The elevator ride up was torturous. He’d made excuses about why he was going to miss the ice cream social. Attending the other sessions and speeches at the conference had just burned the shame of what he’d done - the shame of enjoying what he’d done - even deeper. Worse, he was still under the strange man’s orders, because he found himself staring at and admiring the men around him. At one point he had to leave a seminar on Keeping God in Politics because he was practically leering at the young, charismatic preacher who was leading it. Concealing his erection as he slipped through the rows of chairs was almost impossible because he was imagining the preacher naked, cock dripping with precum the way Eli’s had, smearing all over his hand as he reached up to -

No. Dixon forced himself back to the present, where the elevator was slowly ticking up to the 13th floor. The devil’s floor. Or would that be the 6th floor? Some vague lessons in numerology disagreed in the back of his head and he put them aside, his thumb stroking around - but not touching - the ink stamp on his wrist. He’d been told not to let it smudge, in what he now recognized as the very first command he’d been given. Even when he showered off the sweat and cum from the - no, he didn’t want to think about that now. The last thing he wanted was to step out of the elevator dick-first. Forcing his hand away from the stamp on his wrist took an act of will, like he could feel the stamp itching on his skin.

The other thing he had to resist was checking his phone again. It’s not like he needed to consult it to remember where he was going or when to be there; that was burned into his mind like a brand. When the doors pinged open the little sign pointing to the left seemed to glow with sinister light " <- 1301-1350." He didn’t even bother to read the other signage before his feet stumbled forward, almost tripping over each themselves. The hallway seemed to tilt drunkenly around him until he evened his gait into a more dignified pace.

Room 1301 was a spacious corner suite, the only door at the end of the hall. He vaguely figured that the rooms up here must be bigger, the view better, the prices higher. He trembled to think what his torturer - this “Adam” - had in mind for him now. With the stamp on his wrist he knew he’d be obedient to whatever the man said, and he’s wracked his brain trying to think of ways out of his predicament. He couldn’t let the stamp smudge - he’d been physically unable to force himself to bring it under the water of the showerhead, or to rub at it with a tissue. He to text someone, anyone to talk about it - but was totally unable to do so. Worse, he even felt a little grateful that Adam hadn’t forbade him from wanting to, the same way he’d made them enjoy the attention of other men looking at their nude bodies, and enjoy looking at other men. It was the very deviance he’d been going to a seminar to learn about defeating, and now with a stamp on the wrist he was indulging instead.

He stood in front of the door for a second, wondering if the text would compel him to knock or if he’d be able to leave since he’d “come” to the room as commanded. The chance was taken for him when a little beep sounded on his watch, marking the hour, and the door swung open to reveal a stranger on the other side. The guy was trim, obviously fit, and quite tall. He looked around the corridor and then gestured Dixon in. For a second he tried to resist, then he stepped forward and felt tension drop from his body as whatever fight he’d had petered out.

That tension came right back as he scanned around the room. He’d been right that the corner suites up here were big - and this room was enormous. There was a bed splayed out with a view of the city, a kitchenette, and even a dining room table. It looked like something out of a luxury catalogue, except that there were naked men almost everywhere. Except for Dixon himself and the man who’d let him in, nobody was wearing shirts, and most men weren’t wearing anything below the waist either. The dining table had some sort of cloth spread over it, with a case of vials and long rows of implements, jars, and other strange things laid out in neat rows. A fold-out table like the ones sports therapists used to help work joint problems and sore muscles was set up near the dining table, and Adam sat next to it on a swivel chair, staring at Dixon as he entered.

All that aside, the tableau in the rest of the room stole the show. Eli was on the bed, with two other men worshipping him, loan moans croaking out of them at odd intervals as the wiry man pulled, slapped and shoved them around. The other two were kissing, biting, whimpering, and licking any part of Eli they could reach, scrabbling to touch their cocks as they were dripping and painfully hard. Eli shoved them away or rapped their hands with obvious, malicious glee. Dixon didn’t recognize a single thing about the mousy, shy man he’d sat next to at the seminar, and he would have never expected him to be the sort with tattoos - especially a tattoo over his left pectoral in bold, blue ink that read “DOMINANCE.”

“You’ll sit down over here, Dixon.” Adam called, and he felt his feet mechanically lead him over to the sports table. “Oh, and take off your clothes. I got an idea of what I was working with at the seminar, but it’s in your interest that I see you naked when you’re in this room, unless I tell you otherwise.”

And just like that, it was. Whatever it was that this man was going to do to him - whatever he’d done to Eli, and presumably to these other men - it was better if he was naked for it. Even though he knew it was just the stamp on his wrist overriding his own better judgment, it was like gravity had shifted in a specific, implacable way and he felt whole architectures of logic slipping and sliding around in his head to justify it. He didn’t need them to shuck his clothes and kick his shoes off, but he could feel them setting in around him like an unfamiliar but perfectly tailored collar buttoning on his throat for the first time.

He managed to force his gaze away from whatever Eli was doing on the bed, surveying the rest of the room. One or two men were in jockstraps, picking up after discarded clothes or just within arm’s reach of Adam and waiting obediently for his command. The guy at the door was perusing a list while occasionally looking over at the bed with obvious appreciation. And against the wall were maybe a half dozen guys, half in underwear but a few naked and extremely erect, just staring into space and occasionally looking at the bed or Adam before going space cadet again. Nearly everyone was inked to some degree, with one guy having a massive, coiling chest-and-shoulder tattoo, but with most having immodest but smaller designs on various parts of their bodies. Most of the naked men had tattoos on their ass, or along the belt and midriff.

