BAY
For the last time in school, I’m performing at graduation.
There’s a kind of nostalgia settling in me, because I know a whole chapter of my life is ending, the people from the school band are scattering in different directions, and I’ll see them one last time during our two-week tour before everyone heads their own way.
Only Malik is staying in town; the rest are heading to other colleges.
I’m fully aware that two weeks after the tour ends, I’m scheduled for my first underground fight.
I keep trying not to think about it, even though Gurco encourages me to train harder, it still doesn’t feel entirely real.
I feel lousy knowing I’m delaying telling Alex about it, but I’m slowly working up to it, but I can already guess he’ll be against the idea of me fighting.
Ironically, I’m against it too, and I don’t see combat sports as anything appealing or as a path for my future, but I have to pay the debt.
As helpful as Ennio has been, I can only imagine he wouldn’t take my refusal lightly.
He wasn’t raised like normal people, and I doubt he’d feel any remorse.
I’d just get a bullet in my head and that would be it.
Meanwhile, the small house we bought near campus is fully furnished, and we decide that while I’m on tour, Alex will live there.
With the security booth so close, I know he’ll be well protected.
One of the chess tournaments he’s competing in is taking place on that very campus, so I feel better knowing he won’t have far to go.
On the last evening before I leave for the tour, two days after graduation, we spend the night in the house, we make love, and it happens again: my knot swells, and Alex takes it incredibly well, with almost no discomfort.
It’s been happening a lot lately, and I have the feeling something is changing in my body; I feel a faint itch around my glands, and Alex admits he’s been feeling a bit of discomfort there too, a tickle, and we wonder if it’s possible our glands will mature at the same time, almost in some strange synchronization.
The next morning, on the day I’m supposed to leave for the concert, we wake up wrapped around each other, and for a moment I lie there with my face buried in Alex’s hair, savoring that moment when I’m holding him, his small body fitting perfectly in my arms, and for a few seconds I just soak in this sense of closeness and calm that always washes over me when Alex touches me, this constant feeling of joy and happiness that rises the moment his skin meets mine.
"Alex," I whisper softly against his ear.
He stirs awake, shifts a little, and turns toward me with a sleepy stretch.
"I believe we’re True Mates."
Yes, I say it, I say those words again, that hope that has lived in me for so long and keeps growing.
His big eyes open wide and lock on my face.
"You really think so?"
"Yes. I can’t wait for my glands to mature, because I know exactly what scent I’ll smell."
"What scent?" Alex tilts his head a little.
"Strawberries, of course. I’m absolutely sure it’ll be strawberries."
Alex laughs.
"Is it because of my strawberry-blond hair?"
"Strawberry blond with a soft pink shimmer," I add pointedly.
Then I grow serious and murmur, "I really mean it. I just know your Allure is strawberry."
"I know what yours will be too," Alex says suddenly with a playful smile.
"Grapefruit."
"What?"
"Seriously. I just feel like you’ll smell like grapefruit…" he mumbles.
I snort a laugh. "Hard to believe, but we’ll see how accurate your predictions are," I tell him with a wink.
Then I sit up.
I glance at my phone and say, "The van with the guys from the band will be here in half an hour. I need to get ready."
"Wait," Alex calls out.
He grabs my shoulders and pulls me tight, and we tumble onto the bed, and for a moment his whole body presses into mine with a sudden, almost feral intensity.
"Get inside me again," Alex whispers.
"I don’t have time to stay longer and, you know, help you through it…"
As I’ve said before, Alex and I never just have quickies. Once he gets going, he needs at least an hour of pleasure, or his mood tanks hard.
"I know, but I need this, just this once, I need you inside me."
"You’re not prepped…"
"Do it, Bay. Please, just do it…"
There’s something strange in his voice, a feverish urgency. His eyes burn into mine with almost frantic intensity, and it ignites a fire in me to match his.
"Okay," I whisper.
I shift between his legs, and Alex quickly pulls them up high against his chest, I press forward…
Alex lets out a pained gasp.
"No, it’ll hurt you—" I growl, stopping.
"Don’t stop. Do it, don’t you dare stop, please!"
Feeling a twinge of unease at his desperation, but I push harder, sinking deeper into Alex’s tight heat.
His eyelids are squeezed shut, his fingers digging into my arms. "Fuck me."
