An 'X'mas Carol Part Two, Chapter 5

An 'X'mas Carol Part Two, Chapter 5
By Jaech Reiter
jaech_reiter@yahoo.co.uk

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This story is intended for ADULTS ONLY. It contains explicit depictions of sexual activity involving minors. If you are not of a legal age in your locality to view such material or if such material does not appeal to you, do not read further, and do not save this story.
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An 'X'Mas Carol Part Two, Chapter 5

"Benjamin Scruggs."

He heard his name being called, from somewhere in a deep and vague dream, soon to be unremembered as he swam to the surface.

"Benjamin Scruggs!"

He then remembered the next Spirit of Christmas was supposed to visit him that night. Half anxious to get this over with, and a good deal bit more scared about what the next step would involve, Ben slowly opened his sleepy eyes and looked upon the still blurry face of his night visitor.

"Are you the next spirit?"

He asked, dreading the answer he knew would come. He had fulfilled the first spirit's demands, completed the task that he was supposed to discover and undertake on his own, and had changed his demeanor. It wasn't just how he treated his little brother better, but he felt he was a nicer and more aware person in general. After all, hadn't the principal herself told him what a great job he was doing? How mature he was? Shouldn't this all be enough?

"Spirit?"

"Yeah, the first one told me you were coming."

"First one?"

"Elias." Ben said somewhat impatiently, rubbing his eyes. Why couldn't they just have let him sleep through the night? "Don't you guys work together? Don't you have, like, spirit cell phones or something?"

"Ben, what are you talking about? What kind of dream were you having?"

Ben refocused his eyes and sat up in alarm. "Mom?? What are you doing in here in the middle of the night?"

"It's not the middle of the night, Ben, you overslept. I had the hardest time waking you! What is all this about spirits?"

"Spirits?" he asked, still honestly dazed at being woken up in the middle of the night to find out it was already the morning. But then he decided it was probably best just to play dumb. "What spirits?"

Charlotte Scruggs just shook her head. Must have just been a weird dream. "Well, after yesterday, I thought you were turning over a new leaf and would start getting up on time. I should have known better. Come on, then, get out of bed. You have to get moving."

"Crap," he said under his breath. Still a small bit disoriented, he asked what day it was.

"Friday. Now, get up, Ben! I don't have time for this!"

Ben grumbled, though not quite as bad as he used to, and started to get out of bed, but then checked his condition under the sheets. He wasn't hard - that was good - but he was still in his underwear. That surprised him as he thought he had put on shorts last night so he wouldn't be surprised near-naked again like he had with Elias.

"Uh, mom, can you leave, please? I'm not dressed."

He said 'please', she guessed she had to give him that; but he still said it with a 'duh' tone, like she should know better.

"Honestly, Ben, I'm your mother! I have seen it all, trust me." She said, exasperated, though she still headed out of his room. "You need to quit this overly modest obsession you have. Just get up and get a move on."

She left his room, though left his door wide open. He got up and shut it and then lay back in his bed a bit longer to gather his thoughts. So the next spirit actually had decided to give him the night off, he thought to himself as he cupped his package, thankful that everything would be intact again this morning.

Ben breathed a sigh of relief and concentrated on his previously assailed genitalia. Yes, the boys were back in town.

Although,

something didn't feel quite right . . . . .

Ben cautiously lifted up the elastic of his underwear and took a look.

"AAAAYYYAARRRAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

He snapped the elastic back in shock.

"Ben!! What's wrong???" His mom had bolted back into his room.

The ashen boy looked at her with surprise, and then remembered his near nakedness (as well as the horrible shock he was sure his underwear wouldn't hide enough), and he jumped off the bed and grabbed a pillow to hold over himself.

"What are YOU doing?" He screamed back. "Don't you knock!!?? Why are you just busting up in my room??"

"You were screaming, Ben!"

"I was not!"

"You were, too; everyone could hear it!"

"Well . . . . it must have been a nightmare."

"You were awake, Ben. And you don't look so good. First throwing up at school, and now this. Maybe I need to take you to the doctor."

"NO! . . . . I mean . . no . . .no, I'm OK. Honest."

"What's going on?" Fran asked as she stuck her head in the doorway.

"Get the hell out of my room!!" Ben yelled and launched the pillow at his sister. She ducked back and it hit the doorjamb, but then he was left exposed again. He quickly grabbed the other pillow and held it protectively over his mid-section, keeping his upper arms tight against his body as well.

"Ben Scruggs!" Charlotte had had enough of this and was about to tell him off.

"Mom, please, I'm not a little kid anymore! Can I just have some privacy?"

She stared at him, unsure exactly of what direction she should go with this. This was a situation a dad should be there to help with. But there wasn't a dad. Maybe she could talk with her brother; maybe he could have another Uncle to Nephew chat with him this weekend. But that would be later. In the meantime, she had just had enough.

