Bandit's Prey

I.

Bob Taggert could sense something was different. Neither the dogs that normally patrolled the area near his house nor Marshall Nolan, the ranch foreman, were anywhere to be found. In fact, no vehicles were in sight, not even those of Taggert's two ranch hands. The only sounds were an occasional braying of cattle, while all else was quiet - too quiet. Still, the lights inside the home glowed just as Bob and his wife had left them.

'Something ain't right, Marsha.'

'What do you think it is?'

'I dunno, but until I find one of the boys, I ain't taking any chances.'

He parked his pickup truck and reached to the gun rack mounted on the rear window. Opening the barrel, he took a box of cartridges from the glove box and inserted two shells, then turned to his wife.

'You stay here 'til I make sure everything's ok.'

'No, I'm coming with you.'

'Damn it, Marsha, I said stay here.'

He exited his pickup and slowly approached the house. All was silent, as he gingerly stepped up onto the porch and peeked through a window. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he unlocked the front door, threw it open and stepped inside, but just as he did the muffled scream of his wife came from behind and a devastating blow smashed the felt crown of his Stetson hat. Bob Taggert crashed unconscious to the floor of his front room.

When he awoke, Taggert found himself laying flat on the floor surrounded by three masked men. They had removed his shirt, unsnapped his jeans and exposed his penis, which one man held in his fist, pumping to keep the organ erect. With his arms pinned to the floor by one man and legs secured by another, Bob struggled to escape while shouting in protest to the black mask manipulating his pecker.

'What the hell are you doing? Let me go, you sons-a-bitches.'

None of the three answered. Instead, the man stimulating Taggert's dick pulled a thin strip of leather from his pocket, then wrapped it around Taggert's testicles. Continuing, he brought the ends and crossed them over the top part near the base of Taggert's cock, crossed them again on the underside, pulled the leather taut and tied both ends together. The leather encircled penis and testicles to form a cock and ball ring, forcing Taggert's genitals to remain fully charged with blood.

'God damn it, what do you want, for Christ's sake?'

With nothing spoken, the men lifted Taggert to his feet, then manhandled him toward the landing of a stairwell leading to the basement. One walked behind Tagger, wrapping an arm around his throat. The other two secured Taggert's wrists and arms into wrestling-style, pulled-forward armbars and forced him in the desired direction. Once they reached the landing, Taggert shuddered at what he saw in the basement below. Marshall Nolan, his ranch foreman, was suspended by his wrists from an overhead beam. His eyes were closed and mouth agape. Stripped to his underwear, red splotches and wounds were clearly visible on his chest, belly, back and legs, as he hung helplessly, appearing to be unconscious.

With the armbar guys leading the way and pulling, the choke-hold man pushed from behind, and they roughly forced Taggert down the stairs to the basement floor. Bob Taggert eyed his other ranch hands, Jason and Lucas, plus three more masked invaders. One of them held a shotgun on the two and another held a knife. Both ranchers were stripped of their shirts, while their unbuttoned pants, as well as their underwear, had been lowered to expose their buttocks. They were forced to lean with hands spread against the wall. Behind them, the three menacing figures stalked with their jeans peeled open and hardened dicks exposed.

Taggert then was forcibly turned to his right and greeted by his first unmasked invader.

'Hello, Mr. Taggert. Remember me?'

His heart sank even further, as what he first feared had come to pass. 'Hurst! You sneaky mother fucker.'

'No, I've never done your mother, but your wife was a pretty good lay.' The joke was painfully true, thanks to a recent four-way -- Bob and his wife, Hurst and his, in a casino hotel room. Hurst laughed at his funny, and then scowled, 'Hang him up, men.'

Bob Taggert quickly figured things out. Knew he'd been persuaded by his wife into a sexual adventure with an unscrupulous varmint, and apparently, somewhere during their many conversations, either Bob or Marsha Taggert had let down their guard. Said something that prompted these shysters to find and invade his house.

Hurst's men led Taggert to a rope that dropped from one of the high-above rafters, at the end of which was tied a noose. They inserted the his head and tightened the knot, then secured his wrists behind his back with another rope, forcing him to stand on his toes to keep from strangling.

Taggert struggled to speak, 'Hey, my wife says a lot of things she knows nothing about.'

'Oh, sure, Bob. And I'm just some rube who believes everything he hears. Look around you. In case you couldn't tell, I'm a professional thief. We prey on husbands whose wives say too much, and yours said plenty.'

'What she says and what's for real ain't always the same.'

'So I figured. That's why we're here. You can tell us what we need to know, and you can do it the easy way or the hard way. Whichever you prefer.'

'It ain't here. I don't keep it on the ranch.'

'Sorry, Bob, I don't believe you. Guess you'll have to watch us do our thing.'

Taggert stood helplessly and waited. The arches of his feet already were sore, but any lowering of his body tightened the noose around his neck, so he continued to prop himself up. He watched the men bring two of his saw horses from the side wall and place them between him and his two ranch hands. With a shotgun still aimed at their heads, Jason and Lucas were forced to strip naked, then made to bend over and straddle the ends of the horses. The blond-haired Lucas cast his eyes to the floor, while Jason turned to look at his boss.

'Don't worry, Mr. Taggert. We ain't told 'em nothin'.'

'I know, boys.'

Each of their ankles were roped to the two vertical legs of the saw horses, followed by their wrists, which were stretched beyond their heads and tied to the top horizontal beams. From Bob's view, each man's buttocks faced him about four feet away, while their bodies were bent at angles of 90 degrees. Their legs were spread like an inverted 'V' in conjunction with the legs of the saw horses, while their strong backs flared from the extended and stretched position of their arms.

Bob encouraged them by explaining the deal. 'It's my fault they're here, men. I'm sorry. I got us into this mess and we'll just have to fight through it.'

The lead henchman butted in, 'That's a touching speech, Bob, but I know those two have nothing we really want. They're just here for our entertainment. Yours, too, I suppose. Might say you will be their captive audience.'

'You missed your calling, asshole,' Bob sneered. 'So fucking funny.'

Removing their belts, two of the bandits started laying leather across the broad backs of the ranch hands, starting at their deltoids and working downward toward their butt cheeks. Neither victim cried out, but emitted manly grunts and an occasional whimper. Taggert watched the beatings in anger, but his rage was not directed at the hoodlums. No, Bob Taggert was angry with himself - and his wife. It had been less than 24 hours since they had last seen the man responsible for this invasion - this violence against him and his employees.

Sex had brought this to them. Bob and Marsha Taggert liked to swing with other couples. They had just wrapped up a satisfying four way in the plush room where they had spent the last two evenings - The Pepper Grinder Hotel and Casino in Wendover, Nevada.

Wendover was just a lonely spot along Interstate 80, until someone decided to put a casino there. Surrounded by the Utah Salt Flats to the east and Nevada desert for endless miles in every other direction, there was no logical reason to put anything there, but somebody did and soon two other companies came and built complexes as well.

Bob and Marsha loved to visit Wendover - more Marsha than Bob - and would book their favorite room at the Pepper Grinder weeks in advance, even though there was no need for reservations. It was their destination of choice for any special occasion or just to get away, because Marsha loved to play the slots, while Bob enjoyed the comfy beds, good food, saunas, swimming pools and frequent sex parties his constantly-horny wife managed to put together for him. Plus, knowing how his wife liked to gab with strangers, he avoided taking her to Las Vegas or Reno, where too many hustlers and con-artists lurked for easy prey. The Wendover crowd - what little there was of it - was mostly their kind of people, and this allowed Bob to relax when there.

