A Good Citizen
by Wrestlr
2.
“What’s going on?” Joe asked, still groggy from the subliminals, as the officers pushed their way into his apartment and closed the door behind themselves.
“We’re taking you in for interrogation,” Whit announced. He was rough-featured, his dark eyes set in narrow slits between his thick brows and high cheek bones, his neck melting into massive shoulders and barreled chest. A glimpse of flat-lying hair showed at the throat of his uniform shirt. In spite of the situation, Joe felt a tingle of sex-heat run through his groin.
The blond one named Chet was bronzed, brown-eyed, and easy-grinning, and his uniform lapped at his wide shoulders and sharply tapering torso. He nodded toward the bedroom. “You alone?”
Joe nodded. “Of course.”
“From the way you’re dressed, I thought maybe you had company.” Chet offered an easygoing smile that lit his tanned features, and he fingered the tuft of sun-bleached chest hair showing at the throat of his shirt as he studied Joe’s towel-clad physique intently. “No roommate? No lover?”
“Hell, no.” Joe bit his lip nervously, unsure of what was happening, suspecting a trick question. Lover?—No way! “I was just going to take a shower.“
The two officers were a few years older than Joe but about his height. Neither one carried a weapon, but the police were almost never armed. The Police Are Your Pals, as the slogan on the Civil Security posters declared.
Whit ordered quietly, “Better hurry up—clean up and get dressed, Joe. We’re taking you in.”
“Yeah ... Okay.”
Joe went back to the bathroom, whipped off his towel, and stepped beneath the shower spray he had started earlier. The warm water spanked against his nakedness, and he picked up the soap and began lathering himself automatically. Shit, he thought, none of this makes sense! He had not broken any law; he always tried to be a good citizen; and he was current on his taxes and his Adjustment Appointments. Why were these two officers here to arrest him? The lingering haze from those damned subliminals still had his mind too fuzzy to figure out the situation. Dammit! Two sexy bastards, friendly as hell in their body-tailored uniforms. Real prick-teasers. No, Joe thought, shaking his head, it doesn’t make sense!
He scrubbed and rinsed, turned off the shower controls, toweled himself hastily, then went to the sink and started to shave. His always-ready prick bobbed against the porcelain coolness of the basin, and he wondered how the hell he could feel turned-on at a time like this. He scraped the stubble from his face and, as he finished, he saw Whit reflected behind him in the mirror; the officer leaned in the open doorway, a steaming coffee cup in each hand.
“I found the coffee brewing,” Whit growled. “Want a cup, Joe?”
“Thanks.” He rocked forward to splash the last of the shaving foam from his face. “Pour one for Chet too?”
“He’s down at the car, checking in.” Whit viewed Joe’s nude body openly. “Like he said, how come a good-looking stud like you doesn’t have a roommate or a lover?”
“I don’t go that route. I’m no sex-rebel. I’ve never missed my monthly Adjustment Appointments, not once.”
“Fuck ’em and forget ’em, huh?”
“Yeah.” Joe straightened, dried his face and turned to display his full nakedness to the cop for the first time, as he reached for the offered cup of coffee.
“I’m the same way.” Whit’s gaze shifted over Joe from head to toe and back, and then he shrugged and turned, sauntering into the bedroom, calling over his shoulder, “Been getting much action lately?”
“My share, I guess, sure.” Joe watched the back muscles ridge and shift beneath Whit’s shirt, and the abrupt, masculine rise-and-fall of his tight-rounded ass. Joe followed, gulping a swallow of coffee. “How about you?”
“I never get too much, that’s for sure.”
Joe could not figure out the situation. The officers had shown up to arrest him and now he was talking to one over coffee like they were old friends. “Crap!” Joe exploded at last, slumping on the edge of his bed. “I haven’t done anything to be arrested for, Whit!”
“Who knows?” Whit shrugged, leaning back and studying Joe, and he dropped one hand to rub the crotch of his trousers lazily. “A sexy bastard like you—? Well, maybe one of your bed-buddies got pissed off and reported you for something.”
“Shit, I don’t have any ‘bed-buddies,’ Whit. I just suck and fuck when I’m horny, then walk away, like the law says.” Head-down, Joe let his gaze move to the burly policeman, and he watched the cop’s stroking fingers outline the swelling column beneath the taut cloth. “Uhhh—maybe we can work something out ... you know ... just you and me.”
