The Orphanage Boys Chapter 21
by Chadlad

copyright 2009 by Chadlad, all rights reserved
[email protected]

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This story is intended for ADULTS ONLY It contains explicit depictions of sexual activity involving minors. If you are not of a legal age in your locality to view such material or if such material does not appeal to you, do not read further, and do not save this story.
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Chapter 21: Twenty-first Floor: Home furnishings

The girl looked from Jake to Sam and then Sam to Jake. Suddenly her expression changed, and her grin widened until it was frightening. Her eyes glinted. "We've got new water," she said. "And you've still got some of your old water. I bet it's warm by now - warm enough to bathe in. So I'm going to do you guys a favor. Give you a little bath. Part of you, anyway." She headed for the Mason jar on the 2 X 4, which Sam and Jake had drunk from a couple of times but which was still half full. "Watch the door," she said to the other girl. You know the Sister Magdalene signal."

Flies buzzed around noisily, landing on his body here and there. Covered with muck from head to toe, Jake hardly felt them most of the time, but now that they were still he found them highly irritating, especially when they landed on his face. He waved at them as he watched the girls warily. The flies buzzing around his butt, his smeared genitals, and his legs he ignored, because there was enough muck those places that he really didn't feel them. Sam was also waving at flies circling his head, ignoring a whole army that Jake noticed was crawling along his butt crack.

He found himself wondering what the Sister Magdalene signal was. Maybe a birdcall. In the radio serials, the signal was always a birdcall. The other girl walked to the door and stood looking out and in, alternately. The meaner girl procured the jar and began walking back to them. "You want those apples slices, don't you?" she said. "I'll let you each have one. But first, you have to wash each other. Not all over. Just your boy parts. The sticky-out parts. You each have to wash your buddy's sticky-out parts clean with your bare hands if you want an apple slice. I'll splash the water, but your buddy has to rub it until all the stuff that sticks out is clean. When you're both clean enough to eat off of, you can each have an apple slice."

She looked across at the other girl. "We'll make them touch each other," she said. "Boys hate that, 'cause it makes them fairies of they touch each other."

"Fairies?" the other girl said.

"Fairies. Boys who do it with boys instead of girls," the mean girl said. "Everyone hates fairies, so we'll make them do it. Touch each other there." She walked up to Sam, suddenly splashing water from the bottle onto his muck-smeared, dangling little dick. Sam jumped back in surprise.

"Rub him down there," the mean girl said to Jake. "Use your hand, and rub him like fairies rub each other. Don't stop until he's clean."

Jake looked at her, then shrugged. What was the big deal, anyway? He touched Sam all the time - not usually his penis, but still, it was just another part of him - kind of dirty because that's what he peed with, but that was all. He'd already touched it at the behest of the girls by the creek, and been touched himself there in turn. He'd held it for Sam while peed. So what was the big deal washing it? He bent over Sam and began rubbing the other boy's genitals with his hand, trying to rinse the hog dirt off him.

It took several more splashes, but Jake eventually got Sam's penis, scrotum, and the area surrounding it clean enough to suit the mean girl. It wasn't that difficult a job, actually, because the boys were dirtiest down by their feet, becoming progressively less splashed the farther up their bodies one went. But cleaning Sam had used most of the water from the Mason jar. Also, Sam's penis had dutifully erected with all the attention, and was snugged tightly against his belly again, the tip just inside the clean area of his groin. The girl nodded approval. "That was cute," she said. "Look, he likes fairy stuff. You made him get a stiffy!"

Sam blinked in surprise. He hadn't thought about it during the process much, but Jake's attentions had felt good. He'd actually liked Jake rubbing him, had felt like shutting his eyes and just enjoying it, and now that Jake was done he found he had a rather empty feeling. The girl turned to Jake. "His turn," she said. "Why should you get all the fun?" She splashed the rest of the water in the jar on Jake's groin. "Start rubbing your buddy, fairy-boy," she said.

Sam dutifully bent over Jake and began rubbing his penis, dissolving the pig-shit grime in water with his hand. It should have disgusted him to be rubbing pig-shit off of Jake, but after cleaning his own shit out of a bedpan, this wasn't so bad, really. The girl opened the new jar of water, which Jake found was shockingly colder the first time she splashed him. As a result, his penis only half-erected as Sam worked on him, and was sticking out but a bit droopy by the time the water in the second jar was half gone and the girl pronounced him clean. She put the jar back and studied their penises for moment. "You're not as big as fairy as the redhead," she pronounced, looking at Jake's slightly thickened, but still drooping penis. She straightened up. "Okay," she said. "That was cute. So you've earned one slice apiece." She walked to the lookout girl by the door and took two pieces of apple from her, sliding one in Jake's mouth and another in Sam's.

