Chapter Twelve

Morning came far, far too early for the 12-year-old. His entire body ached, top to bottom, stem to stern. Where he didn't have actual bruises, which were very few places, his muscles and joints felt achy and sore. This was especially true of his jaw. It hurt to open it even a little bit. Marek knew it would hurt to drink. It would hurt even more to eat. He shut off the alarm in a haze and immediately fell asleep again. There simply was no way he could get out of bed.

Radek genuinely tried to wake him, but he was too afraid to aggravate Marek by doing something aggressive like stealing his blanket or trying to pull the boy off the bed to the floor. Marek sighed and moaned as his roommate tapped and prodded him but he remained virtually dead to the world. If he did awaken long enough to know that Radek was there, he gave no sign of it. The instant the redheaded boy stopped trying, Marek went still again. Eventually, Radek gave up and went to breakfast on his own, but he did manage to negotiate for some extra food and returned with a plate with bread, cheese, butter, ham, and a cup of sweet lemony tea that he left on Marek's desk. Then, with his roommate still dead to the world, he went to class.

When teachers asked about Marek's absence, Radek told them that the boy had seemed ill and probably had a fever, as that was the least likely thing to get punished for when it came to missing classes. A teacher told the nurse, who already had a few boys down with a fever and one with a sprained ankle. She made it to Marek's room just after 10:00 a.m.

Marek still was sleeping when she arrived, but he awakened and even sat up a bit as she entered the room. He knew instantly that he was in trouble and that the nurse's visit posed a particular danger to him. While the pajamas covered the worst of his bruising, if the nurse wanted to make an examination of his body, the severity of his recent beating would be evident to her immediately and difficult questions would be asked. That would be a disaster, especially now after Marek already had paid the high price for Tichy's protection with his mouth and ass.

"Alright, Hurta, what's wrong?" she asked the still-groggy boy. "Is your throat sore? If it's just a cold, I'll leave you with some vitamins and aspirin and you'll get two more days off school, but don't let me see you running about during that time," she said.

"Hold this under your arm," she passed him a glass thermometer. "And don't wiggle, or I'll use the rectal one," she smiled, not realizing how frightening a proposition that was for Marek right now.

"I- I'm fine. I feel fine. I think I- I just overslept," he said to the nurse. He glanced at his alarm clock to catch the time and his blood instantly ran cold in his veins. It was after 10 o'clock! Drábek's class would have started now and he had completely missed the music lesson already. He had also missed breakfast. Marek blanched at the trouble he already was in, looking pale and sick at precisely the wrong moment, as the nurse still was there evaluating what was wrong with him. Now, he really did feel sick.

This was not good. Not good at all. There was bound to be a price to pay for what he had just done, and if the nurse made him stay out of school, it would be infinitely worse with Mr. Tichy. The man would cane him for sure. Marek moaned softly in distress – which wasn't missed by the nurse, who looked at him oddly.

"Really, ma'am, I'm fine," Marek repeated. He really wanted her to leave so he could get dressed and rush to class. "I just overslept."

Marek swung his legs over the side of the bed, but when he tried to stand, he nearly fell to the floor and had to sit back down on the mattress, all the while trying to fake that everything was okay and that he felt fine. Every bone and muscle in his body seemed to be aching fiercely at the same time.

"Are you trying to get yourself expelled, young man?" the nurse asked, seemingly either ignoring or not picking up on Marek's sorry state. "You can't just skip two sessions oversleeping. Rushing to class five minutes late is oversleeping. This is something else altogether, and if you didn't look so pale, I'd call it slacking off."

Marek listened to the nurse, trying to acknowledge what she was saying and speed the woman along at the same time. He had to get to class! The boy felt as if there were a clock ticking in his brain – tick, tick, tick, tick – counting every second he was late. He had already broken Tichy's rule about eating. And he much more than vaguely remembered the older boys warning him not to miss class, just as he fell into his sleep-coma last night. Tichy was not going to be pleased. And the longer this went on, the less pleased he was going to be. He might also decide that Marek had failed his initiation and that everything from last night had been for nothing.

"I'll tell you what," the nurse continued as she sat at his desk, taking out her pen and opening her notebook. "Take the vitamins and the aspirin. I'll write it down as nausea with an upset stomach. Eat what you have there," she said as she pointed to the breakfast Radek had left for him. "Take it easy, have a light lunch, drink lots, and take it easy this afternoon," she said, while writing out the note that would explain his absence.

Marek listened with a sinking feeling and watched her write. The nurse's note would prevent him from getting into trouble with the teachers and Skala but Mr. Tichy was another, much more serious matter. He took the note as the nurse handed it to him. It had an added admonishment, written in all caps – "NO TRAINING OR P.E. – REMAINDER OF WEEK" – and Marek's face paled noticeably as he read it. The boy knew then that he was doomed. Mr. Tichy was going to be livid. Marek knew that he would get the cane, now, for sure.

The nurse noted his disappointment and tried to smile reassuringly.

"I think you just overdid it during the match and it's catching up with you," she said as she stood to her feet to leave. "You clearly have a case of muscle fever, fatigue, and exhaustion. If I see you as much as setting foot on the pitch or in the gymnasium, I'll drag you out of there and lock you up in the infirmary for the rest of the week. And trust me, boy, I'm not joking," she said with a frown as she popped a fizzy multivitamin tablet into a glass of fresh water for him, took the thermometer back, and walked out of the room.

Once the woman had left, Marek sprang from his bed – at least, that is what his brain commanded him to do. His body, on the other hand, had second thoughts about complying, and Marek looked like a cross between a geriatric kangaroo and a crippled giraffe as he limped, hopped, and stumbled to his feet. His body hurt all over, the bruising seeming to have marinated in his muscle tissue for the better part of the last two days before revealing itself now in all its increased, painful glory.

He dressed quickly – or as quickly as he could, anyway – and limped to class with the nurse's note in hand. The breakfast that Radek had brought him remained entirely uneaten on his desk. Nothing mattered to the boy except being less late. In Marek's troubled mind, every additional minute meant another stroke of the cane.

Arriving at Mr. Drábek's room, he twisted the knob nervously and opened the door.

"I'm sorry I'm late to class, sir," he said as he approached the man and handed him the note.

It felt like the eyes of 20 boys were drilling holes in the back of his head as he waited for the teacher's response. Marek was very wary of Drábek. With Tichy now being his bought-and-paid-for ally, the other boys off his back, and Skala, it seemed, virtually a non-factor, Drábek was the only person at the school who harbored malice against him with any ability to do anything about it. The boy knew that he could still get in trouble in Drábek's class – legitimately, if his studies faltered, or unfairly, with another cheat-sheet-type issue – and if he did, there would be hell to pay with Tichy. There already was going to be hell to pay with Tichy for what had happened this morning, but that reckoning still was hours away, and the goal now was to ensure that neither Drábek, nor anyone else, made it any worse in the meantime.

Drábek glanced at the note the boy handed him and gave Marek a skeptical but rather amused smile.

"Seems like our little přátelák hero has friends in all the right places," he said as his eyes flicked between the note and the stainless-steel chain visible around Marek's neck. The outline of the cartridge was visible under the boy's school shirt.

"Can't argue with the nurse, can I, now, Hurta?" said the man, with barely disguised sarcasm. "You do look a bit worse for wear. Up late last night, were we?" he said in a contemptuous voice. "Take your seat – and try not to moan.

Ignoring Drábek's taunt, Marek forced himself to walk upright and normally to his desk. If he did moan with the pain – because his entire body fucking hurt, especially his ass – it was a barely audible one. It hurt to sit, but he tried as best he could to remain still and not call unnecessary attention to himself. One didn't have to be a genius or even all that observant to notice that Marek was shuffling about like a buggered penguin – which was an apt description of him, as he indeed had been thoroughly buggered, and his bruised body everywhere sported the black-and-yellow coloration of an emperor penguin.

Fortunately for Marek, the classes after that were uneventful. No one touched him, insulted him, or tried to provoke him. Whether he showed it off or not, everyone knew he had a cartridge and had become untouchable. It seemed that he was unapproachable, too, as nobody spoke to him, but he simply was too sore and worried to care about that.

The seconds, minutes, and hours ticked inexorably on from there, all of them pointing almost tauntingly toward the 4 o'clock hour and Marek's next appointment with Tichy. Marek tried to atone for the events of the morning by eating a full, healthy lunch despite the pain in his jaw. He was timely to every class. He paid attention, took notes, and even participated once – only because he was called on, of course, but still. The teachers mostly were talking about the final assignments due before the break and review sessions for final exams once classes resumed.

After his final class, Marek limped his way back to his room and dropped his books there. It was just after 3 o'clock. He didn't dare lie down for fear of dozing off so he sat at his desk with a sore ass and pretended to read. He was worried sick about what Mr. Tichy would do to him for missing classes. Would the man take the cane to him? Would he lose his cartridge? Marek was consumed with anxiety that only intensified as the witching hour approached.

At ten minutes to four, Marek stood up and prepared to leave the room. He dreaded his visit with Tichy like a death-row inmate scheduled for execution.

"If they find me dead somewhere," he told Radek in a serious tone, "you know who did it."

Radek paled, his eyes wide, and turned away. The joke might have been amusing to him if he didn't already believe it was a genuine possibility. Tichy scared the living shit out of him. He could tell from Marek's tone that his roommate was expecting trouble over the missed sessions. But what could he say? What could he do? He was still wondering what Marek had been put through the night before. Had Tichy really fucked him in his butt? Was that rumor true? And what was with the cartridge? How had Marek pulled that off?

Radek certainly didn't dare ask, but shortly after Marek left the room, he rifled through Marek's laundry, finding the stinky pajamas from the night before, all crusty with dried cum on the bottoms. He gulped. So that rumor was true! Marek indeed had been fucked in the ass, and he hadn't even reported it, or anything! He had just slept it off. Radek told himself he would tell everyone if Tichy tried that with him. He'd call his father. He'd leave the school. He'd call the cops! But Marek hadn't done any of those things. Radek guessed it was true what they said – it was a choice, being a Tichy Boy, and it took a certain kind of a boy to want to be in that group. Radek was glad he wasn't that kind of a boy. More than that, he was glad that Tichy had never shown any interest in him, at least not in that way. Having to report to Tichy on Marek was bad enough, but being fucked in the butt by the man would be a thousand times worse!

Marek was glad that he had left himself a full 10 minutes to walk from his room to Tichy's office. What should have been a leisurely, less-than-five-minute jaunt for an athletic-and-energetic 12-year-old took nearly twice that long, and Marek felt every step of it. His bottom was the main problem. He still was sore everywhere, but his anus rubbed and burned as he walked. Despite Martin's exhortation and his efforts at cleaning, more cum had leaked out overnight, and, because he hadn't been able to shower again this morning, the crusty residue of dried cum between his cheeks seemed to be sanding his sensitive butt skin away with every step. With an angry expression on his face, it occurred to him that he could have gone to the bathroom and cleaned up a bit instead of sitting at his desk in pain for an hour, worrying and feeling sorry for himself.

As he shuffled along like a geriatric old man six or seven decades his senior, Marek did feel sorry for himself. Being Tichy's ally was proving to be a very hard business, and it was likely soon to be a very painful one, as well. He had fucked up and disobeyed, well and truly, and there absolutely was no way that Tichy wasn't already aware of that. For one thing, Radek probably had already ratted him out to the man. And if not Radek, any number of other boys would know that he had not gone to breakfast or attended classes this morning. His music instructor, Mr. Baránková, may also have reported him for cutting his class. Marek probably should have gone to Baránková later and shown him the nurse's note. But what good would that have done? What good would anything do? Tichy already knew what had happened and why – of that, Marek was certain.

Only one small glimmer of hope penetrated the gloom and doom in Marek's mind. It was possible – very remote, but possible – that Tichy would understand that the initiation ceremony had taken a lot out of him and show him some mercy. But what, really, were the odds of that? Maybe the same as rolling a one on a black-colored die? Marek had been warned not to do precisely what he had then gone and done. Maybe he would need to roll two ones – snake eyes – on a pair of white-and-black dice to escape Tichy's wrath. Either way, the odds were far too low for the boy to get his hopes up much.

As Marek would learn very shortly, he had assessed those odds much too generously in his own favor. Tichy sat in his office. He was sober and the room was tidy and well-aired. There was no smell of smoke wafting in the air today. He responded to the knock on the door with a loud, sharp "IN!" that sounded as ominous as it did angry. If Marek could have seen the expression on Tichy's face through the door, he might have turned and fled as it would not have been difficult to surmise that the man was furious. It was the sort of cold, icy, potentially deadly fury that Marek would not want to see on the face of a man that dangerous, especially not when he had so much power over Marek and his fate.

As it was, Tichy's tone from behind the closed door sounded a lot like death to the boy, if death could make a sound. Who knew that a single, two-letter word could be imbued with so much secondary meaning? Upon hearing it, instinctively, Marek placed his hand on the doorknob to turn it, but he paused, then shuddered, as the color drained from his face. He wanted to turn and run from the man more than anything in the whole world – that is, if "running" meant shuffling away like a three-legged turtle with a very bad case of hemorrhoids. But where could he run where the man wouldn't immediately find him? Please let me survive this, please let me survive this, please let me survive this, he prayed silently to himself as he finally mustered the courage to twist the knob and step quietly into Tichy's office.

Without looking at the man even once, Marek closed the door and began to undress. The boy was terrified. The word "IN!" kept reverberating in his brain like a runaway pinball, ricocheting off his cortex, his cerebrum, his cerebellum. He was sure that Tichy would cane him, and he knew he wouldn't be able to take the cane. He was too much of a wimp for that and he readily would admit it. He almost hoped that Tichy would tie him to the desk when he did it because Marek would be utterly unable to stay in position on his own. And if he broke position and tried to escape, evade, or run, Tichy would catch him. He would certainly catch him and then …

He dropped to his hands and knees and began to crawl to the man, his chest and tummy already hyperventilating with fear. Oh, how he hated it here at this stupid fucking boarding school in the hills above Zelezny Brod. He hated it, hated it, hated it. He hated his life and what had happened to it. Most of all, Marek hated what he had become: a fucking wimp. A fucking homosexual. An ass-eater. A shit-eater. He had come crawling back to Tichy for "protection" because he was the lowest, most disgusting kind of wimp there was or ever had been in the entire history of the school. It almost didn't seem to matter that Marek had become one of Tichy's Boys. He remained absolutely petrified of the man, and his life had become a living hell because of him.

Tichy let Marek strip and crawl, not reminding him to lock the door, which the boy had forgotten about in his panic. The man could see that Marek was scared to death, as well he ought to be after his antics this morning. Tichy wasn't angry simply because the boy had disobeyed him; the classes the boy had skipped and the visit from the nurse could have caused questions to be asked that would have been very awkward to answer. It would not take a KGB investigation for Skala to learn that the boy had left his dorm room after curfew and gone somewhere and done something that had left him nearly comatose and made it impossible for him to get out of bed the next morning. Marek had fucked up, alright, and Tichy wasn't happy.

Marek made slow progress across the floor to the man's desk. Even fucking crawling hurt. The older boys had done his knees, punching them over and over and over, but despite the pain he made his way to Tichy's feet, where he remained, trembling, with his head down. The man did not speak for almost a full minute after Marek's arrival but when he eventually did, his words confirmed every fear the boy had been harboring.

"A missed meal. Two missed classes. And now you'll miss training and p.e. for the next several days, Number Seven," said Tichy. "That's five punishments, well and truly earned." The man picked up the cane from his desk and cut the air with it. "Twelve strokes for each, that's 60 with the cane." He let Marek stew on that for several seconds.

Sixty with the cane? Marek almost passed out where he knelt. He shuddered. His eyes wet with tears. He trembled. His buttocks clenched in fear. Tichy couldn't give him 60. His bottom would be cut to ribbons. He would die. Nobody got 60 with the cane. It wasn't possible!

"Except, of course, that my hands are totally tied for now," continued Tichy, after savoring the boy's terrified reaction. "Nobody can take 60 with the cane all in one go, especially not in your condition," he said as he looked at the bruises decorating the boy's back and arms.

Marek continued to tremble as he listened, but the man's next words seemed to offer a small kernel of hope. Marek took them to mean that he eventually would be caned, but not right away. Perhaps over multiple sessions? That thought still filled him with dread as he imagined returning to the man's office day after day to receive more painful stripes. Would Tichy really give him 60? It seemed that he would. Marek didn't think he would be able to survive it. He was too much of a wimp. He would die. The man would end up caning him to death.

"Stand up straight," commanded Tichy. "Arms up," he said. Without waiting for the boy to comply he reached into the open drawer of his desk and extracted an unlabeled tin with a peculiar, sharp-smelling goo inside.

Marek climbed painfully to his feet at the man's command and lifted his aching arms over his head. He trembled with fear. He looked down at the can the man was holding. It smelled nasty even from three feet away. It made Marek think about the ginger root, and that brought another shudder to his small body and a moan from his lips.

Tichy picked up a scoop of the stuff with his fingers and started to rub it into Marek's arms and shoulders, making him lower his arms for a moment before instructing him to put his hands on top of his head. He applied more of the ointment to the boy's back and chest, even rubbing some into his armpits. It smelled sharp and felt cool on the boy's skin. Bit by little bit, Tichy gently massaged the mixture into the boy's skin, head to toe, avoiding only his cock, balls, and the pucker of his anus. Apart from those spots he gave everything a thorough coat.

Marek wasn't sure what was going on as the man rubbed the balm into his muscles. If this was anything like the ginger root, Marek was going to die in agony, but had he somehow managed to win the long-shot die roll for Tichy's mercy? The man's touch was soft. He was almost massaging Marek, and his gentle ministrations confused the boy. Marek wasn't sure what was happening. He had expected a beating; he hadn't expected this.

"Lie down on your side," Tichy instructed. "Curl up and relax. Let it get absorbed. It's a very special salve. Aluminum triacetate with a bit of camphor and yarrow oil, and some herbal tannins. It's a miracle cure for sore muscles and bruises. You should look and feel much better tomorrow. Right now, you're in no shape to be punished, so you've got lucky. You're not ready to take the kind of caning you deserve, not for a few days yet, anyway," he added ominously.

Marek lay down on the carpet and curled up on it. This couldn't be happening, could it? Was the man being merciful? Marek's world was so upside down right now he didn't even know anymore. The punishment he had been dreading now appeared to be postponed. He lay on the floor, naked, and shiny from the salve coating his body. He reeked of the stuff, but he could feel it penetrating and there was no doubt that it was working on his bruised muscles and joints.

"This means that your daily visits, from tomorrow onwards, are reverting back to punishment sessions," Tichy continued. "You'll be punished for this morning, but it won't be in ways that leave any marks – at least for now. I'll be sure to make your sessions especially humiliating and unpleasant, and very wimp-themed to fit you, Marek. Not all the sessions will be one-on-one, as you have already been warned, but I won't cane you until you're fit again, which according to the nurse, isn't till next week. But trust me, you will not get of lightly. I hope you realize that already." said Tichy darkly.

"Now lie. Rest. Don't move, don't talk, I don't want any excuses."

Marek listened with increasing dread to the man's pronouncements, but he didn't dare say a single word. He was afraid of antagonizing Mr. Tichy into changing his mind about the cane. The boy feared the cane more than just about anything. It was no wonder that it had become the punishment implement of choice in boarding, private, and reform schools around the world. The cane fucking hurt, and Marek gladly would postpone his rendezvous with it for as long as he possibly could.

After some fifteen minutes of waiting, Tichy glanced at his watch. The salve should have worked its way into Marek's sore and bruised muscles by now. If it performed as it was supposed to, the boy soon should start to feel significantly better.

"Get up and get dressed," Tichy commanded. "You forgot to lock the door, by the way. I was half hoping someone would come for a visit, but I guess you got lucky again. Now get dressed and scram."

Marek was surprised as he tentatively made his way to his feet. He hadn't expected the session to be over so soon, and Tichy hadn't done anything bad to him. He hadn't been caned. He hadn't been punished or humiliated at all and there had been no sex. He hadn't had to give the man even a single blowjob. Maybe the dice had come up snake eyes after all. It seemed like a miracle to the boy.

"Thank you, sir," he said in a quavering voice as he shuffled back to his clothes. He dressed quickly and left the office before Tichy could change his mind.

The rest of the day went mostly uneventfully. The salve really seemed to be another miracle, especially at this stage of Marek's bruising. Whether from the salve, the passage of time, or both, the deepest, darkest bruises on his body visibly shrank and paled. Most of the soreness that wasn't too deep under his skin – including most of the sensitive muscles on his back and belly that had received so much of the beating – started to feel better. He wasn't fully recovered by any stretch, but Marek could tell that he was on the right path.

His day kept on improving from there. The cartridge's magical protection held steady, even as his mind kept turning back to his last visit with Tichy. For once he had gotten off easy, but it was obvious that Tichy wasn't happy and hadn't let him off the hook willingly. Given his condition and the note from the nurse, the man literally couldn't do what he wanted to do to punish the boy, so he had simply let him go. But Marek knew he would pay for that eventually, probably with interest.

The other boys continued to leave him alone, which helped. It was nice to know – in the post-Tichy sense of the term "nice" – that he was not at any minute going to be jumped from a doorway and pummeled nearly to death with a blanket pulled over his head. Thanks to the cartridge around his neck, that fear had abated to the point of not even making the boy's list of things to dread. There already were so many other entries on the list that there simply wasn't enough room for any others.

Marek thought things were going a bit better for him, but words like "better" also had both a pre-Tichy and a post-Tichy definition in his mind. Things were going better now from the very shitty state that the boy had found himself in just after 10 o'clock this morning. They were not going well, fine, or even okay from a pre-Tichy, pre-PISKG perspective. Just … better than they had been earlier in the day.

And then came the matter of Tomáš, whom Marek knew mostly as Tichy Boy Number Four, appearing in his dorm room just shy of bedtime, walking in stiffly and not looking at all happy. Marek sat up apprehensively as Tomáš entered the room without even knocking.

"You – ginger pig, scram," the older boy said to Radek. "Go take a shit or something," he snapped and Radek was out of the room so fast he nearly tripped over the threshold. The door closed behind him and the two Tichy Boys suddenly were alone. Tomáš glared at Marek.

"Dude, pissing Him off when you're not in a shape to be punished is bad fucking form," he said to the younger boy. "Because obviously, Him being Him, he takes it out on someone else. Someone who didn't deserve it and who is really fucking sore right now," he grumbled. He fumbled in his pocket and extracted what looked to Marek like a postcard.

"According to Him, we're not supposed to use these on you for two more weeks," continued Tomáš, "so I could get in huge trouble for this. So, for the record, I'm not even saying you have to suck me off, but maybe you should think about the way you want your 'big brothers' to feel about you," he smirked as he showed Marek a printed, decorated card with a calligraphic "C" on it and a small check box centered underneath the letter.

Marek was bewildered as Tomáš spoke. He understood only about half of the boy's words. He certainly got the part about Tichy being in a bad mood. But what about the card? What two weeks? And Tomáš wanted a blowjob? Here? In his dorm room?

"Two weeks or not, I want you to suck me off," continued Tomáš. "And to make up for getting me in trouble, you're going to pretend I didn't cum when I do and keep going until I cum again. I'm fucking horny and I want a double. Then you cross the card off, and we're done, and nobody has to know anything about it, especially a certain someone whose name I won't mention. I'm not going to turn the card in right away, just so you know. I'll wait the full two weeks. Any questions?"

"What's it for?" Marek asked, his eyes still studying the card. Tichy hadn't given him one of these when he joined the ranks. It looked very official, with its ornate "C" in the middle.

"What?" asked Tomáš with a surprised look. "You don't know how these work? Dude, it's a Cum Card. We call them 'C Cards.' Tichy gives them out when he's in a good mood. He actually gets them printed somewhere – not that anyone's going to try to make one themselves. It gives you permission to cum once. We can demand it of whoever ranks below us in the TA or beg those above. So, when Jakub gets one, he has to do a lot of begging, even just for a handjob," he snorted. "We make him entertain us to earn it. I guess you will end up like that now, too, once you're out of trouble and actually earn your first one. But I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you."

"Basically, you get the card as a reward from Tichy if you do something he likes and he's in a good mood," Tomáš continued. "The card gives you permission to cum exactly once, but you can't wank. You need to get one of us to do it for you – you know, like comrades. Whoever gets you off writes their number on it in Roman numerals, and that's the end of it. It's like punching a bus ticket. Single use, gone. Only Tichy gives them out. You can swap them or gift them to each other, but I don't remember that ever happening. They're too rare, so it's hard to trade in a favor big enough to get one.

"I'm not even supposed to be here right now," the older boy continued, "and giving me a double is technically cheating, but no one has to know about any of that – especially a certain person we all know – and I'll be a whole lot less mad at you afterwards, right? So, what do you say?"

Marek's eyes barely left the card as the boy went through his explanation. What was Tichy's obsession with wanking? Why was he so concerned about "his" boys doing it? He didn't seem to care if Radek or any of the other kids at the school did it. Marek had seen other boys heading into the stalls and staying there for a long time without any sounds of shitting other than a few moans. Marek had done it, too, but now he was prohibited. It made no sense at all that the entire fucking rest of the school could wank until their dicks fell off but anyone Tichy was dealing with had to refrain. What was up with that? Was the man really that clueless as to think that everyone wasn't doing it all the time?

Marek could use a wank, and now that his body was feeling better, he thought he could use one just about right now. Maybe two – back-to-backers, as he liked to think of them, while Tomáš apparently called them doubles. He'd needed one from before the blanket beating but even with all his injuries, he'd still been waking up with an erection every day. But he had not dared do it. Somehow, some way, he was convinced that Tichy would know if he did, and the punishment the man exacted for it would be too terrible to bear.

"Wait, so I don't get a card?" he asked Tomáš. "And am I supposed to do it … here? I mean, there's no way to lock the door if my roommate comes back."

"Only Tichy gives out the cards, and I don't give a shit about your roommate," snorted Tomáš. "I don't think fatso will dare try to come back in here. And if he does, I'll tell him to fuck right off again. It's not such a great secret anyway, is it? I bet he saw you come back last night, and he'd be an idiot not to realize you'd been fucked, man." He paused before continuing.

"So, what do you say, Number Seven? I'm not even supposed to come to you for another two weeks, but I'm telling you openly that I'm pissed off with you for aggravating Him, and I'm giving you a chance to appease me. What the old man doesn't know won't hurt him."

Marek's eyes finally left the card as he gazed at the door. Anyone could come in during the period before lights out. Like Tomáš himself they didn't even knock half the time. Maybe Radek would be smart enough to keep them out, but what if he didn't? Tomáš might not care if the other kids saw him getting sucked off by a boy, but Marek did not want to be that boy. And this was Marek's hall, with his classmates. Even Tichy's cartridge might not be enough to stop them from beating the snot out of him if they saw him blowing an older boy like a born homosexual.

But what choice did he have? Tomáš was asking, yes. He was even begging a little bit. But there was a clear threat behind his words. Measured against that was the knowledge that in a little more than two weeks the entire school would be on break, and Marek would never see Tomáš or any of these boys again. Or Tichy, or Drábek, or Skala. The thought very nearly brought a smile to his face – and it would have, too, if thoughts of a certain number of cane strokes he was due to receive hadn't made it into his brain directly on the heels of the earlier thought.

"I don't think my roommate knows anything," said Marek, albeit a bit uncertainly. "And why two weeks?

"I don't know why two weeks," said Tomáš. "No one else ever got a protective period. I guess Tichy has a special spot for you in his heart," said Tomáš sarcastically. "Fuck knows. Maybe because you're so sore? Beats me. I don't care what the reason is. Your mouth worked fine last night. If we keep it a secret, nobody gets in trouble, right?"

Marek pondered the older boy's proposal. It seemed risky and dangerous to him, but then again, he knew he didn't have a clear understanding of how the rules for Tichy's Army worked. He didn't want to get off to a bad start with Tomáš or any of the other boys.

"If you really want me to, I'll do it," replied Marek. "Just … not here? Please?"

"If not here, where?" answered Tomáš in an exasperated tone. "Look, I'm sore, too, and I'm not walking anywhere," he pouted. "I suppose we could go to my room. I share with Filip and he already knows you're a slut. He could even watch the door for us. But you'll be off your floor after curfew, risking even more trouble with Tichy that way, you suicidal maniac," snorted Tomáš. "And you'd probably end up sucking Filip off, too. Is that really what you want to do?"

Marek rolled his eyes. The older boy was wearing him down with his reasoning. Maybe Radek for once would be smart enough to mind his own fucking business, stay out of the room, and keep his mouth shut not only with the other boys but also with Tichy. Marek would have to take that chance.

"Okay," he told the older boy. "I'll do it."

This was incredibly awkward for Marek. Sucking Tichy was one thing – the man simply told him to, and the boy did it. There was no choice in the matter, and there hadn't been any during his initiation rite, either. But Tomáš was just a boy himself, and he was asking Marek to blow him the same way he might ask to borrow a book to read. The casual nature of it just felt more wrong – even more blatantly homosexual than the other acts if that were possible.

"How do you want to do it?" Marek asked nervously. "And what did Tichy do to you because of me, anyway?" he added, with morbid curiosity.

Tomáš hurriedly pulled his trousers down. He had no underwear on, and his musky teen erection just bobbed right out. His action answered both of Marek's questions. Tomáš obviously had been beaten on his thighs with a thin, light cane, and when he turned around to show the younger boy, his butt and the backs of his thighs were striped the same way.

Marek gaped at the boy's wounds. Marek knew the kind of thin, whippy cane that would give those marks, and he knew who had given them to Tomáš. It must have stung like hell. No wonder the older boy wasn't wearing any underwear. Had that happened because of him? Marek almost wanted to cry, not because he felt all that terrible for Tomáš, but because the knowledge that Tichy was taking his anger out on other boys until Marek himself was fit enough to be caned made him feel sick with worry.

Tomáš sat down on the bed and motioned for Marek to get down on his knees in front of him.

"Be nice. No teeth. I know you're good at this, so don't pretend otherwise," warned Tomáš.

With a sinking feeling and a terrible pit in his stomach, Marek knelt and quickly took Tomáš's cock in his mouth. He began to fellate the older boy, working quickly to get him off. His jaw was sore, but Tomáš only had an average teen-sized cock, and it was not difficult for Marek to give the boy the pleasure he had come looking for even if he was more acutely aware of the still unwashed state and pungent taste of it than he had been the previous night. And, of course, there would be no teeth involved. Did Tomáš think he had a death wish? Teeth and blowjobs were not a good combination; Marek had known that right from the start with Tichy.

"Hey, slow down a little," grumbled Tomáš as Marek sucked with abandon. "I didn't get to enjoy stuff as much yesterday. Everything was a bit rushed for me." He grunted with pleasure. "Mmmmmm. Nice. Eyes. Come on, Number Seven. I've seen you do it better than this," he reminded Marek.

Marek admittedly had been sucking Tomáš fast, trying to get him off quickly and be done with it, but at the boy's instruction he slowed down his bobbing and gave Tomáš's cockhead some additional tongue. He found himself praying that Radek would not re-enter to the room to find him kneeling on the floor giving head to another boy.

"Mmmmmm," said Tomáš with renewed enthusiasm. "Ohhhhh, that feels nice." He was trying to stay quiet but couldn't quite stop breathing quite hard and hissing in through his teeth. "Oh yeah. Oh yeah, just like that," he sighed. "That'll definitely help with the pain," he chuckled. "Give me some eyes."

Tomáš's cock twitched in Marek's mouth as the younger boy pleasured him. One of the advantages of not jerking off was that cumming was very easy when one got the chance. Tichy's boys were always very horny, and very trigger happy – just the way the man wanted them.

This whole thing felt very wrong to Marek, and he didn't like it. And "eyes," too? Tomáš wasn't getting eyes. That was a Tichy thing, for humiliation and embarrassment, so Marek would always know who he was sucking and who was making him suck. Tomáš was not in that category, and Marek shook his head angrily, refusing to look up at the boy. As a form of rebellion, he even started bobbing a little faster and using less tongue.

Tomáš made a face when Marek refused to look up, but he didn't press the issue. He wanted Marek to see the smile on his face and perhaps remember it later, but no matter. He'd see it soon enough – of that, Tomáš was sure. Those cards had been dealt the moment Marek had agreed to suck him off. The kid was such a slut. Such a loser. This entire ploy had been almost too easy to pull off. The younger boy was as dumb as he was doomed.

In the end, Marek gave Tomáš a decent blowjob. To his dismay, he'd become rather skilled at it, but he supposed that Tichy's other boys had, too, and that gave him some small comfort.

Tomáš didn't last long after Marek sped up again and he soon came, trying to suppress the grunt as he sent his jizz spurting into Marek's mouth. Even before his orgasm finished, he wondered if Marek would suck him a second time. Would the Hurta kid be that stupid? There was no sign of fatso, or anyone else for that matter, so Tomáš was hopeful that Marek would comply.

Marek grimaced with the taste as the older boy filled his mouth with cum. As many times as he had now tasted the warm, bitter liquid, he still found it gross. He was not about to show it to Tomáš, either so he simply swallowed it down in two unhappy gulps. The teen wasn't that much older than Marek, but he made a lot of cum – not quite Tichy-like, but impressive, nonetheless. Marek's own orgasms were of the usual 12-year-old variety: about half a teaspoon of thin, watery cum fired in one or two spurts on his tummy. Except, of course, the time he had cum during the night in Tichy's panties, when there had been enough liquid to make it look like he'd had a pee accident. Marek just couldn't fucking win, at least not with Tichy. Not ever, it seemed – and here he was, tempting fate with the man once again. Thank goodness Tomáš had even more incentive to keep his mouth shut than he did.

For now, Marek kept his mouth motionless on the boy's cock, fully intending to suck him off a second time, but knowing full well how sensitive his own cockhead got right after he came. After about 30 seconds of waiting, he again applied his tongue and began bobbing his head on Tomáš's semi-erection. While he was willing to give Tomáš a second suck, Marek wasn't sure he would be brave enough to try this little trick on his own. With his luck, Tichy would find out, and he'd be caned. Probably 117 times, or 212, or whatever random number popped into Tichy's head at the time. No, Tomáš was much braver than Marek was to risk it. If the shoe had been on the other foot, the younger boy wouldn't have dared, but then again that probably was because he was the lowest kind of wimp there ever was.

Tomáš looked worried when Marek paused, before smiling like a little kid's painting of the sun as Marek started sucking again. He had lasted only some three or four minutes the first time, but he knew he would be good for longer the second time around, and as the blowjob continued, indeed he was. Marek sucked him for a solid 10 minutes and he still wasn't anywhere close to coming. What a little whore the Hurta kid was. It was priceless!

Marek knew that leaving the older boy with blue balls would undo any goodwiil he had earned, but he wished Tomáš would get it over with and cum. He was twitching in Marek's mouth, making pleasured sounds, clearly having a good time, but even ten solid minutes into the blowjob he hadn't cum, and he didn't seem to be very close, either. How much longer would Radek just wait patiently outside in the hall? It was now, after all, officially after curfew, and not too long from lights-out. Tichy could even walk in on them while performing his evening rounds of the dorm. That would be nothing short of a disaster. Possibly a fatal one. Tichy might kill them both in cold blood for so flagrantly violating his rules.

"Mmmmmm, that feels good, Hurta," encouraged Tomáš. "Keep doing it like that, you little slut. What would Tichy think if he could see you now?"

Marek didn't want to think about Tichy, and as the second blowjob dragged on, the boy found himself growing more and more worried and frustrated. Marek could often do a double wank in the span of about five minutes, and he was a year younger than Tomáš. Didn't the kid realize the peril they were in? Radek could burst in at any second, as could any number of other boys. Or Tichy himself. Marek wouldn't want to be Tomáš and have to make the "it never left his mouth, so it still counts as one" excuse to the man. Marek didn't think Tichy would buy that for a second, and Tomáš would then be well and truly fucked – certainly figuratively, and probably literally, too. The kid wasn't even supposed to be here. He wasn't supposed to be demanding blowjobs from Marek for another two weeks.

Marek used all his best oral tricks to get the boy to finish, and as he did so, he thought about an endless parade of older, cartridge-wearing boys visiting him for a nightly suck. What crazy club had he become a part of? He still wasn't sure how everything worked, but it appeared that any of the older boys could require a younger boy to service him. That meant Marek was at the bottom, obviously, but would all the older boys start to use him or stay with the boys they already knew? It made sense that Tomáš was using him because he wasn't all that much older. But what about Jan and that other kid, the fourth-year? Would they have much use for a 12-year-old first-year boy, or would they prefer more experience? Marek didn't know. Thankfully, the two-week grace period meant he didn't really have to worry about any of that nonsense as he would be away from this crazy place and safely back home in Vacenovice before they would have any real chane to order him to.

Eventually, Marek turned his full attention back to Tomáš. He needed to get the older boy to cum, but what was it going to take? Marek sucked and swirled, bobbed his head, and did his very best, but he was getting to the point where he was going to end it whether Tomáš got mad at him, or not. It was simply too risky to continue for much longer. Coming here had been brazen enough as it was. Finish up, Marek thought to himself, as he willed the older boy to reach his second orgasm.

The atmosphere in the room briefly got tense – Tomáš could sense Marek's impatience and it wasn't exactly helping – but Marek was doing all the right things with his mouth and after a quick, somewhat surprising build-up towards a second orgasm, Tomáš grunted, more loudly and openly, and called it this time.

"I'm cumming," he said immediately before he sent his second batch of semen into the younger boy's frantically sucking mouth.

To his immense relief, Marek finally tasted the boy's bitter cum for the second time that evening and the third time in less than twenty four hours. He quickly swallowed it down. He sucked for another couple of seconds to see if the boy had any more spurts to give, but Tomáš obviously was spent. Marek pulled off, and immediately stood and went to the door, holding the knob tight in his hand just in case Radek tried to return as the older boy got dressed.

Tomáš had his trousers up in no time, and when he finished zipping up, he presented his card to Marek.

"Look, you can cross out the C and put your Roman numeral underneath it if you want," he said, "or you can do me a huge favor and just forget I was ever here. I obviously can't turn in the card for two weeks, anyway, so what do you say we just forget all about this and you can pretend you never even saw me? Seems like the least you can do under the circumstances."

Marek rolled his eyes again as Tomáš asked for yet another favor. He just wanted the older boy to leave before someone else tried to enter the room.

"I don't care about the stupid card, but what about Radek?" said Marek. "He saw you here. He could rat us out to Tichy in 10 seconds."

"Fatso won't say a word, I promise," said Tomáš dismissively as he stuffed the cum card back in his pocket. "What about you? You know you're supposed to report me to Tichy for this. I've already broken about a dozen rules just by being here."

"Whatever," said Marek dismissively. "I know you won't say anything, and neither will I."

"What the big guy doesn't know, won't hurt him – or us!" said Tomáš with a laugh. "By the way, if anyone ever tells you not to cross out the card, or to use a pencil or something like that, you're supposed to report it to Tichy right away or you'll both end up paying dearly for it," warned Tomáš – as if he hadn't just asked Marek to do exactly that. "And I mean really paying for it. You know how he gets about cumming without permission."

"Anyway – thanks," said Tomáš before Marek even could reply. "Feeling much better, now," he said with a wink and an odd little chuckle as he slipped from the room.

Out in the hall, Radek saw him go. Marek's roommate very sensibly had decided to stay out of the way until the coast was clear and he was hiding in the bathroom with the door cracked open a bit so that he could peek out and keep an eye on his room. He watched as Tomáš proceeded down the hall toward the far stairwell that led downstairs. Despite the late hour and the fact that they were way past curfew, Tomáš clearly wasn't going upstairs to his room, at least not right away. This was all very interesting, and Radek certainly was curious, but he told himself he hadn't seen anything that required him to report to Tichy. Snitching on Marek was one thing but ratting out one of the other Tichy Boys was a very dangerous thing to do. He decided silence was the least risky option. Now that he was sure Tomáš was gone, he returned to the room he shared with Marek and pretended as if nothing were amiss.

"Good night," Radek said as he slipped into the upper bunk, grabbed his book, and pretended to read. He acted exactly as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, which was his way of telling Marek that everything was fine and that his roommate had nothing to worry about from him. This time, at least, that was true.

"Good night," answered Marek as he breathed a sigh of relief at Radek's demeanor. The visit from Tomáš still had him feeling nervous and unsettled. So many things could have gone wrong, starting with an unannounced visit from just about anyone, including Mr. Tichy. It had been a crazy risk for Tomáš to come to him like that. Marek certainly knew what being horny felt like, but Tomáš must have been especially desperate to risk Tichy's wrath.

As he lay in bed, Marek replayed the events of the last 24 hours in his mind. His new "club" was still very much a mystery to him, what with its powerful cartridge necklaces, its crazy and exhausting initiation rituals, and its special rules against doing what Marek was still certain all the other boys at the school did on a near-daily basis. The C card system was yet another bizarre thing.

It was all crazy, crazy, crazy, and as the boy sat down on his bed, he realized how much he couldn't wait to be done with it all. Not even three weeks now, and he would be home – permanently home and finished with this crazy, sadistic place. Back in Vacenovice, he had friends. There, people actually liked him. They didn't care what his last name was, and he didn't have the legacy of some stupid, old glass factory and its Nazi past hanging over his head like a guillotine blade.

The fact that his mother had not yet written him back troubled him. He had specifically asked her to, and she had to anyway because she had to send him his train ticket. He'd never bought a train ticket by himself, and even if he knew how, he didn't think he had enough money for it. That had been the arrangement, anyway. She would send him his return ticket before the end of the term. It was now getting worryingly close to that point, but still no ticket.

Anyway, he had to get a good night's sleep tonight, so he checked his alarm, stepped into his last remaining pair of semi-clean pajamas, and climbed into bed.

"Night," he called to Radek once again. He still didn't like the kid very much, but aside from Taus, the redhead probably was closer to being a friend than anyone else in the school. It was something.

Marek slept right through, in a long, deep, uninterrupted sleep that was sure to help his energy levels. In the morning, Radek dutifully shook him awake and made sure he didn't miss breakfast again. By the time he climbed out of bed, Marek had finally stopped looking like a caricature of a fauvist painting. He still had bruises and parts of his body still ached, but the blacks and purples were mostly gone. There were reddish streaks as well as greenish and yellowy patches, but large swatches of skin had faded back to a normal tone. The bruises that weren't too deep – the ones without too much displaced blood in the tissue that still needed reabsorbing and healing – were fading away to nothing.

It was largely an uneventful day except for the awkward time during which he had to report to the nurse to confirm he was skipping gym. He didn't want to, and he knew he would be made to pay for that later, but the nurse's orders were clear. Tichy avoided him, and so did most other boys.

There was only one small incident that caused him concern. When he returned to his room after class, someone – and it was not at all obvious who – had hidden a little cartoon on a piece of notepaper under his pillow. It was a crude drawing of a small boy on all fours with an oversized AK47 cartridge sticking out of his butt. It was a boy being fucked by a cartridge, if you excused the poor execution of the drawing. But there was no message attached or a messenger to shoot, and the four o'clock hour was approaching too rapidly for Marek to worry too much about it.

As the witching hour drew near, Marek could feel the pit forming again in his stomach. It was always there when it was time to visit Tichy; he felt it whenever he thought about the man, which was often. Tichy had come to dominate nearly every second of Marek's life. When he wasn't actually with Tichy, he was thinking about him. When he wasn't thinking about him, he was worrying about him. When he wasn't worrying about him, he was having nightmares about him. Barely an hour went by during the day in which the boy did not find his thoughts inevitably, inexorably, returning to Tichy. It didn't help that he could see the man in his mind even more clearly than he could visualize his own mother. It also didn't help that when he thought of Tichy, he was not just seeing the man, but smelling his scent, and even tasting him in his mouth. Tichy's cock had a particular taste, as did his cum, as did his ass, as did his …

Marek shuddered as he forced himself to think about something else. Just about anything else would make for a better thought, like perhaps having his teeth drilled, or breaking his arm, or maybe drowning, or falling into a fire, or starving to death. He forced himself to think of home. Of his friends. Of his cousins. It helped a little. Not much, but a little.

At the appointed hour, he left his room, walked dejectedly to the administration wing, and trudged reluctantly up the stairs to Tichy's office. As he paused before the man's door he said the same silent prayer that he nearly always made before he knocked. Please let everything go well today. Please let me survive this. And with that, the child gave his customary two little knocks on the wooden door frame and awaited permission to enter.

There was a longer pause than usual, and this time, the key clicked in the lock first before the door was opened a crack. Tichy's arm suddenly reached out and pulled Marek inside. The man then closed and re-locked the door behind him.

The office smelled musky, and of recent sex. And sure enough, there were two naked boys – whom Marek would recognize soon enough as Jakub and Filip – down on the floor on all fours, and both, upon closer examination, had been recently fucked. Tichy tugged at Marek's shirt.

"Go on, strip, and quickly. You know the drill. Then crawl over there and clean them up. Suck out every last drop," emphasized Tichy in case Marek didn't clearly understand what kind of a cleanup was being demanded of him.

Marek barely had time to process what had happened. Between the suddenness of being pulled into the office and the sight that awaited him, the boy turned pale. Even as he tried to make sense of the two naked boys on Tichy's carpet, he instinctively began undressing in response to the man's command. But what did Tichy want him to do? Suck the boys off? Suck out every last drop? Both of them? Marek was so tired of giving blowjobs. How was he to suck them off if they were on their hands and knees?

