On Monday, in class, Justin broke “The Cracker”. He picked it off Scott’s desk and snapped it in two.

‘Not a fan of the Nazis,’ Mr Thompson said.

‘No, Sir,’ Justin replied, hesitating.

English was his best class – and he was Mr Thompson’s favourite. The only teacher who really liked him, Justin felt. If Mr Thompson knew what Scott and he had been doing. If he knew about Friday!

Before school, they worked out the rules. Scott had had it all worked out already, thinking about it over the weekend, apparently.

Justin expected Scott to disown him on Monday. He had expected Scott to come to school and walk past him – not even speaking or looking at him.

‘Hey,’ he had said, coming up to Justin by the cricket nets (Justin was bowling).

‘Oh, hey,’ Justin said, surprised by Scott, his passiveness and happiness after everything that had happened. Jacko hit the ball and it caught Justin in the side of the head.

‘Ow, shit!’ he cried.

There was ten minutes to the bell, and when they were on the stairs in F-Block, Justin said, ‘I’m sorry about…I just felt…’

‘What?’ Scott said, shortly, as though he didn’t remember.

‘I was stoned.’

Scottie bit his lips and turned his head away. ‘I’ve worked it out,’ he said. ‘You’re not gonna win.’

At lunchtime, Justin listened while Scottie explained – one hit for the first bet, two for the second, and so on. If you lost the tenth bet, and you hadn’t yet lost, you’d still cop ten – because that was the tenth bet.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, say we bet on something today, and I lose, you get one free punch.’

‘Yeah?’

‘If we bet again tomorrow, and you lose, you cop two.’

‘Even though I never just got one.’

‘That’s it,’ Scottie said, pleased with himself and being supercilious. He smiled, open-mouthed, pushing his bottom teeth out. ‘Kind of evens things up a bit, doesn’t it?’

Justin knew what he meant. He was more likely to win (if things kept going the way they had been). Scott was more likely to lose, but he could hack more of what was dished out to him. If Justin lost at ten, it would pretty well all be over.

The whole thing was so fucking stupid! Couldn’t they just play cricket with the other guys at lunch?

‘And I’m not taking my clothes off anymore,’ Scott said.

This was about the bushland, about what Justin had done.

‘I’m sorry, Scott, really,’ he turned around and whispered because someone was coming. ‘I felt like fucking you.’

Scott pulled his head back and nodded. ‘That’s not gonna happen, Jus.’

‘Yeah, I know. It’s just – I was stoned. It just felt so, arhh…’

‘I can’t let you do that to me.’

‘I’d let you – if you wanted to…swap. Take turns.’

‘No!’ Scott said, suddenly offended. ‘I couldn’t…I wouldn’t even want to…you…’

Good, Justin thought. I’d really rather just do it to you. ‘Sorry – I just thought. Is that really true about Shane-o?’

***

Scott lost first, of course, and second. The third hits were Justin’s.

Justin had figured, before this, that he’d stop the whole thing when he lost. He’d say no, I cave, after the first punch.

Scott wouldn’t have believed that though. The punching didn’t hurt as much – not through shorts. And Justin worked at it. He got the old punching bag out of the shed and hooked it up in the back yard under the Yew tree. He practised upper cuts, punching under the bag and seeing if he couldn’t lift it off the ground. The best way, he’d figured, was to follow through, and ‘smelch’ as he called it in his mind, working his hand around a bit at the end of the punch.

He could feel Scottie’s softness through his school shorts, but it would have been better through speedos (if it hadn’t been winter!). It just didn’t seem to hurt as much; and once or twice, Justin figured Scott was faking it, making out the pain was worse than it was.

They progressed to seven and to eight, Justin only receiving the three hits once, and then, on the ninth, Justin lost.

This was his chance, he figured, to end the whole thing.

‘Ha ha,’ Scottie said, pulling the dice out of the grate. ‘Ha ha. You’re gonna get punched. I’m gonna win.’ He was all excited like, and doing a little dance almost.

It hurt – and that was the problem. After the third hit, when Justin had figured he would stop, he was angry. Hot in the face, annoyed, grit-teethed and humiliated. Fuck you, he was saying in his mind, his teeth gritted, the sound partly escaping.

‘I’ll make it seven if you’re naked.’

What? ‘Okay,’ Justin said. He didn’t care about being naked. He didn’t see how it made that much difference really; and it wasn’t like, as he first thought, that Scott was being a prude about the whole thing. He was still seeing Scottie naked all the time. Scott just didn’t want him to touch him, apparently – to hit his balls when he was naked.

