I know that you're wounded,
you know that I'm here to save you.
You know I'm always here for you,
I know that you'll thank me later....

I'd rather feel pain than nothing at all.

--Three Days Grace, "Pain"

"Patterns [in tribal societies] simply take shape over centuries, during which generations fumble their way towards satisfying mores and away from destructive ones. As the Romans would say, they are passed onto the young cum lacte, 'with the mother's milk'."

--Huston Smith, The World's Religions

----------

Noah lobbed the slobber-slick tennis ball from one hand to the other as he climbed the stairs to his apartment. Brick bounded up behind him. The brown lab's muzzle was white and spiky like a freezer-burnt pint of chocolate ice cream, but she took the steps like a puppy. Noah seemed to remember the stairs used to give the old girl trouble--problems with her hip--but the memory was oily and fleeting. He had just spent the afternoon tossing the ball around with her in the alley; obviously she had gotten better.

Noah barely had a chance to get the apartment door open when Brick pushed through and darted to the sofa. Jamie was sitting there, staring at his laptop on the living room table. A sinuous bank of thin smoke surrounded him, and an acrid, fertile pungency made Noah's eyes instantly water. Jamie often came upstairs to smoke his weed and avoid his parents; Noah's mom didn't give a shit, as long as he shared. Jamie even  had his own key.

Brick laid her head on Jamie's knee and thumped the floor with her tail. "Who's my favorite bitch?" Jamie murmured, scratching the sweet spot between her ears.

Jamie's pale blond hair bristled like hedgehog quills. His crucifix glinted too-brightly on his shirtless chest, even in the smoky gloom. Where Noah was long and lanky, Jamie was naturally brawny, muscle sheathed in baby fat, with a tendency towards chubbiness, especially in the winter months. Noah flopped down on the sofa next to him.

"Dude, you have to check out this clip," Jamie said, passing Noah his joint. "It's super hot, I swear."

Noah toked and melted into the sofa. Jamie double-tapped the touchpad on the laptop and a video started playing.

The film's graininess and stuttering pixellation artifacts suggested a vintage VHS rip. It took Noah a moment to realize that he was looking at the bedroom in his own apartment. He looked over the screen; the door to the bedroom was closed but light from inside shone through the gap between the door and the floor. In the video, two naked women pawed at each other on the bed: Jamie's twin sister Lexie, and his mom.

"Oh my God, this is so fuckin' hot," Jamie murmured. Noah's cock twitched its agreement.

Lexie's body was everything Noah had always daydreamed--tanned, pert, athletic. His mom's body was everything he already knew, taut and freckled. She pushed Lexie down and climbed on top of her. As she spread Lexie's legs and slid two fingers into the teenager's pussy, Lexie wriggled and opened her mouth. Instead of a warm moan, she made a sound like sneakers on a hardwood gym floor. Skreek skreek skreeeeeek! The sound wasn't coming from the laptop's tinny speakers.

Jamie grunted and rearranged himself on the sofa, taking the joint from Noah's fingers. His crucifix sparkled, flashing halos of light that left afterburns on Noah's retinas.

Brick growled.

On the screen, a huge python slithered out from under the sheets. Noah's mom continued fingerbanging Lexie, both of them seemingly oblivious to the massive reptile. Its scales were covered in elaborate markings like hieroglyphs that writhed as it slid around Noah's mom's back. It flicked out its tongue, hissing like a punctured tire. The snake slowly coiled itself around her neck. She added another finger to Lexie's dripping cunt. Skreek!

Noah's heart raced.

The python squeezed. Inked scales glittered under its bulging tendons. It brought its wedge-shaped head around to Noah's mom's lips. She opened her mouth to gasp for oxygen and the reptile forced its head into her throat. Her eyes rolled back in delight even as the color in her skin began to bleed away.

"You just left me, bro," Jamie said. Noah forced his eyes from the computer screen. His best friend stared forlornly, dead-eyed, back at him. "You left me."

