Happily Ever After

By: Dash

Valentine’s Day - 2010

"Hi," I called as I stepped into the kitchen from the garage Friday evening. Traffic had been horrible, the cold rain making a traditional bad traffic day even worse.

"Hey, honey," a voice called from down the hall. "Give me like two minutes to finish up and I'll be out."

Tossing the mail carelessly on the table, I shook my head and laughed as I picked up the large, bright red dildo sitting there. The shipping box and wrapping lay scattered on one of the chairs. It was, except for the color, very realistic looking, down to the nicely shaped head and faux testicles at the base. I heard Harry walk into the kitchen and I turned around with a bemused smile on my face, wordlessly holding it up.

He grinned, taking it from me and tossing it back on the table. "Guys from Blowfish, wanting to see if it would work for a scene," he said casually. "Can I get a proper hello now?"

I leaned in with a sigh of mock frustration, kissing him deeply. As I relaxed into his embrace, I felt him relax into me. "I missed you," I breathed out between kisses as I kneaded his butt through his jeans. "It's been a very long week."

"Too long," he said softly, spreading his legs slightly to open to my hand. "Family room? I started a fire about 20 minutes ago. I thought you might like it."

Grinding myself against his hardening cock, I laughed. "Always prepared."

"I was a boy scout, you know," Harry said, laughing and pulling away. "That badge in fire making comes in handy now and then. Almost as handy as the one in track." Winking, he darted out of the kitchen, laughing as I charged after him.

The initial round was quick, filled with as much wrestling and laughing as kissing, as I captured him around the waist, pulling us both down to the floor. The lube was stashed in a small box on the bottom shelf of the coffee table and despite his faux protests, he was soon laid out face down on the soft blanket while I thrust deeply into him.

"Alex," he moaned, squirming, trying to rise and find relief. "Please."

Sinking all the way in, I leaned over him and kissed his neck, "Hush. You need to be taught a lesson on what running away will get you. You belong to me and it's been too long since you were reminded what that means." Grinding into him and kissing him again, I whispered, "What does that mean to you, Harry?"

He laughed, spreading his legs wider as I began to move again. "That I'll always be well fucked?"

I laughed, kissing him once again. "That's one way to put it, I guess."

"That your cock puts Frank and Alan and Jason and Anthony to shame?"

Laughing, I kissed his back, causing him to shiver and squirm beneath me.

"That I'm the best thing in your life?" he asked, his laugh cut off by a deep groan of satisfaction as I began to move again.

"Finally got it right," I said with a smile. "Maybe I should let you come."

He laughed, struggling to rise. "I think so."

I pretended to think for a minute before bending low and kissing him again. "No, I don't think so," I said, chuckling. I resumed my hard thrusts and had him moaning and begging again in seconds.

Now, one might think that finding a large, red dildo on the kitchen table would have inspired use that evening or at the very least required some sort of conversation about the toy. Or the names of other men being brought up and casually tossed about in comparison while making love would cause some issues. Maybe in some other houses, some other relationships, but not mine with Harry. I'm a book editor and Harry is...well, it depends on who you're telling.

To his grandmother, various aunts and uncles, neighbors and most of my work friends, he's a gay fiction writer and has several very nice titles to trot out and reference on Amazon. Nice safe covers, good story lines, little sex. To his parents, my parents, our close friends, he's a gay Adult fiction writer and as far as I know, most have never gone on Amazon to look up the titles. If they have, especially any of our parents, I prefer not to know. To me and a very small select group of friends, he's a porn writer, specializing in discipline and domination and submission stories and the occasional movie.

It's the third that really pays the bills; the rest is just for polite company. The market is huge if you can do it well. The trick is to keep it hot, but with a plot, erotic but not sleazy and you can have a great career. Harry has a wonderful career.

"So what's the red monster in the kitchen for?" I asked, lazily stroking his butt thirty minutes later. We were now curled up on the couch together, both feeling very relaxed after I finally gave in to his begging and let him come.

Harry sighed, stretching along me and spreading his legs slightly to allow me full access. I could feel him relaxing even more against me. "Oh, it's for a scene that Kelly and Alice are looking at shooting in their new movie. They remembered something in one of my books – Space Station 34 – where a sub was made to fuck himself on this mounted dildo for an hour as punishment for jerking off without his master's permission. In their movie, it would be a machine, but that just doesn't work for me."

