Marcus thought he should be happy that he couldn't bring himself to participate in any more visits to the hallway outside of Esca's bedchamber- but that imagined happiness was nothing more than wishful thinking at this point, as the roman lay in bed and stared up at his ceiling. There had been something relaxing about the routine, not to mention the added excitement that came with the thought of perhaps catching Esca in the middle of pleasuring himself again- not that Marcus had, and not that he would admit that he might have wanted to.
It wasn't the slave himself that attracted Marcus, the roman reasoned. Marcus was just sexually starved in general, and stumbling upon Esca taking care of his own needs must've made Marcus' body recall that it had been awhile for him too. A long while.
But what was there to do about that? In Marcus' eyes, no one he currently lived with was suitable for helping him to take care of such things. The roman supposed that only left himself. The idea of masturbation didn't particularly excite Marcus, but if it helped him to fall asleep, and perhaps relax a little, he surmised that it couldn't hurt. It was a means to an end; nothing more.
The roman tugged his pants down and carefully wrapped his fingers around himself, slowly working towards an orgasm. Eyes shut tight, Marcus did his best to keep his mind blank and focused entirely on the task at hand.
A few minutes later, Marcus wasn't sure he had the right approach to things. All in all, it was a pleasant experience, but his climax still seemed uncomfortably far away- and Marcus wanted to keep the incident as short as possible. His thoughts drifted to Esca. What did the slave do when he needed to push himself over the edge?
The errant thought brought with it another flood of terribly inappropriate images involving the slave and before Marcus knew what was happening, he had come in an abrupt fashion, his chest heaving with every breath.
How annoying that his release had been spurred along by thoughts of his slave. "Dammit, Esca," Marcus breathed. He lay there in silence until, suddenly, his door opened, and there stood Esca himself, his eyes open wider than Marcus had ever seen them before. "You heard me?" The slave asked.
Marcus gaped at Esca, making a few hasty movements to cover himself with his blanket. "What are you doing here?!" The roman hissed.
Esca turned away, his face red. "I- I just wanted to see if you were going to walk around again tonight, like you've been doing," he explained. "I didn't mean to… To interrupt…" The slave swallowed hard, at a loss for words.
Marcus made a noise of disgust, his hands balling into fists. "If- if you knew what I was doing, why would you come barging in?"
Esca hazarded a glance back at his master. "You… You called me in," he replied.
"I did not!" Marcus snarled.
Esca frowned. "You said, 'Dammit, Esca,' as if you were-"
Marcus blushed. "I wasn't calling you in!"
"You said my name," Esca persisted. "Why would you-" He froze and slowly rose an accusatory finger towards the roman. "You- you were-"
"I was not," Marcus interjected slowly, trying to stop the next few words from leaving Esca's mouth.
Esca crossed his arms over his chest, the horror on his face tempered. "Do you take me for a fool?"
Marcus wasn't sure how to respond. "No," he answered. "Now leave! This has been embarrassing enough."
Esca seemed to relax a bit at the roman's admission. "Don't be embarrassed. I'm used to this sort of thing."
Marcus stifled the desire to ask Esca just what he meant by that.
"It's my fault for misreading the situation," the slave continued. "And sneaking around."
Marcus laid back in his bed. "Just forget it and go," he grumbled.
Esca bit his lip, looking like he wanted to say something more. Thinking better of it, he exited the room and left Marcus to curse his absolutely rotten luck.