At the dawn of the twenty-first century, a strange biological phenomenon was discovered — average testosterone levels and sperm-counts of men were in decline, as estrogen levels rose unnaturally. The same trend was found among the males of most other higher species as well, and all mammals. Over time, the effects became more and more apparent. Birth-rates collapsed across the globe, and after the children of the twentieth century flickered out of existence, the global population halved, then quartered. Barbarians came from the south and the east, and after they had destroyed what they found, they feasted upon each other. The survivors ventured forth from their hiding places into the ruins of their own civilization.
	Women were scarce after the suffering of these trials and tribulations, their constant pregnancy a necessity for the survival of the dwindling species. Each stillborn child represented the waste of nine months of being fed and cared for by the tribe, of the lost labour invested by the mother; each death in childbirth an almost irreplaceable loss. Woman's existence was secured by the tribe, but for men was survival of the fittest. Only the strongest could procreate.
	The trend of man before the fall continued, to the point of a divergence within the sex, perhaps the birth of a third sex. Those who were strong and vital and virile remained men. Those who were weak, fine-boned, with smooth cheeks and hairless bodies, diminutive, effeminate, supplied to men what they could no longer all obtain from women. Gone were they who could detect such arcanities as balance of the hormones, but whether a boy would become a man, or something less than one, was evident, intuitive, instinctive, early in his life.
	Those adolescents who could, took their peers as lovers; those who could not were taken, and accepted their fate. Thus was a use found for they who were too weak to defend themselves or their tribe, or to hunt and provide for themselves, and found also was a means of satisfying the many men who had no access to women.
	The third sex, neither man nor woman, was called simply "boy", for the very physical traits which made men want them. Their smoothness of body and face, their tendency toward shortness, narrow shoulders and chests, wide hips and thighs, lack of muscular definition and, seemingly, of ability to gain it. It was thought that they were boys who never became men, whose bodies failed to climb beyond the adolescent state, for reasons known only to the gods. No new term seemed necessary.
	They were expected to help the tribe as much as they could, but rarely were much use in a hunt or a fight. The women ate first, especially prized dairy, then the men, meat to keep up their strength, last the boys, berries, greens, roots, scraps from their betters. None now knew of such things, but these customs only reinforced the physical differentiation. None realized that, no matter if only the strongest and most virile chieftains and nobles sired the next generation of the tribe, still would some of their sons, perhaps most, fail to grow into men.
	The significance of this was lost on them.



															THE STRANGER

Jak crested the sand-dune, relaxed into a crouch. He wiped his brow with a rag, shaded his eyes.
	There it was again. A glimmer in the sand, off a few hundred yards. Had to be metal.
	Tin collapsed next to him, panting.
	"Whatcha see, Jak?"
	"Don't know. Off there," he pointed. Tin lay on the hot sand, strained to see. "Somethin shiny."
	"Shiny?" Tin liked shiny things.
	"Let's check it out," Jak said.
	Tin sighed. He wanted to sleep, somewhere cold. A blizzard, or maybe the bottom of a lake. He wasn't used to the wasteland heat, like Jak was. To wandering.
	As the tall man set off down the slope, Tin struggled to his feet, hefted the wretched leather pack, his constant companion, nagging and clinging and kicking his ribs if he didn't go fast enough.
	Resigned to his fate, he stumbled after Jak.

																~	~	~

Jak squatted, leaned on the shaft of his axe. Tin sank to his knees beside him, sat on his heels. Nestled into the curve of a stone outcrop, almost concealed by the sand below them, was a steel skeleton.
	Tin had never seen one up close. There had been a few in his tribe's hunting grounds, but they were given a wide berth. Only the priests were allowed to harvest artifacts from them, to make weapons or tools for the most powerful and important men in the village.
	It was covered by a frayed sheet, a faded gray that might once have been blue. A corner of the sheet was fastened to a thin pole, jutting from the desert, its top higher than the dune upon which they rested. This must have been the glittering they had spotted.
	"Come on," Jak said, helping Tin to his feet.
	They slid down the few yards of the low slope and started poking around.
	Rested against one of the wheels under the shade of the tarp, half-buried in sand, was a more mundane skeleton, wrapped in old cloth and leather. Jak knelt beside it, rummaging. He glanced at Tin's sun-pink face, snatched the corpse's broad-brimmed hat and offered it up. Tin was hesitant to take it.
	"You scared a ghosts?" Jak asked.
	"No!"
	Jak laughed.
	"I ain't!" Tin insisted. "Sides, they don't bother ya none, so long's you don't do em wrong..."
	"Reckon he don't need any a this no more."
	"S'pose he don't," Tin said, uncertainly.
	Jak waved the hat at him again, and he took it. He felt every bit the grave-robber he was, and felt also a sense of awe for the artifact he held in his hands. The hat was made of hide and, though worn and stiff with dust, had once been a marvel of craftsmanship. The stitching was unbelievably fine, smaller and tighter than Tin, or any other boy in his village, could hope to achieve, even with a metal needle.
	He squeezed and bent it to return some flexibility, then stuck it on, shifting it around until it seemed placed correctly. It was a little big for him, but the relief it gave his head and eyes from the brutal sun was instant, almost ecstatic. Even his shoulders felt cooler.
	Jak had picked a few things off the man's bones, took a long rag from the corpse's neck and wound it about his head, then moved on to search within and around the corroded hulk.
	Tin knelt beside the bones, wondering who he'd been, why he was here. The dead man's hand was partially covered with packed grit, clutching something, and when Tin brushed away the sand he found a statue of a woman, about as tall as his forearm's length. The beauty and realism of the sculpture was amazing, though the paint had flaked off her eyes and lips long ago. It was carved from some kind of plastic, Tin thought. A few tufts of yellowish hair still sprouted from the scalp. Blond hair...
	"Madonna!" He gasped. The mother of the gods, with hair like the sun and eyes like clean water. With reverence, he rubbed the statue clean, and found that its arms and legs could be moved and posed, joined to the body cleverly by some lost technique.
	Truly a marvelous artifact.
	The dead man's left hand had a ring on its third fingerbone. Tin couldn't bring himself to take it, though it sparkled yellow in the sun.

																~	~	~

"Lookit what I found," Jak called, crawling out from under the tent.
	He carried a hollow metal stick, about six feet long, squared, with a row of small holes perforated along each of its four edges.
	"Make y'a spear with it," he said. "Whatcha got there?"
	"It's a goddess," Tin said. "Dead man had it. Think it's Madonna..."
	Tin looked solemn, thoughtful.
	"The matter with you?"
	"It's sad, Jak," Tin said. "Poor fella dead out'n the middle a nowhere, all by hisself..."
	Jak cupped the boy's face with his free hand, smiled down at him.
	"You're too soft, Tin."
	"I ain't!"
	"Yeah, y'are," Jak sank to his knees, pulling Tin with him, kissed him, pushed him onto his back, lay atop him.
	"Jak, stop, please."
	"Why?"
	Tin paused, looked away, embarassed.
	"Don't wanna do it in front a him," he nodded at the dead man.
	"Oh for—"
	"Please, Jak," Tin rested a hand on his chest. "Cain't we bury him?"
	Jak looked down at him, his stiffness pressing into the boy's leg, the slender fingers lightly brushing the taught bundle of his chest.
	"Ah, gods above! You're helpin."
	Tin's smile was radiant, and he kissed Jak again.

