In the Ring

by James Lear

  “Ready?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” said Jackson.

  “Hold it. Let me get condoms.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  Did he seriously think I was going in bareback? I’d have to watch myself around Vaughan’s boys. Their need for sex outstripped their understanding of health issues. I’m old-school: I don’t mess around. Condoms every time.

  I rubbered up—Jackson watched with fascination, and couldn’t stop stroking the thin, stretched latex—then got two fingers, a large blob of lube, and a minute hi-spec tracking device inside his silky rectum. He moaned and squirmed, precum drooling out of his cock in a thick silver thread. If he wasn’t ready now, he never would be. I pushed him down on his back, scooped up his legs behind the knees, and pressed my cock into position. He looked good, all tensed definition, his tits hard, his balls tight. Even his perfect hair was a bit messed up, which made my dick throb. Better get inside him.

  It wasn’t easy. Even going slow, he was tight. I told him over and over to relax, but the pain made him clench and tighten. Eventually I was in. Jackson’s eyes were screwed up, his jaw like a vice, and his dick shrivelled to an acorn. This would not do.

  “Want me to stop?”

  He said “no” through gritted teeth.

  “Come on. This isn’t fun for you.” It wasn’t great for me either; it felt like I was fucking a bag of rocks.

  “Give me a minute, Greg. I . . . I want it. Please. Don’t take it out now.”

  I stayed inside him, gently stroking his legs, reaching forward to run my fingers over his face. He kissed them, slipped his lips around them, sucked them. I murmured “good boy, good boy” a few times, and that had the desired effect. The clamp around my dick loosened, and the blood started to return to Jackson’s cock. It shifted and started to lengthen. He moaned a couple of times, feeling the pleasure rather than the pain. After a couple of minutes he was fully hard, and starting to move against me.

  We didn’t need words. I fucked him slowly at first. There was a look of intense surprise on his face. I would have laughed, but I didn’t want to spoil things again.

  It didn’t last long. Jackson was whimpering, crying out, and finally his hand went to his cock and started to jerk it. Ten seconds later, thick jets of cum were squirting over his tight belly and chest. I pushed myself in to the hilt and emptied my balls into the condom. Fireworks were going off behind my eyelids. My toes were slipping on the carpet, I was pushing so hard.

  We stayed like that for a few minutes, unwilling to break the spell.

  It hurt him when I pulled out, even taking it as slowly as possible. The tracking device must have been embedded half way up Jackson’s digestive tract, I thought with satisfaction.

  We got into the bed and I held him while his breathing slowed. I thought he was sobbing at one point; I said nothing, just held him tighter, kissed his jaw, and stroked his stomach. We slept for a while, and when I woke he was sucking my cock.

  10

  I was due in work at seven for a personal training session. That was four hours away. I walked home. I needed to clear my head. What I thought would be a slick, heartless fuck turned out to be something much more complicated. Now it was Jackson I wanted to rescue from a life of sexual servitude. I pictured Vaughan as a self-loathing, impotent sadist, Jackson as the butterfly caught in his web, and me as the knight in shining armor . . . My metaphors were as mixed up as my brain. I was falling in love with everyone I fucked. Oz, Kieran, Joshua, Dakota, Jackson . . . Luiz in the hospital, Reeve and Radek at MI6, even Ethan Oliver, the CIA agent who I hadn’t laid a finger on . . . What was happening? Surely the main point of Greg Cooper was that he didn’t give a shit about anyone except himself.

  You’ll be nodding your head at this point and saying “But Dan, you just went through a near-death experience, you lost someone you cared for, this Mark Williams you’ve mentioned a couple of times but seem reluctant to talk about, you’re experiencing post-traumatic shock, you should not have been sent on this mission so soon.”

  Well, congratulations, smart-ass. You’re right. USMC, the FBI, the CIA, and MI6, all those letters and numbers who controlled me, had thrown me into Vaughan’s world like a lighted match into a can of gasoline. Maybe that was their intention. Maybe my emotional instability is what they wanted—not my prowess at killing and fucking. I wouldn’t put it past them. Let’s set up an explosive situation and see what comes out of the wreckage.

