Chapter 22

Marek put the book down and stripped naked in seconds. The pajamas came off as quickly as a towel draped across his slender shoulders. He climbed into the bed willingly and gently lay down on his stomach. His balls protested, but what could he do? Mr. Tichy was going to fuck him whether his balls hurt or not.

"Roll over," said Tichy as soon as he shed his clothes and joined Marek on the bed. Marek rolled over. He was the picture of obedience, but his expression revealed his fear. His swollen balls would be exposed in this position – very exposed – and the man had all but promised a memorable, vigorous fuck.

Tichy stroked his cock, which had been limp only moments ago but started stiffening at the sight of Marek's marred, naked butt. The man liked the look, but although the kid's bottom was welted, striped, and bruised, as the boy rolled over, he could see that the rest of Marek looked better. The kid was healing well. Exerting himself mentally but not physically, eating, resting in a way – including a peaceful evening – had helped the kid's genitals to heal. The swelling was now past its peak and not as bad as it had been this morning. The scabs were all dry. The boy's cock and balls were every color of the rainbow, but that was a sign that the blackness was starting to fade already. Progress was being made. The boy was recuperating.

Tichy grabbed Marek's ankles and pressed them back to his shoulders, then guided his cock straight into the kid's anus. The boy winced as the man entered him, but it was mostly a wince of worry more than of pain. Marek's sphincter was used to Mr. Tichy's girth by now, and it barely even tried to keep the man's cockhead out. The way Marek's balls were swollen raised them towards the root of his cock, so fucking him this way was a small mercy because they weren't squashed or chafed. More than that, as Tichy slowly and gradually worked his very well-lubed cock into Marek's behind, he hit the kid's prostate nice and hard. Marek's cock couldn't erect much due to all the swelling, but it did grow a little and twitch, bringing a smile to Tichy's face as he poked at the spot again and again.

The man was being very cautious with his balls, which was all that Marek could ask for. The pleasurable sensations he felt from his inner penis was a bonus. The man was hitting his spot the way Marek liked it. It didn't happen every time they fucked, but it was happening now. Marek felt the pleasure, and his cock started to react a bit, which was nice despite its rather horrid state, but suddenly Marek's eyes went wide with worry. He could not allow that. No. No way. No way was he going to give Mr. Tichy any reason to take a bullwhip to his genitals ever again. The boy had already resolved that he was never cumming again, not ever, certainly not until he graduated from the school or Mr. Tichy was dead – or maybe both, just to be safe.

Trying to avoid becoming aroused, Marek swallowed nervously and thought about eating shit. It was the worst, most awful, terrible, horrible thing that he had ever done in his life, so he thought about that. He thought about shit. The stuff was chewy and earthy, vile, disgusting, and vomit-inducing. The muscles of his face wrinkled and curled at the memory. He forced himself to relive it. He forced himself to think of nothing else. No erections. No boners. No arousal. No cumming.

Eat shit, Marek Hurta. Eat it and like it, and don't ever get a boner ever again.

Tichy deliberately jabbed at the spot quite persistently and it soon dawned on him that there was a problem. Had his whipping broken the boy's cock to the point where he couldn't get it up anymore? Was the process of erecting so painful that it was killing the kid's arousal? The man enjoyed forcing sexual pleasure on the tormented boy, but Marek didn't seem at all aroused.

Marek really fought it, and successfully, too. He figuratively ate shit for most of his buggering, holding it in his mouth, causing his saliva to flow against the memory of the taste. His penis gave no sign of the slightest arousal, even before the man adjusted the angle of penetration. There was no way Marek would let himself become aroused. No way at all. He was never going to be bullwhipped again, not for anything he did, anyway.

The man pouted and bit his lip, trying to figure it out. Then he got it: Marek was actively resisting becoming aroused. That made perfect sense, since the boy was not even 48 hours removed from having had his crotch whipped into a bloody mess for cumming, but it diminished Tichy's fun. Then again, Marek wasn't even close to fully healed, and the man wasn't going to let him cum anyway, so he didn't push the issue. In fact, he adjusted his angle to fuck Marek a little deeper and to hit his prostate less, figuring that he might as well enhance his own pleasure if the kid wasn't going to get turned on.

Marek's strong and noticeable effort to fight and reject any arousal was admirable on one level, but a bit of a buzzkill on another. The kid's lack of pleasure wasn't enough to kill Tichy's boner, but the sex wasn't all that memorable, other than being the first time that Marek had so strongly resisted getting any pleasure from it.

It was a seemingly very passive, disinterested boy who fought the slightest hint of arousal and simply let the man use his backdoor to get off. Tichy came eventually and slipped his cock out of the kid's ass, while Marek let his legs down and waited on the bed to see if the man wanted him to do anything else. He was ready to clean Mr. Tichy's cock with his mouth, but he wasn't directed to do so. Indeed, although there was no shit on his cock, the man headed straight for the bathroom to wash. When he came back, he slipped on a new pair of boxer shorts and cocked his head at Marek.

"Go wash but keep your shower short – you don't want to soak the stitches," instructed Tichy. "Brush your teeth, too, we're going to sleep," he added neutrally. He was feeling proud of himself for delivering his disciplinary message to the boy so well, but with the kid now fighting any arousal, the whole point of keeping him horny and on edge was sort of ruined, so it wasn't without a touch of wry sadness that Tichy enjoyed his victory.

"Yes, sir," replied Marek as he climbed from the bed and went into the bathroom. He showered, cleaning his butt hole, and coaxing as much of the man's cum out as he could, but he knew from experience that no matter what he did, more would leak out during the night from Mr. Tichy's typically copious load. He brushed his teeth, then returned to the man, mostly fresh and clean and still naked, but with only a cursory cleaning of his sensitive balls and penis, which remained stained from the iodine.

It was time for bed, and Marek was suitably tired, although aside from the aching pain in his balls and the trauma and terror of the oral exam the man had given him, it hadn't been a bad day, and not bad was pretty good, considering his situation. These things were relative, after all.

Tichy knew that eventually he would have to explain that his control over the boy did not mean that the kid never could experience arousal or boners, but now wasn't the right place and time. He aired the room, took one last piss, slipped into the bed, and curled up behind Marek, once again hugging and drawing the boy in close. The man was tired, and he knew that it would not be long before he drifted off to sleep.

Marek wasn't sure what to expect when the man climbed into bed with him. Would Mr. Tichy want to snuggle with him or was he still angry? He didn't really want the man to snuggle with him, except that he very much did. The boy was starved for any kind of human contact and affection, and as much as he hated and feared Stanislav Tichy, another part of him absolutely worshipped the man. Mr. Tichy was big, strong, fit, manly, powerful, all-knowing, connected, wealthy, and fearsome, and these were all things that Marek was not. Had Mr. Tichy set out at the beginning of the term to groom and befriend the lonely, bullied, and fatherless boy, he likely would have had Marek eating out of his hand just a few weeks into the term. It likely wouldn't have taken all that much longer to ramp up the expectations, overcome the boy's reservations, and turn him into a secret, at least semi-willing sex partner. The man had obviously gone in a totally different direction with the vulnerable boy, but Marek's innate need for acceptance by someone – anyone, really – left him subconsciously and even consciously craving the man's approval, even after everything Mr. Tichy had done to him.

Tichy dropped off to sleep quickly and had some strange dreams. At one point he seemed to be fucking Marek's corpse, which was really that of a cute Marek-like boy who turned out to be a marionette. Then he was fucking Marek who turned out to be a comatose, swelled-up, fatter-than-he-really-was Radek. Then the dreams ended altogether, and the man slept like a log.

The boy was tired, too, and it wasn't long before he drifted off. He awoke spontaneously a little over two hours later and to his surprise, he had an erection. His surprise immediately was followed by alarm. Marek knew that if he had another wet dream, Mr. Tichy would castrate him and systematically flay the skin from his body. Instantly, the boy was wide awake. How could he go back to sleep if his penis was going to betray him like that? He simply was not allowed to cum. Period. Plain and simple. He was not allowed to cum, and he didn't intend to cum, probably not ever again, but certainly not for years at a minimum. But how could he control what happened when he slept? Even if he didn't feel horny enough to cum, how could he take that chance?

He couldn't take that chance. He would have to stay awake. Tomorrow night, he would ask Mr. Tichy if he could wear the anti-cumming shorts to bed, but he didn't dare awaken the man to ask if he could get them now. It was pitch black outside, still the middle of the night. Marek didn't know the time, but it looked like it would be hours and hours before morning.

He forced himself to stay awake. He lifted his right arm straight out above him in the darkness and held it there, with his hand outstretched in a vertical Heil Hitler salute. He could hardly fall asleep again if he kept his arm in the air, which he did for 15 minutes or so until it started to tire, and he brought it down to rest. Now the rest of him felt tired, as well. He yawned, but he knew that he could not allow himself to fall sleep.

Moving slowly so as not to awaken the man, Marek sat up in the bed. He sat Indian style, with his legs crossed, willing the morning to come. He sat, and sat, and sat in the darkness. He thought about getting up and taping his penis to his groin. If he taped it, he reasoned, it couldn't get hard without dislodging the tape and waking him up. He knew he had seen tape somewhere in the apartment, but he couldn't remember where, and he was worried about Mr. Tichy waking up and finding him gone from the bed without permission. There also was the strong likelihood that the man would wake up in the morning and see the tape on Marek's genitals, which would be difficult to explain. No, he would simply have to stay awake until morning.

He almost made it, too. The first hints of dawn were already starting to lighten the outside world when the exhausted boy finally lay down again for just a moment, only to fall deeply asleep almost instantly. He had been awake sitting up in bed for almost three hours.

For the first time in a few days, Tichy woke up without a boner. He also awoke later than usual, as his sleep had been quite disrupted by his vivid dreams. What a way to start Christmas Eve, he thought to himself as he peeled the blanket off Marek and examined the sleeping kid's junk. It was looking better and better. Young, well-fed boys heal fast, and Marek was no exception. The blackness was gone, his balls were almost back to their normal size and shape, and even his little cock was less swollen. They still were a kaleidoscope of colors, but if the kid's crotch were spray painted in a flesh tone, his junk could pass for normal, non-wrecked boy genitals. Probably. Almost.

But those colors. Tichy groaned. The next time, he would have to think about his punishments a bit more and time them better. By punishing Marek so severely, he had wrecked the boy for days and ruined some of the fun for himself in the process. That was especially unfortunate because these were the days that he had Marek all to himself without any interruptions.

"Put some clothes on," he said as he shook the boy awake. "It's Christmas Eve. I'm cutting you some slack today and today only," he said as Marek woke up. "No begging, either. And breakfast first, before we do anything else, potentially," said Tichy, who left to put some Christmas cookies on a tray for an impromptu holiday breakfast. He made cocoa for Marek and tea for himself.

Marek did not awaken immediately as the man peeled back the sheet and inspected his genitals, but shortly after that, as the man groaned, Marek stirred. The first thing he did was yawn, but Mr. Tichy was speaking to him, so he forced himself to sit up, swing his legs over the side of the bed, and concentrate on what he was being told.

"Yes, sir," he said as he yawned again and stood up from the bed to stretch. The man wanted him to get dressed, but what kind of clothes should he wear? Pajamas? Regular school clothes? The man had said "put some clothes on." If he had wanted Marek in pajamas, he would have said so.

"You look like you didn't sleep too well," observed Tichy. "Does it still hurt too much, even when you lie down on your side?" he asked as he glanced toward Marek's still recovering, but undeniably badly marked and hurt crotch.

Marek tried to rub the sleep from his eyes as Mr. Tichy spoke to him. He had not slept well at all, receiving only a little more than half of the rest that the man had enjoyed, but what could he say? His erection had scared him. He hadn't even been sure that things even would work down there after the flogging his genitals had received, but apparently, they still did. That was a problem, and potentially a big one. Marek sometimes felt horny and tingly, like he really needed to cum. It was hard to explain the feeling, but when he used to wank at home, it was always a desire, not a need. He used to enjoy wanking and cumming – several times per day, in fact – and he never went more than 24 hours in between efforts. But here at school, because of Mr. Tichy's rules, he had been going much longer without satisfying himself. When he did that, his tingles went from a desire to a need, and he would get boners all the time and become aroused whenever anything so much as brushed against his penis.

But the penalty for disobeying Mr. Tichy's no-cumming rule was beyond severe. No amount of pleasure would ever be worth undergoing that again. Marek knew that he had been lucky to survive it with his bits and pieces still intact. He hadn't even broken Mr. Tichy's rule on purpose. It had been an accident – a wet dream – and the man knew that, but he still had beaten Marek savagely for the mistake. The boy vowed that it never would happen to him again. He would not wank again, not until he was safely out from under Mr. Tichy's supervision, but he could not control the wet dreams. He would have to ask the man for help, but not now. That could wait for later.

The reality was, his testicles had started to feel better yesterday, and they were even better today, which was good news generally, but also meant a return to erections and tingles and other things that Marek wasn't allowed to enjoy. It meant being on guard all that time. It meant worrying, and the boy was suitably worried. Mr. Tichy's bullwhip had seen to that.

"It's- it's better, sir, I think," stammered Marek as he tried to wipe the sleep from his eyes. He was tired. Very tired. He hoped that Mr. Tichy man was sincere about being willing to cut him some slack today, because otherwise he wasn't sure how he would be able to make it through Christmas Eve.

The man departed, leaving Marek to his own devices for a few minutes. The boy used the time to splash some water on his face in the bathroom and try to wake up. Feeling a bit better, he dressed in regular clothes and wandered into the kitchen, still trying to rub that tired feeling from his forehead.

Tichy looked up as the boy entered the room. As attractive as Marek was naked, today he looked better with his clothes on. It was Christmas, and with his genitals covered, Tichy wasn't constantly reminded of the consequences of the brutal punishment he had meted out to the kid.

After the breakfast of Christmas cookies, Tichy took Marek for a walk, just down the hill into Brod to see the decorations. Most businesses were closed, of course, but the carp salesmen were out, still trying to sell the last living fish to the people who didn't buy them ahead of time. Most Czechs kept their carp swimming in a bathtub for a few days to kill and eat fresh on Christmas Eve, but there always were a few who waited to buy them at the last moment.

There was a decorated Christmas tree on the main square, with Karel Gott's "Purpura" blasting from the loudspeakers that normally were used for political announcements. It was a popular and catchy Christmas song, but because it didn't mention the religious and spiritual meaning of Christmas, it was encouraged by the regime.

For Marek, Christmas cookies for breakfast seemed decadent, and the trip into town was different and enjoyable. It was nice to be outside again for the first time since the shopping trip. Brod was laid out differently from Vacenovice, but otherwise, the Christmas atmosphere seemed much the same. There was a generalized, subdued excitement in the air, one of people making last-minute preparations for the most important day of the year. Marek couldn't help but feel melancholy. He would not be home for Christmas. He would not see his mother, his aunt, or his cousins, or his friends. Did they even still care about him? Not a single note, card, or a phone call had come from home.

Almost everything was closed, but one café-bar on the corner of the main square was open and lively. Tichy took Marek inside and treated the boy to a non-alcoholic cherry punch. He enjoyed a mulled wine himself while the two of them had a little rest among the bustling, generally cheerful people. It was a decent day weatherwise in what had been a relatively mild winter so far. The weather had been cold and snowy but not a calamity. There hadn't been a dramatic shortage of anything essential recently and people really did seem to be connected and on an even keel. On a peaceful, tranquil day like this in a place like this, it wasn't hard to believe in socialism.

The stop in the little café surprised the boy. That was something that Marek's mother never did, not even once that he could remember. There simply wasn't enough money for such trivial things. But as he sipped on the punch that his mother would never have bought for him, suddenly the boy was overcome with feelings of longing for the woman and home. Was she okay? Was she home from the hospital? He didn't know. There had been no news from home and no contact since his phone call with his Aunt Martina. He still blamed his mother for sending him to the internat so far away from home, where he was behind enemy lines and everyone hated him, but he had never stopped loving her. He had never spent Christmas away from home before, either.

Marek looked away as he quickly rubbed the wetness from his eyes. He was a big boy of 12 years old, and he didn't want anyone – including Mr. Tichy – to see his tears. The man was trying to be nice. They seemed to be back under a flag of truce once again, and Marek desperately wanted to keep it that way. Mr. Tichy hadn't even insisted on his third orgasm last night, which had surprised the boy.

They eventually left the café and resumed their walk. The center of the town was quite busy, and it felt strange for Marek to be properly and warmly dressed and in public for the first time, not including his dramatic and failed escape attempt, of course. The shopping trip didn't count, because Mr. Tichy had led him around with his balls on a string leash and Marek had been consumed with dread every step of the way over the accumulated punishments he was facing. Things quietened almost as soon as they left the main square, though. Brod was a small town, and most people were at home or with family on this day, which was when most Czechs celebrated the Christmas holiday.

They went for a stroll along the river, which was partly covered by ice, but still vigorously rushing where it hadn't yet frozen over. They walked past Marek's grandpa's old factory, but Tichy didn't point it out or say anything about it. Some things were better left unsaid. The boy couldn't have missed it, however. The building was enormous, and it sported a big Technoglass sign. After following the course of the river for a bit they climbed up a small, narrow cobbled footpath past an old church and returned to the internat from a different direction. They were almost overdue for lunch by then, but Tichy was aware that Marek was likely not entirely comfortable moving about just yet, so he had intentionally walked slowly and allowed for a good bit of rest in café in the square.

To Marek, it had seemed as though they were just out for a walk. It felt almost normal, but when they walked past the Technoglass factory, the boy's heart began to race in his chest. Why had Mr. Tichy taken him here? It couldn't have been an accident. It was hard to miss the building as it was by far the largest in the town. It was big, rectangular in shape, and long. It was here that Marek's grandfather had abused and exploited his workers, and sometimes even caused their deaths. It was here that the man had ruined so many lives in the name of money, profit, and capitalism.

It would take nothing for the man to drown him in the river right in front of his grandfather's old factory or even take him inside and throw him in one of the glass kilns to burn to death, but as they walked past the old factory, Mr. Tichy said nothing. It took well more than a minute to walk the length of the massive building, but still Mr. Tichy said nothing. He didn't have to. The building was quiet this day, but Marek knew that its walls held the secrets of his grandfather's transgressions. The boy felt ashamed. For what seemed to him like the millionth time since his arrival at the internat, he wished that he never had been born a Hurta. More and more, he wished that he never had been born at all.

Suddenly, not far past the factory and up a path that Marek had not known was there, they were back at the far eastern edge of the school grounds. Their stroll had been a loop. The walk had been nice, different, and very welcome to the boy. His testicles were throbbing a bit, but tolerable, and he no longer felt as tired as when he had first woken up. It was almost lunchtime, and the flag of truce seemed to be flying. But what would the rest of the day bring? And what kind of mood would Mr. Tichy be in as it played out? Those important questions remained to be answered.

Back at the apartment, Tichy put a cassette of modern-day, Jesus-free, politically acceptable Christmas carols on and cooked a meal of green-pea soup and fried croutons. He wanted to keep things simple. Then he went almost straight on to prepping the Christmas dinner, which Czechs traditionally ate on Christmas Eve. He also gave Marek some time to rest. He wasn't sure why the boy looked so drowsy after the relatively light lunch, but the kid was sleepy enough for Tichy to command him to strip, get in bed, and nap. Tichy would wake the boy up himself when he saw fit.

Marek ate the lunchtime meal, although pea soup wasn't his favorite. Just about everything the man served for food was better than anything he ate at the school's canteen and the soup wasn't bad at all; it just wasn't something he really enjoyed. At Mr. Tichy's insistence, he stripped off his clothes and lay down in the bed for a nap. He was tired, and he welcomed the extra rest, but he was worried about his situation. He wanted to ask the man for the anti-wet-dream shorts, but there didn't seem to be a good opportunity to do so. The man already seemed to be slightly annoyed by or skeptical of Marek's sleepiness, so the boy decided not to exacerbate the situation by speaking out of turn.

Alone in the bed, Marek fretted. The danger of falling asleep was that he would not know if he boned up and started dreaming sexy thoughts. The truth was, he didn't even know what he had dreamed about when he had had his wet dreams, but whatever it was, his penis seemed to like it. He again considered taping his genitals to prevent an erection. He had seen the tape holder again and taken note of its location, but it was in the kitchen where Mr. Tichy was in the process of cooking dinner. There didn't seem to be a good solution to his predicament. While Marek didn't think he would have a wet dream during a nap – that never had happened to him before, after all – the bottom line was that he couldn't be sure, and that uncertainty worried him.

Eventually, however, the boy's state of fatigue dictated the outcome and he fell hard asleep, mercifully devoid of any dreams powerful enough to evoke an unwanted ejaculation. His traumatized balls and seminal vesicles were only just starting to resume regular production of semen, so despite his earlier sleep erection, his need to cum was not yet at the acute stage. It would get there soon enough, but for now Marek slept without any threat of making a terrible mistake while he did so. Unbeknownst to the near-comatose boy, he did erect as he slept – several times, in fact – but he avoided even a near-calamity and slept like a log.

It took Tichy the better part of two hours to prepare the dinner. There was fish soup of course, together with potato salad and schnitzels. He did some prep on the starters, too. It was a lot more than Tichy's poor mum used to do, but he had been inspired by a recent Christmas with the Skalas, who kept a traditional, almost First-Republic-style Christmas, the opulence of which Tichy initially mildly disagreed with but nonetheless had enjoyed and had now partly adopted as his own.

When Tichy went to check on him, the boy was passed out cold, a streak of drool oozing out of his mouth. Tichy wondered if the kid was perhaps up to no good at night to be so tired during the day, but he decided not to be mad at Marek over something he couldn't be sure of. Tichy went to tidy up the kitchen and set the table, then off to his office to pick up some parcels. He stopped to rip a palm-sized twig off a spruce growing in a row along the internat's tall fence. Once back in the flat, he hung the twig from the droplight and even put a red ribbon on it, then put the newspaper-wrapped parcels under it and lit a candle. It was time to check on the boy.

Marek had had almost three hours to rest, and who knew how much of that to sleep by that point. Tichy nudged and shook the still-sleeping boy awake.

"There's one thing I need you to do, and you'll need your day clothes on for it," he told the groggy boy. He then left the room and waited for Marek to finish waking up and get dressed.

Marek arose and dressed. They were going out again, or at least, Marek was. The last time he had gone someplace solo, it had been to the laundry, but he hadn't been dressed for that. Now he was dressed, so where was he being sent? He didn't think the man would dare send him off campus, so that left only a very limited number of destinations. Marek didn't have long to fret about his journey. As the scent of the cooking filled the air along with the upbeat, holiday music, the man explained where he was to go and who he was supposed to see.

"I rang Vacha's flat," said Tichy. "Ludmila will be down in the laundry room. You'll take this to her, and you'll be an obedient boy when you do. There's a message attached that says you don't need to be back for nearly an hour, which gives you plenty of time before supper. You'll do what she says and whatever she wants to do in that hour, understood?"

With that, Tichy handed him over an envelope and what clearly was a big wooden stirrer wrapped tightly in Christmas paper in a way that made it obvious what it was without the need to unwrap it.

"When she's done with you, come back here for dinner," said Tichy as he steered Marek out the door.

The boy's expression instantly turned fearful, and any hope he had that his visit was just to make a delivery was quashed when the man emphasized that he was to obey Smallpox and do what she said for up to an hour. The man's words rang ominously in Marek's ears. The boy had very mixed feelings about Ludmila. On the one hand, she was just an ugly, overweight, useless, irrelevant girl. Marek hadn't spent ten seconds thinking about her the entire time he had been at the internat before he fell victim to Mr. Tichy. On the other hand, she was not to be trifled with. She was older and bigger than he was, and a bully. Marek could tell that she enjoyed taunting and belittling him, and now she was bolstered and emboldened by her friendship with Mr. Tichy. The boy was under no illusions that an hour spent at Ludmila's beck and call would be nothing less than a nightmare.

There was also the embarrassment of his beaten and discolored genitals. If Ludmila made him take his pants down – and she was likely to, based on the power Mr. Tichy had given her over him – she would see the scabs and discoloration there and know that the man had beaten him. For some reason, it still troubled Marek to think of other people knowing what Mr. Tichy did to him. His classmates had witnessed first-hand – or first-ear, anyway – the beating that Mr. Tichy had given him in his dorm room, and that had mortified the boy, but at least it had appeared to be nothing more than a normal, albeit severe, punishment. Aside from Tichy's boys, whom Marek excluded, only Radek knew the full extent of what Mr. Tichy did to him. That was bad enough, but he didn't need Ludmila to know, as well. Radek could at least be trusted to keep his mouth shut out of fear, but Smallpox was just the sort to blab what she knew all over the school.

But Marek had no choice in the matter. If Mr. Tichy wanted him to go to see Ludmila, that's exactly what he would do. And so, with the appropriate acknowledgments and "yes, sirs" to Mr. Tichy, the boy made his way directly down from the apartment to the laundry room. The boy was full of dread as he entered through the closed door. He hoped and prayed that Vacha would be there to prevent any excesses from Smallpox.

Of course, Vacha wasn't in the laundry room; what would he be doing there, just shy of dinnertime on Christmas Eve? It had been locked with the lights turned off for several hours before Ludmila entered, and she relocked the door as soon as Marek walked in. She took the stirrer from him, unwrapped it and tapped her hand with it. She opened the envelope and read the letter, her grin widening as her eyes played over the page. As soon as she was done, she looked at Marek like he was a sweet, juicy treat for her to devour.

Marek had no idea what the note said, but his frown and worried expression matched Ludmila's smile and gleeful look facial muscle for facial muscle. Whatever the note said or didn't say, Marek knew he was in for a long hour with the ugly and mean girl. Mr. Tichy had apparently given him to Ludmila like a party favor, and the boy was filled with trepidation. At least with Mr. Tichy, he felt by now that he mostly knew what the score was. The man wasn't always predictable, but he had certain rules that were always in place and pretty much non-negotiable. You either followed the rules, or you paid the consequences. It wasn't at all fair, but it at least was consistent.

It was far, far different with Ludmila. As she locked the door to the laundry room behind him, effectively trapping him there, Marek had no idea what to expect. She was totally unpredictable to him, a wildcard. Yet, she had been imbued with the man's authority over him. The boy knew that disobeying her was the functional equivalent of disobeying Mr. Tichy, but the lack of any type of a roadmap or rules with her made him feel very unsettled. And did she really have complete authority over him? She wasn't a Tichy boy. She wasn't even a student. And she was a girl.

"Can't say you're in a hurry, this time, can you, huh?" taunted Ludmila, "or that Standa doesn't want me to have some fun. We both know what my Christmas present from him really is, so how about you just relax and let me unwrap it?" she said with a smile as she approached the boy.

It was all Marek could do to keep his mouth shut and not react, but he wasn't surprised that she had started right in on the teasing and taunting. She'd never given Marek a chance. He'd never been mean to her, not even once, but it didn't matter. She was a bully, plain and simple. She'd been mistreated and scorned by students at the school for years, and now fate – and a bizarre friendship with Mr. Tichy – had given her Marek on a silver platter to exact her revenge. She wasn't going to waste time even considering being nice to him. This was all just to bully him, just because she could. Mr. Tichy had made it clear that Marek had to obey whatever instructions she gave him.

The boy's clothing came off in a slow, teasing, methodical way as the Marek stood there helplessly, like a statue. His sweater was the first to go, followed by his shirt, button by button, which the girl then slid entirely off his slender shoulders. Next was his belt, followed by the button of his trousers. She knelt before him to remove his shoes and socks, then reached up to pull his trousers down and off. Only his briefs remained, and she gave them a little tug here, a little tug there, then teased her fingers around the hem and pulled them down and off. At the sight of his battered genitals, she emitted a little whistle.

Marek stood still as Ludmila disrobed him, and soon enough, he was naked. Smallpox homed in immediately on his damaged and discolored genitalia. She seemed almost gleeful. Did she have any idea what the man had done to him to cause that? Would she even care? She didn't seem to. No, she probably wouldn't care at all. She probably thought it was funny.

"Someone's been naughty," chuckled the girl. She didn't even seem surprised, let alone shocked when she saw his heavily marked genitals.

She stood up and stepped back to admire her present, almost drooling at the sight of Marek's nakedness. Damn it! she thought to herself. Standa was good. This was the best Christmas present ever!

"You're going to be a good boy now, Marek," she announced confidently. "Resist even a little and I'll grab you by the balls and make you!"

"Touch your toes and stick your butt right out," chuckled Ludmila as she picked up the stirrer. "I know exactly what I want to spend the next hour doing!"

Marek stood still, looking like he wished he were anywhere else as the ugly, older girl took in his naked body. He felt like a zoo animal, and he wanted to die of embarrassment. It was only when she told him to bend over and retrieved the stirrer, brandishing it happily, that Marek put everything together. The note, the stirrer, and Marek himself – all given to Ludmila by Mr. Tichy as a gift, apparently so she could beat him, but why? He'd been beaten with much worse, of course, but why? What was the point of it? And what had he ever done to the girl to deserve it?

Marek hesitated. He didn't want to be beaten, especially not by a girl. He knew that he would have to comply with her instructions or he'd face much worse than a stirrer when he returned to Mr. Tichy, but Ludmila wasn't Mr. Tichy, and he didn't feel so completely intimidated by her borrowed powers that he couldn't try to stick up for himself, at least a little bit.

"I'll do it because Mr. Tichy's making me," he told the girl in an even voice that barely controlled his emotions. "But it's not fair, and you know it. I never did anything to you. I never said anything bad about you. You don't even know me. You don't have to be like him. You don't have to do this. We could be friends. Even if you heard things about me, most of them aren't even true. You could give me a chance … but I know you won't." Marek's eyes moistened a bit, but he blinked the wetness away. "Nobody ever does. Why should you be any different?"

When he was finished speaking, Marek bent at the waist and placed his fingertips on his toes. "I'm asking you extremely politely not to do this to me," he told the girl from his upside-down position. And with that, he was done talking, done begging. The girl could do whatever she fucking wanted to him now. He didn't care.

"Oh shush!" Ludmila chided and rolled her eyes before she lightly tapped Marek with the wooden spoon on his stuck out naked behind. "You sound twelve-going-on-sixty, Mr. Righteous! If you hadn't just gone on a rant, I'd feel less inclined to prove my point, which is that I can spend the next hour reddening these cute buns if I want to," she said as her meaty hand softly cupped Marek's left buttock. She sighed.

"You seriously need to stop acting like you're the only one that unfair and unpleasant stuff happens to in life," she pouted, rubbing the wooden spatula over his buns. "If it's irritating to me – and I'm normally almost a saint on that front – no wonder you get into so much trouble with Standa. Poor baby," she teased as she fondled the kid's butt. "And shush! Don't even think about resuming that rant. I don't want to hear it."

The girl's response was not what the boy had expected. Not at all. He flinched as she touched his butt but remained bent over, uncertain, as she chastised him. But who was she to lecture him? It was ridiculous. Nobody was beating her with a cane or a bullwhip or making her do unspeakable and horrible things. She thought her life was unpleasant? She had no idea! It was absurd, really. She was trying to put a guilt trip on him, like he was a complainer, or something. He would stack his life up against hers any day of the week, and he was pretty darn sure he had the worst of it.

Ludmila walked around to Marek's front.

"Party pooper," she added after a moment spent contemplating the bent-over boy. "Stand up and walk to the counter. Lift the box!" she commanded. "Go, now!"

He stood up on her command, then walked to the counter. He lifted the box off and was surprised at what he saw. The cardboard box covered a chess-set and a small plate with a few Christmas cookies and two cups of hot tea. He looked back at the girl. Was she … ? Really? Or was this just some mind game?

"That was my plan, you see," chided Ludmila. "Because it's Christmas. But you can't let a girl feel like the boss for once, can you? You have to get mouthy and remind me you're only here because Standa told you to come. You have to start rambling on about how it sucks to be you, like everything is about you all the time. It wouldn't have killed you to just keep your trap shut for once, to spare my feelings and play a naked game of chess, you know."

Marek hung his head as she lectured him. Maybe he had come on a little strong. But she had intimated that she was going to beat him with the stirrer for the next hour! What was he supposed to think? How was he supposed to know she was kidding? How was he supposed to know not to hurt her feelings? How was he supposed to know that all she wanted to do was drink tea and play chess with him? Talk about unpredictable. Maybe he had overreacted, but he was so tired of being beaten and beaten up. If he wasn't being beaten in the moment, it seemed like he always had another beating looming. Sometimes, it seemed endless. The reality of it had made him paranoid. The boy said nothing.

Ludmila didn't seem pleased with his silence. She pouted her way straight over to the door and unlocked it.

"Put your clothes on," she ordered the naked boy. "Go back, and I mean straight back, to Standa. Chop, chop. If he asks you tell him the truth. I wasn't in the mood for your party-pooping, glum attitude. Not on Christmas Eve. Go!" she pointed, sounding somewhat annoyed, but actually kind of hurt underneath, too. She had plenty of reasons to believe her life sucked, and by emphasizing he was playing along with her purely because Tichy made him do it, Marek unwittingly had hit a very sore spot with Ludmila.

Her words chilled the boy. She wanted him to get dressed and go back to Mr. Tichy? Marek looked pale. If he went back to Mr. Tichy right away, there would be a lot of explaining to do. The boy wasn't at all sure that his technical defense that he hadn't disobeyed Ludmila would carry any water. He had obeyed, but not immediately, and not willingly. It didn't have a good look. It had the kind of look that screamed punishment with the man. Painful, heartless punishment. Yet another beating seemed to be looming in his future.

Marek felt his heart rate rising as his skin turned that familiar cold, tingly, goosepimply way it did when he was scared and full of dread. He swallowed. He didn't want to go back so soon. And if he dawdled to make it look like she had kept him for a while, Mr. Tichy would find out soon enough and punish him even more. Heads, Ludmila wins. Tails, Marek loses.

"Okay, look, I thought you were just going to beat me, okay?" he said to the girl. "I'm sorry. I know people tease you here, and I guess I just didn't want to get hit again. Okay, so, I'm sorry. Please don't send me back to Mr. Tichy, because if I'm not here long enough, he'll know something went wrong, okay? I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Can you please let me stay? We can be friends if you want. I'm good at chess. I can teach you some stuff."

Ludmila looked on as she listened to the boy's apologies. Now, that was more like it. There was even a hint of begging in Marek's voice. Ludmila tilted her head at the boy. He was cute, naked, and at her mercy, and all she really had planned to do was play chess with him. She liked the game, but no one she knew could play it even remotely passably, except of course for Mr. Tichy. She had even read a couple of books on strategy and started doing the chess challenges in the magazines that she borrowed from the school library.

The girl probably could have swallowed her hurt feelings, but Marek's rapid, 180-degree change of heart seemed to irritate her even more. She could tell that the boy didn't want to be friends or play chess. He was just trying to save his little ass, and it was far too late for that already.

"Actually, no, Marek," she said firmly. "I already agreed not to tell Standa about you hitting me the last time. Do you remember that? You hit my hand while I was just having a bit of harmless fun. I wasn't even hurting you, even though we both know I could have been. I had a bit of fun with you even before that when you came in your piss-soaked panties and had to take them off, but you annoyed me then, too. So, this makes strike three of accusing me of being horrible and unfair before you even knew what was going on."

"Even if I gave you a few swats with the stirrer, you had no right to judge me like that," the girl continued. "Not that I even want to be your friend, but if I was inclined to give it a go, but you certainly won't achieve it with miserable, self-pitying whining, and by throwing accusations around. So, you can just put your clothes back on and go. You only want to stay because 'he'll know something went wrong,'" she said with a sneer. "Well, it did go wrong, so I guess whatever you're going to get serves you right!" she pouted.

Marek's face fell and a feeling of doom washed over him as Ludmila denied his plea – and not just denied it, but also dredged up his prior misconduct that Marek had all but forgotten about. If she told Mr. Tichy about all of that, he was going to be in for the beating of a lifetime, but her decision seemed final. Marek guessed that he was going to find out soon enough just how much authority and power the man had given to her over him.

The boy looked very pale as he reached for his clothes and started to dress. The blood had drained from his face and his hands were shaking as he reached for his clothes. There didn't seem to be anything else he could say. He would have to go back to Mr. Tichy's apartment and tell him what had happened. It wouldn't help him to delay his return or lie. Was it really that bad that he had asked Ludmila for mercy? Really? Why was the girl flipping out on him like this? She had made it clear that she was going to beat him with the stirrer, and he had asked her not to. Was that really so awful? She already knew that Mr. Tichy beat him. One look at his battered genitals and backside was all it would take to tell her that. Was it really such a crime that he had asked her not to hit and hurt him?

But Marek already knew the answer to that: Mr. Tichy would think it was a crime as surely as the sun rose in the morning. The boy was in for yet another beating over yet another unforced error. He should have just kept his mouth shut and done what the girl told him to do. He certainly knew that now. He wished that he had, but it was too late to fix things. He wasn't going to drop to his knees and beg Ludmila to relent. He had done that once and it didn't seem likely to work again.

He buttoned up his shirt and put his sweater back on. He turned to face the girl once again.

"I'm sorry for what I said," he told the girl. "I hope you have a happy Christmas with your dad." And with that, he turned to go.

"Stop," said Ludmila sharply at the very moment he grabbed the door handle. "Turn around." She wasn't sounding forcefully bossy like before, but more naturally authoritative in the manner of someone who knew she had won and didn't need to prove her point any longer. Ludmila waited for the cowed, despondent boy to obey her as she knew he would.

Marek stopped in his tracks and turned to face her. His expression was wary.

"Come here," Ludmila pointed to a spot right in front of her.

"Look me in the eyes, Marek Hurta," she demanded, as the boy approached.

He looked her in the face, his expression still uncertain. She locked eyes with him.

"You will never again go ranting at me and complaining about what I tell you to do," Ludmila lectured the boy. "You will not vent your frustration on me. And you will, most certainly, never, ever again make me feel like you're only here because you must be or because someone else sent you here. I want to hear you say that out loud."

"Think about it for a moment before you make that promise, because I want it to come from you as a promise if you want to stay," the overweight girl continued. "If you make the promise and then break it, I'll wreck your life in ways Standa wouldn't even dream of, and I'm not kidding, Marek. I'll put you through so much fear and shame that you'll miss his whips and canes and whatever else's he's been keeping you in line with." She was very close to him now, face-to-face, and almost body-to-body.

"You have no idea how dangerous women are," Ludmila continued, "the lot of you with your dangly bits. You've played with fire and almost got burned. Now I'm inviting you to sit by the fire, but if you stick your hand in it again, you'll burn, Marek. I'll make sure of it. Do I have your promise? If not, go! No last words of wisdom are required from you," she said.

Marek listened to her rant. He stood perfectly still as she set out her terms. Nothing she said was unclear. Marek understood all of it. His eyes were wide and uncertain though, and he wasn't sure what to do, because he had a problem: The only reason he went to the girl was because Mr. Tichy made him go. She knew that. It wasn't like he could just walk out of the man's apartment and go to visit her even if he wanted to. She knew that. So how was he supposed to pretend that he was there voluntarily, glad to see her and all that? He couldn't. By agreeing to her terms, he was agreeing to something that he couldn't pull off. Eventually, she would find out that he was only in her presence because Mr. Tichy made him go. And if that happened, which it inevitably would, Ludmila had already promised to wreck his life. The boy could tell that she meant it, too.

The more Marek thought about it, the more he realized what a conundrum he was in. There was no way to win with the girl. She was setting him up for failure. What the heck was he supposed to do with her terms? Even Mr. Tichy might see the absurdity of Marek pretending that he wanted to visit the girl.

Marek blushed. What was he supposed to do, now? Either way he played this, he was sure to incur Ludmila's wrath, which was already at a white-hot level. She was inches away from his face. Marek's heart was racing in his chest. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know what to say. He felt doomed. There was no way to play this. The color returned to his cheeks as he suddenly felt flushed and even more unsettled than he had before she made her offer.

"I … I- I think I should go," he said in a meek voice. He knew she would be angry, but the choices she had given him were horrible. He had had to pick something, and right now, the girl scared him even more than Mr. Tichy did.

Ludmila looked stunned for a moment. She almost flipped out. She clenched her fists, resisting the strong urge to hit Marek in the face and keep hitting him until he couldn't get up again. What a nasty, mean, cruel thing he had said just after she had given him a second chance! What a way to mess with her feelings. Part of her wanted to hurt the boy in a way he never would forget, but she gulped and blinked, tears rushing into her eyes.

"You … you … you!" she choked slightly. "You stinky little weasel! You're such a coward! You're thrust into my life and like a bull in a china shop you just…" she pulled at her hair. "Aaaaargh! You infuriating little brat!" she almost spat at him. "Go, then! Go! But don't ever be surprised again that I hate you. If you realize you've been silly and cruel and then double down on it, rather than accepting a chance to fix it, that makes you awful and you better not feel innocent and justified to lecture me when we meet again. And we will meet again, Marek Hurta," she huffed. "Oh, yes. We'll meet again. You can count on that. And it won't be nearly so pleasant for you then, you little … Nazi! You'll suffer – I'll see to it, Marek Hurta. You'll suffer, I can promise you that."

"Happy fucking Christmas!" she snapped. "Now go!!" she screamed as she turned around and began to sob.

Marek's cowered, his eyes as wide as saucers, as the older girl had a temper tantrum right in front of him. The situation was going from bad, to worse, to really, really worse. The girl had just lost it. She was red in the face and looked like she was about to explode. Her eyes bulged. Marek almost thought he would see smoke coming from her nostrils. She looked like she was going to attack him at any moment, and Marek knew that if she did, he would be lucky to survive the encounter. She looked furious.

But she also had tears in her eyes, and Marek realized that he had hurt her. He hadn't meant to, but he had. He felt like shit. His own eyes looked uncertain. He wanted to say something, but the girl looked like she would start throwing punches if he did. Smallpox may have been a girl, but she was a big girl, and Marek had felt her hitting power once before. She had almost knocked him out then, and worked into a rage as she was now, Marek might be lucky to escape with his life if she attacked. He knew he wouldn't dare to defend himself, not only because of Mr. Tichy, but he had brought up not to hit girls. She could beat him to a pulp if she wanted to, especially as worked up as she was now.

So, the boy cringed and cowered, all with an expression on his face that revealed he would rather be anywhere else than he was right now. He just stood there and took it, took all her wrath, all her invective. It was when she turned away, sobbing, that he realized, fully, what he had done.

Marek wasn't a saint. Even before coming to the school, he had gotten in more than his fair share of trouble back in Vacenovice. Because trouble seemed to find him at the internat unbidden, and because he was new, he had toned that other stuff way down. Even still, he never would be one of the "good" kids, but nor was he an asshole. He had empathy. He didn't enjoy hurting people. Even when he got in a fight, he ended it once he had the upper hand. He didn't try to hurt or wound, and he didn't twist the knife. It just wasn't what he was all about.

But he had hurt Ludmila. She was a person, with feelings, and he had hurt her. He had pretty much done to her feelings what he had asked her not to do to his butt with the stirrer, and the worst part was, it wasn't his first time. He had hurt her feelings before. He kept thinking of her as his fat, female tormentor, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to tell that she was as lonely and picked on here at the school as he was. She had the added problem of being the school's only girl, and the misfortune of not being attractive, so she was ostracized by the boys. In that regard, the two of them were a lot alike. They should have been natural allies, even soulmates, but he had done everything but befriend her. She had just wanted to play chess with him, and in return he had shit all over her. He felt terrible. He had done much the same thing to Mr. Tichy, too, even after the man had taken him in and kept him from the orphanage over the break.

Thinking of the man brought the reality of his predicament home to Marek. Oh, boy, oh, boy was he going to be in for it with Mr. Tichy. This would not go unpunished, not by a longshot, but that truly wasn't his main motivation right now. He had said something hurtful, or more accurately, done something hurtful, and it bothered him. The school had battered and changed him, but he was damned if he was going to let the experience turn him into an asshole.

"Ludmila, I'm sorry," he finally said. "I really mean that. It's just that … Mr. Tichy tells me when I hav- when I can come see you. All I meant was, I mean, if I tell you that I came on my own, I'd have to lie, and then everyone would be angry with me. He doesn't let me go anywhere without his permission. That's all I meant. Please don't be sad. I'm sorry, and I'm not just saying that. I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings."

Ludmila stopped sobbing and shaking eventually, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. She shook her head as she looked at Marek, took a deep breath, and groaned in frustration.

"I know that," she hissed. "I'm not stupid, okay?" she rolled her eyes again. "You're so bloody literal," she huffed, exasperatedly. "I don't want you to be literally lying through your teeth, you idiot. Just don't rub it in my face like you did earlier. Do you see the difference?" she asked.

"The thing is, at this point, it won't even be fun to get you to strip to play chess naked with me 'cause it'll feel more like you're doing it out of pity than out of respect or fear," she pouted. She scratched her chin before moving to lock the door once again. "But I want you to, anyway. We'll play chess. You will be naked the entire time, and preferably, you'll have a boner for at least part of it, " she added with a grin. "And you will not go crying about how miserable that makes your poor little life, please, " she said, with a bit of a twinkle in her eyes.

"I mean c'mon," Ludmila continued. "I'm a frustrated, fourteen-year-old girl who as good as hates boys. I literally could be destroying your ass with the stirrer with Standa's full permission, and I'd probably feel a bit better afterwards, whether that's fair or not, just because you're a boy and most of the humiliation and anger in my life comes from boys like you who go to this stupid school. 'Smallpox' my ass!" she exclaimed defiantly. "I'm not small, or poxy," she huffed.

Somewhat to Marek's surprise, Ludmila had managed to calm herself down and return to the world of the sane and non-foaming. For a while there, it had been very much in doubt. As it turned out, it seemed that the entire conversation from both ends had been based largely on misunderstandings. Marek hadn't wanted to be beaten by the girl and had rebelled at the unfairness of it. Ludmila hadn't really intended to beat him, and Marek hadn't really intended to hurt her feelings. The girl had scared the wits out of Marek by giving the boy a rule that he knew he couldn't follow, but Ludmila hadn't really intended him to follow it. It had just gone on and on like that. Marek had a mental image of a dog chasing its own tail. At the end of it, though, they seemed to have reached an understanding, or dare he say, another truce?

"I already know you've been dealt a shit hand here, so there's no need to remind me," Ludmila carried on. "It's not like I'm constantly reminding you that your Nazi grandfather played a role in the genocide of local Czechs and Jews. You have no way of knowing that, because of course Vacha is a Czech name, but my mum's side of the family were Jakobovitzes, and mum's mum is the only one of six siblings who survived the war. And she was in Auschwitz."

"Want to hear a fun fact?" the girl continued. "Three of my mother's brothers worked in the glass industry before war, and if a certain Mr. Hurta hadn't been busy working his employees to the bone and profiting from them, he could have declared them essential industry workers and saved their lives, but he already had people working 14-hour shifts in the factory – like the whole century before hadn't even happened – so all my nan's siblings, and my potential aunts, uncles, cousins, who-knows-who, born and real or unborn and hypothetical, ended up getting gassed. And I ended up as a single child with no cousins, lonely as fuck, with a mother who lost her own mother early due to poor health, a dumbass, alcoholic father and two hundred boys who call me names and tease me year after year after fucking year, ever since I can remember. So, how's that for a rant?" she asked before chuckling.

"Well, thanks," she added without waiting for the boy to answer. "I guess you pissed me off just enough to actually spill my heart, and now I feel better for it. Drop your pants and try and beat me in chess, then, but I'm warning you – I'm pretty good, so perhaps you ought to keep your 'tricks' to yourself," she said with a wink as she reached for the board and put it on the floor between them. "And you don't have to worry about making false promises. If you irritate me any more today, I'll just squeeze your balls and paddle your cute, skinny ass!" she said, but she giggled again to show him she wasn't really all that cross with him anymore.

When the girl finally had calmed down some, Marek had learned a lot more about what made her tick. Her words had an impact on the boy. He hadn't known that she was part Jewish. He hadn't known the story of her family and the Holocaust. It was hard to learn that her family also had suffered at the hands of Marek's infamous grandfather. No wonder everyone here hated the Hurta name and hated him. Everywhere he turned, it seemed that someone had a story to tell about the unmitigated asshole-ness of the Glass King. It occurred to Marek that Ludmila had just as many reasons or even more than Mr. Tichy to hate him and his family, but she didn't really seem to. Her cruelty wasn't deep-seated, it was just revenge for the crap she had to take at the school from the boys, and she did have to take a lot of crap – Marek knew that for sure.

