Cupid

CUPID by Ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca

Disclaimer: This story is a work of erotic gay fiction. If you are underage or if this sort of story offends you, please do not read it. There are some elements of non-consensuality in this story. However, it should be no more distressing to anyone than an ordinary action thriller. If you like --or dislike the story, your comments, questions, criticism, flames, requests for more stories and mail to the author are welcomed by Ruthless at Ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca

They finally shut off the smoke detectors in the middle of the morning. They must have shut it off at the main alarm board that controlled the sprinklers and the security system. The sprinklers had stopped running long earlier. Their empty nozzles dripped down on the soggy carpets in the offices. The water had only lasted about ten minutes before it ran out. But the smoke alarms had shrieked on and on. One moment the shrill sound was echoing in my head like a tension headache and the next moment it was gone, leaving a vacuum.

"Hear that?" HT said. "I thought they'd let it keep going. Use the sound to cover a swat team coming into the building or something..." He grinned mirthlessly. HT was sitting on the floor with his back to the wall beside the elevator doors. He had a cel phone on the floor between his feet and the gun hanging negligently from his hand. It was the same gun that had set the smoke detectors off.

I had no idea that a gun could trigger smoke alarms. I hadn't expected to learn about it this way. When someone fires a gun several times in a small, enclosed space a surprising amount of smoke is produced. And if the enclosed space is part of an office equipped with smoke alarms and sprinklers the screams and streams of water create a hellish bedlam. Even now the smell of the smoke was distinct. It was a burnt chemical smell. I knew what that was called from reading detective novels. The smell was cordite.

Ron Thompson was sitting beside me, both of us facing the elevators. The knuckles of his left hand were touching my knuckles lightly where we were handcuffed together. Ron was a co-op student from the university who worked on the first floor. He had done four of his six months with the company, getting experience in draughting and design. He was in his early twenties, passably cute in my opinion. Now he had his back board straight even though we were sitting back to the wall. His head was up, his lips closed in a serious line and his eyes were fixed on HT. He put me in mind of a dutiful child waiting anxiously to be told what to do.

We were sitting in the corridor to be away from both the worst of the noise and away from the windows. HT had the idea that if we tried to wait it out in a room with windows, sharpshooters would fly over in a helicopter and be able to get a bead on him. The fire doors were closed. Beyond them in the office there were knocked over furniture and water soaked carpets. I didn't know if there was anybody dead on this floor or not. HT had checked carefully before he closed the doors. There was nobody else left alive in the building.

"They did tell you they wouldn't send a swat team in." I said.

"Yeah, and we all know the cops are sure to keep a promise like that." HT retorted.

I shrugged. "Anyway, you will hear them now if they burst in."

It was different now with the smoke alarms silenced. Before when HT had been giving them his demands on the cellular there had been a bit of a scream in his voice. It's hard to talk normally at the best of times when there is a deafening noise in the background. I suppose trying to give orders to a hostage negotiator puts stress in your voice also. It was strange how normal HT sounded in the silence, like a good actor saying his lines convincingly.

"You scared?" HT demanded.

"I'm scared." I agreed.

He turned his gaze to Ron. "You scared?"

"I'm scared. Feels like I've swallowed a golf ball." Ron said. His voice was indistinct. He pointed somewhere in the region of his upper chest or throat. "S'stuck."

"Are you scared?" I asked HT.

"I'm so scared," HT said, "I don't know whether to piss my pants or cry."

"Don't do either." I suggested, trying for casual. "We don't want the hall any soggier than it is already."

HT tilted his head back and looked up at the white fluorescent above us. The hall was nearly empty. There were fifteen yards of smooth gray waxed linoleum tiles, white walls, a few plaques to congratulate the staff collectively for outstanding architectural achievement, a no smoking sign and a four foot tall vinyl fichus in a square white plastic pot. The silence still impinged on my ears. I looked at Ron again. His eyes were fixed on HT, unwavering.

I had admitted to HT that I was scared, but the funny thing was how un-scared I really seemed to be. Maybe it was because I hadn't actually seen any of the carnage. All I the violence I had seen was when thirty-two architectural firm staffers had tried to get through one three and a half foot wide doorway all at once. There had been a row of ambulances down on the street below amid the black and whites, when I had gotten a chance to look out. Not everybody who had gotten hurt had been shot. I didn't know for sure how many people HT had shot. But his pockets were stuffed with small rectangular boxes. His gun might not have been large but he had enough ammunition with him to spare.

HT brought his gaze down again. "You guys are bastards," he remarked. "You know what I found him doing?" The question was addressed to me. HT gestured at Ron with his eyes. "He was stuffing secretaries through a hole in the window. Pushing people out onto the lawn. I mean, Jesus," he complained. "Those are double layered plate glass windows. This is an air-conditioned office. How the hell did you get it broken?"

Ron waited four long seconds before he answered. "I threw the water cooler through it."

"Good for you." I said quietly.

For the first time Ron's eyes turned briefly on me. He could not have been unaware of me. The touch of my knuckles may not have impinged on him but I figured he had to have been able to smell me. I was damp. My sweat glands had gotten hyperactive. I said that I didn't feel scared but my body was reacting all the same to having a gun waved at me by a guy who had gone postal.

