Chapter Text
Neuroanatomy and Autonomic Response Patterns during Sexual Intercourse and Orgasm: A Longitudinal Study
Overview:
We are seeking healthy adult particpants for a groundbreaking study examining how regular sexual activity influences neural pathway development and autonomic nervous system responses over time. This research aims to advance our understanding of the mechanisms during sexual arousal, activity, and orgasm.
Elibility:
⁃ 20–40 years old
⁃ Able to speak and write fluently in English
⁃ Willing and able to engage in regular partnered sexual activities
⁃ Has a committed intimate partner (one partner for the duration of the study) willing to participate and sign consent forms
⁃ Comfortable wearing monitoring technology during intimate activies
⁃ Must complete a physical exam and two rounds of interviews to ensure a good fit
⁃ Lives within a two-hour radius of Los Angeles and is able to commute for the physical exam, interviews, and two visits to our lab
Not eligible:
⁃ Current use of anti-psychotic or antidepressant medications, or any medication known to cause sexual dysfunction
⁃ Pregnant or nursing
⁃ Cardiovascular disease
⁃ Pacemaker or other implanted medical device
⁃ History of sexual dysfunction (medication-induced or not) requiring medical intervention
⁃ Current participation in other another clinical trial or research study
Study Format:
Participants will monitor and record a session of sexual activity once a week for six months at home. They will receive portable monitoring equipment to wear during sexual activity and two notebooks in which to keep logs about each session. There will be one required in-person lab visit at the halfway point, where sexual activity will be recorded and monitored in real time by researchers. Note: monitoring consists of data collection only (heart rate, temperature, blood pressure, etc.); no video, photographic, or audio recording will take place at any point during the study.
Participant Responsibilities:
⁃ Wear monitoring equipment during weekly sessions
⁃ Orgasm is a goal and should be attempted in all sessions (however, failure to achieve orgasm will not impact study participation)
⁃ Completed detailed session documentation within 4 hours of sexual activity
⁃ Must complete a minimum of 20 out of 24 weekly sessions
⁃ Avoid alcohol 24 hours before sessions
⁃ Attend the halfway lab visit
⁃ Maintain consistent sleep and exercise routines
⁃ Submit to regular STD testing
Partner Responsibilities:
⁃ Participate in weekly sessions with the primary participant (no monitoring equipment required)
⁃ Orgasm encouraged but not required
⁃ Complete partner questionnaires and assessments at three points during the study: before, at the halfway point, and at the conclusion
⁃ Avoid alcohol 24 hours before sessions
⁃ Attend the halfway lab visit
⁃ Submit to regular STD testing
Compensation:
⁃ Total Compensation: $200,000
⁃ Completion of initial forms: $5,000
⁃ Weekly sessions: $7,500 per session ($180,000 total should all 24 sessions be completed)
⁃ Halfway lab visit: $10,000
⁃ Final assessment forms: $5,000
⁃ Up to $100,000 (the initial form completion, the first 12 sessions, and half the lab visit) paid out at halfway lab visit. The second half the of the lab visit, the final 12 sessions, and the final assessment forms will be paid out upon completion of the final assessment forms.
Additional Benefits:
⁃ Comprehensive health monitoring
⁃ Access to study physicians for health and sexual wellness concerns
⁃ Annual follow-up health assessments for 3 years post-study
Risks:
⁃ Possible minor skin irritation from monitoring equipment
⁃ Possible discomfort from wearing equipment for extended periods
⁃ Potential emotional discomfort from monitored intimate situations
⁃ Risk of data breach or identification (minimized through data anonymization)
Participation is voluntary and partipants have the right to withdraw from the study at any time. Partial compensaion available for partipants who withdraw after completion of the first six weekly sessions.
Maynard stared at the packet of papers spread out across the table in front of him. Half legalese, half information about what to expect. He had to make a decision. The deadline to accept was 5pm tonight. All he had to do was call the number on the last page, give them his participant idenification number, and he’d be enrolled in the research study he’d applied for months ago. The research study he had to endure a physical and two interviews to even be considered as a participant. The research study he never thought he’d be picked for. The research study that paid $200,000, to be precise. That kind of money could change his life.
