THE LABOURER by Pete Brown. petebrownuk @ yahoo.com
Read all of Pete's stories in groups.yahoo.com/group/petebrownseroticstories
Part 2
When I finally said goodnight to Mike after a couple more beers, it was just as well that I'd left the bike at home as I was almost staggering along the sidewalk.
It wasn't just the beer - it was the excitement, the thrill of what we'd agreed: I was going to have a real test at last, pitting my strength and ability to work against guys who would be beaten if they failed!
I could barely wait to get into my room, and it was hard to get my jeans off as my erection was so hard - the more I thought about it, guys working because they feared physical punishment, the more excited I got. I hardly had to touch my dick before the pre-cum was flowing, and as I sprawled on my couch imagining what it would be like to be made to really work, my dick and balls were positively aching as they wanted to shoot so much. I deliberately kept my hands off my dick and watched as it jerked up and down all by itself as I let my brain imagine what it would be like to be in competition with a big tough guy like me, and know that if you failed to beat me, you would fele a cane, or a tawse. What the fuck was a tawse, I wondered. And what must these whippings be like, that an indentured servant never had more than one because they were so terrifying that he would do anything to avoid a second?
Of course I couldn't keep my hands away for long, as you'd expect, but the moment I stroked my 'skin off and on the head once or twice, I shot, and shot big time! I didn't even have time to pull my dick hard up and point it along my belly, and so right over the carpet, half way to the TV, there was my cum glittering under the lights.
As I lay there panting and letting my heart slow - it's funny, isn't it: however fit you are, your body always goes into overdrive when there's sex in the air? I just lay there, enjoying that incredible feeling that sweeps over you after you've cum, and wondered about what Mike had said. Was he bullshitting me, with all this talk of secret reserves of power and energy? I'd not heard of this theory before, but it did seem to be very plausible - I mean, the human brain is funny thing, isn't it? And there are millions of years of human evolution where it could have worked out sensible strategies like that to protect hunters and the like. And the more I thought about it, the more obvious it seemed - presumably the best hunters, the strongest guys, would learn to keep more in reserve, so they'd be less likely to get caught unawares by wild beasts, and so more likely they would be to be able to breed, and so natural selection would favour keeping reserves.... And so really tough fit guys, like me, would probably end up with really huge reserves of power and energy that we never even guessed we had. I was really turned on by this - as I've told you, for a long time I'd been frustrated at my inability to really drag the last few percent out of my body, and now Mike had revealed that that was just a drop in the ocean, the tiny bit I couldn't will myself to give up. Waiting underneath was this huge extra reserve that In eeded to be forced to give up! In spite of having only just shot a few minutes before, my dick stiffened again, and I lay there, jerking away at myself and groaning out loud at the thought of what I could make my body do when I was up against some of Mike's guys in a real challenge match.
I could hardly wait for Sunday to come. I phoned Mike on Saturday afternoon when I'd finished a small job and had a pocket full of dollars, and verified that the contest was still on. "Oh yes, Steve - that ten dollars of yours is going to be the easiest money I've made this year!"
He gave me his address, which was on one of the minor roads out of town, and then I asked him what time I should be there. "Dawn, Steve! My guys start work as soon as it's light enough. So you be here real early - it's about half an hour to the work site, and you can travel with them and the overseer in my truck - you'll be too tired to ride that bike of yours at the end of the day, and if we transport you, we can also give you a bed for the night as I think you'll need it."
What should I do for the rest of the day then? I thought that perhaps I shouldn't go to the gym as I ought to "save" myself for the contest the next day. But on the other hand, perhaps I ought to remain in the absolute peak of condition, and as I'd only worked half a day, I ought to really work my body for the other half. In the end, the lure of the pool was too great, and I kind of compromised, just swimming for a couple of hours as an "endurance" test, rather than ploughing up and down very fast as I usually did to burn energy quickly.
