Chapter 6: Hands-On Training
Three days.
That’s how long I managed to stay away. Three days of forcing myself to work late, of telling Sarah I was too tired for anything more than a sleepy kiss goodnight, of lying in bed with my eyes wide open, feeling the ghost of Stu’s mouth on me every time I closed them. My skin felt too tight. My thoughts were a record stuck on a loop of that dim room, that chair, his hands, the impossible, world-ending pleasure.
So, of course, I went back.
The gym’s regular chaos felt like a different planet. The clank of iron, the grunts, the shitty pop music bleeding from the speakers—it was all just noise. My body moved through my usual warm-up on autopilot. I kept scanning for a flash of blonde hair, a tan shoulder. Nothing.
After an hour of going through the motions, my muscles loose but my nerves wound tight, I made my way to the recovery corridor. The door was shut. I tried the handle. Locked.
A cold drop of panic slid down my spine. Had they decommissioned it? Had someone found out? Had he requested it?
“Looking for the chill-out zone?”
The voice, right behind me, smooth and knowing, sent a jolt straight to my groin. I turned. Stu was leaning against the opposite wall, a single key dangling from his finger. He was in a simple grey tank and shorts, but he looked carved from something better than flesh. His eyes held mine, and that slow, easy smile spread across his face. It wasn’t his trainer smile. This was something else. A secret. A promise.
“I, uh… yeah. Guess it’s busy,” I said, my voice thicker than I wanted.
“Nah.” He pushed off the wall and stepped closer. The scent of him—clean sweat, coconut soap—wrapped around me. “Just locked. I was waiting for you.”
He slipped the key into the lock, turned it, and opened the door. The familiar hum and the scent of eucalyptus rolled out. He gestured for me to go in first. A part of me, the old part, screamed that this was a trap, that walking in was stepping off a cliff. I walked in.
The door clicked shut behind us. The sound was final.
He didn’t point to the chair. He just looked at me, his gaze traveling the length of my body with a frank appreciation that made my breath catch. “You’ve been tense. I could see it in your deadlifts. Shoulders all up by your ears.”
“Yeah, well. Work stuff,” I mumbled, the lie pathetic.
“Sure.” He took a step closer, eliminating the polite distance. “That chair’s great for knots. But sometimes… machines don’t cut it.”
My heart was a hammer against my ribs. “What cuts it?”
His smile deepened. He reached out, not touching me, but his hand hovered over my bicep. “Hands. Actual human hands. You gotta know where the tension really lives.”
The air between us crackled. Every excuse, every denial I’d clung to for months dissolved in that charged silence. He knew. I knew. And the terrifying, exhilarating part was, neither of us was pretending otherwise.
“Stu…” I started, but I had no idea what to say next. I’m straight. I have a girlfriend. This is wrong. The words were ash in my mouth.
“Just relax, Ben.” His voice was low, a instruction and a seduction all at once. “Let’s just see if we can work that tension out. No machines today.”
He guided me not to the chair, but to the center of the soft, dimly lit room. He put his hands on my shoulders, his thumbs finding the knots at the base of my neck. A professional, firm pressure. I groaned, my head lolling forward. It felt incredible. And it was utterly, completely inadequate. I was wound tighter than a spring, and a back rub wasn’t going to touch the core of it.
His hands drifted lower, down my spine, over my hips. They settled on the front of my thighs, then slid inward. His touch was no longer therapeutic. It was possessive.
“You’re holding everything right here,” he murmured, his breath warm against my ear. His palms cupped me through my shorts. I was already hard, achingly so. A shudder ripped through me.
“Fuck, Stu…”
“I know.” He slowly, so slowly, knelt down in front of me on the soft floor. His eyes, looking up at me, were dark and intent. He hooked his fingers in the waistband of my shorts and my compression boxer briefs and tugged them down just enough. My cock sprang free, full and flushed and desperately eager.
He didn’t go fast. He didn’t just take me. He looked, he studied, he ran a single, calloused finger up the length of my shaft, tracing a vein. I hissed. “Always knew you were packing,” he said, almost to himself. “Couldn’t help but notice.”
Then he leaned in. He didn’t use his hands. He just pressed his mouth to the tip, a soft, closed-mouthed kiss that had my knees buckling. Then his tongue darted out, a hot, wet stripe that licked a bead of pre-come from the slit. A low groan escaped me, my hands fisting at my sides.
He took his time. His mouth was a slow, wicked discovery. He’d suck just the head, his tongue swirling, then dip down to lap at the base, nuzzle my balls. He was mapping me. Driving me out of my mind. It was the absolute opposite of the frantic, goal-oriented sex I was used to. This was languid. Devotional. It was the most intimate thing I’d ever felt.
My hips began to move, small, helpless thrusts. He let me, his mouth gliding up and down, taking a little more each time. His hands came up to grip my ass, holding me in place, controlling the rhythm. The sight of him—this flawless, golden god, on his knees for me—unraveled the last of my resistance.
“Please,” I begged, the word torn from me. “Stu, I’m gonna… you have to…”
He pulled off, leaving me throbbing in the cool air. “Gonna what?” he asked, his voice rough.