As he finished undressing, Marek's 12-year-old mind still didn't understand what was being demanded of him. He dropped to his own hands and knees and began to crawl toward the other boys. He crawled to Filip's side, then looked up at Tichy, as if to ask the man how he could possibly suck the boy off from this position. But he knew he would have to try.

Tichy wasn't sure if Marek was too shocked to obey or really that thick, but whatever it was he rectified the problem immediately by striding purposefully to the boy, grasping his neck and jaw roughly in both hands, and dragging the kid by his head across the carpeted floor toward Jakub. He stuffed Marek's face between the older boy's slick, messy butt cheeks, then rubbed Marek's mouth roughly several times over the leaking, slightly sore-looking puckered hole.

Marek cringed in fear as the man approached him, his body leaning away, his arm lifted half-heartedly as if to protect himself. What had he done now? Tichy looked furious as he grabbed the boy, manhandled him into position, and pushed his face straight against the older boy's ass.

"Clean up, wimp," ordered Tichy. "Thoroughly."

And there was that dreaded word. "Wimp." Right in front of other boys. The slack that Mr. Tichy had cut to him yesterday clearly was only temporary. The boy was back to being the lowest of the low. Marek was despondent. He also had his face between Jakub's butt cheeks.

Tichy had spoken the truth before; he was going to make Marek regret he wasn't in the shape for the severe caning he had earned. He crammed the kid's face in Jakub's ass one last time, then sat down in his chair, sideways, slightly behind the bottoms of the two boys so he would have a nice view of Marek performing his assigned task. He lit up a Startka. This was going to be good.

"Blech," gasped Marek as he pulled his head back and wiped at the slime from his face with his hand. With terrible, dismal, sinking feeling, he now realized what the man wanted him to do. The boy's face registered his disgust and horror. He looked up at Tichy as the man sat down and casually lit up a smoke. Marek's heart rate quickly elevated to heart-attack levels.

"Get busy, wimp!" commanded Tichy ominously, as he watched Marek still not obeying. The Hurta kid was starting to piss him off all over again, and even a note from the nurse wasn't going to save him from a caning he would regret if he kept this up.

Marek couldn't do it. He just couldn't. It was too disgusting. He prayed that Tichy was just taunting him, but even as he did so, he already knew the truth. He closed his eyes for a moment as his tummy clenched and his body seemed to seize up. The scent of Jakub's fucked ass was in his nostrils. Marek was scared to death, and had he been given the choice of death right there he would have taken it.

But Tichy wasn't offering death, he was demanding performance, and he had the cane.

This wasn't fair. It wasn't fair at all. It was sick. It was disgusting.

"Please Mr. Tichy," the boy begged. "It's g-gross," he said, as his face turned grayish-green and his stomach clenched.

But even before the man reacted, Marek knew he already was fucked from the wide-eyed, sideways glance that Filip gave him while looking back over his shoulder. The older boy looked incredulous. Filip's expression told Marek all he needed to know about his chances of survival.

"Yes, it is," Tichy agreed. "Very. You should know all about that by now, as you've sucked cocks right after they've been in your ass. Now you're going to lap up the mess and make sure those sphincters and ass cracks are clean as a whistle both inside and out. No arguments, no backtalk. Just do it, Hurta," demanded Tichy in an ominous tone.

"You need to learn that I don't take repeat offences lightly," the man continued. "You skipped a meal after you'd already been punished for skipping meals, and you skipped classes after being explicitly, directly, and emphatically told not to. You're not doing this for fun but as a punishment – as one of your several wimp punishments, to be more precise," said Tichy, with acid dripping from his words.

Tichy held his cigarette with his left hand and picked up a three-foot long, finger-thick cane and rapped it against the desk. He did this just once, but the message was clear. Bruises or not, nurse's note or not, Marek already was pushing his luck today.

The presence of the other boys just made Marek's shame and humiliation worse. Sucking Tichy's cum from their asses seemed to the boy as vile an act as could be imagined, save for the other, even more cruel, and vile act that Tichy had already made him perform – but at least that had been done in private. This was the price of the man's protection? This was the cost? A never-ending spiral of punishments heaped on punishments, just like with the cheat sheet? It didn't matter that he was now in Tichy's army. The man was not going to treat him any differently. It was all just a game to Tichy. He had called Marek "son" and given him a hug, but he wasn't going to be any nicer to the boy. He hated Marek, and that was never, ever going to change.

Marek's situation had gotten worse, not better. By coming to the man for help, Marek had simply offered himself up to be abused and humiliated every day. Every single day! The other boys wouldn't beat him up anymore, but Tichy would do even worse things to him. Now, the Tichy Boys were involved, too. They could come to Marek and use him for sex, just like Tomáš had last night.

He wouldn't fucking do it! Not this shit! Not anymore. Feeling faint and sick to his stomach, the boy stood up.

"I'm not doing this anymore," he said in a tight, distressed, near-tears voice as he stared at Tichy. The deal was off! Tichy could have him beat up again. He could even have him killed. But Marek was done with this. With all of it!

Mustering every last bit of courage he possessed, Marek turned his back to the man and began to walk calmly back in the direction of his clothes. His heart was racing. He forced himself to walk normally, but he wasn't stupid. Even as he took his first steps, he knew that he was doomed.

It took Tichy a fraction of a second to digest what had just occurred. It seemed like the Hurta boy was intent on suicide, and while that surprised him, it didn't deter him for an instant. As Marek walked away, Tichy moved like the athlete he was. Even with a split-second delay to grab a coil of skipping rope from his desk he was on the boy before Marek even reached his clothes. He easily tackled the small boy down to the floor and began to tie one of his slender wrists behind his back.

Marek heard the man's footfalls behind him, but he didn't so much as turn to look even as his eyes welled with tears at the holocaust that was sure to come. With a grunt and a cry Marek was taken to the floor. He continued reaching for his clothes like a drowning man reaching for a lifeboat even as Tichy began to secure him with the rope. A high-pitched, keening whimper of terror came from the boy as more tears formed in his eyes, blurring his vision.

"Nooooo," he whimpered to no one in particular. "Let me goooo, let me gooooo, let me gooooo," he sobbed, still reaching for his clothes with his free arm until it, too, was pulled behind his back and tightly secured.

"Filip, socks," Tichy grunted and moments later, he took the ball of smelly socks from the older boy and force-fed it to Marek. The socks filled the boy's mouth, stinky and disgusting, cutting off his words. The boy moaned in misery, his body shaking now and covered in goosepimples of fear.

"You guys clean yourselves up and get over here," said Tichy to Filip and Jakub. "I'm going to need you for the next bit."

Tichy hauled Marek up from the floor and carried the boy back toward his desk before forcing him into an upright kneeling position on the floor. Marek bucked and writhed as he was lifted. The youngster struggled for all he was worth. He didn't care if the man dropped him, but the 12-year-old was no match for a grown man. With the older boys now helping by holding him in place, Tichy used more rope to secure the sock gag in Marek's mouth. A broom appeared and Marek felt his legs being lifted up one at a time as it was placed underneath his ankles. Tichy tied the boy's ankles to the broom handle, then secured his already bound wrists to the center of broom handle between his feet. This left Marek in a forced, stiff, kneeling position, his knees wide apart, and his arms bound behind him.

Marek continued to shake like a washing machine on spin cycle as he was tightly affixed to the broom. He didn't know its purpose, but that hardly mattered in the grand scheme of things. The boy already knew that Tichy was going to torture him; he just didn't know exactly how. Now he found himself on his knees, bound with his arms behind him and legs spread. His position was awkward, with his hips and pelvis thrust out and his shoulders and chest pulled back and down by his arms.

The older boys held him in place as he continued to twist and writhe. Marek was moaning in total fear. From underneath his gag, he began screaming for his mother to come to him, to help him, but his words came out only as muffled moans and he knew she couldn't hear him. Nobody could hear him. Nobody would help him. Nobody would come. Nobody ever came. He was alone in this hellhole of a school where nobody cared about him or protected him. He would have to face this alone and he was scared to death at the prospect.

"Now hold him very tight, so he doesn't wiggle," demanded Tichy as he snapped on a latex glove, and opened a flat, bright red capsule of a very pungent cream. It was an original, extra-strength tiger balm from China, full of camphor, mint oil, cinnamon and chilly oil, ginger extract, and other ingredients.

Marek could see through his tears as Tichy produced yet another can of something. The man had so many things like that: lotions, creams, balms, and ointments. Marek knew this one would be bad, whatever it was. It had a nasty, powerful scent, and it obviously wasn't the same stuff that the man had applied to his bruises. The boy struggled, his chest heaving, as he hyperventilated for air through his nose. Each breath was punctuated by animalistic grunts of fear, and additional frantic struggles from the captive boy. Nothing worked to free him. He was tightly secured and tightly held.

Tichy proceeded to coat Marek's cock and balls with the stuff, especially his glans and piss slit. He picked up a cotton swab and coated it with the cream before grasping the boy's shriveled penis and screwed it most of the way down Marek's urethra. He left the swab in the boy's piss slit, then dipped his finger in cream and shoved it up Marek's butt from below, briefly massaging it into the boy's sphincter.

"All right, boys, you can let go now," said Tichy. "Get dressed. Come watch, as this will be a valuable lesson for both of you. Nobody is 'out,'" he said ominously, "and nobody but fucking nobody refuses a direct order and tries to walk out on me."

"Ah," Tichy smiled as Marek's eyes teared up and began to widen in shock, "it's kicking in."

And indeed, it was. The pain started almost immediately. It was not just bad. It didn't just hurt. Marek's eyes went wider than they had ever gone before as the enormity of the pain set in. The burning, fiery mixture coating his most sensitive spots put the ginger root to shame about tenfold. This balm was much stronger and more concentrated, and far more immediate with its burning, searing pain. The fact that his ass felt like it was impaled on a red-hot poker was still the lesser of Marek's worries. His urethra was starting to burn, blossoming into a pain beyond any imagination or previous experience.

The boys let his arms go, and for a few seconds, Marek remained kneeling in the same position as he grunted, moaned, and shook in pain. Within a minute or so, the pain reached a point where the boy probably would have opted for a penectomy if he had a knife handy and if his hands weren't so thoroughly tied.

The pain was unbelievable. Marek didn't know the word excruciating, but if he did, he would have thought it totally inadequate to define what he was experiencing. His penis and testicles felt like they were being roasted over a fire. The fire was burning on the outside and the inside at the same time.

With a high-pitched moan of pure agony, Marek writhed and bucked from his kneeling position on the floor. His movements were so frantic that he succeeded in toppling over onto his face and chest, landing hard on the carpet with a grunted exhale. The boy grunted again as he thrust his penis into the carpet, trying to wipe the vile substance off. His body shook as he undulated wildly, but nothing worked.

Tichy watched Marek topple with surprise, as the tautness of the boy's bondage normally made something like that impossible; an adult wouldn't have been able to topple, especially not forward, not even with considerable effort, but clearly Marek was stronger and more flexible than Tichy gave him credit for. It would be easy enough to set him upright once again, but for the moment, Tichy left him where he was, amused to see the boy futilely bucking on the floor as if he were trying to fuck the carpet.

Marek's anus and rectum were on fire, too, burning from the inside. He tried to roll away, to move, but the broomstick securing his ankles prevented it. His head lifted from the carpet. His expression was one of shock and surprise. His head fell back to the carpet and then lifted again as he moaned in pain. A trickle of blood from his left nostril coated his upper lip, caused either by Tichy's tackle or his own recent face plant.

The pain would not go away. It didn't even diminish. It just peaked at a white-hot, irrational level of agony and patiently remained there, burning away. The boy writhed and bucked on the floor as he tried to hump his penis into the carpet. He wished it simply would fall off; he didn't want it anymore. His bound, muscled body writhed and bucked, shimmied, and shook, in an odd, frantic pain dance.

The boy was now drenched in sweat as he suffered in Tichy's always-too-hot office. But that didn't stop the boy's desperate shimmying and bucking as he flopped around on his stomach. With his knees bent and his ankles secured to the broomstick, he couldn't get any purchase on the floor, and all his frenzied bucking came from his upper body. But nothing he did seemed to matter. He writhed and shimmied in a failed effort to stop the pain.

As the pain intensified, Marek began to scream into his gag, over and over, making the same sound, which was incoherent to his observers and probably even to Marek himself. He screamed and screamed and screamed some more as somehow, impossibly, the pain became even worse. He lost control of his bladder then, but the swab in his urethra blocked his urine and sent it rebounding painfully back, apparently taking some of the cream with it. The boy screamed anew as fresh pain appeared somewhere deep inside him, where pain like that just shouldn't be.

Tichy chuckled at the show as the boy pissed himself and gave himself to a whole new level of pain that he hadn't even known existed. The boy's undulations eventually pushed the swab out of his penis and a small trickle of piss ended up on the carpet. Not enough of it passed through Marek's actual urethra to help any with the burning inside it, however; in fact, his piss chute was so irritated that urine made the burning even worse. The swab re-irritated the boy's urethra on its way out, and it was not a nice feeling.

Marek took it back now. All of it. He would do it. He would do anything Tichy wanted. He raised his head off the carpet and screamed to the man, his face red and bulging, his neck corded with effort. He was sorry! He was so very, very sorry! He wanted to tell the man that, but his apologies came not as words, but as muffled screams from his sock-gagged mouth. The man made no move to free him, nor did the older boys. They simply watched as Marek flopped like a fish and suffered red-faced at their feet on the carpeted floor.

The pain Marek felt was incomprehensible. Pain this intense couldn't exist, and yet, it did. Marek raised his head, his body undulating, and slammed it back down to the carpet on the right side of his face. Then he did it again, and a third time. He seemed to be trying to bludgeon himself to death, and maybe he was. Once more he raised his head, and yet again he slammed it to the carpet with all the force he could muster, grunting with the force of the impact.

Nothing worked to alleviate the pain. It was an agony unlike anything the boy had felt before. The pain of this stuff – whatever it was – was worse than a caning by several factors. Marek would gladly have taken all 60 of the cane strokes Tichy had in store for him and then begged the man for more if it would only stop the pain. It was that bad. The smelly, nasty substance that Tichy had applied to his body burned like napalm.

The boy's entire body was shaking spasmodically, almost as if he were undergoing convulsions. He was soaked and shiny with sweat. He raised his head again and slammed it down, then raised it yet again, attempting to beat himself unconscious. His head and neck were the only parts of his body that had any free range of movement, so he had taken advantage of that to try to alleviate the pain. He was almost catatonic with pain, and he was only barely aware that he was screaming virtually non-stop into the gag, the screams pausing only long enough for him to draw in alternating breaths through his nose. To his observers, his screams sounded a little like a high-pitched train-whistle sound, a kind of loud, frantic, harmonic hum as the boy continued to scream repeatedly into his gag.

Tichy didn't allow the head-banging to go on for long. Although Marek wasn't likely to knock himself out on a carpeted floor, especially not when he was just flopping about like a fish out of water, he could give himself carpet burns and bruises on his face, which was the one part of the boy's anatomy where Tichy didn't want to see any injuries. The boy already had a nosebleed, and the way he was going, in short order, his face was going to be an ugly mess.

"Enough of that," Tichy said. "You two, grab him, pull him back up to his knees. Hold him upright. He's not allowed to hurt himself. That's my job," chuckled Tichy and looked at Marek, before crouching down to wipe the boy's face with a tissue.

"It's going to be unpleasant to breathe through your nose now that it's bleeding, even if it's just a small nosebleed, dumbass," he commented calmly to the distraught, bedraggled boy. "And I'm not ungagging you, because we can't have the whole school hearing your screams. I'm sorry to say that you'll be screaming for a while yet. This cream, because it has oils and Vaseline in it, doesn't really wear off. It burns, bright and hot, for hours and hours," he announced coolly.

"And the best thing?" Tichy continued. "You might feel like your cock is melting away right now, but there will be no physical evidence of any of this come tomorrow. Maybe some slight pinkness or redness, but no marks and no bruises. Just a newfound knowledge of what happens to wimps who try to walk out on me," said Tichy as he took a last drag on his Startka before stubbing it out.

Marek's body was slick with sweat as the older boys hauled him back into a kneeling position and Tichy swiped at his nose. He looked like he had just run back-to-back marathons. The boy tried to turn away from his nemesis, his head lolling about as if on a swivel. His eyes were unfocused, red, and wet with tears. He couldn't see. He was unfamiliar with the term "blinding pain" but he was experiencing it in this moment. His screams abated the instant the man spoke to him. Marek's comprehension was still functioning well enough that if the man were stating the terms pursuant to which he would end the boy's agony, he knew he needed to listen.

But the man was not stating terms. He was not offering Marek an out. This time, he merely was explaining that the pain would go on. It would not end. He would not stop it. The man seemed to be reveling in Marek's pain. He was celebrating it.

With an agonized wail into his gag, Marek's head fell, jaw to chest. His entire body was shaking like a leaf as Jakub and Filip held him upright. For a moment, he went still as he silently and resolutely fought the pain, but it was too much, too intense, and he soon began to struggle again. He lifted his head and resumed his screaming. Tichy must help him! He had to make the pain go away! He had to! Marek was sorry! He was so very, very, very sorry! He told the man all of this. He screamed it, even though it still sounded like harmonic train whistles when translated through the sock gag. Marek struggled and pulled and tried to wrench his body side to side. But the older boys continued to hold him in place, upright and on his knees, as the pain washed over him in waves.

Jakub and Filip looked pale and tense as they held the writhing, sweating, suffering boy upright. Neither of them wanted to be there, and they appeared to be almost terrified themselves, either on behalf of Marek, or perhaps just by proxy. Of course, they both knew that the kid was a Hurta, the Glass King's grandson, hated and despised by all, an enemy of the people. They also knew or sensed that Tichy had a special beef with the boy – a personal ax to grind – as his mistreatment of Marek was far beyond anything they had seen before. Whatever he had done, whatever he had said, the kid had managed to make an enemy out of Tichy, and that was not a good place to be. The younger boy supposedly was a huge wimp, as well, but again then, out of blue, he had refused to follow a direct order from Tichy. That was beyond stupidly dangerous. In fact, it seemed close to suicidal, and Tichy's retribution had been swift and fierce as they had known it would be.

But this – the balm-covered swab up the kid's cock, the gloved finger forcing a great dollop of the stuff up his butt – was beyond anything either of them had seen before from Tichy. The older boys knew firsthand how a little bit of this cream felt smeared on their balls, but Marek's punishment was extreme even by the reputed STB agent's standards. The kid was a first-year student, still fairly small of stature and only 12 years old. This would have been a very severe punishment for an adult let alone a kid that young. Tichy was making the boy suffer in absolute agony. It was disturbing to see it. It always was frightening to see what the man was capable of when he was angry,

But neither of the older boys was crazy enough to protest or utter as much as a single syllable on Marek's behalf. Interfering with or objecting to Tichy's punishments simply was not done. Jakub was struggling not to shake in fear. He was gripping onto Marek as much to keep himself from flinching and trembling as to hold the boy in place. Filip was in a state of deep, grim determination. He was pale, his lips a tense line, as he tried to look to Tichy for instructions or cues. He wanted to move up in Tichy's little club, and he sure as fuck didn't want Tichy as his enemy – all the more after seeing this. He avoided gazing down at Marek's tortured, tear-streaked face. He didn't want to witness the younger boy's agony any more than he had to, but if Tichy had commanded him to strangle Marek and grab a shovel to help dispose of the body, he almost certainly would have.

Marek was a bedraggled, sweat-soaked, shaking boy as he struggled in the grip of the older boys and screamed himself hoarse into the gag. He stopped screaming for a moment as he lowered his head to his chest once again, only to lift it and resume screaming only seconds later. Nothing he tried helped him to cope with the pain. Nothing helped to alleviate it. His muscles corded and flexed as he tried to break free from his binds. He still couldn't see much of anything other than blurry colors and shapes. His eyes were bulged, red, and rimmed with tears.

There was no end to the torment or the pain. Marek tried to go still and fight the pain that way. His head slumped to his chest again as he grunted in agony, followed by a series of additional grunts as successive waves of pain just kept coming. His body was on fire, his throat hurt from screaming, and he felt so tired now. A fresh jolt of pain brought his head up again as he struggled once more. More grunts came from him. His head flopped to his chest once again. Nothing, but nothing, had any effect on the pain. It seemed endless, like it was a permanent part of him now. Maybe it was.

Tichy allowed Marek to suffer for what must have seemed to the boy like an eternity. Although only the Hurta kid was being punished, Tichy was aware that the lesson he was imparting to the Glass King's grandson would be well-learned by the other boys present and that news of what had happened soon would spread to every member of his little group. Tichy also knew from a decade of experience at the school that to keep the boys in line and their thoughts in proper perspective, it never hurt to demonstrate what he could do to them. He had never been quite this extreme before, certainly not with a first-year boy and not with his copious internal use of the tiger balm, but Marek had majorly pissed him off with his open defiance, and the stark reality of his specific situation needed to be explained to the 12-year-old in no uncertain terms. Marek "Nazi-Traitor" Hurta had been brought to the school to atone for his ancestry, and no mercy would be given him. The sooner he understood and accepted that fact, the better.

Tichy left Marek to kneel in his agony for a full 25 minutes, opting to conclude things only when it looked like finally all the fight had drained out of the exhausted boy and he was on the cusp of passing out.

"I'll allow you to negotiate this to last less than the full three hours, Hurta," Tichy finally announced. "To start with you need to be able to negotiate, so calm yourself down a bit and nod your head if you're ready for the gag to come out without screaming." He didn't plan to help the boy until after they had a conversation. The man had Marek by the balls, and he was going to have some fun with him.

When Tichy spoke, Marek lifted his head and tried to point his face in the direction that the sound had come from. He went silent, but for some shivery moans, and then nodded frantically at the man's terms. Using all his willpower, still shaking spasmodically, Marek forced himself to remain completely silent as he prayed for the man to make the pain stop.

Tichy untied the rope over the makeshift sock-gag and began to fish the socks out of Marek's mouth.

"One scream, and you'll have permanently lost your one and only chance to cut this short," he warned. "There," he said as he pulled the deepest sock free. Just like that, Marek's mouth was clear so he could at least breathe properly, which Tichy knew might help him to manage the pain.

Marek gasped for air in shivery inhales as soon as the gag came from his mouth. He felt so cold, yet it was always too hot in Tichy's office. He shivered and shook as the older boys continued to hold him, occasional tremors affecting his entire body spasmodically. Somehow, with the gag out, he suddenly was freezing. His skin broke out in goose pimples. He felt extremely cold, like he had just been immersed in a bath of ice water. He continued to shiver uncontrollably, but the only sound he made aside from his panicked breathing was a pitiable moan of pain. He dared not scream. He would not. After the man's warning, he knew he could not.

"I understand Tomáš came to visit you last night, is that correct, Marek?" asked Tichy in an ominous tone.

Marek froze in fear. How did the man know about Tomáš? It wasn't possible. The boy almost couldn't believe it. Fresh tears filled his eyes. Radek had ratted on him again. Marek felt betrayed. Tichy would certainly punish him yet again, but he already had 60 coming with the cane! He also wanted to lie and deny Tomáš's visit, but he knew that would only make things worse. Tichy already knew the truth. Marek wanted to die.

"Yes," the hopeless boy whispered in reply.

"'Yes, sir,' or 'Yes, Comrade Tichy,'" the man reminded him.

"Yes, sir," amended Marek.

"Based on that and your behavior here today, I'm ending your protective two-week period," announced Tichy. "You'll obey your superiors without a fuss, immediately, following my rules in full. Do you understand? Do you accept these terms?"

"Yes, sir," Marek gasped, then added a beleaguered nod.

"You will clean cocks and asses during and after sex, as needed, every time. This is no longer a punishment for you but a permanent part of your role in our little group. You'll do it every time it's called for, never again refusing or disobeying me. You will have ample opportunity to demonstrate your obedience on this issue tomorrow, but for now, do you understand? Do you accept?"

"Yes, sir," Marek immediately gasped as a bead of sweat rolled from his forehead and into his eye. He tried to blink it away as he begged whatever gods there were to end Tichy's slow-paced interrogation and save him from his pain.

Tichy paused and cocked an eyebrow at the tortured boy. Did Marek even realize what he had just agreed to? Tichy knew full that he was prolonging the boy's torment with his questions, but he was having fun with it. The man also knew that Marek would agree to absolutely anything he proposed. The boy obviously just wanted to end his pain.

"The rest of your punishment, every bit of it in the next few days, will be photographed, recorded, and immortalized," continued Tichy. "Do you understand? Do you accept?"

The boy's answer to every question Tichy posed, of course, was yes. Filip and Jakub likely would have fallen over in shock if the traumatized boy had answered so much as a single inquiry in the negative. For his part, Marek never even considered doing so. Each answer came immediately and eagerly on the heels of the question. Tichy could have asked Marek if he would kill his mother in her sleep with a butter knife and he would have agreed to do it. Nothing, but nothing mattered to the boy right now other than alleviating his pain.

In the end, the child gave a series of gasping, tight, two-word responses to every one of the man's questions but they came out so quickly and so pain-filled that the two words effectively had blended into one. "Yessir," the boy gasped to each question, between his hyperventilated, shuddering breaths.

"That-a-boy!" said Tichy in an upbeat tone. "Now listen, Hurta. If you try to run, or tattle, or hide – if you step out of line by even a centimeter – I'll use a longer swab. I'll use more of this stuff. I'll coat a condom with it and fuck you with it. I'll coat you in an extra thick layer of it, and I'll rub it everywhere, even into your eyes, your ears, and up your fucking nostrils, and then I'll tie you up and throw you in a closet and forget all about you for an entire night. I'm not kidding. I know you'll want to panic and do something stupid after this. But … don't. Don't, or you'll wish, from the bottom of your heart, that you had never been born. I'm not kidding, Marek. I swear it," said the man solemnly. "Do you understand?"

The full-body shakes that were racking the boy only increased in frequency as Tichy detailed what would happen to him if he stepped out of line again. Fresh tears flooded Marek's eyes as he nodded his head up and down in understanding. He did understand. Now, he truly, fully, understood. He truly believed with every fiber of his being that Tichy would do it. The man would do what he threatened to do, and he wouldn't even think twice about it.

Marek knew that the man hated him. It wasn't fair, of course, but that didn't matter one iota to the situation the boy found himself in. The origins of Tichy's hatred were irrelevant. All that mattered was that the hatred existed, and because of it, there would be no mercy extended to the boy, and no quarter given. Any hints or suggestions that Tichy previously had given that he would help Marek at the school, or that they would be allies – none of that mattered anymore. That had all been so many lies. The man had laid everything on the table and his terms were unconditional. Theirs was only a one-way relationship now, and the boy fully understood his situation.

The man's detailed warning took so long it was all Marek could do not to interrupt to hurry him along. The boy responded instantly as soon as Tichy finished speaking.

"Yessir," the boy replied in a pain-filled gasp. He just couldn't stop shivering and shaking. He was simply desperate for Mr. Tichy to stop the pain.

"Now this will briefly sting, and feel almost worse, but only very briefly," said Tichy in a softer tone. "It's the only way of making the pain go away before all your nerve endings are totally numb to it, which won't be for hours and hours yet," he explained as he opened a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of isopropyl alcohol. He soaked a cloth with it and began to clean Marek's cock and balls.

Marek could smell the alcohol even before the man applied it to his body. It felt cool to Marek, before a stinging, burning wave washed over him, but then the pain started to subside rapidly, leaving behind a numbness, almost a deadness to any sensation. Marek didn't care about the sting. All he cared about was making the pain go away which, mercifully, it started to almost immediately after Tichy applied the saturated cloth to his genitals.

The boy continued to shake uncontrollably as the man applied the tissue to the affected parts of his body. Tichy wiped Marek's taint and his butthole, cleaning as much of the tiger balm off as he could. Then he popped a glove on and used an alcohol-soaked wipe to clean Marek's rectum. He couldn't get all of it, and the pain there didn't stop, but it certainly lessened by a whole lot. Then the man very carefully cleaned the boy's cock and the tip of his piss slit.

"If I use an alcohol swab, it'll feel awful for a few minutes, but you'll piss out the rest of the cream much faster then," said Tichy. "Do you want more pain for a bit, or less pain for several hours" he asked the boy pragmatically.

The man's question posed the first conundrum for Marek. More pain now for less later? The relief he felt from the tissue already was significant. Marek nodded unhappily.

"Please … d-do it, sir," he said, in a shivery, sobbing whisper.

"Hold your hand over his mouth," Tichy said to Filip as he dipped a cotton swab in alcohol and gently ran the swap deep into Marek's urethra. The shock of pain that followed made it very difficult for Marek not to scream out loud in violation of his promise. The alcohol-infused swab in the 12-year-old's urethra almost made him pass out. His body shuddered in the grip of the older boys as his eyelids fluttered and his eyeballs rolled up in his head.

Marek didn't scream, but his body shook as his muscles corded and he pulled at his binds. Looking pale and stunned, Filip and Jakub held Marek tightly, preventing the younger boy from toppling over as he shook and strained. Tichy pulled the swab out with a screwing sort of motion that managed to get a lot of the cream out. What was left inside the boy's urethra still burned and it was bound to continue burning, but it was a significant relief, even after a short while. What didn't abate for the boy was the deep, unnatural pain from the bits of the cream that were dislodged and had been pushed farther into his body when he lost control of his bladder

Marek's body slumped in his binds, but then his head snapped up again as the man began to screw the swab out of his body. He emitted a low, long, unnatural moan even as his brain told him not to make a sound. He couldn't help it. But then the swab emerged from his penis and the pain went back to where it had been before, certainly not much worse, and maybe even a little better.

Tichy untied Marek and gave the boy a large glass of water. Still kneeling on the floor Marek drank the water gratefully, tilting his head back, gulping and swallowing even as some of it dribbled down his heaving chest and onto his genitals. He made no effort to move. His pain was better in most places, but the memory of it was still very much present and he still felt it in places that Tichy had been unable to reach with the alcohol.

"Filip, fetch him the bucket so he can piss when he needs to," said Tichy. "Then you two can go. This won't get any more interesting today."

"You," he said to Marek, "you'll kneel in your corner time spot, in your corner-time position until told otherwise," said Tichy. "And you'll think about what you've just agreed to and accepted." Despite the boy's newfound obedience and complacency, Tichy didn't want Marek hurrying out of his office freshly distressed. Forcing the boy to calm down, and forcing the shame and fear to sink in, reduced the risk that the kid would do something idiotic that could be dangerous for his operation. Letting Marek kneel for a while, broken to a new level, humiliated, and still hurting, also served to reinforce Tichy's position of authority.

Without hesitation, but still shaking like a leaf, Marek tried to rise to his feet. He then thought better of it and crawled to the cabinet where he shakily arranged himself in the "corner time" position – knees spread, butt on heels, hand behind his back, and his face and nose leaning on the cabinet with his knees situated about a foot away. Once in position, Marek simply could not stop shivering. He felt cold all over – freezing, in fact – and the full-body quakes continued every few seconds, as well.

Tichy poured himself a vodka and sighed contentedly. The afternoon hadn't gone the way he expected but it had been even more enjoyable nonetheless.

"If you need to piss, use the bucket," he said as he pointed to the plastic bucket that Filip had dropped next to Marek. "Piss as much and as often as you like, but if you manage to hold it a bit and take a longer piss, it will be a lot better for you than pissing several small, separate dribbles," recommended Tichy.

Filip and Jakub left, which, among other things, meant the door to the office now was unlocked. Tichy left it that way, if only because he knew it drove the Hurta kid to distraction. The risk of somebody coming to visit at this time of day was quite low, but Marek didn't need to know that.

Marek didn't respond to the man's offer to piss. He didn't need to right now, and he couldn't even if he had to. He was concentrating fully on staying in position and not moving. He thought of nothing else.

It took some time, but eventually Marek's shivering and body tremors abated, then ended altogether. Some pain remained but it was tolerable and no longer white-hot in its intensity. The boy remained nearly motionless but slowly found himself regretting that in his haste to comply with Tichy's direction, he had positioned his knees a couple of inches further back from the cabinet than usual. This had the effect of increasing the angle of his lean, which in turn put pressure on his back and neck. He dared not move, but every dozen or so seconds he gave a tiny little moan of discomfort that probably was not loud enough for Tichy to hear. Meanwhile, his mind started to wander as he thought about everything that had happened to him, and what his life had now become. It was like a horror show, with only his memories of Vacenovice – so distant, now – providing the boy with the slightest respite and comfort.

Tichy smoked and drank, stealing an occasional look at the thoroughly defeated youngster leaning passively against his cabinet. He left Marek in his position for some twenty minutes, vaguely pondering what he would do if Skala did his usual thing right now, which was to knock but then proceed to walk in without waiting for an answer. It would be a bit dangerous for him to see Marek like that, but also quite exhilarating. Noting of that sort happened though, and so eventually, when he could see that Marek's breathing had calmed down and his shivering had abated, Tichy cleared his throat.

"Lock the door, Hurta, and get over here and suck my cock," he demanded simply. "Crawl nice and low, both ways. I have to say that no one has pissed me off quite this much for quite some time, you little twerp. Trying to … what? Get up and go? In front of two of my other boys? Do you have a death wish, or what?" he asked, scratching his chin.

"I think you've learned your lesson," he sighed, "but now I have to demonstrate that you've learned it to all the others. You've really messed things up; do you understand that, you little fucker?"

Without hesitation, on the man's command, Marek crawled back to the door face down, with his head low to the ground. There was no fight left in the boy. He didn't even so much as think of disobeying nor did an oppositional thought so much as enter his mind. He knelt up to lock the door, his small fingers struggling once again with the indifferent key. All the while, he listened to the man's words of condemnation. He gave no reaction and made no sound, other than a few sniffles as he returned to his hands and knees for the return journey.

Marek's heart rate elevated as he crawled back toward the man. He began to shake once again. His only thought was to give the man the best blowjob he could give even if he choked to death in the effort. He would not give Stanislav Tichy any more reasons to hurt him today, or ever again. He had made that vow to himself. He was tired of being hurt. Since the man already had proven that he could get away with doing absolutely anything to Marek that he chose, what was the point of fighting him?

"Eyes," demanded Tichy as Marek drew near. "And listen carefully to me as you suck."

With growing apprehension, Marek crawled to his familiar spot between the man's legs and reached out with a shaking hand to pull the man's semi-hard penis into his mouth. His eyes went to Tichy's the instant the man commanded it, and this time they didn't play the no-look, no-focus game. The boy stared right at his nemesis with an abject look of horror on his face. He did not dare to oppose the man in even the smallest way now. He would comply with everything that Tichy wanted.

The man waited until Marek was in position before speaking.

"There will be asses fucked tomorrow. You will lick, tongue, and suck on those asses like you were born to do nothing else. You'll also suck, repeatedly, the cocks that will have been up those asses. Is that absolutely, totally crystal clear?" Tichy demanded. He waited for the cocksucking traitor's son to acknowledge him with an abbreviated head nod before continuing.

"If you ever try to undermine me in front of my core crew again, I'll torture you until you're just a broken, mindless piece of panting meat, and then I'll make you eat shit and drink piss until you are opening your mouth and sticking your tongue out like a demented puppy looking for more," warned Tichy.

Marek listened with growing dread as Tichy outlined the consequences of repeating the very poor decision he had made. The boy could tell that Tichy's anger at his behavior had only partially abated, or maybe not at all. It was only as he listened to the man's words that Marek realized what a mistake it had been to defy Tichy in front of the other boys. It was one thing to be defiant when he was alone with the man; it was quite another to show him up in front of his boys.

Marek nodded at the man's words as best he could while holding the man's cock in his mouth, but Tichy wasn't done.

"Don't you ever fuck with me again," the man continued. "You've pushed your luck as far as you can push it here today. But I haven't done my worst. If you fuck up like that again, I'll torture you like an American spy caught by the KGB, do you understand? And I might well just kill you, but if I do, you'll be fucking glad that I'm finally done with you when you draw that last, pained breath. Do you understand?" he demanded darkly.

Marek listened as the man described what would happen to him if he made a mistake like that again. His fear increased with every word Tichy spoke. His shivers quickly returned, followed shortly thereafter by full body tremors.

The youngster cringed like he had been hit when the man asked him if he understood. Marek was just barely able to stop himself – oh, thank god he stopped himself – from biting down on the man's cock in terror. He managed to nod once again, signifying that he understood, which he absolutely did. He well understood that Tichy had seemingly unlimited ways to hurt him, and he absolutely believed that the man would use them. After what had just happened, there was really no question about that anymore. He also believed that the man would kill him, and while he might have welcomed a painless death given how low he felt, Tichy had assured him that his death would be preceded by prolonged torture and mindless pain.

The man watched carefully for signs that his words were sinking in. The boy appeared to be suitably terrified, and his reaction seemed appropriate. Tichy was only partly erect now, and he decided to take advantage of it.

"Drink up, fucker. Show me what you've learned about obedience," he demanded and started to piss in Marek's mouth.

What the man did next surprised Marek, but only for a second or two as he realized there was no limit to Tichy's mistreatment of him. With a wince, he began to swallow the warm, bitter liquid, then paused, and then swallowed some more as he continued to look right at Tichy's cold, blue eyes.

Tichy knew it was virtually impossible for anyone to keep up with a full-paced piss, so he paused the stream after a few seconds, released it, paused it again, and released the rest of it after that. It took a while for the man to empty his entire bladder, but every blessed drop of it went straight down into the boy's roiling, clenching tummy as Marek quivered, and shook, and drank piss on his knees.

"Now suck," commanded Tichy.

Marek transitioned to sucking the man just as soon as Mr. Tichy had finished using the boy like a urinal. The boy tongued, bobbed, and sucked like Tichy had taught him, doing his best to please the man with his mouth as he kept his eyes locked on. He listened carefully to every instruction, going "nice and slow" for the man, using his tongue, opening his throat, and taking five inches every second or third time down.

"Good kurva," [Author's Note: "whore"] said Tichy with a smile as Marek proceeded to suck him off without missing a beat, and never once so much as interrupting the direct and oh-so-sexy eye-contact.

"Hmmm. Yes. Keep it up. Nice and slow today. Nice and slow and deep and don't your eyes as much as flutter in a different direction. You'll suck until I cum and keep it in your mouth to show it off when you're done," said Tichy as he pressed the boy's head deeper onto his now fully-erect shaft.

While his jaw still hurt from the initiation ceremony, Marek was glad to find that his throat did not feel abraded today. Tichy's fully erect cock slid easily inside, and the boy was able to suppress his gag reflex. Five inches, he could do, and the man was not asking him to go any deeper. Marek would, of course, if Tichy commanded it. The only problem was that the vomit bucket still was over by the cabinet where Filip had left it, so there would be a real risk of a disaster if Tichy made him deep-throat. As compliant as the boy's brain wanted to be, his tummy was now full of the man's piss and it would not take much gagging at all for it to empty itself all over the man's carpet, which Marek knew instinctively would not be good for his physical well-being.

Tichy watched the boy, holding the steady, extended eye contact himself, and drinking in the view, even as he ran through an inventory of items he needed for the punishing, humiliating session he had planned for the next day. How many rolls of film did he have? Two black and white, he was pretty sure. Did he have a color roll? He wasn't sure. He would have to go to town anyway because he had some very specific ideas about how tomorrow was going to look and he couldn't quite make them happen with what he had on hand. It was his shopping day to stock up – mostly just on smokes and vodka, of course, as food was provided by the school.

He didn't exactly do it on purpose, but the fact that he let his thoughts wonder as he schemed and plotted meant that despite the incredibly sexy way in which Marek was sucking his cock, Tichy was going to last longer now. But he was in no hurry, nor of course was the boy.

Marek eyes never once left Tichy's as he sucked the man's cock, but it was several minutes before his shivers and shakes finally subsided. He worked the man's glans with his tongue, applied pressure with his lips, and took Tichy's cockhead into the threshold of his throat every second or third time he bobbed his head. Sucking cock was becoming almost second nature for the boy, not that he saw it exactly in those terms. Rather, to Marek, sucking provided a bit of respite from the other things that Tichy made him do, almost all of which were worse, either because they were disgusting, painful, or both. Blowjobs, by comparison, usually didn't hurt. And unless the man really wanted to force his entire cock into the boy's throat, Marek could get through them well enough.

Tichy let the suck job stretch to a solid 30 minutes, demanding more tongue and steady, repeated depth from the boy – mercifully never more than the five inches Marek could already take – while not allowing Marek to speed up. He edged at a near-orgasm for a good long while and then came hard with a deep, catching, guttural grunt, filling Marek's mouth with rather a lot of cum as Tichy tilted his head back with pleasure.

It had been several days since he had last sucked the man to orgasm, but Marek's observation during his initiation ceremony soon was proven correct; none of the boys came with anywhere near as much volume as Tichy himself. It had taken a long while, but when the man finally achieved orgasm, he flooded Marek's mouth with his bitter cum. Marek was careful not to swallow so he could show it to the man.

"Show me your prize, kurvičko [Author's Note: "little whore"]," Tichy demanded with a cruel smile.

Marek complied as he waited for Tichy's permission to finish. When it came, he grimaced and swallowed the man's cum in one stomach-churning gulp.

Tichy grunted in satisfaction at the show before allowing the boy to clean his shaft.

"Now go eat. Rest. Gather your strength, as you'll very much need it tomorrow. Tomorrow evening, half past eight my apartment. I have plans now that the office just isn't spacious and private enough for," he added.

"And Hurta," he said, as he paused long enough for the boy to make eye-contact once again. "Don't fuck with me. You're on your last warning before…" Tichy made a pistol-shooting gesture at the boy.

Marek was utterly exhausted and emotionally spent. He had done everything the man asked, everything he wanted. But when Tichy instructed him to come to his apartment the next evening for a special session. Marek blanched. He was terrified. But what could he do except muster the courage and energy to reply?

"Yes, sir," he said in a meek whisper.

Chapter Thirteen

With a no-longer-burning but still-uncomfortable tingling sensation from the tiger balm, Marek left the man's office and headed back to his dorm. His stomach was clenched and tied in knots from the torture he had endured at Tichy's hands. It was getting on toward dinner time, but Marek had absolutely no appetite and wasn't the least bit hungry. He already felt full and sick to his stomach from the man's cum. The simple task of eating was starting to become a big problem for the boy. The second-last thing on earth he wanted to do was eat dinner, but the last thing on earth he wanted to do was violate the man's rules about eating.

Radek was there when Marek arrived, but one look at his roommate's face told Radek that now was not the time to try to engage in idle conversation. Marek looked like death warmed over. His face had an unnatural pallor to it and his skin looked pale. His expression was blank. He seemed to be trembling and he didn't so much as acknowledge Radek as he climbed into his bed fully dressed and pulled the covers up over his head. Radek thought he heard muted sobs and sniffles through the sheets, and he wondered what Tichy could possibly have done to cause such a distressed reaction in the boy. Marek stayed under the sheets until it was time for dinner, then forced himself to go to the canteen. He still had no appetite, but he forced himself to eat.

Tichy headed down into town that very evening. He had a plan and he wanted something you couldn't buy in a shop in communist Czechoslovakia. He bought a bottle of nice wine, then popped over to the home of a friend who was a seamstress. Like most Czech women, she had her own sewing machine, and she also had the time and patience to help. Together, they talked, sketched, and schemed, and by the end of the evening, Tichy had what he had come for.

Tichy returned to the internat later that night with a small, soft parcel wrapped in old newspaper under his arm. It had cost him a nice bottle of wine, but he was very happy with it. He was lucky that the garment he wanted could be made almost entirely out of scraps, which the woman had in abundance since she worked in a nearby textile factory. It wouldn't have worked in an adult size, nor would it survive being worn every day, but it absolutely worked as a costume.

Marek was too tired to shower that night after dinner and went to bed early, but not before completing his math and Russian homework. Tichy would know if he didn't do his homework and punish him for it, and Marek knew he would pay a stiff price for disobeying the man's instructions. In the back of his mind, though, he knew that he was only postponing the inevitable. He was way behind on studying for exams and was very likely to fail them. The other boys had study groups for support, but Marek had nobody to help him. By this point, he didn't care about his grades at all; it was Tichy's wrath that he feared. Otherwise, it didn't matter. His grades meant nothing to him anymore, even if failing meant that he would have to repeat the year back in Vacenovice.

Sleep came quickly to the exhausted boy. He slept through the night without incident and without any dreams that he could remember. It may even have been a night free of nightmares about Tichy, but he couldn't be sure.

Tichy didn't want Marek tired and distracted for the coming festivities, so he hadn't set the boy up for any trouble the following day. That, coupled with the magic of the bullet cartridge around his neck, gave Marek another peaceful and trouble-free day. Nobody bothered him as he went through the motions of living. His mind never wandered far from Tichy, however, and his 8:30 p.m. appointment with destiny in the man's apartment. It was all he could think of during his classes. It was all he could think of in the canteen at lunch. Eating remained a terrible chore for Marek, more like an ordeal. His appetite was gone because his stomach always was tied in knots. It seemed like a permanent condition. It felt like a pit the size of a tennis ball lived in his belly.

Marek didn't have to come to Tichy's office at four o'clock and instead used the time to try to study and get some rest. His mind wouldn't focus because he already was dreading what the evening would bring. He was due in the man's apartment at 8:30 p.m. and there was no doubt he would be in for a bad experience. Tichy had as much as promised him that would be the case, and as the day progressed, Marek's anxiety grew to the point where he again felt sick to his stomach. Not knowing what the man was going to do to him had the boy tied in knots. He decided to take a quick nap before dinner.