There was only one snag: technically, he didn’t qualify. When filling out the initial application form, he may have lied, just a bit. A tiny little lie. The study required an intimate partner, and he figured in the intervening months before the study began, if he qualified, he could find someone. And yet— He could feel the $200,000 slipping out of his grasp. He was completely, utterly, and pathetically single. His hopes for himself and his love life had been too high.
He’d called everyone he knew in his Rolodex—ex-girlfriends, past flings, hookups—but one after another, the “no”s rolled in: in a relationship, not going to be able to make the halfway lab session, moved out of town, not interested in entangling themselves with him ever again.
That one stung.
“Not even for $200,000?”
“Not even for two million, Maynard.”
Time was ticking away, and with it, $200,000. He paced around his apartment, flicking through his mental Rolodex of platonic friends. Maybe one of them could be talked into helping him out. But what a huge fucking favor that would be. He tried anyway, calling old friends, new friends, even casual acquaintances. Anyone he might be able to muster up some ounce of sexual attraction to. But as he expected, no one was able (or willing) to commit to six months of sex with him. It was just weird, even for that amount of money.
He punched in one more number. This was insane. But $200,000 insane? Maybe.
The phone rang three times before a familiar voice answered, warm and cheerful. “Hey, man! What’s up?”
Maynard took a deep breath. “Danny— I need to ask you something, and I need you to hear me out, please, before you inevitably hang up.”
A chuckle floated down the line and curled into Maynard’s ear. “That’s definitely a way to open a conversation. Now I’m scared. What do you need? If you’ve accidentally—or on purpose, I don’t know what you get up to—killed someone and need help moving the body, I appreciate you calling me, but I don’t know if I can help with that. I could give you an alibi, though.”
“It’s not that.”
Danny sighed. “Thank god. What is it?”
“I— You—” The words caught in his throat. “Remember that research study I told you I applied for a while back? That neuro, brain thingy?”
“The one that paid a fortune? Yeah, I remember that. Wait, did you get picked? Are you going to make a million bucks for some images of your brain or something?”
“Well… yes and no. I got picked for it, but—”
Danny whooped, and Maynard knew he was punching the air. “What are you going to do with the money? Man, if it were me, I’d buy a car or go on a sick vacation or something.”
“Danny, wait, wait. There’s a catch.”
Danny chuckled again. “There’s always a catch with you.”
“They’re doing a six-month study on how sex affects the body and the brain.”
“Sex?! You didn’t mention that part when you said you’d applied for it!”
“Well, it’s not like— That’s not the point. The point is I have to have a partner for the duration of the study and I don’t. And before you say I should call people, I already have, and everyone has said no.”
There was a long pause. “Maynard… where is this conversation going, exactly?”
Maynard squeezed his eyes shut. The fact that Danny hadn’t already hung up the phone was encouraging, at least, but he hadn’t actually asked yet.
The words came out in a rush: “I-need-a-partner-for-the-study-and-you’re-the-only-person-left.” His knuckles holding onto the cord were white. “If you said yes, I’d give you half of the $200,000.”
“Are you asking me to have sex with you for money? Am I basically a hooker right now?!”
Danny was still on the line. He hadn’t slammed the phone down in disgust. Yet.
Maynard groaned. “Danny… That sounds terrible.”
“But that’s basically what you’re asking me, right? You want me to have sex with you for six months and in return you’ll give me $100,000. Any hooker would be falling over their feet trying to have sex with you.”
“Jesus, Danny. When you put it like that, it sounds even worse.”
Danny cackled. “You really need to work on your delivery, man. Instead of ‘I’ll pay you $100k to have sex with me for a study,’ you should say, ‘Want to contribute to the field of neuroscience by participating in a research study that studies brain activity during sex?’ Or whatever the hell the study is doing. The way you present it is going to affect whether people say yes or not.”
Maynard sighed and glanced down at the title of the study. “Danny, will you help me advance the scientific knowledge of neuroanatomy and autonomic response patterns by having sex with me for six months? Platonically, as my very good friend?”
Danny laughed again. “Okay, that’s definitely better. Still could use some work, but I’ll take it.”
“So… Will you do it with me? I’m desperate here.”
“I can tell. I’m thinking about it.”
“I have to call them within…” He checked the clock. “…an hour and four minutes, so if you could think a little faster…”
“Oh, and now you’re pressuring me to have sex with you. Dude, you’re doing this all wrong. No wonder nobody said yes.”
