That self-important prick.

Jim, blue eyes near-radioactive with contempt, watched the major, that smug bastard, that self-appointed emperor of nothingness, pace through the crammed study where they both stood, the prick in his officious uniform, Jim naked to the waist, both surrounded by the aristocratic detritus of a discarded civilization that now twitched whitely in the sun like a soft-skinned snake. The major, a man gone drunk on the dregs of someone else's dynasty, now pacing an empty house, running a measured finger along some more deserving aristocrat's heirlooms and talking insanity.

"I don't care for wogs." the major said, running a finger along the alabaster chin of a Greek bust. "Why do you think I've left that infected kaffir to hemmorage to death in the yard?" He turned to look at Jim. "She's not my first choice. But if she's the end of the line, well . . ." He turned his palms up in a mockery of a gentleman's what-can-you-do?. "But she'll serve our purposes."

"Which are?" Jim's jaw tightened in the answer he already knew.

The major stopped and halted behind the desk, arms spread and planted on the exquisite drawing table. Knuckles down, on the blotter, shoulders spread wide. Like a simian. A gorilla, wearing a suit, sitting behind a desk. Fooling no one.

"Men without women are men without a future." he said, the implications clear.

The answer Jim did not want to hear sunk into his core with an icy, leaden velocity. Oh, god, not that. Not Selena. Not Hannah -- god, he didn't know which possibility filled him with more dread, the rape of a child or the desecration of a woman he was just beginning to . . . A fierce nausea started to rack his core, the glands of his throat spilling out metallic saliva in overdrive revulsion. Now he saw why the major invited him back here. To be reasonable. To talk it out like men, this very civilized solution to a very masculine conundrum. Of course he'd see it his way, to lend over his pack of women. It'd be the proper thing to do, same as lending a lawnmower to a mate over the backyard fence. What bullshit.

The major regarded Jim, measured his girlish mouth that remained plush no matter how it tightened in anger, eyes that still sparkled crystalline and long-lashed even as they hardened in fear.

"Be reasonable, Jim" he said, the measured tone of a man used to having orders followed. "What option do we have?"

"We've lots of options," Jim spat the pronoun back, refusing to lump the two of them together in his vile idea.

The major shook his head with the indulgent patience shown small, misbehaving children. "This is the only way, Jim. The only option."

The two men stared at each other.

And slowly, another option burned into Jim's mind.

A desperate, repulsive, utterly savage option.

But these were desperate, repulsive, utterly savage times.

"You'll bang them for a week," he said, his voice quavering in self-disbelief that he was opening this avenue of reasoning.

"Your men will shred them to pieces, I know they will. And they'll have their week. Three at the most. And then one or both will be pregnant. And then what will you do?"

The Major shrugged. "Was that not the intention?"

"At first, yeah." Said Jim. His fingers quivered in unconscious, overadrenalined terror. "But then what? Your men haven't had a release in weeks. Do you really think they'll leave them alone after that? They'll keep -- " he could barely spit the word --"raping them round the clock. And they'll miscarry. And the cycle'll start all over again. Have you got a gynecologist on staff? Have you got a way to keep them from infection, from septic shock, one miscarriage after another? Eventually you'll be left with nothing. No children. No future. No women." No Selena, no Hannah, he whispered to himself, tracing the women's names through his mind, keeping them real and human and individual even if to this man they were little more than color-coded wombs.

The major pouted in confusion.

"Then," he said, carefully, "what do you propose?"

This is it, thought Jim.

"Then," he said, voice trembling and eyes closing as if to disappear, "take me instead."

The major's brow furrowed deep, as if pulled by an invisible string. Talk fast, thought Jim.

"You'll have your women," he said. "And your future. But if the men want anything else -- they can come to me instead."

The major stepped out from behind the table and circled around to Jim, so vulnerable and shirtless in the vast and cluttered room, a skinned animal amidst the military pomp, a wild creature removed of its protective shell and left to founder in the wilderness.

"Are you -?" he whispered hoarsely.

"No." Jim bit back tears quickly. "I'm not. But I'll do anything -- anything- for those girls. All I'm asking is a week. Give them a week to settle, get used to the idea of their new place here." A week for Selena to plot your fucking murder and scheme our escape, he thought silently to himself. "After that -- you can go ahead and breed your future. But for now, if your men -- or you -- want something -- anything --" He dipped his head. A great shaky breath escaped his trembling lips.

