Mister Henry & Zelamir

The Village II:
The Annual Pony Boy Race

Chapters 12-13

Chapter 12

"The winner of the 2005 Baron Corvo Cup is Mister Jack Wardle of Dingley Dell, jockey Master Richard Smythe. I am sure it is a great pleasure for us all to see so stalwart and committed a supporter of the traditions of the Vale triumph at last. Congratulations Jack, well done."

Jack strode out onto the course. Tom with Richard Smythe beside him led Merlin and Lucifer, still blinkered and harnessed to the racing trap, over to him. Both groom and boy-jockey were grinning broadly, making no secret of their joy at winning the race.

What Merlin and Lucifer thought about the whole thing was rather more problematical. Still panting from their exertions, their naked bodies glistening with sweat, they limped wearily forward. Each step they took marked the grass under their feet with streaks of red. When Tom stopped they halted and stood, heads bowed, chests still heaving, shivering slightly from exhaustion. Very likely, imprisoned in their dark and almost silent world, Mark thought they did not even know that they had won the race. Probably they were simply thankful that they could at last stop running and their backs were no longer being raked by the lash.

"Thank you Richard," Jack said solemnly shaking the nine-year olds hand. "Thank you for bringing the Corvo Cup back to Dingley Dell Manor, where it belongs, after all these years."

"I'm afraid I ripped Merlin and Lucifer's shoulders a bit in the final straight Mister Weston," William replied blushing with pleasure at the praise, "but you said you wanted the cup and the brutes needed livening up."

"You did quite right William. The lash well laid on is the only thing the pauper scum understand or respect."

But even as Jack said this Mark noticed he turned to examine the damage to his pony boys. Oblivious to the cheers and excitement around him he bent down and taking hold of Merlin's right ankle pulled his leg back so that he could examine the soul of the brat's foot. The pony boy clearly recognised the touch of the master into whose care his loving parents had placed him at the age of five and who had made him what he was and for whose honour he had just run so hard and bravely. He stood still, only whimpering and shifting slightly as Jack dug his thumb into the torn flesh.

"It's the dry weather making the ground so hard that's done that." Jack remarked abandoning one foot and pulling back the other for inspection. "Seen the same thing often after exercising them in the winter after a hard frost. Nothing to worry about once it heals the brute's feet will be harder and tougher."

Jack turned his attention the boy's deeply tanned legs. He ran his hand up the smooth young limbs now blotched with livid red marks where the flames had scorched them. Methodically he worked his way up the brat checking every inch of its naked body for injuries. He began to release the pony-boy from the straps harnessing it to the shaft of the racing trap. Mark wondered at the ingenuity that had gone into developing the harness over the centuries that the sport had thrived in the Vale of Dingle. He felt sure that simple though it was there was probably no more efficient way of applying boy power to the task of drawing a racing trap.

Jack unbuckled the girth and Mark could see how cruelly it had galled the brat's body. Under the broad canvass belt the its skin was rubbed an angry red. Four straps fastened to the girth and joined together by a brass ring behind the brat's scrotum ensured that it did not ride up his body. These, being narrower than the girth, had chafed Merlin's flesh raw where the pressure on them had been greatest, on either side of his balls. The worst damage though was across the front of his shoulders and chest where the traces, against which the boy had thrown his whole strength, ran. Here the leather straps had bitten deep and blood oozed slowly from the furrows that they had carved into his flesh.

Tom stepped smartly forward to take some of the weight of the shafts as Jack, lifting the reigns over Merlin's head led the pony boy clear of the trap. Mark caught his breath. For the first time since the end of the race Mark he could see the boy's back. The brat's shoulders had been shredded by the metal tipped lash. He remembered seeing Merlin that morning, tethered naked to the rails in Jack's stable yard, his body sleekly glistening in the sun, his skin unmarked by the lash. Now the pony-boy's back was a mass of broken flesh. In the course of a few hours the boy had been reduced from a beautiful young animal glorying in its health and strength to an exhausted wreck, all in the cause of bringing success and glory to its master.

"Would you hold the little sod for me would you while I get the blinkers off it?" Jack asked lifting the reigns over Merlin's head and passing them to Mark.

It only took Jack a few seconds to remove the blinkers. Jack was amused to see that Merlin, his sight restored to him after hours of darkness made no attempt to look around. Instead he stood his head slightly bowed, blinking in the strong sunlight. The noise, the excitement, the crowd jostling around him; the naked pony-boy was oblivious to it all. In his eyes Mark could see only dumb unquestioning acceptance of a world of humiliation, suffering and total exhaustion. Mark thought of the boy's contemporaries in the United Kingdom away from the Vale of Dingle; spoilt uncouth louts, lacking in discipline and self control, discontented and unhappy, making their own lives and those of those about them a misery. There was no doubt that the brat, its spirit crushed, its strength unquestioningly devoted to its protector's service, was a testimonial to the benefits that the workings of old Hiram's charity had brought to the Vale of Dingle.

Mark's reflections were brought to a halt by a commotion behind him. Turning he saw that Stefan had somehow armed himself with a stout walking stick and was using it on his two pony girls. His father stood beside him holding the brat's reigns so that they could not bolt or shy away from the flailing stick. A crowd, almost as large as that surrounding Jack's winning team, had formed to watch the fun. It was attracted no doubt by the exceptional nature of the incident. Not two brats being beaten: such incidents were common enough in the Vale of Dingle and would attract the attention at the most of a couple or so of free boys with time on their hands. What made the event unusual, indeed exotic, and attracted the crowd was that the brats were girls and black.

Still harnessed to the racing trap the brats could not avoid the blows that Stefan aimed at them. Standing in front of them he struck at the front of their legs and chests. The blows fell fast and hard. The shrill howls of the girls were punctuated by the thump of wood against bare young flesh. Black skin does not show bruises as clearly as lighter colours do but the burnished jet of their strong young legs and unformed breasts was soon criss-crossed with deep red stripes where the stick had fallen.

The naked girls pranced and twisted under the rain of blows but there was no escape and each cut went home. Mark felt it was a pity that such healthy young animals should suffer in this way but how else were they to be taught that failure was not tolerated in the Vale of Dingle.

"Good boy that Stefan," Jack remarked before dismissing Merlin with a slap across his bare rump and turning his attention to Lucifer. "He'll fit in here very well. He clearly understands how to treat charity scum.

Three or four times one or other of the girls stumbled under the vicious assault but was prevented from falling by its harness binding it both to the racing trap and its team-mate. However, already exhausted by their efforts in the race, neither brat could survive on its feet indefinitely. Finally a particularly cruel cut across its shins brought one to its knees dragging the other with it.

Stefan swung the walking stick back over his head and brought it cracking down on the crown of one of the girls' heads. The brat slumped sideways but held by her harness could not fall any further. Her scalp was split by the force of the blow and blood coursed from the gash down her face and neck forming a dull red slick down her bare chest. Again Stefan lifted the stick. The two girls cowering at his feet whimpered in fear.

"Could you take Lucifer's reigns for me as well."

Jack's voice drew Mark's attention away from the sufferings of the two pony girls. He saw Lucifer had also been unharnessed from the racing trap. Once he had taken the reigns Jack cupped the brat's chin in his hand and lifted his face to the light. Mark could see blood trickling down Lucifer's chin from the right hand corner of his mouth.

"He tried to pull to the left Uncle Jack when he felt the heat of the fire," Richard Smythe said. He sounded rather nervous as though fearful of blame. "I had to pull really hard to the right to stop him. That's how his mouth's got torn."

"There's nothing to worry about Richard," Jack said reassuringly pulling at the steel bit to get a clearer view of the damage. "A couple of stitches will sort that out. It won't even be necessary to get the boy-vet. Tom could you get the suturing kit from the Range Rover. And you may as well get the cartons of wound powder and Ovingdean ointment at the same time. We can patch the two brats up here before they're walked home."

While the groom was fetching these things Jack unbuckled the boy's bridle and eased the bit from his mouth. Lucifer stood, his head bowed, shivering nervously, waiting submissively for whatever fate and his master had in store for him.

"Hold him for me Tom, would you please?" Jack asked when the groom had returned.

Tom stepped behind the Lucifer and slipping his arms under the boy's clasped his hands behind his neck. Tom was a tall strongly built man and leaning back he lifted the boy clear of the ground. Jack advanced on the lad, the thick suturing needle in his right hand. Taking a firm grasp of the brat's chin he pushed his head back and thrust the needle into his flesh just below the tear at the corner of his mouth. The boy lost all control as he felt the needle jab into his cheek. He yelled, jerking his head free from Jack's grasp and lashing out with his bare feet.

Jack swore and jumped to one side to avoid the brats thrashing legs leaving the needle with the length of gut trailing from its eye lodged in his cheek. Without hesitating Jack drove his fist into the brat's stomach. The boy moaned and hung limply gasping for air from the groom's arms. Jack calmly resumed the tasking of stitching up the tear at the corner of the boy's mouth. With three deft stitches he completed his task.

"Well," he said standing back and turning the boy's head this way and that to examine his handy-work, "in a day or two when we take the stitches out there'll hardly be anything to see."

Tom held Lucifer in his head-lock until he was breathing normally again and then put him back on his feet. The boy staggered slightly but then recovered his balance.

