Chapter six

They came home early because of the weather, but aside from Sven detouring around the shed to check on him, they left him there, while they went into the cabin and changed out of wet clothing, stoked the fire and went about preparing an early supper.

When they finally came out to fetch him, it was dark and he was delirious with exhaustion and pain. He could no more walk than he could form a coherent sentence, and was slung over a broad shoulder and hauled back inside like a bag of grain.

Their voices were like distant murmurs to him, their hands upon him remote things. They lay him by the fire and perhaps having a care for the permanent scarring of their property, they picked out the bits of wood from the worst of the lacerations on his back and cleaned the flesh.

The warmth and the gentle treatment lulled him, brought him back somewhat to himself. Enough that when Karl knelt and caught him by the chin, forcing him to look up and meet his eyes, the neko was able to focus.

"We thought you well heeled, but we were wrong. You pretend when it suits you to know your place, but you're still an uppity little bitch on the inside. That's gonna change. We're gonna crush that notion out of you. Hurt you and break you until there's nothing inside that head of yours but an animal's need to please."

Dharsha blinked up at him, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. Karl nodded to one of the others and hands grasped the neko's ankles, bound them tight and he was dragged backwards a little on his belly, his feet caught between the strong knees of Stein.

"Animals don't walk upright," Karl told him. "And you won't again for a long time, understand. Not for anything. Not to sweep or mop the floor or clean the dishes. Always on your knees, no matter what the need. But see, I don't trust you to do that when we're gone, so we're gonna make sure you stay on all fours like a good bitch."

Something touched the sole of his foot. Pain that at first didn't register as heat, until the neko smelled the burning flesh. He screamed and began struggling, but Karl slipped a leg over the back of his neck and sat on him while Stein systematically laid the poker, glowing hot from the fire across the bottom of the neko's feet. He screamed into the fur of the rug. Screamed and screamed and screamed while Stein took his time about the crippling. And when it was finished and the fat man released his legs he lay there whimpering until Karl lifted his leg off the neko's neck and pulled the neko a little forward until his tear drenched, pale face was in Karl's crotch.

"Now show me how much you appreciate your lesson by sucking my cock dry."

The neko made a croaking, dazed sound in his throat, mind still white and blank with pain. Karl helped him out, unbuttoning his fly and guiding his hard cock between the neko's flaccid lips. He took the delicate ears in hand and used them to drive the neko's mouth up and down his shaft. He was vaguely aware of them all hovering, all of them excited past endurance at his torment. One of them knelt between his legs, spreading his limp thighs wide and squeezing between his buttocks, driving inside him, groaning in satisfaction, bristly body hair scraping against the wounds of the neko's back and thighs. His feet were two vibrant points of agony that took up the majority of his focus.

They beat him no more that night, but they fucked him raw, and put him in his cage with the plug up his ass. He lay on his stomach on the thin blanket they provided, with his legs sticking out the bars of the cage, the pain from the burns on his feet not seeming to fade at all with the hours. He'd looked at them, expecting horrible wounds, but the branding had been neatly done, even marks where the poker had been laid across skin and allowed to burn past the top layers, but not too deeply into flesh. It would heal in time, he thought, and not hinder his ability to walk, but not quickly and especially not if he walked upon them now. He lay on the thin blanket and sobbed silently, in too much pain to find sleep. The weave of the blanket scratched the abrasions on his belly and the bars at the bottom of the cage poked into his bones. His ass where they'd fucked him long and mercilessly without benefit of lubrication ached and stung around the mouth of the plug.

The pain and the various causes spiraled around in his head for hours it seemed, finally plunging him into a restless semi-sleep that gave his body little real rest. When they woke him in the morning he could barely move, he ached so badly, but they had little compassion for his stiffness and goaded and kicked him into motion.

