It was a pretty envelope; Shawn had to give it that. The paper stock was thick, glossy, and velvety to the touch. If he hadn’t known better, he might have imagined it was made of leather, instead.

A circle of wax held the flap firmly against the body of the envelope. The seal was purple, but not in a single tone. Various shades, light and dark both, formed complex and delicate swirls in the wax, making it seem to almost shimmer in the light.

The design of the seal was rather simple. In the middle was a capitalized Greek letter alpha encircled by a laurel crown. The raised parts were dusted in gold, making them catch the light in such a way that they glimmered prettily.

Shawn flipped the envelope over and examined the back. There was no return address, but scrawled across the envelope in gold ink was his name and address in impeccable handwriting.

Naturally suspicious of unexpected mail from an unknown sender, Shawn felt the envelope for what was within. He’d already sussed out that it wasn’t a letter—or at least, not only a letter—due to the weight but had not yet figured out what it contained.

As Shawn probed the contents with his fingers, he realized that there was a ring of some description held within. Not the kind that went onto one’s finger—it was much too big for that—but more like the kind that was fitted elsewhere.

Since it didn’t seem to be anything particularly dangerous, Shawn cracked the wax seal and opened the envelope. He tipped out the contents onto his hand. The object’s profile left little doubt as to its purpose. It was too big to be a finger ring and entirely too small to be a bangle. The only thing it could be was a cock ring.

As soon as Shawn clasped the ring in his fingers, a strange rush of arousal coursed through his body. He couldn’t help but shiver as he peered into the folder to see if there had been anything else included with the cock ring he now held in his hands.

There was a small piece of card left inside the envelope but what it said didn’t help Shawn figure out who’d sent him the sex toy, at all. In the same impeccable handwriting as on the back of the envelope were five words: "There can only be one."

Cryptic was just a synonym for unhelpful. With a sigh, Shawn slid the piece of card back into the envelope. He walked back to his bedroom and set both down on top of his nightstand.

As for the cock ring, Shawn didn’t quite know what to think of it. It seemed to be made of metal and the purple coloration was quite vibrant, to say the least. It shone with a luster he’d never seen in his life, seeming to almost glow with its own internal light.

Shawn didn’t know what it was, but he’d been feeling a faint, almost-background buzz of arousal since opening the letter. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that some random guy had sent him a cock ring. Alternatively, perhaps it was because he was looking forward to scoring after tonight’s date night.

Either way didn’t particularly matter. Shawn had things to do at the moment, anyway, and he couldn’t indulge the half-chub that he was sporting in his jeans. Thinking nothing of it, Shawn slid the cock ring into his front jeans pocket, right next to his phone.

The matter of the mysterious letter settled, at least for now, Shawn headed to the kitchen to finish cooking dinner. It had been some time since last Shawn had sex with his boyfriend, due in no small part due to the latter stressing over a potential promotion at work.

Once he was done and everything was put away, Shawn headed back to the bedroom to freshen up before the date. The thought crossed his mind, as he was standing shirtless in front of the bathroom vanity, that it might be hot to wear the cock ring during dinner.

Shawn knew Ray liked it whenever he brought out the sex toys. That was all the justification he needed. He fished the ring out of his pocket and slipped it on, pulling his balls through first before working his half-hard cock through the space that remained.

The ring was snug around the base of Shawn’s cock. It was almost as if it had been made exactly to fit him. It was strange but not exactly unwelcome. He wasn’t going to complain about a free sex toy—and one that did its job so well, at that.

It took Shawn some effort to stuff his cock back in his pants as he got pretty damn hard soon after putting the cock ring on. It gave him a pretty visible lump in the front of his pants but he didn’t mind it so much as the only person seeing him tonight was going to be his boyfriend.

---

Shawn groaned as Ray rolled off his back. He was still floating on cloud nine. His whole body buzzed with arousal and satisfaction. The fuck he’d just gotten was well worth the month he’d had to wait for it.

A quiet sigh escaped Shawn as he lay there on his stomach. His cock was still achingly hard between his legs, pinned between his stomach and the bed by his weight.

Ray’s cum slowly bubbled out of Shawn’s well-fucked hole and trickled down the inside of his thighs. Shawn felt so good he couldn’t help but moan.

Shawn basked in the afterglow of Ray’s orgasm for a few minutes more. He hadn’t come yet, himself, but the strangest thing was he felt no real desire to.