**********

Noah started, waking up to the cool darkness of the workroom. He blinked, squinted, but saw nothing. As the opiate haze of the dream bled away he groaned deep in his throat and his savaged teenage body screamed. Every slice of him cried out in pain. The leather straps binding him to the pole dug into his flesh. His mouth and teeth ached, squeezed apart by the jaw spreader. His shoulder throbbed where Okami had bitten into it. In the skin above the root of his cock the brand, the mark of his owner, had cooled from flickering agony to a dull, stinging ember. His crudely shorn pubes itched. But all that were mere tingles compared to the tremors of pain in his ass and his gut that pulsed with each beat of his heart.

The physical pain, at least, he could fathom. But Noah's mind roiled ceaselessly and whenever he tried to get a handle on his thoughts they slipped away, like he was sticking his hand in water and trying to grab the sea. Part of him burned with shame, his pride and masculinity hollowed away by Okami's massive cock. The shame competed with rage, rage at this john who thought that, because he had a big dick, big muscles, and a big checkbook that Noah Conall was less than him. Rage at himself, at this pussyboy so desperate for attention, for some scrap of relief from his miserable life that he'd turn himself out to another man.

He dangled in the harness.

Okami had named him "beautiful."

Noah didn't think it was a coincidence that his insomnia had broken at the same time that he had blown Okami. But he had no fucking idea what the secret behind the curtain was.

The door opened. The bulb overhead flicked on, flooding the room with light and splintering Noah's vision. "Guhuhuh," he mumbled.

Okami entered, carrying a tray with a covered metal bowl and a carafe of water. He wore a black silk kimono decorated subtly with a pattern of cranes, a fraction of a shade lighter than black. The fabric fell over Okami's broad shoulders like woven water; the hemline fluttered around his calves like waves breaking onto a rocky pier. To Noah, the supple silk seemed to sigh aloud, and the pain that draped his body balled up into a pissed-off knot in his throat.

"Good morning, boy," said Okami. "You slept well."

"Guh." Noah's eyes narrowed.

"Hmm." Okami set the tray down on the floor. The kimono seemed to soak his shoulder blades and made them glisten. He stood in front of Noah and turned the gear keys on the jaw spreader, relaxing the steel and pulling it away from Noah's mouth. Okami returned the spreader to the briefcase while Noah tentatively worked the muscles in his face, wincing as he slid his jaw from side to side. Okami took up the carafe and held it to Noah's cracked lips. "Here, boy. You must be thirsty." He tipped the carafe and allowed a trickle into Noah's mouth.

Noah was thirsty, but the cold water met the hot ball of hate in his throat and steamed. He spat the water back into Okami's face. "You just left me here, you fuckin' faggot psychopath!" Noah croaked.

Okami palmed the water from his face. "Sir."

"What?"

Okami cocked an eyebrow emotionlessly. "'You fucking faggot psychopath, sir'. I've explained to you the respectful way to address me, Noah. I hope you aren't always so cranky in the mornings."

Noah blinked, then laughed hoarsely, one dry, bemused caw. "I'm a teenager, sir. I'm always cranky."

"Nonetheless." Okami held up the carafe again, and Noah nodded. Okami pressed the glass to Noah's lips, and Noah, suddenly grateful, swallowed one thin line of water after another. When half the bottle was gone, Okami replaced it on the tray and took up the bowl, revealing a mound of indiscriminate meaty cubes slathered in a pale, gelatinous slurry. It reminded Noah of a less appetizing version of Brick's favorite dog food.

"That's fuckin' foul, sir."

"It has everything a human needs to flourish, nutritionally. Everything you need, Noah, to start training."

Noah wrinkled his nose skeptically. Okami picked up one cube of the rations and swallowed it himself.

"Yum." He scooped up a portion of the paste in his fingers and held them up to Noah's mouth. The slurry dripped from his hand. Noah's stomach suddenly awoke, growling, just remembering it had been hours--at least a day, if it was truly morning--since he had last eaten. He parted his lips and allowed Okami to feed him.

The rations slithered easily down his throat; a good thing, since his jaw still resisted easy movement. The first few scoops he had to force down, but his hunger quickly overcame his revulsion and he greedily accepted the rest. Bits of the fleshy rations fell onto his freckled chest. Okami wiped them up with his thumb. Noah's full lips glistened as he sucked at Okami's fingers, licking the sauce from his skin. The bowl emptied quickly.

Okami patted Noah's cheek. "Good boy. Just one more thing."

