Psycho by Onley James
“The key to torturing somebody is figuring out what scares them personally.”
Lucas sat on August’s black couch in a pair of worn gray sweatpants and a faded Quantico t-shirt, a small smile on his face, watching as August paced the room like he was at the front of the lecture hall and not his own living room.
“With some people, it’s cultural, with some it’s psychological, others physiological. We’ve come a long way since the blood eagle and the Judas cradle, both of which were surprisingly ineffective techniques when it came to extracting information. Now, we’ve learned that, sometimes, all it takes is total sensory deprivation. For others, it’s sensory overload. With some, it‘s humiliation. So, knowing your victim is important.”
Lucas raised his hand until August stopped to look at him. He was being such a brat tonight. “Yes?”
Lucas’s smile spread to a full grin. “I appreciate this brief introduction to Torture 101, but I’m a criminologist. I understand the psychological component of torture. I just want you to show me how to enact said torture.”
“Enact said torture?” August echoed.
Lucas laughed. “I’ve taken the class, Professor. I just need the lab. Show me how to make somebody suffer.”
August snickered at the analogy but also at the way Lucas’s use of the word professor went straight to his dick. They would definitely be exploring that later.
He padded barefoot to the weapons artfully arranged on his wall, choosing a small wicked-looking dagger. It was ancient, hand crafted, expensive, and sharp enough to flay the skin off a man with enough precision so as not to damage the tissue beneath.
He crossed the room with his prize, straddling Lucas’s lap, knees on either side of his thighs. “But that’s the thing,” he explained, carefully running the flat side of the blade along Lucas’s perfect jawline. “One man’s torture is another man’s kink. Take me, for instance.” He twirled the blade in his hand. “You can’t torture me with a knife because I like the pain.” August dragged the blade over his forearm, hissing as the edge opened up a shallow one-inch gash, beads of blood forming instantly. “It’s an endorphin rush.”
Lucas gazed up at him, studying his face. “When I was stabbed, I didn’t really feel any endorphins, just the searing pain of my lung collapsing.”
“There’s a difference between a controlled cut and intent to kill,” August reminded. “But my kink isn’t everybody’s kink. This is more about finding out what works for your target.”
Lucas shook his head. “I don’t care about how to hurt him… I want to know how I can turn off my emotions. I know you don’t have that problem, but how do I keep my humanity from sneaking in and making me feel sorry for the piece of shit when I’m hurting him?”
August ran a thumb along Lucas’s full bottom lip. “I don’t know how to tell somebody how not to feel because I never do. When I’m hurting somebody, I’m only concerned about two things: my mission and the rush I get from their pain.”
“So, there’s nothing I can do?” Lucas asked.
“I wouldn’t say that,” August said. “The key isn’t turning off your feelings, the key is to focus on your needs. Be selfish. Care only about what you want. Let go of your fear. Be a bit of a hedonist. Do the deep, dark things you think about in your mind but would never dare say out loud to anybody. Do it and don’t apologize for it.”
August’s gaze widened when Lucas took his arm and licked over the wound, collecting the droplets on his tongue. “Like that?”
August’s cock twitched at the sight of blood smeared across Lucas’s mouth. Yeah, this lesson was going sideways quickly. Lucas gazed down at August’s erection, now obvious between them.
August gave him a reassuring smile. “Well, that was unexpected.”
Lucas reached up and pulled him down for a kiss that tasted of salt and copper. “I have my own kinks, too, you know. I wasn’t always a total headcase. Once upon a time, I was just a normal red blooded guy with all the same twisted little idiosyncrasies as the rest of the world.”
“Do tell,” August teased, plunging his tongue into Lucas’s mouth.
“Shouldn’t we be focusing on the torture?” Lucas asked, even as he returned August’s kisses with enthusiasm.
August slid his hands beneath Lucas’s shirt, playing with his nipples until he bucked his hips upward with a moan. “August…” he whined.
August teased and tugged at the tight peaks. “Actual torture is more of an on the job training activity. We’ll use Kohn as your class project. In the meantime, I think we should work on exploring this side of you. Your selfish side.”