“Danny! You know what I mean!” Trust Danny to wind him up and waste time during a time crunch.
Thirty seconds of silence, and then— “Fine, okay, I’ll do it.”
Maynard’s heart jolted in his chest. “You will?”
“Yeah, sure. For the money. And so I have a story to tell about you for the rest of my life. ‘Let me tell you about the time Maynard was so desperate for money, he asked me to—’”
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence. I’ll strangle you if you tell anyone.”
“I could always back out…”
Maynard groaned, but he was elated. $200,000—or, $100,000 now—was going to be his. “I need to call them, so let me hop off. But, Danny— Thanks. Really. I owe you.”
“Oh, you absolutely owe me. $100,000. Plus whatever else I decide you owe me for doing this with you.”
The monitoring equipment and notebooks arrived in the mail three weeks later, along with a packet with more specific information for participants. Maynard nursed a mug of tea while Danny chewed on a piece of taffy, feet propped up on a chair in Maynard’s kitchen.
“So, tell me what we’ve gotten ourselves into. Or—tell me what you’ve gotten yourself into and roped me, an innocent bystander, into.”
“Okay, so…” Maynard flipped through the packet, ignoring Danny’s jabs. “We need to do some kind of sexual activity once a week for six months, which is 24 sessions, while I record neural and autonomic response activity. I have to wear a hairnet thing that sticks to my head and chest, and some other sticky things for heart rate and temperature and such. You don’t have to wear anything.”
“Well, thank god you’re bald. It’d be so uncomfortable if you had hair.”
“Well, then it’s good I’m going to be the one wearing it, not you. We have one session in their lab, like I mentioned on the phone—”
“And that’s when we get paid the first half of the money, right?”
“Yes, right. So one session in the lab, but all the others are at home.”
“Do they all have to take place in the same environment for consistency?”
Maynard frowned. “It doesn’t say. But I don’t think so. Let me check.” He scanned page after page. “All it says is ‘a session of sexual activity once a week for six months at home.’ So I guess maybe ‘at home’ is the consistency part.”
Danny nodded. “What kind of ‘sexual activity’ are they talking about?”
“Uh…” Maynard rifled through the pages. ”Sexual Activity” includes, but is not limited to, any movement, touch, or action designed to induce or increase sexual arousal. “Anything, really. The only specific thing they ask for is that they would ideally like me to orgasm each time. They want me to try, but if I don’t, it’s not the end of the world. Your orgasms are optional.”
“Ouch. I really am a hooker.”
Maynard laughed, which loosened the knot of tension that had wound itself up in his chest as the full weight of what they were going to do together started to sink in. “I don’t know if the researchers would appreciate you calling yourself that—and I definitely don’t—but whatever suits you.”
“So I come over every week, make sure you have a good time, and get paid for it. Is that not the definition of—”
“Okay, okay, I see your point. But let me remind you, this goes both ways.”
“Well, yeah, if we’re doing this, then we definitely go both ways.”
“No, Danny, stop!” Maynard was laughing, but he was trying to get some words out, goddamn it! “All I’m saying is that if I’m paying you to have sex with me, you’re having sex with me for money! So you can joke I’m hiring a hooker all you want, but that doesn’t make you automatically look like a saint!”
Danny took his feet off the chair and leaned across the table toward Maynard, eyes suddenly serious. “I’m just messing around.”
“I know.”
“You don’t like it.”
“It’s funny.” He indicated the packet. “I’m just trying to get through this, and you keep interrupting to call yourself a hooker!”
“You’re nervous.”
Maynard’s stomach did a complicated backflip. Danny always saw right through him. “This isn’t how I envisioned participating in the study, but…”
“Look, if you don’t want to do this, we don’t have to. You can back out at any time. They said.”
“And lose out on $200,000? I’m not that nervous. It’s just not how I imagined it going. It’ll be fine.”
Danny looked at him—examined him—for a beat, then seemed to accept Maynard’s word and put his feet back up again. “So, anything’s on the table for the study. What’s on the table for you?”
“What do you mean?”
“‘Sexual activity.’ What do you like? What do you want? We should probably talk about what’s on the table ahead of time. Like—what about anal?”
Maynard choked on his tea. “Jesus, Danny.”
“What? Figured we’d start there and work backwards. Maynard, I’m going to be up close and personal with your dick. Might as well know what you like done with it before we’re at that point.”
