The problem with the bet was that Alex actually didn’t want anything to do with Parsons, not after that stunt with the protein bars. It was probably a good thing that Parsons waited until Alex was exhausted from his workout to approach him, because if Alex had still been fresh he really would have attacked, damn the consequences.
“Hey,” Parsons said. “You didn’t show up for a few days.” A full week, really, between being locked in the cage and being too sore to even think about working out.
“None of your business,” Alex growled, and then remembered what Tracht said about ‘nice.’ “... Got busy.”
For some reason Parsons started smiling. “Yeah, the ship can be like that. Um—well, for me, anyway.”
Was Parsons imagining the shit Tracht had put Alex through? Was that what was giving him all that joy? But that wasn’t a ‘nice’ thought, and anyway, how would Parsons know what Tracht did with Alex?
The two of them stared at each other for a bit, until some other crew member asked them to move out of the way.
“Hey, why don’t we go to the lounge again?” Parsons said.
Oh fuck no. Alex’s hands clenched. No way was he going to let Parsons tempt him with food again. But he was being ‘nice’ right now, so Alex nodded and followed Parsons into the lounge. They even ended up sitting on the same damn couch.
“Did Tracht put you up to it? Giving me the protein bars.”
Parsons scowled. “The captain talked to me. Said your diet was closely monitored and I shouldn’t give you anything to eat in the future. I didn’t—I didn’t get you in trouble, did I?”
“Yeah, you fucking did,” Alex blurted out, and three seconds later realized that probably wasn’t the ‘nicest’ thing he could have said, or the smartest. He glanced around the room and hoped none of the cameras or microphones had caught what he said, and that Tracht wasn’t watching right this second.
But Parsons looked horrified. Like, what did he think was going to happen if he went behind Tracht’s back? Tracht wasn’t the kind of person to forgive easily, even Alex had picked up on that.
“Wh—what did he do?”
“None of your business.” This was a bad idea. Alex really, really didn’t like Parsons. He shouldn’t have made that fucking bet with Tracht, except now that a single day of rest was on the table, he couldn’t let go of it. He stamped down on his anger and added, “Don’t want to talk about it.”
And now Parsons was looking at him like Nick sometimes did when things weren’t going according to plan. What the frick did Parsons have to worry about though?
“He didn’t... he didn’t take you to Dr. Singh again, did he?”
“No.”
“Oh. That’s good, at least.”
No, Tracht had just put Alex off of orgasms for the foreseeable future. But sure, so much better than his experience with Singh. Parsons really was fucking stupid.
Alex tried to remember how he usually got his girlfriends. The last one... the last one had been Maria. She’d been really hot. Kind of flat-chested, but a really pretty face and amazing ass. Nick had introduced them.
Come to think of it, Nick had introduced Alex to all of the girls he’d dated. Usually they were the ones that broke it off, or Nick mentioned he didn’t like them, and then that was it.
Fucking hell, Alex was starting to hate how right Tracht was all the time. There had to be someone Alex had picked up on his own. He wracked his brain, until he remembered the one blonde he’d fucked in the bathroom stall of a nightclub. Yeah, she’d been so hot for him. Like Parsons was hot for Alex right now.
Alex looked over at Parsons. “You wanna blow me?”
Parson’s face morphed into horrified again. “Excuse me?”
“You’re into me, right? You won’t leave me alone. And I’ve seen you staring at me. So like. You can blow me.”
When Parsons didn’t answer, Alex felt the first trickle of humiliation. Parsons just stared, and stared, until Alex turned away so he didn’t have to look at him anymore.
So. Parsons was too good for Alex after all, even though Parsons was the one to follow Alex around. Parsons kept butting his nose in where it didn’t belong. Parsons kept trying to get Alex in trouble with Tracht. Parsons—
“Hey, uh, no. I didn’t mean to give you the wrong impression.” Parsons reached out and touched Alex’s shoulder. Alex immediately flinched away. “I’m sorry! It’s just. Uh, I’m, uh, flattered? But—how to put this. I’m monogamous?”
