3:07 am. The screen door slapped shut behind me, that familiar wheeze-and-crack sound the rusted frame made every goddamn time, and the first thing that hit me wasn't the air-conditioned relief—it was the smell. Straight boy smell. Sweat that had been baking on skin for hours. Beer breath hanging thick in the humidity. Cigarette smoke curling lazy in the stale, oppressive air. And underneath it all, that sharp, metallic scent of testosterone and dominance, something that made my stomach drop and my mouth go dry like I was standing at the altar of something holy.
Boys. Real boys. Straight fucking gods.
Four of them, shirtless, barefoot, sprawled around the fold-out poker table Luke had dragged in from the carport. The overhead light was off, as usual—Luke said the fluorescents hurt his eyes after gaming all day—so the whole place glowed with that shitty amber dome lamp above the stove, casting their torsos in shadow and gold, every ridge of muscle highlighted like sculpture. My eyes adjusted to the dim. My knees didn't—they just went weak like they always did.
Jake was slouched nearest the door, eighteen years old with shoulders so broad they looked photoshopped, a can of Busch Light dangling from fingers that could probably crush my windpipe without trying. His cutoff shorts rode so low you could see the twin grooves of his hip flexors disappearing into denim, that perfect V-shape that made my mouth water. Kid had a face like a youth pastor - all blonde and clean and symmetrical, the kind of handsome that made you think he'd sell insurance someday - and a mouth like a truck stop bathroom wall. Across from him, CJ, the ginger with the sharp eyes and sharper grin, was shuffling cards with lazy precision, his gaze flicking up to clock me the second I walked in, that smirk already curling at the corner like he'd been waiting for the entertainment to arrive. Dirk sat backward on a kitchen chair, tattooed arms folded over the top rail, chin resting on his forearms, watching the game like he was watching a nature documentary about predators. Bored. Superior. Utterly unimpressed.
And Luke. Jesus fucking Christ. Luke.
Nineteen years old and carved by something crueler than a gym—poverty, homelessness, the two years he'd spent sleeping under overpasses before I found him. His chest was lean but defined, skin pulled tight over ribs that showed just enough to remind me he'd been hungry once, just enough to make me want to feed him forever. Ink crawled up his left arm—a sleeve of snakes and skulls he'd gotten piecemeal from a guy three lots over who traded tattoos for oxy. His dirty blond hair was shoved back from his forehead, damp with the day's heat. Bare feet propped on the chair seat next to him, ankles crossed. Toes long and straight, the soles darkened with the grime of a day spent walking the lot in nothing but skin, claiming every inch of ground like it was his.
I stood in the doorway like the pathetic bitch I was, my duffel bag strap cutting into my shoulder, my body a fucking roadmap of the last twenty hours. My left eye was swollen half-shut, a purple bloom spreading down to my cheekbone that throbbed with every heartbeat. My throat ached where fingers had pressed deep enough to leave marks. My knees, Jesus, my knees were raw through the holes in my jeans, scraped from where I'd been on them for hours. I could still taste piss in the back of my throat, that sharp, ammonia bite from the bathroom floor of that frat house, and underneath it, the coppery tang of blood from where I'd bitten my own lip to keep from making noise.
And I'd never been harder in my life. Bricked up like a fucking construction site.
"Holy shit." CJ chuckled, the cards freezing mid-shuffle. "Look what the cat dragged in."
Every head turned. Four sets of eyes, four straight, amused, utterly unimpressed stares. Luke's gaze traveled down my body slow, like he was checking for damage on a car he'd lent out. His smirk didn't change - it just deepened, the corner of his mouth folding into his cheek.
"Faggot," he said. Not a question. Not a greeting. A fucking fact stated to the universe. "You look like hammered dogshit."
"Yeah, fag," Jake leaned forward, elbows on his knees, that youth-pastor smile turning cruel. "What the fuck happened to your face? Somebody use you as a punching bag?"
I opened my mouth, but all that came out was a rush of air, the kind of exhale you make when you've been holding your breath underwater. My heart was hammering against my ribs like it wanted out. My fingers trembled on the duffel strap. These boys, these fucking gods, they'd been here for hours, clearly, drinking Luke's beer (that I paid for), filling my trailer with their scent and their voices and their superior alpha energy, and now they were looking at me, and I couldn't—
"Close your mouth, you dumb bitch, you're gonna drool on the linoleum." Dirk's voice was flat, almost bored, but his eyes were bright with something mean and entertained. "Actually, you know what? Do drool. That'd be funny as fuck."
They all laughed. Luke's laugh rose above the rest, a short bark that made my stomach clench and my cock twitch.
I closed my mouth. Swallowed. The taste of shame was sweeter than it should've been, honey-thick on my tongue.
Every time I walked into this trailer and found them here, it knocked the wind out of me. Every goddamn time. Two years since I'd found Luke panhandling outside a Greyhound station, his hoodie torn, his eyes hollow with that particular hunger of a kid who'd been eating out of dumpsters. Two years since I'd brought him home, fed him, gave him my bed and took the couch without being asked. Two years since he'd looked at me with those pale blue eyes and said, without a trace of gratitude, "You're gonna take care of me now," and I'd nodded like the desperate, broken faggot I was because someone finally, finally wanted me for something.
Not for me. Never for me. For what I could provide.
That was better. That was right.
"C'mere." Luke crooked two fingers at me. His feet didn't move from the chair. "Bring that bag. Stats on the night, faggot. C’mon, don’t make me ask twice."
My legs carried me forward before my brain caught up—automatic, obedient, wired for service. The boys tracked my progress with the lazy attention of cats watching a mouse that couldn't run. CJ went back to shuffling his cards; Dirk took a long pull from his beer. Jake just stared at me with that clean-cut smile and slowly, deliberately, scratched his bare stomach, his fingers tracing the ridges of his abs like he was reminding me what perfection looked like.
