This tale is a literary fiction, intended solely for the enjoyment of responsible adult readers. It is copyrighted by its author and may not altered in any way, nor may it be posted, reproduced, or archived without the specific permission of the author. Copyright (c) 1998, D.G.Ross.

Buto-san the Poet finished his dish of rice and fish and set it on the mat beneath his stool, his eyes on the boy who squatted before him and finished his own bowl of food. Not since his poem on the old emperor's birthday had he received such a gift, and he felt warm gratitude to Lord Kinzuburo for the delicious food as well as this more costly and precious gift. Once more he scanned the Lord's gift-scroll, confirming his good fortune yet again. Jikki was the lad's name, and the scroll mentioned "special skills." He remembered the jovial face of Lord Kinzuburo after the recitation of the long poem of praise and the wry smile of the Lord as he handed Buto-san the scroll and gestured to the boy kneeling to the left and slightly behind the rotund Lord. And now he was alone with his gift in a small but neatly furnished guesthouse just outside of the gates of Lord Kinzuburo's castle.

The boy noticed that Buto-san had finished his meal and put down his own bowl. He turned so that, still squatting, he faced his new master. He bowed so that he seemed almost to be speaking to the floor mats. "Would my master desire me to dance for his entertainment?" Yes, Buto-san thought, nodding assent to the boy, that might be amusing.

The boy stood and dropped his robe into a puddle of rich cloth at his feet. He wore only the skimpiest silken loin-cloth. His body was small and slender, but strong, with well-defined if youthful muscles, a broadening chest, and a narrow, muscular waist. The boy knelt and opened the gold and silver brocaded sling-bag he had brought with him from the castle. He took from it several onyx jars, their carved lids held in place with embroidered leather straps. Opening one, he took some of the contents and began to smear it onto his body. He rubbed the scented oil into his chest, shoulders, arms, belly, and legs until he glistened and shone in the dim light of the guesthouse. And then he began to dance for Buto-san, the scent of jasmine filling the warm room.

Not since Madam Yonawa's house of delight on the river bank at Tanada had he enjoyed the performance of an oiled dancer, and that one had been an athletic girl from the northern provinces. Later, in his room, the girl had furthered his esthetic appreciation of her athletic abilities.

Perhaps it was the plum wine, but Buto-san was surprised at how pleasant he thought the boy's body seemed to him as the lad turned and flexed before him. Yes, it must be the wine, he thought, as he felt familiar warm stirrings in his loins. The glassy-smooth body of the boy moved before him in the light of the oil lamps, glinting and shimmering with the sweet-smelling oil that covered him, his fine hard muscles lovely in their strenuous play beneath his smooth honey-brown skin. Yes, Buto-san thought with warm satisfaction, what a fine gift the lord had favored him with. The man's warmth was more than mere satisfaction at his good fortune, and a drop of sweat began to make its way down his cheek.

At exactly that moment the boy loosed the silk around his waist and, standing on tiptoe and with arms extended over his head, allowed the cloth to fall to the floor. Buto-san saw at once that the boy's member stood stiffly erect, pointing at the carved beams of the ceiling. How rude and improper, Buto-san thought, but then found the sight strangely interesting. The boy's member was a thumb-and-a-half of taut flesh, with a generous cap like the full, ripe plums of Fu-ki. His small eggs were tucked beneath his shaft. The boy knelt before his new master and threw himself back so that his shoulders were on the floor-mat. He spread his knees and then rubbed his glistening hard-ridged belly with one hand and passed the slippery hand over the pulsing shaft that pointed toward the wall behind him. Buto-san could not help the sudden thrill of pleasure that ran through him when the boy slowly, slowly drew his clenched and oiled fist up along the shaft of his small pleasure-wand. It was most unseemly that a boy would do this obscene thing before a grown man, not to mention a man of his stature, but Buto-san did not rebuke or attempt to stop him. He was entranced by what he was watching. Without bidding, a poem came up to the surface of his mind, like a fish in a moonlit pond.

And now the boy stood before him, then knelt once more, and his hands were gently undoing Buto-san's dining robe. He did not resist, and suddenly the man felt the warm evening air on his private parts and he knew that the boy had seen his arousal. He felt both shamed and exhilarated, but all thoughts of any kind vanished instantly when he felt the small, warm, oiled hand of the lad on his shaft. A slow, gentle, deferential pull from the base to just below the tightening plum brought a sigh of pleasure and lust from the man, and a smile to the face of the boy who knelt before him.

And then the lad was up and scurrying about the room. From a corner he dragged a curious apparatus. A long upright board of polished and carved teak supported a low bench-like appendage, on either side of which extended moveable shelf-like supports. It looked more like a musical instrument of some sort than a chair, but the lad extended his hands to Buto-san and gestured that he was to sit in the thing. In a burst of joviality, and impelled by wine and lustful curiosity, he allowed the boy to pull him to the device and sit him upon its narrow shelf. He let the boy pull his robe away completely until Buto-san was as naked as he would have been for the bath.