“Meaning?”
“You know,” Joe repeated, his eyes fixed on Whit’s cock-tented crotch, and he felt his own dick shudder and harden in response. “Maybe we could help each other out ... You’re horny ... I’m in trouble with the law ... You know ...”
“Think that’s the way it works, huh?”
Joe watched Whit come closer, high-polished boots gleaming, khaki pants binding to muscle-thick legs and thighs, hard prick showing clearly beneath the tailored cloth. The cop stopped directly in front of him, unfastened his belt and opened his fly, and Joe shivered with nervous anticipation.
Whit wore no under-shorts, and a thin trail of black hair trickled downward over his flat-curved belly to merge with the thicket of pubic fur at his groin. He briskly shoved his trousers down to his knees, and his powerful genitals fell free. Joe took a fast breath and stared at the man’s rising prick. Whit’s rigid meat bobbed forward, the long, thick shaft ridged with taut veins, his heavy testicles swinging almost tauntingly below. The cock-head, broad and crimson, aimed at Joe’s face.
Numb, Joe knelt and bent forward and ran his lips over the slick crown, and he inhaled the male scent of the policeman’s crotch. He bent further, touching his tongue to that dick, washing the massive cock-head. He took it into his mouth, slid down on his knees before the silent man, sucked, worshipped the man’s powerful rod.
For an instant, Joe remembered a few years ago, back when he was in school, about to graduate from adolescence to adulthood and citizen status; remembered being on his knees in front of a man of authority who had meant something to him; remembered having the man’s prick jammed down his throat—Make love to my meat, cock-sucker—worship it, the man had said—and a new madness filled him.
Ignoring the size of Whit’s stiff giant, Joe pressed downward until his lips were buried in the hair at the base. Then he swallowed, tightening his throat muscles on the bulging shaft, and he heard the cop’s pleased murmur. Joe wrenched back to release Whit’s spit-gleaming rod and gulp for breath, and then he jammed his face into the burly policeman’s crotch again, licking the sensitive linings of his thighs; moving upward to the valley between his thighs and his groin; nudging his cock aside and tongue-lapping the virile, exposed testicles; spreading the slippery nuts with his tongue; sucking first one and then the other; and then back to the towering cock.
Dammit, Joe decided, I’m gonna make this son of a bitch cream his nuts off! He used his best tricks as he mouth-worshipped Whit’s rugged masculinity, the way that other half-remembered bastard had ordered him to back in Joe’s past—but this time, Joe was doing it willingly. He suctioned eagerly, his own prick throbbing with heat, and he ran his palms upward over the policeman’s hips and belly, beneath the uniform shirt, finally reaching high to finger-stroke the man’s massive, fuzzy chest. Then he felt Whit’s hands on his head, holding him in place for a moment, then moving downward to grip Joe’s bare shoulders, drawing him even closer.
“Suck!” Whit hissed, pawing at Joe with mounting excitement. “Awww—that’s it. Take it, cock-sucker!”
For Joe, the events played out like a slow-motion movie. His perspective was on his knees, naked and cock-hard, the burly uniformed-and-booted cop towering over him with his huge dick convulsing in Joe’s mouth. The cop’s tight, faraway hiss: “Yeah, Joe!” The first burst of thick, hot cum coating his tongue. The lush, masculine taste as he swallowed. The second explosion. The bulging cock-head and shaft thrusting base-deep in his throat. Swallowing. Another blast, then another, each separate and distinct, just like the way Joe unloaded when he was turned-on. Another. The final, all-out flood of sperm. Joe’s thought, Yeah!—Made this bastard cream like a son of a bitch!
Joe drifted back to reality, the still-firm cock resting in his throat, and he wondered if he had popped his own load when Whit had. He had done that once, shot his cum just from the excitement of sucking off a stud, a long time ago. He reached down between his legs, and his dick was still rigid, the slick-wet head dribbled with pre-cum. No, he had not creamed, but he sure felt as though he had.
Joe sank back on his heels, gasped for breath, then looked up at Whit. The man loomed over him, returned his stare with cold, narrowed eyes, his features expressionless.
“Jerk off, if you want to,” Whit said at last, nodding toward Joe’s soaring hard-on. “Then we gotta get moving.”
“Still going to take me in?”
