The afternoon sun lit up the little square. It warmed the patch of grass with a fountain (which didn’t work) in the middle, the rectangle of gravel, the dozen-or-so park benches. Only one of these was occupied: by a twelve-year-old boy, with the face and hair of an angel in a Renaissance painting.

The angelic appearance ended there. Daniel, for that was his name, was wearing his summer holidays favourite outfit: a pair of skimpy white cotton shorts, a cropped tee-shirt which didn't reach his belly button, and trainers. This left a lot of exposed smooth, suntanned midriff. Besides this, he had slim well-rounded calves, and his thighs were visible almost to the top. Only his most intimate charms were left to the imagination, hidden beneath his shorts.

The boy’s eyelids, with their long lashes, drooped langorously, and a smile stole over his face as he thought about the past few weeks. It had sure been one hell of a good summer!

Daniel was an orphan. That is putting it in its mildest terms. Orphancy comes in various degrees, and Daniel’s was absolute – he had no recollection of his parents, nor, apparently, had anyone else. A few faces drifted across his memory, if he thought hard, but to none of these could he attach the name of Mom or Pop. So far as anyone took his parents’ place, it was Uncle Burt and Aunt Ellie. The titles were honorary – it was improbable that they were related to him in any way at all.

Aunt Ellie saw that Daniel attended school, that he had regular meals, clean clothes and a roof over his head. She was fond of him in a detached sort of way, and because of this, she was concerned that he shouldn’t have to spend the entire summer vacation loitering round the city streets. She had an elder sister, named Hester, who lived on a smallholding way out in farming country, a hundred miles away and more, up-State. She proposed to Daniel that for part of the vacation, at least, he should go visit the old lady.

Finding the fare might have been a problem, but for a stroke of good fortune. In the early spring, a local store was running a promotion of children’s swimwear. Their talent spotters trawled the local grade schools in search of possible models, and from a line-up of good-looking youngsters they selected – Daniel! His dimpled butt appealed to the talent spotters just as much as – or more than – than his angelic features. They had styled his blond hair and taken his picture – innumerable times it seemed – and now his likeness appeared from every direction, the store windows, the local paper, local TV.

Posing for the cameras wearing only swimming trunks earned Daniel not only modelling fees. There were also gifts in kind from the store’s range of clothing that they reckoned would appeal to a boy of his age. They included some of the most minuscule thongs Daniel had ever seen in his life, tiny triangles of fabric held by delicate satin ribbons, pink, purple and lime green, and just his size..

Taking advantage of one of Aunt Ellie’s rare absences from home, Daniel tried the thongs on in front of her full-length mirror. Modelling had made him conscious of his body, and in the main he liked what he saw, apart from the embarrassingly small swelling between his thighs. The size, or rather lack of size, of his privates concerned him a lot. His penis was slender, the foreskin tapering to a rosy point, scarcely two inches long when soft, not much more when erect. His testicles, jiggling in their little bag between his thighs, were like robin’s eggs…..

Other boys spoke of the joys of jerking-off. Daniel had tried it a time or two but all he could coax from his penis was a thin dribble of clear fluid. He searched his private area for any signs of hair coming, but found not a trace. With a sigh he tucked his penis back inside his white cotton CKs.

His modelling fees were enough and more than enough to pay the fare to Aunt Hester’s. She welcomed the boy with open arms – life was lonely with only the chickens and hogs for company. A lifelong spinster, she mothered Daniel as best as she knew how, from the moment of his arrival. She fed him on pies of every shape, size and filling. Learning that he subsisted much of the time on McDonalds and french fries, she made him burgers from her own recipe. Daniel cleared his plate at every meal, down to the smallest fragment. Hester was delighted.

Under the rafters of the old house Hester had set aside a pine-panelled room for Daniel’s exclusive use. The window gave on to the yard, where the hens scratched. Beyond the yard, something that excited Daniel more than anything else.

Trees!

The trees stretched as far as his eyes could see.

At his first opportunity Daniel slipped through the gate at the end of the yard, and under that green canopy. Later in the year the woods would be infested with hunters, gunning down anything that moved. But just now, he had the woods to himself. This was ideal. Daniel was a loner.

Something about the woods, and their solitude, appealed to the wild boy in Daniel. He began to strip off his clothes – his tee-shirt, his shorts, even his underpants. Hiding these by the gate, he set off along the path at a run. Sunlight filtering through the leaves dappled his naked body. After a while he felt he needed to pee. Like a young animal he just let it come, watering the grass beneath his feet. Later, he felt another need. Did antelopes and gazelles squat down to do their business and afterwards wipe themselves with toilet tissue? They did not. Daniel pulled his bum-cheeks apart, pushed, and emptied his bowels on the path, scarcely slackening his pace…..

This was the first of many explorations. Daniel helped Hester around the place most days, but whenever he could, he would slip away into the woodland, his newly-discovered world.

One afternoon he tried a path he’d not noticed before. It ended with a gate out of the woods, and a path through trees of a different sort – an apple orchard. There was a climbing plant, with bell-shaped flowers, trailing through the grass; Daniel gathered a length and bound it round his blond curls, pausing to admire his reflection in a pool of water.

Following this path through the fruit trees, Daniel came to a ring of purple flag-irises surrounding a stone basin. In the centre of this, on a plinth, stood a small winged figure, also fashioned in stone. Water from the cherub’s penis jetted upwards, falling in a curve into the pool. Daniel decided that the cherub needed company. The stone boy was holding his tiny penis between thumb and forefinger so that it pointed upwards. Copying him, Daniel began to empty his bladder. For a few minutes there were two arcs of water, one clear, the other yellow, that fell tinkling into the basin.

As he shook off the last drops from his foreskin, a scrunch of steps on the path made Daniel look up. An elderly parson stood watching him, and he didn’t look the least bit angry – only amused.

“What have we here?” asked the clergyman “that has bound his brow with a woodbine wreath? A faun? One of Pan’s people? I see no cloven hoofs, and his legs are quite normal. A young Greek god, then? Triptolemus, or Ganymede, or perhaps Eros himself! May I know your name?”

“Daniel” said Daniel.

“Daniel, eh! Splendid. Straight out of the Bible. Well, Daniel, would you like to follow me and have some refreshment?”

A little further on, the orchard gave way to a formal garden, and here there was a stone table with seats round it. The clergyman indicated that Daniel should sit down while he fetched “refreshment”. The stone felt rough to Daniel’s bare behind. Presently the parson reappeared with a straw-covered bottle and pewter mugs. “Cider” he explained. “I make it myself from my own apples. Let me give you some, and I’ll tell you about your namesake”.

Daniel tentatively took a mouthful of cider. He hadn’t much experience of alcoholic drinks. Now and then, when he’d hung out with other boys from school, a can of Bud had been passed around. He hadn’t thought much of it. Then at those modelling sessions there had been that fancy champagne stuff – all fizz and not much taste, like sour lemonade. But this – it tasted apple-y, and kinda nice. He drank some more and listened to what the Reverend was saying.

