Archive of Our Own

The first time Robby saw it, he instantly began to guess how many others had seen it before him. With a secret twinge of unfounded jealousy he concluded there must have been around five to ten, but for his own sake he favoured the lower end of the scale. 

Dennis had a tattoo. A fine-lined, palm-sized, gorgeous, gorgeous tattoo of a pair of feathery angel wings around an apple. 

It seemed too personal for a dare. Too delicate for a drunken mistake. No, this was intentional. A very intentional, very mouth-watering decision. But what in God’s name possessed him to make it a tramp stamp?

He wasn’t even supposed to see it. He was supposed to be helping restrain a violent patient until the sedative took hold, the same patient who, at the time, was clawing at Whitaker’s arms, finally catching the sleeves of his scrubs and refusing the let go. As she gradually lost consciousness, she didn’t lose her grip, pulling the sleeves halfway down his arms, hiking it up his back a little. It was only like that for a second, maybe two, but that was long enough to see.

To see, and wish he’d never seen it.

Because now, four and a half hours later, he was at home, and he could still see it. 

Robby had cleared his throat, said something hoarse and vaguely affirming, and cleared the fuck out of there.

It wasn’t just that he could see it, still so clearly defined in his mind as if he’d taken a magnifying glass to distinguish every feather. No, it was that he couldn’t stop thinking about who else had seen it. There had been two other people in the room, but they were on the other side of the patient and wouldn’t have had the right line of sight. Then he cast his imagination further back. 

Whitaker was now living with Santos. Had been for a while, apparently. He wasn’t sure how many secrets were shared among roommates. He himself hadn’t had one of those for…too long to warrant thinking about. But assuming Santos had seen it, that made two. And, the third of course being Whitaker himself, and the tattoo artist, and perhaps the person who designed it, and by the time the count reached five or six people Robby decided to leave it at that, unsettled by how the rising number had been matched with a rise in his body temperature. 

It wasn’t exactly a question he could casually ask Whitaker in the workplace. And if he were being honest he would really rather not know, because, in the state he was in right now, finding out the real number was not just higher than five but thousands of times higher might have sent Robby into a not-so-early grave. 

Which is why it was convenient the universe gave him a few days grace period before springing the answer on him. 

Here he was again. Not seeing the tattoo but still seeing it. God, he knew even if he clawed his eyes out he wouldn’t stop seeing it. The soft and perky feathers, the plump bitten apple in the middle. How ironic. 

It was the irony that made him think it had been a dare in the first place. Whitaker, who he still caught muttering a quick grace before biting into a protein bar in the break room, had a tramp stamp. He remembered it every day like an affirmation when he walked into the ER and saw him there, and then saw it. 

It had been three days since the incident, and Robby wasn’t sure he could take another night of this. 

When it came to porn, Robby stood in the nameless, comfortable balance between prude and savant. Right in the middle. He knew what he liked, and he liked what he watched. And there was hardly ever any need to look outside the box to get off for him. Save for a brief crisis around his forties, when he suddenly and irreversibly turned his attention from women to men, he had remained pretty consistent with his tastes. For a man his age, with the wonders of modern technology serving him a buffet at his fingertips every time he felt the itch, he never varied, and rarely strayed. 

The man in the videos never showed his face. That was both smart and pleasant. Robby always found the ones who did to be distracting and vain, always looking straight into the camera before making those faces. The only thing Robby could discern about him was short blond hair that curled to just below his ears. They looked soft, light, in a way, bouncing at the top of his neck. 

Everything else was a carefully-sculpted mass of body. Beautiful, anonymous muscle. A faint, faded farmer’s tan gave way to light, golden skin and soft stomach, well-formed thighs, and strong yet modest arms. 

Robby was a creature of habit as bad as they came. He drank about a gallon of sweetened coffee every day and damned the consequences. He still smoked after a bad shift, and working where he did, were there ever any good ones? He had his usual haunts, the same shows to put on while he cooked the same meals week after week. When he found something he liked, nobody could take it from him. Come hell or high water, he’d still have his coffee, his smokes, and his shows. So when he found the pretty man with the faded farmer’s tan, who moaned so sweetly, and flaunted the secret of his golden curls like it was nobody’s and everybody’s business, Robby quickly made it his own, too. 

The videos all started the same way. They were cut rather awkwardly, clearly from a longer, unstaged feed from which Angel (fondly dubbed thus by his viewers) clearly picked out the best parts. But the beginnings were always the same as far as Robby had seen. 

A shot of the inside of a bedroom from about hip-height. The camera was mounted clumsily, sometimes slipping before the main event started and had to be fixed. Including it was awkwardly cute, and Robby always refrained from tapping ahead. 

The video showed a small and modest double bedroom. The edge of a second desk could be barely spotted, but it was empty. Wherever Angel studied, he was lucky enough to have been spared a roommate. Robby wondered if he used the second chair to prop up the camera, but refrained from thinking too deeply about what happened outside the frame of the video.

The camera showed him enough: A modest view of an anonymous-looking city skyline, hidden beneath a layer of digitally-added blur. The top of the desk was littered with books, flash cards, notebooks, highlighters and other standard stationery. In front of it was a backless stool. Any moment now Angel would saunter into frame, clad in nothing but plaid blue boxers and white socks, and plop down onto the seat. 

A second later, a cut, and instead of his pretty self, a big, colourful dildo occupied the chair, suctioned to the seat as Angel himself drizzled a generous helping of lube over it. Tight fingers spread it down the shaft, squeezing teasingly along the imitation vein underneath the head of it. 

Robby didn’t plan ahead for which video he would watch that night before bed. He simply scrolled the home feed of the guest account on the site until one of them appeared. As far as porn stars went, Angel wasn’t popular. His videos got a few hundred views, but they were, in a word, devoted, to him. With a twinge of jealousy Robby came to recognise the usual usernames who always managed to string together the lewdest phrases known to man under the comment section of the videos. 

