Solid Gone

Good Boy

There was a small crowd in the barn this evening. The wrangler was busy. There was a line of slaves waiting before his workbench. Everybody needed something, an adjustment, a replacement, a fix. 1094 needed his torture cage taken off. He’d endured this for weeks on end, and today he was done with this course of training, and his master had allowed his cock free -- well, his master’s cock. Master had let the boy play with his master's property for a whole day. For the next 24 hours, this slave had no appointments except meals.

94 was nearly dancing with anticipation as he waited for the wrangler. Once it was finally his turn, the wrangler reached over to turn his collar so he could see the number on it. He got down from his stool and went into an interior office and then emerged with a key. 94’s eyes tracked the key’s progress from the office all the way into the lock on his cock. Once the cage came off, the sigh from 94 was audible to all.

The wrangler looked at his watch and scribbled something with his pen, then looked directly at the slave’s eyes and said, “You will be here tomorrow at 19:30 hours.” The boy made a formal acknowledgement and quickly left the barn. Its dick was already getting hard, and the slave made no effort at all to keep it down in a seemly manner. The slave tried to remember the last time he had been allowed to cum and right away he recalled. That was when Master Takashi beat on his balls until he couldn’t control himself anymore. That time, there was blood when his dick slammed into the spikes in his cage.

1094 didn’t need to remember the last time. Much better to think about how he would bring the cum out of his balls tonight, all night long, time after time, until his balls hurt being drained, and thinking on the boy who’d surprised him, magically took his fancy, and warmed his heart. The mere thought of 34 made the experienced slave all flighty inside, it made his head light.

Once up the sweeping granite staircase to the mezzanine, across the open floor and through the entrance to the serai, 94 sailed right past Mother’s den, declined to have his harness off, strode past the washrooms and the toilets, past every other watching and sleeping slave with his dick straight out leading the way to the far end of the great hall and right to an empty cushion. He wanted nothing to interfere with his grant of joy this night, nor did he want to miss one minute of reveling in that feeling all night long and into the morning. And as he worked away, he lost count of how many times he’d cum, and despite his resolve, he nevertheless dozed from time to time.

As the first light peeked in at the highest windows, by ones and twos, slaves circled past his cushion to pay mock honor to the slave uncaged; from each one, palms together, fingers to the lips, a nod of the head. One slave sank to its knees and sought to help 94 with one last cum before the day started. 94 held the side of the slave’s face with his hand as it gobbled his knob, making its head rise. “Just lie with me,” he asked. And the two lay in embrace and soft breathing until they were both nearly late for first meal.

The serai at Fletcher House is a serene and peaceful place of rest and restoration for slaves. Here, they may sleep or lounge about when not in use. The light is soft and filtered even on the brightest days, airy, warm and dim from small lanterns at night. Cushions are scattered about on the stone floor for sleeping, pillows along one wall for sitting. The hall is bare of decoration, there are no chairs or cupboards, no drawers or shelves -- anything a slave might need will come from the wrangler’s shop or Mother’s drawers and cupboards.

The man who keeps order and runs the day-to-day business of the serai is affectionately called Mother by the slaves and his colleagues alike and has been so called for decades beyond the memory of any slave in Fletcher House. And like any old hand, he has his ways, and the denizens of the serai know them intimately and bend to his will like trees swept by the wind.

Whatever the stresses of the day, whatever unpleasantness a slave might have experienced in service, whatever induced exhaustion, even what misuse he’d endured, the serai was a place of refuge, without strife or contention. No slave, once within its walls, had a harsh look or a disrespectful word for any other slave.

Nor were all the slaves equal even among themselves, but they treated each other that way inside the serai. When they did not, when there was that rare, minor, social infraction one might expect to arise from time to time among hard working, high-strung slaves, even in the best-regulated house, a squabble between two slaves -- there is a correction for that. The two slaves involved are made to stand with wrists behind, face-to-face, and kiss for one hour under the eyes of Mother, who judges their performance. Any repeat of questionable behavior would see a slave removed from the serai for an appropriate period, and depending on the infraction, it could mean days in various punishment cells. The peace of the serai is sacrosanct and closely guarded.

Every morning Mother gives the word, and the serai is cleaned out top to bottom. The command is given and every slave not otherwise in use is put to work carrying out pillows and cushions, on sunny days, out to the slave’s lawn above the golf course, in wet weather to one or another of the halls. The stone floor is swept and then sloshed and scrubbed with brushes, as it has been every day for 125 years. The windows and doors are thrown open and when the floor is dry, the pillows and cushions come back smelling of the sun and green grass, or cedarwood smoke and hot linen.