Rolling over onto his back, Shawn glanced off to the side and saw that Ray had already fallen asleep. It was to be expected. Poor guy was probably tuckered. They’d gone at it like rabbits for a good couple of hours, after all.

As Ray softly snored away, Shawn grabbed his cock and stroked it idly. He wasn’t trying to come, or anything, just slowly pleasuring himself to keep the post-sex high going.

At the same time, Shawn reached for his phone, which he’d left on the bedside table, and unlocked it. As he was trying to figure out what to do until he got sleepy enough to go to bed, he noticed an app that hadn’t been there before.

It was called "Cocklander." The icon was bisected into a purple half on the upper left and a bubblegum pink half on the lower right by a diagonal line across the center. Similarly split by the divider were two capital Greek letters, a gold Alpha, and a pastel blue omega on the purple and pink halves respectively.

Maybe Shawn should have been warier about strange apps appearing spontaneously on his phone but his curiosity won out, in the end. He wasn’t stupid enough to fail to see the similarities between the icon and the seal that had been on the envelope he received.

The application loaded up rather quickly, and the first thing Shawn noticed was that the interface was modern, sleek, and, if he said so himself, rather stylish. It logged him in right away, seemingly already aware of his identity before he had even provided any information. Perhaps he should have been more alarmed at the prospect of an unknown entity having access to his information but he’d been desensitized to that over the years.

The first screen that popped up was a profile of Shawn. It listed out his features, height, weight, endowment, and preferences, among other things. It asked him to confirm whether the information was accurate—which it was—so he did so.

Once Shawn had agreed to the app’s terms and conditions, it took him back to his profile. The strange thing about the page was that it said it provided "real-time" information about his current status. He didn’t know how it could possibly do such a thing, but he wasn’t about to ask too many questions. He figured it was just some weird sort of gimmick or something.

Shawn would have happily continued thinking nothing of the mysterious app that appeared on his phone had he not caught, out of the corner of his eye, the value for his "cock length" turn red. A small downward-pointing red triangle appeared right next to the number as it ticked down from 7.5" to 6".

Normally, Shawn might have laughed at the app as it was ridiculous to think a guy could lose an inch and a half of cock in an instant but he quickly learned it wasn’t a joke. He felt his cock shrink in his hand, and his eyes flew wide open as he stared at his diminished endowment.

Shawn was still big—there was no doubt about that—but he wasn’t as big as he was supposed to be. He stared at the application in alarm, as was the normal reaction, but just as he was trying to figure out what had happened, a few other values on his profile started to change.

"Submissiveness," "Docility," and "Obedience," all went up while "Self-determination," "Confidence," and "IQ," all went down. The changes themselves were relatively minor, in the grand scheme of things, so Shawn didn’t notice anything different about himself but at the same time, he was concerned.

Helpfully, a dialog box popped up just as Shawn was about to freak out.

Oh no! It appears you’ve experienced your first Cocklander loss! Newbie protection bonus has been consumed to mitigate the penalties.

Under the box was a button that said "What is cocklander, anyway?" Shawn wanted to know, so he tapped it.

The application navigated him to an information page. The first paragraph read:

Welcome to Cocklander! You are one of the fortunate few who have been chosen by the Étrad Sídhthe to participate in this season of Cocklander! Power, fame, fortune, and anything you can ever wish for await you at the end should you emerge victorious!

Alright. Weird. Not as weird as Shawn expected, granted, but still weird. The term Étrad Sídhthe rang a bell but he couldn’t quite put a finger on it. In any case, since he’d been afraid that he was cursed in some way, knowing that he was a participant in some sort of magic game show was a major relief to Shawn.

Shawn continued reading the information laid out on the page. As he’d suspected, given the name of the "game," the objective was to be the last man standing. Every act of penetrative sex was considered a "match," and when a guy had sex with someone who wasn’t part of the game, it was considered a match against the "house."

Since that was a case, Shawn initially guessed that bottoming was considered a "loss." This assumption turned out to be wrong as he read further down. It wasn’t so much the act of bottoming that lost a guy a match, it was the act of submission, of letting someone else take charge of the sex.

In that regard, Shawn guessed he really had "lost" his first match. Not that it had been a particularly unpleasant loss, though.

Since Ray wasn’t a part of the game, Shawn’s loss to him wasn’t as bad as it could have been. With the newbie protection bonus on top of that, Shawn had suffered pretty much nothing.

From now on, though, whenever Shawn took the role of the passive partner in sex, the penalties would apply in full. The basic gist was, the more a cocklander player submitted to other men, the more the game reshaped him to be better-suited to submitting. It was a negative feedback loop, in a sense. The more a guy "lost," the more he was likely to "lose" in the future.

