Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 09:47:56 -0700 (PDT)
From: Pete Brown <petebrownuk@yahoo.com>
Subject: The Spoils Of  War, Part 26

THE SPOILS OF WAR  by Pete Brown.  petebrownuk @ yahoo.com

Read all of Pete's stories in
groups.yahoo.com/group/petebrownseroticstories

Part 26

I sat there, dazed and confused.  All around me were
these youngish tough-looking guys dressed in a variety
of soiled and torn robes, as I was.   They were
jabbering away in what I assumed was Arabic, and they
seemed hostile to me - I could see they looking at me,
and wondering how many of them it would take to
overpower me and kill me.

It was the guards who saved me.  Just as four of them
had plucked up enough courage to come over to me and
start shouting and threatening me, the guards unlocked
our cage and herded us out.  The guards looked serious
- as well as the usual whips and slave prods, they all
carried guns:  and these were not the normal pistols
carried in holsters, but automatic rifles, carried
cradled in the arms, ready for use.  I guessed that
all the men I was with were considered to be
dangerous, very dangerous indeed.

The guards ordered us to strip, and also said it in
Arabic, reading the words from a piece of paper.  All
the men started to shout, and no one did anything.
The guards ordered a second time, there was a lot more
shouting, threatening gestures, and nearly a riot -
until the guards took a guy near them, prodded him so
that he screamed and writhed on the floor, then bent
down and simply pulled and cut away his clothes.  They
had to do two more until the lesson seemed to have
been learned, and we all then stood there naked
together.  I couldn't help noticing that most of the
guys covered their dicks and their balls with their
hands - not something a group of Americans would do:
I've seen single men stripped in front of others
who've tried to cover themselves, but when you've got
a whole group of guys, they don't bother.

They herded us into a line, pushing us so close
together that I could feel the guy's body behind me
pressed against mine, and I was pushed into the guy in
front of me.  The guards patrolled up and down the
line with their prods, threatening anyone who made
even the slightest attempt to move, and a whole lot of
the guys were almost weeping.  It seemed so odd - I
mean, if you're not used to it, being sandwiched
between other naked men isn't exactly pleasant, but
it's not the end of the world, is it?  And I knew it
couldn't be all that bad, as after about half an hour
I could feel the dick of the guy behind me nudging at
my ass as he had an erection, just as mine was doing
to the butt of the guy in front:  I mean, if you were
really terrified, you wouldn't have an erection, would
you?

After what seemed like an age, the line shuffled
forward a couple of paces then stopped, then forward
again....  Eventually I got to the front, and was
pushed through a door into what was clearly a
"processing facility".

Two burly slaves grabbed hold of me and pushed me down
onto a kind of rack.  Straps were quickly fastened
around my torso so that I was held immobile, then, as
I stood there, bent at the waist, there was a hiss....
and a stabbing pain from my left butt.  I learned
later that this was the new, "humane" way of branding
slaves - the branding iron, dipped in liquid nitrogen,
sears the flesh and leaves the visible brand just as
the traditional white-hot one does, but there's almost
no pain - and, perhaps more importantly, the slave can
work immediately as there's no lengthy recovery
period.

As I lay there they pushed a small dolly under my
neck, and then I was collared - not the thin, steel
collars that slaves at the Colonel's who didn't have
snout rings wore, but a more traditional, heavy iron
collar.  They held my head steady and a pneumatic jack
hammer banged a rivet through the fastening on the
collar, and then that was it - without another word,
they released me and pushed me out through a second
door, into a big holding cage.

The slaves who had already been processed were all
standing there, and seemed to have got over their
shame, or whatever it was, as they were no longer
attempting to cover their genitals.  Just as I knew I
must have, they all had big angry-looking "S"s burned
into their butts - S for slave, I supposed, and like
me their heads were almost bowed by the unexpected
weight of the heavy iron collars around their necks.

We stood around as more and more slaves were
processed, then, without warning, the cage door was
opened and eight of us were pulled out - I'd got a
healthy regard for staying away from cage doors,
having seen how they took my fellows for gelding
before, but I'd slipped up this time and happened to
be closest.  As we stood there, the guards surrounding
us menacingly, two more slaves dragged over a big
length of heavy chain, then using a portable riveting
device, all eight of us were attached at intervals to
it.

