Chapter Text
Trey had switched to another tournament game after the first, and it was almost over when the knock came on Trey’s door. The young man turned his head slightly to the side. “Yeah?”
“Can I come in.” Even muffled by the door, Hart’s tone made it clear that it wasn't really a question.
Dustin didn’t think he imagined Trey’s flinch. Or maybe it was Dustin’s flinch, and it just felt like Trey’s body was the one moving. Was the sweat smell from earlier, or was it fresh fear?
Trey’s arm slipped from around Dustin’s shoulders. He put an elbow on the back of the bean-bag chair and turned to the door, “Sure.”
With the slow-motion feeling of a man in a nightmare, Dustin turned too. The door opened and disgorged Hart into the room. The man’s expression was blank, his eyes as sharp and black as obsidian. “Your izzy’s collar has been deactivated for hours.”
“Man.” Trey’s voice had the subtly whiny burr of a teenager anticipating a lecture. “The GPS is still on, isn’t it?”
“BISA isn’t likely to find out,” Hart confirmed. “But your dad wanted me to check on you. He’s not happy about it.” His eyes flicked to Dustin and back, quick as a snake. “He said he’d given you an inch and you’d taken a mile. But frankly? I think he was worried your new dog bit you.”
Trey sat up straight. “Shit.”
Hart ticked his chin toward Dustin. “He’s coming with me.”
“Shit,” Trey said again. He turned to Dustin. The regret in his face did nothing to soothe Dustin’s sense of doom. “Sorry, man. I hope I didn’t get you in trouble.”
He turned back to Hart. “It’s not his fault, Oman. I took it off him and didn’t put it back on, man. You feel me?”
“Yeah.” Hart shrugged. When he turned his hard eyes back to Dustin, they held no indication that whose fault it was mattered. “Get up. Get dressed. In your own clothes.”
The sore ache flared up inside Dustin as he took down Trey’s boxers, gathered up his clothing, and put it back on. It really sucked. The collar clicked at the nape of his neck after Hart fastened it around his throat.
Trey sighed. “See you later, Dusty.”
Dustin hoped that he would, in fact, see Trey later. Being with Trey was bad, but things could be so much worse, and Dustin didn’t think that Hart was going to accept excuses or apologies. He was going to have to find some way to keep himself safe from Trey’s poor decision-making in the future. If there was a future.
Dustin followed Hart into the shadow-filled hallway like a whipped dog expecting another beating. The house was silent, the lights not yet turned on, even though it was starting to go dusky outside. Somewhere, a person was holding a one-sided, muffled conversation. The family portraits on the walls were creepy dark shapes.
Deep in his soul, Dustin knew that nothing he could say would change anything. Hart had never given Dustin any sign that explaining, pleading, or begging would do him any good. All signs pointed in the opposite direction. But Dustin couldn't stop himself from turning up his belly and trying.
“It wasn’t my fault. He took it off me. I couldn't tell him to put it back on.”
“I don’t care.” The lack of inflection in Hart’s gravelly voice made it more ominous, not less.
Dustin’s heart pounded in his throat as he followed Hart into the living room. The TV over the fireplace was on but silent, the image stationary like someone had just paused it to step away for a moment. “There wasn’t anything I could do. Please don't—”
“Hush.” The softly-spoken word still packed the punch of ‘shut up’ when said in Hart’s gruff voice.
Will you fucking stop? He said he doesn’t care. Grow a spine already. They were his own thoughts but not really in his voice. No part of Dustin had ever spoken to himself like that. Except maybe the part that had encouraged him to be brave.
But Dustin literally could not stop the words from pouring out in a whisper, even though he knew it was pointless. “Please, Mr. Hart. It wasn't my fault.”
“Don't make me zap you in the house.” Hart’s low voice was pleasant. He reached out a meaty hand and put it on Dustin’s shoulder. The squeeze was hard enough to hurt. “He could come out here. Then what?”
Dustin would have turned around to make sure that Trey wasn’t following them, but Hart’s hand on his shoulder prevented that. His stomach remained a rolling tar-pit of dread, but he swallowed the pleas down with a mouthful of sour spit when they tried to bubble up again.
The air outside was cool and moved lazily, as if the sun sinking toward the horizon was beckoning for it to follow. It felt later than sunset to Dustin. Hart didn't say anything as he led him to the izzy house, and even though his heart didn't stop beating hard in his throat and the urge to plead his case was almost as visceral as breathing, he kept his mouth closed.
