“Show me,” Kurt said, “how did they patch you up?”

A tremor went through Max’s body, hardly noticeable were it not for Kurt’s hand on his stomach, placed there like one would place one’s hand on a small animal, careful not to break it.

“Perfect, good, it’s fine. It won’t be a problem at all,” Max said, his gaze fixated on Kurt’s forehead. The sweat on his upper lip exposed the lie. That was unacceptable. “Then show me,” Kurt said, smile drawn up to his eyes, which in contrast to the friendly curl of his lips perfectly matched the cool tone of his words.

The shrapnel had grazed Max across the stomach like a Caesarean section, a horizontal cut a hand width below his navel, just under the waist of his pants, which had clearly pressed and rubbed on the bare skin for a while. The cut was roughly stitched with thick, white thread now turned pink, the same colour as the sore skin around the cut. The blond fuzz of his lower abdomen did nothing to hide the condition of the wound. Kurt comically tilted his head and bent down to examine the piece of body exposed to him. Having scrutinized it for as while he pressed his index finger on the cut. Instantly, like a gun firing as you pull past the last resistance on the trigger, Max’s abdominal muscles clenched, very obviously so to Kurt, who was almost close enough to kiss the quivering body. He shook his head disapprovingly. “So this is what you call good, Max? It looks awful, frankly disgusting. They didn’t even bandage it and now look at it. Appalling.”

“It won’t be a problem,” Max repeated through clenched teeth. It was endearing really, in good spirit, but also entirely stupid and dishonest too.

“Ah, Maxi, Maxi, Maxi.. It’s really admirable what you’re doing,” Kurt said and he followed the line of the cut with the tip of his finger as if to emphasize how much praise Max deserved, causing the exact opposite effect, painful punishment. The gash in Max’s flesh though felt exciting, above and below was the soft, fuzzy skin and in the middle the sharp, very faintly moist edge of the cut and it was trembling too when he touched it. It was the sort of thing you wanted to touch again not just instinctively like an itching scab but deliberate and consciously, to feel every tiny sensation it had to offer, like the wet cleft between a woman’s thighs. The stitches were so far apart that when Kurt pressed on the slit, lips curling again in that familiar u-shape and a delighted twinkle in his eyes, the flesh yielded, split like a thin mouth and spread open to reveal the red, wet insides. Max gasped.

“Does that hurt?” Kurt asked pulling one corner of his mouth up even further, the crooked smile looking particularly cruel. Max nodded slowly as if any hasty movement could cause the finger to be plunged into the wound on its own. “Splendid,” Kurt said and with that word he did push into Max, under his skin, just a bit, but enough feel the wet heat inside and more than enough to make Max squeeze his eyes shut and groan, the sound rolling from the back of his throat and trembling when he exhaled it. Kurt thought it sounded an awful lot like the sort of noise Max made during orgasm.

Once the first onslaught of sharp external pain had faded into the dull pain of internal penetration Max looked down at Kurt again and that funny looking finger inside of him, eyes wide, struggling to comprehend the reality of the scene. “What doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger, don’t you agree?” Kurt said, winking. He gently curled his finger inside of Max like he would do inside of a girl to feel the rough texture that made her clench around him, but it felt all the same inside of Max, like freshly cut meat and fat skin that he could peel off if he wanted. He rubbed it anyway to see what would happen. There was that groan again, more controlled but still ripe with memories and then Max put his hands on Kurt’s shoulders, steadying himself that way to endure the pain, breathing out loudly every time Kurt teased him with another caress.

Max had that particular quality of instantly recognizing and submitting to authority of any kind, whether authority deriving from chains of command or from charisma. He fit right in, without complaint, doing his duty and what qualified as his duty was not up to him. It was essentially a good quality, but horribly encouraging to men of sadistic character. Fortunately Kurt loved him too much to find any enjoyment in prolonged abuse. “Well done, boy,” he said as he pulled out, drawing one last gasp. “You are not going to lie to me again, are you?” Max shook his head and still panting smiled wide. When Kurt squeezed his shoulders, mirroring where Max was still holding onto him, Max bared his teeth into a grin that swallowed all of his other features. They looked like two very happy hyenas about to embrace each other.