The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Karl couldn’t believe what he was seeing: a green-trimmed cottage with a front porch and tin roof, an honest-to-God white picket fence hugging the whole place together with a friendly patch of yard. Trav had said once that the house he grew up in was pretty as a picture, and so it was. Travis had also said that if things worked out, he’d find a place just like it and spend the rest of his life there. Things hadn’t worked out.

A stray leaf drifted onto Karl’s uniform. The street that ran outside Travis’ house was lined with old maples and they were beginning to shed their spring growth in the summer heat. Karl plucked the leaf off his shoulder and, just to be safe, brushed himself down until he was sure his uniform appeared as clean and sober as when he put it on earlier that morning. This kind of service demanded sobriety. He squared his jaw, straightened his shoulders, and forward-marched up the cobbled walkway to the porch stoop. Tucked against his side in his hands was a square bundle, wrapped tightly with a wispy fabric in broad red and white stripes. His delivery.

The screen door flipped open before he came up the steps. A dark-haired woman, looking to be in her mid-forties, but likely older, stepped out of the house. Her eyes looked worn and age had roughened her skin, but otherwise she kept her looks admirably well. At least she could still wear jeans comfortably. Karl’s own mother long passed the point where she could hope to wear anything without elastic.

“Oh, you must be Karl—I’m sorry—Sergeant Reynolds,” the woman who was Travis’ mother said. She had the distinctive Minnesota dialect, rounded O’s and hardened R’s. She sounded a little like Karl’s mother, though his lived in southern Illinois.

Karl was not the smiling type, but he let the corners of his mouth perk, for her sake. “Karl is fine, ma’am. Pleasure to meet you.”

“Yes, the same. I wish we could have met before…well, I’m glad you came, anyway.” Her eyes fell on the bundle under Karl’s arm. “Is that…?”

With a swift, practiced motion, Karl flipped the bundle into his hands and held it out to her. “Yes, ma’am. I put a seatbelt on it for the ride over here—didn’t want to take chances.”

“Isn’t that sweet of you,” she murmured. She took the bundle from him with trembling hands. She drew away the covering fabric and gazed at the pressed blue velvet jacket and trousers wrapped inside, a white peaked cap with a hard black brim resting on top—the dress blues of a US Marine.

She steadied her voice. “You didn’t have to go through all this trouble. Mailing it would have been fine.”

“No trouble at all, ma’am. His family deserves to keep it and it’s my honor to bring this to you in person. Trav was an outstanding Marine and a good friend.”

Her eyes watered, but she smiled. “I’m so glad to hear that. I know life in the Corps must be real tough. Mr. Buckley chalked it off, but I prayed that Travis would at least have a few buddies to look out for him. I’m just an old worrywart.” A tear slipped down her cheek before she could catch it and she took a moment to dab her eyes. Karl stood in silent sympathy.

When she recovered, she said, “Look at me, standing here boo-hooing, and leaving you standing outside. Please, come in and let me get you something to drink. It’s not even noon and it’s so hot. I can’t even imagine what the rest of the month will be like. It makes me wonder if there’s some truth to this global warming stuff.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I can’t stay long, but I appreciate the offer.” Before entering, Karl made sure to take off his own peaked cap, revealing a cropped shock of dark golden hair. Even with the hat off, he had to stoop slightly to avoid bumping his head against the top frame of the doorway.

Mrs. Buckley gave a little laugh. “Oh, see, you’re a careful one. Travis was always bumping his head, rushing in and out of the house on the drop of a dime. Rick—my husband—he hoped joining the Marines would make Travis a little steadier.”

“It did that, ma’am. A lot of people think he could have been gunnery sergeant before long. Don’t know how I feel about him outranking me, but I definitely agree he had the makings.”

Speaking of Travis in the past tense grew a lump in her throat, making her choke out as she said, “I was planning to make some lemonade before you came, but I didn’t notice we were clean out of sugar. I’m so sorry.”

“That’s alright. You don’t have to get me anything.”

“No, you’ve got to have something before you head out. We have orange juice and a few cans of 7-Up. We also have a couple bottles of this fancy German beer Mr. Buckley likes.”

“Some pop would be fine, ma’am.”

“Alright, I’ll get it for you. Please, have a seat.”

Karl sat himself on a plump sofa in the living room while Travis’ mother went into the adjoining kitchen. Beside the sofa was a round display table, on which sat a lamp and several family photos in mildly dusty frames. He was careful to take off his white gloves before picking up one of the photos. The picture showed a younger Travis, around high school age. His dark hair was shaggy—a major change from the close shave he wore after enlisting. He wore a black leather jacket over an Aerosmith T-shirt. A decorative chain hung uselessly from a belt-loop on the front of his jeans to his back pocket. He wore a tiny gold hoop in one ear. The picture was taken with him facing the sun; his eyes squinted. He had a cocky grin. A poser. Karl half-smiled; he had figured as much.

Mrs. Buckley came in holding a beaded can of 7-Up and a tall glass filled with ice-cubes. She saw Karl looking at Travis’ picture and smiled. “He looks different, doesn’t he?”

“He sure does. He must have been real popular with the girls back then.”

“Oh, he was,” she said, putting down the 7-Up and glass on a coffee table. “But he was always a gentleman. I told him he could look as shady as he wanted, as long as he didn’t act that way. He treated his girlfriends very well.”

She took the picture from Karl and gazed at it a moment. She sighed. “He loved that jacket. It used to belong to his father. He waited half his life for when he got big enough to wear it, then hardly ever took it off afterward. It’s still in his room. We kept things just as he left it.”

Karl wordlessly snapped open the 7-Up and poured it into his glass, careful to let the foam settle before pouring in more. Mrs. Buckley set the photo back on its table and sat in a lumpy couch. An awkward little silence floated between them as Karl drank his soda and wondered what to say next. Finally, he said, “Is Mr. Buckley out?”

She nodded. “Yes. He went out to buy me that sugar—I told him to hurry back before you came, but…”

Karl understood, but didn’t say anything. She went on. “Travis’ father took it very hard. They used to get along really well when Travis was a boy, but things changed a lot once he started growing up. They argued about everything under the sun. I kept telling Rick that Travis would grow out of it, but I guess Rick forgot what it’s like to be that age. He finally just threw his hands up and started ignoring Travis completely. When Travis said he wanted to join the Marines, Rick acted like he didn’t care, but I knew he was proud. He just wanted Travis to man up a little, that’s all.”

“Did things improve after Travis enlisted?”

Mrs. Buckley hesitated. “In a way. Travis was proud to be part of the Corps, but he had very strong opinions about the military and what they were doing. The problem was Rick also has a lot of strong opinions.”

Karl smiled a little. “I can guess how that went.”

“Every time Travis was on leave, he’d come home and the two of them would just go at each other. Rick took it really hard when we got the news. He was just so proud, even though he never said it. I wish he was home for you to give this to him. He’d have been so proud.”

She picked up the bundle of Travis’ dress uniform, still swaddled in the striped fabric. She ran her hand down the soft material of the jacket. “Travis wore this like a prince when he was home. I told him he shouldn’t wear it except for special occasions, but he kept saying he earned the right to decide when was a special occasion.”

Karl chuckled. “Sounds like Trav.”

“This is my first time looking at it up close. You know, he wouldn’t let me take it to the dry-cleaner’s or even wash it for him. He was a little finicky about his clothes.”

“I think if it was possible, he would keep his combat uniform pressed,” Karl told her. “The guy liked to look sharp. He was a detail-oriented soldier. That’s what made him so good.”

