Zelamir

Another Country

Chapters 21-

Nicky felt strange toiling along behind Jason and the two men up the steep rough track out of the deep valley at the bottom of which the farmhouse stood. It was the first time that he had been allowed any clothing since Mister Toby had stripped him for the cane in his London flat goodness how many days ago. Indeed, it might, so far as Nicky was concerned, have been weeks or months ago for he had lost all track of time.

Of course the tiny fragment of flimsy cloth that so tenuously covered his nakedness was hardly to be compared to Jason's shorts, t-shirt and hundred quid plus trainers but even that, after so long a period of nakedness, felt strange. Somehow it made him more aware of his body, an awareness sharpened by memories of Mister Toby's comments and exploring hands. Previously he felt things through his body, the sun warm on his bare shoulders, the water cold about his ankles as he forded the shallow stream at the bottom of the valley. Now he was conscious of it almost as though it was a separate thing and aware of it as something that might interest, even excite others.

His bottom, though that was the part of his body of which he was at that most acutely aware was not the only thing that Nicky was conscience of at that moment. His mind was, as it often was a jumble, of conflicting impressions the and emotions that competed for his attention. At some time one, individually or combined with others, might come to predominate; it might be the pain of the sharp stone chippings bruising his bare feet, the ache in his legs as he struggled to climb the hill, the pain in his lungs as he fought for breath, the cramps in his shoulders and neck as he balanced the cool box with its five two litre plastic bottles of water on his head. At the moment though it was none of these nor any of the other discomforts that afflicted or distracted him, whether it was the heat in the airless lane with the sun beating in between its high banks and dry stone walls, the flies buzzing round his head and crawling over his sweat drenched body, the sick dread that filled him with the certain prospect of feeling the cane's bite across his bottom.

Blinking his eyes to try to keep out the flies crawling over his face Nicky, labouring under the weight of the load balanced on his head, tried desperately not to fall further behind Jason and the two men striding up the hill ahead of him. Unencumbered by any burden they were setting a good pace and it was all he could do, or perhaps, as he was beginning to suspect rather more than he could do to keep up with them. Spurred on however by fear of a further dose of the cane beyond that already promised he struggled on despite his aching legs and lungs as they drew slowly further and further ahead.

Nicky had fallen a good fifty yards behind by the time they reached the gate in the pine wood at the top of the hill where the two cars, Toby's little blue fiesta and Bill's Land Rover Discovery, were parked

"Come on Nicky," Jason shouted, "hurry up you idle little turd. Get your useless arse up here slut. Don't keep us waiting. We're thirsty"

Nicky forced himself into a shambling run and staggered forward. Sinking to his knees on the dirt track he waited for the cool box to be lifted from his head.

Relieved from his burden he crouched exhausted in the dust dragging air into his aching lungs as the Jason and the two men stood chatting together passing the water bottle between them.

Suddenly he felt his head pulled back and found himself looking up into Mister Toby's face.

"Let him have a couple of mouthfuls of water before we set off," Toby ordered, "and then put him in the dog cage in the back"

"Not too much though," he added hastily after Jason had stepped forward to hold the open bottle to the kneeling boy's mouth, "it'll only make him sick if you let him have too much all at once."

Water spilled down over his chin and chest as the bottle was wrenched away.

He was bundled into the Range Rover a hand on his bottom forcing him face forward on his hands and knees into the cage. The door clanged shut behind him with a loud click as the catch locked.

He felt the car rock slightly. Doors slammed, the engine growled into life. Through the tinted glass windows at the back of the Discovery he watched the pine trees slip by. There was a short check. The car rocked once more as Nicky clambered aboard having shut the gates at the top of the farm lane.

Then the Range-Rover was once more in motion initially bumping gingerly along a length of rough track and then gathering pace as Bill swung out onto the surfaced road.

The cage wasn't it seemed to Nicky too bad. Provided he stayed on his hands and knees, there was plenty of room in it. That is not to say that he would not have preferred to be where Jason was, sitting at his ease on the back seat of the vehicle rather hunched up in a smelly dog's cage. He could see the back of Jason's dark head through the steel bars of the cage, oblivious to his presence chatting away animatedly to the two men sitting in front of him. Of course he envied him. He wished he was more like Jason, then he would be sitting there and would be wearing expensive trainers and shorts and a t.shirt instead of being barefooted and with the flimsiest fragment of cloth to cover his bottom.

But he accepted he was not like Jason. Everybody told him he was a useless nasty boy and treated him accordingly, his mother, his sister, his mother's boy friend, Uncle Toby, Mister Bill, Jason so he must be. If he was not he would not be where he was now, crammed in a cage in the back of a 4x4. Of course it was his fault he was treated in this way, just as it was his fault he was going to get six cuts from the cane, at least six cuts, he reminded himself of Mister's Toby's promise to add a few to the tally if he misbehaved himself further.

The thought of the cane and his increasingly imminent appointment with it made him feel sick with fear. He choked back a sob. Jason twisted round and looked back at him.

"Shut up," he snapped clipping him across the top of his head with the back of his hand through the bars of the cage before turning away to resume chattering to the two men.

Nicky cowered away from the blow squeezing himself as tight as he could into the furthest corner of the cage. After a time with no follow up blow he gained enough confidence to ease himself out of the corner sufficiently to wriggle round in the cage. He hunkered back on his knees staring out of the rear window of the 4x4. They were on a three-lane highway going down a steep hill with a single stream of traffic following them. It was he saw overwhelmingly holiday traffic, cars together with a fair sprinkling of SUVs with luggage or bicycles strapped on the roof, some towing caravans, others boats of various sizes.

A wave of self-pity swept over him. Tears welled up in his eyes. He remembered past summers, before Mum and Dad had parted, sitting crammed in the back of family car, the boredom and bad temper of the long journey replaced by rising expectation as they neared their destination, the excited squeals at the first sight of the sea, the moment of liberation as they tumbled from the car and headed for the beach. He wished he could go back to that time, to be in one of those cars, part of a family again; looking forward to a holiday by the sea, a fortnight of swimming, exploring, ice cream, fishing trips with Dad, returning to the cottage carrying half a dozen fresh caught mackerel hanging from a loop of string for their supper. Not, as he was, stuck in a cage in the back of the Land Rover with nothing to look forward to except further beatings and abuse.

And beyond the immediate future the inchoate terrors of the Island, hinted at by Uncle, or rather Mister Toby, being all the more frightening as undefined and only partly understood. He struggled to get his mind around the idea, a place where he would be without rights or protection, where he would have to compete with other boys to attract and to please his betters and whose continued existence would depend on his doing so; a place of absolutes, absolute dependence, absolute obedience, absolute vulnerability. A place where he would not be a person but a thing, that could be bought and sold and owned. And this had begun already, Uncle Toby bought him from his mother and gifted him to Jason and talked about the price he might fetch when sold on the Island specifically as a boy whore to a rich Chinese businessman and suggesting he might make a good price.

Not that he knew exactly what a boy whore did though the rather vague muddled concepts of the school yard had been given somewhat more concrete though incomplete form by his actual experience at the hands of Mister Toby.

He hardened as he thought about the feel of Mister Toby's swollen cock between his lips, the urgent throbbing of man's blood, the bitter metallic taste of his precum on his tongue, the urgent thrusting and the sudden surge as his mouth and throat was filled with man's seed. He had rebelled at the idea at first, closed his lips and turned his head away, but in the end he had accepted the inevitable. And now – he glanced back into the body of the Land Rover, Jason was chattering away eagerly the two men all of them apparently oblivious to his own presence in the back of the van crouched in the dog cage, his hand dropped to his crutch and pushed the tiny fragment of cloth shielding it aside, his fingers touched his rigid prick and began to gently stroke it. Although at the time frightening and unpleasant in retrospect it had been rather exciting. No, looking back it had been very exciting. He enjoyed the memory of the feel of Mister's Toby's hands on the back of his head, the sounds Mister Toby made as he sucked him, the sighs, the gasps, the half coherent obscenities. At first he had baulked at the task but now he was proud and happy that he had been and was able to give pleasure both to Mister Toby and to Master Jason.

He realized too that more would be required of him than this.

Here too initial reluctance had been checked and overcome by firmness and persistence. Numerous sessions naked across Mister Toby's knees having his anus greased and then plumbed first by the man's finger and latterly by a slim black rubber phallus ensured that initial squeals of pain were replaced in time with moans of awakened lust as his bottom was vigorously pumped. Indeed so far had his attitude changed that the sight of Mister Toby spreading the towel over his knees was now enough in itself to bring him almost to the point of orgasm. Whereas before he had to be grabbed by the arm and pulled down across the man's lap now he took his place and lifted his bottom and spread his legs eager for the momentary but complete release that the deep penetration of his body and the multiple orgasms it induced brought.

Nicky slipped his fingers inside the front of his bathing trunks easing them downwards. His prick freed from restraint started upright a pale quivering tube of boy flesh. His right hand moved violently as he pumped his cock.

The world around him receded into a dark throbbing darkness, for a moment the fear and squalor of his existence were forgotten. Then the crisis was passed. Cum jetted from his prick covering his hand with white fluid that oozed stickily between his clenched fingers.

Nicky was back in the real world. The Range Rover was turning into a large super-market car park. Hastily he wiped his fingers on the dog smelling fragment of carpet on the floor of the cage and pulled his bathing trunks back up.

The 4x4 swung into a parking slot. A moment later Toby was pulling back the latch of the dog cage. He reached inside and grabbing Nicky by the arm dragged him bodily out of the car depositing him on his feet but staggering uncertainly on the car park asphalt.

"Let's see you're decent – but not too decent," he said crowding the boy against the back of the Range Rover.

He spent a few seconds fiddling with the boy's bathing trunks while Jason and Bill stood by watching and incidentally shielding what was going on from anyone passing by. Satisfied he swung Nicky round to face the store and dispatched him to collect a shopping trolley with a stinging open-handed slap across his bottom.

"You can tell just by the look of the little whore's got the hots," Toby remarked his eyes fastened appreciatively on the tightly spread fragment of cloth shielding Nicky's pert rump that wriggled invitingly as he scampered on bare feet across the car park.

"Season not 'of mellow fruitfulness' but burnt sausages and beef burgers," Toby remarked stopping by the pallet heaped with sacks of charcoal just inside the entrance of the super-market.

"We'll be offering the patrons a more exciting menu than that," Bill replied.

"But how many sacks of charcoal do you think?"

"Three-four, last time we had a hog roast it took just over two sacks, but this time we'll be dealing with a rather longer carcass than a pig's."

"Four then to be on the safe side. Nicky lift four sacks of charcoal onto the trolley. Get a move on boy, we don't want to spend all day here and don't drop the sacks, you'll split them, put them in gently."

It took all Nicky's strength to lift the sack of charcoal over the side of the trolley that stood just over waste high to the boy. To reach down into it he had to stand up on his toes and bend right over lifting and tilting his bottom.

"Nice view of a tight boy's bum for someone," Toby remarked cheerfully.

Nicky straightened, panting from his exertions. Turning to lift a second sack from the pallet he caught the eye of a man standing perhaps fifteen yards or so away from him by the pet food section of the store.. Their eyes momentarily met before the man turned away ostensibly to study a block of shelving loaded with various brands of cat food. Nicky bending to lift the sack risked a second look. The man, his interest in cat food apparently exhausted, was once more looking in his direction. Nicky dared a half smile before turning to place the second sack on the trolley.

His mind was racing. He might not before have thought of his body as something that could interest a grown man. Toby had destroyed his innocence with his suggestive comments and intimate probings. These had been intended to arouse the boy and make him the prisoner of his own lusts and they had succeeded but only too well. He had aroused the whore latent in the pubescent boy and now Nicky was dreaming the dream of every whore girl or boy from the start of time, that a powerful, rich man would fall in love with him and protect him.

Up on his toes, bent right over, reaching right into the trolley he wriggled his bottom provocatively before straightening. Not wanting to arouse the suspicions of Mister Toby he kept his eyes down and did not look around.

He thought he had attracted the interest of the man and he knew that if he wished to retain it he should signal his acquiescence. He turned so that for a moment his back was turned away from Mister Toby. Very quickly he reached back and slipping his thumb under the hem of his swimming trunks gave them a hoist pulling them back into the crack of his bottom deliberately revealing a further expanse of deliciously curved boy flesh before bending once more to his task.

