Littlest Lifeguard

The Littlest Lifeguard -- Part 10 By Ocean Lover Guy

When Preston awoke, every part of his body hurt. He tried moving his arms, then his legs, but nothing would give. As he looked straight forward, his head not able to move any other direction, he realized he was attached to some sort of device. It felt like his body was curled up in a "C"-shape.

He also felt something pounding away near his hip, something wide. First it felt dry then became slicker and slicker. Preston couldn't turn his head to look at what was happening to his body. He continued struggling against the restraints he was loaded into.

"I see that you're awake," said Mr. Featherstone. His voice sounded strange, even out of breath. Preston could tell that the man was to his right, probably near where the weird sensation in his hip was coming from.

The rubbing against his hip stopped and then Preston felt an enormous pressure building up against his asshole. "We can get started now."

Mr. Featherstone's cock, which Preston now figured had been humping his hip, was trying to snake its way into his backdoor. The problem was two fold. Preston had never let anyone fuck him before. And Mr. Featherstone's cock, of course, felt like it was thicker than an adult's wrist.

"But, before we play, we have to suit up." He pulled his cock back from Preston's vulnerable spot. "I rarely fuck a client bare. Often raw, but almost never bare. I don't know what the hell you've done with your body and the bloodwork I won't trust until we've had several consecutive clean results over six months."

Mr. Featherstone smacked Preston's ass a few times.

"Well, I guess you've been a good boy so far. I might as well use some lube, too." Preston felt the cold brush up against his asshole. Then a finger violated him and moved the slippery compound into deep and dark recesses of Preston's body.

"Let's get you in a more comfortable position." Preston felt his whole body begin to rotate. It felt like his head was tipped forward, like all the blood in his body was rushing toward his head.

"Normally I like a clean boy before I lay into him, but I'm collecting on last night, boy. Feel free to struggle as much as you want. It makes the whole experience feel so much better."

The cock battered its way through Preston's rear and the kid screamed in pain. It was a car driving through a mousehole. Preston's face felt hot, all the blood in his head, and the tears came unbidden.

Mr. Featherstone was grunting loudly behind him, battering away. "Of course, boy, you know that I used the desensitizer on my cock before we started. You'll probably pass out a couple times from all the excess blood in your head. Each time you do we'll have to stop and then start over again."

The tears came faster. Preston's muscles started firing throughout his body, struggling against what was happening to him. His back was like a pack of thundering wolves, muscles clenching and releasing without warning, without end.

"That feels wonderful, boy. Remember not to cum unless I tell you that you can. You don't want to earn a punishment on your first day. You, your cock, and your cum all belong to me. Don't be wasting what you don't own."

Mr. Featherstone threw a violent thrust into the boy and found himself unloading into his condom. He was short of shocked for a moment at how quickly he'd finished. The boy was particularly hot and the situation was even better. Mr. Featherstone had always worked on commission before. Always someone who cared for the lost soul had known where he was, if not exactly what was happening to him.

Now, Preston King belonged entirely to Mr. Featherstone. He would be a fine creation when he was finished, a Galatea for a Pygmalion, flesh created from worthless hard bitterness. He would repay a lifetime of pent-up, unexpressed love for a man Mr. Featherstone had never been able to obtain. Preston would be a perfect gift.

Preston felt his body returned to a normal position. His tears weren't stopping. Mr. Featherstone walked around him, releasing latches. When he flicked the last one, Preston fell to the concrete floor. He could see the awful contraption mounted to the wall.

"You'll grow to love it. Now, wash yourself inside and out. The shower and the hose are in the next room. I'll be back with your day's meal in twenty minutes. Then we'll begin your lessons."

Mr. Featherstone flung the used condom on Preston's chest and walked out of the room. A heavy door shut. Preston remained sobbing on the floor. He didn't turn around to look at the man who had taken his anal virginity. He didn't want to see the club that had been inside his ass.

