Capstan (2/2): M/m+, NC, fanfic vibe

Capstan - Chapter Two 

The butt plugs hurt these boys throughout, but never more than in the last few minutes of their trial, stretching hard with glistening legs obscenely askew, trying to grind-out fast laps whilst the anal ‘toys’ grind-down at their sphincters, and higher. The stabbing ache is their constant reminder of powerlessness, and the passage of control over their bodies.

It’s a statement of the obvious to say there is zero pleasure for my boys, unless they derive warm comfort from dreams of release, but to lock down the situation they each wear a chastity cage imprisoning dicks in frameworks of steel, too small to countenance even a nascent erection. The cage bears down especially hard upon Nathan and his hose prick, with its tendency to engorge at the first hint of stimulation. But I told them in week one:

‘If you want a turn-on vibe, it must come from your ass and not your dick.’  

Three of the cages are plain silver but the fourth is painted black and, more importantly, is larger by an additional 25%. The bigger cage is worn by the boy who has impressed the training team most over the previous session or two, and at the capstan the black is locked around Tyler’s fat cut prick. The army grunt is a boy of modesty and head-down endeavour, but he was good enough to thank me sullenly for the preference, awarded two days ago. It gained him no popularity in the cells. What riles the overlooked trio isn’t the token privilege of extra dick space being given elsewhere, but gnawing agitation at Tyler’s odds of selection lengthening, whilst theirs are perceived to shorten.  

Tyler is showing late stamina on his beam, remains secure at the top of the ‘effort since start’ ranking, and I admire (but not publicly) the way he elevates his own game whilst finding occasional breath for others:

‘Backs into it, yeah!?’

‘You smashed that lap, Hayden!’

The way the group are arranged, Kit is behind Tyler: oldest before youngest; military before civilian; courageous, ahead of neurotically fearful. As Tyler role-models late-stage capstan heaving with muscular flex that leaves you incredulous there’s a plug squirming in his anus, Kit catches glimpses of his leader labouring at the fulcrum and is shamed into a fresh burst of effort.

As he steps onto the oiled pavement, the teenager slides with a shocked staccato cry that pierces the staleness of the basement. One leg – his left, lightly furry – has skated away from Kit on the lubricated plate, buckling then twisting awkwardly behind him.

There have been many slips over the oil impediment, as intended, and it provides a good test of recovery – of tenacity – but it’s obvious from Kit’s limp, and then from his fresh tears, that this misstep is hobbling him. The team is down to three pushers, and the capstan isn’t a plane that can fly for long with one engine out.

Gingerly, Kit walks his beam.

‘Problem, Kit?’ I call.

He’s still wincing. He finds me with a tear-glazed glare.

‘My hip…’ he says, nodding down to show me where a hip is. He’s soft-spoken sorry for himself, but everyone’s heard.

‘Hurt?’ I ask.

‘Mmm!’ he nods with vigour.  

‘Okay… but still… last two minutes, incoming. I don’t care if something’s broken, I want your best slavery ever, across that line.’

He shakes his headful of coppery bangs, but there’s no verbalised response beyond a whimper.

**

The raw numbers are 116 rotations completed, with nine outstanding. Noting the undivulged record of 113 circulations, this is already the most successful performance of Capstan, but simultaneously a failure.

These boys know their tasking is beyond reach – it’s been obvious for a while – but I’m impressed by the way they chase the vital number to the last. They’re going to fail collectively so I will be looking at individuals, and all four act keen to demonstrate that whatever went wrong, was nothing to do with them.  

To a boy, they run with sweat to which clings fine dirt they’ve kicked-up during the last 88 minutes. Not that the engine room is a mucky place, but I’m fascinated by the way grit, invisible until stirred, finds its way onto their sticky boy flesh.    

Naked torsos arch artistically onto oaken beams, searching for an extra measure of shove. The mutual deprecation has stopped, with each boy retreating to his private world of effort noise:

‘Awww!’

‘Ahhh… fucking move!’

‘Shit… c’mon!’

The cursing isn’t arranged for my benefit: I can see through acting. Faces tell me they’ve dredged the bottoms of their tanks and are running on fumes, at the ends of their tethers. Even the metaphor linkages are broken.