  I was brooding over this as I walked through the quiet city. All I had to do was throw my cell phone into the canal and that was the end of it. Dan Stagg, Greg Cooper, off radar. I could keep on walking, get on a plane, go anywhere, be anyone I wanted to be. Okay, they’d catch up with me sooner or later: for all I knew, they had a tracking device in me, perhaps in one of the bits of metalwork that held my smashed right leg together. I’d be lying in bed with some twenty-year-old in Fiji or China or Greenland or some tiny fucking rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and there would be a knock on the door, they’d reel me back in, not because they needed me but because when you know too much you can never, ever escape . . .

  I was walking fast, talking to myself in the rhythm of my footsteps, Oz, Kieran, Joshua, Dakota, Jackson, Luiz, Oliver, Reeve . . . Try it. It makes quite a nice little sing-song rhyme. Over and over, until other thoughts were crowded out, and I arrived at the apartment with a clearer head.

  I logged on to my secure email account and registered the new tracking device up Jackson’s butt (code-name: TABLECLOTH). There was email in my inbox that contained orders. Heavily encrypted and bristling with code words, it translated as:

  Intelligence sources point to November 12 as likely date of focus activity. Target unconfirmed military base New Hampshire. Check against subject’s known itinerary. Security code highest.

  November 12. Today was the ninth. Three days away. And where was Alan Vaughan—the “subject”? Supposedly in Miami, finalizing plans for the Craig Lukas fight. But his real whereabouts? Unknown to me, and presumably unknown to the intelligence services. Nobody had a tracking device up Vaughan’s ass, and it sounded as if he had slipped past the watching eyes of homeland security. In short, he could be anywhere, talking to anyone.

  Jackson would know the official itinerary, and after last night I was pretty sure he’d share it with me. It could be checked and verified. If Vaughan had gone off radar, we’d soon know.

  I was in the shower when the intercom buzzed. I wrapped a towel around myself and answered.

  “Greg? Oh, thank God. Let me in, please. It’s Oz.”

  Oz was wired, hands shaking, pupils too big. If you’d seen him walking down the street you’d have thought he was some kid coming home from a nightclub. But I knew enough about Oz’s nocturnal activities to suspect a different scenario. He stopped in the hallway when he saw me, glancing around as if he wanted to run.

  “It’s okay buddy. Come on in.”

  I didn’t ask how he knew my address. Perhaps he accessed my file at City Fitness. Perhaps he’d been stalking me. I got him into the apartment and locked the door.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Greg . . . fuck . . .” He wiped his hands over his face, as if he was getting rid of cobwebs. “I’m so fucked up . . . Shit . . .” He laughed, a high, nervous cackle. “I’m off my fucking face.”

  “What have you taken?”

  “G.”

  “How much?”

  He danced around on the balls of his toes like a fighter, hands up to protect his face, hissing through his teeth.

  “Oz. Oz!” I grabbed his wrists. “Stop it. Come and sit down.” His skin was clammy. Should I call an ambulance?

  He went limp, letting his weight fall against my body. The towel started to slip. “Oh, man . . . That feels nice . . .” He started kissing my chest, rubbing his stubbly face against it. “Are you going to fuck me, Greg? Please. I really want you to fuck me.” He was slurring a bit, and there was a lot of saliva coming out wi
th the words. I’ve done some bad things in my time, but fucking guys who are likely to slip into a coma wasn’t about to be added to the list. I got him to the sofa, where he slumped on his side and started snoring. I know enough about party drugs to realize it’s not a good idea to let people fall asleep. I pulled Oz upright and sat with an arm around his shoulders. My towel was long gone.

  “Oz, listen to me. Open your eyes. That’s it. Now look at me. Try to focus.” His eyes were rolling back in his head. Had he done this to himself, or had someone administered the overdose? How many of Vaughan’s boys disappeared? I had heard of at least one. No body, no missing persons report, probably no family or friends to bother. Vaughan chose his boys carefully: the vulnerable, the dispossessed. Oz was the most vulnerable of all. A gay Muslim? Not an easy road to travel. Thrown out and disowned, or brought up in foster care. Cannon fodder for the likes of Alan Vaughan.

