C.U.B.E.

≈ Ch. 22: TRIPLE-A ≈

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Who’s Who in this chapter

Aldritch ‘Triple-A’ Archer, the former CEO of the company that controls the A.I., explains why he’s at the Cube, but he doesn’t get from Kareem the sympathy he hoped for. Quite the contrary. But then Kareem understands that the new powerful inmate can be a useful resource.

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~ We meet, at last… ~

Kareem opened his eyes wide, because the surprise exceeded any possible expectation. The man who’d just greeted him, in that lavish apartment on the 5th Floor, was the last one Kareem could expect to meet.

“Triple-A??”

“I hate that nickname”, said with an annoyed tone Aldritch A. Archer from the other side of the ample living room. Kareem was fighting to find his breath. Everything around him added to his feeling of having entered another dimension, starting with the 5th Floor itself: compared to the lower floors, especially the 4th one, the 5th Floor was way too luxurious to be real, with its beautiful apartments, the wide Avenues and the glass ceiling that let him see again, after months, the Moon and the stars. And the corner apartment that occupied the entire block Alpha-1 was incredibly, almost indecently sophisticated and lavish.

On top of that, there was the man himself, ‘Triple-A’ Archer, who was looking straight at him with a confident grin, leaning on a pillar entirely paneled with fine wood. Archer was wearing a long light-blue beltless silk robe that generously opened on the front, revealing his almost naked toned body; the entire skin was carefully shaven, except for a thin treasure trail that disappeared into a metallic-purple pouch holding a substantial bulge.

Everything of Archer spoke of his great power and wealth: his accurate haircut, his perfectly shaven cheeks, his arrogant grin and his ice-cold eyes fixated on Kareem.

Archer started crossing the living room, quickly walking toward Kareem, with his silk robe fluttering around him like a cape. The more he came closer, the more a vicious wrench tightened around Kareem’s guts.

“I’m so glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Bashir” – Archer said with condescendence, extending a hand toward Kareem – “You can call me Aldritch. May I call you Kareem?”

“NO!” – Kareem roared, and his fist hit Archer’s face so fast that the man didn’t even see it coming. Archer uttered a muffled groan, spun on the spot and fell on the carpeted floor, unconscious.

It took Archer many long minutes before he could open again his eyes, feeling the entire left side of his face on fire. He was lying on his bed, a bed so wide that Kareem believed could easily fit four people; when Archer tried to reach his face with his hand, to massage the sore cheek, he realized he couldn’t, as his hands were tightly bound behind his back.

Alarmed, he tried to sit up, but his legs, tied at the ankles, didn’t let him.

“What the fuck, man?!” – he blurted out, looking at Kareem with fiery eyes – “What do you think you’re doing? Set me free now! It’s an order, you motherfucker!”

“Tsk tsk…” – Kareem uttered, shaking his head – “What a bad, bad attitude, Triple-A! Second only to your foul mouth. They say that money doesn’t give happiness, but apparently they don’t teach manners, either…”

“I’ll make you regret it, asshole!” – Archer shouted, furious, struggling to set himself free – “You can’t keep me prisoner in my own apartment!”

“Can’t I?” – Kareem shouted in return – “Why not? You kept me prisoner in this fucking Cube for months! And unlike you, I didn’t do anything to deserve it!! I’m here only because your stupid A.I. made a stupid mistake, thinking that my girlfriend was a man! And what did you do when you found out? Did you put things straight? No! You covered up the scandal! You made my friends and my fiancée mourn me dead, for God’s sake!! And then you left me rotting in this god-forsaken place!”

“Well, I’m sorry, it was either you or me, and I did all I had to do to save my ass!”

“Yeah, including giving written instructions to your friend O’Rourke to turn me into a man-whore ‘by any means necessary’ and giving him free rein to do to me unmentionable things! And he did! He had my ass mercilessly split open by a hideous machine, he had me gang-raped by a horde of horny men, he made me suck cock after cock! Can you guess, or even have a faint idea of what I had to do to keep my sanity? To defend my sexuality, my manliness, my dignity? No, you can’t! Because while I was fighting for dear life, here, you were living your golden life outside, with your cars, your women, your apartments and a swarm of kiss-ass ready to satisfy your every wish!”

