Odessa Ranch

Odessa Ranch 10

Few men leave the ranch voluntarily--few walk to Buck's office, utter the specific word, and get transported back to Midland. Most are asked to leave because the man-himself has decided that they are no longer young enough or attractive enough for his tastes and could be replaced by someone who fits both requirements. The men who come to the ranch want to be treated as they do. It is a simple world where agreement, disagreement, even something as basic as black and white are not issues or annoyances. It is a world of animal necessity and sexual abandon whose only essential accessory is the lash and the authority it commands. But even the men who choose this path can, with time, slip into more domesticated urges. Buck's main job is to make sure that any budding relationship is dealt with harshly and brutally and publicly.

Dax

Dax was from Alabama and odd by ranch standards because of his intellect. He could easily have done any of the usual things that the brightest normally do. But he was ashamed of his abilities. His hometown was a southern mill town, his parents southern mill people. He was not mill quality, though. His intellect gave him the tools to recognize this, and to recognize he had any number of ways out. But crucial components were lacking, not in brain power, but in heart. He didn't want the responsibility of college and a white-collar life--he saw some of it and what he saw he hated. Dax wanted the mindless skullduggery of manual labor. He wasn't openly gay, but it was something he couldn't deny to himself even if he wanted to. But he knew he would never find someone to love him who would be willing to set up housekeeping in Blount County, Alabama. Because of that, staying in rural Alabama wasn't an option.

Dax found Odessa the same way everyone did. He chatted with Answrman. He had pleaded with Buck to be allowed to join the ranch at seventeen. No amount of begging was going to work, so he just set his sights on showing up at the ranch on the day he turned 18. He was of average height and build, perfect for molding. Brown hair, brown eyes, attractive, noticeable. When Buck lashed him at the whipping post he purposefully kept the lash from landing on Dax's ass--he wanted to mar that white roundness in private just before fucking it. Dax claimed his asshole to be a virgin and Buck did nothing to disabuse himself of that (he didn't pass up the opportunity to pop a pretty-boy cherry anytime it was offered).

Ty first saw Dax one day at lunch when he went to the kitchen to get chow for himself and his field mates. There was no hiding his attraction; he didn't try--he made sure, in fact, that Dax knew the hardon was because of and for him. Dax blushed a little, doing the Prince William sly look over the top of his eyebrows. But they didn't speak. Ty continued to make the meal runs daily. He was no longer turned on as much by his shack mates and field mates. He thought variety was what he wanted; after seeing Dax the part of his body between scrotum and the pit of his stomach told him what he really wanted was Dax. Within three days he knew which field Dax was in and in which shack he slept.

"I'm comin' to see you tonight, you be outside waitin." Ty held the food he was taking back slowly. He wanted to drop the chow boxes and rub his callused hands over Dax skin still so new to the elements and the lash as to be almost baby smooth. He wanted his cock in that fresh hole, but at least equal to that he just wanted to touch and smell the object of his obsession. Ty's cock dribbled constantly, and he was fucking his shack mates again, but each trust, each squirt was in proxy for what he was planning for Dax.

"No, Ty. You'll get us in trouble."

"I don't care, I want you."

"Ty"

"Dax, I'm gonna be there tonight. I will break into your shack and pull you out of it if I have to." He meant it, and Dax knew it.

He waited for the others to sleep. He stayed outside telling them he wasn't sleepy and didn't want to keep them awake by fidgeting. After his shack mates had settled, Ty headed for Dax's shack.

The shacks were placed far apart to discourage fraternization. It was easier for Buck to keep tabs on everyone like that. He would be able to tell if love descended on the members of a shack pretty easily and could handle it far more quickly than if all slaves were in a smaller and tighter confine. Ty had to hope that as he ran from one shack to the next that no one would notice him. By waiting as he did, he allowed time for all the slaves to take care of their bladders and bowels which they do in increasingly large circles around the shacks (digging small holes and filling them in after they've shit), meaning the shacks are moved about twice a year. Ty ran crouched between the shacks and would make as if he were digging a hole near one shack so he could determine if he were being watched. Once confident that he was safe he would repeat this until he got to Dax's.

Dax waited for his mates to go to sleep. He made a quiet excuse that he had to piss in case anyone was still partly awake. Outside he sat with his knees drawn to his chest a good deal away from the shack itself. The night cooled around him, his ass sweating slightly against the warm dust. It itched a little, but he did nothing to scratch it. He meditated on that feeling, it was similar to what he knew he would be feeling when Ty fucked him, an exquisite itch inside his ass. His cock drooled against his tight stomach.

The shacks were roughly lined up in a row. There were fifteen of them in all. Ty had to maneuver past 6 of them to get to his quarry. They were placed about a hundred yards apart, leaving huge amounts of dead open space for him to get caught. He had no idea what he might expect being caught. It wasn't as if he were trying to escape, and none of the few public punishments he'd seen so far had anything to do with being caught away from the shack. Still he moved as a surreptitious inmate heading for freedom. His eyes were fully used to the dark when he got to the shack next to Dax's, so he could see the neat ball of his obsession sitting far from where his mates were hopefully asleep. It was an internal fight, but he was able to keep his guard up until he actually got to Dax.

Dax waved at him a little as he saw Ty approach. Ty was about the same height as Dax, but he was broader, more stocky, exactly what Dax craved. Dax knew from the way he walked and talked that Ty was as close to animal as anyone here at the ranch, and the way he moved toward him only went to prove it. Ty moved with a fox's cunning, speed and focus being more important than grace and cover; what kept him fairly safe in Dax's eyes was his ability to move so fast, so close to the ground. Someone not paying close attention would assume it to be perhaps a dog.

Dax opened his mouth to whisper hi, but it was immediately plugged by Ty's tongue. Ty was panting through the kiss, breathing heavily and with man scent onto Dax's eager face. Dax tried to take in tongue and smell as deeply as he could as if he could simply suck forever, but he fell to panting too very quickly. Ty broke off a little, like a swimmer finally having to come up for air. Knowing that they didn't have the luxury of time, Dax stayed silent, and went straight for Ty's cock, lying stiff against his spasmodic gut. Ty did what he could to keep his moans as quiet as possible. The boy he wanted, the boy who filled his head when he used his mates as proxy holes, was using his lithe tongue around the sheathed head of his cock. It felt like his cock was going to split its own skin, was going to molt into something larger, more sensitive. Dax tried to steady Ty's bucking hips. He moved so that he could keep his hands against Ty's lower abs while his tongue and lips teased Ty's cock.

"No." Ty gasped and pushed Dax off of him with force. "It ain't your mouth I want on my cock, I want my tongue in that. I want my tongue in you when I squirt my load up your ass."

He crawled over Dax. He lifted Dax's hips so he could get at his hole. Ty ran his hands up the smooth thighs while he worked enough spit into his dry mouth--dry from the trip, dry from excitement. Finally he had enough and moved close to the twitching hole. The smell of sweat Dax's balls and ass were strong enough to make Ty nearly cum from one breath. He spit gently onto the upturned hole and worked in the thick spit with a thumb. Without words, he put Dax's ankles over his shoulders and guided his cock into the silky, little used hole. He used all his energy to control himself as much as he could. Each man kept his eyes closed. They could tell from breath and heat when their heads were close and mouths found each other more through need than anything else. Ty moved his cock slowly in and out of Dax's itching hole. He wanted to buck, his cock was signaling that it wanted to cum now, but Ty wanted to be more familiar with this perfect asshole before he allowed that. Dax clawed a bit at Ty's brown and lash scarred ass. Dax wanted to be fucked, the itch was becoming more of a tickle, a tickle that demanded quick thrusting to alleviate. He moved his hips opposite Ty's gentle movements to try to encourage him.

"No, I want to go slow."

"Ty, no. I want you to fuck me."

Ty could no more ignore that than a genie could a wish. His hips moved with a speed he couldn't imagine before. His mouth clamped against Dax's, tongue moving as rapidly as his cock. In seconds that seemed to each man to last far longer, he came. Thrust after thrust launching more sticky cum deeper and deeper into his mate. Each squirt holding the power of a single orgasm, each squirt being as powerful as his first time.

Without missing a beat, he moved Dax's legs off his shoulders. He ran his hand up Dax's crack to lube his hands with his cum and jerked Dax's cock, so much like his own. It was only a couple of short seconds before his cooling cum was married to Dax's own hot sperm.

"I" Ty began. Dax put a hand over Ty's mouth, he knew what was going to follow. He wanted to say it too, but if left unsaid, they could still both deny it, maybe.

"I"

"No. Don't say anything. I want to watch you as you leave, I want to watch until even after I can't see you in the darkness."

"But." The look in Dax's eyes, the watery, tear ready eyes, matched his own and Ty knew he needed more to comply than to say the words. "I'll see you at lunch."

Dax sat still and compact as he did while waiting; he kept his hole puckered as tightly as he could so as to let as little cum out as he possible. It didn't take long for Ty to disappear which was as much testament to Ty's speed as the darkness itself. Dax couldn't help feeling that he was now playing a part in a sappy movie--it stopped being porn when his heart's desire began to outrank that of his cock. At first only mixed in, then finally becoming the dominate thought, Dax could only contemplate the meaning behind two words: Now what?

An Indirect Warning

"Where did you go last night?" Seth moved to the edge of his parcel to ask Ty. One of his jobs in his crew before he started handling the communication was as a sort of spy to make sure the new members weren't infiltrators. He woke up when Ty left and knew he had not returned before he fell back asleep--long enough for Ty to have taken care of nearly any bodily need.

