Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 13:38:58 -0800 (PST)
From: Pete Brown <petebrownuk@yahoo.com>
Subject: The Spoils Of War, Part 9

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

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

Part 9


It didn't hurt all that much as the doctor probed at
my back, and it wasn't really unpleasant - although I
was very stiff and sore for the next few days as the
muscles there recovered.    As soon as he'd finished
Lewis uncuffed me, and I got to my feet.  The doctor
dismissed me cheerily, telling me to come back if my
dick failed to heal, and I pulled my slave shorts and
singlet back on.

Lewis didn't cuff me to him, and just said cheerily
"No point now, Spike!  You're like the rest of us -
effective prisoners on the base now, unless the
Colonel gives us permission to leave to go off to
fight somewhere else."

"Does that happen often, sarge?"

"Oh, if you're good, or if you're in demand, quite
often!  We have all types of fighters here -
heavyweights, like you, down to featherweights.  There
seems to be a demand from private individuals to see
the lighter guys fighting privately at the moment, so
they get to do a lot of travelling.  But I expect that
during your career the fashion will change, and people
will want to see big bruisers like you slugging it out

"So will I be fighting here?"

"Yes, mostly.  Come on...."  Lewis led me out of the
building and across the campus, and pointed to one
huge building sitting there.  "That's the TV studios
and stuff.  They have several rings in there, and all
the technical things for the TV channels.  And one of
the rings is surrounded by a big auditorium where the
public can come and watch, for free, to provide an
'atmosphere' as they cheer and howl."

Lewis jogged off then, and called after me to follow
him.  I loped along, easily, and he said "It's like
being a new recruit at a military academy - outside,
you always run, never walk, and  I could see other
slaves, all dressed as we were in the skimpy shorts
and singlets, doing just that as they went about their
business.

Lewis ran on to the big TV building, we went in, and
down a short corridor to where a sign said simply
"Costume and makeup."

"Now, Spike", Lewis whispered, "You got off lightly
with the doctor.  I guess it's because he's used to
working with men who've just been enslaved, and he's a
bit of a humanitarian.  But the guys here aren't -
they're used to seeing slaves slugging it out, and if
you give them any trouble, I wouldn't want to answer
for the consequences.  So whatever they tell you to
do, just do it, OK?"

"Sarge, what are they going to do?"

"Look, not that it makes any difference, as there's
nothing you can do about it, after all  You can't
escape because of your chip, they can always call
guards to overpower you if needed... So what's the
point of resisting?  They'll only schedule you for
punishment.  So just lie there and take it, OK?

"Take what, sarge?"

"Tattooing, Spike.  All the Colonel's gladiators have
their fighting names tattooed on them, so that when a
bout is in progress the viewers can easily see who's
who.  Look...."

He turned his back to me, and pulled at the thin
shoulder straps of his singlet.  I could peer in and
see his broad back, and there, running from shoulder
to shoulder, in huge black letters, I could see
"Lewis".

"That's obscene... it's disfiguring....."

"Hey, Spike, calm down!  It's not 'obscene' as you
call it.   It's what the Colonel has decreed, and what
the public wants.  And, you'll find, it actually does
make you look better, once you get over the initial
shock.    Most of us who were, or are, fighters have
proper man-shaped bodies - wide shoulders, with that
triangle going down to the butt.  Well, with your name
spelled out in big letters across your shoulders, it
emphasises it:  when you're stripped for fighting, you
really look much more powerful and masculine.  And
that' why all the slaves here have short names - never
more than four or five characters... Spike, Lewis,
Steve, Rick, John, Clyde.... There's about fifty of us
and we all have different names as you heard, and all
four or five characters so they can be tattooed into
us."

I almost couldn't believe it - I'd been re-named,
losing my proper Steve to become Spike, just so that
I'd still have five characters that could be inked all
over me.  What the fuck else could they do to me, as
they not only took about my freedom but took away my
pride, too.

