He is afraid of crowds. But at the same time, they entice him.

Back in school, he used to be one of those guys people would gather around just to mock and hit and kick and see the demise of. Whenever he saw several guys approaching, he knew what was coming. He was a scrawny teenager who did drugs, no matter what he did to build up some physical strength in the end he could only take down two at the most. And those two would come back anyway, later, with more friends. He always ended up biting the dirt.

Groups of people scared him. They were like whole different creatures, very much unlike a mere sum of the people of which they consisted. One could reason with people, try to explain why he was different, people had mercy, crowds did not. He was aware most of them only tormented him because the others did, and if they didn't want the crowd to turn on them the next time they needed to be a docile part of it and blindly follow the leaders.

It was all about the leaders really. Leading the crowd. He was afraid of crowds, but that didn't mean he didn't want to control them. It was the kind of sick fascination with danger and primal power which makes people into trainers of wild animals that made him sing in front of crowds in the first place.

The feeling of power being able to entrance the crowds gave him was more thrilling than anything. He'd never felt more alive than when he was standing in front of cheering crowd, poised above it on a brightly lit stage, so they could all see him and hear his voice and hear him pour his soul into it. The control over something so scary and so powerful physically turned him on while trapping his mind in a bliss that felt better than orgasm.

He was excited up there, enticed, but also so very afraid. The fear wouldn't go away as the years were passing and he became a rock star and a really big rock star and the countless performances he'd had all blurred in his mind in an endless row of evenings of bliss. He suspected he'd never get over the fear. And he didn't even want to anymore. He was coming out on stage for these emotions, for the fear as well, for it was all so powerful mingled like that, it was more addicting than anything else he'd ever dealt with.

He wouldn't exactly call it a phobia. Of course it wasn't, it didn't stop him from dealing with the crowds quite expertly. And they were really something to be afraid of. Maybe he could communicate with them that well in the first place because he was never forgetting about their power. He always remembered what a small crowd can do to an outcast. He was well aware what an endless crowd could do to a star it craved. He thought a lot about how the wars and political changes were all about crowds, demanding their right to set the law and change the world.

They only ever seemed to succeed in changing it into hell. The crowd, even made up of the best and the most compassionate people is always essentially evil, he believed.

That was what he was thinking, squinting his eyes so he could see anything beyond the realm of the stage lights, looking around over the endless crowd, surrounding the stage from all directions, blocking all roads of escape. He got his eyes fixed so he could see the crowd when it was moving and singing in unison with him.

It was his ultimate victory over the crowd which haunted his childhood and he wanted to savour it fully.

He was still aware of its power though. Aware of the fact that this crowd, made up mostly of people who liked his music and didn't mean any harm to him really, would tear him apart if he risked getting into it without some means of protection. The crowd at a rock concert is not a sum of fans, it's a whole different being, radiating its shared warmth and whispering in a voice that comes from thousands of mouths at the same time. It's ready to swallow what it loves, rip it apart with its countless hands and take the bones cleaned off of flesh as souvenirs and never think about what it's doing. And it wants him so much. It wants him enough to destroy him.

He keeps the crowd at bay though with his music. Powerful, loud words and sounds are the only thing that can reach the crowd's very spirit, the only means to control it - make it move the way you want it to, feel what you want it to feel, scream what you tell them to scream.

The crowd can't be told what it ought to do, but it can be manipulated and it can be entranced and it can be charmed. It needs a leader at that, it always searches for one and it always finds one in the end.

And when it's finally moving and singing and feeling the way he wants it to, it is where he wins, one more time. The beast is tamed for now. It came to be to enjoy his music in a way so powerful it's beyond the realm of perception of single individuals, and then it scatters and it does no harm. It's his victory. He faced the crowd once again and came out alive and successful. And he yearns for more. He wants the same to happen the next day and the day after that. He only lives for that, after all.

Because it turned out to be so that controlling what he fears is the only thing that truly turns him on.

The show is over once again and even though he's deadly tired, he almost regrets it. His throat burns intensely and he's drenched in sweat, but that doesn't matter. It's a small prize to pay for having the crowd follow his every move with the thousands of its eyes for the last two hours.

Sometimes he wonders what they think now. Those people who kicked him while he was lying in the dirt back in school. Sometimes he wonders if they ever come to his shows, any of them, maybe some who have forgotten all about the old him and only see a rock star he is nowadays. He wonders if he gets to control the portions of those old crowds who hurt him in the past. It's not all about retribution of course, but that's a part of it.

