The White Rat – Chapter Twelve

The White Rat – Chapter Twelve

OK, so let’s get back to the Fall of the Rat: suddenly his situation at school is looking distinctly wobbly, and things at home seem even worse. But he thinks he’s got a cunning plan to resolve his domestic situation. Let’s find out what it is and whether it works…

---------------------------------------------------------

After his dismissal from Blackman’s office David went back to Jordan’s form room to give him the news and to warn him that an investigation was likely. Jordan wasn’t actually too worried about this, since he had never framed anyone who was innocent, and his contribution to punishments had generally been simply to administer a caning when specifically told to do so by Garrett, and he didn’t think he could be blamed for that.

The one exception to this was Larkin, whose punishment he had run more or less single-handedly, but he didn’t think that was too much of a worry either: he expected Larkin to keep his mouth shut, both because he wouldn’t want to have to admit to being constantly humiliated – not to mention fucked – by a first-former, and because he would know that if Jordan got into trouble certain photos would soon make their appearance around the school.

So Jordan wasn’t too worried about the future, and David was still optimistic about the situation, too: he still felt he could talk Blackman round once he discovered that Osterley was his only step out of line. And he was also feeling confident that he could sort out his home situation as well, so after school he got his taxi-driver to take him to the police station instead of home, and there he made a formal complaint about Mrs Devlin trying to tell him what to do in his own house. The officer he spoke to was inclined to be dismissive at first, but the name ‘Villiers-Gore’ did carry a little weight, so in the end he agreed to send someone round to look into it.

David walked to the bus stop feeling confident that Mrs Devlin’s wheel had been well and truly spoked, and that he would be able to get rid of her appalling, bratty children, at least from all except the servants’ end of the house. And when he got back home he found that things had moved faster than he had expected: there was a police car parked on the drive.

He went into the house with a big smile on his face, though that didn’t last too long. Almost as soon as he set foot into the hall he was intercepted by two police officers and taken to the living room.

“We’ve spoken to Mrs Devlin,” the first one said, “and she’s explained what happened yesterday, and her eldest child has confirmed it separately: you threw a tantrum and she slapped you to bring it to an end. She’s perfectly entitled to do that, and to discipline you in any other way she thinks appropriate.”

“But she’s a servant!”

“She’s the housekeeper, and in the absence of your mother or other responsible adult, she’s in charge of you. And she’s got the paperwork to prove it: your mother left a signed set of detailed instructions, telling her, among other things, not to let you run wild. In her place I’d probably have hit you harder. And if you bother us about this again we’ll charge you with wasting police time. Is that understood?”

“But…”

“Good. We’ll see ourselves out.” And the two policemen got up and left the room, leaving David feeling totally deflated.

“Oh, dear,” said a voice, and he looked up and saw Tim Devlin leaning over the back of the armchair he had apparently been hiding behind. “Naughty little Gerbil’s in trouble with the police, is he? What a pity.”

“Shut up, you peasant, or I’ll…”

“Or you’ll what? Look at me? Oh, no, I’m terrified. Now come with me – my mother wants to see you.”

Tim more or less dragged David into the kitchen, where Mrs Devlin looked at him in displeasure.

“So, set the police on us, would you?” she said. “Well, you’ll be glad to hear that, now that they’ve read what your mother had to say about you, they’re happy for me to bring you up in the way I think best. Now, I’m far too busy to waste my time trying to keep an eye on you in future, so from now on Tim’s going to do it for me.”

“What! But he’s younger than me!”

“He might be younger, but he’s far more grown up than you are. You’re just a spoiled, ill-mannered child, David. So I’m leaving it to Tim to try to teach you how to behave. You’ll do as he tells you, or you’ll be in serious trouble. You’ll do your share of the work around here, and you’ll be polite about it, too. I’m not putting up with any more of your airs, either: in this household everyone pulls his weight, and nobody considers himself better than the rest of us. Is that understood?”

David glared at her, but before he could speak he got a sharp dig in the ribs from Tim, who was standing just behind him.

“My mother asked you a question,” said Tim. “Answer her.”

“Yes,” muttered David.

“Politely,” said Tim, jabbing him again.

“Yes, Mrs Devlin,” said David, a little louder.

“Good. Now go away and let me get on with my work. As I said, from now on Tim’s in charge of you. If you learn to grow up a bit and act your age maybe I’ll think about changing that, but for now you do what he tells you. Now off you go.”

Tim drove David upstairs to the bedroom he was sharing with Joe, and there they found Joe and Molly waiting for them.

“Have you told Lord Muck what’s happening yet?” Joe asked, eagerly.

“Not yet. I thought you’d like to be here for that bit.”

