At first everything was perfect.
The two men spent a lot of time at Dorian's country house, communing with nature and spending long nights under the sky.
When they were back in London, Ethan enjoyed being the undisputed partner for the man famous for his roving appetites. Ever the dominant, Dorian liked showing off what he was doing to destroy to the anatomy that was reserved for his use. The fact that it seemed to belong to the beefy bodyguard who, up until recently, had been dominating him was a delicious revenge.
The couple watched the other action at these parties and it stimulated what they did together. But what Ethan especially liked were their times just the two of them. He gave himself completely to his mate, and since they were both enjoying the process of him being claimed and dilated once again, this time with the smaller form overpowering the bigger one, Ethan felt as though nothing was left out by their reclaimed identities.
He did feel his old wanderlust again, and with Dorian's fortune they were able to venture far onto the continent. Now that he had all of his trained nerves back at his command, though. Ethan insisted upon stealing whatever they needed along the way. He gave lessons in outdoor survival skills and picked fights so he and Dorian could analyze them afterwards.
Gradually, however, Dorian began absenting himself from their house. It was always very casual: a special invitation here, an old friend he happened upon there.
It hurt Ethan to no end to think that this love affair arranged by supernatural forces was not enough for his lover. The American had never pledged himself to anyone besides Silver Bow, but commitment had meaning for him, and he was past the point of no return with Dorian.
It didn't take long for Dorian to start taking part in the action during his naughty soirees. Ethan would sit there, receiving stimulation from his mate while the latter kissed, fondled, filled another. Male or female, it didn't matter. In either case Ethan felt ashamed that he was being shown as not enough, and that he needed Dorian so badly that he would accept any scrap Mr. Gray deigned to throw him.
A hundred times, Ethan set out to run away. But he never stayed away for longer than a day. He felt a magnetic pull drawing him back to the only place where anything made sense—in Dorian's arms.
One day he came home to several guests in their bed. That was one step too far. Ethan roared at the interlopers until they disappeared. Then he loomed over the genuinely puzzled Dorian.
"Is this how it's going to be, then?"
"You were welcome to join in. Are you less interested in women joining in these days? I could adjust my invitations accordingly."
Ethan stayed out all night walking. He returned for the breakfast that was now always laid for two at Gray Manor.
The next soiree, Dorian enlisted a big man from the audience to take over what he was doing to Ethan.
Ethan was so desperate to please Dorian's roving eye that he accepted the stranger. He fancied that there was an unusual tenderness in the way Dorian kissed him while the other man exploited him before the others. After such a display, Dorian might avoid others' company entirely while he evoked what he'd seen Ethan do with another man.
These days with Dorian all to himself were a paradise for Ethan. He also shamefully enjoyed being shown to have no respect or will of his own. At that point the men teased him until he begged to take them in his mouth and Ethan obliged. Mr. Frawley's pictures captured some expression between desire and humiliation on his face.
Life was a blur of self-hatred and contentment, and he was powerless to figure out which was which or how to stop any of it.
Sometimes Ethan would stay away briefly, just to show his lover he was still capable of it, but the truth was he counted the minutes until he could be back in Dorian's commanding presence.
"I'm so glad you're back. I have plans for us," Dorian said from the breakfast table. He'd not regained his silken dressing gowns and other garments, but had enlisted a tailor to make simple, more outdoorsy clothes. He had complete control over Ethan's wardrobe, however.
"What sort of plans?" Ethan asked, aware that his excitement was evident. "Are we going to spend time with one of your toys?"
"Today is going to be all about you," his partner said with a slim arm wound around the big frame. "I know exactly what you like."
His heart quickening despite himself, Ethan followed Dorian out into the seamier district of the city.
"You sit right there," Ethan was told. He settled on a gilt couch. "And I'll see about the entertainment."
In a few minutes two handsome, strapping men took the stage. Yes, Dorian did know exactly what Ethan liked. But where was he?
A smiling Dorian Gray joined the two men onstage.
Before Ethan could protest, the two men began stripping the slender man. They induced him to take them in his mouth in turn, and then they took turns using him until they finally took him together.
Ethan forgot to be upset for a few minutes. Dorian didn't enjoy this sort of thing—certainly not being taken. He was always the man in any relations with men. The small man onstage kept eye contact with his mate in the audience. There was something about the look on Dorian's face as he was subjugated and used that began to make Ethan uncomfortable.
The passive male was wiping his face to clean off the tribute from both his partners when he nakedly flung himself on the couch by Ethan's side.