He had a lot to say about the biblical Daniel, and it was nothing to do with a den of lions. “Now it says here” he jabbed his finger at the King James bible in front of him “that Daniel was in the care of the master of the eunuchs. What do you suppose that means?”

Daniel had no idea.

“Do you know what ‘castration’ means?” A blank look. “Neutering?” Another blank look.

The Reverend tried again. “Fixed?”

Light dawned. “Oh, yeah, I know what that means” said Daniel. “Whenever Aunt Hester gets a new litter of pigs, she has to get the boy-pigs fixed. A man comes and squeezes their balls in a sort of big pair of pincers. Afterwards they take no notice of the girl-pigs; they just eat and grow fat, till it’s time to kill ‘em off”.

The Reverend sighed inwardly, a sigh of relief. The kid had used the word ‘balls’. No need to pussyfoot around talking about “genitals” or “gonads” or “private parts. He could say “balls” also. This was going to be easy.

“Now, then. Daniel and all the other boys had been taken as slaves by the King of Babylon. The Babylonians were proud people and wanted to safeguard the purity of their race. They didn’t want there to be any intermarriage with foreigners. That is why all slave-boys had a little procedure – can you guess what it was?”

Daniel couldn’t.

“That operation that you’ve seen done on young pigs can also be done on boys. Only it’s done rather differently. In Babylon, clever doctors had discovered a thorny shrub, which produced a sap, or juice, that could be used in several ways. If soldiers were badly wounded, and their wounds were bathed in this sap, it dried the wounds and made them heal up more quickly.”

He paused. “But besides this, these doctors found that if a boy had his balls pricked – say with a thorn from this shrub - and the sap was rubbed well in to the place, the boy’s balls dried up and withered away. And afterwards, the boy would grow up unable to have sex with girls. Think about it. Every boy wants to have sex with girls more than anything else in his whole life, and without his balls, he just can’t do it, however much he longs to, and however much he tries”.

He paused again. “Boys without balls are called eunuchs. Daniel in the Bible story was a

eunuch, and so were all his friends. They had all had their balls destroyed so that they could never enjoy the pleasure of having sex with girls”.

Daniel said nothing. Putting his cock into a girl’s pussy was way beyond his experience - the stuff of dreams. No one he knew had done it either, so he couldn’t have any idea of the intensity of a boy’s feelings when he wants to “do it” with a girl.

“Anyway” said the Reverend. “I expect you want to be getting back to your Aunt Hester. Please give her my regards – my name is Brownjohn – Alvin Brownjohn. Thank you for coming to see me. You must come again – soon”.

Aunt Hester received the Reverend’s message with a straight face. Quite a lot of rumour and gossip surrounded the Reverend Alvin Brownjohn. He had been known to ask boys from his church choir – always the best-looking ones and always one at a time – to stay behind for extra practice. When asked about these extra singing lessons and what they had involved, the boys had always clammed up.

Uncharitable people said that the Reverend’s surname should end not John, but Dick. There was enough suspicion for the organisers of the annual summer camp, which all the local boys attended, to cancel the Reverend’s long-running contract as the camp’s resident chaplain. All this Aunt Hester was aware of. But she knew nothing for certain, and said nothing to Daniel.

Much later, Daniel lay in his comfortable bed (Hester had given him her own granny’s feather mattress) idly thinking over what had happened that day. That Reverend, now. He was strange, but kinda nice. He knew a lot too. Like, about slave boys getting their balls pricked. Interesting! Did it hurt, he wondered. Thinking about it sent signals to his sex and he began to get hard. He slipped his hand down the boxer-shorts he always wore in bed, and began to roll his foreskin back. Then forward. Back, and forward again. The sensations comforted him and he drifted off to sleep.

Next morning Hester kept Daniel busy around the house with odd jobs and he wasn’t able to slip away till early afternoon. He went straight to the Reverend’s garden, nude as before. It seemed perfectly natural. “Ah, Daniel!” the Reverend greeted him. “I hoped you would come. Would you like some cider?”

Working all morning had made Daniel hot and thirsty. He took the mug of cider gratefully and drank it down. The Reverend watched him drink, confident that the relaxant drug he’d added to the cider was tasteless. “Now, what were we talking about yesterday? Ah, yes. Daniel at the court of the King of Babylon.

“Now for a bit of history. These days, who is the most powerful man in the world? Our President of course. But at the time of the story of Daniel, it was the King of Persia. He was so powerful that he was called King of Kings – or sometimes just “The King”. Everyone knew who that meant.”

Daniel had never heard of the King of Persia and wasn’t very interested. The Reverend went on.

“In time the King of Persia conquered Babylon. Many of the customs of the Babylonians were adopted by the new masters. Most particularly, slave-boys were made into eunuchs. Only, while in Babylon there had only been a few dozen, boy-eunuchs in the Persian Empire were numbered in hundreds – perhaps thousands. Slave-dealers brought captured children by the shipload, and the boys had their gelding operation then and there, on the dock-side, while everyone watched”.

He described how groups of girls, enslaved at the same time, would crowd around, excitedly watching as the boys were brought out one at a time and held down on a bench, their legs forced apart – and they would then be gelded. Every time one of the boys had his balls cut out the girls giggled: it was something which, as females, they would never have to endure.

“What’s ‘gelding’? asked Daniel, catching at an unfamiliar word.

The Reverend smiled. “It’s only what you call “getting fixed”. Usually it’s in connection with horses and a few other big animals like alpacas. At Beale’s farm further up the valley, they keep horses; I was there a few weeks back to visit old Mr Beale, who’d been sick, when the vet arrived. They’d bought a new young horse, and the vet had come around in her van to cut his balls out. It’s to calm the horse down and show him who’s the boss”.

“So gelding means cutting them right out?” inquired Daniel.

The Reverend nodded. “The best way with horses is to cut them right out. That vet now, she’s a lady vet – Dr Fothergill. She’s quite a girl! Only, all the farm boys keep a tight hold on their balls till she’s gone, just in case she gets any ideas!”.

Daniel giggled.

“Now, where was I?” the Reverend went on. “We somehow got talking about horses. Ah yes! The Persian Empire. Well, they had such an appetite for boy-eunuchs that foreign slave-boys alone didn’t satisfy the demand. Even some Persian boys ended up as slaves. Some poor families even used to geld their own children! Now I want to tell you about one boy in particular.

“His name was Bagoas. You can read his story in a book called “The Persian Boy”. His parents were murdered by bandits when he was only ten years old. The bandits carried him off and sold him to a slave-dealer. He was a very pretty little boy and the dealer decided to have him gelded, – not out of cruelty: it was just the custom of the country that all slave-boys were gelded, the best-looking ones most of all.

