AS THE TWIG IS BENT

This is the second story of a much longer story arc, which is best read in the order of the List at the end.

Translation of German words or phrases at the end. However, I have tried to make the meaning fairly clear in context.

AS THE TWIG IS BENT
Part One

Wie der Zweig gebogen wird, so wächst der Baum.
As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.

“Kurt! Darlin’, wake up! You’re havin’ a nightmare. Kurt!”

Logan’s voice rings through my head, disrupting the dream that holds me captive. “I am avake. Stop shaking me. It is all right,” I protest as I gather the pieces of reality around me, pushing the detritus of that false reality out of my mind.

I feel Logan’s arms encircle my still-trembling body, drawing me closer to him. I curl up against his chest like a child.

“What was that all about, Elf? I’m usually the one with the nightmares, but this is the third night in a row that I’ve had to wake you up.”

“It is nothing. I just vant to forget it.”

“Was it the same one again?”

“I do not vant to talk about it!”

“It was, wasn’t it, darlin’?” He hesitates before going on, as if unsure of my reaction. “Who’s Herr Grüber?”

Panic engulfs me at the mention of that name. I tense up and cling tighter to my puzzled partner, shaking my head in denial. My tail curls pathetically between my legs.

Logan reacts instantly to the fear that floods my scent as well as my sudden tension by using one of the hands he has behind me to stroke my back. I take a deep breath, trying to relax.

“Nobody. It is not important. Please, let us not talk of this.”

“Nobody, huh? Then why have you been pleading with him in your sleep for the last few nights? And why did you call out his name the night before that, while I was fisting you?”

“Vhat did I say?”

“You really wanna know?”

All I can do is nod my head. I had no idea I was talking in my sleep, much less during the time Logan was fist-fucking me. Mein Gott, what have I been saying?!

“You were whimpering and begging in German. I didn’t catch all of it, but it was something like “Nein, Herr Grüber. Bitte, nein.” I’ve never heard your voice sound like that before. And then later you told him to go back to Hell, where he belonged. It’s been mostly the same kind of thing during the nightmares also.”

Oh, no! Had I really said all that out loud?!

“C’mon, Elf. This ain’t ‘nobody’ if he’s haunting your dreams.”

“I do not vish to discuss him.”

“You’re acting like a scared child. This is me. There’s nothing you can’t tell me.”

I cannot even bring myself to say his name, much less talk about Herr Grüber. Not to Logan, not to anyone. Distraction. Ja, that is it. I can distract him from pursuing this.

“So then there is also nothing you cannot tell me, nicht wahr?”

Logan reacts as I expect him to. “Well – uh –“

I take the opening he gives me. “Of course, it is all right for you to refuse to talk to me about those special missions you have been going out to do alone, but I must tell you everything about my life. Is that it?”

If he truly were a wolverine, I would have been able to see his hair stand on end when I said that. As it is, I feel him tense up, just as I have. We lie there stiff and prickly in each other’s arms.

“You don’t understand, Kurt. That’s different. I can’t tell you about that.”

“How is it different? Vhy?”

“You don’t understand. That’s all. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“I can’t. You’ve just got to trust me on this.”

“I could say the same to you then.”

I pull away from him, turning over and dragging the covers up to my chin.

“Aw, Elf, don’t do this to me. Or to yourself.”

“I am not doing anything to you that you are not doing to me.”

“Haven’t we gone around in circles long enough about this already?”

“Ja, ve have. So let us leave it alone.”

“OK, guess I’m gonna have to figure it out for myself then.”

I start to get up from the bed, but his arms fasten around my waist. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, darlin’. Not without me goin’ along.”

Scheisse! Now what am I going to do? If he is holding me like this, I cannot even teleport without taking him with me.

“Talk to me, damnit!”

I shake my head in mute refusal. If one does not talk, one cannot give anything away.

“This ain’t like you. You’re usually the one who’s all for communication and honesty. Most of the time I can’t get you to shut your mouth. But now, I can’t seem to get you to open it. What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”

That did not make any sense. “Nein. My tongue is right here,” I protest, turning around and sticking it out at him.

“It’s an idiom, darlin’.”

I duck my head to hide my embarrassment. “Oh. Sorry.”

Well, so much for silence. I was never very good at that anyway.

“C’mon, Elf. You’re the one always wanting us to talk about stuff.”

“Can ve not just talk of something else?”

“OK.”

Too easy. He is not going to give up that easily, and I know it.

“Look, you’re all upset. I know how to get you to relax.”

He draws me back down so that I am lying alongside him again, but still facing my side of our bed. His hand moves down to the small of my back. I shiver as he digs his fingers into the tight muscles that control my tail. Delightful! Just what I need to banish the leftover fear from the nightmare. If I had been lying on my stomach instead of my side, I would have arched my back against his hand, as a cat will do when petted. As it is, I press my hips back against him and sigh luxuriously. If I were that hypothetical cat, I would have begun to purr.

I know very well what this will lead to, but I have no objections. Quite the contrary, in fact. Sex will surely sidetrack his effort to figure out what is bothering me.

“Darlin’, I really know very little about your early childhood, although you’ve told me a lot about performing in the circus as a teen-ager and how much you enjoyed it,” he says lightly, as if this were his version of changing the subject to some kind of small talk. Although I try to hold onto my feeling of well-being and relaxation, it is difficult. I know full well that I cannot easily deceive Logan. For one thing, I have no talent for lying. For another, he could probably tell from the nervousness in my scent if I even attempted to tell him an untruth.

“One would think you went right from your mother’s womb to the flying trapeze,” he continues, in that same light tone of voice.

Before I can stop myself, I reply bitterly, “Often I have vished that vere true.”

“Uhmm.”

That is all? No further comment? It seems so, as his hand moves lower and grasps the base of my tail, massaging it gently. My entire tail collapses down onto the bed as if it were boneless, lying there in limp comfort. Wunderbar!

“Ya know, I really enjoyed it when you let me fist-fuck you a few nights ago.”

Even better. He is changing the subject to something much more pleasant than my early childhood. I am on firmer ground here, talking about the other night. Except for what I must have said out loud.

“Ja, it vas incredible. Aftervards, I felt so – so –“ At a loss for words, all I can do is gesture with my hand, as if I am reaching for something I cannot quite grasp.

“I know. I can’t find the right words to describe it either.” His hand continues working on my tail, while his other hand moves around to my chest, playing over the scarred designs.

“You almost told me to quit at one point, didn’t ya? Just before my knuckles went in?”

“How did you know that? I only asked you to stop and vait a minute so I could adjust to the feeling.”

“Elf, I’ve been there myself, remember? That’s usually the most difficult part to get through. I almost gave up then too, on my first try.”

“You did?”

”Sure. It’s a terrifying feeling, as if you’re going to be split open at any second. Me, I felt as if there was a switch that had to click over in my head in order that I could relax and allow myself to open further, but it just won’t go. In my experience, the folks who get by that point usually flash on something in their past that helps that switch to click on, some method of relaxation they’ve used before. Does that sound like what happened to you?”

Before I can stop it, my tongue betrays me. “Ja! I remembered when Herr Grüber –-“ I sit up abruptly. “Verdammt, Logan! Du hast mich betrogen!”

“Yeah, I tricked you. So what?” His arms wrap around me, once again drawing me back down by his side. His hands return to their previous activities. “At least you can tell me what this mysterious Herr Grüber did that made you open up and take my hand so well. That’s not classified information, is it?”

“Vell, no,” I reluctantly admit. “It vas only that he taught me a sort of mantra, a way to picture myself. It comes in handy for such a situation.”

“That sounds like a good thing. How does it go?”

“You are to imagine yourself as a cloud floating effortlessly through the sky. It is varm, sunny, and you are drifting on a gentle breeze. You are immaterial, permeable, above all the troubles of the vorld below.” Even as I say it, I feel myself start to melt. “You shift from shape to shape, impermanent, changeable. You can absorb anything you have to. You can be anything you have to be.” I shake my head. Too much of this and I will space out. Perhaps I have learned my mantra too well.

“Not bad. It sure did the trick the other night.” By now, his fingers are teasing one nipple, and his other hand has traveled around below my tail, not quite at that sensitive spot between my tail and my anus. He is teasing me, stopping just before touching that place.

“Ja. I have not had to use that meditation for more years than I vould really like to count. As you have often noted, I have far more flexibility in all vays than the average person does. And that includes certain sphincter muscles.”

“That’s for damn sure! I never would’ve been able to get into you that easily for the first time otherwise. Not with a hand the size of mine.”

That hand is just now rolling my hard nipple between its fingers. I take hold of it and bring it to my lips, kissing his knuckles and then sucking briefly on each one in turn. Perhaps this will distract him from his persistent focus on things I do not wish to have him focus on. I have never told anyone much about my early childhood, other than that I was in a sideshow with a circus before I became a trapeze artist. And that is all anyone needs to know, including Logan.

He will not be distracted. Wresting his hand out of my eager mouth, he takes hold of my hair and gently pulls my head back so that he is looking me in the face.

“So what else did you learn from this Grüber fellow?”

“Nothing of any interest.”

“Um-hmm.”

From the skeptical tone of his voice this time, I can tell he does not believe me for a moment. Nevertheless, I volunteer no further information, nor do I intend to.

Then his other hand touches that lovely place just shy of my asshole. I close my eyes and drop my head further back until it rests on my pillow. “Aah, Gott!”

“Ya like that, don’t’cha, Elf?” I can hear the gloating satisfaction in his voice. I might be angry, if I could muster the energy needed, but as he continues to rub me just there, it feels too blessedly good to bother.

“Yeah, ya like it.” I can imagine the smug smile on his face about now. But I do not care.

“Got an idea, Elf.”

“So do I. Fick mich.”

He laughs. “Don’t worry, I’ll fuck you soon enough. First, let’s play a little game. You know how to play 20 Questions?”

“Ja, but I vould much rather –“

He does not let me finish. “If I can figure out the deep dark secret you’re hidin’, I win. If I can’t, you win. The usual terms: Loser buys the beer. What do ya say?”

Slightly miffed, I retort, “Nein. I know how much beer you can drink, compared to me. I have decided the odds are stacked against me.”

“Cards can be stacked, darlin’. Odds can’t.”

“You know vhat I mean.”

“Yeah. So what do you want to do about it?”

I am determined to ignore those caressing fingers beneath my tail and drive a hard bargain, even if my entire tail is twitching and quivering uncontrollably beneath the covers and my cock is stiff as a board. “If I vin, you vill not only buy the beers I drink at the bar, but you vill buy me a case of beer for future consumption also.”

“Agreed.”

“I varn you, it vill take many more than 20 questions.”

“Ya think so, huh?”

“Ja.” I am very sure, but still I do not like the way this conversation is going. Nevertheless, his fingers are still playing with me lasciviously beneath my tail, so I have not yet given up on rerouting his interests away from his silly game.

“Then ya can’t lose, right? So let’s play. Here’s my first question. Is this Herr Grüber the man who ran the sideshow where you appeared as a child?”

“Ja.” The answer is out before I can so much as think about it.

“Was he the one who trained you to do the – ah – interesting — things you can do so well when we screw?”

All right, how could he know that? “Ja,” I admit, somewhat reluctantly this time. Logan’s guesses are too close for comfort.

