Ingenious #1

Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

Graduation Day

A fter the diplomas were handed out, cadets who chose the concubine lottery lined up on the festooned stage of the academy’s auditorium for the drawing.

Holding his ninth Academic Champion Award, Quiggs watched the nervous cadets close their eyes, stick a hand inside the red lacquered box, and swish the tiles.

A concubine’s patriotic service offered an owner a charade of a soft, adoring wife. An owner had absolute control over sexual demands, providing there was no cruel abuse.

Ironically, a soft, adoring wife was a myth. Wives controlled their husbands, and a concubine’s skills surpassed a wife’s.

For a low-ranked owner, winning the lottery was a fantasy come true. The government paid them a stipend for rent and extra expenses. A homely but lusty janitor dreamed of a beautiful young male partner. A lonely, grizzled herder fantasized coming home each evening to a lively young bedmate.

Tradition separated a concubine from his owner before the grandiose claiming ceremony at the Legislative Plaza in two weeks. In the interim, letters and gifts were exchanged .

After the drawing was over, Quiggs walked through the academy’s corridors to his apartment for the last time. Graduates moved out by dusk. Enlistees moved to Port Paducah. Concubines moved into a temporary residence for training before the claiming ceremony. Husbands—just Quiggs this year—moved into the residential apartment chosen by their bride.

Quiggs had a few hours to himself before Rosamunde arrived with a stylist to arrange his braid in loops and check the seams of his vest to see if he had cheated on his diet. He had. None of his finery and careful dieting mattered because guests would snigger at his braid.

Tonight, after an uneasy truce for three months, Quiggs would share a bed with Rosamunde, his future laid out as neatly as the wedding clothes on the bed in his apartment.

Witters teased Quiggs to stop worrying. Rosamunde was twenty-one and ripe for coupling. Quiggs’s cock was kindling. The spark of lifting her nightgown would set him aflame, and nature would follow its course.

In case nature lost its way, Meeks had advised Quiggs to abstain from jerking off for a week. For the last seven days, it was hands off his cock and cold showers. He ached to the point where if a moth skittered across his cock, he’d spurt.

This time next year, he was supposed to be a father and Beau an uncle.

What Quiggs needed was a slug of courage. He opened a bottle of gin, a wedding gift from Commander Bronn, who’d written he had ordered Private Beau away from the ceremony. The commander desired to tour Quiggs’s work tower and discuss weaponry next month.

Quiggs took several deep swallows of gin. The burn spread, shielding him like a warm glove against the cold future.

Wearing his black uniform for the last time, he walked around his empty apartment. Servants had packed his belongings and moved them into the apartment Rosamunde had chosen for their first year .

He set his hat on the table. He’d miss the visor shading his plain face. He sat on the sofa and leaned his head back, but a heavy knocking on the door startled him. The stylist was early. From the sound of that fist, Quiggs’s scalp was in trouble. The room spun when he stood. He stifled the guilt. Mister Quiggs Fallon could get stinking drunk if he wanted to.

When Quiggs opened the door, strong arms swooped him up and swung him in circles.

“What the—Beau? Beau! Holy Shit! Put me down before I throw up!”

Beau set Quiggs down in the middle of the green living room rug. His white-blond hair was cropped on the sides and long on top. He puffed out his chest, stretching the camouflage tee of a soldier. “I am Private Beau now. I am the best archer in the military. I am the biggest soldier Commander Max has ever trained.” His new voice was deep, raspy. When he spoke, he picked out words with a slight hesitation as if testing them on his tongue first.

Beau’s lean frame had filled out in the last three months. His chest was broader—and holy shit he had him some muscles! Quiggs rested his hands on those rock-hard biceps to steady himself. “Your voice… it’s deep… suits your size.” Quiggs arched a brow as he gazed below Beau’s waist. “Those big boys having fun yet?”

Beau blushed. “Commander Max sent me to a pleasure house today to learn sex.”

Quiggs eyes widened. He’d never seen Beau blush. “How was it?”

“The man—he painted his face and wore a short robe and earrings. He put his hands on my male parts and—” Beau broke off, hanging his head.

“It’s normal if you came right away.”

Beau whimpered, “I did not get hard. I was scared. My claws came out, and he screamed. I dropped my credits and jumped out the window.”

“Maybe you need a bad shower with your soldier friends to warm up first,” Quiggs teased. “Worked for me. You won’t have to hide behind a curtain either.”

“I would like a curtain. I do not like how soldiers stare at me in the showers.”

“Beau, you’ve never had a shy bone in your body. What’s wrong?”

“The ring on my cock is red and swollen. It hurts, but my cock stays soft.” Beau placed Quiggs’s hand over his cock. “Feel.”

Quiggs should have snatched his hand away, stepped outside, and called for a chaperone. Instead, accustomed to caring for Beau, he traced the turgid ring, gasping at the size. “Shit, Beau, it’s loaded! No wonder it hurts. You need to shoot.” The shaft twitched and lengthened as he fingered the ring.