Tim woke up in a warm bed. It took him a few minutes to remember where he was and why he was here. He wanted to cry again, but found his tear ducts didn't want to work. It didn't matter. Tim was tired of all the tears shed on his behalf in the last few days.

He walked out to the living room of the cabin he was staying in and saw his brother just sitting on a couch.

"Good sleep," Ryan asked.

Tim smiled. "The best. I dreamed I got a dad who wasn't an asshole."

"Wasn't a dream," Ryan said.

"I'm glad." Tim plopped down next to his brother. "When are you going back to school?"

"Ready to get rid of me already," Ryan said. He hung a hang dog look on his face.

"I don't know what I would have done without you, Ryan. I'm very glad you came up here for me, but I don't want you flunking out of school for it. Plus you have a girlfriend, remember, who'll need all sorts of tender loving care." Tim had a goofy look on his face.

"I don't next sex advice from my younger brother."

Tim laughed.

"Can I call Kyle and tell him where I am? I wouldn't want him calling the major and getting yelled at."

"Go ahead."

Kyle's reaction was all over the map. Shock and anger; joy and jealousy; excitement and petulance. "So when can I come visit," Kyle asked.

"How about we talk at school first?"

"You're coming in? After getting beaten up and thrown out of your house, you're going to come to school today?"

"Well, yeah," Tim said. "Why wouldn't I?"

"You're a fucking tuff stud muffin." Kyle almost purred into the phone.

Tim laughed. "I thought we agreed you weren't going to hit on me, Kyle."

"Sorry," the kid sheepishly volunteered.

"Go jerk off and then meet me at school."

"Aye, aye, captain."

The line went dead.

"Hungry," Ryan asked.

"Mmm," Tim responded. "I could eat just about anything right now. The soles of your shoes look pretty tasty."

"Herbert told me last night to come on up to the main house for breakfast. You going to school, like you told Kyle?"

"Of course," Tim said. "Nothing's changed. I just got a better family now."

"Even with the bruising. Don't care what they'll say?"

"Not really. I took a couple days to heal up. I'm going to work tomorrow, too. I want everything to be nice and normal."

Ryan smiled. "Let's go eat."

"Mmm."

Rodney Bunning hadn't slept all night long, not since the phone call. Jim had been up half the night holding him while he cried. He'd never felt right about letting Robin Spencer keep control of his son Tim. Now he knew why he'd always had a bad feeling in his gut.

Rodney had been entrusted with the care of four main branches of the Spencer family by his dead lover Jim Spencer, the patriarch of the family. Rodney felt as though he had failed.

He was the administrator of the Spencer estate, the series of clauses and requirements designed to help the puling children of a wealthy father become better people than they were. Jim had known all about his son Robin's penchant for violence and about his hatred of homosexuals. Jim had called this entire scenario years before it all played out.

Rodney's job was to make sure that the children, the ones he thought of as his own grandchildren, were safe. Rodney had seen firsthand how Robin Spencer could fly off the handle. He could have stopped all this much earlier.

Jim stroked Rodney's back. "Everyone is okay. There are some bruised bodies and a lot of hurt feelings, but everyone is okay, Rod."

Rodney sniffled back the tears. He had to go into the office soon. He was the managing partner of Wetschel & Ahmansen. He had clients to meet and at least three new associates to interview. The firm used a two-stage process, with Rodney and one of the other senior partners as the final check.

More importantly, he had work on the Spencer estate, one of the few client matters that he still attended to personally. Rod was set to unleash hell starting today, every kind of plague he could conjure up.

"How are you going to get into work, Jim? You've been up most of the night caring for my saggy ass."

"I'm still a teenager at heart, Rod. I can pull an all-nighter when I have to."

Rod sort of laughed and sort of sneezed all at once. He was now, officially, a mess.

