Chapter 15: Collar and Cuffs Required

I heard Alex exclaim "Wow" under his breath.

Those were my sentiments exactly. Robert had outdone himself. I just stared in silent appreciation for a moment. I could hear Alex breathing rapidly as he looked on behind me. The 'metal' box, as we would come to call it, contained first and foremost an iron collar. It was quite beautiful, smooth and burnished and plated in silver, an exquisite work of craftsmanship. What struck me most though was its small size. It was surely no more than four and one-half inches in diameter, probably less. It seemed so strange to see it so small, but of course it was made for a boy, not a man. It sat in the very center of the box, which was lined with fine black velvet.

Alex knelt down to get a closer look. He gazed up at me for permission, then gently ran his fingers over the collar.

"It's going to be a perfect fit, Alex," I said. "Robert made it just for you."

"I thought the silver-plating suited him," Robert offered. "He'll need something that shines as brightly as he does."

Alex turned to him sharply, surprised by such kind words. He gave Robert a quick bow, something that always seemed to delight the older man. Alex knew it and played it perfectly. I gave him a gentle pat on the thigh to return his attention to the contents of the box.

Along with the magnificent collar, there was a pair of shackles. They were about three inches in height, and no more than that in diameter, small to suit a boy's slender ankles. A thick silver chain, a little over one foot in length, lay between them, attached to rings in the irons themselves. There was also a slightly smaller pair with a similar chain, meant for Alex' wrists. There were spreader bars of different lengths, and one that could be adjusted, all of which would replace the chains on occasion. Last there was the thickest and longest chain of all, rolled neatly and tucked into a large pouch at the bottom of the box. It was a lead for his collar. Alex looked at me with moistening eyes.

"Put them on me, sir, please," he begged.

"Patience, Alex. We haven't even opened the other one yet."

When we did, Alex became a great deal more subdued.

"You see the difference, don't you, boy?" Robert asked gently. "Metal is cold and unforgiving, certainly, but it can't be fitted to the body. Leather on the other hand . . . "

The mere sight of it was arousing. For Alex it meant strict bondage from this day forward. I heard him take a deep breath. All of the leather pieces were in black, with silvery rings and buckles. I made up my mind instantly that I would keep him in this most of the time. Metal was for working out doors and nights spent in the barn, and perhaps special occasions when that silvery finish would show him off so perfectly.

I took the leather collar out first. It was two inches wide, with silver studs to match those on his chastity belt. There were three rings as well, one each on the front and sides, and a buckle in the back. Alex just stared at it.

"Stand up, Alex."

He'd been waiting for this all day. All his life perhaps. He stood straight and still and held his breath. We both of us felt the supreme weight of this moment. I put the collar around his neck, then reached behind him to buckle it. And just like that it was done. Tears fell from his eyes, and he was not ashamed to let anyone see them.

"You are now collared, young man," Robert said. "That is a great honor and a great responsibility. Your only duty now is to your master, who loves you a great deal."

Alex was weeping. "I know he does, sir."

"Obey him, and serve him with all of your heart and all of your soul."

"I will, sir."

"Don't tell me, tell your master."

Alex faced me and stood as tall as he could, all five feet of him. "Master, I will obey you, and serve you, with all of my heart, and all of my soul." He put his hand over his chest when he said it. I nearly cried right there.

Robert then looked at me kindly. "And you, Steven. Teach this boy and protect him with all of your compassion and all of your strength."

"I will, Robert."

"Don't tell me, tell your slave."

I turned to my boy again. His eyes were dancing. "Alex, I will teach you and protect you, with all of my compassion, and all of my strength."

He threw his arms around me and I hugged him for a moment. He was so beautiful, so strong, and so brave. And he was not yet thirteen years old.

The harness came out of the box next. I held it up to him. Robert had kept it simple, and I knew it would suit my boy perfectly. Thick straps for over his shoulders and around his chest, joined at the front and back by large steel rings. The straps had smaller d-rings at various locations, allowing for a wide range of restraint. I buckled the shoulder straps first, then tightened the chest straps over his ribs. I made sure they were a little more than snug, just enough to restrict his breathing a little. That gave the boy a thrill, and he looked at me with wide eyes.

"Too tight?" I asked.

"No, sir," he said, testing his ability to move and breathe in the harness. "Feels real good."

Next came his wrist cuffs. They were similar to the collar, studded, but with locking clasps rather than rings. The buckles were also a little bit different, for the ends of the loops were fed through a clasp designed to take a padlock. Once they were on, Alex would not be able to take them off. I put them both on, first his left wrist, then his right. The padlocks were of the same type that kept his chastity belt from coming off, and they used the same keys. I clicked them in place then took out the chain designed to go between them.

"The ends of the chain will go through the clasps," Robert explained. I pushed them in and they clicked in place. "There's a quick release on them, here," he pointed out the tiny release where the clasp was riveted to the cuff. "You can reach it easily, he can't reach it at all."

Robert was right. I told Alex to try and get the chain off by himself. He couldn't do it. The chain itself kept getting in his way. Only when his arms were down straight at his sides, was the clasp accessible.

"You'll find the clasps will also attach to the rings on his collar and his harness."

I released the chain for the moment and returned it to the box. Two more identical pieces caught my eye, and I pulled them out.

"Arm restraints, Steven," Robert explained. "You will find them very useful for punishment. You strap them on just below his biceps, above his elbows."

They were, by design and necessity, a lot tighter than the wrist cuffs. They dug into his skin just a bit. Again there were clasps and rings and I realized I could lock his arms down at his sides anytime I wanted to. I wanted to right now. I pressed in on his slender limbs and heard the clasps click with the rings on the chest straps of the harness. Alex found his arms instantly and completely immobilized. His eyes were wide and he was beginning to sweat.

The ankle cuffs were made in the same fashion and form as those on his wrists, again with small locks to ensure he could not remove them. I knelt down and put them on. After I'd secured the cuffs in place, I took a moment to rub my hands up and down Alexander's legs. Smooth and hairless and firm, tanned golden brown by the summer sun. My perfect boy.

"OK so far?"

A joyous little hum and his young voice answered me. "I'm always ok with you."

Robert himself presented the next item to me. Thigh cuffs. Ideal for binding his legs together, or immobilizing him in his bed. They accentuated his shapely young legs. Alex looked incredibly sexy in them.

Last from the box was the gag. It was a rubber ball, dark red in color, with slender straps for his head. For the first time I saw a little fear in Alexander's young eyes, the sudden overwhelming awareness that his bondage was total and that he could not free himself had begun to have its effect. He was trembling, and struggling just a bit to move to his arms.

"Open your mouth. Wider."

I put the ball into his mouth slowly. In the weeks and months and years that lay ahead for us, gagging him would become a swift and harsh daily ritual. Our first act, before anything else. But not today, not this very first time. It came last, the boy's final and most difficult sacrifice. Over the last three days, Alex had willingly surrendered every part of his body to me, except his voice. Now he was going to give that to me as well, freely. The boy's gift of himself touched me in a way I had not expected. Tears began to fall, and I could tell by the look in his eyes that he needed me to be gentle, and I was.

"Bite down, Alex."

He did.

I reached around behind his head and buckled the strap, pulling the gag tight and forcing the ball a little deeper into his mouth. His sweet innocent eyes filled with panic for just a moment.

"Breathe through your nose, sweetie," I whispered, tenderly rubbing his arms bound helpless to his sides. He calmed down right away. "Better?"

Alex nodded, and blinked once. I was impressed that he remembered.

And so it was done. I stood back, amazed at Alex' transformation, but also by the feeling that this was so right, so perfect, so true, something that fit and suited him so well. His muscular twelve-year-old body was tightly harnessed and restrained. His slender neck was collared. His cock and balls were encased in metallic chastity and forever out of his reach. His sweet young face, with those endearing freckles on his nose, and those wondrous hazel eyes, was in no way diminished by the ball-gag that filled his mouth.

"I love you, Alex," I said as I opened clasps on his armbands and freed him from his first taste of strict restraint. My gagged boy couldn't answer, but the look in his eyes spoke immense volumes and his arms quickly found their way around my waist.

Another box, similar to the first pair, still awaited our attention. Robert instructed Michael to open this one, and saw that the experienced master's planning had been quite meticulous. Everything I would need for Alex was here. They were, all of them, instruments of pain. With his perpetually dark sense of humor, Alex would take to calling it his 'Treasure Chest of Torture' in the coming weeks. There was, of course, a whip, long and slender. I said a quiet prayer of thanks that Robert hadn't included that thick and frightening monster I'd seen hanging on the wall of his supply room. Alex was years away from being ready for that kind of thing.

