THE SPOILS OF WAR by Pete Brown. petebrownuk @ yahoo.com
Read all of Pete's stories in groups.yahoo.com/group/petebrownseroticstories
Part 9
It didn't hurt all that much as the doctor probed at my back, and it wasn't really unpleasant - although I was very stiff and sore for the next few days as the muscles there recovered. As soon as he'd finished Lewis uncuffed me, and I got to my feet. The doctor dismissed me cheerily, telling me to come back if my dick failed to heal, and I pulled my slave shorts and singlet back on.
Lewis didn't cuff me to him, and just said cheerily "No point now, Spike! You're like the rest of us - effective prisoners on the base now, unless the Colonel gives us permission to leave to go off to fight somewhere else."
"Does that happen often, sarge?"
"Oh, if you're good, or if you're in demand, quite often! We have all types of fighters here - heavyweights, like you, down to featherweights. There seems to be a demand from private individuals to see the lighter guys fighting privately at the moment, so they get to do a lot of travelling. But I expect that during your career the fashion will change, and people will want to see big bruisers like you slugging it out
"So will I be fighting here?"
"Yes, mostly. Come on...." Lewis led me out of the building and across the campus, and pointed to one huge building sitting there. "That's the TV studios and stuff. They have several rings in there, and all the technical things for the TV channels. And one of the rings is surrounded by a big auditorium where the public can come and watch, for free, to provide an 'atmosphere' as they cheer and howl."
Lewis jogged off then, and called after me to follow him. I loped along, easily, and he said "It's like being a new recruit at a military academy - outside, you always run, never walk, and I could see other slaves, all dressed as we were in the skimpy shorts and singlets, doing just that as they went about their business.
Lewis ran on to the big TV building, we went in, and down a short corridor to where a sign said simply "Costume and makeup."
"Now, Spike", Lewis whispered, "You got off lightly with the doctor. I guess it's because he's used to working with men who've just been enslaved, and he's a bit of a humanitarian. But the guys here aren't - they're used to seeing slaves slugging it out, and if you give them any trouble, I wouldn't want to answer for the consequences. So whatever they tell you to do, just do it, OK?"
"Sarge, what are they going to do?"
"Look, not that it makes any difference, as there's nothing you can do about it, after all You can't escape because of your chip, they can always call guards to overpower you if needed... So what's the point of resisting? They'll only schedule you for punishment. So just lie there and take it, OK?
"Take what, sarge?"
"Tattooing, Spike. All the Colonel's gladiators have their fighting names tattooed on them, so that when a bout is in progress the viewers can easily see who's who. Look...."
He turned his back to me, and pulled at the thin shoulder straps of his singlet. I could peer in and see his broad back, and there, running from shoulder to shoulder, in huge black letters, I could see "Lewis".
"That's obscene... it's disfiguring....."
"Hey, Spike, calm down! It's not 'obscene' as you call it. It's what the Colonel has decreed, and what the public wants. And, you'll find, it actually does make you look better, once you get over the initial shock. Most of us who were, or are, fighters have proper man-shaped bodies - wide shoulders, with that triangle going down to the butt. Well, with your name spelled out in big letters across your shoulders, it emphasises it: when you're stripped for fighting, you really look much more powerful and masculine. And that' why all the slaves here have short names - never more than four or five characters... Spike, Lewis, Steve, Rick, John, Clyde.... There's about fifty of us and we all have different names as you heard, and all four or five characters so they can be tattooed into us."
I almost couldn't believe it - I'd been re-named, losing my proper Steve to become Spike, just so that I'd still have five characters that could be inked all over me. What the fuck else could they do to me, as they not only took about my freedom but took away my pride, too.
Look, have you ever been tattooed? Well, let me tell you, if they're doing a big area - a really big areas - it hurts! They didn't use a proper tattooist, but one of the slaves who worked around the place generally had been trained to do this simple job: there was a set of templates, big letters in the right size, and he simply placed these down onto my skin, and started filling them in with a needle gun. Lewis had just looked at me before it started and said "Spike, we can do this two ways, as I said - we can have you tied down, I can sit on your back, and they'll then do it; or you can accept that it's going to happen anyway, and lie there by yourself. You've been a marine, so you'll know that there's no point if fighting when defeat is inevitable, when there's absolutely no value to it, when it won't even hold up the enemy for a couple of minutes... So what's it to be?"