For his part, Adam was totally focused on him, and his attention made Dixon very nervous.

“So, how do you feel about what is happening? Answer me honestly.” Adam looked at him like a cop staring down a witness.

“I think it’s terrifying. I don’t understand it, and I hate that you’ve made me a deviant.” Dixon didn’t even realize he was saying it before the words flew out of his mouth. “…. and I don’t know how to feel about the way you’ve made me attracted to men.”

“Pretty standard.” Adam gave him a clinical once-over. “You don’t mind me touching you.”

He proceeded to give him a few prods, flicks, and pokes, feeling his muscles up and gently hefting his cock and balls. The strange, clerklike man even thumbed across his chest hair like he was getting a feel for it, then tousled his head as if trying to see if he’d styled it. Dixon felt himself a little aroused by the attention, and even caught a moment or two of appreciating the other man’s refined features and confident demeanor.

“Now, I want you to tell me what you think I did at the seminar.” Adam leaned back into the chair, giving him a more predatory look.

“Your stamp makes me obedient.” DIxon answered, then uncomfortably continued. “Right after you did it, you told me not to let it smudge, and I can’t - physically or even mentally, I won’t let it smudge. The preacher told us to listen to you, and so we did, and then you went to town from there. You can make us think things, believe things, and do things as if we’re puppets.”

“Not bad.” Adam nodded along. “You got the gist of it, at least.”

“I’m scared of what you’re going to tell me to do next.” Dixon blurted, realizing as he did that the earlier order to tell Adam about how he felt was still in effect. “I’m being brave about it because it’s emasculating enough that I got off on seeing other guys - fuck, I don’t even want to talk about it, but what you made us do.”

“Made you want to do, actually, but yes I did orchestrate it.” Adam interjected. That slick, scrabbly feeling in the back of his mind sent him reeling again. As some objection or confusion slipped down the slope of the new gravity of his being, Dixon realized that Adam was tidying up his own interpretation of what had happened earlier that day. He was telling Dixon what to think or feel about it, just like he’d told them to stand side-by-side and enjoy jerking each other off.

“You’re changing my mind, changing what I want. Aren’t you?” It was suddenly fuzzy, a little, what had slipped away, and he could feel the difference even as he felt his mind was probing at the empty spaces they had left.

“Hm. Temporarily, at least. Your stamp there will fade away sooner or later. But the tattoos won’t.” Adam gave him another measured look. “What is it that you want, by the way, Dixon? What are you afraid of losing?”

“A wife, a family.” He answered, quickly, but then his tongue kept going. " …. and the social status a family man has, so he can get power, respect, and money."

“So you wouldn’t be faithful, would you. Ah, yes, I remember what you had in the ledger.” Adam looked at him calmly. “Fornication, adultery, masturbation, exhibition. Did I get that right?”

“Yes.” Dixon choked out, feeling sick as the words slipped out all the same. “You’re right. I wouldn’t be faithful, I just… I want to power and respect, want people to admire me for the women I fuck.”

“Ah, there we go, now we’re getting somewhere aren’t we?” Adam steepled his fingers and leaned forward on his knees. “You want to be large and in charge, to call the shots, right? That’s why you’re here, isn’t it, at this convention? To make connections, be seen as a good, godly young man and make a name for yourself, huh?”

“Yes.” He was practically crying as this collected stranger tore through layers of his mind. Not all of it was true, somewhere, like it wasn’t totally right but fit just so, and thus became right. “Yes, that’s why I’m here. That’s what I wanted.”

“Hm.” The strange man leaned back, looking over the vials and implements on the dining room table. Dixon felt a shudder run through him as he recognized some of the implements - a tattoo gun, needles. Adam had mentioned a tattoo, and the blue ink on Eli’s skin leaped into his mind. Chancing a look over his shoulder, he could see the other man pulling his partners around with brute, confident force, shoving one throat-first onto his cock while teasing the other’s ass with his hand. Eli hadn’t had that tattoo before. Dixon would have seen it, when they were all naked together.

Adam had tattooed Eli, here in this room, on this table, and changed him - forever.

“Oh god, I’m panicking.” Dixon heard himself say, somewhere far away. His chest was heaving a little, like he’d run a mile or done a hard set at the gym, but it felt like it was happening from across the room, like his brain was still locked on the realization that Adam, this stranger who had already thrown his whole life into disarray, could do it again - and make it stick. “I’m totally powerless here.”

“You are powerless, right now.” Adam said, standing up smoothly from his chair and gently gripping Dixon’s jaw to force their eyes to lock together. “But I will not be cruel to you, and when you are done, I’ll leave you at peace with the result. You may feel whatever you want, but your body will be calm and you will remain reasonable and rational when talking to me, as if we were close confidantes and you had no reason to fear telling me anything at all.”

Dixon whimpered, but felt mental foundations of reserve, privacy, and caution falling away. He was still terrified, but his heartbeat slowed and his breath shuddered, caught, then smoothed out into an even rhythm and his jaw unclenched as the scream he’d been holding back died in his throat. The college stud’s mind cleaved in half, a panicking animal climbing the glass walls of his obedience, screaming and raging - and a calm, collected self, the gestalt of memory and history strained out of emotion, wiry skeins of thought that lay across the rest of his mind like a cage.