“Bagoas tells us about his operation. The dealer’s men strapped him down on to a table and cut his balls out, just as if he’d been a bull-calf or other young animal. The pain was agonising, but nothing to the shame he felt, even after he was healed, that he was now a eunuch, a boy without balls, unable ever to do the thing with a girl, that starts a baby”.

Daniel’s eyes were taking on a glazed look. It might have been the effect of too much ancient history. The truth was that he felt a bit light-headed, the effect of the relaxant and alcohol combined. The Reverend’s persistent voice droned on.

“So where is this story leading to, Daniel, my young Greek god? Listen and I’ll tell you.

“Bagoas was sold to a rich family who wanted a page for their young daughter. From that job he changed hands several times more, and all this time something remarkable was happening. The operation affects boys in different ways. Some become fat and lazy, some grow tall and lanky. Bagoas’ good looks just grew better and better. He had been a pretty ten-year-old when he was gelded. By the time he was thirteen he was no longer just pretty, but beautiful – more beautiful than any girl.

Daniel was looking interested again. The Reverend moved on towards the climax of his story.

“It was the merest chance that on a royal visit to the city where Bagoas was living, that the King, whose name was Darius, caught sight of him and demanded to know who this beautiful boy was.

The upshot was that Bagoas’ master was forced to give him to the King as a present, Bagoas became one of the royal household slaves. He soon became the King’s favourite page. Besides his amazing good looks he could sing, in a high voice, and he could dance exquisitely. The King never got tired of watching him dance, and he showered presents on him.

“I said a bit ago that King Darius was the most powerful man in the world. Or so he thought. But for every big guy there’s an even bigger guy waiting to take over. Darius hadn’t reckoned with young King Alexander, the ruler of Macedon in the north of Greece. He was one of the greatest generals of all time – maybe you’ve read about him or heard of him?”

No, Daniel hadn’t. He didn’t read books or do any of that kind of stuff.

“Oh, I see. Well, anyway – Alexander invaded the Persian Empire, and in a series of battles, he utterly defeated Darius, who was afterwards murdered by his own soldiers. Alexander took over Darius’ entire household, including Bagoas. From the moment he first set eyes on him, Alexander fell deeply in love with the boy. He took him into his royal apartments and treated him in every way as if he were a girl. In every way!”

“Huh?” said Daniel. He screwed up his face in incomprehension.

The Reverend said nothing, but looked into the blond boy’s face.

Daniel’s puzzled look slowly faded as light began to dawn. His eyes lit up; a smile stole across his face that broadened into a grin. His slim body began shaking with helpless laughter. “Oh wow!” he managed to say, at last. “You mean he used to put his cock into the kid’s butt! Up his ass! Gee, that’s so…..that’s so……COOL!”.

It was the Reverend’s turn to look puzzled. “Cool” was the last thing he expected. He didn’t know – couldn’t know – that boys of Daniel’s age commonly divided the world into two halves – “stuff that’s cool” and “stuff that sucks”. Daniel’s next words explained everything. “I mean, this guy, Alexander, could have a nice time, and the kid could have a nice time, and, hell, a boy can’t get pregnant. No chance of a baby, up his bum! That’s cool!”

The Reverend timed his next move very carefully. As he could see, talking about sex had excited Daniel, and his little boy-penis was hard and swollen. Bending close to Daniel, the Reverend asked, in a thick confiding whisper “Would you like to try it?”

His brain clouded with the relaxant, Daniel could thing of no possible reason for refusing. The Reverend led the compliant boy into the house, where in a bathroom, using an enema-bag he’d prepared earlier, he washed the boy’s bowels out with warm soapy water. This done, he lubricated the boy’s tight anus with K-Y gel. It was in the bedroom adjoining that he took Daniel’s virginity a few moments later.

Afterwards, to Daniel’s surprise, the Reverend seemed impatient to get him out of the house. Daniel expected some more chat, and would have liked to pop to the bathroom to wash his butt, which was hot and sticky after the treatment it had been getting. But no, out he had to go. The truth was that the Reverend wanted to check that the webcam he’d had running for the past few minutes had recorded everything – most particularly the instant of penetrating Daniel’s chubby bottom. He would re-play that part several times.

Daniel wandered back along the path to the place where he’d hidden his clothes. His head was clearer now. He felt strangely different. Was he still a boy, after what the Reverend had done to him, or was he part-way to becoming more like a girl. These thoughts persisted all through his evening meal with Hester – a strangely silent meal. For mercy’s sakes, thought the old lady. What ails the boy? But she said nothing.

Daniel re-visited the Reverend next day, and every day after that. To start with, he was impelled not by sex, but curiosity. The visits followed a pattern. The Reverend liked to talk about castrating boys, how it was done, when and where it was done most. He told Daniel of how in 17th century Italy they used to castrate as many as 3,000 children a year in the belief that they would develop the voices of angels. Of the singer Farinelli who later became world-famous, but who, at the age of nine, had screamed so loudly when his balls were being removed, that he could be heard all over the village.

The Reverend used to turn on his computer and sit Daniel in front of the big screen. He had whole galleries of Japanese cartoons – “hentai” : the characters with dolls’ features and big shining eyes. There were boys fondling one another’s genitals, which were as pink and hairless as Daniel’s own, although the size of their penises made him envious. There were boys jerking-off, with semen flying all over the place – Daniel could not produce even one drop of the creamy stuff.

There were boys putting their penises up each other’s butts, their faces showing the whole gamut of emotions from agony to ecstasy. There were boys wearing girls’ thigh-high stockings, and girls’ nylon knickers. You could see the outline of their stiff penises through the thin material. Their balls looked kinda squashed and uncomfortable. Still, if wearing girls’ knickers turned them on….

From the computer it was only a short step to the bathroom and bedroom. Here too the pattern never changed. With his back-passage washed out and lubricated, Daniel would crouch on the bed on all fours, presenting his opened buttocks to the Reverend, who rode him like a beast……

By the time that Daniel left Aunt Hester’s to return to the city, naive curiosity about sex had been replaced by an insatiable desire to know more. From being merely a loner he had become an experienced bum-boy. His belongings, when he packed to go home, included a black latex dildo of a more than respectable size and some lube. He intended to practise by himself whenever possible.

Aunt Hester saw Daniel off at the station. He had arrived by long distance coach – a tedious journey taking all day. But one of Hester’s neighbours, called Jed Skidmore, had told her of an alternative that might interest the boy. For years the railroad down the valley had hauled only lumber and freight, but in the past year a corporation had begun to operate so-called “heritage” passenger trains over the whole length of the spur, as far as a junction on the main line.

Daniel waved farewell to Hester from the window of a passenger car of a kind he’d only ever seen in the movies. It had a vestibule along one side, and sliding doors led into compartments where leather-upholstered seats faced each other, seating three a side. Daniel quickly made himself comfortable as the train began to move.

