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tgmsunmontue · 4 months

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Take more chances, dance more dances 1/2

~12k EXPLICIT Hangster AU Meet!Cute with Jake as the best man at Natasha and Javy's wedding and Bradley is the instructor teaching them how to dance...

CHAPTER ONE

Bradley’s expecting the group of four for a private lesson, the first of ten lessons and it’s a hell of a gift. He recognizes the name of the person who gave the gift obviously, but Cheryl isn’t ever going to tell a paying customer no, no matter how often he argues with Mav about not needing the extra business. Cheryl is running them through the standard health and safety but he’s pretty sure it’s unnecessary, they’re all likely super fit naval aviators and unlikely to keel over from a little samba. He runs his eyes over them through the one-way mirror, three guys and one woman, which makes the bride easy enough to identify.

She’s leaning into the space of a guy with glasses, laughing at something he says, too quiet for Bradley to hear. The black guy is rolling his eyes, shoving the other white guy on the shoulder, he’s got a toothpick in his teeth; before stepping in close to the woman and she turns, her body arching ever so slightly and that’s the groom then. The guy in glasses smiles at them, looks pleased for them but makes no effort to move out of their space. Interesting. While the other guy –

“I just don’t understand why the whole wedding party needs to learn how to dance…”

“Dude, you’re my back-up dancer!” The groom exclaims.

“No, I’m your wingman, and you’ve landed the hottest woman ever and therefore my job is done.”

“You didn’t help him land me at all. In fact you were something of a handicap to his efforts.”

“Hey! I take offence to that!”

“You were meant to,” the guy in glasses says dryly and Bradley has to bite back a laugh at the look the other guy gives him. They’re all familiar with each other at least, although getting them to loosen up enough to dance will be annoying, when they’re all going to have that naval bearing which is drilled into them. Ah well, no time like the present to start, he pushes open the door.

“Hi, I’m Bradley… and you’re here because you got given dance lessons as an engagement-slash-wedding present right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“So, are we expecting anyone else or are we working with a male couple to dance?”

“My sister lives in New York, she’s actually a dancer so I don’t have any issues with her. Javy’s sister is taking classes, so we’ve just got the four of us to get up to speed!”

“Okay, so what are you after and when is the wedding?”

“Four weeks. We kind of… uh, had reasons to bring the date forward.”

Bradley raises an eyebrow, because that usually implies that the bride is pregnant, but the angry look the bride is giving her husband-to-be makes Bradley doubt that is the case. And he wonders if the guy is going to be getting laid any time between now and the wedding.

“Javy! You make it sound like you’ve knocked me up!”

“Not for lack of trying, I’m sure,” toothpick twiddler says, and the bride then slaps his arm so hard he winces and Bradley hasn’t been amused in a long time. This might actually be fun.

He reads through the information on the tablet, looking at past dance experience. He knows they’ll all be fine counting out to a beat, but making them look like they can dance and are enjoying themselves while doing it is a completely different matter. If they look like they’re being tortured it sort of defeats the purpose.

“Jake?”

“That’s me darlin’,” the toothpick twiddler says and he gives Bradley a grin, lets his eyes drag up Bradley’s body in clear interest and Bradley lets him, feels equal parts amused and flattered, lets his own eyes sweep down Jake’s body. Nice. Most of the guys checking him out are already partnered up when they enter his dance studio and it always makes him feel a little uncomfortable. If the guy is available and interested Bradley definitely wouldn’t turn him down. He doesn’t have any rules about not sleeping with any of his clients/students/customers/dance partners… Everyone just needs to be onboard and consenting.

“Says here you have line dancing experience.”

“Sure do.”

“Okay, then I might not need to beat the stiffness out of all of you. Did you have something in mind for your first dance?” Bradley asks, looking up at who he assumes is Natasha Trace. He’s also going to assume that the black man is Javier Machado and the other man is Robert Floyd. No doubt they’ll have callsigns they’ll throw around once they loosen up, but he’ll pick those up easily enough.

“So we were thinking of going with a waltz for everyone. That seemed easy enough for us to all learn when we were watching videos…”

Bradley nods, because she’s right. Nothing wrong with classic and traditional. Better to have everyone master one dance and look good for the video. Also the waltz will likely suit them better than some of the more fluid Latin American styles given they’ve only got four weeks. It’s really not long enough but he’ll make it work. He’s glad they’ve got realistic expectations though.

“And do you have a song? Were you thinking traditional instrumental or more modern. I’ve got playlists you can go through and find something you like. As long as we have at least four weeks to practice to it should be fine. How often were you wanting to have these lessons? Because if you’re interested in general classes as well these can happen every week, although I’m thinking four weeks… that’s already a tight time crunch.”