"What do you think, love? Looks delightful, doesn't it?"
A furious Ethan slammed out of the brothel.
He needed nothing other than the clothes on his back. He hitched rides when he could or else stole what he needed for a train ticket. He made it all the way to Ireland before his moon cycle began.
There was a rich, vibrant quality to the countryside and Ethan enjoyed every minute of running by himself. He hired himself out as a farm laborer and moved from place to place. This was where he would have liked to settle with Dorian. There was none of the dishonesty and dirt of the city. Nor the claustrophobic nosiness of English villages. He slept out in the open sometimes, or in hay lofts. Sometimes he found a longer post that offered room and board, but he never stayed too long.
While he wandered, he talked to Silver Bow. Or at least, the sensation that he fancied still hung around him, telling him there was somewhere or someone to be in this aimless life.
The first person he attacked didn't die, but they very nearly bled to death in the pasture where Ethan's wolf-self bit him.
Some conscience asserted itself at the last moment, and Ethan bayed before a house until someone came to investigate and found the injured man.
He bit three people the next night, and two the following, shallow wounds so that he could slake his thirst without leaving a lynch mob.
The taste for blood lasted long after the moon cycle ended, however. Ethan traveled as fast as he could from his crime, but some reawakened urge followed him.
Ethan started boxing at amateur rings, punching whoever, threatening travelers in the dark. Anything so that he could let out his need for violence.
As the next moon cycle approached, Ethan was sure he wouldn't be able to control himself this time. His sensitive nose scented a village with enough people to choose from but not enough to pose a serious threat.
The first night, he scented his quarry and began following it. A man crossing a heath after spending some time with his girl. Totally not paying attention.
The wolf tensed his muscles and poised to lunge.
Another wolf came out of nowhere and wrestled him to the ground. It was difficult to think with his wolf-brain, but his body was responding to the reappearance of Dorian Gray.
To get his point home, Dorian nipped at the other wolf until he drew blood. Ethan hung his head in shame and felt the human victim running away from the snarling.
He followed the dominant wolf, running and tussling and then eating a few stoats and rabbits together.
When the sun came up Dorian put his clothes back on and then followed to where Ethan had left his.
They found a pub that would sell them an early-morning ale and sat on a bench in silence.
"Why did you run away?" Dorian asked with a real note of hurt.
"I don't know what there is to tell. If you can't see something wrong with being with all manner of strangers after all we've been through together, I can't explain it to you."
"We've always enjoyed varied distractions," Dorian said.
"It's not the same now. Not after all this," he pointed back and forth to their bodies. "I don't know what it feels like to you, but us, this is what it's like to be mated to someone. I feel you everywhere, during moon times or not. I don't want to feel you fornicating with all and sundry." He staved off his friend's objection. "Everything I do is to please you."
Dorian was touched. "Is that what I am supposed to do? Settle down with you?"
"Stop asking what you're supposed to do," Ethan retorted. "Nothing has been mapped out. Not us. We could have done things differently, both of us, but we didn't. Call it convenience, but I can't get you out of me now."
The larger man with a lowering brow regarded the smaller one. It was pointless to have this conversation. Dorian didn't know how to love. Ethan told himself he was foolish to read anything into their relationship, many times a day.
Dorian stood up and moved them outside into the sunny morning. He ghosted his hand near the other arm. "I am much less worldly than you, Ethan. I had not realized we had gotten so far into foreign—foreign for me— territory until you pointed it out," he said with soft candor. "I need time to think about how our relationship is to progress, but do know I have no desire to cause you pain."
"You have a strange way of showing it!" Ethan burst out. "You think I enjoy being your cherub and your beauty? I like some of the things we do together at these parties," he blushed, "but you have a way of lording it over a man, humiliating me about something we both like."
"You feel humiliated by me?" Dorian struggled to understand.
"You show people how submissive I am when you make me follow your orders at the salon." Ethan hated admitting it. Then, unconsciously, he reverted to the earlier hurt when they had exchanged bodies. "And everyone looks and assumes I'm the weaker one, when they don't know that you never learned how to throw a punch before I schooled you in it. You used to break a finger every time you got in a fight, but your special powers heal you so fast that you didn't have to learn to do it right."
He wheeled on the smaller man. "You didn't earn this body, this knowledge, these instincts. I did. I know why it's important to cling to the few good things you get in life because there's not much of it to go around. You've never wanted for anything, Dorian, how do you know when the games leave off and the true bits of life begin?"