Kit has such an eatable ass, butt cheeks sharing the rosy hue of face cheeks; mounds now quivering under Ivan’s final assault with the whip, focused on the sole teen and extra heavy. The flagellation has left Kit’s rump striped raw, and the backs of his thighs have ribbons drawn from the haphazard cascading of farthest-reaching tails.

He’s pushing again, is Kit. His preferred gait impossible – just too painful – following his mishap, the boy majors on his uninjured right side, taking asymmetric scissor shoves at his beam. Progress is one long stumble, but Ivan whips him on with the brand of callousness I encourage when I see failure before me, and even when I don’t. 

Elsewhere the closing moments showcase, variously, paralysing fatigue or a late dash to impress. Receiving torque inputs unevenly around the circle, the apparatus becomes moody – mechanicals clanking and whining under the hatch louder, even, than the boys working it.    

‘Last minute,’ Ivan calls to the group. ‘Let’s see how much underperformance you fags can claw back!’

**

Overall, he’s more of a deadweight carried than a collective help, but I’ve no doubt Kit is giving me every scrap of effort he can summon. That familiar freckled face is the most wondrous montage of young male misery, contorted with acute pain. The tiny hairs on his forearms and across his shoulders soak in a sweaty dew, whilst his legs toil at wicked angles.

The computer updates performance calculations:

Effort last lap /10:  Tyler-9.04  Nathan-7.82  Kit-5.03  Hayden-4.77

Two boys still in the game, and two well out of it, but for Kit not to be bottom of the pack is heroic.  

My problem – well, more of a dilemma – is my movie customers, who (I mentioned, but let’s repeat) are entitled, monied cunts. We live in an Amazon/Netflix age of instant gratification – me, me, me and now, now, now – and my secure email inbox is under siege with horny demands, dressed as requests, that I select Kit right-away and process him whilst he retains his golden looks.

My approach would look different, retaining on the team a boy so scared of his ending that he undertakes any sexual indignity, physical trial, or test of mental resolve, to keep his chance. I’d prefer to play a long game with Kit, as I do with my choicest investments, but from the moment the shock news of his acquisition flashed onto screens, last month, the pressure to move him on has been relentless.

Kit pisses himself onto the engine room floor, and it spurts for twenty seconds from that caged prick with the pretty strawberry crown. He’s feeling the pressure, too.  

A bleeper sounds, shrill, but the boys wait to be told.

‘Stop,’ Ivan says.

They are unable to ‘dismount’ from their capstan beams until released, but heads flop against timbers. It’s musical, the depth of the panting, with some rattling from chests as percussion.  

Four youthful torsos, slippery, burn inside-out from extended exertion, and outside-in from Ivan’s flogging.

Gradually, the prevailing noise turns from heavy breathing to low sobbing. They’ve circulated the capstan 118.5 times in 90 minutes, but my demand of them was 125.

They know trouble.

**

‘I need a volunteer,’ I tell them. ‘You see, in a moment you’ll be unlocked at your wrists, and able to sit, kneel or squat – whatever you’re comfortable with.’

I hear murmurs of gratitude.

‘But… I’m looking for one of you to represent your losing group with humility, by standing unsupported whilst we de-brief. Maximum twenty minutes, maybe.’

All boy faces drop to the floor, and a profanity is spoken in too loud a whisper.

‘A volunteer, please?’ I press them. ‘Or I will select.’

Silence. Pathetic!

I begin a countdown like they’re a toddler on behaviour warnings from an exasperated parent.

‘5… 4… 3… 2…’

They look to each other, shifty.

‘I’ll stand, Sir!’ Kit says, and I realise I love his projecting voice, full of clarity and early masculinity, and all the more sensuous since his vocal cords are strained. I swivel to address him personally.

‘How’s the hip, Kit?’

‘Ah… pretty badly mashed I think, Sir.’

‘Shame. And how are your legs feeling?’ I ask.

‘Jelly, Sir!’ the nineteener is right back at me, certain. I scoff.

‘Another word that isn’t a cliché, maybe, Kit?’ I snap at him, and for a moment he’s confused, not to say furious at my pedantry.

‘Errr… exhausted, Sir. Like… lame with exhaustion.’

‘Which is surprising, considering how modest your efforts were,’ I say.

The teen steams puce, indignant.

‘Sir… with respect… I think you’ve got me wrong, this time. I gave that push literally everything I had.’