  “Greg . . . Is that you? Greg!” A big goofy smile broke out on Oz’s face. “Oh, it’s great to see you, man. How are . . .” His voice trailed into incoherence and he slumped further down, his cheek against my stomach. I grabbed him under the armpits and walked him around the room in a lurching slow dance. He was humming, occasionally speaking, but at least he was not sleeping.

  Suddenly Oz’s body tensed, his eyes opened wide and he said, “I’m gonna puke.” I threw him over my shoulder and made it to the bathroom just as the first trails of vomit were hitting my back. Most of it, thank God, went in the bathtub.

  Oz was on his knees, tears were running from his eyes, snot bubbling from his nose. I turned on the shower, washed the puke away, and started trying to undress him. He was still limp, but consciousness was returning. Perhaps throwing up had saved his life. Now he was groaning rather than babbling; pain, I always think, is an indication of consciousness.

  He was a mess: as well as the vomit, there was mud and dried blood. He’d fallen over, or been thrown out of somewhere, or been in a fight. Fucked up on drugs, he wouldn’t have been able to defend himself.

  “Stand up, Oz.”

  I pulled him to his feet, pulled his T-shirt over his head. He swayed but didn’t fall. I knelt, pulled off his shoes and socks, pulled down his pants. There were grazes and bruises on his buttocks and thighs, as if he’d been beaten or dragged across a floor.

  Interrogation could wait; first I had to get him cleaned up, and make sure he wasn’t going to slip into a coma. A shower was too risky in his condition; I put the plug in the bath and turned on the taps. While it was running I held Oz in my arms. He was cold, his teeth starting to chatter. “Come on. It’s okay. You’re safe now.” Poor bastard; the only comfort he had in this world was a dead man.

  I lowered him into the water. He stretched out, sighed, and relaxed. He’d live.

  “My head hurts.”

  “I’m not surprised. What happened to you, Oz?”

  “I don’t know. I got into a fight.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand; there was a smear of blood.

  “Who did this to you?”

  “I don’t know.” His voice sounded hopeless.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  He looked up at me, fear in his eyes. “What?”

  “You know what happened, and you know who did it. Tell me.”

  “I was walking along the street and two guys jumped me. I swear.”

  “You’re not a very good liar, Oz.”

  “Please, can we just . . .” He lowered himself into the water till it covered his ears.

  I waited for him to come up. “So, you were attacked in the street.”

  “Yeah.” He busied himself with soap, washing his face and armpits. “Two guys. Maybe three.”

  “Did you see their faces?”

  “No.”

  “And where exactly did it happen? Where were you?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve . . . had a few drinks.”

  “You said G.”

  “That, yeah, that too.”

  “We’d better call the police.”

  “No way. That’s not necessary. I mean I’m fine, I’m all right.”

  “You’ve been seriously assaulted. I’m going to call them right now.”

  Oz said nothing.

  “Do you think you’ll be sober enough to give them a statement?”

  He put his hands over his face.

  “The next person might actually get killed. You don’t want that on your conscience, do you? When you could have stopped it.”

  “Okay, okay!” He was shouting, his face distorted with anger. “I wasn’t attacked.”

  “That’s better. Now tell me what really happened.”

  “I can’t.”

  “I’ll tell you, then. You were sent out to a client. One of those rich guys in the suburbs, I guess. You were given some drugs, and things got rough. You were too stoned to do anything about it.” I put a hand into the water and felt his legs and ass, where the injuries were. He winced. “Looks like they hurt you pretty bad.”

  “You know, then.”

  “What?”

  “About the clients.”

  “Of course I fucking know, Oz. I’m part of the team.”

  “I thought you were on our side.”

  I had to be careful; Oz wasn’t the brightest of boys, but I couldn’t let him know that I was working against Vaughan rather than for him. “We have to protect our assets.” I was still stroking his asset under water. I hoped I’d get to fuck him again, under happier circumstances.