He trailed round the store pushing the trolley following Mister Toby as he and Mister Bill and Jason went from row to row purchasing supplies for the Patrons' Dinner. As they stood and chatted together he filled the trolley with food and drink at their direction. Every now and again he would glance round and nearly every time he did so he would see the man somewhere about.

He should no doubt have felt guilty plotting, however ineffectually, to escape from Mister Toby's authority when hardly an hour before he had accepted his servitude as natural and inevitable. But servitude is general, a condition, master is particular and individual. He did not shout out for help and denounce Toby for abusing him and call for the police. He sought not freedom but another kinder master and in that he acted as a slave brat and a whore. He was disloyal rather not rebellious.

The shopping finally completed Bill took Jason off to the cafe for a Coke while Nicky followed Mister Toby to the check-out counter pushing the overflowing trolley in front of him. The man, his shopping suddenly completed followed them. The trolley was heavy and Jason made the most of this leaning forward against it so that his bottom stuck out.

They arrived at the check-out. The queue was a short one. Mister Toby went first, then Jason pushing the trolley. The man pulling his trolley joined the queue immediately behind Nicky and ignored him.

Nicky busied himself lifting the contents of the trolley onto the counter.

"Looks like your having a party," the man said over Nicky's head as the mound of purchases on the check-out counter grew.

"I just hope the weather keeps fine for it," Toby replied easily.

"Forecast's not bad for the next few days. I think you've got a good chance – here let me help you heave that out," the man added as Nicky struggled to lift the first of the sacks of charcoal from the bottom of the trolley.

In the most natural way possible he reached over, his hand briefly brushing against Nicky's arm and lifted the sack onto the counter.

"You needn't bother about the rest of the bags," the girl on the counter said quickly, "I'll scan that one in four times."

"Thank you for your help," Mister Toby said to the man pleasantly before continuing in a more peremptory tone, "Nicky get the trolley up here and help me pack and load the purchases."

"Thank you Sir," Nicky ventured shyly as he pushed the trolley forward and was rewarded, under the cover of the counter, by a quick pat on his bottom.

It took some time for Nicky pushing the heavily loaded trolley to follow Mister Toby to the Range Rover and even longer for him to load the contents of the trolley into the vehicle. Ample time for the man to clear the check-out counter and to stroll past and take a long but discrete view of Nicky labouring at unloading the trolley under the supervision of Mister Toby.

He seemed to have gone though by the time the job was completed. At least Nicky could not see him as he crouched locked in the dog cage peering out through the shaded glass rear window of the Range Rover. He was alone. Mister Toby had gone back into the store presumably to join Mister William and Jason in the cafe.

Nicky settled himself down to wait watching in a desultory sort of way the various cars passing on their ways in and out of the car park.

One, a pretty nondescript sort of car, a Ford Focus or similar, drew up blocking the Range Rover in its parking place. Nicky took little notice of it. A driver belatedly fastening his seat belt or checking he had not left his wallet behind on at the check-out counter or something. Then the driver's door opened and the man got out. Nicky snapped alert as he watched him stroll round the car to the back door of the Range Rover. He gave no sign of hurrying but he covered the distance surprisingly quickly. There was a sharp click and the back door of the Range Rover swung up.

"Electronic locks are rubbish," the man remarked as he unbolted the dog cage.

"Now out you come," and he reached into the cage and pulled Nicky out.

"Get in quick as you can," he ordered opening the passenger door of the Focus. Slamming it shut behind Nicky he walked round to the driver's seat in the same apparently unhurried but brisk matter and drove off.

***

"Shit," Bill said half an hour or so later, standing at the rear of the Range Rover looking at the empty dog cage. "He must have had help. I am sure I locked the van and bolted the dog cage. He could not have got out without help."

"He could have opened the dog cage by himself," Toby pointed out thoughtfully. "Put his fingers through the bars and fiddled with the bolts."

"Cage door opens outwards. He still wouldn't have been able to open it if the back door of the car was down. There wouldn't be enough room. No, he must have had help and that means we've got to wind everything up and make a run for it before the police are alerted."

"I'm not so sure that we need to do that," Toby said thoughtfully. "Think about it. Why has the man, I assume it was a man, sprung the brat. If it was simple quixotic altruism he would have involved the police from the beginning. No one in the present climate would get himself involved with a near naked thirteen year old boy without guarding his back."

He paused to give the others a chance to consider his reasoning and then continued.

"Well there are no police about so it wasn't altruism. And if it wasn't altruism the only reason could be is that he, again I assume it is a man, fancies near naked thirteen year old boys and sees a chance of indulging his tastes with young Nicky and he certainly won't be involving the police."

"Why do you assume it was a man and not a woman."

"Because there are no police about," Toby replied with a grin. "I think we should just carry on as planned. We've lost Nicky. It is a bloody nuisance after all the trouble Jason and I have taken schooling the brat but there it is. It was fun and there are other brats about. That's not to say I won't make Nicky regret he was born if ever I lay hands on him in the future but I think we should just move on."

***

Nicky sat in the passenger seat of the car trying to remember when was the last time he had been allowed to do so, when was the last time indeed that he had been allowed to sit on a chair at all. It seemed they were he observed retracing in reverse at least the latter part of the journey undertaken earlier that afternoon with Mister Toby and Mister Bill and Master Jason into the super-market. He was now going back up the long straight hill that he had earlier descended crammed into the dog-cage at the back of the Range Rover.

He tensed as the man rested his hand on his leg and then quickly relaxed. He knew he mustn't alienate him and anyway he rather liked the feel of it. He spread his knees and the man responded to the implied invitation by sliding his hand further up the inside of his leg. The man ran his thumbnail along the hem of his bathing trunks before sliding his hand under it.

"Tell me about yourself boy," the man said quietly. "What's your name, where do you come from, who were the people you were with?"

As the man drove the car first along the main road and then down increasingly narrow country lanes he learnt, in response to his quiet but persistent questioning much of Nicky's recent history, his rejection by his own mother and his subsequent harsh schooling at the hands of Mister Toby. Nicky could not tell him where this took place because he did not know but the man was sure he had a pretty good idea himself. It lay East of the town for they were now travelling West on the same road as Nicky had earlier travelled on in to the super-market and there were not many long undeveloped beaches with no made up public road leading to it in that area. In fact there was only one that matched Nicky's somewhat disjointed description.

They crossed a narrow bridge and the man slowed right down to pull off the road to the side of a small white washed cottage.

"Journey's end – out you get," he announced getting out of the car.

Nicky got out of the car and looked about. There were no other buildings in sight, a blackbird trilled its liquid notes from a tree near the brook, sheep bleated faintly in the distance, nearer at hand he could hear the murmur of the brook running down one side of the cottage garden.

"Come on don't keep me waiting," the man said gripping Nicky by the back of his neck and pushing him into the cottage.

The door opened directly into a long low room that seemed to run the whole length of the house. The man released his grasp of Nicky's neck and swung him round to face him. Putting his hand under Nicky's chin he tipped the boy's head back. Nicky looked up into the man's face smiling nervously.

He had run away from Mister Toby and Jason and gone to the man on the assumption that he would at least be kinder than them but he knew nothing about him. The man fancied him, that was clear by the way he stalked him in the super-market and fondled him in the car. Nicky would have felt happier though if he had known more about him. The man had cross examined him closely during their journey to the cottage but had told him nothing about himself, not even his name. In the absence of a name Nicky had called him 'Sir' and the man seemed to be content with that. But it would have been nice to have a name by which to call him by and to think of him. It would have made him less intimidating. And then he only spoke to him to ask questions and to give orders. Nicky acknowledged to himself he had no right to expect anything else. Running away had changed very little really. He was still the same boy, unloved and unloveable. He wished he could change it but he couldn't.

The man bent down and kissed Nicky hard on the lips. This was the first time that Nicky had been kissed in that way. His mother had in the past but not recently. had occasionally kissed him on the cheek and then it was more a peck than a kiss. Mister Toby had never bothered to do so. Jason he somehow knew would have thought it gross to do so. His lips were good for sucking cock not for kissing.

Startled Nicky opened his mouth, the man seizing his opportunity thrust his tongue past the boy's parted lips. Momentarily Nicky froze in alarm and then, partly because, with the instincts of a natural whore, he wished to please the man who was so much bigger and stronger than he was and partly because he found, given a second or two for reflection, he rather liked it, he responded with enthusiasm, throwing his arms about the man's neck, hugging him tight, teasing the man's tongue with his own. He liked it although he sensed there was something dominating or possessive about it, or indeed perhaps because there was.

Then the man's hands were pressing down on Nicky's shoulders and the boy was at once on familiar territory. Confident now that he knew what to do and that he would do it well, for it was for his skill with his tongue and lips that he had won the very few words of praise that he had ever received from Mister Toby or Jason, he dropped to his knees at the man's feet. With practiced eager fingers he undid the man's trousers and drew them and his underpants down over his hips. They fell about his ankles and the man's cock, a swollen column of white flesh ribbed with knotted purple veins, sprang up in front of his face, Nicky's nostrils filled with the familiar scent of the British male body, soap tinged with stale sweat and faeces, initially so nauseating but now through association and familiarity an aphrodisiac to his lust.

Placing his hands flat against the back of the man's buttocks he pulled himself up onto his knees and with the tip of his tongue harvested the swelling globe of translucent precum that was welling from his piss slit. He spent a few seconds teasing the cock's swollen pink helmet, hard and swollen like some firm wild fruit, before burying his head in the dark forest of coarse pubic hair at the base of the man's cock. Sinking down low on his knees he pressed forward and turning his head caressed that tender and sensitive area of flesh that lies between the anus and the back of the testicles.

Nicky heard the man's breath quicken and his hands pulled his head tighter into his crutch. He eased back a little to take the man's balls into his mouth. He sucked on them with gentle enthusiasm before abandoning them and running his tongue from the roots of the man's prick, the man's pubic hair harsh against it, to its damp throbbing tip. Eventually he took the saliva slicked tube fully into his mouth. Back on his haunches, his head bobbing vigorously, he worked the pulsating rod of rigid man flesh deeper into his throat. The man cried out. His hands gripped his head as he drove up into the boy with a single heavy forward thrust of his hips. Nicky squatted there his nose flattened against the man's crotch, his cock buried deep in his throat as he choked and fought for breath feeling his gullet fight back against the violent invasion.

The man cried out again. Nicky felt his blood surge deep in his throat before gouches of warm man seed flooded his gullet. He struggled to swallow them but they just kept coming and coming and try as he would man seed welled from his mouth and trickled down his chin. Abandoning his hold on the man's bottom he cupped his hands desperate to prevent the cum staining the floor.

The man seemed though not to be worried. He groaned and dropped apparently exhausted into an armchair leaving Nicky kneeling on the floor wondering if his performance had been adequate. After a moment or two the man looked up towards him, smiled and parting his legs patted the inside of one thigh. Nicky shuffled over on his knees and nestled down his face only inches from the man's now flabby cock.

The man sat there for a time unmoving. Eventually he stirred. His right hand ruffled Nicky's stubble of fair hair brushed the side of his cheek and came to rest on the stout metal chain about his neck.

"What's this boy," the man asked fingering the y-shaped fang like medallion attached to the front of the chain.

Nicky explained as best as he could that it was the badge of the Island boys, that the chain marked him as one of those boys, that he had been about to be taken out to the Island, that he had been being prepared when he got there for sale to a rich Chinese merchant, and this with a touch of pride, that Mister Toby had said he should get a good price when he was sold.

He said he it had been planned to take him out to the Island after the patrons' dinner and in reply to the man's continued questioning he told him about the preparation for the barbecue, the purchase of the sacks of charcoal and so on.

It worried him that that the man asked many questions he could not answer or could not answer fully. He could not say precisely where the Island was, situated out East he thought, certainly the boys were chocolate coloured. What happened to the boy's when they grew old? He simply did not know, no one neither Mister Toby nor Mister William had ever said anything about it. Why had they bought so much charcoal, four sacks suggested a large barbecue pit but no meat beyond a few measly beef burgers. Again he did not know, perhaps Mister Toby and Mister William were planning a hog roast but he had to admit there was no sign of a pig's carcass being purchased.

As this cross examination progressed the man's cock initially flaccid began to swell and harden. Responding to its unspoken demand made only inches away from his face Nicky toyed with it with his tongue and lips in the intervals between answering the man's questions. Under his ministrations it swelled and grew harder until the man pushed him roughly down on it with a hand cupped on the back of his neck.

