by Brad Vance
SAM’S RELUCTANT SUBMISSION
By Brad Vance
Copyright © 2013, 2014 by the author
All rights reserved
What do you do with your last five bucks?
Sam knew what he was going to do with his, after he woke with a start from his nightmare. He’d been running through a dark forest, sensing, knowing, that some pursuer was on his heels. An animal? A man? Men? Monsters? Even asleep, his training kicked in, demanding the information he needed to assess the threat. But dreams were lousy at filling you in on the details you’d need in real life. All the dream would let him know was that something was after him, and being caught would be…so bad.
His heart racing, he scrambled through the undergrowth, his rational mind trying to tell him that everything he was doing was wrong – leaves and twigs crunching noisily under his feet, branches snapping as his hands brushed them aside…he might as well be a fucking fire truck, howling down the street.
He could hear it behind him. Breathing. Panting. Man or beast? Hard and fast and hot, and close, so close. He couldn’t turn to see it, to fight it, he couldn’t stop and pick up a rock, a branch, anything to defend himself. All he could do was run, and not fast enough.
Then there was a shout and it was on him. He was down on the ground, still no way to tell if it was man or beast on top of him. But there was this pressure…pressure on his ass, right on his asshole. He could feel it pushing apart his ass cheeks, entering him…
It was his own shout that woke him up, his own hard, fast breaths he’d heard. His hands were tangled in the sheet he’d torn off the bed. And his fucking sneaker was there in the bed, the source of the pressure on his ass as, thrashing, he’d rolled over on top of it.
“Fuck,” Sam whispered, throwing the shoe at the wall. The room was roasting hot, even with the windows wide open on the noisy city. The July heat that had been trapped all day in the tarmac was still being released into the air, and the only comfort to be had came from his nightmare sweats, cooling on his naked body.
And on top of that, he had a raging boner. And not a piss boner either. What the fuck was that about? He rolled over onto his stomach and unconsciously rubbed his hard cock against the thin, pilly sheets, the rough abrasive texture feeling almost good.
Sam flipped back over and started stroking his dick, trying not to think about why he had a hardon. He looked down at his dick, his hand pistoning up and down on it, the city light enough for him to see and admire himself.
He stood up and watched himself jack off in the cracked mirror over the sink. Still fit, still lean and hard. Big dick. This is some bullshit, that you’ve got to fucking jack yourself off instead of having some girl sucking your dick. Got to change this situation.
His foot brushed the shoe he’d thrown across the room and he picked it up. Without thinking about it, willing himself not to think about it, he rubbed the shoe on his balls, tapped them a couple times with it, felt his dick getting bigger, harder, more insistent in its demands for relief.
One night, back in the service, he and a few buddies had pulled a practical joke on another guy, a very sound sleeper. They’d tied his boots around his balls by the laces, and then faked an alert. When he jumped up and out of bed, the boots fell off the edge and snapped taut, nearly yanking his sack off.
That was hilarious, Sam thought, sitting on the edge of the bed and quickly tying the laces of his sneaker around his own balls. Then he fell back on the bed, stroking himself, thinking about the moment, the right moment, to nudge the shoe off the bed…
Big dick, he thought, big fucking dick…big fucking dick…pump it…pump it… The shoe fell on its own, the knot in the laces holding fast, and the abrupt yank on his ball sack made him yelp.
BAM! It was like someone pulled the trigger on his balls. His load shot everywhere, muscles deep inside his tight tense hard body firehosing his cum out of him. Sam flinched as a gob landed in his open panting mouth, but he was too deep into his orgasm to stop blowing his load, even as he spit the salty goo out, revolted as any straight man would be by the taste, the idea of it.
Finally, spent, Sam got up and wrapped the sheet around his waist, threw the cheap thin towel over his shoulders, and grabbed the room key. He checked his watch – just past midnight. Well, at least there wouldn’t be anyone in the shower.