He hashes out a timeframe and times that work for them, and the fact that they’re all on leave makes his intuition ping with the idea that they’ve probably been part of whatever bullshit mission Mav just got back from.

“You guys part of the Dagger Squadron?”

That has them all looking at him sharply and he shakes his head slightly, forces himself to remain relaxed and not get immediately defensive because they’re all looking like they’re about to attack him. Huh. There’s definitely a story there and he’s not sure if he wants to know it.

“And what if we are?”

“Captain Mitchell was the giftee. He’s a family friend,” Bradley says, and it’s not a lie, really, just a little misdirection. Mav is the only family he has, not counting the distant cousins he knows exist somewhere in his family tree.

“Oh, that’s cool man.”

“Come on, let’s see what we’re working with and not waste the rest of the hour.”

… … …

“Look at the legs on him… Jesus.”

�� “You want a towel there Bagman?”

“What?”

“To mop up the drool…”

“Trace, Natasha, do you see those legs?”

“He’s a dancer, of course his legs look good. He’s probably got better legs than me. Bet he’s super flexible too.”

Jake’s brain glitches as he tries to imagine all the potentials of a flexible partner in bed at the same time. So many positions. Those legs wrapped around him. Or those hips thrusting his cock into Jake. He’s not fussy.

“Fuck…”

“You definitely look like you want to. You going to ask him out?”

“That okay with you?”

“That you want to fuck our dance instructor? Yes. I just met the guy. I mean, I figure you’re somehow an adult enough to not let it fuck up all our future dance lessons…”

“Could make it more than a one-off.”

“Well, regular sex does have a lot going for it for those of us who like it…”

“I definitely like it. Think I’d like it a lot with him.”

“Just don’t get all sulky if he rejects you.”

Jake immediately goes to make some quip about how he never gets rejected but then realizes he really doesn’t want to get rejected. He’s pretty sure he won’t be, judging from the way Bradley had checked Jake out in response to being checked out. It’d been reciprocal. He hopes that means there’s more that can be reciprocal.

As they get taken through the basics it’s all pretty straight forward, just focusing on footwork, which Jake vaguely remembers from his mom teaching him years ago. They’re not trying anything with a partner yet, so it gives him plenty of opportunities to watch him and he grows more confident and time passes, because he’s pretty sure he’s being watched. Assessed. For something other than his dancing ability that is.

“Okay, that’s us done for the day. We’ll build on that next time, so feel free to practice between now and then. And if any of you guys are wanting to do something different, or more difficult you can book more lessons. However if you just want to practice and become more confident you can come along to any of our beginner group classes. They’re multiple times a week with different styles and levels, usually ninety minutes long. I’ll get Cheryl to email you out the timetable.”

Everyone thanks him, Jake included and he gives a little jerk of his head to Javy, mutters that he’ll catch up with them if he has to and Bradley is watching him not leave with his friends and is approaching him and Jake can’t take his eyes off him.

“Did you want something?”

“Yeah… Just wondering if you’d be interested in a drink?”

“A drink or a fuck?”

Oh, Jake likes him. No bullshit, just cutting right down to it.

“Both. Not fussy about the order either…”

“Great.”

“Now?”

There’s a look of brief regret and slight shake of the head and Jake tamps down on the immediate flash of disappointment in his gut.

“I’m actually teaching until eight-thirty tonight. That work for you?”

“Can I watch the class?”

“I man… Yeah, sure. Starts at seven.”

“I’ll see you then.”

He gives Bradley a little salute and hurries to catch up with the others, his blood thrumming.

“You get shot down already?” Javy asks and Jake punches him in the arm.

“Opposite in fact. I’ve got to go back later. He’s teaching until eight-thirty.”

“Well, at least you’ll stop complaining about being horny all the time.”

“I don’t complain all the time!”

All three just look at him and he sighs.

Maybe he does.

… … …

Cheryl won’t stop snickering every time she looks at him and Bradley is a little embarrassed that she was there to witness everything, although she tells Bradley it’s about time he put himself out there. He thinks that’s a little on the nose seeing as she’s been married to her wife for over ten years and hasn’t had to put herself anywhere for a long time. He helps with some of the basic admin, emails the four from earlier with the promised information with links to playlists and video tutorials; hopes that Natasha and Javier don’t suddenly watch something and decide to change it up.

He’s got a private session with some younger kids preparing for an upcoming competition so he doesn’t have time to dwell on what might be happening later. Time passes quickly and he manages to scoff down his salad and cold chicken and brush his teeth in the half-hour break before the start of his last class. It’s an advance swing and jive class, definitely one of his favorites and he changes from his long-sleeve black shirt to a white tank, knows he’s going to work up a sweat. Clips a microphone to his tank and grabs a fresh battery pack, wiring it up with practiced ease. Then he goes back into the studio, there’s already about a third of the class waiting and he waves in greeting.