"Get in the shower. Get cleaned up. I'll call my office and tell them I'll be in a bit late," Jim said. He had more comp time built up than God did. He worked for the city as the director of sanitation and he could call in his accumulated overtime from now until he was slated to retire in two years without setting foot in his office. He wouldn't do it, of course, he actually liked his job. But, now, he had to remind Rod that he also loved his partner and would support him in his times of pain and grief.

Jim made his phone call and Rod took his shower. They ate breakfast together and got into their separate vehicles.

Rod's mind was almost clear again when he arrived at his office building. The law firm he managed wasn't the biggest one in town, not by far, but it was well connected. They did equal parts litigation defense, criminal defense, and contracts of different kinds. It was an odd mix for a firm like this one, but old man Wetschel had always kept around a couple of great criminal defense attorneys as partners. The tradition kept rippling through the company's history.

The current draw to the place was that its partners kept getting picked for judgeships. Rodney Bunning had mentored the state's junior senator, even helping with the campaign, and now had a fair amount of pull in getting candidates named to the district courts of the state. It was a small firm but a desirable one. Rodney had one partner who was pending confirmation, then he'd promote a partner to take over that department. A whole bunch of people would ripple up the chain when the Senate finally voted. New titles, new stationery, some pay raises, and a lot of smiles.

All that influence was great, but it hadn't stopped Robin Spencer from brutalizing his child with hateful words and conduct. Rodney was ready to go to battle with all the tools of the darker side of his trade.

He smiled and nodded at everyone he saw in the hallways once he cleared the still-empty reception area. It was early for clients to be coming in, but not too early for associates and partners to be at their desks attending to client matters.

Rodney stepped into his suite of offices and then stopped. He had a small reception area in his suite -- one of the perks of rank -- but it wasn't empty. In fact, on one of his fine chairs sat one of the two people Rodney least wanted to think about.

"Mr. Bunning..." the woman said.

"Maggie, I don't want to hear it," Rodney said. He didn't want to talk to Robin Spencer's wife.

"I have to talk with you. Robin's just gone insane."

Rodney blinked a few times, then his forehead furrowed. "You'd best come in, then."

The Littlest Lifeguard -- Part 11 By Ocean Lover Guy

Herbert Tate was having a very hard time getting into his new book. He was maybe fifty pages in, but no matter how long he looked at the computer screen, the words just wouldn't come.

He'd started his first murder mystery, full of criminals and blood and gore, within weeks of attending his parents' double funeral -- the murdered mom, the murderer and suicide father. He hadn't had any problems with the words then. Everything in the worlds he created was bleak and funereal. The books sold extremely well. People needed a release; they needed to tap into the darkness someone else had mediated. It was terrifying to be in the same room as a serial killer, but thrilling to read Thomas Harris' The Silence of the Lambs.

Herbert had done everything this morning except write. He had cleaned up the breakfast dishes -- by hand -- that he, Tim, and Ryan had created instead of throwing them in the machine. He vacuumed his entire house even though the cleaning service was coming tomorrow. He had been into the newly cleaned pool house and swam a mile. He'd been considering hopping on the riding lawn mover and just driving around the property. It was cold out, and grass was more than a month from starting its growing season, but it would get him out of the house.

Tim came back in from the cold weather, having decided against a pointless trip on the lawn mower, and sat down at his computer. He opened a new document, the proverbial blank sheet of paper, and started writing. The words came without effort, but it wasn't the kind of story he'd expected to write. Jesus, Herbert's agent would shit a brick if he could read what Tim was writing. He was already ten pages in, no one had died (not really), and there really wasn't much of a plot. But it was the finest ten pages Herbert had ever written, with typos and grammar problems and all. All the warts.

He read through the pages and finished when his stomach told him it was time to eat. He'd never written this quickly before.

