“If you think it looked bad from the wings, you should have seen it up close! I thought Kurt was going to burst into flames right there on the stage.”

Everyone laughed, the whole cast and half the crew lounging in alcohol-fueled post-show relaxation on the couches and every available floor space of the director's tiny apartment. Everyone except Kurt, who was still fuming. Curled up in a little armchair, he dropped his face in his hands and groaned.

“Like, I seriously feared for my life,” his co-star Triel continued. “There were literal daggers in his eyes. I have never kissed such a tense mouth in all my years of kissing.”

Kurt made another noise of protest from behind his hands.

Marvin, the director's husband, came in from the kitchen with a new bottle of wine and made the rounds filling everyone's glasses. “So, wait, what happened?” he asked his wife.

“Cell phone!” at least seven voices chorused in answer, but Kurt's, pitched high with lingering indignation, topped them all.

“Say no more,” Marvin said, pulling an appropriately horrified face.

“No lie, I feared for my life,” Triel went on dramatically. “I was sure Kurt was going to pull a Patti LuPone right then and there. I could feel his temperature going up every time the goddamned thing tinkled that stupid tune – it was the Brady Bunch song of all things, I didn't know whether to laugh, cry or flee the stage in terror . . .

“It's the story of lovely lady . . .” Polly the stage manager began. She was quickly joined by others in a drunken, too-loud chorus of singing and laughter.

Kurt knew they weren't laughing at him so much as commiserating about the terrible audience member and trying to cheer him up, but he needed to put some space between himself and the reaction. He slipped out of his chair and over to the kitchen table to grab another slice of pizza from the boxes piled there.

“They tease because they love.” The director of the play, Meg, had followed Kurt to the table and she smiled at him as she reached for her own slice.

“I know, I really do,” Kurt assured her. “I just haven't let it go yet. We're pouring our hearts out up there. Is it that hard to turn off a fucking phone?”

Meg slipped her free arm around Kurt's waist and gave him a squeeze. She was the kind of person who was simply terrible at reading other people's signals to stay an arm's length away. People like that usually set Kurt's teeth on edge, but Meg's personality was so soothing in every other way that he gave her a pass.

“It's times like these,” Meg whispered close to his ear, “when we should try to remember the nice things. Like reviews. In the Village Voice. That said ‘Kurt Hummel is . . .'”

“A revelatory new addition to the New York stage scene,” Kurt finished for her, tossing his head a little, only partly in jest. “Yes, I remember. And that does ease the pain somewhat.”

“I thought it would.” Meg flashed him a knowing smile. “Where's Blaine, by the way? I thought he was coming tonight.”

“He had to go have dinner with his mom at the last minute. He said he'd try to swing by after.”

“I hope he does. You need him. That boy's smile could pull Sylvia Plath out of a funk.”

Kurt laughed at that in spite of himself.

He was carefully adding red pepper to his pizza when the doorbell rang and of course those little packets were impossible to open so he didn't realize the object of their conversation had actually arrived until Meg called out, “Blaine!” and lips pressed to Kurt's cheek. He leaned into the kiss, still wrestling with the pepper, and just as he conquered it with a triumphant “Ha!” Blaine's hand slid down his arm and pinched sharply at the skin over his elbow.

It was a signal. One that usually came when Kurt was least expecting it, which was part of the point. One that he wasn't in any frame of mind to defer to tonight.

They'd started playing with power exchange early in their relationship. They'd tried a lot of kinks – they were young and excited about each other and sex. Kurt had loved the bondage right off. It gave him a special kind of adrenaline rush knowing that, theoretically, Blaine could do anything to him. Of course it was Blaine, who wouldn't overstep a soft limit to save his own life, but tied securely immobile on a bed, it was easy for Kurt to let himself imagine he was in the hands of a ruthless pirate or sexy Roman conqueror. The danger of it may have been largely imaginary, but his dick responded enthusiastically anyhow.

The submission took more time. It was never really Kurt's thing. But any show of it – Kurt kneeling or crawling across the floor – did something profound to Blaine. It seemed to fill him with a sense of power and, more importantly where Kurt was concerned, an ability to act on that power. And pushy, bossy, demanding Blaine just did something to Kurt; it touched him in places that he rarely allowed himself to be touched. Blaine was never shy about telling Kurt how much he loved and wanted him, and Kurt believed him, but when Blaine got dominant there was an intensity to his every look and touch, a possessiveness that Kurt's higher brain told him he shouldn't be so turned on by, but his body responded to with a depth of emotion and desire that completely took his breath away.

