Chapter 3: Chapter 3
The chair was plastic and bolted to the floor, and the plug pressed up against my prostate every time I shifted my weight. I had stopped trying to sit still. The waiting room smelled like alcohol swabs and weak coffee, and somewhere behind the reception desk a printer kept grinding out pages.
"Two hours," I said. "Minimum. That's the whole point of going permanent."
Derek didn't look up from his phone. "Two hours with something in your ass."
"That's nothing. The first week it was twenty minutes and I thought I'd crawl out of my skin." I leaned back and crossed my ankle over my knee. The shorts I had on were the loose grey ones, split high enough that the vinyl seat was cold on the underside of my thigh. "Now I do four hours in the morning and four at night. The muscles stop fighting it after a while. That's the trick. You have to stop fighting."
Leo sat with his legs apart, elbows on his knees, his neon shorts bunching at the crease of his hip. "What's the readout today?"
"Minus eight," I said. "I went down a full point. The doctor's going to want to see the tracking."
"Mine's minus five," Leo said. "It's been stuck at five for eleven days. I switched to the wider base and it helped, but the tension's still there."
"Wider base is for the short plug. If you're going long you want the tapered neck, the one that doesn't stretch the ring." I turned to him. "Do you use the silicone one or the steel?"
"Silicone. Steel was too heavy for running."
"Then that's your problem, not your hole." I said it plainly, the way you'd talk about a bad pair of shoes. "Steel holds temperature. Silicone goes cold and your body clamps down to keep the heat in. You're training your ass to fight a cold toy for eleven days."
Derek scrolled. "This is a normal conversation people have in public."
"It's Tuesday," Leo said. "Everybody's got a meet on Saturday. Everybody's got to pass the medical."
That was true enough. The regional qualifiers started at the end of the month and the league didn't clear anyone for competition without a full physical. Range of motion, resting heart rate, joint stability, and the modified assessment for anyone running a permanent implant. The clinic had a whole wing for it. There were three other guys from the club sitting across the room in the same loose shorts, one of them with a silicone ring visible above his waistband.
Derek put his phone face down on his thigh. "You're telling me you just leave it in. You sleep with it."
"You sleep with it," I said. "You eat with it. You sit through a physics lecture with it, and around hour two your body gives up and it stops being an event."
"How long until it stops feeling like something's there?"
"It doesn't. That's the wrong goal." I hooked my thumb under the hem of my tank top. "You always know it's there. It's like wearing a watch. The point is that you stop being scared of it. Once you stop being scared, the whole thing opens up. You can take a fist after a month of steady work. You can take a dick to the root without a warm-up."
Leo laughed quietly. "He's not wrong. I took Marcus to the root on the rug with no warm-up at all."
"That's because Marcus doesn't give warm-ups," Derek said.
"No," Leo said. "That's because I'd been wearing a plug for six weeks."
The door at the end of the corridor opened and a woman in scrubs leaned out with a clipboard. "Jared, Leon, Derek? Doctor's ready for you."
We stood. Derek tucked his phone in his pocket and pulled his sleeveless shirt straight. The three of us walked down the corridor in a line, and I could hear the soft squeak of Leo's shorts against his inner thighs. Behind the last door there was a room that was too cold, an examination table with a paper sheet, a tray of instruments, a rolling stool.
The man in the white coat had his back to us, writing on a chart. His hair was short and brown, his shoulders square, and when he turned around he had a stethoscope around his neck and a badge clipped to his breast pocket.
Marcus looked up. "Gentlemen."
Derek stopped in the doorway. Leo stopped beside him. I stopped because they stopped, and then I looked at Marcus again and something in my chest went tight and warm all at once.
"You're the doctor," I said.
"I'm the doctor today." Marcus set the chart down. "Dr. Halloran's got a family thing, and I covered this wing for two years before I went into sports medicine. The league knows my signature." He looked at each of us in turn, unhurried. "You want to compete on Saturday, you get cleared by someone. Today that's me."
