C.U.B.E.

≈ Ch. 19: A NEW DAWN ≈

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Who’s Who in this chapter

Bryniar (a one-legged man living on the 4th floor) shows to Lance something amazing. Back home, Lance gets an angry welcome by Kareem, who then seeks for advice from the hunky resident shrink Doc Stevens; but in the end he’ll get the help he needs from the concierge Lionel, who has a not-so-secret crush for Kareem.

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~ An amazing sight ~

“Lance… Lance, wake up!”

“Ugh… What time is it? – Lance blurred, slowly focusing his sleepy eyes on Bryniar. Again, he almost didn’t notice that Bryniar was sitting on a wheelchair and was missing a leg; but he did notice from Bryniar’s reddish eyes that he probably didn’t sleep at all.

“It’s a five o’clock in the morning” – Bryniar replied, visibly excited – “I feel like shit waking you up so early, but there’s something you must see! I worked all night on it. Can you get ready in… say… fifteen minutes? We can’t be late!”

“OK…” – Lance groaned, groggily getting off the bed and heading to the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later, Lance was having a hard time following Bryniar racing up Eta Avenue toward 1st Street. Turning around a corner, Lance found himself in a large square covered in what seemed bare dirt; the total lack of plants, benches or streetlamps, coupled with the never-changing eerie twilight of the 4th Floor made the place terribly depressing.

“Here we are!” – Bryniar exclaimed, excited, glancing at his wristwatch – “We’d better lay down, so we can have a better point of view!”

“Should we lay down in the dirt??” – Lance asked, but Bryan chuckled: “There’s no dirt in the Cube, it’s a synthetic ground, you won’t get dirty. This is the ‘Gathering Place’, the only place on the 4th Floor where we can meet and chat, after the workday. They could’ve made it any color, but apparently couldn’t come up with anything less depressing than this pale brown. But it’s not as hard as it seems!”

With a swift move, Bryniar locked the wheels, stood up on his only leg and effortlessly lowered himself to the ground, soon copied by a dubious Lance: “I still can’t guess what should happen at such an unforgiving hour of the morning…”

“You’ll know in eight minutes and thirty seconds” – Bryniar quizzically replied, and then reclined on the ground, glancing at the tall ceiling over them. Lance did the same, and after a few minutes of silence he turned to Bryniar: “Say… I know it’s none of my business, but… have you ever thought of getting a bio-tech prosthetic leg? Nowadays they make miracles, you can’t really tell the difference between a real leg and a bio-tech one!”

“I know. I already have one” – Bryniar replied with a plain tone, and Lance gasped: “You have? Then… why don’t you use it?”

“I hate it! They gave me my new bio-tech leg shortly after locking me into the Cube, but this didn’t change the fact that I’m still a freak, confined to the 4th Floor for life! Why should I use it? To pretend I don’t have “severe flaws”? On my wheelchair I can do everything the beautiful people living downstairs do, even better, but no one cares, I can’t ever be… beautiful enough for them!”

“Forgive me” – Lance said in a contrite tone – “I didn’t mean to upset you. And you’re totally right, having one or two legs wouldn’t make any difference, but not for the reason you say. Look into my eyes, Bryniar: even wearing your bio-tech leg you can’t possibly be more beautiful than you are. I really mean it. Do you really think you have something less than the people living downstairs? I know them, and you’re better than most of them in so many ways that I can’t count them all.”

Bryniar turned his head to Lance with wet eyes: “Do you really think so? Lance, I can’t put in words how… touching and inspiring your words are. I… I really…”

A single tear escaped from Bryniar’s eye, and while it slowly rolled down the cheek, it started assuming a rosy tint, reflecting a sudden pink light that started diffusing from the ceiling and the surrounding wall.

“What the… My gosh!” – Lance exclaimed, glancing around and opening wide his eyes to take the breathtaking beauty of the very first dawn ever rising over the 4th Floor, forcing the eerie shadows to fade in the promise of a new day. The first pink rays slowly became stronger, and the entire 4th Floor was inundated by a warm light that tinged the countless identical buildings in a thousand shades of pink, rose and orange.

