Chapter 4: Saturday Run
The mall smelled like polished tile and sweat and the sharp tang of disinfectant. The banners came down from every balcony, bright red and white, the kind you'd see at a county fair, and someone had rolled out a long strip of dark matting down the center of the atrium so we didn't have to stand barefoot on the cold stone.
I stood on the line with my hands at my sides and let the crowd look at me. There were a lot of them. They packed the railings three deep on the upper levels, and the lower floor was a solid wall of faces from the fountain to the food court. Some had phones out. Some just watched. The lights were white and harsh, the way they get in a clinic, and the air was cool on my skin because I wasn't wearing anything but the number someone had written on my chest in marker.
Derek stood on my right, his arms crossed, then uncrossed, then settled at his sides because a volunteer on the floor shook his head at him. Leo was on my left, relaxed, rolling his shoulders like he was about to sprint. He caught my eye and grinned.
"Big crowd," he said.
"Yeah."
"You nervous?"
"No."
"Good," he said. "Don't be."
A man in a red polo walked down the line and checked our numbers, running a finger over the marker to make sure it wasn't smudged. He had a clipboard and a whistle around his neck, and when he got to me he looked at my cock for a second, hanging soft between my thighs, and then he moved on.
The announcer's voice came over the speakers, too loud, echoing off the glass roof. "Welcome to the regional qualifiers. Ten athletes, three circuits. The rules are simple. You stay available and you stay standing. If you fail a station, you repeat it until you pass. If you fail twice, you're out."
The crowd cheered. It wasn't a polite cheer. It was the sound of people who'd come to watch bodies work.
"Your head judge for this event," the announcer said, "has cleared every man on this floor in the last week. You know his name. You know his standards. Put your hands together for Dr. Marcus Voss."
Marcus walked out from behind the judges' table wearing the same white coat he'd worn at the clinic. No stethoscope today. A whistle on a lanyard, a clipboard, a pen. He looked at the line of us and then at the crowd, and he let them quiet down on their own.
"First event," he said. His voice carried without the microphone. "Relay circuit. Three stations. Oral, anal, breath hold. You move in order, you don't skip, and you don't stop until I tap you. The man who finishes last, and the man who fails a station twice, will spend the afternoon in re-education in front of everyone you see here."
He didn't explain what re-education was. He didn't have to. Nobody on that floor had any questions.
"Teams of three," Marcus said. "Already assigned. First team, front of the line."
That was us. The line of ten shuffled and reorganized, and Leo, Derek, and I stepped forward to the first station.
The first station was a chair. A steel chair, like the ones they use in locker rooms, bolted to a platform so it wouldn't slide. A man was sitting in it. He was maybe forty, barrel-chested, bald, wearing a plain grey t-shirt and cargo shorts. He had his legs spread and his hands on his knees, and when he saw me he leaned back and pulled his cock out of his shorts without hurry. It was thick and soft, and he held it in one hand like it was an object he expected me to work on.
Marcus stood beside the platform with his whistle in his mouth. "Jared. Oral station. You have three minutes. If he doesn't finish, you don't move on. Go."
I stepped up and knelt on the mat. The man's cock was warm when I took it in my hand, thick enough that my fingers didn't meet around the shaft, and I leaned in and took the head in my mouth first. The taste of him hit me, salt and skin from a day of standing in the heat, and I worked my tongue under the rim and felt him thicken against the inside of my cheek.
"You train with a plug, right?" The man's voice came from above me, casual, like we were talking about the weather. "How many fingers you take at the clinic?"
I pulled off just far enough to answer. "Three, sir. Clean."
"Good. Take the whole thing."
I opened my jaw and lowered, working him down inch by inch, and the stretch at the back of my throat was familiar, the kind of thing I'd practiced until it stopped being an event. His cock filled me to the root, the coarse hair of his pubes pressing against my lips, and I held there, throat working around him, while the crowd's noise washed over me from all sides.
