Page 27 of Under His Heel

And then, of course, Parsons walked in.

Alex increased the setting on the treadmill and concentrated on his running. He wished he had some sort of music player so he could block out sound.

Yet for some f—frickin’ reason, Parsons was waiting for Alex when he got off the treadmill. He even held out a water bottle at Alex.

“Here. Uh, it looks like you don’t have your own.”

Alex looked at it. He was pretty thirsty. But he wasn’t sure if it was allowed. Besides, what would Parsons want in return for the water? He glared and shook his head. “No thanks.”

Then he turned to leave, because no way was he sticking around to let Parsons judge him some more.

Parsons moved to block his path. “Hey! I just wanted to say—”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Alex purposefully knocked against Parsons’ shoulder as he walked past, taking small satisfaction from the way Parsons stumbled backwards.

“Stop! I’ll—I’ll tell the Captain!”

Alex froze. F—fuck. Fuck. He could not have Parsons ruining Tracht’s good mood. He snarled and turned to face him. “What do you want?”

Parsons held out his hand. “We got off on a really wrong foot. Hello. My name is Jeremy Parsons. You can call me Jeremy.”

A handshake? Alex stared at the hand, but he didn’t know what Parsons was planning to tattle to Tracht, so he took the offered hand. “Alex Stone.”

Parsons smiled awkwardly and shook Alex’s hand lightly. “Great. So, um, I just wanted to say that I don’t blame you for what happened. It’s—well, no, it’s not okay, but at least I got a bonus out of it?”

Fucking hell, Parsons had come here to brag about his good fortune? Alex pulled his hand away. “Good for you. Can I go now or is there anything else? Need me to spot you while weight lifting? Want me to suck your cock? Gonna punch my face in?”

Parsons frowned. “No, uh, why...?”

“You want to tell Tracht anything else I did or didn’t do for you, huh?” Fucking hell but Alex could feel himself getting more pissed off than he’d been in a while. Parsons gaped at him like some stupid fish, and then he straightened his shoulders.

“No, I didn’t mean that. I’m not going to tell the Captain anything. I just wanted to talk with you.”

“So you threaten me? Nice.” Alex stepped around him and towards the door. “Leave me alone.”

He left, hoping to hell that Parsons wasn’t actually going to report any of this to Tracht.

===

Tracht was still working when Alex got back to the room. He waved Alex towards the bathroom, and after Alex had cleaned himself off he made Alex sit on the floor by his feet. Alex closed his eyes and stewed over the encounter in the gym. Who the heck did Parsons think he was? Threatening to snitch? Alex almost wished he’d given Parsons a harder beating.

He must have dozed a bit because he woke to Tracht pulling on his hair.

“Alex. I’m in the mood for a movie.” Tracht made Alex heat up popcorn and bring it back to the couch. Tracht took the bowl of popcorn into his own lap, and had Alex sit on the floor between Tracht’s legs.

The movie was one of Tracht’s porn vids.

“This is one of my favorites,” Tracht said while he pushed some popcorn into Alex’s lips. Alex took it and chewed. “The boy’s reactions are beautiful.”

The “boy” in the movie was a beefy guy with dark skin and short-cropped hair. He got randomly kidnapped by some guys, and then strung up against a large wooden cross. The kidnappers spent a lot of time whipping the guy’s back, and the camera zoomed in on his tears.

Alex watched in horror as the first drops of blood appeared on the guy’s back. “That’s fake, right?”

Tracht fed him another piece of popcorn. “Hmm?”

“The blood. That’s fake. It’s gotta be fake.” Alex twisted his head back and wasn’t surprised to see Tracht hard and stroking himself through his pants.

Tracht shrugged. “Does it matter? I prefer to believe that it’s real, but there are certainly enough computer tricks to generate realistic looking blood. The tears are more important, anyway.”

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