Chapter 3: The Training Contraption
The rain had stopped sometime in the night, but the sky was still the color of old dishwater when Derek stepped out of the Uber and stood in front of the glass tower. He'd barely slept. The cage had kept him company through the dark hours, a cold steel weight against his thigh, and every time he'd dozed off he'd dreamed of hands pushing him down, of being held open, of that hum of machinery that had followed him into consciousness.
He was wearing what they'd told him to wear. The message had arrived at 6:47 a.m. from a number he didn't recognize: "Report in the outfit provided in your apartment's delivery box. Come clean. We will know if you're not."
The box had been waiting on his doorstep before he even woke, a plain brown shipping container with his name on it in black marker. Inside: a pair of white briefs, stiff with new fabric. A faded blue t-shirt with a local auto shop logo peeling across the chest. Skinny jeans the color of a bruise, soft from washing. Converse sneakers, gray, scuffed.
He'd changed without thinking about it. Now, waiting in the lobby, he felt the jeans hug his thighs and the cage press against his zipper. There was a strange patch of cool air against his backside, and when he'd checked his reflection in the elevator's mirrored wall, he'd noticed that the jeans had a gaping oval hole in the seat, right over his asshole, cleanly hemmed and deliberate. The briefs had one too. He'd felt his face go hot, but the elevator had already been moving, and there was no time to think about what that meant.
The receptionist, the same severe-cheeked man from yesterday, didn't look up as Derek approached. "Training room," he said, tapping a card on the desk. "Take the service elevator to B2. He'll meet you."
It took two tries to steady his hands enough to swipe the card. When the doors opened on B2, the air changed. It was colder down here, still, and the hum of ventilation filled the space like a held breath. The hallway was bare concrete, industrial, lit by a single row of fluorescents that buzzed faintly. Halfway down, a door stood open, and leaning against its frame was the younger associate from yesterday, the one with the linebacker's shoulders.
"You're on time," he said. There was no warmth in it, just observation. "Good. Change in there."
He gestured into the room. Derek's eyes took a moment to adjust.
The room was smaller than the conference room upstairs, and completely without windows. White walls, white floor, white ceiling, with only a single chair at its center to break the monotony. But it wasn't a chair, exactly. It looked more like a piece of medical equipment, with a padded seat contoured like a saddle, armrests, and thick leather straps with buckles. Behind it, a machine on wheels, bristling with tubes and hoses and a coiled black cable that ran to a small nozzle hanging from a bracket.
Derek's mouth went dry.
"What is that?"
"Your first day of work," the associate said, and closed the door behind them.
The door clicked shut with a sound that was final, a lock engaging somewhere in the mechanism. Derek turned, his heart already hammering against his ribs, and found the associate watching him with the flat patience of a man who had done this a hundred times.
"Sit in the chair," the associate said.
Derek didn't move. His legs felt like they belonged to someone else, rubbery and wrong. "I thought there would be paperwork. Or, I don't know, a manual. Something."
"There was a contract." The associate's voice was patient, bored. "You signed it. Sit."
The chair looked worse up close. The saddle-shaped seat was upholstered in dark leather, worn smooth in the center, and the straps hanging from the armrests had buckles that glinted under the fluorescent lights. There was a wide band at the base of the seat, clearly meant to keep someone's legs spread apart, and another at the back, where a small black box was mounted with a cable leading to the machine.
Derek sat.
The leather was cold against his thighs through the thin denim. He gripped the armrests, knuckles white, and watched the associate move around the chair with practiced efficiency.
"Legs," the associate said.
Derek hesitated. The associate didn't repeat himself. He just reached down, took Derek's right ankle in one broad hand, and pulled it toward the strap mounted on the right side of the chair. His grip was impersonal, firm, the way you'd handle a piece of luggage. Derek felt the leather cuff wrap around his ankle, felt the buckle tighten, and then the same hand moved to his left ankle and did it again.
The straps were snug but not painful. He could shift his feet a little, but only a little. When the associate stepped back, Derek looked down at his own legs, spread at the ankles, the rough denim of his jeans bunching at his knees.
"Why the ankles first?" Derek heard himself ask.
"Because your legs are the strongest part of you." The associate knelt, adjusting the left strap, checking the tightness with two fingers slipped underneath. "Everything else can be tied later. Legs fight first."
Derek's stomach dropped. "Is that experience talking?"
