Chapter 2: The Interview and the Cage
The rain hadn't stopped.
It followed Derek through the night, drumming against his bedroom window, seeping into his dreams, and it was still falling when he woke at six-fifteen to the gray light of a Seattle morning that felt more like dusk. He lay there for a long time, staring at the ceiling, the business card on his nightstand like a landmine.
Fifty thousand dollars.
He showered. He shaved. He knew Mr. Chen said his outfit from yesterday was fine, but he figured he should at least try to impress. He put on his best shirt—a pale blue button-down that had seen better days, the collar fraying just slightly at the edge—and his only pair of dress pants, which he'd ironed twice the night before. The mirror showed him a man who looked exactly like what he was: broke, desperate, and pretending not to be.
His hands were shaking.
He told himself it was the coffee.
By eight-forty, he was standing in the lobby of the glass tower, craning his neck at the vaulted ceiling and the massive abstract sculpture that hung from it like a metallic storm cloud. The floor was polished marble, the kind that reflected everything and gave nothing back. Men and women in expensive suits flowed around him like water around a rock, not one of them glancing his way.
He felt like a stain.
"Mr. Chen is expecting you."
The receptionist—a man with severe cheekbones and a smile that didn't reach his eyes—pointed him toward the elevators without waiting for a response. Derek rode up alone, watching the city shrink beneath him through the glass-walled car. Twenty-third floor. The doors opened onto a hallway of muted gray walls and frosted glass, and at the end, a set of double doors with brass handles.
He pushed them open.
The office was enormous. Floor-to-ceiling windows wrapped around three sides, offering a panoramic view of downtown Seattle and the rain-slicked streets below. The walls were lined with framed black-and-white portraits—men in sharp suits, broad-shouldered, their expressions carefully neutral. Derek noticed the shadows beneath their eyes only after looking at the third one. The fourth.The fifth.
He stopped counting.
At the center of the room, behind a long conference table of polished mahogany, sat three men.Mr. Chen was in the middle, leaning back in his chair with the easy confidence of a man who owned everything in the room, including the air. To his left sat a man Derek hadn't seen before—also Chinese, older, maybe mid-forties, with graying temples and the kind of face that had been handsome once and was now simply hard. To Chen's right was another Chinese man, younger, maybe early thirties, with a short cropped hair and shoulders like a linebacker. Neither of them smiled. Derek thought to himself, I guess this is a Chinese company? Not too uncommon in Seattle.
"Sit down, Derek." Chen gestured to the chair across from them. "You're right on time. I appreciate that."
Derek sat. The chair was leather, expensive, and it swallowed him whole. He felt small. He was small—five-seven on a good day—but in this room, under the weight of three pairs of eyes, he felt like a child.
"You look nervous," Chen observed.
"I'm fine."
"You're not." Chen smiled, that same cold expression from the coffee shop. "But that's okay. Nervous is normal. Nervous is expected. What matters is whether you can perform despite it."
Derek swallowed. "What exactly is this job?"
Chen glanced at the man to his left—the older one—and something passed between them. A private joke. A shared understanding.
"Let me be direct with you," Chen said, folding his hands on the table. "We've been running this program for six years. We recruit young men with specific physical and psychological profiles. Small. Shy. Eager to please. Men who don't ask too many questions and who understand, on some level, that they are ready to serve."
Derek's mouth went dry. "Serve how?"
"The firm is a high-pressure environment." Chen's voice was calm, almost bored, as if he were explaining quarterly earnings. "Our senior partners—" he gestured to the men beside him, "—work with clients who operate under a fair amount of stress. They need an outlet. A release valve. Something small and pliable they can use however they see fit."
The word hung in the air.
"I don't—" Derek started.
"You do." Chen cut him off. "You understand perfectly. You're just afraid to say it out loud."
The younger man on the right leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. His voice was a low rumble, American-accented but with something underneath it, something that suggested he'd learned English in school, possibly some top notch international university Derek could only dream of attending."You'll be what we call a stress-relief asset. Sort of a human punching bag. You'll be fisted by a large selection of elite Chinese alpha men living in, or visiting, the United States. You will be punch dusted, by whichever alpha is on rotation that day. Could be one. Could be three. Depends on the schedule."
Derek’s vision tunneled. He thought of his apartment with the peeling wallpaper. He thought of the eviction notice folded in his desk drawer. He thought of Marcus telling him he was being dramatic, that he always found something.
"There's a signing bonus," Chen said. "Fifty thousand. Paid today, before you leave this room. Plus a monthly salary that I assure you is more than generous. Room and board here on-site, if you want it. Full discretion. No one outside this firm will ever know."
Derek’s hands were gripping the arms of the chair. His knuckles had gone white. He could hear his own heartbeat, loud and fast, like a drum.
"This is—" He stopped. Swallowed. "This is insane."
"Is it?" Chen tilted his head, studying him. "You walked in here knowing something was off. And you came anyway."
Derek had no response to that.
"You came because you're desperate," Chen continued. "And because, on some level, you're curious. You want to know what it would feel like to stop pretending. To stop struggling. To just...submit."
"I'm —" Derek's voice cracked. "I'm gay, but I'm still a virgin. I've never even kissed before.
The youngerman snorted. Chen didn't blink.