Hart held the front door open for him and propelled him through with a push on his shoulder. The foyer lights were on and the TV was going in the living room, but the lights weren't on in the locker room until Hart hit the switch. The harsh white lights made the tiles glow like they had been lit from within.
“Strip.”
Dustin's pleading protests caught in his throat. Stop it. Try to grow a spine. At least try.
In no time at all, Dustin was naked. He had carefully folded his clothing on the green locker-room bench. His shivering was not from the temperature. The smell of fear-sweat was strong despite Trey’s scented deodorant, and Dustin felt a drop tickle down his side. He clutched his hands in front of himself protectively, as if Hart hadn’t seen it all before.
The squat, thick-bodied man frowned at him. “Move your hands.”
Dustin made himself move his hands to his sides. Hart grunted, as if he didn't like what he saw.
“I let him fuck me,” Dustin said defensively. “He thought I liked it. I did what I was supposed to. The collar—”
“Where's your base ring?”
Dustin blinked at the seeming nonsequitor. “What?”
“The base ring.” Hart’s low voice was slow-paced, as if he was speaking to a particularly thick child. “For your cock cage. Where is it?”
“It’s, uh.” Dustin had to think. The afternoon had already blurred into a series of vivid images, like a picture album of rape. “On the counter. In his bathroom.”
“He took it off you?”
Dustin swallowed hard. He stared at the floor. “Yes. He unlocked it when he, when we…”
“Stop fucking around.” Hart’s voice was like a slap, and it was followed by a zap of pain across his throat. Dustin coughed and struggled for breath. His hands clenched into fists so that he wouldn’t try to pull off the collar. Touching it would be worse.
“The ring, Merrill. Who took it off. Answer the question.”
Dustin shook his head, dislodging one of the tears in the corner of his eyes. He coughed. “I took it off. To shower.”
“And you didn't put it back on.” Hart sounded like he was dangerously warming up to the conversation. Dustin, meanwhile, was getting colder and colder. He wedged his hands into his armpits, shivered, and shook his head.
Hart turned to one of the lockers, and the *chunk* of him operating the mechanism made Dustin flinch. He blurted, “I didn’t think I needed to.”
Except that on some level he had known, or he wouldn’t have thought about throwing it in the trash. He wouldn’t have thought about plausible deniability. Part of him had known what he was doing and had just hoped it would slip someone’s attention.
It had been foolish. Dustin’s mind scrambled for an excuse. “I didn’t— I don’t know how to, to put it back on.”
“And yet. You took it off.”
Dustin was starting to get dizzy. His chest heaved where his arms had tightly crossed over it. “I.. I…”
“Here’s what I think. You thought he wouldn't ask you to put it back on.” Hart didn’t slam the locker door, but the sound of it closing still made Dustin flinch. “You're probably right. The kid’s sweet. So even though he told his teacher that he thought a locked cock was hot as hell. He probably wouldn’t ask you to put the cock cage back on. Not after you took off the base ring.”
Hart turned. His eyes were flat black stones. He opened his hand, and metal clattered to the surface of the green bench by the lockers. The circle of a base ring almost fell through the space between two slats. A heart-shaped padlock did slip through to clatter on the floor. A pump bottle of lube thudded against the bench and fell onto its side.
Dustin sat before Hart asked him to. A dull ache throbbed through his insides, then subsided. Hart dropped a chemical ice-pack on the bench with a plastic smack. Then he looked at Dustin expectantly.
Dustin reached for the ice pack.
There was something worse about putting the cage on himself. Yes, Hart was there, dictating steps that were actually very simple, and his physical presence was a threat of ‘or else.’ But it was Dustin’s hands moving his body and the metal. Just like it had been his hands stroking himself when he…
Dustin yelped when the collar zapped him, then choked and coughed.
“Stop stalling.”
Hart wouldn’t care that he hadn't been stalling. Dustin fumbled the little heart-shaped padlock and got it to snap closed, holding the sheath in place. Hart tossed Dustin a towel, and he dried his hand with it. The lube had been water-based and was starting to get tacky.
“Bend over the bench.” It was a direction as bland as ‘turn left’ or ‘lube the sheath too.’ But that Hart was starting to unbuckle the belt that looped through his jeans.