Along with the whip came a modest collection of its smaller cousins. I would need more as the months and years went by, but this was an excellent start. There was the mandatory cat-o-nine-tails, each of its slender ends tightly knotted. The handle was wrapped in brown leather. I took it from the box and swished it playfully around Alex' thighs a few times. Not enough to even make it snap, just a gentle brushing. He would feel its bite soon enough.

The rest of my inventory of discipline: A leather strap, two feet long and three inches wide. A rectangular wooden paddle with holes drilled upon its surface. Robert had burned the name 'Alex' at the base of the handle. A small tawse, clearly meant for chastising the penis and testicles. There was also a slender cane, which Robert instructed me not to use until he taught me the proper technique.

"The cane can scar for life, Steven," he said darkly.

In spite or because of Robert's chilling words, Alex was drawn to it like a moth to the flame. I held it out to him and laid it across his outstretched hands. The boy could not take his eyes of it. So simple, so plain, so quietly elegant and symbolic of pain and suffering.

"It has teeth you cannot see," Robert explained. "Careful, boy. Don't let it bite you."

Alex returned it to me with a look of trepidation in his eyes. He genuinely feared this slender rod, more than anything else in the box.

After the cane came other fun accessories. A trio of dildoes, in small, medium and extremely large. Two sets of clamps with adjoining chains. A series of simple cock rings in various sizes, a leather ball spreader, a tiny mallet for beating the testicles, and finally a leather blindfold.

Clearly Robert expected Alex and me to be quite busy. We would not be disappointing him. He was like an impish schoolboy when it at last came time to open the two large crates that currently dominated our living room. I was about to send Alex out to get a crowbar, but Michael quietly produced one, seemingly out of nowhere. He smiled at us all softly.

"A resourceful slave is a credit to his master," Robert chuckled. "What would I do without you, Michael?"

The handsome young slave was wise enough to let that question go unanswered. With his master's permission, he pried open both of the crates. The first, and largest, contained a wooden contraption of some sort, the planks all disassembled and packaged with Robert's obsessive precision. I was not prepared to guess what it was, but I knew that by the end of the evening it would be residing in my living room. The second carton contained a wooden bench, about three feet long and two feet high. Michael gestured to Alex with two fingers, and together the young slaves lifted it from the crate.

Freed of its packaging I could better appreciate it. It was oak, stained a dark brown. Both ends were padded. It had six legs altogether, one on each corner naturally, and two in the very center for added strength. The legs at the ends had rings at various heights. Three leather straps hung from the right side of the bench. The first and widest, at the very center, was almost six inches. The other two were at each end.

"I built these for Michael," Robert said, gesturing to the crates, "when I first began training him. He has outgrown them. I wondered if I'd ever find a use for them again."

"Then let's put it to good use right now. I still haven't punished him for his misbehavior on the phone with you today."

Robert turned sharply and glared at Alex in mock anger. "Indeed? I saw his little red behind when I came in. I assumed you'd take care of that already."

"No. That was left over from this morning, wasn't it, kiddo?"

The boy's face blushed until it was as red as his well- punished rear. Silenced by the gag he nodded slowly.

"On the bench then, dear boy," Robert sang.

"On your back, please, Alex," I added.

The boy lay down and stretched himself out. The bench was only a foot wide, so his limbs naturally fell off on either side. I bound his wrist cuffs to the rings on the front legs of the bench. This pulled his arms down sharply. I could see the slight strain in his muscles and his shoulders, but I wasn't worried. I knew Alex liked things tight and stretchy. His ankles were locked down next. The bench was low enough that the balls of his feet just touched the floor as I clasped his ankle cuffs to the rings on the hind legs of the bench. Robert meanwhile was kind enough to pull the waist strap over Alex' stomach and tighten it down on the other side.

"Comfy?" I asked.

Alex made a soft purring sound and nodded vigorously that he was. As always, he tested his bondage with a few sharp jerks. I patted him on the thigh. "Don't go anywhere," I said. He rolled his eyes in classic adolescent fashion.

I returned to our 'torture' box and selected the less evil looking of the clamps, the leather strap, and the penis whip. Robert seemed pleased with my choices, if perhaps a little surprised. I think a small part of him believed I didn't have the stomach for this. I was pretty sure Alex thought so too, and Alex needed to be taught a lesson.

"What do you have in mind, Steven?" my mentor asked softly as I handed Michael the instruments of the boy's punishment. I kept the clamps in my hands and gazed down at Alex, his slender hairless body stretched and restrained on the bench. His eyes were wild and hungry.

"I think it's time Alex started learning about pain, don't you?"

The older man's bearded lips curled in a smile that was neither sweet nor gentle, one that was burned forever in my own brain. That was the face I had seen all those years ago, when he quite literally whipped the drugs out of me. He nodded slowly and we began.

I pried open the clamps. I could feel by the resistance that they would be quite intense. I wet my finger and rubbed Alex' right nipple. His young eyes were fixed on me, watching every move with rabid attention. Once his little nub was hard, I put the clamp on, releasing it gently, allowing the pressure and the pain to build. Alex shouted into his gag. I wet my finger and rubbed Alex' left nipple. His young eyes were fixed on me, watching every move with rabid attention. Once his little nub was hard, I put the clamp on, this time letting go quickly, allowing it to squeeze its tiny target with relentless force. Another anguished cry, muffled by the rubber ball in his mouth. Alex thrashed his head around on the padded rest.

"Michael," I said, gazing up at the handsome young man. "Would you please hold his head?"

Michael received a tacit nod from his master and immediately knelt at the front of the bench. He took my sweet boy's head gently between his hands and stared down into Alexander's eyes. I heard him whisper something, soft and kind and comforting it sounded, and Alex lay still again. He was breathing rapidly through his nose, trying to process this new sensation. Distracted by the clamps, as I was sure he would be, he did not even seem to notice when I unbuckled the seed pod from his leather jockstrap. Hanging loose for only the second time since it was put on, the weight of it pulled his genitals down a bit.

I took the ring from my pocket that held all of the boy's keys and opened the padlock. The hex wrench was next. I turned it slowly in the bolt. I had his attention again now. A moment later the pod was open. Inside, his balls were red and swollen, desperate to release his immature seed. His cock lay over them, held down by the leather straps, its purplish head just peeking out from the foreskin. Everything was wet and gooey with the boy's pre-cum.

I released the straps and worked quickly, pushing his four inches back through the opening in the pod before it could get hard. His plump nearly thirteen-year-old balls were pushed through. For the first time in three days his boyhood was free to do its thing. He erected immediately, six full inches standing above his smooth hairless groin. His foreskin fell back without being coaxed. Alex has a beautiful crown, perfectly shaped. I'd never seen Alex so hard or so thick. This was a man's penis, attached to the body of a boy. It was dark red and glistening and eager for attention.

Attention it would receive. "Michael, the whip, please."

Without hesitation, the young slave picked it up and handed it to me. I will never forget the look on Alexander's face. His cock was free. It was his first erection in three days. He stared at it in wonder. Clearly he'd never seen it quite so big either. The pain of the clamps and seventy-two hours of total denial had conspired to make him a horny little animal. His eyes got that faraway misty look I've since come to know and love over the years.

"Alex," I said, my voice was soft. "Look at me." He turned his eyes in my direction and forced himself to concentrate. "You are being punished for your disrespect to Master Robert. I am going to whip your penis. You will not cum."

Robert stopped me before I could begin. "May I take his gag off?" he asked. "I would like to hear the boy scream."

"By all means."

With tender compassion, Robert bent over and gently removed Alex' gag. A stream of spittle came out with it. "There boy," he said, patting the kid's shaven head, "wiggle your jaw around a bit. Better?"

"Yes, sir, aaahhh." The clamps were a constant re- enforcement of my discipline.

"Alex, tell us your safeword," I said.

"Butterfly," the boy replied, squirming in his bonds.

"We've all heard it now. Use it if you need to. There is no shame here. Only discipline."

"I . . . I understand, sir."

I brought the tiny whip back then snapped it against his cock.

"Oooww!"

Another, a little harder this time.

"Aaawwww."

Michael again held the younger boy's head as Alex thrashed around on the bench. I snapped the whip three times in sharp succession. A long high-pitched moan issued from Alexander's throat. He was panting now, wiggling his hips. His cock was oozing fluid from his prostate in an endless stream.

Another lash. This one kissed his glans.

"Awww gawd, fuck, fuck, fuck!"

I could see his muscles tensing up. "I'm going to cum, sir!" he said hysterically.