The associate didn't answer. He stood, moved to the armrests, and lifted Derek's right wrist. The leather restraint there was similar, a thick cuff that wrapped around his forearm just above the wrist. The associate buckled it, checked it, moved to the left.
"You get a lot of people who fight?" Derek's voice was thinner than he wanted it to be.
"I've worked here for nine years." The associate tightened the left cuff. "You get a mix. Some fight for ten seconds. Some fight for ten minutes. It doesn't change the outcome."
Derek's hands were locked to the armrests now. He could wiggle his fingers, but he couldn't pull his arms free. The leather was warm from the contact, and it smelled faintly of oil, the kind you used on baseball gloves.
"The chest strap," the associate said, and looped a wide band across Derek's torso. It cinched at his sternum, snug enough that he could breathe but not deep enough to expand his chest fully. "And the thigh spreader."
That one Derek understood the moment he saw it. A curved bar with two padded cuffs, mounted to the arms of the chair. The associate lifted his right leg, placed Derek's thigh in the cuff, buckled it. Then the left.
When he was done, Derek was spread open. His legs were forced wide by the bar, his knees bent and locked, and the jeans he'd been given strained across his crotch, the hole in the seat of his pants gaping open against the leather. He could feel the cool air of the room against his hole, right through the matching opening in his briefs.
"There," the associate said, surveyed his work. "That's better."
Derek swallowed. The panic was building in his chest, a hot tightness that made it hard to breathe. "What happens now?"
"Now you get prepped."
The associate walked to the machine against the wall. It was on wheels, stainless steel and black rubber, with a long articulated arm that held what looked like a thick dildo at the end. Medium-sized, Derek noted with a strange detachment. Not huge. Maybe eight inches, with a bulbous head and a gentle curve.
The machine hummed to life. The associate wheeled it toward the chair, positioned it between Derek's spread legs, and adjusted the height until the dildo was level with his hole.
"It's just the first day," the associate said, almost conversationally. "You'll work up to the bigger ones later. The clients like to take their time with something new."
Derek's heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his teeth. "I don't know if I can—"
"You can." The associate reached up to a bracket above Derek's head and pulled down a clear plastic tube with a small nasal cannula. "Breathe through this."
"What is it?"
"Amyl. Your training supplement. It'll help you relax." He fitted the cannula over Derek's nose, the prongs settling into his nostrils. "Breathe."
Derek hesitated. The associate's hand hovered near his face, patient, waiting. Nothing about the man's expression suggested cruelty, or warmth, or anything at all. He was just doing a job.
Derek breathed.
The first inhale hit him like a wave. A sharp, chemical rush that flooded his sinuses and went straight to his head, making his vision swim and his ears ring. It was like being hit in the face with a hammer made of lightning. His body went slack, his shoulders dropping, his jaw unclenching, every muscle in his body going loose and heavy all at once.
"There you go," the associate said, and there might have been approval in his voice, or might not. "Again."
Derek breathed again. The second hit was smoother, rolling through him like a hot tide, and he felt his legs fall open wider without being told, felt his entire body surrender to the weight of the drug.
The associate stepped back. He picked up a headset from a shelf against the wall, black and bulky, the kind you'd expect to find in an arcade. He fit it over Derek's head, adjusting the strap until it sat snug across his eyes.
The screen inside was bright, white, and friendly. An AI generated man appeared on the screen-- Chinese, twenty something, very attractive with a great warm smile. Pretty big muscles-- the perfect gym body-- and shirtless. Derek felt immediately like this could be the sexiest man in the world.. Soothing Binaural beats and a cheerful voice filled his ears.
The screen bloomed into color. The man on the other side of the glass smiled, and it was like watching the sun come up after a week of rain. His face was strikingly masculine, late twenties, with a strong square jaw and eyes that crinkled at the corners. His body was the kind you saw on magazine covers, all smooth golden skin and muscle that moved like water under the surface. He had black hair pushed back from his forehead, and when he spoke, his voice was warm, unhurried, yet strikingly professional.
The screen bloomed into color, and a cheerful chime played, the kind of sound a meditation app might make.
"Hello, asset," the man said. His smile widened, teeth even and white. "My name is Instructor Kai. This is Training Module One. I was recorded for you specifically, so pay close attention. You and I are going to spend a lot of time together."
Derek's mouth opened, then closed. The headset pressed the voice directly into his skull, warm and close, like a friend whispering.