"Fine. But just so you know, you really are still a little boy. And I am SICK of this behaviour. You are going to make a change and it is damn well going to last longer than a day. You and I are going to have a LONG talk tonight about the direction in life your attitude problems are taking you. You got that little boy?"

Ben flushed. Damn! He had been doing so well. What the hell had happened??

"Yes, ma'am."

He sounded so contrite that Charlotte was taken aback for a second. What really was going on with this kid? Was this normal for entering adolescence? She had always thought that he was definitely rolling along into it. But now that he stood there with nothing but a pillow covering his body, she was having her doubts. Why was it she was thinking he had been ahead of the curve in development? He certainly didn't look it now. All that aside, though, she was wondering if he needed something she just couldn't provide, some sort of professional intervention.

"All right," she said, calming down herself, "just get dressed."

"May I take a shower?"

He was back to being the somewhat remorseful boy of yesterday. This wasn't a roller coaster that she could really take. But she had to reinforce the positive behaviours, and she changed her tone to firm, but not angry.

"Yes, you may. But I need you to hurry. I can't take you to school today. You HAVE to catch the bus. Do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"All right, Benny . . . .uh . . . I mean . . .Ben . . ."

"I told you," he started sheepishly, looking off to the side. "You can call me---"

"I know what you told me," she interrupted him, "and when I have my Benny back, I will love to be able to call him that again. But in the meantime, all I see is a still-angry, confused, Ben. I want that to change.

Ben nodded as she walked out, again leaving his door open. He heard her in the hallway telling someone - he assumed Tim - not to go in, that she didn't want him getting yelled at. But a minute later, after Ben had gathered together his clothes, Tim stuck his head in anyway.

"Ben?" he asked hesitantly, hoping against hope that the nice brother from yesterday was still in Ben's body, but also afraid that the mean one was still there. He wasn't too far off. The first reaction from Ben was to throw something else, but he had quickly squelched that and relaxed his face and body.

"Come in, Timmy. Shut the door, will you?"

He did. "What's wrong?"

Ben took a deep breath. Did he really want to do this? No, he absolutely did not. No way, no how, no, no, no. But he was going to go certifiably crazy if he couldn't share his fear and agony with someone, and since Tim already knew the first part of the story . . . . . . .

"This is what's wrong." 13 year old Ben said, as he faced his 9 year old brother, and pulled down the front of his briefs to below his balls, which unfortunately wasn't as far as he used to have to pull them down.

Timmy was in shock. His eyes got huge - not because of what he was getting to look at, but because of what he was not getting to see. He wasn't getting to look at a 13 year old's junk, that was for sure.

Well, he really hadn't seen too many 13 year olds naked, just his brother (before and after all this crazy stuff started happening), his brother's best friend Jacob yesterday, and his own best friend (Caleb)'s brother Randy at a spend-the-night party three weeks ago. He and Caleb had only gotten a peak at Randy when he was in the bathroom (their family house had an old-fashioned keyhole in a few of the doors), and he wasn't quite as big as Jacob, and certainly nowhere near as big down there as Ben used to be; but he had been way, way, way bigger than what Timmy was seeing right now.

To be sure, Caleb himself, a year older than Timmy, might even be bigger than what Timmy was seeing on Ben. This just wasn't normal.

"I thought they were supposed to give everything back when you did the task?"

"That's what I thought! The guy promised! Or, at least, he said he would."

"Looks like he took another payment out of you."

"You THINK?" Ben asked sarcastically, feeling like he was getting angry again. Then he shook his head, remembering he was supposed to be nice to his little brother. "Sorry, Timmy . . . . I'm just . . ."

Timmy shrugged. "I'd be pissed off, too. . . . . Uh . . . . can you . . . . can you get it hard again? Maybe it'll look bigger hard?"

Ben sighed. Of course. That's what he should do. Timmy even offered to help again, but Ben shook his head no. That was just too weird the last time. At any rate, he hadn't jerked off yesterday, so it shouldn't be too difficult to get hard. In the end, it wasn't really easy, but he did get there. The problem was that there just wasn't too much to 'there.'

"Go get your ruler, Timmy."

The boy ran to his room and came right back, finding his despondent brother sitting on the edge of his bed, having already kicked off his underwear, staring at the small erection staring back at him with its one eye. He approached hesitantly, but without asking reached for the small hard dick and measured out its length at just slightly under 3 inches. The balls themselves were little bigger than lima beans. They were still in a noticeable sac, separated from the body, but they didn't really hang down.

"Why did the spirit guy take another, uh, payment?" Timmy asked quietly.

Ben shrugged his shoulders. He really didn't know. As he ran through everything in fast-forward-review through his mind, he could not see any other tasks that he missed; and he couldn't see how the one he did take wasn't THE task. It was so obviously THE task. Everything about it fit. It was hard, exhausting, partly humiliating even, and terrible to go through. And he learned a valuable lesson.

