Jimmy strutted into the Sitting Bull with his chest puffed out. DeeDee’s scowl deflated him.

“Where the hell have you been?” The bar manager pointed toward the back room. “There’s Blatz and Miller cases piled up — you’re supposed to get here an hour early on delivery days, goddamn it, and you’re a half-a-fucking-hour late.”

“I-I’m sorry, uh … Mike wanted some stuff done; he said it was okay to come in late.”

“Bullshit. What did Mike want done?”

Jimmy thought fast. “Um, uh, some, uh, paperwork for the… expansion. He, um, needed to find out regulations and stuff.”

“You’re full of shit, Jimmy.” DeeDee’s eyes narrowed. “I can always tell when someone’s lying.”

“I’m not — I was with Mike, I’m telling you.”

“We’ll see when he comes in later.” DeeDee poked her finger in Jimmy’s face. “It’s gonna be your ass, you lying little weasel. Now, get to work.”

“DeeDee, I swear — I’m not lying,” Jimmy lied.

It was a half-a-lie. Jimmy had indeed been with Mike, but they hadn’t been working on franchise plans — the two men had spent the better part of the afternoon sending Nicole into sexual Nirvana, with the war hero fucking her brains out while Jimmy held her hand and sucked her tit. When the humping was done, and orgasms had been achieved, ‘Pee-Wee’ happily licked up the gloopy mess, giddy in the knowledge that for the first time since marrying Nicole, he was an important part of her intimate life. The fact that he had to play second fiddle to Mike (and lick his cock clean) wasn’t something Jimmy merely tolerated — it turned him on like crazy. Mike and Nicole seemed to enjoy it on their end, too, and were apparently happy to have the little guy around.

As far as Jimmy was concerned, all was right with the world. He’d never felt so wanted by his beloved wife.

Since their first threesome earlier in the week, there had been two repeat performances, including the afternoon romp that caused Jimmy to be late for work. After lunch, Marlene had announced that she was going shopping, and as soon as she’d walked out the door, Nicole was on the phone begging her boyfriend to come over.

Jimmy had a snack ready for the boss-man by the time he arrived, although Mike eschewed food until after he’d dragged Nicole to the basement and drilled her, aided by the supplicant ‘Pee-Wee’ — a nickname that now stirred Jimmy’s loins whenever he heard it. After the fucking was done and the alphas’ genitals had been licked clean, the wimp dashed upstairs and fetched the oven-baked cheese puffs he’d made. The lovebirds chilled in bed and nibbled, watching their eager little servant get ready for work.

When Jimmy showed up to the bar a half-hour late, he had to come up with a plausible excuse for his tardiness. After his conversation with DeeDee, Jimmy waited until she’d gone into the office, and then rushed to the payphone to call Marlene’s house, so he and Mike could get their stories straight. There was no answer; Jimmy put the dime back in the slot and phoned Mike’s place. After nobody picked up, the nervous porter cut bait and got to work, hoping to coordinate the alibi with the boss when he came in later.

As he lugged beer crates to the basement, Jimmy could still taste Nicole and Mike on his lips, since the horny hubby hadn’t brushed his teeth after licking them clean, wanting to retain the residue of the magic he’d been a part of for as long as possible. Although it was embarrassing on one hand, Jimmy knew he’d found his place in the sun being submissive to Nicole and her lover. He’d never felt so calm, so satisfied, so… right. He had a warm, pulsating burn in the pit of his stomach, and it was as addicting as heroin.

Jimmy realized that Red, as crazy as he was, had been a hundred percent correct — some people are born to serve, and Jimmy was one of them. All his problems had stemmed from trying to fight who he really was, just as Red had indicated. The old bastard may have been loopy, but Jimmy could tell he had an uncanny insight.

Red wasn’t just a sage — he was solely responsible for every one of the recent drastic changes in Jimmy’s life. From the beginning, the old coot had been the Great Oz manipulating pulleys and levers from behind the curtain, driven by his need to satisfy his weird, sadistic, homosexual cravings.

The whole thing seemed clear to Jimmy when he looked at the big picture: After Red’s submissive chauffeur Pooh-Poo died, the eccentric tycoon needed a new weakling to kick around, and when an opportunity presented itself, the crafty sonofabitch immediately sized up the situation and pulled everything together like a master of the universe rearranging planets and stars.

From the moment Red laid eyes on Jimmy, he sensed he was a “born pansy” like Pooh-Poo. The old man knew that “born pansies” didn’t grow on trees, so he began plotting to ensnare the little wimp. When Mike and Nicole arrived at the bar together for the first time and hung out with Red, the lumber baron saw his chance and seized on it. He could immediately tell how pussywhipped Jimmy was, and figured he could manipulate the wuss through his wife — and after Red deduced that Nicole was in love with Mike, he realized that the lanky bar owner would be the way to reach her.

So, the astute factory owner reeled Mike in by agreeing to bankroll his franchise idea. He then loaded up the Vietnam vet and Nicole with primo Peruvian flake cocaine in Mike’s office, and once they were good and high, he started prodding, and manipulating the conversation to where he wanted it to go. Sure enough, Nicole blurted out that her husband had sucked a classmate’s cock in college, and Red told her that he was sexually attracted to the little guy. Red offered to pay a whopping five hundred bucks a week for a few hours of sexual service from the new porter, while making it clear without actually coming out and saying that Jimmy’s involvement was essential to the Sitting Bull expansion deal. That ensured buy-ins from both Mike and Nicole, whom Red had pegged as a gold-digger from the start. The furniture mogul had no doubt that Nicole would talk Jimmy into being his sex slave for five hundred a pop.

