A new dream.

Kingsley has never been in this part of the forest before. In his waking life, yes, but not when he dreams. This is a summer forest, dense with leaves and the sweet damp scent of rot. He walks barefoot across soft emerald moss under a sea green canopy of aspen and oak trees. It’s cool in their shade but hot the second he steps free of the shadows. When a breeze blows past him, he smells something in it that doesn’t belong.

Winter.

Kingsley hears a twig snap.

It is the only warning he’s given before impossibly strong hands grab him and thrust him back and hard against the rough trunk of a tree. The bark bites into his back, but in the dream Kingsley doesn’t feel anything except arousal.

“Were you looking for me?”

The question is asked by the blond boy, who is wearing all black in this dream—black trousers, black jacket, black shirt and black tie. So much black he could pass for a priest. But no black shoes. His feet are naked like Kingsley’s.

“I’m always looking for you,” Kingsley says. “Everywhere I go, I look for you. I never find you.”

“You know why that is.”

“I do?”

The blond boy nods.

“Because I don’t find you,” Kingsley says. “You find me.”

The boy in black nods again. “Very good.”

“But you don’t ever find me, do you?” Kingsley asks.

“I’m here,” he says, and for one single second, the blond boy looks hurt. It’s something that can only happen in a dream. The boy has no heart, no mercy, no sympathy, and no conscience. He gives pain. He does not feel it himself.

“You’re not here,” Kingsley says. “This isn’t real and you’re not real.”

“In that case…” He releases his grip on Kingsley’s shirt and turns to leave him.

“Don’t go,” Kingsley cries out.

The boy stops, turns around. He stands still, hands clasped in front of him and waiting.

“I’m sorry,” Kingsley says. “You are here. I was wrong. You are always here inside me.”

“I am inside you,” he says. “So what would you have of me?”

“Just be with me,” Kingsley says. “Stay and be with me.”

“I’ll stay if we can play.”

“Anything,” Kingsley says. “Any game you want as long as you don’t go away again.”

He walks over to Kingsley, bringing with him the scent of snow. The bite of ice.

“Here’s a game,” the blond boy says. “It’s called Blood.”

“How do we play?”

“We kiss,” he says. “And the first person who bleeds, loses.”

“What do they lose?”

The blond boy smiles. “Blood, of course.”

Then he kisses Kingsley.

The kiss isn’t kind, isn’t erotic, isn’t sensual, isn’t sweet. It’s punitive. It hurts. Kingsley loves how much it hurts. His mouth is invaded, taken over, conquered. Violated. A slap would hurt less than the kiss, and in seconds Kingsley tastes salt and copper in his mouth.

“I win,” the boy says, stepping back from Kingsley and the kiss. The boy in black lifts his fingers to Kingsley’s lips and touches them. When he holds them up in the light there is rust-colored blood on the tips.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Kingsley says. “You kissed me. I win. I need your kisses more than I need my blood. Kiss me again. Even when I lose, I win if you’re kissing me.”

The boy raises his eyebrow. “You’re starting to learn,” he says. “Ready for a new game?”

“Always.”

“This game is called Choke.”

The boy pushes Kingsley to his knees in the forest and no one has to tell him the rules to this game. Because it is a dream, he doesn’t need to fumble with zippers. Because it is a dream, the blond boy’s beautiful cock is in his mouth in an instant. The boy’s hands are in Kingsley’s hair, rooting him to the spot. He cannot move, cannot run, cannot breathe. He doesn’t want to move. He doesn’t want to run. He doesn’t want to breathe. Kingsley sucks deep and lets the full unyielding length into the back of his throat. The boy in black presses in deeper with his hips. Though the core is hard as iron, the surface texture is smooth as satin, heaven on Kingsley’s tongue. Kingsley wants to keep sucking it for eternity. If he were to be trapped in a dream for all eternity, he would want it to be this dream, this eternity.

“This is how it could have been,” the boy in black says as Kingsley sucks him. “If you hadn’t run away from me. What more did you ever want than this?”

Kingsley can’t answer in words, but he can shake his head slightly to indicate he doesn’t know.

“You do know,” the boy says. “If I know, you know. Ask me to tell you and I will.”

Kingsley can’t ask. He can’t speak. The boy in black only laughs and shoves his cock in deeper. Kingsley tries to move away, to free himself but he can’t. He starts to choke.

“See?” the boy says. “I win again.”

And the forest is filled with two sounds—the sound of one man choking and the sound of one boy laughing.