Right. Using big fancy words because he had a big fancy education and Alex was just so beneath him. He bristled and rushed to cover up his lack of understanding. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Um, on your end it wouldn’t work because you’re… something with the Captain. On my end… nothing really, because my wife passed away recently, but it’s just too recent. So it would feel unfaithful.”
Alex still didn’t get it. “How recent we talking? Like, right before we left Cadmus?” He glanced back and caught Parsons frowning.
“No, a few months before that. I guess it’s been around eight months?” Parsons shook his head and shot Alex a crooked smile.
“And you’re still sad about it? Sounds like you should definitely be getting laid.” Even as he said it, Alex knew that it wasn’t nice, that it was cruel, but he felt the burning humiliation of rejection and he kind of wanted Parsons to hurt.
For the first time, Parsons actually looked mad. “Are you—No, okay, I think I need to go before I say something I regret. I’ll see you around.”
Alex watched Parsons leave, feeling that tiny seed of satisfaction. He couldn’t punch Parsons, but he could get back in other ways.
Except now he’d screwed himself out of his day of rest. He went over what he’d said and wondered how he could convince Parsons he hadn’t meant it like that at all. He’d been trying to cheer Parsons up. But nobody would believe that level of BS.
There had to be some way to make Parsons want to blow Alex.
===
Tracht came back to the room grinning. “I have a great vid to show you.”
“If it’s porn, I don’t wanna,” Alex complained, although he was already moving towards the couch and getting on his knees in front of Tracht.
“No, this is—well, no, it’s not more entertaining than porn, but I laughed a great deal when I saw it.” Tracht swiped a few things on his tablet and then turned on the main screen. “I admit, I wasted a bit of time cutting the video together. I thought of showing Dr. Singh as well, but I decided I’d save this one for myself.”
Alex wondered if he was supposed to care about that.
When the video started, Alex definitely was definitely glad Tracht hadn’t shared.
He got to watch himself talking to Parsons. He saw Parsons invite him to the lounge, and then the two of them sitting on the couch, and the awkward, stilted conversation where Parsons blew Alex off. Throughout it all, Tracht was chuckling.
It shouldn’t have been humiliating. Alex had done all of it on purpose. He didn’t want to fuck Parsons and his fucking high and mighty attitude and—
“Why the fuck are you laughing?” Alex stood up and loomed over Tracht, and just this once, he thought he might be willing to hit Tracht, damn the consequences, because fuck him so hard for putting Alex through this, he must have known, he had known that Parsons didn’t consider Alex on the same level. Alex was seething so much that all thought fled his mind. He needed to hit somebody so badly. All of his muscles were tensed for it.
“Alex.” Tracht’s voice had lost all amusement. “Sit. Down.”
“No! Fuck you!” Oh no. Alex knew he was crossing a line. Anger was already morphing into fear, but he’d come this far, he couldn’t back down. “It’s not enough you get off on humiliating me in private, you gotta make me humiliate myself in front of others too?”
“Do not make me repeat myself.”
At Tracht’s glare, Alex’s knees buckled and he sank to the floor. He bowed his head and his body shook. Oh god, what had he done. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean that.” Humiliation was bad, but pain and hunger were worse, and Alex didn’t understand why he was always so stupid as to forget that.
He flinched when Tracht touched his head.
“I’m going to get something. I want you with your head down, ass in the air. Spread your ass cheeks for me.” Tracht stood and walked over to one of the cabinets. Alex heard him pull something out and a strange scratching noise.
The pose Tracht wanted Alex in was uncomfortable and, of course, humiliating. Alex didn’t like how air seemed to brush against his hole, and every so often he felt himself puckering. He kept his eyes closed and hoped that whatever Tracht had planned, it wouldn’t be too bad.
Tracht returned and stood behind Alex. “Nice. But I told you that I will not tolerate cussing.”
“I’m sorry,” Alex blurt out. “Please don’t—”
“Please don’t what? Urinate in your mouth?”