Jealousy was perhaps not the right word. Robby knew better than to feel a sense of competition with these guys. But he couldn’t help wondering if the thrill of seeing their names up on the screen with their donations, seeing Angel pause and lean in to read them, then lean back with a satisfied huff just before the sudden shift in his breathing, was worth the loss of dignity when he inevitably had to see the expense on his bank statement sooner or later. Perhaps. Robby wasn’t that desperate. Yet. He would take what was given and go to sleep. 

The camera didn’t shift position as Angel hovered, legs spread, over the seat. The dildo slightly bent as it reached the obstruction, and Robby could practically see in his mind the two nimble fingers reaching behind and guiding it past the tight ring of muscle, see the slicked head disappear past it, and soon came the rest. Inch by hungry inch, Angel lowered himself onto the seat, leaning back and doing his brave best to hold on to his moans before the fun even started. 

No sooner did he bottom out than the paid messages started to roll in. One after another, the top of the screen lit up with pale pink rectangles containing a Pandora’s box of the worst of humanity’s depraved imagination. 

Robby was not one to romanticise, especially this. Creature of habit aside, the reason he was here in the first place was because one of his most loyal habits had been broken. Or rather had broken him. Like it or not, he had started to care, at his big age, for a man much younger than him. A man who looked all sweetness and cocky confident smiles and giggled at just the perfect frequency to perk the ears of a primal side of Robby that wanted to treat him nicely. 

And at the same time wanted to tangle his fingers in those golden curls and put him through the mattress every night. Wanted to run his tongue along those muscles, the curve of his shoulder, the dip of his back in which nestled that sinfully beautiful picture. He imagined it would taste different, somehow. The heart core of those wings would feel different on his tongue, for sure. He could have felt it with his eyes closed. 

Angel didn’t have a boyfriend. 

Robby was as sure of that as he was that the sky was blue, that the taste of green tea was vomit-inducing, and that he no longer cared if he was lying when he said he wasn’t looking for Dennis in these videos.

He wasn’t. Sure. Let him cope.

But Angel didn’t have a boyfriend, and that was hardly a difficult deduction to make. For one, the videos were posted a few weeks to a month apart. And every single time he sank onto that silicone dick he sighed like it was the first time again. So he wasn’t getting much action in between, from the dildo or one of the real ones that no doubt surrounded him wherever he went, because…well, come on. Robby couldn’t see his face but he didn’t need to. 

And if his face was as pretty as the rest of him, any man or woman lucky enough to be as intimate as the loners in his comments wished they could be, would never leave him without marks to show their privilege. Robby certainly wouldn’t let him walk out the door without at least a hickey or two, placed conveniently and modestly, maybe under the curve of his pectoral muscle, or in the well of his collarbones, or littering the inside of his thighs.

So, no. Angel was single. Taking it one step further, Angel may be a virgin. Whenever a particularly filthy message came through on the screen, and Robby rolled his eyes as the wishful thinking of the cash-laden basement-dweller on the other side of the screen, his scoff was matched with none other than a blush and a chuckle from Angel himself, moments before he seemed to remember where he was, and a jolt of pleasure made him rigid as a distant buzzing was heard coming from the seat. 

Routine is a thing as precious as it is fragile. One deviation from the norm could knock the whole thing down in a heartbeat. A week in, Angel proved to be one such deviation. In some ways he helped, of course. Robby no longer worried he wasn’t getting enough sleep, which would have compromised more than his own life. But on the other hand the very person Angel was supposed to divert him from seemed only to become more and more distracting himself.

From morning to night, Robby trained himself to keep his eyes up when Whitaker was speaking, to focus on the words he said instead of the shape of his mouth. Twelve hours later he was ready to leave and let the cold air scrub the crawling feeling from his skin. But he still never reached home with a cool head. And every task that fell between that and going to bed seemed to take twice as long as usual. 

He knew what it was. A positive feedback loop. He hesitated to call it an addiction just yet. The more of Angel he saw, the worse things got at work. It was one thing to watch porn of a guy less than half his age just because he somewhat resembled his fantasies of another similarly aged man he worked with. It was another thing entirely when the two became almost interchangeable. 

One day when he overheard Santos talking to Whitaker about trialing night shift for a few weeks, he had to leave the room and find something to occupy himself with immediately, or risk dwelling a little too long on why the thought of Whitaker being alone in the apartment made his heart skip a beat. 

As he left the room the image of Dennis in the anonymous, blurry-filtered apartment, knees apart and guiding a colourful dildo between his legs hit his pent-up mind like a sledgehammer. Whitaker, knelt by the paper-strewn desk, able to be as loud as he wanted and still stifling his moans. His pretty chest, now filling out his scrubs very tidily with farm-grown muscle, would be a vision…

Robby wasn’t addicted. That was just—no.

But he could understand how someone might get addicted to this. As soon as he started, the short little clip on his phone seemed to take over everything else. First the time he spent in bed, then at home, then on his way to and from work. Soon every action was just another part of the routine that culminated in Angel.

Angel, Angel, Angel. 

There was nothing in the account that suggested that username had been made up by the boy himself. The username was nothing more than a string of letters and numbers, clearly not intended to provoke the usual crowd, which was probably why Angel’s numbers were far less impressive than the rest on the home feed. Not that Robby wished there were more people to—

‘Compete’ wasn’t the right word. As soon as it became the right word, that qualified as obsession, and Robby was not obsessed. He could shut off his phone whenever he wanted, clear his history, and never look back. 

The same could not be said for the regulars in his comments, amassing hundreds of dollars on every video. He supposed they had one thing in common: they liked what they saw, and stuck with it. This wasn’t everyone’s piece of cake.

The cuts made it hard to tell how long Angel was studying for when a new donation started up the vibrator again. But from the shock in his reaction Robby deduced it was a few minutes at least. It was awkward, and cute, how he dropped the highlighter halfway through a line, or gripped the card so hard it creased and he had to copy it out again. The little curse under his breath was so worth it.

