Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 21:25:44 -0500
From: David Buffet <tightserve@hotmail.com>
Subject: Alpha Male - Chapter 14

Chapter 14:  An Interview Gone Wrong

	The nap did me good.  When I awoke, it was dusk.  I showered,
dressed, cleaned the mess I had made on the rug, and returned to the couch
to get on with reading my book in earnest.  Two sentences in, there was a
knock on the door.
	"C'mon in," I called.  Was this day never to end?
	It was him.
	He walked into the room, preceded by his aroma, took the chair from
the desk in one hand, brought it over to right in front of my place on the
couch, turned it backwards and sat, resting his elbows on its backrest.  He
was inches from me.  Did this guy have no sense of the personal bubble?
	"What brings you here?" I asked, trying to keep the surprise at his
presence out of my voice.
	"How's the research coming, champ?" he asked, simply.
	"Pardon?"  That he was there was shocking enough.  I could have
expected him to say anything -- anything but that.
	"What research?" I asked, not knowing what else to say.
	"Don't play games," he said.  "It's boring."
	"You know about my research?"
	"Of course."
	"How do you know about my research?"
	"Johnston told me."
	"Johnston told you?  He *told* you?"
	"Of course."
	"But I asked him to keep it in confidence.  Why would he tell you
about it?" ...and betray me, I did not add.  Why ?
	"Because I wanted him to," Adam replied, simply.
	The silence of my reply was so deep, so profound, that we could
actually hear the crickets outside begin to chirp as the sun set.  I took a
deep breath -- a breath that was saturated with the heavy syrup of his
presence.
	"I thought you'd want to interview me," he said.  "But you never
came to talk with me.  Figured I'd help you out."
	"I...ummm...I can't talk with you about it."
	"Sure you can, champ."
	"No.  You see...it will taint the research.  I can't interact with
my study subjects."
	"Freud did case studies, champ.  You telling me he didn't interact
with his patients?"
	Freud?  Freud?!  Fuck!  He has read Freud?  Who was this man?!  His
musk was making my nostrils itch.  I saw that I had drawn my knees up as I
sat on the couch, and had crossed my arms.  I was doing my best,
subconsciously, to defend myself against him.  Would it work?  I played for
time.
	"You want a drink?"
	"Can't.  Bad for training."
	"Can I have one?"
	"Of course."
	I withdrew to the galley, and poured myself a scotch stiffer than I
would normally have fixed.  One good gulp focused me.  I took the rest over
to the couch, where I sat forcibly willing myself into a non-defensive,
open posture.
	"So you want to ask me questions?"
	"I...ahhhh...questions.  Sure.  I guess.  I can ask you questions."
I downed the rest of the glass, then went over to the desk to retrieve the
notebook and a pen.
	I sat down before him again.  He was wearing sweat pants and a
used, thrift store-found mechanic's shirt, pale blue, with a patch reading
Dave on the right breast.  The top button was undone, and the shirt,
untucked, hung away from his chest as he leaned on the backrest of the
chair.  His skin had taken on a glow in the sun.  The cleft between his
pectorals disappeared into darkness, calling the eye to follow.  His aroma
was almost visible as a force. My dick responded, as if being summonsed.
	"Let's see," I said, trying to clear my head of the effects of his
tang.  "So why do you think I'm doing research?"
	"Because I can make people want things," he said matter-of-factly.
	Interesting, I thought.  Those were the words Brad had used as
well.  Not that he could make people do things, but that he could make
people want things.  I wrote those words in my notebook and underlined
them.
	"How long have you known you could?"
	He shrugged.  "As long as I can remember."
	"Let me ask you a different way: when did you realize you could
make people want things?"
	"I never did," he answered.  "When I was around eight, though, I
realized other kids couldn't."
	"Did you think you were magic?"
	"Naw," he said, thinking about it for a moment.  "I knew it wasn't
magic.  It would have been magic if I could have gotten people to do things
when I wasn't around.  I used to try that.  I'd sit in my room and
concentrate on wishing that one of my parents would come upstairs, or that
a friend would call, or something.  Never worked."
	"But it did when you were around them?"
	"Of course."