"Uh. To take a piss."

"No. I know you didn't do that. I heard you run off."

"Well if you know that, then you know I ain't gonna say where I went."

"Just don't fuck anything up for the rest of us." Seth began to walk back to the spot where he left off.

"What do you know that I don't? I been here longer than you." Despite sounding angry, the words might have been, but his tone displayed nerves.

"Ty, I know how places like this work and . . ."

"You been in a place like this before?"

"No, but this is not different from POW camps. Listen, I know that sometimes if one guy fucks up big, they sometimes take iit out on more than just him.

"I ain't never seen that happen."

"Maybe no one has done something to have it happen while you are here."

"Maybe, but I ain't never seen that happen. Just mind your own ass."

"I am." Seth just said this quietly to himself.

Seth was right. The ranch was a place that used that sort of coordinated punishment when Buck felt it was necessary. He had to be the one to approve it and direct it. Before he took over, coordinated punishment was a bit more common, but he realized that it led to poor production and worse morale. Yes the men here were all slaves, but very few could take severe and schizophrenic abuse regularly and not either quit or go crazy.

Trustees and hands were trained to pay close attention to the field slaves. To keep them from growing bored, to feed their need to be treated as slaves, they were encouraged to treat them accordingly, even if they didn't earn specific punishment. This kept their fetish needs sated, so they were less likely to ask to leave, and more likely to perform their specific labors. However, those with whips were also enjoined from unnecessarily brutal punishment or punishment delivered too often. Violators of that rule were usually whipped publicly and given the option to spend a week as a honeyboy or a month demoted back to field slave.

Production only lags for about 45 minutes for a public flogging that the field slaves must witness--and for the public whipping of a particularly cruel trustee or hand increases morale and productivity. Buck knew this through not only gut feeling but also numbers. The main reason the man-himself kept Buck on well beyond the usual retirement age was that he had a mind for the bottom line. The man-himself wasn't really concerned at this point with the potential financial drain of his fetish, but with Buck running the ranch, the ranch actually lost very little money, so it could continue to sustain itself for the foreseeable future.

For this reason, coordinated punishment, that involving multiple hands and field slaves, could only be used for extreme cases. As stated before, the most prominent extreme case was love. And the discouragement mechanism for it was equally extreme.

Suspicion

Alex, Ty's trustee, noticed that his most animal-like ward had been lagging for a couple of days. Normally Ty and his shack mates moved as a pretty cohesive group, but for the last couple of days, Ty was moving much slower and his mates did nothing to try to cover for him. This rose enough concern in Alex to warrant him keeping a close eye on Ty.

Alex wandered around the plot that Ty and his shack mates had divided amongst them. The pile of weeds each slave placed beyond his square of responsibility were roughly equal the first couple of days and Alex noticed nothing else out of the ordinary.

By accident on the third day, Alex was coming around another plot of corn when he saw Ty moving some of the weeds from another pile next to his plot into his. This alone was enough for a serious beating because it meant that Ty was probably letting his square get near to seed, but Alex held back. He wanted to know why Ty was doing this.

"Ty wake up." Seth whispered loudly, throwing a clod of dirt towards Ty's light snoring.

"Shit Seth."

"You cannot keep doing this. Going out every night. You keep sleeping in there and . . ."

"And what? I'm willin' to take a beatin' or two, probably like it too."

"Ty, I don't think it will be just you."

"Huh? What are you referrin' to?"

"You get caught doing whatever you are doing and I think all of us will pay."

"Man this ain't Germany."

Seth was torn. He could go to Alex and snitch, but what would that mean? Would it really save his ass, or would it make it worse? Even if he did tell Alex, would that mean that he would avoid whatever he thought he might have coming? Plus there was just the general factor that you don't rat out your mate.

It's funny that anxiety over the right thing to do would survive the brutal treatment they all received as honeyboys. Not all had it when they came and not all kept it after leaving the honeyroom. Seth had it before he arrived and kept it after. It was a major part of what made him a slave. The anxiety was a turn-on, at least in the right balance. What Ty was doing left Seth instinctually feeling more fearful than anxious. This was not a turn-on, but despite that, he was not going to rat out his mate. What would happen would happen. Since he doubted that anyone here would beat him to death (the fear that led him to the ranch to begin with), whatever was waiting, if anything, could be endured.

Discovery

After his wards brought their dinner back to the shack, Alex went to Ty's square. He expected to see that there were far more weeds in it than in the others. He was not disappointed. Ty did what they all do who shrug off the work, he pulled the weeds from the visible perimeter, but left those in the center untouched. Judging by the size, Ty hadn't tended the center of his patch for a little over a week.

Since Alex was responsible for his slaves, he was responsible if they fell short. It was his obligation to address it. At the very least this was a breech serious enough to mean a flogging and a week, maybe two, back in the honeyroom. But a fuck up this serious (it's not like the slaves have television to watch or clubs to get ready for) usually only meant one thing.

Alex was torn too. Where Seth's loyalty to a fellow that drove him to remain silent, it was Alex's loyalty to his own ass that conflicted him. He was a field slave at the time the last affair was handled. It had been two years earlier. But what he couldn't remember was whether or not the trustees were also punished. He didn't witness the whole thing, just the public portions and his sympathy ran to his fellow slaves, not to those with whips, so he couldn't remember what happened to the trustees.

He had two paths. He could punish Ty for 'slacking' and give him a warning about trying to keep a relationship going without actually discovering if there was one. Or he could keep an eye on Ty for a day or two more, especially at night. Since the second option bought him a little more time, he decided it was the best one. What he didn't yet want to face was what he would do if the little man sneaked out of his shack.

A couple of hours after dark, he was faced with that. Now the choice, nab him now, or see where he went. Again, since the second option bought more time, he went with it. He stayed about a hundred yards back from the crouching slave, and kept against the field line so he was a bit more camouflaged. There was only about an eighth moon lighting the ranch, but it was enough for Alex to see Dax sitting beyond his shack. For him to see Ty approach that figure, and for fucking to begin.

Now what? Alex, by accidental design or procrastination, was finally presented with a Hobson's choice. There was no way that he could keep this quiet from Buck for long. Even if he was able to get Ty to stop, it might not take long for the rumor to spread to Buck. There really was no choice.

Sex in general might be this way, but sex on the ranch definitely is. It is given over entirely to abandon. Surroundings, time, worry, don't just fade, they disappear. This is what keeps the men here slaves. They know, many are reminded, that they can leave. But the orgasms here are usually the strongest any of them have had before. The variety, the masculinity, the forced camaraderie, potential for and actual use of harsh treatment all work in concert to keep the men on the ranch slaves. So Alex didn't have to sneak up to the fucking pair. But he didn't want them to bolt, so he did move as quietly as he could.

He stood behind Ty, who was fucking Dax doggie. He knew by the breathing that neither just-barely-man could have heard him unless he yelled; but not wanting to risk anything he just lunged at the fucking pair and grabbed a collar in each hand.

"No no no no no no!" Ty struggled a bit, but Alex tightened his grip which began to cut off Ty's air. "No."

"Either of you fuckers run and I . . ." He didn't know how to finish that statement. He forced both on their stomachs and brought them close enough together so he could put a knee on the back of each neck long enough for him to take a length of chain and connect it to the back of each collar. Then he took a clip and linked the cuffs behind each slave's back.

"I" One of them said, maybe both.

"Shut the fuck up. I don't know what you got me into, but I promise you this, whatever I get, you will each get times ten." Alex said this in a new way.

Dax and Ty were used to the taskmaster/drill instructor way of ordering them around, a forced hyperbole, without real malice or heat. Alex's words were stinging in their seriousness. Suddenly for the three men walking to Buck's cabin, this world of exotic, self-sustaining fantasy had the harsh smell of reality blowing into it.

"What is it?" Buck was surprisingly calm. It wasn't common for him to be awakened, but when it happened, it was better for him to be calm to begin with until he knew enough of the situation.

"Buck, I got a arejay."

He looked at the two chained slaves with eyes downcast like naughty children. "Jesus Christ."

"I" Alex started.

"No. You just go back, I'll get things ready." He took the chain between Ty and Dax and guided them into his cabin.

"But"

"You don't want to deal with me right now Al. Just go." Not anger, more fatigue.

Buck unhooked the chain and the link behind Ty and Dax, leaving them free to move. He pointed them toward the ratty sofa. Each sat close together, shaking lightly but visibly.

"Do you want to stay on the ranch?" He pointed first to Dax who was to his left. Dax looked petrified and said nothing. "This isn't a trick question, just a simple one. Do you want to stay?"

"Yes sir."

"Do you?" Pointing to Ty.

"Yes sir."

"At this point, there is only one way for that to happen." The thought seemed to occur to both slaves at the same time, each face pained and drained. "You arejays think the same thing which is why I didn't bother asking about love. You will both be able to stay if you both choose, and you might even wind up in the same shack, but you won't be in love anymore. Now, knowing that, do you still want to stay?"

A less sure yes from each.

"I will ask that question a couple of more times. The price to pay involves more than just the two of you. Your trustees and shack mates will pay along with you." (At this, Ty's already heavy stomach fell through the floor.) "You two will pay a heavier price, but they pay too--this is an expensive mistake. Do you still want to stay?"

Buck knew Dax and Ty were thinking about the life they might expect if they left. He never forgot any of the slave's specifics since he got to know them well before they submitted. He knew each were from small towns, were unlikely to find willing arms to take them in back home and who were probably not prepared for city life. He knew each was weighing the benefits and liabilities as fast as their addled minds could handle. He also knew that since what they had was love, that each would want to stay to see if they could somehow beat the system.