Maynard had to give him that. Looking at Danny, relaxed and joking, he realized there was no one better to do this with. Sure, Danny might tuck this away to use as blackmail at some future date, or rib him about it at his wedding one day, but he was good, and honest, and seemed to be better equipped to navigate this than Maynard himself was.
A few days later, Danny showed up at Maynard’s door with two grocery bags and a wicked grin.
Maynard stepped aside to let him in. “Oh god, what are you up to now?”
“Well, in about an hour, you’ll probably be naked, but if you’re talking about these” —He held up the bags— “I figured if we’re going to be participating in this kind of research, we need some more supplies than what you currently have.”
“I have everything I need for the study already.”
“Your fridge is empty, last time I checked, and sex takes a lot of energy, so I got some stuff.”
Onto the counter, he piled granola bars, bananas, water, and chocolate. Maynard swiped a bar of chocolate and ripped open the wrapping. Hazelnut toffee. Without fail, Danny always remembered Maynard’s favorite. He broke off a piece and put it on his tongue. And that’s when Danny leaned over and kissed him.
It was brief and quick, but not terrible. Not as uncomfortable as he’d supposed it might be. His lips were softer than Maynard was expecting, the scrape of stubble against his chin.
“Thought I’d get the first one over with,” Danny said. “That’s always the most awkward. You taste like chocolate.”
“Well…” Maynard held up the chocolate with a shrug. He sidled closer to Danny, nerves coiling in his stomach. Guess they were starting now, then. He put his hand on Danny’s hip. Warmth was starting to spread from his chest down into his hands and abdomen.
“Don’t you have to put on your fancy brain hat before we get too into this?”
The warmth vanished. “Oh. Yeah.”
The headpiece he had been given looked like a high-tech hairnet covered in little sensors, and was connected via wire to various other monitoring devices attached to his chest and wrist.
“Sexy,” Danny commented when Maynard met him in the bedroom. He’d had to look in the mirror to make sure everything was stuck to the right place. “You look like an alien.”
“I hope that’s one of your fantasies. Might make this easier.”
As he crawled onto the bed, Maynard was hyper-aware of every single part stuck to his skin, and wasn’t sure how on earth he was supposed to concentrate on any other sensations.
“Lie down and let me work.”
“What am I, a car getting serviced?”
“Something’s getting serviced today, and it’s got to be you. So lie down and let’s see how many noises I can get you to make.”
“I do not make noises.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Danny’s confidence sent a little twist of arousal spiraling through him. Good to know Danny could elicit at least a little of that in him already. He lay flat on the bed, the cool sheets on his back, Danny’s warmth hovering beside him.
“You’re not naked,” Maynard said.
Danny stripped his shirt off, revealing a light dusting of hair across his chest, muscles moving beneath his skin. “Better?”
“Yeah.” It came out more a breath than a word. They’d hardly touched, and Maynard was halfway turned on already.
“Didn’t know you wanted to see me naked so badly.”
“I don’t want to be the only one naked here!” Maynard was fine with his nudity, but this was supposed to be more a partnership than a… contractor-client relationship.
Danny knelt next to the bed, fingers skimming across Maynard’s shoulder, across his chest, down over his rib cage, and to his hips. The mere suggestion of slipping beneath the waistband of his pants was enough for Maynard’s cock to twitch to life. It had been a while since he’d had someone touch him in this way and he was more responsive than normal. His typical first encounter with a new partner was awkward and fumbling, but Danny was confident and assured in a way that stripped away that awkwardness, and he certainly wasn’t fumbling with Maynard’s pants when he tugged them down and palmed Maynard through his underwear.
“Fuck, going right for it, huh?” Maynard said, voice breathy, hips pushing up, chasing that pressure and the warmth that bloomed in his abdomen.
Danny ran his hand up to Maynard’s chest. “Heart rate definitely increasing. Very promising preliminary data.”
“Heart rate increasing from the shock of you grabbing my dick without warning me first,” Maynard shot back, but the way Danny was squeezing him was definitely making his heart beat faster.
Danny lips traced Maynard’s collarbones and inched down his chest. “Notice how the subject’s breathing changes when I do this—” His tongue swirled around a nipple and Maynard’s breath hitched and his hips lurched off the bed and into Danny’s waiting palm.
