C.U.B.E.

≈ Ch. 38: ALONE ≈

---

Who’s Who in this chapter

Lance is devastated, watching Kareem being dragged away from the Cube. He finds refuge at the Silk & Lace Parlor, where he meets someone who lovingly soothes his desperation. With a newly found determination, Lance tries to pursue an extreme solution to get Kareem back.

---

 

~ Desperation ~

The big security monitor turned off, but Lance kept staring at it, reviewing in his mind over and over the main door of the Cube closing behind Kareem and the two cops forcibly dragging him out. Lance’s mind just couldn’t cope with the idea that Kareem had been brought away. Away. To never come back.

“Lance…” – Sean murmured, watching with apprehension his friend staring at the black screen without even blinking his eyes. Lance briefly shook his head, as if to say “Don’t talk, let me give one last glance at the love of my life…”

Sean stood up and went closer to Lance, to hold him by his shoulders; but Lance kept staring at the screen, as if he was actually seeing Kareem still there. “Lance…” – the cop murmured again, and Lance uttered a restrained sob: “He’d bought that beautiful outfit for me… He dressed up for me… and they brought him away…”

At long last, Lance averted his teary eyes from the screen and looked at Sean: “He’s gone… They took him away from me…”

Sean tried to say something, but the words died in his throat; he hugged Lance tight, without saying anything, and Lance burst in tears, blabbering something unintelligible while wetting Sean’s shoulder.

Lionel, the Concierge, tried to soothe Lance’s pain: “He said he’ll come back, you heard him. He loves you, he’ll come back…”

“How can he ever come back?” – Lance cried out, still holding on tight to Sean – “The Cube is sealed, he can’t come back as much as we can’t go out…”

Lance was desperate, he felt like his heart had been torn away; but basked in Sean’s comforting embrace, and poured on his shoulders all the tears he had to cry. For many long minutes Lance clang to Sean, like a rock in the stormy Ocean. Lost as he was in his own pain, he didn’t even realize that Sean was fighting hard not to weep like a child; but when Lance recoiled and looked up at Sean, he immediately guessed how painful the loss was for the cop, too.

“You’re such a wonderful man, Sean” – Lance murmured, reaching out to the cop’s face and caressing his cheek with affection – “Always ready to help and comfort even when your own heart aches. I know you’ll miss him, too. But you have more freedom, maybe you can meet him outside…”

Sean took a deep breath and stood tall: “I swear I’ll do everything in my power to find out what happened to Kareem, where he is and why he’s been brought away. And I’ll keep you informed. It’s forbidden to pass information to the Cube’s guests, but I don’t give a fuck about the rules, at this point.”

“Thanks, Sean, I really appreciate it. Now I’d better go. I feel… devastated.”

“Yes, you should go home…”

“No, I can’t go home” – Lance interrupted him – “It’s too… empty. Everything there speaks about Kareem, I can’t stand it…”

“Where are you going to stay, then?” – Sean inquired, worried, and Lance smiled faintly: “I’m going to the first place I called home, here at the Cube: the Silk & Lace Parlor. Curtis and the other boys will take good care of me, like they already did once.”

Lance hugged again Sean, said goodbye to Lionel and went out. The streets of the Cube were crowded with people, but Lance felt like the place was deserted, because those many people weren’t Kareem. Forcing himself to put a step after another, he reached the elevators, climbed to the 2nd Floor and walked the brief distance to the Silk & Lace.

The eldest of the boys, Curtis, who was the venue manager, was waiting for him in the doorway, and quickly ushered him in, hugging him tight: “No need to say anything, Lance, we know what happened, Lionel texted me. We’ll miss Kareem, too, but I know that for you it’s much harder. Come, we’ll take care of you.”

Curtis walked Lance to the most comfortable bedroom of the house and had him sit down on the soft mattress: “You’re welcome to stay here as long as you want. Now, lay down and take some rest…”

With a grateful glance, Lance reclined on the bed, and when alone, he let out all the pain that was oppressing his heart, desperately sobbing into the pillow. After a few minutes, he heard a soft knock on the door and said with broken voice: “Please, I need to be alone…”

The door opened and a well-known voice said: “I’m not going to leave you alone, my sweet Lance…”

Lanced turned around, and though the tears blurred his vision, he welcomed the man with a trembling smile: “Adam…!”

 

~ Daddy and boy ~

Lance was conflicted. Adam had always been his favorite client when he was a hooker; and even when he almost quit his profession, after meeting Kareem, he occasionally went on meeting Adam. There was a special connection between them; Adam was almost thirty years older than Lance, and though Adam’s interest for Lance was anything but fatherly, overtime a sort of daddy/boy relationship had blossomed between them.

