Lucian Ch. 06

"What work do I have to do?" he asked.

Parker smiled widely now. One hand went to the open collar of her shirt.

"Who do you think ironed this blouse, honey?" she asked. "Who washes your clothes and cleans your shower? Who puts food on your table and makes your bed? Who..."

"But I never..," he interrupted her.

The smile made room for a frown.

"I know, Lucian," she said. "We all know. You are a spoilt kid; you never lifted a finger."

He shrugged, helpless.

"But don't worry," she went on. "We'll be patient a little while more; you'll learn. For now just move into the dorm; then go to Mrs. Winckle. You know her; she's our chef. Maybe you'll be able to peel a potato without cutting a finger by the end of the week."

Lucian hated her sarcasm. He tried to force his mind into finding ways out of her plans, but the only thing he felt was an overwhelming need to flee her presence.

He rose to his wobbling legs, turning to leave.

"Oh, Lucian, I forgot," she said behind his back.

He turned, seeing her hold up a lavender colored envelope.

"I guess she needed to talk to you after all," she said, giving him the letter.

She guessed, she said. But he saw she'd already opened the envelope. He grabbed it and fled to his room.

***

"I'm SO sorry!!" was all the letter said, in big bold loopy writing.

The entire rest had been crossed out, tried again and crossed out all over. At places the ink had blotted into purple smudges. Were they tears? Spilt wine?

The smudges had been filled in with new, hardly readable words that also had been crossed out again.

The unreadable heading was a mixture of huge caps and curly letters, adorned with hearts and exclamation marks. Maybe it said his name amidst words like "dear" or "sweet," but it was just a scramble of loops and ink blots. The scratching had sometimes gone straight through the paper.

As he threw the envelope and the letter on his bed, a photograph fell out. Picking it up, he turned it around and saw it was a glamour picture of his mother. Her hair was done up and her eyes looked smoky. Her lips shone with dark red lip-gloss; two pale breasts almost spilled out of her evening dress.

Letting it flutter down, he shirked up until his head rested against the bed's backboard.

He'd heard that finally hitting rock bottom opens great opportunity - the only way left would be up, wouldn't it? But until now he'd supposed that was irony.

As he lay staring at the ceiling, he knew it was true. And the comfort was instant.

All anxiety left his body.

There was no need anymore to find new holes and corners in the claustrophobic maze his life had become. No exhausting urge to run left and right like a trapped rat, bumping its snout against looming walls. There was just the here and now - a narrow ledge surrounded by nothing.

His body started shaking, sweat almost bubbled from the pores in his skin. But it felt good; it felt as if long gathered poison was pouring out. He was floating, it seemed; he felt like taking a purifying steam bath.

That was when he started sobbing - more salt water leaving his body. He must be soaking the sheets and the mattress.

Knuckles rapped on his door.

They might have been doing that for a while before penetrating his cloud of misery. He tried to answer, but his throat was stuffed with sandpaper.

The door opened, letting light stream past a silhouette.

He knew who it was - the straight hair, the short robe covering the tall, gangly body.

"Are you all right?" Harper asked.

"Better than ever," he answered, adding a chuckle to his raw voice.

The boy walked over, kneeling on the yielding mattress. He exuded a freshness he'd taken into the room with him, and the sweet smell of standard lotion. His cool hand covered Lucian's brow.

"You have a fever," he said.

The cool palm felt welcome.

Lucian smiled, feeling his muscles relax even more as the cool touch started to spread through his body. He sighed, reaching up to cover the hand with his.

"No," he said. "Not a fever. Just demons fleeing my body."

He stopped the hand from leaving his brow. Then he pulled it down his face, his cheeks and throat until it rested on his sweat-slick chest. He felt the booming of his heart.

Looking up into the boy's puzzled eyes he smiled again.

"Kiss me please, Harper," he said, pushing his mouth up. "I'm down and utterly lonely."

Soft flesh slid over his wet, slippery mouth.

He opened up and caught Harper's lower lip, closing his teeth around it. Sucking, he felt how the hand travelled down his ribcage and abdomen until it rested on the moist silk of his shorts. He must feel searing to the touch, although there wasn't even the beginning of an erection.

Pushing up he caused the hand to close around his penis - and the soft pouch below it.