The major chucked his hand under Jim's chin. He lifted his face to his. Two great streaks tears ran parallel tracks down the broad planes of Jim's cheeks, his eyes red-rimmed but still blue and bright, his mouth open and swollen with terror. The major dropped his hand.

"It's a hard world for pretty things," he said.

Jim sniffled. He couldn't tell what sentiment hung beneath that cryptic declaration. Regret? Shame? Or criminal delight?

"I promised them women," the major said. "But you'll do."

Oh god what have I done? thought Jim.

The clink of metal and leather behind him made his gut sink in terror. Three other men, armed to the teeth, guns and grenades and metal clips softly clattering against their dress greens.

"Young Jim here has made us a generous offer," said the major, hands folded officiously behind his back.

"Oh, yeah?" The first soldier chewed his gum with an arrogant, cud-like chaw and regarded Jim with a rangy smirk. "He going to get us more girls? Just kidding, mate." The soldier jabbed Jim in the sternum with the butt of his gun. The thud made him hiccup.

"You may be closer to the truth than you think, Mitchell. Come with me?" The major crooked his finger, a discretionary gesture that Jim thought broadcast a private wink between the gum-cracking corporal and the vaguely amused major.

"Hold him," the major said as he pulled the corporal aside. The second soldier snaked a jacketed arm behind Jim's arms and pinned him tight. Jim felt the rough weave of the camouflage jacket against the naked skin of his back. He braced himself instinctively away from the other man's body, his tight shoulders aching. The other soldier held him tight.

The major and the corporal stepped back into the room. Some twinkle played in their eyes. Especially the corporal's. Jim noticed there was a cocky distaste written across the corporal's face, a smug secret he was concealing that Jim did not like one bit.

"You want first crack, mate?" The corporal's eyes didn't leave Jim's torso.

"No, no." The major shook his hand in quick, amused dismissal, as if he'd been asked if he'd like to ride the carousel. "I'll leave you to it."

He stepped away.

"Don't touch them!" Jim called out in sudden alarm.

The major turned. "I am a man of my word," he said.

Jim watched the major's retreating back. He watched it disappear, smaller and smaller behind the hallway, so far away he never noticed the rifle butt zooming in from the side, smashing into his cheekbone with a sudden crack of pain and then the black and rubbery arms of unconsciousness pulling him gently to the floor . . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . . pain.

Sharp, in the side of his face. Ringing the eye socket. And blackness, total, stygian blackness that gave no clue to width or length or breadth. Had he gone blind? His hands jerked instinctively to touch his face but yanked hard against handcuffs. His wrists shrieked in protest. The chain clanked against something. Jim tentatively lay his cheek against the wall. The unmistakable, Venetian blind pattern of cold metal on his cheek gave instant clue to what he was restrained to. A radiator. Of course.

Salt, against his lips. No, blood.

A door flew open. A cluster of silhouettes entered, backlit into hulking and broad-shouldered shapes against the entrance. Their steps were heavy and final on the floor. The beams of their flashlights darted in random streaks with the jounce of their steps.

Someone grabbed his head. Light shined sharp and piercing into his cerulean eyes.

"No one hits him in the face again," an unfamiliar voice spoke. "That's an order." Hands reached out and rubbed roughly against Jim's skull, yanking his neck back with barely restrained desire to injure. "Got to keep this little faggot pretty."

"No hair to grab, mate."

"That'll change. What do you think?" That same palm, scrubbing across the oily prickle of Jim's buzzcut skull. "How many inches of hair'll have to grow before we believe he's a girl?" He ran an appraising finger down the side of his face. The hard blade of a thumb, cresting the jut of his cheekbone, testing the hard corner of Jim's jaw with an ungentle, medical precision. He knew what they were testing. He knew it in his own reflection, in every time he looked at his mother (his mother -- the choke of loss burned in his breast for an instant) -- his eyes and lips could easily, embarrassingly, pass for female but the plane of his jaw was the only betrayal of the Y chromosomes that floated in the blood now pounding through his frantic heart. "Need to get this one a razor, straight away. Hate to kiss stubble. It's not natural." He drew his thumb down the front of Jim's lips, splitting them to test the dirty meat of his thumb against the cutting edge of Jim's bottom teeth. "He was right. You are a pretty one."

