The kettle on the stove starts to whistle just as Blaine’s ladybug timer goes off.

Fifteen minutes have passed. That means it’s nine-fifteen in the morning. Through the meditative brume that Blaine hovers within, one where he tries to focus solely on what his body is doing to keep himself in check, Blaine can acknowledge this.

Nine-fifteen. This is just the beginning of Blaine’s day.

Kurt walks into the kitchen to re-set the timer and turn off the stove, but Blaine can’t see him from where he’s standing. Bent backward over the kitchen table so that his shoulders and head reach the surface, his feet wider than shoulder width apart and balanced on the balls, his ass propped against the side so that the bitter edge digs into his skin, the table offers Blaine no support whatsoever. The lean is as excruciating as it is complimentary, showcasing what Kurt says are some of the most desirable aspects of Blaine’s form – his bulging thigh muscles, his defined abs, his sculpted chest, his shapely neck, and, of course, his Master’s cock. Kurt has taken the use of Blaine’s hands away, bound them behind his back from wrists to fingers with a piece of rope that isn’t too stiff, but tight enough to rub him raw if he struggles.

Blaine listens for his Master as Kurt prepares a cup of morning tea. Making Kurt’s tea would normally be Blaine’s chore, but Kurt has set Blaine to a more important task.

Entertaining his Master.

Kurt takes his time in the kitchen measuring out two teaspoons of sugar and stirring it into his drink while Blaine flexes, trying without hands or manual stimulation of any kind to get hard enough to suit his Dom’s needs, whatever they may be.

Blaine has yet to be informed.

Blaine grits his teeth behind relaxed lips when he hears the clatter of Kurt’s teacup as it’s moved to the kitchen table, his Dom’s bare feet coming so close to his own that Blaine can feel air move around his toes when Kurt stops in front of him.

Kurt pauses a short distance away. He looks Blaine over from head to foot and makes a disappointed clicking noise with his tongue.

“Pet, this isn’t nearly as hard as I want it. Here, let me lend you a hand.” Kurt starts to stroke, but he’s not stroking Blaine’s cock, he’s stroking the air around it, circling his grip wide so that he can make the motion, but adjusting quickly so his hand doesn’t actually touch Blaine’s shaft.

But Blaine responds as if he is, ass clenching around nothing (since Kurt removed Blaine’s plug, explaining that it’s too much of a crutch), thrusting up into thin air in search of a sensation he knows he won’t find, with an image of Kurt in his mind, standing over him, licking up and down his neck in teasing stripes as he jerks him off … Blaine has a vivid imagination, and that’s the worst part. It’s the part that requires the most discipline. Blaine’s body reacts accordingly to every thought that pops into his head.

Kurt knows this, so he plays it up as much as he can.

He hums while he “strokes”, smacks his lips, gets right up to Blaine’s cock and moans and when he does, he puts his open mouth near the head of Blaine’s erection, sticking his tongue out like he’s going to take a lick. Blaine feels the heat of Kurt’s mouth. Silently, he begs for it, even though he knows that if it comes, so will he, and he’ll be punished. But for Kurt’s mouth on his body, it might just be worth it.

But when Blaine’s cock flushes red, when it bobs in search of Kurt’s mouth, Kurt stands up and walks away. He leaves Blaine and goes back to his tea, sitting down with his Kindle and ignoring his pet while Blaine tries to keep his erection from withering with disappointment.

The ladybug timer goes off again. It’s 9:45 now. But Kurt doesn’t inspect his sub’s progress this time because his phone starts to ring.

“Sofa,” Kurt commands, standing from the kitchen table while he fiddles with his phone. “And grunt for me. Loud so I can hear.” Kurt checks his caller ID while Blaine switches positions, straightening on sore legs. He swerves on the first step, mildly dizzy since the blood’s been rushing to his head. Kurt waits until Blaine toddles to the sofa before he answers the call. “Hey! Donovan! Long time no hear from. Thanks a ton for getting back to me …” Before the first words come out of Kurt’s mouth, Blaine has straddled the arm of the sofa, and starts rutting his balls and the length of his cock against it. Cum or not, later on Blaine will have to clean the couch – his responsibility since he violated it. Kurt watches Blaine with a sinister grin, making a motion with his hand that tells Blaine to rut harder, grunt louder. “Yes? Oh my God, can you hear it? I know. It’s so embarrassing. Isn’t it annoying?” Kurt stomps his foot – a sign for Blaine to grunt even louder. Balls chaffing against the fabric of the couch arm and grunting low in the back of his throat, he actually looks and sounds like some kind of animal in heat. “I’m watching a dog for the weekend and he’s humping all of my furniture.” Kurt laughs. It sounds cocky. “I know. I should get him fixed … lock him up in a cage with a muzzle … a really big muzzle …”

Blaine’s whole body shudders. That thought of being locked in a cage with one of Kurt’s more massive ball gags lodged in his mouth makes Blaine harder than all of the rutting and pretend licking in the world. He pauses a second, swallows hard, then continues before Kurt can stomp his foot at him again. As hard as he is, foreskin taut and balls pulled up, every rut becomes more difficult than the last. Blaine’s scrotum and thighs burn, and not just from the friction. His rubbing against the fabric has been pulling hairs from his skin. But Blaine can’t help himself working through the burn, rutting even harder. His wrists tied behind his back, his cock grinding against the sofa, and Kurt watching with a devious grin - Blaine wants this. He wants to perform for his Master. He wants to become as hard as his Master wants, to whatever end that leads.