It wasn’t so bad since Ray wasn’t part of the game. Effectively, Shawn had just been playing against the "house." Not much had been taken from him, and while he hadn’t quite gotten to the part about matches between players yet, he figured that the repercussions of losing to a player would be much more severe.

The guide also took the opportunity to teach Shawn that the color of his cock ring indicated his status in the game. Purple was neutral. It signified either a new player or someone that had "recovered" from the penalties associated with submission.

According to the rules, every time Shawn lost a match, the cock ring would gradually turn pink. Sure enough, his cock ring currently had a few small pink flecks on it.

The guide went on to say that the only way to gain purple back was by winning matches. It set out that dominating non-players would gradually turn any pink back to purple. However, that, on its own, wasn’t enough to win the game.

From there, the guide continued to player-player interactions. This was the part that both piqued Shawn’s interest and terrified him. Even here, the rules were simple.

In a player vs. player match, the winning player would get gold flecks on his cock ring. The losing player’s cock ring would turn completely pink. Part of the muscle mass and cock size they lost would be transferred to the winner, while the rest would be used up to turn them into eager, submissive bitches for the winner.

The only way to leave the game was either to win by having a completely golden cock ring or by losing to another player and turning into their desperate, cock-hungry slave.

It was clear to Shawn. Only one man could stand at the top. Despite the slightly higher submissive tendency the game had given him, he was determined to be the one left standing in the end.

Shawn licked his lips as he glanced over to the side, stroking his cock. His eyes raked hungrily over Ray’s rump, drinking in the curves of that fat, muscular ass.

The rules specifically stated that consent was required for a valid match and that people who flaunted the rule would be violated so Shawn couldn’t quite do anything about his boyfriend just yet but he had plans to get the purple he’d lost back.

As for getting more gold in the future, Shawn had plans. The app had a mapping function. It pointed out the general locations of the nearest players and gave him a vague estimation of their level compared to his.

---

The next morning, Shawn took the initiative. He’d be damned if he let some stupid app turn him into a dumb, cock-hungry himbo. Even though the increase in his natural submissiveness as a result of last night’s fuck made it difficult, he at least still had the presence of mind to be able to fight through it.

Wrapping an arm around Ray’s midriff, Shawn woke his boyfriend up by rubbing his stiff morning wood up and down Ray’s ass crack. "M-morning, baby," Ray mumbled, blearily. "Happy to see me this morning?"

Shawn nibbled on the back of Ray’s neck. "Mhm…" he hummed. "I’m so fucking hard right now, babe. Can you feel it? My cock’s just aching to slide into your tight hole, babe."

Ray groaned. Shawn could tell he was horny, too, with the way he arched his back. "Go on then, stud," Ray murmured. "Fuck me good."

Shawn chuckled. He pushed Ray over onto his stomach and grabbed the lube from the nightstand. He clambered on top of Ray and straddled his hips. He lubed him up, fingered him a little, and slid his cock home with ease.

The bed rocked as the room was filled with Shawn’s grunts and Ray’s cries. Neither held back. Shawn, who’d always been gentler and more conscientious in his fucking, was rougher than usual.

It was a conscious choice. Shawn didn’t want there to be any ambiguity. He was in charge. He was the one taking pleasure. He roughly shoved his cock in and out of Ray, dominating his boyfriend’s hole, and kept at it until, with a shuddering gasp, they both came at the same time.

"Fuck, baby, that was the hottest fuck you’ve given me, ever…" Ray moaned.

Shawn rolled off Ray’s back and chuckled. He leaned over to the side and kissed Ray on the cheek. "There’s more where that came from, babe," he said.

Casting a glance down at his cock, Shawn confirmed that the pink fleck he’d earned last night was gone. The ring had gone back to its solid purple.

A quiet ping rang out in the room. It had come from Shawn’s phone, though it seemed Shawn was the only one who’d heard it as Ray didn’t react at all.

Shawn picked his phone up and checked the notification that had shown up. It was from Cocklander and it said, "Achievement earned! Tap to select your rewards!"

Figuring there was no harm, Shawn did as the app instructed and tapped the notification. It brought up Cocklander, with a dialog that said:

[Overcoming Adversity] Achievement Earned!

Congratulations! You have overcome your innate submissiveness and proven yourself worthy to be a player of Cocklander. Please choose one of the following traits as a reward for your hard work.