I stopped at Luke's elbow and got on my knees. Close enough to smell him under the sweat and smoke—that clean, boyish smell he had, the one that had nothing to do with soap and everything to do with the way his body just was, uncomplicated and certain and straight. His forearm rested on the table, the tendons shifting as he turned his hand palm-up, waiting.
"Well?" He didn't look at me. "You been working all night or what?"
The duffel bag slid off my shoulder. My fingers, clumsy and swollen, fumbled with the zipper, and I heard Jake snort.
"Look at him," Jake laughed. "Can't even work a fucking zipper."
"Faggot's hands are shaking. Bet he's scared we're gonna be mad he didn't bring enough." CJ added, not even looking up from his cards.
"Bet his ass ain't shaking though.” Dirk chimed in, his voice low and amused. “Bet that thing's been worked good."
More laughter, deeper this time, meaner. My face burned. My cock, traitor that it was, stirred against my thigh, thickening at their words.
The twenty-dollar bills were rubber-banded into three thick rolls, the way I always organized them before coming home—neat, orderly, worthy of his hands. I pulled them out, my hands still trembling, and placed them in Luke's waiting hand—six hundred from the three clients I just had, five hundred from the two I had two days before, and a hundred extra I'd managed to squeeze from the Dom who'd wanted to watch me eat cereal off the floor like a dog. Luke didn't know about that hundred. He didn't need to know the details. He just needed the total.
"Twelve hundred," I said. My voice came out raspy, the words scraping past my bruised throat. "For the week. All for you."
Luke's fingers closed around the rolls without looking. He weighed them in his palm like he was testing a steak for quality, then tossed them toward the center of the table where they landed with a thick, satisfying thud that echoed in the quiet trailer.
"Twelve hundred," he repeated, drawing the words out like they tasted good. "Gentlemen, the fag delivered. No cap."
"He gets to breathe another week." CJ chuckled as he leaned back in his chair, scratching his chest. "Thought you were gonna stiff our boy, faggot. That would've been a major L."
"He's not stiffing anyone. Are you, faggot?" This from Dirk, who had swiveled around in his chair to face me fully. His eyes were the color of cheap whiskey, and they tracked my face with the kind of detached curiosity you'd give a sideshow attraction. "Look at his face, though. Somebody worked him over good. Actually, that's an upgrade."
Luke's head turned. Finally, he looked at me—really looked—and I felt the weight of his attention like a physical thing pressing down on my shoulders, bending me toward the earth. His eyes traced the swelling around my left eye, the split in my lip that had already started to scab over, the purple fingerprints blooming on my throat like a necklace of bruises someone had given me as a gift.
"Take off your shirt," he said.
I didn't hesitate. Couldn't. The hem of my t-shirt caught on my chin as I pulled it over my head, and the movement sent a spike of pain through my ribs that made me gasp. The shirt dropped to the floor, and I stood there in the amber light, bare-chested, my skin a canvas of red marks and purple bruises and the ghost-white imprints of fingers on my shoulders and hips. A masterpiece of service.
"Jesus Christ." Jake whistled low, appreciative. "Looks like somebody tried to tenderize him. Actually, that's fire."
"Fucking nasty, man." But CJ was grinning, his eyes bright with fascination. "Like, actually impressive damage. What'd you do, piss someone off?"
Luke reached out. His fingers found the worst bruise on my ribs, a deep purple bloom the size of his palm, and pressed down just hard enough to make me hiss, and his smirk flickered into something sharper, more possessive.
"Alright, get on with it, faggot," he said. His voice was quiet, almost intimate, the way you'd talk to a dog who'd performed a trick correctly. "Tell my friends what the money's for. The whole thing. Don't skip the good parts."
I swallowed. My throat clicked dry. The words were already forming, the catechism I'd recited so many times it felt like breathing, but my voice caught anyway because I could feel all four of them looking at me, waiting, their amusement a tangible heat in the close, humid trailer air.
"Say it loud, faggot. We can't hear you." Dirk cupped a hand behind his ear, mocking. "Or are you embarrassed? That'd be cute."
I opened my mouth. "I'm an inferior faggot."
Louder. Luke's eyes demanded louder, his fingers still pressing into my bruise.
"I'm an inferior faggot, and the only purpose in my life is to make straight boys' lives easier because they are gods to me. So that's my fag tax I pay you every week... because you're straight... because you're better... because I'm nothing and you're everything."
For one suspended second, there was silence, and then Jake burst out laughing, a deep belly laugh that bent him forward, and CJ was slapping the table so hard the cards jumped, and Dirk shook his head slowly, teeth flashing in a sharp grin, and Luke—Luke tipped his head back and let out a sound that wasn't quite a laugh, more like a sigh of satisfaction, like he'd just tasted something exquisite.
"Every fucking time." Jake wiped his eyes, still wheezing. "Every fucking time he says it like he's reading a goddamn grocery list. No cap, it's the funniest shit."
"Nah, he means it. That's the beautiful thing." CJ pointed his beer at me, the can glinting in the amber light. "Look at his face. Look at his fucking eyes. This faggot believes every word. He actually thinks we're gods. That's not mid—that's hilarious."
"Because it's true," I said.
The words came out before I could stop them, quiet and certain, and the laughter changed pitch, deepened into something richer.
"You can bet your ass it's true, bitch!" Jake chuckled, shaking his head. "But hearing you say it? That's the best part of my week, no cap."
Luke's hand was still on my ribs. His thumb traced the edge of the bruise, light enough to tickle, and I shivered from my scalp to the soles of my feet, my entire body responding to his touch like it was wired directly to my nervous system.