“Very good, Dixon.” Adam smiled, his face almost beatific with patience and pride. The animal roared and raged, but the rest of Dixon felt a little spurt of happiness at the other man’s approval. That wasn’t the only thing that gave off a spurt; his cock had started to firm up again and was leaking precum onto the padded material of the massage table. “Now, tell me about sex.”

“Sex is about power.” Dixon answered smoothly. “It’s about making a woman submissive to you, making her soiled and obedient. Leaving your mark on her and spoiling her for other men.”

Adam’s eyebrows rose as he spoke, but he gestured for him to continue. Dixon talked about sex ed classes as a tween, his first crushes and the wet dreams he’d had after his balls dropped, the women he’d bedded and the lust he’d held for movie stars, church moms, cheerleaders - everything flowed out of him without a hint of shame or pride. Inside the cage, he whined piteously, raged and screamed, wept and pleaded for mercy, as his dignity was ripped apart in pieces and laid bare.

“… and I want people to see that I’ve bedded these women, that I’m a better man than them. That I can take their women.” He finished, head still forward and chin up, as easy as if it was his first interview for the leadership of the Young Conservatives Club back in high school. “They … need to know I’m better than them. That I have power over them. Like I had over Beau and Eli, when we were masturbating together at the seminar.”

“Well, that’s plenty to work with.” Adam sighed, finishing a note or two in the little pad he’d been writing on while Dixon unspooled his balls out on the table. He couldn’t display shame, but the fact that he was in a room full of men - most of them tattooed, presumably also Adam’s victims - and that he’d just talked about all sorts of filth and his own, personal desires to be powerful, to be successful, to have people want to be him …

Some part of the animal died in shame. He couldn’t take back what he’d said. He couldn’t undo wrapping his hand around Beau’s cock, or forget the feeling of power he’d felt when his hand had filled up with cum. The memory of Eli’s hand on his cock was like a brand on his soul. He was powerless to stop Adam, and all his secrets were laid bare to him.

“You felt powerful today, didn’t you?” The tattoo artist asked, eyes again locking with his. That’s what he was, Dixon thought, letting his rational mind roll around the idea. That, or a soul-artist. Able to mark a mind more deeply than ink could mark flesh. “When … Beau and Eli were naked next to you.”

“I … yes.” Dixon agreed, surprised. “I did. I had never felt anything like it, to make someone as manly as Beau powerless like that. To … turn someone on, the way I did Eli.”

“Honestly, some stories write themselves.” Adam chuckled. He snapped his fingers, gesturing to one of the men who were standing around the edges of the room. “Ivan, come here please.”

A muscular man, maybe a little shorter than Dixon, stepped over from a corner. Totally naked, he was marked with a lot of ink - mostly rough lines that didn’t say anything, at least not in English, and a thick, long cock hung flaccid over loose, almost drooping balls. Dixon was struck with the realization that the man was about his age, or barely older - but scars and marks all over his body indicated he’d had a very, very hard life in the time Dixon had lived a soft one.

“Ivan, you were in a Russian prison this time last year, weren’t you?” The man nodded, and Adam continued. “He was sentenced to hard labor after a number of violent crimes as a teenager - I won’t shock you with the details, but he was guilty of those, and some other pettier crimes besides. I visited to consult on some tattoo insignia that are commonly used by the Russian mafia to denote rank and accomplishments. A bit of a junket, for someone like me, but it does allow for opportunities. One of them was Ivan. Turn around, Ivan, and explain what the tattoos on your ass mean.”

The man turned, displaying a back full of tattoos - and one on his ass, crudely portraying a woman wrapped in a snake.

“It means I take another man’s cock up my ass.” Ivan explained, surprisingly without an accent. The Russian turned to look over his shoulder at Dixon, eyes placid. “It was infected when Adam inspected it. When I got to prison I hid why I was sent, and when the other men found out they used me, then put this on my body to show that nobody could accept something from me without becoming an outcast like me.”

“Russian prisons have a remarkably crude approach to sexuality.” Adam commented airily, then gestured to Ivan to continue.

“Adam … added these tattoos, then put stamps on some of the guards to commute my sentence.” Ivan explained, then turned around, pointing to a pink triangle over his heart, with three words in Russian surrounding it. He pointed to each in turn - one in red, one in blue, and one in black. “The red one means pride. It made me proud of who I am. The blue one reads peace - and when he finished it, I was at peace with who I am. The last one says ‘lover of all’ - it made my body free, to love people, to be attracted to people. Anyone, everyone.”

“Thank you, Ivan. If Dixon is curious later, you two can talk about some of the other tattoos I have given you.” Adam smiled, then shooed the muscular felon away. “Now, Ivan was an interesting case, because some of the crimes that took him to prison were assaults on gay men - that’s what drew my attention in his records, at least. He wasn’t actually prosecuted for them until he outraged a woman whose father was a judge, but the Russian state decided it would help deepen his punishments in prison if the other convicts thought he was gay. Now he is gay - well, pansexual. His tattoo’s translation didn’t quite land the way I wanted it to when I designed it. The triangle, as I explained to him as I drew it, represents the gay victims of the fascist camps - Russians have a strong cultural connection to victims of fascism. The composition was effective in transforming him from a straight, brutish homophobe into an easygoing, happily queer man at peace with his new identity.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Dixon asked, the web of intellect trying to trace the logic of what he’d been shown. He’d never done anything as terribly or drastic as the things that had landed Ivan in prison. “I don’t understand what it has to do with me.”