Shawn looked over the options and smiled. The first two were pretty good, he had to admit, but they were obvious traps.

1. Bigger and Badder — You have earned a fat, juicy cock. The mere sight of it will be enough to make any bottom tremble.

2. Mighty Muscle Man — Your body swells with power. Flex the wrong way and your clothes just might fly off in shreds, much to the delight of any bottoms watching.

Though Shawn was decently endowed, he had never been particularly muscular. The second option was tempting but it was a waste of what he imagined was a rare opportunity.

If Shawn understood the game correctly, the first and second bonuses were achievable just by playing well. He’d also spotted the clue in the descriptions of both bonuses. Both "bonuses" talked about enticing bottoms but that wasn’t the point of the game. The point of the game was to dominate other players who wouldn’t likely want to bottom.

To that end, Shawn was pretty sure the third option was the correct one. Most people who received the achievement were likely to choose one of the first two options. Not Shawn. He saw the value in the third one, despite how lackluster it seemed in comparison to the other two.

3. Musk Maketh Man — You exude a strong, aroma that lets others around you know just how much of a man you truly are.

That was it. Shawn had no doubt. The third one was the choice for him. When he tapped it, the application prompted him with:

Are you sure about your selection?

Shawn chuckled as he tapped on "yes." If he was right, chances were he had a leg up on all the other newbies in the competition. It felt great.

---

Shawn strolled into the gym with newfound confidence. Not only did he want to start working on his body a bit more seriously than before, but the app had also indicated that there was another player who worked out at the same gym.

The application gave Shawn a very basic overview of the guy’s "status." All that was on the guy’s profile was a generic anonymous human silhouette and a large number in golden roman numerals indicating the guy’s ‘level,’ or number of conquests. The guy was a level "IV."

Shawn was a level 0. At least, he guessed he was. The golden number was missing from his profile, which made sense since he’d not had any conquests of his own before.

Even if the app didn’t show Shawn any information about the guy’s appearance, he didn’t mind. There was a particular thrill about the hunt. He’d gotten a special trait from his ‘achievement’ but he couldn’t be sure he was the only one to.

It was strange. Shawn was normally a pretty risk-averse person. Not on this occasion. Not in this context. Something was strangely exciting about the potential for danger in every interaction with other men.

Since Shawn didn’t spot anyone who stood out when he scanned the room, he decided to start working out. He wanted to see what would happen—who would pay close attention to him or otherwise approach.

If Shawn had guessed correctly, having a higher level was likely to mean access to more information about one’s potential rivals on the app. It was possible that the other player in the gym knew his appearance and he could imagine that the other player would want to be measuring him up while he was working out.

Over the course of his workout, Shawn noticed two things: that he had managed to attract the attention of a few guys in the gym, and that there was a cute twink a few feet over who’d been staring at him since he came in.

As he was finishing up, Shawn cast a gaze in the direction of the twink and smirked. It was an invitation—one he hoped would be taken as such. After that, he headed off to the locker room and the showers.

The twink followed close behind, though Shawn lost track of him after entering the crowded locker room. He figured that if the twink was the other player the app had mentioned, he’d show up again at some point before Shawn left the gym.

Taking a brief shower to cleanse himself, Shawn made for one of the steam rooms. The gym had multiple, but each one was pretty small, probably large enough to accommodate only two, at most three, people.

No sooner had Shawn sat down on the wooden bench to enjoy the heat than the door opened to let his quarry in. "Hey," said the twink.

"Hey," said Shawn, draping his arms over the backrest of the bench.

"Mind if I…" The twink trailed off as he gestured at Shawn.

Shawn glanced at the empty space beside him. The corner of his mouth curled up into a little smirk. "Sure," he said. "Plenty of room."

The tension in the air was electric. Shawn could practically feel it prickling at his skin. "Thanks. Jun," said the twink, flashing a smirk back at Shawn.

Shawn waved. "Shawn," he said.

As Jun was about to sit down on the bench, the towel wound around his waist unraveled and fell to the floor. "Oops," he said, with mock-innocence in his voice as his sizable cock was exposed.

Jun easily had the biggest piece of meat Shawn had ever seen in a guy, and it was still soft. He watched, totally enthralled, as it rose. He couldn’t help but lick his lips as it bobbed up and down, throbbing with Jun’s pulse.

Shawn’s body reacted in kind. His hole itched. His cock hardened. The towel wrapped around his waist tented up between his legs.