So if that wasn't it, then WHAT did he miss?

"You better go finish getting ready, Timmy. Please, don't tell anybody." Geez, what right did he even have asking his little brother that? Ben asked himself. He felt lower than low.

"Are you going to be all right?"

"Yeah, I'll be OK," Ben said, although he shrugged his shoulders as he said it, and at the same time looked like he was carrying the weight of the world at knife point.

No one said anything at breakfast, as Charlotte and Fran were still too mad at Ben to even notice he was pretty low down in his feelings or to even notice, at first, how well he and Timmy were getting along. Although, given his history, it could very well be that he was just using Timmy, the backs of their minds whispered to them once they did take some notice.

"What's wrong with you?" Ben's neighbor asked on the way to the bus stop with a pleasant concern in his voice. Why did he even try after all this time?

"Mind your own fucking business, Bobby," Ben snarled out, hardly even looking at the boy.

Bobby's face changed at that point. It no longer looked wounded, not hurt, not embarrassed. It was hard and set. He had just extended the last olive branch he would ever hold out to Ben Scruggs. His optimism and hope were just severed from him completely. One breath later and he was a totally different Bobby Koch.

"Fuck off, you loser." Bobby snarled back and walked the rest of the way to the bus stop with his head held high and completely ignoring Ben Scruggs, not by effort, but by realization that Ben was worthless, a total waste of time and effort.

Even Ben noticed that. "Bobby, wait . . . ."

But it was too late. Bobby was already smiling and feeling good. It was like he had been carrying a pail of human waste around for more than a year and had just now dropped it off on the side of the road, smelling fresh air and flowers for the first time. He hadn't even noticed (and for that matter, neither had Ben) the Ben had called him by his actual legitimate name --- twice.

When they got to the bus stop, Ben could see 7th grader Cole Nickles trying to remain obscure on the borders of the group of kids, but still trying not to 'look' like he was hiding. He was still red-faced from the events of yesterday (and still being kidded about it by some of the boys and several of the girls). At the center of everyone's attention however, were two other boys, naked except for the bright pink collars and bracelets and the sandals on their feet.

Both collars had NUDEP written on the side that Ben could read from where he was, as he approached. One boy's bracelets had the number '0' imprinted on them. That was Jacob, and if everything went OK, this would be his last day as a Nudie, not that he wasn't already scarred for life. The other boy had a '1b' imprinted on both bracelets, and he was looking more shocked and scared than Jacob, despite the bravado he was trying to muster. It was Kyle Carton.

"Hey, Ben," Cynthia, Kyle's sister, greeted him.

"Hey, Cynthia, you're looking . . . uh . . . . excited."

"I'm having a great! day. I guess it started yesterday, though. After I got to school, the school took me and 3 of my friends, and three of Kyle's and we met our little sister and three of her friends to watch Kyle have to stand in front of Judge Breese, like, totally naked! It was so funny!"

"Yeah . . . real funny." Ben said, looking over in horror, though trying not to show it, as three elementary students, two girls and a boy, were allowed to explore the shaking 12 year old little brother of Cynthia hands-on.

"Yeah," Becky Sanderson, who was one of three to go with Cynthia, said "Then it got even better. The judge was just going to sentence him as a '1a', but his dad was representing him . . ."

"And Dad was arguing for him to be assigned as a '2a', you know, because of our family being in the system. He felt we should really set a standard, which meant Kyle should be made an example."

"But the judge said that was abuse of justice, . . . uh, sorry Cynthia."

"Whatever. Judge Breese agreed to make Kyle a '1b' since he was still one of the first at our school and was being charged with so many things at once. He said my dad was 'overstepping', but I was with my dad. At least Kyle has to spend 5 days like this - longer if he doesn't learn what he's supposed to. . . . . It's so awesome!"

"The induction was pretty awesome, too." Becky said.

"Induction?"

"It's what they do after every kid gets remanded to the program," Cynthia said. "Sort of like a way to set the tone for the duration of the offender's stay. You know, get his attention and let him know that this is for real and that it's meant to be punishment as well as corrective. Of course, just being inducted, you'd think a guy would do anything he could to make everyone happy and get out and stay out. It's brutal."

"Oh for sure," Becky added. "Just watching one is enough to keep you out of trouble."

"Yeah, I think that's why with the higher levels they make them public."

"Whoa, wait," Ben interrupted the two girls. "What are you girls talking about?"

"The induction," Cynthia explained, "It's the first start to the program. Everyone gets inducted, even Jacob did. I heard from his little brother's neighbor, Michael, that it didn't take much to get him crying. Of course, Michael didn't see it. Since Jacob was a Level Zero, only family was in attendance."

"But since Kyle was a L1bO, other students and community people could be invited to see. And it was . . . wow! Harsh."