They didn't do it all the time, and at first they kept it to the bedroom, but slowly the role-playing aspect of these games gave way to just them, each letting himself admit that he loved it not because of the pirates or the centurions, but because of what it did to and for him. Kurt found that he loved the way he felt kneeling gracefully, or crawling naked toward Blaine, angling his body in just the right ways and watching the heat rise in Blaine's beautiful eyes. He'd never expected it, but he enjoyed being made to feel like an odalisque, a radiant, purely sexual being whose only concern was to create pleasure. He loved the way Blaine would stroke his body, whether he was tied down or standing up against a wall. He was surprised to realize he loved being teased; loved the way it made him feel like every cell in his body was aroused and responsive to the smallest look or touch. He wouldn't have called himself a submissive, he didn't really think of it that way, but submit he did, and when he did, he loved every second of it.

But really, Blaine wasn't a dominant. He was a giver, and in dominating Kurt, Blaine gave him the freedom to not have to worry about anything at all. He gave him sensation and pleasure and his unwavering attention. He was playful, most of the time, because he was Blaine after all. But every once in a while something would happen. If Blaine was having a bad day or feeling particularly out of control, dominating Kurt gave him more than just sexual satisfaction. It released him, somehow, and helped to bring him back from whatever edge he'd been hovering over. Despite Kurt's insistence that he wasn't in it for the submission, those times when Blaine's dominance came from a deeper place than sex games were always the most satisfying for Kurt too. Blaine's need for him would be visceral, immediate, and crucial. And by stepping outside himself to fill that need Kurt experienced something he could never adequately describe, a kind of objectification that wasn't really objectification but being shaped into the instrument of some profound effect inside Blaine. He didn't understand it and he probably wouldn't have asked for it, but when it happened he flung himself into it and came out the other side limp and exhausted but deeply satisfied.

Blaine was the one who'd suggested they play with doing it in public. He wanted to see what it would feel like to tell Kurt what to do in front of other people, clueless people, and watch him obey. Kurt, for his part, made a token protest because it seemed like the expected thing, but soon he was imagining it, when they were out in public, how it would feel if Blaine was still in charge, secretly, and he was taking orders right in front of people. Just the imagining was unexpectedly erotic, so he decided to give it a try.

The rules were simple. A pinch on the elbow was Blaine's sign that he wanted to do it. If Kurt didn't feel right about it he'd pinch Blaine's elbow in return and that would be it. But if he didn't opt out, he'd be expected to clasp his hands whenever he expressly didn't need to use them, to keep himself oriented around Blaine, facing him no matter where he moved, and to obey any suggestion Blaine made as if it was a formal order. Blaine, for his part, agreed not to ask Kurt to do anything that might reveal exactly what was going on. The first time they'd done it Kurt had been breathless with nerves, but no one had had an inkling and the experience of obeying Blaine in front of their friends had been so erotic that they'd barely gotten through the door that night before they'd stripped off their clothes and fucked right there against the door. That became their regular pattern any time they played the game. Sex against the wall, on the floor, one time they'd made it all the way to the couch – which Kurt had then forbidden Blaine to sit on until he'd had it thoroughly steam-cleaned. On those nights Blaine was so intense and demanding, so unlike Blaine, that it felt to Kurt like he was being fucked by a stranger and more, being overwhelmed by him, enveloped, assimilated.

It was very, very good.

Blaine, for some reason, always felt the need to apologize after a night like that. Whatever took him over in those moments, he seemed to have a harder time accepting his need to command and take than Kurt did accepting his own desire to be taken. No matter how much Kurt tried to reassure him that the unfamiliarity only added to the delicious sense of almost-danger that made him wild with desire, a part of Blaine saw it as a failure – of self-control or chivalry maybe, Kurt didn't know quite what the problem was for Blaine. His own reactions should have been enough to let Blaine know that he was perfectly happy with that particular side of his boyfriend. They were certainly enough for the neighbors, who had had to pound on the walls on more than one very humiliating and noisy occasion.

But as much as Kurt loved everything about that kind of sex, tonight wasn't the night. He was tired and completely out of sorts. He wasn't being a diva; the show was tough enough without stupid audience members who didn't have the common sense of an ant. He planned to finish his pizza, maybe have a little too much wine, then go home and fall into the deepest, hottest bath he could manage to coax out of the ancient pipes in their building. Then sleep. Preferably until noon. His hand was halfway down Blaine's arm to deliver his return pinch when he finally lifted his eyes from his pizza and actually looked at his boyfriend.

He could see immediately that something was wrong. Blaine's eyes were wide and oddly skittish, like a horse trapped in a fire in some old western movie. There was too much white in them. His lips were pressed into a thin line (not easy for Blaine's cupid's bow to achieve) and tension pulled at the muscles around them and bunched in his jaw.