																~	~	~

Jak scraped sand with a metal bowl, like the one over the belly of his kidney belt, which had fallen off one of the steel skeleton's wheels. Tin used his new "spear", poking and breaking up the stiffer, packed sand for Jak to scoop.
	"'He look so sad by hisself' you're worse'n a girl, Tin!"
	"Somebody find your bones out here, you want em to bury you, ain'tcha?"
	"I won't care," he grunted, scooping gravel now. The digging got hard fast, the ground rocky below the sand, at the foot of the low dune.
	"I was dead, my ghost'd be gone, to the Park or to the Soor, right? Just bones left behind..."
	"If ya died real awful-like, your ghost gotta stay until someone do your rites," Tin said, matter-of-factly.
	"This fella been dead since afore you and me was born, Tin."
	"That's worse! His ghost been out wandrin the dunes, year after year, Jak! Howlin into the wind for somebody come put him to rest... It's awful..."
	Jak grumbled.
	Tin stabbed the dig with his staff and they both scurried back, Tin's hat flapping off his head to lie at the feet of the corpse, as the ground caved in. A hole in the stone beneath the sand, as wide around as Tin was tall, yawned before them like a black pond.
	"Shit, Tin, we're standin over a cave or somethin."
	Tin shivered.
	"Don'wannago innomore cave, Jak, don'wannago down'na dark ever agin," he grabbed Jak, buried his face in the man's chest.
	Jake ran his fingers through the boy's wavy dark hair.
	"Shh, it's alright," he murmured. "I won't letcha down there. Never gonna happen again."
	He set the boy on the ground, stooped to grab the hat and placed it on his head.
	"I'll lookit round, see what I find, you just sit tight."
	Tin hugged his knees to his chest, nodded.
	"Careful, Jak."
	"I be fine."
	Jak picked up the metal pole, used it to prod the ground as he neared the pit, make sure it didn't collapse under him. It seemed to be solid stone beneath a layer of sand, everywhere but where they'd dug. He went to his knees and crawled up to the edge, lay flat on his belly to peek over it.
	Deep.
	Couldn't tell how deep, but he didn't see a patch of sunlight down there, just pitch black. He sifted his fingers through the sand for a pebble, dropped it in, counted a few heartbeats before he heard a faint echo from its landing.
	He returned to Tin.
	"Nothin down there, Tin, far's I can tell."
	"Don't know for sure, Jak, don't know for sure till yer in it..."
	"That's true," he admitted. "Wasn't nothin I could see, anyhow."
	He sat beside Tin, wrapped an arm around his shoulders, squeezed.
	"Now, don't get upset, but I got a idea..."

																~	~	~

Jak dumped the dead man's pelvis and second femur down the hole. Nothing left but the skull, which Tin insisted on dropping in last, and the statue and the ring. He glared sullenly at Jak, still pouting over the lost argument.
	"Dead man," Tin began. "Forgive us two, for a half-done burial. We're sorry we don't know your name, where ya come from, where you was goin. We wish you go peaceful-like, to stand with your kin at the side a the gods, in the cool shade a the green Park.
	"In the name a Tor, and Madonna, and Jolee, my patron, find your way, and rest now."
	At the name of each deity, he dropped something in; first the skull, then the statue, then the ring. Finally, he bowed his head and clasped his hands, as he'd seen the priests do at funeral.
	Jak broke the silence.
	"Now we took care a him, there's somethin else we gotta do..."
	He grabbed Tin around the waist, picked him up under one arm, facing behind, kicking and squealing indignantly, fighting not to laugh, his somber mood spoiled. Jak slapped his wriggling buttocks, then walked to the flapping tent.
	"Put me down!"
	Jak threw him on the flat front end of the steel skeleton, still covered by a gently sloping panel of corroded metal, a square bedcloth he'd found within it offering some protection from the pitted surface. Holding Tin down with a hand on the boy's neck, Jak grabbed and squeezed the smooth flesh below the boy's loincloth. He pinched hard, and Tin squawked, kicked his feet ineffectually.
	He stuck his fingers in the boy's mouth. Tin knew why, and did his best to make them wet. Jak rubbed between his own legs and his lover's, pressed himself into the boy from behind, still grabbing him by the neck, forcing his face into the worn cloth, into the metal sheet beneath.
	Tin groaned through gritted teeth as Jak filled him, clutching the bedroll in his fists, gasping when the big man's pelvis came to rest flush with his.
	"Gods, Jak,"  he sighed. "Oh gods..!"
	Jak was not gentle.
	Tin did not mind.
	He thrust into the boy's shuddering tightness, gripping his shoulders, pulling his slender body back in time to the blows. Tin was painfully hard, jutting against the flat surface over which he was bent, until at last he spasmed and screamed and jetted smooth slickness down the rusted metal, flooding into the warm sand.
	His body clenched, hurried Jak along to roaring climax, bursting and filling the writhing boy to the brim, hotness overflowing, flowing down his smooth, pale thighs.
	Their feet rested in the depression where the dead man had lain. Their mingled seed spattered and dripped into his empty grave.

																~	~	~

The pair lay in a sweaty tangle on the fine sand by the rusting heap, under the flapping, frayed, and faded cloth, panting, sipping warm water, then warm shine.
	"We gonna stay for the night?" Tin asked, dreamily.
	"Guess so..." Jak said, pushing his braided blond hair out of his face.
	"Hmm..."
	"What you "hmmin" bout?"
	"Don't know, Jak," Tin yawned. "Just thinkin bout that fella in the hole. Hope he makes it to his kin alright."
	"You're such a silly little kid," Jak smiled.
	"I ain't a kid!"
	"Yeah?" Jak laughed. "How old are ya, anyhow?"
	Tin frowned. "Bout a score year, maybe," he shrugged. "Momma useta say she kept count cause she never had more'n one baby in a year. Real regular, see? Knew how old we was cause she didn't forget the dead ones. Lost three and ten, fell out her bleedin, or stilborn, seven born alive, four ain't died afore they could walk, me and two sisters, baby brother..."
	"Too much countin," Jak said. "Makes my head ache."
	Tin poked him in the ribs. "How old're you, strong-man?"
	"Dunno... Prolly little older'n you, I guess." He shrugged. "Cain't count my years. My momma didn't count em for me."
	"Well, the priest says if ya make it half a score years, you can tell if you're gonna be a man or a boy when you grown. That's when you ain't a kid no more. Five more year, you grown bout as much as you're gonna til ya die."
	The breeze rolled across the dunes, rippling sand beneath shimmering heat.
	"Momma was real proud she give the Boss-man two girls..."
	Tin grew quiet. Jak mussed his hair, to make him giggle, grab him out of the dark memory he knew the boy had fallen into.
	A strange squealing sounded out in the distance, carried by the wind.
	"The hell's that, Jak?"
	He rose in a hurry, leaving Tin on the sand, confused, frightened.
	"Jak, is that... Is that comin out the hole?"
	"No—I heard that sound afore... Get your knife!"

