A “missing scene” from Under His Heel. The first of Alex’s “study sessions” with Tracht. ~2,000 words.
“I sent you a file. I want you to study the first two chapters,” Tracht said over breakfast.
Alex looked up from his spot by Tracht’s feet. “Study?”
“Yes. To learn. At least memorize – you can do that much, right? We’ll work our way up to critical thinking, although that might be a lost cause.” Tracht ended the sentence by popping a piece of fruit into his mouth.
It had been years since Alex had studied anything. He’d been glad when he and Nick had stopped going to school, because he was always at the bottom of the class and he could never see the point of what they were learning. Alex thought of protesting, but Tracht had been kind of… okay, these past few days, and he decided that he wasn’t going to mess with a good thing while it lasted.
They got dressed and went about their day. When they were got to Tracht’s office, Alex sprawled out on the couch and pulled up the files Tracht had sent him.
Ship layouts and general definitions.
It should be understood that these are general definitions, and may vary from ship to ship. There are some terms that appear nonsensical to the modern reader, but have their history from the days when humans sailed earth’s seas in wooden vessels. Any student will understand that spaceships are more similar to aircrafts than naval vessels, but when space travel was but a spark in mankind’s imagination, ….
Alex’s eyes began to swim. One paragraph and it was already starting to bore him. He skimmed ahead to where the definitions finally began, and that wasn’t actually any better. Port, starboard, bow, stern. He’d heard people using it, and he’d kind of figured out that “stern” was the back of the ship. Most of the time he just followed wherever Tracht was going.
The cardinal directions of north, south, east, and west are entirely useless when out in space. One also needs to contend with the three-dimensional nature of space navigation, similar to submarine travel underwater.
What the heck was a submarine? Alex looked over at Tracht, but Tracht was absorbed with something on his screen. Better to keep his mouth shut.
In Alex’s defense, he tried. But his mind kept wandering. Even with the pictures he couldn’t keep anything straight. So after a while, he gave up and just started watching vids on mute.
At the usual time, they stopped to grab lunch; Strobel, the navigator, was there, and he told Tracht that he’d spotted a beautiful star cluster on the starboard side, and hah, Alex thought he maybe knew what direction that meant. Tracht acted interested, but his hand kept pinching Alex’s thigh under the table, so he was probably just pretending.
By the end of the day, Alex had kind of skimmed both chapters. The second one, about essential ship functions, was even more complicated than the first one. He was looking forward to just relaxing in their cabin and maybe watching some vids, or maybe Tracht fucking him.
“So,” Tracht asked, after Alex had removed his boots, “What did you learn today?”
“Huh?”
“You did study, right?” Tracht looked down at him with a severe expression. “I left you to your own devices for that purpose. Even I wouldn’t expect you to read and warm my cock at the same time.”
Alex shrugged, wishing he hadn’t already stripped his clothes off. “Yeah. I read.” He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Tracht’s knee, hoping to… to distract him, maybe.
He wasn’t even surprised when Tracht grabbed his hair and roughly shoved him away.
“Get up. Bend over the side of the couch.”
That was promising. Alex scrambled to do as asked. He even spread his legs a little, to give Tracht an enticing view of his hole.
For a little while Tracht left him there. Alex heard Tracht changing into his pajamas, and a few drawers opening and closing. Then the soft sounds of his feet padding across the carpet and back to the couch.
He flinched when Tracht placed his hand on Alex’s ass, but he relaxed into the touch. The pose wasn’t particularly comfortable, with Alex’s head tilted down and resting on his arms for a semblance of stability, and with his legs bent lightly. Okay, Tracht was probably going to spank him a bit and then fuck him. He could handle that.
The petting was pretty soothing, and when no smacks came, Alex relaxed further. Maybe Tracht was feeling nice for once.
“So, Alex, when I tell you to go aft, where will you be walking?” Tracht asked, stilling his hand.
“Uh?” Alex had to push past the fuzziness in his head. The sudden pinch to his balls helped with that. “Ow!”
“Answer the question, Alex. When I tell you to go aft, where will you go?”
“To, uh, to—” Alex tried to remember, but all the words were a jumbled mess. “The back of the ship?”
“Is that a question or is that your answer?” The pinch got nastier, to the point that Alex’s eyes started tearing up.
“My answer! That’s my answer! Aft is the back of the ship!”
Tracht released Alex’s balls, and Alex let out a loud sob of relief.
“Good. A small reward for the correct answer.” Tracht cradled Alex’s balls this time, gently massaging and sending pleasure ratcheting up Alex’s spine. He arched his back a bit and pushed into the touch, moaning. It wasn’t enough to get Alex hard yet, but if Tracht kept that up Alex was going to be cursing the cock cage all over again.
“Next question. There’s a problem in the storage deck, in the starboard quarter lot. Which one is that?”
All of the Sigrun’s storage lots were marked in colors, Alex remembered that much from when they were unloading and reloading at Atalanta Station. It was easier than all that other stuff from the book. Containers to be stacked in the red lot, containers to be stacked in the blue lot.
“Yellow?” Alex ventured. Starboard was one of the sides, he was pretty sure, and the yellow lot was on the side.
He got another pinch to his balls. “Alex, don’t answer my questions with more questions.”
