Chapter Text
Damiano usually didn’t like parties, but he did love attention, and he’d been particularly starved off that this past week. It was an amazing time, with the four of them in that rare state of in-sync inspiration when they got home. Everyone was switched-on and ready to create, and it felt like they’d written a whole other album before they collectively collapsed six days later.
But they’d barely left the house. For once, Damiano needed people. They’d just done some fucking amazing work, and he wanted the world to know it. In his best collar, tightest pants and sparkliest gun-metal eyeshadow, he overcame his secret shyness and danced everywhere and with everyone in this club, weaving and flitting around like he was the snake tempting multiple Eves.
Of course, there was only one he had eyes for. But because Ethan was Ethan, he barely even touched Damiano on the dance floor and kept retreating to their VIP table, supposedly to get drinks but really only sipping on some water. If he was a little more sober, Damiano might have noticed that he was the odd one out. The other three were exhausted and had to be nagged into coming out by Damiano, who was inexplicably (even to himself) bubbling with music and people and light.
But at this point, Damiano was too drunk to think about anything except how much he wanted Ethan’s adoring eyes, roving hands and bulging dick on him. So he leapt up the stairs two at a time to where his bandmates were sitting and stood over Ethan as he sipped a gin and tonic.
"Ethan, cucciolo!" He licked his cheek like it was a melting ice cream cone. "Now you're all juiced up why don't you ditch these losers and come dance with me?"
Ethan shook his head affably. "Not right now, Damia. You go enjoy yourself."
"But I wanna enjoy myself with youuuuu! C'mon Ethannnnnn!"
"Well Iiiiiiii," Ethan whined, mimicking Damiano. "Wanna chill with Thomas and Victoriaaaaaa! You go ahead. In fact, Thomas and I were thinking of going home soon anyway-"
"What?! But it’s ten p.m.!”
"Yeah, I know, and I'm really sorry but I'm just not feeling great tonight. I'll stay for a bit longer, have one more drink but after that I think I'll need a rest."
"And I'm also tired," Thomas added, drunkenly and unhelpfully.
Damiano pouted and stomped his foot, turning his puppy dog eyes on Ethan. "Please? Just one more song?"
Ethan giggled. "It's never just one song with you, Damia. I know your tricks: it'll be a mashup that goes on for half an hour without stopping. Come take a break, have a drink with us. You can dance with Vic once we're gone."
Damiano stood there and stewed for a good long moment. He’d been looking forward to this for ages, paid extra for the bouncer to save them a great table, and now his boyfriend was just going to leave him alone? This was such bullshit, so fucking unfair.
"You know what, Ethan? Fuck you!" His friends turned, staring at his sudden outburst. "We've been cooped up all week and now we're finally doing something I want to do, you just fucking sit there and won't even try to have fun!"
"I am having fun. My version of 'fun' just doesn't involve you." Damiano's face fell and Ethan immediately realized how terribly he'd phrased that. But he stopped feeling bad when Damiano retaliated.
"You salty little shit. You were so fucking needy all week but now you're avoiding my dick like it's poisonous. Why did you even come if you were going to be such a-"
"Damiano, leave him be!" Victoria yelled. "He's danced with you a bunch already and he said he wants to have a drink with us and then go, so stop being a jealous little prick and either join us or fuck off for a bit! If you want you can sit with us until they're gone, and then you can dance with me. Okay?"
They were both shocked that she'd interject like that but Damiano reacted first. "Umm, first of all, mind your own fucking business. Second, last time I checked you're not my boyfriend and you're a shit dancer. Third, we didn't dance: I danced and he stood there and swayed like some flimsy ass tree in a breeze. He barely touched me. He was trying about as much as he has in bed lately. Fourth, like I said, if he didn't want to dance then why did he fucking come?"
