Chapter 6: The Final Run
The mall didn't look like a mall anymore. The storefronts were dark, their windows reflecting the harsh white lights that hung from the rafters. The polished tile floor gleamed underfoot, and the crowd packed the balconies three deep, a roar of voices that bounced off the glass ceiling and came back down on us like weather.
We stood in the center of the atrium, stripped to our skins, numbers painted on our chests. Jared had 7, Leo had 8, I had 9. The paint was cold on my skin and I could feel it drying tight across my sternum.
The other team was already across from us. Four of them, lean and cocky, with the kind of muscle that comes from gym selfies and nothing else. Their number one, a tall black guy with a shaved head, was staring at Jared's hole like he'd already won something. Jared stared back at him with that even, polite look he had, the one that said he was ready for anything and interested in nothing.
Marcus stepped to the center of the floor with a microphone. He was wearing a suit. I'd never seen him in a suit, and it changed the way he carried himself, made him look like a referee instead of a customer.
"Welcome to the regional final," he said, and his voice boomed through the speakers, echoing off the glass. "You know the rules. The relay. Three stations, three men, one team. Your time is cumulative. Miss a station, you reset. Fails, you sit."
The crowd cheered. Somewhere in the front row, a woman was waving a sign that said "7 IS HEAVEN," and I realized it was about Jared.
"The judges are ready," Marcus said. "Competitors, to your marks."
A horn blared, loud and raw, and the first man from the other team dropped to his knees in front of the station judge, a bald guy with arms like tree trunks. Jared was right behind him, kneeling on the tile before the judge had even settled into his chair.
I was on deck. That's what the relay meant. Derek would take the second station, Leo the third, and I was the anchor, the mouth. I stood behind Jared and watched him work.
The judge was a big man, maybe fifty, with grey hair on his chest and hands that looked like they'd spent a lifetime hauling heavy things. He was already hard, his cock standing out from his lap, thick and dark, the head slicked with pre-cum. Jared took him in hand and stroked him once, twice, a slow deliberate rhythm, and then he leaned in and took the head in his mouth.
The crowd went quiet. Not silent, but quiet, the way they get when they're watching something they can't look away from.
Jared worked him slow. He took his time, letting the judge feel every inch of his throat, and the judge rested his hands on Jared's head and let him set the pace. I watched the muscles in Jared's jaw work, the way his tongue moved, the way he looked up at the judge with those warm brown eyes that said please, sir, use me properly, and I felt my dick stir against my thigh.
He got him all the way in. The judge's hips twitched and Jared held there, his nose pressed into the grey hair at the base, and the judge let out a long breath and settled back in the chair.
"That's a clean station," Marcus said into the mic, and the crowd cheered.
Jared pulled off with a wet sound, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and looked at me. "You're up," he said. "Third station is breath-hold. Don't rush it."
I nodded and stepped forward, and Jared moved to the bench to wait his turn. The judge was still hard in front of me, glistening from Jared's mouth, and I knelt on the tile and took him in hand, feeling the warmth of him, the evidence of Jared's work still slick on the skin.
"Look at me," the judge said.
I looked up. His eyes were dark and calm, and he could see everything he needed to know about me in that one look. He put his hand on the back of my head, not rough, but present, and said, "Take me clean."
I opened my jaw and took him in. He was thicker than Jared had made him look, and the stretch was immediate, familiar. I breathed through my nose and let the weight of him rest on my tongue, and the judge hummed in approval and began to move.
"Faster," Marcus said, from somewhere behind me. "That's not a station, that's a nap. Competition pace."
I picked it up. I worked him the way I'd practiced, the way Nathan had trained me the night before, and the judge set his rhythm to mine and let me finish the job. The crowd was chanting now, something I couldn't quite make out over the roar of my own pulse, and the judge's hands tightened on my head and I felt him swell against my tongue.
"Hold," he said. "Hold until I tell you."
I held. He came in my mouth with a grunt, filling my throat, and I swallowed and swallowed and swallowed again until he pulled out and patted my cheek once, a little tap, a job well done.
"Switch," Marcus said. "Station two. Anal."
Leo stepped up to the bench. The judge was a different man this time, younger, harder, with a scar on his chin and a heavy cock that hung low against his thigh. Leo lay back on the padded bench without being told, drew his knees up to his chest, and held himself open.
The judge stepped between his legs. The crowd was louder now, the chant resolving into words I could finally make out.
"EIGHT. EIGHT. EIGHT."
