Strangers Don't Let Friends...
by Mark Apoapsis

<< Back to Stories Index

The heels of the stranger's boots trailed on the carpet as I backed up, supporting his limp form by the armpits, with my hands interlaced against his chest.

The door swung shut behind us, locking automatically. I felt a sense of relief. Now anyone leaving their rooms to investigate would find only an empty hallway. I wondered if the guy's buddy directly across the hall had heard the door slam. It probably didn't matter. My neighbor hadn't opened his door at the sound of his friend's body collapsing in the hallway, so he wasn't likely to investigate the sound of my door shutting, which could have been nothing more than me returning to my room.

I dragged the unconscious man past my own bed -- tempting as it was to stop right there and roll his solidly built body onto my rumpled sheets -- and dragged him the extra few yards to the untouched bed near the window, still neatly covered with a bedspread by the housekeeping staff. I muscled his unresisting form onto the bed, leaving his feet dangling diagonally over the edge while I knelt to untie his boots and tug them off. His feet felt large in my hands as I lifted them onto the bedspread. His socks were thick, but black, like the rest of his clothing, and like his soft collar-length hair.

I had the thermostat turned up fairly high, since it's hard enough to drag myself out of bed Monday mornings, especially with an early conference session to attend, without the added disincentive of getting out from under the warm covers to face a chilly room. It was dialed up high enough that I'd felt comfortable in my boxers and tank top while I'd stood at the door listening to the conversation that had woken me up, and looking out the peephole at the two college-aged guys saying goodnight a few feet outside my door. I'd been annoyed at being woken, but also indulgent and more than a little wistful that I'd never partied like that during my own college years.

"Do you really have to leave now, man?" the beefy blond in the doorway had said. "We haven't even finished the last bottle we opened."

"Thanks, man, but it's late," his dark-haired guest had said. "I've got like an hour's drive. And I have to work in the morning."

"That sucks. Well, good to see you, buddy. Goodnight."

It was obvious from the departing guest's first staggering steps toward the elevator that he'd be lucky to make it to the parking garage. Or, more accurately, unlucky. Or he'd make someone else unlucky. I wasn't sure if I should do something. He wasn't my responsibility, and anyway, what could I do? I was standing there in my underwear. By the time I got dressed, he'd be in the elevator, if not in his car.

But he didn't get more than three steps. The fish-eye distortion made it hard to see whether he tripped over his own feet or passed out standing up and then collapsed. Either way, he was stretched out prone on the ground, motionless, his feet looking twice as large as his body through the peephole.

After hesitating for a minute or two, expecting to see his friend come out and help him up, I made a decision. I found my pants, and considered quickly putting them on, and maybe even a shirt, then decided against it. The guy might be crawling toward his car even now. A drunk driver seemed like more of a public menace than a man in his boxers and undershirt walking a few feet down a hotel hallway in the middle of the night. Come to think of it, I couldn't imagine the blond guy letting his drunk friend accidentally head home in his underwear, but if he had, I wouldn't have interfered.

So I set my pants back down, fortunately remembering to take my key-card out of the pocket first. As I padded barefoot down the hall, I could imagine a dozen eyes watching through their own peepholes after hearing the thud, but I told myself I was being paranoid. Most likely, I was the only one on the floor aroused enough from sleep by the sound of drunken young guys partying, and its aftermath, to be snooping.

The hallway air had felt uncomfortably chilly on my bare limbs at first, but I warmed up after a couple of minutes of exertion. Now, back in my room, I was starting to sweat. I wondered if I should turn the thermostat down, not just for my sake but also for the sake of the guy laid out unconscious on my spare bed. He was wearing a black leather jacket. But even if I switched it to A/C and turned the fan on high, it might take a long time to cool down. Besides, the jacket wasn't something anyone would want to sleep in. It was decorated with metal studs that would probably leave marks all over his back by morning. I didn't want to risk waking the guy up, but he'd hardly stirred when I removed his boots, just mumbled a wordless protest in his sleep. So I unzipped the jacket, revealing a heavy black button-down shirt, also black, and sat him up to peel the jacket from his shoulders, then his arms.

