Solid Gone

Cock Fight

Harris had been adopted shortly after he was born and never knew parents but Claire and Jack Campbell. He was brought up and schooled along the Clyde not far from Glasgow, and to hear him speak, he sounded no different from any other Glaswegian of his class. Harris grew up in a rough and tumble neighborhood and became the toughest of the lot, not from ambition, but survival. The Campbells never knew who Harris’s parents were, but their son was clearly some part Japanese, high-born, princely, and fierce.

After secondary school, this Japanese Scotsman had been invited to complete a course of training for handlers at Octagon. This had lasted one year, and then in a complicated trade of staff and slaves, he’d been hired by Fletcher House as a staff handler four years ago. He’d just put in his papers this week for promotion to the program for trainers. His prospects were good. He was a thoughtful and hard worker and especially he was gentle with the slaves, and they responded to him in kind. He was firm with slaves when in difficult situations, but in all his years, had never lost control of a slave nor ever been written up for misuse. He was respected by his co-workers and his boss and the training staff that knew him and had always a friendly respect for everyone he dealt with.

On this day, Harris stood with the rest of the crew during the briefing at the start of shift. Head of Training spoke to each of the handlers and explained their work for the day and where they could coordinate activities. When it came to Harris, Head of Training explained the situation with 1134 on east wing D-level. He looked at his watch and said, “Time is now for release on waiting room #3, would you take care of that first thing please?” Harris nodded assent and left the room.

This was an ordinary assignment for Harris, he’d already done this several times. But for new slaves, this was a crucial moment in their development, and he saw his job as helping them through that moment. In the briefing, Harris was told that 1134 had been corrected for “insufficient alacrity.” He was told to confirm that the boy had understood the correction by way of a demonstration, and then to have it back to its cell. This was standard procedure. Harris knew all the moves. As he brought his key to the waiting room door, he made much of getting the key in the lock, rattling the doorknob to give the slave time to make ready, then shoved the door open.

“Well, I like to see a lad who’s ready.” Harris closed the door and came into the waiting room. He circled ‘34, stepping around the puddle of piss at the boy’s feet. He looked ‘34 up and down, wrists together and chained straight up. “And willing? Y’are willing, aye?” He gave a good hard slap to the boy’s butt and the slave barked. Harris went ‘round to the boy’s ear and spoke to it quietly and confidentially with his soft burr. “If y’ll be quiet a wee while, I’ll get ye doon. See if ye can do tha. Quiet as a moos now. Sssh!”

The handler crouched down to examine the skin on ‘34’s butt, placing one hand on the boy’s abs, the other lightly caressing the hams, the inside of the thighs. The slave’s butt was a dark angry purple. It was clear where the trainer had worked him. Easy to see where it would hurt the most, and then gave the boy a hard solid slap right on the hot spot. The boy’s whole body jerked as if electrocuted, his eyes squeezed shut and a spurt of saliva shot out of his compressed lips just as he slammed down his throat to stifle his scream.

“Aye laddie, that’s quality,” exclaimed the handler as he rose and walked over to the wall and pressed a button that slowly lowered the boy’s arms, and thus, the boy himself onto the ground where he lay in a collapsed pile of misaligned limbs and labored breathing. The handler got him unhooked from the winch cable, got the spreader bar off his ankles, then half-carried him over to a padded bench where he put him on his side to rest for a few minutes.

The handler stowed the cable and collected everything that went back to the wrangler’s shop, unwound a hose from its rack and sprayed off the floor into a corner drain, sprinkled something blue and smelly on the floor, scrubbed it with a floor brush and then sprayed off the floor again. Once he’d got everything put right, he came over to the slave and sat down next to his head, wiped off his mouth and chin with a damp rag. “I see you’ve et. You’ve got paste on your face.” With a practiced hand, the handler cleaned up the boy’s eyes and ears, checking for anything amiss. He short-linked the wrist cuffs together in front, snapped on a leash, and then sat for a moment quietly.

“You look good boy. You snap to when you should, and you do what you’re told. These are excellent qualities in a slave and make you suitable to your task. This will please your master, which is, after all, your only job. Today you’ve learned a lesson in self-control, and then right away applied that lesson. This is a valuable thing for a slave.”

The handler combed his fingers through the boy’s hair. “Take care you never talk where anyone can see or hear you. Best if you dinna talk in your sleep. Today’s been a walk in the park compared to what you’ll see if a trainer hears you talk. You’re a weanling for the first year, and weanlings dinna talk. Just keep your gob shut, another excellent quality in a slave.