The videos were all between 3 and 5 minutes long, but from the level of light in the window of the room, he guessed that about an hour or so would have passed from the start to the finish. But he would have to actually catch a stream to be sure. That would be one step too far, though. He would need to make an account, a first donation, a username. When all that was said and done he’d have to sit through the hour of this person—this stranger—performing for him and who knows how many other strangers. It was too much. Too real. It ran the risk of breaking the fourth wall. 

Then the leftover human part of him was worried Angel would end up doing or saying something that broke the illusion, making the distinction between him and Whitaker undeniable. Then the charm would be broken, and Robby would have to find something else to fill the void Angel had left in his evenings.

But then…But then he would have heard him, at least. Would have seen him between the carefully-selected clips, another level of humanity he thought he was coming here to avoid seeing. Maybe when the illusion broke it was Angel, not Whitaker, he imagined bending over the desk, reaching around to grip that pretty flushed cock. In the final few moments, when the donations slowed as viewers’ hands became busy with themselves, and Angel resorted to hiking up his knee to put one foot on the seat, raising himself up and down the dildo—or taking himself in hand to stroke the sensitive head until he came over his knuckles—it would just be him that Robby saw. Just him. 

And maybe after that the subject of his night-time fantasies might change, without shattering the carefully-constructed world he’d made for himself. And then nobody would ever have to know that he’d dwelt so long on what was never meant to be.

Angel was ever-changing. Though the videos all had the same formula, with some welcomed exceptions, they were never all the same. Sometimes the angle was different, focusing on the curve of Angel’s hip, or propped up on his desk, posing down into his lap. Sometimes the camera turned on while he was still in pyjamas, a mouthwatering pair of well-worn grey sweats and clearly nothing under them. He’d just gotten out of bed. 

Other times he looked like he truly had something to study for. from the spine of the textbooks it looked like he was studying medicine. Robby hummed in surprise, but didn’t linger on the information. 

Sometimes he looked hungry. The uncertain light making shadows fall over his belly in a way that hollowed it out a little. The outline of his ribs flashed dark and worrying, then he recovered, leaned back, bottomed out so he looked fuller now by the addition of the cock inside him. That gorgeous swell…

He ran his pale hands down his chest, kneading untouched skin on the descent. The first few donations of the video came in at the same time, overwhelming him with sudden stimulation. Angel hadn’t even gotten to textbook open and he was cumming already. Pearly spurts arcing through the air and landing wetly on the glossy front cover. Angel only sighed, riding out the end of the vibration, and skimmed his fingers through the mess, swirling it around. Robby’s eyes widened as he hesitantly raised his coated fingers out of frame, towards his mouth. They came back wet, licked clean. The pleased shrug cut off and next Angel was hunched over a set of diagrams. 

The video did not end there. Time after time, the vibrator came to life, buzzing against his overstimulated prostate. Angel stretched around the bulge in his stomach, turning this way and that to get more comfortable. Dewy strings of precum leaked from his flaccid cock, drawing lines across the top of the stool and painting his pretty thighs glossy. Quiet gasps against his knuckles betrayed that he was close again, and Robby found himself holding his breath until another orgasm crashed through the boy. His fingers gripped the edge of the desk, another splash of cum lining his inner thigh. 

Over and over. The viewers that day had been overly generous. They watched him fold up and stretch out, cum so many times he was pretty much dry. A white mess on his thighs and knees spoke volumes, and the video was twice as long as usual. Robby resisted making an account right on the spot just so he could save the video for himself. Yet another line he could not cross. He locked the name of the video in his memory, and would return to it, again and again. 

He let the next video play automatically, his hand stilling in his boxers when he saw the setup was entirely different this time. The camera was pointed at a single bed, clearly propped up on some books on the vacant one opposite it. Robby silently thanked whatever powers that may be for the coincidence of Angel not having a roommate. 

Then the boy himself appeared. No sooner did he show up, his back to the camera, smoothing out the sheets, than the first few donations came in. Fifty bucks. Then sixty. A hundred dollars flashed on the screen, and if Robby wasn’t still trying to figure out how to start breathing again he would have noted how much like a bidding war it felt. 

Angel’s lower back was partially covered with a large towel slung over his shoulder. Damp skin and streaks of water droplets between his shoulder blades told of a recent shower, and darkened culs drying on his neck confirmed it. The towel swung as he laid brought his knee up onto the bed. His lower back was flushed, redness radiating almost through the screen to warm Robby’s transfixed expression. 

The towel was tossed aside. A pair of pink panties had become the subject of the conversation in the chat box, but Robby’s eyes couldn’t shift from his lower back. Now in plain view was a tattoo. A tattoo of a pair of angel wings, with a bitten apple in the middle. 

He shut his phone off and placed it face-down on the bedside table. It was only when his vision started to blur that he realised he was still holding his breath. An exhale burst out of him like a sob as his hands came to cover his face. 

Why. Why—why, why!

An hour later, and a chilling midnight walk around the block, he returned to the video. It was still paused on his phone, he’d left it on the bedside table, afraid of what it would do to him to have it near. But now he turned it on again, pausing before pressing play. His mind was silenced, a determined feeling overcoming him that convinced him with no evidence whatsoever that this was fine. Just fine. 

Angel—Dennis—lay down on the bed, his head just out of frame. The date of the video told Robby this was one of the earlier ones, and he could tell by the remnant of the tan Dennis was sporting, as well as the cross necklace which lay lightly across his chest. He seemed restless right away, as the first donations hit hard, one knee up by the wall to reveal the circle of silicone pressing against the panties. When he arched, the telltale bulge in his lower belly revealed the hidden presence of the dildo. 

