If not for the cock cage, Alex would have tried to make the tablet work with his dick, just out of spite.
He tried to use his feet, but that required him to bend too awkwardly. In the end, he made it work through a combination of his elbows and nose.
The entertainment vids consisted of hardcore porn. None of them featured women, and Alex had no desire to watch some twink getting brutally gang banged. Plus watching porn while his hands were mittened and his cock was caged would have been cruel torture no matter what the subject matter. Fucking Tracht.
He almost kicked the tablet and the coffee table across the room, only he had a feeling Tracht wouldn’t like coming back to that.
The gym had actually sounded good. Alex liked working out, and there wasn’t anything wrong with that. It didn’t make him dumb.
If he ended up doing what Tracht said, was that the same as always doing what Nick said?
No. Nick was... Nick was family. Nick wasn’t like Tracht. Nick wouldn’t deliberately hurt Alex. The whole bond-servitude thing, that was Nick getting ahead of himself. It wasn’t on purpose.
But now Alex wasn’t sure.
He arduously tried to access the communications network, but like Tracht said, there was no signal. The ship itself probably had an intranet of some sort, but there was nobody on the ship Alex wanted to communicate with and it wasn’t worth the effort.
Without use of his hands, he couldn’t stand to piss either, so he had to sit down on the toilet. It felt weird and shameful. Like he wasn’t a proper man if he couldn’t stand up to piss.
Not like anybody would know about this. No way was he ever telling anybody this had happened.
He ended up crawling into Tracht’s unmade bed and burrowing under the covers. It smelled mildly of Tracht and last night’s activities, but more importantly, it was warmer than sitting around naked.
It was a lot softer than the mat in the cage too. He didn’t want to sleep in that cage again.
Fucking hell, but Alex was crying again. Why? Why was he so emotional now? It didn’t make any sense. He hadn’t cried in years, and now he was crying all the fucking time.
Not his fault. This was all Tracht’s fault. Singh’s fault. Parsons’s fault.
Nick’s fault.
===
Getting a nap in helped, so when Tracht came to pick him up, Alex was prepared to not be a complete wreck around him.
But Tracht looked pleased rather than annoyed by Alex’s new resolve. “Let’s get you into your workout gear.”
The workout gear consisted of a pair of tiny, tiny shorts, the fabric covering so little that Alex’s ass cheeks had to be hanging out for all to see. He got a pair of worn socks and sneakers (wouldn’t want your poor feet to get blisters, Alex) and something that looked like it was a tank top for a twelve-year old girl. It was tiny on Alex, coming to rest just below his pecs.
The whole look made Alex feel more exposed than nudity had, especially with how it seemed to highlight how completely hairless his chest and stomach were. It took a lot of effort not to strip the clothes off, now that his hands were free and he had that choice.
Tracht, of course, delighted in Alex’s discomfort. “I wonder if there’s anybody else in the gym right now.”
Alex shuddered.
To his surprise, Tracht also got changed for the gym. He made Alex remove his boots—kissing included—but after that he put on a loose track suit and sneakers.
Tracht kept a hand on Alex’s back the entire way there. Several of the people they passed greeted Tracht. One or two glanced at Alex, but none of them addressed him. Even so, Alex squirmed and tried to cover himself. He kept his arms crossed in front of his chest and hunched forward a bit, making sure to keep his ass facing the wall. His face burned with embarrassment.
“You don’t even care what they think?” Alex asked after the third such encounter. “They all know you’re a perv now.”
“I assure you, they all already knew that,” Tracht responded, lowering his hand to pinch Alex’s ass. “They saw your predecessor, after all. And I warn everybody during the hiring process.”
Alex tensed and waited for another pinch, but none came. “Warn them?”
“That I take on bondservants both as assistants in a professional and personal capacity, and that my tastes are eccentric and include exhibitionism. If they feel they do not want to work in that kind of environment, they are free to find employment on another ship.”
“And they still decide to work for you?”
“I pay them well, include superb benefits, and quite honestly, I suspect that for quite a few of them it is a perk. I do make it clear that I expect all crew to behave absolutely professionally, because I abhor interpersonal drama.” Tracht scoffed. “Violence is completely forbidden on my ship.”
“Except towards me,” Alex said bitterly. He reflexively ran his tongue over his teeth.
Tracht’s hand stroked up Alex’s back and then down again. “Even towards you, Alex, except by my hand or as directed by me. If one of the crew attempts to hurt you, simply let me know.”
“And you’d believe me?”
“As long as you aren’t lying to me, certainly. Can’t have your body undergoing any unauthorized modifications, now can we?”
Right. A broken bone wouldn’t mend that quickly. And if Alex kept not sleeping or eating well, somebody on the ship might actually pose a threat.
