Cosmo

Diary of a Shota Boy

Chapters 23-25

And so, I was finally going to see Ciggy. At last I was on my way to our long awaited and eagerly anticipated reunion. Altair had somehow arranged for me to be taken to the Red Cross field hospital where Ciggy was being cared for. He had even arranged for a car to escort me there. But I should have known that it would never turn out to be that simple. Nothing was ever straightforward in this war.

As the car sped away from the inn, leaving the few scattered houses of the village behind, we soon found ourselves back out in open country. The car gathered momentum along the deserted country lanes of Verolino. I looked around and noticed how beat up and worn out the car was. It was an SUV, but not just another repainted Land Rover of the type deployed by VFOR. No, evidently I was being chauffeured away in a graphite colored Mitsubishi Outlander. It looked quite battered and used, with faded leather upholstery and mud ingrained in the floor mats. It must have been a nice car once. But it had certainly seen a lot of wear and tear. I looked out over the high sloping hood. Up front the big engine growled like a tractor. The instruments on the dashboard were illuminated with little LED graphics and digital displays, all lit up like a miniature flight deck.

I didn't know who the driver was. For the moment he was focused on the road and didn't really look at me. I wasn't even sure if I should speak to him, so I just sat in the passenger seat and stole furtive glances at him, my curiosity as usual getting the better of me. All I could see of him was mostly his profile, but he appeared quite young, maybe no more than 18. Naturally that raised a lot of questions in my mind as to who he was and why he was doing this. This was, after all, a risky journey, fraught with danger. His mystique was all the more heightened by the fact that he was wearing a pair of black wraparound sunglasses, so I couldn't see his eyes. The most distinctive thing about him was that his skin was a delicious shade of light brown. He had very handsome features – an oval face with a firm jawline, a cute, pert nose that gently curved upwards at the tip, and full, red, pouty lips. His straggly hair was longish and thick and a strange gray-brown color, spilling out from under a baseball cap which he had crammed onto the back of his head and tilted at quite a raffish angle. He was dressed very simply, in a tight t-shirt and faded light blue jeans. His arms were the same light brown as his face, with a sparse dusting of lightly colored hair on his forearms, and his biceps were beautifully sculpted. He wasn't muscly or anything, but he had excellent definition for a boy of his age, obviously developing nicely. I guess he detected my curiosity because, after a long period of silence had passed, and we had left the inn far behind us, eventually he turned to glance at me briefly. The sunglasses flashed in my direction.

"My name is Orion, in case you're wondering."

It was almost as though he had read my mind. I wondered if there was perhaps something in my demeanor that had given away my musing.

"My name is Cloud," I replied.

"I know," he said.

"I used to be…"

"I know," he said again, interjecting, "Altair told me all about you."

"Oh," I said.

He smiled, again glancing at me briefly.

"Your reputation precedes you," he said, with a grin, "your exploits are very well known."

I smiled uncertainly, not sure if I should be pleased about that.

"Does that bother you?" I asked him.

He shook his head, indicating that he was not concerned.

"No. I don't give a fuck. It's cool with me," he added.

I nodded in acknowledgment, reassured by that, and for the moment content.

"How do you know Altair?"

"I used to work for him," he replied, again glancing over at me quickly.

"At the inn?"

"Yeah. I used to help out, before the war."

I gave a quick nod in acknowledgement, but didn't reply. Then, after a few seconds, I turned to him again, suddenly curious.

"How old are you?" I asked.

"Sixteen," he said.

Geez, he was even younger than I thought. Who would have guessed that this boy was only four years older than me? He certainly looked older than that, and could easily have passed for 18. He was tall for his age too, effortlessly filling the driving position of the Outlander, although he did have the seat pulled quite far forward.

"I look older don't I?" he asked, smiling.

I nodded, taken aback by the fact that he had once again correctly read my thoughts.

"How come you're doing this for me?" I asked, plaintively, and I hoped it sounded grateful and not simply a matter of childish curiosity.

Orion glanced over again.

"Look Cloud, don't ask too many fuckin' questions," he warned me, "It's safer that way. The less you know about me, the less you'll be able to tell them if we get caught."

And that statement brought home to me the reality of what was going on here. This was a dangerous mission, with dire consequences for both of us if we were caught in transit.

"At the moment we're still in VLA territory," he explained, "The Red Cross field hospital is inside the VFOR safe area. We won't be out of danger until we cross the VFOR sector boundary."

"How far away is that?"

"I don't know. The situation is changing all the time. Even the VFOR safe areas could come under attack. The fuckin' VLA doesn't observe any rules. They were the first to attack the UN safe areas. It was they who broke the ceasefire. It was they who walked out of the Reykjavik talks."

"I see," I said, downbeat, looking down into my lap.

Orion chuckled.

"Oh, it's not as bad as all that," he said brightly, "Trust me, I'll get us there."

I flashed him a hopeful smile, showing him that I had indeed put my trust in him.

"You hungry?" he asked, looking over.

I nodded eagerly. Due to the unscheduled visit of the Halcyon League boys, and my hasty departure from the inn, I hadn't had any breakfast.

"There's pastries in the glove box," he said, "and a flask of hot chocolate if you want it."

I wanted it. I flipped the latch on the glove box and the flap dropped down. The compartment was deep, and stuffed full of grubby odds and ends. There was a paper bag nestling in there and a small vacuum flask secreted way down the back. I pulled out the paper bag and opened it. There were two sticky Danish pastries inside.

"You can have them both if you like," said Orion, without taking his eyes off the road.

That was one thing I was starting to notice about Orion: he was often able to anticipate what I was thinking. It was like he always knew what I was about to say. Just as with Altair, it was almost as though there was something psychic going on. They just seemed to know things. It was uncanny.

As I started to eat one of the pastries, absently littering my lap and the upholstery with flaky crumbs, I carried on wondering about Orion. There were two things that aroused my curiosity about him straight away. The first one was the question of whether he was working for the Resistance. And I wondered, in a moment of distraction, whether it was customary in the Resistance to name themselves after stars and constellations. The second one was – as per my usual habit – to speculate on whether he was into boyfucking and what he was like in bed. He was certainly a good looking boy – with that deliciously brown skin and that thick, floppy head of hair, with that baseball cap tilted cutely on his head. I couldn't help casting an approving eye over his body as he was ensconced in that big leather driving seat. I knew that I liked what I saw. He wasn't heavily built, but he did have quite a substantial stature, so I imagined he must be a sportsman. Maybe a football player. But of course it was merely indulgent conjecture on my part. His tight t-shirt clearly accentuated the lats in his sides, and I imagined what a beautifully sculpted physique he must have. His thighs were quite well defined in the tight-fitting jeans. I couldn't see his crotch too well, but it didn't stop me wondering if he had a nice cock. He was only 16, and his voice was already deepening, with a quite distinctive huskiness to it which was quite alluring. Although it was not yet an adult tone, it told me that he was already well into adolescence. Probably he already had pubes, and a fat, juicy teen fuckstick that was able to serve up a hefty spunkwad of thick, white teen spunk. Not kiddiespunk, but real spunk. Proper teen cum, cum with real substance and volume, not the thin, watery, transparent kind, like mine. Little Cloud was stiffening up in my crotch just thinking about it, so that I had to furtively move an arm across my lap, pressing my elbow pleasurably into my little erection. Little Cloud resisted, pulsing in protest at being smothered, but I had to keep the irrepressible little fucker at bay.

"You okay?" Orion asked, flashing me a suspicious, sidelong glance.

Once again Orion somehow seemed to know exactly what was on my mind, even though I was pretty sure I had been discreet in giving him the once over – I was usually very good at doing that without being noticed.

"Yeah," I said, not sure if he had seen the little bulge in my pants and whether I had given it away by moving my arm across my lap.

He chuckled again. It was very sweet when he did that.

"Good," he said, "now finish your pastry and leave everything to me."

I didn't say anything, but I gave him a chuffed smile, my cheeks bulging as I munched away on another mouthful of Danish. I ate one of the pastries, and only drank a few sips of the hot chocolate, and then decided to let Orion concentrate on the driving. At that point I knew that Orion and I were going to get along just fine.

The most frightening part of the journey was when Orion warned that he could see a checkpoint up ahead. It was not unusual for the militia to want to restrict access to the areas they controlled, so they frequently setup roadblocks and checkpoints on the main approach routes. It was unclear which side controlled the roadblock. They all wore irregular uniforms and we had no way of knowing whose territory we had strayed into. As we approached the checkpoint, Orion finally took off his sunglasses. That indicated to me that he was preparing for a risky encounter. He turned to look at me with a grave expression and I saw his eyes for the first time. He had quite deep set eyes that were big and bright and round. The whites showed quite prominently and it struck me how much they contrasted nicely against the dark skin of his face. It also accentuated the air of mystery about him. He was an extremely handsome young man. But I didn't have time to admire his pretty face. Orion told me to get into the back of the car and lie down on the floor out of sight. That was not easy, and I don't think even my lithe, usually quite flexible little body had performed a feat of such physical agility, despite the most outrageous carnal calisthenics I might have engaged in, and notwithstanding the convoluted sexual juxtapositions I might have achieved with the most adventurous of my tricks. Nevertheless, I managed it. I somehow weaved my slim frame between the gap in the front seats, throwing myself onto the back of the car and stretched myself out on the floor. Orion threw a coat over me, and various other things he had on the back seat, covering my legs with my own backpack, and there was also a blanket that made it look like stuff was just thrown onto the floor of the car.

It worked, because the car barely stopped as it approached the makeshift barrier. It paused briefly, during which there was an anxious wait and I detected the voice of the militiaman ask Orion a couple of questions through the half-open window. The engine was still running expectantly. I could hear Orion talking to the militiaman, and they even shared a laugh. At any rate, it seemed a good-natured exchange. I was relieved when the car moved off and we were on our way again in no time. Afterwards, I asked Orion why he had hidden me. He said that he was well known by all the militiamen in these parts – VLA and KAPO alike – but an unfamiliar face would not have been easy to explain, especially since these particular militiamen were VLA who, as we were well aware, were already on the lookout for clandestine shota boys.

Having crossed the tentative frontier, we pressed further and further into VLA territory, driving without stopping. We must have traversed the entire width of that sector, because the next roadblock was manned by the KAPO militia. I thought we must have travelled a significant distance to be in KAPO territory already. Fortunately, Orion knew when it was not safe to try and cross into KAPO territory. He saw a roadblock way ahead as we headed across hilly terrain from a little distance above them. Orion had binoculars, and could see who they were. He didn't know them. So he decided to play it safe. It was better to wait until nightfall, then find a way around the roadblock by going off-road under cover of darkness. He assured me that this stop was necessary, and that we would be on the road again as soon as it was safe. We were spared for the moment from the impending dangers of our treacherous journey. I accepted it with my usual air of resignation.

When Orion decided we should stop, he pulled the car off the road and into a stretch of thick forest, where we could hide in amongst the cover of the trees without being seen from the road. We penetrated deep into the forest, negotiating the undulating ground of the forest floor. We weaved through trees, bushes and other vegetation, where there was just enough space to squeeze through, and maneuvered the car around the younger saplings, crushing the more fragile brushwood. We stopped only when we were so far into the forest that there was no chance of anybody stumbling across our location by accident. There was a natural clearing where the trees were far enough apart to create a feeling of space, but where the canopy of the trees still provided ample shelter. The clearing was created by a fallen tree, the bare, almost rotten trunk, lying on its side, stripped of bark and foliage, and creating a natural barrier for us to sit on or shelter behind. It was a nice spot, so we decided to make the most of it.

It turned out that Orion had some more provisions in the trunk of the car, so we were not short of anything to eat or drink. There was some bread and cheese and a gallon container of drinking water. He fixed some hastily assembled sandwiches which were quite rudimentary, but nevertheless welcome, and he even had some slices of watermelon, cut into semicircular wedges. Having spent the last few hours together enclosed in the confined space of the car, we were by now quite comfortable in each other's presence, so it was actually quite pleasant sitting on that fallen tree trunk with Orion. It felt very much like an impromptu picnic. I realized that the last time I had been outdoors like this with an older boy was with Ciggy. That memorable picnic out in the Verolino countryside seemed like such a long time ago now.

When we had eaten our fill, we sat down on the ground, which was soft and mulchy, and leaned back against that fallen tree trunk, quite relaxed. Orion had discarded his baseball cap and sunglasses and looked almost ready to take a nap. I was sat a few feet away from him. I was huddled over, a little cold and disconsolate. It was chilly out there in the forest. Whilst I was relieved to finally get out of the car, I was also disappointed that we had had to put our progress on hold. Thoughts of seeing Ciggy were still uppermost in my mind, but once again, circumstances were preventing us from being together. But, once again Orion anticipated my thoughts and my mood. He must have sensed my dejectedness, because he turned to me, quite purposefully.

"Hey Cloud?"

I turned to look at him.

"Thinkin' about Ciggy?"

I nodded, wondering how he knew about Ciggy. I guess it was possible that Altair had told him.

"You'll see him soon enough," he reassured me.

I flashed him a smile, bolstered by his encouraging tones, trying to see the positive side.

"Thanks," I said, grateful for his optimism.

Then Orion held up an arm, as if to invite me to come closer, ready to put it around my shoulders. It was a lovely gesture.

"C' mere," he said, smiling, "you look as though you need a hug."

It was said with genuine warmth and sincerity. I had no hesitation in scooting over towards him, dragging my butt over the soft earth and closing the gap between us so that I was pressed right up against his side. I could feel the substance and warmth of his lean, hard, teen body. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and that was when I could see how much bigger than me he was, because his arm was long enough to encircle my shoulders and hang down far enough so that his limp hand rested somewhere on my hip. His arm around me was strangely reassuring, and he even pulled me closer in a gesture of solidarity and, I hoped, affection. What I liked most about that gesture is that it acknowledged a basic shota boy principle, and a fundamental tenet of young males in general: that older boys always took care of the younger ones.

For a few moments there was silence, and my mind drifted away with thoughts of Ciggy. Even as these thoughts were going through my mind, I became aware of Orion's hand stroking my hip gently. He had slipped his fingers under the hem of my sports shirt and was gently feeling around the sides of my tummy. That was quite ticklish, although extremely arousing, and it made my tummy muscles quiver like mad. I loved having my tummy stroked. For the moment, I just let him do what he wanted. I had half suspected that we might fuck around at some point. He knew I was a shota boy. He probably knew I fancied him. It would have been unusual if he hadn't made a move on me. So I just let him stroke my tummy, and when he detected that I wasn't about to object, he slipped his whole forearm up under the front of my shirt and was feeling up my chest as well. His touch was very tactile but gentle, and his palm felt warm and soothing as it brushed against my skin. He even pressed his fingertips into my nipples. It was lovely.

As he was feeling up my chest and tummy, Orion inadvertently brushed his arm against my stiff little lump, and I detected a distinct flinch of hesitation from him. He must have noticed it. When he resumed his intimate touching, he soon progressed to feeling up my crotch. I was secretly wishing that he would because Little Cloud was so hard in my pants that he was aching to be squeezed. Much to my delight, seeing that I was not about to stop him, Orion moved his hand down to feel my boyshit properly. He could feel my stiffie through my pants, and dug his fingers into my crotch, pressing his hand into my hardened boyshit, causing little jolts of pleasure to shoot all through my horny little body. Then he stopped abruptly and looked at me, as though he had suddenly remembered something.

"You are okay with this aren't you?" he asked, "I don't want to take advantage of you."

He broke the spell somewhat by choosing to speak. I tried to stifle a snigger, but I couldn't help laughing. It was odd to me that he wanted to make sure I was okay with it, and I found it funny that he wanted to check in with me before he went any further. It was flattering – because he was so polite. But I thought it unnecessary. To me, there was no such thing as taking advantage. I was a shota boy. Sex was my raison d'être. Having my body used was second nature to me – I expected it. It was normal for guys to want to do stuff with me. Indeed, if a guy didn't show any sexual interest in me, I took is as an affront. I remembered only too well how crestfallen I was when Matti rebuffed my advances when I first arrived at Kolina. In a strange kind of way, my sexuality was the only thing I had that I could reciprocate with. My only weapon, my only bargaining tool. It was the only thing I had to give and I gave it willingly. Orion was risking his life for me – or at any rate his liberty – and I couldn't begin to understand his motivation, but I was grateful. I was grateful and I was hugely indebted to him. I was certainly not going to begrudge him a bit of furtive fucking around with a luscious little fuckboy like me.

"I'm okay with it," I declared openly, "I want you to do it."

That made him smile. He twisted around, one arm still around my shoulders, and leaned over me, looking deep into my eyes. He squeezed my little erection through my pants, tightening his fingers through the fabric real hard. It hurt, and yet it was perversely pleasurable. It made me elicit a plaintive little squeal, and Orion seemed to like that. He gave a little smile of twisted delight, clearly aroused by it.

"Wow," he exclaimed, "You're a fuckin' horny little bastard aren't you?"

"You never played with a shota boy before?" I asked him.

He shook his head.

"No," he said, smiling sheepishly, "though I always wanted to. But I never thought I would have one as pretty as you."

That was a real compliment. For somebody who purported to be so inexperienced, he certainly knew how to flatter his little companions.

With our mutual agendas now agreed, I extricated myself from his embrace. I wriggled out of his arms and moved down to play with his cock. He let me. I homed in on my target and wasted no time in getting his cock out. I undid his pants, quickly opening the front of his tight jeans, and delved a hand into his underwear. I flipped down the front of his loose boxers and exposed his hardened teen cock, nestling there in a wisp of thin pubes. It was burning hot. I fingered it gently for a while, getting a feel of its proportions, giving it a little squeeze and massaging the shaft a little up and down. It was a short, stubby little thing, quite compact for a boy of his age, but very pretty. It was nicely cut, with a faint little ridge around the base of the head where his circumcision scar was. I was amazed at how pink his cockhead was. For such a dark-skinned boy, it was strange that his cockhead was so light in color. It was lighter than mine, which was a dark reddish color. It was lighter even than Ten, who also had dark skin – only Ten's cockhead was a kind of reddish purple. For someone who had been afforded the opportunity to study dicks at such close proximity, I couldn't help comparing. What I liked was that Orion moved down so that he was lying more flat on the ground, with only his head propped up and he was studiously watching me blow him. He held the elastic waistband of his boxers flipped down with one hand, which left me with both hands free to play with his todger.

