Naturally, the universe had to shit all over my elation. A high, nasally voice called out from the front of the shop, “Can someone get us a wheelchair or something?” Two girls came clomping into the store in the most impractical shoes, holding by the upper arms between them a mostly-unconscious boy. They tromped in, their numerous necklaces and bracelets clanging together.
“Come on, come in.” I said, “No, there’s no wheelchair just bring him back here.” I helped them back. How embarrassing! Every eye in the store stared in shock. The whole scene was not very BoyWorks. Marnie would hear about this. I could just see her pissed-off face on Monday. But that was Monday’s problem. Today, there was a sick boy.
They laid their boy on the exam table in the back. I wasn’t medically trained, but when the general manager, Marnie, absent, I was the doctor on duty. In truth, they needed to go to a vet or a doctor, but management preferred we work as intermediaries. We help explain what’s happening to the medical professionals, you see.
The boy was wan, like someone had pulled a plug and let all the color drain out of him. Both of his eyes were darkened with black marker, as were random spots down his body. On his head perched a couple of black and white spotted, stuffed puppy ears attached by a hair weave. From his butt protruded a black buttplug puppy tail. His ribs showed his ragged breathing through his skin. He wasn’t fashionable skinny, mind you, but too skinny. Well-treated boys did not get this skinny. But then, his owners were unreasonably skinny too. They were typical rich bitches from the burbs, with their pumped-up lips; unseasonably brown, flawless skin; long, manicured nails; summer dresses with folds and ruffles of fabric; and the aforementioned bracelets, necklaces and rings, of which there were way too many. I might have seen them on campus before, or maybe just other girls with the exact same look. Even the puppy was a lame, unimaginative idea for high-maintenance, low-commitment girls. And sure enough, their treatment of him was living up to the stereotype.
“Can you explain to me his symptoms?” I asked, sitting in the stool.
“Oh my god,” one of them blurted like she was clearing her throat, “he started acting really weird on Tuesday. When I got home from work he didn’t meet me at the door, he was just curled up on his bed. After I took away his bed and spanked him, he barely even tried to make dinner.”
“It’s so weird,” the other one agreed, nervously clutching her long, straight, partially-bleached hair. “Normally his favorite part of the day is giving us whole-body massages, but for some reason he has barely been trying. Honestly, it feels like he’s given up on life. I think he’s depressed.”
I nodded, “okay, okay. It certainly can happen to boys. More so if they're never allowed to cum. When was his last release?”
The girls looked at each other. “I think he’s a total virgin,” one said.
Something inside me leaped, in involuntary twitch of the crotch. Something in the shitty way she whined “virgin” sounded so appetizing. Also, I’d always had a thing for total virgins: boys who had never experienced a single orgasm. Something about caging them was just so delicious. Total innocence. I could just about see it in his fluttering, pale eyes.
“What about other incentives?” I asked. “Special food, attention, anything for good behavior?”
The other girl stifled a giggle. “A reward? Honey, he lives with us. He has his reward. Did I mention the massages?”
“Gotcha,” I replied, unimpressed. Her toenail polish was scratched and flaking but I didn’t say anything about that. “And what about the rod. How do you punish him?”
“We only use humane methods. We’re very careful about that. We only use the Plus shocker. Except, as I said, this week, when it didn’t seem to do anything. Then I resorted to the hairbrush. He didn’t like that very much.”
“I see,” I said, starting the physical examination of the boy. “And how often is he punished, on average.”
“Well obviously it depends on how good he’s being that day. These young boys can be unruly, as I’m sure you know. So I’d say we zap him about ten times a day.”
“Ten times,” I repeated, “and on what setting.”
“Honey, we don’t fuck around. He gets a 10 when he’s bad.”
I tsked gently, frustrated but trying not to offend a customer. “You should have been told at the time of checkout, or in your pamphlets, that using a 10 can be dangerous. Repeated shocks can and will cause permanent damage. You might have castrated him if you weren’t careful.”
The girls were outraged. They’d paid extra for him to be intact.
I checked the boy’s nodes and abdomen without finding an obvious problem, aside from some muscle tension. His eyes were clear, if unfocused. His breathing was ragged and his heart racing. And then my stomach dropped. He had discoloration of the scrotum. Bad. I grabbed the diagnostic kit and took a closer look at his BoyLock Plus. The places where the electrodes were implanted were red and angry, swollen around the cables. His balls had turned purple. His penis had shriveled up inside its cage. I connected the voltage meter, and it was just as I feared, the electrodes were live. In all likelihood, they’d been on since Tuesday, and probably at a full 10 considering the last setting it had. The pain was connected straight to the strongest pain nerves in the human body. The physical damage, burns and whatnot, had already killed most of the surrounding tissue. The prostate would be cooked through. The balls were most likely nonfunctional. I shut off the device, but did not remove it for fear the flesh would come away too.
“Can I see your phones?” I asked.
It only took a few keystrokes for me to edit the logs and overwrite them. “I have bad news, I’m afraid,” I told them, “It looks like your phone is to blame for this whole thing.”
“How can that be?”
“Do you see this hold button next to the pain inflictor. It looks like you had it locked on 10 this entire time. I don’t know if you set it and forgot it, or if your phone is dysfunctional, but our software is specifically designed to avoid this. It’s really tragic, because the boy is almost certainly no longer intact. If he keeps any part of his apparatus, I’ll be surprised.”