Maybe he could rile somebody up on purpose. Except that would be a surefire way to have his contract fall right back to the Nilsens. No thanks.
They arrived at the gym, which was occupied by two other people. The dude cleared out as soon as he saw them, but the woman stared openly. Even grinned a bit creepily at Alex. It was the same chick he’d seen in the laundry room when he’d first been brought on board, and he suddenly understood what she’d meant when she’d said she couldn’t wait to see him at the gym. She must have been one of the ones that thought working for Tracht came with a huge perk.
Tracht put Alex on the treadmill and set it to a strenuous enough setting that Alex had to concentrate. Then Tracht started his own workout.
Alex hadn’t eaten enough to do well with this work out. He hadn’t slept enough. The damned cock cage started buzzing intermittently, throwing his steps off so that he stumbled on the treadmill. He shot a few dirty glances at Tracht, but he was jogging along on the next treadmill over without paying any attention to Alex. At some point the creepy-stare lady cleared out, and it was just the two of them in the gym.
After maybe twenty minutes of running, Alex was out of breath. He pushed himself further though, because he wasn’t going to be this pathetic. And not going to the gym while in space was dangerous, because your body would try to get used to the slightly lighter gravity, and then when you were on stations or, even worse, on a planet, the gravity there would crush you. Not that Alex ever intended to go down to a planet.
What ended up getting him wasn’t the running though. It was Parsons walking into the gym. Alex startled so badly that he slipped off the treadmill entirely, sprawling on the floor. His pathetic excuse for a shirt slipped up and exposed his pecs for everybody to see.
He needed to get up. But he was too tired and stunned to move.
“Hey, you okay?” Parsons stepped right up to him and extended his hand.
It reminded Alex so much of how Tracht had pulled the same move that he blurt out, “Fuck off,” without even thinking. Then he panicked and glanced over at Tracht, but Tracht continued his exercise without a second glance. Alex struggled to his feet and wished he had the energy to do more than send nasty glances at Parsons. Not that he would risk punching him right in front of Tracht, but it was a nice thought anyway.
He didn’t miss the surprised look on Parsons’ face. Same stupid look he’d had that night that Alex had beat him up. Looked like an idiot too, with his hand still stretched out.
Alex walked over to Tracht’s treadmill and stood right in front of him. “I’m done.”
He thought he saw Tracht’s mouth briefly twitch into a smile. “Apologize to Mr. Parsons.”
“What?” Alex’s shortness of breath had to be because of the workout.
Tracht pressed a button and the treadmill slowed to a stop. “Apologize to Mr. Parsons. For your rudeness and for nearly killing him.”
Alex growled and turned back towards Parsons, who looked like he wanted to be anywhere else. Was he too good to be conversing with Alex? Too terrified of Alex, sweaty and out of breath and wearing the most ridiculous outfit ever?
“Sorry,” Alex snarled, and he got a kind of satisfaction out of seeing Parsons’ eyes widen.
“It’s... fine?” Parsons looked between Alex and Tracht. “I... I didn’t mean to interrupt. Dr. Singh suggested I try to get a bit of exercise in today.”
Tracht shook his head and held up a hand. “No, it is a public gym, after all. We’ll be leaving and you can do your workout in peace.” He paused briefly. “Mr. Parsons, I do hope this past week hasn’t negatively colored your experiences on board my ship.”
Parsons took a step away from Tracht. “No, it’s... it’s fine. I guess I was warned. B-bondservants, right?”
“Yes, exactly.” Tracht smiled, and Alex almost laughed at how completely un-reassuring the expression was. “Thank you for understanding.” He put a hand on Alex’s shoulder and guided him out of the gym.
===
“I’m hungry,” Alex complained. His stomach pinched with the first pangs of hunger.
“You ate this morning.” Tracht had gone through the pressure scrubber and changed into loose sweats and a longer tank top. “But I might have something for you. Go kneel by the table.”
Alex knew he should have been putting up more of a fight, but yeah, exhausted. Slop for breakfast, constant low-level arousal, twenty minutes on the treadmill—no way was he going to give up even the chance at a treat of some sort. He didn’t bother to consider how Nick would be handling the situation.
He knelt by the table and waited. He waited so long his knees started to ache.
Tracht puttered around, not looking at Alex, which wasn’t fair in the slightest. Alex was there, doing what he’d asked! It wasn’t right for Tracht to ignore him now. It wasn’t right for Tracht to drink almost an entire bottle of water and snack on fresh vegetables while Alex salivated watching him.
Finally Tracht got up and walked over to the mini-fridge. He pulled out a small container and set it down by the table.
“There are some pastries inside. One of the crew was celebrating a birthday, I believe. I’m not much for sweets, but I thought you might enjoy one.”
