Come over, I said, and he came willingly, sweetly, with a squeeze for my hand and a kiss for my cheek. She looked up as he walked in and her eyes darted to mine for a moment, picking up on the heightening of my mood. Not an elevation, a sharpening. The thoughts had drifted in from the corners days ago, filling up my head and choking off any chance the light had to save me from what had started so innocently. If I weren't me I'd say that I tried to hold it off, but I can't claim that. If anything I opened the door and invited it in, made it tea, asked about the kids. It'd been awhile since this part of me had stepped forward, the crueler, cooler side. But it was different this time. For as strong as the pull was, I wanted to prove that I was stronger than it, that I could temper it down, make it more controllable. I knew that I'd have no chance of complete restraint once I got him into my room, but for once I wanted to do something beyond an art piece. This wasn't going to be done for lust or for joy or even to satisfy one of my many curiosities, but rather out of love. I was going to harness this power, to transform it into the strongest magic I knew and to use that magic to bind him to me in any way I could think of. He knew none of this at this point. He also didn't know that I had three cameras in my room recording three different angles with enough storage space for a week of film. He saw only my smile and my arms around him when I kissed him hello. My mask was on straight and seamless and I felt a cold coil shift in my stomach, the thrill running on little ice feet up my back as I realized what I was about to do. Formalities finished, I told the girl we'd see her later and, turning my back to avoid her worried gaze, led him arm in arm to my room. Over the threshold and in over our heads.

It started innocently enough. We sat and talked. Drinks were served. He took the glass from me without a hint of suspicion, even though he knows I occasionally add something or other to his drink depending on the effect I'm after. I hadn't this time. It was important he go into this sober. For once I was sober as well. Before it'd be coke, something to sharpen my edge. Or a bit of meth for a sharper edge with a nasty impatient twist to my attitude, and those were the nights that ended so quickly. Occasionally it'd be downers for him or for both, to give the proceedings a profound and dreamlike quality. But this time I wanted to be fully aware of everything without additions or subtractions. I had to be in complete control if I was going to keep the reins held as tight as I wanted. More than anything I wanted this to last. My goal was three days, but I was prepared to let it go for as long as I could, or as long as he'd take it. This wasn't to be a flash fire but a slow burn and his arrival had been the spark that got it started. This was the first night and I was easing into it. A few drinks weren't much but they made us friendly and we moved to the bed, allowing the natural progression. I was so forced into the idea of taking it slow that we kissed for nearly an hour before any clothes came off. The intensity level kept rising but even with the heat of his mouth around me and his hair wound up in my fingers, I was tightened down. The urge to yank his head up and rip into him immediately was just behind my teeth but I held it back. Not yet, not yet. We fell asleep naked, the surface barely scratched.

The next day progressed much the same. We spent most of it in bed, talking until we ran out of words and had to communicate with fingers and tongues, murmuring in consonants and vowels but rarely mixing the two. When we were hungry I brought him food. He ate from my hand, an honor which delighted me and made me proud of him and of myself and of us and even more certain that I was doing the right thing. Like a few of my friends, he had problems with food situations since childhood, especially when it came to people trying to feed him by hand. I didn't know this until the one time I triggered him with the "here comes the airplane" game. I felt so bad that I didn't realize he was upset that I never really tried to feed him again, or if I did I let him take the food from my fork rather than me stuffing it into his mouth, or I would simply hand him the fork preloaded. As he came to trust me more he would sometimes let me slip him a bit of candy, and I was careful not to startle him every time I did. But tonight was different, he was completely at ease with me poking food at him and it made eating much more enjoyable for me to know that not only was the food good, but now he trusted and loved me enough to let me feed him. When we were sleepy, we napped. Sometimes he'd spoon me, other times we'd sleep side by side facing each other with our hands clasped, with only that point of contact. Sometimes he slept flat on top of me with his face in my neck, sometimes the position would reverse. When we were tired of sleeping we would sit up and talk again about the past, the present, the future. I told him many things about the ways I saw myself, how I wanted to see myself, how I saw myself through his eyes. He would listen and tell me how he saw me, how he'd like to see me, how he saw himself, and then we would turn and twist that around, letting the conversation ramble. I learned a lot about him and a lot about myself. We closed gaps through words, spoke of dreams and fears and wishes and gossip and all manner of matters. The way he gets when he talks, the way his eyes move and his face animates, the way he stares at me with his guard completely down, all the little things he never does with anyone else but me. I saw these things, I understood them, I appreciated them. I appreciated him. We looked at each other with new eyes and smiled new smiles. It was perfect. Almost.