Sometimes it felt like Tracht could read Alex’s mind, and Alex hated it. Hated that he was laid bare to Tracht and somehow everything he did affected Alex to the core.
“No need to worry. I’m in the mood for a different game. Have you ever heard of ginger, Alex?” Tracht petted Alex’s flank and trailed a finger to circle Alex’s hole.
“No?”
“It’s a spice from earth. Fairly rare in these parts of the galaxy, but a worthwhile investment.”
Something cool pressed against Alex’s hole, and then with a bit of pressure pushed in. It didn’t feel all that big, and the wet texture made it slide in easily enough. Tracht pushed Alex’s hands aside and started massaging Alex’s ass.
At first it seemed weird that Tracht wasn’t doing all that much, but a few moments in, Alex’s hole started tingling. Tingling, and then burning, and Alex automatically tried to push whatever the hell it was out of his ass.
Tracht stopped it from getting very far. “This stays right here, Alex. If it slips all the way inside, we’ll have to visit Dr. Singh. I’m sure she’d have fun with that. But if it falls out, you’ll be eating every last sliver of it.”
What? Alex groaned and shook his head. “It—it’s burning.”
“It’s supposed to, Alex.” Tracht went to sit back down on the couch. “Come here.”
Alex looked up, confused. Tracht was patting his knee, his expression no longer as angry. A glance at his crotch showed that Tracht was starting to enjoy himself.
At least that was different from how Alex’s mom had looked when she’d spanked him. Alex had been a lot younger then—she’d stopped when Alex and Nick got too heavy to easily pull over her knee forcefully—and of course random food hadn’t ever gotten shoved in his ass, but his heart pounded all the same. He felt like a little kid, but he didn’t dare disobey Tracht right then.
His ass burned as he stood, and he had to clench hard to keep the ginger seated inside. He hesitated, until Tracht cleared his throat, and then Alex forced himself to lie across Tracht’s lap. F—frick. Spanking was so tame in comparison. He could do this. No noises from him. Let Tracht hurt himself spanking Alex raw. Alex could take it.
“I really don’t appreciate getting yelled at,” Tracht said as he stroked down Alex’s spine. He clamped his arm across Alex’s back. “Look at me.”
Alex braced himself on the couch and turned his head to face in Tracht’s direction. Tracht was smirking.
And then he started spanking.
First thing Alex noticed was that Tracht hit a lot harder than his mother ever had. He yelped in surprise the first time, before he managed to prepare himself for the impact.
The second thing was that the burning sensation flared up with every jostle, every slap. Alex’s eyes started watering between the two sensations. He could do it though. It wasn’t that bad. Not really. He could handle it. He could—
Tracht paused in his spanking to pinch Alex’s balls. Alex sobbed out a ragged breath, and it turned into a pained moan when Tracht purposefully played with the ginger, drawing it in and out.
When Tracht resumed spanking, it was harder to remind himself that it wasn’t that bad yet. The spanking got harder, the burning even hotter. Alex started shaking his head, and between the pain and humiliation and his own patheticness, he started sobbing. “I’m sorry,” Alex cried. “Didn’t mean it!”
But Tracht kept going. On and on, occasionally stopping to pinch Alex or slap his balls. At one point he spanked directly on Alex’s hole, pushing the ginger in dangerously far and making the burn so much worse. Somewhere along the way Alex started simply crying, so out of breath he couldn’t form words.
When Tracht finally deemed the punishment enough, he pulled the ginger out and threw it aside. Then he drew Alex upright and wrapped an arm around him.
And Alex, for some stupid reason, clung to him. He pushed his head against Tracht’s shoulder and dug his fingers into Tracht’s shirt. His ass stung and his hole still burned and Tracht had been the one slapping him, but the sudden turn to gentleness made Alex sob harder. He didn’t understand anything anymore.
“There we go. Show me those beautiful tears of yours,” Tracht murmured. He tilted Alex’s face upwards and kissed the salt water trails on Alex’s face. He kissed Alex’s mouth too, tongue plunging into Alex’s mouth, but Alex took it eagerly. He kissed back to show Tracht that he wasn’t disobeying. To show Tracht that Alex didn’t need to be punished anymore.