There’s an audible drawing of breath from the other manacled boys. Ivan makes to move on Kit, but I indicate at him to hold back. The boy knows he’s fucked-up in getting petulant, anyway.

‘I’m sorry, Sir… why am I like this?’ he contemplates for the benefit of the room.  

‘I know exactly what you’re like, kid,’ I say. ‘But let’s move on. You’ll stand for me, right, without reward and despite your mashed hip and exhausted legs, for as long as it takes to de-brief this debacle?’

‘Mmm!’ he sniffles, winded at the experience of placing himself on a pedestal.

‘Is that a fresh tear, Kit?’ I ask.

‘Sure,’ he admits readily.

‘Are you watching and learning, boys?’ I ask the others, raising my voice.

‘Yes, Sir!’ they chorus to me.

**

A single hand towel, fluffy white, is passed between the three slumped youths mopping-down shimmering pectorals and skimming beads from foreheads. The cotton has greater utility for its first user (Hayden) than the last (Tyler), by which time the rectangle is sodden and barely absorbent.

I throw them a bottle of chilled mineral water each, and they are quick to rehydrate themselves in greedy gulps until the plastic containers crackle, drained of every drop. A shared towel and water represent the extent of my amenity pack – the limit of my sadistic benevolence.

It’s a tiny thing, but worth relating. The moment they were unhitched, one by one, hands moved to butts tracing the welts left by Ivan. It happens every time I run Capstan, and I know the pawing of injuries is in part an instinctive reaction to the pain they’ve been dealt. But it’s more than that. I see them wonder how they look with flayed ass mounds, willing a mirror to appear so checks can be made. You’re entitled to disbelieve me, but I swear, even in week three on a cliff edge, there’s a part of most boys that looks ahead to the day they’re freed and considers the length of the recuperative journey. It’s tiger spirits, writ large.

For now, dejection is the word. The boys have that look of soccer players on a team just beaten by an 89^th minute goal in a crucial match, on a sweltering June day. In fact, aside from the lack of a football in the engine room, that’s pretty much what’s happened. They squat, head in hands, or slump with legs ranged in front of them, palms flat to the floor behind them. Even the process of slumping was made excruciating by the plugs wedged up their asses.

Kit, too, has been released and totters in space looking drunken. He doesn’t get a wipe with the towel, and his skin remains soggy. Neither is he given the water treat. I wait for him to find a modicum of balance on his jelly legs, but the ill-focused wandering of his eyes tells me it’s a fragile hold.

I ask them if they feel able to be honest with me: candid, and not soft-soaping with the words they believe I want to hear, because that’s not what I’m looking for in the de-brief. Unanimously, but with variation in certainty, they agree to be straightforward. Let us see.

‘You were required to turn the capstan 125 times but did so only 118 times. With the benefit of your experience, what was a reasonable requirement for turns, under the conditions you faced?’

They don’t rush to respond, protected as they are by each other until I glare at individuals.

Tyler: ‘Sir, you’re the boss, so if you want 125 then it stands. But honestly – 118. We couldn’t have worked any harder. That’s where we landed.’

Nathan: ‘What was reasonable? Say, 100. We cooked ourselves tryna do 125… totally, dangerously, wrecked.’

Hayden: ‘I go 118, too. It ruined us, getting even that far.’

I turn from the loungers to my standee.

‘Kitten?’

He clears his throat, and it sounds rather self-important.

Kit: ‘Sir, your target of 125 was reasonable. It’s on us.’

I hear a couple of tuts and a sucking of teeth from stage left.

‘Never a target, Kit. A requirement, yes?’ I pick him up.

‘Sorry, Sir,’ he mumbles.

I pace the engine room, tapping my boots with the business end of the electro prod, fingers well away from the button. There’s a fog of fear: I bet they wish this damn chamber wasn’t so claustrophobic – so impenetrable.

‘For my interest, because this is a task I will set again for the boys that follow you, and I value feedback: Describe 125 in 90 with a single word, each. Just one word, huh?’

I grant them twenty seconds of thinking time and my boots clop on the floor around the capstan as I stroll amongst them. I take answers in the same order.

Tyler: Brutal

Nathan: Hell

Hayden: Brutal (Annoying – I bet curly blond was thinking of another word, before he decided to play safe by echoing.) 