																~	~	~

Tin scrambled up the dune behind Jak, knife in one hand, holding his new hat on his head with the other. The screaming sounded again, and quick thumps into the sand. It was a rider.
	Tin had never seen a horse, but they were all over the tales of the gods—four-legged beasts that could carry a man faster than he could run. Even horses forged of steel and aluminum, who drank chemjuice and snorted smoke from their nostrils. This one was flesh and blood, though.
	The rider was difficult to make out, save for his helmet, blackened metal obscuring the face above the mouth, some kind of horns sweeping back from the sides, then turning upward. He had drawn his sword, a flat jagged rectangle, black save for the gleaming edge, maybe four feet long, though held one-handed. The pommel was a small animal's skull. The blade looked like steel to Tin, and that much of it would be quite expensive.
	The stranger slowed, halted at the foot of the dune.
	"Who are ya?" Jak called.
	"You give me you boy, and we no having fight today, big man." His voice was high, scratchy, harsh. "You keep you everting else you got, and I no kill you."
	"Got another offer in mind; How bout you gimme your hoss and I won't split ya down the middle?"
	"You gahnna die, big man, and I take you everting, leave you body for de vahlture!"
	The stranger kicked his horse into a gallop. Tin was frozen, not so much from fear but because he didn't know what to do. Jak glanced at him, estimated that he was about to be ridden over, and kicked him out of the way. Tin went rolling down the hill, back to the tent and the rusting steel.
	The stranger swung the sword low as he rode by; Jak ducked, tried to hit the horse's rear leg when it passed him, missed. The stranger reigned in several yards away, turned around, sped to a gallop once more. The ugly sheet of steel slashed into Jak's unarmoured right shoulder, as the teeth of his axe sliced a shallow wound across the stranger's thigh. Again, the rider turned the horse, and again sped to a gallop.
	Jak was bleeding, but it didn't look serious. He was, however, getting bored. As the stranger closed in for another attack, he leapt across the horse's path and swung his axe at the beast's face. It pulled up short, nearly throwing the rider over its head, then reared on its hind legs.
	The sight was terrifying, but Jak always reacted to fear, on instinct, by attacking its source. He stepped in to cut the beast's throat when a hoof lashed out, connected with his skull.
	"Jak!" Tin screamed.
	The blow sent him flying, rolling down the low dune.
	Tin rushed toward him, but the stranger's horse was faster.
	Jak rose to his feet, blinking, saw Tin running. He turned in time to lean back, away from the stranger's swinging sword—and slipped over the edge, into the pit.
	"JAK!!!"

																~	~	~

Tin slid on his knees the last few feet to the edge, his fear forgotten, peered in, trying to see if his man still lived.
	"Jak!" the call echoed up out of the hole.
	"JAK! Say somethin, Jak!"
	He saw nothing but blackness, staring back at him.
	The Stranger dismounted, the booted thump drawing his attention. The sword was strapped to the horse. In its stead, the Stranger carried a coil of thick rope. Tin spotted his knife on the ground, halfway between them. The Stranger saw it too.
	Tin leapt to his feet, ran for the knife, tripped on something half-buried in the sand—a small skull. The stranger closed the distance fast on long legs, stuck a knee clad with studded leather and sharp buckles into Tin's back and began to bind his hands. Tin struggled.
	"Get offa me!"
	He managed to get on his back, to deliver a solid kick to the stranger's exposed jaw. A heavy punch to his belly drove the wind out of him, and the fight, left him heaving his guts into the sand.
	"You stop now," the Stranger said. "Stop you fighting me or I hahrt you bad, little boy."
	Gripping the end of the rope that was now knotted around Tin's wrists, wrapped about his waist, and looped over his neck, the Stranger rummaged through Tin and Jak's belongings. He didn't find much that he bothered to steal.
	"You gahnna make my friends very happy, little boy," the Stranger laughed.
	It was like the sound of loose gravel skittering down a hill.

																~	~	~

The Stranger rode his horse at an unhurried walk, dragging Tin behind him, whistling as he swayed in the saddle. He hadn't removed his horned helmet.
	When he stumbled, the Stranger dragged Tin to his feet by the neck. His hands were bound before him, which was a small mercy. The sun was pitiless. Tin wished he had been allowed to keep his hat.
	The Stranger halted to give him a rest and water but rarely, once to chop and skin a small cactus, gnawing and sucking it as he rode. The pace was steady, just swift enough to be miserable. The sun sank behind the sand, and still they plodded on. Tin's reddened skin stayed hot long after dark.
	At last, the Stranger relented, dismounted, slid a bag over his horse's face, started a fire. He let the boy lie where he fell. Neither had said a word since they departed the steel skeleton, the dune, the pit.
	An hour passed, as the desert chilled, and Tin crawled closer to the fire, dropped beside it. He studied the lank, wiry man, his body strapped all over with leather, small plates and rows of studs fixed to it here and there. He was taller than Tin, though not as tall as Jak. His exposed skin was deeply tanned, scarred, leathery. A bulging iron cup was heavily bolted into place between his legs. Only his square chin, immaculately clean-shaven, and his thin, sneering lips were visible beneath the grotesque helmet.
	Tin worked up the courage to ask a question.
	"Mister," he began, hesitantly. "Where you takin me?"
	The Stranger was silent for so long that Tin thought he wouldn't answer at all. He rose, removed the bag from his horse, brushed its short fur with a wiry pad.
	"Taking you meet my friends," he said. "Slavers. Dey give me good price for pretty boy like you," he added with a coughing chuckle.
	"Get screw and bolt for armours, get stone to sharp sword, soft ledder for make belt and boot, big, big can of wod for drink and little someting eat, new shoes and nail for Beef," he patted the horse's neck.
	The man turned to regard Tin, head cocked.
	"No gahnna hahrt you, little boy, so long you no make me do. You wort lotta me live, no too mahch dead."
	Tin shivered. He didn't know what Slavers were, but he knew what happened to captured boys, and it wasn't pretty.