Yes.

"The last condition is that your escapeword is suspended until the whole thing is over. You can say it as often as you like, but until I say it's finished, it won't work. Saying yes now starts the process."

Since they already weighed the benefits and liabilities and concluded that others suffering for their mistake was acceptable, this one seldom gave any pause. Yes.

"Can I ask a question sir?" Dax concluded that there could not possibly be any harm at all in this; he had no idea what was coming, could conclude only that it was awful, so therefore what could be worse?

"Sure."

"What's an arejay sir?

He smiled a demure grin. "It's what the man-himself calls two kids who fall in love. It's short for Romeo and Juliet. Can I ask you a question?"

Dax was stunned. He responded with a quick of course, but was still shocked to be asked permission for anything.

"Which one are you, R or J?"

Dax blushed a little. "J all the way sir."

"I'm never wrong."

Buck told them they were to sleep on the floor in his office, and he went off to bed. Dax and Ty finished what they started, what was interrupted; they were going to have to pay full price, they may as well get full use. Ty fucked as though there had been no pause. For Dax, this fuck was different because his mind wasn't fully transported. He enjoyed the feeling the way someone condemned might. He wondered if it was the last, and if so, he cataloged the feelings, physical and emotional, so that he might not forget them. Each thrust and withdraw, each anal tickle, minor contraction, surge through his own cock; each smell, taste, sight of the man he was going to suffer for with his eyes clinched against the force of his own orgasm.

After Ty jerked Dax off and licked up his cum from his stomach, Ty fell asleep. He said the words though. Again, full price might as well mean full use. Dax said the words too. How strange the whole night was. It was like the whole thing was in parentheses and he hadn't yet reached the ")." He heard and said "love" he sat on a piece of furniture for the first time in months and had a conversation where someone in charge, to him THE man in charge, asked him a question, even leave. At some point he knew he was going to feel guilty, going to see his fellows punished for no fault but proximity. He wasn't close to his shack mates, but now wondered if he would be ostracized by everyone. At some point he would hurt; at some point he would probably wish he had never come to the ranch, but right now, he was enveloped in a parenthetical whose end was near but not yet here. Right now he was removed from those feelings, from that facet of reality. He wanted to stay awake until the morning, to breathe deeply the feelings of strangeness, the smells of an office removed from the fecund smell of manure and growth and five other unwashed men. It didn't take long though for him to fall asleep too.

Colloquy

Seth knew that Ty simply disappearing could not be the simple conclusion. He discovered the correctness of his instinct when Alex rounded up him and the remaining 4 shack mates and led them silently towards the entrance to the ranch. Seth had the sinking feeling that they were all going to be thrown out. He was illegal and would face a short future if he were deported. He wanted to puke, but kept pace with his fellows. He couldn't stop the worry, but he did conclude that what was done was done.

Seth saw another group of five plus a trustee walking a little ahead of them. He recognized this as a sort of 'brother's keeper' situation. They were all going to receive some sort of reprimand because they failed to stop their brother from fucking up. He couldn't let himself believe that the reprimand would mean expulsion. How odd, was this a sort of biblical thing? Expelled from his own specific Eden because some other weak fucker couldn't follow one simple proscription? Worry was replaced with anger in more than equal measure.

The ten slaves all stood at attention while their trustees talked with Buck. The two of them walked off and Buck came toward them.

"Alright boys relax." They did. "We have a situation here not really of your making, but guilty or not makes no difference at this point. Keeping this place going is my job and if that means casting a wide net to do it, then so be it."

Wide net? What the hell was he talking about?

"Your trustees have gone to get the man-himself who's going to ask you a couple of questions. He will ask all of you one by one. At this point, you do what you think you have to."

Seth couldn't tell by tone or word if this meant they were going to be forced out. Where Dax saw no way to make it worse for himself, Seth felt he had no choice but to ask, his anxiety had grown too large.

"Sir?"

"Yes Seth?"

"Sir are we being thrown out sir?"

"You may wish it after a while, but no. The man-himself will tell you what you need to know." And he walked to his office leaving the 10 slaves standing confused and nervous.

Seth saw a figure walking towards them different from all others on the ranch. He didn't wear a cowboy hat, his clothes were obviously clean and new. Short with short blond hair was all Seth could determine. He had grown so accustomed to sizing up the whole man by sight, that the sight of loose clothing left him unable to determine more than just the man's height. He closed in, in no real hurry.

Seth was the closest one, so the man said to him: "Please go to Buck's office and get me a chair?"

"Sir yes sir."

"Wait. Everybody sit, not you though" pointing to Seth; all complied. "I own this place, and by extension, you, but I don't want you calling me sir for now. Now, bring me that chair?"

Seth wandered off agape. His shock was not greater nor less than that of his fellows. This small man whom they'd never before seen, who did own them, was breaking more than one fundamental rule. No insults. Asking a question. Using a word none had heard since they got into the back of Buck's pickup. Seth returned quickly with the chair and sat. The man-himself sat in the chair.

"Not that it really matters, but my name is Sam. It's unlikely you will see me again, but I don't like being called the man-himself, so you might as well know what I call myself. Buck told you I was going to ask each of you a couple of questions. Really it is the same question twice."

He asked each slave individually if he wanted to stay on the ranch. All of them said yes.

"Now what happened is that one member in each of your crews has fallen in love. All are warned against relationships when you enter and most have no trouble keeping to that. Sometimes though . . . ." There was some grumbling. "Anyway, you all know that things here aren't fair, but the next few days are going to be perhaps unfair to an extreme."

"I'm going to kick that shithead's ass." One of Ty's mates said.

"You will actually be given an opportunity to do something like that if you do opt to stay. Exactly what happens you will find out when you go through it, I will say some of it is public, and all of it is designed to be humiliating and painful, probably in a way none of you have experienced before. Dax and Ty have had their escapeword suspended, yours is not. So if you hear them say it and see that no one does anything about it, know that it isn't the same for you. If you decide during it that you cannot continue, say the word and you will be released."

"Why?" The same red haired slave who wanted to kick Dax's ass whined.

"Why what?"

"Why not just throw them out and be done with it and let us alone." His mates tried to shush him.

"There is more to it than just cruelty. I could explain it, but I doubt it would make sense to you. I will tell you that there is method to it and if you do not come to understand what that method is during, I imagine you will begin to after it is over." He paused to watch the mild anger turn to more confusion. "So, you will have your escapeword, you will be given the opportunity to exact some revenge if you want on Ty and Dax if you choose to stay, or you can go. If you need a few minutes, you can take it."

All decided to stay, none needed extra time to consider it. Buck and Sam disagreed over why this was--none of them ever decided to leave and only two of the many had ever quit during the ordeal. Sam believed it was a desire to stay in that slave's paradise that made them willing to endure; Buck said they did it to get the chance to beat the hell out of the one who put them there. Ten slaves would do it knowing they could leave, two slaves would endure worse knowing they could do nothing to stop it, two trustees would be forced to choose between forms of temporary demotion, both Sam and Buck were right to some degree. Fourteen people would pay for the sins of two, what made those other 12 put up with it had to be more complex than just one thing.

Sentence

(Alex and Jake (Dax's trustee) were each given the choice between a month in the fields or a week as a honeyboy. Both took the week. Life in the fields is probably more than just four times as easy, but for Alex and Jake, the time spent was more important than the severity. Their choice meant two new slaves entered the fields. Honeyboys were not included in the audience for the public punishment.)

All the trustees gathered their slaves together behind the barn before they got their breakfast. There was a platform raised a couple of feet from the flat earth. All the slaves were ordered to sit. The platform had a single whipping post about 8 feet tall in the center.

Buck climbed the platform. "We found a couple of lovebirds. The first part of their punishment is a public flogging."

The two hands chosen to help Buck carry out the punishment pulled Ty and Dax onto the platform. They stood naked with eyes downcast. Both were petrified. The only thing Buck said to them when he woke them up was, "It's time."

"These two slaves will each get forty lashes." Buck's words hit Dax as though he was punched in the lower gut; Ty knew it was going to be something like this, but neither visibly reacted. "But before they get theirs, they each pick one of their shack mates to get ten."

Buck came to Dax and ordered him to choose. Fuck, Dax thought. The difference between knowing others will suffer for him and actually having to pick who suffered was a chasm Dax didn't want to face. He did the only thing he could think of:

"Sir Dax sir." He whispered.

"Nope. I might just go ahead and give you fifty, but if you don't pick one, all of them will get it."

He really didn't like nor dislike any of his mates enough to make a judgment call. He only knew that he was going to have to come up with some name fast.

"Sir Aaron sir." He whispered.

One of the hands disappeared briefly into the barn and came out with Aaron. Aaron was over six feet, and a bit thicker than most on the ranch. He wasn't fat, just a bit meatier than most on the ranch whose bodies tended towards lithe given their diets and the type of work they had to perform. Dark hair and complexion. It was obvious that he didn't feel the lash too often, the skin on his back and ass was not covered with the thin white evidence that most of the rest had.

He heard Buck from the barn, so he thought he knew what to expect. It had been over a year since he felt the horsewhip when he entered the ranch. He and the other slaves spent the night trying to psyche themselves up for what was to come. Still he walked stoically onto the platform and stood against the whipping post without having to be dragged or ordered.

"Alright. You two," Buck said to Ty and Dax. "You watch every lash. If either of you turns away, that lash is repeated."