He went to the far wall of the room. As Noah's eyes gradually adjusted to the light, he could see that the wall was covered with a tool-laden pegboard and metal lockers. Okami returned holding a long, thick bullwhip. With his arm at his side the bullwhip's thong dangled on the floor and trailed behind him like a domesticated snake. Noah's throat went bone dry.

"Uh...sir...."

Okami stood behind Noah. He clenched his fingers around the handle and pulled the braided leather through the fingers of his other hand.

"This is for speaking to me disrespectfully."

The muscles in his bicep and forearm striated as he brought the whip up and cracked it down diagonally across Noah's back. Noah forgot to breath from the pain, the bullwhip slicing his skin like a well-forged blade. Needle-fine points of blood escaped from the line across his back.

"This is for wasting water."

Crack! The bullwhip came down again, on the opposite angle, making a narrow red X across his  sixteen-year-old shoulders. Noah shrieked and thrashed in the harness, his legs pumping, his toes curling just off the tiles.

"And these are for my pleasure."

Crack! Crrack! Crrackk! Crrackkk!

Okami brought the whip down four more times on Noah's back. Each bar of the X was defined with three closely-carved lashes. Okami stepped forward and placed his hand on Noah's wet skin, measuring the space between the lashes with the width of his thumb. Okami purred at the carmine geometry.

"Remember, boy: you are always training."

"Uhh huh..." Noah said limply.

"Say it: I am always training."

"I am always training, s-sir."

Okami smiled. "Respectful, and without prompting." Unbuckling the leather straps holding Noah to the harness crossbar, he let the boy collapse onto the cold, hard floor, his naked young body gilded by the bare light from above. Okami returned the bloodslick bullwhip to the wall and stepped over Noah to the door.

"Let's go, boy." He opened the door. Noah didn't move.

"If I have to carry you, boy, I'm going to take you to the Hole--and believe me, that is a place you do not want to go."

Noah slowly untangled his body and planted his palms on the cracked tile, pushing himself standing. He groaned like an old wooden barn door being pushed open for the first time after a long Midwestern winter. He stretched his limbs and stumbled, but Okami grabbed his bicep and steadied him. Okami's fingers fit into the indentation in his flesh where the leather strap had bound him to the bar. A silk sleeve brushed against him teasingly.

They walked along dark paths. As Noah limped next to Okami, the working of his legs made the pain reawaken in his ravaged asshole. Snuffling, Noah bit down on his whimpers. He was grateful when they stopped in front of another door. It was number eight. Noah frowned. The room they had come from was number seven, but they had passed several doors between there and here.

Okami entered a code on the keypad lock, saying each digit aloud as he typed. "Five-eight-eight-five-four. Repeat it, boy."

"Five-eight-eight-five-four."

"Every morning at six you will come down here--assuming you aren't tied up--for your morning exercises. I can't personally oversee every minute of your training, so you'll have to demonstrate your own initiative. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir." Remembering the code would be easy; navigating back here wouldn't.

Workroom eight was identical in size to workroom seven, but the similarity ended there. The brick walls had been whitewashed, and the room was well-lit by long fluorescent bulbs flush with the ceiling; Noah blinked behind his matted cinnamon bangs.  The floor was covered with interlocking rubber squares. Along the side walls were various pieces of athletic equipment: medicine balls in various arranged increments, jump ropes, resistance bands. A speed bag, heavy bag, banana bag, double-end bag, pedestal bag. Pull up bars at different heights. Weighted vests on half-torso mannequins. Kettlebells and dumbbells. A half-dozen gunmetal lockers.

The far wall was dominated by a massive flat-panel television, flanked on one side by a glass-fronted refrigerator, on the other by a closed door. While Noah let his eyes wander over the equipment--it all seemed to him completely brand new--Okami took a flash drive from his pocket and plugged it in to the television's USB port. He used the remote to navigate to the contents of the drive.

The main folder was labeled "company spec-ops phys train series VII." Six folders numbered "1" through "6" nested inside. Okami opened the first, revealing seven video files: S, M, T, W, Th, F, Sa. He clicked T.

"It's Tuesday?" Noah asked, brushing the hair from his face.

"Yes. You've been sleeping almost two days."

Two days?

"Don't expect me to be so generous in the future."