Jake crunched down, ravenously hungry for anything that wasn't tasteless gruel, feeling the juice tickle his taste buds. He could swear he'd never tasted anything so good. After nothing but punishment food for days, the apple was heavenly. Despite a resolution to savor it, he had chewed it into a pulp and swallowed it in just moments. His body craved more. The girl in front of him crossed her arms. "Good, wasn't it?" she said. "I bet you'd love some more. Therese over there has two more pieces for each of you, don't you Therese? And I bet you want them. And you can have them, too. All you have to do...." She paused, and her smile got bigger.

"All each of you have to do," she said again. "Is get on your knees and suck your fairy buddy's stiffy like a calf sucks his momma's teat!"

Jake's jaw dropped, and then Sam's mouth began working like a carp out of water. The girl at the door looked over at the other one in surprise at her pronouncement. "Doris," she began. "May we shouldn't..."

"Oh, fiddlesticks," Doris said. "Of course we should. What other chance will we get?" She turned to the boys again. "You heard me, you little fairies," she said. "You want your treats, you suck each other's treats." She pointed to Sam. "You first," she said. "You've got the biggest stiffy, so you're the biggest fairy, so you have to suck his first." She walked across to the other girl and gathered two of the remaining apple pieces. "On your knees," she added.

Sam gaped at her, his mouth still working. "I said on your knees," the girl, who they now knew was named Doris, said more menacingly. "Or you'll get the slapper on your boy thingy instead. Think that'll make your little baby stiffy shrink?"

Sam looked at the girl fearfully. "Please?" he asked in a forlorn voice. The girl reached behind her and retrieved the menacing-looking slapper. Sam recoiled from it fearfully, then slowly got down on his knees in front of Jake. He looked cross-eyed at his buddy's half-hard organ, his face showing distaste. "But that's where the pee comes out!" he protested in a voice an octave above his usual range. "And it had pig stuff on it!"

"I'm sure you already know what it tastes like," the girl named Doris said dismissively. "You've probably been sucking it nightly since you were weaned. And you'll just have to learn to like the taste of pig shit," Doris said. She nudged his butt with a boot, carefully pressing the toe right between his tight, pig-shit splattered buns. The pointed toe penetrated until the tip was pressing Sam's still sore asshole. "Get to sucking," she said. "Take it all in your mouth. Or you get no treats, and you get the pig slapper on your own treat. In fact, if you don't do it, you both get the slapper."

Sam looked at him, digesting this. "Just shut your eyes, Sam," Jake said. His own eyes were wide with fear, as the girl had put the apples in her shift pocket and was now flicking the pig slapper back and forth in the air, making little snapping motions with it as if practicing for working on their genitals already. "Pretend it's my thumb," Jake added, hoping that would help.

Sam didn't answer what he was thinking, that he wasn't sure he wanted to suck Jake's thumb, either. But his hesitation wasn't for the reason Jake, and the two girls, were thinking. He hesitated because he was dubious about the cleanliness of both body parts at the moment. In fact, had Jake just stepped from the ba5thtub, Sam would already have been slurping away. A fly landed on the tip of Jake's dick and he waved it away. It landed on Sam's nose instead, and Sam flinched, his head movement sending the fly back into the air. The girl Doris pushed the back of Sam's head, making his lips touch the shaft of Jake's now soft organ. "Pull it in with your tongue, or suck it up, I don't care," she said. "But if it's not in your mouth in 5 seconds, you get slapped on your sticky-out things. Both of you." She nudged Sam from behind again. Sam took one more look at the pig slapper, paled as he thought about it coming down hard on his genitals, and then, in one motion, opened his mouth and scooped Jake's penis up, closing his lips around it.

Sam, picturing the pig slapper landing on his bare balls, began moving his head in and out from Jake's groin, letting Jake's dick slide back and forth against his own tongue and lips. It wasn't so bad, he decided - it didn't taste much like anything, although it smelled a bit like the pigpen, but it wasn't as sickening as he'd thought it might be considering the amount of grime that it had on it earlier. Jake watched from above in amazement at what Sam was being forced to do, trying not to think about the fact that his turn was coming. "How long does he have to do that?" he asked, his voice breaking emotionally as he tried to talk. His penis lurched in the middle of the phrase, and he squeezed his butt involuntarily. He noticed he was getting hard again, very hard this time, and the wet warmth of Sam's mouth was starting to feel very, very good.