He had also learned a lot about the nature and the degree of the girl's torment here at the school. While Marek still didn't think Ludmila's problems were in the same universe as his, he readily acknowledged that the students treated her like shit, and it probably wasn't a lot of fun to be her. The comment about her alcoholic father struck a chord with Marek. That had to be hard, especially because everyone at the school knew it to be true. Marek knew just what it felt like to have a family member who was a source of embarrassment. His own father had been a traitor. His grandfather had been a Nazi war criminal. He was living with the legacy of that every single day.

Really, at the end of the day, it seemed like the girl just wanted to play chess. Naked chess, in Marek's case, but chess all the same. The boy was almost happy to accommodate. Of course, he was relieved that he seemed to be back in the girl's good graces and thought that he might yet avoid a beating at the hands of Mr. Tichy, but he also simply liked to play chess. He was confident he could beat the girl. It didn't really matter if he had to be naked as he played. She'd already seen him naked plenty of times, and he had been that way for days on end in Mr. Tichy's apartment. He quickly stripped out of his clothes. Naked chess seemed a whole lot better to him than being beaten by Mr. Tichy. If Mr. Vacha came back and saw him naked with his daughter, the man would kill him, and Marek wouldn't have to worry about anything ever again.

What followed was one of the best games of chess Marek had ever played because Smallpox wasn't boasting. She was good, and she was in good form that day, too. She wanted and expected to beat the naked 12-year-old she had been gifted for Christmas, but she also found that Marek was the second worthiest opponent to play with her in a long, long time.

Marek was surprised at how skilled Ludmila was. He had sloughed off the opening a little bit, looking for a fool's mate or a quick material advantage, but the girl wouldn't yield. Marek quickly found himself at a positional disadvantage because of his sloppy opening moves, and to his chagrin he realized once again that he had underestimated the girl. She had opened with the Ruy Lopez, a basic king-pawn opening – one of the oldest openings – whereas Marek had opened with … basically a random series of moves, including a double move of his queen, which he had deployed too early and was now watching helplessly as it was chased all over the board. After several moves spent playing "save the queen" he quickly found his center collapsing. Ludmila's aggressive posting of her king's bishop was raining death down the short diagonal. He barely managed to claw back to a decent position in the mid game, using a rare queen-side castle that brought his queen's rook into play and caused complications for Ludmila's center attack. Eventually, he broke her assault, but the material remained even, and the outcome of the game still was very much in doubt.

Marek had no time even to think about getting a boner as he played, and for her part, Ludmila didn't seem to mind his lack of arousal. It barely seemed to register with either of them that Marek was stark naked. They were concentrated on the chess – although they both also munched on the Christmas cookies absent-mindedly as they played. The girl was good! She played well. It was the toughest game that Marek could remember playing in a long, long time. Not only was he not about to share any tips with the girl, but he realized that he would need every trick he had in his repertoire to defeat her!

Attacking now on the queen side, Marek fianchettoed his king side bishop behind a pawn phalanx and reestablished some control over the center. But despite his efforts, material kept coming off the board in tit-for-tat fashion, all exchanges. In the early end game, the material was dead even, and neither king looked like it would be easily dislodged. They each had five pawns on the board, as well as a knight and a bishop apiece. The bishops were of opposite colors, so the only way this game was going to end was with a pawn promotion in the late end game. What a game!

If they kept playing, one of them was bound to promote and win, but Marek was damned if he could figure out how to break through Ludmila's pawn formation. The doubled pawns on Ludmila's king's knight file gave him a bit of an advantage, but it was almost too remote and small of an advantage to exploit. If he could maintain his attack on the king side, he might be able to pick off the doubled-up knight pawn eventually. But that would be 12-15 moves in the future, followed by a still-uncertain race to be the first to promote. Given the quality of the play, it seemed almost a shame to ruin such a great game and run out their time together by flinging pawns at each other for the next 15-20 minutes.

"Draw?" offered Marek as he looked up from the board. If they drew this game now, they'd have time for another, and he wanted to squeeze in another game. Ludmila was a formidable opponent, and Marek wanted to play again, taking more care this time with his opening. The boy was relatively certain that Mr. Tichy wouldn't be terribly upset if he were a few minutes late returning to the apartment. Somewhat relatively certain, anyway.

Ludmila did a lot of calculating and very hard thinking. She almost couldn't believe that Marek had recovered from his weak start. It was nice finally playing with a worthy opponent apart from Mr. Tichy, but she had expected to win. This game was getting a bit stressful; she felt there might be a real risk of being beaten by a twelve-year-old boy, and that would be unthinkable! And as the game got into its late stage, it started to feel a bit stuck and frustrating. She blinked when Marek suggested a draw, hesitated, and then nodded. She was dripping with sweat, and not just because the laundry room was quite warm.

"Draw," she confirmed. "Good game. I mean, you're good at this – unexpectedly good," she smiled, showing off her ugly teeth. "But you got so carried away trying to beat me that you totally forgot about my wish," she cocked an eyebrow and pouted at the boy.

Marek looked up at the girl and nodded. That had been fun. A lot of fun. Marek liked chess. He had been on the chess team at his old school. The sport didn't seem to be valued here at the internat, but the boy missed playing. Who knew that he would find his best-ever opponent in the form of the 14-year-old daughter of the school's janitor?

Her allegation, however, was true. He had been concentrating on the game, and he most decidedly was not hard. His wounded member did not even think about arousal as he used every ounce of his ability to climb his way back to a draw. He had looked up at one point to see Ludmila sweating, and he realized then that she had expected to win. For a moment, he wondered if he should have let her. Had he forgotten his place here yet again? Would she become angry and beat him for it? It didn't seem like she was going to, but she also didn't want to play again.

"I want you to show me how you jerk off, but obviously don't finish so you don't get into trouble with Standa," said Ludmila. "I want to see you hard and doing it like you boys do. And don't try to tell me you don't. I see all the laundry for you boys. I know what you do. I know what a cum stain looks like. I know what it smells like. You boys are all pigs, but I want to see how you do it. I want you to show me how you make it feel good."

"Extra points if you blush prettily for me," she added with a smile, "and no complaining or fussing. I'm curious and want it as a part of my Christmas present. If you must to make it work, just close your eyes and pretend I'm not here. I want to see the way you boys do it when you're alone or playing with each other. So go on. It won't kill you. Get up on your knees and put on a little show for me, and for once, try not to be super-duper gloomy about the fact that you have to do it, but maybe try and keep in mind that you're doing something nice on Christmas Eve for a curious, eager girl who easily could have spent the last half hour destroying your butt for no reason other than she simply could have and she had permission to," she said with wink as she packed up the chess set.

Truth be told, the boy was so used to being naked and by now, being aroused and having sex, that her request didn't really bother him all that much. The door was locked. The only other person who could access the room would be Vacha, himself, and it made no sense that he would need to do laundry when there was nobody at the school.

"OK, I'll show you," said Marek. "But, um, usually when I used to do it at night, I was lying down, kind of like this," he said, as he slouched onto his side and a little bit on his hip and back. "Do you want me to do it like you said or this way? But I can't cum, so please don't tell me I have to do it for too long. Mr. Tichy gets really angry about that," he said as he gestured to his damaged cock and testicles.

Ludmila contemplated the boy's request. She was tempted to make Marek perform closer to the way she had imagined it happening, but there was something about learning about the actual way he did it in private that fascinated her, so she just nodded silently, her eyes glued to him, her big upper teeth biting another dent into her lower lip. With the chess set out of the way and packed, she lay down on her side with a close-up view of Marek's still-heavily-marked crotch area and nodded again.

"Go on then, show me," she instructed the boy. "And I already told you I don't want you in anymore trouble and that you shouldn't cum, so quit fussing! I thought we had that cleared up already?" she said ominously, her cheeks puffing up as she looked at him with her eyebrows raised skeptically.

"Go on, just a minute or two," she demanded. "But at least for a short bit, I want you to do it exactly like you would if you were jerking to cum."

Having secured the girl's permission, Marek lay entirely back on the floor. Not only was he not particularly embarrassed, but he was so relieved by the way things had worked out today with Ludmila that he almost appeared enthusiastic to demonstrate his technique to the girl.

"Okay, so, like, usually I'd have a pillow," he explained, "but what I do is, I take my hand like this, and I kind of just grab it, down here, see?" The boy grasped the base of his shaft with the circle formed by his right index finger and thumb. "Sometimes it's already hard, but if it's not, to get it hard you just start going like this," he narrated, as he started to stroke his flaccid shaft. Fortunately, his cock didn't hurt from the whipping despite his ministrations, so he kept on stroking his penis. "So you just keep going like this. It feels really good up here, near the top, and eventually it just starts to get hard. See? It's getting hard now – it doesn't take long at all."

The boy's penis was, indeed, lengthening, and to a degree, thickening, as it became engorged with blood. The 12-year-old's juvenile erection was 4" [10cm]in length and about as thick as a man's thumb at the first knuckle.

"Then once it gets hard, I kind of grab it like this," Marek explained, as he palmed his penis, "and I just start rubbing it up and down. Usually I go a lot faster – I go superfast most of the time – but then my hand hits my balls and that would really hurt right now, 'cause … well, I mean, it would just hurt a lot from what happened to them." He stroked in silence for a few seconds, doing it slowly, then speeding up to show the girl the full effect while trying to be careful not to jostle his balls.

"Like this," he said, as he made a little grimace. It felt good, and Marek was pleased that his equipment all seemed to be working and responding appropriately down there despite the whipping he had taken. He gladly would have shown the girl what happened at the end, but of course he didn't dare.

"I gotta slow down, now," he explained apologetically.

"No," countermanded Ludmila. "I'll tell you when to slow down. Keep going at that exact same speed!" The girl sounded like she meant business; there was an unspoken "or else" in her tone that made her words sound like they packed a punch. As the boy continued to masturbate, she counted to ten in her mind.

"Stop!" she commanded at the count of ten, and then paused. "A little more, but go slowly now," she instructed. "How does it feel when you go and then stop?" she asked. Ludmila had heard all sorts of weird things about blue balls and stuff, which, even though she knew a thing or two about touching herself, she couldn't quite replicate herself, being a girl. She seemed interested, curious, and eager to learn just then, rather than cruel and nasty on purpose. She even looked impressed at Marek's display, had he taken a moment to glance at her face.

Marek's expression fell as the girl ordered him to continue. He had trusted her and done everything she asked – willingly, helpfully, transparently, and even enthusiastically – and now she was going to fuck with him. The boy knew she could, so he kept stroking, but his helpful, explanatory demeanor left him, and he looked angry. Why was it always this way? No matter what he did here at this stupid school, it was never right or good enough with anyone. He kept at it, stroking away, but he altered his palm grip to diminish the sensation. A boy could do that subtly without a naïve girl having a clue. Now, his fingers didn't quite graze over that spot just below the head on the underside where it felt so good.

He stopped when she told him to, but when she asked her question, Marek could tell that she was being more curious than malicious, and he felt a little bad for his reaction. He realized then that he probably knew a lot more about sex than she did given his involuntary association with Mr. Tichy. He almost certainly knew a lot more about males and how their cocks worked than she did. He resumed stroking his shaft, a bit more slowly now, but without the resentment that had burned within him only moments before.

"I usually do it really fast and don't stop," he admitted to the girl. "But lately – well, I mean, not lately but sometimes – you can get it really close to where you think the cum is going to come out, but then if you stop, it kind of twitches like it wants to shoot, but it can't." He continued to stroke it. "Then you can do it again, and it still feels good because you didn't cum. Once you cum, it's just kind of over, but if you keep getting close and then stop, I mean, you could do that for a long time."

"A long time, huh?" replied Ludmila as she grinned at him playfully. "I think you're lucky we no longer have a long time," she added with her eyes twinkling. "How close are you though? Number?" she asked, reminding him of the one-to-ten game she had made him play the last time she had him cornered.

"And you got angry with me, again," she pouted, "and only because I told you to keep it up a little longer," she said, but this time, it was clear that she was being playful, and her hurt was pretend.

"Stop now, hands away," she said as she sat up and moved herself between his legs. "You seemed to rather like this the last time even though you were grumpy about it," she snorted. "Will you trust me if I tell you I will not get you into trouble? You absolutely mustn't be rude or violent though!" she demanded even as her face got so close to his cock that he could feel her breath on it.

Marek simply couldn't read the girl. She was playful but devious at the same time. She often was like that, a case study in contradiction. She could be fun, but also dangerous. She could be friendly and then violent. She also had a strange personality.

He knew that he had to come up with a number.

"Uh, like, three?" he said. That was probably a mistake. He deliberately hadn't gotten close. It was hard to put a score on it, though in the past he used to score the intensity of his cums in his mind.

"I wasn't angry," he lied, his voice defensive. Damn she was perceptive. "I wasn't sure you were going to let me stop," he said, to explain why he hadn't gotten angry but actually had. "I'm not angry, see?" he said, as he grinned. He pulled his hands away as his penis levitated above his groin. "And I trust you," he said, but he didn't, not really. "Just, please be careful?" he said, hoping it didn't sound too much like a whine.

"I will hear nothing but numbers from now on," Ludmila declared. "You will not mess with me in any other way, remembering who the boss in this room is, and remember, I'm only making one promise right now; to definitely, without any shade of doubt, not get you into trouble with Standa," she emphasized, before her mouth slipped onto his cock and she began to suck. She didn't just put it in her mouth like before, tentatively. She slid her mouth pretty much right down his cock, and up it, and her tongue found the sensitive underside he thought she didn't really know about.

Oh, wow. Marek's body tensed and his cock twitched as Ludmila took it in her mouth. The boy swallowed nervously. Here it was, somewhat unexpectedly and out of the blue, but this promised to be his first-ever blowjob. Marek knew that it was a special moment. Smallpox was not his vision of a beautiful girl, but she was, indeed, a girl, and she had a functioning mouth, and right now, Marek's very hard cock was enjoying the soft, wet, warm, satiny smoothness of that mouth. It felt very, very good. Very, very, very good.

Just like that, and kind of out of blue, Ludmila started to give Marek rather good head, with suction, tongue, long deep plunges that she didn't even gag on, much like the head Marek now gave to Tichy and the man's much larger cock.

Marek had been wondering for a while now how a blowjob felt. The way Mr. Tichy and Radek reacted to his blowjobs made it seem like they were nothing short of amazing. Their reactions made blowjobs seem way, way better than jerking off. Now that he was feeling one for the first time, Marek agreed with the conventional wisdom almost instantly: This was way, way better than jerking off. He finally understood. He got it now.

Suddenly, as if it were trying to sabotage the fun, his mind turned to Vacha. If the man returned and saw them now, Marek would be dead, but even that was not enough of a buzzkill to ruin the feeling.

"Uh, like fo- five," he said to the girl as his penis began to feel very, very good. "Six, actually," he corrected quickly, as she slid over the underside part. It felt nice. Very, very nice.

He also thought of Mr. Tichy, but the girl had promised he wouldn't get in trouble. She had promised. It would be just Marek's luck to find that she was lying to trick him. If Ludmila had lied and ended up making him cum, he would not even bother to go back to Mr. Tichy's apartment. He would run. He would run to Brod and if he couldn't find a better solution, he would throw himself under a car or train and kill himself. He hoped the girl understood that his life literally was in her mouth. He hoped she wasn't lying, because if she was, it was all over for him.

"Okay, seven," he said, his voice growing a bit worried and haggard as the pleasure continued. He wanted her to stop, but it felt so good he didn't really want her to. If not for Mr. Tichy's rules, he would be very willing to let Ludmila finish. He would have liked nothing more than to ejaculate in her mouth. The pleasure, he knew, would be like nothing he had ever experienced before.

Ludmila kept sucking. She wasn't experienced, but she was bigger than Marek – her mouth most definitely was – and his cock was small enough for it to be easy for her to handle. She clearly was having fun and enjoying making Marek shoot through his numbers over the course of just a couple of minutes. She sucked on, tight and good, her mouth wet and warm and soft. Without ever meaning to (she had no way of knowing), she suddenly replicated Marek and Tichy's recent invention as she kept her lips, tongue and partly even cheeks stimulating his cock and started to slide up and down it in one continual motion, never quite pausing, thereby triggering an unusual, ongoing, and shockingly intense sensation.

Marek lay back with his eyes closed as he simultaneously enjoyed the girl's ministrations and worried about the growing sensations of pleasure emanating from his loins. It felt really, really good. Maybe every blowjob felt this good, but Marek didn't think so. Ludmila had a skill, like Tichy said he had, he was sure of it. She may have been on the ugly side, but her mouth was very special, and right now, that mouth was making Marek feel extremely nice.

Indeed, it was feeling too good. Warning klaxons started to sound in the boy's brain.

"Okay, eight, Ludmila," he gasped. His tummy and chest were rising and falling as his heart rate elevated and he began to pant. Marek's fingers and toes clenched. He needed it to stop, but he didn't want it to.

It was then that the girl upped her game even more, and Marek was rendered slack-jawed. His penis had never felt this good before, not ever. Not even that one time in Mr. Tichy's office.

"Ludmila – nine," he gasped, almost unable to speak from the pleasure. "Nine … okay … please … "

Ludmila hummed amusedly around his cock and paused but kept her mouth very much on his cock. The sliding, stroking sensation was gone at least for the moment, but then her tongue began to tease and toy with his piss-slit. It was as if she was testing his edging theory and trying to make his cock involuntarily twitch in her mouth. She teased ever so slightly, ever so gently, as if trying to creep right up to Marek's point of no return. But was he lying? Was this really a nine? Was he truly as close to an orgasm as he said he was?

Maybe she didn't know what she was doing, but it seemed like she was – keeping him suspended damn near the moment that he feared oh-so-much, the point after which he'd rather die than return to Tichy's clutches for whatever hellish, nightmarish punishment the man would inflict on him for his fourth violation of the no-cumming rule. Marek was frozen. He was so close – too close – and terrified. He dared not push the girl away. He dared not touch her. He braced, and grimaced, and tried to stop the sensation. He was going to cum, he just knew it. His lower lip trembled as he bit down on it.

"Nine and a half, Ludmila, please!" he begged desperately. His eyes watered with tears as he fought it. His hips swiveled, but the girl remained latched on. It was so unfair. She had promised! She was going to get him killed. Literally.

"Please!" he gasped as his balls literally started to contract and the tingle sensation built to a point he had never experienced before. And that was when he knew: He wasn't going to be able to stop it. The girl had lied.

Suddenly, Ludmila stopped and slipped off his cock.

"My name, young man, isn't a number!" she said, reminding him of her earlier instructions. "Nor is 'please,' nor is 'okay,'" she pouted. "I'm half tempted to punish you for speaking out of turn, but it is Christmas after all, so thank you for being such a nice little Christmas present," she added with a giggle.

Ludmila had pulled off just in time. Marek's balls were already in the process of ejaculating when the girl's mouth left his penis, and with tremendous effort and gritted teeth – and a pervasive, all-body fear of Mr. Tichy – Marek forced the semen to retreat back into his balls. He grunted and gasped as he clenched his groin muscles as hard as he could for as long as he could, his balls aching, until he could clench them no more. But it worked. Marek's disaster was avoided – barely. He would not need to kill himself, at least not today.

"Happy Christmas," said the girl as Marek finally seemed to recover enough for conversation. "Get dressed. You can go. You're fine. You didn't cum," she reminded the very much stunned-looking boy. "Go on!" encouraged Ludmila. "I think you're in for a treat for dinner. The whole upper floor smelled lovely with Standa's cooking."

Marek sighed a long exhale but remained right where he was, unable to move. The girl was lecturing him, but did she know how close she had come to ending his life? Marek didn't think she quite understood the stakes. He sat up eventually, looking winded and a bit stunned. Yeah, sure – he was fine. She had no idea.

Awkwardly, on unsteady legs, he stood to his feet as his nail-hard erection failed to subside. Now he had a powerful need to cum, which he knew would only add to his problems. Sometimes he wished he didn't even have a cock. The thing was going to be the absolute death of him with Mr. Tichy. It literally was going to get him killed if he didn't find a way to hack it off first. He sighed again at the knowledge that he was quickly heading right back to the state where he had been before Mr. Tichy had horsewhipped him. The terror he had felt when Ludmila was sucking him eased somewhat as he started to dress, only to be replaced by his familiar state of worry.

"Happy Christmas," he said to her in a weary voice. "You're good at chess," he added, not because he thought he had to, but because she really was. "Maybe we could play again sometime," he said with a nod as he started to pull his briefs up his legs and over his raging erection.

When he was finished dressing, he walked to the door and looked back at the unfortunate girl. The door, of course, still was locked, which led to a brief awkward moment as Marek looked back at her for assistance. Ludmila caught his eye and grinned.

"Yes, I am," she said. "Now … come over here, dumbass," she said with a smile and a gesture, and when he did so, she wrapped him in a hug.

Marek's eyes went wide with worry. What now? But the girl just wanted a hug, and after a moment in which he was paralyzed by surprise, he reached his arms awkwardly around the corpulent girl and hugged her back. He felt a little sorry for Ludmila, especially after what she had told him earlier. His hug was authentic. He wanted her to have a nice Christmas – even if she had almost gotten him killed.

It was only after they broke the hug that she shoved the note from Tichy into his hands.

"Read that," she commanded, "but I have one condition: You will come again and repay the favor or arrange for me to be invited up for it to be repaid."

And with that she slipped down to a squat, pulled his pants down towards his knees and resumed what she had stopped doing just a couple of minutes before. Marek was still erect, so there was no need for any preambles. She simply did everything all at once as soon as it was in her mouth. She assaulted his cock with that insanely intense continual sensation thing, except this time she was wiggling and swirling her tongue a whole lot more, making the intensity ebb and flow in a random, unpredictable, mind-boggling sort of way.

The boy looked even more surprised as she shoved Mr. Tichy's note at him. But she held her hand over it, preventing him from reading it. What was she talking about? Before he could figure it out, she was on her knees and his pants were down once again. She already was sucking his cock as he looked down, unfolded the note, and began to read.

He could cum once. That's what the note said. Marek was stunned. Was this real? Was it a setup? Ludmila already was going to town on his erection, but Marek still wasn't sure what he had just read. He could cum, but there were rules, and rules were very important with Mr. Tichy. She had to allow it, and she had to make it happen.

She was making it happen, all right, and not slowly, either. Marek's mouth gaped open as the sensation returned, built, grew, rose, soared, and finally – before he could even think about it – exploded. He almost fell as his cock spewed into the girl's mouth. He had to touch her head for balance, or he would have fallen.

As Marek came, Ludmila stopped sucking but kept her mouth latched on so he could ride it out on her lips and tongue a bit before he got overstimulated. She caught his smallish spunk load in her mouth. She only got off when he was done squirting and stood up, right up against him as if to remind him that she was taller than he was.

Marek was in a state of bliss. The sensation of cumming in Ludmila's mouth was like none he ever had experienced. It would have been even better if it had happened the first time while Marek was still lying on the floor, but he had been so scared then that he might have died of a heart attack in the middle of his orgasm. As it was, he still was trying to figure out if this was real and whether he was in trouble. It seemed legitimate, but everything had happened so fast that his head was spinning a little bit. One thing he knew for sure – if the girl made him cum without permission, he would not have returned to face Mr. Tichy. Even without his coat, he would have run down the hill and into Brod, to the train station. If he couldn't sneak onto a train, he would simply throw himself under its wheels. He wasn't kidding about that. Being run over by a train was far, far better than the alternative he would face with Mr. Tichy.

It was then that Ludmila kissed him, gripping his hair so he couldn't resist it, his spunk running from her mouth into his. She had taken his cum into her mouth readily enough but hadn't swallowed and was now feeding it to him. She kissed him from above, opening her mouth, her tongue invading his mouth while she let gravity do its job and left the swallowing part of the blowjob to Marek. She didn't say anything, but her hand found his balls and her fingers softly wrapped around them in a warning as she kissed him: He was going to kiss her back, and he was going to swallow, or else. Finally, with the fluid transfer complete, she opened her hand and broke the kiss, wiping her chin with the back of her hand.

Marek exhaled a deep breath as the girl rose and kissed him. He wasn't sure what was worse: The fact that Ludmila Vacha was kissing him, or the fact that her mouth was full of her spit and his cum. He knew what she expected him to do, so he did it. He swallowed. It wasn't the first load he had eaten, not by a longshot, although it was the first of his own and he was certainly not about to incur the girl's wrath by disobeying her. His spunk and her spit tasted pretty much like everyone else's. He wished that she would stop kissing him, though.

"Eeeww," said Ludmila as she finally broke their cummy kiss with a smile. "It's not my favorite taste in the world, but worth the fun I guess," she added with a giggle.

"Happy Christmas," she said as she went to unlock the door. "And try and come back before New Year's Eve. Now go, you don't want to be late for Standa," she snorted and wiped her mouth some more.

"Go on, boy! Hurry!"

"Can I keep the note?" Marek asked her as he hiked up his trousers and rebuttoned them. It was her note, but the proof of what was written on it might make the difference between a torturous punishment and a free pass from Mr. Tichy, and he would feel much more comfortable holding it in his hand as he made the return trip to the man's apartment.

"Sure," she smirked, and turned the lights off and locked up to go home and see if her father was still sober enough to eat, or if it was going to be just her and her mother eating the Christmas Eve meal, leaving it for him to eat later like he usually ate his suppers. She shuffled off even as Marek, the note still in his hand, trotted much more briskly towards the fire-escape.

The boy's head was still spinning as he left the laundry room and made his way back to Mr. Tichy's apartment. Wow. He had had his first blowjob! He had that notch on his belt, now, so to speak. It had come from a girl – an older girl he would tell all his friends, if he still had any – and it had been awesome. He would tell his friends all about it although not the circumstances. Of course, he couldn't see or talk to his friends, and he missed them even more because he couldn't tell them about the amazing, awesome, tingling thing that had just happened to him!

The entire hallway smelled amazing as he approached Mr. Tichy's apartment, just as Ludmila had said it did. Marek's mouth started to water even before he knocked and then entered. It felt very oddly like he was returning home, as if he lived here. He found the thought unsettling.

"Had fun?" demanded Tichy with a teasing, provocative smile. "Go wash your hands. Food's ready."

Marek couldn't prevent the sheepish smile that crossed his lips at the man's question. He knew then, finally, that he was safe.

"Yeah," he said, equally sheepishly. "Sir," he added quickly.

As they sat down to eat, Tichy reached over to take Marek's hand and started solemnly: "Our father, who art … " and then burst out laughing. "Sorry to tease. I just had to see the expression on your face when I did that," he winked. "Happy Christmas. Bon Appetit."

Marek grinned as Mr. Tichy joked about saying grace. For a second there, he had been taken in. Who knew that the man had a sense of humor? Marek hadn't seen that side of him before.

The food that evening was incredible. A small platter with premium ham rolled up and stuffed with horseradish whipped cream. Amazing fish soup with pearl barley. A small piece of fried carp, well done, crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, and an even nicer classical schnitzel (made of good, tender pork; classic Viennese schnitzel was made of veal, and Tichy would have to have murdered someone for that), amazing, creamy potato salad, and an apple strudel that even the Grand Hotel Ferdinand in Vienna wouldn't have been ashamed to serve. Throughout the meal, Tichy ate, drank beer, and seemed relaxed and cheerful.

The boy started right in on the best meal he ever had eaten. No offense to his mother's or his aunt's cooking, but Mr. Tichy's offerings were simply better across the board. All of them were better. Of course, his mother never could have afforded one third of the offerings that Mr. Tichy had prepared for this single, Christmas Eve meal, but even with respect to the one third she could have, Mr. Tichy had outcooked her.

Marek almost couldn't believe the quality of the food. He was already in fear and awe of the man, but to learn that on top of everything else, Mr. Tichy was a gourmet cook was kind of mind-blowing. What wasn't he good at?

"This is really good," the boy said halfway through the meal, but that didn't seem to do it justice.

"Thank you," replied the man. "It's nice to be in charge of the kitchen and not cooking just for myself at the same time," he said with a smile.

This was more than a truce. Tichy must have made an active and conscious decision to give the boy peace on Christmas Eve. The man ate until he was stuffed, then as good as rolled off to light a Startka.

Marek ate until he, too, was stuffed, almost to the point of discomfort. He would have to get some exercise soon or he would turn into a Zeppelin. He had not expected to eat this well, and that was an understatement.

"Wash up. When you're done, call out loud and wait!" said Tichy and closed the kitchen door behind him and walked to the bedroom.

Marek quickly washed all the dishes, and he was glad to do it. He kept replaying the events of the last hour in his head as he washed. The boy was freshly blown and very happily sated. The blowjob ad been astounding, and the meal had been amazing. Truly amazing. He was in a good place. Of course, he had been captured in action and was imprisoned far behind enemy lines, but it was almost as if the commandant of the prison camp had decided to let everyone be happy for Christmas. The boy had heard of such things happening, and here, in the torture chamber of Mr. Tichy's apartment, it seemed that it really had.

"I'm finished, sir," he called from the kitchen, then paused as he had been instructed.

When Marek called, there was a "wait" from Tichy and then an "okay, come!" By that time, the green twig had a red ribbon on it, a small bell, and three sparkle sticks hissing away. There was a pile of only three presents underneath, but they were big ones.

"Happy Christmas," Tichy said when the boy entered the room. "Go on! Father Frost left you a little something," he added with a wink.

The "tree" was kind of funny-looking, but Marek immediately appreciated the effort. The boy had a huge look of wonder and surprise on his face as he surveyed the spluttering display. When his eyes alighted on the gifts and he heard the man speak, he did a double take. His face fell. He looked at Mr. Tichy as tears came to his eyes. Embarrassed, he wiped them away.

Had the man … ? Really? After everything? More tears came. The boy cupped his hand over his mouth in disbelief.

"Unhh huh," Marek hiccupped as he began to sob uncontrollably.

"Well, you are spending Christmas here," smiled Tichy, who was a bit surprised that the bourgeois brat hadn't assumed he would receive some presents for Christmas as his birthright. But then again, Marek was full of surprises. A handful for sure, but not in the way in which Tichy had anticipated. He was in no way done punishing and reprogramming the Glass King's grandson, but today was Christmas, and Marek had been trying hard. Maybe the whipping he had given the boy had been a little over the top, so here was the pile.

"C'mon. Unwrap them. They're nothing special," shrugged the man. They kind of weren't, and yet, there were a pair of skis and poles even with boots in Marek's size, used, but in a good shape and with the new, more comfortable way of clipping the shoe onto the ski – much better than the ones the school had for the boys to practice with. There was a set of hand-me-down, visibly worn, but once again decent and fully functional winter clothes, including overalls, gloves, hat, warm socks, and a jumper. There was one final, smaller parcel that wasn't a hand-me-down although it also wasn't new: a Boys of the Beaver River book from Foglar, last published in a nice hardback during the Prague Spring.

"Happy Christmas."

Marek wiped the tears from his eyes as he knelt by the gifts. At least as measured by the size of the packaging, he'd never had this volume of Christmas gifts before. The small parcel he recognized immediately as a book, and he left that for last. He started on the longish, irregularly shaped package first. Ripping the packaging away, he saw the skis and poles, together with ski boots.

Marek loved to ski, and not only did the equipment look nicer, newer, and better fitting than what he had at home, the gift itself suggested that they would be going skiing during the break. Mr. Tichy had hinted at it before, but Marek thought he had blown that chance by running away. With this gift, he knew that Mr. Tichy would take him skiing at least once. He almost had to, right?

The other large package contained all the clothing that he would need to ski, and once again, it looked nicer and better fitting than what he had in his dorm room for winter clothing and at home with his ski equipment. Marek didn't care that the items were used; indeed, he couldn't have cared less. Everything was of good qualify and nicer than anything Marek had skied with before. He couldn't wait to hit the trails.

The third package indeed was a book, and Marek was a bit surprised to see that it was a Foglar novel. He was pretty sure it was one of the banned ones, as he hadn't read it before, and he was sure that by now he had read all the Foglar books the authorities allowed. In fact, he thought he had heard of this one, although he'd never seen it. He was sure that he would enjoy it, as he liked every single last word that Foglar had ever written.

Wow. Marek just knelt there for another moment with the book in his hand, looking down at it as if he were still studying the cover. Instead, he was thinking. Mr. Tichy had gotten him all these gifts. Three packages, but lots of individual gifts, including all the ski equipment and ski clothing in his size. The man had gone shopping for him. Mr. Tichy had spent his own money on Marek not just for food, but for Christmas gifts, as well.

Marek blinked back more tears. The man had tried to discount his generosity by saying that Marek was spending Christmas with him as if that somehow obligated him to purchase gifts for the boy, but that wasn't true at all. It had never even crossed Marek's mind that he might get so much as single gift for Christmas this year, and yet, here he was kneeling before more gifts than he had ever received on any Christmas ever. He didn't blame his mother for that; they simply didn't have the money for elaborate Christmas gifts – even if she did always make sure that he had a small, wrapped gift or two and some money and candy, as well. But Mr. Tichy's gifts were off the charts by the standards of the Hurta household. The man had given him many more gifts, and more expensive ones, too, and he had been under no obligation to do any of that.

Still on his knees, Marek turned to the man who had tortured and beaten him, abused and debased him, raped him, and used him over and over again for sex. He didn't even know what to think, much less to say. The same man who had done those things to him also had taken the boy into his home, fed him like a king, and gone out of his way to ensure that Marek had a nice Christmas, including allowing him his first-ever blowjob. The same man who hated Marek and multiple generations of his entire family but sometimes hugged and even kissed the boy spontaneously now apparently planned to take the boy skiing, as well. It was almost too much for Marek to take in. It was too confusing to fathom.

Marek felt more than a little bad that Mr. Tichy didn't have any Christmas gifts to open himself, but there was no way he could have purchased something for the man; he had given all of his money to Radek, and Mr. Tichy wasn't about to let him go wandering alone through Zelezny Brod to find something to buy. And how would Marek have known to do so, anyway? He had spent the last few days with the man in fear of being beaten and punished, not contemplating buying presents for Christmas.

Marek may not have a gift to give to the man, but he did still have his manners. He rose to his feet and came over to where Mr. Tichy was standing.

"Thank you for the gifts, Mr. Tichy. And thanks for watching me over the break."

Had he really just said that? Seriously?

"I can't wait to go skiing. That was really nice of you. Happy Christmas."

Judging from the boy's reaction, it seemed to Tichy like his psychological manipulation and the guilt trip he had laid on the boy seemed to be having an almost magical effect. Marek seemed moved and grateful, and for once was acknowledging aspects of his situation other than his own misery.

"We'll go skiing first thing tomorrow," announced Tichy. "Well, maybe the second thing," he added with a grin. "All your rules apply again right from the start of the day tomorrow," said Tichy, clearly implying that he had Rule Four in mind just then. He had given Marek great food, nice gifts, and a whole day of no abuse. He hoped that all of that wasn't going to confuse the boy too much. The man remained a sadist, Marek still was being punished, and Tichy still had some residual anger at the kid over running away, even though most of it left his system with the whipping.

Marek tried not to react as Mr. Tichy confirmed that they would be going skiing the very next day, but inwardly he was as excited as he could be. He loved to ski, of course, but he was also going stir crazy staying in the man's apartment day after day with virtually no exercise. Marek was an athlete. His smooth, 12-year-old body had a naturally muscular physique, but the boy knew that the way Mr. Tichy was feeding him, there was a risk of him turning into Ludmila before the break was over. Cross-country skiing was just what he needed, and he couldn't wait to try out his new equipment. Tomorrow could not come soon enough for the lad.

The boy nodded as Mr. Tichy confirmed that all his rules would be back in play after today. He knew what that meant, especially the requirements of Rule Four. He also knew that the man had gone out of his way to give the boy a nice Christmas, which Marek had not anticipated at all. Mr. Tichy had gone well beyond a truce today. He had been kind and generous to a boy he hated, one that he had good reason to hate. It was confusing to the youngster, but he was beginning to see the strict man in a new and different light.

Tichy wanted to fuck Marek again, but he planned to take the kid skiing the next day and that meant that he needed him well-rested and not too sore, so he refrained. He could only hope that his generosity and forbearance wouldn't be rewarded by renewed resistance and insolence from the kid. If Marek forgot his role, he would be toast, but those were worries for another time. Right now, Tichy was relaxed and satisfied. As for Marek, the boy was happy and equipped for a decent ski trip on the morrow.

"At the risk of one or both of us falling asleep, I think Baker's Emperor would be just about fine now," suggested Tichy, who grabbed a blanket so that they could cozy up together in the internat's library as they watched.

And so it was that Marek's very fine day ended with a movie on the library's color TV snuggled up with his nemesis. The movie was good, funny, and a nice follow up of the first part, but even the man was yawning by the end of it. A soon as it ended, it was time to usher Marek into the flat and, after a quick piss and tooth-brushing, into the bedroom and the bed that they shared. Tichy was just about ready to pass out as he reached for the 12-year-old and snuggled the naked youngster close to his body, spooning him tightly from behind the way they both seemed to like.

Like Mr. Tichy, Marek's eyelids had begun to feel very heavy well before they movie was over, but his earlier nap had helped to rejuvenate him, and the movie was such a rare treat that he was able to force himself to stay awake until the end. His day ended the same way it had begun, naked and in bed with the man who controlled and dominated every aspect of his life, but Marek didn't mind. Indeed, he welcomed the warmth of Mr. Tichy's naked body against his. His last thought was that it had been an unexpectedly good day – his best at the internat so far, and a very good day overall, indeed. After his blowjob, he wasn't even worried about having a wet dream.

Chapter 23

Tichy fell asleep. He was such a perfect combination of stuffed, tired, and tipsy that if Marek had still harbored thoughts of escaping, this would have been the one window of opportunity for him to pull it off. But the boy was equally stuffed and limp, and for the first time in weeks, not sexually frustrated. The room got a bit cold at night (by Czech standards) and it was nice to have the man snuggled up against him warmly, skin on skin.

Marek slept well. He never was consciously aware of the dropping temperature, but he did keep himself pressed close to the man's naked body for added warmth. He was also unaware of his erections, but he had one as the man jostled him awake. The boy knew he would have to do something about that. He simply could not have another wet dream. He wasn't sure he would survive it. He would need to ask Mr. Tichy about the special shorts. He would do that tonight.

Tichy chortled as he woke up, with his hand on Marek, near his lower belly, as it brushed over the boy's erection even as his own poked against the boy's butt. He yawned and prodded Marek, who was just starting to blink himself awake.

"Butt or mouth?" asked Tichy sleepily. "And if you need a piss first, go, but hurry up."

Marek yawned as the man asked him, oh-so-casually, which way he wanted to be raped. The boy wasn't sure. His mouth felt all cottony and he didn't really feel like sucking.

"Butt, sir?" he said as he rose from the bed, stretched nakedly, then scooted off to the bathroom.

It didn't even occur to Tichy that being fucked was the lazier option; in his book, it was the distinctly more homosexual one and a sign that Marek was really taking to cock. He didn't comment, though. He didn't want or need to mock the boy or rub things in this morning, he needed to get off. He reached for the usual tube of cream, squeezed a generous bit onto his palm, and by the time Marek was back from the bathroom, Tichy was ready to fuck.

Marek was back in the bedroom in a flash. He wasn't exactly looking forward to being buggered, but in a way, he somewhat was. The sooner the man got his rocks off, the sooner they could go skiing! The 12-year-old was excited to try out his new equipment and togs. Beyond that, he was excited to be getting out of the apartment and doing something physical that didn't involve sex. The boy knew that he had certain duties to perform, including most importantly, those of Rule No. 4, but the sooner they got on with it, the sooner the fun day he was anticipating could begin.

"Hands and knees," ordered Tichy. "Head down. Butt up. Knees more apart," he instructed in a series of curt, matter-of-fact commands.

Marek knelt on the bed, spread his legs, leaned his head down, and presented his hole to the man. The boy didn't even really think about it anymore. He had become so accustomed to the man using his body for sex that it was becoming commonplace. They did it at least three times per day unless the man decided otherwise. It was becoming routine, like a chore, or like doing his homework. It was hard for the boy to get all riled up about it anymore.

Once the boy was in position, Tichy pressed the tube of cream against the kid's pink pucker. There was no sign of redness or soreness or anything after a full day's break from sexual activity, and from behind at least, even Marek's crotch didn't look all that bad anymore. He squeezed the lube right into the boy's rectum, evincing a wince from the prone, submissive kid as Marek felt the lube going in, cold and slippery.

"Now lie down," instructed Tichy. "Spread just a little bit and relax."

Marek went to his stomach, his legs opened wide, his butt cheeks spread for fucking.

Tichy got on top of the boy, positioning his erection so that it could easily slip inside. With just a small push, the tip was in. He didn't feel much resistance or any obvious signs of discomfort from Marek, so he pushed in a bit deeper before pausing to allow the boy to adjust.

Just like that, Mr. Tichy's cock was inside him, and Marek let out a little sigh. It hurt a bit — it always did at first — but the man was going slowly and proceeding gently. It didn't seem like it was going to be a hate-fuck this time around, and for that, the boy was grateful.

Tichy spent what time he deemed necessary to avoid turning this into an ordeal for the kid. He eased himself into the boy, inch by inch, pausing and even pulling back and out once to re-lube. Eventually, he made it balls-deep into Marek's tight, satiny ass and it felt good. It felt even better because he had taken a break from fucking the kid the day before, and his balls were churning with pent-up need.

Underneath the man's undulating hips, Marek's mind was wandering. Skiing was going to be fun, and the boy couldn't wait! As soon as Mr. Tichy finished fucking him, Marek intended to go back in the living room and admire the skis, boots, and poles once again. Maybe Mr. Tichy — "Owwww!" he winced as the man pushed just a little deeper — would even let them try them on. And were they going to drive to where they were go — "Ooh" — in the man's car? That would be fun.

Marek knew that he needed to concentrate on what Mr. Tichy was doing to him, so he forced himself to stop thinking about his new skis as the man bottomed out in his ass. It always hurt when he took Marek all the way like that, but if the boy were being honest, not all that much anymore. It was more like generalized discomfort. He felt very full back there, and sometimes the penetration hurt a bit more sharply, but overall, being buggered had become quite tolerable for the boy over time.

The man began to move, somewhat carefully at first, but soon got confident enough that he didn't need to be. Five minutes in, he was fucking Marek's ass like he owned it — which he as good as did, of course — with long, deep, intense thrusts. Marek wasn't screaming in agony, which told Tichy all he needed to know about the state of the boy's balls. The kid had recovered and was good for fucking and for skiing. Due to his position above and behind Marek and the angle he chose for penetration, he began to hit the kid's spot with nearly every thrust, forcing involuntary pleasure on the boy with a surge of intensity that the kid likely didn't expect to feel.

For Marek, as the man continued, it became more than tolerable. Mr. Tichy's cock was hitting his inner penis again, the inside part of him that felt almost as good as jerking off when it was touched. It had the same result as jerking off, too, since it made Marek's cock hard. He could feel his spike forming below him as the man drove the boy's hips into the mattress. His penis was pointing the wrong way and Marek reached down to adjust it. It soon reached its full length and hardness, and Marek couldn't help but add a tiny little grinding motion of his own into the mattress as the man undulated atop him.

The man was really giving it to him, causing Marek's head and upper body to rock back and forth on the bed with every thrust. The angle of the man's penetration was so perfectly hitting its spot that Marek almost didn't want to move a muscle, but he couldn't resist using his hips imperceptibly to grind his erection against the mattress below. Mr. Tichy's penis kept on hitting that spot as Marek kept on grinding and enjoying the sensation.

Marek's eyes closed and his mouth slacked open as Mr. Tichy's cock continued to hit that spot. It felt so nice. Not enough to cum, but enough to produce that building, tingling sensation in the his young loins. Marek liked the way it felt. He liked it a lot.

The boy knew that he was playing with fire whenever he allowed himself to feel pleasure like this. Cumming without permission was … Marek didn't even want to think about it. It would make him sick to his stomach to think about it. Suffice it to say that he would never, ever, ever do that again. Nonetheless, the boy was fairly sure that he could let it feel good, even help it a little without going too far, and the sensation was such that he wanted to try rather than think horrible thoughts designed to diminish his arousal. He was surprised at how horny he was after cumming yesterday. It seemed that his balls were fully recovered and back in full production mode; the boy feared that could spell danger for the night ahead.

It felt great for Tichy with the kid's tight, yet unresisting hole clamped around his cock. He used his hips to slide in and out quite vigorously. It was nice that he could go about as fast and intensely as he wanted to, yet the boy still liked it and took it easily. The boy really did seem made for the kind of sex that Tichy liked, with an ass that could be fucked hard and a body that could be beaten and recover for more abuse within just a few days. It felt great to have that power over the kid, to control whether he hurt Marek when they fucked or made him feel good. Tichy had plans for later, but right now, right here, it felt amazing as it was and he simply kept going until he came with a deep, guttural grunt, a huff of air, his balls slamming into Marek's taint as he bottomed out firmly inside the kid once again. A generous load of semen squirted up Marek's behind; after weeks of being used to cumming multiple times a day, Tichy actually was a little pent up, even after just a single day of abstinence.

Marek felt the flood of warmth in his bowels as Mr. Tichy came in his ass. He then felt an electric bolt of excitement shoot through him with the realization that the sex was over for now. It was time to go skiing!

Tichy pulled out and examined his cock. It was clean except for traces of cum and lubricating cream, with no streaks of shit. The man grinned. He was glad that his cock wasn't fouled with anything to get the kid upset as he cleaned it with his mouth. Like Marek, Tichy was looking forward to skiing without any drama from the 12-year-old.

"Come here and suck me clean," he commanded casually. With his cock as spotless as it appeared, he didn't expect any bullshit whatsoever from the kid. Tichy had proved he wasn't a complete monster the day before, and now it was Marek's turn to prove he wasn't any less obedient or aware of his role.

Marek sat up with an odd smile on his face. He couldn't help it. He felt like a little kid again. When the man asked him to suck, he didn't even hesitate as he crawled near and took the man's penis in his mouth and began to clean it with his lips and tongue. He was so eager to go skiing that he probably would have sucked almost anything off the man's cock today without objection, but he was glad that he didn't have to.

"Good boy," said Tichy as the youngster cleaned his cock without so much as an unhappy look. "I like this new attitude." After a scant two minutes of cleanup, he slipped his cock out of Marek's mouth and sent the kid on his way to get ready.

Marek went to brush his teeth after cleaning the man's cock, but his mind was on the day ahead. He was almost giddy he was so excited. He felt like a little kid on Christmas morning — well, actually … He had plenty of time to clean up and get ready as Tichy fixed them a quick and easy breakfast – just bread, butter, jam, and a cup of tea each. After breakfast, they got dressed to ski. Tichy specifically instructed Marek to wear a normal pair of underwear so that nothing would chafe and cause trouble. Marek got to put his base layers on for the first time as Tichy slipped on long johns, socks, and his own overalls.

Marek dressed as the man instructed, and then put on his new togs, which made him as happy as a clam. They fit well, and despite being second-hand, were nicer than any winter outfit Marek ever had owned. The boy was all smiles and excitement as he gathered up his skis and poles and headed outside the apartment to do something fun, seemingly for the first time in forever.

The new ski boots had soft-enough rubber soles not to be damaged by a short walk, and Tichy soon led the way out of the flat, both fully attired in their skiing gear with their skis over their shoulders, clipped together with the poles and all. Tichy brought a backpack with him. It contained a thermos with tea, assorted snacks for them to eat along the way, and a few other necessities.

They walked towards the gymnasium and went around it, up the short path where Tichy had walked the naked, sobbing Marek on his hands and knees like a dog a few weeks earlier, but this time when Tichy unlocked the gate, they walked straight out. It took them only five more minutes of walking up the road before they hit a field with a slightly messy amateur track and could put on their skis. Tichy sniffed the air, touched the snow, and went for a green wax. He rubbed it on, warmed it with his hand, and spread it on his skis. Tichy hopped into his bindings like a pro, but he had to help Marek; the locking mechanism was stiff, especially for a boy unused to this type of a ski.

The boy was a little disappointed that they weren't going further afield for their skiing expedition, but he was so eager to begin that it was a very minor matter. He held onto Mr. Tichy's arm as the man helped him into the bindings. They were different from what he was familiar with, and he stood there stationary, rising on his toes, trying to get a feel for them.

"These are cross-country solids; they don't really clip off," warned Tichy. "They're not like downhills, so if you must fall, always fall on your bum, into a squat, or worst-case scenario sideways, never forward or you might break a leg and who knows what."