Derek's jaw worked. "You live next door to my father."
"I do." Marcus held up a pen. "And in this room I'm not your neighbor. I'm the man who decides whether you're fit to run. If that's a problem for any of you, the door's behind you and there's another clinic across town with a six week wait."
Nobody moved.
"Shirts off," Marcus said. "All three of you. Fold them on the chair, not the floor."
We did it. I pulled the black tank over my head and folded it, and the cold air hit my chest and my nipples went tight before I'd even set it down. Leo folded his cropped white tank and his silver chain swung against his collarbone. Derek crossed his arms over his chest, then uncrossed them, and I saw him look at the paper sheet on the table like it might say something.
Marcus took us one at a time. Height first, the metal rod sliding down onto the crown of my head. "One ninety-one," he said. Weight, and he set the scale's bar with two fingers, and his thumb brushed the small of my back to keep me forward. Blood pressure, the cuff squeezing, then loosening. He put the stethoscope to my chest and told me to breathe, and then he did it again under my left pec, and again under my right, and he listened for a long time.
"Take a deep breath and hold it," he said. I held it. The metal disc was cold and he moved it slowly across my ribs, up into my armpit, and I felt the hairs there lift with the chill. "Let it out."
Leo's turn. Marcus put the cuff on him and watched the gauge, and while he watched he said, without looking up, "How long's the plug been in today?"
"Two hours forty," Leo said.
"And you, Jared?"
"Three hours."
"What size?"
"Minus eight," I said. "Working toward permanent eight."
Marcus's pen stopped on the chart. "You had it at minus seven a week ago."
"Minus eight now," I said. "I put in the extra work."
Marcus looked at me over the clipboard, and his mouth moved the way it moved when he was pleased and wasn't going to say so. "Hm," he said, and wrote something.
He set the clipboard on the counter and came back with his hands loose at his sides. "Body assessment. This is going to be a lot of touching and none of it is optional. If anything hurts, say so. If anything's numb, say so. If you're going to get hard, do it quietly and don't make a production of it. Understood?"
"Yes, sir," the three of us said.
He started with Derek, who stood stiff as a post. Marcus rolled his shoulders one at a time, drew his arms up and back, and pressed on the joint. He checked the spine with his thumb along each vertebra, and Derek made a small noise when he got to the middle of his back.
"Sore?"
"From the rug," Derek said. "I fell asleep on it."
"Sleep on a bed." Marcus moved down to his hips. He put his hands on Derek's waistband, over the top of the shorts, and pushed his thumbs into the notch of his pelvis and held them there. "Does that catch?"
"No."
"Any discharge, burning, blood?"
"No, sir."
Marcus stepped back from him. "Go stand at the table. Turn around. I want to see your range." Then he came to me. "You next."
He put his hand flat on my sternum and pressed, and then he moved his palm in a slow circle over my left pec, and I felt the pad of his thumb find my nipple and roll it once, testing. It stiffened under his thumb without asking me.
"Last time somebody asked how sensitive they were," Marcus said, "they answered before the question was finished. I'm asking properly. On a scale of one to five."
"Three," I said. "Maybe four if there's teeth."
"There won't be teeth. I'm not your dentist." He moved to the other nipple, and I felt the skin pull tight. "Arm up." He put two fingers into my armpit and pressed high near the muscle, and the touch went all the way down my side. "Any lumps, any soreness when you train?"
"No, sir."
He crouched and took my knee in his hands, testing the ligaments, and he made me squat, and he watched my shorts pull across my thighs. "Right knee's tracking a little tight. You stretch it?"
"I do now."
"Derek," Marcus said, still crouched. "Shorts off. I need to see the hips without fabric in the way."
Derek took a long breath. Then he pushed the elastic down his legs, stepped out, folded them, and stood in his briefs with his hands at his sides. Marcus stood up, looked at him, and said, "Those too."