"So why don't you tell us about the bruises, faggot?" He said then, leaning back on his chair. His voice was conversational, the same tone he used when he was asking about the weather or whether the diner had comped my shift meal. "Oh, first of all, how many clients did you have tonight?"
"Three..." I answered, the number feeling both too small and exactly right.
"Good, faggot! C'mon, now! Client by client. I want to know what they did to my property," he said as he lit another cigarette, the flame illuminating his sharp features for a second before he exhaled smoke toward the ceiling. "Details. Don't leave anything out."
My property. The words sank into my chest like a stone into still water, rippling outward until my whole body was vibrating with the rightness of it. His. Always his.
"The first one," I started, and my voice was steadier now, finding its rhythm in service, "his name was Marcus. He's thirty-two. Works construction. He got laid off three weeks ago and he said he needed to hit something that would take it. Something that wouldn't fight back."
"Nice," Jake said, his grin spreading wide enough to show his perfect teeth. "Fucking nice. Taking out his problems on a faggot? That's actually smart."
"Bet that felt good. Hitting a faggot who'll just take it." CJ leaned back, cards forgotten, his eyes hungry for the details. "No complaints, no police, just a punching bag right there. That's the dream."
Luke chuckled, "So what'd the guy hit? Be specific."
I swallowed. The words felt thick in my throat, but they came anyway, the way they always did when Luke asked—flowing out of me like confession.
"My ribs first. The left side. Four times. Each one landed like a fucking sledgehammer, bruising deep. Then my face—open-handed at first, then closed fist when I didn’t go down fast enough for him. Then he just… stopped. Looked down at me, breathing hard, and smiled. Told me he wanted to hear me cry before he did anything else. Told me to beg him to kick my balls. So I did."
The laughter rippled through the room, low and appreciative, the way you'd laugh at a good punchline.
"He made you beg for it?" The words dripped from Dirk’s mouth like honey from a poisoned comb. "Faggot really is broken. Like, actually mentally ill. No cap."
"Show us how you begged, faggot." Luke’s command cut through, lazy, absolute, and profoundly entertained.
My heart didn't just pound—it tried to fucking escape my chest. I didn't think. My body just moved, obeying the wiring deep in my bones. I dropped back onto the cool linoleum, the impact a dull echo of the pain already singing through me. I spread my legs wide, knees bent, presenting myself exactly like a dog showing its belly.
"Totally looks like a fucking bitch!" Jake snorted, his voice rich with amusement. "No cap. Just a pathetic little bitch."
"Please," I whispered, the word scraping out of my raw throat. My eyes were fixed on the water-stained ceiling tile. "Please kick my balls."
CJ's chuckle was a soft puff of air. "Can't even hear the bitch."
"Louder, faggot." Dirk's voice came from above me, amused and flat and utterly in control. "We didn't ask for a secret."
I sucked in a breath that smelled like feet and stale beer and straight boy dominance. Then I let it out as a shout, my voice cracking with the effort, shredding my already raw throat.
"PLEASE KICK MY BALLS, SIR! PLEASE, SIR, HURT ME!"
The laughter was mean and so genuine. I heard the shift of Jake’s weight on the chair, the creak of the cheap wood, the soft intake of breath. Time stretched. My heart hammered against the floor. My cock thickened, as per usual.
“Sure thing, faggot!”
Then—thump.
Not a kick. A stomp. The flat of Jake’s bare foot came down on my balls with casual, crushing force.
The impact didn't just hurt—it exploded. A white-hot spike of pure agony radiated up into my stomach, down into my thighs, out to the tips of my fingers and toes. My vision went spotty, then black at the edges. The air left my lungs in a ragged, punched-out gasp. A sound tore out of my throat—half-grunt, half-moan, entirely pathetic—and I curled forward instinctively, my forehead grinding into the grit on the floor, my whole body shuddering as the aftershocks rolled through me in nauseating waves.
Above me, the room erupted.
Not laughter this time—cackles. Raw, unfiltered howls of delight. Jake was wheezing, slapping his thigh. "OH SHIT! Did you see his face? Actually folded like a lawn chair!"
"Fucking flattened him!" CJ crowed, his voice bright with glee. "No cap, that was beautiful!"
I stayed there, gasping, each breath a knife in my side. My balls ached with a deep, throbbing pain that was somehow sweeter, more honest, than anything I’d endured all night. This pain had a name. It had a face. It was a gift.
"Fuck," I breathed into the linoleum. Then, pushing myself up on trembling arms, I turned my head to look at Jake's bare feet, at the dirt-smeared sole that had just crushed me. "Thank you, sir."
Jake snorted, a short, dismissive sound. "The faggot's thanking me. Of course he is."
"Of course he is," Luke echoed, his voice fond in that cruel, detached way that made my stomach clench with devotion. He hadn't moved from his slouch, but his pale blue eyes were fixed on me, glittering with ownership. "That's what he does. That's all he does."
The laughter swelled again, wrapping around me like a blanket. I didn't try to get up. I stayed on the floor, legs spread, head back down, my bruised body humming with a contentment that made no sense to anyone in the world but me. This was my place. This was my purpose.
"Besides," Luke said, his voice dropping to a low chuckle "you fucking loved it, didn't you? Tell the truth. Don't lie to us."
I pushed myself up onto my knees, my body protesting every movement. One hand instinctively cupped my throbbing crotch, a weak shield against the pain that was also a prize. I looked up at him, at his pale blue eyes and that cruel, beautiful smirk that held my entire universe in its curve, and I felt my mouth—swollen, split, bloody—curve into something that might've been a smile if it belonged to a person.
"I loved it," I said, the words leaving me on a breath of pure reverence. "Every second."
Luke laughed, a sharp, delighted sound, and his friends joined in. "That's what I'm talking about! Go on, keep talking, fag! Next client!"
