Koos Smit

Johan

Chapters 9-12

Chapter 9

Hein is up with the sun and he sends Johan to rouse Kurt and the other two. Hein is a little hung over from the night before and he is clearly in a foul mood. He pokes around moodily, finding fault with everything that the quarry boys have done, and he threatens them continually with a whipping. The boys try to keep out of his way.

Then Hein opens the ice box with the beers and he frowns as he counts them. There seem to be fewer than he thought there would be. He must have had more than he thought he did last night, he thinks to himself. Then he does some mental arithmetic and realizes that they could not possibly have drunk that many. It dawns on him that the quarry boys must have had more than the one each that he allowed them.

"Tiaan! All of you! Get your arses here now!" he yells, his face reddening with anger.

Johan realizes what has happened. "Looks like we're in shit over the beers," he mutters to Tiaan as they trot over to Hein.

As they get there they hear Hein saying angrily to his friends, "I'm gonna give them a fucking good thrashing! They've gone and stolen our beers!"

"Geez, are you allowed to beat them, too?," asks Kurt.

"Fucking sure I'm allowed to beat them! Isn't that right Tiaan?"

"Yes, boss," says Tiaan.

"Please, can I beat one of them, Hein?," pleads Kurt.

"And me, too?," says another, "And me!" says the third.

Hein thinks a moment and then says, "OK, OK, you can each have a turn!" Turning to Tiaan he says, "Go to my rondawel and fetch me my sambok. No… rather start them off with the rottang."

Tiaan trots off and returns with the hated yellow rottang. He hands it to Hein.

"Get your pants off and assume the position!" he orders Tiaan.

Tiaan slides his shorts down to his ankles, steps out of them and then sweeps them aside with a foot. He stands side on to Hein with his feet about two feet apart. He bends over and grips his ankles, lifting his head up to look straight in front of him. The thick muscles of his back, his buttocks and his legs stand out taut and hard as he stoically awaits his whipping.

"You see," says Hein, "They know the drill… you don't have to tell them anything!"

Hein takes up a position to the side of Tiaan. "I'll give him a couple to show you how it's done, and then one of you can take over."

He taps the end of the rottang lightly against Tiaan's clenched buttocks to gauge distance. "Judge your distance so that the whippy end of the rottang covers the width of his arse and has enough length to curve around a bit on the far side," explains Hein.

Tiaan jerks from nervous tension with each touch and Hein and his friends laugh.

Then Hein twists his trunk back and reaches far behind him with the rottang before whipping it forward to drive into Tiaan's hard round buttocks with a crack that makes everyone flinch. Tiaan's whole body jerks violently and a strangled moan of pain escapes over Tiaan's clenched teeth, but Tiaan manages to keep his grip on his ankles.

Hein's friends watch with excited fascination as the fiery red stripe left behind on Tiaan's quivering buttocks mushrooms instantly into a thick, double-ridged weal.

"Wait until the stripe swells up like that and then wait some more. It takes about ten seconds for him to feel the full burn, so you don't want to hurry it. You'll know he's feeling the pain properly when he starts to sweat all over like he's doing now."

Hein delivers another two sizzling strokes across Tiaan's quivering buttocks.

"You see how his arse is quivering like that? You know you're making an impression when that happens."

Johan feels the stirring between his legs that he has come to expect whenever he witnesses a flogging, even when, or perhaps especially when, it involves his friend, Tiaan.

Hein hands the rottang to Kurt, "OK, let's see what you've learned."

Kurt is flushed and trembling with excitement. He takes a clumsy swing at Tiaan's buttocks but catches the middle of his thighs instead.

"Whoa, don't be in such a hurry. Take it slowly and aim' says Hein, "Try to land each one just on or below the last… it makes the pain really intense."

"OK… how many must I give him?"

"Give him another six… that should be enough for now."

Kurt looks disappointed. "Only six?"

Hein laughs, "Don't be greedy! You'll get other chances! We're here a whole week!"

Kurt delivers another stroke.

"Take that one again… it wasn't hard enough," says Hein, "Don't aim to land the rottang on his arse… swing it like you want to go right through his arse and hit his prick on the other side!"

Eventually, Hein adjudges Tiaan sufficiently punished. Tiaan straightens up slowly and stiffly, his buttocks on fire, his eyes shut and his face screwed up against the pain. He hobbles off painfully and stands next to the other quarry boys, his head bowed, the palms of his hands pressing against his bruised buttocks as if to smother the fire.

Hein gestures Johan forward. Johan hurriedly pushes down his shorts, but the elastic waistband hooks up on his by now stiffly erect penis and he has to stretch the waistband to get it over. Then he swiftly peels off his shorts, drops them on the ground, and steps almost jauntily forward, his inordinately large penis swaying ponderously from side to side as he does so. Hein's friends are mesmerized by it but they say nothing.

Johan bends over and grasps his ankles. He can feel his penis pressing up against his belly as he bends over. He thrusts his bare arse out at the excited group of spectators and gives it an insolent little wiggle. He is determined that Hein's friends will not see him cower.

The gesture is not lost on Hein, who instantly becomes angry.

"Oh, so you want to give me attitude?," he says, his face going red, "I'll give you attitude, boykie!" and he lays into Johan at once, lashing his naked buttocks with the long yellow rottang rapidly and repeatedly with such force that Johan is propelled forward, loses his footing and falls on hands and knees.

"Get up, you piece of shit!" Hein snarls at Johan at he continues to lash his buttocks and back.

Johan jumps up and quickly assumes the position that Hein prefers for caning, his chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath.

Hein suddenly calms down.

"Why aren't you wiggling your arse now?," Hein asks, sarcastically.

Johan says nothing.

Hein now gives Johan ten searing lashes, this time pausing between each stroke to allow Johan to feel the full effect. By the time he stops, Johan's buttocks are criss-crossed with livid welts, some of them oozing tiny droplets of blood.

Johan straightens up painfully and starts to move away.

"Where do you think you're going?," says Hein, "We're not finished with you yet!"

Johan resumes his bent over position.

Hein hands the rottang to another of his friends.

"Your turn, Dirk, he says, "Show me what you can do!"

"How many?," asks Dirk

"Five… ag… give him ten."

"Gee, thanks, Hein, you're a pal!" says Dirk excitedly.

Dirk is a big boy, powerfully built, and by the time he finishes with Johan, tough and whip-hardened as he is, Johan can hardly stand up straight.

"OK, Zak," says Hein to the fourth boy as he beckons Jan forward, "You do this one and I'll do the last."

Jan and Lukas get their whippings and Hein and his friends retire to the lapa for breakfast.

Kurt, Dirk and Zak are still highly charged with an unusual excitement. It is something they have never experienced before, this sense of unbridled power over other human beings. Being the sons of wealthy Afrikaner farmers they are all used to being obeyed by the black labourers on their father's farms, even those many years their senior. But farm labourers can always quit if they don't like the conditions and beating them has never been an option. So, to have the power to compel absolute obedience from boys of their own race and age, to be allowed to whip them with impunity if they disobey and in fact to regard and treat them as nothing more than slaves, makes them feel like gods.

After breakfast Hein and his friends ride out into the bush on their four-wheelers, rifles slung over their backs, to do some hunting. One of the quarry boys rides on the pillion seat with each one. Each hunter heads into his own sector of the huge game farm that Hein allocated to him at breakfast. This is for safety, so that no more than one shooter operates in one area at the same time.

Johan goes with Dirk. They ride for an hour until they arrive at a spot on the river where the sluggish brown water-flow widens into a reed fringed pool with a cluster of umbrella thorn trees on a slight rise overlooking the bank. Dirk cuts the motor about 200 metres [220 yards] away and sits on the four-wheeler, steering it, as Johan pushes it up to the clump of trees. Then Johan has to spread out a groundsheet under the trees for Dirk. Dirk sits on the groundsheet with his back up against the rough bark of an umbrella thorn trunk, his rifle across his lap, and watches and waits for buck to come up to the watering hole.

Johan is disgusted. He has never had an opportunity to do any hunting himself, but hunting is a deeply ingrained part of the Afrikaner culture and he knows from what he has picked up along the way that squatting at a watering hole and waiting for the animals to arrive is a lazy and unsporting way to hunt.

Time passes and nothing happens. Johan fidgets and Dirk is clearly also bored. Eventually Johan says to him, "It's too late in the morning to find animals at the water. They come at sun-up and at sun-down."

Dirk looks at Johan. "The fuck you know about it!" he says. It is a statement rather than a question.

Johan shrugs his shoulders. "It's what I think," he says.

Dirk stares at the watering hole and says nothing. "Oh, fuck this!" he says after a while and stands up, "I'm hot!" He strips off his shorts and runs down to the watering hole. "Come on, let's have a dip!" he calls out as he runs.

Johan does not need to be asked twice. He yanks down his shorts and runs after Dirk.

They splash through the shallows and then dive headlong into the deep brown water at the centre of the pool, lukewarm but still refreshing. For half an hour they splash, wrestle and play in the water, laughing and having fun. For a short while at least Dirk is not the privileged son of a wealthy farmer and Johan is not the convicted inmate of a juvenile correctional facility. They are just a pair of boys having fun in a river in the African wild.

Later, as they lie on their bellies on the grassy bank, drying in the sun, Dirk reaches out to touch Johan's purple-welted buttocks with his fingers.

"Jeez, I jacked you pretty hard!" he says, with a touch of pride and no hint of apology. "It must have been fucking sore, right?"

"Ja, you whipped me pretty good!" says Johan, "But it's OK, I've had worse."

Dirk edges closer. He traces a finger along some of the older stripes on Johan's back.

"Shit, your back's covered with stripes!" says Dirk, "You must get whipped about every day back there!"

"Ja, pretty much."

"How do you take it, man?"

"Ag you get used to it."

"You got great muscles, though - all you guys have," Dirk says with genuine admiration in his voice as he passes the palm of his hand over the bulging cords and knots of hard muscle on Johan's smooth brown back, "S'pose that's from all the heavy work in the quarry."

"Ja, I s'pose," says Johan.

Johan feels pleasantly relaxed as Dirk continues to stroke his back feeling, probing and massaging his muscles lightly. He tenses slightly as Dirk gently brushes his fingers over his bruised buttocks and then relaxes as he moves down to massage the thick muscles of his thighs and calves. Soon Johan begins to feel the familiar tingling between his legs and he has to lift his hips a few times to give his stiffening maleness room to grow. Dirk has fallen silent and Johan twists his head to look at him. Dirk is intent on his task, his cheeks flushed, lips apart and breathing hard.