"I told you, Dami, I thought I was up for it but I was wrong. You know that happens sometimes," Ethan answered, like a parent explaining why their child can't have more cookies. "We’ve been working hard lately and we all need to unwind in different ways. For you and Vic, that may mean dancing, but for Thomas and I, that means getting an early night. I promise that we can go out again soon and-"
"Yeah. Right. Is that an 'I Wanna Be Your Slave' soon? Or a 'not tonight, amore' soon? Or-"
"What the hell is wrong with you? Just leave me the fuck alone!" Ethan roared. He even reared up out of his chair and pushed him in the chest, causing him to stumble into the railing.
"Woah! Okay," Thomas shouted to nobody in particular. Victoria held Ethan back, not that he was trying to do any more damage. The pair had no idea what button Damiano just pushed but clearly, it might as well have been marked red and locked behind a glass case.
Ethan immediately clamped his mouth shut and blushed when he realized how much attention he'd drawn. He started chugging his gin, only stopping when Victoria put a firm hand on his forearm.
"Hey, hey, steady…"
They all turned to Damiano. He had a white-knuckle grip on the railing, his lips were pursed and he wore a glare that could melt an iceberg.
"Fine. Cool," he spat. "You said your kind of fun doesn't involve me? Well, same here."
He took off his red collar with the silver heart and his name in the middle and dangled it over the railing, staring at Ethan the whole time with crazy eyes and a stuck-out tongue. He swung it vigorously from his fingers, giggling like a drunken fairy when Ethan startled in his chair, then did his trademark wrist flick at him, put the collar back on and strode haughtily into the pit.
Thomas and Vic may have been normies but even they knew that this was a major no-no. This particular collar was very special, usually only worn indoors; Damiano had begged Ethan to let him wear it out tonight, which is why he initially felt bad for having to leave early. In this context, taking it off in public, let alone pretending to almost drop it like that, was about as sacrilegious as if it were a wedding ring.
Thomas crawled on the floor to peer through the railings. Apparently while Damiano became a regular whore when drunk, Thomas was just a drama whore.
"Oh shit, he's found this guy...damn, he's really going for it," he slurred. "Heh, he's got long black hair. Kinda looks like you, Eth! Come see!"
"No need for the play-by-play, Thomas," Victoria said, but he ignored her.
"Oh shit, that's some...oh wow, he's grabbing his ass hard!" He grinned and waved, having obviously caught Damiano's eye. Ethan tried not to imagine him staring up and around the floor, making everyone want to be him or be with him, with no intention of revealing who he really belonged to.
"Thomas…" Victoria warned. "You're just giving him attention, which is the last thing he needs right now."
"Oh! Oh, they're...yup, definitely some tongue in there." Some whoops and cheers wafted up to the balcony, confirming Thomas' commentary. "Wow."
"Okay, you definitely need to go back home," Victoria ordered, yanking Thomas up and away by the arm, ignoring his disappointed grumble. "How did I end up in a band with so many goddamn lightweights?"
Victoria went to fetch a last glass of water for him, and Thomas was still lucid enough to see that Ethan was absolutely furious. His muscles were so tightly locked that he was shaking on his chair. He was perfectly still except for his chest, which rose and fell with barely controlled breaths under his sheer black top. He glared at some unnamed nemesis in the darkness ahead of him, everything else in the world seemingly unimportant beneath his rage.
Thomas noticed all this, but he wasn't sober enough to think that maybe talking to him while he was in this state wasn't such a good idea.
"Eth?"
No response. Thomas decided he must have not heard him and clambered over the table to yell louder into his ear.
"Ethaaaaaaaa-"
"What?" Ethan snapped.
"What Damiano's doing right now?" Thomas tutted and shook his head. "Not good."
"No. It isn't."
"Not good at all...it's not just you who thinks it. I do too." Thomas clamped a hand on Ethan's shoulder and it promptly slid off and hung limply by his side. "I've got your back, bro."
"Thanks…?" Ethan couldn't help smiling a little. Thomas always had his head screwed on, even when he was as drunk as an exiled monk.
"Are you gonna like...what's the word...punish Damiano now?"
