© Justin Cumberland 2007

Chapter Sixteen

They gave Jason the same tank-top and the same pair of sandals that he had worn in the first round. He thought they might have made a mistake until he saw Todd and the other guys getting the tank-tops and sandals as well. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense but at least they were all wearing the same thing, making no distinction between one or another of them as they had in the last round; and, as Jason walked down the hall behind Todd, he began to feel excited again. In a matter of moments he would be back on the stage, unencumbered, ready to go on with the competition until its natural end. He looked at the kid’s bare arse and hoped he wasn’t going to be put in a position where he would have to compete with Todd directly. He didn’t think he could hurt Todd now; and he had to steel himself, reminding himself of the position they had put him in. He decided that if he couldn’t avoid hurting Todd, then he would inflict a minimal amount of damage and advise Todd, if he got the chance, to withdraw from the competition. It wasn’t, he would say, worth the risk of losing your dick. He didn’t understand how anyone would put themselves in a position where such a thing might become reality.

As he walked along the hall Jason was surprised to see the door of a broom closet open into the hallway. The surgeon stepped out of it and grabbed Jason’s arm. ‘I shouldn’t really do this,’ he said, ‘but here!’ He jabbed a syringe into Jason’s shoulder, at the same time, looking around furtively, he said, ‘this should buck you up a bit.’ He stepped back into the closet and closed the door behind him.

Jason waited behind the curtain with Todd while the other three guys went out onto the stage one by one. It seemed to be taking a long time and when it was finally Jason’s turn to walk through the curtain the crowd was chanting his name, ‘JA-SON-JA-SON-JA-SON,’ and as he stepped onto the stage the sound broke into a cacophony of clapping, screams and whistles.

Jason felt embarrassed. He had always been embarrassed when people made a fuss of him because he was attractive. It was blond hair and golden skin, abs and biceps – a hard butt – green eyes and red lips, a large dick and a smile, Garth had said, which was pure. He didn’t feel proud of these things. He knew he had them because Garth had told him time and time and again. It was embarrassing; and as he stepped onto the stage Jason felt himself blush. He didn’t really deserve this.

The glare of the lights confused him, and, as he looked across the stage he was surprised to see the glass saddles again and see everything set up for round one as though they hadn’t already done that. Jason swallowed. The other three guys were already strapped in. Were they going to do it again? Jason wondered. The memory of the saddles was an annoyance; and, as he looked across the stage, he noticed the buddy panel, along with Garth and Eric, sitting in the very same positions that they had occupied earlier in the morning.

Jason felt sick.

They couldn’t hurt his balls anymore, he thought to himself; and then he realized all at once what was happening. This was another show. They taped five shows in one day. Garth had been an audience member before. He had gone along to the show with some of his other buddies more than once; and he had told Jason on Friday, when Jason was so excited about his birthday present, some things about how the show worked and how everything would happen.

Later, when he watched the tape, Jason realized that they had edited out the sound of the crowd to make it seem like it was another day, with another bunch of people who hadn’t been pumped up by what they had already seen. They made it look like Jason and the other contestants walked onto the stage to the sound of polite clapping from an audience who had just arrived. In reality, they were the same people who had been there all morning.

As the sound died down, Jason suddenly found it comforting. He heard a couple of wolf-whistles, but there was no laughter, despite the fact that his dick was even bigger now than it had been when he had come out for the first saddle round. They had laughed at it then which proved that he was more popular now despite, or perhaps even because of, what had happened in Blast-Off. There must certainly be some sympathetic feeling for him amongst these people. He wasn’t seen as someone to laugh at. Sure, he had lost his balls – but no one was finding that funny. It was just like Garth had said – because of his blond hair and his face alone the crowd would want him to win. What had happened had not made him unattractive. If anything he looked better. There was less bulk down there, and, as Todd had said, it looked sweet.

Still, the saddles disconcerted Jason. He knew what they meant now; but he hadn’t prepared himself for it because, despite what Garth had told him, thinking it would all happen in one day had left him, he realized now, thinking he would be going through the saddle round one time only – at the beginning of the day. Indeed, if he had realized he would have had to face it again, he might not have gone on after Blast-Off, given that Eric had interfered the first time and could easily do it again.