“He’s here,” Cheryl sing-songs as she walks past, her three inch heels making her almost as tall as him and Bradley forces himself to not immediately look around. He doesn’t wait too long though and walks over to where Jake is leaning against the wall and watching the other dancers arrive, and he’s getting a few speculative looks from several people and Bradley leans into him, feeling a little proprietary.

“The class is ninety minutes. You sure you want to just… sit and wait?”

“I don’t mind just sitting and watching the scenery.”

“Okay then, hope it’s worth your while.”

“Already is.”

Bradley licks his lips slowly and damn he wants to just… leave now. Take this guy home and lay him out and just go to town. God. He might get more than one chance to do it to, if he’s hanging around for a few weeks, then they could have sex a few times. He’ll have to ask and see if he’s amenable.

“Evening, sorry I couldn’t be here last week. Work was crazy.”

… … …

Jake freezes, because he recognizes that voice and he turns to it, his back straightening automatically.

“Admiral.”

“Lieutenant.”

“What’s he doing here?” Admiral Simpson asks Bradley and Jake takes a tiny step back. He knows Bradley knows Maverick, but knowing Admiral Simpson is another thing. Are they family somehow?

“Calm down Beau, you’re not being stalked. Jake’s getting lessons for the upcoming wedding.”

“I wasn’t aware you were engaged Lieutenant.”

“Not me sir, Trace and Machado.”

“Ah. That makes more sense. Good job last week.”

“Uh. Thank you sir.”

“Hmm,” Admiral Simpson nods, then turns away. “Bradshaw, can I have the first dance?”

“Certainly Admiral…”

“I told you not to call me that.”

“But it’s such an easy way to annoy you… I’ll see you after,” he says and Jake watches as Admiral Simpson spins Bradshaw (Jake could have sworn his name was Bradley?) out onto the dance floor to Walking on Sunshine, and then pulls him back into him. They both know how to dance and Jake’s still getting used to the idea of Admiral Simpson in denim that the fact he’s dancing is a separate mindfuck.

“Okay everyone, we’re going to start warming up while we wait for everyone to get here. Partner up and we’re going to move Jive style and then change partners every count of twenty. I’ll call it.”

Jake watches and people all know what the hell they’re doing, moving fluidly with each other as well as around all the other dancers. He hadn’t considered how they’d not bump into each other when everyone is moving all over the place. It’s generally not a problem that comes up with line dancing unless someone fucks up royally.

“And change!”

At the call everyone moves to a different partner but it looks seamless, like everyone is doing one big practiced dance that they all know and it’s more fascinating than he thought it would be. He’d assumed he’d just spend ninety minutes watching Bradley (he’s going to assume his name is Bradley), but this class is advanced and it’s enjoyable to watch. Every time Bradley crosses his line of sight though his eyes follow him, transfixed until he’s lost in the sea of other dancers. The call for change comes regularly and Jake counts it out, wonders how the hell Bradley is managing to keep track of the count, dance and call it out for everyone else.

“And change!”

“Prepare to switch!”

“Switch the lead!”

Jake doesn’t quite understand what that call means and he watches, realizing that instead of the men doing the lead moves the women are, and Bradley is back dancing with Admiral Simpson and is dipping him.

… … …

He’s a little distracted watching Jake watch everyone dance, but he’s lucky he’s got years of muscle memory to rely on. Once everyone is warmed up and having drinks of water he catches Jake’s eye and he’s got his undivided attention. Fuck he wishes Jake could dance, has always considered dancing on par with sex, the music and movement of his body always freeing in a different way. Sharing that experience with someone has always felt intimate, especially when it’s a prelude to sex. The rest of the class goes quickly, the focus being an armjive tangle and a sway choker, which some of the class already know which always helps. Beau keeps smirking at him each time he catches his eye but he ignores it. He takes off the mic and battery, wipes it clean and puts it onto charge, answers questions and takes a few of the students through some moves slowly until they get it. Cheryl gets the lights in the office, tells him she’ll lock the front door and then he’s alone with Jake.

“Hey.”

“Hey. Still want to get a drink?”

“No.”

“Want to come home with me? Not for a drink?”

“Yes.”

“Great. Come with me.”

He hadn’t bothered mentioning it earlier, but his apartment is above the studio. Not many people want to live above a dance studio that is playing music constantly, people thumping around with varying degrees of light-footedness. He leads Jake up the stairs and pushes the door to his apartment open. He hardly ever locks it. He doesn’t pause anywhere long enough to allow Jake time to look around, he has one destination in mind, and unfortunately it’s not his bedroom.

“I really need a shower, I’ve been dancing all day.”

“That an invitation for me to join you?”

Bradley hadn’t meant it as one, but –

“Fuck yes. Come on.”

