CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
PAYTON
The week passes by in a sexual blur.
I wake with my hand down Lacey’s pants. It’s fucking heaven. She stirs, half her face lit by the dappled light coming between the curtains.
She sees me and smiles. “Am I dreaming?”
I lift the sheets so she can see how hard my cock is. “Does that look like a dream to you?”
She pulls me on top of her. “As a matter of fact, it does.”
I brush her hair back behind her ear. “And here you were thinking it wouldn’t even fit inside you.”
She lifts her hips upwards, grinding herself on my manhood. “I suppose I’ve grown to accommodate it.”
I spot the clock. “Damn, fifteen minutes until breakfast finishes.”
I slide down her body, tugging away her pajama pants as I go. “Don’t worry. You can do a lot in fifteen minutes.”
*
Hernandez spots it. “Jesus, Nelson. You’re practically glowing this morning.”
“Thanks, Hernandez,” she replies, suddenly shy.
I take a seat beside her and look around at the others. “What’s happening, boys?”
Jackson leans forward over his tray. “Today’s the Worm.”
I share a concerned look with Lacey. “What the fuck is the Worm?”
Whatever it is, Jackson looks way too happy about it. “It’s not a nickname for your dick. I can tell you that much.”
Hernandez shakes his head. “It’s a fucking tube, thirty feet long, only big enough to wiggle through.”
Lacey stands, knocking over the salt shaker.
She rights it. “I’m, ah, going to grab a muffin.”
I head after her, catching up at the serving line. “Look, don’t stress about it. We’ve been training for this, right?”
But I see fear when her eyes turn to mine. “Only big enough to wiggle through? I’ll never make it.”
I place my hands on her shoulder. “You are going to make it. I’ll be right there.”
She selects a muffin. “What have I got myself into here, honestly?”
*
True to description, the Worm is precisely that—a snaking section of black tubing requiring those who enter it to lie down on their stomach and wiggle their way down with their elbows. I go first, but it’s tough. It’s far tighter than I thought it would be, the absolute darkness inside not helping matters.
I can hear the Captain lecturing the class outside as I breathe deep and push on.
“If you think something like this isn’t going to show up out there in the field, you are wrong. Air-con systems, sewer pipes… You name it, a firefighter has used it for access.”
I emerge covered in sweat. It’s hard to regulate my breathing, but I try to put on a brave face for Lacey. “Nothing to it,” I tell her, as she readies herself to enter the tube.
I place my lips against her ear. “You’ve got this.”
She takes a breath, her eyes turning steely. She lies down on her stomach and enters the tube, wriggling forward.
I watch her disappear completely. Holy shit, I think. She’s going to do it.
If she makes it through this, the Maze is going to be easy.
“You alright in there, partner?” I shout.
There’s no response.
Shit.
A minute later she comes backing out of the start of the tube at twice the speed she went in, standing and looking down at it like it’s the devil incarnate. “I’m sorry, Captain. I can’t do it.”
He shakes his head and marks it down on his clipboard. “You get one more shot at it next week, Nelson. Fail that and it’s goodbye Pemberton, I’m afraid.”
She wipes sweat from her brow. “Yes, sir. I understand.”
“Hernandez!” the Captain shouts. “Get up my ’chute.”
I take her to the side.
“You okay?” I ask, delicately as I can.
She just keeps staring at the Worm. “I’m not going to make it, am I? Be honest.”
I stand in front of her so the Captain can’t see. “Fuck that negative noise. You’re telling me you’re going to let a piece of fucking pipe defeat you?”
She starts to smile. “I suppose it’s back into the closet then?”
Three more fail to make it through the Worm before the morning is done, which makes Lacey feel a little better, but I still see her hesitation.
We’re walking to lunch when I hear Fielding’s voice from the back of the class. “I love me some tight, dark places. Ain’t that right, Nelson?”
I turn to tell him to shut the fuck up, but Lacey tugs on my arm. “Ignore him.”
Luckily, Hernandez has my back. “Sure, Fielding. I bet you love a tight, choir-boy asshole to sink your pencil dick inside.”
“Why don’t you fuck off back across the border, ese,” Ryan replies.
That’s it. Hernandez turns and rushes towards him.
I drop the gear I’m carrying and race to join him, but the Captain manages to get there before either of us, standing in the middle of the hallway. “That’s enough, all of you. You think this was a fucking MMA convention? You want to prove who has the biggest dick? You take that drive and aggression and you put it into training, got it?”
I’m the first to reply. “Got it, Captain.”
“Got it, Captain,” chimes Hernandez.
The Captain looks to Ryan. “Fielding?”
“Got it, Captain,” he says through gritted teeth, his eyes on us the whole time, nothing but pure murder in them.
We separate in the cafeteria, but I know he’s watching us, calculating and scheming.
Let him, I think. The prize is already won.