"Yes, but not right now, Thomas," Ethan sighed. "I need to think about what I'll do to him first."
"Mmm. Right. Gotta make sure he'll never wanna do it again, right?"
"Exactly."
"Maybe you can go dance with somebody," Thomas sang to the tune of the Whitney Houston song before giggling disproportionately at himself. "Y'know? He went off with someone else so he can't get mad if you do the same thing to him, yeah?"
For the first time, Ethan properly turned to look at Thomas. Thomas' drunk brain saw that it had somehow cheered Ethan up, and celebrated internally.
"You know what, Thomas? Thank you. You've just given me an idea."
***
Ethan woke up with a hangover, and so did the other three. Unsurprisingly, Damiano was particularly keen to avoid him, spending most of the day at the pool while Ethan read in bed until his eyes went blurry.
As transcendently angry as he was with Damiano, Ethan couldn’t help being relieved that he hadn’t spent the night with anyone else, or even mentioned what he did afterwards. That should have been the bare minimum expectation, but Damiano could be unpredictably shitty at times. That’s why Ethan always had to keep him on his toes.
But Damiano was also inclined to surprising bouts of good behavior. He came back from the pool around an hour before dinner time and snuck into the shower, hovering outside the bathroom door before and after he was done. Ethan didn’t look up from his well-loved copy of The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. He wasn’t going to toss out a life raft this time. Damiano would have to swim through his silence himself.
He was honestly surprised that he managed it, though it took forever. He approached their bed like Ethan was a sleeping bear and sat on the edge of it, half naked and hunched over like he was already preparing for Ethan to whip him. His whimpering voice had a rawness to it that made Ethan wonder if he’d silently cried in the shower.
“I’m sorry, Eth. Truly, I am.”
Ethan kept his eyes glued to the book. “You should have thought of that before you treated my gift like it was a scrap piece of paper. Or before you made that repulsive display of yourself.”
Ethan wanted to leave it at that but his anger kept churning inside him, threatening to eat through his organs and bones. The image of an alternate reality where that collar fell and got stomped on had haunted him all day. He couldn’t not remember a tiny glimpse of Damiano he wished he hadn’t got as they left the club: him biting some guy (with short blond hair, so not the one Thomas had seen) on the neck like a viper, sucking his skin dry. He fixed his hard stare on the back of Damiano’s head, forcing him to turn and look at him, to see the hurt he’d caused.
“You always go too far, Damiano. With everything. All the time. You just never. Ever. Fucking. Learn.”
Damiano bit his bottom lip. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. He must have really regretted what he’d done. Or maybe he was just that terrified of what was to come. Ethan patted the space on the bed next to him twice and Damiano knelt there.
“It doesn’t feel right to simply spank or whip you for this transgression. I don’t think simple physical pain will be enough to compensate for the embarrassment and fear you caused me.”
Damiano was on the verge of a babbling apology but Ethan held a finger to his lips, almost tenderly.
“I have a new idea…” Ethan saw Damiano shrink into himself, eyes pleading for an easier way out. A new idea for a punishment from Ethan was always cause to be terrified. “But I want to make something very clear to you: if you have even the slightest doubt about whether you can handle it, I need you to safe word out.”
He emphasized his next words by placing his firm hands on Damiano’s brittle shoulders. “I am deadly serious, Damiano. I need to be absolutely certain that you are comfortable with it. It will be reciprocal and I will be certain that you have learned your lesson afterwards, but it could also endanger our relationship if we aren’t extremely careful.”
A jigsaw piece fell into place as soon as Damiano heard the word ‘reciprocal’. “You want to cuck me.”
“Correct.”
“…how exactly?”
“Well, I would restrain you, find a willing accomplice and we’d completely ignore you as we…well, cucked you. No hand or blow jobs, no sex, just groping and kissing and dancing and dirty talk, since as far as I know, that’s all you did last night?”