“Oh, goodie! I’m looking forward to seeing his face!”

“Ok, Gerbil, sit down,” said Tim, pushing David onto Joe’s bed and sitting down on the other one next to Joe and Molly.

“Stop calling me that, you bloody Irish oik!”

“Oh, I’m going to enjoy this,” said Tim. “Right, Gerbil, you heard my mother: I’m in charge of you now. In fact, you behave so childishly that I’m going to treat you like my youngest brother, and that means Molly and Joe can tell you what to do, too, and you’ll do it unless you want to find yourself in trouble.

“Between us we’re going to try to teach you respect for your elders and how to behave with other people. It’s going to take a long time, I think, because you’re such a pile of crap to start with, but it’s going to happen. Now, we’ve decided to divide the work up. I’m in overall charge, and I’ll be escorting you to and from school – on the bus, from now on: we’re not wasting money on a taxi for you any longer. Molly’s going to be in charge of keeping you clean and tidy, so she’ll make sure you bathe regularly and so on, and Joe’s in charge of discipline: every time you mess up it’ll be Joe that punishes you.”

“And it won’t be a nice light spanking next time, either,” added his brother.

“Next, we’re going to reorganise the accommodation a little. It doesn’t seem right that you’ve got a big room to yourself when Joe and I have to share, especially since you’re the least deserving of us all. So we’ve found a new room for you and we’re all going to move round to make it work. I’m taking your room, Molly is coming in here and Joe’s going to the room Molly is using now.”

“But… look, you can’t just throw me out of my own bedroom!” protested David. “It’s my bloody house, you bastard!”

“If you keep swearing at me I’ll have to ask Joe to punish you,” said Tim, unperturbed. “If you behave yourself and learn to act like a normal human being we might have another look at the situation in three or four months’ time, but for now, you’re moving. And I’ve drawn you up a timetable for every day, too: there’ll be no more lounging in bed for you. You’ll take your turn on the washing up, like the rest of us, and you’ll be responsible for keeping our bedrooms tidy. If we’re not satisfied, you’ll be punished. Any questions?

David spluttered and steamed but he couldn’t control himself well enough to actually put a sentence together.

“Good,” said Tim. “Then we might as well start moving our stuff around. You can leave yours where it is, though: you’re not going to need most of it, and it might just as well stay in the wardrobe in your… I mean my room, for now. Molly, have you found something for him to wear for now?”

His sister nodded and handed David his “Going to meetings with Mother” shorts and a tee shirt. “That’s all you’ll need for now,” she told him. “Take your uniform off and put these on, then go and get on with your homework.”

“But…”

“Just do it,” interrupted Tim. “We haven’t got time to beat you now, we’re going to be busy. Well, get on with it. You can leave the school stuff here.”

David took another breath to argue but saw the look in Tim’s eye and decided it would be better not to. Instead he stripped to his pants, pulled on the shorts and tee shirt and, barefoot, went downstairs to do his homework as he had been told.

He sat at the table in the library and tried to concentrate on his work, but he was seething with anger and impotence: he simply couldn’t see a way out of this. He could hear furniture being moved around upstairs, but he didn’t dare go to see what was happening.

Eventually he forced himself to do his homework, though it probably wasn’t getting quite the attention it merited. And when he had finished he put his books back in his bag, went through to the living room and watched television.

“Don’t get too used to that,” said Tim’s voice from the door after a bit. “Watching TV is a privilege, and I doubt if you’ll earn the chance for a while yet. Anyway, come upstairs and we’ll show you where everything is now.”

David followed him upstairs to what he thought of as his own bedroom.

“This is my room,” Tim told him. “I’ve moved all your clothes to the left side of the big wardrobe and the bottom two drawers of the chest. You won’t need any of it: the stuff you’re going to need is in Molly’s room. And, apart from your clothes, which won’t fit me – though I’ve told Joe he can help himself to anything he wants once he’s grown a couple of inches – everything else in this room is now mine. That means all the toys, games and books are mine now. Shut up,” he added as David opened his mouth to protest. “You don’t deserve to have all this stuff, so now you haven’t. Right, come and see Molly’s room.”

He took David back to the room he’d been in earlier and found that one of the beds had been removed and replaced with a second small wardrobe.

“Your school uniform, school games kit, swimming stuff and any other clothes you’re allowed to wear are in that wardrobe,” Tim told him. “It’s locked, and Molly has the key. She’ll see to it that you get the correct clothes every morning, once she’s happy that you’ve had a good wash, of course. When it’s time for bed you’ll come and see her first and give her your clothes to put away. You’re not allowed in this room, or in mine, without permission. We’ll be keeping them locked, of course, but if we find you’ve broken in, or snuck in without permission if we happen to leave the door unlocked, you’ll be whipped. Now come and see Joe’s room.”