Look, have you ever been tattooed?  Well, let me tell
you, if they're doing a big area - a really big areas
- it hurts!  They didn't use a proper tattooist, but
one of the slaves who worked around the place
generally had been trained to do this simple job:
there was a set of templates, big letters in the right
size, and he simply placed these down onto my skin,
and started filling them in with a needle gun.  Lewis
had just looked at me before it started and said
"Spike, we can do this two ways, as I said - we can
have you tied down, I can sit on your back, and
they'll then do it; or you can accept that it's going
to happen anyway, and lie there by yourself.  You've
been a marine, so you'll know that there's no point if
fighting when defeat is inevitable, when there's
absolutely no value to it, when it won't even hold up
the enemy for a couple of minutes... So what's it to
be?"


I'd kind of shrugged, and just lay there, and let it
happen.  And afterwards, now with a really sore dick,
a throbbing pain from my shoulder where I'd been
chipped, my nose stinging, and my back giving me a lot
of grief, I was feeling pretty pissed off with life
generally.

Lewis  seemed to understand, and tried to be cheerful.
"Look, Spike", he told me, "It's tough at first.
You're trying to adjust to your new status - it isn't
easy, becoming a slave, especially when you've been in
the marines and are used to thinking of yourself as a
tough, free man.  And all this stuff doesn't help -
the snouting, the tattooing....  But hang on in there,
and you'll find out that it isn't all bad - we've got
a great bunch of guys in the platoon, and the Colonel
treats us well:  we get fed proper food, there's women
if we want them, we get the best medical treatment if
there's a problem... It could all be a lot worse."

"How could it be worse, sarge?  I'm a fucking slave
now...."

"Yes, Spike, that's what happens to captured troops
these days - the spoils of war, I guess.  But given
that you are a slave, being a slave here is a lot
better than ending up in some places, I can assure
you.  They have to keep us fit, and they want us all
feisty as we have to fight, so they can't beat us into
total submission, or make us completely cowed and
subservient like some slaves.  There's a fine line
they have to tread between keeping us under control
and not allowing us to escape, and keeping us ready to
fight.  Once you get used to it, you'll see that
you've still got quite a lot of 'freedom' really.
Sure, you can't leave, and you have to do as they tell
you, but that's not all that different from when you
were in the Corps, is it?"

"Let me give you a bit of advice, though, as I can see
you're a bit headstrong - I guess you never made
corporal or sergeant in spite of being in for a few
years, because of that.  Well, here they only tolerate
so much, so don't push too hard against the system
until you really understand it.  You don't want to end
up on the flogging frame having your hide whipped
away, or suffering the humiliation of being publicly
caned....  Take it easy for the first few weeks, and
keep yourself under control.... I know it will be
hard, but I don't want to have to be the one who ties
you to the 'horse' for the public caning, or whatever!
 OK?"

He made it seem so reasonable somehow, so I muttered
"Yes, sarge", and he gave me a half affectionate, half
controlling light slap on the rump, and jogged off,
with me following him.

We ran as far as a long, low building on one edge of
the "campus" that was Gleeson's Gladiators, and Lewis
said "This is home, Spike.  This is the residential
block. Where we all live, well, the gladiators, that
is.  All the other slaves who keep the place running
live in the service block - they like to keep this bit
kind of exclusive for us."

We went in, and it wasn't unlike being in a typical
barrack block, except that it was perhaps even starker
and more sparsely furnished.  Off one side of the
central corridor there were individual barracks rooms,
and off the other side the communal showers and
shitters.  Lewis threw open the doors to these and
they were the kind of thing I was used to - a big
communal shower, a set of basins for washing and
shaving along another wall, and at the end eight
lavatory bowls.

"Our" barracks room was exactly like all the others -
near the door from the corridor was a single bed,
which Lewis explained was his, then four double tiered
bunks stretching down the room.  There was a table and
a couple of benches around it, but that was it.