Johan knows the signs well and he is not surprised when Dirk says to him in a tight voice shortly afterwards, "Turn over and let me do your front."

Johan turns over. His male member is thick and hard by now and he sees that Dirk's own member is straining up and bobbing against his navel.

Dirk starts massaging Johan's bulging chest muscles, moving slowly down his torso. Johan reaches up impatiently and pulls Dirk's hands down to his groin. Dirk gets the message at once. He quickly grasps Johan's dick and starts to slide his hard young fist up and down its rock hard length, awkwardly and slowly at first, and then more confidently and assertively as Johan responds, thrusting into Dirk's fist. Johan takes Dirk's own member in hand and the boys rapidly pump each other to an explosion of pleasure and wet release.

Afterwards, they both lie on their backs in the grass, their chests heaving as they savour the tingling afterglow.

"Shit, that was great!" says Dirk, "I never done that before!"

"You never wanked before? Whattaya mean. I seen you wank yourself last night!" says Johan.

"I mean I never done it to another guy before… and I never had another guy do it to me before."

"Oh… ja… it's different, hey?"

"Fucking sure!"

In five minutes they are fully recovered. They have a swim to clean up and they lie on the grass next to each other, chatting.

"Do you also do… you know… what those other two guys did last night?," Dirk asks.

"Sure, there's fuckall else to do when you're not slaving your guts out in the quarry!"

"What's it feel like to have your cock sucked?"

"I can show you if you want?"

Dirk hesitates. "Nah, it's OK thanks, I just wanted to know."

"Sure," says Johan, pointing to Dirk's lengthening dick, "That's why your cock is standing up and begging for it right now!"

Without waiting for an invitation Johan scrambles up and kneels over Dirk, straddling his outstretched legs. He bends down and steadies Dirk's bobbing erection with his hand before taking its swollen purple head into his wide mouth.

In the next two hours Dirk's pale blue eyes open to a whole new world of sexual pleasure under Johan's expert tuition. His experience until now has been limited to the occasional furtive and guilt-ridden masturbation in the privacy of his bedroom or in the bathroom. Johan's expert knowledge and easy practice of forbidden things is exciting and his directness and complete lack of shyness simply sweep away the inhibitions of Dirk's sheltered upbringing in a correct and well-ordered, church-going Afrikaner home.

Dirk feels almost envious of Johan. Being, like any normal boy, more physical than cerebral, he does not really know why. He just has a vague feeling that Johan is somehow better off or more fortunate than he is. He finds it hard to understand why. Johan is, after all, hardly better off than a slave. He is forced to do back-breaking work that the lowliest labourer on Dirk's father's farm would refuse to do. He possesses nothing at all of his own, not even the tatty shorts that he sometimes wears. He gets whipped almost every day, just to make him work harder, or even for no reason. Not even the stubbornest mule on Dirk's farm gets whipped like Johan and his comrades do.

And yet, Johan seems to have freedoms that Dirk does not. He is free, for example, from the restraints of moral society. Having broken society's norms, he has been banished from society into the company of others whom society rejects for the same reason. Society no longer expects Johan to respect its norms. In truth, society does not care if he does or not while he is no longer in their midst. Society couldn't care less about what Johan and the other boys whom society regards as depraved do with or to each other. As long as they don't do it in society. So Johan, whom society regards as being without morals, lives up to society's perception of him. He is free to do, without shame, what Dirk, in his world, would consider unthinkable.

Johan has a knowledge and a command of his body, and of Dirk's body, that puts Dirk in awe. He has a confidence and an openness that makes it hard not to like him. And, though Johan is a year or two younger than Dirk, he is stronger and harder than Dirk. His quarry-honed muscles bulge and ripple under his smooth brown skin with every movement. Dirk gets a warm tingling lurching feeling in his belly every time he looks at Johan's perfect body. He wants to possess Johan, to own him. He starts thinking about ways to do this. He remembers hearing about one of their neighbours hiring boys from the Boys Farm during harvest season. He wonders if it might be possible for his father to do this. Perhaps something more permanent could be arranged. Is it possible to buy him, he wonders. He thinks, with the sudden wonder of discovery, that his feelings for Johan, his desire to possess him completely, must be a kind of love. He is not the first to mistake lust for love.

Eventually the time comes to go back to camp. "Let's have a swim before we go," says Dirk.

Johan sits for a moment on the groundsheet, watches Dirk as he walks slightly splay legged down to the river.

Johan laughs. "Why are you walking like you got a carrot stuck up your arse?," he teases, knowing quite well why.

"You know damn well why!" Dirk says, grinning, "I'm not used to it like you are!"

Johan laughs again. Then he jumps up and runs past Dirk, diving into the sun-warmed brown water of the river.

Later they drive back to camp on the four-wheeler. Dirk sits behind Johan this time and teaches Johan how to drive it. They make their way back slowly as Johan gets the hang of it.

Dirk sits up close to Johan, with his hands around Johan's waist. He likes the feel of Johan's muscled brown back against his belly and chest. He slides his hands around onto Johan's hard belly and then down into the top of his shorts. His fingers play with Johan's cock, coaxing it into hardness. Soon it pops out of the top of Johan's shorts, reaching all the way to Johan's navel. Dirk pumps his hand up and down the long hard shaft of Johan's cock. Johan nearly drives into a thorn tree when he cums. Then they have to stop for ten minutes while Dirk quickly fires his own wad into Johan's arse with Johan bending over the back of the four-wheeler.

They have just finished when they hear the growl of another four-wheeler approaching. Dirk's cum is still dribbling down Johan's legs as they scramble to find their shorts and pull them on. They hop onto the four-wheeler and Johan gets it going just before Hein, with Jan on the back, comes into view. Hein looks surprised to see Johan driving, but says nothing as he passes them. The carcase of an Impala buck is tied over the carrier and Jan is sitting squeezed between Hein and the Impala. Both Hein and Jan are filthy and smeared with the Impala's blood. Jan looks miserable and, as they pass, Johan can see that his back is striped with several bright red weals. Wonder what Jan did to piss Hein off, thinks Johan. Not that it takes much!

Back at the camp Johan and Dirk are the last to arrive They are the only ones who have not brought back at least one animal.

"What the fuck you two been doing all day?" asks Hein.

"Ag, we just had no luck," says Dirk.

Johan helps Tiaan, Jan and Lukas to skin and clean the carcases. He asks Jan why Hein whipped him.

"I made just a little noise just when Hein was going to shoot a big Impala ram with these moerse big (exceptionally big) horns… Rowland Ward or something like that he said … and the Impala skitted and Hein missed the shot."

"Jeez, he must have been pissed off!"

"Fucking right! He made me cut a lat (switch) from a tree and then he whipped me good with it. And that's not all… he said he's gonna whip me with his sambok tonight as well!"

"Serves you right!" says Tiaan, "I'd also whip you if you did that to me! Next time you'll be more careful!"

"Fucken thanks for the sympathy!" says Jan, grinning ruefully.

"Ag man, you're a tawwe laaitie (tough kid), says Johan, "You can take it!"

"Hmm," growls Jan.

After supper, true to his word, Hein calls Jan up in front of everyone. As Jan stands there, nervously fidgeting and jabbing at the ground with his leathery toes, Hein explains how Jan spoilt the best chance that he had ever had of getting a RowlandWard trophy listing. You can see Hein getting angry all over again. Hein announces that although he has already given Jan a beating, he thinks his crime merits something more severe and that he has decided to give him twelve strokes of the sambok.

They see Jan go pale even under his deep brown tan. A small wet patch appears at the front of his shorts where he started to piss himself just before he regained control of his bladder.

"Get them off!" snaps Hein, pointing to Jan's shorts with his sambok. Jan strips quickly, anxious not to make Hein even more angry.

Hein loops a milking strop around each of Jan's thick wrists, pulls the loops tight and throws the loose ends over the branch of a tree. He orders Johan and Tiaan to pull on the other ends until the short but brawny Jan is hoisted up onto his stubby brown toes, his muscular arms spread-eagled above his head, his beefy calf muscles bulging as they strain to relieve the weight on his wrists.

Hein steps back and waits. He likes to watch the tension build up in the muscles of his victim's bodies. Soon every muscle in Jan's back, buttocks and legs are knotted hard and standing out under his smooth brown skin.

The sambok hisses through the air and lands with a vicious crack against Jan's shoulders. The breath is instantly driven from his lungs and he gasps, breathless, unable to even to scream as the most excruciating pain sluices along every nerve in his body.

His body goes into nervous shock, trembling uncontrollably and flushing hot and cold as he breaks out into an instant sweat.

Hein waits until Jan recovers from the tremors. Jan is whimpering softly now, the tears brimming his eyes as he tenses for the next stroke.

Again the sambok hisses and cracks, laying another fiery welt just below the first. Jan's whimpering rises to a strangled cry a split second after the stroke has connected and then subsides to a soft gurgling.

By the fifth stroke, Jan is crying continuously and he jerks and writhes in his restraints as each stroke bites into his knotted back.

Before the sixth stroke, as Hein waits for Jan to settle down, Jan finally loses control over his bladder and a jet of piss hisses from the tip of his long, thick, uncut penis, hanging down and away from his body like a half-filled hosepipe. The stream of piss hoses the dust at Jan's toes and kicks up little splashes of mud onto his brown feet and shins.

The last four strokes are laid neatly across Jan's hard brown buttocks, to the accompaniment of full throated screams that rise from the depths of Jan's barrel chest and explode into the air as roars of pain.

At last Hein is done. He inspects his handiwork with satisfaction and invites his friends to take a look.

Jan's back and buttocks are a latticework of twelve thickly ridged red and purple welts. Hein has been careful not to cut the skin, although there are few tiny beads of bright red blood where welts have crossed.

Jan sobs quietly while they examine him. His muscles are still tensed, but this time with the fiery pain that feels like his body has been scored with red-hot pokers. His eyes are shut and his face screwed up against the pain as he hangs there. Blue veins stand out and pulse in his thick muscled neck.

Dirk moves around to Jan's front. He points to Jan's penis with amazement.

"Check out his dick, it's standing out here like a telegraph pole. You'd think he enjoyed that."

Zak and Kurt crowd round to look.

"Ja, some of them do that when they get whipped. Sometimes they even cum. I dunno why," says Hein, "I mean, most of them get a hard on when they watch the whippings. I get a hard-on myself sometimes when I whip them. But I can't see why it makes them horny to get whipped."