Nicky responded to this by taking the man's now swollen member into his mouth and using all his skill to work it to a climax. This took longer than before and the violence and extant of the man's orgasm was less marked. Nevertheless, it was sufficiently extensive to flood the boy's mouth and throat and to send rivulets of man cum trickling down his chin.

Again the man sat still for a few minutes then with a rough "stay where you are," he rose to his feet and pulling his underpants and trousers up from the floor, zipped his flies, buckled his belt and walked out of the room leaving Nicky sitting on the floor looking after him. He was back in a moment. Nicky's eyes widened in shock as he saw he was carrying pair of cuff-links. He made a vain effort to scramble away but he was too late. The man was on him in an instant. Nicky was half way to his feet when he was grabbed by the arm and swung round to face the wall.

"Hands behind your back," the man snapped reinforcing the order with a heavy blow across the back of his head.

Before Nicky could recover from the shock of the blow the man grabbed him by the wrists and pulled them behind his back. Nicky felt cold metal encircle his wrists and then heard a metallic click as the man locked the handcuffs in place.

The man grabbed him by the arm and began to drag him out of the house.

"Please Sir – why – what are you doing – where are you taking me?" Nicky protested his voice shrill with panic as he struggled vainly against the man's strength.

"Back to your Mister Toby where you belong. Now get in the car."

Nicky momentarily paralyzed by shock, froze and stopped struggling. The man, seizing his opportunity, wrenched open the passenger door of the Focus and threw the boy into the car. Nicky fell and lay struggling, his hands pinioned behind his back, half in half out of the car.

The man stooped and grabbing Nicky by the ankles bundled his legs into the car and tried to slam the door on him. Nicky was too quick for him, twisting round and he got his feet on the ground outside the car, getting himself half way out of the car before the door was shut.

The man said nothing. He simply pulled the door fully open, pushed Nicky back on the passenger seat and then threw himself with all his weight against the door slamming it across the boy's shins. Nicky howled. The man drew the car door back open his intention obvious. Nicky sobbing loudly hastily pulled his legs into the car.

Walking round the car the man opened the door and slipped into the driver's seat. He pushed the cigarette lighter into its housing in the dashboard and then gripping Nicky by his chin and twisted his face round. He smiled down into the Nicky's tear stained face. Nicky's sobs increased in volume.

Behind him the man heard the cigarette lighter click in its housing. He reached for it with his free hand and held it up so that Nicky could see its red glow, holding it close enough to the boy's face that he could feel its heat.

"Now listen to me very carefully boy," he said quietly but with a voice dripping with menace, "I am taking you back to Mister Toby and you will sit there quietly and you will do so because if you do not I will hurt you very, very badly. Do you understand me boy? Do you?"

And he jabbed the lighter at Nicky's face as if to press its red hot end against his cheek.

"Please Sir, yes Sir, I do understand Sir. Please don't take me back to them Sir they'll beat me terrible Sir. Please I tried my best to please you Sir. I thought you liked me Sir. I'll do anything you want Sir but please don't take me back."

"You must be a very stupid boy to think I would want to keep you. A filthy little tart, a cock sucking bum boy, good for a good mouth fucking but nothing else. And anyway two, three years time, if you live that long, you'll have put on weight and begun to sprout hair round your balls and under your armpits and have stubble and spots, you'll not even be any good to fuck. I'd be mad to keep you. No you're going back to Mister Toby and if he flogs you till you bleed its no more than you deserve; running away like that if you were my slut., which thank God you are not, I would skin you alive."

"And another thing turd. I know the bay where the farm house is but I am not sure which lane to go down. I don't fancy spending the evening going up and down farm tracks looking for it. When you get near the place you will tell me which track to go down."

"Please… please," fighting back sobs Nicky's voice was hardly more than a whisper, "I just don't know Sir. I didn't notice Sir."

"I am sure you will remember Nicky dear if you really try and you will really try because if you don't remember I will give you something really to cry about."

"In fact to make extra sure I will give you something to encourage you to remember right now."

Saying which he jabbed the glowing end of the lighter into the side of Nicky's rib cage as the boy writhed in pain and screamed loudly.

Then he slipped the car into gear and drove quietly off.

"It's the turning to the left just before the church Sir," Nicky said through his sobs some twenty minutes later.

There was the feel of sea in the air although it could not be seen.

"Good boy Nicky, I knew you would remember if you tried really hard," the man said and laughed as he turned off the surfaced road onto a farm lane bounded by a high hedge on either side.

Nicky sniffed miserably but made no other reply.

***

The journey in the Range Rover back to the farm was not a happy one. The two men worried and argued about the possible consequences of Nicky's absconding and what action if any should be taken. Toby was airily confident that the slut had gone off with a man who had taken a fancy to him and they would hear nothing more. It was a nuisance but nothing more, Nicky's current protector would be as vulnerable to police investigation as they were and would take care to keep the boy away from the authorities.

Bill was not so sure. He thought that maybe they should play it safe and take a runner. He had arrangements in place that would allow him to disappear with ample funds. He took it that Toby had likewise. One of them could drop Jason off at the nearest railway station and send him back to his parents on the train. The patrons and the emigration officials could look after themselves. But then maybe there was a good chance Toby was right. Perhaps they should hang on a bit. It would be silly to abandon something they had taken so much time and effort to build up over the years.

Bill not only argued with Toby, he argued with himself as well.

Jason couldn't see why he should be left out of things. He didn't want to go back to his parents. He wanted to go with them, well Uncle Bill then, he knew him best but if not Uncle Bill, Mister Toby would be better than going home, home was boring.

They argued in the Range Rover going back to the farm, they argued as they walked, weighed down by sacks of charcoal and bags of beef burgers as they walked from the top of the hill down to the farm and they argued as, a couple of hours later they tramped back up the hill to meet the emigration officials and to take delivery of the Vietnamese boy.

The only time they stopped arguing was when they took time out to curse Nicky for running away and to describe the various torments they would inflict on him in the unlikely event of their laying hands on him ever again.

They were still arguing standing together at the top of the hill above the farm waiting for the van carrying the border control officials and the Vietnamese boy.

"I think I can hear a car coming now," Jason, who being the youngest of the trio had the sharpest ears, said interrupting his seniors' bickering.

They turned to look up the road to see the black Focus appear round the bend.

"That's not a border control vehicle," Bill said panic stricken.

"And that's not a policeman," Toby replied as the car drew up as the driver dressed in jeans and a t.shirt got out and walked round to the passenger door.

They watched as the driver reached inside the car and dragged out of it a sobbing woebegone Nicky. He swung the boy round to face in their direction and sent him stumbling towards them with a hefty kick up his backside. Nicky's his arms pinioned behind his back staggered a few paces forward, lost his balance and crashed to his knees.

"As you can see," the man said cheerfully, "I've brought your wandering boy back."

Jason was the first to react. He stepped forward and stood for a moment looking down at Nicky.

"Please don't hit me please… I'm sorry… I won't ever runaway again… I promise… Please…"

Nicky's desperate pleas were broken off short as Jason aimed a kick at the side of his head. Jason was wearing trainers. To prevent bruising his toes he lashed out with the heel of his foot catching Nicky full on the ear. With his wrists secured behind his back Nicky was unable to safe himself the force of the blow knocking him prostrate to the ground.

Ignoring the two boys, one sprawling in the dirt while the other stood over him driving kick after kick into his face the man strode forward his right hand outstretched.

Raising his voice to be heard over Jason's howls and broken pleas for mercy he introduced himself with in the circumstances seemed somewhat inappropriate formality.

"Good afternoon, you must be Toby and William, I am Richard Perkins. I hope Nicky taking off like that didn't cause you too much anxiety."

"No, no!" Toby said meaninglessly while returning the handshake, "of course we were wondering what he had got up to but he's back now so that's all right. We are most grateful. I just hope he wasn't a nuisance."

The whole episode conducted against the background sound of Jason giving a good kicking seemed to him to have an air of unreality but he felt he could only respond in kind.

"Not at all, not at all. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the boy. An expert little cock sucker. His performance did credit to your training."

"I am so glad now if you would just excuse me for a minute… Jason I think you'd better stop that for a moment. Those trainers of yours cost a bomb and you don't want to get brat blood on them it's the devil to get off? And I don't want to Nicky crippled, not right now anyway, we need him to help carry the rest of the stuff down to the farm."

"There's a length of rubber hosing in the Range Rover somewhere Jason," Bill added helpfully, "Why don't you work him over with that. Aim primarily for the legs, bum and shoulders then you'll hurt him without doing any permanent damage."

"It's very good of you to bring him back anyway," he continued joining Toby's conversation with Richard Perkins, "In particular as you might imagine we were concerned to have the slut wandering about away from our control. You could easily have chosen not to have returned him."

Richard smiled and laughed in an embarrassed sort of way.

"My motives in returning him were not wholly philanthropic," he admitted, "I am in a similar position to a man who likes riding but does not want to have the bother or expense of keeping a horse. I like boys in general but certainly don't want to be tied to one particular grubby little brute with any degree of permanency. I found what Nicky was able to tell me about the 'Island' very interesting. Being able to choose at will from an ever changing variety of boys, brown skinned or otherwise, sounds much more to my taste than being stuck with a single brat. I thought you might be willing to accept my return of Nicky as an initial subscription to what I take to be some sort of club."

Having completed this obviously rehearsed speech he paused expectantly.

"So far as I am concerned I would be delighted to have you on board. Bill is that all right with you?" Toby asked.

"Oh certainly. Indeed, we both owe you a debt of gratitude. However, to be a full member you need to attend one of our patrons' dinners. We are as it happens having one here tomorrow and we'd be delighted if you attended it. These are very special occasions with somewhat specialised menus. After attending a dinner your commitment is necessarily complete, withdrawal is not possible."

"I guessed the dinner would be something special after Nicky told me you bought four sacks of charcoal for your barbecue but no meat. I took it putting that with the butchery he said you had on the farm that you were intending to slaughter something yourself for the feast and that it might be of a rather special nature."

"If you wish you could stay for supper tonight and spend the night here. It also will be not without interest. Nicky was due for a caning before he ran away. Now it will be of course all the more severe and as a consequence that more entertaining. And there will be a new boy for us to have fun with."

"That is very kind of you but I have no night things."

"We can make up for any deficiencies in that respect. We run a number of residential courses for the boys there and are well stocked with such essentials as toothbrushes and so on. It is amazing how boys can forget or loose things. The only things we won't be able to supply will be pyjamas. We encourage the boys to do without them."

There was a sound of an approaching motor and a big, dark blue, high sided van rolled slowly into view coming down the lane towards them.

"I'd better get my car off the road out of the way." Richard said hastily turning away and starting back towards he had left his car blocking the road.

"Park it here beside the Range Rover," Bill called after him.

By the time Richard reached his car the van was drawn up behind it with its engine idling. Richard saw that high up along its side were a row of tiny square windows. Two large men dressed in what looked like dark blue uniform jackets sat in its cab. As he got into his car one of the men caught his eye, grinned and gave him a thumbs up.

He parked the car and the van drew up beside him. When he got out of the car everybody was grouped by the plain metal door set in the side of the van. One of the two men in uniform pulled a set folding of steps out from the side of the van with a loud clang. Mounting them he unlocked the door and disappeared inside. There was the sound of a second door being unlocked followed by a shrill cry of distress and the sounds of a frantic scuffle. The man reappeared at the door way of the van pushing in front of him a desperately struggling naked boy, dark haired and chocolate coloured. Vastly overmatched In size and strength with his wrists hand-cuffed in front of him the boy had no chance. The man dragged him to the door way and threw him down the stairs. The boy landed on the ground in a jumble of naked limbs. The second guard stepped briskly forward and grabbing him by the arm dragged him to his feet.

"There you are," he said cheerfully to William as the boy hung whimpering and trembling in his grasp, "goods delivered as per your order."

"Where's his clothes?" William asked, "we'll need them for Nicky when we swap identity between the two brats."

"In the cab. Put them there so Tam here," and he cuffed the chocolate skinned boy on the side of the head, "didn't soil them during the journey. We don't allow toilet stops when transporting detainees, only gives them an opportunity to make trouble."

"Good let's have a look at it the slut then," William said and began to run his hands over the boy while Richard and the rest crowded round.