As the video loaded, Okami shrugged off his kimono and hung it on a wall hook. Noah directed his eyes to the floor but his gaze unwillingly kept to Okami's perfectly sculpted body: the tattoos that decorated his arms but kept their secrets, the ridged symmetry of his muscles that no AutoCAD program could duplicate. His dusky skin matched the shade of Phalaris' bronze bull. His massive limp cock swayed at his slightest movement, the sleeping totem of a forgotten deity. Noah was not accustomed to feeling so small.

Okami took his place beside Noah in the middle of the workroom. The video began:

Three people, two men and one woman, wearing nondescript white karate uniforms, in a blank room. Much of the same athletic equipment in Okami's workroom was also onscreen. One of the men--older, brawny, buzzcut--stood in the foreground. All three of the people in the video seemed to lack any affect whatsoever.

"Special-ops physical training module, series eight, level one, Tuesday section," he said, without inflection. "Follow as instructed, without deviation. Do not skip or repeat any instruction. Do not follow instruction out of sequence. Do not skip warmup or cool-down. Rest and hydrate as instructed. Prepare to begin."

"So this is like...uh, P90X?" said Noah. "Sir," he quickly added.

"The concept is similar, yes. The execution, not so much."

The instructor began a series of warmup exercises. He always addressed himself to the viewer, to an anonymous "you." The other two figures never spoke. Okami started to mirror the exercises; Noah followed suit.

It started easily enough, not unlike the simple, generic warmups from gym class. Stretching, jumping jacks, running in place. Both Noah's and Okami's dicks flopped excitedly during the easy cardio, like puppies who sense their after-dinner walk around the block is immanent. Then the instructor began directing them in odd stretches and poses, some mutant yoga. He performed the poses along with them, occasionally placing his hands on the bodies of the other two figures and guiding them in the stretching, using them as models for some of the more intricate positions. They mutely and docilely allowed his hands on their bodies.

Okami followed the direction with precise ease, but Noah quickly found himself struggling to keep up. His heart thudded. Aching, perspiration leaked from his body; as it dripped down his back, it met the wounds where he had been whipped like acid, burning and itching. He didn't dare stop. The tears overflowed from his eyes and diluted the salt in the sweat. Clamping his mouth shut to muffle the crying made his unnaturally-spread jawline ache even more. A sadistic feedback loop.

"Warmup complete. Rest sixty seconds. Hydrate."

Noah's legs wobbled. Okami went to the fridge and brought back water, taking a long draw before handing the bottle to Noah. Noah forgot how to work the muscles in his arm and fingers, fumbling with the bottle.

"Better hurry up, boy," Okami chided him, his arms folded over his swollen pecs.

Noah drank some of the frigid water, then upturned the bottle and drenched himself with the rest. His soaked hair became a rusty helmet.

"Begin primary workout," the instructor droned.

Noah very soon wished he was contorting himself in the warmup stretches. The instructor directed them in a high-intensity sequence of interval training, punishing Noah obscenely with the relentless workout. He had always thought of himself as pretty physically fit, but "Tuesday section" beat the living shit out of him. All of the exercises used only the motion and resistance of his own body--the instructor never directed him to touch any of the equipment. His two assistants performed the intervals robotically. Okami looked bored.

"Pause. Rest sixty seconds. Hydrate. Begin." The instructor's directives flowed numbly through Noah's ears, picked up somehow by his brain like burrs on a hiker's jeans. He could feel every atom of his body throbbing, aching, twisting, begging for swift death. He sobbed like a girl, with abandon. His beautiful young body shone with sweat.

About half an hour into the training, doing burpees along the length of the room, his abs seized up, grand-mal, and he rolled over and puked up his entire breakfast onto the rubber floor. Okami paused the video and looked down at Noah. The boy lay curled on his side, heaving long after his stomach had emptied.

"Please, sir," he said weakly, vomited slurry draped from his lips. "Just fuck me. How does this make me more fuckable?"

Okami's hazel eyes narrowed and he pursed his lips disgustedly. "Do you think I want to fuck a little girl? Answer me, boy."

"Sir, I just...."

"Do you think I like fucking baby girls?"

"No, sir."

"Then stop acting like goddamn infant, Noah. Get a fucking fire lit, boy."