“Not a lot, directly. But a significant part of this process requires you to understand what I am doing to you. The symbols I tattooed on Ivan - wouldn’t do anything to you, and tattooing ‘Dominant’ on him would have a totally different effect on Ivan than it did on your friend Eli, there.” Adam gestured over Dixon’s shoulder with his ornate pen, and a sharp slap of flesh on flesh cracked out, followed by an orgasmic sigh of pleasure. “Now that Ivan has mastered English, I could use similar tattoos, but to lesser effect - because the symbols and languages of his native language and culture are more powerful for him than ones he’s learned later in life. In a few years it wouldn’t matter all that much, as he’d have assimilated more thoroughly and learned new things, become a new person. I’ve already had to give him a few touch-ups.”

“So … what are you going to do to me?” Dixon asked, his animal self cowering in terror at the indifferent, removed tone of the man with the power to turn him into a moaning slave or a compliant servant with the stroke of a pen. “I … don’t want to be like Ivan. Or Eli.”

“You won’t, rest assured. Ivan was a gift of opportunity. You, Eli, and the other young men at the seminar are … well, you’re my prey.” Dixon felt a chill run down his spine at the menace in Adam’s tone, even as his body physically resisted the impulse. Intellect and raging, animal passion alike felt terror at Adam’s tone. Implacable - or indifferent - Adam continued: “My purpose here was to take a cohort of promising young bigots, and use them to undermine the moral authority of the causes they came here to advance. You’ll all serve different needs, but I feel the aesthetic compulsion to leave each of you with a karmic solution to your particular foibles. Your friend Eli, there, for example, was already gay - but was terrified of what it meant for him. I freed him.”

“You … wait, he was already gay?” Dixon couldn’t resist looking behind him again. Eli was grinning, his cock planted deep in one of his bedmates, with the other’s head shoved beneath, where wet, sputtering noises indicated lewd activity. The wiry man caught Dixon’s eye, bit his lower lip, and gave Dixon a wink - before raising a hand and slamming it down, painfully hard, across the ass of the man he was fucking. “And you … made him like this?”

“We talked, the same way you and I just did.” Adam was poring over his implements again - not merely looking, as he had before, but gathering things up, one by one. The tattoo gun was strange - with a row of ampoules lined up with bright liquids, but a void in the middle where a needle should go. “In any event, you’re straight, for now, so we have some other work to do for you.”

“Why can’t you let me be straight - or bi! Bisexual. I could still fuck women. Or whatever you did to Ivan.” Dixon pleaded, the cage of rationality in full agreement with the screaming creature it contained. “I don’t have to be gay, do I?”

“For my purposes, yes, actually.” Adam picked over the last few ampoules, slotting them into place before taking his pen and gently screwing it into the center of the tattoo gun. The entire array shivered in his hand as the last turn locked into place, as if everything had been a hairsbreadth out of alignment and was now fully whole. “Don’t worry, just like Ivan, you’ll be quite confident in it when I’m done.”

“What … what are you going to do?” Dixon asked again, realizing Adam had never answered him directly. “If I’m not … going to be like them.”

“Why, you want power over men? So I’m going to give it to you - the skill, the drive, and the hunger to make men cum. In you, on you, at you.” Adam flicked the delicate tip of the apparatus, and it thrummed with silent power, like it was the only still thing in a world suddenly awash in uncomfortable resonance. “You already crave their adoration, their respect. They’ll give it to you, over and over. After all, everyone respects a man who puts someone else’s orgasm first.”

“Will you … make me fuck them?” That wasn’t so bad, some desperate whine sounded in his head. It wouldn’t be that terrible. A hole is a hole, right?

“If they’re inclined.” Dixon felt his heart sinking as the artist continued. “You’d be astonished how many men really do prefer to bottom, and love how it feels. You’ve got perfectly good equipment for it, too - poor Ivan over there needs a man of special talent to really get good use out of his cock. By the time our little design is done, here, you’ll be more than happy to oblige him, or any other man who’s up to snuff.”

“So I’ll … get fucked, then.” The world seemed to arc smoothly with the movements of Adam’s tattoo gun, as if the whole universe spun on its point. He thought he’d be sick, but his gorge didn’t rise - even his nausea was arrested by obedience to Adam’s command.

“You’ll crave the attention of men, and hunger to make them cum.” Adam smiled, then gestured. “Lie down on the table, face up, and keep still if I move your body around.”

Dixon let a whimper out as he obeyed, hands reflexively going to cover his cock. The cool vinyl padding of the table sent a little shiver along his body as his skin made contact with it more fully, before his body heat spread. Above him, the tattoo artist looked up and down his new canvas, gently poking and prodding at muscle or tracing the lines where anatomy joined and shifted.

“A good pectoral muscle, quite supple.” Adam hummed, his fingers tapping lightly on the college student’s abdomen. “Firm stomach as well, without too much muscle to cause complications for the shape of it.”

“I’ll be able to read it anyway, so what does it matter?” Dixon said, sourly. He was going to be branded with whatever it was this pervert had in mind, what did the guy care if his abs protruded or not?

“At my core I am still an artist, young man. You’d no sooner want a woodworker to cut across the grain of wood. And trust me, it wouldn’t be pleasant for you, either.” Fingers gently tugged his hands away from covering his crotch, and his half-firm penis was nudged aside, his balls gently fondled - not sexually, but with an appreciation for their presence, their gravity and dimensions. When Adam withdrew, Dixon put his hands back. The last thing he wanted was for a tattoo on his dick to turn him gay. Not that it’d be any better anywhere else on his body, of course, but … who could respect someone with a tattoo on their junk?

