Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 00:12:26 BST From: Jack Rowan Subject: Story of Tol - part 4 ------------------------------------------------------------------ THE STORY OF TOL - part 4 This story includes descriptions of sexual relations between adult men, and between an adult man and a 16/17-year-old teenager, including bondage and SM. If the law in your jurisdiction says that you're too young to be reading this, then I suggest very strongly that you should obey the law. There are more notes about the story at the start of part 1 and the end of part 9. The Story of Tol is copyright. Copy it for your own use if you wish, archive it if you wish, make it available through the web if you wish, but please credit it to Jack Rowan, don't change it, and include this copyright note. And don't publish it for profit, or charge for accessing it. Comments will be very gratefully received by Jack_Rowan@hotmail.com Most authors like to receive comments. It's the only way we know that anyone is even reading the stories, and it's all the payoff we get. ====================================================================== THE STORY OF TOL by Jack Rowan 4 Wise Doubt ------------- 14 The weeping continued, it seemed for hours, and I couldn't stop it. I wasn't thinking or regretting, I was simply lying there, empty and weeping, as the trees hissed and roared. The rain stopped at last, and the moon shone down lividly upon me as I lay, still weeping and shivering in the chill breeze. Finally another car arrived, and another man mounted the steps. I shrank from him. I heard a sigh. "You had best come inside," he said, not unkindly. He knelt and freed my leg. Shakily I rose, and he held my arm. I felt so relieved to see him, so unutterably glad not to be alone that I cowered against him, and he hugged me with one arm. "Come on lad, now, don't cry, come inside, let's get you warm..." His words were comforting, but the weeping just got worse. He fumbled a key, and then we were in a large hall, and he clicked on the lights. Without a word, he sat in a chair against the wall. The air was warm, and the carpet soft and caressing to my knees as he pushed me to the ground between his legs. He released my gag, and then I was facing his dick, erect, pointing towards my mouth. "Suck me. Come on, lad, make me feel good." His hands held my head gently. It was the first time I had ever done this. But I was so grateful, so glad for this touch of another human being that, still weeping, I willingly obeyed. His dick slipped between my lips, and I caressed it with my tongue, as I liked it myself, let him slide back. He was not enormous, but I lacked the skill to take him fully. He did not force me, but all the time stroked my head. I sucked and caressed, and in no time, it seemed, he shot, and I swallowed as fast as I could. When he withdrew, I felt bereft. "First time you did that?" I nodded. "Never did it for young Chernik?" I shut my eyes, as grief flooded over me. "No, never." "Well, well. Come on, son." He stood, and lifted me up. He was a tall man, about 40, with wavey brownish hair and a kind but rather serious face. "I am Alan. You should call me sir." "Yes, sir." He led the way into a room leading off the hall; a sitting room. In a moment he was facing me with a heavy metal collar in his hands. I was still weeping as he fixed it round my neck. "This is a control collar. I can trigger it from this device." He showed it to me, hanging from his belt. "It also triggers if you take the device from my belt. Also if you leave this house. And when it triggers, this is what happens." I shrieked, and instantly lost control of my limbs. I was on the floor, flopping like a landed fish. He was beside me, holding me, helping me, and gradually I calmed. "Let's hope I never have to do that again. But you will obey every instruction I give, immediately, without discussion, or I will do it, without hesitation. Do you understand?" "Yes..." "Call me sir. Don't forget again, or I will punish you. Now." He helped me to my feet. "Let's get these off you." He undid my wrists, and I stretched my arms gratefully. "Come with me. I am a doctor. Let's look at that cheek, before we go to bed." He led the way to his surgery, where he inspected and washed the cut carefully. "It isn't serious. I'll just put this plaster on it; you'll be okay in a few days. I don't think it needs any stiches, we can hold it together like this." His kindness just seemed to make me weep more and more. He smiled at me. "I'll give you a full checkup tomorrow. Now come with me." I followed him along the corridor and down some steps to a basement. Another cell, much like the first. "Get some sleep, son. It'll be a hard day tomorrow." He locked me in. I took a drink of water from the basin in the corner and collapsed on the bed. I think I was asleep before my head touched the pillow. - 15 When I awoke, the light was still on, and there was absolute silence. The cell was painted white. It was cool, but not cold. There was a table, a washbasin and a toilet, and the bed I was lying on; nothing else, no windows. I had stopped weeping. I stared at the ceiling, my mind refusing to function at all. The awful storms of the last few days had passed away, it seemed, and a calm had descended on me, a flat, featureless sadness. Hours, maybe, a