At the last minute Daniel’s solitude was shattered by two guys who flung the sliding door back and hurtled into the compartment. From their suits and laptop-carriers they were obviously business executives of some sort: one big and burly, with thinning hair, in his late forties, the other slim, with wavy brown hair, about thirty-five. Daniel was dressed for the journey in his usual casual summerwear: low- cut white cotton shorts, wide in the leg: a cropped tee-shirt which only just covered his nipples, and trainers.

The two newcomers eyed Daniel as if he was something the dog had brought in. One muttered something about “Boys, these days!”. Daniel sensed their disapproval and decided to tease them. He slid out of his seat with a very polite “Excuse me” and skipped along the vestibule to the toilet compartment. Here he pulled his shorts down and took off his white cotton underpants. Holding these in his hand he returned to the compartment.

Either by accident or design his little back-pack upended itself as he took it down from the rack. Most of the contents spilled on to the seat: the gaudy little thongs, the big black dildo, the jar of K-Y. Daniel re-packed everything and settled back in his place, sprawling his legs so that the men could see up the leg of his shorts. Excitement at what might happen next quickly gave him a hard-on. He eyed the two men, his eyes as wide as those of a hentai-cartoon boy.

The older of the two guys said “Young boys these days! They’ve no sense of shame at all. They seem to be ready for anything”. The other said nothing at first, then muttering something under his breath pulled down the blinds and dropped the catch on the sliding door. Invisible now from the vestibule, the first man pulled down his zip, releasing a huge 8-inch erection, which he thrust into Daniel’s face. “Suck that, you litle faggot” he snarled.

Closing his eyes Daniel took the large purple knob in his mouth. Simultaneously he felt his shorts being pulled down. Strong thumbs prised open the muscle of his anus, followed by the strong determined thrust of a powerful penis, up…and up…and up….For a few moments Daniel was on cloud nine. He had the taste of the first guy’s love cream in his mouth. He could feel the heat of the other guy’s big rigid cock in his rectum, and the throbbing as his cum jetted up into Daniel’s bowels…..

The train was slowing down for the junction as the big guy at last zipped up his pants and the other pulled clear of Daniel’s ass, allowing him to pull his shorts up. The two guys disappeared into the crowd waiting to board the express. The young black conductor looked hopefully at Daniel, but Daniel had had enough for the time being.

That had been only yesterday…..Yeah, it had been one hell of a good summer. And it wasn’t quite over yet.

His stomach told Daniel that he was hungry. Time to grab something to eat – McDonalds or KFC. Both were only a short distance away; if he ducked through the underpass and avoided the parking-lot attendant he could be there in under five minutes. As Daniel edged through the parking lot (off-limits to pedestrians) he had no reason to notice, among the many parked cars, a big silver SUV with one-way glass in the side and rear windows.

Halfway along, the underpass was intersected by another. As Daniel reached the crossing, strong arms gripped him and a cloth was pressed over his mouth and nose. He was conscious of a strong chemical smell, and then – blackness.

---oOo---

Daniel was alive again. As consciousness seeped back into his brain, his first thoughts were that all that stuff he’d been taught as a little kid must be true – that he’d died and gone to Hell. Then, as bits of him regained sensation, he discovered he was still in the land of the living.

He was encased all round by some substance that was soft but at the same time unyielding. He could barely move his head or waggle his fingers and toes. His arms and legs were held fast by whatever it was. He could tell that he had no clothes on. More than that, he had a plug up his butt and something tight around his cock…..

Where was he? Not at the bottom of the sea, apparently, because every now and then he felt a lurch, and the ocean floor was said to be very still. Also he could sense, rather than hear, noise going on all round him. It was very strange. But – somebody had put him where he was, and hopefully someone would come and let him out again.

At that moment Daniel was, in fact, not in Hell nor even in Heaven, although he was above the earth – twenty thousand feet and reducing. He was in an aircraft, and the Captain had just begun his descent to a small obscure airport, in a small obscure Arab state. Both aircraft, airport and everything else in the country were the personal property of the ruling family – desert Arabs who had settled there a century and a half ago.

To be more precise, Daniel was in a capsule, and the capsule was in a container, and the container was in the cargo compartment of an Airbus 319, one of five operated by the little country’s flag-carrying airline. The general public – so far as there were any – were not carried by this airline. The only passengers that travelled by it all had diplomatic immunity, and the baggage and freight were similarly protected. No questions were ever asked.

To ensure that he didn’t suffocate, Daniel’s cocoon – which is in effect what it was – had an oxygen bottle connected to it. He himself had been suitably plugged for the flight, which had begun twelve hours before….

Some more incomprehensible jolts and bumps, then relative silence – the aircraft had landed, and rolled to a halt by the freight terminal, when the engines were shut down. Then, more movement, though of a different kind. Was he being let out, thought Daniel. No, although something was different. Thumps and bangs from outside. The capsule was being taken out of the container and transferred along a roller-track to a waiting van.

More movement, a brief halt- more movement of a different sort. More alert now, Daniel began to make sense of the motion and the faint sounds he heard. His casket, or whatever he was in – was being carried: carried inside a building. He was being deposited on a hard floor. Catches were being released, then – blinding light. Daniel hauled himself upright, but unable to focus or keep his balance, fell over on to the floor.

“Don’t just stand there” came a voice. “Help him up. Take him to the bathroom, and – be gentle!” The voice was in English, though accented, and didn’t sound unkindly. Two pairs of arms half-supported, half-carried Daniel into a perfectly ordinary white-tiled bathroom. Fingers removed his butt-plug; other fingers removed from his penis the plastic ring he’d worn during the flight to prevent him peeing inside the capsule. Daniel made for the toilet as a drowning man makes for a life raft and relieved himself, copiously and noisily.

“See he gets a shower” was the next command.

Towelling himself down and feeling rather better, Daniel took a good look at his kidnappers – if that was what they were. The two men who had taken him to the bathroom were dressed alike in pale blue cotton jackets and trousers. The one who had been speaking was different. He was dressed like something from the movies: an ankle-length long-sleeved white garment, and over his head a white cloth, held in place by a single, thick black cord. In short, the traditional Arab dress of “dishdasha” and “khaffiyeh” – words Daniel had never heard of.

This man came over to Daniel with a pleasant smile. “Nice and dry now? Good. Put this on”. He handed Daniel a long narrow oblong of white linen. Daniel looked at it helplessly. The man showed him how to wind one end round his waist, leaving enough to pull up between his thighs and tuck in at the front. “You’ll do” said the man. “Let’s get this over with”.