He strips off methodically, tossing his clothes toward the basket in the corner, appreciates the fact that Jake is doing the same, although his clothes get carefully folded and placed on the side dresser in a careful pile but he’s soon standing there as naked as Bradley. He jerks his head in the direction of the bathroom, feels a little awkward being naked when they haven’t even kissed yet and they both move towards it and he flicks the water on.

“I need to ask you something, it’s been bugging me all night,” Jake says, and he’s in Bradley’s personal space, mouth now within kissing distance and Bradley watches his lips as he talks.

“Sure, what?”

“What’s your name?”

“Were you really that distracted this afternoon?”

“You are pretty distracting, but I was also pretty sure your name was Bradley up until Admiral Simpson called you Bradshaw and I thought maybe I’d misheard.”

Their bodies have shifted, swayed closer together and he rests his hands on the naked expanse of skin on Jake’s hip, squeezes slightly and shifts closer. Hearing Beau called Admiral makes him snicker, because he’s seen the man in a variety of states, some of them very embarrassing for him and he’s glad he didn’t know of Bradley’s relationship to Mav before they knew each other well.

“Nope. You heard right. Both times.”

“They’re both your names?”

“Unfortunately,” Bradley says, pressing a small kiss just beneath the hinge of Jake’s jaw. “Bradley Bradshaw.” Kisses his cheekbone. “My parents didn’t think it through until after they’d already submitted the paperwork and I’ve been lumped with it my whole life.”

“Yeah, you look like you’ve really suffered.”

Jake’s voice is satisfyingly breathy sounding. Bradley doesn’t agree with him, but he’s grateful for what he has now, definitely doesn’t want to get into his whole life story with a guy he’s hooking up with. He slides his mouth over Jake’s, nothing more than a hello kiss but their bodies brush against each other and their cocks bump and yeah, he’s pretty confident this is going to be good. Really good.

“Water’s warm…”

He pushes gently, follows him into the spray of water but doesn’t let the contact he has with Jake’s body end, tries to leave a hand on him, or presses a leg against him, kisses him as water sluices over their bodies.

“You look really fucking good when you’re dancing…” Jake mumbles, and Bradley grins against the skin of his neck where he’d just been licking.

“Well, you look good all the time, so we’re pretty even huh?”

“I am good…”

“Yeah? Going to show me how much?”

He doesn’t know yet what Jake is angling for, sometimes guys are really upfront and clear that they want to fuck him, or be fucked. This little encounter hasn’t given any clues yet and Bradley finds himself not really knowing what he wants himself, would be okay with anything… everything. Their kissing is more intense, hands moving with purpose and he jerks at the fingers wrapping around his erection; thrusts into them.

“Fuck…”

He goes to return the favor but he’s deftly directed to one of Jake’s ass cheeks and he gives it a firm squeeze, rubs his hand in in a firm circle and squeezes again and he feels Jake pushing into his hand. Okay then. He runs a finger down the crack of his ass, feels the gasp pull the breath from his own mouth. He does it again and this time he feels slick, slicker than the water would allow for and he presses down and fuck he hopes that’s lube. He looks at his clear shiny finger and that’s definitely lube being washed away.

“Fucking hell… what did you do? Go back to base and finger yourself?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck…”

“Yeah. Didn’t want to waste time. And you’ve got to dance and I’ve got to be a lay about for a few weeks…”

“What if I wanted to take my time with you?”

“Later. You can. Later. Just… this first time, just need it a bit harder. A grateful to be alive kind of fuck.”

His skin prickles at that but he ignores it.

“You want to have fuck I’m glad to be alive type sex…”

“Yeah, that. Exactly that.”

“Okay then, pretty sure I can help with that.”

… … …

Jake is so so grateful that he got dragged along to dance lessons. This is karmic reward for trying to be a good person, surely has to be.

“I don’t keep condoms in my shower…”

“Poor planning on your part,” Jake gasps, Bradley’s fingers playing with his rim making his brain fizz.

“Put your thighs together, make it nice and tight for me… going to slide my dick between them.”

Jake’s breath stutters and then he sucks in a deep breath and does as he’s told, bracing his forearms against the shower wall. Fingers slick with something that is definitely not lube and smells like mint and citrus and he shoves back; feels teeth dig in ever so slightly on his shoulder before it’s being soothed away to a kiss. This isn’t what he wants, what he needs. But he’ll go along with it for now, wants to feel it, the promise of more to come. Bradley is slightly taller, slightly broader and he feels enveloped, the heat of the shower accompanied by the heat of Bradley’s chest against his back as he slides his cock between Jake’s thighs in one smooth glide.

