Where Boys Become Men (Part 7)

Tanner tried to speak, but with a prick he felt exhaustion overwhelm him. One of the guards caught him in his arms and helped him fall to the floor, but Tanner remembered nothing, until consciousness returned to him, and he found himself lying on the ground, close to an hour later.

“Excellent,” the doctor said, “you’ve got the hang of it.”

Tanner tried to stand up, tried to speak, but his sleepiness was still wearing off.

“You lied to me,” Marcus said, “Why did you lie to me?”

Tanner tried to force out an excuse, but found his tongue was tied up somehow.

“You’ll find that it’s impossible to lie to any superior from now on, Mr. Wilkins,” the doctor said, “Try being honest–it’ll come naturally to you soon enough.”

“Tell me why you lied,” Marcus repeated, and words spilled out of Tanner’s mouth, almost unbidden.

“I didn’t want to look like an idiot, for ending up lower than a meathead like you.”

“Meathead?” Marcus said, glowering at him.

“Please–let’s move on. We’re already a bit behind,” the doctor said, and motioned to the main room, where there were two large chairs against the wall. “Both of you, please have a seat, and I’ll load up a simulated work session.”

The chairs were quite comfortable, Tanner found, until the bands appeared, securing his arms and legs to the frame, and a helmet descended–covering his head and blocking out all light and sound. He felt a prick from his band, a wave of euphoria, and then…he was somewhere else. A wide field of dirt stretching in every direction, two shovels, and Marcus standing beside him.

“This is a basic simulation,” the doctor’s voice came as some disembodied spirit in the empty air, “While the facility does utilize hard labor for most subjects, you both will be taking part in our virtual beta program. Each day, you both will enter a simulation and be given a series of tasks or quotas to complete. Your credit allowance for the day will be determined by how well you succeeded in the simulation. Marcus, as the Two, you will receive the entire allowance and be able to decide how to spend the funds. You can retain complete control of the funds, or divide it as you please. Also note, that you retain complete authority over your one within the simulation as normal. Now, to end the simulation, as a team you will need to dig five holes in the ground, three feet in each dimension. Guidelines will appear on the ground to guide your progress.”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Tanner said.

“Come on, let’s get to work, I guess,” Marcus said, handing Tanner a shovel.

Together, they each started digging a hole. Despite the simulation being virtual, it felt completely real–Tanner could even feel his sweat, and smell Marcus’s musk on the still air. Marcus finished first and sat for a moment–Tanner went to join him, but Marcus shook his head. “No, you keep digging–you’ll get a break when we’re done.”

Tanner couldn’t disobey the command, and so he kept digging, and digging, and digging. Marcus would help, but more and more he would relax a bit, shouting suggestions and orders to Tanner, obviously enjoying his position of authority for a change. Eventually, they did finish–the simulation ended and the helmets removed themselves from their heads, the straps allowing them to stand. Tanner found that his muscles actually ached like he really had been in that field all day, and he stood on shaking legs in front of the doctor.

“Well done. You are both required to complete one simulation a day, but you may volunteer for more if you so desire. Please keep in mind that your actions in the virtual reality will impact your physical forms–we monitor your behavior and provide hormones based upon that. Hence, why you both feel the effects of physical exertion, despite having not moved at all. Marcus, you will find your first allowance in your account–spend it wisely. I will check in over the next few days to make sure everything is going smoothly.” The doctor and the guards left, leaving them alone again.

“Get on the bed, you fucking asshole–we’ll see who’s the fucking meathead before too long,” Marcus said, and the sneer told Tanner than his situation may have gone from bad to worse in ways he would have never imagined. Indeed, Tanner had been utterly oblivious to the extent that many members of the gang had resented him, but Marcus in particular had always felt he deserved a bigger piece of the pie, that Tanner disrespected him on a regular basis, that this was exactly what he deserved.