"Uh . . . but what is it?"

"Oh! Sorry, Ben, I thought maybe Jacob told you. In an induction you get fitted for your collar, family are given basic instructions, your penis and everything else is measured right there in front of everyone . . . ."

"Some kids will get shaved," Becky jumped in, "Some will get, uh . . . restraints . . . put on them . . . ."

"Some will get dildos put in them," Cynthia added.

"Dildos?" Ben asked meekly ---- What the hell were those??

"But every kid . . . . . ."

" . . . . every one . . . ."

"Gets spanked!!" both girls said at once after trading off statements.

"By a professional spanker," Cynthia added, on her own. "I think Kyle cried more in one hour than the whole rest of his life put together."

Ben gulped. . . . . . One hour? . . . . . . .That sounded horrible.

Just at that moment, a shaking and flustered, red faced Kyle, who was obviously having trouble keeping his hands at his side, was starting to roll his eyes back in his head as one of the grade schoolers played with his tensely erect four inches.

"I'M CUMMMING!!" He yelled. The grade schoolers jumped out of the way, when an Angel that Ben hadn't met before told them to watch out, and Kyle shot two strong, but reduced, squirts across the pavement, with crowd half cheering, half making 'ewww, gross' noises.

"I'm surprised he's got anything left," Becky said.

"Like I told Becky," Cynthia said, all smiles and happiness, "It's his second one today, but I bet we made him do it six or eight times yesterday."

"That's why he's a little red," Ben remarked to no one in particular.

"On his little dickie? Oh yeah, but you should see his backside. It must have taken a hundred spanks to get him to yell it out correctly like that. That and keep his hands at his side."

"So who's his . . . .uh, his Minder?"

"Our little sister, Jess, gets to be his Minder today. He's going with her to her school all day, where he'll be a model for the 5th grade health and science classes."

"That's like Jacob in second period." Ben said, understanding the torture awaiting poor Kyle. "Jacob has to model for our science class."

"From what I hear," Becky threw in with a wicked smile, "is that you have to help him. Alex Kiever said you had to spread Jacob's buttcheeks open yesterday."

"Gross, Ben," Cynthia said with a look of disgust --- except that she was wearing a smile the whole while she said it.

"Hey, I didn't have a choice," he deflected grumpily. "Why's Kyle's collar and bracelets different from Jacob's?"

"Oh, Kyle's is standard issue for Levels 1 and up. Watch this; hey Jess, give everyone a demonstration of the bracelets."

"Ok!" 10 year old Jessica Carton smiled. She liked doing this part. "Kyle! Quit playing with yourself in public! What's wrong with you??"

Kyle blushed severely and pulled his hand of his penis, as he had continued going after he shot (a very painful memory in his ass from yesterday reminded him he better not stop until told he could), and all the kids surrounding him laughed anew at him. He chanced an evil look at his sister, but hid most of it beneath a frown such that she let it slide.

"Hands up!"

Kyle immediately raised his hands up, placing the bracelets near to his collar (he wanted to do it slow, as a feeble yet important act of rebellion against his 10 year old sister having such power over him, except when he tried the same thing last night, she tore his ass up with one of the X-40 paddles that their dad was able to finagle from the court). As Ben and the other kids watched, the metal pieces at the sides of the collar were attracted to and locked with the tabs on the bracelets, such that Kyle's hands were now locked up out of the way. Given how efficiently Kyle had done this, Ben rightfully assumed he had had many practice sessions of it.

"As you can see," the other of the two Angels there today said (Ben didn't recognize her, either, but she was younger than the older woman of yesterday. This woman could easily be one of their mothers.) "The locking mechanisms of the bracelet and collar are magnetically attracted to each other, when radio signals announce close proximity. Once they come together, a battery in the collar signals a mechanical locking between the two to engage. From this point on it is a fairly durable titanium mechanical lock, and therefore not draining any reserves from the battery."

"How do you get it unlocked?"

"With this key." Jessica said, holding up her arm to show a thinner and slightly more fashionable metal bracelet. It had the logo of an Angel wing with an M through it. Ben assumed the M was for Minder.

"It works," the lady Angel continued, "using RF tags, that is radio-frequency technology. You simply hold it up near to the collar and the collar's microchip processor recognizes the proximity of the RF device that gives a Minder access to control of the Offender. Now, Jessica and Cynthia both have bracelets that identify them particularly as little Kyle's Minders."

Kyle barely stifled the moan that went through him when she referred to him as 'little Kyle' and his sisters as his 'Minders'.

"Once they hold the bracelet up within six inches of the collar, they can manually release the locks or verbally give an order for one or both of them to disengage. There's also a few other things they can do, but that's not the point of this demonstration. Jessica?"

Jessica nodded to the lady and put her wrist up near the collar and said clearly, "Disengage Both."