"First, let's breathe," Kai said. He lifted a small amber bottle and held it out towards Derek, mirroring what the associate had fitted to Derek's nostrils. "Deep breath in through the nose. Hold it. And out. Good. Do it with me. In. Hold. Out."
Derek breathed. The rush came again, softer this time, a warm syrup spreading down the back of his neck and into his shoulders. His fingers uncurled from the armrests without his permission.
"Perfect," Kai said. "You're a natural."
The associate moved somewhere behind him, out of sight. There was a click, a whir, and then the touch of something cool and slick against Derek's exposed hole. He flinched against the chest strap.
"That's the lubricant," Kai explained, as if he could see. "Your body is new, so we start slow. That's why your hole is numb right now. Topical anesthetic. Your first days should feel like nothing but pressure. Later, when you're trained, we remove the numbness. You'll thank us for that."
The pressure increased. Derek felt his hole stretch around a smooth, rounded tip, the dildo pressing inward with a patience that felt mechanical because it was. His body clenched against it instinctively.
"Breathe," Kai said. "In. Out. Don't fight it. Fighting makes it worse. Relaxing makes it easy. Your only job today is to relax."
Derek breathed. The dildo slid in another inch, cold and enormous, and the poppers hit again and his muscles went loose, and the thing pushed deeper, a slow, relentless invasion that stopped the breath in his throat.
"Good boy," Kai said warmly. "You took the head. Now let's talk about what you are."
Behind the headset, the white screen shifted. A diagram appeared, drawn in clean instructional lines, like something from a corporate onboarding deck. A figure, small and pale, knelt with its forehead to the floor. Behind it stood a tall figure, broad-shouldered, hands on hips.
"This is your role," Kai said. "The small figure is you. A faggot. That's not an insult here, Derek. It's a job title. You signed for it. The large figure is a Chinese alpha man. An executive. A client. Your superior in every way that matters."
The diagram animated. The small pale figure bowed lower. A caption appeared beneath it in friendly sans-serif font: KNOW YOUR PLACE.
"You're a white faggot," Kai continued, in the same soothing tone a physical therapist might use. "That means you are beneath Chinese men twice. Once for what you are, and once for what they are. Chinese alphas built this firm. They run countries. They run companies like this one, twenty-three floors of power, and you, Derek, are the floor drain."
Derek wanted to say something. His tongue was thick. The dildo was drawing back, then pressing in again, establishing a rhythm, slow and even, an inch of retreat and two inches of depth. His hole burned dully under the anesthetic, a distant stretch that felt like it was happening to someone else.
"Look at this one," Kai said.
The screen changed. A new diagram: the pale kneeling figure holding a briefcase, a laundry basket, a tray of drinks. Above it, the tall figure checked a watch, smiling. More pale figures in the background, all kneeling, all bowing, all carrying things.
"White faggots serve," Kai said. "You'll fetch coffee for your alphas. You'll carry their bags. You'll kneel in conference rooms while they discuss business over your head. Some of them will forget you're in the room. That's fine. A drain doesn't need to be remembered. It just needs to work."
The machine's rhythm deepened. Derek's breath caught as the dildo bottomed out inside him, the harness of the machine pressing against the leather saddle beneath him. The poppers tube hissed faintly; the associate must have adjusted the flow, because the next wave came without him even inhaling, a warm fog rolling through his skull.
"Breathe, Derek," Kai said gently. "In. Hold. Out."
Derek breathed.
"Good. See how easy that is? See how your body opens for it? That's because your body knows. Your little brain is confused, but your hole understands exactly what it's for. It's a sheath. A socket. A place for a Chinese alpha to put his fist when the stress of the day builds up."
The screen changed again. This diagram was rendered in more detail, almost lovingly. The tall figure stood behind the bent-over pale figure, and the tall figure's arm was buried to the elbow, rendered in cross-section like a medical illustration, labels pointing to places inside Derek's own body. CAECUM. RECTAL WALL. SECOND SPHINCTER. The tall figure's face was drawn laughing, head thrown back.
"And here is your purpose," Kai said. "Study this carefully. There will be a review later."
The diagram animated. The tall arm plunged deeper, and the pale figure's spine curved, and the tall figure threw back his head and laughed, and around them other tall figures raised glasses, toasting, all of them grinning at the small bent-over body like it was the evening's entertainment.