Marek lay under his covers, but he didn't sleep. He couldn't. His heart was beating much too quickly, and even as tired as he felt, he was far too anxious and on edge to rest. Things had taken a dire turn for the worse for the boy. In his desperation, he had made the mistake of turning to Tichy for protection, and Marek now knew that he was in way over his head with the man. He was in trouble, and there was no way of backing out. Tichy had made that crystal clear: They were either allies, or enemies. What he hadn't told Marek was just how difficult being an ally was going to be for the boy.

Marek wished he could go back to the aftermath of his beating by the older boys and make a different decision, but he couldn't. The older boys had said that they were planning to kill him. Maybe Marek could still convince them to do so, because at this point, he really didn't care one way or the other. Part of him wanted to live to see his mother and friends once again, but Tichy was determined to punish, torment, and torture him every day until the break, and Marek wasn't sure he could endure it for three additional weeks. Even if it meant he never saw Vacenovice again, death in many ways would be a welcome relief from his troubles. He wasn't feeling sorry for himself in this thinking; he simply had compared the two paths, and death seemed like the path of least resistance.

As the day drew on, Marek's anxiety grew and grew. The last thing on earth he wanted to do was to go to Mr. Tichy's apartment that evening. Whatever the man had planned for him it was sure to be painful, awful, and humiliating. And that was if it went well. Marek knew that if he reacted, or fought back, or spoke out of turn, it easily could turn into torture.

Despite his despondency and lack of sleep, Marek again forced himself to go to the canteen for dinner, where he again forced himself to eat. He still had no appetite whatsoever, but he ate everything on his plate. He was simply too frightened of what Tichy would do to him if he didn't. The moment he even briefly considered not finishing the entire meal, his body and arm started to shake with such force at the knowledge of what might happen to him that he splattered milk all over his tray and the table.

Try as he might, Marek couldn't get Tichy out of his mind. It was like the man had taken up permanent residence there. He was all that the boy thought about, all day, every day, and even at night when he dreamed.

Marek had intended to shower after class, but he was so tied up in knots about what was to come that he never followed through and he remained sticky with dried sweat from the prior day's traumatic session in Tichy's office. He did his homework like a zombie, managing to complete it but that was all he could do. Once done, he just sat slumped at his desk in despair. He couldn't bring himself to study or to speak to Radek. The two of them had exchanged only a couple of words all evening. As the hour grew late, Marek again was consumed with fear. Why did he have to go? What was going to happen to him? Why did the man hate him so? What had he done to deserve such torment?

At 8:20 p.m., Marek rose from his chair. Looking pale as a ghost, he nodded once at Radek and made his way out of the room. There was no reason for him to say anything; Radek knew where he was going. Leaving his residence hall, he started to make his way to the staff wing and his appointment with fate.

Not wanting to be late – needing not to be late – Marek had left himself plenty of time to arrive at the appointed hour at Tichy's apartment, but there was a problem: He was not sure of the path Rychly had taken, and the route he had selected apparently was wrong. He knew they had gone up the fire escape and into the apartment, but how did he get to that fire escape? Was it the north one, or the south one? They both looked identical, or, at least, symmetrical.

As the prospect of being late started to loom in Marek's mind, he decided to take the more-direct route, the one that he knew for sure went to the staff residences. It did, but where was Tichy's apartment? It seemed to have disappeared. Everything looked the same, but the man's apartment was gone! As he stood in the hallway looking perplexed and just as he was starting to panic, a door opened, and he saw the school's janitor emerge from his apartment. That was a problem because the staff residences were strictly off-limits to the students and Marek was not supposed to be here.

Vacha was in his late 40s but looked older, a man with a bushy beard, a big mustache, and a squashed, mottled, red nose from drinking far too much. He was pot-bellied and appeared to wear a perpetual frown, though that was due more to his ugly, caterpillar-like monobrow than his temper. His breath smelled like alcohol – sharp, tangy, and noxious. His teeth were yellow and incomplete. He seemed rather surprised to see Marek; in fact, he was surprised to see anyone in the hallway of the staff residences other than his daughter, Ludmila, who was overdue to return from her school in Brod.

"And what are you doing here?" he asked as he eyed Marek suspiciously. He sounded more perplexed than annoyed. "You brats aren't supposed to bother us in the accommodations unless the school's burning down, and you don't exactly look like you're here to report a fire. So," the janitor tilted his head, "why are you here?"

"Uh, I …" Marek started to say. But what could he say? He had to think, and he had to think fast. He could feel his heart rate climbing like a rocket blasting off.

"I- I have to see Mr. Tichy," stammered. "I have a- a- a message for him." And then, before he could stop himself, he added: "From the h-headmaster."

Another adult may have told Marek off for not addressing him properly, but Vacha despised the regime and wasn't the kind of man to push to be called a comrade.

"Why doesn't comrade Skála just phone him?" he replied skeptically, but luckily for Marek, it turned out to be a rhetorical question. "You're on the wrong floor. One floor up, down the hallway, last flat on the right, next to the back staircase, near the fire escape," said Vacha, as he closed the door on Marek without even waiting for an apology or a thank you.

As soon as the man dismissed him, Marek took off at a sprint down the hall. Luckily for him, the man's directions were clear enough and it didn't take Marek much longer to reach the staircase leading to Tichy's apartment. He took the stairs two at a time, arriving quickly at Tichy's door. He paused a moment to compose himself and to say his usual prayer. Please let everything go well today. Please let me survive this. But before he could even knock, the door opened, and there stood Tichy. He was frowning and he looked angry.

"You dare to be late, on today of all days?" he said as he raised his eyebrows. "And which route did you take to get here? Don't you know the proper way, you jackass?" grunted Tichy, glancing at his watch. "Did someone see you?" he demanded. It was always a risk, and technically against the rules, to allow the boys into his flat. If nobody knew, it would be fine, but if someone happened to see Marek coming in now and returning much later, there could be trouble. Tichy's jaw tightened at the thought. He wasn't pleased.

Marek could tell that the man was not happy, and he almost fell to his knees in fear as the man dressed him down. Marek was already furious with himself. His stupid fucking sense of direction had once again betrayed him, and at the worst possible time, with the worst possible person, in the worst possible way. The boy was frustrated. This was another self-inflicted wound. Between it and his night cums, it seemed like he didn't even have himself for an ally. Tichy, it seemed, was his only ally, and the boy already knew how well that was going.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Tichy," he said contritely. He said it again as the man continued to speak. "I- I wasn't …" he tried to reply. His blood ran cold when Tichy asked if anyone had seen him. "I- I think th-the janitor m-might have seen me," he said, expecting full well for the man to be irate that he had even been on that floor.

"Next time," Tichy pointed, "you'll go down the staircase like you're going to the canteen, take the empty connecting hallway, and go up this fire escape," he pointed, "straight to my door. I'll let this slip just once because the last time you were here it was late, and you were tired."

Marek nodded for all he was worth, while committing the directions to memory. How dumb could he have been? Of course the man's apartment was on the second floor; first floors didn't even have fire escapes, for obvious reasons. That was how bad Marek was with directions. When he got lost, he simply could not think straight.

"Yes, sir," he replied to the man as a wave of relief washed over him like warm tide on a sandy beach.

"But I mean it when I say once," said Tichy, as he cut Marek actual slack for possibly the first time ever. He steered the boy into his apartment and closed the door behind him.

"Yes, sir," Marek said again as the man made clear that it was a one-time-only dispensation.

Tichy's flat looked far more ordinary in full light, without drapes and throws over the furniture, without the smoke and scent of frankincense, without the candles and without a group of boys, half-naked and half-clad in black. It was a simple affair, comprised of a relatively spacious living room with a small balcony that Marek hadn't noticed before, a small adjacent bedroom, and a small kitchen with an adjoining bathroom at the other end of the hallway.

"Strip," said Tichy and moments later, his eyes narrowed, his nostrils flared, and he crouched down to give Marek a closer inspection. "When did you last shower, ty prase?" [Author's note: "you pig"]

The man's question was not promising, and Marek knew that he was in for it. "Two days ago, sir," he said, with a nervous swallow.

Tichy reared back and slapped the boy hard across the face. The blow was hard enough to stagger Marek, and it nearly almost sent the boy to his knees, but Tichy was careful enough not to bruise him or knock out a tooth.

Marek just took the slap. He made no move to protect himself, not even by raising his arms, and certainly not by trying to step away lest any additional blows were coming. He just stood there, slightly hunched, cowering and cringing, as his cheek reddened from the impact.

"You'll show up to our appointments clean, fresh, and decent you little punk," said Tichy. "Understood?" he asked with a frown. "Into the bathroom with you. I guess at least today it sort of works with my plans."

"Yes, sir," Marek replied in a meek, contrite voice. The boy was grateful that his mistake had earned him only a single slap to the face.

Tichy ushered Marek into the bathroom, then into the bathtub where he ran the shower cold. He made Marek stand in the freezing stream, then passed him a pink plastic bottle. It was shower gel, one of only two brands of children's shampoo available everywhere, and the one that only girls and babies used. It was cloyingly sweet and strawberry scented.

Marek stepped into the tub and stood shivering in the cold water. He took note of brand of shampoo the man handed to him, but Marek was far beyond worrying about things like that. If Tichy wanted him to feel humiliated using shampoo for little girls, he was going to be very disappointed. Marek felt nothing. All he cared about now was compliance, obedience, and avoiding punishments. Beyond that, the water was freezing cold, and he wanted to be out of it as soon as he could.

"Give yourself a good wash with that," said Tichy, "and don't move from the stream until you're clean. When you're finished you can get out and dry yourself off," he said as he pointed to a clean towel. "I have stuff for you to wear."

Marek washed himself thoroughly in the frigid water. By the end of it, his lithe, athletic young body looked clean, fresh, and nice, but it also was pale as a ghost and shivering uncontrollably from the cold. Somewhat remarkably, even against the stark whiteness of his skin, most of the bruising from his blanket beating had diminished to little more than yellowish discoloration, and the cane lines on his bottom were almost entirely gone.

"Stuff," as soon as Marek was clean and dry and smelling like a girl, turned out to be a short, powder-pink dress with a white apron together with slip-on, girlie sandals. A frilly, lace tiara competed the ensemble. The costume was reminiscent of that of a French maid, but it was pink instead of black.

Tichy handed him the dress, and this time, Marek's cheeks did blush with shame. It was the most girlish of girly, the pinkest of pinks, the frilliest of frilly. But the boy wasted no time in dressing himself in it, even if he needed a little bit of Tichy's help to get everything just so. To top it off, Tichy tied a bow with a pink ribbon around Marek's frozen genitals, grinning all the while.

The boy's heart rate increased and peaked as he reached the point of being fully "dressed."

"There we go," said Tichy. "A pretty little maid. Do you know how to curtsy? No?"

Tichy drilled Marek into the proper form, not much known in communist Czechoslovakia, but something a pervert and connoisseur – or anyone over 50 – was sure to know. The problem was that this decent, old-world greeting was far less decent for a boy in a too-short, too-tight little girlie maid outfit, especially with no underwear on. Tichy made sure that Marek lifted his short skirt high enough with every curtsy to reveal the pretty pink ribbon tied around his cock.

For Marek, learning to curtsy wasn't the problem. Oh, it was humiliating for the boy – there was plenty of that, and Tichy would have been pleased. But Marek couldn't stop thinking about why he was being taught to curtsy, and why Tichy wanted him dressed the way he was. Something was afoot, and the boy didn't know what it was. His heart was racing, even as the man corrected his form. Various scenarios raced through Marek's mind, but there was one among the others that he thought, quite literally, would cause him die of shame if it were what the man had planned. Was Tichy planning to take him on a walk around the dorms dressed like this? Was he going to have Marek escort him on his dorm check dressed as a little girl? It seemed very likely that he would.

Despite the very recent memory of the balm that Tichy had used to torture him, Marek wasn't sure that he could do that. He honestly didn't think his feet and legs would obey his brain's command to walk from the apartment dressed like this, and then Tichy would have ample cause to skin him alive, or chop him into pieces, or do whatever it was the secret police did to people when they disappeared. At least then, it would be over for Marek and he wouldn't have to deal with any of this anymore. He thought of his father. His father had disappeared, and he probably had suffered a fate very similar to what Tichy had described to the boy yesterday. Marek didn't think of his father often, but in that moment, he felt a closer connection to the man than he had ever felt before. It seemed that for the first time in his life, he could empathize with what his father likely had gone through at the hands of his own tormentors.

"You don't talk tonight," said Tichy. "Not a word other than 'yes sir' to me when I give you a specific instruction. Nothing else, not a peep. And when you say it, I want you to lift your voice up in pitch. Speak like a girl. Other than that," Tichy said as he placed his index finger on Marek's lips and circled them, "you're the cleaner. That means that any mess produced today, you clean up, and I don't want to have to tell you do it," he said as he pushed his finger between the boy's lips and into his mouth. "You'll lick, suck, and clean up every mess proactively, without being told. Is that clear?"

"Yeth, thir," Marek managed to respond despite the finger in his mouth. He was the cleaner, and he knew exactly what that meant. But did that also mean that they wouldn't be going out? Marek prayed for that to be the case. He had already decided that he would try to throw himself off the stairway or fire escape if the man tried to take him to the dorms.

Just then there was a knock on the door.

"Go get that," Tichy ordered. "And don't forget to curtsy. Even if its fucking Skala, I don't care."

The knock almost caused the skittish boy to jump out of his skin, but he recovered and somehow managed to convey himself to the door. He closed his eyes for just a moment to say a silent prayer, then opened it. He stepped back and immediately curtsied to the trio boys standing in the doorway.

The boys erupted with laughter at the sight of him. They were Filip and Martin in front, and looming behind them, Zdenek, the eldest of Tichy's boys. All three of them were laughing uproariously and were not holding back to spare Marek's feelings. They were only three in number because Tichy had made this little get together entirely optional. He had told the boys that they would experience a new, very pleasurable sensation if they attended, but he didn't tell them what it was. He also had promised everyone who showed up at least one cum, plus some fine entertainment, but he had made the soiree entirely optional.

Jakub had been too afraid he'd end up with Jan's, Zdenek's, or Tichy's cock up his ass when he didn't have to. Tomáš was too spent from a long day, and Jan had planned to come but was feeling ill. He hated to miss the festivities but showing up snot-nosed and sneezing would be very bad form unless the meetings were mandated by Tichy. Filip mentioned that Jan was unwell to Tichy, who nodded. Meanwhile, all the boys were grinning at Marek in his dress.

Marek's cheeks burned with shame as the older boys laughed at him. He knew full well how ridiculous he looked. As hard as he would have liked to pretend that he didn't care what Tichy or the other boys thought about him, the truth was he did. Being laughed at is never a comfortable thing, but it is decidedly less comfortable when you are a young boy dressed in a frilly little girl's dress with no underpants on underneath and a pink bow on your genitals. Being made to curtsy and smelling like a strawberry did not improve the situation for the 12-year-old.

"Hands on your head, pretty maid," chuckled Zdenek as he lifted Marek's skirt all the way up to see his genitals ensconced in the pink ribbon. Marek placed his hands on his head at Zdenek's command, then stood and took it as the older boys leered at his little cock all tied up in a pretty bow. The boys chuckled again at the sight. Martin reached over and pinched Marek's butt as they entered the apartment and pulled Marek with them into the living room, where Tichy had prepared for the evening's festivities. Once again, dice were involved. they were not the black-and-white dice this time, but just ordinary wooden ones with dark dots, likely appropriated from a children's board game.

As they took him to the living room, Marek's expression told anyone who bothered to look all they needed to know. The boy was not enjoying this, yet he knew it was going to be the easiest part of the evening ahead. Marek saw that Filip was there. Had he told the others what Tichy had done to him in his office with the tiger balm? On one level, Marek hoped that he had. At least then they might be able to understand why he was standing there in a dress. It wasn't being a wimp when you were trying to avoid being tortured to death. Marek saw the dice and the blood drained from his face. He already felt tired as he remembered back to the night of his initiation and all the dice he had been made to roll. He barely flinched as another boy pinched his butt.

"Go on then, boys," said Tichy. "Strip. Highest number fucks, lowest number gets fucked, middle number gets to experience what being cleaned up feels like, so he doesn't feel bored."

The boys all undressed, not really at all shy around each other anymore, especially with Marek pimped up the way he was, easily in the most humiliating outfit among them even if they were all to be in the nude. Marek stood, seemingly forgotten for the moment, as the boys proceeded to roll the dice. They made a real game out of it, and a lot of rolling ensued as Filip and Martin tied repeatedly. In the end, Zdenek stood while Filip knelt in front of him to suck him to an erection. Marek watched, a bit stunned, as the boys readily, almost happily, engaged in homosexuality. Were all Tichy's boys that way? Was Tichy, himself?

Once he was hard, Zdenek applied some cream to his cock, mounted Filip (a lot more gently and carefully than he would have mounted Marek), and started to fuck him. Meanwhile, Martin got down on all fours, giving Tichy a slightly anxious look, as if to ask if he was doing what he was supposed to be doing. At that point, Tichy took over to choreograph the performance.

"Knees apart, Martin, with your head low," he told the boy. "Markéta, you know what to do."

Marek had clearly been turned into a girl tonight, even in name. Very unhappily, he walked behind the other boy and dropped to his knees. He did not want to do this, but he had a very vivid memory of yesterday's episode in Tichy's office when he had refused to do the same thing and Tichy had tortured him for it. As was always the case with Tichy, refusing to obey just meant that you would be crucified until you did obey, and usually the make-up performance was far worse and more prolonged. Now there were even more assholes to lick than there had been yesterday, and Marek knew he would be made to lick them. He had learned his lesson the hard way, and the man had made it very clear that he was on his last chance. As Marek did not want to die under torture, he placed hands on Martin's ass, pulled the boy's butt cheeks apart, lowered his face to the boy's asshole, and began to lick it clean.

Martin seemed a bit nervous, but he soon grunted in surprised pleasure, clearly liking Marek's tongue on his hole quite a bit. His dick certainly stiffened rather eagerly, and his butthole tightened. As he worked, Marek felt a warning tap from a cane on his bare butt, which had become exposed the moment he had gone on all fours in the short dress to clean Martin's ass.

"Inside and out, Markétka [Author's note: "little Marketa," diminutive form]," said Tichy, as he held a 35mm camera to his face and prepared to photograph the boy's performance. He took a photo of Marek from behind with his butthole and prettily-tied cock on display, then one from the side, so that Martin wouldn't be identifiable in the picture – but Marek would be seen, in close-ups, with his face plastered between the older boy's butt cheeks.

Marek hated what he was being forced to do, but it was better than pain, and he kept reminding himself of that fact. He had gone down the pain path too many times with Tichy, and it had not gotten him anywhere. In fact, each time he had been punished by Tichy – really punished, as he no longer considered the slipper to be in that category – he had come out of it not only in agony, but in a worse position overall. He knew now that compliance was the only path. He would do whatever the man told him to do, not only because the alternative was too painful to imagine, but also because he knew that in less than three weeks, he was leaving this shithole school, and Tichy, forever.

Martin's asshole tasted exactly like an asshole should taste, which is to say, rank, disgusting, and bad. Marek licked it, anyway. If Tichy wanted him to lick, he would lick. Martin would have the cleanest fucking asshole in the entire school. In all of Czechoslovakia if that is what Tichy wanted. Because what Tichy wanted, Tichy got. He was like a little child. If he didn't get his way, he just beat and tortured people until he did. Unfortunately for Marek, Tichy was a little child with a lot of power at this school. Unlimited power, it would seem, as it certainly was unlimited over Marek – or Markéta, or Markétka, or whatever the fuck his teasing girl name was right now.

Marek saw the flash of a bright light before he heard the unmistakable click of the camera. He almost looked up, but then thought better of removing his face from where he knew it was supposed to be. When Tichy came around to the side, Marek could see him holding the camera and taking his photograph. Marek nearly died on the spot. His entire world crashed down around him. Photographs? Of him doing this?

Tichy had already warned him that he would photograph Marek's punishment, but his words hadn't registered. Marek hadn't known he meant this. Seeing the man casually taking photographs of him made Marek seethe with anger. He lifted off the other boy's ass now, his mouth wet and filthy, and looked at Tichy with absolute hatred. His eyes filled with tears. It almost didn't matter why Tichy was taking the pictures. Marek knew that for as long as they existed, they represented irrefutable proof that he was the lowest kind of wimp there ever was. Marek knew that Tichy would find a way to use them to ruin the boy's life. In that moment, if Marek had been holding a knife, he would have lunged at Tichy to kill him.

"Back to your work, cleaning girl," Tichy said sharply as he glared at the teary-eyed youngster. His look suggested that Marek was playing with fire and was about to be severely burned.

Marek may or may not have realized it, but Tichy had been deadly serious when he had told the kid that he had run out of all slack and other options. He had specifically warned Marek that if he disobeyed him tonight, he would be tortured like an adult with no mercy given. Even if the boy didn't die, if he defied Tichy again, the man would make sure that before the day was out, the screaming boy would wish he were dead. A grown man's heart could give out undergoing the kinds of tortures that Tichy had in mind for Marek, to say nothing of a 12-year-old kid's.

Part of Tichy hoped that the boy would not push his luck, because it would be fun to keep him around for more punishment and humiliating events and evenings like this one. But the darker part of Tichy would have been perfectly happy to exact a final revenge on the hated Glass King by torturing his only living heir to death. Tichy knew he could do it in such a way that not a single mark would be visible on the kid's body when it was found.

Fortunately, Marek knew that he had no choice but to obey and he did do, pressing his mouth back against Martin's ass and returning his tongue to his hole. But Marek was seething. His mind ached for revenge. He would come back. He was not kidding this time. He would fucking come back with a gun if he had to take it all the way from Vacenovice by train. He would take his uncle's gun, and he would come back to Zelezny Brod. He would hunt Stanislav Tichy like an animal, and he would blow his fucking head off. Then he would stomp on his balls and spit in whatever was left of his stupid fucking face after the gun was done with it. He would make sure Tichy knew who had done, it too. He didn't fucking care how fast or big Tichy was. He wasn't faster than a bullet. Marek didn't even care if he went to prison or was hanged. He would revel in what he had done even as they tightened the noose around his neck.

Thankfully for Marek, Tichy was unaware of the boy's revenge fantasy. He simply pushed the boy's face deeper into Martin's ass as he dipped his finger into a jar, then applied the stuff to Marek's anus.

The feel of something slippery going in his ass made the boy moan with terror at what he had just done. It had just been a single look! He had been surprised by the camera, and now Tichy was going to torture him with that tiger balm stuff for one look? Just a single look, which admittedly might have been hate-filled? But wait – Tichy wasn't wearing a glove, and he had worn one when he had applied the tiger balm. Was this just more of the lube cream? It didn't feel like it, not exactly, but Marek prayed that it was.

It turned out to be only petroleum jelly, which the man fingered into Marek's exposed butt. The boy flinched, winced, and groaned as his rectum was violated yet again, but he stayed true to his task with his face embedded between Martin's ass cheeks. It took Tichy only a second to locate the boy's prostate. His ungloved finger hit that spot inside the boy, grazing over it with his finger – once, twice, three times – as Marek's very needy cock sprang to life like a flower opening in a time-lapse movie. The youngster was stiff as a board and leaking by the time Zdenek grunted with pleasure and filled Filip's hole with his ejaculate.

"On your knees, look at me, smile, and lift that dress above your belly button," commanded Tichy as he prepared to take yet another photograph of Marek. "And now there's a butthole that actually needs cleaning, so move your ass, Hurta!" he snapped. Clearly, when he had warned Marek that his newfound ass-and-cock-cleaning position would be demonstrated today, Tichy had not been kidding.

Marek hesitated for only a moment before he knelt up, raised his skirt, and forced a smile. Marek knew that the stuff in his bottom would already be stinging by now if it was meant to punish him. It wasn't, but it easily could have been. Pictures or no, the boy was in no mood to be tortured to death tonight. He let the man take the picture, but behind Marek's smile were homicidal thoughts of the most vicious and horrible kind, and they were all directed Stanislav Tichy's way.

After the man took the shot Marek knee-walked to Filip, who already had sunk to his stomach on the carpet and spread his legs in a wide V. This forced Marek to lie down on the floor behind him and maneuver himself up the backs of the boy's thighs before he could spread Filip's butt cheeks and begin to lap up Zdenek's cum. The stuff was already oozing out of Filip's rectum, and when Marek lowered his face to the mess, Filip's ass smelled of cum, lube, and earth. No matter. If Tichy wanted him to clean it with his mouth, that was what Marek would do. Filip would have the title of the Cleanest Asshole in Czechoslovakia, and Tichy could go fuck himself.

Tichy watched for any signs of disobedience as Marek positioned himself behind Filip. The boy had balked at eating out Jakub's cum-filled ass the day before and suffered severe consequences for his disobedience. Tichy had planned to replicate that exact scene today with Jakub once again, but the boy had declined the invitation. Filip also had been present for Marek's misbehavior so it made sense that his ass would be the first one Marek cleaned. It would not be the last.

Marek worked his tongue all around and into Filip's ass, licking Zdenek's cum out, swallowing it, and going back for more. If Tichy wanted him to clean every ass in the school, that is what he would do. Tichy could invite the boys from the senior school, too, if he wanted. It didn't fucking matter to Marek, not anymore. Whatever Tichy wanted, Tichy got. It didn't matter what it was, or how mean or cruel it was. It didn't matter if the kid he was doing it to had never done a single fucking thing to deserve it, not one fucking thing! Marek's eyes welled with tears as he thought about the unfairness of it all. He had never done anything to Tichy. His grandfather never had, either, unless Tichy had worked at a glass factory when he was five years old. Marek hoped that his tears ruined Tichy's pretty pictures. He really fucking did.

Preparing for his next photo, Tichy walked around behind the Marek and arranged the boy's dress so it slid up Marek's body and revealed his erection. He took shot from the side and another from above at a 45-degree angle. He took another shot, a close-up this time, while kneeling in front of Filip's head and resting his elbows on Filip's shoulders. This position gave him a perfect view of Filip's smooth, naked back and buttocks, as well as the top half of Marek's licking face, including his eyes.

"Eyes on the camera, little girl," he demanded as he took two consecutive photos. This was a great angle for a shot, and he didn't want to take the chance that first one might come out blurry.

After a snappy cleanup of Filip's butt, it was time for Zdenek's cock. On Tichy's command, Marek knelt up, made his way to Zdenek, and began to lick his cock clean it as Tichy kept taking pictures with his camera. Tichy let Marek's dress fall naturally as the 12-year-old performed his cleaning duties on the older boy, but as it happened, the dress caught on Marek's stiff erection, and the side and frontal shots Tichy took would reveal that very artistically, even though the younger boy's little cock was partially obscured by the laced edge of the garment. Tichy took a few more photos, as well, including a close-up from the side and from above as Marek sucked on the older boy's slimy dick.

Marek knew exactly how the pictures would look with all the fake smiles, the pretty dress, and now even the erection he was sporting. What the pictures wouldn't show at all was how he had tried to be brave yesterday, how he had told the man no even as he knew his vengeance would be terrible, how he gotten up to leave rather than willingly do what he was being made to do right now, and how Tichy had systematically tortured him for it, mercilessly and agonizingly, with the help of the older boys. Nobody looking at the photographs would know anything about that. Jan and Filip would never say a word, so nobody would know that he had been forced to do this. He had been tortured until he did it, but it would look to everyone who saw the photos as though Marek had wanted to do this all along.

As the boy cleaned Zdenek's cock and thought about what the false story the pictures would tell, he enhanced his plan for revenge with some things he would force Tichy to do before he killed him. Unspeakable things, as he begged for his life. Horrible things, just before Marek killed him, anyway.

Filip and Martin watched in amazement as Marek performed like a porn star and Tichy carefully photographed him doing it. The man was taking great care that he never had the face or even much of a head of any other boy than Marek in the frame. They still squirmed a little uncomfortably and blushed at being photographed, but he really was being very careful. A lot of the pictures were real close-ups of Marek's face as he performed his disgusting task. Then Tichy nodded toward the dice for round two.

Perhaps in another world, where his circumstances didn't shape him as an ardent communist and buggerer of boys, Tichy could have been a successful photographer. He certainly had the eye for it. The photos he took were intense, with the important action filling most of the frame. Most weren't blurry, and some of those that were looked better for it, due to the suggested motion and action. Tichy operated the camera with confidence and intensity, totally absorbed in the process. What he was shooting was pornographic, but even so, they were good pictures, poignant, telling, and striking. He even smeared some Vaseline on the lens for the last two shots on the roll to create a slightly misty, mythical effect, or perhaps a steamy atmosphere.

Although he didn't think of himself that way, Tichy was an artist at heart. He was a storyteller, a master prevaricator who lied easily and well. Even as a photographer, he was a liar. Sure, there would be a few pictures where Marek's emotions would be obvious and undeniable. The boy's eyes were, after all, filled with anger and dripping with tears. But Tichy was pretty good in the darkroom, and he was confident that he could dab those tears away. He could also play with angles, light, and depth of focus so that a vast majority of his pictures would capture a very different story. It would be the story of an erect, visibly aroused young boy, complete with pouting, smiling, flirtatious lips, a coquettishly open mouth, and a protruding tongue. The photos would show a boy eager to lick, suck, slurp, and tongue cum out of the puckered assholes of other boys. They also would show a boy seemingly almost hungry for cock.

As he re-wound the film, Tichy knew that he would have to polish his darkroom skills from his university days. Back then, he had taken consensual, artistic, and slightly erotic photos and developed them himself. He couldn't bring the pictures he had taken of Marek to a photo lab unless he wanted the police knocking on his door the following day, but the school had a photography lab with all the necessary equipment, and he wouldn't even have to pay for the chemicals. He'd just need to buy photo paper if he wanted prints. He was shooting in black and white for that reason; he had never developed colored film in his life, and he didn't want to wreck these precious keepsakes in the process of figuring it out.

Notwithstanding his vivid revenge fantasies, Marek was very concerned about the photographs. He knew that it hardly mattered if he appeared unhappy and teary-eyed in them, because they still would show him engaging in acts so reprehensible and foul that whether he did so willingly or unwillingly was almost beside the point. He could only imagine the reaction of his friends if they saw him in those shots. Oh, look at Marek, sticking his face in another boy's ass and using his tongue to lick the cum from his asshole and swallow it. That's nasty, but he doesn't look happy, so it's not his fault. Let's call him up and see if he wants to play football with us this afternoon.

No, the reality of the situation was that if Tichy ever developed that film and shared those photographs, Marek's life would be over. His classmates would brutalize him, and his family and friends would disown him. They would do to him exactly what he would have done to one of his friends from Vacenovice if he ever saw a friend doing the same thing. Nobody would ever believe that he had been forced to do it. Their reaction would be the same as Marek's initially had been, which is that they would never do something like that, even if it meant death to disobey. They would never know or understand that Marek had said the same thing initially and refused to comply, and that consequently he had experienced some of the different levels of pain that can be achieved before death occurs. And that, precisely, had been the problem.

Marek knew that if he wanted to have any life worth living when this was all over, he had to ensure that Tichy's photographs never saw the light of day. But how? There didn't seem to be a good solution to that problem. There was risk to Tichy in him releasing them, of course. After all, someone had to have taken the photos. There would be questions asked. But none of that would matter to Marek's reputation. Even if Tichy were caught, it would not matter to Marek's friends and family that an instructor at the school had been caught up in sexual antics with the boys in his charge. All that would matter was that Marek was one of those boys, and that he had engaged in the most disgusting of those antics with his mouth and tongue, from his knees, while fully erect and wearing a pink dress.

Tichy popped another roll into the camera and smiled, then poured three small cups of krabicak for his guests. There would be none for the youngest boy – or girl – who was being punished. Zdenek reached for his most eagerly. He liked the wine's sickly, sweet-and-sour taste, and he liked the slight buzz that it gave him even more. The older boy was one of Tichy's all-time favorites. He probably was the only one of Tichy's boys who wouldn't change a thing about his situation here at the internat. He liked getting laid, even with other boys, and didn't seem to mind having cock up his ass. Tichy had buggered Zdenek himself well over 100 times. The boy was loyal and easily manipulated. He especially liked being plied with a nip of booze or a cigarette – treats that his stifling, prim, and proper parents did not allow him to have at home and would not have approved of him having at the school.

There was the briefest of respites for Marek as Tichy changed film and poured drinks for the other boys. Marek wasn't offered any, but then again, he didn't expect any kindness from the man. He was starting to realize, slowly but surely, that the things he was being made to do had not been forced on the other boys when they were in his position as the newest, lowest member of Tichy's little club. He simply couldn't believe that Tichy had done this to the other boys, or that they had survived it and remained loyal to the man, sometimes for years. Marek was starting to understand that Tichy's treatment of him had much more to with his surname than anything he had done or rules that he had broken, and it was coming very clear to him that for as long as he remained in the man's clutches, that never would change.

When the break was over, the boys rolled the dice once again. Martin and Filip both rolled ones, while Zdenek rolled a six. Filip let out a frustrated groan at the result while Zdenek couldn't help but grin. Martin and Filip rolled again to break the tie while Zdenek applied some lube to his cock and quicky stroked himself back to a full erection. It didn't take very long for the older boy to bone up, as one of the side benefits of Marek's humiliating clean-up job was that Zdenek already was horny for round two. This time around, Martin rolled another one while Filip rolled a four, then sighed with relief.

"Markéta," called Tichy as he grabbed Marek's dress and pulled it off the boy. It was replaced by a pair of pink panties, all lacy and sexy. Unfortunately, the panties were too big for Marek's narrow hips, so much so that Tichy had to pull them back and up, giving Marek a wedgie. He then tied a knot in the back of the waistband over the boy's coccyx to help them stay in place.

Marek grunted as the man just about lifted him off his feet while forcing him into the ridiculous laced panties. He was not a happy boy. He felt sick to his stomach from the combination of cum, lube, and ass that he had been forced to eat since his arrival in Tichy's apartment. He tried to suppress the urge to vomit even as he looked on at the antics of the three older boys.

Before all this had happened to him, Marek was a boy who enjoyed jerking off. Since he had learned how to do it and the pleasure it could bring, the boy had masturbated at least once per day, without fail, often twice, and sometimes more. He liked the feeling a lot. He liked the tingling sensation in his balls, the sensation of the cum spurting out of his cockhead, and the satisfying afterglow and feeling of emptiness down there when his orgasm came to an end. He understood that other boys liked the sensation, as well. But in comparison to Marek, Tichy's boys were wildly, almost savagely horny, and oversexed. This was his second time to be with them in Tichy's apartment, and they were behaving like farm animals, fucking each other, and rooting around like pigs while following Tichy's commands.

How could a cult like this have come to exist at a respectable boarding school like PISKG? How could Tichy have such unlimited power here, over "his" boys, and over Marek, too? It was mind-boggling that nobody had ever turned the man in. Didn't the other boys feel any remorse at what they were doing right now? Hadn't a single boy complained about Tichy's brutal punishments, including his use of the cane? The cane was supposed to be illegal, but here at the internat, it reigned supreme. All it would take to end Tichy's personal reign of terror would be one boy with the courage to stand up to him. Even a kid like Taus, whose father was reputed to hold a position of some importance, could make trouble for Tichy if he simply had the courage to speak up. Marek didn't have a father, and there was no one in his family of any importance, but surely there was a boy at the school who could put an end to all of this with a single phone call.

But none of the boys seemed to have the requisite courage, and Marek unfortunately now counted himself among their ranks. The reality was, he had tried to stand up to Tichy before – several times, in fact – and each time, it had gotten him precisely nowhere. The last time, it had resulted in acid being slathered on his penis and in his butt. The time before that, he had been beaten within an inch of his life by the fourth-year boys. The time before that, the man had decimated his backside with the cane. The time before that, Marek had suffered with the ginger root in his ass. It had all been futile, and he simply couldn't go through any of that again. More photos followed. Tichy made Marek perform with Filip while Zdenek fucked Martin in the ass. He had Marek suck Filip's cock and lick his balls, ass, and feet, all while posing in the pretty lingerie, as Tichy took shot after shot. Each time Marek's erection began to falter, Tichy stuck a Vaseline-coated finger up his ass and poked away at the kid's prostate, forcing his cock back to attention. Every photo that wasn't a close-up of Marek's sucking, licking face captured the lacy lingerie straining with the boy's erection, some with the tip of his little cock poking out from underneath the waistband.

Zdenek took longer to cum this time, and when Tichy thought he had enough pictures, he made Marek suck his cock until Zdenek grunted, climaxed, and finished in Martin's ass. Then it was back to the all-too-familiar routine of Marek cleaning Martin's asshole with his tongue while Tichy snapped away. Some of the photos he took now were the best of the night, including a very good one as Marek licked up the boy's taint to lap up a long, oozing string of cum that had leaked from the boy's anus. Tichy made sure that Marek sucked and slurped Zdenek's entire load from Martin's sore pucker, licking over and around again and again it until it was spotless. Then it was back to Zdenek's slimy, smelly, slightly dirty cock for more cleaning.

Marek was compliant as Tichy photographed him first servicing Filip and then sucking Zdenek's cum from Martin's ass. Maybe Tichy had photos of all his boys in compromising positions. Maybe that was how he maintained such strict control over them, including dictating to them when they could jerk off and cum. Whatever it was, Tichy's power seemed absolute. Why on earth the other boys kept coming back to the school term after term to suffer at Tichy's hands was lost on Marek. He couldn't figure it out at all, but he knew one thing with absolute certainty: He wasn't coming back to the school as a student ever again. Not for the second term, not ever. In fact, if the boy had his druthers, the only time he would ever set foot in the school again was when he returned to kill Tichy. For that, and only that, he would return.

"Last round of rolls," announced Tichy as Martin and Filip locked eyes competitively. Only one of them was going to get to fuck, and even that wouldn't happen if Zdenek got lucky a third time. The game was on. They charged for the dice with a clear sense of rivalry between them. They were utterly oblivious, it seemed, to Marek's humiliation and misery. This time, Filip rolled a four, then yipped in joy as Zdenek and Martin tied with ones. Martin lost the second round and cursed under his breath. Getting fucked twice and not cumming once wasn't a good deal for him at all.

Tichy saw the outcome of the rolls as well as Martin's disappointment. Martin had been a good sport and the man wanted his obedient pawns rewarded, so he began to direct traffic.

"Markéta, lie down, face up, and prop yourself up on your elbows with your mouth open. Martin, get on all fours and have her suck you. Filip, you get behind Martin and fuck him that way. Marek, if Filip cums before you make Martin cum, you'll get an additional little punishment," grinned Tichy. "Now go!"

Filip knelt behind Martin and entered him a bit quickly and roughly, causing the other boy to groan in pain. It also caused Martin to thrust his cock directly into Marek's mouth. And with that, the race was on.

It was time for another one of Tichy's silly games, this time with Marek lying on his back as Martin fucked his mouth and Filip plowed Martin from behind. Marek knew he was supposed to suck the kid off, but how was he supposed to do that? Martin's cock was jiggling mightily and spearing Marek's face with every thrust Filip took. From his awkward position on the floor, Marek couldn't bring his lips or tongue to bear in any way that would influence the outcome of Tichy's stupid game. The boy wondered which of the boys had been last to cum. That seemed to have more of a bearing on who would win the race than anything Marek's mouth or Martin's ass had to do with it.

In the end, all Marek could do was keep his head propped up at the appropriate angle to give Martin a chance to fuck his mouth to an orgasm. Other than that, it was all up to the other boys. Marek found himself once again praying that he soon would feel and taste cum in his mouth. As surreal as it might seem for a nominally straight, 12-year-old boy to pray for something like that, he knew it was the only way he wouldn't have to face an "additional little punishment" from Tichy. Marek didn't want to be punished at all, because while he was quite sure it would be "additional," he had no confidence at all that it would be "little." Little punishments weren't Stanislav Tichy's style.

Marek soon was proved right. Martin had cum more recently than Filip, and that meant that there was very little chance that Martin would orgasm in Marek's mouth before Filip deposited another load in his ass. Marek could perhaps have tried harder to help, but the outcome largely was preordained. Indeed, not long after he had started, Filip grunted and sighed, then deposited his load inside Martin's rectum. It took two more minutes of awkward, silent humping before Martin finally squirted his load into Marek's mouth.

Marek could tell when Filip reached orgasm as his hard thrust into Martin's backside forced Martin's cock even deeper into Marek's mouth. Unless it was Martin in the throes of his own orgasm … but it wasn't. With a sinking feeling, Marek knew that he had lost again. It was another one of Tichy's games, another poor outcome for Marek. There never was a good outcome when they played.

Tichy sighed, almost as if he believed that Marek could have done better and was bringing punishment on himself purely because of his laziness and lack of effort. He told Marek to clean them both up; Martin' cum-filled ass first, then Filip's stinky cock. He took more pictures as Marek obediently attended to his duties. The depicted action was like before, the main difference really was that rather than wearing a kinky pink maid dress, Marek was now closer to naked in his oversized, lacey panties. Finally, Tichy put the camera away. He had run out of film again and didn't have another roll handy.

Marek was under no illusions now that he was anything more than a plaything for Tichy and his actual boys. Marek wasn't even an honorary member of the little club. While the stupid necklace might protect him from the other boys, when it came to Tichy and his inner circle, Marek was "the cleaner." Worse than that, he was Markéta, or Markétka, or whore, or faggot, or whatever unpleasant, demeaning name the man wanted to call him. Tichy hated him, and it hardly mattered whether it was for a good reason, or not. The man hated him and would demean and torture him for as long as he wanted to.

But what was the boy to do about it? He couldn't tattle – who would listen? He couldn't evade Tichy – the man would find him. He wouldn't refuse to obey – Tichy would punish him; in fact, he would torture him. Marek was completely trapped by a man who was using his position of power at the school to bully and harass a kid. The boy had never encountered anything like it before. He knew that Tichy was abusing his authority, but to Marek, that authority seemed absolute. Who was going to stop him? Who could Marek go to for help? The answer was nobody. The boy was on his own and nobody would help him against his ruthless oppressor.

Marek knelt behind Martin and leaned forward with his mouth to clean the older boy's ass. He sucked Filip's cum from it, licking and polishing, then knelt up and turned to clean Filip's cock. The boy's penis was particularly yucky from Martin's ass, and it was all the unhappy Marek could do to keep himself from vomiting as he licked it. This was beyond disgusting, and Marek's stomach churned from the vile act as well as from the punishment that he knew was coming from Tichy.

"Come here, Markétka, come suck my cock, little girl," teased Tichy, who then turned to the other boys. "Whoever thinks of a more amusing punishment for Markétka gets to cum once more," he chuckled as the boys all looked at him eagerly, especially Martin and Filip.

It had already been a long day and an even longer evening, and Marek found himself with tears in his eyes as Tichy taunted and demeaned him yet again. It wasn't the blowjob the man wanted – Marek didn't give a fuck about that. It wasn't even the fact that he had another punishment coming. He had obeyed every single instruction the man had given him, yet he still was being punished. It was the teasing, demeaning, ridiculing tone in Tichy's voice that finally got to the kid. How could Tichy be so cruel to him? Why couldn't he see that Marek was just a kid, and he was trying his best to survive at this stupid school that he hated so much? How could he be this way? How could he be this mean, even when Marek had obeyed. How was it possible?

But Marek knelt obediently before Tichy and took the man's penis into his mouth once again. He was so very tired of sucking it, but what choice did he have?

Tichy sighed as Marek took the man's cock in his mouth once again. The Hurta kid obviously had been born to suck cock; it had just taken Tichy to discover the youngster's exceptional skills. There was a moment of silence as Marek did his thing. Then Filip spoke up.

"Well, sir, if we could use your bed, sir," he said, as Tichy nodded in encouragement, "we could put Markétka on it face-up, but with her head dangling over the edge. We'll make her open wide for you, and make her lick and tease your cock, with her hands on your hips for extra support. Zdenek and Martin could hold her in place in case she squirms too much while I fuck her ass as hard as I can. Whenever she protests, or makes a noise, or stops taking care of your cock, you can punish her and shut her up by ramming your entire cock straight down her throat, you know, because of the angle. And then because she can't scream when she's like that, I could punch her in the balls," he added with a chuckle.

"Hmmm," said Tichy as he contemplated the boy's proposal. "I like it, but since our little girl's been pretty good tonight and this is just an additional punishment at this point, we can skip the ball-punching bit. Or I suppose if I have to resort to shutting her up with my cock, I'll fuck her face for a bit, and if she wimps out and needs to tap out to breathe, you can punch her in the balls when I pull out. But if she can take a bit of rough face-riding as the price for making noise, we'll leave her balls be," said Tichy with a little chuckle.

"Bedroom, let's go," he commanded as he pushed Marek off his cock.

Marek heard the entire conversation play out before him as if he weren't even there, but he was there, kneeling before Tichy, sucking the man's cock. The older boys were copying Tichy now, emulating him, calling Marek a girl, demeaning him, devising punishments to use on him, using Marek's plight to curry favor with the man. He had done it so easily, too. That revelation made the boy almost breathless.

Could Tichy be the source of his problems with the other boys? Had Tichy deliberately turned the entire school against him. Marek had always thought that the other boys disliked him because he was from Moravia and spoke with a regional accent, but there seemed to be something more to it than that. Those things didn't seem to explain the breadth and depth of the hatred the other boys seemed to have for him, and some of the instructors, too. After Drábek gave his lecture, Marek had amended his theory to include the possibility that the other boys hated him for his name and for what his grandfather had done. But the problem with that theory was that the boys already seemed to hate him before they even knew who he was. If they hated him for his name, at least some of them would have said something to him about that. Marek wasn't sure that even a single boy had said a single thing to him about his surname or his family legacy until after Drábek had informed the class about his grandfather. So, what was it? Why did they hate him so? Why did Radek hate him? And Taus, too?

