Just Too Tired to Fight It

Jorge turned the doorknob with the patience of a safe-cracker, the metal surface slipping just a little under his sweaty palms as he twisted the handle until it clicked. He eased the door open slowly, making a gap just wide enough to allow his lanky body passage into the apartment, then carefully closed it from the other side. Only when it was silently settled back into the door frame did he cautiously release the knob and allow the door to latch. Then he closed the deadbolt, wincing slightly at the clicking noise it made.

He slipped out of his shoes and padded down the darkened hallway in his socks, sliding his feet across the bare wood to prevent the sound of his footfalls from alerting Cameron to his return. It had already been a hellishly long day, with three finals in the morning followed by a twelve-hour shift at the restaurant, and even though he loved his roommate like a brother, right now he loved the thought of falling face-first onto his pillow a whole hell of a lot more. Jorge edged up to the open archway that led past the living room, listening for the sound of the television, hoping to pass by when Cameron was distracted so he could get to his bedroom and-

"Hey hey, Mister J!" Cameron called out as Jorge passed by, the sound of his voice freezing Jorge in position midway down the hall. He turned to see his roommate sitting on the couch in his boxer shorts, the bright white fabric vividly contrasting Cameron's dark skin. "Come and take a load off, dude," Cameron gestured, wiggling the bottle of Corona he held loosely between his fingers. "The night is still young, m'man, and I already got a cold one out for you."

Jorge's shoulders slumped. One thing he had to admit, Cameron always knew when to pick his opportunities. He seemed to have a knack for it, finding the exact moment when Jorge's resistance had been sapped by long days and longer nights and the thought of pushing back against Cameron's friendly insistence seemed so utterly exhausting that it felt easier just to go along with him for a little while. Even when he already knew that 'a little while' was going to turn into something more, even when he knew that Cameron's offer of a single beer was the social equivalent of the salesman sticking his foot in the door. Jorge could already see the evening's events unfolding in his mind.

He'd have to go over and sit on the couch. If he tried to plead exhaustion, Cameron would only give him that hangdog look of his and say something, "Come on, man. We never see each other anymore, y'know? You're always work work work and school school school, dude. You gotta make a little time for your friends. Sit down, have a beer, just relax a few minutes. I already opened it, it'll go to waste if you don't drink it."

And even though Jorge knew full well that Cameron always knew what to do with an extra beer, the guilt would always eat away at him until he promised himself that he'd just spend ten minutes hanging out and watching stupid viral videos on the couch before he dragged himself off to bed. "Ten minutes, man, that's all I can do," he'd say, giving Cameron a serious look that he already knew his friend would totally disregard. "Otherwise I'm gonna fall asleep right here in the living room."

"Sure, sure, no problem," Cameron always said, every single time. His dark brown eyes practically radiated sincerity when he promised, "I'll make sure to keep an eye on the clock, dude," his face so earnest and open that even though they both knew he was lying through his teeth, Jorge always managed to convince himself that this time would be different. He'd pull up the Chromecast, put on some stupid video about guys fucking up skateboard stunts or faceplanting during a basketball game, and let it autoplay while Jorge drank his Corona.

And wouldn't you just know it, when he got up to get himself a fresh beer, Cameron would always grab one for Jorge too. Just out of politeness, of course. Because it would be rude to make Jorge get his own beer when he was already so worn out by his long day. "You been working that brain of yours so hard I'm surprised it ain't out of gas, y'know?" he'd say, giving Jorge a big smile and setting down a new Corona right next to the half-full bottle on the end table. Always the same jokes, always reminding Jorge how tired he was. But somehow never giving him a graceful opportunity to leave.

Not that Jorge didn't bear his share of the blame. He'd remind himself every time that he said ten minutes, that he meant ten minutes, that he was exhausted and bleary-eyed and so groggy he could barely string a coherent thought together. But the couch was always so comfortable, and there was always a cool beer right there at hand, and the videos autoplayed one into the next into the next without any real cues to alert Jorge to the lateness of the hour beyond the little clock in the corner of the screen. And that was easy to ignore.

And so ten minutes would become fifteen, and fifteen would become twenty, and Cameron would pull out a little weed and offer Jorge a pull, and it just always seemed easier to sit and rest his weary body than to go through the exhausting work of pulling himself to his feet and marching down the hallway to bed. Cameron always made it so easy for Jorge to relax, even while he made it so difficult for him to rest. There was never a time to really think about what was happening, it seemed. Not when the next video caught his attention as soon as the last one finished, not when the couch was so soft and cozy beneath him. Time sort of lost meaning on nights like this.

