The first thing Jamie noticed when reviewing the video was Marcus's back. The way his muscles tensed and released with each thrust. He dragged the clip back fifteen seconds and watched it again and again, the perfect little clip Marcus shifted his weight, pressing deeper.
He adjusted the volume, bringing up the breathless moan from the other party while slightly reducing Marcus's over the top grunts. Balance was everything.
"Too theatrical," Jamie muttered to himself, making the edit. It was the only feedback note he consistently gave Marcus after these sessions: be authentic. Everyone could spot the genuine pleasure from the manufactured. But Marcus couldn't help himself: maybe he didn't grasp the difference himself. More likely, he enjoyed messing with Jamie and every other lucky fucker watching.
The flat was quiet except for the sounds coming through Jamie's headphones and the occasional car passing their flat. He'd been at it for two hours already, transforming yesterday's raw footage into the polished half hour scene that would hopefully keep their subscribers satisfied and their bills paid for another month. He probably didn't need to work so long on it, but he got a thrill editing it.
Jamie paused the footage at a particularly striking frame. Marcus looked directly into the camera with that signature half-smile that somehow combined arrogance and vulnerability. Their guest performer, Eli, had been a pretty solid choice. He was responsive without hamming it up too much, physically compatible with Marcus, and importantly, comfortable with Jamie's presence behind the camera.
Some performers found it disconcerting, being observed by the boyfriend of the man fucking them. But Eli had been great, treating it as a job while still having a great time.
Marcus emerged from the bathroom, smelling, a towel slung low around his hips, another draped over his shoulders as he roughly dried his dark hair.
"How's it looking?" he asked, drifting towards the kitchen and filling the kettle.
"Good. I've toned down that bit where you started sounding like Stormy Daniels again."
Marcus laughed. "I can't help it if I'm enthusiastic about my work."
"Your enthusiasm isn't the problem. It's your delivery!" Jamie pulled off his headphones, releasing himself from the intimate sounds of the shoot. "The best moment is actually where you forgot about the camera completely. When Eli did that Queer As Folk bit with his tongue all down your spine and you genuinely shivered. That little gasp wasn't performed at all."
"Yeah, that surprised me." Marcus smiled at the memory, leaning against the counter as the kettle began to boil. "You've kept that bit in, haven't you?"
"Of course. They're the best bits."
Marcus dropped his towel on the floor, knowing it would irritate Jamie, and walked naked to peer over Jamie's shoulder at the screen. His body was still warm from the shower, radiating heat against Jamie's back. A drop of water fell from his hair onto Jamie's neck, trailing down beneath his t-shirt.
"There," Jamie said, pointing to the screen. "That. That's the moment. Just look at your face."
Marcus watched, nodding slowly. "Yeah. You're right. That's real."
"That's what they're paying for," Jamie said. "Not the porn star shit. The crack in the performance."
The kettle clicked off, but Marcus remained looking at the screen, studying himself like he was looking at a stranger. Jamie couldn't imagine being able to that: be subject and spectator all in one go.
"Speaking of paying," Marcus said, finally returning to make his tea, "what are the numbers looking like?"
"Good. We're up another thirty odd subscribers since last week. That video with the twins did well."
"I told you it would."
Jamie rolled his eyes. "Yes, you've mentioned that approximately thirty four times."
"Because you were so against it!"
"I wasn't against it. I just thought the logistics would be odd."
"The logistics were the best part." Marcus made his tea, a mischievous smile playing across his lips. "Maybe we should try for triplets next time."
Jamie sighed and returned to his editing, scrubbing through to a section that needed colour correction. The lighting had shifted when Marcus kicked over a floor lamp in a particularly vigorous thrust. "The mortgage is sorted for this month anyway."
"And next month?"
"That, sweetheart, depends on how many more twins you fuck. It should be fine if the new subscribers stick around. The churn rate has been lower lately, and we're getting more people than we're losing."
Marcus went to the sofa and sat down, still naked even though the curtains were open. Three years into their relationship, and Marcus's comfort in his own skin remained as effortless as ever, whether in front of a camera or in the privacy of their flat.
