Matt’s words caught in his mouth–he didn’t have an answer. What did he want to be? he didn’t even know anymore. Did he want to be his old self, the cloistered, terrified Christian who was socially hamstrung by his fear of sinning against God? Did he just want to be some dumb laborer, someone who didn’t care about the fact that Tom ruled his life with an iron fist, but who could still have a good, carefree time? Did he want to be the fiery cub desperate for anal? A good, proper daddy for Terry, someone to take care of him, and be with him? He didn’t know–he honestly, had no idea who he wanted to be. In the mirror, he couldn’t make out his reflection–it kept shifting and slipping out of his sight, and he looked away, not wanting to know what sort of image it might settle on. “I don’t know,” he said, “I don’t know who I want to be anymore.”
“Well that’s too bad,” Max said, “because pretty soon, those smokes you had are gonna start choosing for you. Still, if you don’t know what you want, there’s nothing I can do for you.” He unlocked the door of the changing room and left, Matt shaking his head, getting up and following him out, but not before slipping his butt plug back in without even noticing.
“There has to be something you can do. Why can’t you just stop it?”
“I already told you, the magic doesn’t work like that.”
“But–”
Max wheeled around suddenly and stalked back towards Matt, “Listen–I don’t give a fuck about your tiny, little problems. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no difference between who you end up ass–because you’ll still just be a weak, sniveling brat. Now get out of my goddamn store.”
Matt left–he wasn’t about to stick around and try and argue with an Alpha, but as he left the mall, he realized that he’d just confirmed the worst possibility–the smoke was still changing him, and apparently there was nothing he could do to stop it, beyond becoming someone entirely new, and he didn’t know if he could face that. Of course, it was going to happen to him no matter what, whether it was the asscub’s slow burn over the next week, or whether he went back to Bear Boutique and Max agreed to change him–he was, this version of him, was running on borrowed time.
He got back to campus and returned to his dorm room, hoping Terry would be back. He needed to talk to him about this, he needed help. Terry always said the right thing, he always knew what to do. Matt realized that he was the daddy here–that he was the one who should be leading the way, but he just…couldn’t. He didn’t know what to do, and even if he did know what to do, he would still be too scared to do much of anything. However, the room was empty–Terry must still be out on his errand. However, then Matt spotted the shorts on the ground, the same denim ones Terry had been wearing when he left, and he saw on the inside of the seat a smear of cum and…blood…
Matt rushed out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom, banging open the door and hearing a shower running. “Terry? Terry are you in here?” he called.
“Here…I’m here,” Terry’s voice said, sounding exhausted from behind the shower curtain. Matt went over and pulled the curtain back, but couldn’t bear to look for more than a few moments, before looking away and covering his mouth. Terry was sitting in the cramped, standing shower, the water raining down on him, already on the way towards going cold. “Heh…I guess…I guess I must be quite the sight,” Terry said, trying to smirk with his fat lip but only managing to wince, the one eye which wasn’t black and swollen shut leaked a tear into the shower water. “He got…a bit rougher than I was expecting. I just thought I’d take a shower, and…and get some of it off…” he said, and then he was sobbing, and Matt was down under the water with him, pulling him into a tight hug, feeling the lash marks criss-crossing Terry’s back and then he was crying himself, but he had to be strong. He had to.
“Come on, let’s get you into bed. You need to rest for a bit.”
“All this…All this and I didn’t even learn anything we didn’t already know,” Terry said, “I told him to stop, but he just…he just wouldn’t…”
“I know, here, let me dry you off,” Now that Terry was standing Matt was better able to survey the damage, and while most everything was superficial and would heal over time, Matt was much more worried about how Terry was dealing with this in his head, as his cub kept sobbing his eyes out. A few of the lash marks on his back were still weeping blood, but Matt toweled them off, hoping they would stay clean, and then helped Terry back down the hall to their room, where he tucked him into bed.
“God, I hurt all over…” Terry moaned, “I just…I just wanted…”
“Shush,” Matt said, “Just sleep for a bit, you have to…you have to rest…”
Terry looked up at him then, and a slight smile crossed his face, “When did you dye your hair, Matt? I like…firetops…” and then he was asleep, and Matt’s own problems crashed back into him. He got up off the bed and looked at himself in the mirror, and sure enough, his hair had turned the same bright red as the cub he’d been earlier. He still had his beard, at least for the moment, but he stripped down out of his now wet clothes and saw that his body hair had thinned out quite a bit, also turning red, and that he was wearing a different jock than the one he had on earlier–a bright red one. It was happening just like in the changing room, and it might even be happening faster than Max had led him to believe, but still…he did look…kind of hot.
He wasn’t really hot yet, not by a long shot, no. Maybe in a few days, when a bit more fat had filled in, and some of this body hair had gone away, then he’d be damn sexy. There wouldn’t be a single bear in the baths who wouldn’t want to use his ass. Oh fuck, would that be hot, climbing into one of the slings there, and just begging every man who passed by to use him like the little asswhore he was made to be. Hell, why not just…just go do it now? He was way to wound up about all of this. Maybe what he really needed was to relax, and everyone knew there was nothing quite as relaxing as a good, rough fuck. Matt was working the plug in and out of his hole at this point, his other hand massaging his much smaller cock through the pouch of his jock, and he already knew that he’d never be hard again without a cock or a fist in his ass, but why was that a bad thing? Why should be be ashamed of these desires? Why should he be scared of this?