I engineer five seconds of tortured waiting before looking to the teen. 

Kit: <dramatic pause, brow furrowed, contemplative tut> Complicated, Sir.  

I snort at the last.

‘Why is turning a wooden bar 125 times, fairly quickly, complicated?’ I ask Kit, disdaining.

Alarmed, he bursts into stuttered justification.

‘Umm, it’s all the other pain things that went with the actual task – the slip and heat trays, the whipping, the butt plugs – well, they got quite… distracting. But I don’t mean they were wrong…’

‘You allowed them to distract you?’ I shoot back.

Whiteness washes over the soft flesh of Kit’s cheeky dimples.

‘No, I never allowed them, but it felt like a constant fight.’

‘And you realise that’s deliberate on my part, Kit? To test whether you can be diverted from task by pain, everywhere, or whether you’re the dependable boy slave I need?’

‘Yeah, I do realise that,’ he says, bravely petulant with his tone.  

‘Really?’ I say, derisive. ‘Because I’m not sure you do. Complicated!?’

Kit bites his bottom lip, drawing a fleck of blood.  

‘I wasn’t being stupid, Sir. It was more of a compliment, for the way you design tasks for us.’

It’s an obsequious backtrack from the youngster. A grating humiliation.  

‘Right,’ I say, dismissive of his new angle. ‘And what about the other answers your friends have given: brutal, and hell?’

‘Oh, I agree with those too, Sir,’ he blurts.

‘I bet you do! More straightforward answers than complicated, I suggest.’

‘Yes, Sir. I can definitely see that, now.’

He’s in the grips of an all-consuming struggle, mental as well as physical, to stay upright. With my words, I’m building Kit’s character like no man has before. 

He sways, new trails of sweat worming over his delicious butt mounds, whipped to raspberry by Ivan. I observe Kit – a boy under total pressure – and I want to be in there, tapping his tight asshole again and making him yell at my fucking. But it’s not the moment, and for now he’s plug-wedged up that boy cunt.

Kit’s bangs tend to flop to his eyes, now it’s a month since his last professional haircut. Irritated, he scoops those curtains back with elegant fingers spread, quite petite, at the end of punchy forearms, lightly freckled. The teen’s chest continues to flutter; the fluff around his pectorals trapping beaded sweat.

The other boys’ eyes have gravitated to Kit’s crisis and they’re silent, their own respiration now stabilised. Kit’s clenching his fists, willing himself to keep it together, but there’s a tremble in his left leg. Really, I should give him relief: there’s nothing stopping me excusing him, except sadism and thoughts on the percentage of 5-star reviews left by my movie customers.  

‘Are you going to let me down in an inexcusable way, Kit?’ I ask.

He gasps.

‘No, Sir!’

‘Good. Keep calm, keep still, and keep upright, then,’ I say.

‘Yes, boss.’

Unhurried, I step back and speak to the wider group.

‘And now, with the same unsparing honesty, you’ll tell me what the fuck went wrong, to cause you to fail,’ I say.

**

This time, thirty seconds to find compelling answers.

Tyler: ‘Maybe it was impossible, but there was inconsistency across the group. A couple of boys kept falling behind. I think if they’d all performed like I did, we’d have got this across the line, honestly. I mean, we were only seven laps short.’

Nathan: ‘We gave it 110%. Genuinely, I’m so bored of this bullshit as well, so… whatever. I’m sure you’ve already decided what happens next.’

Hayden: ‘Honestly, you can ask for whatever you like, but at the end of the day, everyone has their limits in the circumstances, right… and we found ours. Kill me now, if you want. I don’t care.’

Kit: ‘We didn’t try hard enough for you. We started too slowly. Then I admit, when I twisted my hip or whatever in the oil tray, it set me back for a bit and I didn’t think I could push through. But after, I did a great lap at the end, which shows what I can do when conditions aren’t perfect. It will be different next time, Sir, we… well, I… promise you.’

I hear each of the excuses in turn, without comment, nodding for the next boy to tell me his nonsense.

‘The technical analysis, the Sir-blaming, the surrender, and the admission with a sneaky plea attached,’ I summarise. ‘At least I’ve heard some different stuff from you, but it hasn’t persuaded me not to select, immediately.’

‘Sir…’ Nathan starts.

