The Brotherhood

"Yes, yes. It is as you say," Alfons whimpered with a groan.

But when Paul had released his seed again, Alfons rolled out from underneath him with a grunt, dove back into the pond and swam swiftly to the other side. Paul sat on the opposite bank, watching the young man hurriedly put his clothes back on and mount the mare.

"Just ask for Father Paul's church in Missinger," he called out to Alfons as the young man rode away. "Anyone in the village can tell you where to find me. I can offer you a comfortable bed and all of the 'this' that you would want."

* * * *

Once Alfons entered the forest of Höllewald the warnings of the innkeeper's wife came back to him and he very well could understand that the forest was haunted and cursed. The old mare he was riding seemed to understand that as well and became more skittish as they moved deeper in the woods, with the gray trees with gnarled trunks and branches blotting out the sky and the air becoming increasingly fetid. He would have missed the monastery of Die Bruderschaft all together if the mare hadn't stopped, laid her ears down, and backed up, with a wild look in her eyes. He slid off her and pulled on her reins to no avail. Looking around to see what could be spooking her, he saw the monastery.

The gray stone walls of what was more a moated fortress than a religious institution blended into the gloomy aspect of the forest. The trail, such as it was, went right past the edge of the moat, giving those inside a clear view of any travelers trying to use this path through the forest, while the traveler, especially when the day was misty as it was today, could pass immediately beside the structure and hardly be aware it was there. This gave the monastery effective control over those who came and went through the forest. Indeed, Alfons thought, there surely could be no other path through the forest, which was more swamp than forest, the path he had been taking running along the top of a rise from the surrounding marshy area under the trees.

He could think of only one way to get the mare to proceed to the monastery, where he had been told to stop for the night, let alone pass it by. He pulled his tunic over his head and wrapped it around the mare's eyes so that she was blinded. Having done that, she became docile and he approached the monastery, looking for an entrance. As he was studying the blank wall with the fetid moat, covered with floating moss, between the wall and the path, he heard the sound of a thump and saw that a drawbridge had been lowered, not in the front wall of the structure, but at the side, near the front edge. A tall, thin, gaunt, and bald-headed man in a brown monk's habit and barefoot walked out of the monastery and across the drawbridge. He turned, looked at Alfons, showing no surprise that there was a visitor, and motioned for the young man to approach.

The young man did so, studying the monk as he came closer—and noticing that the monk was studying him closely also, with a sly look on his face that Alfons recognized in the faces of men who used him in the tavern. Alfons felt naked, having stripped off his tunic, and he flinched when he came up to the monk to receive, in a greeting, not anything spoken nor a hand gesture of any sort, but an intense, hooded gaze from the monk and the monk's hand gliding intimately up the young man's bare chest.

Alfons stepped back, in surprise and embarrassment, released his tunic from the mare's eyes, and slipped it back down over his torso.

"My name is Alfons, from Rottenburg," he said in a nervous voice. "I have been summoned to Türbingen by Count Franz, who said lodging for the night was arranged for me here. This is the monastery of Die Bruderschaft, is it not?"

The monk, not showing any apology for having touched Alfons intimately, merely nodded agreement—agreement of what in the words Alfons had said, the young man wasn't sure—and used hand motions to indicate that Alfons was to bring his horse and enter the monastery. The elaborate signaling the monk provided and the fact that Alfons found he could easily understand what the monk was conveying told Alfons that the monks here must have some sort of vow of silence and had become experts in signaling their messages. The gestures included the admonishment that he was expected to maintain silence as well.

This didn't make Alfons comfortable—and the intimate touch of the monk had made him quite uncomfortable, although it was little different than he was subjected to at the inn—but there was no other choice. After his recent encounter with the priest named Paul, Alfons's understanding of what men dedicated to God did and didn't do. He know knew that they had desires as any man did. He was no longer confident that he would make it through the night here without being in some man's bed. To this, though, he just sighed and continued into the monastery. If he had learned anything over the last few months, it was that he was powerless and at the whims of the desires of men—but that he didn't mind lying with most men he had serviced. He certainly hadn't minded writhing under the priest named Paul.