Beau sucked in a shaky breath as if punched in the ribs. “Oh, my Quiggs. It is happening. It feels… it feels like… like…” Beau looked stunned by his first erection, as if a chorus of horns blared in his ears, louder and louder when he had anticipated a mild chirp. Beau took him down to the floor and sawed his hard cock against Quiggs’s responding bloomer.

“Beau, dammit… get off me!” He shoved at Beau’s shoulders, those wonderful broad shoulders. “Stop grinding!” Quiggs was close to shooting his own load. Above him, Beau’s face contorted.

A musk tickled Quiggs’s nose. Intense, oily. A blend of boiled leather and damp fur. Spicy, provocative, like bittersweet herbs pulled from their beds with clumps of earth clinging to their roots. Quiggs inhaled deeply, and the telltale shiver of no return traveled up his spine.

After seven days of abstinence, nothing could stop the hot cum spilling out of him—not even Rosamunde’s hysterical screams.

She stood in the room with her hands clapped to her cheeks, her blue eyes spitting fire. “I knew it! Innocent roommates be damned. You’ve been fucking your filthy breed for years!”

What began as a boiling orgasm for Quiggs ended in a pfffftttt of steam .

Rosamunde’s three fathers and a man Quiggs assumed was the stylist stood close behind her. The man sounded as if he was coughing up a hairball.

Two security guards pushed past the First Family, responding to the screams. One held a knife to Beau’s neck, dangling like a broken stem after his orgasm. “Did the breed attack you?”

One word, yes . Beau would die, and Quiggs was absolved. Say yes, then never look back.

“On my honor, no ! Don’t kill him!” Quiggs shoved at Beau. “Get off me before I change my mind.”

Beau rolled off and onto his back. His face was blissed out. His wet crotch filled the room with the enticing reek of feral bait.

Cyrus clearly disbelieved him. “Quiggs, answer truthfully. Were… you… raped?”

Quiggs stood, struggling for an explanation that didn’t get Beau executed on the spot. “No. Beau would never rape me.”

“The sex was consensual?” Cyrus made it a question to offer Quiggs a last chance to escape the consequences.

“You can’t call this sex. We haven’t seen each other in months. We were caught up in… in… hellos.”

Palmer pointed at the wet patch on Quiggs’s pants. “You obviously enjoyed saying hello.”

William fanned his perfect nose at the scent drenching the room. “You heard him, Cyrus. The sex was consensual. The marriage is dissolved.”

Rosamunde pressed a hand over her heart as if staunching the wound dealt her, then turned her face into Palmer’s neck and wept. He swept her up in his arms and carried her out, the red cape she wore parting to reveal her white bridal gown.

William sneered at Quiggs’s effort to hide the stain with cupped hands. “I am thankful we discovered your deviant nature before you defiled my daughter.” He left the room, leaving Second Husband Cyrus to deal with the legal consequences .

Cyrus shook his head at Quiggs. “Your hello has cost you everything. You know the terms of the marriage contract.”

“Rosamunde gets everything.” Quiggs dropped his head in his hands. “I own nothing.” His shoulders quaked. He wanted to squat, rock, and yowl his agony. This could not be happening to him.

Beau recovered from the aftershocks. He bounced to his feet. The guards backed away alarmed by his size. “You have me. I will wed you and take care of my husband Quiggs forever.”

Quiggs spread his fingers and glared through them at Beau’s beaming face.

Cyrus arched a brow. “You’ll have to wait until your Quiggs serves out his three years as a concubine. Since he lacks military training, it’s the lottery for him.”

Quiggs got to his feet slowly. The lottery? The Academic Champion bending over for an eel skinner? Gagging on a dock worker’s cock? Bracing on all fours for a street sweeper when commanded?

Because the way his luck ran, he sure as fuck would draw the scum of the territory!

Quiggs whirled on Beau with both fists swinging. “You ruined my life! I should have cried rape!” He split the skin over his knuckles as he struck Beau’s chin.

Beau stood still, shocked by the first violence Quiggs had shown him.

Quiggs pummeled his chest. “I should have let the guard cut your fucking throat!”

Beau gently trapped Quiggs’s fists in his hands. “My Quiggs, stop, you are bleeding,”

“I’m not your Quiggs anymore.”

“You are always my Quiggs.”

“AAAGGGGGH!” Quiggs struggled to free his fists. “Say that again and I will kick your balls so hard you’ll taste feral bait!”

Beau lifted his stubborn chin. “ My… Quiggs.”

Quiggs kicked at Beau’s groin and jammed his toes when Beau blocked with his hip .

Howling and cursing, Quiggs continued kicking until the police arrived with two caged carts to wheel them to jail.

By the time he was locked in solitary, Quiggs was reduced to broken sobs.