“How do you know I have a selfish side?” Lucas asked, his thumb running over August’s cock, now tenting his loose fitting pants.
August captured Lucas’s lips once more, talking in-between deep, drugging kisses. “Everybody has a selfish side, a dark side. Some part of themselves they wouldn’t dare explore because they’re afraid of what the world might think of them. You know that, though. Don’t you? This is your job. Studying the darkest parts of people.”
“But what if I like it?” Lucas asked, running his tongue along the seam of August’s mouth. “What if I like that deep, dark part of me too much?”
August took Lucas’s hand and slipped it inside his pants. “Then who better to explore that with than me? I lack the capacity to judge you. Your kinks might not be mine, but nothing you say can truly shock me.”
Lucas sighed against August’s lips, his hand working his cock, thumb teasing the head in a way that had August’s eyes rolling behind his lids.
“Do you really like knife play?” Lucas asked. “Do you truly like the way it feels when somebody cuts you?”
August nodded. There was no reason to lie to Lucas. He already knew August’s darkest secrets. He canted his hips, working himself lazily into Lucas’s tightened fist.
“Can I try it?” Lucas asked, breathless.
August arched a brow. “Cutting me?”
Lucas’s tongue shot out to sweep over his lower lip, a hard glint in his eye that August wanted to explore further. “Yeah.”
August nodded. “Let’s go to bed.”
In the bedroom, August set the knife on the side table, undressing while Lucas leaned against the wall and watched. August could see he was also hard, the front of his gray pants damp in one spot. Once he was naked, Lucas walked up to him, turning him towards the bed, trailing his lips along his shoulder. “On the bed.”
August shivered at Lucas’s terse instruction. He did as he asked, lying across the comforter on his stomach, settling his arms overhead, not overly concerned about getting his white sheets messy. After all, that was what bleach was for.
Lucas kneeled between August’s legs, squeezing his calves, before running his hands up the back of his fuzzy thighs to cup his ass. Then he was straddling August, sitting on his butt, bending down to trail his tongue along his spine. “How do you know you like being cut? Have you let other people cut you before?”
August liked the weight of Lucas on top of him, liked the illusion of helplessness. “Not in a long time and never with anybody other than just a…professional.”
August watched Lucas stretch to wrap his hand around the hilt of the knife from the side table before running his fingers along the unmarred flesh of his back. “What if I cut you too deep?”
“Then I’ll require stitches. You can’t cut me deep enough to kill me as long as you avoid any major arteries and my spinal cord, of course. I’d like to be able to walk when this is all said and done.” He could feel Lucas’s hesitation. “This is supposed to be you giving in to your darkest fantasies, not mine. If you don’t want to do this, we can find—”
The first cut was shallow, right across the muscle of his shoulder blade. August’s cock throbbed at the sudden rush of chemicals pumping into his brain. He grunted, then moaned as Lucas dragged his flat tongue along the wound. “Was that okay?”
August cleared his throat. “More than okay. Stop worrying about me, and just do what you want.”
Lucas sucked in a breath. “That’s a lot of power.”
“That’s the point. When you’re torturing somebody, you’re in complete control of their mind and body.”
“I do like the idea of being in total control of your body.”
Lucas hesitated another minute, then began to make a few more shallow slits. They were harmless, no more than paper cuts, but they were enough for August to roll his hips against his mattress, looking for friction, as blood droplets rolled lightly down the slope of his back. “Are you carving your initials into my skin?”
Lucas ran his fingertips along the cuts, then began to form letters on the blank canvas of his skin, writing M-I-N-E in August’s blood. Fuck, that was hot. He caught August around his throat, craning his head back to feed bloody fingers into his mouth, leaning down to rumble against his ear, “And if I was? If I carved my name into you? Then what?”
August sucked his fingers, almost high off this side of Lucas, off knowing he was willing to be as sick and twisted as he wanted with him. He pushed back against Lucas’s hard length, now firmly pressing against the cleft of his ass, only a thin layer of fabric between them. “Then you’d better fuck me after.”