long time, passed; I felt myself stationary and divorced from life. Finally, the door rattled and opened, and Alan came in. "I've let you sleep," he said. "You must have been tired. Here's your breakfast; eat it, and I'll be back shortly." He left, and suddenly I felt ravenously hungry. The tray he had left had only bread, a piece of cheese and an apple, and a glass of milk. I devoured them, filled the glass with water and drank again. Then I used the toilet and washed my face. There were no clothes; unsure, I lay down again, still unable to think. After a while he returned. "Come along. First thing; let's check you over." He led the way back to his surgery. It was daytime, and a pale, watery light fell through the windows. "Now let's see." He checked me over rigorously, a full physical examination, blood samples, the lot. He asked me the usual simple questions, and I answered easily. I felt obscurely comforted by these cool, detached transactions. "We'll get the samples checked, but unless there's anything there, I should say you were in fine shape. You haven't been fucked much, have you?" The question surprised me. "Er - no sir, never." "Really? Well." He looked at me. "Okay, lad, come on, we'll let you clean yourself up." He led the way to a bathroom, and left me to shower and shave myself. When I had finished I simply stood waiting till he returned, feeling nothing. - 16 We were in a long room on the first floor. On one side, tall windows were open. A pale white sunlight, devoid of warmth, fell across the room, and long gauze curtains shifted in the breeze. I could hear the trees outside moving quietly. We walked together along the room, the carpet soft beneath my naked feet. The whole end wall was a mirror, and beyond our reflections, coming closer, I could see the twin of the room. The flicking gauze curtains, behind me and in front, were disorienting. I felt lost. I stood staring at myself. I hadn't often seen myself complete and naked, and it suddenly struck me as odd that that was me. That object was me. Behind those eyes the thoughts and feelings that were me took place. The object was different from the other object, similar but different, which was Alan. For a while I was lost in the mystery of identity; quite dispassionately considering how it could be that both of these images were people, yet only one of them had that particular significance: me. Alan was looking over my shoulder at mirror with me, and I felt his hand rest on my shoulder. "Sir," I whispered, "What's going to happen to me?" "I don't know. That's what we have to find out." "Are you going to - to punish me?" "No. I'm just going to find out about you, that's all. Punishment - and there will be punishment - comes later." Even at this threat I could felt no resistance; just the sadness, pressing on me more and more heavily, weighing me down. I felt tired, tired right to my soul, and the thought of continuing, of carrying on with the burden of living, was almost unbearable. "Sir, please... please let me die. Please, just tell them I don't want to carry on..." For a moment he said nothing. "You're not much more than a boy, are you?" We looked at the reflections in silence. I wished I didn't exist. "Look at me." He turned me towards himself, and I looked up into his eyes. I was almost a head shorter than him. He looked at me for a long time. I was suddenly amazed at how small I was. "Come. Let's begin." He led me to a long table, patted it. I got on to it. The rushing noise of the trees suddenly filled me, and gently he pressed me down onto my back, and pulled my arms above my head. When I felt the shackles clamp onto my wrists, I wasn't even surprised. He pulled my knees up and apart, and then he was lubricating my arsehole. I wondered briefly if he was going to fuck me, but even this didn't arouse any resistance or feeling at all. He held something in front of me; steel, shiney, vaguely dick-shaped. "This may be a bit uncomfortable," he said. "Try to relax." Then he firmly pressed it into me. It stabbed agonisingly, but the pain soon disappeared. He attached a wire to it, and I felt other things being attached to me, to my dick and balls. He pulled my legs out and shackled them too. "We're going to spend a lot of time here over the next few weeks," he said. "We're going to find out all about you. We're going to go over the whole of your life, over everything that happened. And you're going to tell me everything." "Sir..." For the first time, something was getting through to me, and I was alarmed, and then terrified. The thought of telling him everything was inexpressibly horrible. I felt the beast writhe within me... "Yes," he said. "It won't be pleasant. It'll be pretty hard. That's why we need this stuff, this electric gear. I can pass shocks through your dick and balls, through your prostate. I can cause you so much pain that you won't believe it's possible. You'll think you're going to explode, you'll think you're going to die. But you won't. You'll just go on and on in agony till you tell me." "Oh god, sir..." He smiled at me. "I'm a sadist," he said. "You understand. Oh yes, I think you do, don't you? Then you'll know that I'll enjoy it, lad, just like you did. I'll enjoy it." I couldn't speak, because I did understand. He laughed slightly. "Then let's start." But