Koos Smit

Brendan

Chapter 1

Of the 150 Irish captives herded onto the Artemis in Galway three months before, there are 126 survivors below. The twenty-four who died on the voyage were all grown men. Most of these were wounded resisting capture by Cromwell's Roundheads and quickly succumbed as a result of neglect and the rigours of life in the hold of a slave ship.

Fifty of the captives are sturdy young boys between the ages of 10 and 16, rounded up by the slavers from among the strongest and healthiest of the Irish children left orphaned by the war and wandering half naked and starving about the rocky glens and hillsides of Connacht.

One of these boys is fourteen year old Brendan. Muscular and well-developed for his age, his mop of blonde hair, now matted and filthy, is tied back in a pigtail that hangs down a strong neck onto a brawny brown back. Deep blue eyes look steadily out from a broad face streaked with grime. Like the rest of the young boys he is completely naked. An iron shackle around one bare ankle leads by a short length of chain to a ring that runs along another length of chain lying stretched along the deck, held down at points by eyebolts through the planking. This arrangement allows the captives some freedom to get up and move a few feet at least.

Brendan stands in the middle of the crush of men and boys straining against their chains to get beneath the hatch cover. He stretches up onto his bare toes to look at the blue sky through the small square holes of the grating.

Warm against his back and with his breath hot on Brendan's neck is his cousin, Liam. Except for his flaming red hair, Liam is so alike Brendan in appearance that they are often mistaken for brothers. They grew up together on the same farm. Liam has been in fosterage with Brendan's family ever since his mother died when he was 3 years old. Liam's father is a ship's captain and spends most of his life sailing the high seas.

Liam was supposed to have joined his father's ship as an apprentice last year when he was thirteen, but instead the Roundheads came and drove off the livestock. When Brendan's father tried to stop them they killed him and burned down the house. Brendan's mother died of despair and a broken heart a month later. The boys were left to fend for themselves, stealing food and snaring rabbits to stay alive. When the soldiers started rounding up the men and boys in the district, Brendan and Liam headed into the hills, where they managed stay free for a couple of months longer. Finally, desperate for food, they went into a village where they were caught by an equally desperate villager and handed over to a slaver for money. They were shackled on either side of a long chain that secured a column of twenty other young boys, barefoot and half naked, and marched away.

It took them five nightmare days to reach Galway under the constant goading of the long rattan canes that the slavers used in preference to whips so as to avoid unnecessarily scarring their merchandise. At night the boys slept chained together on the side of the road after slurping up water from the ditches and wolfing down the chunks of bread thrown to the ground in front of them as if to dogs. Sometimes the slavers would throw the bread just out of reach for the sport of watching the desperate boys scrabbling in the dirt and using their muddied feet to hook the bread within reach.

At each village the column grew longer, so that by the time they reached Galway the chain held over a hundred and fifty exhausted and wretched boys. Here they were split up into smaller groups and herded onto separate ships. About sixty of them, including Brendan and Liam, were trooped aboard the Artemis where they were stripped naked, hosed down, prodded and inspected like cattle before being accepted onto the manifest by the shipper's agent.

The agent rejected about ten of the young captives, simply muttering remarks like 'bad teeth,' 'not enough brawn,' 'hollow chest' and 'what's he ever going to do with that tiny pizzle and no balls?' as he did so.

Those boys fourteen and older who had reached puberty had to suffer the additional indignity of having their penises stimulated to ejaculation to measure the quality and quantity of their semen. The first couple of boys offered some token resistance but after being thrashed with a rattan cane, quickly submitted to being milked by one of the agent's assistants. The rest of the boys, seeing there was no alternative, were more compliant and in fact most of them, including Brendan and Liam, preferred to do the job themselves, being at their age no strangers to masturbation. Indeed, like boys everywhere, they quickly turned it into a competition of who could squirt the most semen into the measuring jar, resulting in much enjoyment and ribald comment among the onlookers, both captives and crew.

Brendan was passed with remarks like "handsome lad!" "that's a strong back you got there!" and "he's a breeding bull to be sure with that tackle between his legs!"

A sixteen year old had won the semen squirting but Brendan had come a good second, prompting open admiration of his equipment among the onlookers with calls such as, "Look at the set of balls on him," "Gawd, imagine when he's fully growed" and, "Pity the bum he splits with that pole!"

Liam was also passed with "Ah, go join your brother there, God bless ye, great prices ye'll fetch!"

Typical of boys their age, the young captives who were accepted by the agent with praise for their physical attributes felt, absurdly, somehow pleased, as if they had just won a prize. They felt almost pity for their weaker, physically defective brethren who were put off the ship and sent on their way, seeming lost and forlorn. So little the poor innocents knew then!

The inspections over, the tattered rags most of the boys had worn were thrown over the side and they were addressed by the First Mate of the Artemis. He told them that, having been lawfully taken captive in the current war they were now the property of the Commonwealth and would be sold into slavery to work on English sugar plantations in the West Indies. Though they may not have fought themselves, they were paying the price of their parents' treasonous insurrection against lawful authority. Once sold, they would become the property of their new owners for the rest of their lives, as would their children if they were allowed to have any. He warned them that any form of disobedience while on board his ship would be punished with a severe flogging. Attempts at escape and serious misconduct such as mutiny or striking any member of his crew would result in the offender being first flogged and then hanged. If they behaved themselves while at sea he would allow them out of the hold to work on deck. Otherwise they would remain below for the whole voyage.

To add force to his words members of the crew then brought forward one of the captives who had been brought up out of the hold earlier. He was a muscular, bull-necked, barrel-chested and tow-haired youngster of about 18, barefoot and shirtless, his tattered breeches held up by a length of old rope. While the trembling boy was stripped of his breeches and tied naked and spread-eagled to a grating standing up against the shrouds, the First Mate explained that the prisoner would receive 50 lashes of the cat o' nine tails for jostling a crew member.

"It was an accident, I swear!" cried the boy desperately, straining his head around to look at the First Mate, "I tripped on the chain and fell against him!"

"Give him an extra ten for his impertinence!" called the First Mate without even looking at the boy.

Afterward the boys were led naked and fearful down a ladder into the cargo hold, their ears still ringing with the sickening smack of the cat against the boy's muscled body and his agonized screams. Below they were once again shackled one by one to a chain that snaked through steel rings bolted to the deck.

Later the boy who had been flogged was also brought down and laid on the deck on his belly. His muscular back, buttocks and thighs were covered with the thin lacerations made by the strands of the cat, scabbing now from the coarse salt that had been poured onto the wounds, worsening the pain but hastening the healing. Brendan learned that his name was Donald.

During the three month voyage Brendan and Liam get used to witnessing men and boys being beaten, both captives and crew. Boys up to the age of 16 are invariably caned across the bare buttocks while tied over the breech of a gun. Older boys and men are flogged with the cat at the grating. Shipboard discipline is harsh, especially for slaves, and Irish boys being the lively creatures that they are, not one escapes being caned at least once on the voyage. Brendan and Liam, being the liveliest of the lot, are caned just about once a week.

As he stands on his toes looking up at the grating Brendan thinks of the many men and older boys it has held in its clutches on this voyage, squirming and screaming under the fiery caress of the cat. He looks across at Donald, the big muscled 18 year old who was the first. Built like an ox, Donald's clumsiness earned him several other floggings on the crossing, but he recovers quickly and is always good-natured and docile, never even thinking to bear a grudge against his tormentors. Brendan had heard some of the crew say, pityingly, that Donald would never be good for anything other than a field slave and he wondered what that meant.

Brendan thinks back to his own first caning. Though he has since become well used to the swish and crack of the rattan across his buttocks, the memory of the first one, not even a week into the voyage, still makes him wince.

A shirtless and barefooted petty officer was supervising the work of the gang of about twenty slave boys who had been brought up from the hold. He wielded a three foot length of thick hemp rope, back-spliced at the business end to make it thicker and heavier. Known as a 'starter,' the petty officer applied this implement liberally against the boys' backs and buttocks to make them work harder and move faster.

Liam and Brendan were working side by side on their hands and knees, moving slowly backward down the starboard side of the upper deck, scrubbing the hard oak planking with holystones. The petty officer seemed to take a special interest in the two well-made fourteen year olds. He hovered about them constantly but spared them the lash while flailing the boys all around them. He made flattering comments about their physical attributes that both confused and embarrassed the two boys. Not knowing how to respond but grateful that he seemed to like them and that they were being spared the lash they blushed, smiled embarrassedly and said nothing.

After a while the petty officer prodded Brendan in the ribs with his big toe and said softly, "Get up there me pretty and come with me," and then, with voice raised so everyone else could hear, "I have some work for ye below!"

A couple of the crew members exchanged knowing glances as the naked boy stood up, dropped his holystone in the bucket and padded dutifully after the petty officer through the forecastle gangway and down a succession of ladders into a dimly-lit cubbyhole that served as a rope store.

With the small door shut Brendan found himself pressed up against the petty officer in the tiny space. The petty officer sat down on a coil of rope, spread his legs apart and embraced Brendan with both arms. Startled, Brendan pulled back, but the petty officer crushed the boy against his chest, pawing his back and his buttocks while clamping his mouth over Brendan's in a rough kiss. Brendan gasped for breath and felt the man's tongue immediately force its way into his mouth. Instinctively, Brendan bit down on the intruder. The petty officer roared with pain and slapped Brendan hard against the side of his head, so that he fell, dazed, with his bottom on the deck and his back against the door. The petty officer, enraged, grabbed Brendan by his hair and yanked him upright, kneeing him in the gut and punching him again and again on his body. Brendan tried to fend off the blows, calling out, "Please! Please don't! I'm sorry, it was an accident!"

Eventually, the petty officer calmed down and let go of Brendan's hair. He sat down on the coil of rope again. Brendan stood trembling between the man's legs. The man reached out a hand and closed it around the tip of Brendan's impressive young penis. Brendan, as we have seen, was no stranger to masturbation but had never been handled there by another. Not even by his cousin and best friend, Liam, though they usually masturbated together. Involuntarily, therefore, Brendan pulled away and cupped his hands over his man-tackle. Once again the petty officer slapped him hard against the side of his head.

Just then there was a banging at the door and a muffled voice called urgently, "Jim! Jim! Officer coming!"

The petty officer jumped to his feet, yanked open the door and stepped out of the small cubbyhole just as the officer came into view. The officer's eyes narrowed as he took in the scene.

"What's going on here?, he asked sternly.

The petty officer touched his forelock respectfully.

"This young idler won't put his back into his work, sor! I want to lock him in the rope locker for a while to each him a lesson, sor!"

"Well, that's no good! More like a rest cure than a punishment for these young animals! Much better give his arse a taste of the cane! Twenty lashes should do it!"

“Please, Sir, it wasn't that at all," pleaded Brendan

“Don't speak unless you're asked, boy!' said the officer as he turned on his heels to go, "Give him another ten for his impertinence!”

Helpless, Brendan followed the petty officer up on deck where he was tied over the breech of one of the four guns that lined each side of the ship on the upper deck. Ropes secured each ankle to a ring on the back of each side of the gun carriage, spreading his legs in a 'Y' shape. His arms were stretched forward and his wrists tied together under the barrel of the gun. All the other slave boys were assembled to watch Brendan's punishment.

The petty officer stood to one side of Brendan swishing a long yellow rattan cane through the air, as if practising his stroke. Then he stepped forward and bent down to whisper in Brendan's ear.

'Remember, me pretty, this is what ye get when you won't do what Jim wants.'

The trembling Brendan bit his lip and said nothing as he stared unseeing out to sea over the barrel of the gun.

As the petty officer stepped back Brendan looked to his left and watched in terror as the cane lifted high before hissing down through the air to smack against his buttocks with a loud crack. His whole body jerked involuntarily as the most excruciating pain shot through him and exploded in his head. He heard someone scream. It took a moment to realize that it was himself.

Hotness flushed through his whole body and he broke out in an instant sweat. He shook uncontrollably as his body struggled to cope with the shock.

Another twenty-nine times the cane rose slowly and then flashed through the air to bite into Brendan's quivering buttocks, tearing a desperate full-throated scream from somewhere deep inside his chest.

When it was all over, Brendan lay dazed, sobbing and panting, his chest heaving, his throat hoarse from screaming and his vision a blur through his tears. His hard round buttocks, still as milky white as the rest of his body from lack of sun at that early stage of the voyage, were a latticework of double-ridged purple weals. Tiny droplets of dark blood oozed from some of the raised welts.

Released from his bonds immediately after his whipping, Brendan collapsed onto his knees. At once the petty officer's starter bit into his back and Brendan yelped with pain.

"Get up! Get up and back to work with ye!" yelled the petty officer, lashing Brendan's back repeatedly as he did so.

Brendan struggled frantically to his feet and shambled as fast as his sturdy but shaky legs could take him to join the other slave boys where they were already feverishly scrubbing away at the deck.

The pain and anguish of this first whipping remained the brightest and the most terrible in Brendan's memory although many other whippings had followed, some of which had actually been much more severe. Both Brendan and Liam had also long since learned to be compliant when crew members took advantage of their youth and vulnerability to indulge the passions aroused by their monastic lives at sea.

Brendan looks down at his own well-proportioned and well-muscled body as he thinks of all that he and Liam have learned on this voyage of the extremes of both pain and pleasure that it is possible for the human body to experience. Knowledge that they have acquired not only from the crew but also from many of their fellow slaves and, it must be said, from each other, through the long hours spent living on top of each other in the cramped confines of the cargo hold. They have learned at first hand how the degraded circumstances of a slave's existence debase not only his person, his dignity and his bodily integrity but his morality and decency as well. They could not explain it in these terms but they know that their experiences on this ship have changed them forever. In three short months they have lost their innocence utterly. Yet they do not mourn the loss. Boys their age never do, embracing the thrill of change and discovery with the eager enthusiasm of youth. At their age the morality and the social norms of their parents are little more than a veneer, quickly and easily shed under the pressure of more alluring influences.

Little do they know as they wait anxiously in the sweltering hold that this knowledge that they have acquired will stand them both in good stead in the life of slavery they are about to enter.

At last the grating is lifted off the hatch and a ladder is lowered into the hold. Crewmen clamber down with bunches of keys and unshackle the waiting slaves. One by one they climb the ladder to the deck above.

Brendan puts his arm around his cousin's shoulder and Liam does likewise as they gaze excitedly at the buildings of the town clustering about the harbour, furry with the masts of sailing ships, a few cables lengths away.

The shipper's Bridgetown agent has already arrived in a cutter rowed out by half a dozen hugely muscled black slaves, the first black men that any of the Irishmen on board have ever seen.

The agent surveys this latest shipment with great pleasure. The agent had sent instructions that all of the prisoners were to be exercised on deck as much as possible so that when they arrived in the West Indies they would have kept muscle tone and their white European skins would have become brown and completely used to the hot Caribbean sun. He knows that whites generally fetch lower prices than blacks on the slave market as they are considered to be softer and weaker. He hopes to improve his employer's chances of profit by ensuring that the slaves he would put on the block this time would have a strong, tanned and healthy appearance.

The boys, he sees, have especially benefited from this policy. Spending every day naked on deck in the fresh air and sunshine doing hard physical work has kept them strong and healthy and their bodies are firm and deeply tanned. He is especially pleased to note that every one of the boys is well endowed between his legs, as he had instructed. The boys are mostly destined for the 'domestic market' and generally fetch higher prices than the field slaves because of their multiplicity of uses on this island that is so bereft of women. He catches sight of Brendan and Liam and licks his lips at the thought of seeing how useful they can be to him before they are auctioned on the block.

Chapter 2

The boys up to age 16 are kept separate from the older boys and the men. Those few of the men who had managed to retain some shreds of clothing to protect their decency now have these taken away and they are as naked as the boys. The two columns of slaves squat down in parallel snaking lines running fore and aft between the masts in the middle of the main deck, away from the sides which are kept clear for working.

A couple of barges rowed by crews of hugely muscular and completely naked black slaves tow the Artemis into the harbour. Brendan can hear the overseers calling the rowing stroke, accompanied by the rhythmic swish and crack of their whips and the occasional muted cries of the slaves who catch the lash across their straining backs. Slowly the ship moves through the water and nudges into her berth at the quayside.

At once half a dozen overseers come on board. With shouts and slashes of their long rattan canes they quickly drive the boys to their feet and down the gangplank to the quayside. With an overseer leading the way, the column snakes slowly through the curious onlookers on the quayside, moving with the peculiar shuffling gait induced by their ankle chains. They are not the first white slaves to come to Barbados but the notion of Englishmen owning white men, women and children as slaves is still sufficiently novel to attract a crowd of spectators with each new shipment.

As he shuffles over the cobblestones on his hard bare feet Brendan tries to take in the unfamiliar sights and smells of this strange new place. He looks anxiously into the faces of the men who crowd in on them, wondering which of them will shortly be his owner and master. He sees that many of them are examining the boys in particular with an intense interest, reaching out to touch them as they pass. Brendan is encouraged by this, believing it to be a sign of kindness and sympathy for their plight, and he smiles his engaging smile up at them.

The keenly observant Brendan notices that there are only men in the crowd. Where are the wives and the mothers, he wonders. Perhaps they are shamed by our nakedness and have stayed at home, he thinks.