Noah felt it, the fire: just a bare pilot light, in his skull just behind his heavy-lidded eyes. But he felt it. He started to stand.

"Clean that up first, boy." Okami pointed to the glimmering, rubbery pile of upchucked rations.

Noah looked up at him through his shaggy hair. He crawled over to the mess and scooped it up in his hands, shoveling it into his mouth. It was only marginally more foul on the way back down.

Okami nodded. "That's a good boy. Never be wasteful. Come over here."

Noah dragged his sore body over to Okami's feet. Okami grabbed Noah's chin and tilted his head up; with his other hand, he took his own cock shaft and guided his dickhead to Noah's lips.

"Hydrate."

Noah opened his mouth, supplicant before Okami. Okami took a deep breath and let loose a thick spray of piss, filling Noah's mouth. Noah gulped but had trouble keeping up, and warm gold urine splattered down his chin and over his freckled torso.

"I've been saving this for you since I woke up this morning, boy. Never be wasteful."

Noah swallowed. He tried imagining it was Budweiser that had been sitting in the sun all day; but it wasn't Budweiser. Noah swallowed, and swallowed. Finally the stream dried up; Okami tapped out the last drops onto Noah's face, then let his cock go. It smacked back against his rocky thigh damply.

"Are you ready to go on, boy?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Noah stood up. The fire in his skull flared up, fed with the lighter fluid of shame.

"Good." Okami unpaused the video.

**********

The next hour passed in a blur. Pause. Rest. Hydrate. Begin. Twice Okami had to pause the video to remind Noah to breath.

The instructor turned to face the camera. "End Tuesday section. Wait twenty-four hours before beginning Wednesday section." Okami turned off the TV.

Noah wobbled. He blinked at the blank screen. Then he fell onto his knees, sobbing.

A single bead of sweat traversed the crevasse between Okami's pecs.

Noah's pulse beat out a frenzied tattoo. He thought his heart might burst through the threads of his skin.

"Very good, boy." Okami slowly stroked Noah's sweat-slick locks. "Perhaps level one is too easy for you, eh? Level two tomorrow?"

Noah said nothing. His blood pressure roared too loudly for him to speak over it.

"Well, perhaps not. Come, boy, let's get cleaned up."

Okami hooked his hands under Noah's armpits and lifted him to his feet. Noah leaned back against the muscular bulwark of Okami's chest and allowed himself to be half-carried to the doorway next to the television. It led to a miniature locker room: two sinks with mirrors along one side, an open shower bay opposite, with four shower heads. Two urinals, two toilets. A lacquered teak bench divided the room in half. Every surface, floor, walls and ceiling, was tiled gleaming white, a marked contrast to the dark, dingy tiles from workroom seven.

Okami led Noah to the bench. He sat down, spreading his powerful thighs, and guided Noah onto his lap, face down. Noah's breathing had begun to even out, his torso rising and falling rhythmically.

Okami used his index finger to trace the lines of the X he had bullwhipped onto his boy. His fingertip hovered a slice above the flesh.

"Before we shower, we need to discuss something."

"Sir."

"You lied to me."

"Sir...?"

"When I first brought you here. Now, there are so many rules you have to learn--too many to say. Some unspoken, others very explicit. You'll have to learn them in your bones. The second most important rule you have to learn--it comes after you can never say 'no' to me--is that you can never lie to me, Noah."

"I didn't lie, sir."

Okami slid his palm over the hills of Noah's perfect ass cheeks. "But you did. I asked you if you had ever been fucked before. Do you remember?"

Noah's mouth went dry.

"You said you hadn't, that this beautiful, museum-quality ass of yours was cherry." Okami nudged his thumb between Noah's cheeks. "Now, you aren't the first fine thing I've taken pleasure from, though you may turn out to be the finest. I know when a boy's ass has been taken, and boy, your ass has been taken."

"I d-didn't say that...."

"Stop right there." Okami pushed the tip of his thumb into Noah's hole. Noah winced; sucking in air made his teeth and jaw hurt. "Don't. Lie. You have been fucked before. Statement. Not a question."

A tear crept from the corner of Noah's eye. "Yes, sir." He felt Okami's mammoth cock start to push up against his abdomen like a burrowing Jurassic worm.

"More than once. Statement."

