for the smutty prompts if it's not too late, Izzy and Lucius, Lucius planning something up for Izzy and then how it goes
(it's not too late! Due to work-shittery, I am determined to spend this long weekend in merry spirits which means RUM. Fuck I love rum y'all, even before the pirate show. I may be slightly drunker than I intended, please excuse all typos in this particular smit, I imagine they are spectacular)
“Huh,” Lucius turned his phone, so the video filled the screen.
“Are you watching porn?” Pete asked, amused. “Cause I’m right here, we can live action that shit.”
“No, it’s that woman I met at the group show last year...Dominique! That’s her name. She does these cool edgy performance art pieces with bondage. Look,” Lucius tipped the screen to him.
“That is a lot of rope,” Pete’s eyebrows flew up. “Is that guy all right, you think?”
“He seems pretty happy.”
“Mm, I wouldn’t be. Think Iz would?”
“Dunno,” Lucius considered, then shook his head. “No, he’s got a thing about being incapacitated and that would do it.”
“Mm. Too bad,” Pete rolled back onto his back with a yawn. “It’d be hot to hear about that later.”
It would be hot to live through, Lucius thought. But yeah, too much for Izzy. Too much for Lucius probably. All that intricacy. But...the blindfold was interesting.
He floated the idea one morning.
“Can I blindfold you? For sex,” he clarified. They were just having coffee, it’d be weird to do it then.
“Yeah,” Izzy said without hesitation. It would never stop being hot how he just agreed to shit like that. Like it had been on the tip of his tongue to ask.
Which brought up something else entirely. The image warmed Lucius from top to bottom.
“What if I fucked you like that? But not with my dick, like with toys or something...would that be okay?”
Izzy stared at him over his ‘Fuck This Shit’ mug.
“Pup, why the fuck do you ask me these things before I have to go to work?”
“Cause I’m mean,” Lucius laughed.
“I hate you,” Izzy took a sip of coffee. “From the bottom of my heart, I hate you.”
“I know, goblin,” Lucius smiled brightly at him.
It took a little digging, but Lucius found what he was looking for at the bottom of the bag he kept in his closet. Pete liked a few things out of Lucius’ bag of tricks and those had migrated to the bedside table. The rest still lived in the bag, banished but not forgotten.
“Hello, my old friends,” Lucius brought them to the light. “Nice to see you again.”
The rubber didn’t say anything back to him which was probably for the best. He did give them a thorough cleaning to shake the dust off, then stuffed them into his jacket pocket before he went to his next night with Izzy.
“You look like you’re planning something,” Pete accused with a merry twinkle.
“Oh, babe, I so am,” he grinned and gave him a goodbye kiss. “If it fails, please remember that I loved you and that you have to eat the meatloaf leftovers before Tuesday.”
“Okay,” Pete said agreeably. “Love you!”
“Love you too,” Lucius kissed him and headed out to get the dragon at his mercy in his own lair.
Izzy, unaware of his fairy tale imaginings, was not hoarding gold and simmering at a boil when Lucius arrived. If anything, it looked like he was attempting to have a very civilized night at home, reading while on his couch, a few fingers of whiskey in a glass.
Lucius kissed him and used Izzy’s distraction to divest him of his e-reader.
“Hi,” Lucius grinned.
“...what?” Izzy asked suspiciously.
“Bedroom.” Lucius nipped at his bottom lip.
“...oh.” Izzy cottoned on and gave him a long look. “Yeah.”
“Yeah,” Lucius agreed and got up so Izzy could head in the right direction. “Get naked!”
The blindfold had started off life as a tatty bit of extra fabric from John’s bin of castoffs. It had taken a few bribes, but John had hemmed it off for him and it looked fucking spectacular. A deep dark navy that shaded into black wrapped around Izzy’s head, while he held his hands behind his back, kneeling at the edge of the bed was a picture Lucius wouldn’t soon forget.
“You can speak,” Lucius decided. “But just keep it simple, understood?”
“Yes.”
“Good boy. You’re so sweet for me, aren’t you?”
They were both on the bed, stripped to nothing, but Lucius had taken off his clothes after the blindfold was applied. Izzy had no idea what he looked like in that moment. Fuck that was hot for some reason. He kissed Izzy with a lot of tongue, gripping the back of his neck to the get the position he wanted.
“You want me to fuck you?” Lucius asked him, low and dark. “You hungry for me?”
“Yes,” Izzy said again, but this time the ‘s’ really lingered.
“I know. But you’re going through your paces tonight. You’re going to earn what you get.”
And Lucius dragged the anal beads out of his pants pocket on the floor. They won’t make any sound really, and Izzy shows no signs of recognition.
Lucius grins to himself. Oh, he was going to have a very very good time. Izzy probably would too.
And if not, at least Pete would eat his fucking leftovers when they might not kill him for once.
What good is the skill of sharpening a blade if everyone just wants a new knife?
Manu Shaikh roams the bylanes of Mumbai on a cycle, selling his wares and his skills. Take him a dull blade, and in minutes, he will have it razor sharp again. But in an age when cheap Chinese knives have flooded the market, making it cheaper to just buy a new one, this seems like another profession that might be lost to the past.
101 Traces looks at the last of anything: ethnic communities, folk craftsmen, disappearing trades, forgotten people. It sketches portraits of these unique individuals, locked in a battle they cannot win: a battle against the future. Together, they represent the dying whispers of ancient heritage and traditional individuality. As India moves towards homogenized global pop culture, 101 Traces honors the people, the objects, and the skills that connect us to our ancient identity.