After inspecting his dick pretty closely, and kissing it gently, but not for too long, I scooted down, still lying next to him in the soft soil, and instantly buried his hot, hard rod into my mouth, fully devouring its modest length. His dick was clean and tasted good. He moaned loudly, overcome by the sensation. Tell the truth, I was so horned up for this boy that I wanted to feast on that pretty dick. Oh yeah! I was gonna blow him real good. I liked this boy. I liked this boy a lot. I was determined to give that magnificent teen fuckstick the works.

"Oh, that's so good!" he groaned.

I liked his vocalizations. Boys who were verbal during sex were a great turn-on for me. It was quite hot in a way and served to encourage me by ratcheting up the excitement. With a combination of mouth and hand action, I focused on bringing him off with a few well-placed sucks of my greedy little orifice, making his hardened todger slick and wet, coordinated with some expert jacking of his shaft in my warm little fist as the head was encased in the back of my throat.

"Don't stop!" he cried, really getting into it.

I thought that was funny, almost reminiscent of the old porn flicks I'd seen. But I suppressed the impulse to laugh. Always the consummate fuckboy, I focused on the task in hand.

"Oh, make me cum!" he was moaning.

Which is exactly what I endeavored to do. As I jacked him, he squirmed about on the ground, biting his lip, closing his eyes, tossing his head around, loving what I was doing. I liked the way he was throwing his head back and licking his lips. He was really into it and I was inordinately turned on by the fact that my ministrations were having such an effect on him. He was still holding the front of his boxers down with one hand, just below his balls, with his thumb hooked over the elastic waistband, and he started to hold my head with the other. As the pleasure intensified, he was awkwardly pushing my mouth onto his rampant teen rod. It was a little distracting, but I knew from experience that it was also instinctive. Guys can't resist the temptation to push a shota boy's head onto their dick when it's buried balls-deep into their willing little fuckboy mouth.

When Orion started to breathe faster and the paradise stroke approached, he stopped writhing around for a moment and looked straight at me. I saw the incredulous look in his eyes as I tilted my head to look at him, his todger still clamped in my jaw.

"Oh shit! I'm gonna cum in your mouth!"

Like he needed to announce it! I looked up briefly and smiled slyly, which was the only answer he required. I impaled my head on his straining boycock once more, and used my teeth to bite gently around the sensitive area just below the rim of his cockhead. It had the desired effect. His cock exploded and he moaned loudly, shooting a long squirt of watery teen spunk into the back of my throat, which was expertly caught and swallowed. His dick ejected a good few squirts, filling my mouth two or three times over with warm teen jizz. His teen sperm was runny and gloopy and tasted very fresh and clean. It had a slightly oily texture, but with a vaguely earthy undertaste, not altogether unpleasant. I swallowed it all down in a series of eager little gulps. I didn't waste a drop.

When it was over, Orion stopped writhing around and looked at me with amazement. I raised my head, extracting his thick shaft from between my lips, and he smiled, shocked and delighted. He was sweaty and red-faced. It was that same old look of perved-out incredulity that I had become familiar with. It was infinitely gratifying.

"You fuckin' swallowed it!" he exclaimed.

I could see him struggling to assimilate that as he came down from the trauma of his cum. I smiled complicitly, and nodded with a smug grin. He really hadn't been with a shota boy before.

Orion took a few moments to recover. He released the waistband of his boxers, thus putting his dick away, though the outline of that big teen fuckstick was still visible, now spent, but still very much erect. Then another thought seemed to occur to him.

"What about you?" he asked, pointing to my crotch.

It surprised me a little because I wasn't used to having my own needs considered. Most guys, once they were off the boil, were not concerned about relieving my arousal. After they had had their orgasm, they couldn't care less about giving me one. Besides, my cum was only of secondary importance when I was performing, unless my tricks wanted to get off on watching me. But I was so horned up from sucking Orion, I really did want to cum. I wanted to spunk up real bad. Tell the truth, Little Cloud was hurting to the point of distraction.

"You wanna watch me?" I suggested.

He nodded enthusiastically, his eyes widening with an ever greater incredulity, perhaps not quite believing that he was stuck out here with this dirty little fuckboy who was prepared to do probably all the things he had secretly dreamed of.

"Fuck yeah! I wanna see you cum!" and then he added, as an afterthought, "You CAN cum, can't you?"

"A little," I replied, nodding.

"I wanna fuckin' see that!" he enthused, "I've never seen a young boy cum before."

"Okay," I said, "but will you do something for me?"

"Sure," he said, nodding eagerly.

"Take your shirt off for me?"

He looked surprised for a moment, but was nevertheless quiescent. He gave a flippant little shrug and then, thinking no more of it, rose up and slipped off the thin t-shirt over his head. It mussed up his floppy hair, which left him looking a little ruffled. But it was very sexy.

He threw his shirt aside recklessly and leaned back against the fallen tree trunk, now shirtless. His pants were still open and his dick was still hard in his boxers, no doubt aroused by the prospect of watching me. For the first time I got to see his beautiful dark-skinned physique in all its glory, and it was every bit as perfect as I imagined. His body was still very boyish, young and smooth and yet the well-defined contours of his pecs and abs clearly demonstrated that he was just teetering on the cusp of manhood. Little Cloud was at full mast, inordinately aroused by this gorgeous teen boy, and I knew then that looking at him was going to make me cum real hard. He was so beautiful I wanted to jack my kidspunk all over him.

I got up on my knees, quite close to him, and slipped my pants and boxer briefs halfway down my thighs, exposing my boyshit to him for the first time. Little Cloud fell out, eagerly seeking fulfillment, craving a damn good thrashing. Orion's big, bright eyes widened.

"That's a fuckin' neat dick," Orion gasped, "A good size for a boy your age."

"Thanks," I replied, chuffed.

I took hold of my little dick, curling my fingers around it, and started working it up and down. Orion smiled with illicit pleasure.

"Oh yeah, jack that fuckin' dick for me!"

As usual, it only took a couple of minutes before I could feel the familiar burn of impending pleasure. The approaching ecstasy was all the more accelerated by the proximity of this sexy boy, his shirtless body stripped bare just for me. And when I was ready to spunk, I rose up onto my knees and put my dick close to him. I hunched over him desperately, seeking the inordinate thrill of seeing my unripe boyspunk splash on his hot teen body, hoping maybe I would get some of my meager kidspunk on those beautiful pecs and abs. Orion sensed when I was close and instinctively lowered his head, thus reciprocating the favor by sticking out his tongue. It was a good, hard cum, all the more powerful for the sense of release. I gasped as my kiddiespunk was ejected, and it was great to see my three little jets of transparent boyjizz lash his tongue, which was almost as light pink as his cockhead. Orion swallowed it too, in one big gulp, even showing me his clean tongue and empty mouth afterwards, pleased with himself. It was a fantastic cum. I only wished I had spunked more so that I could fill his eager mouth as good as he had mine.

* * * * * *

We hid in the forest as long as we dared and then Orion judged the right moment to get back on the road. It was already the dead of night when he fired up the car's engine again, shattering the long reign of silence that had pervaded our sojourn under cover of the trees. We negotiated a path back through the darkened woods, which were pitch black and very eerie at that time of night, eventually clambering back onto the smooth camber of the road. I don't remember much about the treacherous nighttime part of our journey. I was already exhausted from having been on the road all day, so while Orion drove, I tried to sleep. There was nothing to see. It was all black outside. We were just a small speck in the unseen vastness of the Verolino countryside, a panorama of nothingness which stretched out before us and enveloped us in darkness. The only reassuring thing was the drone of the car's engine and Orion sitting next to me. Our fate was entirely in his hands.

I don't know how long I slept for, but it seemed like quite a long time. I remember it because the next thing I knew I was being violently roused from what had been a very pleasant kip by my head lolling around in the big leather seat. The car was negotiating rough terrain, where the road surface had cracked and broken, probably because of the endless passage of heavy armor – alas, something these roads were never designed to cope with. I was quickly pulled out of my drowsy reverie to see Orion fighting with the steering wheel, trying to maneuver the big car over this precarious topography. I saw the car's headlamps shining out over the road ahead, cutting two sharp beams into the darkness, and it was possible to make out the jagged protruding corners of the cracked road surface, some parts sunk into the earth, others sticking up in places. The big engine was screaming in a very low gear as the car was thrown around, lurching all over the place on the broken ground. Orion saw me wake up and smiled, and his mellifluous, husky voice piped up.

"Hang on Cloud, we've run into a bit of turbulence."

Even as he said it, I was grasping for my seat and the grab-handle on the door pillar, trying to prevent myself from being thrown around. I bounced around a little, and a lot of the forgotten paraphernalia inside the cabin was spilling out all over the place, dropping off the center console and there was stuff rolling around on the floor under the seats.

It was then that disaster struck. Our journey was suddenly and violently curtailed. I can't say with any certainty that I even know exactly what happened. I think maybe, in the darkness, we drove over a landmine. In any case there was a blinding flash, during which the darkness was turned instantaneously into day, followed a millisecond later by a loud explosion, and a powerful thud, like some giant unseen fist had punched the underside of the car, launching the heavy vehicle several feet into the air. I don't remember coming back down. I think maybe at that point I had already lost consciousness. I came to some minutes later, still strapped into my seat, aware that the car had come to rest at a funny angle, tilted forward with the back rising up behind me and the nose buried into the ground. The hood of the car was crushed like a concertina and embedded in grass and mud. There was steam rising from under the crumpled metal, but absolute silence. I was aware that I was stuck in the car and couldn't get out. My head was hurting and I wasn't able to move very much. That is all I remember. I must have drifted in and out of consciousness. I was very disorientated, at times barely aware of where I was, and this confusion was interspersed with lapses in consciousness and memory.

I think I must have slept on and off, not having the strength to get out of the car. I remember nothing more until I woke up the following morning, still strapped into the passenger seat. I was aware of daylight around me. It was chilly and my head was hurting. I was still somewhat dazed and not really sure of what had happened. All I was sure of at this point was that the Outlander had left the road and was at the bottom of a steep embankment. It was tilted at such an angle that one corner of the mangled car was buried in the soft earth and undergrowth, whilst only the rear end was visible from the road. I was able to turn my head just enough to see that the driver's seat was empty. The airbag had deployed and was now deflated, lying limply over the warped steering wheel. But the driver's door was open and Orion was gone. I vaguely recall that I was pleased he had obviously managed to escape the wreck, although that saddened me because I suddenly realized that I was totally alone.

After a long time had passed, I heard the sound of distant voices. At first I thought I had imagined it. But then the sound of murmurs and conversation became more tangible and distinct. They were getting closer. The voices were young – high pitched and unbroken. Obviously the chatter of young boys. Perhaps at last I was going to be rescued. I remember seeing young faces at the window. They did help me, hauling open the buckled passenger door and extricating me from the twisted, mangled hulk of the stricken car. They then hauled me up the steep, muddy, slippery embankment and up onto the road. Unfortunately, once there, I found myself staring straight into the machinegun nozzles of the Halcyon League. The face that greeted me struck a jolt of terror right through me. It was the same patrol leader that had visited the inn the previous day, and both his cohorts were again standing behind him with their machineguns also pointed at me. I recognized all three faces.

"Look Steine, it's one of the innkeeper's boys," one of them announced.

The patrol leader stepped forward for a closer inspection. His face lit up in perverse recognition.

"You certainly get around," he said, with a note of sarcasm.

I looked at him standing there in his immaculate blue and white uniform with the purple neckerchief, and the skulking bear motif on the breast pocket. His thick, dark, fuzz of closely shorn hair under that tilted sidecap and those mysterious eyes. He was so handsome, so well groomed, and yet so menacing.

"Where's the driver?" he demanded, obviously having noted the vacant driver's seat.

"I don't know," I said, holding my head, which was still hurting savagely from the impact.

"You're a long way from home," he went on, "Where were you going?"

I remembered what Orion had said about not giving away too much information and, whilst I was unable to disguise the fact that I was clearly in transit, I was loath to tell him anything for fear of implicating Orion.

"I can't tell you that," I said, not wanting to give anything away.

Steine narrowed his eyes in a hostile way, clearly peeved by my non-compliance.

"Why can't you tell me?"

"I'm sorry, I can't tell you that either."

He didn't like that and let out a frustrated huff, tilting his machine-pistol at me threateningly. For a few moments we stood there in a psychological standoff, during which I could see he was contemplating ways to subjugate me, at least metaphorically.

"Search the car," he ordered.

The other two boys shouldered their machine-pistols and set about clambering over the stricken and twisted Outlander, pulling open the doors and tailgate and rummaging about inside. Steine and I watched them. Then Steine did something quite unexpected. He lowered his machinegun, clutching it by the stock, with the barrel pointing to the ground by his feet, and the strap fell off his shoulder and whipped the dusty ground. Then he stepped closer to me in a quite benevolent, unthreatening manner.

"Go on, tell me the truth," he said quietly, so the other boys couldn't hear, "You're a shota boy, aren't you?"

He acted as though he wanted to be friends, like he was asking me to confide in him and reassuring me that I could trust him. And for a moment I was very nearly taken in by him.

"What makes you think that?" I asked him.

"You're too good-looking to be working for the Resistance," he replied, "Besides, it's pretty obvious you've never done any manual work in your life."

It was a double-edged remark – flattering, yet presumptuous at the same time. I could easily have taken exception to the accusation that I had never done any manual work. Sure, I may not have had the telltale muscles of manual labor nor tanned and weather-beaten skin from toiling outdoors, but that was not to say that the work of a shota boy was not physically arduous at times. The events of the New Years Eve Bacchanal quickly flashed through my mind and I remembered quite clearly what a feat of physical endurance that was. It took real strength and stamina to pull that off successfully, not to mention a great deal of fortitude and perseverance.

"I guess you'll never know," I replied, thus confirming that I was resolved to tell him nothing.

"Then you leave me no choice," he said curtly.

"Take him in!" he called out to the other boys, gesturing towards me with his machinegun.

The other two boys came over, having found nothing of interest in the wrecked car, and manhandled me over to their truck. They put me into the back of their truck. It was probably the same truck they had used when they took away the two poor refugee boys from the inn the day before. We all clambered up into the truck and we sat on the wooden benches on each side. Then one of the boys turned to their leader once again.

"What do we do now Steine?"

"Take him to the Lieutenant," Steine replied, "He'll decide what to do."

The truck started up and we all held on as the high vehicle negotiated the bumps and potholes in the road. As we left the scene, and the truck pulled away, I was saddened to see the mangled wreck of the Outlander, still face down in the embankment, marking the spot where my brief, illicit flight across Verolino had ended. Since this was now the umpteenth time that some unforeseen occurrence had prevented my reunion with Ciggy, I was starting to question my lack of good fortune and whether it was ever really meant to be. Every single time, some element of this stupid war had diverted me from my destiny. A boy with lower self-esteem might easily have been forgiven for wondering if it was worth the effort, having long ago thrown his hands up in the air and given up the fight. But not me. Luckily, I still had some fight left in me. And somehow I suspected, perhaps now more than ever, in the travails that I now knew would inevitably follow, I was definitely going to need it.

The Halcyon League Boys fingered their machine-pistols the whole time in the back of the truck, zealously guarding me as though I was some valuable trophy. Silence reigned, other than the strained growl of the big diesel engine of the vehicle. What followed was an arduous journey, during which we were driven at speed across the devastated landscape of Verolino. I got thrown around a little in the back of the high vehicle, so that I had to hold on to the rails on the side. We were in turn passed in the other direction by a column of tanks and SPGs, all heavy with ragged VLA infantrymen clinging to the sides like limpets. They were probably returning from the front. The soldiers were clustered to the hulls of the armored vehicles like bees, hanging onto the turrets and gun barrels. These troops had the cheerless demeanor of defeat about them, looking weary, bloody, muddy and demoralized, the air of having been utterly trounced, despite their superior equipment and numbers, and I wondered just who the hell who was actually winning this war.

Eventually the truck slowed down and we arrived at a busy complex. It was surrounded by a high fence, lined with razor wire. Inside, there was a vast expanse of open ground that was busy with preparations for war. Platoons of uniformed VLA troops were hastily assembling in serried ranks on a paved parade ground. Beyond that, there were rows upon rows of VLA tanks and SPGs neatly arranged in smart ranks around the perimeter. On the far side there were several large mounds of what was clearly ammunition – wooden crates of HE rounds, mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades, stacked as high as houses, like miniature mountains, barely disguised by mesh nets and tarpaulins. The place must have been some kind of VLA headquarters, or at least a supply depot and ammo dump.

The truck stopped by a very low concrete structure. I couldn't call it a building because it had no windows. It had sloping sides, with the walls fixed at a steep incline, and looked like it was sunk into the ground. It was a forbidding, sinister looking place, obviously a bunker of some kind. The Halcyon League boys, this time with their machineguns slung over their shoulders, ushered me towards the only opening in the structure, a narrow slit in the side that served as an entrance, and down a steep flight of concrete steps that seemed to descend into the earth.

Inside, the air was hot and stagnant. I could feel the change in atmosphere as soon as we entered. A heavy steel door was slammed shut behind us with an unsympathetic clang, thus blocking out the daylight. The transition to fluorescent electric light was tangible, and did not have the hue nor the intensity of natural sunlight. Once inside, we descended endless flights of welded metal steps, built into a deep concrete shaft, so that our footsteps echoed throughout. You could see all the way down to the bottom through the slots in the metal treads, giving a real sense of how deep it was. We descended several levels. I could feel the slight change in air pressure in my ears, so I knew we must have been pretty deep underground. I was taken down into the very bowels of this concrete bunker, deep beneath the complex. It was an anodyne, soulless place, with nothing but bare concrete walls and bare concrete floors. It must have been a relic of the Cold War, probably made of reinforced concrete that was designed to withstand airstrikes.

