By Pickle

“Don’t go anywhere Pick, I’ll be right back.”  He unlocked the door and disappeared through it, closing it behind him.  A few minutes later he returned carrying another army rucksack.  This one was of a more normal size.  My buddy carried it around behind my back and I heard him rummaging through it and taking things out.  I tried to twist around to see what he was up to, but of course, couldn’t move my legs far with the 500 pounds on the spreader bar holding them in place, and Steve had gone far enough behind me that I couldn’t twist my upper body and head far enough to see what he was up to.  He sang his little made-up ditty of …

“The waves come in, the waves go out! 

The waves come in, the waves go out!” 

“Kinda almost like a sea shanty, huh soldier?”

The fucker was truly enjoying himself at my expense.  On one hand, I found myself wanting to evict him from my cottage and get him the Hell out of my life, and on the other, strangely kind of liking this side of him.  He had me thoroughly confused.  I realized I was enjoying this intensely macho treatment.  How hard he was testing me.  The punishment he was putting me through.

Again I wondered if the love we had made the previous late afternoon and evening had all been part of a larger mind fuck he had planned for me.  My feelings were certainly all over the place with this guy right now.  The guy who had been my best bud for years.  At this point I was wondering if I even really knew the guy at all.

“Alright, Jimbo!  Ready for your final round, bud?  Think ya can last another 20 minutes, pussy boy?  You’ve endured this so far, ya might as well see it through, huh big guy?”

With these words he reached for the winch’s control without even waiting for a reply from me.  He just assumed I was going to tough it out.  Guess he knew me better than I knew him.  I’m stubborn and determined enough to push through shit when I need to.  I’d had some rough years in my life, and my iron will, and pure pig-headed determination saw me through them.  I’m no quitter and never would be!

The winch lifted me up just far enough for Steve to put another 100 pounds on the bar.  When he put the first 50 on, that end hit the floor with a clunk.  The now uneven weight lifted up the other end of the spreader bar until he placed the other 50 pounds on it to balance things out again.

I had started out this test two rounds ago at a decent six foot one,  I wondered how much taller I was going to be by the time he was finished with me.  I felt like my shoulders were not just going to be dislocated but actually tear right off my body.  I momentarily imagined myself dropping to the floor with blood spurting out of both shoulder sockets. A certain Monty Python scene popped into my head.

My friend must’ve read my mind because he said, “Don’t worry, soldier, you’re not going far off the floor this time.  If your shoulders dislocate, you’ll be close enough to the floor the plates will hit and keep your tendons and muscles from tearing TOO much.”  I guessed this was supposed to console me, or at least keep me in the game, if nothing else.

He let me hang there with 600 hundred pounds stretching the fuck outta me, whilst he just looked me over approvingly, like a prized piece of beef hung by the hooves, and about to be slaughtered.  All the while smiling his handsome, beguiling smile.  Steve walked behind me and gave me a hard swat on the butt.  He moved farther away, and I could feel those piercing eyes of his checking me out.  It was a few minutes before he returned in front of me wearing a pair of boxing gloves.

“Siri, twenty minutes!”

“Alright, Mr. Dill Pickle, let’s make those shirttails ‘dance’ huh!  Let’s see what ya got, bro. I’m gonna give you fifty shots with each of my special selection of implements.  You impressed me yesterday, fucker, so I decided I was gonna see exactly what yer made of today, soldier.  Doin’ ya a favour here.  You’ll know yourself a Helluva lot better when I’m eventually done with ya.  Oh yeah, we’re FAR from done, dude.  I’ve got lots of stuff planned for you in the coming weeks, pal.  We’re gonna have fun, buddy boy!”

This said, he laid into my gut.  Starting in on my navel, but then isolating each of my abs in turn, and then returning to finish off the fifty full-on punches with an extra ten on my navel.  “Yer eye’s kinda lit up when I hit ya there, Pick.  So I figured ya might like ten more in what I reckon just could be your favourite spot, judging by your dick there dude.”

“Siri, pause timer!”

“Yer comin’ along here, Dill.  Your shirt’s untucked everywhere but here in back.  Still doesn’t look like too much progress back here though, Pick.  Hell, I might have to put another 100 pounds on ya to see if we can untuck it for ya, bud.  Ya DO want it hanging’ out, right?  Ya DO want me to ‘slop you up’?  You do like being a sloppy boy, right?”