And somehow it was never a surprise when Cameron subtly shifted the content of the videos, tapping on his phone and bringing up sports clips and wrestling matches and finding more and more 'ironic' homoerotic content for them to watch together. If it annoyed Jorge-and some nights it did-he never said anything about it; between his exhaustion and Cameron's enthusiasm and Jorge's slightly altered state, it just seemed too much like work to make a big deal out of a few videos. He'd be going to bed soon, he always told himself. Cameron could watch whatever he wanted, and Jorge would just leave him to it. Whatever his roommate was into, it was no big deal to him.

But then Cameron would put on real porn, progressing slowly from compilation videos of women giving long, sloppy blowjobs and getting their faces splattered with huge loads of steaming cum through to clips of threesomes between two men and one woman where the men were just as into each other as they were into her. And even though it felt kind of awkward, Jorge would never know exactly what to say about it. He never knew exactly where the line was; if he hadn't complained about two shirtless dudes wrestling in a mud puddle, could he really say something about two dudes running their hands up and down each other's chests? Somehow, that initial surrender of control to Cameron always led, like dominoes tumbling down one after another, into a sense of passive disassociation that robbed Jorge of his ability to object.

And on those very few times when Jorge did manage to mumble something about leaving Cameron to enjoy himself, Cameron always managed to somehow turn it back on Jorge. "What's the matter, dude?" he'd ask, his voice filled with subtle insinuations. "You don't like getting your dick sucked or something?" And Jorge could never find a way to answer the question. Because to be honest, yes, the videos were always hot. Jorge's cock slowly swelled into an erection almost before he realized it on nights like this-how could it not? A constant stream of hot, sexy images pouring into his dazed, groggy brain, and no time for a girlfriend? Yeah, he got turned on. And Cameron knew it.

So they'd keep watching, until eventually, somewhere around the tenth or eleventh or the who-knew-how-manyth clip of handjobs and blowjobs and cock worship, Cameron would look down at his phone and say, "Oh, shit. Master C just dropped a new video. Sorry dude, I gotta watch this real quick, okay?" And before Jorge could say anything, Cameron would tap away at his phone and bring up a whole porn channel devoted to... to... Jorge didn't even know how to describe it. To Cameron's thing. His kink. His fetish. And to the stranger he relied on to get his fix... Master C.

Jorge didn't know what the 'C' stood for. Probably 'cock'; most of the videos made a big deal about the guy's dick and how important it was. Jorge didn't normally watch the clips-it wasn't his thing the way it was for Cameron, staring at some weird trippy fucked up pattern on the screen and listening to some guy tell you that you were hypnotized into being his sex slave. But he'd seen enough of them on nights like this to know what they were about, and there was a lot of stuff in there about getting addicted to Master C's cock and balls.

It definitely worked on Cameron. He watched the new videos like clockwork, every time they came out. And somehow, that always seemed to be late at night when he and Jorge were sitting in the living room, with Jorge drained to the point of absolute exhaustion by a brutally long day and unable to lever himself up and off the couch even though he knew that he was about to be subjected to something like twenty solid minutes of some total stranger droning on and on about how awesome his fucking dick was.

It wasn't that Jorge felt... weird about it, or anything. Cameron was his best friend, and if he was gay or bi or whatever then Jorge was cool with that. But watching gay porn when he was already kind of turned on-and gay porn that was full of this Master C dude telling them that every guy could be at least a little bit bi for him, if he just stared at the spiral and switched his brain off and let his cock do the thinking for a while... that part was kind of weird. It was always right about here that Jorge really started wondering if he should make his excuses and leave.

But somehow, he never did. It was just too much like effort to get up by then, too much like work to even consider how he was going to explain to Cameron that he wasn't freaked out-he just didn't have a thing for dicks and he needed to get some sleep. He knew from experience all the tactics Cameron would use to get him to stay just a little while longer, all the excuses and promises and guilt trips and stalls, and it all tired Jorge out so much that he usually wound up deciding before he even opened his mouth that it would be easier to sit through the video than to argue his way out of it. And so he'd sit. And watch. And listen.