He woke up. "What? Where am I?" he asked blearily. "What are you doing? Who the hell are you?"

"It's okay," I said soothingly. "You passed out in the hallway. Stay here and sleep it off."

"No way. I have to get home. I want to sleep in my own bed."

"You're in no condition to drive." I pushed him gently but firmly down on his back, and tossed his jacket on the floor.

"Fuck you. Let me up." His grip was strong on my bare shoulders, but I was on top, and I'm a reasonably strong man myself. We struggled for a few minutes, but I managed to pin his arms above his head by gripping his hands and leaning on his forearms.

"Come on, man," I said, "be reasonable. Don't argue with free crash space."

"Dude, get your armpit out of my face and let me up."

"Not until you promise not to try to drive."

"Fuck you! I've got a right to use my own car."

"In the morning."

"They're liable to charge me for an extra day of parking."

"Look, man, just take off your clothes and get under the covers. You've got a whole bed to yourself. Nice fresh linen. Really comfortable mattress. Soft pillows."

He didn't respond. I continued to hold him down. After a few minutes I noticed that the warm breath that had been stirring my armpit hairs, and the rise and fall of his chest under mine, had slowed and deepened. I waited a few more minutes, then gently rolled off him.

I wondered if he'd sleep through the night if I turned the lights off. Maybe leave the bathroom light on in case he woke up to take a leak and didn't know where he was. But what if he woke up still drunk -- and still determined to drive home?

I looked around the room, half-seriously considering finding something to tie him up with, but there was no headboard to attach anything to. Then I noticed the small safe on the dresser. This was one of those hotels that provide them for small valuables, the kind with a keypad where you set your own combination when you close the door and it won't reopen until you enter the same combination again. The only use I'd ever found for them was to store my key ring, which was dead weight when traveling, and then only on rare trips where I wasn't renting a car. But it gave me an idea for making use of this one. I fished around in my unconscious guest's pants pocket until I found what I was looking for.

Actually, he had a lot of metal stuff in his pockets that would leave marks if he slept on them. Even the black jeans themselves -- stiff denim fabric with ridges of material at the seams, and metal rivets -- would leave creases and marks in his skin by morning, not to mention the belt. His shirt was a heavy material too, and the buttons would dig into his chest if he rolled over. I began undoing those buttons. He wore a black tank top underneath, and this time he didn't wake up when I slowly slid his outer shirt out from under him. His tank top slid up a few inches from the friction of the shirt sliding up his back. He looked very vulnerable now, sleeping there with his arms over his head, his soft black hair falling across his eyes, his armpits exposed, and a wispy trail of black hairs trailing down his pale flat belly, just inches from my fingers undoing his belt buckle.

He wore boxers that looked -- and felt -- soft. He'd probably bought a package of assorted solid colors, chosen for comfort, just like the gray pair I was wearing. This was his only item of clothing that wasn't black. And he wasn't one of those guys that let their pants sag below their shorts; he'd probably be embarrassed if anyone knew he wore baby-blue boxers.

I had his pants down to his knees when he suddenly woke up again.

"What the fuck are you doing to me?"

"Shh! Just making you comfortable, since you're too drunk to get undressed by yourself."

"Get off me, you faggot!"

I tried to pin his arms again, but he grappled with me and wound up pulling my head down, trapping it against his chest under the crook of his arm, near his bare shoulder. His sweat smelled of alcohol. I could probably get a good buzz just by sucking on the undershirt my lips were shoved against.

"Please, just get undressed and get under the covers," I mumbled into his chest. "I'll be in the other bed."

"No way. I'm out of here."

"You're not driving."

"Try to stop me."

I struggled, but my head was pinned, my left arm trapped under his neck, and my right arm trapped between our bodies. About the only thing I could reach was his left armpit and right flank, just above the hip. So I fought back the only way I could.