They go backstage. Someone throws a bunch of towels his way and he catches those and throws one Mike's way and looks around for the other guys. It's strange how Mike is always there when he wants to give him something or tell him something or whatever. Or maybe he just generally keeps close by. They are guided right to the golf cart that would take them to the tour bus. The schedule is tight that night, their manager tells them, no time to fool around.

He sits next to Mike in the cart. They're all still somewhat short of breath after the show, besides Joe that's it, who looks as composed as always, and they stink. But that can't be helped right now.

He's aroused too. He wasn't lying when he said in an interview he gets erections while on stage. In a way, it's even better than sex, more fulfilling. He rubs the bulge in his pants absent-mindedly, trying hard to be discreet but unable to stop himself all the same.

"Turned on by the jumping crowd again ?" Mike asks playfully, even though generally he minds his own business when it comes to how they feel up there.

Mike is a sucker for attention in his own way. He wants people to notice him and praise him. He doesn't get off as much on controlling the crowd as he does on its admiration. At least that's how Chester sees it. He gives himself enough credit as Mike's best friend to believe he's right, too.

"Chester ?" Mike elbows him in the ribs.

"What ? I am. So what about it ?" He rolls his eyes. "I'll take care of it when they'll let us into a bathroom."

"I wonder how you feel when you're on stage. It must be damn intense to turn you on."

"Yeah, it is."

"What is it you get off on exactly anyway ?" Mike's prying mind wouldn't just leave it alone. "The cute girls screaming your name ?"

"The crowd has nothing to do with cute girls." Chester shrugs. "I don't see it as human, really. Not the same way individual humans are human. It's like... more primal. Like a beast. Godlike too. I just like to think it's there for me and that I can control it. I guess I just get off on the control. I'm kind of sick. But you know that anyway."

Mike looks perplexed.

"Music is kind of powerful like that..." Chester continues, unaware of how his words caught Brad's attention too. "One never knows that really before they perform in front of a crowd for the first time and charm it with the music. Only then, you get to know the exact extent of its power..."

For once he sounds thoughtful. He rarely says things that have such deep meaning aloud. They feel alien on his tongue, but not in his mind.

"You guys remember how Joe watched that documentary about Northern Korea on TV ? The people there are so infused with the propaganda they come together and scream in unison about how they love their leader. It looked just like a rock concert really." Brad intercepts.

"It's same thing really. Rock concerts, protesting crowds, religious crowds. All kinds of big crowds that get controlled by something." Mike says.

The golf cart stops next to the tour bus, but they don't move off it. The other guys overhear what Mike said and look at them curiously too.

"People just stop to think when they're in a crowd. They do what the others do." Chester's voice sounds wistful when he repeats those cliched words and somehow for once, they ring true in everyone's ears.

"Have you guys noticed how only humans can do that ? Other animals have no means to control such great groups of others. You need to have culture for that." Mike notices, his intellectual enthusiasm overriding Chester's personal sadness. "It's like the ability to control others like that is yet another great human accomplishment that's multifaceted just like everything else. It sports both the greatest shows and the worst wars."

And not only wars. Chester adds in his mind. He will never forget why he's afraid of crowds in the first place.

By the time he reaches the bathroom on the bus his erection is non-existent. He's glad that the others understand him somewhat, that they share his belief in the power of the crowds. It's like that most of the time really. Once you decide to share your thoughts with others, you realize they essentially think the same way, even though you were always afraid they'd call you a sick fuck.

Well, maybe they don't exactly get off on the one thing that frightens them the most.

Or second most, for that matter.

There was one thing in his childhood worst yet than getting regularly beaten up by groups of his fellow students. One thing that etched fear greater than that of crowds into him. Whenever he remembers in details the other boy's unwanted touch creeping down his body, him getting way too close for comfort, he almost hyperventilates. His throat constricts and doesn't let the air in as if it was trying to block something else entirely from entering it all those years ago. It's a fear more potent than the one of crowds. It's a fear that could probably turn him on even more if he managed to control its object.

He knows it does in fact. Because that's not exactly uncharted territory for him.

And when Mike knocks on the bathroom door, asking him when he'll be out of there, he lets his hand drop between his legs and works himself into a state of arousal in the matter of seconds. It comes that easily with the post show excitement.