I got the usual admiring looks from the people who always hung around the pool edge, or lolled against the sides in the water, as I swam steadily up and down. Then as I strutted back towards the locker room, I knew that all eyes were on my body, especially as I was one of the few guys there who wore Speedos - even other dedicated swimmers at that place tended to wear baggy swimming shorts, but I don't see the point:
you don't want all the "drag" against the water, do you? And, anyway, if you've got a nice body, you oughtn't to be ashamed of letting others see it. Mind you, it can be tough - one or two of the women sitting there were pretty cool, and I could feel my dick struggling against the tight stretchy fabric, but there was nothing I could do about it - In ever took a towel into the pool area, and you can hardly cover yourself with your hands without drawing even more attention to your dick, can you?
One of the receptionists who I'd fucked a few times over the years was going off duty as I left, and she chatted inconsequentially to me for a few minutes. If I could have been bothered I just knew that I could have gone back to her place and put it in her again, and she was an OK kind of fuck, never whining and demanding, and knowing that she was there to satisfy my needs, so it was an attractive option. But fucking really does take it out of you, doesn't it? And I had this idea that I'd "save" myself for the struggle the next day - if your balls are all charged up, your whole body's in tension, operating at a higher level, isn't it? I thought it would be good to lay off sex, and not even jerk myself off that night, so that I would be at my absolute peak.
The only problem with deciding to abstain from even jerking off is that it's almost impossible to sleep! I lay there in my bed that night, my dick hard and throbbing, and I just knew it was wondering why it wasn't getting its normal night time massage. I usually jerk off when I get into bed, as otherwise I find that my dick stays too hard, and as I roll over, it can hurt. I've never been one of those guys to sleep in boxers or sweat pants or anything - I like to feel my naked skin against naked skin, and so there's nothing to protect my dick, and , anyway, it's a good excuse to do something I enjoy. It makes for a bit more work, I suppose - I hate jerking off into toilet tissue, and in bed I usually just let it fly. By the end of the week the sheets are pretty stiff with dried cum, and on occasions when I've brought a woman back to my place instead of going to hers, she's professed to be pretty revolted by this evidence of my masculinity. And it's harder in the shower in the morning as the cum tends to stick in your pubes and the hair on your belly and thighs as you roll over, and you know how difficult it can be to get those odd strands of dried cum out of your pubes. Still, it's a small price to pay for the sheer enjoyment of it.
In the end, I gave up and jerked off as usual. I thought it was better to get a good night's sleep, which wasn't going to happen with my balls full of cum, and after I'd thrashed around for what seemed like hours, I reached down and gave my dick the treatment it deserves.
The alarm woke me up in the middle of a fantastic erotic dream, and I realised that I was in danger of being late - usually I wake up with no problem, and it's unusual for the alarm to go off. I decided I didn't even have time to get rid of my morning erection, so I pissed with some difficulty, threw myself into the shower with no time to tease the threads of cum from my pubes, and pulled on my normal crumpled T and jeans - as I've said, they're clean, but ironing is for wimps. Gulping down a big carton of orange juice, I pulled on my leathers and went and got astride my bike and roared off towards Mike's place - at that time of the morning I didn't even worry about the possibility of cops, so I let it rip and had that fantastic feeling as the needle went up to a hundred - it's almost as good as sex, a I expect you know.
I'd never ventured out of town in that direction before, so it was a bit of a shock as I approached Mike's place. You normally expect contractors' yards to be pretty untidy places, don't you, with machinery all around, odd piles of aggregate, rather scruffy offices in portable building, and all that kind of thing. But this was different - it was immaculate! A huge sign at the roadside said "Rooney's Contracts - All kinds of construction and site works. Please come in and discuss your requirements." There was a neat white picket fence stretching up both sides of a long drive, which was itself weed-free and had neatly clipped grass verges, and as I parked my bike at the entrance to what seemed to be a proper brick-built office block, there was the normal stuff around that you expect, but it was all neat: paving slabs piled up geometrically, sand and aggregate neatly corralled into bins, and not a bit of litter anywhere.