"And you..." HT let his words trail off. "Y'know, I should pull a Harvey Milk on you."

"Why?" I said. Each word was an effort. "You didn't come back here to kill me in particular did you? You never even worked with me."

"All I know is your name." HT gave an angry sigh. "And what everybody in the office knows, yeah, that you're the firm's token gay."

"That makes you uncomfortable enough to kill me?" I asked. He's not going to believe my conversational tone, I thought.

"No." HT sounded depressed.

"I can't help it if it bothers you but I'm sorry." I said.

"And I'm sorry I broke the window." Ron spoke up, not letting a pause occur between our words.

"I didn't want to take hostages anyway." HT told him. "I don't care what you did downstairs. But you could have wrecked things for me."

Ron's mouth gave a nervous quirk. "I'm sorry. I heard the alarms. And then I heard the shots. It was automatic."

"You know, they're going to be saying you're a hero." I said. Ron glanced at me quickly again. The flicker of his lips couldn't be called a smile. He'd been holding his mouth in a such a straight control to keep from losing control of it, I guessed.

HT was shaking. It wasn't a fear shake. It was a tension or an anger shake, a tremor that made the toes of his shoes tap steadily and made the gun hanging over his knees shiver.

"He's my hostage." HT said. "If he's a hero who stuffed seven secretaries through a window, they won't want him getting killed. They won't care about you when they break in here to get me. You're just a fag."

"I hope they'll care about both of us." I said.

"What about me?" HT demanded.

I didn't say anything. What could I say, that the cops were going to do their level best to blow him away?

"I hope they don't shoot you." Ron said to HT.

"They won't. --Or else you're going down with me."

Yeah, I thought. HT hasn't got a chance in the world of getting out of here. And that means that he's going to shoot us. Or that the cops are going to shoot us, making sure that they nail him. We're going to die in the crossfire. Ron Thompson or me, I wonder which one of us is going to get it first.

Ron was holding the fingers of his left hand crooked. I noticed for the first time that they were curled and that there was a little trace of dirty brown on them, the color of iron rich red earth. It was blood, dry because it had been on his hand for about two hours.

"You got shot in the hand." I said.

"No. I'm not hurt." he said. He knew what I had seen from what I asked. "It's not mine. I checked...There were a couple of guys, from management. I checked to make sure if the could be breathing still. He ordered me to look and see." Ron's eyes dropped to his soiled hand. "It's not mine." He repeated.

"Two guys?" I asked.

"Two." Ron said quietly. "But he fired some shots in the office beside the board room. I don't know if there was other people in there."

If you were to try to qualify rough days, I was having a pretty rough one. On a scale of bad days, being held hostage by a murdering lunatic was right up there. But Ron was having a worse one than me. Touching dead people. Christ! At least I hadn't had to see or touch anything so bad yet.

HT listened to our conversation without comment. His eyes set on Ron this time instead of me. "You knew he was gay?" He demanded.

"Yes."

"And...?"

Ron, not understanding the question got a sickly expression. His eyes widened and a worried grimace made his thin lips vibrate.

"And what did you think?" HT said.

Ron threw a bewildered look at me. " Oh... Nothing."

"You didn't mind working with a queer?"

"I didn't work with Gordon either." Ron said helplessly.

"Didn't make you nervous? Crossing the parking lot late at night? Wondering if the dirty queer would come out and do some sexual harassment?" HT jeered.

"Uh...no."

HT doesn't really give a fuck what gender I go for, I thought. He's just tense, looking for something to pick on. He didn't come here meaning to kill me. If I hadn't been down on the second floor dropping off a bunch of drawings, I'd have made it out to the fire escape like all the rest of the third floor people. He's just picking. In a minute he's start to dig in on one of us about something else, like us having to wait in here or Ron's voice being so dull.

HT's next words knocked the guts out of me completely.

"Get your dick out."

"What?!"

"Get your dick out." He said. "You're queer. You're used to flashing it around at other guys, so get it out."

I stared at HT. He's going to make sure we die, I thought. He does hate me. I didn't want to do what he said. It seemed to me it was a very stupid practical joke, covering an intense cruelty. It took effort to bring my hand forward to my fly but I brought it over. HT had that gun. There was nothing else I could do but refuse and maybe die at once for doing it.

I reached down with my left hand, unzipped and took it out. It was stifling in the corridor but the air felt palpably cool on my crotch. I couldn't take my eyes away from HT if I had wanted to. My next thoughts were diametrically different from the ones I had had moments early. The vulnerability of my exposure put them into my head. I felt tearing nausea. He's going to shoot me in the crotch, I thought. My prick stuck out of the fly of my dress pants like I was facing a urinal.

"How many inches you got?" HT's voice got louder. It was jeering and cajoling.

"Seven and a half." I said woodenly.

"Looks like more. Eight and a half. What do you think?"

My eyes escaped from HT for an instant. Ron was looking at my prick from beside me. I saw his eyelashes because his gaze was turned down.

"Looks about four inches to me." Ron spoke uncomfortably.

"Y'like it?" HT was still putting on the jeering, coaxing voice.

"What's to like?" Ron was starting to sound strangled. "It's a dick."