Archer snorted: “Apparently, you failed to notice where I am now! I’m not in visit, you know, I’m here to stay! Sure enough it was the last thing I could wish for! And the swarm of kiss-ass you mentioned didn’t move a single finger when the Sex Police came to arrest me. And guess who was in charge of the squad? My ‘friend’ O’Rourke in person!”

“Oh… Poor thing…!” – Kareem jeered – “I almost feel for you! I said ‘almost’…”

“Yeah, make your jokes! I was arrested because of you, motherfucker! I don’t know how you could contact your friend, at your P.R. firm, but he raised hell against me in no time. All of the sudden, the entire Great Worldwide Union wanted my head on a platter!”

“And you made clear that you were going to drag many people down with you…”

“You’re incredibly well-informed, to be someone who lives secluded in a sealed place like this…” – Aldritch commented – “But O’Rourke is a weasel, he has no qualms about biting the hand that feeds him. I didn’t expect his sudden countermove. He came and arrested me few hours after my post on the social networks. My lawyers negotiated, at least, a decent accomodation for my stay here…”

Those last words were like a slap on Kareem’s face. He knew how normal people lived on the lower floors, especially the ‘imperfect’ people bound to live on the 4th floor, in small anonymous apartments immersed in a depressing never-changing twilight.

“Decent??” – he screamed – “You call this palace ‘decent’?? There’s a fuckin’ Jacuzzi in the bathroom!! You piece of shit, I’ll teach you how hard is real life!!”

Kareem roughly grabbed Archer and made him roll on the bed, face down; the silk robe moved aside, revealing Archer’s muscular buttocks and a thin string that disappeared between them. With a rough pull, Kareem ripped the string and parted the ass cheeks, revealing Archer’s hairless rosebud.

 

~ Repulsing revenge ~

“W… What are you doing?!” – Archer gasped, in alarm, and Kareem growled: “The most disgusting and repulsing thing I’ve ever done in my entire life: I’m going to fuck you in the ass! Hard! I’m going to split open your man-hole so wide that you won’t be able to hold your shit anymore! And you can thank your friend O’Rourke if I can do it: he forces me to take a powerful stimulant every day, making me feel horny every minute of my life, day and night. Even when my cock, exhausted for the forced relentless erection, can’t stay hard anymore, I still feel madly aroused, and I have to fight with myself not to assault and hurt anyone.”

“But you don’t deserve any care, son of a bitch!” – Kareem concluded, taking off his underwear and setting free his massive, frightening hard cock. He briefly wetted with some spit his cock head – not as a gesture of kindness, only because the friction would’ve been unpleasant to him – and pointed his deadly weapon to Archer’s clenched hole.

“Wait… Don’t do it, man…” – Archer protested, but Kareem placed a hand on the back of his head and pressed his face on the pillow: “Shut up, bitch!”

With a powerful, painful thrust, Kareem sank his entire thick cock into Archer’s unprepared hole. He was damn tight, and Kareem hissed for the almost unbearable feeling. Archer gave a loud scream that got lost into the thick pillow and his entire body bucked hard, but Kareem didn’t stop, he pulled his cock almost entirely out and then violently pushed again in, all the way, breaking open Aldritch’s inner defenses.

“Motherfucker, you’re killing meeeee!” – came a muffled scream from the pillow, and Kareem shoved again his cock to the hilt into Aldritch’s protesting ass and growled: “Don’t tempt me…!”

Kareem added some more spit, and his loins became a piledriver at full speed. The bed bounced and squeaked under the powerful blows, and Archer squirmed helplessly, trying to evade the painful penetration. Kareem’s cock was as stiff as a steel bar and mindlessly crashed into Archer’s innermost recesses like a runaway elephant in a China shop, not just careless of the pain it was causing, but viciously doing its best to cause the greatest agony. Every time Archer tried to scream for the pain, Kareem pushed harder his head down onto the pillow, calling him a sissy, and pounding his ass harder.

But after a while, at long last, Archer’s ass apparently started adjusting to the massive intruder, and the man stopped squirming and took his punishment more gracefully, in silence. At some point, Kareem even had the fleeting impression that Archer was thrusting his ass back, to take the merciless rod to the last inch, but he just focused on his task: hurting the hideous Triple-A as much as possible, humiliating him and making him regret to have ruined Kareem’s life.

