Final part. Kuhn reacts poorly when Kasovitz gives him an order.
Rated E. Cis M/M. Set in 1950s London.
An ex-soldier, Arthur “Kuhn” Conrad, now a debt collector of sorts for a corrupt company, can’t sleep one night, and as he’s walking the streets, sees a coworker — on a whim, he follows, and ends up in an underground club. The older man, Ignatius Kasovitz, likes to tie people up, it seems, and Kuhn finds he wants to try being tied up, if it’s Kasovitz doing the tying.
CWs in this part for some references to sexual trauma and sensory overwhelm, death, violence, but nothing extensive. This is part II of III.
New note I’ve been thinking of including — media I’m engaging with at the moment that have added to the themes and flavour of this short are Grantchester, Disco Elysium, and the_ragnarok’s Person of Interest fanfiction, out of the darkness we reach.
Part I / / Part II / / Part III
“I don’t drink tea,” says Kuhn.
“Cocoa, then,” says Kasovitz, and Kuhn presses his lips together, wrinkling his nose, but before he can refuse, Kasovitz is pouring water from the kettle into a mug. Kuhn has a blanket around his shoulders, and the weight of it is pleasant, but even having put his shirt back on over his vest, he feels strangely naked with all the rope stripped away. His gaze keeps sliding over to the rope left in stacked lines on the bed, because Kasovitz hasn’t coiled it back up yet.
“Would you have let me be tied up for longer?” Kuhn asks as Kasovitz stirs the cup. The sound of the teaspoon against the ceramic is fucking grating. “If I’d asked?”
“Oh, yes,” says Kasovitz. “Those harnesses I put you in weren’t very tight at all — didn’t you feel when I checked each of them, two fingers under your wrist, at your ankle, your thigh?”
Kuhn doesn’t really remember, actually, didn’t fucking notice that at all. It annoys him, for some reason, is a sudden sting like a splinter, and he presses his fingers and thumb against the fabric of the heavy blanket over his shoulders, grips tightly at it.
“How much longer?”
“Those ropes? So long as we were regularly moving your hands and feet, I’d be happy to leave you in those bonds overnight.” A sort of burning cloud feels as if it’s engulfing him on every side, making heat rise up in his cheeks and up his chest, and he feels very stiff and very uncomfortable, his teeth gritted, even as Kasovitz goes on, “But overnight is a big commitment for a first date, no?”
“I’m not a fucking woman,” says Kuhn.
“We’re agreed on that point. Take the cup.”
“I don’t want it.”
“I didn’t ask if you wanted it — I told you to take it.”
“I don’t have to do what you fucking say.”
Kasovitz looks down at him with an unreadable expression, and Kuhn stares up at him, not blinking his eyes. His teeth are creaking from how hard he’s tightening his jaw and it hurts a little — his fingers hurt a little bit too from how tight they’re gripping at the blanket.
Kasovitz sets the cup down on the kitchen table behind him, and the noise it makes sends a jolt through Kuhn, makes him straighten up in his seat, and he waits for Kasovitz to step forward, to advance on him, to touch him, but he doesn’t.
“What, you’re gonna fucking make me?” Kuhn demands.
“I suppose I could tie you up again,” Kasovitz muses out loud in a painfully, infuriatingly even tone. “Take the matter of choice out of the equation.”
“Fuck you,” says Kuhn.
Kasovitz shifts on his feet, and Kuhn doesn’t mean to. He realises a second later that Kasovitz is just raising his wrist again to check his watch, but before that thought registers in his head he’s on his feet and he’s lunging, his hands against Kasovitz’ chest, trying to shove him back. He’s never taken down bigger men than Kasovitz — he was fighting Nazis, not fucking giants — but he’s taken down pretty big ones.
He’s taken down almost all of them by surprise, though — Kasovitz isn’t surprised, and in the second it takes him to realise that Kasovitz was just checking the time, he’s flying through the fucking air with Kuhn’s grip on his shoulders and onto the floor. It knocks the wind out of him, hitting the cheap linoleum of the kitchen floor, one of Kasovitz’ big fucking arms landing across his chest with all the weight of a falling log, and Kuhn’s head comes forward reflexively.
“Ah ah,” Kasovitz snaps at him, the loudest Kuhn has ever heard him talk, the two open-mouthed sounds coming out from deep in his barrel chest, and Kuhn thinks he’s going to bite down on the meat of Kasovitz’ hand instead of his other wrist, it comes in front of his face so fast, but then Kasovitz is pinching down either side of his jaw with his thumb and forefinger, and Kuhn is yelping in pain like a kicked dog.