"Maybe you must try it sometime," grins Dirk.

"Fuck that, nobody's gonna whip me!"

Dirk reaches out a hand and grips Jan's horizontal penis. Jan's eyes pop open. He licks his dry lips and his bright blue eyes look suddenly interested. Dirk starts stroking Jan's dick. The film of pain seems to clear and Jan responds at once, thrusting his dick forward into Dirk's fist, the bumpy griddle of his hard belly muscles knotting up with the effort of gaining purchase while still hanging from his wrists and standing on his toes.

The other boys stand around grinning as Dirk pumps Jan's dick, slowly at first and then harder and faster. Jan starts grunting and panting with each piston stroke. Soon the rising sensation of pleasure completely blots out the searing pain in his back and buttocks.

Then, just as Jan is about to reach a roaring climax, Dirk stops pumping and lets go, leaving Jan gasping and thrusting his straining penis futilely at the air. The surprise and disappointment on Jan's face makes everyone laugh.

Jan's surprise soon turns to frustration and anger as he is left smouldering with sexual excitement and no way to bring himself to climax as he remains suspended from his wrists.

When Hein finally allows Jan to be let down twenty minutes later, Jan's penis is still swollen and erect and he immediately wanks himself to a long and shuddering, deeply satisfying climax, to the amusement of everyone there.

When the boys all go to bed, Dirk furtively whispers to Johan that he must wait until everyone has gone to bed and then sneak back to Dirk's bungalow. "You can have a hot shower and then you can… um… spend the night," says Dirk.

Later, as Johan is sneaking into the camp, he bumps into Tiaan, doing the same thing.

"So who are you going to fuck?," Johan asks in a whisper.

"Kurt," says Tiaan, "Seems Jan is too sore to play with him tonight," he grins.

"Well, have fun!"

"Sure, you too!"

Johan peeps through the window of Dirk's bungalow. Dirk has just had a shower and is toweling himself dry. Johan opens the door and slips in.

"The water's great," says Dirk, "Go right in and have a shower."

Johan pushes his shorts to the floor, steps out of them and goes straight into the shower. He has been there barely two minutes when the shower curtain rustles aside and Dirk steps into the shower with him. Dirk's cock is already at attention.

"Jeez, can't you wait?," Johan laughs, as Dirk wordlessly squirts shower gel into his hand and rapidly soaps his cock. Then Dirk grabs Johan by the shoulders and roughly turns him around.

"Bend over," he orders. Johan does so, leaning his head on his arms against the shower wall. Dirk inserts his hand between Johan's legs and slaps against the inside of his thigh. Johan understands what he wants and he spreads his thighs, lifting his arse and offering it to Dirk. Dirk needs no invitation and he immediately thrusts his soap lubricated prick deep into Johan's arsehole.

"Jeez, you're… really getting… the hang… of this," Johan pants as Dirk's long thick cock bangs into him deep, fast and hard, lifting him onto his toes with each bruising thrust.

Dirk climaxes rapidly and shoots his load deep inside Johan. He quickly washes off his still erect penis and leaves the shower. Johan finishes showering, splashing away the globs of Dirk's cum dribbling out of his arsehole and running down the inside of his smooth and hairless thick muscled thighs.

When Johan comes out of the shower Dirk is fidgeting about in the room The moment he sees Johan he jumps onto one of the two beds in the room and takes up a position on all fours. He looks around at Johan and grins.

"OK, it's your turn, but I'm still a bit sore from this afternoon, so take it slowly."

Johan's half stiff cock practically springs to attention at the invitation. He looks around the room and spots a bottle of tanning coconut oil. He decants some of it into the palm of his hand and lubricates his now rock-hard dick with it. He gets onto the bed and kneels behind Dirk. He explores Dirk's almost virginal hole. He inserts a hard strong finger and slides it slowly in and out, gently stretching the still unyielding sphincter, lubricating it with the tanning oil. Then he guides the swollen purple tip of his dick into the hollow between Dirk's butt cheeks and up against Dirk's sphincter. He grips Dirk's hips and tries to push himself gently through the tight shut sphincter. Just like this afternoon, Dirk's arsehole resolutely refuses entry. Only one thing for it. Johan leans over Dirk's back and grips his shoulders firmly in his strong hands.

"Oh fuck, this is gonna hurt again," says Dirk.

Johan says nothing. He coils his body like a spring and then thrusts his ramrod dick as hard as he can into Dirk. Dirk grits his teeth and lets out a low strangled groan of pain.

Johan starts moving his cock slowly in and out of Dirk's arse. Dirk winces and groans with pain with each renewed thrust. After a few thrusts Dirk begs Johan to stop. Johan does not want to stop. The tip of his dick has taken charge of his body and he could not stop if he wanted to.

"Just stick it out!", he growls, as he grips Dirk even harder, "It gets better just stick it out!"

Gradually it does become easier. After a while Dirk's sphincter slowly relaxes and the pain metamorphoses into an exquisite kind of excruciating pleasure. Now Johan pumps into Dirk like a piston and Dirk's groans have become low moans that Johan can't tell if they're from pain or pleasure. Probably both, his experience tells him. Eventually Johan reaches a climax that erupts in the tip of his penis and races through his body like an electric stream of sheer ecstasy. He lies over Dirk's back and gasps as each shudder of pleasure pulses through his body and propels a jet of hot cum deep into Dirk.

Afterward the two boys lie side by side on the bed, their arms touching.

"That was fucking sore in the beginning," says Dirk, "I dunno if I can ever get used to it."

"You can… but you gotta keep doing it."

"OK for you… you guys do it every day! But who'm I gonna do it with after this week?"

"Ja, it's not easy if you're on the outside."

Dirk props himself on his elbow and looks at Johan.

"How would you like to come live with us?," he asks suddenly.

"Whaddayou mean?"

"I'm gonna ask my Dad if he can hire you from Mr Basson… or buy you or however it works… then you can come live with us… then we can do this all the time!"

Johan is quiet for a moment.

"That would be great," he says, eventually, "But it's never gonna happen."

"Why not?"

"It just won't. Quarry boys don't get hired out."

"I can always try!"

"Ja, you can try, but don't hold your breath while you do!"

Johan didn't want to say that, even if Dirk's Dad did hire him, it would be as a convict slave and not as a playmate for his son and heir. Johan knows what he is in the eyes of people like Dirk's Dad… a dirty and depraved little criminal… a sexual pervert… a dangerous animal to be caged and whipped. There's no way in hell that he would ever be allowed to get near Dirk.

Dirk reaches out and starts stroking the inside of Johan's muscular thighs. Johan spreads his legs apart and Dirk's hand slides up between them to where Johan's pendulous balls are resting on the bed. He lifts them up and plays with them for a while, watching as Johan's penis fills out where it lies against his hard brown belly until, in just a few seconds it is rock hard again and bobbing gently against Johan's navel.

Dirk lifts Johan's dick between two fingers and takes a closer look at it.

"Hey, go wash your dick off," he says to Johan, "I want to try sucking you off next and I'm not putting that thing in my mouth like that!"

Johan laughs and scrambles off to the bathroom to obey.

The rest of the night is passed in brief periods of sleep followed by long periods of hot, hard, muscle-wrenching sex. Dirk just cannot get enough of it and Johan's stamina is inexhaustible.

Chapter 10

Johan goes out into the bush with Dirk every day from right after breakfast until late afternoon. They spend the days hunting, swimming, fishing, charging through the bush on the four-wheeler and just generally having a great time in the sun like any other red-blooded South African boys would do in similar circumstances. Dirk allows Johan to drive the four-wheeler sometimes and on one occasion he even allows Johan to stalk and shoot a buck, a decent sized Impala ram.

As it is Johan's first kill, Dirk makes Johan go through the time-honoured hunter's ritual of cutting out the Impala's heart and taking a bite out of it. As Johan chews and tries to swallow the warm lump of raw and bloody flesh without retching, Dirk squeezes what blood is left in the animal's heart over Johan's bristled blonde head in a kind of gory anointment of his success.

The nights are given over entirely to sex. Dirk especially seems obsessed with it. He just can't seem to get enough and Johan realizes that, for Dirk, having sex with someone else is a new and wildly exciting experience. Especially when that someone else is a boy and even more especially when that boy comes from a world that Dirk's world would regard as dark and dangerous. What makes it even more urgent for Dirk is the realization that it will all come to an end in a few days time when Dirk goes back to his family and his normal way of life.

For Johan's part, sex with other boys has become a normal and integral part of his daily life as a young convict. He has long since realised that he has a strong appetite for sex and he is happy to enjoy it with Dirk, who, apart from the severe whipping he gave Johan that first morning, has been kind and friendly to Johan during this time that they have been together. And, as for that whipping, Johan does not hold it against Dirk, accepting it as just a normal part of his life as a convict boy under punishment and as something he had in any event justly deserved for stealing Hein's beer.

As their time in the bush camp draws to an end, Johan realizes that he has actually been happy for the first time since he was arrested just under a year ago. He has had a wonderful time out here in the bush, where he has been able almost to forget, for a few days anyway, the grim harshness of life as a quarry slave: The relentless soul-destroying grind of muscle-ripping labour in the dusty quarry under the searing African sun and the constant fear and pain under the merciless tyranny of the whip.

Johan begins to dread going back. It would have been better, he thinks, if he had never had this break, wonderful though it has been. Going back now is going to be even worse than when he first came to the quarry. At least he did not know then what was waiting for him. Now he knows only too well.

The last day of the holiday Dirk and Johan take their sleeping bags and some provisions with them when they ride out in the morning. They plan to camp out under the stars and return only the next morning.

Dirk bags a waterbuck and Johan a large warthog with impressive curling tusks. The warthog is unplanned. Johan happens to be walking ahead, with the rifle slung over his shoulder and his thoughts a million miles away, when he almost trips over the fierce little creature. Instead of giving way, the warthog goes for Johan with his tusks. Johan's lightning reflexes save him from a severe gashing and he manages to dart away with just a light graze to his right calf.

The warthog does not follow but stays on guard over whatever it is that he is protecting. This gives Johan the opportunity to aim carefully and drop the warthog where he stands with one round.

The boys see afterward that the warthog was protecting his burrow, where his sow is nesting with a litter of tiny warthogs. Johan feels a little bad about having shot the sire, but what's done is done, he tells himself, and can't be undone. No use being sentimental about it.