Marek listened carefully to what the man had to say about falling and nodded. Fall on his butt. Got it. He was fairly sure he was going to fall more than once, but so be it. He was 12 years old and didn't care.

And just like that they were off, with Tichy letting Marek show him his level of technique and style first. Then the man took the lead after a quick assessment of what the boy could handle.

Once he had taken 100 strides with the skis, Marek already felt like he understood not only the technique but the concept. These skis were better than his old ones — a lot better, in fact. Did he dare tell Mr. Tichy that the skis he used had once been his father's? That they probably had been purchased for his father by The Glass King, himself? Marek thought that was information he should keep to himself.

The start was difficult and not very much fun, even though Tichy was going easy on the boy. It was uphill. It wasn't all that steep, but they skied continuously and relentlessly uphill for over half an hour. It was hard enough work for them both to break into a hard sweat and exhale clouds of steamy breath into the cold morning air. They had left when the sky was still grey and were rewarded by a beautiful dawn breaking behind them, which Tichy had them stop, turn around, and watch. The conditions were just about perfect, with a layer of crisp, freshly fallen powder snow, but also with a track laid down by someone who was out either earlier that morning than the two of them, or perhaps the evening before.

Then they were up on the ridge of the hill, and it was beautiful. The terrain there was mostly flat — a bit up, a bit down — but nothing too steep either way. The track in the snow was even better, by the look of it probably placed by the mountain service with a snow sledge. The day was bright but still frosty, and the snow great for this kind of trip, so Tichy pressed on, heading north the entire way. A train chugged past, down on their right, deeper in the valley, mostly obscured from view by spruces covered in snow.

The skiing became easier again as soon as the trail leveled off. Marek's strides grew even longer, and he found that he loved hearing the click of his bindings as he poled himself along. This was marvelous, and Marek enjoyed the heck out of it. The scenery was breathtaking. His hometown of Vacenovice did not have rolling hills and scenery quite like this. After a while, though, the boy's legs started to feel the strain and his stride shortened once again. He also was getting hot under his jumper, and his face was flushed from exertion.

Then they descended a bit before climbing again, skiing past Drzkov. There they had to climb up some more, past Zasada and upwards toward Smrzovka. It was there, underneath the massive hill ahead with the Cerna Studnice viewing tower ahead of them, that Tichy paused. Opening his pack, he passed Marek a cookie and poured him some hot tea. By now they were two hours and some sixteen kilometers into the trip.

"How are you doing, Marek?" he asked the boy. "Honestly."

Marek was breathing hard when they stopped and was pleased to have a moment to catch his breath. He had gotten the hang of the skis and the bindings soon enough, but the uphill part was hard work for the boy, who had not been exercising much since the football season had ended. He was out of shape — not in a way that could be seen on his body — but his aerobic capacity was down. Nonetheless, Marek always had prided himself on his athletic prowess, and he had pushed on without complaint. The day was perfect, and the snow was good for skiing. Mr. Tichy was strong and fluid on his skis, and he had not looked tired at all. It seemed that there was nothing the man could not do well.

"I'm good," the boy said, as he panted a bit, before adding "sir." The boy was feeling tired and winded, but there was no way on earth he wanted to admit that and risk the man ending the outing early.

Tichy looked at him a bit skeptically.

"Well, look," he said. "If you overdo it and end up with a fever or a pulled muscle or something, then we can't go again tomorrow. Right now, we can turn back towards Pencin and Jirkov and make a nice little round of it. Some of it will be exciting — following a footpath that no one normally skis on — so we'll have to change technique and make our way through untouched powder snow. Can you skate on these?" he checked. If Marek couldn't, he could still manage, but it would be slower going. So far, they had been using the "classical" style, keeping the skis flat, each one in its track, stepping, using the poles for extra oomph and gliding as far as momentum would take them, then doing the same with the other foot.

"The other option is onwards and forwards, but Cerna Studnice is a hell of a hill," added Tichy. "We then crack on towards Muchov and Tanvald, which is a stunning piece of a ski track with gorgeous views, and then catch a train from Tanvald, because we need to be back in one piece," he grinned. "So?"

Go again tomorrow? Had the boy heard correctly? He stood up a little straighter in his skis as Mr. Tichy explained the options to him. Marek was 12 years old. Yes, he was tired, but right now, he felt like he could ski to Russia if he needed to. He nodded eagerly as the man asked if he could skate. He could do that on his own skis, and he was sure he could do it on these. He pondered the choice the man had given him, but it really wasn't much of a decision. The second option sounded amazing, especially culminating as it did in a train ride back. Marek was sure he could handle the big hill.

"Definitely the other option," the boy said with a confident smile. He was tired, but also confident he could make it.

"All right, but if you die, you'll miss out on the actual mountains down the line," shrugged Tichy like he literally was willing to leave Marek dead in a snowed-covered ditch — although he did finish the sentence with a bit of a smile. But Tichy knew it wouldn't be easy for the boy, or for him. Cerna Studnice was a bitch of a hill from this side. It was up, up, and more up, most of it too steep to ski, so they would have to lean into their poles and open their skis into broad Vs so as not to slip backwards and lift them and carve their way up the cunt of a hill one step at a time.

When they set out again after the short break, Marek was full of renewed energy. He liked a challenge and had been housebound long enough to have been going a bit stir crazy. He attacked the hill with a vengeance, matching the man step by step — for stepping was what they were doing more than skiing. But Marek wasn't so much as a third of the way up the hill when his legs and thighs stated to burn. His heart was threatening to beat out of his chest. And they still had two-thirds to go!

As they proceeded up the hill, the boy was sure that Mr. Tichy was going to stop and rest, but it didn't happen. The man just kept plugging right along. Marek tried to match him stride for stride, but it was impossible. The man was as strong as an ox. Marek kept on going even as his pace fell off. His brow was sweating fiercely into his hat. Up, up, up they went. Not a word was spoken between the two. It was hard, hard work.

Indeed, it was a workout like nothing Marek had experienced since coming to the internat, inclusive of the exhausting match with Technoglass. When they finally reached the top of the hill Marek was on the verge of collapse, but he felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment, as well as the knowledge that a good chunk of what they had remaining had to be downhill. Marek loved to glide downhill on his cross-county skis. He had never downhill skied, but that came close to it — or so he thought, anyway.

The restaurant by the tower was open despite it being Christmas Day. Tichy clipped his skis off, stuck them into a mound of snow, hung his poles on them and helped the exhausted, shaky-legged boy out of his bindings. They went in, sat down and moments later, they were feasting.

It was kofola (herbal Coke) for Marek, beer for Tichy, a hearty Zelnacka (cabbage paprika soup with sausage) and fresh bread to eat. A grilled sausage each, more bread, ketchup for Marek, mustard for Tichy. Coffee for the man, tea for the boy. The meal inside was fantastic and rejuvenating. The boy was famished, and he ate eagerly. Another restaurant meal had him feeling guilty that he was eating so well. His mother, he knew, was not. Nor were his aunt, uncle, and cousins.

They rested for nearly an hour, which was not long enough for their damp overalls to dry, but enough for their bodies to recuperate somewhat. It also was long enough for deeper muscle pain and fatigue to set in. When Marek stood up, he could feel the ache in his thighs, but he didn't say anything. On top of everything else, it had started to snow again outside, quite heavily in fact, with a good bit of wind. Nonetheless, after they suited up again, out into the swirling snow they went.

The snow cut the visibility to a mere few steps. So much for stunning views. But there was no turning back. Back on their skis, they pressed toward Muchov.

Marek had been right; it was gently downhill almost the entire way to Muchov, straight and mildly up over it, and then steeply down into Tanvald; even Tichy ended up on his butt once. This was a terrain where alp-skis would have been useful, or even basic downhills. They skied for a time beside the road, then walked with their skis over their shoulders toward the train station.

Marek's muscles had tightened up in the restaurant, but they loosened once again as they were on the downhill slope for most of the next 30 minutes. The boy fell twice in a tumble, needing Mr. Tichy's help to get up both times, but he was upright enough soon again and pressing on. The downhill part was much easier on his legs and loads and loads of fun. The entire day had been great fun so far, even if Marek knew with certainty that his lower extremities were going to fall off as soon as the trip was over.

Fatigue was really setting in as they made it to the train station. Marek was tired, yet he felt proud and exhilarated. He was very pleased with his new skis.

Tichy had miscalculated. Most trains were still shut down and it was still three hours before the one and only evening train to Brod. There was a delayed train to Jablonec and Tichy spontaneously decided to jump on it, so down they chuffed through the winding valley.

In Jablonec, Tichy confidently led the way to a bus that took them as far as Bratrikov, uphill from Pencin, only one deep valley away from the internat. Then he explained the new plan. They would have to ski some more to get back, or else wait for several hours. When Marek saw the size of the hill and the path they would have to take, he looked at the man like he had taken leave of his senses. Marek was not sure he would be able to stay upright. Downhill was hard, especially on a new pair of skis that were not designed for that kind of travel.

They were going to go down a clear slope under electric wires, but this was not a ski slope. It had been cut as a clearing by the electrical division through a thick forest, and it was steep as fuck. It would be a killer on cross-country skis. The good news was the powdery snow was perfect, so the only risk was falling face first, and with the depth of snow on the ground, even that wasn't likely to be deadly.

The smart option probably would be for Marek to squat down and use his skis as a sledge almost, rather than to keep trying to keep balance. The valley looked dark. Abandoned. A mostly frozen-over stream gurgled amongst the trees. A person could die and not be found in a place like this till the spring. And the hill opposite seemed virtually unscalable in these conditions. What the heck was Tichy's plan?

"Don't die, will ya?" grinned the man as they strapped their skis on.

Tichy went first, just swooshing down the hill like he had a full downhill kit on. He ripped a chunk of snow with him as he went and arrived at the bottom of the valley almost chest-deep in a miniature avalanche that he had ripped from his passage, then looked back to see how Marek was faring.

Marek followed, much more slowly, but still hurtling (or should we say Hurtaling?) along at a very fast clip. He used his poles for balance as he concentrated on staying upright. It would have been fun if it weren't so nerve-racking. One fall would send Marek tumbling, skidding, and rolling down the hill, and there were enough obstacles and features along the way to make that a daunting proposition. Surprisingly, however, or perhaps because he was concentrating so hard, Marek didn't fall, and he was able to continue all the way to where the man stood waiting at the bottom, albeit with a bit of a stressed look on his young face.

"Excellent. I think you've just earned yourself a proper trip to the mountains," smiled Tichy. He was half tempted to mess with the boy, or even fuck him right there in the snow, but it was going to get dark sort of soon, and very, very fast – and very, very dark at that – so he didn't mess about. Marek's fine young ass would have to wait to be plowed because for now, they had a different kind of plowing to do.

"Five more minutes," Tichy told the boy. "I'll plow out the track, you follow."

He went along to the right, through the bottom of the middle-of-nowhere valley, literally zigzagging among spruces and the odd pine. There couldn't have been even a footpath here in the summer. This was the thick of the forest, a deep, dark, steep valley seemingly miles away from anything. It really was getting dark, and down here, between the two steep slopes, especially so. They were still four, five kilometers away from the internat, but uphill, though unmarked, deep snow and a forest. People had died in the mountains in situations like these, when darkness fell, or the weather turned — Hanc and Vrbata most famously, but others before them, and some after.

Marek was disoriented. Where in the world were they? They had just skied at breakneck speed down the big hill, but the boy didn't recognize their surroundings. It was getting dark, and Marek didn't think they were anywhere near the internat. That had been the plan when they found that the train wasn't running – take the bus to Bratrikov, then ski back to the school. But they didn't seem to be anywhere near where they needed to be. They were in a valley of sorts, with daunting climbs ahead just to get over the ridge. Marek didn't recognize any landmarks or features to suggest that they were close to the school. It was getting very dark, and starting to grow cold …

"Five more minutes" Mr. Tichy had said, but that was impossible. They couldn't be that close to the school unless it somehow had been picked up and transported somewhere else while they were out for the day. It was then that Marek realized there was something amiss. Where were they? And more importantly, where were they going? Where was Mr. Tichy taking him on this cold winter day, after dark. And why? The boy was starting to worry. He knew that even if they sometimes had periods of truce, the man hated him for being a Hurta. Now he had Marek alone, far from the school and anyone else, isolated and after dark. He didn't think that Mr. Tichy had anything nefarious planned — not after the last two days, especially — but it was clear to the boy that they were not five minutes from their destination as the man had said. They simply couldn't be. The man was lying. But why?

Marek thought they were more than five minutes away from anywhere civilized, but then, just like that, the trees opened, and he saw a clear slope ahead. They skied into a clearing with a little road and a smattering of small, older-looking houses. Marek breathed a sigh of relief as Mr. Tichy had them stop at the very first one. The boy would have done the same. It was clear that they were lost, and it was better to ask for help than to try to find their way home in the dark and cold. Something had gone wrong, and the most important thing was to make sure it didn't get any worse. A person could freeze to death in the mountains, and it was now just about too dark to ski.

Tichy beckoned Marek to follow. Marek wasn't sure what to expect as they approached the door of the first little house in the clearing. Would the people let them in to warm up? Would they know the direction to the school? It may have been possible to hike the remaining distance, but even that was probably not advisable after dark. Marek doubted that the little cottage had a telephone, but maybe there was one down the road. This was turning into quite the adventure, and a bit of a scary one, too. Marek was glad that he had Mr. Tichy with him. One way or the other, he knew that the man would get them back to the school safely.

They unclipped their skis and Tichy rang the doorbell. The door opened, and an older, grey-haired lady beamed at the pair of them. She looked just like a grandma should look, kind and friendly. Marek couldn't help but smile with relief at the warm welcome.

"Standa!" exclaimed the curly haired woman. "We were beginning to worry. Come right in, the two of you. You must be Marek," she smiled as she tugged Marek into the warmth of the small-but-cozy cottage – and just like that, Marek was in Tichy's old home and the place of his birth.

Marek's expression turned to one of shock as the woman greeted "Standa" by name and then him, too. The boy was stunned. Who? What? How? His head was spinning. He was a confused boy as the kindly lady ushered them into the cottage. It was only then that the boy realized exactly where he was.

Marek's blood ran cold. This was Mr. Tichy's home, and the woman was the man's mother. Somehow, Marek knew it instantly. Mr. Tichy had planned this all along.

The boy began to shake uncontrollably. He was chilled from the cold, but that wasn't what was causing him to tremble. Marek had replayed over and over in his mind what Mr. Tichy had told him about the tortures his parents and grandfather had endured at the greedy, capitalist hands of The Glass King. The story of what had happened to Mr. Tichy's family was ingrained in his mind, and it had all been caused – no, the better word was inflicted – by Marek's grandfather. It explained Mr. Tichy's hatred of him. It was a hatred so deep that he had arranged to bring the boy to the internat so that he could be punished, abused, and tortured for what his grandfather had done to the man's family.

As Marek had replayed the story in his mind again and again, it had occurred to him more than once that Mr. Tichy's hatred of The Glass King couldn't possibly hold a candle to what the man's parents must feel. It was they after all and not Tichy, who had suffered and been forced to endure what Marek's grandfather had done to them. Now the boy was in the home of the people his grandfather had abused and tortured so many years ago. His stomach clenched with anxiety.

The boy was very frightened to be in the home of Mr. Tichy's parents, but more than that, he felt embarrassed, guilty, and terribly, terribly ashamed. He blushed red in the face as he turned to see a man who could only be Mr. Tichy's father approaching them from across the small room. Why had Mr. Tichy brought him here? Why? Marek wanted to bawl. He didn't want to face the man's parents. He couldn't face them. What could he say? There was nothing to say. He had tried apologizing to Mr. Tichy when he first heard the man's story, but it had sounded lame even as he said the words, and the man had responded by hatefully mouth-fucking him almost unconscious. Marek hadn't even blamed him for that. He had even come to understand the man's motive for revenge. The boy didn't agree with it, but after that he understood it. Perhaps someone did have to pay for what The Glass King had done; Marek just wished it didn't have to be him.

Now here he was, face to face with the people his grandfather had tortured and abused and whose lives he had ruined. It was a ruination so profound that it had carried over into Mr. Tichy's generation, and who knew how many generations it would affect after that. Marek felt terribly, awfully ashamed. Blushing and trembling, he looked down at the floor, wishing he could somehow disappear into a hole in it. Why had Mr. Tichy brought him here? Why? He honestly would rather be beaten or caned than have to face Mr. Tichy's parents and the legacy of what his grandfather had done to them.

"Standa!" the woman sounded outraged as Marek shuffled in, silent and avoiding eye contact. "Have you been driving the boy all day? He's soaked and looks a wreck! Oh, poor child, come on in, take off those overalls, quick," fussed the grey-haired lady. She as good as stripped Marek to his underwear, but before he could even start feeling awkward about it, Tichy had handed him a dry t-shirt that was long enough to cover him to his knees. The man still had a drawer of old clothes at the house, so he changed, too.

Marek didn't think he had ever felt so awkward in his entire life. He wasn't scared, not exactly, although it was a bit frightening to be so closely in the presence of three people whose lives his grandfather had substantially harmed, if not ruined. An overwhelming feeling of guilt, dread, and shame made him want to turn into a puff of smoke and vanish. He felt like he had committed a crime or something even worse than a crime – like a mortal sin. It felt almost like the little cottage was on holy, sanctified ground, and he was defiling it with his very presence. Nobody else seemed to feel that way, however. The three adults seemed completely unfazed by his presence.

"You won't get lost in this house," chuckled Tichy as he showed the kid around. "This room is the kitchen, living room, hallway and main storage, there's a bathroom through that door – thanks to socialism, we no longer have to go out and use an outhouse," he added with a smile. "Upstairs is the bedroom and my old room, which my dad now uses as a workshop. That's all – well, except for the cellar below, carved into good old Jizera granite!"

"Yes, yes," interrupted Mrs. Tichy, "but Standa, honestly, has this poor child been up on his feet all day?"

"No, we took a train from Tanvald to Jablonec and a bus up – relax, mother," replied Tichy, but the old lady rolled her eyes at him.

"So, you drove him up Cerna Studnice on his first ski trip?" she frowned. "I know you believe young Mr. Hurta here should re-connect with the region and all that, but he won't learn much if you kill him in the process," she said with an exasperated look.

"Anyway, sit, boys," she continued. "Supper is ready. And thank you for providing it, Standa. You know you shouldn't have, but it's wasting my breath trying to tell you that, isn't it?"

"Oh, the food hamper?" asked Tichy. "Well, if I'm not allowed to buy you presents, at least I can send some food up for the holidays," he declared with a shrug.

Marek had had one, small hope left, and it was that perhaps Mr. Tichy had not told his parents who Marek was – who he really was. But his hopes in that regard were dashed when Mrs. Tichy referred to him by his last name, and even alluded to his roots in the region. Why had Mr. Tichy told them that? Why? It made Marek feel like a criminal.

But before the boy even knew what was happening, he was seated at the sturdy old dining table before a plate with cabbage, dumplings, and a piece of roast duck. The adults drank wine and opened a bottle of juice especially for him. No one was giving him weird looks or frowns; these were the people his grandfather had hurt, and yet they seemed hospitable, like it didn't even matter.

Marek couldn't speak. He didn't know what to say and he didn't feel worthy. The Tichys were being as nice as could be, but … they knew who he was. He simply couldn't make eye contact with them. They had every reason to hate him, every reason at all. Yet he found himself at their dinner table, feeling underdressed, out of sorts, and terribly ashamed of who he was.

On the other hand, the boy was absolutely famished. He felt almost weak with hunger, and although he felt completely unworthy to take food from people his grandfather had so grievously harmed, his plate had been made for him, and the Tichys didn't even seem to be … angry. They seemed so nice, even after all they had been through.

Marek was in turmoil. He was exhausted and he felt emotional, but he was 12 years old, and it would not do to cry. It would also draw attention to himself, when what he wanted to do was sink into a hole and disappear – after eating, of course. He was that hungry.

"Thank you," were his first words, uttered in a soft, nearly whispered voice. He took a sip of the juice, and he started to eat. But it was a very, very awkward meal for the young Hurta boy.

They all ate and drank, the adults consuming red wine before Tichy's father – who was a slightly hunched-over, limping, stout man with bushy eyebrows and a mostly bald head who didn't really look at all like his son – shuffled over to the sideboard, grabbed some shot glasses, and poured two large vodkas and two small cherry griotkas. He passed one vodka to his son and the bright pinkish-red shots to his wife and Marek.

"May God keep us in peace," he said raspingly as he raised his glass.

"It'll sooner be the communist party, dad," said Tichy with a smile, "but I'll gladly drink to peace." And so, they drank. Afterwards, Tichy lit up a Startka and passed one to his father.

"I shouldn't, Standa," said the man even as he accepted the cigarette.

"I know," replied Tichy. "But it's Christmas."

They chuckled, smoked, and poured themselves another vodka, then started to discuss how winter had been going so far. Tichy reported on the ski trip. It was all very relaxed and casual until his mother intervened once again.

"Your clothes are dripping, you two. There's no way I'm letting you climb that hill in the dark and cold, especially in soggy clothing."

"I think for once I agree, we're just about done," nodded Tichy as he reached over to ruffle Marek's hair. "We'll sleep on the stove," he said with another smile as his mother laughed in a lilting, joyful way.

Like others built in its era, the Tichys' cottage had a big woodstove made of ceramic tiles with a padded area above that stayed warm all the time but usually didn't get too hot. Typically, the youngest kids in the family or anyone who was sick would sleep there because as the stove burned itself out toward the early morning, it was the place in the cottage that stayed warm and cozy the longest. This one had been built a century ago, for shorter, less-well-fed people and mainly kids, so it would indeed be a tight squeeze for a large man and a boy of 12.

"That's a tight squeeze even for one!" Tichy's mother exclaimed. "I might find your old sleeping bag if you want to take the bench instead," she added, but Tichy waved her off.

"We share a bed in my flat, too," the man explained. "Marek's not shy or fussy, I can say that much for him," he said, as the old lady gave Marek an indulgent smile.

"Anything else you need, boy?" she asked Marek. "Maybe a small piece of babovka?"

It was almost surreal for Marek. Here he was, in the midst of people who had every reason to hate him — and one who he already knew absolutely did hate him — and they were all behaving normally, treating him like a guest and an ordinary boy. Marek did not feel worthy of their hospitality. He had so internalized the message from Tichy, Hanak, Ludmila, Skala, and the other boys that he was the spawn of an utterly evil man that he believed without question that he was tainted, damaged, and inferior. Weeks and weeks of relentless self-doubt had permeated his very soul to the point where he no longer even challenged the proposition that he needed to be punished, mistreated, and fucked for his grandfather's transgressions.

After all, somebody had to pay for what the man had done, and Marek had long since reconciled himself to the fact that since he was the man's only living heir, it had to be him. It was natural that it would be him, even if he didn't like it very much at all. There still were times when he thought it wasn't fair, but for the most part he was resigned to it. It was why Mr. Tichy had brought him to the school — that much, the man had made crystal clear — and since he couldn't leave, Mr. Tichy was going to punish him for being a Hurta, and there was nothing Marek could do about it. It was really that simple. No advanced analysis was required.

But more punishment didn't seem to be why Mr. Tichy had brought him to his parents' house. Mr. Tichy's parents didn't seem to be angry with him, yet they knew perfectly well who he was. To Marek, the hospitality he was receiving seemed so incredibly magnanimous as to be almost saintly. Not an unkind word had been spoken to him. There hadn't been so much as a single, hateful look. The Tichys had opened their home to him as if he were a normal boy, and not the only living grandson of the man who had ruined their lives. It was a lesson in generosity and forgiveness the likes of which he was not likely to forget for the rest of his days.

He listened as arrangements were made for them to stay over, and as much as he had wanted to disappear — and as much as he liked to ski — the thought of re-dressing in cold, wet gear and skiing any additional distance in the chilling cold and inky darkness was not appealing in the least. Marek was bone-weary, his muscles were aching, and after the hefty meal and a nip of booze, the youngster was feeling as tired and sleepy as it was possible for a boy of 12 to be. He was comfortably full and warm, even though he was very lightly and strangely attired.

"No, thank you, ma'am," replied Marek to the offer of cake. He hadn't said much during the meal. He didn't feel worthy of speaking to these people in their house, and his head still was swimming from the whole situation. The day had been full of wonder, from the cottage, the hill with the observation tower, the mountains, the ski trails, and the towns along the way. Marek's eyes started to lose focus as he sat at the table.

Mrs. Tichy chuckled. "Standa, you've destroyed the boy," she chuckled. "He needs to go to bed right away!"

Tichy chuckled, too. "He can survive five more minutes as we finish a smoke and our drinks, mother," he replied as he thought about just how correct his mother's words were, and not just in relation to skiing and today. If only she knew what he had done to destroy the boy – what righteous horrors he had inflicted on The Glass King's grandson – but none of that would have made her happy. Tichy had long since resigned himself to the fact that his parents were too old-school for the revolution. God-fearing Christians on the surface, they were half-pagan, and when you scratched the surface, like most folks from around here they were superstitious — connected to the mountains in a way that was almost spiritual.

Once the discussion turned to sleeping arrangements and Marek realized just how tired he was, the youngster barely could keep his eyelids open any longer. He sat at the table, blinking tiredly, as the conversation swirled around him. This had been another record-setting day (he was having a lot of them recently with Mr. Tichy, it occurred to the boy) in the sense of how far they had skied, how much energy they had expended, how sore Marek was, and how tired he felt. He had set new high-water marks in all those categories, especially, it seemed, on the topic of how bone-weary and exhausted he was right now.

Tichy smoked, drank, and talked his father into another small shot of vodka as a nightcap before his parents went upstairs. He then stoked the fire thoroughly one last time, then sent Marek to the bathroom one last time before using it himself.

Marek was too tired to contemplate anything other than the prospect of sleep. One troubling thought entered his mind, and that was to wonder whether Mr. Tichy would want either one of his two remaining Rule Four entitlements once they retired to bed. The boy hoped not. He was soooo tired. From a noise standpoint, he was pretty sure he could give the man a quiet blow job (or two, if Tichy so required) that would not disturb his parents, but it would seem almost sacrilegious to do it with the elder Tichys so near, and Marek wasn't sure he would be able to keep his eyes open long enough to perform the task.

Fortunately, it didn't come to that, as the two of them snuggled and nested together atop the massive stove. That, too, was another record set on this record-setting day, as Marek had never slept on a stove before. Tichy was spooning Marek, but his mother had been right; there was no stretching their legs without poking them right over the edge of the platform. Still, it was just soft enough, and nicely warm and toasty – the perfect rest for sore muscles. The duvet was a big, warm, old fluffy down comforter.

The two of them were out before they even knew it, the fire crackling through the room and giving it an orangey glow through the fire grid now that the lights were off. Rule Four was forgotten, and perhaps even, on this day, forgiven. As soon as he and Mr. Tichy snuggled in, the exhausted boy was out and lightly snoring inside of two minutes, and that may have been another record, as well.

Their clothes were hung over a pole near the stove and dried nicely overnight as they slept soundly. The silence of the nearby Jizera mountains was legendary, and here, in a cottage in a snowy valley outside of town, and not on an open, howling plain where the monastery-turned-internat stood, it really was a pure, total silence, especially as snow started to fall once again from the darkened sky.

Tichy slept until about 5:00 a.m., waking up cold and a bit stiff. He stepped down from the stove and re-kindled the fire without waking Marek, then went back to sleep for another two hours or so, at which time his mother came down into the kitchen and started to prepare breakfast.

Breakfast was buckwheat-and-oat-flower pancakes, with dark, forest honey and melta with milk for everyone. Tichy yawned and sat up, chuckling when he saw Marek still out cold with drool running from his mouth. Tichy got dressed, helped set the table, and eventually, when everyone was down and ready to eat, at around half past seven, he finally shook Marek awake from his extra-long slumber.

Marek had slept like the dead, never really awakening fully, not once, over the course of the night. His penis, however, was fully awake several times as he dreamed the dreams of a pubescent boy, his member nail-hard as it contemplated release. He was unaware of his erections or his arousal, but when Mr. Tichy finally shook him awake and he sat up with bare feet dangling down, his inner thighs and calf muscles were not the only parts of Marek Hurta that were stiff.

The boy sat up on the duvet rubbing the sleep from his eyes, his organ jutting from his underwear and tenting the hem of the oversized shirt he was wearing. "Tenting" may have been a bit of an overstatement as the boy's erect penis was no more than 4" [10cm] in length, but it was big enough that were he to parade around the kitchen dressed as he was, it would be obvious that Marek had a need of one sort or another. Right now, his need mostly was to pee, but getting to the bathroom without being seen with a hard on was the challenge. The adults all seemed to be waiting on him for breakfast. He rubbed his eyes again and willed his penis to go down, but the little fucker was piss-hard and as usual, it declined to obey.

Not wanting to keep the Tichys waiting any longer, Marek turned on his front and slid his way down to the floor. The shirt rode up as he did so, displaying his underwear-clad butt and his bare lower back to anyone who happened to look. Marek blushed from his impromptu display, but the excitement that was so conspicuously revealed in the front part of his body fortunately remained hidden from view.

"I- I gotta- I'll be right back," the boy stammered sheepishly as he covered his embarrassment with his hands and ran toward the bathroom, feeling like an idiot.

Marek's face was red as an apple as he bolted inside the bathroom and closed the door. He extracted the offending organ, forced it to point downward with some effort and difficulty, and after a short delay, managed to get the stream going to void his bladder. He wished he were not dressed as he was in underwear and an oversized t-shirt, but his clothing still was drying, and the boy knew that the Tichys expected him for breakfast straight away.

"Puberty," snorted Tichy, just before Marek closed the bathroom door behind him. Neither of the man's parents commented. They all started eating and drinking as Marek urinated and waited for his boner to subside. The latter task proved to be rather easy after he had peed because the bathroom was very cold, unlike the main room. There was no central heating in the Tichys' cottage; only the stove kept the house warm.

It still seemed surreal to the boy. The man who despised him had invited him into his boyhood home and introduced him to his parents, who had even more reason to hate him, but didn't seem to. If they did harbor any ill will toward him, they were very good at hiding it. Marek still felt unworthy and dirty being in their home and their presence. He wished he knew the right words to say to them. Were they expecting him to say something? Did they want him to acknowledge what his grandfather had done to them? Marek wasn't sure. An apology seemed to be in order, but he didn't know what to say. "I'm very sorry my grandfather was mean to you" seemed somehow out of place, like it was minimizing the harm the elder Hurta had done to them.

Tichy's parents didn't seem perturbed by the boy's boner, but if Marek took a long time, he was likely to end up with Tichy becoming suspicious, and that would not bode well. Nonetheless, Tichy dove into his breakfast. No one could make the classical mountain pancakes like his mum! Even after a lot of attempts, he never had managed to perfect the deceptively simple recipe. There was friendly, relaxed talk over the meal. Outside, the day was bright and very cold; the outer windows were covered over with frost.

After peeing, Marek's erection subsided fairly quickly, and he emerged from the bathroom even before the blush had left his cheeks. He padded on bare feet to the table and took his seat.

"Thank you," he said softly to Mrs. Tichy, whom he knew had cooked the delicious-looking breakfast. Despite the large meal from last night, the boy was famished once again.

Mercifully, Marek never had to come up with the words for an apology. The opportunity never presented itself nor even seemed necessary, and soon he was suiting up once again in his ski togs and saying a heartfelt goodbye to the elder Tichys. After a surprisingly uneventful breakfast, he departed with warm feelings toward them and their kindness, but still feeling bewildered that they had been so accommodating to him after all his grandfather had done. Life was confusing sometimes, especially when you were 12 years old.

What followed was an easy enough trip back "home" to the internat, but with enough of a work-out uphill through powder for Tichy to see that taking the boy for another ski trip today would not be a good idea. Not to mention that he was extremely horny, and Marek's attentions were way overdue.

The boy's calf and thighs were burning almost as soon as they set out once again on the skis. Fortunately, the trip back was short and easy, and soon they were back in Mr. Tichy's apartment. It was there that things changed, and the change was almost immediate. They had only just entered the flat and put the skis in the corner when Tichy turned to the boy and spoke.

"If you tell me why you might be in trouble, I might be slightly more inclined to cut you some slack – if you do the explaining naked and suggest the next step yourself," said the man with a smile. But it wasn't the soft, easy kind of smile that he had when he was talking to his parents. He was back to being comrade Tichy, the scary disciplinarian and torturer of Marek Hurta. He also was the very same Mr. Tichy to whom the boy owed two cums from yesterday and three today, which would be enough to keep him and his mouth busy for most of the day, whether he was sore or not.

Marek tried to think as he stripped from his clothes. What had he done? Had he been rude to Mr. Tichy's parents? Had the man expected him to say something to them? To apologize? Was it something else? Had his manners failed him? Marek honestly didn't know. Mr. Tichy didn't seem terribly angry, but Marek had enough experience by now to know that looks could be deceiving. The man had beaten him for little things before. Just what had he done? Marek didn't know.

When he was naked, Marek dropped to his knees before the man, supplicating himself and asking physically for the man's mercy. Marek racked his brain one last time, trying to figure it out, but he didn't know what he had done wrong.

"Mr. Tichy, I'm sorry for whatever I did," he said to the floor with a very worried look that Tichy could not see, but in a troubled voice that the man certainly could hear. "I'm honestly not sure what I did wrong. I- I didn't know what to say to them."

"Rule Four?" Tichy asked rhetorically with a roll of his eyes that the boy could not see. "But don't worry – I'll go easy on you. Relatively easy. You skied well and behaved yourself last night, but it's your responsibility to get me off three times a day, even if that means begging for my cock. It doesn't matter where we are or what we're doing. The rule applies even when we're outside skiing, or on top of a stove in an old house that I suppose is as good as haunted to you," said the man as he chuckled and grinned cockily at his unlimited power over the hapless boy.

Marek's expression fell as the man mentioned Rule Four. As soon as he did, Marek realized his mistake. It all made sense. The man had not told him at any time yesterday that Rule Four was suspended. It had been suspended the night before that, but not last night. Marek had been so tired that he had actively hoped that the man would not demand sex, but the text and intent of Rule Four made it clear that it was the boy's job to provide it, bidden or not. He knew the rules by heart, inside and out. He had assumed something that wasn't true, and he blushed at his newfound awareness of his mistake.

"We'll leave more skiing till another day," continued Tichy before the boy could speak. "Today, you'll work your little ass off keeping me just as happy as a man can possibly be made to be, or it will be your ass that pays the price. You're on thin ice right now, Marek. Is that understood?"

The man was right about Rule Four, and Marek knew it. What else could he do but apologize? After that, despite his soreness, Marek knew that he would have to work like a dog to get the man off, or Mr. Tichy would do something else to his ass that Marek would not like. It was another simple equation that did not require an advanced degree to solve.

"Yes, sir," he responded to the man's instruction. "I'm sorry, sir," the boy said morosely as he sat up and prepared to bring forth the first of five orgasms from the man that he owed him. It was going to be a very, very long day.

Neither of them had taken a shower in the small cottage, evening or morning, so Tichy was quite ripe after a after a full day of skiing and a night spent snuggled up with the kid on a warm stove. Even as he peeled his clothes off, the sharpness of his musk hit Marek's nostrils like a fist. When he was naked, Tichy sat on the side of the bed, looking down at his already mostly erect cock. Rather than say anything, he just snapped his fingers, clearly expecting Marek to understand what he wanted and act accordingly.

As soon as the man snapped his fingers, Marek knew what he needed to do. He closed the distance to the man's groin on his knees and had Mr. Tichy's cock in his soft, young mouth only seconds later. He wet the head and then pulled off to lick the shaft from stem to stern, preparing it to begin transiting the boy's mouth and throat, because that's exactly what it would be doing for the next 20 minutes or so, depending only on the man's eagerness and readiness to cum.

"Now before this particular biathlon begins, you are going to tell me what you're going to do before you do it," said Tichy as Marek started to lick at his smelly shaft. "You're going to use detailed, specific words. You are going to remember what I like to call you when I make you beg for cock, and you're going to call yourself that, in the third person."

"As you beg, you should be aware that you're already in for a nice, long, hard spanking for violating Rule Four, and only through exceptionally satisfying and pleasing behavior over the next hour or so can you hope to have a chance to make up for your omission and save your butt," continued the man. "I gave you Christmas Eve off, but you slipped up yesterday thought without permission, and you're going to have to pay for that, with interest, if you want to avoid a very nasty beating," Tichy announced imperiously.

Marek could detect the tone of warning in Mr. Tichy's voice as he licked and wet the man's musky shaft. Warning klaxons sounded in his brain, reminding him to be attentive, serious, and obsequious. The man was issuing instructions like the Mr. Tichy of old, and the boy's heart started to race again, almost as if the last two days hadn't really happened. Marek instantly was transported back to that familiar head space again – the space where he felt threatened and afraid virtually every moment he was in the man's presence, and oftentimes even when he wasn't.

The boy continued to lick at Tichy's penis as he prepared himself for the moments ahead. Soon he would be begging, explaining what he was doing and what he was about to do, and referring to himself as a slut puppy. If he didn't perform to the man's expectations, he was in for a hard spanking – just another random punishment on a list of so many, all because he hadn't spent last evening sucking the man off in his parents' house when he was so tired that he barely could keep his eyes open.

The boy doubted that Mr. Tichy had really wanted him to. Even if Marek had offered, which he now very much wished he had, Marek was pretty sure that the man would have said no, but because Marek didn't offer and didn't beg, now he was in trouble and very likely to be punished for it. It wasn't fair. The boy knew it, and Mr. Tichy knew it too, but that was how life was for Marek. Fair or not, Mr. Tichy made the rules – all the rules – and Marek followed them, or else.

But even as he licked and mouthed the man's penis, there was something else that kept popping uninvited into Marek's brain – something that he had been thinking about at the dinner table last evening, then a second time at breakfast, and then again during the short trip back to the school. It was something that was bothering him. In fact, it bothered him a lot, and was causing him to question a lot of other things, too. Part of him wanted to banish the thought from his mind. Part of him knew that continuing to think about it was dangerous, but he couldn't help himself. The thought kept coming back unbidden again and again, and despite its dangerous and subversive nature, it now was too to ignore it and send it on its merry way. At this point, it would just keep coming back until the boy somehow reconciled with it.

The thought was this: If Mr. Tichy's parents, who had suffered under The Glass King, were able forgive Marek and not blame him for his grandfather's misdeeds, then why couldn't Mr. Tichy – who had never even met the man – do the same thing? The corollary to the thought, which was much more dangerous than the original thought itself, was this: What gave Mr. Tichy the right to punish Marek for weeks and months and even years, all for something he hadn't done, when the very people The Glass King had hurt – the people Mr. Tichy claimed to be avenging – didn't thirst for revenge and didn't even seem to want that to happen to him?

After meeting Mr. Tichy's parents, there was no question in Marek's mind that they did not share the man's hatred for him, nor did they have any desire for revenge. When he had first realized where he was, the boy had expected the worst, but his actual experience had been nothing of the sort. Why, then? Why did Mr. Tichy need to mistreat him and punish him so severely? What gave him the right? Meeting the man's parents called everything into question for Marek. In fact, the boy was quite certain that Mr. Tichy's parents would not support what their son was doing to him if they knew about it. If they knew, they would put a stop to it right away, and they might just be the only ones who could. They were perhaps the only people on the planet Mr. Tichy would listen to, and Marek was sure that if they knew what their son was doing to him, they would tell him to stop beating, punishing, and torturing him. Marek was sure of it. And now he knew where they lived.

But the boy had a job to do – a blowjob to do, actually – and for the moment, he did manage to banish the troubling, subversive thoughts from his brain. The man's cock was wet and ready, and it was time to begin.

"Mr. Tichy," said Marek as he leaned away from the man's glistening cock and began his begging routine, "your slut puppy wants to suck your cock. He wants to give you a blowjob with his mouth and tongue. Your slut puppy has already got it all wet and slippery. Now he really wants to suck it so bad. Your slut puppy really wants to feel your cock in his mouth and throat. He wants to do the thing where he swallows and gags on it. Slut puppy really wants to suck your cock and taste your cum, sir. He wants to drink your cum, Mr. Tichy. Please, please, can slut puppy suck it, sir?"

As usual, Marek felt ridiculous with the begging lines, but now he felt a little put upon, too. The bad thoughts he was having just would not go away.

Tichy had wondered what Marek would make of the visit to the little mountain cottage, and in a way, he had even worried about it. Would the trip to see his parents serve to undermine Tichy's position or the boy's obedience? Just because his folks were too old to get incited, too old-fashioned, and too Christian to show what they thought of the boy's grandfather and his legacy didn't mean Tichy was going to stop what he was doing to the Hurta kid. Oh, no. He had brought the kid to the school to suffer in misery for the sins of his forbears, and that was exactly what Glass King, Jr. was going to continue to do unless or until Tichy decided it was time to call a stop to it. On top of that, Tichy found the submissive, broken boy sexually appealing in the extreme and for that reason alone, the helpless, fatherless, little 12-year-old was going to continue to satisfy the man's darkest, most depraved, and heretofore unrequited sexual cravings for as long he was at the school. Of that, Tichy was certain.

Tichy's parents were old and settled and he wasn't surprised that they were nice to the boy even if Marek didn't deserve their kindness. Also, it was Christmas, as Tichy had pointed out to the boy more than once. No matter. Marek Hurta didn't play by the rules of old mountain hospitality, or Irena and Radim Tichy's rules, but by Stanislav Tichy's rules, and if he slipped up, he would regret it bitterly. Tichy would personally see to that, and he would enjoy the corrective process. The markings on the boy's bottom were not agonizingly painful anymore and well on their way to healing, but they still were a very visible reminder of what happened when Marek broke Tichy's rules.

As Marek licked, kissed, and forced himself to talk dirty, Tichy quickly relaxed into the enjoyment of it. Even if the boy didn't mean it, or even fully understand it, there was something undeniably arousing about it when the kid called himself a slut puppy. Tichy could only resist so long. He smiled, ran his fingers through the boy's soft hair, and nodded.

"All right, c'mon slut puppy, come suck my cock for me," instructed the man. "Show me what you need. Show me how much you want it."

It had been a couple of days since he had last given the man a blowjob, but Marek remembered well enough what the man liked and wanted. He took Mr. Tichy's cockhead into his mouth and slowly lowered his head and took the entire thing into his throat, using his tongue on the way down and taking in a last breath before he reached the point of no return. When the man was impaled nearly to the root, Marek paused, then swallowed once, then twice, then again, and again, and again. He couldn't usually do five swallows, but this was his first descent, and he still had the air for it. Then he began a slow, 10-second withdrawal, adding lots of suction, a good bit of work with his tongue, and pressure from his lips to milk and pleasure the man's shaft.

The man's cock was very salty and sour. Tichy had gone a night, a day, and another night unwashed, and in that time, he also had put in miles and miles of rigorous, sweat-inducing skiing. As a result, his cock gave off some of the most intense flavors of musk and the sharpest taste of unwashed flesh that Marek had been forced to endure since blowjobs became everyday occurrences for the boy. Of course, the shower that they both very much needed was only a few steps away, and they were going to use it likely just as soon as Marek was finished doing what he was doing, but not before. Definitely not before. The fact that Marek was being forced to suck a smelly, unwashed cock was very much a message that Tichy wanted to impart and reinforce. Making the kid endure it added immeasurably to Tichy's enjoyment of the act, even as he nodded, hummed, and smiled indulgently and appreciatively at the exceptionally orally talented boy.

Phew, the man stank, and his cock tasted bad because of it. Marek knew that he smelled, too, but not like that. The man needed a shower in the worst way, and Marek wanted one, too. He wished Mr. Tichy had taken his shower before the blowjob, but that wasn't Marek's call. Sometimes he thought the man liked it when he made Marek suck and clean him when he was smelly like this, although for the life of him the boy couldn't figure out why.

After a couple of bobs and some tongue work, Marek repeated the process once again, slowly descending on the man's cock with lots of tongue, directing the man's cockhead into his throat as deeply as he dared, then swallowing and gagging on the man's member, causing his throat muscles to massage and caress it. Another slow, 10-second withdrawal led to more bobbing and more inhales of breath as he swirled the man's glans with his tongue.

As he sucked, Marek looked up at Mr. Tichy, appraising the man's reaction as well as his demeanor. He already knew he was doing a good job. but he was questioning things again. Why, exactly, did he have to do this? Who gave Mr. Tichy the right to treat him this way? Marek knew he was stuck with the man for the remainder of the break, and while it hadn't all been bad, it most definitely wasn't good, and worse than that, what the man did to him wasn't fair. Why was Mr. Tichy so angry at Marek if the man's own parents weren't? It didn't make any sense to the boy. Why did Mr. Tichy have the right beat the boy's feet until he couldn't walk and take a bullwhip to his cock and balls? It wasn't fair, and it wasn't right.

Even as Marek's thoughts were growing more complex, Tichy's concerns about the boy were fading away with the pleasure of another superlative blowjob. This was the shit. Tichy wasn't religious and stubbornly tried not to be superstitious, but there was something a bit eerie about the fact that the boy he had brought to the school to take revenge on just happened to be the best cocksucker in all Tichy's years of abusing boys at the internat, bar none. The kid was a natural. He had been beaten and broken into sucking cock better than a wizened Prague whore, and he was only 12 years old. Twelve! Tichy knew that he could count on hundreds and hundreds if not over a thousand high-quality blowjobs from the Hurta kid in the years ahead, not to mention the pleasure of raping and beating his little ass whenever the man saw fit. It was, in a word, perfect.

Tichy locked eyes with the boy he as much as owned, caressed his hair, and smiled at him. He let out a catching, shuddering breath and hummed. This was excellent, and although Marek no doubt already knew it, there was no harm in Tichy reinforcing the message that the youngster was a good little cocksucker.

Marek knew that he was good at blowjobs and there was a very small — tiny, really — part of him that took pride in it. For all his meanness and cruelty, Mr. Tichy depended on him for this. Having experienced his first-ever blowjob from Ludmila, Marek had gained an understanding of why the man liked them so much. There was no form of auto-stimulation yet invented that could match a mouth, a tongue, and a pair of lips on one's cock. Smallpox's technique couldn't hold a candle to Marek's, yet it had felt amazing. The boy could only imagine what his blowjobs felt like to Mr. Tichy. If the man's reactions were any measure, he really, really liked what Marek's mouth and throat could do.

Marek continued to suck the man even as dangerous, seditious thoughts continued to occupy his mind. He wanted to do something about his situation, but the problem was, he couldn't think of an out. He had tried everything. He had tried to avoid the man and run away, and those had proven to be very grave mistakes on his part. He had tried to outlast the man and survive on his own, but he had ended up under a blanket being beaten half to death by the fourth-year boys. He had gone to the headmaster and the nurse for help, again to no avail. He had even tried to become one of the Tichy Boys, but his torments had only increased after that. No matter what he did or tried, he ended up right here where he was now, on his knees, sucking Mr. Tichy's cock. The only thing that seemed to vary was how badly striped and beaten his butt was as he did it.

So, Marek sucked. He bobbed, swallowed, and gagged. He even made eye contact with the man. But his brain was back to thinking. He was problem-solving again, and he was eager to come up with a plan.

The tell-tale signs of the man's orgasm began almost exactly fifteen minutes into the blowjob. After that, everything happened rather quickly. Tichy was more horny than usual from yesterday's privations, and he had no reason to hold out on the boy. With his usual, tense-faced grunt and a huff, he leaned in and squirted a thick, strong, bitter load directly into the kid's mouth.

"Easy now," he gasped breathlessly as his cock twitched and pulsed cum for the boy to swallow. But before he even started to go soft in Marek's mouth, less than a minute after his orgasm, Tichy went straight back to the plan for a biathlon to start the day.

"Keep at it, slut puppy," he demanded simply.

The second round was going to be harder, slower, and no less musky and disgusting for the boy, and that was the way Tichy wanted it. They were going back to their usual routine today, and Marek was going to work hard and perform, or else. Tichy wanted it, and he was going to get it, but for now, he yawned. He needed a shower and a cup of coffee, but those could wait. Cumming five times in one day was going to take some very hard work on Marek's part as well as some careful planning and logistics, and getting the first couple of orgasms out of the way early made it far more likely that the boy would succeed at his assigned task. There was also the perverse satisfaction that Tichy derived from making the boy obey without even a fuss, even as his nostrils flared, and his face involuntarily grimaced from the intense musk he was tasting and experiencing. Just glancing at the boy's reaction gave Tichy another idea and brought a smile to his sadistic face.