Once this was done, the guards seemed to relax, as
they evidently thought we were no longer a risk, and
they simply led us out, onto the former exercise area,
where we squatted down under the hot sun to wait.

I was soon to learn that a coffled slave is in one of
two modes:  waiting, as we then were, or working!  You
don't have any choice.  You have no freedom to act, or
move, or not move, other than that dictated by the
coffle itself.  And had I know then that I'd spend the
next three years of my life coffled together with the
other seven guys on my "string", I think I'd have gone
mad.   But as it was, I had no time to think as my
coffle was pushed out onto the former exercise field,
where we just stood, chained together, waiting to see
what was going to happen.  Some other coffles were
already there, and we all simply stood around for the
remaining guys to be chained and brought out - they
hardly needed to guard us at all, as when you're
chained by the neck to seven other guys, it's hard to
make a break for it!

As we waited my coffle mates seemed to be getting over
their embarrassment at their nudity - well, I guess it
is hard to stand for long periods with your hands
clasped over your dick.  They were jabbering away at
each other, and making threatening gestures towards
me.  Then, suddenly, they turned on me - all moving in
as best they could, to start pummelling and scratching
at me. I of course defended myself, and I'm an expert
in close, hand to hand fighting, and was making a
pretty good job of it until we were all struck down -
all our eight bodies were writhing on the ground, and
I had those excruciating pains in all my limbs that
you only get when you've been severely prodded by one
of the slave prods.

A guard stood over us as we lay there groaning and
twitching, and he snapped "Lesson one of the coffle,
guys - one for all, and all for one, as the musketeers
used to say!  If we goad any of you, you all get it as
that chain's a pretty good conductor.  Now you boys
need to learn to behave - you're going to get to be
very good friends from now on, as that chain will
never be removed - and I do mean very good, close
friends, as 'never' means 'never' - you're going to
live out your slavery coupled to each other like that,
until you die!"

One of the Arabs muttered something at the others, and
they all seemed to be listening.  He bent his head
close to me and said "Listen, infidel pig, I have some
English, unlike my men and I have told them what the
guard said.  You are safe for now, but we will find a
way to kill you..."

"Hey, what have I done...?"

"You are an American.  You have invaded our country.
You have enslaved me and my men...."

"Who's this 'we'?  Can't you see I'm a slave as well?
They captured me and made me a slave, and now I'm
stuck on this fucking coffle with you...."

"You are a spy, put here to trap us, to make it worse
for us...."

"Bullshit!  Do you think that if I was a spy they'd
strip me as naked as you are?  Would they prod me with
that dammed slave prod and leave me twitching on the
ground?  Would they brand me with a slave brand?"  and
here I turned around and showed him the livid red scar
on my butt. "...and, anyway, how could it possibly be
worse for you?  You and your men, and me, are all
going to be taken somewhere and made to work.  We'll
have to work buck naked like this, chained together
for the rest of our lives, whipped and prodded if we
fail to work hard enough...."

"No!  They cannot do this!  They cannot make us work
naked!"

"Hey, calm down!  Yes, slaves in coffles do usually
work naked, and they certainly can make us do it.  If
they don't give us even a scrap of clothing to cover
ourselves ,where do you think we're going to get it
from?  They don't want to waste money on providing us
with clothing, and with having to wash it and change
it - it's cheaper for them to keep us naked.   And it
makes it even more impossible for us to escape.  And
the whip cuts into the flesh directly, if we're not
working hard enough...."

I stopped then, and looked at him, and went on "So
you'd better get used to it.  But you've got nothing
to worry about - you and all your men are pretty
defined, you've got good bodies..."

"No!  It is a sin!"

"Oh come on!  Look, they've made me do worse than just
work naked.... After a time, it gets to be no big
deal..."

"It is a sin!  Our religion teaches us that a man may
only expose himself to his wives in the privacy of the
marriage bed.  Men do not appear naked in front of
each other."

"Not just in front of men, actually.... If we're
working on the highway or somewhere, women will see
us, too..."

"No!"

I put my hand on his arm to calm him down, and went on
"Look, there's nothing you can do about it, sin or no
sin.  So you'd better learn to accept what you can't
change.  Is all this sin stuff why you were all so
upset earlier?"

"Yes."

"Well, as I said, that's tough.  You'll soon get used
to it, just as I had to."