“Unnngh,” Kuhn whines, trying to kick with his legs, but Kasovitz is straddling him, his arse heavy as fucking anything on top of Kuhn’s middle, one of his legs bent back to pin down his knees and keep him from raising his feet very high, and Kuhn isn’t just weighed down by the man, goliath that he is, but by his fucking shadow. He can’t see the light any more, can’t feel it on his face — all he can see is Kasovitz’ face, his eyes, smell his cologne, the lavender and vanilla. “Leeee’ ‘ee go — ”
“Breathe in,” Kasovitz orders. “Breathe in, through the nose.”
Kuhn can’t close his jaw, can’t move his head one way or the other, and he can feel his eyes watering from how fucking wide they are. He’s trying to thrash around with his fucking tongue, because his arms, wrapped mostly still in the blanket that he didn’t have the foresight to throw off, are pinned by Kasovitz’ weight on his chest. There’s saliva in his mouth, building up, and he can’t spit it out, feels as if he’s frothing at the lips. “’uck yuu’, le’ ‘e go — “
“When you breathe in.”
“’uck yuu!”
“One more chance, breathe in,” Kasovitz orders him, and Kuhn can’t get his lips together to spit in his face, can’t knee him, can’t kick him, can’t grab him, so he just fucking screams. It hurts his throat, he screams so loud.
Then Kasovitz’ fingers change just slightly in their position, move an inch lower beneath his jaw, are no longer gripping at the hinge of it but instead just under it. He thinks it’s his chance to fucking bite, but Kasovitz’ hand is putting meaty pressure on the underside of his throat, so flush against the skin that Kuhn can feel his own pulse and the heat of Kasovitz’ palm, so he still can’t lunge downwards.
Then he realises where Kasovitz’ thumb and forefinger are, very easily covering the whole of his throat, pressing down, and he tries to panic, but his vision is already darkening a bit. Pure, overwhelming terror rips through him and the whimper that comes out of him is the most pathetic yet, his head feeling heavy, his body aching, and everything is dark —
A few seconds later, he’s still lying on the floor on his back, and Kasovitz is still on top of him, but no longer holding down his face. Kuhn swallows down all the spit built up in his mouth, feels some of it still slick on his lips, on his chin.
“No biting,” Kasovitz says crisply.
“Sorry,” Kuhn hears himself say, the word echoing like he’s hearing it from underwater.
“That’s alright,” Kasovitz murmurs. “You’re going to sit up — I’m going to help you. You’re going to drink the cocoa.”
“I don’t want — ”
“No arguments,” Kasovitz barks over the protest, and Kuhn closes his mouth. “You can sit in the chair and drink it to yourself, or I can pin your body with mine, and bring the cup to your mouth for you. Choose one or two.”
Kuhn stares up at Kasovitz’ face, at the serious set of his lips, his staring dark eyes. He thinks of the weight of Kasovitz’ body on top of his, how broadly spread Kasovitz’ body is instead of being concentrated in the way Kuhn’s weight is, in his belly, his shoulders, his thighs.
“Two,” Kuhn whispers.
“Okay,” says Kasovitz, and leans back.
In what feels like seconds, Kuhn is pulled firmly off the ground and twisted around, and he automatically tries to struggle free, but it’s a weak and pointless motion. He probably could struggle away if he really wanted to, this position more powerful than when he was supine underneath Kasovitz’ body, but he lacks the will. Kasovitz’ legs are braced over and around Kuhn’s, pinning them in, and one of his arms is braced heavily across his chest, forcing Kuhn’s back against Kasovitz’ body, the blanket dropped to the floor beside them.
He’s hot.
Heat radiates from his barrel chest and from the heavy muscle of his thighs, too — Kuhn is glad he doesn’t have his jumper on still, almost wishes he was still in his vest, thinks for a moment of the two of them being naked like this, and Kasovitz holding him down like this.
Kasovitz picks up the cocoa and brings it forward, and Kuhn breathes in through his nose and stares at the dark mixture swirling in the mug, feeling the broad splay of Kasovitz’ hand almost covering his chest. His palm is flat and strong against Kuhn’s sternum, pressing only a little bit into the meat of his breast, and he can feel the side of Kasovitz’ elbow against his belly. Can feel his heartbeat, too, slower than Kuhn’s — and Kuhn’s, he’s fairly certain, is slowing to match it. It’s natural, he supposes, naturally bound in by another man, him in control, for your breathing to mirror his, for your heart to follow his.
“Drink,” Kasovitz orders, so close to his ear that despite wanting to do anything but drink any fucking cocoa, Kuhn automatically parts his lips and sips from the mug brought to his mouth.