Dustin’s mind hung like a file that wouldn't load. The circle just kept spinning.
“Merrill.” It was Hart’s last warning.
“I didn't do anything. Please.” Dustin blurted the words out, but he still bent over the bench, putting his palms on the surface in what he hoped would be a stable position.
“Lie to me again. And you’re going to piss me off.”
Dustin’s bones turned to shards of ice. If this wasn’t Hart being pissed, he didn’t want to know what a pissed-off Hart looked like.
The first crack of the belt came without warning. Dustin heard the snap of the leather and felt the thud of impact a moment before the fiery pain licked up his back and down the backs of his legs, radiating like the ripples of an earthquake from an epicenter. Dustin shouted in surprise as much as hurt. It was painful and humiliating enough without the way the strike jolted his sore ass. He’d let himself be fucked, and he was being punished anyway. It wasn't fair.
Dustin wished that he’d stop his pointless begging even as the words poured from his mouth, now tightened and quickened by pain. “Please don’t. If he sees the marks…”
Dustin literally couldn’t finish the rest. The thought of what might happen caught in his throat as if Hart had zapped him.
The burly man’s chuckle was as dangerous as the rumble of earth before an earthquake. “This isn’t about him. This is about you. But if he thinks it’s about the collar? Maybe he'll pay attention rules. Or maybe he won’t want a secretary. Actions have consequences, Merrill.”
The belt cracked against the meat of Dustin’s ass again. If anything, it hurt worse than before. That time, he managed to bite off his pained cry, and it didn’t echo back nearly as loud as the crack of the belt. The pain was almost nothing compare to the fear that swamped him. To have gone through everything he had, only to have something worse happen to him—
“I don't think that’ll happen,” Hart said calmly. “This barely leaves marks. Not like the cane.”
The belt cracked against Dustin’s ass again, and the fiery pain just kept building. If it hurt this much but was barely going to leave marks, Dustin didn’t want to know what a caning was like. The only thing that kept him in place was the bone-deep knowledge that, if he moved, Hart would do something worse.
“And the kid’s got a taste of your ass, now. He wants to tap it. You’ll come up with something. If his dad doesn’t get rid of you. Bad investment, maybe. Disruptive.”
The belt snapped two more times. Dustin thought his skin might split. Or maybe it had, and the radiating warmth was actually his blood.
“That’s five, Merrill. Next time? It’ll be more. If you lie to me again? We’re going to be in ‘fuck around and find out’ territory. You feel me?”
A tear dripped off the side of Dustin’s nose and made a glistening dot on the green metal of the bench, at home among the other glistening dots. He hadn’t even realized he was weeping. “Yes, sir.”
The burning pain became a screaming sting. Dustin flinched but didn’t move. It took him a second to feel the warmth of Hart’s hand through the hot pain from the belt. He heard the subtle hiss of skin on skin as the man caressed his burning butt. “You aren’t on board yet. You’ve still got ideas. The sooner you get over them? The less we’re going to have to do this.”
Tears continued to leak from the corners of Dustin’s eyes and drip from the tip of his nose. His muscles were taken by a fine trembling. He wasn’t sure which hurt more, his body, or his soul. And he didn’t know how long Hart caressed his burning ass, the sting a rising symphony of violins, but eventually, the hand dropped away. “Don’t put your clothes back on. Not until morning.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dustin didn’t realize that it was over until he heard the thump of the door across the room. Even then, it took him some time to catch his breath, to stop shaking, to be sure that he wasn’t going to start sobbing. He stood slowly, and it felt like the skin of his bottom was the paper on the outside of an onion, ready to crack and peel off at the slightest touch.
Moving was torture. Every bend and twist hurt. After fishing his phone from the pocket of the jeans, Dustin put the clothing he had stacked on the bench into the hamper. He held onto the shirt for a moment, thinking about how he could hold it in front of him to protect his modesty at least a little as he walked through the night-full living room. But Hart had told him to not put his clothes back on, and if humiliation was the point, it would be as good as asking for another whipping.
Dustin made his fingers loosen and let the shirt fall from his fingertips into the hamper. He shuffled to the locker-room door wearing nothing but the metal cage that hung from his dick. And that, he knew, would draw more attention than protect it from prying eyes.