in the middle of a crowded floor, where gamblers and sex fiends bodies writhe against each other in movement from various games of chance, and the air fills with the noise of buzzing golden lights and loud clammoring. Salvage sits politely on top of a plush red stool. out of the corner of his eye he watches curiously as the patrons stream from table to table, while he halfheartedly throws some chips onto his own. the dealer throws him two cards, a 7 of diamonds and a king of hearts. he sighs, definitely not the best, but not the worst. he stands and the dealer deals himself his cards, busting with two face cards and a 3. salvage grins and collects his winnings. he didn’t even really see how many chips he threw in, but he struggles to carry the winnings inside just his two hands with how many there were.

his face warms with glee and he tosses the chips into his shoulderbag - NOT a purse - dashing into a lounge area before he rips off his ZOOM-OMATIC SMARTBOY SPECTACLES 300™. they worked!!! he struggles to not burst into laughter, his cheeks beginning to hurt from his own grin. if only these poor rich snobs knew he was cheating them right under their noses. he can barely believe it worked, but he saw those cards long before they were at the top and no one noticed shit! finally he’ll have a chance to make a dent in his debt- and then he wont have to be trapped in this purgatory anymore!

he uses the short space of privacy here to scruff up the collar of his leather overcoat and tug down the bottoms of his red crop so that it just covers his belly button and pull the crotch of his cargo shorts out of his junk.

he does the soft breathing exercises his therapist taught him the week prior, putting on his (literal) poker face and suavely striding back into the pit. it’s happy hour, so a decent amount of patrons have already poured out of the casino floor and into the nearby bar/lounges by the time he makes it on the scene. the dealers all look relieved to have less on their plate, which usually makes it the best time to play. he slides into another game of 21 and smiles at the dealer, “hey john.” he greets, short and to the point. its good to talk to them, since they all know his deal by now anyway, but too much and he cant be sure he wont let slip something suspicious by accident. he’s good at persuasion, but hiding a secret has never been his strong suit.

winning the next draws are easy. thanks to his SMARTBOY SPECTACLES™ and his better-than-average memory he can win while only half paying attention, giving him plenty of space to ogle all the hotties around him. though he has to make sure he loses every so often to not seem too suspicious. by the time he leaves the table, he feels like he’s won more than he has in months. one day of being a cheat and he’ll already be reaching back into the high life- it feels so good to finally have some assurance.

he mulls over what’s next. blackjack is easy winnings, but its also slow winnings, and worst of all - boring winnings. he spends some time sauntering around the various floors, until he stumbles upon a room where multiple poker games are being played. this is EXACTLY what he needs, more rich assholes to put in their place and more money to take.

he walks in confidently, eyeing up the potential competitors. most tables are full, but a few have a seat or two open. he ends up deciding on a table with one open seat, the rest filled with the crustiest of old men.

“you sure this table’s fit for you, kid?” one retorts. sal scowls. i’m literally 23, come on. the fucking privilege on these fossils.

“yeah, it’s just right.” he grins, sliding in and crossing his arms as he waits for the next round to begin.

despite the wait, he’s grateful to get some time to look up the ‘marks’, and he has to admit, a few of them look pretty damn hot. the rugged, masculine guys sorta faded in with the greyed out wrinkly dissociated guys from afar, but they could be definitely doing so much better than this joint. he’s not even that gay - he always felt a little weird about it, girls are so much easier?? - but he cant help but look when his new specs involuntraily give him a peek at what’s under their shirts.

he’s jolted out of his head by pressure on his shoulders, reminding him exactly where he is, and exactly why he can’t be bothering with physical desires. he nods and throws in the minimum bet and eagerly awaits his cards. an ace and a king, knowing before they reach his hands. the guy next to him, an older man in a dress shirt and tie, looks at his cards briefly and throws in a decent bet. if sal couldnt tell from the expression the man could barely hide, he can tell from the 4 of hearts and 7 of hearts staring right back at him. he raises the bet double.

the rounds go by quick, the bluffing man folds after the river shows a king and a ten, and other two join shortly after. him and 2 other guys get to a pretty tight finish, one of them having a 2 pair and the other having a three of a kind. but sal knows the river will end in his favour. the dealer throws down the last card, raises the bet once more, and wins handedly. he scrapes the chips to his front and gives them all an egotist grin.

one hand down, the rest of theirs to go.

it’s by the 5th game that something comes to stop his reign.

“Sally. Vance wants to see you. now.”

fuck. “cant you see i’m in the middle of something?” hate this asshole. i was just about to finish up here.

“he said now. i wouldnt make him wait.”

“fuck. fuck. fine.”

by the time he arrives back at his usual games, the atrium is crowded almost to full. he loses his sense of time utterly when he’s in play, no clue how long he was at that poker table, but it had to have been decently long if the post-work gamblers have arrived already. he scans over the floor managers looking for Vance. the senior of them all, and the asshole who watched over his debt and servitude. sal thought he wouldn’t have been here on the weekend, thought he’d probably be at home with his whore wife or something- but he thought wrong.

vance leans against the wall like a jock on a lightpole, donning his typical pristine checkered suit and slick black sunglasses. he thinks he’s so cool, just because he has power in this little pocket of space. its honestly pathetic. vances eyes dart up spotting him, and he whistles beckoning sal.