“Going to this properly soon if you’ll let me, and I think you’ll let me, think you want me to. Think you fingered yourself and stretched yourself open and got yourself ready for me thinking about this…”

Jake groans, can’t even think of anything to say in reply because it’s all true. Mostly. He also got himself off, not wanting to embarrass himself from coming too fast as soon as Bradley touched him, although he’s starting to think he could have gone with that; that Bradley would have just moved on to wringing another one out of him. Bradley’s moving his body in a slow rolling grind, rhythmic like his dancing is, his hand wrapped around Jake’s cock and moving in unison and Jake wonders if he’s keeping count in his head. It’s not fast enough or hard enough to get him close, but he’s getting the impression that that isn’t the purpose here, instead it’s to ratchet up the whole thing further and he’s okay with that. For now.

Time draws out, losing meaning, he’s not sure if they’ve been there for five minutes or fifteen or longer, but the water is still hot, his cock is starting to feel hotter, his thighs starting to tremble from the concerted effort to keep them tightly clenched together. Bradley’s body starts to move ever slightly so faster against him and he really needs to get fucked. Wants Bradley fucking him and hopefully leaving some bruises, although he won’t ask for them. Too much to ask a guy he may or may not fuck again.

“More. Come on Bradley, please, need more… come on.”

He feels Bradley draw away and clenches his jaw at the immediate whine that wants to escape his mouth. He feels hands moving over him, the detachable shower head rinsing off whatever he’d been using to slick his way and he groans again.

“Okay, come on. Bed.”

“Thank fuck.”

The water is shut off and Bradley is rubbing him down with a towel, only wiping away the worst of the water and when Bradley licks his neck the contrast of his warm mouth against the cooling water makes him shiver, it feels so good, his entire body alight with sensation and he’s becoming more and more desperate. Bradley moves him firmly but gently, using his entire body to guide him back to the bedroom. He encouraged onto his stomach, a pillow shoved under his hips and he can’t help but grind his cock into the soft cotton.

“Uh uh, none of that, I’ll take care of you. Okay?”

“Oh fuck…” Jake gasps, because it’s the deep promise of those words and he shifts, spreads his legs. Then there’s fingers stroking over in his hole again, two of them, generously lubed up and he’s obviously missed where the fuck that came from. He pushes back, wants the burn and stretch. Bradley doesn’t second guess anything and Jake’s grateful, not sure he could be coherent right now. The stretch is good, not at all painful and he desperately wants to grind back and forward at the same time. Then there’s another finger and oh god yes, he’s sure he says it out loud as well.

“You look so good like this… feel so good.”

“Come on, more…”

“Just a little longer…”

He has a vision then of kicking back, forcing Bradley onto his back so Jake could simply ride his cock until he came. Except he’s not in the position, isn’t even sure he’d be able to shift Bradley if he didn’t want to be shifted like that. There’s a little more lube and for the briefest of moment four fingers and he pushes back harder but they disappear quickly.

“You okay?”

“God yes… so good.”

“Good.”

Then he hears the quiet tear of foil, the soft unmistakable sounds of a condom being put on and his brain and body are both internally shouting yes yes yes and he groans in anticipation. Then there is a hand on his ass, holding him open and he’s feeling the press of Bradley’s cock and he bears down, pushing himself back onto it and it doesn’t make it any faster but it does make it easier and he sighs at the sensation, of finally getting filled in the way he was after.

“Tell me if it gets too much.”

“You’re not that big…”

Bradley’s soft laugh tickles at the hair on his neck, then he’s pulling back not even an inch before pushing back in, fully sheathed inside him, his hips working a slow circular grind like he’s still trying to work Jake open with his cock. After a few moments he shifts, pulling Jake back to be almost sitting in Bradley’s lap, thighs spread on either side, ass tight on his cock. It pushes him that little bit deeper and Jake lets himself sag against down into it, letting gravity have it’s way pushing him down onto Bradley.

“Yeah, that’s it… want to get you all pliant so I can fuck you like you want…”

Oh. Jake’s pretty sure he’s being read like a book right now. Bradley flexes his hips in a way Jake isn’t sure he could mimic with a full-grown man in his lap but he’s grateful for Bradley’s talents and feels the sparks hit his spine like a sparkler lit on the fourth of July.

“You into edging?” Bradley asks, and he’s moving the same way he was when he was fucking Jake’s thighs, starting off deep, only pulling back the smallest amount before grinding back in. Doing that over and over and he’s not going to get more leverage with how they’re sitting and Jake needs him to have more leverage. He shakes his head, thinks about the questions Bradley’s just asked.

“No. No. Not right now…”

“I don’t mean right now…” Bradley says, and he’s leaning forward, arm around Jake’s chest as he encourages him back onto the bed and Jake moves his arms to help, to support his own weight, feels Bradley’s other hand holding his hip firm, like he doesn’t want to shift too much and pull out. Holy shit his core strength must be insane. Then he’s being shifted and he’s glad for the assist, now on his hands and knees, legs spread and Bradley kneeling between them.