																~	~	~

The next day, Tin spent his timeless walk searching for a plausible escape plan. He had to get away from this awful man and his horrible pet, Beef, and the faceless "Slavers" who awaited him.
	As he trudged, Tin spotted a horned skull and a long spine along a sand-ridge some yards to his left. He couldn't think of a reason, but it seemed a sign, an omen. He decided that was where he would make a run for it.
	He stumbled to his knees, fell sideways in the hot sand, played possum while the Stranger yanked and choked him by the rope around his neck. He crawled to the horse, gripped the Stranger's boot.
	"Please, mister," he gasped. "Water, please."
	The Stranger grimaced, pulled Tin to his feet, unstopped and handed him a waterskin.
	The rope binding him was run through the horse's reigns, but not tied. The Stranger had been gripping it the whole time, to pull him along. When his captor took back the skin, Tin snatched the end of the rope, pushed the Stranger off his horse, and ran into the desert.
	He wasn't thinking about what came next, if he made it away. How would he get untied, get  water, get back to Jak and find out if he still lived? He ran on blind instinct, away from the brutal Stranger, away from the fate that awaited him with the Slavers.
	He made it to the top of the dune with the bleached, horned skeleton half-buried in it when he heard the soft thud of hooves behind him. He didn't turn, kept running, feet slipping in the hot sand. Something slammed into his back, knocked the wind out of him.
	The Stranger had leapt from his horse, was sitting atop him. He flipped Tin over and slapped him with a heavy, gloved hand. Again, and again, till he bled from the nose, running over his lips and down his smooth white chin.
	"You try run from me, hah? Little pag boy? Where you gahnna go, hah? You friend dead, little bastard. Beef kick he head in."
	Tin said nothing.
	The Stranger produced an oblong object that filled his palm. It was the oiled brown of rusted steel that has been scraped clean, restored. A cross-hatch of raised squares covered the sloping surface, and in the cracks was ancient green paint. A silver rod jutted about an inch out of the top.
	"You going nowhere without I say so, little boy."
	He turned Tin over again, on his knees, face in the sand, flicked aside his loincloth.
	"W-what're you gonna do..?" Tin tried to rise, but the Stranger put a knee in his back.
	Tin felt sun-hot metal pressing against his rear.
	"Oh gods..."
	The Stranger pushed it, and Tin felt like it would never fit inside him, like it would rip him to shreds if the man kept trying. But the Stranger kept at it, patient, methodical. He didn't want to damage the boy—he was worth more healthy, fit. The metal thing was well-oiled, the edges of its surfaces worn smooth.
	The man worked it in, inch by inch, while Tin screamed.

																~	~	~

Tin felt like he was on fire. The sting never ceased, and every step agitated it anew. He wept precious moisture into the desert, and hardly noticed the sun beating down on his pale skin, from the pain inside him.
	When he stumbled, he was dragged to his feet by the rope looped around his neck, choking. The shudder when he fell, the clenching and squeezing when he struggled to his feet, sent excruciating waves washing over him. The stranger had looped a second length of rope around his waist and between his legs, several times, to make sure the metal thing didn't escape him. The bindings crushed many sensitive places mercilessly.
	After what felt like hours of constant agony, Tin fell a final time, and couldn't get his feet under him, no matter how hard the Stranger choked him. The man dismounted, disgusted. A booted foot kicked Tin's backside and he shrieked.
	"Please, mister! Please," he moaned. "Take it outta me and I swear on all the gods, I won't run no more!"
	"Pah! You weak, little boy." The Stranger knelt, checked him over. "Dont looking so good. You better don't die on me." He gave Tin water. "Swear again you oath, boy."
	"I swear," he croaked. "I swear on Tor and Madonna, Boss and momma of the gods. I swear on Jolee, my protector. I swear on all a these, I wont run from ya no more, never again."
	The Stranger nodded, and got to work.
	After a few minutes of groaning and screaming, Tin was free of that awful thing. The Stranger rubbed it with sand, returned it to his saddlebag.
	The pace was slower, after Tin's ordeal. The Stranger seemed genuinely concerned, fearful of losing his prize.
	They stopped for the night well before sunset, and Tin was given both food and water, for a change.
	When he thought Tin was asleep, the Stranger stepped away from the fire, squatted on the other side of his horse. Tin cracked an eye, heard the man's piss striking the sand.
	Odd.

																~	~	~

The next day, Tin watched the Stranger closely. As closely as he could, with the sun in his eyes. When they stopped for water, he asked an imprudent question.
	The Stranger backhand-slapped him into the sand at the horse's feet.
	"Shaht you fahckin mout, bitch boy!"
	He obeyed, saying nothing until they approached their destination.
	After choking-hot hours, this appeared on the horizon, coming into focus with miserable slowness.
	It was a town, much bigger than Tin's village had been. The walls were higher than the Stranger atop his horse, made from heaps of rusting scrap. Sheets of corrugated metal, dozens of steel skeletons, a great rusted beast of a thing, the likes of which Tin had never seen before, with a huge clawed arm sticking up out of it. A lookout nest was constructed at the top, the face of the man inside hidden behind the veil of his turban. His head turned to follow Tin and the Stranger as they neared, eyes masked in shadow.
	The gate was an orange-brown box of rust on wheels, with loopholes cut in its walls. A donkey drew it aside, whipped by another man in a turban. The Stranger halted before the opening. Tin dropped to his knees, too exhausted to be ashamed of his weakness.
	Three men strode through the cleared gateway, their faces uncovered below the rolled cloth wrapped about their heads, loose robes over baggy striped pants. Their skin was as black as chemjuice. Tin had never seen anything like it. Their features were strange, alien to him. Their faces split in wide grins, their white teeth gleaming out.
	"Rider! We reel happy ta seeya! Whudja got widja? C'mown in, hava drank!"
	The Stranger, "Rider", smiled coldly.
	"Got to thirst like only desert give!"
	Everyone laughed except Tin.

																~	~	~

Inside the walls were heaps of old metal, wide square tents cut from the same airy striped fabric as the Slavers' robes, racks of exotic weapons, stacked logs and faggots of wood, a few precious animals, a pump for water, around which the settlement had grown.
	They tied Tin to a stake, like the horse, with whom he shared a bucket of water, then haggled over him. The eyes of the Slavers roved across his body, like a starving man watching a roast above the fire. They kept staring at him, even while haggling. The Stranger, 'Rider', knew he had the upper hand in the bargain—they wouldn't kill him, because he was good for business, so they had to pay. He got everything he wanted, and a perfect steel plate into the bargain beside, about a foot square.
	"Omar, you cock sticking outta you robe!" he laughed, as he was tying his payment to Beef's saddle. "You pay me so much, you got to want he ass bad!"
	The Stranger laughed with the black men.
	"Aint hadda piece like dat in month, mebbe year," Omar said. "We mebbe profits ownim eben affer we has ow fun widdum..."
	"He not broke in yet, Omar, got to warn," the Stranger said. "You maybe wanna smack him little bit first. Watch you finger he no nip off, yeh?" Omar laughed.
	"Donchoo worry, Rider," he stared down at Tin, standing close, and licked his thick lips. "I knows howda do fuckboys... Hawhaw! Mo! Dul! We gone break dis sweet yung thang in!"
	As the named men loosed Tin from the stake, started to drag him to a large tent of thin, flapping cloth, Omar turned back.
	"'Ey, Rider," he said. "How come you aint nevvuh takes yo hat off?"
	Rider shrugged.
	"Is how I do, Omar."
	"Haw haw! Dat how he do! Haw! You aight, Rider. C'mown, boys!" He adressed the two men gripping Tin's arms.
	The Stranger took a proferred bottle—pristine green glass, very rare—and sat by the firepit, where a team was at work, stirring a massive black cauldron, chopping things up with dull square blades, slipping them into its bubbling depths.