"Yes, sir."

"Shall I guess, or will you tell me who?"

"You don't have to guess," Noah mumbled as his eyes burned.

"No, I don't." Okami ran a finger from his other hand along the back of Noah's neck, parting his cinnamon hair like a plow through heather. "Say the name, Noah."

"Mom."

Okami's nostrils flared breathing in an extra draft of the cool, damp air. "Mom. Good old Mary Connall. Man, what a creature."

Noah's heart palpitated irregularly.

"How hung was mommy? How big a strap-on does she use on her pride and joy?"

"I...I dunno. A-average, I guess, sir."

"Mm, so sweet. Just enough to tickle that sweet spot inside her boy. She let you fuck her too, didn't she?"

"Yeah."

Okami pushed his thumb into Noah to the hilt, roughly. His dick had gotten hard enough to slightly lift Noah up off of his lap.

"Yeah, sir." Noah squeaked.

"Amazing. She spread her legs all day, every day, and still came home hungry. But the strap-on was the price you had to pay--going rate for mommy the whore. Did you like it?"

Noah gritted. "No...not really, sir."

"I wonder. But it was worth it?"

Noah exhaled. "Yes."

"Yes." Okami twirled his thumb. "That's something we've shared, then, boy. Your mother's cunt. She craved cock, but I bet she craved yours most of all. Did she whisper in your ear while you were on top, telling you how much bigger you were than the other sloppy, pathetic johns she screwed to get her fix? How much more lovely your body was? Her pillow talk...her pillow biting talk...must have been poetry."

Her legs around his waist, shaft buried, juice-slick. "Ohhh darling...."

"I can only imagine how hard it must have been, Noah. Not the fucking. The silence."

Noah's heart floundered.

"You got to screw the hottest woman in Southie, and you couldn't tell a single solitary soul. Think of the street cred you couldn't bank."

"Yeah." Not even Jamie.

"How much more is there inside you, boy? All those long nights, staring at the whorls and cracks in the ceiling while the rest of the city slept. You're chock-full of dark thoughts, aren't you? So much you can't tell anyone. They'd lock you up, they'd throw you away if they knew all of my boy's secret plots, all of his hidden avenues."

Noah began to cry again, and not because Okami had added two more fingers to his ravaged ass.

"You don't have to lie anymore, Noah. I'm not only telling you that you can't lie. I'm telling you that you don't have to. I own you body and soul."

"I'm a freak," Noah whispered.

"You're my exquisite godling. Unwrap yourself, Noah." Okami let the back of his hand drape across the bullwhipped X."

Noah exhaled raggedly.

I don't have to lie anymore.

"You know, I owe your mom, big time," Okami mused. "She actually began your training. Showing you that you need not be limited by other people's arbitrary morality. That's one part of you that doesn't quite need to be broken."

Okami used his half-buried hand to hold Noah still. He brought the other to Noah's right shoulder. "Still, Noah, mommy's day is over. Now it's daddy's turn."

Okami gently burrowed the heel of his hand against the outer edge of Noah's shoulder-blade. Then, his forearm taut, he swiftly shoved his hand down and popped Noah's arm out of its socket. At the same time Okami pushed his fist into Noah's ass completely, his inked forearm forcing Noah's cheeks apart like a post hole digger.

Noah's eyes gaped and he forgot to scream. His arm dangled uselessly along side Okami's bare leg, as sun-orange flares of hurt radiated from his shoulder.

Okami growled. He pushed his arm further into the sixteen-year-old's hole. Tattoos gradually disappeared. Noah tensed his legs steel-hard and tried not to writhe, knowing it would multiply the pain. Okami's cock insisted against his belly.

"Tell me how much you love it, Noah. How good it feels."

Noah shook his head. Okami pushed another inch of his widening cordwood forearm in.

"Why not?"

"Because that would be a lie," Noah hissed.

"Good boy...."

Okami pulled his arm out of Noah's unlubed asshole with a slurping plop. He spread Noah's cheeks apart and looked at the gaping, raw-red hole.

"I don't think you have a sweet spot to tickle anymore, bitch." Okami's smile closed his eyes. He unceremoniously flipped Noah onto the hard floor. Noah landed on top of his dislocated arm and screamed. The echo resounded in the enclosed room. Okami stood.