"They'll laugh," Kai said, fondly. "That's normal. Don't take it personally. It's funny. A hundred-and-ninety-pound Chinese alpha with his arm inside a little white nerd who signed a contract to make it legal. It's the funniest thing in the world to them. You should be proud you're amusing. Most faggots aren't even interesting enough to laugh at."
Derek's eyes were wet, or maybe that was just the fog. The machine was pistoning steadily now, a wet, obscene sound rising from between his spread legs, and the dildo drove in and in and the stretch had passed through numbness into something else, a deep internal pressure that bloomed outward every time the head dragged across some place inside him he'd never known existed. His cock, locked in its little steel cage, gave a useless twitch and ache.
"That feeling," Kai said. "That warm, deep, dumb feeling. That's your training working. Focus on it. Every time a client's fist finds that spot, I want you to remember this moment, this chair, my voice. You're going to learn to love being opened. More than you ever loved your tiny locked-up dick. I promise you that."
The screen split. On the left, a diagram of a locked steel cage, identical to the one on Derek's cock, labeled with arrows: NO TOUCHING. NO GROWING. NO CHOICES. On the right, a diagram of a smiling white faggot on its knees, eyes blank and peaceful, a tall hand resting on its head like a blessing. The caption read: HAPPIER ALREADY.
"Your cage is a gift," Kai said. "Your little white dick was a problem. Four inches of distraction, of bad habits, of thinking you were a person. The cage solves all of that. No more touching. No more deciding. Just a nub between your legs that reminds you, every second of every day, that you belong to someone else."
Derek tried to nod. The chest strap held him. The machine drove deeper, and a sound came out of him, half moan, half hiccup, and he was past embarrassment now, floating somewhere above his own spread body, watching the screen through heavy-lidded eyes.
"Say nothing," Kai said. "I know you want to. You don't need to. This is a recording, asset. I can't hear you. Nobody down here is listening to your words. Your words stopped mattering when you signed. From now on, the only sounds that matter are the ones your body makes when it's being used."
The diagrams kept coming. A white faggot washing dishes in a tall man's kitchen. A white faggot kneeling under a conference table. A white faggot, freshly fisted, lying in a puddle on white tile, laughing dazedly at nothing while a tall man stepped over him on his way out the door, already checking his phone. Each image had a friendly caption. EAGER. OBEDIENT. GRATEFUL. USED.
"This is your career now," Kai said. "Five days a week. Rotating alphas. Some will be gentle. Most won't. All of them are your better. All of them outrank you the way a CEO outranks the toilet paper in the executive restroom."
The machine's range increased. The associate must have turned a dial somewhere, because the strokes were longer now, deeper, the dildo drawing almost all the way out before plunging back in, and Derek's whole body rocked against the restraints, the leather creaking, his hole sloppily accepting every inch. The poppers fog was total now. His thoughts came slow and syrupy, arriving one at a time and dissolving before they finished.
Bow, he thought. The little picture bowed. I'm the little picture.
"In. Hold. Out," Kai instructed, and Derek obeyed, and the world went soft and hot and humming.
"You're doing so well," Kai said. "First session, and you're already taking it like you were made for this. And you were, Derek. That's the secret. That's what none of your teachers, none of your roommates, none of those temp agency people ever told you. You weren't made for data entry. You were made to be a hole for your betters. Everything else was just waiting."
The final diagram filled the screen. It was a flowchart. A small pale icon at the top, labeled DAY ONE. Arrows flowing downward through boxes: TRAINING. OPENING. CONDITIONING. SERVICE. And at the bottom, a small pale figure kneeling in a field of tall figures, radiant, dumb, smiling. The caption: A HAPPY, USEFUL LIFE.
"Module One will continue for the next two hours," Kai said. His smile filled the screen again, warm and beautiful and completely empty. "The machine will continue at increasing depth. The anesthetic will wear off in a few days. The poppers will increase. By the end of your first month, you'll beg for the deep ones. By the end of your first year, you won't remember wanting anything else."
He lifted the amber bottle towards Derek's nose, mirroring Derek's reality one final time.
"Breathe with me, faggot. In. Hold. Out."
Derek breathed. The screen went white, then black, then filled with a progress bar that crawled forward at its own indifferent pace. The machine drove in deep and held there, humming, while somewhere behind him the associate made a note on a clipboard and turned a dial one more quiet click.
"There," the associate said, to no one in particular. "He's taking it fine."