The spiral did kind of do its work, at least a little bit. Jorge admitted that much. When he was tired like that, and it kept spinning and spinning and drawing his eyes deeper down into the center of the screen, Jorge did sometimes kind of zone out a little. Probably just from the exhaustion, probably just because he was sleepy and buzzed and it was easier to stare at the swirling patterns and tune out the droning voice of Master C, but Jorge usually lost track of time a little bit when the video was going. Not... not much. Just a little. Just enough to keep him preoccupied. That was why he never noticed when one video ended and the next one began. Because he was tired, that was all.

But it happened nonetheless. Every single time, Cameron let one video roll straight into the next, his eyes glazing over as he chanted along with Master C's mantras of obedience. "Master C's cock is the most important thing in my life," he'd say, lazily rubbing his erection through his boxer shorts. "Master C's cock makes me feel weak and obedient. Master C's powerful cock is stronger than my resistance." There were more of them; it felt to Jorge sometimes like the guy came up with a dozen new mantras for every single video, and Cameron seemed happy to spend his whole night, every night repeating them all.

Jorge knew he could probably just leave him to it, but it never seemed to be the right time to stop watching and slip out of the room. There was always another video, always another spiral, always another twisting pattern of light tugging his gaze to the center of the screen. It sometimes seemed on nights like this that Jorge had already fallen asleep right there on the couch, his eyes still open but his mind already dozing off into thick, groggy slumber. Until his head felt strangely empty, and Master C's voice echoed inside his head like a guitar with too much fuzz.

There was never any point in trying to get out of it after that. Once Cameron started in on the Master C videos, he kept them going for the rest of the night until Jorge's energy wore down and he passed out on the couch. Jorge didn't want to fall asleep listening to Master C; he always had weird, recursive dreams of dozing off with his eyes open and finding out that the spiral was brainwashing him for real, turning him into a sex slave to Master C and then making him forget he was being programmed until the next time he watched the patterns on the screen. But by the time things got to that stage, Jorge was too exhausted to fight sleep any longer.

Too exhausted to fight. Too tired to resist the deep, droning voice that insinuated itself into his brain, filling up his dazed and groggy mind with images of licking and sucking Master C's heavy balls while Master C's perfect cock rubbed against his face. Too sleepy to notice Cameron's hands, undoing his fly and pulling down his jeans to find Jorge's throbbing erection ready and willing to be stroked into deeper obedience to their Master's will. Too drowsy to struggle against the undertow of pleasure that sent Jorge's thoughts sinking into the center of the spiral, every single time he slept and dreamed of Master C.

It wasn't that the dreams were bad, exactly. There was something so powerfully erotic about them, something so potent and sexually charged about the way his hand drifted helplessly over to slip into the waistband of Cameron's boxers and pull out his best friend's cock without any conscious awareness of it. It always made Jorge's dick so hard, remembering the throbbing tightness in his balls and the way that the pleasure seemed to go on forever and ever as his mind drifted into the spiral and his lips mouthed along with Master C's irresistible mantras of obedience. They were such realistic dreams, so vivid and intense that Jorge could almost feel Cameron's callused fingers stroking up and down the terra cotta skin of his shaft.

But... but they seemed a little too realistic sometimes. A little too vivid and intense. Jorge wondered every once in a while if it was... healthy, dreaming in such perfect detail about being brainwashed by a complete stranger like that. Not that Jorge thought that Master C could really hypnotize people-that was just guys like Cameron playing along because it made them hot and horny to pretend that they were another man's sex slave. But at the same time, it was hard not to think about those dreams now, every time Jorge masturbated. Imagining Master C's words subtly undermining his resistance, making him believe he wasn't weak and vulnerable until the programming was complete and his brain simply snapped to attention like an obedient good boy for Master.

Some of the dreams were about that. And about the videos that promised Cameron so much pleasure if he only helped to enslave his friends. Jorge wondered about that, sometimes.

But not right now. Right now, Jorge couldn't think about anything but the weariness behind his eyes, the drained feeling that pinned him in place. He needed to sleep so bad, needed to rest his heavy, exhausted head and drift off into unconsciousness... but he knew what happened when he tried to resist. He knew exactly what happened. And he was too tired to go through that kind of struggle again. Just thinking about it made him drowsy. And weak. And vulnerable.

Jorge sighed in defeat. "Sure, dude," he mumbled, his voice already sounding groggy and befuddled in his ears. "Just for ten minutes, though, okay? I gotta get some, um... some sleep." He trudged over to the couch, collapsing into the soft cushions and gratefully accepting Cameron's offered bottle. His eyes glazed over, staring at the screen and letting it numb his brain into lazy indifference. And slowly, just like every other night, his cock began to stiffen inside his jeans once again.

THE END