But when Kareem entered Lance’s life, Adam had to take a step back, and his passionate rendezvous with Lance had become quite rare. Lance felt guilty about it, he felt he did Adam wrong; and seeing him now in the doorway, wearing a warm comforting grin on his face, made Lance feel even more guilty.

“Adam… I… I’m not sure you should be here…”

“Don’t you want me to stay?” – the man asked with a sincere glance, and Lance murmured with broken voice: “I can’t ask you to stay and watch me cry for Kareem…”

Adam looked at Lance bravely holding his tears, out of respect for him, and was moved. He sat on the bed, gave a loving glance at Lance and said: “You didn’t ask me anything, you don’t need to. Scoot over, let me lay down on the bed...”

Lance didn’t any strength left to fight and submissively scooted over; and though feeling terribly selfish, he sighed with gratitude when Adam held him tight into his strong arms.

“If I have one big regret in my life…” – Adam said pensively after a long silence – “…it’s you. I’ve lived here at the Cube most of my adult life, and I’ve never been inclined to tight relationships, bonds and monogamy. But men change with age, and I changed, too. Only, I realized it too late. When I met you, five years ago, I instantly knew you were special, but what I felt toward you was so strong I got scared. I preferred to pay you, rather than admitting to myself that I needed you. I pretended you were only a hooker who could satisfy my physical urges, I pretended not to realize that for five years you’d been the only guy I shared my bed with. But I was just lying to myself. I needed you. I needed you so much that when you asked me to impersonate Kareem, or when Kareem asked me to join him for your ‘birthday gift’, I gladly obliged, without hesitations or regrets. All I wanted was to be with you, even a step behind Kareem, because the truth is… that you bring a sparkle of joy in my otherwise dull life.”

“That’s what Kareem always tells me… That I bring a sparkle of joy into people’s lives…”

“Kareem is a wonderful man” – Adam sighed, pensive – “and I understand why he could win your heart. He took you away from me, but I don’t hate him. I hate myself, because I just got what I deserved. I dug my own grave, and when I fell into it, I could only blame myself.”

“Kareem didn’t take me away from you…” – Lance objected – “Even after quitting being a hooker, I kept on seeing you, and Kareem knew it, he actually urged me to do it…”

“As I said, Kareem is a wonderful man. But still, I lost you. I thought I had time, I told myself there wasn’t any need to rush things, sooner or later I would’ve told you what I felt for you. But then Kareem entered your life… our lives… and I knew the game was over, I had lost you.”

Lance turned to look at Adam with wide eyes: “You never told me these things… I was aware that there wasn’t just a… professional relationship between us, but I never guessed that you…”

“You couldn’t guess because I never let you know. And I shouldn’t have told you now, either, because now you may be thinking that I’m here to take advantage of Kareem’s absence. But the truth is that when I found out you were in pain, I didn’t think twice, and I ran here to comfort my boy. Sorry, I mean… to comfort you, forget that stupid ‘boy’, I don’t know why I said it.”

“Adam…” – Lance said softly – “I can’t give you my heart… or better, I can’t give you my entire heart, but you always owned a piece of it, a piece that Kareem never claimed as his own. Please, tell me that I’m still your boy…”

Adam shot an intense, loving glance at Lance, deeply touched by his words. Then, slowly, he rose sitting on the bed, pulled up Lance and unbuttoned his shirt, taking it off. And then took off his own, without uttering a single word.

“Do you want… to have sex with me?” – Lance asked a bit surprised while Adam helped him out of his pants, and the man faltered, shyly averting his gaze: “It’s the only way I know to show my love…”

“Then take me, daddy…” – Lance murmured, boring his gaze into Adam’s eyes – “Fill me with your love… And for once, you’ll bring a sparkle of joy into my life.”

Adam took Lance’s face into his hands and pulled him into a passionate, ravenous kiss that took the breath away from both of them. The deep desire that enflamed Adam clashed with the desperation that filled Lance’s heart, and their kiss because a furious battle, a battle that Lance knew couldn’t win, nor he wanted to. Once more, like he’d done so many times, he yielded himself to Adam, his strong-willed daddy who’d taken a step aside out of respect for Kareem, but didn’t hesitate to run to his boy when he most needed him.

The kiss went on and on, until the burden oppressing Lance’s heart was completely swept away, replaced by Adam’s unwavering support, affection and love. Lance brushed his palms over Adam’s sinewy arms, his chiseled torso, his stubbled face, rolling on the bed until Adam was on top of him, where he deserved to be.