Damiano nodded furiously. “Yes, yes master. That’s all. I would never ever do anything more than that. I was just…being so fucking stupid. I’d never cheat on you. Ever. I hope you know that.”
Being called ‘master’ strengthened both Ethan’s resolve and his conviction that Damiano would behave after this, whether he was cucked or whipped, so he decided to try and have some fun with it.
“I do know. I know because you wouldn’t fucking dare to cross me.” His eyes shone and he flashed a sadistic smile. Damiano’s confusion was priceless; he wasn’t sure whether to treat it as a joke or a pure and dire threat.
“So, Damiano,” he said, turning fully serious again. “What do you think?”
Damiano nodded slowly and firmly. “I think it’s what I deserve.”
“But do you think you will be okay after it happens?”
“Yes.”
“Can you trust that this is a one-time punishment and I haven’t had and will not have any relations with this person again?”
“Yes.”
“And do you promise me that you will use your safe words responsibly and vigilantly?”
“I do.”
“You do...what? I need you to be specific so I know you understand.”
“I promise that if I feel even slightly out of my depth, I will use my safe words. ‘Seiyo’ if I need a break or if you should slow down, ‘shum’ if I need everything to stop immediately.”
Ethan felt more relieved than he expected to hear this. They’d negotiated these terms before many times, obviously, but it was always in a more casual setting, almost never being this openly serious and specific about it.
He rewarded Damiano with a “good boy” and a sentimental kiss, which he happily leant into. There were no sobs or repressed tears on his lips, and Ethan felt a rare swell of self-congratulation. They really were going to be okay.
“Get dressed and go downstairs for dinner. I’ll try to find an accomplice soon and once I do, I will give you more detailed instructions.”
“Yes, master.”
Until Damiano left, Ethan wondered where the hell he was going to find somebody trustworthy enough and near enough to their home who would be willing to do this crazy shit. He mentally ran through a list of some people he met at the first couple of BDSM groups and classes he joined. But then he idly opened Instagram and it was like the kink gods had answered his prayers.
The first photo in his feed was of Giorgia Soleri, an acquaintance of his, in a gorgeous suit (Prada, apparently) on a bridge watching the sun set.
The photo was geotagged in Rome.
Ethan did a tiny fist pump and pulled up a new window to message her. He’d thought that she was in Florence for a photoshoot and couldn’t believe his luck: a beautiful woman who he knew he could trust with a penchant for putting arrogant brats in their place. Sure, she’d only been in the kink scene for as long as Ethan, but he wouldn’t need her to do anything complicated. Far from it. All she needed to do was play along and understand that it was all for Damiano’s own good.
<<Hi Giorgia! Long time no see. We’re back home too so message me when you can. I might have a favour to ask you 😜>>
She texted back only half an hour later. The kink gods clearly saw that Damiano had been naughty and were willing to make the stars align to teach him a lesson.
<<Hey! So cool to hear from you! Hope the others are doing well. Yeah, I just got back from Florence this morning and it’s been really nice.>>
<<What kind of favour? That emoji looks...promising 😜>>
Ethan grinned malevolently, almost certain that Giorgia would agree. From the few conversations they’d had after learning about their shared predilections (they’d stumbled into each other at the same Rope Play 101 class and gone for coffee afterwards), Ethan could tell from her sparkling eyes and deceptively pretty fingers that she would make a gorgeous domme to someone someday. Or indeed multiple people – she wasn’t the monogamous type and was proud of that, which just made her all the more suited for his punishment.
He felt his cock twitching slightly, and who could blame him? He was going to mess with his boy’s head and Giorgia would be his partner in crime. That was enough to make anyone keen.
<<Damiano has been very badly behaved. He threatened to take off his collar last night and danced with strangers to make me jealous. I would like you to help me discipline him.>>
<< 😮😠 I’m in. Nobody disrespects my favourite dom and gets away with it 😛>>
He laughed. She was naturally and terminally flirtatious. If she was here in person, he’d tuck some stray hairs behind her ears and tell her that she’d get herself in trouble one of these days, throwing herself at taken men like that. If you’re lucky, you might even tempt one of them.
