A First Time for Everything (Phoenician Short #1.1)

A First Time

for Everything

A Phoenician Series Short Story

by Marjorie F. Baldwin

(c) Copyright 2013 Phoenician Books. All rights reserved.

William Harrington is the Man in Charge—literally. He’s been the Director of the Centre since it was established and now he’s Acting Administrator of the Institute and presiding over the entire World Council. There’s no one in a position of greater power and yet, when it comes to relationships, he’s most comfortable following his partner’s lead. Drew was his first and only love back on Earth and even after half a dozen casual lovers, Will’s never quite had another relationship work out. He’d been a sub to Drew's Dom for too many years to break in someone new, until he met Jared Crenshaw. Now, if he wants to be with Jared—and he does—he’ll have to learn how to sub for Jared. He finds himself eager to something new, maybe even too eager.

Jared Crenshaw is used to being responsible for other people’s welfare. He’s a MedTech, so he literally holds another person’s life in his hands on a daily basis. The awesome responsibility of his work has made him comfortable playing the Dom in the bedroom but he finds himself daunted by William Harrington. Add to that, Will claims it’s his first time—that is, his first exposure to the BDSM world of power exchange. Jared has mixed feelings about being the one to indoctrinate Will into the wondrous world of Dom/sub relationships but then Jared finds himself having feelings for Will that he’s never had before. Maybe it’s a first time for both of them. When Will takes control of the scene, Jared has to wonder who’s playing whom here?

A First Time for Everything is a novella in The Phoenician Series. It is a Gay SciFi Romance, with milder sex than typical BDSM erotica but edgier than in a typical mainstream SFR (heterosexual Science Fiction Romances). Some readers may find it too much or too little. This story is intended to be as much a part of the larger series as it is intended to be a standalone romance. Both men in this story are major characters in the other stories of The Phoenician Series. The events in this story occur about one month after the events at the end of the series novel, Man Made Man, the story in which William and Jared first meet.

Cover Credits

Cover Design by Sarah, The Webbiegrrl Writer

Fractal Feather element by Lisa Kent

Connect with Me Online

Find all my links at: http://about.me/FridayBaldwin

License Notes/Smashwords Edition

Thank you for downloading this eBook. It is the copyrighted, intellectual property of the Author, and no part of it may be reproduced, copied or distributed, for commercial or non-commercial or personal purposes, in print, electronically, digitally or otherwise. Please respect the hard work of this Author and do not give illegal copies of this eBook to your friends but invite them to download their own copy from Smashwords, where they can also discover other titles from Phoenician Books. Thank you for supporting the hard work of this Phoenician Books Author.

This is a work of fiction. The names of people, places and things are products of the Author’s imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner for dramatic purposes and are not to be construed in any way as representing reality. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events or locations is entirely incidental.

Adult Content Warning:

This story contains sexually-explicit content of a BDSM nature and graphic language describing adult situations which may be considered inappropriate for all audiences or offensive to some readers. This work is intended for mature audiences only and may not be appropriate for readers under the age of 18. Please protect access to your copy of this story so that it cannot be accessed by under-aged readers, accidentally or intentionally.

Table of Contents

William and Jared’s Story (28,180 words)

License Notes / Content Warning

Ch1 (6900 words)

Ch2 (4480 words)

Ch3 (4410 words)

Ch4 (8630 words)

Ch5 (3830 words)

List of Titles in The Phoenician Series

Excerpt: When Minds Collide (short story prequel) (2500 words)

Excerpt: Man Made Man (Book 1) (3800 words)

About the Author

Contact Information

~ 1 ~

God, I hate my job, Jared Crenshaw said as he sat down at the table. He was almost twenty minutes late for their dinner date so William Harrington kind of hated Jared’s job, too. Will didn’t mind Jared’s tardiness, though. He’d have waited another twenty minutes for Jared to show up. In fact, William would have waited all night. He had nowhere better to be. He’d cleared his entire schedule for an amazing eighteen consecutive hours to arrange this date with Jared tonight. He wanted to be sure they had no more interruptions or prior engagements preventing them from getting together tonight. He was making Jared Crenshaw a priority because Jared was William’s first attempt at a real relationship in longer than Will could remember. That is, assuming a fourth date constituted a relationship these days. William was so out of practice, he really didn’t know anymore. All he knew was if he didn’t schedule time to focus on trying to date, he wouldn’t date at all. That had been William Harrington’s situation for the last five years. Oh, he’d rented out a doxie and gotten laid but a half-hour of mediocre sex was hardly worth the effort. His right hand still worked just fine—and didn’t cost him anywhere near as much time or hassle.