Brendan does not know that there hardly any women in this remote settlement. And the few that there are, are entirely accustomed to the nakedness of the slaves that surround them, black or white. Most of the plantation owners live in England. The men they employ to look after their holdings here do not regard the island as their home. They have no wives or families here. The few women on the island are either slaves or prostitutes and there are not nearly enough of those to satisfy the physical needs of the mostly male population, freeman or slave.

Brendan will learn soon enough that it is the lot of slave boys such as he is to fill this need and that the bright eyed interest being shown in him and his fellow slave boys is not kindness or sympathy but naked lust. Were he not blinded by his own youthful optimism he would have identified that particular glint in their eyes. It is the same one that he had seen nearly every day in the eyes of every crewman and slave who had used Brendan's body to assuage his lust on the voyage. And it is the same light that he had seen in Liam's eyes and, though he knew it not, that Liam had seen in his, when they looked at each other every day and found reason to brush up against each other as they worked and as they thought of what they would do with each other as they lay together among the sleeping slaves in the small hours of the coming night.

Their naked bodies drenched in sweat, the slave boys shuffle tortuously through the hot and humid streets, their chains clinking and their shackles chafing painfully against their ankles, until they arrive at a grim building that looks like a prison situated along the whole of one side of the town marketplace. It is a slave barracoon, where slaves are held until they are sold or where they are brought for punishment under the draconian slave laws of the colony.

They pass out of the muggy heat of the street through great iron-studded wooden doors into the dark coolness of the reception hall of the barracoon. The flagstone floor feels smooth and cool under the thick-skinned soles of Brendan's tough bare feet as he waits to be processed.

The fifty slave boys are unshackled two by two. They are carefully inspected by a clerk who enters their names, ages and a description into a large register.

Brendan, like most Irish children of his day, can read and write and he corrects the clerk when he sees that he has spelled Brendan's surname incorrectly. He has barely spoken when an overseer's cane snaps into his buttocks and forces a yelp from his lips.

"Keep silent until ye're asked!" snarls the overseer, slashing at Brendan's buttocks a second and third time.

"Yes Sir!" Brendan gasps through gritted teeth, his eyes slitted shut against the searing pain.

While the clerk writes, Brendan sees that the register records his present owner as being Lord Barton. There are empty columns to record future sales, prices and transfers. He feels a surge of anger at this. To be owned and traded like cattle, and by his country's enemy at that! But though he fumes inwardly, three tough months of shipboard whippings have taught him to hold his tongue.

After they have been registered the slave boys are placed in small cage-like cells that front onto the open square in the centre of the barracoon. Ten boys are crowded into each cell. There is only just enough space for ten boys to sleep on the floor if they lie right up against each other. Clean bedding straw is forked from a cart onto the stone floors of the cells just before they enter.

Brendan and Liam are called out from the line of boys waiting to be allocated to a cell and are brought to the shipper's agent. Mr Peel has had his eye on the two well-built 14 year-olds since he spotted them waiting on the deck of the Artemis earlier today. Now, as they stand in front of him, he feels a stirring in his loins and he runs his tongue over his lips unconsciously as he thinks of what one of the Artemis' officers, a friend of his, has told him about the shipboard activities of these two. He calls across one of his assistants.

"James, get these two nicely cleaned up 3; you know what I mean 3; and then put them on their own in that servant's room on the first floor 3; the one I always use 3; and bring me the key when you've done," he says with a wink.

"They look a little wild, Sir, do you want them shackled?"

"I don't think so. They're just boys after all and they won't look so wild when they're cleaned up I shouldn't think. Leave some irons in the room in case I want them."

James leads the two boys across the sandy square to the slave wash-house. The square is busy and noisy with sounds and activities that fill the boys with fear and make their hearts pound.

In one corner the roar of a bellows and the ringing of hammered metal announce the presence of a blacksmith's forge where some slaves are being fitted with iron collars. From another corner come the hiss and the smell of burning and the heart-stopping shrieks of slaves having their new owner's brand marks seared into their flesh. From yet another whips crack against quivering muscle and agonized screams rend the air as slaves are punished at the row of whipping posts set up there.

James pauses here to let them watch a muscular naked black man being flogged with a stock whip by a shirtless overseer. The slave hangs against a whipping post; his manacled wrists secured to an iron ring bolted into the top of the post. From the two or three bleeding furrows cut into the slave's back the boys can see that the flogging has just begun.

The long braided leather lash darts through the air like a striking mamba and cracks against the knotted muscles of the slave's back with a report like a pistol shot. The slave's body slams against the whipping pole and his toes scrabble to keep their footing in the sand. The veins bulge thickly in his bull neck and his breath hisses over his tightly clenched teeth, but no sound escapes his lips.

"Take a good look," says James, "That's Captain Morton's runaway brought in yesterday. He went before the magistrates this morning. It's the second time, so he will get three hundred lashes with the stock whip today and tomorrow he will be executed by impalement"

James laughs at the look of puzzlement on the boys' faces.

"You'll see tomorrow. He will be staked out here on the ground and a sharpened pole will be slowly hammered up his arse. Very slow and painful way to die."

The boys are wordless with fright as they think about the horror of the slave's fate.

"Make sure you don't ever run away," James says as he pats their firm, round buttocks, "I would hate to see that happen to such perfection!"

At the wash house James hands the boys over to an old Negro slave.

"Give them a good cleanup, Jonas, it's for Mr Peel!"

"Yes Master James, right away. Sir!"

James watches as the boys are soaked, soaped and scrubbed. He feels a pang of jealousy for his employer, Mr Peel, as his eyes feast on the tanned and muscled perfection of the boys' bodies.

"You want their heads shaved, Master James?" Jonas asks.

"No, just wash those mops and make sure there are no unwelcome little beasts living in them!"

"Yes Sir! And these, Sir?", Jonas asks, pointing to the few small curls of pubic hair nestling at the base of Brendan's shaft.

"Yes, those must go for the auction anyway, you may as well shave them off now. Check the armpits too"

"There's nothing there, Sir"

"Very well then!"

Eventually Jonas is finished and James feels his belly lurch as he looks at the two perfect specimens of clean and almost sparkling young maleness standing before him.

"There's going to be brisk bidding for these two at the auction," he says.

"Truly, Sir," Jonas agrees.

James takes the boys back across the square. They find that all the newly arrived Irish slaves, men and boys, have been assembled to watch the punishment of the runaway slave as a deterrent to any of them who might be nursing thoughts of doing the same thing.

By now the runaway slave is screaming hoarsely, having taken about half of his three hundred lashes, and his screams are bouncing off the walls. His back is a gory mess of torn flesh and he is standing in a puddle of his own blood.

Brendan and Liam are made to stay and watch to the end of the flogging. After another hundred lashes the screams stop as the slave passes into unconsciousness. The overseer continues to flog the limp body until all three hundred lashes have been delivered. Then the slave is taken down and laid on his belly on the sandy floor of the square. While still unconscious his body is spread-eagled and his wrists and ankles tied with ropes to stakes driven into the earth. He is left there to recover consciousness as the Irish slaves are sent back to their cells. Tomorrow they will be brought out to witness the man's execution.

James takes Brendan and Liam upstairs to the servant's room as Mr Peel had instructed. It is a small clean whitewashed room with a tiny barred window letting in the last rays of the dying sun. The stone floor is smooth and polished and the room contains a single iron bed with a coir mattress. Against one wall is a small table with a bucket of water and a rough towel on it. At the foot of the bed is a wooden bench. A few shelves are let into the wall. Two sets of manacles lie on the shelves together with a rattan cane, a leather strap fixed to a short wooden handle and some lengths of cord.

After lingering for several minutes longer than he has to, passing his tongue over dry lips and struggling to control the lust that has his groin aching and his blood pounding in his temples, James lights the oil lamp in its holder against the wall and leaves the boys to themselves, locking the door behind him.

Insulated from the terrifying sounds of the slave barracoon and alone for the first time since their capture in Galway, Brendan and Liam stand in the middle of the small room and hug each other tightly, enjoying the unaccustomed cleanness and fresh smell of the warm and hard young bodies they have come to know so much about over the past three months at sea.

As they embrace Brendan becomes aware of the delicious tensioning in his groin as his maleness lengthens, thickens and hardens in familiar response to the touch of Liam's body against his. He feels Liam's hardness growing against his own belly and he presses against it, rubbing his belly against it. Liam does the same and soon the two boys stand grunting and bucking against each other, the blood roaring in their ears and oblivious to everything but the pleasure radiating through their bodies from the tips of their thrusting shafts.

So absorbed are they in their mounting bliss that they do not hear the key turn in the lock. They do not notice the door open and they are unaware of Mr Peel entering the room and watching them in transfixed silence.

It is Liam who first sees Mr Peel and jumps away from Brendan with a yelp in mortal fright. Reacting spontaneously, Brendan jumps with him, swiveling at the same time to face this unexpected threat, backing up against Liam and putting up his fists to protect Liam from attack.

"Well, well!' says Mr Peel, turning away from the two frightened boys to shut the door and lock it.

Brendan lowers his fists and Liam steps out from behind Brendan to stand beside him. He shoves Brendan as he does so.

"Ye've no need to protect me, Brendan!' he says crossly, "I can look after meself!"

Mr Peel turns to face the boys and spends a long moment looking them over in silence, savouring the perfect proportion of their well-muscled young bodies and admiring the size and power of their man-tackle, exceptional for their age, the slowly lowering shafts now standing out horizontally, appearing to be pulled down by the weight of their oversized balls. What a pair of stallions, he thinks. He remembers the remarks in the written report from the Galway agent on the potential suitability of these two for breeding purposes and he smiles inwardly. No doubt true, he thinks, if only there were enough breeding mares on this island for them to seed.

"Well, well!" Mr Peel repeats, "It seems the good ship's officers were right about you two. “Frisky young colts” they said, “Eager for the mount”, “Give you a good hard gallop” they said."

Brendan and Liam stare at him wide-eyed, not really understanding and afraid to risk a beating for speaking without being asked a direct question.

Mr Peel reaches out for the leather strap on the shelf and swishes it a few times through the air before bringing it down on the wooden bench with a crack that makes both boys jump.

"But it seems that while you have learned skills on the voyage that will be enormously useful to you in your new station in life, we have yet to teach you the discipline of restraint between yourselves"

The boys look at him, puzzled by his words but fearful in the realization that whatever the words may mean, the swishing strap communicates a very clear message that they will shortly experience its painful caress.

Seeing their puzzlement Mr Peel explains:

"As slaves you boys are body and soul the property of your owner. You are no longer free to do with your own bodies what you please. Well-made boys that you are, your new owner will no doubt purchase you with a view to taking his pleasures from your bodies, as I intend myself to do shortly. If your new master allows his boys to take that pleasure for themselves, as some do, then that is good and well. But if you take it without his permission, as you have now and as you have reportedly been doing the whole voyage, then you are stealing from your master what is rightfully his."

Understanding dawns on the boys. They are to be punished for enjoying without permission what apparently everyone else, including Mr Peel, may take and enjoy with impunity.

"You, redhead, will take your punishment first," Mr Peel says, pointing to the end of the bed with the strap.

With the alacrity bred of three months of shipboard discipline Liam springs at once to kneel on the wooden bench at the foot of the bed. He bends forward and lays his trunk on the mattress, stretches his arms forward and grips the steel bed frame under the mattress on either side of the bed in his strong hands.

Mr Peel looks down at Liam's smooth and hairless buttocks and the knotted muscles in his brawny brown back and his belly lurches with pleasurable anticipation. With hasty fumbling fingers he unbuttons his jacket and waistcoat and pulls his shirt over his head. As he does so, Brendan, eager to ingratiate himself with the man who is about to beat them, takes off Mr Peels boots and stockings before unbuttoning and pulling down his breeches, as he has been taught to do for the ship's officers and crew when he has lain with them.

Naked now and with his own manhood rampant Mr Peel raises the heavy leather strap high above his shoulder and delivers a sizzling stroke across Liam's clenched buttocks. Liam gasps. The pain is excruciating and he struggles to regain his breath.

Another searing stroke cracks against Liam's buttocks. Liam yelps involuntarily.

Again and again the strap bites into Liam's quivering buttocks. Liam tries desperately not to cry out but by the tenth stroke he is sobbing continuously, rising to a full-throated scream with every stroke.

As Brendan watches Liam's agony, he is amazed to feel the tingling between his legs that, up to now, he has only ever associated with what he and Liam did together on the ship. At once he feels guilt. Not only because he is deriving pleasure from his cousin's pain, but because, as he just been told, he is taking that pleasure without his master's permission. But what is a boy to do, he thinks desperately, is he to be flogged every time his maleness behaves unbidden in this way?

After the fifteenth stroke Liam is allowed to rise and he stands up shakily, trembling and sobbing quietly as Brendan takes his place on the bench, ready to receive the flogging he now feels he deserves.

Mr Peel notices the quivering erectness of Brendan's inordinately long and thick penis.

"So you enjoyed that too, you perverted little animal?", he grins, "Let's see if you enjoy taking it as well! You will get five extra strokes for your impertinence! "

After the first three searing strokes of the strap Mr Peel makes Brendan lift his trunk off the bed to see if he is still erect. He is as hard as when he first knelt down and now glistening strands of precum run like spider webs from the tip of his penis to the mattress.

When he goes down again Brendan's hips begin almost involuntarily to thrust his penis against the mattress, the thick muscles in his back bunching and writhing under his smooth sweat glistening skin like snakes in a silk bag. The pleasure radiating from the tip of his penis intensifies with each stroke, subsuming the pain until the pain and the pleasure feel as one, concentrating every nerve in his body into the building climax.

The twentieth stroke propels Brendan into climax. His muscled brown back arches and he groans from mixed pain and ecstasy, his buttocks clenching repeatedly in spasm as his throbbing cock shoots great spurts of hot cum out between his belly and the mattress.

As Brendan pushes himself up and stands back from the bench great globs of shiny white cum stick to his belly and dribble down the shaft of his still erect and bobbing penis.

Mr Peel grabs Brendan's penis in one hand, scoops off the dribbling cum with his other and quickly lubricates his own eagerly erect penis with it before roughly pushing Brendan back into the bent over position. He parts Brendan's butt cheeks with his thumbs and forces his thick hairy cock into the warm smooth embrace of Brendan's well used but still tight anal channel. Mr Peel is so aroused that he climaxes after just a few quick grunting thrusts, leaving Brendan feeling deprived until Mr Peel notices that Liam is also now hard and quivering. Mr Peel makes Brendan lick the cum off his penis and then suck him to erection again while Liam rogers Brendan's arse long and hard.

After this, exhausted but well sated, Mr Peel dresses and leaves. Feeling benevolent in the warm afterglow of his pleasure he locks the door but forbears to manacle the boys.

They lie back to back on the small bed, an extravagant luxury after three months of sleeping on the bare boards of the cargo hold deck. Neither boy can sleep as they think about the day's events and ponder what the future holds for them.

After a while Liam turns and lies spooned at Brendan's back. Brendan feels his cousin's penis lengthening and hardening against the cleft of his buttocks. His own penis hardens in response but he says nothing. Soon Liam's hand slides slowly over Brendan's side and onto his belly before gliding down to close around Brendan's rock-hard shaft. Liam rubs his thumb in the warm wetness leaking from its tip.

"Are ye awake, Brendan?" he whispers.

Brendan closes his own hand around his cousin's and squeezes.

"No we mustn't, Liam, it's stealing from our master!"

"Stealing from our master be damned!' says Liam out loud, crossly, "Remember how Father Kavanagh said back home that taking from the Sassenach enemy is not stealing but a duty and a right of war."

Brendan thinks about this for a while.

"Indeed you are right, Liam!' he says with relief, turning onto his back. "Then it is both our right and our duty to take our pleasures from each other's bodies too."

Liam just grins and pulls back the foreskin from the swollen purple head of Brendan's cock before taking it eagerly into the warm welcome of his young mouth.

Chapter 3

Even before the sun was up this morning the Irish men and boys to be sold were mustered in the sandy central square of the barracoon and got ready. In batches of ten at a time they were taken through the wash house to be soaped and hosed down. Being intended mainly for the domestic market, the boys of 18 years and younger also had their pubic and armpit hairs shaved once again if they needed it. After this a wooden board bearing a lot and item number was hung about each slave's neck on a small length of chain and the number and description recorded on the auctioneer's manifest.

All through the morning viewing Liam and Brendan stand naked in the square with a little over a hundred of their countrymen as prospective buyers move among them, looking them over, peering into their mouths, feeling and prodding their bodies, handling and inspecting their genitals and making notes on their slates.

Brendan smiles anxiously into the face of each man who subjects him to this humiliating physical examination, wondering if he might be the one to buy Brendan and trying to guess what he might be like as a master.

Although neither of them realizes it, there is a great deal of interest in the two handsome, well-built 14 year old cousins and there is hardly a moment all morning when there are not several men waiting their turn to inspect them. After an hour or so of this Brendan switches off and his thoughts turn to other things as he mechanically responds to the endless string of instructions to open his mouth, stretch up, bend over, spread his legs, stand up on his toes, flex an arm muscle and so on.

