Camp
Breakfast was a simple affair.
Fourteen men, five of them naked, sat around fold-out trestle tables. Each had helped himself to toast, coffee, and a modest selection of hot food. No one batted an eyelid as the two new arrivals lowered themselves gingerly into their seats. Their altered appearance barely rated a second glance.
No one offered a handshake.
There would be plenty of time for introductions.
Chad and Brendan remained silent, while the easy workmanlike conversation flowed around them. It was as though they barely existed.
The morning was already oppressive. Sweat began to form on the backs of their necks. The temperature was nudging thirty-two degrees and climbing steadily.
Trevor finished his breakfast first.
"Let's do it."
He stood, carried his plate to the sink, and turned back towards the group.
"Four and Five, you're with me."
*
At the rear of the spotless tar truck, Trevor outlined the task the two former procurement managers would now be performing.
“You two are the sprayers,” he said. “You lay the tar where and when the crew tell you. Those are your backpacks, and these are your wands.”
He lifted one of the spray units.
“It’s simple. The tar leaves the truck at eighty degrees. It travels through these hoses into your backpacks, where compressed air keeps it under pressure. Squeeze the trigger here and a fan of hot tar comes out of the wand. Let go of the trigger and it stops.”
He looked from one man to the other.
“Got it?”
Both nodded.
“You’ll walk backwards ahead of the crew and do exactly what they tell you. They know what they’re doing. You don’t. Ignore their instructions and someone, maybe you, gets hurt.”
He paused.
“How long do you reckon it takes a real medic to reach this place?”
Neither answered.
“The last one took two days.”
Another pause.
“So don't fuck up.”
“Do we at least get some protective gear?” Chad asked.
“If you mean respirators, yeah.”
Trevor pointed to the masks sitting on the truck.
“But you’re already wearing the important gear. Those boots are the best money can buy.”
“No,” Chad replied, struggling to keep his frustration in check. “Look at us. Half our skin's exposed.”
Trevor didn't even glance down.
“The spray nozzle is five feet away, and you're the one holding it. Be sensible. You might get the occasional splash, but after a while everyone ends up with a layer of tar on them anyway.”
Reluctantly, the two men strapped on the heavy backpacks. Heat radiated through the tanks almost immediately. Even the spray wands felt warm to the touch.
They fitted the twin-filter respirators over their mouths and noses, before lowering the clear face shields into place.
“For the first few weeks, you'll wear these as well.”
Trevor handed each of them a broad-brimmed sombrero.
“It gets bloody hot out here. That's why we start at quarter past six and knock off at three-thirty.”
He looked over his shoulder at the immaculate truck.
“You two keep working after everyone else finishes.”
His expression never changed.
“This truck gets cleaned every single day.”
Suddenly, its spotless condition made perfect sense.
*
A week later, they privately admitted Trevor had been right.
The job itself was straightforward, far simpler, and ultimately safer, than they had expected. That didn't make it any less miserable. It was easily the worst work either of them had ever done.
The heat was relentless.
Wherever they went, they seemed to carry an extra three degrees with them. It was as though each of them operated inside a personal bubble of scorching air. They drank liters of water every day, sweated constantly, and rarely went an hour without needing to relieve themselves.
Being closest to the raw tar fumes, their full-face respirators were non-negotiable. The equipment worked well enough, but wearing it all day was exhausting. The rubber seal pressed relentlessly against their faces, while every breath carried the faint reminder that they were continually recycling a little of their own air.
The work itself proved to be the biggest challenge.
As they fanned the hot tar across the prepared surface, a fine cloud of dust rose with every pass. The particles immediately clung to their sweat-soaked skin before being sealed beneath an almost invisible film of sticky tar residue.
The first evening, they scrubbed themselves raw in the showers, only to discover how stubborn the coating really was. By the time the six-minute timer cut off the water, they had barely made a dent.
After a week, they accepted the truth.
The layer wasn't coming off.
It was slowly building.
When they complained to Trevor, he barely looked up.
"So what?" he said. "You end up with your own coating."
He shrugged.
"Give it a month and you'll look like you've arrived from middle Africa."
Then, with complete indifference, he walked away.
*
The wider team turned out to be a decent group of men to work with.
The relentless heat left little energy for arguments or hostility. The workers wearing collars were known only by their numbers, and over time each shared the story of how they had ended up on the crew.
None of them had arrived there by choice.