The days settled into a routine rather quickly. The tasks they were given through the VR system were all oriented towards physical labor–digging holes, hauling heavy rocks, cutting lumber, clearing brush–all without much meaning or any context at all. Early on, Marcus helped somewhat, but he always forced Tanner to work longer and harder than he ever did. Back in their apartment, he toyed with the idea of forcing Tanner to quit smoking to save credits, but decided to give him a meager supply of the cheapest variety–never quite enough to scratch the itch Tanner had grown accustomed to satisfying. Marcus would determine their hormone packages, their meals, their entertainment.

It was clear after a month, to Tanner, that they were both changing again. He was taller and packing on even more muscle than before, while Marcus had begun to soften slightly, putting on a slight gut. Soon, Marcus was doing almost no work at all in their simulations, forcing his “workhorse” and “meathead” to do everything, threatening him with punishment if he missed the quota meant for them both. Tanner tried to object, early on, but each time he resisted Marcus would devise some humiliating new punishment or desire for him to try and satisfy, and he learned to bear the burden as best he could, but kept the hatred nurturing in his heart all the same. One day, the table would turn, he told himself. All he had to do was wait, put up with it for now, but once the wardens saw how Marcus was treating him, they’d show him–then Tanner would be the one back on top.

Still, he hated himself more. This massive body which should be able to pound Marcus into the dust, and he couldn’t lift a finger to oppose him. All he could do was beg for his cock, beg for cigars, doing anything to try and please his master in order to get a bit more allowance for himself. He felt inhuman, and seeing Marcus expand in size, growing flabbier each day as he ate massive meals for himself, leaving Tanner subsisting on protein mash, it was somehow worse than the solitary had been, being trapped with this fucker day in and day out. He counted the days down to their two hearings–knowing that even if things didn’t get better, they would hopefully be different.

Where Boys Become Men (Part 6)

All Tanner could do with his mouth was shout and scream incoherently as the two guards who had escorted him in, carried him out, hauling him like a sack of trash down several corridors until they arrived at the solitary ward, and heaved him onto the floor of a cell, shutting the door and abandoning him there. It was several minutes before feeling returned to his body and he could stand again, looking around at where he had been deposited. It was a small dorm similar to where he’d lived with Jackson the year before, but somewhat smaller and with fewer furnishings. He tried the door, but it was locked and sealed tight. Lastly, he tried his band, looking to see if it could tell him anything, but it too had gone dark, just like before. There was a TV with a decent movie and porn selection, there was a tablet with a digital library, but beyond that, he was alone.

The first few days were almost pleasant. He hadn’t had privacy is ages, not truly. He had a small humidor which refilled with a supply of cheap cigars each day. He could do whatever he wanted, within a very small scope of want. By the end of the first month, he felt like he would go insane. The guards wouldn’t speak with him when they delivered his meals. He had a one hour socialization session with his new warden each week, but all that did was remind him of what awaited him after these next six months.

Three months in, he’d figured out which guards were willing to be merciful, and would agree to fuck his ass when they brought his meals. It wasn’t much–but at least it was contact. At least he had a few minutes every few days where he felt good, where someone would want him, at least for a moment. By this point, the hormones he’d purchased for himself had been scrubbed from his system, and he looked essentially as he had on his first day in the provisional block–hulking, hairy as a caveman, and terrified to death. The changes that came next were less obvious. Up to that point, he’d mostly stuck to watching movies and reading–he preferred reading, because getting lost in a book helped the hours move faster than watching something broken into definite two hour blocks. But as the last few months wore on, it was harder to focus on the text, he would run across words he should have known, but which had disappeared from his memory. It was frustrating, and so he largely abandoned the tablet, watching movies–but more and more, he found himself watching the porn channels, masturbating all the while. The room reeked of smoke, sweat and cum now, but he barely noticed any of it–or bothered to shower much at all, the scents around him only fueling his sexual drive further. Physically, the changes were subtle as well. His cock was shrinking somewhat, back to a more modest four inch size, but on his frame it looked puny, if thick as a beer can. His muscles had filled in further, as had his gut–and his hands and feet had grown as well. Even his face seemed different–more angular under his beard, with a heavier brow and his hairline receding slightly. He hated his reflection–both because he was so objectively ugly now, but also because he found his image so…fucking arousing.