"I expect you recognise this, Spike - you're on the
top bunk, three along.  But you'll see there are no
lockers or anything, as you don't have anything to put
in them - we aren't allowed any personal possessions.
You get shorts and singlets from the stores in the
shower room, and dump the dirty ones in the bins in
there, and you'll find razors and toothbrushes and
stuff in the showers, too.  And that's it, really.
I'll introduce you to the other guys in here later,
when they get back from exercises, except for Craig,
who's away fighting."

"But let me give you a piece of advice", he went on.
"We all get on well with each other here, there's
about fifty of you fighters plus us 'sergeants', and
we all share the showers and stuff.  But don't go
making real buddies of any of the guys in the other
rooms - when they're arranging fights, they generally
fix it so that you're not fighting guys from your own
room.   But it's pretty 'open season' on the other
rooms.  And if it's a really good buddy of yours in
another one of the rooms, and then you've got to beat
the shit out of him, well,  however hard you try, you
might hold back a bit.  And if he isn't doing the same
thing, then you're going to lose - or, more
importantly, you're perhaps going to get hurt more
than you might otherwise do.  So remember - it's OK to
be polite, to share a joke, even, or to help them with
shaving their balls if they need it - but don't go
making real fuck buddies out of them...."

Well, I wasn't going to do that, was I?  I certainly
wasn't going to fuck another guy, or, for that matter,
even help him shave his balls!

"But sarge, all this about getting hurt.... Is the
fighting like that really?  How do you get us to fight
other men, men who might have been marines, like us,
and have been as unfairly enslaved?  I wouldn't have
though that we'd really go at it - we'd pull our
punches...."

"They have their ways, Spike.  For one thing, the
Colonel watches them, and if he thinks you guys aren't
really going at it one hundred percent, he has you
caned afterwards.  For another, there are some guys
who really like fighting:  they can't help it, it's in
their blood.  However much they like you, if they're
in the ring with you and they're fighting you,
something inside them takes over, and they're just
unable to stop themselves from really going at it.
You've really just got to go at it as hard as you can
as soon as the fight begins, in case you're up against
one of these guys - let them get the advantage, and
you're lost."

"But they'd think the same thing, sarge - if I go at
it hard, they'll go at it hard, too..."

"Yup, Spike!  See, as I said, there's no problem in
really getting you all to fight properly."

"But do guys get seriously hurt?"

"Not usually.  You can get pretty battered and be
really bruised and sore the next day.  And there's the
occasional broken arm, or finger pulled so far back
that the tendons snap.  But you're expensive and
valuable  slaves, and if there's any sign that one of
you is killing one of the others, the guards will step
in and break it up - I mean, it wouldn't make sense
for you to be allowed to choke a guy to death, would
it?  Or to gouge his eyes out?    There are the
occasional unavoidable accidents -  last year, for
example, one punch went wrong, and the guy's kidneys
never recovered and he died.  But that's the
exception, and all you can really expect is that
you'll really hurt the next day. And there are some
other things, too, that you'll find out about when you
get out of the 'novice' class... But don't worry about
that now."

At that moment the other guys in our room came in, and
Lewis introduced us all.  There were a couple of the
lighter weight guys, one guy about my size and weight,
and the others were more or less intermediate.  Like
me, they'd all been marines, or in front-line fighting
units, and they all looked fit and in excellent
condition.

We all went along together then, in a group, Lewis
leading, jogging across the campus to the dining hall,
and it was pretty good food - we had steak and salad,
pasta, and fruit.  There was no alcohol, though, or
any soft drinks - slaves just drank water, apparently,
as they didn't want to have to spend money constantly
fixing our teeth from sugary crap.

After dinner we all jogged across to the TV building,
as there was no big "public" bout that night and we
were the only audience for a few "simple" matches that
were the mainstay of the TV channel, Lewis explained.
"There's always a few live fights every night, Spike,
just to keep the atmosphere building.  But it's really
the weekends when the place goes mad - that's when we
have one or two of these special 'championships' with
the big audiences - we're lucky to get in to see those
as the arena's so full.   Then of course there are the
special fights they do for the second channel - but
more about that later.  The rest of the time the
channel shows repeats, and if you get a good
reputation, and have got kind of a 'fan club', your
fans call in and ask for your tapes to be re-shown..."

