Chapter 10: Round Two Begins
Leo’s glassy eyes fixed on the pipe. A desperate, cracking sound escaped his throat—part whimper, part affirmation. He took the pipe, his fingers trembling against the hot glass, and sucked the flame down into the bowl. The fresh, acrid smoke flooded his lungs, a chemical lightning bolt that instantly torched the last remnants of fatigue. His nerves screamed awake, a live wire of pure, undifferentiated need. He exhaled a plume of white, his vision sharpening to a painful clarity, just as a thick, uncut cock slid roughly between his lips.
The man behind him hadn’t pulled out. He started moving again, a deep, grinding rhythm that made Leo’s overstretched insides burn. “That’s it, get that shit in your system,” the man with the pipe said, taking it back. He watched Leo’s mouth work, then grabbed a handful of his sweaty hair. “Don’t just lay there, slut. Swallow it.” He forced Leo’s head down, burying the cock to the root, holding him there as Leo gagged and struggled for air, his nostrils flaring. When he was released, spit and precum webbed his chin. They flipped him onto his stomach. The movement was brutal, unceremonious. His face was pushed into the damp, stained mattress, the smell of stale sex and mildew filling his nose.
“Both holes this time,” a new voice said, low and matter-of-fact. A heavy knee pressed between his shoulder blades, pinning him. He felt a cold, generous stream of lube hit his wrecked entrance, then the thick press of a crown. It wasn’t the same man; this cock felt different, longer, with a pronounced curve. It speared into him with a single, relentless thrust that punched the air from his lungs. Almost simultaneously, another man crouched in front of his face, guiding his slick cock past Leo’s lips. They fucked him in a staggered, brutal sync, the man in his ass setting a hard, fast pace that slammed Leo’s body forward onto the other cock with every drive.
The one in his mouth grabbed the back of his head, fingers twisting in his hair. “You’re just a warm hole, ain’t you? A fucking cum dumpster.” He pistoned his hips, fucking Leo’s throat with short, aggressive jabs that triggered a relentless gag reflex. Tears streamed down Leo’s cheeks, mixing with the sweat and spit on the fabric below. The man in his ass leaned over, his sweaty chest pressing against Leo’s back. “You feel that, bitch? Feel how deep I’m in your guts?” He altered his angle, grinding the curved length against Leo’s prostate with a precision that was agonizing. The sensation, amplified a thousandfold by the drug, was no longer purely pain or pleasure, but a terrifying, white-noise signal of total use.
They came almost together. The man in his throat pulled out, jerking his cock, and spurt thick, hot ropes across Leo’s face—over his closed eyelids, his cheeks, his slack mouth. “Open.” Leo obeyed, tongue out, and the man finished on his tongue, the bitter-salty taste flooding his senses. As he swallowed, the man in his ass groaned, his thrusts becoming erratic, then ceasing as he pushed in deep. Leo felt the hot pulse, another flood filling his already saturated channel. It overflowed immediately, a warm trickle down his perineum and thighs. The man pulled out with a wet, sucking sound and slapped Leo’s ass, which was now glistening with lube and semen. “Fucking perfect.”
He was dragged up, turned, pushed onto his back. The circle of men was smaller now, but more intense, their eyes dark with a tired, predatory focus. One, with a shaved head and intricate tribal tattoos across his shoulders, looked down at him. “He’s leaking like a sieve.” He knelt, spreading Leo’s legs wide, and dipped two fingers into the dripping mess. He brought them to Leo’s mouth. “Clean it.” Leo sucked his own filth from the man’s fingers, the act somehow more degrading than anything before. The man grinned. “Good boy. Now hold yourself open. I want to watch it drip while I fuck your face.”
Leo hooked his own knees behind his elbows, exposing his ravaged, glistening hole to the humid air. The tattooed man fed his cock into Leo’s mouth, fucking slowly, while another man, younger with a hungry gaze, positioned himself between Leo’s legs. “Gonna add to the pool, baby.” He nudged his tip against the slippery, distended opening and pushed in easily, the resistance completely gone. He slid in to the hilt with a sigh. “Christ, he’s just a warm, wet bag now.” He began a steady, deep rhythm, his balls slapping against the puddle of cum beneath them.