The boys gut their kills, leaving the innards for the vultures and the hyenas. Johan runs back the six kilometers [4 miles] that they walked and fetches the four-wheeler while Dirk waits at the carcasses. They strap the carcasses over the back of the four-wheeler and then head back to their temporary base overlooking the river. Dirk drives the four-wheeler and Johan jogs alongside, the tough leathery soles of his hard brown feet impervious to the sharp stones and thorns of the veld.

Back at the temporary base the boys wash the sweat, dust and blood off their bodies in the river while it is still light, it being too dangerous to do so at night when they cannot see if there are crocodiles about.

Night falls suddenly, as it always does in the Bushveld, and the boys braai their meat for supper over coals scraped from the fire that they have made in an open space. After they have eaten, they sit quietly next to the fire on the wide bed that they have made by unzipping both their sleeping bags and spreading them out over a thick mattress of grass and leaves. They listen to the busy sounds of chirruping beetles nearby, the calls of night birds in the willow trees that weep into the river and the spine-chilling cries of jackals in the distance.

Both of them stare into the fire, deeply pre-occupied with their own thoughts. Johan is trying not to think about going back to the quarry, trying to focus his mind rather on the here and now of what he and Dirk will no doubt be doing shortly. The thought triggers the familiar tingling between his legs and prompts him to lever his too tight shorts off.

"Ah, that feels better," Johan says, darting a glance at Dirk as he stretches his legs out in front of him on their makeshift bed, "Damn thing's too tight."

Dirk smiles, noticing how Johan's dick is slowly lengthening where it lies hanging down over his large set of balls. Dirk pulls off his own shorts in response and tosses them aside.

Dirk knows that this is the probably the last night he will ever spend with Johan. As the week has gone by he has come to realize for himself what Johan could not bring himself to tell him before that his plan to get his dad to somehow 'acquire' Johan from the Bassons was nothing more than a pipe dream. There are too many obstacles to overcome and, even if they could be overcome, the reality is that his dad would never allow Dirk and Johan to be friends. He realizes, with a sudden and great sadness, that Johan does not belong in his world, as surely as Dirk does not belong in Johan's.

Dirk's mind goes back to the yearly family holidays down on the Natal South Coast, to the friendships made on the beach that seemed set to last forever, but, despite the pain of parting and the promises of keeping in touch and getting back together again, were quickly forgotten once back in the busy round of home and school life. He realizes that his relationship with Johan is another such as those and that he must enjoy it to the full while it lasts. As his dad always says, "it was lekker maar dis nou klaar!" (It was nice but it's now finished)

He watches the firelight cast a flickering orange light over Johan's naked body, accentuating his exceptionally well-defined musculature with a copper sheen.

Dirk moves across the spread out sleeping bags to recline alongside Johan's legs. He reaches out and gently strokes the thick rough skin of Johan's soles, first one and then the other. He traces his fingers in and out of Johan's strong, stubby, squared off toes before brushing his fingertips over the top of his feet, onto his bulging calves and then onto his brawny thighs. His fingers glide to the inside of Johan's thighs and Johan spreads his legs wider to open the way to Johan's balls and his by now rigid cock. Soon Dirk is stroking Johan's pendulous balls with the lightest fingertip touch that he can manage with his fumbling boy fingers. Johan's balls lift off the bed as they contract with his touch and Johan sucks in his breath audibly.

"Sorry, did that hurt?," asks Dirk.

"No, no… go on… go on!" Johan answers in a voice tight with anticipation.

Dirk softly traces his forefinger up and down along the line from Johan's bumhole, between his tightly drawn up balls and onto the long hard shaft up to the swollen purple head that has stretched so far out of Johan's restraining foreskin that it looks like Johan is circumcised.

Each time Dirk's finger reaches the impossibly sensitive tip where the thick brown shaft joins the shiny purple head, Johan's cock bounces up to meet it, pressing against it eagerly, begging for closer attention.

Johan is breathless by now, his eyes glazed, his body trembling with expectation and his face flushed bright red with the hot blood sluicing through his veins. The tip of his cock is connected to his brown muscle-ridged belly by a thin elastic strand of silvery pre-cum.

Dirk gets up onto his knees between Johan's spread-apart legs. He lifts Johan's rock-hard cock upright and takes the head, like a ripe plum, between his lips. He slides Johan's long hard shaft a few times deep into his mouth, almost into his throat, before settling down to work his strong wet tongue rapidly over and around the sensitive tip.

Johan is moaning with pleasure now, virtually drumming his hard bare heels against the ground. The moment Dirk feels that Johan's cock is about to go into pre-orgasmic spasm, he spits it out of his mouth and goes back to stroking Johan's legs.

Dirk does this several times and it drives Johan nuts. Just when Johan can't stand it any longer and he grabs his shaft to wank himself to release, Dirk brushes his hand out the way and straddles Johan's middle. Dirk spits into the palm of his hand and wipes it over the head and shaft of Johan's dick, mixing it with the stream of pre-cum dribbling from its tip. Then he settles himself over Johan's cock and slowly lowers himself onto its hard and thrusting length.

Dirk takes the whole of its length inside him, grimacing with the pain as he does so. When his hard clenched buttocks come to rest against the top of Johan's thighs, he waits in rigid and breathless stillness for his sphincter to adjust to the thickness and for the pain to subside. Eventually the dull ache metamorphoses into a warm feeling of release and a hard to describe excitement in the pit of his stomach and Dirk begins to lift and lower himself slowly on Johan's slippery shaft.

Johan, in his eagerness to reach climax, begins to thrust himself upward to meet Dirk's downward movements. After just a few of these, Dirk feels Johan's body go rigid underneath him for a second or two before a mighty orgasm billows through Johan's body in waves of ecstasy.

Johan reaches out now to take Dirk's cock in hand, but Dirk stands up and disappears into the darkness beyond the coppery light of the fire. Moments later he returns with a length of yellow rattan cane in his hand.

Dirk sees the alarm in Johan's face.

"No, it's not for you," he laughs.

"What you doing with that thing then?," asks Johan.

"I… er… I want you to beat me with it."

"What?"

"I want you to hit me on my arse with it, same as I hit you the other day."

Johan looks disbelieving.

"What the hell for?"

"I'm curious…."

"About what?"

"I want to know if it has the same effect on me as it does on you and Jan."

"Oh, you noticed then."

Dirk laughs. "How could I help but notice that big thing of yours sticking up like a flagpole after I finished whipping you!"

After a moment's awkward silence Dirk asks, "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Will you do it for me?"

Johan hesitates a moment.

"Well OK."

"Well OK then. Tell me what I must do."

"OK," says Johan, looking about for a suitable place for Dirk to lie over, "Bend over the back of the four-wheeler and grip the handlebars."

Dirk does as Johan orders.

"I think you better tie me here… in case I change my mind before we're done."

"Well, if you change your mind, we can just stop, silly," says Johan.

"No… I have an idea that the whole point is you gotta be forced to do it."

"OK… you're the boss!"

"No… you're gonna be the boss now… and I want you to promise that you won't stop even if I beg you to."

"OK, OK."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

Johan fetches the strops they use for strapping on the carcasses and he ties Dirk's wrists to the handlebars. Then he gets Dirk to spread his legs so that his feet press against the inside of the rear wheels. Johan loops a strop around each ankle and pulls it through the spokes of each wheel before securing it to the frame. Dirk is completely trussed and cannot move.

"How many am I giving you," asks Johan.

"I think… ten!" says Dirk.

"OK," as Johan takes a position behind and to one side of Dirk, "Are you ready?"

"Wait a moment," as Dirk tenses his body, "OK."

Johan swings the cane up behind him and then, taking two quick steps forward, brings it whistling down to smack into Dirk's clenched buttocks.

Dirk gasps in surprise and shock rather more than pain as he thrusts his body forward, his bare toes scrabbling in the dirt. The four-wheeler moves forward a couple of feet.

Johan engages the bike's first gear and jams on the footbrake before taking position behind Dirk again.

By now the first stripe has mushroomed into a fiery red welt and Dirk's arse is beginning to burn.

Again the cane whistles through the air and cracks against Dirk's buttocks. Dirk grunts as the strike lands and his body jerks violently against the back of the four-wheeler. Again he pushes the four-wheeler forward, this time just a few inches. Dirk lets out a low sighing moan while Johan jams a couple of rocks under the front wheels.

On the third searing stroke Dirk lets out an anguished cry and as Johan takes up position for the fourth, he cries out, "OK, OK, that's enough! It's not working. Let me loose!"

"Sorry, I made a promise," says Johan.

"Fuck that! Just let me loose!"

Johan answers him with another sizzling stroke across his buttocks.

Dirk roars with pain and anger, bucking and thrashing as he tries to jerk himself free.

"Fuck it, Johan, if you don't stop, I promise you, you gonna be sorry! I'll get Hein to let me whip the skin off your back!"

"You said I musn't listen when you beg me to stop," is Johan's answer as the cane scores another livid welt across Dirk's buttocks.

Johan realizes suddenly that he is enjoying having Dirk in his power, sobbing, moaning and writhing in the pain that Johan is inflicting on the quivering white flesh of his hard round butt cheeks. He reaches out a hand to feel the hard knots of muscle bunching and gliding under the smooth warm skin of Dirk's brown back as he struggles against his bonds. Johan feels his own cock swelling and lengthening and soon it stands up hard and stiff, bobbing against his muscled belly as he moves.

Dirk calms down as Johan's hand moves down his back onto his butt. He cringes as Johan's rough fingers trace some of the hot ridged welts on his smooth skin. He realizes that Johan is not going to stop, so he settles down to trying to bear it with as much dignity as possible.

By the time that Johan lays the tenth stroke across Dirk's arse he cannot stand the pressure that has been building up in his cock any more and he drops the cane and rushes forward to insert his straining cock into Dirk's exposed bumhole.

Momentarily surprised, Dirk nevertheless lifts his arse to meet Johan's desperate thrusting as far as his bonds allow.

Once again, it does not take Johan long to reach climax. After five minutes of rapid and aggressive thrusting, to the sound of sweaty flesh slapping on sweaty flesh and the animal grunts and groans of both boys, Johan has his second orgasm of the evening, even more powerful than the first.

When Johan unties Dirk, he sees that his dick is fully erected.

"Is that from the whipping or from after?," Johan asks.

"It's from after," says Dirk, "I want you to know the whipping did fuckall for me! I dunno how it gets you and Jan going but it sure doesn't work for me!"