"It's not just a dick." HT told him. "It's a genuine, bona-fide queer likes-a-man- to-suck-it homo dick. How many asses have you plunged that tool up, Gordon?"

"'Bout a dozen." I was breathless. I don't even know why I lied. I desperately wanted HT to say I could put it away again. His eyes were crinkled, squinting as he stared at my limp organ.

"Get it hard." He ordered.

"I can't." I said.

Fuck, I thought. I felt tired. I waited for HT to burst out, ordering me more humiliation, or worse nastiness because I had opposed him.

"How about if I give you a look at his dick?" HT said.

I couldn't turn my head to look at Ron. I couldn't speak either.

HT let his eyes slide three feet sideways. "Get it out, Mister Co-op Student."

"Leave him alone." I said.

When I turned my head, Ron had his prick sticking through the fly of his gray trousers. He was shriveled. Ron's face was bleachy. He looked suddenly as if he had forgotten to shave that morning. The blood rushing from his face had drained the color and made the beard inside more distinct. His nostrils were flared. His lips were compressed miserably.

"Leave the guy alone, HT." I said. "Okay, bait the queer, get some fun out of me, but leave him alone. I won't get a hard on from looking at his dick."

"No?" HT said. "You won't?"

Both Ron and I sat vulnerable. My gaze kept moving from HT to Ron's grim face to the flap of flesh projecting from his suit and back to HT again. The tableau did not make my prick rise. It did not make Ron's prick rise either. HT just sat for long seconds as if he was waiting for it to happen.

"Alright." HT said reasonably. "How about if you reach over and give his dick a grope then?" He nodded. "Do it, Ronnie. Give his prick a pull."

"HT," I said, as the stiff warm fingers of the man slid over my thigh and closed gingerly about me, "Don't torture him. What are you doing this to him for? Why?"

"I wanna see it. That's why. I'm bored." HT said. "I'm fucking bored. Jerk him off, Ron."

"It's not torture." Ron said coldly. "It's just a prick." His hand had encircled my dick and moved on it in the rhythm that was so familiar. My soft prick flipped back and forth within his hand, the skin moving easily. Ron had to lean towards me. His right arm crossed over in front of his own body and down to the base of my belly in front of me. My zipper teeth grated, too lightly to make me wince. HT stared frozenly.

Ron gave it three quarters of a minute.

"Okay, Mr. Thayer. I'm doing it." He said. "I'm jerking off Gordon's prick. And he's not getting a hard on. This is getting nowhere. Right? He's not turned on. I'm not turned on. You're just successfully making us both sick and scared."

HT frowned. He was going to say something but at that moment the cel phone between his feet buzzed softly like a secretary discretely alerting her boss that there was a caller coming through.

Ron started to pull his arm back. He released me but he wasn't moving abruptly.

Whatever HT was going to say didn't get said. "Keep doing it." He ordered. "You keep doing it and don't stop while I talk."

He juggled the gun and the plastic handset. "Hello?" He answered the phone.

Ron kept his hand moving evenly. It was pretty uncomfortable really. It was too intense so it wasn't turning me on. It was like being tickled. I found I was holding my body rigid because I didn't want to flinch. Wanting to flinch is not like getting shot. I sat quite still. I didn't try to get away from Ron's hand and I took the discomfort.

HT was trying to keep his tone reasonable.

"Why?" he said. Then, "Well, how long?... Why?" His voice grew sharper. "You said you could get me an armored truck."

I had to listen to the conversation. I tried to ignore the hand that was mechanically and rhythmically squeezing on my prick. I couldn't ignore the warmth of Ron's body through his suit jacket leaning against me. I could smell him too, a salty bitterness rising from his torso. He must have been very nearly as sweaty as I was.

"Why not?" HT said. Then, "Listen, I want that truck here before twelve o'clock. There must be thousands of armored trucks in the city. You can find one by twelve o'clock. I let the security guard and the receptionist go, didn't I? You promised me the truck."

There was a pause.

"Well, I promise you if I don't see the truck I'm going to shoot both of these guys here with me!"

Oh God, I thought. Don't get him riled.

"I'm not going to let you play fucking games with me!" HT's voice rose. His voice sounded sullen when he signed off. "Okay. Good bye."

He laid the phone on the floor again and transferred the gun over back to his right hand. He let it droop again. It occurred to me that he wasn't dangling it carelessly but that his wrist was tired. It had to be heavy holding a weight out at the end of your arm all morning.

Ron went on molesting me, as HT refocused his attention on the moving hand.

"Sorry about this." Ron said to me quietly.

I looked at his face, crooking a half smile on my own mouth. "It's okay. I didn't want him to make you do that, you know."

"I can tell." Ron had a faint touch of humor in his voice. He looked at HT. "Can I stop now, Sir?"

"You can stop." HT said.

Ron pulled away. His hand was gone. He was still close by my side. Now our arms, not merely our knuckles touched.

"But I'm not going to stop until he fucks you up the butt." HT said. Ron shot me a look, quick and undeniably scared.

HT is a madman, I thought. He can see clearly it's not working and it's just stupid the way he's going on with it. He's crazy. -As if I needed to question whether a guy who had walked into an office with a loaded thirty-five and started shooting in all directions was a madman or not.