“Fine! Yellow!” Alex was paralyzed, afraid to move and have the pain increase, but desperate to get out from the pain.
He sighed loudly when Tracht let go. The correct answer, then. Okay, he could do this. He could—
Thwack.
Alex yelped at the sudden, sharp pain across both his ass cheeks. He struggled to look over his shoulder, and he saw Tracht holding up a crop.
“Every wrong answer nets you a strike from this. A correct answer gets you a reward. And if you get too many wrong… well, I hope you enjoyed your lunch, because it might be the last decent meal you’ll get in a while.”
“No! That’s not fair!” Alex shouted and pushed himself up, only to have another three strikes meted out on his ass. He stood, half upright, half over the edge of the couch, and he shook with indecision.
Tracht placed a hand on his back and pushed him back down. “Do we need to have another demonstration of who’s in charge here, Alex?”
“No.” Alex buried his face in his arms. “But I didn’t know there was gonna be a test. You shoulda told me. I woulda… I woulda tried harder to remember all that stuff.”
“Now you know, and tomorrow you won’t simply pretend to be studying.” Tracht smoothed over the welts he’d left on Alex’s ass, and took the time to circle Alex’s hole.
Alex’s entire body felt overheated, and all of his attention was diverted to that one spot. No matter how many times Tracht had done this before, Alex couldn’t help but feel so vulnerable, so exposed, and so damned needy. He tried to relax himself to entice Tracht to forget about all the punishment and just get straight to the main event, the one where, even if Alex didn’t get to come, he still ended up feeling kind of good.
“You look very enticing like this. Maybe the next time we’re on Atalanta, we can find another party to attend, where I can put you on display. It’s always a shame that I can’t truly share you on board the ship.”
Memories of the Party slammed into Alex. The way everybody had leered, how Alex had been nothing but meat to them, somehow making Alex feel even more worthless than Tracht did.
“Please, no. I don’t—” Alex cut himself off. “I’ll study. But I don’t want to go to another party.”
“Oh, Alex. You know you have absolutely no choice in the matter.” Tracht pushed his finger in slightly and rotated it around, more of a maddening sensation than anything pleasurable or painful. “Next question.”
Alex got that one wrong too, but he got the next one right, leaving him in a confused, half-aroused state. He counted off three strikes in a row before he managed to concentrate enough to remember a right answer.
His rate of success got even worse when Tracht started questioning him about the second chapter, until his ass felt like nothing but a massive bruise. He couldn’t really breathe anymore, let alone think about what the correct answer could be.
His responses stopped being coherent words, falling out of his mouth in groans and grunts. Alex gave up on trying to satisfy Tracht, and simply braced himself for the sound of the crop cutting through the air, for the inevitable sharp pain layered across his ass and thighs. All he could do was lie there and hope it would end before he broke out in tears.
When it did end, it came accompanied by Tracht’s hands palming at his ass, squeezing the flesh and causing another sharp explosion of agony.
Alex cried out when Tracht let go, and like a pathetic loser he welcomed Tracht rearranging them so that Alex was lying with his head on Tracht’s lap, spread out across the couch. He really did start crying when Tracht tangled his fingers into Alex’s hair and forced him into a kiss.
“So, what did you learn today, Alex?” Tracht asked when he pulled back.
“Du… dunno.”
Tracht brushed the tears from the corners of Alex’s eyes. “You learned to study harder, I hope. Because we’re going to be doing this again in two days.”
“Not tomorrow?” Alex immediately regretted saying it. He had to stop giving Tracht ideas.
But Tracht smiled at him. “No, not tomorrow. I don’t want your ass completely broken. We’ll give it a day to recover. But if you keep your failures up, I’m going to have to find even more creative incentives.”
“No! I’ll study!” Alex buried his head against Tracht’s stomach, and then twisted enough so he could mouth at Tracht’s half-hard cock through the thin pajama trousers. He waited just long enough for Tracht to push at his head, giving him a clear signal. With just his mouth, he pulled the waistband down to reveal Tracht’s erection.
It wasn’t any effort at all to start sucking. Every time he bobbed his head, the bruises twinged, so he put extra effort into sucking and licking, swirling his tongue over all the spots that Tracht liked.
“That’s good, Alex,” Tracht murmured. With the hand not gripping Alex’s hair, he started stroking Alex’s face, running his thumb around Alex’s mouth, following the trail the tears left on Alex’s cheek. When that thumb trailed up Alex’s broken nose, Tracht murmured, “Beautiful.”
Tracht got less coherent after that, mostly grunting and moaning, which Alex took as a good sign. The angle wasn’t good enough for Alex to have access to Tracht’s balls, but he didn’t have the energy to lift his arms and do extra work anyway.
When Tracht’s thrusting got more vigorous, Alex figured he was about to come. He didn’t expect the sudden pinch to his ass, and he choked on the next thrust – choked, and coughed as come filled his mouth. Tracht didn’t let him up, not until he’d finished completely, and Alex was seriously wondering if he’d run out of air.
As soon as Tracht let go, Alex rolled back, and fell off the couch, onto his ass. He shouted and gasped, in pain and needing to breathe. Tracht laughed and set his bare feet on Alex’s chest.
“Very nice. Maybe there’s some merit to your utter lack of cognitive abilities.”
Alex wheezed and vowed not to get any more wrong answers.