Jamie glanced over. He couldn't help it, not matter how familiar the contours of his body were these days. The trail of dark hair leading down his stomach, the chunky yet elegant thighs now casually splayed on their sofa.
"You need to be at work by eleven, right?" Jamie asked, returning to his edit.
"Unfortunately.” Marcus sighed dramatically. “Eight solid hours of manning the desk, helping old blokes who don't know how to tap their membership card, and transforming the sports hall from badminton courts to a 5-a-side pitch and then back to badminton courts again.”
"I appreciate your dedication," Jamie replied dryly. "Diversity of income and all that."
Marcus rose from the sofa and crossed back to Jamie, bending to kiss the top of his head. "Can I hear your voiceover before I go?"
Jamie nodded, saving his work before pulling up the audio file he'd been working on separately. This was his own contribution to their content. The narration that, dare Jamie admit, might have become their channel's unique feature. What made their videos different wasn't just the quality of Marcus's performances or Jamie's editing, but the sense that the camera was merely an accidental witness to the filthy goings on.
And it was operated by somebody so pathetic and irrelevant to the scene that his presence barely registered anything with Marcus or the lucky guy(s) he screwed.
Jamie's camerawork was deliberately imperfect at times. Slight adjustments to focus, subtle little shifts in framing, recording from afar and zooming in instead of filming up close.
They were all orchestrated to give a sense of a stalkerish observer hidden in a corner, so transfixed and turned on that he could barely focus on filming.
Then came his voice, the finishing touch that transformed their sexy scenes into something a bit different. He pressed play, and his recorded voice filled the room:
"Oh god, look at him go... it's like he doesn't even know I'm watching. He's so lost in it, he's forgotten I exist."
Jamie’s voice in the recording was different from his natural speaking voice: hesitant, breathy, with a tremor of mingled arousal and humiliation. Not just inadequate, but utterly forgettable: like a horny ghost whose sole purpose was to document the pleasure he could never provide.
"I'm not even here. This bottom will fuck off home in a few minutes and I'll be the one making the bed, sniffing the sheets and doing the chores. But my love, my beautiful love couldn't give a fuck."
The narration continued, growing increasingly pathetic, detailing how completely Marcus had forgotten his presence, how thoroughly erased he became in the presence of real men experiencing real pleasure. Then as Marcus shot a load all over Eli’s face, Jamie’s own feeble moans could be heard as if he too was shooting a load everywhere. Jamie felt Marcus's hand tighten slightly on his shoulder as the most degrading lines played.
"That's... intense," Marcus murmured, his lips close to Jamie's ear. "Almost uncomfortable to hear you talk about yourself that way, even knowing it's an act."
Jamie smiled, closing the audio file. "Who says it's an act?”
“Shush! I like it, sometimes I really fucking like it, but you'll make me sound like some arrogant fucking cunt,” Marcus said with a wide smile. "Anyway, you're my secret weapon. The real talent in this operation." His expression turned mischievous.
"Go get dressed," Jamie said, but he was very pleased. "Some of us have work to finish."
Marcus disappeared into their bedroom, and Jamie returned to his editing, applying the final touches to the sequence that would hopefully continue to pay their bills.
By the time Marcus emerged, dressed in his leisure centre polo shirt and tracksuit bottoms but still looking like the sexiest boy in town, Jamie had nearly completed the edit. He looked up as Marcus grabbed his keys and phone.
"How do I look?" Marcus asked, turning in a circle. "Respectable council employee or secret internet sex symbol?"
"Definitely the latter attempting and failing to disguise himself as the former," Jamie replied. "It's the way you stand. Too much confidence for someone who's about to spend his day apologetically explaining why the squash courts are double booked again."
After Marcus left, Jamie finished the edit, added his narration track, and uploaded the file. He scheduled it for release that evening, when their analytics showed peak subscriber activity, then closed his laptop.
Jamie went to the window and looked down at the now busy street below, at all the people hurrying home from work or to meet a delivery driver, unaware of what happened in this particular flat.
“See you later, love x”, he sent the text to Marcus.