“Going to fuck you now…”

“Thank fuck…finally.”

“Was just thinking about getting you to the edge over and over and over until you’re begging and crying for it… not right now. But maybe you’d let me?”

Jake would for sure as hell let him. Fucking hell. The mouth on this man.

“Yeah? What’s in it for me?”

“Well, hopefully a mind melting orgasm, but you could do whatever you liked to me too you know…”

“God you’re chatty…”

That. That is what has Bradley pulling out and fucking into him harder and he doesn’t cry out but it’s a close thing. He braces himself on an arm, shoves his ass back and grunts yeah c’mon harder and there are fingers digging into his hips and maybe he’ll get the bruises he wanted after all. He fully expects the pace to remain faster, harder, he definitely makes it known that that’s what he wants and it goes his way few a few minutes but then it starts slowing down and no no no…

“Shh… shh… I got you. Just want to get my hand on your cock again.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah…”

Then he’s gone, the added stimulation of being fucked, harder and faster than before somehow, or maybe it’s just the mirrored movement on his cock playing mind tricks, making him think everything is harder and faster. He’s got fingertips digging into his hip, a hand on his cock doing it’s best to give him the hand job of a lifetime all while he’s getting fucked by a guy who knows what the he’s doing. It’s taken him over thirty years, but he’s finally found the best sex he’s had, and it is lightyears over and above what previously held first place.

“Think you have an oral fixation. Saw what you were doing to that toothpick. Want to see you choking on my cock…”

Jake doesn’t whimper, he swears he doesn’t, but it’s pretty much moot because he does come, his body lighting up like the fuse finally burned all the way down and he shudders through it, feels over-stimulated in all the best possible ways but is grateful that Bradley slows and pulls out of gently as he can. He can barely move, slumps down and looks over his shoulder as best he can. Sees Bradley taking the condom off and then he’s stripping his own cock, his hand a solid blur of movement as he jerks himself off. Jake feels the splatter of come across his ass and lower back and just hums in approval.

He doesn’t want to move but neither does he want to withstand the awkward chitchat of post-hookup etiquette so he stretches, is touched Bradley is apparently enough of a gentleman to clean up after himself, the damp towel from the shower being used to wipe his back before being offered to clean up the smears on his own stomach. He dresses quickly, grateful Bradley pulls on underwear and ignores the urge to just want to curl up in bed naked with him. That isn’t what this is.

“I’ve got to get back to base…”

“Sure. Thanks.”

“Thank you. This was… exactly what I needed.”

“Well, I’m happy to help. If you need it again, you know where to find me.”

“You’d be down for that?” Jake asks, because things said in the heat of the moment aren’t always the most reliable.

“Did I somehow give you the impression I wouldn’t be?”

“Fair.”

“I’ll see you in a couple of days at the next lesson.”

“Not if I see you first.”

“Well, as I said. You know where to find me.”

CHAPTER TWO

#Hangster #Sereshaw #rooster x hangman #I wrote 2.5 of this rather than It's all academic darlin' sorry!#there is a second part because this Jake and Bradley have a story to tell apparently #Along with Cyclone and Mav getting their shit together as well because WHO KNEW??#I certainly had NO IDEA #Take more chances - Dance more dances

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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Podcasting "Twiddler"

This week on my podcast, I read “Twiddler,” a recent Medium column in which I delve more deeply into enshittification, and how it is a pathology of digital platforms, distinct from the rent-seeking of the analog world that preceded it:

https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/27/knob-jockeys/#bros-be-twiddlin

Enshittification, you’ll recall, is the lifecycle of the online platform: first, the platform allocates surpluses to end-users; then, once users are locked in, those surpluses are taken away and given to business-customers. Once the advertisers, publishers, sellers, creators and performers are locked in, the surplus is clawed away from them and taken by the platforms.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

Facebook is the poster-child for enshittification. When FB welcomed the general public in 2006, it sold itself as the privacy-respecting alternative to Myspace, promising users it would never harvest their data. The FB feed consisted of the posts that the people you’d followed — the people you cared about — published.

FB experienced explosive growth, thanks to two factors: “network effects” (every new user was a draw for other users who wanted to converse with them), and “switching costs” (it was practically impossible to convince all the people you wanted to hear from to leave FB, much less agree on what platform to go to next). In other words, every new user who joined FB both attracted more users, and made it harder for those users to leave.

FB attained end-user lockin and was now able to transfer users’ surpluses to business customers. First, it started aggressively spying on users and offered precision targeting at rock-bottom prices to advertisers. Second, it offered media companies “algorithmic” boosting into the feeds of users who hadn’t asked to see their posts.