Andy and Sam took his hands and led him forward. He looked over to the buddy panel where Garth and Eric were speaking to each other as though the show wasn’t being recorded around them. Suddenly, Garth looked up and smiled at him. He mouthed the words, ‘Don’t worry,’ which led Jason to suspect that he had been talking to Eric about what had happened in the first round, trying to make sure that he wouldn’t interfere again. Garth was, after all, proud of his intellect and the kid had made as much of a fool of Garth as he had of Jason.

They gave him an upright saddle, as he had understood that they would, when he had realized all at once that this was a new episode. Because he had lost his sack in Blast-Off there would be no point putting him onto one of the normal saddles because he would have had to lay on his stomach in order to get his dick through the hole. It would have looked silly and it would have obscured the audience’s view.

The upright saddle was like sitting on a chair backwards, and, even though he had done gymnastics when he was younger, it was some time since Jason had had to open his legs as wide as this, making the V into a straight line. At the thought of gymnastics, Jason remembered that he had given it up due to embarrassment about the size of his gear and the way it looked in tights. He realized now that that would hardly be the case anymore as he had lost his balls which would no longer be contributing to the swell.

In fact, as he looked down, Jason realized that there was a lot less bulk there than there had previously been and, given that his dick was much larger now than it was going to be after the show was over and the blood had managed to flow back out of it, it would probably look normal, he reasoned, or close enough to normal when he was clothed. Indeed, he might even be able to take up gymnastics again, wearing the tights which, although Garth had always said they looked good, had made Jason embarrassed – and made him give up the sport because of his bulge which grew ridiculously big directly after the accident he had had on his fourteenth birthday when Garth had come to watch him in competition, helping to set up the pummel-horse and powdering Jason’s hands.

It had been a three-year break, Jason realized, almost to the day since he had given up gymnastics; and he thought he might take up the sport again, particularly as there was now no chance of him injuring his testicles by landing splay-legged on the horse which had been a particularly hard thing to deal with when he was fourteen as he had damaged not only his testicles, but his penis as well (the doctor said), trapping it between two sections of the wooden horse which had collapsed when he landed.

Jason watched as Todd stepped out onto the stage. The audience cheered. It wasn’t the same sort of reception which Jason had got; and, Jason noted, there was some laughter as well. Todd’s erection seemed to have got larger since they had been together in the shower and Jason wondered now whether they hadn’t given him an injection. Todd put his hands down and grabbed his balls, circling his hand around his sack and thrusting his pelvis forward, making a show of the fact that he still had them and was about to put them at risk once again in the saddle round. It was a childish way to behave and it displayed to Jason that Todd had an unwarranted faith in his friend, Eric, who Todd obviously believed had the ability to answer any question they put to him. Unfortunately, it didn’t work like that. Unless they had actually drilled the boy with answers he would, almost certainly, at some point, make a mistake. It had, after all, happened to Garth.

Jason felt some discomfort and looked down. Andy had made the mechanism which locked Jason’s dick through the hole too tight. The rollers were pressed into Jason’s groin, grasping his dick cruelly. They had slipped behind the base of his cock on either side and were thrusting it forward, making it clear that his penis extended between his legs, to the crack of his arse. It was uncomfortable, but it probably, Jason realized, had been necessary in order to position the head so that it would certainly receive the central blow of the mallets when they came together. Because the mallet-heads were so large, Jason knew, from watching the show, that perhaps a third of his dick would actually be constrained by them if they did come together. A fifth blow, of course, would flatten this third. Jason didn’t want this to happen, but, given his misfortune in the first round, he had to consider the possibility as he looked down at the mallets, because, being on an upright saddle he could see them clearly.

He readied himself for it as best he could. He had seen guys cop it before – and he had even seen one guy decide to go on after it had happened. Jason decided that he would have to do that. There was no slicer involved with an upright saddle. His dick wasn’t going to get cut off even if Garth got all five questions wrong. Some damage would be caused, certainly, but he would still have his dick, and Garth had told him when they had watched it happen to other guys, that the damage would heal, more or less, and the dick would still be functional. It simply wasn’t a reason to drop out, Garth had said.

Jason reminded himself that there was a million dollars at stake. They were going to hand it to him; and if that kid, Eric, somehow managed to stuff things up again in this round, then Jason wasn’t prepared to give the kid the satisfaction of seeing Jason pull out.

Because he was afraid he would say the wrong thing if it came right down to and his cock did get compressed, Jason began to repeat to himself once again, ‘Yes, I’ll go on,’ over and over in his head, so that when the mallets did come together on a third hit he got a surprise.