I'd kind of shrugged, and just lay there, and let it happen. And afterwards, now with a really sore dick, a throbbing pain from my shoulder where I'd been chipped, my nose stinging, and my back giving me a lot of grief, I was feeling pretty pissed off with life generally.
Lewis seemed to understand, and tried to be cheerful. "Look, Spike", he told me, "It's tough at first. You're trying to adjust to your new status - it isn't easy, becoming a slave, especially when you've been in the marines and are used to thinking of yourself as a tough, free man. And all this stuff doesn't help - the snouting, the tattooing.... But hang on in there, and you'll find out that it isn't all bad - we've got a great bunch of guys in the platoon, and the Colonel treats us well: we get fed proper food, there's women if we want them, we get the best medical treatment if there's a problem... It could all be a lot worse."
"How could it be worse, sarge? I'm a fucking slave now...."
"Yes, Spike, that's what happens to captured troops these days - the spoils of war, I guess. But given that you are a slave, being a slave here is a lot better than ending up in some places, I can assure you. They have to keep us fit, and they want us all feisty as we have to fight, so they can't beat us into total submission, or make us completely cowed and subservient like some slaves. There's a fine line they have to tread between keeping us under control and not allowing us to escape, and keeping us ready to fight. Once you get used to it, you'll see that you've still got quite a lot of 'freedom' really. Sure, you can't leave, and you have to do as they tell you, but that's not all that different from when you were in the Corps, is it?"
"Let me give you a bit of advice, though, as I can see you're a bit headstrong - I guess you never made corporal or sergeant in spite of being in for a few years, because of that. Well, here they only tolerate so much, so don't push too hard against the system until you really understand it. You don't want to end up on the flogging frame having your hide whipped away, or suffering the humiliation of being publicly caned.... Take it easy for the first few weeks, and keep yourself under control.... I know it will be hard, but I don't want to have to be the one who ties you to the 'horse' for the public caning, or whatever!
OK?"
He made it seem so reasonable somehow, so I muttered "Yes, sarge", and he gave me a half affectionate, half controlling light slap on the rump, and jogged off, with me following him.
We ran as far as a long, low building on one edge of the "campus" that was Gleeson's Gladiators, and Lewis said "This is home, Spike. This is the residential block. Where we all live, well, the gladiators, that is. All the other slaves who keep the place running live in the service block - they like to keep this bit kind of exclusive for us."
We went in, and it wasn't unlike being in a typical barrack block, except that it was perhaps even starker and more sparsely furnished. Off one side of the central corridor there were individual barracks rooms, and off the other side the communal showers and shitters. Lewis threw open the doors to these and they were the kind of thing I was used to - a big communal shower, a set of basins for washing and shaving along another wall, and at the end eight lavatory bowls.
"Our" barracks room was exactly like all the others - near the door from the corridor was a single bed, which Lewis explained was his, then four double tiered bunks stretching down the room. There was a table and a couple of benches around it, but that was it.
"I expect you recognise this, Spike - you're on the top bunk, three along. But you'll see there are no lockers or anything, as you don't have anything to put in them - we aren't allowed any personal possessions. You get shorts and singlets from the stores in the shower room, and dump the dirty ones in the bins in there, and you'll find razors and toothbrushes and stuff in the showers, too. And that's it, really. I'll introduce you to the other guys in here later, when they get back from exercises, except for Craig, who's away fighting."
"But let me give you a piece of advice", he went on. "We all get on well with each other here, there's about fifty of you fighters plus us 'sergeants', and we all share the showers and stuff. But don't go making real buddies of any of the guys in the other rooms - when they're arranging fights, they generally fix it so that you're not fighting guys from your own room. But it's pretty 'open season' on the other rooms. And if it's a really good buddy of yours in another one of the rooms, and then you've got to beat the shit out of him, well, however hard you try, you might hold back a bit. And if he isn't doing the same thing, then you're going to lose - or, more importantly, you're perhaps going to get hurt more than you might otherwise do. So remember - it's OK to be polite, to share a joke, even, or to help them with shaving their balls if they need it - but don't go making real fuck buddies out of them...."
Well, I wasn't going to do that, was I? I certainly wasn't going to fuck another guy, or, for that matter, even help him shave his balls!