He took a long, cold look at my body, and saw that
there were no tan lines on me (in preparation for
fighting to the fuck, I'd been given intensive courses
of sun bed treatment, as it was considered to detract
from the audience's enjoyment of the slave's body to
see white patches around the butt and pubes).  I took
advantage of the silence to add "Look, I'm a slave
just like you.  Have been, for some time, so I guess
I'm getting used to it.  But this is serious now -
there's no escape from the coffle, as chained together
like this there's just no way we could do
anything..... But why do only you speak English?  And
why do you call them your men?"

"My father is a rich and powerful man.  When the
Yankees came to take our oil, I fought them, and
naturally I was a leader.   I had the finest
schooling, with an English governess when I was a
child..., one of my wives speaks excellent English..."

"Hey, don't call them 'Yankees'!  It's filthy
Southerners who invaded you and took the oil.  And I
reckon you got what you deserved - if your scum of a
country  hadn't cut off the supply to the North, we
wouldn't have lost the Civil War...."

He launched himself at me, and even with the
constraints of the chain tried to punch me.  The guard
at once came over, and all eight of us were then
writhing on the ground as he prodded us harshly.   As
we lay there, still twitching as our limbs spasmed, he
almost snarled "Don't insult my country and my people,
saying we deserve the foreign invaders...."

I was going t argue with him, but it didn't seem
worthwhile.  Neither of us was going to give way, so
instead I muttered "Look, you see what happens if we
fight or anything... For the sake of all of us, let's
just behave..."

He glared at me, but nodded, and, still shaking, we
all got to our feet again.

They just packed the coffles all into a truck - we
were extremely crowded, and there was no room to sit
down or anything.  Once the rear door had been shut
and the truck set off, every time we went around a
bend we were all thrown together, our bodies pressed
helplessly into each other.  I suppose it helped those
Arabs to start to overcome their shyness, as there was
nothing the could do to prevent their dicks pressing
into the other guys, and, of course, it wasn't long
before a whole lot of us had erections as we were all
young and virile.    But after several hours we were
all exhausted, and I for one needed to piss - when the
pain got unbearable, I just had to let go and piss as
I stood there pressed together in between all the hot
sweaty bodies of my companions.  And as they felt my
piss spatter on their legs and feet, there was a lot
of unpleasant shouting (which I didn't understand, but
the tone was pretty bad!).  There was nothing they
could do about it, though, as in the dark they had no
real way of knowing it was me - and before long the
floor streamed with piss as some of them had to
relieve themselves, too.

It must have been hours before the truck stopped and
the door was opened, and a coffle was pulled out, then
the door was slammed shut and we drove on.  This
happened two or three more times, so I guessed they
were making "deliveries", and I think it was
indicative of the way that we were being treated just
as mere commodities in our coffles that it didn't seem
to matter which coffle was taken out at which stop -
they just hauled the one out nearest the door.  Still,
it  did make it easier as after a time we could at
least all sit, slumped together, although it wasn't
pleasant doing so in the piss that was now all over
the floor.

We were pretty desperate for something to eat and
drink as we must have been travelling all night
because at the last "drop" it had been morning again,
and somehow we were the last.  I'd have thought it
might have been a good idea to have been offloaded
earlier as we might tat least then have been fed, but
the Arab guy kept pushing his men towards the back,
and urging them to keep clear of the door, and as I
was chained to them, I had to do the same thing.
Still, our turn did come eventually as we were the
only ones left, and as we jumped down off the back of
the truck, we saw what was to be our home for the next
three years.

There wasn't much, actually - we were in a clearing in
the middle of what seemed to be like acres of farm
land, with different kinds of crops and some stretches
of fruit trees, too.  There were two men standing
there looking at us, equipped with the usual whips and
prods.  They eyed us up and down ,and then one spoke
to the other "Pretty good crop, this lot - I told you
it was OK to buy them from the government by mail
order.... Everyone knows that these Arabs they've been
shipping in are pretty fit."

"Yes, but I'm still worried - they're all trained
fighters, after all..."

"...and I've told you to stop worrying:  there's
nothing they can do!  We'll keep them buck naked so
they can't hide any weapons or anything, and chained
together like that they can't escape.  They'll soon
learn that they need to work, and work, and work, or
else they'll feel the kiss of the whip, and that will
make them so tired that they won't have any spirit
left to even consider rebelling."