Marek wasn't even surprised that Mr. Tichy wanted a second blowjob on the heels of the first. He often did, especially when he hadn't cum in a while. The man's cock softened only a little bit in his mouth as it oozed the last few droplets of cum, then started to grow hard again. Marek's lips and tongue already were tired as he went to work again. The higher the quality of the blowjob, the more tired they got, but Marek kept at it. The problem with being good at what he was doing was that he had to perform at the top of his game every time now or the man would know he was slacking off. Part of him wished he wasn't as good at giving blowjobs as he was, but then again, what was the point of taking any longer than was necessary to get the man to cum? Marek couldn't remember one time when the man had given up in the middle of a blowjob and sent the boy on his way. He always finished, no matter how long it took. If the blowjob didn't end until the man had ejaculated in Marek's mouth, what was the point of doing a lousy job and making it last even longer?

The man stank of dried sweat as Marek resumed bobbing and started in on the second blowjob. He pulled off for a quick break, still holding the man's cock in his hand. Mr. Tichy hadn't demanded a hands-free suck, after all, and Marek needed just a few seconds to catch his breath.

"After this, can we take a shower, please?" he asked the man with a world-weary expression.

Tichy groaned. There it was. A none-too-subtle signal that Marek was feeling cocky again. The fact that the boy's remark corresponded perfectly with what he had just been thinking seemed almost karmic to the man. It was another one of those little coincidences that made him wonder if something more cosmic was going on.

"We'll shower after you've already washed me head to toes with your tongue, including my crack and asshole," snapped the man angrily, "or maybe you'd prefer me to shit in your mouth before I take a very, very long, very slow, relaxing bath while you spend some time in the sack," he added, as an afterthought. He paused for a few moments to let that sink into the brain of the uppity, ungrateful, bourgeois little Hurta brat. Just who the fuck did he think he was?

"Various people have shown you kindness these last two days – me, Ludmila, my poor old folks … Marek look at me," Tichy said as the boy's eyes trailed off in despair. "For the millionth time, your grades are horrid, you tried to escape, you lied, and you cheated and therefore, so you are being punished, you are being trained to obey me and follow my rules even when it doesn't 'suit' you or come easy to you. You're sucking a stinky cock because I want you to have to suck a stinky cock, and after that you're going to give me an all-body tongue bath and lick me clean because that's what I want you to do. I want you to taste the flavor of my dried sweat on your tongue so that you can feel and know that you have to do this, like it or not."

"If you start bitching, whining, making cheeky comments, and digging your heels in now, you'll only lose the good things, like future ski-trips and relaxed free time with good food and nothing to worry about in the world, and you'll still be stuck here, being punished, beaten, sacked, and fucked," the man continued matter-of-factly. "I've treated you more than decently these last two days and you've mostly kept up a pleasant attitude, so don't start forgetting yourself, or you'll force me to remind you that although I may choose to be kind and go a bit easy on you sometimes, I absolutely don't have to," warned Tichy, who meant every word of what he had just said.

"Even this is me cutting you slack in case you've forgotten. Standard procedure when you break the rules is for me to wreck your ass, or worse. You should be sucking me with a beaten bottom, and you well know it. Keep it up, and I'll bring out the cane. And from now on, we'll shower when I say it's time to shower, and if you say another word about it, you'll be cleaning me with your tongue every day. You don't get to ask questions in the middle of a task you've been given to do. Not a word more, Marek. This is not a dialogue," warned Tichy. "Now suck my cock!"

It had been the simplest of inquiries, hardly imbued with any tone or delivery that could possibly be taken as a challenge, yet Mr. Tichy reacted as if Marek had openly defied him. The man's words cut like a knife, first outlining horrible punishments in store for the boy, next reciting reasons why Marek should be grateful for his treatment, then documenting Marek's sins and transgressions, and finally confirming that sucking on Mr. Tichy's unwashed, sweaty, disgusting cock had been intentional all along. All that from a simple question, asked harmlessly, if a little out of school.

Marek tried to suppress his reaction, but he couldn't help but feel a flash of anger. The whole situation was unfair, and Mr. Tichy's reaction and the punishment he now was facing was even more unfairness heaped on top of that. Marek rebelled against the idea that he should be punished for breaking Rule Four yesterday, but his bigger objection was that there even was a Rule Four to break. Mr. Tichy's parents didn't think he needed to be punished. They didn't have rules for him to follow. They weren't making the rules even harder and nastier to follow by being unwashed and disgusting. It agitated Marek to learn that Mr. Tichy was being disgusting on purpose. That was low. It was sick. It was beyond cruel and heartless. Tichy was a rat bastard for doing that to him.

But Marek knew better than to push his luck with the man, especially right now. Mr. Tichy was correct that his stay in the man's apartment could be made to be a lot worse, and the boy didn't want to test those waters. Suppressing his anger at what he had been instructed to do, the Marek knelt up took the man's cock back in his mouth, continuing with his second blowjob of the day. With three more orgasms to go after this one, he didn't think it would be the last.

Tichy watched Marek like a hawk for the slightest sign of rebellion, but he didn't detect any. He was fully prepared to beat some ass if Marek wanted to go there, but the kid evidently had enough self-preservation instinct in him to obey and not say another word. It hadn't always been that way. The kid had put up some fight initially, which only served to make it more enjoyable for Tichy to beat him into submission. Little flare-ups still happened from time to time, which Tichy ruthlessly suppressed, but for the most part, Marek Hurta had learned to do exactly what he was told.

The kid's warm mouth already felt good on the man's cock, and because this was going to be the second blowjob in a row, it was going to be a longer experience – something Tichy could truly relax into and enjoy to the fullest, which was exactly what he intended to do. But somewhere in the back of his mind, the boy's statement still rankled. Maybe by cutting Marek some slack and allowing the kid some normalcy during Christmas, he had gone too far and undermined his progress with Glass King, Jr. Maybe he should just shove the kid's sobbing face and caned-bloody ass in the sack and let him scream and writhe and piss himself in an especially brutal fit of claustrophobia to remind him who the boss was.

Marek was not a happy camper as he took the man's cock back in his mouth. He had been treated well over the last two days just as the man said, so why did he feel so angry? Maybe it was because over the last 48 hours, he had been a shown a life that was worth living once again, complete with games, movies, gifts, fun, ski trips, visits with other people, good food and company, exercise, beautiful outdoor scenery, fresh air, and pleasure. Now he was right back in Tichy's stupid apartment, serving as the man's housebroken slut puppy, obeying his stupid rules like a slave. How readily he had bought into the idea that he deserved to be punished and that Tichy had the right to punish him, but the trip to the man's parents had revealed the truth: He didn't deserve this. Even if he was the grandson of The Glass King, he, Marek Hurta, did not personally deserve to be punished for it. That was one thing. The other was that even if he did deserve to be punished, Stanislav Tichy had no good reason to be the one doing the punishing. Not if Mr. Tichy's own parents didn't think so. Not if the people The Glass King had harmed didn't think so.

"Do that thing where you slide up and down slowly and make it feel like one continual motion, no gagging or swallowing, without a pause at the top or bottom," Tichy demanded simply. "Be a good slut puppy now," he added in a cocky, slightly mocking tone of voice. He very much was trying to get a rise out of the kid, seeing if he could provoke Marek into an outburst that the boy very much would regret. It seemed that Marek needed to be set straight with another beating, so they might as well get it out of the way. Indeed, Tichy was eager to oblige the kid. Marek was fun to beat. He made little noises while it was happening that Tichy found exciting.

"No hands. In fact, you can use your hands to give yourself a nice boner while you're at it," the man decided spontaneously, taunting the kid even more. "A bone for the slut puppy!" he teased, really pouring it on now. Tichy felt like a beating was in order. Maybe even a caning, depending on the reaction he could get out of Marek.

Marek revealed none of what he was thinking to Tichy, other than, perhaps, his effort for this blowjob wasn't at full-on 100%. He was a bit distracted as his mind raced with seditious thoughts. The man's instruction brought him back to the here and now and he complied with them, modifying his technique, and removing his hands. He placed them behind his back, only to bring them forward once again to rest on his thighs. Tichy's taunting tone and laughter merely added fuel to the fire of Marek's disquiet. He placed his hand on his penis and gave it a few half-hearted strokes. Slut puppy didn't want a boner. Fuck you, Mr. Tichy, the boy thought to himself.

After all his years running the dorms and riding herd at the school, Tichy was exceptionally good at picking up on the subtle signs of rebellion and trouble that young boys were prone to, and Marek's signs weren't even all that subtle. Tichy waited about twenty seconds so it didn't look like he hadn't given the boy a chance, and then suddenly pushed the kid off to the floor.

"Hands behind your back," he commanded casually before gazing at Marek's very much not-erect cock.

"Bad slut puppy!" he said in a tone of clear warning. "You're forgetting yourself, Marek. Feeding you well and going skiing doesn't mean your rules no longer exist and that you're not being punished anymore. You've pushed your luck to the very edge this morning."

He reached over to grab the tube of lubricating cream, leaning back to watch Marek.

"Now, you're going to give yourself a boner, but you will not touch your cock; that train has left the station," said the man. "Get those fingers in your butt hole. When you're fully erect, you can continue sucking me off, slut puppy."

Fuck! Marek pouted as the man pushed him off. The boy's eyes looked worried as he placed his arms behind his back. It was like the man could read minds. Seriously. It was scary. Marek hadn't done a damn thing other than comply with everything Tichy had told him to do, and yet, he was already in trouble once again. He wasn't fooled by the man's casual tone. Tichy somehow knew what he had been thinking. But how? How could the man fucking do that every time?

And he had been trying to get a boner, or so he told himself. Still, his blood ran cold. Mr. Tichy was pissed, and the man was goading him. Marek could tell. He had been here before. It was going to be very hard to avoid a beating now.

"I was trying, sir," Marek whined. It was mostly true, sort of, or kind of, and at least not that much of a lie. He probably would have gotten an erection eventually, even from the half-hearted and indifferent handling of his cock. Now he wished he had.

Looking mightily unhappy, Marek took the cream from the man and used it to lubricate the fingers of his right hand. He pushed them inside his own butt and then extracted them for more lube. He jammed the first two fingers back in, looking for the spot that made things tingle. He wasn't sure he could find it. He didn't feel very aroused, either. Mr. Tichy's angry glare was not helping at all in that regard.

Tichy reached over for the plastic stick he liked to use as a cane. He swished it through the air and frowned at Marek.

"Ten," he said, as he added the word "thousand" in his mind before moving to "nine" and pausing again. He wasn't in a terrible hurry but, but the boy looked like he desperately needed a beating, and there seemed no reason to delay it. He watched Marek's cock as the boy fumbled and clumsily fingered his butt. Tichy kept counting down, contemplating how strict he was going to be. If Marek got partly erect, he still was going to beat him, but what if he got mostly erect? Tichy decided that as long as the kid's cock was upward pointing and mostly straight, he probably would let it slip. But if not …

It didn't look like he would have to make a nuanced call like that, though, as he counted down: number, pause, number, pause. A young kid should be able to pop a boner in no time, and if Marek hadn't fumbled with his cock half-heartedly, he'd probably already have one by now. He certainly would have had one if his mind wasn't full of angry, distracting thoughts, which Tichy very much suspected was the case and exactly the problem right now. A beating to remind the kid of his place seemed very much in order.

Marek blanched as the man picked up the cane and swished it. Things were rapidly going from bad to worse. Then the man started to count down, and the boy was beset by panic. Gone was the fire behind his eyeballs. It was replaced by abject fear. He had committed a thought crime against Tichy and now the man was pissed. It didn't really matter how he could read minds. The fact was, he fucking could, and Marek's mind had contained very impure thoughts when he had.

Marek fumbled awkwardly with his butt, his mouth open, slack-jawed, as he looked up at the man. Fear shone in his eyes. He was never going to get a boner like this. It was ridiculous, really: The boy who used to love boners and what his hand could make those boners do was now going to be punished for failing to get one, but it was inevitable. Marek's right hand started to shake even as he jammed the first two fingers of that hand up his butt. Nothing. It was no use. The countdown continued.

"Please let me use my hand, Mr. Tichy!" the boy begged. He was very close to tears at the holocaust to come.

"Four, nope. You should have done that when you were told. Three … "

Tichy watched the unhappy, desperate boy and counted right down to one. Tichy even gave the boy the count of zero to work with – an extra second to rub things in – but it didn't matter. It was time to remind Marek who the boss was.

Marek was a very unhappy boy. There was just no other way to describe it. He had rebelled against the man and defied him — although mostly in his mind — and now he was going to pay the price for that, just as he always fucking did. He rammed his fingers in his butt one more time, but it was hopeless, and his scared, unhappy look showed that he knew it.

"Get on your knees and hands facing away from me," Tichy ordered the boy. "Face low. Butt stuck out. Then recite your rules, Marek, word for word, as they are written. No peeking at the list unless you want an extra punishment for cheating."

"Go!" said Tichy as he aligned the cane with the boy's stuck out buttocks, diagonally from left-up to right-down, ready to strike.

Resigned to his fate, Marek went to hands and knees and assumed the position. It was then that he started to shake. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on reciting the rules. He had memorized the words, and for once they came easily. Fairly easily, anyway. He recited Rule One flawlessly. And Rule Two. Rule Three … he also got Rule Four, although his voice was a bit halting in the delivery.

For each correctly recited rule, Tichy lightly tapped his butt with the cane. Marek was clearly nervous, which was fine by Tichy. He'd be even more nervous soon enough. Six taps later, it was done.

"Well, remembering the wording of the rules doesn't seem to be the problem, boy, now does it?" demanded Tichy darkly. "So, let's go through them again."

"Rule One: I obey every command, right away, with enthusiasm," recited the man. When I told you to rub your cock to an erection did you do it right away and with enthusiasm?" demanded Tichy. They both knew the answer to that question. This time, the cane left Marek's butt for long enough for the boy to know that the man was stretching his arm out for a proper strike.

Marek wasn't just nervous, he was scared. He wasn't good with pain — he never had been — and Mr. Tichy had given him a lot of it. He still hadn't gotten used to it. It wasn't getting easier. When the man whipped him, it fucking hurt. Somehow, he had managed to get himself in hot water so quickly this morning that it almost made his head spin. He suspected that Tichy was in a mood to reestablish the ground rules with him after two days of fun. If so, Marek knew that he had played right into that trap by thinking traitorous thoughts. Maybe he deserved to be punished for being such an idiot. Maybe he should just wake up every morning and ask the man to whip him so he wouldn't find a stupid way to get in trouble.

In trouble he was, and he started to pay the price for that as the cane hit home. THWICK!!! the plastic rod slammed into his butt and left a nasty crimson line across it.

"Ohhhhhhhh, ahhhhhhh!" he gasped, his buttocks clenching as he paid the price for Rule One. That fucking hurt.

"Rule Two… no complaints there. But don't forget that naked is your default for now." Tichy gave the kid's quivering little ass a light tap.

"Rule Three, you see? You clearly forgot that one when you asked about the shower. So, here's the pain, as promised."

THWICK!!!

Another butt-flaming blow for violating Rule Three brought tears to Marek's eyes along with a pained gasp, and much more clenching from his freshly striped butt.

"Rule Four is why this is all happening, and I already told you that you were on your last warning."

THWICK!!!

Marek knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had violated Rule Four, and the cane confirmed it. He closed his eyes and winced as his trembling body tensed and his buttocks clenched and re-clenched in pain.

"Oooooooooohhh!" he moaned as the pain sliced through him. Fuck it hurt. Fuck. Fuck. He shook.

"Rule Five applies when you are done," Tichy gave the boy a light tap.

"And judging from your eyes you wanted to snap something like that at me again, but you didn't," said Tichy. "Just remember keep your attitude in check, boy," he added, before supplying another light tap to Marek's butt.

The caning he had given the boy felt like just the right thing, just what was needed. It felt like the correct course of action. Tichy had given the boy something to think about. It wasn't enough to mark the kid's butt it for days on end, but enough to remind the boy what happened when his attitude began to slip.

"Go wash your hands, come back, give yourself a boner — hands on cock allowed — and then keep yourself erect as you make me cum with your mouth and your mouth only. Is. That. Clear?"

"Yes, sir," Marek sobbed as he sprang to his feet and scampered to the bathroom, squeezing his inflamed bottom with both hands just as hard as he could. When he arrived, he sat on the toilet and splashed some cold water on his butt cheeks before quickly washing his hands and drying everything as best he could.

When he returned to the man and knelt, his eyes still were wet with tears.

Meanwhile, Tichy had gone mostly limp. He was sitting at the foot of the bed with his legs apart, and he eyed the boy with a strict, unblinking gaze as Marek knelt in front of him.

"All right. You heard me the first time, I hope? Get hard. Stay hard, don't cum, but make me cum. No hands on my cock at all." Tichy nodded, as if to say "now," and spread his legs a little wider.

Marek was the picture of compliance now. Even as he knee-walked closer between the man's legs, his right hand already was on his penis, jerking and fluffing it to an erection. He was 12 and horny, and it didn't take long. Still jerking, and still shaking from his ordeal, he lipped the man's semi-hard member into his mouth and resumed the blowjob that had been interrupted by the little reminder of how things worked with Mr. Tichy.

The boy performed well. Both cocks remained hard as Marek used his mouth to please the man, following Tichy's instructions, even making eye contact when the man demanded it. The boy tried to make his expression as blank and his eyes as neutral as he could. He figured that would be the best to disguise the homicidal thoughts he still harbored in his brain.

Between this being the second round and the unscheduled interruption, it took a while for Tichy to get hard again. The second part of a biathlon always was more of a marathon than a sprint, but Tichy didn't complain. Marek was compliant and obedient again, and the boy's mouth on his cock felt good as the blowjob continued past the twenty-minute mark. Tichy smiled as he realized that having Marek keep himself hard and aroused for that long without cumming probably was becoming uncomfortable, but that certainly didn't cause him to tell the kid to stop.

Eventually, after a few small directions and suggestions from Tichy and another stretch of continuous-sensation sucking from Marek, Tichy came for the second time that morning. The man only just barely had time to warn Marek before he ejaculated straight into the kid's mouth.

It took a long while, and by the end of it — as was always the case for a biathlon — Marek's mouth, tongue, throat, jaw, neck, knees, and even his back were all sore in varying degrees. His throat was usually the worst from that list, often followed by his knees, depending on the surface he knelt on, of course.

"Show it and play with it with your tongue until I say you can swallow," said the man as he finished cumming and pulled out.

Marek played with the man's cum in his mouth, savoring it and washing it all over his taste buds like a good slut puppy, saturating his mouth with it. It tasted exactly like a 1979 Tichy: musky and dry, with hairy legs and flavors of baking soda, shoe leather, and light vinegar on the pallet.

The man forced Marek to stroke himself and play with the cum like the slut puppy he was for a couple more minutes before he finally allowed the boy to swallow.

"Bathroom," Tichy commanded after the kid had shown his work. "Take a piss and brush your teeth, then get back out here for the tongue bath you owe me. And no cumming, Marek!" he reminded the visibly aroused boy. "Don't even think about it."

"Yes, Mr. Tichy," said the boy as he slid away from the bed and made his way into the bathroom. With his butt still stinging from the plastic cane and still tasting the man's cum in his mouth, Marek brushed his teeth and tried to prepare himself for his next ordeal. This one he knew he had brought on himself. He had forgotten his place and spoken out of turn, and now he wasn't going to get to bathe, he was going to be doing the bathing – with his tongue. Mr. Tichy had made him do that before, and it was gross. Marek knew it was going to be particularly gross this time around because the man had several layers of dried sweat caked on his body that it would now be Marek's obligation to lick and slurp off. It was a long, arduous task under the best of circumstances, and the boy knew that his already tired tongue would be ready to fall off by the end of it.

Why did he always do this stuff to himself? What had possessed him to ask for a break to take a shower? Mr. Tichy was right – two days of relative peace and people being nice to him had messed with his mind. He'd gotten uppity, defiant, and oppositional, and Mr. Tichy was going to make him pay a heavy price for that now. Being forced to give the man's sweaty, nasty body a tongue bath seemed a particularly fitting punishment for the request he had made and the crime he had committed, but that just made Marek feel even more unhappy. What gave Mr. Tichy the right to do this to him? Nothing did! The boy was sure of it now. There were no cosmic forces at work dictating that he should be punished for the sins of his father and grandfather. This was all Mr. Tichy's doing! There was no karma here. It was all the man's invention.

Of course, none of that made a particle of difference to what Marek had to do next. As usual, the boy had two choices: He could either do what the man had told him to do, or he could be beaten to a sobbing, whimpering pulp and be made to do it anyway. Marek had gone down the second road far too many times to make that same mistake again. He would do what the man wanted him to do and avoid getting beaten on top of it. When he finished brushing his teeth, he downed a full glass of water. He knew from experience that his tongue tended to dry out when he gave the man a full-body tongue bath, and the extra hydration would be sure to help.

It took Marek a full hour to lick and suck clean every inch of Mr. Tichy's body below the neck. He knew every scar, mole, and contour of that body by now by sight, touch, and taste, and he spent the next hour refamiliarizing himself with it in exacting detail. Mr. Tichy was especially ripe today, just as Marek had known he would be, and of course the man had him pay extra special attention to all the usual places, including his feet, groin, underarms, ass crack, and anus. The last 15 minutes of the effort was spent on an impromptu rimjob, as Mr. Tichy had Marek clean the man's anus and rectum especially thoroughly and well.

By the time it was over, Marek was exhausted, and his mouth and tongue were spent. Between the back-to-back blowjobs and the full-body tongue bath, his mouth and tongue had been hard at work for much of the last two hours. His mouth and lips were sore, and his tongue felt like it had been sanded. When Mr. Tichy finally let him extract his face from between the man's ass cheeks, Marek was a bedraggled, chastened, and very tired young boy. He still needed a shower, to boot, to clean the taste of sweat and ass from his face.

With the mini-rimjob at an end, Tichy rolled over on the bed and stuck the pillow behind his head. As nice and necessary as the tongue bath had been, he still felt sticky all over and was eager for a shower himself. There was, however, still the matter of the boy's oppositional behavior to deal with. Marek already looked tired and defeated, but the man was aware that defiant thoughts tended to linger in the minds of young boys, and he was determined to nip Marek's in the bud in emphatic, permanent fashion.

"I hope you've learned your lesson once again, Marek," said Tichy. "Just because you had a nice Christmas doesn't mean that I'm going to put up with any defiant or cheeky behavior from you."

"Yes, Mr. Tichy," replied the unhappy boy. His eyes were diverted downward as he awaited the man's permission to depart the bed. His mouth and tongue were parched, and he desperately wanted another glass of water to wash the disgusting flavors from his taste buds.

"I'll not have you slipping back to where you were before the break," the man continued. "Don't make me regret the nice Christmas meal or the ski trip," he added ominously.

"I won't, Mr. Tichy," replied Marek obsequiously, and he meant it, too. He had learned his lesson. He just wanted to be released to the bathroom to wash and brush his teeth again.

"Are you going to remember your rules and actually follow them?" asked Tichy.

"Yes, sir," replied Marek with a nod.

"Right way? With enthusiasm?"

"Yes, Mr. Tichy."

The man paused, then smiled as he looked at the unhappy, chastised boy. Marek looked sufficiently cowed by how the morning had gone, and tired, too. But mercy wasn't exactly Tichy's style, and the myriad opportunities presented by the Hurta kid's helpless situation sometimes proved too delicious to pass up. This was of those times.

"Good," said Tichy. "Excellent. The we'll just test your commitment right now." He paused for effect before continuing.

"Do it again," he commanded simply. "Give yourself another boner and start with my feet. Lick every inch, and don't miss a spot. Same deal. Go."

Marek's only reaction to the man's instruction was a single, hitched little sob that shook his entire body, but it was more than enough to let the man know just how his order had been received. With a look of profound, broken unhappiness on his face that would have melted the heart of all but the most sadistic men, Marek obediently but wearily began to stroke his dick as he made his way back down to the foot of the bed, leaned down, and began licking and sucking at the man's toes once again.

Tichy gave his piggies an encouraging little wiggle, welcoming and taunting the boy at the same time, while reminding him fully just who called the shots around here. Just in case there had been any doubts in the kid's mind before, the next hour of licking would reinforce to him that it was Stanislav Tichy who called the shots, not Marek "Glass King, Jr." Hurta. Tichy was sure that a second round of tongue-bathing would drive the point home to the kid in no uncertain terms, but if not, he had plenty of time for a third go at it, and maybe even a fourth.

It took the better part of another hour for Marek to repeat the full-body tongue bath and finish things off with another 15-minute rimjob. By the end of it, his jaw and neck ached from the effort, and his tongue felt lifeless and numb. Marek had already decided to let the man beat him to death rather than do it again, but Mr. Tichy didn't require it. Instead, he rose from the bed, pointed the boy toward the bathroom, and steered him into the bath. He ran warm water and wet the boy down, gliding his hands up the youngster's sleek, toned body as he began to soap him up. Soon enough, Tichy's satiny, soapy hands gripped the boy's penis and began to stroke it.

As sore as Marek's body and mouth felt, it felt good to take a bath. At 12 years of age, Marek didn't sweat nearly as heavily as the man, but he was a pubescent boy, and his perspiration had a musky scent and felt sticky when it dried on his body. He was happy to get if off, and truth be told, the man's soapy hands felt a little bit like he was receiving a massage. While the massage to the rest of his body may have been of the more casual and accidental variety, the massage of his penis most decidedly was not.

Indeed, Marek was tense as the man stroked his cock. It was one thing when he did it to himself, but it was more worrisome when Tichy or Ludmila did it, especially with the words "no cumming" hanging in the air. It had taken Marek a while, but he had finally figured out that the man liked to bring him to the brink of orgasm but not let him cum. It was yet another small torture to be endured at the hands of Mr. Tichy. It might even have been pleasurable and fun to a degree, but the punishment for cumming was beyond severe, and that took all the joy out of being stimulated. Indeed, it left Marek full of worry and fear. Along with the rest of the kid's life, Tichy had managed to ruin something fun that he used to do at least three times per day. The boy used to enjoy masturbating, but not anymore. His penis had become a liability for him. Sometimes he honestly wished he didn't even have one anymore.

Tichy washed Marek well enough, but he kept returning to the kid's cock just often enough to keep the boy erect. He washed his hair with a shampoo, made him sit down, washed his feet, then made him kneel and lean forward before teasingly and playfully washing his butthole and taint, once again reaching around for a few more strokes before finally rinsing him off.

"You keep that up," he demanded, looking at the boy's cock, which by now had been erect for most of the last three hours. With his hand on the kid's naked shoulder, Tichy steered Marek out of the bath and threw him a towel.

Tichy stepped int the tub himself and proceeded to wash himself thoroughly, even luxuriously, as he watched the boy do his thing. He wondered just how long Marek could keep his cock up without either cumming or rubbing it raw. Had he ever tested the boy like this before? He couldn't recall, but just like that, he had invented a new torture and a perfect test of the boy's obedience. It felt so good to be in command! He finished showering and dried himself off.

"Keep stroking. That cock stays up until I say it can go down," he said firmly, leaving no space for an alternative interpretation.

Marek continued to stroke himself as he watched the man bathe. Mr. Tichy had an impressive physique. Marek himself was muscular for a boy, but Tichy was muscular for a man. The boy had, at one point or another, touched, felt, and licked all those muscles several times over, including twice just today. Tichy was so strong. Marek remembered the time in Tichy's office when he had tried to leave without permission rather than clean the cummy asses of the Tichy boys with his mouth. Tichy had tackled him like a rugby player, then bound and trussed him like a farm animal, all in the span of seconds. The man's strength was impressive, and his speed was, too. A lot of things were impressive about Stanislaw Tichy, including his body, so it wasn't difficult for the boy to maintain his erection as he watched the man slowly soap and wash himself.

Indeed, Marek kept right on stroking, going carefully and slowly to keep up his erection without getting even close to cumming. It wasn't exactly edging — not that Marek knew the term — and he almost certainly wouldn't cum like this, but his balls were producing semen in response to the call for action from his penis, and semen tended to build up when it wasn't given release. That was the part that was worrisome for Marek, but for now, everything seemed to be under control.

As he bathed, Tichy kept an eye on Marek. Damn, the boy was handsome! It was almost like a flash of mutual admiration as Marek stood there stroking himself with Tichy watching, while Marek watched the man wash and then dry himself off. Tichy bit his lip at the sight of the hard-but-unhappy boy. His cock was stirring again. He could almost fuck the kid again, but no. It was too soon. He might not get and stay fully and easily erect if he tried so soon after the biathlon he had received, and failure like that didn't sit well with the man.

"A bit faster," demanded Tichy. "You can get a bit closer to cumming, you know. I want you with a nice, stiff-as-a-nail hard on. And keep it up. If it goes down without my permission, you're in trouble. Here," he passed the boy some hydrating body lotion. "Use some of that so it doesn't chafe."

Soon Marek's stroking motions were making wet smacking sounds and it felt nicer, silkier, and smoother than before. Tichy went to put clean clothes on, ran a load of wash, and went to check if anything in the fridge or larder needed using. He found a few carrots and parsnips that looked a bit sorry for themselves and decided to slice and fry them so he and Marek could have them with the potato salad that was leftover in the fridge.

He cooked at his leisure, time ticking away as Marek stood in the doorway to the kitchen, facing him and continually jerking off. The man occasionally demanded to see the boy's erection to confirm that it was properly hard and upright on its own.

Marek kept stroking with his experienced right hand, pausing only to lube himself for what apparently was going to be a long, arduous day. His erection remained firm in his grip. He wasn't actually close to orgasming — not yet anyway — but if the man told him to cum, he could be there in no more than 15 seconds of frenzied finish. Even as he continued to stroke, however, Marek was worried. The man was making him play a very dangerous game. While the boy was sure he could hold himself off for a long time, all bets were off once he fell asleep. He would either have to wear the anti-cumming shorts, or he would have to keep himself awake. Since there was no way in hell that he could not sleep all night every night, he would have to ask Tichy for the shorts, but now wasn't the time. Later, though. He would have to ask for them later, or he was going to have another sleepless, anxious night.

Tichy prepared the food and laid out the table, doing everything himself. By the time it was all ready, Marek had been stroking since the bath for the better part of an hour. He'd been mostly erect during the tongue bathing, too, although the man hadn't been able to see and keep tabs on him during the rimming portions. Regardless, the boy should have been well-edged by now, so Tichy finally allowed him to stop.

"Okay, that's a good slut puppy. Next time, don't forget yourself when you're given clear instructions. Now wash your hands and come eat."

The food smelled good, and Marek was hungry. In the back of his mind, even before the man spoke, didn't think that Tichy was likely to make him jerk off as he ate. Actually, though, what the heck was he thinking? That was exactly what Tichy might make him do while the man ate his lunch in peace and watched with a smile on his face as Marek struggled to keep his cock up and not cum. But he hadn't required that, and Marek was grateful. He stopped stroking himself with a little sigh of relief. He washed up and came to the table as naked as a jay. Rule Two, after all.

The food was simple, but still very good. Tichy put the radio on, and except for Marek being naked, for the duration of the meal it almost seemed like they were back to a truce, or back to Tichy cutting Marek some slack at least. What the boy couldn't know was that Tichy's mind was spinning at full throttle, coming up with various tests and humiliations he could put the boy through, rejecting some, putting others aside, and slowly building a list of the ones he was going to use on the kid that afternoon.

After lunch, as Marek began the usual clean up, Tichy lit up and realized that was his first smoke of the day. He had hardly smoked the day before during the ski trip. Maybe having Marek around was a good opportunity for him to reduce his consumption. Still, he enjoyed his Startka while he waited for Marek to get the kitchen back into a flawless order. It was almost time to begin his next game.

Marek's head was spinning as he ate. As he sat at the table, he devoted a third of his energy to eating and maintaining a neutral, compliant, slut puppy-slave expression on his face, another third to contemplating escape, murder, and various other means of extracting himself from Tichy's clutches, and the final third for trying to talk himself out of thinking bad thoughts that were as likely as not going to get him killed. The trip to Tichy's parents had set him off again, down a path that he as much as knew would lead to trouble if not ruin, but he had to try. His existence as a boy depended on it. His very life depended on it.

No good plans could be implemented while he was living in the man's apartment, however. There was only one idea for that beyond murdering Tichy with a kitchen knife, but the idea was so outlandishly ridiculous and bad that even pre-runaway Marek probably wouldn't have tried it. Post-runaway Marek certainly wasn't going to try it either, but that didn't stop the boy from thinking about it. In fact, he thought about it a lot. He almost smiled, even as he remained on guard against anything that might tip the man to his thoughts. Mr. Tichy could read minds, after all.

After eating, Marek cleaned everything up. He didn't even mind. Tichy had fed him well — very well, in fact — and the boy was willing to acknowledge that all day long. While he hadn't expected much more than bread and water while he stayed with the man, it had been just the opposite. Lunch helped to take the edge off Marek's homicidal fantasies. Maybe he would just kill Tichy, instead of torturing him first. Or maybe not as much torture, but some. Marek hadn't decided how he felt. It depended on dinner tonight and how the rest of the day went.

"How are your legs?" asked the man out of blue. They had done a solid ski trip yesterday, and a short-but-steep uphill journey here first thing in the morning, but Tichy nevertheless was thinking about getting in another short run. He thought about it briefly, glancing out of the window. It was dark outside and snowing heavily. The wind was howling. No one sane was going to be out in this weather, but whoever said Stanislav Tichy was sane?

Marek thought his legs were fine. Stiff, yes. Sore, yes. But he wasn't having any trouble walking or doing what he needed to do on them. He was a kid, after all. Adults were the ones with the creaky old bodies who were always complaining about being stiff and achy.

"Pretty good, Mr. Tichy," Marek replied. It wasn't exactly a lie.

"Go squirt a good bit of lube into your butt, then put a pair of your panties and your ski clothes on. We'll go for a short round," said the man with a devious smile.

Marek blanched at the instruction, but he was in too deep to backtrack now. There was something troubling afoot, but the boy wasn't sure what it was. The instruction to pre-lube his ass and put his ski clothing on seemed almost contradictory, and Marek pondered the odd combination even as he moved to comply. Lube meant that the man was going to fuck him. But where? Outside? While they were skiing? The boy didn't think that could even be possible. Afterwards? Maybe. At a minimum, it was dimensions and degrees of messed up depending how it played out, but Marek was in no position to do anything about it.

Marek suited up, panties and all, and by the time the confused boy was fully dressed, Tichy was ready to lead them out into a proper blizzard. Truth be told, if it weren't for the panties and the lube, skiing in a blizzard sounded like a lot of fun to Marek, and he was happy enough to go. The only question bouncing around in his brain was where exactly they were going to fuck along the way, but he supposed that the man would tell him that in due time.

Chapter 24

All things considered, Marek thought his legs were fine. Stiff, yes, and sore, yes, but he wasn't having any trouble walking or doing what he needed to do. He was a kid, after all. Adults were the ones with the creaky old bodies who always were complaining about being stiff and achy.

Mr. Tichy's instructions were as contradictory as they could be. The lube and panties were nothing out of the ordinary for him, but ski gear and skiing? Marek pondered the odd combination even as he moved to comply. Lube meant that the man was going to fuck him. But where? Outside? While they were skiing? The boy didn't think that would even be possible, but could he be planning something for afterwards, when they arrived at their destination? Maybe.

Marek suited up, panties and all, and out into the windy, snowy afternoon they went. Truth be told, if it weren't for the panties and the lube, skiing in a blizzard sounded like a lot of fun.

They had to walk a little longer today as Mr. Tichy took him around Brod, down the path around the church they had taken on Christmas Eve, and across the river. It was there that they stopped to put the skis on. It was a small loop of tracks – actually several interlacing loops – all with one thing in common: they all ran through dense woods of spruce and pine with branches down to the ground that formed a sort of thicket, which was as good as impenetrable unless there was a path.

As they skied, Marek learned the hard way that his legs were sorer than he had let on. The walk alone had been difficult, traipsing through a at least a solid six inches [15cm] of newly fallen snow and even more in places where the wind had driven it. Marek was glad to get back on his skis, but it didn't take long before his inner-thighs and calf muscles were protesting. The muscles loosened up a bit more as he skied, however, and soon Marek started to feel more comfortable. He also felt like he had mastered the new skis and the bindings. He honestly couldn't even remember how his old skis even worked. They were quite old and had been his father's.

Traitor skis is what they were, but of course, now he was on torturer skis. Marek wondered which man was worse than the other, Ludek Hurta, or Stanislav Tichy? It hardly mattered, because Josef Hurta had them both by the balls. Marek wondered if his grandfather had skied, too. Somebody must have taken Ludek out on his boy-sized skis. Maybe they had skied together, The Glass King and his son the traitor, just as Marek was skiing now with Mr. Tichy. If anyone saw them skiing together, they would think Mr. Tichy was Marek's father. He was only a scant few years younger than Ludek would be if he were still alive. Mr. Tichy easily could be Marek's father, but the man wasn't married and didn't have any kids – probably for very good reason.

They had skied for a little over half an hour before Tichy suddenly led a way off the path, brushing through branches, sliding across a small clearing into a crevasse between two granite rocks. There was an overhanging cliff there with hardly any snow underneath. They were only twenty paces away from the ski-path but behind some trees and hardly visible due to the intensity of the snowfall. It was there that Tichy unclipped his skis and stepped off.

"Skis off," he instructed. "Overalls to your ankles, panties down to your knees. Put your hands on the rock, lean forward, stick your ass out and pray I cum before you get frostbite," said Tichy. The man waited until Marek was in position before he unzipped his own overalls and whisked his hard cock out. He knew that he had to get it in the boy fast or he was going to lose his boner just from the cold alone.

Marek wasn't even surprised when Tichy announced what they were going to do next. It was to be a blizzard fuck. The boy dismounted his skis and started to undress. Down came the overalls and the long johns, leaving Marek in his pretty pink panties. They contrasted starkly with the white snow, which was still falling and blowing like nobody's business. Marek skinned them down to his ankles, too, put his gloves back on, and leaned forward, bracing himself against the rock. The wind blew and he gave his first shiver as his skin broke out in goosepimples. The slight boy already was cold before Tichy even approached to mount him.

Tichy forced his cock in the kid's ass hard, fast, and without ceremony. There was no warmup and no easing in, just an abrupt, align-and-shove entry. Moments later he was fucking Marek fast and hard in the blowing snow, holding the boy's hips, and ramming himself in with some force. At least Marek had gloves on and the ski shoes and clothes covering his ankles and thighs, but damn it was cold. It was around 26 degrees [-3C], solidly below freezing and even the fast, hard friction of Tichy's fucking motion wasn't anywhere near enough to keep the boy warm in the cold, mountain air.

Marek was reduced to shivering less than a minute after he had disrobed. It wasn't just the temperature but the wind. It howled through the little crevasse, sending the snow swirling against the boy's pale-white skin. There was not an ounce of fat on Marek's lithe, muscular frame; if anything, he still was a bit skinny and underweight, and his lack of insulation was very apparent. The wind cut through him like a knife. His teeth chattered as the man entered him. At least as Mr. Tichy leaned in and began to fuck Marek, his body acted as a decent windbreak, saving the boy from the bulk of the cold air and snow blowing in from the west. At least that was a good thing.

Oh my God did Mr. Tichy bugger him this time, fast and hard, deep enough to hurt. There was no teasing or foreplay at all. The man's pace was vigorous. Marek could only imagine that the wind on Mr. Tichy's ass felt about as cold to him as it did to the boy, incentivizing the man to fuck him as hard and fast as he possibly could. Marek didn't realize that Tichy had kept himself as well-covered as he had, having made only the minimum adjustment to his clothing to free his cock for fucking.

For Tichy, having Marek as good as naked outside, shivering, leaning against a rock and submissively taking dick in his little ass in the middle of howling blizzard was turning the man on more than the frost was setting him back. The man knew that he was sending a powerful message to the boy that even when they were skiing together and having fun, painful buggery could happen anytime the man wanted it to happen. If it could happen in ski togs outdoors in the swirling winds of a near-whiteout snowfall, it could happen anywhere.

The man forced himself to keep ramming into Marek fast and hard even as he got breathless and almost purple in the face, his vision eventually starting to flicker and darken. He came in about five minutes. It had been one of his fastest fucks yet, especially for it not even being his first one of the day. As soon as he finished breeding the boy, he pulled out.

"Turn around," he told the freshly fucked kid, his words punctuated with a smack to Marek's ass. "Clean." Even out here, there would be no departure from the rules, no deviation from the routine – and there had better damn well be no argument from the boy about it either.

Marek was freezing cold. His teeth chattered and his exposed body shivered and shook. When the man came, Marek was only too happy to be done, but he then had to kneel on his bare knees in the snow to clean Mr. Tichy's cock. He didn't even care what was on it this time as his shivering mouth and tongue began to lick, suck, and clean.

Thankfully, Mr. Tichy didn't make him do it for long. The man let Marek slide his lips and mouth over the cum- and cream-covered cock for less than a minute before he tapped the kid on the head.

"Good boy," he praised the shivering-but-obedient youngster. "Get dressed. Let's get moving!"

Seconds later, the youngster was pulling his clothing back up over his frigid form. His teeth wouldn't stop chattering as he re-dressed in his now snow-dampened underclothing. He was frozen to the core, even with Mr. Tichy's deposit of warm cum deep in his bowels.

Tichy drove the shivering boy onwards, but it turned out they had passed the furthest part of their trip and were soon descending gently and looping back towards Brod. In just 30 minutes it would be time to take the skis off and make their way through the town, but the snow was falling so hard that they could almost have skied right through it, what with the accumulation already present on the ground.

All that skiing and walking caused Tichy's cum to leak from Marek's butt into the panties, leaving them glistening and saturated. The boy felt strange as his buns first slid against each other, then gummed up as the cum became tacky, and finally rubbed against each other as everything back there dried out. It was a very uncomfortable feeling, and Marek knew from experience that the next time the man buggered him, his abraded anus and butt cheeks were going to hurt like blazes.

Tichy made the boy hurry and soon they were in the warm flat again, red-faced and breathless, and both of them quite sweaty. He made Marek strip to his panties and examined him quickly for damage, but Marek wasn't frostbitten. He had been cold and shivering for a few minutes after their sex stop, but he was fine a few minutes after they returned to the warm apartment and his body temperature soon was back to normal. After checking the boy, Tichy stripped, sat down on a kitchen chair, and pulled out one of the last Gauloises.

"Panties down, just a few inches," he demanded. "Bone up for me and come finish what you started in the woods," demanded the man, pulling the boy by his hair to lead his mouth onto his semi-erect cock. There would be no reprieve or break for Marek today.

Marek tugged the panties down both front and back, then leaned down and in as the man pulled him to his cock. With his right hand, he began to stroke his own penis to life as he took Mr. Tichy's still-befouled cockhead back in his mouth. As he began to lick and clean it, Marek's own penis responded to his self-stimulus and quickly erected.

Even as he sucked, it seemed to Marek that the man was making him play with fire each time he made the boy stroke himself. The punishment for cumming without permission was extreme and Marek never wanted to experience anything like that ever again, yet Tichy deliberately was keeping him aroused, forcing him to tempt fate. The boy wasn't close to cumming right now – not yet anyway – but what would happen when he fell asleep? That was his overriding concern, but Tichy didn't seem to give a damn about it. He even seemed deliberately to be enhancing the risk of something happening again.

Tichy knew damn well what he was doing when he forced the boy to stay erect for prolonged periods of time. It was very much done on purpose and the thought of what was brewing inside the boy even as he sucked him made his cock twitch in Marek's mouth. Marek could be having rebellious thoughts of unfairness, but Tichy loved to have this kind of control over him. keeping him under such tension, and he was going to keep right on doing it until Hell froze over.

The man's penis was sweaty, musky, and foul, but Marek's lips and tongue licked and sucked it clean from base to tip, nonetheless. Rule 5 mandated the cleaning of Mr. Tichy's cock each time they had sex, but it had been modified by their agreement: Mouth cleaning was not required if the man's cock was befouled with streaks or clumps of shit. That was what the man had agreed to, but the last couple of times Tichy buggered him, Marek had noticed that the cleaning had been required immediately without any kind of inspection or examination. Had Tichy changed his mind about the modification? The man's cock had been relatively clean both times before, but Marek was worried. The favorable modification of Rule 5 was very important to him. He hoped it hadn't been just a Christmas reprieve, but he knew that there wasn't anything he could do about it if the man decided to change the agreement back to the letter of the Rule.

Even as he sucked and cleaned Mr. Tichy's penis, Marek's mind began to wander. Despite the frozen buggery part, skiing had been fun. He could have stayed out even longer if his buns hadn't been chafing from dried cum. The boy felt good on the skis to the point where he couldn't even remember how the bindings on his old skis worked.

As he thought about skiing, however, the crazy thought he had pondered during the morning blowjob sessions suddenly entered his mind again, only to be summarily rejected. Marek did not have a death wish, so he would not steal away on his skis to visit Tichy's parents and tell them what their son was doing to him. It would be best if he forgot the entire thing and never had such thoughts again. He willed himself to make that happen lest his thoughts get him in trouble.

"There's a good slut puppy," said Tichy with a smile. "Keep yourself nice and hard while you suck like you were born to do nothing else. Maybe that's even true. Maybe there is an innate justice to the order of things in the world, and you were brought to it to give pleasure to others and to suffer yourself to make up for all the suffering caused by your ancestors," speculated Tichy, who sounded like he actually meant what he was saying – like he really may have believed his words and was not just using them to tauntthe boy.

As he was being cleaned and served, Tichy also reviewed what had been an incredible day so far. Marek had made up for yesterday's Rule 3 failures by a biathlon blowjob in the morning, then the man had taken him up his little ass quite hard in the snowy woods. The blowjob he was getting now was going to be the second cum of those required for today, leaving the last one as a bit of a wildcard. Although everything was fine right now, if Marek's attitude slipped even a little bit Tichy was going to make sure to make the process of his last orgasm of the day as painful as he could possibly make it for the boy. For now, though, Marek was being obedient; he was erect, stroking himself, and sucking the man's not-so-clean penis compliantly enough.

Despite his efforts, Marek continued to have seditious thoughts about his situation. It hadn't really been that many days since Tichy had taken a bullwhip to the boy's testicles – an ordeal that Marek had barely survived and that he had vowed never to risk repeating – but the trip to Mr. Tichy's parents had messed with his mind. Even as he sucked, he could not get it out of his head that Mr. Tichy's parents were not mad at him. They didn't want to see him hurt and punished, much less tortured or turned into a sex slave. Marek knew with near certainty that they would not approve of what their son was doing to him. Even if skiing off to see them again would be utter suicide, Marek found himself questioning the whole notion of what Mr. Tichy was doing to him. What right did the man have to do it? Who had made him the boss of Marek?

The man's teasing and taunting did nothing to quell the angry, disobedient thoughts that were racing through Marek's brain. All the man's "slut puppy" nonsense was rubbing on Marek precisely the wrong way. The boy begged himself not to get angry and not to react to it. He reminded himself of the pains that Tichy could inflict, the agonizing things that the man could do – and had done – to the boy. The memory of those ordeals was enough to keep Marek compliant and obedient, but it was a struggle. He was struggling once again with the unfairness of his situation, and that worried him. He knew that horrific pain awaited him if he continued down that path.

He listened as the man ruminated out loud about the justice of it all, but Marek promptly rejected that idea. He had bought into that logic for a while as seemingly everyone had been bashing him over the Glass King's transgressions, but now he knew it to be bullshit. It just proved that if you heard lies often enough, after a while you might just believe them. But it was indeed a lie that some concept of justice required him to atone for the sins of the Glass King by being beaten, raped, and demeaned. Marek simply didn't believe that anymore. The kindness of an elderly couple had brought that home to the boy. They had made more of an impact on Marek with their forgiveness and hospitality than Mr. Tichy could with his hatred, cock, and cane.

But what could Marek do about it? He'd tried everything. Nothing had worked. His situation had gotten worse and worse, and now, with his mother hospitalized, he was utterly trapped at the school, helpless and defenseless against anything Mr. Tichy wanted to do to him. The man had him cornered and there was nothing he could do about it. All he could do for now was obey, suck the man's cock, and be raped by him. Marek didn't want to be punished and tortured, but he knew from experience that if he weren't careful, his angry thoughts would lead him there once again, so he didn't let up, sliding his lips slowly down the man's shaft and then slowly back up, sneaking breaths and using lots of tongue.

