Dean was ahead already. I admired his ass as his soaked shorts clung to its contours. He was always faster than me, although in a race like this anything could happen. We’d trained for months for the ultimate endurance test, the Toughest Ten, bored with marathons and ironman triathlons. It was Dean who first turned me into a fitness freak. After spotting him lifting weights at the gym I found myself going more and more often in the hope of bumping into him and being able to watch him putting his magnificent body through its paces. It was the body of an underwear model. Or perhaps a sculpted Greek god.
One day, after we’d graduated to swapping names and terse hellos, he said to me, “Hey Joe, how about doing a marathon with me?”
“Sure,” I said, before engaging my brain. The most I ran was half an hour on the treadmill, never outdoors. I was just blessed with a naturally toned physique that looked like it saw the inside of a gym far more than my actual couple of hours a week. He soon realized this. But he was patient, quietly sharing training tips, chivying me along when my spirits flagged and coaxing me to push myself, without ever sounding patronizing.
I guess it was the chemistry between us. He wouldn’t have put up with me otherwise. Sometimes he slipped into sergeant-major style, even name-calling: “Come on you worthless faggot, get your butt moving before I order the lads to give you a beasting.” It was all playacting. He’d been in the army for a while. He told me he left because he enjoyed the rough treatment too much. He feared for his well-being. And that was the funny thing about our relationship as it became intimate. He was stronger, faster and could endure far more than me. But it was me who got to wrestle him to the floor, grab handfuls of his hair, slap him and call him my bitch. He responded in an immediate physical way, going weak at the knees, eager to drop and suck my cock or let me pound into his ass mercilessly.
“Fuck, Joe,” he’d say, “you do things to me. Things I haven’t been able to experience with any other man.”
He knew I’d be watching him as he pulled ahead in the Toughest Ten. It wasn’t just a run. It was a ten-mile course with ten obstacle stages—mud, ice, fire, water, walls and more to crawl, swim, wade or climb through. Designed by the military’s elite, it put those crazy enough to attempt it through hell and provided the best endorphin buzz available without mind-altering substances.
Our training had covered most of the types of challenges we faced. More thoroughly than necessary, to be honest. I’d confidently bet none of our competitors had submitted to having their balls zapped in order to prepare for the electric fence field, where you had to hurdle or otherwise climb over a dozen electrified wire barriers. Dean saw it as an opportunity to expand our collection of toys. He invested in a “humbler” device that locked his balls tight within a bar that curved around the base of his buttcheeks, keeping him bent over on all fours. It could be hooked up to an electro-stimulation unit with a nine-volt battery.
I tried it once. Once was enough. He loved it. Reveled in seeing how much he could endure. It made his cock hard and his ass gape. I made sure to turn off the power before I took him. It was always me who called time long before he’d give in.
But the electric challenge was last in the race. Right now I saw him plunging into the next one, a deep, wide pool of ice cubes. Like a kids’ ball pool, only a lot less fun. He waded through, arms wide, broad shoulders battling. I tried not to think about how it was going to feel. We’d filled my bath with ice and lain in it until we were numb, but I knew moving in this was going to bring a fresh stab of torment with every step. I jumped, arms flailing. Shit. I felt the shock deep in my cerebral cortex.
I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want the ice to touch new areas of skin, to soak through new patches of Lycra and nylon. I focused on Dean’s solid shoulders as he hauled himself out of the far end of the pool. He glanced at me, grinning insanely, before dashing off to the next obstacle, a crawl through mud under a low cargo net. I willed myself to lift a leg and lean into the ice, to paddle a way through with my arms. My body was losing sensation, my teeth starting to chatter. I’d gone from sweating with exertion and adrenaline to shivering uncontrollably. I fixed my gaze on a spot at the far end, a tiny dent in the wooden frame of the pool, and pushed toward it. If I stopped any longer, I’d probably never move again.
I reached that spot, touching a finger to the dented wood, and dragged myself over the side and out. Ice is meant to be good for tired muscles, but they just felt tight and heavy. I stumbled on, a mile to run before the mud. Dean was probably already through it.
Occasionally I passed another competitor, mostly male, and the odd lean and muscular woman. Or I’d run past someone doubled over at the edge of the field, clutching a stitch. But then I saw the next obstacle and all my attention was taken by Dean, stopped on his belly under the rough rope netting as if he was in trouble. He was certainly in danger of getting crawled over if the main body of runners caught up.
He was covered in mud, up to his elbows in it, the front of his clothes stained, thighs darkened, face splattered. And that rope, pressing into his shoulders and one coarse strand cutting across his face as he looked back toward me. He loved rope. Loved to be tied up tight while I used his body roughly. I thought I was already riding an adrenaline high, but a special injection of chemical energy shot straight to the base of my cock at the sight of him.
I ducked under the net and slithered and crawled along. It was pulled too low and too tight for me to stay on hands and knees and I found myself on my stomach, clawing my way through foot-deep filth. It stank of mold and sulfur.
“What’s wrong?” I shouted, as I slid toward him.
He just stared at me over his shoulder with his mouth open and a dark look in his eyes. He was muddier than necessary, really. As if he’d deliberately writhed in it. I reached him and placed a hand on his arm. “What’s up? Are you hurt?”
“No. Not hurt. But I feel incredibly fucking horny and I want your cock inside me.”
“What, here? I can’t fuck you here. And what about the race? Let’s finish, then fuck.”
“I can’t wait. It’s the mud, the rope, the stench, everything. I need you. I need you on top of me, in me.”
His words made the blood rush into my shaft. My cock strained inside my tight shorts. “I’ll fuck you,” I said. Dean groaned. “But we do it in those bushes. If only to avoid being trampled. And then we finish the race.”