"The second client was a college kid.” I continued, still groaning from the pain, “Tanner. He's nineteen. A rich frat guy." I paused, the words already coating my tongue with that phantom taste, the memory rising bitter and sweet. "He—he paid me three hundred just to follow him into the frat house bathroom and get on my knees while he got drunker and drunker, and then when he finally had to piss, he told me to follow the stream. Catch it. With my mouth... And if I spilled any, I had to lick it off the floor."
The laughter started low, but built, swelling in the cramped trailer. CJ let out a low whistle. "Shit, that's fucking genius. That's actually creative."
"Fuck yeah." Dirk leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with approval. "Kid sounds cool, that's how you treat a faggot."
The taste flooded my mouth again, that sharp, acrid memory, and I pushed on, my voice gaining strength from their approval. "He laughed the whole time. He kept losing his aim, and I had to crawl around on the floor licking it up, and the whole time he was on the phone with his roommate, just having a normal conversation about a girl he wanted to fuck, like I wasn't even there. Like I was nothing. Just background noise."
"Of course he did, bitch! 'Cause you ARE nothing! You’re a faggot, remember?" Luke's voice was flat, matter-of-fact, the way you'd state the time of day.
The laughter that followed was sharper this time, meaner, the edges honed by repetition and truth.
"I'm nothing," I said. My voice rasped past the bruise on my throat, but it was steady. Certain. "I'm nothing. Just a faggot who exists to serve you. That's all I am. That's all I've ever been."
"Fucking-A-right!" Luke's thumb dragged across my split lip again, smearing the fresh blood, marking me with his touch. "That's why I keep you around."
"Yes," I breathed. "Thank you... thank you for letting me serve..."
CJ's question cut through my recitation with the precision of a blade. "Were you hard then, too?"
He didn't ask it like he didn't know. He asked it like he wanted me to say it out loud, to confirm what they all already knew—the sickness, the brokenness, the perfect utility of my degradation.
"While you were licking that kid's piss off the floor?"
I felt my face heat, felt the blood rushing south, my cock thickening against my thigh like it had a memory of its own. The words hit me like they were commanded from somewhere deeper than my own will, pulled from the core of what I was.
My face burned. My cock twitched, aching. "Yes."
"Fucking animal." CJ leaned back in his chair, shaking his head slow, that grin splitting his sharp features. He swirled the beer in his can, watching me like I was something he'd scraped off his boot and found interesting under the microscope. "Like a goddamn dog that keeps crawling back to the porch after you've kicked it, tail wagging, tongue out, begging for another boot to the ribs. You're not even a person anymore, are you, faggot? You're just—just furniture that bleeds and brings cash. Actually, that's an insult to furniture. Furniture doesn't get hard from drinking piss."
Luke's head snapped up, that grin splitting his face wide as he grabbed his beer can off the table and raised it high. "Amen to that," he echoed, his voice ringing with genuine delight. "To furniture that pays rent!"
The other three boys doubled over as they raised their cans. The toast hung in the air like smoke—a benediction, a prayer, a joke at my expense that I would treasure in my memory forever.
"What about the third one, faggot?" Luke asked then, his eyes sharp on mine. "The last client. Don't tell me he went easy on you."
"His name was Derek. Twenty-five. He didn't say much. He just—when he was inside me, when he was fucking me, he put his hands around my throat and he squeezed." The memory made my voice go hoarse, the phantom pressure returning. "He kept squeezing until I couldn't see, until everything went dark at the edges, and then he'd let go right before I passed out, and my ass would get tighter, and he'd laugh—this low, mean laugh—and then he'd do it again. He did it six times. By the end, I couldn't remember my own name. I couldn't remember anything except the feeling of his hands and his cock and the darkness."
Jake let out a low whistle. "Duuuude! That's fucking dope! Next level shit!"
"Guy knew what he was doing," CJ added, nodding slow, his grin curling.
Dirk leaned back, cracking his neck, his eyes gleaming with that lazy, entertained cruelty. "Yeah, I've done that to a chick before. Masochist bitch I was seeing for a minute. You choke 'em just right, and their pussy gets tight. Like a goddamn fist around your cock. The more you take their air, the more they clamp down. It's science."
"Fuck," Jake breathed, shaking his head with genuine appreciation. "That's science right there. Biology."
"It's biology, motherfucker." Dirk spread his hands like he'd just explained the laws of thermodynamics. "Pain tightens everything up. Fear too. The more scared they are, the better it feels for you. Ain't that right, faggot?"
I didn't answer. Couldn't. My throat was closed around the memory of Derek's hands, and my cock was so hard it ached, pressing against my jeans insistently. I just nodded, my eyes wet.
"Look at him," CJ said, his voice dripping with amused disgust. "He's hard as a rock just talking about it. Actually bricked up from remembering how he got choked out. That's fucking pathetic."
More laughter. The kind that comes from a place of pure, uncomplicated enjoyment. They were having fun. Real, honest fun, built on the foundation of my humiliation, and I loved them for it. I loved them for using me as their entertainment, for finding joy in my brokenness.
"Now tell me again how good it felt and why, faggot." Luke said, quiet, almost fond. Not a question this time. He knew. Of course, he fucking knew.
"It felt so… so fucking good." My voice was barely a whisper. "The pain, the humiliation, the—the knowing that I was doing it all for you. That every bruise was for you. Every dollar was for you. Every fucking thing was for you. I’m so grateful to be able to do this, Luke…"
And the laughter filled the trailer again. Luke set his beer down, the can clinking against the table, and he leaned forward in his chair. His hand shot out, fast and casual, and cracked across my face.
Slap.
The sound echoed off the thin walls, sharp and final. My head snapped to the side, cheek stinging, and before I could even process it, his palm connected with the other side.
Slap.