The girls were beside themselves sobbing, taking pictures of their sobbing, and posting their pictures #sobbing. It was a freak accident, an unavoidable error, a moment of forgetfulness, an act of god. There was nothing to do but pick out a new boy and let the healing begin. Shockingly, they picked another pain slut. Typical of no-empathy bitches.
I left their boy in the medical pickup bin. Kristy would be managing over the weekend, so he could be her problem.
The mall was nearly empty and I couldn’t wait to get in my car and leave this whole unpleasantness behind me. Sweet, warm Danielle would be waiting for me under the covers with her wonderful, greedy mouth. I knew that Kristy was bound to fuck up the medical transfer and the boy would probably still be in the bin on Monday, dead. Regardless, I wrote her a note and reminded myself that if I didn’t let her make mistakes, she would never learn.
“Tori, before you go, you need to look at this shipment.” Margot stood before me at the front doors, the light of freedom filtering in around her curvy silhouette.
“Let Kristy deal with it,” I replied.
“Seriously, you need to see this.”
I followed her back to the break room, taking the last chances to stare at her ass. I would bring the passion home to Danielle, I told myself. It’s good to keep the mind engaged. When we got to the break room, there was just a normal shipment of BoyLock Plus devices in a big crate. “So what?” I asked.
“So what?” Margot demanded. “Look.” She shoved one of the plastic, penis-shaped devices in my face.
It took me a moment, but then I saw the logo below the ball lock. It wasn’t the gear of BoyWorks. It was the hammer of MaleTec. I quickly closed the door behind us. “Let’s talk about what BoyWorks can do for you.”
“Go fuck yourself,” Margot spat. Her eyes were mad. “You fucking cronie. You don’t care that we’re selling rebranded, recalled deathtraps?” She spat the words at me
I put a hand on her shoulder, “I think you deserve a few days off, just to clear your head. Maybe we can get you some extra paid leave. Would you like that?”
“Would I like that? I’d like to bring this fucking company down is what I’d like to do. I’m taking this, and I’m giving it to the media. And then we’ll see what the country thinks of ‘new boyowners’ and ‘modern boykeeping.’ I can’t believe this doesn’t bother you. How many boys are in serious danger right now?”
“It wasn’t that kind of recall,” I explained, “it’s just a precaution. A few devices went bad, but they were all user error. No technical problems have been found. They’re perfectly safe, it’s just that the public went into hysterics. I mean, if it was bad, how could BoyWorks be this popular and trusted. I want you to just take a moment to think about what you’re saying. Would one of the biggest companies in the world really put boys’ lives in danger?”
“Do I think a giant fucking money-grubbing company would hide the truth to save their asses and make money? Let me think. Fucking, yes I do! Really, I thought I knew you, Tori. How can you just accept this? I thought you liked boys.”
“I do. I love them. And I think you like them too. So how about this. I’ve seen you staring at the cages, giving extra punishments, that sort of thing. I think you might be a bit of a sexual sadist. Now, don’t blush. Don’t give me that. You like the surge of power sometimes, don’t you?”
Margot hesitated and nodded and I watched her perfect button nose dance in and out of the shadows. “A bit, but I can’t condone…”
“I know, I know. You don’t have to condone anything. I’m just saying, I know you’ve been saving up to afford a rental. What if I sped that along, and I let you take a boy home tonight for free. Would you like that?”
Margot made a long uncertain noise.
“Take a boy. Take the week. Bring him back when you’re done, and tell me you still think BoyWorks is a bad thing. Don’t say anything now. Don’t fight me. Just take a boy and leave, and we’ll talk everything over next week. You’ll get paid for your time. We’ll call it behavioral therapy sessions. Does that sound good?”
Margot looked at me with guilty eyes. She sheepishly offered, “I guess I’m interested.”
“Of course you are,” I said, “there’s no shame in being turned on by boys. Sometimes I think I like boys more than girls, honestly, but that stays between us. What kind of boy do you like?”
We walked out into the now-deserted main store. All along the row were boys, some sleeping, some staring. All had been zapped by us at one point or another, as part of the demonstrations. All had reason to be afraid. “I like gentle boys,” Margot said, “one I can dress up and cuddle with. A cute one. But not one with a Plus. I don’t want to have to deal with a deathtrap.”
What could I do? I’m a company woman. I let her have Clair’s boy. We’d just say that the implantation had to be done at our central facility due to complications. She’d be concerned, but she’d understand. Presumably Margot wouldn’t do him any visible damage during the week. Having never had a boy before, she might be gentle and cautious, or she might go overboard with excitement and do some real damage.
Management would be getting a whole earful about this, I promise you that. It was bullshit that I had to clean up after their messes. How a whole box of mislabeled devices could get out to a store was completely beyond me. Several people must have fucked up. It was a wonder that boys made their way safely home at all with this level of incompetency. I brought the box of mislabeled devices out to my car and stashed it in the trunk. Hopefully Margot would have her fun and that would be that. If not, I wasn’t dealing with it anymore.
With that promise made to myself, I started back home, trying to keep my mind on cuddling Danielle and not on the future of my friendly little licker boy going home with his nasty, old owner. I hoped she’d enjoy him and treat him as nicely as I did.
