Lucid Training 4

"Lucid Training," Chapter Four.

Roughly a month between chapters three and four. This shit takes work, people. (I used to work at a restaurant and the owner liked to say, "people will wait for good food." But then, he was a real prick, so take it for what it's worth.) Still, I appreciate your patience. This chapter is essentially a twofer--it's long enough for two (or three) chapters worth of writing.

Even so, I admit to being rather disappointed, my lovelies. I heard from fewer of you for chapter three than I had for the previous installments. If all I wanted was to create in a vacuum, I'd lay in bed with my dick in my hand and just daydream. Let me know that you're reading, even if you don't like the story (obviously I hope that you do, but can understand if you do not).

If I don't hear from you, story is over. Vocavit dominus, tu parebitis.

Please keep in mind as you read the story that it is a work of fiction. This is fantasy, not a memoir or a how-to guide.

barcode_demon@hotmail.com
apexvulcan.tumblr.com

Boilerplate (i.e., the cover-my-ass section): This is a work of explicit sexual fiction. If it's illegal for you to read this, don't read it. Don't assume that, because I write about something, that it's okay to do in real life. Any resemblance to real people, or to reality in general, is coincidental. Don't try anything you're about to read at home. All rights reserved.

I knew you were,
you were gonna come to me.
And here you are
but you better choose carefully
'cause I'm capable of anything.
Of anything. And everything....

Once you're mine, once you're mine
there's no going back.

--Katy Perry, "Dark Horse"

Devotion to education depends on the willingness of the student, which cannot be secured by compulsion.

--Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria

----------

Two days earlier.

Noah swung limply in the harness, each breath, each beat of his heart making him twitch in pain. His thick cinnamon hair masked his face.

"It will never get easier." Seth Okami walked towards the door. "Sleep well, boy."

He turned the light off and closed the door behind him. The latch clicked and even over the blood that roared, white-water-rapid loud, in his ears Seth heard the faint electronic tweep of the lock engaging. He stood in the hallway outside the workroom looking down at his hands: his fingers tremored like an old man's. His heart pounded to crush his ribs, violently sonorous like the fulling hammers that struck the giant-fear into Don Quixote. "If it is not in the Quixote, it does not exist," the Monsignor so often said. "The Quixote is life!"

Seth went back to the training he had from the Monsignor as a boy at the facility. The ice bath. He focused his breath, calming the tremors and tempering his heartbeat. Noah's blood dripped from his pendulous cock into a puddle on the floor.

Stippling the floor red behind him, he walked to workroom one and tapped out the code on the door's keypad lock. Workroom one served as a security hub: four large monitors displayed the feeds from security cameras throughout the mill. Each screen was subdivided to show six different feeds at once. Although most of these views could also be picked up in the main security office on the second floor, only workroom one had hardline connections to the second basement level cameras; these were only for Seth's most intimate circle.

The sole furniture in the room was a plain mahogany desk and matching chair. Cables snaked from the monitors to a computer tower whirring under the desk. On top of the desk a wireless keyboard and mouse sat, meticulously parallel to the edges of the desk, and in front of them, Seth's smartphone. The fact that the phone rested a fraction of a degree off-kilter compared to the lines of the desk called all of creation into question.

Seth draped his naked body into the chair. His powerfully thick thighs strained against the sides of the chair, and his dick dangled off the edge. He took the mouse and, click by click, turned off all of the various camera feeds until each monitor was filled with the same single view: workroom number seven. With the camera's night-vision capacity he could see every detail picked out precisely: Noah's arms extended, bound to the hanging crossbar. The teenager thrashed in the harness, kicking his legs, his curled toes not quite kissing the floor. The sound was muted, so in workroom one Noah's lips opened in a silent bellow. His shaggy hair frenzied about.

Seth steepled his fingers under his nose. He watched, and the minutes passed by.

Noah would tire himself out and hang motionless for a while, his chin against his freckled chest. Then, seized with emotion, he'd struggle again. His fingers would tense and stick out ramrod-straight. In the colorless eye of the night-vision camera his striated leanness appeared marble gray.

Seth's phone rang; he recognized the tone. Without diverting his eyes from the four monitors, he picked up the phone. "Hai?"

"Moshi moshi, Okami-san. Watashi wa houchi o motte iru," said Frau.

"Go ahead." Seth continued in Japanese.

"Mr. Ndukwe has picked up your guest and is bringing him home."

"Good. How did the takedown go?"

"Mostly smoothly."

"Mostly? Explain."

"The boy wasn't quite as passive as your intel suggested, Mr. Okami. He managed to land a solid punch to Quintus' jaw."

"That was damn sloppy, Frau." Seth tilted his head. Noah had stopped moving.

"I'll pass that information along. In his defense...."

"Don't. What's the status on the other project?"

"Everything is good to go, sir. The three decoys are in place, in the laundry room."

"Laundry room?"

"As the electricity has been shut off in the apartment, I couldn't achieve the most realism setting the stage there."

"Hmm. I should've considered that."

"Respectfully, sir, my job is to consider the details even you might overlook."

"Duly noted, Frau. Continue."

"I've arranged to have people who are...favorably disposed to you to be present at every step of the investigation, including among the first responders and members of the media. They will see what you wish them to see."

"And how much did that cost me?"

"In bribes, favors, and quiet threats? Certainly no more than you can spare, and considering the overall scope of the project the price is beneath your consideration."

"A true bargain, then."

"Indeed. When should I start the show?"

"Your discretion, Frau."

"Very good, sir. Shitsureeitashimasu."

Seth thumbed off the conversation and set the phone down. On the screens, Noah dangled serenely, his face shrouded by his long, thick hair. His chest rose and fell in even waves; his thick lips rested slightly open.

Seth slid open one of the desk drawers and removed a small leather case. Six autoinjector syringe pens were tucked in a row of individual pockets inside the case. Seth took one of the autoinjectors and left the room.

He entered workroom seven silently and jammed the syringe into Noah's left asscheek. The boy didn't stir, and barely wafted in the harness. Seth counted off one minute in his head to allow the sedative to completely overtake Noah, and then set about unstrapping him from the harness. Cradling him in his arms, Seth carried the sleeping teenager over the threshold of the workroom.

Exposed duct work in the hallway rattled as the air conditioning kicked in elsewhere in the complex. Seth carried Noah to workroom four, which was just next door. The footprint of this room was identical to its neighbor, but had been outfitted as a miniature operating theater: in the center of the room, beneath three broad, flat LED surgical lamps affixed to the ceiling, stood a slab-like stainless steel operating table. Thick leather straps with heavy buckles dangled like strips of flayed flesh from the sides of the table. Shelving along the back wall contained a variety of medical equipment. The tiles on the floor and walls gleamed antiseptically.

Seth placed Noah on the operating table on his stomach. He tilted Noah's head to the side so he could breathe, and ran his fingers through the boy's cinnamon bangs. He breathed quietly.

At a deep metal sink in the corner of the room Seth washed his hands and forearms. He cracked his neck, then pushed a wheeled cart over next to the table. Seth had already laid out a number of items on the cart, including glass collection tubes, a neat little row of scalpels that winked come-hither under the bold LEDs, a black lacquered box with a golden clasp, and a small Bose stereo. He pressed the play button, and the gentle dream-like strains of Gluck's "Dance of the Blessed Spirits" flowed from the speakers.

Seth tied a plastic tourniquet around Noah's left bicep, and then tapped his middle and index fingers on the crook of Noah's arm until he found the vein there. He disinfected the skin with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball. He hummed along with the flute solo as he took up a needle and threaded it into a collection tube holder. He slid the needle cleanly into Noah, and blood flowed deep viscous claret into the collection tube. He kept a firm, fond grip on Noah's bicep. When the first tube was filled, he swapped it out for a second, and then a third. He set the vials aside to send to Tinker later.

Seth untied the tourniquet with a brisk snap and pressed a wad of gauze on the tiny puncture. He tore a rectangle of surgical tape and affixed it over the gauze with his thumbs, carefully like a boy wrapping his older brother's Christmas gift. He let Noah's arm drape off the side of the table and removed the phlebotomy tools to a lower shelf of the cart.

He unwrapped a sterile cotton pad and poured thick amber iodine onto it. He used the antiseptic to clean the area around Noah's left shoulder blade, painting precise orange circles like mandalas on the freckled ridge. Disposing of the cotton pad, he turned his attention to the polished wooden box. Beneath the lacquered veneer a Chinese dragon had been painted, so detailed that its two-dimensional undulations seemed ready to spring up into the workroom. Seth opened the box. On a velvet pad lay a delicately slender pair of tweezers, and next to that a shiny metal lozenge like an aluminum Tic-Tac.