“You can put your hands down. I won’t be tattooing your genitals.” Adam gave him a disappointed look as he reached for a pad of cloth wet with disinfectant. “God, you young ones are all the same. This may sting a bit, but after the first few punctures you’ll be distracted by the sensations and you won’t mind. We’ll discuss a bit more when you’re done.”

"When I’m done? What do you mean, when I’m - " With a faint click, he felt a tiny pinch on his chest, and he realized that while he’d been looking at Adam, the tattoo gun had appeared on the other side of his vision and was pressed against his skin, right above his heart. “Wai-”

The point of the pen, suspended in the apparatus of the tattoo gun, seemed to drift downwards gently, like a leaf dropped from a tree, as implacable as gravity. It touched his skin, then kept going as if it was dipping into a pool of water, instead of piercing flesh. A distant signal of pain began to flush from the contact as the pen withdrew, a tiny fleck of blood mixing with bright-red ink.

Dixon felt his eyes grow wider as the pen’s nib extended again, seemingly-dull metal prongs effortlessly stitching in and out of his flesh in stuttering heartbeats. There was pain, but something else, deeper, like stitches through his soul. Time slipped and slid past like water flowing through a stream. Lines stretched into the space between the threads of his mind, effortless swirls of tight, elegant script in a circle, with a curling rainbow spiral within:

OPEN HEART

OTHERS FIRST

EVER READY

The blue, red, and black words burned in his mind, like his soul was being poured into their shape, filling them to the brim, then overflowing. Even though his eyes were closed he could see the relentless needle dipping in and out of him, tiny stitches of pain on the fabric that made him up, delicately taking form.

His mind stretched to the red words, probing at calluses and barriers that were so much a part of him that he’d thought they were the foundation of his self. OPEN HEART. To feel as others feel, to let them in and think of them as easily as he thought of himself. He even felt … shame, horror at the way he’d thought before, the manipulative and crass way he’d seen everyone else as tools and stepping stones for his own advancement. How had he been so cruel? So selfish? The ink burned crimson, like a livid brand, before fading into a rich, deep ochre the color of dried blood.

In the space they left, faint strings of cobalt grew in the phrase written on his flesh: OTHERS FIRST. Where the red ink shook the foundations of his mind, the blue cut cold through all of him, coiling over everything he thought he knew about who he was, what he wanted, what his life was about. It hurt, peeling him away from everything important then wringing him into knotted strands warped into new form. The spots where other people should be in his life ached, like a wound too raw for healing, like he was stretched in all the wrong places and needed something, someones to hold his form.

Finally, some solid form set into place, like a frame snapped over taut drum skin. EVER READY, black spaces trickling into the space left by the rest. Where the other inks had burned nerve and the ephemeral self, the black ink seeped into bone and sinew like oil, saturating flesh then overflowing in rivulets. At first it was calming, a balm to the cataclysmic force of the changes wrought on his soul by the other commands. Then it turned, letting tissues slip and flex oddly like his skin was too loose, or muscle detached from bone, tendons going slack as string as the strange void-black force slimed itself through every cell and structure. It was in his hair, prickling along the pores of his skin and dripping along the chambers of his heart. He wanted to scream, to fight, but there was nothing to resist with; he was entirely at the mercy of the needle patiently stitching a fully mundane set of colored stripes into the caustic triangle transforming him to Adam’s whims.

When he got some semblance of control back over his body, Adam was patiently finishing faded rainbow stripes inside the magical triangle on Dixon’s pectoral, tiny pinpricks of pain that barely registered against the strained agony that the supernatural brands had left in him. The tattoo artist raised an eyebrow when he realized his subject was awake again, but continued his work without any real concern. Dixon still felt the command to remain still and face-up on the table. Unlike the aching brands piercing through his consciousness and crowding in his thoughts, the injunctions were like gossamer threads of unbreakable steel - binding, but not intrusive. Dixon couldn’t resist rolling the words around in his mind, like when he’d had a sore tooth pulled as a child and endlessly probed at the socket with his tongue until the socket closed up.

The black ink, “ever ready,” was the dullest in his mind, but he could feel slack potential in his limbs, a sore, almost slick sensation at his ass and cock, and a looseness in so many other parts of his body, like he’d had an incredible series of stretches after a good workout. Given what Adam had said, he’d probably be ready to fuck at a moment’s notice, able to suck cock, fuck, and be fucked with abandon, however someone wanted him. And now, for whatever reason, it felt good to think of that - a faint, blue-tinged strand of arousal telling him he’d very much enjoy driving another man wild with passion, using his body to send them over the edge and lose control of their passion. He wanted to do it, to do it a lot, to do it to as many people as he could, whoever they were or whatever they needed, he wanted to give it to them to -

With a shuddering sob he felt his soul crash against the foundations of the new structures Adam had laid down in it, molding itself around them and then fixing in place, clinging and wrapping around it to resist the sensation of being totally unmoored.

“Ah, all done then, are we?” Adam mused from above him, watching as tears welled up in the young man’s face. For the first time, Dixon could see genuine compassion in the tattoo artist’s expression as he gently cupped the student’s face with his hand. “It’s OK, Dixon. It’s going to be OK.”