"No you are not," I told him. I stopped and returned the whip to Michael, leaving Alex hard and dripping wet, as close to orgasm as he had ever been, but unable to climax. With his arms bound helplessly to the legs of the bench, the boy threw his head back in frustration and bounced it several times against the padding. While Alex was enduring the paroxysms of another denied orgasm, I released his legs and bound them together with the locking clasps on the ankle cuffs. Then I raised them until his feet were above his head, folding the boy neatly in half, exposing his cute rear end. Michael obligingly held his ankles. One hand was all he needed, the other rested gently on Alex' forehead.

I picked up the leather strap and gave it a good swish in the empty air to practice. My target was defenseless and still pink from its morning session. In his current position, Alex' balls hung down below the spot where his thighs were pressed together by the cuffs. His cock, undoubtedly, was still pointing toward his chin, hidden from my view by his legs. I took a moment and rolled his nuts between my fingers. He moaned plaintively and begged me to bring him off.

I encircled his balls with my right hand and pulled them up and out of my way. With my left I brought the strap down across his buttocks. It made a loud smack as it crashed against his tender boyflesh.

"Start counting, sweetie," I said. Alex always needed to be reminded.

What is it the British say? Six of the best? Well, my questionable knowledge of English boarding schools aside, that's what he got. He screamed so beautifully.

I have to confess the depth of Alexander's fixation, his addictive need for pain, was still rather disturbing to me at the time. Boys aren't supposed to be like this, are they? Or perhaps they are, and we just dismiss them and ignore them, because they're boys. Alexander had bravely decided that he was a boy who was not going to be ignored. This is who he was, and he had a perfect right to express it. He lay there now, in pain, but fully and happily contented.

And I was content to leave him there. We still had another crate to unpack. Robert and Michael were already beginning to remove long planks of wood from it, laying them out in an orderly fashion on the floor. I knelt down beside Alex and he turned his head to look at me.

"May I have the gag again?" he asked softly, blinking his eyes in a slow rhythm.

"Not just yet," I said, giving the thin chain between the clamps a little tug. Alex took in a sharp hissing breath. "If you start to get in trouble, I want you to tell me. Don't take more than you can handle."

A strained smile crossed his lips. "You worry about me too much."

"Somebody has to."

Alex laid his head back down and closed his eyes, tightly. So there was a struggle going on after all, one the boy was not willing to admit to me. Pain that quickly comes and goes is one thing, but pain that comes and endures is something very different. Something very new for him. Alex was learning this lesson right there in our living room. And then I realized he had not asked for the gag because it turned him on, which it certainly did, but because he needed something to bit down on, something to muffle his occasional scream so that his master would not have to hear it.

And so, was it actually mercy to take his voice, his only way of asking for escape? Or was it mercy to leave him there as he was. My dilemma produced a perfect solution, one I would use again and again whenever things got difficult for him. I could be kind and cruel all at once. I could keep him safe, while letting him enjoy the giddy thrill of danger. I picked up the gag, and for just an instant his eyes stared at me in desperation. I put the ball into his mouth, but I did not buckle the straps.

A look of gratitude was in his eyes when I finally turned away and left him.

Robert and Michael were hard at work, and the unknown contraption was beginning to take shape. The base was wooden, solid and heavy and three inches thick, painted black, four feet square. Thick iron rings were bolted to it in an orderly array. There was one in each corner, and several sets of two running down the center all equally spaced from the edges. Two of the sides had large square openings cut close to the edge. I had diverted my attention from Alex just in time to see Michael insert a five-foot high post into one of these holes. The post itself was very thick and had a deep groove running its entire length on the inside. On its outer side at mid-height, there was a small winch. On the top of the post there was a pulley wheel. Michael worked efficiently and silently, locking the post to the base with large bolts and screws. With Robert looking on, the young slave dropped the second post into position and secured it as well. It was identical to its mate, with that same deep groove and ominous pulley contraption at the top.

Returning to the wheeled crate, Michael slung two long heavy chains over his shoulders and waited. Robert himself pulled the last wooden piece from the crate, two pieces actually, black like the rest, with three half circles cut out on their corresponding ends.

"You will find the stock very useful, Steven," Robert said. For that is exactly what it was, wicked and harsh and fully adjustable. "Michael spent many hours and days here as a boy, didn't you?"

"Yes, sir," the youthful slave replied. I thought I saw a

slight shiver.

"The bottom piece slides in first. It is marked, as you can

see." I watched carefully. The bottom piece was slightly longer, with a sharply curved hook at each end. Robert lowered it into position from the top, lining it up with the grooves and sliding it down. It was snug fit. "The chains, please, Michael."

Obediently Michael ran the chains through the pulleys then hooked them to the bottom piece. Robert continued his impromptu lesson. "The other ends of the chains attach to the winches on the sides. Once they are locked it will not move."

Michael carried out Robert's narrative as though they were direct instructions, and gave the winches a few turns to tighten everything up.

"Once the boy is in position, the top piece just slides right down the groove. There are locking hasps on the back side." He pointed them out to me. "You can immobilize his feet with the rings on the base."

I stepped onto the wooden base myself. It was sturdy and rugged, and I could see the slight wear in the holes where Michael's wrists and neck had been. I imagined him as I first remembered him, a small wraith of a boy with large blue eyes, almost fifteen but a late bloomer, looking more like eleven or twelve. I knew Robert had kept him in strict bondage from day one, but I was never witness to it. I looked over at my own boy, still stretched unnaturally on the bench.

"Let's try it out," I said.

Alex was moaning softly but no longer biting into the gag. I released his arms and legs, while Robert loosened the strap across his stomach.

"Stand up, Alex."

He needed a little help at first. His limbs were still wobbly from the stretching and the pain. Quickly I buckled the straps on his gag, pulling them tighter than before, and ran my fingers over his clamped nipples. Then I turned him around so he could see the frightening new addition to our living room. The look on his face when he got his first full glimpse of the stock was priceless.

Robert thoughtfully handed me the leather leash that went with Alex' collar. I think my dick grew a few inches at the mere thought of having my submissive boy leashed, and leading him around like an animal. I dangled it in front of him so he could think about it for a second, then I attached the leash to his collar. It was about three feet long. I rolled a bit of the excess around my hand and gave it a firm tug. Unaccustomed to this new discipline, poor Alex lost his balance and stumbled forward.

I tugged at it again. This time he did much better.

"Good. Now on the floor."

Immediately Alex was on all fours. I led him around the living room on his hands and knees for a few minutes, letting him get more comfortable with the leash that would soon be a normal part of his life. Meanwhile Michael got his master's dick out and gave it a good sucking. Robert's eyes were fixed on Alex. He was not a boylover, but what gay man would not be just a little turned on by the sight of a naked twelve-year-old on a leash?

Still on his hands and knees, I brought Alex to the stock and pulled him to his feet.

"Just think, sweetie, I could keep you here for days. Let's see how you fit."

I pulled the top piece up along the grooves. Currently the stock was set at about three feet off the ground. Quickly and roughly I bent him over and he shuffled forward, until his neck lay in the rest. I put his wrists in position myself, noticing the large eyebolts which I immediately clasped to his cuffs. The top piece came down easily and I locked the two together. Alex was now bent ninety degrees, his neck and wrists in the stock. I spread his legs and clasped his ankle cuffs to the nearest rings in the base. Freed of his belt, his young balls were hanging low, his cock still semi-erect. With one hand on his back, I reached between his legs and rolled the boy's testicles between my fingers. Then I grabbed his cock, pulling on it with a slow downward stroke, working it to another full erection. Alex was totally silent.

I knew he could not see me, only feel my hand between his legs toying with him. I said nothing as I moved the boy's silken foreskin up and down over his throbbing shaft, covering the head with one motion, retracting it as far as it would go with the next. Fluid was dripping from him again. Alex bent his knees a little further and rocked back against me as far as his bondage would allow. I continued to stroke him, coaxing a steady stream of clear liquid from his young penis. Every time I would feel the tension building in his muscles I would stop and get him back under my control. Keeping a horny young twelve-year-old from cumming once you've got him hard and dripping takes a great deal of care, and Alex had three days of pent up sperm he needed desperately to get rid of.

Alex wiggled around in the stock, trying madly to bring himself off in my hand. But that hand was always taken away just as he was about to cum. He's shake and shiver every time my fingers left his penis, and again every time they returned. Finally a series of low, anguished, frustrated cries began to fill the air around us.

The boy's sweet sounds were joined shortly by the deep masculine growl of Robert having his orgasm. I looked over to see him forcing Michael off his cock. The young man actually fell back onto his hands, his master's sperm dripping from his mouth. Robert yanked him to his feet harshly, grabbed him by his short blond hair and gave him a forceful kiss. Michael, small and slender, seemed to disappear in his master's powerful and unrelenting embrace.