Soft leather straps of red and green, decorated with silk embroidery, hung from the strange chair. From behind him Buto-san felt the boy's small hands on his wrists, pulling them behind him. At first he reacted with resistance, but the boy's gentle, placating tugs seemed so playful that he felt churlish not to play along with this new game. Soon his wrists were crossed and tied securely, high up on his back and behind the teak upright. The leather strap was then affixed to an ornate knob on the back of the chair. Then the boy lifted his ankles and tied them to the back of the shelf-like supports. They were also tied high, his shins now parallel to the floor. Once he was securely affixed to the chair device the boy again kneeled before him. He reached out and pushed at the shelves and they separated, dragging Buto-san's knees apart until he was widely displayed for the boy's inspection. He could look down and see that his testicles and now half-hard member had no support whatsoever and hung completely accessible and vulnerable between his widely spread thighs. He pulled against the straps and quickly realized that he was completely helpless: the lad's knot-skill was surely at the very highest level.

"A good joke, lad! Now release me!" he ordered. But the boy did not move and did not respond. "Did you hear me! Do you need a taste of the whip, you rascal?" But still no answer from his captor. Yes, he suddenly thought, I am this child's prisoner! How ridiculous and unseemly! And then he saw the boy's hand dip into the second onyx jar and felt the hot-cold slickness of his small hand on his member again. It responded instantly to the pleasant touch and hardened quickly in only a few skillful strokes. He could smell cinnamon and vanilla . Another trip to the brocaded bag produced another soft leather strap, this one reinforced with bamboo strips from which dangled a silken do-nori-ka knot. In a few more seconds the strap was tightly fastened around the base of his manly gear and when the boy pulled the do-nori-ka knot the tightness of the strap caused his member to surge up even harder than before. He gasped involuntarily at the sudden rinse of pleasure that washed over him like an unexpected wave. Now the boy's slow strokes along his tightened shaft were like fingers rubbing a drum-head. The boy skipped behind him and tuned the ornate knob, drawing his wrists up even further. Then a turn or two on similar knobs drew his ankles up higher as well. The tension was, strangely, not unpleasant, and seemed to match the intense feeling in his groin.

He felt the boy behind him, reaching around the teak upright and stroking his shoulders and chest. "What are you doing?" he stammered. "What is happening! Tell me! What will do with me?" He felt the boy's fingers in his hair, pulling his head back until their cheeks touched. And then the boy's lips found his and kissed him deeply and wetly and he felt the lad's small tongue probe into him. Kissing was extremely daring, almost painfully personal, even violative, but Buto-san could not resist the stabbing of quick hot pleasure that the illicit contact gave him, even against his will. His member surged once again against its imprisonment. Now the boy's lips were on their way to his ear, his hands still moving on his chest. The boy's slippery chest was against his bound hands and his hard thigh pressed against his ribs. Then he felt the boy's lips against his ear and heard him whisper but a single word.

"Torture!"

There was a long pause before he continued, his sweet breath caressing the bound man's cheek. "My master...my old master...has ordered that I torture you. In ways that I am expert in. Exquisite torment! You will see!"

Buto-san felt both fear and something else, something strange and new. Something he could not define. Another fragment slipped unbidden into his mind.

The whispered word sent a thrill of fear through Buto-san. Torture! The word itself was a blunt weapon against his confused senses. Would he? This boy? This child? Would he do such a thing? He pulled at the soft leather that held his wrists taut behind his back, and at the straps that bound his ankles to the chair-rack to which he had been affixed. They were as unyielding and obdurate as the smiling, handsome face of the boy who watched him for his reaction to what was happening to him. "But why?" he asked. "Why would you... torture... me?"

"The Lord wishes it," was the boy's shrugged answer. And then he added, with his warmest and sweetest smile, "And I wish it, too!" Buto-san's heart sank. He was helpless. Whatever this imp choose to do to him, he could. There was nothing he could do to stop it. As if reading his mind, the lad spoke again.

"If you promise to do what I say, you can avoid the torture." Buto-san' spirit leapt through the suddenly opened door, "What would you have me do?"

"You must swear that if I free you, without torture, you will write a poem about Lord Kinzuburo."

"But... I have done that already. A fine poem. You heard... tonight..."

Buto-san stammered.

"No. This one will be different. In this one the Lord will not be a hero, but a stunted and ugly toad. Will you write this poem for me?" the boy cocked his pretty head, waiting for the poet's answer. Alas, the door had not opened into the light, but upon a foul chamber, a place of death and even worse.

"No. I cannot. I will not. No!" Buto-san answered. The boy came close to him, ran his small finger down along Buto-san's chest, now steadily slickening with sweat.

"Then... Then, I shall torture you until you agree to do what I say!" and the boy returned to his brocaded bag and brought back a handful of objects and spread them out as if for Buto-san's inspection. Before the poet could ask about the objects the boy squatted once again between the man's legs and began to run a single finger up and down the shaft of the man's confined member. The unexpected touch sent hot splinters of pleasure through the man's bound body and his shaft swelled in its prison of bamboo and leather. The boy shifted himself so that he could cradle the man's hanging stones with one hand while he took the shaft in the other and stroked and squeezed it with careful, oiled fingers. With the fingers of his other hand he lightly and delicately caressed the man's testicles. Despite himself, Buto-san let out a hiss and sigh of pleasure and looked down in time to see the boy's grin of satisfaction. He resolved to try not to react to the boy's ministrations, not to give him the satisfaction of control over him which he seemed to enjoy so much. But it was a terrible struggle: the boy's hands were creative and cruelly patient and Buto-san had never felt such unrelentingly intense pleasure before. Jikki shifted his strokes from the shaft to his prisoner's swollen acorn, taking it in his small hand like a ripe fruit and squeezing and turning it as if meaning to wring from it its juice. In spite of the confinement of the device strapped to his member, Buto-san felt the rising of his seed and knew that in a matter of seconds, strap or no, his steaming essence would spurt forth onto his captor's chest and he would have the relief he craved as nothing he had ever craved before.