I start to move, and I can feel the pain melt into pleasure, Alex’s breath turns deeper, more relaxed, his arms tightening around my neck.
I rock into him, thrust after thrust, and it’s so damn good, everything inside me opens, expands, like my soul’s lifting right out of my body, swinging on clouds of pure bliss.
I know I can’t hold out any longer, Alex is too tight, too hot, so fucking divine… I’m addicted to him, to that snug little hole of his.
We come together, my cock pulses, spilling deep inside his narrow tunnel, while Alex shoots his sweet release all over my stomach.
I open my eyes and look at his flushed face, he’s staring at me with an intensity, a kind of strange passion and hunger.
"I hope you’re not going to fuck any fans who will definitely cling to your band, you know, the ones they call groupies."
I burst out laughing.
"When you laugh, I feel it inside me," Alex says, shooting a meaningful glance downward at the place where our bodies are still connected.
"You’re the only person who will ever feel that," I say, and I’m dead serious.
"Promise?"
"I promise."
When I drive off with the guys from the band, I look out the window at Alex’s small figure standing by the gate at the end of the driveway.
He lifts his hand and waves at me, and I wave back, then he blows me a kiss and I pretend to catch it and press it to my heart.
A moment later the guys start talking to me about some equipment problems, but I can’t focus.
My thoughts keep drifting back to Alex.
The kind of life my father led for years, always on the road, always performing, it just isn’t a life for me, this tour doesn’t excite me.
My mind keeps drifting to different things, especially my fight that’s four weeks away, and I know that in that first fight I’m supposed to lose, just like Ennio told me to, so I don’t feel that much pressure, but the fact that I’ll be stepping into such a dangerous environment where people die in fights, where there are no sports rules, where there are people like Ennio who have their favorites they’ve bet fortunes on, and even worse ones who want revenge on fighters…
I rub my neck without thinking and notice Malik looking at me.
"Hey, your glands look really swollen," he says, tilting his head.
And yeah, when I run my hand along the spot where my neck meets my shoulders, I feel the swelling rising.
"Maybe you’ll finally join the real men," Malik laughs, nudging me, and Johnny, Decan, and Mike burst out laughing.
They’re all my age and every one of them went through gland maturity months ago, some even earlier. Decan and Mike are omegas, and Malik and Johnny are alphas. Lionel is the only beta in our band, so he stays quiet with a sour look on his face.
"Better late than never," Malik says, giving me a wink.
Gland maturity is like a second layer of puberty everyone in the ABO society goes through.
Around twelve or thirteen the initial stage begins, when the first sex traits show up, when the growth spurts hit, when the voice drops, and that’s when the first differences between omegas and alphas start to appear.
That’s also when the second level of puberty gradually switches on, unique to our population.
The development of the glands allows us to hear AO sounds and produce them, to sense Allure scents that indicate genetic compatibility, it also allows the mating teeth to emerge, although I experienced that early, and so did Alex, and then there’s everything else, omegas can enter into heat and alphas can go into rut and knot.
That second stage of maturity is considered more important in our world than the first one, the one we share with most organisms on this planet.
I don’t keep talking about it with the guys because this kind of stuff always turns into jokes and teasing, and I’m not planning to give them material to run with.
A few hours later we reach the hotel, the same one we’re sharing with The Days, a band that’s famous and loved by young people all over the States.
We’re playing their intro on this tour, and the guys greet us warmly, then we’re assigned to our hotel rooms, and they invite us to a small party in the evening.
I’m not convinced, because I’m not the kind of person who likes parties, but since I’m in this environment now, I have to at least pretend to fit in.
In the evening we show up at the club under the hotel, where Days are hosting their gathering, and Eric is there along with a few people from the music scene. I make conversation, I try to seem relaxed and confident, I’m playing a role. It's a kind of mask I put on whenever I deal with people.
I learned how to show the world a polished face with a smile. I can only take it off around Alex.
At some point two young, attractive omegas approach me.
They talk to me for a moment, one of them clearly seems to be on something, and at one point he pulls a little pill from his pocket and shows it to me with a grin.
"Want to spice things up a bit?"
"No, thanks, I have a concert tomorrow and I need to be fully functional."
"You sure?" he asks with a tempting smile, and the other omega takes my arm.
I feel irritation rising, pull my arm back, and say,