At the bottom, I was escorted along a very long corridor with many doors leading off it. The ceilings were oppressively low and all the doors were made of reinforced steel, clearly designed to hold up against enemy bombing. The bare concrete floor had little puddles in it. Even though it was deep underground, you could tell that the drainage system was fucked because rainwater accumulated at various intervals in the echoing passageways. At least I assumed it was rainwater. The dank, musty, fetid atmosphere stank of mildew and dampness.

"What is this place?" I asked, quite loudly, and my voice echoed off the bare concrete walls.

"Shh!" Steine demanded, "No talking."

"What are you gonna do with me?" I asked.

"No talking!" Steine snapped again.

We turned several corners left and right in a disorientating network of passageways, which gave a real sense of how extensive the bunker was. The part above ground was literally only the tip of the iceberg, as the bulk of the structure was completely hidden under the ground. The whole place was teeming with VLA personnel, most of them in their distinctive field-gray uniforms, but there were also legions of plain clothes civilian staff and of course a sizeable contingent of Halcyon League boys.

Eventually, I was put into a room on my own and the metal door slammed shut behind me. The door was so heavy it made the whole room shudder as it closed. A weighty lock scraped into place and then the Halcyon League boys walked away. I could hear their footsteps receding down the passageway. I looked around me. The room was small, barely bigger than a prison cell. The fact that there were no windows added to the sense of claustrophobia. It was completely bare, save for a solitary fluorescent light in the ceiling and a small metal ventilation grille very high up on one wall.

I suddenly felt very frightened. Confused, lonely, lost and beleaguered, I sank down onto the cold concrete floor, propped up against one of the walls, wondering what was going to happen. I wished Ciggy was here with me. He would know what to do. Not knowing what the VLA had in store was perhaps the most frightening thing. Their ideology concerning shota boys was very clear. Of course I had heard Chip's account of what had happened to him and Guus and the other boys when the Saxon Club was raided. They had all been taken prisoner by the VLA. The very same thing had happened to River and his club, so the portents did not bode well. On top of that, my head was still hurting. I had a throbbing, tender lump on the side of my head that was extremely sore. I had double vision and was finding it difficult to focus my eyes. In fact I had a debilitating headache that was sending sharp jolts of blinding pain right into my brain, making me feel both dizzy and nauseous. It must have been from hitting my head. I knew I had lost consciousness when the car crashed, so it must have been a hefty blow, probably from striking the door pillar or the ceiling, either in the initial landmine explosion, or when the car came to land face down in the embankment. I needed to rest my head. There was no bedding, so I slipped off my shirt and rolled it up into a makeshift pillow. Despite my pain and discomfort, and the glare of the fluorescent light, I laid down on the cold concrete and, having nothing else to do, tried to sleep.

Chapter 24
Apocalypse

I think I was awakened at intervals by the relentless bombing that was taking place above ground. At some point, while I was asleep, a ferocious aerial bombardment had begun, and it could be heard even far below ground. Throughout the time I was left alone in that room, deep inside the bunker, the bombing never stopped. It was ceaseless. It still seemed quite a distance away though, because the rumble of the explosions was quite faint, although the odd tremor could still be felt, even so deep underground.

I was finally and irreversibly awakened by the clanging of the door and the sound of voices outside in the passageway. A key in the lock alerted me that someone was coming in. I sharp jab of pain shot through my sore head as I looked up from my makeshift pillow. Still bleary-eyed and sluggish, but instantly alert by a jolt of adrenaline, I sat up. It was Steine, the Halcyon League patrol leader, and he was with a VLA officer. I recognized him. It was the same Lieutenant that had been at the inn when they arrested the two refugee boys. That had not been a pleasant experience. He was the one who pistol-whipped Altair, the humorless, mean-looking bastard with a thin face and pockmarked cheeks, who had no patience. This time he was without his kepi, and his gray tunic was hanging open, so that you could see his undershirt, which was also unbuttoned halfway, looking much like he had been interrupted from some other, less pressing, but more edifying task.

Still sitting on the floor, against the wall, I watched them shuffle into the room, their steel-tipped boots clattering on the bare concrete floor. Steine shut the door, and stayed by the entrance. The Lieutenant came over and stood above me, looking down at me. Suddenly the bare room looked quite crowded with three of us in there.

"So, you thought you could escape us, did you?" the Lieutenant began.

I didn't answer. I didn't even look at him.

"Who was your driver?" he demanded, staring down at me.

I cowered on the floor at his feet, huddled up, with my arms around me. I was still shirtless and felt very vulnerable. I looked away.

"I'm sorry, I can't tell you that," I said.

I was frightened, but refused to be cowed. I wasn't going to betray Orion. I wasn't going to play their game. I was pretty ornery when I wanted to be and was determined to tell them nothing. The Lieutenant paused, clearly contemplating how to respond to that. Then he started a line of questioning that was almost robotic and completely without expression or emotion.

"Where were you headed?" he demanded.

"I'm sorry, I can't tell you that."

"Whose car was it?"

"I'm sorry, I can't tell you that."

"Who are you protecting?"

"I'm sorry, I can't tell you that."

"What CAN you tell me?"

"I'm sorry, I can't tell you that."

And on it went.

Eventually, he stopped firing questions and just stood there, towering over me, and he huffed in disgust.

"You won't tell me anything? Fine. You'll go up in front of the High Representative. He'll decide what to do with you."

And with that, they both turned abruptly and left just as hurriedly as they had arrived, once again slamming the heavy door and locking it shut.

I didn't know who the High Representative was, but he must have been someone of great importance. Apparently only the High Representative was able to decide my fate, like he alone had the authority to determine what they were going to do with me. Though I couldn't help wondering what exactly he was the representative of, and for that matter, what exactly was so 'high' about him.

Still scared and apprehensive, I went back to sleep, knowing they would be back. Meanwhile, the distant rumble of the bombing somewhere above ground continued unabated.

Some hours later, they returned, once again crashing into the room without any formality and urging me to get up. This time it was Steine and his two Halcyon League cohorts, who started prodding me with their machine-pistols, digging their muzzles into the side of my ribs quite hard. I leapt to my feet, despite the pain in my head, and stood there, teetering uncertainly, plagued with a disorientating dizziness and not really able to see clearly. My head was throbbing and I couldn't focus my eyes, so that everything was slightly blurred and indistinct. The room seesawed a little and my limbs felt heavy. It was similar to how I felt during those rambunctious evenings at the Saxon Club, after a few too many Black Deaths.

"Move!" Steine barked, prodding me towards the door.

I didn't have the opportunity to put my shirt back on, so I had to go without it. I had taken my sneakers off too, so I was also barefoot. They ushered me out of the room at gunpoint and I stumbled out into the passageway. The lights out there seemed to be unbearably bright, searing into my retinas. The bare concrete floor was rough beneath my feet and I was very hot and sweaty. In this state of half-undress, I was forcibly marched along another endless network of passageways.

As we walked, I could hear the distant bombing that was still in progress above ground. It hadn't let up at all, as far as I could tell, and I couldn't help wondering who was doing the bombing. It was dangerously close, but the VLA wouldn't be bombing their own positions. KAPO had no bombers, so by default they could only be coalition aircraft. I wondered if that was an indication that VFOR were finally getting a grip on this conflict.

The Halcyon League boys escorted me at a brisk pace, turning this way and that in a disorientating route through the bunker. Eventually, we passed through a bulkhead with a vault-like hatchway, and we arrived at a slightly more salubrious part of the complex, where the floor was actually carpeted and the walls were painted. The rooms here were slightly larger. The ceilings were higher and the doorways wider. Something told me this was a more exclusive, perhaps more secure section of the bunker. Maybe an addition or an extension of the original structure. There was a large foyer area with several passageways leading off it. I was escorted to a brightly lit room at the end of one of the passageways.

In this windowless room, the atmosphere buzzed with many voices. Sure enough, the room was filled with people, seated neatly on two sides. At the center, near the back of the room, there was a large trestle table that seemed to take up a lot of space. There was a grand, elaborately embroidered tablecloth draped over it and a big ornate chair behind it. Immediately I knew that someone of great importance was to sit at that table. I was escorted into the room by the Halcyon League boys and ordered to stand in the middle of the room facing the table. I noted that this room was higher and rather more airy than the rest. Though it had no windows, there was a calming chill in the atmosphere. Sure enough, there was a large fan in the high ceiling, rotating at a slow, lazy pace, and I could instantly feel the soothing brush of cool air against my skin.

"What is this?" I asked, turning to Steine who was standing next to me.

"A hearing," Steine hissed.

Sure enough, I could see that the arrangement of the room represented a hastily improvised courtroom. On one side, two rows of VLA soldiers sat in neat, uniformed ranks. More VLA soldiers guarded the entrance. There were yet others positioned around the room with holstered pistols. There was a row of uniformed VLA officers right at the front, their field-gray tunics festooned with medals and gold braid. It wasn't a public court, but the VLA top brass sat there anxious to witness the spectacle, looking somewhat like the plebs in some ancient Roman amphitheatre, waiting for the slaughter to commence. There had been rumors about hastily convened tribunals, kangaroo courts with summary trials and summary executions. Of course, it was advisable not to pay too much attention to the rumormongers. I was sensible enough to know that in times of war, hearsay and conjecture was rife, teeming with gossip and tittle-tattle about the supposed atrocities perpetrated by the other side. Likely those stories had no substance to them at all and that, just like Chinese whispers, the enormity of the so-called atrocities was embellished and exaggerated beyond all recognition, becoming impossibly inflated at every step as they were transmitted from one person to another. No, it was best not to pay too much attention to the rumors.

As we waited for the proceedings to commence, I looked around curiously, momentarily overwhelmed by the sheer number of people in the room. All eyes were on me. Ordinarily, I would have reveled at being the center of attention like this. I usually relished approving spectators ogling me. But this was not a partisan audience. They were hostile and disapproving. I found myself standing there shirtless and barefoot in front of all these people and I felt suddenly very naked and scared. Ordinarily I was a confirmed exhibitionist, but now, for the first time in my life, I actually felt exposed and vulnerable.

On the other side of the room, against the wall, was a little gallery, separated by a low partition, behind which were boys from the Halcyon League. Their pristine, neatly pressed uniforms contrasted starkly against the rather bedraggled and sorry-looking knot of young boys they were guarding. There was a gaggle of boys of various descriptions, from about 10 years old and upwards standing there, looking somewhat lost and bewildered. Most of them were in a state of undress, having been brought in with what appeared to be minimal clothing or having opened or removed their shirts because of the stiflingly hot atmosphere in the bunker. I noticed that some of them were, like me, barefoot. They were probably all prisoners of the VLA, no doubt rounded up by the Halcyon League, just like me. I assumed that some of them must be shota boys, in which case the correct collective noun would have been a precocity of shota boys. There must have been boys there from all over Verolino. And as I looked amongst their grimy, forlorn faces, I spotted Orion. He was standing towards the back, between two immaculately uniformed Halcyon League boys. My heart soared. So they had picked him up too! But something was very different about him. He looked drawn and pale, and had a black eye that was puffed and shiny. He had his head bowed and was looking down at his feet. His demeanor was one of defeat and subjugation, and I knew then that something awful had been done to him. He saw me, and attempted a smile, but it was an apologetic, regretful smile. I couldn't be sure whether his black eye had been sustained in the car accident or not, but it was encouraging that he recognized me and still had enough spirit left in him to smile at me. But most of all, I was glad he was pretty much intact. It was comforting that I didn't recognize anybody else. There were no other familiar faces, so that I could at least be fairly certain that my old Saxon Club compatriots had not been caught, and was reassured that River and Tallin had probably made it out safely.

After a few minutes of delay, a rather important looking man appeared, escorted into the room by a phalanx of armed VLA guards. They came in from the door behind me, and everyone in the room instantly hushed. There were a few anxious moments of silence as he came past me and took his seat in the rather imposing chair behind the table. He was wearing a plain tunic, but had a distinctive blue and white sash over it with a silver clasp bearing the VLA insignia. He was quite a distinguished-looking man, with a neat, thick head of hair that was silvery in color. He was very clean shaven and the shirt beneath his tunic was a bright white, with pristine collar and cuffs. I figured this must be the High Representative they had talked of. He certainly looked like an important man. He took his seat, taking a moment to arrange some papers on the table in front of him, and then quite deliberately looked up, fixing me with an intense stare. I noticed he had very bright, pale blue eyes. He was quite handsome, and I remember thinking how cute he must have been when he was a much younger man.

Steine thumped me hard in the back.

"Stand up straight in front of the High Representative!" he hissed.

I wasn't aware I was slouching. His blow elicited a hollow thud on my bare back. It hurt and I thought it unnecessary.

I was asked to give my name and then the High Representative leaned towards me across the table with a firm and authoritative tone, and explained that this was not a trial. He was very specific in pointing out that this was only a hearing – to try to establish whether there was any case to answer, and he asked me if I understood. I nodded and uttered a meek "yes". Then he handed the proceedings to the Lieutenant. Steine sat down on the front row, next to the VLA officers. I figured it wouldn't be too long before he himself became a VLA officer cadet.

The thin, mean-looking Lieutenant then stepped up to the table and turned towards me. He had been hovering around to the side somewhere, clearly relishing an opportunity to question me further. I noticed that his uniform was now all buttoned up and secured with a shiny leather belt, although his kepi was now resting on the table.

"This boy was picked up this morning, Your Excellency," said the Lieutenant, turning to address the High Representative, "He has been extremely uncooperative, refusing to answer any questions. Therefore I intend to make an example of him."

The High Representative looked unconvinced, but allowed him to continue anyway. He turned back to me.

"You're from The Saxon Club, aren't you?"

"How do YOU know?" I asked, mostly out of surprise and curiosity and not really meaning to sound impertinent.

"We know all about you," said the Lieutenant, ominously, then he turned back to the High Representative, "The Saxon Club is a notorious shota club, Your Excellency."

The High Representative nodded.

"You don't deny that you're a shota boy?" the Lieutenant continued, turning back to me again.

"No," I replied, hesitantly.

That was evidently not the answer he expected. He furrowed his eyebrows and shook his head.

"Why didn't you tell me you were a shota boy when I questioned you?"

"You didn't ask me," I replied, flatly.

It was true. He'd asked me everything BUT that.

Some of the boys in the gallery sniggered. The VLA officers were all silent and focused intently on me. The Lieutenant decided to dismiss my answer and continued.

"The truth is, you have something of a reputation as a shota boy, don't you?" he began again, glaring at me accusingly.

That statement caught me off-guard somewhat. I was surprised, not only that news of my exploits had reached as far as the VLA's commanding officers, but also that they should be in the slightest bit interested. I cleared my throat and spoke as loudly as I could, though I was still having trouble focusing.

"What of it?" I replied, defiantly.

"You're known as something a nymphomaniac, aren't you?"

The other boys laughed with derision. I understood exactly why. Because the context was completely wrong. A boy could not be a nymphomaniac. That was a term that could only be applied to girls. The correct term was satyromaniac, but I granted him the grace of answering his question anyway.

"I admit that I like sex," I acceded, "sure I do."

"Then you agree, you are obviously suffering from some kind of hyper-sexuality?"

I had to think carefully, because I couldn't work out the point of his questioning. I wasn't sure if he was maybe trying to get me to incriminate myself in some way. In fact, I wasn't even sure I understood the thrust of this particular question at all.

"I wouldn't call it suffering," I replied, precociously.

That elicited a few titters from the gallery. I think even the High Representative might have smiled momentarily. My reply seemed to wrong-foot the Lieutenant for some reason. He had no immediate response. At this point I thought I was holding up to his questions very well. It was not that I intended to smartmouth him, but his line of questioning seemed aimless and uncoordinated. It almost felt like he didn't really know what questions he should be asking me. Even the High Representative noticed it, and he chose to interject.

"Lieutenant, what is the point of this questioning?" the High Representative asked, tetchily.

"Your Excellency, this boy is an example of the corrupt and immoral regime that we aim to eliminate. He represents all the things that are wrong with the old Verolino."

The Lieutenant was addressing the little gathering of VLA officers on the front row, but he glanced quickly at the High Representative, looking for approval. He thought he was clever, playing to the audience, putting on a show to demonstrate his deftness. But I could see that the High Representative was not so easily taken in by him.

"You admit then that you have no morals?" the Lieutenant began again, "That your behavior is that of complete and utter turpitude?"

"I just did what I had to do to survive," I said, making it clear that I was not ashamed of my exploits as a shota boy.

"You don't see that you were doing anything wrong?" the Lieutenant asked.

"No," I said loudly and emphatically, my high pitched voice echoing around the bare concrete walls above the heads of the assembled onlookers.

"You don't you see that you were abused by people who didn't care about you?"

"What would YOU know?" I hissed back at him, "Our handler was good to us."

"Or rather he exploited you?"

"You didn't know him!" I shot back, genuinely resentful that Guus should be thought of in that way, "He gave me food and shelter. He looked after me and treated me well. And he never made me do anything I didn't want to."

The Lieutenant was not convinced. I could see by the look on his face that he remained totally intransigent.

"He was ruthless and calculating," he said, determined to stick to his blinkered view, "He abused you."

That was the height of hypocrisy, in my view. Here I was, a boy alone, semi-naked and defenseless, brought before all these armed soldiers, being interrogated by these imposing authority figures. I stood there braving this barrage of questions, cowed by all the uniforms and guns. I had suffered more at the hands of the VLA than I ever could at The Saxon Club. These were the same soldiers who arrested the refugee boys and had rounded up all the sorry-looking boys who were now standing in the gallery. I had been imprisoned and intimidated by them, not to say smacked around, and was now being tormented by their questions, and they had the temerity to call Guus an abuser? What an undeserved designation for the man who had probably saved my life; who gave me a roof over my head and the means to scrape a living; who had protected us from the ravages of war and who, in his own special way, I knew had great affection for us. Although I was well aware that most fathers would not pimp out their sons to sell their ass to other men, Guus was probably the closest I ever got to having a father. Guus was never an abuser. No sir. There was no doubt in my mind who the real abusers were.

