Charles Callaghan was on his knees. 

That was where he was most comfortable, after all.

His section manager and former college senior Hunter Harwell stood before him with his merino wool slacks undone, smoking a cigarette next to a vented cabinet in Charles's laboratory. 

"Well then," he said nonchalantly, glancing down with a slight smirk. "You had better get on with it - Right, Charles?"

And his fingers twisted in Charles's honey blonde, just-long-enough-to-fall-into-his-eyes hair, forcing his chin up.

Hunter slapped the tip of his hard cock against his subordinate's plump, pink lips and Charles moaned, aching to feel his lips around it.

But the hand gripping him gave a painful twist - he whimpered - and held him fast.

"Open your mouth," Hunter ordered.

Charles obeyed, letting his chin drop. He wanted to touch - to steady himself against Hunter or to stroke his own aching cock, which was tenting his lab coat between his thighs. But he didn't move.

The other man rubbed himself on Charles's face, smearing precome and saliva over his lips while he stayed immobile, waiting, and gazing up at him with wide hazel eyes framed by long golden lashes and discreet, wire-rimmed glasses. 

Slowly, slowly, Hunter thrust his cock into the kneeling man's waiting mouth - Charles didn't even tense his lips, barely breathing through his nose, holding perfectly still. Being good.

"Ahhh..." Hunter sighed. "Use your lips."

Charles did, and his superior started thrusting languidly into his mouth, using him as little more than a hole to masturbate in. 

Saliva collected in his mouth and spilled out over his lips, trickling down his chin. 

"That's right," Hunter told him, panting now. "This is what you're good for, Charles. You belong on your knees. You're so good right now. So hot and wet - you may use your tongue." 

Charles slid his tongue up the underside of the throbbing dick filling his mouth, focusing on tensing his lips and forming them into a tight ring, until Hunter grabbed his skull with both hands and yanked him closer.

He shoved his cock down Charles's throat and came in hot, long spurts. Even then he was thrusting, holding him down and forcing him to swallow every hot, musky, salty drop before letting him breathe.

When Hunter let him go, Charles pitched forward onto his forearms, coughing and spluttering, semen dripping from his mouth onto the grey linoleum floor beneath him. 

He didn't wipe his face. Hunter hadn't told him he could, yet.

In these moments of complete abandon Charles felt the closest to being at peace. His anxiousness stilled. No-one relied on him. No-one expected anything of him - except to obey.

Someone else took care of everything and he floated, feeling almost - almost - loved. Less alone.

"You can move now."

Charles buried his face in his white sleeves. He could feel the stickyness in his pants - he had come too.

Ever since his slip-up in college - a very bad situation that Hunter had helped him out of - he had started using him this way.

And Charles didn't mind. True, Hunter had never exactly asked him, had just expected him to go along with it. But Charles had never complained either - wasn't that almost like agreeing?

"You did well, Charles."

A tan, manicured hand came down to pet his hair. "Good boy."

Charles felt utterly humiliated. Dirty. Used. He leaned into Hunter's hand, closing his eyes. 

"Good work in the lab today - thank you for coming in on a Sunday. You really are a wonder," Hunter said, buttoning his jeans and adjusting his tie.

"Well, better hurry and get changed. Aren't you picking up your nephew at the airport today?" 

It took him 10 minutes to get cleaned up and fetch his car in the company's underground garage. 

Then he was driving towards the airport, nerves kicking in again. He grabbed a small metal flask out of the glove compartment with one hand and took a deep gulp, the burning sensation making him shiver.

Charles had never met his nephew before. And now he was adopting him. 

Over 16 years ago, when he was eight years old, his mother had thrown his 15-year-old, pregnant half-sister out onto the street. 

He had not been able to stop her. And he had never seen his sister again. 

Now she was dead. 

Her son had been bound for foster care. And the only way Charles could possibly make up for failing Kitty all those years ago, was to take him in. Besides, it was what any responsible uncle would do, right? 

You wouldn't know responsibility if it slapped you in the face with a dick, Charles. 

He glanced at the glove compartment again, where he kept his emergency booze and also the only photo he had of his sister and nephew. 

It had a stamp and a message scrawled on the back, like a postcard. 

In the photo a thin, fairy-like girl with long blonde locks was laughing and holding on to a round-cheeked, scowling, dark-haired toddler. They both stared into the camera with matching pairs of hazel eyes. 

Charles pulled into the airport and parked near Arrivals, fidgeting with his electronic car keys, checking through his pockets once again.  

Okay. Okay. He could do this.

The fat, orange sun stood low in the sky, bathing everything in a warm glow and reflecting off of all the glass and brushed steel inside the airport. The plane from New Orleans should have disembarked by now. 

All the paperwork had been done electronically and in his lawyer's office. Now Charles just had to find his nephew. 

He stood fumbling with his phone, chewing his lip, and when he looked up suddenly a small figure had appeared in front of him.

The hazel eyes that met his sent a shock of recognition through Charles. They were a mirror image of his own - large, round, and flecked with moss green, light brown, and amber. 

I have a niece? A girl named - Christopher?

Then he realised that the teenager in front of him was, indeed, a boy. An androgynous, transcendentally beautiful boy.  

Besides the eyes, he looked nothing like Kitty. 

