In Arrears

by Morgan Hawke

  The scrape of wood against wood announced the arrival of the second patron. According to the bare feet padding on the wooden floor, he was alone.

  The patron sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh...my.” His voice was very soft. He padded a little closer. Smooth and delicate fingers traced down Roth’s arm to his wrist. “I was, um, told that he doesn’t have use of his hands or feet.”

  Roth frowned. The patron’s voice sounded very familiar, but he couldn’t place where he’d heard it before.

  “This is correct.” Fox’s voice was particularly soft. “His voice has also been removed.”

  The patron stilled utterly. “Is it...permanent?”

  “Not at all.” Fox’s tone was mildly pleasant.

  “Oh?” The patron released a soft breath. “May I ask how it was done?”

  “Acupuncture needles applied in the tap meridians. Any expert could easily reproduce this effect, or remove it.”

  The patron traced his fingers across Roth’s chest then down his belly. “A cock ring?”

  “You may release him, at your discretion.” Fox’s voice held a distinct note of humor.

  “Eh?” The patron yanked his hand away from Roth’s skin. “Me?”

  Roth bit his lip to keep from laughing himself. He’s shy. It was almost...cute.

  Fox chuckled softly. “You are the patron. We are here to serve your needs.” Cloth rustled close by, indicating that Fox had approached. The mattress gave under Fox’s steps. “Use this oil on your hands, on his flesh, and on the ring itself. Pull the ring slowly and carefully. Just be aware that without it, it won’t take much for him to cum.”

  The patron swallowed audibly. “O-okay.” The sound of damp hands rubbing together came from the patron’s side of the mattress. Gentle fingers closed around Roth’s cock.

  The slight pressure was too tempting to resist. Roth bucked up into the hands that held him.

  The patron yanked his hands back.

  Fox chuckled. “No need to be afraid. He’s merely eager for release.”

  The patron released his breath. “O-oh. Then I better get it off him.” He closed his long fingers around Roth’s cock more firmly.

  Roth writhed. The guy’s smooth hands felt so damned good.

  Fox cleared his throat. “I meant that the last patron didn’t let him cum.”

  The patron’s hands clenched tightly around Roth’s cock. “I, uh, see.”

  Roth huffed out a voiceless groan. His hands felt too good. Hurry up and get it off me, damn it!

  Fox dropped to nearly a whisper. “He’s waiting for you.”

  The patron sucked in a deep breath. “Okay.” He slid his oil-slick hands all the way around Roth’s cock then slid his fingers around the ring. He took a deep breath, and pulled slowly, but firmly. The ring slipped free.

  Roth sighed heavily in relief, until the blood rushed into the constricted area and burned. He hissed.

  “I will take that.” Fox’s voice was firm.

  “Okay.” The patron took a breath. “So, um, how do I get him to cum?”

  Fox snorted. “Well, the quickest way would be to fuck him.”

  The patron swallowed audibly. “F—fuck him?” His voice sailed into the upper registers.

  Roth stilled. I know I’ve heard that that voice before!

  Fox chuckled. “That’s what he’s here for. So, how would you like to fuck him, on his back, or on his hands and knees?”

  “Eh...” He cleared his throat. “What would you...suggest?”

  Fox hummed. “Is this your first man?”

  The patron choked.

  Fox snorted. “I’ll take that for a ‘yes’.” Fabric rustled toward Roth’s head. “For your first ride, I would suggest you take him on his back. He’s particularly responsive to it, and it will give you the best view.”

  “But, I, uh...”

  Fox settled by Roth’s head. “I understand that you’ll probably cum very quickly, but I assure you, at his level of excitement, he will too.”

  The patron coughed. “Hey now...!”

  “Now then, apply the oil to your cock as thickly as possible. He’s already been prepared and ridden once, so there’s no need to prep him yourself. I will warn you, though, that your next ride will probably not only take oiling internally, but also stretching with the fingers to accommodate you comfortably.” Fox cleared his throat. “As you are not a small man.”

  The patron drew in a trembling breath. “You’re sure this is the uh, best way to do this?”