Mrs. Buckley didn’t seem to hear; she was examining the uniform very closely. “There’s so much detail to these things,” she observed. “It takes a lot of gumption to put in all these flourishes where no one can see them.”

Karl frowned. “I never noticed. Like what?”

“Look, right here—they even put etchings on the back of the buttons.” She handed him the jacket.

Karl twisted a button slightly and sure enough, on the back was etched an obscure icon he’d never seen before: a chain of three overlapping triangles bound by a circle. Two of the triangles stood side by side, so their baselines formed a straight line. The third triangle was placed behind them in such a way that its baseline ran between them, drawing a line between their centers. The circle intersected the left point of the triangle on the left, the right point of the triangle on the right, and the top point of the triangle in the center.

A quick examination showed that all the other buttons had the same etching. When he checked the buttons on his own uniform, he found their backs all undecorated. It was a disturbing discovery; alterations to a uniform were strictly prohibited except to improve their fit. He was sure that even these unobtrusive decorations would result in a major reprimand—if they were ever noticed.

“They even sewed it on the inside of the cap,” Travis’ mother said, fascinated. “And etched behind the belt buckle. I’ve never seen this logo before. What does it mean?”

Karl kept his tone collected as he answered, “I’m afraid I can’t say, ma’am. I never paid much attention to the design of our uniforms. I can’t even tell you why some of these medals are shaped the way they are.” He gestured to the row of medals hanging on the left breast of his jacket.

“Travis loves this kind of thing. He’d be able to tell us…” She stopped and put her hand to her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Quite alright, ma’am.” Karl handed back the jacket and stood up. He put his glove back on. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Mrs. Buckley, but I’ve got to take off now. It’s a long way back to Missouri.”

She stood up as well, looking a little anxious. “Are you sure you won’t wait until Mr. Buckley gets back? I’m sure he really wants to meet you.”

“Maybe I can visit again sometime. It’s the least I can do.”

She smiled. “I’d be glad to have you come by, anytime. Maybe you can tell us some stories about what Travis got up to in the Corps.”

“It’d be my pleasure, ma’am,” Karl said as he stooped out the door, replacing his cap on his head once he cleared the welcome mat. He strode down the porch and walkway toward his car. Just as he reached the picket-gate, he turned around smartly and faced Mrs. Buckley, who watched him from the porch. He brought his hand up to his cap in a perfect salute. She nodded at the gesture, and fluttered her hand in response. She watched as he got in his car, a navy-blue Ford sedan, and pulled away from the curb, sliding through the dappled shade of the maple-lined avenue before leaving her line of sight.

Driving back to the fort took over nine hours, after Karl had gone back to his motel room to change and check out. The road trip afforded him plenty of time to reflect over some troubling thoughts, which he did for nearly the whole length down Iowa.

Karl and Travis enlisted at nearly the same time when they were seventeen and went through training together. Travis’ good humor was a stark contrast to Karl’s stoicism and although later their talents separated them into different specialties, they were rivals in nearly all their classes. Truthfully, they would have been outstanding enemies, but life throws these curveballs from time to time. If you asked Karl how they became friends, he’d probably say Trav was the only guy who could make him laugh. Travis would have said Karl was the only guy who took him seriously.

They were both assigned to the same unit that was sent overseas to the Middle East. Even though the operation’s success as a whole was still up in the air, Karl and Travis had been praised for their work. Travis’ outstanding familiarity with weapons made him an ideal candidate at the front lines, while Karl’s investigative abilities uncovered and preempted a number of terrorism threats. Karl’s work happened to catch the eyes of the right superiors and he earned his promotion at the relatively young age of twenty-six. No doubt Travis would have had his own sergeant’s rank before long, had he not been caught in the launch of a thump gun fired from one of the many desert caves dotting the region.

Karl would have confidently said that he knew Trav better than anyone, the way only military comrades could know each other. Today’s events made him uncertain of the truthfulness of that statement. He always had a good sense for secrets, and the icons inscribed in out-of-sight places all over Trav’s uniform reeked of something fishy. For one, Karl hadn’t recognized them. That in itself was cause for suspicion as Karl’s work encouraged him to be as aware of any kind of foreign symbol and its meaning. Second, the fact that the icons had been laced throughout the uniform indicated some kind of comment or connection to the military, Marines or otherwise. Karl’s first instinct was to chalk the icons as some form of protest, but considering their hidden nature, this possibility was unlikely.

Besides, Trav wasn’t the protesting type; if there was a problem, he laughed it off. Karl hadn’t been there when Trav died, but the others on site said that at the end, he managed to cough out, “There’s something I got to say before it’s too late—I am really—Dick Whitman.” And with his last breath, he chuckled, and died. When they told this story to him, it seemed so at once ridiculous and grim and in tune with who Travis was that Karl couldn’t help cracking a smile. Like he’d say, Trav was the only guy who could make him laugh.

So Karl wasn’t convinced the mystery icons had any bad meaning, but he felt they weren’t some obscure prank. Trav was a jokester, but he didn’t mess around when it came to his vocation. If something drove Travis to place all those icons in his own uniform, then his motivations, whatever they were, had serious implications.

That night Karl got back to his room at base tired out. He had forgotten how long it takes to drive between states; he had forgotten how massive the United States actually is. Besides a brief midway stop in Des Moines for a late lunch, he had driven the entire time. He thought about giving Sarah a call, but decided against it. He wasn’t much of a talker—a fact he knew bothered Sarah, though she never complained—and he wasn’t in the right state of mind to humor her with conversation. Maybe he’d call her the next day.

One of the best perks of achieving his sergeant’s rank was getting his own room. Growing up an only child, he’d been used to having a room to himself. But more than that, he was used to keeping to himself. Karl was the kind of man for whom company brushed up against his life briefly, but never stayed in contact long. His standoffish nature lent him an air of mystery when he was in high school; his athleticism and good looks did the rest to make him irresistibly appealing. He could easily have been the most popular guy at school had he cared enough—but he didn’t.

The truth was teenage Karl had been as pragmatic as adult Karl was now, meaning he had no interest in developing relationships that didn’t fulfill his needs in some way. He wasn’t unfriendly, but it was easy to see that he had no use for most people. He made friends so he could have people to do things with in his free time. He met and dated girls as an outlet for his growing hormones. He wasn’t a sex hound, and he treated his girlfriends well, but once their demand for emotional intimacy went past what he had in supply, he had no hesitation in ending the relationship.

Sarah lasted far longer than all the others—nearly three years now—because she didn’t badger him for romance and she was hassle-free. Almost as if rewarding her, Karl occasionally treated her to occasional moments of closeness: revealing a childhood memory, asking about her day, joking in his awkward way, saying what he thought without being prompted. Sarah received these attentions with pleasure, and when she smiled there were times when Karl felt she understood him better than anyone.

Anyone besides his fellow Marines. In a strange twist, being part of the Corps opened Karl up to the people around him far more than civilian life ever did. Maybe it was meeting people who were nearly as practical and focused as he was. It could have been that living day in and day out with the same people in rough conditions left him no choice but to get to know them. Or maybe it was the fact that if you want to survive in the Marines, it’s better not to close yourself off to the people who will be watching your back. Whatever it was, Karl got closer to his comrades than to people in his own family, and Travis most of all.

Before he fell asleep, Karl became certain of one thing; if there was some message to the things Travis left behind, then it was Karl’s duty to find it out and deliver it. Semper fidelis.