He picked up a gleaming scalpel from the cart. With mechanical precision he pressed the blade against Noah's shoulder blade and made a three-quarter-inch-long incision. As blood began to trickle out Seth quickly swapped the scalpel for the tweezers and picked up the miniature lozenge. It flickered like a gemstone. Using the thumb and index finger of his free hand Seth spread the incision apart just slightly and penetrated the tweezers and the gleaming little bit of metal into Noah's body. Rivulets of blood slid around Seth's fingers and down the curves of Noah's torso, collecting both on the steel operating table and in the small of his back. Compared to the thrashed and ragged bite mark only a few inches away, the wound was graceful and demure.

Noah snored.

Seth delicately twisted the tweezers deeper and deposited the metal button between flesh and muscle. He pulled the tweezers out and ran the dripping tool over the flat of his tongue slowly, first one side and then the other. He closed his mouth and ran his tongue over his teeth as he returned the tweezers to the box. Using thin translucent thread and a narrow needle he stitched the incision closed. He sucked his fingers clean, sliding each digit into his mouth to the hilt and compressing his lips around it, savoring the syrupy metallic blood. Each finger came out past his lips with a damp thhp. He cleaned Noah's incision more traditionally and covered it with a square bandage.

He pushed the cart back to the sink and walked several times around the operating table. Stopping at the head of the table he crouched down on his haunches, the muscles in thighs and ass bulging, and he gathered up Noah's shaggy-dog hair in both hands and buried his face in it, breathing deeply. He rubbed it into his face. He let the hair fall away and he drew his lips and nose over Noah's forehead. Underneath the sweat that was beginning to crust on the boy's skin Seth could still tease out the scent of lavender and oatmeal body wash.

He moved sinuously around his sleeping boy. He bit Noah's skin--not the carnivorous lust-filled gnawing he'd indulged in earlier, but tenuous nibbles that only just tugged the surface. He licked out the contours of Noah's neck and arms, flicking out his tongue to lap up the rest of the blood. He flicked Noah's ass cheeks sharply with his finger and watched the meaty flesh ripple. He left hickeys on the backs of Noah's thighs, and rolled Noah's toes in his mouth like gumballs.

Seth's fat cock awoke and jutted out like a third arm between his legs. His fist-sized low-hanging nuts lurched from side to side as he circled the table. Glistening strands of precum dangled from his piss slit until gravity overcame them and they beaded the tile floor.

Even as he savored Noah, Seth heard the heavy footsteps plodding down the corridor. When they stopped in the doorway he stood up and turned around.

"Good afternoon, Quintus. You have a present for me?"

Quintus Ndukwe, Seth's head of security, wasn't black--he was black. His skin had the rich, deep luster of the darkest chocolate. He had a brawny, hulking muscularity that verged on comic-book parody. His head sat on the wide rocky shelf of his shoulders seemingly without the intervening pedestal of a neck. Even down in the second basement he hadn't taken off his sunglasses.

Quintus grimaced as Seth turned around. "Jesus Christ, boss, I don't need to see that shit."

"Grow up, Quintus. Tell me how you got sucker-punched by some punk Southie kid."

"Sheeyit, boss, you told me he'd fold like...."

Seth held up his hand. "Yes, Frau already tried that excuse."

Quintus scratched the side of his nose with a sausage-like finger. "So what do you want me to do with him?"

"You can put him in fourteen. No need for him to be all alone." Seth ran his hand over his shaved head and started to turn back to the comatose teenager. "Oh, and Quintus: I'm sure it goes without saying that you're going to be charitable and let bygones be bygones. I don't want to find you taking out any frustration on my guest. Yes?"

"It's already forgotten, boss," Quintus said grudgingly.

"I'm sure." Seth's lips turned up just slightly. "Close the door on your way out."

**********

Now.

Frau held out the kimono. Okami turned his back to her and allowed her to place it on him.

He handed the damp towel to Noah. "In my absence," he said, "you should consider everything Frau says to you to be in my own words. Disrespect her, and you disrespect me. You do anything she tells you, boy. If she wants to shit in your mouth, you spread your lips. Understand?"

Noah nodded. "Yes, sir."

"I'll be with you shortly." He knotted the kimono's sash and walked away. His body was still just damp enough that the curvature of his ass stuck to the silk and rippled as he left.

"Don't fret, Mr. Conall," Frau said. "I have no desire to shit in your mouth."

Noah breathed again. Standing in front of Frau, he became conscious of his nakedness; he covered his floppy dick with both of his hands as best he could and suddenly became very interested in looking up at the ceiling.

Frau clucked her tongue. "Oh, come now, Mr. Conall," she said in her clipped accent, "you aren't the first naked man I've ever seen. We're co-workers now, in a sense, and we'll be spending quite a bit of time together. I think your old inhibitions won't be as useful to you anymore, ja?"

Noah chewed the inside of his cheek. She had just walked in on him and Okami, post-beastfuck, pretty indifferently. I probably do need friends now, he thought. He nodded to her and folded his arms across his chest, but he sucked air through his teeth, wincing. The shoulder Okami had popped pierced him with a sudden stab of pain as he moved the arm.

Frau noticed, pursing her lips. "Before we go upstairs...." She opened a cabinet under one of the sinks and took out a large first aid kit, and beckoned Noah over.

"Here, this will help." She took a shoulder brace from the kit and Noah allowed her to put it on him. She guided his arm deftly, and even though she didn't leave her fingers on his body any longer than she needed to Noah tensed up hypersensitively.

"Better?" she asked.

"Better." He hesitated. "Do you maybe have anything I can take for the...."

She held up a finger and shook her head, not unkindly.

"I didn't think so," Noah said.

Adjusting the brace, Frau tilted her head to look at Noah's whipped back. "Interesting," she murmured.

"What?"

"Nothing, nothing. Your back is healing exceptionally nicely." She replaced the first aid kit in the cabinet. She gestured at the door. "Shall we, Mr. Conall?"

"I think," he said, "you can call me 'Noah,' considering."

"No, Mr. Conall, I cannot. Mr. Okami has specifically asked us not to."

"Who's 'us'?"

"Shall we?" She walked out of the locker room. Noah followed. The workout and the fuck made his muscles and his gut wrench, but he pushed the pain away. As they left workroom eight and went down the corridor, Noah became aware that Frau walked more measured and slowly than when he had followed her down here the first time, and figured she was deliberately setting a pace easy for him. I do need friends now, he thought again, gratefully.

Noah tried to memorize the path they took to the service elevator. "Close the gate, please," said Frau.

She pressed the button marked 3. The motor turned over loudly and the elevator began to rise.

"The first two above-ground floors, as well as the first basement level, are devoted to Club Lucid and Mr. Okami's other various business endeavors," Frau said. "The top level is Mr. Okami's home--his primary home, at any rate--and is typically off-limits to the general public."

The elevator stopped. Frau opened the gate.

Noah couldn't believe that the room they stepped into existed in the same building as the dark, twisting basement he had spent the last couple of days in. The anteroom was round, about twenty feet in diameter with a vaulted ceiling rising ten feet from the floor. The curved wall gleamed starkly white, trimmed with simple Federal-style crown molding and divided into quadrants by pillars that seemed half-merged into the wall. The floor tiles, silky-deep espresso brown, both contrasted and complimented the bright wall and ceiling. The only furniture was a marble Doric pedestal sitting in the exact center of the room. On the pedestal a pitted stone Roman bust kept a stern watch on the elevator door. Across the room from the elevator, a heavy wooden door. The door was shut.

Frau ran a fingertip along the receding republican hairline of the bust. She pursed her lips, but Noah saw nothing on her finger. Frau didn't go over to the wooden door but rather to the right side of the room. She flipped open a small, nearly invisible panel and revealed a green glass plate identical to the one on the elevator controls. She pressed her thumb against it; it scanned, clicked.

The door that opened in front of her wasn't secret, exactly--Noah saw the outlines of it plainly, once he knew where to look, but a casual visitor might not. Frau didn't allow Noah time to gawk, but went through the door.

"These are the staff quarters," she said, leading him into the utilitarian hallway. She stopped at a door. Noah noticed that, unlike other doors in the corridor, this one had a keypad lock similar to the ones for the workrooms far below. "My rooms are just there," she said, pointing. "Besides me and Quintus--Mr. Ndukwe--the other staff consists of Mr. and Mrs. Meara, who oversee the day-to-day domestic responsibilities, and their son Landon, who is essentially head of maintenance. Mr. and Mrs. Meara live here, and have rooms next to mine. Landon lives off-site, although he does have access to this floor."