the questions were not hard; just my historical data, my career, my family life. It went on, moving from subject to subject, and I fell for the first time into the strange kind of compliant daze which I came to recognise well over the next weeks. The shifting curtains and the sound of the trees was almost hypnotic, and I just answered as I could. His voice, always, was gentle, quiet, and insistent. Then suddenly, out of the blue: "Tell me, Tol: Who was Duncan?" I screamed. The response was unthinking, automatic. Answering was out of the question. "Yes. Who was he, Tol?" I looked at him in horror, unable to speak. He looked into my eyes for a long while. Then it started. It was like nothing I had ever felt; it started from my groin, my belly, but filled my entire body, an orgasm of pain. Every cell seemed to be in agony. Every muscle tensed. I couldn't breath, I couldn't scream, I couldn't move. Thought was impossible. It went on for seconds, minutes, hours, I couldn't tell. It was an alien state, a different form of existence. Then it ended. I felt myself take a breath, and then scream. And while I was still screaming, I heard his voice: "Who was he, Tol?" I couldn't answer, and it started again. He did it maybe five or six times, and then I started to talk. My voice ran away with me, words tumbling out, thoughts, memories and ideas mixed and jumbled, incidents in our friendship, things not remembered, repressed, for years, feelings, conversations... It went on and on, entirely outside my control, and appalled, I felt myself cracking, my identity crumbling, things held down bursting out, flooding out of me, secrets stripped and flayed, the contents of horrible corners of my mind dumped out, spread out in the light. It went on and on. He didn't interrupt, he didn't question, he just let it happen, staring down into my eyes, and beyond him I could see the curtains still flapping and the pale, cool sunlight. Finally it stopped, and for long moment there was silence. Then he kissed me gently on the forehead, and left the room. - 17 I started to weep again, not the quiet, hopeless weeping of the day before, but screaming, shrieking tears of pain and rage. My mind and my feelings were a turmoil, I was out of any kind of control, I thrashed and wrenched at the shackles. It was the fury of violation. How dare they? I felt all my defences cracking, everything I had built to shield myself from myself, from the beast. So quickly! I looked into the future and saw that they would grind me away on this table, grind me into dust... The shackles resisted me, and I collapsed, beaten, growling through gritted teeth. I don't know how long it was, minutes or hours, before he returned, and undid my shackles. The moment he had finished I hurled myself at him. I felt the wires snap, the steel dildo wrenched out of me, but I was beyond caring, teeth bared, howling, set upon maiming and killing. Without any difficulty he held me off, and then felled me with a blow to the belly. I fell to the floor, writhing. "Come over here!" he yelled, grasping my head beneath one arm and pulling me. He was incredibly strong, far stronger than he looked, and before I realised what was happening, he was sitting in a chair, and I was pulled over his lap. I felt a click as my hands were cuffed, and then he started to spank me. "This is what happens to spoilt little boys who lose their temper!" he yelled, hitting me as hard as he could. I had often been spanked by my parents, but never like this. I was in agony, but refused, utterly refused to show it, to make any sound. "Silly, baby boys who can't take their medicine! Nasty, dirty little boys with nasty, dirty little secrets!" He hit me with every word, and what he said and the position I was in shamed me beyond bearing. "Evil little boys, who lie and cheat! Cowardly bullying little boys! Horrid, vile, smutty-minded boys who look at other little boys' privates! Slimy, nasty little boys who abuse themselves with their slimy, smelly little dicks!..." He went on and on. He pulled the belt from his trousers and beat me harder and harder, on and on, but still, full of fury, I managed to resist. For some while he had been silent, but now he spoke again, as he continued to beat me. "You're all alone, Tol! Mummy and Daddy are dead! They're dead Tol, and there's no one left to help you. No one cares if you live or die! All alone! Just poor little Tol, all alone, all alone in all the whole wide world, and nobody cares!" Suddenly pain, pain beyond all bearing started to rise up within me, the pain of loneliness and desertion and self-hatred, and I screamed and started to sob. He stopped, and gathered me into his arms as I wept. "Yes, yes, that's it. That's it, now. Let it out, lad, don't stop now, let it all out..." He held me with one arm and stroked my hair with the other, and I cried into his shoulder like a child. - 18 I was making tea, and he was cutting bread. It was strange after what we had just done, but everything was strange. I was just taking things one-by-one, not thinking, just going ahead. My mind and feelings seemed numb, but this English ritual was comforting. "The teacups are in that cupboard, and the tray's over there." I set the things out. He added a plate of bread and butter. "Let's go through." He led the way into a small sitting room, still