"Nice round bottom," he remarked prodding the boy's rump approvingly.

"Plenty of good firm flesh,"Toby agreed squeezing a milk coffee thigh.

"Virgin?" William asked.

"Well what do you think?" Richard was impatient with the question, "he was picked up in a raid on a cannabis factory and we've had him in the detention centre for a fortnight. But he's been tested and he's disease free. I've got his papers safe in the cab. They'll be needed to cover the substitute."

"You mean Nicky? Yes I suppose so. Now we better get down to the farm. Jason you're in charge of the two brats. Get their handcuffs off them and load them up with the two remaining sacks of charcoal and get them going. If they need encouragement use the rubber hose on them. We'll be following behind if there's any trouble."

"O.K. Uncle William," Jason said cheerfully as he set about getting the two brats organised and loaded up.

"You're giving that boy quite a lot of responsibility," Richard remarked raising his voice to be heard over Jason's shouted orders, the thump of the hose pipe on bare flesh and the squeals of the brats as they were urged into movement.

"He enjoys it," William replied.

"Not sure the brats do so much," he added with a particularly hard and well aimed blow extorted a more than usually shrill howl of pain.

They turned to watch the two boys set off at an unsteady trot staggering under the weight of the sacks of charcoal balanced on their heads.

"Hang on a moment though."

William lunged forward and grabbed hold of the tightly stretched fragment of cloth inadequately covering Nicky's rump. He jerked at it ripping it away from the boy leaving him completely naked.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Half an hour later Nicky and Thad, urged on by Jason's enthusiastic use of the hose pipe across their naked bottoms, trotted wearily into the farm yard. In obedience to Jason's orders they stacked the charcoal sacks In the butchery shed with the other sacks. When the door was thrown open and Thad saw what lay beyond he baulked and had to be persuaded forward by a series of hefty blows.

Nothing had been said to alarm him. It would seem the shed itself with its stained white washed walls, heavy plain wooden table its top scrubbed white, its array of sharp glittering steel, the sturdy beam running across it's ceiling with the rings and sharp double pointed S shaped hooks hanging from it and under that beam, the open drain across the concrete floor to a barred culvert, was enough to frighten him.

Now he was squatting in the sun against the wall of the shed quietly sobbing with Nicky hunched beside him and Jason standing guard over them.

Toby and the other adults strolled into the yard on their way up to the farmhouse. They had not had the benefit of Jason's encouragement so they had enjoyed a more leisurely walk than the forced march experienced by the two boys.

After a few words with his companions Toby detached himself from the group and walked over to Jason. As he approached the two naked brats cowered together on the ground.

"Seem a bit distressed," he remarked prodding the huddle of boys with the toe of his shoe, "Have a bit of trouble with them?"

"No not really, not until we got down here but then Thad, or whatever the Vietnamese brat is called, seemed to be frightened by the butchery shed Tried to refuse to go inside it. A couple of good whacks with the hosepipe across the arse cured him of that but he has been crying ever since."

"Well I suppose I would cry a bit in his circumstances," Toby said laughing heartlessly.

"You come up to the farm now for tea. We'll lock the brats in the kennel next to Trapper's for the time being. I'm not going to risk leaving either of them loose - specially not after Nicky taking a runner. We can fetch then both up later. Nicky's due a caning and no doubt we could have some fun with Thad too."

"But first we'll smarten them up a bit. You really should have kept a tighter reign on them Jason. They'll only take advantage if you go soft on them. Let me have that hose pipe of yours please."

"Now Nicky," Toby continued in the softest of voices, "you know better than loll about like that in the presence of your betters."

The boy looked up at him smiling uncertainly clearly puzzled by the man's mild tones.

"Up on your knees you ghastly lump of dog's turd," Toby roared clipping him hard across the side of one bare shoulder with the tip of the hose pipe.

"Come on slut," he shouted as the boy squealed and cowered away from him, "you know very well what's required," reaching down he flicked Nicky again with the hose pipe this time on the side of his bottom. "Spread your knees wide, get your bum down on the floor, back straight, head down, hands open and down by your sides. "

As he spoke Mister Toby walked slowly round the naked boy as he cringed at his feet struggling to get into position.

"Knees wide apart,. You can do better than that," Toby said lashing out with his foot.

"You," satisfied at last he turned his attention to the Vietnamese boy, "you, Thad, get like that."

The boy looked up at him puzzled and frightened and Toby smashed the hose pipe across his shoulders.

"Perhaps he doesn't understand you Mister Toby," Jason suggested.

"He soon will."Toby said grimly raising the hose pipe for another blow. "There said he would… … amazing how quick a boy will learn if you hit him hard and often enough."

"They've both got stiffies Mister Toby," Jason exclaimed.

I'd thought you'd have got used to that with young Nicky by now. He's always running about with his prick wobbling about in front of him. Sluts like them are all the same, whores, permanently on heat. Soon as you take your eyes off them they're at it with each other."

"Now cut along and open the kennel door. I'll send the brats over to you."

Grinning cheerfully Jason set off across the yard.

"Come on move, move," Toby shouted once the kennel door had clanged open, driving the two naked boys in front of him scuttling across the yard with sharp blows across their bare bottoms.

Dropping to their hands and knees the two brats jostled each other to get through the low gate into the kennel and escape from the rain of blows, their raised bottoms offering inviting targets for Jason's kicks.

The log jam (or perhaps more properly boy jam) was only solved when Toby grabbed Nicky by the chain around his throat and pulled him back. Thad seeing his chance shot into the kennel and took refuge huddled in its furthest corner. Toby lifted Nicky one handed from the ground and held him there his legs dangling. With his free hand he twisted the boy's face round to look into his.

"You've given the little shit a good working over Jason and serve the slut right."

He released his grip on Nicky's chin and deliberately rocked his head with a series of alternate open and back handed slaps.

"I'll make you regret running off like that you ungrateful turd," he snarled and throwing the boy to the ground drove him forward into the kennel with a series of vicious kicks up his bum.

"Where's the padlock for this Jason," he demanded.

There was a rattle and a click as the door to the kennel was closed and locked and then the sound of footsteps as Toby and Jason made their way out of the yard.

Nicky lay flat on the concrete floor of the kennels listening to the sound of the receding footsteps. It was hardly worth rousing himself to move. There was no escape, no hope. He might as well lie there until he heard the sound of those same footsteps returning and he was dragged up to the farmhouse to be beaten. He had tried to escape, at least from the farm and Toby and the rest of them but had only succeeded in making things worse for himself. His life stretched ahead of him a hopeless succession of beatings and humiliations.

And what made it worse, he told himself it was all his own fault. Mister Toby had called him an ungrateful turd and that was what he was. Mister Toby had taken him in when everybody had rejected him,and fed him and sheltered him and together with young Master Jason taught him how to behave and be useful. Master Jason was good to him. All right he beat him sometimes if he was stupid or slow or forgot something or just sometimes, he suspected, if he was in a bad temper or wanted to hurt him but he enjoyed serving him and was proud to be his boy. And he had chosen to runaway in the hope of finding a softer kinder master only to be brought back in disgrace and serve him right. If only he had not runaway, if only there was someway to undo what had taken place, to the time back to when he was kneeling on the sand looking up at Master Jason seated on his pony above him.

Through his misery he became conscious of the sound of faint persistent whimpering. Raising his head he saw Thad huddled in the furthest corner of the kennel his head between his knees his narrow shoulders shuddering as he sobbed. Thad raised his head and looked towards him with empty fear filled eyes. His lips moved and he began to speak but in a language that Nicky could not understand. Words poured out of him in a high hysteria tinged jumble that grew louder and louder until it culminated in a burst of wild uncontrolled wailing.

Nicky pressed his hands to his ears trying to block out the sound but the boy's piercing cries still rang in his ears. The sound went on and on an interminable cry of distress, penetrating, inescapable. Nicky could stand it no longer. A memory of some gangster film surreptitiously watched at some friend's house, long ago when he had friends, came back to him. He dragged himself to his feet and bent double, for the roof of the kennel was too low for even a boy to stand upright, made his way across to where Thad huddled.

He knew he should slap the other boy, that was what the gangster had done to the girl in the film when she had started screaming and it had worked, the slap had landed across the girl's face, she had blinked and immediately stopped screaming. It was simple to do and apparently quite foolproof. But he just couldn't do it. Not slap that boy weeping helplessly at his feet. But he had to stop that screaming ringing in his head. He grabbed Thad by the shoulders, feeling his bare skin smooth and cool under his hands and shook him.

The screaming went on perhaps rising a trifle in shrillness and intensity. He had to do something to stop it. He took a deep breath and aimed a slap at the side of the boy's bowed head. Even Nicky recognized that it was more a pat than anything else. The screaming went on. Nicky, not knowing what else to do, landed a second harder slap and a third and a fourth, each harder than the last, growing frustration overcoming his initial reluctance to strike but all to no effect.

Something had to be done to stop that awful noise. Summoning all his determination he clenched his fist and punched Thad as hard as he could on the side of the head.

Thad went down on his side. There was a sudden silence. Slowly he turned his head his eyes stared unseeingly up into Nicky's face.

He whispered something Nicky could not understand and then his eyes cleared and he said in heavily accented English, "they're going to kill me" and then his voice sinking to a horrified whisper.

He turned his face to the ground and began to cry not the wild uncontrollable howls of his earlier distress but a quiet steady heart rending sobbing.

Nicky crouched gazing down at the back of Thad's dark head and shuddering light chocolate body. He felt rising excitement, his prick stirred and hardened.

"I don't want to die," Thad's voice was hardly more than a whisper. Then even quieter, "will it hurt, when they kill me I mean."

Nicky had no idea. He thought probably it would. Most things in his experience hurt, especially if Mister Toby was involved but he realized he could not say this.

"No," he said firmly as he could although he was sure he was lying, "it will be quick, it will be over in a second."

There was a moments silence and then Thad's sobs resumed. It was clear he was not convinced.

Nicky sat there desperate to stop that miserable sobbing, to bring some comfort to thai comfortless boy. There was one thing he could do. One thing he was he thought rather good at. At least both Mister Toby and Jason seemed to enjoy it.

He put his hand on Thad's hip and rolled him over onto his back. He lent over him licking a small brown nipple. The sobbing stopped. Thad shuddered and moaned. Looking down his body Nicky saw he had raised his knees and bent them. Between his spread thighs his tiny prick stood erect and quivering.

Nicky worked his way down Thad's light chocolate body kissing and licking, using his tongue and lips to caress and tease. Thad his terrors subsumed by rising lust moaned and writhed in mounting excitement. Nicky reached the other boy's hairless crutch. Bending down over Thad, Nicky pressed his head between his spread thighs and turning it touched with his tongue and then licked that very sensitive area of a boy's body that lies between the anus and the back of the balls. Thad arched his back and hammered the kennel's concrete floor with his clenched fists. Nicky transferred his attention to Thad's balls licking them and then taking them into his mouth sucking on them. Then rolling on his stomach between Thad's legs he licked the boy's prick from its root in his scrotum to the swollen pink helmet at its end, collecting the clear beads of precum welling from its slit with the tip of his tongue. He swallowed tasting the pre-cum, tart and metallic, on his tongue and then took the boy's prick into his mouth sucking it. It was no where near such a formidable object as either Mister Toby's or Mister William's cock both of which reached deep down into his throat and required him to open his jaws achingly wide to accommodate but slim and short as it was it was iron hard and throbbing with excitement.

Nicky felt Thad's blood surge, the boy cried out, and his mouth was full of boy juice. He swallowed and returned to the attack.

Eventually he rested, lying between Thad's spread legs, his head on the boy's tummy. After a time Nicky stirred and moved to burry his head once more in the other boy's crutch.

"No," Thad said, "we both do it."

Quickly he wriggled round. Nicky found himself lying on his back, his face straddled by Thad's spread thighs. Lifting his head he reached for the other boy's prick with his mouth at the same moment he felt the Thad's lips close about his own cock. Orgasm followed orgasm until exhausted the two boys fell asleep as they lay their heads buried in each other crutches.

***

Nicky woke by a stinging cut across his bottom and the sound of a voice shouting.

Jerked awake he turned his head to see Jason crouched halfway through the kennel door the length of rubber hosing grasped in his hand raised and ready to strike.

"Wake up whore! Wake up!" he screamed lifting the hose pipe for a second blow.