He put his hand on the back of my head. "That's good. That's a trained throat. Hmm. Good, hold it, hold it."
I held. My eyes watered and I breathed through my nose, the way Marcus had taught us at the clinic, and I felt the man's thighs tighten under my hands. He started to move, shallow thrusts into my mouth, and I took them, relaxed my jaw the way I'd been trained, and dropped my hands to his thighs.
"Look at the crowd," he said.
I looked up. The railings were full, phones out, faces watching me with a stranger's cock buried in my throat. A woman on the second level was filming. A kid of about sixteen was staring with his mouth open, and his father beside him had his hand on the boy's shoulder, explaining something.
The man grunted. His hips pushed up, once, twice, and then his cock swelled against my tongue and he came in a hot rush down my throat. I swallowed, kept swallowing, worked him through it until he pulled out with a wet sound that the microphone caught and broadcast across the whole atrium.
"Pass," Marcus said. "Derek. Oral station. Same man."
I stood up and wiped my mouth and stepped aside. Derek took my place, kneeling on the mat, and I saw his jaw set as the man took himself in hand again, softening, and guided Derek's mouth onto him.
Derek's throat worked. He was slower than me, always was, but he got the man hard again and took him deep, and the man's hand came down on the back of his head with a little more force than he'd used on me. Derek's eyes closed. He held.
"Pass," Marcus said. "Leo. You know the drill."
Leo knelt and took the man in his mouth like he was drinking from a fountain. No hesitation. His throat opened fast, deep, and the man let out a breath and settled his hands behind his head and let Leo work. Leo looked up at him while he did it, calm, unhurried, and the man came faster the second time because of how Leo watched.
"Pass." Marcus blew his whistle, a short sharp blast. "Second station. Anal. Wait for your judge."
A different man came forward. Younger, maybe thirty, lean, wearing the same red polo as the volunteers. He had a bottle of lube in one hand and a chair in the other. He set the chair down in front of us and sat in it, then looked at the three of us with his legs spread.
"I'm the judge," he said. "That means I'm also the equipment. You ride me until I finish, then you switch. You don't get to pick your position. I do."
Leo stepped forward first. The man looked him up and down, then pointed at the chair. "Face me. You'll ride, I'll watch."
Leo walked over and straddled him. The man worked the lube over his cock, slick and quick, and Leo lowered himself onto it with a sound that came out of his chest. The man's hands went to Leo's hips and he held him there, seated to the root, and Leo's head tipped back and he started to ride.
"Breath steady," Marcus said from beside the platform. "You're not at the breath station yet. Don't waste your oxygen."
Leo nodded. His rhythm was even, hips rolling, and the man beneath him watched him with a judge's dispassion, a hand on Leo's cock, measuring something as he moved. Leo took him to the root again and again, his thighs flexing, the muscles of his stomach standing out as he worked. The crowd went quiet in patches, then loud, and the man's hips came up to meet him and then stopped, holding him down, and I heard the judge's breath catch.
"Pass," the man said, and Leo lifted off him with a wet sound and stepped aside.
"Derek," the judge said. "Turn around. Face the crowd."
Derek walked over. His face was unreadable as he turned his back to the judge and straddled him, reaching behind himself with one hand to take the man's cock and guide it in. He'd gone through Marcus's office exam. He knew the drill. But I saw his shoulders take a breath before he lowered.
He took it slow. The judge's hands came to his hips and pulled him down the rest of the way, and Derek made a tight sound through his teeth, his back bowing. The judge let him find his rhythm, watching him the way the other had watched Leo, and Derek's movements were stiff at first and then looser as his body stopped fighting.
"Pass," the judge said, and there was something like approval in it.
Jared. Me.
I stepped forward and the judge tilted his head. "Front. Ride me like you mean it."
I straddled him. His cock was slick, warm from Leo and Derek's bodies, and I took him in my hand and lowered myself onto it with a groan that I couldn't stop. The stretch was good, deep, the kind of fullness I'd trained for, and I seated myself at the root and let the weight settle before I started to move.
