“Wellllllll?” Kasie drags out the single-worded question, bouncing lightly on her toes while she waits for Kurt to finish hanging up his coat and shoulder bag. “How did it go?”

Kurt purses his lips, letting her question hang in the air for a few more agonizing moments until he can no longer keep his joy from bursting forward. “It went fantastic!” he exclaims as he whirls around to face her, tightly clasping his hands together in front of his blooming grin. 

“Kurt!” she shrieks. Her dirty blonde ponytail whips wildly as she throws her arms around his shoulders and squeezes the air out of him. “That’s amazing!”

Kurt lets his heart glide on wave of pure, simple happiness – one sculpted from accomplishment, from dreams and possibilities awoken after a dark slumber. “I’ll find out soon,” he says, his words muffled by Kasie’s wool-clad shoulder. “Any moment now.”

The memories of his audition the previous morning bubble back to the forefront of his mind. He can still taste the sour surges of jitters that stabbed his throat and stomach, so bad he’d nearly retched on the floor while he waited for the director to call his name. Somehow he’d reached down, clenched the anxious nerves in his fist and flicked them away as he walked to the center of the stark, shadowy stage – a stage he wasn’t even supposed to be on, not if he’d let convention keep him away – and stood proudly, unshaking, to pour out his soul in song.

Kurt’s voice swelled bigger, brighter than ever before; it glided up, up, up toward the tallest buildings, tickling the clouds above, until it exploded with light and color that gently glimmered out of sight as the last notes fell away. Then there was nothing but silence – full and rich and deafening, pounding in his ears between panting breaths.

“When you sing,” the director finally started, slowly, in a voice dusted with an upper-crust accent that Kurt couldn’t quite place, “I can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman I’m listening to. I close my eyes and I try to place it, but…” he paused and steepled his fingers in front of his groomed, gritty salt-and-pepper beard. “I realize I don’t even care. I know just how King feels as he watches Victoria. I applaud your…fluidity, Kurt. You stand on a razor’s edge between masculine and feminine without getting cut. It’s exactly what we’re looking for.”

Kurt couldn’t believe his ears. “T-thank you.”

The director nodded once, curtly, with the hint of a smile in his eyes. “We’ll be in touch.” 

The wave crests and breaks, foamy and feather-light at his feet. Kurt breathes a contented sigh. Never before had he felt such a steady beat of calm confidence in the wake of an audition. I’m going to get this part. I know it.

“You’ll get it.” Kasie echoes Kurt’s thoughts. “I have a feeling about this one. Oh! Before I forget, there was a package waiting for you outside the door when I opened this morning. I stuck it in your cube.”

“A package?” Kurt frowns and pulls away from Kasie’s embrace. He spins on his heels to search the opposite wall, lined with plastic cubbies messily marked with each barista’s name.

“Yeah. It was stuffed in the doorjamb. Kinda weird, but I figured you’d know what it was all about.”

It takes just three long strides for Kurt to cross the tiny break room floor. In the box bearing his name he spots a bulky manila envelope, camouflaged among molded beige plastic and sharp shadows.

Gingerly, Kurt plucks the package from his cube. His frown deepens as he tries to place the identity of the bold, sweeping cursive that spells out Kurt across the front. He lifts the clasp on the envelope and thumbs open the flap to peer inside.

At first, the contents are hard to discern. He sees a slip of paper, ripped along one edge, and something else – something dark and glossy and strangely shaped–

Kurt nearly chokes on his gasp when he realizes what he’s staring at.

“I, uhm.” He clears his throat, starts again. “I’m gonna run to the bathroom before I start. I’ll be…be there in a minute.”

“Is everything okay?” Kasie’s words are colored with concern at the sudden shift in his tone.

“Yeah.” The pitch of Kurt’s voice is high enough to break glass, and as sharp as the pieces that fall in its wake as he run-walks away.

***

The teensy, windowless bathroom at the back of the break room is soiled and dank. Normally, Kurt cringes when he uses it, peeing and washing his hands as quickly as possible so he can escape.

Today, he’ll take his time.