“I was so terrible to people.” He cried out, a wrenching feeling ripping through him as he looked back at his life in horror and dismay. “I was - oh god oh god oh god -”

“You will remain calm.” Adam said quietly, and while the storm still raged inside him, Dixon felt those gossamer steel strands hold him in place again, stilling his tears and letting him take a deep, shuddering breath. “Now, I did quite a bit more work on you than I thought. The process is as much mental as it is physical. I could feel that the brands dug deeper than I expected. You’re an excellent canvas for my sort of work, but I don’t think there’s anything more I need to do in order to set you on your way.”

“I don’t understand.” Dixon breathed, still feeling overwhelmed even as his body was still and calm, “What do I do now? After all this?”

“Well, I think there’s someone here who will need your help quite soon.” Adam gestured for him to sit up. When he did, Dixon saw the hulking form of Beau on another table, just like his, his chest and arms whorled with tattoos with dozens of phrases delicately inked between geometric designs and symbols. “Beau here has great potential but was quite strong willed; it took a little more creative effort on my part to get him where I wanted him to be. He really was quite fundamentally straight, you see. His impure thoughts of onanism and the guilty pleasure of walking around in his own skin were things many men won’t even notice, but for him they were terrible little temptations. In our little interview he nearly broke down while talking about how good your hand felt on his body, and the anguish it caused him. People with a disciplined emotional state can really do great things, and I had something special in mind for him. You can move freely now, so long as you have no intent to hurt anyone or leave until I tell you that you can depart.”

Dixon looked at Beau’s body with fascination. While his own tattoos were nothing but a neat triangle with block lettering and a little design, no bigger than his palm, Beau’s pectoral, shoulder, and bicep were entirely covered in ink; some of it puffing and healing, mostly the whorls and other decorative bits. The lettering and symbols were crisp, like they’d been lasered in place with precision. He couldn’t take it all in at once but they were intricate, interlocking - sentences that repeated in different orders or branching off each other in loops, terminating in symbols that he almost understood but didn’t quite comprehend.

“I don’t …. what is all this?” Dixon asked, fascinated.

“Beau here is about to become quite the Casanova. I gave him an intense desire to sample all that life has to offer, to relish new experiences and sharing them with people.” Adam explained patiently. “There’s nothing he won’t want to try at least once. Moreover, I gave him the creativity to seek out and invent new things on his own; that prudish imagination of offense against god being turned instead to finding new ways to find or bring pleasure.”

“That’s … whoa.” Dixon was overwhelmed. It sounded exhausting, incredible, horrifying, and tantalizing all at once. A life constantly in search of something new, something more interesting than the last? An insatiable hunger to … “Wait, how am I supposed to help him?”

“Well, I didn’t use too much black ink. But I did ensure this strapping young man would remain both strapping and young well beyond his usual time, and you’re already familiar with his equipment. Take another look.” Adam nodded towards the join of Beau’s hip and waist, and Dixon felt a shock go through his body. The other man’s cock was thicker, hanging pendulously over swollen, pinkish balls. “It’s actually quite tricky to alter physiology extensively. Doing things like your alterations is easier. But Beau, here, will be able to eventually alter much of his body makeup to suit his needs. For now, at least, it seems his subconscious is going right to where most young men’s attentions go, and that little monster down there will be able to compare favorably to Ivan quite soon.”

“I … what - you want me to -” Dixon swallowed, nervously. Some part of him was horrified but the rest … the rest was anxious to please. He wanted the chance to show off that he’d really changed, that he was not only able but willing to put others first, to open up for their needs and …

“It seems like all I need to do is let nature take its course.” Adam pointed down at Dixon’s crotch with a sly grin. “You have the room. I’ve got another suite on this floor. Ivan will stay here in case you need anything - Beau will probably want to play with both of you before sunrise. Eli and his playmates, assuming they wake up, might join in too. You and Beau can leave once Beau has cum and the sun has risen again. Ivan, make sure they have a business card before they leave.”

The Russian gave him a curt nod, and Adam gave a little wave as he finished packing up his materials. In a moment the strange tattoo artist was gone, leaving Dixon alone with Ivan, Beau, and the small pile of slumbering men on the bed. The air was thick with the smell of sex; not just from whatever had gone down with Eli and his partners, but a heady aroma of anticipation as well. Dixon found himself stepping over to Beau’s table, staring at the big man’s tattoos and …

Well, staring at the thick, slack meat of his cock.

Beau hadn’t been especially lacking before but now he was … thicker, his cock slick and maybe even leaking a little. The tattoos ended on his pectoral, in a tracery of words bracketed by lines in geometric knots, and his upper arm had a number of bands or rings and things that didn’t make sense to him either. But looking at the other man with new eyes, appreciative eyes … Beau was a hunk.

“He has a good body, no?” Ivan was behind him, and Dixon felt a muscled hand on his waist. Now that Adam was gone, the man’s English was more inflected, rougher. More real, somehow. “Strong. Manly. Beautiful.”

“Yes.” Dixon whispered. “Yes he’s … beautiful.”

“I will enjoy when he fucks you.” Ivan’s cock was lined up against Dixon’s ass, and the student could feel the thick heat of it against his skin, firm but not hard - but his ass craved it, was ready for anything the Russian wanted to do to him, take from him, ask of him. His mind reeled with the possibilities - cocksucking? Fucking? Just rubbing against each other, handjobs - there had to be more, anything the other man wanted, he would do. He wanted the other man to be happy, fulfilled - to go first, take what he needed, then Dixon could sort out the rest. If he wanted to see Dixon get off he could -

The storm of possibilities was immense, overwhelming. Maybe it was the new, raw binding of the tattoo still rewiring his psyche, but the desperation to please filled him, fixating on the points where the other man touched him, replaying endlessly the line “I will enjoy when he fucks you” over and over in his head. He reached out and tentatively stroked his fingers along the thickened cock of the man on the table, the scorching heat of his body seeming to flow into him and stoke his own libido.