The American stalked ahead into the fields. His companion rushed to catch up.
"You make me realize I've wanted some things without knowing it," Dorian whispered. "I didn't like you being gone, and I very much don't want you to throw away our life on some incidental kill. You've mastered the art of living with this condition—why are you forgetting what you know?"
Ethan was always ashamed when this big question mark came up. He had no answer. Instead he returned to his list of hurts. "And that's another thing, you can't claim ignorance about what you did to me the last time I saw you. That hurt me."
"With the two men? I hurt you?" Dorian's lip curled. "I would have said I got the most painful end of that bargain. And I did it for you."
"You whored me out and made me watch without being able to do any thing about it!" Ethan could finally give voice to that day's humiliation. "Just what you wanted to make me feel watching my body be passed around like a plaything servicing strangers, I have no idea."
"Your body?" Dorian inquired.
The other man reddened. "The body I wore every damn day for a month," Ethan shot back. "It wasn't meant to be you on that stage."
"You want to trade back," Dorian said thoughtfully. "You still think of this body as yours."
"Why would I let you have the run of me again?" Ethan asked furiously. "Then I'm smaller than you and you make me your plaything. I have to hope you're not going to run around—"
"If I gave you assurances, would you like to trade back?" Dorian asked nonchalantly.
Ethan was flustered at the turn the conversation had taken. "Well, what am I to think about the way you looked at me while they had you? It's not like you enjoy that sort of thing."
"No, I don't really," Dorian said, "but you do. You're so tense when we have people over. I thought it would excite you to watch and you would try it sometime with me and someone we both agreed upon. No matter what body you're wearing, I can see through to your deepest desires. You are very, very greedy."
He risked grazing his hand across his companion's backside.
"Come back and we can think what would suit you best. Please come back, my poppet."
"No. I like it here," Ethan said stubbornly.
"Regardless, I'll find you at the next moon cycle. You're ill somehow, love, I can't let you run around the countryside alone."
With his full faculties at his disposal, Ethan was confident he could hide his scent from the less-experienced Dorian. He kept on the move as before, never sure if he was avoiding an unequal relationship with Dorian or some pressure to switch bodies once again.
A savage streak had him pacing through the dark country nights. It was getting colder and the work was drying up, so Ethan skirted more populated villages or stole from wayfarers. The change came upon him and he was perfect.
The hot urge that had gotten muddled with his thirst for blood revealed itself to be Dorian. Dorian the wolf was wrestling him to the ground.
They ran together and feasted upon a few chickens, but they were both waiting for their human mouths. "I almost didn't find you," Dorian reproached at daybreak. "Why are you making this so difficult?"
The bigger man turned on his heel and walked away, rather than admit he had no idea.
His fellow wolf watched over him the next two nights. "Come back home, Ethan. Vanessa has some ideas—"
"Has it ever occurred to you that I am tired of people making decisions for me?"
This time, Ethan used all his skills. He covered his tracks wherever he went in Ireland. He had studied the maps and knew that there were places so remote that Ethan would have difficulty reaching him in time.
The moon rose and he loped gratefully across a field. He was alone as he was meant to be.
This time, Dorian had to inflict a savage bite upon the other wolf in order to loosen the death-grip Ethan had upon a farmer's wife who'd gone out to use the privy.
A wild creature understands dominance very well. Ethan was soon cowed into submission with the wolf's jaws on the nape of his neck. They waited for sunrise.
"Don't lecture me," Ethan said when they sat, dirty but clothed, under a small patch of trees. A strip of his shirt had quelled the bleeding.
"I was going to invite you to the rooms I've reserved above the pub," Dorian offered. "The only decent accommodations for miles."
"All right." The two exhausted men climbed into the renovated attic above the town tavern.
Vanessa was perched on one bed.
"There are some things you should know," she said to the scowling Ethan. "I've been trying to understand what Silver Bow's possession means. It seems as though he was drawn to the opening created by your switching bodies, and our tests have shown that he's still there, watching over you."
"That chapter of my life is not open to dissection," he said, sitting heavily on the other bed.
"I think Silver Bow wanted to save you from the hangman, and he still wants to save you from yourself."
"You tried very hard to elude me this month," Dorian reproached. "One of these days you're going to manage it. I won't let you face the noose again." He sat next to his lover and put his arm around him.
"Since you've obviously been conspiring behind my back, what's your next plan to save me?" Ethan inquired.
"You had none of these urges when we were together—the other way," Dorian ventured.