"That's ridiculous." I said. "You can see he can't get me hard. How am I going to fuck him up the butt? I'm scared, HT. Fear is making me too scared to get horny. We can't put on a show for you."

"Don't you like him?" HT asked levelly.

I glanced at Ron. If I had picked him up cruising, I'd have had nothing to complain about his looks. His short cut hair revealed a shapely head. His thin lips had a look of repressed sensuality about them. And at other times, casually with my eyes, I had noticed that he had a handsome tight butt and a nice package on a build that was muscular and lightly defined. I couldn't see his build particularly in the position we were in, but I could see his appealing circumcised prick. It was the color of a blush.

While I was looking at it, Ron reached down and started to push it back into his fly.

"Leave it out!" HT barked. Ron's hand snatched back.

"He's okay." I said.

"How about you, Ron. Don't you like him?" HT pressed.

Ron shot me a hopeless look and said nothing.

"I shoulda kept the receptionist and you." HT told Ron. "Then I coulda made you put on a show with her. But I made a mistake. I kept you two in case they were going to feel better about me because I let the woman go. So now you two are going to have to put on a fag show for my entertainment."

"HT." I said. "I'll do anything else you want to entertain you. I'll recite basketball stats or I'll do you a song and dance or I'll whistle. But what the fuck do you want to see us fuck for?"

HT met my eyes. He didn't answer my question. I guess he couldn't. He was like a kid, wantonly squashing ants, half shamed and half fascinated, exerting his power on living things that couldn't prevent it. He was unable to say why he was doing it.

"Ron." Said HT, "Take your pants off."

I thought Ron would resist, that he'd ask HT not to make him do it. He was as pale as before when HT made him take his dick out and he wasn't any more willing. But Ron said nothing. He just reached down and began unlacing his shoe. Slowly, methodically he pulled at the laces and took each shoe and each sock off in turn. Then he started from the waistband of his trousers.

"You want me to give you a blow job, HT?" I said. "Is that's what you'd like? If you're turned on, leave Ron out of it." I was making a wild guess. HT was putting us through it with each other, going for indirect stimulation because he was afraid to let either of us so close to him. "You could use the handcuffs to fasten both my hands behind my back so I could do it." I said.

"You ain't touching my dick!" HT sounded affronted.

Ron took his jockeys off and laid them on top of his trousers. My hand went up and down where it was hooked to his by the handcuff as he moved while undressing. When he was half stripped Ron sat there, naked legs incongruous with his shirt and tie and office jacket above and the bare legs below. The muscles in his thigh were clearly defined. The hollow where his quadriceps began to thicken was as beautiful as a piece of sculpture. Half-dressed he looked awkward, like a frog with too long legs. His eyes were closed.

Nothing I said was getting through to man with the gun. "Leave the kid alone, HT."

"You realize, of course you're going to have to get tested for AIDS after he's finished fucking you?" HT remarked to Ron with a false easiness. Ron didn't move or open his eyes or answer.

"I practice safe sex." I said to Ron instantly. "Before this, always. Every time I've done it with protection, never any risks. And anyway, I can't get it up, so no way is any fucking going to happen here."

"Touch him." HT ordered. I don't know if he was telling Ron to touch me or me to touch Ron. Neither of us moved. HT shifted. He slid his legs out so they were stretched on the linoleum tiles I front of him. He held the gun two-handed, propped on his thigh pointed between us.

"Hey." HT said. "It'll be fun, Homo."

Ron had opened his eyes. Now he was staring at me.

"Are you turned on?" HT asked.

"You know I'm not." I said.

"Are you?" He didn't wait for Ron's answer. "Well, I'm not either. So get moving."

I looked at Ron's bare legs. I could imagine how they would feel, the hair against his warm skin under my fingertips.

"He's straight." I said.

"He's dead meat if you don't fuck him."

"Then he's dead meat either way if you'll shoot him for that." My voice trembled.

"Look," said HT. "I won't shoot either of you guys. I promise. I don't want to kill you guys. I never wanted to nail you. You're going to get out of here okay. That's a promise. Even if the cops rush the building. I won't shoot you. I was lying."

His voice was thick. "But I don't want to think about what's in the next room, what I did and what I got myself into. I don't want to think about anything. So get moving and distract me."

I reached over and laid my palm on the tense muscle at my side. The skin was faintly moist, the fine hairs a silky down. "I'm sorry." I said. "I don't want to hurt you or to let him hurt you."

Ron's lips moved, a murmur, sub-vocal. I slid my hand up his leg.

His prick and his balls were warm. His balls were truly beautiful. They were full, hair covered, textured to fascinate my fingers. As soon as I leaned in towards him I smelt the scent of his crotch odor, the distinct fresh sweat he had produced there. I caressed his balls gently.

"If you keep your eyes closed," I said. "Maybe for awhile you can pretend I'm a woman."

"It's not your gender." When Ron spoke his voice was loud. "It's the fucking gun!"

I kept caressing Ron's balls and his prick for awhile. I stuck on them. They were beautiful to handle, even if his prick was limp. And it wasn't absolutely a hundred percent limp. I'm not saying he had a hard on. He didn't even have half of a one. There wasn't anything visible but I would say that his prick was a bit fuller than normal. If it was it was just a physical reaction to the sensation in his groin.