It had to be Tichy. Even as the man pushed Marek away, Marek was staring at him with a look of disbelief and anger. Tichy had done this to him. Tichy had turned the other boys against him, starting from his very first day at the school. Marek knew it with certainty. Tichy was good at controlling boys. They did what he told them to. They emulated him, repeating his words, even trying to act like him. Filip and Martin were gleefully mistreating Marek now, calling him a girl, coming up with ways to taunt, torment, and torture him. It had taken only a few minutes with Tichy for them to start behaving that way, and Marek was an easy, vulnerable target for them.

Tichy had done this to him. Tichy had ruined his life. It all made sense now. Tichy had turned the other boys against him and forced Marek to come to him for protection, but he wasn't being protected, he was being beaten, tortured, and abused. Tichy had had planned this. All of it. Marek had never been more certain of anything in his life.

He fell back on his butt and remained there, staring up at Tichy with a look of surprised, seething, hatred. Fuck Tichy. Fuck every last thing about him. Marek had never felt such hatred before.

Looking down at the seething boy, Tichy suspected that something was amiss. He didn't know the actual reason for Marek's anger just then. Perhaps Marek realized how fucked he was with all Tichy's boys united against him, all blindly, unconditionally obeying Tichy. Perhaps the boy was worried about being hit in the balls, or whatever else was likely to happen to him in the bedroom. Tichy didn't care. He was after obedience this evening and he was willing to push Marek just as hard as he needed to achieve it. Marek was either going to obey and play along, or there was going to be yet another form of hell on earth for the boy to pay.

"Markétka, get up, take the panties off, and walk with us to the bedroom," warned Tichy as he looked down into the boy's hate-filled gaze. "You will lie across the bed, face up, with your head over the edge. I have tiger balm here and other fun things," warned Tichy. "Today is the day you're proving you've finally learned your place, kid. Don't mess up," he added darkly.

The other three boys departed for the bedroom as Tichy stood there and glared at Marek. The man wasn't going leave and then have to come back and retrieve the boy. Marek was either coming to the bedroom voluntarily or he was going to be dragged, and if he chose the latter option, his fate would be far, far worse than the fun little game Filip had come up with.

Marek jaw quivered as he stared up at his tormentor. If he only had a knife. If he had a knife, he would try to kill Tichy. And if the other boys tried to stop him or pull him off the man, he would stab at them, too, but only so he could return to Tichy's bloody corpse and keep stabbing, and stabbing, and stabbing. For a moment, Marek considered disobeying the man once again. If Tichy killed him, there would be an investigation, and one of his boys would crack. One of them would tell Skala what had happened. And then Tichy would be fucked, just as surely as he had fucked Marek. He would go to prison, where they would hang him for what he did, for killing a kid.

As he sat on the floor glaring up at the man with a venomous look of hatred, Marek would have taken that deal. He would give his own life right then if he knew that it would result in Tichy getting caught, imprisoned, and hanged. In fact, the boy wouldn't give it a second thought – he'd be the winner in such a scenario, hands down. His life sucked. What did he have to live for? Tichy had photographs of him now. If they ever got out, Marek would have to end his life, probably by throwing himself in front of a bus or train. His life wasn't worth shit.

But two things gave him pause before he escalated the situation further. What if Tichy really was all-powerful, and he could kill Marek and get away with it? If anyone could pull that off, it would be him. And there was also the matter of what Tichy would do to Marek before he died, which Tichy had already spelled out for the boy in clear and simple terms: "I'll torture you like an American fucking spy caught by the KGB, do you understand?" he had said. Marek did understand. In fact, he understood very well what the man could do to him.

Still glaring at Tichy, his cheeks now burning bright red, Marek stood up. With a sniffle of despair and a pit the size of a grapefruit in his tummy, he stepped out of the panties and walked into Tichy's bedroom, ready for whatever the hell they were going to do to him next. Marek was so angry, so seething with injustice and rage, that he hadn't really had time to worry about what the others had planned for him.

The older boys grabbed him as soon as Marek walked in and eagerly began to push and manhandle him into position. Tichy made him tilt his head back over the edge of the bed and open his mouth wide, before sliding the tip of his cock into the boy's mouth.

As Marek walked to the bedroom and allowed himself to be positioned on the bed, his body started to tremble. He didn't like the upside-down positioning of his head. He wouldn't be able to see, and the rest of his body would be completely exposed and helpless. But what choice did he have? His choices were compliance, or pain. He knew from experience that pain would be followed by compliance anyway, so what was the fucking point of disobeying? Maybe somebody a bit smarter could come up with a third option, but Marek had spent hours and hours pondering that very question, and he hadn't been able to come up with anything on his own.

"No sound, or you get shushed," said Tichy. "No teeth, or that's the end of you. If you fuck everything else up and only manage to focus on one thing, that one thing will be keeping your maw wide open. Wide open," emphasized Tichy. "And unless you fancy a dentist session involving a chisel and a hammer, don't bite. We could always say later you fell on the stairs, or something," warned Tichy even as he guided Marek's hands to the outside of his thighs. The man lightly slapped his face.

"Now keep your hands in position, lick, suck, and be a good bitch," the man demanded of the upside-down boy. He then nodded at Filip, who lifted Marek's ankles to his shoulders and aligned his cock with Marek's hole. Martin helped hold Marek's legs clamped to Filip's shoulder so that Marek couldn't kick. Zdenek was mostly on standby, ready to pin Marek's torso down to the bed if he somehow tried to put up a fight. For his part, Tichy was more than ready. If Marek bleated in pain or protest, he would ram himself balls deep in the kid's face.

Marek's heart was hammering in his chest in fear, and his cock had shrunk to the size of an acorn. He didn't like this. Were the boys going to punch him in the balls? What if he bit Tichy's cock off? What if he bit it off and it lodged in his throat, choking him to death? He guessed that would probably be an okay way to go, choking to death on Tichy's penis. It beat being tortured like an American spy, and at least then he would be dead. Because right now, Marek wanted nothing more than to be done with this torment. He simply couldn't go on this way.

Marek tried to use his tongue on Tichy's cock, but how could he use his lips? He couldn't even move his head. It was disorienting, and Marek felt helpless and scared. It was then that Filip leaned in and forcefully rammed his cock up Marek's ass in one violent thrust, not pausing for the boy's sphincter to open, just penetrating with sheer force. There was some residual petroleum jelly involved, of course, but even Filip grunted in discomfort as he jammed his cock into the smaller boy.

Marek's eyes nearly bulged out of his head at the searing ferocity of the pain.

"Unnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!" he squealed as he struggled on the bed and tried to shake his head free of Tichy's cock. He didn't like this at all, with his head bent down the wrong way, unable to see. "Unnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn! Unnnn! Mmmm – Uhhhhhhhhhhh." The boy was terrified in this position, unable to think rationally.

Tichy silenced him. He didn't care if Marek was ready or what was going on for him. Just like that, Marek had most of Tichy's cock in his throat. Tichy looked down at the stupid boy. It seemed like he hadn't been paying attention and didn't listen to the exact process of what was going to happen. Well, he was likely in for a surprise then, because if he let go of Tichy's thighs or did something like a tap-out, he would receive a nice, hard punch to his full, already dully aching balls. Sensing that Marek was panicking and wanting to give the kid a fair shot, he wiggled his cock briefly before pulling back out. In coordinated fashion, Filip simultaneously pulled out of Marek's ass.

"Lick, bitch," grunted Tichy, keeping his cock on the boy's face and mouth. "Go on, or I could just hold you down and all four of us could have a go at tickling you. That would be fun," he snorted. "Now open and lick. No sound, or you'll be shushed again," Tichy instructed. "You either comply, or things will get worse and worse! " warned Tichy.

As soon as Marek managed to attempt at least vaguely to touch Tichy's erection with his tongue again, Tichy nodded at Filip, who rammed himself back into Marek's ass just as roughly as before.

Marek hadn't been paying attention, it was true. He had been so busy fantasizing about killing Tichy that he hadn't listened to the rules of the game. Marek did not like positions where his face was covered, and his body couldn't move or breathe. This was all those things. The upside-down positioning of his head made everything seem disorienting and scary. The cock in his mouth threatened to cut off his air supply. And his folded, bent-back position on the bed completed the trifecta of what for Marek was a nightmarish position for him to be in.

The boy was seconds away from panicking completely and making things worlds worse for himself when Tichy's cock pressed into his throat. Marek's body stiffened as a sense of otherworldly panic tensed his entire body and nearly caused him to pass out. For a moment, he got "that" feeling – like the time he had been on the bottom of a pile of playing children, squished into a saggy gymnastics mat, face-down, unable to breathe, or move, or see. He had been absolutely terrified then, and had emerged crying, distraught, and hyperventilating in fear. He was just as terrified now.

Thank god Tichy pulled out. Marek began to lick the man's cock desperately even as he hyperventilated in fear. His position absolutely terrified him. He listened carefully to the man's instructions, hoping to make sense of the game so he could somehow find a way to survive it. He understood now that he wasn't to make sounds. He heard that part from Tichy. He now had a rule to follow, and he would try to follow it. Concentrating on that would help him not to think about the panic rising from his belly.

But Filip slammed into Marek again, causing a wince and a moan of pain, even as the boy kept licking at Tichy's cock.

Tichy rewarded Marek's moan of pain with another deep thrust. He was starting to sense Marek's panic, starting to pick up on the fact that something was off. Something beyond just Marek's discomfort from the punishment game alone. Tichy was really enjoying playing it, but he was also observing carefully, not sure quite what was going on and trying to figure it out.

For Marek, it was hell on earth. With the man's cock in his throat, he couldn't breathe or see. Please let me up, please let me up, please let me up, Marek begged silently to anyone who could possibly be listening. Even Tichy couldn't know how much this position terrified him.

Tichy pulled a couple of inches back, then went balls deep back into Marek's throat, three inches back, back in, inch back, back in, quietly counting seconds to make sure he didn't keep it up long enough for Marek to pass out. He wiggled his cock at maximum depth, his balls pressing all over Marek's nose, doubling the breathless, choking sensation before he pulled out. Filip followed suit, pulling out of Marek's ass in a choreographed motion.

"I think our little girl is trembling and too tense and nervous to perform well," Tichy pointed out. "Markétka, tell us what's going on. Explain yourself. Then wait for a verdict with an open, cock-licking mouth. You can talk and beg, but that doesn't mean you're in charge. I decide if this goes on, and when it's over. So, speak, and be quick about it, too. Too much umming and aahing and I'll have Filip make another thrust, and the game will just go on and on," warned Tichy with a smile.

Marek gasped for air as Tichy pulled out of his throat the second time. He was shaking and trembling like a leaf. The exact scenario he was facing right now frightened him beyond anything else. He was absolutely, abjectly terrified of being constricted and unable to breathe. His upside-down position was like the cherry on top of a terrifying sundae for him.

"I c-can't breathe … please, p-please Mr. Tichy," the panicked boy gasped as he pleaded and begged. It was all he could do not to struggle and fight and really lose his cool, but he managed to keep his hands on the man's hips. How could he explain "that" feeling to the man? He couldn't.

Tears came to his eyes. "Please let me up! I c-can't breathe … I'm r-really scared." For his sanity, Marek desperately needed the man to understand. He had been scared before at Tichy's hands, when he was about to be slippered, when he was about to be caned, and when he understood – with a sinking, gnawing, horrified feeling that first time in the boiler room – that he was about to be raped. But nothing compared to the terror that he felt right now, or that he had felt only seconds ago, when the four of them were holding him down, constricting him, folding him in half, upside-down, cutting off his air, and leaving him unable to breathe. It was literally the stuff of Marek's worst nightmares.

The realization dawned on Tichy gradually. He couldn't quite place it, not at first. It was like a word on the tip of your tongue but that you can't quite bring it to mind. Then Marek said that he was really scared, and the light bulb went off in Tichy's mind. The boy was panicking from being constricted. He was claustrophobic!

A warmth of pure joy washed over Tichy. It was such an abusable fear, and traceless, too, with no physical injuries or visible consequences. His cock twitched and his mind reeled. He felt like he had just won a jackpot. He barely suppressed a Cheshire grin.

"Let me guess," he said to the boy in a falsely sympathetic voice. "You can't move and feel panicked. You feel like you can't breathe, even though you can. If I asked Zdenek to straddle your chest and sit on it, you'd just about shit yourself around Filip's cock, wouldn't you?"

To Marek's immense, immeasurable relief, Tichy seemed to understand. Marek grunted affirmatively and tried to nod. But Tichy didn't even wait for the boy to answer; he already knew the truth. He turned to Filip.

"You win a special prize, Filip," he said with a grin. "You just helped me figure out this kid is claustrophobic. "So, what shall we do about that?" he chuckled darkly. It was a rhetorical question, but it didn't sound like good times were on the horizon for Marek. It certainly didn't appear that their little game would be over anytime soon.

Marek heard the laughter in Tichy's voice then, and it was chilling. He didn't know the term the man had used. What did it mean? And what would they do to him next?

"Please sir, please, please let me up," Marek begged, as he remained head-down on the mattress. "I'll suck you – I'm not trying to get out of it. I'm just r-really scared. I'm really scared right now. Please," the boy begged, as his body trembled like a baby bird.

No," said Tichy coldly and firmly. "I need you to understand something, Marek. I need you to understand that you'll stop giving me furious, antagonistic looks, starting now. You'll understand and accept that you'll do every single motherfucking thing I demand of you, whatever I ask, wherever I ask, and whenever I ask. Night and day. Office. Here. Gym. Your dorm. Outside, in the town. And now I'll demonstrate for you why things will be like that going forward, you little bitch," Tichy said, "I'll show you that I don't even need tiger balm to get you to do what I want you to do."

"Martin, grab his left hand and pin it firmly into the bed. Make sure he can't wiggle it. Kneel very close to him. Make sure your knees are touching the side of his belly and chest, yes, like that. Zdenek, you do the same on the other side. Filip, you slide in, slowly this time, and really press in and lean into it, push his legs into his belly and chest, like you're trying to fold him over. And you, Marek, you keep your fucking mouth open and this will be just a short lesson. If you don't play along, we'll make it last a very long time," warned Tichy even as he began to slide into Marek's throat once again.

Marek heart sank like a brick in a swimming pool as Tichy refused his entreaties. He listened with growing terror as the man called him out for his hate-filled looks and other misbehaviors. Oh, how he regretted those now. He regretted them terribly. When the man pronounced his sentence, Marek's eyes exploded with tears of utter terror.

"No! Noooo! Please! Nooooo!" he squealed and screamed, his voice an octave too high, in utter panic. He fought and struggled desperately, his lithe, muscled body almost cat-like as he tried to twist and turn, tried to free himself. His eyeballs rolled back in his head as he nearly passed out, but he was no match for the four of them, and in seconds his arms were tightly secured. Filip entered him again, folding him, weighing him down, constricting his lungs, his belly, his very innards, making it difficult for him to breathe even before Tichy grabbed his head and forced his way back inside the boy's screaming mouth …

It was like death to Marek. Like being waterboarded, even if he didn't know that word. His body arched and bucked even as the older boys held him down, clustered over him, beside him, pressing on him. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't move. He was drowning, suffocating, fading. There was no possible way he could comply with Tichy's instructions. Something even more powerful than Tichy was animating him now. It was the power of sheer and utter panic, and it had its claws firmly into the struggling, immobilized 12-year-old, gnawing at his mind.

Muffling the boy's high-pitched, panic-stricken squeal with his cock was one of the best feelings of Tichy's entire life. He nearly came there and then. He shuddered as raw energy surged up his spine. He gasped with the pleasure of it even as he fed his entire cock to the boy, once again pressing his balls against and over Marek's nose.

Oh, the struggle! The panic! It was pure perfection. Tichy now knew exactly how he would make Marek his personal, round-the-clock bitch. He wasn't going to keep it to regular appointments and sessions. He had Hurta by the balls and he was going to prove it to him from this moment onwards. He had won. Even before tonight, he had been winning by a large margin, but he had just won outright. That's what it felt like as he rammed himself balls-deep into Marek's throat, leaned in, and cradled Marek's head in his hands to deepen the boy's panic and terror.

Marek felt like he was underwater, spiraling down in a whirlpool from which escape was impossible, unable to breathe, drowning, suffocating. The man's cock pressed home, eliminating sound but not fear, not any of the fear, the panic, or the terror as the boy trembled and struggled underneath the cloying, pressing weight of four bodies. They had him now, immobilized perhaps more than if he were bound, but it was a different kind of helplessness, the kind that Marek's nightmares were made of.

The boy nearly passed out once again, his eyeballs rolling up like window blinds, fluttering there on the cusp of consciousness, only to fall back down the wrong side, the side of insanity, where the boy could feel every cloying, pressing pound of pressure against his slender body, crushing him, sucking the very life out of him, endlessly, relentlessly.

Tichy counted slowly to ten, maybe making it last a little longer just because he didn't want to err on the side of counting too fast. With the boy's sanity hanging in the balance, Tichy pulled out as the three boys, on his signal, simultaneously released their holds. Martin and Zdenek let go of Marek's arms and moved away, while Filip pulled out of the writhing kid and quickly backed off, shielding his cock and balls to avoid being kicked.

Marek let out an anguished cry as he turned on the bed, grunted, then gasped for air. He turned to his side, then his front, and rose quickly, stumbling from the mattress, his eyes wild and bulging, unfocused. He fell to the floor but rose again in a flash, ducking toward the closet, only to tilt his head like a dog, as if surprised to find himself there at all. He was shaking like a leaf, gasping, and hyperventilating, as he looked wide-eyed at the other boys. They regarded him back with curious expressions of their own.

"Marek!" Tichy called to the panicking youngster as he lay down on the bed himself and propped himself up on his elbows. "Your ass balls deep on my cock – now! Or I'll show you that this only just tickled the fear you just felt, the panic. We can make it worse. So, so much worse. So very much worse. You had better be good, bitch. Better be good. Ten, nine, eight, seven," he said as he started to count down in a sharp voice, faster than a count per second. Marek would have to hurry and impale himself painfully and rapidly if he were to make it in time. Tichy's cock was wet from Marek's throat, but that was it. The boy would need to make do without lube.

The other boys regarded Marek with morbid curiosity. None of them had ever seen or experienced a claustrophobic reaction before, and Marek's behavior seemed oddly, almost wildly out of synch with what had been done to him. It had to be Tichy's magic. Somehow, he had known Marek's weakness, his Achilles heel.

Marek became aware of the countdown midway through. His heart raced in his chest as tears rolled down his cheeks. What did the man want? Marek searched his brain – "balls deep on my cock" – he had heard those words. He went to the bed, shaking and panicked, and climbed on once again. He had no idea how to do it, but he went to his knees and with a moan of pure misery, he straddled the man's chest, reached for Tichy's cock, and seated it against his hole. With a gasp of pain, he sat back and down, sending Tichy's phallus halfway inside his mostly unlubricated bottom with a shudder of pain that was accompanied by a look of near disbelief.

Tichy already was imagining how he could put Marek through another claustrophobic fit when the boy moved to obey and obeyed beautifully, impaling himself on the man's cock with brutal, agonizing efficiency. Marek's butt already had been painfully but efficiently stretched by Filip's sharp thrusts, but it still felt tight as a drum against Tichy's cock.

All three of his boys now watched curiously as Marek obediently, painfully, and repeatedly impaled himself on the man's cock. None of them ever had been driven to an extreme quite like this and they now believed the STB rumors about Tichy more than ever. Seeing Marek's distress, they were even less inclined to oppose Tichy in any way, even if it sucked having a grown-up fuck you regularly and tell you when you could cum.

"Sink all the way down," demanded Tichy. "Rest of the way," The man was merciless. "Use force, or we'll wrap you up like a Christmas present," he said with a cruel smile.

"Hands behind your back this time, no support," he commanded, keeping relentless pressure on the boy. "Just use your legs," he added. Tichy knew from experience that forcing Marek to perform like that would cause his rectum to tighten around the man's shaft, adding to Tichy's pleasure while contributing to Marek's discomfort. The disobedient boy deserved it.

"And give yourself a boner," instructed Tichy. "You know how, wimp! No hands!"

Marek couldn't stop hyperventilating, couldn't stop crying. His breaths came and left his body in anguished, noisy, shivering gasps – as if breathing suddenly was a trauma for him, when in fact it was the one thing he had wanted to do most of all. His body was shaking, trembling with a fear that only those with his affliction have known. The boy woke up from his nightmares like this sometimes, covered in sweat, eyes wide, his chest heaving as if it truly did need to suck in more air, as if his dreams had, indeed, constricted his lungs.

But this one had been bad. It had not been a dream. The feeling had come over him like a freight train, like a herd of stampeding elephants crushing him to the ground before kneeling on him, cutting off his air supply, suffocating him. He heard Tichy's commands and pressed downward with his hips, forcing the man's cock deeper into his innards. The pain was knife-like, and he cried out as his anal ring stretched precariously. The boy's tender buttocks were now seated on Tichy's groin. The man's threats held real meaning for Marek, and he flung his arms behind his back with a gasping moan, interlacing his fingers so as not to be tempted to disobey. With a grunt of effort and pain, he raised himself from the man's abdomen before lowering again, then rose once more, establishing the beginnings of the rhythm that he knew would be required to get the man off.

Tichy watched Marek perform, and what a performance it was! Suddenly, there were no glares, no holding back, no resistance, and no hesitation from the boy. Although it was hard and painful, the Glass King's grandson was riding Tichy's cock like a rodeo champion with his hands behind his back. The boy was working hard to get into a rhythm, to find an angle that would please Tichy and force an erection on himself. All Tichy had to do was lie there and enjoy the view, slightly raised on his elbows, like he was sunning himself on a beach. He also enjoyed knowing that Martin, Zdenek, and Filip were learning a thing or two about what he was truly capable of, and how lucky they were to be just his regular toys, and not unfortunate targets of his hatred and wrath.

"Go on, bitch, nice and hard and steady, and keep up the slight angle," demanded Tichy. "I want it to feel good as well as bad for you. I wasn't joking when I said give yourself a boner," he added ominously.

Marek continued to cry and sob like a toddler as he forced himself to undulate atop the man's groin, impaling himself on Tichy's erection with every downward thrust. There wasn't nearly enough lubrication to save the boy's anus from fissuring as it remained wrapped tightly around Tichy's shaft, and the resulting pain gnawed at the boy like a wild animal. Marek's pain was not helped by the fact that he couldn't relax and had to use his thighs, ass-muscles, and abs to maintain his position, balance, and fucking motion. For once, Marek didn't care about the pain. He welcomed it, ramming himself down even harder on the man's hips to bring more of it. Maybe if he did it hard enough, Tichy's cock would kill him. Trembling and whimpering, he slammed his buttocks down, again and again, as if willing Tichy's cock to run him through like a sword.

There was no way out for him now. The beatings, the photographs, the rapes, the mistreatment, the humiliation – Marek knew it never would end. Tichy would continue to haunt him day and night for the rest of his life. Tichy knew his secret, now, too. He had learned the one thing that Marek feared more than Stanislav Tichy himself, and once he had discerned it, he had immediately employed it, constricting, and torturing the boy for his own amusement. Tichy may never have known the stifling, horrifying, panic-inducing symptoms of claustrophobia, but Marek knew them only too well, and now Tichy knew just how to trigger them in the boy. The youngster was filled with terror. He knew he would die of fright and panic if Tichy did that to him again. And yet, he knew with the certainty of the damned that Tichy absolutely would. There were no bounds to the man's cruelty, no limits to his tortures.

Marek couldn't keep up his slamming pace and he was forced to back off. He grunted in pain with every downward plunge as he willed the man to cum. The boy was perspiring with effort now, his muscles corded and tight as they guided his torso relentlessly up and down Tichy's shaft. Despite the man's command, Marek couldn't regularly find the spot that sometimes brought him pleasure, and even when he occasionally did, his cock remained entirely unresponsive. Tichy would make him answer for that, but what could he do? The boy was still too upset from his recent ordeal and too tired to get hard. He knew he would pay for that. Tichy would do what Tichy would do, and Marek would suffer even more.

The boy was only vaguely aware of his audience as he pumped his body like an oil rig atop the man's prone body. The other boys didn't matter anymore. Even Tichy didn't matter. Marek knew that nothing he did would ever satisfy the man's hatred of him. Now, with the photographs of Marek's debauchery in hand, Tichy didn't even need the boy to be physically present to send him to an early grave. Marek had no doubt that the man would use the photographs. What mattered now is whether Marek could beat him to the punch, end it all before he did.

Tichy appreciated the boy's effort, but until the boy had an erection, his humiliation wasn't complete in the man's eyes, not even after freaking out the way he had. Marek's panicked reaction had been a sight to behold. Much to the surprise and amusement of the other boys, Marek had nearly lost his mind just from being surrounded and folded onto himself in a painless, seemingly harmless way.

"Okay, now," said Tichy. "Ease off a little," he added as he pushed Marek's knees a little back, then grabbed the boy's shoulders and slowly pulled his upper body forward until he saw Marek blink in surprise through his tears from a sudden surge of sensation. It wasn't a perfect angle, but it certainly would do.

Marek was still terribly upset from his recent ordeal. He was hyperventilating and sobbing, sniffling, and shaking as he worked. But he was also trying to comply with Tichy's instructions, and as the man slightly changed his position and reduced the velocity of his downward plunges, he felt the man's cock prod that spot inside him, the one that brought the tingling sensation and made him get a boner. It made him get one now, quickly, in fact. Within just a few seconds, he was horsing himself up and down on Tichy's cock with an erection now wagging from his groin.

Tichy played with the angle, trying to force as much stimulation on the boy as possible, but Marek was too distraught and in pain from riding Tichy's cock to give much more than a subdued response. Tichy didn't think he could force Marek to have a purely prostatic orgasm at this point, anyway, but perhaps that was for the best. The stimulation was likely to leave Marek horny and needy, and if he didn't end up cumming, unsatisfied. Knowing that brought an extra bit of satisfaction to Tichy and a smile to his face.

The man was being somewhat gentler than Marek had expected, and the boy started to calm down just a bit. But he could not relax, as he knew he had made a terrible mistake. His nemesis and abuser, Stanislav Tichy, now knew Marek's greatest fear, and he already had used it against the boy. The sensation of being constricted, unable to breathe, and slowly suffocated terrified Marek. He'd only experienced it a few times, but he dreamed about it a lot, often waking trembling, and gasping for air in a cold sweat. It had started when he was very young, perhaps five years old, when he had thought he was going to die under a mass of bodies on that gymnastics mat, which sucked in his body and formed around it, leaving him unable to breathe until an adult intervened and started to pull the other children off. Marek had emerged panicked and crying, shaken to the bone.

He had been claustrophobic ever since, and now Tichy knew his secret. That thought was chilling, but he continued to do as the man demanded, aware that the three older boys were watching him, assessing him, evaluating his performance and compliance. He hated it, and all of them, and Tichy, too, but what choice did he have?

"That's more like it, see?" said Tichy with a smile as took in the sight of Marek's bouncing erection. He knew the boy wasn't enjoying himself, but he easily could imagine how being visibly aroused furthered the boy's shame and guilt about the whole act. As the boy continued the fucking motion, Tichy tilted his hips very slightly against Marek's bottom, matching the rhythm now, increasing the intensity of the thrusts, but in a different way; the angle became more inward, so the higher intensity didn't translate as pain, but as an even more intense massage of the boy's g-spot.

It had been several days since Marek had last cum – too many for him even to remember for sure – and his balls were full. The stimulation of his prostate gland felt good, even if it made him feel like a cheap whore to be sporting an erection while riding Tichy's cock. But what did it matter, anyway? There were three other boys here, not much older than Marek, who had been fucking away like rabbits, engaging in homo sex like they were born to it, without a care in the world. Tichy certainly didn't care. If nobody cared about it, why should Marek? The boy was having trouble finding space on the list for what seemed increasingly like an insignificant concern.

And if he could get off this way, it would be nice. It would be nice not to wake up a half dozen times every night needing to cum, which is what had been happening lately. Tichy's no-wanking rule was starting to become a big problem, and although Marek was willing to violate it if he knew he wouldn't be caught, he had yet to figure out a way. And the end of the term was still well over two weeks away.

Tichy reached his orgasm before Marek could cum. The man's face contorted with pleasure as he held his breath and came deep inside Marek, grunting with the intensity of the sensation. It hardly surprised the boy that he wouldn't get a chance to cum. He probably would have needed a 30-second go with his right hand, anyway, and Tichy wouldn't have allowed that. He wasn't allowed to cum like the other boys. No surprise there. Tichy hated him, and he was probably depriving him of cumming just to be mean.

Moments later, Tichy pushed the boy into a more upright position.

"Get off," he ordered the boy. "Doggy position. Suck. Do you duty. And stick your ass out. Filip gets to fuck you for coming up with your little punishment here today," he said.

And so, it happened. As Marek wearily climbed off the man's torso and crawled been his legs, Tichy pulled the boy's head onto his slimy, just-out-of-his-ass cock, and Filip easily slipped into Marek's ass and began to hump it from behind. Marek began to suck the man's foul cock. He wanted no repeat of the mattress ordeal. It didn't matter what was on Tichy's cock. If he had to ingest something disgusting, at least it had come from Marek's own bottom. He winced as Filip began fucking him like a dog in heat. Would this ever end? Would any of them ever tire of fucking and tormenting him? Not if he remained at the school, Marek surmised, and with the photographs, maybe not even after he left.

Filip didn't last long even though this was his second go. Tichy's cock had just gotten hard around the time Filip grunted and squirted a small splash of cum up Marek's sore behind. Filip pulled out as the cum oozed from Marek's butt and slid down his taint. No one was cleaning that up, either with his tongue or otherwise. Tichy nodded.

"All right. You guys go and hit your bunks. I'll think of an extra reward for you, Filip. And you," he said as he looked at Marek, "will finish what you're doing, but not here. Kitchen. I need a smoke and a drink."

Marek looked on, feeling like an outsider, as Filip was complimented for dreaming up Marek's latest ordeal. Thanks a lot, Filip, Marek thought to himself. Marek stood up with the rest of the boys, almost as if they all were being dismissed from class. The boy's erection had subsided somewhat but not fully, and he would have paid for 60 seconds of alone time to take care of his need. But of course, Tichy wasn't done with him. The man had amazing capacity to just keep going and going, no matter how many times he got off.

Tichy walked to the kitchen and sat down on a kitchen chair. He lit up a cigarette and poured himself a vodka, knocked it back, then refilled his glass and took a long drag on his cigarette.

As the other boys dressed and left the apartment, Marek followed Tichy into the man's kitchen. With a weary countenance, he knelt before the man's chair and prepared to suck him off again. How many times had it been? It was like counting the grains of sand on a beach. But at least the man had promised that after this, he could go. At least there was that. Oh, how he hated Stanislav Tichy; but he was careful, this time, not to let it show in his eyes.

"All right, Hurta," he said to the boy who had followed him into the kitchen. "Suck, swallow, clean up, clothes on, and go. Same time and same place tomorrow. No nonsense, no trouble, or else," he said with an ominous glare. It occurred to the man that his "or elses" were imbued with even greater threat than before now that he knew the boy's terrible secret. If Marek were at all smart, he would know it, too.

Marek was tired. He was always tired. Dealing with and worrying about Tichy every day was sapping his energy, and he could feel it getting worse. He woke up every night now, several times even, either dreaming of Tichy or needing to cum – or, even worse, sometimes both. Adding to the problem, he had been kept up late several times in the past few days. Tichy's orgies and games often left the boy exhausted, and his frequent punishments and tortures were gradually draining away whatever reserves he had left. When Marek finally got home to Vacenovice, he was going to sleep for a week straight.

But for now, he just sucked. He sucked, and sucked, and sucked some more, trying to do it well, the way the man liked it. It was just fucking easier if he did, and it seemed to make Tichy cum sooner. The man's cock felt so familiar in Marek's throat now. It fit like a sword in a scabbard. The boy could do five inches without even gagging just about every time. It took a long time, though, and Marek's jaws and lips were getting very sore. Fatigue shone in his eyes as he worked, but he kept them focused on Tichy the entire time.

Tichy relaxed and let the boy suck him. It took a good long while this time, and Tichy simply leaned back and enjoyed it, maintaining eye contact with the boy, smoking, and drinking his vodka gulp after gulp. It was well past Marek's bedtime, well past lights-off at the dorm, but Tichy didn't seem to care. It took a solid half-hour of pretty good sucking from the unhappy boy before the man finally grunted and came.

"You're feeling so sorry for yourself," Tichy observed casually as Marek gulped down his cum, "but you have no idea what your legacy and background means here, and to me, personally." He paused to exhale a big puff of bluish smoke.

Marek listened as the man spoke. It was almost … an admission. Tichy had never come out and confirmed what Marek thought he already knew – that he was being made to suffer for the sins of his grandfather. But there it was. Tichy had said it. The boy looked away, feeling ashamed. But what had the man meant when he said "me, personally"? Marek looked up again, his eyes questioning. What could he mean?

"You should be grateful," Tichy continued. "I am keeping an eye out for you. You have the fucking cartridge stopping you from being beaten to pulp every single day. You know damn well you wouldn't make it to the break alive if I weren't helping you."

Tichy paused as the boy dutifully began his clean-up duties without having to be told. It was another sign of the kid's wholesale surrender, and the man was pleased as he gazed down at the beleaguered 12-year-old for any sign of rebellion. But Marek just looked utterly exhausted. His eyes were bleary, and his body drooped with fatigue. He needed sleep, but it already was too late for him to get enough of it. Tomorrow would be another long day for the youngster, culminating with yet another visit to Tichy's apartment in the evening.

"You hate this," continued Tichy. "And sure, I'm playing you, you little fuck, but you should count your blessings and focus on those. And obey. Like a well-trained, loyal dog. Because things could get worse for you, Marek. Much worse. Especially now, after today," he said.

The man's words were chilling. Things could get worse? Marek hardly thought so, but the man had emphasized "after today," as if he had learned or discovered something today that changed things. Marek knew what it was. Tichy did, too. They both knew. Marek's blood chilled to ice water in his veins.

And with that, Tichy told Marek to get dressed. The conversation was over. It was a very tired, shaken, and subdued young boy who rose unsteadily to his feet and began to dress. He wanted to know what the man meant about his legacy. Should he say something, or simply leave? He had just pulled his trousers up when Tichy stopped him midway through, walking over to the cowering boy and roughly yanking his trousers and underpants down to his ankles.

"Don't touch those," he commanded. "Not until you have a foot on the main staircase. That'll teach you to take the right way," snorted Tichy as he pushed the semi-naked boy out into the corridor.

Marek understood. It was another humiliation. But he still wanted to know about his legacy, what it really meant to Tichy. Should he try to speak to the man? Should he risk it?

"Mr. Tichy," the boy said from the corridor. He was bare-assed naked, but that didn't matter. "Can you please tell me? I'm sorry." He was near tears again, and only the fact that his tear ducts were so dry kept them from rolling down his cheeks. "Can I please come back in?"

"No, it's too late today," replied Tichy resolutely. "You need to sleep. If you want to hear that story, you can come to my office at four tomorrow, on top of coming here at half-past eight. Now go. That way," he said as he pointed. "Down the fire escape. Across to the main staircase. The moment you set foot on it, you can pull your clothes up and hurry to your room. If you need to take care of anything before bed, be quick about it. I'm coming to check the dorms in fifteen minutes, and I don't want to see you out of your room. Now go!"

With that, Tichy pushed Marek away from the door and closed it. He was aware that it was a risk to make the boy proceed with his trousers down around his ankles; the next-door flat was empty, but farther down the hallway, near the staircase, was one that wasn't. If someone walked out that door and quickly turned on the light right now, they would see Marek's predicament. He also could be seen on the floor below, shuffling down the fire escape, before he reached the bottom corridor which was as good as empty – assuming that the groundskeeper was at home, watching TV and getting pissed, which was a safe bet by this time of the day.

Tichy closed and locked his door, leaving Marek to it, and went to clean up the evidence. He hid the film rolls under the kitchen floorboard until he could develop them, then rummaged through his photography drawer. He had one more roll of film, but that was low ISO, for outside and sunny weather. He'd have to buy more. A trip to town was called for, which would also give him a chance to grab some photo paper and maybe a bottle of stabilizer so he wouldn't use up the school's entire stock. He had taken 72 pictures, after all, and for at least a few of those, his plan called for multiple prints. He counted himself lucky that he had some savings; that wasn't going to be a negligible expense out of his relatively modest wages.

As the door closed, Marek suddenly became fully aware of his predicament and Tichy's instructions. His trousers and underwear were around his ankles, hobbling him, making walking fast difficult and perilous. He dared not defy the man and pull them up, although he thought about it. How would Tichy know if he did? But Marek knew that, somehow, he would. Perhaps he had whispered to Martin to lurk nearby and wait for him. Perhaps Tichy himself had a means of monitoring him as he made his way to the fire escape. As worried as Marek was of being discovered by someone with his pants down, he was even more worried about Tichy. There were ordinary worries and concerns, and then there were the ones that involved Tichy. The ones involving Tichy were orders of magnitude more important than any of the others.

Now Marek had something else to worry about. Tichy knew. Tichy had discovered Marek's greatest fear, the fear that literally left him panting for air and trembling in terror. There was no taking it back, no way to un-ring that bell. Marek had panicked and stupidly revealed his secret to the man, hoping for mercy from him. None had been given. Indeed, the joyful tone in Tichy's voice as he discovered Marek's claustrophobia had been too obvious to miss. Tichy instantly had known what to do to exploit his newfound knowledge. The memory of the three older boys surrounding him, pressing on him, and constricting him while Tichy cut off his air supply and enveloped his head in confining blackness brought a visible shudder and a visceral reaction to the boy, and he had to reach for the handrail of the fire escape to steady himself against a sudden wave of nausea.

But for the moment, he had more immediate concerns. The stairs were impossible to navigate with his trousers around his ankles. He couldn't take a single step! Should he hop down them? How could he do this? Turned to one side and holding the handrail with both hands, Marek began hopping down one step at a time, his exposed, flaccid penis flopping about. He felt ridiculous, and he knew he looked the same. Why had Tichy done this to him? The man's cruelties knew no bounds, but there was something more to them than their unlimited nature. They were creative, as well. The boy had to give credit where credit was due. Tichy could make even something as simple as returning to his dorm an ordeal and a trauma. Whereas Marek wanted nothing more than to race back to his room and prepare for bed, Tichy had made his return trip a perilous, time-consuming, humiliating affair.

What was the story that Tichy had about his grandfather? The man had died not long after the war. How could Tichy have even known him? The man couldn't be older than 40. Maybe he was even closer to 30. Marek wasn't a great judge of age, but it just seemed impossible to him that Tichy could have been old enough to have met his grandfather, unless it was when he was a young boy. Had his grandfather been mean to Tichy? Had he beaten him? Why would he have? It didn't seem to add up or make any sense. Yet, the man despised his grandfather, and he hated Marek, too. Why? He had said it was personal. Although the thought of going to see Tichy voluntarily curdled his blood, Marek knew that he would have to visit the man's office tomorrow afternoon to learn the origins of Tichy's hatred. He needed to know why his life had become such a living hell.

When Marek finally reached the main corridor, he couldn't help but break into an awkward, shuffling, hobbled run. This was the most perilous stretch of the entire return trip. The trousers around his ankles prevented anything more than baby steps, and Marek knew that he looked utterly ridiculous as he shuffled along, looking like a toddler who'd soiled his underpants. If the janitor came out of his flat, he would have seen quite a sight as Marek hobbled by!

When he reached the main staircase, Marek sighed with relief as he pulled his underwear and trousers up. He broke into a run as he zoomed through the empty corridor to the dorm. Tichy had said he would be conducting bed check in 15 minutes, and there wasn't much time left.

Marek raced into his room as light from the hallway shined into the darkened interior. Startled, Radek rose from the upper bunk and watched as Marek quickly flung off his clothing and donned his pajamas, then grabbed the nylon bag with his kit and raced to the bathroom, leaving the door ajar. He brushed his teeth quickly, then washed his face as fast as he could. It would have to do. There wasn't time for more than one go at either activity, and Marek could only hope that the stench of ass and cum was sufficiently gone from his face and mouth that he could sleep.

He flew back to his room, ditched the bag, stuffed his dirty clothing into the hamper with the light from the hallway, then quickly closed the door and dove into his bed. He had forgotten to pee, but there was no time for that now. He could hear Radek moving around in the bunk above him.

"He's coming," Marek said into the darkness. There was no need for him to identify who "he" was.

Chapter 14

"He," indeed, was coming. Another minute in the bathroom and Marek would have encountered Tichy in the hallway or been out of his bed when the man arrived. Marek shivered at the thought of it. The last thing he needed was another punishment from Tichy. He already was so tired. If Tichy punished him now, he would get so little sleep yet again …

Within a minute of Marek's rushed arrival back to the room and into his bed, Tichy came. Marek's heart hammered in his chest as the door suddenly opened and Tichy strode into the room.

"Evening, boys," he said in a cheery tone. "Hope everyone's behaving in here. Heard some noise," he said in an amused tone, then crouched low and whispered directly into Marek's ear.

"You don't leave this bed until 7:00 a.m. Not a minute earlier, not a foot, not a finger. You stay in the bed, under the duvet, all night. You had better not even toss and turn, Marek. 7:00 a.m., not a minute sooner," he said with emphasis.

Marek listened, frozen in fear, as the man whispered his instructions. Okay, he wasn't to get up. That was fine. He hadn't planned to, anyway, although it occurred to him that he still needed to go to the bathroom. Now what was he supposed to do? The thought that he couldn't pee suddenly made the need to pee even greater.

Tichy then stood up and spoke to Radek, even though the boy was pretending to sleep.

"If he leaves his bunk, you come to me first thing and tell me. If he messes up and you fail to report, I'll have two bodies to dispose of come lunchtime tomorrow instead of one."

Tichy left and closed the door. And even though it was against the fire policy and the boys weren't allowed to do it themselves at night, he locked it. Whoever left the room would have to unlock it and make some noise to open the door.

Tichy sat down on a chair in the hallway, as if monitoring the game room, and quietly lit up a Startka. He briefly considered staying up for a time to see if the Hurta boy disobeyed him, but he wasn't interested in missing sleep, nor did he wish to wake one of his boys. He decided to rely on Marek and Radek both being scared enough of him for that not to be necessary, so he stood up after he finished his smoke and went back to his flat to sleep.

After Tichy left, Marek waited and listened. When he thought the coast was clear, he called up to Radek.

"Sorry about that," he said to his roommate. "He's in a mood tonight."

"What did you do?" asked Radek in an incredulous tone. The redhead's heart still was racing from Tichy's visit.

"Nothing. He just … he's in a mood."

It took a while, but Marek finally fell asleep. A couple of hours later, he awoke with a strangled cry and sat bolt upright on the bed. His pajamas were moist with sweat and he was gasping for air, as if he couldn't seem to draw enough oxygen into his lungs. But he couldn't remember his dream, and after a few minutes, he leaned back down on his pillow and mercifully fell once again into a deep, deep sleep.

Marek awoke again several hours after his dream. As consciousness slowly returned, he had a feeling that something was wrong, but he couldn't tell what it was. He turned slightly on his side and something again felt a bit off, but it didn't seem like anything could be wrong; he was still in bed, and it was still dark, and his alarm certainly hadn't gone off, not this early, not without even the faintest streams of morning light filtering through the window.

But as became fully awake, Marek realized that, oddly, he no longer needed to go to the bathroom. Funny. He had needed to pee earlier, but not now. He moved again, and this time, he felt an unfamiliar feeling by his hips, or under them. With a horrified, sinking feeling of despair, he reached down with his hand …

The bed was soaked. The bottom sheet and mattress, the upper sheet, everything. It wasn't another wet dream, although Marek wished it were. He'd had a pee accident, and from the feel of his pajamas, a big one. His bottoms were soaked, and even his pajama top was wet to his navel.

Marek lay still even as he could feel himself starting to panic. The room was quiet and there was no sign that Radek was awake, but what could he do? Tichy had absolutely forbidden him from rising before seven o'clock. It was nowhere near seven o'clock now. But this was an emergency! An absolute emergency! He had never done anything like this before. Not since he was six years old. Or five. Oh, no. Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no.

Marek couldn't move. His heart raced. If he got up, Radek would tell Tichy, and he would be doomed. He would have to lie in the bed, in a puddle, until the stroke of seven. And for the next 93 minutes, that is exactly what the already sleep-deprived boy did, his eyes wide open, his heart pounding, and a horrifying, terrifying sense of doom permeating his entire body.

For his part, Tichy awoke up early, before six o'clock, and went for a piss. He was amazed that he had a part boner. He was getting a bit old for morning wood, especially now that he was cumming three or four times a day – literally until he couldn't get it up anymore. That was thanks in large part to the Hurta kid's ass and mouth, which he was enjoying just about every day. As he flushed the toilet and went to drink a large glass of water with a squeeze of lemon, it occurred to him than on top of everything else, a psychiatrist would probably label him as a sex addict with a compulsive personality disorder, or something like that.