Aaron declined a bit. His composure disappeared though when the flogging began. The ranch rang with his screams. Aaron actually was able to scream his threat. "Dax you're a dead fuck!" He screamed half way through. He was the kind of slave who didn't feel the lash too often because he was always a good little boy and because he had a way of not being picked when a hand or a trustee needed to make an example. So he was seriously ill-prepared for so severe a lashing (he was one of the few who only needed one lash when he entered).

"Your turn." Buck said to Ty.

Ty didn't have the same problem picking. He had had time to think about it and eliminated his shack mates one by one, in order of preference, until he had only one.

"Sir Pete Sir."

Pete was the red head slave who questioned Sam the day before. He glared at Ty who tried not to look but couldn't help it; he saw Pete mouth something like "you're dead."

Pete was bound in place against the whipping post. Mentally, Pete was prepared for 10 lashes with one of the cat-o-nine tails he was already accustomed to. He watched, literally in horror, as Buck accepted his horse whip from one of the hands. The twenty hands and more than eighty field slaves disappeared. To Pete, the only thing he could see in eye or mind's eye was the whip.

"Oh god no." Pete said, not loudly, but many heard.

"You want a bit Pete?" Buck asked.

"Uh." He had no idea. He only knew that he didn't do a fucking thing wrong and was going to experience the worst pain he knew of because someone else fucked up. What the hell he thought, since he didn't do anything wrong, he wasn't going to do anything to try to stifle himself. "Sir no sir."

Buck began. Despite only using it once on everyone when they enter, he was very adept at having the whip end land and continue exactly where he wanted. His control belied his relative lack of practice with it. His goal for the four men who would come under it now was to avoid the lash landing on, or straying onto, the ass--it needed to be kept free of abrasions for what was to follow.

Pete felt the first lash hit his back from one shoulder to just above the opposite hip before the sound hit his ears. He could only gasp. The first one is so sudden, so sharp that the full pain only begins to register just before the second is usually given. The second made a red, but still bloodless X on Pete's back. He was beginning to find his voice, he let out a yelp. By the third one, he was screaming. He wanted to escape his body, to pull both Ty's and Dax's souls into his body and watch each of them suffer. But each new lash compounded the fact that he was as locked into his body and its sufferings as it was bound to the post. A lash from Alex's cat hurt, but the sting generally only lasted a few seconds--especially after being somewhat accustomed to it. Pete couldn't imagine ever becoming accustomed to the seer pain running so deeply along the visible reminder of each lash and so strongly that his whole body ached as if punched with dozens of fists. For the last three lashes, Pete could only whimper through clinched teeth because his jaws were cramped closed. His gut was similarly clinched. And he got small splinters in each big toe because they dug so fervently into the wooden platform. Pete had only felt three lashes when he entered the ranch. He now made it through 10, but by the tenth, only the fact that his wrists were bound to the post was keeping him erect. Only trickles of blood dripped down his back as the two hands supported the limp and moaning slave.

Pete was dragged back to the barn in tears. After a few minutes the hands returned with the shack mates. Each hand was supporting a whipped slave; Pete and Aaron did what they could to walk under their own power. They walked as though drunk, and in a sense they were. Their bodies still ached because all muscles fought to contract while they were being whipped, so now all their muscles were sluggish. They were also somewhat high from the only partially effective rush of endorphins. They were brought out to witness for an altogether different reason than the rest of the audience. Everyone else was supposed to take a lesson from these public thrashings, no doubt most did even though every cock was hard except for those being lashed (Ty's was hard throughout, Dax's was not). For the shack mates though, and especially the unlucky one picked, this was retribution.

Forty strokes though is another universe. It doesn't increase by a magnitude of only 4, but quickly just goes to the top of the victim's endurance and hovers there until the ordeal is over. Most go into a fugue state after about a dozen or so (depending on their threshold) and then pass out about a dozen after that. While the mind might not be aware of the lashes delivered after losing consciousness, the body certainly does. Still lashes delivered after the slave passes out are meant more for the audience than the slave.

Dax yelped through the first dozen lashes. Grunted for the ones that followed. He wasn't lucky enough to pass out fully, but he did stay in the fugue state for the last twenty lashes. After the first several, his muscles stopped relaxing during the short time between strokes. Each muscle was trying to constrict itself into oblivion--each muscle having a war with all its neighbors as the electric heat from each lash sent the same painful message to all. His mind raced in the early going. Dax kept willing himself to think thoughts of comfort, but the pain was too great, too abrupt for his unpracticed mind to mitigate with simple thoughts of soaking in a warm bath. He wanted to beg, wanted to barter whatever he could of his body, but his jaws, tongue, throat couldn't perform anything so subtle as speech. He couldn't stop himself from tugging wildly at the bindings on his wrists. He knew there was no way out of them, but knowledge didn't override the animal imperative of avoiding pain, let alone a pain like this one. The numbers stopped meaning anything. That thirty came after twenty, that thirty was closer to the end than not meant nothing. His limited lucid thoughts at the tail end of the ordeal were spent trying to decide whether or not this thing could be endured indefinitely.

Buck knew how to, and did, moderate the lashes. But he didn't start lighter and move upward, rather, he started the same for Dax as those two before, but after 10 moderated down. He was certain that those moderated licks would still have been tough to handle, but he also knew his goal was maximum pain and maximum horror for the witnesses, not for death. Dax's blood ran thickly down his scarred back. Buck wanted Dax's back to be a forever reminder to anyone seeing it what it stood for, but he didn't want to debilitate this young slave. Where Pete's and Aaron's backs had 10 countable stripes, Dax's back was just a solid frame of pink and red and blood. And as his back ran thickly with blood, his head ran thickly with drool and tears.

Ty stood at attention and tried to focus past Dax. He tried to daydream about being anywhere else, but Dax's urgent screams kept pulling him back into his own naked and soon to be tortured body. Tears ran down his cheeks and he sniffled as quietly as he could.

Buck finally reached the last lash. The hands who had been shuttling the slaves between the barn and the pillory loosed the bonds and gently allowed Dax to collapse. His face, his body, his labored breathing were all traits of an agony that none in the audience could have known. Some felt sorry, some felt a little guilt that their cocks were dribbling precum like piss during the lashing, but all of them were glad they weren't in Dax's shackles.

Ty's legs wouldn't move easily. He didn't want to be flogged, but likewise he wasn't going to try to run. He wasn't going to allow Dax to be alone in his suffering. That was an emotional luxury, an emotional caprice. He didn't make it past the tenth lash before the fallacy of his emotions was exposed. He knew one thing, if he had to choose, he would stand there and watch Dax take 40 more if it meant he wouldn't have to feel another lash.

The hands removed him from the whipping post and took him into the barn. The whole enterprise, 100 lashes on four slaves lasted little more than an hour. As Ty was being taken to the barn, Buck reiterated that the lashes were only the first part, the most public part, of the punishment for slaves who risk falling in overt love. They were sent back to their duties and the ten slaves who were to undergo the rest of the ordeal were herded to the barn.

Necessary Services

(Sam knew he needed discrete professionals to look after both his slaves and his horses and cattle. He had three doctors and four vets on call. They weren't paid in dollars, as you could easily guess, but in whatever services they might want from any slave(s) of their choosing--the number and length of service open to negotiations. Sam put a call in to two of the doctors the day before the whippings; he needed them to be there to render specific medical attention to the four.)

All 12 slaves were in the barn. Dax, Ty, Aaron, and Pete were all lying on their stomachs; two doctors were looking at the wounds, but at that time doing nothing more. The eight who were not put beneath the lash were all herded out. They were taken to a concrete slab behind the barn. It had 20 cages in two rows of ten attached to the concrete. Each of the eight was put into his own small cage, measuring just over three feet on all sides--they had some little freedom of movement, but stretching out was not possible.

"Alright fuckers, while you're in these cages, you're dogs. If I see any of you trying to eat with your hands, all y'all will be beaten." Taking a page straight out of the Mason Powell's porn classic Brig, John, one of the hands who was going to oversee the ordeal told them.

Back in the barn, Buck watched as the doctors began their work. They laid a sterile wrap onto Dax's and Ty's backs. They applied some topical pain killer onto Pete's and Aaron's backs. They winced a bit, but the medication took affect so rapidly that they quickly calmed down and almost slept. Their wounds were cleaned and examined closely. Buck had done a professional job. All of the cuts were superficial and would heal very quickly. The two were allowed to sleep while the doctors performed the same routine on Dax and Ty.

Buck's handiwork here was a bit more severe--there's no amount of skill that can stop 40 lashes from doing far more damage than 10. None of the cuts required stitches, but a few were deep enough to cause concern for infection.

"How long before the rest of the punishment can continue?" Buck asked.

"Two days, three at the most. It depends on whether or not we can keep these cuts clean." From the tone, it was obvious that both Buck and the doctor not only knew each other, but knew the situation as well.

"The salt is next to the tub in my place. I'll be out with the hands, send word if you need me."

Salt?! There is no way he could consider submitting to that Dax thought. The lashing was pain enough, whatever would come next would probably be humiliation enough, but salting these wounds was a level of cruelty he would never have thought possible. He resolved to fight it as much as he had to. When Buck left, Dax had to ask,

"What did he mean by salt?" Shaking as much in his voice as his body.

"Sea salt. It won't hurt. It will help you heal much faster."

"How's that?" Still suspicious.

"Never mind about how, just relax and trust me." In his forties, this doctor was as fit as anyone on the ranch.

"What happens next?"

"We get you up to Buck's and into a tub of salt water."

"No, I mean after that."