Without taking his probing eyes from his captive's pleasure-contorted face, the boy stopped tickling his stones and placed a single finger behind them, feeling for the little bulge and the tremor it sent forth just before the release of a man's creamy pearls. Feeling the delicate tremble, the boy quickly took his hands away from the sufferer and squatted on the floor with his hands on his shining thighs, watching the man's reaction to the sudden withdrawal of delight.

The sudden absence of stimulation was maddening to Buto-san and he pulled violently at the straps that put him at the mercy of such fiendish cruelty. He wanted to beg the boy to give him the release that he needed so badly, that his imprisoned body cried out for. But he knew that to do so would dishonor him. And he also knew that the boy would do nothing for him until he relented, until he had broken under the boy's tormenting hands. He would not break. He could not. No matter how badly he wanted what the boy could give him, he would not dishonor himself by agreeing to the conditions the lad had set. And then his thoughts were broken by the boy's voice.

"Swear to write the poem and I will give you what you want, and more--so much more," he said the sweetness of his smile a taunting mockery to the helpless man.

"No!" Buto-san said. "Never! I will never betray my patron!" Buto-san answered, hoping that his desperate lust for what the boy promised was not too evident. But he could not help thinking how easy it would be to say that he agreed to the boy's terms and thereby receive the final bursting pleasure he wanted so badly and then to repudiate the oath and have the boy, his torturer, at his mercy for a just and lengthy revenge. He could even imagine the boy's thin wrists in his hands as he bound them with the very thongs that he used on him. Oh, sweet and delicious! But no, he could not. His honor would not allow him to use such a churlish and repugnant subterfuge. He must endure, no matter what. "Then," the boy said "it must be the torture!" He opened a small roll of silk and took from it a short, brightly colored candle about the size of his own member. The boy lit the candle from a small oil lamp on the floor next to the chair-rack to which Buto-san was strapped. He held the guttering candle out towards the helpless man. "Speak!" he commanded. "Swear to write the poem!"

"Never!" said Buto-san, trying to put more conviction into his voice than he really felt. The first drop of wax fell onto his inner thigh and the sudden stab of pain was sharp but not unendurable. The second fell on the other thigh. The boy moved the candle slowly so that it hovered over the man's throbbing member, held throbbingly upright by the tightly knotted harness. The boy looked into Buto-san's eyes, that taunting smile playing along his lips.

"Talk!" he commanded. "Say you will do it!" Buto-san said nothing, but shook his head from side to side and closed his eyes against what he knew what was going to happen. The first drops of wax took him low on the taut shaft and the pain was quick and deep but soon over as the fallen wax cooled. Slowly the boy worked the tiny waterfall of rosy droplets up along the oily shaft until a drip took him just below the acorn. There was a long pause during which the man sucked in his breath and waited breathlessly and then a cascade of three or four molten globules fell onto his glans. The pain was once again quick and much sharper than before and he tensed and pulled with all his strength against the embroidered straps that held him prisoner. Now the boy had taken his member in his hand and stretched open the little mouth at its tip, bringing the candle closer and closer as he watched his captive's sweating face.

"WIll you talk?" he asked again. Again Buto-san shook his head, more slowly this time, and waited for the boiling agony he knew would come. But it did not. He opened his tightly clenched eyes to see the boy blow out the candle and set it aside. And then the boy was kneeling before him and loosening the leather and bamboo harness. He could feel the special knot releasing him, the tightness of his straining member lessening slightly. He let out an audible sigh of relief. It was over! He had withstood the boy's torments! He felt elation.

"And now you will release me?" he asked the boy, in as commanding an interrogatory tone as he could master. But his hopes were dashed as swiftly as they had flooded over him.

"Oh, no!" said the imp. "You rest a bit, then we will have more fun!" The boy left the room and Buto-san found himself alone with his confused thoughts. His member was slowly and reluctantly subsiding and his stones ached from having had no release. Some of his fear at the sound of the word torture had receded. He was now reasonably certain that there would be no red-hot irons or tearing pincers or roughly extracted toenails. But the items spread out on the floor gave token of new and unknown torments from this talented lad. Into his mind came the memory of the dread lord of the old eastern province. Poems had been written about his legendary cruelty, and about his torturers: twin boys of about eleven summers whose cruelty and the pleasure they took in it brought terror to the lord's subjects. Public punishments were thus doubly effective, as the poor prisoner not only had to endure a lengthy succession of steadily more daunting tortures, but had to receive them from mere children in the sight of anyone who cared to witness the spectacle. It was even rumored that when the boys had grown beyond being amusing to their capricious lord, he had them confined in his deepest dungeons and gave them for pleasure and practice to their successors, three young girls whose perverse inclinations he sought to groom and nurture. But Buto-san did not know if any of this were true, or merely legends from the old time. What he did know was how often the minds of young ones could be turned by the strange pleasures of having someone helpless and in their power. He remembered the games of his youth, loud and boisterous war-games in which captured boy-soldiers could expect special and prolonged attentions from their jeering captors.

