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Charlie belongs, body and mind, to his country. He’ll come to resent the mindset, in time, but it’s a comfort in the trenches. Sergeant says jump, Charlie jumps. He says kill, Charlie kills. Individual will is vital to survival—but only so far as it stays within the neat lines the army has drawn.
Charlie is primed for obedience, in 1918. Primed for madness, too. It must be a tempting time and place.
His sergeant approaches him on a wet, blustery day. A hell sort of day. Artillery’s been shooting off lazily, thudding too close for Charlie’s taste, though he’s kept his cool, not wanting to show weakness around the more seasoned men. So when his sergeant pulls him off the line, he’s game for whatever bullshit the man has for him. He winks and waves at Noel as they tromp away, through the mud, into a wooden hut protected by the rain. Charlie hasn’t seen a place like this before. No—he has—from the outside, and never wondered why it might exist.
Inside is humid, and smells faintly of sweat and something deeper, a locker room sort of scent that makes the hairs on the back of Charlie’s neck stand on end. There’s something cushy about it. A thin mattress is on the floor, and a device he’s never seen, something motorized that is currently motionless. His sergeant—what was the man’s name again? Does it matter?—points at the mattress and orders him onto his hands and knees.
Charlie laughs. “What, am I gonna be your lay for the night?”
His sergeant strikes him across the face. That kind of talk is risky at best, insubordination at worst, but Charlie’s still shocked at being struck. “I said get down, Dowd,” he snaps.
Charlie pulls his boots off and gets on the mattress. The texture’s weird, too soft for a place like this, almost organic in the way it accommodates Charlie’s body. Charlie’s brain feels fuzzy. He should know the sergeant’s name. Maybe this is the start of shell shock; maybe he’s being pulled off the line because the others see that horror in him.
The sergeant kneels beside him and starts fussing with the machine. “Pull your pants down,” he says, business-like. Like Charlie’s lining up for a typhoid shot. “Now, this may seem unorthodox, but the medics are telling us that they need more emissions for their work, and by God, we’re gonna get them what they need. This here is a device for collecting it.”
“Emissions?” Charlie repeats. He numbly works open his pants and tugs them down. Somehow, he already knows what’s coming. Something isn’t right. Outside, the bombs roll like thunder. There’s no time for this, he thinks. They’re supposed to go topside.
“Yeah,” his sergeant says. “Human pearls. Spunk. Cum. Whatever you want to call it, Dowd, we need it.” He wraps a leather strap around Charlie’s thigh; Charlie shudders and tries to flinch away, but his sergeant smacks his ass once, hard. Charlie yelps in surprise. “Hold still, Private. This is to keep you steady.” He cranks the strap until it’s nice and tight, then leans over Charlie and slaps the other one on, careless, and again, something isn’t right about it, the texture or something—it’s leather, good, strong leather, but there’s something—moist about it, maybe. Organic. That’s the word that keeps coming to mind, organic, every part of this alive, somehow, with Charlie in the middle feeling increasingly dead.
“Spread ‘em,” his sergeant says. He’s fitting a bar between Charlie’s legs, one that forces his legs open. Charlie struggles to remember his sergeant’s name. It feels important. “Alright, good lad. We’re almost done.”
“You said you’re collecting—“
“Yes, Dowd, get with the program. Just relax. This is for your country.”
Charlie wants to ask, what’s my country, again? Do you know? But that’s almost as absurd as what the sergeant does next: He fits something over Charlie’s flaccid penis, something tight and rubbery. Like a mask, Charlie thinks, dazed. He should fight this. He sinks onto his elbows and groans softly. “The medics need this…?”
“That’s right,” he says. “This is a little uncomfortable, sure, but you’re saving lives, Charlie. Like a good soldier.”
A laugh bubbles up inside of Charlie; he bites his tongue to will it away. He’s not surprised in the least when the sergeant begins to rub his fingers in smart circles against Charlie’s hole. His fingers are slick, greasy. His movements are perfunctory. Like he does this every day. Maybe he does—maybe this is something everyone has to do, and Charlie’s just finally drawn the short straw. He grinds his teeth into his tongue, trying not to moan as his sergeant’s fingers dip inside of him, stretching him.
Charlie barely has time to get used to that sensation when the sergeant pulls out and begins fussing with the machine again. There are several clicks, and the sergeant cranking something, like he’s trying to wind up a car engine. Something thick and rubbery presses up against Charlie’s hole. Flexible. Organic, he thinks again. An animal, or beast, or the sergeant himself lining up, somehow, even though he hasn’t pulled down his pants. Charlie flinches and tries to pull away; his sergeant huffs impatiently and yanks him by the bar between his legs to reposition him.
“Come, now, Dowd, take it like a man. Are you a soldier or not?”
“Yes, sir,” Charlie mumbles into his arm.
“What was that?”
“Yes, sir,” Charlie repeats, and a second later the thing is breaching him, click by click, stretching him, and all Charlie can do is gasp and buck. He can’t pull away, this time; his sergeant’s grip is too tight on the bar, his other hand on Charlie’s hip. Pinning him. That can’t be right; he’s still working with the machine, can’t possibly have that many hands, and yet, it makes sense, or almost does, the truth skating across Charlie’s brain.