“So you spent your childhood being sexually abused by him, right?”

“Is that another question?” I ask warily.

“Yeah.” His hand moves down a little bit, so that he is still massaging that wonderful place with his thumb, but his fingers now press against my opening.

“Ahh – mein Schatz – uh – you are distracting me from our game.”

“I know that.” But he does not stop.

“I vill lose count of the questions.”

“I’ll keep track of what number we’re on. Right now, I’m waiting for your answer to my third question.”

“Uh – no. Herr Grüber did not exactly abuse me.”

“No? Fourth question. Then what did he exactly do to you?”

“He very rarely had sex vith me himself. He only trained me to perform for my customers.”

“Fifth question. Trained you to perform what?”

“Vhatever they vanted of me and vere villing to pay him for.”

“Sixth question. Like sex?”

I duck my head and hide my face against his broad chest, shaking my head. “I do not have to answer because you have been cheating,” I mumble. “Do you think I do not know that all the questions must be able to be answered by a yes or a no? You have already asked two that should not count.”

“All right, you got me on a technicality, darlin’.” His voice is soft next to my ear. I feel his tongue lick the pointed tip, even as his finger enters my body. “I withdraw those questions. Come on, Elf. You’re not gonna chicken out on me now, are ya?”

His finger strokes me inside, reaching for my prostate. My desire flares into something that I can no longer contain, as I spit out the answer he so badly wants to hear. “Yes, yes, yes! Sex! Vhat else?! Sex, in any vay they vant it, vith any other disgusting nasty things they vant me to do or vant to do to me, no matter if I like it or not!! Are you happy now? Are you satisfied?!”

His face registers sudden shock as I wrench myself out of his embrace, his finger being roughly pulled out of my ass in the process. I crouch before him on my hands and knees, bending my elbows to lower my head and put my ass in the air and holding my tail off to one side in the classic invitation of a cat in heat. “Fick mich!!” I demand. “Jetzt!”

“Elf, come on, not like that. Let me hold you in my arms and kiss your lips. I wanna see your eyes glow with love and passion.”

“Nein! I do not vant to look at you! I cannot! I do not vant it nice and gentle and loving! I vant it hard and vicious. I vant you to fuck me like the whore I am! Do not talk. Do not comfort me. Make it hurt! Fuck me! Hard. Now.”

“Aw right, if that’s how you want it.” After a brief moment, his cock presses against my hole, held steady and guided by his hand. Even so, I can feel that it is wet with lube.

I growl as he hesitates. I slam my hips back against him, forcing his hard cock into my ass in one stroke. I can feel him arch his back and hear his guttural cry. Then his fingers dig into the sides of my pelvis and hold me steady so he can thrust deeper. “You want it like this, you’ll get it like this.” He moves fast, hard, deep, making no concession to what I may be feeling. But I do not care.

“Use me, hurt me, make me feel the pain!” I snarl through clenched teeth. “I deserve nothing more. I am a whore, a slut, a thing to be used. That is what Herr Grüber taught me to be and that is vhat I am! How could it be any different? Fick mich, damn you!”

For a moment, he holds still, possibly shocked by my words. This is not what I want. I want what I have said: to be used and used hard. I contract my pelvic muscles tightly, as if I am trying to pull him into me, then relax and do it again, at the same time tilting my pelvis forward then back. That particular sequence of motions, if repeated rhythmically for a long enough time, is almost guaranteed to bring a man to orgasm. Only a few times and Logan is moving again, matching my timing and thrusting with great enthusiasm.

“I’m — gonna — come,” he finally says roughly, between thrusts. Is it a threat or an apology? I am beyond caring. It does not matter. I will take whatever he wants me to, his cum, his piss, his hand, anything, it makes no difference.

His fingers clutch at me harder as he pulls my hips into him yet again, grinding his groin tight against my buttocks, forcing them apart so he can get in further. He howls his release as I feel him tremble against me. A few more thrusts and he collapses on top of me, forcing me flat down onto the bed. I hear him panting for breath. I lie there as tears leak from the corners of my eyes, feeling my traitorous penis shoot its load onto the tangled sheets. My insides burn where his cock still gouges into me. Then suddenly it is gone, the weight on top of me lifts. I know he is kneeling there looking down at me, then I hear another howl, this time of anguish, not lust.

“Elf? O my god! Kurt! Are you all right?”

I cannot answer right away. Whatever got into me, to act like that? Where did that intense need come from? What sort of a monster am I? And what must Logan think?

His arms come around me and I am dragged up next to him on the bed. How can he bear to touch me, after what I have just said?

“Kurt? Talk to me. If you don’t say something, I’m gonna carry you down to the infirmary right now.”

“Vhat – vould you like me to say?” I manage to gasp.

He pulls me against him so my head is resting on his shoulder. “What was all that about?”

I try to turn away, but his arm holds me close. “I — I – “ I stop, swallow, and try again. “I think that is vhat happens vhen you play Tventy Questions vith me.”

That gets a wan smile from him, so I continue. “Perhaps it is a good thing that ve only got as far as number six?”

A tentative chuckle. “Looks like you owe me the beer, huh?”

“Nein,” I object automatically, while part of my mind is still trying to adjust to the idea that he does not despise me. “You cheated.”

“All right. Call it a draw then. We each buy our own beer the next time.”

I nod, waiting to see where he takes the conversation from here.

“Now, darlin’, you’re gonna tell me about all this. Or do I have to fick you again?”

I hang my head. “I –“

He lifts my chin before I can go any further.

“—and don’t even start to say you can’t talk about it. Got that?”

I nod. “Ja. You vin.”

He kisses the top of my head. “So tell me what happened.”

“I do not know vhere to start.”

“In that case, I’ll ask more questions. How did you get into a circus sideshow in the first place? Do you even know?”

“Only vhat I vas told by Herr Grüber. He found me as a very young infant in a cardboard box on the doorstep of his house at the circus’ vinter quarters in the village of Schönberg one icy morning. There vas a piece of paper pinned to my blanket that read ‘Kurt Vagner’, spelled vith a W, of course.” I shrug. “This could all be a lie. I have no vay to tell. All I know for sure is that I vas vith him as early as I can remember, and being surrounded by strangers who stare down at me is part of my earliest memories. That, and a voman who must have been hired as my nurse who put her finger up my ass every time she suckled me. Much later on, Herr Grüber told me she did that on his orders.

“Vhen I vas a very young child, it vas not too bad. I can recall appearing as part of the sideshow, doubtlessly as one of the freaks. There vas an extra charge to see the Amazing Devil Baby, vhich became the Amazing Devil Boy as time passed.”

I go on to tell Logan a relatively brief version of my childhood, first pointing out that, contrary to the image in most folks’ minds these days, a freak show did not (and I say it in the past tense because such things are generally not common anymore) normally consist of people imprisoned in cages and forced to be on display. Most of us were there of our own free will, in large part because it was the only way to earn a decent living. For those of us who could, a lot of it was a true performance, not just a case of standing before the gawking audience while they stared at us. At different times, I danced, did acrobatics, juggled, and even came up with a fairly good contortionist act.

The typical sideshow was not just freaks. There were also people with unusual skills, such as sword swallowers, magicians, fire eaters, and knife throwers, to name just a few. Then there were the fakes, who were not true freaks at all but only pretended to be by using various forms of trickery, or who, like most of the fortune tellers, were simply fooling people with their mumbo jumbo. On top of all that, there were the grifters, who ran con games and games of chance on the marks inside the tents, or simply picked their pockets.

From all of these people, I learned things. From the knife throwers, I learned to throw knives. From the fire eaters and sword swallowers, I learned how it was done, although I did not attempt to do it. From the fakes and the grifters, I learned that, while it is not strictly speaking true that “you can’t cheat an honest man”, it is indeed significantly more difficult to do so. The easiest person to cheat is the one who thinks he is really entitled to get something for nothing, especially if you can also make him think he can put something over on you.

As I have already mentioned, I was not usually in the main part of the sideshow, but rather one of the extra attractions that was offered for the men in the audience to see at the end of the show, for a small extra charge. This was called the “blow off” and was conducted behind a curtain that concealed one entire end of our tent. It consisted mainly of scantily-clad young ladies who would dance for the men, often giving them fleeting glimpses of nudity. Our dancers were dressed in Arabic costumes, with many veils they could shed during the performance before anything serious would be revealed, and the only music they needed was provided by a single drummer. Some of the ladies were more skillful at these so-called belly dances than others.

I was told later on that as an infant, I was brought out by one of the ladies, undressed, and held out for the audience to see up close. The Amazing Devil Baby was the warm-up act before the dancing began.

As I got older, I was able to be a more active participant, coming in with the ladies to show myself off. While I had not been taught to dance as they did, I started mimicking them early on. That made the men looking at us smile and laugh, so I kept on doing it. I discovered by accident that the audience would cheer me enthusiastically if I tried to pull off some of the veils that covered the ladies, so I added that to my act. It was fun to hear the audience clap for me. The dancers soon figured out how to play along with what I did, shrieking as I came near them, trying to keep their veils out of my reach, or acting very embarrassed if I were successful in my efforts.

When I was old enough that propriety demanded that I also wear something most of the time, we set it up so that the ladies could tear off my clothing also, to get more laughs. By the end of the show, I usually ended up entirely naked. I would walk over close to the edge of the stage and let the people touch me however they wished. I was so used to being displayed to others by then that I was not embarrassed or ashamed.

Since I already looked the part, I played up my devilishness as I got older, leering at the dancers and taunting them. I even had a miniature pitchfork, and brandished it suggestively. By that time, I knew very well what was going on and why men wanted to see naked women. I also knew perfectly well what the men wanted to do to those naked women, if they had had a chance. I suspected that some of the girls were doing more than merely dancing for the men, just as I was, but I thought nothing of it.

I had barely learned to talk reasonably well when Herr Grüber started my training in earnest. At first it was easy and sort of fun. I used my hands to please the private customers that came to our trailer late at night, as Herr Grüber had arranged with them earlier in the day. He was exceptionally good at picking out people in the audience who showed a particular fascination with me, then offering them the chance for a more private interaction later on, for a rather high fee, natürlich.

When a male customer brought a woman with him to see me, wanting to simply watch me please her, it was easy, even with just two fingers and a thumb on each of my hands to work with. I think that very novelty was part of what interested some of them in my ministrations. Of course, I had to be careful of my fingernails, which even at that tender age were thicker and larger than the average child’s.

My male customers were more challenging, as they could be very demanding and I had to use more strength and effort to make them come. There was always a sense of triumph when I was successful, as the entire process fascinated me.

Sex organs became some of my most interesting toys. Once one of the men asked me to lick up the sticky stuff he had produced, and I found it did not have a very bad taste at all. None of the men asked me to suck on their dicks though. All I had to do was smile at them and they lost any interest they might have had in such a thing. Even my baby teeth were sharp, crooked, and oversized. Probably that was for the best, as my mouth would not have accommodated them. I have yet to find anyone who wants me to give them a blow job.

As I grew older, Herr Grüber gradually added other activities to my repertoire, as I became able to do them. I was a very good pupil, wanting, as a child will, to please the person who seemed most interested in me. It was not permitted to hurt me, and I did not know there was anything unusual about being fondled by strangers, or being expected to touch their genitals and give them pleasure. It was simply what I did. Eventually I learned to include my tail in the performance of my duties, along vith a large array of the devices usually known as sex toys, which is particularly apt in my case.