I laughed. "Oh yeah, I remember that scene, very good. What don't you like about their changes?"

"It's too passive. I like the guy being a more active participant in his punishment, having to willingly submit and do it, not just lie there unable to move while he's being fucked. Besides, the dildo they sent me I think is too big regardless, but they think they have to go that big to make it look good in the shot." He sighed again. "I don't know, I really didn't give it much thought. They said no rush, so I'll deal with it next week."

"Yeah, it's the weekend," I agreed. "Time off."

He laughed, kissing my chest. "For good behavior."

Patting his butt, I said, "So does that mean you're off or working straight through?"

"Hey! I was being nice!" he protested, moving against me as he closed his legs against my advances. "Forget that, I'm getting up."

I pinned him against me as I gently swatted his butt. "I think you'll get up when I say you can get up." Nudging a knee between his unresisting legs, I spread them back apart to resume my stroking. "Maybe I should get that monster in the kitchen and fill this. It's Valentine's Day weekend, it is red and it seems very appropriate."

"As if."

Laughing, I fell silent, simply enjoying the heavy, warm weight of him against my skin, the sound of the fireplace crackling and the stillness of the house.

He sighed again softly and nuzzled against my shoulder and I felt him relax further, falling asleep.

I smiled, glancing down, and kissed his hair gently. It was ridiculous how much I loved him, so much that the desire to be close, to touch him, to be touched by him, hurt at times. We didn't have the perfect relationship by any means. We're a normal couple, for the most part, which meant normal, boring fights, laundry, yard work and plenty of normal boring evenings watching tv and eating leftovers. That was the part that initially scared me when we first got together. Or, actually, when Harry finally let me in on his secret job.

We were sitting in my apartment, pizza ordered, and flipping through DVDs trying to decide what to watch when he suddenly turned serious.

"Alex," he said, glancing at the carpet first and then back at me. "I've given it a lot of thought and we're getting serious here, talking about moving in together …" He paused, waiting for me to nod before continuing. "And before we really get too serious, I think I need to tell you something, but you have to first promise not to get mad."

As I settled onto the couch, all I could think of was that in the history of relationships, a conversation that starts off that way rarely ends well or with the other person able to keep such a promise. "How about I promise to let you tell me what you need to tell me completely before I say anything?" I countered.

Chewing his lip slightly, he thought and then finally nodded. "OK, but promise."

Glaring at him for a moment, I nodded, feeling very stupid. "I promise."

"So you know when we met at Dr. Kostov's book party for that god awful Russian history fiction book?"

Silently, I nodded.

"I told you that I was a writer too and stuff?"

"You really didn't write those?" I asked incredulously.

He glared at me. "You said you'd let me tell my story!"

I glared back at him. "Then spit it out, Harry, and stop dragging it out. What do you need to tell me?"

Taking a deep breath, he said in one long breath, "I wrote the stories I showed you, of course, I didn't lie to you, Alex. But I also write other stories and movies – adult, like Capital A Adult, porn if you really want to be blunt about it, movies and stories. Ones with a lot of sex, domination, discipline, some nice toys like plugs, chastity stuff, but nothing sick like torture or anything too too kinky, but certainly nothing that you'd read or watch with your parents." He took a deep breath and gave me a small smile. "I'm really good at it and very well respected. I've worked with some of the best in the industry. But I'm really into – personally, too, I mean – domination and discipline. Nothing too kinky but …. stuff like that."

I think that Harry could have told me he was actually straight and had just been experimenting for the last six months with me and I wouldn't have been more surprised. There had been nothing in our relationship that had hinted at this little revelation. "So," I finally said, "You wrote the books you showed me and you're writing that other book, American Son, but you also write porn scripts?"

"And Adult fiction and I consult on porn movies, even if I didn't write them, and yeah, the normal boring books that you've seen."

"I though they were really good," I said numbly, "not boring at all."

He moved closer and picked up my hand, kissing it slightly before squeezing it. "I didn't mean boring in a normal way, Alex. I just meant vanilla. I really love those books too, they're important to me and I'm very proud of them."

"Then why are you writing ... porn?" Just saying the word made me feel slightly weird. I wasn't a prude at all, but I always had a picture in my mind of someone who was in the Adult Industry, especially movies, and it wasn't someone like Harry, with his Masters in English Education, three years of teaching as an adjunct and just so .. normal. He liked Jeopardy and Scrabble and visited his parents every few weeks. People in the porn industry, in my mind, didn't even have parents.