The night was coming on, and this was where he had been told to break his journey to Türbingen. These were monks. What harm could come to him here that wasn't in his lot already to endure? Still, he shuddered as he was guided over the drawbridge, as the monk walked closely beside him and had a hand on the small of his back. It was almost as if the monk knew that Alfons lay under men for money. Somehow Alfons thought that perhaps his room and board for the night here would be considered a substitute for money.

Inside the monastery compound, he was met by other monks. No questions were asked or signaled about why he was here. He indeed seemed to have been expected. With that, though, Alfons was afraid that they had also been told what he would do for a man, and he briefly wondered if his fears were justified—that he might be expected to lie under a man—or men—this night. Surely not, he thought, though, in his internal struggle. These were religious men. But then, he thought again, so was Paul the priest.

A couple of monks led the mare off to the stable, after having found that they needed to cover her eyes to coax her to move. Alfons, embarrassed, had retrieved and pulled his tunic over his head. The monk who had welcomed him at the gate and another, evidently senior monk, as he was directing the others, ushered Alfons into a guard house just inside the gate, where the tall, gaunt monk handed him a folded monk's habit. The senior monk gestured for Alfons to put the habit on—and to strip himself of everything else he was wearing. Everything. He was to wear just the habit, with nothing underneath it and nothing on his feet. The two monks scrutinized Alfons closely as he stripped and put the habit on.

He was then led up stone stairs set against the wall and into the upper story of a cloister rimming the monastery courtyard on three sides and two tiers. The main monastery building was at one end of the courtyard and the cloisters fanned out on either side of that to form two sides of the courtyard square. As they walked down the passageway, Alfons could see that small, stone-walled rooms were set between the cloister and the outer walls. These evidently were monks' cells.

Alfons was escorted to one of these, shown, with hand gestures the stone platform with the quilt on top of it that was to be his bed and the water jar in one corner and the piss pot in the other. He was left there, and when the two monks backed out of the cell, they closed the wooden door. He heard the sound of the key turning in the lock of the door on the other side. There was a small window in the cell, with bars set in it, and he could see that twilight was setting in. He had made his way to the monastery none too soon.

It wasn't long before the cell door opened and the monk—the first one he'd seen, the gaunt one of indeterminate age, but probably double Alfons's age—who apparently was assigned as Alfons's attendant, entered with a tray of food and a flask of wine. The food was basic, but it was better fare than Alfons was given at the inn unless he was dining with a patron as a foreplay act to being covered by the patron. The wine was particularly delicious—and intoxicating—and the more he drank, the more mellow and sleepy he became until he barely was able to stagger to the stone platform before collapsing onto the quilt into a deep sleep.

* * * *

Alfons slowly came back into consciousness to the sound of far-off chanting. The cell was in total darkness save for slightly less darkness around the barred window. They'd left him a lighted candle, but that had sputtered out. He didn't become fully conscious—just enough to be aware of thoughts. He thought that it must be some time of a daily office or mass in the monastery because he could hear the chanting coming up from the chapel, but he wasn't particularly religious himself, so the chanting was no clue to the time of evening or night. He felt mellow and without worries—just floating along.

It didn't worry him even when he cell door opened and figures filtered into the room. A few of them had torches. They were all humming. They wore black habits tonight whereas in the daylight they had worn brown. They were barefoot. The habits weren't really like normal monks' habits, though, he realized in looking at them. They were spilt in front, down to below the belly, and in the candlelight he realized that they opened at the chest enough to see the men's torsos. They were all lean and muscular. And the openings went down to where Alfons could discern the dark-haired men from the blonds from the strawberry blonds from the color of the men's pubic hair. The monk signaling directions to the others was the same senior monk from earlier in the day. His chest hair and pubic hair was laced with gray. The gaunt monk was there too—black haired below although bald on top—and, although gaunt, he was sinewy with tight muscles.

