By Hunter Perez

The morning sun illuminated the hotel suite, giving the space a bright golden hue. John looked at his wristwatch and saw it was a little before seven. He quietly crawled out of bed and quietly moved to the windows to draw the curtains and darken the room.

John left Lucas alone in the bed, but Lucas was unaware of this – he fell into a deep sleep a few hours earlier, with the slightest of smiles resting on his lips. John sat the edge of the bed and gazed at Lucas, his inner thoughts in combat between exhilaration and panic. The night with Lucas went far beyond the Mr. Right Now encounters he enjoyed in his weekend sojourns, and the last thing that he wanted was to lose the sensation he experienced. But his repeated thoughts of having Lucas as his personal prisoner continued to resonate. He feared being rejected if he broached the subject to Lucas, but he also reminded himself the subject was planted and cultivated in the letters addressed to “Mr. Cop” – the scenario was not of his creation, even though he wanted to see it through.

“I’ll lock you up and throw away the key,” John thought as he studied Lucas.

John spent the next few minutes in quiet contemplation of Lucas. His impatience began to outweigh his adoration, and he reached under the blanket and tickled the soles of Lucas’ feet. Lucas convulsed slightly and coughed, his small smile widening. He slowly blinked his eyes open and found John’s gaze, returning it with a small wave of his fingers. John beamed at the sight of Lucas’ smile.

“I want you to become my prisoner,” John said calmly. “I will set up a cell for you in the basement of my home. I promise that I will never hurt you, but you need to realize that once you are in my custody you’re trapped. When I am at work, you will be confined in your cell. When I am home, you will be let out to do as I ask. If I want dinner, you will make dinner for me. If I want the house cleaned, you will be doing broom and vacuum duty.”

“And if you want me to fuck you?” Lucas said, barely stifling a giggle.

John smirked as he grabbed Lucas by the ankle, “You’ve got the right idea but the wrong scenario, cute boy. You’ll be there to feed my hunger, not to feed yours.”

Lucas tried to kick his ankle free from John, who held on tightly.

“I want to take you back to my place and show you the house,” John added. “You can see it for yourself and decide whether you want to go through with it.”

“I have my room in this hotel for the next two days and I have a car service scheduled to pick me up then,” Lucas answered.

“Cancel it,” John replied. “We’re leaving this morning. Go back to your room and take care of what you need to. I’ll meet you in the lobby at nine.”

“And if I’m not there?” Lucas said.

John stood and pulled Lucas by his ankle down the bed to him. “This isn’t negotiable. In the lobby at nine sharp.” John leaned down and kissed Lucas, who nodded at John’s order.

At nine, John and Lucas were in the lobby checking out of the hotel. John offered to take Lucas to a diner for breakfast, but he declined the invitation. Instead, John drove back home with the car radio filling the lack of conversation between the pair.

When they arrived at his home, John gave Lucas a quick tour of the first level before heading to the basement. He pointed out the laundry room that he intended to convert into a cell, with the addition of a cot and a portable toilet to make it livable. John added that the door to the room would be padlocked to ensure Lucas’ captivity.

“I’m not staying in an enclosed room,” Lucas said. “Put in a gated door to make it a proper cell, so I can get more air and look at something instead of four walls.”

John agreed to the request. “I see you in an orange jumpsuit, ankle shackles and a metal collar,” he told Lucas, who nodded his affirmation. “You can bring your books with you. You can have a radio, but no internet and no phone. Agreed.”

Lucas shook hands with John on the deal, who told him that he would arrange to get the gated door for the room and the accessories for Lucas’ confinement.

One week later, John helped Lucas move four suitcases to his home – one with clothing, one with personal papers and belongings and the other two with books. Lucas followed John into the basement, where he took off his clothing and slipped into his orange prison jumpsuit. Lucas brought the suitcases with his books and placed them in the laundry room-turned-cell. John secured the ankle shackles and metal collar on Lucas, then shoved him into the cell and locked the new gated door. John stood back, folded his arms and stared with a smirk as Lucas fidgeted with his collar and looked about his surroundings.

“Welcome home, prisoner,” John said before turning and exiting up the stairs, closing the basement door behind him.

A new routine quickly took root. Lucas was locked in his cell whenever John was at work or taking care of his garden and landscaping. Lucas was provided with bottled water, fruit and protein bars while he was confined. He had his books and a radio, and there was enough space in the cell for him to exercise. The light was always on, but he had no trouble sleeping under its glare.

When John was home, Lucas was released and ordered to prepare meals and clean the house. As the mood struck him, John ordered Lucas to service him orally or to strip down for a more interactive experience. Lucas could shower and take care of his personal grooming twice a week.

At first, John was extremely happy with the set-up. He felt excited when he locked Lucas in his cell and was equally ecstatic taking him out and watching him at his labors. Lucas was a decent cook and housekeeper, and having Lucas attend to his carnal needs gave him a depth and scope of pleasure that he had never enjoyed. Lucas didn’t speak unless he was addressed, and only then he used short answers that never encouraged wider conversation.

Three months into this new environment, John found himself stuck at home on Saturday while very heavy rains claimed the outside world. Lucas was locked away after his breakfast duties because there were no further chores. John plopped himself on the living room couch and found an old movie to watch on television, but he quickly felt depressed. He went to the basement and opened Lucas’ cell.

“Come upstairs,” he said. “I want you to watch a movie with me.”