"Even if I told you I doubt you'd believe me, but obviously, I'm not telling."

After the two doctors working on Dax and Ty were finished, the ordered the four to stand. All complied as quickly as they could, but it was like the first morning after a very severe workout. They stood without speed and without grace. They were led haltingly from the barn to Buck's office.

"Should I ask for a volunteer, or should I just pick?"

"Goddammit, I'll do it." Pete said. "Know this turd," he said to Ty, "if you hear me scream then I'll make you scream louder when I get my chance with you."

The doctor followed Pete into the bathroom and shut the door. The others could hear the water run, then stop. They heard some muffled talk, then nothing. No scream, no further talking. Ty relaxed a little. He knew Pete wanted to kick his ass regardless, but at least he didn't have this added incentive; or he was dead and would offer no challenge at all. Either way, Ty felt better about his future in the tub and his future at Pete's hands.

A few minutes later, the doctor opened the bathroom door and Pete came out. He was walking fully upright and without obvious pain. He seemed calm. He walked over to Aaron.

"You're turn guy. I almost wish I could say it hurt just so these shits would get it too, but it actually feels real good." Pete lay on the floor and went to sleep.

Aaron had his ten minutes, then Ty had his. Dax was the last in. He sat in the tub and let the water come up his back slightly because he was still suspicious despite all the evidence that it wasn't going to hurt. There was some light stinging, but it quickly went away. So he lay back fully. The salty water soothed his back, the warm water relaxed his muscles. The only discomfort came when he wiggled a little. The skin was still very sensitive and he could feel the currents exaggerating the cuts on his back, but as with the stinging, the discomfort was only momentary. He got out of the tub when ordered and dried off all but his back as ordered. He joined the others in Buck's office.

"You will all get this twice a day until the wounds heal enough for the rest of the stuff to take place."

They waited for Buck to return. Pete and Aaron sat close by and broke the silence with difficult whispers from time to time. Dax and Ty were neither near each other nor the whispering pair. They stared through the floor, meditatively. Dax realized that if he looked at Ty, that there would be no hiding his reaction. He didn't want to face the next days, he didn't want to face the possibility of even a single lash again, but he knew if he looked at Ty, he would immediately get a dripping hardon and wanted to avoid that more than anything else. The repercussions of that visible metaphor were beyond Dax's imaginings, and given his own part of 100 lashes, he didn't want to know what might be in store.

"How do they look?" Buck asked when he returned.

"You did a fine job guy. They look better than I would if I got what they did. I still say it'll be about two days."

"You," Buck said to Dax and Ty. "Go outside, the hand there will take you where you need to go."

They got up, much less stiffly than before, but still without speed and grace and followed Buck's command.

"Let me talk to these two." The doctors left too after Buck made that request. "You doing ok?"

"I guess so." Pete said.

"Shit. I've been better." Aaron said.

"You both did fine."

"Shit." Aaron said again. "Fine? My back is still burning. I wouldn't say I felt fine. I think we suffered enough for you to give us at least some hint of what's next."

"Well, this isn't a place to work that sort of bargain. You could have opted out at any point. You suffered exactly what anyone would have in the same place."

"Will you at least tell us what we get to do to them when this is all over?" Pete asked.

"Practically anything you want."

"No shit?" Aaron said.

"So long as it doesn't look like you're going to break something, you can do just about anything you want."

Waiting

Ty, Dax, Pete and Aaron took their places in their cages along with the others. For the next two days, only those four were allowed out to get the salt treatment. Otherwise, they all stayed locked into their cages. Just as in Brig, food was slopped into bowls, they ate from them as dogs (also just like their time as honeyboys). The only reason any of them would be allowed out was to get a lashing for eating with their hands or otherwise doing something one of the hands decided was uncanine. None did. They might be pissed, they might be scared, but they were still well trained slaves and weren't going to dispense with that training.

Waiting was all there was to do. Sleep didn't come easily because there was nothing to mitigate either the sun or the concrete. They could lie on their backs somewhat easily, but on their stomachs not at all, and lying on their sides bruised their hip-bones. It was low grade, but constant, misery. As honeyboys, they were at least shielded from the sun; they were rescued from boredom, potentially at anytime. Here, on this concrete, in these cages, only the basic animal actions of eating and evacuating punctuated any of the passing time. The ten who were not allowed out found that their envy became almost psychotic when the 4 whipped ones were let out.

On the evening of the second day, the doctor took a close look at the whipped ones' backs. They were nicely healed and could withstand three days of punishment if necessary-at which point they would get further treatment (but for now, he gave his go ahead).

Maximum Efficiency

"Stretch." Buck gave them only the one word when they were all allowed out of their cages. The ten for whom this was the first chance to stand fully erect in over 48 hours, the word was harsher than a standard lashing would have been. They groaned and popped as they stretched muscles constricted to match their limited range of motion. The 4 others had an easier go of it. Buck and the two hands watched closely and ordered specific stretches when they saw one of the slaves struggle.

As they did that, Buck walked down the aisle between the two rows of cages and dropped what looked like a small white bundle of cloth in front of each stretching slave. They had not been ordered to stop, they hadn't been ordered even to acknowledge the bundle, so they just continued as if nothing had happened. It took about 15 minutes before Buck was finally comfortable enough with the slaves' movements that he ordered them to stop.

Buck ordered them to grab the bundle before them and form a semi-circle around him. Then he took Pete and began the instructions.

The bundle was essentially a cut-off t shirt. The neck was sewn shut. Running from what would mid chest, over the neck area, to the mid back was a swath of material that stood out about half an inch from the t shirt itself. It was composed of additional fabric, some absorbent material, and a thick piece of plastic like a piece of a garbage bag. Using Pete as a model, Buck instructed them on how to put it on. They slid their legs into the arm holes and pulled them all the way up to the crotch. Then they took the bottom of the t, which was hanging just above their knees and pulled the thing up so that it resembled what it in fact became, a diaper. Each slave waited his turn while the hands tightly duct-taped the diaper around his waist. They made two rounds with the tape leaving just a little fabric visible above the gray stripe. The purpose, and fact that it was, a diaper was probably not a surprise to anyone once the taping began. But what Buck said next was.

"You are now wearing your latrine for the next seventy-two hours. This means the only breaks you get are for food and sleep. There will be plenty of food, not so much sleep. It is designed to leak very little, but the hands watching you will keep a close eye on you. Anything out of the ordinary and you all get an extra day. Any attempt to take it off gets everyone an extra day and the shithead who tries it will stay diapered until I decide. Ty and Dax spend a minimum of 4 full days."

Buck pulled a quarter from his jeans. "Heads or tails?" He directed this to Pete.

"Um." He had to fight two thoughts before he could offer an answer. The first was just the general prohibition against slaves making decisions, but the second was his nearly psychotic anger he had towards Dax and Ty. "Heads."

Buck flipped the coin; it showed heads. "Heads it is. Your crew goes off with DJ, the rest of you go with Billy." He went back to his office. DJ and Billy chained their slaves in a row and led them off in opposite directions.

A Specific Dishonor

Regardless of the circumstances, societies cannot dispense with some of what we sometimes see as social niceties that keep order. Honor is just a weighty word for respect intended to keep peace and to separate the team players from the provocateurs. Honor can be, but need not always be, loftier in scope. There is an honor among thieves, even if it isn't what an outsider would ever consider even if he could begin to understand it. Mafia executions are a prime example-not all are done because someone wants to take over, many are done because someone talked, or because someone stepped over some boundary or broke some arcane piece of etiquette that would seem idiotic to any of us on the outside.

As mentioned earlier, choosing to jerk off rather than share sex with another slave is considered the height of selfishness. It can also be used as a metaphor for how one slave feels about another: specifically, I find you not worthy of sharing this joy. Because sex isn't a rarity or even a commodity, and because of the danger of falling in love, sharing sex with another slave(s) is not necessarily an affirmative action. Deciding to jerk off, especially to jerk off with an audience (however passive) is always a negative statement.

The way slaves express their disgust with a fellow though is more extreme. In order, spitting, pissing, farting, shitting. Words are less than cheep here. Fuck you is a statement with no real meaning. Spitting on someone though shows disrespect, pissing on someone more so. Farting is one level removed from the ultimate form of disgust. Forcing another slave to have contact of any kind, purposefully, with shit is a humiliation that cannot be erased or in any way vitiated. The others allow at least a little room for a détente, for settlement. The ultimate one though means a state of permanent war. It is also so severe that it draws lines of hatred between more than just the principles. Friends of the actor will drop all easy association with friends of the soiled, and vice versa.

(Though still slaves, at least to Sam, the hands are viewed very differently from the perspective of a honeyboy. Even still, on the odd occasion when a honeyboy is finally promoted to hand before all his former abusers have left, there is at best an uneasy peace among them.)

The slaves have so little that can be called freedom, that what they do have they hold onto as sacrosanct. Cumming when they want is the big one. Not being forced to wear their own waste is something they had not considered a privilege before. They are all told when they enter that they would never be denied food, water, or medical treatment. So this is considered by the hierarchy (and by the slaves who undergo it or witness it) as the ultimate humiliation. It is at the very least a tacit pronouncement of the slave's worth.

For now the humiliation was still only a promise. For now, they took what joy they could in easy movement. Once the promise was kept, once the diapers were used, the humiliation would become actual, and emotions and hatred would run obviously high.

Heads

DJ mounted his horse and led his charges toward where the rest of the hands maintained the herd. His horse ambled beside them as they kept a slave's pace.