“Come along lad, you can walk now,” the handler said as he gently slid the boy off the bench and onto his feet. ‘34 wasn’t sure of his feet as he tried to stand, and he had the shakes; his arms were still on fire and useless and his legs felt like rubber, but he managed to follow the tug on the leash and plod down long hallways and finally into his cell. “You may sleep until breakfast,” the handler told him, “then you will be shown what to do.” The boy lay in a fetal position on the cot quietly sobbing as Harris left and locked the cell.

__________

Archie Cruickshank sat in close consultation with his boss, Miles Harper, the new assistant gamekeeper. Miles had taken the position, held for decades by his predecessor, some 10 months prior, so there was much about the job and even more about the House that Archie could help his boss with -- but gently. This afternoon the two administrators were working their way through the details of the banquet that took place at the end of the annual House business meeting, now only a week away.

This year’s gala feast would be very upbeat, oppulent, lavish. This year the House was doing very well indeed. Membership was closed, contributions to special projects were running high, Fletcher had just won, among other awards, Best of Breed and Best Trained Slave at the Harvest Festival, the price of House slaves was rising steadily, and demand for the hunt master’s services in the stand-alone business division was at an all-time high. Business was good; the celebration would be extravagant.

Everyone in the House was involved. This year’s theme is “Ad astra,” that is, to the stars. This year will host two tables of stars from Hollywood and Broadway. It was Archie’s boss who was responsible for assigning slaves to each of the honorees -- placement and function, use and restraint all had to be weighed and considered. The discussion circled around which would be best for this or that celebrity, which slaves would be chained under the tables, which ones against the wall, who’d be caged, and who would simply stand and drip.

This last was no small consideration, and a tradition at Fletcher House that engaged all the yearling slaves. Once a month, the yearling who could stand and drip the greatest volume of precum in one hour was awarded privileges that made the hard work and training worthwhile. This month, in the month of the business meeting gala, the holder of that privilege was 1102.

“That lines up,” said Archie. “We’ll use 1102 as the precum fountain next to the dessert buffet.”

“1102...? That was the acquisition from the neighborhood?” asked Miles. “That’s the ‘Disappeared Local’, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” said Archie. “But a boy came here looking for him. And that was an odd thing, because that was the only local ever taken by the House. It happened one night that a member brought in a stray dog and said he wanted to keep it. He was adamant. He was drunk. And that was a brouhaha that involved the director and nearly ended in fisticuffs, but the boy stayed, and as I said, his lover came looking for him here. That’s 1113. It’s a wrenching story of love’s sacrifice. The boy chose to venture a life of slavery in order to win through to his lover.”

“So that’s 1113,” said Miles, speculating. “I didn’t know the two were lovers. Hmm,” he mused, turning over some pages. “’13’s a weanling. They’re a year apart. They can’t see much of each other. How’s that working out for them?” he said with a scoff.

“Maybe we could play Cupid,” said Archie. “1102 will be stationed at the end of the dessert table as the precum fountain, and we’ll task 1113 with ‘helping’ to keep his lover hard and flowing for the length of the banquet.”

“So noted,” said the assistant gamekeeper. “Now, as for the rest of the weanlings, this year I think we’ll use them strictly as decorations. I’d like each of the celebrity tables to have a slave hogtied as the center table decoration -- with an apple in the mouth. Would you please get with the wrangler and arrange for different colored rope for each hogtied slave. Coordinate with the handlers and have the slaves carried in ceremoniously while the guests are waiting to be seated. There will be an orchestra; we should coordinate with the maestro; we’ll want the orchestra playing a processional as each slave is carried in.”

Archie was busy scribbling notes as Miles went on. “Have the rest of the weanlings standing in the wall niches with arms behind or above. Let’s have them out of their cages for the day and reward the ones who get hard and stay hard until the last guest leaves.” Archie had a thought here but kept it to himself. It wouldn’t do to point out a careless mistake by his boss. One of Archie’s charges was in a punishment cage for 10 more days. It would materially disrupt its training to have the cage off in the middle of the correction. Maybe best to have that one disappeared into a waiting room during the festivities, out of sight, out of mind. One more note on his calendar.

__________

Over the next several days, the wranglers had negotiated the rope requirements to red and blue natural-fiber Asanawa -- three-strand hemp ropes; the handlers had required that the ropes be soaked in warm sake before binding the slaves on their knees; the maître d' agreed to a presentation of “Prisoner Slaves in Kinbaku-bi” (literally, the beauty of tight binding) as the center decoration for the star tables.

And so it came to pass that although 1134 was the newest slave at Fletcher House, and very little experienced, he was officially a weanling in service, and thus subject to the draft. Two weanlings were tapped to be the center table decorations. Miles had picked 1134 over Archie’s silent objection. The boy was too tall for it, really. Never mind. Anyway, the second boy was just the right size.