Derek didn't answer. The fog had him, warm and total, and deep inside his straining, stuffed, Training-Module-One body, a small, humiliating, unmistakable bloom of pleasure tightened around the plastic intruding into him, and his caged little dick dripped into its steel, and the progress bar crawled on, 12%, 13%, 14%, patient as anything in this building, because it had nine years of assets behind it and all the time in the world ahead.
The progress bar was at 14% when the screen shifted. The white background dissolved into a slow gradient of gold and amber, and the binaural hum in Derek's ears deepened, splitting into two tones that twisted around each other like a braid. The pressure inside his skull changed. It did not hurt. It simply opened something.
Then Kai was back.
Derek's breath caught in his throat. Kai filled the screen now, leaning against a gym wall of black tile, his arms crossed over his bare chest. His smile was slower than before, more intimate, and his eyes held Derek's through the headset like they were the only two people in the world.
"Hello again, asset," Kai said. His voice layered over itself, doubled in stereo, the last word echoing twice before it faded. "I told you we'd spend a lot of time together."
Derek's lips parted. He wanted to answer. Nothing came out. The binaural beat pulsed in his temples, and the poppers fog slid through him like warm oil.
The machine kept its rhythm between his spread legs, in and out, in and out, patient as a heartbeat. His hole had stopped fighting somewhere in the last twenty minutes. It just opened now, slick and willing, accepting the dildo's repeated plunges with a wet, rhythmic sound that matched the pulse in his head.
Kai uncrossed his arms and lifted one hand to brush his hair back from his forehead. The motion drew Derek's eyes upward, tracing the hard line of Kai's jaw, the arch of his brow, the dark settled depth of his eyes. The man's face was beautiful in a way that made Derek's chest ache. Strong. Certain. The kind of face that had never doubted anything in its life.
"Look at me," Kai said. The words echoed, me, me, me, folding over each other until they felt physical. "Let the sound wash through you, asset. Let it settle deep in your bones. You're doing so well. Do you know that? So well. So well."
Derek's eyes locked on Kai's lips. Full and a little dry, moving with a patience that felt like a caress. He watched the way the light caught the line of Kai's neck, the smooth column of golden throat, the hard shadow of his collarbone.
"You're a natural-born hole," Kai said. "And you don't have to think about that. You don't have to think at all. All you have to do is open. Open. Open. Your body knows how. It's been waiting its whole life to learn."
The frequency shifted again. A low hum settled at the base of Derek's skull, and his shoulders dropped another inch against the chest strap. The screen seemed to pulse with the beat. Kai's image throbbed faintly, leaving brief trails of warm color behind his movements, gold and amber and a deep, masculine red.
Kai shifted against the wall, crossing one ankle over the other. The movement lifted his left arm, and Derek's gaze caught on the shadow beneath it. Dark hair, glossy and thick, tufted in the hollow of Kai's smooth armpit. The rest of his body was nearly hairless, all clean golden skin, but there, in the shadowed hollow, was something wild and masculine. Something that made Derek's caged cock throb uselessly against its steel.
"See something you like?" Kai asked, and the corner of his mouth lifted. "That's fine, asset. You're allowed to look. You're even allowed to want. Wanting is natural. Wanting just means you know what you are."
Derek's number of breaths had synced with the machine's rhythm without him noticing. In when the dildo pulled back. Out when it pushed in. His hole gripped the plastic head as it withdrew, and something deep inside him, some soft place he'd never known existed, bloomed and ached when it returned.
Kai let his arm drop, and his hand came to rest on his own stomach. The light played over the ridges of his abdomen, the hard planes of muscle, and then caught the thin line of hair that ran from his navel downward, disappearing beneath the waistband of his low-cut jeans. Derek followed that line with his eyes, mesmerized, and stopped when he saw the outline of Kai's cock pressing against the denim. The bulge was substantial, a heavy curve of length that made Derek's mouth water.
The machine increased its depth again. Derek's breath caught and a thin sound escaped him, something between a moan and a sob. The dildo pushed deeper than it had before, reaching a place inside him that made his whole body arch against the restraints. The poppers fog rolled over him, and the binaural beat pulsed, and Kai's voice wrapped around his skull like silk.
"That's it," Kai said. "That's the place. That's the spot your alphas will find, eventually. That's the spot that will make you forget your own name. You like it, don't you? You like the way it feels. Deep. Full. Used."