I never knew how much money he made by selling me — how do you say? – off the books, but it must have been a considerable amount, since he had many more luxuries than the others around us, even the top tier performers in the circus itself. None of us in his show lacked for good food and decent living conditions, considering the itinerant life we had to lead.

Sometimes I broke one of Herr Grüber’s Rules and was punished, but that was not very often. However, when it did happen, it was not fun at all.”

“Rules, Elf?” Logan interrupted. “What sort of rules?”

“Oh, mostly quite reasonable. The first three vere the most important. Let me see if I can still remember them correctly.

“First Rule: Never tell about vhat happens vith my private customers or during my training sessions. Second Rule: Never refuse to do vhat Herr Grüber tells you to do in the training sessions. Third Rule: You may never refuse a paying customer anything. You may cry, plead, or beg, but you must not resist in any vay. Only Herr Grüber is permitted to decide what may or may not be done by a customer.

“I may have gotten the exact vording of the last one a little wrong, but that was the gist of it. Since I vas a good little boy and tried hard to please him, I seldom broke those rules. I vas punished most often for vhat he called Tail Infractions.”

“Tail infractions? What on earth –?”

“Very simple. If I failed to control my tail and either got it in the vay of what was being done, or worse, actually struck him with it. The very vorst thing vas to strike one of my private customers.”

“But you’ve often told me you can’t always control what your tail does or how it moves.”

“Ja, and that is the honest truth. Eventually, Herr Grüber believed me vhen I told him that. My tail truly does have a mind of its own in many vays, responding to my emotional state automatically.”

As I am saying that, I sneak my tail around underneath the covers and tickle the sole of his foot. He laughs, and we struggle playfully for a moment as I continue to try to tickle him. I end up pinned down beneath him while he holds my tail firmly away from his body with one hand, frowning down at me.

“Give it up and I’ll let you go. Otherwise I’ll give your tail a good twist.”

I know that is an empty threat. He will not seriously harm my tail. Nevertheless, I let it go limp in his grasp.

“As you may have noticed,” I say, trying hard not to laugh, “the darn thing still gets me in trouble now and then. But I have learned a certain amount of control since I vas a child.”

Mollified, he releases me entirely and we get comfortable alongside each other again. I must soon resume my story, like it or not.

“Once Herr Grüber realized I did not do it deliberately, the punishments ceased. However, my tail vould always be restrained if I vere vith a customer and he thought it might prove to be a problem. I got so that I expected something really bad to happen to me any time my tail vas tied down as part of the preparation for the arrival of a customer. I vas seldom disappointed in my expectations.”

“So what exactly did he do to punish you?”

“He had a special riding crop vhich vas used only for that purpose. It vas more rigid than the usual ones, so it hurt more. It had a red strip of leather braided in vith the usual black strips so I could tell it from the others. I got a certain number of blows across my buttocks, depending on the severity of the infraction, either Tail or ordinary Rule. The most vas five, but usually I got much less. However, if I cried out or tried to evade the blow, I vould get one more added to the total for each time I did that, also the same as vould have happened during ordinary punishments. It did not take long to learn not to do that.”

Logan nodded. That apparently made sense to him. “Sounds as if he was a rather harsh taskmaster.”

“That, mein Freund, is an understatement to say the least. Vith me, it produced the sort of results he vanted.”

Logan stares off into space for a moment, as if he is thinking about something. Then he comes back to the present.

“As the twig is bent,” he says softly, “so grows the tree.”

“Vhat?”

“Haven’t you ever heard that proverb?”

I shake my head, then I try translating it into German, to see if it might sound more familiar. “ ’Wie der Zweig gebogen wird, so wächst der Baum’.“

“Yeah, that’s it. You mean you’ve never heard it before?”

“I have not. I think ve do not say that in Germany.”

“Your Herr Grüber was obviously familiar with the concept,” Logan replies, somewhat disdainfully.

“Ja, it vould seem so. But vhy do you say ‘tvig’? That is a very small branch, not a young tree like a seedling.”

“How would I know? That’s just the way it goes, that’s all.”

“Vell, the meaning is certainly true, in any case.”

“Enough of this. Let’s get back to the story, huh?”

I glance out the window, and see the barest hint of gray in the darkness beyond. There will not be time to tell him much more before the dawn will be upon us, and we will have to get up. There are, after all, classes to teach. Whatever happens between us, it will not be resolved in the short time remaining in this night. But I can make a start.

I nod and try to relax back against him as I go on.

“It vas not all sex, you know. Like any child growing up in a circus, I had lots of other things I had to do also, besides being a dancing freak in the sideshow. The sideshow only ran before and after the main circus shows, vhich left me free to take a small part in the real performances. I had a talent for acrobatics, so I started at an early age in the children’s acrobatic show. Of course, I could not appear as I really looked or no one vould pay to see me as a freak. Mutants vere not generally recognized for vhat they vere in those days, since they vere still relatively rare and the general public knew nothing except a few stories about people vith strange abilities or appearances. At that time, I did not know vhat I vas either. It got much harder to disguise myself later on, when the existence of mutants became common knowledge.

“The manager of the children’s troupe decided to hide me in plain sight: all the children vere costumed as little devils vith tails and vore makeup in various colors and designs. To make me even less conspicuous, I had to be a little girl, vith a flouncy short skirt and long curly vig. The skirt covered part of my tail, so if I forgot now and then to hold it stiff and artificially curved like the fake tails the others vore, it vould be less noticeable.

“Vhen ve had a parade down the main street of a town to attract people to the show, I rode along on the elephant, vearing a loose clown costume and makeup that concealed me completely as I juggled some colorful balls or balanced on my hands.”

Zirkus Sonnig was not large or well-known. In fact, as circuses went, it was somewhat disreputable, but I did not know that back then. It traveled mostly around Bavaria, so, unlike the American circuses that often had long distances to cover between stops, we usually had to drive for only a short time. Since all of Germany is only about the size of the state of Montana, and Bavaria is only one part of Germany, we did not spend large amounts of time in transit, which gave us more time for setting up the tents and other necessary equipment. In all, there were only nine large trucks to carry equipment and animals, plus varying numbers of individual campers or trailers belonging to the performers and other workers. Herr Grüber and I lived in his nicest trailer, and he had another one for some of his sideshow people, while still others had their own trucks or campers.

Every winter we stayed at our quarters in the small town of Schönberg in central Bavaria, which I have already mentioned. The other children in the circus would go to the local school during that time, but I had my own private tutor, since I could not appear in public unless I was thoroughly concealed by my clothing. It being winter and very cold, that was not too difficult for me to accomplish so long as I was outside, but it would not work indoors at a school.

As for the sex, even when I became old enough to learn more complex behaviors, it still was not that bad. As soon as my fingers became fairly good at what they did, Herr Grüber started working on other parts of me. By the time he started training me to accept anal penetration, I was so accustomed to knowing about such things that I approached it as just another lesson I must learn in order to please him. After all, I had been used to having his finger up my ass on a regular basis, ever since my nurse had been dismissed.

After my fifth birthday, I was put to bed every night with a butt plug in my ass, in gradually increasing sizes. It was during this time that he taught me the floating cloud meditation that has proven so effective. By my sixth birthday, he had sold the right to take my virginity, such as it was, to the highest bidder he could find.

But you must not think he just let someone rip me open. Oh no. He was always very careful, setting limits and keeping an eye on what was done. As a result, I was never seriously injured during any of this, although it was painful and frightening at times, especially that first time with an adult man.

If I did very well, he vould tell me I was his besonderes Dämon-Kind, or his kluger kleiner Teufel. Then he would bring me a gift from the midway. Maybe some cotton candy or popcorn or some small trinket he thought I would like.

If I seemed sad about being different from the other children, he would tell me that, if I were like the others, I would not be able to do all these things so well and he would not love me as much.

As I have mentioned, there were punishments if I broke his rules, but when I was punished, it was only because I deserved it. Most of the time, I got pleasure from what he did, and also from what my private customers did to me. Herr Grüber was always right there, not permitting anyone to be rough or brutal to me. As any child might do, I thought of him as my teacher and protector.”

Logan breaks into my story, clearly unable to keep quiet any longer. “Elf, he only protected you like that because he didn’t want to ruin you.”

“Ruin me?”

“Think about it. If he let everyone rape you repeatedly and brutally, how long would it have been before you were terrified, traumatized, and no longer attractive to the customers? Rip your asshole open often enough and long enough, and you’d lose your muscle tone and be unable to do what you now do so well. Same thing if he let you catch all kinds of diseases. He didn’t want to damage his valuable merchandise. Can’t you see that?”

“I can now, but it did not feel that vay back then.”

“Of course not! What did you know about such things? You were a kid.”

My eyes are staring down at the floor again, as I acknowledge the full extent of how well and surely Herr Grüber had manipulated me. “I guess you think I should have resisted vhat he –“

“How? What could you have realistically done to stop him? Give yourself a break. It wasn’t your fault, so why are you looking so ashamed? Are you afraid I’ll think less of you because you didn’t fight back?”

“No. Not for that exactly.”

“What then?”

“Gott hilf mir, I enjoyed it! I vanted it! I vanted his love! I vould do anything he told me to do, just so I could get his approval.”

“All children need love, Elf, just like we do,” Logan says, petting my head and smoothing my hair back gently. “Why would you be any different?”

“They don’t need that kind of love!!” I retort, too loudly and with my voice breaking at the end.

“No, they don’t. But if they can’t get one kind of love, they’ll take another. Do some research on brainwashing, darlin’. There’s more than one way to break someone’s will, and one of those ways is to convince them to love you.”

I think about that as I struggle to get myself under control. Finally, I am composed enough to ask, “Logan, do you think I am crazy because of vhat Herr Grüber did to me?”

“As far as sex goes, Elf, I think you’re one of the sanest people I’ve ever known. Also, one of the most knowledgeable, and you didn’t learn that in your acrobatics class. Take that floating like a cloud thing, for instance. Turned out to come in handy, didn’t it?”

“But I learned that from Herr Grüber.”

“I know, but it works, doesn’t it?”

I nod grudgingly.

Logan leans forward and kisses my eyes. “So don’t worry about it. I’ll never think any less of you for what someone else did a long time ago.”

I am about to tell him he might very well think less of me if he knew the rest of what I did, but at that moment, our alarm clock goes off.

We both jump. Logan reaches the clock first and turns it off. I am glad he did not slice it in half, as he has sometimes done. The sun has somehow managed to hoist itself up above the horizon unnoticed by either of us.

We look at each other and shrug our shoulders. “I guess it is time for me to get up,” I say reluctantly.

“Serves ya right for agreeing to teach an early class this semester. I get to sleep for another couple of hours.” He grins and flops down onto his side, pulling the pillow up over his head.

As I get out of bed, I hear his muffled voice call out, “This discussion isn’t finished, Kurt. Just postponed until tomorrow night.”

“Ja,” I agree, without enthusiasm.

THE HOUSE
Interlude

As Logan comes in the door to the suite of rooms we occupy here at the School, he finds me sitting in the chair by the window in our bedroom, a bottle of beer in one hand and an empty bottle already on the windowsill.

