Psychic

The crowd sat in reverent silence as Blake Underwood laid his hands on the woman’s shoulders, staring at some invisible spot above her head. He waited for just the right amount of time - one, two, three.
“I’m hearing a D. Is there a man in your life whose name begins with D? David, Daniel, Darren…”

He was getting nowhere. “Could it be E? Eric? Ernest?” Nope. Third time’s a charm. “B? Brian, Ben…”
Her face lit up. “Barry,” she said. “He’s…” a hesitation; a slight blush. He’d struck gold. “…my manager at work.”
“I’m sensing some very strong emotional currents running between you and Barry. But he’s not aware of how you feel about him.”
“I couldn’t possibly…”

Blake squeezed her shoulders reassuringly. “Don’t be afraid. I sense strong feelings on both sides. Barry will not reject you.”
In this case, Blake was just playing the odds. There was a solid 70% chance that Barry would go for it - and a 20% chance the woman would get cold feet and never approach him at all. Stage readings were always a numbers game.
Blake was nearly out of time; he needed just one more good reading to round out the night.

“Now,” he said. “Is there anyone else here who feels the spirits calling them to seek my counsel?”
There were several scattered cries, and many people jumped from their seats.

“Beware!” Blake held up a cautionary hand. “Not all minds are strong enough to contend with the realities of communing with the great beyond. Even with me as an experienced conduit, this experience may be dangerous. Keep this in mind before you raise your hands.”
Blake scanned the crowd. About a third of them had their hands up, and about half of those were plants he could choose if he didn’t feel confident about any of the audience members. But there was electricity in the air tonight. Blake was ready for a challenge.

His eyes kept darting back to one of the volunteers; he was a young man, seemingly alone, and his eyes were fixed on Blake. After a few more glances around the room, Blake made his decision.
“The young man in the blue shirt,” he bellowed. His mark pointed at his own chest, looking surprised. “Yes, you,” Blake did his classic come hither motion and smiled as the man jogged up towards the stage.

One of the stagehands handed him a microphone, and Blake extended his hand. The man’s handshake was firm and dry. “What’s your name, my friend?” Blake asked.
“Steven.”
“Into the microphone, please.”
Steven cleared his throat and lifted the microphone to his mouth; it squealed in protest as soon as he began to speak.

“A little further,” said Blake, wrapping his hand around Steven’s white-knuckle grip on the microphone and lowering it. “There you are.”
“Thank you,” he said. “My name is Steven.”
The crowd murmured a greeting. Their single-mindedness was, as always, equal parts charming and creepy.
“Steven, please, have a seat.”

Steven obeyed, looking up at Blake expectantly; Blake laid a hand on Steven’s forehand and met his gaze, keeping his face carefully blank as he read everything he could from his mark’s face, his bearing, his clothes. Remembering the way he walked, the firmness of his hand, even as his grip on the microphone had betrayed his stage fright.
“I see that you spend most of your time alone, Steven. That you sometimes shut people out of your life in order to maintain peace and quiet and control. There are two sides to you - there is the side that people see, and the person you are inside your own mind.” It was all generic stuff, and Steven nodded slightly.

“But I sense a great conflict within you,” Blake heard himself continue. It was almost as if he was speaking without having to first think the words; they tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop himself. “There is a part of yourself that you keep hidden from the world, at all costs, and it is tearing you up inside.”
Steven swallowed hard before he spoke. Hesitantly. Blake didn’t like that. “Yes,” he said, but his face was unreadable.

“The spirits tell me…” There was a ringing in Blake’s ears, so loud he almost couldn’t hear himself speak. “…that you have a secret. You have been living with it for so long, denying it for so long, not with your words but with your silences. Even your closest friends would never guess at it. But in your quietest moments you cannot deny it, not to yourself. The only way for you to find the happiness you seek is to bring your secrets into the light.”