He bucked his hips ever so slightly, a hum of displeasure escaping him when the lacy waistband slipped past his hardening cock, setting the pinkish head free on his stomach. Robby’s pulse hammered in his ears as he consciously turned the volume up. He tore his eyes away to the top of the screen, where the textbook was held open over Whitaker’s face as he attempted to read. 

He skipped to the end. The textbook was spread open on his chest as Whitaker clutched the pillow at his head, unrestrained moans echoing through the hollow-sounding room as he desperately humped the air, determined to cum untouched. His cock was now fully hard, streaking wet spots over his belly as the panties struggled to hold him in. The circle of silicone attempted to come free several times, only for Dennis to clench his thighs and suck it back in. 

That was how he came, stuffed full of cock and forcing his hands away from it, riding the air and groaning so sweetly into it. If Robby wasn’t so sure it was Dennis now, the open-mouthed moan he let out, inviting the bottom of his chin into frame, told him all he needed to know.

For the past month or so, Robby had been watching Dennis Whitaker’s porn.

What made things worse was that deep down he had known the risk, the possibility, had spotted the similarities early on, and chosen to keep going.

But what broke him was that, even deeper down, this was exactly what he had been hoping for. And now that he had it, he felt more revolted than ever. Not just by himself, but for the dozens of strangers throwing money at him, urging him to keep going. They had been the ones to come up with that pet name—‘Angel’—without knowing a single one of the angelic things he did every day. They had been there in the beginning, been privy to the tattoo for years before Robby. They had had it all before Robby even knew to want it. 

And now that he wanted it, he could not stop himself from taking it. 

He navigated to the sign-in portal and thought, guiltily, This is Whitaker. But then he put in a randomised username. Then he added his contact info. Then he added in his credit card and thought, with a new inflection, This is Whitaker. 

When he saw the home feed with the new member layout he couldn’t help but feel a sense of anticlimax. It looked more or less the same. It was only when he found Angel’s account that he saw the differences. The elusive chatbox was there, all the now-familiar names he’d envied populating it, up until a few weeks ago, when the last message came in asking where Angel had gone? A few others sympathetically replied that he had probably moved on. The consensus was disappointment, and an eager willingness to lure him back with promises of more and bigger donations than before. But Angel’s lack of response to their bribes said the affirmative. He had indeed moved on.

Moved out of med school, for one, and into a shared apartment with, reportedly, thin walls. Robby felt an ounce of success—they may have had him for longer, but he had Whitaker now. ‘Had’ in one sense of the word. He knew where he was most of the time, knew what he was doing. Was in his vicinity twelve hours of every day. These men only had him on their screens for a few minutes at a time. 

A possessive giddiness overthrew the shame that came with inputting his card details. He had had the option for a small, medium, or large first donation for access to the account and chat, and he had automatically opted for the large one before he knew what he was doing. All he could think of was how he’d seen Dennis standing in front of the vending machine the day before, counting dimes in his palm, and after that it was a no-brainer. 

He scrolled further down the chat, picking up messages from weeks, months, even years ago. The same names, same questions: when is the next stream, when will the recording be posted, then the bolder of the bunch asking if it would feature someone special, and offering to be that someone. Robby had to laugh out loud at that. But then the laughter ended and the next messages all blurred into a blank wall as the notion stuck with him. 

Some of the videos ended in a lull, due to the patrons being too busy to donate, and meant Dennis had to sometimes break his self-imposed rule of not touching himself in order to cum, else risk being edged at his desk for God know how long. 

He wondered if it wouldn’t be easier, and more fun, for Dennis if he did have someone there to do it for him. Not like Robby was waiting in line to volunteer, but it surely wouldn’t hurt to get someone to come over and…finish him off. He wouldn’t even mind missing the payoff, knowing Dennis had someone there to cut the video short for him. He scrolled to the last video he’d seen, the one where he was laid in bed, and pictured those hands releasing the pillowcase and flying down between his legs, pressing on the back of a head buried there.

He imagined the waistband of the panties wetted translucent with spit, or slipped halfway down to his knees, a steady hand finding the silicone circle and handling it as it tried to free itself from Dennis’s tight, slicked hole. He would wrap his lips around the throbbing head of his cock, and slowly work the dildo into him, knowing exactly how to aim it so it hit his prostate every time. 

His whole body would shake and he would hold his breath as the other man snuck a hand under his back, fingers running flat along the tattoo, and pull him off the bed, driving his cock further down his throat—

Robby closed his eyes. It was 1 am and he was still scrolling on his phone. He’d ignored the first, and then the second low battery warning.

And he was still hard in his pants. 

Surely it was too late to go back now, right? How many times had he cum from these videos? How many times had he gotten hard just thinking about them in the shower and pumped a quick one out to—as he would find out later—his employee?

Surely it made little difference now that he had put the face and body together, right?

He pressed play on another video and unzipped his pants, making peace with the fact he wasn’t going to be very nice to be around the next day.

“I kinda thought they forgot about me.”

“Were you hoping for it? You could delete the account if you did.”

“Well…I guess it’s nice to be remembered, even for this.”

“But you said it’s a new guy.”

Robby couldn’t pinpoint the exact day that his ears became trained to the sound of Whitaker’s voice. But it seemed now he could hear across the busy room, because he found himself unwillingly eavesdropping on his conversation with Santos as the night shift arrived. They were all getting ready to hand over, and in truth Robby could have left a few minutes ago. But now he was still at the desk, pretending to read over some charts, as his eyes skimmed the screen without seeing a thing. 

“Yeah, just last night—1 AM. He didn’t say anything, it’s weird.” Santos made a strange conspiratorial sound. Was she…aware of this…business of Whitaker’s? She must be. Does that mean she had seen—

It didn’t matter. He insisted that it didn’t matter. 

“I don’t know about you, Huck, but maybe it’s an omen.”

“An omen? What kind?”

“Maybe he’s trying to lure you back. Better late than never, I think.”

“Are you…seriously trying to convince me to start again?”