His giant dick, fully pulsing, rock hard, jumped up, released from the compression of Noah's lean body. Precum flicked off of his piss slit like Mardi Gras beads flung by a desperate fratboy.

"I'd tell you to shut the fuck up," he said evenly, "but it makes me so hungry."

He bent over and grabbed a fistful of Noah's hair, using it to drag the teenager up and drape him over the bench. When he let go, strands of long red hair remained between his fingers. Noah would've drained right off of the bench if Okami hadn't grabbed his hips. Noah's vertebrae jutted up like a range of hard, triangular mountains. Okami let the thick pipe of his dick rest on Noah's back, his fist-sized nuts hugging the globes of Noah's ass. Noah's hole was so tender that the soft jungle of Okami's pubes sent shivers of pain up his spine.

Noah whimpered, and hated himself for whimpering, which made him whimper more. He couldn't resist; the interval training had more effectively taken away the use of his muscles than being bound to the hanging crossbar had. Even if he wanted to. The thought flashed like neon in his brain: even if you wanted to, pussyboy. He wanted to puke again.

Okami read him. "The rule about not lying," Okami said, licking sweat off of his lips, "means you can't lie to yourself either, boy."

He pushed his cockhead into Noah's hole. Even after being used two days ago, even after being fisted, Noah still couldn't take it easily. He resisted, and Okami had to apply more force. His fingers dug deeper into Noah's hips, pushing the color away from the skin and planting bruises there.

"I can't believe how tight you are, boy." Okami pushed his entire shaft inside Noah with one hard, sustained thrust. Noah shrieked like a factory-farmed piglet.

"The pain will never go away," Okami said as he slowly, with a perverse tenderness, pulled his cock back out. "The shame will, though. I know you can't believe it, now. But eventually I'll breed the shame right out of you."

He clenched his ass muscles and slammed his dick back in, to the hilt. Noah's fingers--from the hand he could still move--scrambled for purchase on the floor. The bright tiles were clean enough that he could make out his own blurry reflection, eyes bulging, Adam's apple bobbing like a buoy in the wake of his screams. "Oh, God!" he cried.

Okami slid his cock out. "God isn't here, boy. Just me. From now on, there's only me." He drove his dick back deep. Slam! Slam! Slamslamslamslam!

Noah's body rocked back and forth with each powerful thrust. Okami picked up the pace, pistoning his wrist-thick cock in and out, balls deep. Sweat, pre, and blood lubed his shaft and each thrust echoed slickly.  Over and over. Noah wanted to pass out, the pain and the shame blossoming repeatedly. He was so close to passing out but each time he thought he might make the leap to darkness he was pulled back, Okami changing up the rhythm or the intensity just enough to drive him off-balance, just enough to confuse his brain away from the edge.

Noah had screamed himself out. His breath came in rippled, tunneled bursts. Okami stopped jackhammering, and Noah looked from side to side in confusion, only half aware of where he was. Okami leaned over and wrapped his arm around Noah's chest, and when he straightened he brought Noah up with him. His bicep cradled his teenager. Okami turned and sat down on the bench, still holding Noah, his bullcock still buried in Noah's gut. Okami grabbed Noah's dangling arm and forced it back into the socket. It clicked audibly, bringing Noah back to full awareness. He tipped his head back and keened.

Okami began to buck up and down, clenching and unclenching his buttocks, making Noah bob in his lap. He wrapped both arms around Noah and played with the teenager's nascent pecs as he corkscrew fucked the boy. Noah leaned his head back against Okami's shoulder.

Sweat channeled down Okami's face. He bent his neck and planted his mouth on Noah's, kissing him heavily, pushing on his teeth with his tongue. He let one of his hands slide down Noah's chest, and could feel the vibrations of his own mammoth cock through Noah's skin and muscle.

Okami purred into Noah's mouth. Noah swallowed his spit like nectar. Okami wrenched open Noah's mouth with his tongue and slid it in, and Noah bit down on it. Hard. Okami grunted but didn't stop bucking his cock up into the boy. Noah's clamped his jaw down and his teeth drew blood and Okami came, his deep roar blocked by the lushness of Noah's lips.