The first step was of course to identify the symbol inscribed throughout Travis’ dress uniform, a task which proved to be somewhat tougher than it appeared. Google turned up nothing promising; though there were many symbols which used the same basic geometric shapes, none of them looked exactly like the ones Karl had discovered. This absence from the public domain indicated several troubling possibilities: either the mystery symbol was so new—even original—that it had never been seen or identified before; or its origins so ancient and obscure that it became forgotten; or that it belonged to an association so covert that its meaning had never been revealed.

The last possibility disturbed Karl the most. Travis? A member of some cult? The idea was hard to conceive, but could not be discarded. It was also the theory that had the most at stake. If there was some organization behind the symbol, and the symbol had been inscribed onto a military uniform, then the implication was pretty clear. Some group had infiltrated the Marines.

Karl’s brain clipped along at a steady pace, building up scenarios, breaking them down, synthesizing the hypotheses that made the most sense. If there was some unknown group at work, then what was their objective? How could an unranked Marine, even a talented on, serve that objective? Was the objective intended to undermine the Marines, the military at large, or the nation in any way? Was the group foreign or domestic? Was there even a possibility that the group was friendly, a government agency meant to kept secret from the other military divisions? Such groups did exist, Karl knew, although obviously no one knew what they were, who belonged to them, or what they did.

And then there was the matter of Travis’ death. Was there a connection? If this supposed group had in reality damaging intentions, could Travis have been a dupe that was found out and subsequently killed? This theory held the most danger because it indicated that the group was capable of orchestrating events even in foreign territories using terrorists as agents.

Still, all of this was just speculation. And Karl knew that there was the remote possibility that the symbol had no meaning for anyone other than Travis. To confirm the truth, he needed to apply more diligence to his investigation—but carefully. He couldn’t exactly ask the questions he needed to outright without drawing attention to himself. It was an interesting situation he was finding himself in. He had never hesitated to ask hard questions before, when the matter involved terrorists. With his friend involved, he had to come at the subject from obtuse angles. And he’d have to pick the right people to ask.

The nerd of Karl’s former unit, Colin Hagstrom, was a Missouri native and head engineer of all the advanced weapons and communication systems. He’d been a mediocre performer during physical training, but took off when he made contact with machines. Out in the field, he had intercepted several communiqués between enemy collectives, which proved instrumental to the success of Karl’s operations. Had Colin followed his true calling, he probably would have been working in the CIA, FBI, or NSA coding and decoding government intelligence. Most likely he would work for one of the agencies someday. But for the time being, he worked at the fort, training students in operating the tech that gave the country its biggest leg up on its enemies.

After coming back from overseas, Karl could have taken some leave, but he took up an offer to train students through military policing to pass the time before his next departure. To be honest, he didn’t know if he had the stomach to handle so much free time, with nothing to do except visit his mother, hang around with Sarah, and attempt a few awkward reunions with old acquaintances.

Working with trainees allowed him an opportunity to make contact with Colin, another kidder, usually the wry companion to Travis’ more frenetic jokes. Colin looked the former bookworm. There was a very slight softness to his facial features which indicated how much more time he spent thinking than exercising, although the strength of his jaw and rigidness of his wiry frame proved otherwise. Unlike Karl, he kept his brown hair shaved close, which actually made him look more the soldier than Karl did, at least from first glance. Colin’s intelligence was given away by his rimless and rectangular glasses, which he wore off the field.

He was a little surprised when Karl approached him after his morning class and asked if he wanted to grab some food off-base. Overseas, they worked together regularly, but their contact never became social. But Karl sounded very natural in his invitation. “Figure we could use a break from the ready-made stuff.”

Colin readily agreed. The meals at the fort weren’t so bad, but he couldn’t eat them without being reminded of the cafeteria food he ate in middle school. After three straight hours lecturing on the interaction between high-frequency sonics and electroencephalography, some real sustenance sounded promising.

There weren’t many establishments in the area, considering the fort was the center of activity, but Karl and Colin knew of a reputable diner nearby that other soldiers went to when their loved ones visited, or when they just needed to get some real food. Karl asked for a back corner booth, away from the rest of the hubbub. After they ordered, there was a moment of awkwardness, where neither knew what to say. Finally, Colin drawled, “So—you been watchin’ Mad Men lately? I like that Don Draper—he looks like a cartoon pilot.”

Karl smiled. “Sounds like something Trav would say.”

“Yeah. Good thing he’s not around or he’d shoot me for poachin’ his material.”

“You guys made one heck of a two-man show.”

“You mean our strippin’, right? Personally, I felt our comedy had a lot more going for it, but Trav really liked the skimpy outfits. Said it made him feel fancy.”

This actually made Karl laugh. Then he said, “I’ll be straight with you. I want to talk to you about Trav actually.”

“Uh-huh. Say, you went to his mama’s place yesterday, didn’t ya?”

“Yeah.”

“How’d that go?”

“She took it on the chin like a good soldier’s mother would. The dad wasn’t around; guess he didn’t want to see me.”

“Trav always told me he and his daddy didn’t get along. They didn’t see eye-to-eye on ‘issues,’” Colin said, crossing his arms. “I’d guess the old man has some stuff he wishes he can unsay.”

Karl shrugged. “He can’t now.”

“Nope.” Colin waited a moment, then asked, “Alright, so what all about Trav did you wanna talk about?”

Karl had planned ahead exactly how he would go about his questioning, so his delivery was smooth as he asked, “Did you ever get the feeling there was something about him he never let on?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m just throwing this out there, but sometimes he’d act like he wanted to tell me something, then clammed up. Never pushed him to tell me—figured he’d let me know on his own time—but…I guess he ran out of time.”

Colin’s expression was difficult to read, and his tone gave away nothing. “Sounds pretty vague. You sure you weren’t imagining it?”

Karl acted nonchalant. “Maybe I was. I got nothing to go on. But it hits me like unfinished business.”

“I can imagine.”

Karl took a sip from the glass of ice-water their waitress brought earlier. “You ever got that sense from him?”

“Well,” Colin said slowly, “Trav was a complicated guy. He was a real kidder, but he could be dead-serious about particular things. I don’t know if any of us knew what was going on in that man’s brain.”

“Right.”

Their waitress came over and set two steaming platters in front of them. Karl had gone for a burger and fries, but Colin was a breakfast man; he’d gotten the country works: biscuits, fried-steak, potatoes, and gray. Once she left, the two men worked on seasoning their food; a big dollop of mustard on Karl’s burger—he hated catsup—and salt and pepper over everything for Colin.

Once they were well underway with eating, Karl ventured, “Anyway, it’s been on my mind for a while, so if you can think of anything, I’d appreciate knowing.”

Colin cut another strip off his steak. “Is that an order, Sir?” he asked, grinning.

“It’s not an order,” Karl told him. “I don’t like things open-ended. If there was something on his mind he never got to tell me, I’d like to know it and close the file on the whole deal. That’s all.”

As Karl took a bite of his burger, Colin looked him over, as if sizing him up. “It’s really botherin’ you, huh?”

Karl finished chewing before saying, “Never had any siblings. Trav was about the closest I got—pissed me off, but always had my back. If there’s something I can do for him now that he can’t…”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Colin spooned up a few more bites, then looked up. “Hey, I think there’s somethin’ he did want you to do.”

Karl remained cool. “What?”

Colin sighed and leaned back. Deadpan, he said, “Well, it’s hard for me to say this. But I think Trav would have really liked it if you could have sucked his dick.”

There was a frozen moment, neither man reacting. Then Colin burst out laughing. “Oh, man! Shoulda seen your face—Trav would have loved it.”

Karl looked at him incredulously, then let out a laugh. “That is fucked up. That is really fucked up.”

“Hell, I know that,” Colin said. “But you got to admit, that was what Trav was all about. He loved messin’ with you.”