They lay a bowl of disgusting gruel before him and after a day without food and the very vibrant fear of displeasing them further, he forced himself to gulp it down. They took him out afterwards, Bo jerking on the lead when the neko crawled behind him slower than normal. He whimpered when the plug was yanked out, and could not even squat to defecate because of his wounded feet. Bo and his brother spoke together while the neko went about the distasteful task and when he'd finished, they seemed to have come to some conclusion, for they were smiling a little and seemed pleased with themselves. After they dumped water over him to rinse him off, Bo ordered him to crawl over to the front steps and heel. The neko did so and remained there, shivering and dripping while the twins walked around him. Karl came out onto the porch with coffee in hand.

"Every morning till we feel you know your place, you'll get your ass striped nice and hard to make you remember what it means to get uppity with real men."

The neko groaned and shut his eyes, steeling his aching body for more abuse. Bo unfastened his belt and doubled it over, while his brother grasped the end of the neko's tail and held it up out of the way.

He held up stoically, until the ninth or tenth blow, then the pain became too much and he howled, struggling to escape the punishment. Olaf dropped to his knees, wrapping his arms around the neko's upper body and holding him fast while Bo continued to deliver strikes with the belt.

When they were done, the neko curled in the wet grass, shuddering, until a harsh jerk on his collar pulled him into his back and towards the steps.

"Get moving, bitch. We ain't got all day to cater to you, lazy slave."

It was either be dragged up the steps or make his trembling limps move and crawl painfully up after Bo.

"Wait a minute there, lads," Karl said, strolling in behind them. "You forgot something." He held up the plug, and with a faint smile, made the neko spread his throbbing buttocks while Karl bent over and twisted the thing back into him.

"You've got the same chores as last time, plus washing the clothes you didn't get to yesterday," Karl told him. "And one more thing. Since ol' king is earning his keep standing guard over an untrustworthy neko slut, he ought to get his fair share. So every day, you're to work up that old boner of his, take out your ass-plug and let the old boy plow your little hole good. And just to make sure you're doing your job, you get that plug back in quick so's all that dog jism stays inside you so we can check and make sure you did as you were told. We pull that plug out at night and there's no dog juice dripping from inside your hole and you don't wanna know the hell that'll come down on you. Understand, bitch?"

The neko's ears were flat against his head and tears gathered at the corners of his eyes, but he nodded all the same, afraid to disagree to even such a humiliating task.

And that was his life for the next several weeks. Pain and discomfort were his constant companions. Daily beatings, so that his skin was so bruised and sensitive that even the brush of a cool breeze made him twitch in pain. His knees hurt so badly that it was a practice in willpower not to scream as he dutifully crawled across the hardwood floor to carry out his chores. Every day the dog mounted him, even if some of those days the beast held little interest and had to be brought around to the task by the neko's hands or mouth on his uninterested genitals. A hateful task, but Karl's threats loomed in the neko's mind and he was in no wise willing to annoy the woodcutters more, because true to their word, one of them did check each night when they took him out to relieve himself.

Karl and Sven were a little picky about sticking their own cocks into an ass tainted with dog come, so Sven came up with a method of rinsing out the neko's bowels with a tube and a bucket of cold water out by the trough, that eventually the neko learned to do himself, before he crawled back into the cabin to service them for the night.

There was no end to their abuses and their rough treatment. They beat him into submission, clouding his sense of identity, destroying his pride and his free will, forbidding him to speak for weeks on end in anything but a whine or a growl or other animal sounds that amused them. It was a game with them, the utter destruction of his rational self. His degradation aroused them. His pain was a constant source of entertainment. And he did what they demanded of him without hesitation or thought, reacting in the ways a well-broken animal might.

They had many creatively cruel games they played with him to entertain themselves at night. The simple use of his ass and his mouth were forgone conclusions and so commonplace by now that they sought out more interesting uses for him.