But, God, he wants to cum. It’s been about a week of constant edging in all sorts of ways, much like this, for his Master’s amusement – against a pole in an empty subway car; against the slick, soapy tile wall in the bathroom; against a piece of silky lingerie in Kurt’s office while completely naked; or the one Blaine finds the most difficult to handle without completely losing his mind …

“Pillow, pet. Floor.”

Blaine climbs, bowlegged, off the arm. He grabs a pillow from the sofa with his teeth and drags it to the floor. Then he gets down on his knees and starts rutting against it, balancing on his knees and thrusting hard with his ass. This position for edging is by far one of the most difficult because, once again, Blaine’s imagination gets in the way. Blaine can’t help envisioning Kurt underneath him and not a pillow; his thighs and balls grazing Kurt’s soft skin and not velvet.

Kurt takes his call into the hallway outside the loft, talking where he can hear Blaine still but only in the background, with the door wide open where anyone who walks by might be able to hear Blaine as well. But for the most part, Kurt is effectively ignoring Blaine for this stretch, making this set-up possibly the most humiliating of all. Kurt out in the hallway, detached from what Blaine is doing, makes it seem like Blaine is doing this on his own, that it was his idea to fuck a pillow on the floor even though there’s a handsome man standing not thirty or so feet away. Or worse, that Blaine tried to seduce Kurt and Kurt rejected him, so Blaine resorted to this. Not that Blaine should care what the neighbors think.

But he still kind of cares what the neighbors think.

Knowing they might walk by, though, and hear his desperation, witness his deviance, becomes the fuel to a completely different fire, one that burns hot alongside his anxiety at being exposed to people he has to see every morning when he leaves for work, people he’s talked politely to, exchanged pleasantries with, who’ve given him pots of casserole when Kurt’s gone on his business trips and sang him Happy Birthday last year.

They might avoid him like the plague if they caught him like this.

Or they might not give a damn, might secretly lust after him, harbor some desire to be the pillow lodged beneath his body.

Either way, it’s as exhilarating to consider as it is mortifying.

Blaine’s legs quiver with the tension of keeping himself upright, his knees ache from being used as leverage, and sweat starts down his back from the exertion, but he gives it his all as if Kurt is standing right there, watching him. He feels a sublime pressure join the oversensitivity in his balls as an otherwise neglected patch of skin along the base of his cock, somehow untouched by the chaffing fabric of the sofa, brushes the whisper-soft velvet of the pillow. If he’s not careful, that’s what’s going to do him in and make him cum, those delicate fibers caressing his skin like tiny licks. It’s Kurt’s mouth he’s picturing, tongue warm from his morning tea, his mouth wetter than usual from having finished the whole cup. Blaine keeps his eyes open wide to curb that thought, staring at the floor beneath the pillow, doing everything in his power to concentrate on not cumming while he continually forces his body closer and closer to the brink of doing just that.

He’s so deep in concentration that he almost doesn’t hear Kurt come back in, slide the loft door shut and lock it, put his phone down on the kitchen table. But Blaine definitely doesn’t miss when Kurt kneels beside him to get a better view of his progress, bending down low till he’s eye to eye with Blaine’s erection, staring as if he’s waiting for something unexpected to happen. But aside from a few weak shudders and some stifled moans, nothing does. Blaine’s obedient cock remains dormant. But Blaine fights so hard to keep from having an orgasm, or from whining over the massive case of rug burn infecting his inner thighs, that his erection has started to droop a little.

And Kurt notices.

He stands up and sighs.

“Back to the table, pet,” he says, returning to the kitchen to reset the ladybug timer and fix himself another cup of tea. “Take it from the top.”

Blaine stops rutting and takes a momentary breather. He doesn’t show frustration or displeasure, but in his chest, he feels it build. He has to stomp that down and clear his head. He’s a tool for his Master’s amusement, and tools don’t complain. They don’t tire, either, so he’d better find his reserve strength and tolerance. He returns to the table, gets into position, and starts all over again.

But in the end, even if he doesn’t get the chance to cum today, or tomorrow, or next week, it will be worth it, not just because watching him edge puts a smile on Kurt’s face, but because Blaine craves the control. Kurt’s control. Kurt’s carefully orchestrated, strictly monitored control.

And Blaine will take control over an orgasm any day.