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The thin, scratchy fabric of the medical gown is just another one of the formalities this place instills to keep things cold and clinical, detaching its patients from their humanity.
Aesop’s not even- not even a patient. Not really. His degree had been hung on the wall right next to all of his colleagues’ and then. Vanished. Swept under some rug along with all other evidence of his rightful title in the name of a twisted game called cat and mouse.
It hasn’t stopped him from treating his patients, of course. But like all things in White Sand Street Asylum, that happens behind closed doors.
Warily, Aesop’s eyes flicker to the doorknob again as he fiddles with the flimsy strings that barely keep his gown shut, his foot tapping an anxious tempo where it dangles in the air, sitting on the too-high examination chair to reach the ground. The pleather clings to the underside of his thigh with every movement, binding him to the inevitable with a layer of sweat.
It’s just a routine examination, he reminds himself, as if anything that happens routinely in this place ever overlaps on the venn diagram of morally correct.
Antonio had been nice enough about it, at least. Sent him on his way with a gentle pat on the back, told him to slip the gown on, and that he’d be in shortly. It’s just that in his current, apprehensive state, Aesop’s having difficulty with the passage of time, his perception of it. Seconds trickle into minutes which snowball into what feel like hours, with no way to tell, the asylum’s walls long rid of most clocks. What has two hands and goes in circles and circles and never ending circles, its redundant ticking enough to drive the most fragile patients to the brink of their insanity.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Aesop inhales deeply. The stale, sterile air fills his lungs, holds, and then he breathes out, trying to ease the heart inside his chest that’s thundering something fierce.
Antonio wouldn’t lie to him. Not like this, at least. Strange as he is, which is very, his true intentions have never seemed to lie with the more unsavory of the doctors staffed at this establishment. Worst of all, and the one Antonio had assured him wouldn’t be performing his exam today-
The door swings open. Aesop’s eyes snap to his company.
“What are you doing here?” he frowns, his whole body stiffening at the coy smile Joseph throws his way.
“I’m here to perform your exam, of course.” He grins that shit eating grin, the only pillar to his pretense of pretend is the sadistic joy he siphons from it. His finely manicured claw slips under the top sheet of paper clamped to the clipboard in his grasp, and flips it over, eyeing the papers for show. “Just a routine physical.”
Aesop narrows his eyes, shakes his head. His bare feet fall to the tile as he hops off the chair in defiance.
“I was told it would be anyone but you.”
“Ah,” Joseph’s expression lights up, and he tilts his head curiously. The door shuts behind him as he corrals them both into the room. “Did Antonio tell you that? I am afraid he had urgent business to see to, and the other doctors are preoccupied with their duties as well. I am your attending physician, so naturally the task falls to me.”
Aesop’s displeasure must read plain across his face, for Joseph gives him a pitying little chuckle, feigning dejection.
“Come now, is it really so bad? This is to ensure that you are healthy. I only want what is best for you.”
He sets his clipboard down on the nearby counter, fingers now free to dip into his pocket where he fishes out a fresh pair of latex gloves, and pulls them on with a sickening snap. His eyes never leave Aesop.
“So,” Joseph croons. “What will it be?”
With them, it’s not a fair fight.
It never is. Because the patients at White Sand Street Asylum aren’t given the conditions to thrive, they’re given the conditions to survive. Barely. Their existences are a row of melting candles in a sea of darkness, withering flames, poised to be snuffed out by a wicked or careless hand. All it would take is a breeze. A push. A shove.
In a familiar flurry of limbs, of fumbling and squirming, Aesop finds himself wrestled onto the reclining exam chair once again, the inescapable weight of Joseph atop him, as his ankles and wrists are bound to the table-turned-chair by the leather straps reserved for the more unruly patients. They dig into his skin and Aesop knows that, even if he were to cease fighting their restraints now, he’s bound to leave this exchange with angry red marks etched into his skin from their vice grip anyway. Desperately, he jerks, but it’s to no avail as the bindings hold him firm, and the back of his skull slams into the poorly padded headrest, leaving him slightly dazed. He tries it again, hoping that with enough force the damn hinges might give, but they only hold steady.