"Does Mr. Ndukwe have a room here too?"

"Mr. Ndukwe shares my rooms," Frau said. Her lips turned up at the corners ever so slightly.

"Ah." Noah grinned.

"Mr. Okami rarely entertains visitors here, so you shouldn't encounter anyone else on this level besides the other staff. Except perhaps Tinker," she added, pressing her lips together.

Frau opened the door; it wasn't locked. "These are your quarters, Mr. Conall. You'll sleep here, unless Mr. Okami directs you otherwise."

The room resembled a monk's cell. It measured ten by six, with the door opening into the narrower side. A folding military-style cot was against the far wall; most of that wall was taken up by a many-paneled window, identical to the others that he saw studding the walls of the mill on the outside. A small foot locker hid beneath the cot. On one side wall a cased door-less opening revealed a tiny bathroom. Against the opposite wall stood a steel table that served as a desk, and a matching folding chair; on table had been laid out an iPad and a Kindle and a small stack of plain blue examination notebooks. A box of Pilot pens completed the stack. Above the desk a digital clock glowed its numbers red.

"What are these for?" Noah asked, picking up a blue book and thumbing through the blank pages.

"For your training."

"Huh?"

"Yes. Literature and language arts. Mathematics, physics. Logic and spatial reasoning. Kinesthetic re-training and advanced combat technique. Musical performance and composition. Although Mr. Okami will personally take the main responsibility for your education, Mr. Ndukwe and myself will also participate, and will oversee your studies generally when Mr Okami is not available to do so himself."

Noah blinked. "School? That's.... So what you're telling me is, not only do I get the privilege to be fucked up the ass on a daily basis, eat some shit that's so disgusting I wouldn't feed it to my dog, be used as a frigg'n punching bag, and humiliated in fuck-all many ways, but I also have to fuckin' go to school too? Ha! Ha ha!" Noah started to laugh hysterically. He stumbled back and leaned against the wall as his body shook with the force of crying; he wept without control, the tears erupting and streaking his cheeks wetly. His knees buckled and he shrunk down the wall, slamming his ass on the bare wooden floor. The jolt sent a spike of pain up his ravaged ass and into his belly. He only laughed louder.

Frau crouched down tentatively beside him and laid her hand on his shoulder. Her skin was soft. "Come now, mein kleiner, shh, shh. You have to trust Mr. Okami. And trust me, too, ja? It will be worth it, in the end."

"In the end? That's really fuckin' insensitive, Frau." Noah snorted some snot back up his nostril and ventured a tear-slick grin.

Frau smiled back. "Stand up, Mr. Conall, and we'll get dressed."

Frau stood and went to the foot locker. Her tone became business again. "Any time you are here in the building, or on the property, Mr. Okami has instructed that you not be allowed to wear clothing. The rest of the staff understand this, so you needn't feel embarrassed with them. However, outside our little world here, you can wear these." She took a folded pile of clothes out of the locker. "Of course, this is only an exemption for Mr. Okami's sake, not for yours. If he directs you to be naked, or to wear anything different, you'll follow his orders regardless of where you are."

"Yeah, I get that," Noah said as he picked himself up off the floor.

"Let me help you off with the brace," Frau said.

The "uniform" consisted of a plain white cotton tee shirt, black gym shorts, white socks, black sneakers. The tee was a couple of sizes smaller than those Noah usually wore--it clung to his taut teen torso, and while this worked well to show off his lean biceps and hard nipples, it also squeezed his back and the deep red lashes there painfully. Noah winced as he tugged the tee on and Frau helped him to replace the shoulder brace. He took the shorts.

"So commando then?" he asked. Frau shrugged complacently.

He pulled the shorts up his legs. Even in the loose fabric, without any support the outline of his thick teencock patently bulged down the left leg of the shorts. He put on the socks and tied the sneakers.

"Very nice," said Frau. "We'll wait for Mr. Okami downstairs in the garage."

"Can I ask you something?" said Noah.

Frau paused in the doorway with her hand on the frame. "Of course. What is it?"

"Am I the first person to live in this room?"

Frau's face remained impassive, like the still surface of a cold lake. "I have high hopes for you, Mr. Conall."

She turned her back to him and walked away.

**********

They took the service elevator down to the ground-level loading dock. Before, when Frau had driven him in there and led him down to the basement, Noah didn't have enough time to take in his surroundings. Now, as they waited for Okami, he had a chance to look around: the converted dock served as both a garage and a mechanic's bay, divided down the middle. The sickly-sweet tang of motor oil and grease permeated the side devoted to the auto workshop. Farther down, Frau's sleek black Benz had been hoisted up on a hydraulic lift, and the plaintive whine of a high-power impact wrench echoed in the bay. On the other side over a dozen automobiles were lined up, at tight angles to the wall, in numbered spaces. A few of the vehicles--a van, a couple of SUVs, a beat Ford pickup--were exposed to the air and eye but most of them were obscured, tucked under fitted car covers.

Frau cupped her mouth with her hand. "Landon!"

The wrench went silent and a man loped down the bay towards them, wiping his hands on his coveralls. He had a gangly, bony appearance, hard-weathered or hard-partied; he looked almost forty but Noah guessed he was younger. He eyed Noah warily.

"Landon, this is Mr. Conall," said Frau.

"Yes, ma'am," said Landon. He had a stereotypically thick Boston accent, thicker than Noah's. "Can I shake his hand, or is that not allowed?"

"Don't be an ass, Landon."

Noah shook Landon's hand. The grip surprised him--more fey and less sinewy than he expected. Landon wiped his palm on his coveralls again.

"Which car do you want, ma'am?"

"Number three, please."

Landon grunted. He took a set of keys from a rack on the wall and went to the parking space labeled 3. He unrolled the car cover, folding it up as he went.

Noah whistled. "Christ almighty, now that's what I'm talkin' about."

The Bugatti Veyron crouched low to the ground in space 3 like a lion waiting to spring. The lines and curves of the charcoal gray car looked like silk draped over bone and muscle. When Landon opened the driver's side door and sat down, Noah had to tamp down the urge to call out. It shocked him, like watching someone piss on a crucifix.

The car purred as Landon drove it out to the courtyard. Behind Noah and Frau, Okami said, "Very nice choice."

Neither of them heard Okami come into the bay. Noah started, but Frau simply turned. Okami wore a black Polo shirt and perfectly pressed khaki slacks; the shirt stuck to his muscles like an oil slick on a rocky shoreline, and the khakis hugged all of his lower curves--his ass, his thighs, his package--for dear life. Okami looked down at the brace on Noah's shoulder. He tilted his gaze to Frau and cocked an eyebrow, but she didn't respond.

"Follow me, boy," Okami said as he started down the length of the bay.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen," Frau bowed her head nominally and returned to the elevator. Noah raised his hand to wave, but she had already turned her back to them.

"Now, boy."

Noah sprinted to catch up with Okami.

The sun, almost directly overhead, beat down on them like a frustrated blacksmith. The air shimmered dissociatively. As soon as he was outside the shelter of the loading dock, sweat started to coalesce on Noah's forehead, and he gratefully slid into the passenger seat of the Bugatti. Okami barely waited for the door to slam before he gave the car some swift encouragement and sped out of the parking lot, the tires spitting gravel.

Noah waited in silence for a few minutes before speaking up. "Where are we going, sir?"

"Allston. I want to introduce you to my friend Tinker." Okami's hands manipulated the steering wheel like a trained osteopath.

"Okay. Frau was telling me you're going to make me go to school? Sir." Noah said cautiously.

"I very much doubt she said that to you, boy. 'School' would be a gross understatement. I'm merely enhancing your perfection."

Noah didn't have a response, and Okami's tone suggested one would be unwise in any event. He brushed his hair from his face and watched the streets race by. The Bugatti moved almost like blades over ice, but even so each bump or curve in the road quaked against the teenager and reawakened an ache somewhere in his body.

"Take your cock out, Noah."

Noah turned, half-laughing. "Wait, what, sir?"

"You're sixteen, boy, I don't think you need a fucking manual on how to take your dick out of your pants."

Even though the windows were tinted and the Bugatti was moving at a good speed, Noah scrunched down. He lifted his butt off the seat and tugged the shorts down to his knees. His dick filled his hand nicely. The Bugatti passed out of Boston and into Brookline.

"Tell me about that downstairs neighbor you want to fuck," Okami said.

"You mean Lexie, sir?"

"Okay, sure."

"Well, sir...what about her?"

"What's your favorite part of her body? Don't think, just answer."

"Her ass, sir." No thinking needed.

"Describe it for me."