“whatcha been up to today, kid?” stay cool.

he shrugs, manifesting casual. “blackjack and poker, mostly.”

“that it?”

“yeah. been getting pretty lucky today, actually.”

“that so?” vance kicks his leg up, “cause’ i’ve heard you’ve been getting very lucky.”

sal shrugs again and looks away and vance steps closer to close the gap between them. he smells like cigarettes and some shitty strong cologne with a scent probably named something like ‘SPORTS DELUGE’.

“yeah man i just said that-” he stumbles backwards a step, he feels his heart drop in his chest and shouts shame at it in his head. “what gives??”

a heavily silence weighs down the oxygen around them. vance’s breath reeks, but it also overpowers.

he reaches a hand out to salvage’s cheek. sal tries to dodge backwards but vance moves it quick enough to grab his hair in retaliation. hand tight on the bottom of his pony, forced to look him dead in the eyes, right into his own mirrored reflection.

“c’mon sally, you know we don’t take kindly to cheats here-” he lowers his lips to sal’s ear, “you were supposed to be the example of that.”

sal tries to push him but his body is so blocky and his position is so firm that all it does is make an embarrassing thump.

“you want an assault charge too, sally?” the grip on his hair moves down to the back of the neck. he speaks quieter, looking around for prying eyes “i dont think you wanna see what’ll happen if we get that too”

“fuck off vance i’m not fucking cheating-” ringing shoots through his ears alongside a loud pop, red welters his cheek and vance looks down at him with the same happy-yet-still-scowling look as always.

sal can barely see through the blur and daze, and vance takes advantage. grabbing him by the collar and ripping them off the sides and into the middle of the floor, where everyone’s still gambling as if everything is of the ordinary. which it is, of course. who would ever care about what the managers are doing to some random guy? he’s probably just an unruly addict.

vance slams salvage’s back into a golden railing that outlines the table space, coursing pain up through his spinal. he’s never going to get his brains back at this rate. vance grabs his hair again, pulling it taught and shifting his other hand up sal’s side, and grabbing his waist, hard. sal bares his teeth in some sort of stupid attempt at looking confident.

“fuck. you.”

another slap leaves tears dribbling out of his plical and fading down his sweltering cheeks. vance’s filthy boney manhands continue dragging further down, until he’s groping sal’s ass through his shorts, grinning like an egotistical child, stealing another kid’s toys.

“get off me vance i didnt fucking cheat i was just trying to play leave me alone dont do this in front of all these people stop it please man cmon”

vance rips the glasses off of sal’s face.

he gives them a glance over, gaze looking deep into the where the little cameras are hidden. he looks up at sal, grins, and crushes them in his hand. sal almost bursts into tears. he payed so much to get those in his subscription- so deep in debt he had to take a loan out with a DIFFERENT shady entity, but it was supposed to be his one good chance at breaking at all- was supposed to save him.

now his dreams lay shattered at his feet.

he doesn’t even realize his shorts are at his ankles until vance’s hands are groping his taint thorugh his panties.

“fucking trap.” he mutters.

sal starts screaming in his head knowing he can’t make even more of a ruckus here. they’re just comfortable man i’m not a girl they’re just cozier okay god its not gay and so what shut up shut up shut up fuck!!!

two fingers wrap under the waistband, tugging. wait- wait no not here not in front of everyone not “here not here stop please vance don’t do this we can go to your office we can- just not like this please? please.” he can only make himself whimper.

and theyre at his feet too. his little- his dick flops out uselessly as they drop. he immediately notices eyes beginning to stare, some hungrily, some scowling, but none speaking.

“this won’t make the tiniest dent in your debt. but you’re already our property so, who cares right?”

vance grabs sal’s legs and pulls them over his shoulders. sal’s completely suspended now, if he tries to rip himself out or if vance moves too far back he’ll fall and hit his head on the hard wood floor. he looks down and just the foot or two of space between them and the ground is enough to make him lightheaded, terrified.

vance moves forward and spreads sal to the air. he cant look, but he can feel beady eyes staring it down, watching with glee as vance shoves himself inside, shamefully easy.

“do this often, huh girlie?” vance laughs heartily. sal dreams of stabbing a straight razor through his veiny ugly neck, watching the blood spurt out and coat him happily.

“kill yourself.”

sal feels so full, more than he ever has. he hasn’t taken a real dick since, what 2 years ago? back in his college ‘exploration’ phase. he mostly keeps it to the knotted and monster toys now, not that that makes it any less embarrassing as his hole easily and eagerly stretches to fit vance’s huge cock. he has to close his eyes once he sees his own harden in response to his enemy’s thrusts.

“y’know. you should probably talk nicer to the people who decide if you get to live here, or if you get sent to the kennel.”

“what?”

“ ‘wHaT’, do you really think that, the people who own the biggest casino company in the state, wouldn’t have other ‘ventures’?” vance’s smile finally seems to droop. but the thrusts only get harder, only force more pathetic self-hating squeaks out of salvage, choking his words into tattered paper.

“what- are- you- t-a-aalking about”

vance leans in closer, brushing a hand through salvage’s locks falling out of his ponytail. he feels pulsing, heat rising, the tip digging deeper into his guts then hes ever felt, and then hears vance grunting in deplorable satisfaction, voice glowing with pride.

“i’m saying we’re going to sell you, sally.”