Clink, clink, clink. The tinny sound of Kurt’s belt buckle unfastening echoes around the dark, silent room in tune with his shallow breaths. He pulls down his jeans – his favorite pair, faded and fitted to perfection – and lets them pool around his ankles, careful not to subject them to the soiled floor. His briefs follow the same path down his legs. The cool, stagnant air sits heavy against his naked thighs, and he shivers.

He takes his cock on one hand and gently joggles it – though it’s already stirring from the contents inside the envelope he’d tossed onto the toilet lid. He swallows down a moan at the touch of his own palm, soft and cold, cradling his hot, heavy cock.

With his free hand, Kurt grabs the package and tips it down, clumsily spilling its contents across the toilet lid. He reaches for the note first; it trembles in his hand as he stares at it, learning the slant and scribble of Blaine’s handwriting.

I think you need a reminder that I’m in control. I want you to slide this into that pretty little ass of yours. Wear it until I make you come.

I’ll be watching you squirm.

The vibrator sitting on the toilet lid is jet black and smooth like gel, and fucking huge – about five inches long, he estimates, and as wide as three fingers at the base. He’s experimented with plugs in the past, but never something as big as this.

Kurt’s breath comes faster, in tiny flutters that make his head feel like it’s taking flight. He jerks his pulsing cock again, sending a shudder through his entire body.

As he stares down at the intimidating toy, Kurt sees something else hidden underneath. It’s a small tube of lube, flattened and crinkled at the top. Brow creased, he picks it up. It feels hollow, too-light to the touch. Half empty.

A prickly punch of heat wells in Kurt’s gut. Blaine used this.

For weeks, Kurt has been trying to draw lines between the aimless points Blaine had scattered across his life: lecherous lust and twisted honesty, deep depression and heartbreaking loneliness. Some had set themselves up right alongside Kurt’s own, like a partner he’d been searching for but never believed existed.

Now the points were finally starting to form a map: a picture of a man whose deep-rooted fears hold his desires in a desperate, deathly grip. Instead of allowing his true nature to grow and thrive, Blaine had reigned himself in and buried himself alive. This gesture – this lewd, creepy token of affection – was Blaine trying to claw free from the suffocating rubble of his broken life. 

But Blaine needs control. Needs it to get through another day, to continue forward on his crawling journey toward accepting himself.

If Blaine wants to be in control, Kurt thinks as he lets a single finger graze the length of the vibrator, I’m happy to oblige.

Kurt unscrews the tiny cap off the tube, shivering again as the cold gel slides onto his fingertips. He works it in small circles, letting the lube warm to the temperature of his skin before reaching behind him. 

With one hand spreading his ass cheeks apart, Kurt slowly circles the tip of his slick middle finger around his hole. A delicious tickle crawls up his cock and into his belly as he teases himself. Then he slides the single finger inside, and his world sharply shifts sensual. 

“Mmmmmm…” He doesn’t stop his lazy hum as the rigid, silky ring of muscle engulfs his finger. For a moment he stills his motions and simply lets himself feel the smooth, tight pressure.

He inches his finger inward and then glides it out. In, deeper, and then out again. Again. Again, and again, until he aches for more. On the next pull out, Kurt couples two fingers and pushes them in. He curves his knuckles inside himself, seeking his most sensitive spot; when he finds it, he swallows down his moan to a quiet squeak in his throat. 

Another chill shakes through his body as he thrusts a third finger into his ass. It’s cold and suddenly so very lonely in this bathroom, fucking himself for a man who won’t get close enough for Kurt to touch. He shuts his eyes and imagines Blaine’s face on the other side of his lids, looking at him longingly from outside the café window. 

Palms pressed against the glass, wanting. Wanting Kurt. 

Eyes locked on Kurt’s, craving. Craving Kurt.

The memory is enough to send Kurt’s blood searing through his veins. When he opens his eyes, he finds them glued to the vibrator. It seems less imposing now that his ass is stretched, empty, aching to be filled.

With sticky, shaking hands, Kurt squeezes out the last of the lube and completely coats the toy. He blindly guides it behind him, drawing in a deep breath as its plump, pretty tip grazes his hole. 