“OK, Kurt, what’s goin’ on? I don’t usually see ya drinkin’ this early in the day.”

I glance at the clock beside our bed. “It is 4:36 PM, mein Schatz. That is not so early.”

“Umm,” is the noncommittal response. He comes over, lifts my hand and the bottle together to check the level of the fluid. Half empty. Or half full, if you are an optimist. He leans down next to me, pressing his lips against mine.

When we end the kiss, I make a face and tell him, “You taste like your last cigar.”

“And you taste like your last beer, with a side order of brimstone.”

Nothing unusual about either complaint. We are just sparring with each other, as we often do.

“OK, darlin’, gonna tell me why the beer?”

“Ja. Very simple. I have something to show you from my childhood and I am trying to get in a relaxed mood, since I know it vill not be easy.”

For a moment, he is puzzled. “I thought we were gonna finish our talk about that tonight, Elf. In bed.”

“Ve are. But I vas just unpacking a box of old books I have had sent over from vhere they vere being stored in Germany. I thought I might be able to use some of them in my Intermediate German class next year. In a corner of the box, along vith a few other keepsakes, I found something that had once been very important to me, and I vish now to show it to you.”

Lifting the bottle to my lips, I drink the rest of the beer, set the bottle on the windowsill along with the previous one, and open another from the cardboard carton at my feet. Only then do I stand up, prepared to lead the way into the room I use as my study.

Logan raises an eyebrow, glancing at the remaining beers in the carton on the floor. I nod, so he picks them up and carries them with us, taking one for himself as we go.

“So show me this keepsake that’s so important you have to fortify yourself with three bottles of Löwenbräu before you can deal with it.” He slumps down into the reclining chair in the corner of my study where I do most of my reading, taking several swallows of his beer. Then he nods approvingly at the bottle in his hand. “Good stuff.”

“Danke. Does that mean I have finally convinced you that German beer is better than that horse piss you Americans drink?”

“Uh-huh. Especially if you’re the one paying for it.”

I ignore his jest. From amongst the piles of books scattered around my desk, I pick up a small object and bring it over to him, draping myself bonelessly across his lap. He switches on the bright reading lamp next to the chair, then props me up with one arm behind my shoulders, as I hold my hand out to him. “Here.”

Setting his beer on the floor, he takes the little object into his own large hand, turning it around and examining it quizzically in the light from the lamp. “A little house. Looks pretty old. A corner of the yard is broken off, but somebody seems to have tried to smooth it out and paint it so it’s not so noticeable.”

“Ja. I did that.”

“So what’s the deal?”

I prop my head against his shoulder and the back of the chair and steel myself for what is to come with a long swallow of beer.

“One day vhen I vas about nine years of age, Herr Grüber came over to me carrying the dreaded riding crop with the red braid – and something else,” I begin.

“H – have I been bad, mein Herr? Am I to be punished? Vhat have I done?” I said, my voice growing more despondent with each sentence.

He shook his head. No. I am not to be punished. I released the breath I was holding.

“You’re a big boy now, Kurt, and I’m going to start the next phase of your training. You will find it to be unpleasant at times, so I’m going to give you something that will help you deal with it.”

He held out his hand. I saw a small but detailed model of a house. It was that kind where the first story is brick, in this case painted white, while the second story slightly overhangs the first and is mostly white, but has numerous large timbers at angles, all painted black. I think this style is often called Tudor in this country. The roof was shingled, and a red brick chimney ran up one side of the building. I could see the house only from the front, but it had a bay window protruding from the side that was opposite from the chimney. The little house rested on a section of pale green lawn with several bushes. There was a wooden door with a path leading up to it.

Why would he want to give me such a thing? I dared not even take it from his hand until he indicated I might do so.

“Mein Herr, I do not understand. Vhat am I to do vith this?”

“Over the next couple of days, I want you to study it very closely. Memorize the outside so well that you can see it clearly in your mind, then decide how it looks on the inside. Visualize the rooms, the locations, what it would look like if you were standing inside it.

”But how can I know vhat it looks like on the inside? It has no real inside.”

“You must choose for yourself how you want it to look, in so much detail that you can fix it securely in your mind. Where is the kitchen? The bedrooms? Living room, bathroom? Is there a study? A hallway? Where are the stairs? Which bedroom is yours? Since the entire house belongs to you, you can construct it in whatever way you want it to be.”

“However I vant?”

“Ja. Except there is one thing that must be there: beneath the entire house, there is a basement. This basement is dark, damp, and cold. It is full of dust and dirt, for no one ever goes down there. Rats and mice scurry on the floor, spiders spin their webs in corners and ceilings. Water seeps through the cracks in the walls when it rains. Scary things reach out from the shadows. Strange and frightening noises assault your ears. The stairs that lead down into this basement are old and rotten. They may not hold the weight even of a boy such as yourself.”

“Herr Grüber, I – I do not think I vish to live in a house that has such a terrible basement.”

“You have no choice, mein kleines Dämon-Kind. It is where you will be.”

I averted my eyes and nodded, trembling.

“In time, you will learn to love that basement, for it is the place where you will keep all the things you cannot stand to face in the light of day. If you are afraid, you will push your fear down through that doorway, and let it fall to the bottom of those rickety stairs. Disgust will go there also, along with shame and humiliation. This is where you will send your nightmares, when you awaken from them crying.

“But most of all, when you are hurt, this is where you will put your pain, so you will not feel it so much as it is happening to you. You will imagine it stored down in the far corners of that basement, surrounded by nasty things. You will see the rats gnawing on it, cockroaches scuttling over it. The things that gibber and shriek in the shadows will tear at it, until it’s all gone, and all that’s left is you, tucked calmly and safely in your warm bed in your own cozy bedroom.”

“But vhy vill I have to do that?”

“You will not have to do it, Kurt.” He hit me across the face with the riding crop, not terribly hard, but hard enough. “You will want to do it.”

And indeed, I did, if it would ease the sharp sting across my cheek and the pain of my bleeding lip.

“Your next lessons will be on the uses of pain, child. It will take some years for you to master this part of your training, and you will not enjoy it very much. Or perhaps — who knows? – you may be one of those who do enjoy it, once you know what it’s like.”

He held the little object closer to me, in front of my face. “Study your house very closely, mein kleiner Teufel. Learn to live in it and make it your own.”

I stared dubiously at the gift he proposed to give me.

“Mein Herr, is it permitted that I ask you a question?”

“Yes. Whether or not I answer is, as always, my choice.”

“How did you learn all the things you teach me, and vill teach me in the future?”

“How do you think?”

“Someone taught you, as you are teaching me.”

“Yes.”

“Who?” I did not really expect an answer, but I got one.

“My father.”

Perhaps I should have expected that, but I did not. “He gave you – this?” I replied, pointing one finger tentatively at the house he still held in his hand.

He nodded.

“May I also ask if he – sold you – as you do me?”

“No, child. He kept me for his own exclusive use.”

I hesitated for a moment before daring to take this idea any further. But he was not frowning, nor had he threatened me with the riding crop so far.

“Did you – enjoy it?” My voice faded out towards the end, as my courage finally failed me.

“That I will not answer, Kurt. Never speak to me again about this subject. Verstehst du?”

“Ja, I understand. I vill not.”

He smiled. I had pleased him yet again. “You’re a good boy, child. Don’t be afraid. This will not all be bad. There are good things to come for you, if you learn your lessons well.”

I wanted to ask what good things, but knew better than to push my luck. I glanced up at him trustingly, hoping for an explanation.

“I have spoken to M’sieur Villaume. He is willing to let you try out tomorrow. If you do well, he will start training you on the trapeze along with his own son, during the winter months.”

My heart sang with joy. I had wanted this for so long, but had thought it would never be permitted to me. I knew I had the ability to be an aerialist. I had stared for many long hours at the Villaume family up on the trapezes. I knew the basic moves, and had practiced some of them from the branches of trees whenever I could. I was the best acrobat in our small troupe of children, better than some of the adults. My dream might now be possible after all!

Or it might be, if I continued to please Herr Grüber. For I had no illusions about that. If I did not learn these new lessons, and learn them well, he would not let me do this come winter.

“I vill make you proud of me, mein Herr,” I promised fervently. “In all vays.” I held out my hand for the little house.

Satisfied, he placed it on my small palm. “Do you now begin to know what this is, Kurt?”

I stared up at him, my eyes wide, and shook my head.

“Child, this is the House of Pain.”

I curled my few fingers around the precious gift he had given me. “I accept it villingly.”

Logan drains the beer from the bottle in his hand and drops it to the floor to join the four others that are now lying there.

“Aw, shit, Elf,” he says, wrapping both arms around me. “Not when you were only nine years old.”

“Ja,” I say, my voice muffled against his chest. “Herr Grüber believed in starting his training young.”

“Motherfuckin’ son-of-a-bitch!!”

“Do you mean you think he fucked dogs?” I inquire archly, looking up so Logan can see my face.

“Huh?” At least I had derailed the string of curses that would have come next.

“Vell, if he is the son of a bitch, his mother is a dog, nicht wahr? And if he fucks his mother, he vould be fucking –“

Logan holds up a hand to stop me as he finishes the sentence himself. “—a dog.”

“Ja.”

“You’re not gonna tell me you don’t know what I meant, are ya?”

I gaze at him with a look of innocent incomprehension.

“Look, Elf, it’s an –“

“—idiom. Ja, I know.” I grin as I get up off his lap. “Just trying to lighten things up, mein Freund. The melodrama in here vas getting so thick I vould soon have to have teleported us avay before ve suffocated.” Grabbing a hand, I pull him up from the chair. “Come. It is almost time for supper and I’m hungry, despite all this beer. Lass uns gehen.”

As I turn to drag him towards the door, I feel a sharp smack across my backside just below my tail.

“Ow!” I turn and look at him reproachfully. “Vhat did you do that for?”

“Just because I can, smartass.”

I could not resist the obvious comeback. “Vell, my ass may not be all that smart, but it is certainly smarting just now.”

“Agh!” he exclaims, putting his arm around my waist as we head down the stairs to dinner.

Part 2:
SO GROWS THE TREE

Wie der Zweig gebogen wird, so wächst der Baum.
As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.

The sun has set long ago and most of the others have finished dinner, yet still I sit pushing the food around on my plate. It is good and I am hungry, but I cannot force myself to eat very much, as my stomach appears to be playing host to a large flock of restless butterflies.

Logan leans over to me and says softly, “All right, darlin’. You know you’re just stalling now. Let’s get this over with.”

I nod my acquiescence and rise to my feet. In silence, we climb the two flights of stairs to our suite of rooms on the third floor, where most of the adults and teachers have their quarters. Logan locks the door behind us as we go in, as he usually does.

Again, as is our usual practice, we strip off all our clothes and head for the bed. The only unusual things about all this tonight is that it is far earlier than our regular bedtime, and I am not looking forward to what will happen when we are both in bed.

Logan piles all of our pillows into a comfortable heap in the middle of the headboard, tucks himself under the covers and props himself up reclining against the pillows, then looks at me with one eyebrow raised. I sigh and reluctantly lie down by his side, pulling the covers up over me also. It is a cold night for early March, and the heating system of the mansion is not always quite adequate for me to feel comfortable during a cold spell. Maybe I should get up and get my housecoat and wear that. No, Logan has already gotten his arms around me. He would tell me I am just stalling if I get up again. And he would be right. Oh well, if I stay here for a while, I will surely get warm lying next to him like this. I bend my legs and press my cold feet against his warm calves.