“There,” Joseph sighs, looking slightly disheveled, but beaming with a wicked pride as he smooths down Aesop’s bangs, which have begun to cling to his forehead with sweat. The ties of his gown have begun to come unraveled as well, but that becomes irrelevant when one of Joseph’s hands comes to rest atop his chest, just above the loosening knot at his sternum.
“I am going to open your gown here so that I may listen to your lungs and heart,” Joseph explains, only proceeding with the action once he’s given proper warning just like a good doctor would. He peels the edges of the gown away just enough to expose Aesop’s upper body, and the chilled metal of the stethoscope grazing Aesop’s ribs makes him shudder.
“Take a big breath for me- in, hold it, and out. Yes, just like that. Let’s ease that heartbeat of yours.”
And begrudgingly, Aesop does as he is told.
Every breath, in and out, quells the adrenaline flowing through him, placates the thumping of his heart that had been so rapid, it was borderline painful. But the monotony of inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, soothes him just enough that Aesop feels himself begin to go lax, melting into the chair.
He’d never be fooled enough to drop his guard, however. Never takes his eyes off Joseph, only when he blinks does he momentarily break, but those clinical, wandering hands will always be up to something mischievous. To sink into a belief otherwise would be nothing short of deluded, and yet, as the exam progresses, Aesop can’t find anything suspicious under the surface of Joseph’s actions.
“Any complaints about your recent health?” Joseph asks, shining a light in his eyes. “Changes in mood, appetite, sleep?” Like he hasn’t been the one to personally force food down Aesop’s maw, to drug him into oblivion for a good night’s rest more times in the past week than they can both count.
The gloved pads of Joseph’s fingers come up to his neck, palpating his lymph nodes and the sensation makes Aesop shudder again- even through the thin layer of latex, it is still apparent that Joseph’s skin runs as frigid as his demeanor.
“No.”
“And how about your libido?”
The icy lump of dread settles in the deep pit of Aesop’s gut, and instinctively he jerks when one of Joseph’s hands brushes up against the exposed meat of his thigh where his gown has begun to ride up.
“Good to see your reflexes are sharp as ever,” Joseph chuckles, and he wets his lips with his tongue, eyes still trained expectantly on Aesop. Ready to devour.
“That’s-” Aesop chokes, swallowing down the knot in his throat as he tries to fight his flight response long enough to form a coherent reply. The words come out low and raspy, a disbelief uttered so far below his breath, it is almost lost to the humming of the fluorescents beaming above. “You and I both know that’s not part of a routine physical.”
He can tell by the smile on Joseph’s face that the hypnotist has already won.
“Oh?” Joseph purses his lips, unconvinced. The hand on Aesop’s thigh creeps upward and he rolls the last knot of Aesop’s gown between thumb and forefinger, his only defense two pieces of flimsy string. “I had better run some tests, just to be safe.”
It’s a rather unceremonious thing. The way his gown falls open as Joseph gives a minuscule tug to undo the knot. Joseph has seen him naked before- and in far more compromising situations than this. So Aesop’s not sure where the sudden flush of embarrassment comes from- or perhaps, it comes from the fact that this is such a clinical setting. Perhaps it comes from the fact that, when faced with it, he does not totally and completely loathe the situation he’s found himself in. Whether that’s from Joseph’s relentless conditioning or not-
Maybe he does deserve to be locked up here.
“No need to be afraid,” Joseph reassures him as he steps off to the side, sliding one of the metal drawers open with a resonating thunk and he begins to rifle through it. “I won’t hurt you,” he pauses in his rummaging, gaze flickering to Aesop in his peripheral where he throws a lopsided smirk.
“Unless you want me to.”
Just for a moment, Aesop considers it. Wonders if pain would be more familiar. Comforting.
Joseph comes back with a bottle of lubricant in his hand, and nudges the drawer closed. The sound of the bottle’s cap clicking open is enough to make Aesop freeze, Joseph’s slow and methodical movements as he squeezes a generous dollop onto his fingertips, paired with his idle humming doing nothing for the pitch of anticipation that’s been rising in the room.