"Hope you don’t mind," said Jun, sidling up right next to Shawn. He placed a hand on the latter’s thigh and smirked. "Maybe I can help you with that if you help me with mine?" he said, as he slid his fingers up along the inside of Shawn’s thigh.

Jun’s cock was so beautiful that Shawn nearly forgot the stakes for a moment. He had been a bottom before all this, after all. Such a big cock made him feel all sorts of ways. There was a chance he’d get to enjoy it, later, but for now, he had to focus on winning the "match."

Shawn unwrapped the towel around his waist and let his erection spring free. "Fuck yeah, man. That’d be great," he said. His endowment wasn’t quite as substantial as Jun’s but it was still sizable.

"Here," said Jun, gently grabbing Shawn by the wrist. He guided Shawn’s hand to his thigh. "Go on. It won’t bite," he said.

Shawn didn’t fight as Jun’s hand on his wrist guided it slowly up the inside of Jun’s thigh. "You know you want it," said Jun, in a low, husky voice that made Shawn’s spine tingle. "So big, isn’t it? Can’t keep your eyes off it? Yeah… You want to play with it so bad, don’t you… Well, go on. Just give in. play with it. You can even suck it if you want…"

Truth be told, had Jun approached him anywhere else, Shawn might have well lost the match. He was, however, in a very advantageous environment for himself.

Shawn shook off the temptation. "Actually," he murmured, hiking his legs apart and folding one arm behind his head to expose his armpit, "I was hoping that you might help me out with mine, first…"

The air grew thick with the scent of Shawn’s musk. "Just help me out first, bro…" Murmured the twink. "I’ll return the favor when I’m done…"

Jun’s words slurred together. His eyes glazed over. "W-what is that smell?" he mumbled, smacking his lips as he sniffed the air.

"Let me show you," said Shawn. He grabbed Jun by the back of the head and pushed the twink’s face in between his legs. The moment he did, Jun moaned, shoving his nose between Shawn’s balls.

"Like it, baby?" Shawn said.

Jun’s resistance collapsed immediately. Shawn had taken control. He reached over and pumped Jun’s cock a few times just to solidify his hold on the situation.

It was one of the drawbacks of having a bigger cock. It made a guy hornier, and a horny guy was a vulnerable guy. More susceptible to influence the harder his big, thick cock got.

It didn’t take long before Jun was lapping at Shawn’s balls, desperate to drink in more of his manly musk. Shawn left him to it, occasionally murmuring encouraging words until his sack was completely drenched in drool and spit.

"Go on, baby," said Shawn, with a quiet laugh. "Time to stop pretending you’re some bigshot Alpha and wrap those perfect dick-sucking lips around daddy’s cock."

Jun moaned. He swallowed Shawn’s cock with ease. It was almost like he’d done this before. "Feels good, doesn’t it?" said Shawn, with a laugh, as Jun’s head bobbed up and down between his legs.

"Must be humiliating having such a big cock like this—" said Shawn, squeezing Jun’s meat before continuing. "—having a big cock like this only to get reduced into an eager little cocksucker. Must make you so fucking hard to be dominated by a smaller guy, huh?"

Jun could only moan in response. Shawn’s musk had worked its way deep into his psyche. The twitch of his cock and the glob of pre-cum that spurted out of the tip were answer enough.

Satisfied that he’d sufficiently dominated the guy, Shawn figured it was time to seal the deal. He grabbed Jun’s head with both hands and said, "Time to give it up to daddy."

Jun only moaned.

For the next few minutes, Shawn jackhammered his cock into Jun’s face. In and out. In and out. Faster and harder with every stroke.

Shawn didn’t stop until Jun was crying and blowing snot-bubbles, throat slime, and spit spilling out of the corners of his mouth with every thrust. He skull-fucked Jun as hard as he could until the twink’s eyes rolled back in his head and his cock started spurting spontaneously without so much as being touched.

As Jun’s throat clamped around Shawn’s throbbing length, he figured that he’d broken Jun in enough. Pulling Jun’s head down on his cock, mashing Jun’s nose in the mess of snot, pre-cum, and throat slime he’d made in Shawn’s smooth crotch, Shawn came.

As soon as he did, Shawn saw gold flecks appear on his cock ring. At the same time, a bright pink leather collar snapped around Jun’s neck and the purple cock ring at the base of his massive cock turned bright bubblegum pink.

Shawn grinned. He’d just had his first proper conquest. As he rubbed his fingers through his first new pet’s hair, he knew he was going to have more yet. There could only be one and he was now determined to be the Cocklander.