1134 was at the moment standing on a tile floor in a vestibule off the kitchen next to another slave he hadn’t seen before. Like ‘34, his wrists were being bound behind, up from his waist, arm bones parallel to his hip line. He could feel what was happening to himself as he watched the same happening to the other slave. The wet ropes dripped and sprayed as the handlers pulled them through knots and cinched them down. But just tight enough. That was half the fun -- the dry air in the dining room, the increasing warmth of the room as the evening progressed, the ropes soaked in alcohol would slowly, ineluctably begin to shrink as they dried out.

The girdle of ropes that encircled the boy’s cock would shrink. The winding of a smaller-gauge rope about the balls would shrink. So too the binders across the back would pull the arms more and more tightly together, squeezing the shoulders and popping out the pecs as a trio of strands would slowly close up and pinch the nipples. Once the arms and torso were tied, and the crotch and junk secured, and the ankles, knees, and thighs were wrapped, the boys were taken into the dining hall and lifted onto their respective tables and sat on their heels. The boys each had a cord tied to their balls and run out to the rope that bound the ankles and tied snugly -- a cord that promised to shrink significantly, so that the winding about the balls would squeeze and the other cord would pull at the same time, slowly, over the course of dinner and beyond, by tiny degrees, as the ropes dried out, more and more pressure would be exerted.

Waiters were laying the place settings and lining up the silver and crystal, the linen, wine, water, bread and olio, some of it snugged up against ‘34’s legs. He sat there with his butt on his heels, adjusting as best he could to something suddenly new and scary, and uniquely uncomfortable every place he focused on. Well, maybe not his index fingers. That was about it. And then a handler came up and put a blindfold on him. This was scary enough when he could see what was coming at him.

Without his sight, everything he couldn’t identify became terrifying, and that adds up to a lot of terror in a very small place. It seems to him even now that the little bit of wiggle room he had in his wrists was becoming a little different. It didn’t hurt exactly, but his shoulders were starting to burn. He couldn’t really roll his shoulders to relieve the discomfort. And then a hard rubber ball gag with tongue depressor was shoved in his teeth and secured behind his head.

Handlers had distributed the balance of the weanlings about the dining hall; they all had their wrists closely cuffed behind or straight up, collar hooked to the wall above, blindfolded and standing in wall niches around the dining hall or along the walls between windows. Some wag had gone ‘round the hall and tied silver bells to the standing slaves with a slip knot cinched just behind the cock head and dangling a foot or so. This wasn’t part of the official program, but the scattered silver cling of the bells throughout the hall was some part of charming, and no one objected.

The bustle and the buzz in the dining hall was now at maximum; the guests were being seated, the orchestra was playing, waiters and wine stewards swirled among the tables with trays filled with cocktails and wine. Some of the guests not yet seated at table milled about the slaves standing against the wall, oohing and aahing and laying on hands. One of the members was chatting with a film director: “They do such a beautiful job with the skin,” he enthused. “I send mine to the stalls once a month to get its hair and skin done. It really is worth the trouble, and the House picks up and delivers.”

The film director reached out, stroking the boy’s erect cock and made the pendant silver bell ring. “Such a variety of perfect specimens,” he mused as his little crowd moved down the room to the next slave chained to the wall. One of the group reached out and cupped the slave’s balls in his hand, raising them up a couple of inches as though weighing them. “Wow!” he said, wiping his mouth with his hand, breathing in. Another of the director’s posse ran his hands over the slave’s pectorals and tweaked his nips, causing the chains above to rattle and the hips to jerk. Another worked away at the boy’s cock, ringing the bell and leaving a puddle of cum on the floor as they moved on to the next specimen.

Some of the movie stars had been seated right away. The dreamy heartthrob actor had told some of his table mates that there was a slave chained under their table and it couldn’t do anything at all if there weren’t people seated at the table. Indeed, the table with the shibari decoration also included a slave underneath who would suck cock as long as there were cocks to suck. Each honoree at the table unzipped his fly and worked to dig out his cock discretely, beneath the tablecloth. The dreamy actor was taking no chances. He unbuckled his belt and slid his pants all the way down to his ankles, then slid his chair up as close as he could get to the table and raised his glass to the others. “Ad astra, cum to the stars!”

1134, like all the weanlings this day, had his cage off during the gala, but busy as he was with one thing and another, he hadn’t had a taking yet, that is, he hadn’t been made to cum. It wasn’t clear if he would be allowed to make himself cum. He was leery about doing anything his masters would disapprove. His dick had got hard instantly it was out of the cage. It felt sooo good! But his hands had been bound, and the only hands that had been on his cock had simply shoved it aside and then tied rope around his balls.

