‘What are they for?’

‘To keep your legs apart.’

Matthew had pulled two G-clamps from the wall behind the bench in the garage. They were large, and if he clamped them to the bench in Lukas’ workroom, Lukas could hook his knees over them while Matthew was operating.

They had decided on the workroom because it was covered in paint and clay and plaster and the bloodstains (because there was bound to be blood) wouldn’t be thought unusual. They wouldn’t even have to clean up, Matthew said. It would just be like red paint, or brown paint, he supposed, once it had dried, and there were plenty of paint stains all over the bench and the concrete floor.

They walked down the stairs to the cellar, Matthew remembering the last time they had come down here, and thinking how weird it was that that museum was down here still, almost never visited he supposed, though it was way up under another wing of the house from where Lukas’ workroom was, under Lukas’ wing, Matthew now supposed, as he tried to get his bearings.

They walked through the wine cellar in the other direction from the museum, and Lukas unlocked his workroom. Matthew hadn’t been into it since Lukas had cast his body in plaster for the statue, and he didn’t really want to go into it now. It was only that it made the most sense. And it was stupid, he told himself, to be having bad memories of the casting, when that was getting on for a year ago now.

Matthew stepped into the room. It was cold, and white, with long fluorescent lights along the ceiling fitted with daylight globes, so bright that they hurt the eyes. There was mess everywhere, splatters of clay on the walls, buckets of clay slush in water, tubes of paint all along the sink and the benches, large wooden trays full of paint in tubes and bottles, half finished statues, stacks of paintings against the walls, half torn posters advertising exhibitions, dried sponges and paintbrushes and clay forming utensils around the stainless steel sink, and everything covered in paint and dusted with clay or plaster.

It stank.

Like the artroom at school.

But worse, because there was a lack of ventilation.

It was the only place or thing that Matthew had ever seen, relating to Lukas, that was dirty. Matthew didn’t know how he could work in here.

As he came through the door, there was a large easel, with a painting upon it, but facing the other way. From the arrangement of the palette on a rolling table beside it, Matthew figured it was what Lukas was working on at the moment.

He walked around, and discovered a portrait of himself, naked.

He was standing on the beach, at Whale, by the looks of it, and he had his hands on his hips. He was looking over the viewer’s head, at something, and smiling. The canvas stopped at just where his pubes would be, so it wasn’t like Lukas had painted his cock or anything, but still, you could tell that he was meant to be naked.

It was very good, but it angered Matthew.

He didn’t really look like this. There was a sort of aura about his head, and a colour to his skin that looked too good to be true. His eyes were twinkling, and his teeth were impossibly white. He was like the perfection of man, with his hair blowing in the breeze, victorious, part of the elements, a storm, or a bolt of lightning, impossibly muscular, and ideal.

Matthew felt like ripping it to shreds.

‘I don’t really look like that,’ he said.

‘You do to me.’

Yes, Matthew thought, and that was just it. To Lukas, he was like this, but Lukas wasn’t seeing clearly, couldn’t be. Matthew could accept that he was attractive, now that he had seen himself through Lukas’ eyes. But he wasn’t like this. It was like with the statue. Lukas had done something to that as well. Made it different somehow. He wasn’t that perfect.

‘Here. Hop up on the bench.’

‘Don’t you want me to take my clothes off?’

‘Yeah. Sorry,’ Matthew said, pulling his eyes away from the painting. ‘Can you cover that up with something?’

‘It’s wet. It’s oil.’

Matthew nodded, looking at it again.

‘Can I turn it? So it’s facing the wall?’

‘If you want.’

Lukas was stepping his shoes off, but he stopped, and helped Matthew move the easel, turning it so that it was facing the wall opposite the bench, where there was a doorway into a small bathroom containing nothing but a toilet and a handbasin.

‘How does it feel now?’

‘I feel pretty good.’

After reading the dosage information, Matthew had decided to give Lukas only one of the Capanol. The ordinary dose for someone starting on it was forty milligrams, though he didn’t suppose Lukas would stop breathing because he had taken a hundred. It was a pretty heavy dose. But he figured it would be better for Lukas to feel as little pain as possible. That way he could enjoy it.