<<Are you free tomorrow night at 8:30?>>
<<Yes 😀>>
<<Excellent. 😈>>
<< 😈 😈 😈 😁 😁 😁 >>
<<I’ve gtg get ready – seeing a movie with some friends. But tell me what you have planned and I’ll reply later.>>
<<Of course have fun 😀>>
Ethan explained everything through voice messages and spent the rest of the evening boisterously buzzed. At dinner he tapped his feet, checked his phone every five minutes (mostly as an excuse to scroll through Giorgia’s feed) and made stupid jokes every other sentence, ignoring the sour mood around the table. At one point he got another alert and went to check his phone yet again, hoping…no, it was just Duolingo. He really needed to go into settings and shut that passive-aggressive owl up at some point.
“So, Ethan,” Victoria crooned, first making sure he was off his phone and then staring straight at Damiano from across the table. “Who’s the lucky lad? Or lady?”
Damiano’s hand froze above his plate. He slowly lowered his pasta-laden fork and closed his eyes.
Ethan stepped carefully, not wanting to say too much, but unable to resist treading on his boy’s heart a bit.
“He’ll find out soon enough, don’t worry.”
“Ooh, Ethan’s on the prowl! Someone’s in trouble!” Thomas jeered.
Ethan started fuming again. This wasn’t any of their damn business, and he wanted to kick himself and Damiano for making them privy to it all. He felt like they’d walked in on him in the bathroom with their phones, filming him for some stupid Instagram prank. But after he’d burnt out most of his rage that afternoon, he could step back enough to understand that he needed to cool off. He didn’t want to pull a Damiano and say something rash and stupid.
“I need the bathroom. I’ll be back in a minute. You two: don’t mention this again. This is between me and him. Understood?”
Three heads nodded meekly back at him. Despite Ethan’s usual reservations about getting others involved, flicking on his dom switch with his boy and two friends sent a tingle along his spine. He imagined those six scared eyes on his toned ass and swishing hair as he strode off to the bathroom.
He could have done what Damiano did so easily last night. Just give him one of his best dresses and some decent makeup and he’d have that entire dance floor at his feet. A horrid little fantasy planted itself in his mind: Damiano walking in on Ethan getting sucked off in a public toilet, complete with a villainous monologue. See, Damiano? You’ve got to be a complete whore to get anyone to notice you, whereas I make pussies wet and dicks hard through gentlemanly conversation and a couple of well-placed fingers alone. You can’t learn class, but you can learn to behave. And you will, no matter how hard I have to wreck you.
But this would be infinitely more fun.
***
Damiano perched on the edge of the bathtub, naked and shivering. Which asshole, he wondered, decided that porcelain, marble and steel should be the main materials that made up bathrooms? In a room where people spent most of the time naked, there was no excuse to make it with the coldest, hardest and most uninviting building blocks possible. There was nowhere comfortable to sit: on the toilet, in the bath, on the floor, on the edge of the bath, everywhere was unforgivingly ass-numbing.
Once again, he gave up trying to get comfortable and paced around the room, rubbing his arms and letting his eyes roam in rigid patterns tracing the tiles on the walls. Ethan had specified to bring nothing but himself so he couldn’t check the time on his phone. He was supposed to be here at eight so he went in ten minutes before that – any earlier and he might have interrupted Ethan’s prep. Not that there was likely to be much. All he really needed was this mystery partner for the night. The question of who that person was had been Damiano’s pink elephant the whole day: he tried forcing his brain not to speculate on it and only pushed it further into futile rumination.