His first meeting with Everett and Mindy Hurst came at the hotel pool and nearby whirlpools on an open-air rooftop. Pre-arranged by Marsha, the Hursts joined the Taggerts for a swim, then conversation in bubbling and heated water - four in a hot tub. Bob's screening process was thorough, as Everett and Mindy convincingly posed as vacationers weary of the crowded casinos of Las Vegas and Reno. He was an insurance salesman for The Prudential and she, like Marsha, a housewife. None had kids, because they preferred to party - in the bedroom - and since they were more than attractive enough, that's where the four of them ended up. Two joy-seekers and two supposed vacationers traded partners to fuck, eat pussy and suck cock in a marathon, six-hour session.

Making the most of the Taggerts' two-king-sized-bed suite, the gala ended with some three-on-one body worship, the final recipient being Bob. They stretched him out on one of those big beds, and while Mindy and Marsha took turns riding up and down Bob's thick pole, Everett and whichever other one was available worked their tongues all over Bob's compact and strong body, stimulating every sensitive area that could be found.

It was one of the hottest hook-ups he had ever been involved with and he performed like some sort of super-human stud, keeping his cock fully swollen and firing endless salvos into whatever receptacle happened to be ready to take it. After that, Bob and Marsha slept peacefully, while Everett and Mindy returned to the casino for more slot play - or so they said. Obviously, the Hursts had checked out of the hotel and - armed with whatever information they had finagled out of the naive Marsha - managed to find the Taggert ranch, bringing the entire gang of bandits with them.

Suddenly, a painful scream jolted Bob from these memories.

Straining his neck to the left, he saw a cattle prod electrocuting his foreman, Marsh Nolan. The suspended man howled in agony, as the metal touched the middle of his back and forced him to thrust his upper torso forward, where he was greeted by two solid fists pounding into his chest and belly. Taggert winced when he saw what they were doing to his good friend. Nolan's body twisted and writhed, uselessly trying to avoid the simultaneous assault to both his front and back.

Oddly, Bob Taggert didn't think about the ungodly pain being inflicted upon his foreman, but more about the desecration of that beautifully masculine body - one which he had seen up close and personal many times. Wiry and chiseled from hard work on the ranch, now it was being scarred by hideous jolts and bruising punches. And as a further insult, the cattle prod was one of Bob's own - hand-held, battery powered and capable of delivering up to 60,000 volts of electricity - used by the ranchers in persuading animals to move through chutes or up and down ramps. It was designed to prod 1000 pound livestock - not 180 pound humans. Marshall Nolan was a man, and Taggert could no longer idly watch them torture his friend with that hideous device.

'God damn you, Hurst, stop it. He doesn't know anything.'

'Of course not. We figured that out long ago. This is for your benefit.'

'Leave him be. Let my men go and work on me.'

Hurst raised his hand and the torture stopped. 'Your time will come soon enough.'

Nolan's body collapsed and chin dropped onto his chest. Scars of crimson red peppered his handsomely defined shoulders and muscular back. Bob was sickened by the sight of this, as he reflected upon the times he had lovingly scraped his nipples across the solid surface of that man's back, while driving his penis into the squeezing depths of the same man's bowels.

Men get lonely moving cattle from one part of 250,000 acres to another, and since men are purely sexually beings, they have no reservations about taking care of one another next to a warm campfire miles from nowhere. These men held a deeply seeded trust and fondness for one another - a necessity on the open range, where one slip up could result in injury to either men, horses or valuable livestock. Inspired by rolling hills and natural grasslands at the foot of the Calico Mountains, these men strengthened their bonds when darkness fell.

Every 30 days or so, Bob, Marsh, Lucas and Jason would cull a number of select animals from the herd, then drive them to the feedlot pens built between Nolan's living quarters and the main ranch house. These cattle drives usually took at least 76 hours to complete, and when the four men were alone at night on the grasslands, Bob would hook up with Marsh and Jason with Lucas.

This man's cattle was a prized commodity. Once the selected head were brought to the home feedlots, they would be pampered for the final year of their lives. Only irrigated corn went into their bellies and Taggert beef had a direct pipeline to all the Las Vegas and Reno hotels. In fact, all Bob Taggert needed to do when he had livestock ready for harvesting was to dial his phone, call the packing house and wait for their trailer trucks, which would be sent directly to his ranch within 12 hours. For three generations the Taggert family had run one of the finest cattle operations in the state, and a check arriving from the Gerlach Postal Office would mean pay day for the Taggerts and their hired hands.

He loved these men and treated them accordingly. They had a top-notch bunkhouse within sight of the main house, plus Bob Taggert paid them in cash, because where they lived banks were hard to come by. Three hours north of Reno, the only town of size anywhere near the ranch was Gerlach and even that was 65 miles away. This is why Bob used the bank only to convert checks into cash and kept plenty of it in a safe at his home.

As for Marsh Nolan, he rarely went to town even on pay day. He had everything he needed right there on the ranch - his own living quarters with a view of the feedlots, main house and bunkhouse; a Taggert-furnished Chevrolet dual-wheel pickup truck; plus weekend visits from his good pal and hunting companion, Brian Smith. Friends since elementary school, Marsh and Brian grew up near Puff Pucker, Nevada, a spot 90 miles away along the Southern Pacific Railroad line where the only thing of importance was the meat processing plant where Brian Smith was employed.

Nolan's boss didn't care about these overnighters between the two men. As far as he was concerned, they were merely hunting buddies and whatever else they did when the lights went out was none of his business. Marsh Nolan was loyal to him and an essential element to the successful operation of the ranch. Nolan inventoried the cattle, did maintenance on vehicles, equipment and buildings, plus kept the younger Jason and Lucas in line. He was the perfect foreman and whatever benefits Taggert got from him on the cattle drives were just gravy. These men were too proud to let any petty jealousies interfere with or spoil the chemistry amongst them.

This is why Bob was consumed with both guilt and anger - guilt for putting his men into this situation, anger at the man instigating it. As he scanned up and down the tormented form of Marsh Nolan, he lashed out.

'That's enough of this, you son of a bitch.' He hesitated, gasping for air before thrusting his body upwards with aching feet. 'You came here to deal with me, Hurst - or whatever the hell your name is, so cut them loose and let's get to it.'

'Ok, Bob, if you insist, let's do just that. But I will not be releasing your men. You can listen to them scream while we work on you. We'll see who can scream the loudest.'

He motioned to his henchmen and the torture of Marsh Nolan was resumed. Meanwhile, the others stopped the whippings of the prisoners tied to the saw horses. Instead, two hard peckers were rammed into two vulnerable ass holes and brutally thrust to the very depths of their rectums. Jason and Lucas groaned from this invasion - not from the pain of it, but from the humiliation of it, the degrading penetration of uninvited cocks. Taggert watched helplessly as the backsides of both men were battered into tenderized meat, and although remorse filled his heart, he also felt proud of his men. They took this violation with manly resolve, never crying out or begging the invaders to stop their brutal assault. Neither Jason nor Lucas would give these scum bags that satisfaction.

'Hey, Bob, your face is turning red,' Hurst mocked. 'Do you need some air?'

Taggert's pained arches were slowly failing him. Inch by inch gravity pulled him towards the floor, and with each increment of his descent the noose around his neck tightened, restricting his intake of oxygen. With a gurgling gasp, he defied his tormentor.

'Get... fucked... asshole.'