"That’s a good faggot," Luke said, settling back into his chair like he'd just scratched an itch. His smirk was lazy, satisfied, the smirk of a nineteen-year-old boy who'd been homeless and hungry and invisible and had somehow found himself a creature who would crawl through fire for the privilege of being spat on.
"And let's not forget," he added, his voice dropping into that conversational drawl that made my stomach clench with anticipation, "you were coming from a triple shift, weren't you? Before all this?"
I nodded so fast my neck cracked. "Yes, Luke. I worked the morning breakfast rush, then covered for Marco's dinner shift, and then I did the overnight." The words tumbled out of me, eager, desperate to please. "I haven't slept in over twenty hours. I haven't eaten since yesterday morning."
“Only twenty hours?” Luke’s voice dropped into that mocking, singsong lilt that made my skin prickle and my stomach clench. He leaned forward, that shit-eating grin spreading slow across his face like he’d just caught me in a lie. “I think you can do better than that, faggot. Don't you think I deserve better than that? Don't you think I deserve a faggot who pushes himself harder than that?”
The question hung in the air, sharp and pointed, and I felt the weight of it press down on my chest. The laughter around the table stuttered, then swelled, the boys picking up on Luke's tone like hounds catching a scent.
“He got you there, faggot,” Jake chimed in, scratching one of his pits. “Twenty hours? That's weak. That's actually mid.”
“Pathetic,” CJ added, shaking his head, his ginger eyebrows raised in mock disappointment. “Here I thought you were dedicated. Turns out you're just lazy. A lazy fucking faggot.”
My throat tightened. My hands, still trembling, twisted in the fabric of my jeans. “No, Luke, I—I can do more. I will do more. I'll work double doubles, I'll skip sleep for days, I'll—whatever you need. Whatever you deserve.” The words poured out of me, desperate and raw, my voice cracking on the last syllable. “You deserve everything. You deserve more than I can give. I know that. I know that.”
The boys lost it. Jake slapped his thigh, nearly falling off his chair. CJ was wheezing so hard he had to set his beer down. Even Dirk, who usually kept his reactions measured, was shaking his head with that sharp, entertained grin, muttering, “Damn, Luke. You got this bitch trained. Actually well-trained.”
Luke's smirk softened, the way you'd look at a dog that had just learned a new trick. “Yeah,” he said, “I do.”
Luke just watched me, his pale blue eyes glittering with amusement and ownership, and I felt like the luckiest creature on earth—chosen, owned, useful.
Luke's smirk deepened. He crossed his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair with a theatrical sigh. like he had all the time in the world. The muscles in his forearms flexed, shifting the dark ink of his tattoos.
"Wanna know what I've been doing all day, faggot? While you were slaving away for me? Stats on my day versus yours."
My breath caught. "Yes. Please. Tell me. I want to know."
He chuckled, low and lazy, the sound vibrating from his chest. He didn't start talking right away. He let the silence stretch, let me hang there on my knees, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my bruised ribs, my throat tight with a desperate, worshipful need. One corner of his mouth tilted up, not quite a smile. He was savoring it.
"Let's see, woke up at eleven," he finally said, drawing the words out like they were honey on his tongue. "The sun was already high. Felt good sleeping in, knowing you were out there, busting your ass for me. Actually slept like a baby."
"Amen," Jake muttered from the doorway, his arms crossed, a lazy grin on his face. "Living the dream."
Luke stretched his arms over his head, the movement making his lean torso pull taut, the ink on his ribs flexing like living art. "Had a cigarette first thing. Sat on the steps, just existing. Just sat there, you know? Listening to the fucking cicadas, thinking about nothing. Not a single fucking worry in the world." He paused, his eyes sliding to me, sharp and amused. "You know what that's like, faggot? Not having a worry? Not having to think about where your next meal comes from or how you're gonna pay rent?"
I shook my head, barely breathing. "No. I don't."
"Didn't think so." He picked up his beer, took a long, deliberate sip, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Then I got hungry. Real hungry. So I called the boys."
"He texted the group chat," CJ cut in, leaning against the counter, his arms folded, a smirk splitting his narrow face. "'Get your asses down here. Faggot's money's burning a hole in my pocket. Breakfast on the bitch.'"
"Thirty minutes later," Dirk added, his voice flat but his eyes bright, "we're at that diner off the highway, the one with the neon sign that flickers. The greasy one."
"Jerry's," Jake supplied, and the name hung in the air like a prayer.
"Jerry's," Luke repeated, savoring the word. "We all ordered way more than we could eat—pancakes, eggs, bacon, hash browns, the works—since your fag money paid for every last bite. Ate until we were stuffed."
I was listening to every syllable, hanging on every word, my cock so hard it was painful. Luke nodded, slow and satisfied, letting that sink in. "We sat in the corner booth for two hours. Just talking. Laughing. Didn't have to check the time, didn't have to go to work or any of that shit. Just... sat there, with my boys, full, content, living our best lives."
The boys laughed, a low, harmonized sound of pure mockery and camaraderie.
"And then what?" I breathed, desperate, my cock throbbing against my thigh. "What did you do after?"
"Then I gamed for a few hours on your couch." Luke's eyes never left mine. "Played some Warzone. Absolutely shredded. Then had a chick over around four. Huge tits and a mouth like a fucking hoover! Mmmmm!" The boys laughed, Jake making a jerking-off motion with his hand. "She sucked me off until I came down her throat, then I fucked her for a couple hours. Came three times." He held up three fingers, counting them off. "Then I took a nap 'cause I was tired from fucking. Actually exhausted."
The boys howled. CJ slapped his hand on his knee. "Tired from fuckin', what a tragedy. Poor guy."