  Oz looked up at me with big puppy-dog eyes. His dick was stirring; that must have been some seriously strong shit they gave him. “I wish you’d look after me.”

  “Is that why you came here?”

  “I don’t know, Greg. I don’t know anything anymore.” He sounded close to tears. “I thought I was getting into this because it would give me a chance at fighting. But . . .”

  “Didn’t turn out that way, huh?”

  “I just want to . . .”

  “What?”

  Oz closed his eyes, and whispered. “I want to feel safe.”

  This was not what I needed. Dan Stagg wanted to take in the little wounded puppy and nurse him back to health. Greg Cooper had no shits to give, and would betray Oz to his employers if he stepped out of line.

  “If the client has overstepped any boundaries, I’ll take the necessary action.” I was improvising, but it sounded convincing. Bullshit comes naturally. “In the meantime, you’d better stay here.”

  “Can I? Really?”

  “I’ve got to go to work soon. You can hang out till I get back. How are you feeling?”

  “Terrible.”

  “Is the stuff wearing off?”

  “I suppose so.” Oz’s dick was semi-erect, and my hand still appeared to be in the water. “Not completely.”

  I retrieved my hand and wiped it on a towel. I was still naked, and despite everything I was getting hard too. “Do you still feel stoned?”

  “No. I think I puked it up.”

  “Okay. Get out of the bath.”

  He stood, I stood, and both our cocks stood as well. Oz stepped out on to the mat, and into my arms. I held him, letting our dicks press together—and that was as far as I allowed it to go. “Not now, dude. We need to get you into bed.”

  “With you.”

  “I’ll join you later.” I held him at arm’s length, our cocks reaching out to each other.

  “Will you?”

  “I promise.”

  “They all promise.”

  I thought of all the people that had let him down—parents, teachers, social workers, carers, clients—all the users and abusers, and I was the last in the line. How could I help him, without betraying myself? For all I knew, Oz was bait in a trap.

  I stepped away and passed him a towel.

  “Dry yourself. I’ll find you something to wear. Your old stuff can go in the trash.”

  I busied myself in the bedroom, and got dressed, despite my cock’s attempts to prevent m
e. I found pants and a sweater for Oz. He could sleep in those. He appeared in the doorway dry, hairy, and fully erect. I threw the clothes at him; the sweater hooked itself over his cock and hung there.

  “Put that away, Oz. It’s just the G talking.”

  “It’s not, Greg. You know it’s not. Please. Hold me . . .”

  He held out his arms. Poor bastard.

  I moved away, tried to sound angry but had to clear my throat. “Not . . . not now, Oz. You need to rest, and I need to work. I’ll be back around twelve. Think you can stay out of trouble till then?”

  He put the clothes on. “I suppose so.”

  “There’s food in the fridge. You can make yourself

  coffee.”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t answer the door and don’t make any calls. There’s nothing worth stealing, by the way.” I tried to make it sound like a joke.

  “I’m not a fucking thief.”

  “Jesus, calm down. Now get into bed.”

  “Get in with me. Please. I just need you to . . .”

  We lay on the bed together for a while, and I held him in my arms. He kissed my neck, my chin, he pressed his dick into me, he fidgeted around like a horny cat, and eventually settled. “There you go. That’s enough. Now be good, and go to sleep.” I got up, kissed him on the forehead, and prepared to leave. My phone was safe in my pocket. There were no incriminating items in the apartment; I carried the tracking devices with me at all times. No printouts, no computers, nothing that could be read or hacked.

  I locked the door behind me, already looking forward to getting home in a few hours and giving Oz—a refreshed, sober Oz—what he so badly needed. And that was the last time I saw him alive.

  City Fitness opened for business at five in the morning, for those early birds who think that an hour of messing around with weights before they sit in the office all day is going to get them fit. By the time I got there at 6:45 the place was buzzing, all the treadmills busy, the music turned up way too high, a lot of grunting and pumping in the free weights area. Jackson was at his desk, picture perfect, not a hair out of place, showing no signs of his sleepless night. His powers of recovery were impressive.