More torture! Yay me!

Too damn lazy to write a disclaimer etc… I'm just gonna post the chapter. Read! Enjoy (with a sense of evil fascination! I hope! Or just boredom… or just read another story that's more cheery. I have some of those.)

A bed. I'm lying in a bed. I've been here before, in this bed.

I inhale deeply, giving a waking-up sigh. This is Tai's bed. I can tell because it carries his scent, musk and cloves.

Oh great.

Rolling my shoulders back, I moan softly, and look up with sleep-clouded eyes. A very fake act that nevertheless finds a willing audience.

"So, you're awake?" Tai says coolly.

I groan at the pain that's just starting to awake too, right behind my eyes. "Maybe. Am I in your bed?"

"Yes." He walks over, squatting by the narrow bunk. "Do you know what you did last night?"

"Drink?" I ask hopefully.

Now he's glaring at me. "Well, after the confession of your past to the entire crew, Matt, you drank for two straight hours. That much is true. Then, I'm told, you got up on the table."

Again, I groan. I vaguely remember… something.

"Where you proceeded to perform an erotic dance for my entire crew. Including no less than four. Lap. Dances." He's snapping at my, truly upset.

For this one moment, I couldn't really care. I snap back. "What, Tai, jealous? I'm a dancing boy. It's what I do."

He yells wordlessly, grabbing me by the arms and shaking me. "For me," Tai says, somewhere between a shout and a plea. "Just for me, Matt. Just for me."

"I am who I am, Tai, I-"

"NO!" Oh, Jesus, a tear! "What do I need to do to keep you to myself, Matt? What!? I hired the fucking whore to keep my men busy. I'm doing everything I can to keep your brother safe. Isn't that what you wanted?"

Sighing, I turn my face away. "I love TK."

"I know."

"I… just…" I pull further away. "I don't want to talk about it."

He growls softly, and I shiver, closing my eyes. I have to pretend I'm attracted to him. "Tell me."

"No." Teasing him. Being mysterious. Getting his adrenaline flowing. "Just leave me alone." I'm turning my face away but moving my body closer, sending him the message: don't talk to me. Do something else, but don't talk.

The tone of his hands on me changes, as I knew it would. Here we go again.

Tai plants one last, shaking kiss on my jaw as he finishes inside me. My head is tipped back as I cry out in the throes of my own (faked, needless to say) pleasure. But, he's done; I don't need to keep going. I move a few more times to keep up the image, and sigh, resting back into the crook where the bunk meets the wall. My hand slips into his hair, pulling his face into my throat; I know he likes to be held like this.

Still in me, he murmurs, "Matt… you didn't…"

Get out of me. Get out. "I never do," I whisper back, fingers tangling in rowdy locks.

I'm glad he doesn't ask me why not. I'd have to answer him honestly, and that would shatter him. Because I hate this. I hate you touching me. I hate your stupid, greedy pleasure. Do you know, Tai, that the only time I've felt true sexual pleasure was when I touched myself thinking about killing my clients?

I think I'm crying.

Yes, I am; he kisses my tears away, never guessing how much I resent that he dares to show tenderness to me. "What is it?"

My fingers tighten in his hair. "I just… I like this. Lying here. Like this. Together." I hate this.

Tai sighs heavily. He gives me a gentle kiss. "Don't bullshit me, Matt; you can't stand this."

Shocked, I gasp. I pull back a little, staring into his eyes.

He pulls out of me- not roughly, but firmly enough to make me gasp again- but doesn't move away. "Matt, you're one hell of an actor, you know that?" he asks sadly.

"No-one has ever seen through that before," I manage. I drop my eyes. "Alright, dammit. I'm hungover worse than I've been in a year, and sore, and tired, and that was feeling uncomfortable. There. Do you feel better now?" I twist away from him, not just a pouting act but truly upset. I hope to God he doesn't try to push this any further.

His hand moves along the side of my face. "Matt, beautiful, if there's a time when you really don't want to, you don't have to."

I never want to, moron! "I'm your whore, Tai. It's my job to give you what you want."

He flinches. Gathers me up and lies me down against him, pulling his blanket over us. "You carry so much pain, Yamato. It makes me hurt for you."

I hmph, snuggling against his chest.

"Talk to me. Please, tell me why you hurt."