He keyed up to the first page and gave the nascent fragment a name: Lifesaving for Morons. He read the first words again: "Everyone needs some help sometimes. Sometimes a life barely lived, not in any danger of cessation, needs the most urgent help. Sometimes the dead watch over us, sometimes the living. Sometimes the apocalyptic maw just smiles and waves us on past the death, disaster, and decay of it all. Sometimes a stubborn man gets his life saved just by being in the right place at the right time when bombs are dropping and people elsewhere are groaning into death. Sometimes I myself come back from the dead. You can call me Lazarus Sometime."

Herbert didn't know where the next chapter would take him, or if it would ever have a plot, but he knew it was something wonderful. There would be no dead bodies in this one; and if the plot ever slowed down, no man with a gun would step out of the shadows. This was a different kind of book. From a different-thinking author.

Ryan Spencer walked into the law firm. He wasn't dressed like anything special so he attracted the unwanted negative attention of the receptionist.

"May I help you," she asked with significant doubt in her voice.

"I'd like to see Rodney Bunning, ma'am."

Her eyes opened a little wider. Scruffy young kids didn't often ask to see the firm's managing partner. It was just strange enough to have the whiff of truth.

"May I ask your name?"

"Ryan Spencer."

"Thank you." The receptionist picked up the phone and quietly spoke into it. When she spoke again, her tone was much warmer.

"Mr. Spencer, Mr. Bunning will be right out for you. Please have a seat."

She was obviously impressed now. Ryan thought she was an idiot, a status-gilded idiot.

Rod came out into the reception area a few minutes later. "Ryan," he said, holding out his hand. They walked quickly back to Rodney's corner office suite.

"I'm glad you could come in this morning. I think we have an even stronger case now. Let me explain."

Rod talked for five minutes and Ryan could barely believe what he was hearing.

"We're going to court today. Do you have any better clothes?"

"Huh," Ryan said.

"You'll have to appear in court. You'll need to pick up Tim from school. It's an emergency hearing, fast, fast, fast. I'm having one of our associates who works on divorce litigation join us."

"Oh," Ryan said. He was going to become a legal guardian today, if everything worked out. He was going to be responsible, legally and in every other way, for his brother.

"Do we need Mr. Tate to appear?"

"Wouldn't hurt, not a bad idea at all," Rod said. "Your father will never know what hit him."

Ryan was still gaping like a fish removed from water. "Let's do it. Let's make my brother safe."

Preston finished eating the last of his meal, a cold chicken breast, salad greens, a slice of bread with butter, and an apple. It was vastly different from what he normally ate. But Preston was very hungry and he would take what was offered.

Mr. Featherstone watched him eat every bit of the food. "It's good for you. Before too long, we'll have you beautiful inside and out. All ready for graduation."

Preston winced at the comment coming from the man who had raped him half an hour earlier. The man made it sound like was college. Preston had taken a good degree from a good college. He'd never had a class like this one.

"Are you finished," came the question. Preston felt surprised, even though his attacker had been staring at him the entire time.

"Yes, Mr. Featherstone."

The man took the plate and silverware away and limped out of the room. The heavy door slammed shut again. Preston felt a tiny blast of cold air tickle his naked flesh. His body erupted in goose bumps.

That was the shit, Preston thought. Irony was one of his subspecialties. His rapist was a gimp. If he survived this, he'd write a book, full of irony, about a rape victim attacked by a succession of unlikely suspects. The stupid, damaged, and weak would be at the top of the list.

Mr. Featherstone returned and looked at his student. "Bend over and spread your cheeks, boy."

Preston's face shown with fear in an instant. He'd been sitting on his right cheek to avoid putting stress on the rest of his ass. Now the old fucker wanted to see his hole. He thought about screaming at the man, at the fucking worthless fuck he was, but Preston thought better of it at the last second.

He turned around, bent over, and used his hands to pull his butt cheeks apart. Even that amount of pressure was sending shock waves through his body. Sticking the hose up his asshole had been pure torture.