The kiss grew more intense. Their tongues danced, bathing in saliva. Combined moans sent vibrations down their throats.

Harper straddled his thighs, bending forward to increase the intensity of the kiss. His hand, still guided by Lucian's, kneaded the pulsing crotch through the soaked fabric.

Lucian's free hand grabbed Harper's thick black hair, and he started pushing the boy's face down to his chest and belly.

"Suck me please," he gasped.

The guided hand pulled down his shorts and tore away the completely drenched thong. Cool air made him shiver. Then something hot and wet ran from his ball sac up to his yielding penis until it dwelt on the exposed head. Soft hair tickled his skin, causing more shivers.

He arched his spine to press himself into the tongue.

"Oh God," someone said with his voice.

Then the hot mouth closed over his cock and balls, sucking them in completely. His frame turned rigid; his hands clawed Harper's skull. He had no idea what he said or mumbled or gasped - most words must be scrambled anyway.

Spreading his thighs he lifted his hips to push his groin into the sucking heat. Something touched his anus, a narrow, slippery object that entered him and started to slide in deeper - a finger, two fingers?

A bolt of electricity sent him into a spasm as the fingers reached a spot deep inside him - touching, rubbing, making him cry out and sending shivers all over his body.

The tongue swirled around his penis; the mouth sucked even harder, and soon his whole world became a roller coaster. He rocked forward and backwards, fucking the mouth and riding the fingers.

For Lucian climax had long since stopped being the sudden, short outburst of his past. Even when he hastily masturbated in the privacy of this little room, his orgasms had grown into protracted, dreamlike, undulating sensations having no real start or ending - sometimes lasting for minutes.

What he felt now was that, multiplied by infinity.

Arching like a bow, he went into a state of paralysis. Energy seemed to pour out of him, and it felt as if the power of a sun tried to press itself through the eye of a needle. His very essence was seeping away. There would be nothing left.

But he didn't care.

Pouring his entire soul into the tight, sucking funnel of his own personal vampire, he knew he would come out of this completely altered. He would never be the same again.

And he didn't care.

On and on the orgasm went, lasting until he didn't even feel his body anymore. Drifting, floating, he felt like sprouting wings and flying high, ever higher until the air got thin and a growing heat singed his skin.

Suddenly he did care.

Gasping silly words produced by a stupefied brain, he knew he had to prolong this state into eternity, drifting on into oblivion. He had to cling onto this heavenly floating to pass through this invisible gate in a sky that had no limits.

But of course his wings went up in flames, turning black and sending him down to earth in a sickening spiral - crushing him into a limp sac of bones, smeared out on the concrete of reality.

The darkness that closed in on him pounded and pulsed, alive with the sounds of rushing blood and gasping throats.

He felt like travelling on the back of a dark, steaming river into a black grotto. He lay prone and exposed, chilly lips kissing his burning skin. A black river it was; a boat - an archetypical ferry to... what?

"Luce?"

A distant voice was muffled by the buzz in his skull, the pulse in his ears and the murmuring of the river that carried him. Then he heard it again.

"Luce? Are you all right?"

Slowly the darkness cleared, the rocking stopped.

"Aah, God, Harper," he said, his voice thick, his breathing short.

The boy sat on his knees next to him, looking down. A smile broke through his concern, lighting up his face in its frame of black hair.

His hands still caressed the sweat-drenched body.

"I thought you died," he said.

"Maybe I did," Lucian answered.

There was silence, filled with their fast breathing and the small sounds of a distant world. The fingers on his skin spread a new warmth as they travelled in circles.

"Is this your mother?" Harper asked. "You look so much like her."

He held the photograph. Lucian took it from him and crumbled it in his fist, throwing it away.

"You don't like her," Harper said. "But she is beautiful; like you."

"She is a monster. She... abandoned me," Lucian said, hesitating at the word. "She brought me here against my will, let them do to me whatever they wanted. Then she dumped me and left the country."

Harper leaned down and kissed a nipple. It was still slippery with sweat.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, breathing on the skin. "But I'm glad she brought you".

"Don't be sorry," Lucian said. "I don't care anymore."

He shrugged and sat up.

"I came to help you move," Harper said. "We are all excited to have you live with us."