Nicky rolled onto his side in a vain attempt to escaped only to receive a further heavy cut across his hip.

"Come out of there shit face," Jason yelled grabbing hold of him by the side of his neck chain and pulling him towards the kennel door.

Taken by surprise and roused from a deep sleep Nicky resisted, fighting against Jason's grip on his collar, trying to lock his hands and knees to the floor. Then as he threw off the last vestiges of sleep he realised what he was doing. Hurriedly abandoning his resistance he threw himself forward through the low gate out into the yard. At that moment he felt himself struck suddenly from behind. Under the combined impetus of Jason's pulling, his own surge forward and the blow from behind he shot forward bowling Jason over, finishing up sprawling on top of him on the yard floor.

He lay there for a moment dazed while Jason swore and struggled to kick him off. Then Jason rolled clear of him and Nicky sat up and looked around. Trapper was going wild throwing himself against the bars of his kennel. Thad had cleared the farmyard fence and was already making good time up the steeply sloping hill behind the farmhouse. Jason was back up on his feet shouting at him to get after the boy while he wrestled at the bolt securing Trapper's kennel.

Thad had seen his chance and had made a last desperate break for freedom.

It is just possible, although highly unlikely, that if Nicky had been given time to think he might have joined Thad in his bid for freedom. Given no time at all, with Jason yelling orders at him instinct and training kicked in. He had been trained to obey Jason and at that moment of crisis he obeyed him. Setting off at a run he dashed across the yard and hurled himself at the fence.

Behind him as he clambered over the fence he heard Jason shoot the bolt back on the kennel door and then the cry of "get him boy, get him." and the rush of air as Trapper leapt over the fence beside him.

Back in the yard Jason set off at the run towards Merlin's loose box. He knew the country well and he knew there was not a moment to loose. The hill rose with increasing sharpness behind the farmhouse culminating in a series of small rock out crops at its steepest. Above these along the skyline was a fence backed by a line of pine trees. That was he knew a boundary fence with no gate in it. With the steep fall on the near side and the wood close on the other there could be no question of jumping it. If Thad could reach the fence and got over it he could disappear into the pine wood and would have a good chance at least of shaking off pursuit. The boy had got to be stopped if at all before he reached the fence.

Thad striking out diagonally across the slope was almost half way up to the tree line on its ,summit. He had made good time up to then but presumably exhausted by the climb his pace had now slackened to a dogged walk.

Trapper was in hot pursuit of him, gaining on him by the second but Thad had a had a good start and it would be touch and go whether he would reach the tree line before the dog reached him.

Nicky had struck off straight up the hill. With his muscles strengthened and tuned by his daily runs on the sand he was going well but he had a good deal of distance to make up..

There was no time to be lose Certainly no time to get a saddle on nor to go round to the gate.

Leading Merlin out into the yard Jason sprang on to his back and turned him to face the fence. He had often been tempted to try jumping that fence but had not done so, not because he was afraid of the jump but because he was afraid of what Uncle William would say if he did. Now was his chance although he thought it would have been better if he hadn't to do it without a saddle.

He turned the pony to face the fence and touched him with his heels.

Merlin cleared the fence just at the moment Toby came out of the farm house to see what was delaying Jason. Toby was just about to shout imprecations at the boy for taking such a bloody risk when he saw Thad, now nearly three quarters up the hill with Trapper and Nicky in hot pursuit.

His first instinct was to join the chase, then he checked himself and stood and watched. If Thad was to be caught at all it would have to be done by the two boys and Trapper.

***

"I knew you could do it Merlin," Jason shouted triumphantly as the pony carried him apparently effortlessly over the fence. "Now up the hill fast as you can," digging his heels in to the pony's flanks he headed straight up the hill towards the boundary fence flying past Nicky as he laboured stubbornly upwards.

Thad alerted by the noise behind him glanced over his shoulder. The dog was behind him and coming up fast. The boy on the pony was riding straight up the hill apparently intent on getting above him. The naked boy, Nicky he had heard him called,, was further below him. If the boy on the pony got above him he would be finished, caught between him, the other boy and the dog. His only chance and it wasn't a very good one, was to get to the wood at the top of the hill and hope to disappear into it. He turned to run directly up the hill. It was harder work than the diagonal line he had first set himself but it was his only chance.

His legs ached, his breath tore in his chest, the hill seemed be getting ever steeper. But he had to keep going. The dog was almost on his heels. He was almost up to the fence immediately beyond which was the wood and its rather problematic promise of safety. It was only five yards ahead of him. The boy on the pony was now level with him but about hundred yards to the right. He was turning the pony towards him. Nicky had gained on him and was only ten yards or so directly below him.

The fence was in front of him now. Running along the summit of the hill, a well maintained post and wire structure about four feet high, with a single strand of barbed wire along its base and and a double strand along its top. He couldn't get over that or under either for that matter. Naked as he was he would tear himself to pieces if he tried.

His only chance was that somewhere along the fence the barbed wire had parted leaving a gap under which he could wriggle or over which he could climb. Now the boy on his pony was coming up fast on his right. The only way to go was left.

Thad turned and began to run panic stricken along the fence. He could hear the thump of the pony's hooves behind him getting ever louder. There was no sign of a gap. Nicky coming up from below was almost on him.

He would have to chance it over the top and risk the barbed wire. Turning he grabbed two handed at the top strand of wire taking care to avoid the sharp spikes. He jammed his right foot into the fencing wire and heaved himself up. He got his left foot on the top of the top strand of barbed wire. He felt a jab of pain as a spike punctured the soul of his foot but he forced himself to go on. A wounded foot was better than being back down at the farm yard with its glittering knifes and cruel double hooks.

He only had to get his left foot under him on the top strand and jump and he would be on the other side of the fence away from the naked boy who was now right on top of him and the boy on the pony.

He began to raise his foot. Nicky lunged forward and grabbed him by the ankle? Thad tried to kick him off. Nicky hung on desperately and threw himself backwards trying to drag the boy off the fence. Thad hung on just as desperately but Nicky pulling down hill with the full weight of his body behind him was too strong for him. Thad felt himself dragged backwards from the fence and loosing his grip fell face forwards the barbed wire spikes tearing four long parallel gashes down his chest as he went.

Thad kicked out breaking Nicky's hold on his ankle and catching him across the mouth with the side of his foot. Nicky loosing his footing on the steeply sloping ground rolled three or four feet down the hill.

Blood streaming from the gashes torn in his chest by the barbed wire spikes Thad heaved himself back onto the fence as the thud of Merlin's hooves on the rough turf sounded ever louder in his ears.

Jason could see Thad just ahead of him almost under Merlin's flying hooves. A second before he was digging his heels into the pony's flanks urging him on, now he was hauling on his reigns trying desperately to check him. He was too late. As the pony surged past he lashed out with the hose pip He felt the jar in his arm as the blow connected.

Knocked off balance by the blow Thad momentarily lost his footing on the fence but retaining his hold on the top strand of barbed wire he pulled himself back up and tried once more to scramble over it.

Jason knew he had to stop Thad from getting over the fence. He spun the pony round and urging it as close as he could to where the boy struggled to heave himself up on the fence, rained blows down on his head and shoulders. Merlin alarmed by the violence whinnied and shifted nervously as Jason fought to control him while maintaining his assault on Thad. Confused, feeling his strength draining away under Jason's remorseless assault Thad continued with increasing desperation to attempt to drag himself over the fence. He repeatedly tried to get high enough up the fence to be able to lever himself over it with a foot on the top strand of wire only to be beaten back down by Jason's body jarring blows.

Nicky heaving himself back onto his feet staggered up the steep bank towards the fence. It wasn't too easy to see immediately what he should do. Merlin in his excitement was dancing about all over the place as Jason fought to control him at the same time as he slashed at Thad's naked body struggling to get over the fence and away from him. The frenzied trampling of Merlin's hooves, his nervous snorts and whinnying, Jason's clear boy's voice cursing, the dull thud of rubber against boy's flesh, Thad's wild screaming, all added to the confusion.

Merlin reared and neighIng shrilly as a dark shape shot past under his nose. Snarling Trapper hurled himself into the battle burying his teeth in a bare brown leg.

"Fucking hell," Jason yelled and then added as he succeeded in calming the startled pony, "Hold him boy… ,hold him… well done Trapper… I'd forgotten about you."

Trapper braced his rear legs on the ground as he fought to drag Thad down from the fence.

Jason urging Merlin back closer to the action smashed the hose down twice in quick succession across Thad's knuckles forcing the boy to release his grip of the top strand of barbed wire just as he was struggling to get his free leg, the leg to which Trapper was not attached, up to it.

Thad fell backwards kicking wildly. His flailing foot went between the two strands of barbed wire running along the top of the boundary which twisted together as he fell closing tight about his leg driving its spikes into his shin.

Thad finished up hanging upside down from the fence one leg caught by the ankle between the two crossed strands of barbed wire the other gripped between Trapper's jaws.

Jason digging his knees into Merlin's sides fought to keep his seat as the frightened pony danced under him.

He remembered Mister William at the beginning of the Winter Term telling him and the other newly appointed School Prefects that the Office came with duties as well as privileges and that the most important duty was to maintain discipline, to stop things getting out of hand and to impose order if things did so. Well things had got out of hand, the question was how to impose order.

One thing was clear, Merlin for the time being at least had served his purpose. The pony had out paced Thad uphill but now the brat was caught he was more hindrance than help. Jason slid to the ground and reaching up unclipped the pony's bridle from its head collar. The field he knew was well fenced and Merlin could be safely left to make his way back down to the farmyard fence in his own time meanwhile the bridle would provide a means of securing Thad when once he was freed from the fence.

But before he could turn his hand to that task he had to get Trapper, who still had his teeth sunk in Thad's ankle, under control and away from the brat. He grabbed Trapper by his collar and tried to drag him off the boy but the animal only snarled and held on tighter. Reluctantly, for he was fond of the dog and didn't want to hurt it, he hefted the rubber pipe in his hand and slammed it down hard across his nose. The dog howled and scuttled off its tail between its legs. Once safely out of reach it turned and cowered on the ground fixing Jason with hurt reproachful eyes.

Feeling guilty, for Trapper had done, in grabbing and mauling the runaway slut, no more than he was trained and bred to do, he straightened and faced the fence. Thad was hanging head down one ankle trapped between the two twisted barbed wire strands running along the top of the boundary fence. His free leg and both arms thrashing about ineffectually in an attempt to free himself his bare brown body streaked with blood where the barbed wire had torn his flesh. Looking at him Jason felt irritation rising in him. It was the brat's actions that had forced him to treat Trapper so unfairly.

The first priority Jason decided was to quiet the brat. Fortunately the means were ready to hand and would go someway in venting his a anger and frustration. He grabbed Thad's flailing ankle with his left hand and using all his strength and weight, pulled the brat's leg wide apart. Looking down he saw the boy's spread crutch exposed and vulnerable. He lifted his right hand over his head and slashed down with the rubber pipe catching the boy a crippling blow across his hairless genitals.

The dull thud of the pipe was followed by a second of total silence and then Thad screamed shrilly, striking out convulsively with his free leg, for a moment breaking Jason's grip.

Jason quickly recovered, recaptured Thad's ankle and forcing his leg apart delivered a second crushing blow not across his tight boy's testicles but into the tender flesh at the very top of the inside of his thigh.

Thad made a weird strangled sound part howl, part groan and ceased to struggle, hanging limply from one leg.

Taking advantage of the Thad's helplessness Jason moved quickly to bind the brat's wrists together in front of him with Merlin's bridle. Having effectively incapacitated the boy he mounted the bank below the boundary fence and looked carefully at his trapped ankle. He could see that the terrified boy, in his haste to escape, had missed his footing climbing the boundary fence, his leg had slipped between the two strands of barbed wire running along the top of the boundary fence and falling backwards these had twisted tight round his ankle trapping it between them. He spent a minute or two examining the situation as Thad hung head down, naked, helpless and moaning quietly.

The boy's fall with his weight behind it had drawn the two strands of wire suddenly tight around his leg just above the ankle. A ring of red blood welled from the wound where the strands had cut into his flesh like taughtly drawn wire cutting into cheese, driving the cruelly pointed barbs into his leg.