A subtle whirring sound could barely be heard and then Kyle's hands were free. He was sorely tempted to just reach out and strangle his little sister right there, and it was with great, forced, control that he slowly lowered his hands down to his sides.

"Very good, little brother. You can learn some things after all," the 10 year old said as she reached up to pat his head, while all his bus stop friends broke out laughing at him.

"Boys and girls," the male Angel said, "Mostly Boys, . . . . . . look before you and see these two examples, one boy who had no general respect for authority, no respect for women, and challenged the right of society to teach him otherwise. Kyle will learn an awful lot over the next five days, unless he drags it out, which I bet he will. And 'awful' is the key word here. And what is awful to him, will teach him that once he learns his lessons, it's not so awful. He will learn to respect others, learn to respect women, and learn to bow to the needs and requirements of orderly society."

"You can beat me, but you can't make me learn anything." Kyle said angrily, although he flinched as he said it, expecting some recoil, and shivered slightly waiting for it to come. He was never THIS defiant, but the extremes of what had happened to him brought it out. The angel understood. This was part of the normal process in being broken down.

"Ahh, the old adage, eh Kyle? You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Hmm?"

Kyle nodded slightly. This man unnerved him. He wasn't the only one.

"But you fail to understand the other option, Kyle." The man continued. "You can also throw the horse in the water where it again has two choices, but very different ones. It can tread water, until it gives up and drinks to learn, or it can tread water until he runs out of energy and drinks to drown. I guarantee you, you can make him drink, one way or the other."

The shivers in Kyle just got more noticeable, as indeed they did in a number of the other kids. Nobody wanted this man in charge of them. Once again, Ben shielded his little brother as a reflex, something both Cynthia and Becky noticed.

"When did you become so sweet to your little brother, Ben?" Cynthia asked, with a slight wickedness in her whisper.

"Since before any of this." He answered back in a low voice, then added in an almost guilty voice, "Just happened to be right before all this, but still . . . . it was before I knew any of this."

They looked at him unconvinced, but Tim nodded enthusiastically from behind; so that accepted it.

"All right, but we're watching you and Jacob from here on out." Becky said, a bit haughtily, as if she were suddenly the arbiter of proper relations among siblings, ironic given she didn't have any. In fact, her parents didn't have any, and of her four grandparents, only two had one sibling each.

"The other boy," The lady Angel started, "Is an example of what happens to bullies, plain and simple. The school is beginning to tighten down their zero tolerance policies, and this WILL be one of the results. If you're going to have a problem with that, then I suggest you come up here and get a sample of what it feels like to be completely exposed and ridiculed in front of your peers. . . . . . . . Nobody? . . . . Well, then I guess that means you all plan to be good girls and boys. I hope so. I hope you make my volunteer time very, very boring."

She seemed a lot nicer than the male, but that could easily be like the flower on a carnivorous plant. Strange though, Ben thought, but Mrs. Pickwick did the same thing yesterday. She also made an offer to anyone at the bus stop who felt they should come up and join the naked boys at the front. Like anyone would be that utterly stupid. Ben started to laugh internally at the thought of someone being that dumb. They would have to be just totally into social suicide. He smiled. That would never happen.

And then it hit him.

Holy shit.

No, no, no, no, no . . . . .

The spirit said the task would be obvious if he was looking.

What could be more obvious than an open invitation? Especially one delivered on the same morning each day a payment was subtracted from his 'accounts'.

No. It couldn't be.

No, no, no, no, no, no . . . . . . .

Ahh, geez . . . . . . . . please . . . . . . . . no . . . . . . . . .

The two Angels had turned over the show to the two Minders, Michael Dorritt, making a rare appearance at the bus stop, for Jacob, and Jessica Carton for her brother Kyle. They gave a last admonishment to the other kids to be good and began walking down the street toward the man's car.

No, no, this can't be . . . . Ben thought to himself, but his fear chilled to a painful iciness as he saw his day's opportunity receding.

"Wait," he said weakly. But only Cynthia and Becky noticed.

"Wait for what, Ben?"

"Wait!" It was louder, but only attracted the attention of most of the kids at the bus stop. But after a brief moment in which they couldn't figure out what they should wait for, or perhaps stop doing, they turned their attention back to the two naked boys.

"No, don't . . . . ." Timmy tugged on his older brother's shirt.

"WAIT!!"

That caught the Angels' attention from down the street.

'Holy shit. What have I done??' Ben thought to himself when he saw the Angels pause and then start back toward the bus stop. The kids at the bus stop parted around him when they saw the Angels returning, so there would be no denying who yelled it out; he couldn't hide in the parting of the crowd. The Angels were already focused on him as they approached.

Oh shit . . . . . oh shit . . . . . what the hell did I do . . . . . what the hell AM I doing?

"Yes, boy?" The man asked, seeing Tim suddenly hide again behind his brother, burying his face in Ben's back.