Jim's lip curled in an unconscious growl. That thumb tasted like motor oil. It took every ounce of self control to not bite down.

"Easy there," the voice sneered. "You're supposed to play nice. Otherwise --" A hand quickly yanked at Jim's waistband, four knuckles quickly pulling a gap between his pants and the quaking white flesh of his belly. A hunting knife flew out of nowhere, sliding in the gap in a flash of silver and cleaving a life-altering arc. "We'll girl you quicker than you'd like. Understood?"

Jim gulped and nodded. That was too fucking close. His balls had shrunk up inside his body in sudden cowering instinct. The point of a knife had scraped the edge of his pubic hair. It took a few moments to realize he'd been cut. The vibrating pain of a paper-cut deep sliver started its delayed telegraph of pain. It was with great relief he realized that the stinging was centered somewhere on his lower belly and not anywhere else more tender.

Now he really was going to vomit.

"Shave him first?" someone spoke.

"Yeah, let's." said another. "I can't stand body hair."

"Fair enough." The knife withdrew from Jim's waistband and flew up to the side of his face. He flinched at its size. It was military issue, an undulating, sharply organic shape with serrations close to the rubber-gripped hilt but long and smooth-edged all the way to the end of its point. Hands grabbed him again and he shouted in alarm. A big, salty hand clapped over his mouth.

"Shut him up," someone said, and hands grabbed onto his ears, knees locked behind his neck and held his head level, the blade slid against the several day stubble of his cheek with a sickening, scraping grind.

"Is this doing anything?"

"Yeah, look."

"Don't cut him."

"Sod off, I know what I'm doing." A sudden sting of pain. "Shit."

"Look, now you cut him."

"Fuck, mate! Let me at it." Hands fumbled in the dark. "You. Hold the flashlight." A searing spotlight burned into Jim's eyes. He felt his pupils constrict with cramping speed.

"Why we bothering with this?"

"Aye, can't see nothing in the dark."

"Look, he's plenty smooth already." A hand crept along his ribs, slid an appraising finger down his side to his belly, like a white-gloved butler checking for dust. "Look, ain't nothing on him."

"Let me see." Two hands ran across his chest in broad, palming strokes, probing the gully between his nipples. "Sod, you're right." The hands slid to his belly and latched around the yielding, ribless band of waist, squeezing in an appraising jiggle that might have tickled were he not terrified. "Kinda like a girl, if you grab hard enough. Push it in, wot." Jim felt his organs compress under the corseting hands bruising the top of his hips. The hands released, blindly seeking out the divot of his navel, stopped in alarm at the faint whiskery trail of hair stretching down his lower belly like a line of marching ants. "Got to go."

"Well, cut him loose."

The sudden unspooling sound of handcuffs releasing hit his ears as the flat of the blade burrowed in the soft spot under the neck, where jaw meets jugular in a fluttering square inch of tender skin.

"On your back," came the growl. "No funny stuff."

Jim didn't hesitate. He slid back, kneeling-cramped legs creaking in protest as he lowered himself quiveringly to the ground. The tile was cold and gritty against his naked back. He pressed his wet palms to the cool tile and stared up into the blackness, eyes unconsciously rolling back, breath shaky in trepidation.

They flew on him like vultures on a carcass, so many hands yanking and pulling, the gruff tread of a boot on his neck, knees on his wrists, his calves pinned between pincher-grip thighs, hands fumbling at the fly of his pants and yanking down, the sudden cold air on his groin, the scrape scrape scrape on the offending trail of hair low on his belly. His skin crawled in revulsion. He bit his tongue, suppressing the wail that ached to escape his throat. He thought of Hannah. He thought of Selena. He bit down with an extra ounce of pressure and tasted blood too soon.

"Flip him over."

He didn't protest, but still they rolled him over roughly, knocking his skull hard on the floor, palm pressing jaw to cold hard tile. Now the cloth-wrapped pressure of a heavy knee on the back of his neck, fists gripped around his wrists, multiple fingertips scouring his back with search-and-destroy precision.

