When the helicopter arrived, there were fifteen of them in the clearing. Twelve boys and three girls. Nine of the twelve boys had been nullified, like Lukas and Matthew, or they had been castrated while they had been here in the forest. That was how the hunting had started, Lukas said.

Matthew couldn’t remember seeing any of these people before, but Lukas told him that he had, that he had seen all of them, and talked with them. He had hunted with them, and had castrated the blond boy who was looking at him sulkily, Lukas said.

‘You made him eat his own nuts,’ Lukas said.

The boy was sitting with his back against a tree. He had his arms folded and he was glaring at Matthew, pouting.

‘And you circumcised him.’

Matthew nodded.

‘And you made him eat that too.’

Oh, Matthew thought, making an “O” with his mouth. The boy had his legs drawn up and between them, Matthew could see what was left of his sack. He supposed it would have been pretty bad, to have been thirteen or fourteen when that was done to you. And getting circumcised would have to have hurt. He offered the kid a weak smile.

‘His name’s Nathan.’

The kid turned his head away and stared intently into the centre of the clearing, tightening his folded arms, and looking even more sullen, if that was possible.

On the way to Buenos Aires, in the helicopter, Matthew sat next to him, and tried to talk to him. By the time they were touching down, he had managed to get the kid to smile a little.

Matthew wasn’t that happy himself. While they were waiting for the helicopter, he and Lukas had managed to get the arrow out of his thigh. The medics had bandaged it, but it hurt like hell, and there was no room in the helicopter for him to lie down. And he wasn’t, either, that happy about what had been done to him. He had lost his cock and balls, and it was only by telling the kid (Nathan) about how it had happened, that he had finally got him to smile.

‘Well, at least I’ve got my dick, dude,’ the kid had finally said, and turned to look out of the window, smiling to himself. And he had a hard on, about what Matthew had told him, and it was poking up out of his almost naked groin. A circumcised cock.

Still, though, Matthew supposed he was lucky. He had been in the forest for weeks, and unlike Lukas, he had been unconscious all of the time. Lukas had been there through all of it, and experienced every moment.

‘It’s better than blacking out,’ Lukas said.

And Matthew supposed he would know. Lukas had had the device for more than a year, though he had been one of the first in whom it had been planted successfully, and they had taken some time to work out how to use it properly.

Matthew felt that he had to tell Lukas what had happened, how he had used the glasses, and the tablets, and how he had done what he had done to Lukas.

In the hospital in Buenos Aires, Matthew began, but it wasn’t until they were home again, and had seen their parents, that Matthew could tell him all of it.

‘You mean you made me wear those jocks,’ Lukas said.

Matthew nodded. He had told Lukas about the day they had gone to Whale, when he had dressed Lukas in the ABC jocks, and even after everything, when Matthew had told him how he had been manipulated through all of it, and how the tablets had played a part in it, Lukas kept returning to this one thing, as though it was the most important.

‘I dressed you in them.’

‘You dressed me? In those jocks? You wanted me to wear them to the beach?’

Matthew nodded, and frowned, not understanding why it was so important to Lukas.

‘Well,’ Lukas said, smiling, ‘you’ve got to admit I owe you one.’

The following day, Lukas wanted to go to Whale. It was summer again, and he had it all arranged. Matthew was living back at home, with his parents, because he wanted to spend some time with them after everything that had happened. Matthew’s mother had stopped drinking when he disappeared, and he had been so happy to see her, and his father and sister, that he said he would come home and live for a while, though he would be moving back to Lukas’ again, and, of course, next year, going to England with Lukas, who had arranged to start his course then.

‘Well you be careful,’ his mother said.

Matthew nodded while she kissed him.

‘Don’t you need anything?’ she said.

He didn’t have a towel, or a bag, or anything, but Lukas had it all arranged.

Matthew caught a cab over there, as he had used to do in the old days, and when he arrived, Lukas led him upstairs. On the bed in Lukas’ room, there was a pair of jocks laid out for him. Matthew picked them up and eyed them suspiciously. Dragonball Z jocks, with a picture of Goku as a Super Saiyan on the front of them. They were threadbare, like all of Lukas’ jocks, but a little larger than most.

Matthew changed out of his jeans and pulled them on. He looked like a girl, as he did now in jocks, the front of his groin a mound. The jocks were too small. They were stretched tight over his groin, hardly broaching it, and most of the back of them were up his arse. There wouldn’t be any doubt in anyone’s mind, when they saw him at the beach, that he had no cock and balls. The jocks would be see-through anyway, though Goku, who looked a little surprised, might offer him some protection.

Lukas smiled.

‘You really want to do this?’ Matthew said.

Lukas nodded, and Matthew walked over to the drawer, looking for a pair for Lukas. He looked at the back, where the ABC ones had been, and found a pair that were almost as threadbare. He held them up to the light and looked at them, trying to make them out. Whinnie the Pooh, by the looks of it, though he couldn’t be certain. He handed them to Lukas. The best thing about them was that they were white. They would be see-through.

‘Lukas, why do you have all these old jocks?’ Matthew said, as Lukas was unbuttoning his jeans.

Lukas shrugged his shoulders and pulled his jeans down to his thighs. ‘I like them,’ he said.

When the two of them had the jocks on, they stood side by side and looked at each other in the mirror.

‘We can’t really—’ Matthew started, but Lukas cut him off.

‘You made me,’ he said.

Side by side, they looked – sexy somehow, but it was definitely wrong. Their groins were…Matthew didn’t have a word for it.

‘What do you think’s happened to them?’ Matthew said as they were pulling on their jeans. The Muellers, husband, wife and son, had disappeared, though many of the others involved had been arrested.

‘They’re probably in South America,’ Lukas said.

Matthew nodded his head once, and thought about it, as he had been doing for days. They hadn’t been able to remove the devices, though they believed they had found all of the glasses connected to them. What was to stop the Mueller’s making more glasses, and selling them to others? One day Matthew could be himself, and then the next, he could be under someone’s control again.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Lukas said, which was what he always said when Matthew started on the subject. ‘You know they can trace the signals. If any of us do anything strange, they’ll be onto them.’

Matthew nodded.

The really strange thing was that Rodney, who had been arrested, and imprisoned on remand, had somehow managed to escape within the first twenty-four hours, and had disappeared without a trace, simply leaving a note which said, ‘Joshua, where the hell are you? Please contact me.’

‘Oh, by the way, McCady wants to see you,’ Lukas said.

‘What?’ Matthew said, lifting his head. ‘McCady?’

‘She’s baked you some muffins.’

Downstairs they saw her, and she hugged Matthew, as she had done a week or two back when they had first returned. He shook hands again with Mr Sorensen, who he seemed to be shaking hands with forever, though it was Mr Sorensen who had started the search for him and Lukas, and had believed in Matthew when he had mentioned Dr Mueller’s name. Without him, and Matthew’s father, working together, they would never have been found.

Lukas drove the Jaguar to Whale, and as they were getting out of the car, Matthew looked across the road at Rodney’s house, which was looking more abandoned and decrepit than it ever had. Briefly, Matthew wondered what had happened to him, what the note had meant, and how he had managed to escape. The bright summer sun was making mirrors of the windows, and behind one of them, for an instant, Matthew thought he saw something move. He frowned. Possibly Rodney’s grandmother, but he forgot all about it as he turned to look at the beach.

It was packed.

‘Oh, no,’ he said.

Lukas turned and started to walk towards the sand.

‘Lukas,’ Matthew called, walking after him, but Lukas didn’t turn.

On the sand, Lukas dumped his bag and handed Matthew the bath towel he had brought for him.

‘We going straight in?’

Matthew nodded.

‘You first,’ Lukas said, nodding at Matthew’s jeans.

‘Together?’

Lukas agreed, and together they unbuttoned their jeans and pulled them down and pulled their T-shirts over their heads. Matthew was so worried about himself that he didn’t stop to look at Lukas until they were walking towards the water.

‘You’ve got shorts on,’ Matthew said, feeling suddenly naked.

Lukas started to run, and Matthew chased him, thumping into the surf.