"Something about being in a smaller body, or perhaps that specific body, must be taking away some urge to rend that lives in your other body," Vanessa added. "You were so happy in that other flesh: you should have seen yourself, Ethan. You were at peace."
His face flushing with all the very stimulating things he felt compelled to do in the name of peace in Dorian's form, Ethan sulked. "This is my body. It's serviceable. I don't want to be a smooth-cheeked concubine."
"I'll show you how much I love you that way," Dorian rushed to say. "Please, Ethan. Let's try Frankenstein's potion once more. We can always reverse it."
"You promise?"
"Upon my heart that belongs to you."
Vanessa watched the two men fall asleep in a truce, very pleased with herself.
They traveled back to London and were received with open arms by Sir Malcolm. "Don't worry me like that, young man," he admonished Ethan.
Dorian had to return to his flat for some fresh clothes for each of them. Ethan allowed himself to be fussed over, and he was surprised at the real affection the others were radiating at him. Soon, Frankenstein had shown up with his phials, but Dorian was nowhere to be found.
Ethan was distraught. The old worries about his lover not really loving him resurfaced. After all, wasn't Dorian reclaiming the big, strapping body he wanted, though the Englishman had been careful not to talk about it? All told, Ethan spent a terrible day, cooped up in that airless house that felt like a prison.
Finally, the other man reappeared with a big smile on his face.
"I brought you a present," he whispered into Ethan's ear when they were alone.
"I'm sure I would have just preferred a note," the big man hissed.
Dorian's hands began working on the other man's trousers, so Ethan started unbuttoning the narrow trousers belonging to his mate. Ethan's breath caught when he saw the large ring passing through the head of the penis. "What have you done? It must have hurt terribly."
"It did, my darling," Dorian said, passing his arm through his lover's. "But only for a moment, thanks to my special faculty. So a painless new adornment is my gift to you with this body, as well as the knowledge that you were not contracting some deadly infection in that particular establishment for sailors who are none too picky about how they acquire their fetishes."
Ethan listened to the tale of how Dorian had seen this particular perversion once and had been dreaming of playing with such a thing attached to Ethan's member.
"The ring looks so heavy," Ethan said while they prepared to harvest the necessary potion additive from each other simultaneously. Their hands moved in unison.
"It is, but to feel the extra weight dragging you down as you walk is a thrill like none other," Dorian gasped. "I can't wait to see it on you."
Soon their mouths were poised to consume the fluid and then add the bitter liquid. They swallowed and then lay in bed, at peace with the exchange they were going to make, one among many changes they would make in their lives ruled by the moon.
On schedule their bodies were contorting and rending. When the transformation stopped, Ethan looked down at the hefty ring passing through one area of the body that didn't feel unfamiliar at all. "Thank you, Dorian, this was really thoughtful. I would be wary of taking such a length but it feels just right."
"I knew you would like it, poppet," Ethan said huskily while stooping before the new ring.
Ethan's hope that Dorian's new attentiveness to his maleness would be sustained by their new toy was borne out. Dorian had never used his mouth or hands so avidly on this part of his anatomy. The bigger man seemed endlessly excited by this jewelry and liked playing with it while he used another part of Ethan's flesh.
This part had gone back to its old contracted state since they changed bodies, and both men were eager to work upon the opening until it was as used as it was before. Ethan was given assignments by Dorian, a certain number of exercises a day with a given implement so that the moment his lover walked in the door, he could see that Ethan had been ruining himself in preparation for that moment.
One evening Dorian insisted that they go to one of their habitual brothels. Ethan was still feeling the flush of his newly attentive lover and his attention to the still-tight orifice, so he didn't go with as much resentment as he used to. Ethan stripped off and stood there by his lover's side in this venue where powerful men showed off their submissives. For the first time, Ethan saw another man wearing a ring through his glans. It was even larger than the one Ethan wore, and he went over to ask him if it was painful to stretch the skin that much.
"What else can I do?" the young man asked mournfully. "My man says he'll leave me if I take it out, and so I entertain myself by making the hole larger. It's a sort of masculinity, I suppose."
"I think it's very manly. My man thinks so too," Ethan said.
"You don't understand, do you? That big ring proclaims that no sensible man is going to let that inside of him. The jewelry shows that what it is attached to is only there for show."
Ethan felt terribly betrayed. What he'd taken as a new equality between them was actually just another game, a way to subjugate the man trapped in a weaker body.