When they arrived at the site, DJ took them to a wagon similar to the one that Ty was attached to as a "mule" when Mike went through his initiation to become a hand. This one was somewhat smaller.

"A'ite boys, here's what's doin'." DJ was bred in the bone Texan so much so that he had never left it. "Two of you'll push the cart 'front of th' others. They'll be picking up cow shit and puttin' it in the back of the cart. I'll rotate who pushes and who picks."

"Sir, I don't suppose there will be any shovels sir?" Pete was turning very red and it was obvious he put tremendous effort behind trying to be deferential.

DJ stared blankly at Pete. "Follow me boys." With that he tsked his horse toward a spot several hundred yards behind the herd's current location. He tied a bandana around his face; he did this far more for effect than for any real necessity. But within 12 to 18 hours, the smell from the slaves themselves would be necessity enough to make him want the bandana most likely.

He tethered Ty and Pete to the wagon first. Their job was, for the moment, to stand still until DJ directed them to move. Their job was slow and monotonous, but for the moment it was a good deal less smelly.

"I'm gonna spend the next three days thinking about just what I'm gonna do to you when I get the chance. You'll live but only cause I want to see you come through it and try to look me in the eye." All other avenues closed to him, Pete launched a lugie that landed on the side of Ty's face. Hands bound to the cross bar, he could only wait for gravity and the sun to remove the offensive spit.

"Fine, whatever." Then after a pause, "I'll say this though, I'll look you in the eye when you finish, cause when you finish, they ain't gonna let you touch me. Whatever you do, I'll just look right at you and grin."

"They can't watch you twenty-four seven brain child."

"It ain't me they'll be watchin'."

Dax whispered to Ty the night before--the cages were close enough together to allow that. Dax said their punishment was going to be enough, that as soon as their mates had had their way with the two, the attention would shift to the mates. It was possible that the mates would want to continue the retribution after the time allotted, but if they were caught, Dax and Ty would at the very least get to witness the punishment for that infraction. "Why?" Ty wanted to know. He knew Dax was smarter than he, but it just didn't make sense. "This place would come tumbling down if we started fighting amongst ourselves. All things considered, there isn't that much different between love and fighting."

All of this wasn't making the ordeal easier to get through, but Ty had even less trepidation than he might have had without Dax's comments. He believed Dax understood the inner workings, but more than that, he still loved him and would likely have believed anything he was told.

DJ's job was to be brutal. He was to scream orders at the slaves, get in their faces basically like a drill instructor. Buck ordered him to lay lashes on heavily and hard. He could use his discretion with Ty: he could purposely go easier on him and make sure the others knew it, he could be harsher, or treat him no differently. DJ had no specific plan as to which direction to go. He decided to let circumstance and emotion guide.

This was an inconvenience to him. He didn't mind overseeing slaves, but since becoming a hand, his contact with slaves had been almost entirely sexual. But here he was under the proscription that these slaves could not be used sexually at all. Fucking them was of course impossible, but he wasn't even allowed to order them to suck him off. So, as can be imagined, he put the extra frustration into each swing of his flogger.

One exchange can stand as example of the whole:

"Faster you piece of shit!"

"Sir yes sir."

"You got to be more careful, you got cow shit on my boots faggot!"

"Sir sorry sir."

"Don't just stand there, lick it clean." DJ lashed the exposed back as the whimpering slave licked the dust from his boots.

He made one slave do 20 pushups into a pile of dung he dropped when DJ lashed him to a trot. Face full of shit on each down stroke, a lash on an already tender back on each up stroke.

Starting the cart was a particular joy. It was heavy enough on its own, but starting it the first couple of times wasn't too difficult. For those DJ didn't prod with his whip too much. But as the cart began to fill, and as the two slaves began to tire, DJ became increasingly sadistic. He would not focus entirely on their backs, but would also lash legs and even front torso once or twice. When they struggled, rather than get others to help, he would climb on the buckboard himself, adding an extra 170 pounds to their load. Their turn at the yoke lasted half the day.

All the slaves broke for lunch. This was a break of 5 minutes. They were served in the same bowls they had all seen as honeyboys. The chow was similar, but wasn't the same; it was thicker and required more chewing, which became a problem given the time limit. After the five minutes, the six slaves were ordered up. The two slaves who brought the food and the bowls were ordered off.

"Now. Some of you might think you can hold your shit until they let you out. No doubt you would all try if you could. But you can't. You have until dinner to start filling those diapers. Any slave not wearing his shit by dinner gets another day in it and gets 50 lashes. Now back to picking up shit, fuckers."

He moved two others to the cart and had Ty and Pete start picking up the dung. Probably as much for spite as anything else, Ty stayed defiantly close to Pete. He carried his load to the cart and returned almost in timed step with his adversary. While it might have had the macho effect of telling Pete that he wasn't scaring Ty, it also had the effect of pissing Pete off immensely. His simmering attitude didn't manifest until just a few minutes before dinner.

Something as degrading as this treatment tended to focus a slave's mind on the smallest portion of his environment and himself as possible. With someone screaming at you and whipping you to perform the disgusting task faster, your mind will not wander much in the direction of your fellows. Each slave had shit the diaper before the designated time. As DJ realized one slave had, he would put his hand directly under the asshole and move the pile upwards, saying, "Stupid fucking slaves, all forget to wipe after you shit." One slave nearly cried. Pete would never react in such a pathetic way.

Ty had taken everything Dax whispered to him to heart. Primarily, Dax told him, he was to do whatever he was ordered; he warned Ty against being bold telling him that it was probable that Pete would continue to be punished for whatever behavior Ty exhibited that wasn't contrite. So, he shit his diaper only minutes after DJ made his speech. Pete's mind was on himself when DJ performed his little piece of brilliant humiliation on Ty who just said, Sir yes sir and went about his task.

Pete didn't react so stoically either. DJ repeated his statement about slaves forgetting to wipe. As the warm and awful mass spread upwards and outwards against Pete's ass, Pete bolted for Ty. Pete had landed two punches-one to the gut, one to the face-before the stunned DJ was able to close the distance. He immediately threw a short, forceful blow to Pete's kidney which sent him crashing to the ground. He struggled as much from hatred as from the limited but nonetheless temporarily crippling punch. Both Ty and Pete were panting, each had had his breath knocked from him.

Pete was kneeling, head against the dusty ground, trying to get up. DJ stomped over and put his boot to the back of Pete's neck, locking him in his supplicant position. He ordered Ty over to him. DJ examined Ty's cheek, it was beginning to swell, but did not appear to be broken. "We'll have the doc look at that when you get back to the cages tonight. Get back to picking up shit boy."

He said nothing to Pete. He removed his boot and grabbed Pete's collar and started dragging him. Pete struggled to get up, but spent most of his time sort of flailing to keep up so his wind wouldn't be cut off. Once they were beyond earshot, DJ let go. Pete was panting again and holding his neck; drool collected in a little puddle.

"Pete, listen to me. That was the boneheadest thing you could have done." He said this as a friend. They knew each other by name and sight, had fucked a couple of times a year before. His tone wasn't that of DI or master but of a frustrated friend. "There ain't no way I can ignore this. I don't know what Buck'll do, but I have to do something so I don't wind up wearing a diaper too. All you have to do is keep your head down for two more days, then it will all be over."

"I can't last two more minutes, let alone two more days." It was more fatigued than angry.

"You can't beat the shit out of him when this is over 'less you can. Listen. Tell you what I'll do, but if you say anything, I'll fuck you up. I'll pretty much stay off your back, not whip you or yell too much. I have to do something about you attacking Ty though. After that, I'll pretty much leave you alone." Pause. "You think you can handle that, or do you want out?"

"Fuck I don't know." Pause. "Hell, I'm in it this far, I might as well try."

He led Pete back towards the crew. He could see the two slaves with dinner approaching from the opposite direction. What DJ had in mind for Pete would be something Pete might despise worse than a flogging, but it would give him some time alone and at relative peace. But it would have to wait until after dinner.

He watched them all eat. The smell from each began to become more noticeable in the stagnant air. Sweat, piss, bovine and human shit mixed, but each smell was still distinguishable. He watched them scarf the chow. He knew from memory that the chow had basically no taste, sort of like completely plain oatmeal. He knew from experience that it filled the stomach, then the bowels quickly and largely. DJ could not fathom how that much shit was going to fit into the diapers that appeared to have no more room in them than a pair of briefs just a size or so too large.

"A'ite faggots, stand up." They did. "Obviously I can't let what Pete did go without making him pay. You all may wished you were him. I got to make sure you don't follow his lead. Pete, you spend the rest of the night in the shit cart."

"What!?" Pete couldn't believe what he heard.

"Slave you don't address me like that. You do it now or I'll flog you til I think you have had enough."

"Sir yes sir," through tightly clinched teeth.

"Rest of y'all get back to it, you all smell like shit, I don't want you anywhere near me."

Pete walked slowly over to the cart. He climbed in it and sat on the back of it, legs hanging off. DJ went to the cart to tie the two slaves pulling it.

"That ain't gonna cut it and you know it, shitass."

"You said you would . . . " Pete began.

"Keep it down, man. This is going easy on you."

"You call this easy?"

"Pete your back still looks pretty bad, I know if I lay it on you so that Buck would not be pissed at me, you'd never make it to the end of this. I know it sucks, but that's just the way it is. You want out?"

"Please DJ, please don't make me do this." He was almost whimpering.

"Pete, this is you or me time and I know who is most important to me. When Buck sees what you did to that dumb shit, he'll want to know what I did to you. If he ain't happy with what I say, I could wind up next to you."