Mark noticed that Jack made no move to punish Lucifer for kicking out when he first felt the needle. Not for the first time he wondered at the understanding and patience that his old friend showed when dealing with pauper brats. Jack seemed to know instinctively what could be expected of them and what was simply beyond their capacity to deliver. He also admired Jack's effective and speedy reaction to the lad's panic. He didn't waste time tying him down or thrashing him into submission. Nor was there any nonsense about trying to calm the boy or minimising the pain. Jack seemed to know instinctively that all was required was a simple punch in the guts.

"Right," Jack said as Tom attached Lucifer to Merlin by a short halter between their two collars. "Let them have a drink. Watch them though. You know how stupid and lacking in self-discipline the brutes are. Left to themselves they'd drink the trough dry and I don't want them bloated. Just a couple of mouthfuls to keep them going and then, after you've treated their cuts and burns, walk them nice and slowly back to the manor. The six mile [10km] walk should stop them stiffening up. And keep the bastards moving. Don't hesitate to give them a taste of the strap if they start getting lazy."

This was typical Mark thought of Jack's concern for the well being of his charity boys. It would have been so easy for him to have left Merlin and Lucifer to the groom to look after while he celebrated his win with his friends. Yet here he was giving detailed instructions to safeguard their well being. And the instructions themselves illustrated the care he lavished on the training and disciplining of his brats. Only pony boys in the peak of condition and health would have been capable of undertaking the six mile [10km] trudge back to their stables after being raced over so lengthy and exacting a course in the full heat of a summer's day. Only boys who had been thoroughly schooled in obedience and submission to their betters could be expected to undertake such a march exhausted, thirsty and on feet already skinned by the hard earth.

Tom took Merlin's reigns from Mark and led him towards the side of the track where a stone trough stood water lapping over its sides. Lucifer feeling the halter attaching him to Merlin tug at his collar stumbled along after his team-mate. The two pony-boys moved slowly, heads bowed, dragging their feet, they were clearly exhausted. But when they realised they were being taken to the drinking trough their heads went up and they lunged forward. Tom, from pulling on Merlin's reigns to get the brats to move forward, found himself suddenly having to haul back on them to stop the boys bolting.

He managed to stop them a yard or two short of the trough. Grinning broadly he lent back, using his weight to hold the brats back. Excited by the sight of water and maddened by thirst they lunged against the reigns squealing with excitement and impatience.

"You would, would you, you sods," Tom growled cutting at the brats' thighs with his riding crop. "Stand up fuck you. Stand up. You're not going to get at that water till you stand up."

The pony-boys lost in their near silent world could not hear the individual words but the man's tone, the expression on his face and the crop's stinging imperative conveyed his meaning to them. Quelled, they stood, shifting from foot to foot, half crazed by thirst, whimpering softly as they gazed at the water flowing so freely and so near at hand. At last, satisfied that discipline had been maintained, the groom stepped to one side and the two brats, lunging forwards, dropped to their knees and plunged their faces into the trough.

Looking down Mark noticed that the brats' upturned rumps, now so prominently displayed, had largely escaped damage. Their legs had been scorched by the wall of flames and their shoulders scourged by the whip but their bottoms had, up to then at least, been spared. The contrast between the smooth deeply tanned skin of their unblemished rumps and the fire and lash ravaged flesh of their shoulders and legs was Mark thought very striking. He doubted however if the contrast would last long. Pauper boys' bottoms always presented such tempting targets.

"When you get them back to the stables give them a double ration of swill each and then let them sleep," Jack ordered. "Choose a couple of small low quality brats from one of the gangs working round the house and secure them ready for the brutes. Bring them out for their reward at quarter to ten tomorrow. I am sure my guests would like to see the fun before they go to church."

Mark remembered the first time he visited Dingley Dell Manor as a school friend of Jack's. They were both hardly eleven years old and the customs and practices of the Vale of Dingle were fresh and exciting to him. One of Jack's father's teams of pony-boys won a minor race and they were taken down to the stable-yard the following day to see the brats getting their reward.

When they arrived at the stables they found two small sluts tipped over the top rail of the exercise yard fence, their feet hanging clear of the ground, their wrists tied to bottom rail. There were five or six other free boys there who knew there was going to be some excitement and had turned up to watch the fun. Jack's father was working on the sluts' bottoms, a benevolent smile on his broad cheerful face, as he greased and stretched their holes apparently oblivious to their sobs. Then a groom appeared leading the two pony boys by their halters and the crowd of free boys cheered and laughed and pointed.

"Look at their pricks," Jack had exclaimed a hint of wonder in his voice.

The pony boys, Mark remembered had been sturdy well grown lads approaching the end of their racing careers. If they had been free boys he would have judged them to be fifteen or sixteen years old, being charity brats who developed later they might well have been a couple of years older than that. The brats' wrists, as was always the case with pony boys when they were not harnessed between the shafts of a racing trap, were secured behind their backs. Their pricks, free for once of their tight cock rings, wobbled stiffly in front of them as they walked. Their cocks were not in truth remarkable for youths of that age but looked immense to two eleven year olds who could only compare the swollen tubes of blood and gristle to their own twig like penises. Drops of precum, which had formed at the tips of their rods, glistened silver in the sunlight.

Catching sight of the two small pauper boys bent over the railings, their naked bottoms invitingly exposed, the pony boys jerked impatiently on their reigns. Feet prancing, chests heaving, unable to speak they signalled their lust and excitement with strange shrill squeals and whinnies.

The groom tethered the pony boys to the railing beside the two little sluts destined for their enjoyment. Spitting on the palm of his right hand he liberally smeared their pulsing members with saliva, the fingers of his left hand, thrusting up hard behind their balls, guarded against a premature orgasm.

An expectant hush had fallen on the audience of free boys. The only sound now was the frightened whimpering of the little sluts and the eager neighing of the pony boys.

The pony boys jerked at their halters, pawing the ground in their eagerness. Taking a firm hold of its bridle, the groom unclipped one pony boy's halter and led it across to stand close behind one of the slut's upraised bottoms. With the finger and thumb of his free hand he pried apart the lips of the brat's anus. The lad was wild with lust but with his hands secured behind his back he found it difficult to make a lodgement in the boy. Roaring in frustration he drove wildly forward, repeatedly missing his target. The slut, slung helpless over the rails and knocked about by the plunging pony boy, screamed in terror.

Jack's father, showing the concern for the true well being of the charity boys committed to his care that distinguished the more responsible inhabitants of the vale of Dingle, taking hold of the pony boy's penis levelled it at the entry to the slut's hole. The pony boy drove forward with such force that the brat was in danger of being tipped over the rail across which he had been secured. The groom, apparently satisfied that the boy's penis was firmly lodged in the child, ducked under the railings. Grabbing hold of the slut by his shoulders he held it steady. The slut's screams increased in intensity and volume as the lust crazed pony boy hammered his cock into its bottom. Mark remembered the way in which the muscles in the pony boy's deeply tanned flanks rippled as he worked his rod ever deeper into his victim's bottom.

The miracle by which lust anaesthetises and converts the agony of penetration into the most piercing pleasure soon reduced the slut's frantic screams into a low urgent moaning. From the pony boy came grunts and rasping pants punctuated by the urgent rhythmic slap of bare flesh against bare flesh as his thrusting pelvis slammed against the slut's taughtly drawn bum. In the background the second pony boy pranced and tugged at his halter, howling in frustration, impatient to be given a chance at his slut's bottom.

The groom, apparently satisfied that the first boy's cock was fairly lodged in his slut's bum, relinquished his grip of the child's shoulders. Ducking back under the railings he crossed to where the second pony boy stood straining at his halter. Soon that boy's penis too was buried deep in the slut selected for his enjoyment.

Mark remembered how he and Jack and the crowd of other free boys watched in open mouthed silence only broken by the occasional nervous whisper or giggle. Then the first pony boy began to pump his brat's hole with increasing urgency. His thrusts became faster and fiercer. He tensed, his cock buried in the slut's guts, his body arched like a tightly drawn bow. The muscles in his bottom surged convulsively before he slumped forward, his lust momentarily quenched.

But only momentarily, for very soon the boy's bottom began to move as he started, once again, to sound the slut's bottom.

By then though the tension that had held the free boys silent had broken and they were all chatting and laughing among themselves at the antics of the pauper brats.

Mark was sure that Jack's guests would find the sight of Merlin and Lucifer being rewarded for their efforts an entertaining and interesting one.

"Well I hope Mister Wardle you will allow me to congratulate you on a very fine win," a heavily accented voice spoke behind Mark interrupting his reflections.

Mark turned Mister Oblonsky and Stefan were standing there with the two black pony girls in the charge of a groom behind them.

"That's very kind of you Mister Oblonsky," Jack said taking the man's proffered hand and shaking it, "And sporting too if I may say so. Your team ran a good race and there was nothing really in it in the end."

"Do you want to water your girls," he continued. "There's room enough for both pairs of brats at the trough."

"Shift up you brute," he snarled landing a heavy kick with the toe of his leather brogues on the side of Merlin's rump. The pony boy without lifting his head jostled up against his team-mate, making room at the end of the trough.