Hurst approached the struggling man and clamped his fingers around Taggert's leather-bound and erect cock. 'Ok, tough guy. Think your hot shit, huh?'

Taggert closed his eyes and remained silent.

'Yes, you are quite the man - or so you think. Let's see what you're really made of.'

Nausea hit the pit of Bob Taggert's stomach. It sickened him to think that this slime ball, the very one who less than 24 hours earlier had caressed and coaxed his body to perform for the ladies, would be the same man to unleash a different type of coaxing. He tightened his gut to hold back vomit, and then invited his own torture to begin. 'Bring it.'

* * * * *

II.

Hurst ordered all punishments to stop and summoned his six henchmen to gather near him. Marsh Nolan was abandoned and left to hang in his suspended agony, while Jason and Lucas, their ass rims raw and red and oozing with unwanted jizm, were left straddled over the saw horses.

'Take him to the bench,' snarled Hurst. His cronies released Taggert's neck from the noose and dragged him towards the wall opposite the stairwell. There, eight feet from the wall sat a make-shift work bench. Eight metal file cabinets lined in a row and placed back to back, four against four. Each of the three-drawer cabinets was filled with containers holding nails, screws, nuts and bolts of every size imaginable, plus metal clamps, chains, clips, vises, wires, bonding glues, tapes and any other form of hardware you can think of that might come in handy to maintain the buildings on a cattle ranch.

Atop the cabinets rested a slab of smoothed wood five feet wide and six feet long, the thickness of which was six inches. Suspended from the ceiling and hanging four feet above the table top, a florescent lamp brightly illuminated the table's surface. On the wall beyond the work bench table top were shelves built to house electrical tools such as circular saws, jigsaws, battery chargers and sanders, along with hand-held screw drivers, wrenches, hammers and other special tools for whatever jobs might arise.

Hurst and his men had long ago cleared the table top and turned on the light. Arriving with Taggert, they cut loose his wrist bindings, laid him atop the surface and awaited Hurst's instructions.

'Strip him.'

While four held Bob Taggert down, the other two pulled off his boots and socks, then jeans and underwear, leaving him with nothing but the leather strap, which continued to keep his cock and balls fully engorged.

'Tie him up.'

Four ropes were brought, looped and knotted to each ankle and wrist. Then the other ends were taken to the nearest vertical support beams, wrapped and tied to the base of each one. The spacing of these beams caused Taggert to lay spread eagle on the table. His head hung off one end, his deltoids were at the table's edge, and the angle of the ropes caused his arms to be pulled downward towards the floor. At the other end, his heels rested flat on the wood surface with his ankles spread four feet apart, same as the distance between his wrists. His body was horizontally stretched taut, while the down-direction of his arms forced a curve in his spine which elevated his chest and flattened his abdomen. Atop his belly, his forced-to-erection penis laid covering the space from his pubes toward his navel -- his cockhead about an inch shy of reaching his belly button.

With his head hanging off the table, Bob Taggert looked to his right and got a side view of Marsh Nolan, still suspended with his chin dropped onto his chest. Nolan's eyes were closed and breathing labored. As for the boys, they remained quietly straddled over their saw horses, trails of bandit cum oozing down their scrotums and dribbling off their balls to the floor below. With their heads pointed towards the wall, they were mostly unable to see what was happening in the room, but Jason strained his neck to lock eyes with his boss, flashed a smile and resumed resting his head on the horizontal beam.

Suddenly, Taggert felt a hand on his peter and he lifted his head to see Everett Hurst manhandling him.

Hurst addressed him sickeningly sweet. 'Ok, Bob, I'll give you one last chance. Where's the money?'

'There ain't no money here.'

'Liar!' Hurst's sweet turned sour. 'Your wife already told us there is. Where do you keep it?'

'You think I'd tell my wife anything? She'd spend every dime if I gave her the chance. What she's told and what's the truth are two different things.'

'Well, the truth is what I want,' he crushed the hardened cock in his grip, 'so, spill it.'

'I've got nothing to say to you.'

'That will change.'

He released Taggert's pecher and barked out another order, 'I want this thing standing straight up. Fix it.'

The masked men found the equipment they needed in the cabinet drawers: three chains 12 inches in length, the links of which were a diameter of one-quarter inch; three metal clips; and three four-inch nails. One man attached the hardware. Using the thumb and fingers of one hand, he squeezed the organ to create a gap between its skin and the strip of leather wrapped around the base. He threaded a chain through the leather near the right side of Taggert's cock, stopping after three links had passed through the strip. Then, he looped and connected the short end to the rest of the chain with a metal clip, hooking two links together. This pattern was repeated and soon three chains were looped around the leather strip - one to the left, one to the right and one to the center underside of the prisoner's shaft. Once each chain was attached to itself and the leather strip, he held the cock vertically upright in his hand and nodded to another member of the gang.

Taking the other end of one chain, the second guy stretched links until the chain formed a straight line pointing to Taggert's right leg, then drove a nail through the final link and into the table's wooden surface. He moved to the other side of the work bench to repeat the pattern, securing that chain close to their prisoner's left leg. Now, the center chain was stretched its full length and nailed to the center spot between Bob's legs, as the first bandit let go Taggert's penis.

The desired result was achieved - Bob Taggert's majestic cock stood tall and firm, pointing directly upwards to the light above him. Forced to erection for nearly an hour, the mighty tool shined with pre-orgasmic ooze, which dribbled from his slit to form a glowing, one-quarter-inch circle around its opening.

Bob strained his neck and lifted his head. He saw what they'd done to him, his eyes focusing on his pulsating pecker, as it pierced the air in a vertical display of phallic glory. Like his arms and legs, his cock was in bondage, rendered helpless and vulnerable. He flexed his arms and pulled with all his strength in a desperate struggle to break free, which caused his chest to expand and belly to flatten. Every line and curve of his muscular form came to life.

Hurst mocked him, 'Oh yes, Mr. Taggert, I can see you are quite the man.'

The ropes held firm. Bob abandoned his useless attempts to break them, and then he dropped his head and prepared for the worst. Suddenly, he felt fingers surrounding his navel and he again lifted his head and tensed his body.

'You know,' Hurst continued, 'I do admire these rock hard abdominals of yours.' He dug his fingertips into Taggert's solid surface and kneaded the muscles as though they were a mass of dough. 'I see them as a challenge, a brick wall to be broken down.'

Taggert's stretched abdomen truly was a thing of beauty. Majestically spacious in comparison with his compact chest, his belly was thick and powerful with a deep line running from the middle of his stomach to his navel to his pubes. Curved ridges flared from either side of the line, while a healthy trail of black fur connected his navel to his crotch. His belly button was set a far distance from his pelvis, which created a dramatic chunk of muscular meat between his navel and his throbbing pecker. Taggert again raised his head to witness his torment, while flexing and flattening his abdominals in defense.

Hurst removed his hand from his prisoner's belly and stepped to the side wall shelves. 'Hmm, perhaps these spikes will do the trick.' He grabbed several of the wooden stakes and set them on the table. 'What are these? Tent stakes?'

The victim groaned and dropped his head, refusing to answer Hurst's sarcastic question. Any fool could plainly see they were indeed stakes made for securing a raised tent.

These wooden stakes were 12 inches long, with a flat head on one end tapering to a rounded, one-eighth-of-an-inch point at the other. Finding a wooden mallet, Hurst inserted the sharp end from one of the stakes to the long surface of Taggert's belly midway between his navel and pelvic bone, and then with a devastating blow he brought the mallet down to strike the head of the wooden stake.