"Until you cum," the girl said, smiling. "Then you'll suck him until he cums."

Jake frowned, puzzled. "What?" he asked. Another shudder went through him, and he felt things moving inside him, tired, sore things. The shot track behind his scrotum protested, but that just seemed to make his penis harder. Sam stopped moving back and forth and buried his nose against Jake's groin because his neck was aching already, and began sucking noisily instead. Jake's penis lurched again, and suddenly he realized it was feeling like it had when Father McKenzie had given him his "treatment." Only this time there was nothing up Jake's butt. That didn't seem to matter, though, and Jake wondered if the butt part was really necessary for the feelings. Apparently not, he concluded, as his penis lurched again and the pleasurable feelings continue to intensify in little thrills like an electric current running back and forth between the tip of his weenie and somewhere inside him.

"Until you blow your load in him, you big fairy," the girl sneered. "And he has to swallow it all, too, or you still both get slapped in the bad place."

Jake's face was the definition of the word "puzzlement." He pondered what she'd said, while she watched Sam suck him, and his butt contract more and more frequently. "Tell me when you're going to squirt your stuff," she said. "I want to see his expression as you do it. Hope you've got a big load stored up."

"Huh?" Jake said. He was panting, now, delightful little sensations running up and down his dick all the way to his spine. His balls had pulled up tight against the bottom of his dick and were nudging Sam's drool-dripping chin.

"I said, tell me when you're going to squirt - I want to see his face when he takes it," she said.

Jake shook his head, looking more puzzled. The girl glared. "You'd better tell me when you're going to cum," she said. Or I'll..." She paused. Then, like an epiphany, she suddenly got it. "Oh," she said. She looked across at her lookout, who was watching the boys and not the door at all. "I'm so stupid," she said. "I saw their bare crotches, but I didn't even think about it. He can't," she added. "He's never squirted. He's too young. I didn't even think about that. But it makes sense - They're small down there, even when they've got stiffies, and they got no hair." She paused and then frowned. "Hey, check outside once in awhile," she added, and the other girl started guiltily and then looked out again. "I should have known from the fact they had no hair," she said again. She looked across at Jake. "Can you cum at all?" she asked.

As if in answer, Jake's butt contracted mightily and he slammed into Sam's face, bruising Sam's lip as he did. Sam moaned a little protest around his mouth full of Jake's cock. Jake came up on his toes out of the muck, his body shuddering as waves of pleasure, the best yet, washed through him. His throat constricted, and he grunted through his teeth like he was doing something extremely difficult, perhaps trying to lift a heavy load. His butt squeezed and squeezed again, and then he gradually settled on his heels again, resuming breathing. He abruptly yanked backward on his hips, pulling his still hard dick out of Sam's mouth abruptly. "That tickles," he protested.

"He's done, dickbreath," the girl said. "So you get your apples." She reached into her pocket, retrieved two wedges, and slid them into Sam's still open mouth. Sam shut his mouth on them, a look of pure pleasure taking over his face as he let the delicious taste overwhelm him, the taste of boy dick gone from his mouth in an instant. She let him chew and swallow. "Your turn, now, Red," she finally said. "Up on your feet. You, get on your knees," she added to Jake.

Jake's moment of sublime pleasure drained away like the bursting of a dam. He looked down at Sam's still stiff penis, wondering if he'd be able to take it in his mouth without gagging. He could still picture it dripping with pig shit, as it had been moments before. Like Sam, he was more worried about the dirt Sam had had on him than about the actuality of taking the other boy's penis in his mouth. Now if it had been Flip's penis he'd been ordered to suck, or even the fat boy's whose bunk was next to theirs, he'd have been more hesitant. He eyed the girl's pig slapper, dangling in her free hand, and fear made him slowly settle down, letting first one knee and then the other sink into the muck. Sam stood on his feet, his face still a picture of rapture as he savored the apples. It can't possibly be clean from just splashing water on it, his mind protested. We didn't even use soap. I'll get some horrible disease, and besides that it will taste awful. Pig shit had to taste awful, given how it smelled. Stop it, he told his brain. He did me, now I gotta do him. It's only fair. And I gotta keep us from being hit there with that thing. His balls, and Sam's, had suffered only lightly so far, the errant BB shots being the worst thing up to this point. But being hit full on with that nasty slapper thing? That would be bad, seriously bad. He licked his lips and steeled himself. He'd have to put his mouth up by the tip, he decided, open it, and try to hook the top of Sam's dick away from his body using his upper lip. Not being able to use his dirty hands was really limiting him. He moved his face closer to the curved tip of Sam's dick.