As he is bending over for one buyer to spread his butt cheeks and poke around his anus he sees the marks left in the sand by a stake that had been pulled up and It dawns on him suddenly that he is standing on the very spot where Captain Morton's runaway negro slave was executed by impalement nearly a week ago. He rides up onto his toes with revulsion at the earth he is standing on and a shudder runs involuntarily through his body as he remembers the utter horror of that spectacle.

The buyer misinterprets Brendan's action and he slaps the palm of his hand hard against Brendan's rump.

"Don't get uppity with me, you young pup!" the man says sharply, "you better get used to having yer arse felt up pretty sharp or you gonna feel the overseer's whip instead!"

"Yes, Sir!" Brendan gasps as he jumps upright, an imprint of the man's hand reddening brightly across his butt cheek as he does so.

Brendan bends over again and the man continues his examination, more roughly now in his annoyance, as Brendan tries to block his mind to the remembered screams and the tortured writhing of the huge muscular negro as the sharpened wooden stake was hammered inch by inch into his anus until its brightly bloodied tip finally protruded from behind his left shoulder blade. What a man he must have been, Brendan thinks, it took him all through that terrible day and the following night to die. Brendan knew that any thoughts that he or any of his countrymen might have cherished about escaping up until then died with that negro slave on this sandy square.

Close to midday Brendan looks up to see Captain Morton standing before him with Mr Peel, tapping the tip of his riding quirt against his top boots. He knows it is Captain Morton because Mr Peel's assistant, James, pointed out the slave owner to Liam and Brendan when he brought them down from the private room where Mr Peel had been keeping the two of them to witness the execution of Captain Morton's slave. Brendan's stomach lurches with fear.

Brendan remembers how Captain Morton watched the execution without a trace of emotion and then joked with Mr Peel about what a pittance the Government was giving him as compensation for killing his slave before stalking briskly out of the barracoon.

As he struggles to control his fear Brendan sees that Captain Morton is accompanied by two young boys, clearly brothers. One looks about Brendan's age and the other about 12. Blue-eyed, fair-skinned, slim and erect in bearing, they both have long sandy coloured hair that hangs down to their shoulders. They are dressed alike in loose white blouses with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows and grey breeches tucked into knee high riding boots. Like Captain Morton each one carries a braided leather riding quirt.

For the first time in three months Brendan feels his nakedness under the interested gaze of the two aristocratic boys. He blushes in his humiliation and involuntarily cups his big hands over his genitals. At once Mr Peel cuffs him against the side of his head.

"Hands at your sides, boy! Have you learned nothing since we plucked you out of that rain-soaked bog you call a country?"

Mr Peel looks apologetically at Captain Morton.

"A bit rough at the edges these Irish boys, but they are strong and hardy and they respond well to the whip. These two are quick to learn and, as I told you earlier, have certain skills which 3; ah 3; a gentleman of your needs 3; ah 3;"

Mr Peel leaves his sentence unfinished with a conspiratorial wink at Captain Morton and a meaningful glance at the two boys who are with him.

Captain Morton laughs.

"Ah, my dear Peel, you need not be coy in front of my sons. They have been with me for six months now since their dear Mama passed away in England and there are no longer any secrets between us."

The Morton brothers glance at each other and then at their father before nodding, smiling, at Mr Peel.

Mr Peel feels his belly lurch pleasantly at the possibilities that this conjures up in his mind but all he says is

"Ah 3; I see 3; very well then."

Captain Morton turns to his elder son, pointing to Brendan.

"Rodney, come look over this boy and teach your brother what I have taught you about buying slaves."

"Yes, Father," says Rodney as he steps forward confidently, bright-eyed and eager to show off his skill and mastery.

"Open your mouth!" he orders Brendan.

Brendan obeys.

"Wider!" Rodney orders, and when Brendan strains his mouth as wide open as he can, Rodney inserts the butt end of his quirt into the side of Brendan's mouth.

"See, Charles" says Rodney to his brother, "You do this so he can't bite you when you put your fingers in his mouth."

Rodney peers into Brendan's mouth at his teeth and tongue and then feels around the inside of his mouth with his long fingers. Brendan tries not to gag.

"You want to see if his teeth are all there and if they are strong. You don't want loose teeth or sores on the tongue or the gums."

The younger Charles also peers into Brendan's mouth and feels his tongue gingerly.

Rodney then checks over Brendan's body from head to toe, giving his brother Charles a running commentary on what he is doing and why and what his findings are. He checks Brendan's scalp for sores, running the tips of his fingers through Brendan's unruly mop of blonde hair. He checks Brendan's eyes, ears and nostrils.

"No sores or scabs, there, Charles."

He runs the palm of his hand firmly over Brendan's chest, belly, sides, back and buttocks, noting the smoothness and hairless quality of his skin, the lack of body fat and his exceptionally well defined musculature.

"You see how smooth and healthy his skin is. No marks, moles or boils. No hair. No fat. See how big and strong his hands are – like spades, and hard – used to farm labour I should think."

He massages Brendan's thickly muscled arms and legs. He makes Brendan stand on his toes to make his calves bulge and orders him to flex now this muscle and now that.

"Look at these muscles, Charles!" Rodney says admiringly, running his fingers over Brendan's ridged belly, "You can see every one. And see the strength in his shoulders and arms, his back and his legs."

He makes Brendan bend over and clasp his ankles with his legs wide apart as he spreads Brendan's butt cheeks and probes his anus with a finger.

"Feel how the rings are still firm, though pliable. He has not been ruined by overuse."

He pushes his finger into Brendan's mouth.

"Lick it clean!" he orders, mischievously, with a wink at Charles. Brendan does so without demur. It is not the first time.

He makes Brendan lift one leg to the rear and grips it between his knees as he examines Brendan's broad brown feet, noting the sturdy heel, high arch, strong, straight, evenly spaced toes and the thick tough skin on his hard and leathery soles.

"Feel how thick this skin is. He could walk on coals and not feel them! Father always says that Providence has given slaves and the poor feet like this to save the cost of shoeleather."

"How do they get so hard? They are so lucky!" says Charles, "I wish my feet were so beautiful!"

"It comes from going barefoot, silly, the skin calluses just like it does on your hands from handling the reins of your horse. If you went barefoot all the time your soft pink feet would become just as hard and tough as these."

He cups his hand under Brendan's pendulous balls and lifts them, running them through his fingers and feeling their weight and size. He closes his fist around Brendan's penis, hardening and lengthening now as it has off and on all morning from the attention that his anus and balls have been given. He feels its thickness, hardness and length. He pulls Brendan's foreskin back and checks for sores.

"Gosh, he's much bigger there than you, even, Rodney!" says Charles with awe in his voice.

Rodney just glares at his younger brother as he begins to pump Brendan's exceptionally large penis savagely.

When Brendan's penis is fully erect, he closes his fingers around the back of the shaft and rapidly rubs the sensitive tip with his thumb until he senses from Brendan's jerky breathing, flushed face, glazed look and the throbbing of his penis that he is about to climax. He calmly turns to Mr Peel and holds out his hand. Mr Peel hands him a small pewter vessel with a bent funnel which Rodney places over the tip of Brendan's penis to catch the thick squirts of hot cum that jet repeatedly from his thick pulsing cock to the accompaniment of rasping gasps of pleasure from Brendan.

Rodney flips open the top of the vessel and looks inside.

"See, Charles, how much there is!" he says, unable to suppress the open admiration in his voice, "Quite the most that I have ever seen! Do you see this, Father? And of very good quality! Quite the breeding bull! And he has the length to deliver the seed right into the very depth of the womb, Father!"

"So what is your recommendation, Rodney?"

"Oh, please, Father, I must have him! You know my plan to use all the spare slave girls on the estate for breeding as soon as they are old enough? Well this stallion 3; I mean boy 3;will be perfect for that! And I can probably hire him out to other estates when our breeders are all bearing! He"ll be able to impregnate the first time he covers every mare 3; I mean girl."

Captain Morton chuckles at his son's enthusiasm.

"And he is very beautiful, Father!" Charles pipes up and immediately blushes bright red.

"But you haven't seen any of the others yet!"

"I doubt we could do better, Father," says Rodney.

"Actually," interjects Mr Peel, "The boy is quite right. There is none better, although there is another quite as good. His brother, no less, or no, I think a cousin, the red-haired boy over there."

They turn to look at Liam.

"Yes, you can see the resemblance," says Captain Morton.

"If you take the pair as a job lot, I believe you would get a very good price."

"Can that be arranged?"

"For such a good and regular customer anything can be arranged, my dear Captain!"

"Very well, but let us continue the boys" training. Charles, why don't you have a look at the red-haired boy and show us what you have learned from your brother?"

"Why, thank you, Father!" the 12 year-old says breathlessly and eagerly trots over to Liam. He goes, awkward and fumbling, through the examination process he has just learned from Rodney.

Rodney has to prompt him along and the two adults chuckle at the younger boy's hesitant clumsiness. They all roar with laughter and even Brendan joins in when Charles drops the pewter vessel at the crucial moment and Liam squirts great globs of cum all over his face.

When Mr Peel recovers from his fit of laughing he makes Liam lick the cum off Charles" face. Then he says to Captain Morton:

"Amusing though that certainly was, if you don't mind my saying so, I believe the proper thing would have been for the slave boy to hold back his ejaculation until the young master was ready for him. Likewise, it was very improper for the other one to laugh at the young master's predicament. It was disrespectful and should be sternly discouraged. I propose, therefore, that we use this opportunity to continue the training of your sons in the punishment of slaves while training the slaves to be properly respectful of their betters."

"Well, my boys have frequent occasion to flog our slaves. I have encouraged them to do so at every opportunity as I was afraid that, having been molly-coddled by their dear Mama for so long they might not have the stomach for our methods in Barbados. As it happens, I need not have feared as they appear to have inherited my taste for inflicting pain. And they fully understand that, vastly outnumbered as we freemen are on these islands it is necessary to keep our slaves in a constant state of terror lest kindness be mistaken as weakness and become an encouragement to rebellion. Under the tutelage of my chief overseer they have both become quite adept at whipping the house slaves so that they suffer extreme pain without ever breaking their skin. Of course, with the field slaves that kind of pampering would never do and my boys actually prefer the freedom of being allowed to whip their backs bloody. They have become quite the little terrors of the estate as they stalk the plantation with their stock whips, searching for excuses to flog the field slaves or to try out some ingenious little torture that they have invented. Production has actually gone up as a result. So, as long as they don't actually kill any of them I am quite happy to let them loose on the field slaves."

"But then so much the more so I would appreciate it if your sons would save me the trouble of punishing these two slave boys myself. I have always derived particular pleasure from watching young boys being whipped by other young boys and I would consider it a great favour if you would consent to allow your sons to flog these two."

"Well, now that you mention it, I think I would enjoy that myself. I take it we may use one of your private rooms as usual?"

"You may indeed!" says Mr Peel with scarcely concealed excitement.

Mr Peel leads Brendan, Liam, Captain Morton and his sons to the upstairs room where he has kept Brendan and Liam for his personal pleasure all week.

In the room Brendan and Liam stand respectfully side by side with their backs against the wall, hands clasped behind them as they have been taught to do in the presence of their masters. Brendan betrays his nervousness at the coming beating by chewing on his lower lip. Liam does so by shifting his weight repeatedly from one bare foot to the other.

Mr Peel motions Liam to step forward,

"Charles, I believe it falls to you to correct this slave for his lack of control," he says to the 12 year old.

Charles pushes forward eagerly. His father had refrained from buying any of the Irish slaves in previous shipments, believing them to be physically inferior to his negro slaves for field work, so Charles has not had the opportunity before of beating a white slave boy, even one from the inferior Irish race. It was, of course, inconceivable to Charles that an English boy could ever be a slave. The English were, after all, the rulers of most of the known world.

"Bend over and grasp your ankles!" he commands.

"Yes Master," Liam says as he does so.

"Spread your legs wider, you stupid boy, do you not know yet how to receive punishment!" Charles orders in a piping voice, slapping at the inside of Liam's thighs with the palm of his hand to reinforce his words.

"Yes Master, Sorry Master!" Liam says.

"Lift your head and look your brother in the eye all the while that I beat you. I am going to give you twenty strokes. You will get an extra five for every time that you drop your head or let go of your ankles before I tell you that you may"

"Yes Master," Liam almost groans with dread.

"Remember no blood," Captain Morton reminds his son gently.

"Yes Father," says Charles.

Charles raises his riding quirt and brings it fluting through the air to slice across Liam's hard round buttocks with a crack that is magnified in the small room and makes Brendan jump. Liam moans softly and the veins stand out in his thick muscled neck as a sweat breaks out over his whole body. His body jerks violently, but he manages to keep his head up and his hands gripping his ankles.

Brendan feels a tingling in his balls and the tip of his penis as he sees his cousin's eyes glaze over with pain. With his hands still clasped behind his back, he tries to will his penis to stay down but he knows from experience that he has no control over it. Every sizzling stroke across his cousin's perfectly formed rump and every strangled groan that escapes his lips gives impetus to Brendan's lengthening and thickening shaft.

By the fifteenth stroke Liam's smooth round arse is a latticework of fiery, ridged welts but Charles has drawn no blood at all. By now Liam is sobbing continuously from the excruciating pain, rising to a hoarse scream every time the braided leather bites into his quivering buttocks.

As he looks around guiltily to see if anyone is paying any attention to his by now quivering erect penis, Brendan is relieved to notice that Captain Morton, Mr Peel and Rodney all have prominent bulges in their pants. He is amazed to see that even 12 year old Charles has the front of his breeches impressively tented and he realizes that the younger boy's flushed cheeks have as much to do with his arousal as with his efforts in flogging Liam.

Immediately after the twentieth stroke Liam, his mind confused with pain, stands up straight and tries to smother the burning of his arse with his big hands as he sobs loudly, chest heaving and tears streaming down his cheeks.

Charles can scarcely contain his delight as he orders Liam to resume the punishment position for a further five strokes. This time Liam stays down until Charles orders him to stand up.

Then it is Brendan's turn to be whipped by Rodney. The older Morton boy's skill with his quirt has Brendan screaming by the fifth stroke and by the twentieth stroke his whole body is so weak and quivering with pain and shock that he can barely pull himself upright when Rodney orders him to do so.

Shaky and befuddled, Brendan immediately turns about and kneels in front of Rodney. Unthinking, he starts unbuckling Rodney's belt as he had to do countless times for the ship's officers on the voyage and in this last week for Mr Peel and his occasional guests.

Surprised, Rodney looks up at his father.

Captain Morton laughs.

"By Jupiter, you have trained them well!" he says to Mr Peel before saying to Rodney:

"Let the boy do his work. It is obvious that you need release and it will give you the chance to compare his performance with all those negro boys you and Charles are always balling"

"And me, Father? Can I also try?" Charles asks eagerly.

Even before the captain smiles his assent, Liam is kneeling before the younger boy, removing his boots, taking down his breeches and pulling his blouse over his head.

Captain Morton turns to Mr Peel.

"While my sons test the Irish boys" skills let you and I go down and view what else you have to offer"

"Er 3; should we not first 3; ah 3; see how they get on?" stammers Mr Peel, who is desperately keen to stay and take part in the fun.

"No, plenty of time for that later," says Captain Morton as he ushers the disappointed Mr Peel out the door.

As the two men leave the room Charles is already crooning as Liam expertly tongues the throbbing purple tip of his young cock. Rodney's fat shaft is pistoning into Brendan's arse with much more energy than skill as Brendan bends over, supporting his upper body with his muscular arms pushing back against the edge of the table,

Much later in the day Liam and Brendan stand together in chains on the auction block. Their hard round buttocks still bear the enticing stripes of the Morton boys" quirts and their anuses are still tender from the stiff rogering that they have endured right up to a few minutes ago when they were hurriedly brought out to be auctioned. First the two Morton boys had a go at them and then Captain Morton and Mr Peel when they returned from viewing slaves. Then Brendan and Liam were made to roger each other for their entertainment, by which time everyone was sufficiently aroused to give Brendan and Liam yet another go. The two slave boys" butt cracks and inner thighs are gummy with the cum that they can feel is still dribbling out of their arses as they stand there.

Bidding for the two exceptional boys is brisk but Captain Morton is determined to have them and they are eventually knocked down to him as a job lot at the highest price of the day.

They are led straight from the auction block to a waiting hay cart where they are chained to iron rings set into the floorboards. Later they are joined by the muscular 18 year old Donald, who keeps getting into trouble for his clumsiness. Although Mr Peel warned him of this, Captain Morton took a liking to the big boy with the bright blue eyes and the shock of tow coloured hair. The captain thinks that he will make a useful gardener but is certain that his physical attractions, particularly those enormous ones between his legs, will make him even more useful in other activities.

After another half hour a stocky twelve year-old is led to the cart. Black-haired and green-eyed, Brendan knows him from the village near his father's farm in Connacht as a mischievous, fun loving scalawag named Callum. Captain Morton obviously has an eye for good-looking and well-endowed boys. Brendan welcomes Callum with a grin as they shake hands. Callum grins back and immediately points at the streaks of dried cum on Brendan's inner thighs.

"Now I know what the pair of ye have been doing all week in that private room of yers, lucky boogers!"

"Och Callum," Brendan replies, "I doubt that ye"ve been deprived yerself in that bunch you were locked up with. I saw how cozy it was there for all of ye!"