One of their favorites was 'poke the pig'. The neko would kneel, face to the fur while they sat around him in their respective chairs, drinking and smoking and joking amidst themselves while they took turns with a long pole that they had fitted with a thumb-sized, cock-shaped head. The neko would reach back and spread his cheeks so they could see the target and each would try to spear it into his asshole in one thrust. It was not an easy task, for they worked at a distance and inevitably they would hit below or above, leaving a sprinkling of bruises in their wake. Of course if they missed they would blame it on him, and the loser would take a switch to his backside a few times, which amused the other players to no ends. Or sometimes, if he were in the mood, Ol' King would trot over and interrupt the fun and mount his bitch, since the position was a familiar one. They would laugh at that too and declare the dog the winner of the night's tournament.

This particular night though, Karl had won three rounds straight and the others had given up, sated from earlier bouts with their slave and retreated to lounging in their bunks or smoking by the fire. Karl had gone though a few smokes, rocking idly in his chair while he lazily moved the poker in and out of the neko's hole. The neko had almost gotten comfortable, face and shoulders on the rug, fingers pulling the cheeks of his buttocks apart so that Karl could see the lips of his anus move in and out with the movement of the pig-sticker. It was lulling almost, to have no other thought but that he was pleasing one of his masters, and the poker was small enough not to hurt him and the motion of it had become rhythmic in Karl's lassitude. It began to feel good as nothing had felt really good since he'd come here. It touched something inside him that triggered feelings low in his crotch that he hardly remember being capable of.

The neko's balls tightened up and fingers of pleasure traveled up his belly, making his swollen nipples twinge. His cock began to swell, darkening and hanging down below his belly. The urge to slide his hands down to touch it was strong, but not so strong as his conditioning to keep whatever position they set him to. Almost of their own accord his hips began to move a little, grinding against the hard little intruder in his ass and his cock twitched leaking clear liquid from its blushing tip.

Abruptly the motion of pig-sticker stopped and the tip was jerked out of him. He heard the low sound of Karl's curse a moment before the thud of feet across the floor alerted him to Karl's approach. He was grasped by the hair and thrown backwards, sprawling back down at Karl's feet, his erection bobbing against his tummy. He stared up in shock at Karl's livid face, not understanding the source of his rage, until the big man reached down and grasped his hard cock, twisting brutally.

"What the fuck is this?" Karl screamed at him. "Did I tell you what would happen if I caught you with a stiff prick, you little slut?"

"No. No!" The Neko cried, panic beginning to set in as Karl hauled him up by the hold on his quickly softening cock.

"Stein, hold this little bitch." Karl thrust him into Stein's thick arms and Stein wrestled him over to the table and held him pressed against it wrapped in his thick arms. Karl took his now limp cock and laid it across the tabletop while Stein leaned against him, pressing his hips against the edge. When Karl took off his belt the Neko began to whimper. The first strike of stiff leather against the pliant flesh of his cock was like molten lead injected into his veins. He screamed and jerked back against Stein's immovable weight. The second stole breath and vision. By the third and fourth he'd lost count mouth filled with blood from biting his own tongue, body on fire with the pain as Karl lashed his cock like it was a slab of tough meat he was trying to tenderize. When Karl stopped and the Neko's wavering vision cleared enough to look down in horror at what was left of his maleness, it was purple and red with bruises, welts and bleeding cuts. Blood leaked from the tip along with a trickle of stinging urine. Karl reached down and grasped his shrinking nuts, wrenching them down painfully. With them still twisted in his grip he leaned in close and warned.

"If I ever see you with a stiff cock again, I'll rip these off and make you eat them, understand?"

The neko nodded, shaky and desperate. Karl nodded to Stein and when the big man released him he slid to his knees between them.

"Now you thank me for not taking them now, filthy animal." Karl thrust his crotch close to the Neko's face and with shaky fingers he unfastened the pants and took the hard cock in mouth. His throbbing cock dangled between his thighs, a pulsing source of central pain that shot throughout his body with each beat of his heart. It felt huge and hot and he wanted badly to touch it - - to hold and protect it. He dared not.