Okami's cock spewed jism up into Noah's belly. The warm stickiness coated him, filled his squirming gut, and he could feel Okami's shaft shudder seismically inside him. His gut couldn't contain the flood of seed--one thick, viscous spurt after another, after another--and overflowed pinkly out of his ass and onto Okami's thigh.

While Okami burst his load, blood from his tooth-pierced tongue filled Noah's mouth. The entire time Okami had been ripping his pleasure out of Noah's body, Noah's cock flopped limply, but as he tasted the coppery tang of Okami's blood his dick stiffened, finding it's full nine inches as if Okami's blood were pulsing into it. Okami used his hand to pry Noah's mouth off of him; blood spilled out from the sides of his mouth. The spatter of it on his chest was indistinguishable from the pattern of his freckles.

Okami felt Noah's raging teencock against his arm. "Now that's my boy."

**********

Steam unfurled around them. All four shower heads sprayed them, the water temperature a sliver below unbearable. Noah could barely stand on his own, so Okami had wrapped him in a full nelson and held him, his nose buried in Noah's rough-cut cinnamon hair. They stood there in silence for some time.

"Ahem."

Okami and Noah both opened their eyes. Frau stood just outside of the shower bay, holding Okami's kimono as well as a thick white towel folded over her arm. Noah felt his cheeks burn crimson, Okami essentially holding his naked body on display for the woman.

"Doushita, Frau, nan-ka youkane?" he said.

If she was disconcerted, by her employer's nakedness or his boy's, she didn't show it. "Ojamasite mousiwakegozaimasen. Dai juu-yonn sagyousitu ni irassharu okyakusama ga...nanika ochitsukanai goyousu desite...."

"Naruhodo. Dewa hanashiwo site miyou."

"Arigatougozaimasu." She bowed slightly.

Okami unmeshed his fingers and let Noah from his grip. Noah's muscles screeched, but he didn't tumble. Okami took the towel from his secretary and began drying his godlike body.

"Frau," he said, "take Noah upstairs and get him ready to go out. I'm taking him to see the Tinker."

"Of course, Mr. Okami." She held out the kimono. Okami turned his back to her and allowed her to place it on him.

He handed the damp towel to Noah. "In my absence," he said, "you should consider everything Frau says to you to be in my own words. Disrespect her, and you disrespect me. You do anything she tells you, boy. If she wants to shit in your mouth, you spread your lips. Understand?"

Noah nodded. "Yes, sir."

"I'll be with you shortly." He knotted the kimono's sash and walked away. His body was still just damp enough that the curvature of his ass stuck to the silk and rippled as he left.

"Don't fret, Mr. Connall," Frau said. "I have no desire to shit in your mouth."

Noah breathed again.

**********

Two things were being kept in workroom fourteen: a padlocked chest freezer, and Jamie.

Noah's friend still wore the cargo shorts and Adventure Time tee shirt he had left the house in two days before. A chest harness had been strapped over the shirt and secured to the workroom wall with a length of Kevlar cable. The shirt was ripped in a dozen different places where he had tried to claw the harness off; he gouged his skin and ripped three of his fingernails off, but the harness showed no scratches. Jamie's dishwater blond hair looked like a bipolar bird's nest. His eyes were red-rimmed.

Okami entered the room, and stepped in a pile of uneaten oatmeal that Jamie had flung against the wall. A raisin lodged between his toes.

Jamie rushed at the door; the cable gave a couple feet of leeway before yanking him back. Jamie's voice, normally sweetly high-pitched, had become asthmatic from screaming. "I want out of here, fucker! I'm an American citizen! I have fuckin' rights!"

Okami tilted his head and examined the boy. "I appreciate your passion, James, but in my house, you have no rights."

"Let. Me. Out!"

"I understand that you've been giving my secretary some trouble. I'd hoped that you'd be more docile."

"What do you want from me, asswipe?"

"You may come in useful in a little project of mine. I'm not sure, but I want to keep you on hand, just in case."

"Keep me on hand?"

"I could sedate you, but that brings up a number of different concerns."

"Sedate this." He flipped Okami off, both hands.

Okami smiled, showed his teeth. He went over to the chest freezer and spun the padlock open. He opened the lid, and icy tendrils wafted into the workroom.

"Let me convince you to be rational."

He reached inside.