Derek nodded. He didn't remember deciding to nod. His chin just moved. The machine kept pumping, kept pushing into that new, blooming depth, and his hole gripped and released and gripped again, sloppy and mechanical and perfect.
"Such a good boy," Kai said. "So obedient. So quiet. So open. Your little brain is already fuzzy, isn't it? Already forgetting all those silly thoughts you carried around. None of that matters anymore. All that matters is my voice, and the fist you'll one day take, and the way your hole clenches and clenches and clenches."
The words doubled, echoed, layered over each other until they lost meaning and became pure vibration. Derek's eyes were heavy, fixed on Kai's face. The man's jaw was so strong. His eyes were so dark. His arms, smooth and golden, moved as he shifted again, crossing them over his chest in a way that made his biceps flex. Under his arms, those patches of dark hair called to Derek like secret places. Forbidden. Wild.
"You can almost feel it," Kai said, leaning closer to the screen. "A warm hand pressing against your entrance. Fingers sliding in, curling, reaching. Knuckles spreading you wider. Wider. Wider. The wrist, then the forearm, sliding in while you gasp and drool and thank him."
Derek's hole clenched around the dildo at the image, and the machine pushed deep and held there, grinding against that spot inside him, and a long moan unspooled from his throat. The sound surprised him. He felt his face go hot, but the fog was too thick to be embarrassed, and Kai's smile told him it was right.
Derek's chest rose and fell against the strap. His eyes were wet, but he wasn't crying. Somewhere below the fog, a warmth was building in his belly, a strange, humiliating sweetness that spread outward on every stroke of the machine. His caged dick was utterly useless, leaking against the steel bars, and he couldn't touch himself even if he remembered why he wanted to. All he could do was feel. Feel and breathe and open.
"By now, You're probably infatuatedwith me," Kai said, and Derek's heart stuttered. " You think I'm handsome. You think I'm strong. You feel safe when I speak, and you want me to keep speaking forever."
Derek nodded again. It was true. It was all true. Everything else had faded to static. Only Kai remained, glowing in the dark of the headset, the most beautiful thing Derek had ever seen.
"That's the training working," Kai said, dropping his voice low. The binaural beat pulsed once, then deepened into a warm hum. "That's the conditioning taking hold. You're not in love with me, Derek. You're in love with what I represent. Power. Certainty. A man who knows exactly what you are and what to do with you."
Derek's lips moved. "-ou can do anything."
The words came out slurred, barely audible over the pulsing hum. Kai tilted his head, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth.
"That's right," he said softly. "Use you. Set you on a table like a plate and open you up like a gift."
The machine shifted gears. The dildo withdrew almost entirely, then slammed home in a longer, harder stroke that made Derek's whole body jolt against the straps. Another. Another. The rhythm became a constant pressure, a piston jackhammering into him, and his hole accepted every inch with a wet, obscene sound that echoed off the white walls.
"There you go," Kai said, his voice layered and echoing, love, love, love. "There's your purpose. There's your final form. Do you feel it? Do you feel the fog collecting in the corners of your thoughts? That's your release. That's the peace you've been chasing your whole life. No more decisions. No more failures. Just a warm, open hole for your betters."
Derek's head lolled against the leather restraint. He kept his eyes on Kai because he couldn't look away, didn't want to look away. The man's face, his jaw, his dark eyes, his full lips. The way his smooth golden chest rose and fell. The happy trail that led downward. The bulge that promised things Derek could almost taste.
"I'm not real," Kai said, and the words hit Derek like a wave. "I'm a recording, asset. I'm pixels and a warm voice. But the way you feel right now is real. The way your hole clenches and aches and longs is real. Your body is learning to love what it can't have, so it will accept what it's given."
The machine kept pounding. Derek's moans grew louder, less controlled, little more than raw sounds pushed out on each hard stroke. His thighs were spread wide by the bar, his jeans and briefs gaping open at the back, his hole pliant and wet and utterly surrendered. He felt beautiful in a way he'd never felt before, and broken in a way that made his heart sing.
"Good boy," Kai breathed. "Perfect. Beautiful. Empty."
Derek smiled through his tears. The binaural hum wrapped around his brain, and the poppers fog filled his lungs, and he looked at Kai's handsome face and felt a swell of devotion so complete it nearly stopped his heart. He would do anything for this man. Anything.
