Matthew got out of the car.

He glanced along the side of it, and then walked around the back, putting his hand on the trunk and checking out the rear end as though what had happened in the car hadn’t happened at all.

He heard the passenger door open and close, and was aware of Lukas standing beside the car.

‘So, can you help me get it off?’

‘Me?’ Matthew said, hearing his voice high and strained. ‘You need to go to a hospital.’ He looked across the garage to the door that led back to the house.

‘I really don’t want to.’

‘Yeah, well, you shouldn’t have put it on there.’

Lukas bit his bottom lip, and started chewing it, his face red with embarrassment.

Matthew looked away. There was a long bench beside the car, a workbench, with a hundred or more tools on the wall behind it, all of them having a certain place painted out for them, a shape, and all of them perfectly arranged, and shiny, and new, as though they had never been used at all.

‘Have you tried to get it off?’

‘I’ve been trying for hours.’

Matthew nodded, and looked down at the floor. He tried not to, but couldn’t help smiling.

‘What?’ Lukas said.

‘Nothing.’

‘What?’

Matthew shrugged his shoulders, but caught Lukas’ eye.

‘It’s really not funny,’ Lukas said. ‘I mean, it might be, but it’s been on there all day.’

‘On the boat?’

Lukas nodded.

‘And it hurts?’

‘Of course,’ Lukas said.

‘And you don’t want to go to a hospital?’

‘Not if I don’t have to.’

‘Well, I might go home then,’ Matthew said.

Lukas shrugged his shoulders. ‘If you want,’ he said, but his face fell.

‘I reckon you let me drive your car,’ Matthew said, ‘if I help you out. And we’ll go up the coast next week, eh? How does that sound?’

‘Sure,’ Lukas said, brightening suddenly, as though he couldn’t believe his luck. ‘I mean, you can drive it anyway. I said so.’

He was like a little boy, Matthew thought. He might look fifteen, but he acted like he was ten.

‘I’ve been using the hacksaw,’ Lukas said, ‘but I can’t hold it still. And I cut myself.’

A hacksaw!

‘Did you put it in the vice?’ Matthew said, nodding at the vice on the bench.

‘What? – no,’ Lukas frowned, and turned around to look at it. ‘I didn’t think of that.’

‘Well, you need to put it in the vice.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Of course,’ Matthew said, aiming another nod at the thing as though it were self-evident.

‘My sack?’

‘The padlock.’

‘Oh, right. I thought you meant put my sack in there.’

Matthew pushed air through his nose and shook his head.

‘Well, we can try it that way if you want,’ he said. ‘Close it on your balls and rupture them.’

Lukas took a deep breath, expanding his chest, which he touched with the palm of his hand. And then he exhaled slowly.

‘Not a good idea?’

‘No,’ Lukas said.

‘You’re sure. We could get it off then, if we mushed your balls up.’

‘No way.’

‘Okay, well, you’re letting me drive your car. Here, shake on it.’ Matthew stepped around to the side of the car, and they shook hands. He put his hand on the vice and picked up the hacksaw, which was lying on the bench. He turned it over and looked at it closely. The blade was pretty blunt. ‘Have you got any other blades for this thing?’ he said, studying it.

‘No,’ Lukas said, ‘I couldn’t find any.’ He was undoing the cord on his pyjama bottoms and pulling them over his runners.

Matthew stared at the blade while he turned the handle on the vice with his other hand. He put the hacksaw down.

‘You know, you probably need some wood or something here to sit on.’

‘Yeah?’ Lukas was folding his pyjama bottoms, as though he was going to put them in a cupboard. He put them on the bench and turned to face Matthew.

The singlet was riding high on his hips, the edge of it suspended an inch or so above the base of his penis. He didn’t have any pubes, Matthew noticed. And his cock was small and pale, as though he was a twelve year old boy, the way Matthew had last seen him when they had been friends together in grade school.

It was like he had never grown.

‘Have you got any?’ Matthew said.

‘Any what?’

‘Blocks of wood.’

‘Yeah,’ Lukas said, and started. He walked behind Matthew, between him and the car, and along to the end of the bench, where he bent over and started looking through something on the ground.

As walked away, Matthew was aware of the deep curve in the small of Lukas’ back with the singlet bunched up in it. And below this, the sudden outward curve of his arse.

Matthew frowned and turned his head away.

‘Here,’ Lukas said, handing him a couple of blocks of wood. ‘There’s more,’ he said and walked back again.

Lukas bent over, and Matthew felt the beginnings of a tickle in his groin.