“I want you to be happy.” he breathed, letting his ass settle onto the long, slick feeling of Ivan’s cock. “How … please, let me make you happy.”

“I will teach you, little man.” Ivan whispered into his ear, letting a hand drift across Dixon’s waistline to fondle the student’s dick. “I will breed you deep and hard to show you how to please this man in front of you. That will make me happy. Then you will make him happy. Then he will use you to make other men happy too. That will make me happy.”

Dixon whined at the thought, his cock painfully hard at the idea of serving those nameless other men. He felt Ivan sliding gently along the join of his legs, that long penis rolling smoothly and gently nudging his balls as it spread him open bit by bit. Ivan would help him - he’d help Ivan, make Ivan happy, and Ivan would help him make other men happy -

“Oh please, fuck me.” he whined, not caring if the showed how desperate he felt. “Teach me ….”

“Good boy. First lesson is to show a man how eager you are. Later, we can teach you to be coy. But to need a man, to want him to fuck you - that is always good.” Ivan’s hand gently pumped at Dixon’s cock, but the other one was gently probing at his hole. “You are fortunate, Adam has made you always ready for sex. You feel?”

He did. The muscled ring was alive to his senses in ways he’d never considered possible before, and the blunt Russian’s fingers gave him gentle pressure that lit nerves and left his knees feeling weak. Instinctively, he knew it would feel even better when - when Ivan -

The thought triggered something in him, like a muscle or gland he’d never known was there - or just as likely, had only just been woven into his body by the tattoo on his chest. A feeling of slickness, readiness filled him, and Ivan’s fingers slipped seamlessly into him on the next pass across the tense ring of muscle. Dixon groaned with satisfaction as they pressed inwards, stretching him and making him aware of the empty need in his core, the demand to be filled and fulfilled that was now bound into his soul.

“Very good, my student.” Ivan leaned in and kissed his neck gently. “You see, not only is your cock always ready. Ass is hungry too, needy.”

“Fuck, why does it feel so good?” he moaned, letting his ass flex around the intruding fingers, an eagerness for even more, deeper - a need to be fucked by this man and serve him, settled into the pit of his stomach. Then it kept going, and met Ivan’s finger at a spot right inside him that he’d never known was there.

He couldn’t speak anymore; he was just incoherent moans rippling through flesh and tissue, eyes fixed on the masculine body lying before him and senses locked to the feelings Ivan tenderly forcing upon him. Leaning down, his panting breaths filled him with Beau’s thick, musky scent - woodsmoke, sweat, grease and dirt, and the heady smell of man underneath it all. His face lowered down, until it was just a tiny stretch from the warmth of it, and Ivan’s finger withdrew slightly, leaving him to whimper as it went.

“It will feel much better, soon.” Ivan crooned, and Dixon felt the burning heat of the other man’s cock press up against him, rolling slightly as the Russian’s waist canted forward slightly. The sensitive flesh of his ass came alive with the need to be touched, for wet friction for - for sex. He wanted to be fucked, he wanted this man to fuck him. The need burned through him like a wildfire, and the muscles of his belly trembled as it did. Behind him Ivan laughed, mumbling something in Russian. The thick cock slipped forward, pressing gently at the entry of him, and Dixon felt his old self, full of objections and disgust and fear, for half a second roaring back in outrage - before crumbling to ash as the sensation of being breached open filled his mind.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” he moaned as the Russian’s thick cock rolled into him, muscle and flesh smoothly stretching to allow it to penetrate deeper and deeper. “Please yes, fuck.”

“Good.” Ivan crooned, a satisfied gasp slipping out of him as his cock nestled deeper into Dixon. “You are so ready for your first time.”

Dixon groaned as the man said it, the other man’s approval radiating out of him like a bonfire lit in his core. His ass flexed around the cock impaling him and it sent shivers of pleasure through his limbs, flexing and tensing to pull it deeper, make him happier, be more full of this sensation. The Russian’s thick cock split him open, but his body was ready - it stretched, trembled, then gave way, then squeezed down, eliciting grunts and involuntary noises from Ivan. Those little signals screamed through his body like lightning; they were precious rewards, proof that he was doing right by the man fucking him, filling him.

Ivan thrust deep, hips slamming into ass, and Dixon slipped on the table, his upper body landing on Beau’s muscular legs. Had he been this bulky before … Dixon’s mind dissolved before the thought could really complete, because now he was face-to-face with Beau’s new cock. His hands involuntarily cupped the loose, full balls and he took a deep, heaving breath to fill his body with the scent of the other man’s crotch, letting the sweat and musk roll over his tongue. One hand slipped up and fondled the half-hard cock, letting it lift to rest across his face, gently probing with his tongue.

The taste was … nothing. Then, suddenly, it was everything. His tongue rolled slowly along Beau’s limp cock, letting the taste fill him. Behind him, Ivan leaned down, letting rangy, tattooed arms sliding along and encircling Dixon’s belly and chest, leaning to watch as the student was consumed by lust for the man on the table.