His hands went to my waist. "You're tighter than your friends."
"I've been holding it," I said. "Sir."
"Don't hold it here. This is a competition, not a party. Let go of it."
I did. I dropped my hips into a rhythm, fast and even, and the judge's breath went out of him and his head fell back against the chair. I rode him hard, my hands on his shoulders, my thighs burning, and the crowd's noise rose to a roar around me until I couldn't separate the sound from the feel of him moving inside me.
"Faster," he said. "Don't stop. Don't you stop."
I didn't stop. I rode him until his hips came up off the chair and his hands dug into my ass and he finished inside me with a raw, long groan, and I sat there on him, breathing hard, and waited for him to tap my thigh once.
"Pass," he said. His voice was rough.
I lifted off him and stepped aside. The lube ran down the inside of my thigh and I didn't wipe it off.
Marcus blew his whistle. "Third station. Breath hold."
The third station was a padded bench, low to the ground, and a man in a tracksuit lay down on it. He was young, maybe twenty-five, with a thick neck and a wrestler's build, and when he lay down the track jacket came open and I saw his cock lying on his belly, heavy and soft.
"On your hands and knees," Marcus said. "You'll take him in your mouth for the hold. He watches the clock, not you. Breathe through your nose or you don't breathe. This is the one that weeds people out."
Leo went first. He got on his hands and knees over the man's face, straddling him, and the wrestler opened his mouth and took Leo's cock inside. Leo's breath went out in a rush and then he steadied, nose working, and the wrestler's hands came up to hold the bases of Leo's thighs.
The clock on the wall counted. Thirty seconds. Forty-five. A minute. Leo's face was calm. He breathed through his nose in long, even pulls, and the man under him made a low sound around his cock, and Leo's hips gave a small roll that he didn't seem to decide on.
"Pass," Marcus said at ninety seconds.
Derek did the same. He got into position, and the wrestler took him in, and I watched Derek's eyes close and his hands tremble where they braced on his thighs. He held for a minute. Then another fifteen seconds. Then he tapped the bench and Marcus shook his head.
"Again," Marcus said. "You don't move on until you hold ninety."
Derek re-positioned. The wrestler took him in again, and Derek's back bowed and his jaw went tight and he held. His face went red, then deeper red, and the crowd went quiet and I saw a volunteer step forward in case it went wrong.
Derek held. He held through the minute and the fifteen seconds on top of it, and when Marcus blew the whistle at ninety, Derek lifted off the man and crawled off the bench on his knees, breathing like he'd crossed a finish line.
"Pass," Marcus said. "Jared. You're last. The clock's already running."
I got on my hands and knees over the wrestler. He took my cock in his mouth, warm and wet, and I felt his throat open around me and the weight of his tongue along the underside of my shaft. The air went out of me and I steadied myself, nose flaring, and breathed.
Ninety seconds. The clock ticked. I held, my body still, my eyes fixed on the floor, and the wrestler under me worked in a slow, even rhythm that should have made it impossible and didn't because I'd practiced exactly this with Marcus's weight on my face a week ago.
"Pass," Marcus said.
I lifted off. The wrestler grinned up at me and slapped my ass once, hard, the sound echoing off the glass roof.
"That's a cleared man," he said.
Marcus came and stood in front of the three of us. The other teams were still working through their stations behind us, and the crowd's attention had moved partially to them, but Marcus didn't look away from us.
"Clean circuit," he said. "All three of you. First team to finish."
The buzzer sounded and a volunteer ran over with a clipboard. Marcus took it, scanned it, and looked up at us.
"Your time puts you in the lead," he said. "Now you sit on the bench and you watch the others. If they beat you, you run the final event. If they don't, you're already through to Saturday."
"We're through if they lose?" Derek asked.
"You're through when this round ends and I say you're through." Marcus looked at him. "Nothing in this building is guaranteed, Derek. You learned that at the clinic. You'll learn it again here."