Callum laughed.

"And ye would be right, Brendan, but not as comfortable as a feather bed and a bit of privacy!"

"Ye were never one to worry about privacy back home, Callum, nor did the lack of it trouble you on the ship!"

"True enough, it does not! As ye well know! How about we give it a tonk right now? It's been over a week since we last had each other in hand!"

"Not now, Callum, I"ve had my fill for one day, maybe later."

"What about you then?" Callum says to Liam, fingering his own stiffening penis.

"Ah no, not now! Do you never get enough yourself, Callum?"

"Well, I never have yet!"

Callum looks a query at Donald but the 18 year old just shakes his head.

"Ah, well, looks like I"ll just have to service meself."

Just then the cart lurches into motion and the four naked slave boys fall silent. Apart from Callum, whose thoughts are for the moment wholly focused on what is happening at the tip of his cock, the boys are wrapped up in their own thoughts and fears about what awaits them on Captain Morton's estate.

After an hour Callus's way of taking his mind off his troubles begins to commend itself to the other boys too and before long Brendan and Callum are pleasuring each other on one side of the lurching cart and Donald and Liam on the other.

Chapter 4

For about an hour after leaving the slave market, the fourteen year old cousins, Brendan and Liam, had used hard and savage sex with their fellow slaves, the eighteen year old Donald and the twelve year old Callum, to take their minds off all the imagined terrors that awaited them. Finally, exhausted by their efforts, all the boys fell soundly asleep and only woke up at the sudden change of motion.

They sit up and look about them at the sprawling fields of yellowing sugar cane which are now being harvested. A ragged line of black slaves, naked and sweat-glistening, toils away at the edges of the cleared section, their muscles rippling and their long knives flashing rhythmically as they cut down the ripe cane. At intervals an overseer raises his bull whip and brings the long leather lash snapping into the straining back of some unfortunate Negro. The crack of leather against muscle and the agonized scream of the victim carry across the open slopes to the boys' ears. After three months on the slave ship, however, and a week in the hell of the slave barracoon, they no longer flinch at the agony of others. They have learned that slavery and the pain of torture and the lash are inseparable companions.

A small group of about ten huge Negro slaves is being marched up the side of the drive with pitchforks over their shoulders. The boys study them curiously. The muscular naked bodies of these field slaves are latticed all over with old whip scars and fresh welts, some still glistening with fresh blood. A heavy iron slave collar is riveted around each man's neck. Thick iron shackles are riveted around each ankle and wrist, with rings welded to them for the attachment of chains and other restraints. One man has long protruding spikes fitted all round his collar, a punishment designed to prevent him from sleeping with any comfort. Another has a heavy iron ball on a length of chain attached to an ankle shackle which he is forced to carry as he walks. Every slave has the estate monogram branded onto his chest.

A fat and sweating overseer standing listlessly on the side of the drive waves the cart to a halt. He looks at the four boys curiously.

"What will I be doing with these youngsters?" he asks, and pointing at the barbarically muscled, bull-necked Donald: "That's only one of 'em will be any use cutting the cane!"

"Well I don't think they're for you at all, Martin, I've been told take 'em to Isaac up at the house."

"Oh, I see!" the overseer smirks, tapping the side of his nose with a forefinger and winking at the driver, "House slaves, eh? I hope their arses were well-stretched on the boat or there will be weeping tonight!"

"Ah no, the Captain and the young masters will be staying in town for a while. They are dining with the Lieutenant Governor."

"Well, perhaps I could break them in for the Captain then?" says the overseer hopefully, running a tongue over large wet lips as he slides his porky eyes hungrily over the boys' naked bodies.

Brendan's belly lurches at the thought of this slimy creature's sweaty paws and podgy penis invading his body, but the driver laughs as he gets the carthorses moving.

"That's a lot more than your and my job's worth, Martin, and well you know it."

They leave the disappointed overseer standing staring slack-mouthed after them and soon afterward the cart draws to a halt in the kitchen yard behind the great house.

Isaac, a Negro slave of about 30 years age, who does service as Captain Morton's majordomo, comes to meet them. Isaac is barefoot but wears a loose white blouse and a white sarong to denote his high rank in the household.

The boys are unshackled from the cart and stand apprehensively on the graveled floor of the kitchen yard as Isaac looks over them with great interest. He has never come across white slaves before, although he has heard that some ships have lately come to Barbados bringing white slaves who were captive enemies of his Master's home country.

The Master has sent word with the driver that the boys are to be accommodated in the basement dormitory of the manor with the other house boys instead of in the house slaves' compound on the far side of the kitchen gardens. They are to be trained to work in the stables and in the gardens during the day and must 'wait on the Master's pleasure' at night should they be called upon.

Isaac does not need to be told what 'waiting on the Master's pleasure' means. He has served the Captain since he was himself a fourteen-year old and has intimate knowledge and painful experience of every way in which his Master likes to take pleasure from young boys.

He looks over the handsome boys fidgeting with the chains shackled to their wrists and pawing the gravel nervously with their tough bare feet. As with his Negro slaves the Master has chosen well. The boys are strong and well-built. Their ball sacs are large and pendulous and their cocks hang down long and thick between their muscled thighs, like breeding bulls.

He feels a pang of pity, especially for the three younger boys, as he remembers what he had to go through until he grew too old for his Master to be interested in him any longer.

And they will have to contend with those two terrors, the Captain's young sons, as well. Boyishly cruel and heartless, they are indulged in every whim and are allowed to do whatever pleases them. And what pleases them most is causing pain. They have conducted a reign of terror over the estate since they arrived from England. It is a miracle that they have not killed anyone yet, although Isaac thinks it is just a matter of time before that happens. Isaac is terrified of them, especially the older boy, Rodney.

Isaac knows that it is only his privileged position and the favour in which he is held by the Captain that has saved him from being whipped or tortured by Rodney so far. The only person on the estate that is allowed to whip Isaac is the Captain himself. He knows that this frustrates Rodney intensely and makes the ruthless boy utterly determined to get Isaac somehow in his power. In the meantime, Rodney vents his spleen on Isaac's ten year-old son, Ephraim. Every now and then he sends Isaac to fetch Ephraim and then canes the screaming child's arse hard and long for some pretended offence while Isaac has to watch, gritting his teeth in frustration at his powerlessness to protect his own son. It is only the mortal terror of execution by impalement that stops him from intervening on these occasions. Isaac knows it is just a matter of time until Rodney's indulgent father will give in and let Rodney have his way with Isaac too, chuckling proudly about him being a chip off the old block.

Isaac shakes his head to shed these thoughts.

"You boys listen to me now and listen well, you hear? Life is very hard for a slave here at Morton Hall. Best you forget all about where you come from and who you were before. That is all gone now and thinking about the past just brings you trouble. You are slaves now. You belong to Captain Morton. Like the cattle in the fields and the horses in the stable. Though never forget that you are worth less to him than his horses and cattle. And he has less affection for you than for his dogs. He will never strike his dogs but he will whip you nearly to death. He is the Master over your whole life now. He holds your life in his hands. He can end your life if he chooses. Fear him and obey him and the young masters too. You have no purpose in life now other than to please your masters. They will beat you often and use your bodies to satisfy their lusts. But you must endure it because it gives your masters pleasure. If it gives you pleasure to be whipped, tortured and raped then you are fortunate indeed, for you will have excess of it here. Do not anger your masters or you may be sent to work in the cane fields under the terrible lash of the bull whip. Or worse, you may die a slow and horrible death as an overseer or the Constable hammers a sharpened wooden stake up your arse."

The tanned faces of the four boys blanche instantly and Brendan feels queasy at the memory of Captain Morton's runaway slave being impaled in the slave barracoon at Bridgetown just a few days ago. He will hear those long drawn out gurgling screams to the end of his days.

Isaac nods sagely when he sees their reaction.

"Of course 3; you saw it happen to the runner?"

The boys nod affirmation.

"Then you need no more lectures from me about obedience. We can proceed straight to the practical lesson. Come with me!"

Isaac leads the four curious boys across the yard to where a sturdy wooden whipping post has been set into the middle of a raised brick platform backing onto a high wall. From an iron band around the top of the post several iron rings hang down on short chains. Lengths of rope loop down from the rings. From hooks on the wall behind the post hang an assortment of whips and straps. A barrel standing on the platform beneath the whips holds a selection of long yellow rattan canes in a thick solution of salt and water. To one side of the post is a sturdy wooden contraption on four heavy legs that looks something like a saw horse. There are leather straps on the legs and Brendan is quick to grasp that it is a caning or birching horse.

"This is the place where slaves are flogged at Morton Hall," says Isaac. "You will see it in use every day and you will find yourselves many times hanging from those chains or strapped to the horse screaming your lungs out."

The whitewashed wall immediately behind the post is covered with horizontal streaks of dark brown spray marks. Isaac sees Brendan looking at the marks curiously.

"That is the blood sprayed by the bull whip as it curls around the body," he explains.

Brendan draws back in revulsion as Isaac laughs.

"Better get used to it, boy, torn flesh and blood is all a slave has to pay for his crimes against his master! These bricks are soaked with it every day."

Brendan looks down at the paved floor of the whipping platform and his stomach turns as he sees the dark splotches around the foot of the whipping post.

Isaac motions Donald onto the platform and makes him stand up against the whipping post with his arms stretched up the length of the pole. He ties the ropes to the rings on the iron shackles around Donald's wrists and pulls the loose ends down through the rings at the top of the post to hoist the muscular 18 year old onto his toes before securing the ends to a cleat on the back of the whipping post. Donald and the other three boys smile nervously at what they think is a demonstration.

Isaac selects a short braided leather whip from the selection on the wall and turns to address the boys, who are beginning to feel anxious. Their hearts drop into their bellies when he tells them that it is the custom at Morton Hall for all new slaves to receive a 'welcome whipping' of twelve lashes on arrival. It is meant, he says, as an incentive to obedience, as a reminder of their new station in life and for them to become quickly accustomed to the way of life for slaves at Morton Hall.

Isaac takes up station behind Donald and shakes out the coil of the lash so that it hangs straight down. The three boys watch the great muscles in Donald's broad brown back stand out hard as they knot up in anticipation of the first stroke. Brendan feels once again the delicious tingling in the tip of his cock that he first felt in the barracoon watching Liam being caned by the shipping agent, Mr Peel.

The lash whips backward and then slices through the air with a hiss before striking Donald's back with a meaty crack, driving his body against the post and snapping his head back as it wrenches a strangled groan from his throat. A fiery stripe appears instantly over Donald's back and mushrooms as they watch into a ridged welt. Donald feels like a hot poker has been drawn across his back and he moans softly as Isaac steps back to deliver the second stripe.

The shock of the first stroke to Donald's nervous system causes the muscles in his back and buttocks to quiver involuntarily and soon his whole body is shaking. He fights to control it as the second stroke explodes against his back. Again he tries to stifle his cry and it escapes as a long low groan as he thrashes against the post.

Another ten times the whip slices the air and traces a fiery caress across Donald's magnificently muscled back. Not once does Isaac cut the skin or draw blood, however, a testimony to many years of practice administering whippings to many hundreds of men and boys on the estate. Had Donald been a field slave he would not have been so fortunate. His back would have been cut to ribbons and his blood would have been spraying the wall and running down his legs.

By the end of his whipping Donald is baying continuously like a wounded bull, his back criss-crossed with livid purple welts. Isaac leaves him hanging there sobbing while he straps the youngest boy, Callum, over the caning horse.

By now Brendan's penis is hard and quivering upright against the muscled ridges of his belly. Isaac whistles when he sees the inordinate thickness and length of the boy's erected cock.

"Quite the young stallion the Master has bought!" he remarks and Brendan grins and swells with pride as he begins to finger the throbbing tip of his cock.

Isaac selects one of the long yellow rattan canes and swishes it through the air to shake the excess brine off it.

Callum tenses, the muscles in his hard round buttocks bunched against the coming stroke. There is a yellow flash as the salt encrusted cane flutes through the air and cracks across the boy's delectable mounds, instantly raising a double ridged welt that rapidly changes colour from bright red to purple as it becomes suffused with blood. The searing pain rockets through Callums body and explodes in his head with a shock that drives his breath away, leaving him momentarily unable to cry out. The wet salt adds its bite to the flame just as Callum gets his breath back and he lets out a scream that threatens to pierce Brendan's eardrums.

By now Brendan's eyes are glazed and his tongue protrudes between his lips as he rapidly fists the tip of his swollen cock to climax. Liam has also now become aroused and his own prodigious cock is erecting like a quickly filling hosepipe as he pulls its length repeatedly through his fingers and thumb.

The next stroke sizzles across Callum's clenched buttocks while he is still in mid scream and Callum splutters and chokes, his body squirming and thrashing against its bonds as his lungs suck in a rasping agonized breath before letting out another ear-splitting scream.

The sight is enough to propel Brendan into climax and he lets out a long moan of exquisite pleasure as his pulsing cock squirts great jets of silvery cum onto the brick paving of the whipping platform. Liam follows soon after with his own spectacular fountain of cum.

Callum sobs and screams continuously through the next ten fiery strokes and when he is finally released from the caning horse his legs are so wobbly that he collapses on to the brick floor and has to be helped up by Brendan and Liam. Donald has long since stopped sobbing and he is also untied from the whipping post. He steps shakily off the whipping platform and stands docilely next to the others on the gravel courtyard below, smiling sympathetically at the young Callum who has also stopped sobbing but is sniffing loudly, his dirty face streaked with tears.

Brendan and Liam steel themselves to receive their own whippings, wondering if they are to be whipped at the post or caned on the horse. Brendan half hopes he will be whipped at the post as that seems to him to be manlier.

But Isaac says to the two trembling boys, "You two will not get your welcome whippings today. The young masters have sent word that they want to do it themselves."

Isaac sees the relief flood their faces.

"I would not be so happy about it if I were you. The young masters will take pleasure in the task, whereas it is something that gives me no pleasure at all."

Isaac beckons the four boys to follow him and they pad dutifully after him, their hard bare heels crunching on the gravel stones of the kitchen yard, their chains clinking as they move. Isaac leads them to the blacksmith to have their shackles removed.

"So this is what Irish slaves look like? Good looking boys! Why didn't the Government think of this before? Ireland is one big slave farm right on England's doorstep! You want them branded and collared?" asks the blacksmith, pulling a branding iron out of the fire with the Morton Hall monogram at its tip glowing almost white hot.

"No, they're in the household, so they'll get tattoos instead."

Brendan has noticed that all the house slaves have a chain motif tattooed around the upper left arm in the valley between the biceps and the shoulder muscle. They also have a decorative version of the Morton Hall monogram tattooed around their belly buttons. Brendan admired the sailors' tattoos on the slave ship and is pleased that he will be getting tattoos of his own. He feels instinctively that he became a man on that ship with the loss of his innocence and that having a tattoo will somehow proclaim his manhood.

"Cock rings, then?" asks the blacksmith as he measures the circumference of the base of Brendan's cock and ball bag with his forefinger and thumb.

"The Master will decide later"

"Oh," says the blacksmith disappointedly as he fondles Brendan's cock and balls abstractedly.

Isaac was encouraged to see how uninhibited Brendan and Liam were in their sexual response to the whipping of their friends and he notices now how willingly Brendan submits to the blacksmith's fondling and how quickly his cock erects in response. A willing boy is always easier to train. He hopes the other three are just as responsive. The Captain tends to take it out of Isaac's own back if the boys he trains are not up to the Captain's expectations.

"What you can do is make me another one of those training jigs with the different sized wooden cocks on it that Master Rodney had you make for the house boys," Isaac tells the blacksmith.

"I see Ephraim training every day on that jig. How is it working for him?"

"It works very well. In just a few weeks it has stretched him very nicely and has made his thighs and buttocks very strong. He takes the second biggest one all the way up his arse quite quickly now and can bounce rapidly up and down on it for an hour without stopping or slowing down. The Master saw his progress last week and wants to give him to the young Master Charles as his own bedroom slave as a birthday gift when they return from Bridgetown."

"I have seen him practising in the stable yard and I must say that it is indeed a very stirring sight," says the blacksmith, his own cock stiffening under his leather apron at the memory. "He will give Master Charles as much pleasure as your older son gives Master Rodney, by all accounts!"

Isaac falls silent at the mention of his twelve year old son, Jeremiah. He knows that Master Rodney does indeed take much pleasure from the boy that Isaac trained so well to please him. But he hears the screams and the sobbing that emanate from Master Rodney's bedroom at night, he has salved Jeremiah's welts and wiped away his blood and he has seen Jeremiah wet himself like a terrified puppy just at the mention of Master Rodney's name. He wonders, savagely, if these Irish slave boys will be treated any better because they are of the same race as their masters.

Isaac waits as the blacksmith pretends to measure the boys for training jig by dipping his fingers in grease and inserting first one and then two up each boy's anus as far as they can go, turning them around and pumping them in and out. Isaac knows it is not necessary to measure them as the training cocks are a series of standard sizes. However, he does not wish to grudge the blacksmith his fun and he is glad of the opportunity of observing the boys' reactions. All of them respond quickly and positively and soon every one of the Irish boys has a quivering hard erection bobbing against his belly.