"But sarge, all this about getting hurt.... Is the fighting like that really? How do you get us to fight other men, men who might have been marines, like us, and have been as unfairly enslaved? I wouldn't have though that we'd really go at it - we'd pull our punches...."
"They have their ways, Spike. For one thing, the Colonel watches them, and if he thinks you guys aren't really going at it one hundred percent, he has you caned afterwards. For another, there are some guys who really like fighting: they can't help it, it's in their blood. However much they like you, if they're in the ring with you and they're fighting you, something inside them takes over, and they're just unable to stop themselves from really going at it. You've really just got to go at it as hard as you can as soon as the fight begins, in case you're up against one of these guys - let them get the advantage, and you're lost."
"But they'd think the same thing, sarge - if I go at it hard, they'll go at it hard, too..."
"Yup, Spike! See, as I said, there's no problem in really getting you all to fight properly."
"But do guys get seriously hurt?"
"Not usually. You can get pretty battered and be really bruised and sore the next day. And there's the occasional broken arm, or finger pulled so far back that the tendons snap. But you're expensive and valuable slaves, and if there's any sign that one of you is killing one of the others, the guards will step in and break it up - I mean, it wouldn't make sense for you to be allowed to choke a guy to death, would it? Or to gouge his eyes out? There are the occasional unavoidable accidents - last year, for example, one punch went wrong, and the guy's kidneys never recovered and he died. But that's the exception, and all you can really expect is that you'll really hurt the next day. And there are some other things, too, that you'll find out about when you get out of the 'novice' class... But don't worry about that now."
At that moment the other guys in our room came in, and Lewis introduced us all. There were a couple of the lighter weight guys, one guy about my size and weight, and the others were more or less intermediate. Like me, they'd all been marines, or in front-line fighting units, and they all looked fit and in excellent condition.
We all went along together then, in a group, Lewis leading, jogging across the campus to the dining hall, and it was pretty good food - we had steak and salad, pasta, and fruit. There was no alcohol, though, or any soft drinks - slaves just drank water, apparently, as they didn't want to have to spend money constantly fixing our teeth from sugary crap.
After dinner we all jogged across to the TV building, as there was no big "public" bout that night and we were the only audience for a few "simple" matches that were the mainstay of the TV channel, Lewis explained. "There's always a few live fights every night, Spike, just to keep the atmosphere building. But it's really the weekends when the place goes mad - that's when we have one or two of these special 'championships' with the big audiences - we're lucky to get in to see those as the arena's so full. Then of course there are the special fights they do for the second channel - but more about that later. The rest of the time the channel shows repeats, and if you get a good reputation, and have got kind of a 'fan club', your fans call in and ask for your tapes to be re-shown..."
At that moment the two fighters came in, and the TV cameras zoomed in, and Lewis and all the other guys leapt to their feet and started cheering. I'd told myself that it was all pretty sickening, that I wanted no part in either doing, or watching, these fights. But once the two men started, it was really exciting - the smell of the sweat, the heat from the TV lights, the "slap" sound of the fists as they collided with skin, and then the blood - one of the guys must have got hit in the face as it started to stream from his nose, and soon both fighters had streaks of it all over themselves. And it was obvious that neither guy was holding back at all - when a punch went home, there'd be a grunt from the guy it hit; and when they fell to wrestling, you could see that they were not faking it when they collided with each other, or when they were trying to tear each others limbs off! I found myself on my feet, too, cheering and shouting along with the others, and got almost as hot and sweaty as the gladiators themselves.
We all went back to our barracks room afterwards - Lewis explained that there was a general "lights out" half an hour after the matches finished, and we needed to be in the barracks building as they then checked the location of all the chips in us, and anyone not there would be punished., I expected that they guys would keep their shorts on when they got into their bunks, as that's what we'd always done in the corps, but I saw that the other guys all stripped completely naked, and just hung their singlets and shorts on the end of the bunk. Once I was in bed I soon found out why - although they seemed big enough, the cut of them was clearly designed to emphasise our butts, and they were actually quite tight. As soon as my erection started, they were bloody uncomfortable, so I slipped them off as I lay there.