“I’m gonna come,” I choked out, my whole body trembling on the edge. “Please.”
Stu didn’t move. He just stayed there on his knees, looking up at me with a calm, appraising expression that was utterly at odds with the chaos inside me. His smile returned, but it wasn’t the cheerful surfer-dude grin anymore. It was calculating. A lock clicking open.
“I know you are,” he said, his voice detached, almost clinical. “The chair gets them every time. The ‘Athletic Recovery, Level Three’ setting? I programmed it myself. The heat focuses right on the perineum. The vibrations are tuned to a specific frequency. It’s not for your hamstrings, Ben.”
My mind, fogged with lust, staggered. “What?”
“It’s designed to get you right here,” he said, giving my shaft a soft, patronizing tap. “Buzzing, swollen, desperate. Just on the edge. You ever wonder why I always sent you in there? ‘Go relax, buddy. You earned it.’” His mimicry of his own past encouragement was cold.
The coldness cut through the heat in me. I felt exposed, my arousal suddenly vulnerable.
“The locker room,” he continued, as if discussing a workout plan. “Months ago. I saw you. Couldn’t believe it. A guy like you, walking around with that? A fucking grant. I knew I had to have it.”
A memory flashed: Stu’s eyes catching mine across the steam, his glance dipping for just a fraction of a second. I’d written it off. My face burned with a humiliation that was somehow hotter than my need.
“The little corrections,” he mused, his hand now idly stroking me, keeping me rigid. “My hand on your thigh during leg presses, brushing you just so. Watching you jump. It was fun. A project.”
“A project?” The word fell from my lips, flat and dead.
“You think this physique happens with chicken and rice?” He chuckled, a low, ugly sound. “It’s premium fuel. From guys like you. Big, healthy, protein-rich donors who don’t even know they’re donating. You edge them, you wind them up, and then you milk them dry. The body absorbs it. It’s science.”
Revulsion twisted in my gut. It warred with the brutal, unrelenting need he was still stoking with his lazy touch. This was all a transaction. A harvest. I was just a piece of livestock to him.
“You’re insane,” I whispered.
“Am I?” He leaned in, his lips a hair’s breadth from my skin. “You’re the one who kept coming back. You’re the one who got hard in my chair, just like I planned. You’re the one begging for it right now. So, what does that make you?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. His mouth closed over me again, and this time there was no art to it, no teasing worship. It was pure, efficient function. A deep, rhythmic pull designed for a single purpose: extraction.
My hips jerked. My body betrayed me utterly, chasing the finish line he’d built. The horror of his words melted under the tsunami of physical sensation. He was going to take it. He’d planned to take it all along. And I was going to give it to him.
A broken, guttural sound tore from my throat. It was surrender. It was assent.
It was assent. A raw, shuddering permission that left my throat scraped raw.
“Good.” The word vibrated against me, a cruel purr of satisfaction. His hands gripped my hips hard enough to bruise, fingers digging into the muscle, holding me utterly still while his head bobbed with a mechanic’s precision. There was no tenderness left, only a stark, transactional rhythm. Out. A perfect, piston-driven suction designed to break me down and extract what he wanted.
My head thrashed back, a strangled noise caught between a sob and a groan. The dual reality was splitting me apart. Revulsion coated my tongue, metallic and cold. Yet beneath that, deeper than thought, a blinding white heat was coiling, building, demanding release. He’d built the track and now I was just the runaway train, hurtling toward the wreck.
“You feel that?” he muttered, pausing just to let the cold air kiss the wetness he’d painted on me. “That deep-down quake? That’s your body understanding its purpose. Better than you do.”
“Stop talking,” I gasped, not because I wanted him to stop, but because every word was another layer of violation, another nail in the coffin of the person I thought I was. “Just… don’t.”
He ignored me. His thumb found the swollen spot just behind my balls, the one the chair’s probe had tormented, and pressed. A white-hot wire of pleasure-electrocution lanced up my spine. My vision sparked.
“See? Your system’s fully primed. Optimized.” His voice was calm, analytical, as he resumed his work. “All that tension you carried in here? It was just potential energy. I’m converting it.”
The conversion was almost complete. The coil inside my gut was wound to its breaking point, a spring of pure, shameful need. My thighs began to tremble uncontrollably. A high, thin whine escaped my clenched teeth. I was a capacitor overloading, every nerve ending firing a frantic, final warning.
Stu sensed the imminent surge. He looked up, his eyes cold and focused. He didn’t slow down. He sped up, his suction turning brutal, his tongue a ruthless blade against the most sensitive part of me. He was harvesting me.
And then he moved with one final lick, His voice hungry. “Cum for me big boy.”
My body detonated.
It wasn't a release. It was a seizure of pure, screaming sensation. A blinding, white-noise snap deep in my core that tore a ragged shout from my lungs. My hips slammed forward of their own volition, driving me deep into that wet, ruthless heat.
Thick, hot pulses ripped out of me, one after another, a seemingly endless volley. Each one hit the back of his throat with a force that shook my entire frame. Stars fractured behind my eyelids. The world dissolved into pure, shuddering feeling.