“You said you enjoyed it! Plus, we could always use more money. How much did he give? Let me see that.“

“But it’s your apartment, I don’t even—“

She tried to snatch the phone from his hands, but failed. Dana caught them on her way out, breaking up what she thought was a fight, and neither cared to correct her. 

Santos said her goodbyes with a secretive wink that told Robby she would not let the matter drop so easily, and then Whitaker was gone, speeding out the doors like he had somewhere to go, and not a single glance over his shoulder. Not that Robby was hoping for it, but other people had picked up on the fact he was grouchier than usual, and his temper was shortened to non-existence. The bags under his eyes were so heavy he might have swayed on the way home, but somehow he made it. 

Seeing Whitaker face to face today had been…oddly normal. Now that he knew…what he knew, it was surprisingly easy to keep outside thoughts away while they worked. They saved lives today, like every day. It was the secret knowledge he possessed that made him feel on top of the world. Nobody in those comments knew what they were up to, innocent and detached as it was. But Robby knew. Robby knew the stillness of Whitaker’s hands as he held the scalpel. Robby knew that a crumb had fallen down his chin and lodged in the collar of his scrubs. And he knew that today he had selected a raspberry yogurt instead of his usual plum for lunch. 

Knowledge like this put him one rung above the men in those chatboxes who had nothing to go off of other than what was contained in a rectangle of video footage. They would never be by his side watching as he saved a life. They had nothing to offer but money. 

Well. Robby also had money. 

The last video Angel had posted before a months-long silence was very different to the rest. For one, he was in a different location. A shiny concrete floor that looked too uncomfortable even to stand on, and Angel was on his knees. The comfortable room with the city skyline in the background was gone, replaced by breezeblock walls and colourless paint. A small-sounding room with a familiar shade of neon light that reminded Robby vaguely of a prison. 

What little belongings he had seen in the background of the videos from various angles were compiled into a few boxes stored under a metal frame, something like a bed, but not quite. It invaded the quiet space of the video like an unwelcome guest, worse than the absent roommate would have been. 

Angel sat against a door frame. His body looked smaller, the way it had been when Robby first saw him, with the shoulders of his scrubs sagging slightly, whereas now they filled it out much nicer. The overwhelming light gave his sunny skin a sickly glow, too.

There was a lucid wrongness about the whole thing before the video even began. The next thing Robby noticed was a distinct lack of cuts, though the video was much shorter than the rest, only under two minutes. It became evident why immediately. As the first donations rolled in, each with a question about the change of environment, Angel seemed almost unresponsive to the stimulation. The dildo was suctioned to the smooth floor as he crouched over it, leaning against the doorframe and the wall for support. It took three or four messages for him to put down the book he was reading, a small leather-bound thing that bore a golden embossed cross that shone with the most vibrancy in the neon light, washing Angel out even more. As Angel slid off the dildo with an unsatisfied pop another message came through guessing that it had run out of battery. 

With a sigh and half-hearted chuckle, Angel shuffled forward on his knees and shut off the camera, leaving Robby in the dark. The chatbox after that stream had been full of confused silence followed by a few people saying their donations had been refunded. He came to realise that, despite his prejudice, these men weren’t heartless perverts. They saw Angel was clearly in some kind of distress. But he didn’t pay them too much benefit. Without a doubt they moved on to the next twink they found in the suggested video under this one. 

But Robby’s mind lingered on the video as if it had just ended. He knew Dennis here. Knew him personally. A pang of worry broke through him as he realised he had had the advantage, and done nothing with it. He could have helped him then, back when the suggestion would have been all innocent and not carried the hint of intention on Robby’s part. Maybe he wouldn’t even be in this position now if he had helped him. If only he had known where and how to look, to help…

With a sigh of relief he recalled that Dennis was no longer in that situation. He was living with Santos now. He was a doctor. He saved lives and his own life had been saved. 

And he no longer had to do this. No wonder the feed had been silent after this one. What might have been a welcome distraction from the world, a way to blow off steam and make a bit of extra cash, had been cut short by the disappointment of a dead battery. Even this had been taken from him. All he had left when the camera cut off was a cold room, a leatherbound Bible, and the weight of the world. 

“I’m not trying to push you, I’m just saying if you were to do it, now’s the perfect time!”

“You’re just saying that because you’re not around to hear it.”

“I’m saying that because you clearly have something going on you’re not telling me about,” Santos was sighing. “And at this point I think I can make an educated guess. Conclusion: if you’re not gonna try to get laid, you have my blessing to deal with it through other means.”

Whitaker rolled his eyes. “I don’t need your blessing to…you know. But thanks, I guess? I’ll think about it.”

“Dinner’s on you when you decide to do it,” she finished with a smirk. “Hey, do you need an editor? I know a guy—”

“Goodbye, Trinity!” Whitaker saw Dana approaching and casually took his leave. Robby stood by the printer, hands hovering over the tray as if he was waiting for a sheet to be released. 

“Doctor Robby.”

“Hm? Huh—yes?” He spun around, coming face to face with none other than Santos. “Hello.”

“Hello,” she said, eyes skimming his face as he tried to school his expression into neutrality, not to betray that he’d heard their entire conversation and his mind was reeling. What did she mean by Whitaker having ‘something going on’? And why was the solution getting laid? 

He couldn’t lie and say his heart didn’t start to flutter when he heard them debating Whitaker possibly starting again. It seemed his prying hadn’t been for nothing. The idea of it should have disturbed him. He couldn’t stand by and support one of his residents be pushed to revive an amateur porn career while under his care.

But on the other hand, he started to understand the other patrons of the chatbox, whose money seemed to be burning holes in their pockets with every time they were notified of a new stream or upload. He had begun to envy the feeling, the anticipation…

He couldn’t be the driving force of this. That would imply Whitaker was doing this for him, and somehow, hidden beneath the mask of anonymity while he had accidentally taken Dennis’s own mask off without him knowing, made him feel sleazy and all kinds of wrong. 