The tip of Steven’s tongue snuck out to wet his lips. He swallowed hard again. Blake found himself staring, transfixed, at the bobbing of his Adam’s apple. The pinkness of his lips. He closed his eyes tightly; this was ridiculous. He was a professional, and a straight professional at that. He’d been studiously ignoring rumors about his sexuality since he developed the flamboyant stage persona that had brought him into the limelight, and the fact that he’d been knee-deep in pussy ever since he got on Letterman should’ve been enough evidence for anyone. So why couldn’t he stop staring at Steven’s mouth?

“This secret,” Steven said, snapping Blake out of his trance. “What sorts of repercussions can I expect if I tell people about it?”
“Like anything else, of course, there are risks.” Blake was grateful for the softball question. “But you cannot live in the darkness forever.”
A soft click resounded in the theater. Blake realized, after a moment, that it was the sound of Steven shutting off his microphone. He spoke again, very softly:

“I’m not asking you for platitudes, Mr. Underwood. I need real answers. Are you a fraud like they say? I must admit I’m disappointed, if so.”
“Steven,” said Blake, to the crowd more than to his mark, “I understand that you are afraid. But fear is just a stepping stone on the journey to freedom. Once you can move past it, you will find that your dreams come true.”
The crowd cheered. Steven said:
“What are you afraid of, Mr. Underwood?”

The question went through him with a cold shiver, resounding in his mind: what are you afraid of?
Steven licked his lips again, and Blake almost had to physically restrain himself from snapping stop it, you’re driving me crazy. An image came unbidden to his mind, of Steven on his knees, on this very stage, opening the fly of Blake’s tight jeans with trembling hands and licking a hot, wet trail up his cock. He wanted to. He wanted to so badly, Blake couldn’t believe he’d missed the cues before. Steven wasn’t nervous to be onstage, he was nervous to be so close to a person he so badly wanted to fuck.

This was old hat for Blake. He’d been around plenty of people - mostly women, but a fair share of men too - who’d obviously just finished rubbing one out to pictures of him just before the show. On one particularly memorable occasion, a woman pressed her fingers up against his nose and demanded that he inhale the scent of the pleasure she’d taken to his image. But this, for some reason, was the most magnetizing encounter of them all. Maybe it was how calm Steven looked, how composed he was, even though he was clearly aching for it. Blake wanted to switch off his own microphone and demand answers. How badly do you want me? And for how long? Did you wear that stupid floppy overshirt so it would hang down and hide your hard cock while you sat here and stared at me? How bad is it? If you pressed your palm against it right now would you moan? Are you close? Would you come in those khaki shorts right here, on stage, in front of everyone?

Blake suddenly became aware that the whole theater was silent. Also, he was hard as a fucking rock and everyone could probably see. He cried out, in an unsteady voice, “everyone please thank Steven for his courage, thank you all and have a blessed night!” He turned away from the audience quickly, giving a perfunctory wave instead of his customary bow, and the crowd roared as he fled backstage. The usual gaggle of stagehands surrounded him instantly; his assistant was holding out a bottle of water and a clipboard and babbling something Blake couldn’t hear over the buzzing in his head. He vaguely heard someone ask are you okay? and insisted angrily, impatiently, that yes, he was fine. He finally reached his dressing room and slammed the door behind him. Alone at last.

His cock was hard and aching, pressing against his jeans, and he fumbled them open, sinking into a chair and hissing with relief as he stroked himself. He almost didn’t hear the light rattle of the doorknob, and by the time the door had begun to open it was too late to do anything but turn towards the wall and struggle fruitlessly to shove his erection back into his pants. His prick was having none of it, though, so long and rigid he couldn’t possibly wrestle it back into submission.

“Get out,” he growled at the intruder.
“Look me in the eyes and say that,” came an all-too-familiar voice.
Oh, fuck.

Blake refused to turn and look, refused even to move, still gripping his traitorously hard dick in one hand and trying to force his jeans closed with the other. “How did you get back here?” he demanded.
“It doesn’t really matter, does it?” Steven came closer. “I wonder what people are saying out there. Good show, but didn’t quite live up to your usual impressive final act, did it? Seems like something threw you off-balance. An experienced showman like yourself, losing his footing? I guess stranger things have happened.”