"Mockingbird!" the girl at the door suddenly hissed. "Queen mockingbird!"

"Oh, God!" the other girl said. "Here, you take your apples," she said to Jake, cramming the other two slices in his already open mouth. The slapper disappeared behind her back. She looked at their clean crotches, out of place against their dirty bodies. "Get off you knees, you! And get shit on your boy stuff, right now," she hissed. "Quick, or I'll make sure you're whipped at the flag pole tomorrow."

Jake, catching on to the fact that having clean crotches would probably be a real attention getter to the nun, reached down and grabbed a handful of manure, wiping it across his and Sam's crotches so they matched the rest of the boys' bodies. He rose to his feet and picked up a manure fork, and Sam copied him, both boys turning so their backs were to the girls and they were facing the wheelbarrow. A second later, a nun with a large mole on her face and thick eyebrows appeared at the door, wearing a habit but just a simple hair veil rather than a wimple, apparently reflecting her more outdoor persona. "Making progress, I see," she said.

"Yes, sister," the mean girl said sweetly. "We just gave them their dinner and their apples and they're getting back to work."

"Very good," the nun said. "I hope you boys don't misinterpret my generosity in offering you such a treat. But even the pigs get apples this time of year, when they're so plentiful. Now put those backs into it - this pen has to be ready by suppertime, or your bottoms will pay the price. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Sister," Jake mumbled, half turning to face the sister as he answered

"Yes, Sister," Sam squeaked, turning as well. The nun started to turn, then noticed Jake's still half-hard penis. She glared at it, then looked pointedly at Sam, who, fortunately for both of them, had shrunken back to a barely projecting nub.

"If you need to relieve yourselves, be sure to do so," the nun said, looking pointedly at Jake's penis. "It's not healthy to hold it in, especially for you boys - it give you unholy ideas. That's what's causing that unseemly tumenescence."

"Yes Sister. I'll go as soon as they leave," Jake mumbled.

"See that you do," the nun said. She turned to the girls. "I want all you girls to report to the pen at the end right away. Sissy appears to think that she shouldn't be working as hard as these two boys, so she hasn't moved a muscle all morning. We're going to see how she likes working with a blistered behind, and that's something I want all you girls to witness - it will make a good object lesson. So get those bowls gathered up and then join us up there." She turned and moved away rapidly. The girl Doris turned to Jake and Sam. "She's naked, too," she whispered. "They're not letting the boys see, but she's having to clean her pen naked, just like you guys are, with her boobs sagging down and her snatch hanging out and everything."

The girls slipped out the door. His head reeling with this latest news, Jake began piling manure into the wheelbarrow again, and in a moment, Sam began doing so as well. Seconds later, Jake paused, stared at the wall, and a stream of pee arched out of his half hard penis and spattered on the ground, making Sam jump back to avoid getting hit. Sam looked at him.

"Well, I told her I would," Jake said. Sam snorted and began giggling. After a minute, Jake, still suffering from a turmoil of emotions, started giggling, too. After a minute, Sam straightened up, gave Jake a perfectly sober face, and then peed on Jake's feet through the barely projecting pointed tip of his own shrunken penis. Jake jumped back, and Sam fell into hysterics moving forward as Jake moved back, chasing him across the pen with his stream of pee, triggering protests and laughter from Jake. Both boys laughed until they were panting and gasping, and laughing so hard their sides hurt. They stood there gasping side by side for a moment. Then Sam reached for his fork and started shoveling, and Jake quickly joined him. In moments, the wheelbarrow was full. Sam stepped up and picked up the handles. He pushed toward the door, then looked over his shoulder, his face sober now. "You won't tell anyone, will you?" he said. "What she, what I..."

"Swear to God," he said.

"Okay," Sam said, and he turned back to the wheelbarrow again. Then he turned back. "Was she telling the truth, Jake?" he asked. "There's really a girl down there somewhere who's doing what we're doing? Naked?"