‘Enough! Your opportunity to make a case for yourselves was on the capstan – all of you. Now, is too late.’

There’s a disturbance in the corner of my eye. Not a commotion, because this is slow motion and accompanied by an elongated groaning sigh with a macabre resemblance to the sound of expiry. Kit has slumped to one knee, head drooped. I attend him.

‘Stand up,’ I say, with the authority of an order but little volume.

Kit won’t look at me. He’s shaking, delirious.

‘Stand up,’ I repeat.

He raises his head by increment like his neck is arthritic. The eyes are wet, again, and whilst that’s hot in principle, repetition has dulled the eroticism I’m afraid.

‘I….am…totally broken. My legs are just…shattered.’

I stare down at him. Such a cute array of freckles across the bridge of his nose.

‘A harsh work-out,’ I say.

‘I feel so destroyed. Totally broken,’ Kit reiterates.  

‘Stand up,’ I say for a third time, shorter.  

A shake of his head, tossing his bangs around.

‘I’m sorry, but I just don’t think I can. Sir… you’ve finished me.’

‘Stand up, Kitten. You know you can, and this is important.’

‘Can I help him up?’ Nathan calls. I wonder what motivates him.

‘No, you stay right where you are. If Kit can get halfway up, I’ll help him the rest of the way myself,’ I say.

I offer an extended hand of conciliation. Golden boy looks at it, dubious, then up at my face.

‘C’mon. You’re not finished, yet. Stand for me,’ I say, gently.

With caution he advances his left arm, and when the hand is within reaching distance, I clasp it hard. It’s a snug fit in my larger paw. With my thumb I stroke the fine hair on the flank of his hand, beneath the little finger. I don’t pull him, because the deal is that he’ll take the initiative before I assist. We share an episode of doubting eye contact.

‘Reckon you can do it for me now?’ I ask.

‘Sir.’

‘Because I need to talk to you, and the respectful way to do that – for both of us – is face-to-face.’

‘And the others...?’ Kit asks.

‘On the count of three, you’ll make those legs work for me. And once you’re on the move, I’ll help.’

The boy shifts between the 2 and the 3 of my slow count, tortured once more by his anal bulb and then, as the chain slack is pulled out, by the weights hung from his scrotum. The pretty boy face is scrunched back into nightmares, and his outwardly solid thighs quiver at the probability of them supporting him for a further period erect.

Kit’s hand is clammy, but delightfully soft. Too much longer here, and it would become calloused in some ugly workload-related way. He’s heavier than I expected in assisting him back to standing, contributing only token effort himself. I’ve beasted him to a pleasing extent.

The kid wobbles but gets his shit together. I release my grip, also incrementally.

My hand transfers to Kit’s bare ass, probing the welts laid so expertly by Ivan in the noble cause of keeping this boy in the game.

‘Hot,’ I find myself saying out loud. ‘You know, these mounds were wasted on girls.’

‘I’m bi, actually,’ he reminds me. Just the most bizarre time to become self-righteously pedantic. I snort at his conceit, and he doesn’t appreciate it.

In his deep crack I locate the base of his ass toy, sitting square over the hole. I push at the latex with enough vigour to disturb the plug jammed up his shit chute, and Kit gives me a second negative reaction. He needs to check himself.

‘You found this big, huh? Whilst pushing the capstan?’

‘Yes, Sir, it felt big,’ he says.

‘There are at least two dozen larger toys in the tool room, Kitten,’ I say.

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘But I’m rambling, sorry. The news is, I’m taking you to see the doctor, about that hip.’

Kit bristles, his eyes flashing back to mine.

‘It’s just a strain… it will heal. I promise you!’

‘Maybe, or maybe not. That’s what the doctor is for – to help us decide how impaired you are.’

‘Sir, maybe I bigged it up because I’m feeling sore after the work, but honestly, it’s just a twinge. I don’t need to see the doctor, I swear.’

‘Dr Hope is already waiting for us, Kit.’

‘But how can he be… I don’t understand!’

‘It’s in your best interests, yeah?’

‘Lads…?’ Kit looks around the faces of the lounging boys, but their heads are flopped, embarrassed, and one or two mumble incoherently. There are no ‘saviour’ interventions.

The nineteener drops back to a squat then rolls sideways onto his flank, where his hands move to cover his sobbing face.