He padded down the hall to the bathroom. It was dirty as usual, he thought as he flinched at the filth, wishing he had a pair of flip-flops to save his feet from the moldy floor. But at least the water was hot. That would last about five minutes, and then be cold for the next hour for anyone else who wanted a shower. Weekly hotels weren’t big on providing a lot of creature comforts.
On his way back to his room, a door creaked open. Sam kept his eyes straight ahead, knowing who, what was in there. A little drag queen who’d smiled and flirted with him his first night, and he’d smiled and flirted back, until he’d finally seen the Adam’s apple and the hint of stubble and backed off, horrified. He wished he’d put his shirt on, and he quickened his pace.
Safely back inside his room, he threw on a pair – his only pair – of jeans, a t-shirt, and the sneakers so recently touching his ass and balls. He checked his pocket again to make sure he was right. Yep, he still had the fiver. And that was it. His rent was paid for three more days, and then he’d be out on the street if he didn’t find work soon.
The dive bar on the corner was just what Sam needed. Pabst Blue Ribbon for a buck apiece. That meant that for his money, he’d get four beers after the tip. He was a big guy, six three and two hundred pounds on a well-fed day, so four beers wasn’t much to get fucked up on, but that would have to do the job. He’d been hungry lately, so there wasn’t much food in his system to get in the way of the booze, so that was good.
The bar was pretty packed, and Sam realized it was Friday night. All those fucking people with paychecks, out spending them. And a legion of hipsters who probably made fifty bucks an hour, acting like they had to live like Sam, like they had to get fucked up on one dollar beer. Sam was still, barely, in his twenties, but they made him feel a lot older.
He fought his way to the bar. Mick the bartender ignored the noisy kids and nodded at Sam. “How’s it going, Mick,” Sam asked, no need to put in his order.
Mick handed him a can, took his five, gave him four. “Busy. Some software types opened up a tab.” He poured Sam a double shot of Jack. “This one’s on them.”
Sam smiled, sliding the obligatory dollar back across the bar. “That’s nice of them.”
“Ain’t it?” Mick said, deadpan as always. Sam had the feeling the rest of his five would go to tips tonight as he got trashed on someone else’s expense account.
Even the alcohol couldn’t dim years of training, skills built over gifted instincts, when he felt a pair of eyes on him. Sam wasn’t deliberately scanning the room – he just did that as a matter of course – always, even here, on the lookout for trouble. So the pair of eyes that watched him were seen, filed, discounted…until they stayed on him.
Sam looked the guy in the eye. He was in the middle of the software kiddies, but older than the rest of them. Nice suit, no tie, nice glossy expensive shirt open an extra button to reveal a smooth, tanned chest. His dark hair was short but long enough to be gelled into a little pushup thing in the front – Sam had no idea how else to describe it. Not a pompadour, but kind of like that new Spiderman actor guy’s hair.
His face was a strange mix…rough, hard features, a craggy face but so surrounded by the high finish of grooming and styling as to offset it. One of those faces you wanted to call ugly but couldn’t, like Daniel Craig’s. This guy was a darker-haired, darker-eyed version of the
actor, but the meaty brutality was definitely there in his face, his eyes.
In a matter of seconds, Sam unconsciously processed the look he was getting from him, moving it from “curiosity” to “potential threat” before finally filing it under “creepy gay guy.”
The hipster crowd was a mix of gay and straight, kids who’d grown up not giving a shit about things like that. Sam shifted uncomfortably on his stool as he watched one of the gay couples, facing away from him, hands down the back of each other’s pants. He could still remember the pressure of the shoe on his asshole, the dream of being pushed down…
A girl he’d dated once had tried to stick her finger up his ass while he was fucking her. He’d practically levitated off the bed. “What the fuck are you doing!” he’d shouted, scaring her.
“Haven’t you ever…” She trailed off, her shock transforming into a smirk at his…what? Panic? Inexperience?
“I’m not queer,” he said, instinctively covering his privates after her assault on his ass.