After six months, which had felt like a miniature hell, Tanner was willing to do anything, to go anywhere, as long as he didn’t have to be alone anymore. He had an introductory session with his warden, but he found it difficult to follow everything the man was talking about. As a provisional level one, the older man said, he would be placed in a six month cohabitation and dual training with a provisional level two, in order to better judge their capacity for reform. After those six months, he would have a second hearing with the warden panel, and they would determine whether to continue the provisional relationship, or designate him as a permanent two or one for and moved into a formal reform and release program. Tanner spent much of the conversation simply begging the man to let him see his parents, or his lawyer, telling them that what they were doing was illegal, was inhumane, but the warden showed no sympathy. “I’m afraid, Mr. Wilkins, that you won’t be seeing your parents again. You knew that was a risk when you signed your release forms.”

“I didn’t!” Tanner cried, “I didn’t know any of this, I didn’t know!”

“I’m afraid ignorance is no excuse. Guards, please escort Mr. Wilkins to his cell–an assistant warden will meet with you both later today to provide a more detailed orientation.”

The guards hauled Tanner off again, and led him to another area of the facility–C Block. If Block A was order, and the provisional block was anarchy, block C was silent. There was no one anywhere in the hallways, no common areas–just row after row of doors, looking more like a concrete hotel than a prison. He was escorted to his new room and pushed inside, the door shutting behind him, and he found himself, again, in a small apartment like he’d been in solitary, if slightly larger than before. His heart rate quickened, now that he was back in a place like this, terrified that he’d be alone again, but a young man emerged from the bathroom, and he nearly cried–he wouldn’t be alone at least. If nothing else, he had company. Then, looking at his roommate’s face a moment longer, he realized that he knew him.

“M-Marcus?”

“Holy shit–Tanner? Is that you? You ended up here too? What the fuck! Everyone in the gang was certain you’d be headed for the top.”

Marcus had entered the provisional block around the same time as Tanner had, but they hadn’t met until a couple of months in, when seeing how viciously he’d fought one of Tanner’s goon squads one morning, he offered Marcus a position in his growing enterprise. If Tanner had been the light–offering protection, greasing wheels, organizing patrols–Marcus had been the dark. As one of the leaders of the offensive squads, he’d spend the day shaking down everyone who had refused Tanner’s gracious and reasonable prices for safety. They chatted a bit, catching up. Marcus had been pulled out of the provisional block a few days after Tanner, but he told him that the system had started to crumble as soon as Tanner had left–the gang had broken into factions warring outright over territory and control–Marcus had been glad to escape the fallout, only to end up being assigned as a provisional two.

“How’d they grade you?” he asked Tanner, “You must be a two at least.”

“Yeah–same as you,” Tanner lied, and moved to another subject.

It wasn’t too much later that their door opened and a younger man in a lab coat entered the small space, with two sizable guards. “Marcus Ambrose, and Tanner Wilkins, correct? I’m Dr. Logen. I’ll be overseeing your provisional period here in C block. Now, I’ll be turning on your bands, and giving you an introduction to what your time will be like here for the next six months or so.”

The screens on both of their bands lit up again. Tanner examined his, but it had almost no functionality at all, beyond the ability to order supplies for credits–of which he had none.

“Now Marcus, as the provisional two in this relationship, you will find that you have ample means of controlling and disciplining your provisional one.”

“One? Who’s the one?” Marcus asked.

The doctor raised an eyebrow, and looked over at Tanner, “He is, of course. I’m going to put him to rest for a bit, while I go over some of the details with you.”

April Suggestions (OPEN) | Wesley Bracken on Patreon

It’s the start of a new month, and so that means it’s time to open up the story suggestion box again! Do you have an idea for a short story you’d like to see me write? Every person contributing one dollar or more a month can suggest their ideas, or collaborate on someone else’s idea for the next few days. I’ll take my favorites and turn them into stories later this month. I’ve had a lot of fun with these the last few months, so come and tell me what you’d like to see!

April Suggestions (OPEN) | Wesley Bracken on Patreon