He searched for a reason. He needed a reason. He knew that if he couldn’t find one, that he was going to be unable to stop himself from going to the baths right now, finding some big cocked bear and begging him to ream his ass. That without some reason, without something else to guide him, the cub was going to win, and that he was no longer sure there was anything wrong with that, but in the mirror, he saw that there was a reason.
Terry. He couldn’t leave Terry, not like this, not ever. And then, it struck him. He was angry. Not just mad, but truly furious at what had happened to his cub. Not just at the trustee who had beaten him to a pulp, though a good amount of what he was feeling was directed there. He was angry at himself. He was angry that he wasn’t there, that he hadn’t taken care of his cub, that in some twisted way he knew that this was his fault. He’d sent Terry off into harms way without knowing he’d be safe, and now…now he was hurt, and Matt was too busy thinking about cock to even do anything for him.
No, the cub couldn’t win, but not for the reason Matt had first thought. He would like being that cub, he realized. It would be fun, it would be freeing, he would be popular, and well liked, and he would like himself. It wouldn’t be a bad life, not by a long shot, or at least not a bad life in this world. No, the cub couldn’t win because then Terry would be alone. The cub couldn’t win because Matt had to be his daddy–he had to protect him, and cherish him, and raise him…and suddenly, Matt found that he did know who he wanted to be. He walked over and gave Terry a kiss on the forehead, wishing he could stay, but he couldn’t let the cub get any stronger than he already was. He had to go back to Bear Boutique, and ask for Max’s help. He wondered, for a moment, whether he was making the right choice–the moral choice–but Matt didn’t know. All he knew, was that it was the choice he had to make, for him, but even more for Terry.
Chapter 5
Marcus leaned back in his office chair a bit, splaying his legs apart and with one hand shoved his slave’s head down further onto his cock under his kilt, while he stared at the bulletin board next to his desk. He’d stared at this thing for so long now that he could probably replicate it perfectly in his mind, and he let out a growl of dismay. The resistance. They were planning something, they had to be–it’s what he would be doing in their position at least. They must know by now that Tristan and Erikson were missing, so then why were they doing nothing about it? Why not shout it from the rooftops, and try to spark a revolt? What were they even doing?
He frowned a bit, wondering if he’d overestimated their abilities. Still, better than he overestimate rather than underestimate them, and there was the other conflict going on that he needed to focus on, this infighting amongst the masters. He’d been keeping tabs on all of their activities, and Clark taking down Len was no surprise, though Jack’s aggression towards Grant was a bit unexpected. They had usually gotten along fairly well, surprisingly enough–so then why target Grant, instead of trying to forge an alliance? Still, that just left four of them now, including him and Doug. Doug didn’t seem too inclined to get involved at all and as far as Marcus could tell, he hadn’t made moves against anyone, but he might just be sneakier than the rest. A voice told him he was probably just being paranoid, but isn’t that exactly what he should be at the moment?
Marcus just wanted order–he was tired of all of these variables he couldn’t easily account for getting in the way of making sure the campus was peaceful. He was just going to have to get rid of all of them eventually, he realized. That was the only way to get things back to normal. Once he was in charge of campus, no one would have to know, but then he could know everything. He could put cameras everywhere, he could know everything about everyone. On one, then, would be able to make a move he couldn’t predict–no one–and once that happened, then maybe he could stop feeling so paranoid.
He didn’t hear the phone ring at first, because he wasn’t expecting a call from anyone, and when it did finally intrude into his thoughts, he almost let it go to voicemail, because if he wasn’t expecting a call, that meant that something else was going on that he didn’t know about, and that meant it might be a trap. He thought it over, decided the risk was minimal, and picked up the receiver. “Marcus McSimmon, Security Sevices,” he said.
“Hello Marcus, I’m calling to put in a tip, about the resistance.”
Definitely not what he was expecting. Who in the world would know something about the resistance that he didn’t already know? “Who is this?”
“I’d rather stay anonymous,” the voice said.
Marcus covered the receiver with his hand, and said to his slave, “Trace the number. See if you can tell me anything about who this guy is.” His slave immediately got up and hurried into another room, where he started the trace, Marcus keeping an eye on the clock, knowing it would be a few minutes before he had any information, and he spoke into the phone again, “Alright, what’s your information?”
“Hold on, I have something I want, first. I want you to get rid of Clark Bonarte. Then I’ll tell you everything I know.”
“Why in the world should I think you have anything?..Hello?” Marcus said, but the line was dead. He set the phone down, already knowing that his slave hadn’t gotten anything useful out of fifteen seconds, but he had a good idea of who the caller might have been. Clark had gotten a bit rough with the trustees a few days ago, and if there was anyone who might have some information that Marcus didn’t, it would be someone pretty high up. How did he know, though, that his wasn’t just a ploy? That whoever was calling wasn’t just trying to spur more infighting between the masters? Well, then again, of course that’s what they were doing, and probably looking for a little revenge along the way. Clark was an unpredictable shithead though, Marcus knew that much, and getting him out of the way would be one less thing he’d have to worry about complicating the larger picture, and if the caller did have something on the resistance, then all the better for him.
“Slave, give me the whereabouts of Clark Bonarte–put him up on my screen if you can.”
“Yes sir, here’s the feed sir.”
The screen of Marcus’s computer flickered to life, showing a security feed of Clark crossing campus, his slave following meekly behind him on a leash. Clark deduced from the direction he was heading that there was probably only one place he was likely going–Doug’s dorm room. Marcus got up out his chair, a bit pleased that he would be able to hit two bears with one dart, and he headed for the security armory. He’d been stocking up tools just for situations like this, and he already had a feeling that Doug and Clark could both use some time in the other’s shoes.
Bracken's Corner 