Page 54 of Under Control

For a second, Bahjat looked surprised, then her smile returned in full force. “Does that mean I have the job, sir?”

“It does. Let me be clear on one thing though. I need my First Officer to be independent and able to think for herself. I’m not looking for a yes-woman. However, if I give an explicit order that, as far as you know, would not compromise the safety of the ship and crew, I expect it to be followed. You may argue with me, and I am happy to listen, but I will not tolerate my authority being undermined. If that is acceptable to you, we can draw up the formal paperwork.” Tracht’s hand settled on Alex’s shoulder, and he squeezed.

Bahjat nodded sharply. “Of course, Captain. I wouldn’t expect anything else.”

“All right. Alex, you can leave now. Ms. Bahjat and I are going to discuss her employment details.”

Seemed like all of the interesting stuff was out of the way anyway. Alex carefully stood, wincing as blood rushed back to his knees, but he managed to stand without further assistance. Would have been really embarrassing to stumble in front of the new First Officer.

“Guess I’ll see you around, huh?” Alex said to her.

“I expect so,” Bahjat answered.

===

It was another hour before Tracht got back to their quarters. Alex had turned on a movie and was idly fondling his balls, which was pretty stupid given he was getting hard and unlikely to be given permission to come. But the novelty of even being able to get hard hadn’t worn off yet. He kept his hand off his cock though because he didn’t think he’d be able to stop himself from coming if he jerked himself for real.

He was still going when the door finally slid open, and Alex made an aborted attempt at moving his hand, then decided that it didn’t matter. If this made Tracht want to punish him, well, it’d be a nice change from the lackluster Tracht from the past few days.

“I don’t believe I gave you permission to do that,” Tracht said by way of greeting.

Alex shrugged and went to help Tracht out of his shoes. “When’s Bahjat starting?” He made sure to kiss both the boots, and then later, Tracht’s bare feet. A small part of him sighed in relief, glad that Tracht hadn’t taken his boots off himself.

“She said she’d be ready tomorrow. We’ll give her the full tour then.” Tracht briefly touched Alex’s head, then headed over to the cabinet and began to rummage around in the drawer with all of his torture devices.

Alex watched, noticing Tracht scowling every so often, picking some items up and dropping them again. “What surgery did she get? I didn’t notice anything wrong with her.”

“None of your business surgery,” Tracht responded. “If she feels like telling you, she will.” He held up a thick collar with heavy d-rings spaced evenly around it.

Tracht tossed the collar at Alex. “Here, put this on.”

Alex didn’t necessarily like the collar, but it wasn’t that bad as far as torture devices went. He fastened it around his neck, then sat on the bed, waiting. He was disappointed when Tracht kept searching. The drawer wasn’t that large, and anyway, Tracht must have gone through all the items in there already.

“Are we actually doing anything?” Alex whined after a while.

“We are. But I haven’t quite made up my mind. And I’m sure the anticipation will do you good,” Tracht replied. “Why did you like Bahjat more than the others?”

Sometimes Alex thought Tracht was a mind-reader. “I didn’t say I liked her more.”

“You made it fairly clear that you didn’t like the other two, and you voiced no complaint about me hiring her.” Tracht stopped what he was doing and sighed. “I am stalling. I know that I am stalling. This is utterly ridiculous.”

Well, now that Tracht pointed it out, yeah, it was weird that Tracht didn’t already know what he wanted to do and was asking Alex’s opinions on things that didn’t matter. “Why are you stalling?”

“Because I know exactly what I want to give you, but I don’t want to give it to you.” Tracht rubbed his brow. “And the reason why I don’t want to give it to you angers me, which makes me want to give it to you even more. The therapist would suggest that I am perhaps not ready, but it’s been a long time since I took a therapist’s advice at face value.”

“I have no clue what any of that means,” Alex admitted. “But if we’re not doing this, can I take the collar off?”

“No, keep it on. We’re doing this. I refuse to be hobbled by one little bad experience.” Tracht pulled out the leash he kept in that drawer, and now Alex was extra confused because the leash usually only came out for those awful parties. Or when they were in public, in front of the crew. But there wasn’t exactly a lot of space around here for Tracht to lead Alex around.

Tracht closed the drawer with much more force than necessary, then came by and clipped the leash to the large D-ring on the front of the collar. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

Alex had to twist his entire body to watch Tracht head to the kitchenette, the posture collar made it hard to move his neck in any capacity. He winced when he realized that Tracht was going for the ginger; sure enough, Tracht cut a small sliver of it and peeled it meticulously. He then chopped it into smaller pieces, which was strange enough that Alex lost some of his apprehension.

“Oh, one more thing.” Tracht disappeared into the washroom. He took a long time in there, and when he came back he was wearing only a robe and looking somewhat flushed. In his hands he held a small foil packet and a tube of something.

“Is that a condom?” Alex asked incredulously. “Uh, I’m not gonna get pregnant.”

Tracht laughed. “No, I sincerely doubt you are. But don’t worry, this isn’t going on me. It’s going on you.”

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