He led them to the next room along, which was slightly smaller and which now had two beds in.

“Is that one mine?” asked David, pointing at the second bed and thinking how humiliating it would be to have to share a room with a little Irish peasant.

“God, no,” answered Tim. “You might be allowed to move to that bed in about six months, if you behave in the meantime. No, that’s the spare bed in case Joe has a friend to stay over. Or Molly can move it back into her room if she has a friend to stay.”

“So where do I sleep?”

“Up there,” said Tim, pointing at a ladder in the corner of the room, which led up to a square opening in the ceiling. “Up you go.”

David slowly climbed the ladder, which led into a small attic about twelve feet long by ten feet wide. One ‘wall’ was actually formed by the slope of the roof, so there was only room to stand upright in about half of the room. There were proper floorboards but no window and no light, so David could only see by the light entering the room through the hatch he had his head and shoulders through, but he could see that there was no furniture in the room at all except for a bare mattress against the far wall. He went back down the ladder.

“Now look, “he said, “you can’t make me sleep up there. There’s no window, no light, no nothing.”

“Don’t worry, I’m going to sort out the light this evening,” Tim assured him. “I bought it at lunchtime and if I can find a drill I’ll get it fitted straight after supper. And obviously we’ll need some stuff for you. Don’t worry, you’ll have everything you need before bedtime.

“Now, your timetable. Joe will get you up in the morning, and you’ll report to Molly. She’ll make sure you have a proper wash and then she’ll get you dressed for school. After breakfast you’ll come with me to the bus stop and we’ll travel in to Cheltenham together. You’ll come home on the bus – we don’t have to catch the same one, you can just get the first one available – and you’ll report to Molly to change your clothes. Then you’ll come in here to do your homework – Joe doesn’t get any, so you can use this desk. When you’ve finished you can wait here until supper time. After supper it will depend if you’ve finished your homework – if not you’ll get it finished, if so you’ll have other stuff to do, like tidying our bedrooms. And you’ll go to bed when Joe does – no, actually you’ll have to go to bed before Joe, so that he can get you settled in before he gets ready for bed himself.

“The weekends will be different, but you don’t need to worry about that just yet. Okay, any questions?”

“But… bloody hell, Joe’s years younger than me! You can’t make me go to bed before him!”

“I can make you do anything I want, remember? And since Joe acts older than you, he should go to bed later than you. Now, let’s go and have supper.”

David trailed along behind him, thinking he was stuck in a nightmare: surely there must be some way out of this? But, short of running away, he couldn’t think of anything – and that wouldn’t work, because…

“Shit!” he exclaimed, as he realised that his Post Office savings book was in what was now apparently Tim’s desk. Without that he only had the small amount of money in his pocket, and that wouldn’t even get him the bus fare to Gloucester, far less the train fare to London. Somehow he had to get that savings book back…

“Don’t swear,” said Tim, from in front of him. “This is your last warning, Gerbil: every time you swear from now on you’ll get whipped, understand?”

“Don’t call me that!” shouted David.

“We’ll call you whatever we want, and that name really suits you. Oh, one more thing: we’ll be monitoring how you do at school this term. I’ve got a few friends who went to King Edward last year, and probably they’ll be able to find someone who has a brother in your form, or at least in your year. And of course my mum will be going to your parents’ evenings from now on, too. So we’ll find out how you’re doing, and if we don’t think it’s good enough you’ll be punished, okay?”

“No, it’s not sodding okay,” shouted David, close to tears. “Why can’t you fucking bastards just leave me alone? How I do at school is none of your damned business, okay? At least I go to a decent school, not some pathetic Secondary Modern like you and your thick family!”

“Temper, temper,” mocked Tim, gently. “You know you’re going to get punished for that, don’t you? I’d try really hard to keep my mouth shut if I were you.”

And somehow David managed to do that right through supper, including afterwards, when he and Joe did the washing up between them. After supper he was told to go and tidy Molly’s room while Tim fixed up the light in his attic, and at eight o’clock Tim came and reported that everything was ready in his room and that he should wait where he was for Molly to come and get him ready for bed.

When Molly arrived she unlocked ‘his’ wardrobe and told him to get undressed. He removed his shirt and shorts, but that was as far as he was prepared to go.

“I’m not taking my pants off in front of a girl!” he stated, folding his arms.

“Tim!” she called, and when Tim arrived she explained the situation. Ten seconds later David was naked, clutching the sore arm that Tim had twisted to make him remove his pants.