Jason tried to prize the two strands apart so as to relax their grip on Thad's leg but he was not strong enough. It was clear that the brat would have to be lifted so as to take his weight off the wires to allow his leg to be freed. He tried to lift the boy first with his hands gripping him by the waist and then when that failed by the leg itself. But he was not strong enough to lift the brat and at the same time pull the strands apart.

It was clear he needed help. In the excitement he had forgotten Nicky but now he wanted him.

***

Nicky had finished up sprawled on his back some five or six yards below the fence. Rolling over onto his hands and knees he gingerly probed with the fingers of one hand the side of his jaw where Thad had kicked him as he gathered himself together preparatory to going to help Jason. He did not question what he should do. He was Jason's boy and he was bound to go to his assistance as quickly as possible. He levered himself to his feet and struggled unsteadily up the steep slope intent on doing so.

But the question was how. He hesitated and Jason became aware of him standing uncertainly beside him.

"Don't just stand there boy," Jason snapped grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and pushing him forward to where Thad's body hanged, ripped and bloodied by the barbed wire, head down from the boundary fence

"Get hold of his leg and lift him… the leg that's caught in the wire you stupid git. Lift, lift for fuck's sake. Get his weight off his ankle so I can pull the wire apart. Fucking do it boy."

Gripping Thad's leg with both hands just below the ankle Nicky strained to lift the boy, his bare feet slipping and scrabbling on the steep bank below him. "Bloody hell, lift him up you stupid fucker," Jason snarled as he fought to pull the two strands of barbed wire twisted about the brat's ankle apart.

Frustrated he stepped back and unleashed a terrific back handed crack across Nicky's rump feeling the boy's straining flesh hard against his knuckles.

"Lift," Jason shouted driving his clenched fist into Nicky's bum.

Nicky did not resent the blows or thought of them as unjustified. He accepted that he should be beaten and hit and abused as part of the natural order of things, as inevitable and inescapable as the rising and setting of the sun. Nor did it occur to Jason that he was treating the other boy badly. He had told Nicky to do something and the boy had failed to do so, of course he would be hit. Nor did it occur to either of them that Nicky could have chosen not to assist Jason. The instinctive bonds of servitude and mastery held them both fast in their allotted rolls.

Nicky knew though that he had somehow to lift Thad and that he did not have sufficient strength in his arms to do so. Bending at the knees he wrapped his arms round Thad's waist and then heaved upwards straightening his legs.

Jason seeing the strain easing on the two twisted strands of barbed wired fought to prize them apart. Nicky suddenly bearing Thad's full weight lost his footing and slipped and crashed to the ground bringing the other boy down with him. Jason jumped down the bank at the base of the fence and snatching up the length of rubber hosing began to promiscuously belabor the writhing tangle of naked boy bodies at his feet.

Darting forward he grabbed hold of Nicky's collar with his free hand and hauled on it.

"Get out of it… on your feet… come on," he shouted pulling on the collar and as the opportunity arose, directing his blows at Nicky's bare shoulders and bum.

Urged on in this way Nicky dragged himself clear of the other boy and staggered to his feet.

"Grab hold of this and help me get the slut up on his feet, " Jason ordered thrusting the free end of the bridle the other end of which was tied round Thad's wrists at Nicky. Nicky pulled up on the rope while Jason urged Thad to his feet with a series of well aimed kicks and blows.

"Now back to the yard. Come on Trapper come with us boy."

They set off down the hill, Nicky first, tugging Thad along behind him by his tethered wrists, then Jason bringing up the rear. Trapper circled the two naked brats snarling and running in occasionally to snap at their legs supplementing Jason's efforts to keep them moving with his boot and frequent applications of the hose pipe to their naked rumps.

***

Toby stood in the yard watching the drama unfolding above him on the hillside with growing satisfaction. Jason's ready and unrestrained use of violence both to restrain Thad and to motivate Nicky fully confirmed his already high opinion of the boy's potential as a disciplinarian, someone whom, with time and nurturing, might play a leading roll in the development of the Island community. That however was the future now he had more immediate concerns.

Satisfied that Jason had the situation under control he walked briskly across the yard to the butchery shed. He selected a short thick metal bar with claw shaped ends from the glittering array of knifes and hatchets laid out on the top of the whites scrubbed table top. He stood weighing it in his hand for a couple of seconds and then walked out of the shed carrying it with him. He propped the bar against the wall just outside the shed's door before returning to the yard's boundary fence.

Looking up the hill he saw Jason with Thad stumbling along in front of him, the naked boy's brown skin streaked with glistening rivulets of fresh blood welling from the gashes torn in his flesh by the barbed wire. Every now and again Thad would fall, then Jason would shout at him angrily and strike out at him while Nicky pulled hard at the halter tied round his wrists and Trapper darted forward snarling with bared teeth.

"Well done Jason," Toby said when the boy arrived red faced and somewhat out of breath at the farm yard fence, "you caught the little sod ."

"Me and Trapper and Merlin - even Nicky helped," Jason replied anxious to give credit where credit was due, before asking, a hint of pride in his voice, "did you see I jumped the yard fence and bareback."

"And without a riding cap," Toby said laughing to take the sting out of his words, "it was a good jump but risky though justified by the circumstances. You should never get up on a pony without putting a riding het on."

"Now Nicky bring Thad right up to the fence so I can lift him over," he added having made his point."

Reaching over the fence he caught hold of Thad under the arms and lifted him bodily over the fence.

"There is no harm in letting a brat feel your strength," he told himself depositing the boy roughly to the ground in the yard. It increases his feeing of helplessness.

"You take Trapper and Nicky down to the gate Jason and join me in the yard," he ordered before turning his attention back to Thad.

He removed the halter from around Thad's wrists and then, taking a firm hold of the brat's upper arm, he began to march him across the yard towards the butchery shed. Thad went willingly enough at first but as Toby got him nearer the shed and he understood where he was being taken he began to whimper and struggle. Toby, grimly silent, took no notice but forced him forward.

Toby stopped by the closed door to the shed and while retaining his grip of Thad's arm took a pace backwards away from the trembling boy. He picked up the iron bar, hefted the it in his hand and then cracked it down across the front of the brat's right knee. Toby's hand moved less than a foot but it was enough. The crunch of breaking bone was followed by Thad's shill scream as the pain hit him.

Toby lashed out with his foot sweeping the boy's left leg away under him and bringing him crashing to the ground.

"He won't be running anywhere ever again," Toby remarked to Jason who had joined him, after returning Trapper and Nicky to their respective kennels, with a grim smile. "Now get a pail of water and some straw for bedding ; I detest unnecessary cruelty while I get a chain to secure him. He can't run now but he could still crawl and I don't want to waste a couple of hours tomorrow morning searching for him."

Leaving Jason to look after the straw Toby hurried into the shed to return a minute or two later with a length of chain and a padlock. He looped one end of the chain around a metal ring set in the wall by the door and secured its other end round Thad's neck with the padlock.

"He won't be going anywhere Jason," he remarked cheerfully. "Now we'll take Nicky up to the farm house and you can show us all how good you are with the cane."

"Aren't we going to give Thad a beating for running away?" Jason asked his disappointment evident in his voice.

"What's the point," Toby said laughing indulgently at the lad's eagerness. "What we'll do though is leave the door open so he can see what's waiting for him tomorrow and just stamp on his right knee, that'll hurt him as much as any beating."

They strolled together across the yard towards the the kennels Thad's screams ringing in their ears.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Nicky saw them approaching and began to whimper quietly to himself. He hadn't meant to attack Jason. That was a complete accident. Thad in his eagerness to escape had banged into him from behind and sent him shooting out of the kennel straight into Jason knocking him over. He knew Jason thought it was a deliberate attack on himself. The violence with which he had reacted and the threats of future punishment had shown that. But it wasn't. The harsh treatment he had received at the farm at his hands and at the hands of Mister Toby and Mister William had broken his spirit. He had.been taught his place in the household there, and after some faint struggles accepted it as an inferior, his inclusion dependent on the services he could render his betters. He had been so schooled that he could not imagine another life. His one attempt to escape was not from the condition of slavery but just from one master to another that he hoped might be a kinder more indulgent one.

However he knew that Jason did not see it that way. Jason thought he had deliberately attacked him and now he was coming. Jason stooped to pick up the length of rubber hosing that he had dropped earlier. Nicky struggled vainly to fight back his sobs. He knew from painful experience how much even a flick from that hose pipe across a bare thigh or naked rump hurt.

But it wouldn't be just the rubber hose. Nicky was pretty sure of that and a feeling of black despair and terror gripped him as he contemplated the possible alternatives for his perception of the nature of his servitude and those that held him in it had changed. It was not a question of limits. These had never been offered to him and anyway he did not think in those terms. He had no doubt that Mister Toby or Mister William or young Master Jason could do to him anything or require anything they wanted from him. What had changed was his perception of the limits they might set on their own acts. What they had done or planned to do to the Vietnamese boy they could do to him. Before Thad's arrival, his dawning awareness of the fate reserved for the boy and Toby's brutal smashing of the brat's knee cap he had known if he displeased them he would be beaten and beaten hard. Now though beating was only the first of an infinite number of possibilities. For the first time he realized that his very existence depended on pleasing and satisfying Jason or Toby or who ever took their place and he knew with sick certainty that sometime he would fail to do so and that would be the end of him.

What he didn't know and what he would never know with complete certainty until the very last moment was when that would be. It could be ten years or twenty years time or, he thought looking towards Jason striding purposefully across the farm yard toward him with, Mister Toby strolling more nonchalantly behind, it could be now.

Panic gripped him. He began to shake with fear. Jason and Mister Toby had been frightening enough when their presence threatened only the sharp bite of the rod across naked taught drawn flesh. Now though their presence brought a different order of mind numbing terror that tightened the muscles in his chest and throat and weakened his knees. There was one thing though added to fear, awe. These were people who held his life in their hands. Who at a whim could break his neck or cut his throat or kill him in anyway they fancied. God like in their powers, evil Gods perhaps but what did that matter? There was no escape from them. Resistance was impossible. Evil or not they had to be placated.

Jason stopped in front of the kennel door holding the length of rubber hose two handed across his body. MisterToby stepped in front of him, unfastening the padlock and pulling the door open. Before he could speak Nicky was crawling on his hands and knees past him towards, Jason cringing down as low as he could his chest and face almost touching the ground.

Naked on all fours with Jason and Mister Toby towering over him Nicky felt totally vulnerable. At any moment the beating would begin. Fear robbed him of the power of coherent speech. He wanted to say he was sorry, that he hadn't meant to hit Jason, to ask for forgiveness, to promise to be a good boy in future but all he could manage was a frightened whimper cowering like a mongrel dog at the feet of its angry master.

"Sounds sorry for himself doesn't he?" Mister Toby voice sounded above him cruel and sneering and his boot crashed into his side.

The beating had begun. Nicky knew he had to reach Jason. It was Jason he had knocked over. If he could make Jason understand he hadn't meant to then maybe the beating would stop. He could see Jason's trainers a couple of yards in front of him. He crawled on. Mister Toby drove his foot into his raised bottom almost lifting him from the ground with the force of the blow. Doggedly he crawled forward. The rubber hose cracked down across his shoulders.

He had reached Jason's feet. He pressed his lips to the boy's trainers, kissing them, whimpering wordless pleas for forgiveness. Jason drew his foot back and suddenly stamped down on his head driving his face down onto the concrete yard. Nicky lifted his head he could pools of blood forming on the ground in front of him. He strained forward once more trying to press his bruised lips to Jason's feet. ,

"That's enough," Mister Toby said, " you don't want any more blood on those pricey trainers of yours."

He bent down and grabbing Nicky by the arm dragged him to his feet.

"God what a mess," he said as he grabbed him by the chin and tilted his head back. He stood for a moment staring down into the boy's bruised and bloodied face stained with dirt from the yard floor.

"Better clean him up a bit before we take him up to the house," he remarked dragging Nicky across to the water trough.

He began to sponge the boy's face clean water stained with blood flowing down his bare chest and shoulders.

"He just kept on coming Uncle Toby. However much you kicked him and I hit him he just kept trying to lick my shoe."

Jason seemed to think he needed to provide some explanation for the state of the other boy's face.

"Don't worry Jason," Toby said laughing reassuringly. "That's how it should be. You're the nearest thing to a God that he has. You decide whether he lives or dies. The poor little brute was desperate to signal his regret for knocking you over and that it was an accident."

"But was it Uncle Toby? An accident I mean. Maybe he did it deliberately. Maybe he was in a plot with Thad."