on the first floor. The windows were open and the sound of the trees, always that sound, filled the room. Never since have I been able to hear that sound without going back to those strange, cool days. He poured the tea and handed me a cup, smiling. I put it down and looked at him for a long moment. "Sir, I - I don't know..." "Just go with it, lad. Don't try to think. Let me do that." I just looked at him. "It's going to be hard. Really hard, sometimes. But I know what I'm doing. Trust me." I sighed. He smiled at me again. We drank tea in silence. "Tol! Look! Come over here!" He spoke suddenly in a low voice, getting to his feet. "Over here!" We looked out of the window, and below us a fox was moving across the lawn. Its gait was unmistakeable, the long legs seeming to dance as its pointed face cast around. "So close!" he said. I was suddenly fascinated by it, its beautiful russet colour, how intent and unconscious it seemed, how utterly wild. "It's a vixen!" he said. "Look at her dugs. She's got cubs somewhere!" He stood behind me, his hands on my naked shoulders. The vixen ran to the back of the lawn and up an embankment, and there she seemed to wait. "Quiet! There they are!" One-by-one, the three cubs emerged from the undergrowth. Their mother butted them with her nose, and then all four of them were rolling over each other, down the embankment, and then jumping, running, tumbling, snapping across the lawn in the evening sun. "Wow!" I whispered. "Oh, wow!" "Take us the foxes," he said, "The little foxes, that spoil the vines..." We looked at each other, and I started to weep again. He folded me in his arms. - 19 That very evening he took me back to the long room and continued with the interrogation. The next day he resumed, and the next, and on and on; every day we spent seven or eight hours there, and the days turned into weeks. His questioning was minute and detailed. Where was your left arm? What were you thinking right them? Why did you say that? Show me how he said that, what tone of voice did he use? Try again. Do it again. Tell me again where you had your right hand. And on and on. Inside me there was one part which was screaming in anguish as I talked and talked. But the rest of me had turned collaborator, had capitulated. Even the slightest hesitation plunged me into agony; he permitted no resistance at all; and after the pain stopped, infallibly everything would tumble and pour out of me, completely uncontrolled. Sometimes, when it got too painful and too slow, he would do it anyhow, just to loosen me up. There was no escape. I was helping him to destroy me. We went over everything that had happened, all the earlier incidents of my life; and then everything that had happened with Aron, every blow, every cut of the whip, every scream. Nothing that had happened to me, nothing I had done or thought, remained private. And he knew all about the beast, that other me, that deep and true me, which I had controlled so tightly and so long, but which had asserted its sovereignty in the end. Each night I lay in my cell alone, but my mind refused to function. I could feel things changing and shifting, terrible things happening inside me, but after a day's ferocious concentration, rigorously enforced, I would be exhausted, and I would lie, staring at the ceiling, inert. My dreams were chaotic, fragmented and incomprehensible, and I dreaded them; only my exhaustion enabled me to sleep, and I woke as tired as the night before. He was without mercy or remorse. He paid no attention to my tiredness, he had no respect for my pain. When I wept he would hold me kindly and comfort me, occasionally kiss my forehead or lips; but he continued, he always continued. I saw that he was enjoying the work. Sexually I was a nullity. I hadn't even got hard for weeks. Every evening, after the supper we would prepare together, we would go into his sitting room, where he would play music, either himself on the piano (he was an excellent musician), or on his sound system. Sometimes, instead, he would read to me. I would stare at the wall, glad of the respite, but barely there as a person. - 20 "You need to see something." It was one evening after supper, in the sitting room, and for the first time he turned on the TV. He slid a tape into the video machine, and started it. A large room, columns and chandeliers, full of people in evening dress. The hum of many voices, the clink of glasses and laughter. The camera was above them, on a balcony, I realised, looking down. "Slovian national day, at the Slovian Embassy," said Alan. "Look." My guts clenched. I knew what I would see. And there he was, with Maxim. Maxim was in a dinner jacket, but Aron was in full Slovian national dress. I could see the intricately embroidered shirt and coat, and beneath that the tight black tousers and soft leather shoes. On his head was an embroidered hat with a pom-pom. I cried out. He looked exotic, as beautiful as a wild animal, utterly remote and unattainable. They were approached by a tall bearded man with decorations. Maxim bowed his head, while Aron removed his hat and gave a full, almost eighteenth-century obeisance. The man smiled and lifted him with a hand; the camera zoomed in. The man was talking, and then laughing. I started to weep. "That's the Slovian ambassador," said Alan. The camera