A horrific grunt exploded into the room, as Taggert strained with all his might to withstand his punishment. With repeated blows, the interrogator drove the stake deeper and deeper into Bob's solid muscle.

'Talk,' he taunted his victim while continuing to pound the stake home. 'Where is the money?'

Nothing but manly groans and grunts came from this powerful man. He clamped shut his eyes and concentrated every thought, every ounce of strength to his beleaguered belly's defense, but soon felt another spike piercing the pit of his stomach. A second henchman had inserted a second stake, impaling above Taggert's navel while Hurst continued below.

'Give it up,' Hurst suggested. 'You cannot win.'

Manly, deep throated and breathy exclamations of 'Ughhh' and 'Oonghhh' rumbled from the depths of his lungs, but Taggert refused to speak.

With two men on each side of the table, four stakes soon formed a circle around the tortured man's belly button, as the final two were placed one inch on either side to join the one above and one below. The four men synchronized the striking of their mallets so that one four-pronged impalement after another pulverized Taggert's belly. Repeatedly, they speared the poor man's muscles, hammering each stake into him deeper and deeper.

Each blow brought raspy and ear-piercing gasps from Bob, as the sadistic interrogators ground his abs to hamburger.

'Talk, now, Taggert. Where's the loot?'

Bob strained against his bondage, as each rapping echo of wood on wood drove the stakes into him. His arms pulled on the ropes for leverage, helping him to tighten his abdominals, but a sickening nausea raged throughout his middle section and his resolve began to weaken.

Adding to his misery, each movement made in defending his abdomen brought sharp pains to the base of his immobilized cock, as the leather strap encircling its base was held firm by the chains hammered into the table's surface. He opened his eyes. Focused on the light above him, refusing to watch them torture his belly, but then a weakened voice coming from his right diverted his attention.

'Hang in there... Bob.'

He turned to see Marsh Nolan staring at him with a reassuring grin. Purple bruises dotted Nolan's rib cage, while bloody red scars splotched his back, shoulders and legs. Despite his own agony, Marsh Nolan found the strength to encourage his boss. 'Don't give up.'

After all that his ranch foreman had endured, Taggert wondered how he could possibly allow these thugs to break him. With a newfound defiance spurred by the toughness of Marsh Nolan, he unleashed a verbal challenge to Hurst and his hoodlums. 'Uughhh, go ahead, you bastards. Is that all you got?'

Now, the contest was on. Hurst ordered the other henchmen - who had resumed using their own cum as lubrication to fuck the helpless Jason and Lucas - to turn their attention elsewhere. 'Shut that one up.'

Marsh Nolan was again tortured with electrocution from behind and fists pounding to his chest and belly, rendering him into a writhing, grunting and contorting slab of meat hanging on its hook. His eyes remained locked with those of Taggert, as the admiration they felt for each other strengthened them to resist their interrogators.

Taggert looked in amazement at the suspended man. Each punch smashed into his sinewy-muscled body as though he were a boxer's heavy bag, yet Marsh never begged for mercy or cried out from the pain. His stretched and vulnerable torso tensed to capacity and absorbed these blows as though he felt nothing. Each touch of the cattle prod left behind new splotches of red on his tortured back, but he merely grimaced from the shocks, all the while staring at his motivator, Bob Taggert.

Nolan was awed by the powerful man stretched atop the table. He absorbed Taggert's compact, muscular chest as it expanded and rose high into the air, and then he scanned down to the long, flattened belly, inspired to see it withstand each pulverizing spear hammered down into it with devastating effect. Taggert's arms, legs, chest and abdomen all were flexed to capacity, as Nolan's hero used every muscle to take his torture like a man.

Both men smiled, focusing their attention not on their own agony, but on one another's heroic display of strength and resolve.

Seeing Nolan's suffering filled the boss with rage. 'C'mon, you sons a bitches. Do your worst.'

Hurst took the challenge and ran with it. 'Ok, fellas, anywhere between the rib cage and groin. Let him have it.'

The four men moved the stakes from one area to another, pounding the pointed spears into hardened muscle ten or more times before moving to the next spot and repeating the pattern. All the while, Hurst and his victim continued their verbal contest.

'Talk, or I'll run you through.'

'Do it, pussy,' Taggert watched the others torturing his friend, oblivious to his own punishment. 'You'll get nothing out of me.'

Mercifully, Marsh Nolan's eyes closed and he again lost consciousness. Hurst ordered those men to leave the suspended victim and get back to the boys on their horses. All the while, he and the other three continued to pulverize all areas of Taggert's belly.

'Talk, damn you.'

Bob Taggert looked away from Nolan, instead glaring at the light above him -- his new point of focus and conentrated resistance. Each piercing blow sent reverberations from the pit of his stomach to the depths of his groin, where his mammoth cock and engorged testicles continued to throb and ooze. It took all he could do to suppress his urge to vomit, so he shifted his thoughts below his gut and to his penis. Raising his head, he gazed past the ever-moving and impaling stakes to admire the strength and beauty of his own organ. He marveled at the shiny syrup coating its bulging crown. He relived all the ecstatic orgasms - those with his wife, those with Marshall Nolan and yes, even those with the two con-artists back in that Wendover hotel room. With an explosive exclamation of anguish, he shouted at the perpetrator of this horrendous assault, 'Suck my dick, you faggot.'

Suddenly, everything stopped. Taggert collapsed his head and gasped for air, struggling to replenish his battered belly muscles with oxygen, but before he could even begin to recover, two leather soled shoes with rubber heels were grinding into his abdomen. Bob looked up to see Hurst standing crouched on his middle section.

'Who are you calling faggot?' he grabbed the suspended light fixture, swung it and held it there so he could stand upright with both shoes grinding into Taggert's belly. 'My name is Malcolm Flowers and I ain't no faggot.' Flowers viciously jumped up and came down on Taggert's middle. 'I am a professional.' he stomped on his victim's gut, marching left foot and right foot while spewing his words of self-justification with each step. 'I... do... what... is... necessary... to achieve... my... goals.'

Taggert tightened every muscle and watched in amazement, as the face of this raging madman turned beet red.

He continued stomping, both shoes grinding down into flattened muscle. 'I am the best in the business. You will be broken. I will have what is mine.'

Taggert knew he had touched a very sensitive nerve in his interrogator. Finally, Bob had a weapon to use against this slimeball Malcolm Flowers. Never mind that Flowers was again jumping up and down on his belly. Never mind that he was horrificaly stretched and with no way to defend his gut with anything besides his abdominals, Bob had found a way to antagonize his antagonist, and he played it to the hilt.

He looked up and smiled as though nothing was happening to him. 'Well, Mr. Flowers,' he taunted in phrases each time the maniac leapt into the air while grunting each time dress shoes came down, 'you sure know... ughhh... how to get... ooghhh... a fella off... uughhh. Are you... ummphhh... sure you... ooghhh... ain't a fag?'

Malcolm Flowers leapt two more times before realizing he had made a critical error. Not only had he blurted out his actual name, but also allowed his prisoner to find his flaw -- his deeply ingrained denial of what he was. Flowers knew he would have to suppress this inner rage and find a way to use it against his opponent. Still standing on Taggert's tortured belly, he launched a counter-attack.

'So, Mr. Big Man, think you're some sort of super stud, do you? Ok, I've seen you shoot it. Let's see how long you can hold it. You'll be begging for a cock sucker before I'm finished with you. Too bad there aren't any here.'

