Page 53 of Yours on the Canvas

Jack

The house is too quiet when I’m left to my own devices, but today, for the first time in my entire life, the silence doesn’t feel like a cage waiting to snap shut.

I’m sitting at Silas’ kitchen island, nursing a mug of coffee, doom scrolling, but my mind is wrapped entirely around the memories from last night.

Around Silas.

My cock twitches as my body remembers the weight of his hard, solid body pressing down onto mine. My skin tingles at the ghost of his lips, and how his hands mapped every inch of me. But what I also remember is how his touch hadn’t made me flinch. Silas had anchored me last night, took care of me, and I trusted him completely, especially when my mind is in my space.

My finger runs along my bottom lip, still feeling the tug of his teeth. He staked his claim on every inch of me, and I loved every second of it.

A warm flush rolls up my neck just remembering the way he spoke to me; raw, filthy, and entirely unashamed. His words, Pussy. Fill me, calling me his good little boy. Holy fuck, I lived for every second of it. He’d given me words I never knew I was allowed to crave, tearing down the walls I’d built over the years around my own desires and he had rebuilt them with worship.

I want more, and that realisation doesn’t scare me anymore; it thrills me.

For years, my body was something to be managed, bruised, or hidden away. My wants, my needs, and desires were deemed filthy and disgusting by my uncle. So, I learnt to hide who I actually was when I was young.

I remember when my uncle found out I was gay. I was ten, right before my mother died. He had overheard me telling her about a boy at school I liked, how I thought he was cute and wanted to kiss him.

He waited until I was back in my room before he came in. He called me disgusting, a faggot and that I was unworthy of being part of the family, claiming it was against God and everything they believed in, that it was pure immorality.

But the worst part wasn’t even the beating that followed.

It was the poison he was happy to pour into a ten-year-old boy’s ears: that no one would ever want me. Not my mumma, my dad, not my family, nobody. That the kids at school would hate me and I would never belong anywhere.

I had hooked up with older men before, but none of them ever satisfied me. None of them knew how to handle me. I was a freak who couldn’t be touched, because how were you supposed to fuck a guy who couldn’t even handle being held, let alone someone who needed a man strong enough to actually dominate me? They all just saw a fighter, and even if they never said it out loud, I knew I scared them.

But after hiding who I was for my entire life, Silas has given me my identity back. He has shown me that my wants, my needs, my desires—they are who I am.

Silas speaks a language with my body, one we are learning together, and by god, I want to speak it fluently.

I trace the rim of my mug, a soft smile tugging at the corner of my mouth as I think about him. It was still dark when he left this morning, heading off-grid on a mission, wrapped up in his tech and his shadows. He had told me last night he had to leave around three and that I didn’t have to wake up, but I did anyway.

We kissed goodbye at the front door, and I stood in the frame, watching his tail-lights disappear into the dark.

I realised then that I wanted to do that every time he left; wake up, make his coffee, and kiss him goodbye when he went to work.

Finn is probably already at the gym, grinding away. I’ll head into the cafe later, but right now, in this fortress Silas built for me, I’m entirely alone.

I’m rinsing my cup, about to head for the shower, when a sharp, heavy rap echoes through the house. The sound hits my chest like a physical blow, shattering the quiet instantly.

My breath catches because nobody knows I’m here.

The PalMerc team made sure of that, and Silas swore no one could ever find this place. The pounding on the door strikes a raw hit of panic right through me; who the hell could it possibly be?

The knocking is louder this time, more insistent.

I freeze at the noise, my mug slipping from my fingers to clatter loudly against the porcelain sink. My heart slams violently against my ribs that still ache when I breathe too deep.

Panic, cold and sharp, floods my veins, dragging me backward through time.

I’m ten years old again, lying under a dusty bed, holding my breath while heavy, hateful footsteps shake the floorboards.

* * *

“Jack.”

Uncle Ray calls through the thick wood. His voice low, dripping with a familiarity that makes my stomach turn.