Turning to us, the first man rapped "Do any of you
monkeys speak English?"

I was going to say that of course I did, but then held
back - perhaps I might still be at risk, and it might
be better to play the part of a dumb Arab.  The leader
though said in a clear voice "I do."

"Right!  Tell your companions that they're here for
one reason only, to work.  If they fail to work,
you'll all be punished.  We don't tolerate any
slacking.  And as you're the only one who speaks
English, we'll look to you to make sure the others get
the message - otherwise it will be doubly bad for
you."

And that was the real start of the hell that was to be
my life for those years.  I never wore a stitch of
clothing, and in the summer we toiled away under the
blazing sun, the insects biting us unmercifully.  In
the winter we shivered with the cold in the early
mornings until the pace at which we were forced to
work got us warmed up.  Rain never stopped us - a man
in clothes sooner or later stops working when he's wet
through as the stuff is so clammy it chafes the skin,
but a totally nude guy can be made to work even in the
worst storm.  They treated us just like animals  - no,
worse than animals, as there are laws governing
cruelty to animals.  Our only food was the handsful of
slave chow we were given first thing in the morning
and last thing at night.  We had no proper place to
sleep - our coffle was just driven into a totally bare
barn at night and we lay on the bare dirt floor, our
only comfort the bodies of the slaves around us.  We
were only allowed to crap in the mornings, squatting
there in the bare soil in a line on our chain, and
then covering up our droppings just as if we were
cats; if we wanted to piss, we were not allowed to
stop working, but just had to do it as we toiled away.

And what was this work? Well, anything to do with the
fucking crops:  tilling the fields before planting,
endless hoeing, weeding on our hands and knees,
harvesting.... And on some days staggering along with
the boxes of produce to the waiting trucks.  And in
spite of our hunger, if we so much as dared take even
one of the fruits or vegetables, the whole coffle was
whipped or prodded.

We worked seven days a week, three hundred and sixty
five days a year, from sunrise to sunset.  The guards
just gave us terse orders at the start of the day, set
us a quota of so many rows to hoe or whatever, and we
knew that if we didn't make it, we'd be punished.  It
was totally mind numbing - there was no news, no
conversation (Slaves had to remain silent in the
fields), no entertainment of any kind:  my days were
just passed in an endless round of totally bored
drudgery.  We didn't even speak to each other much in
the evening - after the first few weeks when we had
told each other our life stories, there was nothing to
say:  nothing ever happened, and so there was nothing
to discuss.

There were some consolations though, I suppose:  it
was a healthy life, as there was no stress, provided
you worked hard and fulfilled your quota.  My body was
properly fed and strenuously exercised continuously,
so I remained in perfect physical condition.   And, of
course, gradually I got to know the other slaves well
- very well!  When we were first coffled I've told you
how I thought they were all ashamed of their bodies,
and then I found out that it was something to do with
their religion that it was a sin to appear naked.
Well, they soon got over that - well, I mean, they
didn't have any choice, did they? (Or perhaps they
thought that their god had abandoned them anyway).  We
were chained together and naked all the time, and they
soon got used to the feel of another mans body against
theirs.  And we were all young guys, and fit, so
inevitably we all had erections - there was no hiding
them when we were working, or at night when we were
huddled together in a heap in the barn.  It was only a
matter of time before, like me, they were all jerking
off, and we were used to seeing each other do it;
and, as you'd expect, we quickly moved on to jerking
each other off, and then to the more interesting parts
of sex.

As a gladiator I'd kind of become used to public sex,
but in the coffle I found new heights of enjoyment,
having the same seven companions every night, and
knowing that we were going to be together the next
night, too.   All of us found real release from the
torments of our everyday life in the joy we found in
each others bodies, and it was the only entertainment
and pleasure we got.

Ali, the "leader", soon got tired of translating
everything for me, and with his help and the willing
encouragement of the other guys, I was soon speaking a
kind of "pidgin" Arabic - although the vocabulary I
was learning, focussing as it did on the dick, ass,
and the things you could do with them, would probably
have shocked polite society.  Mind you, there was a
constant tension between Ali and me:  he thought of
himself as a natural leader, and the other guys all
deferred to him;  but I was a tough, independent kind
of guy, as you know, and I didn't see any reason for
taking orders from him - after all, I was an American,
even though I was now an American slave, and I'd been
brought up to know we were better than the Arabs and
other assorted people on the planet!

