The next morning, Lukas balls were swollen. They were painful, and he felt sick in the stomach.

It was no fun for Matthew. It was no fun being in Lukas’ body.

Matthew figured they could go to the beach. He could get Lukas to ring him and ask him, could get Lukas to wear jocks again and forget his trunks, and then it would be just like last week, when Lukas had lost his jocks in the surf, having them round his thighs, round his ankles, getting dumped time and again, and then losing them altogether.

And all the time he would know how painful Lukas’ balls were.

Because he had hit them with a hammer.

Lukas wondered how Matthew would know his balls were painful. He wondered why he was telling himself that Matthew had hit his balls with a hammer, when he knew he had done it himself. He was wondering why he would want to wear jocks again, in the surf, when that had been shameful, and telling himself that Matthew wouldn’t find it sexy, hadn’t found it sexy, when he lost them. Of course not.

Matthew agreed.

He didn’t, he said to Lukas.

Of course he wouldn’t.

Lukas knew that.

And Matthew hadn’t rung him since last week. So how could he ring Matthew? Matthew didn’t want to see him again, most likely, after all that stuff at the beach. That had been so gay. Showing Matthew his groin. Having to borrow Matthew’s jocks.

No wonder Matthew hadn’t called.

And anyway, he didn’t want to go to the beach. He felt sick.

Lukas stood in the shower and hit his head forehead against the tiles, just softly, telling himself how stupid he was.

You’re not, Matthew said, though not out loud, so Lukas wouldn’t hear it as a voice. Laughing yesterday, Matthew had finally realised, if he made a sound, if he spoke in his bed, Lukas could hear him, as a voice in his head.

His thoughts, however, were different. Lukas heard them, but thought they were his own thoughts.

Just do it, Matthew said. Just ring him. What’s the worst that can happen?

He’ll say no. He doesn’t want to go.

Exactly.

But I don’t feel like going to the beach.

Take some painkillers. Take some ibuprofen.

Lukas nodded. He supposed he could go to the beach. Could ring Matthew, anyway, and ask him. He probably wouldn’t want to go. Not with him.

Lukas washed his hair and scrubbed his body with the loofah, being gentle with his sack, his balls. They really did hurt. He really did feel sick. And Matthew would be glad to get back into his own body.

What? What the fuck does that mean? I’ll be glad to get back into my own body? Lukas felt like he was going crazy again.

‘Isn’t this my own body?’ he said, speaking loudly, almost yelling at the phantoms in his head.

He dried himself, and put the lotion onto his pubes, under his arms, checked to see if there was any hair growing, and then walked down the hallway to his bedroom, naked.

He opened the top drawer in his chest of drawers.

Matthew figured he could find a really good pair of jocks. An even worse pair than he had worn last Wednesday.

Lukas frowned.

‘I’ll take trunks,’ he said.

He wondered if he shouldn’t put some speedos on now, and started to close the top drawer again when it occurred to him he didn’t even know if he was going yet, and that speedos would be uncomfortable, given the state of his balls. He could take them, and put them on when he got there.

Don’t even take them, Matthew said.

Lukas pushed the thought away.

Matthew looked through the drawer, trying to find a white pair of jocks, a pair that would be see-through in the surf, like the Simpsons ones had been.

There were heaps of white pairs with different patterns, but at the back of the drawer there was a white pair with a thin, blue band around the waist. And the same blue band around the legs.

Lukas recognised these as jocks he didn’t wear anymore, as jocks that were too small for him, as jocks he had stopped wearing years ago. There was a whole lot of these, Matthew realised, folded in the back of the drawer. Jocks from not just back when Lukas had been nine or ten years old, but what looked like all the jocks he had ever owned in his life. Right back from when he been three or four.

Matthew picked the pair with the blue band out. He frowned at them, trying to see what they were. They had some sort of pattern all over them but it had disappeared into the fabric, whatever it was. He took them over to the window and held them up. They were tiny. They weren’t just little boy’s jocks. They were meant for a three or four year old. There was a ladder down the front of them, all the way down the front of the groin, right where Lukas’ cock would sit, all the way from the banding, right down underneath where his balls would be, to the seam. And in the rear of them, there was a big hole, big enough for Matthew to put his thumb through.

Lukas would look ridiculous in these. And they would be see-through. More see-through even than the other ones, if that were possible. Matthew could see through both layers of them in the light of the window.

Could he really go to the beach with Lukas, if Lukas was wearing these?

Matthew felt his cock getting hard. Lukas’ cock. He had forgotten where he was. He was in Lukas’ body. In Lukas bedroom. He looked down at himself and decided to pull Lukas off properly, without any of Lukas’ bullshit.

He spat on his hand and sat down on the bed, rubbing one hand along Lukas’ smooth inner thighs, while he tugged his cock with the other. There was no way he was touching Lukas’ balls. They were aching. It took a minute, maybe more. It was harder in Lukas’ body. Lukas didn’t come as easily as he did. Still, it somehow felt sweeter when he did. Matthew lay back on the bed, feeling Lukas’ hard little nipples, rubbing his hand over Lukas’ stomach and fingering his navel. Man, it felt so good.

He let Lukas’ cock spurt its juice upward in a little arc, and he rubbed it into his groin. Maybe that would make the hair grow.

He lay there for a while, and felt like he could even go to sleep.

Lukas was…not there. Disappeared when he took control. And it was better like this.

Still, though, he felt sick.

‘And these balls feel like they’ve been smashed with a hammer,’ he said, in Lukas voice, with Lukas’ mouth, with Lukas’ clear, pure, tones, which were somehow like the singing of a song.

How would it sound when his balls were crushed?

He’d be back in the choir then.