He climbed down from the table and put the wheels into motion. 'You three can take your turns on those two butt-holes at the saw horses.' He shouted to the others, 'You three, over here.'

As the six masked men switched duties, Bob Taggert lay quietly recovering from the belly assault. His head hung off the table with eyes closed, and he sucked in precious oxygen at a rapid pace, relishing in his small victory -- and much-needed rest period.

Flowers motioned one of the men toward him and whispered instructions only his crony could hear, 'Go upstairs and get all the bottles of rubbing alcohol you can find. Then check on Mindy and that woman while you're up there.'

As the masked man climbed the stairs, Flowers scanned the labeled file cabinets until he found what he wanted. He opened the drawer and took out two boxes, then stood and pointed to the wall. 'Bring that and set it up right there between his legs.'

Next, he leaned over to get a close-up view of Taggert's gorgeously throbbing and oozing cock. 'Bet it wouldn't take much to get you off, hot shot.' He placed his fingernail onto the sensitive triangle of Taggert's flesh just beneath the piss slit, and then cruelly flicked it as though shooting a marble.

'Yow, damn you!' Taggert's powerful organ contorted from the attack upon its hyper-hotspot. His scrotum clenched. His pecker leaned toward his belly for a nano-second before the chains and cock ring forced it back to vertical. A fresh supply of blood surged into his cock shaft, and another discharge of pre-orgasmic syrup oozed from his slit. He strained against his ropes. Reared his head and snarled at his tormentor. 'You're just a fucked up faggot, Flowers.'

'Must be humiliating for you,' Flowers kept taunting him. 'Here you are. Chained and helpless, stripped of everything. Your entire body is at my mercy and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. I feel bad for you, Bob. I truly do, but you'll just have to lay there and suffer until you're ready to talk. That's how the game is played.'

'We will see, sweetheart. I've got a feeling you'll be sucking my dick before I tell you a damned thing.'

'Yes, Bob, we will see, and I will enjoy seeing just how much you can take.'

* * * * *

III.

The basement went mostly silent, as Flowers waited for the return of his assistant. Even Jason and Lucas made no sounds - only the animalistic grunts of the men fucking them from behind were heard. Taggert used this time to recuperate and wonder what had happened to his wife, Marsha, then he tried to imagine what she possibly could have told these two hoodlums back in Wendover.

She'd said she met Mindy while playing slots and soon was introduced to Everett, a.k.a. Malcolm Flowers. Obviously, she had told them the general location of the ranch and plenty of other details - at least enough for them to figure out that money was kept here, but only he knew the location of the safe. This comforted him. The future well-being of everyone important in Bob Taggert's life was now his responsibility, and he promised himself he would never reveal this secret, regardless of what further tortures Flowers might put him through.

During this recess, Flowers further prepared for the next round of interrogation. From one box, he produced two small alligator clamps, while from another he grabbed two wires. Using a pair of insulation strippers taken from the shelves, he exposed two inches of wire from both ends of each and threaded it through the alligator clips. Then, he ran the other ends to the edge of the table where a battery charger sat in wait, plugged in and ready for use. After threading the wires through the charger's posts, Flowers waited for the final ingredient.

'Hey, boss,' the masked errand boy descended the stairs. 'I found what you wanted.' He handed Flowers one bottle of isopropyl alcohol. 'Thought this might come in handy, too.' He produced a tube of Campho-Phenique ointment, an anitseptic used mostly for insect bites or cold sores.

Malcom Flowers was pleased. 'Good work. What is Mindy doing?'

'She's got that woman tied to a chair in an upstairs bedroom. She put duct tape on her mouth to keep her quiet.'

'Is she watching the drive-up lane?'

'Yeah, she's got a perfect view and her pistol's cocked and loaded.'

With his mind at ease, Flowers was ready to go to work. He leaned over to scrutinize the bulging genitals immobilized by chains and leather. Surrounded by the tightly wound strip, Taggert's balls were swollen and shimmering with a dark red hue.

Taggert remained silently resting with his head hanging over the table's edge, but soon he felt a finger on his right testicle. Flowers' index finger, and it was wet with a liquid that felt cool and soothing. He raised his head, but was unable to see what was happening. 'What the hell are you doing?'

Flowers massaged his victim's nuts with a light touch, moving in small circles until he covered the surface of both balls and the stretched skin separating them. 'Never mind, Taggert. You'll know soon enough.'

Bob dropped his head, while Flowers upended the bottle of alcohol onto his fingers and slowly rubbed another layer of fluid onto every inch of testicle skin. After a thick coating of the isopropyl was sufficiently applied, he stood upright and waited. Little by little, a warm glow began to consume the swollen and already sensitive orbs.

Again Taggert raised his head, 'What is that shit?'

'Feels toasty, doesn't it?'

The heat continued to intensify on Taggert's besieged balls, and as the burning sensation increased, his mighty pecker surged to a new strength. More droplets of pre-orgasmic syrup exited his slit and coated his glorious crown. Then, Bob Taggert recognized the aroma and understood why his testicles burned.

'God damn, my nuts are on fire.'

'That's right. They're full of come, too. And that's where your manly seed is going to stay - trapped inside your balls.'

As the liquid dried, the burning sensation started to fade, but Flowers leaned over to apply a fresh coat and start the process anew. This time, however, he laid it on thick, continuing to paint on a fresh layer before the previous had dried. Now, the fire on his prisoner's testicles was a constant, relentless torment of minimal pain and maximum stimulation, steadily increasing with intensity.

Taggert laid quietly, not wanting the interrogator to know he desperately needed to shoot his load, but the rising temperature on his nuts was making that more and more difficult for him to conceal. Then, he felt a sharp pain in the exact center of his balls, first the right one and then the left, which caused him to strain against the ropes and look to see what they were doing to him.

This time, Taggert looked past his chest, past his penis and saw the battery charger, then the wires attached to the posts. His eyes followed the wires back to his groin and he knew. They had hooked up his nuts for electrocution.

He dropped his head. Whispered to himself, 'Jesus H. Christ.'

Flowers set the machine to the lowest possible level and sent voltage to his victim's isopropyl-heated balls. Initially, Taggert tensed from knowing his precious jewels were receiving this shock, but soon he realized it was a mere tingle, an additional stimulation to his already vibrating gonads. This caused another mighty surge from his chained penis, as it stood perfectly vertical in its statue-like bondage.

'All you men join me,' Flowers snarled. 'It is time we finish this.'

Six men surrounded the helpless victim, three on each side of Bob Taggert's torture table. Flowers whispered instructions to one, then moved towards the head end of the table, stepped over the rope and glared into the inverted eyes of his captive.

'Will you talk?'

With an ecstatic smile, Taggert smirked, 'Never, you queer. Nothing you can do will break me.'

'Ok, tough guy, we'll see.' He pointed to the charger and calmly ordered, 'Raise the level by one.'

An assistant turned the dial to increase voltage, and Taggert's swollen orbs felt as though besieged by thousands of ants, each one frantically crawling inside and on the surface of his stretched testicle flesh. He writhed in unbridled ecstasy. His dick dramatically contracted with dry heaves, desperately wanting to shoot but lacking the stimulation needed to do so.

Flowers tried him again. 'How about now?'

'Never, you homo.'

'Put some ointment to those nuts. See how he likes that.'