Stu took it. He held still, his mouth a tight seal, swallowing with deliberate, audible gulps. His throat worked against me. A low, approving hum vibrated up my shaft, a feedback loop that milked another brutal surge from my spent body.
But the sheer volume was too much.
It began to leak.
I saw it, my vision swimming back into focus. A thick, pearlescent trickle escaping from where his lips were stretched taut. It traced a slow, glistening path down the corner of his mouth, over the defined ridge of his jaw. A second rivulet followed, dripping onto his tanned throat, into the hollow at its base.
He didn't wipe it away. He let it run, his eyes locked on mine. His gaze was triumphant.Clinical. He was cataloguing the yield.
The spasms finally, mercifully, began to subside. I was hollowed out, trembling violently, every muscle twitching in the aftermath. A low, continuous groan poured from me as I slid from his mouth, oversensitive and raw. My legs buckled. I caught myself against the wall, the textured surface cool and real against my palm.
Stu rose smoothly. He swiped a thumb through the mess on his chin, looked at it, then sucked it clean with a slow, deliberate pull.
"Well," he said, his voice steady, as if we'd just finished a set of squats. "That was a significant donation. Productive session."
I just stared at him, my breath coming in ragged hitches. The scent of sex and salt hung thick in the eucalyptus air. My mind was a blank sheet of static. Every single assumption—about myself, about him, about the past months of my life—lay in ruins at my feet.
He picked up my shorts from the floor and tossed them to me. They landed against my chest with a soft thud.
"You'll feel drained. That's normal." He walked to the sink in the corner, ran the tap, and splashed water on his face."Electrolytes. Get a Gatorade on your way out. You need to replenish."
The casual brutality of it, the sheer, logistical aftercare, broke the stunned silence in my head. "You... you programmed the chair," I stammered, my voice foreign."Yep." He dried his face with a paper towel, balled it up, and tossed it in the bin. "Custom firmware. Took some tinkering to find the right resonance. But the data doesn't lie."Data. He called it data. I leaned harder against the wall, the physical drain finally swamping me. My body felt useless, a husk. "All those times... you were just...collecting."
He turned, leaning back against the sink, arms crossed. That relaxed, surfer-dude posture was a costume now, and I’d seen the zipper. "Collecting, curating, optimizing. You’ve seen the results." He flexed a bicep, a casual, vulgar gesture. "High-quality intake requires high-quality sources. You're a premium source, Ben. You should be flattered."
Flattered. The word curdled in the pit of my hollow stomach. I looked at the chair, that sleek black monster humming innocently in the corner. I remembered every confusing, electric twitch it had ever given me. All of it, a calculated trap. The warm-ups, the encouraging nods, the careful touches—all just steps in a feeding protocol.
A cold, sharp anger began to needle through the numbness. It felt clean compared to the shame. "Sarah," I said, the name a stone in my mouth. "My girlfriend. Is she just part of the... the data set?"
For the first time, his unwavering coolness flickered. A slight tightness around his eyes. "Sarah is irrelevant to this."
That was all he said. It was an admission, and a dismissal.
I pulled my shorts on, the fabric feeling alien against my sensitive skin. My hands were shaking. I needed to get out of this room, this tomb of my own naivety. But my feet felt rooted to the spot. "Why tell me? You could have just... kept taking it. I would have kept coming back. I did keep coming back."
He pushed off the sink and walked toward me. I flinched. He stopped, just out of arm's reach, and studied my face. "Because compliance is better when the subject understands the parameters. Fight-or-flight wastes resources. Now, you understand the terms." He gestured vaguely toward my midsection. "Your body knows what it's for now. It'll perform better.Less resistance."
I wanted to hit him. I wanted to scream. I wanted to sink back into that chair and let the vibrations erase everything he’d just said. The conflicting urges twisted inside me, a sickening knot.
He reached past me and opened the door. The gym's cacophony flooded in—a blast of reality. "See you Thursday, Ben. Don't skip leg day. You looked weak on your last set of extensions."
I stumbled past him, out into the bright, indifferent fluorescence of the corridor. The door clicked shut behind me, locking away the hum and the scent and the truth.
I walked through the free weights area on unsteady legs. No one looked at me. I was just another sweaty guy post-workout. I passed the locker where, months ago, his glance had first planted this poison seed. I kept walking, past the smoothie bar, out the main doors into the brittle evening air.
The coolness on my skin was a shock. I stood on the sidewalk, cars hissing past. I could still feel the ghost of his mouth. I could still see the cum leaking from its corner, a final, damning trophy.
My phone buzzed in my gym bag. I fumbled for it. A text from Sarah. Dinner at 7? I’m making that pasta you like.
A normal question. A life that belonged to a person I no longer recognized. I looked at the message, the glow of the screen harsh in the twilight. My thumb hovered over the keypad.
I didn't know how to answer. I didn't know who would be answering.
I just stood there, hollowed out and full of a terrible, thrilling knowledge, as the last of the sun bled out behind the buildings.