He sighs. “You’re not really into this, are you, Elf?”

“It is that obvious?”

“Sure. Any other night, especially a chilly one, you’d be wrapped around me tighter than a boa constrictor with his prey, but you’re just lyin’ there tonight.”

“This is not easy for me, you know.”

“I know.” All of a sudden, his face takes on this “I got an idea” expression. Uh-oh. Last night it was 20 Questions. What is it this time?

He grins at me, then tries to frown menacingly. “I may not hafe vays of makink you talk, but I do hafe vays of makink it easier for you to talk.” He leans over across me, rummaging in the drawer of my nightstand.

I cannot help but smile at the overdone German accent.

Having found what he is searching for and gotten back to his side of the bed, he holds up the butt plug that he gave me for my birthday last November. It is a pretty thing, made of solid cobalt blue glass, about 15 centimeters long and 5 centimeters wide at the bottom of the rounded cone-shaped part. Below that, it narrows down to a little under 3 cms before widening out into a large flat circular base. Being glass, it is heavy, smooth, and usually cool to the touch.

I know immediately what he is suggesting. Mild arousal always loosens my tongue. This might work.

I nod in agreement, leaning over to grab a fingerful of lube from the container that sits discreetly in a carved wooden box on my nightstand. As I rub the greasy stuff onto the butt plug and my ass, I smile again as I remember how we started using Crisco a few weeks ago, when we ran out of the usual lube one night and frantically ransacked the kitchen for a substitute. It turned out not to be as messy as the regular water-based stuff, and lots cheaper.

Rolling onto my side, I bend one leg up sharply, raise my tail, and present my willing rear to Logan for insertion. As such things go, this is not a small plug by any means, so he works it in gradually, allowing me time to adjust. As the widest part opens me and slides in, I sigh as I feel the familiar pressure settle into place. I can already sense some of my anxiety dissolving. When I sleep part of the night with this plug in place, I wake up as horny as can be. I suspect that is the reason Logan gave it to me in the first place.

He presses a finger gently against the circular base, rocking it back and forth inside me. I squirm at the lovely sensations, tucking myself more tightly into the warmth of his arms. Much better. Maybe I can talk about this after all. Clearing my throat, I give it a try.

“As I said this afternoon, Herr Grüber gave me that little model of a house and told me how I vas to use it. I took him at his vord, and began to imagine it in my mind, deciding the entire top floor, including the large bay vindows on the front and side of the house, vas my bedroom, since no one else lived there except me. It vas full of light and cheerfulness, and I decorated it vith all the things that gave me delight. Pictures of peaceful green forests, snow-covered mountains, and ships sailing over dramatically stormy seas covered the valls, along vith circus posters that advertised my incredible skill on the trapeze and high vire. Stained glass filled the panes of one of the vindows, throwing splotches of color around the big room. There vere shelves and shelves of books for me to read, and a large soft bed with a comfortable quilt of squares sewn together, all in different shades of purple. The ceiling vas a vast painting of stars in all their many constellations and patterns. It vas a room of happy dreams and cheerful days, the kind of place I had alvays vanted.

“I put a spacious bathroom vith a large tub at the side of the room furthest from the vindows, imagining how nice it vould be to fill that tub vith hot vater and soak in it on cold days. The toilet vas lower to the ground and smaller, to conveniently fit my child’s stature. I figured I could make it bigger later on, as I grew older. I covered the floor vith thick rugs, so my feet vould never be cold from valking on a bare floor.

“All this vas fun, but then I had to create the bottom story, vith its door to the basement. I started vith a flight of very ordinary stairs, imagining myself descending them. At first, I could see nothing but darkness, but then individual rooms began to take shape.”

I break off, seeing in my mind a vision of the lovely upstairs room I had evoked shattering on the stark reality of the lower floor.

I swallow hard, staring into that darkness down below. “I cannot go on.”

Logan says nothing but only kisses the top of my head, then the finger between my legs remembers its task of pushing the butt plug slightly in and out, in and out. My whole body tenses as a spasm of pleasure runs through me. I gasp. He kisses my lips this time, then pulls away to whisper in my ear.

“What are ya afraid of, darlin’? Why can’t you tell me?”

“You vill think me veak and covardly for vhat I let him do to me, and for vhat he made me do.” All right, I have said it. Good.

“You? A coward? I know better. Besides, you were a child at the time.”

“Macht’s nichts. I did not resist. In some vays, I enjoyed it.”

“Elf, we’ve been over this before. There was nothing you could do to stop him. You were a child, at the mercy of an adult. As for the enjoyment, no matter what age a person is, it’s still sex, and sex can be made to be enjoyable, even if forced.”

“You are right. But –“

“Nothing in the world could change you into a weakling in my eyes. I swear it.”

I still look doubtful. He continues to pump his finger gently against the blue glass.

“C’mon, Elf. What more can I say?”

“Nothing.” An idea strikes me, as I enjoy the feeling of the smooth blue glass moving against my insides. “But there is something you could do.”

“What? Just tell me and I’ll do it.”

“I vill tell you later. Still villing to promise?”

He regards me with a certain amount of suspicion. “You’re up to somethin’, ain’t ya?”

“Ja. But that is all I vill say about it.”

“Aw right, aw right, I promise. So keep talkin’.”

“The bottom floor does not interest me much. I supply it vith the minimum of vhat is necessary in the vay of a kitchen and a living room. Nothing fancy. Just plain utilitarian items and furnishings. At the far side of the kitchen, I reluctantly add the door that goes down into the basement. It is made of thick oak, solidly built and strong. I add a large iron bolt, telling myself that nothing can get through that door unless I open it from my side. I feel safer once that is finished.

“In my spare time for the next few days, I devote myself to studying my little house. One corner, as you noticed, vas broken off, so I borrowed a file from one of the circus handymen and smoothed off the rough edges. Then I talked him into letting me use some paint to make it green, blending in vith the rest of the lawn. The house pleased me even more, once it appeared less damaged. I continued to furnish my lovely bedroom, adding more and more detail to it in my mind’s eye. Now and again, I forced myself to think about the basement, but I hated that part of my exercise.

“Shortly after that, Herr Grüber began my new training.”

He started easily and slowly. A few light slaps with his hand against my buttocks, then harder and more, until I was getting a true spanking that really hurt. Sometimes this would be only in my training sessions, sometimes in front of a private customer. Eventually, it would be the customer who did such things to me.

Then he would begin using something else. Wooden paddles, a belt, the dreaded riding crop that had only been used for punishment before, and even then very seldom. Nothing that did real damage or left much in the way of marks, but the pain was real. As with the earlier punishments I described, if I did not remain still and accept what was being done, I got more strokes added.

Next I must learn to be tied or otherwise restrained. That was frightening, leaving me feeling entirely helpless and at the mercy of whoever else was there. If I had not believed Herr Grüber would continue to keep me safe from serious harm, I would have been even more terrified.

And yes, as he had said, by this time I truly wanted to make use of my little house. Somehow, the basement never got too full. No matter what I forced down into it, I found that there was plenty of room for more.

Vicious little clamps that pinched my skin, then my nipples and parts of my genitals. Places on my body that seemed so innocent until the right amount of pressure applied by nothing more than a finger could cause excruciating agony. All of this was done coupled with various sexual acts, so both the pain and the ecstasy became tangled together in my mind.

But when he first used a knife on me, just the touch of the back of the blade as he drew it lightly across my skin lit up my nerves like the lights on a Christmas tree. I was absolutely terrified, but also absolutely fascinated. Rarely was I cut, and even then, not deeply, but the anticipation and the fear of what might be done made up for the lack of serious pain.

By the time the season was over and the circus went to its winter quarters in Schönberg, Herr Grüber was very pleased with my progress. He fulfilled his promise of allowing me to train on the trapeze with M’sieur Villaume and his family, even as he continued my other training.

I was very popular with some of my private customers by now. They would even come to see me in our little village, although it was rather out of the way for many of them. Once one of the more trusted customers was permitted to take me home for a weekend. That was frightening. I had to trust that Herr Grüber’s judgement in this matter was correct. But it all turned out well. I returned home with the first of many gifts I was to get from my customers: a miniature pirate ship in a bottle.

My trapeze lessons turned out well also. As you have probably guessed, M’sieur Villaume decided that I had great talent for the trapeze. By the end of that winter, he had approached Herr Grüber with a request to allow me to continue my training while the circus was on the road, so long as it took place only at times and places where no strangers were around to see me. Herr Grüber agreed readily, no doubt thinking of the day when I would be good enough to appear in the main show and could earn a nice salary for him, in place of being in the sideshow. I too dreamed of that day.

Privately, he let me know that my trapeze work would be contingent on my continuing to do well with my other training, and that I must not allow it to interfere with the servicing of my private customers late at night, as usual. That was a busy summer, but I enjoyed it, despite some of the lessons he wished to teach me. I found that my experience in being hurt gave me one advantage over others in learning the trapeze: I did not fear pain as other children did, so I did not make a big deal out of falling and getting hurt when I landed in the safety net wrong, to mention just one thing. Make no mistake: no truly difficult physical skill is learned without mistakes, hurts, injuries, strains, sprains, and other kinds of pain. Sometimes the worst pain did not come from Herr Grüber’s lessons at all. My little house came in handy for dealing with that also.

The beginning of the end of my precarious happiness came at the end of that summer season, when little Anna arrived. Circus Sonnig had moved back to its winter quarters and Herr Grüber and I had just finished moving our things into his house when he told me I would be staying for a weekend at the home of one of my customers. Conveniently, he had to go away himself over that same time in order to take care of some business. I thought nothing of it, by now an old hand at visiting the homes of the men who paid for my services. I had eagerly awaited this winter, when I would resume my regular classes with M’sieur Villaume, instead of the slapdash pattern of training we had resorted to during the busy summer months.

When I returned home, I learned that Herr Grüber’s “business” had been obtaining a new freak for his show, possibly someone to take my place once I was good enough to perform on the trapeze. This was, of course, the Anna I have mentioned. She was only five years old and he had gotten her from a distant orphanage. I was certain that he had not told the people who ran the orphanage of the use he intended to make of her.

Anna was what we would now call intersexual. She had such a large and well-developed clitoris that it could easily be mistaken for a penis if one did not look closely. She also had a vagina, but it was not of normal size, even for a child her age. Herr Grüber did not find that out right away, as she was an intact virgin when he adopted her.

He planned to display her for an extra charge, as he did with the dancing girls and me, as a child hermaphrodite, which would draw a good crowd. There were some He-Shes or Half-and-Halfs, as they were also called, in many sideshows, but they were all adults and many were just men in drag who knew how to disguise their male organs so that it appeared they had a vagina in addition to a penis. It was the custom for these folks to be dressed as a male on one side of their body and female on the other. Of course, that is foolishness, as even a true hermaphrodite, something which is very rare, would not be different right down the middle in that manner.