I don't know whether it was my fingers digging into his armpit or my other hand pushing the hem of his tank-top aside and stroking the bare flesh underneath, but I immediately felt his body quaking with laughter, and in seconds he was laughing out loud. I felt the strength starting to go out of the arm pinning my head, but just in time, he let go and rolled on top of me. The bed springs protested under the strain of two strong guys wrestling in their underwear. Finally he managed to mount me from behind, his hard abs plastered against my lats where our undershirts had gotten pulled up. He quickly snaked an arm around my throat in a perfect position to cut off my blood supply and choke me unconscious.

"Now do I need to put you to sleep, or are you going to let me get dressed?" He applied pressure for a moment, and my vision started darkening.

"Get dressed," I gasped when he let up.

He let go and I rolled onto my back, instinctively yanking my undershirt down protectively over my belly as I watched him pull up his pants and search for his shirt and jacket and socks and shoes.

When he was fully dressed, I considered letting him walk out and find out the hard way that he didn't have his keys, hopefully forcing him to let the front desk call him a cab. But then how would he get in his own front door? As he reached for the doorknob I said, "You won't get far without your keys."

He dug in his pocket, then looked around the room in panic. "Where are they?"

"In the safe."

He rushed to the safe and pulled uselessly at the door, then tried entering numbers at random on the keypad.

"Open it!" he demanded, whirling to face me as I sat on the foot of the bed.

"I'm not letting you drive."

"You have no right! They're my fucking keys!"

"So call the police and tell them I have your property."

He rushed me, enraged, but he was drunk and I was sober. He wound up on his knees at the foot of the bed with his arms twisted behind his back and his face buried in the rumpled bedspread.

I wasn't sure what to do, until I remembered the sleeper hold he'd had me in. I'd watched an online video once, showing how to apply it safely, and, after all, I'd just gotten a refresher course a few minutes ago. Before he knew what was happening, I stuck his bare shoulder into my armpit, got his windpipe into the crook of my elbow, where it wouldn't get crushed, grabbed my biceps, flexed my arm muscles, and squeezed hard enough to cut off the flow of blood on both sides of his neck. I felt him suddenly go limp. I counted to ten, not wanting to kill the guy, before I let go and pushed him onto the bed by the armpits. The sleeper hold was supposed to only keep him out for another ten seconds, so when he didn't wake up, I was a little worried until I rolled him over and found he was breathing steadily. Apparently that rule of thumb doesn't apply when your opponent is so drunk he's about to pass out on his own.

He was still out cold, snoring lightly, several minutes later when I pulled the covers over to half-cover his sparsely haired chest. I'd had plenty of time to strip him to his boxers and bind his wrists together using his own belt. I left his jeans, shirt, undershirt and socks halfheartedly folded on the dresser. I'd have stuffed them into the safe if they would have fit, just to give him one more reason to stay put.

Exhausted, I turned out the lights and crawled back into my own bed. I was going to sleep through the morning session for sure.

#

I dreamed of doors being pounded on, and male voices murmuring in intimate conspiracy, and was awakened by the sound of my own door swinging open and light flooding the room. For a confused moment I thought I had dreamed the whole thing about dragging the drunk in and putting him to bed, but when I glanced toward the window, I saw that the spare bed had been slept in. It was empty, though.

"He's awake. Grab him!"

My erstwhile guest shoved his drinking buddy toward my bed. He'd taken the time to get fully dressed before going to pound on his buddy's door, but hadn't given his friend a chance to get dressed before dragging him across the hall. The beefy blond was clad only in striped pajama bottoms.

I started to roll out of bed. Some kind of fight-or-flight instinct, I guess, but it was completely useless. Once glance at the muscles of the blond's smooth chest and arms convinced me I was no match for him, let alone the two of them. And if I could slip past them, where exactly was I going to run to, in my underwear?

Well, that was one problem I wouldn't have to deal with. I wasn't going anywhere. In seconds they'd grabbed me and slammed me down on the bed, and soon had me stretched out helpless, the blond beside the head of the bed and his friend at the foot.

"My buddy tells me you have his keys locked in your safe," the blond said, his grip tightening on my biceps to keep my arms pinned above my head.