“That he did.”

Colin laughed again. “Damn, that was a good one.” When he sobered up, he said, “Tell you what—I’ll think on it some, and if anything occurs to me, I’ll let you know.”

Karl nodded. “I’d appreciate that.”

They went on eating. After another moment, Colin chuckled. “Wish I could have taken a picture. The Terminator—open-mouthed.”

“Shut the fuck up.” But Karl was half-smiling.

After the lunch conversation with Colin went nowhere, Karl didn’t have time to consider his next steps. He was too busy working with the trainees, prepping them to take the place of the boys overseas. A lot of it involved lecture, which he was still getting the hang of, but it was interesting, trying to explain the mechanics of making good tactical decisions in pressured situations. It was something that came naturally to him; it had never occurred to him before he started this that it was something that could be taught.

When he got back to his room, he checked his phone for messages. He usually kept it silent on the job. Sarah had left a voicemail, asking him to call back when he got the chance. Karl decided he’d put it off long enough. He called her as he got changed.

“Hey there, stranger.” Her voice sounded tinny over the phone; reception was always poor around the base.

“Hey, yourself.” Karl unbuttoned his shirt and slid himself out, revealing a broad, angular torso. Even in the weak light of his room the shadows amidst the rugged crests of his muscles were sharply defined. He’d been solid as a teenager, but years of exercise and rations trimmed away even the little fat he had to leave him built like a stone wall, his pecs broad plateaus on his upper chest, his abs cobblestoned below. His skin was flawless; working out in the Missouri sun had warmed its tone so the fine trail of blond hair that ran down his chest glinted, and unlike most of his comrades, he had no tattoos. His biceps were well-rounded, just enough to slightly stretch the sleeves of everything he wore, but didn’t appear bulky. If his front was a stone wall, then his back was the face of a wind-sheared cliff, eroded smooth except for a defined line down the middle.

Sarah hadn’t seen Karl for about three months, but she could still remember all these details of his body as if they’d met yesterday. They weren’t things a woman forgot easily. “How did things go yesterday?” she asked.

Karl hung up his shirt. “About as expected. The mother took it pretty well, all things considering.”

“Really? I can’t imagine it. I guess she must have been trying to keep it together while you were there. That was sweet of you, driving all that way.”

“Just doing my duty.” He unbuckled his belt.

“Even so, I’m sure she appreciated you doing that for her son. Did she talk about him at all?”

Karl unbuttoned the top of his pants, slipped down the zipper, then sat on the edge of his bed. “She did, some, but I had to drive back, so I didn’t stay long.”

“Oh. Did you get to meet his dad?”

“No.” Karl pressed his phone to his ear using his shoulder, then pulled off his pants, revealing trim hips set atop strapping thighs. His calves were powerful bundles of muscle accented by stray blond hair. He wore snow-white cotton briefs which concealed his package, but gave away its formidable size and girth by a pronounced bulge. The bottoms of his briefs tucked neatly beneath the solid mounds of his ass. “I think he wanted to avoid me.”

“That’s understandable,” Sarah said. There was a brief silence as she struggled to continue the conversation. “You know, it’s really sad I never got to meet Travis. I think I would have liked him.”

“What makes you say that?” Karl picked his pants off the floor and these, too, he hung up in his closet, smoothing out the creases on their legs.

“Just from the way you described him. I think it’s funny that you got along so well with a guy who messed around so much. I don’t know—you seem like you’d avoid that type.”

Karl never knew what to say to these presumptions of hers. Did she expect a confirmation or denial? He usually fielded these kinds of comments by deflecting them back at her, which he did now. “Do I come across that way?”

The embarrassment was clear in her voice as she quickly replied, “Just that—you’re always so serious, and you like to be focused. But I’m glad to know you kept around someone to make you laugh. You must really miss him.”

Emotional territory. Karl didn’t feel like venturing there. He went to his desk, where he kept his laptop, pulled out the straight-backed chair and settled himself down, not bothering to put on his sleeping clothes. It was pretty damn hot for June, after all. He pressed the power button and watched his computer screen flare alive, outshining the dim lighting in his room. “Anyway,” he said, “what have you been up to?”

The subject change didn’t pass Sarah, but she went with it. “I’m starting to wonder if our education system is ever going to pick itself back up again. Everything’s screwed up. Oh, I have to tell you—they’re going to make the teachers do traffic duty next year.”

His home screen appeared, the clock widget reading at “9:37.” Karl immediately opened up his organizer to tackle his email. He never got much, but he hated having them fester in his inbox. “Let me guess—they’re not paying you any extra.”

“Yeah, right. The admin was already making me stay after school an extra three hours for tutoring—not like the kids ever show up—and that’s unpaid, too. I should have known better than to work for a charter school.”

“A job’s a job.” Karl scrolled through the contents of his inbox and his eyes lighted on an email addressed from Colin. He read the subject line: “something Trav read a lot”. Karl immediately double-clicked it open. He thought he heard a frail whine coming from his laptop speakers and carefully moved his phone back. Sometimes the satellite reception caused his speakers to sound static, but he’d never heard it whine like this before. On the other hand, the moment he moved his phone back the sound disappeared. He shook his head; even with all the technological advances he saw at work in the military day after day, they still couldn’t eliminate the little annoyances from simple physics.

“I know,” Sarah said in response to Karl’s blasé comment. She knew Karl wouldn’t have much sympathy for her work complaints. Well, what can you expect from a man who put his life on the line with his profession? Unpaid traffic duty must seem like a bonus in comparison. Even so, she couldn’t help continuing, “I just wish I could tell if this is all going to be worth it somewhere down the line. It’s hard struggling through every day, trying to hold on to your ideals, and wandering if your ideals are even worth struggling for.”

Karl wasn’t listening. His attention was fixed on the top of Colin’s email, which sported a circle inscribed with a linked triple-triangle. The mystery symbol on Travis’ uniform. A long block of text ran below the symbol.

“In the day I only hope eagerly he rambles,

Yet he, twixt hating each naked beat

Rushing in his aching, enslaved will—

Stigmatist of libido, vain heat, mason of joy gone wild—c And wooing urgers of cyclic forced cruelty,

Meets only for obscured romps, to be hidden carnally.

Why?

He adheres to laws in anguished ethic.”

The form and language of it was like poetry, but of a bizarre kind. Karl knew nothing of rhythm or meter, but this was like no poem he had ever seen before. It didn’t read smoothly; there was no pattern of rise and fall to the words. The choice of language unnerved him; it was almost effeminate. It was hard to believe that Travis read stuff like this. Harder still was figuring out the connection to the symbol in question. Karl reread the poem to see if he was missing something.

“In the day I only hope eagerly he rambles,

Yet he, twixt hating each naked beat

Rushing in his aching, enslaved will—

Stigmatist of libido, vain heat, mason of joy gone wild—

And wooing urgers of cyclic forced cruelty,

Meets only for obscured romps, to be hidden carnally.

Why?

He adheres to laws in anguished ethic.”

Karl tried to parse the words carefully, but he was a little distracted. Sarah was still speaking, so snarled up in her thoughts that she wasn’t even really talking to him anymore. “This whole summer I’m having tutorials for all the at-risk kids. I know it’s necessary, but God it’s a nightmare trying to manage them without going completely bonkers. I’m sacrificing my time and energy to help them, and so many of them act like I’m doing the opposite. They just want to be left alone. But once you leave them alone, they dig themselves even deeper in trouble. It’s just a cycle of frustration.”

“Mm-hm,” Karl mumbled. The steady sound of her voice seemed to make him sleepy. Karl shook off his slight drowsiness. Instead, he refocused his attention on the words before him, trying to make some kind of sense out of them.