They went home and in the middle of the night Dorian found Ethan trying to remove the ring. "Why are you doing this? It was my special gift to you."
"What I thought was a toy for the both of us was designed to make me your toy," the soft voice snapped.
"That's what you were talking with that kept boy about?" asked the Dorian completely at home in his broad frame. "You would deny both of us this pleasure?" His hand began joining in the effort to make his point. "My tongue likes to worry at it…"
Ethan was trying to hold on to his snit under this lingual assault.
"It marks you as mine. Does that not please you?" Dorian took a break to say. "I know it does. I love seeing that you are for me."
Dorian wheedled and coaxed and after a time he was able to convince his mate to keep the ring. After all, it only prevented a posture that they had never assumed together, and it made all the other things they did much more pleasurable.
Their life together resumed as it was meant to be. This Dorian believed with all his heart, and he also believed that Ethan felt the same way but wouldn't admit it.
Things weren't perfect for them, but they never would be. It actually pained Dorian to no end to hurt his lover, but there were some patterns from which they would never break free. Just as he'd quickly grown accustomed to the mastery of the moon, Dorian understood very well there were patterns that would always rule the two men. After several months, he was sure of it.
If Dorian knew another way to do it he would. He brought Ethan onstage at the brothel du jour. He showed off how stretched and useless the delicate man's orifice had become. The audience hooted at Ethan, jeered at him, and then paid to come up and probe the slack skin.
Then Dorian would choose another plaything from the audience. He would see the outrage spreading across Ethan's face, anger at having to stay in this slim and powerless body, fury at being humiliated in front of an audience, and especially, the crowning insult of Dorian using his fist on the aperture he'd destroyed himself, while using his manhood upon this stranger.
Dorian could see it happening every time. Ethan tried to close himself, to turn away and not see or cooperate. But Dorian could see the hurt in the smaller man's face and it fascinated him. He wanted to show it off. The whole point was for the audience to see that someone desired him so much that any rational consideration, any self-respect was ancillary to the desire to be close to his mate. Soon, Ethan would have no objections left. His true desire would assert itself and Ethan would let him in, give himself completely so that Dorian would know that this was the only relation he needed.
Then Ethan would be totally open and defenseless despite his best efforts. He would become greedy, lost in the moment. The audience would fall away. Dorian would withdraw from the third to their party, and then he would take himself in hand and put his fist and its contents all together into the loose, pulsing space.
Then nothing existed but the two of them. That's not true. Dorian was always aware of the people watching jealously as two men made love in a way the jaded spectators may never have experienced themselves. As someone who had thought himself condemned to tepid novelties, Dorian certainly could tell the real thing from a mere pantomime.
Someone wants me this much. I make him want me like this. Dorian attained a holy ecstasy on these sordid stages. When he climaxed it was with a roar and he poured all of himself into the orifice that couldn't retain anything at that point. Then he would bend down and use his lips to catch the rivulets trickling down the legs, lick up until he was using his tongue to stimulate the beringed manhood that Ethan had all but given up for his sake. When he took the explosion full in the face they were both at the highest stage of exaltation.
The sound from the onlookers would finally reach them as Dorian kissed Ethan deeply. He wasn't sure whether his partner realized it, but no matter what humiliations Dorian inflicted upon Ethan in the name of love, the big brute never used his mouth on anyone but the shrinking violet, the hothouse flower that was deserving of such an honor.
Dorian watched his slim companion get dressed in a barn after their night under the moon. They'd switched bodies back and forth a few times, at first to heal injuries that Ethan had suffered and Dorian's gift could heal easily. They carried phials of the potion around just in case. That switching back meant that they had to start Ethan's destruction all over again was merely a pleasurable side effect.
Sometimes, Dorian suggested a short-term change because he knew how much Ethan missed being himself. It could never last longer than a month, so it was a small price to pay for happiness.
Ethan did whatever Dorian asked of him, though he indulged in some of the sulking his big mate found so pretty.
With someone to master him, Ethan didn't have to think anymore. With someone to fill him, his life was no longer empty. The urge to kill never occurred to him while he was being thrown around by the one who knew how to do it best.
Ethan would never admit to his lover that he was less and less interested in taking over his old body, which felt foreign to him now.
Sometimes he went out into the country dark and thanked the husband who never stopped looking out for him. Silver Bow had known him deeply and completely, and cared enough to come from beyond the grave to show Ethan what kind of life would balance his passions at last. Doubly mastered, Ethan would retreat inside and offer everything he had to whatever games Dorian had concocted for that night.