But if, coincidentally, Dennis happened to start again of his own accord, a little push like Robby’s could easily be discounted. 

“You’re hogging the printer.”

He returned to planet Earth as Santos stood awkwardly in front of him. 

With a hurried nod he grabbed the topmost sheet and scurried out of her way away. 

“Heard about the head trauma in four. Nasty work,” she said. Somehow Robby wasn’t expecting her to know anything about day shift now she’d been on night the past few weeks. But living with Whitaker had clearly brought the two closer together than Robby had presumed. 

He nodded in the affirmative. “Huckleberry dealt with it,” he said, trying not to sound hoarse. Then his mind decided to take a vacation, because next thing he knew his mouth was saying, “It was tricky, though. These things always are, but it’s like he had the textbook right in front of him.” She chuckled non-commitally.

“Yeah, he’s a bookworm,” she said. “I still catch him reading it sometimes. That and his old flash cards.”

Something began to simmer in his chest. It was as if the videos were coming to life.

“That so?”

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s like he’s still preparing for a pop quiz you’re gonna give him. At this point I don’t think that’s a bad idea. Make it worth his while.”

“Maybe I will,” he laughed weakly, flushing at the sideways look she gave him as she started to tap the printer, then hit it more vigorously.

“Jammed again,” she sighed. She nodded to the paper in Robby’s hands. “You got lucky.” She took out her phone. “I’ll let him know you’re interested.”

Robby’s heart skipped a hundred beats. He fully expected to regain consciousness in one of the all-too familiar hospital beds. “Hm?”

“The pop quiz,” Santos said. “Unless that was another jokey joke.”

“No—I’m thinking about it. Keeping on top of things is no…jokey joke.”

“Great.” She sent the message. A moment later, a response came through. She smiled at her phone and put it away. “He’s down. Probably getting the highlighters ready as we speak.”

Robby folded up the blank piece of paper as if he had important business to attend outside the hospital, clocked out, and was home within the hour.

Fuck…

Days were blurring into nights, and once again he wasn’t getting enough sleep. Without having the time to acknowledge it, what had been bordering on addiction had suddenly flown into something miles beyond it. He wasn’t just using this for stress relief anymore. Most of the time he didn’t even jerk off like he was intending to while selecting a video he hadn’t seen too many times. He waited until the end of the night when his eyes were dry and lashes heavy, and if he wasn’t careful he would fall asleep with the video still playing and wake up with a dead phone just before his shift.

That night, the chatbox was active when Robby came to it. It had been going for a few minutes, spurred to life by Angel’s first message in months:

A: sorry for the silence!! life is crazy XD but might go live tonight

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

This couldn’t be happening. The gleeful messages kept coming through though Angel hadn’t replied to a single one. No time was set, not even to confirm if he would go live at all. He could almost imagine it: Dennis getting Santos’s message just outside their apartment, entering and proudly getting out his old study notes. 

Robby withheld a sound of fondness. That part he could take credit for—and would, once the ‘pop quiz’ was all said and done. He’d get to watch him answer every question with unsurprising ease, get to witness the self-satisfied smile he always had when Robby praised him, the people pleaser. He wondered how Dennis would react to knowing he’d been pleasing Robby in more ways than one for a while. Would he be disgusted, as Robby had been with himself, or would he take a minute, think about it, battle his instincts to pick the most morally right reaction, despite knowing in his heart he was doing this for his own benefit, too?

The latter may be wishful thinking, Robby knew, but was it so farfetched to think it, when the mere suggestion of studying for Robby’s benefit was what convinced him to turn on the camera again?

Robby sat up in bed, still fully dressed, watching the messages go by in the chat. A few donations were already lined up, characteristically generous. He scanned the names and, to his chagrin, did not see the one he had feared most, the one who always stole the thunder by giving a large donation at the end, robbing the rest of them of the view of Angel fucking himself to completion as their own hands were probably wrapped around their cocks and too busy to beat him to it. 

Well, Robby was here now, and the other guy wasn’t. And whether he’d subconsciously planned this from the start, or was simply following the herd, the sense of competition was strong in him.

The stream started. 

There was no going back.

After a brief second of black screen, the camera switched on. Messages flew by as the sound of flitting about the room came through quietly. Robby latched on to every single one while he took in the room. It was so different to the last setting he’d been in. The floor was a rich brown shade of hardwood, swept clean. The side of a bed and soft navy bedspread took up most of the screen. The far wall was lit up by the golden hour sun, revealing a cross-shaped shadow of a window frame in the background. 

It was all warmth, and comfort, before Dennis even stepped in. He walked across the screen with quiet familiarity, clad in shorts and a loose t-shirt, the bottom of which fluttered across the top of the screen. The camera was just below hip-high again, but it moved even higher on what must have been a tripod of sorts when Angel paced behind it. His shadow played across the wall, and Robby chuckled in pride to have known every defined feature of the face which the rest could only guess at. His soft curls turned, and he moved away from the window. 

If Robby wasn’t already convinced this had been worth his money, he sure didn’t regret anything anymore. His heart beat so fast it would have been worrying if it wasn’t for the sound of fabric shuffling as Angel slipped it over his head. His bare arms outstretched as he tossed it aside, the shadow reaching across the golden wall. Robby inhaled and exhaled. 

The shorts came off next. Messages suddenly zoomed past, so fast Robby had to hold down on the screen to read them. Some of them slurred their spelling in anticipation of something, saying things along the lines of ‘this is the best part’ and ‘can’t believe I went months without this’. Robby’s brows raised in confusion, sure there couldn’t be anything too special about watching Angel’s shadow. Nothing more special than getting to see the body that made it?