"Food, water; both are privileges that such as these have to earn," Oblonsky remarked his voice icy. "The idle bitches have failed me and they will have to go thirsty and hungry till tomorrow. I've had them brought over here so that they can see the water and watch your brats drinking. That, together with the little lesson Stefan has already given them, will I hope persuade them to try just a little harder next time I run them."

Mark could imagine that this was so. Standing there in the heat of the sun he had already began to feel thirsty and he had not run thirteen miles [21km] cross-country urged on by merciless applications of the lash. Certainly the bitches longing for water must be immeasurably stronger and more urgent than his. Their agonies would be made all the greater by being able to see the water lapping coolly over the sides of the trough with the two naked pony boys drinking eagerly while being themselves forbidden to touch it. As for Stefan's little lesson, Mark could see that the girls' bodies that had begun the race looking as if they were fashioned from burnished jet were now bruised and ribbed with bloody welts. Their current sufferings were surely sufficiently severe to persuade the pony girls of the unwisdom of coming second again.

Mark said as much to Oblonsky.

"It is through suffering that trash such as these are trained," the Russian remarked grimly.

"That is so true but you cannot but feel pity for them," Anne Wardle had joined them. Her remarks Mark felt showed the soft caring nature that one would expect in a lady.

"Look at the poor children," she continued softly as she walked towards them, "so bruised, so weary, so thirsty."

She ran her hand up the side of one of the girls' flanks and then over her body until its palm was resting on the brat's chest. The girl stood quietly as the woman's hand fondled her body showing none of the violent revulsion that she had betrayed when before the race Jack had tried to handle her. Perhaps the brat was too exhausted now to care or perhaps there was some other reason that made the woman's caresses more bearable.

Mark wondered at the contrast between the white woman in her smart clothes and the naked exhausted black girl.

Anne took her hand away the girl. Turning it over, so that its palm was towards her, she examined it and smiled softly.

"The sweet little whore is still bleeding," she exclaimed softly.

She lifted her hand to her mouth and delicately licked her fingertips. Reaching out she put her hand under the girl's chin and tipped her head back. Bending down she kissed her on the lips. Mark saw the girl's naked body straining against her bonds as she responded fiercely to Anne's kiss.

"Such a pity," Anne said stepping back, "such a pity but then how else can the poor ignorant little whores be schooled."

She flicked one of the black girl's nipples with her thumb-nail and turned away. The girl accepting her dismissal stood patiently, her head bowed waiting for her master to decide her fate.

"We find with the pauper filth that they respond best to a firm touch and I expect it is the same with these," Jack remarked. "Anything else they interpret as weakness and then they try to take advantage of you and have to be checked. In the end it is kinder to be firm with them."

"Very true," Oblonsky replied, "but really I wanted to put a proposal to you. You have an excellent pair of pony boys there Mr Wardle and though I say it myself my girls are healthy strong young brutes and ran a good race although they failed to win. Why don't we try breeding from them? I think it is up to us, as responsible owners, to do all we can to improve the racing stock and that would seem to be an excellent way of doing just that."

"I've got nothing against your suggestion," Jack said after a moment's reflection, "but didn't you say your coach has dosed your bitches to stop their development."

"Ah the excellent Doctor Werner," Oblonsky exclaimed with a laugh, "such a good find for my purposes, a specialist with the East German girl's athletic team. I came across him shortly after the wall came down. His position then was one of some embarrassment, without a job and facing prosecution. Some of his, what shall I say, treatments, had unfortunate consequences. That was a long time ago and he has been able to improve his techniques markedly since then. Having an almost unlimited supply of subjects on which to experiment was a considerable advantage in this. Now he appears to be able to turn the biological clock on and off at will. He'll give the whores a couple of jabs in their thighs this evening and they'll be ovulating, or whatever the term is, like prize breeding bitches by tomorrow."

"Well that's fine but will they take kindly to being mounted? Jack asked. Look how one of them tried to go for me when I touched her. I don't want my boys damaged, I've invested a lot of time and money in training them."

"I'll see to that," Oblonsky replied, "We'll tethered and gag them before we put your boys to them."

"I must say," Anne interposed, "that it will be a very good thing for the free boys to watch the girls being fucked and I hope you will encourage as many as possible to be there to see it. I really think sometimes that having so many charity boys about may have a permanently corrupting influence on them. You know what they say – you cannot touch filth without getting dirty. Seeing the girls getting fucked will show them at least that there is more to life than just charity boys."

"My dear," Jack replied mildly, "you mustn't attach any importance to charity boys, no one takes them seriously. They're there to be used – nothing more. When I'm bored or tired or needing relaxation sometimes I take a drink, other times I fuck a brat, if one happens to be handy. Mind you I agree with you that seeing the girls mounted will be a useful educational experience. Some things are more easily explained by practical demonstration than anything else."

"Now you and Stefan," Jack continued turning back to Oblonsky, "are already invited over for tomorrow. Bring the bitches with you and we'll put them to the boys before lunch. There's always a gap between the end of morning service and the start of lunch that needs filling in with something amusing."

"Very well," Oblonsky replied, "I will do that. Now if you don't mind I will leave you. I need to take Stefan home now he has a whipping coming to him."

"A whipping Stefan?" Jack was clearly amused, "what have you done to deserve that."

"I came second so Dad will flog me," Stefan replied. He tried to sound calm but there was a tremor in his voice.

"Yes," Mister Oblonsky chimed in, "the bitches are being punished because they did not win the race. Stefan has to be punished for the same reason."

"Well of course," Jack accepted the reasonableness of this attitude, "But whipped? You do mean really whipped? Generally we regard the strap or cane as sufficient for free boys."

"Certainly Stefan will be whipped when I get him home. He will be stripped, hung up by his wrists and I will flog him with a very real whip. We Russians do not do things by halves."

"But why hurry home? I am having a little party and I would be delighted if you would join me. You can flog Stefan here just as well as at home. I am sure all the equipment required is to hand and then we can all enjoy the spectacle, except Stefan of course," and Jack laughed heartily in the jovial good-humoured way that was so typical of him.

"Why that is most kind of you. I will try to repay your hospitality by giving my son a severe and vigorous thrashing."

"Very good, very good indeed, I find there is little better for getting a party to go with a swing than the spectacle of a good looking boy being thoroughly flayed."

"Tom," Jack said speaking to the groom, "walk Merlin and Lucifer home, don't stand any nonsense from them and be sure to keep the lazy brutes moving. Double ration of swill this evening and the same again tomorrow morning. About eleven o'clock get their cock rings off and give them two blue pills each. I want them up at the yard at midday sharp. Do you understand?"

"Yes Sir," Tom replied touching his cap smartly before turning and aiming two sharp kicks at the up turned rumps of the pony boys whose heads were still buried in the water trough.

"Get out of there you useless lumps of dog shit," he roared.

Mark heard behind him, as he walked back to the marquee, the sharp crack of leather striking boy's flesh followed by a squeal of pain.

"Sound man Tom," Jack remarked approvingly, "knows how to handle charity trash."

"Yes indeed," Oblonsky replied and then calling over his shoulder to his son who was unaccountably showing a tendency to lag behind. "Come on Stefan we don't want to keep Mister Wardle's guests waiting after he's been so kind to ask us to his party."

The noise coming from the marquee suggested that the party was already well underway. The din of human voices, dominated as always be the shrill tones of the women's chatter, the roar of masculine laughter, the clink of glasses, all punctuated occasionally by the sharp pop of a champagne bottle being opened, drowned the bleeting of lambs and the song of the sky larks and all the other sounds of the countryside. Jack stepped inside the marquee and for a few seconds the noise continued unabated. Then the people nearest the entry saw him and turned to face him. There were a few hushes and more people turned round to look. There was a ripple of applause and then everybody in the place was facing Jack clapping and cheering frantically.

Jack, beaming happily, raised both his hands appealing for silence but still the cheering and clapping rolled on.

"Friends," he shouted trying to make himself heard over the din. There were cries of "hush", "let him speak" and "he's a jolly good fellow."

"Oh God," Mark thought, "he's going to make a speech off the top of his head and after winning the Corvo cup as well. He'll put his foot in it. I'm sure he will." He knew from long experience that Jack, normally the most level headed of men, tended to get carried away when making a speech especially if it was at a moment of deep emotional turmoil. The only way to avoid this was to provide him with a full script and to stand close by him to stop him if he showed any signs of straying from it. Jack's life and his own, for bystanders also tended to get involved, were littered with moments of acute embarrassment when this policy was not followed and now he suspected it was going to happen again.

"Friends," Jack shouted again and the continued more quietly, "friends this is a great occasion for me. After more years than I care to remember we are bringing the Corvo Cup back to the manor and it is a great pleasure to me that you are here to share this moment with me. I have to thank the stable staff whose keenness and dedication has made out of the unpromising material of a couple of pauper brats, and you can hardly get anything more unpromising than that, a pair of champion pony boys. I have also to thank Richard Smythe, stand up Richard so everyone can see you boy, who was my jockey today and a very brave and intelligent one. He ran a sharp race keeping the brats well in hand till the end and then lashing them onto victory in the final straight.

