The Experiment

Something is wrong with your mouth. That's the first coherent thought that surfaces through the fog. Your mouth is dry, gummy, like you've been sleeping with it open for a long time. Your tongue is thick. Your limbs are heavy. There's a chemical taste coating the back of your throat, bitter and medicinal, and no matter how many times you swallow it won't go away.

You open your eyes.

White. Everything is white. The ceiling above you is white. The walls are white. The light above is flat and even and sourceless, like it's coming from everywhere at once. Your brain is still booting up, still trying to string together what happened before this. School. The bus. An unexpected stop. Men in dark clothes. A sharp smell, like alcohol and rubbing cleaner, pressed over your nose and mouth. Then nothing.

You're lying on your back on a bed that's too narrow. Your shoulder is touching something warm. Someone. You turn your head and there's a boy right there, inches from your face, still unconscious. Blond hair that's a little too long, falling across his forehead in messy tangles. Freckles scattered across the bridge of his nose. He's wearing the same thing you are: a white t-shirt, white shorts, white ankle socks. His breathing is slow and even, his lips parted, and he looks younger asleep. Softer. His shoulder presses against yours, skin warm through the thin cotton, and the bed is so narrow that your hips are nearly touching too. There's nowhere to move to. The wall is right behind you.

You sit up. The room is small. Everything in it is white: the floor tiles, the walls, a love seat across from you, a dresser, a bedside table with several bottles of something on it. Interior walls made of clear glass divide the space into sections. A bathroom behind one glass wall. A shower stall. A toilet. All visible. All exposed. There's a television mounted on the far wall, currently dark. A black hemisphere is mounted on the wall beside a single door that has no handle. No knobs. No locks. Just a smooth white surface.

The boy beside you stirs. His eyelids flutter. Blue eyes, groggy and unfocused, crack open and find you. For a second he just blinks. Then his body goes rigid and he lurches upright, nearly toppling off the edge of the bed, catching himself on the mattress with one hand.

"What the fuck!" His voice cracks, pitching high and rough from sleep. He scrambles back against the wall, pulling his knees up, staring at you like you might be the one who put him here. "Who, what, where are we? What is this?"

He looks around the room. Takes in the white. The glass. The door with no handle. His breathing gets faster, chest heaving under the thin shirt, and his hands ball into fists at his sides. He's scared. He's trying not to look like he's scared.

A red light flickers on at the center of the black hemisphere.

"Patient One. Patient Two." The voice is flat, genderless, distorted slightly by the speaker. It comes from everywhere and nowhere. "You have been selected for a government-sanctioned reproductive study. Your cooperation is required. To complete the study and secure your release, you must engage in sexual intercourse. Further instructions will follow as needed. Food will be delivered shortly."

The red light winks off.

Silence.

Tommy stares at the hemisphere. His jaw is hanging open. His fists are still clenched. A flush is crawling up his neck, splotchy and red, and his eyes snap to you like you might have answers.

"Did, did that just say what I think it said?" His voice is pitched high and tight, cracking on the last word. "Sexual? Did it say sexual intercourse? With, with you? No. No fucking way. No way, dude. I'm not, that's, that's gay as hell, I'm not doing that!"

He's looking at you. The bed creaks between you. The room is very small and very white and there is nowhere else to go.

Three days. You've been in this room for three days and nothing has gotten better. The white walls are still white. The glass is still transparent. The television still loops the same footage of boys with boys, close-up and relentless, the volume turned just high enough that you can hear it no matter where you sit. The porridge still tastes like nothing. The shower still unlocks for exactly thirty minutes. The black hemisphere by the door still glows red when the Proctors speak, and they still call him Patient One and you Patient Two.

Tommy is on the bed. He's been on the bed for most of the morning, curled on his side, facing the glass bathroom wall. He hasn't spoken much today. Yesterday he was pacing, angry, shouting at the hemisphere until his voice gave out. Today he's quiet. Too quiet. His knees are pulled up tight to his chest, his arms wrapped around them, and he's pressing his forehead against the glass like the coolness of it is the only thing keeping him together.

The Proctors changed the clothes this morning. The shorts are gone. You're both in briefs and tank tops now, the cotton so thin it might as well be nothing, and you can see the outline of everything. Tommy's shoulders, the definition in his arms, the lean muscle of his legs. You've been trying not to look. Your eyes keep finding him anyway.

Something is happening to your body. It started yesterday. A restlessness in your skin, a heat that sits low in your gut and won't go away. Your cock has been half-hard all morning, sensitive against the fabric of your briefs, and every time you shift the friction sends sparks up your spine. There's a pressure at the root of it, something swelling, something you don't understand. And there's a smell in the room. Not the porridge, not the cleaning chemicals. Something sweet and thick and warm, coming from the direction of the bed, and every time it hits your nose your body tightens with something that isn't quite arousal. Not yet. But close.