I leaned over his leg and put my face to his crotch. I breathed on his prick, caressing it with my breath and inhaling the scent closely. I was delicate and slow. Ron didn't flinch. His hands lay stretched out stiffly, motionless on either side of him.

My back was to HT while I was doing this. I couldn't forget the gun at my back. But I was less afraid of it. HT's words, his promise not to shoot us helped. He could be lying. He was a psycho. His promises didn't mean anything. I hope it helps Ron, I thought.

His prick tasted good; that salt, the wonderful shape of the flaring cap between my lips. I nuzzled on it softly.

You've fucking made it with guys in places where someone could walk in on you before, I thought to myself. C'mon, get it up. If you can't produce a hard on, HT doesn't get a show.

Then Ron laid his free hand lightly on the back of my head. That was all it took, a bit of encouragement from him. His dick in my mouth and his hand on my head, instead of him resisting or flinching away from me and I felt a hard on start to life, where my naked dick still stuck out of the open fly of my trousers.

Thoughts were floating around my head like circling birds. I tried to concentrate on what I was doing to get my hard on to build but the thoughts kept coming.

Suppose the cops blast through the elevator door right now? They'll see Ron's bare legs, my face in his lap. How fast could we cover up Ron if we hear them?

Could I fake a fuck with Ron for HT? If I just stuck my dick into the crack of Ron's ass and pretended to fuck him would HT see? If I leaned in close over Ron, was there any way I could fake doing it?

And this could be just the distraction the cops need to get in here. HT is staring at us. If they could get into the very next room somehow?

I lapped gently and patiently at Ron's prick. He had eased his legs apart more. I started a bobbing motion. I closed my own eyes. The oral sensation was a comfort at the moment of anger and fear and embarrassment.

"Gord?" Ron's voice came faint.

I stopped bobbing. "Yeah?"

"Two things..."

"What?" I said.

"Can you use some spit or something? It's gonna hurt if you try to get it into me without anything."

"Yes, of course." I said.

"He the first guy to fuck your butt, Ronnie?" HT's voice came to us hard after our own subdued tones.

"He'll be the first." Ron said.

"How about sucking cock? He the first guy to suck your cock?"

"Not... exactly." Ron's voice caught.

"Go on, Gordon. Take your pants off." HT ordered. "Show him your cock again. Why don't you strip off and make him suck it?"

I had at least half a hard on by now. That was enough reason why not. I glanced back over my shoulder at HT. A curious fixed smile, a smile that came and went as if he was ashamed was on his face. He put on a placating expression. And still he held the gun pointed at us.

Without a word I moved away from Ron and began to struggle to get my own pants down and out of the way. Ron hunched at the end of my arm. Now it was his turn for his hand to be going up and down involuntarily as I moved trying to undress.

"What was the second thing, Ron?" I asked. "You were going to ask me a second thing."

He looked up at me. "Don't tell anybody. Okay? Can you do that? I know, if we live the cops are going to ask us what we did or we said in here. But can you lie, please?"

"Sure." I said.

Ron gave me a little brittle smile in lieu of thanks.

"I'll lie too." HT said. "Okay? If I live, I mean."

"If you aren't going to shoot us why don't you just surrender?" I asked over my shoulder. I got my pants down to my knees.

"I can't just surrender." HT said. "That would be like dying. To go to prison, it's the same. It would be the end. I gotta try to escape now."

"I hope you get away." I said. I didn't know if I meant it but I said it.

HT smiled. I don't think it did any harm, me saying it. It seemed to make him easier towards us.

"You guys get your jackets off." He said. "I want to see you as naked as possible."

There goes our last chance of covering it up if the cops bust in, I thought. I had a vision of Ron and myself piled together dead and naked, still chained at the wrist with long stripes of blood on our bodies, and the stupefied cops standing around us, recognizing what we had been doing: Pictures for the True Crime Tabloid.

We had to stand to get our shirts and jackets off. Even then we couldn't take them off completely. We just slid them down our joined arms. Ron faced me with stiff arms and legs. He had little brown nipples. His stomach had a line of fur running up above his navel that I registered as cute.

"Could you...?" I asked. I gestured at the mass of clothes on the handcuffs. A moment's wild thought of grabbing the gun if HT came in range to unfasten us, came to me along with my request with the force of a shock. I didn't show the thought in my voice.

"I'm sorry, Guys." HT said. "I think the security guard still has the keys to his handcuffs. I don't have it. I can't."

So the handcuffs joined us when we moved awkwardly together and our hands were covered by the bundled up clothes that hung off the chain. The clothes were a wodge that got in the way. Undressing had softened my prick back to a flaccid state.

I approached Ron cautiously. He met me, lifting his free arm to touch me, a tiny forced smile on his face. I looked into his eyes and noticed for the first time that they were hazel, the palest of browns with huge pupils.

I ran my fingers down his chest. He ran his fingers down my back. The corridor had gotten almost cold when we had undressed. The linoleum felt cool now under my knees. I kept my face away from Ron's face, to avoid provoking a flinch. My mouth anywhere near his mouth would make him jerk back, I calculated.