The contract involved repairing some of the most remote sections of the regional highway network. During their first week, Chad and Brendan didn't see a single passing vehicle.
Any hope they had harboured of attracting attention or finding an easy escape quickly disappeared.
*
While the work itself proved survivable, and the crew provided some distraction, the cock tubes they’d been fitted with on their first morning became a far greater burden than either had expected.
At first, they dismissed it as another layer of humiliation. The bodily addition of a plastic pipe to their meat, seemed ‘fraternity’ in nature.
Since day one their dicks had been completely encased, their balls permanently thrust forward.
Within days, they realised it served a far more practical purpose.
Their best efforts to remove the device had proved fruitless. The inside of the flexible but super tough tubing, was lined with hundreds of low but hard plastic ‘mounds’. When the cock was soft these little hills weren’t a drama. When an erection struck however, the rises revealed their spiked tops. Hard-ons became incredibly painful and deflated instantly. Neither Chad nor Brendan had been able to unload their increasingly full balls for a week.
*
As Chad and Brendan emerged from their van to begin their fourteenth day, we were sharing an early breakfast more than eight hundred miles away.
With a casual crew looking after the shop, we headed for the private charter airfield where a twin-engine Cessna waited. Two and a half hours later, the three of us arrived near the remote road gang for the first of our planned visits.
Trevor's reports, passed on through Allan, indicated the boys had settled into the routine. They were mostly compliant, doing the miserable work expected of them, and staying out of trouble. As a footnote, he mentioned that the relentless heat and harsh conditions were beginning to wear them down.
It was good to hear.
He went on to say he expected before long he would be forced to bring out the paddle, as they hit the first of their breaking points. They’d claim they couldn’t take it any longer.
"They've got no idea what they can take," he'd said. "They'll surprise themselves."
We landed on an airstrip about an hour from the work site by road.
When we arrived, Trevor joined us beneath one of the few spindly trees scattered across the plain. In the distance, the road crew continued working, though there was no doubt our arrival had attracted their attention.
Trevor called for Numbers One, Two and Three.
The three collared workers approached quietly and stood with their hands clasped behind their backs. They looked young, barely out of their teens. Months in the desert had left their skin deeply tanned, and the heavy stainless collars around their necks looked as though they had always belonged there.
"Just saying," Trevor continued conversationally. "I could find buyers for Four and Five if you ever wanted them to disappear."
We exchanged a glance but gave nothing away.
Our visit was intended to be brief. We expected hostility, but that was the point. This meeting was designed to reinforce the foundation for our final visit a month later. As far as Chad and Brendan knew, they could be on the crew indefinitely.
We sought to reinforce their fears.
“On your knees fuck-heads, service your betters,” the boss instructed. Instantly One, Two and Three dropped and gently removed our rapidly thickening cocks from our jeans.
Our chat continued unabated.
The head progressed beautifully. Within minutes we’d served early lunch to our skilled suckers with deep throat finishes.
Trevor chased them away, instructing them as they left to send 4 and 5 across.
“This here’s the sixty-meter mark” he said as he drew a light line in the sand with his foot. “At sixty-one their collars will fuck them over”.
“We won’t be long,” I assured. “We just want to extinguish any hope they might have for getting out of this mess”.
“Ok, whatever, see you in a month. I’ll let you know if I have any problems,” he walked back towards the truck passing a confused 4 and 5 on the way.
As they got close they finally recognised who the visiting strangers were. I was surprised how dark their skin was becoming. The colour change was emphasised by the space around their mouths and nose which remained pure white.
As they got within earshot the abuse started.
“You fucken arseholes!“ Exploded Chad, starting to accelerate towards us.
“Bastards!” screamed Brendan, beyond furious.
They intuitively stopped just inside their sixty-meter limit. It was clear it didn’t matter how mad they were, they weren’t going to risk a mind-bending shock.
“Cowards,” spat Chad. “What the fuck do you want? Step in here you weak pussies!”
“Well, that’s gratitude,” I said mockingly to Gary at my side. “Give these boys gainful work and this is all we get.” Brendan mouthed silence, incapable of speaking.
"We just wanted to see how you were settling into your new lives."
"Get fucked!" Brendan yelled.
"When we get out of here, you're finished!" Chad shouted. "Prison! Every one of you."
"'When' you get out?" I said with a laugh. "Interesting choice of words."
Neither of them noticed the implication.
Gary stepped forward.
" The only reason you’re not taking cock, is the compassion of your owners.”