																~	~	~

"Whut you name is, honey?" Omar asked, as he was disrobing.
	Tin's chest heaved, his eyes wild, panicking. He'd only ever been with Jak, at least, the way these men were going to use him, and he'd barely grown accustomed to it. They were strange, their features utterly foreign to him. They made the transparent hairs stand up on the back of Tin's neck, they even smelled wrong to him. Like chemwater, and something else, a cloying sweet scent over it that he'd never smelled before.
	He was still sore from the thing Rider had shoved inside him. The sun had already tortured him, and the rough hands of the men to either side smarted his burnt skin.
	And, for all he knew, Jak was rotting in that hole, being gnawed upon by the gods knew what.
	Omar paused in the midst of loosening his belt, grabbed Tin's face with a rough hand.
	"Axed ya'a question, boy."
	He squeezed, knowing the red burns would feel it. Tin gritted his teeth. He didn't know what to do. Omar slapped him, and he started crying.
	"Tin," he gasped. "Name's Tin."
	"Tin," Omar said, thoughtfully, unbuttoning his baggy trousers. "Tin... Dat real purdy, boy."
	"Please—"
	"Aint no point t'dat, Tin," Omar said, as he uncovered his body.
	Tin fought not to scream.
	Further back in the tent stood a long, low bench, padded with hide. Mo and Dul dragged him, thrashing now, like a cornered animal, over to it. They bent him over it, his willowy body drawn flat along the length of it, and then sat on the floor to either side, pulling his arms taught so he couldn't get up, couldn't move.
	His loincloth was yanked away. He felt Omar's rough, gritty hands caressing his backside, running over his smooth thighs, cupping and squeezing between his legs.
	"Mmm-mm, we in fo' a treat dis night, boys!"
	Tin felt something press up against him, between his legs...

																~	~	~

There was a loud crash from outside the tent. A splashing hiss and the light from the bonfire was extinguished. Men were yelling, running, knocking things over. Somebody screamed high and thin, then ceased abruptly.
	"Da fuck gone own out dey?!" Omar bellowed, angry to be interrupted on the threshold of conquest. "Dul, getcho ass out dey and kick somebody ass!"
	Dul grunted, released Tin's arm, loped to the tentflap.
	Omar turned his attention back to Tin, but with one side released he began flailing, kicking, until Mo sat on his back and forced the wind out of his lungs.
	A wet crunch and a thump sounded from the front of the tent.
	"Dul?" Omar asked, turning away from his squirming ivory prize. "'Ey, Dul! Da hail wuddat?"
	Mo stood, trying to peer into the blackness beyond the tentflap, and Tin wriggled between his legs, over the bench, scrabbled away.
	"Sheeit, Mo, get dat white ass back ovah hee!" Omar stood, walked toward the tent's entrance. "Dul, whudda fuck you—" A booted foot kicked Omar into the tent. He staggered back, tripped over the bench, groaning. Mo turned, left Tin cowering by a heap of furs, drew a long knife from his belt.
	As he stepped past Omar, something round flew into the tent and Mo caught it, instinctively. A sawblade slashed below his upraised arms and his guts splashed to the floor. Mo fell to his knees, screaming.
	Omar found his feet, produced a small crossbow from beside a chest, already loaded, aimed it at the intruder one-handed. Tin leapt at him, grabbed his ankle and pulled, and the bolt loosed through the top of the tent. The sawblade swung up between Omar's legs and he shrieked hideously. He fell into the tent wall, clutching the red ruin below his swollen belly. Tin looked up from the floor.
	"Jak!" He scrambled into the tall man's arms. "Thought you was dead, Jak!"
	Tin gazed up at him, wide green eyes streaming tears down his smiling face. Jak brushed his hair aside.
	"Didn't come too soon, huh?"
	Tin laughed, buried his face in the man's chest.
	"Just soon enough, Jak," he whispered.
	Gently, Jak moved Tin aside, still clinging to him. Omar, writhing in a puddle of his own fluids by his spent crossbow, the striped cloth of the tent flapping around him, enveloping him as he flailed, had not yet ceased his awful screams. They were silenced by a flash of the axe, the tent-wall soaking red.
	Mo had gone quiet some moments before. He lay crumpled beside Dul's severed head.
	Tin snatched his loincloth from beneath Omar's foot before the spreading pool of blood could reach it.

																~	~	~

Outside the tent was anarchy. The Slavers were running here and there, goats and chickens underfoot, all panic, darkness. Fires had started throughout the walled enclosure, too little water being sloshed in the wrong places by those who fought them. There were dead and dying men scattered around the deep firepit, others trying to help them, more yet tripping over corpses and helpers alike, sliding into the soup of still-hot ashes.
	Jak led Tin by the hand through the storm. A turbanned figure lurched out of the night, swung a narrow blade on a long pole. Jak batted it aside with his axe, its teeth biting a gash below the man's armpit, moved on as the black figure collapsed, moaning.
	The donkey was pulling the wheeled gate-box deep within the walls, bells tinkling about its harness, its driver nowhere to be seen. The pair halted beside Beef, who was stamping the ground, eyes darting about. Jak picked Tin up under the arms and set him down on the horse, grabbed the reigns and ran beside until they left the walled settlement of the Slavers far behind them in the night, swallowed by the blackness and the smoke and flame and swirling dust.