"Very smooth."

"Not even his ass."

"Hold his legs." His pants, pulled off in a flurry of grasps and yanks. Naked. His legs involuntarily clenched shut but they ripped him apart.

"What you doing, mate?"

"Don't have to shave it all." The scrape scrape scrape against the back of his thigh, the flat edge of the knife bouncing unsettlingly against the crease of his ass. "Just the parts we'll be up against."

The parts we'll be up against.

Something about those words made electric panic jolt through Jim's muscles.

I can't do this, he thought. Tears burned his eyes. His hands started to involuntarily shake. Take your eye out with a fork, someone asks you. If you do, someone you love will live. How quickly would you agree? And how long would you hesitate, utensil in hand, prongs quivering at your cornea like javelins anxious to fly?

Just at that moment, the first one spoke.

"This is bollocks." he said. "I don't want to fuck this faggot. We's wasting our time." The reverberations of his voice could be felt through the knee pressed to Jim's neck.

"But the major said --"

"Bollocks to the major! What is you going to get out of this? Does you want to fuck'im? Be my guest. Maybe you is just as queer as 'e."

"Don't start, mate."

"I'm serious. I'll eat the major's shite rations and I'll go without showering for weeks and I'll do any bleeding thing he asks. But If it's pussy I want, that's what I'm having. And now . . .we've got pussy."

Silence. The flashlights dipped to the floor. Total darkness.

"Unless you faggots have already forgot."

No answer.

Jim waited.

That fork, trembling in mid-air.

The knee lifted from his neck.

Hands slowly letting go.

Jim naked, face down, alone.

If you do, someone you love will live.

He swallowed hard . . . and knew what he must do.

In the dark it was easy to find the man's boots. A quick swat and Jim's hand knocked against stiff leather and vertebraic lacing. He grabbed the man's ankle.

The click of weaponry engaged, right above his ear. "Don't try it, prick!"

"No." Jim whispered, hoarse. He ran his hand up, over rough fatigue cloth, gripping the meaty calf beneath fatigues. A cold, thin metal ring pressed hard against Jim's forehead. The barrel of a gun.

"I said . . . don't try it." said the man, in calm, biting tones.

"It's ok." Jim whispered. He slid his hands behind the man's taut thighs and pulled himself up to kneeling. "Put out the torches." He squeezed the man's thighs, trying desperately to soothe him with slow, kneading, unthreatening touch.

"I'll blow your head off," the man threatened, a tiny quaver in his voice.

"I won't talk." Jim said. He tilted his voice up to its upper register, blunting its power to a breathy whisper.

His hands let go of the man's thighs slowly. The side seams of his fatigues formed an illuminated road map for his fingertips. He traced the path up to the waistband. His fingers met in the middle at the hard knob of the top button of the man's fly. It popped open with ease.

"Put out the torches," Jim whispered.

The first one clicked off. Then the next. Fireflies in reverse. A consensual blackness filled the room.

Jim could smell the man, unwashed cotton and sweat and musk and salt. The next button fell open easily. The third, straining against a burgeoning erection, practically undid itself. The soft feel of underwear cotton against the tip of his nose.

Jim reached up and felt the rick-rack of elastic under his fingertips -- and pulled -- but the slit in the boxers released warm, turgid flesh that bobbed against Jim's cheek. It was velvety, warm like a glass of water left in the sun . . . not as terrifying as he had suspected. Is this what girls think? he blanched for a moment. All this talk and posturing . . . and as soon as they get us into bed it's not so frightening after all. He blinked. The flick of his eyelashes against the soldier's cock made flesh jump and breath suck in sharply, not only for the man with the gun but for Jim, startled by the sudden, jumping-bean hiccup of the warmth so close to his skin.

Curiosity overtook revulsion. It was too much to reach out and grab another man's cock just like that and so Jim let his fingers slide casually down the man's belly, letting his fingertips segueway from soft cloth to the coarse, taut skin at the base and slide up the underside -- a slow gasp escaped the man's lips and his weapon dropped to his side with a rattle of machinery -- sliding slowly, torturously to the balloon-tight tip --

Hands seized his ears, gripping him tight, pressing hard at the base of his neck, shoving him forward. Jim clenched his mouth shut in reflex.