“Well, sure. It’s my job.” Whit hauled his pants up, shoved his heavy genitals inside and fastened them. “Put on some clothes, Joe, unless you want to go to jail naked.” He shrugged his burly shoulders. “Hell, it won’t make much difference.”
Joe swallowed the lingering taste of Whit’s cum, and he got to his feet, feeling dazed and uncertain. Doesn’t make any sense, Joe thought desperately. Civil Security had no reason to send Whit and Chet to arrest him, and he had gone down on Whit, and he was still under arrest.
Without thinking, he got a standard-issue gray work shirt from the closet and pulled it on; then his pants; no underwear. As he pulled on his shoes, Joe thought about how Whit did not wear under-shorts.
He went to the bureau to pick up his identification card and his wallet; they were gone.
Whit cleared his throat to catch Joe’s attention. The cop stood in the doorway, uniformed and booted and holding a pair of handcuffs in one hand and a cooperation collar in the other. Joe understood and turned, offering his hands behind his back. Whit first slipped the collar around Joe’s neck; when it clicked shut, Joe felt the calming heaviness, so like that of the mind-machine during his Adjustment Appointments only not as strong, spread through him, making him feel woozy and docile, ready to follow instructions. A Calm Citizen is a Happy Citizen, he remembered from another slogan. The metal handcuffs snapped tight around his wrists. Your Safety is Everyone’s Safety. Yeah, Joe decided, he must have committed a crime because he was under arrest.
Whit clapped him on the shoulder as if reassuring him, and Joe liked the feeling of their physical closeness. Hell, he decided, Whit was just doing his job.
Head-down, Joe obediently allowed Whit to guide him from the apartment and into the musty hallway, and—Shit! he realized through the collar-induced fog in his head—every guy in the apartment house was probably watching them pass on their video feeds and would know the cops were hauling him in.
They went down the stairs and out the front door of the building, and the morning sunshine was bright and clear. A police transport car, nondescript beige, was parked at the curb, and Chet sat in the front, blond and flashing his friendly, easygoing smile as they approached.
Whit opened the rear door and helped Joe inside, then shut the door behind him, and slid into the other front seat. Joe settled, and the auto-guidance system started the car forward.
“Want to get your rocks off, Chet?” Whit asked the blond beside him casually as they rode. “Joe likes to suck cock.”
“Any good?”
“Damn good.”
“He must be, if he took that bull-dick of yours,” Chet snickered as the car steered around a corner. “Shit, I got a blow-job from one of his neighbors while you were messing around.” Grinning, he caught Joe’s reflection in the rearview mirror. “You live in a real friendly apartment house, Joe.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Joe mumbled. “I don’t screw around close to home.”
“Fuck ’em and forget ’em,” Whit and Chet acknowledged in unison.
The policemen in the front seat sex-bragged and joked, and outside the streets were coming to life with guys like Joe heading for their jobs. But Joe was headed for jail, accused of committing an unknown crime, and he could not keep from remembering the sensations of sucking Whit off, the desperation Joe had felt, the physical sensations almost as if he was orgasming too, though he had not ejaculated. He was surprised by the intensity. Hell, he often remembered the sex he had with strangers but, thanks to the mind-machine and his Adjustment Appointments, he never remembered any of it being that powerful after it was over. No matter—after his next appointment, the memory of this encounter too would be muted, almost forgotten.
A Calm Citizen is a Happy Citizen.
The vehicle slowed and halted before a massive, foreboding building: Department of Civil Security Central Headquarters.
Joe had passed the building hundreds of times without giving it a second glance, and for the first time, in spite of the cooperation collar, he felt a stab of fear in his stomach as he gazed out at the sprawling, windowless structure.
Whit climbed out from the front seat, stretched and tugged at his bulging crotch, then opened the back door. “Let’s go, Joe.”
“Okay.” Joe squirmed from the car and stumbled to his feet, off-balance with his hands cuffed behind him, and Whit caught him to keep him from falling. The man’s grip was firm and sure, and Joe was glad Whit did not let go quickly. Your Safety is Everyone’s Safety.
Then Chet joined them, and they went up the short flight of stairs, and through the tall, open doors that welcomed them, and passed the latest Civil Security posters declaring The Police Are Your Pals!
The lobby was tall and warm-lit, clean and efficient; hushed, soft music played from hidden speakers. Uniformed policemen moved about, briskly guiding civilian-clad men from station to station. Over there was a line for traffic violators, one for curfew breakers, one for lesser misdemeanors, and more. Some men were coming, some going.