Had Isaac known that Brendan and Liam had spent most of that day having sex, first at the slave barracoon with Rodney and Charles, Captain Morton and the Agent and with each other; then on the hay cart coming here with Callum and Donald, he would have been even more impressed by their virility.

Their shackles removed, Isaac takes the by now very hungry boys to the slave kitchen for something to eat. Once again Isaac is pleased to see that they are not at all self-conscious about their long erections waggling from side to side as they walk across the graveled yard, like the bare masts of a ship tossed about in a storm.

A session in the wash house follows, with Isaac instructing the boys carefully in all the ablutions they will be expected to perform every night before going to their basement dormitory to await summons from one of their masters.

Four young Negro house boys, including Isaac's sons Ephraim and Jeremiah, arrive at the wash house while they are doing these things. The other two boys are the 16 year old Toby and another 14 year old named Joseph.

The Negro slaves stare at the white boys with open-mouthed curiosity; hanging backing in a nervous huddle since their whole experience of white boys thus far has been associated with mastery, fear and pain.

Isaac calls the Negro boys closer.

"No need to fear these boys," he tells them, "They are not your masters. They are slaves just like you. They will be joining you as house boys and I want you to help me teach them everything that they need to know to serve the masters well."

The boys stare at each other awkwardly for a few moments. Then Jeremiah breaks the ice by grinning and reaching out a hand to grip Brendan's impressive cock, now hanging slack between his thighs.

"By Crikey, that is surely the biggest cock I ever seen on a white boy!" he says.

Brendan grabs Jeremiah's own impressive black snake and replies, "Well, ye're not so bad yourself there!"

The boys all join in the laughter and soon the Negro boys are eagerly instructing their white fellow slaves in the finer points of emptying their bowels, giving each other soapy water enemas and finger inspections. They teach them to inspect each other's bodies minutely for pubic and armpit hairs and to remove them by plucking. Hair must be washed, finger and toe nails must be pared and cleaned, leathery foot soles scrubbed, ears dewaxed and washed, mouths and teeth cleaned, prepuces pulled back and washed, penises and arse cracks soaped and rinsed.

Finally, as the shadows start to lengthen, Isaac leads them all through the kitchen and down the spiralling stone stairs to the dormitory in the basement of the great house where they will all bunk together.

At the bottom of the stairs Isaac unlocks a barred steel gate which opens inward to a large room. The dormitory floor and walls are of stone. The high ceiling is the floor of the kitchen above them. Two openings in the wall angle up through the thick stone to tiny grilled windows set in the outer brickwork.

There are four steel cots with coir mattresses in the dormitory and the boys are expected to sleep two to a cot. In a time when only the very wealthy would have expected to have a bed to themselves, the boys would have expected nothing else.

In one corner of the room is a rough-hewn wooden table. On the table is a washbasin, soap, a jug of water, a coarse towel and a jar of what looks like lard. Next to the table is a night bucket in case the boys have to relieve themselves and a shallow basin of water to wash their soiled arses in cases of emergency.

In another corner lies a long rectangular wooden beam about four feet long, two feet wide and 12 inches high [120x60x30 cm]. It has a series of four smooth round-topped wooden pegs standing upright at intervals along its length. The pegs are smeared in a greasy substance and they increase in thickness and length from one end of the beam to the other.

Brendan points at the contraption and giggles: "Those look just like a row of penises!" he says.

"That is exactly what they are!" says Isaac, "That is the training jig that I spoke of earlier to the blacksmith. It is about the height and width of a man's body at the waist, lying down. The pegs represent different sizes of penises. You will each spend an hour or two on the training jig every day for the next few weeks to make your arseholes supple and flexible for your masters' pleasures. In addition it will strengthen your thighs and buttocks so that you can bounce on your masters' cocks all night when they are too tired to do the work themselves."

The Negro boys giggle with delight at the Irish boys' puzzlement. The 10 year old Ephraim scurries over to the contraption and drags it into the centre of the room. He fetches a finger full of lard from the jar on the table and wipes it carefully around the second biggest peg. He reaches between his legs and inserts a greasy little finger into his anus, moving it around and in and out a few times. Then he positions himself astride the wooden beam over the peg that he has just greased. He grips the peg with a hand between his legs and squats down onto it as he quickly and confidently guides the peg to press against the opening of his anus. There is a moment's hesitation and a fleeting furrowing of his brow as he concentrates on flexing open his ring before sliding smoothly down the shaft of the greasy peg until his hard round buttocks come to rest on the beam. His mouth opens and he sighs with mixed pain and satisfaction as he takes a moment to accommodate the thickness and length of the huge wooden penis filling his small channel. He grunts as he adjusts his footing. Then his thigh and buttock muscles ripple and bunch under his smooth black skin as he begins to push himself up and down the long thick wooden shaft, slowly at first and then faster and faster. His eyes glaze over and spittle dribbles from his slackened mouth as he pumps himself rhythmically up and down, his velvety black skin glistening with sweat. He grabs his small erected cocklet in his hand and fists himself to three successive dry ejaculations that wrack his whole body in great spasms of pleasure.

Eventually Isaac has to grab his son under the arms and pull him bodily off the contraption that gives him so much pleasure. His arse makes a sucking sound and gives a faint 'plop' as he comes off. Ephraim immediately inserts three of his fingers in the temporarily yawning opening and pumps them in and out. It does not satisfy him as well and he gives up and folds his arms in disgust and disappointment, his cocklet still standing up hard and quivering.

By now all the other boys in the room have raging erections and have started to masturbate themselves. Isaac stops them.

"Put your lust to good use. As the masters are not here you will not be called to their beds. But the time you have been given is not yours to squander on your own pleasures. It is your masters' time. Use it to train your bodies in your masters' service. Strengthen and harden your bodies and hone your skills that you might give your masters ever greater pleasure."

Isaac pairs the boys off with each other. Callum goes with Ephraim, Brendan with Jeremiah, Liam with Joseph and Donald with Toby. Just before Isaac locks the boys in the dormitory he lights an oil lamp on the wall and leaves the boys with a final instruction.

"You will fuck and suck each other in every way that you can imagine the whole night long. When you are not fucking each other I want you fucking those wooden cocks. When I see you in the morning I want your knees, your elbows, your arses, your cocks, your lips, your tongues and your throats raw, red and sore from sucking and fucking. Your backs, your bellies, your arms and your legs must ache from thrusting and your mattresses must be soaked with sweat and cum. I want to see blood on every one of those wooden cocks. And Ephraim; tonight is the night that you conquer the biggest one!"

Before Isaac reaches the top step the dormitory has turned into an orgy of strong and vigorous young slave boys rampant with sexual lust, revelling in unaccustomed freedom from their masters' lusts and eager, for once, to obey the feared majordomo's orders.

Chapter 5

They stand there under the blistering Caribbean sun for half an hour before the Captain and the young masters arrive. Isaac, the majordomo, hastily instructs the newly acquired Irish slave boys in the correct protocol.

Brendan and his three Irish compatriots stand at the extreme left of the line as the newest members of the household and, as garden and stable boys, the lowest in the social pecking order. The line moves up through grooms, house boys, cleaning maids, cooks and doormen until it reaches the majordomo, the chief of the household servants.

Brendan looks curiously up the line. It is the first time that he has seen all the house slaves and servants together and he is surprised at how many of them it seems are necessary to keep the household going for just one man and two young boys. He notices that it is only he and the other slave boys who are completely naked. Unlike the field slaves, the men all wear a cotton sarong knotted around the waist. In accordance with time-honoured slave tradition their upper bodies are bared for the whip. Isaac alone wears a loose cotton blouse as a mark of his superior rank. The women all wear a long loose caftan-like dress. All are barefoot.

Finally, the masters of Morton Hall arrive. The whole line of slaves bows from the waist and they stay that way, their eyes downcast in appropriate humility while their masters dismount and stretch the tiredness from their limbs. Brendan and the other Irish boys quickly mimic the rest, bowing from the waist with their arms at their sides, hands flat against their thighs. Brendan peeps sideways at his owners, fearful of their power and of what he has heard of their cruelty but unable to resist his curiosity.

Jeremiah, Toby and Joseph, who work in the stables, rush forward to take the horses and lead them away, relieved to escape the further attentions of Captain Morton and his sons for now at least.

They need not have worried, however. Captain Morton is tired from the long ride and wants nothing other than to relax on the cool verandah on the far side of the mansion and wash the dust from his throat with a whisky.

His sons also have no interest in them. Their only interest for now is in their newest possessions; the four young Irish slave boys. They have been chafing to see them and to use them the whole week that they have been in Bridgeport and now, ignoring Isaac's effusive welcomes, they trot over eagerly to the end of the line where Brendan and his comrades are still bowing, chewing their lips nervously, their hearts thumping in their chests with fear.

The older Morton boy, Rodney, stops in front of Brendan. Brendan straightens up and looks at Rodney with his steady blue eyes. Rodney is mildly surprised at Brendan's impertinence – no other slave would dare to look him in the eye – but he says nothing about it. Rodney allows his gaze to wander over Brendan's perfectly proportioned and muscled body. He smiles with pleasure at what he sees and reaches out to touch and stroke Brendan's neck, shoulders, arms, chest and belly. Then his long fingers play over Brendan's long thick cock and down onto his pendulous balls. Brendan erects instantly, to Rodney's delight.

Then Rodney turns his attention to Liam, while his younger brother Charles closes his fist around Brendan's now rock hard cock, quivering expectantly against his belly. Charles fists it rapidly, giggling at the pleasure that this obviously gives Brendan, judging from the glazed look in Brendan's eyes and the grunting noises emitting from his slacked open mouth.

Soon Liam too is grunting with pleasure as the older boy pumps his fully engorged cock. Captain Morton looks at the scene for a moment, shakes his head and chuckles as he walks tiredly into the manor house.

"For goodness sake! Can't you two wait until bedtime before balling the new boys?" he calls over his shoulder.

Rodney stops masturbating Liam.

"Father is right, Charles, we should save this for tonight."

"Yes, Rod, I s'pose so."

"And anyway we must still give them their welcome whippings."

"Ooh yes!" coos Charles "Let's do that now!"

"Yes let's!" says Rodney.

Rodney looks over Brendan's strongly muscled brown body with the satisfaction of ownership and feels the tingling between his legs and the rising excitement in his belly that he always gets when he tortures the slaves.

Rodney beckons Isaac, who has been hanging about in the background.

"We're going to give these two their 'welcome whippings' now," he says, pointing at Brendan and Liam.

Isaac beckons Brendan and Liam to follow him to the whipping post. Rodney and Charles follow.

"I want to do the redhead!" Charles trills, grinning widely, his eyes sparkling at the prospect of whipping Liam."

"Let Charles do the redhead first!" Rodney orders.

Isaac leads Liam to the caning horse, but Charles stops him.

"No, stretch him up on the post, I want to use the whip."

Isaac hesitates.

"Is the young master sure? The white boy's skin is still soft and the whip might cut him and leave scars."

"Just do as you're told, Isaac," the aristocratic young boy answers haughtily, "I know how to handle a whip! And anyway, he's a slave and I can do what I want with him!"

Isaac pushes the reluctant Liam up against the whipping post. He takes the ropes hanging down from the iron rings at the top of the post and ties them to Liam's wrists. He pulls down on the loose ends and Liam is stretched up along the post until he is standing on his toes with his arms above his head.

"Lift him right off the ground," orders Charles.

Isaac hauls down harder on the ropes and Liam gasps as his toes clear the brick paved floor and his wrists take the whole weight of his body. The pain in his wrists is excruciating and he pants as he struggles to regain his breath. He scrabbles against the post with his toes as he tries to grip it with his feet or his knees in a desperate attempt to get some relief from the agony.

Rodney and Charles watch his struggles with amusement. They know it will not work but it is always amusing to watch their victims squirm and thrash about in vain. Eventually Liam stops trying and he just hangs there whimpering in the ropes.

"Don't worry," says Rodney mockingly, "My brother will soon give you something to take your mind off the pain in your arms!"

Charles fetches the short braided leather whip that Isaac had used on Donald on their first day at Morton Hall. He takes position behind Liam and swishes the whip through the air a few times by way of practice.

Liam does not even notice. His whole attention is given to the pain radiating up his arms from his wrists. He does not hear the thin leather lash whistle through the air or the loud crack as it bites into the bunched muscles of his strong young back. But the pain that explodes through his body grabs his attention instantly. It completely masks the pain in his wrists as he screams and thrashes violently against the post, his legs kicking and his feet scrabbling futilely against the thick wooden post.

Charles waits until Liam's screaming dies down to a continuous sobbing before delivering the next searing stroke, instantly extracting another shrill scream that lasts so long this time that Liam loses his breath, spluttering and gagging into a momentary silence. After sucking in a deep and rasping breath Liam vents his pain, fear and anger in another drawn out scream before subsiding into loud and racking sobs.

Despite his own fear for what is to come, Brendan feels the excitement building in his groin as he watches the pain being inflicted upon his cousin's beautifully muscled body. He loves to see Liam's muscles bunch and writhe under his smooth brown skin, like snakes in a silk bag, as the leather lash lays livid red stripes across them. His penis thickens and lengthens until it stands up straight and bobs gently against his taut belly. He does not try to hide it. In the brief time that he has been a slave he has learned to feel no shame in his sexual urges or in the way his body responds to them. He notices that Rodney and Charles both have hard ridges in the front of their breeches and that Rodney is fidgeting with his as he watches Liam writhing and screaming under the lash.

Slowly, savouring every stroke, Charles lays one fiery stripe below the one before as he meticulously works his way down Liam's back, giving Liam ample time after each stroke to feel the full extent of the pain and for his screaming to subside before laying on the next one.

Each stripe mushrooms instantly into a red welt as thick as the boy's finger, but Isaac has taught the boys well and there is very little blood as the lash does not actually cut into the flesh.

Liam is almost fainting with pain as the twelfth stroke lands exactly at the join between his lower back and the firm round globes of his sun-browned buttocks. Once again his sobbing crescendos to a hoarse full-throated scream that seems to go on for ever.

Isaac releases the ropes suspending Liam from the top of the whipping post and Liam drops in a sobbing heap on the brick paved floor.

"Get him up and put him over the caning horse," Rodney orders Isaac.

Although Liam has received the prescribed number of lashes for a welcome whipping, Isaac dare not point this out to Rodney. Rodney can read what Isaac is thinking, however, and he snaps, crossly, as he selects a long yellow rattan cane from the brine barrel, "I can give him a hundred lashes if I want – he's just a slave!"

Isaac pulls the still sobbing Liam to his feet and starts dragging him toward the caning horse. Realizing he is about to be flogged again, this time on his buttocks with a cane, Liam tries to pull away, crying out "No! No! Please! No more! It hurts so much! Please!"

Isaac motions Brendan to help and between them they manage to drag the bucking and kicking Liam to the caning horse. Isaac holds Liam down while Brendan quickly buckles the restraining straps tightly around Liam's thick strong wrists and ankles. Now Liam is held securely bent over the caning horse, his muscular legs spread wide apart and his hard round buttocks presented invitingly to the flogger. Nestling between the delectable brown globes is Liam's pucker, purple and bruised from a week of bouncing up and down on the thick wooden practice cocks of the training jig. Liam's sphincter seems to wink at Brendan as it flexes with Liam's efforts to control the fear burbling in his gut and threatening to escape from his fluttering arsehole. His bladder has given up the struggle and his long penis twists about as it hoses the bricks beneath the caning horse until his toes stand in a puddle of his own pee.

Between Liam's legs the two prodigious orbs in his ball bag can be clearly seen, hanging nearly halfway down to his knees and gently bouncing as Liam struggles to control his sphincter, moaning and crying softly all the while. Liam's whole body is covered in a sheen of sweat and his chest heaves as he sucks in great gulps of air between his sobs. The muscles of his back, his buttocks and his legs are bunched hard under his glistening brown skin as he struggles against his restraints.

Brendan's cock is quivering like sprung steel and dribbling long silvery strands of pre-cum as he stands behind his cousin and looks down at the straining muscles of his whip marked back, at the firm brown roundness of his buttocks and the beckoning winking of his pucker. His body trembles with an almost uncontrollable yearning to plunge his cock into that familiar channel.

Rodney notices Brendan's high state of lust and grins maliciously as he raps Brendan's straining erection sharply with the cane. Brendan gasps and doubles over, grasping his instantly deflated member in both hands as he yelps with pain. Rodney flicks the end of the cane at Brendan's swollen balls and Brendan yelps again, trying to protect them from further assault with his cupped hands.

"Do not crave what is not yours to have, slave boy!" Rodney snarls, "Save your juices for your Master's pleasure!"

"Yes, Lord! I beg your forgiveness!"

"Save your breath. There is never forgiveness for a slave, only punishment!"

"Yes, Lord, you may punish me!"

"I don't need your permission, you Irish idiot, I will punish you in due course – when it pleases me – don't think I'll forget!"

"Yes, Lord!"

"Yes, Lord," mimicked Rodney, "Now get out of my way, I want to flog the redhead's arse!"

Brendan hurriedly stands to one side as Rodney takes up position behind Liam with the long yellow cane.

For the next half hour the yard echoes once more with Liam's screams and the loud crack of the cane against flesh as Rodney lays twelve thick purple welts across Liam's quivering buttocks.