Ethan had known that with time he’d fill the void of boredom and anxiety with his own miserable thoughts about who his fellow punisher for the night could be, how stupid and terrible he was and how his deserved comeuppance would take shape. And like always, Damiano had convinced himself that he was fine and could wait it out in this freezing cell of neglect, only to crack faster than a sheet of ice. Nothing had even happened and he was already chipping at his nails and holding back the tiniest of tears. No wonder Ethan never liked to punish him the same way twice in a row: his sub was so fucking predictable that he had to compensate and try in every way he could to break the same cycles of the same mistakes. Ethan’s words prodded him in the skull, as he was sure they would for a long time after this: you just never…ever…fucking…learn.
He leaned into the mirror and stared at the silver heart in the centre of the ruby red collar strap. He saw the tube light above the mirror ricochet off it so much more harshly than the dim disco spotlights at the club, even when he was literally dangling Ethan’s heart in his hand. It made him think of how some ancient societies used to punish thieves by chopping off the hand that took the stolen object. What was the word Ethan used? Reciprocal. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, attention for attention, lover for lover. If this wasn’t just a scene, if there really had been a risk of it all ending, there’s no question that Damiano would rather sacrifice his hand than his heart.
Maybe this time. This time he could learn and move on, drive away all his problems for good.
As if the universe was rewarding him for acknowledging what a massive fuck-up he was, the door to their bedroom opened. Something was dragged across the floor and then Ethan swung the bathroom door open.
Holy shit. He was kitted up in black-tie. That almost never happened, and it was a damn shame because it was always a treat. The white shirt and black pants strained slightly against his muscles while still fitting perfectly. He rested one hand on his shiny leather belt and the other in his pocket, confident and macho as a Tarantino character. He didn’t have a jacket and his bowtie was undone around his neck, giving him a dishevelled yet classy air that matched his wild hair. He may have felt better in an equally semi-formal dress and some heels, but Damiano liked to think of the two gender presentations as equal and opposing powers, two sides of the same coin that was his cool and sexy dominant.
Damiano would gladly have run to his master and embraced him, or gotten on his knees on the bruising bathroom floor, but he had to settle for following Ethan into the bedroom when he beckoned him. Ethan pointed to a wooden chair next to the door, facing the bottom left corner of the bed. Damiano knew the drill by now: he sat down and clasped his hands together behind the back of the chair. Ethan picked up some rope that he’d laid on the bed, robust and strong enough to hold Damiano’s body in place, but not too thick or scratchy. He tied Damiano’s wrists together first, and he wiggled his fingers without having to be told first.
“Good.” Curt, but a word of praise nonetheless. Damiano would take whatever he could get. One of the strange psychological paradoxes of BDSM emerged: he felt much safer and calmer as Ethan tied him up more. In fact it wasn’t tight enough at the moment – he couldn’t slip out of the binding on his ankles exactly but he could shuffle his feet quite comfortably around the chair legs. Ethan noticed the confusion on his face but couldn’t work out the cause through eye contact alone.
“You can speak at any and every point tonight, Damiano. I don’t want to give you any reason to hesitate if you need to safe word.”
“Okay. Thank you, master,” Damiano nodded. “I just wanted to say that you can bind me tighter if you want. I can handle it.”
He thought he could detect some arousal in Ethan’s laughter. “I know you can. I just wanted you to be sure that you could be freed quickly if needed.”
“I know I will be. I trust you, and I’d like it tighter…if that’s okay, master.” Ethan was being so soft that he’d almost forgotten that this was a punishment. He’d been burned by that trick before, and he probably would again.
“Alright,” Ethan responded, readjusting the loops on his ankles before redoing the knots around his legs and torso. As if he’d read Damiano’s mind, he started to answer the question of when he’d drop the act and turn on him.
“I know I’m being a lot gentler than you’d expected, Damiano. Especially given that this is a punishment. That wait in the bathroom was probably quite uncomfortable, and that’s the most physical pain I want you to experience tonight. We both know that what’s going to happen isn’t like anything else we’ve done before. I don’t want to rub any unnecessary salt into your wounds, since I’m sure that the emotional impact of it is going to be more than enough for you to deal with.”