Later that night he was under me again. I hadn't been particularly rough with him and we were feeling terribly romantic. I was kissing him slowly but deeply, fucking him the same way. His face was flushed and he was gasping a little, his eyes a brighter blue than I can ever remember when he broke the kiss and hid his face in my shoulder, his hands patting at my hair and moving to my arm, pulling my hand up to his neck. Some men are leg men or ass men but I seem to be a throat man to some extent, it's difficult for me to kiss anyone without getting my hand around their neck at one point or another but with him it's a different thing entirely. I'm surprised I was able to hold off as well as I did even as I tightened my grip, watching his face turn a few shades darker, his mouth opening wider as he gasped for breath I wouldn't let him have. With my other hand I gathered his wrists and put them over his head, held them there and circled my hips, nudging his knees closer to his chest. He was so hard that his cock was burning my stomach and the slide of our bodies together loosened my hold on that control I'd been holding. Not yet. Above my fingers his lips trembled, eyes shining with tears as I twisted his head to the side and touched my lips to his ear. You're mine. You belong to me. I love you and I want you and you are not leaving here alive.I relaxed my grip and he started coughing, sucking air as fast as he could, his legs knotting around my waist as he turned his face to kiss me, still mostly breathless. So yours. Yours, Daddy. Fucking yours. 

When we were finished I kissed him and rolled him onto his back in the center of the bed. He gave me his hands one at a time and watched unblinkingly as I roped his wrists and tied them to the headboard. I left his feet free. I kissed him again when I'd finished and I was so full of everything, of love for him and of this rising boiling darkness. When I closed my eyes it was like a snow globe full of ink and red glitter back there and I didn't think I could explain this to him. I wanted to tell him that he hadn't done anything wrong, that this wasn't because I was angry. I wanted to tell him how much this meant to me and how this would be different than every other time before and how everything would be different afterward and how I wanted him to trust me when I said that this was important. He didn't say much. He must've known how unsettled I was and he didn't want to disturb me, he only watched as I left and came back with rolls of towels and a bowl of hot soapy water. He let me bathe him. He said nothing during the good hour or two I spent going over him an inch at a time, counting his scars, remembering how each had come to be there. When I untied him later he helped me unmake the bed and lay down plastic, then remake it over again so that it crackled when we knelt on it. I'd ruined my last mattress by forgetting this step, it's easy to get carried away and not realize just how bad the damage is until I peel the sheets off and realize that I've lost a pillowtop. But even plastic isn't 100% failproof as I would come to realize later. Eventually I felt more sorted. My head had stopped clattering and I felt myself dropping into a rhythm I knew. Everything aligned and I knew what I wanted to do, what had to be done in which order. Before I retied him I brought in sandwiches and we ate them together. It was a crap last meal. I should've made steaks or something elaborate, but it didn't work out that way. 

I retied him, sitting up this time. I'm not sure why, it seemed the right thing to do. After he was arranged I felt things shifting over, graying out. He was in place and the setup was done, there was nothing to do but everything. This is where it starts to run together, where what I remember starts to come and go like headlights from a speeding car in the dead of night, a momentary flash of recognition and orientation and then it's gone again. I remember kissing him with the blade first in my hand and then between our lips. I remember him licking along it hard enough to split his tongue and then lunging for me, kissing my mouth open and passing me a mouthful of blood. I remember him biting my lip until I was sure he'd bitten through it and kissing him until our chins were wet and all I could taste or smell was copper. I remember the flash of his eyes when he told me to do it, whatever it was, whatever I wanted, however I wanted. I remember twining my fingers with his and stretching his arm out as I held the scalpel like a pen and started writing at his right wrist. It was stream of consciousness and consisted of a lot of mine and love and more mine. This was strange paper that made its own ink and it got messy. Sometimes my grip on the pen slipped and then there was more of this slippery red ink, and sometimes the book made noises. When I covered his front I rolled him over and did the back. I didn't tell him what I wrote and to be honest, I don't remember exactly what it was but mostly it was a declaration of intent. I cut my symbol over and over again, deeper than anywhere else. I went so far into his leg that I was able to gouge it into the bone. I don't know if it was the noise or the pain that made him scream like that but I wanted him to keep doing it at just that level of intensity and sound so I began to experiment a little. I tried to put myself into him every way possible. When I ran out of natural entries I made my own. When he bled too much, I would cauterize. When he would faint I would back off and wait, bundle him until he was warmer, untie him and slap him more for fun than for effect, whatever I could to rouse him and then I'd tie him a different way and continue. His struggles and sobs were all the motivation I needed or could've asked for.