Mr. Featherstone dropped to his knees and sniffed at the hole. "Smells clean," he said. "Good boy." Then he stuck a frigid finger into the inflamed ring of muscle. Preston wanted to scream.

"This cream will help with the pain and swelling. We have a lot of lessons today and you have hours of exercise, plus I'm going to tap you twice more before I let you sleep tonight. I want my property in good working order."

Preston nearly broke down in tears again. He wasn't someone's property. He also wasn't a temperamental, crying, little shit. He didn't want to appear to be one. He needed to be strong in front of this asshole. He probably weighed more. He could take Mr. Featherstone in a fair fight. Preston figured that Featherstone wouldn't fight fair.

"Sit down."

Preston didn't move. "Sit down," the second time was accompanied by a slap. Preston more fell down than sat down.

"I wondered when the Preston I'd expected would reappear," Mr. Featherstone said. "Get comfortable, boy, we're going to be here a while. Lessons take time to learn."

Preston was just biding his time until he could turn the tables to his advantage. He hadn't been left alone in this room long enough to see what he had to work with.

"Here are the rules for lessons. You may speak freely. You will answer every question I ask. If you complete your lessons well, I will permit you to ask me one question at the end of our sessions. If you ask the question, I promise to answer it. Do you understand?"

Preston thought through what he had just heard. This was an opening. He needed to find out more about this man. He needed to figure out the man's weaknesses so that he could exploit them.

"Yes, Mr. Featherstone."

"Describe the last person you had sexual relations with?"

Preston didn't know what to say. Featherstone had kept talking about lessons. Preston hadn't even thought of what these lessons might be about. Go figure, the day starts with rape and now moves into his sexual history. Preston couldn't understand this man's game.

"It was Luke. He's an easy piece of slut. I fucked his ass twice."

Mr. Featherstone nodded. "I didn't ask you to describe what you did to him. I asked you to describe him. Not everything is about you. Please listen, boy."

Preston could only see Luke's back and ass in his head. Preston didn't usually care what the front of the guys he did looked like.

"I don't know. He's well muscled. Brown hair. A good voice, a bit of a screamer actually. Soft skin."

"What color are his eyes?"

Preston's own pupils dilated. He didn't know. "Brown."

Mr. Featherstone reached out and grasped Preston's left nipple and began pinching and twisting it. He kept on with his rough treatment until Preston could barely stand it any more.

"Did you just lie to me?"

Preston could barely hear the question through the pain. The only positive was that the throbbing from his ass went away from the new source of pain.

Mr. Featherstone tweaked harder. "Did you lie to me?"

Preston's dick had never felt harder, nor had his body ever felt wracked by such pain. "Yes," he shouted. "I never looked in Luke's eyes."

"Very well." Mr. Featherstone released the boy's savaged nipple. "Lying does no one any good. I can always tell. And it always comes with a cost."

"What is Luke's favorite book?"

"I don't know that he can read."

Mr. Featherstone raised his eyebrows.

"I don't know what he likes to read," Preston admitted.

Mr. Featherstone asked him another thirty questions, all of which ended with the admission that Preston didn't know.

"Then I will ask you something you do know. Why did you want to hurt Herbert Tate?"

Mr. Featherstone listened to the boy's explanation for more than fifteen minutes. He kept the kid talking merely through the use of his eyes. Then he asked for a recitation of everything that happened that evening. Preston spoke for as long as Mr. Featherstone made him.

Mr. Featherstone asked his question again, "Why did you want to hurt Herbert Tate?"

Preston looked exasperated, but he went through his story again, adding more detail this time. He was surprised at some of the things that came out of his own mouth.

Mr. Featherstone looked at Preston with a lot of suspicion after he finished his second explanation. It was still similar -- anger at his former boss, anger at his treatment -- but a number of details had changed.

"We'll get the answer out of you, boy. We have all the time in the world."

Preston felt like he'd been kicked. Mr. Featherstone had never sounded so sincere. Preston wondered if he would live through the experience.