"Woke up from my nap, and she was still there," Luke went on. "Ordered pizza. Ate it in bed while she licked my balls for a while. Sent her packin' around nine, then I met up with the boys for poker." He gestured around the table with his beer can. "And here we are. Living the dream on faggot money."
Luke waited for the laughter to die, then leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. "So while you were on your knees, beggin' some construction worker to kick your balls and lickin' piss off a frat boy's floor and gettin' choked out while you got fucked, I was sleeping. Eating. Getting my balls drained. Resting. Gaming. Living." He spread his hands, a king showing his kingdom. "All on your dime. All because you worked your ass off for me. That's the hierarchy, faggot. That's how it's supposed to be."
My heart swelled so big I thought it might crack my ribs. My smile was split-lipped and bloody, but I couldn't stop it. "Thank you," I breathed. "Thank you for using me like that. That's—that's exactly what I'm for."
Everyone cracked up again, laughing at how pathetic I was, how perfectly broken, and they were absolutely right, and I felt so grateful I could be their entertainment, the punchline to their joke, the foundation of their good time.
And then Jake leaned forward and spat in my face. Nothing they hadn't done a million times before, but it never got old—for them or for me.
The glob of saliva hit my cheekbone, warm and wet, sliding down toward my jaw in a thick line. I didn't flinch. Didn't move. My eyes fluttered closed for half a second, savoring the feeling of his mark on me, and when I opened them, Jake was grinning at me with those youth-pastor teeth, his eyes bright with amusement.
"Thank you," I whispered, the words sincere.
"You're fucking welcome." Jake's grin widened. "You earned it, bitch."
CJ leaned over and gestured for me to 'open up,' making a circle with his finger and thumb, which I of course did immediately, my mouth falling open in obedient anticipation. He leaned close, gathered saliva in his mouth, and spat right at the back of my throat. I swallowed reflexively, my feeble 'Thank you' covered by his 'Bullseye!' and the laughter that came with it.
The way they laughed at me was comfortable, familiar, like a sitcom they'd watched a hundred times but still found funny. CJ went back to shuffling his cards. Jake cracked another beer, the hiss of the tab loud in the quiet. Dirk stretched, his tattooed arms reaching toward the ceiling. The game was resuming, the interruption of my arrival already fading into background noise, the faggot properly put back in his place.
And then Luke's feet went under the table, on the floor.
"Go on, do your thing, faggot. I know you're dying to."
He didn't look at me when he said it. Didn't have to. His voice was casual, offhand, the way you'd tell a dog it was time for a walk.
My heart didn't stop—it started racing so fast I could feel it in my temples, my wrists, the backs of my knees. The rush of blood was so loud I could barely hear the boys' conversation shifting to whatever straight boys talked about when they weren't having fun tormenting their faggot—some fight CJ had gotten into last weekend, a girl Dirk was trying to fuck, the odds on an upcoming UFC match. Their voices faded to a distant hum, the way sound drops out when you're underwater, because I was already sinking, already falling, already crawling under the table, my knees on the linoleum floor that I'd scrubbed three days ago just in case Luke had visitors.
The space beneath the fold-out poker table was cramped and dark, lit only by the amber glow filtering through the gaps between the boys' bodies. My shoulders brushed Jake's calf on one side, warm and solid, Dirk's chair leg on the other. The air was thicker down here, denser, saturated with the smell of their bare feet and the faint, yeasty scent of old beer that had been spilled on the floor and never quite cleaned up because cleaning was my job, not theirs.
And there, directly in front of my face, were Luke's feet.
I didn't wait for permission. I didn't wait for anything. The second I saw them in front of my face, I let my body fall backward, my shoulder blades hitting the sticky linoleum, my spine arching to make myself a platform, a pillow, a piece of furniture for his use.
Luke's feet came down on my face like it was exactly what it was—a footstool made of flesh and bone and desperation.
The right one settled over my mouth first, the arch pressing against my lips, the ball of his foot grinding into my cheekbone with familiar weight. The left one found my forehead, his heel resting in the hollow of my brow, his toes dangling down toward my hairline. He shifted his weight, adjusting, getting comfortable, and I felt every ridge of his skin through the thin layer of my consciousness—the dirt from the trailer park's gravel paths, a faint gray smudge of ash from where he'd stepped on a cigarette butt earlier, the kind of grime that came from walking around outside without shoes from noon until midnight, claiming the earth as his. His toes were long and straight, the nails trimmed but unpolished, with a few dark hairs curling on the knuckles of his big toes. The skin on his heels was smooth, not callused—Luke had soft feet for a boy who went barefoot most of the year, a genetic gift I'd catalogued the first time I'd ever been allowed to touch them.
And now they were on my face. Where they belonged.
Above me, the boys' voices and laugher was calming, like a lullaby to my ears. Luke pressed his foot harder into my mouth, and I opened my lips, let his heel rest against my tongue, tasted the salt and grit and him like a communion wafer, like the body and blood of my god.
His arches were high, the tendons visible beneath the skin, and between his second and third toe on the left foot was a tiny white scar from where he'd stepped on a broken bottle when he was living on the streets. I knew that scar like I knew my own name—better, maybe, because my name didn't matter, but this scar was part of him.
"—so I told her, look, you're just a dumb cunt who's good for one thing, so stop acting like you got any say in where we go or what we do—" CJ's voice floated down from above, followed by Jake's bark of laughter and the slap of cards on the table.
They weren't watching me. They didn't need to. I was so far beneath their attention they could play cards and crack beers and talk about fucking girls while I crouched in the dark like an insect, trembling with gratitude at being allowed to exist in their presence.
I leaned forward, my movement restricted by the table above me.
My tongue touched the arch of Luke's right foot, and the world went soft at the edges, everything narrowing to this point of contact.