Perhaps I will tell him a little. "If you want, I'll tell you a story, Tai."

He kisses my brow. "Please."

"I worked for Madame Sora for ten years in a place called the Chess House. I didn't lie to you about how much I was worth; I'd see four or five men a week, and earn Sora a fair two thousand. Ten years, Tai, and I hated every minute of it."

"Why did you stay?" he asks softly.

"Because of TK. I could have taken care of myself in the streets. Not well but well enough. But TK was a very weak child. It's not his fault. He was sick more often than he was healthy, and the medicines he needed were rare and expensive. So I hard to work."

He nods, thumb stroking my cheekbone.

My voice is very small. "Sometimes I would wonder if she was… if someone was giving TK something to keep him sick. He seems a lot better out here. But there wasn't any way for… for… I did what I had to do."

A small noise deep in his throat.

I sigh heavily. "The Chess House was very high-class. The boys there had to know what they were doing. Sora… Sora had the policy that her boys earnt their money by giving the clients what they wanted."

"Sex," Tai guesses softly.

"Shut up and let me talk." I turn my face into his hand, brushing my lips across his palm. "Not only did she teach us the skills of the bed, but there were two other things that she decided were crucial. We had to learn to read people, at every level. To know what they wanted, to know it before them even. And we had to be able to act. To… to give the client what he wanted, and convince him that we enjoyed it too."

"Matt…"

"Most of the time it's the same. Sex. Pure and simple. And if they could win a game of chess against us, they got it."

He shudders. "Please stop."

"You wanted to know."

"Not- not this."

I regard him coolly. "It's my life, Taichi. Do you want to hear it or don't you?"

He is silent.

I take up where I left off. "One of the regulars, a very old man, just wanted to be in the room with me. He was a good chess player, and he beat me several times; but every time, rather than claim his prize, he'd set the pieces back up, and we'd play again. He told me once that I reminded him of his dead grandson."

He nods, seeming a bit relieved.

"And then there was another man, during my third year there- I was eleven- who came to see me quite often. His thing was pain. He wanted to cause me pain." My fists clench, remembering. "He knew all the ways to hurt me without leaving marks. And I had to pretend I liked it."

Sobbing once, Tai holds me to him, trying to offer comfort I suppose.

"Do you have any idea what that's like? To be in so much pain you think you'll die from the hurt. And through that, knowing what you have to do… faking pleasure, orgasms…" my voice cracks. "… pleading for more."

He's weeping openly now, and… I guess I am too. I'm losing control, a frightening thought.

"It hurt so much," I whimper. Whimper? Bloody hell, Matt, get a hold of yourself! It's all very well to tell him this to get his sympathy and what-not, but for Chrissake's, don't show him anything real!

Raggedly, he's rubbing my shoulders, tears still trailing down his face. "No more, Matt, please! I can't stand it."

I nod slowly, letting him cradle me like a babe.

"Oh god Matt." He strokes my hair. "Oh god."

Finally, when I've managed to regain some self-control, I sigh heavily. Never again. I will never again let him see into me like that.

He sighs too. "Matt, beautiful… what do you see when you read me?" His voice drops. "Honestly."

My face is still tucked into his neck. I talk into the warm, sweaty skin. "You're a strong, simple man. Basically one of the good guys." But that's not what he means, and we both know it. "You care more about me than you meant to. And you suspect that I'm putting on an act for you, but you don't want to ask in case you're right."

He's wordless for a moment, and when he speaks, his voice catches. "And what do I want?"

"You want…" I swallow, nervous. "You want me to love you." I bite my lip, and the next words run together in my haste to speak them. "Tai, you should know that- that someone like me doesn't fall in love, it just doesn't happen, I- I can't."

He might have sighed, or it might have been a sob.

"I… the best I can give you is an act." I close my eyes. "I'm sorry."

Now he's definitely crying. I feel- I don't know. Bad. His body's shaking and he pulls me even closer. "Matt," he sobs. "Matt, please… even if it's not real…"

I am still.

"I need that, I really need it, oh god Matt… please…"

I… I will do this. I pull myself up until I am face to face with him, and I claim his mouth with mine.

Hm. Think I may have a small mental problem. My attempts to make this story very meaningful and relating to issues and stuff kind of tend to make it really, really depressing.

Review… remember, I promised you an eventual happy ending? Reviews encourage happiness.