At that moment the two fighters came in, and the TV
cameras zoomed in, and Lewis and all the other guys
leapt to their feet and started cheering.    I'd told
myself that it was all pretty sickening, that I wanted
no part in either doing, or watching, these fights.
But once the two men started, it was really exciting -
the smell of the sweat, the heat from the TV lights,
the "slap" sound of the fists as they collided with
skin, and then the blood - one of the guys must have
got hit in the face as it started to stream from his
nose, and soon both fighters had streaks of it all
over themselves.  And it was obvious that neither guy
was holding back at all - when a punch went home,
there'd be a grunt from the guy it hit;  and when they
fell to wrestling, you could see that they were not
faking it when they collided with each other, or when
they were trying to tear each others limbs off!  I
found myself on my feet, too, cheering and shouting
along with the others, and got almost as hot and
sweaty as the gladiators themselves.

We all went back to our barracks room afterwards -
Lewis explained that there was a general "lights out"
half an hour after the matches finished, and we needed
to be in the barracks building as they then checked
the location of all the chips in us, and anyone not
there would be punished.,  I expected that they guys
would keep their shorts on when they got into their
bunks, as that's what we'd always done in the corps,
but I saw that the other guys all stripped completely
naked, and just hung their singlets and shorts on the
end of the bunk.  Once  I was in bed I soon found out
why - although they seemed  big enough, the cut of
them was clearly designed to emphasise our butts, and
they were actually quite tight.  As soon as my
erection started, they were bloody uncomfortable, so I
slipped them off as I lay there.

It was almost like being back in the corps, just as I
was used to, then:  when you sleep in a small room
with a load of other guys you get used to hearing
their snoring, the little cries and moans they make
when they're dreaming, and, of course, those
unmistakable sounds of guys jerking off!  We were all
extremely close together, and you know how it is -
even when you're careful, there's always some noise as
your hand slides up and down your dick, isn't there?
And as you approach your climax and you start to go
faster and faster, you just can't help breathing
harder and harder, louder and louder, can you?   So as
I lay there that night, totally frustrated as I
couldn't jerk off because of my 'skinning, when I
could hear all the other guys around doing so.  And
that wasn't the only thing stopping me from sleeping,
either -  my shoulder, and my "snout" were really
uncomfortable.

Still, if I closed my eyes, and thought back, I could
almost forget that I was here as a slave, and could
imagine myself to be once more a free man, with my
buddies,  at a proper base. I did get to sleep,
though, eventually, and it must have worked as Lewis
had to slap me on my butt to get me awake!  I jumped
off my bunk down onto the floor, and, like me, most of
the other guys were sporting erections as they pulled
on their shorts and singlets.   We were allowed a
minute or two to go and piss, but Lewis got us all
together to jog out as a "room" to the big space in
the middle of the buildings, where we lined up behind
him, just as the other "rooms" were lined up behind
their "sergeants".  It was two solid hours of
exercises then, two gruelling hours of stretching,
push ups, squats, and running.  I soon learned that
everyone of us had to do this every morning, however
bad we felt from the fight of the night before, unless
we were totally physically incapacitated with a broken
limb or a torn ligament or something like that - it
really does get you back into shape quickly,  I
suppose.

At the end of the exercises we all ran off, in our
"rooms" into the communal showers, and then off to the
dining hall for breakfast.  Again, there was no
stinting us - lots of fresh juice, oatmeal, and great
platters of eggs and sausage were provided, and it was
clear that the guys all had really healthy appetites,
like me.

After breakfast we split up into groups for various
"activities" - some went off to the assault course for
general training, some did specialist gymnastic
activities in the gyms to increase their subtleness,
and Lewis came up and told me that I was to have the
first of my fighting lessons that morning and to cut
along to training room F at once.