"No," I countered, firmly, not willing to accept that, "He was a GOOD man."

The Lieutenant shook his head.

"He deprived you of an education," he rebuffed, "Children like you should be in school, not being pimped out to pernicious strangers by manipulative svengalis."

That struck me as a particularly odd turn of phrase. I had certainly never thought of Guus as a svengali. On the contrary, everything he asked me to do, I did willingly. I wasn't in his thrall. There was never any coercion. Where I had any qualms or doubts, he always brought me round with charm and diplomacy. Come to that, I never thought of my tricks as pernicious strangers. Most of them were pleasant and respectful. Of course there was always the small minority who were perhaps brusque or slightly violent and forceful, but they were rarely abusive, except in a pervy way, and that I didn't mind at all. No, on the whole I had no regrets about being a shota boy. I perhaps didn't fit into the conventional mainstream view of how 12 year old boys should live their lives, but it suited me just fine. As for education, I'd had more life experience in the last few months and years than any kid my age. This war had been education enough, and the last few weeks in particular.

"What's the point of education if you have no food in your belly and nowhere to sleep?" I asked, earnestly.

"He could have given you those things without making you work for him," the Lieutenant insisted, "the truth is, he used you for his own ends, didn't he?"

"No. He was a good man," I said again, refuting that.

"Good?" the Lieutenant exclaimed, with a note of ridicule, "Hardly. He likes to insert his penis into little boys' rectums."

What a vulgar turn of phrase, I thought. I abhorred the word penis. Such an unspectacular word, so clinical and undeserving of such an important part of the anatomy. I never used the word penis. Dick, cock, todger, fuckstick, rod, pee-pee – yes. Boy-plunger or yoghurt-squirter even. But penis? Never. It had no beauty to it, no class, no thrill. Penis did not afford that magical appendage the recognition it deserved. Calling it a penis denied it the privilege of its status. For an instrument that was essential to most sex acts – indeed a prerequisite for fucking, of whatever persuasion – an instrument that was the focus of our libidos, the chakra where all our erotic pleasures culminated, penis just didn't cut it. Come to that, rectum wasn't much of an improvement. Call it what it is: a boycunt, ass, butt, pussy, fuckhole, chute, snatch, ring, star, pucker, maybe even fanny, but rectum? No. Rectums were for shitting, for expelling the unwanted, where boycunts were for fucking, for sticking desired things into. As for the act of inserting, that was a term more akin to feeding coins into a slot machine. Insertion was too lame, too polite, too ineffectual. You don't 'insert' a cock into a boycunt – 'inserting' implied all the jaded dullness of following an instruction manual – the lameness of merely going through a mechanical motion, like a key into a lock or a tenon into mortise. Fucking a tight little boycunt was more than just insertion. You fuck it, you root it, pump it, stab it, nail it, ream it, drill it, stuff it, hammer, pierce, puncture or even ram it, but you certainly don't merely 'insert'.

"If he fucked little boys, it was with their permission," I said, allowing myself to lapse into the vernacular.

Unsurprisingly, my language elicited a muted little gasp of collective dismay from the VLA officers.

"You just can't accept that little boys enjoy sex," I went on, critically.

"This is not about what I find acceptable," said the Lieutenant, condescendingly, "It is about upholding the law of the land. Shota clubs are now illegal. Besides which, you are not at an age where you can determine what you can do sexually."

"My stiffie doesn't much care for the law of the land," I scoffed, nonchalantly.

The other boys all sniggered loudly. That drew a disapproving glare from the Lieutenant. The High Representative appeared unmoved by it. I decided to go for it and speak my mind.

"And you know what else?" I said, with a challenging grin, "I cum so much harder with a stiff dick up my butt."

"Watch your mouth!" the Lieutenant warned threateningly, for the moment forgetting his air of formality.

The VLA officers all gasped in horror, perturbed by my straight talking. I could see that my plain turn of phrase was getting to them. Good. Their straight-laced prudishness was starting to aggravate the hell out of me, tell you the truth.

I could see Steine sitting on the front row with the VLA officers. He had his hands resting on his lap and was furtively pressing the heel of his palm into the crotch of his blue dress pants. He even let out an involuntary but silent little sigh, his eyes closing momentarily with the pleasure. The randy little tyke was all horned up by this. He was getting off on my dirty talk!

"I bet you never fucked a tight little boycunt, did you?" I accused the Lieutenant, inciting his distaste even more.

All the boys laughed, so that a tremor of high pitched giggles emanated from the back of the room. The High Representative fidgeted uncomfortably in his big chair and seemed to be adjusting the crotch of his tight dress pants. In fact, the High Representative stared intently at me the whole time I was being questioned. Except it wasn't directly at my face. More like at my body – his eyes fixed on a spot somewhere between my chest and my tummy, running his eyes over my physique with a furtive approval. He was clearly checking me out. I put on my best look of little boy lost, to try and elicit his sympathy, looking around the makeshift courtroom in open-mouthed innocence, as if overawed by the proceedings. I stood up straight with my shoulders back, so he could see my smooth chest, flat tummy and little innie belly button; maybe imagine what it was like to slip his big hands over my young body and caress my hairless skin, maybe pinch my little pointy nipples between his thick manly fingers, or maybe frot his big dick all over my tummy until he squirted out his hot adult fuckwad in long wet streaks across my silky chest.

The Lieutenant merely glared malevolently at me. I could see he had no sense of humor.

"What you need is a good belting, young man," he threatened.

"Is that what you'd like to do to me?" I shot back, "That's your thing, is it, hitting little boys?"

"Might knock some courtesy into you," he added.

"You'll never know," I replied, "Cos you couldn't afford me anyhow."

Again the boys laughed. I could see the Lieutenant's face becoming more and more uptight. This dirty talk was anathema to him, which made me even more determined to smartmouth him.

"You'll just have to jack off fantasizing about me," I went on.

"You're disgusting," he said, with real revulsion.

"That's how I earn my living," I replied, with a leer.

"You're corrupt and immoral," he insisted, haughtily.

"All boys jack off," I asserted, "Don't you know that? Or did your mom make you wear boxing gloves to bed?"

The boys laughed even louder. The shock on the Lieutenant's face was priceless. He was so indignant, that he stepped up to face me and stood very close. I could hear him breathing, like he was seething with rage.

"Y' know, you got a really bad attitude, kid," the Lieutenant grumbled, "And a really filthy mouth."

"Yeah? Well some people pay good money for that," I rebuffed, speaking right into his face.

Again the other boys laughed.

"Don't get fresh with me you little shit!" and he slapped me real hard across the face, finally losing patience with me.

The sharp crack of his blow reverberated around the room.

"No Lieutenant!" the High Representative snapped.

The entire room fell silent. I held my smarting cheek, shocked by the force of the blow. It stung savagely. Tell the truth, it brought me nearly close to tears, but I fought it. I held it together because didn't want to break down in front of all these people.

The Lieutenant stepped back, turning to the High Representative.

"I am sorry Your Excellency, but you have just seen that this boy is utterly wayward and incorrigible. He has no respect for authority and a most unattractive manner of speaking. He is simply beyond redress."

The High Representative nodded assuredly and raised a hand as though to indicate that things should calm down.

"This is only a hearing Lieutenant, we are not here to condemn these boys."

And with that, the High Representative moved the proceedings along. He asked me a few questions himself, but not in the antagonistic way that the Lieutenant had. He was altogether calmer, kinder and not intent on showboating. As I answered his questions, I had my mouth slightly open and licked my lips a lot, so the High Representative could see my slick little tongue and shiny, pink, inviting lips, and maybe imagine what his cock would feel like inside there. He stared at me fixedly for the whole time I was talking. He listened intently and I could see his body twisting this way and that in his big chair as he fidgeted under the table. I almost felt sorry for him. I bet he had a big thick adult fuckstick under there, hot and stiff, with a hefty adult spunkwad that was ripe for blowing, probably bursting for release. What a shame I couldn't give him a token blowjob to relieve his frustration.

When he was finished with me, the High Representative asked me to stand in the gallery with the other boys. Then he called some of the other boys one by one. Each of them were to be questioned in a similar way.

When I joined the little group of boys in the gallery, I inched over to where Orion was standing. He was still languishing at the back looking cowed and demoralized, and was still mostly with his head down. He saw me take up position next to him and we stood there for a while, watching the proceedings, under the watchful eye of the Halcyon League boys. I turned to look at Orion discreetly. With a quick, sidelong glance I could see that his eye was painfully puffed up and purple, and had virtually closed up so that he could hardly see.

"What happened to you?" I whispered, under my breath, "I woke up after the crash and you were gone."

"I went to get help," he whispered back, still looking down, "You were unconscious and the car was stuck. I tried to find help so we could rescue you. But I failed."

"It's okay," I whispered, not wanting him to feel bad.

He shook his head regretfully, still focused on the floor.

"It's NOT okay!" he exclaimed, in a harsh whisper, "I promised Altair I would get you to the field hospital and I failed. And I wrecked the car too."

"It wasn't your fault," I replied, trying to reassure him, "It was an accident."

"Whatever," he said, dismissively, "Now we're stuck here and it's all screwed up for the both of us."

"I didn't tell them anything," I whispered to him under my breath, "I promise."

I hoped he wasn't going to be angry with me. But Orion didn't turn to look at me, like he was almost ashamed to face me. He whispered back to me, but was staring regretfully at his feet.

"It's all my fault," he whispered, "I betrayed you. It was me who told them about you. They tortured me. I broke down. I'm sorry."

It certainly explained how they knew that I was a shota boy, and that I had worked at the Saxon Club. Orion had told them everything. But I was not angry. Instead, Orion's whispered apology brought tears to my eyes. I couldn't be angry with him. I was only sorry that he had suffered so much on my behalf. To show him that I was not angry, I felt for his hand, and we furtively linked hands in the little space between us as we stood there side by side. We tightly interlocked our fingers in a gesture of solidarity as we languished at the back of that impromptu courtroom. For my part, I thought Orion was very brave, and I knew that he had done all he could for me. When I looked at him again, I could see that there were silent tears trailing down his face, tracing a thin silvery line down his grimy cheeks. I almost felt bad for him taking it so hard. For me, I just accepted it as another quirk of fate which was only to be expected in a war where everybody else was always trying to kill each other. It was simply unfortunate that my aspirations were always being thwarted by unrelated events.

After me, the other boys were called one by one, and were questioned before the High Representative. As it turned out, my testimony was exactly the same as all the other boys who were called to give evidence. None of us denounced our shota boy patrimony. Not one. We only spoke in its favor. None had a bad word to say. Only that our handlers were good to us, treated us well and looked after our needs. That we were invariably used by our handlers for their own sexual gratification was not in dispute, and we all conceded that our handlers had fucked us at one time or another, some more often than others, but we all asserted that it was consensual. There was never any question of coercion or inducement, or of boys being forced to do anything against their will. It was a ridiculous notion. If the purpose of these proceedings was to try and discredit the shota clubs, in the hope of exposing an institutional regime of abuse, they were very much mistaken.

For my part, Guus had never needed to coerce or threaten or bribe. He was too charming, too likeable, too clever. I had no doubts about what Guus was capable of. I have already said he was sometimes mean, but only to his enemies and only when circumstances required it. These were hard times. This was war. We all had to do what we needed to do in order to survive. Running a shota club was not without its challenges. If Guus was sometimes mean and ruthless, it was because he needed to be. And if he asked me to do anything I had any qualms about, I knew that he understood and that he only required me to do what was necessary. He was a businessman and something of a hustler. Sure, he was sometimes shady and questionable in his dealings, but he was not nasty. Guus may not have been universally popular, and some of the boys, like Sunny, openly disliked him. But we all, without exception, respected him.

As a whole series of shota boys were paraded before the High Representative, I started to envisage just how many shota boys there were still left in Verolino, and every one of them was the epitome of shota boy beauty: youthful, sexy, ultra cute; their skin radiant with that healthy glow of burgeoning boyhood sexuality; a precocious gleam in their eyes; that unique blend of young male horniness; that feigned, almost deceiving, guileless innocence that was present only in boys of this age group. I saw the way the High Representative watched these boys longingly as they came before him, and I noticed how he fidgeted in his seat when a particularly pretty boy was being questioned. One boy that particularly caught my eye was a very beautiful black boy who stood before the High Representative and assumed a sassy, rebellious stance. I knew from the way he cocked his head and pouted his lips that this was a boy with attitude. He gave his name as Trye. Trye looked a little younger than me, perhaps about 11 years old. Very small in stature, but perfectly formed. His skin was a delicious dark brown color, like milk chocolate, and he was complete with long, sandy-colored dreadlocks which adorned his head in thick, irregular-shaped little ropes. I thought his dreadlocks were incredibly cute and couldn't help wondering what it was like to be sucked by a dreadlocked little boy like him. He had big, bright eyes that were alert and inquisitive. He had a beautiful physique too. You could see where his shirt was unbuttoned and hanging open that he was svelte and well proportioned. He had wide shoulders and was slightly bull-chested, and his torso tapered down to a trim tummy and slim hips. His little preteen body looked firm and well-defined with a rather pronounced pert little butt – so symptomatic of all black boys. Oh what a popular shota boy Trye must have been. His tricks must have been queuing up for the privilege of playing with him. Fuck, he was exquisite! Evidently, the High Representative had similar taste in boys, because he seemed to swallow quite hard a few times as he was questioning Trye, and you could see his Adam's apple bobbing up and down crazily like it was doing a jig. The High Representative seemed to view us all with admiration and appreciation. His countenance exuded sympathy and respect, rather than contempt and revulsion. And why not? Boyfucking was rife – more commonplace than the authorities cared to admit. It probably always will be. It was said that prostitution was the oldest of human exploits. If that was true, then I'm sure boyfucking came a close second. In fact, I would willingly wager that boyfucking was even older, since boys were generally more amenable. I was sure men had been fucking little boys' butts as soon as they discovered that their cocks could fit inside there. Dads had been fucking their sons since the beginning of time. No sir, there was no doubt in my mind that the High Representative was a secret boyfucker.

When it was all over, the High Representative dismissed us all and ordered that we be held until he decided what to do with us. In the interim, the Halcyon League boys grabbed me and quickly marched me away, half carrying me and half dragging me, for they were moving faster than my poor aching legs could move. I stumbled, but they had grabbed the back of my pants and hauled me up again as they guided me away.

"Where are you taking me?" I deigned to ask.

"To the bearpit," said Steine.

"What's that?"

They all looked at each other as they marched me along, and they laughed, no doubt sharing a mutual joke, the substance of which was lost on me.

"It's where little perverts like you end up," said Steine, licking his lips with relish.

"Yeah, it's where all filthy fuckboys get their just desserts," said another.

"What do you mean?"

"You'll see," he said, narrowing his eyes sinisterly.

We stopped abruptly, outside the door of yet another room. The other boys held me there, pinning my arms to my sides so I could not lash out. They surrounded me menacingly, looking at me with pitiful stares. I could not say they were sympathetic, but they did seem full of regret. Then Steine moved around so he was stood in front of me. He reached out and clasped my jaw in his palm, looking at me with an ominous appreciation.

"What a shame," he said, "you're such a good looking boy."

And he looked me up and down, studying my shirtless body and for a moment he looked as though he was admiring me. He looked deep into my eyes with a cruel malevolence and almost whispered.

"They're gonna break you, fuckboy. They're gonna hurt your little body real bad. You won't be quite so pretty when they've finished with you."

Then he pushed my head back and let go, as if in disgust.

"It's what all you shota boy scum deserve. We're going to get rid of you – you and all your seedy shota clubs."

And for the first time I tasted the extent of their malice. Their hatred of me was tangible. They harbored a deeply rooted and unsavory ill-will towards me and my kind, and there was no possibility of ever convincing them otherwise. The hatefulness and spite they exuded was frightening – frightening because I knew there was no way to reason with ignorance. No sir, no amount of precocious smartmouthing was going to get me out of this one.

Resigned to my fate, I could only hit back by uttering something particularly vehement and vitriolic. So I leaned towards Steine confidentially, and whispered to him.

"Why don't you just admit that you fancy me? You like boy butt as much as all those men you claim to despise. I saw you with a hard-on in there. Bet you'd love to fuck me, wouldn't you?"

There is no description for the hateful and vindictive look he gave me. But Steine didn't say anything. He merely curled his lip in disgust and then they all pushed me into the room. They pushed me through the door with such force that I stumbled into the center of the empty room. Then they left me there. A few anxious minutes passed. Then the door opened again and four burly men came in. They were all naked. The door was promptly slammed. Then a big, heavy steel filing cabinet was pushed against the door, sealing the room against any possible escape, and I knew then that this was not going to be pleasant. The naked men stood around the edge of the room eyeing me up with menacing and evil stares.

"Strip!" one of them ordered.

They watched and waited while I tentatively removed my jeans and boxer briefs. I bunched them up and threw them aside, finally standing before the men, naked and exposed. A very tangible aura of sensitivity and vulnerability pervaded my whole body. It was almost painful.

"What a lovely bit of cunt," one of them said.

"Yeah, shame it's gonna get busted," said another, heavy with sarcasm.

That's all I was to them. A bit of cunt. A worthless piece of fuckmeat for them to violate.

They were all big guys – hairy, muscly, quite stocky and heavily built, and more than that they had enormous dicks. They were all hard and were stroking their dicks in a threatening manner, preparing to use them on me. I was sure these men had been specifically chosen for this task, for they really were inordinately large. Their dicks were like enormous plugs – like oversized probes that they were going to punish me with – long, thick, hard and unforgiving – real boysplitters. I noticed that one man was handing round a bottle of oil that they were liberally lubing their dicks with. Another had a thick dildo that he was oiling up – a big, black, mean-looking instrument with ridges in it.