Johan grins, "Doesn't work for everyone. You're just unlucky, I guess!"

"Anyway," says Dirk as he flops down on the sleeping bags, "I'm so jags now, my cock wants to explode… Get down here and suck me off!"

And so Johan and Dirk spend their last night together using and enjoying their hard young bodies like they were going to the gallows in the morning.

Back at camp the next morning the boys are kept busy packing up everything in readiness for old Andries's arrival with the tractor.

By the time everything is packed up old Andries has not arrived yet and Hein announces that he and his friends are not going to wait, they will go on ahead. When Andries arrives, the quarry boys are to pack everything on the trailer and return to the quarry with the tractor.

"You should arrive back this afternoon late. It's Saturday, so you'll have tomorrow off and then you will go back to crushing stone with your gang on Monday," Hein says to the boys standing in front of the lapa.

"But first…," Hein goes on as he picks up a leather strap that was lying on the table, "You guys have had a big loaf here this week… having a fat holiday instead of working. I had the problem before when the guys went back with a luigat (lazy-arsed) attitude and didn't want to work. So I'm gonna give each of you a good whipping now, just to get your minds right for work!"

"Oh fuck!" mutters Tiaan under his breath.

"OK, you first, Tiaan, for that!" says Hein, pointing at one of the gumpole posts holding up the thatched roof of the lapa, "Drop your shorts and go hug the pole."

Tiaan yanks his shorts off and quickly steps up against the pole, knowing better than to keep Hein waiting. He wraps his arms around the pole, stretching his hands up above his head.

Hein tosses a milking strop to Johan. Hein does not have to say anything. Johan knows exactly what he must do. Johan scurries into the lapa and, working quickly so as not to keep Hein waiting, loops the strop over and between both of his friend's wrists and then over the cross beam. Johan pulls down on the free end, stretching Tiaan and lifting him up onto his leathery toes. He ties the end to a bolt on the pole and then waits inside the lapa on the other side of the pole for Tiaan's whipping to begin.

Hein looks at Tiaan hanging against the pole in the bright morning sun, his swollen calves straining to hold up his weight, his back muscles standing out hard and knotted under the smooth brown skin. Hein admires the power in Tiaan's well developed muscles, the strength and hardness of his body and the sharp definition of his musculature. He feels a kind of proprietary pride in Tiaan… the pride that a coach might feel. After all, he feels, Tiaan's magnificent body is largely his own creation, the product of nearly two years of hard labour under the compulsion of Hein's whip. Hein always experiences a thrill at the thought of such physical strength and power being so absolutely subject to his will and whim and once again he feels the familiar stirring between his legs at the prospect of flogging that muscled brown back and buttocks.

The snap of leather on flesh and Tiaan's grunts and moans fill the air in the camp for the next fifteen minutes as Hein lays twenty searing strokes of the strap across his bare back and buttocks. The strap is not nearly as painful as the sambok but it stings like hell nevertheless and leaves a broader welt.

Hein finds it very satisfying to feel the thick leather strap connect with his victim's flesh, to see the muscles bunch and quiver involuntarily and to watch the kinetic force of the stroke seem to flash like lightning through Tiaan, jerking and slamming his body against the pole before escaping through his lips as a strangled grunt followed by a long moan as he shudders in pain.

Johan's dick is ramrod stiff and hard after the first few strokes across his friend's back, and he has to ease it out the top of his too-tight shorts, where it stretches up to his navel. From where he stands inside the lapa he can see that Hein and all the other boys have bulging shorts fronts too.

Next to be whipped is Lukas, short and stocky like his best mate, Jan. Lukas's long, thick, fully erected cock wobbles from side to side almost comically as he steps up to the pole. Just as comic is the way it goes instantly limp when the first stroke of the strap sears a fiery weal across his thickly muscled shoulder blades and extracts an agonized yelp from deep inside his bull neck.

Jan is next. Jan's dick is rock-hard and bobbing with the pulse of his by now hot and racing blood. As Johan hoists him up on the milking strop he notices that Jan's bright blue eyes are glistening with lust, his cheeks flushed and hot. Johan grins inwardly, knowing that Jan will feel almost nothing of his whipping in the high state of sexual excitement that he is in.

At the fifteenth stroke, Jan's body suddenly goes rigid for a couple of seconds and then begins to billow against the pole as he spurts hot jets of cum against Johan's belly and thighs, crooning with sheer ecstasy as he does so.

Finally, it is Johan's turn, and it is Tiaan that has to tie him and hoist him up against the pole. Johan is so hard and horny by now that he squirts his cum all over the still naked Tiaan after just a few strokes of the strap.

When Hein sees this he drops the strap, yanks off his shorts and wanks himself frenziedly to climax, jetting great globs of cum onto Johan's muscled back and buttocks, glistening white against his honey brown skin. Then, while his cum is still dribbling down Johan's legs, he starts whipping Johan from the beginning again. Johan knows better than to protest.

The moment the punishment is over, Hein and his friends mount their four-wheelers and roar off without a backward glance at the four freshly whipped quarry boys, standing naked and stiff, their backs and arses on fire, waiting for old Andries to arrive with the tractor.

After a long silence, Johan calmly makes an announcement to his friends.

"Well, guys, I've decided. I've had enough of this shit. I'm gonna bugger off!"

Chapter 11

Tiaan searches Johan's face for a while before saying flatly, "You're serious." It isn't a question.

Johan pulls on his shorts.

"Look, I've thought about it," he says, "We got a better chance of getting away from here than we'll ever have from the quarry. It'll be a few hours before Andries gets here and a few more before he gets back to report to Hein. We may even get lucky and he'll think we went back with Hein. If that happens, Hein won't start looking for us until Monday and it'll take him a few hours to get here."

"I dunno," says Tiaan, "However many hours lead we get, we can't outrun quad bikes or the bakkie (pick-up truck). And it's even further from here to Joburg than from the quarry."

"Ja, I thought about that too," says Johan, "Everybody thinks about heading for Joburg. So while Hein is looking for us on the way to Joburg we'll head the opposite way. We'll go north to Pietersburg!"

"Did you forget the tracker dogs? They'll quickly pick up what direction we're moving!"

"No," says Johan, "We'll go along the river in the direction of Joburg for a while and then we'll go into the river and walk back this way in the shallows until we're way north of here. Hein will take the dogs south to find where we came out the river but in the meantime we'll be going the other way. By the time he works out what we've done, if he ever does, our spoor will be too old for the dogs to follow."

Tiaan grins, "Hey, that could actually work!"

"So, will you come with me?"

Tiaan thinks a moment.

"What the hell, let's do it," he says.

Johan looks over at Jan and Lukas.

"What about you two?"

Jan and Lukas look at each other uncertainly.

"Hell, I dunno, Johan," says Lukas.

"Are you guys mad?" asks Jan, "You'll never make it. Look what happened to those two guys who bust out just before we came to the quarry. I don't wanna be broken like those okes!"

"It has to be your decision, guys," says Johan, "I'm not putting pressure on you!"

Jan and Lukas jab at the dusty earth with their stubby brown toes as they think it over.

Then Jan speaks for them both, Lukas nodding in agreement.

"Hell, Johan, we think we'll rather stay… sure it's tough at the quarry and the work is hard and we get whipped a lot and all… but… we can take it… we're used to it by now."

"Hey, we been here since we were ten, what else do we know?" says Lukas.

"You know Hein will whip the shit out of you!"

"Ja, we know, but we won't tell."

"Thanks guys, I know you won't… and… sorry to do this to you."

"Hey it's our choice."

Tiaan and Johan take a small backpack each from the store, fill them with as much food as the bags will hold and, after giving the two younger boys a last hug, they set off at a jog alongside the river, heading south. Their hard bare feet make clear imprints in the spongy soil, just as they intend, and they run in and out of the water along the way.

After an hour they come to a section of the river that runs shallowly over sheets of granite for several kilometres. They jog on for another half an hour and then enter the river and head back up the away they came, keeping to the rock until it runs out and then wading through the shallows on the other side of the river, being careful not to emerge on the bank until they have passed the campsite and reached another stretch of rockbed about an hour north of the camp.

Here they emerge from the water and trot over the sheets of granite until these turn to boulders that turn to rocky ridges reaching up like long fingers to a line of low koppies (hills) that march northward across the Bushveld, sometimes descending beneath the surface of the veld, to rise again a couple of kilometers later. The boys know from observation that this line of koppies will take them well to the west of the quarry.

By now it is midday and the red brown rock is hot enough to fry a steak on. Their leathery bare feet leave no imprint on the rock and the scent that they do leave is scorched away by the sun within minutes.

By nightfall they have covered half the distance back in the general direction of the quarry and they decide to stop and get some sleep. They light a small fire in a basin formed by some rocks on top of a koppie and take turns sleeping and keeping watch for leopards that might be on the prowl.

As night falls Jan and Lukas are still back at the campsite. They do not know that, as luck would have it, Old Andries has broken down on his way to fetch them with his battered old tractor. When, by about 10 o'clock that night, no one has arrived to pick them up, they decide to enjoy the luxury of the hot showers and comfortable beds in one of the rondawels rather than sleep in the servants' compound.

Old Andries eventually arrives at around midday the next day, Sunday, to pick up the boys. Jan and Lukas, buying as much time as possible for their friends, pretend that Tiaan and Johan have gone walking in the veld. They waste a couple of hours looking for them until Old Andries eventually decides enough is enough and they set off back to the quarry without them. Jan and Lukas are subdued as the tractor trundles along over the rough track, thinking about the whipping they will surely receive in the morning.

Old Andries offloads the sturdy pair at the quarry and continues up to the Farm where he reports the missing boys to Hein.

Jan and Lukas are preparing to shower when their boss-boy, Stompie, charges into their bungalow, red faced and angry.

"You two! Get over to the hok! Now!" he yells.

Jan and Lukas dart a worried look at each other and start to pull their shorts on.

"Leave your shorts! You not gonna need them for a while!" Stompie snarls with a leer of satisfaction.

As Stompie turns to leave the bungalow, the two frightened boys are startled to see that his own back is striped from shoulders to waist with fresh, fiery red welts. Hein has taken out some of his frustration and anger on Stompie. Never mind that Tiaan and Johan were actually in Hein's care when they went missing. Stompie just bore the whipping without a murmur. He is as institutionalized as Jan and Lukas and he knows better than to try to get out of it by reminding Hein that it was not his fault. That would have just got him whipped some more. Stompie just had to hope and pray that Hein would be satisfied with merely whipping him.