But then he walked back into view after lowering the camera again, the new angle showing off his legs from mid-thigh to ankle as he dropped a few things onto the bed. Instead of moving out of frame again, he lowered himself onto his knees. Robby’s vision whited out. It took a second to get breathing again as that damned tattoo faced him eye to eye. The angel wings seemed to flutter teasingly at him, or maybe he was finally going insane. 

More and more messages—the feed never seemed to slow. A donation came through already, followed by a loud buzzing just out of sight, accompanied by a restrained chuckle from Angel. Eager, it seemed to say. 

He knelt on the hardwood floor only for a moment, the soft swell of his cheeks resting comfortably on his heels, knees spread apart. Robby could just about make out the tip of his cock, already half-hard flopping down towards the floor. The curve of his back walked the eyes languidly up from the tattoo, baring his strong shoulders in the sunlight, then the back of his head, covered in curls. Here and there a dark freckle dotted the unblemished skin, and his neck was dusted pink already. 

Robby shuffled lower down his pillow, anticipation thrumming in his chest, and migrating lower. He disregarded the jeans restricting his movement, but cursed the sober version of him that first sat down, determined that he was here for totally innocent reasons. He wanted to shoot that side with a gun the moment Dennis rose up and reached for something on the bed. 

The chat exploded, and Robby couldn’t tear his eyes from the screen as he heard the sound of something uncapping, then squirting wetly out of sight. A moment later Angel brought his hand back behind him, and Robby’s breath was caught at the sight of his slicked-up fingers. Clear lube drizzled down them as he began massaging the slit between his cheeks. First one finger hooked inward, disappearing past his tight rim. Angel braced himself on top of the bed, then added another. 

Both fingers stilled within him as he took a breath, the muscles in his back quivering, and then, giving himself and the viewers no time to adjust, he pushed past the second, then the third knuckle. A low, feathery groan escaped him as he sank lower onto the ground, the tip of his cock twitched adorably, not helping Robby’s overheated neck. He needed to get this sweater off—who was he even kidding anymore?

By the time the sweater was off his head Dennis had already added a third finger. The tension in his back only brought the tattoo closer to the camera. In HD he finally could appreciate it the way he wanted to. Before he could have second thoughts he paused the video and took a screenshot. There was nothing now that could get in between him and it. Safely in his phone, he could see it whenever he wanted. He could have a piece of Whitaker with him at all times, and nobody had to know. 

Angel’s wrist rolled as he fingered himself gently at first, then he began to dig in deeper, reddening his knuckles with effort as he stretched his hole deliciously. A single drop of precum drooled onto the hardwood floor and Robby’s mouth went dry. What would it be like to taste it? Even if it meant dragging his tongue across the floor for a drop of it…Robby was sure in the anthology of perverted acts, this was hardly the worst to think about. 

The comments resumed, keening over the part of the stream that always got cut out. But after one too many comments he realised perhaps this fact had saved him from falling into this addiction immediately. The closeness, the intimacy of watching this—the preparation, the gentleness of Angel’s fingers teasing his own hole, not trying to get anywhere but part of the process—was too much for him or any stranger to get to see on demand. This was special, and limited, and with that in mind Robby committed it to memory.

With a soft squelch and a stifled moan, Angel’s fingers withdrew. He wiped them on something on the bed as he caught his breath. The comments turned to teasing, though in the brief lull someone had pointed out how much healthier and fuller Angel looked than before, and the rest had agreed—as if they actually cared for his well-being. Robby scoffed, but his resentment was short-lived, as a colourful blur entered the frame. No sooner did he identify the now familiar shape of Angel’s dildo, than it was securely stuck on the ground between his thighs. 

Teasing comments suddenly fell silent. No doubt they were all reaching for their wallets. Robby had the urge to do the same, but caught himself. Angel took a deep breath, lined his puckered hole up with the tip, and gripped it with clean fingers. On the exhale, he lowered himself onto it. The head disappeared inside him, eliciting a timid moan that was music to Robby’s ears. The further down he went, the shakier his breathing, the more melodious the sound. 

Half-way down he removed his fingers and let his tight hole seize the rest of the length as it swallowed the whole thing up. What Robby wouldn’t have given to see him turn around, to reach through the screen and smooth his hand over Dennis’s belly, to feel the solid object through his skin—

What wouldn’t he give? 

He eyed the donations coming through with confused envy. 

What was stopping him? He’d come this far. He’d crossed that many lines, and all under the guise of not knowing what he was doing. And he’d felt so, so awful, but perhaps not as awful as he should have, if he were in any capacity a good person. 

He was long past trying to be good, at least tonight. The brief moments between Angel bottoming out and rising again to reach for the nearly forgotten textbook were perhaps the most painful Robby could recall. The sting of being stretched out more than he was prepared for looked damn near unbearable, and he worried—or perhaps hoped—Dennis would have changed his mind, and within moments the feed would be cut. But then the dildo began to vibrate.

Angel was up on his knees, reaching across the bed for a pen, and the length of the cock had slid out of him just leaving the head inside. Robby saw the message with the donation come through, perfectly timed as if the donor knew minutes ahead when it would activate—and so it did. Dennis suddenly yelped and fell back down, taking the whole cock in one swift slide, and the telling buzz was now muffled, heard through the layers of skin and muscle that formed the perfect specimen on Robby’s screen.

He shook with surprise and sudden pleasure—the donation had been large—making the angel wings seem to flutter again. Robby swallowed and brought the screen closer, adjusting his position against the uncomfortable tightness in his jeans. It wouldn’t hurt to unzip, just to get some relief, right? It wasn’t like he was going to do anything. The self-imposed boundary of tonight seemed more like a tantalising punishment. His unbridled lust taunted constantly by the boy on his phone and yet he was always out of reach. 

Fuck it.

Fuck it all. 

He put the phone down and reached for his jeans. His cock all but sprang out of them as he shoved them down, underwear and all, and he found that he was already fully hard, achingly so. No one but Angel had managed to get such a reaction from him in a long time. 