It was almost like being back in the corps, just as I was used to, then: when you sleep in a small room with a load of other guys you get used to hearing their snoring, the little cries and moans they make when they're dreaming, and, of course, those unmistakable sounds of guys jerking off! We were all extremely close together, and you know how it is - even when you're careful, there's always some noise as your hand slides up and down your dick, isn't there? And as you approach your climax and you start to go faster and faster, you just can't help breathing harder and harder, louder and louder, can you? So as I lay there that night, totally frustrated as I couldn't jerk off because of my 'skinning, when I could hear all the other guys around doing so. And that wasn't the only thing stopping me from sleeping, either - my shoulder, and my "snout" were really uncomfortable.
Still, if I closed my eyes, and thought back, I could almost forget that I was here as a slave, and could imagine myself to be once more a free man, with my buddies, at a proper base. I did get to sleep, though, eventually, and it must have worked as Lewis had to slap me on my butt to get me awake! I jumped off my bunk down onto the floor, and, like me, most of the other guys were sporting erections as they pulled on their shorts and singlets. We were allowed a minute or two to go and piss, but Lewis got us all together to jog out as a "room" to the big space in the middle of the buildings, where we lined up behind him, just as the other "rooms" were lined up behind their "sergeants". It was two solid hours of exercises then, two gruelling hours of stretching, push ups, squats, and running. I soon learned that everyone of us had to do this every morning, however bad we felt from the fight of the night before, unless we were totally physically incapacitated with a broken limb or a torn ligament or something like that - it really does get you back into shape quickly, I suppose.
At the end of the exercises we all ran off, in our "rooms" into the communal showers, and then off to the dining hall for breakfast. Again, there was no stinting us - lots of fresh juice, oatmeal, and great platters of eggs and sausage were provided, and it was clear that the guys all had really healthy appetites, like me.
After breakfast we split up into groups for various "activities" - some went off to the assault course for general training, some did specialist gymnastic activities in the gyms to increase their subtleness, and Lewis came up and told me that I was to have the first of my fighting lessons that morning and to cut along to training room F at once.
This was in another one of the buildings, and I jogged over there, rather enjoying the sensation of using my legs on what was a bright sunny day. I knocked on the door, and a strong, masculine voice told me to go in. Inside the room was bare, all the floors and walls had that deep padded quilting on them, and it was brightly lit from overhead fluorescents. Standing there was a guy about my size and weight, and I could tell that he was a slave as he had a standard collar on, and when he turned his name, Shane, was there for me to see.
"OK, Spike. Lesson one", he told me. "First, in the training rooms we all wear fighting shorts.". He tossed something to me, and I saw that it was a small pair of shorts in cotton with some stretchy stuff built in, rather like boxers, only much lower rise and with shorter legs.
"Pull them on, come on, and let's start", he said, and watched as I shrugged off my existing grey "uniform" and hauled the tight new ones up over my butt, settling my dick and balls in snugly, so that I felt comfortable.
"OK, Spike, you were in the marines, right?"
I nodded.
"Well then, you know a bit about fighting. The only difference here is that you're not supposed to permanently disable, disfigure, or kill the other guy!
Otherwise, anything goes, OK? You can punch, wrestle, slap... whatever. The idea is to totally subdue the other guy, get him to submit to you, and that's it. There's no artificial 'rounds', nothing like that - the fight starts, then we go on until one of us submits. We try and emulate this in the training rooms here - there are no lessons as such - we'll start, and I'll tend to focus on one kind of hold, or one movement, and you've got to spot what it is and try to counter it. If you don't, my blow will strike home, or you'll end up flat on your back, or whatever. If you do, I might find myself in the same position. OK?"
I nodded again.
"I'm pretty good, Spike, as I get a lot of practice at this, and I was a gladiator myself until a year ago when I was retired. So don't be tempted to give me any leeway, or to make any allowances for the fact that I'm a few years older than you. OK?"
I went to nod again, but he threw himself at me, and before I had chance to react, as I'd thought he was going to go on telling me more and more things, I was sprawling on the floor and his hard, heavy body was on top of me, and his fists were pummelling into me. It went on and on, and I began to really struggle in earnest, and then that thing that happens to me when I'm in a tight corner took over - somehow time slows, and I seem to have all the time in the world to decide what I'm going to do next: how I'm going to parry the blow, how I'm going to twist my body so that he's disadvantaged, how I'm going to land the next punch.... And whilst I'm doing all this slowly and calmly, my body is going into overdrive: my heart's racing, my breath starts to gasp as my lungs drag in huge quantities of oxygen, all the heat I'm generating causes sweat to break out all over me (making it harder for the other guy to grab hold of me), and so on.
