The New World

He was only half changed when he fled the cage. Fur still needed to grow, his limbs weren't all the way changed and his tail was still forming from a strange skinless little tentacle, but he needed to escape. Finally the screams of horror and shock that Roderick had longed for were filling the room.

Matteo let out a high-pitched yelp of pain and fear as he ran clumsily and changed. He broke the flimsy wooden door with stiff forelegs and ran into a moonlit hallway. He looked like a wolf the size of a horse with strange reddish fur.

He burst through a window of thick bubbled glass, whining as the glass cut lacerations on his muzzle and chest. The wolf found himself in the middle of eighteenth century London. Carts and carriages filled the gaslamp-lit streets. The air was thick with the reek of humanity and horses and dogs and the whale oil that they burned in the gaslamps.

Matteo yelped with fear and ran down the narrow cobbled streets towards the ocean. He was a strong swimmer, he knew that if he could get to the water he could escape.

He had gotten to where he could smell the thick salty reek of fish and refuse from the sea when a member of the royal guard finally spotted him and aimed his big-belled musket at the huge apparition. The muskets were terribly inaccurate and it was amazing that he hit the wolf at all, considering the distance between them.

Matteo ki'yi'd with agony and limped as fast as he could. His flank was now filled with half a dozen burning pellets of lead and blood splattered the cobblestones in drops the size of pennies. Matteo ran into the shipyards and leapt into the water with a clumsy splash.

The water was filthy with trash and rancid oil and dishwater, and one of Matteo's legs was useless and spasming from the gunshot wound. He swam feebly, whining and trying to get away from the docks. The fog obscured his vision and the water stunk too badly for him to smell anything but dead fish. He swam in feeble circles until he knocked into the hull of a massive ship. The ship was moving; somehow the currents had swept him out to sea.

Matteo knew he had to get on the ship, or die. He couldn't get on as a wolf, and he couldn't change into a human. A rope was dragging from the mooring on the side of the ship; some lazy or incompetent dock-hand had not rolled it up tight enough.

With the very last of his strength, the scrawny wolf dog-paddled to where he could grasp the rope in his jaws. The ship tugged him along, and he only paddled as much as he needed to, enough to keep his salt-stung nostrils above the lapping waves of saltwater.

---

It was a miracle that no sharks found him in that long night. He was wounded and bleeding into the water, and yet in the morning he was untouched. The sun burned through the fog to find a small redheaded boy who had wrapped the rope under his arms and was lying limp in the ropes cradle. The boy was malnourished and weak from loss of blood.

The ship was full of factory-made English goods on their way around the Atlantic triangle. The first stop was England, where the ships imported goods from the Americas, such as sugar, timber, rum, indigo dye, and raw materials. Factory-made goods were loaded onto the ship where it would go to it's second stop in what is now Cuba. There it would drop off timber and textiles and pick up sugar and molasses and rum. Then on the last stop, in modern day Virginia. There they would drop off rum and textiles while picking up timber and dye and other raw goods.

In this early hour, only four sailors were on deck. Two were in the sails like monkeys, checking and double-checking the ropes and rivets. One was mending a sail with a needle as long as a man's middle finger and as thick as a pencil. The third was the cook, and he was swabbing the decks.

The cook looked over the side and he saw the small stowaway. Then and there, he made a decision that would save Matteo's life.

---

Matteo woke up naked on his stomach in a tiny cramped room, and he wasn't alone. For a moment he was flooded with terror, but we was too weak to make any kind of uproar, and he realized that the other man was helping him.

He whimpered feebly when the large cook dug around in his scrawny buttock with a bone needle, but a moment later a jagged lead pellet came out and he placed it in a tiny bloody tray.

"Guess your awake now, boy."

The man spoke in English, but it was so heavily accented that Matteo thought he was speaking a strange language he had never heard. The cook was a big Scots-Irishman, and he was also the ship's surgeon. Lucky for Matteo, he was one of the few surgeons at the time who thought that the practice of 'bleeding' a patient was utter quack.

Matteo looked around, dazed. He was in a tiny triangular chamber with a massive roll of rope to keep him company. The roll of rope was wet and wound tight around a thick spindle. It was the slack rope from the Anchor, and on deck a lever would cause it to unspool. He was in the tiny chamber where the rope was kept for long journeys where the anchor was not used. On long journeys, no one would ever go in here. He realized immediately that for some reason, the big blonde man was keeping him a secret.

"What's your name?"

The boy looked at him uncomprehendingly.

"Just settle down for a moment."

The cook removed every pellet from the boy's ass and cleaned it with a shot of gin poured over the wound. At the alcohol Matteo spasmed with pain and had to bite his forearm to stop from crying out. The cook wrapped his thick powerful arms around him and shushed him quietly when he moaned from the pain. At first Matteo cringed a little from the man's touch, but then he realized how much he had craved it after months of being treated like a diseased animal.

The cook wrapped a wool blanket around Matteo and gave him a leather water bottle and a chunk of hard biscuit.

"Stay. Don't leave this spot."

He gestured with his hands, miming not leaving the room. Matteo nodded, he understood. Before the cook left the fragile hollow-eyed boy took the cook's large hand in his small clammy ones. He kissed the cook's hand and looked up at the man with pure gratitude.

"Your welcome." The cook said softly.

---

Three hours later the cook returned. He came with his hands filled with small gifts. Gifts that made Matteo weep with joy. A small cake of soap, a comb, a biscuit, a shirt! Gifts that restored his humanity.

"Couldn't find any pants, no one had a spare pair that I could take. It was hard enough taking the shirt without looking suspicious."

Matteo didn't understand him, but his joy and gratitude were universal and he embraced the man, his savior. It was when the man began breathing heavily, and moved so he could pin Matteo to the floor that the young man understood.

In the pack there had been a few male-male relationships. In a pack with twenty-two men and eight women it was inevitable. Some were real and loving, others were just an outpouring of sexual energy. Matteo was a virgin, but he had messed around with another boy in the pack. He knew it didn't hurt you, it wasn't poison.

He remembered that Ivan, the boy who's thick cock he had stroked to a climax, had been one of the first downed by the arrows. Tears filled his eyes as the cook began to use his body. The cook had no finesse, he didn't seduce, but at least he was gentle.

First the cook pushed him so he was on his back on the blanket. Matteo knew what he wanted, so he spread his slender thighs for the man. The cook looked surprised, but grateful that he wouldn't have to tussle with a frightened, uneducated boy.

"Glad to know that you know what to do." He whispered, rubbing Matteo's inner thigh in a clumsy effort to make the boy feel good.

Matteo had lost too much blood to sustain an erection, so he lay lifeless under the man, as he proceeded in a methodical way to take the young man's virginity.

He knelt between Matteo's legs and stroked himself until he was hard. Then he greased his long skinny cock with a handful of lard. Matteo winced a little when the cold grease touched his sensitive little asshole.

The cook was very slow and gentle when he invaded Matteo's virgin ass. His cock was pretty thin and well-greased so it didn't hurt other than a general soreness afterwards.

After heaving over Matteo and swearing softly for about five minutes, Matteo felt a hot spurt of liquid inside him. He felt nothing but gratitude for the man, and a faint distaste for the sex, which had been bland and frank. They weren't anything but business partners after all. Sex for this tiny chamber. