When he got out of bed, Matthew took the last of the tablets, the three that were left. And then he tried to phone Christian, even though it was only eight-thirty in the morning. Christian had his phone turned off, which was annoying, but Matthew could try him again later. This morning, he figured he ought to go and see what it felt like to be in Lukas’ body, seeing as he hadn’t done this since Lukas’ balls had been crushed, and particularly as this might be his last day on the tablets, or his last day for a while, anyway, until he could get in touch with Christian, and get some more.

Matthew didn’t have the strobe, but he downloaded a screensaver that was supposed to be hypnotic, and tried that.

After getting home from the beach yesterday, Lukas had let Matthew fuck him again, had wanted him to, by the sound of it, and Matthew figured that was two times now. He had felt Lukas’ sack again, and Lukas had said it didn’t hurt that much anymore – ‘Not too bad’ – which was what he always seemed to say.

His balls had been done on Saturday (on Sunday morning), and Matthew figured that by now, by Wednesday, they should feel okay.

He was surprised, then, when he got himself into Lukas’ body, to find out just how painful they were. They were as bad, or worse, than the day after Lukas had hit them with the hammer, though it was pretty funny to be walking around in Lukas’ body now. There was definitely something wrong. He could feel it, from the moment he found Lukas, who was lying in his bathtub, having a bath.

Matthew had stared at the screensaver, though the screen had clicked off after ten minutes, his computer going into energy saver, which he had forgotten about. Matthew was going to get out of bed, and adjust it, but he had thought he would give it a try, and had been able to find Lukas as easy as ever.

He was in his bath, and his balls were floating, all floppy, between his legs. Matthew put his hand down and felt them.

Oh, man, that felt so bad, he said to himself. He felt them for a little longer, and then stood up, feeling the sack hanging, all sloppy between his legs.

It definitely felt wrong.

And after Lukas had dried himself, Matthew walked around for a while in his body, naked, walking up and down the hall, and feeling how wrong it felt to have something like that between his legs.

He got hard at the thought of it, and pulled Lukas off, sitting on his bed, and with his sloppy mush held loosely in his other hand.

He didn’t know how Lukas had let him feel it the way he had. He didn’t know how Lukas had let him bite it, and munch it between his teeth. Matthew could barely stand rolling it between his fingers, but still, after yesterday, it was re-coagulating again, and there were two large, very soft lumps in there.

‘How the fuck is that possible?’ Matthew said in Lukas’ voice, hearing it crack as he said it. Though he remembered something his father had said once about the body being an incredible thing, with the ability to heal itself.

Matthew felt each of the lumps from the top, following the cords down, and seeing if he could find out what was still attached and what wasn’t. The left ball was the worst. There was half of that, or almost half, that Matthew could separate away from the soggy mess that was still attached to the cord. Matthew supposed that this was where he had bitten with his front teeth, biting half off this ball off so that it was floating in the sack. On the other side, on the right side, most of the ball seemed to be still connected to the cord, though there were lumps floating free in the sack like there was on the left side. He wished he’d bitten this one harder. And wished he’d bitten them right off at the top, where they were connected to the cords, though he supposed it was pretty hard to bite through Lukas’ skin.

Matthew let them alone and stood up. They needed to be done properly. It wasn’t any good Lukas still having them in his sack, though it felt weird, and Matthew was kind of enjoying it. He found Lukas’ leotard, the green one that he used for dancing, and put that on. He stretched it up over his shoulders and felt it slide up into Lukas’ arse and groin. It flattened all of the mush out, squashing it right up underneath Lukas’ perineum.

Matthew walked down the hall to the dance studio and had a look. He laughed. It would be pretty funny if Lukas had to go to dance class now, or if Matthew got him to go out in public wearing this. It looked like Lukas had a cock, and nothing else. There was no shape of balls, like he had been able to see last time, when Lukas was wearing it. Matthew stepped wide in the tights, stepping from side to side, and then pressed his hand up into his groin.

Man, it felt kind of weird not having balls. He kind of liked the feeling. It was just like Lukas had imagined in Dr Mueller’s office. There was a sort of loose, slushy, empty feeling between his legs, and it made him feel sexy.

Still, though, they hadn’t been done properly. They needed to done properly. And Lukas’ cock needed to be done too.

Matthew wanted to know what it had been like for Lukas to be up on the vice, and after Lukas had got changed into some clothes, he tried to get Lukas to remember it by presenting to him pictures of the vice, and imagining him sitting up on it. But Lukas pushed the memory away.