“You did it, Bryniar! You made the sun rise over the 4th floor! You made this miracle happen!” – Lance exclaimed, smiling wide, and Bryniar seemed to blush in the pink light: “You did it, actually. You inspired me, you said it could be done, and I worked all night to turn your idea into reality. I don’t know if they will allow us to keep it, as I had to cut the lighting one hour shorter on both the first and second floor to get enough energy, but I don’t care: even if this is going to be a one-time show, it was worth the work.”

“Don’t say so” – Lance replied, confident – “I’m sure that the people downstairs will gladly give you one hour of their light to let you have at least a short daylight.”

“I hope so, but I wouldn’t be that confident about their generosity. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, Lance, because I feel this is a new dawn for the people of the 4th Floor, and even if they cut our light off, they can’t stop the dawn from rising inside our heart. Look! My friends are coming! Look at the marvel and the joy on their eyes: this is something no one can ever take away from us.”

Lance glanced around, and saw many people coming out their apartments and looking at the ‘sky’ with wide eyes and incredulous smiles; some of them were on a wheelchair, others used a walking stick, some had a minor deformity, marks on their skins or thick glasses, but in Lance’s and Bryniar’s eyes they all were as beautiful as can be.

Quickly the Gathering Place filled up with many people looking with adoring eyes both at the sky and at Lance, who got up and shook many hands, always wearing a sincere, friendly smile. Some of the inhabitants of the 4th Floor probably thought to be lucky to meet in person a striking handsome guy as Lance, but Lance knew he was the lucky one, as gaining the trust of the people living there was extremely hard.

The dawn slowly turned into a beautiful morning and the warm sunlight made even the Gathering Place look almost beautiful. People started bringing small blankets and food, and soon the entire brown ground was covered with colorful blankets and people sharing food and happily chatting. Lance got closer to Bryniar, gave him a kiss on the lips and said in a low voice: “I wish I could stay, but I have to go. Let me sneak out without much fuss, uh? But I’ll come back, rest assured.”

~ Inexplicable tension ~

It was not yet 6:30 A.M. when Lance cautiously entered his living room; he didn’t want to wake up Kareem, so he walked on tiptoes toward his room.

“If you sneak like a thief I may well think you’ve something to hide…” – came Kareem’s voice from the couch, and Lance winced, because there was a bitterness in Kareem’s voice that he’d never heard before. “Kareem! I… I just was trying to…”

“No need to think out excuses” – Kareem interjected – “Your disheveled hair and your tired eyes tell the whole story. It must’ve been an epic night!”

“Well… uhm…” – Lance murmured, taken aback from Kareem’s unexpected ruefulness – “It actually was… I mean, you can’t imagine what happened up at the 4th Floor! It’s been amazing, and…”

“Please, let’s gloss over the sordid details” – Kareem cut it short.

Lance lost it: “Well, know what? Fuck you, Kareem! It’s not the first time I stay out all night! And frankly, what I do at night… or in daytime, for what it matters… it’s none of your business! I have a life to live, and this includes having some fun now and then! Why all this fuss about my nightly activities, all at once?”

Kareem rose on his feet and Lance was frightened, looking at the fiery glare in his eyes: “Because I try, I try hard to forget it, but then you come home looking like a man-whore who sucked cocks and got fucked all night! I hope you earned big money, at least!”

Lance cringed, hearing Kareem’s words and fought back the tears. He’d never seen Kareem so altered, and tried to soothe him placing a kind hand on his shoulder: “Come on, buddy… Don’t be mad at me… It’s not like it seems…”

“The fuck is not!!” – Kareem yelled, shoving Lance hard and making him fall to the floor – “This is too much, Lance, I just can’t befriend a man-whore who sells his ass for money! Don’t expect me back for lunch. Or dinner. I’ll come and take my stuff later on, now I have to go to work!”