‘Fuck!’ he moans.

**

‘Raise your right leg as high as you can…okay… good… and, relax. Now, cross your right leg over to the left side of your body… again, as far as you can…well done… good… that’s nicely flexible.’

The young doctor is making an urgent assessment of Kit, at my referral. He’s an in-house medic with excellent professional competency in general practice, and a direct manner that was natural but has been sharpened further under my mentorship.

It’s not the role of Dr Hope to make my boys well, but rather to prolong their usefulness as pipeline slaves by a few days, or weeks, through the dispensation of simple medicines and attending to their manageable wounds.

If a boy refuses to rise from his cell bunk citing brokenness, physical or mental, then the doctor visits and converses with his young patient, issuing a certificate of health signing-off the trainee as fit for his scheduled Sex Tasks or Pain Tasks.

But sometimes, with a nudge and a wink from me, diagnoses may be amended.

‘Now, Kit: raise your left leg as high as you can… okay… and more, maybe? Try to push yourself until you simply have to stop… the point of failure. I need to see what’s going-on, here.’  

‘Owww!’

The teen manages a couple more centimetres of height, grimacing, before his trembling limb descends to a less anguished elevation.

Kit is flat on his back on the gurney, but for a thin pillow under his skull. The mattress is faced with black PVC, made damp with the boy’s perspiration. Each time he shifts on the trolley, making it squeak with his angsty fidgeting, a shadow of sweat is revealed where he lay.

Dr Hope and Kit have a fractious relationship. You might find this surprising as, of all the boys under his current care (and mine), Kit is a blatant pleaser: a try hard. Perhaps we can attribute the history to a simple clash of personalities, because the brash doctor has a reputation for being a ruthless trampler.  

There’s a contrast in appearances, too. The medic’s Greek heritage (paternal) manifests in his olive skin tone and dark eyes, not to say his animated demeanour, verging on emotional. Casual in dark chinos and a buttoned shirt left open at his neck, the doctor looms over Kit’s pale form as he assesses his patient’s crunched hip.

The animus dates from week one, and an early refusal by Kit – distraught – to leave his cell for a livestream titled Anal Training IV, citing excessive soreness from his previous stretching. Dr Hope was brusque with his assessment: Diagnosis – Malingerer – certified fit for anal work at all complexities, he pronounced, and committed the same to paper in barely legible handwriting. Told to present himself on the Sex Wing in two minutes flat, Kit went an adorable shade of beetroot and clenched his fists to self-restrain.

The golden boy is clenching his fists again now, as my doctor continues investigating his hurt side.  

‘Now, as before, try to scissor your left leg over your body, to the right, and see how you do, huh?’

Kit looks to me, then to Dr Hope, then back to me, pleading for a pass on this illuminating test.

‘There’s nothing to fear at this stage, Kit,’ I say, with a thin smile he sees through without trouble.

‘Quickly – I have other appointments,’ Dr Hope snaps.

The boy elevates his left leg once more, without bettering his previous curtailed lift. Then he attempts to swing the limb across to his right, as instructed, managing negligible curvature before he hits a wall of pain.

 ‘Ahhh FUCK!!’

The leg slumps back onto the gurney, walloping the mattress.

‘Give it one more try, huh?’ Dr Hope pushes. ‘Show me just how flexible, or not, that young hip is.’

In readiness for his final trial, Kit’s hands grab the tubular steel forming the low safety gates to each side of the gurney. He squeezes down, and at the same time puffs his face into a picture of determination, eyes wide.

The left leg lifts from the mattress, inch by inch until the ball of Kit’s heel clears it by a foot. He gasps and turns right with the hovering limb. The doctor lays hands upon him, taking advantage of a legitimate opportunity to feel the pained patient as the boy attempts to make his hip work.

‘Nice,’ Dr Hope purrs, pressing teen flesh.

Kit attempts to extend the swing of his left leg over to his right side, but the acute pain he felt previously surges back as a violent spasm.

‘Ahhh FUCK!!’ he fails again, beside himself. ‘Fuck!’

The doctor struggles to summon the professional integrity required to stop pawing at Kit’s thigh.  

‘Hmm. Well, that’s a problem you have there. Practically rigid. Do you want to tell me what on earth happened?’

Kit continues to wince. He flexes-out his balled fists and shapely toes.