He didn’t want to think about it.

Matthew figured he could do something else to Lukas’ balls, and he could do it now. They weren’t really fucked enough. And it wasn’t like it hurt that much. He took Lukas down to the garage and thought about what he could do.

At first, he got up on the vice, and tried to close them in that.

He found that he had to get the ladder, the way Lukas did, to climb up on the bench. He took all of Lukas’ clothes off first, and then sat up on the wood, the way Lukas had.

He didn’t have the padlock, of course, and he didn’t need the ruler or the piece of wood. The balls were so slushy that they would just stay in there. They weren’t about to roll anywhere, though Matthew found that he could only stand closing it until it was about half an inch apart.

It hurt too much.

Still, they needed to be fucked properly.

Matthew pulled the multigrips and a mallet down from the wall behind him. He pulled Lukas’ slop out of the vice and closed the plates together. He closed the multigrips around the top of Lukas’ sack and laid his slush on top of the vice. He held the mallet in his right hand, and worked it up and down a couple of times, getting his aim and his feeling right. He was going to have to feel what he did. There was no way out of it. And it was going to hurt like hell when the mallet smashed down on Lukas’ balls, smashing them onto the cold steel body of the vice. Still, though, he wanted to do it. He could escape to his own body, and see Lukas later.

The head of the mallet was big enough to hit all of Lukas’ sack. He pulled it up, baulked a couple of times, and then he lifted his arm up, ready to smash the mallet into Lukas’ mush, but he felt his arm restrained, as though someone was fighting with him. Was that Lukas? He stopped, and felt a shiver run down Lukas’ spine. No. That had been like…when he was with Christian, when they had been in Lukas’ body together, and wrestling for control.

He stopped, sitting there, feeling cold chills run up and down Lukas’ body. Could there be someone else in Lukas? There didn’t seem to be anyone there. When he had been with Christian, he had known Christian was there. They had been side by side. Now, it was just like Lukas when he was alone, with the idea of other people being there, the imagination of it, but no one.

He decided that it been nothing, an instinctive reaction. A baulk, because he knew it would hurt. He lifted the mallet again, more determined, lifted it high, and smashed it into Lukas’ mush as hard as he could.

He screamed, a single high-pitched scream, went rigid, and fell sideways onto the bench. He dropped the mallet and fought to find his own body.

Jerked himself up in his bed.

Ripped the glasses from his head.

And felt for his balls.

An hour later, he phoned Lukas. Lukas’ voice was high-pitched, almost a squeak.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes.’

‘You don’t sound very good.’

‘I’ve got a headache.’

‘Do you want to do something?’

‘Not really.’

‘I thought I might come over.’

‘If you want to.’

When he got there, Lukas was standing funny.

‘What’s up?’ he said, when they were up in Lukas’ sitting room. Lukas wasn’t sitting down, and didn’t look like he was going to. He looked as if he’d been crying again.

‘I hurt my balls.’

‘Again?’ Matthew drew the word out, making a joke of it.

Lukas nodded.

‘Well, what did you do to them this time?’

‘I hit them with a mallet.’

‘With a mallet?’ Again, Matthew made a joke of it.

Lukas nodded, and blinked a rapid surge of tears out of his eyes.

‘It wasn’t me,’ he said, wiping the tears away and blowing his nose on a tissue. ‘I didn’t do it.’

Matthew stared at him.

‘Someone made me. There’s spirits in me. I’m possessed.’

‘Lukas…?’ Matthew started.

‘Don’t. Don’t say it. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s true. They make me do things. They take me over. I don’t even know what I’m doing.’

Matthew nodded, looking at him.

‘Can I take my jeans off?’ Lukas said.

Matthew shrugged.

Lukas unbuttoned his jeans and pulled them down. He didn’t have any jocks on, and his sack was swollen like a balloon. A single sphere, Matthew saw, as Lukas stood up again, folding the jeans. Red, and puffy and swollen. It looked pretty bad.

‘Shit. That looks pretty bad.’

Lukas nodded, and started crying again, wiping his face with his hand.

‘Hey,’ Matthew said, standing up and putting his arms around him. Matthew sat him down next to him on the couch and held him.

In a minute or two, Lukas stopped crying.

‘Does it really hurt?’

Lukas nodded.

‘Did you take something?’

Lukas nodded again.

Matthew paused.

‘You know, Lukas, you’d probably be better off if you didn’t have them.’

‘How would I?’

‘Well you wouldn’t be able to hurt them anymore. They wouldn’t be there.’

‘But I want them. I want them to be okay again.’

‘From the look of things,’ Matthew said, taking Lukas’ sack in his hand, ‘that’s just not going to be possible.’

Lukas nodded, held in Matthew’s arms.

It was pretty bad for him, Matthew supposed, but it wouldn’t really be over until all of his gear was done. Then, Matthew would leave him alone. He would stop going into Lukas, and Lukas would feel better. It wasn’t like Matthew didn’t care for him. He did. He liked him. But the best thing for Lukas would be to get rid of his gear. It wasn’t any use to him, and he didn’t really want it.

‘I don’t suppose you want to do something?’

‘What?’

‘Let me fuck you again.’

Lukas turned his head down.

‘I won’t touch your sack.’

‘Do you promise?’

‘Well I can promise, if you want, but that was the deal.’

‘What was?’

‘That you’d let me feel it while I was doing it.’

Lukas said nothing.

‘It’ll only be for a few minutes.’

Again, Lukas said nothing.

‘It’s not going to hurt like a mallet. I mean, you’ve hit it with a mallet today.’

‘I didn’t do that.’

‘I believe you.’

‘Really?’ Lukas turned his head up.

‘If that’s what you say, I believe you.’

Lukas nodded.

‘Well, you can do it if you want. I suppose.’ He said eventually, with his hands between his knees.

‘You don’t have to let me.’

Lukas nodded.

‘I’d like it though.’

Lukas nodded again.

‘I’d like to squeeze it really hard.’ Matthew kissed him on the side of the head. ‘After all, it’s the last time,’ he said, whispering into Lukas’ ear.

‘Don’t you think you’d do it again?’

‘I might, if enjoy it.’

Lukas nodded.

‘Can I squeeze them hard?’

Lukas nodded, and sniffed.

Lukas went to the bathroom, and when he came back, Matthew led him into the bedroom and pulled his T-shirt over his head. He sat Lukas down and pulled his socks off. And then he got Lukas to get up on the bed on his hands and knees. He kneeled behind him, after taking his runners off, fully clothed apart from them, but pulling his jeans down to his thighs.

He pressed his cock into Lukas’ hole, where Lukas had smoothed it with lubricant, pushed forward, and pushed right up, until it was up there to the hilt. And then he lent down with one hand and felt for Lukas’ sack. It was round, like a balloon, and hot. He squeezed, gently at fist, but increasing his pressure as he pumped away slowly with his cock.

There didn’t seem to be anything in Lukas’ sack but fluid. It was like it was a balloon, and as he squeezed harder, Matthew felt it squelch between his fingers, just like in the movie, just like that kid had been squelching that guy’s gear in the movie, with bits of it squeezing between his fingers. Matthew had thought that was a joke. He had thought that such a thing couldn’t be real, but now it had come true.

He squeezed as hard as he could as he came, and Lukas screamed, coming at the same time.

Matthew didn’t understand how Lukas could still come, though something came out of his cock and dripped onto the bedsheets. There was a lot of blood in it. It looked like raspberry flavoured cream. Matthew tried to cover it up as he turned over and lay next to Lukas. He didn’t want Lukas to see it.

It would only upset him.

#

When Matthew got home he tried Christian again, and then kept trying him until eleven-thirty at night. There was no answer.

In the morning, he woke at seven-thirty, after setting his alarm, and tried Christian again. And again, his phone was off.

Matthew tried at eight, at eight-fifteen, at eight-thirty, eight-forty-five, nine, nine-fifteen, nine-forty-five and ten, and then he decided to try the house phone.

He got Mrs Mueller, who he had to call Hildebrand.

‘Hi Hildebrand, it’s Matthew,’ he said.

‘Yes, Matthew. How are you?’

‘I’m well, thanks. I’m wondering if Christian was there. I’ve tried his phone, but it’s turned off.’

‘He has a lecture today. He’ll be home about four.’

Matthew asked if he could come over then. She said he could. He thanked her, and rang off.

By three-thirty he was going crazy. He hadn’t had a tablet all day. His arms were itching. His chest was itching. And he had a headache. He felt dizzy, nauseous, and couldn’t keep still.

‘What are you pacing about for?’ his mother said after lunch. ‘You’ve been doing it for hours.’

After that, he had gone up to his room and stayed there, thinking it was unbearably hot today, and knowing that it wasn’t, that it was him, as he wiped the sweat from his brow time and time again.

His mother had said he could borrow her car, and at three-thirty, even though he knew he would get to Christian’s early, he ran down the stairs and got the keys.