I could hear a lot of male voices, and before I could go up the steps to the entrance, Mike appeared from around the side of the building. "Steve, welcome aboard! I was beginning to think you'd chickened out..."
"No way, Mike! That ten dollars....!"
He laughed, asked me if I'd breakfasted, and I said yes, as I thought the OJ counted. "Come on then, and I'll introduce you to my overseer, Sean. I'll be along later to see how you're getting on, but Sean will take you all to the site, tell you what to do, and get you started. Now, I think we said you'd leave your bike here, then, when you're totally exhausted and utterly worked out tonight, we can arrange for you to b given a lift home with it in one of my trucks."
"No need, Mike. I've never got to that state before, and I don't expect to start now..."
"Well I can see that ten dollars is in my pocket already, Steve, if that's the attitude you're taking. I thought you were intent on exploring how far you could push that body of yours."
"Yes, sure, I am. But no one has ever worked me to a standstill before, and I'm not expecting it to happen today, either."
"So just so there's no misunderstanding, Steve, the rules we agreed are that you join my crew to work on this contract I have today, and I pay you a normal day's wages, right?"
"Yes, plus the ten dollars I'll win..."
"...plus the ten dollars you'll win IF you work as hard as my crew does. So you have to start when they do, and work on until they finish. And you only take a break when they do, and there's no sneaking away for a little rest, no leaning on your shovel..."
"N, of course not! But how will you know that your guys are working as hard as I am? I mean, I'm a big guy, so if I shovel something, I take a full shovel. And if I carry stuff - paving slabs and stuff like that - then my load will be bigger than theirs."
"You're making a lot of assumptions there, Steve! Sean keeps a really sharp eye on our guys, as you'll see, and he'll make sure they all have full shovels, and all the loads they carry will really strain them. I pay Sean by results, and he knows how keenly I cost our projects and how little time he has to get them finished. So he in turn really 'encourages' the indentured servants to get on with it, as you'll observe. Now, do you work in those leathers, or do you want to leave them here with your bike?"
There was no point in taking my leathers with me as I only wore them when I was riding, so I took off the jacket, then bent down to unzip the sides of the legs so I could get them off over my heavy work boots. I'm not sure, but I thought I got a mildly disapproving look as my crumpled T was revealed, and I suspect that my scuffed, dirt-stained boots didn't meet with Mike's approval either.
I draped my leathers over my bike, and Mike led me back the way he'd come, around the building. My jaw almost dropped open in amazement - it was like some sort of army parade ground around there! Not only was the absolutely immaculately clean and neat appearance of the place maintained, but Mike's three trucks were all lined up in a neat row, all perfectly clean and shining with polish - I mean, a contractor's truck is meant to be a bit bashed around, and coated with dust, isn't it? But it was the workers who made the biggest impression - for one thing, they were lined up in a straight line, all fifteen of them - guys in construction usually sit or lean, or stand around shooting the breeze when they're waiting for something to happen. But these were all quiet, and were all standing in the same way: feet a little apart, hands clasped behind their backs, and heads bowed. They were all dressed identically, too - no crumpled T and jeans, but smart dark green polos saying "Rooney's Contracts", and dark grey chino shorts (a lot shorter than most men would wear nowadays, being well above the knees, but interesting as they showed their strong muscular thighs). Their black work boots were all polished, too, and I wondered how long they'd taken to get all prepared like this - it was as if they were off to some army parade, rather than going to work construction!
As I looked down the row I saw they were all lean and fit-looking - no excess weight here, and their ages must have ranged from nineteen or so up to about thirty five.
"This is my crew, Steve", Mike said. "Fifteen of the best pieces of servanthood that my money can buy. Now, I want to be scrupulously fair to you, so I don't want you to think that I've picked out a specially tough, hard working set - why don't you choose five guys you'd like to pit yourself against today?"
"No, Mike - then you'd think I'd deliberately picked the runts.... Not that there are any who look like that really, but you know what I mean."