Media companies that posted brief excerpts to FB, along with links to their sites on the real internet were rewarded with floods of traffic, as their posts were jammed into the eyeballs of millions of FB users who never asked to see them. Media companies and advertisers went all-in for FB, integrating FB surveillance beacons in their presence on the real internet, hiring social media specialists who’d do Platform Kremlinology in order to advise them on the best way to please The Algorithm.

Once those business customers — creators, media companies, advertisers — were locked into FB, the company harvested their surplus, too. On the ad side, FB raised rates and decreased expensive anti-fraud measures, meaning that advertisers had to pay more, even as an increasing proportion of their ads were either never served, or never seen.

With media companies and creators, FB not only stopped jamming their content in front of people who never asked to see it, they actively suppressed the spread of business users’ posts even to their own subscribers. FB required media companies to transition from excerpts to fulltext feeds, and downranked or simply blocked posts that linked back to a business user’s own site, be it a newspaper’s web presence or a creator’s crowdfunding service. Business users who wanted to reach the people who had explicitly directed FB to incorporate their media in users’ feeds had to pay to “boost” their materials.

This is the (nearly) complete enshittification cycle: having harvested the surplus from users and business customers, FB is now (badly) attempting to surf the line where nearly all the value in the service lands in its shareholders’ pockets, with just enough surplus left behind to keep end-users and business-users locked in (see also: Twitter).

There have been lots of other abusive “platform” businesses in the past — famously, 19th century railroads and their robber-baron owners were so obnoxiously abusive that they spawned the trustbusting movement, the Sherman Act, and modern competition law. Did the rail barons do enshittification, too?

Well, yes — and no. I have no doubt that robber barons would have engaged in zuckerbergian shenanigans if they could have — but here we run up against the stubborn inertness of atoms and the slippery liveliness of bits. Changing a railroad schedule to make direct connections with cities where you want to destroy a rival ferry business (or hell, laying track to those cities) is a slow proposition. Changing the content recommendation system at Facebook is something you do with a few mouse-clicks.

Which brings me to the thesis of “Twiddler”: enshittification doesn’t arise from the special genius or the unique wickedness of tech barons — rather, it’s the product of the ability to twiddle. Our discourse has focused (rightly) on the extent to which platforms are “instrumented” — that is, the degree to which they spy on and analyze their users’ conduct.

But the discussion of what the platforms do with that data — the ways they “react” to it — has echoed the platforms’ own boasts of transcendental “behavior modification” prowess (c.f. “Surveillance Capitalism”) while giving short shrift to the extremely mundane, straightforward ways that the ability to change the business-logic of a platform lets it allocate and withdraw surpluses from different kinds of users to get them on the hook, reel them in, and then skin and devour them.

The Twiddler thesis, in other words, is a counter to the narrative of Maria Farrell’s Prodigal Tech Bros, who claim that they were once evil sorcerers, but, having seen the error of their ways, vow to be good sorcerers from now on, forswearing “hacking our dopamine loops” like vampires swearing off blood:

https://conversationalist.org/2020/03/05/the-prodigal-techbro/

People who repeat the claims of Prodigal Tech Bros are engaging in criti-hype, Lee Vinsel’s term for criticism that repeats tech’s own mystical narratives of their own superhuman prowess, rather than grappling with the mundanity of doing old conjurer’s tricks very quickly, with computers:

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

That’s what twiddling is — doing the same things that grocery store monopolists and rail monopolists and music label monopolists have always done, but very quickly, with computers. Whether it’s Amazon rooking sellers and authors, or Apple and Google’s App Stores rooking app creators, or Tiktok and Youtube rooking performers, or Uber rooking drivers, the underlying pattern of surplus-harvesting is the same, and so is the method. They do the same thing as their predecessors, but very quickly, with computers.

A grocer who wants to price-gouge on eggs needs to dispatch an army of low-waged employees with pricing guns. AmazonFresh does the same thing in an eyeblink, by typing a new number into a field on a web-form and clicking submit. As is so often the case when a magic trick is laid bare, the actual mechanic is very, very boring: the way to make a nickel appear to vanish is to spend hundreds of hours practicing before a mirror while you shift so it is clenched between your fingers, and protrudes from behind your hand (sorry, spoiler alert).

The trick can be baffling and marvellous when you see it, but once you know how it’s done, it’s pretty obvious — the difference is that most sleight-of-hand artists don’t think they’re sorcerers, while plenty of tech bros believe their own press.