“Honey!” Meg cried. She leaned close to give Blaine, who was still holding Kurt's elbow, a smooch on the cheek. “I'm glad you made it. Poor Kurt needs you tonight.”

“What happened?” Blaine's eyes darted from Meg to Kurt, looking even more alarmed.

Kurt shook his head. “Nothing. It was nothing.” He set his paper plate down on the table and deliberately clasped his hands and turned so that he was fully facing Blaine. He was rewarded with a tight smile, but the panic around Blaine's eyes retreated a bit and that was enough to make Kurt's cock stir – quite inappropriately, he reprimanded it silently. But seeing the way Blaine reacted to his compliance always had that effect.

“I'm sorry, Meg,” Blaine said, still staring at Kurt and, Kurt hoped, drawing strength from his eyes. “Something's come up and I need to talk to Kurt. Is there someplace we could –?”

“Bedroom,” Meg said, anticipating him with her usual quick grasp of a situation. She pointed down the only hall. “Where we put the coats,” she clarified, as if there might be a few other rooms to choose from.

Blaine turned without a word – his lack of courtesy scared Kurt even more than his troubled eyes – and Kurt smiled a thank you at Meg as he followed.

It wasn't far to the bedroom; Blaine was there before Kurt was even all the way out of the living room. When Kurt crossed the threshold Blaine was on the other side of the room, putting the bed between them. Kurt suspended the hands clasped rule long enough to pull the door closed behind him and turn the lock. Then he laced his fingers together – behind his back this time – but he stayed facing the door because he was completely lost as to what he should do.

His overwhelming instinct was to run to Blaine, hold him and ask him what had gone wrong. What any boyfriend would do when the guy he loved looked as desperately unhappy as Blaine had when he'd arrived. But the elbow pinch meant something, especially in a situation like this, a situation that seemed completely at odds with their usual playful approach to public displays. So he held still, listened to the harsh rasp of Blaine's breathing, and waited for some signal from Blaine.

But no signal came. When Kurt finally turned around he understood why. Some kind of battle was going on inside Blaine. He stood on the other side of the bed piled high with coats, his lips still pressed tight, shaking his head like he was rejecting the advice of a voice only he could hear. Kurt's heart started to beat too fast; it scared him to see Blaine look so lost and out of control.

“What do you need?” he asked finally, in a voice that was hardly more than a whisper.

His words set Blaine in motion. He crossed the room in three leaping steps, wrapped a hand – cold, too cold to just be the effect of outside weather – around the nape of Kurt's neck and pulled him into a hard, frantic kiss. His lips and tongue moved restlessly, like he was searching for something inside Kurt's mouth, but when he pulled away his eyes seemed to be more focused, his breathing a trifle calmer. He still held Kurt's neck and Kurt pressed his forehead to Blaine's, keeping them connected.

“Tell me,” was all he said.

“It's just my mother. You know how she can be. I don't want to talk about it.” Blaine's voice, louder than Kurt's, was sharp with anxiety.

“What do you want?” Kurt asked again.

Blaine pulled back enough that Kurt could see that he still looked haunted, lines of tension outlining his eyes and mouth. He searched Kurt's face for something, then shook his head again, negating that voice that Kurt couldn't hear.

But Kurt had heard enough. He had just enough room between the door and Blaine's body to lower himself, carefully because his hands were still clasped behind his back, to his knees.

Blaine's reaction was immediate. “No, Kurt, we can't –”

“Is this what you need?” Kurt asked quietly. He had never knelt for Blaine anywhere but in their apartment, but he felt amazingly calm in spite of that.

“We're not home. Anybody could come to get a coat or something.”

“I don't care,” Kurt said firmly. “I care about you.”

“I can't ask you to –”

“You didn't ask. Is this what you need?”

It was obviously what Blaine needed. Already, even as he glanced from Kurt to the door and back again, his shoulders were relaxing and his breathing losing the anxious rasp it had had before. Blaine sighed, closed his eyes for a brief moment, then simply stared down at Kurt, who held his gaze. He stared for what felt like a long time, too long maybe, long enough that someone might come looking for them. A tendril of fear fluttered in Kurt's belly but he reminded himself that the door was locked and that this was helping and he kept his eyes solidly on Blaine.

Finally Blaine sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly, controlled. He dropped to the floor, held Kurt's neck in a warmer hand, and kissed him again, this time slow, soft and sweet. Then he buried his face in Kurt's neck and sighed.

“Thank you. I'm okay now.”

But Kurt could feel Blaine's heart against his own chest, through all their layers of clothes. “Are you?” he asked. “Or do you need more?”