Mother sang in the choir as a boy. His parents regularly moved from one navy base to another, so he got to sing in a lot of choirs. He was an able singer and disciplined, but he was not inspired until his household moved to NCBC Gulfport, and he found gospel music in the choir loft. Mother still sang, pretty much whenever he liked, but he especially liked to sing during the scrubbing of the floor. And as he’d taught the slaves just a little bit of do-re-mi -- the difference between a major third and a minor sixth -- they could follow his lead sometimes and come in above and below him in harmony. No one was beaten for failure, but sometimes there were eruptions of laughter at Mother’s displeasure. “Oh my God,” he’d yell. “Your job is to please.” And he’d start them over, showing them how.

Today he’d got the slaves singing:

Moses stood on the Red Sea Shore
Smotin’ that water with a two-by-four
If I could I surely would
Stand on the rock where Moses stood

1094 had the song in his throat and a spring in his step as he left the serai on a job for the gamekeeper that he’d anticipated all night long; he’d been cumming over and over, thinking impossible fantasies about the boy who’d lately been living in his head. He really couldn’t account for it. He wasn’t some dreamy romantic who fell head over heels for every Nordic god that smiled at him exactly once -- gagged, chained, drooling.

But first to the stalls. It was late in the morning, so he didn’t have to wait long in line for a quick wash up, teeth, and shave. It’s not common to see an uncaged slave in the stalls, so the staff made much of him, teasing him about how big it was, and how would it ever fit back in a cage. 94 kept his mind on 34 and ignored the ribbing. He wanted to think about the boy.

Something deep inside him wanted to protect this clueless rookie, wanted to help him through the hard parts. But this got close to dangerous for him. His job was to love his master with all his heart. And he did love his master. But maybe he was a bad slave, an incomplete slave, because for all the love he bore his master, there was still room in his heart to love the boy who was his master’s private property. As confusing as this was to the slave, he put it out of mind with the thought that he was cock free until after second meal, and he’d much rather think about that in the meantime.

Mother had given 94 the day’s password, so he was able to get through the gate and down the path to the East Annex and then down four flights to D-Level where he found 34 in an unlocked waiting room. The boy was sitting on a bench against the wall, one ankle cuff chained to a ring in the floor. As 94 came into the room, the boy jumped up and stood smartly to attention with a firm, serious look that quickly changed to surprise and..., was that delight?

94 quickly put his finger to his lips and said, “Don’t talk.” He came right up to his face and returned a broad smile that showed all his gleaming teeth. He reached behind and drew his thumb and forefinger down the back of the boy’s head, as a kind of formal greeting, one slave to another, and then impulsively, without thought, leaned in smoothly and left a light kiss on his cheek.

“Let’s sit,” he invited. The two sat on the narrow wooden bench with their backs against the wall, and right away 94 said, “Here, turn this way and put your feet on the bench and your head in my lap. This way I can look at you while I bore you with my chatter.” 34 did just that, without hesitation and... without thought? Is this an easy and thoughtless thing to do for two male strangers who meet in captivity? 94 noted that he may be seeing the effects of House training in real time, small as this was. He felt the warmth and the pressure of the boy’s head on his cock as he sighed inside and smiled with concern. “I hear you’ve had some adventures since I last saw you.” The boy grimaced and rolled his eyes, as if to mean “You wouldn’t believe it.”

“I know Master Smith,” said 94, thoughtfully. “He’s a good master. You’re lucky to have him as your first. He’s long and thick, and they say he only fucked you for like two minutes. He’s got some big friends too. You’ll have to work up to Master Smith for the day when he wants a play date with you. Maybe in a year or so.” He was quiet for a while, and then took the boy’s left hand between his own and toyed with his fingers. “What a fine and beautiful hand you have.” He held the index finger to the light as he rubbed a calloused spot at the last joint. “You use that finger with pens and pencils?” he asked.

The boy nodded easily and looked at him curiously. “You can draw?” he asked. Again, the easy nod from the head in his lap. “You mean like you could draw shoes and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings?” Yes, the boy nodded with a confident grin. 94 pushed on 34’s shoulder and said, “Here, sit up.” He got out from under him and walked over to a cupboard across the room and rummaged around. He found two pages of instructions for a hot water heating unit (blank on the back). He found a couple of Sharpies and a pencil in a drawer and a stack of paper plates for a surface to work on.

“Show me,” he said, sitting down snug against him on the bench. 34 smiled at him and quickly set about sketching out a scene of a playing-card king standing at a finish line -- depicted by a row of cabbages -- calling a race between a shoe and a ship floating down a river of melted sealing wax. Not much detail, but the simple lines expressed everything he meant, the excitement of the king showed in the face, the almost botanical precision of the cabbage leaves, even the pennant flapping in the wind atop the toy sailing ship.