The pain would not go away and with each blinding spasm his jaw would clench and teeth grazed Karl's cock. He bit down once in reflexive reaction to agony and Karl growled and pushed him backwards, kicking him twice in the shoulder and hip before he yanked him onto his knees and sated his lusts within the neko's ass.

It was the final blow that led to his undoing. What spirit he had left to him vanished, eroded away by pain and fear. The reasoning, rational part of his mind retreated and what remained was a cowering, broken animal obedient and submissive. He whimpered and writhed under their cruel games, but crawled none the less without hesitation towards the implements of his torture. For a very long time, he became an animal, acting out of reflex and self-preservation, having no individual thought of his own, only acting on the express wishes of his masters. Weeks went by that he had no active memory of, weeks of pain and degradation and servitude. King had more free will.

He wore the marks of their punishments constantly, stripes across his skin, the marks of rough fingers in his flesh, the adornments they fixed to his body.

He wore rings through his nipples, thick heavy metal no smaller in diameter than his pinky finger that weighed heavily on the flesh supporting them. The piercing had been painful and slow, Sven enjoying the puncture of pliable skin with a blunt tipped needle. They had similarly pierced the flesh between his legs, threading thick rings through the underside of his cock and through the loose skin of his balls as well as the firm bit of muscle and flesh between the base of his balls and his asshole. They would hang weights from the rings during the day, which would dangle and swing as he went about his chores, always pulling painfully upon his genitals.

The fall and winter passed in a blur, and the snow stayed for months, never seeming to decrease. One evening, after a light snow had laid powder atop the older firmament of crusty snow and ice, a horse and rider made their way up the path towards the cabin. The neko paid no heed, as the younger woodsmen moved outside to the porch to watch the approach. Karl's cock was fitted snugly down his throat and there was no task outside the working of that thick bit of flesh that occupied the neko's narrowed attention.

But the sound of voices raised in greeting outside did snare Karl's curiosity and he slapped the neko against the forehead and shoved him off his still hard cock before rising to see who had come to their doorstep.

Bo and Olaf thumped in, grinning ear to ear and behind them a slender, fur hooded figure entered on the arm of Sven. A scent that hinted at familiarity reached the neko's nose and for the first time in a very long time a memory of something other than the here and now of animal intellect assaulted him.

It was the lady, who he had almost loved back when he had had a name. It took effort to recall that name now, his life before this was such a dark blur. Easier not to try, because all memory would cause him was suffering and regret. Unless - - unless she had come to take him back.

Something foreign and unfamiliar surged in his breast. A small spark of hope that stirred that human part of him that had been in hibernation for so long. It made his heart beat rapidly in his breast and he knelt before Karl's empty chair while the woodsmen made greetings to the fur clad lady, her smooth voice a lilting melody among their gruff tones. He crawled out of the way when they moved as a group towards the fire, the woodsmen pulling up the best-cushioned chair for the lady to sit close to the warmth.

The neko crouched near the end of the hearth, next to the ash bucket and the stack of firewood and watched her avidly from beneath long lashes. She was beautiful, her hair long and curling and beaded here and there with decoration. She laughed and spoke with her hosts easily, accepting a mug of warmed ale.

When finally her eyes did happen upon the neko, she simply cocked her head and cast a curious glance towards Karl. "Was it gold well spent?"

Karl's mouth quirked and he motioned to Bo, who jumped up eagerly and hauled the neko to the center of the rug. The neko knelt submissively between Bo's legs, waiting for instruction. Bo hooked two fingers in the neko's nostrils and pulled his head back, then fitted a massively heavy iron weighted wood barbell between his teeth. It was a stamina game they played with him, seeing how long he could support it, head held high. Bo let him go and he strained to keep his head back, on knees and fingertips, neck muscles straining under the weight, jaw aching already.