Stompie arrives at the hok with Jan and Lukas hard on his heels. Hein is waiting for them, impatiently tapping a long yellow rottang against a muscular brown calf. Another boy is standing with him, a big fifteen year old nicknamed 'Spyker' (nail) that Stompie knows well, both of them having been at the Boys Farm since they were ten years old. Stompie wonders why Spyker is there and he feels a dart of anxiety as he sees Spyker's wide mouth twist in a smirk of satisfaction.

Spyker has worked as a slave labourer in the quarry ever since he was sent down from the Farm as a meaty eleven-year. He was the youngest boy ever to be sent to the quarry, a testimony both to his muscularity and to his delinquency at that young age. Like most of the Afrikaner boys of Dutch or German descent, Spyker is blonde, blue-eyed and big-built. Five years of hard labour has given him a body that is barbarically muscular for his age. Even when he is standing still, his bulging muscles seem to ripple and glide in constant motion under his smooth, honey brown skin. His nickname refers to the fact that he has a special liking for 'spykering' virgin boys with his inordinately long and inordinately thick dick.

Stompie and Spyker have never liked each other. Stompie was twelve years old when he was sent to the quarry together with the younger Spyker. Spyker and a friend had got up to some mischief that Mr Basson regarded as the last straw. Spyker would not give up the name of his accomplice, so Mr Basson vowed to whip him until he did. Spyker took fifty strokes of the strap before it finally occurred to him to give up Stompie's name instead. Stompie's denials were not believed and he was whipped and sent down to the quarry together with Spyker. Spyker always thought it a huge joke but Stompie, naturally, took a different view. When Stompie was eventually made a bossboy he often used the power of his position to get Spyker whipped and more than once had the satisfaction of flogging Spyker personally.

Hein wastes no time in explaining Spyker's presence.

"Stompie, I'm firing you as the bossboy of this gang. Four of your guys have gone on the run now. It's because you're too soft on them. It's like a holiday camp to be in your gang. You've forgotten that these guys are here under punishment. They not here to have a good time. They gotta know nothing but shitting off and pain. They gotta work until they drop. If they still got energy to fuck each other at night then they aint worked hard enough in the day. I need someone who can drive them hard. So I'm putting Spyker in charge and you will join his gang as a labourer."

Stompie swallows hard, trying to fight back his tears of anger. He manages to nod.

"Give your strap to Spyker. It's his now."

Stompie hands his strap to Spyker.

"Now, you know how it works… to help you remember that Spyker is now the boss and you are now the slave, he's gonna give you thirty lashes with the strap."

Stompie nods again, too choked up to speak. He knows that this is standard procedure whenever a bossboy is demoted.

"But first, I'm gonna deal with these two… You!" he barks at Lukas, "Belly down on the strafbank!" and he underlines his order with a sizzling cut across Lukas's naked arse.

Lukas yelps with the unexpected sting and quickly darts forward to lie along the length of the wooden bench, his arms stretched out above his head, his fingers and toes curled around the ends to hold himself down. He closes his eyes and steels himself against the coming pain, the muscles of his brawny back, buttocks and thighs bunched and hard, the smooth tawny skin goose-pimpled despite the muggy warm evening.

Without saying a word, Hein lays ten sizzling strokes across Lukas's hard round buttocks in quick succession. By the tenth stroke the tough as nails Lukas's breath is hissing over his tightly clenched teeth with every loud crack of the rottang against his quivering flesh.

Hein pauses. "Well, Lukas, what have you got to tell me?"

"I… I dunno anything boss… really!" Lukas manages to pant, his chest heaving.

"Oh good!" says Hein, "I'm glad you want to play it that way… it's more fun for me!" and he slices the rottang savagely into the point where the roundness of Lukas's buttocks joins the top of his thick thigh.

Hein goes back to the point where Lukas's buttocks meet his back and works his way methodically down from there, laying each stroke neatly between the welts that have mushroomed thickly from the first layer of strokes. The pain is horrendous and by the time he has laid down another ten strokes Lukas is sobbing quietly, rising to a strangled groan with every bite of the rottang.

Again Hein pauses. "And now, Lukas? Remembered anything yet?"

Lukas shakes his head through his tears.

Hein starts over. By now there is hardly any skin on Lukas's buttocks that is not already welted and the rottang begins to draw blood. The pain is absolutely excruciating and Lukas loses not only what dignity he has left but all control over his bladder as well. His screams echo around the camp and he feels the hot gush of his pee as it puddles under his groin and belly and dribbles into the dust.

A third time Hein stops. He waits for Lukas to gain a measure of control and asks again, "Remembered anything yet, Lukas?"

Lukas shakes his head, "Please boss, please, I dunno anything, they just disappeared, I swear!" he sobs.

Hein looks at Lukas in disgust for a moment. Then, in a sudden burst of anger, he delivers one more stroke across Lukas's bleeding and swollen buttocks before ordering him to get up.

Lukas can barely manage to lever himself off the bench and, when he does, he stands unsteadily, his whole body trembling, while his friend, Jan, takes his place on the strafbank.

Jan is aroused as usual from watching his friend being whipped and his exceptionally long thick dick is rock hard and bobbing against his ridged belly muscles as he stretches out on the strafbank. With Hein's first stroke Jan's buttocks push his penis forward between his hard belly and the wooden surface of the bench. Involuntarily he lifts his buttocks to draw his penis back again and then, unable to stop even if he wanted to, Jan grinds away at the bench, his head back, his jaw slack and his eyes glazed as the sexual pleasure radiating through his body from the tip of his cock gradually increases until it almost negates the searing pain of the rottang strokes.

Hein knows that he is not going to get anything out of Jan either, but he gives him thirty searing strokes of the rottang anyway.

Jan climaxes a few thrusts after the thirtieth stroke and he groans his pleasure as his body shudders and his thick cock squirts great jets of hot cum out between his belly and the bench. As Jan levers himself off the bench long tendrils of cum join his belly to the bench momentarily and Spyker, his own enormous dick now straining to free itself from his shorts, feels his belly lurch with sudden desire. He realizes suddenly that this muscular, attractive and highly sexual pair of blonde boys are now his to command in every way and the thought almost makes him cum on the spot.

Afterward, Hein watches gleefully as Spyker, eager to impress his master, orders Stompie to strip naked and take position at the whipping post. Jan and Lukas are made to string Stompie up to the whipping post. Spyker helps to pull down on the ropes and stretch the quivering Stompie up onto his toes. Then the two boys watch as their new master, Spyker, uses his newly acquired leather strap to settle old scores with Stompie. Spyker lashes Stompie's bare back with a strength and a fury that is frightening to behold and the two boys are filled with dread for their new master.

Twenty minutes later Stompie's back and buttocks are criss-crossed with thirty thick and livid welts, some of which ooze droplets of dark blood. He is left to hang against the whipping post, sobbing quietly, his humiliation complete, while Spyker locks Jan and Lukas in the hok, where Hein has sentenced them to spend the next three days.

They spend the night on their bellies, as boys in the hok usually have to do, but they do not get much sleep, thinking about the further twenty strokes of the rottang that they will receive in the morning, and every morning that they spend in the hok.

When Spyker eventually releases Stompie they hear Spyker say to him, "That was just the beginning, my maat (my friend)! Tomorrow I'm gonna lash you all day long in the quarry. I'm gonna lash you every single day from now on. I'm gonna take the skin off your back and I'm gonna enjoy doing it!"

In the morning Jan and Lukas are up early and they watch from the hok as Hein and his three friends roar past the quarry on their four-wheelers in the direction of the hunting camp. They look at each other wordlessly, hoping that Johan and Tiaan would have managed to get well away by now.

Then their bellies lurch with fear as they spot the muscle-bound Spyker striding towards the hok, cutting the air from side to side with a long yellow rottang, eager to carry out his first duty of the day as their new bossboy. They dart a glance at the hated wooden strafbank waiting in the dust to take them once more into its excruciating embrace and, involuntarily, Jan reaches out to grip Lukas's hand.

Johan and Tiaan are also awake after their second night on the run. They chew on a couple of rusks each as they get going at once, anxious not to waste the cooler hours of the morning as they weave their way through the dense Bushveld thorn scrub. Hour after hour their leathery bare feet pound heedless over the stony thorn-strewn veld as they jog steadily north-east. Now and then they come up against a game fence that they climb over. They make sure that any spoor on either side of the fence has been obliterated for a distance of about 50 metres [160 feet]. Johan instinctively realizes that the fenceline is where trackers would start looking for spoor.

Sometime at midday of this third day the two exhausted boys are resting under an old weeping willow on the spongy bank of a small stream where they have thirstily sucked up some of the muddy lukewarm water. It is simply too hot to keep on running, even for these two tough quarry boys used to slaving all day in the heat, and, after soaking their muscle-weary bodies for a while in the water, they decide to wait for the fiercely searing sun to cool off a bit before going on.

In moments both boys fall into a deep sleep.

Johan dreams he is playing in a rugby match back at school. He is racing down the touchline with his head down and the ball tucked under his left arm. With his right arm he has just fended off the last remaining defender and the goal line is open. He is as fast as the wind and no one can catch him now. His stubby toes dig into the grass as his powerful legs launch his body into the air, his arms outstretched to touch the ball down over the line. He lands on his chest, smacking the ball down at the same time. He slithers a couple of metres on his belly. He rolls onto his back and lies there, savouring the moment.

He feels a sharp pain in his belly. He is puzzled. There's another one! He squints up to see who is jabbing him in his moment of glory. Suddenly he is back in the bushveld beside the stream. He starts awake and sits up with a jolt, his heart pounding.

A large black man is looking down at him, a thick stick in his hand. Two others stand on either side of the two boys. They are dressed in khaki uniforms and look like game rangers. Tiaan also wakes now and sits up, looking startled and befuddled.

The large black man steps back and looks at the boys curiously. Johan sees that he carries an old .303 rifle slung over his right shoulder.

The man points his stick at Johan's chest. "What are you doing here?" he asks.

Johan thinks furiously. "Uh… we come from the farm over there," he points in a direction, "We just went for a walk and stopped to rest here."

"You are lying!" says the black man, "The baas (owner) of that farm has no sons and I have never seen you before."

"He is our uncle and we are just visiting him," Johan improvises desperately, knowing as he says it that the next question is going to be what is his uncle's name.