But finally and most of all I want to thank Anne Wardle my brother's wife. Now I'm giving no secrets away when I say my brother is an ass and a dangerous one as well. It is well known that he was banished from the Vale by my father for being totally unsound on the treatment of the charity scum. He, you will scarcely credit this accused us of stealing their childhood." Jack waited a second or two for the laughter to die down. "He said that we should stop beating the little brutes, should appeal to their better sides," again Jack had to pause for the laughter and catcalls to abate, "and try to persuade them to behave by treating them with kindness and reasoning with them."

"I know, I know," Jack said raising his hands to appeal for silence and laughing himself. "He said we should clothe and feed the little sods better, keep them warm in winter and in general stop toughening them up. He said that we should stop using them for our sexual pleasure and accused us," he paused fighting back laughter, "accused us of robbing them of their innocence."

"And this," Jack continued, "from a man who grew up in the Vale. Who knows full well what an onerous and thankless task it is to try to make something useful out of the subhuman animals that we have taken into our care and yet begrudges us the occasional tender bottom or hot little mouth to fuck. Who has had, like all of us, the advantage of listening to our Rector's thoughtful sermons, full as they are of Christian Charity and the need to submit to God's will. Sermons that so reminds us that it is blasphemous to reject both the duties He has imposed on us and the gifts with which He has endowed us."

"The man had lived here all his life up to then and he could talk of pauper sluts being innocent."

"Come here turd. Yes you, you idle lump of filth. Here at once," he roared at the serving boy nearest to him.

The brat, a slim lad about twelve years old his brief white tunic contrasting nicely with his sunburnt limbs, sidled reluctantly forward.

"Look dear it's our Billy," a smartly dressed lady standing sipping from a champagne flute loudly exclaimed. "Move yourself Billy you ungrateful slob. Do as Mister Wardle says or Daddy'll strip the skin from your worthless carcass with the buckle end of his belt."

Thus encouraged the boy stumbled forward. Jack started impatiently towards the cringing slut and grabbed him by the ear.

"Look at this little whore," Jack sneered, twisting the child's ear so viciously that it was forced to bend almost double with the inevitable result that its white vest rode up revealing a sweetly curved boy's bottom. "Does it look innocent to you? Anyway let's find out how innocent it really is?"

"Well filth what do you want? Speak up pig shit so the Ladies and Gentlemen can hear."

"Mister Wardle Sir," the boy whined, "please Sir I want to serve you Sir and please you Sir and Sir would you be so good if I fail in any sort of way to thrash me really hard till my shoulders and bottom are ribbed with stripes and all bloody and I'm very grateful to my Mummy and Daddy and to Missis Wardle and to you Sir 3; 3;"

"Shut up garbage," Jack shouted driving the boy's head, crown first, against a nearby tent pole to bring to a halt the brat's near hysterical exercise in fear driven self humiliation. "I said what did you want cretin not what do you need. Of course you need to be thrashed 3; 3; all pauper scum do. What 3; do 3; 3; you 3; 3; want 3;?"

Each word in this last sentence was followed by a sharp crack as Jack slammed the hapless boy head first into the tent pole.

"Do" (crack) "you" (crack) "want" (crack) "to" (crack) "be" (crack) "fucked" (crack)?

"Oh Sir Yes Sir I'm sorry Sir, I do want to be fucked Sir. Please Sir I want a man's cock up my hole Sir. I want it in deep Sir, deep and hard Sir. I don't care if it splits me open Sir I just want to be fucked and then afterwards to be allowed to lick the shit and blood and cum off the cock Sir."

"Well if you want to be fucked whore we'd better let the gentleman have a good look at what you're offering them. Come on round you go so they can see your bottom."

Laughing Jack manoeuvred the boy till his bottom was presented to the crowd of onlookers while they hooted and stamped their feet.

"Well they seem to find something funny but nobody's showing a great deal of interest in fucking your bum. Wiggle it about a bit maybe that will get them going. Now reach round and pull your cheeks apart so they can see right into it and wriggle it at the same time 3;. Wide apart slut 3; 3; wide apart. You want cock up you don't you whore?"

"Yes please Mister Wardle Sir. Please let me have a man's cock in me 3; Please Sir," the slut whined.

"Perhaps we'd better just check that hole of yours out for tightness."

Saying this Jack quickly dampened the index finger of his free hand with saliva and then jabbed it, without warning, into the brat's bottom. The boy squawked his shock and pain at the brutal assault. Jack though was not going to allow the protests of a pauper brat to influence his behaviour in the slightest. He just jabbed harder, twisting his finger as he did so.

"For God's sake Billy you miserable louse," a large red faced man standing beside the smartly dressed woman who had earlier identified herself as the boy's mother shouted, "push out as if your shitting. You should know that you stupid cunt the number of times I've told you when I've had you face down over my knee stretching your hole with my fingers."

"Typical bit of charity filth, stupid, ungrateful and lazy," the man continued addressing the crowd in general. "Of course my wife and I were bitterly disappointed when we realised what an abortion we had produced but we didn't abandon the little turd. No we did the best for it we could, toughening it up, disciplining it, teaching it to know its place. Most evenings before we locked the slut out in the garden for the night I'd tip him over my knee and work on his hole preparing it in case anybody wanted to use it. It was as much part of the daily routine as the regular leatherings my wife and I gave his bottom. And look at him now. I might as well not have bothered."

While the man was talking Jack had managed to work his index finger into Billy. Now it was buried knuckle deep in the brat.

"Now look at how innocent the tart is," Jack exclaimed, transferring the grip of his left hand from the boy's ear to his hair and yanking him upright.

It was clear that Billy had escaped, by the only means open to him, for the moment from the miseries and humiliations of a pauper brat's existence. The boy's thin little prick was straining upwards, his narrow chest heaved as he panted for breath, his eyes were glazed, strange moans and whimperings came from his half open mouth. Mark could see the muscles in his deeply dimpled rump move as he rode Jack's probing finger.

"Billy, Billy," his mother screamed urgently, "don't you dare cum. Your body is to give pleasure to your betters not for you to enjoy, you self centred thieving little turd."

But Billy had gone beyond remonstrance. His head went back, the muscle in his small boy's bottom clamped tight on Jack's finger. Gobs of pale fluid spurted from his cock.

Billy's mother, furious at the boy's blatant disobedience, darted out of the crowd and punched him hard on the side of his head. Catching the boy as he slumped forward, his orgasm spent, the blow knocked him to the ground. Seizing the opportunity the woman stamped down on the back of the boy's head, driving his face down into the matting. The red faced man, clearly as enraged at his son's behaviour as his wife, strode forward, his belt ready in his hand, the buckle end hanging loose and ready to use. His wife, seeing him approach, thoughtfully paused to pull Billy's tunic up clear of his bum before resuming her stamping and kicking with renewed vigour. The man taking full advantage of the target so temptingly presented to him brought his belt cracking down again and again across the brat's bottom and the back of his thighs. The metal clasp scored angry weals across the child's firm flesh.

Such though was the natural courtesy of the inhabitants of the Vale of Dingle that hardly had the man landed four fair cuts, and cuts was the appropriate word, for the buckle, wherever it landed, left a bloody trail of broken skin and torn flesh across the brats writhing body, than Billy's mother brought operations to a halt.

"Darling," she said grinding her heel into the back of the slut's neck, "I am afraid the ghastly little tyke is dirtying Mister Wardle's matting with his blood."

"So he is," the man replied, "typical of the slut. I wouldn't be surprised if he's doing it deliberately just to try to escape his well-deserved beating. Well he won't get away with that. We'll stop now and give him the rest and I need hardly say the greater part of it, when we get him home tonight, if that is Mister Wardle is agreeable."

"By all means my dear chap," Jack said cheerfully. "There's a pair of heavy manacles in the Range Rover, right wrist crushers, secure him to a tent peg or something outside the marquee with them and then you can take him home with you when the party's over. Or better still, because you won't want to be bothered with him then, leave him out in the open over night and collect him tomorrow. You'll both be fresh and rested then and able to bring renewed vigour to the task of thrashing him and he will have the whole night to think about what is to come to him. When you've finished with him send him straight back to the manor please. I see he's soiled his tunic and Mrs Thomas, my excellent housekeeper, will not wish to allow such irresponsible carelessness to pass unnoticed."

"Certainly we will," the man said cheerfully before kicking the sobbing boy hard in the ribs.

"Get to your feet Billy you idle louse. And stop making such a fuss. You'll get it much worse tomorrow when your loving Mother and I have the time to give you the flogging your atrocious behaviour really warrants."

He drove the sobbing boy out of the marquee with a series of vicious kicks on his already bloody bottom.

"Well," Jack said effortlessly resuming his speech, "I think that demonstrates, if indeed demonstration was necessary, the self evident truth that all charity brats are morally and mentally corrupt and that my poor brother was a misguided ass."

"But in one respect and one respect only my friends he was not an ass. He married Anne. That was the one sensible thing that he has ever done."

"As you probably all know I asked Anne to join me at Dingley Dell Manor with her son Daniel. Not having a son myself we thought, Anne and I, that Daniel might be a suitable boy to be trained to be my successor at the manor. We were to be bitterly disappointed. Daniel had inherited all his father's weaknesses and none of the firmness of character or sound common-sense that distinguishes his mother. In short he was incapable of taking a place in the free society of the Vale."