“You don’t need to be queer to like your ass played with.”
He snorted. “Whatever.”
She’d shrugged. “Well, some day when your prostate finally gets touched, you’ll think of me.”
As he watched the hands go deeper down the pants, a voice startled him. “You know that’s a new relationship.”
Sam startled, cursing himself. His gaze had been so fixed on the ass-grabbers that he’d failed to realize that Spiderman Craig had sidled up next to him.
“Why’s that,” he said, politely conversational.
“They can’t keep their hands off each other.”
Sam had to smile at that. “Yeah, give it time.”
“Does it bother you?” The man’s voice was dark, warm, silky, radiating his intelligence but also a touch of underlying coolness. An invitation and a challenge in the same words.
Sam shrugged and looked away. “Different strokes for different folks. But I don’t stroke that oar.”
The man nodded and extended a hand. “Derek.”
Sam shook it. Derek’s hand surprised him. He’d expected soft office hands, maybe some gym calluses, but not the hard, rough, meaty grip he returned in kind. “Sam. These your employees?”
Derek smiled, a strange smile, as if compressing one side of his mouth tightly forced the other side up and out. “Why, do I look like the adult supervision around here?”
“Yep.”
“And so I am.” Derek signaled Mick. “Another whiskey for my friend here. Also on my tab.”
Sam flushed with embarrassment. “Sorry, man. I…” he trailed off. I what? I didn’t mean to steal your money? He was suddenly ashamed of himself, of his poverty, of what he’d let it do to him. He pulled his four ones out of his pocket. “Here, for the shot I drank on your tab.”
Derek waved it away. “It’s on me. I’d say ‘thank you for your service’ but that’s pretty lame from a civilian, isn’t it?”
Sam looked at Derek. Dude was observant, for sure. He’d noticed Sam drink a shot of whiskey without paying, and he’d marked him as ex-military, all while holding a conversation with his circle.
“How’d you know?”
“Lots of things. The square jaw. The buzz cut. The clear blue eyes. Quarterback eyes, scanning for receivers, defenders, all the time. The big build. The careful way you put on a blank and neutral face when I asked you if the gay dudes bothered you. You know, the look you put on your face when some moron of an officer is saying something moronic and you have to make damn sure your contempt and rage at his stupidity isn’t showing on your face.”
Sam looked at Derek, his turn now to be the examiner. “And you, not exactly a civilian. Ex-military yourself. Not U.S., though.”
“No? Why not?”
Sam shrugged. “You carry yourself like a European. You’re too…smooth to be American. Perfect American accent, though. Intelligence, or something. You’ve wielded a rubber hose or two.”
Now it was Derek’s turn to put on a mask, but contracting pupils don’t lie, Sam knew. He’d hit the mark.
“Very good.” Derek indicated Sam’s whiskey. “You earned it.”
Sam nodded. “Thanks.” He knocked it back and chased it with the last of his Pabst.
“Level C?” Derek asked.
Sam knew what he meant; in the context of this conversation it could only mean one thing. Sam had made it to Level C, the highest level of SERE training - Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, a level designed for those who could expect to find themselves behind enemy lines.
“Yeah,” Sam said.
“So you’re a badass.”
Sam tried to read Derek. Was he being sarcastic? The irony was, it was exactly the kind of thing they did in SERE training, trying to get a rise out of you. Sam turned to give Derek full neutral face, a look that went with a full neutral statement.
“No. I’m a fucking badass.”
Derek laughed, the trap sprung and evaded. “So are you in need of employment?”
“Maybe.” Sam braced himself for the standard offer – security work, private contractor slash mercenary, any or all of the things he’d been turning down for a year now.
“It’s out of the ordinary.”
That was a good sign. “Go on.”
“You’ve been hunted. In training, and in real life.”
“Go on.”
Derek eyed him levelly, his dark eyes betraying something deep. “I’m a hunter.”