																~	~	~

Tin awoke beside a dying fire in purple pre-dawn light. He didn't remember falling asleep, just a blur of wordless riding, swaying half-conscious, Jak jogging along beside him. His soreness did not encourage him to rise.
	He saw Beef, hobbled, puttering over a few sickly sticks of desert grass, sniffing and licking them, as if hoping they would become more edible with encouragement.
	"Jak?"
	"You're up." He was keeping watch outside the dim circle of firelight. Tin rushed to his side, hugged him, smiling.
	"How'd ya get out a that hole?"
	Jak shrugged. "Woke up after a while. Climb out—"
	"Just climb out?" Tin interrupted, incredulous.
	Jak nodded. "Took some doin but ain't much to tell. Climb out. Follow you to that town."
	"Follow how?"
	"Follow the trail he drop out his backside," Jak said, indicating the horse with a toss of his dirty hair.
	Tin laughed, and leaned in to kiss him.
	"Where we goin now?"
	"Keep on nor-east," he shrugged. "Towern."
	They rested, hiding from the heat beneath the tarp Jak had taken from the dead man's steel skeleton, until the sun ebbed low again. Tin was thankful for it.
	They packed everything they had on Beef, Jak helping Tin up onto his back, taking the reigns to lead him.
	As they climbed up the side of the blow-out in which they had made their camp, Beef suddenly pricked up his ears, snorted. Tin patted him, wondering why the horse had done it.
	Something crashed into Jak's side, knocked him to the ground. Beef took off like a shot, galloping into the night, and Tin fell from him backwards, landing painfully.
	Jak rolled until his attacker got on top of him, straddling his chest, punching gloved fists into his face.
	"Take my horse you fahcking—"
	Jak hit him in the ribs, bucked him, rolled over again, atop the Stranger. He raised his fist to strike the man, hesitated. The helmet made finding a target difficult.
	The Stranger grabbed between his legs and squeezed. Jak rolled off him, teeth gritted against the pain. They both staggered to their feet, circled. The Stranger kicked Jak in his unarmoured right shin; he responded with a punch that missed the man's exposed jaw, landing weakly, somewhere between neck and collarbone.
	The helmeted man kicked again, aiming between Jak's legs, but he grabbed the raised ankle, followed up on top of the Stranger, who managed to wrap his legs around Jak's waist. Jak hooked his fingers under the man's chinstrap and yanked, punching him in the ribs again and again with his opposite hand.
	The strap gave, and he ripped the helm free.
	"Fahck you!" the Stranger spat, before Jak's fist connected.

																~	~	~

Jak recovered his axe, panting, stood over the Stranger, raised it above his head in both hands.
	"Wait!" Tin yelled, running toward him. "Jak wait."
	"The hell for?"
	"Jak, I think he's a woman..."
	They squatted on either side of the unconscious man, examined him closer.
	His eyes were close-set, a long nose between them, strong jaw below thin lips, an almost invisible frame for the wide slit of his mouth, parted to reveal uneven yellow teeth, greasy black hair wrapped in a bun behind his head. He had a tan line dividing his face, where the helmet had covered.
	"You sure, Tin?"
	"Don't know," he shrugged. "Ain't much to look at on his chest, but I seen him pissin one night like a girl would..."
	Tin pointed at the cup strapped between the man's legs. "One way ta find out for sure," he laughed. The boy drew his knife, cut away the straps, ripped the metal free.
	"Well," Jak said. "I'll be..."
	What they found did not seem particularly appealing to either of them—it looked like a thick, twisted scar, worming through a thicket of coarse black fur.
	"This's great, Jak!" Tin shouted. "Yer a real Boss-man now, got a woman a your own!"
	"Yeah... Reckon so..."
	Tin rushed off to the pack that had fallen from the horse with him, came back with a coil of rough hemp. He eagerly set about the task of tying the woman's wrists behind her back, and her ankles for good measure. Nice and tight.
	He rolled the woman over, and she moaned.
	The two of them stood, looking down at her.
	"So," Tin began. "You gonna fuck her..?"
	"Right now?"
	Tin shrugged. "Sure. Oughtta put a baby in her belly quick-like, afore somebody steal her off."
	"Hmm... How we gonna carry her along with us?"
	Tin weighed the question, snapped his fingers.
	"We can drag her by the ankles! Take turns."
	Beef trotted up out of the reddening dawn, looking sheepish. Tin grabbed his reigns, stroked his neck.
	"Bad hoss, throw me off ya," he said, with more affection than anger.
	The horse lowered his head to lick the face of his hog-tied owner.
	"What you are doing me," the woman mumbled.

																~	~	~

When she finally woke, all three of them wished she hadn't. Slung over her own horse's rump, with Tin seated in the saddle before her, she wove a tapestry of crudeness and vulgarity with her tongue. Her mastery of the art was one of volume, rather than subtlety. She spat foulness with an inexhaustible determination, an admirable persistance.
	Her captors tried laughing at her, swearing back, striking her. Finally, they just ignored her as best they could, but the constant guttural rant began to blur into a rushing stream that washed over their minds, flowing through their ears. Eventually, they became used to it, blocking out the sound, but on some level of consciousness, it was still absorbed.
	After a time, Tin started as if from a dream. Beef was pulling to the left, as they neared an ancient dead tree, with buzzard's bones beneath it.
	"Hey, Jak!"
	The woman was catching her breath, marshalling her reserves for another offensive.
	"Jak, Beef wants to go off there," he pointed to the left, where a low mesa could be seen in the distance.
	"So?"
	The woman glared from one captor to the other, lips locked tight. This further raised Tin's suspicion.
	"So maybe he knows where he's goin..."
	"Fahck you bitch boy, aint noting dat ways, get de fahck offa my horse!"
	Jak smiled at the woman.
	"Let's check it out," he said, starting toward the mesa, Beef following contentedly.
	"You fahckin shit-man, aint noting dat way! Untie me, I gahnna caht you troat ears to ears and fahck de woun—"
	"Hey," Tin interrupted. "You oughtta show some respect, lady." She snarled at 'lady'. He flicked her ear sharply. "He's your Boss-man now."
	"De fahck you are talking bout little fairy boy? Keep you fahcking hand offa me!"

																~	~	~

Beef ambled up the ramped and stony earth leading to the flat wall of the mesa. He stopped beside a cave mouth, before a wooden post and empty rusted trough, expectantly. Jak tied him to the post.
	"Where your water is, lady?" Tin asked. "Beef's thirsty."
	"You no water my horse pag-boy," she shouted. "You gahnna fahcking die slow once I get my hand loose an—"
	Tin shoved her off the horse. She landed with a wheeze, the wind knocked out of her.
	He dismounted awkwardly, rubbed his stiff thighs. Jak was peering into the black oval rimmed with age-worn stone, axe resting over his shoulder. Tin stood beside him, shivered, and hugged his free arm.
	"I can go in alone—"
	"Nah, Jak, I can go, just..."
	Jak messed his hair.
	"How bout I check it first?"
	Tin nodded, relieved. Jak kissed the top of his head, squeezed his shoulder, gently pried himself from the boy's grasp. He found a torch just inside the entrance, a thin tree branch wrapped with an oily rag, lit it with his tinder-box, and gingerly stepped over the threshold.
	"Stay de fahck outta my house," the woman gasped.
	Tin paced a while, after losing sight of Jak in the cave, went to stand by Beef for company.
	Jak's head poked out.
	"Come on, Tin," he called. "There's lots to lookit in here."
	"Safe?"
	"Sure!"
	Tin grabbed the rope tied to the woman's ankles and dragged her inside behind him.
	"Untie me and I swear on my mother bones I don't gahnna hahrt you... You hear me, fahcking little shit!?"