"In this crisis Anne acted with great firmness of mind. She accepted the situation as it was and assumed the responsibilities of a caring mother who had had the misfortune to bear a child so depraved and degenerate that it needed the special protection and guidance granted to pauper children by our uniquely philanthropic foundation. She submitted Daniel to the Trustees for acceptance as a charity boy and, when that was granted, she set about destroying the last vestiges of pride and wilfulness in the brat with exemplary firmness."

"In addition she has over the last six months run the household at the manor raising it from a rather rough and ready bachelor establishment to a well ordered, even luxurious, home. She holds none of the stupid liberal opinions of her husband. She does not think that you can appeal to a charity boy's reason or to its better feelings because she knows it has niether. She knows the only the only thing such scum can understand and respect is the lash."

"And I think as Daniel has proved himself to be totally unsuitable to inherit the mansion and estate the best thing Anne and I could do is to get together to make another heir."

Wild applause and cheering filled the marquee.

"At least," Mark thought glancing at Anne, her face scarlet with embarrassment, "old Jack has kept me out of things this time."

"And while I am on the subject," continued Jack with cheerful insouciance, "I've got a bit of advice for my old friend Mark Legg. Lots of you know him because he's been a very regular visitor to the Vale of Dingle since we were both boys together. He's the big man standing next to me."

Jack helpfully paused to give the crowd an opportunity to look at Mark. One or two people stood up on their chairs to get a better look at him.

"Mark its time you thought about settling down and I think Angela Thompson would suit you very well. Pretty girl and although, like you, not a native of the Vale she clearly fits in."

Mark hung his head not daring to even glance in Angela's direction. He did indeed find the girl attractive and admired the firm confident manner in which she treated the charity sluts she came across. Many new comers to the Vale seemed, for some odd reason, to be embarrassed by the crowds of cowed and famished pauper boys in their rags and nakedness and reacted to their presence either by pretending they did not exist or by adopting a jocular even kindly approach to them. Angela on the other hand seemed to accept their presence and their services as part of the natural order and there was certainly no sign of her treating them with undue kindness.

He had thought a lot about her but wondered how she would view his occasional enjoyment of a boy slut. He didn't want to have to give that up completely. Such things, the casual penetration of a brat's bottom could hardly be referred to as a 'relationship', meant nothing but perhaps Angela would not see it that way. Now, after Jack's crass behaviour, the point was academic. The girl would certainly have nothing to do with him after being publicly humiliated in that way. Jack seemed to think he could publicly offer the girl to him for his enjoyment in the same way as he would if she was some grubby little pauper slut. It was really too bad of him.

Jack was still talking and swallowing his chagrin, Mark forced himself to listen. At least it seemed his old friend and sometimes, as with all old friends, he wondered how he put up with him, had moved on from playing the matchmaker.

"Now I have a very pleasant duty to perform. It is to welcome two newcomers to the Vale and to introduce them to my friends. Mister Ivan Oblonsky and his son Stefan. Ivan in the short time he has been with us has shown himself to be a great supporter of our traditional ways and a great sportsman. No one who saw his team of black pony girls run this afternoon can doubt his skill as a trainer of brats. I can say that in addition he is a great sportsman and a true gentleman. I know from personal experience how hard it is to see a team of brats that you have spent years breaking and training being beaten into second place. It is particularly hard if the defeat is a narrow one."

"That is what Mister Oblonsky, I shall call him Ivan in future for I regard him already as my friend, had to endure this afternoon and by the narrowest of margins. And yet within fifteen minutes of that bitter disappointment he was shaking me by the hand and congratulating me on my win; the behaviour of a gentleman and a sportsman."

"You all saw Stefan this afternoon racing his father's team and you know he is the best sort of free boy, intelligent, brave and high spirited. You will also know that he is already able to extort the last drop of effort and strength from a charity brat. No one who saw him drive those black girls up the final straight cracking the whip over and over again across their bleeding shoulders will be in any doubt of that. With young men like him coming along we can be confident that the unique traditions of the Vale will be upheld and that the responsibilities that we have been obliged to assume over the pauper brats in our care will be vigorously and enthusiastically fulfilled."

"Now we have a treat for you. We have already witnessed a charity boy being thrashed. Although a commonplace event I found it moderately stimulating to witness, as I do any such flogging, especially if the slut being chastised is, as it was in this case, a pretty one. There's something about the sight of a cane being applied to a brat's firm young bottom that is inherently exciting."

"But beating a charity boy is rather run of the mill. There is nothing to it beyond the purely physical and the simplest of emotions, the pain and terror of the slut, the fierce anger and mixed with pleasurable excitement of the person administering correction. It is amusing to watch the brat squirm as the rod bites its tender flesh and to listen to its howls and broken pleas for mercy. However there is really nothing more to it. The whole thing lacks psychological depth. There is nothing to compare to the emotional complexity that exists when a free boy is beaten. There is no relationship between man and brat except contempt on one side and an equally well founded fear on the other. The brat lives in the expectation of being beaten. It knows it is going to be beaten. It has no pride. It is not humiliated by its nakedness and feels no shame when it screams under the lash."

"A free boy fears the lash. There is no point in using it on him unless he has been taught to fear it. But a free boy is a proud high-spirited creature. He fears much more disgracing himself while suffering under it and he feels the humiliation of having to submit to it. However he does submit because he respects, loves and trusts the person chastising him, for in the Vale it is always a free boy's parents or guardian who is privileged to perform this delicate but enjoyable task. The boy as he bends, trembling, to submit his bare rump to the cane and bites his lip to try to hold back the cries of pain that would in his view bring disgrace upon himself, is demonstrating that love. The man knows this and in his way reciprocates it."

"The difference between a free and a charity boy being beaten is that between high drama and the lowest of low burlesque."

"Thanks to Ivan Oblonsky you will now be able to enjoy a few minutes of high drama. As you know his team of pony girls driven by his son Stefan came second in the Corvo Cup this afternoon. He feels understandably that this was not good enough. It was his intention to make his displeasure in this respect clear to his son in private but he has very kindly agreed to allow us to witness this process."

"Stefan as you can all see is a very handsome young boy, although the racing leathers he is for the moment wearing somewhat obscures his charms. It will be a real pleasure to see more of him, as we undoubtedly will, in a minute or two."

"I am sure Ivan, being a Russian and coming from a land with as long a tradition of corporal punishment as our own; we had the cat, they had the knout; will make his displeasure and disappointment with poor Stefan's performance crystal clear."

"Ivan perhaps you will show us a little bit of Russian discipline."

Chapter 13

Oblonsky chuckled richly at what he clearly regarded as a joke and a ripple of laughter ran through his audience. Stefan however did not join in the general merriment. The boy stood red faced apparently on the verge of tears.

"Now Stefan," Oblonsky continued in a kind almost gentle voice, "step forward please and prepare yourself for your punishment."

All eyes were on the ten-year old boy as he obediently moved forward to the centre of the marquee. It was clear that there was a procedure that he was required to follow. Bending over, his flaxen hair gleaming, his leathers tightly hugging his slim young body, fingers fumbling with nervousness, he unlaced his ankle length boots. He pulled them off and placed them side by side on the floor. Inside them went his socks and then, unzipping his black and yellow leather top, he pulled it up over his head. That was folded and hung neatly over the back of a chair where it was shortly joined by his trousers.

The boy's only clothing now was a pair of spider-man Y-fronts. His hands moved to their waistband and hesitated.

"Come on Stefan. Get them off please. We mustn't keep Mister Wardle and his guests waiting." Oblonsky spoke kindly but firmly.

"Dad please. Do I have to?" the boy asked blushing scarlet with embarrassment.

"Of course you do Stefan. You don't seriously think that I would whip you with your underpants on do you? I need to see where the lash lands to do the job properly and you know how angry your Mother becomes if you bleed on your clothes. Please take them off straight away."

"Dad its all these people watching. Please don't make me take them off."

"For heavens sake Stefan don't make such a fuss. Get your underpants off now. I am beginning to get a little impatient."

"I really do apologise," Ivan Oblonsky continued speaking to Jack Wardle, "I don't know what has got into the boy. He usually doesn't make a fuss at all."

"It's the audience no doubt," Jack remarked with once again showing his innate understanding of the juvenile mind. "You must remember Stefan is not a shameless pauper slut. He is a free boy with a free boy's pride. His modesty does him honour and his embarrassment as it is violated adds to the entertainment."

As Jack was speaking Stefan reluctantly pulled down his pants. He stepped out of them and quickly bending picked them up from the floor and placed them with the rest of his clothes. Hastily he turned to face the crowd, his hands clasped over his crutch in a pathetic attempt to hide his nakedness. His face was on fire and tears of shame glinted in his eyes.

Mark was, struck as always, by the difference in the ways free and charity boys were addressed. Even when about to be flogged free boys were spoken to gently and politely. Orders, at least among the better sort, were preceded by 'please' and obedience acknowledged by 'thank you.' Some efforts were made to preserve the boys individual dignity. No such courtesies were extended to a pauper boy. He faced a constant barrage of abuse and orders were reinforced with kicks and blows. A slut who used its hands to cover its body as Stefan had done with his would have been regarded as giving itself airs and not knowing its place, two of the most serious faults it could commit, and punished accordingly.