Lance felt Adam’s stiff manhood pressing with urgency against his thigh and moved his hands down, to the man’s lower back, until he could grab his muscular buttocks, to let him know how deep he wanted to be filled by his daddy, to be owned by him.

Adam’s voice was coarse when he simply said “Spit?”, and Lance nodded in the affirmative, raising his legs and offering his most precious treasure to the man he loved. Yes, he loved Adam, he wasn’t lying, earlier, when he said that a piece of his heart had always been his. For sure, if Doc Steven was there, he would’ve talked about Lance’s need to find a fatherly figure to replace his biological one, whom Lance had never known; and would’ve explained that a man’s heart is big enough to feel different kinds of love for different men, without taking anything away from them. But the man hovering over Lance, ready to spear his welcoming hole, was not Doc Steven, he was Adam, and Lance held his breath, waiting for the sublime moment of the penetration.

The first penetration can tell so many things about a man! Tells about his tenderness, his dominance, his roughness, his lust, his confidence; and during the last five years Adam had given to Lance all these things, but not that day: now there was only love in his penetration, sweet love and soothing care. Adam’s experienced member gently forced open Lance’s anal ring and plopped inside, and immediately stopped, to let Lance get used to its girth; and then crawled its way inside the sensitive chute inch by inch, without rush, exploring places that were well known, and yet thrilling like the first time.

With a final little thrust, Adam’s hips pressed hard on Lance’s buttocks, and Lance exhaled softly: “Thank you daddy…”

Adam felt a rush of love, listening to those sweet words that never failed to pluck hidden strings inside him: “My sweet boy… You’re one of a kind…”

The powerful cock recoiled, leaving Lance with a sense of emptiness, but it was short-lived, because soon the thick rod invaded again Lance’s warm insides, stretching his inner doors in the most delightful way. And then did it again, and again: it was an unstoppable tide that rose and receded, relentlessly, incessantly, bringing at each cycle a new energy, a new pleasure that made both Lance and Adam moan with abandon.

Lance tried to remember the countless times Adam had made love to him; after all, sex is technically always the same, a penis moving back and forth in an anal chute. But then, why every time was so different? Why every single thrust of Adam’s loving member gave to Lance such a breathtaking thrill? How on earth Adam could make him feel at the center of the universe? Because that’s how Lance felt in that moment, with Adam’s manly rod incessantly pounding inside him, erotically brushing his sensitive inner linings and delightfully battering his prostate.

What miracle made Adam fill him with throbbing meat and take away his pain at the same time? Love. Love was the miracle. Adam loved him, and was now showing him how much, in the only way he knew.

Adam’s breath was becoming heavy, he was climbing to the peak of his pleasure, but slowed down, because he didn’t want it to end: he had much more love to give to Lance, many more soothing thrusts into his welcoming hole, many caring pinches to his stiff nipples. He wasn’t a talker, he always had problems putting his sentiments in words; but when he had sex with Lance, everything became so easy!

And Lance felt it, he knew that it wasn’t by chance that Adam’s experienced dick brushed so frequently and so erotically on his most sensitive inner spot, it wasn’t by chance that Adam’s fingers manipulated his nipples the way he most loved. Adam had a detailed map of Lance’s body, and always did his best to give to Lance the greatest pleasure possible.

Adam slowed down even more, on the very verge of the abyss, unwilling to give in to the overwhelming need to reach his orgasm… but he failed. With a low grunt, his hips sprang forward and reached Lance’s innermost depths, and then started banging him wildly.

“Oooohh…!” – Lance moaned, forcefully pushed toward the same precipice by Adam’s powerful pounding – “Mmmhh… Daddy, you’re making me cum…”

“Hold it…” – Adam growled with coarse voice, feeling his seed rushing through his cock – “Please… NNNGGHH… hold back, my boy… FUUUCKK!!”

Lance sucked a deep breath and fought hard to hold his own orgasm, but it was an almost desperate task, as looking at Adam squirming in the throes of his own pleasure was a wildly erotic sight. But a good boy always does what his daddy asks for, so Lance gritted his teeth and forced his own pending climax to subside, until Adam stopped moaning and his cock stopped throbbing.

Adam closed his eyes for a moment, heaving for the effort, and murmured: “I play with you, calling you my boy, but you’re such a stud… I couldn’t stop myself, but you did it… And you deserve a prize…”

Like in slow motion, Lance saw Adam recoil, pulling out from his loosened hole, and lay down between his legs; Adam’s eyes were rooted on Lance’s throbbing unsatisfied cock, and Lance’s eyes were rooted on Adam. With a playful glare in his eyes, Adam opened his mouth and closed his lips around Lance’s mushroom head.