"I guess," Jake said. Sam smiled shyly. "Wish we could see," he said. He shoved out the door. Jake stood looking after him. His emotions were still in turmoil. Having Sam on his knees in front of him, looking down to see Sam's lips against his groin, feeling Sam's warm, wet tongue - that had been seriously weird. But it also, and this he wasn't sure he'd admit to Sam or anyone, not even God, it also had felt better than anything he'd ever felt. And he wanted it again, with every fiber of his being. His penis, somewhat sore inside from overuse yesterday, twitched and thickened as he thought about it. The girl had said fairy boys put their mouths on each other like that. Did that make him and Sam fairy boys, even if they hadn't wanted to do it? But he'd wanted to, at least after Sam had started, he hadn't wanted Sam to stop. He was pretty sure the nuns didn't approve of fairy boys, and he wondered, briefly, what punishments they would endure if Sister Mary Catherine knew what they had done. It hadn't been his choice, or Sam's, to do any of it. But still, he shuddered, remembering being paddled on his bare butt. He still could picture the wash of hot, unbearable pain each blow brought after the first few had warmed him up. That made him think about the girl, the one who was supposedly getting paddled very soon. Would they be able to hear it from here? Did it hurt girls as much as it did boys? Well, it must, he corrected himself. Girls had behinds just like boys did, it had to hurt just the same. He realized that he was wishing he could see, wishing it with every fiber of his being He tried to picture a naked girl, her back bare, her bottom jutting out like his and Sam's did, only curvier and rounder because she was a girl. But he had trouble picturing her front. She'd have breasts thrusting out, but he couldn't, in his mind's eye, see the details, only the smooth outlines you could see through a girl's blouse. And she'd be different down below than him and Sam, and he longed to see that difference, because he couldn't picture it...

Off in the distance, he heard a sharp sound, a kind of "crack," sound, then a distant howl like a kicked dog might make, that rose and then fell, punctuated by another crack, then another distant howl. He held his breath and listened as the smacking sounds, now quite clearly of a paddle on bare flesh, continued in a regular rhythm, and the howling became desperate squeals and inarticulate pleading, higher pitched than Sam's had been when Jake had watched his best friend getting paddled. He'd counted to 25 when Sam came through the door, pushing the empty wheelbarrow, his face flushed with excitement.

"Do you hear that?" he panted. "It was really true! They're really spanking a girl down there, somewhere at the end. With a paddle! You can hear it."

Jake shushed him with hand motions, concentrating, counting. "Thirty," he said, his ears straining to hear the blows over the distant squealing. "Thirty-one. Thirty two." Both boys listened, their hearts pounding. Both boys had mixed reactions to the sounds. Fear and shame, associated with their own turns in the girl's position, were mixed with feverish excitement that came from picturing a naked girl, perhaps bent over the nun's lap, the paddle rising and the falling swiftly onto her unprotected, feminine buttocks, bouncing as it hit, the reddened flesh giving off a meaty smack, probably blistering by now, bumpy and hot to the touch...

The smacks stopped, but the pleading squeals continued for some time. Jake breathed out. "Thirty-eight," he said. "She got thirty-eight."

"We got more," Sam said immediately.

"Yeah, maybe," Jake said. "It's kind of hard to remember." And it was. His memory of being paddled started with everything in sharp relief. He had vivid images of leaning over the desk, of his pants and underpants being taken down, and of the cold metal under him as he waited, trembling, for the first blow. And remembered that, too, tensing as he waited, frightened, wondering how bad it would be. The force of the blow registering just before the pain, but then the hot flash of pain, first sting and then a slow, rising burn, the crack of the paddle on his skin seeming to come afterward. And the next falling before the pain of the first had peaked, and then the next. But as pain became the dominant memory, the spanks became a blur, just a haze of waves of pain, riding the waves, sinking into them, his butt a mass of throbbing misery. He'd gotten a lot, be he wasn't sure how many.

"Yeah, I think we got more," Jake concluded as they listened to the bawling from far away. "But hers sounded harder." He looked down and realized his penis was hard again, bobbing in the air as he moved nervously. A surreptitious glance informed him that Sam was hard too, his penis curved against his belly. Despite the speed of his glance, though, Sam noticed it and its target.

"How come they do that, Jake?" Sam asked. "Why do we get hard down there, and stick up?"

"I dunno," Jake said. "Weenies just do that, I guess."