He did a quick sequence of basic stretches, just the necessary minimum to reduce the chance of pulling a muscle, and went out for a frosty jog in the darkness. His trainers were almost soundless, but once he got to the unsalted mountain road, the freshly fallen snow crunched pleasingly underfoot. He ran only a couple of miles, but that meant a mile uphill, and then a mile down a winding, snow-covered track. Afterwards, he enjoyed a hot shower and a complete change of clothes. It was just before seven o'clock when he made a sweep through the dormitory where the boys were just beginning to wake up, stopping at Marek's room to unlock it right at the top of the hour.

Basting in one's pee, in a warm dorm room, under a blanket, with one's body heat and perspiration thrown into the mix, was not a very nice sensation and was very unkind to Marek's skin. The pee marinated long enough for germs to kick in and start feasting on the urea and other compounds in the urine, creating ammonia as a byproduct. Put less scientifically, when Tichy walked into the room at seven o'clock, it already smelled pretty rank. Tichy's mouth was just curving into a smile at the smell when Radek sat up on his upper bunk and yawned.

"Jeeeesus, what's that stench," he said without even realizing Tichy was in the room. Then he paled and froze as he saw the visitor. "G-g-good m-morning comrade Tichy, sir," he stammered.

Marek wanted to cry. He had been trying to figure out how he could get up, clean up, and keep what had happened as much of a secret as he could, when Tichy simply walked into the room. The boy knew then and there that it was over. He had wet the bed, and everyone on the floor would know about it soon enough. Then Radek spoke up – Radek, the very boy whom Marek planned to beg not to tell anyone what had happened to keep it a secret. There was no hope for that now.

"Morning, both of you," said Tichy. "Rise and shine. And you, Marek, had better hurry. You know the rules. Your linens must be in the first morning load, so you need to strip the bed and take them down right away. Don't forget to grab a fresh pair of briefs, as they'll take your pajamas too, I bet," Tichy said matter-of-factly.

Normally, kids would change in a hurry, or take a change of pajamas, but even if Tichy hadn't already shrunk the boy's options down to a pair of tighty-whities, Marek would have been fucked anyway because his remaining pajamas were all soiled from cum and leakage and not yet washed. Without a fresh pair to don, he now faced a walk of shame in both directions.

Blushing and terribly chagrinned and embarrassed, Marek stood from the bed, his pee-soaked pajamas clinging to his slender torso like a form-fitting dress. How had this happened to him? On top of everything else, how could his body have betrayed him like this yet again? He had been very tired, yes, and he had … Wait! He had needed to go to the bathroom last night when he returned from the man's apartment, and Tichy hadn't let him!

It was Tichy! Tichy had done this to him! He hadn't been able to get out of bed because of Tichy!

Had the man done it on purpose? He couldn't have known that Marek needed to go so badly when he had issued his rules about staying in bed last night. Or had he? The man seemed to know everything. Had he known that Marek's bladder was full? Was that even possible? It seemed possible, all right. It even seemed likely.

But Marek did know the drill. Bedwetting sometimes still happened among the boys at the school, especially the first-years, boys aged 11 and 12, so he knew what he needed to do. Blushing fiercely, his cheeks crimson, Marek stripped the bed down and cradled the sheets together in his arms. He grabbed a pair of clean briefs, gave a very sad look to Radek, and quickly left the room.

After Marek left the room, Tichy assisted with the cleanup. To an unbiassed witness, the man's efforts may even have come across as kind. As Radek stepped down from the top bunk to use the bathroom, Tichy lifted the sodden mattress off the lower bunk and stood it up to air-dry. Although Marek had pissed himself quite thoroughly, he still had a boy-sized bladder and the wet stain on the mattress was no more than a foot (30 cm.) in diameter. With both boys now gone, Tichy opened the window to air out the room, and all it took to remove most of the scent was a quick rush of the crisp, cold morning air. Other than the stained mattress, there were no other signs of Marek's little accident. There wouldn't be down in the laundry room, either. It would be just simple swap of linens, dirty wet ones for dry, clean, roll-ironed ones.

The effect on Marek, however, was far different. The 12-year-old walked the walk of shame, eyes downcast, and several of his classmates saw him making the trek. A boy carrying his linens to the laundry at this time of day did not go unnoticed by his hallmates as they walked to the bathroom to pee and brush their teeth. There were plenty of looks and smiles, and a derisive chuckle or two.

Marek wasn't the first or only boy at the school to have had an accident this year, but he certainly had never expected to be among them. He hadn't wet the bed in years. Now, on top of everything else, he would be known as a bedwetter to all the other boys. He tried to tell himself that the term would be over in just over two weeks, and it hardly mattered what the other boys thought of him because he wasn't ever coming back. But that didn't work very well. Marek knew what he had done, and this would just add to reasons why everyone at the school despised him. The list was now so long that it probably extended onto a second page.

Tichy had done this to him. Whether by accident or design – and Marek still didn't know which it was – this had been Tichy's doing, Tichy's fault. All the man's stupid, dumb rules were to blame. Why had he made Marek stay in bed? Why? It wasn't like he was roaming the halls at night or going into town. Marek had wanted to sleep. He had needed to sleep. The last several weeks with Tichy had been exhausting. Tichy was already controlling what he ate; was he going to control how he slept, too? Was he going to turn Marek into a bedwetter and Radek into a sleep-snitch like the boys in the canteen?

It was a very unhappy kid who entered the laundry room, soiled laundry in hand, to find the janitor there along with his daughter, Ludmila. The chubby 13-year-old sat on the counter, dangling her feet, chatting away with her father who was, as always, grumpy as hell in the morning when he always felt hungover, stiff, and miserable. Considering she was the only girl anywhere near the all-boys school, one would think that she might look more attractive to the boys than she did. But not in her case. The girl was overweight and had a face that could slam doors.

"Go on then, boy," snapped Vacha impatiently as he saw Marek with his linens. "And give me those pajamas, too. For devil's sake, you know the drill. Hurry up, we haven't got all day."

The girl turned to see Marek, whom she recognized as one of the first-year boys. Her eyes widened with delight as she realized she might just be treated to an impromptu striptease. Those same eyes locked on Marek with a mix of natural curiosity and an almost morbid fascination at his awkward predicament.

Marek placed the soiled linens in the large hamper, then hesitated. He could hardly change out of his wet pajamas and underwear with the girl here.

"I'll- I'll come back," he told the man, still holding the fresh pair of briefs he had brought with him, now trying to hide them from her view.

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Vacha, "I'm loading the machine now. Chop, chop! Jesus, you're just a little boy. No one cares," he grumbled, and that much was true for him, a straight, half-impotent, aging alcoholic – but it couldn't have been further from the truth for his daughter.

Marek wasn't sure that his day could get any worse. He had wet the bed. He was out of clean pajamas. He had just made a humiliating walk with his pee-soaked linens past seemingly half the kids in his class, and now he was standing in front of the janitor and his awful daughter in his wet pajamas being told to strip down right there in front of them.

"You've brought a spare pair of undies, so why don't you just change?" the girl pointed out in the most annoying, smartass voice possible. Beyond the fact that the obnoxious girl didn't even register as a female among the boys at the internat, her pockmarked face and nasty attitude had earned her the nickname of Smallpox.

Although Marek may have risked a rude answer at another time, Vacha looked like he was in such a foul mood he was almost looking for an excuse to lash out. With a look of despair and the horrid girl watching his every move, Marek removed his pajama top. With Smallpox looking on he wasn't sure he had ever felt more naked, and he was still mostly dressed!

"I'll just, um, I'll go in the hall, okay?" he told the man.

"I'm about to start this thing," Vacha said impatiently as he stuffed the soiled linens in. "Now stop wasting my time," he said as he rolled his eyes at the reluctant boy.

"Well, Daddy," said Smallpox sweetly, "you can hardly be surprised that Lord Hurta doesn't give a damn about the plight of working people."

Marek wanted to step out in the hall where the girl wouldn't be able to see him strip, but it seemed that if he did, he would lose his window of opportunity to get his pajamas washed, and he had no other clean ones. Then the janitor's ugly daughter started in on him, and the boy looked at her with anger in his eyes. Why did everyone hate him so? He had never spoken two words to the ugly girl, yet she somehow knew his name and was taunting him. It hadn't been an accident that she had used his surname.

Vacha tensed at his daughter's observation and suddenly looked like he would stuff Marek himself into the big barrel of the industrial-sized washing machine if the boy didn't hand his pajamas over in a hurry. The man wasn't a die-hard communist like Tichy at heart, but the idea that someone didn't care about his work – and maybe felt superior to him because of it – was enough to get him riled.

"Hurta, eh?" said the man derisively. "I've heard about you. Aren't you the boy who Skala never even saw on the day you were supposed to be delivering messages for him?" the man said with a frown. "I can tell a troublemaker when I see one, young man. Don't waste my time and hand over those pajamas. I'm supposed to ask Tichy if one of you needs a hiding, but you might not be that lucky if you keep pushing your luck," the man sneered angrily.

When the janitor addressed him, Marek just stood and took it, as he knew he was supposed to from adults. But the girl – she made him so angry. The boy felt trapped, scorned, and helpless once again.

"Běž do háje!" [Author's note: "Go to hell"] he muttered in the girl's direction under his breath as he blushed, turned, and began to strip his sodden pajama bottoms down his thighs. The sodden fabric clung tightly to his skin and started to pull his underpants down with them.

Smallpox looked on in fascination. As an only child, she didn't even have a brother to ogle. Her father was hairy and ugly, and quite a modest man himself, so this was a rare treat. She didn't even remotely bother to pretend she wasn't looking, and when Marek told her to go to hell under his breath, she just stuck her tongue out at him.

"In your dreams, pochcánku," [Author's note: roughly "pissypants"] she mouthed back to the boy so that her father couldn't hear her. And then she simply looked at the undressing boy. Indeed, she looked very carefully, and if Marek had known a bit more about mean girls of a certain age, he would have sensed the danger that potentially was coming his way. He had made the mistake of insulting Smallpox, and she was now poised like a tigress, ready to leap.

But Marek didn't have a sister or that many female friends and couldn't really pick up on her cues; to an innocent soul, the vibe she gave off now was indistinguishable from her excitement at catching a glimpse of him naked. But she was ready. The moment there was the smallest opening for her to snatch his tighty-whities away, even if she had to yank them out of his hand, she was going to make her move and dash away with them. If she had anything to say about it, Marek's unguarded běž do háje was going to cost him.

Marek already had been humiliated enough for an entire month, let alone a single day, so he turned his back to the girl as he dragged the pajamas off his hips and stepped out of them one leg at a time. They were still quite wet and virtually adhering to his skin. They smelled sharply of pee, and all Marek wanted to do was get back to his floor so he could shower and remove the stench from his body. In the meantime, Smallpox could stare at his naked butt and back all she wanted, which it seemed to Marek was exactly what she was doing. She also undoubtedly saw the still-healing cane marks from one of Tichy's earlier chastisements, but there was nothing the boy could do about that.

What a little bitch she was, thought Marek as he finally got the clothes off and went to grab the underpants that he had draped on the edge of the hamper. But turning his back to the girl and placing his briefs on the hamper turned out to be a big mistake. Smallpox didn't miss a beat. If she thought she was likely to get into trouble with her father, she certainly didn't worry about it right now. She slid off the counter and dashed forward, surprisingly swift and agile for a girl of her inelegant proportions.

Marek saw movement out of the corner of his eye as the girl quickly moved up on him and snatched his briefs before scampering away. Oh, no! Marek grabbed for them – too late – then grabbed for the girl – also too late – before he instinctively started after her, only to realize, three or four steps into the pursuit, that he was completely naked. He could hardly go chasing her through the hallway in that way.

It was an unfortunate coincidence that Vacha ran out of patience with him just then and as good as ripped the wet pajamas from Marek's hands, tossing them into the washing machine, slamming the door shut, and pressing the start button. If the man had seen what his daughter just did, he gave no indication of it. Marek was left standing there stark naked, with Smallpox grinning at him from just outside the door in the corridor, waving his underpants at him.

Marek knew he could catch the girl, and quickly if he chased her, but that meant running after her naked and without any cover. It never occurred to him that there were piles of sorted clean linen on the side, any one of which he could take and use as a towel or toga; Marek's mind was focused on his briefs and getting them back. For the moment, however, he was stark naked and didn't know what to do. Blushing with embarrassment, Marek clutched his hands over his genitals, but not before Smallpox got the view that she had been hoping for.

"Give those back!" demanded the boy as he looked toward the janitor for help. But Vacha either hadn't seen what had happened or didn't care. He would be no help. Utterly infuriated now, Marek turned back to the girl. He needed her torment like he needed a second asshole, and he was seething and getting angrier by the moment as the standoff continued.

"Give them back, čubka!" [Author's note: "bitch"] Marek hissed, emphasizing the last word perhaps even loud enough for the janitor to hear.

It was not a smart idea to call a girl a bitch right in front of her father. Luckily for Marek, Vacha didn't hear it over the thrum of the gigantic washing machine or the man likely would have taken the skin off the boy's backside with his belt. But Smallpox heard the words clearly enough, and her expression turned hateful as she glared at the boy. She took another step and a half backwards, into the hall, almost to the opposite wall. If Marek chose to give chase, she could choose to dash in either direction. The more merciful option would be for her to run up toward the fire escape, but she could also scamper toward the main staircase, which was going to be very busy right about now with dozens of boys heading to the canteen for a breakfast – a meal that Marek knew would not be in his best interests to skip.

"Come get them, smrade!!!" [Author's note: "brat/stinker"] she taunted. She obviously was enjoying Marek's embarrassment and awkwardness as he stood there, stark naked with his hands over his crotch, looking increasingly helpless and desperate. Smallpox seemed almost Tichy-like in the pleasure she obviously derived from tormenting the boy.

Marek knew that he could catch her, but that wasn't his only problem. Even if he ran her down, he knew he might struggle to get his briefs back from her because she looked quite solid and strong. She most definitely was bigger and heavier than Marek, by a third, at least. It was not even clear that he would be able to best her in a fight for the briefs, which might have to take place in a hallway in plain view of his classmates. She might even win, which would be humiliating beyond belief.

Marek was not sure what to do. This was yet another unexpected hiccup on a day that was starting off to be a very, very bad one. He just wanted the girl to give him his underpants back. He just wanted to get back upstairs and take a shower. Why was she picking on him? Why today? He had never met her and barely knew her real name! Why was she doing this to him? She probably thought it was hilarious, but it wasn't. Maybe a different approach would work.

"Okay, please," he said to the girl, trying to keep his voice neutral and not whiny. "I'm asking nicely. I have to get back to my room. Can you please give them back to me?" He took a tiny, half-step a bit closer to her, in a non-threatening manner, his hands still clasped over his penis and testicles.

"Now you are," she said with a pout. She wasn't about to forget – or forgive – being called a čubka any time soon. "Not another step!" she warned the boy as he moved a bit closer. "I run pretty fast, Hurta," she grinned.

Marek wanted nothing more than to charge at the girl, slap her silly, retrieve his underpants, and head back to his room. But she looked to be on guard for that, ready to sprint away if he so much as even flinched. Plus, he could hardly put his hands on the girl with her father only a few feet away. The boy realized that he already had been exceedingly lucky that the man hadn't heard the name he had called his daughter, but he had been angry. He still was angry. If only the girl knew the kind of day he was having, she might just toss him his briefs and be done with it.

"I tell you what, boy," Smallpox said. "You raise your hands up, both of them at the same time, and I'll drop your precious tighty-whities right here. And I get an IOU out of this for taking pity on you," she proposed. She clearly looked ready to dash now though, and a footballer's eye would tell Marek that it was going to be for the main staircase, even though she was trying not to be obvious about it.

Then, just as Marek was about to do whatever he was going to do, she played her trump card.

"And I'll be soooo nice I won't even report to comrade Tichy that you called me čubka," she said in a teasing voice. "Me and him are friends, did you know?" she asked.

She was mostly bluffing, but Marek obviously had no way of knowing that. She lived in the same building as Tichy, after all, and she was around a lot. She also seemed almost as mean as Tichy, as if she had been cut from the same cloth as the disciplinarian. It certainly seemed like the two of them would get on together like a house on fire.

Marek was just about to charge at her when she mentioned Tichy. Instantly abandoning that plan, Marek blanched and swallowed nervously. He now understood that using that word with the girl had been a huge mistake. He wasn't sure the girl had any sway with Tichy, but she almost didn't need any to get Marek in serious, painful trouble. He'd be up to his ears in trouble just for using that word with a staff member's daughter, and that was even if Tichy didn't already hate him.

"I'm sorry I called you that," Marek said haltingly, his voice full of fear and uncertainty. "I'm having a really shitty day," he said, blinking back tears as he contemplated just how shitty it had become. "Can you please just give them back?"

Smallpox was enjoying her little game like a cat enjoys playing with a mouse, especially when she saw the boy turn white as a ghost and freeze when she had casually dropped the p.e. teacher's name. She knew she had played the right card and she wasn't about to fold now, not with what suddenly seemed like a royal flush in her hand. She had seen Marek entering Tichy's apartment the other night and knew that he wore the cartridge. She didn't fully understand what the cartridge was for, but she knew enough to know that Marek was one of the boys at the school that Tichy had a very tight grip on. No doubt he was one of those boys she sometimes spied walking a bit funny or outright limping after leaving Tichy's flat.

"This isn't really a negotiation, now, is it?" she asked in a sadistic, arrogant tone of voice. "Hands up and promise me a small IOU and I'll hand them over," she declared. "I don't have all day, myself." She grinned again, showing off her ugly, big, and crooked front teeth.

"Come on, be a smart boy and improve your day, let's get this over with," she suggested, now sounding almost reasonable about it. She was acting almost like he was being the silly one.

Marek was blushing, and he couldn't stop himself from rolling his eyes. This whole thing was ridiculous. How much worse could his day get? Of all people to mess with him, and on this, of all days. He looked around, trying to see if there was some other way he could shield his nakedness as he made his way back upstairs. Time was ticking. The standoff already had gone on for several minutes, and soon every boy in the dorm would be on his way to breakfast.

Marek just wanted this to be over as soon as it possibly could be. So many people had seen him naked and worse in the last three weeks that it hardly seemed to matter what the janitor's ugly, fat daughter saw. She was just an ugly girl, and even if she were pretty, it wasn't like they could date. Tichy would cane the skin off the backside of any boy who so much as looked at her funny. She was the daughter of a staff member and that made her utterly off limits to every boy at the school.

"Fine," the boy said, as he removed his hands and raised them, displaying his genitals for the girl to see. Not only was he not hard, but his penis was small and shriveled and about as far from excited to be in the company of a girl as a 12-year-old boy possibly could be. "You can have your IOU, too," he added, in the hope of sealing the deal and securing the return of his only clothing.

"Good boy," Smallpox said in a lilting tone, like she was talking to a puppy that had just performed a new trick. She smirked, too, and looked smug and mocking at the same time. Her eyes gazed down and stared at her prize for several seconds before she snorted contemptuously, her expression revealing exactly how unimpressed she was with the boy's wilted member. When she had taken her fill of Marek's nakedness, she stepped toward him suddenly and threw the balled-up briefs at his head. It was a darn good throw, and hard, too. Smallpox clearly was not to be underestimated.

Marek flinched but caught his briefs, immediately bending to step into them as a feeling of immense relief swept over him.

"Now don't be an idiot and forget to grab your linens," Smallpox told the boy. "You can wear the bedsheet as a skirt if you think it is less embarrassing than just underwear."

She seemed normal now, almost helpful. After all, she'd seen what she wanted to see, and he owed her one. There was no reason not to sweeten the deal for him, or perhaps, to rub in his face the fact that he hadn't even needed his briefs back to begin with.

Marek looked to his right at the stack of sheets and realized, sheepishly, that the girl was right. He could have given up the underwear and been back in his room five minutes ago if he had only thought things through. He hung his head at his stupidity and in sheer relief that his torment was over. He wanted to tell her she was the ugliest fucking girl on the planet, but that would only escalate things, and right now, he didn't have time for that. There was also the very real possibility that she would go to Tichy if he said what he was thinking and it would be a major problem if she did. Tichy would take her side no questions asked, and that would create a big, painful situation that Marek didn't even want to think about right now.

"See you around," said Smallpox with a wink as she turned and walked away toward her family's flat. She turned back just once to look over her shoulder and blow Marek a teasing kiss before she disappeared from his line of sight.

"Yeah, whatever," said Marek as he grabbed his new linens and took off at a sprint.

The boy knew that if he hurried, he could still make it to breakfast and potentially avoid another punishment from Tichy. Unfortunately for Marek, the staircase was full of boys making their way to the canteen and the hallway was even busier than before. Although he no longer had soaked pajamas on and didn't reek of stale piss quite as much, the fresh linens in his arms and his semi-naked state signaled to everyone what had happened overnight.

Mercifully, Tichy was gone from his room when he returned, but Radek was still there waiting. He had noticed that Marek hadn't taken his keys and didn't want to lock him out – a small act of unexpected kindness that left Marek blinking back tears. Radek left as soon as Marek arrived, not wanting to embarrass his roommate any further.

Marek couldn't miss breakfast and he knew it. He rushed through his morning ablutions, even managing a quick shower to wash the dried piss off his body and was at the canteen well before the aluminum blind rattled down and closed the service window.

He ate alone, of course; he always did. He had no friends at the school. Coming to it had been a terrible, horrible idea, and had he known about his grandfather's legacy, he would have avoided PISKG like the plague. It never made sense that he was going to an internat so far from home, but he knew that all of that soon would be behind him. He was going home for the break and never coming back. The train ticket still hadn't arrived from his mother, nor had there been a reply letter, but they would have to come soon. The end of the term was approaching, and the entire school would clear out for the break.

Marek finished his breakfast – for once, he was modestly hungry – and went to his classes. He was absolutely exhausted from lack of sleep, however, and he couldn't concentrate on his teachers. His mind kept wandering to the 4 o'clock hour when he would be meeting with Tichy. What would the man tell him about his grandfather? Marek almost didn't want to know, but like a rubbernecker at an accident scene, he knew that he had to find out what Tichy had almost told him last night. It would explain so many things. It might even make what had happened to him at the school more understandable, if not more bearable.

From a crappy start, the rest of the day went relatively smoothly for Marek, other than that he was so tired he had to fight not to fall asleep in class. At least the cartridge still seemed to be working its magic, as no one touched him or even threatened to do so. He would have sailed through the day smoothly if Drábek hadn't selected him for a random oral examination at the beginning of his class, making the boy stand up behind his desk before firing questions at him cross-examination style.

"Battle of Slavkov?" the man asked. "Battle of Lipany? How many crusaders were sent to crush the Hussites? Which king had Jan Hus burned at the stake? What were the Four Articles of Prague?"

Marek was still rattled from the events of the morning as he tried to respond to the man's questions. With his mind racing, he flubbed more than half the answers, even some that he probably knew. It didn't help that it was Drábek questioning him. The man seemed to hate him even more than Tichy if that were possible. Drábek was always demeaning him, always ridiculing him. He seemed to save up special vitriol just for Marek. It probably had to do with his grandfather once again, but Drábek had never offered an explanation, and the boy didn't expect one from him. Nor was he going to ask. For all his hatred, Drábek didn't beat, torture, or fuck him, which made the man at most a minor inconvenience when compared to Tichy.

But why was Drábek coming after him like this today? The exam wasn't for another 10 days. Did Drábek have some other purpose in mind? Was he humiliating Marek so that his classmates could despise him even more than they already did? The boy knew that the eyes of every one of his classmates were staring at him with hatred and contempt. It was another poor performance, and Marek knew that Drábek was likely to tell Tichy all about it. A pit of worry and dread began to form in the boy's stomach, which Marek knew from experience would remain there until after he fell asleep later that night.

"That's a čtyřka [Author's note: 4 on a 1-5 scale, where 5 is F], Comrade Hurta," concluded Drábek triumphantly, as if he had bested the boy in a game of trivia. "You need to study and prepare continually and start paying attention in class."

Marek knew that the man's score wasn't remotely fair. This many days out from the exam, he could have given Marek a 3 or at least a 3- for his performance, that wouldn't have hurt the boy's rolling average that much, but now Marek had another poor score to overcome. The boy knew that unless he somehow improved dramatically, he was facing a grim pololetní vysvědčení [Author's note: end-of-the-first-term report card] and that Tichy would not be amused. The only saving grace was that Marek hoped to be long gone from the school by the time he would have to face the music for his poor performance.

Marek's anxiety increased as the day went on, which was not an uncommon feeling for him these days. Part of him couldn't believe that he was planning to visit Tichy voluntarily, in the very place where Tichy had used, punished, hurt, and even tortured him. Those memories came flooding back to him all at once: the caning, the ginger root, the tiger balm acid stuff that the man had applied to his most sensitive bits. The blowjobs, buttfucking, and ass-licking. While the boy didn't think he was due any punishments today, he never knew for sure where he stood with Tichy. There were so many rules to follow and so many ways to break them. Beyond that, Marek was becoming more and more aware that Tichy didn't need an excuse to mistreat him if that's what he wanted to do.

Still, the man had offered the meeting. He had specified the place and the time, take it, or leave it. Before that, he had spoken to Marek almost like the boy was a real person. He had volunteered information without Marek even asking. The boy remembered Tichy's exact words: "You have no idea what your legacy, your background really means here. And to me, personally." What had Tichy meant when he said that? Marek understood about his grandfather and the legacy of shame he had to live with here because of him. But what did it really mean? And how could it personally involve Tichy? These were mysteries the answers to which Marek simply had to know.

Four o'clock. Tichy's office. The time and place were both hauntingly familiar to Marek, and not in a good way. He'd come to dread the four o'clock hour, day after day. Now it was starting to be supplanted by the evening ordeals in Tichy's apartment, but the boy was certain that he would have an indelible apprehension about that time of day for the rest of his life.

At about ten minutes before the appointed hour, he slipped quietly away and made his way from the dormitory building through the breezeway into the administration building. The entire building looked deserted as he made his way down the long, first-floor corridor to the stairwell. All-too-familiar feelings of anxiety and fear encumbered his every step, and for a moment, he considered abandoning the venture altogether. But onward he trudged, up one flight of stairs, then the other. He was on the third floor, now, and all was quiet. There were two office doors one at either end, separated by a dim hallway, one for Skala, and one for Tichy.

He turned to the right, toward Tichy's office door. Late-afternoon sunlight glowed through the opaque glass panel, providing a degree of illumination to the otherwise unlit hallway. Marek approached the door and stopped, then closed his eyes. Please let this go well today, he whispered. Please let me survive this. And with that, he gave his customary two small knocks on the door frame.

"You may enter," came the response. Marek twisted the knob, opened the door, stepped in, and closed it again after him. He turned immediately to lock the door, the key grudgingly co-operating this time. Without hesitation, and without being directed, he began to remove his clothing. When he was naked, he knelt on hands and knees, his face an inch from the carpet, and began to crawl across the floor to the side of the man's desk.

Tichy smiled when Marek stripped and crawled without the need to be prompted. The boy was slowly developing a compliant manner, and Tichy felt like he was molding Hurta into a boy he might even come to like – not that that would make him forgive him or stop treating him sadistically. He unbuckled his trousers and pulled them down along with his boxer shorts, then cleared his throat to bring Marek's attention to his almost completely limp cock. Once again, he had not showered after the p.e. and football practice. Instead, he had squeezed in a hurried trip to town to talk to his seamstress friend Helena and buy photographic supplies. Consequently, he smelled like you'd expect a man to smell who had spent all day on his feet and most of it in a hurry. He was quite ripe.

"Throat, eyes, and hands behind, today," he instructed the youngster who this time had returned to him voluntarily. "Once I'm hard and satisfied with your progress, I'll start talking," he added as he lit up a Startka. It was his first cigarette of the day and he was almost shaking in anticipation of it. Although he actively avoided smoking before noon, it was now 4 o'clock, which was unusually late for his first smoke of the day. But telling his story while on a fresh, new, much-craved rush of nicotine was very much a part of his plan, so he relaxed, smoked, and waited for Marek to use his mouth and tongue to make him feel good.

Marek wasn't sure exactly what to expect from his voluntary visit, but he knew there would be a price to pay for the information he wanted, and he had come prepared to pay it. With his head down and his face hovering just above the floor, he could hear the familiar sound of the man's fly unzipping and the rustling of clothing being adjusted. He was not in the least bit surprised to see Tichy's underwear and trousers fall to his ankles. When the man cleared his throat, Marek knelt up to see Tichy's cock awaiting sucking. It was not yet hard, but Marek knew that it would be soon enough, and he would be the reason it got that way.

It was then that the smell of the man's sweat and musk hit his nostrils like a freight train. It was very clear that Tichy needed a shower. Marek's nose wrinkled in disgust, but he knew from prior experience that the condition of the man's cock didn't matter to his performance, so he knee-walked his way further between Tichy's legs, reached his right hand to the man's shaft, and pulled the fleshy, spongy cockhead into his mouth. He began actively swirling and bathing the man's glans with his tongue, seeking to coax an erection so that the real activity could begin.

Tichy took a big drag on the Startka as he felt his cock gradually swell up and rise inside Marek's mouth.

"I heard about your čtyřka today from Drábek," he said to the boy, no doubt freaking him out. Although Marek was here of his own volition, in Tichy's book that was no reason at all to refrain from reminding him what was expected. "You will continue to do your homework and study for your upcoming exams. At the end of the semester, your report card had better be no worse than average or I'll cane you within an inch of your life and arrange for very long and especially nasty claustrophobic sessions for every failing grade. So, don't slack off."

Marek felt his blood run cold at the mention of Drábek and his test score. How did Tichy know everything? How was it even possible? Marek continued to suck on the man's semi-hard penis as he listened to the admonition about his grades and the punishments he would receive if he did not raise them. The man's casual pronouncements were terrifying. Admittedly, the boy's grades had fallen off the last three weeks, and noticeably so. Marek's anxiety about Tichy together with his interrupted sleep patterns and inconsistent eating habits certainly had a lot to do with it, but Marek also thought he could slack off because he wouldn't be returning to the school for the second term. Although he understood any poor grades earned at PISKG would transfer and follow him back to Vacenovice, the school back home was much easier, and Marek thought that he simply would deal with that issue come January.

Tichy's comments had just blown that strategy sky high. Marek now knew that he had better not slack off during his remaining time at PISKG for fear of being tortured for any bad grades. If Tichy received daily updates from Marek's teachers, the man certainly would learn about his performance before Marek could escape the school. Knowing Tichy as he did, Marek had no doubt that the man would inflict every one of the punishments he had just listed, even if they took place on the boy's last day as a student. That thought sent another shudder through Marek's slender body.

Tichy took another pull on his cigarette as Marek's mouth and tongue did their work. Soon he was fully erect. He did like a boy's mouth around his cock, and knowing Marek was getting a nose full of strong, manly musk certainly helped him get hard even faster. He waited until Marek was in a nice rhythm with his hands behind back and Tichy's cock in his throat before he started to tell his story.

"My family has lived in this region as far back as the records go back," he began. "Possibly one of the first Czech families around. As were yours. Until a century or so ago, this was mostly a German-speaking region, full of Sudeten Germans and rich Jews. When your grandfather founded his company, my grandfather – my mother's father – was one of the first glassblowers to work at Cornella. He worked there for sixteen years, full time, at a time where worker's rights were still very near nonexistent, at less-than-an-ideal wage, and with very little paid leave."

With his hands interlaced behind his back, Marek continue to suck and bob on Tichy's cockhead. He locked eyes with the man as he listened to the story that he so desperately needed to hear. For once, there was no looking past the man or pretending he wasn't there. Marek needed to hear this. He needed to know all the reasons why Stanislav Tichy had decided to make his life a living hell.

"Then, shortly before the war, back when your grandfather was still very much considered a hero and an inspiration by many Czech locals, a smelting pot full of molten glass exploded at the factory. My grandfather got splashed and very, very badly burned. He lived for several more weeks in a hospital, but when it was made obvious that the factory wasn't going to cover the medical costs – old Hurta's decision, that – they stopped the treatment. Just so you know, hospitals were very expensive back then and private, not at all like they are now in an advanced socialist society."

"My grandfather basically was left to die from his injuries, leaving his wife and two young daughters," Tichy continued. "My mother had just entered her teens when the accident happened, and it was a very difficult time for her. Her mother now had two daughters to raise alone with no income, not even a pension. There was no compensation or help from your grandfather, even though the accident was caused by carelessness and corner-cutting. The death of my grandfather meant that my mother was raised in poverty. When she was old enough, she started to work in the glass factory herself, paradoxically, just as the war started. " Tichy went on. "That's where she met my father, coincidentally." Tichy paused for a moment, almost as if collecting his thoughts.

Marek listened as attentively to the man's recitation as to anything he had ever listened to in his entire life. As Tichy got to the part of the explosion, the boy could feel chills washing over his naked body. He broke out in goosepimples as he realized that the story of his grandfather was very personal to Tichy, indeed. In many ways, Marek's grandfather had been responsible for the death of Tichy's grandfather! No wonder the man hated him. It helped to explain why Tichy was so cruel. But there was apparently more to the story, and Marek's body gave a little involuntary tremble as he sucked the man's cock. Could it get any worse than murder? Did his grandfather kill Tichy's parents, too? Torture his dog? The boy almost didn't want to know the rest of the story, but he was in too deep to back out now. And, dammit, he did want to know. He had to know.

"Now this is the part where you must be uncomfortable if you want to hear more," Tichy said. "I've let you get away with an underwhelming performance so far, but if I don't see gagging and tears in your eyes in about 10 seconds flat, you will be in trouble, and we'll take a time out from the story to deal with your punishment. Remember," Tichy added, "I am well aware when I am getting less than your best effort, Marek. You should know that by now and avoid disappointing me."

Marek had almost forgotten about the deeper plunges that the man liked, but Tichy duly reminded him of his obligations and the consequences of failure. Without further delay, and with a whiff of the man's unwashed pubes wafting across his nose, he took a full 5" (12.5 cm) of the man's cock in his mouth and throat and forced his throat to gag and constrict around it. He pulled off and bobbed on the first three inches using his tongue, then went 5" deep once again. More bobs and tongue, and then, in a single, gag-inducing plunge, he took the man nearly all the way, at least 5.5" (14 cm) until his face and nose were almost resting against Tichy's abdomen and the boy's lower lip nearly contacted his balls. Choking tears came to his eyes as he pulled off, his stomach clenching. Marek wondered if he should ask the man's permission to retrieve the vomit bucket.

"That's more like it," said Tichy as he continued with his narration. "Now, in the late thirties, working conditions were still dire, but there was some hope. Communists were in the parliament, as were social democrats. My parents worked hard, and they could just about live on the wages unless things went bad. Medical costs were still very much a worry at that time, but they worked and were paid and even though my mother missed the chance to get a real education due to her poverty – not even a maturita [Author's note: high-school diploma] – they did reasonably well."

"My father was quite talented," continued Tichy. "He attended a worker's evening school and was about to get his maturita and maybe even go to a college when the München treaty happened. Then this entire region suddenly was part of Germany. My parents had to flee into what little was left of the Republic without a job or anything to their names." Tichy sounded bitter and angry now. "They were barely spared homelessness, but their narrow escape didn't last long, only a year," Tichy said as he stubbed out his cigarette, poured himself a smallish vodka, knocked it back, and lit a new Startka before taking a long, deep drag.

It was all Marek could do to keep sucking as the man told his story. Marek was absolutely captivated, but in the way one might be mesmerized by a train collision happening in slow motion. The story continued to get more and more bleak, curdling Marek's blood and leaving his body covered in goosebumps. The story the man told was harrowing, and while Marek knew that many Czechs had bleak war-time stories to tell, this one seemed particularly awful as Tichy detailed how his parents' promising lives essentially were destroyed by the war, by the Germans, and most particularly, by a capitalist robber-baron whose last name and blood Marek shared.

"Soon, there was no Czechoslovakia anymore, just the Protectorate," Tichy continued. "Still young and able-bodied, my parents were recruited and brought back here. As a skilled glassblower and a glass-shaper/brusher, they were forced to work endless shifts, for effectively no wage, for the duration of the war. The entire time they were frightened, starved, and even forced to speak German. All of that took place under the smooth rule of a certain Josef Hurta, who never stopped profiting over the course of the war."

"My parents barely survived the war and when it finally was over, they had nothing, owned nothing, and were too old, weak, and exhausted to go back to school or do anything else," Tichy continued. "They now had an infant son – me – but if it weren't for the 1948 revolution, we probably all would have starved to death. I very nearly died before the revolution, because even though my parents remained employees of Cornella after the war, they didn't have any healthcare, benefits, or other basic security. They couldn't help me with my homework or schooling as I was growing up. During my childhood, they were too tired and beaten down to give me any real support. I could have been an excellent cop, or even an agent. But not with parents who could barely read and count, and who never quite recovered from the malnourishment and anxiety of war – the whole of which they spent slaving away for your grandfather, the Glass King," finished Tichy.

Marek took the man deep once again, all the way to the hilt, holding his cock there until his stomach clenched and churned and he couldn't breathe. He pulled off, panting for air, then shivering unnaturally in Tichy's always-too-warm office. The man's story literally was chilling, not just because of what had happened to his family at the hands of Marek's grandfather, but also because of what it now meant for Marek at Tichy's hands. It all made sense, now. Tichy blamed Marek's grandfather for the way his parents' lives had turned out, the way his own life had turned out, and the way his own grandfather's life had ended. And it sounded like he had very good reason to assess the blame the way he did.

It was awful. Far worse than Marek had believed possible. Now he understood the depth of the man's antipathy. But did Tichy know that Marek knew nothing about any of this? That his grandfather had died 15 years or more before Marek was even born? That Marek had never even known his father, the Glass King's only son? Apparently, none of that meant a thing to Tichy. No, it certainly didn't. He obviously knew all of that already – well, maybe not about his father, but most of it, anyway. Marek could see why, perhaps, the opportunity to exact vengeance against the Glass King's only heir had been too convenient and enticing for Tichy to pass up. If only Marek hadn't come to this stupid school! Tichy would never even have known he existed if he had just stayed home in Vacenovice.

Taking a big risk – pulling off the man's cock before he came was dangerous – Marek lifted his head up, his eyes still in contact with Tichy's.

"I'm sorry that happened to them, and to you," he said, as a mist of tears glistened his eyes. "And your grandfather. I'm really sorry."

He knew it wouldn't mean anything to Tichy. But he was sorry and not because of what had happened to him. Marek hated his grandfather in that moment. And now he hated his very name.

"You're sorry," Tichy repeated derisively even as he pushed the boy back onto his cock. Sorry wasn't going to cut it with him. They didn't let the Nazis and their collaborators walk away with an apology after the Nuremberg trials. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if the old fucker had died in a uranium mine or a gulag after the war, but no. The Glass King was quite old by the end of the war, and even though stripped of his properties and formally convicted, he still died in a fucking hospital. Not dangling from the end of a noose at Pankrác prison, not irradiated and sick and broken in a Jachymov mine, but in fucking Motol, the most prestigious, luxurious hospital in the country, all the while getting top-notch care from the just-nationalized healthcare system.

Tichy didn't tell that part to Marek. The boy's grandfather had died from a heart attack, but in Tichy's view, a relatively quick and painless death by heart attack didn't begin to atone for the man's many crimes. Because Tichy didn't believe in divine justice and punishment after death, somebody still living – namely Marek Hurta, the Glass King's sole living heir and grandson – was going to be doing the atoning. And he would be doing A LOT of atoning. An apology most certainly wasn't going to get the boy off the hook. Not even close.

Re-telling the story of his family's angst and trauma at the Glass King's hands had made Tichy angry, and Marek was the closest person available for the man to vent his rage. He gripped Marek's hair and skull in his hands and forced the boy into a fast series of sharp, hard cock impalements. Tichy knew that he risked the boy getting sick on the carpet, but just then he was too angry to care. He ended up reverse face-fucking Marek, sitting firmly in his chair and using the boy's throat as a fleshlight to get himself off, roughly and brutally, until he came some two minutes later, the red mist of fury finally fading somewhat as he began to regain his senses. He didn't think about Marek in those last two minutes, and it was only after he finally began to relax after his orgasm – feeling a bit better and calmer because of it – that he looked down to see the collateral damage from his rage

Marek realized that coming to see Tichy had been a bad idea, that it was not going to make his situation better. Now that he had the information he had so desperately wanted to hear, he wanted nothing more than to be done with the man and retreat from his office – even though he was scheduled to be right back in Tichy's apartment at 8:30 for more torment that evening. His apology seemingly had no effect on the man; if anything, it had angered him, and Marek soon found himself on the receiving end of a punishing assault. Somehow, the boy managed to keep his hands behind his back as Tichy held his head like a basketball, forcing the boy to take cock at the man's choice of force and pace – which is to say very hard, very fast, and very rough. Marek's stomach clenched as the man repeatedly rammed his cock deep and fucked the boy's throat. Marek couldn't breathe. It was obvious that Tichy had become enraged by his own story, as he had never been this rough before, not like this, not ever.

Marek still couldn't breathe, but he kept his hands behind him, not fighting, not struggling, simply letting the man do what he wished even as the boy's stomach clenched and expelled a bitter mouthful of bile around the man's cock. Marek's eyes started to roll up in his head as the face-fucking continued. It was only at the very end that the boy's arms finally came forward, trying feebly to push Tichy away as a thickening fog of nothingness engulfed him. Marek felt himself falling, falling …

Tichy paused to catch a breath and only then realized that he had choked the boy unconscious. He laid Marek down on the carpet, quickly checking that the boy's airways were clear. He then checked for a pulse. When he was sure that the kid was still alive, he dragged the naked boy back to the pile of clothes he had left by the door, sending a clear message. Hurta would regain consciousness soon enough, but Tichy was done with him for now. The boy had another punishment session scheduled in just over three hours, so there was no reason to stretch this out any longer. Tichy wanted to be alone with his thoughts, and he didn't want to be tempted to harm Marek more than he already had, because right now, that is exactly what he wanted to do.

Marek already was beginning to stir and blink just as Tichy let him go. As he lay on the floor regaining his senses, the man returned to his chair, turning it towards the window before pouring himself a vodka – a large one this time – and lighting up his third Startka of the session. The Hurta kid was turning out to be bad for his health, as he drank and smoked far too much when he was dealing with Marek. But he loved his twin vices almost as much as he hated the boy.

Marek had never passed out before. He'd come close once or twice – an accidental kick to the head on the football pitch one time had left him woozy, seeing stars, and unable to stand – but as Tichy left him near the door and consciousness returned, he knew instantly what had happened to him. It was odd, but when Tichy had been thrusting in his throat and Marek hadn't been able to breathe, there really hadn't been a sense of panic in the boy. It had been a strangely serene feeling as he slipped away, as if falling from a cliffside.

He sat upright, gathering himself and regaining his bearings. His throat hurt. Tichy wouldn't have placed him here by the door unless he was done with him, so Marek proceeded to get dressed. His mind recalled the details of the man's story, his own failed apology, and Tichy's brutal reaction to it. He pulled his underwear on, then his trousers, followed by his shoes. Now he knew the story. Now he knew the reasons behind the man's hatred. Nothing would change for it, and he knew that, too. But somehow, some way, he wanted the man to know that he really was sorry for what had happened and that he wasn't just saying it, hoping for leniency.

Fully dressed now, Marek turned to the door, unlocking it. He was getting better at knowing the lock's idiosyncrasies, and it no longer vexed him, at least not nearly so often as before. As he opened the door, he turned back to Tichy one last time.

"I know you hate me and don't care what I say," he said with a tiny hitch in his voice, "but I really am sorry for what happened." And with that, without waiting for a response and fearing it, anyway, he stepped into the hall and closed the door behind him.

Tichy took his time drinking his vodka and finishing his cigarette as he contemplated the new reality. He knew that there would be a completely different dynamic at play now that Marek knew the reasons for his antipathy. For one thing, there no longer was any reason for him to pretend that his treatment of the boy was at all justified or reasonable. Marek was here to be punished for his ancestry and he would fucking continue to suffer for it unless or until Tichy decided that he had been punished enough. Given the extensive and egregious sins of his grandfather and Marek's completely helpless situation at the school, Tichy had no reason to end the kid's torment anytime soon. Not to mention that the Marek gave good head and was a good fuck, especially when he was sufficiently motivated – and Tichy very much enjoyed providing the motivation.

The boy still didn't know the whole story, of course. He now knew why Tichy was after him, but he didn't know the man's role in bringing Marek to the internat in the first place. Marek still thought that the situation he found himself in was an accident, an unfortunate coincidence caused by his family's decision to send him to a boarding school so far from home. The boy had no way of knowing that Tichy had plotted and schemed to bring him here, even going so far as to sweet-talk Marek's mother into believing that this would be the best place for her only son to be educated. He was being educated, alright! Poor Marek's head likely would explode if he knew that his presence at the school was the end result of an elaborate plan, but he remained blissfully ignorant of that fact. The boy had apologized for coming to the school, as if it had been his choice to attend! He had even tried to apologize for his grandfather's transgressions! Tichy smiled at the memory of Marek's emotional reaction. It was just too perfect.

After leaving his office, Tichy checked the schedule for the school's photo lab and, finding it wide open, booked some darkroom time for himself. The pictures he had taken of Marek's performance were not the kind you could take just anywhere to be developed and he knew that he would have to do them himself. Unfortunately for Marek, Tichy knew his way around a darkroom and photo lab fairly well, and in under an hour he had developed both rolls from the boy's orgy session into negatives. Held up to a light, the images looked clear, sharp, and promising. He started in on the prints but managed only 10 of 70 before supper time. Still, it was a start. The prints were excellent and revealing.