So Ali and I had many run-ins with each other.  He'd
give an order, that the others would kind of obey, but
I wouldn't.  He didn't have many things to give orders
about, as our working lives were so totally controlled
by the guards, but he did things like say how we were
going to sleep in the barn, and who could fuck who!
And once we'd all got used to fucking, he always
wanted to pick the men he was going to fuck.  The
first time he chose me I refused of course, as I'm a
natural top, and there was a lot of shouting and bad
feeling.  He ordered two of the other guys to hold me
down whilst he fucked me, and I just had to kneel
there and take his dick up my ass - although I didn't
cry out, even though he fucked me hard and vigorously,
as I didn't want the others to see that he was hurting
me.  But later that night, in the early hours of the
morning when the others were sleeping, I got my
revenge - I held him around the throat, choking him
into submission, as I took my pleasure from what I
suspected was his virgin ass!

After that, we were fine together, though.  He got to
understand that I was in control, even though he gave
orders to his men.  And we fell into pretty good sex -
one night we'd each fuck one of the other guys in  the
coffle, and the next I'd fuck him.  We were good
together - of all the men I'd had, he was the one most
like me:  we were the same age, both had a fiery
temper which we had to control almost all the time,
and we both really enjoyed sex with other guys.  I got
pretty good at Arabic, too, as when we lay there in
each others arms those nights, Ali enjoyed teaching me
new words and expressions, nipping my tits with his
sharp teeth, or giving my balls a little squeeze, if
he thought  I wasn't paying proper attention:  it's a
pretty exciting way to learn a language, I'll tell
you!

There was only one other time when Ali used his power
on me - we'd been harvesting sugar cane, which you do
after they've burned off the leaves, and we were all
filthy dirty with the soot.  And the stuff is really
vicious - kind of barbed, so much so that they even
gave us gloves to stop our hands being torn to pieces.
 That night Ali told four of them to hold me down on
the ground, and I started to curse him saying that he
wasn't a real man if he couldn't fuck me without
having me restrained like this.  He just laughed, and
said "Steve, this is for your own good... I know
you're brave and everything, but even a guy like you
couldn't take this if you weren't restrained, my
friend.... Now, bite down on this..."

He shoved a piece of cane into my mouth, and I
wondered what the hell was going to happen - until it
was as if my back caught fire.  There were endless
pricks and stabs at it, none of them in themselves too
bad, but the pain built until it was unbearable -
sweat was pouring off me, and if the stick hadn't been
there to bite on, I'd have screamed the place down.
It went on and on for almost two hours, and then I was
allowed to go free.

"What the fuck..?", I managed to stammer as I fought
to control my body.

"We all talked about it, Steve.", Ali told me. "And
when there were all the sharp bits of cane around, and
the soot, this seemed like a good time to do it.
Look, we thought of killing you when you were put in
this coffle, as we thought you were one of the Yankees
who'd enslaved us.  But then we saw you were what you
said - a guy who'd been enslaved, just like us.  And
we heard you tell us about how you'd be gelded if they
ever found out you were not really 'one of us'.  So we
decided we had to do this - there was always a risk
that the 'Spike' on your back would give you away, so
we have changed and altered the letters into Arabic
characters."

Several of the other guys started to snigger and laugh
amongst themselves then, and I began to realise that
there was something else going on.  "Letters?  What do
they say?"

"Oh, don't worry, the guards here don't even
understand what we're saying, let alone be capable of
reading what we write..."  Ali's eyes were twinkling
with  amusement now, too.

"Come on, tell me..."

"Well, Steve, we had to choose characters that we
could make from 'Spike' - and it just so happens that,
loosely translated, for those that know, you are now
telling the world that you're a good fuck!"

Everyone laughed then, and they kind of hugged me so
that I knew I was properly accepted.  Still, if I ever
did meet other Arab guys, it might be interesting to
prove to them that you shouldn't believe everything
you see written!