Defeated, Blake turned to face him. Steven was smiling, calm, still cutting the same unassuming figure he did when Blake picked him out of the audience. Why did he pick him, anyway? What had drawn him to that face? Cold-reading was more instinct than rational thought to Blake at this point, but it bothered him that he couldn’t pinpoint why Steven had grabbed him in a sea of faces. It bothered him, even as he stood there with his cock out, twitching in his hand while Steven smiled knowingly.

“Did it occur to you,” said Steven, slipping out of his overshirt, “that all these years, while you’ve been pretending to be something you’re not, that there might be people out there who actually had the abilities you claimed to possess?”
This was ridiculous. There were no such things as psychics. Blake’s career depended on it.

“No such thing as psychics who are crass enough to make an easy living off of it, yes,” Steven said. Blake’s heart jumped. He hadn’t said anything out loud, had he?

“Thankfully, we don’t tend to be the type of people to try and make a quick buck off of parlor tricks.” Steven was sliding out of his undershirt now, while Blake still stood, frozen, mouth too dry to speak. “The future is cloudy and ever-changing. People’s thoughts are a tangled mess. It would be irresponsible to sell information with no guarantee of quality control. But sometimes, every once in a while, something, someone, calls out to me. Like a beacon. I can’t ignore it, any more than I could ignore a spotlight shining into my bedroom while I’m trying to sleep. And you’ve been calling out to me pretty loudly these days, Mr. Underwood.”

Blake’s heart was hammering in his chest, and an answering throb came from his dick. Until now he hadn’t realized it was possible to be this frightened and this aroused at the same time. Steven was shirtless now, and Blake allowed himself to look lower - yes, his dick was definitely tenting out the front of his khakis.

“I came to your show tonight so I could help you, Mr. Underwood. I came here to give you what you want. I showed you the feelings you were afraid to admit that you had, and you were so confused you tried to ascribe them to me at first. But you’re beginning to see now, aren’t you? You can ask me to leave, and I will. But the only way to find the happiness that you seek…”
Steven advanced on him, extending a hand, resting gently on the side of his face.

“You know the rest, I believe,” he said, grinning suddenly, cheeks dimpling. Blake exhaled in one long, shaky breath.
“Just give me one word,” Steven murmured. “One word. I need to know.”
The buzzing in Blake’s head had only gotten worse, but every one of Steven’s words penetrated the fog. Like a lighthouse. Like a beacon. Like a spotlight in his room, and there was no use closing his eyes and trying to go to sleep now.
“Yes,” he said.

Steven was on him in a second, kissing him roughly, teeth clacking together, his tongue firm and insistent. It felt incredibly natural, incredibly right, in a way that Blake had never felt before in his life. The smell of Steven, the feel of him, the way his stubble scratched against Blake’s face, his hands spreading Blake’s clothes apart and away and off, falling to the floor, until he was naked. But really, he’d been naked from the second he walked out on that stage in front of Steven.

“Turn around,” Steven said, and Blake did, turning his back to him, leaning over the back of the sofa like he’d done this a thousand times. He felt something rough and coarse winding its way around his wrists, drawing them together tightly. He froze, even as his dick ached, because of course this was exactly what he wanted. Of course. Steven knew him better than he knew himself.

He was suddenly desperate to touch his dick, but of course he couldn’t - and the urgency made him even hotter, until the throbbing ache became almost unbearable. Steven was taking his sweet time with the rope, so Blake swiveled his hips, squirming awkwardly until he was able to maneuver his cock upwards, trapped between the sofa and his stomach. He had to choke back a noise at how good it felt, just the pressure, and when he thrust experimentally he actually did moan out loud.

He felt Steven’s hand resting on his ass, and he distantly felt he should be panicked, but somehow he wasn’t. In a moment Steven’s fingers were probing at his entrance, feeling cold and wet - of course Steven had brought lube. He was psychic.