94 was effusive in his praise, and it was not insincere. There was a rising anticipation in his voice as he asked the boy whether he could draw actual faces. Could he draw a face he’d seen in the last few weeks? The boy thought for a moment, pursed his lips and nodded. He reached for the other piece of paper and started to draw. 94 watched him in fascinated silence as head and shoulders quickly appeared, eyes and nose, ears and hair, the mouth and chin last with a clean, three-inch scar at the top of the cheek. 34 wrote at the bottom in neat block letters, “The Prison Boss.”

It was a striking portrait, the sort of thing art students churn out as exercises all the time. This sort of thing would put one in the top of the class. 94 looked into the boy’s eyes with surprise and excitement. This was just brilliant! 94 took his elbows off his knees, sat straight up and put his head against the wall as he tried to arrange his thoughts. He felt almost giddy thinking how happy this would make his master. But all that could wait.

Right now, just sitting beside 34 made his heart light and his mind calm. He thought seriously for a moment, made an effort to bring his attention to the fore and think: Was there anywhere else in the world he wanted to be but right here, right now with 34? And just while thinking such pleasant thoughts, 34 turned and stretched his neck over and put a light kiss on his cheek and then made the thank you sign with his hand.

This so surprised 94 that he reacted spontaneously with a spreading smile that lit up his face so brightly, the other boy blushed. And then seeing his confusion, 94 smiled even more broadly and gave the boy a kiss in the middle of his forehead. The two sat quietly for a while, lost in their own thoughts.

After a while, 94 turned to the boy and said, “You’ve been through the portal, you’ve got through a butt beating, through the introduction ceremony. That’s the worst of it for now. The idea is to make sure you know your place. Even so, it’s a hard place for a while. The loneliness is hard,” he said, remembering. “But you can think of me when you’re lonely, and I’ll think of you all the time. Maybe that’ll make it easier.

“You’ve got something like 13 more weeks of basic; it’s schooling and hard labor and a constant beat down and loneliness. I promise, you’ll survive it. Pay attention and do what you’re told.” 94 thought for a moment before getting a serious look. “I’ve watched it happen for years. It’s what happens. Master gets what he wants. You can give it to him, or he can take it from you. Master will have what he wants. You’ve already had a taste of what the taking looks like. Best you be the giving kind. Good boys do well here.”

94 was pretty sure Master would be happy with 34’s pictures, but it was not a slave’s job to speak for its master. He’d keep his thoughts to himself on Master’s opinion. 94 held up one of the boy’s wrist cuffs to look at it. He turned it halfway round on the wrist, looking for signs of chafing or abrasion, did the same with the neck collar. “Are they wearing you out with the workouts?” he asked with a sympathetic smile. The boy gave a weary smile in return and nodded yes.

94 reached out and ran his hand over his shoulder muscles, paying particular attention to the shape and feel of them. He wanted to do this again in three months when already hard and built muscle would be even more splendid and strong, and a feeling of pride rose up in him, that his master should have such a fine stable, that he and the boy were part of something so fine. The boy would bring honor to the House with his service, he was sure of that. And he wanted to do everything he could to help make that happen.

A handler appeared at the door with a key already in hand, ready to unlock the chain on 34’s ankle. On seeing 94 sitting beside 34, he came up short, giving the slave a look that clearly meant “What are you doing here?” Both slaves had quickly stood to attention as soon as the handler came in the door. 94 explained, “Mother said to give the password if challenged.” The handler looked at 94, then 34, pointedly, and said, “Well... it can’t talk. Go ahead.”

“Right, the password is: leopards eat peppers.”

“That’s right. You are a good boy 94. Now go about your business.” 94 turned to 34 with a wistful smile and rolled up the two drawings. “I’ll think of you,” he murmured as he went by the boy’s ear. “Be strong.”

__________

It was still hours before 1094 would be caged again. All the way up the stairwell from D-Level, at each landing, as 94 swung around to the next flight of stairs, his cock swung around as well and slapped his thigh, and at each flight, his cock became just a little bit thicker and heavier, so that, on reaching ground level, his thoughts in the sky, his dick was almost straight out when he nearly ran into a weanling on its way to the stairwell. Both stopped abruptly.

94 recognized the boy but didn’t know its number. He thought for a second and then remembered, this was one of the Harvested, one of the slaves purpose-caught according to the rules of the Game. The boy went to its knees right in front of 94, made signs of subservience and a formal request for the slave’s cock. Obviously, this one was still early in training, as shown by its awkwardness. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” he exclaimed. “Is this the decorum they teach new slaves?” He motioned to the slave to follow him.

94 led the slave out of the building’s foyer and into the garden, took two sidewise steps over a flowerbed and disappeared both of them into a secluded lawn, hedged about by great heaps of trumpet vine. 94 stood with feet apart; the boy, on his knees, touched his forehead to the ground twice and rose to sit on his heels, wrists behind, awaiting permission. “That was very prettily done boy.” 94 had no trouble remembering his own training, his own ordeals. Maybe this one’s ordeal today was to take five loads of cum before first meal. Well, whatever the reason, he’d happily help him. He signaled permission to the slave, and the slave showed him what he’d learned so far.