Believing in his haze that the men had come to use him, as had vaguely happened in the drugged dream he was having when they came into the cell, Alfons sighed in resignation, lifted the hem of his monk's cassock to his waist, and spread and bent his legs, arranging himself for the first of the monks to come in between his thighs. But that didn't happen; one of the monks pulled his cassock back down over his legs and another one was behind him, grasping him under the shoulders.

The gaunt monk and another, younger one, lifted Alfons from the stone platform and carried him between them out into the cloister, down the stairs, and past the chapel, which was open but inexplicably dark—the chanting had not been coming from here—and down circular stairs in a tower. Down, down, down.

Some slight thought deep in Alfons's mind was telling him that he should have a concern about why he was being carried away from his cell and where they were going, to what purpose. But the monks had not used him in his cell, so, in his muddled state, he didn't think he had concerns of that sort. He was still under the influence of the drug that had been in his wine—and, mercifully would be so through the time of the ritual and until sometime after he was returned, moaning, to his cell.

The chamber he was taken to was deep underground. The walls, floor, and vaulted ceiling were of stone block. The chamber was lit, more at the center than in the recesses, by torches hung on the columns holding up the ceiling. The center of the chamber was marked off with a circular pattern of mosaic tiles, with the image of a horned goat in the center. Incense burners were pumping a haze into the air. At one end of the chamber a dais, topped by a large, gold throne, rose up from the floor. Two muscular men, holding spears, butted to the floor, stood on either side of the throne. Their bodies were naked and oiled, gleaming in the torchlight. They wore goat-head masks.

The throne was occupied by another man, obviously the high priest for this ritual. He had a black robe on similar to those of the monks who had come for Alfons, but it was fully open and he was naked underneath. His body was magnificent and he was in erection. He too wore a horned goat mask, but his was gold in contrast to those of the guards, which were painted white.

A second obviously senior figure, also in a black robe open to show a beautiful body with reddish hair and wearing a gold horned goat mask, stood on a platform at a three o'clock position across the circle from the throne platform. He stood there throughout the ceremony, arms folded across his chest, observing all, but remaining above all.

In the center of the chamber, other monks, dressed as Alfons's escorts were, were moving around in a circle, looking to be in a trance. They were the source of the chanting, usually words of no language Alfons knew—or would have known.

His escort carried him to a position across the circle from the throne, at a six o'clock position from that platform. Here there was another platform, with a frame standing on it, and golden chains hanging down from the ceiling in front of it. Still under the influence of the drug in his wine, Alfons showed no concern—although he should have—as the monks' robe he'd been wearing was pulled over his head, leaving him naked. His arms were extended out from his sides and lashed with golden rope to the arms of the frame. His legs then were raised and spread and fastened to the golden chains hanging down from the ceiling. He was trussed now, his torso pinned to the frame and his legs spread and extended to the side, his buttocks parallel to the floor, although slightly raised above his chest so that his pelvis was readily accessible for what every man in the chamber save one was going to do with him over the next two hours.

Now Alfons was getting an inkling of what his function was to be in this primitive ritual—and he understood why he hadn't been sexually taken in his cell.

The high priest on the throne was the first one who fucked Alfons in what was obviously a periodic ritual of the monks of Die Bruderschaft—of the Brotherhood—and when he did, the mystery of why Alfons was here, why he'd been brought here to the monastery in the middle of the foreboding forest where young men entered and were often never were seen again, was revealed to him.

The high priest stood up from his throne, his erection cruelly upturned, his body covered in swirling patterns of curly black hair. He signaled to his two guards, who commenced working their cocks to rock hard too. He descended from the dais and walked across the chamber, through the center of the circle, where monks parted for him but then returned to their shuffling and chanting with renewed vigor and volume. He walked to the platform Alfons was bound on, mounted the steps, moved between Alfons's spread thighs, grabbed Alfons's legs under his knees to spread his legs further, thrust inside Alfons's anus with a cruel, deep upward stroke of his cock, and immediately began plowing him hard. Alfons cried out in pain and violation, but he was trained to the cocks of men, and soon he settled down and took the cock as a trained whore would, without objection and moving his pelvis in rhythm to the stroke.