Anna hated it when Herr Grüber tried to make her look like that. Although she knew she was unusual, she felt she was basically a normal girl, not a boy. She had long blond hair, and she cried bitterly when he cut it off on one side and made her wear it short like a boy. He had a special outfit made up for her for the shows, and started teaching her what she would be expected to do when the next season began. We held a few rehearsals with the dancing girls towards the end of the winter, and I showed her my routine and how she could do much the same thing and charm the audience. Her costume had a pink halter top and a girl’s frilly shorts on one side and just plain blue shorts on the other side. At the end of the show, she was to step out of her clothing and stand naked facing the crowd so they could see she had a penis. Then she would turn around and bend over, so they could also see that the rest of her genitals were female. Herr Grüber made her practice that part of the show also, but she seemed mortified to be naked, and did not handle it with the natural grace and shamelessness that I did. However, I hoped she would loosen up once she got used to doing it. I thought up ways of including her in my antics during our performances, in order to ease her into it.

She was too young to have breasts, but towards the end of that winter, Herr Grüber paid a disreputable doctor to inject saline into the breast on her female side, so that it looked as if it had begun to develop slightly. After that, she seemed even more ashamed, if that were possible.

Poor Anna did not take naturally to her training in sexual matters, as I had. I tried to encourage her and persuade her to be cooperative, if only because I knew things would be easier for her that way. But she could not do it. I suppose I was too young to understand why she was unable to follow my example.

I became her friend and her protector, to the extent that I could, trying to persuade Herr Grüber to be easier on her, making excuses for her whenever possible, but the poor child was wretched, even when all she was being expected to learn was how to pleasure an adult with her hands, or to simply lie there as a customer examined her and fondled her, pretending enjoyment even if she did not feel it.

Although we each had our own small bedrooms in the house, she would often sneak into my room at night, if she was unhappy about something. Many a time she fell asleep in my arms, crying softly and almost silently, so Herr Grüber would not hear. During the circus season, when we all lived in a trailer, Anna and I slept in the living/dining room, on the padded seats on either side of the table where we would all eat our meals. Herr Grüber, of course, used the bedroom, which was also where our private customers were entertained. In our winter home, there was a much larger and better furnished room where both our training sessions and our appointments with our customers took place.

Meanwhile I was still finding it relatively easy to learn my new lessons, even if sometimes things hurt. Herr Grüber went slowly, and the basement of my little house was easily able to contain my pain for most of that first year and a half. Since Anna seemed so much more miserable than I was, I had very little pity left over for myself.

I showed her my little house and tried to teach her how to do what I did with it, but she never quite got the idea of how that was supposed to work. Maybe she would have done better if she had a little house of her own, but by then I could not bear to part with mine. I needed it too much.

That spring, just before the circus was to start out on its annual circuit, Herr Grüber decided it was time for Anna to move on to actually having her vagina penetrated. Her hymen was unusually thick, so he finally had to resort to slicing it open with a razor.

I had a very difficult time calming her down that night. She was almost hysterical, although the pain could not have been all that hideous.

The next day during my own training session, I persuaded Herr Grüber to let me work with Anna for a month before he did anything else to her, promising she would make significant progress if I were allowed to do this. He must have been getting very frustrated with her, as he finally agreed to my proposal.

I tried even harder to show her how enjoyable sex could be. My fingers caressed her gently, my lips covered her with delicate kisses, I let her touch me and explore me, teaching her all I knew about what a male body could enjoy. I made sure her vagina was healed before I even began to touch her there. I stroked her overdeveloped clitoris, sucked it gently, touched her breasts carefully, especially the saline-injected one, licking her nipples with feather-light touches of my tongue. In short, I did everything I could think of to arouse her without hurting or frightening her. Sometimes she even seemed to enjoy it, but not with anything like the desire it brought forth in me.

When I thought she was ready, I caressed her vagina with my mouth, licking and sucking and finally inserting the tip of my tongue between her labia. She reacted well to that, but when I tried to open her further with a finger, she begged me to stop.

The month was almost over by then and I knew full well that Herr Grüber would be neither overly gentle nor very patient when he resumed her lessons himself. I coaxed, I spoke to her, I tried to tell her what she would have to learn. But it was all to no avail. She hated every minute of it.

I decided that this summer season was not something I could look forward to with any great amount of anticipation.

“Darlin’, could we stop for a minute? This doesn’t sound as if it’s going to end soon and I need to take a piss.”

“Vhat? Oh – uh – sure. As a matter of fact, so do I.”

He unwraps his arms from around me and gets up to go to the bathroom. He is still peeing when I come in also, walking with my buttocks clenched together to avoid allowing the plug inside me to come loose. That can be quite a trick at times. I stand beside him, waiting my turn at the toilet. For the first time since we have been lovers, I feel vaguely self-conscious about being naked in front of Logan. Or maybe I am simply embarrassed over the things I have just told him.

“So I suppose while all that training was going on,” he asks, shaking off the last few drops and stepping over to the basin to wash his hands and get a drink of water, “no one else in the circus noticed what was happening to you two kids?”

I shrug, then start to pee, holding the butt plug in place with my free hand as I do so.

“Some people may have suspected, but they did not know for sure vhat vent on after the main show vas over for the night. Many of the performers packed up and left as early as they could for the next stop on our route, so they vere often not around by the time my special customers arrived.”

“Even so.”

“If anyone had suspected, they vould not have dared to challenge Herr Grüber directly. Anna and I were his freaks, and he had much influence vith the owner of the circus, Mr. Sonnig. Rumor had it that the owner, whom ve seldom saw, had borrowed a substantial sum of money from him to pay off a gambling debt. This may be true, or it may not. All I know for sure is that no one crossed Herr Grüber.”

Logan nodded. “Yeah, I can believe that. By the way, did the man have a first name?”

“Oh ja. Ernst Rudolph Grüber vas his full name. But ve all had
to call him Herr Grüber or face his anger.”

“I see.”

Now it is my turn to wash my hands, as Logan stands there watching. I clear my dry throat and take a few swallows of water from the cup, then we return to our bed.

With his arms once more securely around me, I no longer have that sick-to-my-stomach feeling that is shame. My lover is not disgusted with me, as I had feared he would be. Ah, but he does not yet know the whole story. Perhaps when he does, he will not still love me so much.

“Some of my fears for the summer came true. Although Anna eventually learned to handle the sideshow performances by feigning a reasonable amount of enthusiasm, she vas not at all ready to entertain her own customers using anything beyond the basic hand techniques and simply being displayed and fondled. There vere alvays a few customers who enjoyed doing such things to a little girl who vas clearly unvilling and afraid, so she vas not entirely vithout monetary value.

“I, of course, had been able to interest that sort of customer by simply pretending to be terrified, and even pretending to resist if that vas vhat vas vanted. Herr Grüber vould tell me ahead of time vhat he had discovered the customer vould prefer and so pay extra to see. I could even pretend to enjoy myself and beg for more, vhen in truth the only thing I vanted sometimes vas for it to be over and done vith. It all depended on how much it hurt. I could fake orgasm very convincingly vhen I thought that vould end the session. Since I vas only eleven years old and still too young to ejaculate, my body vould not betray the truth. I vas vell avare that vould change sometime in the next few years, but it vas too soon to vorry about it.”

As things turned out, Herr Grüber had no more luck coaxing Anna to let him open her vagina than I did. Rather than upsetting her during the summer season, he decided early on to hold off until she was a little older, to the relief of us all. I could tell he was not happy about having to do this though.

There were many joyful moments for me during that summer, but on the whole, it was miserable. On the good side, I was able to continue my lessons on the trapeze, even if only sporadically. During a very rainy couple of days when the entire circus was closed down, M’sieur Villaume even gave me a chance to see what I could do on the high wire, arranging a trial lesson with one of our tightrope walkers. I did not have a fear of heights, as many people do, and I have a good sense of balance. I already knew how to take a fall into the safety net, so I was somewhat ahead of the game before I even started. Just as I did with the trapeze, I loved being up there. In fact, I hated to come down and face the rest of my life.

Meanwhile, back in our trailer, my lessons in accepting pain took a turn for the worse, when Herr Grüber decided it was time he should begin showing me how to find pleasure, and also earn more money for him, by inflicting pain on others. I denied that such a thing could be true, of course, but he only said I was foolish and naive, and he would make sure that I learned otherwise. In addition to the occasional customer who enjoyed such things, I had also to practice my lessons on Anna.

At first, I did what Herr Grüber instructed me to, although only to avoid his wrath if I did not. He had me do small things to Anna, sometimes to provide a show for the private customers, sometimes during her own training sessions. Much to my shame, I found that I could often find pleasure in obeying him. But it was nothing so awful. Perhaps just spanking her lightly, or holding her still while the customer fondled her, or saying nasty things to her while Herr Grüber tried in vain to arouse her in various ways. But as the things he ordered me to do became more vicious, I was still afraid to refuse, and my own arousal became shamefully obvious at times, proving to me that he had been right: one could indeed find pleasure in causing pain to someone else.

Now, of course, I know a lot more about this sort of thing. I know there are those who do it because they enjoy it. I find nothing wrong with that, so long as it is truly the will of both parties, and they are old enough and competent enough to give informed consent. But this was not our situation. I perhaps might have consented to much that was done to me, but it would have been in view of the fact that I knew I would then be rewarded with more trapeze lessons. In fact, at one point, I told Herr Grüber that I did not mind so much for myself, but I could not stand to hurt Anna any more.

To my surprise, he did not become angry, but rather offered to arrange lessons for me on the high wire that coming winter, if I would be a good obedient boy and pleased him with my performance for the remainder of the season. I am ashamed to say I agreed. I have since learned that I am not the first person to have sold his soul for something he greatly desired.

The things he asked of me over the next couple of months became more cruel, but it happened slowly and insidiously, so that it was hard to draw a line between not so bad and worse.

Anna withdrew more and more into herself, no longer able to trust me entirely, even though she knew I was as much at Herr Grüber’s mercy as she was herself.

When I was instructed to pee on her at the request of a customer, I felt very uncomfortable with it, but I consoled myself with the idea that at least I was not hurting her. Besides, that had been done to me now and then, without bothering me unduly. In fact, men had peed into me, which was much worse.

My desire to please Herr Grüber diminished during that time, even though I knew I had to do it if I ever wanted to become a trapeze artist, much less perform on the high wire. I started to resent his demands, more for Anna’s sake than my own. But then I would think of how he had told me that he had been through all this training himself at the hands of his own father, so he was doing no worse to us than what had been done to him. And he had not had the offer of his heart’s fondest desire waiting for him when it was all over. Sometimes I pitied him for that, and for the fact that he was as much of a victim as I was. I think now that I would have been better off just hating him. It would have been much less confusing to my child’s mind.

Most of my regular customers were reasonably kind to me, and I had more chances to go with them to their homes for the night when the circus was in the vicinity of where they lived. I started to see what other people’s lives were like, and it was a revelation to me. However, there were men among my customers who were truly cruel and hateful. I dreaded seeing them arrive, especially if I knew Anna was to be involved in the proceedings.

I got through the rest of the season by concentrating on the rewards that would be mine during the winter, when I could spend much of my time high above the rest of the world, doing what I knew I had been born to do.

So it was that my greatest joy was inexorably linked to my greatest
horror —

— until at last the time came when I reached my limit.