"You lied to me today, boy," Mr. Featherstone said. "But I will grant you your question. I did not explicitly forbid lying when I explained the rules, my fault."

Preston sat stunned. His mind was looking to an eternity in this room and now the monster was asking Preston for a question. Preston needed to find out the man's weaknesses. He needed to dissect the monster before he could kill the monster. Instead, probably as Mr. Featherstone wanted, Preston felt sick. He could cause so much pain with his fingers and his body, but nearly as much with just a casual comment.

Preston wondered if he could do the same.

"Why do you limp?"

Mr. Featherstone smiled. Instead of relief, Preston felt frightened. He'd never seen a smile seem so deathly.

"A sharp mind on you, son. Sharp. Don't think it, because you won't find a weakness in me. Let me show you why I limp."

Mr. Featherstone removed the coveralls he was wearing and stood in front of Preston nude. Preston first measured the man's cock with his eyes, incredibly thick but no more than three inches soft, maybe five hard. Then his eyes raked over the rest of the man's body. He could see the surgical scares radiating out from both shoulders, from one of his knees, from places all over the man's body. It appeared that he'd been crushed like Humpty Dumpty and never quite been put back together again.

Preston looked, part in horror, part to seek advantage, and his eyes finally rested on Mr. Featherstone's very odd scrotum.

"What the hell happened to your balls?" They were either microscopic -- or gone. Preston couldn't breathe for a second. The man's threat to remove a testicle, that wasn't a threat. Mr. Featherstone didn't have any nuts. Why would he have a problem taking someone else's?

Mr. Featherstone pulled the coveralls up over his body again.

"Answering that would give you a second question in one day, boy. It just isn't done."

Mr. Featherstone walked toward the door.

"Remember, it's time for your exercise. The rowing machine plus sit ups should do you good, firm up your abs. Get to it. I'll be back in two hours to fuck your ass. You'd better be hellaciously sweaty cause I'm not using any lube this time."

The Littlest Lifeguard -- Part 12 By Ocean Lover Guy

Tim knew all the assholes by sight. In a school this size, with only eight hundred kids in it, you almost had to know them all. The bad ones at least.

In the time since he'd been in class last, it seemed that the list of assholes had started to grow. Tim Spencer received some of the strangest glances he'd ever seen in his first three hours at school. It seemed that the rumor mill had been running wild in his absence. Now he showed up looking like a battered spouse. It didn't help things.

His best bud Kyle stuck pretty close, but Pat and Luke were no where to be seen. That hurt.

Tim walked into chemistry. He was a junior and this was the required junior-level science class. That was about all he could say in its favor.

The looks started again. One of the guys in the class, a Timmons by surname, started ragging on Tim. "You see something you like at that part, lifeguard?"

Tim looked at Timmons and shrugged.

"I was there. I saw Trance drag you away. Was it good for you?"

Tim looked at the bully and had nothing to say. He took his seat in the usual place. When the teacher started the class session, he announced that it was a laboratory day, of course. Tim thought lab days were slightly better than lecture days. Mixing shit up to see what formed was okay, better than lectures on Avogadro's number and pair bonding.

Tim joined his partner, a plain-looking girl named Sandy, at the back of the room. This experiment involved dissolving metal, a penny, in acid and then conducting reactions with it. Tim thought it was a bit much to trust the neanderthals in 11th grade with acids.

He'd been working with Sandy for nearly ten minutes before he felt that his pants leg was wet. He looked down and saw the huge spreading wet spot on his lower leg.

"What the he..." he started to say before he heard the laughter from behind him. Timmons and his friend were sitting at the station behind.

"Did the virgin baby wet himself?"

Tim was about to respond with a tart invective when he smelled the alcohol in the air. He saw the match flying through the air before he could move or scream.