And still that spoke to how tragic it all was. How could Dennis have such an effect on him and still be so far away? With every touch of his neck, or shoulders, or word of praise in passing—was the distance between them so unbridgeable? When he thought of the younger man, half his feeling was in his hands. The tense fabric of his scrubs, simultaneously soft and hostile as if it were protecting him from Robby’s touch, preventing him breaching further. 

Maybe it was right. Maybe the universe was telling him something with this. Look, don’t touch. Maybe after tonight he would start to listen to it, for Dennis’s sake if not his own, and damn his feelings. He’d had too many of them for a lifetime. 

Content with his new life plan, he looked back down at his phone.

And everything was forgotten. 

Angel’s right hand was crossed over his body, kneading his left shoulder, rubbing his neck—the same patch of skin Robby had come to know so frugally. Angel squeezed and released, squeezed and released, simulating a learned pattern as he recited from the textbook under his breath. Over his shoulder a diagram of a cross-section of the human brain blurred as Robby’s eyes wandered to those deft fingers. They were so much smaller than his own, surely they couldn’t feel the same. Was that what Dennis was thinking, too? 

Another donation came through and the buzzing restarted, prompting Dennis to drop his head and lazily rub circles at the base of his skull.

Did he—

Was he imagining Robby doing that while he fucked himself on his dildo for a bunch of strangers?

The vibration ended and he glanced up again, shaking off the distraction to resume his reading. He picked up a pen, tracing the edge of the diagram. The nib tapped idly on the page, and for some despicable reason that—that, mundane action, that Dennis probably didn’t even think about—was what broke Robby irreversibly. 

With a groan of defeat he shucked off the jeans all the way and gripped his cock at the base just as Dennis started tapping the pen to his lip, just out of sight. Robby pictured what was happening on the other side, perhaps a smudge of blue ink would colour his lip, and smudge when he bit it to stifle the next moan as another big donation came through. 

Robby fixated on that fucking pen so hard he could feel a vein almost pop in his forehead. He pushed the reading glasses higher up his nose and blinked as his eyes focused. Another donation. The pen fell onto the mattress with a muffled flump sound, matched by Dennis’s sharp cry as he curled backwards.

He didn’t stop as the shockwaves ran through him. Robby watched wide-eyed as he fucked himself on the dildo, his pretty cock bouncing in time with every thrust, his pace increasing almost subconsciously. Another donation followed from the same person. Robby’s eyes skimmed the name and his heart sank. It was him. From what Robby had learned, he wouldn’t let up until he’d made Dennis cum. 

He imagined the sick grin on his face, of knowing he was taking control even through the screen. What a loser, Robby thought, wanting to cut this short for everyone just so he could get a sense of victory? Of ownership? And poor Angel not knowing what was happening, too lost in pleasure to resist him, unwillingly giving himself…

Robby couldn’t just sit by and watch. He had to do something—save his boy. As Dennis eagerly chased his release, in the clutches of ill-begotten bliss, Robby’s ears went deaf to it. He opened the donation portal. His hands moved of their own accord, selecting the largest possible amount. 

When he returned to the video there was a ringing in his ears. It only went away when he saw the donation notification light up the screen. The chat was otherwise silent. No messages came through. The other viewers had to look at Robby’s donation—three times what the other guy had sent through. Moments later, before Dennis had even a second to recover from the vicious attack, he all but cried out as the dildo sprung to life again. The buzzing was so intense it seemed to make the camera shake. Certainly Dennis’s knees were quivering with the strength of it. His loud, open-mouthed moans came shaky as thunder as he was sent over th edge. The textbook slid off the bed with a thump but he didn’t even notice it. His knees came tightly together, the head of his cock rapidly pumping out spurt after spurt of pearly white cum. The bursts seemed endless, pleasure still erupting out of him hot and fast. It pooled between his knees in a pearlescent puddle, and still the vibrations didn’t end. The sight of him abandoning the struggle to keep his composure warmed Robby’s gut, pleasure boiling inside him though he was only gripping the base of his cock. He gave an experimental stroke and found he was already close just from watching Dennis. 

It went on for what felt like whole minutes. The chat slowly came back to life, urging him to keep taking it, praising the anonymous donation, as Dennis writhed in combined pain and pleasure. He feebly tried to slide off the cock, just for his knees to give out and send him back down the length again, the ruthless vibrations hitting his prostate and never letting up. He cried out—loud—and Robby came all over his fingers, his hips slightly bucking off the mattress as he spilled down his belly and chest in time with Dennis’s moans.

The gloss of a single tear ran down Dennis’s neck as he turned, almost pleadingly, towards the camera. His face was mostly out of frame, but even risking that—Robby felt a dark sense of pride. His mouth, half hanging open, the bottom row of his teeth glistening with spit…For a moment it felt like it was all for him. For Robby. All the other viewers faded into pixels. 

The other donor had gone silent, robbed of his victory. Finally the vibrations lulled, but still Dennis shook. His strong, muscular body was reduced to mush as he flopped forward, hiding his face in the covers.

Slowly he recovered, fishing for the lost textbook on his bed, but the deed was already done. He looked weakly from the camera to the page, to the pool of cum between his legs. As soon as his strength returned, he slid off the cock, his stretched hole pulsing around the absence before disappearing out of frame. The last thing they saw of Angel was his shadow on the wall. The still-golden light of the sunset had hardly changed a single shade. 

The screen went black, and slowly the chat box went quiet. Robby sat stewing in his bed for a few moments longer. His breathing levelled out, the heat of his face dispersed. He half expected to look up and see mist on his windows, but there was none. When he got up to clean himself he winced at the sting of cold water on his belly.

And he refused to look in the mirror. 

When he picked up his phone again to check his alarm for tomorrow, he saw a notification, and hastily went to swipe it away, before giving in and opening up Angel's chatbox. 

A: might start doing this more regularly again :o maybe next week??

Robby read the message like a death sentence.