Chapter Four
Morning came with a plug.
Tessa woke him by pressing a thick silicone plug against his sore hole and working it in until the base seated flush. He gasped into the pillow. She strapped a short leash to his collar and handed him a pair of thin linen pants that did nothing to hide the plug’s shape when he walked.
“Yard path. Head up. If you drop the plug, you start over from the gate. Now follow me.”
He walked.
Gravel bit his bare feet. The plug shifted with every step and pressed his prostate until his cock tented the linen wet at the tip.
Dommes and other men watched from porches and the training ring.
Someone whistled low. A man on a leash by the posts stared at Gage’s mouth like he recognized the look.
Another man was bent over a sawhorse taking a flogger while a small crowd counted.
Gage kept his eyes forward and his jaw tight and took the path like it was a job he had begged for.
Halfway to the hall Tessa stopped him under a pine, reached into his pants, and twisted the plug once. He gasped. A thread of precum wet the linen further.
“Still in,” she said. “Keep going. Don’t clench so hard you push it out.”
The plug walk took longer than the path required because Tessa made it take longer.
She had him pause at the training ring while a different man took a strap across his ass and counted.
Gage’s plug sat heavy. His cock wet the linen in a dark spot he could not hide.
A domme with gloves stopped them and asked Tessa if she shared for short demos.
“Not this morning,” Tessa said. “Public trial. After that, ask again.”
The gloved woman nodded and moved on. Gage exhaled. Tessa tugged the leash.
“Greedy for a demo you did not get?”
“No. Relief, I think. I wasn’t ready for a stranger’s hands.”
“Good answer. Keep walking.”
A pair of younger applicants watched with wide eyes as they passed. Gage kept his gaze on Tessa’s boots.
Near the hall steps a redhead on a porch called, “New?”
“Mine,” Tessa said. “Keep moving.”
Inside, four dommes waited by a padded breeding bench under high windows. Tessa. June from the night before. Nora. And Vera, silver at her temples, cock already heavy and oiled. The room smelled like leather and polish and bodies.
Chairs scraped as the audience settled. A few claimed men knelt at their dommes’ boots along the wall. One of them caught Gage’s eye and gave the tiniest nod, the kind that said you will live through this and want it again. Gage’s mouth went dry. Tessa’s hand on the leash stayed steady.
Vera flexed her oiled cock once in her fist and looked at Gage the way a surgeon looks at a clean field.
“He is the one from cabin three,” she said.
“He is,” Tessa said.
“Good. I like a body that’s already warmed up.”
A woman with a clipboard spoke to the small audience gathering along the walls.
“Public four. Sequential. He stays on the bench until all four finish.” She glanced at the men watching from the side.
“Ladder note. Men who complete public trials remain eligible for the final eight ritual. Men who exit the program leave with escort and lose further community access until the end of the cycle.”
Gage heard it. The words landed simple and hard. Stay and go deeper. Leave and the doors close. No menu. Just the fact of what continued and what ended.
Tessa guided him onto the bench face down, chest to pad, knees on the rests, arms stretched to the forward grips.
Straps closed over his wrists and thighs.
She pulled the plug free with a wet sound.
Cool air hit his open hole. Cum from the night still marked him; fresh oil joined it under her fingers.
“I’m first,” Tessa said.
She mounted the bench steps and pushed into him in one clean thrust. Public meant he could not hide the sound he made.
She fucked him for the room, deep and sure, hand on his collar, hips snapping until the bench creaked.
Someone in the audience shifted. Someone else whispered and got shushed.
Tessa came with a low sound and filled him, grinding through it, then pulled out so the room could see the wet drip from his hole.
She stayed close long enough to stroke his hair once, a private beat in a public room, then stepped down so June could climb up.
Gage’s fingers flexed on the grips. His cock dragged on the pad.
He was already close from the plug walk and Tessa’s claiming, and he knew he would not be allowed to finish until someone said so.
June took her place without pause and drove harder, slap of skin loud in the hall.
She reached under and stroked his cock until he was dripping on the pad, then stopped and left him aching while she used his ass for her own end.
“Oh, he’s dripping already, look at the mess on the pad,” June said, cheerful as a compliment.
“Poor thing. He wants to come and he knows he won’t.