His pants, doused in alcohol, as he would later learn, went up in a small flame. The alcohol, unlike gasoline or other accelerants, burned out pretty quickly. Tim's classmates almost had more of a fright than he did. He lost the jeans, of course, got some light burns, and lost a lot of leg hair. He was more pissed than anything, a stupid joke turned violent.

The teacher, a humorless man called Williams, took a very dim view of what happened. He called the office who called the police. Timmons and friend were both arrested and hauled away. Tim was sad for them, for their stupid prank, but he was angry that more shit would get started. More gossip, more bullies taking their turn.

Tim had heard all the arguments about deterrence, how putting someone in prison, or giving them the death penalty, stopped other people from doing horrible things. Tim didn't believe it at all. The two idiots who got themselves arrested were more like a gauntlet. They'd failed to really torment Tim so it meant that others could now take up the challenge. Mean people, violent people, they didn't respond to reason and self interest. They had wires crossed in their heads. They needed things Tim couldn't understand.

By the time Tim had wrapped a towel around his lower half, walked to the gym, pulled on a pair of slightly smelly gym shorts, and made his way to the administration center, he was really to go back to bed. There were days that were just meant to be slept through.

When the secretary asked Tim for his phone number, he looked around for a second and felt confused at what he saw. Ryan was walking down the hall and the lawyer was with him.

"You don't need to do that, ma'am. My brother is here now."

"Oh," she said. She smiled. She seemed to like anything that made her life a little easier.

Ryan was the first one to start speaking. "Why are you wearing gym shorts?"

Tim smiled but he felt like crying. "Get me out of here and I'll tell you all about it."

The lawyer introduced himself briefly and then was silent until Tim had told his tale. By that time, the lawyer had pulled into the mall parking lot.

"You said court, right, Ryan," Tim asked.

"Mr. Spencer," the lawyer said, "we want you to look respectable. We'll just have to buy you some new pants."

They were in and out in minutes and at the court house shortly thereafter.

"So," Tim started again, "Ryan's going to be my new daddy?" Tim said this with a big smile. He thought it funny that his brother, only a few years his elder, would now be his guardian.

The lawyer shook his head. Tim's brow wrinkled.

"Bro, I'm here to support you. So are some other people. We're going to get you emancipated."

"What?"

"It means that you'll be, in the eyes of the law, an adult," the lawyer explained. "You can open your own bank accounts, rent an apartment, do all the other things an adult needs to do."

Tim shut down for a few seconds while he tried to understand this change in tactics. "What happened? Why is this different from what we talked about last night, Ryan?"

The three of them stopped in front of a door on the third floor. "It was Mom's idea," Ryan said.

The lawyer opened the door and then Tim saw his mother sitting in the small waiting area. Plus his boss from the pool, Bert, and a lady he'd never seen before. She had a briefcase at her feet, so odds were that she was a lawyer, too.

"Why do I need two lawyers today?" It was a silly question, but it was all that Tim could think of. He felt overwhelmed.

"Two-for-one special, kid," Maggie Spencer said.

"Mom," Tim said. He looked around the room more closely. "Where's dad?"

"Work, I'd guess. He needs to work a lot these days, Tim." Maggie Spencer seemed sad, but Tim could see the love in her eyes.

Tim walked over to his mother. He had a lot more he wanted to ask, but the door at the end of the room opened. A petite, well dressed older woman came out. "The judge will see you now."

"Just you, me, and the lawyers for now, Tim. Everyone else is backup," Maggie Spencer said.

Tim nodded and started walking toward the dark paneled room beyond the open door.

Robin Spencer had treated bunions, ingrown toenails, an open, oozing sore (gross!) on a diabetic woman who didn't like to take her insulin regularly, and measured two different people, one just seventeen, for orthotics to correct misshapen feet. He was ready to go home, but he wasn't really sure if he had a home to return to.

His half-baked plan to embarrass his son, even get him to admit what kind of a creature he was, it hadn't worked. Maggie had screamed at him and he might have lost Ryan, too.