Still, as a poet and a collector of experience and sensation, he had to admit that this ordeal, though unbidden and unwelcome, would give him food for thought in times to come. Also, and he found this hard to admit and even harder to put into words that made sense to him, he felt a curious pleasure in what was happening. So far he had not dishonored himself, not placed himself in danger of Lord Kinzuburo's formidable anger, and what the boy had done to him up to now had not been beyond his ability to withstand. The position into which he been bound was tautly uncomfortable and demeaning, but there was something about it that made it... interesting. He could not think of a better word for it.

His poet's sensibility told him that he must find a better word:

"interesting" was so insufficient and even evasive. This was something that required thought. Certainly what the boy had done to his member with his hands was "interesting"! The combination of being helplessly bound, having his weapon strapped up as it had been, the warm, scented oil, and the incredible skill of the boy's deft and careful hands had given him more pleasure--even if unfulfilled--than he could ever remember feeling before. Not even the massage-girls of Tagano had given him such feelings.

Did he hear soft voices outside the room, the rustle of sandals on the mats of the porch that surrounded the little house? Before he could be sure of what he had heard the sliding door opened and the boy, still naked and glistening, returned to the room. He moved swiftly across the room and stood before his prisoner, hands on his hips in a caricature of an adult pose of authority.

"You have had time to reconsider. Will you write the poem, or will you make me give you more torture?"

For some reason that he did not completely understand, Buto-san answered his captor not with a shake of the head or a curt denial. The words tumbled out of his lips almost before he knew he was going to say them.

"More torture," he said, and immediately felt ridiculous before the sudden smile of the boy whose helpless prisoner he was.

The boy produced a cluster of objects from the selection fanned out before the chair-rack. Two or three slender bamboo rods the size of eating-sticks, bound at their ends with widths of pale green reed. A handful of small circlet-clips whose jaws were made of fire-hardened willow wood with tiny internal springs of boiled bamboo. Placing his selections on the floor between Buto-san's widely spread thighs, the boy inched forward until he knelt between the man's legs. He reached forward and took the man's penis between the finger and thumb of one hand, pinching and twisting slightly. The man felt the tingle of pleasure-beginnings, but closed his eyes and tried to think of something else, anything that would distract him and prevent the boy from having his way with his member once again. The Go-mi-ra epic poem: difficult and long--that was it. He began to recite it under his breath. The boy's fingers continued with their work and then Buto-san felt something warm and wet on his chest. He opened his eyes and looked down to see that the boy was softly licking his right nipple! The strange tingle that this caused seemed to fall swiftly into his groin, joining the boy's working fingers there and threatened to expunge the Go-mi-ra from his struggling mind. And then the boy's small white teeth were taking the stiffening nipple between them and biting down, so softly, so gently. Nibbling, pulling, and sucking, the boy soon had the flesh-bud rigid and taut and with a quick movement he scooped up one of the doubled bamboo rods, spread it apart in the middle and let it clamp down onto the seduced nipple. The pain was sudden and sharp and also fell at once down toward his loins in a cascade of sensation. The boy turned to the other nipple, abandoning his finger work on the man's shaft. In a few moments another of the bamboo pairs was affixed to the left nipple, that had similarly betrayed him under the boy's wet and clever mouth.

The lad squatted and watched the man's face as he struggled with the sensations emanating from his chest and loins. The poem began to fade from the captive's mind. The boy next took up a few of the little circlet-clips and began to apply them, one by one, to the loose skin along the front of the man's not-quite-so flaccid shaft. He held the member up with one delicate hand while with the other he clipped one of the little pincers at a time in a line up along the shaft. Buto-san felt the sharp bite of each little jaw as the boy placed them carefully and gently on him. The bite subsided quickly as each clip went on, but as the boy reached the top of the shaft the feelings produced by the bottom-most clip began to change into a dull, sharp ache that slowly grew and intensified, spreading like hot dye in still water. And so on with each higher clip up the shaft. The man felt a quick rush of something akin to panic when he realized that the pain from his chest and his shaft was not causing his member to shrink away as might be expected, but that his unruly post was betraying him once again!

The boy leaned back and watched the struggle with enjoyment. Slowly his prisoner's penis swelled and rose to horizontal, pointing directly at his chest. As it trembled and seemed to lose its upward impetus the boy rose quickly and moved forward, his oil-slippery chest against the man's causing a sudden twinge from the stick-clamps on his nipples. He took the man's head in his hands and leaned forward, kissing him wetly on his surprised lips and thrusting his small tongue deeply into the man's gasping mouth. There was nothing he could do, the helpless poet felt the epic slip away from him into nothingness and his member surge up into throbbing fullness, tightening and tensing like a ripe-to-burst fruit. Quickly and triumphantly the boy broke away from the kiss and refastened the bamboo and leather device and once again Buto-san's traitorous spear was captured and pinioned for more of the boy's torture-work. The man sighed in resignation and sagged back against the upright of the chair of torment.