Alex, of course, had been watching the entire scene, and was more turned on and hysterical now than ever. I knew that just the lightest touch would send him into orgasm, and so touch was quickly and totally denied him. I gave the chain connecting his nipples several hard tugs, not enough to pull them off, but enough to change his focus, from pleasure sharply denied to pain ruthlessly given. I came around front for the first time. He was drenched in sweat. His hazel eyes confronted me. Tears were rolling down his cheeks. The ball-gag added to the aura of sheer despair and helplessness that surrounded him. He gave me a delicious look of hatred.

"You've only just begun to hate me, Alex," I said with my most evil grin.

"You two need to be alone," he said softly. "Michael and I will pack everything up and show ourselves out."

And a few minutes later they were gone. It already seemed like we'd spent a full evening, but it was not yet ten-thirty. I looked at Alex, my sweet wonderful boy, bound in the stocks, gagged and blindfolded. I needed one more thing and went out to the garage to find it. At first I'd forgotten where I'd left them, but there they were among the power tools. I dropped the earplugs into the palm of my hand and carried them back to my boy in the stocks.

I did not tell him what I was about to do. I simply worked them into his ears. The boy was voiceless, blind, and deaf. All he would have now is touch. The earplugs brought on a brief round of struggle as Alex jerked against the wooden frame, but again he calmed down right away. He would always be safe with me. He knew this. I gave his butt-plug an insistent tug and slowly pulled it out of him. It dropped to the wooden base with a heavy thud. I left it there.

The couch looked inviting, so I stretched out and picked up the book I'd been reading. Occasionally I'd hear a muffled sob or the creaking of the wood as he strained against the stock, but mostly Alex was silent. From my vantage I could see his backside perfectly. His growing balls were hanging down very low in his hairless sac. And he was soft again. I could just see the tip of his foreskin dangling beneath his scrotum. He moved his legs a bit. Bent over and spread wide, he was well balanced in this position, but the strain in his young thighs and calves was constant.

Thirty minutes passed. I set my book on the coffee table and approached him silently from behind. I reached beneath him and took the clamps off his nipples. The pain was furious as the blood returned to his little buds. He shouted into his gag and jerked around in the stocks. Immediately I stuck a single finger into his ass, rubbed his swollen prostate for a moment, and withdrew. Then I returned to my book. Fifteen minutes later I was back. This time I stroked his penis as it dangled between his slender legs. He was hard in seconds. I returned to my book. Another half-hour went by, and again I fingered him, in and out of his little hole quickly, just enough to give him the sensation of touch, but no pleasure. I waited another fifteen minutes and stroked his cock again. It was just going soft and I forced him to erect once more. It went on like this until long past midnight. On my random trips to the kitchen I would stop and give him a gentle spanking, just three or four swats on each cheek, but always I kept the timing of his anal and penile stimulation rigid and strict.

Finally, close to three in the morning, I turned off all the lights and went to bed, leaving Alex in the stocks, denied of all his senses now, even my touch. I suppose he still had taste, but what was that now but a rubber ball that filled his mouth. There was smell, of course, but that was only the boyish odor of his own body, mixed with sweat and leather.

I forced myself awake around five, and went back downstairs. In the dim moonlight I could see Alex' slender form bent over in the stocks. He was moaning softly. He was not asleep. I walked quietly behind him and inserted two fingers this time, swirling them around for several minutes, stretching his hole. Then I spanked him again, the slap of my hands upon his soft flesh echoing through the silent living room. If felt between his legs. He was hard. I left him and returned to bed.

Late mornings are not my habit, but I purposely slept in when the sun appeared through my bedroom windows. Around ten I finally got up and put on my jeans. When I got to the living room, Alex' head was slumped down. Blindfolded as he was, I couldn't tell if he was sleeping or resting or just exhausted. It didn't really matter. I brought him around with a few gentle slaps to the face. And then we began again. Every thirty minutes I fucked him with my finger. Every fifteen minutes later I stroked his penis. I imagined the constant forced erections were starting to become painful.

Around midday, I brought him his lunch. I moved a chair in front of him and sat down, holding his plate on my lap. I pulled out his earplugs then reached behind his head and removed his gag. He didn't say a word to me. His silence was beautiful.

"How much do you hate me right now?" I asked softly.

His unbroken voice was weak and scratchy. "A whole lot."

"And how much do you love me?"

"Even more."

I gently touched his face, running my fingers over his blindfold. He stretched his neck out as far as it would go in the stocks, desperate for my touch. "I brought you something to eat. Open your mouth."

Alex obeyed me, and I leisurely fed the boy his fruit and cheese. He drank some soda from a straw. When he was finished, I plugged his ears and gagged him again, and his afternoon was much the same as his morning. He was beginning to anticipate when he'd feel my finger in his ass, or my hand upon his penis. Touch was all he had, and it was becoming electrifying for both of us.

In between my regular trips to the stocks, I set things up in his room for the evening. He would never, ever, forget this day, or this night. I fed him a light supper, then removed him from the stocks. I gave him back his hearing, but the gag stayed in. Standing on his own, wearing the blindfold, seemed to scare him. I held onto my boy firmly and made him take a few minutes to stretch and limber up again. His leash was still attached to his collar, and I took it in my hand.

"Down on your hands and knees."

With tired aching legs he obeyed me.

"Let's go for a walk." I gave the leash a firm tug. I could feel his muscles tense. Resistance from my submissive boy. I knew it was the blindness. "Don't be afraid, Alex. I won't let you walk into anything. You are safe with your master. This is about trust, Alex, and obedience. Show me you can do both."

I tugged again, and this time the boy crawled forward, still timid and unsure.

"That's better. Now stay close to me. Your shoulder should always be touching my leg when you're on the leash."

Alex moved closer and pressed himself against me. I could feel his slender frame trembling. "Don't be scared. Stay close. Come on."

I walked him around the living room at first, to get him used to the subtle pull of the leash. We took it slow. His confidence grew with each step. Finally I led him through the kitchen and out onto the back porch. There was only a short step down onto the grass and he managed it gracefully, never once moving away from me.

It was a damp and humid evening. The smell of rain was in the air. Once his initial fear had passed, Alex became more and more at ease, and more and more enthused, but he was also very serious, showing great self-discipline and restraint.

"Good job, Alex. Let's try it standing up now. On your feet."

This was actually more difficult for both of us, especially with his blindfold in place. I had to be careful not to knock him off balance. And Alex really had no way of judging my pace or anticipating my direction. This naturally led to some rather harsh yanks upon the leash that caused him to stagger forward. He almost fell a few times and I had to reach out to steady him.

We kept at it until the sun began to go down. He would need a great deal more training, but it was a good first day in his collar.

Back inside, we carefully navigated the steps. In the bathroom I stood him in the tub and gave him his enema, leaving him holding his water while I prepared the final touches in his room. When I returned to him, my blind and gagged boy was ready, his cock standing rigid and throbbing. I had left Alex on his honor. His belt was still downstairs. I was prepared to find him jerking his young dick, but he was just standing there with his hands behind his head, his legs spread as wide as we dared without the plug there to keep everything in. He had not touched himself.

After the boy finished his business on the toilet, I took his leash in hand and led him down the hall to his bedroom. I first removed his gag, and then there, for the first time in almost twenty-four hours, I lifted the blindfold. His young eyes were tired, he hadn't slept much.

He looked around in wonder.

In his windows, on his nightstand, at his desk, along the shelves that lined his walls, his room was lit by candles. They cast a warm, comfortable glow, and their sweet cinnamon odor filled the air. His old sheets were gone, replaced by a silken set in dark blue. I thought the color suited him, and he would love the feel of it against his skin. The ropes at the corners of the bed were gone as well, replaced by the sturdy chains Robert had given us. Soft new-age music played on his stereo, barely audible, simply a whisper of sound to complete the setting.

Alex turned around and gazed at me in amazement. I removed the leash from his collar and hugged him close.

"We're going to do something very special tonight, Alex. I want you to feel special too."

"I . . . I already do, master."

"Give me your hand, sweetheart."

His left and my right joined, and together we approached the bed. I removed his harness and let it fall to the floor. His thigh cuffs came off next. Then last his collar, just for tonight. His wrist and ankle cuffs remained. I would be needing them. His eyes were dancing. Freed of his leather, he seemed suddenly smaller and so much younger. Delicate and fragile and hairless. A child. But between his legs there stood that raging rod of flesh. He was boy and man all at once, my sweet, my gentle, my intelligent, my complicated Alex.

"Lie down."

He did.

"Spread yourself."

He did.

I fastened his cuffs to the chains at the four corners of the bed.