“Adam… Daddy… You…” – Lance stuttered, swept away by the breathtaking pleasure he was feeling and the equally breathtaking sight of Adam, the commanding alpha-man Adam, doing something he rarely, if ever, did to another man.

He was anything but experienced in the oral department, it was clear as day, but this only added to the thrill Lance was feeling. It was like every nerve of his sensitive manhood was enjoying the cautious lapping, the sloppy sucking, the copious saliva dribbling down the shaft. Lance extended a trembling hand and placed it on Adam’s head, but barely touched the hair to be sure that it was real, rather than pushing him down on his cock.

It was too much, and Lance said with urgency: “I’m cumming…! Daddy, I’m cumming!”

Realizing that Adam wasn’t going to back off, and was going on bobbing his head in earnest, waiting to savor his manly essence, Lance stiffened like an electric current was flowing through his body, and a powerful shot of thick seed rocketed out of his cock, buried into Adam’s mouth. “Daddy… Nnnngghh… Oh, daddy…” – Lance moaned, grasping the bedsheets with his hands, while his prostate pumped, and pumped, and pumped…

It took Lance many long moments to be able to relax and open his eyes, and immediately noticed that Adam’s face was a sticky mess, with long streaks of sperm dribbling from his lips down to the chin. Despite his bold determination to let Lance cum into his mouth, he clearly couldn’t go all the way and swallow the slick seed.

“I… uhm…” – Adam murmured with a shy glance – “Would it look too bad if I now go and wash my teeth…?”

Lance smiled wide and shot him a glance full of deep affection: “The bathroom is over there. There’s always a clean toothbrush over the sink”. Adam moved toward the bathroom, but before he disappeared behind the door, Lance called him: “Adam… Thank you. You’re… special to me.”

While Adam was in the bathroom, Lance changed the bedsheets at lightning speed, as he used to do when he lived there at the Silk & Lace, five years earlier. When Adam came back from the bathroom, he sneaked into the freshly made bed and held Lance into his arms, letting him nestle against his lightly hairy chest.

“How do you feel?” – Adam asked, cautiously – “I mean, with regard to Kareem out of the Cube…”

“Angry” – Lance unexpectedly replied – “I’m furious! They don’t have the right to take Kareem and bring him away. And they didn’t have the right to bring him here in the first place! No, better: they don’t have the fucking right to keep all of us here!”

Adam looked pensively at the ceiling: “I barely remember my life outside. It’s been more than thirty years ago. I tried to fight, at first, but it was like banging my head on a wall. I agree, they don’t have the right to keep us here. Some seasoned guests of the Cube tried to soothe my anger telling me that the law punished any kind of ‘Uranian Behavor’, and I had to abide to the law, but you know what? There is no law against homosexuality.”

“What you mean there’s no law…?”

“There’s no law that punishes homosexuality. They never managed to approve one, because they’re too hypocrites: most of the people is intolerant and homophobic, but no one wants to admit it and sign such a horrible and unjust law. It’s the AI that wants us here: it records our sexual behavior and when it spots a Uranian Behavior serious enough to trigger an outburst of indignation, it issues a negative UBA and ‘suggests’ to eradicate the subject and lock him into a Cube. Out of sight, out of mind.”

Lance wriggled out of Adam’s embrace and looked at him with a strange fire into his eyes: “So, it’s the AI that wants us here… It’s the AI to blame…!”

“Lance… What are you thinking at? There’s nothing you can do, the AI… is the AI!”

“Then, I’m going to fight the fucking AI! I’m sorry, Adam, I feel like shit but I have to go. You’re wonderful, I love you, I truly do… but Kareem is my life. I’m going to fight teeth and claws to get him back, I’ll do whatever it takes… and I know where to start from.”

“It’s late in the night!” – Adam objected, watching Lance hurriedly getting dressed – “Where are you going? Lance, wait!”

But Lance didn’t wait.

 

~ Killing a daughter ~

In less than a couple minutes, Lance reached block Alpha-1, on the 5th Floor and barged in without announcing himself. At the Cube there weren’t doors, only curtains closing the doorways, and there was a strict rule against entering an apartment without being ushered in by the owner; but that was no time for rules. Lance was there purposely to abolish the rules.

Aldritch ‘Triple-A’ Archer was standing in the living room, probably heading to bed, and was startled by Lance’s intrusion. He was more pissed off than startled, actually.

“What the fuck…?” – he menacingly growled– “This is my home, Lance! Can’t you ring the doorbell like everybody? Or maybe pay your visits at a more conventional time of the day?”