He’s been in the field before and had other men make him drink — he was never injured, never forced to take bedrest, but once or twice he’d gone close to feral after too many jobs back-to-back, or just too many enemy soldiers downed in the course of one night. He remembers one job where they had been up the whole night through, waiting for the right gap in the guard patrol, and he’d slipped into the bunks just before the dawn call. It had been a bunker beneath a radio tower, the broader camp in the process of being built with no prisoners there yet — he’d taken the bunks just before the dawn call to work.
It had been almost meditative — six rows of bunks, walking up and down them with the same sharp movement of his knife. Deep enough to cut the windpipe at the same time he cut down deep into the artery, making sure to slit into where the vein brought blood up to the brain, pillow or pack shoved hard into the soldier’s head to muffle whatever sound he could release the next moment. Next one, then the next one, then the next one.
What with the camp only just established, the fence newly planted in the ground and no enemy prisoners to have shifted the labour onto, they must have been fucking tired. Almost none of them stirred significantly before he could kill them dead — the ones that made noise made weak ones, and the others were sleeping too deeply to be disturbed. He doesn’t remember how many men there were — he remembers how calming it had felt, the rhythm of the slaughter, walking down the line of bunks and then crossing over to the next one.
He’d been tired, too — Nigel Hazel had found him asleep against the corpse of the last one he’d killed, hands covered in blood that had gone from warm and slick to cold and sticky, and he’d brought a canteen to Kuhn’s lips, said, “Fucking Hell, Kuhn, have you even eaten today?”
It comes to him now as Kasovitz makes him drink more of the cocoa, which is too sweet and too thick on his tongue, comes to him in half-remembered flashes — Hazel bringing him out of the bunkroom, Hazel absently nudging Kuhn’s head toward his bowl when he wasn’t eating, Hazel hosing him down like a muddy dog before they walked on, to get the blood off him.
Kasovitz massages the base of his throat, and Kuhn feels a little dizzy now as he swallows, his head tipped back against Kasovitz’ body, against the warmth of him. He feels completely and utterly relaxed like this, under Kasovitz’ control, wholly gripped and held in his arms, against his body. He shifts experimentally, which Kasovitz permits — as soon as Kuhn tries to lean forward, Kasovitz squeezes his legs around him tighter, and brings him in closer.
When the mug is empty, Kasovitz sets it aside, and he crosses his other arm over Kuhn’s chest. Kuhn exhales, bound in by Kasovitz’ legs and his arms, and it feels good.
“Do you miss it?” he hears himself ask, his jaw loose, his tongue feeling slow and sleepy.
“What?” Kasovitz asks quietly, his voice rich and deep against Kuhn’s ear, feeling as if it’s flowing directly — and deeply — into his brain. His eyelids are drooping again, and he doesn’t resist it, closes his eyes and presses his cheek against Kasovitz’ warm chest.
“You were the leader of your clowns by the time you left,” Kuhn says, and Kasovitz releases a thoughtful noise. “You’re the centre of the photographs, and not just because you were so tall.”
“No,” Kasovitz agrees. “I was always naturally somewhat graceful. I was close to my full height by the time I was fourteen or fifteen, but it took me quite some time to grow accustomed to that — as a younger boy I was lanky, and then I began to grow outwards after I’d mostly finished growing upwards. With a little more balance applied to my form, I danced and practised with my mother and the other acrobats. I was never a carthorse, never could have taken on the bulk my father had, but nor was I lithe and sleek in the way of the trapeze men. I was caught between my mother’s strengths and my father’s — too big and too heavy on muscle to follow in her footsteps, not big enough, not muscular enough to follow in his.
“There are different varieties of clown — some are obvious fools and idiots, bumbling or arrogant and punished for their hubris, but others are more tragic, or more complex. I took on a whiteface role — normally a straight man in contrast to the other clowns, often a leader. I wasn’t very good at doing funny voices, let alone projecting my voice as I did them, so I often mimed and learned various sign languages to use with the right-minded children. I often played as more sophisticated, more reserved and calm, compared to my compatriots, who did more obvious acrobatics and tricks — I didn’t so much as set the pace so much as stood as the wall for everyone else to comedically run into, or attempt to hop over.”
Kuhn can imagine it as Kasovitz quietly talks, imagines Kasovitz in his big suit with its ruff and its bobbles, imagines the other clowns tumbling and jumping and cartwheeling about him while he remains still and unbothered, nimbly stepping aside before anyone can bowl him over.