He walked off toward the judges' table. A volunteer brought us water and three short towels, and we sat on the bench in the middle of the mall, naked and cooling, and watched the other teams work through their stations.
Leo leaned back. "That was easy."
"Easy for you," Derek said. "You didn't have to do the breath station twice."
"You scaped through by the skin of your teeth," Leo said. "But you rescued. That's what matters."
I drank water and watched. One of the other teams had a man on the anal station who was having trouble, his hips moving without finding a rhythm, the judge's hand on his shoulder talking him through it. He was one of the guys from the clinic waiting room, the one with the silicone ring. He got it worked out eventually, and the crowd cheered for him when the judge tapped his thigh.
"Who does re-education?" Derek asked.
"Last finisher," Leo said. "And whoever fails twice. I've seen it once. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it's not the best."
"What is it?"
"They got a man in a harness," Leo said. "Collar, leash, the works. A crowd of volunteers used him for an hour while the announcer walked the crowd through what he was doing wrong and how he could fix it. He was a runner. Good legs. You don't want to be the one up there on Saturday."
The other teams finished. Second place crossed the line about four minutes after us, and the third team came in after that, and then there was a long, slow string of individuals finishing their stations at their own pace. The crowd drifted, came back, filmed, applauded.
One man failed his breath station twice. Marcus's voice came over the speakers, calm and clear: "Failed twice. Re-education. Saturday, after the finals. Thank you for your patience."
The man's face went the color of the banner behind him. He stood on the mat with his hands at his sides, and a volunteer brought over a harness and a collar, and the crowd shifted forward to watch.
Leo nudged me. "See? That's the price. You don't want to be that guy."
I watched the volunteer fit the collar around the man's neck. He was tall, lean, built like a swimmer, and he stood there and let it happen, his eyes fixed on the distance. The crowd was already taking out their phones.
"Where does he get used?" I asked.
"There's a room," Leo said. "Behind the stage. They'll do it there and broadcast it to the screens."
"Broadcast?"
"Every screen in the mall," Leo said. "So nobody misses the lesson."
Derek was quiet. His hands were in his lap and he was watching the man on the platform, and I couldn't tell what expression he had on his face.
Marcus walked back over to us. He stood in front of the bench with his clipboard and his whistle, and he looked at the three of us sitting naked and damp and still breathing hard from the circuit.
"Regional final," he said. "Saturday. Same mall, same crowd, one event. A single relay, mixed stations, no time limit. You finish or you don't. The last team standing gets a season's pass and your names on the board."
"Who do we run against?" Leo asked.
"The team that placed second today. You saw them. They're good."
Leo looked at Derek, then at me. Then he looked up at Marcus. "We'll beat them."
Marcus let the corner of his mouth twitch. "That's the kind of confidence that makes a judge want to add a station." He checked his watch and looked toward the platform where the man in the harness was being led away. "Go home. Rest. Whatever you did today to get through the circuit, keep doing it. Saturday's going to weigh on your lungs and your hole and your will to stand up when you're done."
He turned and walked off without another word. The crowd was already thinning, the staff pulling banners down from the lower railings, the volunteers rolling up the dark matting in long strips.
Derek stood up and stretched. "I'm hungry."
"Food court's closed," Leo said.
"Then we get drive-through," Derek said. "Come on. I'm buying. I feel like I earned a burger and a shower and eight hours of sleep, in that order."
We pulled our shorts on and walked out through the mall's side doors into the late afternoon sun. The parking lot was still full, families standing by their cars, people heading in with sunglasses on, and none of them looked twice at three eighteen-year-old athletes in running shorts and tank tops walking across the asphalt toward Derek's truck.
I got in the backseat. Leo took the front. Derek started the engine and turned the air conditioning on high, and the cold hit my skin and made me shiver once.
"Saturday," I said.
"Saturday," Leo said. "We're going to beat them so hard the mall security has to come check if they're all right."