"It's...I dunno, it's...round?"

"Come on now, boy, you can do better than that. Especially if she's truly worth your attention. You've played with yourself thinking about that girl's ass, right?"

"Uh...yeah, more than once, sir."

"Okay then. Close your eyes--close your eyes--and use that cock in your hand and describe it for me."

Noah shifted in his seat and closed his eyes. He brought his thumb up and ran it around the perimeter of his cockhead. Lexie playing field hockey in her yellow diamond-patterned uniform shorts. "It's...well...it's like an upside-down heart."

"Better. Her skin?"

"Mostly tan, sir."

"'Mostly?'"

"Um...well, sometimes, when her shorts ride up...or, uh, if the waistband slides down...you can see where her skin is paler. Uh, sir." Blood started pumping. Noah's dick grew longer in his fingers. Beads of sweat on Lexie's neck as she came off the field, over to the bleachers.

"I see. Why haven't you ever gone after that, boy?"

"She's my best friend's sister and...."

"And?"

Noah looked over at Okami through his bangs. "My mom didn't like her," he mumbled.

"Close your eyes."

"Sorry, sir."

"Well, Noah, your mom isn't here now. Take those shorts off that girl." The Bugatti reentered the city limits, into Allston.

Noah reached over and hooked his fingers in the waistband of Lexie's shorts and slid them down. His fingertips brushing her supple untanned skin. Noah's teendick sprouted to its full nine inches; he kept his right hand gripping the base while he added his left palm to polish his head.

"I bet that hole is tight, boy. Look at it and tell me," said Okami.

Noah spread Lexie's ass apart. His thumbs pressed into her flesh like kneading firm bread dough. Precum made his fat red cockhead glimmer.

"Wicked tight, sir."

"Will you fit, boy?"

Noah didn't say anything. He stuck the tip of his tongue out past his full lips intently.

"Well?"

"You better fuckin' believe it, sir."

"Do you know about the Cynic philosopher Diogenes?"

"Unh...sir?"

"Some punk-ass Greek kid wanted to study with Diogenes, so he told the kid to walk around the marketplace with him carrying a huge, smelly chunk of fish. The Greek kid was too ashamed, so Diogenes kicked him to the curb."

Noah's cheeks had taken on a flush as his cock throbbed. "I...I don't get it, sir."

Okami smiled. "You will." He pulled the Bugatti into the parking lot of a strip mall. "We're here. Put it back in your pants, boy."

Noah opened his eyes and looked incredulously, first at Okami, then down at his lap. "But...I kinda...."

"You kinda nothing. Come with me, now."

Okami got out of the car. Noah swore under his breath and tried to pull his gym shorts back up, awkwardly stuffing his prick down. He opened the door and stood.

In the loose gym shorts, and without any other support, Noah's rock hard dick was untameable. It stretched the fabric of the shorts so much that it pulled the waistband away from Noah's belly and exposed the trilobite brand. Noah stood against the Bugatti, half-crouched down.

"Sir!" he hissed. "I...sir! I need a minute!"

Okami turned. The look in his eyes dried Noah's throat. His face burned. He balled his hands into fists and held them at his sides, the veins in his forearms popping out. He walked as best he could to Okami's side and tried counting the cracks in the pavement assiduously.

There were only a half dozen stores in the little strip mall, tucked unprofitably down a side street. Okami went up to one with soaped-over windows and pushed on the door. Locked. He tapped with one knuckle on the glass. Pre made a dark splotch on the front of Noah's shorts; he tried to rub it dry.

"That will only make things worse, boy," Okami said. He waited a full minute, then went to the adjacent store.

"Are you coming?" he asked Noah.

Noah grimaced. "Not if I can help it, sir," he muttered.

A tinny bell chimed as they pushed through the door into the next store. It was a nail salon: three Korean women chirped merrily, to each other and to their customers, as they buffed and polished. An Asian soap opera played on a flat screen set too high up on the wall. A plumpish older woman sat on a stool behind the counter, flipping through an US Weekly and occasionally clucking at the women behind her.

Noah tried to stay behind Okami, out of sight. The older woman shuffled the magazine under the counter when she saw the two come in. "Anyoung hashimnikka, Mr. Okami!" she said, rather loudly. "Great pleasure!"

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Tam." Okami tilted his head slightly towards her. "I had an appointment to see your daughter?"

Mrs. Tam looked as if she had bitten into a lemon. "Ah, almost noon, still not awake. Wait please." She dialed her phone and spoke briefly to someone. Noah didn't understand Korean, but he completely understood Mrs. Tam's heckling tone.

"Wait please," she said again.

Noah wanted to imagine that his boner was softening. At least Mrs. Tam was too interested in her magazine.

After a few, long minutes a door in the back of the salon bounded open. The woman who came through walked right between the manicurists and their customers, yawning.

"Noah," said Okami, "this is Tinker."

She was short and willowy, in her mid-twenties, with skin that was almost too fair. Her hair was a glossy bubblegum pink, cut in a severe, blunt straight bob. Both of her earlobes were stretched with wide black open piercings; her eyebrows, her nose, and her lower lip were all studded. She wore a man's white tank top over pink short-short pajama bottoms. Her small, apple-sized tits protruded through the ribbed shirt, which didn't quite cover her (also pierced) belly button. On the length of her right thigh she had a tattoo of Graham Chapman as King Arthur, with a Borg implant over his eye; underneath in Gothic letters read RESISTANCE IS FEUDAL. None of this weakened Noah's indelicacy.

"Yo," said Tinker. She held up her hand to them and had a quick spat with her mother in Korean, both of them punctuating with jabbing fingers, before walking outside with Noah and Okami.

"So I guess you've come to play, dude," she said, wiggling her eyebrows at Noah's erection. "You always know just what I need." She put her hand on Okami's ass. Noah's breath caught.

"But I was really hoping to play with you, boss man," she continued plaintively.

"And what about Harold?" Okami said wryly.

Tinker was unlocking the door that they had tried earlier. She blew a raspberry. "Harold, please, I'm so effin' sick of Harold. He just lies there and makes me do all the work."

She led them inside. Whatever the shop was built for was lost under piles of electronic equipment, half-empty Mountain Dew bottles, and torn-open Amazon shipping boxes. Noah saw at least three different computer rigs, hard drives spinning, LEDs spasmodic. Cables of all different colors and thicknesses lay about like tentacles on the deck of a squid fisher boat. Motherboards, fuses, diodes, and other electronic viscera lay without obvious pattern on countertops, the seats of chairs, and the floor.

"You want the back, right?" asked Tinker. Okami nodded.

"Well, step into my parlor," she gestured grandly with her arm to a door on the far side of the shop.

Noah and Okami picked their way to the door. Tinker held back. She picked up from a pile near the door what looked like a bulky hair dryer with a flat, hand-sized disk at the end. She aimed it at Noah's back and held the trigger for a couple of seconds, then set it back down and skipped forward to join them.

The back room was a spartan tattoo studio. There were no pieces of artwork on the walls or folders with snapshots of ink. Tupperware with tidbits of metal sat on steel shelving units next to different tattoing accoutrements. The large chair in the middle of the room would've looked more at home in a dentist's office.

"So, boys, who's it gonna be today?" Tinker stifled a yawn and disinfected her hands before pulling on a pair of black latex gloves.

"Sit, Noah," said Okami. Noah sat in the chair. Setting his sneakers on the foot rests spread his thighs apart. His raging hardon pined for the ceiling.

Tinker laid out inks and needles on a tray attached to the side of the dentist's chair. She sat down on a stool with casters and rolled herself over beside Noah. "I wouldn't kick you outta bed for eating crackers, that's for fuckin' sure. You want me to tattoo something on his dick? The other day I saw th--"

"No," said Okami. Noah's eyes had gone headlight-wide.

Okami took a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Tinker. "Just this. On his left forearm."

"So boring," sighed Tinker. "Lay your arm here."

Noah set his arm on the armrest. Tinker turned it so that the underside faced up and disinfected it with a disposable wipe. She put the paper down and turned on a tattoo gun. It buzzed like a hornet caught under a blanket.

Noah looked over at Okami and started to open his mouth. Okami had leaned against the wall, folding his arms across his cinder block pecs, and was watching. Noah saw the answer already in Okami's eyes, and shut his mouth again.

"So depending on how much of a pussy you are," Tinker said as she dipped the tattoo gun needle in a cap of black ink, "this will either sting or make you cry."

"He won't cry," said Okami, to both of them.

The needle pricked his skin, Tinker studiously began to draw, freehand, on Noah's skin. The little jabs stung, sending tight, rabbity twinges through his nerves. Noah wasn't sure if it was painful or not. It made his hardon harder, and he felt it twitch. Need grew.