***

What is freedom? And what is a prison? More important question: can there be freedom in prison?

Things changed for Lucian Gaines.

The most obvious change was moving from a single room into a six-bed dormitory - leaving save isolation for the constant presence of others. And then of course there was work now, to earn his stay. They were big changes, but not necessarily the main ones.

For Lucian the main difference - and the main surprise - was that he liked the changes.

He'd feared that the constant companionship, the judging eyes, the snoring and the sounds at night, the collective showering and all these other facts of shared living would get on his nerves.

They didn't - on the contrary.

He loved being part of a group - this group at least. Being asked for his insights thrilled him - being noted and complimented. He thrived on the constant stream of gossip, the sharing of opinions and the unselfish willingness to help.

He knew he'd lost his battle, but by now he wondered if it had been worth the fighting. What had there been to fight for anyway: a return to a life outside?

What life?

Bathing in his new world of warmth and empathy he looked back on his months of struggling - his compulsive focusing on everything black and threatening. His hanging on to beliefs and prejudices that in truth had never been his, had they? They were his father's: the arrogant machismo, the homophobic insecurity.

He'd won more by losing. Wasn't that ironic?

He swapped anguish for fun and relaxation. There was diversion, there was guffawing and ribbing and laughter. It felt liberating to take part in the light-hearted mocking of their leaders and the stuck-up Barbs - impersonating them, and parroting their idiosyncrasies. Even following the rigid discipline lost its edge by suffering it together.

All his life Lucian had been a loner.

He'd lived the bleak existence of a child whose mindset had been petrified at moments when it should have grown and evolved. There never had been friends to show him different, no parents to stimulate him - no grindstone of reality to hone his talents on.

But now he had them in spades.

Now there was rivalry and comparison, talents to compete with and to learn from. There was the proud feeling that his agenda was considered as important as others'. His view counted. And he learned to see opinions of others as deviant possibilities he had to respect and accept as feasible alternatives.

Lucian discovered the joy of being part.

There was fun in day-to-day things, like slippery wrestling under gushing showers; like doing each other's hair and make up; like washing each other's backs, hunting stubbles or painting each other's nails.

Duties turned into fun when done together. What he'd feared to be a constant invasion of his privacy had become a discovery of friendship.

Most of all: it left him no time to mope.

The other Bobs were fearless. Many of them had a rotten past, filled with abandonment, abuse and foster homes; for them the academy had been a godsend. There'd been no struggle, as there had been nothing for them to hang on to.

They accepted the brainwash and the medications. They adored Coach and her clean, simple physical training. They danced and exercised, and also went along with the feminine charades, just considering them great fun. They dressed and primped, painting their eyes and their lips.

They just loved being part of something at last - anything.

On his second day in the dorm Lucian discovered that this love was quite a real and palpable thing.

When he returned from his evening run, walking into the collective showers, he saw Kelly on his knees, sucking Mu's cock under the steady rain of a showerhead, while his free hand pulled at Jo's dark penis.

They greeted him enthusiastically, Kelly letting the short Asian cock flop out of his mouth.

Still in his running gear, Lucian retreated in a hurry, closing the door. The shock of what he saw made his heart drum against his ribcage.

"Something wrong?" Taylor asked, sitting on his bunk, his long legs dangling. He was plucking his eyebrow in a small mirror.

"Eh, well, no, I guess ...," Lucian muttered, walking on and sitting down at their collective table.

Taylor chuckled.

"Must be Mu and Jo and Kelly, the fucking rabbits," he said. "Did they scare you? They are pigs for sure. At it all day, and night I'd say."

Lucian looked away.

So here he was, almost a year into Norton's and things obviously could still surprise him. But what struck him most was his own surprised reaction. Drew raped him almost in public. At Halloween the masked Barbs hardly covered their tracks after fucking him. On the lawn, only a few days ago, the Barbs and Boobs had held a public orgy.

So why should he be surprised by three boys getting each other off in the privacy of a shower? They certainly hadn't been surprised themselves. He recalled Kelly's wide grin, right next to Mu's stubby, flopping cock.

He turned his head as he heard Taylor slide off the creaking bed.