"Stefan," his father ordered, still speaking in the calm measured way that he had used through out. "Would you please go to my car and fetch the whip there. The heavy one with the five foot [1½m] lash, not the light one."

Stefan hurried from the marquee still using his hands to shield his nakedness. There were none of the whistles and coarse comments that a pauper brat of his quality would have elicited. There was not a male member of the watching crowd who did not, looking at the delectable boy, imagine him branded and cut, with a pauper brat's metal collar clamped about his slim neck, available to be used and enjoyed. However nervous as he was, naked and sent to fetch a whip for his own flogging, Stefan still retained a free boy's confidence and spirit. Fear might numb his legs so that he stumbled and fill his eyes with tears but it was not the abject, habitual, terror that every charity brat knew. He knew the animal fear of pain as well as any pauper boy but he also knew another deeper keener fear that a slut could never know. The fear of breaking down, of disgracing both himself and his parents. It was this that made him keep his head up and his shoulders back and to choke back his tears. It was this that set him above and apart from any charity brat.

Mark watched the boy as he set off on his errand, admiring his lithe young body, tanned golden brown by the sun. It was clear that in one respect Stefan had not yet fully adapted to the customs of his contemporaries in the Vale. There free boys commonly dispensed with their clothes when playing or among family or friends. As a consequence they were as uniformly brown as any pauper brat sent by his loving Mummy and Daddy to labour all year round naked in the fields. Stefan, though his shoulders and legs were deeply tanned, had a small band of pale flesh around his middle where his bathing trunks had shielded his body from the sun. Mark found his eyes drawn to the boy's egg-white bottom, always the most interesting and exciting part of the juvenile anatomy, with its tight curves and hidden recesses.

While Stefan was getting the whip, serving boys scuttled about fetching the rest of the equipment required by Mister Oblonsky. Mark wondered if the brats were showing somewhat more than their usual eagerness in their work. No doubt the prospect of seeing a free boy being thrashed rather than one of their own kind had its attractions for them.

"You intend to hang the boy from the wrists?" Jack enquired. "I have to say I am a little surprised. It is usual here to expect a free boy to keep in position for his punishment. It would be considered demeaning for the boy to tie him down – implying that he has not the courage to stay down."

"But that no doubt is for the cane or strap across the bottom," Oblonsky replied. "I doubt if any boy, however brave, would be able to stay still for the whip."

"At least that is a hypothesis capable of being tested empirically," Jack remarked with a cheerful grin, glancing at the free boys who had all crowded together round a table laden with bowls of strawberry and cream.

The boys looked puzzled until Adam, who had been frowning in thought, said, "I think he means he could try it out on one of us," a remark that sent a detectable shiver of trepidation through the previously cheerful group.

"Yes indeed," Oblonsky replied joining in the joke, "Which one do you think 3; 3;? No matter we can make our selection after I have finished with poor Stefan.

"And stringing a boy up has other advantages too," Oblonsky continued turning away from the group of boys who seemed suddenly to have lost their appetite for strawberries. "The lad's weight draws his skin and flesh taught thus increasing the pain of each stroke. His body is totally vulnerable. A skilled practitioner with the whip can direct out the tip of the lash into the tenderest and most intimate recesses a boy's body."

"I would have thought," Jack said thoughtfully, "that a boy would thrash about a bit while he's flogged if he's just suspended from his wrists."

"Yes certainly," Oblonsky agreed cheerfully. "In the early stages of a flogging a boy does tend to throw himself about, just as he'll scream a lot. Rather entertaining to watch I think and its a real test of your skill and judgement to lay the whip where you want it. And you can have some fun too. You can spin the boy like a top if you wish. As the whipping goes on though he'll progressively quieten down till he's just hanging there only moving when the lash strikes him. That's the time to stop by and large. No point in flogging a boy if he can't feel the pain."

"It does strike me that while Stefan's weight will draw the skin on his shoulders and chest tight. It won't work so well on his bottom and legs. And he's a slim lad so his weight won't be all that great."

"Very true, but there are ways round that. Indeed I was going to ask you if I could borrow the boy who was your jockey to help me overcome that problem in this instance."

"William Smythe? Why of course William come here please we need you."

William detached himself from the group of boys and came forward. He looked, Mark thought decidedly nervous. Perhaps he thought that he had been selected to be the subject of the experiment with the whip.

"There's nothing to worry about William," Oblonsky said reassuringly, apparently sensing the boy's unease. "I just thought as Stefan is being whipped for allowing himself to be beaten by you in the race it would be a good idea for you to be involved in his flogging. Now just strip off please. We don't want your clothes getting messed up." William, a true child of the Vale, did not have any of Stefan's inhibitions about his body. He quickly pulled his clothes off and was soon standing naked, totally unembarrassed clearly eager to join in with whatever the adults had planned.

While William undressed a serving boy was ordered to shin up one of the marquee's tent poles with a length of rope. With the slut gripping the pole with his hands and bare feet the hem of his flimsy cotton shift quickly worked its way up round his waste. The crowd showed none of the restraint that it had earlier displayed when Stefan was required to strip. It greeted the brat's involuntary display of its charms, which got more complete and explicit the higher up the pole it climbed, with whistles and bawdy comments. The slut for his part exhibited no sign of the embarrassment or distress that had afflicted Stefan greeting all comments on the attractiveness of his body and speculations as to his expertise as a boy-whore with a broad grin.

Reaching the top of the post the brat lent out as far as he could and looped the rope over the ridge-pole. Then, taking hold of the double strands of rope in his hands, he swung clear of the tent pole and slid back to the floor in a flurry of brown limbs and thin white cotton.

At this moment Stefan reappeared carrying the whip. Mark noticed that he had given up any attempt to shield his crutch from the general gaze, not, he thought, that there was all that much to hide.

Reaching out his hand Oblonsky took the whip from his son. A heavy five foot [1½m] lash was attached to a sturdy leather covered handle. Holding the whip by its handle in his right hand he drew the lash, fashioned from plated leather thongs, through his left. Stefan watched wide eyed with fear, his upper lip trembling, as the lash curled itself, like some dark vicious snake ready at any second to rise and strike, on the ground at his father's feet. Oblonsky's hand jerked sharply. There was an explosive crack as the lash shot forward. The crowd jumped, Stefan squeaked in surprise, and the slut, who an instant before was grinning happily and revelling in a typically whorish sort of way at being the centre of attention, was lying on the ground rolled into a ball, his hands clutched to his crutch, keening shrilly.

"It's all right," Oblonsky said laughing lightly. "I haven't castrated the little brute just nipped one of its balls with the tip of the whip."

A man bent forward and rolling the boy onto his back, pulled his hands apart. Mark saw, before the inquisitive crowd closed round the brat, that indeed one the slut's balls had already swollen to twice its, admittedly not very large, original size and had turned a deep purplish red in colour.

Mrs Thomas appeared a short leather strap in her hand. The crowd parted in front of her. Soon she was standing looming over the brat still prostrate on the floor. She raised the strap above her shoulder and brought it cracking down across the front of the stricken boy's thighs. It scored a broad livid line across the brat's deeply tanned firm young flesh.

"Stop making such a ridiculous fuss and get back to your feet you idle lump of pig's crap," she shouted as she slashed again and again at the brat's flailing legs.

"My excellent House Keeper," Jack remarked with a chuckle. "Amazing how potent a brat cure-all the strap becomes in her hands."

Indeed even before Jack had finished speaking the brat was back up on his feet. Mrs Thomas sent him back to work with a hearty kick up his bum. Jack noticed though that the slut was walking somewhat splay legged.

"Well, well we'd better get back to the main business before us," Oblonsky said picking a pair of manacles up from the table beside him. "Please hold your hands out Stefan."

"Hold on my dear chap," Jack said quickly, "we should avoid inflicting any ancillary damage if we can."

While Oblonsky waited Jack wrapped napkins round the lad's thin wrists. Mark reflected that such consideration would not have been extended to a pauper brat. Indeed manacles in the Vale were made deliberately heavy and rough edged, designed to crush and skin a brat's wrists or ankles. As Jack explained once, you only put irons on a slut if it had done, or if you thought it would do, something wrong. The two were essentially identical. Irons with admirable logic were therefore designed to be a punishment as well as a means of constraint and it was by design such manacles ripped a boy's wrists as quickly and as effectively as the standard weight cane did his bum.

Watching Mark was struck by how small and slight Stefan's slim figure was compared to those of the two men looming over him.

"Now Stefan," Oblonsky said as he fastened the manacles about his son's wrists, "I have asked William Smythe to help me while I whip you. I want you to be friends with him and I think you should say thank you to him."

"Thank you William," Stefan said a slight tremble in his voice and then added smiling bravely. "I hope I can do the same for you next time we race each other."

"Good boy," said Oblonsky ruffling his son's head while William grinned his appreciation of this sally. "Now Jack if you'd help we'll get him up ready for the whip."

With Mark lending a hand Stefan was soon suspended from his wrists, his toes hanging, swinging slightly, some three feet clear of the ground.

While Oblonsky turned away to pick up the whip Jack pulled a short bar made of hardened black rubber from his trouser pocket.

"There," he said slipping it between the boy's teeth, "bite on that it will help with the pain."