“In the day I only hope eagerly he rambles,

Yet he, twixt hating each naked beat

Rushing in his aching, enslaved will—

Stigmatist of libido, vain heat, mason of joy gone wild—

And wooing urgers of cyclic forced cruelty,

Meets only for obscured romps, to be hidden carnally.

Why?

He adheres to laws in anguished ethic.”

“It’d be nice if I could get a little support from the people I’m working for—just some acknowledgement that I’m making a difference. And not just because I’m a teacher and that’s what I’m supposed to do. You know, I’m an individual; I should be appreciated for who I am…”

The more Karl focused on the words on the screen, the less he heard of those being spoken. Sarah’s voice seemed to languish as Karl applied more attention to the poem. The lines now became fixed in his mind, even as he felt himself tiring. His eyes tripped over the words; sometimes he found himself losing his train of thought midway through reading a line, and he would have to backtrack to the beginning. At times, just when he thought he was getting the faintest dawn of understanding from the poem, he’d lose it, and in frustration he forced himself to start over. Soon the lines became so familiar to him that he was anticipating them before his eyes could catch up. He began to mouth the words—not quite reading aloud, but allowing his breath to escape in little sounds that had the vaguest resemblance to words.

“In the day I only hope eagerly he rambles,

Yet he, twixt hating each naked beat

Rushing in his aching, enslaved will—

Stigmatist of libido, vain heat, mason of joy gone wild—”

Karl’s eyes drifted shut—but just for a moment. Abruptly, he shook himself awake, rubbing his eyes, feeling slightly dazed. He shoulder ached a little and he realized that he was still holding his phone to his ear, only it was silent. The battery had run out. These touchscreen phones are slick, but they don’t have juice in them worth beans, he thought. He felt a little bad about dropping Sarah’s call, particularly since she seemed to be needing some comfort from him, but now he was too sleepy to do anything about it. He’d call her in the morning.

As for the email Colin sent—well, Karl had read it enough times to memorize it, but it still meant nothing to him. He’d let it sit a spell and maybe discuss it with Colin later, especially where that symbol was concerned. He shut down his computer without seeing that his clock now read “12:00.”

Karl got up and stretched, feeling his body relax as a dozen little cricks in his muscles released their tension and smoothed out. He massaged his face with his big hands and scrubbed his hair a little. He didn’t notice that on his underwear, a noticeable damp spot had appeared, a little way down toward his left thigh, where the lengthy bulge of his penis was stretched tight beneath the white cotton.

He flicked off the light, and in the pale darkness slid into his bed. He had come to learn that mental work was frequently more draining than hours of exercise. He couldn’t remember the last time he was so eager for sleep. He kept the covers off; even this late at night, it was warm and stuffy. Almost immediately after his head sunk into the plushness of his pillow, he drifted off.

Karl woke with a start. He didn’t get up, but his eyes flicked about the room. The light of a half-moon entered through a little window to the side of his bed, and gave his surroundings a sickly pale light. He couldn’t tell what it was exactly that woke him. He felt like he had heard some strange sound, but he couldn’t recall what the sound was nor what it sounded like. He listened intently in the dark. He didn’t know why, but he felt like he was straining to be aware of something just beyond his reach.

After a few minutes passed with only silence greeting him, Karl gave up. Slowly he relaxed and allowed his eyes to stutter shut. His breathing grew steady.

In an instant, there was a sharp series of noises, of quick shuffling movement. Karl had enough time to let his eyes pop open just before something soft and bulky jammed into his mouth so tightly that his yells escaped only as the barest wisps of air around it. At the same time, he saw the large shadows of human figures looming over him, and just as his limbs sprang into reflexive action, they were caught and pinned down to the bed. He could feel a pair of powerful hands exerting all their strength down upon each of his wrists and legs. He attempted to break free by relaxing for an instant and then releasing all his strength into one sudden movement, but his captors held tight; they knew his tricks.

As Karl continued to struggle, he was able to make out through the gloom five men, all well-built, though their size and musculature varied. His eyes widened when he saw that all five men were nearly stark-naked, except for a stunning variety of wear that served only to emphasize rather than conceal their nakedness: vests and tanks made so they never covered the torso in its entirety, revealing sweeping broad shoulders, trails of chest hair, and ridges of abs; harnesses whose straps clung to the definitions between their muscles, as powerful and pronounced—if not more so—than his; pants and shorts cut even shorter with essential pieces removed, exposing firm, round butt cheeks, engorged penises, hairy trunks of thighs and calves.

Each man’s face was concealed by a mask that wrapped entirely over and around their heads, leaving slits only for their eyes and mouths. The material of their clothing—if you could call it that—gleamed slick and black even in the pale moonlight filtering through the window. Each of their movements was accompanied by a chatter of quiet squeaks, like handling an overfull balloon.

Four of the men concentrated on holding Karl down. One kept his hand pressed against the rolled hand-towel stuffed in Karl’s mouth. This one seemed to be the leader; he wasn’t the biggest or tallest of the group, but he exuded the most confidence, and unlike the others, his face-mask was scarlet rather than black. He stood away from the window, allowing the dim light to wash over him, revealing a chest built like the others, covered with dark hair. His skin seemed just slightly aged; it wasn’t perfectly smooth, but had a texture so fine that its roughness wasn’t obvious. Beneath his right pec was the shiny skin of an old scar coming down nearly to his hip, around which he wore black leather chaps. The chaps were missing a covering for his groin, freeing his penis, seven-inches, to dangle between his legs. Karl couldn’t see, but he could safely assume that the chaps were missing a covering for his ass too. He wore an elaborate black harness, at least six straps framing his expansive chest, each of them hooked to a metal ring set squarely in the middle of where his pecs and abs met. Karl saw that inside the metal ring was a fused piece of metal shaped like three interlocking triangles. A quick scan showed that all the men had the symbol emblazoned on the foreheads of their masks, and some of the men wore it prominently on various parts of their outfits.

The leader saw the recognition in Karl’s eyes. “That’s right, soldier,” he said. His voice was rich and husky. “The very same one. I guess you noticed it delivering Trav’s old dress blues—am I right?”

Karl glared at him and made no attempt to speak. The leader laughed. “You’re just like he said—the strong, silent type.” He leaned over the bed so that he and Karl were face to face. “Well, you know something? I happen to love your type the most. Guys like you are so much fun to break in.”

Karl tried to veer his head away, but the man still had his hand firmly pressed on Karl’s face, preventing him from moving. The leader chuckled, and straightened up.

“To be ‘straight’ with you though,” the leader began. He added a hint of mockery to the word “straight,” a shift in tone that did not escape Karl, despite the pressure of his predicament. “We normally wouldn’t have anything to do with you. You’re a stand-up officer, and as far as I’m concerned, our cause has nothing to worry about from you.”

Karl eased off his struggles to focus his attention on what the leader was saying. The leader noticed this and grinned. “I can see you’re interested. Well, it’s too bad. I’ve got nothing to tell you—for now.”

With one swift motion, he crouched down so his face was level to Karl’s head. He drew in close enough to let his murmur roll off his tongue and feel warm and moist in Karl’s ear. “Just know this: we’ve got our eyes on you. You’d be real smart to keep what you know to yourself. I’m not forcing you—we don’t believe in that. But I’ll have you know we can be very persuasive when we want to be.”

Karl attempted to turn his head, away from the leader’s invading breath. The leader kept one hand pressed against Karl’s mouth and used his other arm to wrap around Karl’s head, reining it in so that Karl’s hair brushed against the blade of the leader’s nose. Karl felt mildly chapped and plump lips press into the nook of his ear.