“This early in the morning?” – Lance asked from the floor with trembling voice, and Kareem slammed his hand on the table: “What, do I need your permission? You stay out all night and I can’t go to work early in the morning?? Fuck you, whore!”

Lance uttered a desperate sob and hot tears of shame and disillusion welled from his eyes, rolling down his cheeks. Kareem turned around and stormed out of the apartment, trying hard to delete from his mind the painful image of Lance, on the floor, with his face streaked with tears. But he couldn’t. The more he walked along Delta Avenue, the more painful that memory became. He couldn’t really understand what snapped inside him. He suddenly realized he didn’t have an answer to Lance’s question: why all that fuss for a night out? Why was he so pissed off? He knew well what Lance’s business was, he’d always known it, and yet now, out of the blue, picturing Lance into a faceless man’s arms was unbearable for him.

And why, thinking about it, couldn’t he sleep more than a couple hours last night, and was already up way before the dawn, waiting for Lance to come back home?

At each step, the heaviness on Kareem’s heart grew more, until he almost found difficult to breathe. Lance… Lance on the floor looking at him with teary eyes… those beautiful, shining teary eyes… Maybe he should’ve gone back home, maybe it wasn’t too late to fix it… But no, it was too late, he’d gone too far with Lance… How on earth could Lance forgive him? Kareem, for sure, couldn’t forgive himself.

Once again, Kareem’s feet knew better than his mind what to do, and after a short while they stopped in front of block Z-13, Doc Stevens’ home. Kareem knew it was too early to pay him a visit, but he badly needed to talk to him, and pressed the button next to the door.

“Kareem!” – Doc Stevens exclaimed, emerging from behind the curtain that closed the entrance – “What a pleasant surprise! Do come in!”

Doc, apparently, was a morning person, because he was already fully dressed; he ushered Kareem to his study and sat him on an armchair. “Now…” – he said with a comforting tone, sitting in front of him – “…what brings you to my door?”

“I… I’m a monster…” – Kareem replied sheepishly – “I argued with Lance, told him horrible things and shoved him to the floor… and I really don’t know why. He spent the night with someone, and this… this pissed me off! He’s right, it’s none of my business with whom he spends the night, but… don’t know… I felt hurt!”

“Hurt? Like it hurts when someone you love cheats on you?”

Kareem opened wide his eyes, shocked that Doc could think that he… that he and Lance could… Fuck no! Just thinking about it was utterly insulting, and Kareem vigorously shook his head… while his lips let out a feeble: “Yes…”

The sudden, thick silence was broken by Kareem’s late denying: “No! Wait! I don’t love Lance! Not that way, anyway!”

“Too late, your heart spoke on your behalf. But why should you deny it? It’s such a beautiful thing, loving someone! Yeah, yeah, you’re a straight guy, you don’t love another man and blah blah blah, but really, is that the way you want to live your life? Pretending not to love the most amazing guy you’ve ever met? A guy who, incidentally, loves you from the bottom of his heart, while desperately trying to hide it, afraid to scare you?”

“I… I feel like shit, now, Doc” – Kareem breathed, unable to deny anymore that what the shrink said was the bare truth, and realizing how selfish he’d always been with Lance – “But… you’re wrong, he doesn’t love me, how can it possibly be? He’s a… male escort!”

“Shouldn’t an escort feel love for someone? Or perhaps it’s Lance’s profession that is disturbing to you, isn’t it?” – Doc inquired, and Kareem made a smirk of discomfort: “It’s not for me to judge… but… what if I find hard to accept it? You know my background, Doc, it’s hard for me to accept that a man… a friend… a dear friend gives his ass for money!”

“What Lance does is much more than that” – Doc replied – “He doesn’t ‘give his ass for money’, he gives to men… the joy that life has denied to them. He brings a shining ray of light in the twilight of their hearts. And anyway… what would you think if I tell you that Lance doesn’t do it anymore?”