"I'm going to milk you now."

Alex stared blankly for a moment, and then his hazel eyes got big when he realized what that meant. "You're going to make me cum, right?"

"Over and over again, until you can't squeeze out another drop."

"Will it hurt?"

"Maybe just a little, toward the very end. I think it's going to be a lot like when I fucked you, only this time you'll be hard every second. Rock hard. Now put your head back."

Alex was tense and nervous. To help him relax before we started, I took the bottle of baby oil I'd placed by the nightstand and poured a small amount onto his stomach. I massaged him slowly and gently. He sighed and his breathing eased. His gorgeous eyes were sunken and ringed in dark circles. He'd slept only in fits for the last twenty-four hours. He yawned and looked at me sleepily. I worked his young body at my leisure, enjoying the soft silken warmth of the boy's hairless skin, the sturdy wiry hardness of his developing muscles. Things had gotten a little rushed these last few days. Alex had borne it all bravely, but it was time to slow down and let him enjoy it.

"This feels so nice, Steve," he said.

It actually felt good and right to hear him say my name again. We would always be Master and slave, but tonight I also wanted us to be lovers.

The boy's skin was glistening in the candlelight. He was already hard and waiting for my hands to touch him there. I gripped his shaft gently. He tensed and shivered.

"Are you ready?" I asked.

"Yes, master."

I smiled at him. "I'll need you to help me do this, Alex. When you feel like you're about to ejaculate, I want you to tell me. Will you do that?"

He nodded.

"When you feel it, I want you to tense up, down here," I put my hand on his hairless abdomen. "You are not allowed to ejaculate unless I give you permission. I will be very disappointed in you if you do. I can make this wonderful for you. Do you want your master's help?"

"Yes, sir, I do."

I pulled the only chair in the room beside his bed, then leaned in to kiss him, softly on the lips. And so we began.

There is something incredibly and simply beautiful about a boy's penis, especially when he's aroused. A symbol of fragile youth, and rugged masculinity all at once. A boy's innocence and his devilry are all summed up in that fleshy appendage between his legs.

I stroked his cock slowly, lovingly, admiring the network of tiny veins that appeared beneath the darkened skin. I rolled his foreskin up, then pulled it back, dancing my finger over his frenum. That was his special spot, and it received my special attention. Alex bucked wildly, rattling the chains that restrained him. His eyes were closed, his mouth open, his head rolled around on the pillow. He wiggled his toes and clenched his hand to fists.

"aaaahhhh. It's happening, sir!"

I didn't dare risk another stroke, not yet. I let go of his throbbing boyhood and worked my hands over his balls, kneading them gently, feeling their impressive weight. It was still a boy's scrotum in which those plump ripe nuts hung, soft and like velvet to the touch, but low and full.

"You're going to be huge," I said as I let his balls go and watched them drop between his legs again.

Alex gave me a shy smile and thrust his hips up at me, indicating he needed to be stroked again.

"Ready for more, are you?"

"Yes, master."

This time I leaned over him and took his young organ into my mouth. Alex purred like a kitten. I felt his body relax as he laid back and enjoyed it. I ran my hands up and down his outstretched legs as I sucked and licked and rolled my tongue over my boy's cock. I could actually feel him getting harder, and those slight tremors that told me he was getting close, even if his own addled brain hadn't registered it yet.

The boy sighed when I took my mouth away, but my hand was quickly around his shaft again. This time I stroked him quickly, as far up and down as his loose foreskin would let me. I confess I envied him for being whole, for having that little bit of extra flesh and extra length that had been stolen from me as an infant. Five, six, seven fast strokes. He held his breath and strained, closing his eyes tightly.

I heard him whisper to himself, "Don't cum. Don't cum. Feels too good."

Bless his heart he was doing it. My wonderful Alex was keeping himself from ejaculating. How hard that must have been for a boy his age. It was a profound gift of love and trust and total submission he was giving me. I kissed him on the cheek.

"You are so wonderful," I said.

"Is it . . . would it be okay . . . is it alright if I cry?" he sniffled. Already his adolescent emotions were turning him inside out.

Another kiss, this time on his lips. "Of course it is."

And even as the first of his tears began to fall, I took him in hand again. He'd softened a little, but soon I had him firm and throbbing. He was wet with pre-cum, it was streaming out of him slowly, glistening in the light from the candles. After a few minutes he tensed again, raising his head off the pillow, straining against the chains. I could see his abdominal muscles flexing tightly. He groaned, loudly and deeply. I stopped. His penis stood straight and hard. More clear fluid dribbled from the tip.

The spasms were getting stronger, and once this one had passed, I sucked him again. For thirty minutes we went on like this, bringing him right to the edge and then, the two of us together, pulling him back.

I stroked him more slowly now, and more firmly, squeezing his shaft and working the pre-cum out of him. I felt his penis surge suddenly against my fingers. Alex shouted in ecstasy and tugged violently against his bonds. Every muscle in his young body was taught. And then, with a low moan he laid back. Sperm began to pour out of his penis, but there were no contractions, no ejaculation, just the steady flow of the twelve-year-old boy's thin white seed.

"Mmmmmm."

I gave him no time to think about what was happening. I rubbed him again, and again I got the same reaction, and the same slow outpouring. Alex was in another world, lolling his head from side to side, back and forth, his breathing quick and erratic.

For the next hour I continued, gradually milking him. Often nothing would come out at all, but four more times I was able to coax his sperm out of his balls and onto his stomach. His trim, muscular belly was covered with it now. I gave it several more tries, edging him, but it seemed I'd milked him dry. I began to masturbate him intently.

"I want you to ejaculate this time," I said as I brought him closer and closer.

Finally he gave out a high-pitched cry, the same I remembered hearing from him when he was younger.

"Aaaaahh, aaaahh, aaaaaaahhhh." Three strong contractions, each eliciting a deep shout of pleasure and anguish. Alex was ejaculating, but his young body had nothing left to give. A dry cum, just like he'd had as a little boy. His penis was still hard when it was over. He went utterly limp, and his head fell to one side.

My sweet boy had actually fainted.

"Alex?" I gently stroked his cheek.

He came around instantly and gazed at me with love and devotion.

"Who's my special boy?"

"I am."

"Who will always love you?"

"You will."

"Who's your master forever?"

"You are."

I'd said Alex would never forget this night, and he hasn't. Even now that he's a young man he still talks about what we did together on that warm summer evening, with a dreamy faraway look in his beautiful eyes. Interlude: One Month, and the Dungeon.

Time passed quickly over the next few weeks. Alex was thriving in his new life. He laughed more than I'd ever known him to, and his face was lit with his beautiful smile more than I'd ever seen, except when he was wearing the gag of course.

My enforcement of strict chastity was still a struggle for him, but his weekly milking gave him a goal to shoot for, literally, and of course it also eased some of the build-up of boyish hormones for a while. We never again went in for the show and ritual of that first night, for neither of us wanted to cheapen that cherished memory. Still the milking remained a gentle fixture of our lives.

The boy's collar and lead training was going well. On two feet or on all fours, blindfolded or with eyes staring straight ahead, he was developing a practiced confidence and a dignified grace. We saw Robert several times, and the experienced master remarked what a fine and handsome young slave Alex was becoming. Of course my boy gave him a low flourishing bow, which always brought a smile to Robert's face. Alex and Michael actually made love for us on one occasion. Penetration was strictly forbidden, but it was glorious to see these two horny young slaves in collar and harness passionately pleasuring each other. Alex' infatuation with the older slave was obvious and incredibly sweet, and Michael seemed to enjoy the chance to be the dominant partner, at least for a brief moment.

Alex was not allowed clothing of any kind while at home. I kept him in his leather gear most of the time, or simply naked and belted and collared, although we did use the irons and chains when I worked him in the yard. He spent his nights chained to his bed, or in the stocks, which he and I had moved to the basement. Rare now but very special were the nights he spent in his master's bed.

The punishment bench was down in the basement now too, along with the many implements of pain Robert had provided. I had gradually added more to the arsenal, and our new dungeon was where Alex was disciplined every day. He liked to call it torture, but the word disturbed me, I suppose partly because I so deeply enjoyed inflicting pain upon him. I was calculating and cruel, and merciless, and he loved me for it, never knowing how close to the edge we were both walking, with only his safeword, which I had trained my ears to listen for over his screams, to protect us.

Our work on the dungeon had gotten underway the day after his first milking. The boy was a slave, every moment of every day, but I felt it was important that we had a special place where we could explore our darkest fantasies and desires.