"Fine with me."

"Hey, take it or leave it, but if you don't lay face first in that muck, I will have to whip you."

"Goddamn it." Pause. "How long until we go back?"

"Just before sundown. Take a nap."

"Take a nap? Fuck it, just whip me and get it over with."

"OK if you are serious."

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. I can't take any more leather on my back. They are going to have to peal me off that son of a bitch."

"Believe me, this isn't as bad as being whipped with anything this soon after a horse whipping."

"Whatever. You might know that, but I doubt you know what it's like to try to take a nap in cow shit."

"Pete, how do you think I thought of it?"

The remaining three hours passed without incident. Pete was able to take a nap, a nap that didn't require trying of any kind. This was the first sleep in more than two days in a stretched out position. He had been exhausted from the constant pointless and disgusting labor. The smell of the dung was awful, but as with just about anything, he began to grow a little accustomed to it. It probably wouldn't have mattered since he wasn't prone more than a few minutes before he was entirely asleep.

The sun was nearly set. DJ untied the cart slaves, woke Pete and called the rest over. He chained them all together with Pete directly in front of Ty so Ty would get the full effect of Pete's odors. He led them the half mile or so back to the cages.

He put each in front of his own cage, left mercilessly in the same shit littered condition. Buck came with the doctor to inspect.

"What happened to this slave?" Buck asked.

"Sir that slave sucker punched him sir."

"Jesus." Buck said reacting to the smell. "I think I can guess what you did to make him pay."

DJ was very nervous that Buck would disapprove of the punishment as somehow unfitting, but Buck simply walked off leaving the doctor to his task.

The doctor wore a sterile face mask quite literally for the smell. He checked out Pete's back that was still marked, but had no evidence of either infection or open wounds. He gingerly prodded Ty's cheekbone. Ty winced but said nothing. He showed no signs that the bone was broken and there also appeared to be no damage to his eye. He would have a shiner, but it would pass leaving no scar. His back though caused some concern. DJ showed no deference to Ty's wounds. Some of the lashes he laid on caused some of the tender new skin to split. There was some small trickles of blood. The doctor cleaned the wounds with some peroxide and applied an antibiotic.

"Try to focus on his legs tomorrow, or at least aim your whip at the small of his back where there is less damage." The doctor said to DJ.

DJ simply nodded. The doctor had to say that, but DJ was under no obligation to follow the doctor's wishes. He would treat Ty as he saw fit. DJ was willing to take a dressing down for being too severe with the little turd; he was unwilling to take it easy on him. It had very little to do with fear of appearing to be lax. He didn't know Ty at all. He knew he had seen Ty as a honeyboy, but not from memory, only from the simple fact that he knew roughly when Ty would have performed that role. What he did feel, what compelled him against any notion of charity, was the chaos he caused. DJ didn't just like the world he was in; and in a strange sense, he didn't love it either. He built for himself, in his mind and heart, a specific joy that this place alone allowed him. [It might sound like a cult, and could in some senses be viewed as such. And while the mechanisms that create moonies isn't too different from the one here, the effect is quite different.] Were it not for this ranch, he would still have been going from bar to bar in town to town to try to find someone to misuse him. He didn't want misuse alone; he didn't want someone who would shout commands until he came and then just left him to his own imaginings. DJ saw Ty as a threat not to his world as much as his sense of joy. Attack a man's world and he will retaliate, attack a man's joy and he will seek revenge.

Tails

Billy led his boys through the center of the corn and soybean plots. He walked them slowly and called to each section to come witness the procession. The field slaves saw six of their number chained in a line, all wearing diapers. No one laughed nor said a word. Some smiled in an almost embarrassed way at the obvious humiliation.

The task for these boys wasn't as smelly as for the others, but what it lacked in odor, it was designed to make up for in intensity. They too were led to a wagon. In the back of it was 6 shovels.

"Y'all see that square staked out?" Billy pointed at a 12' square section of dry dirt marked with string. "Y'all have to dig a hole three feet deep, straight on the edges and flat on the bottom." He removed the chains between the collars and handed each slave a shovel. "You load the dirt in here, when it's full up, y'all pull it over yonder and empty it."

Billy lined them up on one side of the square; the open bed of the wagon was facing them. He had them all stand at attention while he explained.

"This has to be done by tomorrow lunchtime. If you ain't done enough tonight by quittin' time, then you won't quit. Any of you pieces of trash hold out on filling that fucking diaper past dinnertime will earn lashes and earn everyone an extra day."

Each slave was given his ordinal number from left to right. Billy intended the six to function like pistons. Odd numbers forcing the shovels down as the evens tossed their shovel-loads into the bed of the wagon.

Billy came to the ranch from the Marines. He was court-martialed and given a dishonorable discharge after he had been involved in one too many fights. He responded quite well to his treatment in the brig in the sense that he really enjoyed it. He thought the Marines would mold him so that he could focus his aggression. Instead it gave him a regimen that helped enhance it. So he didn't become a better man through becoming a good soldier; he became a more effective fighter, but no more effective at picking which fights to pursue. Buck indicated that the ranch operated under no legal restrictions and promised Billy that if he responded well, that he would earn fast promotion. He did. He became a trustee within six months and a hand a year later. He was easily the most forceful of the hands and had more public floggings than any other hand or trustee for being unnecessarily cruel. Here he was under no such prohibition.

"A'ite. You all have to perform in rhythm. Any of you odds fuck up, all odds get whipped. You all have to have a full shovel-load each time. If I see you shirking there, then you will unload the wagon back into the hole and start again."

He led them on a slow drill of how to perform the task. Spade straight down, right foot forcing it all the way down, tilt the handle back, lift, toss. This would be fairly easy in typical soil, but this hard scrabble was exactly that. Part two took the longest time for them to get through. All but the largest slave, Aaron, felt a couple of lashes from Billy's flogger. It required that they almost jump on the top of the spade itself to get it deep enough into the ground for Billy's tastes. This was going to be jarring work.

Once they knew the routine, he began the cadence they were to use as a metronome to keep time:

I don't know but I been told

If I ain't no good I'll be sold

XXXXXXX

XXXXXXX

Aaron fell into an easy rhythm and monotoned the humiliating cadence without feeling. This was a cakewalk in comparison to lashes with a horsewhip. He could hear Billy walking behind them tapping time with a riding crop against his boots. Click, CLICK, click, CLICK. He could tell where he was in the line by the sound. When he knew Billy was walking the other direction, he looked over at the other slaves. What was fairly easy for him was a bit more difficult for the others, and was particularly difficult for Dax. Dax was the smallest and had to jump a little higher than the rest to get the shovel into the earth. Aaron knew that there were going to be more lashes in his future because he was number one, Dax was number three. He figured rightly that this was by design.

Odds and evens were given breaks lasting about two minutes every twenty to get some water.

"You probably guessed you ain't going to have the time to shit while you're shoveling, so I suggest you do it at these breaks, unless you want to spend another day in my company."

"How you holding up?" Aaron whispered to Dax. Billy was busy making sure the evens kept time, and would only turn back to the odds when their time was up.

"Alright I guess." He was suspicious of what he saw as kindness.

"I just don't want any more lashes, you think you can keep this going?"

"What else am I going to do?" As much truth as resignation, but he did manage a small smile.

Aaron smiled the same way in return. He didn't hate Dax for the mess he had caused. His goal now was to last this out and return to normal. He came to the ranch with the second most common story. The first is, of course, leaving an abusive "master" type who was poorly chosen. A close second is leaving an abusive home. Aaron craved two things, to be treated as a slave, and to have a sense of normalcy. He didn't consider what he received on the ranch as abuse. He saw it as necessary to achieve both of his desires. If asked he would not be able to say, if pressed he would be no more likely to know whether or not his abusive situation made him want to be a slave, or if that factor would have existed regardless of the situation. At this point it didn't matter. The simple fact was that he loved to be verbally assaulted and whipped on occasion. He loved the quick mostly dry fucks his mates gave him. He craved more of it and would resist any attempts at getting him out of the fields. Even after over a year of this, his cock was still semi hard and dripping most of the time in the fields. He could hear others getting punished and it would carry him to a near ecstatic reverie that was bested only by being the recipient of the punishment. Until the horsewhipping Dax instigated, he hadn't faced anything at the ranch he wouldn't want to repeat.

In addition to keeping time by slapping his crop against a boot, he would do it by whipping a sagging slave. They were to do all they could to function as a unit, so it wasn't always quickly apparent which one of them was causing the slow-down. Billy was cruel, but he was also picky. He wanted to do what he could to make sure he identified the right one. Once he was sure he had the slacker, he would have them stop their cadence. Then he would stand behind the slow one and bring the crop down on his left shoulder, then his right shoulder. The slave would then yell out a number one for left two for right.

"Shit boy, I done whipped your back enough, I'm going to have to switch to your legs." Billy said to the slave between Aaron and Dax.

"Please sir, please don't move to my legs."

"I'm not working any deals for a slave who has to carry his own shit around with him." Billy moved the action to the boy's thighs, varying outside with straight shots to keep the boy off balance. The pitch of his counting rose in pitch and Billy kept the pace going for roughly fifteen minutes. He only broke because the two slaves arrived with lunch.

The slaves scarffed the food as starved dogs would and not looking too dissimilar. These slaves were given some time to digest, on Buck's orders. The heads slaves' task was disgusting but not particularly strenuous. They all rested on their knees, hands held behind them, foreheads against the dry clay.