“Fuck you,” he gasped.
“Interesting reaction. Subject appears agitated despite clearly-affecting stimulation.”
“Danny—”
Maynard was going to chastise him for acting like a fucking nature documentary narrator, but Danny’s hand slipped beneath his underwear and finally curled around his cock, and the words died on his tongue. A breathy whine escaped his lips, body arching into the touch.
Danny chuckled. “I thought you didn’t make noises. Subject appears—”
“Danny, I swear to god if you say one more goddamn thing about me like I’m a lab rat—”
“Which you technically are.”
“—I will knee you in the face.”
Danny stroked him lazily, slow and languid, thumbing the head of his cock and smearing the precum collecting there. Maynard hissed and bucked his hips.
A smirk crept over Danny’s features. “I love how you’re threatening me while your dick’s in my hand.”
Maynard dropped his head against the pillows with a solid thump, the sensors crinkling and shifting, laughter erupting from his throat. This entire situation was absurd. The fact that this second-rate handjob was going to earn them a combined $7,500. The fact that one of Maynard’s closest male friends was currently giving him said handjob. The fact that he was definitely going to come from this; he could feel it building—that slow climb, the gradual increase in pressure at the base of his cock, the tingling creeping into his abdomen, the heat that was flooding his cock, his cheeks, his fingers.
“I should probably write in my notes for this session that I’m laughing,” he said, breath coming in uneven gasps. His entire body tingled—a rope, taut, ready to snap.
Danny bent his head to mouth at Maynard’s chest again, noting that “the subject responds well to combined manual and oral stimulation.” Maynard huffed a laugh, but it was cut short when Danny massaged the head of his cock with two fingers, his lips simultaneously sucking at a nipple. The rope was fraying. He was almost there. Almost.
“Fuck, Danny, I’m— Oh fuck—”
He came with a strangled gasp, hips jerking shallowly into Danny’s fist.
“One orgasm down, twenty-three more to go,” Danny said, looking quite satisfied with himself.
Maynard caught his breath, chest rising and falling rapidly, skin cold where Danny’s mouth had been moments before. “Jesus. You know what you’re doing.”
Danny shrugged. “Natural talent.”
Maynard sat up and pulled his pants back up his hips. That was easy. $7,500 in the bag. A wave of gratitude swept over him. “Thank you. For making this whole thing not horrible.”
Danny leaned back on his heels on the floor. A sly smile crept across his face. “’Not horrible.’ I’ll take that review as a compliment.”
Maynard groaned, limbs heavy on the bed. “You know what I mean.”
Danny stood up, joints cracking—“I’m getting old; can’t be on my knees for such a long time”—and headed toward the kitchen. Maynard lay there for a second, trying not to think too hard, before dragging himself to his feet and following.
“When do you give them the readings that thing is taking?” Danny asked as Maynard peered into the mirror, adjusting the placement of one of the sensors.
“When we go in for the lab session. They’ll hook it up to their computer system, take all the data off it, then give it back. Then they’ll get the second half of the data at the very end. Same thing with the logs I’m keeping. First half in one notebook, second half in another.”
Danny followed Maynard toward the bedroom. “What are you putting in the logs?”
“They want basic information about what I’m actually doing with you. Positions and actions. That kind of thing.”
Danny hummed. “I guess it’d get boring for them if you just did the same thing every week.”
“I don’t know why they need to know that, but they’re asking me to write it down, and for the amount of money they’re paying, I’ll do whatever they want me to. I don’t think it matters what I do, just that I do something every week.”
“You want to do something different today?”
Maynard’s stomach tightened deliciously. “Like what?”
Danny’s hand darted out to press a peeling sticky pad back against Maynard’s ribcage. “This tattoo is something.”
That jet black scorpion stretching down his back and over the swell of his hips—it wasn’t something Danny had ever commented on, and it warmed him. He’d gotten it a few years back, saving quarters and dimes and anything extra from his paycheck to afford it.
“Can I touch it?”
Maynard was nodding before the words were completely out of Danny’s mouth.
A finger ran down his spine. Then two. Gentle and sure, Danny traced the scorpion, inch by inch. Maynard’s skin tingled beneath his touch.
“Why’d you get it?”
“So whoever’s fucking me has a good view.”
Danny’s hands faltered, stuttering slightly across his hips. “What?”