It was after the end of that summer season, and once again we had moved back into our winter home. I was looking forward to resuming regular trapeze lessons and maybe even starting to learn the tightrope, once everything had settled down. That was when Herr Grüber decided it was time to stop going easy on Anna. Like it or not, she would finally have to allow her vagina to be used.

He summoned us both into the training room that day. I knew what was going to happen the moment I walked in. The window shutters were tightly closed, and the walls were hung with noise-dampening padded fabric. I had only ever seen this done before when he expected to be doing something that might result in someone, most often me, screaming. It would not do for our neighbors to suspect what was going on. Of course, I tried very hard never to scream because I knew it only made things worse, but Anna had not yet reached that level of self-discipline.

“No! Herr Grüber, please do not do this,” I started to protest.

“Silence, Kurt. You are here to observe and help out, that’s all.”

Anna had already begun whimpering. She ran to me, throwing her arms around me and clutching desperately at my waist. I could feel her trembling.

His eyes flared with anger. He went over to the shelves where all of our equipment was kept, and came back carrying the riding crop with the red strand braided into it. Setting it conspicuously down on the table next to the bed, he turned to us and ordered me to bring Anna over to him.

I had little choice. Besides, even if I had refused, he would only have walked over to us and taken her from me.

“Good boy. Now lift her up onto the bed.”

I did that too, although her anguished pleas tore at my heart. He began fitting her tiny wrists and ankles into leather restraints, leaving her spread-eagled and naked. (We knew better than to wear any clothes when we were told to appear in this room.)

“Kurt, do anything and everything you can think of that might get her aroused. The better you do, the less this is going to hurt her.”

I did not need to be told that, as I knew all too well that it was true. As I had done during that month when I had tried to train her, I did everything in my power to stimulate her body to want this. She was so scared that it was not of much use, but it was not for lack of my trying. The whole time, I had to listen to her moan and beg Herr Grüber to let her go.

“All right, boy. That’s enough. Any one of your female customers would have been ready and willing long ago, if you performed as well on them as you just did on her.”

“My regular customers are grown vimmen, not little girls,” I said without thinking as I slid off the bed.

He glared at me. I went down on my knees and bowed my head. “Bitte, entschuldigen Sie, mein Herr,” I apologized formally, as we were expected to do in a situation such as this. “It is not my place to say such things to you.”

“Accepted. Do not let it happen again.”

I rose to my feet and stood there, waiting for whatever would come next, reminding myself that I had to manage to keep my mouth shut no matter what happened.

From the table beside the bed, he picked up a small solid plastic dildo, obviously meant for use by someone attempting anal penetration for the first time, barely the width of a woman’s pinky finger. He lubricated it generously as Anna stared at him in sudden comprehension of what was coming. When he rubbed some of the same fluid between her wide-spread legs, she began screaming.

He tried to hold her down with one hand on her hips, but she squirmed too much. “Kurt, hold her still!”

Unwillingly, I climbed onto the bed beside her and tried to pin her hips, but my slight weight was not sufficient to overcome her hysterical struggling.

“Here, boy. You take the dildo. I’ll hold her.”

Horrified, I pulled back. “Nein!”

“Do what I tell you. Or forget about any more lessons on the trapeze or high wire this winter.” Seeing the revulsion in my eyes, he added, “Or ever again.”

I would like to be able to say that I only obeyed him because I thought I could at least be gentler with her than he would be, but that would not be the entire truth.

I took the dildo, waited for Herr Grüber to get a solid hold on the struggling girl, then carefully opened her labia with my other hand and started working it slowly into her little vagina. Her screams intensified as I pushed it deeper inside her, even though I was massaging her clitoris with the first finger of the hand that held her open, still hoping to make this easier on her by arousing her. I did not get the dildo in very far before I could feel firm resistance.

Herr Grüber was smiling at me. “Good boy. Go deeper.”

“I cannot. I have hit the end.”

“That’s impossible.”

I shrugged helplessly, pushing the bottom of the shaft a tiny bit harder and letting him see that it would not go.

Anna’s screams had died out by now, subsiding into despairing sobs. She lay still.

Holding her with one hand, he motioned my hands out of the way and took hold of the dildo himself, pushing slightly. She gave a sharp scream at that.

“This can’t be,” he said.

I shrugged again and kept silent. Best not to point out that I had told him so.

He grabbed her once again with both hands. “Move it around from side to side. See if you can stretch her a little, now that we’ve at least gotten it in.”

“Herr Grüber –“

“Don’t even say it, child.”

I did as he said, eliciting a few more screams from Anna despite trying to be gentle.

“All right, take it out. That’s enough for today.”

By now, there were tears running down my face. I tried to wipe them away without letting him see, as I removed the dildo and turned away to set it back on the table. My eye caught on the riding crop. There would be punishment to come, that was certain. I could tell by the tone of his voice when he told me to release Anna from the restraints.

That done, he set her on her feet next to the bed and ordered brusquely, “Bend over the side of the bed, girl.”

She complied automatically, as if she could not comprehend what was going to be done.

“You know full well that you have broken Rule Number Two, Anna, by not only refusing to do as you were told but also carrying on in such a disgraceful manner. For this, you have earned a punishment of five strokes.”

He picked up the riding crop and swung his arm back for the first stroke.

I could not stand it anymore. “Nein!!” I said, and this time it was a command, not a plea. I jumped in front of him and grabbed his arm as it came forward, forcing him to stumble sideways and fall to the floor, taking me with him. The expression on his face was no more astonished than the one I expect was on mine as we stared at each other.

He recovered first, shaking me off and getting to his feet. “Kurt,” he said with deceptive mildness, “am I to understand that you don’t wish me to punish Anna?”

I nodded as I also stood up, knowing I was in real deep shit now.

“Very well.”

No, he was not giving in. Something worse was going to happen, I knew it.

“In that case, you shall administer her punishment instead of me.” He held out the riding crop.

I shook my head, keeping my hands resolutely down by my sides.

“You are refusing to do what I tell you?”

I knew what was coming when he phrased it that way: either I obeyed, or I was guilty of the same infraction that Anna had been.

“I vill not do it.” Without waiting for his answer, I went to the side of the bed and leaned forward over it, while arching my tail up toward my head as far as I possibly could, leaving my bare ass and the backs of my thighs as his target.

Anna whimpered.

“Girl, stand up over here and watch. I want you to see what happens to him as a result of your failure to behave properly.”

The leather slashed down across my buttocks. I clenched my teeth firmly on the scream that rose to my lips, knowing it would only result in more strokes being added to my punishment if I did not keep quiet.

“For your insolence –“

The next stroke hit my thighs. Again, I stifled a cry of pain, trying to summon the image of my little house and send the pain down to the basement. But Herr Grüber did not give me a chance to shift my frame of mind.

“You will not be permitted trapeze or high wire lessons –“

The next blow landed again on my buttocks, criss-crossing the first.

“Not this winter –“

The next did the same across my thighs. I must not move. I must be quiet. I must. I must.

“Or ever again.”

It sank slowly into my pain-fogged mind what he had just said, but I had no time to react before I heard his next command.

“Stand up straight and turn around. Eyes closed.”

I obeyed quickly, knowing there was one more stroke to come but not knowing where it would land. He had never done this before.

He let me stand like that for what seemed an eternity, but was probably only about half a minute. When the blow finally came, it was across my lower abdomen. The pain shot through me like a hot iron. I fell to the floor, clutching my gut and moaning as softly as I could.

“Get up, boy. Anna, lean over the bed. Don’t make me have to tell you twice.”

I struggled to my feet, bent double and still holding my belly. Hot tears leaked from my eyes.

This time he forced the riding crop into my hand, curling my fingers around it. “Nein,” I whispered. “Bitte, Herr Grüber. Please!”

“Do as I say. If you perform well, I may permit your lessons after all. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” His voice was smooth, confident, sure that I wouldn’t refuse this time. “If you don’t obey, you’ll get another punishment just like the last, but next time there will be no offer of rescinding your extra penalty, and we’ll play this game once again. Eventually, you will give in. Either way, Anna will receive her punishment also, so you gain nothing by prolonging it.”

I knew he was right. Silently, I nodded my head. I could not even hope to lessen Anna’s pain by not hitting her very hard, since he would be able to tell if I tried that. I might as well surrender now and at least be allowed my lessons again, I told myself firmly.

I glanced at Anna, where she stood bending forward over the edge of the bed with her tender bottom exposed, silent now, as she finally seemed to realize that words and screams would only make things worse for her by gaining her extra strokes.

For just a second, I truly felt the desire to hurt her, and not only because of the lessons I so wanted, but just so that I could feel the pleasure that others had found in hurting me. Besides, had it not been her fault for disobeying Herr Grüber that had gotten me into this situation in the first place? She deserved what I was about to do to her.

But still I hesitated. Anna was my friend. She had trusted me, even when I would help Herr Grüber, because she knew I had no choice. I did not want to do this to her.

I told myself I had no choice.

I straightened up and raised my arm to strike her — and found myself gazing down at a younger version of myself, in the same position as Anna, mutely waiting to be cruelly hurt. And in that moment, I knew I could not do this to her. I wished with all my heart and soul that I was not here, in this place and in this situation, and that I had not sunk so low as those who had treated me in this same way.

The riding crop dropped from my hand and I bowed my head in the full expectation that it vould be picked up by Herr Grüber and used yet again on me.

I wanted only to be gone from there — and suddenly I was gone. Gone through a terrifying place of darkness, desolation, and emptiness, out of which I returned, shaking, sick, weak, still hurting, and astonished to find I was not where I had been. I threw up, then I fainted. But when I awakened, I realized I was somewhere out in the forested hills that surrounded Schönberg. I could see the town below me.

I did not know how this had happened, but I was sure of only one thing: I would not go back, not even if it cost me my life to stay away. I turned my back on the town and ran as fast and as far as I could into the forest, stopping only when I collapsed exhausted to the ground.

I pull myself up out of the morass of my memories. I cover my face with my hands, then lean my head against Logan’s chest while I try to collect my wits.

I become aware of his arms around me, one hand reaching up to stroke the back of my head. In a little while, I begin to feel more myself again. I lower my hands and allow myself to relax. There. I have told him. I can do nothing more now but wait for him to respond.

Then his other hand moves up my back, joining the one already there and tangling themselves in my hair as he pulls my face up to his and into a kiss.

Very quickly, the kiss deepens, and the hands that were in my hair go down to my back, clutching me up against him so hard that he almost seems to fear that I will get up and run away. Whatever happens, I begin to feel that he will at least not reject me outright, as I had feared he might. Hope begins to brighten my heart. My arms are pinned to my sides by his hold on me, but I can still bend my forearms around his waist, adding my tail to the embrace also. His penis responds to the pressure of my body against his.

Then his thigh pushes between my legs, finally pressing against the butt plug, which is still in place, but seems to have been forgotten until recently. My fears evaporate, wiped away by his desire, and my own. I am not rejected. I am not despised. Gott sei Dank, I am still wanted and loved!

Under ordinary circumstances, this would lead to the usual sex. But these circumstances are not ordinary and that is not what I have in mind. I put both hands on his chest and push him away. He stares at me in evident surprise.

I smile back, with mischief clear on my face and in my glowing eyes. “I told you vhat you vanted to know about my childhood. Now you must do vhat you promised and prove to me that you do not think I am a craven covard.”