"I don't think so. He's just a slut." Mister Toby abandoned his sponging of the accumulated dirt from Nicky's face and slapped him on the bum in a contemptuous gesture of affection. "He doesn't have the guts to try anything on like that."

"But if you have any real doubt maybe the best thing would be to kill him. No point in keeping a boy you don't trust and the job's easily done."

Toby gripping Nicky by the back of his neck with one hand grasped the boy's chin with the other and pulled his head back.

"Just one good jerk and his neck'll be broken," he said cheerfully as Nicky forced up on his toes whimpered piteously.

"That's all right for you Uncle Toby," Jason said with a hint of complaint in his voice, "but it wouldn't work for me. I'm not tall enough."

"Oh you want to do the job yourself," Toby sounded pleased. "Of course you do."

"Nicky fetch the iron bar I used to smash the Vietnamese brat's knee cap. I left it somewhere on the yard by the butchery shed. Quickly now boy. I want to get up to the house for my supper."

He released his grip of the boy's neck and Nicky stumbled off on legs half paralyzed with fear.

The crow bar was lying on the ground near where Thad was chained sitting naked on the straw strewn concrete his injured leg stuck straight out in front of him. He looked up at Nicky and whispered something but Nicky had no time to spare for the other boy's troubles. He snatched up the iron bar and ran back towards where Jason and Toby were standing. He felt the weight of the iron bar. Quite heavy enough he thought to smash his skull or break his neck.

His mind was paralyzed by fear. No thought of escape occurred to him. He was functioning by instinct alone.

He through himself on the ground at Jason's feet and holding the bar in both hands lifted it, offering it to him. Jason looked down into the boy's tear drenched face and smiling almost kindly took the bar from him. Nicky pressed his face to the ground silently signaling his submission and acceptance. Oddly it seemed to him at this moment of death everybody was being kinder and gentler with him.

"Now then boy, up you get," Toby gripping the boy by his arm raised him to his feet and guided him across to stand facing the water trough. Firmly but gently he pushed him down so he was bent double over the trough his head above the water his neck resting on its edge. He felt Mister Toby's hand resting on his back between his shoulders holding him down.

"All right," Mister Toby's voice sounded above him full of a new urgency, "hard as you can across the back of his neck."

Jason raised the bar over his head. Looking down at Nicky's fair head hanging over the water trough the back of his delicate boy's neck exposed he felt a rush of excitement and power.

He paused a moment and then brought the bar cracking down across the side of the iron trough just inches from Nicky's head.

Nicky screamed wildly and collapsed on the ground. Jason and Toby roared with laughter. A pool of steaming amber fluid began to form on the concrete floor around Nicky.

"The disgusting little slut has peed himself," Jason crowed and he and Mister Toby again roared with laughter.

Nicky lying in a growing pool of his own piss began to sob convulsively

He was roused by a vicious kick in the ribs.

"On your feet slut," Mister Toby ordered fighting back his laughter, "put the crow bar back in the butchery shed and get back here at the double, we're late for supper and I'm hungry."

"He pee'd himself," Nicky heard Jason, crowing with laughter, as Nicky darted off across the yard carrying the crow bar.

"Well he thought you were going to break his neck," Mister Toby replied.

"Maybe next time I will," and again the heartless laughter rang out.

***

"Come on Jason," Mister Toby said, "I'm not going to spend the rest of the evening hanging round waiting for a slave brat. We'll go up to the house and see what there is for supper."

"How about Nicky. We need him up there too, you promised I could use ,the cane on him."

"Don't worry about that. He knows he has to come up to the farm and he knows what s waiting for him there. He certainly doesn't want to but he's too scared of you to do anything off his own bat. He'll catch us up."

"Scared of me," Jason exclaimed as they walked up the path to the farm house sounding pleased.

He glanced back over his shoulder.

"Yes you're quite right Uncle Toby. He's right behind us."

***

They found Bill and the other men in the big sitting room with the enormous windows looking out over the bay lounging in arm chairs with a half empty whiskey bottle together with a jug of water on the long solid coffee table and four half full tumblers on occasional tables beside them.

"Good God, where have you been," Bill demanded looking up and seeing Nicky, his face heavily bruised sidling into the sitting room behind Mister Toby and Jason and shifting uneasily on his bare feet just inside the door.

"You're late for supper and what the hell has happened to the slut, it looks as though it's been run over by a steam roller."

"Uncle Bill we've had a great time," Jason burst out excitedly, "first of all Nicky rolled me over shooting out of the kennels and banging into me and sending me banging down on my bottom. Then Thad took a runner and set off up the hill with Trapper after him. And then I got up on Merlin and jumped the yard fence without a saddle or stirrups. And Merlin and Trapper and I and Nicky caught Thad up against the wire at the top of the hill. And I took Thad back to the yard. And uncle Toby broke Thad's knee with a crow-bar. And I said I was going to break Ni key's neck because I thought he had knocked me over on purpose but Uncle Toby said he hadn't so I didn't but just hit the edge of the water trough with the iron -bar. And the stupid slut," he continued his breath running out and his voice becoming even more shrill with excitement, "peed itself."

Jason burst out into peels of laughter in which the whole of his audience joined while Nicky hanged his head in misery.

"Mind you next time it maybe for real." Jason continued before being overcome by another burst of laughter.

"Any way," Jason continued somewhat breathlessly, "we've brought Nicky up here to give him a taste of the cane across his bottom. Uncle Toby says twelve strokes. After that his rump will match his face - both will be equally battered" and he collapsed into another bout of giggling.

"And we'd better get on with it," Bill said stirring a trifle impatiently in the armchair in which he was lounging a tumbler of whiskey and water in his hand, "I am getting hungry."

"Nicky," he snapped "don't stand there whimpering you idle lump of dog's shit. Go and fetch young Master Jason a cane. You'll find one just inside the back door. Get on with it boy, scat!"

Nicky found the canes, about half a dozen of them propped in a tall, narrow mouthed, earthenware jug. He pulled one out and stood a moment, water dripping from its length to form a glistening puddle on the quarry tile floor, weighing it in his hand. It seemed heavier and more pliable than he would have expected from its appearance. No doubt the water in which it had been standing had given it extra weight and suppleness, He imagined cowering naked his bottom raised, the rich hiss of the descending cane, the sudden explosion of pane centred on his rump but spreading and filling his whole body as it cut down across his rump its tip curling about and nipping deep into his flank.

He hesitated casting a longing look at the back door. He was sure it was unlocked. All he had to do was to lift the latch, open the door and then the path down to the farmyard and the freedom that lay beyond would be open to him.

He had tried running away once and it had not worked. He turned and set off at a trot back to the sitting room. He had no choice and it would only make things worse if he kept Toby and the rest waiting.

Nicky had left the door into the sitting room ajar. He stopped outside it, reluctant to go,forward but knowing he had to. Through the open door he could hear the murmur of voices and a low masculine laugh. He eased it slightly more open and tried to slip unnoticed into the sitting room. There was a sudden silence and he found himself the focus of attention. Bill, and the two burly border control officers who had changed out of their navy blue uniforms into jeans and t-shirts were lounging in armchairs in front of the picture window looking over the bay. Toby and Jason, the marked bulge in the front of the latter's tight shorts, glittering eyes and flushed face betraying his excitement.

All were staring at him. He felt utterly alone and vulnerable, a single naked boy being stared at stony eyed by a semi circle of fully clothed adults. There was Jason of course, he stole a glance at him and dropped his eyes. He knew he could not look for help or sympathy from him.

Mister William summoned him to him with a crook of his finger. Nicky moved forward his knees weak with terror. A downward motion of Mister William's finger sent him crashing to his knees.

"Give me the cane boy," Mister William commanded his voice quiet but menacing.

Terror prompted instinct taking over, Nicky lifted the cane two handed to his mouth and touched it with his lips before holding it out to Mister William. The man took it from him and Nicky, still prompted by instinct, bent forward raising his naked rump in the air and pressing his face to the ground in the timeless gesture of abject surrender used by the slave to signal submission over the centuries.

"Lift your head boy and look at me."

Toby pressed the tip of the cane under the boy's chin, lifting it, forcing him to kneel upright. He looked down into the boy's eyes staring fearfully up at him.

"Listen to me boy," he said in the same quiet cold voice, dripping with menace, "I bought you from your mother and now I have given you to young Master Jason. He owns you. You are nothing, you possess nothing. You are a mere animal. Like any animal so long as you are useful you will be allowed to live. Once you cease to be useful you will be killed."

"You understand that?"

"Yes … Sir," Nicky's voice was a mere whisper.

"Speak up boy so that we can all hear you."

"Yes Sir," this time the words came out in a shrill falsetto and a chuckle of laughter rose from the watching circle.

"Well you haven't made a very good beginning. Banging into Master Jason, tipping him over, allowing Thad to escape. Not a very good beginning Nicky. Was it boy?"

"No Sir."

Nicky felt the pressure of the cane under his chin cease and then the sharpest of stings as Mister Toby flicked the side of his ear with its tip.

He squealed in pain and clapped his hand to his burning ear.

"Don't ever say 'no' to me boy and get your hand down by your side."

"Now try again. Was it a very good beginning?"

"Please Sir… … ," Nicky hesitated trying to think of a formula that would satisfy his inquisitor.

"Well was it?"

Nicky felt the tip of the cane move from under his jaw.

"Please Sir… it was a bad idea Sir… . I'm sorry Sir… I didn't do it on purpose Sir. I didn't mean to help Thad escape Sir."

"Of course you didn't, not a frightened cowardly little slut like you. But you've got to be taught to be more careful and we are going to do just that using this cane across your nice tight bottom."

"It's going to hurt you a lot, but really it's for your own good. It'll teach you to be a more careful, a more attentive, a better little slave slut and the better slut you are the longer you will survive."

"I think you'd better say thank you to young Master Jason who is going to take all this trouble with you."

"Come on slut say thank you to Master Jason."

"Thank you Master Jason," he quavered hastily but even to him his voice lacked conviction..

"Now there's one fault in a boy neither I nor Master Jason can tolerate and that's ingratitude. Try again Nicky and this time try to make it sound as if you mean it and Mister Toby added his voice hardening, "get your hand down by your side."

"Thank you Master Jason," Nicky almost shouted his voice shrill with fear.

"That's better, that's much better. But there is something else you should be grateful for. Master Jason will conduct this beating in a way that will give you the opportunity to show him that you are a good slave brat that accepts its Master's authority and right to chastise it."

"You'll be bent down over the seat of a chair but you're not going to be tied down, neither are you to be held down, nor will you get an extra stroke for standing up or collapsing on your knees. Not this time, neither Master Jason nor I expect the impossible from a slut. Later perhaps when you have been better schooled to the wood but not now."

"If you come off the chair Master Jason will start counting. Provided you get yourself back down over it with that pretty little rump of your's lifted and ready for the cane before he reaches ten you will be spared any additional punishment."

"Is that understood Nicky?"

"Yes Sir,"

"Very good, we're almost ready to begin. Go and fetch that upright chair by the door and put it there in the centre of the room where we can all see and enjoy the fun. Fun for us I suppose Nicky, not for you eh?" and Mister Toby laughed heartlessly.

"Well get on with it boy."

Nicky scrambled to his feet. He set off towards the door. He was acutely conscious of all the people watching him and his own nakedness. He found it difficult to walk and he stumbled. Laughter rang in his ears.

"Good, now we all know what dirty little brutes you brats are and we must be prepared for accidents. In the chest by the door is a packet of absorbent sheets fetch one of them, fold it double and put it the seat of the chair,"

"You know why I am having you put that there?" Mister Toby asked as the naked boy spread the doubled sanitary towel over the chair watched avidly by the semi circle of seated grinning men.

"Well do you? Come on boy tell theGentlemen, don't be shy."

"In case I pee myself Sir," Nicky said and loosing control began to sob wildly.

"Good God boy, pull yourself together, you're sobbing and weeping and we haven't even started yet. God knows what sort of row you will make when the cane really begins to bite."

"Well we'll find out in a minute now. Get down over the back of the chair, take a good firm grip of its seat and push your bottom up. I want your bottom nice and tight for the rod."

Mister Toby heaved himself out of the armchair in which he had been lounging and advancing on the naked boy bent over the back of the chair. Handing the cane to Jason who was standing close by he slipped his right hand between Nicky's legs and pressing upwards with the palm of his hand forced the boy up on to his toes, lifting his bottom up into the air.