"I . . . . . . I . . . . . ." Ben was shaking as he tried to force the effort.

"I don't think you're very funny, boy," the man said. "You better be careful if you think you can gain social points in front of your friends by being a smart-ass."

The lady Angel gave a brief roll of her eyes and turned to leave again with the man.

"I'M A BULLY!!"

Ben shouted it out, and it was almost very closely followed by 'oh shit' out of his same mouth. Oh geez. What had he done?? This couldn't be taken back. Was he sure he should be going down this road? Did that even matter anymore? What if this wasn't the task? What if it was all for naught?

"What was that, boy?"

"I . . . . I . . . . . . I'm a . . . . . . I'm a bully." He finally quietly said at the end of his stammer. It was both the moment of self-destruction where the path chosen could not be reversed and also a poignant self-realization. He was amazed inwardly at the revelation he finally made to his soul. It was like the past 30 hours or so had only involved a cognitive realization of his bullying and abandonment of his brother. Now he had brought himself irrevocably face to face with this truth. "I . . . . I . . . . . b-b-bully m-my l-lil-l-l-little brother."

"Well, you sure don't look it," The lady Angel said as she saw his little brother still hiding protectively behind his back.

"It's true." Ben said, again quietly, but this time looking down, with a moment of clarity, so to speak, where his muscles weren't shivering from the fear deeper within.

Although . . . . he was very much afraid. Very . . . . . much . . . . . . . afraid.

Fran came forward and pulled Timmy back with her, hiding him behind her back instead and nodded an affirmative to the lady Angel, confirming that yes, Ben was in fact a bully to Timmy. The Angel looked around and was met by a few nods, a lot of nervous faces suddenly looking away at anything else, and even a smile or two.

"It is true," Cole spoke up from behind the group, which parted slightly again to give the Angels a good view of him. "He bullies him all the time!"

"SHUT U---mmpphh!!" Timmy started to yell at Cole, but Fran clamped a strong hand over his mouth and quietly shushed him. Ben managed to catch his brothers eyes for a moment and frowned and shook his head slightly. Timmy understood. He would only make things worse. He nodded to his older brother, and went back to mostly hiding behind Fran. He didn't want to watch this.

"Well, well." The male angel said. "There may be hope for you since you came forward on your own, unless you just saw the writing on the wall at home and thought you would get brownie points."

Ben couldn't look up. His heart was racing, he felt a bit faint, and swore he had a cool sheen of sweat on him, even though he was still dry. He shook his head though. He really wasn't going for brownie points. Not today.

"What about it, Jacob?" the male guardian asked the still naked fellow 8th grader and best friend of Ben. "Is he a bully? Does he bully his little brother?"

Jacob wanted to look away; he wanted to look at the ground. He wanted to lie. But he didn't dare. "Yes, sir."

"Is he worse than you?"

Jacob looked over at Ben. He looked so pitiful standing there. What was worse, Jacob knew Ben, and he knew this kind of punishment would be at least 10x worse for Ben than for him. And that was saying a lot. But he remembered how worried Ben was about him getting in trouble yesterday; he wasn't mad at his friend, though. Ben had been right. Jacob couldn't risk lying. Besides, Ben wasn't caught out in anything; he literally had asked for this.

"Yes, sir. He's worse than me."

"A lot worse?"

Jacob shrugged his shoulders, forgetting that that was taboo in answering an adult, but no one seemed to notice at the moment. "Angrier." He finally said, qualifying the relative difference between the two.

The man then turned and asked Ben, "Do you believe Jacob should be punished while you get off scot-free?"

Instead of answering the man with a 'yes' or 'no' or even a shrug, Ben moved his hands up to his top buttoned button on his shirt and began to undo all six --- except he couldn't quite seem to get past the first one. His hands were shaking so badly he couldn't keep hold of the button long enough, much less get it backward through the buttonhole.

"Do you want me to have your friend Jacob do it for you?" The male angel asked.

"No . . .sir," Ben said, but that came out just as shaky and barely heard above the laughter at the man's comment.

He continued to fumble with that one button. It was quite plain that he wasn't just stalling, as now his whole body began to quaver a bit more than slightly. Half the kids were nervous and embarrassed for him, and half were just uncertain as to whether they could laugh or not at this. Finally a sweet and pretty girl, Beth Emerson from 7th grade --- pretty, but quiet and different enough that Ben had more than once made fun of her, as well --- could not take it anymore. She stepped up to Ben and gave him a light smile, meant to reassure him and gently pushed his hands out of the way.

She stood before him and rapidly went down the buttons of his shirt and, at the base pulled both it and his T-shirt, out of his jeans, even reaching around him to do so. He somehow seemed just a bit more . . . . . puny . . . . today, and his bravery in the face of such obvious fear had touched her heart, despite how mean to her he had been sometimes in the past. She knelt down and undid the laces of both shoes while he stared down, in shock that someone he had injudiciously ridiculed in the past would be so selfless and serve him like this.

