Callum felt ridiculous, sitting on his bed, cursor on the screen of his phone blinking at him. Taunting him. This shouldn’t be so hard, especially after the awful date he’d had the night before. He glanced down at his wrist and rubbed absentmindedly at the fading scratches on the top of his arm. Yeah, last night definitely hadn’t gone well. But Callum hadn’t ever had a good track record in the significant other department.

From his last serious partner, Ian, to the disastrous date he’d had last night, Callum was resigned to the fact that meeting people in Los Angeles was awful. His friends assumed that working at a kink club like Rapture was the equivalent of getting paid to spend your weekends in prime pick up territory, but nothing had been further from the truth. He spent his weekends working, mixing drinks for people who got to do all the fucking and playing he wanted to be a part of. It was near impossible to meet people during the week, and when he got off work, he just wanted to fall into bed.

Online dating seemed to make perfect sense. He could find someone to talk to and build that intimacy he was craving, but not have to worry about melding schedules to set dates on his days off. No scrambling for attention between the hours of five and seven at night like he’d tried to do so many times before.

The trade-off, of course, meant he also didn’t have anyone to wake up next to, no one to kiss and cuddle with. No one to fuck.

The site Callum had finally decided to sign up on, though, would serve a two-fold purpose. Far beyond his desire for emotional companionship, Callum had some other desires he needed to admit to. He stared at the screen and took a deep breath before he typed.

Twenty-six year old vers bartender in LA looking for long-distance Daddy. Very serious, there’s no need to meet. Online only is fine. My schedule is difficult, but I hope to find someone who wants the same things as me.

Callum read the introduction over again, not entirely happy with it, but not sure what else to say. Before he could second-guess himself, he hit publish.

CJ1992 was live.

Callum dropped his phone onto the bed and fled the room, drinking a bottle of beer in his kitchen and picking through a bag of stale potato chips. It was mostly the little small pieces that stuck to your fingers left in the bottom of the bag. He’d need to make time to go to the store before work tomorrow. He crumpled the bag and shoved it in the trash, finished off the beer then went back into his bedroom.

There was a chat box on the app, and a little green dot was blinking when he picked his phone back up. Someone had already messaged him. Callum re-arranged himself against the wall and opened the message.

Callum’s cheeks flushed at the affirmation from this stranger. That was exactly what he wanted. Someone who didn’t need to see him in person to want to be with him. He wanted someone who wanted to take care of him because they truly wanted to care for him, not because they wanted to care for him to get into his pants. Callum rubbed at the scratches on his wrist.

Callum scrubbed his hands over his face and stared at the screen. How could someone he didn’t even know, an actual stranger, be so in tune with the way his mind worked? He clicked on DaddyJM’s profile, which pulled up in a new window in the app. Callum minimized the chat and scrolled through DaddyJM’s bio.

He was handsome, no doubt. His profile said he was average height, and in the picture, his build looked slender. He had brown hair and dark brown eyes. There was what looked to be a few days’ worth of beard on his face in one of the pictures, but was clean-shaven in others. He was handsome either way.

Not handsome. DaddyJM was hot.

The bio said he lived in New York and was in his mid-thirties. He was open to in-person meeting or online only. He’d also marked off an array of kinks that Callum had only dreamed about trusting someone enough to play with.

Callum tabbed back over to the chat.

It could be, Callum thought. And after all, this is what he’d been looking for. He wanted someone that would check in on him, look after him and care for him, in the ways he was able to allow.

Callum dropped his phone onto the bed and jumped up, running into the kitchen and opening another beer. He drank half of it in one quick swallow and braced himself against his kitchen sink. This shouldn’t be so fucking terrifying. It was just like going on a date, but even lower impact than that. It was just agreeing to fucking chat with someone on a regular basis. He finished his beer and went back to his bedroom.

Callum’s neck flushed up to his forehead and the tips of his ears. This was what he wanted, what he needed. This secret he’d kept for so many years. He’d learned more than his fair share about BDSM and kink in the time he’d spent working at Rapture, but his boss Landon had a fierce no fraternization with customers rule for the staff. Even if there had been someone Callum had been interested in at work, he couldn’t have done anything about it.

He rubbed again at the scratches on his wrist, glancing down and seeing that they’d mostly faded, now only a few pale while lines on his arm that looked like nothing more than dry skin. Jack’s request should have been triggering, the words of his date gone wrong last night still a loud echo in his head.

I’ll be your Daddy, boy.

Get on your knees and show me how much you appreciate that dinner I bought you.

Callum had resisted and had the battle wounds to prove it. But where the man last night had been menacing with his intent, Jack’s words read like radiant promises that reached into the deepest parts of Callum’s heart and made themselves at home.

Callum’s cock was interested in both rules, if he were being honest. The idea of someone else deciding when and how he could come wasn’t something he’d even really thought about before, but the idea appealed to him as much as it scared him.

Jack was right, though. Orgasm control was a tough rule.

Callum set down his phone then tugged at the ends of his hair, building up the wherewithal to go do as Jack had told him. He didn’t have to go do it; it wasn’t like Jack would ever know. But he was pretty sure Jack probably would know, somehow, and then Callum would be the one not committing fully, which was exactly what he was scared of someone else doing to him. He didn’t want to be that person. He didn’t want to half-ass this. He wanted to come and Jack had relented and said he could, so Callum dropped his legs onto the floor and stood up.

He padded into his bathroom and stared at himself in the mirror. Pulling his dick out of his pants, he looked at his reflection. Callum catalogued the freckles that dotted his cheekbones and the gold specks in the irises of his eyes. He pumped some lotion into his hand and fisted his cock, stroking himself, relishing the feel of his shaft thickening with the attention.

Callum glanced briefly at his dick, the way his swollen crown poked out from the top of his fingers when he pulled the foreskin back. He looked at his face, locking onto his reflection and noticing the way his nostrils flared when his thumb tagged the sensitive underside of his shaft and the way his pupils had gotten so large, the green of his eyes was now nearly obscured.

His balls churned and tightened, his orgasm coming on as strong as if Callum had been staring into the eyes of a lover. With that thought, Jack’s brown eyes flashed into his memory. He’d only seen the pictures, but he imagined Jack was here and real. He thought about it being Jack’s fist around his cock. Callum liked that idea, but his orgasm had already pulled away, turning into some far off goal that his body wasn’t ready for.

He braced himself on the counter and fucked his hand faster, the lotion slicking his tugs and pulls, creating a warm and smooth tunnel for him to fuck. His cheeks were red, the flush coloring up the bridge of his nose and his forehead. His orgasm was back, pushing against his prostate and desperate for release. A bead of sweat formed at his temple and trickled down his cheek.

He was so fucking close.

“Fuck!” he cried out, tearing his hand away from his erection and curling his fingers around the edge of his bathroom sink. He sucked in violent lungfuls of air. His cock bounced against the edge of the counter, as red as his face—hard, engorged, and in pain.

Why the fuck had he stopped himself?

When you’re ready to come - don’t.

Callum tucked his aching shaft back into his briefs and re-fastened the fly of his pants; his entire body trembled with unreleased tension. He studied his face in the mirror until his cheeks returned to their normal, pale complexion, and he washed his hands. His cock still pulsed against his thigh, beating in time with his heart, loud and insistent.

Callum adjusted himself, tucking his cock against his leg with a grunt before grabbing his wallet, phone, and keys and leaving for work.