We repainted the brick walls first. Alex naturally wanted all black, but he grudgingly accepted my suggestion of a thin whitewashing, so that it would retain that harsh, rustic look. We turned the water back on down there, and hooked up a sink and showerhead over the drain in the corner. I brought in a plumber to put in the toilet. I installed modern track lighting, which illuminated the place nicely and drove the shadows away. Ours was going to be a dungeon of contrasts, hard and cold to the eye, yet also bright, a place were darkness was not allowed to linger and taint the heart. And yet as we worked it was transformed into an ominous space.

Chains and shackles were soon dangling from the wooden posts and down from the rafters, all at a height befitting the age of the boy who would be spending hours hanging from them. Robert helped us acquire our first serious piece, an X-cross, custom sized, but large enough to grow with Alex as he entered his teens. There was a cot in one corner, its metal frame covered only by a thin bare mattress.

Using his charcoals, Alex drew some graffiti on the walls. Scenes of torture and suffering from deep within his psyche. They changed often. He'd wash one away, or create a new one, or add to those he'd already finished. It was some strange form of therapy for him. We had a ritual. Every time we tried something new, every time he experienced a new kind of pain, he would draw how it made him feel on the walls, thus making them a tapestry of his journey into slavery.

Not that we spent every moment down there. It did consume much of our energies for certain, but we made time for other things. Fun things. Summer things. I was determined that he not stop being a boy, simply because he was a slave. The two were the same, but also distinct. Alex was collared all the time, but when we went out in public I put a less conspicuous dog collar around his neck. Many young and soon-to-be teens wear them, and so, to passing strangers, he just looked like a handsome kid entering his rebellious stage, which he was beginning to do anyway. He wore his wrist cuffs proudly, although I took the padlocks off for obvious reasons. His ankle cuffs were hidden under his socks. No one guessed the true meaning and symbolism of the leather around his neck or upon his wrists, a secret he and I enjoyed sharing between us.

There was time spent at the beach, his golden tan turning a dark reddish-brown before my eyes. He couldn't wear his chastity belt under his speedo, which was about all he wore the entire time, so we left it in the hotel room, strapping it on at night before bed.

There was the baseball game, the trip to the mall to buy his clothes for the coming school year, numerous of our now traditional late-night visits to Gino's. There was even a birthday party for one his classmates, where Alex' newfound sense of confidence and self-worth made him seem like a different person in the eyes of his young male peers. He started making friends, and even had a few boys over during the long summer days. They loved his artwork and insisted that he do pictures of them. Naturally they posed shirtless, giving me a knowing look as I stared on in admiration at their firm, young, thirteen-year-old bodies. Boys that age know they're sexy, don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

The blond was coming on to me from the time he walked in the door, a nice polite kid named Nathan with gorgeous blue eyes and already a cute little patch of hair under each arm. The bulge in his pants made me realize that Alex wasn't the only boy in his class running around with a man-sized cock between his legs. The other boy was Ashton, black hair, green eyes, a real pistol and still entirely prepubescent. Three cute shirtless boys in my living room. I was sweating bullets the entire time, making regular trips to the kitchen to ensure the basement door remained locked, and to adjust the boner plainly visible in my pants.

"Think Nate would whip me, if I asked him?" Alex wondered aloud one afternoon after the boys had gone home.

"If we got him down in the dungeon, he wouldn't be doing any whipping," I replied with an evil grin. "A lot of screaming maybe."

"He's hot, isn't he?"

"Very."

Alex' thirteenth was approaching, and weeks before, with Robert's help, I'd tracked down someone to make the ultimate present for him. Of course there were games for his Xbox and some new CD's, as well as a very nice leather vest he'd been wanting, but he would certainly be the only boy around with this particular item.

He was out riding his bike with Nate, when my special order was delivered, apparently by the man who made it. He knew Robert well, and so he naturally knew of us. Straight down into the basement it went. I tipped the man handsomely, but he refused and was on his way. Alex and his pal came thundering through the back door just a few minutes later. They were both shirtless and sweaty. The strong sweet odor of boy was intoxicating. He recognized the meaningful look in my eyes and gently told Nathan it was time for him to go home.

"You are so weird sometimes," Nate said to him in his crackling pubescent voice, but he did it with a friendly smile. Out the door he went and was gone on his bike.

Alex stood up straight and returned my gaze.

"What is it, master?"

"Get naked, this instant!" I shouted.

A look of shock flashed across his gentle face. Alex was in his bare skin a moment later. The chastity belt was around his waist. I removed the dog collar he was wearing and told him to bring me his regular one, along with the leash, and his gag. The boy was gone in a flash, crashing up the steps to his room. He came back quickly with the prescribed inventory.

The collar went on immediately.

Taking his jaw firmly in hand, I forced his head back, opened his mouth, and quickly stuffed the ball-gag inside, strapping it tightly behind. Gagging him was the only time I really and truly handled him roughly, but it seemed fitting that this should be a harsh and swift act of domination and control. I did not give him time to submit. I simply took him. We began with this ritual every morning, and every visit to the dungeon started this way as well.

"Give me your leash," I commanded. My voice was harsh and stern, more so than he was used to. I saw his young eyes dance for just a moment, unprepared for the cruelty he was hearing from the master he loved so completely.

His hands were shaking when he handed it to me. I attached the leash to his collar and pulled him close to me, nearly off his feet. "Things are going to be different from now on, little slave," I said.

And I did mean that. He would be thirteen in just two days. He already had five wispy brown hairs growing above his penis, and several more on his scrotum. At twelve years old, you might still consider him a little boy, and part of me always had. At thirteen those days were over. This was a young man standing before me now, and my expectations of him were going to be much greater from this day forward.

"Follow me," I growled.

I'd never seen him so frightened. It was wonderful. Down into the basement we went. The lights were off at the bottom of the steps. I flipped them on and waited for him to react to our latest addition.

The cage was about three feet high, four feet long and three feet wide, made of a heavy wooden frame with steel bars. The door was open, a large baton lock ready and waiting. The base was a solid wood plank, with iron rings bolted to it. My boy turned and looked at me with love and surprise in his eyes.

I dropped the leash, and put my arm around his shoulders, already broader than they were just a few short months ago. "Happy birthday, Alex."

At first I had serious doubts about keeping him in the cage and letting him sleep down here all alone. He was still very young, and I feared what it might do to his head. Far from traumatizing him, he said he loved it, and he did. He liked the bars all around him. This would be his third morning waking up in confinement.

Seeing it from a sadist's perspective, I naturally thought of the cage as confinement and entrapment, a form of punishment and humiliation. Alex saw things very differently. What I called entrapment, he called protection, what I called confinement, he called safety, what I called humiliation was exactly that, and he needed it once in a while, only briefly, but every bit as much as the pain I so lovingly offered.

That explained the bucket of water.

I picked it up and dumped the contents over the cage.

"Get up!" I shouted, in a tone I had spent all night practicing.

He yelped when the cold water hit him.

"I'm awake! I'm awake!" he yelled.

I reached between the bars and released his wrist cuffs. Once the door was open, he crawled out of the cage and gingerly stood up. The boy's lean body was gorgeous, dripping wet and shivering.

"May I stretch, sir?" he asked me. The devilish grin on his face told me the kid was already guessing my answer.

"A good whipping should loosen those joints," I told him. "Take your piss and get over there." I pointed to the spot in the center of the room, where the shackles were hanging down, left over from the day before. For the last two weeks I'd used the cat on him, lashing it across his back, his butt, his thighs, and his chest when he asked for it. Now it was time to try the whip.

Alex was in position, standing beneath the chains on a six-inch wooden platform I'd built for him. He waited obediently with his hands behind his head as I drew the long, slender lash from its place on the wall.

"Oh, wow. Are you really going to use that?"

"Sure am. Okay?"

In answer he raised his arms. I closed the shackles around his wrists and inserted the pins.

"Ready?"

"Yep."

I kicked the wooden box away.

"aauuughhh," he groaned as the weight of his entire body was suddenly transferred to his arms and shoulders. He swung for a few minutes as I slowly jerked him off. He knew not to cum. I ran my fingers playfully through his new-grown pubic hair.

"I like this," I said, as I plucked one out.

"Yeeowwch. Don't! I need those."

"For what?"

"I don't know, I just do, okay?"

"Sensitive about your cute little hairs?"

"Yes."

I put my hands on either side of his ribs and gave him a little push, sending him swinging back and forth, increasing the stress and tension on his young joints.

"Oh man that's good," he said.

I did it one more time, and then I started with the whip. I don't know how he found the strength in his lungs to scream as long and hard as he did. I've come to understand that Alex loves screaming, just for the sake of it. He's told me that it makes the pain more bearable and yet more intense all at once. I'm sure a psychologist would have a field day with my young masochist, but I knew that pain was the very best therapy for him.