A hysterical laugh threatened to bubble up in Blake’s chest, but he choked on it when Steven’s finger slid inside him. It was an exquisite burn, a tendril of pleasure and pain making its way through his whole body. He panted and squirmed, rubbing the head of his dick against the rough upholstery of the couch, but barely feeling it. Steven quirked his finger upwards and Blake made an embarrassing noise at the shock of sensation it brought. His dick was suddenly throbbing again, and he rutted shamelessly against the couch, barely feeling it when Steven slid in a second finger, then a third, then withdrew all of them and suddenly Blake felt horribly empty and neglected, bent over a strange sofa in a strange dressing room with his ass stretched open for a strange man.

“Shh, it’s okay,” Steven whispered. Blake heard the familiar sound of a condom wrapper being torn open, and then the blunt head of Steven’s dick was pressing against him. He whimpered - actually whimpered - and pushed back, bearing down like it was second nature, while Steven pushed into him with agonizing slowness.

Every feeling, every sensation, was magnified as if he were somehow feeling it with two bodies. So this was what it was like, being fucked by someone who was really psychic. Blake felt sorry for every woman he’d ever had in this position, bent over dressing-room furniture, expecting an experience like this that he simply couldn’t deliver. Not like Steven could.

His nerves tingled, every synapse firing, thrusting against the sofa while Steven fucked him long and slow. Steven’s fingers were gripping him tightly by the hips, keeping him steady, but still allowing him enough movement to slide his dick against the rough fabric. Not as frantically as he wanted to, but it was just enough sensation to keep him on the edge, until he was so unbelievably close to coming that instead of begging Steven to let him thrust harder, he was babbling incoherently while Steven made soft, soothing noises and kept on fucking him.

He stayed there, suspended on the edge of ecstasy for so long that he forgot anything else existed. Then, suddenly, he felt the tingling sensation in his balls and pure relief washed over him, oh god thank you yes, he wasn’t sure if he was saying anything out loud or not, and he was caught in the throes of the longest orgasm of his life. He was vaguely aware that he was making completely inhuman noises as his hips jerked unsteadily, rubbing out his pleasure on the back of the sofa, long white spurts of come painting the fabric.

Numb and boneless, he laid quietly as Steven fucked him, harder now, short little thrusts that betrayed his urgency to come in Blake’s ass. He was breathing heavily now, a series of soft little grunts that made even Blake’s dick, sated and rubbed raw on the fabric, twitch again in interest. He bit down on his lip to keep from crying out when he felt the head of Steven’s cock flare inside him; then he felt it again, impossibly, the rush of pleasure in his balls, the surging in his dick, and as Steven managed a few more jerky thrusts inside of him he actually felt the other man’s orgasm, surging through his body exactly as if it were his own. Blake moaned and shivered at the unexpected climax. Steven laid a hand on his lower back.

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice low and wrecked. “I should have warned you.”
Blake cleared his throat. “Do you sometimes forget that other people don’t know everything?”

Steven’s hand was resting on the spot where Blake’s wrists were still joined with the rope. “I don’t know everything,” he said, and Blake could hear his smile. “But I am well-informed.”
“Not yet,” said Blake as he felt Steven’s fingers working at the knots. “Just…leave it for now, please.”
He could feel Steven’s cock start to soften inside him, and after a moment, he withdrew, and Blake hissed at the sensation.

“Now?” Steven was hovering over the knots again.
“All right,” said Blake. He honestly would have been content to stay here for hours, but his back was starting to hurt and it wasn’t really practical to walk around with bound wrists.

Steven unbound him slowly, then spent a few moments rubbing the skin where the rope had dug in. When he finally backed off and allowed Blake to stand and straighten himself, the sobering reality of the situation began to take hold in his mind. A million thoughts rushed through his mind, all trying desperately to make sense of what was happening to him.
“Are you the only one?” he blurted out. Steven looked up, surprised, as he zipped up his khakis.
“Of course not,” he said. “Don’t be silly.”

Blake Underwood couldn’t remember the last time he felt so small. But then Steven smiled again and it was like the sun breaking out from the clouds for the first time after a long winter.
“You have a lot to learn,” he said. “But it’s all right. Everyone has to start somewhere.”