"But not all the time," Sam said. "Seems like they do it all the time, now. And the nuns seem to think it's bad. That we're bad. Are we bad, Jake?"

"I dunno," Jake said again. "I guess." He wanted to touch himself down there right now, ached to take his penis in hand and stroke it until that crazy thing happened, that crazy happy thing that Sam had made him feel with his mouth. Instead, he picked his fork up again and started shifting manure again. Beside him, Sam began doing the same thing. Jake found his eyes shifting to his penis as he worked, and then to Sam's bobbing close to his belly as he struggled with the fork. I'd have done it, Jake thought to himself. I'd have sucked on that. God already was mad at him and Sam. Would God hate them even more for that?

In no time the barrow was full again, and Jake took the handles and made the trek toward the manure pile, padding on sore, now tender feet. Another worker was dumping a barrow as he emerged, but it wasn't the scary kid, so he soldiered on. As he got closer, he noticed that something was off about the person at the pile. There was no flannel shirt, and the profile was wrong, somehow and...

The girl! It was the girl, the one being punished like them. She was just letting her wheelbarrow down after dumping the load. She turned and gave Jake a brief glance as he approached, her eyes pausing at his partially visible crotch, taking in and dismissing his genitals. Then she turned back to the wheelbarrow and wheeled away, her feminine buttocks working as she headed to the far end. Jake stopped at the pile and watched her retreating back, his eyes on her bare buttocks. To his disappointment, he hadn't seen either her bare breasts or the mysterious area in her lower front. She was wearing a swatch of grimy cloth for a bra, tied across her back crudely but concealing most of her breasts. And she'd had on some sort of underwear below, an odd sort of underwear that covered her pubic triangle in front, but had only thin strings going around her waist, and a band of sorts that run from the middle of the back of the waistband and buried itself into her butt crack where it disappeared, probably joining the bottom of the triangle in front. So all Jake had seen in that brief glimpse was a flatness, the triangle of cloth unmarred by bulges against her sex, and the bulk of her blistered butt moving away, the centers of each curved mound a mass of angry blisters, the rest of her bottom a bright, irritated red, much like his and Sam's butts had been after paddling, but more feminine, not as flat and muscular as his and Sam's had been. Shrugging, he trudged back from the pile, determining not to mention the encounter to Sam, who would only ply him with questions he couldn't answer.

Hours later, the sun setting in the west, Jake trudged back from the manure pile pushing the empty wheel barrow one last time. He'd not seen the girl again the rest of the afternoon and early evening. Every part of him ached and was tired. He could barely lift his feet, which were sore-bottomed and ached as well. His hands had blisters on blisters from operating the manure fork, but he was better off than Sam, who had blisters that oozed clear fluid on both hands. But they'd done it—the pen was clean from one side to the other. He propped the wheelbarrow against the fence and walked into the darkening outer pen, where Sam was so tired he'd sat down on the still muddy floor, his head bowed, heedless of the mud squishing between his buns.

"Now what?" Jake asked, thinking of sitting beside Sam. Heck his butt couldn't get any dirtier, anyway.

"Now," a voice said from the door, "You help us herd these sows and their piglets in here." The mean one, Doris, was back. Sam forced himself to his feet, and he and Jake plodded out of the pen. They didn't even have strength enough to care that they were still naked in mixed company. At orders from the two boys and the other girl who were driving a group of 4 sows and a plethora of small piglets through the gate, they lined up and waved their hands ineffectively at the pigs when they tried to veer off. On either side, other boys and girls were filling other pens with other groups of pigs. Several times the older children had to step in to divert the pigs when Jake and Sam weren't up to the task and shied away in fright from a lurching animal, but in short order the last pig moved through the gate. The girl Therese went to shut it.

"Just a moment," a stentorian voice rang out. Sister Mary Catherine glided out of the shadows, smooth and quietly as ever. Despite his fatigue, Jake's heart began thumping in earnest at the sight of this woman whose appearance had always meant pain and humiliation for him and Sam. And his body wasn't wrong in this case, either. "You have two more pigs to put in that pen," Mary Catherine intoned.