Bared to the air, Aesop can do nothing to fight the way his fluctuating temperature wreaks havoc on his body- somehow both sweating and shivering at the same time, burning a fierce blush and goosebumps that extend all the way down his chest, he finds. Too afraid to look at himself since there’s nothing to hide behind, he’d kept his gaze trained on Joseph’s hands but now, the doctor is reaching lower, lower, and Aesop’s eyes follow as the latex gloves meet his soft cock, spreading the lube across his shaft.
It’s not as cold as he expects it to be, but he reacts with a jolt and a hiss all the same. Under the harsh glow of the lights, he can see every shadow cast by the divots in his ribs, his skin thin and frail and stretching across them in a way that reveals the veins that run underneath, his pounding heartbeat visible just below the surface.
Most nauseating is the way he starts to tingle, the blood rushing south and his dick growing hard from the undivided attention.
If anything, it’s rather alarming how quickly the pit of unease in his stomach turns into pleasure. Joseph’s hands are skilled, practiced, building up a steady pace that he knows Aesop is certain to enjoy due to experience, one that has Aesop squeezing his eyes shut and biting on the inside of his cheek to maintain composure.
He shouldn’t have- shame. He’s a doctor, as much as Joseph tries to convince him otherwise, but the slick sound filling his ears is more than enough to keep a blush permanently affixed on his cheeks.
Deep breaths, he reminds himself. In and out, in and out, he inhales through his nose and lets his lungs fill temporarily with relief that gets knocked from him with every stroke, every twist.
The medical gown, where it’s still hanging onto him, has begun to feel stifling, and for a moment Aesop thinks to ask Joseph to remove it entirely, if they’re abandoning all pretense like this, but that would require far too much effort. So he resigns himself to sitting in the stiff, unyielding chair, his limbs flexing against their restraints as he twitches in their hold, in Joseph’s hold, his hips jerking up into the touch despite himself.
How pathetic, quips a voice in his head that sounds eerily like the hypnotist who’s standing right next to him. But it’s only a figment of his imagination, or memory, really. Because the Joseph in here and now is completely silent, save for his breathing which is far more controlled than Aesop’s own, which comes in labored huffs and gasps. Just as pain is more familiar to him coming from this hand, Aesop is far more familiar with Joseph’s filthy ramblings. He’s had both degrading insults and soaring praises sent his way, whichever favored Joseph’s mood more in the moment, and so the lack of that, in an attempt to maintain his clinical facade, is rather unsettling.
Aesop cracks an eye open, just one, to sneak a look at Joseph’s face, thinking that maybe that predatory gaze might lull him into a sense of security. But it’s strikingly passive, and his stomach lurches again, this time, with yearning. With a pang of longing for a reaction, to draw something, anything out of him, for all the trouble that Joseph is putting him through.
He bites the bullet and murmurs “faster,” averting his gaze and letting the plea be lost between his choked back breaths, but Joseph is too keen. The hypnotist speeds up upon request, though just barely, and gives no other indication that he’s listening.
But it’s enough. It’s enough and Aesop grips onto it like a lifeline, the marginal change in pace shifting away from too-one-note and carrying him toward his inevitable end.
Tensing, Aesop swallows some of the saliva that’s begun to collect in his mouth, not even realizing his lips had been parted. It’s a habit of his, unbothering to control facial expressions due to how diligent he normally is about concealing them behind a mask, which had been included in the pile of clothes he’d been urged to abandon for his exam.
Something must give him away- Joseph has been studying him long enough to pick up on the nearly imperceptible clues, ones that even Aesop is not aware of himself- because with his free hand, he dips into his pocket and produces a specimen vial. He lines it up against the shaft of Aesop’s cock, nudging the head with its rim, peeling back his fingers just enough that it doesn’t get in the way of his motions.
The climbing, condensing pressure inside of Aesop reaches an unbearable highpoint, the one just before the fall, and he digs his nails into the thin padding on the chair so desperately that he tears right through the cheap foam until he hits metal. Suffocating, it's choking him, his lips part around a gasp, and his eyes flutter open against his will. He’s met with the sight of Joseph, inescapable as his impending orgasm, because if anything, Joseph has trained him well enough. To face the man who’s molding him into the perfect little plaything, to know exactly who’s making him cum.