Derek took the briefs off. His cock was half hard and curving against his thigh, and he turned his eyes to the wall.
"That's the whole point of the room," Marcus said. "You're not the first. Now walk to the door and back and tell me if anything pulls."
While Derek walked, Marcus came to Leo. He had Leo raise both arms and he ran his thumbs down the front of his ribs, counting them, and then he put his hand low on Leo's belly and pressed in with three fingers, unhurried, feeling for something underneath. Leo's breath went shallow and his cock started to fill, and Marcus watched it happen with no particular interest.
"Any pain there?"
"No, sir."
"Good." Marcus straightened. "Take the shorts off, Leon. Both layers. I need to look at the pelvic floor."
Leo's shorts came off quickly. His cock stood out from his body, blond hair at the base trimmed short, and Marcus took a glove from the box on the counter and pulled it on.
"The pelvic floor exam is with a finger," Marcus said. "It's quick. I'm checking the tone and whether the ring's intact. Breathe out for me."
Leo bent over the examination table, and Marcus stood behind him and put his left hand on Leo's lower back to keep him steady. His gloved finger went in without any warning, and Leo made a low sound and pushed back into it.
"Tight," Marcus said. "Very tight, actually. You said six weeks?"
"Six weeks, sir."
"Then you're doing it wrong." He moved the finger, and Leo's thighs jumped. "You're wearing narrow necks and your ring's still holding. I felt that. When a man is properly trained, that muscle shouldn't fight me." He pulled out. "You two. Beds. On your back, both of you. I want to see what I'm working with."
I got on the table and the paper sheet crackled under me. Derek took the other table. Leo straight up against the wall, his shorts still in his fist.
Marcus peeled the glove off, dropped it in the bin, and turned to me with the flat of his hand held out. "The plug comes out now. Slowly. You hand it to me, you don't drop it, and you don't put it back in until I say you can."
I reached back and found the base.
The plug came out slow, the way Marcus had told me to do it. I worked the base free and felt the stretch at my rim, the long pull of it, and then the cold air hit my hole and I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. I held the plug out to him. It was slick and dark, the widest part still warm from my body.
Marcus took it, turned it over in his gloved hand, and set it on the tray with a soft clink of silicone against metal. "Derek," he said without looking at him. "Same thing. Out, slow, hand it to me."
Derek's chest rose once, and I saw him reach behind himself, saw his jaw tighten as he worked it out. He handed it over with his face turned away. Marcus took it and set it beside mine.
"Good." He peeled off the glove and dropped it in the bin. "Leon, on the table. On your back, knees up."
Leo hopped up and settled, feet planted on the paper, knees bent and apart. His cock lay against his belly, half hard already, the head dark and glossy where it was leaking. Marcus came and stood between his knees and just looked at him for a moment.
"You're going to get hard," Marcus said. "That's fine. What's not fine is hiding it. I need to see how you respond when the pressure goes on." He took Leo's cock in his hand, wrapped his fingers around it, and gave it one firm stroke from base to tip. Leo's hips came off the table. "Six inches. Maybe six and a half when you're fully up. Campaign ready." He let go. "Yours, Jared."
I swung off the table and stood in front of him. He didn't ask me to lie down. He just took my cock in the same hand, and the calluses on his palm dragged along the underside of the shaft, and I was already hard from watching, so it came up to meet him.
"Seven," he said. "Straight, clean, good shape." He held it a moment, thumb pressing along the vein, and then let it go. "Derek."
Derek stepped forward. His cock was soft, hanging thick between his thighs, and Marcus took it in his fingers and moved the foreskin back and forth once before letting it go. "Size isn't the whole story. It's how you hold. We'll get to that."
He turned to the counter and picked up a fresh glove. "Elasticity next. This is the part where the plug training shows up. I'm going to check you at rest, and then I'm going to check you under pressure. Leon, you're first."
Leo's knees came up a little wider. Marcus slipped his gloved finger in without ceremony, and Leo let out a low sound and pushed into it, the way he'd done against the table before.
