble now. But when it comes to getting himself deprogrammed, Jon is probably the best candidate to help.
And, yeah, Stephen was talking to God there. (Thus why he was touching the clerical collar.) Which could also be read as slightly obnoxious from Jon's perspective ("I'm going to give the credit for your ideas to a deity you don't even believe in"), but in this case he doesn't mind.
I wouldn't spring DID on you in the last paragraph XD Although, come to think of it, he could have created Sweetness to be his own internal dom...
Re: Yay! ^^
This sounds like my reason for only reading stories about men that are written by women.
Awww I hope Brian got off, at least.
I wonder if Jon is a genuine switch. Or maybe he's just switchy for Stephen.
There's probably a combination of "screwed-up family dynamics" and "abusive past experiences" feeding into that. The former predisposed him to the latter.
Has he ever tried to be with subs - either as a gay sub or as a fake dom? And how long has been in drag, anyway? He must have a fake passport/driver's license, or else Jon could easily find out that he's a sub.
And, yeah, Stephen was talking to God there. (Thus why he was touching the clerical collar. Do subs usually take of their collars before bed?
Re: Yay! ^^
Jon is mostly sub, but has his switchy moments. Stephen may have been able to pull off dom drag at the DMV; low-level government functionaries are not known for their careful attention to detail. He may have tried to pull off a few relationships with subs, although they can't have been much fun for anyone involved. (Even a gay or bi sub would still be frustrated by his denial and closetedness.)
Don't know about subs in general - it would depend on the individual - but Stephen has a thing for sleeping in his collar. It makes him feel more secure and protected.