Sam blinked. “I see.” This was weird. But weird was good right now. Weird was a lot better than the usual offers of work he got, which would mean spending 90% of his time bored as fuck and 10% getting shot at, which was what he’d sworn he wouldn’t do again, no matter what.
“Here’s the deal. I have some land I use for my hobby. You come down for a weekend. You evade me for two days, I pay you ten grand.”
It was Sam’s pupils that dilated now. Fuck yeah, he thought. He’d been good at what he did, really good. “Cash?” Robbing the tax man didn’t count as a violation of his honor code.
“Cash. There’s a catch, though. If you get caught, you have to submit to me.”
“Submit?”
“Sexually.”
Sam sighed. Fucking too good to be true, of course. Tomorrow he was going down to casual labor again. “I’m not queer.”
“No, I know. I’m not, either. It’s just a…predilection I have. Making another man, another straight man, give his mouth and ass up to me.”
Sam scowled. Yeah, he could see this guy in Intelligence, all right. The kind of guy who fucking lived for interrogations. Who got a boner from it, from the game, from the break, from the power. “And that doesn’t make you queer.”
“No.”
Sam got up. “Well, thanks for the drink.”
Derek put a hand on his forearm. “If I do catch you, it’s still a thousand bucks.”
Sam smoothly brushed Derek’s hand off. “I’m not a prostitute.”
“You’re not being paid for sex. You’re being paid to give me a chase.”
Sam laughed. “I’m being paid to give you my ass. That’s prostitution.”
“Not if you don’t get caught. You’re good enough not to get caught, aren’t you?”
Like most people who were really, truly good at something, Sam didn’t talk about how good he was. He just fucking did it and people could, or couldn’t, see for themselves. But the truth was, he was good at SERE. Really good. In the field good. And if he’d elected to stay in the military, he could have been teaching it.
What had he been looking for, since he’d left? Something. Something exciting, but not deadly. Something that didn’t require him to say “yes sir” all the fucking time to anything any idiot said. Something he was good at.
He looked at Derek again. Dude was smart, fit, observant, probably well trained. But he had that upper class thing of thinking more of himself than he had a
right to, the rich man’s way of telling himself he obviously deserved it all just because he had it. I could win, Sam thought. I would win.
“I’ll think about it,” he said.
Derek smiled, as if he’d already won. “Here’s my card. And expense money for your trip down to the site.” He caught Mick’s eye, twitched a finger at Sam and nodded. Mick nodded back. Sam was getting hammered for free tonight.
“I’ll mail the money back to you if the answer is no.”
“It won’t be,” Derek said, walking away. Sam turned the card over; folded underneath were two C-notes.
With nothing much else to think about, Sam thought about Derek’s offer as he switched to drinking shots of Johnny Walker Blue and Green, and chasing them with Stella.
He thought of something MMA fighter Chael Sonnen had said on a recent episode of The Ultimate Fighter. He was talking about that phrase, “Failure is not an option.” And Sonnen said, that’s not true – failure is always an option. Failure is the only option that’s always available. Just…give up and fail. Any time you’re ready.
But for guys like Sam, failure was not an option: the possibility of failure had been drilled and trained and starved and beaten and chased out of them. All that any failure meant was that it was time to try something else, then something else, until you were dead. Death was the only failure because then –only then – you were out of options.
But “refusing to fail” wasn’t just an act of blind will. It meant constantly thinking about the situation, constantly looking for options, the weaknesses of the enemy you could exploit. Derek’s weakness was his vanity, clearly. Sam didn’t underestimate him, no, no. But he was already starting to see the holes, the openings, he could use.
He didn’t even “think” about whether or not he was going to do this. His training had kicked in, the machinery of calculation already in play. He wouldn’t have to give up his ass, because he wasn’t going to lose.
“I’m in a meeting,” Derek snapped when Sam called him the next day.
“You’re on,” Sam said.
A pause. “I’ll call you back. Five minutes.”