The bench was too high for Lukas and Matthew had to give him a leg-up. He saw the pink inside of Lukas’ arse. He smelt soap. And then Lukas was sitting on the wood, with his legs apart, straddling either side of the vice.

The padlock was small, but not that small. He could probably get his balls out of it, Matthew thought. It wasn’t like it was cutting off the blood flow or anything.

‘Have you tried to squeeze them out of there?’

Lukas bent his head forward. ‘No.’

‘You probably could, you know?’

‘You think?’

Matthew grabbed the padlock without realising what he was doing. His hand slid along the underside of Lukas’ cock, his fingers touched his sack, and he let the thing go.

‘Turn it so it’s up straight,’ he said, his face growing hot. Lukas’ hair brushed the top of his head. ‘You need to put one leg up and sit on this side.’

Lukas put one runner on the edge of the bench, forming a deep hollow in one side of his groin.

‘And you’re going to have to lean right over so I can move the hacksaw under your…’ arse.

Lukas leant over and Matthew closed the padlock in the vice. Lukas’ balls were forced onto the top of it, stretched against the cool steel. Matthew wondered what it would feel like if he put the weight of his hand onto Lukas’ balls, the weight of his body. He could crush them he supposed, if he put all of his force into it.

‘Can I put this hand on your shoulder?’

Matthew said nothing, and felt Lukas’ hand tentatively grip his shoulder.

Without being able to help himself, Matthew raised his fingers and flicked Lukas’ balls.

‘Hey!’ and then, ‘Ow!’ as Lukas jerked backwards, his balls not following.

Matthew grinned. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t help it.’ But he kept his head down, and studied what Lukas had done. There were some scratches on the side of padlock, and a nick of dried blood where Lukas had cut himself.

It was hardly a cut. He had barely broken the skin.

Matthew picked up the hacksaw and realised he was going to have to touch Lukas’ sack. He put his fingertips out and pushed it to one side, gently forcing Lukas’ balls aside and feeling a soft warmth, yielding under his touch. He held them there.

He positioned the blade and started to saw, feeling his erection grow rock hard in his jeans, uncomfortably trapped. A shudder of vibrations began to travel through the bench, through the vice, through the padlock.

‘Oh shit,’ Lukas said, his cock lengthening a bit, though he must have been trying to control it.

‘What?’

‘It doesn’t feel good.’

Matthew supposed it wouldn’t, but he said nothing and concentrated on what he was doing.

‘It feels like you’re going to saw my balls off.’

Matthew allowed himself a smile, and then he realised that he could do this, that Lukas was trapped and would have no say in it if he chose, though he would obviously scream. What would it feel like, though? Matthew realised that he could slip, that three or four hard passes with the saw would probably be enough. Lukas would fall backwards, and clutch at his shoulder, suddenly released from the vice. His balls would slide forward in their severed sack, and roll off the front of the vice, sliding down Matthew’s T-shirt and jeans, trailing blood and landing on the floor where Matthew might step on them, accidentally, grinding them into the garage floor, as though he didn’t know what he was doing, while he was trying to help Lukas out, slipping on his balls, and leaving a bloodied padlock propped up in the vice, a padlock propped up there days later when Lukas returned from the hospital, a eunuch for life, his balls irreparably crushed under the soles of Matthew’s shoes.

People would think it was an accident.

Blood would spurt out of Lukas’ severed groin, spurt over Matthew’s T-shirt, onto his arms, his face, his hair. There would be blood in his eyes.

The worst thing was that Lukas would forgive him. Even if he thought it wasn’t an accident, Lukas would agree that it was. If Matthew said so.

Matthew might lean forward and put his mouth into the wound, might push Lukas backwards on the bench and force his legs apart, might have Lukas’ jerking thighs clamped around his head while he thrust forward with his tongue, driving forward and stretching with his tongue for Lukas’ severed cords as they recoiled into his body, thrusting his chin forward, his lips in bloody gore, sucking it, sucking come, and driving his mouth deep into Lukas’ body to explore his open, bloodied hole as though Lukas were a…

A shiver travelled through the length of Matthew’s body and his head jerked spasmodically.

‘Shit,’ he said, and stood back for a moment, inspecting what he had done. He had barely made a dent in the thing. He inspected the blade again and realised that it was hopeless. The thing was blunt.

There was a sudden clank. An unexpected sound. A shuddering echoed. And the garage door at the far end began to open.

‘Shit, my dad!’ Lukas said.