"That's it," Kai said, his voice thinning, fading. "Keep breathing. Keep opening. I'll be back soon, asset. I'm always with you. Always. Always. Always."
The screen began to fade, dissolving into static, the warm amber light peeling away from the edges. Derek reached for it without thinking, a small sound of protest caught in his throat.
"No," he whispered. "Don't go."
The screen went dark, and the progress bar bloomed into view. 58%. The binaural hum settled into a low drone, and the machine kept pumping, and Derek's hole clenched and released around the endless, faithful rhythm, aching for the comfort of a voice he already missed. The fog wrapped around him like an old friend, and he drifted on the mechanical pulse, waiting for Kai to come back.
The progress bar glowed at 58%, then 59, then 60. The machine kept its slow, faithful rhythm between Derek's spread legs, and the fog sat warm in his skull, and he had drifted somewhere soft and shapeless, a place with no edges.
Then the screen bloomed.
Tiles. Black and white, arranged in a checkerboard pattern that snapped into focus with a low click. The binaural droning shifted, resolving into a chord that felt like a door opening. And there he was.
Kai stood beside a long bench loaded with iron plates, a barbell resting in a rack above his head. The gym around him was empty and clean, all dark rubber and steel, fluorescent light pooling on the polished floor. He wore a gray tank top cut low at the sides, the fabric hugging the swell of his chest, and shorts that stopped mid-thigh. His arms were bare, smooth, golden, and when he reached up to grip the bar, the muscles in his shoulders rolled like something alive under the skin.
"Time to work," Kai said. His voice was warm, a little breathless already, and the binaural hum doubled it, layering the words so they pressed into Derek from both sides. "You and me, asset. It's your daily workout. Same as mine. Different equipment."
The screen split. On the left, Kai settled onto the bench, feet planted wide, gripping the bar with hands spread just past shoulder width. On the right, a diagram of a small pale body strapped into a contoured chair, legs spread, a machine pistoning between its thighs. Two figures, two machines, one purpose.
"Every day, I lift," Kai said. "I push iron. I tear muscle fiber and rebuild it stronger. I sweat and I strain and I get better, bit by bit, rep by rep. That's my form. My craft. My art."
The barbell lifted off the rack. Kai's arms shook slightly, then steadied, and the bar descended to his chest in a slow, controlled arc. The screen on the right pulsed. The dildo drew out, paused, and drove back in with an identical timing.
"That's your form," Kai said, his voice strained with the weight. "Your craft. Your art. You're not lifting. You're opening. You're stretching. You're training your hole to take what your betters need to give. Deep breath in."
He exhaled, shoved the bar upward. The machine drove deep and held.
"Out," Kai said. "Match me, asset. Breathe when I breathe. Move when I move. You're learning to stretch your hole the way I build my muscles. Different tools. Same discipline. Same devotion."
Derek breathed. In when the bar descended, out when it pressed upward, and the dildo moved to the same rhythm, a slow, heavy pump that filled him and released and filled him again. The poppers had settled into a steady hiss, and every inhale carried a fresh wave of chemical warmth that spread from his lungs to his fingertips.
Kai racked the bar and sat up. His face was flushed, a sheen of sweat across his brow, and he wiped it with the back of his hand. The motion pulled his tank top tight across his chest, and Derek watched the fabric drag over the hard curve of his pecs, the dark outline of his nipples showing through.
"Good," Kai said. "That's one set. Now we move. Watch me, Derek. Don't look away. Your job is to focus on my body. My movements. My form. Feel the rhythm and match it."
He stood, crossed to a dumbbell rack, and chose two weights. The dumbbells looked heavy, thick and black and brutal. He sat on a low bench, elbows on knees, and began to curl. The biceps in his left arm bulged with each rep, the skin stretching over the hard swell of muscle as he brought the weight to his shoulder, paused, and lowered it with deliberate slowness.
The screen on the right adjusted. The machine's piston slowed, matched the tempo of the curls. The dildo withdrew to its root, paused in time with Kai's pause at the top of the curl, then sank in as the weight descended.
"Feel that," Kai said, his voice tight with effort. "You feel the stretch? Deep, right in your guts? That's you growing, asset. That's your hole learning. Each time you take it deeper, it remembers. Each rep, each thrust, it opens a little more. Soon it won't close all the way. Soon it'll stay open, waiting."
Derek's mouth hung open. He couldn't have closed it if he tried. The fog filled his skull, and the stretch filled his body, and the two sensations braided together until he couldn't tell where one ended and the other began.