"There you are," he said speaking to Jason, "all ready for you. Lay the cane across his bottom just to get the distance right."

"No I'd aim a little lower." Mister Toby raised his voice slightly to be heard over Nicky who in anticipation of the agony to come had broken out into loud whimpering at the first touch of the cane, "Try to lay the cane along the crease of the brat's bottom at least initially. The stripes there burn the longest. You'll find they won't all go in there by any means. For one thing he'll throw himself about too much under chastisement for you to do that."

"Now lift the cane back right above your head. Pause, wait for it. Let the tension build up. Give the slut a little time to anticipate what's coming to him. Give it plenty of follow through. As hard as you can. Now."

The rich hiss of the descending cane ended in an abrupt sharp crack as wood struck taught drawn boy flesh. There was a split second of total silence as Nicky fought to draw air into lungs suddenly emptied by shock, followed by a shrill cry of pain and a crash as the chair tipped over spilling the naked boy on the floor.

"Start counting Jason. One … Two… . Don't hurry it… . Nicky, you ghastly cry baby, stop howling. Pick the chair up and get back over it… . Remember you get an extra stroke every time the count exceeds ten."

"Three… four… five," Jason carried on the count his voice shrill with hardly suppressed excitement.

"Pick the chair up slut and get back over it. Come on boy," Mister Toby snapped as Nicky dragged himself painfully upright.

With a half strangled sob he draped himself once more over the back of the chair and taking a firm grip of its seat with both hands pushed up on his toes forcing his bottom as high as he could in the air. He sensed the movement behind him as Jason raised the cane for a second cut. He tensed his bottom in anticipation of the coming blow.

"Hold on a moment Jason," Mister Toby's voice sounded above him, "there's no hurry, let's have a look at the damage you've done so far."

"Very nice," he said leaning forward and running his finger tip along the livid welt etched across the sweet curve of the boy's rump, "but try to put all your weight behind it. The rattan is well soaked and supple and if you do the cane should curve round the brat's bum and its tip bite the flank of his bottom. Let's see a bit of blood."

"Stand with right foot slightly back and when you slash down bring it forward and pivot from the hips so like I said your whole weight is behind the cane when it rips down across the boy's rump."

"Now Jason remember right foot forward, get in position. Wait for it, there's no hurry. Now."

Once again the cane sang shrilly through the air before cracking down a cross Nicky's tight clenched bottom. Again there was that split second of total silence before Nicky screamed shrilly. This time though rather than upsetting the chair over which he was bent he shot upwards onto his feet before collapsing slowly to his knees, sobbing loudly his hands clasped to his burning bottom.

"One,"Jason began counting.

"Two," laughing Mister Toby and William joined in. "Three, four, five," all the watching men chorused joining in the laughter.

Nicky kneeling on the floor, the stripes on his bottom burning fiercely his body wracked with sobs, heard the counting and laughter over his head. Dragging himself upright and bent once more over the chair. Shuffling his feet forward he forced his bottom upwards.

"Six… seven… ,"

"I think," Mister Toby said moving up close to the chair, "you have drawn blood."

He bent over to examine Nicky's rump, across which the cane had scored four lived welts, more closely.

"Yes, there," he said touching the boy on the side of one tense and deeply dimpled buttock where a bead of dark red blood had formed and begun to trickle downwards tracing a vermilion streak across the golden brown skin.

"Three down and three to go," he said laughing and then licking the blood from his index finger.

"Well done Jason, you should have the brat's bottom well bloodied before you've finished with him."

He stepped back and nodded to Jason who interpreting the gesture correctly raised the cane over his head, paused a moment and the slashed downwards. Nicky's naked body jerked and writhed under the impact of the cane. Once again he finished on his knees on the floor.

"One… two… three… four," the count began again.

"Please… please," Nicky sobbed wriggling round on his knees and clasping his hands in front of him as if in prayer.

"Five… Six… Seven,'" the count continued remorselessly.

Toby stepped forward once more and slipping his hand within Nicky's neck-chain lifted him bodily, choking and arms and legs vainly flailing, from the floor.

"I don't expect," he said as he replaced the sobbing boy over the back of the chair and forcing his head down cocking his now liberally bleeding bottom into the air, "the brat feels the slightest gratitude for my help."

"Come on Jason'" he continued raising his voice to be heard over Nicky's shrill, almost hysterical, screams, "two more stokes. I'll hold him down for them. I think he is beyond staying down himself."

Still acting with deliberation and measuring the time between each stroke with care Jason slashed down twice more. Mister Toby laughed and cursed fighting to pin Nicky down as the cane cut across the boy's rump as the blood flowed and the boy bucked and screamed and beat a frenzied tattoo with his bare feet on the floor.

Mister Toby retained his grip of Nicky's neck chain, keeping the brat pinned down over the back of the chair, until the boy was more or less calm, his shrill screams reduced to a low steady monotonous sobbing.

As he calmed down Mister Toby transferred his grip from the chain to the back of the boy's neck.

"Fetch me the veterinary wound powder Jason would you please. I left it on the kitchen table when we came up from the yard," he said speaking across Nicky's bent body as he gently massaged the back of his neck.

"Thanks," he said taking the white plastic tube with the blue and white label from the boy. Inverting it he shook it directing a spray of fine white powder over Nicky's bleeding stripes.

"Dual purpose stuff this," he remarked, "anti-sceptic and staunches the flow of blood. Don't want the brat bleeding all over the floor."

"There Nicky that will do," Mister Toby's voice was soft with an underlying edge of suppressed laughter, "You can rest now, come along with me."

He urged the boy upright and guided him across the room to a hard chair standing against the wall beside the kitchen door. . Nicky encouraged by Mister Toby's deceptively gentle tones and not sensing the man's latent excitement quietened further and even hazarded a somewhat uncertain and watery smile.

"Get up boy and face the wall." Mister Toby ordered impatiently tapping the seat of the chair with his free hand

Obediently Nicky scrambled painfully to stand rather unsteadily facing the wall.

"Hands on the back of your neck. Show everybody what a good job young Master Jason has made of skinning that pretty little bum of yours. Come on boy."

Mister Toby reached up to steady Nicky with a hand resting on the back of a firm bare thigh. There was a general movement as the watching men levered themselves out of their arm chairs to crowd round as Toby showed off Nicky's cane ravaged bottom.

"Jason's certainly succeeded in giving the slut a bloody bottom," William said raising his voice to be heard over the general hubbub of conversation, "but I'm not sure that is, in the circumstances, enough. Even if the brat did not mean to help Thad escape and I accept your judgement Toby that he did not, he was stupidly careless in knocking Jason over. On top of that and more seriously we would have lost the disloyal little brute altogether were it not for the very honest and principled conduct of our friend. Who very properly brought the slut back when it tried to run off to attach itself to what it hoped might be a more indulgent owner."

"I agree with you," Toby replied quickly, "I agree even though what Jason has given him is only the first half of the thrashing the brat is to receive tonight."

""Stand still and stop that ridiculous noise," he snapped at Nicky who had started almost falling from the chair before bursting out wailing. "I can't hear myself speak with you carrying on in the ridiculous way. You don't think you are getting away with a mere six cuts across your arse with the cane for your misbehavior. You'll stay up on that chair while we have our supper and afterward you'll be taken down and bent over for a further six strokes. Though this time I think you should be given them bent over the kitchen table. The floor in there is quarry tile so it will be easier to clean the blood off it."

"As I was saying," he continued more quietly, "Twelve cuts with the cane is nowhere adequate a punishment. Nicky's behavior has revealed a continuing fundamental flaw in his attitude which requires correction if he is to survive for more than a few months on the island.

"I had hoped I could send him out there fully prepared but after his most recent antics I am afraid the brat will need further training when he arrives there. A few months spent working in the brick kilns until Jason comes out for his Christmas holidays will I am sure do the trick. That is if he survives."

"Do you think he will?" Bill asked doubtfully.

"Who knows?" Toby shrugged, "last figures were brats lasted on average 6 months servicing the kilns. It's just over four months to Christmas so he should have a fair chance."

"Anyway it's better to kill a brat trying to school it than to have the brat alive but only part broken."

"Now let's get on with our supper. Jason you sit there facing Nicky where you can admire the damage you have already done to his bottom and think about the further work you are to do with the cane."

***

Nicky stood on the chair facing the wall feeling weak from hunger and exhaustion. The stripes on his bottom burnt fiercely bottom burnt, his arms, with his hands locked behind his head, were racked by cramp, his legs felt unsteady. Behind him he could hear the clink of glasses, the clatter of cutlery, the cheerful chatter of voices and the occasional burst of loud laughter. The sounds merged in his head into an incoherent and meaningless jumble, the wall just a few inches from his eyes seemed to waver and lack substance. Every now and again a hand would rest on his bare thigh and squeeze it and a voice penetrate the inchoate jumble of sounds in his head asking with a laugh how he was feeling or whether he was looking forward to the next six stripes or some other good humoured and caring question.

Time dragged by. There was nothing to look forward to except pain and misery. Nicky longed to be allowed off the chair to ease his aching arms and legs but dreaded the moment when Jason would once more rip the already mangled flesh of his rump with the cane.

Jason on the other hand enjoyed his meal. He was hungry and with the healthy appetite of a twelve year old boy wolfed down his supper of boiled ham and parsley sauce followed by a large helping of Apple crumble and cream. From time to time he would raise his eyes from his plate to gloat over Nicky's mangled bum so conveniently displayed opposite him. He looked forward to the moment he could resume operations on the boy's bottom, to have the brat bent over in front of him, his bottom clenched in fearful anticipation of the cane biting once more deep into it's tender flesh, to hear Nicky's shrill screams of pain ringing once more in his knees. He looked forward but not with any particular impatience. It was so far as he was concerned only replacing one pleasure, the pleasure of eating, with another, that of flogging a helpless boy's writhing buttocks. He knew the latter would come in time and meanwhile he was content to enjoy what he had and to look forward with keen anticipation to what was to come.

That was at least till the moment the table was cleared and Uncle William summoned him to help make the coffee.

"When can we get on with Nicky's thrashing?" he demanded as they stood in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil.

"Not long now I promise you Jason," Uncle William replied with an indulgent laugh.

"You take this through to the dining room," he continued filling the large percolator with boiling water while I bring the cups through. "Go along now and stop sulking."

Jason sat at the dining room table fiddling impatiently with the cane while the adults sipped their coffee and chatted among themselves. He was bored and frustrated. Opposite him Nicky still stood, though now somewhat unsteadily, on his chair facing the wall his hands clasped behind his neck, his bare, blood flecked, rump provocatively displayed. To Jason the tight curves, the smooth skin, tanned golden brown by weeks of exposure to the sun and the wind, ribbed by the livid welts left by the cane, cried out for further attention. He longed to have Nicky before him again, bent over the kitchen table, sobbing quietly in anticipation of the beating to come, to turn that anticipation into current pain-filled reality, those sobs into shrill screams, as he raked the brat's rump once again with the rod. He shifted in his chair as he adjusted his shorts to accommodate his swollen prick.

He longed to set to work again, to reopen old wounds and to lay fresh welts across the sluts tender flesh, to get the blood flowing freely once again. All round him was the buzz of conversation as the adults talked among themselves. This could go on easily for another hour he thought to himself. Typical of grown ups, get them round a table, give them a few drinks and they will just sit around talking even when there are exciting things to do.

Anyway there was no reason why he should just sit there feeling bored. He picked up the cane and moving round the table came to a stop behind Nicky. The boy whimpered and tensed, the dimples on the sides of his bottom deepening as he did so.

"Good," Jason thought, "he knows I am here."

He stood a moment enjoying the boy's mounting fear then reaching up he briefly rested the tip of the cane against the side of the brat's thigh who shuddered and moaned softly.

Jason chuckled and then with no more than a sharp turn of his wrist nipped Nicky's thigh with the tip of the rod. The boy jerked convulsively and loosing his balance crashed headlong to the ground.

Mister Toby, who had just lifted his coffee cup to his lips, started tipping its steaming contents over his trousers. He jumped to his feet cursing and with two strides was standing over Nicky's prostrate body kicking him with well directed fury in the ribs.

"Get up you stupid little turd," he shouted, "can't you even manage to stand quietly on the chair like you were told. Look what you've bloody well done."