  Fox purred. “He will enjoy it greatly, I assure you.”

  The patron sighed. “Okay.” The sound of squelching oil was soft. “Could you, um...?”

  “Turn my back? Of course. I’ll even retreat to the corner.” The sound of rustling fabric faded into the far corner.

  The patron sighed and walked toward Roth’s feet.

  Panting softly, Roth obligingly parted his legs and lifted his knees. His cock was aching for release, and he didn’t care how he got it.

  The patron dropped to his knees between Roth’s thighs. He took a deep breath and pressed the head of his cock against Roth’s anus. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

  Roth was not about to let the patron’s shyness keep him from his release. He closed his legs around the guy’s hips and tightened them.

  The patron’s cock slid right into him. The patron gasped and fell over top of Roth, his hands landing to either side of Roth’s chest. “God, it’s hot!”

  Roth threw his arms around his patron’s shoulders to keep him in place against his chest. He rolled his hips to get the cock within him centered on his sweet spot, then used his thighs and heels to encourage his patron to thrust into him.

  The patron moaned sweetly and bucked hard.

  Roth released a voiceless groan. Fox had been right. The patron was not a small man. It felt damned good. He eased the tightness of his legs to allow the patron to withdraw then squeezed hard to drive him back in.

  His patron moaned and bucked in again, harder than before.

  Roth rose to meet him, just as hard.

  That was apparently all the encouragement the patron needed. The man thrust hard all by himself then again, and again, his breaths coming in soft moans and gasps.

  Roth met him stroke for stroke with enthusiasm. The guy was right on his sweet spot, and the way he was increasing the power with each thrust, his patron would soon have him screaming. Not that he had a voice to express it.

  The patron widened his knees for better leverage and slammed in hard with a grunt, then again, and again.

  Roth arched his back and met him just as hard. Just a little bit more...

  Grunting with each stroke, his patron thrust violently, his hips slapping loudly against Roth’s ass.

  The intense electrical fire of climax bloomed within Roth and shattered outward. He clutched his patron to him, locking his arms and legs around him and arched into him, forcing the man’s cock as deep as it could go. His balls clenched deliciously and released. He shuddered hard and hot cum spilled from him, spattering both their bellies.

  His patron moaned in obvious desperation. “Oh god... Oh shit...!” He stiffened and shuddered. Thick wetness spurted into Roth’s ass. He bucked a few more times in an obvious attempt to prolong the sensations.

  They both collapsed, panting.

  The man’s scent of soap and musk drifted to Roth’s nose. It was familiar too, but he simply couldn’t place it any more than he could place the voice.

  The patron’s breath brushed his ear. “Forgive me.” A needle stabbed into the side of Roth’s neck and chill liquid pumped into him.

  What the...? He jerked upright, but whatever was in the needle worked very fast. It knocked him right back down again. Fox!

  The patron lifted himself from Roth’s body and turned away. “Can we talk, Mr. Fox?”

  Roth’s body grew weighted, and then he knew no more.

  ~ * ~

  Eight

  Rot
h awoke staring into the pouch-rimmed eyes of the extremely aged Dr. Kruz. The old medic was so close that his gray curly ponytail, the only hair on his head, hung over his shoulder.

  Roth flinched back. Gross! What a thing to wake up to! He looked around and frowned. He was in a hospital bed. There were vaulted and beamed ceilings high over head and the walls were made of mortared stone. It looked like the medical wing of the Company headquarters.

  The short and heavily wrinkled, balding man pursed his lips at him. “So, how do you feel, Lieutenant Colonel Jaeger?”

  Roth blinked. How do I feel? Draggy and muzzy-headed, actually. It was a rather familiar feeling. “Like I just woke up from a particularly long drinking binge.” His voice was hoarse and his throat kind of ached. He rubbed at it. Holy crap, that was some dream I had! Paying his debts off by playing whore? He hoped to God that he never crawled back into whatever bottle had given him that vision of insanity.