“What you mean he doesn’t do it anymore?” – Kareem asked, surprised – “Did he quit his profession? Why?”

“Can’t you guess it? He did it for you.” – was Doc’s reply – “As far as I know he still sees Adam, occasionally, but he’s not accepting money anymore. As for staying out the night, he still has… err… his needs, you know.”

Kareem looked like the armchair had suddenly become too hot to sit on it: “Aww… fuck… fuck! He’s so loving, so caring with me, he even gave up on his only source of income for me and I… I can’t even…”

“You can’t give him what he craves for?” – Doc completed the sentence – “You can’t satisfy his needs?”

“I wish I could, Doc!!” – Kareem almost cried out – “Every day I take my damn medication, containing a powerful stimulant, and I always hope that it would help me… you know… cross my boundaries, silence my bigoted prejudices! I tried, Doc! Believe me, I tried, but I just can’t bring myself to make love to Lance!”

“But you already had some… sexual contacts with him.”

“Those ‘contacts’ don’t count. The first time I raped him, I wish it never happened! And later on I let him ride me while I was fantasizing about making love to my fiancée Beverly. I was not really making love to Lance. But… now I wish I could do it.”

“Uhm… excuse me for a moment” – Doc said, taking his phone and texting someone – “OK, sorry, I had to send a message. I understand your struggles, Kareem. You already made a huge step, acknowledging your deep feelings for Lance; but the next step you need to take is more physical, and you need some… training, if we can say so.”

“Training?” – Kareem asked, remembering the hot, unsettling and yet enlightening ‘experiments’ Doc tried with him, during his previous visits – “You mean… with you? I feel comfortable with you, Doc, we already did… ehm… many things together.”

“And this is precisely why this time I have to step aside, despite the undeniable desire I have to try some new ‘experiments’ with you. You need to… train with someone you don’t feel comfortable with, but who will be more than glad to help you. Please come with me.”

Doc Stevens stood up and led the way to his bedroom, followed by Kareem. When he opened the curtain, Kareem gasped in surprise, looking at the concierge, Lionel, waiting for them on Doc’s bed, naked, with a shy, hopeful expression on his face.

 

~ Crossing boundaries ~

Kareem scanned Lionel’s body, he was not very muscular but he didn’t have an ounce of fat, and his trimmed pecs and abs, his nervous legs and his toned biceps were a beautiful sight. Kareem had already had some sexual intercourses with young mans, before, guys who looked too childish to be seen as real men; but Lionel was in his early thirties, he was undoubtedly 100% man, a healthy and sexually loaded man… as his stiff dick clearly revealed.

There was a tense moment of silence, and then Lionel said: “One word from you, Kareem, and I’ll go away. But I’ve dreamt of you so many times… I dreamt of your body, I dreamt of your lips… Make my dream come true, Kareem. Make love to me…”

“No one forces you, Kareem” – Doc interjected – “but if you really want to give to Lance what he craves for, if you really want to give yourself to Lance completely, this is the right moment for you to prove yourself that you’re man enough to do it.”

“And… what if I don’t get hard?” – Kareem asked, uncertain, and Doc giggled: “With all the stimulant you have in your body, I’m sure you won’t have any problem in that department. And in any case, it’s your man’s duty to put you… in the mood, so to speak. Shut your mind off, Kareem: this is not the time to think, this is the time to act.”

Doc went smoothly away and Kareem looked straight at Lionel for a moment; and then took a deep breath and said resolutely: “Let’s do it”, and quickly got naked under Lionel’s rapt eyes; but he had one last moment of doubt and asked, uncertain: “You… You won’t think I’m… less of a man or something, will you?”

Lionel sighed with unrestrained desire and replied: “Your manliness is… out of scale, Kareem, it’s almost… intoxicating! Please, make love to me, Kareem, don’t let me beg for it…”

With a proud, almost smug grin, Kareem lay on the bed, next to Lionel, and said seductively: “What did you once say about my lips?”