"I won't tell anyone." I said. "I'll lie my head off. There's no reason they'll examine us after. They won't be able to tell, even if say, one of us gets hit and gets taken to hospital. We'll just say we sat and talked, okay?" My tone came out conversational.

Ron nodded.

His round nipple caught at my fingertip. I flicked at it.

"For God's sake don't tickle me." he said. He sounded breathless.

I stopped instantly. "What can I do? I don't want to tickle you. What can I do?"

"Suck his cock." HT said.

I started to move over Ron, trying to turn around. Ron moved also. I stopped. It was clear we both thought the order had been directed at us in person. We wound up both moving around. He stayed on his back. Our arms crossed over his belly. He was draped in coats and shirts. I was on all fours over him. I leaned myself down.

I can't say I was reluctant to get his dick in my mouth again, at least not for myself. It was a gorgeous dick. It was silky and veiny and the flared cap had a tiny touching slit. I lowered my mouth to his crotch again.

Is it worth getting caught in the middle of this if it distracts HT? I thought. I wondered if Ron would think so. The main thing is that I'm on top. That gun may be heavy on his wrists but it's not that big a caliber. Maybe HT's bullets won't go through me. The cops' bullets will. At least I might shield Ron with my body when HT fires.

My prick was dangling above Ron's mouth and he had opened it. Like with his hand when HT had ordered him to jerk me off, he closed it around my prick and used it with a steady deliberate rhythm, overriding his reluctance. It half felt good. The other half of it felt too intense. I closed my eyes and tried to get into the sensation.

Work up a hard on...

I sucked Ron's prick, but not as actively and as cooperatively as he sucked mine. I was trying to concentrate on the sensations in my crotch more to work up a useable hard on. I heard HT sigh, but it wasn't an impatient sound. After a couple of minutes my lips realized something.

Ron was getting a hard on. It wasn't full yet, but he was swelling and sticking up. His prick pointed towards my mouth at a sixty-five degree angle. It had widened. Because he was circumcised there was no foreskin to move back. However it was being triggered, Ron was getting turned on.

My startled eyes glanced under me automatically trying to see him. All I could see was coats, not the man's face. He was sucking and bobbing away doggedly on my prick. He was holding my thigh with his free hand. I don't think it was the desultory job I was doing on his prick that got him going. I think it was the sensation of sucking me that had got him primed. It had to be something like that.

After that I worked on him as seriously as he worked on me. I took his prick in my mouth and slid down deep. I tightened my lips. It swelled to fullness quickly. I sucked.

HT could see my face at Ron's prick clearly so I didn't just work on trying to get Ron more turned on. I rose to the top of his shaft and tongued it, making sure that HT could see the hard on and could see the action of my tongue. He wanted a show? This was a show for him.

I felt shame. I think my face was warm with it. I didn't enjoy the idea that HT was staring. But the worst part of it was the way I felt for the guy underneath me. I didn't want Ron to die. I wanted him to live and to be okay. But what I was doing to him... If he lives through this, just the sight of me is going to make him sick with fury, I thought. Maybe he wouldn't turn his rage on me, personally. But I was still going to fill him with the worst possible feelings if he laid eyes on me again. That was the worst shame that I felt. I would have liked to help the guy and what I was doing was fucking around with him.

Jesus, I thought. This guy is going to want to kill me if we actually survive all this.

I swirled my tongue under the head of his prick and flicked at the tiny mouth at the tip, French kissing it the couple of millimeters I could get. The tendons in Ron's legs stood out. He was turned on enough now to be lifting his hips towards me unconsciously. I slid one hand under his ass in the gap that made. It was hard to balance with out my usual second hand to take my weight.

Ron gave a whimper. He liked the feel of my hand. I smoothed it under the cheek of his ass, cupping and kneading. The rhythm of his mouth slowed down. He started to just suck me instead of bob. Maybe his neck was getting tired or maybe I was distracting him. I did my best to distract him.

Atta boy, Ron... Give him more, I thought. More. I forgot briefly about cops and what lay beyond us in the sprinkler sodden room, even if I didn't forget the man watching.

Ron gave another groan. I slid my hand under so it could caress both butt cheeks and worked my middle finger into his crack. The angle was bad to find his asshole but I played near it. I didn't particularly want to find his asshole in case that was too much for him. After all, he was straight --nominally. A poke there might put him off. So mostly I kept my mouth moving.

I stayed at it for something more than twenty minutes. And when I realized that I had got him near the point, I was surprised to have done it all the same. The twenty minutes of intense sucking overrode whatever fear and anger and disgust he was feeling. By then his breath was ragged and there was sweat again, fresh and sweet on his belly when the coats slid a little way back. Ron gasped explosively. I carried the tight stroke down to the profuse nest of curls at the base of his cock, taking the head of his prick into my swallow. Tighter...

His breath caught. I saw his balls tighten at the same time as his whole body tightened. For a second he was motionless, jutting his hips as high towards my mouth as he could. He took his spasm silently. Then I slid to the top of his shaft as the cream spilled out.

I wanted HT to see it. I flicked my tongue into it as the liquid came out in spurts. Strings of cum spanned my tongue and lips and the dark pink tip of his cock. More white sperm dribbled in globs like wax down the side of a candle. It kept coming.