At last Rodney is finished whipping Liam and, suddenly bored with the game, he tosses the cane aside and walks off.

"Come Charles, let's go see Maggie's puppies!"

"Ooh yes, Rod, let's! But what about the blonde one?" he says, pointing at Brendan.

"I'm tired now, we'll do him tomorrow."

And to Isaac, "These two can help dig the trench for the new wall for the rest of today. In fact they can work there from now on unless I want them for something else. I can see they are getting fat and lazy loafing about in the stables. A bit of hard labour with the pick and shovel in the sun will trim the fat off them and harden those muscles nicely. Tell the overseer to go easy with the bullwhip, mind. If he scars them I will take it out of his own skin."

Brendan, relieved that he has another day's reprieve, unstraps Liam from the caning horse and helps him to stand up. Liam feels like his back and buttocks have been roasted over a fire and he whimpers as he limps along in his agony.

Both boys slave away for the rest of that day helping a gang of field slaves dig a foundation trench for the wall that Captain Morgan is building around the whole estate. They are unused to the heavy labour wielding pick and shovel under the blazing Caribbean sun and the overseer has to lash them continually to keep them working. He is an expert with his bullwhip, however, inflicting maximum pain on the boys without once cutting their skin. The Negro field slaves are not so fortunate and many work with blood trickling down from the furrows cut into their naked backs and buttocks by the braided leather lash of the bullwhip.

The two Irish slave boys are in a state of near exhaustion when finally the slave bell in the distance sounds the end of the day and they are allowed to return to the great house to eat their suppers, to perform their ablutions and to prepare their bodies in case any of their masters or their guests should require their services during the night.

Captain Morton and his sons retire to their bedrooms immediately after dinner and soon Isaac arrives – first to call Donald to Captain Morton's room and then to fetch Callum for Charles.

After an hour or two of waiting, Liam and Brendan assume they are not needed and they lie down on their beds and start drifting off to sleep, too tired even to pleasure each other.

Just then Isaac arrives to fetch them. Rodney wants both of them. The two boys pad anxiously after Isaac in their bare feet. It is the first time that they have entered the living apartments and they are awestruck by the ornate furniture, the rich carpets on the polished wooden floor, the crystal lamps and wall sconces and the paintings that hang on the walls. It makes them aware of their nakedness for the first time since being stripped of their clothes on the slave ship. They are momentarily self-conscious because of it but immediately they put it out of their minds again.

As they pass Captain Morton's room they hear the muffled sounds of a leather strap smacking against naked flesh and an occasional yelp from Donald. From Charles' room come the sounds of Charles and Callum giggling quietly. Brendan and Liam look at each other and grin as they imagine what the two twelve year olds are getting up to.

Then they arrive at Rodney's door. Isaac knocks quietly and Rodney's voice calls out, "Enter!"

Isaac opens the door and ushers the two slave boys in, withdrawing without saying a word and closing the door as he goes.

Brendan and Liam look around open mouthed at Rodney's bedroom. It is the size of their whole cottage on the farm back home. The bed is huge and looks as if it could take a whole family.

They look at Rodney standing at the foot of his bed. Rodney is wearing a silk dressing gown but it is open and the boys can see he is naked underneath it. His fat cock is already more than half erect from anticipation. He holds a riding quirt in one hand and smacks it repeatedly into the palm of his other hand as he looks over the two slave boys, his cheeks flushed and his eyes bright with lust and power.

In the middle of the room the boys see a strange piece of furniture that looks something like a child's wooden play horse. The front of it is carved in the form of a horse's head and neck but the back and hindquarters are formed by what looks like a thick curved leather sausage that ends in a wooden foot piece resting on the floor. The boys do not know it but they are looking at a rather elaborately made whipping pony. Captain Morton has had one made for each of his own and his sons' bedrooms.

Rodney points to the whipping pony and orders Liam to get on it.

Liam tries to mount it as if mounting a horse but he keeps sliding down the smooth leather padding.

"Not like that, you idiot!"snaps Rodney, "Do you not know what a whipping pony is?"

Then Brendan grasps the purpose of the contraption and he quickly helps Liam to lie over it in the appropriate attitude to receive a whipping. Liam is already whimpering at the thought of his already welted back and buttocks being subjected to a further whipping.

Brendan pulls Liam's arms around either side of the wooden horse's neck and secures his strong wrists firmly with the thick straps bolted to the horse's chest. He finds similar straps on the foot piece that he uses to strap Liam's ankles on either side of the leather padded sausage, spreading his legs just enough to expose his pucker for the second time today.

Brendan's cock has already sprung into quivering erection in anticipation of watching his young master inflict yet another whipping upon his cousin. His inordinately long and thick cock keeps brushing against Liam's buttocks and thighs as he lingers at strapping Liam down and it is all he can do to restrain himself from plunging it into Liam's channel.

After tightening the last strap he straightens up and turns to look at Rodney for further orders. Rodney looks his young slave over for a moment, his heart in his throat and his blood ringing in his ears as he lusts after Brendan's muscular sun-browned body. Wordlessly, he hands Brendan his quirt. Brendan does not need to be told what Rodney wants him to do. Trembling with his own lust he takes station behind Liam and winds himself up to lash his cousin's perfectly rounded buttocks as hard as he can. The quirt whistles through the air and cracks viciously across the taut muscles of Liam's arse. Liam cries out and tries to arch his back. Brendan loves to see the way Liam's back muscles ripple and bunch under his smooth brown skin as he does this.

Again and again Brendan whips Liam's buttocks, oblivious to his cousin's howls; intent only on the pleasure it gives him to inflict pain on a fellow human being temporarily in his power – especially one with such a beautiful arse. As he does so, Rodney's cock hardens to a full erection and he starts rolling its tip between his thumb and forefinger. Soon his movements become ever more urgent and it is not long before he is fisting the end of his cock with an almost frantic energy.

Suddenly, Rodney pushes Brendan out of the way and roughly shoves his fat cock, slimy with pre-cum, hard and deep into Liam's channel.

Liam gasps as this new pain assails his senses. His hole is still raw and sore from the hours of practising that Isaac made the new boys do all week on the thick wooden cocks of the training jig. Luckily, Rodney is close to climax and it takes just a minute of violent pounding before he shoots his hot juices deep inside Liam's tight channel. He lies over Liam's warm and sweat wet back for a minute or two as he gains his breath. When he withdraws his cock is still mostly hard and it comes out of Liam's hole with a slurp and a plop.

Without giving Liam another glance Rodney tosses off his dressing gown and climbs onto his bed.

"Get up here and suck me clean!"he orders Brendan as he stretches out on his back, his hands clasped behind his head, his half deflated cock still slimy with globules of congealing cum.

After casting a brief yearning glance at Liam's inviting arse, with Rodney's cum slowly dribbling down onto his balls, Brendan gets onto the bed. He kneels astride Rodney's outstretched legs; his ramrod stiff cock pressed up against his ridged brown belly. He bends down and steadies Rodney's cock in his big work roughened hand before sucking it into his wide mouth. Expertly, Brendan works up and down the length of Rodney's shaft, tonguing and sucking it clean of its salty film of cum. Brendan is grateful as he does so for the deep-cleaning enemas that the slave boys are all required to have as part of their evening ablutions every day. He remembers only too well the endless parade of foul and unwashed cocks he and Liam had to suck or have rammed up their arses in the crew's quarters on the slave ship nearly every night.

Rodney's cock quickly begins to swell and harden again under Brendan's ministrations. Brendan's lips and tongue respond instinctively and he seamlessly switches now from cleaning to stimulating and pleasuring his young master's cock. Soon Rodney is crooning softly with pleasure. He places his hands on the back of Brendan's head and pushes down to force his cock deeper and harder into Brendan's throat.

Liam, still strapped to the whipping pony, lifts his head to watch Brendan pleasure their master. The contrast between the two boys, both of them 14 years old, is striking. The young master is tall and slender, though strong and wiry. Apart from his face, neck and hands, which are lightly tanned, his skin is smooth, hairless and milky-white from being clothed at all times while outdoors. His feet are long and narrow, the soles tender and pink. The slave boy is shorter but barrel-chested and brawny. Apart from a glistening golden down on his legs and forearms, his skin is also smooth and hairless but every inch of his body is tanned a deep golden brown from spending all day working naked in the hot Caribbean sun. His broad brown feet have never felt the inside of a pair of shoes and they are hard and well-formed, the thick yellow skin of their soles tough and leathery. Liam finds it arousing to watch the easy mastery of the weaker boy over the brute physical power of the slave boy. Despite his pain, Liam feels his own cock hardening and lengthening beneath him and he surreptitiously starts humping the leather padding that he is strapped over.

Rodney takes longer to come the second time but eventually Rodney's cock spasms in Brendan's mouth and Brendan feels his hot juice jet in spurts into his throat. He gulps as he swallows rapidly, experiencing the brief moment of panic that he always has when it feels for a moment like he is drowning.

Finally Rodney releases his grip on the back of Brendan's head and Brendan comes up for air. After breathing deeply a couple of times Brendan dutifully licks the remaining globs of cum off his master's cock before rocking back onto his haunches, fingering the tip of his erected cock and looking at Rodney expectantly as he awaits further orders.

Rodney suddenly notices Liam humping the whipping pony. By now Liam has thrown caution to the wind and he is grunting and panting noisily as he frantically tries to pump his swollen cock against the leather padding within the very limited range of movement that he has.

Rodney sits up quickly. He shoves the kneeling Brendan away from him and backward off the end of the bed. Brendan lands on his arse on the floor but instantly springs up and stands at the end of the bed, ready to do his master's bidding. Rodney gets off his bed and watches Liam's struggles for a few moments with obvious amusement.

Then Rodney spots Brendan's still erected penis, much thicker and longer than his own, bobbing against his belly and leaking long silver strands of precum.

"Since you have pleasured me so well I am going to let you service your brother's arse with that great weapon of yours while I punish him for using his penis without my permission!', Rodney says to Brendan.

Brendan needs no second bidding and he knows by now that is not a slave's place to contradict his master by informing him that Liam is his cousin, not his brother. He hurries to take up position behind Liam, stops Liam's frenetic humping by steadying a big hard hand on his buttocks and quickly guides the swollen tip of his cock with his other hand to press against Liam's cringing pucker.

With hardly a pause, Brendan plunges his cock deep and hard into Liam's warm and slippery hole, letting out a long satisfied half groan, half sigh as he does so.

Brendan pumps his long thick cock hard and fast into his cousin's arse, completely oblivious to Liam's agonized groaning. While he does this Rodney fetches a martinet, a flogging implement consisting of a short wooden handle with several leather thongs attached to the end, rather like the cat o' nine tails that the boys had seen in daily use on the slave ship.

Rodney stands to one side of Liam and begins flogging his bent over back with all his might. Each stroke of the stinging leather strands feels like tongues of flame licking his bruised and tortured back. Liam's groaning escalates into a continuous screaming and his bucking and jerking body propels Brendan into a long and juddering ecstasy of climax that almost makes him faint.

Rodney continues whipping Liam until his screams subside into a hoarse sobbing.

Finally, Rodney throws the martinet onto the floor and rings for Isaac. Isaac arrives at once, almost as if he had been waiting at the door.

"Take him back to the cell, I've done with him for tonight!' Rodney orders Isaac.

Isaac quickly unstraps the still sniveling Liam and helps him up as he slumps to the floor. He gestures with a movement of his head that Brendan should follow.

"No, this one will stay!' says Rodney, "Fetch him in the morning!"

Brendan's heart plummets into his belly at the prospect of spending the rest of the night at the mercy of this cruel boy.

But as soon as Isaac and Liam have left, Rodney climbs onto his bed and lies back on his pillow as if to go to sleep. Brendan stands uncertainly at the foot of the bed, not knowing what to do.

"What are you waiting for?" demands Rodney, patting the bed next to him, "Lie down here with me!"

Gingerly, Brendan gets up onto the bed and lies down right on the edge of the bed, as far away as he can get from the boy he fears.

"Come closer!' orders Rodney, "I want your body against mine!"

With his heart in his mouth Brendan moves up to lie side by side against Rodney.

"Turn onto your side and lie with your back to me."

Brendan obeys.

Rodney puts his arms around Brendan and spoons with him, running his fingertips down Brendan's muscled chest onto his hard ridged belly and then on to his groin, playing with Brendan's balls and stroking his half-engorged cock into erection.

Brendan feels his young master's cock harden where it lies between the firm round mounds of his buttocks. Rodney's breath is hot on the back of his neck and soon he feels Rodney's swollen cockhead probing insistently for entry. Brendan instinctively raises his upper leg and flexes his buttocks open to give his master access.

Brendan realizes that Rodney is far from ready for sleep and he readies himself with apprehension, and yet with a degree of anticipation, to meet his master's needs.

Chapter 6

Then Isaac wakes Brendan quietly, his hand over the boy's mouth in case he cries out in surprise. He helps to disentangle Brendan from Rodney discreetly and then leads him on tiptoes through the great house to the slave boys' cell. He smiles to himself as he sees Brendan's uncomfortable wide-legged gait. He gives Brendan a playful swat across the firm round globes of his buttocks.

"Looks like the young master porked you long and hard last night."

Brendan grins and bobs his head energetically.

"The whole night, just about! And both ends!" he says proudly, his voice cutely husky from having his young owner's thick cock rammed repeatedly down his throat and swallowing what felt like pints of cum. He stops to thrust a work-hardened brown hand between his bowed legs and brushes the tips of his fingers thoughtfully over the red and swollen lips of his tender anus.

In the slave boys' cell Isaac inspects Brendan to see what damage his young master has inflicted on the boy. Apart from a raw butt ring and a latticework of new welts across his back and buttocks, Brendan seems to have come through it relatively unscathed. Brendan's eyes shine as he tells Isaac and the other boys about his first night with the master they all fear so much.

"It wasn't so bad as I thought it would be," he burbles excitedly, "I think Master likes me. Master couldn't get enough of my arse – must've fucked me about ten times! Said I'm the best fuck he ever had! Master's cock is long. Not as long as mine though. It's quite fat though, fatter than mine. It stays hard for HOURS! Stretched my bum REALLY hard! Only bled a little bit though. It's quite sore now but I had much worse on the ship, 'specially that first month. Must be getting used to it at last. My throat's sore from all the throat-fucking and the cum. Master whipped me a few times too, but I didn't mind, it makes his cock go hard and it makes me go hard too."

Brendan adds, hopefully, "I think he's gonna let me off my welcome whipping today, maybe?"

"I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you," says Isaac, "the young master left specific orders last night about preparations for your whipping this morning. He wants you hanging from the whipping post from sunrise until he whips you after he has taken his breakfast."

Brendan's face falls at this news. His tanned cheeks pale and he breaks out an instant sweat as a flush of fear rushes through his body.

"I don't mind," he says unconvincingly, "If it gives the master pleasure I must bear it for him"

"Well, the sun will be up in a few minutes, so we must take you to the whipping post now," says Isaac.

Brendan swallows and looks reluctant but he dutifully pads after Isaac on his hard bare feet. The other boys follow with mixed feelings of morbid sympathy and gleeful anticipation.

The Eastern sky is just beginning to lighten as they arrive at the whipping post. Brendan notices that a crossbar has been added to the top of the post. At each end of the crossbar a pulley is suspended from iron rings. Ropes run up through the pulleys and down again, ending in thick leather wrist bands that are looped loosely together against the post. Other ropes run through pulleys that are secured to iron rings let into the brick paved floor a few feet away on either side of the post. These also end in leather bands looped together on the floor in front of the post.

"Master Rodney designed this," says Isaac admiringly, "It will stop the slaves from jumping and thrashing about while he whips them. Also, you can also use the pulleys to rack their bodies and increase the pain. You will be the first to try it out."

Brendan feels his belly lurch and burble with fear at the thought of being stretched on this vertical rack at the same time that he is being flogged with braided whip. He knows that he has done nothing to deserve this punishment. He has eagerly done everything his young master has required of him to the best of his ability and his heart fills with anger at the unfairness of it.

Isaac sees the anger flush Brendan's face and understands at once.

"I told you that life is tough for a slave here. Punishment is a constant part of your life, whether you deserve it or not. It does not matter because either way the masters of Morton Hall take pleasure from your pain. So when you have been disobedient or lazy accept the pain as your just desert. And when you have been good accept the pain as part of your duty as a slave to please your master in any way that he chooses."

Brendan sighs and says nothing but steps resignedly up to the whipping post. Isaac fastens the leather wrist bands tightly around his wrists while Liam fastens the other bands just above Brendan's sturdy ankles. Isaac lets him stand there facing the whipping post as they wait for the sun to come up. As it peeps over the horizon Isaac gathers up the loose ends of the four ropes and distributes them among the other slave boys. Donald, Toby, Jeremiah and Liam are to pull on the ropes hanging from the crossbar to hoist Brendan off the ground and spread his arms above his head. Ephraim and Callum are to pull on the ropes running to Brendan's ankles to stretch him downward and spread his legs apart.

Isaac closes a hand over Brendan's shoulder.

"Brace yourself now," he says kindly. He sees movement at an upper window from the corner of his eye and he knows that Rodney is watching.

"Okay, pull him up!" he orders.