The pace was relentless, but different now—less frenetic, more industrialized, a systematic emptying. Men took turns, sometimes two at once, sometimes just one working him over methodically while others watched, smoked, passed the pipe. Leo’s consciousness fragmented. He wasn’t a person; he was a series of sensations: the scrape of teeth on a nipple, the crush of a heavy body on his, the relentless stretch and burn, the hot bursts of liquid filling him from one end or the other. The cage was a forgotten phantom limb. His own pleasure was irrelevant, a distant memory overwritten by this new programming of total receptivity.
“How many is that?” someone asked, voice slurred.
“Lost count after the first ten. He’s a fucking champion.”
A beefy man with a graying beard lifted Leo’s hips, tilting them. “Look at that. Stream of it.” Cum, now a thin, milky rivulet, leaked continuously from Leo’s hole as if from a tapped keg. The man chuckled, a sound of genuine awe. “Damn.” He replaced the flow with his own cock, sealing the leak, pumping another load into the overfilled reservoir.
The gray dawn light through the windows bleached the scene of its shadows, revealing the true devastation: the discarded needles, the empty bottles, the skin glowing with sweat, and Leo at the center, trembling uncontrollably, his body a canvas of bites and bruises, his stomach slightly distended. The music had stopped. The only sounds were wet slaps, grunts, and Leo’s broken, intermittent whimpers.
The man who had first greeted him at the door, the linebacker, appeared. He assessed Leo with cold, appraising eyes. “Time’s up. Car’s here.” The men still engaged sighed but withdrew. The one in Leo’s ass pulled out with a wet pop, a final gush of spent seed following the retreat. They left him there, lying in the cool, sticky puddle of their collective release.
The linebacker threw the gray sweats at him. “Get up. Get dressed.” Leo tried. His limbs were mismanaged things, heavy and uncoordinated. He somehow got the sweats on, the fabric clinging unpleasantly to his soiled skin. The man guided him, not ungently, to the small door and out into the shocking, clean cold of the morning. The black town car waited, idling.
The ride back was a silent, trembling void. Leo stared, unseeing, at the city waking up. Normal people getting coffee. His body felt cavernous, hollowed out and yet heavy with foreign weight. He could still feel the phantom pressures, the ghostly thrusts. The cage was now a familiar cold comfort, the only thing that felt like his own.
The car stopped in front of Dante’s apartment. The driver spoke for the first time. “Out.”
Leo stumbled to the familiar door. He had no key. He raised a hand to knock, but it swung open before he made contact. Dante stood there, showered, dressed in a simple white t-shirt and jeans, smelling of soap and coffee. His eyes took in Leo’s disheveled state, the haunted look, the way he swayed on his feet.
Without a word, Dante stepped aside. Leo shuffled in. The apartment was clean, the morning sun cutting across the floor. It felt alien, a museum of a past life.
“Shower,” Dante commanded, his voice neutral. “You reek of smoke and spit and thirty men.”
Leo obeyed, moving mechanically. The hot water scalded his skin, turning the runoff gray and milky at his feet. He scrubbed until his skin was raw, but he couldn’t reach the feeling inside. When he emerged, wrapped in a towel, Dante was in the living room, sipping coffee.
“Well?” Dante asked.
Leo stood there, dripping. He tried to find words. “I… I was perfect.” The statement was empty, a recited line.
Dante put his cup down. He walked over, lifted Leo’s chin. He studied his eyes, the tremor in his jaw. “No,” he said softly, almost sadly. “You were efficient. There’s a difference.” He released Leo’s chin. “The client called. They were impressed. They want you again next weekend. A longer booking.”
He turned and walked toward the kitchen. “Your worth just increased.” He paused, not looking back. “Go lie down. You’ll feel it for days.”
Leo walked to the bedroom. The bed was made, the sheets fresh. He lay down, the clean cotton abrasive against his sensitized skin. He stared at the ceiling. The emptiness within him was no longer a space to be filled. It was a permanent condition. A fact. He closed his eyes and waited for the feeling to return to his hands. It didn’t.
It didn’t. The numbness in his fingers, the hollowed-out sensation in his core, the ghostly echoes of thrusts—they became his new normal. The week passed in a blur of sore silence, of Dante watching him with that analytical gaze, of meals eaten without tasting. Dante would unlock the cage only for supervised showers, his touch clinical, before the steel was secured again. The promise of the next weekend hung in the air, a dark star around which everything orbited.