The judge pressed in. Leo took him the way he took everything, calm and unhurried, his jaw set and his eyes half closed, and the judge found his rhythm and worked him on the thin pad of foam. Leo's hands went to the bench edge and held on, and I watched his face shift through the cycle, relaxation, focus, release.
"That's clean," Marcus said, and the crowd erupted.
I realized then that we were in the lead. The other team was still on their second station, their guy bent over the bench with a pained look on his face while his judge worked him slow. I couldn't hear their numbers, hadn't been listening, but the crowd's energy was all for us.
"Final station," Marcus said. "Breath-hold. Jared, you're up."
Jared stepped forward to the center of the floor. They'd set up a chair there, a heavy steel chair with armrests, and a wrestler was already sitting in it, stripped to his waist, broad shoulders and a thick neck and a cock that stood up from his lap like a flagpole.
Jared knelt in front of the chair.
"Ninety seconds," Marcus said. "Hold clean. No break. No swallow."
Jared opened his mouth and the wrestler guided himself in. I watched the length of him disappear past Jared's lips, watched the muscles in Jared's throat work as he took him all the way down, and then the wrestler's hips settled and Jared held.
One Mississippi. Two Mississippi.
I counted along with the crowd, felt the roar of it in my chest, and watched Jared's eyes water in the harsh lights. He'd done this in practice a hundred times. He'd done it at the clinic with Marcus's voice in his ear telling him to breathe through his nose. This was the same, except it wasn't, because the whole mall was watching and the other team's anchor was still ten feet away, kneeling in front of his own judge with a red-faced struggle in his jaw.
Seventy Mississippi. Eighty.
Jared's shoulders were trembling. The wrestler had put his hands on Jared's head, not to control him, just to hold on, and I could see the strain in the set of Jared's back, the way his fingers gripped his own thighs.
Ninety.
The wrestler pulled out and Jared got his breath back in one long gasp, sitting back on his heels with his mouth wet and his eyes bright.
"Clean station," Marcus said. "First place. The team of seven, eight, and nine takes the regional title."
The crowd went insane. The sound hit me in the chest like a wave, and I stood there in my skin with my number on my chest and watched Jared get up off his knees, watched Leo swing his legs off the bench, and the three of us came together in the center of the floor while the other team's anchor was still choking.
Marcus came over with the mic, his suit immaculate, and he looked at the three of us with something in his eyes that was almost approval.
"Regional champions," he said. "You've earned your place at the state level. The finals are in two weeks. Same relay, bigger floor, more judges."
I looked at Jared and Leo. Jared was still catching his breath, glowing with the effort of the station. Leo was watching the other team with that bored, half-interested look he always had.
"We got it," Leo said.
Marcus smiled at him, a real smile, not the customer smile he used in the food court. "We'll see," he said. "The state level is different. You'll be competing against men who've been training their whole lives for this. Not boys."
I felt the heat rise in my cheeks at that, the word boys landing on us like a challenge. Jared heard it too, I could see it in the way his jaw tightened.
"Then we'll be ready," Jared said.
Marcus nodded. "Good. You'll be contacted with your schedule. Enjoy the victory." He turned and walked back toward the judges' table, and the crowd was still chanting, still roaring, the sound of our names echoing off the glass.
I looked at my friends, my team, standing naked in the center of the mall that had been our arena, and I felt the shape of the thing we were becoming settling into my bones. Two weeks. State level. Real judges, real stakes, real consequences for failure.
"We should celebrate," Leo said. "Now. Before the crowds move on to the next thing."
"Where?" Jared asked.
Leo shrugged. "There's a shower in the back offices. I saw it on the way in. It's private."
We crossed the floor together, barefoot on the cold tile, and the crowd parted for us like water around three stones. Behind us, the other team was still finishing their final station, their anchor on his knees with the judge's hands in his hair.
The back offices were dark. The shower was a single stall in a locker room that smelled like cleaning chemicals and old sweat. The water ran cold for a long moment before it heated, and we took turns stepping under it, washing the paint off our chests, the evidence of the stations off our skin.
Jared was last under the spray. I watched the water run down his back, over the muscles in his shoulders, and I saw the way he looked at us, standing naked in the steam.
"Two weeks," he said. "We got two weeks to be ready for men, not boys."
"You'll be ready," I said. "We all will."
He smiled. It was a different smile than the one he'd worn during the stations, softer, almost shy.
"I know," he said. "We've been ready our whole lives."