“You still remember it…” – Lionel breathed, with shining eyes – “I said that your lips beg to be kissed…”. He slowly moved closer to Kareem, tentatively, until their lips touched. At first Lionel was very cautious, afraid to scare Kareem, and was pleasantly surprised when he felt Kareem’s tongue confidently invading his mouth, taking possession of it and exploring its recesses like it was his personal hunting ground.

While kissing passionately, Lionel felt Kareem’s hips press on his thigh, and he couldn’t be mistaken: Kareem was rock-hard, his thick warm cock was throbbing in anticipation and hungrily humped over Lionel’s smooth skin. “Mmmhh…” – Lionel moaned, exploring with his eager hands Kareem’s back, his muscular shoulders, his stubbled cheeks, his powerful loins; he hesitated for a moment and then dared to move his hand to Kareem’s ass, and when he felt the marble glute flexing under his fingers, he almost lost his load.

“I already prepared myself” – Lionel said with urgency, like he couldn’t wait any longer to feel Kareem inside him, but Kareem flashed a smug grin and rose to his knees, straddling Lionel’s head: “Then, you should prepare me, too…”

Looking at the thick, dark-skinned cock throbbing at an inch from his face was for Lionel like listening to a siren’s song: nothing in the world could stop him from worshipping that incredible icon of manliness. He grabbed it with one hand, enjoying the warmth and the firmness of the hard shaft, and then took it into his mouth, savoring it like the most delicious food.

The sincere passion Lionel was putting in his act dispelled the last doubts from Kareem’s mind: he felt powerful, masculine, dominant, proud of his manliness and grateful for the sheer pleasure that Lionel was bestowing on him with his experienced mouth and hands. Lionel didn’t spare himself, he took almost the entire member into his mouth and choked a bit when the wide helmed forced open his throat muscles, but he didn’t back off. With his hands, he massaged Kareem’s heavy balls, caressed his muscular thighs and took handfuls of his round toned butt; Kareem’s unrestrained moans of pleasure were music to Lionel’s ears, and the guy munched on the savory meat with renewed energy, until Kareem warned with coarse voice: “If you want me to go all the way, you’d better stop before I explode…”

Kareem recoiled and Lionel looked up at him with an irresistibly shy expression: “How… How do you want me? If you feel uncomfortable, I can turn around…”

“Your current position, facing me, is perfect” – Kareem growled with a confident smile, raising Lionel’s legs to gain access to his hairless rosebud – “I want to look into your eyes when I do this…”

He started pushing his fat helmet on Lionel’s wrinkled hole, that opened up for him, welcoming the stiff rod into its depths. Lionel groaned and his eyes rolled back for the excruciating pleasure of feeling stretched almost to his limit. “Look at me, Lionel… Let your eyes tell me how much you want me…” – Kareem said in a soft voice and Lionel locked eyes with Kareem, opening his bare soul to his lover. Yes, lover: even if they were not a couple, and would never be, in that moment Lionel felt loved, completely and unreservedly, and he returned Kareem’s love with passion.

Kareem’s manhood explored Lionel’s moist depths with manly, confident thrusts; there were no doubts, no uncertainty in the rhythmic pace of Kareem’s hips, and Lionel dove his fingers into Kareem’s thick chest hair, taking handfuls of his twitching pecs and brushing his fingertips on his stiff nipples. “Ooohh… I’m so sensitive there…” – Kareem moaned, tilting his head back; and Lionel smiled, happy to give such a great pleasure to that wonderful man who had bravely crossed many boundaries to make love to him.

“This is a dream… You are a dream…” – Lionel moaned, melting under Kareem’s confident pounding; the vision of Kareem’s hairy chest swaying back and forth over him, the sight of his handsome bearded face, the feeling of his thick cock delightfully stretching his anal rings were almost too much to bear for Lionel, who started squirming: “I can’t hold back any more… You’re making me… oooohhh!... You’re making me cuuuummmm!!”