"Look, man. Can't you see he's too drunk to drive? You should have made him crash in your room."

"I only have the one bed," he said, suddenly sheepish.

"Dude, stop arguing with him and help me get the combination out of him." My escaped guest examined the foot he was holding. "I wonder if he's ticklish."

"No, please," I groaned, acutely aware of my vulnerable position: immobilized, with my armpits completely exposed and in easy reach of my blond captor -- who now had one hand free, the other putting weight on my crossed wrists -- and my bare foot trapped in the hands of the pissed-off man I'd recently stripped and tied up.

They attacked my armpits and soles simultaneously, and for a long time I was unable to talk even if I'd wanted to cooperate. When they finally stopped, I lay there for at least a minute with my chest heaving before I was able to form complete sentences again.

"If I give you the combination," I gasped, "will you promise not to leave the hotel until morning? And not to drink any--" That was all I got out before they continued the torture.

When they finally paused, I gasped out, "Please, stop. I'll pay for a taxi if you want to get home so bad. Just let me go."

"And for my extra day of parking?" As he spoke, my ex-prisoner pushed my undershirt up, exposing the hollow of my belly.

"Yeah, yeah, sure, man."

"And a taxi back here tomorrow, so I can pick up my car?" He began stroking just above my navel. I trembled.

This was sounding expensive, but if it would end the torture... "Anything! Anything you want!"

He thought about it. "Nah. I won't have time for an extra trip." His hands moved to the exposed bottom of my ribcage.

"No, please!" was all I got out before the convulsive laughter took over.

When he next paused, I knew a moment of fear when he took a switchblade out of his pocket and flipped it open. But he only used it to slit open one of my pillows, just enough to remove a single feather.

A long time later, after exhausting every possible combination of fingers, feathers, and ticklish exposed body parts, they took a break long enough for the dark-haired guy to go to his friend's room and come back with a bottle, which they passed between them while they watched my diaphragm rising and falling more and more slowly.

"You really shouldn't still be drinking, you know," I said.

"We're going to have to find another way to break him," the blond said, accepting the bottle again. "I can't keep my eyes open much longer. Maybe a pink belly?" He grabbed the hem of my undershirt and pulled it even further toward him, until it was just below my nipples.

"I have a better idea. Go down the hall and get some ice."

"What? Why me? You're the one who's dressed."

"Oh, all right."

He found the ice bucket and left the room, leaving the door propped open.

"Why are you helping him do this to me?" I said while we had a moment alone. "What did I do to deserve this?"

"You deserve this, all right. Where do you get off stripping my buddy down to his boxers and tying him up?"

"I was only trying to keep him from wrapping his car around a tree."

"Yeah, right. Look, tell me the combination and we can all go back to bed." He reached over again and began attacking my newly exposed ribs. "You think I like being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night? I can hardly keep my eyes open." He paused to let me catch my breath again, watching the rapid rising and falling of my bared belly and toying with my armpit hair. His own armpit hair, when he'd reached down, had looked fine, silky, and tantalizingly close, yet forever out of reach.

My dark-haired captor returned with the ice. "Take his undershirt off," he ordered, and his friend let go of my arms and, after a brief unequal struggle, relieved me of my sweaty tank top. The dark-haired guy then mounted me and leaned on my chest, holding an ice cube, insulated in my own undershirt, just above my nipple. "Now, I'm going to ask you one more time..."

"Damn you," I hissed as a drop of icy water dripped from the ice cube. "I ought to give you your keys and let you kill yourself."

"What's the combination?"

"No way. You're still not getting that out of me. You're too likely to kill some innocent person instead. Do your--" My words were cut off by a gasp as the ice touched my nipple.

I whimpered as they took turns running ice cubes up and down my torso, sticking them into my sensitive armpits. But I somehow managed to tough it out, even when they upended the half-filled bucket on my chest. Next they tried flipping me on my belly and running ice up and down my spine, which was almost as bad as the nipples.