This was in another one of the buildings, and I jogged
over there, rather enjoying the sensation of using my
legs on what was a bright sunny day.  I knocked on the
door, and a strong, masculine voice told me to go in.
Inside the room was bare, all the floors and walls had
that deep padded quilting on them, and it was brightly
lit from overhead fluorescents.  Standing there was a
guy about my size and weight, and I could tell that he
was a slave as he had a standard collar on, and when
he turned his name, Shane, was there for me to see.

"OK, Spike.  Lesson one", he told me.  "First, in the
training rooms we all wear fighting shorts.". He
tossed something to me, and I saw that it was a small
pair of shorts in cotton with some stretchy stuff
built in, rather like boxers, only much lower rise and
with shorter legs.

"Pull them on, come on, and let's start", he said, and
watched as I shrugged off my existing grey "uniform"
and hauled the tight new ones up over my butt,
settling my dick and balls in snugly, so that I felt
comfortable.

"OK, Spike, you were in the marines, right?"

I nodded.

"Well then, you know a bit about fighting.  The only
difference here is that you're not supposed to
permanently disable, disfigure, or kill the other guy!
 Otherwise, anything goes, OK?  You can punch,
wrestle, slap... whatever.  The idea is to totally
subdue the other guy, get him to submit to you, and
that's it.  There's no artificial 'rounds', nothing
like that - the fight starts, then we go on until one
of us submits.  We try and emulate this in the
training rooms here - there are no lessons as such -
we'll start, and I'll tend to focus on one kind of
hold, or one movement, and you've got to spot what it
is and try to counter it.  If you don't, my blow will
strike home, or you'll end up flat on your back, or
whatever.  If you do,  I might find myself in the same
position.  OK?"

I nodded again.

"I'm pretty good, Spike, as I get a lot of practice at
this, and I was a gladiator myself until a year ago
when  I was retired.  So don't be tempted to give me
any leeway, or to make any allowances for the fact
that I'm a few years older than you.  OK?"

I went to nod again, but he threw himself at me, and
before I had chance to react, as I'd thought he was
going to go on telling me more and more things, I was
sprawling on the floor and his hard, heavy body was on
top of me, and his fists were pummelling into me.  It
went on and on, and I began to really struggle in
earnest, and then that thing that happens to me when
I'm in a tight corner took over - somehow time slows,
and I seem to have all the time in the world to decide
what I'm going to do next:  how I'm going to parry the
blow, how I'm going to twist my body so that he's
disadvantaged, how I'm going to land the next
punch.... And whilst I'm doing all this slowly and
calmly, my body is going into overdrive:  my heart's
racing, my breath starts to gasp as my lungs drag in
huge quantities of oxygen, all the heat I'm generating
causes sweat to break out all over me (making it
harder for the other guy to grab hold of me), and so
on.

There's no stopping me once this kind of "fighting
fever" takes hold. I'm not thinking about the other
guy at all really now, just seeing him as something
that has to be stopped, something that has to be
vanquished and utterly conquered before he does the
same to me.  I can feel my muscles tensing, my fists
pounding, and the yells of pain and or surprise from
my opponent, but I don't care - all I want to do is
win, win at any cost.

I don't know how long that bout went on.  I do know
that he won it, though - at least he knocked me
senseless, and  I came to with a terribly bruised jaw,
and aches all over me from where his punches had
landed.  He seemed in a bad way, though, as one eye
was almost closed by the swelling underneath it, and
there was blood pouring down from his nose.  He as
sitting on the floor, next to me, terribly winded.

He put out his hand, and said "shake!", rather
surprisingly.  I did so, and he half smiled, as well
as he was able.

"That was some fight, Spike.  If you go on like that,
you'll soon get promoted out of the 'novices'!  I'm
not used to guys putting up a fight like that first
time.  But we always shake on it afterwards, as
anything that happens here in the training rooms is
strictly reserved for these rooms - when I meet you in
the mess hall, or on the exercise ground, or wherever,
we're just two normal guys, two slaves here at this
place, OK?"