I knew the question was rhetorical, and he was loving taunting me.  He had circled behind me and took his time pretending to inspect the back of my shirt and jeans.  I heard him removing the boxing gloves and wondered what he was going to use on me next.  It wasn’t long before he reappeared in front of me.

Ah … so it was going to be bare fists for this fifty.  “Siri, start timer!”  Again he worked my abs as he had when he had worn the boxing gloves, adding the extra ten in my navel again, for good measure.  It had the effect he was looking for.  My cock grew nearly to the size the alien had made it.  He was indeed right … tickle, prod, poke, jab, swat, scritch, press or zap my navel and it will get me hard for a fuckin’ week!

When the prick finished the round of punches, he circled me and pronounced my shirttails weren’t even budging in back.  Still firmly tucked in! … Much to my chagrin.

“Siri, pause timer.”

After a brief disappearing act behind my back Steve returned, this time sporting a pair of police SAP gloves.  ‘Oh FUCK!  FIFTY with these!  Sixty IF he decided to give me the ‘bonus’ ten for this round too.

I didn’t think I could handle a beating with SAP gloves.  Especially now that he’d truly softened me up first.  Steve had told me he’d boxed in the military, so he knew how to punch good and hard.  I’d already taken far more than I ever thought I was capable of taking.  My body was truly being tormented by this maniac I had previously thought to be my best buddy.  Who the fuck needs enemies, right?

He gave me a few minutes to take in what was about to happen to me.  Staring at me.  Nostrils flaring.  Eyes unblinking.  Still handsome, but he no longer seemed human to me in that moment.

He was totally into this, and one hundred percent focused on destroying me.  I knew this shirttail game of his was only a ruse he was using to keep me hanging there for this abuse.  By now I’d given up all hope of winning the challenge.  I realized it wasn’t gonna happen, and in a few short hours I’d be choking and spluttering again, staked out on the beach, but I wasn’t going to give up.

“Siri, start timer!”

“Ok Dill, let’s see if we can make those shirttails of yours really ‘dance,’ bud!”

My “friend” pounded away on my turtle shell abs and on my deep navel.  He had me coughing, cursing, screaming and begging for him to cut me a break, but he was determined to fuck-me-up far beyond anything any enemy would have done to me, had I been a captured, downed pilot undergoing interrogation.

“Siri, pause timer.”

Steve finally reached the fifty punches using these evil gloves and apparently decided that fifty was enough. I had already felt like my intercostal muscles were ripping apart as soon as he raised me off the barn floor with the 600 pounds hanging from me, but after having my gut worked over with his fists in these evil gloves, I felt like he’d not only broken some of my lower ribs, but fuckin’ pulverized them to dust.  It was a miracle I wasn’t coughing up blood.  I could’t help but wonder how much injury was occurring to my insides.  I could only conclude, maybe what the aliens had told me about their “process” keeping me healthy, must’ve included and “Safe from Injury” in the deal.

I had been in agony from the first ten minutes of the first round of his diabolical game, but now he had taken me into a world of pain I hadn’t known before in my life.  Now in the third round I was experiencing searing, piercing, stabbing, throbbing, unbearable, burning, excruciating pain, and yet I was being forced to endure it by my own ego.

All I had to do to make all this pain end, was to say the bastard’s degrading safe phrase, “Sir, I’m your pussy boy bitch, SIR!” but I sure as Hell didn’t want to give him that satisfaction.  I knew for sure he’d taunt me with that phrase every chance he got from then on, if I did.  I also knew he’d take great delight in playing that particular sound bite from the video to all our buddies. My pride kept me taking the punishment.

My ego could prove my downfall in this case.  I didn’t want to give my buddy bragging rights, or that kind of leverage over me, and I sure as Hell didn’t want another beach waterboarding, even though that was going to be inevitable at this point.

I wondered even if I did somehow manage to win this challenge in the last few minutes of his fiendish ordeal, if he would come up with some excuse to put me through another waterboarding anyway, so I decided no matter how much tougher this got, for the sake of pride, I’d stick it out.

I knew we had to be getting close to the 20 minute mark of this third round, and I wondered how much, if any of the back of my shirt had actually untucked itself from the stretching and beating I was taking.