Molly dumped his pants in the laundry basket in the bathroom and ordered him to wash and clean his teeth; and, conscious that Tim was leaning on the wall by the door, David obeyed. She checked his teeth and hands and pronounced herself satisfied, and then asked if he wanted to use the toilet.

“Yes, but not while you’re here,” said David.

“Okay,” said Tim. “Wait outside, Molly.”

“And you,” said David, once the girl had gone.

“Sorry. You have to be supervised,” said Tim, grinning at him. “And I only sent Molly out tonight because it’s the first time you’ve had to do this: from tomorrow you’ll do it with her in the room, or you won’t be allowed to go at all. You can piss your pants if you’d prefer – but if you do, you won’t be allowed to change them.”

Furious but powerless, David had a pee, conscious of Tim grinning at his back, and when he had finished Tim made him wash his hands again before hustling him straight past Molly’s room and into Joe’s.

“What about my pyjamas?” asked David.

“You’re not allowed to wear any. You’ve been far too rude tonight. Besides, it’s not cold at this time of year, so you don’t really need them.”

“You’ve certainly got nothing worth hiding in them,” added Joe, who was sitting on his bed.

“That’s true,” agreed Tim. “Now get up the ladder.”

David climbed the ladder and crawled into the attic. There was now a small neon light screwed to the wall above the mattress, with a wire trailing down through a hole that had been bored in the floorboards into Joe’s bedroom below. There was also a blanket on the mattress, a small pillow at one end of it, a lemonade bottle full of water beside the mattress and a chamber pot at the opposite end of the room near the hatch.

“There’s fresh water in the bottle in case you need a drink in the night, and the pot if you need to piss,” Tim told him. “It’s pretty warm, but if you’re too cold tonight tell me in the morning and we’ll get you a sleeping bag. There’s a switch on the light, so you can turn it off if you want to go to sleep straight away, but in any case Joe will turn it out from downstairs when he gets into bed, so you can’t have it on too late. And if you misbehave you’ll lose the light altogether: we’ll just keep it switched off downstairs.

“The hatch will be bolted from outside and we’ll take the ladder away as well, so you can’t get out in the night. And one more thing: when Joe opens up and tells you to come down, you’d better be standing in front of him in the bedroom within ten seconds, or you’ll get whipped.

“Now, you were rude tonight and swore several times at me after I told you not to, so before you go to sleep tonight Joe’s going to spank you. Come on up, Joe.”

The younger boy scampered up the ladder into the attic, and quickly had the naked David across his lap. David wriggled, but Joe had his arms bent up behind his back again and there wasn’t much he could do. And then Joe spanked him, hard, eight times, at the end of which David was howling like a baby, his arse feeling as if it was on fire.

Tim and Joe went back down the ladder, bolting the hatch as they went, and David was left alone, clutching his bottom and sobbing. And twenty minutes later the light went out, leaving him sniffing and aching in the dark. He couldn’t believe what had happened to him, but he couldn’t think of any way out of the trap he was in…

He didn’t sleep too badly, but when he woke up he found that it hadn’t been a bad dream after all: he was still lying on the bare mattress in the attic. And a moment or two after he woke up the hatch opened and Joe stuck his head in and ordered him to come down to start getting ready for school.

“That means now,” Joe added. ‘If you’re not down in my room in ten seconds I’ll spank you again – or maybe this time I’ll give you the belt instead. Ten, nine, eight…”

David leapt up, remembering what had happened the last time he had ignored a countdown like this – but then he realised that, as almost always seemed to happen in the mornings, he had an erection: his tiny penis was rock-hard and twitching. He knew that if Joe saw how small it was in its erect state he’d fall about laughing… but if he didn’t go at once he’d be beaten, and he didn’t think he could take another punishment, especially if it was going to be harder than last night’s had been.

“Five, four…” came Joe’s voice from the foot of the ladder, and David made his decision, ran to the hatch and scrambled down the ladder as fast as he could.

“…one, zero,” said Joe as he reached the bottom and hunched down, trying to conceal his genitals. “Just in time, Gerbil. Now stand up straight, or do you want the strap anyway?”

David stood up, still keeping his hands over his groin.

“Hands by your sides,” ordered Joe. “You’ve got nothing to hide anyway, we all know that.”

Slowly David obeyed, closing his eyes at the same time. Joe looked and gave a splutter of laughter.

“Gerbil’s got a stiffy!” he said, delighted. “Just wait there a moment while I get my microscope…”

Instead he pulled a small ruler from his school-bag and held it against David’s penis.

“That’s never as big as it’ll go, is it?” he asked. “Let’s see if I can do anything about it.”

He started to handle David’s genitals, and David tried to step away from him. But Joe took hold of the little erection and pulled him back.