And apparently, Kareem succeeded, because after a long harsh fuck, he saw Archer’s shoulders tremble, as if he was quietly sobbing into the pillow. Kareem’s own mind was reeling, as he didn’t lie, earlier: fucking Archer was the most disturbing and repulsing thing he’d ever done in his life; but he had to soldier on and make one last, crucial effort: cum into the man’s ass and make his humiliation complete.

Relying on the repressed horniness caused by O’Rourke’s wicked medication, Kareem paced up even more his thrusts, and in no time he felt his groin explode in a wrecking orgasm; he choked a grunt of pleasure, because it was not really pleasure what he was feeling, and let the floodgate open. Thick ropes of man-cream flooded Archer’s ass, who didn’t know that all the men, at the Cube, were on PrEP, and suddenly stiffened, uttering a raucous: “God, not inside!”

But it was too late, and anyway Archer’s disgust only added to Kareem’s sense of victory. His revenge, though partial, was complete. The arrogant, spoiled Aldritch ‘Triple-A’ Archer had received the punishment and the humiliation he badly deserved.

Kareem, at long last, pulled out and enjoyed the brief moment of relax, feeling his cock finally deflate. He knew that it wouldn’t last long, as the damn stimulant would’ve made him feel horny again way too soon; but in the meantime, he felt mellow, drained and in peace.

Physically, at least, because his mind was anything but relaxed. Yes, Archer deserved a punishment for his misfits, and a rough fuck was definitely the punishment that most fit the crime; but Kareem cringed, knowing that he’d just fucked a man. He’d plunged his cock into a man’s ass, until he’d come. Like a faggot.

No, not a faggot. Kareem didn’t feel a faggot when he made love to Lance, not at all. It was anything but a sordid act, it was actually as sweet as the feelings he felt for Lance. And he didn’t feel a faggot when he made love to Lionel, at Doc Stevens’ place; nor when he fucked Andrea, the sweet boy living at the Silk&Lace.

So, Kareem wondered, perplexed, isn’t fucking a male ass always something queer? Apparently not. It depended on the situation… «But what about this situation?», Kareem speculated, looking at Aldritch’s ass still wet with his sperm. This time there was no love, no sweet feelings, it was just sex. Gay sex, that is. But it was meant to be a punishment, not just sex. He could use any object to split Aldritch’s ass open, but lacking any other suitable tool, Kareem had resorted to his own. Was it gay, then? Sean, his only straight friend, once told him not to put label on thing, and probably it was a good piece of advice… but even without putting labels on what he’d done, Kareem didn’t feel better.

He briefly shook his head to dispel those negative thoughts: it was time to enjoy his revenge over the hatred Archer. Wearing an arrogant grin, he took Archer by his hip and made him turn around. His grin faded when he saw Aldritch’s cock still half hard and reddened, and a wide stain of sperm on the bedsheets. Kareem’s mind started running in circles: how could it happen? Why did Aldritch cum?

“You still don’t get it, uh?” – Aldritch said, noticing Kareem’s puzzled expression – “Say, do you really think that a perfect machine like the A.I. can really misgender a woman only because she bears a masculine name? Your… what was the name again? Charlie? Mikey?”

“Franklin” – Kareem breathed in shock, still confused, and Aldritch nodded: “Franklin, yeah. The A.I. knew perfectly well that your Franklin was a woman.”

“But then… why did the A.I. issue a negative Uranian Behavior Assessment against me?”

“It didn’t. Or better, it wasn’t your name the one on that U.B.A.”

“You… You didn’t…” – Kareem stuttered, finally grabbing the truth – “Tell me you didn’t do what I’m thinking.”

“Unfortunately, yes, I did it” – Aldritch confirmed, almost joking, as if he wasn’t feeling the slightest remorse for having ruined Kareem’s life – “You see, your Franklin was a woman, but… my Franklin was undoubtedly a man. Guilty as charged! I secretly indulged in an abominable Uranian behavior for years. Well, ‘secretly’ for the world, certainly not for the A.I.; but I was in charge of it, and it was easy to cover up the A.I. findings. Except that at some point there was a government inspection, and they asked to see all the UBA’s issued in the last month… which included one in my name. My smart assistant found your assessment, mentioning a female ‘Franklin’, and I swapped the headers. That’s why your UBA mentions a male Franklin. It was not a mistake on the A.I.’s part. The A.I. doesn’t make mistakes.”