It actually made him feel even more rotten. Though it didn't make him feel any better about what was soon to happen, no matter how much more he was realizing that he deserved it. Well . . . . . . maybe not THIS. He wasn't sure who really deserved THIS. But some kind of punishment. It was however, almost literally out of his hands, and definitely no turning back.

Beth stood back up and looked Ben in the eye, this time with a bit more uncomfortable of a smile. He was still shaking somewhat. She reached under the front of his shirt and began to unbutton his jeans. Both of them looked away as she did this, and Ben began to hyperventilate just slightly, an even more blood drained from his face as he realized he was starting to get hard. Even worse, he felt a sudden rush of excitement intertwined around a pang of fear and embarrassment as he felt his dick and balls brush up against the back of her hand.

Beth blushed when it happened, and her eyes got the smallest bit wider as she concentrated her sight on the pavement. She only hesitated for the briefest of moments when she felt that happen, feeling as though she had really gone too far. But she also knew that the poor boy would never get those four buttons in the fly of his jeans undone. So she continued on with the last one.

When she was done, she looked Ben in the eyes again and offered that same first smile, as if to tell him that all would be OK. Then she actually leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the cheek and whispered, "I can't go any farther, Ben."

He nodded as she stepped back into the crowd.

"Thank you." Though it came out soft enough that even he wasn't sure he had said it.

"Think you can take it from here, boy?" The man asked.

Ben nodded, though his hands (and arms and legs and torso) were still shaking. Then he noticed that the man had pulled out a pink collar, smaller than the others, and this one simply said 'Temporary Nudie' across it, and he reached forward to fasten the soft elastic around Ben's nck. Ben managed to pull off his button-up shirt (and did as good a job folding it that his shaking would allow), realizing as he did so that he would be beginning the first exposition of himself to people since his mom last saw him naked at the age of six.

He decide next to kick off his shoes next, and then with a deep breath (and then another deep breath [Ok, one more deep breath]), he grabbed the hem of his T-shirt and pulled it off. There was all of a sudden a burst of applause, as he was now becoming naked in earnest. He didn't think he could get much more embarrassed and he tried, unsuccessfully, to just block that particular response out of his mind. Then, as his arms were high above his head pulling off the T-shirt, he heard a random voice in the crowd that nearly fully unglued him.

"Dude, he doesn't even have any hair under his arms. He's like a little kid; why did we ever think he was older?"

"Actually, your right. Looks more like a little kid than a classmate," another boy said.

Ben flushed the deepest red on hearing this, although he still wasn't looking at anyone, so it didn't really give away that that was what had triggered his response. But then he remembered the central problem here, and he quite suddenly couldn't breathe. The fear of people seeing him naked magnified 1000 fold when he remembered they wouldn't be seeing the Ben that despite his 'horn o'plenty' was mortified, they would be seeing the new Ben. The not-even-three-inches Ben. The Ben who might be better placed in grade school, if you were going to go on nuts alone.

This was worse than mortification.

"Son! Are you all right? Breathe. Breathe!!" The male Angel had been instructed that some boys were so ridiculously overly-modest that the simple act of stripping down would cause them to faint, and he had smelling salts for that; but they never covered this reaction. And besides, the kid was only shirtless at this point! But he was redder than three humiliated boys combined. And it didn't look like he was even breathing, so smelling salts wouldn't work.

If it were an old man acting like this, the Angel would throw him down on the ground and just start doing CPR. As it was, he had to just try and calm the terrified boy, who by this point had clutched his chest and dropped to one knee.

"Boy what's your name?" The Angel asked, kneeling next to the kid as kindly as he could and trying to assert a calm tone to the event. But all Ben could do was just shake his head. "Just calm down, then; you can tell me your name later. We're going to get through this together, OK?"

Ben was turning even redder, but he was obviously able to hear the guy, even though his eyes were looking dangerously unfocused.

"Breathe, boy," the man said calmly beside him, even putting a comforting arm over Ben's shoulder. What that did for Ben, however, was just provide him with cover. There was at least a little bit less naked surface area. Silly, considering the inevitable, but enough for his mind to retreat into a slight calmness that allowed one gulp of air --- and that one was sucked in mightily. The lady Angel set up a round of applause that most of the somewhat freaked-out and concerned kids launched into (Fran meanwhile kept Timmy behind her back and told him that nothing was going on).

That first gulp of air was followed by a few others, and the rhythmic pounding in his head slowed and the dull red-blurriness-going-to-black in his vision started to clear as he calmed more and more, back down, at least, to a state of simple elevated terror. He still had to get naked.

"Now, what's your name boy?"

"Ben"

"Ben what?"

"Ben, sir. . . . Sorry."