She had been blonde and pale, much like Charles. People that described them used words like 'Button nose,' 'rosebud mouth,' and 'porcelain skin'.

This boy had a warm undertone to his smooth, flawless skin. His hair was a deep mahogany, cut at his chin and tightly curled. He had high cheekbones, a small, flat nose, plump lips, and perfectly symmetrical features. It gave him an eye-catching, exotic look. 

Charles swallowed. This kid looked young - he was over a head shorter than Charles, who was of average height - and he looked skinny, with narrow, bony shoulders. 

Then he noticed the clothes he was wearing.

Old sneakers mended with duct tape, washed-out jeans that were tight and too short at the ankle, an oversized, tattered black hoodie, and a beat-up, patched shoulder bag covered in buttons and safety pins. Besides that, he only had one plastic shopping bag with clothes. 

Charles realized that he had been staring and swallowed.

"Ch-Christopher?" he stammered.

The boy's eyes narrowed. He cleared his throat and tried again.

"Hi! I'm - eh - Charles. Christopher, isn't it? Or do you go by Chris? Not Topher - right?" Charles said, laughing a bit and tugging at his collar.

The teenager raised his eyebrows slowly, and his gaze slid over Charles from the soles of his mocha loafers, up his navy chinos and crisp white shirt all the way to his designer glasses and the shiny blonde hair curling just above his cheekbones.

His look was somehow far to knowing, Charles thought. Judging.

The young man's eyes snagged on his uncle's and he flinched almost imperceptibly.

"It's Kit," he said in a melodious voice, raspy around the edges, with a hint of a southern twang. 

"You can call me Kit."

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all, Charles thought.

By the time got into the car and started driving towards Charles's flat, he was sweating. Why wasn't the kid looking at him? Or asking questions? What was he supposed to do - to say?  

Then Kit saved him.

"Charles, you said?" he asked, looking out the window. He looked bored - or maybe tired. 

"Um - that's right."

"Charlie suits you better." 

Charles's eyes flitted to his face and away and he laughed nervously. 

"No-one has called me that since..."

"Since my mom, right?" 

He nodded. 

"So what do you do, Charlie?"

"I studied organic chemistry, and for my master's I did chemical engineering. I work at a pharmaceutical company now."

"Doesn't that take six years? I thought you were 24?"

"Usually it takes six years. I finished in five, and I started when I was 17. So I've been working at this company for a bit over a year now - did my internship there too. They - eh - got me out of a spot of trouble during college." 

Kit looked at him then, but didn't ask. 

"You're, eh, 15?"

"Just turned 16."

"Oh - right. Erm, right! I signed you up for a school my boss recommended - it's supposed to be good, but you - uh - have to start tomorrow. So you don't fall further behind. I got you some uniforms and books and..." he coughed. "Et. cetera."

Kit raised one eyebrow again, watching him. Couldn't he just - why was he - 

Stop looking at me like that. Please. 

Once they got to the flat, Charles couldn't stand a second more.

"Right," he said. "School starts tomorrow at eight. Don't be late." 

He had to have a drink. Without another glance at Kit, he swept out the door and he left him alone.

From his apartment it was a 30 min walk to the red light district. He had visited countless bars in the city but lately Charlie had favoured this one.

This bar was not a rowdy sportsbar, or one of the loud bustling places the students favoured. It was a quiet, elegant place with old jazz in the speakers and a sprawling, dim layout.

It was frequented almost exclusively by gay men. The owner was african-american and there was a young man in dreadlocks behind the bar - even the clientele was unusually diverse, with different ages and ethnicities represented. Most seemed to be working adults, with a few students and retirees.

Charles sat down at the bar and started knocking back drinks - usually he started with beer, but now he went straight onto whiskey sours - like there was no tomorrow. 

So he was supposed to be a real uncle now? A legal guardian?

What a joke. 

He had never been able to take care of anyone, not even himself. Charles was good at his job, but beyond that he was hopeless. Even here at the bar, he took no initiatives - he always waited for someone to approach him. Anyone. 

Soon enough, a body in a suit slid into the seat next to his, and Charles smiled. Over the top of his glass he could see the bar's owner - a handsome, well-dressed black man in his late thirties, sitting in his usual corner with papers and a laptop in front of him - watching him with dark, unreadable eyes. 

Charles turned to the man next to him and drained his glass. 

"Can I buy you another?" the man asked, his hand already on the blonde's waist. Charles nodded.

He didn't feel like worrying any more tonight. 

Alone in the apartment, Kit spent the evening looking up the location of the school on his beat-up old smartphone, since his uncle had forgotten to tell him. He searched through the flat, examining his narrow, clean, sparsely styled new room. 

The fridge was empty, but he found some spaghetti in tomato soup in a cupboard and ate it with a spoon straight from the can, before taking a shower and throwing his spare set of clothes into the washing machine. 

At dawn, Kit woke up in a cold sweat, body shaking, mouth open and frozen in a silent scream.

Before his eyes, matted, dirty honey-blonde hair spilled out over a stained, crusty rug. Skeleton-thin pale fingers with torn, grimy nails reached for him, and hollow, fever-glazed eyes searched for his face in the darkness.

"Help me," she croaked.

"Help me, Kit."

He rolled out of bed and retched, stomach cramping and throat burning like acid. In the half-light, the tomato soup looked like blood.