With Daniel pattering barefooted at his heels, the man led him through a maze of corridors. Passing through a heavy door they entered a room which – despite the brightness of the day outside – was lit by torches stuck in brackets on the wall. By their fitful light Daniel could make out elaborate hangings and tapestry, pieces of heavy carved furniture, the gleam of gold. Before a huge ornate chair stood a big, heavily-built man. He was similarly dressed, but his garment was embroidered, and there were three thick gold cords to his headcloth.

To his surprise Daniel’s escort dropped to his knees and bowed his head. “Down!” he hissed to Daniel, who did the same, all uncomprehending. “Doctor Aziz?” inquired a deep voice.

“Yes, Highness”.

“You have brought the boy?”

“Yes, Highness”.

“Is he suitable?”

“Yes, Highness. Just the right age”.

“Then, do whatever is necessary”. The big man gave a wave of dismissal.

Dr Aziz, for that was apparently his name, led the way back. He showed Daniel into a rather bare room, furnished with a marble-topped table and two wooden chairs. Instead of a window there was a marble screen elaborately pierced with geometric shapes. He closed the door and motioned to Daniel to sit down.

Emboldened, Daniel asked who the big man was.

“That’s Sheikh Ibrahim, our ruler” said Dr Aziz. “And by the way, there’s a strict rule which you must learn to keep to – no questions! Only speak when you are spoken to”.

Daniel nodded.

“Sheikh Ibrahim is blind” went on Dr Aziz. It’s quite a tragic story. Our country is very small and bounded on three sides by desert. For centuries, marauding tribes from the interior used to carry out raids across our borders. When he was no more than sixteen or seventeen, Sheikh – or I should say Prince Ibrahim as he was then, was on a hunting expedition near the border, when one of these raiding parties captured him. Sheikh Abdullah, his father, paid the ransom money, and the young man was released, but before they let him go, his captors blinded him, so that he could not recognise them again.

“That’s not quite the end of the story. The old Sheikh at once organised scouting groups to go out into the desert and kill anyone they encountered. It still goes on. None are spared.

“Young Prince Ibrahim found a bride, in spite of his blindness. A daughter was born – she is fifteen years old now, and lives in another part of this palace. I’ll tell you more about her in a minute. It’s time I explained where I come in, and more importantly where you come in.”

Daniel was all ears.

“You’ll have gathered that my name is Aziz, and that I’m a doctor – to be more precise a surgeon. Where did I learn to speak English? Well in a sense, I was born speaking it. I don’t speak Arabic very well at all! By birth I’m a Pakistani, born in Bradford, England. After school took my degrees and trained at Guy’s Hospital in London. I’m an FRCS if you know what that means”.

Daniel didn’t.

“I practised first in London, then for a time in Washington DC. There I met the Ambassador to this country who told me about His Highness, and that he needed a personal physician. I accepted. The post has its disadvantages, but I am a Muslim, and I felt it to be my duty.

“Before I go on, I propose some refreshment – would you care for some coffee?

Daniel, who had had nothing to eat or drink for 24 hours would gladly have accepted anything at all. Dr Aziz smiled and clapped his hands. Almost at once an attendant appeared with a tray.

Daniel had drunk plenty of coffee in his life, but this was unlike anything he’d ever tasted. It came in very small cups, it was very black and tarry, as well as being very sweet. But as there was nothing else on offer he drank it down in one go.

“Now, then, Daniel. Don’t be alarmed” (for Daniel had started, on hearing his name from a stranger) “ I’ve known your name for quite a while, because you have been watched. Now I said a bit ago that the ruler has a 15-year-old daughter. Her name is Yasmin only of course we don’t use it; we all call her “Highness”. Tradition allows her to have a boy as a personal attendant. We don’t use the word “slave” round here even though, in effect, that’s what it is.

“Till recently she had a local boy. Then out of the blue she said he was unsuitable. Since he had no family we sold him across the frontier. The problem was, even in an out-of-the way place like this, a teenage girl is sure to get sophisticated ideas. She has become besotted by the West and everything to do with the West. When I offered her a Pakistani boy, raised like myself in Britain, she turned me down flat. She wanted an American boy. Only an American boy would do. And so, Daniel, we selected you”.

“But…” Daniel began. Dr Aziz waved him to silence with one hand. “No, Daniel, there are no buts. We had been observing you for some time and selected you for a number of reasons. Some of these are obvious – others, perhaps, less so. But here you are and here you stay, for your foreseeable future.”

The Doctor paused and smiled. “No one knows where you are, Daniel, and, from what I’ve been told, no one particularly cares. Even if they did, I don’t believe that anyone you know, back in the States, is capable of raising the sort of sum we should demand, as the price for sending you back.” He paused to let this sink in.

Daniel suddenly felt sleepy and gave an enormous yawn. The Doctor leant forward conspiratorially. “You are getting drowsy, I see. I must apologise. The coffee which you drank was laced with a strong narcotic. You will soon be fast asleep. And I must apologise, in advance for another thing – something I must do. In order to become Her Highness’ personal attendant you must have an operation. While you are unconscious you will have your testicles removed. I’m sorry but it’s part of the culture and tradition demands it”.

Daniel only heard him as far as “have your testicles removed”. Then the Mogadon kicked in and his central nervous system went on standby. Dr Aziz caught him as he keeled sideways and buckled at the knees.

Two of the Doctor’s blue-clad assistants carried Daniel to the operating theatre and placed him on the table to be gelded. They unwound the cloth from around his waist and swabbed his genital area with surgical spirit. By now Dr Aziz had changed into his surgical overalls and scrubbed up. The assistants had prepared all the instruments he was likely to need. They had seen this operation many times.

Working very fast, Dr Aziz put a clamp over Daniel’s genitals to hold his penis out of the way and stretch the skin of his scrotum. A small incision on each side sufficed to ease Daniel’s small testicles out of the sac, still attached by their cords. To each of these Dr Aziz attached an emasculator, leaving it to compress the cord for a full two minutes by his watch. This done, he snipped them, detaching Daniel’s testicles from his body. A soluble stitch on each side, a gauze dressing taped into place to absorb any fluids, and the operation was complete. Like his biblical namesake Daniel was a boy-eunuch.

Dr Aziz surveyed his handiwork for a moment, then reached for another instrument, intending to remove Daniel’s foreskin. Then he had second thoughts, frowned, and put it down again. He didn’t really enjoy castrating preteen boys. This kid wasn’t a Muslim, and he’d already removed enough to make him harmless. Then, it being that time of day, he changed back into ordinary clothes and went to say his prayers.

Daniel, when he came around from the anaesthetic, found himself castrated but still uncircumcised. The painkillers were wearing off and his spermatic cords had begun to throb. Some words resounded in his memory: “Every boy wants to have sex with girls more than anything else in his whole life, and without balls, he just can’t do it, however much he longs to, and however much he tries”. He began to weep softly, at the thought of losing his sex life before it had even begun – for the girls he would never fuck.