Maynard peered over his shoulder at the way Danny’s lips had slackened. He quirked the corner of his lips. “You heard me.”
Danny pushed Maynard down onto the bed, face-first, and climbed on after him. Maynard could feel Danny’s weight on the mattress, his legs bracketing Maynard’s thighs, and arousal barrelled through him, making his nerves tingle and wiping his mind blank.
Danny’s hands pressed down on the small of Maynard’s back, fingers curling around his waist and kneading into the skin and muscle and tissue there.
“What are you doing?”
“Something different,” Danny said.
The broad plane of his palm dragged across his back, then knuckles twisted and pushed at muscles Maynard didn’t even know were sore. Danny massaged his way across shoulders, back, and hips, and Maynard melted into the mattress. When warm hands slid up the inside of Maynard’s thighs, pressing and squeezing at the sensitive skin there, he rolled his hips against the bed involuntarily. He hadn’t even realized he’d gotten hard.
Danny nudged him to roll over, and he did, the soft fabric of his briefs tugging and sliding against his cock, a wet spot forming on the front. Danny—cheeks pink, hair falling in his face—hooked his fingers beneath Maynard’s briefs and pulled them off, tossing them to the floor before pushing his thighs open and settling on his stomach between them, shoulders bumping Maynard’s legs. The look on his face—teasing, focused, intense—made Maynard’s stomach churn.
“You gonna tell me what you’re about to do?”
Danny smiled, but it was hardly reassuring. “Why? You nervous?”
“Maybe a little.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“With the face you’re making right now? No. I could see you either sucking my dick or biting it off and I don’t know which one it’s going to be.”
Danny exhaled a short laugh, sending a puff of air across Maynard’s cock. It twitched in response. Danny’s eyes flicked down to look, fingers trailing up Maynard’s leg to the back of his knee and drawing patterns in the sensitive skin.
“You have a really nice dick.”
The words were like a zap to the brain and his cock twitched again.
Danny laughed. “Somebody likes compliments.” He wrapped his free hand loosely around it, sliding up and down torturously slowly. “Good size. Nice curve to it. And the tip…” His thumb brushed over the top, smearing through the growing wetness; Maynard’s hips jolted into the touch and a breathy noise escaped. “Look how much you’re leaking already.”
His face was way too close to Maynard’s cock now for him to be planning anything other than a blow job, and Maynard’s body thrummed in anticipation. Danny’s lips were soft and pink and right there.
“You’re so hard you could hammer nails.”
“Danny—” Maynard dropped his head back, only managing half a laugh before Danny’s lips were on him, warm and wet, and the laugh transformed into a low, needy sound. “You’re insane,” he managed to gasp.
Danny pulled off. “I’m observant. Which you should be, seeing as you’re keeping a log of all this. ‘Dear diary, today Danny did something with his tongue that made me see god.’”
“You’re confident.”
Danny swirled his tongue around the tip of his cock; Maynard sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth.
“When you react like that, I think I’ve earned the confidence.” Another lick. “You taste good.”
Maynard hardly had time to flush red before Danny leaned forward and took Maynard so far down that the head of his cock bumped the back of Danny’s throat. Maynard’s hips lifted off the bed and Danny choked, yanking his head back, spit rolling down his chin.
“Fuck, sorry,” Maynard gasped, hips jerking into the air.
“I’m not doing that again,” Danny said, voice ragged. “Are you trying to get your dick bitten off? Because I’ll do it.”
“Sorry, sorry. I couldn’t help it.”
Danny leaned forward again, but this time sucked at the tip, tongue working in dizzying circles while his hand twisted and stroked the rest, until Maynard’s legs were trembling and he could feel his body pulling taut.
“Danny, Danny—” he gasped, hands flinging downward to tangle in Danny’s hair, not yanking or demanding, but just needing something to hold onto, to ground him, as if Danny’s lips and hand around him weren’t enough to keep him from floating away. Danny did a particularly devilish thing with his tongue, pursing his lips and sucking, and Maynard came, spurting onto Danny’s lips and across his cheek. He looked at Danny through glazed eyes, looking at the cum sliding down his flushed cheeks and across his red, sticky lips, looking at how he was looking at Maynard, with an expression that was heady and satisfied.