Chet and Whit guided Joe to a side doorway and into a tunnel-like corridor, and he heard the slick-skidded door whoosh closed behind them.
No more music.
Shadows.
The cops’ heels clicked on the coarser flooring.
Chet stepped ahead and opened a side door, and Whit’s guiding hand nudged Joe through it into large, windowless office, then fell from his shoulder. Overhead lights glared on a wide, battered desk at one side. A lanky redheaded man, maybe twenty years old, wearing a worn worker’s shirt and pants, sat at one end of it, hunched over a computer display.
“Hi, Lefty,” Whit said to the youth. “Where’s Parker?”
“Danged if I know,” the lanky man answered with a thick country drawl. “He don’t tell me nothin’—but he said fer you to stick around fer the interrogation, Whit.” He turned and gave Joe a grin. “Howdy.”
“This is Joe,” Whit explained. “He’s here for interrogation.”
“Got a Form Thirty-Two filled out fer him?” Lefty asked quickly, then sighed. “He can’t be interrogated without a Form Thirty-Two, and I sure don’t cotton to makin’ up the facts to fill out more paperwork.”
“I brought his wallet and identification card,” Whit said, passing the documents.
Joe realized that Whit must have searched his apartment while he had been in the shower. Hell, he decided, what difference did that make?
Lefty glanced at the papers and sighed. “Dang it, Whit, this ain’t no Form Thirty-Two, and you dang well know it. Okay, I’ll call up the form and fill one out fer you, but this is the absolute last time.” Then he shifted his gaze to Chet with a broad smile. “Been behavin’ yourself, partner?”
“Hell, no.”
“That’s what I figured,” the youth acknowledged cheerfully. “You’re on the interrogation team too, Parker says.”
“No problem.”
Lefty turned to the computer keyboard abruptly and began typing, and Joe knew his personal data was being registered—name, address, occupation, vital statistics, stud rating. He wondered why they weren’t using a system that auto-recalled his information him from the central identity database. The rapid clickity-click of the keys echoed in the silent office.
A side door opened, and a tall, sparse man with graying hair entered, wearing the dark uniform of a senior officer. He had angular features, and he viewed Joe with sharp, blue-gray eyes for a moment. “What’s his collar set at?”
“Three,” Whit answered. “He ain’t given us any problems.
The senior officer nodded, then crossed to read the form Lefty was completing.
“Ain’t right to read over a feller’s shoulder, sir,” Lefty grumbled. “I was brung up proper, and it ain’t right.”
“Damn farm-boy!” the officer chuckled and mussed the lanky man’s hair playfully. His voice was deep and warm, and he turned back to face Joe. “Hi, Joe. I’m Parker. You ready to confess?”
“To what, sir?” The effect of the cooperation collar made concentrating difficult, as though each thought had become separated from the next, but Joe managed to hold on enough to connect two. “I haven’t done anything.”
“That’s what they all say. You got a roommate? A lover?”
“No.”
“That’s good; law-abiding usually is. Though sometimes in a situation like this it’d help if you had someone who could be a witness for where you’ve been and what you’ve done, like where you were last night, Joe.”
“Down at the local bar.”
“Make out?”
“Yeah.” Joe was sure he had not broken any law while having sex with that guy last night. “In the sex room down at the bar.”
“Know the guy’s name?”
“Shit, no.” Joe’s gaze drifted to Whit standing stoically with his arms folded over his barreled chest, and Joe could not help grinning. “Fuck ’em and forget ’em. Right, Whit?”
Whit met Joe’s gaze evenly, but his expression did not change and he did not answer.
Lefty continued to tap the keys, the steady click-click-click breaking the silence.
“So you’ve got no witness to appear in your defense, Joe?” Parker asked quietly, pointedly.
The cooperation collar made thinking so damned difficult. “Uhhh—there were guys around ... You know ... There always are ... Watching ...” He tried to remember details. “Hey, there was a cop getting a blow-job when I finished.”
“Know his name?”
“No.”
“Too bad.” Parker looked at Lefty. “Let the record show that the accused claims an unidentified officer was in the sex room at a bar last night. And make a note to send out an all-points to all police officers who got blow-jobs last night; see if any can confirm being there.”
“Yup,” Lefty drawled, typing furiously. “Lordy, I wish you’d confess, Joe! I’m goin’ to wear out my fingers doin’ all this paperwork!”