Kareem heavily sat on the bed, breathless. It was not a mistake, then. Aldritch had intentionally swapped their UBA’s to save his ass, and couldn’t care less if a man, a kind heterosexual man who never harmed anyone, had his life ruined forever, locked in an all-male, all-gay Cube.

No, it was even worse! Aldritch ordered to O’Rourke to turn him into a faggot!! Thinking of the tortures he had to endure, the humiliations he had to suffer, and the abject sexual acts he had been forced to take part in, Kareem felt his blood boil into his veins.

He turned to Aldritch and casually placed a hand on his chest; he brushed the palm upwards, slowly, toward the collarbone, and when there, the hand slid on, to the neck; under the thin skin, Kareem felt the jugular pulse rhythmically and his fingers, almost on their own, started closing around the neck, slowly but inexorably.

It took a moment to Aldritch to become aware of Kareem’s intentions, and he glanced with fear into Kareem’s eyes, that now stared back at him flashing with a deadly fury.

“No… No, man… Don’t do it!” – Aldritch said with a voice made coarse by the pressure on the trachea, but Kareem didn’t say anything, he just kept tightening his strong fingers around Aldritch’s exposed throat.

“Please… I’m… ggghh… I’m begging you…” – the man gasped, while his eyes got blood-shot – “Let… me… breathe…”

Kareem seemed a statue of marble; not a single part of him moved, he didn’t even blink while Aldritch desperately gasped for air and squirmed helplessly under his deadly grip. The hapless man, unable to use his tied hands and legs, opened his mouth wide, frantically trying to get at least an ounce of air, to no avail; his eyes rolled back, his body shook a few last times, and then he lay motionless on the bed, his eyes closed forever.

 

~ Things a real man doesn’t do ~

Kareem stood up and heavily sat on a padded bench close to the bed, resting his back on the wall behind him. He felt exhausted, empty. He stood still, in silence, staring at Aldritch lying motionless on the bed, for a long time; his mind was filled with the faces of all the men and boys he’d come to know, esteem and love, since he’d been locked in the Cube. All men who would never condone killing a man. Lance, Doc Stevens, Perry, Mateo, Alastair, Sean McLaughlin and many others appeared and disappeared in front of his eyes fixated on the immobile Aldritch without even seeing him.

Amongst the many faces, the one that most made his inner string resonate was Lance’s, with his kind smile and his sparkling eyes. The first time they met, after the torture on the throne, Lance had been so caring, cautious, helpful. Maybe he’d already fallen in love with Kareem, back then. And who knows, maybe Kareem himself started falling in love with him on that very day…

Aldritch couldn’t be more different than Lance: he was the exact opposite! What made Kareem’s deadly fury explode was not just the horrible situation Aldritch put him in, but rather his complete lack of interest for Kareem’s life and for having ruined it. Sitting in his ivory tower, Aldritch couldn’t care less about other people’s lives. But now he’d fallen off the tower…

With a fit of cough, Aldritch opened his eyes and brought his hands, now free, to his throat. Kareem looked at him coming back to life without surprise: he knew well that it takes many minutes, after losing consciousness, until a man dies for the lack of air, and he’d immediately released his grip as soon as Aldritch stopped moving, and had removed the ties binding his hands and legs.

“You didn’t kill me…” – Aldritch breathed in a coarse voice, but with a plain tone, as if he was just noting an obvious fact.

Kareem looked straight at him and replied: “There are things that a real man doesn’t do, no matter what.”

“Well, lucky me” – Aldritch said, reclining on the pillows – “To be brutally honest, if the situation was reversed, I would’ve gone all the way.”

“Exactly.” – Kareem said in a glacial tone.

Aldritch made a piqued smirk and sat on the side of the bed: “Listen, we don’t have to be lovebirds, here. But we’re both locked in this fucking Cube and – believe it or not – we have a common enemy, O’Rourke. Do you think I can forgive him for what he did to me? No, man. He’ll pay hard.”