The rubbery tip is curved, curling, almost, grinding slowly inside of him as the sergeant finishes calibrating the machine.
“That’s a good boy,” the sergeant says. He claps Charlie’s ass, affectionate this time, and the only thing Charlie can think is—what is his fucking name? Which sergeant is this?—as the bombs walk across the earth and the device pierces him, inch by inch. “Now, I’ve heard word that you haven’t been visiting any of the girls; is that right?”
Charlie nods, his face hot. He doesn’t trust himself to speak.
“Good, good. Then you should have plenty to give us.” Whatever he was doing with the machine is over; he checks Charlie’s straps, the bar, and gives the rubber encasing Charlie’s cock a firm tug. It doesn’t come off, but the tug makes Charlie gasp and jerk; his sergeant laughs. “Oh, relax. Try and enjoy yourself.”
One final click, and the machine rumbles to life. The cock in him starts to move in a slow rocking motion; Charlie doesn’t know if he’s gone crazy or what, but it seems to grow as it moves, just like a human cock growing hard, and the thought has his own cock stiffening inside of its rubber. The bar between his legs must be connected to the machine, because he finds he can’t pull away, can only rock his body back into the machine, encouraging it deeper. He’s not ready for that, though; he tries, instead, to stay still, to just take it as it starts mechanically thrusting.
“There,” his sergeant says. “There you go. Look at that—you’re already leaking. Good.” Charlie looks between his legs and finds that he is, precome beading like a shining pearl at the end of his cock. “Alright. I’ll be back.”
“You’re leaving?” Charlie can’t help the panicked edge to his voice at that—the machine is already starting to overwhelm him; he has no clue how to turn it off, and he’s in a deeply vulnerable position. They are, after all, still in the trenches. If there were an attack—
There won’t be an attack, Charlie thinks. Not here. But the thought doesn’t originate from himself. It’s a whisper entering his mind. You’re safe.
Yeah, right.
His sergeant pats his cheek. Charlie doesn’t hear what he says over the roaring in his ears. He can’t tell if the sound is real, if it’s planes overhead or the machine or something else entirely. Smiling, his sergeant taps his chin, then stands, brushes his pants off, and leaves. The door snaps shut. Charlie is alone, with no one and nothing to distract him from what’s happening to his body.
The machine fucks him slowly, grinding inside of him at a pace that’s excruciating. It seems to curl in on itself with every thrust, making a tight knot that stretches him. The clear rubber casing on his cock is painfully tight now that he’s fully erect, and he would swear it’s sucking on him, a pulse in time with the machine. Too slow to match his heartbeat, which is racing, now, as his cock drips, drips.
This can’t be real. Charlie’s not sure what the alternative is, but there must be something else going on; it must be some fever dream, or nightmare, some drug-fueled haze. But his body is too present for that. It’s singing, every nerve ending on edge, and when he comes, it’s with a starburst of light behind his eyes and an outbreak of sweat in the small of his back, on his chest, the back of his neck.
The machine carries on, swallowing his come. Grinding, grinding, right there, right at the nexus of Charlie’s pleasure, and it’s too much and it’s not enough all at once. He wants to be fucked proper. (And how does he even know what that feels like? (And by who? His sergeant, whose name he can’t remember? Whose name he doesn’t care to know?))
His second orgasm is slower coming on, seems to take ages, the steady push and pull of the machine dragging it on, and on, until Charlie is shivering and cursing and trying to fuck himself on the strange curling device. All the while, his come drips, drips into the device. Fuck, what does he know about medicine, anyway? Maybe the docs really do need it. Maybe he’s not going crazy. His toes curl. His thighs ache terribly. His sergeant still hasn’t returned, and Charlie’s afraid he never will, that this is his new life, his new hell that’s almost like heaven.
His second orgasm, when it crests, hits him hard, and goes on, and on, longer than any he can remember having before, until he’s sobbing and thrashing on the machine, overstimulated, properly losing it. But the machine doesn’t care. It may feel organic, but it’s not a real creature; it’s incapable of understanding Charlie’s limits. It persists, grinding, grinding, fucking right there and Charlie’s second orgasm trips into his third, hardly any break at all, this time, and then he’s laughing, a huge rush of it, because the absurdity of his life is all too much to take.
He loses track after that. The machine fucks orgasm after orgasm out of him, and all the while, it fucks his come out of him, whether he’s begging for it to stop or begging for more. It wrings him dry, and then keeps on fucking. On, and on.
When his sergeant returns, Charlie is hollowed out, mindless. His sergeant kneels and gently lifts Charlie’s face. He wipes away a string of drool and sighs, smiling. Charlie knows who it is, now. He knows. He always has, hasn’t he? The name on the tip of his tongue.
“Tell me, Charlie,” he says. “Have you had a good time?”
He nods numbly. It’s not entirely true, but not entirely a lie, either.
“Good, good lad. Now I’ve got another question. Think hard. I know that’s going to be difficult for you, but really think.” He strokes a hand through Charlie’s hair; Charlie’s eyes flutter closed. He braces himself. “What do you know about Roland Cummings?”