After a few more minutes, during which the aching of the prisoner's member became an unremitting affliction, the boy carefully passed a silken thread through the center of each of the cliplets that pinched his captive's shaft until they were all fastened together like the beads of a necklace. He then took a tiny ladle and dipped it into one of his jars of oil, under which he had placed a small stove-lamp. He poured the ladle of very warm oil over the man's shaft, dropping the oil onto his helmet and letting it run down copiously until it flowed over his eggs and dropped onto the floor. The sensation of the warm oil poured over his penis caused the man to once again tighten himself against his bonds. The boy put down the tiny basswood ladle and took the end of the silken cord where it emerged from the bottom clip. He tugged at the cord and the generously lubricated clip resisted for a second and then popped away from the man's shaft. The sudden slight pain from the clip turned into a burning spreading sensation as blood rushed to the spot.

"Will you talk? Will you swear to write the poem?" the boy asked again, the cord help up in ostentatious display. Buto-san shook his head again and felt the string going taut in the boy's hand. He braced himself and felt clip after clip pull away in a rhythm of rippling pain followed by a swelling tide of subtle torment which caused his member to surge even tighter against the constraints of the confining harness. The last clip gone, the boy dropped the cord, reached down and pulled the knot on the harness still tighter. Then he gave the suffering man one, two, three, four deep and hard two-handed oil-strokes from base to head and back again. Buto-san felt his seed preparing to leap but at the last moment the boy removed his hands and watched the man's vainly thrusting hips, his sweet child-like smile showing how much he enjoyed his work. He waited a minute or two, listening to the man's breathing, and then reached forward again and gave him three more delicious strokes.

Buto-san felt the boy's hands on him again and could feel both the firmly grasping fists as well as the independently flexing fingers do their ingenious work on him. The riptide of searing pleasure-pain brought him once again to the threshold of gushing and once again the boy stopped just in time. Another one or two minutes of cooling respite and again a few strong strokes, different this time because the boy reversed his hands. Again he stopped just before the poet was able to spew out his captive pearls. This time the boy waited long minutes for the prisoner's tortured lust to subside.

He picked up a cylinder of carved ivory from the floor. It was about the circumference of two man-fingers and about two thumbs in length. Into its hollow center the boy dropped a string of five jade beads, each bead slightly larger than the one before, and separated from each other by a distance of about three inches of silken string. The last and largest bead rested on the lip of the tube and did not enter it. He held the filled tube up so that the bound man could see it clearly.

"The Five Priests," he said. "Will you talk now? Swear?" Again Buto-san signaled his defiance. The boy leaned forward, anointed the craven tube with a generous dollop of the warm oil and then Buto-san felt the tube and the first fat bead on its lip begin to push against his most private place. He expected pain, but there was very little. Skillfully the boy rolled and twisted the tube into him and the feeling--not quite pleasure, but something very close--caused his shaft to throb and pulse in its harnessed captivity. As he worked, the boy watched his prisoner's face for reactions and was not disappointed as Buto-san fought the sensations of piercing, twisting pressure. And then it was done: the ivory tube was in place. After a second, the boy deftly rotated and pulled the tube, extracting it from the man and leaving the Five Priests deep in his bowels. Buto-san looked down as the lad did this and saw that his own body was as slickly varnished with sweat as the boy's was lacquered with oil. He raised his gaze and looked into his torturer's smiling face.

Now Jikki brought forth a bright red box and took from it a tiny thimble-shaped cone of ivory, a hollow tube like the one that had carried the Five Priests but much smaller, tinier even than the tip of the boy's own smallest finger. He brought the device close to Buto-san's face as if to allow his prisoner to appreciate the delicate workmanship of the little tube. Set into the hollow was a rosette of tiny outward-pointing spines of finely carved bamboo, apparently connected to a little axle of thin wood that barely protruded from the back of the tube. The boy jiggled this axle with his finger showing the man how when this was done the little crown of minuscule spikes leapt outward together in an expanding thorny circle.

"This is called the Scorpion," said the boy. Buto-san was puzzled. Why was he being shown this toy with such relish? And then the boy took his throbbing member in one hand and brought the little tube toward its tip with the other. The dull fear of realization rose in the man as the boy used his tongue to put a dollop of hot spit onto, and then into, the slit in the tip of the man's rigid shaft. Swift bright pain leapt into him as the boy slipped the tiny tube into Buto-san's sperm-slit. The pain quickly subsided and left in its place a sense of bursting tightness, an insistent pressure that was constant and demanding.

After a brief moment of rest, allowing the man to savor completely the fullness of his private places, the young torturer resumed his work. A pair of metal weights were strapped to the man's testicles and playfully swung back and forth. Then Jikki swiftly removed the bamboo pinching-splints from the man's nipples and almost immediately Buto-san felt the most intense and spreading sensation across his chest. Dipping his head, the lad took the tip of Buto-san's penis into his mouth, clamping his teeth gently but firmly just below the small warrior's helmet-ridge. With his tongue he moistened his captive's glans and then fluttered the very tip of his tongue rapidly back and forth across the little axle. The crown vibrated in its expansion inside the sufferer's imprisoned shaft and before he could stop himself Buto-san let out a sudden gasping cry and felt the straps tighten around wrists and ankles.