  Kruz nodded. “To be expected. The drug used on you was intended to knock out a horse.” He lifted a familiar-looking cloth-wrapped bundle from the bedside table, then hopped down from the white painted ladder-backed chair he’d been standing on. The man was barely tall enough to see over the edge of the bed.

  Roth pushed to sit up. “Hey, what’d you do to me?” He rubbed at his eyes.

  Kruz casually tucked the cloth bundle into the sleeve of his deep blue Chinese tunic. “I used my needles to restore your voice, your hands, and your feet.

  Roth froze. It hadn’t been a dream? His hand went to his throat then he pulled it back to hold both hands in front of his face and made fists. Everything worked like normal, as though it actually had been a twisted dream.

  “You know, Jaeger...” Kruz turned to look at him. The set of wrinkles that passed for his eyebrows lifted. “They wouldn’t tell me where they found you.”

  Roth bared his teeth at the old man. “Good.” He grabbed the blankets and pulled them off. “Because I’ll kill anyone that does.” He frowned down at the thin hospital robe he’d been put in. “Where are my clothes?”

  Kruz pursed his wrinkled lips. “You didn’t have any when you got here.”

  Roth scowled at him. “I have clothes in my rooms.”

  Kruz smiled. It wasn’t pretty. “What you did have were rope burns on your wrists, a manacle welt around your ankle, and signs of chafing around your eyes and your throat.”

  Roth slapped on his smiling poker face. “You don’t say?” He slid off the bed and stood. Fuck it, I’ll walk to my rooms the way I am. His ankles wobbled under him. He grabbed onto the bed.

  Kruz sniffed deeply. “I just restored your hands and feet. Walking may be a bit iffy for a while, especially as it looked to me like they’d been out of commission for about a week.”

  Roth tugged on his short hospital robe. “I’ll deal with it.”

  Kruz raised one wrinkled finger. “One more thing.”

  Roth practically snarled at the little man. “What now?”

  Kruz smiled even wider than before, showing his oddly straight teeth. “Nice shave.”

  Roth jerked his gaze downward. There for all the world to see were his smoothly shaven legs. Roth rolled his eyes. “Son of a bitch!” He ripped the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around his hips. Goddamn it, I’m getting dressed now!

  He marched barefoot and dragging the sheet, out of medical, through the halls, and all the way back to his suite with a glare on his face that dared anyone to approach him on pain of death.

  * * * * * *

  A week later...

  Roth sat with his back to his massive lamp-lit desk, hunched deep in his black and gold overcoat, one knee folded over the other with a lit cigarette dangling from his fingertips. He stared through the panes of the tall gothic arched window at the drizzling rain and the darkening sky. Behind him on his desk was a pile of papers that he was supposed to be pushing...writing reports that were more than a few years overdue, reading this, signing that, blah, blah, blah...

  He scratched the thigh of his creased black pants, annoyed by the itch from the new hair growing on his legs. Absently, he wondered if he should just shave it all off. He’d already decided to keep his nether regions shaved. He just couldn’t take the feeling of hair being there.

  And then there was the other annoyance in his life—his libido.

  With all the shapely young women running around headquarters in tight black clothes, one would expect that he’d have a near constant erection. Nope. His dick had shown no interest in anyone at all. For once in his life, his dick was actually behaving.

  Until he fell asleep...then the fucker went into overdrive.

  Every single night since his return, he’d had painfully erotic dreams about a man whose face he couldn’t see, but whose body he could most definitely feel—and it wasn’t Fox.

  Jerking off before he went to bed hadn’t done anything to stop the dreams because for some reason, jerking off wasn’t getting him off. Nothing was getting him off. He had no problems getting hard; the problem was finishing. Even his most inspirational titty magazines had been a total loss.

  Roth drummed his fingers against the arm of his chair and scowled at his reflection in the window glass. He had no idea what the fuck was wrong with him, but he sincerely hoped his problem fixed itself soon. He was sick and tired of changing his sheets first thing in the morning.

  However, what was really preying on his mind was his rather mysterious return to headquarters last week. He still had no idea who had brought him back, or how he’d even gotten back. Strangely, no one else did either. Apparently, he’d just appeared in the hospital wing.