When Robin drove the twenty-five minutes back to his home, he found the whole thing dark. Ryan's car was gone from the street, not a surprise, but Maggie's from inside the garage was gone, too. When he walked inside, the place just felt different. It felt cold, even hollow.

He walked from room to room to see what was going on. His wife was gone, that he could tell early on, but he didn't confirm it until Robin walked into their shared bedroom. Her possessions, and all her clothing, were gone.

The little shit was gone. Even Jessie's room had been packed up and vacated.

Robin returned to the kitchen and started making himself some dinner. No one else was going to take care of him. No one else.

Mr. Featherstone stood at the edge of the room and looked at the sleeping boy. He'd made it through two hours of exercise, two more brutal fucks, and three more lessons, all as ultimately unsatisfying as the first. He was exhausted and had fallen immediately to sleep. The boy's body would feel like someone had assaulted it with a variety of bats and sledgehammers in the morning. Mr. Featherstone didn't wish to ever be in the boy's position again.

Featherstone wasn't his name, of course. He'd chosen it with special regard to this subject. The boy hadn't yet figured out the joke, but Mr. Featherstone thought he might tell the kid in the morning. Maybe the added fear of really knowing who his captor was would make for a more frisky fuck. Maybe it would help to break the kid down.

The truth was that Mr. Featherstone had lived his life for nearly five years in a room like this one. None of his good friends from high school, and that included Herbert Tate, had known what happened to him during that time period. A couple of college friends had seen it coming but Mr. Featherstone, a dumb, stupid man-child then, hadn't listened. He had fallen for the older man, played his games, dropped out of college in his junior year, and eventually signed the (legally non-binding) slave contract.

Its terms were hardly enforceable in any court. "This contract is binding until one or both parties are dead. Neither party may voluntarily give up his rights under this agreement."

Mr. Featherstone had been an idiot, but he'd grown strong under the man's care, even as his shoulder had been shattered two separate times, he'd been forced to have a new hip joint installed when the other was ripped to shreds, and he'd lost both his testicles. When the brutal man had crushed the first one, and then had a friendly veterinarian remove it from his sack, Mr. Featherstone had mourned his self-imposed lot. When the second one was destroyed nearly a year later and removed by the same veterinarian, he vowed that the slave contract was over. The next time the brutal man attacked him, Mr. Featherstone started the deathmatch. Of course, he'd won, but only barely. The metal pins in nineteen of his bones, the missing inch and a half off his right leg, and the horrific surgical scarring all over the surface of his body testified to that.

The victory over the most brutal slave master in California, a man who'd buried seven other former slaves in unmarked plots behind his home, had established Mr. Featherstone's reputation. His subsequent successes breaking difficult people, and making them human again, not bitter beasts, had cemented it. For what he did, Mr. Featherstone thought he was good enough. In truth, he was the best in his small specialty field. He was nearly the only one, but he deserved the title as the best.

Mr. Featherstone was better at breaking people than the U.S. Marine Corps. He was far better at putting them back together. He made a lot of money doing the only things he really understood well. The fucking was just physical release. Mr. Featherstone thought that if he never came again in his life, he probably wouldn't miss it too much. But, he did it because it was important to breaking down his subjects. This current boy, Preston the shit head, he would take some time. He actually believed his own lies still.

Mr. Featherstone would have to break him down to nothing and then mold him back together again. There was no half-assing this assignment. Mr. Featherstone had already turned down two assignments so he could make his time available for just this one person. He normally could take on four or five different subjects at once. He had eight of these special rooms built on his property in different places, but Preston King was the only resident of this special hotel for the moment.

Mr. Featherstone would begin level two in the morning. He had to break this boy down completely, utterly. He also had to trust himself not to become the kind of person the brutal man was. Mr. Featherstone had joined the brutal man without a safety net, just as this kid had involuntarily done. The kid's life was in Mr. Featherstone's hands.