Kurt works it in slowly, pressing it forward and then easing back. As the vibrator edges deeper, it feels like a knife slicing him in half; the sensation shoots straight up his spine until he’s gasping, writhing, groaning, screaming into the sleeve of his sweater to stifle the sounds.

When the vibrator’s flared base grazes his skin, Kurt slowly stands up straight. It’s been...oh, it’s been far too long since he felt so full. Deep inside him, the toy hits him right – right there, and every time he moves, every times he breathes it bumps again, sending another wave of arousal through him. 

Kurt drags his briefs and jeans back up his quivering legs, strapping his cock underneath his waistband to hide the bulge. He tucks Blaine’s note safely into his pocket and shoves the empty lube bottle back in the envelope, crushing it into the trash can.

Heart hammering in his chest, Kurt opens the bathroom door and tiptoes out to face the world.

***

Don’t let anybody know.

It’s all Kurt can think when he walks out of the break room and behind the bustling counter. His head swarms, bright and busy as the crowded café, and his body feels raw – raked open from need and bursting with a brand of anxious embarrassment he’s never felt before. He clenches the toy tighter inside him, hoping to hide it even deeper.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Kurt? You look really...pink.” It’s Kasie again, standing before him holding two gallons of milk in her hands. “You shouldn’t be here if you’re sick.”

“I-I’m not sick.” His voice sounds brittle, like he’s about to break. “I’m fine, I promise.” He ties his apron around his waist, hoping the second layer will better hide the evidence of his arousal.

Kurt walks toward the front counter – one slow, wobbly step at a time – and starts up his register. He feels the weight of an army of eyes watching him: his first customer, and the woman next to him, and the five people in line behind them.

Can they tell? 

Do they know? 

He fights a war with his fear, forcing himself to get lost in the steady, stressful rhythm of working the register. Take an order, take a payment. Thank you, good morning. For a few minutes, he almost forgets that his ass is stuffed with a sex toy from his stalker.

Until his entire body lights on fire.

He’s just finished scribbling out a young girl’s order across an empty coffee cup when a vibration starts to roll through him, sparking all the way up his body until it tickles his throat with a moan he has to bite down on to keep from erupting. He ducks his head and digs his dull fingernails into the counter, breathing deeply through his nose to steady his shaking knees.

“I’ll be watching you squirm.” Kurt remembers Blaine’s note, still wedged into the front pocket of his jeans. 

Where is he?

Kurt manages to pick himself up straight and blindly pass the empty cup to the barista working the latte line. When he looks up, his gaze wanders to the front corner of the café, where he’d performed his graphic one-man show while Blaine had watched from outside the window.

His heart skips a beat when he sees Blaine – he’s here again, watching Kurt, but now he’s inside, warm and lovely in the pretty morning sunlight. He appears to be consummate businessman, casually sipping a coffee while sitting in a cozy high-backed chair by the window. The same chair, Kurt realizes with another start, where Kurt had jerked off for him just a week before. 

It’s not a coincidence, Kurt knows. It’s Blaine, trying to dip a cautious toe into unfamiliar waters. Kurt hopes the savage, deadly current doesn’t come and sweep him away.

Their gazes lock; for a moment, the rest of the world fades and blurs. Kurt thinks of the first time they met, four long weeks ago, when he’d stood at this very counter and stared into Blaine’s sweet, startled eyes for the first time. The two of them are closer now, yet somehow even farther apart.

From his safe distance, Blaine studies Kurt with intent, his face half-shielded by the top of his coffee cup. Kurt watches him release one hand from the cup and snake it into the pocket of his heavy black peacoat.

Vibrations start to pulse through Kurt faster, harder. He has a remote control in his pocket, Kurt realizes. He bows his head again and sucks in a noisy breath, powerless to the control Blaine holds in the palm of his hand.

Just as soon as it shoots higher, the vibrator dies back to a dull hum. But a quavering ghost of sensation still wafts through Kurt’s body, haunting him. Tease, he thinks. 

Kurt tries to power through the hot, throbbing arousal building in his belly. Each time he remembers he’s being watched, a thrill courses through him, mingling with the vibrations in an overcharged symphony. 