Lucas put down his book, took off his eyeglasses and followed John, who plopped back on his couch. Lucas stood silently, uncertain where to sit. John took his wrist and positioned him on the couch.

As the movie went on, John found himself spending less time following the production and more time studying Lucas. For his part, Lucas felt that he was under John’s gaze but tried to avoid it. After a few minutes, Lucas turned and made eye contact with John, who slowly kissed him.

“Let’s go upstairs,” John said.

Lucas followed John to the upstairs bedroom and they stayed together into mid-afternoon. After that, a new routine followed – the ankle shackles and metal collar were removed and the orange jumpsuit was replaced with shorts and t-shirts. Lucas still stayed in the cell when John was at work, but when he was off-duty they became inseparable. The chores that Lucas was assigned were handled with John’s help, and the two would go out together on occasion for grocery shopping, haircuts or trips to a bookstore. John found it easy to talk to Lucas and to share his feelings, concerns and disappointments. Lucas was more circumspect, not giving away too much of his emotions, but he listened to everything John said intently – and John appreciated having him as an audience of one.

Lucas always slept in John’s bed unless John was working overnight, at which point he used the cot in his cell. This became the only concession to the original concept being John’s prisoner.

As November came around, John began wondering about taking Lucas away for Thanksgiving or Christmas. He started to look up hotels and travel costs, and the prospect of spending time away with Lucas gave him a new wave of happiness.

For the first Saturday of November, John was back on double shifts – but due to a traffic accident that he needed to monitor, he was late coming back home. It was already past nine in the evening when he got into his driveway, pulled out the contents of his mailbox and headed inside. Glancing through the mail, he saw something confusing – it was a lemon yellow envelope addressed to “Mr. Cop.” But this envelope was different – the words “Air Mail / Par Avion” were under his address, which included a “USA” after the ZIP code and a Canadian stamp with a Montreal postmark dated seven days earlier.

John slowly tore open the envelope and pulled out the letter, which began, “Dear Mr. Cop, I am so sorry that I have not been in touch. I had planned to make direct contact with you, but due to family issues I had to leave for a while. I’ve been in Montreal for the past few months, and during this time I constantly thought about you. Some of the Montreal cops are cute, but none are truly Mr. Cop cute.”

John shook his head in disbelief and looked to the door that led to the basement. “How the hell did he do this? He couldn’t have done this – I would have known if the lock was picked.”

John scanned back to where he left off. “I have good news,” the letter continued. “I am leaving here next Saturday and hope to be back in your area. If the airlines don’t delay me, I would like to drop by your home on Saturday night to finally introduce myself. I hope this letter gets to you in time – it shouldn’t take a week for mail to get from here to you. But if you get this letter in time and prefer not to meet me, I understand. Still, you’re my Mr. Cop and I will always adore you.”

John quickly opened the door to the basement and raced down the stairs to the cell. The fury of his steps caught Lucas off-guard, who looked up in surprise from his book.

“How did you this?” John demanded, waving the letter. “Is this your idea of a joke?”

John shoved the letter through the cell door to Lucas, who started reading its contents. “What is this? I didn’t write this.”

“You must have written it,” John insisted.

“Dude, you have me locked in here all day,” Lucas answered, shaking the cell door’s bars. “How can I get out of here? And if I could get out of here, why the hell would I write you a letter? You’re always with me.”

John felt his face getting hot and his breathing more labored. “But you wrote those letters to me over the summer. Those Mr. Cop letters about wanting to be my prisoner.”

Lucas became agitated. “What the hell are you talking about? I never wrote you letters last summer. You lived three doors down from me – if I wanted to talk to you, I’d knock on your door. And this set-up isn’t my idea. You started talking about it when we were in your hotel room in New Haven. You wanted me here, not the other way around.”

John rubbed his eyes and exhaled with difficulty. “Then if…then why…then why did you agree to this?”

Lucas beamed and shook his head in amazement. “Dude, you’re hilarious. I’m living here rent free, not paying for food or electric or any maintenance. This is great for me. I don’t have to deal with family or crummy friends or bill collectors or landlords. All I have to do is put up with your silly perversions, and that’s hardly makes this is a prison for me. Oh, and the sex is good – if it wasn’t, I would have been out of here immediately.”

John didn’t know where to look. He studied the letter and then studied Lucas behind the cell bars. His heart pounded heavily and his forehead began to throb.

“Is that all I am to you – free rent, free food and good sex?” he asked Lucas, dumbfounded. “These letters I received – I thought you were infatuated with me. That you loved me.”

“Dude, I told you that I never wrote you any letters,” Lucas said. “I was never infatuated with you. Again, this was your idea and not the other way around.”

John put his hands on the cell door. “But…you do love me?”

Lucas averted his gaze and turned away from John. “Let me out of here, please. The game’s over.”

John shook his head and turn to leave. “No, I’ll let you out in the morning.”

Lucas turned back and pressed his face through the cell bars. “You know, I can get a job and help cover rent and other expenses.”

John slumped his shoulders and walked to the stairs. Lucas called out for John to open the cell, but John left the basement and slammed the door behind him. In his kitchen, John re-read the letter and recalled the writer’s promise to arrive on that evening.

“If it wasn’t him, then who the hell did this?” John began to speak to himself as he slowly opened the front door and stepped into the night to find a large black SUV was parked at the end of his driveway. The vehicle’s headlights flashed three times and John could see the driver’s side window lower slowly. As John walked to the vehicle, he heard a man’s voice call out in a soft and friendly tone: “Hello, Mr. Cop.”

The End