Page 49 of Under His Heel

While Alex’s breathing and heartbeat slowed back down to normal levels, Singh wiped his stomach off and disposed of her gloves. She snapped on a new set, which confused Alex.

“And now,” Tracht murmured, “The real reason why we came.”

Oh. The piercing. Alex had forgotten about it, but he was too exhausted now to be really afraid anymore. He lay passively while Singh forced a ring gag into his mouth.

With his lips stretched wide, he had no recourse against Tracht’s fingers—but he never did. Tracht stroked the entire surface of his tongue, leaving behind that awful itching sensation.

“Now, stick out your tongue,” Tracht ordered as he removed his fingers.

Alex did as he was told, and Singh stepped closer. She had a marker of some sort in her hand, and she pressed the tip of it against his tongue.

“Right there?” she asked Tracht, and he nodded his approval.

The forceps came next, clamping around his tongue and holding it in place. Alex reached out for Tracht’s hand and was grateful when Tracht took it. He had to remind himself that he’d agreed to this. He wanted this. This was all for a good reason.

The moment Singh held up the needle, Alex’s fear ramped up another notch. He had to close his eyes because if he saw that thing approaching, he’d struggle against it. This was so wrong, so unnatural, so—

He cried out when the needle pierced his tongue. He squeezed Tracht’s hand tightly and grunted at the sensation of something being strung through his tongue. Surprisingly and despite the taste of blood, it didn’t hurt nearly as much as Alex had expected it to.

Singh fastened the ends of the barbell and set her tools aside. “All done.” She picked up a pamphlet and a bottle of blue liquid and handed it to Tracht. “All the care information. Don’t let it get infected.”

“Of course not.”

“No oral sex until the swelling goes down, and a liquid diet until then, too.”

Swelling? Liquid diet? Alex grunted and tried to talk around the ring gag, which made Tracht laugh. “I know. You’re going to hate it.”

Moving his tongue hurt a bit, and the barbell clacked against the bottom of his mouth.

Yeah. Yeah, he was going to hate it.

[Chapter 16]

Alex’s tongue swelled up to what felt like double its size. He couldn’t talk properly, a fact which Tracht found endlessly amusing, and chewing really was almost impossible. Tracht gave him disgusting protein shakes to drink and then made him rinse with that weird mouthwash on a regular basis. And he threatened Alex with a ring gag if he didn’t stop clacking the barbell against his teeth.

It took three days for Alex to feel ready to brave the gym and the probable hostility from the crew. He knew he’d hate himself in their position too, knowing that a friend or whatever was getting kicked off because of him.

Served them fucking right though.

Just in case, Alex made sure Tracht knew exactly where he was going.

So a workout, and when Parsons didn’t show up, Alex went to the lounge to sit around for a bit. Tracht didn’t usually care what Alex did in these early afternoon hours, between the end of their usual work day and dinner. Normally Alex just napped or watched vids (it turned out that Tracht did, in fact, own vids that weren’t porn), but he wasn’t feeling it.

Plus he still had to get Parsons to agree to a blow job.

Somebody in the lounge had turned the large screen on and was watching a familiar action movie. He and Nick had snuck in to a theater to watch it when they’d still lived with their mom. It had felt like a great success, watching an age-restricted movie for free.

Man, he actually did miss Nick. If Alex ever ran across him again, he’d punch him, but demand some answers too.

“Oh, hey! I didn’t expect to see you!” Parsons slid into the seat next to Alex. “You weren’t here yesterday, and my schedule got changed what with… everything so it’s harder to come and check.”

Alex shrugged and didn’t respond.

Parsons peered at him. “Are you all right? You didn’t… you didn’t get in trouble over that mess, did you? Because it really was Carpenter who started everything.”

That depended on what counted as trouble. Alex rolled his eyes and shrugged again. Then, for good measure, he opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue.

Parsons’ horrified expression was actually kind of funny. Alex pulled his tongue back in and smirked at him.

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