When the black car returned, Leo walked to it without being told. His body felt both heavy and insubstantial. The driver didn’t speak. This time, the drive was longer, plunging deeper into the city’s industrial wasteland. They stopped at a different warehouse, larger, its exterior lit by a single buzzing sodium lamp that cast a sickly orange glow. The man who opened the door was new, taller, with a bored expression. “Through there,” he said, nodding to an inner door.
Leo pushed it open. The sound hit him first—a low, rolling thunder of voices, music, and movement. The space was vast, a cathedral of concrete and steel, and it was filled with men. Dozens. More than he could quickly count. All of them Black, muscular, a sea of toned chests and arms in tank tops or bare skin, their eyes turning toward him as one. The air was thick with the smell of anticipation, weed, and testosterone.
A man with a clipboard approached. “Leo? You’re with me. Rules are simple. You don’t speak unless given a direct question. You take what you’re given. You say thank you. Understood?” Leo nodded, his throat tight. The man led him to the center of the open floor, where a large, padded vinyl mat had been laid out. “Assume the position.”
Leo knelt, then bent forward, presenting himself. A murmur rippled through the crowd. “Look at that pretty little hole, already winking for us,” someone laughed. “Heard he’s a champion.” Another voice, closer: “Let’s see if the hype’s real.”
The first man knelt behind him. Leo heard the snick of a lube bottle cap, then felt cold gel drizzled directly onto his entrance. No preparation, no fingers. Just the immediate, blunt pressure of a cockhead, thick and unforgiving. The man shoved in, a brutal, dry stretch that tore a ragged gasp from Leo’s throat. “Fuck, he’s tight!” the man grunted, not stopping, sheathing himself fully in one relentless push. He set a hard, deep pace immediately, his balls slapping against Leo’s ass with wet, rhythmic cracks.
Another man stepped in front of Leo’s face, his cock already hard. “Open up, dumpster.” Leo opened his mouth, and the man fed his length in, fucking his throat with short, punishing strokes that denied him air. He was a nexus of raw, simultaneous violation. The man in his ass came quickly, with a guttural shout, flooding him with heat. He pulled out, and Leo felt the immediate dribble of cum down his thigh. Before the emptiness could register, a different cock was pressing inside, just as thick, just as rough. “My turn.”
The rhythm was established. A relentless, rotating assembly line of use. One cock replaced another in his ass with barely a pause. His mouth was perpetually full, sometimes with one, sometimes with two, the salty-bitter taste of precum and skin his only sustenance. Hands groped his chest, pinched his nipples, slapped his ass and thighs. “Such a smooth little fucktoy.” “Take that dick, boy.” The comments washed over him, meaningless noise beneath the physical onslaught.
After what felt like an hour, a man crouched beside him. “Time for a little boost. Keep you nice and eager.” Leo felt a cold swipe of alcohol on his upper cheek, then a sharp, sudden sting. A booty bump. The rush of meth hit his system almost instantly, a chemical firestorm that scorched through the fatigue and pain. His nerves lit up like live wires. The feeling of being filled became electric, exquisite, a all-consuming need. “Oh, yeah, there he is,” a voice chuckled as Leo began pushing back against the cock in his ass, a desperate, hungry motion. “Look at him wake up.”
The drug sharpened everything into hyper-real clarity. The individual veins on the cocks he sucked, the scent of each man’s sweat, the burning stretch of each new invasion—it all fused into a single, glorious purpose. He was a vessel, and he needed to be filled, over and over. The pace intensified. Men didn’t wait for a full turn. They surrounded him, one fucking his ass, one his mouth, others standing close, jerking themselves off onto his back, his hair, his face.
“Gonna paint that white canvas,” one said, splattering hot stripes across Leo’s shoulders. Another came across his bowed back, the semen warm and slick. A third aimed for his face, forcing his eyes shut as the thick fluid coated his eyelids and cheeks. He lost track of the loads taken inside him. His gut began to feel swollen, uncomfortably full. A man with huge, heavy balls was pounding into him, his thrusts making a wet, sloshing sound from the sheer volume of cum inside Leo. “You’re fucking sloshing, man,” the guy grunted, fucking him harder. “I can hear it.”