He feels a sparkle start to shine in his eyes. He’s sexy – like Victoria, except he’s just himself, he’s Kurt. He, too, can put on a show to please a man. He can even try to take the lead in this forbidden dance.

When the next customer – a man of about forty with gray flecks in his well-groomed hair – comes up to the counter, Kurt sheds his last reserve. As he starts to hand the man his coffee, Kurt throws him a smile and a flirty wink.

The vibration suddenly flares and explodes inside of him. Tremors shoot up his spine, buzzing in his brain and showering back down with a heavy shudder.

“Ohhhhh!” Kurt lets out a loud, low moan as he doubles over. The cup drops from his hands, hitting the counter with a hollow thud. Hot coffee splashes from the lid and singes his bare skin.

“Kurt!” Kasie rushes over and clutches his shoulder, helping hold him up on weak limbs.

Kurt squeezes his eyes shut and prays for the toy to turn down. But it keeps vibrating, driving him maddeningly closer to the edge. “I...don’t feel good,” he gasps.

“Kurt, go home!” He feels someone push his coat and shoulder bag against his arm. He grabs them, shoving his arms into his coat sleeves and clumsily swinging his bag over his head.

“I-I’ll be fine t-tomorrow,” he mumbles before he begins to rush for the front door. As he shuffles toward the exit, he glances over at the corner again, where Blaine had been watching him.

The chair is empty.

***

Like a gnat buzzing in his ear that he can’t swat away, the vibrator keeps pulsing on, off, on, off, on as Kurt trots home. It’s a rollercoaster ride of arousal that leaves him panting and spinning, silently screaming to get off. 

Blaine is close – Kurt knows he must be, he has to be if he’s still controlling the toy. But whenever Kurt glances back, all he sees are strangers.

He wants to run, but his weak knees are trembling too hard; they knock into one another with each clumsy step he takes. He keeps his head down to hide the tortured pleasure he knows is etched across his face. A burn mark has bloomed bright red on the back of his hand, and Kurt rubs at it, trying to soothe his scorching skin.

At last he reaches his building; with fumbling fingers, Kurt unlocks the door and lets himself in. He scrambles up the stairs as quickly as he can, groaning as the vibrator presses against his prostate with each step.

A strangled cry bursts from Kurt’s chest when he finally clicks the door to his apartment closed behind him. He tears at the ties of his apron – he’d forgotten to take it off before he left work – and lets the garment fall to the floor in a heap of navy blue. Next go his shoes, his jeans, his briefs, tossed along the short trail he forges to his bedroom.

Still clothed above the waist, Kurt collapses onto his bed and digs into his nightstand drawer for a bottle of lube. He’s so hard it hurts; just a few slick slides up and down his cock and he’ll–

Suddenly he hears another buzz – not the vibrator, not this time. Kurt stops searching his drawer and blindly reaches over the side of his bed for his jeans on the floor, feeling for the shape of his phone and clawing it out of the pocket. 

Blaine (7:48am): Still wearing my present?

Me (7:48am): Yes

(7:48am): You told me I can’t take it out until you make me come

In his hands, the phone vibrates again – and again and again. It’s ringing, with Blaine’s name big and bold across the top of the screen. 

“Hello?” Kurt pants, answering the call.

“How did it feel?” The question gushes out of Blaine like a geyser, bursting forth with the force of pent-up passion. It’s an earnest, nervous whisper, but it threatens to drown Kurt with its power. “When you were in front of all of those people?”

“I–” Kurt tries to muddle through the melted puddle of his mind. “Scary. Didn’t want them to know what I was hiding. But...ohhh, it feels so good, Blaine.”

Blaine’s pause stretches so long, Kurt thinks he’s hung up. But then Kurt hears him softly speak again.

“That’s...” Blaine stops and blows out a long, slow exhale. “How I feel. That’s how you make me feel, Kurt.”

Blaine’s tender, gravelly murmur wraps around Kurt’s trembling body like a gentle embrace, holding him as he lays there, half-naked and helpless. “Blaine…”

There’s another long pause before Blaine stutters out another soft command. “I-I want...I want to hear you. Scream. For...for me.”

Goosebumps prickle up and down Kurt’s body. “I’ll be so loud for you, Blaine,” he says.