Kai set down the dumbbells and stood. He moved to a cable machine, pulled the handle down to his chest with a grunt, his lats flaring wide against the gray fabric. The machine between Derek's legs matched the pull, a long, deep stroke that bottomed out against his insides and held while Kai held the contraction.
"Breathe," Kai said. "In when I pull. Out when I release. Steady. Steady. That's it. That's my good little faggot."
The words landed like a blessing. Derek's chest rose, his lungs filled with poppers-scented air, and the dildo pressed deep and held, grinding against that spot that bloomed white behind his eyes. His caged cock leaked against the steel bars, a long, slow drip that had nowhere to go.
Kai moved through his exercises, one after another. Bench presses. Rows. Overhead shoulder presses that made his triceps bunch and quiver. The screen cut between angles, showing him from behind as he bent over a bar, showing the broad plane of his back, the way the muscles rippled with each rep, the dark hair at the base of his neck darkened with sweat.
Every movement echoed in the machine's rhythm. Every rep shifted the tempo, and Derek's hole rode each change, stretching and yielding and clenching around the dildo with an obedience that surprised him.
"That's a full set," Kai said, racking the weights. His chest heaved, and he reached down to pull the tank top over his head, baring his torso. Derek's breath caught. The sweat gleamed over the smooth, golden skin, over the ridged muscles of his stomach, over the dark line of hair that traced down from his navel and vanished beneath the waistband of his shorts. There was a dark patch of sweat staining the front of the shorts, an outline of something heavy beneath.
Kai caught him looking. His smile was slow, knowing, beautiful.
"You like watching me work," he said. It wasn't a question. "That's fine. That's part of it. You watch me build myself into something strong, and you build yourself into something open. Both of us perfecting our form. Both of us getting better every day."
He picked up a single dumbbell, huge and black, and lay back on the bench he'd used before. His arm extended, the weight trembling as he pressed it upward, lower, a second set of presses, slower this time, the muscle straining with a beautiful, terrible effort.
The machine matched. The dildo drove deep on each press, held on each pause, and Derek's hole ached with it, a full, deep, obscene ache that worked its way up into his belly. The poppers tube hissed and the world went soft around the edges, and all he could see was the sweat running down Kai's ribs, the flex of his chest, the way his jaw tightened with each push.
"Breathe with me," Kai said, his voice strained. "In. Hold. Out."
Derek breathed. The rhythm his body found was the rhythm of Kai's arm. The dildo pumped. The fog closed in, warm and total.
"There he is," Kai said. "There's my good little hole. Opening so pretty. Stretching so sweet. You're doing it, asset. You're doing your workout. You're getting stronger at the only thing that matters."
Kai racked the dumbbell and sat up. He was breathing hard now, his chest rising and falling, his skin slick with sweat. He reached up, gathered his damp hair, and pushed it back from his forehead in a gesture so intimate Derek felt it in his chest.
"I'll be here every day," Kai said. "Every session. Working on my body while you work on yours. It's a beautiful thing, asset. Two men, both serving their purpose. Both getting better. Both knowing exactly what they are."
The machine's rhythm slowed. Derek's body protested the change, his hole clenching around the dildo as it withdrew and held at the entrance, teasing. The fog was so thick now he could barely form a thought. All he had was the ache, the stretch, the deep bloom of pleasure that pulsed in time with his heartbeat.
"That's the end of this set," Kai said. "But there's more. There's always more. We're not done until you're open. Not done until you know your place. Not done until you beg for it."
He stood, walked toward the camera, and the screen filled with the smooth golden plane of his chest. His hand reached out, and Derek felt the image press against his face, the warmth of it impossible, the weight of the palm on his cheek a phantom touch that made him groan.
"Match me, asset," Kai breathed. "One more rep. One more breath. One more stretch. And then the next. And the next. And the next."
The screen faded.
The progress bar returned.
68%.
The machine resumed its rhythm, deeper now, harder, and Derek's mouth fell open in a silent cry that no one in the white room would ever hear. The associate had turned the dial again. The dildo drove to a new depth, grinding against something that made his whole body seize, and the poppers hissed and his vision swam and the only anchor in the world was the memory of Kai's face, the ghost of his voice, the way his muscles moved when he fought the iron.
He had a long way to go before he was open.
He had a long way to go, and for the first time, he didn't mind.