But the attack comes from a different direction.

"You did not come from that farm," says the black man, "We followed your spoor from over there," and he points in the direction that the boys had come."

Johan falls silent.

"Tell me the truth," says the man, "Where did you come from? Have you run away from home?"

Johan nods.

"Where is your home?"

"In Joburg."

The man raises an eyebrow.

"You have come a long way but you have not come from Joburg."

The boys are silent, not wanting to give anything more away.

The man appraises them silently. They are a great puzzle to him. Two good looking and exceptionally well muscled boys, nearly naked but for the tattered remains of their shorts hanging pointlessly in strips from the waistband, their teak brown bodies covered in scratches from thorn scrub and barb wire. They are obviously on the run, but from what?

One of the other men points wordlessly to the boys' backs. The man with the rifle moves around to look. He purses his lips to whistle soundlessly at the dozens of now fading whip marks that criss-cross the muscled ridges of their backs and the firm brown globes of their buttocks where they protrude from the tatters of their shorts.

"Well, no matter," says the black man, "We will take you to the General. You will tell him the truth or you will be very sorry!"

"Ag please just let us go!" Johan pleads, "We haven't done no harm. We'll go back the way we came and we won't bother you no more!"

"No, that will not do," says the man with a short laugh, "The General will know you were here and I would have to explain why I did not bring you to him!"

"How can he ever know? Please let us go. We promise we will never come back!"

For answer the black man gives the other two men a curt instruction and each one grips a boy by the wrists, brings his wrists together behind his back and binds them together with a thin leather thong. They swing the boys' backpacks over their shoulders and all five now set off on foot back along the way that the rangers had tracked the boys.

An hour later the party arrives at where the rangers had left their Landrover bakkie to track the boys on foot. The boys and one of the rangers climb onto the back while the other two get into the cab. Seconds later the Landrover roars across the veld in the directions of a low flat topped hill in the distance.

Johan feels a lump of fear like a burning coal somewhere in his middle. Their dash for freedom is over. The "General," whoever he is, will quickly find out where they have come from, if he does not know already. He is probably a farmer friend of Mr Basson. Soon they will be on their way back to the quarry and the terrible flogging that awaits them both.

Chapter 12

They enter a long drive shaded by tall acacias planted on both sides. Through the trees the boys see a magnificent white walled and black thatched Cape Dutch style manor house at the far end of many acres of pristine lawn, shrubberies and flower beds, an oasis of fresh green and vibrant colour against the olive drabness of the surrounding bushveld.

The tree-lined drive veers around the end of the lawns and continues up to the house but as they approach it the Landrover takes a side road that leads around to the back of the house onto a large rectangular werf (yard). The back of the house takes up one whole side of the werf and, except for the arched entranceway that the Landrover passes through, other buildings line the remaining three sides.

The Landrover pulls up next to a short flight of steps leading up to double doors set in the face of a two storey building directly across the werf from the house. A man waits on the bottom step, obviously expecting them. He is smartly turned out in what looks like army uniform… khaki short sleeved open neck shirt, khaki shorts, highly polished brown shoes and khaki shoulder boards bearing the three brass stars of a Captain in the South African Army.

The boys get down and stand uncertainly on the graveled surface of the werf as the Captain looks them over curiously.

"Thanks Jonas," he says to the ranger with the rifle, "You can leave them with me now. I think you can remove those rieme (thongs) as well."

One of the rangers removes the rieme binding the boys' wrists and then they drive off in the Landrover, leaving the boys with the Captain.

"What are your names?" he asks.

"I am Johan, General," says Johan, looking the Captain steadily in the eyes and putting out his hand.

The Captain takes Johan's hand and smiles approvingly at the strength of his grip and the hardness of his work-calloused hand, "Oh, I am not the General," he says, "I am Captain Stander, the General's adjutant."

Tiaan takes a step forward and puts out his hand out too, "Tiaan," he says.

Captain Stander grips Tiaan's hand. "Good strong handshakes you boys have," he remarks.

The boys can see the Captain has many questions to ask, but he says to them, "You boys look exhausted. Let's get you cleaned up and fed and then we can talk about what we are to do with you. Come with me!"

They follow the Captain up the steps and through the big double doors into a large hallway. The polished quarry tiled floor feels smooth and cool under the boys' bare feet. The walls are lined with glass fronted cabinets displaying a large variety of inscribed trophies and awards. From here doors lead off to a dining hall on one side and a large common room on the other. A passage leads from the back of the hallway past many small neat bedrooms.

Each bedroom contains two army issue steel beds made up with gray army issue blankets and crisp white linen. A low olive green steel cupboard and a small study table and chair flank each bed. Against the wall at the head of each bed is a set of wooden shelves containing books, rugby balls and other possessions of the occupants. At the foot of each bed is an olive green steel trommel (trunk) and on top of each trunk is a backpack and set of webbing, topped with a Kevlar helmet covered in brown cloth. On the floor in front of the trommel is a pair of polished brown leather combat boots, neatly side by side.

Halfway down the passage racks of assault rifles line the walls, locked in their stands. Like all white South African boys of the time who have to do their military service when they finish school, Johan and Tiaan recognize the rifles as R4s, the South African derivative of the Israeli designed Galil.

This must be an Army base, thinks Johan, his heart sinking further. It must be but a short hop from the Army to the Police and back to the quarry he reasons.

The passage ends in a large washroom with showers, washbasins and lavatories, plain but spotlessly clean.

Captain Stander fetches towels, soap and a couple of freshly laundered brown army issue T shirts and black PT shorts from a storeroom and hands them to the boys.

"There's plenty of hot water… the boys are out on a survival exercise and won't be back for a couple of days more, so you've got the place to yourself. Get yourselves properly cleaned up and… uh… give me those things," he points to their tattered shorts, "I'll get rid of them and you can borrow these to wear in the meantime."

He looks down at the boys' broad brown hard and leathery feet. "We don't have anything for you to wear on your feet… the General likes our boys to go barefoot in training… like the Spartans, you know?"

Johan and Tiaan look at each. They don't know what he is talking about but Johan replies, "We are boerseuns (Afrikaner boys), oom (uncle), not moffies (sissies), our feet are hard and we never wear shoes anyway," says Johan.

"Yes, I see that," says the Captain, "Well… when you are ready, just find your way back down the passage to the dining hall and cook will give you something to fill your bellies," and he leaves them.

As soon as he has gone Johan looks out of one of the open windows to see if it offers an opportunity for escape. But it faces onto a closed yard where some kitchen staff are busy working.

"What are you looking for?" asks Tiaan.

"We have to get away from here," says Johan, "These guys are Army – they'll hand us back to the Boys Farm when they find out who we are!"

"And how far do you think we'll get before they track us down?"

"I dunno, but we gotta try!"

"Well I don't think now is the right time," says Tiaan, "If we run now we'll be caught for sure and then they'll know something's up. I say we wait and see how things pan out."

"Ja, you're right, let's take it calmly for now."

The boys spend ages under the showers, soaping themselves and each other luxuriantly in the hot water. Soaping and washing each other in the showers has become a ritual ever since that night when Johan first came to the quarry, when he helped Tiaan by washing his freshly whipped back for him. As Johan slides a soapy hand over the hard muscled ridges of Tiaan's back and onto the firm roundness of his buttocks, he feels the familiar tingling in his belly and he remembers his words to Tiaan that night… «'This doesn't make us 'bum chums,' right?,» he had said. He smiles at the memory. What an innocent he was then, thinks Johan as he almost absent mindedly swivels his hand and slides his middle finger down the valley between Tiaan's butts to probe his hole. At the same time he slides his other hand down the serried ridges of Tiaan's belly to grasp Tiaan's dick and starts to massage it into life. Tiaan automatically spreads his thighs and lifts his arse slightly to open the way for Johan.

Then Tiaan remembers where they are. "We better not," says Tiaan, reluctantly.

Johan goes on pumping and probing for a full minute, wrestling to curb his lust, when he finally lets go and steps back.

"You're right," he says, "Let's not do this now."

Fifteen minutes later the two boys are clean and glowing. They pull on the shorts that the Captain left for them and they pad in their bare feet down the tiled passageway to the dining hall. The cook sends them back to put on the T shirts they had left in the washroom. He points to a sign at the door and reads it for their benefit "Can't you bloody boys read?' he asks, ""Cadets are to wear shirts in the dining hall" it says. You can go about like savages everywhere else but in my dining hall you will be dressed properly!"

"Cadets! What's that?" they think but they say nothing as they fetch the T shirts.

Captain Stander comes in just as they finish eating.

"Had enough to eat? Then follow me!"

They follow the Captain out of the building and diagonally across the graveled werf to another building where the Captain ushers them into a small neat office and motions them to take a seat on two plain chairs facing a desk. On the wall behind the desk is a detailed training program. On another wall is a map of the estate, covered in clear plastic talc, marked with incomprehensible symbols and figures in various colours.

"Right!" says the Captain as he takes his seat behind the desk, "Now tell me all about it."

"Well, see sir," Johan starts with the story he has been thinking out, "We were on a hunting camp with our dads and we got lost in the veld and…"

"Look," the Captain interrupts him, gently but firmly, "Just so we don't unnecessarily waste any time, perhaps I should tell you what I know and you can then fill in the gaps, hey?"

Johan's heart plummets down into his belly and sits there like a lump of coal.

"You boys are runaways. You have run away from a boys' home… or… more likely a reform school or something like that. I know there aren't any around here, so you've come a long way. Your calluses and muscles tell me you are used to hard labour and that you've done it for a while. The stripes on your backs and your arses tell me either that you have been mistreated or that you are extremely badly behaved. How am I doing so far?"

Johan realizes it is useless to keep up any pretenses. He is almost relieved. At least he knows what he is facing now and he can deal with that.

"Sir, please don't send us back to that place! I only stole a condom from a café. I know it was wrong and I'll take my punishment. I'll go anywhere. I'll do anything. But please don't send us back there!"

"Please Sir!" Tiaan chimes in, "We were supposed to be there only six months but I been there over two years now and Johan nearly two years. And when you go back after escaping they whip you so your body is scarred the rest of your life! We heard of one guy who died!"

The Captain listens as the two boys pour out their stories, rambling and disjointed, the words tumbling over each other in an unstoppable flood. Soon after they start he takes a dictaphone from a drawer and switches it on to record the boys' astonishing experiences. Here and there he asks a question and makes notes on a pad.