Joe stood there, collared and handcuffed and vulnerable, and the hall door opened again. Two burly men, bare-chested and wearing uniform pants and boots came in, and Joe thought he heard a pained groan from outside before the heavy door slammed shut again.
Chet and the two new men conferred with Parker in low voices. Then Parker shrugged and announced, “Well, let’s get started.” He waited while Lefty called up a different screen and began tapping the keys again. “Strip him,” Parker ordered quietly, and Lefty went on typing.
Chet peeled off his uniform shirt, his face lit by his usual, easygoing smile. His shoulders were wide, and his strong, tapering physique was golden-tanned. Blond hair dusted the hard plates of his chest, and his large, amber nipples stood up in half-cones at each side. He nodded to the two newcomers, and the three men closed in on Joe.
Joe felt engulfed by the athletic policemen, their bared torsos rubbing against him, their hands pawing at his clothing, their fingers ripping his work shirt. In spite of the handcuffs locking his wrists behind him, he considered thrashing but the cooperation collar kept him too quiet, prevented him from turning the thought into any kind of resistance as they tore his shirt to shreds. They stroked and examined his bared chest and arms. He was trapped between the groping studs, the masculine scent of their bodies filling his nostrils and—Dammit, he realized, I’m getting a hard-on.
Joe shut his eyes, letting himself surrender to the effect from the collar, the mounting excitement in his crotch, as the male hands roamed over his torso, then downward. Hands opened his trousers, worked them down on his legs, and he felt his swelling cock bob free. He realized Whit and Parker and Chet and Lefty and all the damned bastards could see him aroused and erect—shit, Joe realized, he had shown his body and rigid dick to plenty of horny strangers, so this situation should be no different. But it was different somehow, dammit, and that bothered Joe in spite of the collar. Maybe, he decided, if he kept his eyes closed—what?—maybe what was happening would not seem as real?
The gliding fingers stripped him completely, and he stood there, handcuffed and trapped, collar-dazed, naked, his tormentors continuing to arouse him. One of them moved behind him and palm-stroked his muscular ass cheeks and probed between them. Dammit, Joe hated having anyone mess around with his butt—he always had—and he kept his eyes shut as he tried to twist his hips and ass to escape as the fingertips scraped lightly down his crack, too close to his puckered asshole.
“Horny, friend?” a voice whispered in his ear, and then Joe felt his hard cock caught in a sure, masculine grip. “Man! Check out this stud’s meat, you guys!”
“Yeah, he’s hung like—,” one of the guards started.
“Like Whit!” the other interrupted. “Almost.”
“Says here his stud rating is A-8,” came Lefty’s voice from one side.
Joe wanted to protest that he should have been rated A-9 but the clerk registering him had waited too long, Joe had started to lose his erection, and the clerk had logged him as an A-8 instead. But these men could not care less about that, Joe realized. He was under arrest, and his stud rating was not the issue; no, they were going to interrogate him, even though he still had not been told what crime he had committed.
“Knock off the bullshit!” Parker ordered. “Whit, turn his collar to five. Pump him off, Chet.”
“You bet!” Chet began fisting Joe’s hardness slowly, chuckling. “Stand back, guys. I’m going to make this stud shoot his load all the way into next week!”
For a moment, Joe remembered another guy saying shoot all the way into next week—and then the wooziness from the collar changed and Joe felt incredibly horny, his body saturated with arousal, and the pumping pressure on his dick increased, almost like a cock-sucker mouthing on his rod, almost like one of those studs taking it in the ass—no, back in school—getting jerked—almost like—
“Awh!” Joe yelled awh the way he had the first time he had gotten jerked off, as his cum churned and burst free of his balls, the first blast jumping free of his dick, then another—“Aw, fuck!"—and the next, cum-blast after blast, spurting, flowing, dribbling.
The men held Joe securely while Chet drained his convulsing dick, and Joe remembered just a few years ago when he had watched a youth in school get his first hand-job in the back of the gym shower room, the young athlete laughing and cursing and struggling to escape Joe’s horny buddies, thinking this was some sort of teasing prank, until their buddies held him tightly, finger-stroked him to quick hardness, and made him shoot his load, then the high-fives all around. Joe knew at the time he must have felt an intense arousal—back then he had been a hormone-driven bundle of emotions—but his first Adjustment Appointment a couple of years later when he himself graduated into adult citizen status had muted all of that—A Calm Citizen is a Happy Citizen—just like his next one would dull any memory of what he had just experienced at the hands of these cops.
