Trust in Oneself, Draft 1, CH 22 (Patreon)

“We’re here,” the weasel behind the wheel said, snapping Paul out of his thought.

The Ride-Share had been against the others…his family? His cousins? How did he call the people who ran a city while not being officially in power? Well, if he didn’t want to be kind, the mob.

He was trying to be kind.

He was trying hard.

The way they screamed at one another made it hard.

He paid the driver and exited. The building looked more like a warehouse than a bodybuilding gym. The name over the door was understated. “Massive.” Was what this gym was called. It wasn’t Dietrich’s public gym, where he went to be adored. Where the body-building aspects were more accidental to all the sex that took place.

Paul knew sex happened here— Madoc had regaled him with enough stories—but this was where Dietrich trained the men who were serious about competing in bodybuilding competitions.

It also meant that, unlike the other place, the one Madoc referred to as Dietrich’s club, the atmosphere was more serious, more tense, and the attitude far less friendly the few times the rat had convinced Paul to come for a visit. One of the occasional attempts to get Paul to join a gym and work on his physique.

Madoc liked his men more defined than Paul and kept trying to move the golden tiger in that direction. Since Paul had made it clear that if the rat used his power on him, they were never having sex again, the old fashion way was all that was left for him to make it happen.

Paul didn’t need more than staying in shape, and dancing accomplished that for him.

He stepped in, and the lobby was plain. A counter on the left acted as a display case for a variety of bodybuilding supplements. On the right was a waiting area with posters of men in various poses showing off muscles. Madoc had told him they were all men who had trained here and won championships.

Opposite the entrance was a door leading to the workout area. Immediately on the right were the lockers and showers. Then it was an open field of weight machines and naked men built to make other men envious, jealous, or simply terrified.

Dietrich had a strict no-women policy in any of his gyms.

The cheetah behind the counter was muscular beyond what should be possible for the species, stretching the shirt he wore to neat transparency. He didn’t bother hiding the sneer as he looked Paul over. Superiority wasn’t a complex among the men Dietrich trained, it was an entire high-rise.

“I need to speak with Dietrich, please,” Paul said, stepping up to the counter.

“Mister Orr doesn’t do walk-ins.” The cheetah looked Paul up and down again. “I doubt he’d do you, even if you had an appointment.”

“I’m here to talk with him, could you just let him know? I’m sure he’ll be okay with it.”

“I’m sure Mister Orr would be okay with someone like you just stepping into his world.” The cheetah’s smile had nothing friendly in it. “Unfortunately for you, he’s in the middle of a very intensive training session at the moment. But if you want, I can pencil you in for… well, eventually.”

Paul put his hands on the counter and fought with his annoyance. “Please tell Mister Orr that his son is here to see him.”

The shock on the cheetah’s face was satisfying, but didn’t last. “Nice try. No kid of him would be as skinny as you.”

“I’m not—”

The inner door slammed open and a naked rat stepped through, looking and sniffing around and quickly locking eyes on Paul. Madoc was hard. The rat licked his lips as he approached.

Paul cursed mentally. In his hurry to come to see Dietrich, he’d forgotten to check if Madoc was working at this gym today.

“Mad,” the cheetah said severely. “You know how Mister Orr feels about being naked in the lobby.”

“Don’t worry about it, Todd. I won’t be the only one for long.”

Paul didn’t wait and stepped to Madoc. “I’m going to escort him back inside.” He grabbed the rat’s arm.

“You can’t—”

The cheetah’s voice cut off with the door closing.

Paul turned into the locker room as Madoc groped him.

“Mad, you need to stop.”

“Come on, Paul, it’s okay in the locker room.” The rat rubbed up and down Pauls’ hardening cock and the golden tiger quickened his step past the men changing. A few of them looked at them, and the expressions went from bored, to annoyed, to lustful, to curious. They entered the showers to Madoc, having pushed a hand into Paul’s pants and rubbing the head.

Paul nearly fell from the sensation. Jerking off these last week hadn’t been enough to do more than push the need down, and now he had to deny himself. This was clearly not his friend in control of himself.

He reached for the controls on the wall and turned the shower up full blast.

Madoc screamed at the cold water, and Paul gritted his teeth. Even expecting it, it was a shock.

“What the fuck, wrong with you?” the rat demanded, turning the shower off.

Paul wondered if he could be affected by his own power because the sight of the dripping wet rat only made him want to fuck him. No, he was just fucking horny. This was something he’d have to learn to live with, considering who his god was.

“I need you able to think, Mad.”

“I was—”

“With more than your ass.”

The rat closed his mouth.

Somewhere among the sound of other showers, Paul heard chuckling and was reminded this was a communal shower. As Madoc had implied, Dietrich didn’t mind if the men fucked in the locker room and showers.

He lowered his voice. “Dietrich’s my father, and because I had sex with him a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been initiated. Turns out my power makes guys I like want to have me fuck them, so what you’re feeling right now, the fact you went in the lobby naked and erect knowing what Dietrich can do to the guys who break the gym’s rules tells me I’m the reason you’re this horny. I can’t leave, so I need you to dry out, get dressed and get as far from me.”

The rat looked him in the eyes. “Are you done?”

Paul worried about how calm Madoc seemed to be, but nodded and was grabbed, turned, and shoved against the wall before he could react.