But he didn’t weep for long. Footsteps sounded in the corridor, accompanied by a smell of food. Daniel had had nothing to eat for twenty-four hours and was ravenous. His visitors were Dr Aziz and one of his attendants, who, Daniel could see, was only a youth, probably no more than sixteen.

“Good morning, Daniel” said the doctor cheerfully. “We’ve brought you something to eat”. The “something” was a dish of eggs and a round of flat unleavened bread. “Sorry there aren’t any burgers or hot dogs, but beef cattle are non-existent and pork is taboo”. Daniel, who just then would have eaten hay if offered, demolished everything without a word. “Now, just take these” said the doctor, producing a small dish on which four small white pills reposed, “and drink as much of that as you want. It’s pomegranate juice, and we drink a lot of it round here”.

“Where am I?” asked Daniel in a croaky voice.

“In the sick bay” said the Doctor “and I’d like you to stay here for the next two or three days. Now I’ll just take a look”. He raised a corner of the gauze dressing that covered Daniel’s empty scrotum. “Oh yes, drying up nicely. But today I’d like you to stay lying down most of the time. Don’t interfere with your dressing and don’t get it wet. The bathroom’s through there by the way” (pointing). Oh, and I expect you’d like to have this”.

“This” was Daniel’s wristwatch which had been taken off when his captors prepared him for the flight, and which he’d not expected to see again. He put it on gratefully.

“I’ll call in again later” said the Doctor. “If you need help with anything, Idris here (indicating the young attendant) “will do whatever you want”.

Daniel lay back and closed his eyes. The Doctor’s pills began to take effect. Two were painkillers; the other two a drug called Serenid – “Happy pills” some people called them. Daniel’s thoughts drifted here and there. The guys he used to hang out with. There was that black boy, Gayelord, who’d had appendicitis and afterwards they’d all had to look at his scar. There had been the usual crop of broken arms and collar-bones. But no one he knew, or had heard of, had had his balls taken out. His operation set him apart – made him different. It might even be cool to have no balls!

The elation lasted only as long as the Serenid. Gradually it wore off, as did the painkillers. Daniel began to slide back into a trough of despondency. His cords were throbbing again, and as well as the pain of his gelded genitals he felt the shame that young Bagoas had felt, shame that he was now a eunuch, a boy without balls, unable ever to do the thing with a girl, that starts a baby. He began to cry again.

Idris, sitting on his stool in the corridor, heard him and shrugged. The Prophet had said that it was a sin to cut off another man’s genitals. But this American boy was an infidel – an unbeliever. He didn’t count.

And so Daniel’s day wore on – as did the next four. Actually Daniel’s worst enemy in those empty hours was not the pain (which in fact began to fade quite fast) nor grief at losing his future manhood, but boredom. The sick bay, like the rest of the building, had a pierced marble screen in place of a window. Through this, Daniel could see into a little court – a place with no features whatsoever. No sea-birds flew over it, no cats slunk through it.

Dr Aziz, detecting this on one of his periodic visits to Daniel’s room, brought some back numbers of the National Geographic Magazine. Daniel, if asked, would have said that “he didn’t do books ‘n stuff like that” but at least he could look at the pictures.

On the morning of the fifth day the doctor bounced in with a broad smile on his face. “Now, Daniel” he said “you’ve been lying there long enough. Out of bed with you and let’s have a look”. He peeled the dressing off. “Just as I thought. Completely healed. Go and have a shower and clean your teeth”.

Daniel who had been feeling hot and sticky all week, thankfully ran to the bathroom. Returning, he was made to lie on the bed again while the doctor took a closer look. Daniel’s scrotum had clumped up into a fold of puckered skin, which was quite normal, the doctor said. In time, as Daniel grew bigger, the fold would disappear and become part of the skin surface. In a year or two it would be hard to tell that he had ever had balls. He did not tell him that he had already lost the ability to get erections, and that with lack of use his penis would contract.

Meanwhile Idris had arrived with Daniel’s breakfast – some fried vegetables and some sort of dried meats. While he was eating these the doctor outlined the day’s programme, so far as he knew it. “Today I’ll introduce you to the lady Yasmin” he said. “No point going just yet, she’s not usually up till around ten. Assuming she likes you, I’ll leave you there. How things will go on from there, she alone knows. Tidy yourself up, comb your hair”.

“What’ll I wear?” asked Daniel plaintively.

The doctor indicated the linen band that Daniel had worn on the day of his arrival – freshly laundered and folded on to a chair. “That” said the doctor. “Today and every day. It indicates…what you are”. In other words the white loin-cloth marked Daniel as a boy-eunuch.

Sharp on ten the doctor returned. “Right, let’s go” he said, after making certain Daniel was fit to be seen. He led the way through a maze of corridors as before. “She has her own suite of rooms” he said over his shoulder as he hurried Daniel along. At an imposing pair of double doors he paused, but instead of knocking, he pointed Daniel to another, plainer doorway just to the left. “As her personal attendant” he said “you rate a place of your own. This is it.” He opened the door.

Without being luxurious, Daniel’s private room was very well appointed and had its own shower and toilet en-suite. There was a closet to hang clothes in – not that Daniel had any. “We saved these” said the doctor opening a drawer.

Inside the drawer Daniel found, washed, pressed, and neatly folded, the clothes he’d been wearing when he was snatched. Even his scruffy old trainers had been scrubbed white. A lump came in his throat – he wondered if he would ever wear them again. But the Doctor hurried him away. The double doors were already opening.

The room beyond was as ornate as the Sheikh’s had been, but instead of being dark and oppressive, it was light and airy. On a gilded couch upholstered in red velvet sat, or rather sprawled, a rather plump teenage girl. She wore a loose-fitting garment of lilac-coloured satin, and on her feet were gold-coloured sandals. On her head, topping a mass of nearly-black hair, was some kind of jewelled tiara. All this Daniel took in in the few seconds before the Doctor hissed at him to lower his eyes – not to look the Sheikh’s daughter in the face.

“Oh, it’s you, Aziz!” was her rather off-hand greeting. “This is my new boy, is it?” (Inwardly Daniel bridled at ‘my’). “Alright, you can go. I’ll send for you if I want you”. Dr Aziz bowed, turned on his heel and went out.

“You can all go too – I’ll call you later”. This was addressed to three girls of similar age, who had been sitting on cushions at the far end of the room. She flapped a hand at them as if shooing chickens and they left through a curtained arch in the corner.

“Well, let’s have a look at you. Come closer!” she commanded, and Daniel saw her face for the first time. She was nice-looking, he thought, but wore far too much make-up especially round her eyes. (None of the girls he used to know had ever worn any at all). “What’s your name, boy?”

“My name is Daniel, Highness” replied Daniel, as he’d been taught to do.

“Daniel. Daniel” repeated the princess to herself. “Nice name. Well, Daniel, come and sit by me”. She moved up, making room. Now for the first time she saw Daniel plainly: two blue eyes in a beautiful face. His features triggered something in her mind, and words came tumbling out.