I think we'd all given up on even believing that any
other kind of life was possible than the one we were
enduring -  treated just like animals, worked to the
limits of our strength, and then the nights of sex
when we almost managed to forget it all.  Until one
day - it was our regular weekly "bath" (I'd forgotten
to tell you that they didn't allow us time to wash or
anything every day, as they saw no need) and we'd been
lined up as usual to have our hair clipped and our
stubble shaved, and we knew that there would soon be
the icy cold water from the hose as one of the other
slaves on the place used a brush to scrub the dirt of
our bodies.   It all went off as usual, but at the
end, instead of being herded back to the fields, we
were loaded into a truck and driven off!  And that
seemed to be the end of our life on the farm - no
goodbyes, no explanations, just loaded up and shipped
out.

We didn't go far, though - just to what as presumably
the local big town, and soon all eight of us, still in
our coffle, were standing there, up for sale.  Our
farmer owner must have taken the opportunity to sell
us that day as there was some sort of county fair on -
lots of booths and stalls, the smell of popcorn in the
air, the sounds of cattle being groomed and shown in
the ring, and, to one side, this big area of grass
where we were which was the slave display area.

All they had to do of course was tether the ankles of
the guys at each end of our coffle to pegs in the
ground, and there we were, all lined up and ready for
inspection.  We could see a few other coffles, and, in
the distance, the area where the individual male and
female slaves were on display.  As coffle slaves we
were displayed naked, but we noticed that the
individual slaves were given small scraps of cloth to
cover their loins - although as the potential buyers
moved amongst them, they were frequently moved aside
so that the buyers could see the entire body.

We had quite a bit of interest from farmer types -
they'd come and appraise the whole string of us, then
do a detailed inspection of one or more of us, running
their hands all over our bodies, paying particular
attention to our backs, butts and flanks as that's
where a work slave gets most of his strength from.
The didn't really care about our dicks, as farmers
don't usually have sex with coffle slaves as it's just
too dangerous - they  either have to take there guy
out of the coffle, and risk escape and stuff, or fuck
him when he's still coffled, when there' s the risk of
his coffle mates turning on him when they're
intimately engaged.  So it wasn't so bad, I suppose -
it was a real change just to be able to stand there in
the sunshine and not work, and at lunchtime, they even
gave us a bar of compressed slave chow to eat!
Still, it was good to see "real people" again - on our
farm we'd just seen the small number of guards, and
now there were ordinary Americans enjoying their day
out - moms, dads, kids all flowed past in their casual
clothes, and it was now obvious that slavery was so
much an accepted part of their society that the
thought of seeing all these naked guys standing there
wasn't a concern.  Although when one of my coffle
mates pissed (which is what we were used to doing,
after all, whenever we needed to), an irate middle
aged woman complained to a guard who came over and
gave him a couple of lashes with a tawse, so we got
the idea that if we needed to do this, we should at
least turn our backs away from the crowds.

It was getting to be late afternoon when finally we
were unchained from the pegs holding us in place and
led off to the auction area.  We waited at the edge of
the small stage they'd erected whilst the slave there
was being sold - the auctioneer used his cane to turn
the guy around, poke at his balls, and hold his dick
up for the crowd to see.  Then, as the auctioneer said
he was a newly-enslaved prisoner who they'd taken
special care with to make sure that the other cons did
not get to him, he was made to bend over and pull his
ass cheeks apart so that the potential buyers could
see his "ass, believed to be virgin".  I really did
feel sorry for the slave - he only looked to be about
nineteen, and in response to questions from the crowd
the auctioneer said that he'd been enslaved for
driving without insurance!    That brought home to me
how bad things must be getting - if they were that
desperate for slaves, to take guys for minor offences
like that!

There wasn't all that much room on the stage for all
eight of us, but the auctioneer just intoned "You've
all had an opportunity to inspect this coffle, ladies
and gentlemen... Fairly standard, eight good, strong
males, former Arab so-called 'freedom fighters', all
believed to be between twenty five and thirty five, so
a lot of good working life left in them.  Been coffled
for three years, so used to the life:  they're all
fuck buddies, I'm told, so they don't cause trouble at
night".  There was a ripple of amusement from the
watching crowd as he said this, and he continued
"They're in perfect condition, ladies and gentlemen -
look at the muscles. The only reason for sale is that
their current owner is selling off most of his land
for housing development.  Now, what am I bid...."?

Somehow, being auctioned off like that, just as if
you're an object and not a person, really brings it
home to you what your real status in life is.   As we
were led off the stage I knew I was doomed to spend
the rest of my life like this.

End Of Part 26