The older kids looked at her enquiringly. "These two," she said, pointing at Jake and Sam. "They're as filthy as pigs, and their minds are filthy as pigs, too. They're filthy, disgusting little animals, and they need to learn how we treat filthy, disgusting little animals." She turned to Jake and Sam, who were slowly grasping what she was saying in fatigue-befuddled minds. "You two - get on all fours and get into your pen. You are now pigs. You will act like and be treated like pigs. You can fight with them for your meals, or suck off of a mother pig if she'll let you, or starve if you're too finicky to do either. You will not get up from all fours at any point until I tell you that you may, and if you do, you will be punished so severely that all the punishments you've received to this point will seem like a walk in the park by comparison. I have a new paddle that I had the boys make for me that I've been waiting for a chance to try out. Dear Sister Magdalene has already used it on a most unpleasant girl who is also joining the pigs tonight in her own pen up the line, but I have yet to see its effects on more immature bottoms. I would live to try it if you disobey me further. You will not try to escape or leave the pen. You will not talk. You and that sinful girl are all three pigs until I say you are not, to be treated by these boys and girls like any of the other pigs."

Jake found himself wondering what would happen if he were to embrace Sister Mary Catherine, just reach out and give her a big hug, wiping his grimy hands and body on her spotless habit and burying his besmirched face in her breasts, wiping it against those copious expanses of smooth, cool, clean cloth. She'd probably beat his butt to a pulp in front of the whole orphanage. For a moment, he almost did it, and to heck with the outcome!

But only for a moment. He was acutely aware that his butt still ached from previous spankings. More than that, he could still remember pain, the kind of pain that made you into an unreasoning animal, seeking escape. He sighed, then slowly got down on his hands and knees in the gloom, and padded through the disgusting muck that was left after cleaning the pen, through the gate after the pigs. He was weary beyond belief, too weary to fight any more. Behind him, Sam also dropped to all fours and followed him through, crawling like a baby after the milling pigs. Most of the sows had flopped down on the ground in the waning sunlight, distended rows of udders projecting outward, with piglets jostling to claim a nipple. The piglets weren't tiny - they had apparently been born several weeks prior, and were big enough to shove and jostle each other and squeal in protest when dislodged. The gate clanked metallically behind them, and Jake looked up. Sister Mary Catherine was looking serenely over the top, down upon their naked backs. She saw Jake looking at her. "All fours at all times," she repeated. "No talking. I realize you could easily open the gate and try to run away, but you wouldn't get far, not while we have the dogs to track you. But remember, we sometimes have trouble controlling the dogs when we're tracking a boy. They have a tendency to lunge and hold when they find the boy we're tracking, and they hold whatever projecting body parts are at the height of their heads. Not to mention the fact that the consequences for you would be unimaginable were you to attempt to run away."

Jake visibly quailed. After what they'd been through, what must "unimaginable" be like? He nodded at her, because she seemed to want that. She gave him a grim smile. "You are not irredeemable," she said. "By the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ you can be saved. But you whoresons must cast aside the heathen ways you've been taught and embrace purity and wholesomeness. Let this lesson guide you." She turned and disappeared into the gloom. Jake looked around. The outside pen attached to the hog house was small, so the open door into the building itself was right in front of him. On the opposite side from the door was a long trough against the far fence. In a moment, there was a loud banging against the fence, then a bucket was hoisted over and slops were dumped over the side, splashing down into the trough. A girl's head appeared next to the now dribbling bucket. "Here, piggy, piggy, piggy," the girl called cheerfully. She had red hair that hung in pig tails. "Come and get it."

The big sows heaved up on their feet and waddled to the trough, shoving their noses in, snorting and shoving to get at the best of the slops. The girl looked down at the two boys, leaning back with their butts against their ankles in their complete fatigue, heads dangling. "Better get in there, boys," she said cheerfully. "That's all until morning feeding time. They'll get all the best stuff if you don't."

Jake realized he was starving. He started to get up, remembered Sister Mary Catherin's admonitions, and crawled on all fours over to the end of the trough and looked in next a huge sow. She was gulping up what looked like a mixture of potato peelings, old cottage cheese, and dinner table scrapings. His stomach heaved at the thought of eating any of that. The girl grinned down at him. "What, my offerings aren't up to your highness' standards? Perhaps you'd like a rare filet mignon instead? Or perhaps some lady fingers?" Jake looked at the slops again, felt his empty stomach churn, then looked at her pleadingly. "It's all you get," she said dismissively. You are little pigs, after all. Sister told us what you got caught doing - tugging your little things while you drooled over out naked little sisters. You're lucky we're feeding you at all. Me, I'd cut your things off." She waved the bucket, and some of her residual slops flew through the air, landing on Jake's back and splashing into Sam's hair. "Enjoy your night with the piggies, boys," she said gaily. "I hear Sissy's having just as much fun as you two." Her head disappeared into the gloom.