“I’m trying to do you a favour here and make it a bit bigger,” he said. “Keep still, or I’ll get Molly to come and try.”

That was enough to keep David very still indeed, and Joe played with him for half a minute or so and then measured it again.

“God, Gerbil, that really is tiny,” he said. “It’s about an inch and three-quarters – I’ve never seen a stiff one as small as that. Here, I’ll show you what a normal boy looks like.”

He undid his trousers and pushed them and his pants down, revealing that he was stiff, too. He held his erection against the ruler, showed David the result, and then held his penis against David’s so that the difference was clearly visible. David flinched away from this horribly intimate contact, but this time Joe didn’t rebuke him. Instead he pulled his pants and trousers up again.

“You’ve got an inch and three-quarters, I’ve got three and three-quarters,” said Joe. “When’s your birthday?”

“June the twenty-fifth,” David told him.

“And how old are you going to be?”

“Fifteen,” said David, who was now too ashamed to meet Joe’s eye.

Joe goggled at him in complete disbelief. “Fucking hell,” he said, “you’re more than five years older than me. Bloody hell, Gerbil, aren’t you ashamed?”

David was, and it was obvious from the fact that he couldn’t look Joe in the eye – and from the fact that the pathetic little erection was subsiding.

“I mean,” Joe went on, “you’re a bit taller than me, but I’m stronger, and I’ve got a far bigger cock. Hell, you deserve everything we’re doing to you: I’ve never met such a pathetic little baby in all my life. Come on, get through to Molly’s room.”

He pushed David along the corridor to his sister’s room, and Molly in turn pushed him to the bathroom.

“Do you want to use the toilet?” she asked him.

David did, but he didn’t want to do it in front of a ten-year-old girl, so he kept quiet.

“You won’t get another chance,” she told him. “Once we’re finished in here you won’t be allowed to go until you get to school. And remember you’re on the bus today – it takes quite a while.”

“Well… okay, I need to go,” he admitted.

“Go on, then.”

Clearly she wasn’t going to leave, and David didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of refusing when he asked her to, so he said nothing, just went and stood in front of the toilet and began to pee. At least she stayed behind him, instead of coming to peer at him as he had feared, but it was still bloody embarrassing. Afterwards he shook it and walked to the washbasin.

“You forgot to put the seat back down,” she told him. “Do it now. There are ladies in this house, you know.”

“No, there aren’t,” he muttered under his breath, but he put the seat down all the same.

She supervised him as he washed, forcing him to wash behind his ears and under his arms, and then made sure he cleaned his teeth properly. Finally she took him back to her room, opened his wardrobe and gave him a clean pair of pants, clean socks, a clean shirt and his school uniform, which he scrambled into, desperate to escape the way she kept looking at his genitals and giggling.

Once he had dressed he went down to the kitchen and ate breakfast with the others, making sure he said absolutely nothing throughout so as not to get into any more trouble. Today it was Tim’s turn to wash and Molly’s turn to dry, so David and Joe went to wait in the living room until they were finished, and then they all walked to the bus stop.

“Me and Molly can catch the next bus if we want,” said Joe, “because we don’t have to be at school as early as you. But we thought it might be more fun to come with you.”

David was left alone during the journey, though the three Devlin children all seemed to have friends on the bus, and David was aware that most of the laughter he could hear was directed at him. He just stared out of the window and tried to ignore it. At last he reached the stop for his school and was allowed to escape from the Devlins, for the next eight hours or so at least. Maybe the situation at school would be better…

In fact nothing much happened at school: Blackman was presumably still conducting his enquiries, and while the other boys in his class were aware that David’s position was suddenly a lot less secure, they seemed ready to wait for an eventual outcome before giving him a hard time about it. For the time being he was in a sort of limbo, no longer the all-powerful White Rat, but not yet clearly abandoned by the head boy. Everyone seemed happy to wait and see how things turned out.

Jordan’s position was a lot more secure: he knew he’d done nothing wrong, and he controlled the boys in his stable in a way that was completely independent of the head boy or other authority: Larkin was constrained by the incriminating photos, Baxter-Cauldwell was trapped by a chain and by photos, Stephens (who had been away over Easter and was now away preparing for his O levels) was similarly chained, and Barnett and Sadler had voluntarily accepted him as their big brother. Whatever happened now that Garrett had been replaced, Jordan would still have plenty of opportunities to entertain himself.

