Matthew screamed.

He stopped, took a breath, and screamed again, but it was hopeless.

No one would hear him. The place was soundproof. Why had Mr Sorensen gone to all that trouble, he thought, looking up at the ceiling, covered in corrugated foam? Did he want to scare people?

Matthew looked down at himself. Each of his arms and legs was held firmly by two leather straps, and his arms and legs were angled out from his body. He was naked. And he was sitting on nothing. There was nothing underneath him. It was only the backs of his thighs, on the blocks of wood, which were keeping him off the ground.

When Matthew had seen this device, when Lukas and he had come down to the cellar, Matthew hadn’t thought it was very interesting. He hadn’t really understood what it was for, and hadn’t thought about it, though now he was strapped into it, he could see how it was used. It was simply a way of holding someone, sitting, simply a way of restraining them.

In front of Matthew was the door, fifteen or twenty feet away, and only occluded by one other machine. He could see it, and it was locked. Someone had put him in here, and locked it.

Matthew could feel his heart pounding in his chest. He looked down at the straps, at the ones on his arms and thighs, and started to wrestle with them, trying to jerk his body from side to side, and twist it. They weren’t the old straps, not the original straps that would have been on this machine. They would have been hundreds of years old, and whoever had sold this machine to Mr Sorensen had had them replaced. Who would have bothered? Matthew thought. You could still have seen how it was used without having new straps attached to it.

He twisted, and strained, and tried to rock his body from side to side, and he kept it up for minutes. When he finished, exhausted, he breathed deeply, in exhaustion, feeling his penis swinging underneath him with the motion he had started up.

The wood creaked. He could get it to do that much. He could get it to swing from side to side, and he could hear it creak. He could twist his arms, and lever them from side to side a little, but it was hopeless. There was no way he could get out of it, and they had given him something, whoever had done this. He felt weak, and groggy.

Matthew lifted his head, and stared at the door. Through the little grill, in the flickering shadows of the flames, he could see the brickwork. Outside, on the other side of that wall was the cellar. McCady, or Mr Sorensen, might be in there, choosing a bottle of wine, and they would have no idea he was here, strapped down and naked, helpless.

Matthew took a deep breath. He opened his mouth and screamed again, making as loud a noise as he possibly could, and sustaining it. When he had finished, it echoed around him, reverberating in the stone chamber.

Where was Lukas? If Lukas was home, if he came home, would he think to look for Matthew here?

Matthew let his head hang forward and shook it. It was hopeless. They had done something to Lukas, his so-called friends. They had taken him somewhere, directed him, Matthew supposed.

And now, Matthew was alone, with no help or friend to support him.

And he was naked.

He left his head hanging, and stared down at his thighs, at the hollows of his groin, and his legs held apart. Underneath him, his penis was swinging, and his arse was bare, suspended. He was naked, vulnerable, and it felt awful.

At least he wasn’t cold, he thought. Outside, it was snowing, if it was still the same day. There had been snow on the ground, but in here, he was barely even cool.

On the stone floor, the flames flickered in darkness, making patterns which shifted and flared and grew and shrank, and then suddenly, a darker shadow fell over them.

Matthew lifted his head. On the floor in front of him, cast out in elongated form, and flickering in the light of the flames, was the shadow a figure. A human figure, Matthew supposed, and not a ghost, though he felt frightened. And was too frightened to turn his head.

Someone had been here, the whole time, someone, behind him in the chamber, sitting, or standing, somewhere, silently there, while they listened to Matthew scream, and watched as he struggled to free himself.

Matthew could turn his head. He wanted to. Half wanted to. But he was too afraid. He started to turn it, but froze, wide-eyed and waiting.

The shadow grew larger, one arm of it falling over Matthew’s pale, creamy thigh.

It was beside him.