"OK", he said, laughing. "So we'll just pick out each third man - all of them do the same kind of grunt work, so we don't need to select for special skills...." He turned away, and barked an order, and every third man stepped smartly two paces forward, then stood there again, heads still bowed, hands still clasped behind their back.
Another guy then appeared, coming out of the building.
"Steve, this is Sean... Sean, Steve."
We looked at each other, but Mike was between us and we didn't stretch out to shake hands.. He was an ordinary looking guy, nothing special, not tall, not short, not particularly tough looking, but with a trim fit kind of appearance generally. He was wearing a Rooney's Contracts polo like the other men, but he had smart tan chinos on, and regular shoes, rather than heavy work boots. I wondered how this guy was going to control those five tough-looking workers, to make sure that they did as Mike said they did, and worked to the limits of their ability.
"So finish the contract at the Harrison place", Mike told him. "And you remember how we discussed the little bet I had with Steve here? With as sixth person in the crew, it ought to be easy."
"Yes, Mike.... But I can't drive this one..."
"No, but he wants to work! He thinks he's going to prove something to me, and to himself.... And I mentioned the ten bucks to you, didn't I? Well, in addition to your normal bonus, there's an extra fifty for you if Steve here loses is ten to me."
Well, I knew that Mike hadn't been doing it for the paltry ten dollar bet, but now I had proof positive. I extended my hand to Sean now, and said "Glad to be working with you today - just treat me like any one of the other guys...."
To my surprise he didn't reach out his hand to shake mine, but looked mildly displeased. "As I think you'll find out, you'll be glad that I won't be doing that to you. Now, we're ready - you can ride in the back with the crew." He turned away, and shouted "Load up. Quickly now, let's be on our way."
It was a fairly standard open-backed pick-up, and we piled in and sat there on the metal deck, three to a side. Like the outside, this working area of the truck was immaculate, too - it looked as if it had been scrubbed clean: a working truck for a contractor usually gets all sorts of crap thrown in it, and it really takes a beating, whereas this one could almost have just come out of the showroom. It was odd, though - when we normally went out on a job, we usually managed to squeeze into the proper seats at the front of the truck, and you usually only saw big loads of Mexicans and illegal field workers being carried around in the back of trucks like this. I'd kind of thought that a group of regular workers, white guys like us, wouldn't go around in the back, just as if we were some sort of lower order.
I'm not very good on names, so I didn't immediately remember those of the five guys, but they seemed pleasant enough. They didn't say all that much as we sped through the suburbs that were just waking up, so I asked them how they got to be indentured servants. I was pretty shocked, I can tell you - one was a convicted drug dealer, another had been convicted of statutory rape (although he was quick to point out that the bitch had consented, then changed her mind when her folks found them screwing), the third was there for taking part in an armed robbery, but the last two were different: one had failed to pay his taxes on time, and the other for persistent lateness in paying speeding fines! It had never occurred to me that they'd gone that far - when my father had discussed this whole thing with me and gone on about emptying the prisons, I'd kind of thought that it was just the serious crimes that they were talking about. But being indentured for late payment of speeding fines - well, fuck me, it was lucky that I wasn't there, as I do get a fair few tickets with my bike!
When I asked them how Mike was to work for, they all fell strangely silent, though. Finally one of them said quietly, as if he was choosing his words very carefully "I suppose we can't complain. We get fed. The bunkhouse is OK."
"Is that all? Wouldn't you rather be working out in the open air, than locked up in jail? I'd have thought that being an indentured servant and getting a lot of good healthy exercise was a pretty good deal.... I'd always thought of jail as pretty terrible."
The guy looked at me again, and just shrugged. I tried to ask more about what was wrong with being an indentured servant, but they all seemed strangely reluctant to speak, and we sped along in silence for the rest of the trip.