Jared was different than the other men he’d tried to date. Jared had a lot of dating experience, a breadth and spectrum that intrigued William quite a bit. Will wanted to know every last thing about all of Jared’s past lovers and Jared seemed happy to talk about them whenever Will asked. He had a lot of fascinating stories, telling of things William would never have imagined went on around this city he ran. As Acting Administrator, one would think he’d know more about the social life of the common population, but Jared had told him more in their four short dates than he’d learned in his four long years of holding the position. Besides, Will would never get tired of listening to the man talk. Jared was so alive, so vibrant, so different from everyone else Will knew—and right now, so passionate, even if only about hating his job.

Jared gestured with his hands as he went on, "I mean really, spending the day piecing together Proctors can’t possibly be first on any sane person’s list of career choices, not that the Proctors are the problem, you understand. They didn’t ask to be dead—or broken up into little pieces—but I ask you, how exactly am I supposed to figure out a way to reassemble them when I have to abide by the Standards to do it? That kind of bull—I mean, beaurocracy—"

You meant bullshit, Jared.

Well, it just makes it impossible for me to love working in MedTech anymore.

Jared only swore on special occasions William had learned already. William wanted to make Jared swear during sex. In fact, the idea of making Jared swear repeatedly over the next twelve or so hours was distracting William’s thoughts now. William leaned an elbow on the table and cupped his chin, smiling as he pondered it, encouraging Jared to rant on. Problem was, contemplating how to make Jared swear during sex was so utterly distracting, how was William supposed to pay attention to what the actual man was actually saying?

William wondered if he could take Jared into some back alley where no one would care about screaming at the top of your lungs. There were places where muggings and murders happened and William could look out for them. He wouldn’t even mind a little hand to hand combat to get his adrenaline rush on first. Call it foreplay. Then fuck Jared among the fallen bodies. It was an interesting image filling his head and William realized, he hadn’t had sex in public in…longer than it had been since his last relationship attempt. Sex outdoors was probably not a good idea. Joshua had sent along a quartet of palace guards to watch William’s every move. Being Acting Administrator had more drawbacks than one might think. The atmosphere of this outdoor café wasn’t helping either.

They’d chosen a place that neither of them had tried yet. The establishment claimed it would serve everyone from Privilege Class all the way down to Class Ones so it was one of the few places William could see Jared in public and not cause a stir. Of course, the self-seating areas segregated themselves into class-appropriate groups and the Class Ones and Privilege Class were scarcely seen here, but the Class Twos and Threes seemed to really like the place. Jared was a Class Three and the food was supposed to be quite good. William had already discovered a fairly new wine on their wine list while he’d been waiting. It was a burgundy he’d just designed a couple of years earlier and only just released into the public economy a few months ago. He still wasn’t sure this wine was worth its synthesizing costs. maybe if it breathed a little while longer. Something in the air on this alien world tended to make wine come to life—literally, probably—if you let it sit out for a good half hour. Ten more minutes and he’d test the again. With his free hand, he reached out and poured a small amount into both of their wine glasses and listened to Jared rant on.

The man had no inhibitions. Patrons at the other tables were throwing occasional glances their way, but William noted that Jared went on undaunted. He was used to being invisible. He was used to just living his life however he liked. William couldn’t even remember when he’d felt that kind of freedom. It would have been back on Earth, back before he’d even met Drew or heard about the Community. Now William’s life was determined by a dozen other people. He barely got to choose what to eat or when. It made for an interesting dichotomy when he went out with Jared in public. William had already started to see the benefits of dating an invisible MedTech that neither Joshua nor anyone else in the Community