The pressure built, a deep, cramping fullness. When the man pulled out, a torrent of milky fluid gushed from Leo’s gaping hole, splattering onto the vinyl mat in a loud, messy rush. The crowd whooped. “Damn! Look at that geyser!” But before the flow even ceased, another cock was nudging at the mess, pushing it back inside along with its own length. The overstimulation was maddening. The booty bump had his heart racing, his skin crawling with need, but his body was reaching a physical limit.
The fullness in his stomach turned acidic, churning. A man was face-fucking him deeply, holding his head down. Leo gagged violently, his body convulsing. The man pulled out just as a wave of vomit surged up Leo’s throat. It wasn’t food—it was a frothy, bitter rush of semen and stomach acid that splashed onto the mat. He gasped, sputtering, strings of it hanging from his lips.
“Clean break,” someone said, not unkindly. “More room now.” A bottle of water was shoved against his mouth. He rinsed and spat, the water mixing with the vomit. A hand patted his head. “Good boy. Now get back to work.” The fucking resumed instantly. The cycle repeated. Fill, stretch, overflow. Retch. Clear. Refill.
Half the night bled away. The music pounded. The crowd had thinned only slightly. A line of men, maybe thirty strong, still waited their turn, some stroking themselves, others watching with dark, amused eyes. Leo was a shuddering wreck on the mat, his body glazed in sweat, spit, and drying cum, his hole leaking a continuous, slow stream onto the soaked vinyl beneath him. A man with a lion tattoo across his chest was currently driving into him, his pace steady and deep. “You’re gonna take all of us, right, pretty boy?” he breathed, his hands tight on Leo’s hips. Leo, his forehead resting on his forearms, could only manage a weak, guttural sound of assent. The line of men shifted, patient, inexorable. The night was far from over.
The line of men shifted, patient, inexorable. The air grew heavier, sweat and smoke clinging to the damp vinyl and tired skin. A man with a shaved head and eyes like chips of flint crouched beside Leo, a small glass pipe already glowing in his hand. “Looks like you’re fading, pretty thing.” He held the stem to Leo’s lips.“Breathe deep. Bring it back.”
Leo sucked, the flame dancing, pulling the acrid vapor deep into his core. It was a chemical defibrillation. His spine straightened; a jittery, frantic energy replaced the leaden exhaustion.Every pore buzzed. The numbness in his hands vanished, replaced by a pins-and-needs hypersensitivity. He looked at the waiting men, their cocks, their expectant faces, and a raw, hungry sound crawled out of his throat. “Please,” he rasped, the word shredded.“That’s what I like to hear.” The man put the pipe aside. He grabbed Leo’s hair, pulled his head back to expose his throat, and spat into his open mouth.Then he turned him, pushing him flat on his back on the sodden mat. “Legs up. Let’s see that ruined hole drip.”
Leo hooked his arms under his knees, holding himself wide open.The cum that leaked from him made a wet pattern beneath his ass. The man with the flint eyes mounted him, not bothering with lube, using the overflow as slick. He drove in, a brutal, bottoming thrust that made Leo arch and cry out. “Fuck yes, you feel that? You’re so fucking open it’s like sliding into a warm glove.” He set a hard, punishing rhythm, his gaze locked on the junction of their bodies.
Another man straddled Leo’s chest, his heavy balls resting on Leo’s sternum. “Suck me off, cocksleeve. Make it good.” Leo strained upward, taking the thick head into his mouth, his jaw stretched taut. The meth made his focus razor-sharp, narrowing the world to this cock in his mouth, the one splitting his ass, the burn in his lungs. He sucked with a desperate, servile intensity, hollowing his cheeks, his tongue pressing along the frenulum.
“God, he’s greedy for it now,” the man fucking his ass grunted, his pace becoming erratic, sloppy. He came with a shout, his hips stuttering, another hot flood joining the mess inside. He pulled out and immediately a different man, thicker, shorter, took his place.The transition was seamless, a study in efficient use. The new entry was a sharper, more concentrated stretch that made Leo’s eyes roll back.
The man on his chest finished, pulling out to jerk his release across Leo’s face and neck. Another stepped into the vacated space without a word, guiding his erection past Leo’s swollen lips. The meth high was a centrifuge, separating thought from sensation, leaving only a crystalline, desperate need to be filled, to be used, to be proved. “Good little fuckhole,” someone muttered, a hand roughly squeezing his tit.“Taking it all like a champ.”