Tinker grinned. "Prettyboy likes."

Noah watched as Tinker wrote on his arm. She seemed to be spelling, but he only recognized some of the letters. The first word began a little more than an inch from his wrist, and ended up being about four inches long.

ΓΝΩΘΙ

The second word was longer. Tinker centered it under the first.

ΣΕΑΥΤΟΝ

In his fascination Noah lost track of the time. Tinker quieted the tattoo gun and set it down. She wiped some sweat from her forehead and turned to Okami.

"You like?" she said.

"I like," Okami said.

Tinker took Noah's forearm in her hands again and wrapped a bandage over the ink. Noah watched the letters disappear.

"You need to go easy on this for a few days," she said. Noah looked up and saw that she was talking to Okami.

Okami nodded.

"Okay then!" Tinker wheeled back and snapped off the latex gloves, tossing them into a trash basket. "So, for payment, can I look at his pee-pee?"

"No," said Okami.

"Can I look at yours, then?"

"We'll see." Okami turned his head to Noah. "I have some business to discuss with Tinker. Why don't you go next door and wait for me there. Get a mani-pedi. My treat."

Noah set his jaw and worked his clenched lips. "Sir...."

"If you need to, boy, you can take care of that first."

The air whooshed out of Noah's lungs. "Thank you, sir." He stood up. His dick bounced in his shorts. The pressure in his balls clamored louder. "Uh...where can I...?"

"Not in here," said Tinker. "Wait--can I watch?"

"No," said Okami.

"Then not in here."

"I don't care where, boy," said Okami. "Just go."

"Thank you, sir." Noah walked out of the back room with all the dignity a sixteen-year-old with a nine inch cock on the cusp of exploding could muster.

Each step rubbed the satiny fabric of the shorts against his dickhead like a cooing lover. His balls churned, and he jogged to the door.

He slammed the door open and he couldn't hold back anymore and he didn't want to spend all day with cum in his shorts which he knew Okami would make him do so as soon as he stepped onto the pavement of the parking lot and the sunlight smacked him across the face he yanked down his shorts and busted. The cum sprayed out like thick ropes from a fire hose. Noah didn't even have to jerk the shaft. His abs fluttered and he arched his back and he groaned like a cow. "Muuahhhfuuuuuuuck."

Noah's cum turned the pavement in front of him into a Jackson Pollock baking in the sun. "Whoo..." He ran his fingers through his shaggy hair and straightened up. He saw two middle-aged Korean ladies standing in front of the salon, staring at him. Noah shook a few last drops from his slit and stuffed his dick back in his shorts.

As he walked past them to the door of the salon, his face roasting, he said, "I'm really into Greek philosophy."

**********

"So," said Tinker after the door closed behind Noah, "let's drop the bullcrap and why don't you tell me what the fuck is really going on here."

Seth smiled. "What, don't you like my new boy?"

"He's a damn fine piece of meat, Seth. Where did you find him?"

"Instagram"

Tinker's face lit up. "What? You're shitting me. You don't mean that image recognition hack I put together for you actually worked?"

Seth took his phone from his pocket and thumbed to the internet. He brought up an Instagram profile: yolojamie. Tinker craned her neck up to look at the phone. Seth tapped up an image of Noah giving a faux-thug scowl and flipping off the camera.

"Wow," Tinker said. "So your search parameters based on nose and earlobe shape came up this this kid, huh? How many false positives did you end up having to look into?"

"Roughly two thousand."

"Ha! But it still worked. Damn, I'm good."

Tinker went into the front room. "I'm very good." She picked up a manilla folder and started to page through the papers inside. "So I ran all that blood work you asked. It've been a fuckload lot easier if I could've used Company servers."

"And?" Seth followed her.

"Well, he's a healthy kid. As was pretty obvious to see, you demented fucker. Nothing obviously unusual in any of the standard workups. Just for fun I ran him through CODIS."

"I didn't know you had a backdoor into CODIS."

Tinker winked. "I'm a backdoor kinda gal, you know that."

"And you came up with a match, I presume, or you'd have nothing to preen over."

"Two matches, actually. Two partial matches. Both of his parents are in the system. The mom has like over a dozen collars for solicitation, plus other petty shit like shoplifting. A couple of more serious charges related to larceny never made it to trial. His dad, though...."

Seth reached over and took the folder. "Very interesting. I'll read it later."

Tinker cocked her head. "You really want to know about the type II thioesterase count."

Seth cocked his eyebrow expectantly, silently.

Tinker tugged on her bubblegum hair. "What the fuck are you playing at, Seth? There's only one reason you'd want me to run that test, and fuck all many reasons you want me to do it on the down low."

"What was the count, Tinker?"

Tinker glowered. "Abnormal. Exactly the abnormal count you'd expect to see in an ELO prototype hack. What kind of clusterfuck have you dropped into my lap?"

"He's ELO."

"No fuckin' way."

"I know it Tinker. I know it. I knew it before you ran the test. I knew it the moment I laid eyes on him."

"C'mon. It ain't logical, Seth. How old is he, seventeen, eighteen?"

"Sixteen."

"There you go. ELO was shuttered twenty-three years ago after the kappa-three trial, and all the samples were mulched."

"Yes."

"What line is he, then? What's his flaw?"

"Insomnia."

"Jesus. Then that proves it. I mean, aside from his age. Insomnia was characteristic in the alpha line, and one of a shitload of flaws in the theta-twos. Both of those lines had to be mulched before they turned four years old because they went fuckin' psychotic. And I heard that the kappa-threes were all destroyed in utero when their genotype showed just a predisposition to insomnia."

"Yes."

"So how...wait. No, no, no." Tinker held up her hands and started circling. "You're telling me he's aftermarket creche?"

Seth said nothing.

"C'mon, Seth. Aftermarket creche is an urban legend those horndog losers in the basement of R&D come up with to entertain themselves while waiting for their porn to download."

"I know it, Tinker."

"Fine." Tinker went over to the pile where she had left the bulky hair dryer. "So I had a feeling you'd try and feed me some cock-and-bullshit fairy tale like that. I know how you get when you get your teeth in something."

"What's that?"

Tinker hefted the device. "It's a portable X-ray camera. Prototype based on medical tech. I have a buddy in the TSA who wanted me to install keylogging software on all her boyfriend's gadgets. So I took a snapshot of your boy when you came in."

"Resourceful." Seth smiled calmly.

Tinker attached the camera to one of her computers using a USB cable she picked up out of a greasy pizza box. Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she typed in a password to unlock the desktop, then download the image from the camera.

The screen uplit their faces eerily as they waited for the image to download.

Tinker double-clicked on the PNG file that appeared on the desktop. It showed the ghostly outline of Noah's head and shoulders. Tinker zoomed in to the neck.

Seth laid his finger on the screen. "There. Between the C2 and C3 vertebrae."

On the image where Seth had pointed, between two of the neck bones, was a small, irregularly-round blotch the size of a pinky fingernail.

Tinker slumped in her chair. "Fuck me," she said quietly, drawing out the syllables.

"Do you think you can take it out?" said Seth.

"Well...it's probably fused to the bone by now, and most definitely entangled with his spinal cord."

"That's not an answer, Tinker."

Tinker sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, I can take it out. It wouldn't be an operation--it'd be an autopsy. Are you ready to kill the kid to get it?"

"No. Not yet."

"What the fuck have you gotten me into?"

Seth put both of his hands on her shoulders. "A whole world of fun, my dear Tinker."

**********

An hour later. Tinker was mopping up a puddle of Seth's cum from her belly with her shortie pajama bottoms.

"Who else knows?" she asked.

"About the boy? Right now, just Frau."

"Tell me, exactly, what you want me to do, Seth."

"I want you to work for me exclusively, from now on, Tinker. No more independent contracting for the Company."

"That's gonna kinda cut into my bankroll, dude."

"I know. I have a proposition for you."

"Ooh, I love being propositioned by you."

Seth pursed his lips wryly. "Work just for me. Anything I ask. And I'll transfer one Share of Company stock into your name."

"Wait...."

"Yes. I go on the phone and talk to my accountant, and in five minutes I'll make you a Shareholder. Last posted quarterly dividends were..."

"One-point-three million," Tinker interrupted distantly.

"Per share. And you know full well that the money is the least interesting perk to being a Shareholder."

Tinker propped herself up on her elbows and looked at Seth skeptically.

"And you want to try the ELO experiment by yourself? Without involving R&D. Why?"

"Because it's there?"

Tinker snorted. "Please, don't try and double-time me with that pseudo-intellectual crap."