"No," The man chuckled. He wasn't actually fishing for the sign of respect. "I mean . . . . that's . . . that's very good. Very respectful; but what I meant was, what is your last name?"

"Oh . . . . sorry, sir . . . . it's . . . . . uh . . . . ."

The boy's mind was stuck.

"Scruggs." He heard someone say. It was Cynthia. Ben just nodded.

"OK," The man said, still sounding supportive, "I'm sure those brain cells will come back on line soon, Ben Scruggs. Now, you started something here. Think you can make your little brother proud and follow through with it on your own?"

Ben nodded. He tried to say yes, sir, but his heart had started pounding from anxiety again. He understood the man, though. There was no question that this was or wasn't going to happen. It would happen. And either he could do it, or they would hold him down like they did Kyle. And look how that worked out for Kyle - he was made a L1bO instead of an LZO like Jacob. Of course, he had also made the bus late.

As soon as he thought that though, he heard it. The Middle School bus. Ben looked up with a new terror and felt the blood already draining from him. He was going to make the bus late. And the Angel knew it as well.

"Oh dear." The man said, half factual, half sympathetic.

But Cynthia Carton recognized it, too. As obnoxious as Ben had been to others, he had never really gone after her. Plus, he had volunteered this, in a way, which made him either 1] mentally insane, and therefore deserved some sympathy, or 2] very brave, and therefore deserving sympathy.

"Kyle!" Cynthia barked. "I thought I told you that you better get two rounds of cum off before the bus arrives! You still owe us one!" She hadn't said any such thing, but she knew it would buy Ben some time to continue stripping off, and pin the whole bus being late on Kyle, which was like a win-win. She, like her friend Becky, had been standing behind Ben the whole time, and they were anxiously awaiting the appearance of one particular item on his anatomy. If the jeans weren't lying, and the promise of that creamy dip of the smooth back into the taut white BVD's held true, then it would be a wait well worth the exposure.

"No, you didn't!" Kyle barked back at his sister. "You didn't say anythin---"

"Are you arguing with your Minder, boy?" The male Angel asked Kyle menacingly as he stood and pulled Ben up with him.

"And are you calling her a liar?" The lady Angel asked, pulling the X-40 paddle out.

"No, ma'am; no, sir," Kyle said quickly, and even more quickly grabbed his sore dick and started pumping again.

"You better hurry, Ben," The Angel leaned down and whispered. "He's already starting off hard. It might not take him as long as think."

He was seriously going to have to thank Cynthia later. As totally humiliating as it would be to bring it up while still naked, or after it was all history, he really would have to.

"Come on, Ben!!" Becky started clapping, "Let's see that real nice ass I bet you have hiding under there!"

He blushed, bringing some of the color back in his face. Listening to Becky and Cynthia chatter on about how nice they thought his ass looked, he thought to use that as a reference point for his mortification. It was a whole lot easier imagining everyone getting an unadulterated view of his buttocks, plump and naked and vulnerable, than to remember he wasn't carrying enough in front anymore to even wow a second grader. Well . . . . maybe a second grader.

The sound Kyle was making indicated the boy was trying hard, pun intended. It was a race between the two of them as to who got blamed for making the bus late. And now the elementary school bus had pulled up behind the middle school bus. Kyle's pitch went up, which meant his orgasm was on the upward rise.

He took a few more deep breaths and hooked his thumbs in the back sides of his underwear and jeans - thank goodness for Beth Ann -

"Yeah!! Bring'em down, Ben!! Show us that nice rump!!"

-- and he pushed them down, not stopping until they were at his ankles, and showed his, actually quite very nice, naked round cheeks, with that oh-so tempting divide, to the cheering boys and girls who had wandered behind him to see the first moonrise. They saw it. And they were quite pleased with it - the girls, at least.

"Hey everybody, Kyle's really getting off seeing Ben nekkid!" Some boy yelled from behind Ben. It wasn't true of course, and it threw Kyle off his impending orgasm. It meant he had redouble his efforts, which only brought further comments about how much he wanted Ben. It was getting harder and harder to ignore them, and harder and harder to use his hard one (of course, his vitamin had been replaced that morning, unbeknownst to him, so that staying hard wasn't really a problem so far that day. It was messing with poor Kyle's mind).

Ben even gave his audience a glimpse of the hole in the moon, when he pulled his legs up out of his pants. Folding his clothes kept his front hidden for a few brief moments, but that couldn't last forever. A couple of kids had already commented that from behind his nuts looked a whole lot smaller than they should. The female Angel waggled the X-40 menacingly and Ben knew what it meant. Drop the folded pants and underwear on the pile with the other clothes. He did.

"Holy shit!! He's got less than my littlest brother!" one boy yelled.

And Ben felt the racing heart, the lack of breath, the blurring of his vision and dulling of his hearing all coming back. His stomach flipped and his body fell away and the world went dark.