But he not happy about it. Not at all.

Tichy, too, was deep in thought. It had been a solid three hours and a ski-trip since lunch, so the boy's stomach was bound to have already digested the meal, but Marek seemed distracted. He seemed tense. Tichy even suspected that he might know why, but he didn't care to punish the boy for a purely imagined offense. He certainly could have, but that wasn't his style. It wasn't at all sporting. Of course, he knew Marek well enough by now to know that he wouldn't need to push the boy very hard to get himself in real, punishable trouble. At a bare minimum, Marek was distracted from his task and not sucking even remotely as well as he was capable of, and Tichy decided that it was time to let him know the consequences of giving less than his best effort.

"Not even close to good enough!" he declared simply and coldly.

"Deeper," he commanded. "Get you nose in my pubes and your tongue on my balls. Take the entire shaft down your throat. You seem to be elsewhere in your mind, so I guess you need to be reminded that you're supposed to be here, serving me, with the whole of you, Mr. Hurta," said the man with an evil smirk.

"Go on!"

Marek's eyes flitted up to the man as Mr. Tichy barked at him. His heart sank. No matter what he had done to try to keep his bad thoughts from affecting his performance, he apparently had failed. Tichy could tell that something was wrong. Marek was angry at himself. He knew better. But what was he supposed to do? The bad thoughts kept coming relentlessly. He simply didn't believe the bullshit that he deserved and needed to be punished. And that's just what it was – bullshit.

Marek also knew that the man didn't need any excuse to do what he was doing to the boy. Maybe it would be better if he dropped the whole pretense of the Glass King's legacy and just told Marek that he was going to continue doing what he did to him for fun whether the boy liked it or not. But Mr. Tichy really seemed to believe what he was saying, and that made Marek want to reason with him. Maybe Marek could convince the man that what he was doing was unjust, unfair, and un-socialist. Maybe – but probably not.

Marek reset himself on his knees and tried to concentrate on giving the man a good blowjob regardless of his thoughts. If he didn't pull it together, Mr. Tichy's voice signaled danger and pain and all sorts of other unimaginable things that the boy knew he wouldn't like. He immediately plunged deep, over 5" [12.5cm], not quite pubes-in-nose deep, but he was nearly there. There was always a danger he would puke if he went any deeper, but he knew he had to. He would have to risk it. The alternative of Mr. Tichy taking over the blowjob was not something Marek wanted to risk. It was just a horror show when the man did that, an absolute, unmitigated horror show.

The boy lifted off, tonguing and lipping, and prepared himself for what was to come. The man's instruction was clear: Nose in pubes, tongue on balls. He started to count. One … two …

Tichy watched Marek try, but he could tell that the boy still was thinking about other things. Tichy knew boys, and he most certainly knew when he did not have their full-and-undivided attention, but since Marek started trying harder as soon as he was told to do so, the man let him do his thing without intervention. The first plunge the boy took was not remotely good enough, but they both knew it and they both knew the other knew it too, so Tichy just looked and waited. He didn't want to kick up a fuss with the kid every five seconds like a toddler throwing a tantrum; that simply wouldn't be becoming. He rather would wait until Marek had fucked up seriously to justify him crucifying the boy. It would be more enjoyable that way, and more justified, too.

Tichy watched as Marek paused and plunged once again, and this time he seemed to be on his way to doing precisely what had been asked of him. Tichy's cock felt divine. There. That was more like it! Even already three-times-spent in the day, the kid's marvelously soft, supple, and skilled mouth stood a realistic chance of draining his balls once again. Nice! But he wasn't about to praise the kid. All he said as soon as Marek pulled back to catch a much-needed breath was …

"Again."

Marek hadn't been asked to take the man all the way in a while. Mr. Tichy had seemed content at the most-of-the-way level for quite some time now, and Marek hadn't puked in many days. Nor had Mr. Tichy recently subjected him to any deep-throating ordeals over a toilet bowl or bucket. The man also hadn't taken control and fucked the boy's mouth until Marek couldn't breathe anymore, which the boy hated most of all. But now Marek had gone and fucked things up, and he was paying the price for it.

He finished his three count and forced his head down on the man's cock all the way to the hilt, where he was pleasantly surprised that his gag reflex did not seem to kick in or protest too much. He held Mr. Tichy's cock deep in his throat and squeezed his lips so the man would know just how deep he had gone. He held the position for a good several seconds, too, before he slowly, sensuously pulled off until only the man's cockhead was in his mouth. Marek looked up at Mr. Tichy for approval and praise, only to be told to do it again.

With a quick breath, Marek braced himself and plunged down once more. It was then that Mr. Tichy grabbed the boy's hair and held him nice and tight, right there in that position with the entirety of the man's cock in his throat.

"I want to feel your tongue on my balls," he emphasized, adding a little challenge to it. The boy hardly even seemed to be gagging, which was nothing short of a miracle. Not for the first time Tichy felt that it must have been fate that had brought the two of them together. He had never known such premier cocksucking skills in a boy of Marek's tender age, and it seemed like more than just serendipity to him that the boy he had abused like no other had developed into a consummate cocksucker, a fantastic fellator, and a bodacious blowjob-giver.

He held Marek in place until the boy forced his tongue out all the way underneath the shaft, and over his lower lip and poked the man's ballsack with the tip of it. Tichy shuddered. This was the shit, once again. He tugged to let Marek know he was allowed off, but only for a two-count.

"One … two," he counted slowly, then pulled the boy's head back down on "three" and counted to nine, pushed him off at "ten," gave him one and two with only two inches of cock in his mouth or so and then guided him down once again on "three" before letting go of the boy's hair.

"You keep going; I'll just count," said Tichy as he proceeded to do just that. He kept on counting, very slowly.

Marek's second plunge was as successful as the first, but not only was he not rewarded for it, but he felt the man's hands on his head. Oh, no! Marek hated it when Tichy took control. His heart rate increased as he remembered all the gagging, choking, breathless times Tichy had taught him how to take his cock deep. He hadn't liked those lessons at all.

The man seemed to be punishing him, and Marek knew it had to be because of the thoughts he was having. The thing was, he had done everything he possibly could not to scowl and not to show any outward signs of disobedience, but the man still had sensed it. Mr. Tichy's taunting and difficult demands couldn't be a coincidence. The man could read minds. That was the only explanation. He could fucking read minds – Marek's mind, anyway – which sucked, because Marek had been having bad thoughts all day and he was pretty sure they weren't going to just go away. Which meant that Tichy would detect them, and he would light the boy up. It was almost fucking inevitable.

Marek willed himself to forget meeting Tichy's parents. He tried. He wanted to forget for his own good, but of course he couldn't. The more he tried to ban the thoughts from his mind, the more he ended up thinking them. Now he was on a count because of it. Tichy's count. It was a different way of performing fellatio, and Marek didn't like it at all. He also didn't like the loss of control, but he had brought it on himself, and he knew it.

"That's a good little bitch," taunted Tichy. "Let me feel that tongue on my balls. That's the only way to prove you're deep enough," he smiled cruelly. "Eight … nine … off … ten." He took a breath himself. "One … two … back down! Three … four … ." And so it went. Tichy didn't use force, and he made sure to make the count sort of possible – actually giving Marek more than two out of ten seconds to breathe – but he kept driving him relentlessly through the cycle, nonetheless. Part of him was rooting for the kid to succeed, but the more sadistic part of him actively rooted for Marek to fail. Tichy was fine with ether option; as far as he was concerned, Marek could choose between them.

"All the way," Tichy demanded again. "Tongue on balls. Six … seven … eight … ." So it went, on and on. The sheer sadistic power he was wielding against the suffering boy made the blowjob feel even better, but Tichy was in no hurry to cum. Given how many times he had orgasmed already today, he felt like he could hold off his ejaculation for quite a long while, and given how enjoyable this was for him, that was exactly what he planned to do. If the boy wanted to taste spunk in his mouth, he was going to have to work hard for his prize.

For his part, Marek hated this, and his heart was beating fast with worry. Tichy was letting him breathe, but only barely, and if he didn't time his breaths properly, he didn't get them. That was the worst part about Tichy taking control – the breathing. It was the most discouraging feeling in the world to know that your mouth was slowly descending on the man's cock and wouldn't be ascending again for several agonizing seconds, when you needed to breathe right now.

At least his throat was cooperating. Thank God for that. Adding choking and gagging on top of everything else would make breathing impossible, and that would lead to panic. Of course, thinking about gagging made Marek gag for the first time. Although he managed not to vomit, it was a perilously close call, and it left the boy with watery eyes and a lot of fear.

Tichy's cock twitched in Marek's mouth as the boy gagged. The man loved that Marek so obviously was struggling with this. The poor kid! But there was no sympathy to be had from the sadistic p.e. teacher. Tichy still hadn't decided if he was going to cum like this or not; one thing he knew for sure, he wasn't going to cum quickly, not after all the other orgasms he'd already had today. Meanwhile, he just kept cycling through the numbers with his young ward. To keep things sporting, he even changed it up a little as Marek turned worryingly red in the face.

"One … two … another breath … three … four … down-on-five … six … seven … eight … nine … up. An so it went. Another cycle for Marek, then another after that. Rinse and repeat. There was a bit more time each cycle for the boy to breathe. Tichy was feeling merciful, indeed!

"Good little cocksucker," teased Tichy with another evil smile as he watched Marek suffer. There really should be a badge for this, especially for bourgeois little brats. Maybe he would devise a little medal or a badge specifically for Marek to wear. It would be a fitting replacement for his cartridge, since Marek wouldn't be needing that anymore. Tichy would tighten up the chain and replace the cartridge with a cocksucking medallion that Marek could wear around his neck like a collar, tight up against his talented little throat. The idea amused the man very much, but not so much that he lost focus and stopped counting. Not even once.

Marek had his hands laced behind his back. It was just better that way, so he wouldn't be tempted to use them in a way that he would come to regret, but he hated this. He really hated it, and Tichy wasn't helping with all the teasing and taunting. He was used to some of that from the man, but Tichy was in rare form this afternoon, full of the singsong, baby-talk teasing that Marek totally despised. It seemed that Mr. Tichy was trying extra hard to get a rise out of him because he wasn't quite sure what Marek was thinking. Maybe the man's mind-reading skills were slightly off today or something. He seemed to know that whatever thoughts Marek was having were seditious, but he didn't quite know what they were, so he was trying as hard as he could to make Marek mad and goad him into a punishment-worthy reaction.

Marek fought it with everything he had, vowing that he would not get angry. He would not react. He would not disobey. If Tichy decided to punish him anyway, so be it, but Marek wasn't going to give him an excuse. It was a chess game, one playing out even as Marek sucked the cock of his nemesis to the best of his ability. The man seemed to be spoiling for a fight. At the rate he was going, Marek wasn't sure how long he could take the abuse before he cracked and reacted, but it was a fight that Marek knew he would lose. After all, he hadn't won against the man even once. Indeed, he hadn't come even close to prevailing, and his defeats all had been agonizing and profound.

Tichy couldn't help but admire Marek's fellatio skills even as he tried to provoke the boy. The kid was an absurdly, ludicrously good cocksucker. Even an adult had no right to take a cock with this much ease unless she was a whore doing it daily for a living. It felt amazing. The technique they were using today was different from the continual-sensation cycle-sucking that he sometimes made the boy perform; it was less intense, but somehow more satisfying because even though Marek wasn't gagging, he clearly was hating it and finding it difficult. Tichy was too spent himself and too suspicious of the boy's mood to settle for an ordinary blowjob, so Marek was learning about alternative techniques the hard way today.

Marek thought that the blowjob was going reasonably well, all things considered. He wasn't getting enough air, but that was typical when Mr. Tichy ran the show and at least the man wasn't gripping his head and forcing his head up and down like a plunger, gagging him and causing him to retch and vomit. He hoped that Mr. Tichy would cum soon. This was his third blowjob of the day already, and it was turning into a long one. Marek's jaw and throat were starting to hurt. Despite that he had only gagged once, and the next several plunges after had been okay.

Marek took a big inhale, trying to replenish the oxygen that his lungs so desperately needed. But then, like lighting out of a clear blue sky, several things happened in quick succession. In his hurry to breathe, Marek inhaled a droplet of spit. He followed the strict count anyway, plunging down as directed, but then coughed literally with his throat full of cock. As the boy soon learned, that kicked powerfully at his gag reflex. He immediately pulled back, but not fast enough as bile and snot shot out of his mouth and nostrils all over the man's penis.

Tichy frowned. "Missed the count there, but I'll let that slip this once before I fetch the cane," he said benevolently, ignoring the child's predicament as if it hadn't even happened. "Now. Again. One … two … down you go!" he said, even as Marek was still busy spitting and sputtering his stomach juices onto the floor between the man's legs.

Marek hated puking. Stomach acid, bile, and saliva poured from his mouth and nostrils as his stomach emptied its contents on the floor. The smell and taste of the stuff was disgusting. He continued to cough, gag, and retch, but Tichy didn't care. Instead, the man threatened him with the cane and instructed Marek to go again before the boy was ready.

Marek closed his eyes and tried desperately not to look angry, but it was so unbelievably fucking unfair that he almost couldn't stand it. Tichy was pushing him on purpose, and it was working. He forced his eyes open. He forced himself to look like he didn't care, but he fucking did, and the resulting expression that formed on his face was almost otherworldly. Despite his anger, the boy didn't want another beating. He also didn't want to give the man the satisfaction, so he took Mr. Tichy's cock back in his mouth before he was ready and forced himself to plunge down again.

Mr. Tichy had made him puke, and Marek was pissed. It seemed deliberate to the boy. He had given the man good, pleasing blowjobs for days and days now – Mr. Tichy had even said so. What he hadn't said aloud the man had demonstrated with his grunts, groans, and other clear signs of appreciation and approval. But this one time, Mr. Tichy hadn't been happy with Marek's performance. Could he cut Marek any slack? No. Mr. Tichy could have an off afternoon, but not Marek. He had simply taken control of the blowjob, forcing Marek to plunge deep until he puked. Nice. Marek loved the feeling of stomach acid burning his throat. He loved the eye-bulging, stomach-clenching gasps and gags that went along with puking. He loved the smell of fresh vomit under his nose.

Mr. Tichy had done it on purpose, the asshole.

Tichy smiled. He had made Marek deep throat until he puked, then had forced the kid to resume sucking while streamers of bile still were hanging from his mouth. Now that was obedience! He let the kid abuse his throat with deep plunges a few more times, but he didn't love the smell or the feel of the puke either, and he wanted to finish.

"Suck less deep, but fast … I'm almost there," Tichy ordered the kid, and indeed he was. Despite the acidic stench tainting the experience a little, his cock had been treated to a pronged and premium-deluxe blowjob treatment and was tingling, hard, and twitching, ready to be brought over the edge.

Almost as soon as Marek didn't have to force himself down all the way and picked up a shallower pace, Tichy went past the point of no return. With a gasp, a grunt, and another gasp, a spittle of semen squirted from his cock into Marek's throat. After another deep gasp, the man pushed him off.

"Well done," Tichy praised the boy, and the praise was due. "Clean this mess up first, then yourself," said Tichy, who then went to take a shower so he could wash his cock. "Make sure to brush your teeth."

Under normal circumstances he would have made Marek clean his cock of vomit and bile, but after his orgasm it almost instantly had shrunk down to smaller than its usual size, and Tichy wasn't in the mood for more stimulation. His cock felt numb as he washed it, which meant that Marek was going to have a challenge ahead of him when he tried to drain the man's balls for the fifth time that day. For Tichy, it promised to be a fun challenge, indeed!

Marek cleaned everything up as ordered. He got the floor clean, washed his face, and gargled the yucky taste from his mouth. He owed the man one more orgasm today, but considering that Mr. Tichy had wanted five today, Marek though that he probably was ahead of schedule with the first four already out of the way. It was then that the seditious thoughts returned. Marek's anger had subsided, but the thoughts still bothered him. They were thoughts about Tichy's parents and the visit to their cottage.

After showering, Tichy swung by the kitchen to grab a pack of smokes, then returned to the bedroom to lounge on the bed. He forced himself to sit upright to stop himself from dozing off with a lit smoke in his hand. He smoked and stared at the wall blankly, briefly devoid of thought and instinct alike.

After a time, Marek followed him into the bedroom, standing just inside the door. He wasn't quite sure why he was there or when he had made the conscious decision to do what he was about to do, but here he was.

"Mr. Tichy," he said as he looked at the man. "Can I ask you something politely without you getting mad at me. It's about yesterday."

And there it was. Tichy fucking knew it. He had been right about the kid all along. Something had been distracting the boy all day, something exceedingly unhealthy for a young boy in an exceedingly precarious position.

Tichy looked at Marek like he was a simpleton asking why the night was dark, but he managed to force a smile to his lips. He was still naked, still smoking, still sprawled across the bed lazily, propped up on pillows and cushions. He felt relaxed from a full day of sex, so much so that if Marek ever had a chance to raise the issue and not get killed on the spot, this was probably about the only time to do it. But if the boy was paying attention at all, he couldn't miss the granite-hard glint in the man's eyes as he beheld his whining slut puppy. Even now, at the best of times, this conversation probably wasn't going to go well for the Glass King's grandson.

"Ask," replied Tichy. "I make no promises. I guess if you're polite, I can promise I shall not … lash out," said the man. Of course, that still meant he could slowly, calmly, and methodically torture the shit out of the boy if he felt like it, but whether Marek appreciated the limit of the caveat was another matter.

"So?"

Marek looked confused by the man's response. Was Mr. Tichy already angry with him? The boy had asked politely, but something seemed wrong, and the man wasn't giving him any type of assurance as Marek had assumed that he would. He intended to be very polite and respectful. Right now, he felt calm. Despite the puke blowjob and the man's taunts, he wasn't even angry. But did he dare continue? Was this a trap? He'd only rarely asked to talk plainly to the man before, other than going to Mr. Tichy's office that one time to be told about the Glass King. Of course, by the end of that visit, Mr. Tichy had become irate and had mouthfucked Marek almost into unconsciousness.

Marek wavered. Would the man get mad at him just for asking his question? The boy didn't want to get in any trouble, but he was afraid that if he didn't ask and never got an answer, the bad thoughts he was having would continue to percolate in his brain. Eventually, Tichy would find out about them, and then there would be trouble. Painful, soul-crushing, torturous trouble.

Marek decided to proceed, but he intended to be very polite. He would start with thanks and a compliment.

"Well, I just wanted to say, thank you for letting me meet your parents," said the boy very respectfully. "They were really nice. It was nice of you to do that."

He paused, but hearing no response, he continued.

"I just thought we were stopping for help, but when I realized who they were I was scared they would be mad at me. You know, because of … because of what happened? With my grandfather?"

Marek paused again. The naked man was just looking at him, staring and smoking. So far, Mr. Tichy hadn't said a word. He couldn't read the man's expression.

"But they weren't mad at me," added the boy. "They were really nice."

Marek paused again as he tried once again to read the man's expression. Given the silence, the boy was afraid to continue. He was not getting a good vibe from the man.

For a few additional moments Mr. Tichy was placid and inscrutable, but finally he spoke.

"Boy, before you go on," Tichy said as he took a long drag on his cigarette, "I told them I specifically brought you to the region for closure and told them you were making a progress, which is true. I did not tell them about your escape attempt and all the other trouble you've gotten yourself into. If I had told them how bad you've been and how angry I was with you, they'd never understand why I would choose to sacrifice my time – over the Christmas holidays, no less – to spend with you. So, they don't know the actual situation. They are old and frail, and I'm protecting them."

He took another long drag and puffed out a stream of smoke.

"They never fully understood the Revolution, Communism, or Marx," continued Tichy. "They don't and wouldn't understand the comeuppance that people like you have coming, and I can't really blame them. They are simple folk of the mountains. They're Christians, I hate to admit, and otherwise old-fashioned and superstitious. Hospitality is a sacred thing to the people who live in these mountains, including my parents. You do not mistreat a guest, and I did bring you into their house as my guest and protege. They also know not to meddle with my plans with you even as they showed their true, kind face. I just made it easier for them, as I said before."

"They may be too old, frail, and old fashioned for justice and vengeance, but I am not, Marek," continued Tichy. Make no mistake about that. And this is no longer a Christian, superstitious, stupid country. This is the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, in case you haven't noticed. My old folks may not show their anger, and they may not even want it stirred up in them by someone like you, but I've heard all about it, and I've been affected by their history as much as anyone. So, if you're asking why you're still being punished and repurposed, that's your answer, and if you have more to say, I recommend that you tread very carefully, boy."

Marek's expression fell and his face paled as Tichy lit into him. The naked boy almost seemed to shrink to a smaller size as the man gave him the answer to the question he hadn't even asked. Tichy had indeed read his mind. How did he do that? How did he always seem to know what Marek was thinking?

The boy hung his head. That hadn't gone well, but he supposed that, maybe, in a way, it had. The utterly stupid, hairbrained, death-courting idea that had raced through his mind more than a few times was now completely off the table. Even if he could somehow ski back to their cottage before Tichy caught him, based on what the man had just said, his parents might not even help him. "They knew not to meddle," Tichy had said, and they probably wouldn't meddle even if Marek told them what their son was doing to him at the school. It had been a crazy idea, anyway: pretending to go to see Ludmila, but somehow sneaking his skis out, too, then putting them on and racing back to the little cottage. He probably never would have dared to do it, but now he knew there wasn't even a point to doing it.

Mr. Tichy had answered his question. There it was. The end. Marek's sentence remained very much uncommuted, and he still would have to serve it. Maybe Mr. Tichy was even right about his parents. Maybe they were too old and Christian and superstitious to see that Marek was bad, that he was a bad seed with bad ancestors. Maybe the kindness they had shown him was nothing but old age and senility. Marek hadn't thought of that possibility before, but now he did, and it was deflating.

"Okay," the boy said softly. He was done, but he couldn't stop his eyes from moistening with tears. There was, however, one other thing he really wanted to know.

"Please don't get mad at me, Mr. Tichy," he said, his voice full of emotion. He paused a moment before asking the question that had been on his mind a lot lately.

"Do you think I'm a bad person, too? I mean, not just my father and my grandfather," he said as his lower lip quivered. "Just … me?"

Tichy paused for a moment before answering the boy. He could tell from the question that the unrelenting stress and pressure he had put on the kid had caused Marek to question his own self-worth. He almost chuckled. Maybe his mostly bullshit redemption plan for the boy was amounting to something after all. The sad, vulnerable little 12-year-old was near tears as he seriously asked his tormentor, rapist, and torturer to assess his value as a boy. The situation was almost too precious, the question itself beyond cute and endearing. It bordered on heart-warming, and Tichy had to fight to suppress a laugh and a sad-sounding, taunting "Awwww!" in response.

"Is a piece of raw chicken bad?" asked Tichy rhetorically, uncharacteristically for him answering with a question and a metaphor to boot. "If you leave it in the sun and then try to eat it – Uh, oh, bad. The chicken will spoil, and you'll get sick as a dog from it. But if you fry it properly and make a schnitzel out of it, it's fine. It's very nice in fact, as you already know from a couple of days ago – although that schnitzel was pork," said the man with a pleasant smile.

"And, further to my point, a nice, well-fried schnitzel is something you can stuff between two slices of bread and take as a snack for a hike, even on a hot, sunny day. Once it's been treated correctly, that no-longer-raw piece of chicken will not spoil even in an environment that otherwise would have ruined it."

"In my metaphor, in case there's any confusion," said Tichy as he reached for the plastic cane and pointed it at Marek, "you are the raw piece of chicken and this," he swished the cane in the air, "is the hot frying oil. My cock and whatever else I choose to use on you is the egg and breadcrumbs. You couldn't quite fry it the same way without them, could you? So, remember Rule 3? You, boy, are being … " said Tichy as he paused and took another drag on his cigarette, "fried."

He paused for a moment but raised a warning finger to silence the kid until after he was finished speaking.

"I want you to think about something, Marek," continued Tichy. "You probably already know that I am a somewhat ruthless, unscrupulous man; in fact, I think I've told you that before. Some men must be to keep the Revolution alive, and I'm one of them. In my case, I own a gun, and I know how to use a knife. I am a fit man, who could have taken a nice holiday to Moravia, drunk enough in a wine cellar for it to count as an alibi, and snuck out to slit the throat of a boy who is the only living descendant of a man I personally hate more than Adolf Hitler himself. More likely I would have kidnapped you and taken you someplace remote and quiet to suffer a painful, tortuous death. Practically, we both know that I could have pulled it off. We both know that I have enough friends and know enough about police work to get away with murder if I need to," he added matter-of-factly.

"If I believed you were unsalvageable, you'd already be dead by now, or certainly in tremendous pain and well on your way to being dead," said the man with an absolute deadpan face; he either was being completely honest with the 12-year-old or was a master of poker faces.

"Instead, I decided that you may just be redeemable," said Tichy. "That's why you're here, having your ass fucked sore, puking on my cock, and having your butt striped with the cane. You hate every minute of it – except maybe those few minutes a day when I'm just being pragmatic and keeping you alive and feeding you – but that's to be expected, Marek. You're not supposed to like it. The oil is hot, and it hurts to be fried, but I decided many months ago to beat and fuck the bourgeois rottenness, false pride, and treacherousness right out of you, and I will succeed. That's why you're here, that's why your throat's so sore right now, but it also happens to be the only reason you're still alive. One day, because of me, you'll be all grown up and a good, socialist citizen, and I'll be old, fat, and happy with the job I did with you here at the school to make you that way. Think about that, Marek. Think about it as much as you need to."

So, there it was, all of it, finally out in the open. Marek understood the chicken-schnitzel analogy well enough. In a way, it even made sense: Mr. Tichy was going to Rule 3 him until he was like a piece of schnitzel and wouldn't go bad in the hot sun. The man was going to fry him. Mr. Tichy had brought him to the school specifically to punish and torture him so he wouldn't follow in his father's and grandfather's footsteps. That meant that no matter how obedient Marek was, no matter how good he was, he would never be able to avoid the man's torments and punishments. He might be able to reduce the number of them and diminish their severity with good behavior, but any hope he had that the man would ever leave him alone completely had been dashed by what Marek had just heard.

Marek believed the man when he said he could have killed him and might very well have been inclined to do so. The boy wouldn't have even known what had hit him. After all, how many 11- or 12-year-old kids have an adult who wants to kill them? Back in Vacenovice, Marek had never heard of the Pripravna Internatni Skola Klementa Gottwalda or Stanislav Tichy. He had never heard of the Glass King. He had been largely unaware of his family's legacy – even of his father's involvement in the Prague Spring. His mother simply didn't talk about such things, and neither did his aunt. Maybe they would have someday when he got older, but Marek wasn't even sure about that. Marek was so clueless about those things that if Mr. Tichy had grabbed him and tortured him to death, he wouldn't even have known why he was being hurt and killed.

Maybe Mr. Tichy was right. Maybe Marek had bad tendencies and needed to have them beaten out of him. The boy wasn't sure whether badness could be inherited like that, but Mr. Tichy certainly seemed to think so. Marek didn't feel as though he was particularly bad. He just felt rather … normal. He used to get in trouble a fair amount, but that was more mischievousness than malevolence. He'd never done anything truly bad. He'd never been detained by the authorities – unless you counted being apprehended by Mr. Tichy's friends in the parachute regiment – or stolen anything – unless you counted the time he had taken Radek's money – or done drugs, or even smoked a cigarette. He wasn't a cheat, either, despite the cheat-sheet incident that had been the start of all his troubles in the place. The worst thing he ever had done in his life was steal that money from Radek, but that had been an emergency, and he still felt very bad about doing it.

Then again, this whole thing wasn't about the cheat-sheet incident or anything Marek had done. The cheat-sheet had just been the excuse to start in on him. Mr. Tichy had brought him here to the school to torture and punish him for the sins of his father and grandfather. He had brought him here to fry him like a chicken schnitzel. The revelation that Mr. Tichy had contemplated assassinating him made Marek rethink his escape plans once again. What good would it do to escape if Mr. Tichy could track him down and torture him to death? To get away, Marek would have to run so far that the man and his army friends could never find him. That would mean going to the West, which would mean he would have to leave his mother, his family, his friends, and everything he had ever known behind. That was if he could even get to the West, which was by no means a given. Many people had died in the attempt. Marek would probably either die in the attempt or die in agony when Mr. Tichy caught him. Neither outcome was very palatable to the boy.

Well, that was pretty much it. Marek didn't have any more questions for the man, as Mr. Tichy already had answered them all – well, except perhaps for one.

"Mr. Tichy, when- when you brought me here, was I like you thought I would be?" asked the boy. "I mean, before you met me?"

Tichy looked at Marek as he took another contemplative drag of his Startka.

"Hmm…."

Another puff.

"Uh-hmmmmmm…."

And one more.

"Not … quite, no. For one, I had never seen a photo of you or anything of the sort. I didn't know what to expect. Your grandfather was a big, barrel-chested man with a walrus mustache, so obviously I wasn't expecting that on your face," he chuckled. "But you're more … handsome and … nicer to look at than I had expected, I guess."

He took another puff.

"As for your character. You're a bit more … complicated than I thought. You're maybe not quite as badly spoiled as I had worried you might already be. Once I broke your initial resistance, you became… better company than I had imagined, especially when you really try. And I don't just mean because you suck cock well. You're a nice piece of raw chicken and may yet turn out to be a very nice schnitzel. I think getting you here when I did, into the Pripravna skola and not at age 15 to the usual internat at Technoglass or something, was a good move. You're still young. Still malleable. You're learning. And you will learn, but you need to stop expecting it to be an easy process, because it isn't, and it won't be. Being fried hurts, and you need to understand that Marek."

Marek listened attentively to what was said. The man's words were – especially for Mr. Tichy – close to a compliment. Sort of, anyway. Not that it mattered. The man wasn't going to stop frying Marek either way. The boy now understood that Tichy was on a mission to remold him, and that it was going to take some time. 12 years of living as Marek Hurta – son of Ludek Hurta, grandson of Josef Hurta – wasn't going to be undone in a single term, or even a single year. He guessed he saw Tichy's point in that regard. The boy didn't like it, but he got it. He just wished that Tichy could see that he wasn't the bad person his father and grandfather were. The man had just assumed he was. How could Marek ever show him any different? He couldn't. Not really.

"OK, thanks for not getting mad at me," the boy said with an appreciative nod. He didn't tell Tichy about his crazy skiing plan, which was now off the table for good. He'd have to go back to the drawing board once again, because even though he now understood precisely where the man was coming from, that didn't mean he had to like what Mr. Tichy had planned for him, much less accept it. Nor did it mean that he had to do it – if he could find a way to escape.

"I'm not, but maybe that's because I assume you understand what I mean. Do you?" asked Tichy as he stubbed out his cigarette in preparation for the boy's next lesson.

"In the fridge, there's a plastic bag next to the egg holder in the door," Tichy said. "It has a piece of fermented pre-cut ginger root in it. It's hotter and more intense than just a fresh-peeled root," he added. "Go get it, stick it up your butt, and come kneel here by the side of the bed. I'll smoke and read, and you'll suffer prettily and quietly for me, for no other reason than you're a Hurta. You can consider it a test on today's lesson, a little quiz of your understanding," smiled the man. "It's one of those punishments you should be getting to turn you into a nice schnitzel, but which keep getting delayed because you get yourself into so much trouble."

Marek was feeling okay about the exchange right up until the man told him to get the ginger root. That wasn't fair. Despite what Tichy had promised, he knew that he was being punished just for asking the questions. It was too much of a coincidence. Tichy didn't even have the courtesy to wait a couple of hours to make it seem more random. He had let Marek ask the questions and had said he wouldn't lash out, and Marek had been as polite as he could possibly be in asking them, but now this. It wasn't fair at all. In fact, it was cruel.

Marek could feel his anger growing inside him, but it was the helpless kind of anger that he knew he couldn't do anything about it. Regardless of the reason, Tichy was going to hurt him. The ginger root was a form of torture, but the man had decreed it. He was going to make Marek suffer just because he could.

"I understand, but I don't think it's fair," declared Marek. "That just means you can punish me for no reason at all whenever you want."

Tichy nodded.

"You do understand, then. Rule 3," he added. "Except it is fair. That's the whole point. That's the oil, boy. And of course, I can punish you whenever I want, that was never in question, was it?" asked Tichy rhetorically. He was the school's disciplinarian after all, and Marek was at the same time younger, poorer, farther from home, and more ridiculously vulnerable than just about any other kid who ever had attended the school in its entire history. He was about as far away as he possibly could be from any protection his bat-shit crazy, single-parent mother or any of his other, disinterested relatives could give him. The hapless 12-year-old was the dictionary definition of vulnerable, and they both knew that because of that, Tichy could not just punish Marek, he could torture him at will. For fuck's sake he already had tortured the kid. Mercilessly, in fact. Repeatedly. That was the entire point. That was why the kid had been brought to the school. Was he really that daft as to question what horrors could be done to him? Had it not occurred to the kid that he had absolutely no one in his corner rooting for him because Tichy had turned the entire school against him? Maybe the kid was that dense after all.

"In fact, I think what you just said comes dangerously close to breaking Rule 6," Tichy added with a warning frown. "But go on, go fetch the root."

Marek stood his ground for precisely 1.3 seconds after the man told him to get the ginger root for the second time. Then he quickly scampered off to do exactly what the man had told him to do. He had learned over time not to fight Mr. Tichy over such things. He just ended up doing whatever the man had told him a bit later, only with a teary-eyed face and a very sore bottom – if he was lucky. The man used beatings and outright torture to get his way, and Marek wasn't going to challenge him again.

He went to the fridge and found the root. It was there, just as the man had said, waiting for Marek to retrieve it. Mr. Tichy had pre-planned this. The man really was cruel.

The boy opened the bag and extracted the root. It was wet, cold, and a brownish color. It reeked. It looked like it was going to hurt. Marek dreaded it, but he went back to into the bedroom where Tichy was waiting.

"I got it, sir," the boy said unhappily. Looking unhappier still, he reached behind him and bent over a little bit before sliding the root inside his well-used rectum and kneeling by the side of the bed where he had been directed to go. He was not a happy boy.

"All right," replied Tichy. "A few important points. This is going to hurt quite bad," he promised and taunted the kid as he lit up another Startka. "Come closer. Hands up. Legs apart. A few things that need to be nice and clear for the schnitzeling procedure to work."

"First: Why is that ginger up your butt? Second: How much control do you have over how long it stays there? Third: Do you think you're going to pop a boner in the next twenty minutes, with your hands where they are, and with no help?" demanded the man, his tone a bit cat-and-mousy. He was quite clearly messing with the boy again and very much enjoying the act of doing so.

Marek had a look of dread on his face as he listened to Mr. Tichy. Yes, the man was taunting him, but right now, the boy had bigger concerns. He had felt the ginger root before – most memorably on that occasion in Mr. Tichy's office when he had sucked the man under the duress of the ginger root for the very first time – and he knew it hurt. It fucking burned. Mr. Tichy had told him that this version would be even worse, and Marek believed him. On top of that, Marek's butt had been recently used hard during the blizzard fuck and was not in the best of shape. The combination of these memories and factors made Marek very morose and worried.

He adjusted his position as the man directed. The boy's face was pale. He could detect the beginnings of a pain response to the ginger root jammed in his anus and rectum. It was if his butt had just woken up and was asking "What the fuck is this?" Unlike his butt, however, Marek knew that there were several layers of heightened pain to be explored. Things were only just now getting started.

He addressed the man's questions as they were asked.

Why was it up his butt? "Because my name is Marek Hurta, sir." That was true. He was being tortured because of his ancestry, and it wasn't fucking fair, but he couldn't do anything about it.

How much control did he have over the duration: "None, sir." Also true. The ginger root would remain where it was until Tichy decided otherwise. If Marek dared to pull it out, the man would beat and torture him for it and put it right back in. That was how these things worked.

Would he get a boner? It seemed like an odd question. Marek wasn't sure, and it was hardly his biggest concern. Marek remembered getting a boner once with the ginger root inserted, but he couldn't remember the details.

"I- I don't know, sir," he replied. "I'm not sure."

He could feel the burn of the ginger root starting now. The initial sensation was not unpleasant, but it was a portent of horrible things to come. The boy was under no illusions from the gentle start. Marek looked pale and he had a boo-boo expression on his face befitting that of a much younger boy. He couldn't help it. The man had essentially told him that he was going to be tortured very painfully for a long time. Was it any surprise that he wasn't exactly looking forward to it?

"Good boy," said the man as he caressed Marek's hair gently. "Correct and honest answers. Good. Now. I want you to stay focused, truly and deeply focused, on your questions and my answers, and your rules and your situation. Breathe deep, long breaths. Focus on the out-breath. If you start feeling angry, breathe it out. Huff it out. Cry it out. Anger is not the way. Anger gets in the way of acceptance. Anger gets in the way of learning. You are being tempered, taught, and trained. You are being given the gift of becoming a better boy, a better man. You're learning that things aren't always in your power and control. The sins of your father and grandfather, of your rich and treacherous ancestry, are being burned away. Anger can be some of the fuel, but it too, must burn in the end."

"As for the last question, you'll soon pop a boner, quite certainly, as blood rushes into those areas and the heat causes your blood vessels to expand and fill. It'll get hard and stay hard without stimulation, and it won't feel very nice after a while, but it's an important part of the experience. Now, breathe. Do your job – suffer, and work hard at not getting angry," said Tichy as he reached for his book and lit up another Startka.

The man's tone and demeanor were kindly, but nothing he said was at all reassuring to Marek. The man wanted him to stay focused while his butt was burning. Marek felt his heart rate spike again. How long was Mr. Tichy going to make him do this? He exhaled his air and took in a deep, long breath as he listened to what the man had to say.

Was Tichy kidding? Deep breathing wasn't going to help. The sensation in his rectum had already moved from an odd tingle to a mild burn. Breathing wasn't going to make the pain go away. Marek's face already was a rictus of unhappiness. Oh, and in addition to that the man didn't want him to get angry? He was not to get angry while he was being tortured? How could he not be angry? He already was angry. He hadn't even done anything wrong. Christmas had come and gone and Tichy was right back to being as mean a bastard as ever.

Marek winced as the pain got even worse. He moaned as Mr. Tichy's words reverberated in his brain. His job was to suffer but he wasn't allowed to get angry as ? It was impossible.

Oh God, it was starting to hurt. Marek's fingers and toes clenched. He tried the damn breathing again, but … fuck. It hurt. It burned. There must have been a sore or fissure somewhere in his rectum because there was a spot inside him on the right side that was stinging very painfully. It seemed to be making his testicles hurt, almost as if there were connected by an electrical wire from point to point.

It only got worse from there. After a few minutes it was starting to burn like fire. A rivulet of perspiration ran down the side of the boy's face. His breathing was the opposite of deep now. He was panting short, shivery breaths accompanied by little grunts of discomfort and pain.

Oh, it hurt, and it kept getting worse. Marek moaned. He closed his eyes and tried to compartmentalize the pain, but it didn't work. Nothing worked. He moaned again and tried as hard as he could not to clench his butt cheeks. He knew how much worse that made it, but he wanted to clench them very badly.

Tichy smoked his cigarette and proceeded to read, occasionally glancing at the boy as Marek's cheeks turned red. The boy already was beginning to sweat, pant, and struggle. He really should have listened about the breathing, but the man wasn't going to waste his time telling him again. If Marek wanted to disobey instructions that were intended to help him, that was too bad for him. There was no point in trying to help him through it if he was going to be ungrateful. The ginger root and time were going to do Tichy's job for him, and it was up to Marek to handle his part of it — the suffering part, that is.

Tichy wondered. Would there be tears from the boy? Would there be begging, pleading, and reasoning? Would the boy forget himself and get obviously, overtly angry? Tichy smiled at the thought. He almost hoped that Marek would let his anger get the best of him. It would be better for the boy's progress if he didn't, but it was going to be much more fun if he did, and Tichy was in this game for the fun as much as anything else. For now, Tichy smoked, read his book, and waited.

Marek was a boy in distress. The pain in his bottom kept growing and intensifying, worsening, spiraling upward, but that wasn't even the worst thing. The worst thing was the man had him kneeling with his hands on his head. He couldn't move. He couldn't really, but he did anyway. His chest and tummy heaved as he moaned, grunted, and gasped in pain. His fingers and toes almost seemed to be trying to wave the pain away they were moving so much. His face contorted with different looks, like he was conducting a self-study in pain expressions. He swallowed several times. He gasped. He panted. His entire body felt damp and over-heated. Twin dribbles of sweat slid down from his temples. His face was flushed and pink.

Through it all, Tichy just ignored him. He was reading and smoking like he had all the time in the world, like this could go on all day. It was a convincing performance. To Marek, it seemed like it could go on all day. Indeed, it seemed like it very likely would.

It hurt too much for Marek to maintain his anger, at least for now. He had to find a way to get through this. He had to find a way to withstand the pain. Tichy was not going to let him off the hook on this one. He had made that clear. If Marek didn't hold his position and suffer, Tichy would simply make him. He could have Marek bound in a stress position or hanging from the ceiling in a heartbeat. Although the boy knew he couldn't move, the fact that he was not bound and therefore had some tiny control over his own destiny was a small reassurance. The boy knew instinctively that if he tried to move – or, worse yet, tried to pull the ginger root out – Tichy could make it twice as bad. He would make it twice as bad. In fact, Marek sensed that the man would enjoy making it worse. Maybe he had set the boy up for failure by leaving him unbound. Maybe it would be better if he were tied up. Maybe it would be easier.

It wasn't easy right now. It wasn't easy at all. The pain had reached a red-hot intensity and just kept on getting worse. Marek moaned. How long had it been?

Tichy finished his smoke and lazily turned another page in his book. He was pretending to be all relaxed and casual about Marek's plight, but in truth he was keeping a close eye on the time. The burning sensation caused by a fresh ginger root peaked after about 20 minutes and only kept it up for another 10 minutes after that in a way that didn't betray that it was fading. A fermented root, depending on the victim, could take anywhere between 15-25 minutes to get to it maximum burn, and because it was softer and juicier, it could keep up the burn until at least the 40-minute mark without any sign of fading. Tichy knew that he had to pull the root out by then to keep up the illusion that this kind of torture could go on forever, which he was quite keen on having the boy believe.

But they weren't quite fifteen minutes in yet, so no rush there. Tichy kept glancing at the boy after every page he read, especially towards the boy's cock to see how fast his prediction of a touchless boner would be proven correct.

For Marek, the pain reached an unimaginable level and yet seemed to be getting worse. Marek's rectum and anus felt as if they were being slow roasted over coals. The pain brought tears to the boy's eyes. He wasn't crying, not exactly, but tears spilled down his cheeks, faster and wetter than the twin rivulets of sweat that already had carved a river valley down from his temples. The rest of Marek's 12-year-old body was moist with perspiration. The man's apartment suddenly seemed way too hot. It was dizzyingly, cloyingly hot. Marek felt flushed, like he might pass out. Part of him wanted to.

Marek moaned. He panted. He tried to take deep breaths again and tried to hold them. He moaned again on the exhale. Nothing seemed to help, and the pain was getting worse. It was getting fucking worse! Marek began to shake. He moaned. He couldn't take this!

But he had to. Tichy could make it much worse. Indeed, Tichy wanted to make it worse. There was something about the man today that screamed it. He had been taunting Marek all day, trying to break the truce. Tichy wanted to hurt him. For whatever reason, Tichy wanted to cause Marek pain, and right now, he was succeeding, but Marek knew that the pain could become much, much worse even from here, and he didn't want that at all.

Marek's abdominal muscles flinched, and he felt a pull. It was then that he knew he had an erection. He looked down to confirm it. It was just as Tichy had said – a pain boner, caused by the ginger root. He moaned again. His toes and fingers clenched and unclenched against the pain. How long had it been? How much longer did he have to go?

Tichy looked down as he turned a page and spotted the boy's raging, uncomfortable-looking erection. He smiled to himself. What a convenient form of torture this was. With Marek's erection making things a bit tighter down below, the pain was bound to peak any moment now, but it would just keep on giving for a while after that. Tichy gave it another few minutes just to make sure the kid suffered as much as he was going to – with the possible exception of his boner, which was bound to get more uncomfortable and possibly painful as time went on.

"You have no control, Marek," said Tichy. "No power. You're just like the proletariat before the Revolution. What little control you think you have is an illusion, because ultimately, you can't but obey. This is an essential lesson. Don't ruin it, unless you want to achieve a repetition of it," warned Tichy as he reached into his pain-toy drawer and pulled out a short crop and began touching Marek's buttocks with it.

"Clench your butt cheeks," he commanded. "Relax. Clench. Hold. Relax. Clench, relax, clench, relax, clench, hold, hold, hold it … relax."

Tichy as good as forced Marek to milk every droplet of the burning juice from the root. Teasingly, he glided the smooth flap at the end of the crop over Marek's defenseless butt, legs, back, hips, sides, chest, belly, up the front of his thighs, drawing it over the boy's balls and cock and teasing the angry, red cockhead. The message he was sending was crystal clear: He could just beat the shit out of the boy whenever he wanted to, and there was nothing Marek "Glass King" Hurta could do about it.

Tichy suddenly realized that he was erect once again, and that after four orgasms! What good and virile form he was showing the kid today! He sat at the edge of the bed with his knees splayed to either side of Marek's head.

"Suck," he commanded. "And I want good eye contact while you do it," he added as he swished the crop threateningly through the air.

It seemed to Marek like he had been kneeling for an hour. It was difficult to know for sure. How long would Tichy make this go on? Marek knew that this wasn't a normal punishment. The man had made that clear. This was part of his training, his redemption, the very reason that Tichy had brought him to the school. This was to purify Marek and rid him of the evil influences that came with being a Hurta. He couldn't make a deal with Tichy this time. There wouldn't be any mercy shown to him, either. These kinds of punishments were preordained and required to fix him and prevent him from becoming an evil man when he grew up.

Marek wanted to get through this. He wanted to withstand the pain and notch at least one successfully completed Hurta punishment that would get him one step closer to being fixed. When he was fixed, Tichy had said he would let him go. That was months and years away, of course, but so far, Marek hadn't notched a single successful Hurta punishment because he was always too damn busy being punished for other things. He wanted to get through this one punishment without being punished anew, b he sensed that Tichy wanted him to fail. It was not lost on Marek that the man had picked an awful, painful torture for the boy's first Hurta punishment. Tichy didn't expect him to stay in position; he didn't think Marek would be able to. He had picked a fermented piece of ginger to make it especially, ferociously bad. He also hadn't bound Marek, almost encouraging the boy to do something foolish.

And then, as the pain seemed to peek to a white-hot intensity, the man pulled out the crop. Marek seethed. The man wanted him to fail so much that he couldn't even follow his own rules. He was changing the rules in mid-ordeal to get Marek to break. The boy had suffered, just like Tichy had demanded. He had stayed in position, too. He had kept his anger in check, at least enough not to do something foolish. He hadn't moved. He also hadn't spoken, but none of that was good enough for Mr. Tichy. It never was. Marek briefly contemplated spitting at the man in an act of pure suicide to show Mr. Tichy his full hatred for him. But that's what the man wanted. He wanted Marek to break. He was trying to break him. The boy moaned as he tried to summon the intestinal fortitude not to give in to the man. It was hard, but he clenched and unclenched on the man's command, milking all the juice from the root, deliberately increasing his agony.

Then the man wanted him to suck. It was too much. Marek closed his eyes and said a prayer. Tichy wanted him to fucking fail so he could do whatever he had wanted to do to him right from the start. Why were they pretending that this was about Marek suffering and enduring? This was about Tichy making him fail on purpose. The man had wanted to punish and beat the shit out of him all day, and he was just piling one obnoxious obligation on Marek after another so he could have an excuse to do so.

It was so fucking unfair. The crop, the ginger root, the heat in the room, Tichy's cock – everything swirled around in Marek's brain. He felt light-headed. This couldn't be happening to him, but it was.

Almost as if reading Marek's mind, Tichy spoke again; perhaps it was because he saw Marek tense and struggle. Perhaps it was because Marek was wrong and Tichy didn't want to beat him. Either way, he spoke, trying to talk the boy off the ledge.

"You're doing really well, Marek," he said. "Five more minutes, seven minutes tops, if you're slow proving your attitude. You've done well, this is almost over, the final part of your lesson is about obedience and a deeper understanding. So, first, suck!" he repeated, not even punishing the boy for briefly hesitating to obey the first time around. He was cutting the kid a millimeter of slack. Would Marek accept it?