Laughing, he moved closer, nudging against me until I numbly moved my arm and drew him close. "Because I wasn't finding what I wanted in books being written before. Well written, hot sex with discipline and submission and domination that was loving, not creepy or scary or angry but just ... good." He shrugged against me. "Plus I've got a great imagination and it's a great outlet."

"So do you want me to ..." I paused, searching for the words and wondering if I really wanted to ask. "So do you want me to dominate you or submit to you?"

He grinned, leaning over and kissing me as he placed his hand on my cock. Stroking it through my jeans, he whispered, "I love it when you fuck me long and hard and take away all sense of control I have."

His words and actions dissolved at least some of the building tension and I laughed, capturing his hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. "So does that mean you want me to spank you, fill you with a huge butt plug and lock you in some sort of chastity belt?" My grin widened as he blushed. "So?"

"Well, we can talk about the whole chastity thing later, but the rest…."

We never did seriously discuss chastity, but the rest was discussed numerous times and more or less easily incorporated into our relationship. In reality, spanking Harry wasn't actually that hard once we were living together and I was dealing with him, his moods, habits and occasional bad attitude 24/7.

It turned out that one of the reasons for the specific timing of Harry's revelation was not just his desire to clear the air before we got serious, but that he had been invited to a convention in Las Vegas and wanted me to come with him, as his partner. Then a gay cruise and then an alternative literature convention and so forth. Vacations were often very interesting, to say the least.

However there was one part that I still struggled with, especially on holidays like this. I'm sure there are some relationships that are just like books-- high romance, always saying the Right Thing at the Right Time with the Right Gift--but it's never been a relationship I've been in. This one with Harry was no exception.

"I'm not perfect," I told him finally one evening out of the blue

He glanced up from the magazine he was reading and smiled. "I don't know that I agree with that, Alex."

Shaking my head slightly, I said, "No, I'm being serious here. I'm not perfect." I glanced off into the distance before jumping in with both feet. "I might forget our anniversary until the day before, I won't always keep my temper, I can't promise to always perform the world's most amazing feats in bed."

"Oh, so you think you're performing them now in bed at least part of the time?" he asked, with a completely straight face.

I was shocked into silence for a moment, my fears crashing in on me, until I saw his lips start to twitch as he held back a laugh. Rolling my eyes, I said, "You know what I'm trying to say, Harry."

He smiled, putting down his magazine before leaning over and kissing me. "Alex, I love you. I love that you're not perfect and I never, ever, got into a relationship with you because I thought you were perfect."

"But I can't compete!" I said angrily, hating how my voice sounded with its cross of frustration and petulance. "I can't live up to your expectations."

To his credit, even though I saw his mouth twitch again, he didn't laugh.

"It's not funny," I shot back, not pacified by his restraint.

Shaking his head, he asked, "Who do you think you're competing against though? You're my first real, serious relationship and you know that."

And he was right; I did know that. Harry had been very honest about his past and I knew that's not what I was competing with. Glancing down for a second, I swallowed my pride and admitted the truth. "I'm competing with Frank and Alan and Jason and Captain Johnson and the head of that club and ... the worst is your imagination."

He looked at me, meeting my gaze and then slowly leaned over and kissed me again. "I love you, Alex."

"I know, but I can't live up to what you imagine or the characters you create and certainly not their relationships. I just can't."

"But I'm not asking you to," he said softly, moving closer, nudging me.

Without thinking about it, I instinctively knew what he wanted and pulled him in, settling him onto my lap.

He drew even closer, curling around me with a smile. "This is what I'm asking for and what I want."

"What?"

"For someone to know me and to love me and to want me as much as I want him." Kissing me again, he said, "To me, that's perfection." He laughed and bumped me with his shoulder. "And in case you hadn't noticed while you were so busy cataloging your own faults and failings, honey, I'm not exactly perfect either. The Brats and subs I dream up are a hell of lot better than me." He shrugged and smiled. "This is real life, that's fantasy and not where I want to live."

I still remember that conversation every time those same fears surface, as they are prone to do once in awhile. Like now, because regardless of how right Harry was - he's not perfect and I would never expect him to be, just like he doesn't expect me to be – Valentine's Day is still filled with expectations. And, to be honest, I still needed to run to Target and at least get a card and some candy sometime before Sunday.

The End