“You really need me to prove it? Even though I’ve told you there’s nothing that could possibly make me think that of you?”

“Vords, as the saying goes, are not expensive.”

“I think you mean they’re cheap.”

“Vhatever.” I wave away his correction.

“What is it you want me to do, darlin’? Just tell me and it’s yours.”

“I am glad you feel that vay. It is very simple. Let me fuck you for a change.”

“You think that would prove anything?” But he is stalling for time and I know it.

“Ja. Because you vould never let someone you thought of as a veakling top you.”

“OK, you’re right. Do it,” he concedes gracefully. “In the immortal words of someone I know very well and respect very highly, ‘Fich mich’.”

I cannot help but laugh.

While I have not had very much chance to work out the details over the last couple of hours, I have been thinking for quite a long time now what I would do if I were to have this opportunity. So I do not hesitate.

“Lie facedown with your ass in the air.”

He complies without protest, while I take a few seconds to remove the butt plug and set it aside, since it would be close to impossible to do what I intend to do and still be able to keep it in place.

Then I check to see that Logan has done as he was told. It is so unusual to see him in this position that I take a few extra moments to savor the view from all directions. “Be sure to place your tail off to one side, so it does not get in my vay.”

“Uh, Elf –“

I giggle as I interrupt him. “Let me guess: you do not have a tail. How sad for you.”

“Very funny. Let’s get down to business, huh? I feel silly in this position.”

“You do not look silly, mein Schatz.” I open the bottom drawer of my nightstand and take out something I’ve been saving for a long time: an extra large nitrile glove. Of course, I cannot put it onto my hand properly, but I know I can get my fingers into the holes with a bit of wiggling. Next I pick up the can of Crisco from its box on my nightstand. “Spread your legs a little vider, so I can fit betveen them.”

He does so. “Hmph!” I reply scornfully. “Not very vide, if you ask me.” I settle down into a comfortable crouch between his feet.

“Can we dispense with the wisecracks, darlin’?”

“I did not ask for your suggestions, did I now?” I purr softly, giving him a rather solid smack across the buttocks.

“Ow! Hey!” he protests, twisting his head around to look at me. Surprise registers on his face as he sees me still struggling to put on my glove. “Uh, Elf, what do you plan to do with that?”

“Do not be concerned. I vill not be fist-fucking you. This is not the time for that and I know it.” I lean forward a bit, reaching around him with my ungloved hand and taking hold of his half-hard penis, circling it with my fingers and thumb and moving up and down in a maddeningly slow rhythm. By now, he knows better than to complain. He begins to move his hips, trying to make me speed up, but I do not.

Instead, I put my other hand between his thighs and grip his scrotum, squeezing gently in that same sensual but too slow rhythm. I know full well that I am both arousing him and frustrating him at the same time, since I am not moving as quickly as he likes. Nevertheless, he bears his suffering in manly silence, with nothing but a grunt or a groan now and then.

When I feel his penis growing harder and his sac tightening, I flip my tail up over my shoulder and bring it down to lightly touch his puckered anus with the tip, stroking in fine lines outwards from the opening in the center. It does not take him long to realize that he is being touched in too many places at once. He draws the obvious conclusion.

“Uh – Kurt – you’re not plannin’ to use the end of your tail to –?”

“And if I vere? I can curl the sides inwards a little, but it is still not very flexible and the edges are rather sharp. But after all, you vill heal quickly, von’t you?”

He takes a deep, startled breath, then is silent for a count of six, as I continue calmly with what I am doing.

“Well, OK. If that’s what it takes to convince you.”

I can see him steel himself against anticipated unpleasantness.

“Relax, darlin’,” I say in a rough approximation of his voice. “I’m just teasin’ ya.”

“Why you little –!”

“Now, now. Not a good idea to call the one in charge nasty names,” I remind him, before getting back to the business at hand.

After giving his now-tight scrotum a final squeeze, I scoop up a nice glob of the solid white fat with my gloved middle finger, then rub it against his opening as my tail beats a hasty retreat back to its usual resting place behind me. I take my time pushing my finger into him, but I really do not need to, since he is already opening to take it in. I need the gloves to protect the inside of his rectum from my fingernails. Although not particularly sharp, they are heavy and rather long, so they are easily capable of tearing the lining.

He is pushing back against me now, wanting more. “Omigod darlin’, that’s so good! Oh, yeah!”

I insert my second finger and he growls deep in his throat, the sound that I know means he is getting closer to climax.

Seeing him like this, feeling his cock in my other hand, hard and straining, knowing this is how he usually sees me during sex, the sound of his voice, the smell of our bodies mingled together, adds up to a powerful experience that I have not had very often. I feel the spasms of increasing desire build inside me, pulling my body tight as each one runs its course. I am breathing hard now, my mouth open to get more air, my breath shaky with longing.

And I am ready to take him. Still stroking his cock with one hand, I remove my fingers from his ass and replace them with my own hard organ.

Ah Gott! He is tight around me, even after having just had two of my oversized fingers inside him. He pushes back against me, driving my cock deep into his body. I am surrounded with a burning warmth, clutching me, pulling me in, although I am already buried to the hilt. We move together now, him meeting my every thrust.

I come up a little higher in my crouch, drawing on the muscles of my legs to add strength to my thrusts, but he does not complain, only braces himself more sturdily. I am leaning forward over his back, one hand holding his hips, the other still working his penis. There is no holding back now, no slow and sensuous teasing. We are like two animals, lost to thought, only sensation existing in our entire universe. He encloses me and does not shrink from what I am. He accepts me joyously, demanding more, more. And I meet his demands.

I am close now, but he still needs more. I cannot hold out much longer. Desperate, my hand on his cock moves forward, until my thumb can reach for his exposed and dripping glans. I rub my thumb roughly over his slit, letting my fingernail press briefly against it. He jerks and screams harshly, as I feel his ass clamp down on me hard with the first spasm of his orgasm. I let go and find my own climax starting. My breath stops. I exhale with a long wavering moan as I fall over the edge of ecstasy. For too brief a moment, there is nothing but jarring spurts of pleasure running through my entire body but focused in my groin.

When it is over, I collapse on top of his back, gasping. My arms wrap around his waist as he supports my weight easily on his hands and knees. As my penis relaxes and slips out of him, I say softly, “Whew! I could get to like this, mein Schatz.”

He rolls over sideways, loosening my grip enough so that he can turn in my arms. The next thing I know, I am flat on my back, my body pinned beneath him with both of my hands held above my head by one of his, while he glares down at me with a triumphant smile and growls, “Better not get too used to it, bub. It’s not like it’s gonna happen all the time.”

“I know. But it happened now.”

“Yeah, sure did. You’re not half bad at bein’ on top, Elf.”

“I vill take that as a compliment on my performance.”

“Ya better, ‘cause that’s what it is.” He rolls off of me, running his hands through his wild hair. “I could sure use a good cigar just now.”

“Logan,” I begin to protest, but he waves it away.

“I know, I know. Not inside our room. I was just sayin’.” He grins at me. “Well, now do you believe I haven’t changed my attitude toward you, no matter what you may have done as a kid?”

“Ja. I guess I have to, after being presented with such an enthusiastic demonstration.”

“Good,” he declares, as if that solves everything. I suppose in many ways it does. “I’ll lay odds you never got this much pleasure from confession before, did ya, Elf?”

I laugh, but he is right: it was a sort of confession. “No, I did not. Or at least not this kind of pleasure. Forgiveness of one’s sins is a very pleasant feeling, you know.”

“I wouldn’t know,” he replies, suddenly serious. “Sometimes I wish I did. I’d be glad if I could even remember all my sins, much less have them forgiven.”

There is nothing I can say to that, so I say nothing. For a little while, we both lie there in silence, thinking our own thoughts. As I sort out what has gone on between us over the last couple of days, a disquieting idea occurs to me.

“What’s the matter, darlin’? Your expression just got weird and your scent changed.”

“Logan, I just realized that some of vhat I feel for you is a reflection of vhat I felt towards Herr Grüber!”

“Yeah. I get that. But it’s not all bad. It got you here beside me, didn’t it?”

“I do not vant to be here, if it is only because of vhat that man did to me!”

“Sure ya do. Whatever happened to make you what you are, it’s part of you now. Is it so wrong to desire love and acceptance, reassurance and comfort, the pleasure of sex? Is it so wrong to want to give yourself to someone else, and to be loved for that?”

“Vell, no –“

He took me by the shoulders and turned me to face him squarely. “Listen to me now, Kurt, and pay attention. What happened back then is over. What you do with it now is up to you. Remember that saying about the twig and the tree?”

I nod. “Ja. The one that vas confused as to vhether it meant a seedling or a tvig.”

“Uh – yeah. The twig, or the seedling if you prefer, doesn’t have to continue to grow the same way it was bent, you know, once the pressure has been released.”

“ But I feel broken, damaged, used. I cannot undo that.” I close my eyes and lower my head.

He shook me just slightly. “Open your eyes and look at me. Do it.” I obey. “Do you seriously think I’m not every bit as damaged as you are, if not more? Do you think I haven’t been used? That I’m not broken? At least you can remember what happened, so you can begin to understand why you’re like you are. I can only remember parts of my past, and those parts are bad enough. The truth can hurt, but not knowing can hurt even more.”

“But I do not vant this to be part of our relationship!”

“Too late for that, darlin’. It already is. I want you as you are. Aw hell, I desire you partly because you’re what you are. I can’t help that. I don’t want you to change, just because some of that came from what was done to you in the past. You got that?”

“Ja. I do.” I smile as some of the weight slides off my shoulders. Not all of it, but some. “I hear you loud and transparently.”

He just shakes his head in exasperation. “That’s clear, Kurt, not transparently.”

I twine my arms and my tail around him and pull him closer. “Das weiss ich, mein Schatz. I know.”

GERMAN TRANSLATION Part 1

Mein Gott! My God!
Nein, Herr Grüber. Bitte, nein! No, Mr. Grüber. Please, no!
nicht wahr? Isn’t that right/true? (Old-fashioned usage, but Kurt likes it.)
Scheisse! Shit!
Wunderbar! Wonderful!
Fick mich. Fuck me.
mein Schatz my dear/darling/sweetheart (literally, my treasure)
Jetzt! Now!
natürlich naturally
mein Freund my friend
besonderes Dämon-Kind special demon-child
kluger kleiner Teufel clever little devil
Gott hilf mir God help me

GERMAN TRANSLATION Interlude

mein kleines Dämon-Kind my little demon-child
mein kleiner Teufel my little devil
Verstehst du? Do you understand?
nicht wahr? Isn’t it true? (Old usage, but Kurt likes it.)
mein Freund my friend
Lass uns gehen. Let’s go.

GERMAN TRANSLATION Part 2

Macht’s nichts. It doesn’t matter.
Bitte, entschuldigen Sie. Please, pardon me.
Gott sei Dank! Thank God!
Fich mich Fuck me
Das weiss ich, mein Schatz. I know that, my darling/sweetheart/dear
(Literally, my treasure.)

STORY ARC – In Order

Morning Devotions
Something a Little Different
As the Twig is Bent
Pray for Us Sinners
With Nothing on My Tongue
You Win, Elf
Hell Hath No Fury
Let’s Pretend