When the words finally run out the boys both sit with their heads in their hands, tears streaming down their cheeks, their chests heaving with quiet sobs.

The Captain is silent for a long while, his face dark. The boys' stories are so fantastic that they could not possibly be fabrications. The Captain's careful and probing questions have drawn consistent replies every time. Even though the accounts have been all over the place, everything has hung together perfectly. And finally, the boys' eyes and faces confirm to the Captain's practised eye that the boys are telling the truth.

Then, suddenly, he makes up his mind.

"Boys, I don't know yet what we can do for you, but I promise you that you will not be going back to that hell hole if we can help it! I will speak to the General about it when he returns tomorrow. If anyone can do anything about it, he can!"

By now it is getting dark and the Captain leads the boys back to the dining hall for a simple supper before he shows them to a bedroom down the passage close to the washroom. He fetches blankets, sheets and pillows from the store room and dumps them on one of the beds.

"This room is not allocated at present, so you can make it yours until we work out what will happen with you. If you need anything you will find the duty room just next to my office. The duty NCO there will help you. After breakfast tomorrow, which is 30 minutes after reveille, report to my office and I will get someone to show you around."

"What's "reveille" sir?" asks Johan.

"That's like a wake-up call with a bugle," smiles the Captain.

Then he leaves and the boys have the place to themselves.

They peel off their borrowed clothes to be comfortable and then make their beds with the linen the Captain has left. Johan drops his pillow in place and turns to see Tiaan watching him with a familiar glint in his eye.

"What?" asks Johan, although he knows perfectly well what, and his cock starts filling out at the thought.

"I feel like a shower, how 'bout you?" says Tiaan, his own cock responding in kind.

"Sure" grins Johan, "We got unfinished business in the shower…"

While Johan and Tiaan satiate their youthful lust for each other's bodies, Jan and Lukas are back in the hok for the second night of their punishment.

It has been a long day of torture and pain for the tough and stocky pair. It started with the vicious caning that Spyker gave them at breakfast… twenty sizzling strokes with the long yellow rottang across buttocks still welted from the caning they got last night from Hein.

Then, after a meal of bread and water, they got sent to the quarry for a full day's work. Usually, boys under punishment would spend the whole day in the hok, contemplating their crimes while recovering from their whippings. But Spyker let it be known that there was no way he was going to let them idle away the day in the hok when they could be contributing to production.

As the new bossboy out to prove to Hein that he merited the promotion, Spyker drove the boys in his gang hard all day. He ordered that they would all henceforth go naked so as to be completely unhindered in their work. Also, he said, so that more bare flesh would be available for his hungry strap.

All through the day he moved constantly among the boys, mercilessly flailing their straining backs, buttocks and thighs with his leather strap to get them to work even harder to produce a few extra spadefuls of gravel each for every hour of the day.

As if this were not enough, every now and then he would randomly choose some luckless boy whom he would accuse of not working hard enough, have him kneel down and hug one of the roadside bollards in front of the assembled gang and flog him ten to fifteen lashes. Their work rate slowed by their hunger and the agony of their canings, both Jan and Lukas fall victim to this new form of 'encouragement'.

Spyker reduced his boys' lunch break to just fifteen minutes. Being under punishment, Jan and Lukas were not allowed even this short break and they laboured on with Spyker concentrating his whole attention on them, lashing their muscular brown backs almost continuously as they swung their hammers frenziedly against the rock.

By the end of the day Spyker's gang had achieved a record in production but they were too sore and exhausted to take any pride in this, much to Spyker's disappointment.

Jan and Lukas lie on their bellies in the hok. Their severely welted arses and backs are too sore to sit or to lie on. Their stomachs rumble with hunger. Boys under punishment in the hok are fed only on bread and water and that just once a day, at breakfast. Their next meal is twelve hours away. They are filthy with sweat and dust, not being allowed the privilege of washing or showering during their time in the hok.

Although night has fallen, the hok with its steel mesh walls is awash with the harsh light of floodlights.

"Fuck it! Another two days to go," grumbles Jan.

He struggles to his knees and looks over his friend's body.

Shit," he says, "You look a real mess… especially your arse!"

Lukas manages a chuckle. "Fuck! Have you seen yourself?" he asks.

"No, but it doesn't feel too good!"

"You wouldn't have said so from the boner you got every time you got whipped today!" chuckles Lukas.

"Ja, but I didn't get a chance to get my rocks off! Now I'm bung full of juice and my balls feel like they wanna explode… ," says Jan with a plea in his voice.

Lukas twists his head to look at his friend. He sees that Jan's cock is standing up like a flagpole against his belly.

"Shit man Jan!" he says, wincing as he raises himself up onto his elbows, "I'm way too sore to have you porking my arse right now!"

"You sure?"

"Damn sure!"

"OK… How "bout a blowjob then?"

"Ag, Jan, I'm just not in the mood."

"OK ..," a little petulantly, "Guess I'll just have to wank myself."

Lukas watches as his friend starts to stroke his long thick cock slowly and provocatively just inches away from Lukas's face. After a while Lukas feels his own cock start to lengthen underneath him. Suddenly, he gets up onto his knees.

"OK," he sighs, feigning reluctance, "I suppose I can help you out!"

Jan grins at him impishly.

"Works every time!" he says, thrusting out his hips as Lukas bends down, steadies Jan's quivering cock with his hand and closes his lips around its swollen purple head.

"Aah yess!" Jan hisses his pleasure as Lukas works his strong and practised tongue around the tip of Jan's cock.

The jaunty bugle call wakes Tiaan first, lying snug against Johan's warm brown back, his one arm under Johan's neck and the other wrapped around Johan's side, his hand resting on Johan's hard muscled belly. Tiaan's cock, rigid with its customary morning erection, rests comfortably in the valley between the hard round globes of Johan's buttocks.

Tiaan nibbles the ropes of muscle at the back of Johan's thick brown neck until Johan squirms and giggles into wakefulness.

Johan feels Tiaan's rock hard 'morning glory' sliding between the mounds of his buttocks as Tiaan humps against him suggestively. Tiaan's hand slides down Johan's belly to play with Johan's own 'morning glory'.

"Jeez, Tiaan, we got breakfast in thirty minutes!"

"Shit, Johan, I'm hard already and I'm horny as hell. Thirty minutes is plenty of time!"

For answer, Johan turns over onto his belly, spreads his legs and angles his arse up invitingly. Tiaan slides his body over Johan's and guides his swollen cock into Johan's welcoming channel. Supporting his weight on fists planted either side of Johan's chest, Tiaan immediately starts pumping his cock into Johan like a piston, grunting with each violent thrust as he drives himself rapidly to a long and shuddering climax. Then Tiaan rolls off Johan, grabs his towel and dashes for the shower.

"Hey, what about me?" Johan yells after him.

"Come do me in the shower!" the answer trails behind the disappearing Tiaan.

Johan jumps up and follows.

The boys arrive ten minutes late for breakfast, bright eyed and bushy tailed from their invigorating exertions in the shower. The few staff members at breakfast glance at them curiously but say nothing.

After breakfast the boys hurry across to Captain Stander's office.

"Right," says the Captain, "I've spoken to the General and he has agreed to see you. If he likes what he sees, he will do what he can to help you… If he can't help you, no one can … So the ball's pretty much in your court now! Make the best use of this opportunity."

"Yes sir," the boys say together.

"OK then, are you ready to meet the General?"

"You mean right now, sir," says Johan.

The Captain chuckles as he stands up. "Yes, right now," he says, "Don't worry, the General doesn't bite, although he can be fierce!"

The boys follow the Captain nervously out the back of the building and across an immaculate lawn to a high roofed single storey building with large wide windows that looks like a school hall or a gymnasium. They mount the steps and find themselves in a lobby with double doors leading into a large hall with a highly polished wooden floor. The Captain removes his shoes in the lobby and bows stiffly from the waist as he steps into the hall and waits. Without knowing why, Johan and Tiaan bow too. As they straighten their attention is drawn to a strange sight in the centre of the hall.

A trim grey-haired man wearing a loose dark blue jacket and very baggy dark blue trousers is sitting on his calves, bare feet tucked under his buttocks, a hand resting on top of each thigh, his back straight and his head erect as he gazes into the middle distance. At his left hip, tucked horizontally into the folds of his trousers, he wears a long black curved two handed Japanese sword. As they watch the immobile figure the boys are startled when he suddenly launches into a rapid but measured flow of movements that take him from sitting through kneeling to standing as the sword hisses from the scabbard in a flash of steel, scythes to the right, sweeps up above his head to come fluting straight down to the horizontal, flicks up again and then down as if shaking something from the blade and then slicks back into the glossy black scabbard, all in the twinkling of an eye.

The figure pauses a moment and then turns and strides towards the Captain and the boys.

"Good morning, General," says Captain Stander, "These are the two I spoke to you about."

The General is a short man, not much taller than the boys, but he has a compelling presence. His once black hair is now mostly grey. Steady, appraising, light brown eyes look into the boys' souls, or so it feels to them.

"Good morning, General," they chorus.

Without acknowledging their greeting the General announces crisply, "I can only keep one of you… the other will have to go back… you must decide between you right now who it is to be."

The boys look at him dumbly in shock.

The General waits a moment.

"Well?" he asks.

"Sir," says Johan, struggling to get the words out, "If it has to be one, let it be Tiaan. He was there longer than me."

"No!" says Tiaan, "If Johan must go back I will go with him! Let Johan stay here and I will go back."

"I'm not staying here without you!" says Johan.

The General looks at the two angry and disappointed boys, a faint smile hovering on his lips.

"Hmm," he grunts. Then, "OK James, they'll do," he says and swivels on his heel to return to his practice.

"Thank you, sir," says the Captain, "Come on you two!"

The confused boys follow the Captain back to his office.

"So… when do we go back?" asks Johan.

"No, you're not going back."

"I said I'm not staying here without Tiaan!"

"No, you're both staying."

"But… I thought…"

"Oh, that's just the General's way of getting the measure of you. You heard him say "they'll do" didn't you? Well, that meant he was satisfied with your answers. Both of you."

A dam bursts in Johan's and Tiaan's chests and tears of sheer joy and relief well in their eyes and stream down their cheeks.

The Captain looks at them kindly. "Look," he says, "We're not out of the woods yet. There's a lot that has to be done before you will be completely free. I'm going to leave the pair of you here for half an hour to settle yourselves while I go attend to some things. When I get back I will talk to you about what happens next."

NEXT PART