“Kurt . . .”

“Let me help you.” Kurt kept his hands behind his back but he shrugged his shoulders so that Blaine was forced to sit up and look at him. “This is what we do. We help each other. Whatever it is, let me help.”

Blaine searched Kurt's face again. It was clear he was tempted. Kurt could see how much Blaine wanted to believe that he was okay with this.

“Are you sure –?”

Kurt raised an eyebrow and pursed his lips – patented Kurt Hummel bitch face.

Blaine huffed an almost-laugh. “Okay, I get it.” He took Kurt's face in both his hands. “Thank you,” he said fervently. “I love you so much.”

One more kiss, swift and intense this time, and Blaine was on his feet again looking down at Kurt with not a trace of indecision. This look Kurt had seen many times before and his body responded to it almost immediately.

“We're leaving,” Blaine said, in the commanding tone that made Kurt's knees weak and his toes tingle. “You're going to make some excuse and say your goodbyes. Once we're out the door, your hands go behind your back again and they stay that way until I say otherwise. Understand?”

It took a few seconds for Kurt to catch his breath enough to say “Yes,” firmly enough to reassure Blaine. Because the idea of taking this out onto the street, into a cab, maybe, was the exact combination of frightening and exciting that always made this kind of play so evocative for him.

“Where's your coat?” Blaine turned to the pile of fabric on the bed.

“It's my green one, right there by the pillow,” Kurt jerked his head, the only thing he could move, toward the jacket.

“Stand up.”

Blaine held out the coat and Kurt stood and slipped his arms into it. Then Blaine took his hand, unlocked the door, and led him out into the main room.

Talk had turned to a new topic, something about proper arrangement of the props table from what Kurt could tell, but heads turned and voices raised in protest when he appeared behind Blaine with his coat on.

“You really have to go? It's early!” Meg protested, hopping up from her chair.

Kurt gave a shrug that he hoped looked apologetic. “There's a family thing,” he explained. “Nothing major, but we have to go deal.”

“I'm sorry to drag him away,” Blaine chimed in, “but I really do need him.”

Blaine, at least, wasn't even fibbing and Meg's sharp eyes must have seen his sincerity. She gave each of them a peck on the check, while others waved hands and hollered goodbyes from the circle of chairs and pillows.

“Fine, I'll forgive you this time,” Meg said. She smiled at Kurt. “Go take care of your man. We'll see you Thursday. And I promise to repeat the cell phone warning at least three times.” She winked and shooed them out the door, barely giving Kurt time to wave a goodbye to the rest of the cast.

As soon as the door closed behind them Blaine dropped Kurt's hand. Kurt clasped his fingers together behind his back and Blaine reached around to wrap his hand around both of Kurt's.

“That's good. Just like that, all the way home.”

The reminder made Kurt quiver with anxiety, but the tone in Blaine's voice when he said it had the opposite effect: it made him feel still and certain. The conflicting sensations left him breathless and off balance. He stayed close behind Blaine as they moved toward the elevator, and actually pressed against him once they were inside.

Stepping out onto the busy sidewalk, Kurt felt as exposed as if he was standing naked, although of course no one paid any attention to a man with his hands behind his back. He'd known that no one would. The taxi was another matter, he thought, but even that fear seemed exaggerated. It was awkward and humiliating climbing in with his hands clasped, waiting for Blaine to buckle the seatbelt for him, but the driver didn't so much as glance in the rearview mirror at him, not even when Blaine gave him their address. It may have felt like the height of exposure to Kurt, but to the cabbie it was just another Saturday night in Manhattan. In fact, so much a Saturday night in Manhattan that Kurt's greatest source of anxiety was trying to keep himself upright without the use of his hands through the lane-changing, quick stopping, accelerator-to-the-floor carnival ride that was a New York cab driver specialty. One he barely noticed anymore – when he had the ability to hold on.

Blaine had taken the middle seat and he crowded close, wrapping an arm around Kurt's shoulders to hold him steady. Kurt leaned gratefully into the support. Gratefully and more, because this was what always got under his skin and made him squirm in wonderful ways when they played. Blaine knew Kurt was strong and he was always content to sit back and watch Kurt take over the world. But when Kurt submitted and allowed himself the appearance of weakness, Blaine took control, both physically and emotionally, with an ease that was unexpected and full of exciting possibilities. And letting Blaine do that turned Kurt on much more than he ever would have guessed it could. His cock was stirring purposefully just from this – from accepting Blaine's hands to keep him steady in place of his own – and his heart fluttered in his throat at the thought of what was to come. Blaine pressed gentle kisses into Kurt's hair, when the bounce of the cab allowed it.