cut, and now Aron was by himself, with two men, one a bit older than himself, blond and very beautiful; the other dark, cool and handsome, rather older. "That is Tim, a friend of Aron's, and his Master, David." They were talking, gesticulating, laughing. The way they were with each other told me that they were very close. "You could have been there with them, Tol. You could have been standing right beside him, and they would have made you welcome." Aron was talking confidentially in Tim's ear, and then they both bent back and laughed, while David mimed annoyance. They all laughed. I was weeping uncontrollably. Then, one-by-one, they kissed him lightly and left, and a moment later he was joined by another man, tall and dark. "This is Vladek," said Alan. "He is a Slovian Master." Aron bowed to him, and they talked, and I could see that this was a different kind of friendship. The camera was full on Aron's face, and his eyes were glistening. He stood with his arms by his side, as Vladek spoke. Then he bowed his head, and Vladek kissed his forehead. The older man put his hand on Aron's shoulders and led him away gently. I screamed and fell to the floor. "Yes, that's the one," said Alan. "He will be Aron's Master now. He's the one who will have him, enjoy his screams... enjoy his body... He's the one he will love and serve..." I had my hands on my ears, but I could still hear him. "They've forgotten you, Tol, it's all over. You're history!" I flung myself at him, but he easily overpowered me, and moments later, cuffed and helpless, slumped in the sofa, I was watching the video again, as Alan yelled at me. "Face it, Tol! Face it! There's nothing left for you there! They never even think about you any more! It's all over! You had your chance, and it's all over!..." And again he showed it, again and again, sitting beside me now, stroking my hair, kissing my head, telling me again and again, as I wept. - 21 I always told him the truth, except once. There didn't seem to be much point in lying to him. He knew so much about me now, he would easily be able to tell. In any case, I didn't want to. I had no resistance to him, I just gave and gave. The pain only came now when I delayed slightly, trying to order my thoughts. He didn't want ordered thoughts. He wanted complete spontaneity. Sometimes I couldn't remember, and then the pain came. What I said after the pain may have answered his questions, I don't know; it was always completely out of my control. But he was always satisfied, and moved on. That one time, I lied. I can't even remember what he asked me; I don't know why I lied. I had had a dreadful night, tormented even more than usual by the dreams, and something flared up in me, some flicker of resistance, and I simply said something I knew was untrue, hoping to annoy him. "That was a lie, boy, wasn't it?" I paused, wrestling with myself, and he held my head. "It was, wasn't it?" "Yes - yes sir." What was the point of denying it? "Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of the pain." He smiled. "I'm going to enjoy this." It started, and I was in the hell I knew so well, but it went on and on. It was like the dreams, but worse, more intense; my whole self seemed to be collapsing and draining away. My body was rigid, as always, and felt as if my bones were cracking from it, my skeleton crumbling. I couldn't breathe. Time meant nothing, but I realised that it was going on far, far longer than it usually did, and the thought flashed for a moment that this was how I was going to die, finally. Then it stopped, and I flopped, my arms and legs convulsing, my lungs gasping frantically for breath. Then I screamed, and I was aware of his face above mine, staring into my eyes, smiling, his hand stroking my hair. "Seventeen and a half minutes to go. Again." It continued. I felt as if I was being flattened, caged in and crushed, as if a huge weight, a huge mass of blackness was descending on me, on my face, and I couldn't breathe or move. In the end the blackness overwhelming my confusion, and I faded out. I came to with him holding me, sitting. He fastened me down again, laughing gently. "Again. Fourteen minutes to go." This time I seemed to fade out more quickly, and when I came to I was choking, vomiting over myself, over the table, as he held me. "You're doing well, lad. Only twelve minutes to go. But I'd better let you rest for a while." He fastened me down and left me. For a moment I felt blank, and then my whole being was wiped out with fear. For weeks I hadn't feared; since that terrible night when they caught me I hadn't cared what would happen to me. But this was different. It wasn't death I was fearing, it was the pain, the confusion, the awful, unbearable feeling of being crushed. I would do anything, say anything, to avoid it. My whole body was shaking with terror. When he came back, I screamed at him. "No more, sir, please, I'm sorry sir, I'll never do it again, please, I'll do anything, please, I can't bear it..." "Twelve more minutes. You're going to do this, lad. It's going to happen..." And it started again, the agony, the confusion and the awful crushing. He did it again and again; ten minutes to go, seven and a half, four and a half. Every time my mind was broken, and now, in the intervals, I didn't return, not completely, I couldn't tell what