Another henchman took the tube of Campho-Phenique in hand, removed the lid and squeezed gobs of ointment onto Taggert's tortured balls. Then, he rubbed the medicinal salve onto every inch of skin surrounding the voltage-conducting alligator clamps. Within seconds, the temperature on Taggert's pulsating gonads rose to a maddening height. This, coupled with the fiery, ant-crawling sensation from the electrical charge nearly drove him insane. Testosterone raged throughout his bloodstream. He writhed in uncontrolled lust, his scrotum clenching as he desperately tried to trigger the ejaculation of his bound penis. Effort useless.

Although he knew Taggert would never admit it, Flowers could tell progress was being made. Taggert's face, his contorting body, and animalistic growls with his every exhale confirmed it -- torture by denial was slowly but surely breaking Taggert down.

With verbal taunting, Flowers intensified the pressure. 'Your dick hurts, doesn't it?'

No answer, just gasps and groans, eyelids tightly clenched shut.

'Wish you could shoot, don't you? Your balls are so full of come they're about to burst, aren't they? Want me to get you off?'

Bob Taggert raised his head and stared at his neglected cock. It pierced the air. A mighty obelisk contracting to shoot what would not come. Turning to his right, Taggert eyed the limp and nearly motionless body of Marsh Nolan, and then beyond him, the battered rectums of both his ranch hands. These were sights he needed to see. His blood boiled. Anger again overtook lust, and he strengthened his resolve to properly answer his interrogator - with defiance, with mockery, for himself, and for his men.

'Do whatever you want, you cocksucker. I can take it or leave it. You wanna suck me off? Go ahead. Whether you do or don't makes no difference to me. I still ain't talking.'

'Noble speech,' Flowers snarked. With a calm and calculated pacing in front of Taggert's inverted face, Malcolm Flowers summarized the situation. 'Bob Taggert, you have maintained an erection for well over two hours. We have beaten your belly to a pulp. Filled your testicles with pent-up come, and yet, you still refuse to talk. Therefore, even though I'd hoped it wouldn't come to this, you leave me no choice.' Leaning forward so his face was within inches of Taggert's, he casually instructed his cronies. 'Gentlemen, prepare his cock for torture.'

'Oh, no,' Taggert moaned. 'What are you going to do? You sadistic fuck!'

They all ignored him and set about their duties.

Dumping the contents of the box onto the table, each man clamped alligator clips to Taggert's chained penis. Tiny teeth chomped into his tightened and sensitive skin. Starting at the base of his shaft, they worked their way toward his corona.

'No, no, you wouldn't... you can't do this.'

Paying no mind to Taggert's pleading, they continued clamping on the alligators. A half dozen. A full dozen, and more to come.

'You fucked up bitch,' Taggert's rage shook the rafters. 'No man would do this to another man.'

'This one would,' Flowers' menacing grin answered the argument. 'Your cock is mine, Bob. I control it. Talk now and I'll let you shoot.'

'No... never... I can't...'

Eighteen alligator clips covered Taggert's penis. Like moray eels clamped into his flesh and holding on, they dangled horizontally in all directions from just below the rim of his corona to just above the leather-ring binding his base.

With fiery stimulation still assaulting his nuts, Taggert's pulsating cock relentlessly contracted to shoot, but only sticky syrup exited his slit. He alternated between looking at his desecrated penis to dropping his head and contorting in uncontrolled ecstasy. Taken to the ultimate heights of pain and pleasure, he cried out in a desperate plea for mercy.

'Stop torturing me. Let me shoot.'

'Talk first. Then you can shoot.'

'God damn you. Finish me, now.'

'You are in no position to give me orders. What happened to the big stud I knew? Not so tough now, are you?'

Taggert was nearly driven insane by these conflicting emotions of pain and pleasure. Despite the unholy pinching of the alligator clamps, his amazing tool remained cocked and loaded, primed to fire its missiles of come, but the final stimulation would not be granted to him - not until he gave up his secret. How much more could he take? How much more would he be forced to take?

'God damn, I'm gonna explode. You've gotta get me off.'

'Ha! Fat chance.'

Flowers left his victim to writhe in denied agony, stepped to the side of the table and grabbed a clamp. He attached it to Taggert's vulnerably stretched left nipple, which caused the agonized man to raise his head and flex his mighty chest. He looked at the evil teeth biting into his sensitive and erect titty tip, and then he cursed his interrogator. 'You sick fuck! I'm gonna kill you... you hear me? You rotten piece of shit. I will fucking rip off your worthless weenie and cram it down your throat!'

Unaffected, Flowers squeezed the tube of ointment, gobbed his finger and applied a layer of Campho-Phenique to Taggert's right nipple.

'You sadistic turd! Not my tits... Please!'

'Don't worry. They'll get used to it.'

The warm, then hot medicine started taking effect, and as it did, Bob Taggert experienced sensations never before known to him. It was as though the raging fire had penetrated the tip of his nipple and entered his bloodstream. With Flowers applying one layer after another, the bound man suddenly felt as though he was everything the interrogator had mockingly named him - tough guy; big man; hot shit; super stud - Bob Taggert sensed himself to be all of these things and more. He arched his back and thrust his nipples high into the air, inviting - even begging for more of this maddening stimulation. He had become some sort of super-charged male animal - the manliest man ever born, so he flexed his muscles, sucked in his belly and postured in a dramatic display of masculine lust.

Reaching across Taggert's chest with his right hand, Flowers took the clamp between finger and thumb and delicately twisted back and forth to further stimulate his prisoner's left nipple. He coaxed in a soft and loving voice, 'You are one hell of a man, Bob. Why don't you talk so I can get you off? You know you want to.'

Anguish consumed Taggert's face. His tormentor was driving him to an ecstatic insanity. Never before had he felt so powerful, so virile and masculine.

Intensifying the pressure, Flowers continued the nipple punishments and verbal persuasions, 'Look at your body, so strong, yet so helpless. Only I can help you. Only I can give you what you must have. Tell me.'

Taggert craned his neck. Gazed down the length of his chest and belly to his tortured penis. The entire crown was coated with a sugary frosting of dried and fresh pre-come, while the massively thick and powerful shaft majestically contorted and caused the brutal, but stimulating clamps to wiggle up and down, and side to side.

'Why are you doing this to yourself?' Flowers taunted. 'Can't you see your magnificent organ? How can you deny giving in to what it wants? All it asks is that you end its suffering. Let your pecker shoot its manly seed, Bob. Why do you refuse your glorious cock this pleasure?'

Taggert was lost in the utopian ecstasy perpetrated upon him. 'Please, finish me. Let me shoot.'

'You know I cannot do that. It is entirely up to you. Your choice is simple. Give me the information and shoot, or hold your tongue and suffer.'

'No... don't make me... please... let me...'

Taggert collapsed his head in anguish, while Flowers took his victim even further into this maddening torture of denial. He left the man's nipples and motioned to his henchmen with a calm tone, 'In between the toes.'

As the voltage stirred Taggert's nuts and clamps pinched his cock and nipple, more teeth were placed on the delicate skin between the tortured man's toes, then onto the soles of his feet. The initial pain quickly subsided, as his nerves became numbed, which left behind new sensations of incredible, testosterone-raging masculinity. Bob Taggert writhed and flexed, striking the pose of a manly hero. He curled back his toes and invited more clamps onto the soles of his feet, which the tormentors kindly provided.

Flowers returned to apply another layer of heat to Taggert's nipple. 'What kind of man are you? No man can take this, not even a he-man like you. God damn, Bob, what are you waiting for?'

'No more, please...'