And he kissed back, a little bit, because it felt good to do it.
He heard Tracht moan. When he pulled back, Tracht was breathing heavily too. “Lovely.” He petted Alex’s hair. “Prepare me, Alex. You’re going to be riding me.”
A tube of lube was sitting on the coffee table. Alex grabbed it and went to unzip Tracht, whose cock was already swollen and hard. Alex’s own cock twitched in its cage, because apparently it hadn’t learned its lesson from last time and Tracht being gentle was confusing it. Alex hurried to lube Tracht’s cock up while Tracht pinched his nipples and kissed his jaw.
“Enough,” Tracht said after a while. He maneuvered Alex so sit facing him, and made Alex slowly sink down onto his cock. Alex hissed at the pain, his hole and ass still tender.
The pain turned sharper when Tracht grabbed his ass and started guiding Alex’s movements. “Go on. Ride me.”
Alex groaned with each movement. It hurt, but it somehow felt good too. He kept his hands on Tracht’s shoulders and used them to leverage himself. He tried clenching his ass too, and Tracht’s moans made it clear he appreciated that, so Alex kept doing it. Occasionally Tracht’s cock brushed against Alex’s prostate, sending pleasure zinging up his spine, although no way was Alex going to ask for relief from this. Just get Tracht off. Alex could do without.
Tracht started meeting Alex’s thrusts, his thighs slamming hard against Alex’s ass, and he stuffed his fingers into Alex’s mouth while he came in hot pulses. Alex sucked on those fingers and tried to squeeze tight around Tracht, milking every last drop out of him.
When they were done, Alex almost felt as if he had come himself. He was exhausted, he hurt all over, but he felt vaguely satisfied too. Even with his own cock pressing against the ridges of the cage.
Tracht made Alex clean them both up, then had Alex sit next to him again. “Very, very nice. And now let’s rewatch this video. Without your tantrum this time.”
Alex tensed, buried his face in Tracht’s neck again and refused to look when the vid started up.
“I do feel a bit badly for Mr. Parsons,” Tracht commented, petting Alex all the while. “He is extremely misguided, but I suppose he is trying.” He followed that with a chuckle, so he must not have felt that bad for Parsons.
“You knew he was married?” Alex asked when they reached that part of the vid. “That’s why you knew he’d refuse me.”
“He’s a widower,” Tracht corrected. “He does list a daughter as a dependent. I found it unlikely that anybody so considerate of others, with a child, would engage in casual sex with a bondservant, let alone one contracted by their employer. It seems I was right.”
The vid ended, and Alex found himself... still humiliated, but it bothered him less.
“I do have a question for you,” Tracht said. “What were you thinking when you asked him about his wife? Surely you didn’t expect him to take you up on an offer so crass? Amusing as it was to watch.”
Alex shrugged. “He refused me. I wasn’t feeling nice anymore.”
“While I suppose I understand that sentiment, Mr. Parsons was hardly refusing you to insult you.”
“Felt like it. And anyway, what’s crying about his dead wife going to do for him.” Alex scowled and scooted away from Tracht a bit, which he regretted when his ass rubbed against the fabric of the couch.
Tracht smirked at his discomfort, then shook his head. “Suppose, before all this started, that your brother had died. What would that have felt like?”
“Died how? Because if somebody killed him, I would have killed the f—the person who did it.” Alex felt a small bubble of anger, but it was muted by the knowledge that Nick had put Alex in his current situation. Although even now he had to admit he didn’t want Nick dead. Alex just wouldn’t help him out ever again.
“Yes, your standard emotion does seem to be anger. Mr. Parsons, on the other hand, is apparently the sort to not take his anger out on others, no matter how deserving a target they are.”
“Whatever. Being sad doesn’t ever help anything. Didn’t help me and Nick when mom kicked us out. Wouldn’t help me now, would it?”
Tracht laughed and shook his head. “Right you are. Right you are.”