“If you ever do this to me again and you don’t actually fuck me, I am going to tie you in my basement and fuck you until the ropes break because of how big you’re going to have gotten. Am I clear?”

“Mad I—”

“Am I clear?” the rat growled.

“Yes, you are, but—”

“Good.” The rat let go of him. “Having said that, thank you for not taking advantage of the situation.”

Paul watched as Madoc slicked the water out of his fur. “Mad, you really should go far from me. At least in another room. Thomas seems to have an easier time resisting if he doesn’t see me.”

“Has Thomas felt what that unrestrained influence is like, Paul?”

“I don’t do that,” Paul replied, offended by the implications.

“My boss does,” the rat replied with a chuckle. “You were right. That was me being influenced earlier. But that’s because I didn’t know what you were doing.” He looked the golden tiger in his wet clothes up and down. “Now, if I were to rip those off you, throw you to the floor, and sit on your hard cock until you came so hard He would show up to know what’s made that happen, it would be all me.”

“You just think that.” Paul wished he could back more, or run off, but he was worried it would cause Madoc to chase him.

“Paul, I’ve felt Dietrich’s influence. I can resist yours.”

Paul watched Madoc, then chuckled. “Sometimes I forget you aren’t the guy running between ragged, scared, and desperate you were after you had your memories back.”

“That’s because the only time we hang out since you moved to the Bay, it’s social or while I’m at work. I got some of that fucked out of me by my boss’s nephews and the rest was realizing I didn’t have to worry about Raphael sending a hit squad to bring me back so I could pump out babies for him.”

“You had sex with this other…” Paul couldn’t finish it.

“Dietrich insisted on it after he got me to admit some of the stuff Raphael did to the guys. He wanted me to be able to take care of myself if it came down to it. I didn’t get the military package the rest of the guys at the frat got from Hendrick. Instead, I have Aaron’s fighting ease, Arnold’s strength and endurance, and Alex’s knack for guns. Raphy is going to have to send some really trained people if he wants me back.”

“And that is if I am not there,” a deep voice said, and Dietrich stepped into the shower. “If I am, it doesn’t matter who he sends. All he will get are the pieces of them that are left.”

Paul looked at the massive tiger. He wasn’t hard, which was a blessing. But that was two men Paul liked enough to have had sex with previously. If one of them lost the battle of will, would that drag the other into a frenzy of Paul having to fuck them both?

“Madoc, Jaeger is wondering where you are. Your sets should have started already.”

“Yes sir, what about Paul? I know—”

“My son and I will be talking in my office.”

* * * * *

The office had shelves on the walls, but instead of books, those were filled with trophies. Paul looked at them from the door to avoid looking at the naked tiger’s muscular back. Unlike with Madoc, he didn’t want to have sex with Dietrich at this moment, but he figured avoiding temptation was a good plan. He didn’t think all the trophies were Dietrich’s wins, but he wondered which were.

“Have a seat,” Dietrich said as he put on sweat pants.

Paul hesitated. He was here to get answers, and to get away from the screaming in the office room. But he wasn’t sure what to make of this version of Dietrich. He had to be angry at the revelation. Then there were the pants. He hadn’t expected the tiger to get dressed even this minimally.

Dietrich smiled. “We’re not here to fuck. If I was going to give in to what you’re sending out, I’d have done it in the shower.”

“So you feel it too?”

The tiger shrugged. “Not really. You grow up with my brothers and father, and you gain some form of resistance to being influenced that way. So you don’t have to worry, we’re just going to talk.” He sat in the chair behind the desk. “Do you have a picture of your mother around the time you were born? You’d think I’d remember a golden tigress, but…” he shrugged.

Paul took his phone as he sat. With being back in civilization, Grant had gotten Wassa her own phone to act as a translating talisman. He quickly look through the drive’s memory for any family pictures, but he and his mother had never been big on them. There would be some at home, and there might be a few linked folders on the net, but it could be awhile before he found them.

“The fact I don’t remember her, considering how distinctive she looks, makes me think it was during one of the few occasions someone managed to slip me a drug. I’m very careful about what I put in my body,” he continued. “Having a god’s cum flow through me doesn’t mean I take it for granted, and a serious resistance to drugs didn’t come until Arnold. When you have my kind of body, there are people, men and women, who will go to extremes to have a chance to experience it. It’s possible your mother was one of them, and if she—”

“No,” Paul stated. “Don’t even go there.”

“Paul, the fact we share blood doesn’t excuse her—”

Paul was up, hand on the desk, glaring at the mountain of a tiger before him. “She had nothing to do with drugging you,” he snarled. “You what to know how she referred to you the few times I asked when I was younger? As someone inconsequential. Do you think she’d refer to you like that if she had to go to the extent of drugging you to have sex?”

Dietrich calmly watched Paul, and that was enough to make him realize he was almost screaming. He decided not to apologize. The man had insulted his mother, and like he said, that they shared blood didn’t excuse that.

“I do think she might refer to me like that, Paul. Here’s a question for you. Did you ask your mother why meeting me made her so nervous?”

“Have you looked at yourself?”

Dietrich smiled. “No more than most men. I’m not that vain.” He raised a hand. “But I know what you mean. If it was the first time she’d met me, I’d understand the reaction, but…”

Paul continued because he couldn’t stop himself. “She already knew what you looked like.