Time lost meaning. It became a loop of penetration, ejaculation, replacement. The vinyl beneath him was a cold, sticky lake.His throat was raw, each new cock an abrasive blessing. His ass was beyond feeling pain or pleasure; it was a numb, stretched-out channel that accepted anything, his body convulsing only when a particularly deep thrust hit his tender prostate. They used his mouth until his jaw ached, then flipped him onto his stomach, driving into his ass from behind while another came on his back.
The pipe made another round.This hit was sharper, darker, laced with a paranoid edge. The sounds in the warehouse distorted—the music became a predatory throb, the men’s voices echoed as if down a long tunnel.Leo’s heart hammered against his ribs, a trapped bird. A man with intricate tattoos across his shoulders pulled him up by the hair. “Look at me.” Leo’s gaze darted, unfocused.“You’re just a set of holes, right? You know that?” Leo nodded, a frantic bob of his head. “Say it.”
“I’m… I’m just holes,” Leo choked out, the admission tasting like ash and spit.
“Damn right.” The man shoved him back down, positioned himself, and pushed in with a slow, excruciating force that felt like it reached his sternum. He fucked him with a controlled, deep intensity, each withdrawal almost complete before the next devastating plunge. “This is all you are. A public utility.” He came inside him with a low groan, then held himself there, pulsing, as if marking his territory.They didn’t let up. The meth ensured there was no respite, only varying peaks of violation. One man bent him over a metal support column, the cold steel against his cheek, and took him with short, jackhammer thrusts that echoed through the beam. Another laid him on a stained mattress and fucked him lazily while passing a bottle of cheap whiskey, some dribbling onto Leo’s face. A third used his mouth with a clinical detachment, simply holding his head still and fucking his throat until he gagged and came.
The physical toll began to manifest.A muscle in his thigh locked in a seizing cramp. He gasped, his body contorting.The man currently in his ass slapped his flank.“Work through it, bitch. Don’t you dare fucking quit.” He kept pounding, the pain of the cramp blurring with the other sensations into a single, unbearable continuum. Tears of pure physiological distress streamed down his face, mixing with the dried and fresh semen.
As a gray pre-dawn light began to seep through the high, filthy windows, the crowd finally thinned.The most dedicated, or the most spun, remained. Five or six men stood or sat nearby, watching as two final participants used Leo simultaneously. He was on his hands and knees, head hanging, strings of drool and spit connecting him to the mat. One man knelt behind him, gripping his hips, slamming home with a tired, dogged persistence. The other knelt before him, his semi-hard cock in Leo’s mouth, more a placeholder than an active participant.
The man in his ass finished with a final, deep grind, his release feeling lukewarm and thin. He pulled out with a wet sigh and didn’t bother to wipe himself on Leo’s thigh. The other man withdrew from his mouth, giving his flaccid dick a half-hearted shake. “I’m tapped out,” he muttered, standing up with a crack of his knees.
Silence descended, broken only by the hum of a distant cooler and Leo’s ragged, wheezing breath. He collapsed sideways onto the wet vinyl, his body a landscape of shimmering pain.He could feel the cool air on his ravaged, gaping entrance. He could feel the steady, slow leak of fluids that were no longer his own. The meth was receding, a tide pulling back to reveal the wreckage on the shore.Every nerve felt scorched. His mind was a silent, stunned blank.
The man with the clipboard from earlier reappeared, stepping over a discarded bottle.He looked down at Leo with an expression of professional assessment.“Alright. That’s the program. Car’s here.” He tossed a thin, rough towel onto Leo’s chest. “Don’t get the seats dirty.”
Leo stared at the corrugated metal ceiling.He didn’t move.
“I said up.” The voice held no malice, only impatience.Somehow, Leo pushed himself onto his elbows, then to his knees.The world tilted. He used the towel to wipe roughly at the worst of the mess on his belly and thighs, but it was a futile gesture. He pulled on the gray sweatshirt and pants he’d arrived in, the fabric chafing against his sensitized skin.Each movement was a monumental effort. He was led out, his gait a stiff, shuffling stumble.The ride back was a cavern of silence. Leo watched the city awaken, commuters heading for buses, shop owners unlocking gates. Their lives seemed like fiction.He felt alien, a creature from a darker dimension briefly crossing into the light. His body ached with a profound, hollowed-out soreness. The cage was a distant, cool pressure, the only part of him that didn’t feel bruised or torn.The car stopped. The familiar door.He didn’t wait for the driver to speak. He pushed it open and lurched out, making his way to Dante’s building like a sleepwalker. The climb up the stairs was agony.The door opened before he could raise his hand. Dante stood there, backlit by the morning sun in the clean apartment. He wore gym shorts and nothing else, a mug of coffee in his hand.His eyes scanned Leo, from his deadened eyes to his trembling legs.