I was brought out of my thoughts, by the sound of my bud’s voice, “Siri, start timer!”  He was gripping a thick, black Texas prison strap in his hand.  The leather was perforated with a number of holes and was about two feet long, and two and half inches wide.  It looked to me to be about a quarter inch thick.  I only had enough time to take in what he was holding before the strap hit me full-force across my lower abs.  Then another swat a little higher.  Then another just under my rib cage.  He then worked his way back down again.  He continued this pattern till he’d given me all fifty swats. “This one makes yer shirttails flap real nice, Dill!  I LIKE it!” He chuckled as he said it.  “I like this a lot!  I think we might just have to use this one on ya again another time boy.”

I guessed he didn’t want to “help” the back of my shirt pull out since he was avoiding all punishment to my back, other than the stretching itself … so far!

“Siri, pause timer!”

I thought for sure the twenty-minute round must be almost over, and the sound of the timer would finally put an end to my torture.  I figured all the pain must be slowing time down for me.

Steve appeared in front of me with what looked like a fuckin’ plank.  It was the heaviest-looking wooden paddle I’d ever seen.  “Like the looks of this, Pick?  Looks like a cricket bat huh? I had Pete make it for me, with you in mind.  I told him it was going to be for your sorry ass, so he made it extra special for ya.  Nice and nasty!”  The thing was about four inches wide and three feet long and had what looked to be about quarter inch holes drilled into the business end of it, every inch or so.

“It’s heavy, so I’ve been practicing takin’ swings with it on a hay-stuffed duffle bag.  Gotta say.  I feel like my aim’s gotten pretty damned good, but I’ll let you be the judge of that Jimbo.  Maybe fifty of these on your butt will get the back of your shirt untucked for ya.  What d’ya think Picky boy?”

With that said he walked around behind me and I heard “Siri, start timer!”

“WHACK!”

I thought that fuckin’ paddle was going to go right through me and into the barn wall.  The pain was beyond pain.  One swat and my ass was burning and felt like the paddle had shredded my jeans.

“WHACK!”

Holy fuckin’ Jesus!  There was no way I was going to survive this.

“WHACK!”

I had been feeling nauseated from the early minutes of the second round, but now I thought for sure I was going black out.  I half hoped I would.

“WHACK!”

“No luck back here yet, Dill.  Yer shirt’s still staying’ tucked in all ‘nice an purdy,’ boy!”  He teased in a hillbilly accent and hummed the banjo theme from the movie “Deliverance.”  Danga-dang-dang-dang-dang-danga-DANG!”

“Maybe I’d better try a little harder!”

“THAWHACK!!!”

Fuck ME!  I thought for sure the blow had cut me in two.  It felt like I’d been hit by an 18-wheeler goin’ a hundred and fifty miles an hour!

“THAAAWHAAACK!!!”

An even harder blow made my head spin, and it felt like my brain was short-circuiting.  For some reason I stayed conscious just long enough to hear the timer on Steve’s phone finally sound.  Shit, had that really been only twenty minutes.  It felt like a god damned month!

He brought me back by waving smelling salts under my nose.  I had no idea how long I’d been out before he did.  No sense of time at all.  Just blessed blackness!

“Well, my friend, looks like you failed my little challenge, bud.  I’d say there’s a good six inches of shirt still tucked in back here along your belt line boy.  Sloppy up front.  Neat as a pin in back!  Yer SO screwed, Dill!”  He chuckled gleefully, almost like I’d just told him a good joke.  The joke was on me however, and it was going to be no joke!

The “whirr” of the winch sounded once again, and Steve lowered me enough for him to take the weight plates off the bar.  Alternating, first one side, then the other … repeatedly, till they were all off.

The relief on my body was immense, and it almost felt like I’d float to the ceiling with only my own weight dangling from my wrists.  I sure wasn’t weightless at 190 pounds, but man, I felt like I was in zero gravity after all the stress my body had been under.  If I’d been pulled apart by a team of draft horses, it couldn’t have been much worse.  Shit!  I was in agony, and I knew as my muscles and tendons tightened again it would only get more painful.  Steve had fucked-me-up big time, and since I had now lost his “shirttails challenge,” I was going to be facing another tidal, waterboarding in a few hours.

“Ya did good, soldier!  By the way, I made that last round a little longer than the twenty minutes … just a little special “treat” for ya, boy!  From here on, I’m gonna toughen you up real good Pickle boy!”

“C’mon Dill, let’s get you into an ice bath.”

To be continued…