The boy stopped his tongue, held Buto-san's glans tightly in his teeth and paused for perhaps a full minute. Then Jikki's tongue slipped back and forth across the prisoner's glans and then fluttered the axle again and the man felt the tiny thorns of bamboo do their work once more. The combination of small pain and great pleasure was driving the man mad with sensation. Between applications of his tongue on the Scorpion's activating shaft, the boy lightly and playfully pulled on the silken cord attached to the Five Priests, never more than just enough for the man to feel the pressure and be reminded of the intruders. Each gentle tug of the cord caused his member to swell and at the height of its tightness Jikki's tongue would execute another few seconds of rapid fluttering.

Was he mad, like so many of his colleagues, to have verses pop into his head at such a time? He thought that if he were not already so, the devil-boy would drive him there with his infernal skills! How long this went on he could not say, but after what seemed a very long time the boy ceased his wicked labors and squatted back on his haunches and looked into his prisoner's weary and sweat-streaked face. The man's body fairly quivered and trembled from a surfeit of impossibly strong sensations. He was sure he could bear no more of the boy's diabolical craft.

But once again he was allowed a respite from his torment. Deftly the boy used a pair of tiny ivory tweezers to remove the Scorpion. He felt a sudden sharp sting and a gentle pull and it was gone. The weights were then removed from his sagging stones, and the accursed harness loosened around his gear. He felt exhaustion flowing over him and sagged in his bounds, the relaxation of his muscles causing his hands to be dragged still higher behind him. He had long ago lost awareness of the cramps in his shoulders and thighs. And again the boy left the room without a word.

Despite the overwhelming overload on his senses, Buto-san felt his mind to be as clear and sharp as a mountain pool. Why was this happening to him? Did Lord Kinzuburo actually suspect that Buto-san might be capable of treachery, the treachery of an ungrateful poet? No poet worthy of his noble calling would use his tremendous powers of satire and ridicule promiscuously. Certainly he had never done such a despicable thing, though he knew of others who had exposed former patrons to literary humiliation. He had no doubt that the boy who was tormenting him in these fiendish ways had no real interest in a poem against his former master. Former master? Was this all a trick; perhaps the gift was a sham, a subterfuge. No, impossible. He knew the look of a genuine gift-scroll and recognized the legal language very well. The boy was his--at least he would be when the lad was through with him! And then like a flash of sudden summer lightning he suspected the answer. With a tinge of craft-guilt he remembered a string of verses toward the end of his tribute poem to Kinzuburo. He had thought them a bit excessive, at the very edge of fawning, having the slightest flavor of incipient insincerity. He had marked them for revision in his small-brush shorthand scribbles but had had no time before the dinner at which he had presented the new work. Could that be it? Could the Lord have been subtle enough, despite the copious flow of strong plum wine, to have sensed the poverty of those words? Could his pleasure-torture at the hands of this perversely gifted child have resulted from a fear of betrayal that he himself had planted with clumsy verses? He felt a sense of rightness, a coming-together, about his insight. He sighed with pained satisfaction: his ordeal was justified because he had brought it on himself. So much for bad poetry! The risk to Lord Kinzuburo was negligible: if Buto-san agreed to the boy's proposed betrayal he would surely be remanded to the Lord's dungeons and the boy would return to his original master. If he proved his loyalty and kept his honor, he also got to keep the Lord's gift-boy. Simple and ingenious. He knew that such a boy would bring a prince's ransom among the perverse but discriminating ranks of the wealthiest nobility and samurai. But the revenge he would have on the devil-child--if he was able to withstand the boy's interrogation--would be worth far more to him than the gold the lad would bring were he to be sold in the secret pleasure-markets of Edo.

Once more he thought he heard muffled voices outside the window on the moon side of the little house. He could not be sure, it could have been cicadas or the rustle of a prowling fox. And then the boy returned, moving silently across the matted floor toward him with the lithe grace of a dancing girl or an athlete. He stood before his prisoner and looked down at the naked, sweating man.

"Once more I ask," he said. "Will you write the poem I demand? Or shall I resume my work?"

Buto-san had no reserves left. The boy had played on his nerves like a musician and he had no doubt whatsoever that his repertoire of artistry was far from exhausted. He also had no doubt that a man could die from an excess of the creative lad's attentions. So be it: if he was to die of unremitting sensual torment at the hands of this lovely boy, then let it be done. At least he would die without dishonoring himself or his beloved craft.

"No, boy, I will never write such a poem. Do whatever you will to me, I will not agree! You may kill me with your tortures, but I will never do what you order!" The long speech further exhausted him, and Buto-san dropped his chin onto his besweated chest. The boy was silent and after perhaps a minute of silence between them Buto-san raised his tired head to see what the boy had in store for him next. But the boy merely stood where he had been, his strong legs parted slightly and his left hand slowly and delicately stroking his rising prickle. Back and forth he worked his oily hand on his thumb-and-a-half of awakening member.