It’s not dissimilar to how he moves in the office corridor when everyone else is in a hurry and he’s walking at a leisurely pace — especially because he’s so tall, it’s often very obvious when he’s standing still and staying calm, head and shoulders above everyone else, and others are running about or knocking into one another. He’s not alone in his calm demeanour — all the secretaries are calmer and more sensible than a lot of the other workers in the office — but most of the female secretaries are on the daintier side.
Kuhn wonders if he could hold two of them on his shoulders the way he did with the dwarves in one of the photos.
“I do miss the energy, at times, the vim and life of the circus,” Kasovitz says. “I miss travelling. I miss the animals, birds, horses. I keep thinking about picking up a dog, but I don’t have the time to train one, to leave it alone. I miss my family, of course. I don’t miss narrow bunks in caravans that were never quite long enough for me — our irregular harassment from the Met at work is nothing compared to the harassment we used to experience from various police, border guards, soldiers.”
“And being in charge?”
“I can be in charge, when I feel like it,” Kasovitz says meaningfully.
“I’m sorry I tried to bite you,” Kuhn says. “I told myself I wouldn’t. That I’d try not to. I didn’t mean to.”
“I know you didn’t,” Kasovitz says, because of course he does — of course he knows. What doesn’t he know? He probably knows what’s under Kuhn’s skin, probably knows what he’s thinking, knows everything about him. “You acted on instinct — and training, no doubt.”
Kuhn doesn’t say anything.
He concentrates on the feeling of Kasovitz’ legs around his, Kasovitz’ arms around his body, Kasovitz’ weight and muscle behind him, Kasovitz’ body against his, and Kuhn encapsulated by him, eclipsed by him.
“Have you bitten partners before?” Kasovitz asks him.
“Don’t have them,” Kuhn says.
“No,” Kasovitz muses out loud. “You said you’ve not had sex before. Do you feel much sexual desire, arousal?”
Kuhn is aware, abruptly, of the slight bulge between Kasovitz’ legs, the meat of Kasovitz’ cock against his lower back. He doesn’t know if it’s hard or not, doesn’t have enough experience to know, to be certain. His cock is slightly hard, he realises. He looks down between his legs, at the bulge in his trousers — was his cock hard before, when Kasovitz was tying him up? He doesn’t remember, he isn’t sure.
“I,” Kuhn mumbles, suddenly feeling even colder, and he presses back against Kasovitz’ body even though he’s a little scared, a little uncertain. “I don’t want, that, I don’t want…”
“That’s alright,” Kasovitz says immediately. “I’m not going to fuck you, Kuhn, I’m not going to touch your genitals nor have you touch or stimulate mine, not if you’re not comfortable, not if you don’t desire it. I’m half-hard because I have a handsome young man bound in my arms — it’s a natural reaction to heat and proximity and satisfaction. I’m not going to rub against you, not going to use you for my pleasure in that way, not going to stimulate myself using your body. It isn’t your responsibility, that I’m hard.”
Kuhn chews the inside of his lip, and he reaches up with one trembling hand and curls it around Kasovitz’ big forearm, carefully touches his fingertips against the heat of his skin, feels the muscle in his forearm. It feels nice, good, to hold it, to loosely grip at Kasovitz’ arm, push it even closer to Kuhn’s chest.
“Was I hard earlier? When you were tying me up?”
“You didn’t notice?”
“Mmm mm.”
“I think you were a little, at times,” Kasovitz says. “I admit, I wasn’t monitoring the situation very closely, except to make sure I wasn’t trapping anything sensitive. Does it concern you, that you might have been?”
Kuhn doesn’t answer, because he doesn’t know what an appropriate answer is.
“What do you ordinarily do, when you find yourself aroused, erect? Do you touch yourself?”
“No.”
“Take a cold shower?”
“Sometimes.”
“Wait for it to go away?”
Kuhn nods.
“That’s alright,” Kasovitz says. “No need to do anything else, if that’s what feels most appropriate for you.”
Kuhn breathes in, and he reaches up with his other trembling hand and tries to find Kasovitz’ — Kasovitz’ fingers interlink with his, each hand crossed over the other, and he softly sighs. “Will you — ” He swallows. “Will you kiss me again?”
“Where?”
“My cheek.”
Kasovitz’ head comes forward as he leans in, and Kuhn closes his eyes again as Kasovitz’ lips brush against the side of his temple, and then touch again at the top of his cheek. It feels nice. A part of him twitches, his body threatening to stiffen — he feels a flicker of a want inside him to turn and bite, but it’s more distant than it was before, and it quietens down as Kasovitz squeezes him tighter.
“I can’t stay here tonight,” Kuhn says.
“Can’t you?”
“You said it was too much of a commitment. For a first date.”