Stephens had called him and asked if they could get together the following Saturday – it was, after all, quite a while since the chain had last been removed, and no doubt he was keen for a bit of a break from it, even if it was only ten minutes or so. Jordan had agreed and ordered him to be waiting in the usual place on Saturday morning at ten o’clock, and he was thinking that maybe it was about time he got around to fucking the fifth-year. But he was going to get an opportunity to practice before that, because the previous day Jeremy Sadler had asked if he wanted to come round after school on the Tuesday evening.

“My sister’s supposed to be looking after me,” he had said, “but I know she wants to go out with her boyfriend, so I told her I could probably arrange for someone to come and keep an eye on me so that I wouldn’t be on my own. She said that was fine by her. So you’ll just have to come and baby-sit me, won’t you?”

Jordan had checked and made sure his own parents had no problem with that, and so he was now looking forward to an evening alone with Jeremy.

Jeremy was obviously looking forward to it too, as he had spent most of the last day and a half teasing Jordan, calling him ‘corkscrew hair’ and ‘four eyes’ and anything else he could think of.

“You know I’m going to have to punish you for all this rudeness, don’t you?” Jordan asked.

“Ooh, I’m scared,” said Sadler, grinning at him.

“You should be. This time you won’t get away with a light spanking.”

Jeremy made a rude noise at him and ran off. But after school he was waiting eagerly to take Jordan home with him. He lived within walking distance of the school, so they didn’t have to catch a bus.

“How long have we got before your sister gets home?” Jordan asked, once they were in Jeremy’s bedroom.

“She won’t be back until after ten,” Jeremy told him. “Of course, I’m supposed to be in bed by nine, but as long as I’m in bed when she gets home it’ll be okay.”

“I can’t stay that late,” said Jordan. “I’m supposed to be in bed by nine myself on a school night. So I’ll have to go by about quarter past eight. But that still gives us ages… can we do our homework first? Only I really need to have it done before I get home.”

So they did their homework while eating the sandwiches Jeremy’s sister had left for them, and then they tidied up and put their school books away.

“Now,” said Jordan, “about all those insults…”

“What are you going to do about it, Four Eyes?”

“Well, first I think I should make you take your school uniform off. I wouldn’t want to get blood on it.”

He chased Jeremy through the house until he finally cornered him in the living room. As they had discovered at Charlie’s house, Jordan was a bit better at fighting than Jeremy, and gradually Jeremy’s clothes came off. When he was down to a small pair of red underpants he wriggled free, and Jordan chased him back to his bedroom, where he grabbed him, threw him onto the bed and pulled the underpants off, revealing that Jeremy was very stiff.

“Now, are you going to apologise, or do I have to punish you?” Jordan asked.

“What sort of punishment do you think I deserve? I mean, another spanking would be a bit boring, wouldn’t it?”

“You know perfectly well what I could do to you if I wanted.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

They looked at each other, making sure that they both wanted to go ahead with this.

“Lie on your tummy,” said Jordan, quietly, “and wriggle back so that your bum is on the edge of the bed – kneel on the floor… yes, that’ll do. Now spread your legs…”

“Next time I might decide to struggle,” Jeremy warned him. “You might have to force me into position.”

“I could if I had to – you know that. But… this is the first time, and I don’t want to hurt you more than you deserve.”

He wanted to do this – he knew from doing it to Larkin and Dhif how brilliant it felt. But he really liked Jeremy, and he didn’t want to hurt him, and so instead of just lining up and thrusting he spent a little time rubbing some Vaseline into Jeremy’s hole, and then very carefully putting a finger inside him, and once he was comfortable with that adding a second finger. That made Jeremy flinch, and so Jordan took his time, working carefully for at least fifteen minutes until he thought Jeremy was ready to take the real thing. Then he stood up and got undressed, and when he was completely naked he rubbed some Vaseline into himself.

“Can I see it?” Jeremy asked him, and so Jordan moved to one side so that Jeremy could look at him.

“Crumbs, that looks really big,” commented Jeremy. “Are you sure it’ll fit?”

“It will if I’m careful. I’m going to take it really slowly. Try to relax, and if it hurts, tell me and I’ll stop.”

“Well… if I’m being punished I shouldn’t be allowed to complain.”

“And next time you won’t be. But because we haven’t done this before I want to make sure it doesn’t hurt. After all, you’ve only been a bit cheeky: you haven’t murdered my granny, or anything.”

Jeremy giggled, and Jordan lined up behind him. It took a bit of adjusting to get into position, but finally he got himself into place.

“Okay, now relax,” he said, and he pushed.

There was some resistance at first, but then the head of his penis slipped in. Jeremy gave a gasp, and Jordan stopped moving.

“Okay?” he asked.

“I think so. It feels strange, but… it doesn’t hurt too much. Keep going.”

Carefully Jordan kept going until it was all the way in, and then he relaxed for a moment.