“Yes,” he said. “Let’s go.”
He commando-crawled the remaining length of the net. I followed closely, watching the flex and bunch of his muscles, the splatter of mud farther up his body, as I struggled, out of breath, to keep up. Dean ran through gorse and nettles to the stand of thick shrubs off to the side. I hoped no one was watching us. Maybe they’d think we were taking a piss stop. But together? I realized I didn’t really care.
Thorns scratched at my shins and nettles prickled the reddened skin. I pushed through to where the bushes hid us from the track and Dean grabbed me and pressed his lips to mine. He held the back of my head tight in one hand and grabbed my butt with the other, pulling my crotch into his, hard cocks colliding through the constricting fabric. I pulled away with difficulty against the strength of his arm. “Shorts down and on your fucking knees,” I ordered. “Now.”
He pushed the shorts right off, showing a patch of white between the mud on his thighs and that on his belly, and dropped to the earth, facing me. His cock was fully hard. I pushed my shorts down to let him see mine spring out, pulsing bigger as it was freed. “Turn around and get your face to the ground,” I said, not letting him taste my cock although I would have enjoyed it. I wanted to fuck him, but I also wanted to finish the race. And not in last place.
I knelt at his butt, feeling cold grass crushed under my knees, and let a string of saliva fall from my mouth to his crack. I rubbed it downward with the tip of my cock and he moaned, rocking his hips against me and pushing his ass muscles out hungrily. He had his hands braced on the ground and his forehead pressed to the damp earth. Knowing that he wanted me this badly made my throat tighten.
I mouthed my palm, moistening it and then transferring the wetness to my shaft. I pressed the tip of my cock against his dark hole, giving him only a second to relax before I pushed in farther. I slid my shaft in relentlessly until my pelvis hit his cheeks and I began to pound him. Dry skin dragged, my hurried attempt at lubrication not entirely effective.
“Fuck,” he groaned. “I need this so badly. I need you. To fuck me hard.”
“I know.”
I gave him exactly what he needed, driving into him fast and deep. In a flash of inspiration, I grabbed his shorts from the ground, wrapped my hand in them and tore off a handful of nettles from beside us.
He sensed my rhythm changing and twisted his neck to see what I was doing. “Eyes down, slut,” I said. He began to groan continuously. He probably wanted to take his own cock in his hand but would wait until I gave permission. If I gave permission. I pushed his T-shirt up his back, bunching it at the nape of his neck, and brushed the nettles across his shoulders. His ass clenched tight around me as he gave a strangled cry of pain. “Open your hole, slut,” I said, moving the nettles to his ass and brushing them over his right hip and buttcheek, watching red bumps rise on his skin. He shuddered as he fought to keep himself open. I grasped his left hip and pumped him faster while I played the nettles over his back with my other hand. Just once I caught the stinging leaves on my thigh and yelped at the sudden stab of poisonous pain.
Hyped up as I was on the adrenaline of the race, my climax started to build quickly, balls tightening and cock thickening to split Dean’s hole wider. I slowed a little. “You can wank yourself now,” I said. “And make it quick because I’m going to come soon and if you don’t catch up you’ll have to wait until after the finish line.”
He shifted his weight onto one forearm and took his cock in the other hand. I grasped him with both hands, the nettles dancing over the tender side of his belly and ribs, and pulled him back onto me as I fucked him with long, measured thrusts to give him time to get close. But I was desperate to fill him with my spunk. The thought of it dribbling from his ass as he crossed the finish line had me right on the edge.
“I’m going to come,” I groaned. I felt him speed up his hand, guttural sounds coming from his throat with every fast breath. The come surged into my shaft and I pumped him with hard, juddering thrusts as it spurted along my length and out inside him. He came onto the earth with one long moan.
I slipped slowly out and rose, pulling up my shorts. Dean stayed on hands and knees panting. Waiting.
“Rub your face in it,” I said. He shuffled back and bent his head to the pool of white on the soil. He pressed one cheek into it, then the other, and rose to show me. Come mingled obscenely with mud and sweat. “Now put your shorts on and let’s go. We have time to make up.”
I ran off, leaving him to catch up with me. He was soon beside me, easing to my pace as we ran to the next obstacle, narrow pipes we had to crawl through for an agonizing, muscle-cramping three hundred feet of dark claustrophobia. It was one we hadn’t really been able to prepare for. We didn’t know how far back in the field we now were, although a quick glance showed there were still some people limping along behind us.
We stayed together, Dean waiting for me to emerge from the pipes and then slowing his pace to match mine. My fitness had come a long way since our first marathon and we gradually edged up the field, eventually passing the main mass of competitors on the second to last obstacle. We launched ourselves at the electric fence hurdles without pausing to consider the pain to come. It was impossible to clear them without getting zapped—inner thighs, butt, balls.
We crossed the finish line and were handed medals and bottles of water. A screen flashed up our time and position. We’d come in 67 and 68 out of a total of 470. The winner was only twelve minutes faster. I realized we could have won, but I wouldn’t have missed our detour for the world.
As we applauded at the awards ceremony, I grabbed the ribbon holding Dean’s medal around his neck, twisting it tight and pulling him toward me. He gasped in that desperate and endearing way of his. All the competitors were filthy and sweaty, but come had dried to a flaky film on his cheeks alongside the dried mud. “I think you got off lightly in the electric fences because you’re taller than me,” I whispered. “When we get back to my place, I’m going to lock your balls in the humbler while I have a nice, hot shower. When I’m done, I’m going to hook you up to the battery and sit back with a beer until you beg for mercy.”
“Let’s go now,” he said.