Matthew attached the G-clamps to the bench, separating them out wide enough to force Lukas into the splits position. He wanted him right on the edge of the bench, so that his sack was hanging over it.

Lukas took all of his clothes off and folded them into a neat pile on top of his shoes.

‘I might put them in the music room,’ he said, and then he walked through into it, taking the clothes with him.

‘Don’t you think you ought to take your clothes off?’ he said when he came back.

‘My clothes?’

‘Well you’re going to get blood on you, aren’t you?’

Lukas was all drowsy, and he stumbled, falling sideways into a chair. He laughed.

Matthew smiled at him.

‘I suppose I’d better,’ he said.

He took his clothes off the way Lukas had, folding them, and putting them in a neat pile on the top of his shoes. He was wearing a jockstrap, which he thought was a pretty stupid thing to have put on this morning, but he decided to leave it on. He didn’t want to be standing there naked while he did Lukas’ nuts, though he supposed he would get blood on it. He would have to throw it away.

He carried his clothes through into the music room, where the walls and ceiling were covered in grey, corrugated foam. It was quiet in here, and clean. Lukas’ violin was on a bench, in it’s case. There was a piano, a small upright one, though Matthew didn’t see how it had ever been brought down here. The floor was carpeted. And there was a music stand, with music on it, and a couple of chairs. Matthew put his clothes onto one of the chairs, the way Lukas had done. And then he walked back through to the workroom, closing the door behind him.

He boiled some water in the kettle and found the cleanest ice-cream container he could. He washed it out at the sink, using detergent, and then he wiped the inside with the antiseptic he had brought down with him. He poured the boiling water into it. If he needed it, it was there.

‘Are you ready?’

Lukas was still in the chair he had fallen into, and was sitting in it sideways, looking up at Matthew. He smiled at him dreamily, and nodded.

‘Here,’ Matthew said, walking over and picking him up. He lifted him under the arms and swung him up onto the bench. It was a lot lower than the bench in the garage.

‘Can you put your knees around these?’ Matthew said. He picked one of Lukas’ knees up and put it on the other side of the G-clamp, and then he picked the other one up, and tried to put it over the other G-clamp, but he had put them too far apart, and anyway, it wasn’t going to work. Lukas would have to do the splits along the edge of the bench with his legs straight out, if his sack was going to hang over the edge.

‘Hang on,’ Matthew said.

He found two blocks of clay that were still wrapped in plastic and he slid them up the bench till they were behind Lukas.

‘You can lean back against these. But you’re going to have to do the splits. Can you put your legs up?’

‘I have to stretch first.’

Matthew lifted Lukas down from the bench and watched as he worked himself into a split position, naked. He had to hold onto his arms, because Lukas was unsteady. In five minutes or so, he was sitting on the floor, his legs spread wide apart, sitting on his sloppy little sack, with his forehead touching the floor in front of him.

‘Are you comfortable?’

Lukas nodded.

‘Can I put you up on the bench then?’

Lukas nodded again.

Matthew lifted him up and put him back on the bench. He lifted one of Lukas’ legs, and then the other, pulling them straight out until he was in a split position on the edge of the bench, with the G-clamps just below his knees. He didn’t look very stable. Matthew reached around him and pulled the clay blocks forward, pulling Lukas toward himself at the same time so that he was right on the edge of the bench.

‘Lean back a bit.’

Lukas lent back against the clay, and his sack was in the perfect position, right on the edge of the bench, and with no bench underneath it.

Matthew picked up the antiseptic he had brought with him and poured it onto a cotton swab. He swabbed it all over Lukas’ sack and then disinfected his hands with it.

‘I’m going to do it just like you’re a lamb.’

‘Baa,’ Lukas said.

Matthew smiled, trying to keep his mouth closed. Lukas was obviously feeling pretty good on the morphine, and Matthew’s cock was straining to get out of the jockstrap. He pulled it up, so it was in the most comfortable position possible, even though that meant that a couple of inches of it was poking out of the top of the waistband.

Lukas opened his eyes wide, staring at it. He looked like he wanted to suck it.

‘I’ve got a headache,’ he said.

‘How can you have?’