Seth became quiet. "I want him all to myself, Tinker. Every last shred and atom. He belongs to me."

"Uh huh. Kinky. So, let me ask you. What happens if tomorrow the Monsignor shows up on my doorstep and puts me to the Question? What then?"

Seth showed his teeth. "In that case, you'd best pray that there's such a thing as a merciful God. Because we're all fucked."

**********

Okami opened the door to the salon. The bell tinkled.

"We're leaving, boy."

Noah got up out of the manicurist's chair and walked over. He turned and waved; the women smiled at him.

"Annyeonghee gyeseyo," said Noah cheerfully, tilting his head to get the bangs out of his eyes.

As soon as they were both in the Bugatti, the smile melted off of Noah's lips. "I was in there like two hours."

"I don't like your tone, boy." Okami pulled the Bugatti onto the road.

"Sir. Sorry, sir. Did you forget about me, sir?"

"No," Okami said icily.

Minutes passed.

"Did you fuck her, sir?" asked Noah.

"Yes. She's my friend, and she's very attractive. Don't tell me you wouldn't have fucked her, boy."

"What about her boyfriend?"

"Harold?" Okami chuckled. "She named her vibrator 'Harold.'"

Another minute.

"Did you fuck her the way you fuck me, sir?"

Okami's nostrils widened. "No. As I said, she's my friend. You are not my friend, Noah."

"Obviously. Friends wouldn't...."

Okami took his right hand off of the steering wheel and elbowed Noah in the face. Noah's head whipped the side; blood splattered the window.

"Fuck! Fuck! You broke my nose!"

"I did not. If I had wanted to break your nose, I would have broken your fucking nose, and you would know it, boy."

Noah stomped the floor with his feet, first once, then twice, then rapidly over and over. "Fuck fuck fuck!"

Okami gripped the steering wheel white-knuckled and spun the Bugatti around, cutting over the thin median strip to snap down an off-ramp on the other lane. Cars honked like affronted geese.

"You are really one petulant little snot, boy. When your mother fucked you with her wee little strap-on, did you whine like this? Or is that why she did it, because you're such a damn whiny little snot?"

Noah didn't respond. He tilted his head back to stanch the blood that gulped out of his nose.

They didn't speak. The Bugatti raced deeper into Boston, passing through Jamaica Plain and into Mattapan. The buildings began to cluster close together. Shadows grew.

Okami turned into an alleyway beside a boarded-up building and shut the Bugatti down inches from a rank and rusted-out dumpster. He got out and strode to the passenger door. His jaw clenched and the deep golden color in his face had gone a darker burnished shade. He opened the door and grabbed a fistful of Noah's hair, yanking him out into the alley.

"Ow! Hey! Sir!" Noah protested. He grabbed Okami's forearm to try and steady himself. Okami dragged him to a door in the side of the building. Sitting next to the door on an upturned milk crate was a burly, bearded man in a faded wife beater. He looked like a linebacker gone to pot. He looked up and started to stand, but recognized Okami and sat back down.

Okami kicked open the door. Noah couldn't get his balance. He kicked out and tried to pull at Okami, but was overwhelmed by Okami's purpose.

The door opened into an old industrial kitchen caked in grime. A mangy tabby cat sat on one of the stovetops pulling at the body of a half-eaten rat. She didn't spare them a glance.

"Wait! Sir, please, hold up...." Okami's grip on his hair made Noah's eyes water.

Okami dragged Noah further into the bowels of the building. The walls were fungal and splotchy. In one room Noah saw a muscular frat dude, naked except for a backwards-turned ball cap, leaning over a table and snorting lines of coke. Standing behind him was a little person wearing a cheerful Easter bonnet and a diaper with her arm up the frat's ass to the shoulder. Screams echoed behind closed doors. Noah lost one of his sneakers. A jaunty beat filled the corridors but didn't quite muffle the screams.

Okami led him to an open dining room. With a great sweeping arc of his powerful arm he slung Noah forward. Noah flew into a table, slamming his braced arm before stumbling to the carpet. He howled.

From two boxy speakers up near the ceiling one club-ready Autotuned song ended and another began. Austin Mahone; Jamie and Lexie's little sister had a signed poster of him on her bedroom wall.

When I saw her
Walkin' down the street
She looked so fine
I just had to speak.

The room contained several round tables. Stygian lights provided sinister romantic ambiance. At one table a nattily dressed octogenarian scratched at the crossword in his Wall Street Journal. His slacks were heaped around his ankles, and a naked old woman crouched in front of him, slurping on his limp wrinkled dick. Her teeth floated in a cloudy Mason jar beside her.

I asked her name
But she turned away.
As she walked
All that I could say was--

At another table a massive, bloated man sat, naked except for a punished black Speedo. He was gnawing on a chicken wing; an overturned bucket on the table showed the bony remains of his appetite. His feet were propped up on the back of an emaciated young woman on her hands and knees in front of him. Or was it a woman? It had both perky tits and a small cock-sausage, and Noah couldn't tell which belonged to it by nature and which was foisted upon it. A long, spotted felt tail sewn to the base of its spine was certainly not its from birth. Its wrist was handcuffed to the man's chunky ankle.

Mmm mmm! Yeah yeah!
Mmm mmm! Yeah yeah!

The glutton looked up at Okami.

"Here," said Okami, pointing. "You can have him."

Mmm mmm! Yeah yeah!
Mmm mmm! Yeah yeah!

Noah sputtered and tried to stand. "Wha--? No, sir, wait...."

The glutton spat a cluster of gristle into the corner of the room. He stood and walked over to Noah. The mounds of his flesh rippled as he moved and the dim lights shone on his greasy skin. His footstool had to scamper to keep up with him.

Six inch heels clickin' up and down the street,
You know she's comin' and and then she walks away WAY way (way)!

Sheathed under the rolls of his fat the glutton had banks of muscle, as he easily picked up Noah and dropped him on the tabletop. Noah squirmed but the glutton pressed one hand firmly on Noah's chest. He shoved his other hand into Noah's shorts and fondled the teenager's balls. Noah felt the gorge rise in his gullet. A rank, unwashed odor wafted from the giant, mingling with the acrid douche of Axe body spray.

I'm a big big deal, a little fun's all I need.
But I can tell she don't believe what I say SAY (say) say!

The glutton ran his tongue over his brown teeth. Noah felt a wet pressure

Mmm mmm! Yeah yeah!

on his calf: the Easter midget had come in and was nibbling on his leg. She exuded the wholesome aroma of talcum powder.

Mmm mmm! Yeah yeah!

"Sir!"

The glutton slid his hand onto Noah's belly. The oil from his palm coated Noah's abs glutinously and stuck to the trilobite brand that had marked him as Okami's.

So tell me where you're from, where you wanna go?
But she walk pass me like I ain't said a word.
(Stood there like, man!)

"Sir!"

Noah kicked at the midget's face. She tumbled back and fell on her butt on the filmy carpet. The old woman laughed toothlessly. The glutton had reached under Noah's shirt up to his neck, bunching up the tee around his flabby forearm as he fondled higher. Noah wouldn't look at him.

'Cause I don't usually feel some type of way,
But this one hit me hard in some kind of place
(Like man!)

The footstool began to shriek and slap itself. "Feed him, Henri!"

Mmm mmm! Yeah yeah!

"Feed him, Henri! FEED HIM!"

Mmm mmm! Yeah yeah!

The others took up the chorus.

"Feed him! Feed him! Feed him!"

The glutton gripped Noah's jaw and squeezed

Mmm mmm! Yeah yeah!

his lips apart.

All that I could say was

Noah tried to find Okami. "Please, sir, I'm sorry, sir, I'll be good, sir, I promise, sir!"

The glutton leaned over Noah. He brought his other hand up to his mottled face and stuffed two fingers down his throat.

Mmm mmm! Yeah yeah!
Mmm mmm! Yeah yeah!
Mmm mmm! Yeah yeah!

**********

Much later, in his cell at Lucid. Noah stood in the shower with the water up so hot that it practically scalded his skin, and stayed there until the water turned so cold it made his teeth chatter. Shivering, he toweled off as best he could and lied down on the cot and waited to fall asleep.

He waited. And waited. And waited.

Sleep didn't come. He felt his insomnia creep back into him like a spider and lay its lead eggs in his gut. The heaviness. The unrelenting bleakness that he couldn't hide from.

He stared out the window. The Boston skyline, hazy with urban pollution, didn't show him the turning of the stars. Night just sort of bled into morning. The shadows peeled away from the surrounding buildings. A flock of mourning doves scattered.