"Care to help me with the consequences of the show ?" He asks through the closed door and hearing clearly how Mike's breathing hitches on the other side, he opens them and sticks his head out before adding in a raspy whisper. "You know, the ones we discussed earlier ? It just refuses to go away." He lies smoothly.

Mike swallows the bait easily enough and nods.

As much as Chester respects him as a person, when you strip down the things that don't really matter when it comes to sex, like intelligence and kindness and a myriad of artistic talents, he's just a typical male. Bisexual, thankfully. You push the right buttons and he reacts in a certain way and it's just simple like that. It took a bit of fumbling around for Chester to learn what those were, but right now he knows exactly what to do to get Mike where he wants him.

Mike's excited like a little kid when he squeezes into the small bathroom with him, having disposed of his clothes. Chester doesn't even notice that.

It's all about controlling what he was once afraid of. It's the only thing that turns him on nowadays. He pushes Mike into the wall, their bodies slamming together. He never lets him do much when they have sex. There are certain barriers that need to be kept up. He's afraid he'd get hurt, badly, if he ever lets those down with anyone, even Mike. He may trust him as a friend, but never as a man. All men are the same really, when you let them do what they please they treat you like a thing and act out without considering how they mess you up.

He feels nothing special when he's just touching Mike's body, kissing him, working him up into a state of arousal. It doesn't interest him particularly and it doesn't turn him on at all. It's not that Mike's unattractive or anything. He just doesn't care one way or another and observes the small things merely as interesting facts that mean nothing. Sometimes he thinks he isn't even actually bisexual, because girls sure impress him more physically-wise. A man's body is something he can stomach getting intimately involved with, but not something that he particularly yearns for.

But then again he didn't engage in this in the first place out of desire or love or anything like that. He harbors a close friendship for Mike, but he keeps it out of those situations, once naked and aroused Mike is nothing more than a man to him. A man in general. A simple-minded, primitive creature which only craves its own pleasure never stopping to care about the others. Someone just like this person that hurt him so badly all those years ago. He's only in it because the notion of controlling his old fear is turning him on.

He's never bothered to ask himself why Mike is doing this. The answer's simple most likely though, since men are simple creatures when it comes to sex.

Some get turned on by the control, some get turned on by the lack thereof, some want attention and some don't care what it is, as long as it makes them come.

The pleasure he feels when he's finally inside Mike, gaining the ultimate control over his body, is what he does it for all along. Even though the foreplay is so much more rewarding, he can never get this particular feeling while having sex with a woman. He can never feel this good. Pleasure in his life is all about control really and it's best when he can control those things he's most afraid of.

He moves and Mike blabbers things that don't make sense, thrashing his head against the wall. It's all his doing. His stomach sinks at the thought of another male doing this to him again, but in a way, it only increases the pleasure, adding yet another dimension to it. The fear's supposed to be there.

For a while more, he's coherent enough to observe Mike's reactions, feel Mike's fingers intertwined with his spasming in the rhythm of his thrusts, feel his pulse flutter under his searching lips that attach itself to the other's neck.

He bites down, hard, once his senses abandon him and he's all lost in the rhythm. Mike wails in pain, but does nothing to stop him. And the control just feels too intoxicating at the moment and he orgasms for what seems like minutes.

It's that one last thing he needs to achieve his personal nirvana. A man he fucks wailing his name on top of all those thousands of voices screaming it in the crowd.

When he withdraws Mike's eyes are hazy, but still look down at him with concern. Chester doesn't care enough to note if Mike came at all. He would prefer he wouldn't. He doesn't like sperm spilling around. He doesn't like the notion of homosexual sex at all when you get right down to it.

"You're all right ?" Mike asks, attempting to put his hands on Chester's shoulders.

Chester brushes them off angrily.

"As good as always."

He proceeds to splash himself with water one final time, takes a towel with him and opens the door of the tiny bathroom, steps out cautiously and wraps the towel around his midriff. He shuts the door and waits a minute or so before the sound of running water starts coming from the inside of the bathroom again.

He's still so intoxicated with bliss he slides down to the floor along the bathroom's door, his shaking legs giving way. Having paid heed to all his major demons this night, he feels greater than ever.

It's all about control really. Controlling another man's body. He is afraid of another man getting close to him, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to control him. It is the kind of sick fascination with danger and primal power which makes people into trainers of wild animals that made him ever get close to Mike like that in the first place.

He is afraid of another man getting close to him. But at the same time, this entices him.