was happening, I gasped, I didn't understand where I was, why, even who I was. Finally, I suppose, he must have finished. I became aware that I was in my bed in my cell, and he was holding me. "We'd better take a break for today. Okay now? Back with us?" I held him and wept. I was lost. "You're so beautiful when you're hurting, Tol. So beautiful..." - 22 One morning, as I was getting onto the table, the phone rang. Alan turned away. "Damn. I'd better get that." And then, as he left the room: "Wire yourself up, lad, you know the way." I stared at the door after him. I did know the way; after so long, of course I did. And after a few moments, I obeyed. Something inside me protested, but I did it. The steel dildo first; for that, he used a dab of conductive jelly. I eased it into myself, and for the first time in weeks, I felt a glimmer of sensuality in the action. I twisted it slightly, and my dick started to harden. I made the conection with the control box. Then it was the electrodes, along the skin from my arsehole to my dick, one, two, three, each held in place with a special adhesive, each connected up. One on each testicle. One at the base of my dick, and two, one on either side of the glans. I fixed them all, and by now my dick was rigid, there was even a drop of precome on the tip, and suddenly the urge, the ravenous hunger for relief, for orgasm, fell on me, and I started to shake. But I didn't stop. I didn't want this. It was all in the past, all over. I moved away, taking care of the connections, and shackled my ankles. Then I lay back. Using my right hand I was able, working blindly, to shackle my left wrist above my head; that was all, and I still had to grit my teeth to stop myself from giving in to the frantic insistance of my body that I should beat off. By the time he returned, maybe ten minutes later, I was groaning and writhing, but I still hadn't given in. "Oh thank you, lad. Just the right hand, then..." He shackled it, and I was safe. "Sir..." "Oh, yes, I see." I was still rock hard. "But you didn't, did you?" "No, sir." "Then here's a small prize, for a boy who was brave and obedient." I glowed and even smiled at his praise, and then he took me in his mouth. It took only two or three movements, gliding as if in heaven along his tongue, and then I shrieked and came. I don't think in all my life before or since, that I have had a more intense orgasm; my entire body seemed to pour out of my dick, my body and limbs were in rapture, lights flashed in my eyes, and then I fainted. When I came to, he had released my arms and was holding me. "There. That's good. That's good..." Inevitably, I started to weep. It didn't matter what he did to me, I wept. When he was kind, when he was cruel; when he woke me up and when he put me to bed, when I showered or ate. Later, I would sometimes laugh instead; laugh wildly, madly, almost hysterically. Or I would fly into a fury, screaming and trying to attack him. It always ended the same way, with him holding me and comforting me. Then it was back to the table, to the torture. After that day, I started to get hard often. He took to shackling me to my bed at night, so that I could get no relief, and binding my hands behind me during the day. Occasionally he would beat me off, usually lying on the table; often, afterwards, he would use the electrodes to torture me viciously. Summer moved in autumn, and one by one the trees outside turned russet, fox coloured. - 23 He was playing the piano; Scarlatti sonatas. As usual in the evenings I was staring at the wall, my mind a blank, the neat structures of the music running through me. "Would you like to play?" He knew, of course, that I had played the piano, that I had been good, very good. Of course he knew; he knew everything about me by now. And he knew that I hadn't played for eight years; not since Duncan. I looked at him. "Come on, lad. Give it a try." He smiled at me. Suddenly I wanted to, I wanted to a lot. I moved to him, and he undid my handcuffs. I sat at the piano. I had played this. The music was familiar, and I stretched out my hands over the keyboard. It felt so strange, my fingers felt loose and unpractised, but larger than I remembered. I played a few chords experimentally. The instrument was beautiful and responsive, smooth and powerful. I moved into the piece he had been playing, taking up where he had left off, and my fingers followed the lines of the music easily and precisely. I was coming to the end of a page, and he turned for me at just the right moment as I played on. I played on and on, sonata after sonata. For the first time in many weeks I was blissfully, autonomously happy. Finally I came to the right place, and stopped. I looked up at him and smiled. And as he took me into his arms and kissed me on the lips I felt I would faint from happiness. Then I knelt, and without him asking, I unzipped him and took him in my mouth. He was soft but rapidly hardened inside me, a bewitching feeling, and his hands lay on my head. I used everything I could remember from those who had done this to me, I licked round his head, parting the lips of his slit, I caressed the under side, I moved him back in my mouth, and then miraculously my throat opened and I swallowed him. He was gripping my curls with both hands now, urging me up and down, and I took him