	"Like, you could make them do things they normally wouldn't if you
weren't around?"
	"Yes."
	"What was it like to be able to influence other kids like that?"
	"Well, at first it was normal.  Then, like I said, I figured out it
*wasn't* normal.  Then it was cool.  Then it got boring."
	"Boring," I asked?  I would have expected a lot of adjectives.
That was not one of them.
	"Yes.  If you can do everything, why do anything?  Do you
understand what I mean?"
	"I...I'm not sure I do," I said, wanting him to flesh out the
thought.
	"I went through a phase where I turned into a little prick.  If you
can make people do things, you do.  Then it gets boring.  Then you start to
test the limits.  Then it gets dangerous.  I fucked up this one kid pretty
good," he said.  "It was bad.  Took me a long time to set right."
	"How did you get out of the phase?"
	Adam shrugged his shoulders.  "I felt bad about the kid.  It scared
me what I could do.  So I decided to see if I could use it to help people
instead."
	"Help people?"
	"Yes."
	"Use your powers for good rather than evil?" I asked sarcastically.
	His broke into his tight-lipped grin.  "Something like that," he
said.
	Really.  The idea.  Help people?  Like fucking Corey?  Like
prick-teasing both me and Matt?  I was, I realized, glad that he was
talking.  It was very interesting, and he was right, I suppose.  Case
studies *did* include interviews -- though not blow jobs, I added,
reminding myself that there were still boundaries.  But while I was happy
he was talking, I was surprised.  Surprised that he would permit it, and
surprised by his self-delusions.  Help people?
	"What does it feel like when you...I don't know how to put
it...exercise your power?"
	"It doesn't feel like anything," he said.  "I'm not an X-Man,
champ.  It's not like I squint my eyes and make people explode."
	"Too bad," I said, "that'd be cool, wouldn't it?"
	He laughed.  It was, I realized, the first time I had heard him
laugh freely and easily.  I found myself strangely...what was the
emotion...proud?
  Satisfied?  Gratified?  I had made him laugh, and it felt unnaturally
good.  My dick jumped again within the confines of my shorts.  Stop that, I
thought.  Down boy.
	"So how do you try to help people?"
	"I figure out what they need, and I help them get it."
	"And how do you do that?"
	Adam shrugged again.  "Don't know, champ.  That's why you're here."
	"You mean..."  I started the sentence without the end of it in
mind.  There was a logical conclusion I could make, if only I could think
clearly.  That's why I'm here?  I was here because Johnston needed an
assistant, and I fit the bill.  Wasn't that why I was here?  That I was
doing research was why I wanted to come, not why Johnston wanted me to
come.  He wanted me because...because...why *did* he want me?  I mean,
there were hundreds, probably thousands of hot-to-trot gay guys out there
who would actually have paid *him* to do the job I was doing.  Why did he
seek *me* out?  The answer finally clicked into place, and I continued the
sentence I had begun.  "...You mean you were the one that asked Johnston to
hire me?"
	"Of course."
	My world was almost completely upside down.  Adam had engineered my
presence?  That was one to consider later, when I was alone and in full
possession of my faculties, not overcome with...him.  Instead, I pursued a
different avenue.
	"So you believe you're helping people by making them do things that
they wouldn't normally do?"
	"It's not what I believe.  It's what happens."
	"Well, that makes it easier, doesn't it?  I mean, if you're going
to manipulate people, it's certainly safer to believe that you're doing it
for their own good."
	Adam grinned and shook his head, condescendingly.  "What you don't
know about people is a lot, champ."
	I?  What I don't know about people?  Surely he was joking.  This
guy was a piece of work.  I found my ire rising despite myself.  Having put
my anger with him to rest earlier that day, I felt it returning with a
vengeance.  265 people applied for my graduate program.  14 were chosen,
and I was the first one among them.  I didn't know about people?  I'd been
published, for Christ's sake.
	"Be that as it may," I said, putting down my pen, "I would hardly
characterize the rape of a 14-year-old boy as `helping'."
	"You mean Corey?"
	"How many 14-year-old boys do you have to choose from, `champ'?" I
shot back.  Granted -- it was a bit unprofessional what I was doing.