“That’s all there is,” he said. “Is it still okay?”

“Yes, I think so. What happens now?”

“Now I do this,” said Jordan, pulling it about halfway out and then pushing it in again. After a couple of strokes the head of his penis started to press against Jeremy’s prostate, and that got a definite reaction.

“What is it? Does it hurt?” asked Jordan, stopping.

“No, but it feels really strange. It’s sort of interesting. You can keep going if you like.”

“Okay. Try squeezing a bit… flipping heck!”

“Too much?”

“No, it’s nice. Let’s try it like that for a bit.”

So they kept going for a bit, with Jeremy squeezing in time with Jordan’s thrusts. Jordan thought this felt really good. It had been fun forcing himself on Larkin and making the older boy accept this domination by a much younger boy, and it had been good doing it to Dhif, too: he liked knowing that the older boy was feeling really humiliated and ashamed by what he was doing to him. But this was different: even though they had dressed this up as a punishment, he knew that Jeremy really wanted to do this, and that made this the first time he had ever had proper consensual sex. And he liked it: feeling his friend’s warm body wriggling underneath him and listening to his little gasps and groans made this feel special.

He kept thrusting away, though not too quickly, and stopping every now and again so as not to get the feeling too quickly: after all, they still had ages before he would have to go home. And in the end it was Jeremy who started to get excited first.

“Jordan, I think that thing’s happening to me,” he said. “Like when you rubbed it at Charlie’s house… I can feel it starting…”

“Hold it in, then,” said Jordan, surprised: he’d known it didn’t have to hurt, and even that it could feel quite good, but not that it could actually make the other person get the sex feeling.

“I don’t think I can…”

Jordan was fairly close himself, and he thought it might be best now to try to finish off as quickly as he could, since he thought it might not feel too good for Jeremy if he kept going after it had happened to him. So he started thrusting steadily, and of course this quickly pushed Jeremy over the top, and he bucked and thrashed about as he climaxed, gasping and making inarticulate sounds as he did so. This was almost enough to finish Jordan off, too: after Jeremy stopped moving it only took him half a dozen more thrusts to reach his own orgasm, and Jeremy cried out again as Jordan thrust hard against him for his last couple of strokes.

“Was that okay?” Jordan asked, relaxing but without withdrawing. “I mean, it didn’t hurt too much, did it?”

“It was amazing! If that’s what happens when I tease you about your hair and glasses, I’m going to tease you non-stop from now on!”

“You don’t have to… but did you really like it?”

“I’ve never felt anything like it! I mean, it was nice when you rubbed it for me, but this was loads better… I loved you lying on top of me and holding me, too – that felt so nice…”

“Good,” said Jordan. “I’m glad you liked it, because I thought it was magic! You’re really tight, and it felt incredible the way you squeezed me… anyway, I suppose we ought to go and clean up.”

“Well, I like us being together like this. Still, I suppose we can do it again afterwards… okay, get off me and I’ll show you were the bathroom is.”

So they went and cleaned up and then went back to Jeremy’s room. Jeremy didn’t want to get dressed yet, so once they were back in his bedroom he initiated a wrestling match, and because he took Jordan by surprise he actually end up on top for once, pinning Jordan down underneath him. Jordan didn’t struggle too much, so Jeremy lay down on top of him, though keeping hold of Jordan’s wrists.

“I wish we were really brothers,” he said. “It’d be brilliant if we were – we’d share a bedroom, and you could help me with my homework, and we could wrestle all the time, and we could do sex stuff whenever we wanted… and we could take it in turns to look after baby brother Charlie, too… and maybe we could share a bed, like we did at Charlie’s. I really liked doing that.”

“Would you want me to really be thirteen, or do you like it with us actually being the same age?”

“Well… I wouldn’t really mind if you were older, but it’s better like it is, I think. This way we have lessons together, and we get the same homework. If you were really thirteen you might get fed up with having to look after your kid brothers all the time, but because we’re really the same age we like doing the same stuff, and we can have fun together. Sometimes when I get fed up with stuff – my sister moaning about having to look after me, or when I get really hard homework – I wish I had someone to talk to about things. If you lived with me I’d always have someone. Except… look, Jordan, we are proper friends, aren’t we? I mean, you don’t just hang about with me so you’ve got someone to do sex stuff with, do you?”

"If that’s all I wanted, I’d have gone home by now,” Jordan pointed out.

“I suppose. Only… well, I like you a lot, Jordan. I think you’re really nice… you don’t think I’m a complete waste of time, do you?”

"Of course not,” said Jordan, pulling his wrists free, putting his arms round Jeremy and hugging him. “If I had a brother I’d like him to be like you, too.”