The taste was everything I'd been craving since the day before—the reason I'd endured the fists, the piss, the choking. Salt. Earth. Dried sweat. Dirt dissolving on my tongue into something holy. It wasn't clean. It was Luke, unfiltered and real, the essence of a straight boy who'd spent his day living while I worked. I licked a long stripe from his heel to the ball of his foot, collecting the day's grime, and a sound escaped my throat that wasn't quite a moan and wasn't quite a sob—something in between, the sound of perfect submission.
Above me, the conversation didn't even pause. My worship was background noise, expected, unremarkable.
My tongue worked between his toes—first the gap between big toe and second, where a faint line of lint had collected, then the narrower space between second and third, where the scar was. I traced that scar with the tip of my tongue, gently, reverently, the way a supplicant might kiss a saint's relic. His skin was salty there too, but underneath the salt was something else, something warm and alive and utterly Luke, a taste I would recognize blindfolded in a room full of feet.
I moved to his left foot. The sole was grimier than the right—he must have planted it on something dirty while he was outside—and I spent long minutes licking it clean, my tongue working in broad strokes, then short, focused flicks at the stubborn spots. A piece of gravel, tiny but sharp, dislodged from his heel and rolled across my tongue. I swallowed it without hesitation, taking a piece of his day into my body.
"—odds are shit, man, McGregor's gonna get smoked in the second round—" Dirk's voice, dismissive and certain.
"Bullshit. He's got reach." That was Jake.
"Reach doesn't mean fuck when your cardio's dogshit. Dude gasses every time."
My mouth closed over Luke's big toe and sucked.
The conversation above me stuttered—not because they noticed, not because they cared, but in that split second of silence, I felt Luke's toe flex against my tongue, a tiny involuntary movement, and I knew he was smiling. I couldn't see his face from under the table, but I knew the exact shape of that smirk, the way it folded into his cheek and crinkled the corner of his eye, the way his lips would part just slightly.
I sucked harder, worshiping with my mouth.
The toe slid deeper into my mouth, and I worked my tongue around it, cleaning every millimeter of skin, polishing it like it was something precious. The nail was smooth against the roof of my mouth. The faint taste of dirt had slowly given way to something cleaner, something that was just skin and salt and Luke. I hollowed my cheeks, sucking with devotion, and somewhere above me, I heard the soft exhale of breath—Luke's breath—and I knew I was doing it right.
Then I moved to the next toe, then the next, working my way through each one with the same reverence.
Laughter. A beer can crunching as someone drained it. The skid of cards being dealt. The trailer was full of straight boy life, and I was beneath it all, literally and figuratively.
I was invisible.
I was nothing.
I was the happiest I had ever been.
My tongue traced the delicate web of skin between Luke's toes, and my mind drifted backward, the way it always did when I was in this position, to the beginning, to the moment when my life finally made sense.
The memory didn't come as a story. It came as a series of sensations, the way trauma always does—fragmented, sensory, real.
The Greyhound station's diesel fumes burning my nostrils. The flickering fluorescent lights buzzing like flies trapped in glass. My feet aching from the double shift at the diner, the paycheck still warm in my fist, creased from how hard I was holding it like it was a lifeline.
And then those eyes.
Pale blue. Sharp. Hungry in a way that wasn't desperate but predatory, like he was looking at me and deciding in a few seconds he was seeing utility rather than a person. They locked onto me from beneath a torn hoodie, and I felt something inside me crack open like an egg, something that had been waiting to hatch.
"You look like you need someone to take care of."
The words hit me in the chest, a physical blow. He was seventeen. Dirt smudged across his cheekbones. Ribs showing through the thin fabric of his hoodie. But his voice—low, certain, completely unafraid—didn't match the cardboard sign propped against his knees.
ANYTHING HELPS GOD BLESS
I brought him home that night. My bed. My food. My heat. My everything. He took it all without a word of thanks, and I felt something slot into place that I hadn't known was loose—a key turning in a lock I didn't know existed.
The first time he brought friends over, I was still stupid enough to think it was temporary, that he'd be grateful eventually. The first time he lost big—five hundred dollars in a poker game behind a bar on 24th Street—I sold my grandmother's ring. The only thing I had left from the one foster home that hadn't beat me, the only thing that felt like mine.
I handed him the cash. He counted it, his fingers moving with quick efficiency. Looked at me with those pale blue eyes.
"You're gonna need to do better than this next time."
No ‘thank you’. No gratitude. Just a demand, flat and natural as gravity, like he was telling me the sky was blue.
And I did better. I sold my car. My TV. My ass. My dignity. Every bruise I brought home was a prayer answered. Every dollar was an offering accepted. When he finally named it—"the fag tax"—and made me say out loud, for the first time, what the money was for, something in my chest that had been grinding against itself for twenty-three years finally clicked into silent, perfect alignment.
This is what I'm for. This is what I've always been for.
This was my purpose. My function. My reason for existing.
To make straight boys' lives easier.
To serve them.
To worship them.
To lick the filth from their feet while they played cards and forgot I was there.
"—raise you twenty."
"Fuck that, I'm out. You're bluffing."
"Pussy."
"Your mom's a pussy."
"My mom's dead, dickhead."
"Oh shit, yeah. Sorry."
"Whatever. Deal the next hand."
My jaw ached, stretched wide around Luke's toes, but I didn't stop—couldn't stop—the ache was good, proof I was useful, and even though both feet were clean now, I kept licking, kept worshiping, because it wasn't about cleanliness, it was about devotion. Worthlessness wasn't a wound anymore; it was freedom. I wasn't a person with hopes and dreams and rights; I was a tool, a faggot whose only purpose was to give and give and give, and there was no failure in that, only utility.
And Luke, my beautiful, cruel, godlike Luke, let me give. He let me worship. He let me be what I was meant to be.
"—alright, last hand, I gotta take a piss." CJ's chair scraped back, the sound loud in the confined space.