The whip curled through the air again, cracking against the boy's back. Adding one more to the score of red welts already crisscrossing my thirteen-year-old's tender skin.

"Aagghh!"

Alex' latest cry echoed through our dungeon. I loved him like this. Naked. Stretched hanging from the rafters with his wrists in chains, his cute teenaged feet dangling six inches off the floor. Each lash of the whip set his body swinging. I watched the muscles in his back and shoulders tense in anticipation, and gave him another one, the hardest yet. He shrieked and groaned and twisted sharply.

I walked around front. His head was slumped to his chest. Alex was covered in sweat. It glistened off his tanned skin. I put the handle of the whip beneath his chin and so lifted his eyes to my own. They were red and swollen.

"Had enough?" I asked him. 'Please say yes' I thought to myself.

Alex shook his head slowly, almost defiantly, even as the tears rolled down his cheeks. His voice was weak and he spoke between sharp gasps for air. "You promised me fifty every day . . . I want the rest."

I was his master. I should have seen it coming. I should have said no, right there. He was a boy. There was only so much his young body could take. I swore an oath to protect him, even from himself if need be. But I am an addict. I have always been an addict. And my latest drug, my lifelong addiction, is the sound of Alex screaming. I unfurled the whip and walked slowly behind him again. I laid into the kid's battered and defenseless back with renewed vigor.

Five, ten, fifteen lashes, forcing hoarse ecstatic screams from the depths of the boy's soul. These were the screams he made when he had lost himself in the pain. There are times, I swear, when the boy simply loses his mind.

"Damn it, Alex! Say the word!"

"No!"

"Say it, for god's sake."

"No!"

"Please," I begged him. Yes, a master begging his slave.

"I . . . I just can't. You know that." He was sobbing. "Just whip me, sir, please!"

Now I was angry with him. That was my first mistake. I gave him five or six more, fast and hard. That was my second. He swung wildly in his chains as the blows landed in quick succession. He twisted sharply, a little too much so for his growing body to endure. I saw it happen. I actually saw his right shoulder leave its socket.

Alex howled in agony. Even for a masochist there is pain that is unbearable, pain that does not fire the brain with pleasure. Pain unneeded. Pain unwanted. Alex cried and wailed as he hung there. I threw the whip aside and quickly wrapped my arms around his waist, taking all his weight upon me.

"I've got you, Alex. Try to be calm."

He sobbed and sniffled, but did his best to compose himself. I reached up and pulled the pins in the shackles. The poor boy fell awkwardly into my arms. His eyes were tightly closed against the pain.

"Can you stand?" I asked.

Alex was wobbly on his feet, but he managed it bravely. I got him upstairs and lay him on the couch. "Close your eyes," I told him, as I draped his right arm gently across his chest. It didn't look as bad as I first feared, but I knew it was more than we could deal with. We needed help. Alex whimpered softly. "Don't move."

He managed an ironic smile. "I won't. I promise."

I picked up the phone and dialed Robert's number. Michael answered.

"Put Robert on right now, Mike," I said. "Alex is hurt."

There was silence on the other end for a moment, and then Robert picked up.

"What happened, Steven?" I could hear the menacing edge in his voice.

"I was careless and stupid," I replied. Alex looked up at me sharply and shook his head.

"Tell me everything."

I did. Alex was looking at me desperately now. Robert sighed over the phone.

"Well, I suppose it couldn't be helped. Accidents do happen. You have to be more careful with him, Steven. You know he doesn't know his own limits, or just ignores them. His safeword is meaningless if he won't say it. Can you take him to the hospital?"

"I'd rather not. He has some marks on him, and some bruises, that might be hard to explain."

Robert chuckled softly. "So you've been beating him, have you?"

"Only to excess," I replied.

"I know a doctor who can help. He fixes Michael up when things go wrong."

"Michael's not a boy," I reminded him.

"Not anymore certainly, but he was the first time I took him in. Doctor Collins is perfectly safe, and extremely discreet, I assure you. He has a boy of his own. Write down this number and call him."

I took the number down. By the exchange it looked like he was fairly close to us. I breathed a sigh for that. I didn't want my poor boy lying in pain all night. Before I could hang up, Alex asked if he could speak to Robert. I handed him the phone, and listened with wet eyes as my sweet gentle boy defended me.

"It's me, sir, it's Alex . . . this is all my fault, sir . . . yes, sir . . . I was the one who was stupid . . . Yes, I think I've learned a lesson. Don't be angry with my master, sir, please."

A little smile came to his face. He gave the phone back to me and closed his eyes again.

"That's quite a boy you have there, Steven," Robert said. "Do be more careful."

When I hung up, Alex was staring at me again.

"It really was my fault," he said. "Sometimes I just don't know when I've had too much."

I put my hand on his sweaty forehead, and told him honestly. He deserved the truth from his master, no matter how much it hurt me to say. "I knew, but I just kept going. Whether you use your safeword or not, it's my job to stop when things get out of control. Things were very out of control, weren't they?"

"Yeah, they kind of were. It's just . . . I didn't want to say it. I really didn't want you to stop. Guess we were both being stupid, huh?"

I nodded and kissed him. "I think we need a new word. One you can use to slow us down."

"That's cool. What should it be?"

"You decide. I'm going to call this doctor and find out if he can see you this afternoon."

I gave Robert's name over the phone. No questions were asked, no explanations required. I was told I could bring him right over. I got Alex dressed, just jeans and an oversized T-shirt, which went over him without causing much distress. It was a good half-hour drive. Alex had a hard time getting in the car, and he cringed in pain with each little bump in the road.

"Have you chosen our new word?" I asked, driving as slowly and gently as possible.

"Snail," he said with a soft laugh.

"That makes sense. What is it with you and insects anyway?"

"Snails aren't insects."

"Whatever. Just lay back and try to get some rest. We'll be there soon."

"I hope so," he said, then, under his breath, "this really hurts."

I reached over and squeezed his knee gently. He sighed and closed his eyes.

The sign outside the large isolated residential house read:

"I wonder what kind of medicine he practices," Alex said smartly as I helped him from the car. He was cradling his right arm.

"Leeches I'm sure. Come on, slave boy," I said good- naturedly.

"Yes, sahib."

I don't know where he picked that one up.

The door was opened by a middle-aged gentleman in a button-down shirt and khakis. He was clean-shaven, of average height and trim build. In every way he seemed the perfect image of the successful young doctor, right down to the stethoscope around his neck. However a closer look was somewhat more revealing. A rather expensive looking ring in his left ear, and just the very edges of some very extensive tattooing visible below his shirt-sleeves. He studied me first with harsh gray eyes, and then Alex. He did not say a word.

"I called," I said. "Robert recommended you to us."

His expression lightened, although I would always know him as an overtly serious man. He offered his hand to me.

"You must be Steven." His accent was faintly British. "Robert had already told me about you, even before your call. Pleasure."

"Thanks for seeing us so quickly," I said, putting my arm around Alex' waist. "There would have been complications at the hospital."

He smiled for the first time. There was then, as now, something quietly wicked about it, although I've since come to know him as one of the gentlest masters, and one of our dearest friends. He turned his sharp eyes to Alex.

"So, all bruised and welted, are you."

"Yes, sir," the boy replied with a quick nod of his head.

"Excellent. A boy needs a good thrashing once in a while. Tell me, young man, does your master here lay into you hard, or just play about?"

"Hard, sir," Alex replied. There was unabashed pride in his voice, pride that he had a strict, firm master. "Sometimes very hard."

The last of the coldness faded in the face of Alexander's charm, and Samuel Collins invited us in.

"Call me Sam," he said to me as he closed the door behind us. "And tell me what is this adorable little slave's name?"

"This is Alex." Quite without thinking I laid my hand over his shoulder. The poor boy winced and let out a soft cry. "We played a little rough today, as you can see."

"Separated shoulder, correct?"

"Looks that way."

"Quite normal. Let's get him into the examination room and we'll have a look. Sebastian!" he called sharply.

I vaguely remembered Robert telling me the good doctor kept a boy, but I was surprised to discover it was a literal description. Alex and I both stared as we met Sebastian for the first time.

The child had red hair. That was his most immediately distinctive physical feature. Not that sadly comical flaming orange some unfortunate boys are born with, but a dark, rich, ruddy hue. Shaved close on the sides and just a little spiky on the top. His eyes were of the darkest brown, deep and sensitive. He was eleven years old.

Sebastian wore a two-inch leather collar with spikes around his slender young neck. The boy had on tight thick black leather shorts. Built-in belts and straps at the waist and around his thighs were pulled taught and locked with brass padlocks, preventing the boy from getting out of them. He was lean and wiry, extra slender without being emaciated.