“Hot damn!” Chet snickered, wiping the last droplets from Joe’s weary prick. “You sure pop hard, friend. All over the fucking floor.”
Joe drifted back to reality and opened his eyes, and he was standing naked and cock-drained in the brightly lit interrogation room, surrounded by the muscular, masculine policemen, puddles of his cum glistening on the concrete flooring. If anything, he felt even more will-drained and docile than before. He focused on Whit, still standing against the far wall with his arms folded across his massive chest, and Joe thought he saw a hint of an amused, pleased smile on the rugged son of a bitch’s face. Lefty continued to peck at the keyboard steadily, ignoring what was happening.
“That’ll take the edge off him,” Parker grumbled. “Get him in the chair and let’s get him hooked up to the machine.”
The three shirtless officers hauled Joe, still afterglow-weak, over to the reclining examination chair in the corner, unlocked his handcuffs, and pushed him down into it. With practiced, quick efficiency, they pulled his hands to the armrests and locked the restraints around his wrists. One officer plugged a cable into the back of the cooperation collar, and the helmet began to glide down over Joe’s unresisting head. The chair—the helmet—these seemed just like the mind-machines Joe knew so well from his monthly Adjustment Appointments. But surely the officers had not hauled him all the way to Central Headquarters and into this interrogation room just to give him an Adjustment treatment? That seemed like a lot of effort, when Joe already reported for his appointments exactly as the law required.
“This ain’t like the machines you’ve used before,” Parker said coolly, as if answering Joe’s unasked question. Through the open faceplate for his eyes, nose, and mouth, Joe could see and hear the officer easily. “It don’t tamp down your reaction to your memories—it does the opposite and makes you relive ’em. All you have to do is answer some questions, and the machine will do the rest. Got it?” Parker turned toward Lefty. “Everything ready?”
“Yep,” Lefty replied. “But, dang it, without a Form Thirt—”
Parker interrupted with, “Then get started.”
Joe heard the helmet around his head begin to hum quietly. He was not afraid. The Police Are Your Pals! This was all some sort of mistake and they would surely understand that once Joe answered their questions.
“You like getting jerked-off, Joe?” Parker asked casually, coming up close in front of the young man.
“Uh ... Yeah, I guess so. Shit, who doesn’t?” Joe shrugged and answered, feeling his scalp prickle as the machine began its work, probing into his mind. “But I haven’t settled for just getting my rocks off that way for years.”
“Who was the first guy you traded hand-jobs with?”
Why was Parker interested in hand-jobs? Those were too superficial to matter. Even back in school, when he was still learning about sex, hand-jobbing with his buddies was no big deal. “Hell, I don’t remember. Who gives a damn about who’s done what after—”
A flare of pain burst into Joe’s midsection, sudden and unexpected, and his breath whooshed from his lungs. He tried to double forward against the restraints and the helmet, and a second pain-zap in his head made him straighten back, dazed, unsure what was happening. Joe heard himself cry out. The mind-machines in his Adjustment Appointments had always made him feel hazy and dreamy—they had never caused intense pain like this!
“When I ask you a question,” Parker said quietly, “I want the truth, not ‘I don’t remember.’ Got that? The machine will punish you again if you don’t cooperate.”
Joe tried to remember that the police were his pals. Whit, Chet, Parker, the other bare-chested cops leering at him, watching him gasp from the agony.
He wondered why he had been arrested, why Chet and Whit had stormed into his apartment that bright, sunny morning, why he had felt so damn turned-on by sucking Whit off, why the rugged policeman had brought him here, what law he had broken.
Joe sagged into the chair. He felt numb and beaten. The room was silent except for the quiet hum from the helmet, Joe’s residual gasps, the sound of Lefty continuing to type.
“Let’s try it again,” Parker said at last. “Who was the first guy you traded hand-jobs with, Joe?”
“I don’t remem—” Then, his scalp prickled, and something seemed to happen inside his head, and images swam before his eyes, like a dream. What had Parker said?—That this machine would make him relive the memories? For the first time in years, he remembered his school friend. “Ron,” Joe said as the images took over, like being submerged into a daydream that replaced reality and made him experience everything all over again. “His name was Ron.”