By the time they pulled up in front of their building Kurt was hard (thank God for his long coat) and excited enough that the ride up in the elevator with his hands behind his back didn't seem daunting at all, despite the prospect of meeting someone they knew. It didn't hurt that as soon as the double doors slid shut behind them Blaine pounced on him with a fervent, “God you're hot like this,” pressing him back into the wall, forcing him to arch around the handrail. He devoured Kurt's mouth. It was more assault than kiss but it was just exactly what Kurt craved, so he clasped his hands tighter and let himself be plundered and didn't care one single bit whether anyone else might get on and interrupt them. In fact, he hoped they did. He wanted someone, anyone, to see how intensely Blaine desired him.

But no one did interrupt them, probably fortunately, because by the time they reached their floor Blaine was palming Kurt's cock through his jeans and sucking his neck, while Kurt was thrusting into the heat of Blaine's hand and moaning much too wantonly for public consumption. The ding of the bell managed to penetrate Blaine's consciousness at least – Kurt would have been happy to stand there being fondled forever – and they pulled apart just as the doors opened. No one was there to raise an eyebrow at Kurt's flushed and disheveled state. He'd be happy for that, he knew, in the morning, no matter what his lust-filled brain was telling him he wanted now.

He expected to be manhandled again as soon as their door closed behind them. Maybe (hopefully) fucked right there, up against it, where there was a possibility that passers-by would hear his moans and cries as Blaine took him hard, the way he only did when they were playing like this. But Blaine, to Kurt's intense disappointment, made straight for the kitchen, leaving Kurt there by the door, throbbing with need and gaping at the space where Blaine had been.

He heard the water running in the kitchen, and a cabinet door open and close. He hadn't been given permission to unclasp his hands so he didn't try to remove his jacket, even though it was too warm in the apartment for it to be comfortable. When Blaine didn't return right away, he took a few steps into the room, to the open space between the couch and the television, and dropped to his knees, jacket and all. He didn't know what was going on with Blaine, he just hoped the sight of him kneeling would bring back the desperate, dominant, controlling Blaine from before. He really wanted that fuck.

But Kurt's heart sank when Blaine came back. The shadows and tension lines were marring his face again, like he'd used the time in the kitchen to talk himself out of a path he'd almost committed to. Kurt couldn't understand it. He'd been so relaxed in the cab, and the elevator, and now they were home the problem of Kurt submitting in public was solved so what the fuck was wrong now?

“Oh my God, Kurt, take your coat off, it's too hot!” Blaine rushed to Kurt and dropped to the floor, unbuttoning his jacket with fingers that Kurt could see shaking.

“You didn't tell me I could use my hands,” Kurt said, trying to make it provocative, to remind Blaine of what they'd been doing before he freaked out for some mysterious reason.

“Well of course I want you take off your coat. Do you think I want you to get heatstroke?” Blaine focused on the buttons, avoiding Kurt's attempts to make eye contact.

“In November? In New York?” Kurt kept his hands stubbornly clasped as Blaine pulled the jacket lapels apart and tried to shove it down his arms.

“Come on, Kurt.”

Defeated, Kurt put all of his frustration and pent-up lust into one eloquent sigh and stood up, pulling the jacket lapels out of Blaine's hands. He tried to calm himself down on the short trip to the closet to hang it up. After all, they would surely still have sex. And Kurt loved all their sex, including the gentle, intimate, two-boys-crazy-in-love-with-each-other kind. That just wasn't the kind he wanted at this particular moment.

When he turned back to the room Blaine was still on his knees on the floor, a turning of tables that was, given Kurt's current state of mind and body, depressing. Kurt crossed his arms and eyed his boyfriend, who stared back at him now, looking tense, a little lost, and yet still wild around the edges in a way that tugged at Kurt's body despite his exasperation.

“If you're not going to fuck me, will you please tell me what's going on? What did your mom say that's got you so upset?”

Down on the floor, Blaine shook his head. “I can't talk about that right now,” he said.

“That whole display at Meg's and in the cab – I think I deserve some kind of explanation, Blaine.”

Blaine climbed to his feet, still shaking his head like he feared if he stopped he might forget that the answer was no. “I can't,” he said, looking everywhere but at Kurt. “I'm upset and we haven't talked about it and that's not the time to –”

“To what?! What do you want, Blaine?”

Blaine finally raised his eyes to Kurt's face. They were dark and intense and showed none of the uncertainty that Blaine's body was so eloquently expressing. They pinned Kurt in place with a heat that Kurt's body responded to immediately.

Low, so low that Kurt had to strain to hear him, Blaine said, “I want to hurt you.”