The sound that left Lucas was almost animalistic, but then he was grabbing the lube they’d left by the bed, moving back to yank August’s hips up. When Lucas impaled him on two slick fingers, he rolled his hips back on him eagerly, not the slightest bit concerned about how needy he looked.
Lucas fucked his fingers into him harder. “Tell me you’re ready because I need to be inside you.”
“I’m good,” August swore. “Do it.”
Lucas pulled his fingers free, shirt flying as he shoved his pants out of the way. August sat up, no longer content to wait, grabbing Lucas’s cock and pressing it against his entrance before sinking down onto him in one fluid movement until he was buried.
After that, there was no more talking. They were just moving together, the scent of blood and sweat and sex mingling in a way August found intoxicating. He couldn’t get enough of Lucas’s hard cock driving into him. He rolled his hips downward on every upward thrust.
One of Lucas’s hands found August’s nipple, the other wrapped around his hard, aching cock. August’s head fell back against Lucas’s shoulder. He’d never experienced anything like this. It was hot and raw and sticky, blood and pre-cum mingling as Lucas jerked August roughly. There was nothing about this that should have been sexy, but he’d never been so hard in his life.
Lucas mouthed at the wounds he’d left and August found himself hoping Lucas had carved his name into his flesh the same way he’d imprinted himself in August’s psyche. He was already so close to the edge of his climax. Lucas pounded into him with intention, his hand working over him hard and fast, his breath panting in August’s ear. Then he was coming, his body spasming as goosebumps rose along his skin.
“Holy shit,” Lucas growled as August’s release spilled over his tightened fist. He pressed his palm between August’s shoulder blades, pushing his chest to the mattress, hands digging into the flesh of his hips to drive into him with intention. Then he was blanketing himself over August, shouting his cry into his skin as he emptied himself inside. Lucas didn’t seem like he was in any rush to free himself from August’s body, so they just lay like that, joined until Lucas’s spent cock slipped free on its own.
“That was…” Lucas said, then trailed off.
“Messy?” August offered around a laugh.
Lucas’s nose trailed across the nape of August’s neck. “I was going to say hot. But we do need to clean up. And probably change your sheets. It looks like a crime scene in here. Kind of smells like one, too.”
It was a few more minutes before August could bring himself to move. They showered, both of them taking their time, enjoying the scalding water. Lucas was extra gentle as he cleaned August’s slashes. He’d had far worse injuries than the meager cuts of the tiny dagger, but he found he liked Lucas babying him just like he had the other night. It was a foreign feeling, having somebody act as if they needed to care for him. As if he was worthy of that care and consideration.
When they were dried off, Lucas dabbed each cut with antibiotic ointment and carefully bandaged them. Only once they were back in bed did he allow August to take control again, forcing Lucas into little spoon position so he could press his nose against his damp hair.
After a while, Lucas said, “If I can’t do it…if I start to let my conscience get the best of me…I’m going to need you to do what I can’t. I’ll probably hate myself for it, but I need you to do it anyway. Those girls deserve justice.”
August pressed a kiss to Lucas’s shoulder. “You can do it. But if you choose not to—for whatever reason—I’ve got you. I’ve always got you.”
“What if he refuses to talk? Torture has a notoriously low success rate.”
“We’ll get the information we want with or without him. There’s nothing he can tell us that Calliope won’t find eventually. But he’s earned his time at the end of my knife or whatever other instrument I decide to go with. This is what I do. It’s what I was built for. He deserves everything he has coming to him.”
“I just really want to be the one to do it.”
“Then you will be.”
Lucas’s voice trembled. August didn’t know if it was rage or fear…or both. “The things he’s done…they’ve all done. I want them to pay. Even the ones who just watched. Anybody who profited off the suffering of those girls, they all deserve to suffer in the most medieval ways imaginable.”
“You need to get some sleep,” August reminded him gently.
“They’re fucking monsters,” Lucas whispered, almost to himself.
“Yeah, but you’ve got me and I’m the monster other monsters fear.”