The four older boys pull on their ropes until Brendan's arms are stretched out above his head and he is standing on his leathery toes up against the post. Now they take the weight of Brendan's body and heave to hoist him off the ground. Brendan gasps and his feet begin to scrabble against the post as he tries to relieve the pain in his wrists. Quickly the younger boys pull on their ropes and Brendan's feet are pulled away from the post as his muscular legs are stretched outward and downward. Brendan groans in pain as the two teams of naked slave boys compete with each other in an agonizing tug of war with his body.

The older boys with their superior strength gradually inch Brendan further up toward the cross bar until the younger ones surreptitiously take a loop of their ropes around the foot of the post and the older boys find themselves heaving with all their might against an immovable object. Brendan's agonized yells prompt Isaac to investigate and he quickly puts things right so that Brendan is suspended spread-eagled at the right height for Rodney to flog him comfortably and with just enough tension on the ropes that he cannot move.

Then Isaac and the slave boys leave Brendan moaning softly in pain as they go to have their breakfasts. In accordance with the plantation's rule for slaves under punishment, Brendan is not to have anything to eat before his whipping. The masters do not wish to have their enjoyment marred by the unpleasantness of slaves vomiting or worse on the whipping platform.

An hour passes before Rodney and his younger brother emerge for Brendan's whipping. By now Brendan is whimpering in agony. He wishes he could faint but his body is too strong and tough to allow him that luxury.

Rodney spends a few minutes checking the ropes and pulleys.

"Gosh Rodney, you are clever to think of this contraption!" Charles gushes.

"Yes, I rather think I am," Rodney replies proudly.

Rodney selects a long braided whip from those hanging on the wall and he starts rolling up his sleeves. Then he seems to change his mind and peels off his shirt altogether, tossing it to Ephraim to hold for him. Charles looks at him quizzically.

By way of reply Rodney points to the deeply suntanned bodies of the Irish boys

"I have been thinking that I like the look of their skin where it has been browned by the sun, so I intend to go shirtless until I should look like that," says Rodney.

"You have such capital ideas!" says Charles, pulling off his own shirt. He giggles, "Father will say we look like vulgar village boys!"

Another thought strikes Charles and he quickly strips off his shoes and stockings. "I want my feet to be strong and brown like theirs too!" he says.

Rodney looks uncertain for a moment or two and then follows suit.

Carried away in the glow of his older brother's approval, Rodney starts to peel off his knee breeches too.

"Let's just go naked altogether!" he warbles, but Rodney stops him.

"I think we better think about that first. Father might not like it. We are not animals or slaves after all!"

"Yes, I s'pose you're right. Better ask him first," Charles says reluctantly, pulling up his breeches.

Through his pain Brendan's ears pick up Rodney's barefooted movements behind him as Rodney takes position and prepares to flog his new slave boy.

Brendan almost yearns for the fiery caress of the whip as relief from the relentless agony radiating through his body from his wrists and ankles. Incredibly, as his back and buttock muscles knot up in anticipation of the first searing whip stroke, his cock begins to tingle. Quickly it lengthens and hardens between his belly and the whipping post.

The braided leather lash flutes through the air and cracks loudly against the slave boy's muscled brown shoulders. Brendan jerks helplessly and he screams at the sudden crescendo of pain that rockets through his body. Despite the agony he is intensely aware of his cock instantly snapping to full and quivering erection.

Carefully and meticulously, Rodney lays 20 blistering weals one below the other all the way down Brendan's back and buttocks. Not one stripe draws blood but the pain is excruciating and Brendan is hoarse from screaming by the time that Rodney adjudges his slave boy to have been sufficiently whipped.

When Brendan is finally lowered to the ground, sobbing and sniveling loudly, his shaky legs will not support him and he collapses to the floor. Rodney angrily orders him to get up. Brendan struggles to his hands and knees but Rodney has to lay three more lashes over his welted back before Brendan can summon the strength to stand, swaying and trembling, his chest heaving with dry racking sobs, his cheeks glistening with tears and his face contorted with pain.

Amazingly, even now Brendan's cock is standing up ramrod stiff and bobbing against his belly. Rodney, whose own fully erected cock is by now peeping out of the waistband of his breeches, orders Isaac to strap Brendan to the caning horse. He had intended to let Charles cane Brendan next. Instead he yanks off his breeches and rams his hard thick cock savagely into Brendan's still tender butthole. Brendan shoots long ropes of silvery cum onto the brick paving below the caning horse almost as soon as Rodney enters him.

The two horny brothers then take turns banging Brendan's arse repeatedly for the next hour while Isaac and the other slave boys look on in various stages of excitement.

Finally the two aristocratic young English boys are sated and they pull on their breeches. Rodney decides that the 12 year old Callum is also getting fat and lazy working in the stables and so he orders Isaac to put him to hard labour with Brendan and Liam on the field gang that has been detailed to build the perimeter wall of the plantation. He reminds Isaac once again that the overseer must take care not to cut their backs with his bull whip as he does not wish his bed slaves to have unsightly scars.

The slave boys struggle to contain their amusement as they watch their now barefooted and shirtless young masters step off the paved whipping platform onto the sharp gravel stones of the yard. Both Rodney and Charles stop momentarily and suck in their breath audibly at the sudden pain that stabs through the pink soles of their soft white feet.

Rodney blushes and then strides purposely forward, manfully trying to ignore the stinging pain that brings tears to his eyes with every step he takes.

The younger Charles, who is not so much concerned about saving face, winces with every mincing step.

"Ow! Ow! Ow!" he chimes, "Gosh, Rodney, this hurts like hell. Their feet must be really hard to stand this, doncha think? I think I'm going to go back for my shoes now!"

Rodney grabs his younger brother's ear and holds on.

"No you won't, you little weasel! I won't have you letting us down. You got us into this and you will see it through if you never walk again!"

By the time Brendan is unstrapped from the caning horse, the tough young Irish boy has recovered his strength and spirit, though his back and buttocks feel like they have been stroked with a red-hot poker and his bum hole hurts when he walks.

The rest of the day is a blur of sweat-drenched, back-breaking, muscle-wrenching labour digging foundation ditches under the blazing Caribbean sun and the searing lash of the bull whip alongside the gigantic and muscular Negro slaves of the field gang.

The Irish boys are fascinated by the muscularity and size of the Negro slaves and Brendan, who is particularly proud of the exceptional dimensions, for his age, of his own sex tackle, cannot take his eyes off the spectacular equipment of the Negro man that he is working alongside in the gang. He collects several stinging lashes of the bull whip during the day when he stops and stares open mouthed at what seems to him a thing alive, a great brown python twisting and writhing between the tree trunks that are the Negro slave's thick thighs. Brendan is equally fascinated by the two gigantic orbs hanging down between the man's legs quite as far as the great apple shaped head of the snake. Brendan's own cock swells at the thought of the prodigious quantities of cum that he imagines those huge testes must be capable of squirting down his throat or up his arse.

At midday, when the slave gang stops work for a half hour rest and meal break, the big Negro beckons Brendan to sit next to him in the shade of a small tree. He smiles at Brendan, points to himself and says, "Me Jabu."

Brendan repeats, 'Jabu' and then points to himself and says "Brendan."

"Brendan," Jabu repeats.

Jabu points to the python lying at rest now between his thighs and says, "You look this all time. You like?"

Brendan swallows, licks his lips and nods his head.

"In my land man must make young boy strong warrior by give man juice in mouth or arse."

He closes a fist around Brendan's upper arm. Brendan instinctively flexes his bicep. Jabu smiles a broad white-toothed smile.

"You very strong boy. You eat many man juice, huh?"

Brendan smiles and nods, only half understanding what Jabu is telling him.

Jabu takes Brendan's hand in his own and gently places it over his penis.

"You have Jabu man juice," he smiles, "Make Brendan big strong warrior!"

Brendan runs his hand up and down the length of Jabu's inordinately large member. He feels it hardening and erecting under his touch. Soon it stands up fully erected. Brendan whistles with amazement when he finds that he cannot close his fingers around its girth in the middle.

Jabu closes his hand around Brendan's and pulls it up to the tip of the thick shaft. He tightens his grip and pumps Brendan's fist up and down a few times to show him what he wants Brendan to do. Brendan understands at once and starts pumping the tip of Jabu's cock. Jabu closes his eyes and leans back against the tree trunk. Soon he is moaning softly with pleasure as the boy's strong hard hand expertly works the tip of his cock between his fingers, his other hand working the rest of the shaft and Jabu's big balls.

Jabu puts a hand around the back of Brendan's neck and pulls Brendan's head down toward his straining cock. Brendan knows at once what Jabu wants. He straddles Jabu's legs, steadies Jabu's huge cock with both hands and takes its big swollen head into his mouth. Flexing his tongue and working his swallowing muscles as Jabu thrusts his hips upward Brendan quickly takes Jabu's prodigious member deeper into his mouth until it pushes into the back of his throat. Jabu holds both hands against the back of Brendan's head and helps to push him down further onto his cock until Brendan feels like he is about to asphyxiate. But in seconds Jabu's huge cock spasms and pulses violently as it jets great spurts of hot and salty cum into Brendan's mouth and down his throat. Brendan swallows as fast as he can but there is too much and it squirts out the corners of his mouth in gusts to run down his chin and neck and splash on his hands and forearms.

When Jabu's protracted orgasm finally shudders to a finish, Jabu releasse Brendan's head and he pops off the end of Jabu's swollen cock like a cork from a champagne bottle, gasping for breath and spluttering as the last few spurts of cum jet up his nose and all over his face.

Jabu reaches out a hand to bring Brendan's own quivering cock to release but just then the overseer's whistle marks the end of the meal break. Quickly the slaves jump up and make a dash for their picks and shovels, desperate to avoid being the last man back at work. Liam learned to his cost yesterday that the last one to start working collects five lashes of the bull whip.

Brendan, who is still wiping great globs of cum from his face and neck and sucking it off his fingers, is slow to start and as he races back he has to crouch and hold on to his erected cock to stop it from waggling about painfully. Fortunately for Brendan the 12 year old Callum, exhausted by the backbreaking work, dozed off during the meal break and wakes up too late to get back before Brendan.

The overseer has Callum pegged spread-eagled on the ground and gives him five sizzling lashes across his brawny young back with the bull whip. The hardened field slaves are amused by the boy's angry baying as his well-muscled little body billows on the ground against his restraints. When Callum is released his hot Irish temper earns him another five lashes for yelling at the overseer and shaking his fist at him. After that he holds his tongue and goes back to work shoveling the earth out of the ditch that Donald's pick has loosened.

Some time in the afternoon Brendan spots his young owners out riding their horses. He is surprised to see that they are still barefoot and shirtless and he is impressed by their perseverance. Even at this distance, however, he can see that their marble white skins have become bright pink from too much exposure too quickly to the searing Caribbean sun. He knows that they will both be in blistered agony by tonight and he suddenly realizes with a sense of great relief that neither of them is unlikely to be in the mood for sex.

Brendan's predictions are right. The two English boys, pampered all their short lives in England by their recently departed mother, are so severely sunburned that the physician has to come from his own estate, which is fortunately nearby, to attend to them. He treats their blisters and their lacerated feet with various ointments. Though Captain Morton is a powerful man on the island the physician berates him soundly for allowing his sons to roam about half naked under the harsh Caribbean sun like common village boys instead of young gentlemen of good station.

Stung by the criticism the Captain tells the good doctor that his sons are real boys, not like the doctor's lace-waving limp-wristed little powder puffs, and that they can go about stark naked if they want. The King's dominions were created and are being held together by tough men of sturdy British stock who are not afraid to go out in the midday sun without their parasols. And much more in the same vein.

Rodney and Charles enjoy their father's high-handed response and the physician leaves in a huff. Captain Morton, who knows that the physician is right but cannot admit it, sends for Donald so that he can vent his frustration on the docile blond giant.

When Donald eventually returns he is in agony, his back and buttocks a fiery latticework of whip and cane welts, some of them still seeping blood. The concerned younger boys sponge him down gently with cool water splashed into a metal basin from a jug. Then they salve his stripes with an ointment that Isaac keeps in the cell for this purpose.

There are no calls upon the services of the other three Irish boys this night. Even Isaac lets them off the hours of practice on the wooden training pegs that they must do every night to stretch their arses and to strengthen their legs and bums. For the first night in many the exhausted Irish boys are left to sleep and recover.

Chapter 7

The 14 year old cousins, Brendan and Liam, and their 12 year old friend Callum have spent the week slaving from morning to dusk in the hot Caribbean sun with a gang of Negro field slaves who have been detailed to build a boundary wall around the great sugar plantation that is Morton Hall.

The work is backbreaking and brutal for the young Irish boys, muscled and work-hardened though they are, and the days drag out in an endless blur of searing sun, aching muscles and the hissing bite of the overseer's leather lash.

Their boyish strength and vigour makes recovery at the end of the day swift, however. Once they have eaten their simple but hearty suppers and done their evening ablutions in the wash house the boys are completely refreshed and invigorated. Bung full of juice and cooped up in their basement cell, they await a call to their young masters' bedrooms with mixed dread and excited anticipation. Every night for a week the call has not come, however, and instead they have they have been happy to turn to each other for the release that their vigorous young bodies demand.

The four Irish slave boys have had their long hair, which by now had grown down to their shoulders, cut bristle short on Captain Morton's orders. Brendan, for one, is pleased. His tangled mop of blonde hair had become a burden to him in the humid heat of the Caribbean island. Now he feels lighter and freer.

The boys have also been tattooed with the slave marks of the estate: A Morton Hall motif around the belly button and a slave chain around the right upper arm between the biceps and the shoulder muscle. Although they mark him for life as being the property of another, Brendan is oddly proud of his tattoos. They may be meant to proclaim his servitude but to him they also proclaim the transition from boyhood to manhood that marks the loss of his sexual innocence.

Instead of the iron slave collar that the negro slaves wear, the Irish boys have been fitted with steel cock rings. Captain Morton chose these boys for the size and beauty of their cocks and balls and he likes to have these assets prominently presented, as it were, on permanent display. The cock ring is a thick circle of very hard and shiny steel that is fitted by the blacksmith in a very painful exercise in which an open ring is crimped shut around the base of the penis and behind the balls. It fits snugly when the penis is slack and, since the diameter of the ring is smaller than the size of one testicle, it cannot be removed without cutting it.

Brendan likes his cock ring. He is proud of his exceptionally large cock and balls and he likes the way the cock ring gives them prominence. The snug fit also makes him continuously aware of that part of his body that brings him, his masters and friends so much pleasure (not that any healthy boy needs much reminding) and this awareness keeps him in a permanent state of semi-erection. This is, of course, the main purpose of the cock ring and Brendan realizes and welcomes it. He feels that his cock ring, too, proclaims his transition to manhood, as does every occasion that he fucks or is fucked by his masters or one of the other slave boys.

Then, one exceptionally hot morning as Brendan and Liam are staggering down the bridle path carrying a wooden raft between them piled high with bricks, they suddenly hear the drumming of hooves behind them. They turn to see their young masters, the 14 year old Rodney and the 12 year old Charles, bearing down upon them on horseback. They manage to jump off the bridle path just in time as the Morton boys thunder past, laughing at the sight of the two naked slave boys tumbling in the rough and spilling their load of bricks.

The Irish boys jump to their feet and rub their bruises as they watch their masters gallop off down the path. They are amazed to see that, despite the fact that they have just spent a week recovering from sunstroke, they are once again hatless, shirtless, and barefoot, although their bright pink sunburn has now been replaced with the brownness of a respectable tan.

They have no time to consider their young masters' strong-headedness any further, however, as they spot the overseer marching determinedly toward them with a face like thunder as he uncurls his bull whip from his shoulder. They hurriedly start gathering up the bricks and loading them back on the raft but they hardly get going before the overseer makes them stand up and go hug a tree trunk nearby, one by one, as he lays ten sizzling strokes across their brawny brown backs and buttocks as punishment for their clumsiness.

Tears still streak their dusty cheeks when they finally stagger up to the masons to deliver their load of bricks.

They are about to start back down the bridle path with their raft to fetch another load when the Morton boys return. Rodney beckons and Callum scrambles out of the foundation ditch where he has been toiling with a pick that seems almost as big as he is. Callum scurries over to the feared English boys, anxious not to arouse their ire by being too slow but at the same time with more than a little trepidation at what pain their latest whim is bound to bring him.

Rodney and Charles swing down and hand him the reins of their ponies.

"Take the ponies back to the stables," orders Rodney, "and then get back to your work here as fast as your legs can carry you! If I see you idling I will whip the skin off your back!"

Callum gulps and starts leading the ponies down the bridle path toward the manor and the stables.

Everyone stares as they notice for the first time that the Morton boys are not merely barefoot and shirtless, they are actually completely naked. A week ago, when the physician berated the captain for allowing his sons to go about 'half naked like common village boys' and picking up sunstroke, the furious captain had retorted that his sons could go about naked if they wished on their own estate. Now, it seems, the boys are holding their indulgent father to those words hastily spoken in anger.

Unconcerned, the Morton boys walk over to Brendan and Liam and climb onto the brick raft. Their soles are still tender and so they pick their way carefully across the stony bridle path.