He also was familiar with this particular cruel cock.

The high priest moved a hand to Alfons's cock and stroked him in synch with the stroking of the cock inside him. At some point he let the horned goat mask drop away and all was answered for Alfons. The high priest of Die Bruderschaft was, of course, Count Franz von Türbingen. Alfons wasn't needed in Türbingen. He was needed right here, to serve a periodic ritual of Die Bruderschaft. And chances were good, since the legend was that young men entered the wood and didn't leave it and there had been no rumors of the ritual at this monastery, that Alfons wouldn't be leaving here either. He could only hope that it was because the sacrifices were turned into monks rather than they were fucked to death and dropped in the moat. Thanks to the drug in the wine, though, Alfons didn't really care. He had been trained to the cocks of men and had come to want them inside him. He had been trained to take this cock; this cock had claimed his anal virginity.

On this night, in this ritual, he had the cock of every man in the chamber in him save that of the priest standing apart at the side and observing all. Von Türbingen plowed him until he brought Alfons to an ejaculation and then he released his seed deep inside the young man's channel. He stood aside, and Alfonso found that the two guards had taken up position behind Von Türbingen, and each took his piece of Alfons. As they were done, they joined the circle, where the debauchery among the monks commenced. As each monk from the circle climbed the platform, he tossed off his black habit, fucked Alfons, and then joined a group fuck in the circle. As the ritual advanced fewer monks in the circle were wearing black habits and more were writhing around on the floor having at each other. The ritual was over when no one in the chamber save the silent observer was wearing a black habit and all other men were sexually exhausted—Alfons no less than any of the others.

There was some sort of closing ceremony that Alfons was too far gone to follow and then the monks were donning their habits again, Alfons's escort released him from the frame, and he was carried back to his cell.

In the night, Alfons's own moans causing him to slowly awaken, as the drugs wore off and the reality of having taken the cocks of so many men began to catch up with him, Alfons felt the weight of yet another man cover him. Alfons tried to roll from under the man covering him and he did make it to the floor and a step toward the closed cell door, but a strong grip latched onto his wrist and drew him back to the platform, His body completely conquered, Alfons could do nothing but moan his capture. Laying Alfons on his belly on the quilt-covered stone platform, the towering figure tossed off his black habit—but not his mask—stretched out on top of Alfons, skewered him, and covered and fucked the young man until exhaustion and sleep had overtaken Alfons.

* * * *

Alfons had no idea if someone was aiding him for some unknown reason or if this was a game the monks were playing and that he'd be captured and put through the ritual again—possibly fucked to death this time. When he woke, he found he was alone and that the cell door was open a crack. It was still dark out. He scurried down the cloister to the sound of silence throughout the monastery, expecting to be caught and toyed with at any moment.

He had no trouble finding where the old mare was stabled. He had no trouble lowering the drawbridge. The mare was more than happy to be leaving the monastery. Once outside the monastery walls, he mounted the mare. He had escaped—at least for now. The effect of the sudden release of nervous tension combined with the exhausting ordeal he'd been through, though, caused him to collapse into an exhausted coma across the neck of the horse. When he woke again, he was on the edge of the forest but just outside it. He was lying on the ground next to the mare, which was grazing in a meadow.

It took him several minutes to realize that the mare had brought him back out of the forest in the direction of Rottenburg, not on the other side, where he'd been heading—not to Türbingen. There was a moment of panic when he thought that he wasn't where he was supposed to be—that both his master and Count Franz had determined that he would arrive in Türbingen at the count's side today. Then at least snatches of the previous night's events, rising into his consciousness through what had been a drugged haze at the time, alerted him that there had been no intention of him arriving in Türbingen. All along the count, who also was the High Priest of Die Bruderschaft—the Brotherhood—had only meant him to reach as far as the monastery.