Now Alex frowned. That sounded kind of nice of Tracht. There had to be a catch.
Tracht tapped Alex’s lips. “But I’m not sure you deserve this.”
That sounded a lot more like Tracht. Alex tensed his shoulders and waited.
“Because Alex, I’ve told you countless times to stop cussing. And yet you continue to use vile language. Poor Mr. Parsons certainly didn’t deserve your foul attitude. And your apology was so insincere, not even a toddler would have believed it.”
Alex’s jaw dropped. “Really? You’re hung up on some fucking words?”
Tracht sighed in a show of disappointment. What. The. Fuck. Ever.
“Alex, your attitude reflects on me. I run an organized ship. If I am to ever take you out into public as anything other than an obvious sex toy, I need to trust that you can watch your tongue. Right now, you spew forth any filth that crosses your mind without a second thought. That is absolutely unacceptable.”
Stupidly, Alex actually wanted that. He wanted to walk around the ship like he had those first three days. Yeah, he’d just been following Tracht around, but even serving coffee sounded better than lying around doing absolutely nothing.
“I’ll—” the words stuck in Alex’s throat. “I’ll stop. Cussing.”
Tracht raised his eyebrows. “And I should take your word for it? I’ve seen how little your word is worth, Alex. No. You need to be punished first. Punished, and then maybe that will create enough disincentive to get through your thick skull.”
Again with the punishment. But this was Tracht’s thing, and Alex figured he could endure whatever pain it was and then say he’d never do it again. Easy.
Tracht unzipped his pants and pulled out his soft cock. “Open wide.”
Sucking cock wasn’t all that pleasant, but it wasn’t as bad as tooth-pulling or cock-shocks. Alex opened his mouth and carefully kept his teeth out of the way when Tracht slid his cock in.
Tracht’s hands came to rest on Alex’s head and pulled tight on his hair. “Now, you’re going to swallow all of it. If you spill even a single drop, you’ll be very, very sorry.”
Well, yeah. Alex had had to clean Tracht’s fingers and had swallowed his come before. Spunk fresh from the cock was bearable.
Confusingly, Tracht didn’t start thrusting. Alex thought he’d get forced to deep throat, but Tracht simply stood there, gazing into Alex’s eyes.
And then the first drops of piss streamed into Alex’s mouth. Alex made a panicked noise and tried to pull away, but Tracht’s hands tightened and kept him still. “Not a single spilled drop, Alex.”
Oh god. Alex resisted swallowing at first, allowing it to build up in his mouth, but that was so vile, the taste of it swishing around, and soon there was too much. It was swallow or spill, and Alex didn’t want to imagine what could be worse than this. He swallowed that nastiness, the scent filling his nostrils and the piss seemingly scalding his throat. His eyes started tearing up again.
It was humiliating, that’s what it was.
Fuck. Fuck. F—
When Tracht finally pulled out, Alex’s eyes were raw and his throat burned. He didn’t resist when Tracht pulled him upright into an embrace; rather, he found himself clinging harder to him, burying his head in Tracht’s shoulders.
“There. Now you’ll remember, won’t you?”
Alex nodded. No cussing. He could. He could do that. No f—no bad language.
Tracht extricated himself from Alex’s arms and had Alex sit on the chair. It made Alex feel strangely alone, shaky all over for some d—darn reason he couldn’t figure out.
“Here you go. One pastry, as a reward for taking that punishment so well.” Tracht broke off a little bit of the pastry and held it up to Alex’s lips.
Alex didn’t hesitate to take it. The pastry was fluffy and sweet, layers of crust piled on top of each other with some sort of jam in the middle. It washed away the vile taste of urine, and he licked at Tracht’s fingers to get all of the sugar off them. The process was repeated until the pastry was completely gone.
The chill in the room wasn’t as pronounced anymore, and Alex’s nerves settled.
“Come on. Let’s get you washed up, and then we can go to bed,” Tracht said.
“Don’t—I don’t want to go in the cage!” Alex shouted, unbidden, and he immediately covered his mouth with his hands. F—frick. He started shaking again.
Tracht smiled at him. “No. I was thinking I’d let you share the bed. You’ve suffered quite beautifully already.”
Alex didn’t get it, but he wasn’t going to question it. He got cleaned up in the pressure scrubber, brushed his teeth, shaved the fuzz on his face. Tracht pulled him into the bed and fucked him hard, taking care to get Alex so turned on that he was begging for an orgasm. When Tracht was done though, he left Alex like that.
“You got a pastry. That’s all the reward you get today,” Tracht explained.
Alex thought he should be angry about it, but he really would rather have a pastry than an orgasm. His dick was aching in its cage, but whatever. Warm and fed was better than cold and hungry, any day.