																~	~	~

Tin hummed to himself, ignoring the torrent of obscenities, rooting around in a rusty old steel barrel filled with interesting things.
	Beside the now-blazing firepit, Jak forcefully spread the struggling woman's knees, reached beneath the animal hide belted around his waist, pulled his manhood free—and froze. He looked over her narrow, bony hips, ridged and scarred belly, her almost-flat chest, her broad shoulders and thickly corded neck. With all the armour cut off, he felt he was seeing her body for the first time. He looked at her beady, close-set black eyes, her long, horsey nose, the rough-hewn block of her chin. And he realized he was completely limp in his own hand.
	"'What's a matter, Jak?" Tin glanced up from the barrel. "Ain't you gonna... Make a baby or... Whatever ya do with em?"
	Jak leaned back, sat down beside the thrashing woman. He scratched his beard, eyeing the ground.
	"Cain't," he said.
	"What? Why'na hell not?!"
	"...She look too... Man-like..."
	Tin stared at him for a beat, mouth agape. The woman even stopped swearing as his words sank in. Then Tin burst out laughing, clamped a hand over his face, gasped, and laughed some more. Jak frowned, gradually reversed to a smile, and then laughter rumbled up out of him too.
	The woman flushed, grinding her teeth.
	"Fahck you!" She screamed. "I fahckin kill you, bastard! Bastard bitch I kill you and you little bitch-boy too! I fahckin caht you ahp and feed you to de wolf you—"
	"'She look too man-like'!" Tin wheezed. He stumbled to Jak, sat beside him, wiped his eyes, still giggling.
	"Not like me, huh?" He leaned in to kiss Jak, took him in his hand, brought him to life. The woman tried to spit on them, didn't get the distance, the stringy mass striking her breast.
	"Nah," he said, grabbing the boy's soft, yielding body to him tightly. "Not like you."
	"You sick fahck get outta my house! I don' want you two shits get you filt in here!" The woman shouted. "Getta fahck outta my house you filty boy-lahver!"
	"Wanna fuck me instead a she, huh?" Tin whispered, fluttering his long lashes up at Jak.
	He kissed the boy again.
	"I could like a drink first..." Tin turned to the woman. "Hey, man, where you keep your shine?"
	"Ooh, you little bitch pag-boy I caht you balls off an stitchem in you mout, I caht you so bad you gahnna beg me let you die—"
	"Don't be rude, cunt!" He giggled. "How bout I look round a bit, hmm?"
	Jak was ready to go then and there, the woman's outrage getting his blood up, part of him ashamed he hadn't the stomach to take her—but he could use a drink too.
	"Maybe you can find somethin to shut her up with..." He said.
	"You no tahch my tings, pag-boy!"
	"Yeah," Tin said, rising. "Good idea."

																~	~	~

Tin came out of the woman's bed-nest, a shelf of stone in an offshoot chamber toward the back of the cave with some animal skins on it, ashes in a cut-down metal drum nearby. He'd found several waxed skins with sloshing contents, and smoked leg of something or other, and one more thing, back there.
	"Hey, Jak," Tin called.
	Jak was idly prodding the woman with his foot, curious about how her body worked, how long she could keep thrashing and shouting.
	Tin waved a cylinder of knotted leather, like a whip-handle, only without a whip attached. He dropped the drinking skins and the meat beside Jak, remained standing, examined the the object.
	"You put dat back where you find it you shit!" She roared.
	"What this thing is, Jak?"
	He chuckled, rubbed the back of his neck. "I think she, uh..."
	"What?" Tin flexed it in his hands.
	"Well, she don't have no men round here, so, uh..."
	"FAHCK YOU BOT' INNA ASS WIT A RAHSTY BARBWIRE I GAHNNA KILL YOU—"
	"Aw, gods," Tin exclaimed, dropping it. "You don't mean she, she, stick it in her..?"
	"Hah hah! Yeah!"
	"Aw, gods, I was touchin it all over too!"
	"HA HA HA!"
	"I gahnna eat you alive you fahcking son of whores! I gahnna skin you ass and make he watch!"
	Tin smiled, impish.
	"I got a idea, Jak..." His big green eyes sparkled, tinged with good-humoured sadism.
	He picked up the leather cylinder by forefinger and thumb, displaying himself to Jak as he bent at the waist, just out of reach, then rolled his hips provacatively as he stepped to the frothing woman, dropped to his knees straddling her chest.
	"What you gahnna do, hah? What you gahnna do bitch? You little bastard what you gahnna do?"
	She spat in his face. He blinked, wiped it with his fingers, rubbed it off on her shoulder, then leaned in close. She tried to headbutt him, bite him, but he didn't lean that close.
	Staring into her beady eyes, Tin whispered "Your breath smell like you been eatin what falls out your hoss, lady."
	"Cahm on, little fahck-boy, cahm on, untie me," she said, low, through gritted teeth. "Cahm on, lemme show you what I do, you scare? Why you scare for, hah? Why you scare? You know I'm gahnna eat you balls, bastard bitch boy, cahm on..."
	He smiled, grabbed her throat with his left hand, pushing his thumb into her windpipe. When her mouth opened to gag he stuffed the "whip-handle" in, head first, wedged into her back teeth so she couldn't open wide enough to spit it out.
	"There we go," he said. "Fits real nice!"
	Her face turned beet red, and she continued to gurgle and choke as she tried to scream through the thing, bucking her chest to throw him off. After a few heartbeats smiling down at her, riding her, relishing his moment of triumph, Tin rose and went to Jak.
	They drank her shine, laughing and whispering and feeling, and then Jak lay back and pulled him down, crushing their bodies together. Tin rode him, hard, and maybe put a little more into his moaning than he had to, for the benefit of their host. After they both were spent, he dismounted, fighting to catch his breath, knelt to lap up the thick lust that had fountained up out of him as he rode, orgasm without touch of finger or palm, pouring and sliding across his lover's muscular chest. Jak's hand cupped the back of his head, fingers entwined with his hair, as the boy's delicate tongue roved.
	While he savoured the sweet slippery substance, Tin glanced at the woman, and she stared right into his eyes, two glittering black pools of hate.