"One finger and you're loose," Marcus said. "That's not training, that's a habit. Two."
He added the second finger and Leo's thighs trembled but he took it. Marcus worked them in deep, crooked them against something inside him, and Leo made a sound in his throat that was half moan, half laugh.
"Three."
"Sir, I haven't done three in a week and a half."
"Then we'll see what you've kept." Marcus added the third finger slow and Leo's breath came out in a rush, his hips tilting down onto it. Marcus pumped them once, twice, then withdrew and held his fingers up. They were slick and his hand smelled faintly of Leo's insides, and Leo was gasping on the paper.
"Soft." Marcus wiped his fingers on a cloth. "You'd take a fist if a fist was on the menu."
"Is that a pass?" Leo asked.
"That's a diagnosis." Marcus turned to me. "On the table. Same position."
I got up and lay back, knees apart, and the paper crackled under me. Marcus's finger went in at the edge of my hole and paused there, feeling the ring, and I clenched around him on instinct and watched his mouth twitch.
"You're not fighting me," he said. "That's good. That's a man who's learned to hold."
He added a second finger, then a third, and they went in with a long, smooth slide that made me groan and roll my hips into his hand. He moved them in and out, slow, and I felt my hole stretch around the width of his knuckles and then relax, then stretch again.
"How many fingers is that?" I asked.
"Three. And you're taking them like I gave you the morning paper." He withdrew and held his fingers to my mouth. "Clean them."
I opened my mouth and took his fingers in, tasted myself, the sharp and the salt, and he watched me do it without changing his expression. When I'd cleaned the last of it off, he pulled out and wiped his hand properly.
"Derek. Up here."
Derek had been standing at the edge of the room, arms crossed, cock soft. He looked at Marcus for a long moment, and then he got on the table and lay back and spread his knees.
Marcus looked down at him. "You've been the resistant one all night. That's not a problem. Resistance tells me where the work goes." He put one finger in and Derek's whole body went tight, his toes curling on the paper. "You're holding. Breathe and let go."
"I am breathing."
"You're holding." Marcus pushed the finger deeper and Derek made a sound through his teeth. "You're holding in your jaw, your stomach, your hole. All of it. When you're like this you're not available to anyone."
"I'm not sure I want to be."
"We're not discussing want." Marcus added a second finger, and Derek's eyes went wide and fixed on the ceiling. "We're discussing whether you can compete Saturday. The league has standards, Derek. Part of the standard is that your body works when someone needs it."
"I can work."
"Show me." Marcus moved his fingers, working them deeper, and Derek's throat worked and his cock began to thicken despite everything. "There it is. Your body knows what it wants. You're just slow to agree."
Derek said nothing. But his knees fell wider. And when Marcus added a third finger, he took it with a low groan and his hips shifted into the pressure.
"That's better," Marcus said. He pulled out and wiped his hand. "Go stand with the others. All three of you, lined up against the wall."
We lined up. Naked, hard, soft, in between. The room was cold and the paper tray glittered and Marcus pulled the stool over and sat down in front of us.
"Now the breath work," he said. "This is a fitness marker. A man who can't hold when he's got a mouth full of something isn't fit for endurance. I'm going to test each of you twice. First round, my balls in your mouth. You hold until I tap you once or you tap me. If you tap first, we do it again. Second round, I sit on your face. You breathe through your nose or you don't breathe. Show me you can hold."
He pulled the glove off and didn't put another on. He stood up and came to me first.
"On your knees."
I dropped to the cold linoleum. He stood over me and worked his trousers open, and his cock came out thick and only half hard, his balls hanging heavy and dark. He took a handful of my hair and guided my mouth to them. I opened up and took his left ball in first, the skin warm and wrinkled against my tongue, then the right, and the weight of them filled my mouth full enough that my jaw ached.
"Breathe through your nose," he said.