Buto-san could see the dark, slick bulb of his acorn peeking lasciviously from the slowly pumping fist. The boy parted his lips in a smile and sighed softly in his growing pleasure. The man's well-developed sense of irony and incongruosness caused him to appreciate the almost humorous ridiculousness of the situation: a grown man, a respected poet who had been received thrice by two different emperors was tied obscenely onto a chair-rack by a boy-child who could not be more than twelve or thirteen summers at most. The child then slowly tortures him with skills he hardly knew existed and then forces his helpless prisoner to watch while he rudely masturbates himself in front of him! Absurd! Absurd, too, was the slowly blooming feelings the poet felt in his own loins as he watched the boy pleasure himself before him with no hint of self consciousness. No! He would not again place his arousal at the disposal of his torturer! He fought to regain control over his unruly sex, but the feelings were relentless and then suddenly and without warning the oil-polished boy stepped forward until his chest was against the man's. Buto-san could feel the hard length of the boy's upright shaft on his belly, moving and undulating in the pressure between his own skin and the boy's hard and slippery abdomen. Up and down and from side to side the boy moved, as gracefully as he had danced for him. When? So long ago it seemed! The boy's hands were clasped behind his captive's neck and he leaned forward without stopping his sensuous thrusting and kissed the helpless man again, deeply, thrusting with his tongue, sucking out the last of the man's resolve and feeling with the satisfaction of a craftsman the tickle of the prisoner's member against his knee as it rose once again in traitorous lust. Buto-san was filled with a combination of desire brought on by the boy and disgust at himself for the feelings that welled up in him unbidden.

But the lust won out once again and he felt his tortured instrument rise again to its fullest readiness for whatever the boy chose to do to it. As if sensing that readiness the lad stopped his movements against the man and dropped to his knees between his prisoner's wide-spread thighs. He grasped the man's rigid shaft tightly at its root between thumb and forefinger and with a swift movement of his head took the swollen bulb of the shaft into his mouth. The sudden hotness took Buto-san by surprise and before he could stop himself he had uttered a single groan of pleasured agony. In response the boy moved his head rapidly up and down and from side to side, at the same time laving and caressing the man's acorn with his tongue. This forced another, louder groan of agonized ecstasy from the captive. The pleasure brought him up toward his climax, but at the same time this delight was so intense that he felt its very power would prevent him from spurting. The boy's swift hands lightly kneaded the poet's tightly-tucked stones and tickled his belly and the sides of his thighs while his head moved up and down and his tongue slipped and probed without mercy. And then it was over! The boy pulled away and once again the imp from hell denied him that which he wanted more than he had ever wanted anything. Curse him! He wanted to reach out and compel the lad to resume his work, but of course could not. Oh, this was indeed torture!

Now Jikki was behind him, kneeling again, reaching around his waist with both hands and taking his suffering penis and testicles back into his hands. Skillfully he masturbated his prisoner, varying the pressure and the length of the strokes, turning his hands this way and that, pulling the skin of the shaft taut with one hand while with the other he twisted and kneaded the sensitive flesh. Buto-san felt him lean forward and take one of the fingers of his bound hands into his mouth and began to suck and nibble on it! One of the boy's hands found its way to the silken cord again and tugged on it gently but insistently. In the name of the gods, Buto-san thought, I will die. I am going to die! This boy is indeed going to kill me! Oh, I hope that he does! The boy released the finger from his mouth and spoke to his prisoner, momentarily slackening his work on the straining member that pulsed and throbbed in his oiled hands.

"You have defeated me, master!" the boy said. "You are victorious--only... only but speak a few words and I will give you that which you crave!" The pleasure-dazed man could hardly respond, his senses so swollen with the incessant torture of unendurable lust.

"What...what words? What words?" he stammered.

"You must say to me...'Please, Jikki...No!, you must say Jikki-san! Please release me from torture! Finish me, Jikki-san, please!' This you must say!"

Beg? Plead with his torturer? Never! But against his prideful will he heard himself croak the words. "Please!... Jikki..."

"Who?" the boy interrupted.

"Jikki.. Jikki-san!...Please! Finish me! Please? Now? Finish the torture!"