Tichy made sure to tidy up after himself before leaving the darkroom as he did not want to leave any compromising material behind. He brought the negatives and prints back to his flat, hiding them in a secret stash below a floorboard at the far end of the kitchen. The old buildings of the converted monastery had many nooks and crannies that made for good hiding places.

Later that evening, Tichy ate in the canteen and drank a lot of water in preparation for his next session with Marek. He wrapped up what little work he had to do and even did a round of the dorms, just to show his face and signal to all the boys that they had better behave. Vacha had reported Marek's bedwetting incident directly to him and for some reason, his hideous daughter was with him. She kept eyeing Tichy, all friendly smiles and winks. Tichy smiled back at her, purely out of habitual politeness. Ludmila and other girls like her were among the reasons why he believed females were, for the most part, unbearably gross. He was quite glad to be almost exclusively into boys. Lean, firm, straight, handsome boys. When he looked at the pudgy, freckled, hamster-faced girl and tried to imagine her face nestled down around his cock, he felt almost nauseated. But she seemed to like him, and Tichy took note of that for future reference. Well before 8:30 p.m., he was back in his flat and ready for Marek's arrival.

Marek took Tichy's warning about his academics seriously and hit the books as soon as he returned to his dorm. It would help his transfer record if he didn't fail out of PISKG, and he was worried about the vengeance that Tichy had promised to exact if his scores fell off even more than they already had. He was concerned that his grades in some classes already were below the scores that Tichy had demanded. If he bombed his early finals, Tichy would know about it before Marek could leave the school, and the man would have his vengeance. Marek shuddered at the thought.

The man's chilling threat and promised punishments motivated Marek to study, which he tried to do for the next three hours, pausing only for 25 minutes to eat dinner at the canteen. His studying was only moderately successful, however, as his mind kept wandering back to the story Tichy had told him earlier and his scheduled appointment with the man later in the evening. He could only hope that Tichy wouldn't be as angry tonight as he had been when he had choked Marek unconscious with his cock. If he were, Marek knew that it was going to be an exceptionally long, hard, and painful evening.

Radek returned to the room midway through Marek's study session. He hadn't seen his roommate hit the books in several days, and he walked over to see what Marek was doing.

"Working on your Russian, I see," he observed. "I hate that class."

Marek looked up as his roommate drew near. Radek had been friendlier ever since Marek had been bestowed with the cartridge necklace. He suspected it was all a pretense with the red-haired boy, but Marek had no friends at the school and would take even pretend kindness at this point.

"I hate it, too," he confided. "But I have to get my grades up or I'll be in the shit with you-know-who." He realized his double entendre only after he said the words aloud. After a brief conversation, Marek went back to studying as Radek climbed onto his bunk to read.

Soon enough, it was time for Marek to leave for Tichy's apartment. He didn't dare be late. The boy rose to his feet, full of dread.

"Heading out," he told his roommate as he opened the door and stepped into the hall. "If I don't come back, you know who did it."

Radek acknowledged Marek's departure with a head nod and chuckled half-heartedly at the now-familiar joke. He did feel a bit sorry for his roommate that he had to go to see Tichy almost every day. Radek was terrified enough of the man under normal circumstances and couldn't even imagine having to visit him daily. Although Marek never spoke about what happened during his visits, as often as not, he returned from his sessions with Tichy looking like death warmed over.

For whatever reason, the man seemed to have an unnatural hatred for Marek, and Radek had no idea why. Maybe it was because the boy was from Moravia. Maybe it was the whole Hurta thing. Whatever it was, ever since the cheating incident, Radek had watched his roommate deteriorate substantially. Marek never smiled or laughed anymore. He had lost weight. His sleep was disturbed by nightmares and he often looked gaunt and exhausted. When he was awake, he was fidgety and nervous. He talked and cried in his sleep, and now he had even wet the bed. Radek knew that his roommate had been severely caned by Tichy and now the man apparently was fucking him, too. It would be bad enough if Tichy were Marek's only problem, but he wasn't. Drabek seemed to hate Marek, too, and seemingly every kid in the school was either ostracizing or tormenting him. On top of that, he had been jumped several times and severely beaten by some fourth-years in the bathroom by the canteen.

Radek wasn't the most popular kid in the school by any measure, but he thanked his lucky stars every day that he wasn't Marek Hurta. He wondered what he would do if Marek failed to return from a visit with Tichy. Probably not a thing. He'd tell whoever asked him that his roommate had left sometime after supper, presumably for a short walk or a breath of fresh air, and that would be all he would say. Then he would hope that nothing was discovered and that Tichy left him alone. Radek knew that if he tattled, he would never be able to sleep in peace for the rest of his life. The Tichy of Radek's deepest fears was an almost ninja-like figure, a phantom of the night, a stealthy, deadly assassin who could slit Radek's throat while he slept. No, if Marek disappeared Radek wouldn't say a word, even if he saw Tichy dragging Marek's corpse down the hallway. He didn't have the guts to tell Marek that, of course, but what his roommate didn't know wouldn't hurt him. Besides, Marek would be dead already and probably dismembered by the time Radek even learned he was missing, so tattling on Tichy wouldn't help him, anyway.

As his roommate ruminated about Tichy, Marek made his way from the student dormitory to Tichy's apartment. At this hour, the hallways were usually quiet and empty. Most boys would be reading, studying, or playing board games in their common room or dorm rooms before the 9:00 p.m. curfew required them to be in their own rooms and the 10:00 p.m. lights-out rule required them to be in their beds. As Marek hurried down the darkened hallway on the first floor, he didn't see the beady eyes spying him from inside a cleaning cupboard with the door slightly ajar, but Smallpox most certainly saw him. She smiled to herself as she emerged from the cupboard and followed the boy surreptitiously down the hall toward Tichy's flat.

The route he was supposed to take to Tichy's apartment had been emblazoned on Marek's mind, and he took that route now, going down before up again, skirting the main hallway before accessing the fire escape. It didn't begin to occur to him that he might be followed, and he never turned back to look. He wasn't likely to have seen Smallpox, anyway, as she moved with surprising agility and cunning for a girl of her dimensions. Besides, Marek's mind was otherwise occupied and full of dread. Any visit with Tichy was a trauma, but for this evening's session, Marek had reason to believe that the man still would be very angry with him from the session earlier in the day. Tichy had become enraged by his own story and face-fucked him unconscious, which had never happened before. Marek could only hope that the man had calmed down since then.

And, of course, there was now the other thing to worry about – the thing that Marek had so stupidly, so naively, divulged to the man and his smiling sycophants. It was the thing that Marek feared even more than Tichy's tortures, the thing that the boy knew could easily become one of Tichy's tortures. After all, the man had been only too happy to take immediate advantage of his newfound knowledge, instructing the older boys to hold Marek down, converge on him, constrict him, and fold him like a billfold while Tichy choked and strangled him with his cock. That had been bad. Very bad. Horribly bad. Just thinking about it made Marek tremble in fear. Somehow, Tichy had known just what to do to maximize Marek's terror. It was remarkable, really, just how good at being Tichy Tichy was. Marek knew that if the man did that to him again, he might just lose his mind with fear.

Arriving at the door to Tichy's flat, Marek didn't even bother to say his little prayer. It hadn't been doing him much good, anyway, so what was the point? He knocked, twice, the first rap meek, the second one a bit louder. Maybe Tichy forgot about the appointment and isn't there, Marek thought as he deliberately tried to delude himself. It didn't work and he wasn't fooled. Marek could sense the man's presence behind the door, waiting for him with new horrors in mind.

Tichy let him in. Jakub and Martin were already there, and it was just them today, the most junior of Tichy's Boys aside from Marek himself. Marek's blood instantly cooled as he stepped into the apartment and saw them all waiting for him. He immediately began to tremble in fear. He couldn't help it. The next couple of hours promised to be nightmarish, and he feared it was going to be like this for him every night now. He already needed a break, just one day off, but he suspected Tichy wouldn't give it to him. Marek always had another session looming, worrying him and dominating his thoughts. He knew that Tichy wouldn't leave him alone, not for even a single day, not with the end of term so near. The end of the term was all Marek had to look forward to, but would he even make it that far without being driven mad? Because he was starting to feel like he wasn't that far away from a complete nervous breakdown.

Everyone was still fully dressed, but it took only a single look from Tichy, not even any words, to signal that Marek was not to be granted the same privilege. Marek immediately began to comply, reasoning that he might as well get it over with. He wasn't here to play cards, and he knew it. The other boys looked on eagerly, as if he were a piece of meat, which, he supposed, he pretty much was to them. He certainly wasn't a person. People didn't treat other people like this, not outside of Nazi concentration camps and Soviet gulags. Marek hated all of them. All Tichy's boys, all the boys at this godforsaken school. But he stripped anyway, taking everything off, laying the cartridge necklace on the top of the clothing pile. Then he crawled to the man, head down along the floor, just the way Tichy wanted.

Tichy, even at this point, still hadn't showered and neither had the two younger boys. Tichy led the boys into the kitchen – Jakub and Martin walking dressed and upright, Marek crawling naked across the floor – where he already had opened a bottle of beer. Tichy sat back as his entourage stood and knelt nearby.

"Jakub, mouth," he ordered. "Hurta, you get him wet. No lube tonight," he warned.

Marek knew that letting the boys fuck him without lube was just another one of Tichy's cruelties, probably done in further retribution, continuing his anger from the afternoon. The only reason Marek could think of why the man wouldn't allow the use of the cream was to make the penetration more painful for Marek, unless the stuff suddenly was in short supply.

Jakub's cock was in his mouth moments later. Marek set to work from his knees licking and wetting it as fast as he could. Once he had it slick and glistening, Tichy began directing again.

"Jakub, ass. Martin, mouth. Nobody cum just yet. Jakub, lift up and jam downwards. Give him a boner," demanded Tichy as he pulled out his camera. There would be no dress up today, no dress or panties for Marek. Just lots and lots of gay boy sex, and once again, Marek would be the star of the show. The photos would be taken so that no one else could be identified, but Marek most certainly and easily would be.

Marek knew that the no-lube part wouldn't be fun. In fact, it would fucking hurt. And it did, right there on the kitchen floor, as Jakub ground and drove his cock in Marek's ass. The younger boy groaned as he took Martin's phallus between his lips. From the corner of his eye, he saw Tichy moving in with the camera once again. As the older boys used him and the camara flash started to go off, Marek closed his eyes and tried to visualize his cozy little bedroom back in his mother's apartment in Vacenovice. It was the safest haven he could think of, and right now he wanted to try and feel safe.

"Swap," Tichy commanded after two minutes or so and there was a moment of confusion; Jakub and Martin didn't instantly get it. But the man cocked his head, rolled his eyes and they figured it out soon enough. Now Jakub's cock was in Marek's mouth as Martin's cock slowly ground its insufficiently lubricated length up Marek's behind. Marek moaned and grunted in considerable pain as Martin forced his way into his rectum. Fuck, that hurt! All the while, Tichy clicked away with the camera. The man wished he could make video to capture the perversity of all the swapping, but a video camera was out of reach on his budget. Nor could he take color photos since the school's photo lab developed only black-and-white film. No matter. The black-and-whites would do just fine for his purposes.

Marek grimaced as he heard Tichy's command to swap. He knew that Jakub's cock would be back in his mouth soon enough, this time with the taste of Marek's own ass all over it. Before he matriculated at PISKG, Marek hadn't known that ass had a taste. Now he had tasted many different flavors of ass, including his own, and especially Tichy's. The boy knew about lubed ass, sweaty ass, cummy ass, adult ass, boy ass, and dirty ass, as well as several different permutations and combinations thereof. His taste buds had experienced flavors of ass that the boy was quite sure would take decades, if not an entire lifetime, to forget. Marek considered it likely that that the taste of ass would be with him always, reminding him of his time at the internat even when he was gray and old – if he lived long enough to become gray and old, that is.

"No boner, yet?" Tichy inquired of the boy. He was about to take an angled, front-to-back photo where Marek's dick would be in view behind and below his face. "I guess you'd prefer taking this to the bed where we can do it upside down and folded over?" he warned Marek, before continuing in an ominous voice. "You either get hard, or you'll find yourself in a far less comfortable position soon, Hurta. Very soon. If it helps, you can even touch your dick a little bit," he added with a chuckle.

Through his own grunts and moans, Marek heard Tichy's voice again, annoyed and threatening. His warning about the bed chilled Marek and the 12-year-old's eyes went wide with fear, begging the man. Not that. Please not that. He tried to shake his head no, but it was too difficult with Jakub's cock in his mouth. Marek literally felt faint at the thought of returning to Tichy's bed, being folded, constricted, and mounted, unable to breathe. Could he pass out twice in the same day? He thought he could. Maybe it would be even better if he did.

Grateful to the man for allowing the auto-stimulation, Marek reached down and grasped his floppy, flaccid penis. He was terrified and about as far from aroused as a young boy could be, and predictably, at least at first, his member gave no signs of life. To the boy's immense relief, the caress of his own hand coupled with the fullness of his balls overcame even his deepest anxieties, and within about 40 seconds or thereabouts, his cock was well on the way to the kind of rock-hard stiffness that only young boys can regularly achieve.

Tichy took his photo; it was a very telling shot, with Marek being double-teamed and clearly erect. It was about as homo a performance as the man thought he could get. He didn't want to risk this one coming out blurry, so he took a second shot just to be sure. He made the boys swap two more times before Jakub asked in a distressed voice about cumming and Tichy finally allowed it. Soon after, Marek's sore butt was filled with the teenager's creamy jizz.

Tichy took another picture of Marek standing with his legs wide apart, bent over with his head upside down between his knees, and his hands pulling his butt cheeks wide apart to show his sore hole and the slight streak of slippery goo oozing out of it. Then it was Martin's turn to cum up Marek's butt while Jakub's slimy cock was sucked clean. More photos ensued. Tichy had Marek give a quick cleanup to Martin before he shooed the older boys away.

Marek just tried to endure it as the boys alternated from his ass to his mouth, leaving him spit-roasted between them as Tichy hovered nearby, recording the action and Marek's shame. Once erect, Marek's cock continued to remain so, without the need for any direct stimulation, which merely added to the boy's humiliation. Marek did all the things Tichy demanded without complaint, cleaning Jakub's cummy, ass-flavored cock with his mouth, posing for the man, then cleaning Martin in the same fashion after the boy had intermingled his cum with Jakub's in Marek's ass. The boy was doing his best to comply and behave. Could he possibly get through this session without being disciplined or punished?

Even as Marek was being fucked and photographed, his mind wandered. When was the term over? And when would his train tickets arrive? Marek planned to kiss those tickets when they arrived. He would hug them and savor them. But where were they? And why hadn't his mother written? The boy was starting to get nervous about the lack of any communication from home.

"You two go. And take these with you," said Tichy to the older boys as he pointed to the pile of Marek's clothes at the door.

Marek was surprised but hopeful when Tichy told the older boys to leave, but he instantly was alarmed and frightened when the man instructed them to take his clothes with them. Marek's face blushed as his blood ran cold once again.

"Why are they t-taking my clothes?" he asked the man in a frightened voice.

"Stop talking and lie down on the floor, face up," Tichy said, ignoring the boy's question. He removed his trousers entirely as Marek immediately moved to comply. When the boy was properly positioned on the floor, Tichy straddled him, then squatted over Marek's face so that his smelly, sweaty asshole was hanging directly over the boy's mouth.

Marek did what he was told, shutting up and lying on the floor. It was only as the man removed his trousers and began to straddle his mouth that Marek knew what he intended to do. Oh, no. No. Please, Marek thought to himself as a part of him died inside. The man was going to shit in his mouth again. Marek just knew it, and he burst into tears at the horror of it, his body trembling in fear as his hands and toes curled and clenched in dismay. He had vowed never to let that happen again. Even if the man tortured him to death, Marek had promised himself that he never again would sink that low. Yet, here he was once again, with the man's hairy, sweaty ass positioned right over his mouth. Marek was too terrified to move. The knowledge that the man could hurt him in terrible ways left Marek too scared to keep his vow. He was too much of a wimp to fight back, and he hated himself for it.

Tichy couldn't help but smile at the boy's terrified reaction. The man hadn't yet made his intentions known, but his straddling position directly over Marek's mouth obviously had the boy in fits. He could do the act easily enough but forcing the kid to eat his shit wasn't really Tichy's thing. He had done it once to make a memorable point and destroy whatever remained of the boy's self-esteem, but he wasn't likely to repeat the act unless the Hurta kid really pissed him off or forgot his place. Marek's sheer, unadulterated terror tickled something deep in Tichy's soul, however, and he reveled in the boy's primal fear for several seconds before finally letting the anguished boy partially off the hook.

"I have no plans to shit in your mouth unless you disobey me," he informed the boy. "Right now, you'll kiss, lick, and suck my ass to the very best of your ability. If I'm satisfied with your performance, I might even tell you where I told the other boys to hide your clothes. If I'm not satisfied, I will shit in your mouth and boot you out to scurry back to your dorm naked. It'll be past curfew anyway, with no one in the hallways except a little boy with brown-stained lips and the taste of shit in mouth."

The man proceeded to make himself comfortable, half sitting on the boy's face, though not with his full weight. He already was fully erect and didn't really need to do this to the kid before he fucked him one last time and sent him on his way. This was purely for his satisfaction, as Tichy well remembered liking the sensation the last time, and he didn't see any reason to deprive himself of a repeat performance. It was also out of spite, since he knew the kid detested licking his ass more than just about anything else. After all, Marek had been brought to the school to atone for the transgressions of his infamous grandfather, so what better way to make him pay than to have him eat out a sweaty, hairy ass? Take that, Glass King, thought Tichy maliciously. Your little grandson is about to eat my ass out right now because of you.

With his stomach clenching, Marek reluctantly brought his mouth to the man's hole and proceeded to lick it. He remained terrified that Tichy intended to shit in his mouth – after all, he was squatting over the boy's face ass-first, the way one squatted over a toilet. That made it very difficult for the boy to concentrate on licking, as every moment he anticipated that the man's anus would start to dilate before pushing a log of feces directly into his mouth. He couldn't stop crying at the horror of it, even as he tried to obey the man's commands.

"Is that the best your mouth can do?" said Tichy. "I guess you're still hungry, then," he added ominously.

Marek tried to use his tongue more diligently, but he was consumed with worry about what he was sure the man intended to do. He turned his head to the side, gasping for breath.

"Please, Mr. Tichy – please, please, please don't go in my mouth!" the child sobbed in terror as his naked body shook uncontrollably beneath the man. "I'm b-begging you."

"I actually wasn't going to, but if I decide to change my mind, you are going to be a good little bitch and chew and swallow my shit. Now stop whining and get busy," growled Tichy. "This is not in your control and don't pretend that it is," he snapped as he reached between Marek's legs and grabbed his balls. Wrapping his fingers and palm completely around them, he squeezed firmly.

"Tongue inside ass, now!" he snarled as he squeezed a little harder, then relaxed his grip somewhat to give the boy a chance to comply. As he continued to hold Marek's marbles, casually rolling them between his fingers, it occurred to him then just how sweet it would be to castrate the only remaining descendent of the Glass King, thereby permanently ending the long line of Nazis, traitors, and wimps. As he continued to fondle the boy's balls, he wondered just how hard a squeeze if would take to cause permanent damage. He gripped Marek's testicles again as he imagined castrating the boy, or at the very least pretending he was going to, just for his amusement.

Sobbing with relief and praying that the man was being truthful, Marek returned to his appointed task just as the man grasped his balls and gave them a squeeze. This brought a moan of additional unhappiness from the already distressed youngster. The combination of the man squeezing his testicles and the abject horror of knowing what else the man could do to him or make him do made Marek perform the other, nearly-as-horrible task almost eagerly, his tongue licking, polishing, and then curling and penetrating the man's rank hole.

The boy's heart rate was elevated in distress as the man's nearly seated position over his face triggered his phobia. His breathing and sight were both dangerously restricted, and the only thing that prevented Marek from having a full-blown panic attack was the fact that his arms and legs remained free to move about. And move about they did, almost as if the boy were a horizontal marionette being controlled by a psychopath. His arms and legs opened and closed, lifted off the kitchen floor, waved and wagged about as he tried to use their unrestricted freedom of motion to compensate for the cloying, suffocating sensation he was experiencing with Tichy seated on his face.

The boy continued to sob as he worked his tongue in and out of the Tichy's anus and moaned in distress as the man played with his balls. All the while, he prayed and hoped that the man would tire of this awful game before he had any thoughts of changing his mind about the other thing.

As much as he was enjoying himself, Tichy was aware that he couldn't keep Marek up for too long day after day after day. The kid looked exhausted half the time and clearly was heading for a breakdown. Still, the man let himself enjoy the rimming session for a nice stretch of time. It felt good and knowing just how much Marek detested doing it merely added to his pleasure.

"All right," said Tichy once he was nearly satisfied. "It seems like eating shit isn't high on your list of favorite things to do, nor is being caned, so I'm starting to feel like my hands are a bit tied," he said in a joking voice. Then his voice became serious.

"I hope you fully understand, Marek, that I could take a big dump now and force you to eat every last nasty chunk of it, then cane your ass until it bled and have you back here for more tomorrow?" he declared. "I'm letting you off easy because you've been mostly obedient and had a decent attitude recently," Tichy continued. "If your attitude changes, so will mine. Instantly. Keep that in mind. Nothing is off-limits for me," emphasized Tichy, as he gave the boy's balls another firm squeeze, causing Marek to moan in pain. His hands then went to the boy's sides and briefly ticked them with his fingers to remind Marek of yet another weakness he had discovered since he had begun tormenting the boy.

It was awful, but Marek did it anyway, because the other options were always so much worse. He concentrated on worming his tongue into the man's asshole as he listened to Tichy speak about what some of those consequences might be. The man's words were chilling because Marek knew that everything he said was true. If Tichy wanted to shit in Marek's mouth, he could do it, because he already had. If he wanted to cane Marek's backside bloody, he could do it, because he already had done that, too. And he was right about the last thing, as well: Even if he did those things, Marek would return to him at the appointed time tomorrow for whatever else Tichy wanted to do to him then – unless he figured out a way to kill himself before then.

When Tichy had had his fill of the boy's little tongue worming its way in and out of his asshole, he dismounted Marek's face and sat down on a kitchen chair.

"Suck my cock, eyes up," he said, as he lit up another cigarette. As Marek sat up to comply, Tichy reached for a small brown paper parcel on the table. Opening it, he pulled out three pairs of identical girl's panties. As a small mercy, they were in Marek's actual size this time.

Marek felt relieved as the man lifted off his face. Cool air hit the boy's head as he sat up, and then knelt between Tichy's knees to perform his usual activity.

"I'm sure you remember that you didn't finish your last panty challenge to my satisfaction," Tichy reminded the boy as he brandished the panties. "I warned you there would be another one, and just like before, because you failed your last lesson, we're going to step it up." He held up a single pair of panties for Marek to see.

"Until further notice, these are the only underwear you are permitted to wear. You will wear them exactly like your ordinary underwear, including on training and p.e. days, and even to the swimming pool this Thursday. You will not go without them and you will not wear anything else or anything over them to hide them. You will wear them as normal underwear and behave normally with them, as if you've been wearing them all your life."

Taking the man's cock in his mouth once again, Marek warily eyed the panties as the man described the new rules he would have to follow. The blood drained from his face as Tichy continued. The man couldn't be serious! Marek couldn't wear the panties in front of the other boys!

"There are only three pairs, so you will hand over a used pair to me for washing every day when you come for your session," Tichy continued. "I'll return them to you after they have been cleaned, and you will throw a pair of regular briefs into your laundry each day so that everything looks normal."

"If other boys ask questions about them, you will say that you lost a bet and that is all you will say," warned Tichy. "Nothing more. If they tease you, you'll take the teasing without reacting. You will make no effort to hide the fact that you are wearing them. In fact, you are to wear them instead of your pajamas between the hours of 9 and 10 o'clock, and that includes on your way back from visiting me here, and when you use the bathroom or brush your teeth back in the dorm."

Marek felt his heart rate elevating as he implored Tichy with his eyes, hoping the man would say it was all a joke. Even Tichy wouldn't be so bold as to make it clear to everyone what he was doing to the boy. Nobody would believe that Marek had lost a bet. Was Tichy crazy? Everyone knew that Marek didn't have any friends at the school to bet with! Who could he possibly have made a bet with? And who at the school could have provided him with panties to wear?

Was Tichy really that dumb? Only someone with access to the shops in town could have purchased the panties for Marek to wear! Tichy's plan was absurd and unworkable. The other boys would conclude either that Marek was a girlie poof who had received a package of panties in the mail, or that he was Tichy's plaything. Only Tichy commanded the type of fear at the school that would make a boy wear girl's panties in front of his classmates.

"Listen to me carefully, Marek," Tichy continued. "I won't let you fail this time. This will go on until you accept it and fully submit to it as your new normal. I'll make it last until Christmas if I must, and I'll add more and worse rules to the mix if you in any way try to wiggle out of it or cheat." He paused to look down at the kneeling boy. "Now hurry up and get busy with your mouth and throat. After I cum, I'm going to give you a few with the belt to help motivate good behavior," the man announced. He was close to cumming as it was, despite his long and wordy monologue.

Marek bobbed, sucked, and used his tongue. He took the man deep every few bobs, holding there, massaging Tichy's cockhead with his throat for a few seconds before pulling back off and bobbing some more. He was trying to do a good job. He needed to get the man to cum so he could explain about the panties and the man's utterly unworkable plan. Marek needed to tell the man that he was crazy. If Tichy went through with the plan, Marek's already tattered reputation would be ruined, but the man would be exposed in the process! That was a much greater risk for Tichy, who would still be at the school long after Marek had departed, which he was going to do forever in just under two weeks. Tichy would have to be made to understand that Panty Challenge No. 3 was a non-starter from the word go, even if it were for reasons of his own self-preservation.

Tichy grunted and came shortly after Marek upped his game. He held the boy's face on his cock to make sure that he swallowed every drop of cum, or maybe he just needed something to hold on in the throes of pleasure, as he knew that Marek wouldn't dare to spit. Tichy was aroused from the evening's festivities and he produced a good, strong load. He was still cumming when he partly withdrew from Marek's throat so the boy could get a nice taste of the man's jizz on his tongue and swallow the last bit down on his own.

Marek was glad when Tichy came. He impatiently swallowed down the man's cum, eager to explain the many fallacies with his logic about the panties. Despite his eagerness, he willed himself to maintain eye contact and clean Tichy's penis thoroughly because he knew that attempting to rush that job would end badly for him.

No words were spoken as Marek started his post-cum cleanup, but Tichy could tell that the boy seemed on edge and in a hurry to finish. The man knew him well enough to know that Marek had something to say, and he decided to nip that idea right in the bud.

"Good," Tichy said when he was satisfied with the boy's effort. "Now over my lap for the belt. I hope you realize that when I'm finished, you're putting on your panties and immediately starting your new routine. You'll get twelve for now, but one extra for every word you say to try to protest or argue your predicament. I'm sure you have a whole lot of thoughts buzzing through your mind right now, but I don't want to hear a word about any of them. You'll obey, and there will not be a discussion."

Marek pulled off as Tichy explained about the belt, which Marek almost couldn't care about at this point. He just wanted to … oh, no! What was that last bit? Twelve with the man's belt on his bare butt was bad enough, but one more for each word? Tichy couldn't muzzle him like that! Not now, of all times, please, not now! The man was crazy! He was nuts. Marek felt a sense of panic building in him. He was sure that if he could just explain the problem, Tichy would see that his plan was unworkable. It was ridiculous! It put Tichy in much more peril than Marek. Couldn't he see that? Was he that dense? Was he really that fucking stupid?

Tichy simultaneously reached for the belt and steered Marek toward his lap from the right side. He was right-handed, so that was the best angle for him to punish the boy accurately and with force. Unsure what to do or say, Marek once again found himself draped over the man's lap. It had been a while since he had been in this position, but then again, Tichy had so many positions for him to assume that they couldn't possibly get to all of them each session.

Marek felt like a toddler as he prepared for his punishment. What had the man said it was for? Marek didn't even remember, and what did it matter, anyway? The boy always was in violation of one or more of Tichy's rules. The man hardly needed an excuse to beat him. Tichy hated him – he'd even admitted it – so he didn't even need a reason at all.

Tichy aimed at the top of the boy's buns, just below his coccyx, and systematically began to lay stripes down Marek's upturned bottom. The doubled-over belt delivered six loud, cracking whacks to the boy's backside, painting it pinkish red from the top to the line that divided the kid's butt from the backs of his legs. Tichy then returned to the top and delivered a second set of six directly over the first, which had the effect of turning the kid's flesh from a light red to a rosy, vibrant tomato red. He was prepared to stop there for the night, but if Marek did decide to argue with him, his bottom would be purple soon enough.

Marek was still trying to figure out how he could speak to the man when his chastisement began with a series of oh-my-fucking-god-did-that-hurt blows with the belt. He flinched at the first of them with a little grunt of surprise and pain. It was a good thing that Tichy was holding his wrists together, as it was unlikely that Marek would have been able to stay in position on his own. He was wriggling and struggling by the third blow. He gasped and grunted as the belt hit home, unwilling to risk a scream, which might be interpreted as a word. But he wanted to scream – very much in fact – and when the man started to go back over the same tender territory a second time, that is precisely what he did.

"Aiyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Mr. Ticheeeeeee!" He hadn't intended or wanted to scream. It just hurt too much not to.

The boy's high-pitched scream and begging caused Tichy to become fully erect once again. Marek's pain and distress aroused him, and unlike the other boys he had abused over his 10 years at the school, he didn't have to hold back with the Hurta kid. With Marek, he could let his sadism roam free and explore his darkest desires. He was half tempted to go on, to hold the scream and words against Marek and then bait the kid into talking some more so he could beat the living crap out of him for it, but tomorrow was a school day. In fact, it was a p.e. day for Marek, and destroying the boy's backside to the point that he couldn't even sit down was impractical. Twelve licks of the belt were enough to welt and redden Marek's ass and to get him to scream deliciously in pain. As much as Tichy would have loved to continue, that would have to suffice for now.

Tichy let the sobbing boy slide off his lap to his knees. He knew he was being merciful. If the kid were at all smart, he would recognize that mercy and keep his mouth shut.

Marek's eyes were full of tears as the man tipped him off his lap. He immediately reached for his bottom and squeezed it with both hands just as tightly as he could. He could feel the heat radiating between his fingers as well as the raised welts the belt had left. He kneaded his butt cheeks as he remained kneeling, trying even through his pain to force his mind to concentrate on the problem he faced.

"Panties, now," smirked Tichy as he dangled a single pair of them out to Marek. "Then go. You can carry the other two pairs in a tidy bundle above your head. I don't want to hear a single word from you, Marek. Not even good-bye. Just walk out in silence and keep your ideas and opinions to yourself. It's one of the things you had better learn how to do. "

What could the boy do now? Tichy had made it clear that he didn't want to hear a word from him. Marek was seething, sniffling, and hyperventilating as he looked up at his nemesis. The man couldn't be serious! This couldn't be happening! It was like a living nightmare. He needed to talk to Tichy! His eyes scanned the kitchen for a pencil and paper, but he knew he couldn't write a note. The man didn't want to hear what he had to say, not even a good-bye – as if Marek ever did that.

See you later, Mr. Tichy, he might say. Thanks for squatting over my face, making me lick your asshole, and beating me with the belt. Have a nice day! As if.

Not knowing what to say or how to say it, Marek remained kneeling, naked, hurting, now holding the panties in his left hand. His eyes implored the man. He pointed to his mouth with the index finger of his right hand, then nodded at Tichy. He mouthed the word please, silently, and nodded some more. Then he pointed at his mouth again.

"Don't press your luck, kid," said Tichy with a frown. "The price from now on is a full-forced whack across your ass for every word you even try to say. Mouthing, whispering, signing, and writing all count. Just put the damn panties on and get lost. And remember, any attempt at avoidance or cheating will lead to more extreme rules and to me stretching this challenge out even longer. For now, you're in it for a week. Like I said, I'll keep extending it for as long as it takes for you to fully resign yourself to it and accept it, without a trace of resistance. Now put them on, and go," said Tichy firmly.

The man's response was not favorable, and the still-kneeling boy was crushed. Tichy's plan was ridiculous! It was unworkable! But beyond that, it promised to make Marek's last days at the school as utterly embarrassing and humiliating as they possibly could be. Even the protection of the cartridge necklace wouldn't shield him from the other boys when they saw Marek dressed in panties. They would ridicule and mock him mercilessly until Marek was driven over the edge. Word would spread to all the teachers and everyone would know. What was Tichy thinking? Everyone would know it was him! Couldn't he see that? Or was he really that fucking stupid?

Fresh tears came to the eyes of the 12-year-old. He felt light-headed and dizzy, but he managed to climb to his feet. His head was spinning. He'd rather walk back to his dorm naked than in a pair of girl's panties. He needed to speak to the man! The boy brought his hand to his forehead, trying to think. Was there a solution to this? What should he do? He didn't relish any more blows with the belt. His ass already was on fire. He rubbed at it with his other hand. He didn't want to put the panties on. His head started to swirl. He felt confused. He had to do something to fix this! Fuck it, he thought to himself.

"Mr. Tichy, please," he said, as he turned to face the man once again.

"Three words," was Tichy's only response – his only spoken response, anyway. He grabbed the back of Marek's neck in a sprightly, efficient fashion and promptly folded the boy back over his lap, gripping and pinning his wrists down once again.

Marek knew it was coming before it even did, but the speed of the man's reaction still caught the boy by surprise. Tichy's quickness and strength were fully on display as Marek felt himself lifted off the ground and forcefully deposited over the man's lap once again. He squealed in dismay as the man secured his wrists in a familiar death-grip. He knew with certainty that this was going to hurt.

What may have not been entirely clear to Marek before was that the initial twelve whacks he had received were not delivered with the man's full force. Marek instantly learned the important difference as Tichy brought the folded belt down on Marek's ass in a violent motion that started from above and behind the man's shoulder and followed through even beyond the point of impact. The ensuring welt was purple, and it would turn violet, bruise, and take days to fade. It also was a whole new kind of painful; the kind that would make even an adult scream in agony. Then came the second blow, just as hard, followed by the third. Three painful whacks of the belt for three unauthorized words.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" the boy keened as the first blow rained down. He struggled desperately to free himself as his bottom lit up like a bonfire, but he was just a 12-year-old kid, and Tichy was a grown man, so the outcome was preordained. Twice more the belt crashed down on the boy's backside, the sounds reverberating like gunshots in the small kitchen as they mingled with the boy's frantic, high-pitched screams.

When he had finished applying the belt, Tichy tipped Marek off his lap once again and pointed ominously at the panties, which were now discarded on the floor. Marek's face was teary, snot-nosed, and red as a lobster as he knee-walked a few paces away in agony, his hands clutching and squeezing his devastated bottom as he went.

"This is how this 'discussion' will go," Tichy said tersely as he watched the anguished boy. "We can be here as long as you want to continue."

For Marek, it was too much. All of it. The unbelievable, incredible pain, the man's ridiculous plan. Everything. The stupid school. Tichy, Radek, Drabek – all of them! It was getting late, and Marek was tired and hurting after a long day that had not started out well with his pee accident and only gotten worse from there. His head was spinning and he hurt so much he couldn't think straight. The combination of those things did not yield a good decision.

"I HATE you!" he screamed at the man as he jumped up to flee with the sudden, blood-curdling knowledge that he had just earned himself even more agonizing blows from the belt.

Tichy was fast as flash. With his erection bobbing wildly, it took him all of two strides to catch up with Marek. The man was still naked from the waist down and now very much aroused by the unfolding scene. He grabbed a clump of Marek's hair with his right hand while his left grasped the boy's upper left arm. Tichy dragged the struggling boy to the chair and sat back down, then manhandled him with brutal, crude efficiency back into the same position as before. He applied a leg lock and pinned Marek's wrists up and out of the way, immobilizing the boy, then picked up the belt once again.

Marek was bawling as the man easily grabbed him and forced him back into position across his lap. Tichy was so strong, and he moved so fast. How was a kid supposed to compete with that? Marek couldn't and didn't, and the result was that once again he found himself restrained and exposed over the man's lap. His buttocks clenched and quivered in dread as he prepared for the agony to come. This time, he bit down on his lower lip to keep himself from saying another fucking word, because he knew that if he didn't, Tichy would continue to beat him until the flesh was flayed from his buttocks and blood was running down the backs of his legs.

"Three words," Tichy said with a smirk, "and I don't understand why you'd waste them on something I already know." He then proceeded to deliver the additional punishment with full force to Marek's butt, three further brutal whacks of the belt directly applied to the youngster's already welted, mottled butt cheeks.

"Mrrrrrrummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!" the boy screamed into his own mouth as the belt crashed down. His teeth pierced his lip, drawing blood, but Marek neither noticed nor cared as he tried to deal with the onrushing pain in his backside. The first blow fluttered his eyeballs as they rolled up and back in his head. The next two came quickly thereafter, bringing pain that couldn't be imagined but was very, very real.

With those extra blows, any sense of decorum or restraint associated with Marek's punishment went straight out the window. The ensuing marks and bruises would show the next day – very vividly, in fact – even when Marek had the panties on. The other boys would see them clear as day. The extent of the damage meant that Marek would have trouble sitting in class and navigating through the school day. Tichy had tried to avoid that result, but Marek's disobedience and defiance had undermined his plan.

Tichy let Marek slip from his lap for the third time, then simply looked down at the boy and pointed at the panties once again. The man didn't speak; instead, he gave Marek a challenging glare, his eyes conveying in no uncertain terms that the punishment could continue in this fashion for as long as the boy wanted it to.

Marek moaned as his body hit the floor. Oh, how it hurt. He gasped and grunted as he maintained the death bite on his lip and clutched at his buttocks as if they were on fire. They certainly felt like they were. He knee-walked away once again, then rose to his feet and staggered a short distance from the man. Marek felt light-headed as he stood still, squeezing and kneading his butt cheeks with his hands as hard as he could. His eyes were closed. It was several seconds before he opened them again.

Marek didn't look at Tichy again, nor did he speak. Whimpering in pain, hyperventilating at the injustice of what his life had become, and with his eyes full of tears, he regained his senses enough to struggle into a pair of the panties and pull them over his battered bottom with another despairing, pain-filled moan. With his backside still on fire, he bundled up the other panties and walked shakily to the door. Opening it, he raised them above his head and quickly left the man's apartment before he could do himself any more harm.

Chapter 15

Tichy smiled and let Marek leave without any further instructions. The boy was naked but for his new, distinctly girlie underwear, and that was how he would have to navigate his way back to his dorm. Tichy knew that he might encounter some surprises along the way, and that thought brought another sinister smile to the man's face. He looked down at his groin to see that he was still fully erect. Torching the boy's ass with the belt had aroused him in a way few other activities could; he probably should have fucked the kid one more time before he allowed him to leave. He easily could have. The boy was his, after all. But all in due time. There would be plenty more opportunities to enjoy the moist, velvety pleasures of the Hurta kid's smooth, fit, 12-year-old ass.

It was a very, very unhappy boy who made his way from Tichy's apartment wearing nothing but a pair of girl's panties and carrying two other pairs in a bundle atop his head. He was crying, which was to be expected after his recent ordeal, but his full-body shakes, and copious tears were nothing short of heart-wrenching. Marek was not in a good way. His bottom was killing him. It was not nearly as bad as the cane, but the cane at least had been deserved. This beating had not been. All he had wanted to do was tell the man why his plan was unworkable, but now he had a butt that wouldn't allow sleep for hours, if at all, and he was already so tired all the time.

His bottom was on fire, and he simply could not stop sobbing and gasping in hitched little breaths as he made his way toward the fire escape. They were the tears of a distraught, defeated, hurting, and very humiliated young boy. As he began to walk down the fire escape on bare feet and shaking legs, he encountered the demon child from hell: Smallpox. She had hidden herself along the route, either assuming or hoping that the boy would take the shortest way home back to his dorm, which was straight toward the main staircase. She found herself briefly startled by Marek's appearance, but she recovered quickly, straightened up, showed her astonishment at his skimpy attire, and then laughed hysterically right in his face.

Still crying and hyperventilating, Marek tried to ignore her laughs and trudged past her like she wasn't even there, even as he wished fervently that violent death would come to her on the spot.

"Someone got a beating and a nice pair of panties." She grinned maliciously, then stepped aside so he could proceed. She walked off in the opposite direction, blowing him another derisive kiss over her shoulder, all the while laughing and giggling at his appearance and her own taunts. She laughed so hard that Tichy, who had just gone to his door to lock it, heard her. He recognized her laugh immediately, but he wasn't pleased at this development. He had a good, disciplinary grip and plenty of strings to pull with the boys, but Ludmila was potentially dangerous. She could tattle if she wanted to, and he could hardly stop her, given her unaccountable position at the school. He knocked back an extra-large vodka and decided to invite Ludmila for tea and cakes the following day. She was known to have a sweet tooth, and it would give him an opportunity to have a needed conversation with her.

Marek was relieved to get by Smallpox relatively unscathed, but with the new panty rules in place from Tichy, he knew that he was doomed. He didn't dare defy the man, even on something as grave as this, and that meant his secret would be out. He knew that being seen like this would destroy the final, tattered remnants of his pride and self-respect, but he didn't care. He was feeling very sorry for himself, and he didn't care who saw him. He would obey Tichy's rules and wear the fucking panties and never take them off. He would let every boy and teacher in the school see them on him and know about them. It didn't matter now. Nothing mattered, not when your ass was on fire, your life was over, and all you wanted to do was die.

But there was one rule he wasn't going to fucking follow. Tichy could flay his butt to the bone with a horsewhip if he wanted to, but if anyone asked – if even one fucking person asked why he was wearing the panties – he wasn't going to say that he had lost a bet. He was going to tell them it was Tichy. He was wearing the panties because Tichy had made him wear them and had threatened to beat the boy bloody if he didn't. Marek angrily swiped at an itching sensation on his lip and was surprised to find that it was bleeding, but he didn't care. It didn't fucking matter. Nothing mattered anymore. His life was now officially over.

Marek eventually made it back to his room. Mercifully, and rather unexpectedly, he encountered nobody other than Smallpox enroute, and that probably was the only thing that saved him from a painful, near-death experience at Tichy's hands. In his distressed, exhausted, freshly beaten state of mind, he really would have told anyone who asked him that the panties were Tichy's doing, and Tichy really would have beaten him within an inch of his life for disobeying a direct instruction. He may even have beaten the boy beyond the point of no return, thus ending the boy's misery once and for all, but not before Marek had suffered unspeakable agony at his hands.

Fortunately for Marek, the hallways of the internat that evening were quiet and abandoned. Other than Smallpox, no one had seen Marek's tear-streaked, semi-naked, graceless walk of shame as he hobbled to his room. Although he made it back before lights out – just shy of 10 o'clock – Radek already had turned the lights off and was asleep and snoring, so even he didn't witness Marek's return to the room.

Tichy didn't bother to check on the boys that evening. It took energy to torment the Hurta kid every day, and he needed his sleep, too. The following morning, he had a gap after p.e. with the fourth years, and he used the time to develop the remainder of the photos. He had pretty much all he needed now to implement his plan. Working from a list of addresses he had gathered, he prepared several envelopes and put stamps on them. When he was finished, he placed them in his flat in a large shoe box at the top of one of the kitchen cupboards. There they were out of reach of anyone unless that person was very tall. Tichy himself had to stand on his tiptoes to stretch and reach the box, and even then, he still had to tip and coax it down from its location.

Marek didn't sleep well. Anxiety, stress, bad dreams, spontaneous erections, and pain conspired to keep his sleep time to about five hours, and the kid woke up the next morning dull-eyed and exhausted. But by the time he awakened – attired only in his panties for fear of an impromptu inspection visit from Tichy – Marek had thought better of his plan to blame Tichy for the panty-wearing. He well remembered the oath from the night of his initiation and what could happen to boys who were disloyal to Tichy and his operation. With less than two weeks to go in his tenure at the school, Marek would abide by the man's rules for a bit longer, even this new set involving the panties, which promised the boy endless days of torment.

That torment began almost immediately that morning with Radek, who simply stared at Marek's panties as if his roommate had grown a second head.

"Ty vole [Author's note: dude]," the boy said, while shaking his head. He ducked behind Marek and saw the obvious signs of the boy's chastisement at the hands – and belt – of Tichy. "Dude, I am not even going to ask what is going on, but I think I have a good idea. All I can say is … wow. I mean … wow."

Marek shook his head but did not answer as he gathered his things for his morning trip to the bathroom. He couldn't remember exactly what the man's rule was for his morning ablutions, but he always went in his pajamas, and the panties were supposed to be his pajamas now. Marek also knew that he would be seen in the panties soon enough. He might as well get it out of the way. If Tichy wanted him to wear panties, he would fucking wear them. He'd even go to class in them – just like he was right now – if Tichy told him to. None of that mattered any longer. The secret he had tried to protect for so long was out. The man had lied to him, but even that didn't matter now. All that mattered was getting to the break.

The first three boys he encountered just stared at him as we walked by. The next, Jan, stopped in his tracks in stupefied wonder. The fourth made a catcall. The fifth whistled, and so did the sixth. In the bathroom itself, as Marek brushed his teeth, several boys hovered around, ogling his ass, seeing the belt marks there as well as the panties.

"Hey fairy – love your panties," called one.

"Hurta the Poof," called another.

"Gonna suck us all off later, Hurta? I hear you like that a lot."

Marek tried to ignore them all, but inwardly, he wanted to cry. Oddly, however, nobody asked him why he was wearing the panties, and he didn't have to use the asinine line about losing a bet.