I did. His thumb stroked the side of my neck, feeling my pulse, and I held them there, mouth full, breathing slow and even through my nostrils. The taste of him was musk and skin, and my own cock was thick and aching between my thighs. He held me there a full minute, maybe more, and I didn't tap.
"Good." He pulled out and let me gasp for air. "Derek. Do the same."
Derek got down on his knees in front of him, and I watched him take Marcus's balls into his mouth one at a time. He was slower about it, less natural, but he took them both in until his cheeks rounded and Marcus's heavy sack pressed against his lips. His eyes were red at the edges and he held.
"There," Marcus said softly. "That's the first time you've let go all night. Hold it."
Derek held. A tear slipped down his cheek and he didn't move to wipe it. Marcus looked down at him for a long moment, then tapped his shoulder and pulled him off. Derek breathed hard, mouth open, a string of spit connecting his lip to Marcus's skin.
"Leon." Leo knelt and took them in easily, like he was born for it. His jaw worked, tongue moving, and Marcus closed his eyes for a moment and let a sound out of his chest that might have been pleasure.
When he pulled Leo off, he was fully hard. His cock stood out from his body, thick and flushed, and he looked at the three of us kneeling at his feet.
"Second round," he said. "Oil. Then I sit."
He took a bottle from the counter and slicked his hands, worked the oil over his cock and his balls, and then he came to me and turned around. "On your back. Under me."
I lay down on the cold floor and he moved over me, knees on either side of my head, and lowered his weight. His balls came down on my mouth first, then his hole, and I felt the heat of him settle over my whole face. He was heavy, solid, and the breath went out of me in a rush as he sat fully down.
"Hold," he said.
I breathed. His skin was warm and salty and his weight pressed my nose flat, his hole flexing against my lips. I had to breathe through my nose and I couldn't, not fully, his balls and his ass covered it, and I tried to turn my head and he put his hand flat on my chest and pressed.
"Breathe," he said. "Your nose works. Use it."
I found a rhythm, small sips of air around the curve of his thigh, and I took his hole in my mouth and licked it without being told, and he shifted his weight and let out a long breath of his own. He sat there a full two minutes. When he stood up I gasped like I'd been underwater.
"You passed," he said. "Derek."
Derek lay down and Marcus lowered himself over his face, and I watched Derek's hands come up and grab Marcus's thighs and then not shove, just hold. His chest heaved and his nose pressed into the crack of Marcus's ass, and Marcus sat heavy and still on his mouth.
"Breathe," Marcus said.
Derek's throat worked. He held for thirty seconds, then forty, and then his whole body shuddered and he tapped Marcus's thigh twice. Marcus stood immediately.
"Again," Marcus said. "Same thing. One more try."
Derek's jaw was tight but he lay back down and Marcus lowered himself again. This time he held for a minute and a half, and when Marcus stood, Derek's face was red and wet and he was breathing like he'd sprinted a lap.
"Good," Marcus said. "Leon."
Leo lay down with a grin and opened his mouth before Marcus was even in position. Marcus settled over him and Leo took him in like he was drinking something, and I heard Leo's hum of pleasure through his nose, his tongue moving against Marcus's hole. Marcus sat there and let him, one hand braced on the table, and Leo held and held and only tapped when Marcus's voice came down to him, quiet, "Okay. That's thirty seconds more than I asked for."
Marcus stood. He was breathing harder now, his cock dark and full, and he looked down at the three of us sprawled and panting on his exam room floor.
"All three of you pass the medical," he said. "Poorly trained, underworked, and one of you fights his own body every step of the way." He looked at Derek. "But you pass. Saturday, you run."
He pulled his trousers up and tucked himself in. "Now get dressed. The next patient's at four and I don't want you still smelling like my balls when I clear his cardiac."
A knock came at the door, soft, and a woman's voice called in. "Doctor? Your one o'clock is here."
Marcus looked at us, calm as ever. "Put your clothes on and go out the back. I'll have your clearance forms at the desk by the time you reach the parking lot."