The boy seemed satisfied with his plea and Buto-san felt the small hands resume their amazing ministrations. Nothing he had ever felt could compare even remotely with what the boy was doing to him. The intensity, the variety, the seemingly infinite range of ever more heightened sensation threatened to dissolve the man's fevered brain into a useless pudding. And then, after some minutes of this burning ecstasy he felt his sperm stirring and rising powerfully within him. The boy must have felt it, too, because he changed his rhythm almost imperceptibly yet the change was enough to cause the man to clench his fists and pull down hard against the straps that held him to the chair while tensing and flexing his thighs against their restraint as well. So hard did he pull that he thought the chair-rack might burst into a hundred pieces, but it held. The boy removed one pumping hand from his straining member and took up the cord to the Five Priests. A slow steady pull and the first of the oily beads popped out of the prisoner. Buto-san's heart stopped and then the second bead, slightly larger than the first was withdrawn, and the boy's pumping devil-hand brought him up to the first surging spurt just as the third and still larger priest left his body. With a loud cry the man flung his first bolt of creamy pearls across the room--further than he had ever shot them in his life! The fourth priest left his body under the boy's steady pull and the second jet of boiling liquid was almost as powerful as the first, and then the third and the fourth and fifth spews, each shorter and less forceful than the one before. The lad's clever pumping had provided exactly the right pressure and tempo to magnify the pleasure of each gush and now the captive's sperm came in small spurtles and drippled milkily over the boy's fist. The torturer now changed his rhythm still again, grasping the man's shaft tightly just under the plum between thumb and two fingers and setting up a vibration of quick, slight movements that caused his pleasure-throe to go on and on longer than Buto-san had known possible. It seemed that it would never stop, but throbbed again and again deep inside his loins as the boy slowly, slowly pulled the fifth and largest ivory bead out of his captive's bowels, bringing on yet another sluice of unendurable ecstasy. Buto-san felt his iron-tensed muscles relax slightly as the boy slowed the vibrating, thrumming ring of fingers and he slowly settled back onto the chair that his flexing thighs had lifted him from in the passion of his orgasm. He shuddered and trembled uncontrollably for a few moments and then it was over and he was spent as he had never been spent before in his life.

He felt the boy untying his wrists and the sudden pain of lowering his fixed arms. The ankles, too were released, and sent a spasm of pain through his stiff body. Somehow the slender lad helped him to a soft mat and stretched him at length upon it, on his stomach. Clever, gentle fingers massaged his soreness and gave him relief and comfort, easing him into a fog of sodden sleep and uncaring.

----------------------------------

He came up slowly out of his deep sleep and was aware of the growing dawn outside the little house. He turned his head to get his bearings and saw the boy sleeping on a mat near his. He felt strangely energized, fully awake. His mind raced back over the events of the night. Had he dreamed what had happened? The sharp soreness of the familiar morning companion between his legs reminded him of the reality of last night's ordeal.

Stiffly he rose to his knees and dog-walked over to the boy's mat. He pulled away the coverlet and looked down at the lovely naked form beneath him. The boy lay on his back, his chest rising and falling with the gentle breaths of sleep, his head turned to the side and his lips slightly parted. The poet inspected him from head to toe, the vee of his torso, the slight pads of his smooth chest with the delicate trough between them, the lovely firm lines of his flat belly, and the strong slimness of his thighs and calves. The boy's member, hairless and with the small stones tucked up tightly against the bottom of the shaft was, like Buto-san's, also erect in greeting to the morning and when the poet raised his eyes from it he saw the boy looking back at him, the slightest smile on the corners of his lips.

Buto-san scooped up one of his sandals and stripped away its binding thong. He took the boy's arm and turned him gently onto his stomach. The boy did not resist and his smile did not fade. Buto-san straddled the lad's buttocks and brought both wrists together behind his back, palm to palm, and quickly tied them securely with the sandal thong. Neither spoke. The man reached for the other sandal and with its thong he bound the boy's elbows tightly together. The boy grunted slightly from the pressure, but did not speak nor offer the slightest resistance, holding his hands and arms together cooperatively while the man tied him. Once the boy was tied, Buto-san allowed his hands to roam over the lad's body. He admired the satin smoothness of his unblemished skin and the springy youthful hardness of the muscles of his shoulders and back. The boy lay quietly beneath him, apparently enjoying the feel of the man's massaging hands. Buto-san felt his desire for revenge soften and become blunted by the boy's acquiescent beauty and he found his thirst for vengeance becoming a desire to drive his former captor to passionate desperation with slow and fiendish pleasure, as he had done to him. Unlike the boy's thin pad, Buto-san's sleeping cushion had a frame of black lacquered wood and the man lifted the lad, an easy load, and flopped him onto the cushion inside the frame. The boy lay in the middle of the large sleeping cushion, lying on his bound arms, and looking up at the man who had been his prisoner only a short time ago. Buto-san found the embroidered straps with which he had been bound where they lay around the chair-rack and brought them to the futon. He spread the boy's slender legs widely apart and slowly and carefully tied them at the ankle to the corners of the frame, drawing a low groan from the boy as he pulled his legs out firmly to the frame and tied them off. He paused in the process to stroke the strong thighs and well-shaped calves of his young prisoner who lay, still smiling, under him with his member bobbing above his taut belly where it throbbed and bounced like a living thing. The boy spoke for the first time since the night of the ordeal. "What will you do to me, master?" he seemed to taunt the man with his grin, the flash of his white teeth, and a sudden swelling of his tawny-hued chest.

Buto-san felt a surge of gratitude for the generosity of Lord Kinzuburo's gift and forgave his patron for his moments of distrust. But what amazed him even more than that, he felt a sudden mysterious flutter of genuine affection for this clever imp who was now, at last, at his mercy. The poet straddled the boy's slim waist again, this time feeling their warm shafts against each other beneath him as he leaned forward and dropped his head to whisper in the grinning captive's ear, just as the devil-boy had done to him the night before...

"Torture!" he whispered, and tenderly brushed the boy's ear with his lips.

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Thus endeth the ancient tale of Buto-san the Poet, and the Gift of Lord Kinzuburo.