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He kissed Charlie’s ear, squeezed his shoulder, and was gone.
* * *
The next day, Charlie woke up exhausted. He hadn’t felt this way in a while—overwhelmed by the fact of his own life.
Rye found him in the living room after dinner, staring at the wall.
“Was I too harsh yesterday?” he asked softly. “I’ve been trying to be... I dunno. Like, casual about this because it’s all fine. But I didn’t mean to be like ‘deal with it’ and then leave.”
Charlie sighed. “You weren’t harsh.”
In fact, it had been a surprise for him to find out how generally nonharsh Rye was, given some of their early encounters. Once Charlie had realized that Rye told the truth even when it would be more socially acceptable to offer empty niceties, he had no longer thought of him as harsh.
“What’s up, then?”
Charlie let his head drop against the back of the couch and closed his eyes.
“If I can’t stop thinking about it then it must mean something, right?”
“Probably.”
“It must mean I want...that?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Why would I want that?” he asked quietly.
This was the heart of things. Charlie didn’t randomly fixate on things he cared nothing about. He wasn’t someone who obsessively tracked down an etymology or historical oddity just because. Jack did that. Simon did that. Charlie didn’t do that. If he was spending days ruminating on getting spanked, it was obviously because he wanted to get spanked. He just didn’t understand why.
Rye sighed.
“It doesn’t matter, baby.”
“It matters to me.”
“Okay,” Rye said, curling up in the corner of the couch. “Well, it feels good. So there’s that. For some people it kinda acts as a...what do you call it? Like a release valve? You’re upset or sad or whatever and you can’t quite tap into those feelings about that thing cuz it’s hard, so then when someone spanks you, you can cry about that instead and it’s a relief. Some people are into lots of different kinds of impact play, spanking included. Ummm...”
Rye stared up at the ceiling, like he was reading from a list.
“Oh, right, then there’s people who were spanked as kids and linked it to sexual development. What else, uh? Some people like being forced to accept punishment or pain because it proves to themselves they’re strong... There’s lots of reasons.”
Charlie blinked.
“What?” Rye said.
Charlie shook his head.
“I guess I wasn’t expecting there to be a real answer.”
Rye shrugged.
“Real? Whatever. People have all different reasons, including no reason at all. Whatever’s useful to you.”
“Fuck useful,” Charlie muttered, because it seemed as useful a thing to say as any.
Rye snorted.
“That’s the spirit.”
The next thing Charlie knew, Rye was in his lap, hands on his face.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to weird you out. You’re doing all this shit to help me and I’m like ‘Hey, never thought about sex, cool, wanna get spanked?’” He shook his head. “Maybe we should just hit pause on the sex stuff.”
Charlie laughed.
“I like you so much,” he heard himself say.
Rye’s startled eyes shot to his.
“You do?”
“I really do.”
He leaned their foreheads together.
“I...me too,” Rye said, and Charlie could feel his forehead wrinkle as he scowled.
“Rye?”
“Hmm.”
“Would you...”
Charlie cringed around words he couldn’t speak and Rye’s lips found his.
“You want me to spank you, baby?” Rye purred.
And impossibly, inexplicably, Charlie nodded.
Wordlessly, Rye stood and offered Charlie his hand, not looking at him. He led Charlie into the bedroom Rye had been occupying these last weeks. It was smaller and darker, shaded by a large blue spruce on the side of the house. With the sun setting, the room was cloaked in shadow and Rye didn’t turn on the light.
He led Charlie to the bed and slowly, dreamily, helped him out of his clothes. He took off his own shirt but left his sweatpants—which were actually Charlie’s sweatpants—on, and sat on the bed, back to the wall.
“Lie down on your stomach, here.”
Charlie laid himself down.
“Close your eyes.”
Charlie closed his eyes.
“I’ll stop whenever you want,” Rye said.
Charlie nodded, and tried to relax for the conversation that was about to come.
But what came wasn’t words. It was a firm thwack to the meatiest part of his right ass cheek.
Charlie jumped in shock. Then Rye’s hand rested on the small of his back.
“You okay?”
Charlie felt ridiculous. What the hell was he doing? What the hell was he asking Rye to do?
A sound came out of him that he’d thought would be embarrassed laughter but it wasn’t. It was some kind of hybrid of a groan and a whimper and Charlie buried his face in his arms. He should tell Rye to stop. He should tell him this was absurd and mortifying and that he didn’t have to do it. He should tell Rye that he was a grown-up and was perfectly capable of...of...
What?
The second hit was a quick stinging slap that sent prickles through his skin. It, too, was followed by a calming hand on his back.