Still, it was satisfying.
	Adam looked at me, surveying my face.  Something changed in him --
I can't explain what it was.  The set of his eyebrows?  The attitude of the
corners of his mouth?  The flare of his nostrils?  I got the impression he
was asking himself a question, engaging in an internal dialog to which I
was not privy.  We sat there, looking at each other, in silence.  His eyes,
though immobile as they gazed into mine, were busy.  I don't know how else
to put it.  They didn't have the power that they normally held.  He was
concentrating within, which made them look...normal, vacant.  But then,
with equal rapidity and for reasons as inexplicable, the fire returned.
His face changed again, as he turned back out to the world -- which is to
say his focus turned wholly and inescapably on me.
	"Let me tell you about Corey, champ," he said, chewing the
consonants of the last word, "Corey is going to be one hell of a gymnast.
Wouldn't be surprised in the least if he took the all-around in 2008 -- he
could be *that* good.  But he was turning into a major asshole, and he was
headed for trouble.  He was in ninth grade, and was beginning to think he
was the biggest shit in the world.  All his successes went to his head, and
he didn't know how to handle it.  It totally fucked him up.  He beat the
crap out of a kid, you know?  Some little freshman.  Total nerd.  The kid
hadn't done anything.  Corey just beat the shit out of him because he
could.  The kid was younger, small for his age, and Corey was pretty strong
-- even then.  Corey walks up to the kid in the hall during a passing, and
starts calling him a faggot and telling him to stop checking him out.  The
kid's totally humiliated, right?  I mean, I don't even know if it was true
or not, whether the kid was gay, but that's beside the point.  Then Corey
starts whaling on him right there in front of everyone, and he doesn't
stop.  Fucking high school, man.  No one does anything -- they all just
watch this poor kid get pummeled.  So when I found out, I taught him a
lesson.  He needed to be taught it.  And it worked.  He's been pretty
right-sized since then.  Only needs a reminder every once in a while that
he's not the fucking big man on campus he thought he was for a while
there."
	"'Cause that position would be taken by...let's see, that would be
you, right?" The sarcasm dripped from my voice.
	"Man," Adam said, shaking his head again, "you just don't get it,
do you?  You think you know people.  You go to a fancy school and you're
getting a fancy degree, and you think you're so smart because you can read
fast and use big words in papers.  Well let me tell you something, champ.
Being able to snow your readers isn't the same as knowing people.  You
don't learn to know people by reading books or going to classes or writing
papers.  And you don't learn to know what people need by fitting them into
your neat little categories, or matching them to your little store-bought
theories.  You do it by studying people.  You do it by watching them, and
listening to them."
	"And that's what you've been doing?"
	"That's right, champ.  While you've been in your libraries with
your books, I've been *with* people, watching them, studying *them*.  And
I've been doing it since I was eight.  So don't give me this
holier-than-thou attitude you got going, especially when you yourself are
so fucked up."
	"I'm fucked up?!  Christ!" I shot back.  "You're not Good Will
Hunting, you know, and I'm not the guy in the coffee house.  And I'm sure
as hell not Robin Williams.  For one thing, I don't have the hair for it.
So don't *you* give me this `I know what's best for you' crap.  You don't
know me, and you have no fucking idea what I want or need.  So shut the
fuck up."
	Adam stared at me, assessing, judging.  I was breathing heavily,
the tension having built up from my fury.  A beat passed, then two.
Finally, he smiled his tight-lipped smile, some decision having been made.
He reached out with his right hand.  At first I thought he was going to
strike me, but instead he brought it to my face, and gently stroked my
cheek.  His eyes, again depthless pools of molten intensity, bore into mine
capturing them in their gaze.  His fingers were warm where he cupped the
side of my face, drawing his hand forward toward my chin, pulling at the
razor stubble on my jaw.  My skin tingled where his hand made contact,
yearned for more when it had passed.
	I was enraged and knew I was enraged.  I had just been dealt the
most mortal insult it could have been possible to proffer, and rather than
reacting, I was allowing him to touch me -- tenderly, enticingly.  Why was
I unable to protest?  My brain raced while my eyes, compelled to be lost in
his, forgot to blink.  The smell was gone, I realized.  But it couldn't be.