Jeremy gave him a big smile. “It’s alright for brothers to cuddle a bit, isn’t it?” he asked.

"Of course it is,” agreed Jordan, demonstrating.

They hugged each other for a few minutes, and then they got dressed and Jordan walked to the bus stop to catch his bus home, thinking that it was fun dominating older boys, but having a true friend that he could hug and share things with was pretty good, too.

When David got home none of the Devlin children seemed to be around, so he dumped his case in Joe’s room, took off his blazer and put it on the back of the chair, and then went downstairs to watch TV for a bit: he was confident that he’d hear the Devlins opening the front door and so have time to turn off the TV before they came in. But in fact they had got home before him and had been out in the back garden, and so they came in the back door, rather than the front. This is why David was unaware of their presence until Tim walked into the room and asked what the hell he thought he was doing.

“I always watch TV when I get home,” David said. “Don’t worry, I’ll go and get on with my homework as soon as the programme finishes.”

“Didn’t I tell you yesterday how your timetable works?” asked Tim.

“Yes, but I can’t see that watching TV for half an hour makes any difference.”

“It makes a difference because you’re being disobedient. Now go and get on with your homework.”

“Oh, fuck off, Devlin! I’m getting a bit tired of this shit. I’ll put up with having you organise my time, but only if you’re reasonable about it. Hell, I’ll even sleep in your bloody attic, provided you let me go to bed at a sensible time. I’ll make a deal with you, okay? You treat me like a fourteen-year-old, and I’ll try to stop calling you oiks. Fair enough?”

“You really don’t get it, do you? We’re way past the time for doing deals. The only deal is, you do what we tell you and we won’t beat the shit out of you. Now turn the telly off and go and do your homework, or else.”

“In a minute. I just want to…oi!”

Tim marched to the TV and turned it off, then he grabbed David, twisted his arm behind his back and frog-marched him to Joe’s room. The younger brother was lying on his bed reading a comic.

“Get his clothes off,” ordered Tim, pushing David in Joe’s direction, and Joe did that enthusiastically, despite David’s struggling and swearing at him. Once David was naked they tied him to the chair in front of the desk, leaving his right arm free.

“Now do your homework,” ordered Tim, dropping David’s briefcase on the desk. “If you need to use a ruler or anything, Joe will help you. How much have you got?”

“Hardly anything, just some maths and Latin. That’s why I thought I had time to watch TV.”

“And if you’d done your homework first and then asked permission, I might even have let you. But now you’re in trouble. Joe, stay here and help him with his ruler if he needs it for the maths. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Swearing under his breath David got on with his homework. It didn’t take long: he’d done half the Latin at lunch-time – now that he didn’t have to patrol the school looking for wrongdoers he had little else to do during the breaks – and the maths only took twenty minutes.

“Finished,” he told the brothers – Tim had returned some fifteen minutes previously.

“Right,” said Tim, cutting him free. “Now get up to your room.”

David allowed himself to be driven up the ladder, and now he saw that there was a new piece of furniture in the attic: there was a small table next to the hatch. Tim and Joe put him into position over this and tied him firmly into place, and then Joe went back down the ladder and returned accompanied by his sister and carrying a thick leather belt.

“You’re going to have to learn to shut your mouth and to do what you’re told,” Tim told David. “Otherwise you’re going to be spending a lot of time tied to that table. Okay, Joe, let’s see: swearing again, disobedience, refusing to obey the timetable… I reckon about twenty. Off you go.”

So Joe brought the belt down as hard as he could across David’s bum, and David convulsed and shrieked. Blow after blow descended on his aching buttocks, until he could hardly breathe for screaming and his bum felt as if it had been doused with acid. At last the final blow landed and he gave a final shriek and then just lay sobbing across the table.

Tim cut him free, but he didn’t move.

“Go to bed,” Tim told him. “You’re not getting any supper tonight, and Joe will turn the light out in five minutes. You can have an early night while you think about things. And if you don’t want this to happen every night you’re going to have to change your attitude.”

And the three Devlin children went down the ladder and bolted the hatch behind them.

-------------------------------------------------------

So Jordan seems to be sailing serenely onwards, untroubled by the earthquake that is demolishing everything David has built. The Rat’s home life now seems certain to make him unhappy for the foreseeable future, but maybe there’s still hope for him at school. In the next chapter we’ll discover how Blackman’s investigation turned out and what happens to the Rat as a result…

There's only one more thing I need to mention, and it's gothmog@nyms.net – anything turning up in my inbox would be gratefully received...

Copyright 2009: all rights reserved. Please do not reprint, repost or otherwise reproduce this or any part of it anywhere without my written permission.

David Clarke