There's no stopping me once this kind of "fighting fever" takes hold. I'm not thinking about the other guy at all really now, just seeing him as something that has to be stopped, something that has to be vanquished and utterly conquered before he does the same to me. I can feel my muscles tensing, my fists pounding, and the yells of pain and or surprise from my opponent, but I don't care - all I want to do is win, win at any cost.
I don't know how long that bout went on. I do know that he won it, though - at least he knocked me senseless, and I came to with a terribly bruised jaw, and aches all over me from where his punches had landed. He seemed in a bad way, though, as one eye was almost closed by the swelling underneath it, and there was blood pouring down from his nose. He as sitting on the floor, next to me, terribly winded.
He put out his hand, and said "shake!", rather surprisingly. I did so, and he half smiled, as well as he was able.
"That was some fight, Spike. If you go on like that, you'll soon get promoted out of the 'novices'! I'm not used to guys putting up a fight like that first time. But we always shake on it afterwards, as anything that happens here in the training rooms is strictly reserved for these rooms - when I meet you in the mess hall, or on the exercise ground, or wherever, we're just two normal guys, two slaves here at this place, OK?"
"Sure, Shane. But what happens now?"
"We go and shower, you get on to your next activity, and I get my next trainee! I've got three more guys to fight today in here, and I hope they're not all like you. Then the day after tomorrow we get together again, and so on, until we get to the point where you beat me three times in a row, and then it's judged that you've learned everything you can from me - not that I think that will be long in coming - you sure do pack a punch!."
We sat there companionably together for a couple of minutes more, still recovering, and he told me that he'd been a gladiator until a few months before, when it was decided that he was getting too old and that he should be "retired" and train others. "I was hoping that there'd be one of those jobs like Lewis has got", he confided, "as this is fucking hard work in here, I can tell you. But no such luck!"
"So was Lewis a gladiator, too?"
"Of course. And a fucking good one, too. All the guys in charge of rooms, and all the instructors like me, have to have gone through the arena. Otherwise, how could we train all you young guys properly? There's no substitute for real experience, is there ? You can't teach this kind of thing from books, only by having been there and done it!"
Fortunately I didn't have to do any more fight training that day, as in the afternoon I was scheduled to do long-distance running, to improve my overall stamina. Normally I don't mind running - I've got long legs and strong lungs, so it's not a problem. But with all the aches and pains from the stuff they'd done to me the previous day, plus the way I was now hurting from the fight with Shane, it was a real trial.
That night we went to see another real fight, and for the second night in a row I wasn't able to jerk off because of the plaster on my dick. I just had to lie there, stiff and hard, my balls aching now to rival the aches everywhere else on me, listening to all the guys around me enjoying themselves.
This regime went on for eight or nine days - but at least on day three I was able to rip off the plaster from my dick and jerk off. On the morning of day ten after breakfast, Lewis called me to one side and told me "This is your big day, Spike. Your first fight. You're in the arena tonight fighting another novice. And on fight days, you get a day off! Now you've done the morning exercise, there's no more need to work: we want you all fresh tonight, able to give your best, so we don't want you exhausted, or to have a training fight and get injured, or waste your energy. So do what you like - stay in your bunk, lie on the grass and enjoy the sunshine, go for a swim, whatever.... Just be back at the bunk room by seven, in time to get showered and so on. And no dinner for you tonight, of course - we don't want you puking up in the arena!"
It was almost like heaven - all that time to myself, with nothing to do. This was the first time since I had been captured and sentenced to slavery that I'd really had any time to myself, any time to be alone, and although I like the other guys, you do sometimes need time to yourself, don't you? And so I did go for a swim - I love the water - and then I lay on the grass in the sun for a bit, but then I was bored. As I've told you, I like running, so I decided to go just for a gentle jog all around the whole campus, just taking in the sights. It made such a change to do something like that at my own pace, without eight other guys making the pace and running with me.
Lewis was in charge of my "preparations" for my first fight, and he certainly took it seriously! He stood there as I showered, and watched as I hopped around from leg to leg, trying to shave my balls again!
"Sarge, why have I got to do this?"