"Sure, Shane.  But what happens now?"

"We go and shower, you get on to your next activity,
and I get my next trainee!  I've got three more guys
to fight today in here, and I hope they're not all
like you.  Then the day after tomorrow we get together
again, and so on, until we get to the point where you
beat me three times in a row, and then it's judged
that you've learned everything you can from me - not
that I think that will be long in coming - you sure do
pack a punch!."

We sat there companionably together for a couple of
minutes more, still recovering, and he told me that
he'd been a gladiator until a few months before, when
it was decided that he was getting too old and that he
should be "retired" and train others.  "I was hoping
that there'd be one of those jobs like Lewis has got",
he confided, "as this is fucking hard work in here, I
can tell you.  But no such luck!"

"So was Lewis a gladiator, too?"

"Of course. And a fucking good one, too.  All the guys
in charge of rooms, and all the instructors like me,
have to have gone through the arena.  Otherwise, how
could we train all you young guys properly?  There's
no substitute for real experience, is there ?  You
can't teach this kind of thing from books, only by
having been there and done it!"

Fortunately I didn't have to do any more fight
training that day, as in the afternoon I was scheduled
to do long-distance running, to improve my overall
stamina.  Normally I don't mind running - I've got
long legs and strong lungs, so it's not a problem.
But with all the aches and pains from the stuff they'd
done to me the previous day, plus the way I was now
hurting from the fight with Shane, it was a real
trial.

That night we went to see another real fight, and for
the second night in a row I wasn't able to jerk off
because of the plaster on my dick.  I just had to lie
there, stiff and hard, my balls aching now to rival
the aches everywhere else on me, listening to all the
guys around me enjoying themselves.

This regime went on for eight or nine days - but at
least on day three I was able to rip off the plaster
from my dick and jerk off.  On the morning of day ten
after breakfast, Lewis called me to one side and told
me "This is your big day, Spike.  Your first fight.
You're in the arena tonight fighting another novice.
And on fight days, you get a day off!  Now you've done
the morning exercise, there's no more need to work:
we want you all fresh tonight, able to give your best,
so we don't want you exhausted, or to have a training
fight and get injured, or waste your energy.    So do
what you like - stay in your bunk, lie on the grass
and enjoy the sunshine, go for a swim, whatever....
Just be back at the bunk room by seven, in time to get
showered and so on.  And no dinner for you tonight, of
course - we don't want you puking up in the arena!"

It was almost like heaven - all that time to myself,
with nothing to do.  This was the first time since I
had been captured and sentenced to slavery that I'd
really had any time to myself, any time to be alone,
and although I like the other guys, you do sometimes
need time to yourself, don't you?  And so I did go for
a swim - I love the water - and then I lay on the
grass in the sun for a bit, but then  I was bored.  As
I've told you, I like  running, so I decided to go
just for a gentle jog all around the whole campus,
just taking in the sights.  It made such a change to
do something like that at my own pace, without eight
other guys making the pace and running with me.

Lewis was in charge of my "preparations" for my first
fight, and he certainly took it seriously!  He stood
there as I showered, and watched as I hopped around
from leg to leg, trying to shave my balls again!

"Sarge, why have I got to do this?"

"You never know, Spike.  Someone may come in and see
the fight, and want to buy you.  Then the Colonel
would have to offer an inspection, and where would you
be if you had all that stubble growing over your
balls?  You really do need to keep them clear, you
know - we wouldn't want the Colonel to be embarrassed,
would we?"

Well, actually, I didn't give a shit!  It was bad
enough to even think about being sold, just because
someone saw me fighting and decided that he'd like to
own me.  I mean, I was a man, or, at least, that was
how I still thought of myself, even though the world
said "slave".  So I didn't want to do anything to make
it easier, or more pleasant, for the bastards.  But
Lewis was really insistent, and even reached out and
felt them when I said  I was done.  I tried to stop
him, but he looked me straight in the eyes, and
snapped "Get your hand off my wrist, boy!  I'm in
charge of our room, and I've got a perfect right to
make sure you're a credit to the Colonel and his
establishment."