Stefan clamped his teeth tight. He could not speak but his eyes expressed his gratitude. Once again Mark wondered at his old friend's ability to manage all manner of boys. He seemed able to deal empathise with a high spirited free boy like Stefan while at the same time knowing instinctively how to deal with some brute of a pauper brat.

The crowd was silent as they gazed at the naked boy his body stretched by its own weight, arms straining upwards above his head, ribs clearly visible under the taughtly drawn skin.

Oblonsky stood for a moment contemplating his son, tanned golden brown by the sun except for a small band of pale flesh around his loins. He reached up and steadied the boy with one hand against a tightly curved pearl white buttock.

"Often," he remarked in a conversational tone to Jack, "I have a brat, either one of my racing bitches or just one of the sluts I brought with me from Russia, oiled before having it strung up. Somehow the light glistening on it's oiled and naked flesh as it swings and writhes under the lash makes its sufferings more exciting to witness. And you get very interesting effects when it begins to bleed. Both oil and blood reflect the light but skin that is slicked with fresh blood has a darker redder tinge. The contrast between the two and the way the deeper darker areas grow as the whip ravages the brat's carcass adds a fresh dimension to the spectacle provided by what would otherwise be a fairly routine whipping."

"However Stefan is a free boy and he is being whipped to teach him the lesson that coming second is not good enough. Any entertainment to be derived from his sufferings must be purely incidental. I am afraid therefore I will, on this occasion, have to deny you that additional refinement. I hope though that watching poor Stefan endure his flogging will be not without interest. I myself have always found watching a handsome young boy, and Stefan poor child is a pretty little lad, being flogged an invigorating experience. Of course, I suppose, if Jack will lend me one of his sluts and if time permits, after I've finished with Stefan we could always oil and whip it."

Oblonsky gave Stefan's bottom a final firm pat. Then he ran his hand down the back of his son's leg. His fingers caressed the boy's well-rounded thigh, stroked and pinched his firm young shins, momentarily encircling the child's leg just above the ankle. For a moment he played gently with Stefan's bare foot squeezing it, toying and spreading the boy's small toes. Then, with one final fond squeeze, he released it and stepped back.

Advancing his left foot he stood a moment carefully judging the distance, holding the whip with the lash looped in his hand. Satisfied he let the lash go and it tumbled downwards curling itself on the ground.

Oblonsky narrowed his eyes in concentration and then setting his teeth, pivoting from his waste he swung the whip back over his right shoulder. He paused a fraction of a second to allow the lash to straighten and then with all his strength and weight behind it he brought it slashing downwards. The lash cut through the air with a rich sibilant hiss. It cracked down across Stefan's narrow shoulders. The plaited leather ripped the boy's flesh scoring a cruel red and purple welt across his golden skin.

The impact of the blow rocked the boy setting him swinging violently from his bound wrists.

Oblonsky waited a moment and then struck again. This time he lifted the whip back above his left shoulder and struck back handed bringing the lash slashing down across the front of Stefan's tightly drawn rib cage. Being delivered back hand the stroke could not have had as much power behind it as Oblonsky's first cut but the effect on the boy was dramatic. His knees jerked upwards to his chest. His mouth flew open. The hard rubber bar that Jack had so thoughtfully put between his teeth fell to the floor. Jack bent and picked up the bar. He looked at it for a moment and then, shrugging, pocketed it. He clearly judged that it would serve no useful purpose to replace it between Stefan's teeth and events were to proof him right.

Smiling coldly Oblonsky gave impetus to the whip with a quick vicious flick of his wrist. The tip of the lash struck snake like into the open crack of the boy's rump. Stefan's body jerked convulsively. His legs straightened as fast as they had, a split second before, been drawn upwards, while his arms momentarily bent lifting him away from the cruel bite of the lash. A shrill scream was wrenched from his tortured body. It was as though a massive electric shock had torn through him.

It was a stroke that required remarkable accuracy combined with quickness of eye and hand. Oblonsky's skill drew a spontaneous and well deserved round of applause from the crowd.

"Thank you, thank you," he said half bowing, "I have just one more fancy stroke with which to amuse you before I get down to the serious business of flogging my son."

He took a step nearer Stefan's body now once more hanging sobbing and quiescent in its bonds. The lash flew back over Oblonsky's right shoulder. This time he struck forward with a straight arm curling the whip across the boy's narrow shoulders and around his chest before drawing his arm backwards in a long straight swoop. The boy suspended from his wrists spun as the lash was withdrawn, a delightful kaleidoscope of juvenile naked limbs and bare flesh.

"Now," Oblonsky said once Stefan's body had more or less ceased to spin, "to work. William it is time for you to take a part in the proceedings. Wrap your arms round Stefan's knees. No, no, no, stand in front of him not behind. I'll be taking a few cuts at the back of his thighs and will want a clear field of fire. Now haul down on them. You can lift your feet from the ground if you like. I want you to hold him steady so I can work him over and also stretch his body as tight as you can so that he feels the whip cuts more keenly."

The two naked boys, the flaxen haired Russian with his slim body already marked by the whip and the darker sturdier British child, presented an interesting and attractive picture. Stefan stretched by his own weight and that of William Smythe's whimpered softly waiting for his father to resume his grim task.

Stefan's wait was a short one. Soon the marquee was filled with the cruel but exciting sound of a boy being flogged. The hiss of the whip, the crack of plaited leather striking bare flesh the shrill screams of the young victim combined in a harsh but intoxicating music. Oblonsky worked methodically, maintaining a steady pace as time after time he laid the whip across his son's narrow shoulders, the lash scoring livid weals across the boy's smooth golden flesh. Beads of blood were soon welling from where the point of the lash nipped the child's skin or strokes crossed each other. Soon glistening dark red riverlets had formed and were trickling down the boy's back and thighs, following the smooth contours of his body.

Glancing round Mark noticed the differing reactions of the watching crowd. The adults watched intently eyes glittering in excitement faint smiles on their slightly parted lips. The free boys too were clearly enjoying the spectacle though one or two of the older bigger ones looked a trifle thoughtful. No doubt they were remembering Jack's suggestion that their fortitude under the lash might also be tested and wondering which of them would be selected for that purpose. The brats though had relapsed into their normal state of abject terror. Any passing satisfaction they got from seeing a free boy being maltreated being no doubt more than countered by the reflection that if those into whose care they had been committed could treat one of their own in this way how much more brutal would they be prepared to be to such debased and helpless creatures as themselves. Even, Mark reflected, pauper brats stupid as they were, would see that Stefan's sufferings only heralded an even more stringent discipline than that under which they already lived for themselves.

Only one free boy stood out from his companions. Nicky, Mark noticed, far from being excited seemed to be almost on the point of tears.

"That boy does not belong here," a woman's voice spoke quietly in Mark's ear.

Turning he saw Angela standing close beside him also looking at Nicky.

"He certainly seems out of place," Mark replied quietly.

Perhaps he thought Jack's crass speech had not been wholly counterproductive. Surely Angela would not have been talking to him at all if it had been.

"Something should be done about it," Angela said.

"He's not a bad looking boy," Mark remarked thoughtfully and indeed Nicky was a pretty little thing with his fair hair, long shapely legs and deeply tanned body. A tan that came from many months working in the fields at Ovingdean Reformatory and which had been maintained by the tough and healthy regime under which he and Adam had lived together after his release from that harsh institution. A tan furthermore that was enhanced by the contrast between it and the flimsy white shorts, that were his only clothing, that tightly hugged his pert and deeply dimpled rump.

"Not a bad looking slut," with that one word Angela brought out in the open what both of them were thinking, "but it's not fair on Adam or the other boys 3; 3;"

"No I suppose not," Mark replied implicitly accepting Angela's judgement. "I don't know though exactly 3;"

"The rule as I understand it is quite clear," Angela interrupted, "a boy who allows himself to be penetrated ceases to be free 3; 3;"

"You mean I should 3; 3;?"

"It would be kinder in the end and I have never seen a fruit more ready to drop."

"It can't be easy living a lie and the brat certainly doesn't look happy. It would be a false kindness to allow him to go on as he is. It's not fair either to any free boys he comes in contact with, or to his mother and step-father whom he is deceiving, or to Jack whose hospitality he is abusing, or to anyone else, including the brat himself. I suppose you are right but Angela would you mind? I mean my 3;"

"You think I would be jealous of a brat?" Angela asked with a laugh, "I'd be as likely to take exception to your making a fuss of a dog or some other pet you took a fancy to. Everybody knows sluts are not to be taken seriously."

Throughout this Stefan's ordeal continued with unabated ferocity. The boy's frenzied screaming drowning the words of the conversation and masking it from bystanders. Indeed so absorbed was everybody in the cruel drama that no one noticed Mark push his way through the crowd to where Nicky was standing. Mark clamped his hand round the back of the boy's neck. The lad started in surprise and turned. Mark saw fear in his eyes. He jerked his head at the exit from the marquee and still retaining his grip on the boy's neck guided him towards it. Nicky made no resistance and nobody, not even Adam beside whom he was standing, noticed him being led away.

Wordlessly Mark marched his victim out of the tent and round to its back. There shielded from view he swung the boy round to face him. There at last Nicky made a feeble attempt at protest.

"Please let me go Sir please," he whimpered.