The Harrison place turned out to be one of those huge mansions that rich city slickers buy for week-ending In the countryside. There was a pair of big iron gates, a wide drive sweeping through immaculate lawns up to a huge white mansion, and at the rear separate blocks, all freshly painted and done in "colonial" style housed stables, a pool house, and a huge sports and entertainment complex. Everything was fresh and neat, and there were miles of white picket fences, and acres of hard landscaping made up of paving and gravel. It seemed that we had been extending this paved area to enclose new tennis courts that had been recently built, and stacked around were piles of paving slabs, and bags of cement, sand, and aggregate.
I was surprised when Sean told me that my first job was to mix concrete, manually. It turned out that the Harrisons didn't like noise to disturb their place, so having a mechanical mixer churning away was absolutely not the thing. So one of the indentured servants and I were tasked to stand there and mix it by hand - I'm sure you've seen it done: four shovels of aggregate, to two of sand, and one of cement powder, then turn it all over, folding it well together to mix it all up, make a well in the centre and pour in water, then fold and mix again. Then, when it's properly melded together, you shovel it up into a barrow to be wheeled away to act as the foundations for the slabs, and you start all over. Normally, as I say, you use a mechanical mixer for anything over just a couple of mixes, as it's really hard work - you're bent over the heap of stuff so your back starts to ache, and once you've added the water, each shovel full is really heavy. And you have to co-ordinate your action with the other guy, as both your shovels are active and you need to get up a good rhythm.
After we'd done a couple of barrowsfull, which another of the guys wheeled away immediately, I stood up and stretched, and wiped the sweat off my face. My fellow worker carried on shovelling, though, and I felt that I was somehow letting him down, so I got stuck back in immediately. But after six loads, I was really hot - my T was soaked, and I needed a break, so after we'd filled the barrow and before we started taking the next shovelsfull from the heaps of aggregate and sand, I rested on my shovel for a moment. Sean came by at that moment, and without hesitation he struck out at my companion with a leather strap thing - a tawse, as I learned subsequently. "Fucking keep working!" He snarled.
"Sorry, sir", the man replied, and bend down at once to start again.
"Hey....", I snapped. "We're ahead.... We only stopped for a moment."
"Shut your fucking mouth! I control the indentured servants here, and this is the way they are handled: they work, or they get punished. But weren't you meant to be working alongside them, keeping up.....?"
I glared at him, and started work again.
And so we went on, through most of the morning. As the sun got hotter Sean came along and told the guy to take off his polo, and I gladly pulled off my T too, as it was by now so wet that it was chafing me. And then it was as if Sean just occasionally lashed out at the guy's bare shoulders and back as he came past as if it was fun - but each time he did, I couldn't help but notice that the work pace quickened slightly.
Usually when you're working away there's a radio playing, and you anyway get to exchange a few words with your co-workers, but all that time that we toiled away mixing the cement, not a work was spoken, except by Sean occasionally to urge us on. I was really glad when after a couple of hours he came up with another one of the servants and told him to start mixing, then called me to follow him.
"You're not used to the constant work, and the pace", he told me. "I can see that - I used to be a foreman on a normal site until Mister Rooney employed me to control the indentured servants. I can see that if you stayed on that mixing much longer, you wouldn't be able to keep up."
"Sure I could...."
"No you couldn't. Until you're used to being 'driven' with the tawse and cane, you'd start to slow down, and even if there was no obvious break in your working, you'd start to produce less. So now I'm going to put you on laying the slabs - have you ever done that before?"
"Yes, sure...."
"Well, remember that as well as doing it fast, it's got to be done well. Mister Rooney sells a quality product, so no skimping, no cutting corners - a complete professional quality job is what we're after."
The men laying the slabs had to carry them from the pile at the edge of the drive, and these were not the small ones that are relatively easy - in keeping with the scale of the Harrison place, they'd selected the big, over-size slabs, which were a real struggle for one guy to carry and which usually you asked for help with. But not here - you carried them alone, and at a fast pace. I really had to struggle to keep up with the others, who almost ran along, because of course the ever-watchful Sean was there to "encourage" them with the tawse on their bare skin if they slackened. And the laying of the slabs was difficult too - you had to be on your hands and knees to get the precise alignment that was insisted on, to make all the joint lines perfectly straight, and then you were working at a real mechanical disadvantage as you struggled with the heavy things.