Jake looked down at the trough again. He spied several of the green apples next to the sow on the end's mouth, and snatched them up with his hands, managing to retrieve two before the sow grunted and lunged her big head at him, making him scuttle away, back to safety by Sam. Up and down from them the sounds of other slop buckets being dumped could be heard, boys and girls talking as they worked. Then the sounds became more distant and faded entirely as the sun disappeared behind the mountain peak and darkness quickly settled in. He handed an apple to Sam, who looked at it critically and tried to brush the dirt off of it that Jake's grimy hands had inadvertently made. Giving up, he bit into it, and he and Jake sat hunched on their haunches, eating every part of each apple but the seeds and stem, savoring their only food after their hard day of labor.

"Jake, I'm still hungry," Sam whispered when it appeared they were truly alone, with no sounds but the grunting and snuffling of the pigs. Around them, young piglets jostled and pushed, trying to get access to their mothers' nipples, snuffling the boys' butts, and butting against them. They backed to the far side of the pen by the door where it was less crowded.

"Me, too," Jake whispered back. "But not for that. And the apples are all gone."

"Oh," Sam said, clearly disappointed. "What was that stuff?"

"The trash cans from the dinner hall, I think," Jake said.

"Oooh, ick," Sam whispered, his body now barely visible in the darkness as he hunched into himself on all fours, his butt against his grimy heels just like Jake's. "You mean the stuff kids didn't eat? The stuff they spit out? The stuff that's rotten? We're supposed to eat that?"

"Yeah, I guess," Jake whispered back. Sam was silent for awhile, but he moved closer to Jake in the darkness, until Jake could feel Sam's side against his side, and the side of Sam's butt against the side of his. It was welcomely warm where they touched, especially as it was cooling off fast following the departure of the sun.

"Let's go inside and get away from them," Jake whispered. Despite the fact that it was almost too dark to see much at all, both boys, petrified at the unspecified horrible punishment they'd been promised, crawled on all fours through the mucky mud into the pig house and over against the wall by the door they'd entered that morning, still naked but spotless then. That door was now shut and locked from outside. They huddled near the wall.

"Jake, I'm scared," Sam said after awhile. "What if there's snakes in here, or spiders? What if a pig bites us?"

"I didn't see any snakes or spiders today," Jake said. "And I don't think pigs eat people," Jake said. "They don't seem interested in us - the big ones, anyway."

"The little ones keep poking me with their noses," Sam said. "Even in my private stuff."

"I think they're just curious," Jake said. "And I guess they don't know about private stuff. They just go when they have to go, right on the floor."

"How are we supposed to sleep?" Sam asked after awhile. "Where do we lay down?"

"I guess we have to lay down right here," Jake said. He tentatively settled on his side, the mud squishing under him.

"Ick," Sam said. "In the mud?"

"Come on, you can lie against my front," Jake said. "Then I can lean on you and you can lean on me, and only our sides will get dirty."

"Can I face you?" Sam asked. "If something's sneaking up on us, I don't want to see it."

"Sure," Jake said. He was getting colder. The pen was getting quite dark inside. He could see the outline of a huge sow staring at them from the doorway, clearly planning on coming in and joining them inside. He didn't relish a night on the ground with no blankets, and with possibly hostile and definitely incontinent and filty farm animals as company. But facing that night with the support of each other would at least help. And maybe if they shared the warmth of their bare skin, they might not get too cold. He was aware, in the back of his mind, that they both were naked, and that he and Sam would never have dreamed of such close bodily contact naked just a week ago. But now he could think of nothing he'd like better. "Sure," Jake said again. "We'll try to keep each other warm." Sam settled down gingerly, clearly not liking lying in the mud, but driven by the chill and by his still palpable fear of the dark, a fear he'd always had. Jake felt his friend's chest bump his, then Sam wiggled in to him, pressing closer and closer until their genitals touched, and their knees bumped. Sam wiggled some more, and their skin began warming where they touched. Behind each of them, pigs could be heard snuffling closer.

"Jake?" Sam asked in Jake's ear. "Is it going to be okay? You won't let anything get me, will you?"

"'Course not," Jake said, wishing he felt that confident. In his mind he despaired. How could he promise Sam he would protect him, when he couldn't even protect himself?