“Pretty,” he said, eyes roving over Maynard, then he tugged the neck of his shirt up to wipe his face clean and he wasn’t looking at Maynard anymore.
A month and a half into the study, Maynard looked forward to Danny’s weekly visits more than anything else in his life. They’d seen each other more since the study started than in the entire six months preceding it. Granted, there was money involved, but Maynard had forgotten how much he really enjoyed Danny’s company. The talents of Danny’s tongue and hands certainly helped, but they’d been good friends for over a decade and his humor and optimism reminded Maynard why he’d been drawn to Danny in the first place all those years ago.
Danny had never come—never gotten naked, never even touched himself in any of the sessions so far—though Maynard had seen that he was not unaffected after many of them. He’d asked Danny, offered to return the favor, but Danny always reminded him the study wasn’t about him, and that was that. But right now, laid out on the bed, looking at Danny kneeling beside him, hard in his pants, a rush of pure desire left him lightheaded.
He wanted to touch him. Make him feel good. Look at him, flushed and hard. Hear him make little pleased noises. Feel him, hot and heavy, in his hand.
“Danny.”
Brown eyes flicked up to meet his, accompanied by an incredible twist of the wrist. “Yeah?”
When he’d regained control of his breath: “I want to.”
“Want to what?”
Oh, right. Danny hadn’t been privy to this thoughts. He almost laughed. “I want to touch you.”
“You don’t have to; remember—”
“I know. I want to. You’re not disfigured, are you? Or impotent? That’s not why you haven’t taken your pants off, right?”
Danny barked a laugh. “My junk is perfectly intact and functional, thank you very much.”
“Then prove it.”
Danny’s eyes darkened, lids getting heavier. He shimmied off the bed and out of his pants. His boxers came off and his cock—indeed perfectly intact and functional, and flushed red, a bulging vein snaking up the side—was in view. A bead of precum glistened on the tip. Danny slid his hand down and stroked himself with a loose fist, once, twice.
Saliva pooled in Maynard’s mouth. He wanted that on his tongue.
“Come here.” Maynard scooted toward the edge of the bed and beckoned Danny closer until his knees were bumping the mattress and his cock was inches from Maynard’s face. Maynard licked his lips, collecting spit on his tongue.
“An alien with little squares and strings all over its head is about to suck me off. Can’t say that’s ever happened before.”
“If that’s what gets you off,” Maynard said, and took the silky head of Danny’s cock in between his lips.
“Oh fuck,” Danny groaned. “I like your mouth.”
Danny tasted like salt and sweat, cock heavy and hot on Maynard’s tongue. He gripped Danny’s hips, skin cool beneath his hands, and pulled him forward. Danny jerked his hips in tiny thrusts, shaking with the restraint of holding back.
Maynard realized with a start that he liked this. Liked the weight of Danny in his mouth. Liked the taste of him. Liked the way Danny’s sunny composure was cracking into a thousand pieces, just from Maynard’s tongue.
He pulled off, spit stringing from his lips to Danny’s cock. “I miss your commentary,” he said, wiping the back of his hand across his face.
Danny’s chest was flushed a splotchy red, breaths coming quick and shallow. “Can’t think when you do that,” he slurred, eyes fluttering shut. “Finish me off and I’ll get back to talking.”
Maynard’s hand drifted to his own neglected cock, the touch teasing and light. “I didn’t think hookers were in the business of making demands.”
Danny shoved him backwards. He flopped back on the bed and Danny crawled next to him, eyes sharp and calculating. “Never mind. I don’t want you sucking my dick anymore. For that, you’re getting something else.”
Maynard’s stomach flip-flopped. “Oh yeah? Like what?”
He shouldn’t have been so turned on by the way Danny manhandled him onto his stomach, but the ease with which he flipped him over sent a rush of blood away from his brain and straight to his cock, which was now pressed deliciously between his body and the sheets.
Danny’s hands cupped his ass, slowly sliding downward, and Maynard realized.
His breath caught in his throat. “Danny.”
“If you want.” Danny’s voice was less commanding now, less mischevious.
Images flashed into his brain—Danny’s fingers, Danny’s cock—and a strangled sound escaped his throat.
“Danny…”
Danny kneaded his ass, steady and sure, rocking Maynard’s hips further into the mattress with each push and roll.
Maynard groaned. “Danny…”
Danny trailed his fingers down lower to brush between his legs and Maynard jolted—shock, surprise, arousal, a combination of all three.