"Hold on, let me finish this beer."
"Finish it faster, pussy."
"Fuck you."
"Fuck your mother."
"My mother's alive, so that's actually offensive."
"That's the point, dipshit."
The laughter rolled over me, warm and familiar, my tongue working the arch of Luke's foot in slow, reverent strokes until the skin was slick with spit. His heel pressed down harder on my forehead—a silent reminder to stay where I belonged, to remember my place—and I obeyed, licking, worshiping, tasting every ridge and line I knew better than my own reflection because my reflection didn't matter, but his feet did.
"Alright, bitches, I'm out." CJ's chair scraped above me. "Same time Thursday?"
"Yeah, bring more beer this time. Dirk drank like a fucking fish."
"I drank two."
"Exactly. Bring more. And bring that chick you were talking about. The one with the big tits."
The boys laughed, feet shuffling, palms slapping in goodbye. I didn't stop licking until Luke's foot pulled away, and even then, I stayed on my back, face up, tongue still extended like a dog waiting for a treat or a command. Through the gaps between chair legs, I watched the other boys head for the door—Jake's broad shoulders blocking the light for a second, CJ's sharp profile silhouetted against the screen door, Dirk's tattooed arms swinging as he walked.
"See you, man." Jake's voice, directed at Luke.
"Yeah. Don't lose all that fag money before Thursday. I wanna eat good next week."
"Fuck you, I'm winning next time. I can feel it."
The screen door wheezed open, wheezed shut with that familiar slap. The trailer fell quiet, the air still thick with their presence, their scent, their dominance.
Under the table, I waited. My heartbeat was loud in my ears, a frantic drumming. My cock was so hard it hurt, pressed against the seam of my jeans, desperate and aching and utterly ignored, which was exactly how it should be. I didn't touch it. I wouldn't touch it unless Luke told me to. My pleasure wasn't mine anymore; it was his, like everything else—my body, my time, my money, my will.
Luke's chair scraped back. His bare feet appeared on the floor in front of my face, the soles still damp from my mouth, glistening in the amber light, the toes flexing against the linoleum like they were savoring the clean surface. I stayed on my back, tongue still out, waiting for his next command, my whole body a question mark aimed at his approval, poised for service.
He looked down at me—I could feel his gaze before I saw it, that familiar weight pressing into my chest, bending me toward the earth—and his smirk spread slow, lazy, like he had all the time in the world because he did. His time was his, and mine was his too.
"Alright, faggot." His voice was soft, almost conversational, but the smirk never wavered. He stretched his arms over his head, the motion pulling his lean torso taut, a yawn cracking his jaw wide. "I'm going to bed. Long day of chilling. Actually exhausted."
My heart stuttered. Bed. He was going to bed. In my bed. The thought sent a shudder through me, hot and grateful and aching. My bed, where he slept, where he fucked girls, where he existed in the state I wanted him to be in—rested, content, cared for.
He rolled his shoulders, cracking his neck, and let his gaze drift around the trailer—the cards scattered on the poker table, the beer cans clustered like metal mushrooms, the ashtray overflowing with butts, the smudge of dirt and spilled beer on the linoleum where the boys had been sitting, the general wreckage of straight boy leisure. His eyes landed back on me, still sprawled on my back under the table, my tongue still stupidly extended like I was waiting for another command that wouldn't come.
"Clean up all this mess," he said, waving a hand at the wreckage like he was dismissing a servant. "Take out the trash before you sleep. And clean the bathroom too. I took an absolute monster of a shit earlier. Like, a real demon, you know what I'm sayin’? Go ahead and scrub that bowl 'til it shines, I wanna take my morning piss in a clean bathroom." He said it like he was listing chores for a child, his tone flat and dismissive.
I scrambled out from under the table, my knees screaming from being on them for so long, my shoulder throbbing where I'd been hit, my eye swelling shut. I stood in front of him, shirtless and bruised and trembling, and I felt the grin split my split lip, fresh blood welling at the corner.
"Yes, Luke," I breathed. "Thank you. Thank you for—"
He was already walking away.
His bare feet padded across the linoleum, past the sink piled with dirty dishes I hadn't had time to wash, past the empty beer cans, down the narrow hallway toward the bedroom. My bedroom. The one I'd given him the first week he moved in, the one with the good mattress and the blackout curtains and the pillow that still smelled like his hair and his sweat and him.
"—trusting me with this, I won't let you down, I promise, I'll make it perfect for you, I'll—"
The bedroom door swung shut.
Thud.
He didn't say goodnight. Didn't say anything. The silence from behind that door was absolute, the silence of someone who had already forgotten I existed, who had used me and moved on to more important things like sleep.
And I was the happiest I had ever been.
I worked through the night, my body aching, my bruises singing a hymn of service, my tongue still coated with the taste of his feet. I scrubbed the bathroom until the porcelain gleamed, until the smell of bleach burned my nostrils clean of everything but cleanliness. I bagged the trash, hauled it to the dumpster in the dark, wiped down the table until not a fingerprint remained, mopped the floor on my hands and knees because the mop didn't get into the corners and Luke deserved corners free of dirt.
And every second of it, every scrape and strain and swallow of pain, was a prayer.
Please let him use me more.
Please let him never stop.
Please let me always be this useless, this grateful, this full of purpose.
The bedroom door stayed shut. The trailer grew quiet except for the sound of my cleaning. And I kept working, kept serving, kept being exactly what he needed me to be.
A faggot. A tool. A happy, broken, worshipping thing.
And when I finally collapsed on the couch as the sky began to lighten, my body screaming, my face still marked with the imprint of his feet, I fell asleep smiling, dreaming of his feet on my face, his voice calling me worthless, his hands taking everything I had.
Perfect.
Just perfect.
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