"He tamed right nicely. See how eager he is to please," Karl remarked and they all laughed, conversing with her about various highpoints in his training while he crouched on the rug struggling to keep position.

Their conversation became of buzz of nonsense in his ears, overpowered by the rush of blood and the trembling strain of muscles. He could hold the barbell no longer and it fell from his mouth, landing on the rug with a thump. He cringed, knowing they would punish him for it, but they seemed more interested in the lady. So he got off easy. He knelt, head lowered, staring through his hair at the creamy flesh of her cleavage above a low cut bodice. He had hated her for so long for leaving him to this hell, but to look at her now, at her woman's flesh, at her soft hair and her full lips - - to think that she might have come to release him - - for that he could almost love her again.

His body responded in a way it hadn't since that day Karl had beat his cock so bad he'd peed blood for two weeks. He was terrified at the reaction and moved his hands to overtly cover the erection.

"What's this?" Olaf cried, amused, and jumped up to grab the neko's wrists and pull his hands away from his lap. The neko's cock immediately bobbed up, the three metal rings along its underside weighing it down just enough to keep it from bouncing against his belly. It pointed instead, like a guilty finger, towards the lady, who lifted a brow in interest.

"What a pretty picture," she drawled and instead of the rage the neko expected of him, Karl laughed.

"Look at this little boner," Bo chortled, hooking a finger through the ring under the head of the neko's cock and pulling on it. "He don't ever get hard for us."

"Looks like the cat's in heat," Stein laughed.

Bo flicked the tip of the deflating erection .

"Ol' King can take care of that for him," Karl said. "Bring the old boy out and let the neko put on a show for the lady. Show her how nice you and the dog play, bitch. Suck him till he's hard."

The neko groaned inwardly. There was no more mortifying thing they could have him do in front of her than to serve as King's bitch. After seeing him service the dog, she would want no part of him. But when they brought out the big dog, he made no hesitation in crawling over and twisting his head under king's belly like a calf seeking to suckle its mother.

The dog was completely soft, and the neko had to work the hairy sheath with his mouth, plying the entrance with his tongue and sucking until he pulled the slimy tip of King's cock into his mouth. He licked and sucked until the length of it slid out.

"Pull it behind him so you can get to it good," Karl directed and the Neko took hold of the thick, slick member and pulled it between King's back legs, where he knelt and began to deep throat. He bobbed his head up and down the length, holding onto the base above the swollen balls.

"Clean his ass," Stein told him and he shuddered, but let the cock slid from his lips and rose up to run his tongue across the dog's puckered asshole.

"Stick that tongue up there good," someone suggested and he pressed his mouth close and drove his tongue into the hairy orifice. King found this disconcerting and shifted, pulling away, much to the neko's relief. The dog was fully erect now and wanting release and he turned and snapped at the neko, growling for his bitch to assume the position. The neko knew well what was expected of him, and how to best ease King's path inside. He crouched, shoulders against the floor and reached back to part his cheeks as the dog mounted him. It took a few stabs to hit the mark, but soon the slick cock head wedged its way inside and the length of the cock followed in a few rapid thrusts.

The neko moaned and braced himself for the inevitable entry of the knot. King was pumping furiously, and with each inward thrust the neko loosened a little more and the big knot came that much closer to locking inside him. It squeezed in with a painful stretching of muscle and once inside the neko shut his eyes in a moment of relief, the heavy ball stretching his anus, the thick, hot cock snaking up into his bowels and all of it locked into place, inseparable for however many minutes it took the dog to empty his supply of seed into the neko's body.

"Get over here," Karl said and patted his crotch. "Finish what you started."

The neko looked up, glazed eyed at Karl sitting with knees spread wide to accommodate him. The lady sat next to him, her eyes glittered and glued to the bizarre scene of dog desperately fucking neko. He looked away from her. He had to, mortified and feeling shame he'd had no notion he was still capable of feeling. He began to crawl, pulling king with him the few feet towards Karl's waiting crotch. King's weight was too heavy to support without his hands and knees firmly planted on the floor, so he sought after the head of Karl's cock with lips alone and sucked it into his mouth. Karl helped, pulling his head down by the ears and setting up a pace to his liking.