Like most redheaded boys, his skin was extremely pale, the whitest white I'd ever seen. He was almost pearlescent as he stood there at attention, panting softly after running from wherever he was at his master's summons. Unlike other reds, his face and body were almost completely free of freckles.

He wore no shirt. His little boy nipples were just tiny pink dots on his chest, and would have been nearly invisible were it not for the fact that they were pierced with one- inch golden rings, joined together by a delicate silver chain. Both of the boy's ears had been pierced, and there was an identical ring in his nose, appearing to pierce his septum, though I'd later learn it was simply clasped. Five gold rings for a pale white boy. The contrast was stunning and arousing.

And, like his master, the boy was tattooed. It looked like barbed wire, black, running in a perfect single line around both of his small hard little biceps, and another one again around his narrow waist, much of that one hidden beneath his leather shorts.

I wondered what else might have been pierced and tattooed under there, but that was really none of my business. Alex' shocked expression told me he was wondering about the same thing, and perhaps a little more.

"We have guests," Samuel said sternly. "This is Master Steven and his slave Alex. Show them to the examination room. I'll be along shortly. No talking."

Little Sebastian nodded his head like a well-trained slave and led us down the nearest hallway. In his posture and demeanor he instantly reminded me of a miniature version of Michael, but there was a jump in his step and a lively impish playfulness in his eyes that spoke of a wild and wonderful personality, just barely contained by the collar around his neck.

It was an ordinary exam room in which Alex and I found ourselves, although the padded table had numerous restraints and a rather vicious set of adjustable stirrups at one end. It did slowly dawn on me that people living our lifestyle do have unique medical needs, where privacy and anonymity are paramount. For a thirteen-year-old slave and his master this was especially true.

I helped Alex off with his shirt while he and Sebastian traded shy smiles and looked one another over. There'd been no time to put Alex' chastity belt on, and so I immediately noticed the swelling in his jeans. Was there a hard little lump there in Sebastian's pants too? Hard to tell, but the little guy was certainly cute and very sexy. I thought I'd noticed a resemblance to Samuel, and wondered if he might be the doctor's own son or nephew, and how he came to be a slave.

Samuel Collins entered in his white lab coat and told Alex to hop up on the table. That took some doing with a sore shoulder.

"That will be all now, Seb," he said, giving the boy a gentle pat on his leather-clad behind. "Run along and play. I'll call you when we need you again."

"Yes, master." It was the voice of a choirboy that answered, in the same soft fading British accent of his master. A young angel in black leather. He scurried off. There was a deep fondness in Samuel's eyes as he watched him go.

"Relative of yours?" I asked conversationally. Of course it was none of my business, but when you've just met an adorable eleven-year-old boy with tattoos and piercings, you are bound to ask questions and expect a few answers.

"It's the eyes, isn't it?" he asked softly.

I nodded.

"My nephew, yes, although he does not know it. My sister's boy, may she rest. I've had him since he was four, and he knows me only as his master. I started his training when he was eight. I still have his first collar. My great experiment. Coming along rather well, don't you think."

"Alex certainly seems to think so," I said, shifting my eyes to the obvious bulge between his legs.

The doctor smiled knowingly and gave Alex a little smirk.

My boy blushed fiercely. In just a short time, Alex had come to think of his erections as something belonging entirely to me. Kept flaccid and frustrated in his belt, only his master could free him and make him hard. The psychology of my control over his penis was profound. He was a thirteen-year-old boy, and nature was certainly having its way with him, but he was learning to control himself. Alex had reached a point where he did not want to be hard, unless it was his master's hand that had worked his cock to firm erection.

At first, whenever the belt came off, his penis would shoot up instantly, but now he would remain soft, a nice long floppy boy-cock, getting close to five inches now when it was warm and dangling between his hairless legs. It actually swung from side to side now when he walked, when he was not belted that is. He was still in the belt more than he was out of it, but it's meaning had changed. It still drove him crazy once in a while. I could always see it in his eyes when he was ready to explode. But, where he had first viewed it as punishment for his offending organ, it was now a constant and daily discipline that had begun to imprint itself on his mind as well as his emotions. In or out of the belt he never touched himself down there anymore. There was an intense aura of sexuality that just seemed to set his entire body aglow and never faded. His weekly milkings were becoming marathon sessions, sometimes lasting for hours. To be thirteen and so full of cum again. What man wouldn't want to go back in time, just for a day or two?

"Have a cock like a horse, do you?" Samuel asked the boy as he prepared to examine him.

Why leave him wondering, I thought.

"Strip the little colt, if you want," I said.

Alex looked at me with surprise. Dr. Sam, as we'd come to call him over the years, was only too happy to oblige. Obediently Alex returned to his feet. Had his pain been worse, I would have insisted that we get right down to business, but he was coping.

The boy's shirt was already off, and Sam began by running his fingers down Alex' chest and over his stomach. He then unbuttoned Alex' jeans and slid them down the boy's narrow, tapered waist. My boy was still semi-erect, the purple head still hanging out of his foreskin.

"How old are you, boy?" he asked, as he examined Alexander's cock and balls with more than the clinical disinterest of a physician.

"Thirteen, sir."

"Very well endowed, aren't you?"

"Runs in the family, sir," he said, glancing over at me with a wide grin.

"Brothers?" Sam asked me with a raised eyebrow.

"We are."

"Very unusual. Kinky. I like it. Parents?"

"They're dead, sir," Alex said abruptly. Samuel never asked about them again, not in front of Alex at any rate.

He gently grasped the boy's cock. "May I see how long he gets, Steven? A boy's doctor really should know these things."

I laughed and told him to go ahead. "Remember, Alex," I warned him sternly, "no cumming."

"Yes, master."

Sam had my boy hard in a matter of seconds. The first drops of pre-cum were already oozing out. He whistled in admiration at the young throbbing barely teenaged cock before him and quickly took a measuring tape from a nearby drawer.

"Almost seven inches, and you're really just starting to grow."

Alex moaned softly as he continued to have his dick stroked. He and Michael had messed around, but this was the first time I'd let another master play with him like this. He closed his eyes and his tongue licked out over his lips for a second.

"I . . . I . . . I'm gonna cum."

The good doctor stopped and left the thirteen-year-old hard and dripping. "Back onto the table, please," he said with cold detachment.

From there things flowed like a normal doctor's visit for a while. Sam examined Alex' shoulder and moved it around a little. It was loose, but not as bad as I'd first feared. An x-ray was taken in a separate room to make sure there was nothing broken, and to plan for resetting it. Back in the exam room, we laid him on the table, resting his head on a soft pillow. I put my hands on either side of his face and looked down into his eyes.

"Would you like me to give him something for the pain?" Samuel asked me. "This will be quick, but quite agonizing."

"Alex?"

"I want to know what it feels like."

"You heard him."

"Very well then."

Studying the x-ray one last time, Samuel quickly grabbed Alex' right arm and gave it a sharp twist. It must have hurt too badly for a scream. Alex just lay there staring up at me with his mouth agape and his eyes filling with tears. And just like that it was done. Gingerly we sat him up again. Samuel put the boy's arm in a sling and we worked the T-shirt over it.

"Keep him in the sling for a few days," he advised, "but then he should start exercising it. No rough stuff for a while."

"Yes, sir," we both said in unison.

A short time later we were in his living room. After some convincing, Alex had finally agreed to let the doctor give him some pills. He was lying on the couch with his head still swimming, half-asleep. Samuel and I sat talking and getting better acquainted while Sebastian tended to our needs, bringing us food and drink, then sitting quietly and obediently at his master's feet.

I'd politely refused Samuel's excellent vintage. It's dangerous for a man with my history to take even a single drink, and I'd had several since the summer began. While I still had the strength to stop, I decided I would. I owed myself that, and most of all I owed it to Alex. I imagined the terrible horror that our dungeon might become for him if I ever happened to be drunk when we were down there.

"How long have you been training young Alex?" Sam asked as he pressed the wineglass to his lips.

"Less than two months."

The doctor's eyes grew wide. "Really. I'd have guessed at least a year, perhaps two. Especially with those welts and bruises I saw. He's into it rather heavily, isn't he?"

"Alex is a total submissive," I replied, "and a reckless masochist. Either I hurt him, or he hurts himself. At least this way I can keep him safe, most of the time. Things got a little crazy today."

Sam nodded in understanding. "I was stunned when he refused the injection. I've seen grown men beg for them like children when they're here."

"Alex wasn't kidding. He really wanted to know how it felt. He'll be drawing a new scene on the walls of our dungeon tonight."

"A slave and an artist. My, you must have your hands full."