Red had instantly sensed that Jimmy was pliable and ripe for the plucking. The wimp’s vindictive mother had raised him to be a supplicant husband who put his wife’s needs above all else, so it was inevitable that he’d be pussywhipped. Growing up in such a ball-busting atmosphere had left Jimmy with little confidence in most situations, although he was highly intelligent and had genius-level organizational skills, which had enabled him to prosper as the Executive Manager at Triumph Industries.

Still, Jimmy had always let everyone push him around — and that’s how he was cornered into taking half the blame when a subordinate manager got caught stealing from the company. Nicole had warned Jimmy that his acquiescence would come back to bite him in the ass, and when it did, and he got fired, she never let him hear the end of it. After they lost their house and were forced to move in with Marlene, their marriage had plunged steadily downhill until the recent changes had suddenly and radically turned the relationship on its ear.

Jimmy was smart enough to see how Red had manipulated things but too weak to do anything about it. Besides, he didn’t want to do anything about it because, for the first time in his life, he truly felt happy. Sure, he was still everyone’s peon — but he’d been everyone’s peon anyway. Since Jimmy had decided to accept his station in life, people had at least stopped being overtly cruel to him, other than Red during their Saturday sessions. Nicole's attitude had drastically changed. Meanwhile, Jimmy’s sex life had never been more satisfying, even if it was still a bit uncomfortable to admit how much he was enjoying being Nicole and Mike’s subservient little toady.

It all stemmed from Red, the chess master. Jimmy wondered if the fat, old bastard wasn’t Beelzebub himself.

Speaking of the devil, the popular lumber heir sauntered into the Sitting Bull just as Jimmy had finished carrying the last beer crate to the basement.

“Hey, there, boy-o, how about grabbing me a cold one, would ya?” Red asked politely, keeping up public appearances.

“Sure, thing,” the porter replied, continuing the ruse.

Jimmy rushed to the bar and retrieved a bottle of Hamm’s. As he set it down on Red’s table, the old man picked his nose and wiped a booger on his napkin. After glancing around to ensure nobody was within earshot, Red pointed to the crusty green globule and whispered: “Listen, pansy, I’ve got two grand in my pocket if you eat that right now. If not, I’ll just tell your wife you weren’t up for making a quick two grand. You got three seconds to decide. One… two…”

Without thinking, Jimmy scooped it up with his finger and sucked it down, and then bolted to the men’s room, where he threw up in the toilet.

Red sauntered into the restroom and chuckled when he saw Jimmy hunched over the commode, retching. The old coot walked up behind the wimp and dropped a handful of hundred-dollar bills in the toilet water.

“Most lucrative meal you ever ate, huh, pansy?” he chortled.

“Ggg, yes, sir,” Jimmy croaked, eyeing the money as it floated around with chunks of puke.

Red strolled out of the bathroom, singing, 'It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.'

With a shudder, Jimmy plucked the money from the toilet water, cleaned it off in the sink, and stuffed it in his pocket. After rinsing his mouth five times, he smiled at his reflection in the mirror. The taste was gone, and he had two thousand big ones to give to Nicole. He thought about how over the moon she was going to be — it had been a lucrative meal, indeed; for enduring a few seconds of abject disgust, Jimmy had pocketed two grand, tax-free.

Then, Jimmy looked deeply into his eyes and the grin vanished. His conscience warned him there’d eventually be a price to pay for having Red chip away at his dignity bit by bit in exchange for decent treatment:

“That’s how the devil works — he entices you, ensnares you and tricks you into making compromises until he’s got you in his trap. And it’s not like this bargain at the crossroads is getting you fame and fortune, or turning you into a kick-ass guitar player — all you’re getting out of the deal is that you don’t get openly insulted by Nicole anymore. Oh, and you get to be a sex slave to your wife, her boyfriend, and some fat slob who owns a rocking chair factory.”

When his mind conjured up images of his submission, Jimmy’s disposition instantly switched from morose to horny — and even though he realized sexual enticement was also how the devil worked, the milksop stopped thinking so hard, reached into the front of his jeans and kneaded his diminutive penis. He recalled how Nicole’s well-fucked pussy had looked and tasted earlier, along with Mike’s thick, juicy, throbbing, meaty …

“DICK-HEAD! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?”

Lisa’s angry voice made Jimmy flinch. He let go of his pecker and rushed out of the bathroom to see what the irate assistant manager wanted.

“Those fucking coolers need to be filled with Miller before the rush,” Lisa barked as soon as she saw her subordinate. “How many goddamn times do I have to repeat myself, for chrissakes? I’m telling DeeDee, you keep hiding in the damn bathroom.”

“I-I wasn’t hiding, Lisa — I got sick,” Jimmy pleaded.

Lisa rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that’s what you keep saying. Just fill the damn coolers already.” Before Jimmy could reply, she stormed away.

Red, who’d watched the interaction from his booth, winked at Jimmy. “You’ll be alright, boy-o,” he called across the bar. “Just keep your chin up — and, like my ol’ grandpappy always used to say: Don’t eat anything that disagrees with ya!”