“Oh,” he hears Kasovitz say, hears him sound genuinely surprised. “That was only a joke, Kuhn. You’re welcome to stay, if you wish to. I can keep holding you right here for as long as you want.”
“That’ll be a long time,” Kuhn whispers. It’s embarrassing, how it comes out, how he says it, but Kasovitz doesn’t seem deterred at all — he’s still holding him very tightly, and once again he brushes his lips against Kuhn’s temple.
“Let’s stay here for another little while, here on the floor,” Kasovitz suggests, “and then we’ll transfer to bed. Come the morning, why don’t I teach you to juggle?”
“Why don’t I teach you to go fuck yourself?” Kuhn retorts, and Kasovitz’ wonderful laugh is better from here, rumbling through Kuhn’s chest, feeling like it’s surrounding him on all sides, much like how Kasovitz is surrounding him on all sides.
“In the morning,” Kasovitz suggests, sounding more serious this time, “why don’t we talk? I’ll tell you more about the circus.”
“… Yeah,” Kuhn says. “I’d like that.”
“Good man,” Kasovitz says, and kisses the side of his temple again — Kuhn automatically follows after his mouth with the side of his head, and laughs breathlessly as Kasovitz kisses him again. “Good man.”
It isn’t true — good dog, maybe, but Kuhn knows full well he’s not a good man.
He doesn’t voice the thought, and instead settles peaceably once more against the other man’s chest.
FIN.
Author’s Notes
The kernel of this idea started out a few months ago as an initial consideration for Issue 113: Nine To Five of the Shousetsu Bang*Bang, but the deadline for submission approached, arrived, and departed and I just could not make the concept work.
I later realised that my problem with the piece was that I was starting from the wrong point – originally beginning with their initial confrontation in Kasovitz’ office rather than on more even footing, out and about in London – and was able to revise the idea into something more workable.
Clowns and mimes have been on my mind a lot of late, ever since I bought a very pretty mirror decorated with a black and white portrait of a Pierrot figure several months ago, and while my ambition is still to explore a period piece or two with some commedia dell’arte performers, my recent research into commedia and the evolution of modern clown design and performance certainly factored into Kasovitz’ design.
Other likely inspirations for my working on this piece are the media I’ve recently been reading, watching, and playing – notably, I was recently inspired to reread the_ragnarok’s excellent AU Person of Interest fanfiction, out of the darkness we reach, when someone was asking about recommendations for good bondage exploration – Reese and Finch are favourite characters of mine, and this fanfic is a really fun exploration of their core motivations from a somewhat desexualised kink perspective; I’ve recently started Grantchester, a 1950s-set cop show with some exploration of WWII trauma, and the limerick Kasovitz quotes is an infamous one, but is recited several times in S2E5; and finally I’ve just started my fifth replay of Disco Elysium, which has some really complex and interesting explorations of trauma and stress response itself.
Grantchester has surprisingly complex and resonant explorations of flawed characters and their response to PTSD – Kuhn is not particularly inspired by, or really all that similar to the character of Geordie Keating, but I’ve really been enjoying the way the show explores his bigoted views and contrasts them with PTSD and his tenderness and affection for his wife and children without implying that the latter two somehow make the former less reprehensible or worthy of dismissal, and that enjoyment no doubt contributed to my design of his reflexive aggression towards queer people and others he doesn’t immediately understand, even whilst understanding on some level that he is amongst their number. Mrs G is not similar to Mrs Maguire in any way at all – I think Mrs M would spit on Mrs G if she so much as looked at her – but the naming convention and their circumstances post-war are of course paralleled.
I don’t think Kuhn is particularly similar to the character of Harrier du Bois in Disco, but what I’ve particularly been enjoying on my recent replays of the game has been the way the writers personify his various urges and instincts, and how that creates such deliciously unconventional layers of reliable and unreliable narration intertwined with one another – the ways in which Harry’s “skills” often sabotage or work against him were absolutely part of the vague inspiration for Kuhn’s own instincts to lash out and to bite, as well as the ways in which he dehumanises himself, even though the ways in which Kuhn and Harry dehumanise and sabotage themselves are materially different.
These notes are intended to be a new addition on my novellas and shorts particularly – my creative process is one that I don’t tend to immediately understand while it’s underway, but I know that some readers are interested in how a story develops before it reaches its completion, and I often notice when looking back through my work that they’re influenced thematically by other works I’m engaging with, whether that be television, music, theatre, art, etc, or other hobbies and research I’m exploring at the time, so I thought they’d provide an interesting additional lens of consideration for those that like that sort of thing, especially on a reread.
Thank you so much for reading and also for reviewing, if that’s something you have the time for!
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