” When she came she slapped his thigh once in fond approval and stepped off.
Cum joined cum. Gage’s thighs shook in the straps.
Between the second and third domme on the bench, Tessa wiped sweat from his back with a cloth and spoke low near his ear, for him more than the room.
“Three and four still to go. Breathe. Push back when she enters.”
He pushed back when Nora entered. The audience murmured. Nora liked to talk.
“Look at him take it. Open hole. Full of them already. You wanted total, right? This is what total looks like with an audience. Don’t hide your face in the leather, let them see how easy you are.”
She fucked him fast and mean and came with her nails in his back.
He yelped. She laughed once, sharp, and patted the mark she had made.
“There. Something to remember me by. You’re welcome.
” Someone in the audience laughed with her, then went quiet when Tessa looked that way.
Nora stepped down still half hard and wiped her cock on the inside of Gage’s thigh like a signature.
He shuddered. The woman with the clipboard made another note.
Vera climbed the steps without hurry, oil bottle in hand, and the room’s attention tightened again.
“He’s open,” she said. “Good work.”
Her thrusts started slow and built until Gage was sobbing into the leather, full already, taking more. She came with a quiet sound and stayed deep long enough that he felt every pulse. When she finally pulled free the woman with the clipboard called the trial complete and noted the time.
They unstrapped him. He could barely stand.
Cum ran down the inside of his thighs. The audience clapped twice, sparse and satisfied, then filtered toward the doors.
Tessa left him plugged again with a thicker plug that sealed their loads inside, got the thin linen back on him over the mess, clipped the leash to his collar, and put a blanket around his shoulders for the walk out.
She crouched so he had to meet her eyes.
“Final eight is tomorrow night. I lead. If you want that, you show up ready. If you want out, you tell intake before noon and they drive you.”
He nodded once. His voice was wrecked. “I want it. I want the eight.”
She kissed the corner of his mouth, brief and claiming. “Then rest. The plug stays until I say otherwise.”
Back on the path the thicker plug made every step a pulse.
Tessa took a longer route past the posts so more of the yard could see the linen dark with mess and the leash short in her hand.
Gage’s face burned. His cock stayed hard.
A woman with a tablet made a note as they passed and did not explain it.
On the way she made him stop twice, once to adjust the plug in front of a porch full of watching women, once to kneel on gravel and thank her for the trial in three plain words while his cock twitched in the linen.
“Thank you for using me.”
“You’re welcome,” she said.
A younger applicant on a nearby bench stared with his mouth open. Gage kept his eyes on Tessa’s boots until she tugged him up. The walk finished under noon heat, linen stuck to his thighs, plug sealed, collar bright with sweat.
At the cabin steps she unclipped the leash and made him stand in the doorway for a full minute facing the yard, plugged and marked, while she watched him hold still. His cock twitched in the linen. A whistle blew somewhere near the posts. He did not move until she said he could go inside.
“You kept the plug,” she said once the door shut. “You kept your head up. That walk was clean.”
“Thank you.”
He sat on the bed with the plug sealed and the blanket around his shoulders while she coiled the leash. The quiet after public use undid him almost as much as the trial.
“What is it?”
“This. You cleaning gear while I sit here marked. It feels kept.”
Tessa’s mouth curved once, barely. “That is the point.”
She checked the plug seal with two fingers and nodded, then left him on the bed.
“Sleep if you can,” she said. “Tomorrow decides how far the week goes for you.”
He slept with the plug heavy and her hand on his hip, the public bench still under his chest like a second mattress he could not leave behind.
Once in the afternoon he woke to her hand in his hair and the sound of rain starting on the cabin roof, soft and steady, and he went under again with that rhythm in his ears.
Evening was quiet on purpose. Tessa took the thick plug out long enough to clean him and reseat a smaller night plug so he could sleep deeper. They sat on the porch while the string lights came on over the training yard.
“Tomorrow noon is the line,” she said. “You already know what both sides of it look like.”
He watched a claimed man get walked past on a leash, smiling soft at nothing. “I know.”
“You don’t have to decide with your mouth right now. Decide with your feet when the hour comes.”
He nodded.
Rain ticked on the porch roof. Her knee pressed his. The smaller plug was a reminder more than a stretch, and he found himself grateful for the mercy after the day.