I considered trying to bargain with them. I could probably service them all if they let me – show them all a real good time without any coercion or violence. But I didn't have the chance to utter a single word. I stood up and, suddenly without warning, one man stepped forward and hit me with the hard silicon dildo. He whacked me across the face causing me to momentarily loose my bearings. My head turned with the force of the blow. I lost my balance and collapsed back onto the floor. That was confirmation that no amount of bargaining was going to work here.

I curled up and held my head. It was a couple of seconds before I felt the searing pain. The force of the blow momentarily blinded me. I only remember thinking, as I crouched there on the floor, reeling in agony, that if these men were going to beat me, I hoped they wouldn't spoil my good looks. It was funny really – quite stupid in hindsight, but at that moment I could only hope that, no matter how much they were going to hurt me, they wouldn't scar my face. My looks were important. Up to this point, my prettiness was an integral element of how I earned my living – a key component to my survival, a gift, a bargaining tool – and I didn't want my lovely face to be scarred or disfigured. It was odd, but I think I actually feared that more than the pain.

The fact that I was at that point already incapacitated didn't stop the man from hitting me again. He lashed out with further blows to my head and arms, using the thick black dildo as a cosh. The searing pain was indescribable – at these moments the ebb and flow of pain totally controls you and it almost became a battle of wills between my mind and my body, partly to endure the pain without blacking out, and partly to summon the will to survive this trauma. The men were unforgiving and relentless. They took turns bashing me with the cosh. I tried as much as possible to shield my face. There was real malevolence in their eyes. It was evident in the way they took a running jump as they swung their blows at me. And yet they would not let me pass out. If I looked like I was losing consciousness, they roused me with slaps and cold water. Something told me they were saving me for something.

I don't remember much about what followed. Maybe I don't want to remember. I do recall that at one point they stretched me out on the floor, facing up at them and one stood between my opened legs and emptied his bladder all over me. He made sure that he peed all over me, directing his jet of hot pee into my face and all over my boyshit. One of the others recorded it on a small digital camera. Another grabbed my crotch roughly, easily engulfing my boyshit in his big fist, and pulled hard as though he was trying to desex me. It hurt like hell. Then the other one forced the dildo into my boycunt and pushed it in all the way. I could feel the tapered tip of the dildo dig painfully into my colon. The dildo was way too big to fit comfortably in there. I squirmed and struggled and screamed. The more I screamed the more they laughed. They seemed to relish my screams, as though that in itself ratcheted up the cruel pleasure they derived from torturing me. They recorded it on camera and stopped to look back at the footage on the camera's LCD screen, even as I was doubled up on the floor in extreme agony.

In the end, they all forcefucked me, forcing their enormous dicks into me without any formality, the last two taking me at the same time, one in my ass, one in my mouth. A third tortured my balls and spent ages squeezing them. They all fucked me hard, cruelly and savagely and for a very long time, busting their big loads inside me and hurting my little snatch. One of them came back for another helping, blowing a second fuckwad into me that took a lot longer than the first. My boycunt was ruptured and bleeding. I knew that because it stung savagely. I saw the blood that was smeared around their cocks. One of them had a pinkish slime dripping down his hairy thighs. That was my blood mixed with their evil spunkwads. It was oozing from my injured boyhole, mingling with the unwarranted spunkloads they had injected into me.

Eventually, the trauma stopped and they stood around my broken frame laughing and poking fun, exchanging crude remarks with each other, genuinely proud of their handiwork. It was as if they derived genuine pleasure from inflicting pain, like it gave them real satisfaction to beat little shota boys into a pulp, such was their hatred and revulsion of me and my kind. They recorded and photographed the whole thing, no doubt intending to review their spoils with great relish later.

"He won't be taking anything up his pussy for a while," one of them said, with an air of accomplishment.

The others all laughed callously.

Lastly, they gathered around and finished off with their favorite little distraction: cigarette burns. That was one rumor I knew was not false. I had heard all about it. They were quite specific in where they applied the cigarette burns. They had a number of areas they targeted. A favorite place was under the arms. It was well known that the skin in the armpits was much thinner and more sensitive, thus increasing the pain inflicted. Another good reason was that it was an area that ordinarily didn't show. Even if you were shirtless, that might not be easy to spot. Other favorite places to apply cigarette burns were the soles of your feet, thus making it painful to walk. But there was one place they liked to apply cigarette burns which they reserved specifically for shota boys: on their dick – and that was the one they used on me. This was normally under the foreskin or, for cut boys, around the rim of their cockhead where the skin was thinnest and most sensitive. The purpose of this of course was to ensure that all sex, and even masturbation, was painful. Even an erection was uncomfortable. They knew what they were doing. It was a particularly cruel and vindictive kind of torture, a sadistic and inhuman act of torment, designed specifically to cause pain and suffering. They held me down, so I couldn't see what they were doing, and I could feel them roughly peeling back the foreskin on my floppy little todger. The glowing embers of their cigarettes pressed cruelly into the most sensitive part of my boyflesh and I screamed louder than I had ever screamed in my life. I screamed so loud, it must have reverberated throughout the bunker. The pain was indescribable. My boycock stung excruciatingly. By then, I was barely conscious. I was drifting in and out of consciousness, aware of what they were doing, but helpless. They were too strong and too overpowering. They were four big men and I did not have the strength to resist. They could do whatever they liked with me. I was totally helpless. I knew that if they chose to snuff me, there was nothing I could do. They could eradicate me completely and probably nobody would ever know. I wondered if this was where it was all going to end for me, whether my short existence was going to finish here, in this bare, soulless room, deep underground, at the hands of these brutal, heartless tormentors, never to be seen or heard of again. Poor Ciggy. He would always be wondering what had happened, and would never know how much I really loved him.

When they were finished with me, they dragged me out by my hair, grabbing big handfuls of my shaggy blond mop, almost tearing my hair from the very roots. I was hauled out into the passageway, my bare butt scraping along the damp concrete floor, and I was thrown into a cell. It wasn't a cell as such, more like an empty storeroom. It was a hot, airless, windowless place, completely bare, without so much as a blanket for me to sleep on. I was left there for hours, abandoned like a broken toy, still naked, barely conscious, bruised and with my punished little boyhole still bleeding. It was only then that I finally lost consciousness. I felt my frail body weakening. The strength drained from me. My vision grew dim and I felt the welcome desire to let go, to allow myself to finally lapse into oblivion, the welcome deliverance from the unbearable pain of my tortured little body.

I slept fitfully, perhaps disturbed on and off by the bombing that was going on above ground. Throughout the whole time I was in the bunker, the bombing continued. The bombardment was relentless and, it seemed, getting closer. It was intensifying. The explosions were louder and the tremors reverberating throughout the concrete structure were becoming stronger and stronger. It went on at all hours of the day and night. It was so unrelenting that I wondered how much effort was being expended and how many resources it was consuming to sustain a bombing campaign of such prolonged ferocity. I rather imagined that the fight that was going on above ground echoed the struggle that had been played out within the bunker itself: that the conflict between the heroic forces of the NATO coalition that sought to liberate Verolino from the dark, oppressive regime of the VLA, mirrored the very essence of the opposing doctrines that had locked horns during the course of the hearing, serving as a metaphor for the age-old struggle between those who believed that boyfucking was a natural, desirable state of affairs, which recognized a boy's right to self-determination over his own body, and accepted their natural state-of-being as sexual creatures with a powerful erotic drive that needed placating – as opposed to those prudes and fuddy-duddies who would seek to stamp out such activity and who could not accept that older men had a natural predilection for those young boys, and sought to forbid that primeval symbiotic relationship that had been an integral element of man-boy liaisons since time immemorial, and which strove to eradicate it in the name of morality, political dogma and religious fundamentalism.

As the raid continued above ground, I dreamt of Ciggy. If you could call it a dream. I lapsed into a feverish, barely conscious delirium, where Ciggy represented maybe my only hope of salvation. I wished he was here with me now, to comfort me during these, the lowest hours of my entire life. He would hold me and tell me that everything was going to be alright. It was funny, but out of all the people in the whole world who meant anything to me at this time, all I could think of was Ciggy. Here I was, my life in crisis, my very survival in the balance, totally at the hands of cruel and ruthless barbarians who would think nothing of snuffing me in an instant. My existence was nothing to them. It was only thoughts of Ciggy that gave me the will to hold on.

Locked in that room all alone, I was frightened. The concrete walls trembled and shuddered from the persistent pounding. It gradually intensified until the explosions could be felt in the very fabric of the bunker itself. The bombs got louder and closer, until I was convinced the bombs were exploding immediately above my head. Then there was one almighty explosion of dust and splintered concrete and everything went black. The room I was in had been blown open. I was momentarily dazed and disorientated by the blast. I was buried under some rubble, but I found myself cowering in the corner where the thick concrete walls of the bunker had held up well enough to avoid crushing me. I was covered in dust, and the air was thick with smoke. I looked up and suddenly I could see daylight. I saw that the very roof of the bunker had broken open, cracked like an eggshell by the sheer power of the bombs they were dropping. Bombs so potent, they had penetrated into the very depths of the bunker. From several levels down, I looked up and a section of light blue sky was visible, crisscrossed by the vapor trails of military jets. They were darting about the sky so fast that they could only be military aircraft. Sure enough, they were American bombers – F22 Raptors with US Air Force markings, coalition aircraft – confirmation at last that VFOR had not forgotten us.

Luckily, I wasn't badly hurt in the raid. When the smoke and dust had cleared, I found myself being pulled out of the rubble by a pair of big, strong arms. I was dazed and not very coherent, but I knew they were friendly. Suddenly, I was out in the open air. They lifted me up and I was passed along a chain, sailing through the air propelled by several pairs of hands. I felt small and light, and was passed from person to person with ease. Still naked, but caked in dust, I was finally transferred into the welcome embrace of a uniformed soldier at the end of the chain who wrapped me in a big khaki blanket. The soldiers were from VFOR – American troops this time. They took great pride in telling me that they were from the 101st Airborne Division and had a distinctive eagle's head insignia on their sleeves. Something told me that I should have been impressed by that. I will certainly never forget those soldiers. They all had that characteristic Yankee twang in their accents, all loud and confident, but very friendly and with a wicked sense of humor. They were well trained, and well equipped, with slick night vision goggles fastened to their helmets and the latest M4 carbines, some with grenade launchers attached. They were spectacularly efficient and utterly professional.

I was taken to a dressing station nearby where they cleaned me up and had a medic check me over. He was a young, fresh-faced rookie with a stethoscope hanging around the back of his neck. He checked all my injuries and washed my wounds with a warm saline solution. There was a lot of swelling on my head, with various bumps and bruises from the many blows I had suffered, but thankfully nothing serious. Most of all, my face was okay. There was a small cut just above one eye which I hadn't even noticed. I was surprised I had withstood all the cruel mistreatment so well. The medic treated the bruising and he even put some soothing ointment on my burns, lightly dabbing a cold, clear gel with the tips of his fingers onto the cigarette burns on my todger. He was very gentle, and handled my sensitive little piece of flesh with great care. Then he tucked it back under the blanket and ruffled my hair affectionately. "You'll survive," he said, with an encouraging smile.

They gave me a disposable white paper suit to wear. It was temporary emergency clothing – a type of all-in-one coverall with stud fastenings up the front. It was slightly too big for me, but I liked it. It had a crinkly, fabric-like texture which was soft and warm against my skin. I still had no shoes, but I didn't really need them. They put me straight into an enormous olive-green Humvee and offered to take me home. I told them I needed to get to the field hospital. They agreed to take me. One of them was a rather laid back, showy and talkative sergeant. He said his name was Count, though his colleague, a handsome black man with a distinctive Southern drawl, joked that he usually spells it without the O. They sure had a wicked sense of humor, and the one-liners were coming so thick and fast I could barely keep up with their clever repartee. I smiled manically, overwhelmed by their warmth and hospitality. But they kept me amused all the way to the field hospital.

On the way, Count sat next to me in the back of the Humvee with his arm around me. He kept looking at me benevolently, giving me the odd squeeze or stroke. He seemed very sympathetic and was very affectionate.

"Did they hurt you, little buddy?"

I nodded meekly.

"Don't worry, you're safe now. We'll see to that."

"Hey Count," the driver called from up front, "Leave the boy alone will ya?"

"Aw, he don't mind the attention," Count replied, "do ya kid?"

I smiled humbly and shook my head. I didn't mind at all. These Americans were my saviors. I certainly wasn't going to begrudge them some boytime. These soldiers were sweaty and dirty, seasoned veterans sporting the ingrained dirt and grime of battle, but I found that actually quite attractive. They were real men – professional soldiers – and civilized human beings who knew how to treat a fuckboy with dignity and respect.

On the way to the field hospital, I saw the extent of the destruction caused by the recent fighting. For quite a long stretch, the road was reduced to half its width because one side was blocked by a column of wrecked VLA vehicles. The road was strewn for miles with burned out trucks which had been reduced to blackened metal shells. It was clearly the remains of a VLA supply convoy that had been ambushed. I was relatively safe in the back of the Humvee, but still got thrown around a little as the vehicle negotiated the potholes and craters, and in places had to go off-road to take a detour where the road was impassable.

After an arduous drive of about an hour, during which I was constantly jiggled about on the back seat of the high vehicle, we finally negotiated a winding dirt road that took us into a shallow vale. As we approached, from high in the surrounding hills, it was possible to look down at the field hospital from above and get a good sense of just how big it was. The field hospital itself was a sprawling network of temporary structures. The whole site consisted of row upon row of white marquees, within which every aspect of hospital activity took place – the hospital wards, the offices, the staff accommodation, even the operating theatres, was all made up of marquees. Okay, they had thoughtfully laid down planking and matting between the marquees, creating a kind of network of walkways, a web of artificial thoroughfares that ran through the whole site, and probably prevented everything from sinking into the ubiquitous mud. But it was an utter shambles of a place. When you witnessed it first hand, and saw what went on there, it was one big cacophony of suffering and confusion.

We arrived at the main entrance to the site where there were fleet ambulances pulling up. So many ambulances were vying for space that they had to queue up to unload their gruesome cargoes. It was clearly the trauma station, where the casualties were brought in. What I saw was overwhelmed medics and nurses, with bloodstains on their white overalls that looked so fresh they could almost have just stepped out of a butcher's shop. Everybody was in a rush, shouting hurried commands, and always looking flustered and under pressure. It was clear that they couldn't cope. Patients were stacking up on gurneys in the triage area, some clearly still in pain, calling out for morphine, or just screaming uncontrollably, some of them with bloodstained bandages, others with the most horrific head injuries, some peppered all over with shrapnel wounds, or with arms and legs missing. You could have easily mistaken these casualties for military personnel. But they were not. They were all civilians: young children; women; the elderly, all victims of the indiscriminate shelling. Some seemed to be totally burned – their skin red raw and bleeding from head to foot, their faces blackened, their skin peeling off in ragged shreds, as thin and transparent as tissue paper, many with deep lesions in their flesh – the unmistakable legacy of phosphorous grenades, the modern day equivalent of napalm. Officially, the use of phosphorous grenades was forbidden by the Geneva Accords, and neither side confessed to using them. But clearly, they were being used. Phosphorous grenades were only ever used against civilians. It was horrible. Like a vision of hell.

Count made enquiries at the information post, to get directions. I was surprised that even amongst this apparent pandemonium, their records were pretty accurate. We were told exactly where we needed to go. Still barefoot, I padded along beside Count, who kept a fatherly and reassuring arm around my shoulders. This tall, friendly sergeant quickly hustled me past the casualty station, not wanting me to dwell too long on the horrors to be seen there, and he swept me down a long row of marquees. Away from the business end of the field hospital, other staff went about their daily routines. In one marquee some medical orderlies were busily preparing surgical instruments. In another there was a communications post, with radios and transmitters and thick bundles of cables trailing everywhere. Yet another was set up as a canteen, with rows of folding tables and a server counter with a large tureen of steaming hot soup. Another was open at the front, so that you could peer inside and see a Red Cross worker sitting there getting a haircut. It was a quick cross-section, a whistle-stop tour of everything that went on in a field hospital.

Finally, we reached the marquee where Ciggy was supposed to be. It was a large structure, away from the busy area of the field hospital, quieter and out of earshot of the cries of pain of the unattended patients and the barked commands of the overworked staff. It was altogether calmer and more civilized. Inside this marquee, there was a little reception area where a nurse sat at a portable table, entering data into a laptop. The only other items were a filing cabinet and a lockable medicine chest. She greeted us and seemed to know immediately why we were there. Count stayed by the entrance and the nurse beckoned me towards the main part of the marquee, the small ward where the patients were. It was sealed off by a canvas partition which had an opening mounted in it, itself covered by a thin curtain. The nurse held it open for me, inviting me to go in. Hesitantly, and with a heavy heart, holding my breath in anticipation, I stepped through the curtained partition into the ward. The nurse didn't follow me through, apparently happy to leave me to it.

Inside the ward, I stood in the entryway and looked around. I noticed how spotless everything was. I was almost afraid I might contaminate the place because my bare feet were dirty. My toenails were ingrained with grime. Daylight came through a clear skylight in the roof of the marquee. It was very calm and quiet in there. There were only four beds, three of them empty. Then I saw Ciggy. He was sitting up in bed, right at the far corner, propped up on a big mound of pillows. I recognized his distinctive head of floppy black curls, and the gold earring. His top half was naked in the bed. I was relieved that he looked relatively intact. In fact, the only sign of any injury was a bandage wrapped around his head. It was funny, but it closely resembled the bandana that he used to wear. He had his eyes closed, and his head was turned away from me, slightly tilted to one side. And yet I knew that he wasn't asleep. Perhaps there was something in his posture that told me he was only resting.