Panting, breathing open mouthed, I gazed at HT. His gaze was soft. He was staring intently at the trick I was doing with my tongue. His gun was pointing straight at his own kneecap.

It seemed to me that there was a bulge in HT's pants. I couldn't be certain. He hadn't taken his prick out to jerk off while watching us nor done anything like that. But he was turning his feet outward as if he wanted to give his crotch a bit more room.

I licked up the cum mechanically. There was a lot of it. I figured he had to have been saving that load for a long time. Ron didn't beat off all that often, for sure. I looked at HT, not focussing on Ron.

"See...? I did him. That's what you liked to see? The faggot cock-sucking? You liked my show?"

He smiled stupidly. He gave a kind of a chuckle. I licked Ron's prick elaborately again. Below me Ron was now lying flat. His prick started to soften rapidly. I dropped it and moved towards HT.

"I'm a cock sucker. Okay, you know that. You see. Want me to suck your dick now?"

"No..." HT spoke slowly, almost dreamily. I was brought up short. I'd forgotten the handcuff. I couldn't approach the gunman because I was still attached to Ron.

"But you liked seeing that, didn't you?"

HT smiled again. "It was weird."

"You liked it."

"Yeah." He smiled, blinked and then frowned.

"Let me suck your dick."

"You're insatiable."

"All us faggots are." I retorted. Inside I squirmed tight, clenching. Jesus God, what Ron must be thinking to hear this! He had to be thinking I was out of my mind, cock hungry when there was a gun pointed at me. I had sucked exactly three dicks in my life before I sucked Ron's.

But I moved as close to HT as I could. Ron moved around behind me. HT didn't tell me to stop so I got closer.

"Let me suck you before your hard on goes." I begged.

"That would be stupid." He said.

"C'mon, Man." I said softly. "You might be dead in an hour. Last suck ever."

I couldn't get closer to HT and HT didn't speak or move. His expression wasn't hard or revolted, just slightly thoughtful. I couldn't tell if he was seriously considering my offer or not, but I went on.

I really did not want to suck HT's dick. I wasn't even thinking of anything heroic, like disarming him at the moment when he came. I figured he was going to turn me down anyway. I was trying to keep him distracted.

I didn't want him to remember that he had ordered me to fuck Ron's butt. Maybe I could muster enough hard to do it. I had got some arousal when Ron was sucking on me. But as long as I kept HT thinking about having his own dick sucked, maybe he'd forget that I hadn't come yet. Maybe if I kept talking he'd wouldn't notice or care that I'd substituted a different show for the one he'd demanded.

"I could give you a hard on with my mouth." I said. I winced invisibly at the sound of my own words. I was very aware of Ron behind me. I was making him think I was the worst cock hungry slut in the world by going on pleading with HT. But I didn't have a plan. All I could think of was to keep asking.

"I still got a hard on." HT said absently. "I told you. I shoulda kept the receptionist."

"Feels the same." I said. Ron was moving around behind me, scrabbling. "You're going to let us go in the end, right, HT?" There was desperation in my voice and I wince once again. "Ron and me did give you the faggot sex show like you wanted." Get control of the situation, I ordered myself.

HT had remembered the gun. Now it was pointed at the elevator doors. "I told you." He said. "I don't want to kill you two guys. It's not..."

The cel phone ringing cut him off again. I went quite still. HT looked around and picked it up. He did his routine switching the gun to his left hand and the phone to his right.

"Yes?" said HT.

I looked back at Ron. The scrabbling had been when he started to get dressed again. He was pink in the face. His belly was unsurpassably beautiful. He was on his knees. He had his jockey shorts back on and one sock. And he was trying to get his bare foot down the leg of his trousers.

We both slithered awkwardly back to the wall, hurriedly bumping.

"You got to do exactly what I tell you, understand?" HT said to the cel phone.

"Sorry." I said to Ron miserably. "Fuck. Sorry." I couldn't say what I wanted to. I started to grab for my own clothes. I got my boxer shorts and knocked one of Ron's shoes close to him so he could get it. He didn't stop dressing. I started to pile into my clothes as quickly as he got into his. Tugging, scrabbling and fumbling, we both got dressed like it was a race. We were facing each other so we had to stare at one another while we got our clothes on. The pink faded from Ron's face and he looked confused. He couldn't do up his shirt buttons one handed. His hand was shaking. So was mine.

"I don't want to even see any guns. I promise you, man. I'm not going to fire, not even once if you don't give me any trouble... I know. I promise." HT's voice was jagged with emphasis.

I reached to Ron without speaking. Wordlessly, like we were Siamese twins and we had practiced it before, we did up Ron's buttons using both of our hands. We used one of mine and one of his for every button. Then he instantly brought his hand to my chest and we did up my buttons the same way without pausing. We were almost nose to nose, panting on each other. Ron looked decidedly rumpled.

HT's voice rose up in a tone of sorrow, like a preacher reproaching the congregation for sin. "You have my word on it. You better not try to stop me."