He didn’t speak.He simply stepped aside.Leo shuffled in. The clean, quiet space felt like a physical assault.Dante closed the door, the lock clicking with finality. He walked to the kitchen counter, leaned against it, and took a sip of his coffee. “Well?” The single word hung in the air.Leo stood in the center of the room, swaying slightly. He tried to summon the words, the report.He remembered the command: You will be perfect. You will make me proud.He opened his mouth.A dry click came out. He swallowed, tasting bile and metal.“I…” he began, his voice a ruined whisper. He looked at Dante, at his impassive face, and the full, crushing weight of the night descended upon him. It wasn’t pride he felt.It wasn’t even emptiness anymore. It was something else, a fundamental rewriting.“They used all of me,” he finally managed, the statement utterly devoid of inflection.
Dante watched him for a long moment.He set his coffee down. He walked over until he stood directly in front of Leo.He didn’t touch him. He just studied his face, his eyes, the subtle tremors in his hands.
“I know,” Dante said, his voice low and quiet.“The client called.They’re already re-booking. For a full week next month.” He reached out and, with a single finger, lifted the chain around his own neck.The small, brass key to Leo’s cage glinted in the morning light. “Your worth,” he said, letting the key fall back against his chest, “is becoming substantial.”
He turned and walked toward the bathroom.“Shower.You smell like a sewer. Then sleep.” He paused at the doorway, looking back. “You did well.”
The praise, when it came, felt like a verdict.It lodged in Leo’s chest, cold and heavy. He moved toward the bathroom, each step a testament to his new purpose. The hot water stung his skin, the runoff at his feet swirling gray and opaque for a very long time. He did not look at his body in the steamy mirror.He knew what was there.
He lay down on the bare mattress in Dante’s room.The sheets were in the wash. The physical sensations began to crystallize into specific pains: a raw ache in his throat, a deep, bruised throbbing in his pelvis, a stinging rawness around his hole. He stared at a hairline crack in the ceiling plaster.The silence in the apartment was absolute.
Down the hall, he heard the soft click of Dante’s laptop opening, the efficient taps of keyboard keys.Business was being conducted. His worth was being logged, tracked, optimized. He closed his eyes, but the darkness behind his lids was not peaceful. It was a vivid, echoing replay of shadows and thrusts, of anonymous grunts and the smell of meth smoke. He pulled his knees to his chest, a fetal position that did nothing to ease the deep, internal ache.He heard Dante’s phone buzz, a short, sharp sound. A murmured conversation, too low to decipher.Then footsteps approaching the bedroom door. Leo kept his eyes closed, feigning sleep.The footsteps stopped in the doorway. He could feel Dante’s gaze on him, a physical pressure.
“I know you’re awake,” Dante said, his voice soft but carrying perfectly in the quiet room.“The next booking is confirmed. They’re sending a car for you tonight.A private session.Just one client this time.”
Leo’s eyes opened. He looked at Dante standing in the doorway, silhouetted by the hall light.
“He has specific tastes,” Dante continued, his tone matter-of-fact.“He likes to watch the fear. He’ll want you fresh, but not rested.Vulnerable.” He paused. “You understand what that means.”
Leo did.It meant the cage would stay on. It meant no comfort would be given. It meant he would be delivered exactly as he was now: broken open, trembling, primed.A product in perfect condition for a connoisseur of degradation.He said nothing. He just held Dante’s gaze in the dim room.
A faint, approving smile touched Dante’s lips.“Rest,” he said again. Then he turned and walked away, leaving the door open a crack.
Leo listened to the sounds of the apartment—the distant tap of keys, the rumble of the washing machine.His body was a map of its recent use, every ache a coordinate. Tonight, the map would be redrawn by a new cartographer. The thought should have terrified him.It did. But beneath the fear, thinner than a thread, was something else: a shameful, electric current of anticipation.It was the only feeling that seemed to belong to him anymore.
He closed his eyes again, and this time, he waited.