Hesitantly, I approached the bed. I felt hot, clammy, weak and dizzy. My heart was beating fast and hard in my chest. I went and stood close to him, right at the side of the bed, within touching distance. My throat was so dry I was unable to speak. But I didn't have to. Instead, Ciggy turned to look at me, rotating his head, and opened his eyes. It was almost as though he had detected my presence, like he could instinctively feel me standing there beside him. At that moment, I didn't know what to do. I just looked at him. To my relief, he smiled. It was a loving, welcoming, forgiving little smile. He flashed his perfect white teeth at me, apparently happy to see me. I had almost forgotten how beautiful this young man was. I had thought he might be angry and reproachful. But in the event, he was nothing of the sort. He was simply lying there, expectant, anxious, maybe even impatient, but definitely not angry.

"Hello Cloud Nine," he said, in a kindly, benevolent tone.

I hesitated, still unsure. Tears came to my eyes, partly because I was so happy to see him again, and partly because I was so relieved. He still wanted me! I wanted to reply, but I found I couldn't speak. So much had happened since we last saw each other. I didn't know where to start, what to say, how to explain. He saw my turmoil, and reached for my hand.

"You don't know how happy I am to see you," he said.

And then, his expression changed to one of horror and revulsion. I saw the dismay in his eyes as he noted the bruising and swelling in my complexion.

"What did they do to you lil man?"

He pulled me towards him, instinctively wanting to hug me. I fell onto the bed. It was quite low, so that I was able to clamber up and lie next to him. We clinched in a welcome embrace that was comforting and forgiving. I was still pretty sore all over, but it didn't matter now. Ciggy almost pulled me onto him so that I could feel his powerful teen body beneath me. His bare chest was warm and strong through the thin paper suit I was wearing. At the moment our bodies embraced, I knew that everything was going to be okay. All my fears and insecurities suddenly vaporized, and I couldn't hold back my emotions. All the submerged feelings that I had for him at once resurfaced and totally overwhelmed me. The last few hours had been the lowest of my life, and my suffering too horrible to contemplate. There were so many times I had thought I might never see him again. There was so much I needed to tell him, so many things to explain, and it all bubbled over in one big jumble of words and emotions that came out in no logical order.

"I'm sorry I couldn't get on that transporter," I blubbered, trying to hold back the tears, "I tried, I really did."

He held me on top of him, and I wept helplessly into his bare chest, my whole body shuddering with grief even as he held me there.

"It's okay lil man," said Ciggy, in a hushed, even tone, stroking my back reassuringly, "It's okay."

"We did get to the airfield," I cried, appealing to him, "But we couldn't get through the crowd."

"I know, I know," he said, quieting me.

And for a few moments he just let my cry.

"I was afraid you would think I'd forgotten about you," I sobbed.

I felt slightly ashamed of myself because I couldn't disguise my emotions. I felt just like a little kid. But then, I always felt like that when I was with Ciggy. I felt so inadequate, so immature, in the presence of this magnificent young man, this wonderful human being who was so much more worldly than me, and who seemed to conjure such deep emotions in me. What was it about him that made me feel so meek?

"I was afraid you would think I had changed my mind," I bawled.

Ciggy lifted my head, so that he could see the copious tears that were streaming down my face, and he smiled, almost as though he thought my tears were quaint. Then he gently put a finger to my lips to stop me from saying any more, indicating that I didn't need to explain.

"No, never," he whispered.

"You mean…?"

He nodded.

"I saw the crowd," he explained, "I was there. I waited for you."

I took a deep breath, trying to understand what had happened.

"But, how come you're still here?" I asked, confused, "Didn't you get on that transporter?"

He shook his head emphatically.

"No."

"Why?" I asked, quite innocently, as I tried to dry my eyes, my tears for the moment stemmed.

His face lapsed into a resigned expression.

"D' ya think I could have gone without you?"

"Why not?" I replied, mystified, wiping the tears from my face with my knuckles.

Ciggy laughed, as though I'd just said something quaint.

"Because I love you, silly."

It took a moment for me to assimilate what he'd just said. I looked at him through my tear-stained eyes with a quizzical expression because I wasn't sure I really understood his motives.

"Don't you get it?" he asked, plainly, "I love you lil man. Can't you see that?"

I looked at him blankly, the tears still wet in my eyes. I was confused. It didn't really make sense to me that he would knowingly risk his life by remaining in Verolino.

"I don't understand," I said, puzzled.

He smiled and pulled me towards him once more, squeezing me affectionately.

"No, I guess you don't," he said, muffled against my dirty-blond mop, "You've had your body abused for so long you don't know what real love is."

It was an extraordinary remark, so succinct, and yet ringing with the note of pure truth. Just like a lot of the things that Ciggy said, it encapsulated his sentiments exactly. More than that, it demonstrated to me that there was something going on here that was way beyond my limited shota boy experience. Something I had never encountered before. Something new and unfamiliar. Something slightly scary and out of control. Something real and profound and wonderful.

I looked into each of his warm brown eyes, trying to understand, trying desperately to make sense of everything. In frustration, I just burst into a renewed fit of crying.

"Oh Ciggy!" I bawled, and once again buried my face in his chest.

He let me cry. Calmly and patiently, he just waited until my tears had abated, and I knew that his benevolence was true and unconditional. Everything was always okay when I was with Ciggy. There was no rush, no pressure, no judgment, no agenda.

When I had finished crying, and my sobbing gradually petered out, Ciggy dried my tears for me, wiping them away with his thumbs. My mood brightened and I smiled bravely. He kissed me on the lips and embraced me, still lying next to him on the bed. As we were entwined like that, he took my little hand and guided it under the bedclothes. It was very warm under there. He placed my hand gently on the crotch of his pajama bottoms, as though there was something there he wanted me to touch. There was a tangible lump in there. It was hot and hard. It took me a couple of seconds to work out what was going on. He had a hard-on! That was his erection trapped in there! He smiled mischievously when he saw my expression and he leaned over to whisper in my ear.

"That's for you," he whispered, and I could feel his moist, warm breath on my ear lobe.

I raised my head and stared at him, open-mouthed with delight.

"See… I'm all fixed," he said, smiling smugly.

"But… how come…?"

"When I came out of the coma," he explained, "I realized I had a raging boner."

And as he said that, he clasped my hand in his under the bedclothes, and invited me to squeeze. My little fingers clenched, digging hard through his pajama bottoms and into his hard column of flesh. I could feel its heat through the thin fabric of the pajamas. He kept my hand there, forcing me to grab at his equipment, a substantial handful of teen meat in my childish little fist, and he tilted his head back into the pillow, closing his eyes in ecstasy.

"You're so beautiful," he whispered, his eyes still closed, his words filtering quietly into the air, "I'm so hard for you lil man. My cock is aching for you."

To an incorrigible little shota boy like me, it was the greatest compliment. His words induced an instant hard-on. Little Cloud stiffened in my pants. I pressed my hips onto Ciggy as he held me there, my face buried in his bare chest, him holding onto my head, and I thrust my hard little lump right into him. It was still hurting from the cigarette burns, but the stinging was numb and strangely pleasurable. I was so aroused by Ciggy's words that I wanted him to make me cum right there. I wanted to unload my little kiddie fuckwad for him and feel the ecstasy of my todger going out of its head. I wanted him to cum too, I wanted to feel it with him, so that we could cum together and so I could finally get to witness that magnificent teen dick burst forth, so I could taste his scalding hot cum, so I could feel its stickiness, so my naked hairless little body could wallow in its filthy slickness.

"I thought I'd lost you," he murmured, still clutching me to him tightly and this time there were tears in his eyes, "I thought I'd never see you again."

And no sooner had he said that, he moved on up and kissed me tenderly all over my face, his warm, wet lips affectionately skimming my cheeks and lips ever so lightly, kissing my chin, the tip of my nose, my forehead, even my eyelids. It was exquisite. I held onto his fragile, bandaged head, loving what he was doing to me, and finally realizing that the attention he was giving me, and the way he held me in his arms, that must be what he meant about real love because, at that moment, there was no doubt in my mind that this boy loved me – loved me in a way I had never been loved before.

"I love you lil man," he said again, "I love you."

He was saying that over and over again as his big hands warmly stroked my back. I laid my head on his bare shoulder and could feel the faint vibration of his voice as he was speaking. His words soothed my ears and comforted my soul, and as I buried myself in his embrace, I remember thinking: those must be the nicest words in the English language.

Chapter 25
Homecoming

From the field hospital, the Red Cross arranged to put us both on the next medevac flight out of Verolino. First this was aboard a Chinook helicopter which took us to a muster station and from there we boarded a C130 Hercules for the long haul flight to the USA. I thought it ironic that out of all the agencies that had tried to help us, including VFOR and the UNHCR, it was actually the ICRC that finally rescued us and flew us out of Verolino for good. Although, traveling on a C130 transporter was a hell of an experience. Being a passenger on an aircraft that was designed to carry cargo is not ideal. Those four turboprop engines were deafeningly loud, and the whole thing was vibrating so powerfully that the rattling inside of the aircraft was enough to loosen the teeth in your jaw. And yet, I slept. It was the kind of deep sleep that was brought on not just by sleepiness, but by total physical exhaustion – a kind of curious dead sleep that was characterized by total oblivion, more akin to unconsciousness than sleep. It was more like being in a coma.

The seating inside the cavernous aircraft was a temporary configuration, with netted seats arranged along the sides of the cargo hold. We were assigned two seats near the rear of the aircraft, almost by the cargo ramp, in amongst a rag-tag group of airmen who were being flown home. They looked like combat aircrew, probably having completed their tour of duty, and still in their olive drab flight overalls. They slept continuously all the way through. Indeed, there was little else to do. Ciggy allowed me to sleep on him. That is, he let me stretch out across our two seats so that my head was resting against his chest. He hugged me and let me sleep like that for ages. I was so exhausted, I was only barely aware of the hours passing by, and every now and then I would wake up to the noisy atmosphere of the plane, and check just to make sure he was still there. The first thing I became aware of was Ciggy's body next to me, holding me. He was warm, and strong and substantial. I was only half awake, but I knew he was looking after me and without even fully opening my eyes, I knew I was safe. I felt his arms around me, and it was an embrace of total reassurance. He was watching over me. I was so tired, I felt as though I could sleep for a week, but I allowed myself to lapse back into sleep, safe in the knowledge that he would protect me.

I hardly remember anything about the trip from the airfield. I know that the big lumbering aircraft landed heavily. It bounced at least three times when the wheels hit the runway, jolting us all in our seats. It was early morning as we disembarked, but the heat of the Kansas day was already taking hold, and a wall of humidity immediately enveloped us as we emerged from the relative shade of the aircraft. My exhaustion was apparent as I looked around bleary-eyed, blinded by the sunlight and still somewhat confused and uncoordinated. Luckily, Ciggy gently guided me away from the aircraft and through all the formalities.

At passport control, Ciggy produced two navy blue passports which he clutched possessively to his chest. As we filed towards the uniformed immigration officers at the gate, Ciggy merely turned to me to whisper something conspiratorially.

"If anyone asks, your name is Allie. Okay?"

I nodded. I didn't question it. Ciggy seemed to have everything worked out and I was happy to put myself entirely in his hands. I trusted him. At this moment, I had the utmost confidence in him. He smiled smugly, clutching the little navy blue passports. He had fixed everything. I don't know how, but I was sure glad he had. Minutes later, we were walking through the other side of the gate, being careful not to look too complacent. We just kept right on walking. Ciggy even reached down as we walked away, feeling for my hand, and triumphantly squeezed my little hand in his big, warm palm.

Finally, after a taxi journey, during which I dozed on and off, we arrived in a quiet suburban street, and I found myself standing on the steps of a rather grand house. It had neat shrubs and hedges around it, with a pristine driveway, and a broad paved forecourt leading up to a three car garage.

When the door opened, a slim, well-dressed woman was standing there. She was very beautiful, with immaculate makeup, expertly manicured nails and blond, honey-colored hair that was shiny and carefully coiffed. I knew straight away that she was Ciggy's mom. I knew from the way she looked at Ciggy standing there in the doorway, and she immediately welcomed him with open arms. I remembered that Ciggy had told me that he had not seen his folks for over two years. His mom was so happy to see him that she instantly burst into tears. As they stood in the doorway hugging, saying nothing, I noticed how Ciggy was so much bigger than her. She was a small woman, and she seemed dwarfed by her tall, lean, teenage son. But I knew just from her demeanor, and the way she held him, that this was definitely the woman that had brought this beautiful young man into the world.

They stepped apart, and Ciggy's mom dried her eyes, dabbing her tears with her wrists. Then she smiled benevolently at me as she ushered us inside, still saying nothing, but making it clear that I was welcome in her home. I instantly liked her, and I think she liked me too.

Once inside, Ciggy's mom hung back and allowed us to go through into the back of the house. Ciggy led me through a little lobby which gave way to the family room. The family room was the living area of the house. It was enormous, and gave a real sense of just how big the house really was. It was a vast expanse of deep, rich carpet, furnished with a sprawling corner sofa and a huge flat-screen TV. Over by the wall was a long dining table with eight chairs. The fixtures were well appointed and the room was neat and tidy. A row of French windows at the back of the room looked out onto a paved terrace where there was a lush green yard, and beyond that a swimming pool. Compared to what I had been used to, this was sheer unadulterated opulence. At the back of the room, the carpet gave way to ceramic floor tiles, and beyond that was the kitchen. Ciggy led me into the kitchen where there was a central island and a breakfast bar. The granite counter and worktops were festooned with shiny gadgets and just about every modern appliance you could think of. I could never have imagined living in such luxury.

Then I remember seeing Ciggy's dad for the first time. He was standing on the far side of the kitchen, behind the central island, and I realized he had been watching us ominously as we came through from the family room. He was quite distinguished looking, with a thick head of black hair that was much shorter than Ciggy's, much neater, and graying slightly at the temples. But he was very handsome, and it was easy to see where Ciggy had inherited his looks and those distinctive floppy black curls.

Ciggy stopped hesitantly and approached his dad with trepidation. His dad was not as welcoming as his mom. In fact he was a bit frosty and distant.

"So you're back," he said.

It was a strange greeting. Not at all what I expected.

Ciggy's father stepped forward, almost as though he was confronting him, his face set in a challenging, distinctly hostile expression.

"You think you can go off and live the high life in Europe and then slink back here whenever you feel like it?"

"Hardly the high life, dad," Ciggy responded, not at all riled, "There IS a war in Europe, in case you'd forgotten."

"So I should just take you back in, like the prodigal son?"

Ciggy laughed. It was a little laugh of derision. I could tell that he and his father had had their differences in the past, and in some ways that might even have been what prompted Ciggy to run away to Europe.

"What's the problem, dad?" Ciggy asked, in a more conciliatory tone, "I'm here aren't I? I came back."

"With nothing to show for it but a few battlescars and some mangy street kid," his father grumbled, alluding to me.

"Hey, I'm no street kid," I protested.

And I wasn't mangy either for that matter.

"He's my friend, dad," Ciggy reasoned, looking at me with a loving and affectionate stare, "You should get to know him. He's a great kid."

I was standing a little behind Ciggy, not at all sure what to do. His father turned his gaze on me as though it was some kind of effort, like he didn't even want to look at me. His expression was not entirely approving. Then he looked me up and down, sizing me up, and gave me a belittling glare.

"He's no replacement for Allie," he said, distinctly unimpressed.

Ciggy huffed.

"Is that what you think?" he asked, with a tone of frustration, "I'm not trying to replace Allie. Allie was one of a kind."

Then Ciggy took a deep breath, perhaps struggling to keep his emotions at bay. It was clear that this family were still very much feeling the tragedy of losing a child, and it revealed what was truly at the heart of this little exchange.

Ciggy looked earnestly at his father.

"I miss him too, y' know dad," he said.

"Do you?" his father questioned, "You lost a brother, but I lost a son."

"And I don't pretend to know what that's like," Ciggy reasoned, "but Allie's gone dad. Allie's dead. There'll never be another. It's time we moved on."

Then Ciggy stepped over to me and stood behind me, wrapping his strong arms around my shoulders as if to demonstrate our solidarity.

"Let me tell you something dad. Over the past few months, I've been to hell and back. Yeah, it was my choice, and yeah I probably got everything I deserved. But I've seen things you couldn't even imagine. I've seen terrible cruelty and I've seen extraordinary kindness, and there were times I thought I might not make it. But through all that unspeakable horror, only one thing kept me going. It was this lil guy."

And Ciggy hugged my head, laying his cheek against the top of my dirty-blond mop.

"I love him dad. I want to be with him. He is my life now."

And as his words trailed off, the sheer profundity of what he had just said struck me. I think it struck his father too, for he seemed to mellow a little. He took a deep breath and relaxed his stance and looked at me again.

"You always did fall for the pretty ones," he said, indicating to me that even his father was aware of Ciggy's predilections.

For me, it was at least a compliment of sorts.

"So we can stay?" Ciggy asked, with an appealing grin. His father relented.

"Of course," he said, "I've already lost one son. I couldn't stand to lose another."

At this point, Ciggy stepped forward and hugged his dad. It was not as loving and affectionate as when he hugged his mom, but it was acceptance nevertheless. Then they slapped each other on the back and stepped apart. But his father still looked unconvinced.

"So what now? I just let you use my house like a truckstop?"

Ciggy dug deep into the hip pockets of his camouflage tunic and fished out a large fistful of greenbacks.

"Here," he said, thrusting the crumpled buckwads at his father, "Five years rent. That do ya?"

He stuffed the crumpled notes into his father's hands and curtly turned to walk away, leaving his father incredulous at how much money was there.

"I didn't mean…" his father started to say.

"It's okay dad," said Ciggy, "Keep it. You deserve it."

His father smiled, his frostiness ameliorated by Ciggy's gesture, and he seemed to be shaking his head.

"See dad, crime DOES pay," said Ciggy sarcastically, as he ascended the stairs.

His father laughed jovially, and I could tell it was an affectionate, forgiving little laugh. At this point, I knew that the rift between Ciggy and his dad was starting to be repaired, and their rapprochement was an indication that at least they were reconciled to putting their differences behind them.