'Why won't you give me what I want? If you do, I'll give you what you want.'

'I... can't... please don't make me.'

With one final alligator, Malcolm Flowers pushed this poor man to the brink. The thumb and fingers of his left hand opened Bob's stretched navel and the teeth of another clamp bit into the knot of Taggert's belly button. Immediately, reverberations rippled from his navel to his scrotum, causing Taggert to suck in his middle section, raise his head and cry out with a pitiful pleading. 'Oh, my god... I can't take anymore. Finish me... Please, Mr. Flowers...'

'Now will you talk?'

'Yes... please... I'm begging you... Finish me and I'll...'

'You will tell me about the money?'

'Please... get me off... then I'll tell you.'

'No, no, I am sorry. First you talk. Then you get off.'

'Oh, god... I can't take it... I gotta shoot now... Please, Mr. Flowers.'

'I cannot help you. I am sorry.'

'No!'

Another coating of Campho was plastered onto Taggert's nipple, as Flowers hovered near the man's anguished face. 'C'mon, Bob, let me finish you.'

The heat drove him wild with lust, pushing him closer to madness. He thrust his mighty chest high into the air and gazed at his horrendously tortured nipples -- clamp on one, Campho on the other -- and he ranted like a lunatic. 'Geezus H. Christ... I... I can't... Aw, damn it to hell.' He gasped. He groaned. 'Ok...' he nearly cracked. 'Ok, I'll...' He wavered. 'No... I...'

Flowers twisted the nipple clamp, pushing his hapless victim closer and closer to his breaking point. 'Well?'

Taggert violently turned his head side to side with one final and desperate attempt to keep his secret, but he was done for. 'It's... it's under...'

Just then, his eyes happened to lock with those of Marshall Nolan, whose lips moved to form three magical words: I love you.

He closed his eyes, envisioned a night by the campfire, and dreamily put his cock into Marshall's inviting ass. Bob's brain left the table, as he thrust his aching cock into the depths of Marsh Nolan's bosom again and again.

Eureka! His fantasy worked. Orgasm! A volcanic eruption spewed his heavenly seed straight up into the air. That tough-ass, super-stud sonuvagun had come! The first volley struck the overhead lamp, Bob's semen sizzling on its fluorescent tube like a fanfare of victory. Successive spurts jettisoned vertically skyward, dotting his belly and thighs upon their return. The follow-through ejaculations flowed like creamy white lava, encasing his glorious mushroom crown and cascading downward amongst the torturous alligator clamps.

Flowers and his henchman stood in awe of this spectacle. Couldn't believe their eyes. Jaws dropped. Heads turned in disbelief.

Mind over matter - Bob Taggert had once again thwarted these invaders, these hoodlums, these rotten turds, which caused the lead bandit to clasp both hands to his head and shout in horror, 'You god damn son of a bitch! No man can do that. What kind of man are you?'

'HA!' Bob Taggert basked in his glory. 'I'm the man who will fuck you in the ass every time, faggot. You can't defeat me. Don't you get it? Go ahead, bitch. What else have you got?'

Consumed with rage, Malcolm Flowers unleashed a furious assault of fists upon Taggert's stretched and exposed gut. One blow after another rained down, combined with the rantings of a madman, 'You... will... talk,' he growled between punches. 'No... man... can do this to me. I... will... beat... on... you... 'til... you...'

Suddenly, the air was pierced by an even angrier, whiny-bitchy voice that echoed from above. 'Everett, what on earth is taking so long? I'm getting bored up here.'

Flowers turned to see his partner in crime on the stairwell landing. 'God damn you, Mindy. Get your ass back up to that room.'

'I should've known you couldn't break him. He's more man than you'll ever be.'

'You fucking whore. He was about to talk before you interrupted me. Now get back where you belong and take care of your own job.'

'All right, all right. Why don't you do yours? You wuss.'

As she turned to leave, a loud pop rang out. Mindy stood motionless for a few seconds, then turned towards the stairs. Malcolm Flowers and his six masked henchmen silently observed a red dot centered on her forehead and a glassy blankness in her eyes. She fell forward. Tumbled down the stairs. Somersaulted twice, landing with a thud face-up on the concrete floor, particles of brain and a flow of blood pooling from beneath her head.

Then, in rapid-fire succession, six more shots rang out. Six bullets for six skulls, and six masked men fell dead where they stood.

'Don't move, mister,' the shooter stepped from the doorway, presened himself on the landing with his rifle aimed at Flowers. 'Put your hands up.'

Malcolm Flowers did as ordered.

'I've got him, Marsha,' the rifleman instructed. 'Get that shit off of your husband.'

She streaked through the doorway, past the rifleman and down the stairs for her husband, lifting and cradling Taggert's head in her hands. 'Oh, my god, Bob, what have they done to you?'

Bob's concern was elsewhere. 'Go help Marsh. You gotta get him down. He's in a bad way.'

Another order for Flowers came from the shooter, 'Mister, unplug that machine.'

Flowers pulled the plug, then put his hands back up.

'Now, get over here and let that man down,' his rifle's barrel pointed at Marsh Nolan. 'And I mean you better do it nice and slow,' both hands trained the rifle on Flowers. 'I don't know what the hell you've done to him, but there's gonna be a price to pay.'

Taggert looked to his wife with longing eyes. 'Honey, see if you can set the boys free. Then they can help you with the rest of it. Get the pocket knife out of my jeans. They're on the floor over there past the table.'

Soon, Jason and Lucas cradled Marsh Nolan in their arms and gently laid him on the floor.

'All right, mister,' the shooter's rifle followed Malcom Flower's every movement. 'Now lock your hands behind your head and stay right there. Try to get cute and I'll blast ya.'

Jason addressed the gunman, 'Damn, Brian, are we ever glad to see you.'

'Is Marsh gonna be ok?'

'I dunno. They shocked him pretty good. Probably ought to get him to Gerlach soon as we can.'

Nolan laid quiet with his head in the arms of Jason. Groggily, he opened his eyes and mumbled to the young man, 'What happened?'

'Brian's here. Come to save us all.'

'Marsh, you ok?'

Marshall looked up to the landing and saw his sharp-shooter hunting buddy. 'Yeah, Brian. I think so. Let me rest awhile.'

'Lucas, run upstairs and get him some water.'

After his wrists and ankles were cut free, Taggert helped his wife remove the hideous clamps from his body, then she delicately cut the leather strip binding his cock and balls. Finally, after many hours, blood was released and allowed to flow into his bloodstream. Even so, his tortured genitals remained partially swollen from his horrendous ordeal.

Marsha Taggert did not ask her husband what all had happened to him on that table, and he wasn't offering to discuss it. Instead, Bob shouted up to the man who'd ended it all.

'Hey, Brian, how'd you know there was trouble?'

'Phone call,' Brian answered with rifle still trained on Malcolm Flowers. 'I was in Reno playing poker at the Cal-Neva and my cell went off for one ring. I saw your number and called, but got a busy.'

Lucas returned with wet cloths and a glass of water, then both boys comforted the still weakened Marshall Nolan.

Bob was puzzled about the phone call, 'Brian, I didn't call you.'

'I did,' Marsha piped in. 'I saw them hit you on the head and I screamed. Started to rush into the house, but thought I better call Brian's number first. Figured he could help me, rather than me getting myself knocked on the head, too, but that bitch Mindy opened the truck's door and shoved a pistol in my face, so I just dropped the phone.'