"Nice ass, Hurta!" called a boy.

"Where's your bra, little girl?" called another.

By the time the boy arrived back at his room, he was red-faced and near tears, but he hadn't said a word to anyone. Once he was inside, Radek closed the door for him.

"Dude, you realize this isn't doing anything good for your reputation – or mine," said the redhead, who had heard some of the taunts and jeers from the hallway. "How long you gotta wear 'em?"

Marek didn't want to talk. He knew that if he spoke out of turn and confirmed Radek's suspicions – even inadvertently – Tichy would punish him severely. He shook his roommate off as he climbed into his clothes, then walked to the hamper and conspicuously dropped a clean pair of underwear inside while looking straight at Radek.

Radek didn't have it in him to have a staring competition with Marek, not even with a seemingly exhausted, broken, puffy-eyed Marek who was wearing girl's panties as his underwear. Instead, he left for breakfast early to stop the awkwardness from stretching on. He really wasn't brave, and he also wasn't an idiot. Panty-clad or not, Marek still wore the cartridge, and messing with him was risky. Not to mention that the pudgy redhead knew that if Marek ever snapped, he could beat him to a pulp without Radek as much as landing a single blow. The kid looked like he could be coming close to snapping, and Radek wasn't going to push his luck.

The catcalls, whistles, dirty looks, and occasional taunts continued throughout the day. At the lunch break, some of the older boys dragged Marek to the side in a quiet hallway corner. One held up his arms while another pantsed him, revealing the panties he had on underneath his trousers. The older boys immediately guffawed when the ludicrous panty rumor proved to be exactly true. Then they jabbed Marek a few times in the ribs and slapped the front of the shaming panties a couple of times, before leaving him alone. They weren't brave enough to do any real damage to him, but clearly a poof boy in pink-hemmed panties wasn't quite as protected by the magic cartridge as a boy in normal briefs might have been.

The 12-year-old became a complete island as he navigated through the rest of his day in a trance-like state. He could barely keep his eyes open. He was utterly exhausted, and the teasing, taunts, and bullying by the other boys merely added to his fatigue. It was well into the afternoon, and he had said nothing – not once, not to anyone – the entire day. He hadn't spoken so much as a single word. Taunts went unanswered, and jeers went without a response. Even when the older boys pantsed him, Marek didn't complain or speak, although he did struggle and try to prevent it from happening. He couldn't, but when the boys released him, he simply pulled his trousers back up and continued. By late afternoon, the entire school seemed to know about his attire, but oddly, still not one person had asked him why he was wearing the panties.

When Marek arrived at the locker room for p.e., not only were there chuckles, snorts, and other sounds, but Nikola Svoboda pantsed him again, right down to his ankles, just as he was getting ready to change. All the first-years laughed at his predicament except Radek and Tauš. In response, Marek simply removed his trousers altogether and stood in his panties to the jeers and laughter of his classmates, before unhurriedly donning the requisite gym uniform of white cotton tank top and short red gym shorts. The only sign of any distress from the youngster was a very slight blush in his cheeks that seemed to be perpetual now. He stood for a moment before walking to the gym, collecting his thoughts while staring into his locker. His sweater was still there, folded on the top shelf, a memento of the night he had lost his virginity to Stanislav Tichy. How long ago that night was now. How trivial it now seemed.

After a short warm up and some stretching, Tichy had the boys pick teams for football. This time, nobody wanted Marek on their team, although normally he was picked early on. He usually was either first or second, simply because he was that good, but not today. Apparently, nobody wanted to play football with a kid who was wearing panties under his gym shorts.

Tichy wasn't sure what trouble Marek had already encountered during the day, but he watched the boy's face and the expressions of his classmates for signs of how the panty challenge was going. Marek didn't seem happy, and Tichy noted that he was the leftover boy once the teams were selected. It seemed that the challenge was working. Even in gym, and now even for football, Marek was a pariah. Tichy had isolated him from everyone. He had singled the boy out for cruelty, and there was absolutely nothing Marek could do about it. That was exactly the way Tichy wanted the kid to feel. It would make him more malleable, contrite, and submissive.

The locker room after gym nearly ended Marek's resolute, stoic approach to the day. He had even sucked at football, for the first time in his life hating having to play it, especially in Tichy's presence, but in the locker room, the pace, tempo, and frequency of the bullying increased as he tried to change. Several boys towel-flicked him on his way to the showers, aiming for his mottled, welted backside. It hurt like fuck when they got him there, and Marek couldn't help but squeal in pain and cower as he tried to block their blows with his hands. He found himself backed into a corner of the shower trying to protect himself. Nikola and a few other boys surrounded him as one of them conspicuously dropped a bar of soap.

"Oooops, will you pick it up, faggot?" Nikola demanded of Marek. "That's what you do, right? Your kind. Bend over and show us how it's done!" he snorted darkly. He wasn't the only kid laughing at Marek's plight, and unless Marek was ready to have a naked, wet, shower fight with some six boys at once, there wasn't an easy way out for him.

"Knock it off, idiots," said Tauš as he stepped in unexpectedly. "Being that fascinated by a boy in panties makes you the faggots, don't you realize that? Give him a break. He still has a cartridge necklace, and you would do well to remember that bad shit seems to happen to people who fuck with someone wearing one of those."

Nikola looked for a moment like he was going to mix it up with Tauš for calling him an idiot and implying that he was a homo, but then he just huffed angrily and stepped away.

"Sure, step up for your faggot friend," snorted Nikola. "I didn't know football was a sport for poofs and their sympathizers."

Nikola was all tough talk, but when Tauš feigned charging at him, he ran from the shower room so fast that he very nearly slipped on the wet floor. He was not after a real fight.

With Nikola's departure, the ring of boys around Marek began to clear. As they returned to their own business, Tauš reached out to touch Marek's shoulder.

"You all right dude? You look like a train wreck."

Marek had been surprised when Tauš intervened. Why had he? Tauš was no friend of his. They should have been friends, of course. They both were first-years, both footballers and athletes, and both had been selected for the přátelák against Technoglass. But Tauš hated him, like everyone else at the internat did, so why was the towheaded kid sticking up for him now, and in the showers of all places? Tauš had extended a helping hand at a time when Marek needed it to avoid hazing, beating, or bullying at Nikola's hand, and Marek didn't know why. The rare act of kindness extended his way made the boy feel unexpectedly emotional.

"I'm okay," replied Marek softly, breaking his vow of verbal chastity. But he wasn't okay at all, and tears suddenly flooded his eyes as he broke down once again from the seemingly relentless strain of being who and what he was. He managed an anguished "Thanks," as he quickly turned back toward the wall to hide his tears. His body heaved as he wept, his discolored, welted butt now fully on display to anyone who happened to enter the showers.

"Well then dry yourself up, get dressed and let's scram," said Tauš, who conspicuously ignored Marek's tears. "My roommate has some extracurricular shit after school today so my dorm room will be free. Maybe we can play Dostihy a Sazky [Author's note: Racing and Betting], or something. No one's going to bother you there, and you look like you could do with thinking about something else for a while. We can even work on the math homework together if you want," the boy continued. "Math is just … ugghh," Tauš said, as he gave an exaggerated, silent scream and pretended to rip clumps of his hair out over his difficulties with the subject.

Marek got the cry over as quickly as he could so the other boys wouldn't see how upset he was. He may not have been fully aware of it himself, but he was breaking down several times a day now as lack of sleep and the relentless physical exhaustion from his abuse took their toll on him. He wasn't normally like this, but then again, he hadn't been at all normal or himself in weeks now. How long had it been since Tichy had taken over his life? He couldn't seem to remember anything about his pre-Tichy time at the school. Had there ever been such a time? The man so dominated his waking thoughts, and even some of his dreams, that it seemed almost as if Marek had known him his entire life.

"C'mon," said Tauš as he again placed a friendly hand on Marek's shoulder. "I always thought you thought you were better than everyone, but those guys are being idiots. Did you lose a bet, or something? It's actually kind of a ballsy stunt if you ask me," grinned Tauš. "I mean where did you even get a pair of panties like that? It's not like you asked your mum to mail them to you, eh?" he chuckled.

"Yeah, it was a bet – can you tell I lost?" he said ironically to the boy, using Tichy's canned line and unwittingly avoiding a holocaust of agony at the man's hands if he had dared to carry out his vow to name Tichy as his tormentor. He left it at that, but now due to Tauš's support, Marek was able to finish his shower and dress in relative peace. Nobody whacked or snapped a towel at his welted backside, and even the jeers and catcalls directed at him had subsided. He heard laughter and whispers when he stepped back into the panties and pulled them up, but that was the worst of it.

Meanwhile, Tauš got dressed nearby and was a veritable chatterbox, keeping up both ends of the conversation as Marek tried to figure out why the other kid was suddenly being so friendly. He recalled Tauš's classroom apology for tripping him up and mouthing off on the football pitch. It had seemed insincere at the time, but maybe the other boy really felt bad about it. Tauš had supported him during the match against Technoglass, smiling and extending him friendly, happy congratulations after his goals. The incident in the showers marked the third time that Tauš had been kind to him, which was three times more than just about any other boy or teacher in the entire school – combined.

Now Tauš was talking to him like they were old friends, and … what was that? Inviting him to his dorm room to play a board game? And do homework together? Marek was stunned. He was sure that every boy in the school hated him, and so far, he had been right, but maybe he had been too quick to judge the football-playing blond kid. Marek had assumed that wearing the panties would bring out the worst and most vicious tendencies in the other boys, and so far, he had been right about that, too, except for Tauš, who seemed to think it was all a stunt and almost seemed to admire him for it in a weird way. Marek hadn't expected that at all.

It was strange, but Tauš didn't seem to care about the panties, either, even when just talking to Marek could have him labeled permanently as a poof. Nor did he seem to feel sorry for Marek. As despondent as he was, Marek didn't want to be pitied by anyone, and he would have rejected Tauš's overtures on the spot if he detected that in the boy. It wasn't lost on Marek that Tauš had picked a very strange day to show him these very first signs of friendship, but Marek couldn't explain it as anything other than a coincidence. Maybe Tauš honestly did think that Marek was pulling a brave stunt with the panties and had decided that today was the day to initiate a friendship.

In the end, the two footballers walked together back to the dorm building and Tauš's room. Just being with the other boy seemed to discourage at least the more direct taunts and jeers from being directed at Marek. No one stopped them or tried to confront them, anyway.

They spent over an hour together playing the racing and betting game while engaging in light conversation – mostly about football – the entire time. The topic of the panties never came up, and while they never did get to the math homework, it ended up being the most enjoyable time that Marek had spent at the internat since his arrival, and it helped him, just for an hour, to forget about his other worries and his looming 8:30 p.m. appointment at Tichy's apartment.

In fact, it would have been a thoroughly miserable day if not for Tauš. Maybe it should have occurred to Marek that Tauš seemed to be going out of his way to come to his rescue, but the boy didn't think about that. It's not like Marek had recently been available for much playtime or hanging out, so maybe the other boy had just been waiting for the right opportunity. Whatever the case, it was a solid hour for Marek to spend in peace.

Afterwards, Marek went to dinner and then returned to his dorm to study. He dreaded his 8:30 visit with Tichy with all his customary zeal, but he still couldn't quite shake the memory of the pleasant hour or so he had spent with Tauš in the boy's dorm room. Marek could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he had been in another boy's room at the school, and those occasions had just been to drop something off or to double check on a homework assignment before even that became impossible. But Tauš had invited him to his room and treated him like a friend.

Marek was almost overcome with emotion as he remembered what it felt like to have actual friends. Friends like he had in Vacenovice. He had many friends there, perhaps as many as a dozen he could hang with, and three – four, if you counted Peter – whom he considered his best friends in the world. That all seemed so long ago, now. Would his friends even remember him? Or would they somehow know what he had done – what he had become – while he was away in Zelezny Brod? Marek longed for his friends now with a yearning that was almost painful. He longed for his mother, too. Why hadn't she written to him? And where were his train tickets home?

He made his way to Tichy's apartment, fully dressed including the panties, and with an extra pair in his pocket to wear back to his dorm. As he walked, he replayed the rules for the panties in his mind and the events of yesterday's session. He vowed not let his mouth get him in trouble with Tichy again tonight. For one thing, his butt was still too sore from the enhanced beating he had taken the night before. For another, not even one of his efforts to stand up for himself had ever gone well. He just had to do as Tichy said. That was always the best way, but if he encountered that dreadful Smallpox on the way back – if she lurked outside Tichy's door again, listening and grinning to the sounds of his screams – Marek was going to hit her and make her hurt. The janitor could go fuck himself, and Tichy could whip the skin off his back. Marek didn't care.

He knocked and was let in by the man, but this time, there were no other of Tichy's boys. No one greeted him other than Tichy himself, who was dressed in comfortable, casual clothing. The man was clean-shaven and smelled fresh. His apartment was nice and tidy. He let Marek strip, took the used panties from him, then instructed the boy to replace them with the clean pair that Marek had stuffed in his pocket.

"You're still being punished, and this panty challenge is ongoing so you can learn to follow the rules," said Tichy, "but you look tired and your school results matter, just like I pointed out earlier. Get yourself dressed and head back to your dorm. You have the night off. Be sure to study some and get to bed early. Be here at 8 o'clock tomorrow, and make sure you've completed all your homework and studying by then. Consider this a mercy break and a small reward for not messing up during your first day of the new panty challenge," Tichy concluded.

As soon as Marek was mostly dressed again, Tichy steered him out of the flat into the hallway, then closed and locked the door behind him. The boy was stunned. Tichy had really let him go. He allowed Marek to leave his apartment without so much as a single blowjob. Could this be real? There were no signs of the other boys, and no sign of Smallpox, either. Marek still couldn't believe that this was real, but it was. He felt like he had been released from prison early. He almost wanted to celebrate, to tell someone of his good fortune, to revel in it. On the heels of his nice afternoon with Tauš, this unexpected little surprise made his first day of wearing the panties in public ironically one of his best days ever at the school. Marek suddenly and unexpectedly had the remainder of the evening free to study, rest, and relax without Tichy. He almost didn't know what to do with himself.

And so, Marek got an evening off, giving his mind the opportunity to latch onto the positive memory of his time spent with Bořek, so that the experience would stand out, and the day would be remembered for it. Marek didn't know, of course, that Tichy was doing this very much on purpose, supporting the growing sense of friendship between the two boys, both of whom were fully in his thrall, each in their own, unique way.

Marek also didn't know about the tea-and-cake session between Tichy and Smallpox earlier in the day. He couldn't know how well, after some initial hesitation and awkwardness, the two of them had gotten along. In fact, their meeting had gone extremely well. Smallpox had even managed to bum a smoke off Tichy, as well as a small glass of sweet red wine, and just like that, she had fallen into orbit around the disciplinarian's world. He couldn't intimidate her as easily as he could the boys, but her strict, parsimonious father left her craving for positive attention and made her grateful even for small acts of kindness and treats – especially forbidden treats – and Tichy was more than happy to provide them.

Smallpox was not yet 14 years old, but she was smart enough to read between the lines. Tichy was sweet to her, but he wasn't likely to be … sweet on her. Although she would never say it out loud, she strongly suspected he was doing much more than disciplining boys in his office and apartment. She had seen how they walked after a visit with him, and she had seen Marek Hurta dressed in nothing but panties. She wanted to know more about that, but Tichy had waived her off; the game he was somewhat carefully playing, especially with young Hurta, wasn't ready for a new player, not just yet anyway. But he told her that she could come again for cake and tea – and maybe a smoke and another sip of wine – and she had looked very eager at the prospect.

The following day there were more jeers in the morning, a few more taunts, but there was no p.e. and the interest of the other boys in Marek and their determination to torment him seemed to have plateaued. It certainly was no worse for Marek than the day before. Bořek even sat with Marek during lunch, jabbering on about how insanely the winter was battering the mountains.

"At least the worst of the snow is falling now," said the blond-haired boy, "which means they'll have time to plow it before Christmas. If this blizzard came next week, who knows if we could even get home for Christmas, the lot of us!" he commented.

Marek's previous happier time after school continued with a relatively restful night that was mercifully devoid of nightmares, bedwetting, or insomnia. He did wake up several times with a throbbing erection that threatened to escape the crotch of his panties. He needed to cum terribly, but he was even more aware than ever that if Tichy found out that he had masturbated, there would be unlimited hell to pay.

Still, his need was growing so acute that he probably would have taken the risk if he could just find the right place and time to do the deed. He had briefly considered doing it just off the fire-escape under the alcove on his way back from Tichy's apartment last evening. It was dark and deserted there, and quiet too. Marek was sure that he could rub one out in about 30 seconds, leaving the evidence to dry where nobody was likely to find it or know what it was if they did. But his innate fear of the man stopped him from doing the act. What if Tichy could tell that his balls seemed smaller? And what if Smallpox was lurking nearby, spying on him from some perch that only she knew existed?

Unable to solve these problems in his mind, Marek continued to refrain from self-pleasure. Fortunately, he hadn't had any further wet dreams. He just continued to grow hard at even the slightest stimulation or idle thought, and his nocturnal erections increased in both intensity and frequency. When he finally got home to Vacenovice, he planned to masturbate 10 times on that first day. Marek was pretty sure he would be able to fill a bucket with his cum.

As the evening dragged on, Marek started to feel more and more nervous. It soon would be time for him to make his familiar trek to Tichy's apartment. The boy was under no illusion that Tichy would let him go early for a second consecutive night. But just as Marek was getting up to go meet Tichy in his apartment, the man himself walked into his and Radek's dorm room, locked the door, and turned to look at Marek. On the upper bunk, Radek gasped and very nearly squealed with fright, only just managing to choke back the sound of his distress.

"We'll meet here today," Tichy said simply, as he eyed the Hurta kid impatiently.

Marek nearly fainted as Tichy suddenly, unexpectedly, appeared in his room and locked the door. The boy stood up from his desk, swallowing, to face his nemesis. What did he mean, "meet here"? What kind of meeting? He couldn't possibly mean their regular meeting. Radek was right there, bug-eyed, tense, and staring down from his curled-up position up on his bunk. There were over 40 other boys on the second floor alone …

"Don't just stand there, Hurta," said Tichy impatiently. "And you, Radek, get off that bunk. I'm here to teach Marek a lesson that happens to involve you. Come here. Oh, and fetch me a slipper. Glass King, Jr. isn't getting naked, so I guess we'll start with a quick reminder that he obeys me everywhere, not just where and when he decides it might be a good idea," snapped Tichy.

Radek was pale and trembling, and he couldn't make a sound. He was all choked up with anxiety as he got off the bed. Keeping his head low and scuttering like a roach in daylight, he approached Tichy and handed him his slipper.

Tichy took it and looked at Marek with an annoyed expression on his face.

"Strip. Being beaten is the loudest thing that's likely to happen, and this door isn't too thick, so if you were smart, you'd be playing this smoothly," he snapped sharply.

Marek stood in shock as he tried to fathom what was happening. Somehow, he had already managed to earn a punishment and the man hadn't even been in his room for a full minute. It dawned on Marek that Tichy expected him to strip and kneel, as if they were in his office on the third floor, or in his apartment. Was he crazy? Marek thought he already knew the answer to that, but this took crazy to a new level. Radek was right here in the room, and he was decidedly not one of Tichy's boys. The other first-year boys were within only a few feet of Marek's room, well within earshot, and some of them undoubtedly had seen Tichy enter the room.

Marek remained standing with a pit in his stomach as Radek scurried to comply with Tichy's instructions. This was … bad. What should he do?

"Mr. Tichy, I was coming," the boy almost whimpered even as his eyes flitted to his clock to check the time. 8:20 p.m. Was the clock off? Had he fucked up and not been on time to Tichy's apartment? "I was g-gonna come, I swear."

"You're late," the man replied. "I said 8:00 o'clock today to make sure you're getting enough sleep and all. I was trying to be nice, and you rewarded me by being late. And now by talking back. You're still not naked and on your knees, Hurta. Shall we call that thirty with the slipper? How many more do you want to earn?"

Radek just stood, hunched over, almost as if trying not to be there despite being there. His eyes were like saucers, and he didn't make a sound. Not a peep. It seemed like he was ready to drop his pants and get naked in a blink if Tichy snapped at him, too, but that didn't happen.

Tichy rapped the slipper against his palm. It was a hard plastic one. It was going to hurt even more than his old-fashioned leather slipper if he used a good deal of force.

Marek suddenly felt cold all over. Had Tichy changed the time? It was always supposed to be 8:30 in his apartment. The boy swallowed as his cheeks flushed pink. His eyes flitted to his clock once again. Had Tichy given him a different time? It was way after 8:00 o'clock. Maybe he had been late, so Tichy had simply come here to find him. Now he would be punished. But Radek was here. The other boys were all around, too, going in and out of their rooms, studying, washing up for bed. Word must have spread among them that Tichy was on the floor, in their room. Marek knew that the most-feared individual in the entire school could not simply walk into a first-year dorm room and lock the door behind him without word spreading about it.

Marek felt faint. Would Tichy really do this to him in front of Radek? Marek didn't care for the other boy, but he still had to live with him. Radek also knew more about him than any other boy in the school, and Marek knew more about him, too. They weren't friends and never would be, but the last couple of weeks with Radek at least had been tolerable, and Marek had been hoping to get to the end of the term that way, as well.

"Mr. Tichy – I'm really sorry," Marek whimpered. He hated debasing himself in front of Radek, hated the begging sound in his voice, the pleading tone, but he had no choice. "I thought you said 8:30. It was an accident, please. I was going to come. Please Mr. Tichy." The boy felt shaky on his feet, and his cheeks were now blushing crimson.

"Now it's forty with the slipper, Hurta," said Tichy. "Should I unlock and open the door? I think doing a thrashing in front of a whole bunch of boys might noticeably improve the overall discipline around here for a while." He gave the boy a stern glare. "This is your last chance. Your punishment is happening here, now, today. As always, by making a fuss, you're only making it worse for yourself," said Tichy firmly.

Tichy turned to Marek's roommate.

"Radek, please, pull up a chair," he said serenely. "Sit, make yourself comfortable. You are not in trouble, so don't worry. Your presence will help me to drive a valuable lesson home for Hurta, here," smiled Tichy as Radek, nervously but a bit less so, pulled the chair away from his desk and sat down to watch what was about to unfold. Other than Tichy squeezing him, he had no real direct idea how sessions with Tichy went and could only guess what happened during them from the evidence he had seen on Marek's backside. Now he was about to see it for himself first-hand. While he wasn't overly thrilled by the prospect, at least it wasn't his ass that was on the line.

Marek swallowed nervously. He felt like he might pass out and he reached his right hand to his desk with a little moan to steady himself. He had fucked up again, and now he was making it worse. The same thing kept happening to him time and time again. Compliance with Tichy's first instruction was always the best and least-painful way to go, so even though his mind wasn't thinking very clearly, that's what he started to do.

With nervous, fumbling fingers, he started to unbutton his shirt. He kicked off his shoes, his face flushed and his cheeks crimson. He started to tremble as he pulled off his socks and unbuttoned his trousers. Down they went, revealing the panties. He removed them, too, rendering himself naked, and then went to his hands and knees before Tichy as if in prayer to his god. All the while, Radek watched, astonished. The red-haired boy had never seen anything like this, and even though it was not he who was being made to kneel on his hands and knees, his stomach started to clench at what he was seeing.

"I'm sorry," said Marek in a forlorn, whimpering voice. He hadn't meant to be late. He hadn't intended it. But he knew that he was going to be made to pay.

Tichy smiled as Marek undressed and got down on all fours. The boy was blushing red as a lobster as Radek stared at him intently. Tichy knew that Radek feared him far too much to tattle, and he suspected the boy was enough of a coward not to even want to, so long as he wasn't on the receiving end. He wasn't like Ludmila – a likely ally and fellow sadist – but he could still assist Tichy as a witness and a helper – and perhaps a little bit more – if the sides were made clear to the boy. Ultimately, Radek had a choice to make: He could either be on the side of the abuser or the abused, but Tichy already knew which side the chubby redhead would choose. It was a well-known fact that cowards often made better accessories to evil than brave men, because they didn't need to be misled into thinking that they were working for a good cause.

As Marek knelt naked on the floor of his dorm room awaiting his punishment, a horrible, awful thought occurred to him. He had spent weeks and weeks trying to keep his initial punishment and his subsequent abuse and torture at Tichy's hands a secret. From the very first day in Tichy's office, he had accepted enhanced punishments in exchange for privacy. In fact, the very first time he had stripped naked in the man's presence was to keep Tichy's office door locked so that nobody else could see him being spanked. Tichy had repeatedly promised that what was happening between them was private, just between the two of them, not to be known by Skala, Marek's classmates, or anyone else. That had been the basis of their interaction from the start.

And for a time, for most of the time, anyway, Tichy had kept his promise. Sure, he had teased Marek about leaving the office door unlocked, which just proved that he knew how important privacy and secrecy was to the boy. And while Marek had been very uncomfortable with the later involvement of Tichy's boys in his punishment sessions, he knew that Tichy could and would keep them quiet about what was happening if he wanted to, and so far, he had. Although Marek hated the man, he had to admit that he had mostly kept his many promises of privacy. Until now.

But in the end, of course, he had lied. It had all been for nothing. The photographs he had taken of Marek performing had been the first sign. Why would Tichy take those if he didn't plan to use them? Then there had been the latest panty rule. That wasn't private at all. It took his punishment public, in violation of their agreement, and exposed him to the humiliation of his peers, the thing he had been trying to avoid all along. Tichy had lied to him. He had lied from the beginning.

And now this. Tichy was deliberately humiliating him in front of Radek. Radek wasn't one of Tichy's boys. He was a blabbermouth wannabe, who would be sure to tell their classmates what he had seen from his front-row seat. Even if Tichy could intimidate the kid into silence, there was no doubt in Marek's mind that his entire floor already knew that Tichy was here, in his room, behind the locked door, dishing it out to him.

Tichy was a liar. He was dirty, double-crossing liar, and now he was humiliating Marek in front of his roommate for nothing! Marek wasn't even sure that the man had changed the time of their sessions. They had always been at 8:30 p.m., ever since they had moved to Tichy's apartment. Perhaps he had missed the time change in his euphoria over being released early the night before, but what of it? It had been an accident. He would have been 30 minutes late at most, but he would have come. For that, he should be beaten in front of his roommate and humiliated? For that, he should get 40 cracks with the slipper?

It wasn't fucking fair, and Tichy was a no-good liar. Between this and the panties, the privacy was over. The secret was out. It had all been for nothing. The only positive trait that Marek had ever detected in Tichy was that the man was true to his word, but now the boy realized that he had been played. He had been lied to the whole time. Tichy had made him the laughingstock of the entire school despite all of Marek's efforts, despite all the promises that Tichy had made, and despite every damn thing Marek had gone through.

And now he was very publicly, very un-privately taunting him in front of his roommate. Marek regretted stripping and kneeling now. The man was a liar. He was a fucking, no-good liar. But what of it? The boy knew that Tichy could do whatever he wanted to him, endlessly, horribly, mercilessly. He would be thrilled to give Marek 40 with the slipper simply because he had misunderstood the time he was supposed to arrive at the man's apartment.

"As you can see," Tichy spoke to Radek as he gestured at the kneeling Marek, "naughty boys sometimes resist their punishment, but ultimately when they've been taught to fear righteous authority, they comply. You'll see Marek's attitude will be much improved on the other side of the punishment, too, when he's been reminded why disobeying is such a bad idea," said Tichy in a calm, teacher-like, only very slightly amused tone.

"However, I am inclined to believe that this was all mostly a misunderstanding so let's give Marek here a chance to prove that he means to be a good and obedient boy, shall we?" smiled Tichy.

"Crawl to the door. Nicely!" added Tichy sharply. "Knees apart, face low, belly low, with your ass stuck out. Then back towards the window, over to Radek, and back to me," he demanded.

Oh, now Tichy was offering him one of his famous deals? A chance to prove that he meant to be a good and obedient boy? The man wanted him to crawl in front of Radek, humiliating him publicly, violating their agreement, breaching their privacy compact. He always offered Marek a deal, but only after he imposed bullshit on Marek that he knew the boy would try to get out of. It had been like that since day one, and Marek was sick of it. The man had lied to him. He had played him. It was all just a big, fat joke to Tichy.

He wouldn't crawl. Tichy could beat him to death right here in his room, right in front of Radek, with the whole dormitory listening in as witnesses, and Marek wouldn't care. It wouldn't change the fact that Tichy was a no-good liar! He lifted his head to face the man.

"I don't want a deal," he said simply. "If you think I was late, I'll take the punishment.

Tichy looked at the boy like he had just grown a horn in middle of his forehead, then tilted his head and raised his eyebrows, letting the silence stretch. Then he took a breath, calmed himself, not wanting to lose his shit in an undignified way, at least not in a way that was undignified for him. As for Marek Hurta …

When the man next spoke, his voice was like someone had captured oozing drops of poison, made ice cubes from them, and was now dropping them on a steel cookie sheet with an almost musically regular rhythm.

"You misunderstand, Hurta," he said in a very loud – way too loud – voice. "No one is offering you any kind of deal. No one is treating you as special," he said, speaking loud and strong for the benefit of the boys likely to be eavesdropping at the door. "You were late for an appointment with the HEAD OF DORMITORIES and vice-director of this school, BOY, and that was for being in trouble already. I am here to remind you PRECISELY of the thing you don't seem to be able to get into your thick skull, that obedience isn't OPTIONAL or OCCASIONAL. Ongoing discipline, and reliable performance are essential qualities for our socialist society. And I am determined to get you to understand that fact, despite you being a snotty little bourgeoisie brat who thinks rules only apply to others. Now do as you are told, or you will be MADE TO," finished Tichy in no uncertain terms.

Marek visibly shrunk as the man raised his voice in chastisement. His face paled, and his body felt cold. This was not going to end well for him, and he knew it. He once again found himself heading down a familiar path, one that would end in pain and tears. Yet, there was something about Tichy's tone – no, not his tone, but his words, the content of them – that seemed wrong. He had never referred to himself by his titles before. He had never spelled out exactly why Marek had to come to him for sessions before. Why was he speaking this way now? Why here? Why today?

From there, it didn't take the boy long to figure it out. Tichy was speaking like that for the benefit of Radek and anyone else who could hear him out in the hall. He was making Marek look like the bad guy and making himself out as if he were just doing his job. The boy had to admit it was clever. There was nothing about his hatred of Marek in there. Or the sex stuff. Just the Head of Dorm dealing with a troublesome kid. It wasn't fair, or even remotely accurate, but what did that matter? Marek knew he couldn't refute it. He wouldn't be able to get the words out before Tichy was on him, even if he could form them in the first place.

Marek's eyes burned with hatred and his cheeks blushed with shame. Radek was looking at him like he was a curious new animal at the zoo. Tichy had almost yelled some of the words. His voice would be heard through the door, into the hallway. And in fact, unbeknownst to Marek, a group of first-years already had gathered in the hallway, their ears close to the door if they dared, or back a few steps from it if they didn't. The hallway was as still as a tomb as the boys listened to Tichy's words.

Marek paused, thinking. Tichy had him boxed in. Cornered. He had been in situations like this with Tichy before – all too often, in fact. In the past, he had allowed his temper and his emotions to get the better of him and had spoken out of turn, always to disastrous effect. It had happened two nights ago when he had told Tichy he hated him. He had paid for that. He had paid for it with a sore bottom that stayed with him all night and into the following day. He knew that he would pay for this, too, if he didn't try to fix it right away.

Marek closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them once again.

"I'm sorry, sir," he said to the man in a soft voice as his body seemed to shrink in surrender. He closed his eyes once again, and when he next opened them, they were glimmering. But the fight was out of him. He began to crawl.

"I hope you are," said Tichy. "That was the last mistake you'll make today with that door remaining closed," he warned. "I'll turn you into an example for the others, for your entire class, if you give me one more reason."

Tichy reminded Marek of the instructions he had been given. "Door, window, knees apart, head low, ass high. Ten squats. Good ones. Feet flat on the ground. A nice wide stance, come on! Ten push-ups. Ten sit-ups." Tichy tossed the slipper back to Radek, who barely managed to catch it.

"Crawl over to Radek. Politely ask him if you can borrow his slipper for your punishment. If he lets you, fetch it for me doggy-style. If you're not polite enough, you'll be in trouble," warned Tichy. He really was putting Marek's willingness to play along and humiliate himself to a test. But, with forty whacks coming and his unsubtle warning that others could be allowed to watch, resisting really was not a smart idea. Marek could at least take solace in the fact that nobody else's cock or ass was involved in this lesson – at least, not yet.

This was different for Tichy. There was no Startka dangling from his fingers, as smoking in the dorms was forbidden. There was no vodka in his other hand – after all, he needed to appear professional to the other boys. And so far, there was nothing overtly sexual – he was just humiliating a bourgeoisie brat by making him strip naked for his punishment. There was nothing at all poof about that. It was against the rules, of course – the other adults would have disapproved, including Skala – but Tichy was pretty sure that the boys in this dorm would see nothing more than the Glass King's holier-than-thou grandson getting his comeuppance. Sure, the kids would talk, but Tichy felt safe enough.

Outside the locked dormitory door, the small crowd of first-years milled about. Word had spread like wildfire that Tichy was on the floor well before bed-check, that he had entered Marek's and Radek's room with them still inside it, and locked the door. This was something that to the knowledge of the first-year boys, the man never had done before. None of the boys knew what was going on, but given Tichy's no-nonsense reputation, and his position as the school's disciplinarian, it was likely that either Kinter or Hurta or both were in trouble, potentially big, big trouble. Sure enough, the sounds of an angry, adult voice soon could be heard emanating from the room.

Eventually, several boys were lingering right outside the door, and a couple of them even dared to place their ears against it to listen for a moment before moving away. Another dozen or so boys gathered a short distance down the hall. They were agog and curious, but ready to duck back into their rooms should Tichy suddenly re-emerge.

"Shhhh," whispered Matus Kulka as he pressed his right ear to the door and waved at the other boys to be quiet. "I can't hear anything."

"Tichy's screaming at one of them – I think it's Hurta, but I couldn't tell for sure," whispered Kulka after the yelling coming from the room stopped.

"It's gotta be Hurta," said Frantisek Lisy to another passel of boys who had congregated 15 feet [4.5m] away.

"It's gotta be about the panties," replied Jiri Kader.

Inside the room, Marek crawled toward the door, then the window, then Tichy, then Radek. His cheeks were crimson with shame. His expression was stoic, but his eyes seethed. He did the exercises easily, and in silence, his lithe, young body flawlessly executing the specified maneuvers. He crawled to Radek and looked up at the boy. He had never felt so small, so humiliated, in his entire life, having to be on his hands and knees before Radek fucking Kinter.

"Please, sir," he said in a soft, neutral voice that he strove to keep calm and pleasant. "May I please borrow your slipper?"

Both Tichy and Radek watched Marek as he crawled about the room. Tichy watched with smug satisfaction. Radek watched in shock, but with a growing hint of morbid curiosity.

Radek was holding the slipper when Marek arrived. He decided to play comrade Tichy's game as best he could by refusing to hand it over right away. Despite his interest in the proceedings, the redhead did not want to end up on the receiving end of this sort of discipline – or any of Tichy's discipline, for that matter. When Marek asked, Radek's eyes flickered away, to a point behind him – to Tichy – for instructions.

"N-no?" Radek gulped. Then something else dawned on him. "Why? What do you need it for?" he asked, relieved and feeling almost victorious that he could translate Tichy's sign language into the correct words.

Marek looked at Radek with eyes of death as the boy decided to fuck with him. He would have expected no less from the Radek of two or three weeks ago, but since that time, the two had been getting along better. Marek didn't expect his roommate to be an ally in any of this, or to stick up for him – the kid was utterly terrified of Tichy – but he hadn't expected this. It was the quickest of betrayals for so little reason, for no other reason than he simply could. He could do this to his roommate, so he did. Marek meant nothing to him, and Radek would have sold him down the river for a koruna. He just had.

"I need it so comrade Tichy can punish me with it, sir," Marek said to the boy in a still polite and very deferential tone.

Outside the door, Kulka had his ear flat against it. He waved off the other boys, trying to quiet them down. "They're talking, but I can't make out the words," he whispered to the gathering of boys.

"All right, but bring it back when you're done," said Radek, getting a little bolder, really trying to do what he thought Tichy would want him to. His mocking addition earned him a thumbs up from the man and empowered Radek. He could do this! Following another gesture from Tichy, he prepared to stuff the slipper sideways into Marek's mouth.

Marek dutifully opened his mouth for it. Just a few weeks ago, he would have been disgusted by putting something like that in his mouth, but that thought literally didn't even occur to him now. He had already had so many worse things in his mouth than that. He clamped down on it and crawled on hands and knees to Tichy, then looked up, presenting the slipper to the man, and offering it with his eyes.

Outside the door, Kulka shook his head, then pressed his ear back to it. "Nothing," he mouthed, then he went still, then shook his head again …

"See Radek?" said Tichy. "Clarity, firmness. When we are in the right, we do not ask, we demand, and when we aren't given, we take. Just like the people's revolution." He took the slipper from Marek.

"Stand up," he ordered. "Turn around. Eyes on your dorm mate," demanded Tichy. Marek stood to his feet and turned to face his fully dressed roommate. He tried to keep his expression neutral.

In a way that Radek couldn't see from his angle, Tichy began to toy with Marek's butt, starting at his coccyx and gently stroking over the boy's lower spine and the backs of his thighs. His fingers gently traced along the slightly bruised line between his buttocks and his leg. His touch was soft, but not so soft as to tickle. Marek wasn't likely to guess what Tichy was doing until, completely involuntarily, his too-long-deprived, hair-trigger dick engorged with blood and began to rise.

Marek flinched as Tichy touched him, but the man's touch was light, almost tickling. What was he doing, and why? It felt weird, like a big spider was crawling on him, or a mouse. Radek was staring at him, but Marek was too embarrassed to hold his gaze and looked away. The man's touch brought goose pimples to Marek's buttocks and his right thigh. And then, to the boy's chagrin and profound embarrassment, his cock began to respond, to erect, right in front of the other boy. It had been doing that so much lately, ever since Tichy had forbidden him from masturbating. And now it was erecting again at precisely the wrong moment. Marek closed his eyes and fucking willed it not to harden – but it ignored him, of course.

Outside the door, a few of the gathered boys grew bored and started to disperse. Kulka, who was enjoying his moment in the spotlight, pretended to hear something through the door.

"Wait," he whispered, as he motioned everyone closer. In truth, he hadn't heard anything discernible since Tichy had stopped yelling. Mostly what he heard was silence, but his feigned reaction was enough to keep most of the boys close in the hope that there would be more to hear through the closed door.

Marek's cheeks flushed with shame as Tichy humiliated him in front of the other boy. Would Radek understand? Would he know why Marek had a boner, or would he think that his roommate was a poof? Marek didn't know, but what did it matter, anyway? His life was over. Everyone in his dorm must have heard what had had happened to him. His humiliation was complete.

"Hmmm," commented Tichy. "He knows what he has coming now. Maybe he's excited for you to see it," he chuckled. He stopped of course, as soon as Marek was undeniably stiff, having only done it to humiliate the boy in front of Radek. He folded Marek over his lap and pinned him down. "Make this noisy, or I will," he warned Marek and then started to spank away.

Marek made no effort to stop the man as Tichy pulled him over his lap and positioned him for another beating. He didn't make a sound. Tichy wanted him to make it noisy? Why? Was that so everyone in the school could hear? Marek felt numb. He felt like crying. His sessions with Tichy were supposed to be private. They weren't supposed to be like this. Tichy had promised him. He wouldn't give the man the satisfaction of making it noisy. No.

The beating began. The blows were medium to hard at first, but Tichy was ready to turn the whacks into pistol-shot cracks unless Marek obeyed and cried out in pain.

With his ear still pressed to the door, Kulka heard the slipper hitting home on Marek's bottom and motioned frantically for the other boys to hush up. Another "CRAAACK!" sound followed the first, then another, and then a third. The hallway went as silent as a tomb, making the slipper blows audible through the door without the need to be all that close to it.

Marek didn't cry out, didn't make a sound. In response, Tichy escalated the force of the blows, delivering the next several much faster and harder, all in attempt to cause Marek to begin screaming in shock and pain. He knew that once Marek started howling, it would be almost impossible for the boy to stop. He had 40 blows to work with, which gave him plenty to fine-tune this towards making Marek scream without wrecking his ass to a point of needing medical attention.

"Somebody's really getting it in there," whispered Kulka gleefully. At least, he was pretty sure someone was, although he hadn't heard anything beyond the sound of the slipper hitting home and he couldn't be entirely sure what was causing the noise. He and the other boys still had not heard clearly enough which of the two boys was in trouble, or if they both were.

"Gotta be Hurta," repeated Lisy. "That fuckin' kid."

"Shhhhh," said Kulka, as he motioned for the assembled boys to stay quiet. From inside the room, the "CRAAACK!" sounds of the slipper on flesh continued, one every two or three seconds. They were very audible in the hallway, and it took less than half a minute for the count to reach eight to ten.

Inside the room, Marek writhed and struggled in pain but still stayed mostly silent atop Tichy's lap, aside from some involuntary grunts and gasps. Even when Tichy increased the intensity of the blows, Marek did his best to stay quiet so his hallmates wouldn't hear him cry out. It was bad enough that Radek was witnessing his chastisement, but it would be positively mortifying to him if his hallmates also knew what was going on inside the room.

Tichy paused the beating. "As you can see," he commented to Radek, "he is a resistant son-of-a-bitch. But you're about to see just how much his attitude improves after a punishment," he added, then lowered the slipper. At this rate, he was going to have to destroy Marek's ass before the kid cried out, and that wouldn't do, but Tichy certainly wasn't going to tolerate any disobedience from Marek Hurta.

Marek's chest and stomach were heaving with effort as he tried his best to keep quiet. The fire in his bottom was making that very difficult, but he managed to hold out, even as he struggled and writhed, and his eyes watered with tears. Then Tichy suddenly stopped, and the boy was momentarily relieved even as Tichy spoke. But why had he stopped? That hadn't been 40. It might not have been 15.

Marek didn't have long to wait for his answer, as Tichy dumped him to the floor, the man's left hand keeping a painful death grip on the back of the boy's neck. Marek grunted in pain and his eyes bulged as the man seemed to be trying to squeeze his neck from his body. A fresh blast of fear-based adrenaline coursed through his veins. It took the man only a single stride for him to reach to the upper bunk. Using his right hand, he maneuvered the mattress off the bed and tossed to the floor, then pushed Marek onto it. He then pulled the mattress from the lower bunk off and slammed it down on top of Marek just as he let go of the boy's neck. Grabbing the pillow from Marek's bed, Tichy collapsed his full weight on top of the Marek sandwich, crushing the boy, then jammed the pillow in the gap closest to Marek's face.

Everything happened so quickly that Marek had no opportunity to resist. Suddenly, the boy found himself smothered, crushed, and unable to breathe. For Marek, it felt like a trip to the bottom of the ocean floor. A heavy weight rested on him. His senses were cut off. Unable to see, unable to move, unable to hear, he panicked. He squealed and cried. His muscles flexed and bucked as he tried to move the mattress off him, tried to free himself from the weight. He couldn't breathe!

Radek watched it all unfold with the fascinated horror of a rubbernecker at an accident scene. What was Tichy doing to the kid? From under the mattress, he could hear Marek's muffled, frantic, squeals and screams. Tichy was suffocating the kid, but Marek possibly couldn't be out of breath that quickly. It wasn't even that tight a seal. Something seemed wrong, but the way the top mattress was still moving and even bucking with Tichy's entire weight on it was a marvel to behold. Marek was struggling with all his strength. What was this? Radek couldn't be quite sure what he was seeing. Was Tichy going to kill the kid for disobeying? Was Radek going to witness a murder here in his own dorm room?

"Get over here and lie down on his head!" Tichy ordered as Marek heaved and bucked beneath him, trying desperately to free himself. Muffled whimpers, frantic cries, and feverish grunts punctuated the boy's unsuccessful efforts.

Tentatively and very unhappily, Radek rose from his chair and approached the horrifying scene. As soon as he was in range, Tichy grabbed his arm and had him lie perpendicularly across the top of the mattress where Marek's head and shoulders were pinned underneath. As soon as he stretched out across the mattress, Radek could feel his roommate bucking and fighting beneath him, seemingly with superhuman strength.

Just like that, using a pair of mattresses and a pillow, Tichy had improvised the perfect claustrophobic nightmare for Marek. It had taken him only seconds to do it, but Marek was now dealing with a private hell that for him was far worse than being beaten with the slipper. It was far, far worse than that. It was like being in that gym, when he was five, mashed into the mat, with several kids atop him, unable to see, breathe, hear, or move …

Panicked and on the cusp of insanity, Marek fought to free himself. He screamed, but the sound was muffled. His body broke out in sweat. He tried to lift himself up, but the weight on his back and shoulders was too much. Marek was too constricted. He could barely move. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't do anything to help himself. He willed himself to pass out, but he didn't.

Outside the door, Kulka had heard strange sounds. He shook his head at the whispered inquiries. The other boys wanted to know what he was hearing and what was going on.

"I'm not sure," he whispered, as he pressed his ear to the door. Whatever he was hearing seemed muffled and garbled, and he couldn't make out what the sounds meant or what was happening inside the room.