Without even touching himself, Lionel felt a powerful orgasm explode in his groin, he arched his back and his cock throbbed hard, while long ropes of white cream pooled into the creases of his chiseled torso. He was still shooting madly when Kareem bent over to him and gave him a deep churning kiss, while his hairy belly roughly scraped Lionel’s throbbing cock, bringing his pleasure to a paroxysmal level. “MMMHH!! MMMMMHHH!!” – Lionel moaned loud into Kareem’s mouth, while his body squirmed delirious. “You’re so hot…” – Kareem groaned – “You’re so fucking hot… NNNGGHHH!! Awww… FUUUCK!”

Lionel almost went wild when the feeling of Kareem’s pulsating cock into his ass and the warmth of his seed added to the almost unbearable pleasure he was already feeling; and for many long moments loud moans and ragged breaths echoed in the room.

 

~ A mysterious thing ~

Exhausted and panting, they came down from the sexual high and Kareem crashed on the bed next to Lionel. They looked at each other, smiling, and then Kareem said: “Thank you, Lionel.”

“You thank me?” – Lionel giggled – “Man, you made me live a dream! I couldn’t believe to my very eyes when I got Doc’s message. You… You’ve been wonderful, Kareem. I know it’s been hard for you to let yourself go, and I feel lucky I could share this experience with you. Oh, I have no illusion, I know you’ve done it all for Lance, but… just know that I’m always available for you, day and night, anytime!”

“I’ll keep it in mind!” – Kareem smiled wide, amused by such a fiery passion, and moved to get off the bed, but Lionel grabbed him: “Wait…” – he said with a suddenly serious expression – “I… I have something for you… I guess…”

“You… guess?” – Kareem asked puzzled, and Lionel nervously glanced around, then reached down to his clothes, piled under the bed, and took an envelope with something hand-written on it. “I’m not sure what it is” – he said uncertain, handing the envelope to Kareem, but there’s your name on it…”

“It’s a letter…” – Kareem simply said, taking it from Lionel’s hand.

“A… letter? Like A B C…”

“A letter, Lionel! A written personal message, like an email, but hand-written!”

“Written by hand? And on paper?” – Lionel gasped – “Why not sculpting the message on a slab of stone, then…”

“Well, it would’ve been much more difficult to deliver, just to mention one obvious reason” – Kareem noted, a bit annoyed at how little the youngsters knew about how life was no more than few decades before they were born – “Speaking of which, how did you get it?”

“Two days ago a policeman I’d never seen before came from outside to bring a new guest. The… letter slipped out of his pocket, it seemed an accident, so I told him he’d lost something; but he briefly glanced at the security cameras and said he didn’t lose anything. Then I noticed your name on it and I was scared shitless, so I swiftly kicked it under the desk, praying that no one was looking at the security monitors. It took me hours to take the courage and pick it up…”

“Thank you, Lionel, you did a great job, I’m sorry I snapped at you. An unknown policeman coming from outside… Someone is taking risks to communicate with me.”

“Aren’t you going to read it? What does it say?”

“Believe me, Lionel, you don’t want to know. The less you know, the less you risk. I’m already in debt with you, I don’t want anything bad happens to you.”

“You’re not in debt with me, not after what you gave to me, Kareem” – Lionel replied with a wide smile – “And if ever another… er… letter is delivered in the future, be sure I’ll promptly bring it to you.”

“If so, I’d better start paying off my future debt right away” – Kareem joked – “What did you say about my lips again?”

And the silence fell again in the room, while their lips locked in another passionate kiss.

-~~~≈≈≈ooOoo≈≈≈~~~-

In the next chapter: Kareem, after making love to Lionel, breaks down; Doc Stevens helps him revealing something of his past. Back home, Kareem does something that leaves Lance breathless, and then they discover the amazing content of the letter delivered by Lionel.