Tommy shifts on the bed. The movement pulls his tank top up, exposing the curve of his lower back, the dimples above his briefs, and you hear him make a small sound. Quiet. Almost involuntary. His hand moves between his legs, pressing against himself through the fabric, and you can see a wet spot spreading. Not precum. Something else. Something clear and slick that's soaking through the white cotton and making it cling.

He freezes. Realizes what he's doing. His hand jerks away like the fabric burned him and he rolls over, facing you now. His face is flushed red, blotchy, spreading down his neck and across his chest. His eyes are wet. His bottom lip is caught between his teeth and his chest is heaving and there's a tremor running through him that makes the bed shake beneath him.

"Don't." His voice cracks, splintering on the single syllable. "Don't fucking look at me. I'm not, something's wrong, something's wrong with me, I don't know what they did but something's, I'm wet, I'm, fuck, I'm wet and I don't know why and I can't make it stop."

The smell gets thicker. Sweeter. It curls through the air and finds you, settles into your lungs, and something deep in your chest answers. A pull. A heat. The pressure at the root of your cock throbs and swells and you don't know what it is but it wants.

Tommy is looking at you. Terrified. Confused. His briefs are soaked and his cock is straining against the wet fabric and his whole body is trembling, and there's something about the way he's looking at you that makes the heat in your gut flare white-hot.

"I'm not gay," he whispers. "I'm not gay. I'm not."

His hips shift on the bed. The wet fabric pulls and clings. The sweet smell thickens.

The room hasn't gotten any bigger in three days. You know this because you've counted the floor tiles, traced the seams in the ceiling, memorized the exact distance from the bed to the love seat (five steps) and from the love seat to the dumbwaiter (seven). The white hasn't gotten any less white. The glass walls haven't gotten any less transparent. The television hasn't stopped playing its loop of boys touching boys, boys kissing boys, boys doing things that make your stomach tight and your face hot in a way you refuse to name.

Tommy is pacing. He's been pacing for the last twenty minutes, bare feet slapping the white tile in a restless circuit from the glass bathroom wall to the door with no handle and back. Three days ago he woke up next to you on this bed and shouted. Now he just paces. His jaw is set, his fists are clenched at his sides, and there's a flush crawling up the back of his neck that's been there since yesterday.

Something is wrong with him. Something is wrong with both of you.

The Proctors changed the clothes this morning. The t-shirts are gone. You're both wearing white tank tops now, thin enough to see through, and the shorts are shorter than they were, riding high on the thigh. Tommy's been tugging at the hem of his tank like it's personally offending him. He's been sweating. Not normal sweat. Something thicker, heavier, and when he passes close to you on his circuit there's a smell that hits the back of your throat and pools low in your belly. Musky. Dark. It makes your mouth water and you don't know why.

You've noticed other things too. Your own body. Things shifting. Your hips have been aching for two days, a deep bone-ache like growing pains, and this morning when you woke up there was a wet spot on the sheet beneath you. Not sweat. Something slick. Something that made your face burn when you saw it and made you wad the sheet up and shove it down the clothing chute before Tommy could notice.

Tommy stops pacing. He's standing by the love seat, facing the TV where two boys are going at it, one on his hands and knees, the other behind him, and his hand is pressed flat against his own stomach. His tank top has ridden up. You can see the line of his hip, the sharp cut of muscle above his waistband, and the way the fabric of his shorts is tenting outward. He's hard. He's been hard on and off all day and he hasn't said a single word about it.

He turns. Blue eyes find you. There's something in them that wasn't there yesterday. Something hotter. Heavier. His nostrils flare and his chest heaves under the thin white cotton. He takes a step toward the bed. Then another.

"The hell are you looking at?" His voice is rough, scraped raw, and his hands are opening and closing at his sides like he's trying to hold something back. "You keep, you keep staring at me, dude. You been doing it all day. What the fuck is your problem?"

He's close now. Close enough that the smell hits you full force, dark and heavy and male, and your body responds before your brain can catch up. Heat pooling low. Something clenching deep inside you, a place you didn't know existed until this week, and the wet spot from this morning threatens to happen again right now, right here, while Tommy is standing over you with his cock straining against his shorts and his eyes burning into yours.

The smell wakes you up.

It's been building for days, that sweetness in the air, faint at first, like something sugary had spilled near the vents. You noticed it on Day Three and thought nothing of it. By Day Five it was thick enough to taste on your tongue. Now, on Day Seven, it hits you like a wall the moment consciousness returns, flooding your sinuses, pooling in the back of your throat, settling heavy and warm in the pit of your stomach. It's coming from the bed. It's coming from Tommy.

Your cock is already hard. Has been for hours, straining against the jockstrap the Proctors gave you two days ago when the last of the real clothes disappeared down the chute. The fabric barely contains you. Something at the root of your cock has been swelling all week, a thickening that pulses and aches, and this morning it feels full and heavy in a way that makes your hips want to grind into the mattress on their own. You don't know what it is. You don't have a word for it. You just know that the smell pouring off Tommy makes it throb.