‘I was doing a capstan push session,’ Kit recalls. ‘But one of the trap… err….  challenges… was an oiled tray. And towards the end, working hard, I felt my left hip twinge sort of thing, and give-way. But it was only temporary.’

Solemn, the doctor nods, getting close into his patient’s face with his own thinly drawn features. Kit will smell the coffee on his breath: Dr Hope loves a rich Italian roast. ‘I see. So, perhaps you were being a little careless?’ he suggests.

Kit shoots me a guarded look. I’m standing six steps back, arms folded and listening.

‘Maybe. I should have tried even harder, but been more careful.’

‘I’m sure, Kit. And because of your carelessness, you have a bad sprain on your left hip, and additionally, I suspect some moderate ligament strain in your thigh. Now, these are both limiting conditions that heal – with time.’

Dr Hope’s emphasis hangs on his final two words, and he looks back from Kit to me, knowing.  

I am ready to cut into the conversation and breach patient confidentiality.

‘How much time?’ I ask, testy. ‘How long, Ben, before Kit can participate effectively in labour sessions, and hard sexual tests requiring mobility?’

The doctor shakes his head to let Kit down, playing poker with his mean lips. ‘Oh, I think it will be three to four weeks before he returns to a competitive condition. At least.’  

I nod my understanding. ‘It’s a problem, as you say, then.’

**

Though it hurt like hell, Kit has flipped himself face down on the gurney, now, thumping the mattress with his fists, scrumming thighs arched outwards and squirming. The cheap black trim receives drips from his tears, and he nests his head in folded forearms.

I’d given him the bad news and good news as bullet points:

1.        - You move to the Snuff Wing immediately, but…

2.        - Nothing will happen straight away, and…

3.        - The next few days represent an opportunity to rest and reflect.

But Kit only heard the bad news, and fair enough.

In the end it’s about managing assets, and I need to be ruthless.

When Kit’s settled in the Snuff Wing, I will tell him that, actually, it’s not entirely his fault, and we will talk about all his character traits I’ve come to admire, and which my customers admire.

Back at the cells, the other three will hear they’re a boy down, and the news will galvanise them for the days of harder sex and heavier pain that fill their calendars for the next week or so, until the time comes to select again.

**

Coda

Before we leave Capstan, I need to tell you of the lively conversations I enjoy with Ivan over premium vodka (him) and Diet Coke (me), where we debate which of 28 boys, so far, has delivered the best performance on the beams. It’s not science, there is room for value judgment, and our sparring is, in essence, just an opportunity to relive the greatest hits of the capstan, like a sadistic version of a Facebook local history group.

In our mutual top threes, though, is a Canadian boy called Jamie who presented in drag as a leggy blonde by the name of Hazel (because of the eyes). Jamie/Hazel loved nothing more than to be bossing a float at Pride, shaking his/her booty, girlfriend.  

We had Hazel work the capstan in the flimsily provocative femme attire and make-up she wore at the moment of her abduction, from the dressing room in the Victorian theatre at which she was about to perform. In a concession to practicality, she was allowed to ditch her high heels for the big push.

Working with three conventionally masculine boys – all larger – looking startlingly pinched at her hips and with the most delightful peachy ass thrust back for Ivan’s disciplinary attention, I’d never seen so much mascara run, comprehensively dissolved by the salt of her thick tears.  

Hazel was a screamer, too, alienating her capstan-mates with her perpetual shrieking. The boys disliked histrionics.

But here’s the thing: look beyond the noise and striking display of femininity, and you find a girl whose contribution to the total 111 rotations achieved by this group was regularly at the top of the board, and who ended a close second on the effort table behind a professional footballer of 23.

There are several lessons here, mostly beyond scope, but when Ivan and I laugh at our memories of Hazel, the serious point we return to when the laughter stops and glasses are held steadily is this: physical stamina and mental strength are critical, but what Jamie/Hazel displayed over her five weeks was a genuine desire to satisfy whatever tests we set her, at a personal sacrifice that became quite remarkable by week four. She had a rare understanding of our pleasure, and we remain amazed how far that carried her in the process, given her disadvantages.

With hindsight, we wish we’d arranged to shoot an instructional film for future boys, presented by the girl herself when she fizzed with energy but controlled to our script, titled Be More Hazel!