(Part One of The Cage Trilogy)
Justin was watching the clock as he sat at his desk. It was a long Friday at the office and was looking forward to his weekend. He didn’t have anything exciting planned, but just wanted to go home and relax after the stressful week.
His boss, Amanda, says it is just the “busy season”, but Justin knew after working there for 10 year that it was always the “busy season”. It was 30 minutes before his workday was scheduled to be over when he got an email from Amanda asking for everyone to work this weekend. The ask wasn’t really an ask though; when the boss asked for something, it was actually a demand.
Justin responded with a “Sure thing!” And Amanda replied back with one more task before he left.
After working an hour extra because of Amanda’s last minute request, Justin hurried down the street to catch the bus. It was the last bus and if he missed it, he would have to either catch a cab or walk 3 miles to his apartment.
Sure enough, as he approached the bus stop, the bus sped off. “Shit,” Justin said to himself. He debated on waving down a taxi, but decided the walk and fresh air would be good for him.
He spent with his head down in his phone, swiping through all the dating apps. He moved to the City right after college to have a larger dating pool of men, but never had any luck and gay dating in your mid-thirties was rough.
As he swiped left on another loser, he bumped into someone who felt large. “Oh, sorry,” Justin said as he looked up and saw a large, gruff man with a thick beard and shaved head. He was wearing a black leather uniform. He had a biker jacket over a shirt and tie. His pants were tight and tucked into tall combat boots. This man intimidated him.
“No worries, sport,” the man said in a friendly tone, one that Justin was not expecting.
Justin watched the man walk pass the bouncer who was dressed in leather too and into a bar.
Justin was aware of the leather community, but hasn’t seen it in person. He didn’t know this place existed. It was called “The Cage”. The bar was full of men with different forms of leather, from harnesses to chaps.
That’s when he noticed him: a handsome man standing outside of the bar. The man had beautiful green eyes, with short brown hair. A stubble beard also dusted his face. He leaned against the brick wall of the bar. He wore heavy looking black boots, blue jeans, a white t-shirt and a black leather jacket. He coolly smoked a cigarette as he looked at Justin.
This was not normally the type of man that Justin was attracted to, but he was in awe. He wanted to know this smokin’ stud, but didn’t know what to say. So he just waved sheepishly.
The man grinned and dropped his smoke on the concrete sidewalk and stepped on it with his boot. He gave a quick wink and headed back into the bar.
Justin interpreted that as an invitation and stepped up to the bar.
“Sorry bud, leather only,” the bouncer said.
“Oh…okay,” Justin said as he looked inside and saw the handsome man smirk.
Justin turned around to head back home in defeat. That wasn’t his scene anyways. That handsome man was just a fantasy. It wasn’t anything to get excited about. As he passed an alleyway, he heard a whistle from it. He glanced down and saw a man. He had aviator sunglasses on, even though it was dark. He wore a black leather shirt, tie, pants and boots. He also wore a military style cap. A lit cigarette dangled from his lips, under a thick mustache. He held out a black leather jacket with leather gloved hands.
“Hello?” Justin said, but didn’t get a response from the mysterious man. Justin approached cautiously.
The man didn’t move. He just quietly held out the jacket. “Are you giving this to me?” Justin asked.
Still silence. Justin interpreted that the jacket was being gifted and grabbed it. The man stood there as he lowered his arm.
Justin put the jacket on. He looked down at it and thought it fit perfectly. He felt different wearing it. Like he was someone new, or someone else.
“Wow, thanks,” Justin said as he looked up, but the man was gone. “Weird,” he said to himself as he headed back to the bar and the handsome man.
Justin woke up with his head in drool on his pillow. He felt hungover and confused. “What the…” he groggily said. He didn’t remember going to bed. He didn’t remember anything from the night before. He hasn’t drank that much since college, and his body was feeling it. He grabbed his phone and saw that it was about ten past eight on Saturday morning…
“Shit!” he said as he quickly got up, but felt dizzy. He remembered that he was expected to be at work. He found himself still in his clothes from yesterday. He tightened his tie and slipped on his shoes. His hair was messy and he had a stubble beard. He had no time to shower, shave and tidy up. His boss was going to be on his ass as it was. He grabbed the leather jacket that was lying on the floor and put it on as he hurried out the door.