He had lost all understanding of where he was. He didn’t realize that time had passed, and, as he hadn’t seen the mallets come together, he supposed it had been a first strike. He certainly hadn’t felt the first or the second hits, which surprised him later when he watched the tape because his cock had been buffeted between the mallet-heads quite violently. He understood, after this round was over, that the surgeon had been responsible for his absent-minded drowsiness, giving him that injection in the hall which he had done, certainly, out of kindness, thinking it would make things easier on Jason, facing a saddle round again, after the surgeon had seen, first hand, the result of the blows he had received the first time.

It did make things easier; but, at the same time, Jason never fully understood what had happened at that point, nor what happened after it.

The third hit had hurt. It had hurt a great deal; but, because he was drowsy, and the pain quickly disappeared, because he had no knowledge of the first or second hits, he naturally supposed it had been a first. He had been woken, suddenly, by the blow; and as he turned he heard Eric answer Todd’s third question correctly, thinking it was Todd’s first.

Before he knew it, Larry was standing in front of Pete’s buddy; and at that moment, Jason became aware of Eric, whose voice he clearly heard saying, ‘A fourth won’t damage it!’

Jason turned towards him and saw Garth, sitting beside the kid, shaking his head. Garth was grim-lipped and determined. Eric was obviously annoying him.

The kid actually saw Jason looking at him. He looked up for a moment and made eye-contact with Jason. He smiled; but he seemed to think it didn’t matter that Jason could both see and hear him as he tugged on Garth’s arm again and said, ‘Go on, a fourth one. Please. He’s not even with-it.’ He looked at Jason again, smiled, and then said to Garth. ‘They’ve got him drugged up.’

At that point Jason realized that he simply wasn’t understanding things correctly. He had just received a first hit and not a third as the boy seemed to think. They hadn’t ‘drugged’ him (if that is what Eric had meant) because the injections had been given by a medical professional who wouldn’t, Jason was sure, deal in drugs. Garth wouldn’t be swayed to deliberately allow his friend to suffer one hit, let alone four, which Eric’s conversation seemed to imply. And a fourth hit would have to come after a second and a third; which, Jason realized, he had already said to himself, more or less; and, at that point, he lost his train of reasoning.

He was drowsy. He felt fantastic. There was a tingling in the head of his cock; but he associated it more with pleasure than with pain. He imagined it had simply been buffeted a bit by a first hit. He didn’t look down at it; and he began to drift again, unconcerned about the hit he had received. Unconcerned about Eric. Unconcerned about the fact that Larry was even now asking Garth a fourth question. He had just said, ‘And now Garth, your fourth question for Jason is…’

And Jason had heard this. But it simply didn’t register.

What did register was the fourth hit itself. He heard it. It was a squelching sound; and he looked down, surprised to see the mallet-heads in a raised position, close together, with his cock compressed between them into the space of about one half of an inch. He frowned as the mallet heads slowly came apart; and then he felt his legs, which were splayed wildly akimbo, juddering, and trying to close. Because he was on an upright saddle in which his cock was held firmly by the vertical rollers, there were no straps holding his legs in position. They were simply spread wide against the glass, unable to be moved. His feet weren’t, after all, touching the floor. All of the saddles were raised high and there was no place where Jason’s legs could have found a purchase in order to move themselves in reaction to a blow. The show had never had need for straps on the upright saddles. But Jason changed that.

Perhaps because he was a footballer and had had gymnastic training, he somehow had the strength and ability to close his legs involuntarily, pulling himself backwards off the saddle and dragging his swelling penis backwards through the rollers which Andy had fastened so tightly. He managed to pull himself backwards so that the rollers released the base of his dick; and as his dick slid backwards through the hole an inch or so, Jason realized what was happening. He put his hands forward to steady himself on the glass panel which was chest high and wide but, as he did so, he lost his balance and fell backwards, dragging his dick through the rollers till his head caught on the top of the rectangular opening. He had a moment of panic as he lay backwards, suspended. He thrashed a bit because of the pain; but his back was arched and his neck was over-extended. He couldn’t gain his balance. He could feel his hair touching the floor as he moved it. He tried to right himself with the strength in his legs but it put an incredible pressure on the swelling head of his penis, which was squeezed between the steel rollers and caught at the top of the rectangular hole.