Five minutes more? Marek fought his mind back from the edge. It was a fight. But five minutes? Seven? He could do that. Sweat was pouring from his temples and his forehead now. His entire body was clammy with it. His palms felt like damp sponges. The boy gulped and moaned as he leaned down and lipped Tichy's cock into his mouth. He had just gotten it wet in preparation for plunges when Mr. Tichy spoke once again.

"Means of production belong in the hands of … ?" Tichy demanded as he pushed Marek off his cock so the boy could answer.

It was yet another layer to his punishment from Mr. Tichy. A test. Questions. On top of the ginger root, the crop, the blowjob, a test. He was changing the rules again.

" … the w-workers," Marek gasped a hoarse, strained response as Mr. Tichy directed him back onto his shaft.

The pain was unimaginable now. Marek truly felt like he might pass out from it. He couldn't stop grunting as he tried to suck, but he wasn't really sucking. Tichy's penis was in his mouth, barely cockhead-deep, and that was about it. Occasionally, he bobbed on it. Occasionally, he applied some tongue. This was the best blowjob he could give under the circumstances. He still felt like he was about to pass out from the pain and distress of his ordeal.

"Traitors of the Revolution must … ?" Tichy asked as he once again guided Marek to stop sucking and give the one-word answer or a close enough equivalent.

Marek didn't know the answer to the second question, but he knew it was directed at his father. Ludek had been a traitor and had died because of it. Mr. Tichy was teasing him. He was using the memory of Marek's own father against him. It was …

Too. Fucking. Much.

Marek backed away and stood up as he ripped the ginger root from his rectum and threw it angrily into the hall. His expression was one of terror, determination, and confusion as he backed away from the man.

"I h-hate you," he said, shaking his head and backing away even as he trembled with fear. Then he seemed to realize what he had said and done and took off on a sprint for the apartment door.

"Marek," sighed Tichy even as he sprung to his feet to catch the boy before he could open the door to the flat. Even with the school almost entirely empty, he couldn't have a distressed, naked 12-year-old boy running down the hallway from his apartment, now, could he? He caught up to Marek in short order, grabbed the kid painfully by his upper arm and the back of his neck, and steered him back into the bedroom. He took a deep breath. It was time to beat the shit out of the bourgeois brat, unless …

"Look, kid, this was proper, serious deep-frying of a punishment. I get it. I never said it was going to be easy and told you not to expect it to be. There are two ways out of this now. You can either grab the ginger, stuff it back up your ass, and say that traitors of the Revolution must die or be removed or something like that, then suck my cock for three more minutes, and we'll both sort of … half-close our eyes and pretend that this last minute never happened. We'll sort of blink it away. Because you've done well, and I think you just about earned yourself a chance for it not to be ruined in the last fucking minute.

"Or you can have it your way I guess, but you are the one who's not going to like that path even a little bit," said Tichy. "And that's a promise."

He let go of Marek's arm. There was no need to hold onto the kid anymore as Tichy was standing in the bedroom door, blocking the only escape. He gazed down at Marek, and not entirely without compassion.

Marek whimpered as the man easily caught him, just as the boy had known he would. He felt himself dragged back to the bedroom on bare feet that barely touched the floor. He was sobbing and weeping, hyperventilating, and trying to use his free arm to push against the man. Tichy started to talk to him, but Marek didn't want to listen. This was all a ruse. It was all a joke. Tichy had just kept making his Hurta punishment worse, and worse, and worse, and worse. Marek had tried. He had believed the man. He had suffered, he had breathed, he had done everything the man asked, and more. And more on top of that. And more and more again. It was always fucking more.

"You changed the rules!" he whimpered at the man, his chest hyperventilating. He was sniffling, shaking, trembling. His rectum and anus still were on fire, adding to his distress. "You made me. You did it on purpose," he sobbed, his voice octaves too high, then paused. "You promised, but you lied!" Marek was trembling. "You lied!"

Marek was only 12 years old, and fairness was very important to him, just as it was to most children his age. Tichy may not have remembered being 12, but what he had just done to Marek was a form of betrayal. Of course, the whole thing was ridiculous. Marek's very presence at the school was worlds of unfairness. Tichy's ownership of him and the punishments and tortures he inflicted on the boy were outrageously unfair to the boy by any objective measure, but those were the constraints of Marek's existence now, and he had learned to live with them, unfairness, and all. So, it was very odd, but also somewhat understandable, that what finally had set the boy off was the unfairness within that construct, within all that pre-existing unfairness.

The boy had been told all he needed to do was suffer at the man's knees because he had been born a Hurta, and Marek had done that. He hadn't wanted to, but he had done it. Then came the crop and the forced clenching around the ginger root – after Marek had tried desperately not to clench on his own. Then came the man's cock, and the demand of a blowjob on top of everything else. Then came the questions, the test, the taunting of Marek's father, a traitor to the revolution who had been murdered by the state for it. Mr. Tichy had just kept stacking on the pressure, one thing at a time. It was not fair.

"Just because there are more instructions after the first one doesn't mean there was a promise broken, Marek," sighed Tichy. "This is so all disappointingly bourgeois of you. You're so spoiled and weak, blaming others for your failure. You didn't breathe as I instructed; you gave that up right from the start, and then you got angry, and now you're going to pay the price, sadly. I was so very nearly proud of you there," said the man.

And then it was time to end the boy's life as Marek knew it.

Without waiting for yet another defiant, teary-eyed response from the kid, Tichy stepped forward and quickly tackled Marek to the ground. He knew that this wasn't going to happen without a fight, and he was ready for it. He yanked the sack out from under the bed and prepared to subdue the boy.

Marek fought him. He didn't know what the man was going to do to him, but for once he decided to fight back, and he did. He pushed, punched, and kicked. He twisted and flailed and tried to break free. It was ridiculous, of course. The man was much larger and much stronger than he was, but Marek was determined.

Annoyed with the kid's resistance, Tichy punched Marek in the face and head several times, careful not to give him a nosebleed, but hard enough to stun the boy and take much of the fight out of him. After roughing up the stunned kid as much as he needed to, he forced the boy's legs into the sack, his arms into the sleeves, and started rapidly tightening the straps. They were made to be easily pulled and secured even against resistance, and it took only two minutes to get Marek into a position where the boy no longer could put up any fight at all.

Marek's determination flagged as the man punched him, enervating him, sapping him of his strength and his will to fight. When the sack came out, he had fought with renewed energy to stay out of it, but nothing worked. The boy soon found himself stuffed into the sack, just as he had known he would be from the first moment he had seen it. Marek wasn't naive. There was no way that Tichy had made that thing not to use it. Marek had known it then, and here he was.

That knowledge didn't make it any easier on the boy. He howled with panic as the man cinched him up, immobilizing him. That's when the bawling and begging started.

"Please Mr. Tichy," the boy said over and over. Sobbing, shaking, and hyperventilating, he begged to be allowed to finish his Hurta punishment. He begged for it. He wished for it, but Mr. Tichy was completely immune to begging by the point Marek resorted to it, especially after the cheeky fight the boy had put up.

It soon became worse for Marek, as Tichy had only just gotten started. Once he had the boy reasonably secured, he went over the entire sack and tightened each strap, even the smaller ones over the boy's ankles, elbows, knees that he hadn't bothered with before. He tightened each one until the sack was nice and snug on Marek. Then he slipped the hood over the boy's head and secured it. Darkness swallowed Marek, but his mouth and nose remained unobstructed for now and his breathing as good as normal, at least in theory. If the boy panicked and started hyperventilating, that could turn into another story altogether.

The boy still was part of this world until the face mask was applied. That's when he left the world of 1979 Czechoslovakia and entered Hell. Tichy was right – he never would be the same boy again.

But the man still wasn't finished with his custom-made contraption, not by a long shot. What had happened to Marek so far was just the fitting part. The torture began only afterwards, once Tichy had adjusted, carefully shifted, and checked each strap and then tightened each one of them by at least one more belt-hole, creating a sense of crushing pressure that Marek couldn't even squirm and wiggle against anymore. The leather interior of the sack was coarse and gritty, and it held the boy's naked body in place totally motionless.

Soon Marek was like a mummy. He was fixed in place – totally, absolutely fixed in place – and that's when the mask came out and was tied on with strings. Marek's nose was good as blocked off. Tichy forced a leather-coated metal ring into his mouth to force it wide open, then tightened leather straps holding it in place once the ring was securely embedded underneath his teeth, forcing Marek's mouth wide open. The ring's insertion put an end to any comprehensive words from Marek, but it didn't stop the kid's sobbing and terrified moaning.

By the time Tichy had completed the first round of tightening, Marek had gone limp even as he moaned and sobbed with fear. His body trembled as he tried to fight off the swirling, spiraling sense of panic and doom that he felt when "it" happened – and "it" most definitely was happening. Marek had been there before, but never this bad.

He had been just a small boy that first time, in the gymnasium, on the big mat, face-down with seemingly every boy in his grade roughhousing on top of him – literally on top of him, a veritable mound of boys crushing him into the mat, stopping his breathing, preventing him from moving, cutting off his air and light.

Something had broken inside Marek's brain that day, and he had carried that with him ever since all the way to Brod. Now it was roaring back with an intensity that he had not felt since that day so long ago.

Tichy made sure the ring gag was in firmly and securely before he pulled the face straps tight. They were thin so they could be quite quickly cut with a knife or a razor in an emergency. He stood up and cracked his knuckles as he gazed down at his work. Finally, his genius contraption, his real Christmas present to himself and Marek, was being put to a good use. So far he hadn't even demonstrated to Marek the worst actual elements of it, but that could wait a minute or two. When it came to torture, there was no sense in rushing things. It was better to savor the moment.

There was a spare flap on the right-hand side of the face mask, attached just below the buckles of the straps that held it in place. Tichy grabbed it.

"You think I betrayed you," he lectured the frantic boy, "but it was your pride and your anger that betrayed you. You didn't submit fully. You didn't give yourself up to the punishment completely. You thought you could hold onto just a small bit of control, but you were wrong," announced the man as he moved the flap into place and pressed it over the ring-hole of Marek's mouth. And just like that, Marek had no air to breathe. Tichy held it down only for five or six seconds, just to induce a brief spike of panic in the kid, before pulling it off.

"You think your obedience, and what I can demand of you, has limits. You think they are far and crazy limits, but some limits still, things I still shouldn't or can't do to you, but … " Tichy's voice trailed off as he reached for a broom handle under the bed and slipped it through a ring at the front of the boy's throat. He turned it until the boy's throat was being crushed with a painful, gag-inducing force that cut off his breath.

"… you were wrong," Tichy completed the sentence as he partially released the crushing twist only to tighten it again, before releasing it fully and sliding the broom handle free from the ring once again.

"You thought I've already done all the worst things to you," he lectured, "and the there is a limit to how badly you can be punished." He collected a few loose straps from various places around the boy's chest, twisted them around the broom handle and then turned it in an approximation a of garrote system. The straps pulled tight, and the whole upper area of the sack pressed down on Marek's chest in a way that even though his airways were free made breathing as good as impossible.

"You were very, very wrong."

Tichy loosened the twist, then tightened it again. Loosened it. Tightened it.

Marek simply could not move. Not at all. He was in darkness. He was in Hell. He heard the man talking; he even understood some of the words, but they were muffled. Mr. Tichy was muffled, and Marek's brain was muddled. He was having a very profound panic attack, and the man's words were mostly wasted. Nearly entirely so, in fact, as Marek could not process them.

But the boy took note of the man's actions. His air was cut off, and he couldn't breathe. The boy-sized package in the sack on the bedroom floor managed to move an inch or so as the struggling Marek made his unhappiness known.

"Aahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" he shrieked through the ring gag as the sack moved again.

More tightening. More horror. More panic. Marek's bladder voided as his throat constricted. A part of him died inside as the man crushed his chest.

"Ahhhh-uhhhhh. Ahhhh-uhhhhh. Ahhhh-uhhhhhhhh. Ahhhh-uhhhhh. Ahhhh-uhhhhh."

"I can also tie the straps to some of the rings to just keep this thing as tight as I want to, you see?" Tichy taunted the boy as he finally untwisted the broom handle and removed it.

"Stick your tongue as far out the ring as you can to show me that you can hear me clearly, Marek," he demanded.

But when the command came, there was no tongue from Marek. There really was no Marek. He didn't reside in his own body anymore.

To Tichy, the boy's noncompliance was an answer of sorts. It was confirmation that the boy had gone beyond words, into a full-on panic attack, past hearing nuances like words, past understanding, past being easily reachable. Oh well. Tichy got up. Just like the root before, this was a convenient form of torture. It was both effortless and efficient, and it could just keep on giving. And at least with this one, Marek couldn't fuck it up.

Tichy picked up and threw away the no-longer-needed ginger, wiped the damp patch on the carpet from it, and tidied up a bit. He was in no hurry, and he just got on with his day. He went to the kitchen and made himself a cup of tea. Soon, it would be time for something stronger in celebration of the inaugural use of the sack, but for now, he wanted his mind to be clear.

He rummaged through the kitchen drawers until he found a submersible food blender and a large funnel with a long stalk. This would be good. He was going to have fun. He had a smoke. How long had Marek been in the sack now? Twenty minutes? It hardly mattered, as he wasn't coming out for a while.

Tichy returned to the bedroom, retrieved some coils of rope from his bureau, and knelt near the sack. He hooked the ropes through rings on the shoulder and chest areas. Standing up on a chair, he looped the other ends of the rope through the sturdy ceiling hook, then pulled Marek upright and entirely off the floor, leaving him tightly secured and his legs and feet dangling. Securing the ropes and stepping down from the chair, he used a new set of straps on the back of the hood to force Marek's head back almost 90 degrees, which stopped him from even shaking his head or twisting his neck much. Tichy then grabbed the funnel and without ceremony shoved it through the ring gag into Marek's mouth and throat. He let the boy gag on it for about ten seconds, then pulled it out so Marek could breathe. Then he did it again. And again. And again. And again. Through the process he made sure that Marek got enough oxygen to breathe, but he tortured the kid's throat until his gag reflex no longer responded. It occurred to him that he should have used this technique weeks ago when he still was training the kid to use his throat for blowjobs.

When Tichy was finished bludgeoning the boy's gag reflex into submission, he suddenly had an idea. He began to turn the boy, around and around, the ropes twisting as Marek was raised further and further off the floor. Around and around the boy went as the ropes twisted tight and then tighter still, until finally the loops and straps on the shoulders and chest area of the sack were pulled tight and straining, constricting the boy's chest and undoubtedly affecting his breathing. The boy inside the sack made no sound, but occasional movements that were little more than vibrations showed that Marek was still in there, still conscious, and still struggling. Good.

Tichy then stepped back from the cocooned boy and let physics do its thing. The sack and its contents began to spin in place as the ropes started to untwist, slowly at first, then picking up speed. Before long, Marek was spinning like a top, the sack blurred with motion. Tichy watched it play out to the end with a final series of jarring, jerking motions as the ropes violently uncrossed themselves, swinging the sack around. He waited only a moment before he began winding his Marek-top once again, but this time he twisted the ropes in the opposite direction. When he next released the boy, the effect was the same, but Marek was set to spinning once again, this time in reverse.

Tichy found his new game very entertaining and amusing, so he repeated the spin cycle several times, each time alternating the direction of the twist. On the final pass, he wound Marek extra tight until the rings and loops threatened to tear away from the sack and the kid's chest was compressed beyond any ability to breathe, then released the boy on his journey with a helpful starting twist in the opposite direction. The Marek-top spun like a centrifuge, and the jerky motions at the end as the ropes uncoiled themselves made the sack jump and twist like a marionette.

Marek had no sense when Mr. Tichy left just as he had no real sense that the man was there. He understood that the additional torments he felt – the added tightness, the constricted air flow – came from the man, somehow, because that was what Mr. Tichy did. Mr. Tichy hurt him. Mr. Tichy tortured him. He had no sense of time. He moved in and out of the awareness of time and space. He knew generally where he was, but he sensed that he had been moved. He felt himself pulled up, but he couldn't really tell exactly what his position was. Something pulled his head back quite painfully, causing Marek to groan.

The funnel was very real and made the boy struggle all the more. His struggles amounted to mere vibrations of his mummified body as the long end of the funnel assaulted his throat repeatedly. He didn't know what Mr. Tichy was doing to him or why, only that he was doing it. It no longer mattered to Marek. He knew he could die in the sack, and he thought he probably would. That would be okay. He would welcome it. Mr. Tichy would have his revenge, and the world would be a better place without him. Nobody would care if he died. Nobody cared about him. Marek no longer cared, himself. He honestly didn't care at all.

Suddenly, he felt himself floating in a world of swirling, cloying, panic. He was completely motionless, of course, but he had the sensation of spinning. Like he was twisting faster and faster on a playground wheel, dizzyingly fast. It was like a bed-spin; in fact, it was identical to it save for the lack of alcohol. Marek was providing his own alcohol, a concoction cooked up in his brain, leaking into his glands and his blood stream, intoxicating him with panic. He felt flung about as the spinning stopped, then felt slow movement once again. His chest constricted and he couldn't breathe, but then he was spinning again and the constricted feeling gave way.

The spinning sensation was different now. It wasn't like a bed-spin. It was a twisting kind of spin, like when you sit in a tire swing while someone spins it around and around and around and around and then lets it go. It was that kind of spinning, and the sensation was so real to Marek that his eyeballs literally flitted left, then right, then left, then right inside his closed eyelids, like the carriage return on an old typewriter. Of course, he wasn't moving any part of his body at all. He couldn't move. He was suspended, motionless, yet he felt like he was spinning like a top.

When he was finished playing with his toy, Tichy returned to the kitchen and blended up a barely lukewarm soup with some extra pieces of ham, diluted it with more water, blended it some more until it was smooth, and brought a big mug of it into the bedroom. He shoved the funnel back down Marek's throat, nice and deep, waited until the kid's gagging got weak, and simply poured the mug – the boy's dinner – straight down into Marek's stomach. He made sure to pull the funnel out before Marek choked or passed out. As soon as he was sure Marek wasn't going to vomit and drown, he left to eat his own meal, leaving the boy dangling with his feet off the floor and his face still forced up toward the ceiling.

The thing that had been jammed into his throat was back and Marek tensed. He didn't like that thing. His throat was inflamed and painful. The sack vibrated as he fought the funnel's entry and presence. He couldn't breathe and he rediscovered his fingers and toes, clenching and unclenching them, encouraging breaths that wouldn't come. He felt something going through him, down into him, but he had no idea what it was.

Afterwards, Tichy returned with a large vodka in hand to watch Marek suffer. He sat on a chair in front of the boy who hung there like a slab of meat in a butcher's shop, drank, smoked, and enjoyed the view. The boy had been in the sack nearly forty minutes now, approaching the limit of what Tichy thought would be physically safe. Mentally, he frankly didn't much care what happened to the kid. This time, he fully intended to break every bit of the boy's resistance, even if he broke his mind in the process. He was getting tired of the 12-year-old's defiance, talkback, and cheek.

It wasn't until he finished his drink and his smoke that he lowered Marek back into a lying position on the floor and started to undo the straps. He loosened the boy's wrists and ankles, then his head straps. He removed the face mask and the hood, then finally the small straps, one at a time, making the sack loose once more. Then he did the big straps, one by one, from the boy's legs on up. When the sack was loose enough, he opened it and pulled the boy-who-had-once-been-Marek-Hurta out of it, slapped him in the face a few times, and waited to see what would happen next.

Marek felt himself being lowered again, but the bed-spins returned, slowly at first, then picking up speed, then racing with intensity even as he felt the straps loosening. Was he dead? Was he dying? When you died could you move again? He saw light, and oddly, the ceiling of Mr. Tichy's bedroom. He'd seen it before, many times, from the bed, on his back, with Mr. Tichy on top of him, fucking him. He knew that ceiling and he knew he wasn't dead, which caused him to sigh with disappointment. He felt himself being lifted, then felt the cold air on his naked, sweating body. Mr. Tichy was there. He was always, always there. He was chilled and shivering He shied away from the man's slaps, his right hand flopping up protectively but not intervening.

Marek's eyes were still doing that carriage-return thing. Flitting left then right, left then right. Left then right. Quickly, blurring things, but he still could see. After a bit, the left-right movement diminished. Then stopped. His pupils were wide, his gaze vacant. Suddenly, he belched. He tasted ham, of all things, but had no idea where the taste had come from. He looked at Mr. Tichy slack-jawed and with a blank stare.

"A pity," said Tichy, looking at the dazed boy. "You had almost made it through your first punishment. Instead, you're being demoted. From Wimp to Thing. You will not talk. You have no privileges, no slack, nothing nice coming your way until you redeem yourself back to Wimp. As a Thing, you live to be hurt, and you live to be used. That," Tichy pointed into the sack, "is your default place. It'll take active effort on your part, Thing, to stay out of there. No assurances, promises or niceties previously extended to Wimp apply, Thing. You've sunk lower than Wimp. Congratulations."

He let that be absorbed to the extent it could be by the traumatized boy, then grabbed Marek by his hair, dragged him to the bed, smeared some gel on his cock and pulled the kid even closer.

"You are going to make me cum with your back-end, and then you're going to be beaten, Thing. So get busy!" he said as he lay down on the bed, face up in a cowgirl position.

Marek regarded Mr. Tichy like he was looking at a curious apparition, like Caspar the Friendly Ghost had suddenly decided to visit the man's apartment. Caspar the Friendly Tichy was speaking – no doubt issuing orders, commands, and instructions, because that was what he did – but Marek wasn't there to hear them.

He did recognize pain when Mr. Tichy grabbed his hair, and he squealed and clutched at the man's hand. His eyes focused on the man. What did Mr. Tichy want him to do? The man was erect. Shakily, Marek reached for Mr. Tichy's cock and leaned down to take it in his mouth.

Tichy yanked harder at the boy's hair, pulled him up and shouted: "In. Your. Ass!" Then he repeated. "In." Slap! "Your." Slap! "Ass." Slap! "I don't fucking care how freaked out and shaken you are. You will fucking obey!" he snarled and pulled Marek closer, into a semblance of the position the boy needed to be in to ride his cock with it embedded in his ass.

"Do it! Get it in. Move!" Tichy raised his hand to slap the boy again, but this time, he gave him a moment to come back to himself enough to obey. Marek was just a Thing now, but Tichy still didn't intend to beat him unconscious before he could obey. That would be impractical.

Marek yelped in pain as the man pulled his hair. His eyes went wide as the man screamed at him. He understood, but Mr. Tichy reinforced the message anyway with some slaps to Marek's head. The boy made no effort to defend himself or even to cringe away. He saw stars. His head was spinning again as the man pulled him roughly into position.

The man's anger frightened the boy, and he began to shake as he straddled Mr. Tichy and reached behind him for the man's cock. He looked at Mr. Tichy as the man prepared to slap him again, but the boy gave no reaction. He didn't so much as duck, much less cower or cringe. Marek seated the man's cock in his indent and sat back. His face twitched with the pain of the penetration as the man's un-lubed cock slid into his ass.

Tichy adjusted the boy's position to the angle where the boy's prostate was going to get a work-out and bring the boy a forced erection. He was being gentler now that Marek had begun to respond to commands. It was then that he felt the first tingle on his cock from the remnants of the ginger-root juice still resident in the kid's ass. Tichy had forgotten about that, but c'est la vie. The stinging didn't bother him all that much, and in a way, it felt tingly and nice on his cock as he prepared to be fucked by the boy.

"Now move," he demanded as he guided Marek's hips forward and up and then back and down. And again. And again. Eventually, he let go of Marek's pelvis and leaned back to relax once the boy got the knack of the motion.

"Keep at it," demanded Tichy. "Don't stop until you're allowed to. Ride the cock nice and good, Thing," demanded Tichy. Marek had fucked up, badly, and he was going to pay for it. The near-idyllic respite of Christmas was over. Old Tichy was back in full form, and after Marek's big mistake, he was back with a vengeance.

Marek helped to get himself into position as the man provided some adjustments. With Mr. Tichy's guidance, he began to work his hips, up-forward-thrust, down-back-slide. He had done this before, and it was a familiar motion to him even in his traumatized state. Up-forward-thrust, down-back-slide, up-forward-thrust, down-back-slide, up-forward-thrust, down-back-slide.

Tichy ordered him to continue, but Marek was going to keep at it, anyway. Up-forward-thrust, down-back-slide. He could feel the spot inside him being touched, but in his current state it was more of a distraction to him more than anything else.

Up-forward-thrust, down-back-slide. Marek repeated the motion over and over. There was really nothing more to his performance than that. The events of earlier that day were unknown to him just then. This could have been Tichy's first, fifth, or fifteenth orgasm for all Marek Hurta knew. Truly. He couldn't remember anything. It was weird, because from the sunlight he knew it was afternoon. But what he had done in the morning or where he had been all day was a total mystery to the boy. He knew that Tichy had punished him and put him in the sack, and that Tichy was mad at him, but he couldn't rem- ginger root. He remembered the ginger root. Now he remembered. But before that? Nothing. This morning might as well have been six years ago for all he remembered of it.

Given that this would be his fifth cum of the day, Tichy knew that this fuck was going to be a bit of journey. He was surprised that he already was rock hard; it wasn't even late in the evening or anything, but the tightness of Marek's anus and the sight of the traumatized, athletic boy working so hard to pleasure him was more than enough to keep him fully and solidly erect. He stayed relaxed and let Marek do all the work; he didn't even tense his hips in sync or anything, literally forcing the boy to sweat and fight it out atop the man's relaxed body – the only cooperating part of which was the stiff cock upon which the youngster's ass was impaled.

Marek's mind re-entered his own body about halfway through his self-fuck atop the man. He looked up at Mr. Tichy as he continued to undulate, almost as if surprised to see him. He wasn't really surprised, though. He supposed that Mr. Tichy had been here all along. It was Marek who had been gone, but the boy wasn't exactly sure where he had been.

The man was furious at him, and Marek had given him good reason. Up-forward-thrust, down-back-slide, up-forward-thrust, down-back-slide. Marek had been angry. He had let his emotions get the better of him. The final straw had been the taunt directed at Marek's father. Marek was surprised at his own reaction. He had never felt obligated to defend his father's honor before. He never even knew the man, not really.

He concentrated on what he was doing. Up-forward-thrust, down-back-slide, up-forward-thrust, down-back-slide. Up-forward-thrust, down-back-slide, up-forward-thrust, down-back-slide. Up-forward-thrust, down-back-slide, up-forward-thrust, down-back-slide, up-forward-thrust, down-back-slide. It occurred to Mark that there was no reason for him to thrust his hips on the upstroke. He wasn't fucking the man's hand. But what did it matter? The downstrokes poked his spot, gradually erecting his penis, but Marek didn't care about that, but he wished the man had used more lube. His bottom was very sore in so many places, and the remnants of the ginger root still burned on the inside.

It was the intensity of the friction that probably did the trick, or most of it, for Tichy, as he started to feel a pressure, a tension building. Of course, Marek's erection made things even firmer and tighter and better. This was good. Tichy reached to the side and lit up another Startka. But he started to tense his hips at least somewhat in sync with Marek's down-thrusts. It didn't take long after that for his pleasure to culminate, rise and peak. He held his breath and squirted a tiny bit of watery spunk up Marek's behind before putting his hand on the boy's damp chest to stop the kid's fucking motion.

"Okay," he huffed, then panted for a bit.

"Off," Tichy demanded. "Suck me clean."

As Marek slipped off, the man eyed his shaft; it looked a little yellowy; not brown, not horrid, but not entirely clean either. It didn't matter. Marek would either clean it with his mouth or Tichy would inflict on the boy pain unimagined. The truce was over, and the modification of Rule 5 was a thing of the past now given the boy's defiant behavior.

"Suck and lick it clean," ordered the man. "If you puke, you're going straight back in the sack."

Marek saw what the man saw. There had been a deal about that. The deal had been abrogated by events. There was no reason even to check. Without hesitation, Marek took the man's cockhead in his mouth and proceeded to clean it, before turning to the filthy shaft. He cleaned the man's genitals and pubis thoroughly without gagging even once.

"Bathroom," commanded Tichy when his cock was sufficiently clean. "Take a piss, then kneel in the tub and wait."

The kid scrambled off the bed and left. Tichy followed shortly thereafter, stood next to the bathtub, and took a long, hot, strong piss all over Marek.

"Wash," he commanded. "Cold water only. Brush your teeth. Return to the bedroom and kneel by the bed," said Tichy. He left to air the bedroom, then went to the kitchen and poured himself another vodka. He retrieved a cloth with soap and washed out the crotch area of the leather sack as best as he could. It was annoying that Marek had pissed himself inside it, although not exactly surprising. Perhaps Tichy should have put a nappy on him, or an equivalent. Of course, the sack also could unlace over the crotch area, front and back, so maybe he would just pull the boy's cock out next time and torture it. He chuckled to himself at the thought, sat on the side of the bed, and drank a swig of his vodka. Damn. What a day it had been!

Marek did what he had been told to do. He was completely silent. He hadn't heard the man's command not to speak, but he didn't have anything he wanted to say. He gave no reaction whatsoever other than to close his eyes as the man peed on him. He was ambivalent. to it. If it was supposed to be degrading – and Marek supposed it was – it did not have the intended effect. Marek didn't care. The man had already done far, far worse to him.

He took his shower in cold water, and that did give him a chill. He didn't dry off afterwards and shivered as he brushed his teeth. With a lump in his stomach, still shivering, Marek walked to the bedroom and stopped cold at the threshold. It was like a physical barrier prevented him from entering. He was supposed to kneel by the bed, but he wasn't anywhere near the bed. What was this? He willed himself to step forward, but his feet would not budge. This was curious, but also dangerous. He could see the sack still on the floor. The sack simultaneously provided the incentive for him to enter the room and the reason he could not. He stood at the threshold feeling like a dummy, waiting for whatever happened next – which, knowing how Mr. Tichy took to disobedience probably would be another beating.

Tichy walked up to him and mussed his wet hair. "Okay that was a bit too literal, let's dry you, too," he smiled as he directed the shivering, traumatized kid back to the bathroom and towel-dried him at least enough that he wouldn't drip all over the floor. This time, he steered Marek back into the bedroom and pushed him over the invisible barrier even as Marek's legs stiffened up in fear, making him stumble into the room.

Tichy opened a drawer and pulled out a few ropes. He grabbed the broom handle that he had used to intensify Marek's sack torture and pushed Marek onto the mattress that Vacha had procured for Marek to sleep on all along. He tied the boy's legs apart, using the broom handle as a spreader bar. Then he tied Marek's wrists together and on a short rope to the side of the bed. The boy was face up and couldn't really roll over or go anywhere. Tichy threw a spare blanket, so far unused, over the kid and left the room. He proceeded to have one more drink and read a few more chapters from his book before he closed the window, went to brush his teeth, and then returned to his bed to sleep in it alone for the first time in nearly a week. He turned off the light and curled up, making himself comfortable.

Marek's mind had returned to him, but not his full memory. Whereas until very recently he could not remember much from before the time Mr. Tichy placed him in the sack, now he could remember those things, but he was having trouble remembering being in the sack. He knew it had been terrifying, and he knew "it" had happened, but he couldn't remember any details. He remembered spinning around and around. He remembered the darkness, his inability to breathe, but that was it. He didn't remember much of anything else, nor did he want to. It was a blessing not to remember.

Whether he remembered every detail of his time in the sack, or not, Marek Hurta was not the same boy coming out the sack as he had been going into it. The sack had changed him in ways that no beating or flogging ever could have done, but perhaps not in the way the man had intended. For one, he no longer cared what Tichy thought or wanted. He felt nothing. It was as if his heart had hardened. It was as if Tichy's tortures were being inflicted on somebody else. Marek no longer cared what Tichy did to him. He didn't care what Tichy's plan was for him. He didn't care what Tichy thought. Whatever Tichy wanted, Marek now wanted nothing or the opposite.

The sack had been clarifying, and its implications profound. Marek found that he no longer regretted his lineage; indeed, he embraced it. His name was Marek Hurta, son of Ludek Hurta, grandson of Josef Hurta. Mr. Tichy wanted him to be embarrassed about that? He wanted to punish the "bad" Hurta influences out of him? Marek wasn't embarrassed at all, and he hoped that Mr. Tichy had a long time set aside to punish him, because for the first time in his life, Marek could see things very clearly. He was proud of his father. Ludek Hurta had rebelled against the regime that had created men like Mr. Tichy. Ludek Hurta had stood for something and given his life for something. Marek may have been only 12 years old, but he instinctively knew that his father was twice the man that Stanislav Tichy was or ever would be. Marek used to admire Mr. Tichy in a way, but now he felt nothing but contempt for the weak, savage man.

Mr. Tichy had not beaten and tortured the Hurta out of Marek. In fact, he had accomplished precisely the opposite, and in record time, too. All it had taken was a single Hurta punishment, a single sideways swipe at Marek's father, and what had seemed like several hours in the sack. These things had given Marek clarity. Marek simply didn't care what happened to him anymore. Mr. Tichy could hurt him, Mr. Tichy could torture him, but he never would take the Hurta out of Marek now, not ever.

Marek saw through the man now. Mr. Tichy was a weak man whose domain was a junior internat populated by boys he could boss around. He was a life-long bachelor and a poof, a momma's boy who hurt and tortured kids. He had held a life-long grudge against a man he had never met and was now beating, torturing, and raping the man's 12-year-old grandson to exact his revenge. It was so silly and childish that it bordered on the surreal. Mr. Tichy wanted Marek to hate and renounce his heritage? Marek would do the opposite. He would embrace the capitalism of the Glass King and the rebellious spirit of Ludek Hurta. His name was Marek Hurta, and he was proud of his father and his grandfather.

Marek was under no illusion that he could tell any of this to Mr. Tichy. The man still could cause him great pain and make Marek suffer. Mr. Tichy had told him of his plan to remake Marek into a good socialist citizen. He had even told Marek to think about that as much as he needed to. Well, Marek was done thinking about it. He would become a good person on his own, despite Mr. Tichy. And when he was grown – if Mr. Tichy didn't kill him, first – Marek was going to follow in his father's footsteps as soon as he had the opportunity. Some people said that the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia would not last forever. When it came time, and when he was big enough, Marek would help to bring it down. He would do this for his father, and he would be especially motivated by the tortures he had received at the hands of one of the regime's biggest supporters.

For now, he would do what Mr. Tichy told him to do. He would do what he needed to do and say what he needed to say to avoid pain and punishments, but he would never abandon his ancestry again. He would never embrace what Mr. Tichy believed in. Tichy was not his friend and not his ally, nor would he ever be. Mr. Tichy was nothing to him. From now on, his guiding lights would be Ludek and Josef Hurta, and Stanislav Tichy could be damned.

Chapter 25

The man tied him for bed, and Marek said nothing. He was glad not to be sleeping with Mr. Tichy. Mr. Tichy could fuck him and torture him, but he never would make Marek like him, and he never would make Marek agree with what he was doing to the boy or the reasons for it. Marek had changed. He had grown up. The sack had seen to that, although perhaps not in any of the ways the man had foreseen.

There was one other thing: Before the sack, Marek had been out of ideas on how to reclaim his life from Mr. Tichy and leave the internat forever. Mr. Tichy seemed to have him trapped and had cut off all his escape routes out of the school, but suddenly, with his newfound clarity of thought, Marek had an idea. He had a wonderful, powerful, perfect idea. He would need to get through the break with Mr. Tichy to implement it, but Marek was confident that if he played his cards right, he would be on his way home no later than mid-January. He would work on the plan until it was perfect, but it already was very good, and Marek was pleased. Somehow, the sack had given him clarity on so many things.

Marek finally fell asleep. It wasn't easy because his brain was racing with thoughts. It was made even more difficult by the way he was tied, which left him on his back and unable to roll over or make any adjustments to his position during the night. He awoke several times with discomfort, then fell back asleep out of necessity.

Tichy slept too. He didn't have any idea about Marek's rebellious thoughts, nor did he suspect a thing. He did marginally worry about the boy trying to kill himself or make one last desperate attempt to run away, which was why Marek was left sleeping fixed in place in a way that stopped him from doing pretty much anything – except, of course, that his thoughts were left to him and since they went to sleep early. Marek had a long time to think, and then sleep and rest.

The man's alarm went off at 6:55 a.m. as planned and he sat up, stretched, yawned, and got out of the bed to pull the blanket off Marek and untie the boy. He rolled Marek over and tied his arms wrists to elbows, boxed behind his back. Then he hefted the groggy kid up, dragged him to the bathroom, and sat him down on the toilet.

Marek heard the alarm just as Mr. Tichy did, but he was still waking up as the man tied his arms behind his back. Notwithstanding his brave thoughts from the night before, the fact that he was being left in bondage to start the day made the boy very nervous, but he didn't speak as the man took him to the bathroom. He knew better than to say anything that might provoke the man.

"It's 6.59, and you have one minute to lose your boner so you can piss into the toilet and not make a mess," said Tichy. "Then, at seven, you have two minutes to piss and shit. Or you'll be made to, Thing," warned the man darkly. He was going to take Marek's training down to absolute basics, proving to the boy that he was not in control, not even of his own most basic bodily functions. The boy may have been making secret plans, but his tormentor already had made his, and Marek was soon to learn the consequences of being demoted to Thing.

The boy still had a piss-hard erection when Mr. Tichy gave his first instructions of the morning. One minute for this, two minutes for that. Marek regarded the man with contempt, but then immediately thought better of that and tried to force his expression to a more neutral setting. It wouldn't help his plans or his sanity to have Mr. Tichy angry with him.

"Yes, sir," he replied.

"No talking, Thing," said Tichy as he slapped the boy hard across the face. "You're yet to be promoted back to a wimp, back to human. You do not talk until then."

The boy had missed the no-talking instruction the night before and was made aware of it only by the man's slap. He recoiled from it and cowered, fearing another but unable to defend himself with his arms tied behind his back as they were. He tried to process the information. What other rules were there? He remembered the man angrily saying something about him being a thing and need to work his way back to being a wimp, but he hadn't been able to process it then and he didn't understand it now.

Marek knew that he would have to learn the man's expectations on the fly, but not because he any longer wished to follow them or hoped to be in the man's good graces. Marek would do what he needed to do and perform what the man required him to perform for the sole purpose of avoiding pain. There had been a time when Marek cared what Mr. Tichy thought. There had been a time when he wanted to show the man that he wasn't a bad seed. That ship had sailed. Marek now knew who he was, and he wasn't going to perform like a circus monkey for the man any longer.

The slap helped his boner subside on its own, so the boy was able to pee. He didn't need to do the other thing, and even if he did, two minutes wouldn't be enough time, so he didn't try very hard.

When Marek's time was up, Tichy pulled him up to his feet and made him stand up over the toilet, his thighs spread against the porcelain as he faced in the wrong direction, his pelvis pressed to the tank with the cold water in it. Tichy lubricated his fingers thoroughly and forced one into Marek's anus. Then another one and started to make a scissoring motion, soon forcing a third finger in, and intensifying the process yet more, making the ring of Marek's sphincter contract and expand in quick intervals, which triggered a very strong sensation. If there was anything in Marek's lower intestine, he was going to lose it quickly. Tichy didn't care that this process was causing the kid belly cramps and was overall extremely unpleasant and uncomfortable for the boy; he just kept pumping, stretching, and collapsing his fingers until Marek's body gave up resistance and took a forced dump into the toilet below.

The boy winced as the man tore into his anus. His legs trembled in fear. What was Mr. Tichy doing? Was he really going to … ? He was. It hurt. Marek's face wrinkled with pain as his intestines spilled their contents into the bowl. He was breathing hard, panting. How did Mr. Tichy know how to do stuff like that? He hadn't been kidding about being able to make Marek pee and poop. It was ridiculous, really. Ridiculous, demeaning, and disgusting.

Tichy wiped Marek and went to wash his hands thoroughly. The kid truly was lucky not to be using his mouth for that job.

"Kitchen," he barked at the stunned boy, who was just now finding out what it meant to be a Thing.

The day had not started off well for Marek. Tichy remained in a mean and nasty mood, but it didn't matter. Marek would do as he was told and what he needed to do. He felt nothing but contempt for the man now. He knew he would have to disguise his contempt or suffer for it, but despising Mr. Tichy the way he now did made things easier for Marek. Any confusion he had had once was gone, replaced by a singular clarity. He would find a way to get through the break, and then he had a plan. If he didn't make it through because Mr. Tichy killed him, that also would be a victory of sorts. After the sack and given what Mr. Tichy had told him about coming to Moravia to assassinate him, Marek believed that Mr. Tichy might just kill him after all. Such was his hatred for the man that Marek didn't care. It would only show the man's weakness. Mr. Tichy could go ahead and do it; it wouldn't matter at all to the boy.

Tichy made two sets of breakfast, bread with butter, jam, a few pieces of fruit, and two cups of tea. He put his on the table and scooped Marek's into a saucepan, poured the boy's cup of tea over it and blitzed it into a goo with the submersible blender. He dipped his finger in to check that it wasn't hot or too lumpy, then picked up the funnel that lay on the side of the sink all clean and air-dried from the night before. Given Marek's foggy memories from the sack, exactly what Tichy was up to may have been unclear and confusing until Tichy gripped his hair, forced him to his knees, made the kid tilt his face up, and shoved the funnel into his throat.

"Hold still," the man said as he reached for the saucepan, ready to pour the contents of it pretty much directly into Marek's stomach.

The boy's eyes were wide with fear. He didn't like new things, but when the funnel went in, Marek remembered it. He moaned with dread. He didn't like being fed this way. The narrow end of the funnel was disturbingly deep in his throat, yet surprisingly, Marek found that he wasn't gagging. His fingers and toes clenched unhappily as the man brought the saucepan around and fed the boy his breakfast in a single, sloshing pour right down into his gullet. He emptied the saucepan and waited for the funnel to clear, then dumped them both into the sink and went to have his breakfast in a normal fashion, sitting down at the table and leisurely eating and drinking. He left Marek exactly where he was, kneeling naked and bound on the floor.

Marek's fingers and toes continued to clench and unclench as Mr. Tichy fed him. The sensation was very disconcerting. He could feel the gruel sliding directly into his stomach, and it arrived there suddenly, causing a weird, almost cramp-like sensation. Marek didn't like it. When the funnel was removed, Marek brought his head level, but he remained kneeling where he had been told. He didn't look at the man, but he imagined that Mr. Tichy would be looking at him, assessing his reaction. The boy forced a neutral expression, but inwardly, he seethed. He hated Stanislav Tichy. He despised the man. But no longer did he contemplate taking his revenge. Mr. Tichy wouldn't even be worth the effort.

When he was finished with his breakfast, Tichy pushed his plate out of the way, reached down, and untied the boy's arms.

"Wash up," he ordered the kid.

And with that he walked into the bedroom to check that the sack had dried well enough and rummaged through his drawers of torture and punishment tools. From his perspective, everything was going smoothly. He wasn't even consciously picking up on the tension coming from the boy; after all he was expecting Marek to be scared shitless and shaken by trauma and therefore, logically, tense anyway. But Tichy nonetheless was in a foul mood and still annoyed with Marek's antics from yesterday. The sack punishment had been very satisfying, but Tichy still hadn't worked off all his anger. Maybe a bigger part of him than he had anticipated had wanted the boy to succeed in the challenge so that he could comfort him after the punishment, keeping up his hurt-and-comfort play. Maybe along with Marek's resistance, something else was broken by the sack, and maybe, outside of his rational and processed thoughts, Tichy knew it too. At a minimum, Marek's defiance had left him dangerously annoyed.

Marek washed the dishes. He would do the things he needed to do to avoid pain and the worst of the man's wrath. Mr. Tichy was stupid and one-dimensional. All he wanted was Marek's compliance, and he would get it. Overtly challenging the man no longer was part of Marek's plan. Avoiding pain and torture was, but that was all. Marek would bide his time.

Tichy returned to the kitchen once he was finished in the other room. The boy had followed instructions, and everything looked to be in order.

"I have no idea how much of the stuff I told you last night you even picked up on," said Tichy. "You seemed half out of it," he added. "About limits of obedience. About what you might think isn't realistic. About falsely clinging to some twisted, incorrect inner resolve that makes you believe you have some control or that there is something in you that is untouchable. Well, you're wrong on all accounts and I am going to prove it to you. Now get in the sack," he commanded simply as he steered the boy toward the bedroom by his slender shoulders.

"Open it and lie in it, ready to be strapped and tied in, should I decide to do that."

Marek's plan had been compliance. Just do as the man said, whatever he wanted. Avoid pain. Avoid his wrath. Survive. Marek's goal was not to fight Mr. Tichy. The boy knew full well that Mr. Tichy owned him, and that especially here in the man's apartment, especially during the break, compliance and obedience were required. Despite his new attitude and his new clarity, Marek regretted his move with the ginger root. He wished it hadn't happened. He wished he had arrived where he was now in his thinking without having had to go in the sack, without having to be a Thing.

But who was he kidding, really? He had tried very hard to get through the Hurta punishment. The pain had been nauseating, but he had endured it until Mr. Tichy began to pile more and more obligations on top of the pain, trying to get Marek to fail. He had deliberately pushed every button Marek had. He had left the boy untied so he would be tempted to lash out. Mr. Tichy had intended him to fail, and if he hadn't failed on the questions, Mr. Tichy would just have done something else to make him crack.

But now Mr. Tichy wanted him to go back in the sack. Marek's plan of compliance instantly crumbled to dust and blew away like the last bit of smoke from a campfire. He was being obedient. Inwardly oppositional, but obedient. Why the sack? Why would Tichy go there if he was being obedient? It wasn't fair. It wasn't part of the boy's plan.

Marek's mouth went dry upon hearing the man's command. His eyes went wide. He could not, ever, not ever, get in the sack on his own. Not voluntarily. He couldn't. He didn't want a fight. He was being compliant. But he couldn't do that. Nor could he speak, which was a problem. He wasn't allowed, but he needed to explain.

Marek went to his knees. He was shaking. He pointed to his mouth. He was hyperventilating, his chest and stomach rising and falling. He felt his resolve and clarity crumbling. It wasn't supposed to go this way. Not the sack. He hadn't done anything to deserve it. But in the back of his mind, Marek knew that he had thought enough to deserve it.

"No," Tichy said firmly as the boy pointed to his mouth.

"Not a word, Thing," he emphasized. "You're going to have to re-earn that privilege, and a whole lot more. You fucked up royally. I even offered to meet you halfway and gave you a chance to redeem yourself, and that was after you had already fucked up. I offered you slack and you as good as spat in my face. So now you'll obey like a fucking mechanism. Like a Thing. No slack. No nothing. Just obedience."

"You have," he glanced at his watch, "exactly one minute to voluntarily and all by yourself lie down in the sack in complete submission to me and resignation to your fate. Resist, make a fuss, and you're going to be stuffed and strapped in. And tortured," said the man, dropping the T word like he was talking about a snack, or a cup of tea. Oh, so softly and casually, but he meant every word of what he said.

At the single word "no," Marek all but collapsed. His hands went to his head and shakily covered his eyes – as if by blocking out Mr. Tichy and the room, what he had been told to do simply would go away. Mr. Tichy's words tore at him. They were true, yes, or true enough in this reality, where all that mattered were Mr. Tichy's impressions. Yes, after torturing Marek and pushing him beyond his limit to endure, Marek had fucked up. In that paradigm, Marek was guilty of everything the man had accused him of.

But he had been obedient today, and he intended to be obedient. Why was he getting the sack? Why? Why? It wasn't part of the plan. It wasn't something he could do.

Tears came to his eyes as Mr. Tichy laid down his terms. Marek stood to his feet as his breakfast threatened to come right back up even more quickly than it had come down. His legs felt weak and this time they gave way. He fell to the floor, looking surprised and confused. Had he almost passed out? Like that time in Skala's office? He stood up again and looked at the man, but Mr. Tichy's eyes were hard and cold.

He forced himself to walk to the sack. In his mind, his legs took him there; he simply walked over to it, knelt, and lay down atop it. What other choice did he have?

In the real world, his legs refused to move. He could not go to the sack. His legs would not take him there even if his mind commanded them to. The sack wasn't part of the plan. It wasn't part of Marek's plan, anyway. The sack was … he couldn't do the sack.

He turned toward the apartment door for the second time in two days. He had a one-in-a-million chance of getting there before Tichy caught him. He would fling it open and run to … anyone. Anywhere. Ludmila. Vacha. Brod.