"Suck it," the man whispered. "Suck it. Do it." The tight, hard tip of the man's erection gouged at Jim's lips. "Quit teasing me and do it."

The man's hands shifted on Jim's ears, freeing his thumbs to pry Jim's mouth open but Jim was already there. His lush lips parted. He prayed for a moment to get used to it but before the words could form the man shoved the full weight of his cock into his mouth. He gagged in panic but the man held him fast at the nape of the neck, shoving his head closer again and again.

"Cut it out with the teeth, bitch." the man whispered.

Jim wrapped his lips around his teeth and sucked in his cheeks. He'd no idea of size but the guy felt huge in his mouth, gagging, straining. His tongue flicked up in self-defense, to stop the tip of the man's cock from cresting his tonsils again. The flat meat of his tongue curled in the underside groove and the man shuddered in undisguised ecstasy.

Of course. That sweet spot, right under the head. He flicked it again. The man's arms slackened and let up on the jackhammer gagging. Now Jim saw it. Let him go to his own devices and this guy would try to force-feed his cock down his throat. But keep him happy and Jim would be in control.

Jim slid a hand down his own pants. If he was going to do this right, he neede to remember. His right hand jumped to its own volition, muscle memory recalling the motions of pleasure with more accuracy than the conscious mind ever could. That groove, down the middle. Jim's fingers slid in perfect recognition. He mirrored the touch of his fingers with the nubbly tip of his tongue. The man's knees buckled slightly. His moan was unashamed now. The temperature in the dark room raised slightly, the other men waiting in rapt, slowly heating attention.

Jim was fairly hard himself. That sweet spot was on the left of his cock, on the underside. Same for this man? A quick drag of the tongue tested the hypothesis. Nothing. Jim slid his tongue all around the underside of the man's head, gently probing for that dot of flesh that sang out in catastrophic, eye-rolling joy -- the same dot now throbbing with me-me-me insistence under Jim's own fingertips. He slid his tongue in a fat, luscious circle all the way round the man's knob and the reaction was so intense Jim knew he'd unlocked the secret. His tongue swam in another lazy circuit around the head and he could feel the skin close to the base tighten against the forced pout of his lower lip. His free hand gripped a circle around the man's cock and pulled the skin tight. The man grasped Jim's skull so hard he thought he'd black out.

There was no turning back now. The cock between Jim's lips had reached that final, insistent tightening, the man's hips jerking of their own limbic accord. A nasty thought crossed Jim's mind. I'm coming first, you prick. He switched hands for a moment, sliding his right up and down the man's shaft, letting it slicken with his spilled saliva before returning it down his pants. The difference was immediate. His cock jumped under his fingertips and he felt the balance tip towards orgasm. The man was speeding up too. Jim unwrapped his teeth from his lips and flicked the point of one of his canines against the shaft. The man winced sharply and shoved Jim's face deep, bruising the back of his throat. "No teeth!" he hissed. Too late, Jim thought with malice. He'd been derailed from blowing his wad and Jim was still going strong. He slid his tongue with taffy-pull leisure over the man's head and all was forgotten. His own balls tightened --

How does it feel to be the one at my mercy?

And shot his wad, sticky and sweet all over the inside of his jeans.

"I'm going to come," the man choked, and just as his grip tightened around Jim's ears the room filled with a blinding sliver of light. A silhouette, red fabric flapping like bird's wings, the sudden swing of something heavy and thunk, a machete sunk into the man's forehead. He fell back like a mannequin, a v-shaped gouge hacked red into his stunned visage. With no surprise Jim saw he'd been sucking Mitchell, the arrogant prick who the major had first explained the situation to. The others jumped to their weapons but Selena was too quick. She grabbed the dead man's rifle and aimed above Jim's waist-high head, mowing down the startled men -- Jim saw now their undone pants and sticky hands -- with almost unfair accuracy. They thudded to the floor in quick and ultimate stillness.

"Come on," she said to Jim, voice crisp with leadership. "It's over. Let's go."

She reached out her hand.

To Jim's surprise, he hesitated for a moment before taking it.