Lance, for a moment, was speechless, as Aldrich was wearing a sort of Japanese kimono that barely covered his chiseled torso and his muscular legs; the kimono had a wide silk belt connected to a stretch pouch that put on blatant display his substantial bulge. The overall look was that of a powerful, commanding man totally confident in his sexuality… exactly the type of man Lance had always a soft spot for.

But Lance had a mission: no time for play. “I’m sorry, Aldritch, I… I understand it’s late…”

“Uh, Kareem is the same, he never rings the doorbell…”

“He won’t bother you anymore” – Lance replied ruefully – “He’s been brought away, out of the Cube. He was… don’t know how to call it… he was ‘counter-arrested’ and forcibly taken away against his will.”

“Uhm…” – Aldritch murmured, unabashed – “Rules must have changed. Never heard of someone taken away from the Cube. It’s always a life sentence.”

“Wrong. There’s no sentence. There isn’t even a law that requires gay man to be restricted in a Cube. We all are unjustly detained here with no reason at all!”

“No reason? Bullshit. We’re gay, if you forgot it. If someone is so stupid to trigger an Uranian Behavior alert in the AI, it’s only fair he’s thrown in a Cube for life. I’ve been that stupid, and you were, too!”

Lance looked at Aldritch with wide eyes: “You can’t be serious… Are you fucking listening to your own words? Yeah, I’m gay! I love cock! And you love it, too! So what? Have you ever forced a straight man to have gay sex? Have you ever threatened someone with your being gay? No, you didn’t! No one of us did it! We’re not wrong, we’re not abominations that should be eradicated!”

“But the AI…” – Aldritch interjected, and Lance exploded: “The AI! It’s the fucking AI the only reason we’re here!! And it’s about time the AI stops controlling our lives this way! Aldritch, you’re the only one who can do something about it: you must deactivate the AI, dunno, create a short-circuit, give it conflicting orders, cause it to crash, once and for all!”

For the first time in his life, Aldritch watched someone in horror, with wide eyes and a sagging mouth: “You… You don’t know what you’re asking for… Are you asking me… to kill my own daughter?? I can’t! I can’t possibly do it! It’s horrible only thinking about it!”

“Your… daughter? It’s a fucking machine! And it’s destroying our lives!”

“She’s much more than a machine!” – Aldritch bellowed – “And so far she saved our lives! Do you think the Great Worldwide Union could even exist if it wasn’t for the AI? She carefully balances the conflicting demands of the thousand former states in a way that no human government can! How selfish of you, Lance! Just to have back your Kareem, you would put the entire world at risk, and you would have me kill my daughter! Can’t you understand that the AI is like a child to me? I nurtured her, made her grow up, helped her improve her decision-making skills… I can’t kill her!”

Lance was surprised by Aldritch’s passionate reaction, and was totally blown away seeing tears glistening into his eyes. He suddenly felt bad, realizing that he’d given hard to Aldritch, convinced that he didn’t have a heart, but he had one, and was full of passion.

“I’m sorry, Aldritch” – Lance said in a contrite tone, walking to him and placing a gentle hand on his face – “I didn’t want to upset you. You’re right, all I want is to have Kareem back… I don’t know if you can really understand how I feel, but… it’s like they tore away a piece of my heart. It hurts so much that I can’t think straight. I need Kareem, but the world needs the AI even more. I am… as you once said… ‘collateral damage’, right?”

“But on one thing you are totally wrong” – Lance continued, looking straight into Aldritch’s eyes – “None of us deserves to stay here at the Cube. No one could possibly deserve to be shunned, ostracized and ultimately imprisoned just because he’s different. It’s horrible that people, outside, want us here, as much as it’s horrible that you think that ‘it’s only fair’. You’re an exceptional man, Aldritch, you are smart, knowledgeable, you’re the best AI engineer around… and you love cock. Does your passion for men lessen in any way your outstanding qualities? Has the world become a better place, since you’ve been locked in the Cube? You don’t really need me to answer these questions…”

Lance took a step back and gave one last glance at Aldritch, who was frowning, lost in his thoughts. Without a word, Lance turned around and went away with a heavy heart. Aldritch couldn’t possibly kill the AI; it was actually stupid, on Lance’s part, to hope for something so absurd. As much as it was stupid to hope to have Kareem back.

-~~~≈≈≈ooOoo≈≈≈~~~-

In the next chapter: Sean McLaughlin has a passionate and tumultuous phone conversation with Chief Bellwood, who is extremely uncooperative and reticent. After a close encounter with an angry Gary Romano, Lance can finally kiss again Kareem… in his dreams.