It went on for days, just as I wanted. I started with putting things into his skin and then started taking skin away. I took more than skin from his leg and, when he was lucid enough to understand, I cooked it over an improvised stove and ate it in front of him. I fucked him until it hurt me as much as it was hurting him and after awhile I only knew he was coming by the way his hips moved and by the sounds he made, I had drained him nearly dry. When I was forced to take a break from the sex I had a moment of frustration that nearly made me snap until I hit upon the idea of a more invasive sort of takeover. After taking a break to check email, to soothe/unsettle the girl and to smoke a little of a joint I'd found in my pocket, I came back in and unearthed some of my medical toys. He didn't move until I set my heavy leather doctor's bag on the bed, the thud of the handles hitting the side, the snap and creak of the clasp and the leather when I pulled it open and started rummaging for what I needed. I don't usually pull this bag out unless something drastic is going on or about to go on, and the implications of the sound must have pulled him out of his haze. I lay on the bed next to him and rigged up a tubing system that I thought might work and with his hand in mine I drew as much blood from my arm as I could while being able to function afterward, and when I was sure I wouldn't fuck it up I hung the bag next to his head and put the needle into his arm to reverse the process, laying on top of him with my fingers over the bandage on his leg, watching the level of the blood slowly sink as it flowed into his veins a drop at a time, my face next to his to feel him breathe, Mine. Mine. I love you and you're mine and I love you. His eyes weren't as bright as they used to be and he didn't talk much. I wasn't so much worried about keeping him alive as I was worried that he'd fall out before I had finished with everything I felt necessary and I held his head up and fed him broth a spoonful at a time. He was beyond beautiful, battered, nearly broken. My boy was in ruins and he wore them well, so well. I was in awe of his strength and his grace. Through it all he had cried for me, screamed for me, but never once had he asked for it to stop or even to slow down. As the days went by I came to understand that I never had to explain anything to him. He understood this as well as I did and probably more. It only made me fall for him further. I cared for him as best I could, while still finding ways to impress upon every part of him what I needed to say. I kept him tied through it all, arms out to the side, laying at a 45 degree angle, propped into pillows. He was in and out of consciousness, more out than in the longer it went on. I did not sleep much. When I did, I would doze on his lap with my arms around him, feeling the prickle of the scabs against my cheek.

The morning of the fifth day I blinked myself out of one of these dozes to find him barely breathing. In a panic I broke into my emergency stash and injected him with some cocaine. That perked him enough to get his eyes open and get him breathing better. I sat with him and rubbed his chest, feeling his heart thump against my palm, and I as I held him he started to cry. I thought it was drool until I lifted his head and saw that his eyes were wet. He rubbed his head against mine and kissed me, his lips swollen from damage inflicted earlier. My heart was aching, he was so radiant that he was nearly glowing, and he was so very mine. I wanted to keep him forever and I told him so. His eyes welled up, spilling over and he rubbed his head against mine again, lips moving. I had to hold his head up and listen with my ear almost against his mouth before I could make out what he was saying. Let me go. I will come back. But you have to let me go. My boy. My perfect, amazing, flawless boy who had borne this pain for me, who had indulged me to lengths I'd have never believed without ever asking me to stop finally made a request. He'd never had a deathwish until I gave him one. Another end for another beginning, all I had to do was open the door.

I held him for another long time. I told him things I'd already told him countless times in just the past few days. I promised him everything. I kissed him, pulled the breath from his lungs and gave it back to him mixed with my own. I licked his tears away and hugged him and kissed him again and again, telling him to hurry and to keep safe, that I loved him. That he was mine. That I loved him. And to come back to me. The bed crackled when I leaned over and opened the drawer of my nightstand, took out the box, opened it and pulled out the gun. We'd used it before, it was cold and heavy and familiar and buzzing with some of my favorite memories, the muzzle pressed sometimes to his forehead and sometimes to mine. This was a part of both of us, this inherent violence. It was interwoven into both of our beings and it was this that pulled us together and kept us together, this dance that wound us up and wound us down and sometimes just wounded us. The difference was that this time, the bullets were real. I loaded two into the chamber, closed it. I kissed him again, long and slow. He told me he loved me. I told him that I loved him too. I raised the gun and leveled it at his head for a moment before lowering it to his chest. The thought of all the pieces of my boy being scrambled by a bullet to the head wasn't something I could deal with. He was handling it better than I was, having found the strength to raise his head and look at me. He wasn't crying anymore, his eyes were crisp and clear as I cocked the gun and slid my finger into place over the trigger. By now I was crying, something I hadn't planned on. Even after everything he stretched out his foot and touched it to my knee, rubbing at my thigh as I knelt on the bed, trying to build up my nerve. I love you, Daddy. I told him that I loved him too and he smiled faintly, mouthed I know. I bit my lip, trying unsuccessfully to will my hand to stop shaking. This was how it was supposed to be. This was the last part of it. I knew this, so did he. Our eyes locked. Yours, he whispered. So yours, I echoed him, and I pulled the trigger. Twice.