"Let go and help me flip him over again," my chief tormenter said. Once I was on my back again, he said, "Hold him down good." His friend draped himself across me from the side, half-heartedly grasping my arms but mostly holding me down like a human paperweight, his bare chest warm against mine. "Let's see how he likes ice on his balls," the dark-haired one continued.

"No!" I protested, but he was already pulling my boxers over my ankles and tossing them aside. And there I was, naked and helpless, my balls being handled by another man, just when I'd thought the humiliation couldn't get any worse.

And then came the ice.

"The ice is almost gone," he complained, although the melting lump he was applying to my ball sack was excruciating enough. "Do you see any more lying around?"

His buddy didn't answer. I noticed his grip had loosened.

"Dude, stay awake!" He ran the ice down his own buddy's exposed back, which caused him to wake up with a start.

"Hold him good while I get more ice. Stay awake, or it'll be your belly I dump the ice on first."

"Jerk," the blond muttered when his friend left the room. He climbed completely on top of me, pinning my naked body under his full weight and getting a good strong grip on my forearms. His chest was not as completely smooth as it looked; I felt fine hairs lightly brushing my own chest as he lowered himself onto me.

His friend took a long time getting the ice. I felt myself drifting in and out of sleep, despite the intrusive contact of one big unmoving hunk of relaxed muscle sprawled warmly across my entire naked body. Suddenly I snapped awake, realizing the blond's grip had loosened again and that his eyes were closed, his cheek pillowed on my chest. He needed a shave. Very slowly, I slipped one arm free, reached down, and drew the blanket over him to shield his bare back from the icy wet sheets I was lying on, then gently rolled him onto his side. I slipped out of bed and quietly unpropped and closed the door, locking his buddy out. Finally, I found my pants, slid my belt out of its loops, and slipped it over my sleeping captor's thick forearms, then slowly tightened it and buckled it. He still didn't wake up.

I was tempted to leave the dark-haired drunk out in the hall all night and take my revenge at leisure on his bound and helpless friend. But in sleep, the brawny blond looked so sweet and innocent that I hesitated. Anyway, it was his friend who'd bullied him into helping to torture me.

I peered through the peephole, seeing an empty hall, and cautiously opened the door far enough to stick my head out. Sure enough, the guy hadn't quite made it back to the ice machine before passing out in the hallway again.

I closed the door, and several minutes later, I went out to get him, full clothed this time and wearing shoes. He didn't wake up when I slung him over my shoulders, or when I carried him back to the room. Or when I started unbuttoning his shirt. Or when I removed his belt, which I had plans for. He only protested sleepily when I pulled his undershirt over his head and tossed it on the floor on top of his buddy's pajama bottoms.

I was so tired by the time I'd secured my two ex-captors that I crawled into the bed by the window and fell asleep for at least four hours.

The sky was no longer entirely dark when I was awakened by the howls of protest from the other bed, and the sound of two naked men struggling to get apart from each other and being prevented by the belts binding their forearms and thighs tightly together. Four bare feet were bundled together with a necktie, ready to be tucked under my arm anytime I decided to tickle both men at once.

I leaned over and brushed soft black hair away from an ear before whispering into it, "I hope that ice bucket is still there where you dropped it." They were lying on their sides, the way I'd left them. I slid my fingers under his hair and massaged the back of his neck as I forced his nose into the fine hairs of his buddy's armpit and ground his unshaven cheek against the smooth skin of the blond's muscular shoulder. That got such a good reaction out of both of them that after a few minutes of that I reversed it, rubbing the blond's nose in the thick black hairs under his friend's arm and using his cheek like sandpaper against his buddy's bare shoulder.

Their chests were pressed together, forming a triangular trough. A dark and a pale nipple were just visible at the bottom where their chests made contact. "I’m gonna fill this up with ice," I informed them, "right up to here." I traced an imaginary fill line across each man's ribs. Their bodies started quaking; one or both of them was silently laughing. "Don't worry; I won't be able to get at your balls, not with your crotches pressed together like that."

I let them anticipate their fate while I took a leisurely shower. After getting dressed in the bathroom, I walked back over to my prisoners and slapped the nearest naked butt. "Don't go anywhere. I'll be right back."