But his fucking legs wouldn't work, and he went down again. That's when he started to crawl.

Whatever ideas, opinions, thoughts Marek had, Tichy had boiled shit down to utmost simplicity for the boy. He stood and watched Marek wobble. Freeze. Then crawl. He glanced at his watch. Half a minute wasted already. Tichy was all out of slack for the kid now. If Marek was even just seconds late sliding himself into the sack, Tichy was going to force him the rest of the way and do up the straps, too. For now, he stood and watched the shaky, jelly-legged boy crawl. He glanced at his watch again. There were only twenty seconds to go.

He was going to torture resistance out of the brat even if Marek's heart gave out during one of his panic attacks. Tichy was determined to break the Glass King's grandson into utter submission or kill him trying.

Marek crawled toward the door, but what was the use? Mr. Tichy never would let him open it. He never would let him leave the apartment. Marek stopped, paused, and collapsed right where he was. He curled into a ball in the hallway with his hands over his head. The boy was sobbing. His mind was blank as he felt "it" happening again, as if he were in a dream, or a nightmare. His skin went clammy. This couldn't be happening, but it was. The boy knew he was out of time, but he could not, would not, get in that sack.

When time was up, Tichy cut the distance between them in two sharp strides, grabbed Marek and hefted him into the air briefly, before throwing the kid violently through the bedroom door. He dragged the struggling, whimpering boy toward the unrolled sack, slammed him onto it and began to force and ram him in, limb after limb, pretty much repeating the process from yesterday. Marek's resistance amounted to very little as Tichy secured the kid's legs, arms, and body with the big straps and then began the meticulous process of making it all a much snugger fit.

Marek whimpered as the man picked him up and propelled him toward the last place in the world he wanted to go. He exploded in tears as he tried to claw his way out of the room once again, but Mr. Tichy was too quick, too strong, and too determined. Marek soon found himself on the sack, being stuffed into the sack.

"Motherrrrrrrrrrrrrr!" he screamed as he writhed and tried to fight. The man didn't know, couldn't know, the depths of the boy's panic. "Motttthhhhherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!" Marek shrieked. He needed her now, more than ever. He needed her to come, to take him away from this place. He couldn't do it on his own. Not anymore. "Mothhhherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!"

The sack wasn't yet torturously, crushingly tight and the hood wasn't on yet when Tichy sat down next to the still-struggling boy. Marek's tears were running freely down his cheeks and his eyes were wide with unmitigated panic. Marek was gasping, sobbing, writhing, and hyperventilating. He was shaking like a leaf when Tichy simply stopped what he was doing.

"Your mother's not here, Marek," said Tichy in a voice that was soft in its delivery and sounded almost sympathetic. "It's just you and me."

"Let's talk," said the man as he regarded the weeping youngster. "Before I put the hood on and tighten things and send you to a place where you don't seem to be able to listen, let's talk. I think you were thinking some … incorrect and rebellious things this morning. Care to come clean about those? Care to tell me about them before we begin? Want to confess?"

The boy looked up at Mr. Tichy, his expression stricken and terrified. He was both of those things. Confess? Was he even allowed to speak? Mr. Tichy would leave him in the sack until February if he confessed. Marek didn't know what to do.

"You entirely missed the point of your ginger root punishment yesterday," said Tichy softly and sadly. "You felt betrayed, but the helplessness and the unfairness of it was precisely the point of it. In my punishments, I am emulating the predicament of the proletariat under capitalism – the helpless and the powerless trying their hardest, and it just isn't enough. They're all set up to fail. Did you feel that Marek? Did it feel that way to you?"

"Your punishment was absolutely meant to leave you feeling desperate and hopeless, but you didn't trust me enough, you didn't submit to me enough, didn't listen to me enough, and you rejected that lesson and failed. And you just failed again now, but that much I can understand – the panic freezes you. You don't yet have the courage to overcome it, and I can understand that to a degree. I might even find some mercy in my heart for it, but not if you then go around and lash out angrily. Not if you aren't honest with me, not if you try to ruin my plans for you and think contrary thoughts. Then there is only pain, Marek. World and worlds of pain and torture until you yield to me. Is that what you want?"

"Let's start with honesty," continued Tichy. "Speak. You're allowed, and in fact required to speak. Tell me about your thoughts this morning, let's go through them together."

Marek's stoic resolve from last night and this morning had collapsed like a house of cards as soon as Mr. Tichy opted for the sack. In a way, it wasn't fair. Marek really was prepared to endure whatever the man intended for him, at least conventionally. The problem was, Mr. Tichy wasn't just using conventional weapons. He had gone nuclear straight away with the sack, and Marek didn't have a good response for that. The sack was his kryptonite, and there was nothing Marek could do about it. No amount of stoic thinking could overcome it. As long as he had the sack at his disposal, Mr. Tichy owned him, plain and simple. Even without the sack, there was no escaping the man or the school. There was nothing Marek could do.

Now he had a chance to avoid the sack. Or mostly avoid it. But he had to confess. Marek knew he had a choice to make: He could either confess, or he could confess. He chose that option.

"I- I- I'm sorry, Mr. Tichy. I- I- my father … I don't h-hate him. I know you want me to, but I don't. I'm sorry. I- I think he was brave. I wish he was still alive," the boy sobbed. "I was th-thinking that this morning. And last night. I never really thought about him like that before. But wh-when you asked the question about the enemies … I- I don't even know what he did. I got mad." Marek's tears came then as he opened up to the man. "I'm sorry."

"Ah," said the man, as he paused for a very, very long time. "Ah-ha," he said after another long pause, only to pause again.

"Okay, Marek," said Tichy. "That's fair. He's your father. What I want you to do, ultimately, is to denounce his actions, specifically those of 1968. If you don't even know what he did, that is kind of hard, now, isn't it? I'm not asking you to hate him as a person. You barely even met him, but he's your father. I think that's fair. It's not mutually exclusive with the statement that those in the way of the Revolution must make way for it and be removed in one way or another, but that's a sad truth. I don't expect you to rejoice and celebrate his mistake, but you can still love your father as a man even as you reject what he did."

"I think that was, in a way, a misunderstanding, don't you agree?" he asked, almost softly.

"Now, I don't think this is a good time to go into the importance of '68," Tichy continued. "So, on that front, I'll simply be … forgiving. You are allowed not to hate your father, Marek. You can love your family. Just don't follow their footsteps down rotten, treacherous paths. That's what I'm asking. Do we have a slightly … better understanding for now?" asked the man. He caressed Marek's hair.

"It's a shame, really, isn't it? I felt, just as you asked your questions, that you were making real progress, that I was really getting through to you. Frankly, I didn't know you haven't been told at least some version of your father's crimes."

That had gone … better than Marek anticipated. Mr. Tichy had called Marek's father a traitor. He had spoken about him with derision and hatred, but Mr. Tichy didn't expect him to hate his father. The funny thing is, Marek hadn't thought a lot about his father until he came to the school. Ludek Hurta had been more of a mystical, mythical entity to the boy than a real person. Marek's mother never spoke about him, and Marek had endured enough negative comments about him over the years to consider the memory of his father a burden. But Mr. Tichy had made him think more about the man than ever before. What he had told Mr. Tichy just now was true.

Was it all just a misunderstanding between them? Marek wasn't sure, but it seemed best to agree.

"Yes, sir," he told the man. He could agree to that. It seemed fair, actually. But would Mr. Tichy insist on knowing more? Would he let Marek out of the sack now?

"Well, that explains the disaster of yesterday partly now. That was clearly the last drop, and it poisoned your evening, and night and morning. So, what about our plan? What out the schnitzel thing? Hmmm? Why did you not breathe deeply and cry freely as the ginger burned like you were told? Explain," demanded Tichy, but he was caressing the boy's hair gently. If Marek wasn't a few pulls of straps away from horrendous torture, it could almost have been nice, this. Tichy certainly didn't seem to be in a hurry to finish what he had started and unleash unmitigated Hell on the boy once more.

Marek looked up at the man with dread. He hadn't even told him what he thought about the Glass King, but Mr. Tichy had moved right to the end. He had gone straight to the heart of the matter. Should Marek tell him? It seemed that in some ways, he likely already knew.

"Because I don't- I don't believe in that," Marek stammered. "I don't agree with it. I never did anything wrong. I never did anything to you, but you think you get to punish me for things I didn't do. I hate this school and I h- … and I don't like you, either."

There. He finally had said what he thought about Mr. Tichy and his plan, but not really. He hadn't said it all. He hadn't said the full truth, and since the man had asked him to confess, Marek thought it was time.

"I hate you," he declared. "You think you own me, but you don't. I'm a p-person," Marek sobbed. "You brought me here. You tricked my mother. I didn't do anything wrong. I'm not what you think I am. And I don't hate my grandfather, either."

Tichy was going to sack him now for sure, but at least now the man knew. There was one more thing Marek wanted to say to Mr. Tichy. It had been on his mind for a long time.

"You believe in socialism," the boy continued, "but everybody's supposed to be even. You just decided I was bad. You didn't even know me. You want to fry me like a schnitzel for things I didn't even do. For three years. It's not fair."

"You don't believe in it, hmm?" Tichy scoffed. "As for the hating part, a brat like you is bound to dislike bitter medicine," he shrugged, "but to refuse to accept that you need medicine … now that, Marek, is very, very serious. You say I didn't know you. You imply you're innocent, that the seed of treachery and tyranny isn't in your heart. And yet, before the whips, before the sack you're currently in, before a whole load of things, when you barely even had an excuse to hate me and you had much simpler, more direct rules given to you, I tested you. Someone came to you and casually – with no real reason behind it, for him or for you – asked you to break a rule you knew full well about, and were reminded about even in that moment, and you still Broke. The. Rule."

"You didn't even hesitate," resumed Tichy after a pause. "Have you forgotten the double-suck? That whole nonsense with the cum cards? Didn't it seem a bit far-fetched? I went into a lot of effort and spent rather a lot of time to set up that charade and test you. You were failing some face-to-face tests, your pride working against you, but I wondered if you had a compass inside you that made you honest, even if difficult to deal with. I tested you, Marek, but you cheated the very first chance you had. Only a handful of days after swearing a blood oath, you betrayed me. It was then that I knew for sure that you needed what I had already planned for you."

"On top of that, you lied to my face," Tichy continued. "Then you feigned being apologetic and remorseful to create a window for another treachery: your escape. I was standing in the administrative block watching you get into that truck from the window. I could have nipped your little escape attempt in the bud, but instead I tested you. You had so many moments, so many occasions to turn around and to not be proven a cheat, a thief, and a liar. But you lied, you deceived, you stole, you ran, and you wanked. What honor. What pride. What purity," spat Tichy.

"Socialism undoes inequality that your grandfather was a key part of, among other ill deeds, and that your father fought to restore," continued the man. "Socialism first undoes centuries of inequality and protects itself from the likes of you before the final utopia can be made real. We haven't achieved pure communism yet, and won't for a long time, due to so many enemies inside and out of our ranks."

"Now, Mr. I Didn't Do Anything Wrong," said Tichy as his voice slipped into sarcasm, "the thing about a piece of chicken meat is that it's just a piece of chicken meat. It knows no better." He reached for one of the straps and began to tighten the harness around the boy, tug after tug. "It doesn't need to agree or cooperate, ultimately. It just needs to be fried." Another tug.

"And if you believe you aren't at all bad and won't end up bad on your own, then I guess I will have to force your salvation on you," sighed Tichy as he tightened yet another strap.

Marek had gone and done it now. He had bared his soul to the man in fear of the sack, and all he had really accomplished was to confirm to Mr. Tichy that he was a bad seed, a bad egg. The betrayal the man referred to had been because of Tomáš. Tomáš and the double-suck. The older boy had insisted that Marek suck him off twice. He had made Marek disobey. Marek had still been learning the rules back then, which ones were hard and fast, and which ones were okay to bend.

But it had all just been a test. Marek looked uncertain. Had he broken other rules? Failed other tests? He had fallen for cum cards easily enough. What else had Mr. Tichy tried to trick him with? The man had spies everywhere.

Marek listened on with horror and dread. Mr. Tichy had watched him escape? The boy's blood ran cold. No wonder he had been caught so easily. The man was right, of course, but Marek had done those things to survive here at the school, where Mr. Tichy had put him under duress and stress. He wasn't like that, not normally. He was mischievous, but not bad. He wasn't a cheat or a liar. He wasn't a thief. Or was he?

Marek groaned with fear as the man began to tighten the straps. "It" was coming. The boy could feel it.

"I don't want to be punished!" Marek cried. "I hate it here!" He was sobbing now. "I hate it here! I don't belong here! Why can't you just let me go home? Please Mr. Tichy — d-d-don't leave me in the sack!" he begged as his courage and resolve faltered. "I'm really scared!"

"Scared?" scoffed Tichy. "So were the communards at Père Lachaise, so were the Red Guards crushed by whitecoats in Russia, so were the Nazi resistance fighters during the war. So were many of us, when socialism nearly crumbled eleven years ago, right under our watch. If you refuse to even denounce your literal Nazi of a grandfather, then I'm not at all surprised that you're scared of me, a hand of the Revolution. You deserve to be scared. You deserve to be punished, and even more so for refusing to accept it and submit to it. For not wanting it. For hating it. You tried to hide and deny it, but there's already a deep seed of rot inside you, Marek, and I am going to fry it out of you while I still can."

Tichy was done tightening the small straps and went on to start pulling the bigger ones tighter now, turning the sensation into that completely motionless crushing deadness that was the true torture of the sack.

"If you still don't believe and can't align your will with a good cause, you will be broken until there isn't an ounce of resistance left in you," continued Tichy. "You will be fried, Marek Hurta. And if it can't be done on mutual, agreed-upon terms, then it will be done on my terms, and it will be far scarier for you that way," said the man as he tightened another large strap, then another, and another.

The sack was getting tighter and tighter, bespeaking of horrors to come. But what could Marek do? He couldn't take back what he had said. He still believed it, all of it. But maybe Mr. Tichy was right. Maybe Marek had bad blood running through his veins and needed to be fried into purity and beaten into submission, but Marek didn't think so. He still didn't think he was bad, and he still didn't think Mr. Tichy should be allowed to do this to him, but he could, and he was, and that was all Marek needed to know.

"Mr. Tichy?" the hyperventilating boy asked desperately. "I have- I- if I'm bad like you say, okay? If I'm bad – I don't think you c-can fix me. I might be too bad." Marek was close to panic. He was only moments away from losing it, shrieking, and crying. "I have bad thoughts. All the time. I think I'm a Nazi like my grandfather. And a t-traitor like my f-father. I don't think you c-can fix me, please Mr. Tichy."

"I think you need to k-kill me, Mr. Tichy," said the boy. "Assassinate me. I'm really bad, okay? You can kill me, okay? It's okay if you do. Please Mr. Tichy. It will be better if you do. Please."

"Let's go all the way back to square one," replied Tichy. "You are not in charge, you're not in control of any part of this process, Marek. You most definitely don't decide to give up and die or get yourself killed. But at least in this panic, there's a hint of light. You are starting to see a darker side of yourself. You're emerging out of your denial. You're still not going the right way with it, but you are beginning to see. That's good, and it gives me hope."

"So, no, I am not going to kill you," the man continued. "That's not the plan at all. If you were an adult, you know, then maybe. But as you said, I'm a believing socialist. I believe in equal opportunity. I'm planning to fix you. If you still start doing harm to our glorious socialist republic, I'll be right there with a blade or a bullet, but as a child you deserve a sporting chance. And as a part of that chance, you must learn about the suffering of the proletariat and those oppressed by Nazis and capitalists before them."

Tichy grabbed the hood.

"Will you accept your punishment and actively work on your hatred as a curable problem, Marek? Will you actively work towards a gratitude, or do I need to deep-fry you?" demanded the man.

Marek was tightly secured in the sack. He couldn't move. He wanted to pass out or die on the spot. He knew that Mr. Tichy wouldn't agree to kill him, but Marek would have taken death. Not even with sadness, really. His life had become a living nightmare. He had no friends here. There was nothing but hatred for him at the school, but he couldn't leave it. He couldn't get away, couldn't get home. He lived most days in fear, and many of them in terror. It was no way to live. The school was hard. The instructors didn't like him. The other boys didn't like him. He was an outsider. He didn't belong here, but he couldn't leave.

And now this. He looked up to see the hood and closed his eyes. Once again, he willed himself to die. Or pass out. Or descend into a coma.

When Mr. Tichy inquired of him, he opened his eyes once again. Would he accept his punishment? Would he work with Tichy to fix what Marek still didn't think was broken?

It took all the courage the boy had ever had, but he shook his head no and looked away.

"Can't say I didn't try," sighed Tichy, "and pretty hard, too. This isn't done in a hurry, or out of anger. This is done out of necessity," said Tichy with determination as he slipped the hood onto the boy's head and tightened it over his eyes and nose. The ring followed soon after, inserted too quickly for the struggling boy to change his mind. It left Marek's mouth agape, while the rest of him was tightly strapped and secured.

Marek's world quickly descended into Hell with a last moan from the child as Tichy placed the hood over his eyes and forced the ring into his mouth. And then the hood was tightened, the claustrophobic, vertigo-like sensation kicked in and Marek's fate for the next hour or so was sealed. Tichy finished tightening the straps, especially those that would keep Marek's head fixed in place so that he couldn't bang it on the floor and try to hurt himself. The straps were so tight that only Marek's fingers and toes could move. It was like being spun in a cocoon, buried alive, and wrapped up like a mummy all at once.

"You will cooperate Marek," he warned the still-struggling child. "You will find that there is no other way. The Revolution has prevailed. You cannot be an old-school Hurta in this world. You must accept the reality … and adapt."

Tichy checked and tightened a few more straps including hood flaps around the ring and the boy's mouth, tightening them all as he went, finishing the extremeness of the boy's confinement, rendering him utterly immobile. Then the man simply got dressed and went for a jog. Afterwards, he enjoyed a bath, coffee, and a cigarette. He took a long, satisfying shit. It was well over an hour later that he returned to the bedroom.

"Oh, that's right, I have the frier on," he commented dryly. "Just a few more hours," he commented before walking out of the room again.

If Tichy had known the extent of the boy's terror – if he could have experienced just five seconds of Marek's "it" happening – he might have relented out of fear for the boy's very sanity. For Marek, the sensation was worse than death – far worse, actually. Constricted and constrained, his world began to spin, faster and faster, with dizzying speed. The only thing – the only thing – that kept him in the present was the fact that he could breathe. Not perfectly or well, but he was able to draw air through his mouth. That was his lifeline, and he concentrated on that. Of course, he feared that Mr. Tichy would take that away from him, too, and then there would be nothing else, nothing but "it."

The "it" was bad this time, very bad, and it tore at the boy, vicious and clawing, threatening him, spinning him around, and around, and around, like a top on steroids. Marek concentrated on breathing, straight up through his open mouth, and it seemed that his entire world was spinning around him with his mouth at the very center of the whirlpool, like the eye of a hurricane. "It" ebbed and flowed, sometimes causing the boy to tense his muscles for minutes at a time, other times causing him to go numb and relax into the nothingness of torment.

His panic level rose and ebbed as well, varying in intensity as his mind and his world turned and spun. By the time Mr. Tichy returned, the sack had moved a bit across the floor and somehow was rotated to the left, bespeaking of a frenzied panic that Marek apparently no longer was undergoing. All was still by the time the man entered the room. Marek didn't hear the man or even know that he had returned. Nothing penetrated "it" when it was happening.

Tichy slid the broom handle through the rings near Marek's neck.

"So I don't own you, eh?" he demanded and twisted it until Marek began to choke. He released the tension. Twisted again. Released. Twisted. Half released, twisted. Released. Twisted slightly. Released. Half-twisted and held for what could have been a dangerously long time. Released. Twisted. Released. And on it went.

He knew the man was back only when he felt the broom hand slide home and start to tighten. The sack contracted as Marek's bound, immobilized body fought this latest indecency. He couldn't breathe! That was the final straw for an "it" that came roaring up from the pits of Hell, blanketing the boy with waves of unmitigated, sanity-depriving panic. The sack contracted and appeared to vibrate as the boy inside it suffered in silent agony.

Tichy fucked with Marek's breath and the blood flow into his head for a solid ten minutes before he finally discarded the broom handle and began to undo the straps. He loosened everything first, then removed the face-covering, the ring, the hood, and then the rest of the straps one by one. He released the boy, dragged him out of the sack and before the out-of-it, shivering child could even stop seeing blurry, he picked up a crop and began to beat Marek's back and ass with efficient, just-short-of-bruising lashes, holding him by his hair, face down and bent over as he rained pain down on him, steadily and methodically.

For Marek, it was a loosening, then daylight, followed by pain. Marek moaned as the man began to beat him, then cried out, then squealed, and finally screamed.

"Aiyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Aiyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" he shrieked as the crop bit down unexpectedly on his flushed and sweaty red skin.

Tichy eased off the power of the blows when Marek began to shriek almost insanely, but only so he could make the beating last longer without giving the boy any lasting bruises or breaking his skin. It clearly hurt plenty enough as it was. The man went on beating the boy. Systematically, unstopping. From his upper back over his ass almost to the insides of his knees, then back up, often hitting the same spots again, back down, back up, by then every blow was landing on previously hurt skin, some of them hitting the exact same line that had been hit before. On and on it went as Marek bawled and screamed.

"Feeling no remorse, resisting punishment makes you an enemy of the people," declared Tichy as he rained pain down on the boy. Child or not, you belong in a gulag until your attitude has improved and since we can't send you to one, I'll make this place your very own personal fucking gulag, Marek," growled the man as he kept beating the kid. Tichy was huffing and dripping sweat from the exertion, but the entirety of Marek's back, ass and the backs of his legs was now a mess of pink and red lines, spots of untouched skin almost nonexistent in between them.

Marek could do nothing but writhe and scream. The man held him fast and tight, easily controlling his slight, exhausted, 12-year-old body. Hit after hit after hit rained down, driving Marek almost insane with pain. And on and on it went. And even when it by rights was supposed to be over, it wasn't. The agony of Mr. Tichy's beating drove the last of the "it" away. It seemed endless, and it was endless. The man went up and down the boy's quivering body, decorating him with marks and welts. Marek couldn't believe the ferocity of it. Even for Mr. Tichy, this was mind-numbingly cruel, prolonged, and relentless. It truly seemed that the man intended to flay the skin from his body – at least, that's what it felt like to the boy.

Finally, the man spun Marek around.

"Will you accept your punishment and work on cooperating?" Tichy demanded in a grave-dark voice, his angry spittle spraying the boy's face.

Marek felt himself twisted around, held by his upper arms in a vise grip, the man right in his face. Marek couldn't look at him, not that he would have been able to see much more than a blur through his tears, but he didn't need to look at him to acknowledge what they both knew.

Mr. Tichy had won. Marek flinched at the man's words. He was in agony. His mind and his resolve were broken. The boy would accept his punishment. He would accept his frying and work on becoming whatever Mr. Tichy wanted him to be.

"Yes," the boy gasped meekly, breathlessly, in a near-whisper. "Yes, sir."

"That sure took you a while," huffed Tichy. "Okay then. Pick up a paddle from the bottom drawer there, come fold yourself over my lap and politely ask for a hard, severe spanking," demanded the man as his eyes, not by coincidence, slipped right back towards the sack. They both knew that he could just stuff the boy back in. He could put Marek right back in it anytime he wanted to, and they both knew it. After another stint in the sack, he could beat the boy some more and then demand the same thing until Marek gave the appropriate answer. The game was rigged. Marek had no way of winning. Just as Tichy had told him weeks ago, he made the rules; Marek's only role was to play by them.

Tichy sat on a chair and waited for Marek to obey; clearly, he was expecting him to, now. Slack didn't seem to be in any supply. Not even now. Not even after all that.

Sobbing, shaking, and hyperventilating, the boy stood with a moan, stumbled, but then immediately went to the drawer, knelt, and extracted a paddle. He still was crying and shaking from the pain of his beating as he crawled back to the man with the paddle in hand. He didn't trust himself to walk. With a trembling hand, the defeated boy handed Tichy the paddle and forced himself to stand up again to drape himself over the man's lap. His entire body was quivering at the thought of another beating, but what could he do? Between the sack and everything else, Marek simply had no ability to resist.

"Please g-give me a h-hard (gasp) s-severe s-spanking, sir," Marek gasped. It was the last thing in the world he wanted to ask for. But the last thing in the world he was going to do was defy the man again today. Or ever. Mr. Tichy had won. Marek would submit to him now. The boy didn't care. He truly, absolutely, wanted to die. He hoped that Mr. Tichy would beat him to death and end his misery.

"I will," said Tichy, "when you are ready for one." He put the paddle down, lifted the boy off his lap and put him in the bed. "I'll give you an hour to recuperate, then you'll need a shower and lunch. That doesn't mean you're not being punished, isn't a promise that your day stopped being horrible. It's purely pragmatic. Now rest."

And with that, Tichy went into the kitchen to light up a victorious Startka and pour himself a celebratory shot of the Armenian Cognac from Skala. That had been a hell of a hard job, but at least for the time being, Tichy felt victorious, and he was going to let himself enjoy it while giving Marek a desperately needed rest.

Marek didn't expect any mercy from Mr. Tichy. He didn't expect any mercy from anyone anymore, and when it came, the boy sobbed in relief, pawing at his eyes with gratitude. He couldn't stop shaking even as the man put him in the bed face-down. He couldn't believe that Mr. Tichy wasn't going to paddle him. He couldn't believe that the man was going to allow him to rest.

The boy cried and sobbed with the pain of his beating for the first 20 minutes, then fell into a deep, much-needed sleep, as his tortured body stopped – if only for a few minutes – sending pain signals to his brain. Eventually, his brain stopped thinking at all and simply shut down.

Tichy sat, smoked, and drank, then proceeded to cook lunch. It felt like a hard-earned victory. He knew that he had to be more careful in the future about acts of mercy and cutting the boy slack. Mercy always should come with an explanation, a caveat of some sort, so the boy didn't slip into an entitlement mindset again. But on this occasion, he intentionally had pushed the kid to the breaking point, and he didn't want Marek to shut down. He let the boy sleep a bit longer than an hour in the end and woke him up in style, putting The Internationale on the phonograph and cranking up the volume, the ringing, booming, more-than-lively song stirring the bleary-eyed boy jarringly awake.

Marek slept almost an hour. When the music came on, he awoke with a startle and scrambled from the bed, naked, wide-eyed, and instantly terrified once again. When he realized that it was just Mr. Tichy's joking idea of an alarm clock, his heart returned to his chest, and he stood looking at the man warily while he listened to his instructions.

"Go wash," instructed Tichy. "Come into the kitchen to eat. We'll then discuss your rules and your progress. For now, no talking."

Marek washed, taking a shower, using cold water to soothe the residual pain the crop had applied systematically to his back, bottom, and legs. He cleaned himself from the sweat-soaking he had taken in the sack. He washed his hair. He scrubbed his face. By the end of it, he felt a little better and a little more normal – not that anything about his situation was normal.

He remembered everything this time. There were no gaps in his memory or his comprehension. Mr. Tichy was going to fry him, and this time Marek was going to submit to being fried. If it cured him, it cured him. If it didn't, it didn't. But Marek would comply. He would obey. There was no sense in fighting Mr. Tichy. He knew that now.

He came, dry and naked, to the kitchen.

"All right," said Tichy and drew Marek a bit closer, fingers sliding down the boy's athletic body, brushing over his arms. "Listen carefully. Nod if you agree and understand. Shake your head no if you want the living crap beaten out of you," he said with a smile, but he wasn't kidding. Those were Marek's options, and the boy could choose freely between them.

"You are a Thing now. At a minimum, today and tomorrow. I wasn't planning to demote you to a Thing, so there isn't a detailed protocol. But it's the lowest and worst it can get. It's a whole big grade below wimp. Thing doesn't talk. Thing doesn't get any slack cut to it. There's no compromise, and no human comforts beyond what's pragmatically needed literally just to keep Thing alive and functioning. Understood, Thing?"

"Thing gets fed with the funnel. Each meal. Each drink. Understood?"

"Thing gets beaten for no other reason than just being as low-a-grade as a Thing, but the beatings are to clarify, not to punish. There is only one punishment for Thing: If it makes even the slightest mistake, it's right back into the sack for a minimum of an hour at a time. No second chances. No excuses, no negotiation. If Thing so much as blinks funny, it goes back in the sack, understood?"

"Now kneel, tilt your head up and open wide, Thing. It's feeding time."

Marek's expression told of his worry, nervousness, and fright. He didn't dare to speak as Mr. Tichy told him what it meant to be a Thing. There was not the slightest sign of opposition from him, however. He nodded at every appropriate point, although the news of funnel feedings obviously was distressful to him, the news of the sack punishment infinitely more so. He began to shake as he contemplated the sack once again, but he nodded. And then, although he didn't want food and didn't want the funnel, he knelt and tilted his head back. His eyes were wide and his expression unhappy. Everything with Mr. Tichy had gone so bad now. So very, very bad, and the boy was simply … tired.

Tichy blended Marek's portion smooth once more, diluted it a bit more this time so it would pour in faster and more easily. He didn't want the boy getting any slimmer, so he not only kept his usual portion size but in fact upped it slightly for these liquid meals. The means were horrific, but Marek was getting plenty of good nutrition and more than enough calories to withstand his torments. Tichy wanted and needed the kid to be physically strong for what he had planned for him. Beating and frying a weakened, starving boy held no real appeal for the man.

When lunch was ready, Tichy rammed the big funnel down the kid's throat, waited a moment to make sure the boy wasn't just gonna retch it all up straight away, and then poured an entire saucepan full of slightly warm, creamy, gooey liquid straight down into the boy's stomach.

Marek's tummy gurgled unhappily at the sudden influx of the liquidized meal. The boy looked uncomfortable. Tichy always wanted him to eat. Ever since the first days of punishments in the man's office, he had wanted the boy to eat. He shuddered and clenched his toes and fingers as he felt his stomach fill with … whatever it was. It was an awful, nasty feeling, and the boy didn't like it at all, but he did it, anyway. He didn't even plot opposition, this time. He just … did.

This "Thing" thing was good. Tichy liked it. It was simple and easy. He discarded the saucepan and the funnel and sat at the table to eat his meal, leaving Marek to remain kneeling on the floor. He opened a bottle of beer and sighed. Yeah. This was all right.

"Get under the table. For the next hour or so you'll be a cocksucking Thing! Chop, chop!" he demanded of the boy as he began to eat. He was naked from waist down and had his legs spread, so even though it wasn't going to be comfortable, Marek could cram himself in there and start sucking without further ado.

On the man's instruction, Marek crawled into position and instantly began to wet the man's cock with his mouth and tongue. He welcomed the opportunity to suck Tichy, because that would mean an hour of relative peace for the boy. It meant peace from being a Thing, peace from the consequences of his own stupidity and poor decision-making.

Tichy ate and smoked as he sat there and enjoyed having his cock sucked. He told Marek to ease off and slow down a few times, making sure the blowjob really did stretch on for the better part of an hour. It was only when his erection started to feel uncomfortable that he demanded that Marek up his game and do the continual-suck thing that would make him cum.

An hour was a long time to suck a cock, and by the time Tichy wanted to enjoy his orgasm, Marek's jaw, throat, and tongue were sore as they usually were. He was also cramped for space and uncomfortable under the kitchen table, which made sucking awkward and hurt his neck and lower back, but there was not so much as a word of complaint from the boy, and he responded instantly to all Tichy's commands. At the end, he did the slow-and-continuous-up-and-down thing for Tichy until he came, then swallowed the man's cum.

A brief cock-cleanup later, Thing had to wash up and tidy up the kitchen, sweep and mop the floors, clean the toilet, bathroom, and do just about all the chores that could imaginably be done in the flat.

Marek did the chores without complaint – again happy to not to be suffering as a Thing as he worked – but there were a lot of them. He passed the time thinking of Vacenovice and his friends there, his old school. But it wasn't enough to cheer him up. None of it seemed to matter anymore. This was his life now. Here. In Brod. At this school. With Mr. Tichy. Doing what Mr. Tichy told him to do.

Tichy mostly relaxed while Thing did his thing. He read and did a little bit of some school-related paperwork at some point. When the flat was spotless, he clicked his fingers.

"On the edge of the bed, in an ass-fucking position. Now we're going to make you a Thing-with-a-sore-ass," he announced.

On the man's command, Marek instantly went to the edge of the bed, knelt, and leaned across it with his arms outstretched. He was facing away from Tichy; the man could not see the tears that formed in his eyes and dribbled down his cheeks to the mattress.

Tichy used the minimum amount of cream needed to make sure the sex didn't hurt his cock, mounted the boy forcefully and began to fuck him. He wasn't exactly hurting him on purpose, it was just one of those times that sex was painful, because anal sex is painful unless the giver is slow, careful, and patient, and Tichy was being none of those things. He simply rammed his cock into the boy's ass and humped the youngster for his own pleasure.

As Mr. Tichy mounted and began to fuck him, Marek understood the message that the man was sending: Every aspect of his life as a Thing could be made worse than when he was a Wimp, or a Boy, or whatever he was supposed to be. Marek understood. He also knew he had brought this on himself. Ever since the very first time he had realized that Mr. Tichy was being unfair to him – about the second day after the slipper punishment had converted to "wimp" punishments – Marek had tried to come up with a way to defeat the man or to extricate himself from his situation. He had never really stopped doing that, no matter what Mr. Tichy did to him or how he punished him. Right up until yesterday, Marek had fought, plotted, and schemed. He had tried everything. He had never given up hope.

Nothing had worked. Nothing would work. Marek was done. He was tired. He was hurting. His entire body seemed to be in pain. The man was too smart and strong. He was determined to punish Marek and change him. The boy had fought him every way he knew how. He was done. Done. He would not even allow rebellious thoughts to enter his mind. That's when bad things inevitably happened. He knew now that he couldn't change what Mr. Tichy did to him; he only could make it worse.

He was done. No more rebellious thoughts. No more mental games. He would obey.

The only thing that mattered to Tichy right now was how this felt for his cock, and it felt good. The soft, warm little hole he was fucking was just a part of Thing, and the Thing's purpose was to suffer and get him off. Tichy certainly acted like that was the truth. He came shortly after the ten-minute mark; it was a rough, rapid, sharp-thrust fucking that was bound not to take too long. He pulled out. His cock was pink with bits of blood and had a slight brownish streak on the tip.

"Clean," he ordered the kid. "And don't you dare puke." Clearly, the earlier truce had been abandoned. Things weren't entitled to truces. Things didn't make deals.

Marek saw the brownish streak on Tichy's cock, but it didn't even slow him down. The man wanted him to eat shit, so he would eat shit. Whatever Tichy wanted he would do. He would not hesitate. He would not argue. He would simply do. He wouldn't try to find a work around or a way out. He wouldn't even think about such things. He wouldn't feel sorry for himself. He wouldn't fume or seethe. All those thoughts were the incubators for plans, and plans led to acts, and acts led to pain, suffering, and torture every single time.

He was done. He sucked Tichy's cock, cleaning his own shit from it, and he didn't let it affect him. At least, he tried hard not to let it affect him. At a minimum, he didn't puke.

"Go drink some water and brush your teeth," allowed the man. "And wash and wipe your ass. I don't need anything else from the Thing right now, so I guess it can be on standby. Rest. No monkey business!" It was slowly getting dark outside and Tichy was a bit restless. In the end, he tied Marek's hands together and tied him to the side of the bed same way as for the night before – mostly so the kid couldn't go and slit his wrists or something – and went for an early evening jog before it got pitch-black dark.

Marek did what he was told. He did whatever he was told. He didn't question it, he didn't ask what was in it for him, he didn't try to find a way around it, he didn't even try to find a way to cope with it or make it easier. The man told him to drink some water and brush his teeth, so that is what he did. That is exactly what he did. The man had told him to wipe his ass, so he did that, too. There was blood on the tissue, but it didn't matter. Tichy had fucked him hard, with no preparation and not that much of the lubricating cream. Marek didn't question it. He was sore back there, but it didn't matter. Tichy could do to him whatever he wanted to do. The man had proven that much.

Tichy tied him to the bed. He didn't trust Marek, but he needn't have worried. Something had changed inside the boy, and it was fundamental. The sack had catalyzed it, but it was the man's sheer insistence that what he had planned for Marek would happen – no matter what, it would happen – that finally had broken the boy. He was done. He was tired of the fight. He had given up. He had fought the fight for a long time, coming up with plans, coping strategies, and ideas. He had raged and seethed. He had felt sorry for himself. He had fought. He had cried. He had argued. He had negotiated. He had even screamed for his mother to come. Nothing had worked. Most of his attempts had made things even worse.

He wouldn't think of those things anymore. Mr. Tichy owned him. This school owned him. It was his home now. It was where he lived and suffered. It didn't matter if it was the next three years, or 16, or 82. The most powerful man Marek had ever known had picked him out him for vengeance and punishment, and that was the way his life was now and would be for the foreseeable future. Marek didn't see the point of questioning it anymore. It didn't matter that it wasn't fair. All that mattered was what Mr. Tichy wanted. The boy's newfound compliance wasn't even to avoid more pain. Pain would come, anyway – Mr. Tichy had made that clear. He complied simply because Mr. Tichy had instructed him to do those things. He would do whatever the man told him to do. What Marek wanted simply didn't matter anymore. The Marek Hurta from Vacenovice who had lived a little over 12 years of a nice life on this planet had ceased to exist, replaced by the 12-year-old Marek Hurta who existed to suffer at the PSKG internat in Zelezny Brod. They were two very different people.

There was another fundamental change in the boy that felt permanent. Until now, Marek had relied on memories of his friends and family to sustain him. He had never thought he was alone in this. Through his darkest times with Mr. Tichy, his memories of home were there, strong, and powerful. Memories of his mother. His aunt. His friends. His cousins. His old teachers in Vacenovice. Even grumpy old Mrs. Beneš from across the hall. His strong desire to see them and be back with them again had motivated most of his plans and schemes with Mr. Tichy. In Marek's mind and memory, they were there all there, back home, waiting for him. They liked him. They saw worth in him. They didn't hate him like everyone did here. They would help him, if only he could get to them. They would welcome him back into their arms.

They didn't matter anymore. They weren't going to help him. No one would. Marek was alone here, and he understood that now. Marek withdrew inward. It was just him now. His role now was to suffer and be punished until Mr. Tichy didn't want to hurt him anymore. The man had made that clear. Mr. Tichy would decide if or when it ended, not Marek, and certainly not people back in Vacenovice.

That was the most fundamental change of all in the boy. He had plotted and schemed for months to end it early, to end Mr. Tichy's torments, and he had been fortified in the effort by the memory of his friends and family back home and his desire to see and embrace them again. No longer. This was his home now. He was alone here, and alone, he was no match for Mr. Tichy. He never had been. The man owned him. He had bought Marek from his mother with lies and sweet talk and had had the boy delivered to him here from Vacenovice on a silver platter for vengeance, torment, punishment, torture, and sex. Marek understood that now. He understood the finality of it.

Marek kept his mind mostly blank as the man went out for his jog. He would not allow himself to think, as that led to sedition and rebellion. He tried to sleep. He couldn't. His back hurt from his beating. His ass hurt from being fucked.

Tichy had more energy than he anticipated. The triumph of breaking the boy right after Marek had pushed his buttons in a way that nearly had given him a heart attack from fury alone, spurred him on. He almost wished he had put on his skis. It was windy, frosty, dark, and the snow crunched underfoot as he slipped along. It was more of a hurried stumble than a jog most of the way and his trainers and trousers were soaked by the time he got back. He stumbled and fell on his way back, breaking the fall with a parachute roll, largely unhurt. At least the snow was thick enough, even if it was annoying and getting in the way. He fell twice more and gave himself a bruise just before his return to the internat, but by the end of it he had done a 5-mile slog. It had been a solid workout and he felt better for it, despite everything.

Tichy was dripping with sweat as he entered the warm apartment. He entered the bedroom and began to remove his clothes as the boy gazed up at him from the floor. Tichy liked towering over a cowering, naked, supplicating boy. It always made him feel like a god and it aroused him like nothing else. When he was completely naked, he bent down to untie Marek's hands.

"I want a Thing bath, and you know exactly what that means," he said as he worked the knot free. "Don't miss a spot, don't try to cheat, or avoid your duty. If I think you haven't licked any part of me satisfactorily, I'll string you up to the ceiling hook and beat you like a piñata, and that's a promise. You'll get 100 with various implements, and then I'll take you down and let you start over again. We'll keep going like that until I'm satisfied and every part of me is spit-shine clean. Does that sound fair enough for you, Mr. Hurta? Properly socialist?"

"Yes, sir," whispered Marek as the man untied him once again. The boy already knew that a thorough, full-body tongue bath took at least an hour for him to perform, and it could be a lot longer than that if the man wanted an extended rimming session or a blowjob at the end of it. Tichy's body was slick with sweat, and Marek knew that the job ahead was going to be exhausting and disgusting.

And so it was. Tichy lay down on the bed as Marek crawled up and began to lick and suck the damp, sweaty toes of the man's right foot. Feet followed toes. Ankles followed feet. Legs followed ankles. It took a long, long, time. Groin – lots of time there, especially under the man's balls and slurping his pubes. Stomach. Chest. Sides. Neck. Fingers. Hands. Arms. Armpits were the worst. They tasted the worse, and in many ways, they were worse than ass because of the thick, matted hairs there that were so hard to lick clean and so disgusting to slurp. Shoulders. Neck. Marek's tongue felt like it had been sanded. Tichy hadn't even allowed him a glass of water. Apparently, you didn't get water for a full-body tongue bath when you were a Thing.

Tichy flipped over on his front as Marek essentially started over. He returned to the man's feet, this time doing the bottoms. Ankles. Legs. Ass. He spent lots of time there as well, on the cheeks themselves, in the man's crack, on his taint, the undersides of his balls, and around and in his hairy hole. Then it was on to Mr. Tichy's back. His shoulders. Neck. The command came as Marek knew it would, and the boy went back to the man's ass and began to rim him thoroughly. After 20 minutes of exhausting, disgusting work doing that, it was time for the inevitable blowjob. Tichy flipped over. He already was hard. It was another 15 minutes before he came in Marek's mouth yet again. The entire ordeal had taken almost two hours, and by the end of it, Marek was parched, sore, and exhausted.

Afterwards, Tichy took a long, hot shower while Thing changed the bedding. He funnel-fed Marek and sat down for a nice meal with the boy still kneeling on the floor beside him with his head tilted back and his mouth still open. It occurred to Tichy as he enjoyed an after-dinner smoke that the boy's open mouth would make for a nice ashtray, but he didn't go there. If he burned the kid's mouth too badly there could be questions, and more importantly the boy's excellent cocksucking performances could degrade, and Tichy didn't want that to happen at all.

Tichy tied Marek to the bed again and covered him with a blanket after the boy washed up and cleaned himself. Tichy read some, then turned the light off. There was no reading, no TV, no skiing for Thing. The only upside was that the exhausted boy had a solid 12 hours to rest, but even as tired as he was, it was too early for Marek to sleep. His mind started to wander, but the boy didn't allow it. Wandering minds sometimes thought about bad things. He concentrated on obedience, and eventually fell asleep.

The next day, Tichy woke up before his alarm at 6:50 a.m., stretched, yawned, and rubbed his eyes. He wasn't angry with Marek anymore, but he had promised that the boy would be a Thing for one more day, and Tichy was done cutting him premature slack. It seemed only to stir up trouble with the kid when he did so.

He got out of the bed, went to take a piss, wash his hands, and brush his teeth. Afterwards, he returned to pull the blanket off Marek, revealing the boy's very stiff and angry-looking boner. Uh-oh. The boy's erection looked dangerous to Tichy. It had been over a week since Marek's whipping, and some five days since Ludmila had made him cum, and there had been plenty of edging since then. Tichy had a plan when it came to this all; the problem was that kind of a plan was not applicable for a Thing; it was invented and intended for a Wimp. Marek was going to have to last at least one more day and night as a Thing before he had the possibility of any sexual relief.

Yet even Tichy didn't relish the idea of brutally beating the kid for something he might be physically unable to avoid. Thing or not, he thought that maybe he should stuff the anti-wet-dream pants on the boy for the night, but that decision could be made far in the future. For now, he flicked the boy's cock with his finger, hard enough for Marek to jerk awake.

Marek awoke with a start and a surprised squeal as his penis sang out in sudden pain. His brain immediately processed where he was and who he was with. His heart rate was through the roof. What had he done? Had he had a wet dream? He knew he had been dreaming. The blood drained from his face, and he went pale. He looked down at his abdomen as Mr. Tichy began to untie him. He didn't see any signs of it. Why had the man hit his penis? Was it just to wake him up? Just to be mean? It seemed that way, and Marek almost slumped with relief. Ordinary cruelty from Mr. Tichy was better than what he dished out when Marek came without permission. Marek would take ordinary cruelty over that any day of the week.

Without speaking, Tichy untied the boy, dragged him to his feet, and steered him into the bathroom. He glanced at his watch, then waited almost half a minute in silence. It was a bit awkward, but he was making a point and was willing to stand there for a stretch of time to make it.

"Seven o'clock," he announced as the second hand made its way to the top. "Piss. Shit."

Marek peed easily enough, and although he wasn't sure if he could, he pushed. He strained and pushed, and somehow was able to defecate by force of will as opposed to need. He felt strange performing such a private bodily function in front of the man, but what secrets could he really keep from Mr. Tichy anymore? He had no secrets. Secrets led to thoughts. Thoughts led to plans, plans led to actions, actions led to punishments, and punishments led to pain. He was done with all that. There would be no secrets anymore. No thoughts. No plans. No actions. No nothing.

Tichy owned him. The man had made that much clear. This school owned him, too. It didn't matter anymore. Marek didn't care. He didn't care about any of it anymore. He would do whatever Tichy told him to do.

Tichy got a boner, but not from the smell or the act itself; in fact, he told Marek to wipe and flush rather in a hurry, but that level of obedience spoke to him. It was like a buzz to see the boy obey on command like that. It was like the first deep drag of cigarette smoke after a long day of not smoking. He looked at Marek. Were things finally sinking in with the kid? He bit his lip.

"Open wide, and grip the toilet seat," he commanded. "Hands off me and teeth off my cock. You can try to make it feel better with your tongue, but basically your role in this is just to let it happen. Let yourself be used, Thing," said Tichy as he pulled his boxer shorts down, causing his erection to bounce up and down before he aimed it at Marek's mouth, guided it in, and grabbed Marek's head firmly. He proceeded to skull-fuck the boy – literally using his face like fuck doll with no regard to the boy's gagging or breathing whatsoever.

Marek did what he was told. He didn't speak. He simply complied with whatever the man told him to do. Nothing mattered to him anymore. Mr. Tichy wanted him to wipe, so he wiped. He wasn't even embarrassed by it. His embarrassment didn't matter. He was nervous as he gripped the toilet seat, but he did it. His heart rate rose with fear and anxiety as Mr. Tichy told him to open his mouth, but he did that, too. There was no hesitation.

What followed was very hard on Marek. The man was rough. The boy concentrated on keeping his hands on the toilet seat. He gagged. His tummy heaved and roiled. He gagged again, nearly losing the contents of his stomach. He almost removed his hands, but he didn't. His hands gripped the seat on both sides with white-knuckle intensity. He moaned unhappily. This was very, very hard.

Tichy was relentless, making it hard for Marek to breathe. The man's cock forced its way into the boy's throat. It hurt to gag, perhaps from the funnel. Throughout it all, Marek kept his grip on the seat. About three minutes in, the boy finally gagged, causing stomach bile to explode from his nostrils and mouth. His eyes watered. He no longer could sneak breaths through his nose. He maintained his grip on the toilet seat although he desperately wanted to let go …

This would be Tichy's first cum of the day, and since he hadn't cum too late the evening before, or even that many times all yesterday, Marek got lucky. The boy was fortunate because Tichy really wasn't messing about. He was using Marek very much like the Thing he was – like an object. The kid's soft mouth was nothing but a useful fuckhole to Tichy, and its essential breathing function barely even registered on the scale of things that mattered to the man. It was a god-awful, brutal, and excruciating challenge for the kid, but the advantage was that Tichy was aroused so powerfully and rapidly by the act that it stunned even him to be as close to orgasm as he was. Perhaps he shouldn't have messed about before and should have gone straight to this. This was nice. This was exactly what he had wanted to do to young boys since his early teens, and finally he was doing it to this one without any concerns or reservations.