I must have acclimated to it, the way even new paint will become
unnoticeable after an hour.  It was working its magic on me without my even
being aware of it.  Why couldn't I stop him?  Why did it feel so good?  It
was just his hand on my cheek.
	His hand on my chin, now, he extended his middle finger, and ran it
over my lips.  I shivered from the delicacy of his touch.  Despite myself,
to my own horror, my lips parted, and his finger entered my mouth.  The
taste!  It was sharp and dark and salty.  It had the smokiness of whiskey,
the smoothness of chocolate, the primal affect of raw meat.
	He was talking.  I know he must have been.  I saw his lips move.
My ears registered no sound, but my mind heard him.  "Open up," he was
saying, "let me in."  His finger found my tongue, tracing the bumpy surface
of it.  With his forefinger and thumb, he held my chin in place.  My lips
pursed, kissing the second knuckle of his middle finger, my tongue curled
around it as it slid within me.
	No, the rational part of my brain was shouting!  This can not be
happening, and it must not continue!  It was degrading, it was impossibly
degrading.  He can not insult me, then expect I will melt before his
onslaught.  But rationality was not in control here.  Rationality had no
sway.  Instead, the totality of my world was his eyes, his taste, his feel.
	With his finger still in my mouth, he rose from the chair and
walked around to my side of it, leaning back against the backrest.  He was
above me, now, looking down, down into my eyes, down into my soul.  His
left hand took my hair, forcing my head back, opening my mouth.  He began
to slide his finger in and out, fucking my mouth with it.  A second finger
joined, exploring my teeth, my cheeks, my lips.  And I let him.  His grasp
on my hair tightened, and he drew me back farther to the point of pain.  He
withdrew his fingers from my mouth, now overflowing with saliva and desire.
He drew his arm back, and, holding my head firmly in place with his grip on
my hair, slapped me fully and hard across the cheek.  The sting brought
tears to my eyes, which served only to blur my already clouded tunnel
vision.  He slapped me again, the crack of the contact thundering in my
ears.  Still, I said nothing.  I did not resist, I did not withdraw.  A
third wind up, a third slap, and my cheek was on fire.  I did not complain,
I did not ask why.  Instead, when he then brought his palm gently back to
cover my face, I found, to my horror, I was kissing it, worshiping it with
my lips.
	Again, he entered my mouth, violating me with three fingers this
time.  He was rougher now, demanding, possessing.  He fucked my mouth with
his fingers, robbing me of my will, raping me.  In and in and in.  He was
all contact, all surface, all insistence.  I was nothing but a receptacle.
He bent, bringing his face impossibly close to mine.  His breath was hot
and sweet.  A tear had formed at the side of my eye, and began to roll down
my cheek.  Closing the few remaining inches, his broad tongue emerged, and
licked the tear and its path from my face in one wide, slow stroke.  He
took his sopping fingers from my mouth, again taking hold of my chin and
lowering it.  He brought his lips to mine, and stopped, a sixteenth of an
inch above them.  I reached for him with my lips, my head, my soul.  But I
was held immobile between his grips on my hair and my chin.  I struggled to
rise, to meet his lips, to be taken by him, but he would not let me.
	Again, my brain registered a word without my ears registering a
sound.  Those lips, so close to mine, so achingly close but out of reach,
had given me a command.  "Cum," they had said.
	And cum I did.  Waves of intensity passed through my body as,
despite the fact that it was the third time that day, spasms of ejaculate
were forced from my balls.  I could not breathe, my toes cramped.  Still,
Adam held my head, still he held himself close enough so that I could feel
his heat, but not taste him, or find satisfaction in contact.  I twitched
and jerked until the pain of the orgasm passed.
	Adam let me go, pushing me back into the couch as he did.  He
turned to walk to the door.  "You should think about what you want, champ,"
he said.  "Here's a clue if you`re having trouble: you just got off without
even touching yourself.  Why do you think that is?"  Letting himself out,
he turned back one more time and said, "in the meantime, until you figure
it out, stay away from Matt."