“You’re American? You’re here because I want you to tell me all about America. I hate it here. I used to have a governess from England – Miss Horniman – she used to talk to me about London. She suggested to Papa that I should go to boarding-school in England, and of course Papa wouldn’t hear of it. He said I was getting corrupted with ideas from the West, and he sent Miss Horniman away. He’d already sent Mama away when I was only five because she was too modern. He’s terribly old-fashioned.”

She began blushing. She had quite a pale complexion, Daniel thought – she might pass for Mexican or something like that. “Are you – have you been…..” she began, unable to say the word “gelded”.

Daniel nodded.

“My riding-pony had to be gelded. Also my dog. I’m not supposed to have an intact male anywhere near me till I get married. And I hate the thought of getting married! Will you be my friend, Daniel?

“Yes, of course, Highness”.

“Good! And don’t call me Highness all the time unless anyone else is listening. Look, have a fig – or some grapes (pushing a dish towards him). Now, tell me about America!”

Her two hands gripped his, holding them tight. Daniel closed his eyes. He blotted out the memory of the past week, being kidnapped, brought halfway round the world to have his balls cut out. Once again he was a kid back home, in the summer, in the city. As the images came into his mind, he let his lips form the words.

Summer in the city. The sticky heat; the towering canyon-like buildings, and seen from above, the people like ants, hurrying to work or drifting from shop to shop according to the time of day. The traffic: the yellow cabs, the buses and trolley-cars. The fume-laden air, and now and then, from a grille in the roadway, a blast of air more fetid still, as a subway train rumbled on its way, far below. He felt the warmth of a kerbstone through the thin material of his pants, as with a bunch of other guys he squatted on the sidewalk until the cops moved them along.

The same scene in winter. The mind-numbing cold. The shop windows dressed for Thanksgiving, and later, for Christmas. The lake freezing over, the steamers laid-up till next season. The flotsam on the grimy pebbles of the lake shore, the beer cans and used condoms, hidden by snow.

Through half-opened eyes Daniel stole a glance at Yasmin. Her lips were working. “It sounds wonderful” she murmured. “So…so different. Tell me about all your friends”.

Daniel was a loner by inclination, but he had from time to time hung out with other guys – and a few girls had tagged along. They had got up to all the usual stuff that kids do. They had climbed up a fire escape on to a factory roof with paintpots and brushes, and altered the big illuminated sign from “Midwest Brick and Tile Corporation” to “Midwest Prick and Tit Corporation”. They had scattered broad-headed nails from an overbridge, so that the traffic on the underpass was brought to a standstill by punctures. They had saved their piss – the girls saved theirs too - in a plastic shopping bag, which they dropped over the stairwell of an office building; the bag had burst in the foyer splattering the passers-by with stale urine…..

The Princess was fidgeting. Daniel sensed that this wasn’t what she hoped to hear. He switched to describing the disco scene, though here he had to draw on hearsay and imagination. At his grade school there were discos for his own grade and the one above, which began and ended at (in his teachers’ view) civilised hours, where Coke and hot dogs were the only refreshment, and where nothing ever happened. Daniel spoke instead of those other discos, the teenage culture, lasting from dusk to dawn, the insistent throbbing disco beat, the frenetic urge to dance, dance, dance, fuelled by e-tablets and alcopops. The girls would be dressed in skin-tight jeans which showed off their bottoms, or else in mini-skirts and near-transparent knickers which showed off even more…

And away from the dance floor, the casual sex in doorways and on the back seats of cars.

Daniel had never tried to have sex with a girl – there had never been the opportunity. He knew other guys who had – or at least they said they had. If the truth had been told, the boys were of an age where they were barely capable, yet, of doing what the girls were desperate for them to do. Daniel described sex with one of these imagined girls – of pulling her skirt up, taking off her panties, to be able to shove his cock up her pussy…..

It sounded thin and unconvincing to Daniel as he told it, but it was more than enough. In his brash account of fucking a girl he used words that Yasmin had barely dared to say to herself – let alone utter aloud. It sent her imagination into overdrive. Her hands gripped Daniel’s hands harder and harder. She began shaking all over. “You’re making me horny!” she breathed.

With a quick deft movement she pulled off Daniel’s cloth from round his waist. With another she flung off her one-piece garment of lilac silk – beneath which she wore nothing – and let it fall to the floor. Spreading her legs wide, she pulled Daniel on top of her, her hands clasping the boy’s bottom, grinding her love-mound against his limp penis, all he had left of his lost boyhood. Her craving for release reached breaking point.

Grabbing Daniel’s shoulders she forced him lower, till his head was level with the top of her thighs. “Kiss it!” she said, in a thick, urgent whisper, forcing Daniel’s head down. He felt the soft flesh of her thighs enclosing his face, as his mouth pressed against her sex. She was wide open there, and wet. The word ‘cunnilingus’ wasn’t in Daniel’s vocabulary, but what he did with his tongue between her love-lips seemed to come perfectly naturally….

Afterwards they lay side by side for a while. Yasmin ran her fingers through Daniel’s long blonde hair. “You’re good at doing that” she confided. “What girl taught you how to do it?”

But Daniel didn’t reply. In a strange way he’d enjoyed himself. But he was thinking, if he was good at it, who was she comparing him with?

Yasmin began playing with Daniel’s penis, rolling back the satiny foreskin to expose the rosy tip beneath. “It’s pretty” she murmured. “Do you like me doing this? I don’t believe you ever did much with a girl – you’re – I mean it’s - far too small! What was her name?

Before Daniel could invent anything more, the idyll was interrupted by one of the teenage girls whom Yasmin had sent away earlier. This girl came fluttering in, and not at all abashed at all the naked flesh on display. She saw no impropriety, for was not Daniel a eunuch? She began whispering to Yasmin in Arabic. Yasmin sighed.

“It’s Aziz” she explained to Daniel. “That man is becoming a nuisance. You’d better go and see what he wants. Come back as soon as you can.”

Daniel wound his loin cloth round his middle and slipped out through the double doors to his own room. Dr Aziz greeted him and introduced a stocky youth of sixteen, with an incipient moustache. “This is Prince Ismail, a nephew of the ruler” he explained.

Prince Ismail was in Arab dress, like the Doctor, but more ornate. He favoured Daniel with a hard stare. “His Highness” Aziz went on “has certain needs – I’m sure I don’t have to spell them out. In the West that would be no problem at all; he could go out and find a girl. Here, things are different. Virgin girls are taboo before they are married and there’s no other variety. If a married woman is convicted of adultery she is put to death by stoning. No woman will take that risk”.