Billy saw Dax's stomach straining. This was followed by some sounds muffled by the diaper, then by a smell. He walked over to Dax and used his boot to rub the shit against its owners ass. "Don't forget to wipe slave." He said. Dax muttered his sir yes sir into the ground. "The rest of you might want to go ahead and get it over with if you can." It wasn't a direct command, but it was close enough for all but one of them to follow as if it had been. At least this way they could convince themselves they had been ordered to do it rather than subject themselves to choosing the time for this rare humiliation. It offered them an excuse. Aaron was the one who couldn't. His bowels were frozen and he ran cold at the thought they would stay that way. Buck went to each slave and used his boot to massage in the newly collected pile. "Man, I don't know if I can stand two more days of this, I don't know if I can take your smell for even the rest of today. Damn, what some of you do to food is criminal." Billy laughed.

Their rest period over, they got back to shoveling. The rest seemed to do more of a trick than the lash did at keeping them at a decent pace. They would shovel about a foot deep trench then move backwards from there.

About an hour after they picked up again, it was time to haul the dirt. The two largest slaves stood at the crossbar, the other four were at the back pushing from there. Billy focused most his lashes on the two at the front. "Come on slave, more slave, push harder slave." They weren't words of encouragement, they were hurled with ire and punctuated with a lash to the upper back or the thighs. He resorted to the flogger a couple of times when the wagon began to slow. Aaron was nearly in tears when they reached the spot where Billy said stop. He was drooling and snot was running loosely from his nose. Billy noticed and smiled at the straining slave. This was what he wanted them all to look like by the middle of tomorrow.

He ordered the slaves to shovel the dirt out until it was about half emptied, then he had them tip it on its axle to dump out the rest. Coming back he had the two who strained so hard up front walk behind the empty wagon with the other four pushing from the crossbar.

Aaron walked back trying hard to open his bowels. He was literally scared shitless. He would have laughed at the notion if it didn't have serious repercussions. He worked his stomach in short bursts to try to force anything out-sort of like pissing in public for those who have that particular performance anxiety (if you can get it started, gravity and laws of fluid dynamics take care of the rest). This fear continued for another few hours. He kept his eye on the direction dinner would arrive from and did what he could to force himself to shit.

Finally he saw the pair appear. He started to panic which only seemed to make the situation worse. Fear spread up from his clinched asshole upwards until it hit his diaphragm; his whole abdomen was paralyzed. Billy noticed the look on Aaron's face change from distant discomfort to active dread. He said deliberately and slowly into Aaron's ear, "I got no trouble putting you through another day married to your own shit." Aaron stopped with his shovel half submerged and emptied his ass into his diaper in one quick, painful motion; he grimaced and yelped a little, but didn't lose pace with his fellows. Billy smiled when he kneed the newest load back up towards its creator. "Damn, I don't know which I prefer, putting you through this for another day, or scaring the shit out of you." He was pleased with his own sophomoric cleverness.

The sun touched the horizon and Billy called a halt for the night. He reattached the chains and led them back through the fields to the cages behind the barn. Buck inspected them as he had the heads group that was already caged. He nodded at Billy who then walked off towards the bunkhouse. Buck locked the cages for the tails slaves and walked off too.

It didn't take long for all but Dax and Ty to be asleep. It was difficult for Dax to stay awake, but they agreed the night before to stay awake long enough to check on each other.

"You doing alright?" Ty whispered to Dax who was obviously fighting sleep.

"Dog tired."

"What they got you doin'? They got us picking up cowshit by hand and cartin' it around."

"Um . . . we're digging a hole."

"Is that all?" He was obviously angry at what he saw as the grossest inequity he had ever known.

"Ty, I would trade with you right now if I could. I have never felt this tired before and we have to do it again tomorrow, I don't know how I can. Just let me sleep."

Ty didn't say anything, but watched as Dax fell asleep. Once his anger cooled he realized that Dax's group came back in an almost sleepwalk. They didn't smell as bad, but they looked far worse than his own crew. Maybe he wouldn't want to trade with Dax if given the choice now that he thought about it.

Remaining Days

Breakfast on each day was at the cages. The heads group walked without audience towards their task. Billy announced again to all along the path that they needed to get a good smell of his parade so they wouldn't be tempted to the same sort of behavior that led to it. Again, some smiled a prurient grin, but none laughed.

The remaining days were intended for reinforcement. The task was painful or disgusting, but could be quickly adjusted to for all the slaves involved. Buck determined that three days was the right number. Two days was too short for those really used to humiliation and discomfort. Four days or more would have caused an even more serious disruption to the normal workings, and would have resulted in the victims beginning to find a way to grow accustomed to the new situation. Three days was more than enough for all but the most extreme, and Buck did what he could to make sure that type didn't stick around the ranch long-those too extreme to come to heel after this treatment would pose the same kind of disruptive cancer to the ranch as the relationship between Dax and Ty.

The twelve realized after the first morning that smell would be the least of their bothers. Itching would. Depending on several factors, a rash would begin by the morning of the second day. It would rise to irritating burn throughout, and by about halfway through the last day, it would be at a level of intensity that would be more distracting than any number of lashes. Not to forget that scratching not only made it worse, but it was a disgusting task in itself.

Billy's boys completed the hole a few hours prior to the halfway point. He had achieved his goal of having all six slaves slack-jawed and drooling. They no longer needed the cadence as a reminder of their station nor as a way of keeping time. What he did when they returned was more for him than anything else; if any of them retained even slave's dignity after the first day, Billy's actions would have erased it.

He lined them up against one wall of their hole and he stood in the middle. He removed his shorts and emptied his bladder and bowels easily. "See what I can do because I know what's what? I can shit and piss and leave it behind. I can even do this." He grabbed his fat cut cock and jerked off without haste. He squirt his load and pulled up his shorts. "Ain't none of you worthless shit-wearing slaves gonna get near my cock."

Now their task was to reverse course exactly. They had to haul the dirt back the quarter mile and fill in the latrine they just had finished just a few minutes before. Billy looked, but could see no hint of anger in his six slaves. They knew from head to toe that they had been beaten.

All twelve had one more night to go through. The seventy-second hour wouldn't be until morning. They were all past caring. The burning had become constant, but the fatigue was even greater. They didn't sleep well, but they did sleep.

Cutting

Aaron alone seemed aware that this was the morning he would be free from his shit. He was the only one who stood fully at attention when let out of the cage. Buck ordered them to the back of the barn. Dax and Ty stayed back while the others assumed the frisk position with hands against the barn. Buck handed a knife to Dax and Ty who were instructed to cut the diapers off their fellows.

"Just slit it up one side and don't cut any of them."

Pete, or any of them who might have been ignited to have hatred as deep as Pete, might have moved to attack Dax or Ty, but with them armed, they stood their ground, still, calm. The knives were sharp enough to slice through the cloth fairly quickly. The diapers remained stuck to the wearers after Ty and Dax retreated back to give Buck their knives.

"Alright guys, peal the things off and leave them at your feet. These two will collect them."

The movement was stiff, but as quick as all could manage. They reassumed the position. Where the diaper had been, they had a thick patina of offal that retained the shape and outline of the diaper. Dax and Ty retrieved the diapers, walked to the cages, and put them in front of his own cage. Billy, who was standing near the barn with a hose, squirted a firm, but not painful, stream of water at the standing slaves. It took only a couple of minutes to remove the shit from the posteriors, so all slaves were ordered to about face. Another couple of minutes and the 10 stood soaked, but free from their own waste for the first time in three days. Some began to scratch their asses. The area was red and a bit bumpy. It looked like a slight sunburn mixed with a serious attack of redbugs. The doctors on hand ordered them to stop scratching. This was the most difficult command any of them faced lately.

The doctors then squirted a dollop of ointment into both hands of the fidgeting men. "Rub that in, don't scratch at all, and just let me know if you need more."

The feeling of relief was nearly immediate. Smiles all around. Dax and Ty saw the look of calm and fatigue and joy come over their mates. They were too tired and irritated to register any further insults, direct or otherwise.

Billy led the slaves off in a new direction. They went in the direction Sam had come from nearly a week before. Buck turned his attentions to Ty and Dax briefly. He ordered them to put the diapers on top of their cages, then they were locked inside.

"Look across at the boy in the other cage and remember that it is because of him that you are where you are. I'll be back soon to make sure neither of you forget that." Buck walked toward where Billy and the slaves went.

Something Unreal a la Sun City

Sam was sitting in a chair next to the pool when the party arrived. Billy, Buck, two doctors, and the ten slaves gathered around him.

"I might be the last person you ever want to see again. Commending you for lasting would be an insult that no slave of mine should ever suffer-I do have my limits. For the next two days, this is home. You'll sleep in the pool house. Food and drinks will be provided. There are showers in the pool house, I suggest you use them frequently. Swim as you like, sleep as you like. Rest. Follow the orders of the doctors." The look he gave them said he wouldn't entertain questions. He then smiled and retreated into the house.

Buck said, "If any of you say word one about this, you will be removed from the ranch. Other than that, I will only repeat what Sam said; rest, do what the doctors tell you." He and Billy departed the way they came.

The doctors took the dumfounded ten towards the pool house. Before anything else, they each needed a shower.

Cages

"You doing ok?" Dax asked.

"I'll make it, you?"

"I'll make it."

They stared at each other. Neither could read in the other what they wanted. Each wanted to know if it was safe to ask the obvious question, neither saw that it was. They didn't see loathing in their lover's eyes, they saw fear. Neither considered it safe to ask.

"You ready for your last day?" Buck asked; his tone was flat, implying no heat, no sarcasm.