It happens with a jolt, those blue eyes peering into his own even as his vision goes white around the edges, Aesop fights every second of his climax but cannot deny just how good it feels as his cock twitches in Joseph’s hold. The warmth of his release leaks out between every ebb and throb, running down the side of his shaft, where it doesn’t make a mess of Joseph’s hand, and collects into the specimen vial that the hypnotist is going to use it for no less than his own perverted purposes, Aesop is sure.
And just like it goes with Joseph, the moment passes and then it is gone, and Aesop is left winded, like he’s just run a marathon. Chest heaving, he wonders if perhaps he really is physically out of shape in some facet to be so out of breath from an orgasm, or if that’s a side effect of Joseph’s presence in particular.
The pleasure bleeds out, all that’s left is a sticky, sweaty mess of a body that falls against the back of the chair as he slumps in defeat. He’d love to take a shower, or just to have a damp towel even, to wipe away the perspiration that’s trickling down his spine and forehead. Even the medical gown, where it remains, manages to continue in its uselessness- it doesn’t even absorb the sweat in a way that matters, in fact, it only seems to exacerbate his discomfort.
Joseph is not always amenable to Aesop’s requests, but in moments like these, he is typically more favorable than not. And so Aesop opens his mouth, letting the strength build up behind his voice before he intends to ask to be freed from his restraints, but Joseph beats him to the punch.
“You know,” Joseph murmurs curiously. He’s holding the specimen container up in the air, examining it under the light, turning it this way and that, like he’s fascinated by it. Like it’s not the most mundane, vile substance to operate under a facade to collect. “I don’t think this is quite enough.”
“What?”
“Do not sound so affronted,” Joseph tuts. He caps the vial momentarily to dispose of his dirtied gloves with a startling efficiency before pulling on a new pair with the same sickening snap of latex against flesh, though the sound is nearly lost to the reinvigorated beat of Aesop’s heart. “You are young. If you are healthy, you should be able to manage another orgasm with no issue.”
Ah, how unfair it is that a part of him is glad Joseph has found a way to extend the duration of the encounter. How addicted to that touch he is, even though it’s sharp, and entirely too overwhelming, in the same way that Joseph’s presence always manages to be.
Aesop hisses in sensitivity as the suffocating grasp of Joseph’s newly lubed fingers wrap around his cock again. He’s raw and red, throbbing like pinpricks everywhere those clever hands touch him, and he writhes, Joseph trying to coax his softening length back to life.
Perhaps it’s the power of suggestion- because Joseph is nothing short of an expert in that department, but it doesn’t take much for Aesop to grow hard again. Something reignited in his blood, Aesop’s a little too lost in his shamelessness to care about the whimper that leaves his mouth.
It’s not intentional- or maybe it is, and maybe that’s exactly part of Joseph’s plan- the uncertainty alone is enough to start the spiral of questioning in the hypnotist’s motives, the kind that leaves Aesop wondering for days, tearing his hair out- but the overstimulation borders on painful, and does not relent. Even when it starts to feel good again, the edge never leaves, and it is the comfort in that which allows Aesop to sink more into his role of an obedient patient.
As a result, and no longer fighting it, he barrels into his second orgasm much faster than the first. Aesop comes with a small moan, but still, it’s like pulling the teeth, the way Joseph’s fist is clasped around him, wringing out every last drop of his release to collect with every pump, milking him so thoroughly dry that he surely has nothing to give when it’s all said and done.
That is the pinnacle of their existences, really. To give and take until there is nothing left of each other, until they are one.
Joseph cleans them both up with the same level of clinicalness that he always does, humming as he goes, eyes glazed over to his own wrongdoings and Aesop thinks that he’s glad for it. Joseph’s passiveness allows for Aesop to remain as such as well, not having to question what has become his normal- their normal. To fight such circumstances is a headache, a fight he will never truly give up, but moments of respite from the battlefield are nice. This is the length to which Joseph’s tenderness extends.
“You are free to dress yourself and head back to your room,” Joseph coos, doing Aesop the favor of pulling the medical gown back over his body to cover his decency, and then unbuckling his restraints. Aesop does not take the prompt to stand, at least not immediately, not trusting that his knees will be able to bear his full weight. “You have a clean bill of health, but do not be afraid to make me aware of any concerns should they arise. Okay, Aesop?”
Aesop swallows. Nods.
“Yes, Mr. Joseph.”