Sean used a different method of "encouraging" the men on this task - any sign of slowing, or any failure of the standard of perfection in alignment, and he used a long, flexible cane to slash viciously at the butts of the guys as they knelt there. I couldn't help noticing that the shorts they wore seemed to be the only things they had on, as when the fabric stretched over their muscles, it was clear that there was nothing underneath them - no visible line of briefs or anything. Judging by how their bodies jerked forward involuntarily when the cane struck, I guessed it must hurt and sting terribly.
I was really glad when it was time for a break at lunchtime - the sun was fiercely hot by now and I was pretty tired. Normally we went off-site to a fast food place or somewhere like that to get something to eat, but Sean did not offer this and I wondered what I was going to do. He tossed grey-looking bars of something to the other guys, then saw me looking, and said "We don't go off-site here. And all that fast food is bad for you. If you've got no lunch, you can have one of these chow bars."
"Thanks....", I said, and he tossed one to me. It felt vaguely slippery in my hands, was an unappetising grey colour, and seemed to be made of little bobbles of unidentifiable stuff bound together somehow. He saw me looking at it, and gave a half smile. "That's a bar of finest chow - Mister Rooney doesn't skimp on feeding the indentured servants, as he wants to keep up the work rate. So none of the cheap rubbish - this is top quality: perfectly balanced meat and vegetables, with all the energy, vitamins, minerals and stuff a working man needs."
I bit down on it, taking a chunk off the corner, and munched at it experimentally. It tasted foul - well, not so much foul, as strange: kind of sour, stale, and both tough and slimy at the same time. I almost spat it out.
"You'll get used to the taste", Sean added as he saw my expression. "They don't add artificial colours or flavourings or anything, as it's meant to be healthy. Just the meat scrapings and offal from the abattoirs that they can't use elsewhere, mixed in with vegetable waste from the food processors. Lots of fat of course, which is why it's slippery, but that's a good source of energy. And lots of roughage from the vegetable skins, husks and other crap."
I almost choked as he said this, but the other guys were devouring theirs hungrily so I guess it must be OK. And I knew I needed the energy - I was really tired, verging on the exhausted, already, and without something to eat I knew I wouldn't get through the afternoon.
Lunch didn't take a long time, though, and as soon as the chow bars were gone and we'd all slaked our thirst with copious quantities of water from a bucket, it was back to work. By five In the afternoon I was completely done in. I'd lost, I knew. The other guys looked really tired, too, but with Sean's tawse and cane always hovering over them, there was no way they could stop, or even slow down. I desperately tried to keep up with them, as my pride wouldn't let me say "enough", but I could see that I might be affecting their work rate and was worried that my actions were resulting in them getting even more punishment from Sean.
I'm not a quitter, though. And I couldn't bear the thought of having to admit to Mike that he might be right! So I struggled on, and could see Sean getting more and more frustrated as the pace of work inevitably slowed when I had to do things together with the other guys. I remembered that Mike had said he had a bonus riding on getting this job finished today, and as the light began to fade, he seemed to get more and more agitated. I was losing it rapidly, and as I was putting one slab of the last rows of slabs in place I dropped it, and it cracked. Without thinking, as if by reflex, Sean struck out at me, his cane falling hard, squarely across my butt.
I screamed out, and my whole body spasmed, but as I recovered I found that, as if by some miracle, I had the power again to lift the broken pieces and fit in a replacement that was handed anxiously to me by another of the guys. The stinging pain from that swipe of the cane lasted for what must have been at least ten minutes, to be replaced by a warm, dull ache that spread all through me; and as I worked on, my mind now focussed on this rather than on the sheer feelings of acute weariness that had been obsessing me as all my other muscles pleaded with my body to quit. And when it was almost dark, and I needed just to do four more slabs, but there seemed to be no way that I could manage it, I looked up at Sean and spat out through gritted teeth "hit me!".
End Of Part 2