Aziz paused. “And this, Daniel, is where you come in. The Prophet, among his many wise teachings, laid down that it was a sin for a man to have sex with another man. But, Daniel, following your operation you no longer count as a male, so the rule doesn’t apply. And I happen to know – so don’t try to deny it – that you have learned certain – shall we say accomplishments – which will be most attractive to His Highness. You would be wise to agree”.

Daniel said nothing. The Doctor took this for assent. “Alright, then. I’ll leave His Highness with you. He regrets that he cannot speak English”.

Daniel decided that resistance was useless. For the second time that day, he took his loin-cloth off, for sex. The Prince eyed Daniel’s gelded genitals and a look of uncontrollable lust came over his face. As the Doctor had said, the Prince hadn’t a word of English, but managed to indicate that he preferred doggy-fashion to any other position. With Daniel on his hands and knees the Prince hoisted up the hem of his robe and knelt down behind him.

The Prince might well have had urgent needs, but he was timid, clumsy and fumbling, even when Daniel helped him. He managed a sort of rape at last, ejaculating copiously and noisily into Daniel’s rectum. No sooner had the pumping ceased than he pulled his penis out, no less roughly, and without another word, left the room.

Daniel felt dirty, bruised and sore. Even after a prolonged shower, the soreness persisted – his anus was burning, and the Prince had groped him in front, where his castration scars had healed over, but were still tender. Dried and with his hair combed, he returned to Yasmin’s suite of rooms, finding everything bathed in a strange pink light. “What is it? What’s happening?” he asked, amazed.

“Only the sunset” replied Yasmin. “Some people think it’s rather pretty. You can watch from the balcony if you like. Go through there (indicating an arch). No one will mind – it doesn’t lead anywhere.”

Daniel went out to the balcony and looked over the parapet. True, there was no exit from there: below the parapet there was a thirty-foot drop on to sharp rocks. Then he raised his eyes.

The sea was a deep bluish-black, with a thin line of white foam where it broke upon the rocks. Above, the sky was indigo, purple, rose and gold. Away to the right, the rim of the sun – it reminded Daniel of a huge red tomato, just touched the horizon. Slowly it sank till nothing could be seen of the glowing disc – though the splendour remained for a time.

Daniel turned to go, his mind in a whirl. With Yasmin he’d still had some claims to be a boy. With the Prince, though, he was a substitute girl.

From this point we must move both forwards and backwards, beginning at the point where we left Daniel in the park.

When Daniel failed to return to the apartment that day, Ellie rang the City Police Department. But from the start, she was unable to give big, burly Sergeant Joe Zaderewski much to go on: Ellie was unable to say where Daniel was, at the time he disappeared, or at precisely what time she expected him back. Boys came and went, a law to themselves.

Zaderewski asked to see Daniel’s bedroom. Looking through his few belongings he soon came upon the brightly-coloured thongs and the big black dildo. The Sergeant picked at his fat big-pored nose, everything suddenly clear. This Daniel was one of those hot-assed little sluts that hung around outside public toilets in the hope of being picked up by some paedo, who would pay $5 for a hand job and $20 or more for a butt-fuck. These kids were terribly vulnerable. It wouldn’t surprise him if Daniel’s body washed up on the lake shore or turned up dumped by the Inter-State highway, perhaps hundreds of miles away.

When it didn’t, Daniel’s name was archived to a file of unsolved missing-persons cases, which no one ever looked at. Some months later, Ellie disposed of all of Daniel’s belongings and started proceedings to foster a six-year-old black boy, called Aaron.

Way up-state, Aunt Hester, in between feeding the hogs and collecting the eggs laid by her hens, thought now and then of her strange nephew, who’d come to visit and seemed happy to spend all his days in the woods. But since she never wrote to Ellie, and Ellie never wrote to her, she knew nothing of Daniel’s mysterious disappearance. Life in the valley farms went on before, and Dr Fothergill, the vet, arrived from time to time with her gelding instruments in her van, whenever there was a feisty colt that needed to get his balls cut out.

With one exception – the Rev. Alvin Brownjohn no longer spent his days in his parsonage, nor did he wear clerical black. Instead he lived in the state penitentiary and wore prison grey. He had propositioned the wrong boy at the wrong time. At his trial, forty-two other offences were cited. In prison the nature of his crime soon became known to his fellow-inmates who, to show their disapproval, spat in his food and urinated into his drink.

The parsonage stood empty and untenanted, the windows boarded-up, the garden running wild, the fruit trees unpruned. In the Reverend’s abandoned study, a derelict PC stood, gathering dust and cobwebs. It was from this insecure PC that the Reverend’s incautious and boastful blogs about his daily doings had made it possible for Aziz’ spies to trace Daniel’s movements and put a tail on him till his eventual abduction.

Now we move on a full year, since we saw Daniel last.

Daniel stands in the same place, by the parapet, looking out at the setting sun. He has put on a bit of weight, as castrated boys often do. If he were to take his loin-cloth off, we would see that instead of hanging limp like an intact pre-teen boy’s, his penis has shrunk into a little rosebud, no more than an inch, peeking between his thighs.

His castration scars have completely healed. Daniel still gets a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach every time he sees a girl’s fanny (and between Yasmin and her companions, who often tease Daniel deliberately by taking all their clothes off) this doesn’t lead to him getting an erection as he would have done. In fact his erectile nerves have withered away totally. If anything, randy feelings make him shrink more than ever.

Once a week on average, Daniel has to allow Prince Ismail, or some other of the Ruler’s young male relatives, to have sex with him – to put his penis up his bottom. This is neither good nor bad. It just happens.

So, here he is. The sun has set now and it’s beginning to get dark: the first stars are beginning to appear. But away over there, on the horizon, is a bright pinpoint of light that is neither star nor planet. A fishing boat, maybe – a long way off.

Then, from within the room, Yasmin’s voice: “Daniel – where are you? I’m bored! Come and give me a nice time!”

Today, thinks Daniel, has been just like yesterday and the day before. Tomorrow will be like today, and so will the day after that.

Every single day.

For as long as he lives.

Postscripts

1) Reuters news, July 25th, 20**

Yesterday the crew of a frigate attached to NATO forces exercising in the Arabian Gulf saw what appeared to be a distress signal, from a building just inshore. The location of the building is the sheikhdom of XXXX, which is not aligned with NATO. An armed landing party went ashore and entered the building. A confused situation developed, during which shots were fired and the building caught fire. The marines evacuated a number of civilian personnel including a 13-year-old Caucasian boy who claimed to be a United States citizen. The boy is now in the care of the International Red Cross at their Geneva headquarters, while enquiries are made.

2) From the Autumn Term newsletter of Rxxxxxx School for Girls, Sussex, England

Our distinguished new students this September include: The Hon. Catriona Grant-Forbes of Glenkinchie; Lady Patricia Blatherwycke-Fotheringhay; Her Highness Princess Yasmin binte Ibrahim-al-Meshed……

FINIS