‘It’s the back of my head,’ Lukas said, putting his hand up to it. ‘And there’s spirits in me. They want to know what it’s like to be de-balled.’

‘Lukas.’

Lukas wobbled as he pulled his hand away from his head.

‘Careful,’ Matthew said, as Lukas wobbled on the edge of the bench. ‘Put your hand down. Steady yourself with your hands. Put them behind your thighs.’

Matthew disinfected his hands again, seeing as how he’d touched his cock, and then he picked up the scalpel.

‘Are you ready?’

Lukas nodded, smiling.

‘Are you going to watch?’

‘Do you want me to?’

Matthew nodded. ‘Baa again,’ he said.

‘Baa.’

Matthew held the end of Lukas’ sack and pushed his mush up towards his body. It had healed as much as it was going to, he supposed. In a minute or two, it would be out of there, and Lukas would be properly neutered. A castrated boy.

He held the end of the sack tightly, put the scalpel underneath it, and pulled up. It sliced right through it.

‘Baa,’ Lukas said.

‘Did it even hurt?’

Lukas shook his head. ‘Baa,’ he said, smiling.

He was totally out of it.

Matthew had about a third of Lukas’ sack in his hand and he didn’t know what to do with it. With his other hand he was keeping the sack closed together, but there was blood dripping out of it, and, like he had thought, a little had sprayed onto the front of his white jockstrap.

Matthew dropped the end of Lukas’ sack onto the floor, and stood on it, rolling it under his foot. It felt like he was stepping on a ripe piece of fruit.

‘Watch this,’ Matthew said.

He squatted down in front of Lukas and put his mouth right up to Lukas’ sack.

‘Baa!’ Lukas said, with a little more enthusiasm.

Matthew pulled the sack open onto his mouth, like he was eating a mango, and searched forward with his lips and his tongue and his teeth. He tasted blood, and sucked the shattered remains of Lukas’ balls into his mouth as he searched forward for the still remaining lumps that were attached to the cords. He found the testes, sucked one into either side of his mouth, and he clamped his teeth down over the cords.

He pulled his head back slowly, watching the cords stretch out of Lukas’ sack like they were elastic.

‘Ow!’ Lukas said.

Matthew pulled his head back further, stretching them out as slowly as possible, and with his hands on the inside of Lukas’ thighs.

‘Arrr!’ Lukas said.

Matthew turned his eyes up and looked at Lukas’ face. He looked worried more than anything. He didn’t seem to be feeling much pain. Matthew put his hands up on Lukas’ stomach, holding him back while he pulled back on the cords with his mouth.

One snapped, and hit Matthew in the mouth. He blinked, just managing to see it snap back into Lukas’ wound.

‘Oo! That one’s gone,’ Lukas said.

And as he was saying it the other one snapped, hitting Matthew’s lips and recoiling into Lukas’ body.

‘Both gone.’

Matthew stood up, holding Lukas on either side of the stomach, and with all of Lukas’ testes in his mouth. He started to chew.

Lukas opened his mouth in disbelief, looking like a little kid who’s seen something he’s never seen before.

Matthew chewed, and then opened his mouth, smiling, showing Lukas all the mushed up remains of his nuts spread all through Matthew’s teeth.

Lukas smiled. Uncertainly. He couldn’t help it.

And Matthew blew his load, spraying his stomach and chest as his load blew from his trapped cock vertically, jetting up to shoulder height. It draped all over him while he went back to chewing. He scooped the come up with his hand and wiped it over Lukas’ chest, smearing it over his nipples. Lukas smiled, wriggling his body to get away from the come, his mouth open.

Matthew locked his eyes on Lukas’, chewing.

And then he swallowed in one big gulp.

Lukas closed his mouth and swallowed, staring at Matthew’s face. He looked like he was going to cry.

Matthew raised his fists to his chest and beat on it, like he was Tarzan, smiling at Lukas who smiled back at him uncertainly. Matthew leaned forward and brushed Lukas’ his hair away from his brow. He kissed him on the forehead, leaving the shape of his lips there, like lipstick, though it was blood.

And then he squatted down, and started to suture Lukas’ wound up, knowing, as he did so, that he had blood and come all over him, and was feeling sick in the stomach.