Damiano’s lips curled on instinct, his bratty brain drunk on bravado. Ethan saw, his gaze darkened and Damiano wished his hands were free so he could make his little sign of the cross.
“You can smirk all you want. You can bluster and act like you’re invincible. But I know you.” He pulled the last knot around his chest tight then stepped back to inspect his handiwork. “If you want me to admit it, then I will: I’m nervous about this too. But I wouldn’t have even suggested it if I didn’t have faith that we could both handle it well, and that it will give you the repentance and absolution you need.”
He checked his phone while Damiano tried to sift through his confusion to work out what he was really feeling. He was thankful for Ethan’s honesty but also wasn’t sure how to feel about his own dom admitting that he was anxious about what he was about to do. But then again, there wasn’t anything on earth that Ethan wasn’t anxious about. He slipped his phone back into his pocket.
“She’s actually been waiting downstairs this whole time. I’ll go and fetch her.” He turned on his heel and left. A couple of minutes later, high heels clacked on the stairs, tailing Ethan’s steady steps. Damiano held his breath as the door swung open.
“Evening, Damiano.”
Of course. Giorgia. A sexy, kinky and smart woman. An amazing choice.
She strutted through the door and sat on the bed like she owned it. Her black dress with its asymmetrical sheer capelet and flowing yet firm material matched Ethan’s elegance perfectly. Whenever Damiano had seen her in the past, she’d always worn a quirky hat or scarf of some kind, and this time it was a velvety black fascinator shaped like a rose. Her makeup was the only thing that indicated that she wasn’t going to a night at the opera; her pale foundation and black eyeliner and lips were gorgeously gothic, striking without being overdone and making her look like a mime, with just a bit of glittery smoky eye for some razzamatazz.
She flashed him a genuine yet patronizing smile and set her sparkly black clutch down on Damiano’s bedside table. Already marking her territory, clever girl. He could already tell that she’d come a long way from the bright-eyed giggler learning how to tie knots and use butt plugs with Ethan. If her trajectory had been anything like his, she’d be a force to be reckoned with.
He’d met her a few times when picking Ethan up from his classes and had even invited her to stay for coffee a couple of times. Ethan and her had seemed to get along really well, which was and still is fine...but. Damiano's mind began to split in two. He knew that Ethan wouldn't go back on his word and do anything more intense than making out, but jealousy didn't care what he thought. The green-eyed snake knew that Ethan was pan, that Giorgia was hot and the two were friends, and that was more than enough to disturb Damiano's fragile heart and ego.
“Ethan told me that you’ve been very naughty, Dami. So he asked me to help him help you. To show you why you must never misbehave like that again.”
Her voice dripped down his spine like molten lava. He knew he couldn’t be turned on by this because he was gay and sultry femme voices did nothing for him, but his dick apparently disagreed. The way she said his nickname made him feel like he was six years old, being simpered and fussed over for crying over something stupid. Ethan could still only dream of making him feel that small with just one word. He swallowed and waited.
“She’s right, Damiano. Just remember that this is all for your own good, and you can safe word out at any time. Do you understand that?”
Damiano nodded.
“I need words, please.”
“…yes, master. I understand.”
"Aww, he sounds so sad!" Giorgia cooed. "Sorry, Dami, but you can't whimper your way out of this one." Was this arranged beforehand? A good-cop-bad-cop strategy? Or did Giorgia have a naturally cutthroat tongue? Probably both. The fact that she was a woman was bad enough, since that made her a sexual rival that he couldn’t fully understand and compete on the same level with, but her matching his brattiness and being so quick in her verbal jabs only twisted the knife in more. Ethan’s comparative softness showed Damiano what he was missing, what he could have had if he wasn’t such an idiot.
"Indeed." Ethan let the silence hang from the gallows between them. The only sounds he allowed were the steady clicks of his ebony black shoes as he stepped into Giorgia, furled his hand into the small of her back and guided her to him.
"So. Giorgia...now that we're alone…"