"You never know, Spike. Someone may come in and see the fight, and want to buy you. Then the Colonel would have to offer an inspection, and where would you be if you had all that stubble growing over your balls? You really do need to keep them clear, you know - we wouldn't want the Colonel to be embarrassed, would we?"
Well, actually, I didn't give a shit! It was bad enough to even think about being sold, just because someone saw me fighting and decided that he'd like to own me. I mean, I was a man, or, at least, that was how I still thought of myself, even though the world said "slave". So I didn't want to do anything to make it easier, or more pleasant, for the bastards. But Lewis was really insistent, and even reached out and felt them when I said I was done. I tried to stop him, but he looked me straight in the eyes, and snapped "Get your hand off my wrist, boy! I'm in charge of our room, and I've got a perfect right to make sure you're a credit to the Colonel and his establishment."
I suppose I ought to have been used to it by now, given the number of men who had felt my balls since I was part of this ludicrously named "spoils of war": I'd gone from a total of zero for the first twenty six years of my life, to "lots" now, so what did one more matter, really? But somehow this was different - the others had been "free men", and Lewis was a slave, like me. Slaves shouldn't do this to one another, should they?
Nothing prepares you for the reality of being made to fight another man. Look, in the marines, you do it because it's your job, your duty, even: that's what soldiers do; and most of the time you don't actually touch the other guy anyway - it's mostly guns, and very little hand-to-hand combat. And if you're a pro fighter, a boxer or a wrestler or something, then you do it because you've chosen it as your job, and you're getting well paid for it. But I was different - I was being made to do it, as I was a slave, and my owner had decided that I had to go into the ring and beat the shit out of another guy, or have it done to me. It just wasn't right - one man shouldn't have such power over another that he could be able to order that. So why did I do it? Why didn't I just refuse, and stand there and say "no"? I don't know, really - I guess it's a combination of things: I suppose I was used to obeying orders, especially from my "sergeant", and Lewis never gave any hint that I had any choice; and then there was that fucking peer group pressure thing - the other seven guys in my room were all fighters, all went into the ring: would they think I was "chicken" if I refused? And, anyway, what was the real alternative? Although I didn't like the idea of being flogged, I suppose I could have refused to fight and have been tied to the flogging frame and had my hide striped away - that's what some guys would have done, I guess, when faced with orders that were totally "wrong"; but what then? a life working chained naked in a coffle on some fucking farm, or down a mine, or chained to a factory bench? I couldn't even run away, as I didn't doubt that their tracking chip technology would locate me and I'd be recaptured - being in the military I was used to the idea of technology like that!
So I stood there, in my tiny fighting shorts, aware that most o my body was exposed, and the bits that weren't were anyway mostly "displayed" as the fabric was so tight and stretchy! I was nervous, I can tell you - I mean, you know there's a good chance that you're going to get hurt, physically hurt: battered and bruised at best, and very sore; and at worst, a broken limb. I could feel myself covered in sweat, it was making me chill as it evaporated in the air conditioning, and my heart was racing, and my lungs were pumping as I readied myself for action: I'm not one of those icy calm people before they go into a fight: my body gets ready for action, the adrenaline surges, and I'm all primed to go!
And what was it really like, that first fight? I don't know, really - I can barely remember what the other guy looked like, even. I remember us standing facing each other, as I sized up his compact, muscled frame. Then we were at each other, and that strange combination of icy, slowed down calm, coupled with real rage, took over. Within seconds we were tangled together, legs flailing, fists pummelling - and I remember no more, really, until I was standing there, blood streaming down from a cut somewhere on me from where a foot or something had broken the skin, looking down at him lying there, out cold, at my feet.
Lewis and my room mates seemed strangely subdued after we'd jogged back to our room - I thought they would a least have been slapping me on the back and congratulating me. But they muttered "well done" in a rather half-hearted way, and there was none of the usual joking and joshing as we stripped and got into our bunks. And I didn't hear too much jerking off either that night - it was as if everyone was under some sort of cloud of depression.
Still, I slept well - somehow the actuality of that first fight hadn't been as awful as the anticipation of it: if that was the worst that was going to happen, I could survive this. And whilst I was surviving, there was still hope, wasn't there? I didn't know how I was going to escape, but I knew that I wasn't going to remain a slave for ever.
End Of Part Nine.