Tommy is on the bed. On his knees. His forehead is pressed into the mattress and his hips are in the air and his jockstrap is ruined. Soaked through, the fabric dark and clinging, slick dripping down the inside of his thighs in slow trails that catch the flat white light. His back is arched, spine curved deep, and his hands are fisted in the sheets, knuckles white, and he's shaking. His whole body is shaking, fine tremors running through the lean muscle of his back and legs, and his hips are rolling in small involuntary circles, grinding his face into the mattress, then pushing back toward nothing, seeking something that isn't there.

He's making sounds. Small, high, desperate sounds that break in the middle, whimpers and hitched breaths and a thin keening noise that punches straight through your chest and lands in your balls. The sweet smell is pouring off him, thick enough to feel, and you can see the glands at his jaw pulsing, flushed and swollen, glistening with sweat. His skin is pink from his ears to his waist, blotchy and hot, and his cock is straining against the soaked jockstrap, the head flushed dark and leaking through the fabric.

He hears you shift. His head turns, cheek pressed to the mattress, and his eyes find you. Blue, wet, blown so wide the black nearly swallows the color. His lips are parted, wet, and his chest is heaving so hard the muscles in his stomach jump. Another pulse of slick runs down his thigh. He doesn't seem to notice. Or he can't stop it.

"Don't come over here." His voice is wrecked. Cracked open and raw, barely above a whisper, and his hips are still moving, still rolling, still pushing back toward nothing. "I can't, I can't stop it, something's wrong with me, I need, I don't know what I need, please, I don't know what's happening to me, I can't stop, I can't fucking stop, everything hurts, I need, I need, I don't know, I don't know what I need."

His thighs spread wider on the mattress. The soaked jockstrap pulls tight. The sweet smell thickens until you can taste it on your tongue, and the thing at the root of your cock throbs so hard your vision blurs.

You haven't slept. Not really. You drifted in and out through the night, jerking awake each time, because the room smells different and you can't pin down why and it's making your skin crawl. The temperature hasn't changed. The humidity hasn't changed. The television is still playing its loop. Something in the air has shifted, something dark and heavy and male, and it's coming from the other side of the bed where Tommy is.

Your body has been changing all week. The aches started on Day Two, a deep throb in your hips that made you grind your teeth. By Day Four you'd noticed the slick, a wetness between your legs that had nothing to do with sweat or precum, clear and thick and smelling faintly of something sweet. You shoved the sheets down the chute before Tommy could see. You've been shoving everything down the chute, the evidence of whatever the drugs are doing to you, because Tommy doesn't need to know, because if Tommy knows then it's real, then something has actually happened to your body, then you're actually, you're actually, you can't finish the thought.

The jockstraps arrived two days ago. The last of the real clothes gone. The Proctors didn't explain. The dumbwaiter opened and the jockstraps were there, white, thin, barely covering anything, and the old clothes had to go down the chute or no food. You put yours on. Tommy put his on. Neither of you talked about it.

Now it's Day Seven and Tommy is pacing the room like a caged animal.

He's been pacing since before dawn. Bare feet slapping the tile in a relentless circuit, hands opening and closing at his sides, jaw clenched so tight the muscle in his cheek jumps. He's sweating. Not normal sweat. This is thick, heavy, and the smell of it fills the room, musky and dark, and every time it hits your nose your body responds. Heat pooling low. Slick building. The muscles between your legs clenching on nothing, aching, needing. Your cock is half-hard in the jockstrap and your nipples are so sensitive that the fabric brushing against them when you shift makes you gasp.

He stops. Stands in the middle of the room, chest heaving, and you can see everything. The jockstrap leaves nothing to the imagination. His cock is straining against the fabric, hard, the head flushed and leaking through the white cotton, and at the base of it there's a thickening you've never seen before. A swelling. A lump that pulses with his heartbeat. His thighs are tensed, the muscles in his legs coiled and ready, and his hands are shaking at his sides. The glands at his jaw are flushed and swollen, and the smell coming off him is so strong it coats your tongue.

He turns. Looks at you. His eyes are different. Darker. The blue nearly swallowed by black, and there's something behind them that wasn't there a week ago. Something predatory. His nostrils flare and his chest rumbles, a low sound that you feel in your belly more than hear.

"I can smell you."

His voice is low. Rough. Scraped out of the bottom of his throat, and he takes a step toward the bed. His cock bounces with the movement, the fabric of the jockstrap straining. Another step.

"I can fucking smell you, dude, you've been, you've been hiding something, I can smell it, it's so fucking, you smell so fucking good."

He's at the edge of the bed now. Looking down at you. His hands are at his sides, fingers twitching, and the musk rolling off him is so thick it makes your head swim. Your body responds before your brain can catch up. Slick pooling between your legs, soaking through the jockstrap. Hips shifting on the mattress. The smell of you answering the smell of him, sweet meeting musky, and his eyes go half-lidded and his mouth falls open and a sound comes out of him that's barely human.

"What did they do to us? What the fuck did they do to us?"

His hand reaches for you.