Justin walked past his coworkers as they all stared and whispered to each other. Both he and them knew this wasn’t like him at all. He always showed up on time and always kept his appearance clean.
Just as he was logging in to his computer, Amanda approached him from her office. “Jesus Justin - you smell like an ashtray. Where have you been?”
He smelled his jacket and she was right, he did smell like stale cigarette smoke. “Umm…sorry. Found myself at a party last night…ended up being a late night,” he confessed.
She huffed, clearly irritated. “Come see me before lunch,” she ordered.
Justin looked up at his coworkers and they were all staring. They didn’t be feel embarrassed for being nosey. They just kept whispering to each other.
He worked as he dreaded meeting with his boss. He was mentally preparing for the tongue lashing he was about to receive.
The clock finally struck 11:30 and Justin walked into Amanda’s office.
“Take a seat,” she sternly demanded.
The next 30 minutes was over how performance must not go down over the next few months and that he must make work a priority in his life. She talked about a false potential promotion and said that his performance today seriously hurt his chances. This wasn’t news to Justin; his boss always talked about a future promotion for him that past four years, but nothing came to fruition.
It was finally lunch and Justin escaped from Amanda’s office. He was feeling irritated, pissed and a little stressed. As he stepped outside, he felt all that emotion as a little tug inside his chest.
He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a pack of Marlboro Reds and a Zippo lighter. He didn’t know that they were in there, but instinctively reached for them.
He slid out a cigarette and placed it in his lips. He flicked the Zippo and brought the flame towards the end of the Red.
He sucked in hard and breathed in the smoke as he clicked the Zippo closed. He put the lighter and pack back in his jacket as he exhaled through his nose. It provided immediate relief and pleasure. He took another drag and held it in his lungs for a few seconds, before blowing it up into the air.
“What are you doing? So you are a smoker now?,” a cold voice from Amanda came from behind him. She walked off on the sidewalk, with her nose in the air, as if he was beneath him.
But she was right though. “What am I doing?” he mumbled to himself. He never smoked in his life, or so he thought. Without realizing it, he lit up and smoked as if he needed it. He didn’t know how he knew he had cigs on him, or why they were there in the first place. He hated that he admitted to himself that he found it pleasurable, so he took one more drag and dropped the half smoked cigarette on the cement before snubbing it out with his shoe.
As he sat at his desk during the afternoon, his phone buzzed with a notification of a text message. He pulled it out quickly and saw it was a text from an “Ethsn”. He figured his drunken self mistyped “Ethan” last night, but he had no idea who this was.
He slipped his phone back in his pocket and got up to read the text in the bathroom. There was no way he was going to let Amanda catch him texting at his desk.
He locked the door and unlocked his phone. The text read:
“hey stud! enjoyed meeting you last night. and other things. ;) going to be out of town the next few days but hope to see you soon for pound 2 :P”
“Did I fuck last night?!” he exclaimed, then hoping no one was standing outside the bathroom.
If he did, he wished for two things. Number one was that Ethan was the smoking stud he saw. And number two was that he at least used a condom. Justin barely had a sex life and when he did, he preferred to be on PrEP…which he wasn’t currently.
He typed as he tried to match Ethan’s energy:
“Hey handsome! I enjoyed it too. >;) Text me when you are back and we’ll meet up.”
His dick twitched at the thought of hooking up with the smoking stud he hoped was named Ethan.
The rest of the afternoon was unexciting. He was the last one to leave, hoping he would get back in Amanda’s good graces.
It was dark when he left and was planning to walk home. He immediately lit up a Red, feeling the craving all afternoon. At this point, he accepted that he currently is a smoker. He told himself he’ll quit at some point, but this is what he needed and wanted in this moment.
As he walked to his apartment, he was approaching at The Cage. He stopped as he took a final drag off his second cigarette of his walk. He flicked the butt out towards the street and mindlessly walked into the bar for the second time.
To be continued in “Inside the Cage”:
https://www.tumblr.com/smoketransformer/803562320395698176/inside-the-cage
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