As both Taggerts removed the final alligator clamps, Bob jumped off the table, forgetting about his tortured genitals. 'Oh, god damn that's sore.' He quickly resumed sitting on the edge of his work bench. 'Bastards put my cock through the ringer. Nuts, too. Give me one of those rags so I can clean off my come.'

Marsha leaned in close to inspect the damage, then ran up the stairs to retrieve ice packs for his swollen penis and testicles. Bound for nearly three hours, a purple and red-lined indentation dramatized the lingering effects of where a tight leather strap had stricken him.

Brian Smith continued his story. 'After thirty minutes of trying, I got a bad feeling in my gut, so I headed over here to Marsh's place. Come in the back way like I always do, then I knew something was wrong when he wasn't there and his truck was. That's when I saw the dogs. Sons-a-bitches killed every one of 'em.'

With the repeating rifle pointed directly at Flowers' head, Brian asked about the lone survivor. 'So, who is this piece of shit?'

'Just a thief. Nothing more.'

'You wanna shoot him or should I?'

'Nah, we'll call the sheriff. Malcolm Flowers will be a nice piece of ass for the inmates over in Carson City. Lucas, get up there and make the call.'

Brian spoke to Jason, 'Hey, let's chain this Flowers fella up. I'm tired of pointing my gun at him.'

Soon, the hoodlum's wrists were cuffed and he was hanging exactly where Marsh Nolan had been strung up. After safely lowering his weapon, Brian flew down the stairs. He inspected the scarred backside of his pal, Marshall, and then helped him to his feet. 'Can you walk?'

'Sure. Let me lean on you.'

'Used a cattle prod, did they?'

Jason picked up the device and held it for all to see. 'Fuck an A right.' He waved the prod in the face of Malcolm Flowers. 'Now it's your turn, you dirty sonuvabitch.'

'Don't do it, Jason,' Bob shouted. 'We ain't like that.

'Aw, c'mon, Mr. Taggert. After all he did to you and Marsh? He deserves at least one jolt.'

'No, son. Let the law handle it. Otherwise, we ain't no better than him.'

Lowering the prod, Jason sneered at Flowers. 'Lucky for you my boss is a civilized man.'

Brian had helped Marshall over to the table and lifted him up so he could sit next to Bob.

'I wanna thank you,' Bob extended his hand for a shake with Brian. 'That was some fancy shootin'.'

'Like ducks in a pond,' he chuckled, as Marsha returned with ice to comfort her husband. 'Here's the real hero,' Brian explained while wrapping his arm around her for a quick squeeze. 'Marsha untied her ropes while that woman, what was her name?'

'Mindy,' answered Marsha as she tended to her husband.

'Yeah, when Mindy came down here, Marsha got herself loose and out of the house.'

'I was already loose when Mindy said she was going to raid the fridge. I sneaked down and was heading for the truck to get my cell phone.'

'I saw Marsha and got her attention,' Brian explained. 'Your clever wife hatched a plan and led me to the basement. By the way, Bob, that was Marsha who shot Mindy. Got her own pistol out of the truck to do it with, too. Talk about fancy shootin', I've got nothing on Marsha. Bull's eye! Right between the eyes.'

Bob was impressed. 'Wow, honey, you did that?'

'I couldn't wait to blow her brains out. Bitch took advantage of me.'

'Man, you've been practicing. Guess your quick thinking to dial Brian's number is what really saved us.'

He watched his adoring wife tend to his damaged penis and testicles with a newfound respect for her. Despite her foolish gab at the Wendover Hotel which brought Malcolm Flowers and gang to the Taggert Ranch, Marsha had more than redeemed herself. When the pressure was on, Marsha Taggert was a quick-thinking, sharp-shooting dynamo who would do just about anything for her man - or to be more precise, her men. Combining this with her 24 hour a day horny libido, top-notch cooking and efficient homemaking skills, Bob Taggert suddenly felt like he was the luckiest man on the face of the earth.

The county sheriff had no problem with the frontier justice that produced seven dead thieves and one more prisoner for the Nevada penal system. Brian Smith quit his job at the meat packing plant and joined his buddies on the ranch. It seems that seeing the most important person in his life hanging there all bloodied and bruised gave him a newfound appreciation for life itself. He'd nearly lost Marsh Nolan and wasn't about to let the man out of his sights again. Brian and Marsh put up new living quarters designed to their liking, then helped Jason and Lucas do the same.

To show his gratitude for their loyalty to him, Bob Taggert made the four men and his wife full partners in the ranch. No longer employees, each partner worked their ass off to make certain it remained one of the most profitable operations in the state of Nevada.

Of course, Jason and Lucas were itching with curiosity for weeks regarding where the money was kept. Ever since hearing Bob come within one word of revealing the hiding place, they had been building up their courage to ask him all about it.

Jason took the lead, 'Bob, I heard you say, 'It's under' and then that Flowers guy started screaming his head off.'

Taggert let out a hardy laugh, 'Hell, boys, that's the best part. It's under one of those file cabinets.'

'You're shittin' me.'

'Nope. Pull out a lower drawer and you'll see a trap door in the concrete floor. That's where the safe is.'

'Right under his nose the whole time.'

'Yep. Bet if he knew that he'd shit his pants.'

Lucas piped in, 'I'll bet he's had his shit stirred plenty of times over in Carson City.'

Bob Taggert reflected on this, then gave the bandit just a bit of credit. 'Tell you what, fellas, Flowers was a low-down, conniving piece of horse manure, but he had me fired up pretty damn good. Sure as hell knows how to push all the right buttons, so I figure he's making somebody pretty happy in that prison cell.'

Naturally, neither Jason nor Lucas could keep this secret for long and soon Marsh Nolan heard all about the location of the safe, which instigated another conversation with Taggert.

'Think our money'd be better in Gerlach, Bob?'

'We got nothing to worry about.'

'Yeah, but what if that guy starts telling some of his prison buddies about...'

'I fixed it,' Bob jumped in. 'Now, it's hot wired. Anybody besides me touches that combination dial and they'll be fried to a crisp. If it ever happens again, I'll just lead 'em right to it and say, 'Oh, please mister, don't take our money.' Then I'll watch 'em sizzle.'

Marsh seemed satisfied with this extra precaution, but the discussion of the topic gave Bob Taggert a brilliant idea, which he first discussed with Marsha, then with the four men. As a final act of defiance, he would voluntarily revisit that basement work bench and allow them to tie him up just as he had been. Instead of clamps and electricity, five mouths and ten hands would stimulate that masculine body to make him feel just like the man he was during his insane torture session. In return, his amazing penis and cum-producing nuts would properly service whoever was first to lose control and claim it.

Those work-bench get-togethers soon became an end-of-the-week reason for family time, and everybody got their chance.

'Who's turn is it tonight?' Bob would ask as Friday night's supper came to an end.

'Tonight is Jason, if he's up for it.'

'Are you up for it, Jason?'

'Yes-sir, Mr. Taggert! And tomorrow night, it'll be Marsha.'

Equal-opportunity orgies, that was the Taggert Ranch credo. No man, no woman neglected. Each in rotation got their body ecstatically worshiped upon the altar atop the file cabinets that concealed their fortunes.

And just to cure Marsha's occasional itch, Bob contracted with an amusement company to set up five slot machines with all the bells and whistles at one end of the basement. Whatever she lost came out of her pocket and whatever she won came out of the ranchers' fund. No more trips to Wendover were necessary, because anything those folks could ever need or want was right there at the Taggert Cattle Ranch and basement play room.