Noah turned over on the cot. His shoulder still ached enough for him to bite his lip, but the striking pain had dulled. He looked at the clock. It read 5:43.

Noah figured he'd head down to the second basement for his workout. He didn't know what he'd say to Okami if he saw him. He didn't know if he wanted to see him.

He pulled on the door handle. It didn't give. He tried to twist it again, but the door was locked.

Noah hit the door with his fist. He called for Frau. Then he called for Okami. Nobody came.

**********

The hours inched along. The Kindle and the notebooks had been taken away. The iPad was still there on the desk, but it had no apps to speak of, and Noah couldn't get a wireless signal on it.

He tried to pass the time. He did as many of the exercises from the Tuesday program that he could remember. He paced the length of the cell over and over. He tried to jack off--his standard fallback activity when he couldn't sleep--but he couldn't get very hard. His heart wasn't in it. He sat on the floor with his knees pulled up to his chest.

Nobody came.

Noah could drink water from the bathroom sink in his cupped hands, but there was no food. After the second day he would have gladly eaten Okami's nutritious slurry.

He lay on the cot and the hours passed and he waited for sleep and nobody came.

**********

On the third day--or maybe it was the fourth--Noah was laying on the cot and staring at the ceiling. He hadn't slept. He had his arm up and was squinting, tracing in the air with his finger the grid of the ceiling tile over and over. Outside it was dark.

A cheerful beep interrupted his breathing.

Noah sat up and looked around. Nothing looked different. He doubted if he had heard anything--he often heard noises or indistinct voices when he went a long time without sleeping. But he needed to have heard something.

He stood up and brought the iPad out of sleep mode. There was a notification in the lower corner.

One item has finished downloading.

Noah saw that the wireless indicator was at full strength. He tapped the notification and the Albums tab opened.

There was a single video file there, named workroom 7 - 51608.

He tapped the video.

A black and white view of someone driving a car, from the driver's perspective. No sound, but the image quality was crisp. It had a shaky-cam quality about it.

The video played for several minutes, and Noah tried to figure out why it seemed familiar. Then the camera turned to the rear-view mirror. It was Okami. He wore thick, hipster-chic eyeglasses, and Noah realized that the camera was in the glasses. The Bugatti's interior became obvious to him now. He was seeing what Okami saw.

Okami drove the car along the same route into Mattapan as he had a few days earlier. He came up on the boarded-up building, and pulled into the alley again. The bodyguard got up again from his milk crate.

Okami spiked two fingers from his left hand into the bodyguard's throat, viper-quick. As the man choked back, Okami took a boxy, sleek Beretta handgun from a holster under his suit jacket and fired it. There was no sound but a quick bright pop of light. Noah jumped back. The bodyguard fell back.

Okami went into the building. He walked evenly, his movement calibrated. He opened the door to one room. Pop pop. Another room. Pop pop pop.

Noah would sit on the stoop of the triple decker with Jamie and they'd share a bottle of Maker's Mark and shoot the shit. He'd get more than buzzed but not quite drunk, and he'd feel a warmth high up in his cheeks, just under his eyes, and he'd shove Jamie's shoulder playfully. He felt that warmth in his cheeks blossom as he watched the video.

Pop pop pop. Okami swapped out the cartridge in the 9mm and slipped the spent one into his pocket.

He came to the dining room. Pop pop. He turned his head and saw Henri sitting in the corner with his footstool's face in his lap. The glutton's beady eyes tightened.

The video blurred vertiginously as Okami took off the glasses, folded them up calmly, and put them away. And then the video stopped.

It started to replay, but Noah tapped it closed. He set the iPad down. He cracked his neck and stretched his lanky arms.

The door to his cell opened when he turned the handle this time. He walked through the empty corridor to the foyer and got in the elevator. His ballsack smacked his leg.

Noah looked at the bronze control panel. He took a breath, then pressed his thumb against the green glass plate. It lit up and scanned his fingerprint. The secret panel popped open.

Noah pressed B2 and the elevator descended. As it passed down the second and first floors the throbbing beat of the nightclub rumbled through the walls. Noah pressed his fingers to the side of the elevator and invited the vibrations into his body.

The pulse faded when the elevator went into the first basement. The doors opened into the second basement. Noah knew the way to workroom seven without thinking. He pressed 5-1-6-0-8 on the keypad and the lock tweeped.

He opened the door. Inside workroom seven

(his room)

underneath the stark ceiling light Henri sat in a wheelchair. An entire roll of duct tape bound him to the chair, winding around, and beneath, the mounds and folds of his flab. His mouth was taped shut, and his eyes taped open.

Noah closed the door behind him. Henri tried to pull himself free; he managed to scooch the chair in little angles from side to side. Sweat soaked him from the effort.

There was a wheeled buffet cart in front of Henri. The zinc plating reflected the light proudly. On the cart were two chafing dishes. The first dish presented a chemical splash safety mask--a clear polycarbonate face shield connected to a thick rubber visor. In the other dish was a cordless roofing nailer, trademark DeWalt yellow. Noah hefted the nail gun. The muscles in his forearm flexed; the Greek letters inked there undulated.

"Mmm mmm, yeah yeah," said Noah.

**********

The main dance floor of Lucid occupied two stories, one huge open room that had, in previous centuries, been filled with factory equipment and dutiful immigrant workers. That Saturday night it was packed so tightly with ravers that there was barely enough room for the music to slip between the bodies.

A conference room on the second story overlooked the dance floor through an entire wall of plate glass windows. The room was sound-proofed, however, so as Okami and Frau sat at the long oak table they only heard their own voices.

Two bottles of Veuve Clicquot, one open, one sealed, chilled in a bucket on the table. An array of papers spread across the corner of the table where Okami and Frau sat.

Frau sipped from her glass. "The London contract is still open, but I don't think it will be for long."

"Hmm," said Okami. "Farm it out. Brooks, or maybe Ashby."

"Ja vohl. Are you certain?" She frowned. "Maybe Ashby, but certainly not Brooks."

"I realize he's a bit of a...." He trailed off. Frau turned to see what he was staring at.

Noah stood in the doorway. He was dripping.

Frau set her glass down and stood. "Good evening, Mr. Okami."

"No, do stay, Frau," Okami murmured.

"I shall not. Good evening." She left the conference room. She had to flatten herself against the door frame to get past Noah.

Noah was breathing hard through his open mouth. He came into the room and jumped onto the table, using one of the chairs as a step. He walked across the length of the oak and kicked the papers away. He turned his back to Okami and knelt down, leaning over and resting his cheek on the table. He reached back with both hands and grabbed his ass, pulling his cheeks apart and presenting his hole to Okami.

Okami watched. Lights from the dance floor strobed through the windows and drew epileptic shadows on the wall. Noah kept his position.

Okami stood and took the sealed bottle of Veuve from the ice bucket. He unwound the wire cage over the cork, then pushed the cork off with his thumb.

Pop.

He covered the opening with his thumb and shook the bottle vigorously and, in one swift motion, shoved the neck of the bottle into the sixteen-year-old's asshole and took his thumb away. Noah closed his eyes but stifled his gasp as the champagne filled him, the bubbles tickling his gut. Okami held the bottle deep and reached for the open bottle with his free hand. While the Veuve Clicquot enema expensively scrubbed Noah's rectum, Okami upended the open bottle over Noah's back and sluiced away some of Henri.

Okami tossed both bottles in the corner with a clunk. Champagne dribbled and fizzed out of Noah's ass and down his thigh. Okami took a step back.

"Get off the table, boy."

Noah let go of his ass; he had pulled them so far apart that they smacked back into each other with a faint fwap. He climbed down off the table and faced Okami.

"Strip me," said Okami.

Noah brushed the cinnamon hair from his face and stepped closer. He tugged at the knot of Okami's silk tie, unweaving it and pulling the fabric though the stiff collar of Okami's shirt. He used both hands to nudge the shirt buttons from their holes one by one; he had to tug the hem of the shirt out of Okami's pants to get at the last button. Noah walked behind Okami and took the shirt from his shoulders. Okami held his arms at his sides so that Noah could slide the sleeves easily over his muscled, tattooed arms.

Noah let the shirt drop. He placed his palms flat against the broad, thick mass of Okami's shoulders. He leaned in and pressed his lips to Okami's bronze skin between his shoulder blades. Okami allowed this.

Noah ran his fingers down Okami's lats and reached around and up to cup his pecs. He kissed Okami's back reverently and used his index fingers to circle Okami's hard nipples.

Okami took Noah's hands in his and turned to face his boy. Noah stood there, slick, nervous. Okami bent down and impressed his lips against Noah's own. He laced his fingers in Noah's hair and pulled his face close. With the thick muscle of his tongue he probed Noah's mouth. Noah didn't know where to put his own tongue.