Was that supposed to be more humiliating? Justin didn’t know.

‘Okay,’ he said, pulling down his jeans. It was the weekend, and they were over at Scott’s place – the first time Justin had ever been there, though Scottie had been to his house lots of times.

They were Scott’s bedroom – as big as Carol’s lounge-room – and with a big king bed in the middle that the two of them weren’t even going to sleep in together because Justin had a separate room. And Scottie always slept naked! he’d said.

Justin kicked his shoes off and pulled his jeans off over his feet, sitting on the edge of Scottie’s bed.

‘Wow, you’re getting bigger,’ Scott said. Justin looked down. He was getting hard, and his dick, he thought, was getting bigger, though it was never as big as Scott’s.

Scott had never mentioned it before. He had never said anything about Justin’s dick or balls – the size of them, and what they looked like – and Justin had never said anything to Scott.

‘It’s not as big as yours,’ he said, hard now, his T-shirt tight over his abs. It was raining outside and the rain was pattering on the window. Late afternoon, and getting darker.

Scott opened his jeans and flopped out his cock, pulling his jeans and his jocks down to his thighs. His dick jerked up in a series of movements until it was rock hard, and jutting out away from his body. It was like, for the first time, Scott was actually aware that he had a dick.

‘Fuck, it’s pretty big, eh?’ Scott said. It was like he was embarrassed about it, red in the face when in the days with the hose, only three months ago, Scott had acted like he didn’t know he had a hard on when he had one, like he didn’t even know he had a dick – and he was naked.

Justin grabbed his dick and started pulling on it slowly, staring at Scott, and pulling on his own, not even thinking about it.

Scott noticed this and did up his jeans, forcing his cock into the tight denim and having trouble doing up the zip.

It was humiliating, Justin suddenly felt – and he had five more hits to go, and he was naked now, only in his T-shirt and socks while Scott was fully clothed – and with his black school shoes on!

Scott was hard lately, Justin had noticed, even when he was getting cracked. It was like in the old days, when they had first used “The Cracker” and Scott had always been hard. The punches certainly weren’t as bad – or so Justin thought.

He held up his dick and put his feet apart, getting up on to the bed when Scottie asked him and not really caring about what had happened – that he was copping hits. He had seen Scottie’s dick, fully enlarged, which he hadn’t seen for a long time. And Scott had said his was getting bigger.

‘This is gonna hurt,’ Scott said.

And then, as he thwacked the first fist into his groin, Justin realized that Scottie had been faking. The three hits Justin, had first received, and the three hits he had received a few minutes ago, were nothing compared to this.

Scott flicked the underside of his wrist up into Justin’s scrotum, and then he whipped it away. He was using some twisting and turning motion, flicking his fist up hard and away as though it was the ruler again. It stung. Justin felt the tendrils claw up into his stomach and waited for the second. The rule was – they had to be taken all in a row.

Two. Pause. Pause. Breath. Three. Pause. Pause. Breath. Four.

And then five.

Justin let go of his cock and Scott hit him again.

Justin squeeled. ‘What are you doing?’ he said, crumpling onto the bed and holding his cock which had quickly deflated when Scott had started hitting. Now, the head was stinging. ‘Ar, shit! shit! shit!’

‘What do you mean, what am I doing – the deal is seven.’ Scott had a smile on his face.

‘Yeah, but you already gave me three before which makes four.’ Justin had miscalculated, he suddenly realized. He had thought it was five, and he had taken five, and Scott had gone on and given him a sixth.

‘That was the sixth one.’

‘Yeah,’ Justin was sort of hopping on the ground now, holding his cock and his balls and feeling like an idiot. ‘I miscalculated.’

‘You sure did,’ Scott said, ‘because your three seconds just passed.’

‘What?’

‘You can’t have more than a three second break.’

‘Oh, bullshit. You’re not doing this to me.’

‘Why not,’ Scott said, ‘you do it to me.’

‘I don’t cheat you.’

‘No, but you fucking well hurt me – and you know it. You haven’t copped half as much as I have. Not even ten fucking per cent!’ Scott said through gritted teeth, deepening his voice.

‘Is this about…?’

‘No!’ Scott said, ‘now get up, you’ve got seven left.’

‘Let me see the rule book.’

Scott had a rule book; and, as Justin read it, he realized Scott had had the whole thing worked out from the beginning. They had signed it, like a contract, and Justin now saw, where Scott showed, that he would not only have to take the hits he had started with, but all the ones he’d already copped on top of it.