I followed Ciggy up the stairs, smiling smugly.

Up in Ciggy's room, we found ourselves alone at last. The door was firmly shut against the outside world, and we were finally at the end of our odyssey. The buzz of the noisy aircraft was still ringing in our ears, and we were tired and fatigued from the journey. I looked around. It was a nice room – neat, clean, modern and spacious. The walls were painted in electric blue, and Ciggy's personal paraphernalia adorned the shelves and walls. There was a bookcase by the door with books and other knick-knacks, like a catchers mitt and a die-cast model car – a 1950"s Ford Thunderbird, I think. There was a movie poster on the wall and an acoustic guitar propped up against the closet. It was all confirmation and a reminder that Ciggy was once the all-American boy. It also emphasized the fact that there was still so much I didn't know about him. And yet, all this was now almost an anachronism, an allusion to the past. Ciggy had moved on now and left his former life behind. He was no longer that boy. He had ventured out into the world, now returning as a young adult. He had been to war and had been wounded. He had grown up. He was a man now.

Then I saw Ciggy's big bed, which seemed to take up almost the entire length of the far wall, above which was a low window with a louvered blind. I noticed straight away that it was possible to lie in bed and look out of the window, down onto the street. It was a lush, green, tree-lined street, with wide, grassy sidewalks, and when the wind blew through the leafy boughs of the trees, it was possible to make out the well-kept residences on the opposite side of the street, some of which had three storeys.

Standing in the middle of the room, I turned and looked at Ciggy. Ciggy hung back by the door and let me explore the room, watching me with a smirk of curiosity on his lips. There was a lot I wanted to touch and examine, but the accoutrements of this room could wait. There was something else I wanted to do first. I stripped hurriedly, impetuously jettisoning the trappings of my clothes and shedding them like they were some cumbersome accessory. Ciggy watched. I wanted to get naked and hard for him. I wanted to be free to show him my body, which I knew he loved. I wanted him to sex me up and use me. I wanted to feel him inside me, rooting my little cunt, stabbing his big teen fuckstick deep into my boyhole.

I was already hard as I tossed all my clothes onto the floor recklessly, and threw my naked little body right into the middle of his big bed. It was a deep, springy one, the type of mattress which you sank into as though it was going to swallow you up. I bounced back up, and stretched out, putting my hands behind my head, totally relaxed.

"I can't believe I'm actually here," I said contentedly, staring up at the ceiling fan.

Ciggy came over and sat on the edge of the bed, one foot on the floor, and looked over my naked body, smiling in appreciation. I enjoyed the way his warm brown eyes roved over my nakedness as I was stretched out before him.

"Happy?" he asked.

I smiled and nodded. I was on a high – seeing all this for the first time, now invited into Ciggy's personal space – his house, his room, his bed… the house he grew up in, the room he inhabited as a young boy, probably the very bed where he used to fuck his little brother Allie. It was all so exciting for me.

I squirmed about coquettishly on the bed, and openly fondled my hardened little dick. Ciggy's eyes were drawn to my crotch. I was offering myself to him, and he knew it. Little Cloud was pointing straight up, leaning slightly towards my tummy, sticking out from my crotch like a little hook. My cantilevered little fuckstick was inordinately hard, aching to be played with. But Ciggy was determined to make me wait.

"You're such a lil fuckboy," he said, and I assumed he meant it as a compliment, "You're just too good to be true lil man. You're just like Allie. He was hot and horny, just like you."

I stared back at Ciggy with a frown, not really bothered by the comparison, but surprised at the unexpected mention of Allie.

"Sorry," he said, a little downbeat, "I didn't mean to compare."

"That's okay. Go on, tell me about Allie," I said, genuinely interested.

"You really wanna know?" Ciggy asked, looking for signs of interest in my expression.

I nodded encouragingly. That elicited a smile from Ciggy, like he relished the opportunity to talk openly about Allie.

"Oh Cloud…" he said, happy that he had my permission to talk freely, and he finally made himself comfortable on the bed next to me.

I scooted over to make room for him, and he looked across at me, reclined on the pillow next to him.

"He was the nicest kid. Bright, cheerful, precocious…"

He turned his gaze away and focused down on the comforter. "He was a beautiful boy too," he went on, becoming slightly more circumspect, "cute as a button."

Ciggy looked back up at me. "You're just like him in many ways."

Then he sat up, indicating that he wanted to make a more serious point, and he looked deep into my eyes.

"I still miss him y' know."

And as he said that, I could see his eyes glaze over with tears. Then I knew that the memory of his little brother was still very poignant for him, and he was struggling to keep his emotions at bay. I rose up, leaned over, and hugged him, comforting him in the same way as he had comforted me, feeling that even my little body against his was of some comfort, and my small hands rubbing his back was some consolation to this older boy who, though he was so much more mature than me, had shown himself to be equally as vulnerable.

As we sat there on the bed, hugging, Little Cloud was painfully stiff in my crotch. He had been virtually from the moment we walked in. And in all the time we talked, my little dick was as hard as a nail, poking upwards, hot and stiff and begging to be smacked about. I could almost see the little droplets of precum seeping from my little cockhead, creating a shiny little blob on the tip. I don't know how Ciggy resisted the temptation to attack my little dick. I wanted him to. I wanted him to jack my stiffie in his big fist, or to swallow my hardness in his warm, wet suctioning lips and make it spunk right into his handsome head, just like he had on our picnic that glorious afternoon in the Verolino countryside the day after we first met.

I was happy when Ciggy finally stretched out next to me on the bed and we started kissing. He was still fully clothed, which was unusually erotic. His clothed body against my naked frame made me feel very small and vulnerable. He threw himself over me and kissed me all over, even giving a few token sucks on my little stiffie. As he gorged on my lips, he played with my dickie, squeezing it a little in his big fist, and pulling it this way and that. I thrust my eager, horny little body against him, humping my hips into him, grazing the sensitive skin of my little cockhead and snagging my tender foreskin against the roughness of his clothing.

Eventually, when we both could not stand the anticipation any longer, Ciggy finally started taking his clothes off. I don't know why he waited – he must have been anxious to sex me up. I could see his dick, long and hard in his pants, begging to be released. It was worth the wait. If Ciggy's intention was to ratchet up the anticipation, it worked. He slipped off his shirt, revealing that gorgeous teen body for me, and I saw how smooth and tanned his skin was. His body had a very inviting biscuity tint to it. He was very toned, tight and muscular, and when he bent over to slip down his pants, I saw the beautiful way his lean, compact torso curved ever so lithely. When he took his pants down, his dick was already hard. He was primed for sex – cocked and ready to fire, already stiff with arousal at what was in the offing. It was the first time I had seen his dick hard. When he first revealed that beautiful dick to me, I almost gasped in awe. It was magnificent. Long, thick, beautifully cut, with a proud, pink conical head, and a gentle curvature to it that made the piss-slit point to the ceiling. It was technically perfect – proud and tumescent and threateningly large – oh fuck I wanted it in me. It was so beautiful I wanted to lick it, I wanted to taste it, I wanted to take a bite out of it; I wanted to shove it so far down my throat I wanted to swallow it whole – I wanted to take it deep into my little cunt, I wanted to feel it pounding my gland, fucking the spunk out of me, to fuck me till I was dizzy, rooting painfully into my most intimate place, sheathing its girth in my tight little snatch and pumping its steaming seed deep into my little body – oh fuck I wanted that cock to do stuff to me real bad.

When Ciggy was ready, he pushed me down onto the bed quite roughly, and I knew he meant business. He had a solemn, resolute expression, fixed in concentration. He knelt between my opened legs and positioned himself between my knees. He said nothing, but then words were not needed. I raised my knees, and what I liked was that Ciggy automatically put his big hands behind my knees, folding my legs up against my chest. He scooted closer, settled himself on top of me, and planted an arm either side of me, with my knees hooked around his elbows, pinning my legs back so he could fuck me. I loved that. His head was somewhere between my ankles, as my feet pointed up in the air, and he raised his butt to enter me. He looked into my eyes just on the threshold of that magic moment, both of us flush with arousal, and held his big dick in place, poised for penetration. I looked back up at him, hyperventilating with anticipation.

"I've waited so long for this," he whispered, his eyes narrowing wistfully.

"Me too," I whispered, still pinned beneath him.

"Ready?" he asked.

I nodded, yielding completely to him. My hands gripped his strong biceps, squeezing the powerful arms that were at that moment holding me captive.

"Please go easy on me," I begged plaintively, looking up at him, "I'm still a little sore."

He nodded assuredly, with an expression that told me he would try not to hurt me.

"Now fuck me," I said, tersely.

He pressed his stiff teen dick against my hole, still pinning my thighs against my chest, and glared at me, gripped by the powerful erotic desire that had been denied him for so long. But his hesitation was sweet torture.

"Please fuck it into me," I pleaded, just managing to get my words out between short, sharp breaths.

Then he did. He fucked it into me so hard, he made me cry out. It was a childish vocalization of shock and pain, which I tried to stifle. I always loved the shock of that initial, penetrative thrust which prized my little ring open. This time it hurt more than ever, but the pleasure masked the pain of my battered little chute. As his teen fuckstick violently invaded my body, I screwed up my face and felt the sting of tears in my eyes. I could feel the tears brimming over and trailing down my temples. But I don't know if they were tears of pain, tears of relief, tears of sexual expression, or simply unrestrained joy. At last, Ciggy was inside me.

The instant Ciggy first entered me was a seminal moment and one which I shall remember for the rest of my life. I had dreamed of this moment. I had wished for it. I had even pulled my little todger fantasizing about it, cumming hard at the prospect of Ciggy's dick inside me. He had too. He had said so. And so, when he forced that beautiful dick into my little fuckbox, finally connecting us sexually, it was like a spiritual as well as a physical coupling. It felt right. As though we were a perfect fit. Like we were meant to be together. What confirmed it for me was that we both cummed almost instantly, and in unison. No sooner had his big teen dick bottomed out in my little cunt, he groaned loudly and pumped an enormous load into me. He hadn't even taken a single stroke. He merely sank it into me, and cummed straight away. I guess the anticipation of this moment, the build up, had been so intense, that the moment he felt his dick swallowed right to the root in the tight warmth of my little snatch, it overwhelmed him. And that dick let go with a force that I could feel deep inside the walls of my chute, filling my little cunt and bathing it in the scalding heat of his fuckjuice. As soon as I felt his dick let go, and the thickness of his teenage rod pressing hard against my gland, something in my brain snapped and my little cock let go in sympathy. I cummed hard and exhaled sharply, feeling as though all the air had been knocked out of my lungs. I was overwhelmed by the sweet ecstasy of the orgasm Ciggy initiated. My whole pubic region pulsed violently around his cock, my own little dick spitting out a gooey bullet of cloudy kidspunk two or three inches [5-7 cm] into the air which landed on my chest. The rest of my meager little fuckwad fittingly ran down my shaft and around my hairless balls and pooled around my star, even with Ciggy's dick buried in it to the hilt. Thus, my kidspunk anointed his big teen dick with an introductory sperming, whilst his teen fuckload was injected emphatically and irredeemably deep inside my hot little snatch.

Still on top of me, Ciggy paused. He raised his head and looked down into my eyes as I was pinned beneath him, his big dick still firmly embedded in my little boycunt.

"You're mine now," he said.

I remember thinking what an apt remark that was. We were finally united, our bodies now irretrievably connected, with his essence inside me, and we kissed.

What amazed me was that Ciggy didn't pull out. He stayed in me after he had cum, and took a few delicious stabs in and out. His massaging of my gland kept my boydick as hard as an iron pole. Even after such a powerful cum, Little Cloud was fully alert, straining with hardness, inordinately reinforced by the feelings that Ciggy was infusing into my little body. I felt small, weak, powerless, and totally at his mercy. He could do whatever he wanted with me. Feeling his big, proficient dick rooting into my chute sent volts of electricity all the way from my eager little fuckhole, up my spine and into my brain, totally subduing me with sheer pleasure. From that moment, I became his slave. Once he had relieved the initial imperative to blow his big teen load into my butt for the first time, he was able to continue fucking. I had known a few tricks who used that technique. It was a well known ploy for premature ejaculators. If they were likely to cum too quickly, it was a good idea to blow them or jack them off first, to relieve the initial excitement. Cumming a second time usually took longer, and so they were able to enjoy a proper fuck and relish the experience of fucking a hot little shota boy cunt without blowing their load too quickly and without risking the anticlimax of the proceedings culminating too soon.

Ciggy fucked me good. By now he was confident in our union, and he lifted me off the bed, still impaled on the giant plug of his dick. He lifted my small, trembling frame in his strong arms, holding my whole body up, supporting me with his big hands under my butt. I was wrapped around him with my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. He was thrusting up into me, and as he was doing that, holding me close, our bodies enmeshed like that, he was murmuring into my ear, softly.

"You're mine, mine, mine…"

And with each thrust of his pelvis he would say "Mine, mine…" Fuck, it was so erotic.

He was rapidly heading for another cum, and as he was stabbing his hips into me, his brown eyes widened and he smiled in gratitude and delight, looking straight at me even as he was focused on his big dick thrusting in and out of my sopping little butt, already dripping wet with his first teen spunkload.

"Ah! You're making me cum again!" he uttered breathlessly, as he neared another orgasm.

He sounded as though this was a surprise to him, but paying me the ultimate compliment by acknowledging me, like it was me that was doing this to him, except that it was actually him that was doing it.

He cummed again very quickly, with a minimum of stimulation, it seemed. His body trembled with the violence of his orgasm, so tangible that he made my little body quake in sympathy, and he squeezed my tiny frame against him even as I was still impaled on him. His spunkwad was just as hot and watery as the first one, and just as ample in quantity, drenching my chute once more with his hot teen sperm.

When he had cum twice, he finally unplugged his dick from my hole. Then he lowered me back down and placed me gently on the bed, with my feet jutting out over the edge, and he knelt on the end of the bed looking down at me. He was slightly breathless, but his cock was still hard. It was shiny and wet, his cut cockhead glistening with his own fuckslime. I thought he was going to stop and rest at this point, after all he had just had two very powerful cums in rapid succession. He seemed to pause for a few seconds, and I liked the way he admired me, his dominant gaze taking in the sight of the little boy he had just subjugated, appreciating the youthful form that he had just roughly violated with that threateningly big cock, the young body that had just received his steaming hot teen spunk.

"Geez, that was fantastic lil man," he murmured.

But instead of lying down on the bed next to me, breaking off our fucking, he pulled me up. He held me close to him, with his arm around the small of my back, suspended from his strong teen body. His expression told me that he wasn't ready to rest just yet. The look in his eyes was full of lust and sexual desire.

"I'm gonna fuck you again," he announced, emphatically.

I liked the way he emphasized the word 'fuck' like this time he really meant it, as though to imply that up to now he was only toying with me and the real fucking was about to commence. The way he said 'fuck' with such vehemence, made Little Cloud pulse perceptibly, hardening up in anticipation of a good hard pummeling, and it sent a little jolt of delight all through me.

Despite two profoundly powerful orgasms, Ciggy was still inordinately horny and determined to subject my body to his every sexual whim. Apparently he was not yet sated. He wanted more. His still hard dick was at full mast. He took up position, opened my legs, and closed in to fuck me again. His strong, teenage body covered me, and he assaulted my snatch one more time, thrusting his stiff teen dick up into me again as though he was carrying on where he left off. Far from breaking off, he entered into a renewed bout of fucking. It was as though he had found his second wind, throwing himself into it with reinforced energy and vigor.

Ciggy teased me and toyed with my body for hours. He worked me up into such a frenzy that I was inordinately horny. Much more than usual. He took things to a new level, crossing a previously unknown threshold of sexual desire, where the need to fuck, to satisfy the sexual urge was focused only on extracting maximum pleasure out of each other and pushing the boundaries of super-sexual performance to the point where that primal urge became oppressive, obsessive and all-consuming, as though it became – at that moment – more important even than survival itself. He fucked me for a long time. He used me as his own personal fucktoy. He thoroughly wrested every last grain of pleasure out of me, bending my body into shapes of his own choosing, sticking his stiffness hard into every part of me, injecting a hot fuckload into my hole, into my mouth, over my face and chest. He cummed repeatedly, until he had run out of holes to fuck and hairless skin to smother in his copious teen fuckjuice. Tell the truth, he hurt me. He bruised my already abused body and made my already sore muscles ache. But I wanted it. I wanted him to abuse me. I wanted him to hurt me. I let him do whatever he wanted. I was brave for him. I bore the pain and the discomfort and the sheer exhaustion, because I loved him. I loved this boy and all the extreme things he was doing to me, for I had no doubt, in all the many hours I spent being blasted by his cum, or filled by his pulsing teen cock, that this was his expression of the deep affection he had for me. I had been fucked by many men, more than I could ever choose to count. I had been fucked roughly and I had been fucked slowly; I had been fucked cruelly and I had been fucked lovingly. But I had never been fucked the way Ciggy fucked me. No, this was a different level of fucking entirely.

On one occasion, I was on my knees, bent underneath him on the bed, with him fucking me doggy-style, the curvature of his bigger body perfectly matched to my smaller frame underneath him, and he had his big hand splayed on my tummy, holding me in place as his dick savaged my little cunt, and he was breathing heavily into the back of my head.

"Oh yeh!" he would exclaim, "Feel it with me," he would whisper.

It was an invitation for me to share the orgasm with him, as though he could synchronize our cums just by vocalizing it. The amazing thing was that it worked. It was as if those words set into motion a launch sequence, a countdown to ignition which made us both cum together, so that he would pump my little butt, and with his other hand, reach around and mechanically jack my little dick, timing it perfectly so that my little orgasm coincided with his. It was as though both my cock and cunt were being assaulted at the same time – my whole pubic region being attacked by him both back and front, like there was no escape from the things he was doing to me. I could feel my dick straining in his big fist at the same time as my little cunt contracted violently around his own spunking cock. Oh fuck, it was fantastic. The best sex ever.