"Carry us back to the house!" orders Rodney. "My brother and I are going to race dog carts and we want you to be the ponies," he adds with a mean chuckle.

With Brendan in front and Liam at the back, they set off down the bridle path, carrying their young owners on the brick raft between them. At least they are not as heavy as a load of bricks, Brendan thinks.

"Get moving!" Rodney yells, slashing at Brendan's freshly welted back with his riding quirt, "We want to get there quickly!"

Brendan starts forward, nearly losing his grip as he pulls away against Liam who is slower to react. The raft wobbles momentarily and Rodney turns angrily on Liam, lashing his chest and belly repeatedly with the quirt.

"Wake up, you clumsy Irish oaf! You nearly upset the litter!"

The Irish slave boys break into a trot, their hard bare feet thudding on the compacted earth of the bridle path as they develop a rhythmic swing in their task.

As they draw level with Callum and the ponies, Rodney calls out to Callum

"Hey! Boy! Race us back to the house! Loser gets flogged at the whipping post"

Callum's eyes stretch wide with fear and he puts on a spurt of speed to draw ahead of Brendan and Liam.

Brendan and Liam surge forward to try and keep their slender lead. Rodney and Charles spur them on by lashing them furiously with their quirts.

However, it is not long before Callum and the ponies gain the lead on the two older boys and their awkward load. All Callum has to do is hang on and the ponies carry him between them, his leathery toes sweeping the ground as they eagerly take off down the bridle path.

Rodney is almost beside himself with anger as he tries to whip his labouring litter bearers into running even faster.

Luckily for Brendan and Liam, Callum loses his grip and ploughs headlong into the dirt of the bridle path as the two ponies thunder off without him. He jumps up at once and races after them as fast as his legs can carry him, but he is unable to catch up with them.

And so, although Callum and the ponies arrive at the house ahead of Brendan and Liam, Rodney adjudges that, since they did not arrive together, they lost the race and Callum is to be flogged at the whipping post.

Rodney sends for Jeremiah and Joseph to help Brendan and Liam string Callum up on the whipping post. With the four muscular boys pulling on the ropes under Rodney's direction they quickly have Callum suspended against the post, his arms and legs spread-eagled and stretched taut by the ropes running from his wrists and ankles to the pulleys that the boys use to increase the tension.

Rodney uses his quirt on the slave boys to make them pull harder on the ropes until Callum is stretched as tight as a harp string and gasping with pain. They tie off the ends of the ropes and Callum hangs there whimpering softly while Rodney and Charles each select a short braided whip.

The slave boys look on as their young owners take it in turns to lay 30 searing welts across Callum's muscled brown back and buttocks. They feel no pity for their friend as his screams bounce off the walls and echo around the yard. As slave boys constantly under the lash they have learned that pity for a friend being whipped is a pointless emotion. Indeed, Brendan and Liam are always aroused by it. They feel no shame for this and openly finger their hardening cocks as they watch Callum's agony with mounting enjoyment.

When Rodney finally allows Callum to be lowered to the ground the 12 year old is hoarse from alternately screaming, sobbing and begging for mercy. But Rodney is by now erected and bright-eyed with lust, as are Charles and all the slave boys. He has Callum tied face down over the caning horse with his legs spread apart. Brendan is still strapping Callum's ankles when Rodney pushes past him and rams his thick cock into Callum's arse without warning and without any attempt at preparation. Oblivious to Callum's cries, Rodney pistons Callum hard and relentlessly. Mercifully, Rodney is so wound up after his week long abstinence that he reaches climax rapidly. He grabs Callum's shoulders and lies over his welted back as his cock spasms repeatedly deep inside Callum, shooting thick jets of hot cum into Callum's channel.

Then Rodney pulls out and stands back, his still erect cock making a plopping sound as it exits and slaps up against his belly, wet and glistening. Charles, who has been jumping impatiently up and down on his toes and fingering the tip of his bone hard cock, practically pushes his older brother out the way so that he can have a go. But Callum's arse is a bit too high for the 12 year old to reach, so Liam has to lie face down on the brick floor between Callum's legs so Charles can stand on his back to reach Callum's by now more receptive hole. However, Charles is by now so horny that he comes after just a few thrusts. As he withdraws, thick globs of cum dribble from Callum's hole and splash warmly onto Liam's back..

Rodney sends Jeremiah and Joseph to the coach house to get the dog carts ready and orders Brendan and Liam to release Callum. He notices that their cocks are straining upward and bobbing against their bellies and slashes at Brendan's quivering monster with his quirt. Brendan yelps and doubles over in pain as his erection collapses instantly. Liam jumps backward and tries to protect his swollen cock with his hands as Rodney swipes at him too.

"Stand still! " his owner orders, "And take your hands away! How dare you defy me like that!"

Liam takes his hands away and grits his teeth. Immediately Rodney's quirt smacks across his balls. Liam's engorged cock deflates instantly as he doubles over and collapses to the ground, writhing and screaming with pain.

"Get up! " orders Rodney, standing over the squirming Liam with his quirt raised. Liam scrambles to his feet, fearful that his lapse of discipline might earn him a flogging like the one Callum has just received.

"I know that you cannot help getting hard," says Rodney to the two slave boys, "But your juice belongs to me and I cannot have you squirting it all over the place. I hit you to help you exercise self-control, not to punish you for being hard"

"Yes Master! Thank you Master!" the two Irish boys chorus as they grimace with pain.

Rodney turns to the still whimpering Callum, who is holding onto the whipping horse for support as he tries to stand up straight, his face streaked with tears and his back and buttocks on fire from his whipping.

"Get back to your work and be quick about it!" says Rodney as he snaps his quirt across Callum's arse. Callum cries out and then shambles into a staggering jog as he heads back to join the wall-building gang, snivelling and whimpering as he goes, his tough bare feet crunching on the gravel

Rodney then leads Brendan and Liam to the coach house where Joseph and Jeremiah have taken out the Morton boys' dog carts and are busy adjusting the harnesses for the ponies that Toby and Donald are holding ready.

The dog carts are light two wheeled traps that, despite their name, are pulled by ponies and not by dogs. The Morton boys use them to race each other about the estate, much as boys today might race about on four-wheelers. When the plantation owners of the district occasionally come together for a day of feasting and sports, the dog cart race is one of the highlights of the program. It is an opportunity for the boys to show off their skills and for their fathers to indulge in some good-natured betting.

But the ever inventive Rodney has thought of a way to combine his enjoyment of cart racing with his lust for torturing his slaves. He has been experimenting with using slave boys instead of ponies for a while now. Now he believes he has ironed out all the glitches and he wants to use his Irish slave boys to try out the new harness that he has designed. Charles thinks his older brother such a sport for having invented such a capital new game.

"Oh didn't I tell you, we won't be using the ponies," says Rodney, "Go to the saddler and ask him for the harnesses I asked him to make yesterday for these two"

Toby and Donald lead the ponies away while Jeremiah fetches the harnesses that the saddler has made for Brendan and Liam. In a very short while the two slave boys are harnessed in between the twin shafts of each dog cart.

The harness is a simple arrangement with a narrow padded leather yoke that buckles around the boy's waist. It has a couple of short straps on either side that link to rings on the shafts of the cart. These hold the shafts at about the height of the boy's waist and also help to transfer some of the muscle power of his legs to the shafts. The boy grips a shaft in each hand and this serves the same purpose as the side straps. A longer pair of straps lead from the back of the yoke to rings on swivels on the front of the chassis. These traces convert the boy's muscle power directly into the forward motion of the trap.

Rodney and Charles spend a few moments adjusting yokes and straps until the boys are centred between the shafts and pulling power is evenly distributed between traces and shafts.

Rodney's original design for the harness had the yoke fitting around the boy's shoulders, but he soon found that this arrangement prevented the effective use of the driving whip on the boy's back. For a while he toyed with using alternative methods of spurring the boy to greater effort.

First he tried looping a long leather thong around the boy's balls, running it back to a hitching bar on the foot board. But he found that whenever he yanked on the thong, far from spurring the boy to greater speed, it had the opposite effect, causing the boy to brake instantly. On one occasion it caused the boy to come to a screeching halt (quite literally screeching) and to collapse on the track where he writhed about in agony until Rodney flogged him upright again.

Then he tried using a long pole with a sharp metal prod at the end. This had the desired effect but the lurching of the cart made it dangerous to use, as Rodney found when he nearly speared Jeremiah to death on one occasion. This earned Rodney a beating from his father which Rodney considered quite unnecessary since Rodney had already learned his lesson from the episode and would not repeat it. For Rodney the lesson was that you cannot win a race if the boy dies in the traces.

Finally Rodney solved the problem by moving the yoke down to the waist. He did not think it would make much difference to the leverage and it had the advantage of exposing the boy's whole back to the long lash of the driving whip. Today he would try it out on Brendan and Liam.

Rodney explained to Brendan and Liam the signals he would use and how he wanted them to respond. A touch of the whip on the right shoulder meant to turn right. A touch on the left shoulder to turn left. The orders to walk, trot and then gallop would be given by successive flicks of the whip on the back. The order to slow down and stop would be successive shouted 'Whoa's'.

With this the two naked Morton boys climb onto their traps and pull the driving whips out of their buckets on the side of the trap.

Brendan stands anxiously tensed in the traces, staring straight ahead of him as Rodney had ordered while he waits for the order to start. He rises up onto his leathery brown toes and his calf, thigh and buttock muscles knot up as he leans forward to take up the slack. Rodney is driving his cart and he knows that his master will not be pleased with a sluggish start.

"Hey-up!" Rodney calls out as he flicks the thin end of his whip across Brendan's shoulder's. Brendan grunts at the sting and instantly springs the trap forward. Once it is rolling it seems surprisingly light but Brendan knows that there is a long hot day ahead. Touches of the whip to left and right shoulders manoeuvres the traps out of the coach house yard and down the long road heading to the race track that Captain Morton has built alongside the beach that the plantation slopes down to.

It is 5 miles [8 km] to the beach and Rodney quickly tires of the slow pace. Another "Hey-up!" and another sharp flick of the whip end across the Irish boys' shoulders gets them trotting smartly down the gently sloping road.

Brendan enjoys the run. His tough bare feet flash over the sharp gravel as the trap seems to fly down the road. With every step his muscles bunch and ripple under his smooth honey brown skin, now glistening with a bright sheen of sweat.

Rodney is mesmerized by the perfections of Brendan's barbarically muscular back, shoulders and arms; his hard round buttocks and his bulging thighs and calves. He feels a sudden sense of intoxication at the thought that he actually owns these magnificent creatures and that they are completely and utterly in his power. The tip of his cock tingles pleasurably and he feels it swelling and lengthening like a filling hose where it hangs between his thighs.

With a half mile to go the sweat is running down Brendan's back and sides in rivulets and his barrel chest is heaving as he pants for breath. Just now Rodney flicks his whip once again across Brendan's muscled shoulders and Brendan puts on a burst of speed, pulling ahead of the other cart.

Seeing this, Charles hastily flicks the end of his whip across Liam's back and Liam surges forward with a yelp of pain. Soon the Irish boys are racing neck and neck, their hard bare feet drumming on the packed earth of the road as each one strains to get ahead of the other.

Rodney and Charles become excited by the impromptu race and begin lashing Brendan's and Liam's backs with continuous left and right strokes as they try to wring an extra ounce of effort out of the slave boys.

Though their backs are on fire the slave boys have no breath to spare for crying out. In any event the excitement of the race has so gripped their attention that each can think of nothing else but getting ahead of his rival.

Eventually, with lungs bursting and muscles screaming, they arrive at the two posts that mark the entrance to the race track and Brendan just manages to get a nose ahead as they pass through.

As they pass through onto the grassed track Rodney and Charles yell "Whoa!" and the exhausted slave boys slow down and halt. They stand shakily, bent over in the traces, feet planted apart, and knees threatening to drop them to the ground, their chests heaving and rasping as they struggle to catch their breath.

Rodney unhitches the boys from the traps and makes them walk slowly up and down, just as he would his ponies: to cool them down without letting their muscles seize up. He and Charles rub the boys down with a rough towel and massage their bulging thighs and calves. The slave boys wince as the rough towels pass over the still stinging whip welts that lattice their backs.

Rodney's cock, which had subsided to a half erect state during the excitement of the race, quickly swells to its full size again as he feels Brendan's smooth skin and hard muscles gliding under the sweat soaked towel. But he is capable of exercising great self-control when he has a mind to. He takes a deep breath and deliberately turns his thoughts to the training exercises that he plans for the two slave boy 'ponies'. He reminds himself that the sex tonight will be so much the more enjoyable for being withheld now.

When Rodney judges them sufficiently cooled he lets them drink water and eat a couple of oat biscuits coated with molasses that he has brought down to keep their strength up. Then he allows them to rest under a tree while he and Charles sit under another to eat the packed lunch that Cook has put in a basket for them.

Brendan and Liam eat their oat biscuits in silence, thankful to have a short break. They watch the Morton boys apprehensively out of the corner of the eye, not wishing to be caught openly staring but fearful lest they should miss the crooked finger, the tossed head or the meaningful glance which is the only indication they usually get that Rodney wants something. They have learned that a failure to anticipate accurately Rodney's slightest whim brings sure and painful correction.

But apart from the fear of punishment, Brendan has developed something of a crush for the supremely confident and masterful Rodney. He no longer regards Rodney as the Sassenach enemy or as the hated English oppressor. He accepts Rodney as his lord and master and he genuinely wants to serve and please the English boy. He hates disappointing Rodney and accepts the whippings that Rodney gives him as his just deserts for failing to please his master.

Brendan thinks about how much sexier the wiry Rodney's body looks now that he has the beginnings of an all over tan. Rodney's feet too are looking healthier: no longer splodgy and pink but brown and firm as they harden from going barefoot. Brendan feels his cock swelling against the restraint of his cock ring as he thinks of Rodney's body next to his own. Hopefully, tonight 3;

Eventually Rodney stands up. Immediately Brendan and Liam jump to their feet and await his orders.

Rodney walks over to his dog cart and takes a long yellow rattan cane from the whip bucket. Then he strides over to the Irish boys.

"First things first!" says Rodney, pointing at Liam with the cane, "You lost the race, so you get 10 strokes of the cane. Bend over and grasp your ankles!"

Liam bends over without demur, feet apart to steady himself, and clasps a big strong hand around each ankle.

Rodney delivers 10 sizzling strokes in quick succession to Liam's hard round buttocks. Liam acknowledges each stroke with nothing more than a painful grunt.

"You may stand up now!" Rodney orders.

As Liam straightens up painfully Brendan sees that his eyes are rimmed with tears.

Rodney hands Liam the cane without giving him another glance and Liam trots over to the dog cart to replace it in the whip bucket.

Rodney starts their training as dog cart 'ponies' by making them jog around the whole track a few times. Then they have to sprint around a few times as fast as they can go.

Then they have to run around the track as fast as they can, carrying Rodney and Charles on their backs. The English boys lash their buttocks and thighs with their riding quirts to spur them on. Brendan feels Rodney's cock rock hard against his muscled brown back as they run. His own cock hardens in response and jerks so much from side to side that it slows him down until Rodney, realizing what is happening, reaches round his front and gives his raging erection a sharp cut with his quirt. Brendan yelps in pain but his erection subsides instantly and he is able to run unhindered.

Then follow several circuits pulling the dog carts around the track as their masters excitedly race each other, lashing their 'ponies' almost continuously with the driving whips to spur them on. The slave boys are taken up in the excitement of racing and hardly notice the stinging bites of the whips until the race is over. Then they feel their backs on fire and realize that several of their welts are oozing droplets of dark blood where their masters have whipped them a little too enthusiastically. The salt from the sweat running liberally down their bodies adds to the pain. Luckily, Rodney and Charles have had so much fun that they forget to flog the loser, which this time was Brendan.

Finally, Rodney orders a halt to the training and, after a rest and a drink of water, they all set off on the five mile trip back to the manor house. This time it is an uphill ride and the slave boys toil away like draft oxen every step of the way, picking up many more stinging lashes from their exasperated owners until eventually Rodney recognizes the inevitable and he and Charles walk beside their carts for a good deal of the way.

Rodney is pleased to notice that his feet are being hurt less and less by the stones and he realizes that the more he walks barefoot the tougher his soles are getting. He likes the way his feet are looking now, too: less flabby and pink; more shaped, leaner, harder and browner. He looks at the Irish boys' muscular brown bodies with admiration but he feels less envious now. I will look like that too soon, he thinks.

Rodney quickens his steps until he is level with Brendan. He looks down at the slave boy's cock ring. He likes the way it makes Brendan's balls push forward and his cock stand out half erect all the time. He thinks maybe he will get the blacksmith to fit one on him too. He reaches out a hand and closes his long fingers around Brendan's shaft. Brendan releases a low moan of pleasure and goes instantly rock hard, stopping and rising up onto his toes, thrusting his hips as he tries to fuck Rodney's fist.

Rodney lets go, leaving Brendan glassy eyed and pumping his long lance frustratedly in the air a few times before sending him on his way again with a sharp snap of his riding quirt across Brendan's back.

"Save it for later!" says Rodney, feeling a sudden warm anticipatory glow start at the tip of his own erecting cock and flush through his body as he thinks of mastering this magnificent creature's body again tonight.

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