  Unfortunately, the only person who could give him answers was the one person he hadn’t been able to find. He hadn’t seen base commander Colonel Johan Kessler even once since his return. The tall, dark-haired, slate-eyed man in the oval glasses was definitely there at headquarters. Everyone mentioned seeing him just about everywhere in the massive and rambling castle, yet he hadn’t seen a trace of him once.

  His cigarette clamped tightly in his teeth, he rose from his chair with a heavy sigh and grabbed his gold-trimmed hat. Only one way to discover what he needed to know and that was to hunt down the elusive, scatter-brained, flibberty-jibbit of a commander himself. Determined, he strode from the office in his suite of rooms and into the stone-walled, window-lined hallway. He’d choke the answers out of him if necessary.

  Twenty minutes later, Roth entered the headquarters library, which also happened to be the commander’s office. His boot heels clopped on the aged floorboards.

  Kessler’s ever-harried personal secretary, First Lieutenant Fischer padded back and forth between staff members with their arms piled with papers. His blond hair was spiked into disarray from finger-combing it one too many times.

  Roth tapped his shoulder and kept his voice low. “Have you seen the commander?”

  Fischer blinked. “Eh, Colonel Kessler? Isn’t he right over there?” He turned and pointed toward the massive stone fireplace in corner and the broad desk very nearly buried under papers, books, and maps before it. The desk chair was empty, but quivering, as though someone had left it in a big hurry. A curl of steam rose from the cup of coffee sitting in the only cleared spot on the desk.

  Fischer frowned. “Where’d he go?”

  Roth snorted. It seemed that the commander was avoiding him. He strode for the door and waved absently in Fischer’s direction. “Thanks anyway.”

  Fischer frowned and scratched at his head, mussing his hair even more. “Yeah, sure.”

  Roth marched through the hallway and took the rattling antique elevator down two levels. He opened the gates and stepped into the huge mortared stone sub-basement that had once been a dungeon. The company used the various rooms as training areas for weapons practice, field medical training, and hand-to hand combat. The very last and largest room was an indoor firing range.

  Dead center in the middle of the room was his personal aid, First Lieutenant Ash. The young
man was loading a sniper rifle he’d apparently been practicing with. His silver-blond hair gleamed under the floodlights, along with the silver trim and buttons on his black uniform.

  Roth walked up behind Ash. “Hey, Ash, have you seen Johan?”

  Ash visibly flinched and glanced over his shoulder. “The commander? I just saw him, over there.” He pointed at the door on the far end of the room.

  Roth nodded and strode past him.

  Ash grabbed Roth’s sleeve. “Hey, he’s not in any kind of...trouble, is he?”

  Trouble...? Roth’s lifted his brows. “Not that I know of. I just haven’t seen him since I got...back.”

  Ash tilted his head and blinked. “Oh?”

  Roth turned away searching for a semi-logical excuse to be looking for the commander, though he wasn’t exactly sure why he was bothering with an excuse. He shrugged casually. “I have a couple of questions about some...paperwork.”

  It wasn’t even a lie. Considering that all mission reports ended up on Colonel Kessler’s desk, it was safe to say that Johan knew exactly where Roth had spent the last week. This meant he’d also know who had gotten him out of there. Roth was very interested in the answer to that particular question.

  “Ah...” Ash smiled, though it looked a little strained. “He went to the artifacts hall in the old north belltower.”

  “Thanks.” Roth strode off with a frown while puffing on his cigarette. What the hell was going on? He tossed his cigarette butt, crushed it out under his boot-heel. Suddenly, he had a few more questions for the elusive commander.

  Up a staircase, down a long hall, and up yet another antiques elevator... The old north bell tower was in fact, no longer a bell tower. It was massive room two stories tall with nearly floor to ceiling gothic arched windows. It was also jam-packed with artifacts still in their packing crates large and small. More than a few of the smaller pieces were already ensconced in sealed cases of inch-thick, bullet-proof, safety-glass on pedestals, but there were hundreds more still draped with dust-covers.