Mark back-handed the boy hard across the mouth, splitting his lower lip near the centre. Blood began to trickle down his chin. Mark did not hit the brat because he enjoyed doing so, although to a certain extent he did. He hit him because he was not going to take any nonsense from him and furthermore it was a well-known fact that kindness was wasted on sluts. They only regarded it as a sign of weakness and tried to take advantage.

Shifting his grip from the nape of Nicky's neck to the hair on the back of his head he kissed the brat savagely on his bleeding mouth. At the same time Mark slipped his left hand down the back of the boy's shorts feeling the skin of Nicky's bottom cool and velvet smooth to his touch. He clenched his hand, brutally squeezing one firm, well rounded, little buttock. Nicky gasped and Mark slipped his tongue between the boy's open lips. As Mark probed Nicky's throat the taste of blood from the boy's split lip was strong on his tongue.

Mark moved his left hand so that he could slide his index finger into the boy's crack. Mark's questing finger-tip found the entry to the brat's hole. For a moment he teased the lips of Nicky's anus. Then, increasing the pressure he began to force his finger into the boy. Nicky moaned softly. He pushed his bum back, inviting further invasion of the most intimate and tender areas of his young body.

Anger, contempt and a fierce feeling of self-justification rose in Mark tightening his chest and making him fight for breath. He and Angela were right about the boy, he was nothing but a common slut. How dare the degenerate little turd try to pass himself off as anything but a filthy whore? The thought of the way he had imposed himself on them all, deceiving his mother, endangering the moral well being of the free boy's with whom he had come into contact, taking advantage of Jack Wardle's, good nature enraged him.

Mark wrenched his lips away from the brat's mouth. He looked down into his face, eyes glazed, lips parted, blank with lust. The slut had been allowed to forget its place. It was time to teach it a lesson it would never again forget.

"Boy-bitch," Mark snarled. "What are you boy-bitch?"

Nicky's lips moved soundlessly. Mark smashed his fist savagely into the boy's face and blood spurted from his nose.

"You're a filthy boy-bitch you stupid little cunt," he shouted. "Now tell me bitch what are you?"

"A boy-bitch Sir a filthy boy bitch." Nicky's spoke in hardly more than a whisper and his voice was choked with sobs.

Mark hit him again.

"Say it louder whore," Mark demanded.

"I'm a boy-bitch Sir – a filthy boy bitch."

Mark hit him again.

"Louder bitch."

"A boy-bitch Sir – a filthy boy-bitch." This time Nicky's voice was a shrill scream.

"And you want a man's cock up your bum. Tell me what you want and tell me so I can hear it whore."

"I want a man's cock up my bum Sir."

"So ask for it 3; Come on tart you want to be fucked ask for it." Transferring his grip to the brat's tiny balls Mark squeezed and twisted them.

"Please Sir, please fuck me Sir, please shove your cock up my bum Please 3; 3;" Nicky's voice tailed off into an agonised squeal as Mark increased the pressure on his balls and pulled sharply downwards.

Mark released his hold. Whimpering quietly, Nicky bent forward, his hands clasped to his crutch. Mark swung the boy round and, with one hand on the nape of his neck and the other grasping the waste band at the back of his shorts, frog marched him across to a car parked near by. With a sharp jerk he pulled the boy's shorts down and then swore angrily. He had forgotten that Nicky, masquerading as a free boy, would be wearing underpants as well as shorts. These too joined the boy's shorts on the ground about his ankles.

"Brace yourself against the car and get in position whore," Mark snapped slapping the boy viciously across his bare rump.

Nicky, reaching out to steady himself against the car, bent forward and, slightly spreading his legs, pushed his bum up as high as he could in the air. It was clear Mark thought, with a mixture of approval and contempt, that the slut had at least remembered some of the things he had been taught in Ovingdean.

Mark did not hurry himself. It would be good for the brat to have time to appreciate its helplessness and humiliation. A cow lowed in the distance, nearer a blackbird trilled its liquid notes. Faintly from the marquee came the sharp snap of leather striking bare flesh and the shrill cries of a child in distress. Clearly Stefan's flogging was still underway and providing, Mark thought as he unbuckled his belt, fitting background music to the work he had in hand.

Eventually Mark was stripped to his shirt. The fact that he had taken his time did not mean that he was not intensely excited. He would have to be careful, he thought, looking down at his erect and throbbing cock, to pace himself or he risked ejaculating before he had got himself fairly lodged in the slut.

Spitting on the palm of his hand he liberally smeared his prick with saliva. Then he advanced on the trembling boy. Nicky, he thought, had done his best to get himself correctly positioned, straining to force his bottom up high, but that was no reason to be soft on him. He pushed his hand between the boy's legs. He felt the his little cock hard against his palm. He really is a contemptible little tart excited by his own shame, Mark thought, as he lifted upwards so hard that Nicky's feet rose clear of the ground. Placing his free hand on the back of the boy's head he pushed forward. Satisfied at last that the brat's bum was as high and as open as was possible he released his hold of the boy's crutch. Grasping his cock with his right hand he aimed it's swollen head at Nicky's hole while he pried the lips of the slut's anus open with the index-finger and thumb of his left hand. Initially the boy's bottom clenched tight in a reflex reaction to the intrusion. Mark felt the slut pushing backwards in a deliberate attempt to relax his sphincter. He drove forward hard burying his cock-head in the boy's bottom.

He transferred his grasp to Nicky's hips. Holding the boy firmly Mark drove forward. Nicky's hole had been well used during his time at Ovingdean and Mister Ellis had not been gentle with his favourite slut. Nevertheless however frequently a boy's bottom has been fucked each fresh entry, even if it is gentle and well prepared, causes an initial stab of pain. Mark's assault was brutal and sudden and Nicky screamed as searing pain coursed through his body.

The boy's cries only served to excite Mark further. He felt no pity or guilt, only a fierce and cruel excitement as he hammered his cock into the sobbing brat. Three savage thrusts had his rod fully sheathed in the boy's guts. Grunting with effort he pumped the boy's hole, each forward thrust bring his hips slamming up against the slut's rump.

Mark laughed savagely as he felt the muscles in Nicky's bottom begin to work trying to draw his probing cock ever deeper into his body. Evidence he thought of the brat's sluttish nature.

"Whore," he shouted as he drove savagely forward. "Whore, tart. You want it whore and you'll get it."

Reaching round he gripped Nicky's by the balls with his right hand feeling his small prick hard against the palm of his hand. He twisted and pulled. The boy's sobs rose to a wild scream. Mark thrust forward once more and then held his pulsating cock steady, buried in Nicky's bottom. He felt the boy's guts shifting and squirming round his cock as his body was convulsed with pain. Blood pounded and roared in Mark's head as he shot his seed deep inside the boy.

For a moment after the crisis had passed Mark rested panting resting his weight on the boy's back. Then he pulled away from him, drawing his now shrunken member from the boy's hole with an audible damp plop. Mark was suddenly aware that his right hand was smeared with warm sticky fluid. So, he thought, as he wiped his hand dry on the tightly drawn skin of Nicky's bum, the slut did get its release after all.

Mark stumbled wearily across to a canvas chair that someone had left outside the marquee. He slumped down on it, spreading his knees wide. Nicky remained bent double, bum up in the air, hands braced against the car waiting to see what further was required of him for he had been well schooled during his time at Ovingdean. Mark noticed filth trickling from the boy's hole forming rivulets that glistened damply down the inside of his thighs.

"Here filth," Mark commanded.

"Quick and walk properly don't waddle like a duck," Mark added for the boy was walking somewhat splay legged. No doubt, Mark thought, he was feeling the consequences of the brutal rape of his bottom. He wondered if he had torn the slut. There had been a reddish streak or two in the stuff trickling from his bottom that might indicate bleeding. It didn't matter if he had, at the worst it would mean Mrs Thomas having to stitch the brat up.

Mark said nothing further but pointed at his crutch. Without further prompting Nicky dropped to his knees. Then he hesitated for the briefest of moments before beginning to lower his head towards where Mark's now shrunken cock lay in a thick forest of dark coarse pubic hair which spread over his belly and shrouded his balls.

The brat's reluctance was understandable Mark thought for cock, pubic hair, and balls were all splashed and coated by a nauseous mixture of cum, shit and possibly blood; understandable but not to be tolerated. Normally such reluctance would be overcome by a cut or two across the rump with the cane. On this occasion Mark, experiencing as he was a degree of post-coital lassitude and with the boy positioned kneeling between his spread knees, felt an alternative means of galvanising the lad should be employed.

There was no question though of allowing the brat to get away with it. Mark had spent enough time in the Vale over the years to realise that it was his duty to help Nicky to recognise and accept his sluttish nature. Only in that way would the brute be reconciled to the life of service and subordination that was the ineluctable destiny of a pauper brat. Slackness, letting the brat get away with things, these were false kindnesses. It was better in the end, kinder in the end, to treat the slut rough, to toughen it up, break its will, and root out false pride.

Mark placed his hand on the back of Nicky's head and forced the boy's face down into his crutch rubbing it in the foul smelling dirt.

"Get on with it whore," he commanded, "and don't forget to get the filth out of my hair down there. Come on use your lips and tongue what the hell do you think they are for."

NEXT PART