into my throat on every stroke, and then, deep within me, he came. I swallowed everything he gave me. It took no more than five minutes, but for me it was an epiphany. It was the first time in my life that I had made a gift of sex, working for the pleasure of the other; the first time I had cared in the slightest for a partner's pleasure, and huge, open vistas seemed to spread out before me, unexplored landscapes of excitement. I looked up at him and smiled. "And now you," he said, but I shook my head. "No. Not this time." He lifted me, and we kissed, fully kissed. Then he looked at me, and I was astonished to see tears in his eyes. "You've become very dear to me," he said, and I felt a great loneliness in him, a great distance. "And you to me," I whispered; and at that moment, it was true. "But now," and he moved away from me, "We've finished." "Finished?" "What we've been doing is over. Come. I'll put you to bed. Tomorrow you'll be meeting someone else." "Sir," I said, and I felt my tears rising, "You aren't going to send me away?" "My part is over. Perhaps... perhaps later we may meet again." My happiness was collapsing into loss and confusion. As we walked to my cell I felt like a prisoner being led to execution. "Goodbye, Tol." I fell on my bed and bawled. I heard the door being locked. - 24 I was woken the next day by another man. He was wearing military- looking clothes, and I thought I recognised him; possibly one of Maxim's guards, I couldn't be sure. I looked at him in confusion and fear. "Here," he said, putting some clothes on the table. "Get dressed." A tee-shirt and a pair of jeans; no shoes or underwear. I put them on quickly. "Come with me." I followed him, terrified. He led me to a room I hadn't been in before, a small office, and there, waiting for me, was a woman. She was tall, and her height was emphasised by the long black dress she wore, and her vast cloud of black hair. Her black eyes pierced me. She was utterly formidable. I stood, thunderstruck. "My name is Chris," she said. "You should call me 'ma'am'." "Y-yes, m-ma'am." "Good. Wait outside, please, Jan. Sit down, young man." I sat on one side of the desk, and she sat facing me. "Now. I am a clinical psychologist, and a Mistress. I have spent the last week or more reading the transcripts of your sessions with Alan. You can take it that I know all about you." "Y-yes, ma'am." "Oh, come on, ease up a bit, Tol! I'm not going to hurt you. We're going to talk, that's all." "Yes, ma'am." I looked at her, and found that she was smiling. It was an infectious smile, somehow complicit. For some reason I felt I could trust her, and I found myself smiling back. Bright autumn sunlight shone through the window. I felt a sudden urge to be up and doing, to take action. "Do you know what that is?" She gestured behind her to another large mandala, mostly grey, with flashes of white and blue. "I suppose it's another of those mandalas, ma'am." "It's called _Wise Doubt_. It stands for care, suspicion. Also for doctors. It's Alan's mandala. He's very careful, is Alan." There was the slightest touch of condescension in her voice, and I bridled. "Master Alan has been very good to me!" She laughed. "Oh, perfect! You're a complicated sort of bloke, aren't you? But in some ways everyone is predictable. My dear boy, Alan has done what he did, and he did it superbly well. I'm glad you like him, even love him in a way, because he's a good man. But he has NOT been 'good to you', and if had been, he'd be no damn use at all!" "Ma'am!" "He's been torturing you daily for weeks, and still you love him!" She laughed. "Tol, that man is a genius, and my admiration for him knows no bounds. Is that enough for you?" I blushed. "So. What have we found out, in all these days and weeks of torture and interrogation?" She looked at me, and waited. "Ma'am..." I was in a quandary. For weeks I'd been asked questions, and Alan had allowed me not a moment to think about my answers. Now thought was required, and I couldn't do it. "Yes. Hard, isn't it? We need to move from the particular to the general, and that's hard. Suppose I put it like this. Aron Chernik..." Just the name was enough. I buried my face in my hands and started to weep. "Um. You're still pretty labile, aren't you? That's Alan, again. Look, you'd better have one of these." She pushed a pill across the table, and I took it. "Okay. You'll settle a bit now." She started again. "Aron Chernik asked you why, didn't he? Well? Have you got anywhere to answering that?" I looked at her, trying to steady myself. "I'm - not sure. But, you see, there's this thing in me. It - wants that. And all my life..." "All your life you've tried to control it, yes. Why? Why did you try to control it, Tol?" "I knew it would do terrible things, things that were terribly wrong and..." "Rubbish, Tol, complete rubbish! We'll never get anywhere if you just tell me what you think I want to hear!" She leant across the table. "I know you better than anyone. Better than you do. Better even than Alan, bless him, because he's a man for seeing trees, not woods." My eyes fell, abashed. "Tol, you and I know that you didn't give a fuck for what's wrong or right. So why did you try to control 'the beast', as you called it?" I closed my eyes for a moment, and then forced myself. "I was frightened what people