“Uh? And how do you plan to make him pay?” – Kareem sneered – “Booing him when you meet him? When in danger, he doesn’t hesitate to kill a man, he already did it.”

“Now, that’s very interesting news! For real? And can you prove it, by chance?”

“I can. I have the weapon he used, with his fingerprints and the blood of the victim. But what for? You’re locked in the Cube just like me. We can’t press charges from here.”

Aldritch flashed again his confident, odious grin and said: “We’ll see. You know, it wasn’t by chance that my lawyers have negotiated this specific apartment for me. This one is special: there’s a solarium, here.”

“Oh!” – Kareem huffed – “Of course! How can someone ever live without a fucking solarium! Get off the pedestal, Triple-A, this is real life!”

“Stop calling me like that and stop ranting. Come with me. Whether you like it or not, we’re allies, here.”

They moved to another part of the huge apartment and entered an ample room with a few sunbeds, an open shower and a couple bathing robes hanging next to them. The entire ceiling of the room was a large, low dome made of glass. Once again, Kareem looked at the sky and admired with a lump in his throat the beauty of the Moon and the stars. He hadn’t realized, so far, how much he missed them.

Aldritch took what seemed a telescopic selfie stick with a small mirror at its end and climbed on a chair. He raised the mirror to the small area where the glass met vertically the wall.

“This is the only point of the Cube where the glass is vertical, letting me look outside, at the ground surrounding the building; but I have to use a mirror. Now, let’s hope that my assistant is exactly where I ordered him to stay…”

He pressed a button on the handle and a bright led flashed at the end of the stick, illuminating the mirror. Three flashes, pause, three flashes. Aldritch looked attentively at the mirror, until he could clearly see, in the reflection, a flash of light coming from the bushes surrounding the Cube.

“Good” – Aldritch murmured, totally concentrated on his task – “Now let the show begin…”

He started clicking on the button, causing brief flashes of the led, and Kareem thought Aldritch was just playing, or testing the led, because he seemed to press the button totally at random. After a while, Aldritch stopped, and looked attentively at the mirror, slightly moving his lips while his assistant flashed his light.

“Are you communic…”

“SSSSH!!” – Aldritch immediately shushed him, and went on looking at the mirror.

He kept doing the weird flashing game for almost fifteen minutes, and eventually climbed down the chair. Kareem was puzzled: “Were you exchanging messages with your assistant using… the light?”

“Morse code” – Aldritch mused wearing a smug grin and Kareem frowned, until memories of his classes in ancient history resurfaced to his mind: “Morse code? But it’s… like 2,000 years old!”

“Can you think to a safer way to communicate? People don’t even recognize it as a communication system. The only drawback is that while my assistant has a computer doing the translation, I have to do everything by myself. Sorry for shushing you so rudely, earlier.”

“I’m… shocked!” – Kareem exclaimed, and Aldritch’s face distended in an ample grin: “Smart move, the Morse code, uh?”

“I’m actually surprised that the mighty Triple-A apologized for something…”

“Oh… uhm…” – Aldritch mumbled, a bit uneasy – “Speaking of which… I’ll be sincere: when I swapped our UBA’s, I didn’t give a fuck if an obscure Kareem Bashir would’ve had his dull life turned upside down. But now you have a face, you’re… real, so to speak, and I… how can I say it… I’m… sorry if I ruined your life.”

“Fuck, you make it sound like they’re pulling you a tooth without anesthesia” – Kareem replied, trying to keep a cold tone, but failing to restrain a half smile – “I appreciate the effort, but next time maybe try and make it seem like you believe it.”

“What can I say… Nobody’s perfect!” – Aldritch said with his first genuinely kind smile, and Kareem couldn’t help but relax a bit: “Definitely. Oh, by the way… I’m sorry for trying to kill you, Aldritch.”

“Water under the bridge, Kareem. Now, let’s talk business…”

-~~~≈≈≈ooOoo≈≈≈~~~-

In the next chapter: Aldritch reveals important information that make Kareem hope for the better. May it be for the good news, or because there’s something special in the night, Kareem decides to bring Lance to a very special place… where he does something that neither of them thought possible.