The words landed exactly as intended.
"I've heard enough," James said. "Let's go."
Gary and I nodded.
The three of us turned and walked back towards the waiting vehicle.
"Yeah, that's right!" Chad yelled after us. "Run!" We climbed into the cool, air-conditioned cabin.
"Sorry," I called through the open window. "Can't hear you over the air conditioning."
“By the way,” added Gary as he looked back and raised a small black remote to point at them.
They watched blankly as he pressed the button.
A 20,000-volt micro shock was instantly delivered directly to their balls via the fully charged locking pin sitting against their nuts.
Each shrieked as if kicked by a horse. A second later they dropped to the dust and began rolling around trying to ease the excruciating pain in their nuts.
We laughed openly again, then closed our tinted window.
*
The trip back to town was almost completely silent.
The three of us knew, despite the bravado we had displayed at the road camp, we had narrowly avoided disaster. Chad and Brendan had been dangerously close. Close enough to expose us.
If they had been smarter, or if our timing had been worse, we could be taking aggressive cock in a jail cell.
During the flight home, I found myself replaying the plan that saved us.
The frustrating part was that we hadn't been able to confirm whether it had worked, until the worst of the crisis had passed.
It wasn't until than ten days after we’d all been rough fucked, that the confirmation finally came on. Thursday saw it land, barely two days before the anal brutality was to be repeated.
*
Making sure I kept to my routine administrative rounds for legitimate Phantom, I stopped at a distant internet café and checked the outcome of the share purchase.
I felt a wave of relief. The trade had gone exactly as planned.
In the previous week, we’d set down two hundred thousand dollars of Glenco stock, split across two trader accounts.
I checked the current share price.
For a moment, I thought there had to be an error.
The stock had surged dramatically, reaching its peak on Monday, at the time we had been nursing our battered arses.
I reviewed the market announcements.
The reason became clear.
Glenco had won a six-year supply contract with Big Swing Dick Corporation.
The company, previously ignored by investors, had suddenly become a market favorite.
Anyone holding shares on Friday saw their financial position skyrocket.
Now came the moment of truth.
I opened Chad’s on-line account.
Had his automatic sell triggered? Our entire plan depended on it.
If the inflated price hadn’t tipped their auto-sells, we had lost two hundred thousand dollars, and worse, were still trapped.
The page loaded painfully slow.
Eventually, I found the transaction history.
I stared at it.
Then checked it again.
And again.
It had actually fucken worked! The trade had gone through.
I immediately opened Brendan's account, far more confident this time.
The result appeared.
Success! a carbon copy across two accounts. Two legitimate, auditable trades.
Oh my god.
*
That night we hit a bar. We were relatively hammered within an hour.
“Glenco stock peaked on Monday, then started a fall,” I beamed, half drunk and retelling the story. “By Tuesday, it had started a re-climb. As soon as it topped out a second time the software automatically sold the shares.” I paused.
“They’re stuck, fully fucken stuck!”
“How much shit are they due?” asked James, leaning forward. “I didn’t understand a fucken thing you said. but I liked it!” He grinned.
“For them, it’s rat arse bad,” I assured. “They work in the Big Swinging Dick department that awarded Glenco the contract.”
“Both of them were in the meetings when the decision was made. The audio from their ‘dirty’ handcuff cufflinks confirms it.”
“So?” queried Gary
“So, to the outside world, they knew Glenco was getting the contract. Their bank accounts show they each purchased $100,000 in Glenco.”
I took another drink.
“Then on Tuesday, the same accounts show they sold the stock for $263,000.”
“The software that protects their profits, sold as the price started to drop for a second time”.
“Computers manage their money?” questioned James, doubtfully.
“These guys trade constantly; they need some sort of automated system. Just to protect their profits.”
“They could have been watching, but it just so happened that weekend they were distracted fucking us”.
“So, you’re saying we finally have leverage on them?”
I grinned widely.
“Yep, $160,000 profit in five days proves ‘insider trading’. A call to the stock exchange would see these guys in jail tomorrow.”
“They could say they didn’t know about the $100,000 going into the account, or the trade,” pushed Gary, trying to find holes.
“A bond deposit is untraceable. The proof of profit is real. If any feds look, they won’t care. Doesn’t matter what Chad or Brendan claim, their accounts bought, and then sold the shares.”
“It won’t matter either way, but some of the profit will have already been used on other trades.”
“Spending, seals it. They’re cooked!” I finished.
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