would do." "Thank you. Anything else?" "And... I was ashamed." "And what - precisely - do YOU mean by ashamed?" I stared at her in amazement. It was something I had never asked myself. She waited. "I suppose - I was frightened of what people would say, how they'd react. What they'd think of me, for wanting these things. How they'd... despise me." "Okay. So by 'ashamed', you mean 'frightened of being humiliated', is that it?" "I suppose so." "So you tried to control the beast because you were frightened that people would hurt you and humiliate you?" "I - I guess so." "Okay. We're making progress. So, tell me about the beast, then. Where does that come from?" "I don't know. It's - it's always been there. I don't know where it comes from, it's different, it's like it isn't part of me in some ways..." "Not part of you? Tell me what it's like." "It wants to hurt people... It enjoys their pain." I covered my face again. It was terrible to say. "How is that different from you?" I stared at her. "Come on, Tol, you said it was different from you. Are you going to tell me you don't enjoy people's pain?" "Oh god. No, I can't. It's true, I do enjoy - that." "Yes. You're a sadist. Like Alan. Like me. So, how was the beast different from you?" The discussion was vastly painful, but I was getting determined, now. I wanted to get to the bottom of this, this thing which had wrecked my life. "It - wants what it wants, no matter what. I'm - frightened, like I said. But it isn't. It doesn't care." "Okay. So. Think of a word to describe someone who wants what they want, regardless of the consequences." "Irresponsible." "Right! Another." "Childish." "Yes! Childish. It's a child, isn't it, your beast? An irresponsible child. Gimme, gimme, gimme!" I smiled at her sadly. "I guess that's it." "You see, take someone like me. I grew up a sadist. And somehow, thank all the kindly powers, all of me grew up together, the sadistic bit along with the rest. But somehow, for you, that didn't happen. Right at the beginning, you cut that part off, and told it to shut the fuck up. So it never grew up. It never learnt. And nor did the rest of you, not really. The rest of you just got stuck a bit older, that's all, as someone who learnt to be afraid, but nothing else. It's all you, Tol. The beast is you." I stared at her, thunderstruck. But I could feel she was right. She looked at me, quite kindly. "Actually, I don't think it's quite that bad. I wonder if, maybe, you have moved on a bit. Grown a bit." She moved her hand across the table and grasped one of mine. "Look in my eyes, Tol. Now tell me. Those things you did to, to that boy, to Aron. What do you think of that?" And now, an amazing thing happened. I could feel the beast, but it wasn't growling and pacing; it was just looking. And I could feel all the people in my life, my parents, Duncan, Maxim, Alan, many, many others; they were pointing, sneering, but somehow they also were moving into the background. And far away, I could feel the dream, and it was part of me, but no longer pressing. All I could see were Chris's eyes. And I found myself, it seemed, face to face with Aron, as if the choice was there again, and quite distinctly I felt something I had never felt before: that what had happened was wrong. Not wrong because I was frightened, not wrong because of what they would say, but just wrong. There, facing her across the desk, I had the first moral experience of my life, and it was like bread after a long hunger. I stared at her, unable to speak. "Yes, Tol. Yes. Say it. It is to be said." "It was wrong," I whispered. "It was wrong, what I did. Completely wrong." "Why, Tol?" "Because it was against his will." She smiled. "Well said, son. Welcome to the human race." And then it fell on me. "But... but I've done a terrible, awful thing! It was... ma'am, it was a dreadful crime!" "Yes, Tol, it was. It was a wicked thing, what you did." For the first time, I understood, really understood, the enormity of what I had done. This is what they call hell, I thought, as I stared at her. Darkness swept over me. I was screaming in pain. "I don't deserve to live! Why am I still alive? Oh, ma'am, what am I to do?" She was round beside me now, hugging me, and gradually I quietened. "Tol, dear. You know it isn't your choice." Her hands stroked my hair. "You know, don't you? You will have to be punished. You can see that, can't you? It's a question of balance." I stared at her. "Now. I'm going to leave you now. Think about what we've said. Some people will come for you later. Are you satisfied?" I gathered myself. I could feel the justice of what she said, and I was amazed at myself, because it was true. "Yes, ma'am. Yes, I am satisfied." "Good. Actually, you're not a bad person, Tol. Now I've met you, I rather like you. You've done some terrible things, but one day that will be over. It isn't just punishment, you know; there are things to be learned. Do you remember what Andrew said?" "Don't lose hope." "Right. I have hope. Believe it or not, but I trust you." She moved towards the door. "The kindly powers with you, Tol." And she was gone. The guard took me back to my cell, and I was alone. ====================================================================== Continued in Part 5 ======================================================================