There’s a profound irony in twiddling’s role in enshittification: early internet scholarship rightly hailed the power of twiddling for internet users. Theorists like Aram Sinnreich described this as configurability — the ability of end-users (aided by tinkerers, small businesses, and co-ops) to modify the services they used to suit their own needs:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5vk8c2

Arguably the most successful configurability story is ad-blocking, which Doc Searls calls “the biggest boycott in human history.” Billions of end-users of the web have twiddled their browsers so that they aren’t tracked by ad-tech and don’t see ads:

https://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2015/09/28/beyond-ad-blocking-the-biggest-boycott-in-human-history/

Configurability was at the heart of early hopes for mass disintermediation, because audiences and performers (or sellers and producers) could go direct to one another, assembling a customized, un-capturable conduit composed of an a-la-carte selection of payment processors, webstores, mail and web hosts, etc. Whenever one of these utilities tried to capture that relationship and harvest an unfair share of the surplus, both ends of the transaction could foil them by blocking, reverse-engineering, modding, or mashing them up, wriggling off the hook before it could set its barbs.

But — as we can all see — a funny thing happened on the way to the 21st century. The platforms seized the internet, turning it into “five giant websites, each filled with screenshots of the other four”:

https://twitter.com/tveastman/status/1069674780826071040

Three factors let them do this:

1. They were able to buy or merge with every major competitor, and where that failed them, they were able to use predatory pricing to drive competitors out of the market:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/16/tweedledumber/#easily-spooked

2. They were able to twiddle their services, setting them a-bristle with surveillance beacons and digital actuators that could rearrange the virtual furniture every time some knob-jockey touched their dial:

https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6

3. They were able to hoard the twiddling, using laws like the DMCA, CFAA, noncompetes, trade secrecy, and other “IP” laws to control the conduct of their competitors, critics and customers:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

That last point is very important: it’s not just that big corporations twiddle us to death — it’s that they have made it illegal for us to twiddle back. Adblocking is possible on the open web, but to ad-block your Iphone, you must first jailbreak it, which is a crime. Yes, Apple will block Facebook from spying on you — but even if you opt out of tracking, Apple still spies on you in exactly the same way Facebook did, to power their own ad-targeting business:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

This is what Jay Freeman calls “felony contempt of business-model” — the literal criminalization of configuration. When Netflix wants to decide who is and isn’t a member of your family, they just twiddle their back-end to block the child that moves back and forth between your home and your ex’s, thanks to your joint custody arrangement:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/02/nonbinary-families/#red-envelopes

But woe betide the parent who twiddles back to restore their child’s service, by jailbreaking an app or the W3C’s official, in-browser DRM, EME — trafficking in a tool to bypass EME and reconfigure your browser to suit your needs, rather than Netflix’s, is a felony punishable by a five-year prison sentence and a $500k fine, under Section 1201 of the DMCA:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership

This is the supreme irony of twiddling: Big Tech companies love to twiddle you, but if you touch your own knob, they call it a crime. Just as Big Tech firms turned “free software” into “open source” and then took all the software freedom for themselves, configurability is now the exclusive purview of corporations — those transhuman, immortal colony paperclip maximizers that treat humans as inconvenient gut-flora:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=vBknF2yUZZ8

If we are to take the net back, we’ll need to seize the means of computation. There are three steps to that process:

1. Traditional antitrust: Merger scrutiny, breakups, and bans on predatory pricing and other anticompetitive practices:

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/01/federal-trade-commission-justice-department-seek-strengthen-enforcement-against-illegal-mergers

2. Anti-twiddling laws for businesses: A federal privacy law with a private right of action, labor protections, and other rules that take knobs away from tech platforms:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/01/you-should-have-right-sue-companies-violate-your-privacy

3. Pro-twiddling laws for users: Interoperability (both mandatory and adversarial — AKA “Competitive Compatibility” or “comcom”):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/05/time-for-some-game-theory/#massholes

Monopolists and their handmaidens — witting and unwitting — want you to believe that their dominance is inevitable (shades of Thatcher’s “there is no alternative”), because the great forces of history, the technical characteristics of digital technology, and the sorcerous mind-control of dopamine-hackers.

But the reality is much more mundane. Digital freedom was never a mirage. Indeed, it is a prize of enormous value — that’s why the platforms are so intent on hoarding it all for themselves.

Here’s this week’s podcast episode:

https://craphound.com/news/2023/02/27/twiddler/

And here’s a direct link to download the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the Internet Archive ; they’ll host your media for free, forever):

Here’s the direct feed to subscribe to my podcast:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

And here’s the original “Twiddler” article on Medium:

https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6

Image: Stephen Drake (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Analog_Test_Array_modular_synth_by_sduck409.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

This Thu (Mar 2) I’ll be in Brussels for Antitrust, Regulation and the Political Economy, along with a who’s-who of European and US trustbusters. It’s livestreamed, and both in-person and virtual attendance are free. On Fri (Mar 3), I’ll be in Graz for the Elevate Festival.

[Image ID: A mandala made from a knob and button-covered control panel.]

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