Tichy gave Marek about forty seconds to panic – long enough to trigger his claustrophobia and terrify the youngster – but not long enough to risk rendering him unconscious. To the boy, it seemed like an eternity. Marek had stopped making noises – no doubt because he couldn't breathe – but he was still bucking and fighting underneath he mattress for all he was worth. Radek maintained his sprawled position over the lurching mattress, but he was silent and quite unhappy. He didn't know precisely what was going on, but he sensed that this wasn't the first time Tichy had done this to Marek. He could feel his roommate desperately fighting to free himself, probably trying to breathe. He tried to imagine what it must be like for the kid right now. Did it feel like dying?

As awkward as it was for Radek, it was magnitudes worse for Marek. It very much did feel like he was dying to the 12-year-old. He couldn't see or breathe. He was being crushed. Mashed. It was an endless, private hell between the mattresses for the youngster. Whenever he managed to find an opening or some space that might be a pocket of air, Tichy moved his body to cut it off or stuffed the pillow in the gap. The man was making sure that the memory of what was happening – and of what Tichy could do to the boy whenever he felt like it – would not easily be forgotten.

Finally, Tichy gestured Radek off the mattress, yanked it off Marek, grabbed the boy – this time by his hair – and pulled him over his lap on the chair.

"Scream like a little bitch," he hissed in the boy's ear. "If I don't believe you're doing your best and loudest, you're going right back to being the stuffed meat in the sandwich," warned Tichy quietly as he brought the slipper down hard on Marek's mottled backside.

When the man had finally freed him, the boy's eyes were wild with terror, and he was trembling like a leaf. Tichy's whispered words barely registered with him."Arrrgrhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Waaaaa haaaaa haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" he cried as he dragged huge, hyperventilated breaths into his mouth.

His beating resumed, then, and Marek was in no condition to resume his prior stoic attitude. Each vicious "CRAAACK!" of the slipper increased the fiery pain in Marek's buttocks, but it was the abject misery of his soul that had him screaming in short order. On and on the slipper rained down, each sound of impact joined by frantic screaming, screeching, crying, and wailing from Marek. The boys behind the door now most definitely could hear, without doubt, what was happening.

Radek's blood ran cold as he watched the scene unfold before his wide-open eyes. His mouth gaped in disbelief as he watched Tichy's arm rise and fall again and again and again, the slipper raining down on Marek's exposed backside. Each "CRAAACK!" sound was even louder inside the room, and since Radek was seated only five feet away, he not only heard each blow, but he felt the air moving like a fan from the sweep of the slipper's arc. He continued to watch in near disbelief as Marek writhed on the man's lap, but Tichy held him fast as he beat the kid's bottom raw.

Outside the door, the hallway was still as the sounds of the slipper hitting home and the high-pitched cries, wails, and screams of a young boy being severely punished pierced the air. The sounds were barely muffled by the door and easily audible almost to the end of the hallway.

"Holy shit!" mouthed Kulka as the boys listened intently, each of them thanking whatever power they believed in that they were not on the receiving end of what sounded like a terrible beating.

"It's gotta be Hurta," said Lisy for the third time.

"It sounds like him, but how can you tell?" replied Andrej Klepak.

"Shhhhhh," said Kulka again. "I wanna fuckin' hear this." But his admonition was unnecessary, as the sounds of Marek's dismay easily could be heard over the boys' conversation.

"What's Tichy saying?" asked Kader, as Kulka still had his ear pressed firmly to the door. He knew that he could take that chance because there was no risk of Tichy emerging from the room while he was vigorously beating one of its occupants.

"Nothing," replied Kulka, as the beating went on.

"CRAAACK!" went the slipper. Marek was wailing now, his voice high and keening as he screamed and cried in pain.

The problem for Marek was that Tichy liked making the kid scream, and he was not only pissed off at this point, but aroused, too, having so easily thrown the boy into an utter, claustrophobic panic. He laid into Marek's ass as much as he dared without absolutely wrecking it, and he enjoyed doing it. The symphony of shrieks, cries, begs, and wails the boy made appealed to his sadism. He ended up delivering all forty withering blows, and probably more; he didn't count obsessively, and he doubted very much that Marek did, either.

Marek felt every stroke of the slipper that Tichy laid down, but for most of his beating, despite his screams of pain, his mind was elsewhere. He was still in a state of panic over his near suffocation at Tichy's hands. His face-down position on the mattress, together with the immense weight pressing on his head and upper body, was the stuff of his deepest nightmares. For what seemed like an eternity, he had been utterly unable to breathe – constricted, immobilized, and incapacitated under the weight of the mattress pressing down on him from above. It had been all he could do to move his head, trying desperately for air, only to have the pillow make everything black again as it was jammed downward toward his face. It had been like being held underwater, unable to surface, unable to see through the inky blackness, unable to hear, drowning, with a thrumming like a muffled waterfall sounding in his ears.

When Tichy finally was done, he pushed Marek unceremoniously off his lap to the floor. Still wielding the slipper as a weapon, he stood and pointed to a space on the wall near the window.

"Corner time!" he snapped sharply, then began to count down. "Five, four, three, two, one," he said rapidly, while rapping the slipper firmly against his palm to make Marek aware of what he was counting down to.

Radek was stunned and sickened as the beating finally came to an end. He didn't like Hurta much at all – hell, nobody at the school did, and it had become almost a standing rule not to like him – but … damn. Between the mattress thing and the slipper, Tichy had just destroyed the kid. His roommate had been reduced to a shaking, whimpering, snot-nosed puddle at Tichy's feet. His ass cheeks glowed like a stop sign as he curled up naked on the floor, trembling and hyperventilating.

Radek was shaking almost as if he had been beaten himself. He had never seen anything like that in his entire life. Was this what was happening to the kid when he went to see Tichy every evening? No wonder Marek let himself get fucked in the ass. Radek would have let a dozen Kladruber horses fuck him for a day straight rather than go through what his roommate had just experienced in the last five minutes. Damn.

Outside the room, the boys backed further away from the door as the thrashing came to an end and the "CRAAACK!" sounds stopped, followed, not too long thereafter, by the end of Marek's frantic screams and wails. Heavy silence hung in the air. Several boys who had crept closer to the door backed off now, as the risk of Tichy emerging from the room suddenly multiplied exponentially. None of the assembled boys wanted to be in the line of fire when he did.

"Man," said Kulka as even he wisely stepped a few feet away from the door. He looked a little uncertain, perhaps even shaken at what he had heard.

"I don't think Hurta's gonna be prancing around in his pretty panties anytime soon," whispered Lisy with a shake of his head.

"I thought Tichy was making him wear them," replied Kader.

"Go ahead and tell Tichy that – I dare you," whispered Kulka.

"You tell him," Kader replied as he raised his hands in a show of mock surrender. "I'm not saying anything."

"You think he's gonna do Kinter, too?" asked Kulka, more than a bit hopefully, as the other boys shook their heads and shrugged.

Marek's screams abated almost as soon as Tichy dumped him to the floor. They were replaced immediately by hyperventilating and wide-eyed, panicked tremors. The boy's body curled in a fetal position as shakes heaved through his slender, naked frame. Although he was distraught from his ordeal and wanted nothing more than to remain where he was, the boy's survival instinct nevertheless kicked in at the sound of Tichy's countdown, and he rose painfully but quickly to his feet and rushed to the proper spot and position against the wall even before his brain had fully processed the situation.

Radek looked on in surprise as Marek quickly assumed a bizarre leaning position against the wall. The red-haired boy had no idea what "corner time" was or meant. He'd never heard of such a thing. What was Marek doing with his head and face leaning against the wall? Why was his butt stuck out like that? Damn it was red. Radek wondered just how many times Tichy had made his roommate do this. How many times had Marek been beaten by Tichy that he would know, even in his obvious state of distress, exactly what "corner time" was?

Tichy regarded Marek's instant compliance and glowing bottom with smug satisfaction, but he was not about to tell the boy that he had done well.

"I've had it with your resistance and noncompliance, Marek," he warned the sobbing, shaking, traumatized child.

"You, young Mr. Kinter," Tichy said, pointing at Radek. "You are now the boss of this room. You are absolutely and completely in charge of him," he said, now pointing at Marek. "Use your new power as you will, but you will use it daily. A minimum of once every single day, you will give this arrogant, disobedient boy a command – and not just something idiotic like scratching his ear or touching his nose, but either a chore or a challenge, something he won't like the sound of or want to do."

Tichy paused for a moment and walked to where Marek was kneeling on the floor with his head against the wall. He brought the slipper down moderately hard on the top of the youngster's sobbing head, then turned back to Radek as Marek whimpered anew and cowered as much as his helpless position would allow.

"Tell him to strip naked with the door unlocked," he gave as an example to the wide-eyed redhead. "Give him five minutes of corner time. Tell him to take a cold shower and drip dry. Tell him to take the trash out dressed only in his pajamas or underwear. You will give him a command like that at least once every day, and more if you wish. If he hesitates to obey, you will tell me immediately or you will be in serious trouble. Marek is a sneak, a wimp, and a cheat, so be vigilant. If he tries to bargain or plead, no matter how much he tries to make up for it afterwards, you will tell me. If he outright refuses, you will tell me."

Radek swallowed and nodded as he tried to take it all in. Tichy suddenly had imbued him with immense power over Marek, but those same powers came with serious burdens and responsibilities. For a moment, the redhead felt sorry for himself. Why was he being dragged into this? Every other one of Tichy's threats now seemed to be directed at him if he fucked up, and Tichy wasn't asking him if he wanted to be a part of this – he was telling him that he was. Radek wondered what the fuck Hurta had done to get the man so angry. There had to be a history here that Radek didn't know about, but he wasn't sure he really wanted to know, and he certainly wasn't about to ask.

Tichy brought the slipper down on Marek's head once again, bringing another unhappy squeal from the boy, then traced it down the kid's spine to his mottled buttocks before giving him another moderate whack there, as well. Marek whimpered and flinched in dismay but held his position against the wall. Since all the fight was out of the boy, Tichy turned his attention back to Radek once more.

"You'll test him daily and report to me daily on his performance until further notice," he told the reluctant boy. "You have spanking rights with this slipper on Marek's bare ass. If he refuses to take a spanking from you, you'll come find me and tell me right away. You'll tell me how many you intended to dole out, too, which I will then proceed to triple when I take care of the problem. If you fail to test or fail to report, you're in trouble with me, and you don't want that to happen, do you Radek?"

Radek shook his head at the thought. "No, comrade Tichy," he replied in a meek voice.

"Don't be so timid, Radek," replied Tichy with a semblance of a smile. "I guarantee you will not be punished for pushing things too far; just don't get him injured or killed. If you manage to come up with something that makes him hesitate or refuse, you'll be rewarded. I want this to be challenging for him. He needs to learn about obedience at a whole new level. Do you understand?"

"Yes, comrade Tichy," the boy replied solemnly.

"Good," said Tichy. "Now, let's try this. If he disobeys, I'll open the door and give him a few more. Then he can practice his obedience in front of the other boys. We both know he doesn't want that, but let's see what happens, first."

Radek gulped. He didn't relish being placed in charge of Marek for any number of reasons, not the least of which was that he knew the Moravian kid could whip him in a fight with one hand tied behind his back. It also didn't help that at core, Radek was a coward, and although he could be cold-hearted and malicious if given the opportunity, he wasn't an experienced sadist, and not all that smart or creative. If not for the examples Tichy had provided, he likely would have had difficulty coming up with a command to give to Marek on his own.

"M- Marek?" he said to his kneeling, trembling roommate. He wasn't about to start calling the boy "Hurta" like Tichy did – it just sounded weird to him. "Get me that slipper. And put the mattresses back and make the beds," he said, with as much command in his voice as he could muster.

Tichy didn't visibly react. He wasn't impressed, of course, but it was a start. After all, the Kinter boy was only 12, and Tichy knew that it took time for someone to develop a commanding presence, especially when that person was a child. He took a seat on Marek's desk chair to watch the proceedings as they both waited for Marek to obey.

Despite his condition, Marek had overheard enough of the conversation to have some idea what was going on, and when Radek gave him his instructions, he turned from the wall on his hands and knees with a tiny whimper and began crawling, face down and still shaking like a leaf, toward Tichy once again. Arriving at the man, he looked up. His eyes were wide as dinner plates and mostly unfocused, and his face was a flushed, tear-streaked, snotty mess.

"Please, Mr. T-Tichy," he croaked as he trembled on his knees before man, "may I h-have the slipper?"

Tichy thoroughly enjoyed the act of stuffing the slipper between Marek's jaws, then observed with satisfaction as the boy crawled to Radek to deliver his prize. He noted with approval as the chubby boy took it with a vague semblance of emerging authority.

Radek watched in awe as Marek first crawled to him with the slipper in his mouth, then crawled back to the mattresses. As Marek climbed slowly and uncertainly to his feet, Radek saw that the kid was hunched over, as if he had been punched in the stomach. He was still shaking like a leaf in a stiff breeze, and he looked nothing at all like the athletic young footballer whom Radek had come to know. Right now, he looked old and stooped, like a geriatric hospital patient many times his age.

As he watched his roommate slowly re-making the beds, Radek realized that Tichy had been right about at least one thing: Marek's attitude appeared much improved – if turning the kid into a panting, hunched-over, trembling, near-catatonic, compliant zombie-boy constituted an improvement. Radek wasn't at all sure what to make of that, but he knew one other thing for sure: He didn't want what had just happened to Marek Hurta to happen to him – not in this lifetime, not ever.

Now Radek found himself caught up in this whole thing involving his roommate and Tichy. He hadn't asked for any of it, but here it was. It did cross his mind that being the boss of Marek could have its upsides and perks, although the idea of making his roommate hate and resent him was scary. The need to come up with suitable tasks for Marek to perform each day weighed heavily on the boy. Everything he told the kid to do would have to meet with Tichy's approval. As his shaking, naked, red-assed roommate made the beds, Radek's mind was working overtime to try to come up with something humiliating and bossy enough to get Tichy off his back without making Marek hate him with a passion.

It was a scary new responsibility to balance, but in the end Radek decided that he was more afraid of annoying Tichy by being too soft on the kid than he was afraid of pissing Marek off. After all, at least for now, he was the boss of Marek, complete with spanking rights. And for the moment, at least, Tichy was here to help enforce whatever Radek told the kid to do, and he had specifically promised not to punish Radek if he pushed things too far.

As Marek finished the beds, Radek cleared his throat. His voice was tense and squeaky when he first began to speak, but it grew stronger as continued.

"I want to talk to comrade Tichy in private," he told Marek. "Get your toothbrush and toothpaste and go brush your teeth – as you are!" he added as he gave the man a nervous look.

Tichy suppressed a smile. He was pleased with Radek's first real command. The man knew that having the redhead in on the whole thing gave him a new way to torment the Glass King's grandson even when the boy was in the relative safety of his dorm. After all, no matter how many private punishment sessions he held with the kid, Marek still spent most of his time out of harm's way either in classes or here in his room. If things worked out with Radek – and Tichy had every reason to believe that they would – Marek would have another worry to contend with even during those times when he wasn't visiting the apartment or office of his nemesis. Having his roommate to deal with certainly would keep Marek on his toes, especially now that he knew that disobeying Radek was the same as disobeying the school's disciplinarian.

Marek couldn't stop shaking as he made the beds. His crying had stopped, but not his shivering, hyperventilated breathing. He moved with a stoop, as if favoring his stomach. He looked pale, and his eyes had a far-away look in them – as if the boy were not in the room with the other two. He was still stark naked, and he felt cold as he wrestled the mattress back to the upper bunk and replaced Radek's top sheet, then did the same with his own bed. Next he replaced the pillows, still shaking like a leaf.

When he was finished, he seemed lost for a moment, unsure whether he was supposed to be standing, kneeling, or back in corner time. Then Radek cleared his throat and gave his orders. There was almost no hesitation in the Marek's compliance, and certainly not a delay long enough to bring Tichy's fury; the short pause could very well have just been the distressed boy processing what he had been told to do.

But Marek's pause wasn't merely from distress. The parts of his brain that were still functioning at a good clip knew that complying with Radek's command would be the true end of the privacy that he had wanted all along. Ever since his very first punishment session with Tichy, privacy had been the thing he had wanted more than anything else. He hadn't wanted the other boys to know about the nature and severity of his punishments, and he had gone to great lengths to avoid them being revealed. But now his privacy was gone, blown sky high in a single evening by Tichy's unexpected visit to the dorm. His classmates undoubtedly already knew that he had just been beaten, and now they would see the humiliating aftermath of it.

Marek knew here was no way out now. Tichy had betrayed him. He had placed his trust in Tichy's word, but now everyone knew. In just a moment, they would know even more.

With a whispered "Yes, sir," Marek made his way, still slightly hunched, to his cabinet and removed his nylon bag containing his kit. Moments later, stark naked and with his face beet red, he left the room.

Just as he had predicted, he was not the only one in the hallway. And by the time he had made his stooped, shaking passage to the bathroom, there were at least 20 boys out of their rooms to watch his progress. His red, welted bottom spoke for itself in terms of which boy had taken the beating and how severe it had been. Despite his shame and two sets of red cheeks, Marek's eyes remained straight ahead as he entered the bathroom and went to the sink.

"Holy shit," said Kader after he had passed.

"Man," replied Kulka incredulously.

"And there you have it," commented Kulka to the others as soon as Marek entered the bathroom. "Whatever you do, don't mess with Tichy."

"As if we didn't already know," gulped Kader.

"Well, now we know-know," said Kulka. "For sure. With a practical example."

"Man, I'm so not breaking any rules ever at this school," muttered another boy as he retreated down the hall and returned to his room.

There were two boys already in the bathroom brushing their teeth when Marek entered. Eight more followed him in and watched from the vicinity of the doorway as Marek approached an empty sink and unzipped his kit.

"Little Mr. Bourgeoise here only got it because he disobeyed and thought he was better than everyone else," said one of the boys standing behind Marek. It was Nikola Svoboda once again, the boy who had been deprived of his fun in the showers earlier in the day. "You all heard Tichy yelling at him because he wanted special treatment."

Marek simply ignored the taunt and began to brush his teeth as the group of boys behind him continued to laugh and whisper amongst themselves. Marek could tell with a sinking feeling that something was brewing, but he continued to concentrate on the task at hand. What else could he do?

As if on cue, Nikola stepped directly behind Marek just as he was placing his items back in his kit.

"So, is this like a part of your punishment?" he taunted. "Walking around naked so we can see how bad you got it? I think you should show us your ass properly then. Bend over and touch your toes," he demanded arrogantly.

Marek's hyperventilated breathing had stopped by now, but not his tremors. He just couldn't stop shaking. His stoop was better, but he still seemed to be favoring his stomach, as if it were aching. He had just finished brushing his teeth when Nikola confronted him. So far, he had managed to ignore the looks, comments, and whispers from the other boys, but Nikola's direct challenge was a different story.

Marek ignored the other boy and turned to leave, but Nikola blocked his path. Marek's eyes scanned left and right, searching for an escape route, but there was no getting out of the situation without addressing Nikola and his sneering instructions.

"Comrade Tichy wants me to go back to my room," he said in a soft, non-confrontational voice.

Nikola froze and gritted his teeth at the mention of Tichy. He knew he was playing with fire if he delayed Marek too long, but the kid's excuse was lame. If Tichy had sent him down the hallway stark naked to brush his teeth, he clearly meant for Marek's backside to be seen by the other boys. Not to mention that Nikolas's earlier efforts to torment Marek after gym had been interrupted by Tauš, causing him much embarrassment. The boy decided to double down.

"Well then, touch your toes in a fucking hurry, Hurta, so we can all have a nice look and then you can be on your way," he snapped. "It's not like it'll be my fault if you're late and get in even more trouble," he added with a grin – although he was not at all sure about that last part.

There was no Tauš around to stop Nikola this time, and the boy was feeling his oats. The other first-year boys stayed back, preferring to watch the confrontation rather than get involved in it. Most of them didn't really want to be part of the bullying, and even if they did, Tichy's presence nearby dissuaded them. Most of them were staring at Nikola like he was totally mad for delaying Marek's return. Even Nikola was only barely managing to fake his bravado, but he knew that if he could just force the kid to comply with his demands, he would look like a real tough guy and hero to his classmates – and that was nothing to be scoffed at.

Marek did not want this at all. He didn't need it. He was standing in the bathroom completely naked, hurting, and freshly beaten. A quick glance revealed that there were eight other boys either by the door or in the vicinity of the sinks, not including him or Nikola, and they all were waiting for his reaction.

There was once a time when Marek would have stood up for himself and not shown the other boys any weakness. How silly that all seemed now. Being brave had gotten him nothing and nowhere. Still … Nikola was not someone he had been told he had to obey. The boy was an asshole, a small-minded, petty bully with no sense of honor or fair play. It was Nikola who had had threatened to pants Marek in the stairwell after Tichy had caned the boy so harshly that he could barely walk. Nikola had messed with him in the showers earlier today, and now he was messing with him again.

"No," Marek said simply. Whatever the consequences, he wasn't going to obey Nikola. He managed to stand up a little straighter, but despite his efforts, he still couldn't seem to stop shaking.

Nikola smirked, but he backed off half a step as Marek straightened up. There was something in the kid's eyes that reminded him of a hurt, cornered animal, and Nikola wasn't about to take any chances that he might snap and attack. Like a lot of bullies, Nikola wasn't all that brave, and much like earlier in the showers, he wasn't after a real fight. He would continue to torment Marek whenever and wherever he could because it was fun and easy, but he wasn't about to risk a fist fight with the naked kid, certainly not with Tichy still on the floor.

"Can't unHurta a Hurta, can you?" taunted Nikola as he tried to salvage something from the situation with insults. "Even bare-ass naked, spanked scarlet, and with snot and tears all over your face, you're still so proud. Of what, Hurta? Go ahead, tell us. Is it your millionaire Nazi grandpa?" Nikola smirked at his own wit as he stepped aside to let the kid pass.

Nikola may have backed off and stepped aside to de-escalate the situation, but it was just a bit too late. The mention of his grandfather, and the reference to him being a Nazi, was too much for Marek to take. With a fury born of nearly three months of being taunted, beaten, and bullied, Marek simply exploded.

With a grunt of determination, he dropped his bag and unloaded on Nikola, catching him full in the face with his first punch, then driving forward and tackling the boy, propelling him against the door of one of the empty stalls. The stall door flew into the inner wall with a loud bang and sent both boys toppling to the floor. Marek felt his right elbow go numb as it hit hard on the tile, but he quickly closed the short distance to Nikola on his hands and knees and set upon the boy, grunting as he climbed atop him while Nikola kicked at him with his legs and tried to defend.

"Get off me, you little fuck!" spat Nikola, who knew that fighting the naked Hurta kid from his back with his head two feet away from a toilet bowl was not a good look, even if Marek's first punch hadn't hurt him much at all. He was pretty sure he could take Marek if he had to, especially given the kid's condition, but Marek was in a frenzy, and Tichy was right down the fucking hall …

In fact, Tichy wasn't right down the hall; he was positioned at that very moment just outside the bathroom door, and from that vantage point he had overheard more of the exchange between Nikola and Marek than the assembled boys would have guessed. They parted like the Red Sea as the disciplinarian strode into the bathroom and approached the scene of the fight.

Marek was in a zone, in a frenzy, as he tried to stay atop the kicking boy and throw punches at his head. Most of them either missed the mark or could not penetrate through Nikola's defenses, but the effort certainly was there. Marek grunted as he swung away. Suddenly, he felt himself grabbed from behind under his arms and effortlessly lifted into the air. In the next moment he was deposited back on his feet, his chest and tummy heaving as he panted for air. It was Tichy, of course, and Marek knew then and there that he was doomed. The man glared at him in a way that did not bode well for his future.

"Stay put," Tichy told the naked, agitated youngster.

Kneeling on one leg, he reached for Nikola and roughly hauled the boy over his upraised knee. Reaching down, he tore the boy's sneaker off his foot before yanking Nikola's trousers and underpants down to his knees. With the boy's naked ass revealed to the remaining witnesses, he proceeded to lay into that ass with the sneaker at a steady pace. He didn't hit with anywhere near the force he had used on Marek, but it hardly mattered as Nikola started squealing in shock, pain, and humiliation almost right away.

"You will not interfere with punishments I mete out," hissed Tichy as he whacked away on the boy's backside, "and you will not mess with my discipline. I decide what Hurta and every other miscreant in this building gets for punishment and my decisions are not to be meddled with. Bullying someone while he's being punished is meddling, and it's an especially obnoxious way of being a bully," lectured Tichy as he spanked away. Then he paused and turned to Marek.

"Hurta, you decide when this is over," he told the stunned boy as he resumed raining painful blows down on somebody else's ass for a change – for the first time, at least that Marek knew, since he had made Tauš limp after the incident in the gym.

As the beating went on, Nikola screeched, writhed, and yelped. But as soon as he realized what Tichy had said, he cried out to Marek for help without so much as a shred of dignity.

"Hurta, please! Pleeease!"

Marek watched in shock as Tichy proceeded to punish Nikola. Marek almost couldn't believe his eyes. He hadn't really had time to think about it, but even as he had thrown his first roundhouse punch at the bully, his mind had signaled danger, reminding him, unhelpfully, that Tichy was near. But this was beyond unexpected. Marek was certain he would get his punishment as soon as Tichy was done with Nikola, but the fact that Tichy didn't automatically blame him for the entire incident came as a complete surprise, especially considering that he had thrown the first punch. When the man looked up at him and put him in control of Nikola's punishment, Marek looked like a deer in the headlights.

"O-okay," Marek said, almost as soon as he had processed what Tichy said. A split second later, Nikola begged him to make it stop. Marek didn't give a shit about Nikola, but he knew what a slippering felt like, and watching it play out before his eyes brought more than enough bad memories for him to want to end it. There was also the small matter of his own punishment that was sure to follow, and he didn't want to make that any worse by prolonging Nikola's chastisement.

"You c-can stop, sir," said Marek.

Tichy delivered two more blows with the sneaker to the kid's backside for good measure, then pulled Nikola's trousers up and pushed him off his lap.

"The next time you won't be so lucky and get off that easily," warned Tichy as Nikola adjusted his pants and made his way to his feet. The boy's face was beet red from embarrassment and his eyes were wet with tears. Still, he knew that he had been spared an even worse beating by Marek's intervention, and the indignity of full nudity by Tichy. He scurried away before his luck changed, blushing and jittery, his eyes down to narrow slits as he contemplated how he ever was going to live this calamity down with the other boys.

Marek stood by, grimly awaiting his own punishment, but Tichy surprised him once again.

"Go, Hurta," he told Marek. "I assume you've brushed your teeth. It's almost curfew time now." Tichy looked up at the handful of remaining boys who had been brave enough to stay through Nikola's beating and perhaps were hoping to witness another. "Everyone should finish washing up and get to your rooms," said Tichy, calmly, but firmly. The boys dispersed, and suddenly, there was no crowd. Tichy and Marek were alone.

"You hate me, and you feel betrayed, and I'm not going to argue my point," Tichy said to the naked youngster. "But you did take your oath, and you are a TB." It was the only explanation he offered for what had just transpired. "Your room – now. You have new rules in place, so don't mess up."

With that, he was gone, letting Marek return to his dorm room by himself through a suddenly empty hallway. There were no more taunts or jeers and no more bullying. Most incredibly to the boy, there was no punishment for starting the fight, at least not for now. Marek was stunned by this development. He was so conditioned to expect a punishment from Tichy whenever he messed up that he simply could not fathom why Tichy had punished Nikola and not him. There was no question who had started the physical fight. There were ten witnesses to it, and Marek wouldn't have even tried to make an excuse for his behavior if Tichy had asked. The man wouldn't care that Nikola had goaded, taunted, and bullied him. He never cared.

Until Tichy reminded him, Marek had all but forgotten his "status" as a Tichy boy. So far, all it seemed to have brought him was pain and humiliation – that is, if he overlooked the protection it had afforded him from being beaten to a pulp by the other boys. He supposed that wasn't a small thing, after all, since apparently the protection of the cartridge also applied to Nikola's bullying.

Marek's head was spinning a bit at everything that had happened. Tichy's rules were so confusing sometimes, but he supposed they did make sense on some level – if anything in this whole crazy school made sense anymore. Marek would be so, so glad to leave it when the break finally arrived.

As soon as Marek made it back to his room, Radek impatiently pulled him in and locked the door before any of the lurkers and pranksters could invite themselves in. He collapsed onto his chair and sighed, contemplating things, and for now biting his tongue. Radek's five minutes alone with Tichy had not been fun, and his head was buzzing with all the requirements and must-dos the man had given him. The last one of those had shocked him to the core.

It didn't seem to Marek that his roommate knew anything about what had just taken place in the bathroom. The boy didn't ask about it, anyway, and Marek didn't offer any information. The fight had seemed to rejuvenate Marek somewhat. His ass still glowed and throbbed, but his shakes finally were gone, and he stood fully upright once again. The fear and panic of what Tichy had done to him with mattresses seemed to be behind the boy, at least for now.

"Comrade Tichy says he's done with you, but he wants you at his place tomorrow, 8 o'clock on the dot," Radek told his roommate. "Don't be late, and don't mess up. I'm supposed to come to his office at 5 o'clock to report on you and tell him how we got on between now and then, and the different ways I tested you," explained Radek. He paused then, looking a little sheepish.

"There's one more thing he told me to tell you to do tonight," Radek added. After another pause, he reached down and tugged his sweatpants and briefs down to his knees, exposing his flaccid penis. He looked embarrassed.

"I have to tell you to suck me off, even if I don't really like the idea," he said. "Comrade Tichy said I shouldn't knock it until I've tried it. But if you mention it to anyone though, I swear I'll spank you with the slipper even harder than he did," he warned.

"Go on then," said Radek somewhat angrily. "Tichy says you're supposedly really good at this." The ginger boy obviously was not at all keen on the idea of doing something this homo, even though Tichy had told him matter-of-factly that receiving a blowjob was just practice, a thing a girl might do for him later. It was only sucking a cock that made a kid a faggot.

Marek listened to Radek and then watched with dismay as the slightly chubby boy pulled his clothing down to expose his hairless, white-and-pink prick. He should have known that Tichy would inflict this additional torment on him. It wasn't the blowjob that was the problem, of course, as he had given many of those. It was the fact that it was Radek he had to give it to. Then again, Radek already had seen what Tichy did to him. He knew. Radek was in on it now – not that he had been completely oblivious to what was happening up until now.

"I won't mention it," Marek told the other boy truthfully. And why would he? Hey, free blowjobs here! I just gave one to Radek – do you want one, too?

"Is it hesitating if I put my panties on, first?" he asked Radek deferentially. "Because if it is, I'll just do it right now."

"What's with the damn panties?" hissed Radek in frustration. "Is that some kind of poof trick? Like you think I'll suddenly forget you're a boy and it'll feel less homo while you're sucking me off?" He sounded more distressed and confused than angry.

"Tichy mentioned there were rules you have to follow," Radek continued. "He told me that if I get you to break them, you'll get punished, but apparently, that's up to me. Are the panties one of your rules?" asked Radek, suddenly realizing the obvious. "What else?" He was feeling a bit silly sitting there half naked and limp, anticipating a blowjob from another boy. Frankly, he didn't care about the blowjob and he already was sick of his new role as Marek's keeper. But Tichy's rules and instructions mattered, and he didn't want to mess anything up.

Marek hesitated for a moment, then opened his mouth to tell Radek about the panties and all the rules relating to them. Then he stopped suddenly as if he had been punched in the stomach. Tichy had told him not to tell anyone the real reason he was wearing them. It was one of his specific rules for the panty challenge. But did it apply to Radek? Marek wasn't sure. Tichy had delegated authority to the boy, but did that mean the other rules didn't apply? There were just so many rules. Even when Marek tried to abide by them, it was almost impossible to do so. Tichy could punish him every day for violating one or more of them – as if he even needed an excuse to punish him. Just by hesitating in answering Radek, Marek was violating at least one rule right now, even as he was trying to think through how not to violate any others.

In the end, Marek's fear of Tichy exceeded his fear of Radek's newfound powers by a wide margin. By a factor. He would have to lie to the boy and take his chances that he had made the right decision.

"No, I- I lost a bet," he explained. "I have to wear them for a week. Comrade Tichy doesn't … I mean, he knows about them, okay? But … that's all I can say," he said, as he implored the other boy with his eyes to understand, please understand. "I don't want to do it, either," he said, his voice a little choked up now, as he waited for Radek's response.

Radek was very suspicious. "Suit yourself," he replied dismissively. "Go on then, wear them if that's what you think you have to do. But then get just over here and do it," he sighed. If Marek were a girl, Radek knew that he would be stiff as a stick by now in anticipation of receiving a blowjob, but as it was, his dick was limp as a noodle. It wasn't even that he was put off by his handsome, athletic roommate; it was more the fear of being labeled a homo and the taboo nature of what they were about to do.

"I have no idea why he wants you to do this, but I'm not going to lie – not to him," Radek said with a shake of his head. "I'm supposed to tell you to try hard and remind you that there are worse things you could be doing with your mouth – I don't even want to know what that means," he said with another head shake. "I'm also supposed to give you a score afterwards, from one to 10. Go on then," he nodded nervously toward his still very small, shriveled up cock.

Marek felt sick to his stomach. He and Radek would never be friends, but he knew the boy better than anyone in the school, and recently things had been better between them. Blowing him would be a little like blowing a brother if Marek had one. He knew that Radek had betrayed him to Tichy, ratted him out, given Tichy papers from his trash pail, and likely planted notes for the man. He had told Tichy about Marek's wanking, which had gotten his roommate in a world of trouble. But Marek thought he understood Radek now. The kid just wanted to belong to something. He wanted to be part of things, not as a leader, but as a mere participant – a participant who was included with the cool kids. He wanted to matter here at the school. Marek could also see that Radek had been stuck with a pariah for a roommate. The kid had come here trying to fit in, and he had been forced to room with Marek, who everyone despised. It had to be hard on him.

In the end, Marek didn't bother with the panties. Radek seemed more weirded out by them than anything else. Wearing them or not wouldn't change what he had to do. He knelt before Radek and knee-walked between his legs.

"I'm sorry," was all he said to the boy before leaning down and taking Radek's shrunken penis in his mouth and beginning to suck.

For a while, Radek's prick remained stubbornly flaccid. "This just feels weird," he grumbled. "Wait." A moment later, a large t-shirt that Radek used for pajamas in warm weather was tossed over Marek's head. "You go on, I'll imagine it's a girl doing it," said Radek. The t-shirt was light and loose on Marek's head so luckily unlikely to trigger his claustrophobia.

Marek was fine with the shirt draped over his head. He preferred it. Radek wasn't forcing him to look at him, anyway. Not like Tichy with his menacing reminders. "Eyes," the man would always say to Marek, but what he meant was "Look at me while you're sucking my cock so I can humiliate you, or I'll beat the living shit out of you."

It took a long time for Marek's lips and tongue to get any reaction out of the boy, but he did his best, teasing and tantalizing Radek's little member, trying to coax it to an erection. It was well after 9:00 p.m. now, and while he had gotten a good sleep the night before, Marek was concerned that if he didn't get his roommate hard soon, this blowjob easily could take longer than any he had given Tichy to date, and he would be left on the floor, sucking endlessly, his knees aching, wishing he could go to bed.

Fortunately for Marek, after a lot of tongue work, Radek's cock began to firm up, and soon it was stiff as a nail. It turned out that Radek sported a good four inches [10 cm], about the same size and girth as Marek when he got hard, which was about 20 times a day now, and probably more at night. Marek took the boy deep with every bob. Radek's cockhead barely poked at his throat; Marek had long since learned to take at least five [12.5 cm] from Tichy without even gagging, and Tichy's cock was much thicker.

It was not long after that that Radek suddenly got the point of blowjobs. Before that moment, the idea had been alien, obscure, even weird. He had no idea what the fuss was all about. It was the stuff of jokes and puns for him. It was weird and pointless. But when the sensation first hit him, his breath caught in his throat. Oh my god, it felt good. It felt amazing. He kept trying to think of the neighbor girl, Agata, back home in Liberec, but he was too distracted by the intensity of the sensation. He kept the t-shirt over Marek's head for homo-protection, but he couldn't but know and feel that it was his roommate sucking him, and he still liked it. He liked it a lot. The wet, soft sensation on his cock was so much better than wanking.

Marek bobbed, tongued, and sucked under the shirt, trying to get the kid off. He knew he wouldn't be able to go to bed until he did, and even then, only if Radek was done with him for the night.

Wide-eyed with pleasure and disbelief, Radek mouthed silent curses like "holy shit" "oh my fucking god" "Jesus fucking Christ" and the like as he received his first-ever blowjob. He had jerked off earlier that day, so the pudgy boy showed stamina that his roommate didn't expect. Marek almost always had been able to get Tichy's boys off in under 10 minutes, and Tichy himself, most of the time, in no more than 15, but Radek lasted another twenty additional minutes from the time he first got erect.

Marek was surprised at how long it took the kid to cum. Even after he went hard – impressively hard, Marek thought – it took a lot of sucking, bobbing, and tonguing on Marek's part to get the job done. He could tell the kid liked it well enough – Marek could have done without all the dramatics – but the other boy just would not cum. Tichy sometimes held out on him, Marek knew. He would even slow down the pace or alter Marek's approach if he didn't want to cum right away. But every other kid Marek had sucked had spewed like a fountain within a few minutes. By comparison, Radek was a veritable porn star of restraint.

As Radek approached orgasm, he made a series of choked, tense, guttural sounds, before he gripped the edge of his chair, bent forward in pleasure. He was red-faced, bug-eyed, tense, and almost shocked at the intensity of the tingling sensation in his loins that just stretched on and on. And on. And on. Normally, when he came for the second time on the same day, it was just a whitish spittle, not even a teaspoonful, but when he came into Marek's mouth at the end of his first-ever blowjob, it was his usual load, which was a watery spurt, enough to warrant an audible gulp or two from his roommate. When his cockhead became too sensitive for anything more, he pushed Marek off.

"Well, fuck," said Radek after a pause to catch his breath. "I have a theory. This whole communism thing is a ruse, Catholics were right all along, Tichy is the Devil himself, and he literally just steered and tempted me to sacrifice my immortal soul for an eternity in Hell by committing a mortal sin," he gasped somewhat dazedly.

"Aaaarrrrgh," he groaned as he slid down in his chair, confused beyond anything he could recall in his whole life. Tichy had given him almost unlimited control over an experienced, no-limits blowjob slave, and it turned out that he loved blowjobs, whether they were homo, or not. In Radek's eyes, they were just about the best thing ever.

"That was too good," he said. "I give it an eight out of 10. And by the way, we are doing that again." Suddenly, he sat upright once again.

"Now, your rules – what are they?" he demanded. "I don't want to get you in any more trouble with Tichy than you're already in, but I'll test you. I'll boss you about and I'll do what Tichy told me to do, but I won't intentionally get you into any more trouble, as long as this stays a proper secret between us," he cautioned, even as he reached down to his ankles to pull his underpants and trousers up.

Marek was tired, but it took a long, long while to get through the rules. It was well after 10 p.m. before the two boys finally got to bed. Unlike Radek, Marek had not gotten off, and because the pain in his bottom left him no option but to sleep on his stomach, his needy cock erected almost as soon as he slid his hips across the mattress. It would be so nice if he could cum, just once, and then know that he'd be okay until the end of the term. Well, not okay, but better. He'd be better if he could cum just once. For a moment or two of sheer bliss, he allowed himself to hump the mattress gently. It felt so good. But he was worried that if he wasn't careful, he might get off, so he allowed himself only one more, and then two more little humps. And then a third. The tingle felt so good. One more hump was all he would allow, and he took it, clenching against the need, fighting it back and winning, then willing himself to stop before the sensation became too powerful to control and he risked a painful death at the hands of Tichy.

Marek fell asleep then, restfully at first, but as his subconscious mind took over, dark thoughts began to percolate in his brain. He was lying on the gym mat, face down. He was naked. His arms and legs weren't bound or didn't seem to be, but when he tried to move them, they wouldn't react at all. He could move only his head, and he did so, but it was difficult. The mat was soft, very soft, and two feet thick. It molded to his body, conforming itself to Marek's shape as if it were embracing the boy.

He felt a weight on his back, his bottom, his heels, the back of his head. It wasn't that heavy, and he couldn't see it, but he knew it was the mattress from Radek's bed. Oddly, he heard Nikola laughing – it was the same laugh from the stairwell, or maybe from that time in the showers, but it was the same laugh aside from the echoing sound effect Marek heard inside his brain. He tried to move his arms and legs, but they simply wouldn't obey. He lifted his head again, but it was harder now, the weight of the mattress pressing down. It was darker under the mattress, and warmer, too.

He knew he had to move his limbs, to rise, but he couldn't. He felt the weight of another mattress as it was placed atop the first one, and it scared him dreadfully. More weight, less illumination, and it was even more difficult to lift his head now. Nikola laughed again, and his laughter was joined by that of another boy. Was it Tauš? It was Tauš. But Tauš liked him, or at least, didn't hate him. And why was Marek hard? Why did his dick work but not his limbs? Nothing made any sense.

He spoke now, begging the other boys. He wasn't above begging for his life, but no words came out of his mouth. Suddenly, his mouth was full of sock. Somebody's sock. Tichy's sock. It had just appeared there, materializing from the ether. It had not been placed, or maybe it had just been there all along and he hadn't noticed it. Marek wasn't sure.

A third mattress weighed down on him as the boys laughed and cavorted. It was just the two of them, now, Nikola Svoboda and Borek Tauš. Marek willed his limbs to move, but they would not. He lifted his head, only to feel it pushed down again, weighed down by the mattresses and by a hand pressing down on the mattress. More laughter.

A fourth mattress, and Marek felt himself sinking into the mat like he was drowning in quicksand. He was having trouble breathing now. He no longer could move his head. There was little illumination by which to see, and then what there was of it was taken away as a fifth mattress was applied, then a sixth.

"They'll never find you under here, Hurta," he heard Nikola say, his voice muffled.

He heard Tauš laugh. "Do you want to play a game?" the boy asked, then laughed again.

He felt another mattress, then another. His limbs still wouldn't move. He couldn't breathe at all, not a gasp, and then he could feel the other boys climbing atop the mattress mountain, right over where his head was, as he desperately tried to lift it up.

They sat there – somehow Marek knew that they were cross-legged – and played the racing and betting game together. Marek could hear them clearly through the mattresses. They seemed to have forgotten about him as they laughed and played, forgotten he was even down there, below them, sinking deeper into the mat, endlessly deeper, deeper …

Marek awoke with a strangled scream loud enough to be heard in the hallway. Groaning and whimpering, unable to breathe, he fought free of his top sheet and blanket and fell to the floor, clad only in his panties. Wide-eyed and gasping, he clutched at his throat in the darkness, as if willing air to enter it, massaging it. He made as if to rise but then fell back painfully on his welted bottom, panting and gasping.

"What the fuck!" said a very startled Radek as he reached for the reading light affixed to the metal frame of the bed and turned it on. Looking down, he saw his roommate on the floor, clutching his throat with both hands, as if strangling himself.

Marek looked up then, his eyes wide, his expression one of confusion. He began to shake.

"I can't breathe," he told his roommate. But he was breathing, or he seemed to be, and he looked confused. His erection tented his panties. It was an odd sight.

"You had a bad dream," said Radek, but Marek shook his head no. It hadn't been a dream. It had been real. He was certain of it. But if it had been real, why was he in his room, not Tauš's? And why was he on the floor? He was breathing now, most definitely. He panted for air as his heart hammered in his chest. His body was moist with sweat.

Had it all been a dream? The mat, the mattresses, all of it? It had seemed so real. Was he going insane? He didn't really care if he did, because then he could go home to Vacenovice straight away. They wouldn't keep him here if he lost his mind.

Eventually, he climbed back into his bed. It took Marek over two hours to fall back asleep, and when he awoke to his alarm, it was a very sore, and very tired 12-year-old who rose slowly from his bed and prepared to take his panty-clad walk to the bathroom.

On the upper bunk, Radek had some dreams of his own. They were nice ones, though – ones he knew he would never tell anyone about. Marek was living in the next-door flat in Liberec. Marek in Agata's pale blue dress. Marek with Agata's braided twin-tails. Marek-Agata sucking his cock, again and again. In the playground behind the houses. In the park nearby. In the Liberec zoo, in the yard of the primary school where they went together. It was the girl he used to have a crush on and the boy he had such mixed feelings about – but from whom he had received possibly the best twenty minutes in his life thus far, and certainly the best orgasm – amalgamating in his sleeping brain in the weirdest way.

It was annoying to be woken by Marek's nightmarish antics in the middle of the night, but he soon slept on and had more mixed up, peculiar, obscurely homosexual dreams. He woke up stiff. His sleepy brain told him that Marek already was up and awake, getting ready for the day. But Marek was now supposed to obey him, all the time, right? In fact, Radek was supposed to be testing that, pushing Marek's patience, humiliating, and inconveniencing him. Tichy had implied he would only get rewarded if he succeeded in getting Marek in trouble.

"Wait," he said as Marek was about to step out of the room. Radek slipped down from the upper bunk to sit down on the side of Marek's bed and peeled his pajamas down, revealing his morning wood.

"You'll want to do this before you brush your teeth, I assume," shrugged Radek. This was the real him, taking advantage of the situation, demanding something he had initially been forced to try and now happened to like. It was totally homo and not likely to make Marek very happy, but he didn't care. If he could have that feeling any time he wanted, he was most definitely going to take advantage of the opportunity as often as he could.

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