“Fuck.” Blaine breathes the oath, a heavy exhale into the phone. Kurt can nearly feel it, damp and gritty against his oversensitive skin. 

There’s no more window between them – now they can hear each other’s words, breaths, moans. But distance and fear still cuts them apart, and the gash is wide as a canyon. Kurt stands at the precipice, shaking. He can’t cross; he can’t jump. He can only call out, loud and clear, and hope Blaine will hold on to an echo.

When his ass pulses again, hotter and harder than ever, Kurt yelps; the sound quickly degrades into a moan that he lets loose through the room. He stabs at the screen of his phone to turn on the speaker, then drops it to his pillow.

“Oh, Blaine.” Kurt wraps his dry fingers around the crown of his cock and strokes once. “W-where are you?”

“Close,” comes Blaine’s husky voice through the speaker. 

“I-I wish you were–” closer, Kurt thinks, but bites down on the word before it escapes. “I-I n-need...t-touch me...” he stammers instead, letting out a high hum as he pumps his cock again.

“Are you jerking yourself off?”

Kurt nods frantically, even though Blaine can’t see him. “Yeah.”

“Oh, yeah. Yes. Touch yourself for me, beautiful.”

Kurt’s cock aches from lack of friction; he strokes himself lightly, easing his gnawing need and driving himself closer to ecstasy. His cheeks pulse hot, a throbbing rhythm that he matches with his fist.

“I want to be the only one who makes you come,” Blaine says, sandpaper-rough. “The only one who makes you scream.”

“You are.” Desperation drips from Kurt’s breathless voice – he’s desperate for release, desperate to give this to Blaine, desperate for Blaine to stay, even though he’s still so, so far away. “You’re the only one, Blaine.”

Kurt hears the buzz ramp higher a fraction of a second before he feels it, tinging all the way down to his toes. He writhes against his mattress and cries out a piercing wail.

“So good, Blaine,” Kurt babbles, crushing his cheek into his pillow so his lips caress the case of his phone. “Shit. I’ve never felt so good before.”

“It felt good when I wore it last night,” Blaine growls. “I laid in my bed and I thought about how sexy you would sound when I turned it on for you.”

“Y-you...ohhh…” Two more firm pulls and Kurt comes, squeezing his eyes shut as he flies over the edge – no lifeline to grasp but the one word he wails over and over. “Blaine, Blaine, Blaine.” Cum soaks the scratchy knit of his sweather until it sticks to his stomach in a quickly cooling mess.

He coasts back to solid ground with a sigh; his breaths soften, even, slow. The vibration suddenly stops, and a deep shudder racks his wrecked body.

“Ohhhh,” Kurt moans, long and languid. “Blaine. That was…”

He trails off when he realizes the phone sounds eerily silent.

“Blaine?” The last of the afterglow seeps from his soul. “Please. Don’t leave me, Blaine.”

With his one clean hand, Kurt grabs his phone from the pillow. The screen is black, blank, bare.

“No.” He shoots up from bed and tugs his jeans up his legs, wiping his wet hand across the denim as he races to the door and throws it open. His head whips from side to side, scanning the hallway for any sign of Blaine.

Nothing.

Kurt slams the door shut again and rushes to his bedroom window. With his gaze, he picks through the ant-sized pedestrians scurrying along the sidewalks for one particular head of dark, glossy hair.

No Blaine. He’s vanished again, smoked out by a fog of fear. Kurt turns his back to the window and heaves a lifeless sigh. 

A filmy veil of fatigue suddenly drapes itself over him. His body moves methodically, a shell of its former self sucked dry from exhaustion. He strips off his clothes until he’s bare, shivering in the cool, heavy air of his drafty apartment. Slowly, he slides the vibrator out, wincing at the sudden emptiness; his ass tries to clench around something, anything, but there’s nothing. He tosses the dirty toy onto the pile of discarded clothes and crawls back into bed, pulling the blankets up to his chin and quaking against his cold, sterile sheets.

Kurt picks up his phone again and types out one last text before he rolls over, pressing his eyes into the pillow and willing himself to fall asleep.

Me (8:09am): That’s how you make me feel, too