Marek couldn't breathe. His eyes were wet with choking tears, and they seemed to be blurring and fading, too. The boy couldn't really tell because the man's abdomen was right there, so close, that it made seeing difficult. Adding to all of that was the disorientation that came with having his head held tight while he was being skull-fucked.

As Marek clung to the toilet seat with his last bits of energy and determination, the man grunted and came, his cock spitting a thick, strong load of hot cum straight into the boy's throat. He pulled out, vaguely aware that Marek hadn't had a real chance to breathe for a dangerously long time. He slapped the vacant-eyed, drooling boy smartly on his cheeks to revive him and get his attention.

In the end, it was all Marek could do to hold the toilet seat with hands that had become claws even as his vision faded to black, and his world started to spin. When the man pulled out Marek's head slumped as he drooled saliva, bile, and cum from his mouth. He moaned as the man slapped him. His knuckles were white with effort.

"Clean up, Thing," Tichy commanded. "Come for breakfast – breakfunnel for you, anyway," the man chuckled at his own joke as he wiped his cock with a bit of toilet roll and pulled his boxer shorts back up. Leaving Thing to his own devices for a change, Tichy sauntered over to the kitchen. He wanted a coffee and a smoke after that. His balls still were tingling from the pleasure of mouthfucking a 12-year-old kid nearly unconscious. It had been so, so nice.

Idly, he wondered if bringing Marek to the school for personalized abuse perhaps was the best decision he ever had made in his entire life. He thought that perhaps it was. Indeed, it very likely was. Nothing could top this; of that he was quite sure. Nothing shy of a 24-7 live-in, no-limits torture slave, but Tichy would have to kidnap a disposable little gypsy boy for that, and as many times as he had thought about doing so, he hadn't been able to figure out a way make it work. Maybe he could pull that off when his parents died and left him the cottage with the basement carved directly into Jizera granite that could be converted into a soundproof, escape-proof torture chamber, but until then, the situation with Marek was just about perfect, or 99% of the way to perfect anyway. He couldn't torture the kid to the point of significant physical injury or disfigurement like he could with a little gypsy boy, but Tichy would take the current situation, and take it, and take it some more. The Moravian boy was cuter than a gypsy kid anyway, and could be hurt over and over again.

It took Marek a moment to release his grip and when he did finally let go, he slid to the floor and turned, gripping the toilet seat again as he faced it now. His back heaved as the boy cried. He spat and drooled into the bowl as his body shook. His eyes were bleary and wet. He cried some more, sobbing into the bowl he had cleaned not twenty hours before, as the tears ran down his cheeks and off.

After a couple of minutes, he was recovered enough to stand. He washed his face. He wasn't hungry, but he came to the kitchen anyway, quiet as a mouse and naked. He looked weary, even though he had just slept for several hours. It wasn't yet even 7:30 a.m.

Tichy was making damn sure that Marek did not enjoy being a Thing. He wanted Marek to retain a degree of gratitude for when he was allowed to be a Wimp. He made the boy kneel and jammed the large funnel right down his throat, then used it to feed Marek an oversize, gloopy mix of breakfast puree. He gave the kid some water to help soothe his throat afterwards, but that was only a small concession. Tichy drank his coffee, smoked, and ate. Afterwards, he tied the boy up and went out for a quick bit of exercise. This time, having learned from his mistake the night before, he grabbed his skis.

Marek did not like being a Thing. For that matter, he didn't like being Marek. Frankly, he didn't like being at all, but he was getting used to the funnel feedings. If he relaxed his throat and willed himself not to gag, the funnel was less painful. He was grateful when Mr. Tichy tied him up. He hoped the man would leave, which he did, and when he did, Marek did not allow himself to think. He did a pretty good job of it, too – not thinking, that is. He simply did not think about his situation. It was what it was for as long as it would be.

But the man eventually returned, and Mark's heart rate went through the roof again. The boy was finding that even complete obedience and the absence of rebellious thoughts did not help your situation when you were a Thing, but it didn't matter. He would do whatever the man wanted.

Tichy untied Marek soon as he returned to the flat and took a piss in the kid's mouth before making the boy use the bathroom and drink some water. Then he sat on the edge of the bed and started barking instructions. It had occurred to Tichy while he was skiing that even a Thing needed some exercise, and the man was going to make that happen right now.

"Rotate your arms, stretch your shoulders, head to the left, right, over, up, down. Lean forward. Back. Wiggle your hips," and so on until Marek was warmed up and stretched. Then came the drill.

"Ten squats. Chop, chop! Ten push ups! Chop, chop! Ten leg-raises! Ten sit ups! Ten squats. Pushup position, one arm, one minute, go go go, hold it, hold it, hold it, a minute! Your other arm now, go! Squats! Jumping jacks. Squats! Pushups, go … " there were no breaks between Marek finishing a set and the shouts that announced the next set of exercises. Anytime Marek seemed to slow down, there was always a "chop, chop," or "move it," or "hurry up!" to move the boy along.

Marek exercised as the man directed. He did everything. He followed every command as best he could. The one-armed pushup holds were difficult. He did them anyway. He was breathing hard and working up a sweat. He did everything and didn't question it. He didn't ask why. He didn't wish it would be over. He just did it. That's what he did now. He did whatever Mr. Tichy told him to do.

Mr. Tichy drilled Marek until the boy was sweaty, red-faced, hot, and totally breathless. The man drove him hard. It was exhausting. Marek was not in top shape. Too many days of no exercise had competed for control of his body from his formerly fit self. Normally, he might have welcomed the exercise, but there was no "normally" anymore. It didn't matter what he welcomed, or hated, liked, or disliked. There was only what Tichy told him to do, and he would do it until he dropped. And if the man worked him so hard that he dropped dead, that would be okay, too. In fact, that would be just fine, really. It truly would be.

Finally, the man allowed him to rest. Marek dropped straight to his hands and knees when the man was done with him. He panted and gasped from the floor, aware that he was a spectacle, but too tired to care. It didn't matter what he was. It just didn't matter anymore. He didn't care.

Tichy wasn't even surprised when the boy just collapsed on the spot, taking the last command literally. He probably had done, in total, close to a hundred of each of the exercises, nine or ten sets of pushups, squats, leg-raises, sit-ups, and jumping jacks, all in fast succession. Tichy left the boy to his rest and went to cook lunch. It was another funnel feed for Marek, nastier than before because there was some onion and sauerkraut, and the acidity didn't do his sore, irritated throat any good at all, but there was more water, too, and more rest.

Marek struggled to down his "lunch" and had heartburn afterwards. He never had heartburn, but whatever it was Mr. Tichy had given him didn't sit well. He fought it down. It went away. He remained kneeling on the floor where Mr. Tichy left him and kept his mind as blank as he could. For some reason he pictured chicken eggs. Brown ones, from his uncle's little farm. Brown chicken eggs. He concentrated on those.

After lunch, Tichy enjoyed some tea and Christmas cookies as he smoked and read a book. When he was sufficiently relaxed, he turned his attention back to the obedient, still-kneeling boy.

"Ass-fucking position!" he barked out of the blue. They were the first words he had spoken in more than two hours.

Marek nearly startled out of his skin. He moaned and broke out in goosepimples as he quickly went to hands and knees on the floor, with his legs spread, his butt up, his arms out, his head down, and his ass presented. His heart rate was through the roof as he suddenly was overtaken with anxiety.

Tichy lubed up properly and squirted some cream up Marek's butt. He inserted his cock two inches [5cm]; enough to cause pain with the sudden intrusion, but then pulled out, re-lubed, and went in an inch and a half [4cm] this time, before pausing, albeit briefly. He then proceeded to fuck Marek in the ass, but it was far slicker, slipperier, and smoother than the fuck from yesterday. There was less force. It was just a hump-hump-hump-hump kind of fuck, more than a pain-filled, punishment fuck.

Marek braced for pain. He knew it would come. There was no expectation that Mr. Tichy would ever be anything other than cruel to him now. That was okay. It didn't matter. Marek didn't let it get to him nor did he feel sorry for himself. The man would do what he wished to do, and Marek would do what he was told to do. That was fine. It truly was. The boy would not be resentful. It all started with resentment, which led to poor decisions, punishments, and pain. Marek would not allow it. Mr. Tichy would do what the man would do and that would be fine with Marek.

It hurt at first, but not as bad after that. It didn't matter. Either way was fine with Marek. Whatever the man wanted.

Tichy came after some fifteen minutes. One of the advantages of making Marek go regularly at a specific time was that he knew with fair certainty that there wouldn't be any shit in Marek's butt, and there wasn't. He pulled out his almost-clean cock.

"Suck me clean, Thing," he barked at the boy. "Then go clean up thoroughly and rest."

When it was over, Marek turned to clean. He did not look to see the condition of the man's cock. He simply licked it clean. He sucked it clean. He made sure it was clean. Mr. Tichy had told him to, and the truce had long since expired. Marek simply did what he had been told to do.

Afterwards, he cleaned and wiped. He washed his face. He brushed his teeth. He had been told to rest, so he did, or at least attempted to. He went to the pullout mattress and lay down on it. He curled up and closed his eyes. And only then, when he was pretty sure that the man wouldn't see or hear, did he allow himself to cry. He ended up crying himself to sleep, and as felt himself drifting off, he welcomed the departure. Sleeping was kind of like being dead. Unless he dreamed, nobody hurt him when he slept, and unless he had a wet dream, he couldn't get in trouble either.

Tichy mostly was keeping the act up out of stubbornness by that time, just proving an already proven point to ensure that Marek wasn't going to change his mind and rebel some more tomorrow. He let the kid sleep for a while, then woke him up for the evening ritual. He joylessly funneled food down the kneeling boy's throat at supper time for what he hoped would be the last time.

For Marek, it was yet another funnel meal. Mr. Tichy had said something about him becoming a wimp again sometime, and Marek thought it would be nice if he could eat without the funnel. He immediately reprimanded himself for the thought. He would eat with a funnel unless or until Mr. Tichy decided otherwise. Hoping for things was not his place and it inevitably led to resentment if he didn't get what he hoped for. Marek was as attuned to this weakness – this flaw in his character – as Mr. Tichy was. If he didn't allow himself to hope, he couldn't be disappointed. None of it mattered, anyway. It just didn't. Whatever Mr. Tichy wanted was what mattered. He would do whatever the man said.

With supper over, Tichy draped the kid across his lap for a Thing spanking. He wanted one more go at the boy before he put him to bed.

Marek hadn't done anything wrong – he was sure of it – but that didn't matter. And it truly didn't. He lay across the man's lap because that's what Mr. Tichy told him to do. Marek didn't let so much as a single, resentful thought enter his mind. Why was he being spanked? Because Mr. Tichy wanted to spank him. The rationale or reasoning didn't matter. The man proceeded to spank him, and it hurt. Marek cried and howled, but he tried not to think about it. It didn't matter.

After the spanking, Tichy sent Marek to piss and brush his teeth. He thought about just tying the kid up early like last night and ignoring him, but there was one more issue. He opened the drawer and pulled out the rough fleece shorts.

"I think that boner this morning was dangerous," he explained. "You've been trying hard, and I don't want you to fail when you're trying hard not to fail. You've been obedient, and you're on track to be promoted back to wimp again tomorrow. Cumming without permission would ruin that, so you're going to wear these," he said, this time not offering the shorts but simply announcing that he was putting Marek in them.

Marek eyed the shorts. They would be fine – welcome even. The boy worried about having a wet dream. He didn't want to have one. The truth was, he wished his stuff didn't work anymore. It was too risky, especially after … what had happened. Marek didn't like to think about it. He wasn't quite sure how he had survived it. He didn't want to repeat that, not ever, and if the shorts helped him to avoid having a wet dream, that would be great. He'd wear them every night. It was the one thing he couldn't control that Mr. Tichy expected him to. It was a big deal to the man. Marek once had thought it was a relatively minor part of his Mr. Tichy's plan for him, but he since had been taught otherwise.

The shorts were uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as a bullwhipping, so Marek was okay with wearing them, even though they were hot, itchy, and tight. They clung to the boy's skin and wouldn't budge. He'd probably chafe himself bloody if he tried to walk even half a mile in them. His cock was stuffed between two tight layers of fleece, pinned down. Even if Marek humped during his sleep, his cock wasn't going to benefit from any friction at all. It was going to itch, be too hot for comfort, and be compressed in a way that hurt more than slightly and discouraged it from erecting. Cumming with the shorts on, either on purpose or accidentally, was not a likely option.

As soon as the shorts were on, Tichy tied the boy with the familiar broom handle between his ankles, and his wrists joined together above his head affixed to the side of the headboard. The man then climbed into bed to read, even as Marek's discomfort briefly peaked before fading in intensity somewhat. The shorts were not meant as a torture device, and once the itching sensation subsided, it wasn't going to be impossible for the boy to sleep in them, and indeed, sleep came for the tormented boy eventually. Marek felt himself sliding into it. He welcomed the departure. He awakened several times during the night with the itchy, scratchy feeling of the garment, but then again, he had been sleeping naked for so long now that he probably would have woken up just from wearing underpants or pajamas again.

Tichy slept, too. When morning came, he silenced his alarm, went to take a piss and the usual, then proceeded to untie Marek and release the kid's pinkish-red butt and crotch from the fleece anti-cum pants. They obviously had worked, just as Tichy had known they would. Even a horny young boy couldn't possibly process the uneasy, tight, motionless pressure provided by the garment into a wet dream. It simply was too much work. The pants were too good to allow for an accident even in one's sleep, because even the unconscious, sleeping mind was simply too aware of them.

Marek said nothing as he was untied, but he wondered: Was he still a Thing? Mr. Tichy was following the same routine, so it seemed that he was, and that was okay. It was fine. The boy had no expectations. He wouldn't allow himself to have them.

Tichy yawned as he steered Marek towards the bathroom with only five seconds to spare before 7am.

"Piss and shit," he commanded simply.

Marek was able to pee, of course, but he was not able to shit, despite trying, despite pushing. He turned red with effort, but nothing came. His face immediately lined with worry, as he knew what that likely meant for him.

"Stand up, turn around," muttered Tichy, who already was reaching for the cream. "You and I are going to sit and talk, and you will be, almost certainly, promoted back to Wimp again. But we'll keep this little routine, to remind you, at least one time each day, really, really thoroughly, that you're very much not in control."

Marek stood and turned because that is what Mr. Tichy told him to do. He was finding, a bit to his surprise, that simply doing everything the man told him to do was easier than trying to find reasons to disobey the man. It was even easier than trying to find ways to cope. He just obeyed. Nothing else. No thoughts. No thinking. No conspiring.

As he had done before, Tichy stuffed a finger up Marek's butt and wiggled it. He added another finger and finally a third. He turned his hand a bit and began the same process as the day before yesterday. A bit to his surprise, even as the boy's irritated anus began to clench and contract in protest, nothing came at first. Maybe the funneled food was harder to digest then chewed food, or Marek was a bit constipated or something?

Marek winced as the man's finger went up his butt. Regardless of his new attitude, pain still hurt. It still was pain. And this did hurt. It hurt a lot, and Marek grunted. What was wrong? The man's fingers were killing him. He grunted again. He knew that he would have to endure this, but it hurt. He wished he had been able to go on his own. He'd forgotten how much this hurt. It really hurt. Tears came to his eyes. He was so fucking tired of crying all the time, but he tried to banish even that thought. What he was so fucking tired of didn't make any difference, and worse, thinking thoughts like that led to other thoughts, as well. He simply wouldn't allow them.

As with everything else he did with and to the kid, Tichy was determined now, and just kept on abusing the boy's sphincter until the poor kid's spasming belly pushed out soft, almost runny stool. Tichy barely managed to yank his hand out of the way in time to avoid contacting it. He wiped Marek, washed his hands thoroughly, then led the boy into the kitchen. Sitting down at the kitchen table, he pointed at the chair opposite him for Marek to join him.

Finally, it was over, and Marek gasped in relief. It felt like he had just been roughly fucked. His day was not off to a good start except for the part about him probably not being a Thing anymore. He didn't dare get his hopes up. He assumed he would remain a Thing. It was better to have no expectations.

Tichy made two cups of tea with milk and sugar and passed one to Marek. Marek watched the tea slide in his direction, clearly intended for him, and he nearly cried again, this time from the sheer, emotional relief that came with knowing that he would not be fed everything with a funnel. He managed to keep himself in check. He ended up giving no real reaction.

"Right," said the man as he eyed the impassive boy. "You can talk."

"I think I drove my point that things can be much worse for you than they previously were," the man began. "You know. I know. We both know. I don't feel a need to keep this up; it would be pointless cruelty and the entirety of my effort with you has a point, and so should the parts that it consists of. Therefore, because you've been good and obeyed, didn't fuss or resist, you're no longer a Thing. You can talk, walk around the flat freely, go back to the old routines. You can read and study – you really should do more of that before lessons and exams resume," he added ominously.

"You'll eat normal meals, and you'll sleep in the bed again and not tied," Tichy continued. "If you make a small mistake you'll be beaten or similarly punished for it, but it's no longer straight into the sack if you so much as sneeze. I hope you agree and appreciate that this is an improvement. And, since creating a lower degree for you proved so efficient, I'll think of creating a higher one, too. A grade above Wimp, something to aspire to, to help keep you motivated."

Marek listened carefully as Mr. Tichy spoke. The man told him that most of his privileges were being restored, most of his old routines. He didn't react. It was fine either way. He didn't really care. If he cared, it would mean that he was invested in any of this, that he had a position. He didn't want to have a position. He didn't want to have an angle. He just wanted to do what the man told him to do. He knew that there was a danger in having his privileges restored. He had gone down the wrong path with Mr. Tichy too many times. It could happen again unless he fought against the tendencies that had landed him in trouble before. He would fight against bad thoughts. He would not take his privileges for granted. He was done with that. Done with all of it. None of it mattered. He didn't care.

"Now, how about you borrow an apron and make us a nice breakfast? Scrambled eggs, a sausage each, toast? Can you manage?"

"Yes, sir," was all Marek said, at the end, to the man's various statements and his question. Otherwise, he really hadn't reacted much at all. He stood to do what the man had told him to do. He was pretty sure he could do it by himself.

"Was being a brat really the only spark you had in you?" asked Tichy as Marek stood and headed for the fridge. "You're acting like a zombie," the man complained. "How about a little gratitude, hmmm? You can be obedient and alive, Marek, just in case that hasn't occurred to you. For example, you can be happy that funnel feeds are over and that you have tea to drink and real food to eat. In fact, it would be nice if you recognized and appreciated the progress. That's what we're after, aren't we? Progress and change. So, stop acting like you are dead," Tichy huffed.

"Dead puppies aren't much fun. Not even dead fuck-puppies, Wimp. If you cheer up a little, I'll take you skiing. Not being a stubborn, rebellious little shit doesn't mean you can't prefer that over another stretch of time just lying on the mattress tied up in a silent, empty flat. Need I really state the obvious like that?" demanded the man, more than a little crossly.

Marek froze where he was as Mr. Tichy lectured him. As he listened to the man speak, he felt a constricting feeling starting to grow in his chest, and as the man continued – his voice sounding angrier now – the suffocating feeling grew, numbing Marek, causing his blood to run cold in his veins and his skin to break out in goosepimples. Mr. Tichy didn't understand. Marek couldn't do what he asked, not and do the other things the man demanded. The boy felt like he couldn't breathe. Mr. Tichy couldn't do this to him. Marek had to concentrate on obeying. The boy didn't want to think about anything else. Thinking was what got him in trouble. Thinking led to punishments. Thinking led to pain. Thinking led to the sack. The man had to understand that. He simply had to.

Marek turned to face the man he feared more than any person living or dead. The boy's face was pale. He wanted to explain to the man how he had coped these last two days, but how could he explain it? He didn't have the words. It wasn't something he could say. It was something he felt. The numbness. Keeping his mind … unoccupied with thoughts.

He had to keep doing that. He had to, or Mr. Tichy would hurt him, beat him, torture him, and sack him. Didn't the man understand? Didn't he understand how hard Marek was trying?

Mr. Tichy was angry. Marek could tell. It was the last thing the boy wanted.

"I'm sorry, sir," he said. He wanted to explain, but he didn't have the words.

"Good," said Tichy, sensing the boy wanted to say more, not sure if he couldn't or didn't dare, and for once he didn't push him. "Make breakfast for now. We will work on your indifference soon. It's all part of the process; you needed to stop being an enemy of the people, an obstacle to the process to start with, but you will have to participate in a lively, active fashion to make further progress, like it or not, as scary as that may sound," added Tichy as he leaned back to watch Marek put on the apron and cook.

"Make me a coffee, too," he nodded towards the mocha pot. He could have commanded Thing to do these things, too, but keeping the chores more varied, nicer, and sort of more responsible for wimp level seemed kind of intuitive, something that Tichy slipped into without even thinking it through.

Marek exhaled a sigh of relief as the man … relented. He resumed his journey to the kitchen on the man's next instruction, because that was what he did: He obeyed Mr. Tichy. But the man kept speaking after him, and his words were ominous to the boy. His indifference? He wasn't trying to be indifferent; he simply was obeying. He was finally obeying, just as Mr. Tichy had wanted him to do all along. He wasn't being oppositional anymore. Marek was beyond that. He just didn't care anymore.

The boy donned the apron as he worried about what the man had said. He just wanted to obey. He had given the man everything he wanted. He didn't care about going home anymore – he lived here now, at the internat. He didn't care about seeing anyone from Vacenovice; they simply didn't matter anymore. He wouldn't try to get away. He wouldn't fight Mr. Tichy, not even in his secret thoughts. He didn't care about any of that anymore. He didn't care about skiing or those things. He just wanted to obey the man. That's all he wanted to do.

He started on the breakfast. He remembered how the coffee pot worked and he got it going. He prepared eggs, sausages, and toast. He busied himself. He kept his mind away from anything bad, but Mr. Tichy's words kept coming back to haunt him. How could he explain to the man that he wasn't meaning to be indifferent, but that he just didn't care about anything anymore except being obedient?

Tichy stopped yapping; there was only so much to say on the matter, and he already had an idea of how to get a satisfying response from the boy, anyway. He accepted his coffee, then his breakfast. He ate, and encouraged Marek to eat, too. For the first time in days, the kid had solid food to eat with cutlery, from a plate that was on a table. This had to be much better for the kid than a gag-inducing funnel tip and the awful sensation of glop sliding down into his gullet. There was water and even some juice. It was nice stuff.

Marek finished cooking breakfast. Everything went well. He was pleased with his performance, and he hoped that Mr. Tichy was, too. Cooking breakfast was not just a matter of obeying; it took skill, and things could have gone wrong. They hadn't, and the boy was relieved. Despite himself, he enjoyed eating real food and having a real meal. It tasted good, and better yet it went down the normal way.

Afterwards, Marek cleaned up. Everything seemed normal – just two human beings in a kitchen. Tichy even turned on the radio and cheery music penetrated the silence of the flat.

"Go shower," he told Marek when the kid was finished cleaning. "Take a nice, long, hot shower. Soap, shampoo, dry yourself after, meet me in the bedroom," the man commanded as he gulped down the rest of his coffee and then walked out of the kitchen. This was going to be fun, or at least interesting.

Marek cleaned himself, obeying the man and taking a good, long time with it, too. The long shower felt nice, but all the while Marek knew that he had to meet the man in the bedroom. Sex would happen. Further interaction would happen, but the boy vowed to be obedient and not slip up. He prepared himself mentally for it. When he was all dried off – his hair a bit akimbo but smelling clean and fresh – he entered the bedroom and climbed up on the bed for more sex.

For all the kid's newfound obedience, Tichy still had a bone to pick with Marek. Giving up entirely and not caring anymore were not going to work with the man in the long term. He pulled Marek onto the bed face up and guided his arms up to vulnerably expose his sides and soft, hairless armpits. He made Marek spread his legs apart and then began to touch him, gently and softly stroking that young, perfect skin, gliding over those tight, athletic muscles. He massaged Marek's inner thighs a little more firmly, trying to conjure up an erection before he even touched the boy's cock. He touched Marek sensually and intensely, lowering his lips to the boy's neck, throat, collarbones, and ears, teasing his smooth flesh, softly breathing on it, and even kissing along the way.

Marek didn't know what to expect as the man pulled him into the bed, positioning him the way he wanted him. The boy was nervous, not because he thought Mr. Tichy intended to hurt him, but because this would be their first interaction like this since the boy had stopped being a Thing. Marek just wanted it to go well. If they were back to three orgasms a day and the rules posted on the door, Marek wanted to do them well. He wanted to abide by them. He wanted to obey. He was all about obeying now.

The man started to touch him. Gently. Lightly. Marek was taken aback. Even when he had been a wimp before, this kind of contact had been rare. Goosepimples broke out on his body. He kept his arms where the man had placed them even as Mr. Tichy began to kiss and mouth his body, touching and tantalizing him. Marek fought his arousal, but it happened anyway, and soon he was erect. His penis went from soft to rock-hard under the man's ministrations and now levitated from his groin. The boy had a need, and it was obvious what it was. It had been several days, maybe even a week since his last cum. His mind drifted back to Ludmila. Her mouth on his cock had felt so, so nice …

But he couldn't let his mind wander. He willed his erection to go down – he couldn't cum, anyway. What was the point? Yet despite his efforts, it didn't work. Marek's cock remained hard. It was very, very hard.

Tichy smiled, but even once Marek's cock was obviously and solidly erect, he didn't hurry to touch it. He toyed with the boy's hard nipples, kissed his shoulders and the sides of his chest, and traced lightly over his arms All were areas that could be ticklish, but he was careful that his touch wasn't. His fingers teased the boy's taint, massaged where his cock and balls met his body, and gently toyed with his sack.

They were long, gliding strokes, like Tichy was playing a sad, slow violin song. He touched the boy's neck, chest, and belly, his hand only barely brushing Marek's cock before it returned to those areas again, then another light brush of his cock, seemingly accidental once again. Then Tichy reached for the cream, made his hand very slick and oily with it, and gripped Marek's cock and began to stroke it, all with a teasing smile on his lips. He used a firm-but-slow grip with almost no continual motion, his other hand moving in as he straddled the boy's legs, getting on top, one hand slowly wanking Marek and the thumb of the other slowly circling over his piss slit. All the while, Tichy smiled at the boy in a cocky, enigmatic way.

Marek gave up trying to make his erection go away. It wasn't going to happen, and he didn't really want it to, anyway. His entire body felt good. The man's touch was sensuous and erotic. For once Marek was the recipient of the kind of pleasure that he so often was required to give to others. Mr. Tichy rarely let him cum, and even that memorable time in his office when Marek thought he had shot a gallon of cum into the man's hand, the boy had been the one doing the work, humping away as he rode Mr. Tichy's cock. That had been the best orgasm the boy had ever had, but the closest he had come to something like this was when Ludmila had serviced him with her mouth down in the laundry. When Ludmila blew him, he had just been the passive receiver of pleasure. He had not lifted a finger to help her. That one had felt good as well, even though the pleasure had come from an inexperienced girl.

This was a different and much better. Mr. Tichy wasn't requiring him to do anything except lie there. Marek's penis was so hard. He wished the man would touch it, and then he did. Marek's mouth went slack at the sensation. It felt better than good just like that, oh, yes. Oh, wow. Marek barely knew that his eyes had closed with pleasure, but he opened them fearfully again as Mr. Tichy straddled him, only to find that the man's only intention was to continue his gentle squeezing and stroking of the boy's penis.

The man seemed to know exactly what he was doing. Mr. Tichy's hands felt infinitely better than anyone else's hands ever had, including Marek's own. The boy knew right then that he was going to cum if the man didn't stop. He could feel the wave of pleasure building in his loins. He wanted to cum so bad. Would Mr. Tichy let him? If he did, it was going to be an explosion, a waterfall, a fire-hydrant. Or would the man stop just shy, leaving the boy almost in pain with need?

Was he allowed to cum? Was he not allowed to? There were so many rules, but for once Marek didn't think Mr. Tichy was setting him up to violate one of them. If the man kept doing what he was doing right now, Marek would be cumming inside of a minute. Marek looked up to see the man smiling oddly. His look was a bit disconcerting to the boy, but what could he do? Should he warn Mr. Tichy how close he was? Maybe this was a test of obedience. From the look on the man's face, Marek thought that perhaps it was.

"Sir," the boy said while trying not to gasp. "I'm gonna cum."

Tichy shook his head.

"No, you're not," he declared, "at least not if you don't want me to take the whip to your balls again," he added. He continued wanking the boy, going no slower. "You seem to have lost the capacity to care, Marek, so either you'll manage not to care that your cock is being wanked, or you'll not care when I whip you bloody and black and blue and then strap you into your sack to heal. How long did that take the last time? About five days?" said Tichy with a nonchalant shrug as he squeezed Marek's cock harder. He paused for moment, then resumed stroking once again. Perhaps his grip was a little less firm this time, and perhaps he went a bit more slowly, but only minutely so.

"I am feeling generous today, Marek, but not really in the face of your I-don't-care-act," explained Tichy. "If you truly don't care about anything, then I'm sure you won't care what happens if you cum," said the man darkly. "Or maybe you do care?" he asked, as he stopped his wanking motion while squeezing Marek's cock even harder and looking the boy directly in the eyes.

Marek's heart rate immediately shot into panic territory as Mr. Tichy revealed that he wasn't allowed to cum after all. The man was setting him up to fail hard, but why? The boy had no idea what he had done. He didn't even understand what the man was telling him, but he knew that he was frightened. The man was masturbating him close to orgasm but telling him that he would be whipped bloody if he had one. It seemed that Mr. Tichy was angry at him again. Marek was confused and stunned. What was going on? What was he doing wrong? He had done everything the man asked. Absolutely everything. He hadn't had a single bad thought, not one. He had banished them from his brain.

What did Mr. Tichy mean when he accused Marek of having an I-don't-care act? The boy knew he had better figure this out soon or he was going to have a major problem on his hands. The man had gone from oddly friendly and sensuous to sinister and threatening in the span of five seconds. The boy tried to sort it out, but he had no idea. He had been trying hard to be good. His face was flushed with consternation as Mr. Tichy stroked him.

The man asked him if he cared, but Marek still didn't have a clue. Did he care if Mr. Tichy whipped him bloody again? Of course, he cared. He cared about avoiding pain.

"Mr. Tichy … I'm do- I'm trying. I'm really trying. I'm trying as hard as I can. I don't know what you want me to do," the boy gasped. He was near tears again, both from fear and frustration. Nothing he did ever was right with the man. He didn't know how to be any better or more obedient than he was being.

"There's my fuckpuppy," said Tichy. "That's more like it, said with feeling," encouraged the man with a smile as he eased his grip on Marek's cock and slowed his stroking. "Trying is good, but when I knock and no one's home — c'mon, Marek. Even you must be aware how annoying that is, right?"

"Tell me, what's your strategy for not cumming without permission?" asked Tichy. "Describe to me what you'll try and do now," said the man as he continued to masturbate the boy slowly but methodically. "What's your plan to keep yourself out of horrible, awful trouble?" he asked with a cocked eyebrow. "Come on, let's have a bit of honesty for a change," Tichy encouraged. "I won't beat you quite the same as before or keep you in the sack for multiple days if you cum, but I do want you to resist it. I'm instructing you not to cum, so tell me what your plan is. How are you trying to obey me?" Tichy seemed genuinely interested in knowing. He also seemed more relaxed, as if the worst spike of his anger already was fading.

The man's anger may have subsided somewhat, but Marek's anxiety level still was through the roof. He didn't know what he had done to bring Mr. Tichy down from his height of anger any more than he knew what he had done to get him there in the first place. The boy's head was spinning. What was going on? Marek was so scared that he didn't need a coping strategy for not cumming without permission. His brain had already redirected blood to the muscles and areas that it seemed to need it most right now, and that most definitely was not his penis. He was in fight or flight mode, no longer in danger of orgasming. The feeling was gone. The pleasant arousal from Mr. Tichy's stroking was long gone. It had been replaced by fear and uncertainty.

What had he done wrong? Marek simply didn't know. The man seemed to be interpreting his obedience as indicating that he didn't care anymore, but … it wasn't that way at all. He cared about obeying. He just wasn't allowing bad thoughts and hopes and expectations to get him in trouble. He wasn't being indifferent; he just didn't care about anything except avoiding trouble and pain.

Was that what the man meant? Was he saying that he wanted Marek to care abut something else? What did the boy have to care about? Mr. Tichy wanted him to be obedient and – what? – like what was being done to him? Like his life? Like the school? Enjoy his time here? Look forward to things? Revel in being fried like a chicken cutlet?

Really?

Marek realized then that he never could win with the man. Never. Nothing he did ever would be enough, but the truth was, he truly didn't care. He just didn't care anymore. Tichy could beat him until he couldn't stand anymore, and the blood dripped from his body like a faucet, and he still wouldn't be able to make Marek care. The boy couldn't go home. He couldn't see his family or friends back home. He had no friends here. Everyone here hated him, and that was just the backdrop to his life. His main problem was he had a psychopath punishing, hurting, torturing, and frying him daily, yet he was supposed to care about his life? This place? He was supposed to look forward to that? He was supposed to care about any of it?

Marek knew that he couldn't wallow in self-pity. He didn't have that luxury. He still had the man's questions to answer, and he would try to answer them. Regardless of what Mr. Tichy said, he wasn't going to be resentful and get himself into trouble. He simply fucking wasn't, not this time.

"I think about other things," he replied to the man's question. "I think about … when you- if you hurt me. Whip me or cane me, or something." The truth was, Marek had a lot of ways to try to hold off and a lot of horrible things the man did that incentivized him to do so. He just didn't want to list them all and give the man any ideas.

"Thinking about pain and fearing it seems to be doing the job," nodded Tichy, giving the boy's softening cock a squeeze. "Breathe now. Relax. I'm going to make you cum. And you're allowed to," said the man as he ran the fingers of his left hand through Marek's hair. He wanked the kid's cock a bit more vigorously as he smeared cream onto his own cock, then sat down on the bed. He pulled Marek up, guided the boy into a straddle position facing away, and let him slowly sink down onto the man's erection.

"Shhhhh," said Tichy to stop Marek from speaking or becoming anxious. "Shhhhh. I get it. I get it now. But for this once, for now, you can relax. I'm going to make you cum, as much as you like and maybe even more, as a celebration of your good behavior and your promotion back to wimp. You did well. And it's impressive that you have that much control," said Tichy soothingly as he adjusted the kid's position and let Marek sink even deeper onto his cock. Tichy remained sitting as he wrapped himself around Marek, hugging the boy.

"Breathe," instructed the man. "Relax. You've earned this." He wasn't sure if the boy really had, and he wasn't at all sure that Marek fully understood that cutting himself off from all desire and becoming a robot wasn't going to cut it long term, but Tichy wanted the kid to relax and enjoy this. He certainly was pleased that the Marek was so broken that he could very nearly lose a boner on command. That was a sure sign of progress in the kid's rehabilitation and training.

"Relax, and breathe," he told the boy as he reached between their legs and used his re-lubed hand to masturbate the boy slowly and sensually. Marek was impaled on his cock and wrapped in a tight one-armed hug. "You're safe," he reassured the youngster. "You have my permission to cum with no consequences."

Marek was confused. Confused wasn't even the right word. He was bewildered. The man had gone from smiling goofily, caressing him, and jerking him off nicely, to angry and threatening to hurt the boy in horrible ways if he came, then back to friendly, sweet, and nice again and giving him permission to cum. Marek's head was spinning. If Mr. Tichy was trying to drive him insane, he was doing a good job of it. And now, after all of that, the man wanted him to relax, as if none of it even had happened.

Marek couldn't help but conclude that the man was stark, raving mad. Sure, he would relax. Easy. Not five minutes after the man had threatened to make him cum without permission so he could whip the boy bloody and throw him in the sack, now he was supposed to relax, breathe, and cum. It was nuts.

Marek did relax, probably not in the way Mr. Tichy wanted him to, but instead because he just didn't care anymore. The boy had given up trying to make sense of it all. As the man's cock slid inside him for the millionth time, Marek just let it happen. All that mattered was that the man seemed content again, his volcanic temper appeased. Marek only wished he could understand what had happened, but at the end of the day, it simply didn't matter. He breathed. He "relaxed." He closed his eyes. He was so confused now that he wasn't even sure whether he was or wasn't allowed to cum, but it seemed like the needle had swung back to was. Whether it would return to was not with another mood shift from the man remained to be determined.

The kid's heart was beating like a drum in his chest, but he closed his eyes and stopped fighting the sensation. The man's slick hand felt so good. Marek's cock stopped softening, turned the corner, and began to stiffen once again. It wasn't quite as nice as before, but it still felt good. Soon, Marek again was hard with need.

Reassured by the boy's obedience, Tichy slowed things down a bit. The man still hadn't decided exactly what to do about Marek's zombie act, but the kid seemed alive enough in his fear and arousal, and that would do for now. If he didn't snap out of it soon, however, Tichy was going to have to hurt him again, that much was certain. Under no circumstances would Marek be allowed be absent for his own rehabilitation, and Tichy has plenty of painful means at his disposal to make the boy care. Zombie boy was heading down a path that would not end well for him if he kept it up, but for now, Tichy had other plans.

"Good boy, good boy," he repeated. "You try hard, and I appreciate that. You shared your thoughts, honestly enough it seemed, and I accept that. Now you're safe. I promise, for this little stretch of time, here, now, you're safe. You really are," he whispered into Marek's ear. "I don't want you to think of pain and awful stuff, not anymore. Just breathe deep, take some deeeeep, long breaths for me," he said as the boy began to comply. "Deeper, Marek. Make Longer, slower. Just like that. Yeah. Deep. Ssssssssssss. Ooooooooooooof. Sssssssssssss. Oooooooooooof. There," said with a smile as he kissed the back of Marek's hair and slowed his wanking motion even more.

Tichy repositioned himself, shifted, and leaned back until his erection was pressing against Marek's prostate, then pumped his hips a few times, just to give it a rub; his cock was embedded much too deep in the kid's ass to poke at it. He gave the boy's cock another squeeze, controlling Marek's pleasure just as he controlled everything else in the kid's life. Whether it was fear, pain, shitting, pissing, or enjoyment, he was in complete charge of the boy, and he got off on that power. For the most part, he enjoyed hurting Marek and forcing the boy to bend to his will, but right now, Tichy felt magnanimous.

He also wasn't in a hurry. He ran his thumb sensuously over the boy's piss slit as he squeezed Marek's slender, 12-year-old shaft. He was squeezing the boy's cock more than stroking it now, even as he shifted his hips to rub Marek's prostate once again, awakening deeper, forced, non-cock-based arousal in the boy. He didn't want Marek's next cum to be a wet dream, which might eventually have happened even with the special pants on, so he was going to let the boy experience the pleasure of an unconditional orgasm now.

The man's soft words and sensuous touch affected Marek. He began to relax and breathe more deeply as he lost himself in what was happening. It wasn't just that it felt good. The boy still longed for tenderness and love, and even though the person providing a semblance of that right now was his psychopathic torturer, the 12-year-old might well have closed his eyes and succumbed to the touch of an actual monster right now just to feel some tenderness and something other than hatred and pain. The boy knew that he was letting his guard down and he feared screwing up, but he was being obedient – Mr. Tichy had told him to relax, breathe, and let it happen, and that's exactly what he decided to do.

Marek closed his eyes. It was oh, so nice. Not just the man's hand on his cock – that felt good, of course – but all of it – the touch, the closeness, the stroking, the tenderness. The man had never been this way with him before. There had been occasional moments of tenderness that confused the boy – a snuggle here, a kiss there, and that time in Mr. Tichy's office when Marek's cock had shot like a champion, exploding into the man's fist with pleasure – but it had never been as tender, prolonged, and nice as this.

Marek knew that he was fooling himself by succumbing to the man's touch, but he was perfectly willing to be fooled. He thought of his mother, which he knew was perverted and weird, but Mr. Tichy was being gentle and maternalistic in a way that reminded the boy of home. The funny thing was that because of her struggles with depression, even his own mother didn't caress him, kiss him, or show him affection like this, but she did love him, and the boy was starved for any kind of affection.

Marek's head still was spinning from what had happened, and he wasn't sure if he was in trouble or not, but he didn't care. This was nice, even if it lasted five minutes. It was nice, and Marek could pretend that it was real. He could pretend, and he did pretend. His penis felt nice. Mr. Tichy was making it feel good. Even the man's cock in his bottom felt good. Marek assumed he was a poof by now and had been made that way by the man, so he wasn't even put out by that or weirded out by the pleasure the man was giving him there. For the moment, Marek was at peace, breathing deeply with his eyes closed. He felt safe. As weird as it was given who he was with, he felt safe.

Tichy was blind to some things; certain nuances escaped him. He could have been an outstanding commie cop because his deductive and observational skills truly were exceptional, but he was rather a shit teacher. He wasn't empathic. He could force boys to perform like puppets for him, but he had trouble seeing the world through their eyes. This moment was an exception to that general rule. Something was happening between him and Marek that felt mutual, and that was more than a bit confusing for the man. Tichy wasn't entirely sure what was happening. Certainly, there was something satisfying and God-like in being able to shape the boy's reality as easily as he could. Marek was so incredibly vulnerable, so susceptible to the man's shifting personas. Tichy could be an awful and terrifying god one moment, and then – even if only rarely – soft , tender, caring, and maternal in another.

The man never would admit it out loud – he probably never would even allow himself consciously to think the thought – but he liked something about being all maternal, comforting, and womb-like with the boy, his arm wrapped warmly and softly around him, giving the kid just enough pleasure to keep him aroused, and work him oh-so-agonizingly slowly and ever so patiently towards an orgasm. But for now, he would go slowly with whatever he was doing. Very, very slowly.

Tichy really tried to feel into the situation, but what he couldn't comprehend cognitively, his body instinctively knew. His body could read Marek. It could feel the boy's stiffness and warmth, feel his bottom clenching with need as the child came closer to orgasm. That's when Tichy slowed down even more. He eased off even more to almost nothing, but he didn't quite stop. He was in a perfect position to build Marek's pleasure more slowly than he ever had with any boy before, and for once he wasn't even doing it as a form of torture. A part of him deeply loved this mix of power and closeness with the broken, obedient boy, and the sheer intimacy of the act was intoxicating. He wanted to make it last.

He edged Marek and edged him some more. He moved his hips even though it wasn't easy in his position, moving his cock slowly inside the child's ass. He hugged Marek for some three, four minutes, barely squeezing the boy's penis while undulating to keep himself erect. He rocked, stroked, and hugged the boy, lost in the beauty of intimacy they were sharing. Somehow, without planning or intention, this tease-and-fuck session had turned into lovemaking, and Tichy had sunk too deeply into it to fight it. Ever so slowly, he began to stroke Marek's cock once again.

Marek's eyes were closed, and he felt perfectly relaxed. He felt oddly, weirdly, safe. The man had enveloped him with his body, tightly, almost like a cocoon, but there was no "it" this time, and he let himself go . The intimacy of their coupling contributed to a sense of serenity that passed over the boy. He would not open his eyes. He refused to. He feared that if he opened them, the moment would pass – this blissful, serene, comforting moment would pass – and he didn't want it to.

The boy absolutely was starved for positive attention and affection. Truly. He hadn't had a tender moment since he had left for the school over four months before. Then he had hugged his mother. His aunt. His uncle had patted his head. They all had wished him well. They loved him – even his uncle, perhaps, in his own way – but since that moment, no tender touch nor even a kind word had come his way. He hadn't spoken to his mother. She had not written. She was facing her own demons and Marek knew that, but when she was that way, she could not show him any love or affection at all.

Mr. Tichy was showing him that now, and it was nice. In that moment, Marek gave himself fully to the man whom he simultaneously despised, feared, and worshipped. He reveled in the man's embrace and touch, not caring if it was real or fake, not caring that it never could be permanent. Right now, it was something. It was more than something. Marek needed it more than even he knew. The physical pleasure merged with a sense of emotional peace and tranquility. Marek refused to open his eyes for fear that it would disappear, and when the man began stroking him again, he placed his hand gently on the man's forearm, resting it there, as if willing him to continue and giving him the boy's permission to do so.

Tichy kept at it. He knew enough about penetration, pleasure, and the giving and denying of it to be able to stop thinking for the moment and operate just on instinct. He rocked his hips harder and harder; it was a bit of a workout in this position, but he liked doing it. He did it gently enough to stay wrapped around the boy, at least with one arm. He normally would have batted Marek's hand away quite sharply, but he didn't mind it where it was now. He kept the pleasure coming, like a slow drip of nice feeling. He also maintained an undulating, pressing, rocking, rolling motion against Marek's prostate, accomplishing something with the boy that wouldn't have felt comfortable weeks ago, but Marek had been prepped more than enough by now to yield, and yield he did.

Marek had never felt anything quite like this before. The closeness, the intimacy, the passivity of it – all were firsts for him. His eyes remained closed as Mr. Tichy gently fucked him and simultaneously embraced and stroked him. The presence of the man's cock deep inside his rectum enhanced the feelings of closeness and intimacy. If it had been up to Marek, he would even have chosen to have Mr. Tichy's cock inside him at that moment, because it seemed like it needed to be there for everything to be as perfect as it was. And it was perfect. It was perfect on so many levels and in so many ways. It was transformatively perfect in the way it set a new bar for this kind of thing.

Marek didn't have to do anything this time. The boy could simply relax and surrender to the sensations that just kept on coming as the man simultaneously stroked and fucked him. When his stroking hand felt a little tacky, Tichy paused ever so briefly just to re-lube; it was the briefest of interruptions for the boy, followed by the renewed sensation of the man's slick hand and fingers gently squeezing and stroking his cock once again. When he needed to lubricate his own erection, Tichy gently lifted the boy's hips and reached for the cream. He wanted for once to be able to glide and slide freely inside Marek without hurting the boy. When he was ready once again, he lifted Marek's slight form and let the boy sink down gently impaling himself once again while the man rolled his hips back and pushed upward, deeper into the warmth and tightness of the 12-year-old's rectum.

Marek could feel a wonderful awesomeness in his loins now, like the glow of shimmering lights underwater. It felt amazing, and the boy knew he was going to cum and die of pleasure during the act, and that would be okay. He wouldn't care if it happened because nothing would ever match this moment, this awesomeness, ever again. It was already like a dream that couldn't be happening for real. Yet it was. It most amazingly was.

Tichy simply forgot to have an agenda. He wasn't doing this to tease or torment the boy, but he kept on going naturally, and it turned out in this case that naturally meant slowly. Very slowly. But once he reached a certain pace, about a stroke every two seconds, he didn't slow down anymore. He didn't take it to an absurd extreme. He kept at it as he began to feel Marek's cock twitch in his hand. He paused and squeezed it. He paused again and squeezed again. He paused and stroked, paused and squeezed.

"Take a deep breath, Marek," Tichy whispered to the boy. "It's okay. You can cum. I'm going to help you. Just breathe for me first. Let me feel you breathe," he demanded. Tichy waited for Marek to gulp a decent lungful of air before resuming the stroking, but this time he was going to make it happen. He could feel Marek's anus clenching around his cock as the boy approached orgasm, and he could feel the youngster's cock twitching in his hand, but this time he didn't stop.

Marek did the breaths. He breathed deep – ridiculously, almost-passing-out deep – which somehow seemed to boost the amazing sensations he felt on the shaft and head of his penis as well as deep in his loins. Oh, fuck. Marek strained. He contorted. He clenched. He fought the urge to cum not out of fear this time, but out of a desire to see just how fucking intense an orgasm could be.

And then he just let go. The tension left his body as his cock fucking exploded with pleasure, jetting six ropey, spurting, jets of semen wherever it fucking wanted to go. It was blissful. Amazing. It was the best cum he had ever had, bar none. He felt every spurt while squeezing and clenching every bit of pleasure out of his orgasm that he possibly could.

Tichy kept right on going with determined strokes until Marek's cock spurted, decorating the child's taut belly with cum. As soon as Marek finished spurting, Tichy stopped stroking so as not to ruin the sensation for the boy, but he maintained a firm grip on his erection and added a squeeze to ensure the boy could feel all the pleasure he could as his slender hips bucked and flinched.

Marek was in bliss. Wow. Had this just happened? The boy wasn't sure. He still hadn't opened his eyes for fear that he had imagined it all and the torment of his real life would return. He didn't want it to. He wanted to stay like this forever, with his penis tingling, his tummy coated with cum, and the man's erection in his bottom. If only he could. If only he could.

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