“Good,” Ivan crooned, and Dixon’s ass flexed, responding to the praise even as his vision wavered and the taste and sensation of being fucked and letting Beau’s cock rule his face and …

He came. His balls jerked up, dumping a load onto the hotel room floor and making him squirm under Ivan, the body contact with the Russian hunk like a blanket of sexual haze draped over him. The relief of it was immense - but fleeting. His balls descended back down, and a single whiff of Beau’s crotch was more than enough for the embers of lust to flare back up. Ever ready, some black part of him whispered, ever ready. Dixon groaned with satisfaction, happy that his body wouldn’t be weak and give out on him in the middle of this - … this ecstasy. He took Beau’s cock into his mouth fully, savoring it slowly as Ivan shuddered and groaned - reveling in the way that Dixon was making him feel. It lit a warmth in his belly, somewhere deep, and satisfaction seemed to pump through him with every thrust and every languid lick across the thickening flesh in his mouth.

A hand gripped his hair and he whined piteously, hungrily. It wasn’t until his eyes flicked open to take in more of Beau’s magnificent, muscular body that he realized the other man had woken up from the tail end of whatever Adam had done to him. The muscular hick’s beefy forearm was in front of his face and he felt physical pain that he couldn’t suck cock and lick that magnificence at the same time. Beau’s thumb gently caressed down the side of his face, following the line of his ear and jaw, making Dixon whine and groan submissively. He watched as the stud stared in fascination at him, and the student choked down on the other man’s cock, desperate to prove himself, to be good for him, to -

The wet spurting noise beneath him announced that he’d cum again, and Ivan slapped Dixon’s ass and groaned, pushing deep and holding himself inside, deep, frozen on the edge of release himself. “Fuck,” the Russian said, looking to Beau. “He is so ready for you.”

Dixon was still trembling with the aftershock of his second orgasm when Beau sat up, hand still on his cocksucker’s head to keep him in place. It was all he could do not to moan in satisfaction as the thick penis slid down more readily, more easily - and then he gave in, and moaned anyway, and his own cock slapped against his taut belly when he realized Beau had twitched and that he’d made him do that. He’d made this magnificent creature happy, touched him and gave him pleasure. The sensation in the pit of his stomach unraveled, and his hands locked onto the hips in front of him, giving him the leverage to shove himself onto Beau’s cock, fill himself with it, drown in the smell and the taste and the feeling of a cock filling him.

Ivan slowly worked his way back into fucking him, an even, careful pace that left him squirming. He was compressed between the two men when Beau reached over him, hauling Ivan into a long, sweaty kiss as the fucked him, massive cocks ripping him apart, gasps and moans above him sending shockwaves of needy ecstasy through his system as he proved himself over and over again, serving their needs. Beau shoved him off, and he whimpered as Ivan dragged him away, like a dog pulled away from their favorite toy. Ivan slipped free of his ass and Dixon thought he would cry, he was so bereft, and then he was being thrown onto something soft and firm and warm - the pile of men on the bed. Eli and the other two. Beau and Ivan loomed over him, their cocks wet and thick and angry, and he gasped with joy, his own dick going painfully hard and his balls drawing up in anticipation.

He wasn’t sure which of them bent him in half and started fucking him into the pile of other men. Eli stirred to wakedness and began kissing him, groping him possessively, and his two boys - grown men in their twenties, masculine and muscular, but his boys, all the same - licked Dixon’s pits and chest and cock as Beau and Ivan took turns pounding him into the mattress. Then Eli took a turn too, shoving Ivan aside and fucking hard, jackrabbit-fast, making out with Beau and shoving a boy into his armpit as Ivan circled.

The other boy caught his third orgasm, cum trickling down his mouth as he slid back up Dixon’s chest in a sensuous line to share it with him in a long, hungry kiss, the bitter-tang taste rich on their tongues as they touched and held each other, Eli fucking him all the while. Then Beau was next to him on the mattress, sharing him with the boy, and Dixon groaned at the sensation of the man’s thick fingers sliding along his wet cock and then dipping along the join of his legs, probing at his hole where Eli fucked him furiously. The fingers slipped in, and Dixon groaned as the flesh parted and tensed, then surrendered, pulling him inward. There was a groan above, but Eli was shoving Ivan down and behind him, and the Russian was pressing himself there, with wet and hungry noises.

He felt Eli cumming into him, a satisfying, slick flush of warmth as the slender, un-shy youth grinned with victory. It made him cum all over Beau’s face, and Beau made him lick it all off, hungrily, competing with the boy next to him. Ivan resumed his place, fucking Eli’s load deeper until he came himself, a wet, thick thing that left Dixon’s legs trembling and pushing him deeper, wrapped around the tattooed Russian’s hips.

The sensation of being used, spent and used again, was ecstatic. He wanted to die right then so he could feel like this forever, but there was a tantalizing promise of more, a curious and hungry thing that kept him reaching and stroking and pressing and cooing with delight. The thick smell of sex filled him, saturating his sense and fuzzing away things like worry or ambition or disgust; he lived for this now. His whole life stretched around him, coffee networking becoming an opportunity to be fucked senseless in a bathroom, takeout becoming the chance for the driver to breed him on the tile of his father’s house like a whore. There was so much, and his mind scrambled for them even as his body hungrily groped and licked and took the men around him.

At some point he passed out or fell asleep, surrounded by those men and covered in their smells and cum and sweat, and he’d never felt so content. On his chest a neat triangle seemed to glow in the moonlight, mingling with the other lines and colors on the flesh pressed and curled around him.

In another room on the other side of the hotel, a man crossed some names off his list with an ornate pen, then looked carefully at a ledger. Adam had much more work yet to do.