When at last he broke off, if not just to get his breath back, he was kneeling between my opened legs, looking down at me. But I didn't want him to stop. My body needed him.

"Fuck me again," I implored him, almost distressed at how much I wanted him.

He smiled at that, and stuck his fingers into my little boycunt, as though to compensate for the vacancy created by his recuperating cock. He dug two fingers in as far as he could, hooking his fingers so that they scraped the inside of my already battered little fuckchute, and he made me moan. He seemed to like that. When he withdrew his fingers from my little fuckbox, they were slimy with cum, soiled with the fuckloads he had already injected into my snatch. I already had Ciggy inside me, his thick and sticky essence – the residue of the liquid love he had deposited inside me – an intimate part of him that he gifted to me to demonstrate the extent of his love for me.

"Please fuck me," I said again.

Ciggy said nothing. He merely positioned me on the pillow and got up on his knees, towering over me threateningly. His big teen dick looked evil and menacing – sticking up proudly, thick and hard, looking like he was about to punish me with it. I grabbed it, desperate for him to use it on me, and curled my little fingers around its scalding girth. He paused and looked down at me plaintively grasping his equipment and he smiled perversely.

That night, Ciggy made love to me in every conceivable position. He was relentless. He fucked me hard for hours, and for so long that I almost lost track of time. He fucked me till I was dizzy with his thrusting, till my body was thoroughly used up by him, consumed by his erotic drive, so thoroughly toyed with like I was his own personal object of amusement, there to take his cock in every conceivable way and to accept his every spunkload wherever he chose to deposit it. He squirted in every hole, cumming repeatedly, fucking me to orgasm again and again. It was incredible. He would pummel me hard, pneumatically driving his big teen dick in and out, inject his hot spunk into me, then turn me over and start again, seemingly wanting to repeat the ecstasy over and over again. This was oppressive, hard, unforgiving sex. We were not making love anymore. We were fucking. We were feeding off each other's bodies, gorging on each other's libidos, desperate to burst our loads into and over each other; him into my tight little cunt and over my pretty face, me into his warm, suctioning mouth.

Ciggy fucked me lying face down on the bed and doggy-style with him behind me. He fucked me on his lap with me astride him, facing him. He fucked me bent over the edge of the bed, and my favorite, on my back with my knees up to my chest and Ciggy flowing above me, his face inches from mine, driving his big teen dick into me from above. On another occasion he fucked me lying on my side. He scooted up behind me and lifted my uppermost leg, hooking his elbow under my knee, and folding my leg up so he could get access to my hole. He was the only guy who ever did that, and I could tell from the ease and familiarity that he did it, that it was a position he had used many times before, maybe when he was fucking Allie. He fucked me so hard and for so long I was almost delirious. He was unstoppable, no doubt determined to make up for lost time. He had certainly not forgotten how to use that weapon of his.

Ciggy filled my little cunt so many times that I lost count, before he finally fell asleep, chewing on a piece of his favorite gum. He had exhausted himself in his pursuit to inject every last drop of his eager teen spunk deep inside me. I laid there, weak and floppy, thoroughly spent, overflowing with his fuckjuice, feeling as though he had filled me to the brim. I laid there just watching him, happy for him and looking on in awe at this beautiful young man, this sexual dynamo that had infused so much pleasure into me. I myself wasn't able to sleep. Funny, it was so quiet that I just couldn't sleep. But that didn't matter. I was just so overawed by my new surroundings that I was happy just to lie next to Ciggy in his big bed, and watch his silent breaths, as his breast was gently rising and falling under the comforter.

Hours later, as the dawn broke, and the birds had just started singing, Ciggy woke up. He had slept well, whereas I had slept only fitfully. And when he opened his eyes, he saw me smiling down at him. He broke into a smile, his moist lips gliding ever so gracefully over his perfect white teeth.

"Hi lil man," he murmured, and executed a long, slow stretch, just like a cat.

"Hi," I replied.

"Still up?" he asked.

I looked down very deliberately at my crotch where I had thrown off the covers, and his gaze followed mine. Little Cloud was poking up insistently, eternally hard.

"Yup," I said, and we both giggled in unison.

He crawled on top of me and we started kissing. He held my head as he went to town on my lips, his fingers digging into my scalp as he held my head there, with my disheveled dirty-blond mop now scrambled untidily over the pillow.

Coming up for air, he raised his head and looked down at me, still lying on top of me, and I could feel his big teen dick was hard again.

"Whadya say we have another piece o' gum and then do it one more time?"

It seemed he was immediately ready to pick up where we left off.

"My butt's sore," I replied, with a mischievous smirk.

Ciggy planted another kiss on my mouth. It was an affectionate kiss, short and sweet, like a friendly little nip.

"My dick is sore," he countered, "But I just love that sweet ass of yours."

He moved off me and rolled me over onto my stomach.

"I'm so hard for you lil man, you make my cock ache."

"We'll have to do something about that, won't we?" I giggled, muffled into the pillow.

He climbed on top of me, sitting astride my butt, and I could feel the weight of his substantial teen body pressing my hips into the mattress. Then he leaned over me, and whispered into my ear.

"I'm so into you kid. Geez, I'm so into you I just wanna fill you up with spunk."

He was really getting the hang of this dirty talk. I was loving it.

"Go ahead," I said, playfully, egging him on, "Fill 'er up!"

And with that, he settled himself on top of me, opened his legs and covered my butt. I could feel his heavy blood-engorged dick resting on my butt crack, tickling it tantalizingly, as if giving notice of what he was about to do. I buried my face into the pillow, waiting for his assault. There was a moment of quiet concentration, as though he was contemplating what to do, mustering his reserves, and then suddenly, almost without warning, he quickly thrust his dick into my snatch. He did it with such violence, and yet with such accuracy, that he was inside me in an instant. I barely had time to assimilate what was going on. He breathed deeply, appreciating the exquisite pleasure of burying his dick deep into my boypussy, and it gladdened my heart. I felt truly warm and happy inside because I knew how much he had missed this – the best thing in the world; what all men craved: a hot, tight, willing little shota boy cunt. At last I was able to give that to him. At last he was able to experience that pleasure once again. I was happy that it was me who was able to give that to him. Yes, it was MY little cunt. The best there was. He deserved it.

Once again we lost ourselves in the heady world of sex – that elusive Brigadoon where our fantasies can flourish unimpeded; that fleeting realm of unknown pleasure where the mundane tribulations of everyday life pale into unimportance and where only the pursuit of those carnal pleasures matter; that secret, forbidden place in our hearts and minds where only sex exists. Ciggy set to work on my little body once again. He made me cum continuously. My little dick was in perpetual orgasm. I had cum so many times that there were traces of blood in my kidspunk. In fact, I had no kidspunk left. I was practically dry-cumming. It felt like my well was dry and my little balls were ejaculating traces of blood instead. I remembered what Guus had taught me about seeing blood in your spunk – that it was a sign that you should stop. But the problem was that I couldn't stop. Ciggy was making me cum repeatedly, seemingly at will, like he could control every function of my body, toying with every physiological function for his own amusement, laughing every time I was gripped by that elusive seizure of orgasm, admiring the way my little dick waggled uncontrollably in my crotch as it tried to eject the kidspunk that had long ago run dry. It was starting to hurt, but I needed it. Though it was tinged with pain, the joy of Ciggy's ministrations on my little dick made me a slave to the feelings he induced. I was addicted to him, controlled by the sexual narcotic he infused into my body. Like a dope fiend, I let him carry on toying with me, unable to deny myself this sweet pleasure, drunk on the ecstasy of it all, and willing to submit myself to him until my body was all used up, until he had extracted every last iota of pleasure and abandoned me to die. But what a beautiful death it would have been.

Finally, Ciggy pulled out of me and laid on the bed next to me, breathing so fast it was almost as though he had been running.

"Oh geez Cloud," he exclaimed, "No one's ever done that to me before."

"Done what?" I asked, puzzled.

"Made me cum so much and so hard."

He rolled towards me and we stared at each other, face to face, on the pillow.

"I've never felt like this before," he went on, incredulous, "You really do something to me kid."

I didn't really know what he meant. But I didn't much care. There would be plenty of time for reflection later. Right now I just wanted to fuck.

"Can we do it doggy-style now?" I asked, mischievously.

Ciggy laughed, like he thought my precocity was cute, and he smiled broadly. I turned towards him and for a change I initiated a kiss. I think he didn't expect that, because up till then it was Ciggy always leading the way. But I wanted to show him that I valued him too, and that sometimes I wanted to reward him with little tokens of affection, as unremarkable as they were.

We decided to break off from our marathon fuckfest to forage in the kitchen for sustenance. Our bodies were still in a state of arousal, flushed and sweaty. But for the moment we entered a hiatus in the proceedings that allowed us to rest, recuperate for a short interval, and take on nourishment, interrupted from our primal rutting by the need to satisfy our thirst and hunger. First, we both stood around the toilet bowl, peeing in unison, and I looked at Ciggy's substantial teen dick as he held it there between his fingers. It was a beautiful dick, even when not erect. I admired the way it was so perfectly cut, with that trim, rounded, pinkish head and such silky texture to the skin which was a slightly darker shade than the rest of him. It was a formidable dick, especially now that I had seen what it was capable of. Dicks were my specialist subject, and I was in awe of beautiful, potent teen dicks like Ciggy's.

Ciggy saw me checking out his shit and he giggled. Aware that I was openly ogling him, he reached over and ruffled my hair tenderly, amused by the look of fascination on my face.

"You're such a lil fuckboy," he said affectionately.

I was flattered by that. To me, it was the greatest compliment.

After peeing, we both ambled into the kitchen with only one outfit between us – him in only his pants, me in only a shirt. He was naked from the waist up and I was naked from the waist down. What I liked was that I was wearing Ciggy's shirt, which was long and baggy on me, and came all the way down to my thighs, beneath which only my bare legs were visible. But it was a nice shirt, cut from a fine, quality cloth. The nicest thing about it was that it still retained Ciggy's scent. It was a heady, lightly perfumed aroma, infused with inherent maleness, and I loved that I was able to carry his smell around with me.

We went into the kitchen and Ciggy lifted me up onto the counter, his strong arms assisting me as I hopped up, and I settled next to him as he worked. I could feel the cool, hard granite beneath my bare butt. We were at eye level, so I smiled at him because I loved the way he did little things like that for me. As I sat there, with my hands tucked between my bare thighs, he stopped and looked at me very closely for a moment, his warm brown eyes glinting with admiration, and he seemed to smile benevolently. He chuckled.

"Look," he said, indicating something on my face, "You missed a bit."

And he leaned over towards me as I sat there, on that granite counter top, and gently dabbed a fingertip just on the corner of my lips, and showed it to me. It was a little blob of spunk – his spunk – the remnants of our sex games, the unmistakable evidence of our cock-to-mouth antics that had coaxed countless droplets of Ciggy's teen spunk from his heavy, fertile balls, ejected with such force out of his virile teen cock, pelting my young features with his copious fuckjuice, the best part of which I had licked off, which had travelled eagerly down my throat, and was now sitting warmly in my tummy.

"It suits you," he said admiring me, "You look good with my jizz on you."

I chuckled lovingly at his dirty talk.

"Maybe I'll paint your pretty face some more," he said in jest, "put some on the other side just to make it symmetrical."

How I loved his dirty talk, and I quickly sucked the tip of his finger as he held it there, sensing the merest taste of the now cool droplet of his sperm that he had wiped from my cheek. He liked it, and stuck two fingers into my mouth, piercing my puckered lips. It was a cute, loving, suggestive gesture, and I liked the way he stabbed his fingers deep into my mouth, so symptomatic of the way his big teen dick had been buried so deeply, so emphatically into my little boycunt earlier. No part of my body was off limits to him. He could explore every part of me. He could insinuate himself into every little fold and cavity of my physiology. I wanted him to. His fingers invaded my mouth, roving over my teeth and eager little tongue, and I bit down gently on them, hurting him in the same way his big cock had hurt me, eliciting a muted little grimace from him just as he had elicited a squeal of joy and pain earlier when he had punched his teen dick through my willing little sphincter.

Withdrawing his fingers, now slick with my spit, he stepped closer to me, holding my head in his hands, his palms over my ears, and he stared into my eyes at point blank range with a wondrous, mystified expression.

"You're so fuckin' beautiful Cloud Nine," he said, "I don't think I'll ever tire of lookin' at that pretty face."

Then, still holding my head, he kissed me very hard on the mouth, and stepped back to admire me again from a safer distance, pleased with me.

"I love you lil man. I really do."

I looked up at him, smiling with humility, and flattered that he was able to vocalize his feelings so readily – something which didn't come quite so easily to me.

"I… I think I love you too," I said hesitantly.

That made him smile, chuffed and vaguely amused by my words.

"You mean you don't know for sure?" he said, teasingly.

I attempted to explain.

"It's just that I never… I mean, I haven't…"

"It's okay lil man," Ciggy cut in, "You don't need to justify yourself to me."

And I could see from the look on his face that there was genuine consideration there. He really wasn't perturbed by my awkwardness and seemed to understand. That was when I knew for sure that it really didn't matter. His love for me was unconditional – it did not depend on whether I loved him or not.

Ciggy then turned to the business in hand, remembering what we had come in here for. He stood in front of this enormous silver refrigerator that had double doors, looking almost as though he was about to step inside. He threw both doors open and the contents of the refrigerator were illuminated by an almost dazzling interior light, revealing a cavernous trove of unimaginable goodies.

"We need energy," said Ciggy, surveying the multifarious array of tins and jars before him, "lots of energy."

Then he grabbed a few tubs and jars and polythene wrapped packets, threw them all down on the counter and started making sandwiches. I watched him, still perched up on the counter, in awe of how domesticated he was, and impressed by his efficiency in the kitchen. Within minutes he handed me a thick, skew-cut sandwich that was crammed full of some jam-like filling which was oozing from the sides. I held it up and looked at it with interest.

"A traditional American delicacy," he announced, "peanut butter and jelly."

I didn't question it. When in Rome, I thought.

Ciggy then stuffed the tubs and jars back in the fridge and tossed the knives into the sink, picking up his sandwich.

"C'mon," said Ciggy, ushering me towards the door, "let's go back upstairs and see if you really do love me."

Already munching on our sandwiches, and clutching cans of chilled soda, we turned, arm in arm, to go up the stairs, passing the open doorway to the living room. I could see Ciggy's father standing there, watching us with a bemused expression, and he opened his mouth to raise an objection, but his wife stopped him. She stepped up behind him and nudged him with her elbow.

"Uh uh," she chided, as though to indicate he should not voice his thoughts.

Ciggy and I reached the top of the stairs and we stepped into his bedroom, emphatically closing the door behind us. No sooner was the door closed, Ciggy took the spoils from my hands, almost before I could take another bite, and placed my half-eaten sandwich and can of soda on the bookcase by the door. Then he pushed me onto the bed right there and whipped off his pants. He couldn't even wait to get my shirt off. He flipped me over, face down on the bed, hitched up my shirt to expose my butt, and mounted me. Without any preliminaries, he was instantly inside me, quickly burying his stiff teen dick into me one more time. He penetrated me easily. My hole was still slimy from his previous spunkloads. He laid on me, pinioned into the comforter by his weight, and he whispered into my ear as his stiffness rooted deep into my little snatch.

"I love you so much lil man. Your lil tunnel feels so good."

He needed this. Boy, did he need it. He said nothing more, he just fucked me hard, the bed jiggling rhythmically as he rocked my body beneath him, hammering hard into my little cunt. Outside the door, at the bottom of the stairs, I could hear Ciggy's mom.

"No Jim, leave him be. He's an adult now. He can do whatever he likes. Just trust him, and be grateful that he's home safe and alive."

Ciggy's father did not reply. That was when I knew that Ciggy was home free and everything was going to be alright.

As Ciggy's beautiful teen body labored away above me, I once again submitted to the wonderful sensations he was inducing into my erogenous little snatch, and I laid beneath him, overwhelmed by the pleasure that he was infusing throughout my little body. I thought about how I came to be here and what had given rise to this perfect moment. Right now, Verolino seemed a million miles away. Like another world. Another lifetime. Catapulted from that hellhole, here we were in Ciggy's parent's house, in his bedroom – the very room he had grown up in before he had gone off to Europe and got tangled up in the war. It was so quiet here. So pleasant. So civilized. The road outside the window was not teeming with trucks and soldiers, but was mostly deserted, except for the odd shiny family sedan gliding serenely by. The streets were not characterized by rubble and shell craters, but grassy verges, well-kept lawns and tall, shady trees. And the air didn't echo to the sound of the distant rumble of artillery or the smattering of machine gun fire, like firecrackers in the distance. Instead there was the sound of children's laughter as they played on the lush green lawns, and the sweetness of birdsong, so random and pointless, and yet one of the nicest sounds there was. Here I was at last. America! This crazy, fascinating country that I had read so much about; this paradoxical, beautiful country with all its flaws and contradictions. America! The land of the free! At last I was here. And as Ciggy was rooting his big teen dick into me, thoroughly pummeling me into the mattress, I was lying there giving him free reign on my little body, and thinking how happy I was at last. What could be better than lying in this bed, in this house, in this street, in this country, with Ciggy's beautiful teen dick piledriving up my veteran little shota boy cunt, with all the pleasurable sensations that were surging through my hairless little frame. I twisted around to see Ciggy above me, pulling out for a moment and kneeling there, with his stiff cock jutting out, slimy with the residue of his previous cums, threateningly poised to re-enter me, and he smiled, exposing his perfect white teeth. I smiled back, thus confirming that I was enjoying this as much as he was. Those smiles were a confirmation of our regard for each other, an exchange of true love, and I realized at that moment how much I actually loved this boy. Our love was real and deep and profound. It was all I ever needed. All I ever wanted. Happy at last, I turned my head and buried my face back into the pillow, and I closed my eyes, steeling myself for yet another punishingly hard fuck.

The End