I suppose I ought to have been used to it by now,
given the number of men who had felt my balls since I
was part of this ludicrously named "spoils of war":
I'd gone from a total of zero for the first twenty six
years of my life, to "lots" now, so what did one more
matter, really?  But somehow this was different - the
others had been "free men", and Lewis was a slave,
like me.  Slaves shouldn't do this to one another,
should they?

Nothing prepares you for the reality of being made to
fight another man.  Look, in the marines, you do it
because it's your job, your duty, even:  that's what
soldiers do;  and most of the time you don't actually
touch the other guy anyway - it's mostly guns, and
very little hand-to-hand combat.  And if you're a pro
fighter, a boxer or a wrestler or something, then you
do it because you've chosen it as your job, and you're
getting well paid for it.  But  I was different -  I
was being made to do it, as I was a slave, and my
owner had decided that I had to go into the ring and
beat the shit out of another guy, or have it done to
me.  It just wasn't right - one man shouldn't have
such power over another that he could be able to order
that.  So why did I do it?  Why didn't I just refuse,
and stand there and say "no"?  I don't know, really -
I guess it's a combination of things:  I suppose I was
used to obeying orders, especially from my "sergeant",
and Lewis never gave any hint that I had any choice;
and then there was that fucking peer group pressure
thing - the other seven guys in my room were all
fighters, all went into the ring:  would they think I
was "chicken" if I refused?  And, anyway, what was the
real alternative?  Although I didn't like the idea of
being flogged, I suppose I could have refused to fight
and have been tied to the flogging frame and had my
hide striped away - that's what some guys would have
done, I guess, when faced with orders that were
totally "wrong";  but what then?  a life working
chained naked in a coffle on some fucking farm, or
down a mine, or chained to a factory bench?  I
couldn't even run away, as I didn't doubt that their
tracking chip technology would locate me and I'd be
recaptured - being in the military  I was used to the
idea of technology like that!

So I stood there, in my tiny fighting shorts, aware
that most o my body was exposed, and the bits that
weren't were anyway mostly "displayed" as the fabric
was so tight and stretchy!  I was nervous, I can tell
you - I mean, you know there's a good chance that
you're going to get hurt, physically hurt:  battered
and bruised at best, and very sore;  and at worst, a
broken limb.  I could feel myself covered in sweat, it
was making me chill as it evaporated in the air
conditioning, and my heart was racing, and my lungs
were pumping as I readied myself for action:  I'm not
one of those icy calm people before they go into a
fight:  my body gets ready for action, the adrenaline
surges, and I'm all primed to go!

And what was it really like, that first fight?  I
don't know, really - I can barely remember what the
other guy looked like, even.  I remember us standing
facing each other, as I sized up his compact, muscled
frame.  Then we were at each other, and that strange
combination of icy, slowed down calm, coupled with
real rage, took over.  Within seconds we were tangled
together, legs flailing, fists pummelling - and I
remember no more, really, until I was standing there,
blood streaming down from a cut somewhere on me from
where a foot or something had broken the skin, looking
down at him lying there, out cold, at my feet.

Lewis and my room mates seemed strangely subdued after
we'd jogged back to our room - I thought they would a
least have been slapping me on the back and
congratulating me.  But they muttered "well done" in a
rather half-hearted way, and there was none of the
usual joking and joshing as we stripped and got into
our bunks.  And I didn't hear too much jerking off
either that night - it was as if everyone was under
some sort of cloud of depression.

Still, I slept well - somehow the actuality of that
first fight hadn't been as awful as the anticipation
of it:  if that was the worst that was going to
happen, I could survive this.  And whilst I was
surviving, there was still hope, wasn't there?  I
didn't know how I was going to escape, but I knew that
I wasn't going to remain a slave for ever.

End Of Part Nine.