And about that. This was something the boy simply could not describe to himself or comprehend. Right now, what he could feel was everything, the growing discomfort in his shoulders, his knees, his back, but that was peripheral. What he could feel, what was central to his consciousness was his balls. He wasn’t sure if what he felt was pain exactly. Maybe it was fear. He could feel something gripping him and spreading to his core.

As the slave writhed and shifted, trying for any possible comfort, he rose up slightly on his knees -- but only slightly, because the binding on his balls was tied to his ankles and this brought stars to his eyes each time he tried to rise. Did he hate this feeling? Throughout the evening the slave had recourse to this move now and then, testing, testing. And this, while hands probed his cock, teasing his glans with its dripping precum and then smearing his drool on his nipples. His cock has been solid hard from the moment the cage came off. Someone was worrying his pee hole with their thumb and forefinger, and this was maddening. It made him shiver and pant and he couldn’t get away from it.

And this went on for what seemed to the slave a very long time. There was dinner, there was the dessert odyssey, the after-dinner drinks, the speeches of welcome, the honorees’ thank-you speeches, speeches about the business meeting, about someone retiring, about special projects. Just as coffee, cigars, and brandy were served, someone had taken the blindfold off 1134. “I really do like to see its eyes when I play with its cock,” said one of the people leaning in to stroke his cock. The slave was tiring by this time, but sight helped him rally. And right now, for those who wished to remain in the hall, the evening’s entertainment was about to begin -- a cock fight.

The orchestra was through for the night, but four of its members stayed behind to play for the floor show. A piano was rolled out and a bass, drums, and trumpet gathered ‘round. A circle was drawn on the floor, about 10 feet across. Two contestants were brought into the circle and stood at parade rest, their cocks flaccid, their skin oiled and slick. Both had their wrist cuffs locked together behind them, their neck collars linked together by a chain one meter long. The two faced each other, then crouched down in a squat. The drummer played a quiet roll and the two rose together, slowly, to stand straight up with their cocks now fully hard. The trumpeter played a flourish as handlers locked a silver cuff around each cock, just below the glans -- nice and snug. The cuffs were linked together by a six-inch chain.

The referee held on to the short chain with one hand and a stopwatch in the other. “The cock that shoots first, wins. The loser will be punished with the strap. If there is no issue in one hour’s time, both will be strapped. Any step outside the circle stops play for one minute. Stepping out of the circle in the last two minutes of play is forbidden. A violation results in both contestants being strapped.” You may begin.”

The game was often played at Fletcher House, and betting was almost always the reason. Well, that and the sport. Members often put up their own slaves against House slaves, and the competition among members could be lively. The two this evening are both House slaves, fourth year, trained for the hotel trade, both experienced players. It is a game of strategy as well as daring. In order to cum, a contestant has to rub the underside of his cockhead on the opponent’s skin, usually the abdomen. But getting in close enough to do this means the other can get in close as well, so one has to know how close to cumming the opponent is and breaking off when necessary by stepping out of the ring.

As the clock runs down, and both contestants get very close to cumming, strategy switches to pulling, that is, pulling one’s cock against the cuff. The opponent of course thrusts forward when the other pulls, thus denying him the stimulation he needs to cum. But this happens back and forth very quickly with a lot of rattling of chains, and late in the game, hot and sweat covered, only a few successful pulls can be enough to win.

Now in the last two minutes of the game, there were 25 or 30 members and guests closely crowded around the circle, close enough to be sprayed with sweat as the two slaves danced and dashed their heads about in mutual fake-outs and misdirection, always aware the time to cum was running out. The roar and shouting of the crowd let the slaves know how close they were to the time limit. One slave thought that just two pulls more would be enough, and just as this thought came to mind, the other shot cum right under his chin and took the prize.

Party over. In ten minutes, the last of the revelers had departed for other parties, other amusements. The house lights came up, tables were taken down, brooms were out. Handlers had ‘34 and his counterpart partially unbound and off the tables, sufficient to walk, with two to help. He and the other table decoration were taken back to the staging area he’d been in before the dinner. A handler had brought ice bags and laid them up against his junk, another rubbed crushed ice over his torso. That felt good, refreshing, cooling. He leaned into it. And his cock got small and retracted. And that was when hands reached in and wrestled him into his now all too familiar cage. The click of the lock was the sound of disappointed hopes.

Handlers rubbed salve on his chafed nipples and around his crotch. It burned a little, but it smelled nice. One handler rubbed up the slave’s leg muscles with liniment oil, another his shoulders and arms. On his feet now, the boy could stand up straight and walk unassisted. A leash was snapped on to the collar and the boy was led out of the kitchens and back to its cell. And so to bed.