"For our clients, this isn't about sex.This is about power. About service. About alpha men, your superiors, indulging in their superiority, and you, their inferior, learning your place." He leaned forward, and for the first time, something sharp flickered in his eyes. "Your body will respond however it responds. That's not my concern. My concern is your compliance. Your obedience. Your ability to take what you're given without complaint."
Derek’s palms were sweating. He shifted in the chair, and he felt it—the unmistakable pressure against his zipper. He was hard. He'd been hard since he walked through the door.
Chen noticed. Of course he noticed.
"See?" His smile widened. "Your body already knows what it wants."
"I need to—" Derek started to stand.
"Sit down."
The command hit him like a physical force. He sat.
Chen reached beneath the table and produced a folder—thick, manila, unmarked. He slid it across the mahogany until it stopped in front of Derek. Inside, a single sheet of paper. Dense text. A signature line at the bottom.
"The contract," Chen said. "Our Standard terms. You'll work five days a week, shifts assigned by rotation. You'll follow all instructions from senior partners and clients without hesitation. You'll maintain your appearance according to our guidelines. You'll live on-site if we require it. You'll submit to whatever preparation we deem necessary for your duties."
Derek stared at the paper. The words blurred.
"If you don't sign," Chen added, almost gently, "you walk out of here and we never speak again. No hard feelings. But the offer expires when you leave this room."
Fifty thousand dollars.
Fifty thousand dollars.
Derek picked up the pen.
He didn't read the contract. He couldn't. His eyes wouldn't focus, his brain wouldn't process—he was overwhelmed by as lol of this, scared of the proposal, but at the same time all he could see was the number, the escape it represented, the way it would make everything else go away. He signed his name at the bottom, his handwriting shaky and uneven, and slid the folder back across the table.
Chen took it, glanced at the signature, and nodded once.
"Excellent."
He reached into his jacket and produced something small, metallic, glinting in the gray light. Derek stared at it, not understanding, until Chen set it on the table between them.
A cage. Small, steel, barely the size of his thumb. It looked like something you'd put on a bird.
"Every asset wears one," Chen explained, his voice matter-of-fact. "You'll shower before each shift, and after. You'll use the toilet and thoroughly douche before every session. You'll eat when we tell you and you won't waste any time touching yourself any more. You'll wear this at all times from now on."
Derek's throat was closed. He couldn't speak.
"Stand up," Chen said.
He stood.
"Drop your pants."
The older man moved around the table, and Derek realized with a jolt that he was the one who would do it—not Chen. The older man stopped in front of him, his eyes flat, a quick scan of Derek's body that felt like a searchlight.
"Hands at your sides," the older man said.
Derek's fingers were numb as he unbuttoned his pants, letting them fall to his ankles. His boxers came next. He was still hard—painfully hard, his cock straining against his stomach, and the bald man noticed. He didn't react. He just reached down, took Derek's cock in his hand like he was handling a piece of equipment, and slid the metal ring around the base.
Derek whimpered. He couldn't help it.
"Quiet," the man muttered, and snapped the cage shut.
The cold metal bit into him. Derek's cock swelled against it and then stopped, trapped, straining uselessly against the bars. The discomfort was immediate and total, a constant, low-grade throb that radiated through his entire body.
Chen watched from behind the table, his dark eyes gleaming.
"You'll get used to it," he said. "Everyone does."
The older man stepped back, and Derek stood there in his shirt and his socks, pants around his ankles, cock locked in steel, too terrified to move.
"You can pull up your pants now," Chen said, a hint of that dark amusement returning to his voice. "First shift is tomorrow. Nine a.m., same room. Be clean. Be ready. And Derek—" he paused, "—don't be late."
Derek pulled up his pants. He couldn't look at any of them. His hands were shaking so badly he could barely zip his fly. The cage was a foreign weight against his skin, a constant reminder of what he'd just signed away.
"Your bonus will be wired to your account within the hour," Chen added. "Consider it an investment."
Derek managed to nod. He turned toward the door, his legs moving mechanically, and was halfway there when Chen's voice stopped him.
"One more thing."
He turned. Chen was standing now, his tall frame silhouetted against the rain-streaked windows. The city sprawled behind him, gray and endless, and for a moment Derek saw exactly what he was: a small, desperate man who had just walked into a trap he'd known was there all along.
"You're a part of our business now." Chen said softly. "Welcome to the family."
The doors closed behind him.
He made it to the elevator before his legs gave out. He sagged against the wall of the car as it descended, the lights of the city rising up to meet him, and he pressed his palm against the cage through his pants. The metal was hard. Unyielding. Real.
This isn't a dream, he thought. This isn't a dream, this isn't a dream, this isn't—
The doors opened. The lobby was bright and busy, full of people who had no idea what had just happened to him. Derek walked through them, past the sculpture, past the marble floor, past the receptionist who didn't look up, and out into the rain.
It was cold. The water hit his face and dripped down his collar, and he stood there on the sidewalk, shivering, uncertain, his whole body trembling with something that wasn't quite fear and wasn't quite excitement and was something much worse than both.
His phone buzzed.
A bank notification. Fifty thousand dollars. Deposited.
He stared at the screen until the water blurred the numbers into meaningless shapes. Then he put the phone away and started walking, the tiny cage awkwardly protruding in his shabby dress pants, the rain falling all around him, and somewhere behind him, twenty-three floors up, Mr. Chen and his associates, already in another meeting, moved on to other business.