The leader said softly, “‘If there’s something I can do for him now that he can’t—’” He let the familiar words sink in before continuing, “Very interesting offer. I doubt you really had a handle on what that kind of promise entails, but it’s tempting, regardless. You see, we were just heartbroken when Trav died. Those were some big shoes he left to fill. I don’t know if you’re man enough to do it, but just in case…”

Karl’s instinct for danger kicked in and he prepared to make one all-in attempt to break free, but before he could, the leader said,

“I do hereby extend this invitation to join our circle of brotherly delight.”

It wasn’t said loudly, nor with much emphasis, but somehow the sentence seemed to ring in Karl’s head, filling his mind’s eye until it became the only thing he could think about. He thought he could hear a faint noise on the edge of his senses, growing louder and louder until it became a humming whine in his ears. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to clench his jaw, but the towel still stuffed in his mouth got in the way. His hands tightened into his fists, and even his toes curled. It looked almost as if his body was imploding upon itself.

Then, with a shudder, every muscle in Karl’s body lost its tension like a deflating balloon. His head tipped back onto his pillow. His eyes flickered open and shut rapidly, and when they remained open long enough, it could be seen that they were glazed over, not really focused on anything in particular. His breathing grew suddenly regular.

The leader stood up. “I’m impressed. No complications this time.”

“Looks that way,” said one of the other men, the one who wore a smoky, almost lacy, rubber singlet cut to expose his rock-hard abs, which were even more impressive than Karl’s. He and the other men released their hold on Karl’s arms and legs and stood to their feet, their hands behind their back—at attention.

The leader gestured to the towel he still pressed into Karl’s mouth. “Is it safe to get rid of this?”

His look was directed toward another one of the men. He wore a simpler harness than the leader’s; its largest strap ran straight across his chest, right beneath the shadow of his pecs. He wore latex briefs so tight it looked as if it had been poured on and set around his package. As he turned to face the leader, he revealed that the briefs didn’t cover, but framed the spheres of his ass. A small, circular black pad popped out between the cheeks, the kind end of a butt plug.

“Yes, Sir,” he addressed the leader. “As long as this—” He held up a small device that had the appearance of a remote, but was smoothly triangular and had a flashing neon-blue light at its tip. “—is runnin’, he’ll be down for a while.”

“Fantastic. This is so much easier than the old days, I’ll tell you that.” The leader removed the rolled towel from Karl’s face, but Karl’s jaw remained slack, his mouth left slightly ajar. “Damn. He is really out. Too bad you can’t patent that thing; it’s a goddam miracle-worker. It beats an iPhone any day of the week.”

The leader tossed aside the towel. Another man caught it. He had the least covering of all. He wore leather straps belted around the bulges of his biceps, and another belted strap around his neck, like a collar. The same symbol imprinted on his mask dangled as a metal tag from the collar. His privates were contained in a leather pouch whose straps ran under his groin to nestle within the crack of his butt, like a thong. He brought the towel, which was slightly damp, to his face and took a deep whiff.

The leader looked amused. “Troy, I don’t know what about that turns you on, but I’m glad that for you, at least, tonight hasn’t been a total waste of time. You’ve got PE first thing tomorrow, don’t you?”

Troy lifted his face and smiled. “I’ll be fine now.”

The leader chuckled. “Alright. Now about this guy…” He placed his hands on his hips and crouched over Karl’s motionless form.

The man holding the flashing device spoke up, uncertainness in his voice. “Sir?”

“Relax, Hagstrom, I’m not taking him all the way in—not tonight, anyway. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. I’m just laying some groundwork for any future interest your friend might have with our group.”

One of the men, who had been fidgeting this whole time, spoke up. “Sir, maybe we should reconsider.” He wore leather suspenders stretching down both sides of his chest to attach to a tight ring of rubber around his waist. With certain movements, the rubber pulled up above what looked like rubber capri pants, whose lengths came just short of his knees. The pants had a small slit in the front to allow his penis to poke out, hanging flaccid. His bearing and posture was the most formal of all the men present, and he was also the tallest.

The leader began to look impatient. “Are you still going on about Brenner? He won’t be bothering us anymore; you took care of that yourself.”

“Yes, Sir. But the context is different. They discharged him because he was one crazy guy. If they get another one coming to them with the same story, they’ll be obligated to investigate. We’re not that well-covered, Sir. The chances of discovery are significant. I recommend we do what we can to shut down what Sergeant Reynolds knows and proceed to erase our traces.”

The leader sighed and walked over to the suspendered man. As tall as he was, the leader was still short the other man’s height by around two inches. The leader came from behind and wrapped one arm around the other’s shoulders so his hand fingered one of the suspender straps. The other man remained still, and his posture never faltered, but through the slits in his mask his eyes could be seen shutting in contentment.

“You think too much, Stan,” the leader murmured into his neck. “That’s okay—that’s why we keep you around. But it’ll all be taken care of, you understand me?”

Stan took a pause before answering, eyes still shut, “Yes, Sir.”

“In the meantime,” the leader continued, bringing his hand down to massage Stan’s pec, grasping the big muscle and squeezing it, “you can just relax and let us take care of things, alright?” He took Stan’s nipple and tweaked it between his thumb and forefinger. “You hear me?”

Stan’s body began to slightly tremble. He gave a shuddering sigh. “Yes, Sir.” His contentment was so thick in his voice that he sounded nearly sleepy. His penis began to stir and lengthen.

The leader noticed the activity below Stan’s waist and smiled. He brought his other hand down to grab Stan’s dick. Stan’s trembling grew visible and he arched his head back. The leader began running his hand slowly up and down the length of the penis while continuing to massage and tweak Stan’s pecs and nipples. He spoke again. “Brenner was a special case. We’d never tried anything like that before. Our methods were downright primitive then, until we got Hagstrom here to bring us up to date.” He nodded toward the flashing device Colin held in his hand.

Stan’s dick was completely erect now, stiffening up in a slight arch, a pulsing six inches. The leader continued his stroke, circling his thumb over the juicy head as pre-cum began to leak in droplets from the slit. “We’ve got everything covered this time,” he said reassuringly. “So quit being so uptight. That’s not what we’re about—you remember that.”

By this point, it was clear that Stan was only half-listening, if at all. He managed to mumble a garbled “Uh-huh,” but was lost soon after. Even after the leader removed his hands from his body, Stan continued to massage his chest and rub his penis slowly, relishing every movement.

The leader laughed. “He’s just a softie inside. Joining us was the best choice he ever made. He would’ve been such a pretentious prick otherwise.”

The other men were all smiling at their companion, reduced to giving into his urges.

The leader proceeded to Karl and once again lowered himself so he was level with Karl’s prone head. “He’s just like this one. Well, he’ll decide if he can be any service to us. For now…” He spoke directly into Karl’s ear. “Sergeant Reynolds. You hear me, soldier? Reynolds.”

Karl’s breathing remained easy and regular, but his mouth was capable enough to murmur, “Mm-hm.”

The leaders smiled. “How are you feeling, soldier?”

“I feel good.” The voice Karl was responding with was unlike any he’d ever used before. There was usually a tightly controlled tone when Karl spoke, but now his voice was loose, utterly carefree.

“How good are you feeling?”

Karl took a deep breath. “So good.”

“Glad to hear it. That’s what we want. Now I’d like to mention something to you, but I’m not sure if you’d like to hear it. It’s something I’d only say if you trusted me. Do you trust me, Sergeant Reynolds?”