Okami took his mouth away and tipped Noah's face up at an angle. Noah's lush lips gaped open. Okami worked his mouth and gathered a gob of saliva and let it slide out of his mouth and onto Noah's teeth.

"That's my beautiful little straight boy," Okami said.

Noah ran his tongue over his teeth and closed his eyes.

"What?" asked Okami.

"Green apple."

Okami smiled. "Yes." He took his glass from the table and offered it to Noah's lips. Noah swallowed the dusky golden champagne.

"Mmm."

"Mmm?"

"It's like...falling asleep in a pile of leaves, sir." He looked up cautiously.

"Mmm," said Okami.

Okami took the empty glass by the stem and smashed it against the side of the table. He picked up a shard of the crystal and brushed it across his right pec, just below the nipple. A line of blood welled up.

Noah darted his face in and started to lap at the wound like a puppy at his water bowl. He smeared the blood over his lips with his tongue and reached down to fumble with Okami's belt buckle.

Okami put his hands on Noah's shoulders and pushed him to his knees. Noah undid the buckle, the button and the zipper of Okami's slacks in short order and pulled them down. He wore a pair of neon pink Calvin Klein briefs. Noah put his face on Okami's obscene bulge, making the fabric wet as he pawed at it with his mouth. He took Okami's loafers and socks off and forgot them.

"Let's try this again," Okami said. He pulled the briefs down far enough that his cock flopped out and smacked Noah in the face. He took the shaft in his hands and painted Noah's nose and lips with his dripping precum.

An old ember of pride flared up inside Noah. A tear trickled down his face, disappearing in the pre. Noah opened his mouth as wide as he could.

"Good boy," whispered Okami. He put his engorged cockhead between Noah's lips. Noah could barely get Okami's soft cock into his mouth.

The blood surged into Okami's prick, adding inches to its length and thickness. Okami held it just barely inside Noah's mouth until it had swollen to the point where it butted against Noah's teeth. Noah couldn't spread his jaw any further. Another tear, for a different reason.

"You'll get there, boy." Okami stepped back and removed his dick from Noah's mouth. Noah savored the sweat and the musk that lingered.

"Stand up," Okami ordered.

As Noah began to rise to his feet, Okami drove his fist into Noah's gut.

"Ooof...!" Noah collapsed, cradling his belly.

"Stand up," said Okami.

Noah put out his hand and pushed himself up, crouched low. He straightened. Okami smacked his face with the back of his hand, and Noah fell again.

"Stand up."

Noah tasted copper. He stood. Okami punched him in the stomach again, and he crumbled.

"Stand up."

Uppercut.

"Stand up."

Jab jab jab.

"Stand up."

Roundhouse kick.

"Stand up."

Noah lay on his back, his head and his vision spinning. He could almost feel the bruises emerging layer by layer. He pushed himself to his elbows. The raw memory of his popped shoulder beat out an ache that formed the baseline to the rest of the pain that sung inside him. He saw his fat teencock was rock solid and dancing to the beat.

Noah stood up.

Okami grabbed his shoulder and flung him at the window. He stood behind him, his massive cock pressing heavily against Noah's spine.

"You see all those people down there, boy?"

Noah nodded.

"You are better than every single one of them. Even as you are right now, and right now you're only one strong northeast wind from nothing. The best of them are flies on shit. Most of them are just shit."

The packed mass of people below were waving their hands, gyrating, oblivious.

"You're better than them. Say it for me, boy."

"I'm better than them." Noah could barely wheeze the words out of his throat after the pummeling.

Okami reached up and grabbed Noah's head with both hands. He forced his fingers into Noah's mouth, distending the skin. He backed up enough so that his mammoth cock could slide down, the head lined up at Noah's hole. Okami's shaft spread Noah's downy cheeks.

Okami said, "Just remember: you're not better than me."

Okami clenched his ass and shoved his cock deep into Noah's gut. Noah screamed around Okami's fingers. He had forgotten.

"I told you," Okami said as he ground his hips like a dancer, boring his thick shaft deep inside the teen's asshole. "I told you it would never get easier."

He didn't take any of his dick out but bucked his hips forward, grinding his cockhead up into Noah's stomach and slamming the boy's head against the plate glass. He did this several times, slowly.

"You're still fighting it," he whispered into Noah's ear. "You need to eradicate that instinct, boy. It will only make things that much harder for you."

Using his grip on Noah's skull for leverage, Okami started to rabbitfuck Noah, pulling out only a portion of his dick before ramming it back in rapidly. "A portion" of Okami's cock was more than the entire girth of most men's. Noah shrieked unintelligibly as Okami pounded him, ramming and ramming and ramming. He wondered how many of the people in the club were looking up at them.

When Okami slowed his pace to longfuck Noah, taking all but the tip of his dick out before steadily sliding it back in, it offered a negligible relief. Okami's fist-size balls leisurely swatted Noah's leg as he plunged his tool to the hilt. Noah groaned. Okami's fingertips scraped his gums. Okami breathed deeply with each long thrust.

He shoved his dick in deep and left it buried there. He took his hands out of Noah's mouth. "Let me see you twerk, boy."

Noah put out his palms against the glass to steady himself. He could feel the throbbing shaft filling him up, pushing against his abs from the inside. A stray thought, how Jamie used to make fun of his dance moves, made him choke back a sob.

Noah started to gyrate his hips, keeping Okami's dick inside him. He pushed his ass and arched his back. He clenched his cheeks and made them dance on Okami's enormous pole. They bopped up and down and the flesh and muscle rippled. The effort of it shot waves of pain up Noah's back and down his legs.

"Are you ready to tell me you love it, boy?" asked Okami.

Noah kept twerking but didn't speak.

Okami smacked Noah's thigh with his open palm. He grabbed Noah's hips and spun him around and, keeping his dick ensconced inside the boy he lowered the both of them to the floor. Noah lay flat on his stomach. Okami wrapped one of his bulging biceps around Noah's throat; he used his other arm on the top of Noah's skull, and together formed a choke hold on Noah's neck. Their legs intertwined, and Okami started to hammer Noah's ass, bringing his body up enough to take eight or nine inches out and then slamming it back in. And then again. And again.

Blood and sweat offered marginal lube as Okami raped his boy ferociously. Noah's cries filled the conference room. His belly and legs got rug burn as Okami drilled him over and over.

There were no thoughts no, no room for even a scrap of dignity. The pain crowded into every nook and fiber of him. He thought that Okami might crack his ribs with the force of his slamming. Okami tonguefucked Noah's ear as he hammered the boy. Noah's toes curled tightly.

Okami's choke hold began to constrict Noah's windpipe. Noah's screams became hoarser. Okami started to snort and grunt to make up the volume. He lifted his ass high up in the air and RAMMED his cock into Noah's gut. He held it there, then pulled it out again and RAMMED it back in, tearing the teenager's ass and his soul. Noah prayed he'd pass out.

Okami brought his ass up one more time, pulling his entire cock out of his boy, and then SLAMMED it in, burying it to the root. He bit down on Noah's earlobe and groaned as the tide rose up in his balls and he exploded into Noah. Okami's entire body jerked as he bred Noah, the thick white hot cum filling up Noah's belly. Noah felt the slickness accumulate inside him.

The jism kept coming, load after load. Noah was sure he could taste it in the back of his throat, in his haze. Okami loosened his choke grip around Noah's neck, but let the entire weight of his sculpted, machine-like body fall on Noah's back, forcing the oxygen from his lungs. Okami's balls continued to pump Noah full.

Eventually Okami completely emptied his load into Noah, and his spasming muscles calmed. He turned onto his side, wrapping his arms around Noah's chest and turning him also. He left his dick inside the boy to soften.

Noah saw the slick of his own seed on the carpet. He brought his fingertips to his belly and felt the wetness there as well. He came and didn't even know it. His body gleamed, sweaty and bloody and beaten.

Noah rubbed his face against Okami's like a kitten.

"Good boy," Okami murmured into the rusty tangles of Noah's hair. "Good boy."

**********
boston.com: HOME/NEWS/LOCAL NEWS

"Funeral for Victims of South Boston Fire; Investigators Close Case"

BOSTON-- The three victims of last Sunday's house fire in South Boston were laid to rest today. The deceased, Mary Conall, 32; her son Noah, 16; and James Vartanian, also 16, were residents of the triplex on Wolf Street which went up in flames after what investigators determined was a short in the building's wiring. Overuse of window unit air conditioners may also have contributed to that electrical fire. Mr. Vartanian's parents released a statement....