																~	~	~

Jak fell asleep quickly, but Tin lay awake beside him, running his slender fingers over the man's powerful body, as he often did. He felt tired, but not sleepy, giddy with sex and drink. He sat up, finished off one of the woman's drinking skins, glanced over at her.
	She thrashed no more, lying awkwardly, propped up by the hands tied behind her back. She stared at him still. Tin noticed wetness around her eyes. He felt a sudden pity, as after the thrill of a successful hunt dissipated, and the proud beast lies at the men's feet, gasping its last, impotent, fearful, alone, awaiting the finish.
	He crawled to her, dragging a second shineskin, straddled her midsection. He peered down at her face, not ready to withdraw the gag.
 	Tin sat there for a moment, really looking at her. She was so odd. With his fingers, he traced a long scar which ran through her jutting brow, over her eye, along her cheek. Jak had one almost the same, only on his left side.
	He looked at her ugly nose, so much longer and flatter than his; her lips, so much thinner than his; her eyes so much smaller than his. At last, he worked the leather out of her mouth, a long shining strand connecting it to her tongue. She tried to spit at him but her mouth was too dry.
	"Get offa me," she cried, her voice high and scratchy, almost whining, finally strained hoarse by hours of exertion, by thirst. "Get offa me, pag-boy!" she squealed. "You dripping he sperms on me, you fahck!"
	Tin giggled.
	"Sorry bout that, girly." He remained atop her.
	"Jahst kill me, little shit," she said, almost whispering. "Fahcking kill me ahready. You no gahnna fahck me, you boy-lahver no want me, you gahnna caht me? Hah? Eat me ahp? Cook me onna fire? Do to me what I say I gahnna do to you? No? So why you no kill me den, bitch boy..."
	"Why you talk like that?" He asked, abruptly. The question caught her off guard.
	"Whatta fahck you mean?"
	"You ain't talk like me and he..."
	"Whatta fahck you care? Where I cahm frahm everbahdy talk like dis," she said. "Who givva shit, hah?"
	"Just wondrin," he shrugged. "Thirsty?" She licked her thin cracked lips, but didn't answer.
	He shrugged again, unstopped the skin, held it to her mouth. She drank greedily, almost half the bag. She didn't spit any at him, for which he was glad. He wiped a spill from her cheek with his thumb.
	"You really stick that thing up yer...?"
	"OOH fahckoffa me little shit you—"
	"Sorry, lady," he laughed. "Never mind."
	They were silent for a while. Tin sipped, offered the skin to her, sipped again, back and forth. His body rose and fell with her breath. She broke the silence.
	"Why you like a sit on me so mahch, pag-boy?"
	"Dunno," he laughed. "You wasn't too kind when we was the other way round, remember?"
	"Hrm. You big man, when you daddy here tie me ahp for you, hah?"
	Tin frowned, full lips pouty. He leaned forward, their faces close.
	"Your a big lady when he ain't around, push me round like a animal, yeah?" He put a fingertip on her lower lip, gingerly, unsure if she would bite. When she didn't, he slid it from side to side, softly.
	"Your a big lady till the men come back around..."
	"Why you tahch me like dat, fairy boy?"
	"Never seen a woman afore, cept my momma and sisters, not up close..."
	"Hah. I no you momma bitch boy."
	He laughed, pinched her nose and yanked his fingers back from her snapping teeth.
	"Nah, you ain't my momma."
	"Getta fahck offa me bitchboy," she said, voice low, no feeling to it.
	"No," he said, petulently. "I like it up here. You're softer'n Jak."
	"Ooh, fahck you."
	He felt her almost flat chest with awkward fingers.
	"You got smaller tits'n him though," he laughed.
	She snorted, fighting not to smile.
	He was getting sleepy now, the shineskin empty.
	"Whatcha called, anyhow?"
	"Fahck you care? I no tell you fahck, little boy."
	"Come on," he squeezed her nipple. "Whatcha called by?"
	"...Morr."
	"Morla? That's a odd name..."
	"Fahck kinda name Tin, fahck-boy?"
	He started. "How you know my name is?"
	"You fahcking daddy yell it when he fahck you ass and get you filty all over my house! You two sick pervert fahck!"
	"Oh, heh. Forgot about that..."
	He went back to prodding her unimpressive breasts, wondering if milk would come out.
	"You gonna chop off my thingies, we let you go?"
	"Yes!" she said, in an odd tone, defensive, almost embarrassed. He looked at her sideways, with a crooked smile.
	"No you ain't!"
	"Fahck I wont bitch boy, I cut you ahp like I gahnna make a boots out you ass."
	"Hehe, I think you act tougher'n you are."
	"I gahnna bite you baby cock off!"
	He traced his finger over her broad chin.
	"I'm gonna sleep by Jak so you don't bite nothin off a me," he said, flicking her lower lip. "We see if we gonna kill you in a mornin."
	He rose slowly, staggered over to Jak, collapsed on top of him.
	"Hey," Morr hissed. "Bitch-boy!"
	She heard nothing, couldn't see Tin anymore, on the other side of his hulking lover.
	"Hey, Tin! Get you bitch ass back here and clean he sperms offa me! You little shit—Tin!"

																~	~	~

	"She too much trouble to bring with us, Tin, and I don't want her anyhow."
	"Don't mean you gotta kill her, Jak!"
	The morning sun cast a dim light, part-way into the cave. Morr sat by the fire, silent, her back against the stone wall.
	"Remember what she try to do to ya? Sell ya to those Slavers?"
	"She done worse'n that, Jak, but... I don't wanna kill her!"
	"You should lissen to you daddy, fairy-boy," Morr interjected. "You two pervert don't kill me I gahnna hahnt you down, ends a de world."
	"You hear that, Tin?"
	"She don't mean it!"
	Morr spat into the fire. They'd been at it all morning, as they pillaged her cave, stripping it of valuables. They left her "whip handle" though. They shouted and hissed and spat and pinched and spanked and roared and kissed and groped at one another, and then started all over again with shouting, as Morr rolled her eyes, disgusted with their theatrics.
	At last, they reached a compromise.
	As Tin packed up the loot, Jak drove something into the stone ceiling of the cave, tapping it into place with a stout rock.

																~	~	~

They led Beef down the slope away from the cave, but past a certain point, he dug his hooves in and wouldn't budge. He kept eyeing the mesa, snorting stubbornly.
	"You don't wanna leave Morla, do ya?" Tin said, patting the horse's neck.
	"Gods, Tin if we just a killt her—"
	"He woulda stayed anyhow, with her dead body."
	"Just a dumb animal..."
	"You wanna kill him, too? Eat up poor ol' Beef?"
	Jak muttered under his breath as he unstrapped the horse's packs.
	"So long, boy," Tin whispered. "You a good hoss."
	"You're carryin all a this," Jak called.
	As the pair marched off to the north-east, obscenities echoed out of the cavern. Beef walked back to his post and his bucket and stood.
	Within, Morr swung by the ankles, naked save her bindings, from an iron spike, bent and looped by the hammering it had received. Her wrists were wrapped in rope behind her. The jagged-cut barrel she kept by her bedroll to hold a small fire had been placed near where she hung. As she swayed up to the barrel, she had a second or two to rub the ropes against the sharp metal, before she swung back the other way.
	"You know what you are?" She screamed after her tormentors. "You two fahcking dead pansy-boy son of a—"

																~	~	~