With king pounding him from behind and Karl brutally shoving his cock down the neko's throat to the root the breath was beaten out of him and he desperately fought for the tiny bits of air afforded him when Karl lifted his head up to the tip of his cock in preparation for ramming it back down again.

"Listen to those odd little sounds he's making," the lady remarked. "Like he can't get enough."

"He's quite the little cum-slut," Sven said. "Eats it morning noon and night. Dog. Man. He ain't picky. He'd rather eat jism than his gruel and we keep his belly full. And he's so good at sucking it out, like he was born for it. He's gotten so good he can take cock and balls in his mouth, even old King's monster dick. Takes two up the ass real nice, too. Other things, too. That hole can stretch so wide, we can fit 'bout anything up there and he's glad to have it."

"How wonderful. I knew he had talent. It only took the proper training."

It was one of those nights that King had difficultly emptying his sack. Perhaps it was the distraction of five woodsmen going out of their way to entertain a lady that had him off his game, but he lasted through a round of oral sex, hobbling along behind the neko as he crawled around the circle of chairs to bury his face in each man's crotch and suck them to release.

The neko was raw and bleeding from the constant friction by the time King finally spilled enough seed inside him to slip free and a great deal of that warm liquid dribbled down the neko's thighs, leaking from his gaping hole.

But all the neko could dwell on, was had he been good enough. Had he been obedient enough and pleased all his masters enough to impress the lady? Proving to her that he was a proper slave, that he had learned his place seemed vitally important, if she were to take him back.

That's why she'd come, wasn't it? Hadn't she said - - so long ago, he could barely recall - - that he needed to learn his place? And he had. Oh, if he dared to speak human words, he would have assured her of that. But a good slave wouldn't dare. A good slave would kneel, in a position of submission, forehead against the floor, hands clasped loosely at the small of his back, waiting for command, while his betters spoke softly among themselves.

Almost he dozed, but the shuffling of feet roused him and he cast a glance from the side of his eye at the passing of feet.

I'm amazed at what you've done with him," he heard the lady's sweet voice, and saw her small feet in the company of the forester's larger ones move across the floor. "If ever I have other unruly slaves, I shall bring them to you to temper."

She hesitated, stepping close to the neko, and he felt the touch of her small, cool fingers on the back of his neck. "Perhaps next time I stop by, you'll have learned some new, entertaining trick," she whispered.

It occurred to him, with those words that she was not here to take him away at all. That she was leaving, and he was trapped here, in a hell no neko wise woman could have ever imagined in her fireside stories to frighten young nekos into obedience.

"No," he whimpered, voice hoarse from disuse. He reached out and snagged her ankle, encased in soft kid-leather. He pressed his face against her foot, kissing the top of her boot in desperation. "Please, please take me back. I'll be good. I'll do anything - -"

There was a moment of silence, the foresters quietly observing, the lady looking down upon him. Then he felt her hand on his head, small fingers gently pulling him up by the hair until she bent to look down at him.

"Oh, you are so very sweet now, aren't you? So willing to please." She lowered her head and brushed her lips across his, mindless of where his mouth had recently been. "But not this time. Perhaps next season, when I pass by, I might have a use for you and these fine men will have tired of you enough to part with you."

She rose, turning away from him as if he were of no consequence at all. She touched Karl's arm and exchanged a warm word and then she left, the foresters trailing out onto the porch to see her off. Leaving the Neko alone in the cabin, save for King, who dozed by the fire, belly up, one big back leg twitching as he dreamed.

Something warm and wet trailed down the neko's cheek. Another season here. Another year. And maybe even then, even if she came and took him away, there would be no hope for him. Another year under the care of these men and there'd be nothing left of him to care what master he served.