By the time HT hung up the cellular phone, Ron and I were both fully clothed and had stopped dressing. We looked like we had tried to turn our office clothes into scarecrow costumes. His shirt was untucked and one of his socks was on top of his trouser cuff. I had the idea that the collar of my jacket was inside out and my hair standing on end. His eyes were round. Compared to us, HT was composed.

"It's time to go outside, Guys." He said. "When we come out of the elevator, you have to do exactly what I say and walk exactly the way I tell you. --Understand?"

"Yes HT." Said Ron.

"I'll show you how I want to stand."

We knelt and waited for him to show us.

HT clambered to his feet with a sigh. He looked withdrawn, tired or a little saddened. When he walked towards the elevator Ron and I stood up. Ron grabbed my arm for balance on his way up without noticing it.

HT pressed the elevator button. Then he walked back beside us. We stood there in silence. The clanking sound of the works inside the wall was impossibly loud. It was never that loud when there were people in the building, I thought. It took ponderous seconds rising just one floor. We could hear the weight of the cage, even the scrape of the cables.

The cops have done something to the elevator, I thought. I wondered if HT would realize. If he did, he would do something like fire a shot through the ceiling of the elevator. He'd shoot at the swat team guys that were standing on the roof of the elevator. They'd all start shooting through the roof.

It sounded like an anvil being dropped when the elevator clanked into place. The doors whispered open. The elevator was empty. HT was standing behind us by then.

He spoke carefully and patiently. "One on either side..." We arranged ourselves. I wound up on the right of HT and slightly behind him. My arm was crossed in front of me. Ron wound up on his other side and slightly in front of him, walking backwards.

"Hold his shoulder."

Ron tried. It was impossibly awkward. He couldn't reach around HT. HT didn't seem to mind. In a knot we shuffled into the elevator. HT looked up. No shots broke out.

"Shall I press the button?" Ron said. He was closest.

HT nodded.

The elevator clanked even louder when we were inside it but now it sounded normal. It rode smoothly to the ground floor. The doors opened and we were facing the atrium, a glass wall with double doors, sunlight and an unmanned reception desk.

HT didn't move so we didn't move. The doors started to close again. HT stuck his foot out and stopped them. Then we started to shuffle forward.

It didn't seem to me that the swat team could shoot with us close together like this. They'd be taking a terrible risk of hitting Ron or me. But maybe they would be figuring the risk was the only way to keep us alive.

Just before we reached the glass doors I felt Ron's fingers curl around mine. He took my palm into his fingers and held on. He was holding my hand where we were linked by the bracelet.

"Are you okay, Ron?"

"I've been better." His voice was shaky. We could see a row of police cars, an empty cleared street and a square gray truck parked opposite the door.

"You're going to drive the truck, Gordon. Is that clear?" HT said.

"I'm going to drive the truck." I repeated like a zombie. We pushed the glass door open with three shoulders.

It wasn't still outside. We could hear traffic. Only in this tiny fraction of the city, in this one block had anything come to a stop. The hissing roar of traffic was there with all the usual distant indistinguishable clamor of the city, the white noise that fills a populated area as thick as smog. I could feel a heartbeat. I don't think it was my own.

The cops were watching. They had black helmets. They were behind the cars. We moved in slow half steps into the open area. The armored truck was parked directly in front of us. The passenger door stood open. We could see into the seats. They were empty. There was nothing between us and the seats, but there would be a two-foot step up.

It really didn't take any time to cross the street. The three or four seconds it takes you never really register. It was twenty steps away, that's all. None of the cops moved at all. HT was breathing like he was running a race.

I wonder if I'll feel it if I get shot, I thought.

And then we were trying to get up into the armored truck all three together simultaneously. HT let out a deep breath as if he had been holding it instead of panting. The edge of the seat met the front of my knee. The side of the open door scraped forcefully against my shoulder and side. HT's elbow was in my ribs so hard that it bruised.

Then we were in the truck with just enough room to spread out a few inches again. And then I saw something move.

Ron was the only one of us facing the right way. He was still facing outside of the truck. I stepped back. I pulled him. I saw two blank black helmets with shiny faceplates rise. They had been crouched down behind the seats. I pulled Ron down after me and with me. Again the huge loudness of gunfire cracked in a small space and my ears sang with it. I saw the small gun spin upwards. HT faltered on top of the passenger seat.

Then I fell on the road and I yanked Ron with me so the gun smoke was above us. It was above HT's body. There was something strange about him because while his head and his right side fell limp, his left hand still scrabbled to clutch a grip on the back of the seat. There was a fog of blood blown out of his body onto the glass. There was a thundering race of men in body armor sprinting towards us as we sprawled on the tarmac.

Ron drew a deep breath like a man gut punched. "UH! ...HT!" HT toppled slowly lumped over the passenger seat, the sole of one shoe sticking towards us. The men in black helmets poised above him, gripping long black rifles two-handed but he was past moving. I didn't have to tell Ron he was dead.

The face that Ron turned towards me was chalk white and dotted with pin head sized beads of blood. For an instant I thought HT's body would fall back down on top of us but it didn't. Without a word Ron turned his face into my chest. He buried his eyes in the front of my coat while shuddering gasps ran through him. He gripped my arms with white knuckles. It looked and sounded like he was crying but he wasn't. It was just the overwhelming release of knowing that he had made it out alive.

End of story.