Matthew figured he should wash Lukas’ groin. Lukas wouldn’t have done that. Wouldn’t have let his come go all over his skin without cleaning it off. He walked back up to the bathroom and washed it with Lukas’ soap. Man, his balls were tender. That really had been too much yesterday, with the hammer. He’d really come close then. He would have to be careful.

The thing was, if Lukas was going to do it, and he was going to do it – there was no way Lukas could keep fucking with his balls the way he was without crushing them – if that was going to happen, then Matthew didn’t see why he shouldn’t be the one to do it. But not in Lukas’ body. It was no good like that. He didn’t want to do it with Lukas’ hands. He didn’t want to feel what it felt like to be the one having his balls crushed, even if he was doing it himself. He wanted to feel what it was like to be the one crushing them when he was outside Lukas. In his own body. If only he could find some way of doing it accidentally, some way of putting Lukas in a bind, like he had been with the padlock, so that Matthew would have an excuse for crushing Lukas’ nuts in a way that Lukas would accept as an accident. Or even some way of getting Lukas to ask him to do it. Some way of getting Lukas to tell him how he wanted it done. And beg him.

He didn’t suppose he could do that.

Lukas wouldn’t do that.

And it would wreck Lukas, he thought, looking down at Lukas’ balls as if they were his own. What the hell was he thinking?

He really had to stop this shit. He really had to try and help Lukas if he could.

There was no way the guy wanted to crush his nuts. Not really.

Matthew towelled Lukas’ groin dry and brushed his hand over the fine, blond fuzz that was there. He could just feel it with the tips of his fingers, if he was gentle. Man, that was so sweet. Poor Lukas!

He really did like him.

Matthew opened the top drawer and pulled the Rogaine out of it. He supposed he should put some on. Lukas was trying to get his pubes to grow, and Matthew had washed the stuff off. The poor kid! It was such a joke how he didn’t have any pubes. But it looked so sweet. Why couldn’t he just be happy with it?

Well, Matthew thought, looking in the mirror, a lot more people are going to see this pretty little face at the beach today. They’re going to see this blond hair, and these green eyes, and this sweet little smile. And they’re going to see this poor boy’s shame. His hairless groin. His tiny little cock and balls. They’re going to see him in a pair of little boy jocks, see them see-through in the surf, see him get dumped, lose his jocks, see him naked.

Matthew smiled.

Man, he was so pretty. How could Lukas not see this? He leaned forward and kissed the mirror, kissing his own reflection.

Man, what would it feel like to kiss these lips, to grab this body and…?

He shivered.

That was the thing about Lukas, he really did feel the cold.

Matthew walked back up to the bedroom and picked the jocks up. He held them up again, and frowned at them. Oh, I see what it is now, he said to himself. They’re little boxes. Tiny little boxes with ABC on them, like they were for a kid who didn’t know how to read yet.

For a four year old. Or a five year old.

One that didn’t have any balls, obviously, Matthew thought, looking at the groin. They weren’t made for balls. The narrowest part of them was two inches across, at the most.

Matthew pulled them on. They were tight. Really tight. He could only just get them to cover Lukas’ arse crack at the top. Lukas’ dick fit in them, but there was no way the groin was going to stretch around his balls. If Matthew kept his legs together, it didn’t look so bad. You couldn’t really tell that they were just stretched across the width of Lukas’ sack without wrapping around it. Except, of course, for the fact that there was a blue band on either side. Still, it was only when he sat down, and opened his legs a bit, that you could see right up into Lukas’ gear, could see the sides of his sack, the bulge of his balls, and the hollows of his groin. Matthew put his legs together again. He stood up, turned around and looked in the mirror. That looked good. Lukas’ perky little arse was hardly covered at all. Most of his arse cheeks were bulging out of the wide curve under the band, and the bottom of the jocks were creased right up into Lukas’ crack.

And then there was the hole. It was stretched out to double the size of a dime, and Matthew could see Lukas’ pale skin through it. And at the front, the ladder ran right down the length of Lukas’ cock, down onto his sack, and underneath it, the skin clearly visible.

It was pretty funny. The only thing they were made to cover – the cock – was the most exposed.

They were too much, Matthew thought, looking down at them. He looked at himself in the mirror again and decided it wasn’t so bad when they were seen like that. It wasn’t like they were that much worse than the ones Lukas had worn the other day.

The only problem was, Matthew thought, they were too tight. They wouldn’t come off in the water. If he could just stretch the waistband out a bit.

He put his hands inside it and stretched it out, stretching it until he heard the stitching give. He looked at them again, decided they didn’t look any different after being stretched out a bit. He could afford to do it more, making sure they were stretched out enough to fall off in the water. He stretched the waistband more, stretched the legs out, and supposed it would have to do. They probably wouldn’t fall off. They were too tight. But if he stretched it any more they would come apart in his hands. They were little more than a rag.

He found a pair of Lukas’ jeans and pulled them on.

He walked back over to Lukas’ chest of drawers and looked through it, looking for a pair of jocks that looked decent. And not to small. He found a black pair, a pair without any pattern at all, and stared at them, trying to suggest to Lukas that he had just put these jocks on as he closed the drawer.

He unbuttoned Lukas’ jeans and started to button them again.

Lukas wondered what he was doing.

He was getting dressed, doing the button on his jeans up. He knew that, of course. But he had been spacing out again. What had he just done?

Matthew told him that he had put his black jocks on, that he had just put them on and pulled on his jeans, and he imagined, in Lukas’ mind, how he had the black jocks on under the jeans. How they looked.

Lukas accepted this. He had just pulled those black jocks on. He remembered doing it, and he had pulled his jeans up.

He turned around, and started looking for a T-shirt.