He leaned down to Mayanrd’s ear, breath ghosting across skin. “Trust me?”
“Yeah.” Of course Maynard trusted him. How could he not?
Cool air blew across his back as Danny got off the bed and rummaged through a bag on the floor. Maynard put his head facedown on his arms, goosebumps erupting across his body, twitching his hips into the bed every so often, the friction just enough to keep him hard and wanting. He could hardly believe Danny was about to do this.
“I’m not gonna use— I mean, I’ll use my fingers,” Danny said, climbing back on the bed. “I know you’re obsessed with all things anal, but we’re not going all the way at once.”
Maynard laughed and lifted his head to glance over his shoulder. Danny’s cock bobbed out in front of him with every movement, precum dripping onto the bed below. For a wild moment, Maynard wanted to tell Danny to fuck it, skip the fingers and go right to—
A slick finger rubbed at his entrance and the rest of that thought dissolved like mist in the sun. The first press inside sent tingles shooting into his fingers and toes. He’d done this on his own a few times, but Danny’s fingers were thicker and longer and it just felt different to let someone else do this for him, take control.
He was half-aware of Danny rocking his own cock against his thigh; the slick trail he was leaving was cooling on his skin. One finger, then two, and Maynard’s hips were rocking into the bed, the combination of feeling sending crackles of electricity through his veins. Danny crooked his fingers just right and—
“Holy shit,” Maynard gasped, hips pushing back involuntarily. His entire body had just lit up from the inside, and Danny’s fingers were hitting the right spot at the right angle, and with the right pressure… “Right there, right there—”
“Are you close?” Danny asked, voice thin and strained. He was rocking against Maynard with more urgency now, fingers faltering in their movements just slightly.
“Don’t you fucking dare stop what you’re doing,” Maynard gritted out. “I’m so fucking close—”
He came with Danny’s fingers up his ass, body shaking with the intensity of it. Danny came a moment later with a choked groan, spilling onto the back of his thigh, warm and wet.
Danny took a fistful of the sheets and wiped Maynard’s thigh clean. Maynard couldn’t move anyway, though the wet spot where he’d come on the bed was now cold and tacky against his skin. A warm hand skimmed over his hip and up his ribcage, briefly flitting over the scorpion tattoo before pressing between his shoulder blades.
“How was that?”
“Different.” His voice was muffled from the way his face was pressed into the pillows, but he was comfortable. He wasn’t ready to move his head yet.
“Good different?”
“Very good different.” He groaned into the pillow. “Fuck.”
Danny lay down next to him, hand settling on his lower back. Comfortable. Warm. Solid. He chuckled, and his hand shook on Maynard’s skin.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“What?”
“I can’t believe I came humping your thigh.”
“Well, yeah. I’m glad it was my thigh and not a dog or something.”
Another laugh rumbled through Danny. “Okay. Okay. Also funny—you give surprisingly good head.”
“Surprisingly?” Maynard actually mustered up the energy to lift his head up at that. “Surprisingly good? What the hell, Danny?”
“I didn’t think you’d be any good at it.”
“What?!” He smacked Danny’s shoulder with the back of his hand. “Why wouldn’t I be any good at it?”
Danny shrugged. “You have a small mouth. I was worried about your teeth.”
“Says the man who was threatening to bite my dick off when he couldn’t handle a bit of deep-throating.”
“Hey, I’d never done that before. And you came. I’d say that was a decent first attempt. And I’ve gotten better since then, right?”
That was, admittedly, true. He’d refined his blow job skills over the past month, much to Maynard’s enjoyment. But he refused to feed Danny’s ego. “Can’t believe you said I was surprisingly good. You been thinking about it?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.” The air was suddenly sucked out of the room. Maynard didn’t have a snarky response ready for that. “Well…”
They settled into a strange sort of silence; awkward, but also comfortable at the same time. It shouldn’t have surprised him to know Danny had been thinking about him giving a blow job—Maynard had certainly spent many nights a week thinking of Danny’s mouth and hands—but it still took him aback to know Danny had been imagining how good it would be.
After a few minutes, he sat up and tugged at the monitoring equipment. “Gotta take this off.”
He left Danny lying on the bed, the room quiet but for his feet on the floor as he went to the bathroom.