Free A Question of Manhood by Robin Reardon

time, “what’s the answer?”
    Anthony whimpered, sobbed once or twice, and finally whispered, “Two.”
    â€œEh? Speak up, Tony. I can’t hear you. What was that you said?”
    Anthony tried to take a deep breath and obviously failed, but he managed to say, “Two,” a little louder.
    Marty sat back, took another puff of the cig, observed Anthony for several seconds, and then slowly reached for the dagger. After he’d dragged out the suspense as long as he could, he handed the dagger to me. “You know what you have to do.”
    Now, Marty had written “R” before he asked this, so I knew I was to cut some rope. I also knew that Marty was trying to make Anthony think he’d made the wrong choice and that Marty had decided to give me the honor of cutting more clothing. But I wasn’t in the mood for delaying agony, so I was going to cut Anthony’s right hand loose.
    Before I got close to the rope, though, Marty called to me, “Not all of it, Paul. Just cut maybe an eighth of the way through. After all,” and his voice was silky, “we seem to have more clothing than we have ropes. We want to be fair, don’t we?”
    Marty had written “R” again before I sat down, and he called out, “What’s one plus two?”
    Anthony gritted his teeth, probably feeling a little encouraged that Marty had kept his word on that last one and had cut rope. But the secret wasn’t in the right answer. It was in the right choice. “Five.”
    I looked at Marty, whose face was pursed into fake disappointment. “Oh, Tony. Too bad, kid.” Marty stubbed his cig out in the dirt, reclaimed the dagger from me, and moved slowly over to the tree. Anthony looked anxious but not terrified, which was probably too bad for him. Marty stared at his face, then squatted down in front of him.
    â€œNo!” Anthony found his voice. His head jerked, and the snotty sleeve fell to the ground.
    â€œHa!” Marty shouted. “Wrong answer again!” He grabbed a handful of cloth right over Anthony’s groin, and the gasp I heard told me that Marty had also grabbed a handful of flesh. Very, um, sensitive flesh. He pinched his fingers together hard, working the cloth slowly away from what was undoubtedly Anthony’s dick, and then he lifted the dagger.
    Anthony wasn’t whimpering any longer. He was crying, now, crying out, sobbing and begging. “Please! Please don’t! Stop it! What do you want?”
    And to my surprise, Marty stopped. He let go of Anthony, lowered the arm with the dagger, and stood up. “You’re hard as metal in there, Tony. Do you know that? Your puny little dick is all excited. I think it’s enjoying this.”
    Anthony’s eyes widened and his mouth hung open. “No!” was all he could say. “No!”
    â€œOh, but I think it is. Just look.” Marty stepped back and to one side. “Paul, do you see that?”
    And Marty was right. Anthony had a boner. There was no denying it. Marty leaned toward him. “Tony? Is there something you haven’t told us?” Anthony just shook his head, desperate to understand, probably willing to do anything Marty said if it would get him out of this. “Oh, I think there is.” Marty reached forward and with the flat side of the dagger he slapped a few times at Anthony’s boner. Anthony flinched with every touch. Then Marty worked the blade up and down, sliding over the bulge and along the fly, then picked at the edge of the cloth with the metal point.
    I can only imagine what Anthony was going through. But I’d had enough. “Look, Marty, I think we’ve got what we wanted.” Marty turned to look at me, and I got a hint of what he’d been boring into Anthony. It scared the shit out of me. But I couldn’t let this go on. “Just shove the snot rag down his back and we’ll cut him loose. We can dump him