The slave’s collar number was 1125. He may have heard something about him, gossip in the serai. This might be the one he’d heard about. But now was not the time; he wanted to forget about the boy sucking his cock and think about 34 instead, pretend 34 had his lips around his cockhead and was just now sliding all the way up to the hilt. It made him groan unexpectedly. He looked down at the boy looking up at him and remembered what had been said of him. That he had been banging three different women on a regular basis. One of them had a husband who found out, and so goes the story, had a gun and was on his way to kill the kid. And the hunt team from Fletcher House captured the boy just before he would have been murdered.

It made 94 hot to think this natural cooz hound was on its knees working his cock just perfectly. And there is no perfection in cock sucking without a will. This boy wanted to impress, this could be his final exam and 94 gave him an A+ as he shot what he had left into the boy’s throat. Again, it made 94 glow with pride that he and this boy were part of something so grand and wonderful, something so beautiful and powerful it perfectly bends men to its will and purpose.

As the Harvest slave finished licking up the drool and snot that smeared onto 94’s balls, 94 again summoned the image of 34 in his mind, and the boyish sweetness of his smile. One last slurp of his cockhead and the weanling was done. He bowed from his knees, touching his head once to the ground. 94 smiled down on the slave and said, “You are a good boy. Well done. Thank you. Now, be about your business.” The boy scrambled to his feet, bowed once from the waist, and left 94 standing alone in the garden. Once again, the thought came to him unbidden: There is no place in the world I’d rather be.

He lay down on the grass where he was and thought of 34 and how beautiful and strong he was and how much he’d like his mouth on him right now, everywhere, his nips and lips and balls. He was fully into it after a few minutes of pumping with his hands and hips. Once again, he’d brought the boy to the front of his imagination, licking his throat, smelling his sweat and urgency. His eyes bore into him with need and generosity. With need. With all the joy of a hands-on climax, after years of restraint, 94 squeezed out a pea-sized amount of cum, and his balls ached. 94 lay back on the grass panting. Was this the tenth time he’d cum since last night? twelfth? He would do this again shortly. God, that felt good!

It was the first time in more than three years that 94 had been able to play with his cock freely. There had been stretches that were weeks long when he couldn’t cum, couldn’t get hard. And that was alright, because during all that time he was working at his utmost to please his master, and that was really all the satisfaction a slave needed. To make his master happy was to make this slave happy. Today was a present for being a good slave. Today was a day to feel especially good about being Master’s slave.

__________

The wrangler’s assistant had been instructed; the work order was taped to a box containing a special cage for slave 1094 -- solid silver with gold detailing and an exquisite locking mechanism from Cartier; plush purple velvet lined the inside of the box. As it was, 94 had quit trying to cum after a baker’s dozen. His cock was sore and now it was as small as it would ever get when the assistant finally turned the key in the lock and said, “Sun goes down, another chain tightens. I will trust you to take this key to your master. I think he will be very proud of your new cage.”

94 put the key’s silver chain over his head and under his collar. “Master will just send the key back to you.”

“Of course he will,” the assistant wrangler said. “The wrangler is the keeper of the keys. But it looks better when the castellan can trust the slave with his master’s key.”

94 noticed right off, the cage was heavy for its size. It had a very nice feel to it, and unlike his previous torture cage, this was roomy and comfortable. He liked how it put a constant pressure on his balls. And there may be as much as half an inch of room for his cock to lengthen, and there were no spikes. This was heaven, and his step was light as he climbed the service stairs to the gamekeeper’s office. At the third landing, he approached a service door and reached for the doorbell. 94 stood at attention before the door for ten or a dozen minutes, and then it opened.

It was the gamekeeper himself who stood before the slave. “Ah, good. Come in and stand over here. I wish to see the consequences of your late life of dissipation and idleness. What harm have you not done to yourself?” He walked once around the boy, looking him up and down. “Hey ho, what have we here?” he said, putting his hand around the cage and raising it up as he bent over to look at it closely. The slave squinted its eyes in pain as its balls were squeezed. “Very pretty indeed!” he enthused.

94 handed the gamekeeper 34’s drawings, tightly rolled up. He looked at the boy curiously and unrolled the paper. One glance at the portrait and the look on his face was replaced with pleasant surprise. He held up the picture to a man sunk in a club chair across the room. “Ha!” the other exclaimed. “I know that man.” He looked at the gamekeeper and said, “That’s Thimbleby Meade. You’ve hit the jackpot, Elliott! I’ll warrant you won’t be this lucky again as long as you live.”