Andy and Sam came over. They put their hands out, but, as they moved their hands under his shoulder blades and pushed upwards, Jason’s bum slid backwards off the saddle. He fell, and, as he did so, scraped back a large piece of skin from the head of his penis, peeling it backwards past his eye and making a flap of skin which caught on the metal surrounds of the hole at the last moment, stretching it out before it snapped back towards his penis as he landed on the floor.

Jason tried to breathe. It was difficult. It was like he had been winded; but he had not fallen onto his back with any force. It was, rather, the sharp, biting pain from the head of his dick which felt like it had been cut with a razor blade. There was a painful throbbing as well, in the third end of it, which was the result of the sudden compression his cock had suffered between the mallets.

He waited for the pain to subside, extending his hands and fingers till they were stretched at his sides, held partly in the air. He was lying on his back; but his feet were above him, his sandals caught on either side of the glass panel where the backs of his knees had been before he fell.

The pain subsided suddenly and Jason felt a warm throbbing along the length of his cock. It flowed into his groin, up into his abs and down along the insides of his thighs.

He stretched his head up and saw that the head of his penis was bleeding. Little droplets of blood were running down the flap of peeled skin and dripping into his navel. Suddenly, Andy skidded to his knees by Jason’s side, hitting him in the side of the chest.

‘I’m going to have to take this off,’ he said.

Jason didn’t know what he meant. He raised his head up further and watched Andy bend over him. From this position he could see, once again, the little triangle of flesh between Andy’s thighs and Jason smiled at the sight of it.

Andy bent his head down and opened his mouth. With one hand he grabbed Jason’s cock, angling it into his mouth. He wrapped his lips around the head, using his tongue to work the flap of skin into his mouth, sucking it and wetting the head of Jason’s cock with warm saliva. Jason felt his dick begin to jerk. Andy moved his head up and away from Jason’s cock, keeping the flap of skin held between his teeth. ‘Hold still,’ he said. Jason tried to stop his dick jerking while Andy put his head down again, enveloping the tip of Jason’s cock with his mouth. Suddenly, he bit down, gnawing at the base of the flap of skin which was across the eye of Jason’s penis. Suddenly, he bit through and brought his head back up. He worked the piece of skin to the front of his mouth and then, positioning it on the tip of his tongue, he spat it out without thinking. It hit the inside of Jason’s thigh and stuck to it.

Sam had gone to get a can of sealant. As Andy moved backwards, sitting down on the ground and pulling his legs away, Sam stepped forward and sprayed the wound on Jason’s dick. It was a short burst because, really, it was only a flesh wound.

Jason managed to unhook his sandals from the glass panel. He put them on the floor and moved his legs together which he had been trying to do ever since he had been hit. He reached down and cupped his hands around the base of his cock, feeling the place where his balls had been. When Andy had placed his mouth over Jason’s cock Jason had felt a pleasure unlike any he had experienced. He cherished it, keeping his hands in place as Andy spun himself around on his arse, taking the cloth from Sam’s hand and wiping the head of Jason’s penis in a gentle circular motion. Jason’s face flushed with pleasure. He smiled. There was a warmth in his groin which was entirely new.

Suddenly, he heard Garth’s voice raised in anger. ‘You little fucking shit! You see what you’ve done?’ he said.

When they put Jason back on the saddle (the fifth question had not yet been asked) Andy leant forward and whispered in his ear as he and Sam worked to tighten the mechanism which held his cock in place. ‘I’m gonna have to make this really tight,’ Andy said. ‘I don’t want to see you fall and hurt yourself again.’

Jason smiled as the fifth questions were asked. The memory of Andy’s mouth on the head of his cock kept recurring again and again. It was all he could think of. He didn’t know where he was and he stared blankly because all he could see, in his mind, was the boy bent over him, wrapping his lips around Jason’s head, working at the piece of skin with his lips and teeth. Jason closed his eyes and felt the warmth between his legs and the measured pulsing of his cock.

He was unaware of the other contestants and didn’t see the guy called Joshua cop his fifth blow. He didn’t realize the guy had even copped one. It was only later when he watched the tape that Jason understood why the guy had left at that point. Fortunately they didn’t show anything of Jason’s fall and the aftermath, which, he thought, given Andy's behaviour, really wasn’t the sort of thing they could have put on the television anyway.