Karl gave the approximation of a nod. “Mm-hm.”

“Great. Trust is important. Among us Marines, it’s critical for our success. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Even in this loose state, Karl’s innate soldier was still present. “Mm-hm.”

“I think so too. Well, since you trust me, I’d just like to say that it’s one thing for us to think about rank in uniform. But you’re not in uniform now, are you?”

“Mm-mm,” Karl confirmed.

“That’s right, you’re not. And when it comes to business, rank is definitely something we have to think about. But this isn’t business, is it?”

Karl could only manage to sway, rather than shake, his head in agreement. “Mm-mm.”

“No, because business never feels this good, does it?”

Karl’s lips perked into a smile, more so than it did in ordinary circumstances. “Mm-hm.”

“So how about I skip this ‘Sergeant’ business and just call you ‘Karl’? Is that alright with you, Karl?”

There was the briefest pause as hesitation, then, “Mm-hm.”

The leader grinned. “Excellent. Now, Karl, you’re straight, right?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Just how straight are you?”

“Very straight.”

“I bet you are. But Karl, how do you know?”

A slight crease appeared on Karl’s face. Being incapable of fluent speech, he only managed to trail off from, “Know…?”

“Yeah, how do you know just how straight you are? You’re a smart guy; you must have heard by now that every man has some gay to him, right?”

The crease grew deeper. “Mm-hm…”

“So how do you know you’re ‘very straight’? You’ve never been attracted to a man before?”

Karl’s response was as forceful as it could be, under the circumstances. “Mm-mm.”

“But no man can go through life without the occasional brush-up with another man. You know what I mean, Karl? Have you ever been in a tight space with another man? Maybe you’re crowded into one elevator; maybe you guys are standing side-by-side on a bus; maybe you’re even just passing each other in a doorway that’s a bit too small. And without even trying, before you even notice, your hands make contact—like this.”

The leader brushed the back of his hand against Karl’s—just the briefest touch. Karl didn’t move his hand away, but his fingers twitched slightly. “How does that feel, Karl?”

Karl’s lips struggled to form the words. “Weird…”

“It doesn’t feel bad though, am I right?”

Karl seemed to think about it for a moment. “Mm-mm.”

“See? Men can touch each other without feeling bad. It happens. It’s natural. You don’t feel any less of a man for it, don’t you?”

“Mm-mm.”

“Of course not. So what could be so bad about taking that touch a little further? Like this?”

This time the leader softly took hold Karl’s wrist and slowly ran his hand up to Karl’s shoulder before coming back down again. He repeated the motion tantalizingly, just as he had stroking Stan’s penis. At first, Karl’s fingers uncontrollably twitched, but after a little while they relaxed and laid loose on the bed again.

“Does it still feel weird, Karl?”

“Mm-hm.”

“But again, not bad, right?”

“Mm-mm.”

“And after a while, you get kind of used to it, don’t you, Karl?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Sure you do. See, a lot of what we feel comes from habit. So you’re not really unattracted to men, Karl. I like to spin it as—you’ve been deprived, that’s all. You may say you’ve never been attracted to men, but then again, I bet you’ve never had this done to you by a man before.”

He leaned over Karl’s prone body and began running his hand across the length of Karl’s chest, running his fingers through the fine trail of hair, letting just the tips of his fingers barely make contact with Karl’s smooth skin. “You’ve never let a man do this for you—isn’t that right, Karl?”

The leader was touching Karl as gently as a woman would. In his hazy state, Karl felt the sensations tickling across his body as equal to those a woman could produce, and his pleasure centers began to sleepily respond to them as if Karl was in fact being felt up by a woman. He sighed and his eyes grew even glassier under the leader’s ministrations. The other men, besides Stan, noticed the change and smiled. They all knew just how talented their leader was in this kind of work.

“How does that feel, Karl? Still weird?”

Karl managed to just tilt his head back and forth no.

“Come on, Karl. You trust me. Tell me how it feels.”

Karl forced his lips to work. “Good.”

“Then how about this?” The leader ceased his rubbing and brought his head down to the middle of Karl’s chest, where the defining lines of his pecs and abs met. The leader slipped out his tongue and ran it along the meaty crevice. The soft, moist, faintly rough texture of the leader’s tongue on his skin sent a jolt into Karl’s pleasure centers. He pressed his lips together and took a deep breath through his nose as the leader licked down through the valleys of Karl’s abs, flicking his tongue in and out of Karl’s navel. Then the leader ran his tongue back up until he was nuzzling Karl’s neck. Between laps, he asked, “Tell me how that feels.”

“Good.”

The leader’s voice grew even softer as he transitioned into kissing, puckering his lips and briefly sucking at Karl’s Adam’s apple. “And this, Karl? How does this feel?”

“G—” Karl stuttered, then tried again. “Good.”

Now the leader was right in Karl’s face. He lightly brushed his lips against Karl’s, letting the contact stick for nanoseconds before coming back in. He kissed the corner of Karl’s mouth, letting his stubble rub against Karl’s jaw. Then he pressed his lips onto Karl’s in full.

At first Karl only laid back, offering no resistance to the leader’s kisses. Then he began to exert back some pressure, allowing himself to press back onto his captor’s mouth. After a moment, the leader released his tongue, probing at Karl’s lips. In seconds, Karl let the invader in, his remaining consciousness entirely fixated on the foreign, but pleasurable tactile sensations of another man’s warm tongue exploring his mouth. Before long, Karl’s own tongue was tentatively, then enthusiastically making its own explorations, experimenting with twisting itself around the leader’s tongue.

After a few minutes of this make-out session—to Karl, it felt much longer—the leader broke away, leaving Karl’s mouth open and Karl’s tongue exposed to the air, searching for the cavity it had been exploring.

The leader laughed softly. “I’d ask how that felt, but why bother?” He brought his fingers to his lips and massaged them thoughtfully. Then he admitted, “That turned me on, too. I’d love to do this more often, if it didn’t go against our code.”

Karl made no response; he seemed to be still recovering from what he had just experienced.

Colin ventured, “What now, Sir?”

“Now? Now we make sure that even when he’s not under, he’ll have a reminder of what we can do to keep him quiet. Who’s with me?”

Troy and the man in the smoky singlet stepped forward. Stan continued to fondle himself and Colin stood back, discomfort clear on his face.

“So Troy and Johnson. Stan’s occupied. But what about you, Hagstrom? You got a problem with this?”

Colin said nothing.

“Come on, say it. You’re with us now. You can tell. Is it because he’s your pal, is that it?”

“No, Sir. Reynolds and I were never buddies. But he was close to Trav. I don’t know how I feel about him joining us now that Trav’s gone.”

The leader considered Colin’s words until understanding dawned on him. “Alright, I get it. Well, we have to do what we have to do tonight, you understand that, right?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“But if it makes you feel better, Reynolds here may get out of this relatively unscathed, and we may never have to deal with him again. And even if we do, he won’t be Trav. As for your participation tonight, well—that’s your call. If you’re not comfortable, you can just see to Stan over there.”

Colin looked over at Stan, then grinned. “Yes, Sir.”

“Since that’s settled, let’s get on with this. Follow my lead, boys.”

The leader turned his attention back on the man of the hour. “Karl? You hear me, Karl?”

Having gotten some time to regain his breath, Karl managed to mumble, “Mm-hm.”

“The fact of the matter is you’re born who you are. How much you’re attracted to men and women, the balance of that is set up from the start. Right now, for you, the balance is on the women’s side—God bless ‘em. But by now you’ve realized that men are not all that bad either, right?”

Karl smiled at the vague memory of what he had just experienced a few moments before. “Mm-hm.”