The boy was easily the tallest of them all; blonde and skinny. His short robe moved up as he slid down, exposing his smooth, toned thighs and crotch.

Taylor walked over to him, using the Norton Slide. The small mirror was still in his hands, clanging against a bunch of bracelets.

As he sat down, he sniffed.

"You smell," he said, causing a wave of self-consciousness to hit Lucian.

"Sorry," he said, "I just came back from..."

But Taylor laid a hand on his forearm and smiled.

"I like it," he assured him. "Fresh sweat, mmm, excites me."

Lucian felt a blush creep up. The dry hand radiated heat.

"You excite me," Taylor went on. "You know that, don't you?"

Lucian heard the next-door showers stop. It added to a silence that became awkward. He tried to tear himself free from the blonde boy's large gray eyes. They were steady, and beautifully made up - framed by eyeliner and bluish silver eye shadow under perfectly shaped eyebrows.

Most Bobs didn't usually make up their faces outside of Beauty class. Charlie did, and so did Taylor, obviously. Lucian wondered when he would graduate. But the thought quickly drowned in an avalanche of mixed feelings when the beautiful face moved in, blocking his view.

"Maybe we should get a shower when the brats are done," the glossy mouth said as one long lash winked.

"But your make up...," Lucian objected, feeling silly.

Taylor chuckled, reaching for Lucian's cheek with manicured fingertips.

"Great," he said, close enough to make his breath touch Lucian's face. "Ruin it, so I can fix it again later."

His lips tasted sweet as they closed over Lucian's.

Thoughts flew in every direction, like a scared flock of birds, adding the rush of their wings to the fluttering in his stomach. He yielded to the probing tongue, and the sensations he'd felt with Harper returned with a vengeance.

A chair fell; a hand slipped inside his soaked running top as he was pulled forward and into the blond boy's body. His world shrank until only the few square feet were left that he and Taylor occupied.

"Ah! Not fair!"

Muffled voices penetrated the invisible wall around them, but he didn't care. His tongue took over the initiative, and so did his hands, roaming the skinny body he held - so smooth, so slick.

Other hands shook him; new bodies surrounded the two of them, closing in. Mops of wet hair brushed his neck, carrying scented waves of soap and shampoo. A hand closed around his penis and balls, kneading his ass cheeks through the thin running tights. There were breaths and groans - scattered words.

He tried to pull free.

To be honest, he only pretended. The kiss was a lock - an omnipresent velvet bond tying him down and blocking all thoughts.

He wouldn't have tried to escape even if he could.

The boys from the showers were naked, and so would he be - any moment now. Unlocking the kiss he ended up falling into Taylor's gaze - helplessly. Their lips separated and they gasped, while busy hands pulled down tights and tore at robes.

Lucian pulled the sticky running top over his head. He stumbled as someone tried to free his foot from his tights, while another moved him to where mattresses had been piled into a corner.

Falling down on them he looked up into a circle of faces.

"Welcome, Lucy," one of them said - he thought it was Kelly.

He knew the nickname should trigger resent, but his senses must be too overwhelmed by what happened.

Most boys were naked, their still moist bodies sparkling light. Letting his eyes travel from face to face he noticed how intense their gaze was. They didn't smile or frown; they just seemed to... drink him in.

Then Taylor sank to his knees, right between Lucian's spread legs. His hands started caressing the calves, and his lips kissed an inner thigh. The thick blond hair tickled his skin, sending a tremor up to his groin and spine.

Absorbed by Taylor's tender ministrations Lucian didn't see the other boys closing in, until he felt their hands and mouths all over him - teeth around a nipple, a tongue sounding his belly button, lips sucking an earlobe, and fingers travelling everywhere.

He closed his eyes and imagined a hot, perfumed cloud descending on him - a warm breeze washing his skin, a million butterfly wings fluttering by.

Maybe his climax started then, or maybe it had already begun. Or maybe it never started and just was there, with the wet sucking mouths and the prodding fingers - bringing him to the edge.

But there was no edge.

The caressing cloud kept intensifying; the hands lifted him up to ever-new heights. Far away, in a distant, alien world floated a spark of fear, and the thought that he might be drugged. It only lasted for the blink of an eye; it wasn't even a sizzling drop of water in the bonfire of his sensuous overdose.