This time, Justin had to stand on a chair.

There were now the seven (agreed number for being naked), plus the three (he’d first received), plus the five (he’d stopped when Scott hit his dick). A total of fifteen.

‘Fifteen!’

‘Fifteen,’ Scott was nodding and smiling. ‘Are you gonna pull out?’

Fuck you, Justin said to himself. ‘Yeah, Scott, I’m really gonna pull out now when you’re fucking cheating.’

‘How am I cheating?’

‘You’re tricking me.’

‘What – and you don’t do that to me?’

‘When? When do I?’

‘Don’t worry.’

Once again – about the forest.

‘Okay,’ Justin said, ‘come on,’ getting on the chair. ‘Give me all you’ve got.’ He was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of socks and he was standing in a strange house in front of large curtainless windows on a chair. It gave him the feeling, suddenly, that he was being made a fool of. ‘Can you pull the curtains,’ he said, getting of the chair.

‘They’re stuck,’ Scott said. ‘I can’t get em closed.’

Justin walked over and pulled on the cords, knowing, as he did so, that his cock was flopping everywhere and his bum was exposed. He felt ridiculous, and it was somehow worse because the T-shirt was too tight (an old one) and said ‘idiot’ across the back of it – a present from Scott, and yellow, like a lemon.

The cords were jammed, obviously.

Justin got back on the chair. ‘Okay, make it quick,’ he said. ‘I’m not caving.’

One. Pause. Scott’s chest heaved with a breath. Two…Thirteen, and Justin’s knees were trembling.

A knock on the door. What?

Scott walked over and answered it. Justin, thinking nothing of it, remained on the chair.

‘It’s James,’ Scott said, opening the door and admitting a liveried servant. ‘He’s come to stoke the fire.’

What? Justin said to himself, unable to move. What?

The man entered the room, and the next thing Justin knew, was that he was receiving more hits from Scott.

‘Twenty-eight,’ Scott said.

Justin fell off the chair.

‘Do you cave.’

‘What?’ Justin said, feeling as though everything was spinning around him.

‘Do you cave?’

‘What? Why, Scott?’

‘You have four more to go. Quick, open your legs, twenty-nine,’ Scott said, and cracked him in the nuts with his fist.

Justin closed his legs and turned over, feeling as though he would vomit. He felt like he was drugged.

‘How had the…?’

Justin shook his head.

‘Thirty,’ Scott said, cracking him from behind.

‘Wait, wait,’ Justin said. ‘That’s it.’

Scott stopped. ‘I win.’

Justin heard a fanfare. Music starting up suddenly in another room.

‘You don’t fucking win,’ he said, getting to his feet, suddenly awake and alert, and feeling like nothing had happened. He wasn’t even hurting. ‘You only would have got…’ The butler (the footman?) had interrupted them when he was getting fifteen, but he got to fourteen, which means that with that fifteen, and those fourteen, ‘It should have been only twenty-nine.’

‘Ah, I thought you’d say that,’ said Scott. ‘Herr Brunner, would you come in here please?’

Scott was speaking on a telephone. It was an old fashioned telephone like those from the nineteenth thirties. ‘Ah, Herr Brunner,’ Scott said, opening the door, ‘Here is the specimen.’

‘Castration, is it?’

‘Yes, Herr Brunner, do I do well?’

‘Mmm, you’d be better off using a knife, you know. But still, crushing is possible. Are you going to administer more hits now?’

‘I thought I’d keep going all night if it’s all right with command. He’s a sinner.’

‘Mmm, ok dokay,’ Herr Brunner said. He kissed Scott on the lips and left.

‘Now, Justin,’ Scott said.

Justin was in bed and he was wearing a cap – a cap like a bonnet, like a woman would have worn in the eighteenth century. He was sucking his thumb and his hand his hand in his other groin. He was wearing a nightshirt, and on his feet he had little pointed slippers, like an elf wears.

‘Are you ready for your story.’

‘Mmm,’ Justin nodded his head, sucking his thumb.

‘In the event of interruption by a party known or unkown to one or the other of the contestants (note, neither), the said cracking session shall continue from the forthwith time, adding the remaining cracks, those that haven’t yet been administered, to those that have, along, of course, with the original number stated in section three – do you understand that, Justin? Justin. Justin.’

Scott was shaking Justin’s shoulder. It was nighttime. He was on the top of Scott’s bed, naked below the waist, on the covers, with his socks on, his yellow T-shirt. Had he fallen asleep?