“I can make it so the balance is evened out a bit. That way, you can have your kicks with the ladies, but if you ever get the inkling for some man-on-man action, you’ll be all ready. Would you like that, Karl? Would you like to feel as good again as you have tonight?”

If it was possible for Karl to think, some hesitation would have been necessary. But the only thing Karl understood was he was being offered a chance to re-experience the pleasure he just had. So it was with complete enthusiasm that he said, “Mm-hm.”

The leader grinned broadly. “Fantastic. Boys? Let’s get to it.”

With that, he lay down on the bed, side-by-side with Karl, leaned over and picked up where their make-out had left off, restarting their tongue play. At the same time, Troy kneeled beside the bed and began licking at Karl’s side, paying special attention to Karl’s armpits. The man named Johnson took position at the end of the bed, grabbing onto Karl’s legs and lapping at Karl’s feet, which proved to be somewhat sensitive, as Karl involuntarily jerked them back before Johnson forced them back on his tongue.

Karl was being assaulted with tendrils of pleasure from all over his body. His breathing went from steady to quick and rapid, and beads of sweat began to appear on his temple. Through his foggy vision, he could make out these three masked men, their muscled bodies hunched over his, their faces and mouths being the source of the unfamiliar sensations he was experiencing. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see two men in the corner of his room, furiously making out with each other. The one wearing latex briefs had his hand on the suspendered one’s dick, twisting and pulling at it in short, staccato rhythm, while his partner had both hands squeezing each cheek of his plump butt, his fingers gently agitating the plug clenched in the ass. The imagery of all this was bizarre, completely foreign to Karl’s mind—but paled in comparison to what his body felt.

Even in the midst of his own attentions, the leader continued to speak, never drawing his mouth away from Karl’s face, so that his every word seemed to seep into Karl’s skin. “This is starting to feel beyond good, isn’t it, Karl? You can’t even say it’s good anymore. It’s starting to feel—what’s the word I’m looking for?” The leader prodded his tongue into Karl’s ear. “Hot. This feels hot, doesn’t it, Karl?”

With Karl’s mouth open, he could only say, “Uh—” A gasp escaped from him, then he tried again. “Uh-huh.”

“How hot does it feel, Karl?” the leader whispered, pressing his lips on the corners of Karl’s eyelids.

“S—so hot.” It really was. Karl felt like his skin was beginning to burn where the men were most concentrated.

Johnson had moved up from Karl’s feet until now he was laying stomach-down between Karl’s legs, his face pressed up against Karl’s groin. Karl’s cotton briefs were the only thing barely holding back his penis from complete erection, and the damp spot that had appeared on them earlier had slowly grown larger and noticeable. Johnson smiled and began putting his mouth directly onto the dampness, feeling between his lips the bulged impression of Karl’s tool beneath the fabric surface.

Karl jerked at this newest sensation, but the three men on his bed kept him in their grasp. His mouth opened wider to the leader’s encouraged tongue as he tried to adjust to the strengthening tingles pulsing up from his lower regions directly into his brain. Troy now had his face pressed deep into Karl’s chest, his hands massaging Karl’s pecs and tweaking Karl’s nipples.

Seeing that Karl was now deeply involved in their pleasure treatment, the leader paused from his mouth play long enough to nod toward Johnson, who began rolling back Karl’s underwear, taking pleasure in doing it slowly, as if he was unwrapping a birthday present.

The leader began speaking. “All that pleasure you’re feeling, Karl? That’s your gay side. You’re such a straight and narrow guy, it usually stays deep inside of you, under the weight of your straightness. Now we’re riling it up. You can feel it, right? It’s so hot now, it’s boiling. It’s starting to bubble up. Can’t you feel your straightness being squeezed up, with all that pressure beneath it?”

Karl twisted his head from side to side. He actually thought he could feel the swelling feelings inside him.

“There’s only one way to go, Karl. You’ve got to release some of your straightness so your gay side has some space to fill in. We can help you do that, Karl. You have to trust us to help you. That’s what we’re all about here—helping each other, in every way. Just say the word, Karl, and we’ll help you. How about it?”

Karl’s teeth chattered. He only barely understood what the leader was saying, but he understood enough to gasp out, “Do—do it.”

The leader grinned. “Is that an order?”

Johnson had Karl’s briefs completely pulled own, allowing Karl’s penis to pop up, almost vibrating from its sudden freedom. Johnson took it in his fist and began to stroke.

Karl jerked. “Ah—! Yes!”

“You heard him, Johnson. Let’s help a fellow soldier out.”

Johnson nodded and quit his stroking. Instead, he leveraged himself so that his face was positioned over Karl’s dick. He kissed at the engorged head, feeling the slightly sticky fluid of pre-cum oil his lips. His mouth now lubed, he opened wide to take in Karl’s seven straight inches, caressing the shaft with his tongue.

Karl couldn’t help himself anymore; he began to moan uncontrollably. “Nngh!” He had never given himself over so completely to his bodily urges before, even when he had sex with Sarah. Even then, his conscious kept a tight hold on himself. But now, in this induced state free of restraint, he allowed himself to give voice to his feelings.

Before Karl grew too much louder, Troy moved to press his lips firmly on Karl’s mouth, muffling his pleasured groans. The leader continued to speak. “Just relax, Karl. Johnson’s helping you out. He’s sucking the straightness right out of you, siphoning it off to give your gay side some breathing room.”

Johnson was doing just that, bobbing his head up and down Karl’s stiff cock. Within minutes, Karl, his need for release growing more urgent, began thrusting his hips into Johnson’s hot mouth. Karl’s breathing quickened to a fever pitch. If it was true there was a gay side boiling up inside him, then he could feel it expanding beneath every inch of his skin. He had to release his straightness soon, or he would burst like an overripe fruit.

Pretty soon, Johnson could sense in his mouth Karl’s dick tightening up even further, and his well-honed instincts told him that the time was near. He glanced up and caught the eye of the leader, but maintained his sucking on Karl’s cock. The leader nodded. “Alright, Karl. In just a few seconds, you’re going to feel your straightness pushed to the surface and it’s going to find release only one way: right out your cock. Once it’s out, you’re going to feel a whole lot better, because for the first time, your gay and straight sides will be in balance. And it’s going to feel really good, Karl. Really good.”

The leader gave Johnson another nod, and Johnson released Karl’s prick from his mouth. Quickly, before Karl’s cock could even feel the cool air, Johnson began sliding his hand rapidly up and down its slick flesh. Karl felt all his pleasure converging, filling up his balls, then jettisoning up the length of his cock until it geysered out, landing globs of cum onto Johnson’s face and over his body, some of it clinging in clumps to his pubic hair.

“Ah—! Nngh!” Karl hips thrust again and again as he shot out his cum at least five times before settling down, leaving Karl panting and his chest heaving from the effort. A sheer sheen of sweat covered his body. His blond hair was dark and matted.

Troy drew away and returned to sniffing at the towel he’d caught earlier. Johnson began licking the cum off of his face and off Karl’s chest, causing Karl to go into spasms of heightened sensitivity. Colin and Stan were still involved in their own business to notice, as Stan had removed Colin’s butt-plug, only to put his fat cock in its place. Colin, despite his red, contorted face, glanced over at the bed and asked, between grunts and gasps, “Is it—unh!—done, Sir?”

The leader wiped his face and nodded. He looked down at Karl, who was smiling contentedly through the afterglow of his orgasm. Grinning fondly, he ruffled Karl’s hair and gave Karl one last kiss.

“Welcome to our circle of brotherly delight. It’s got its perks.”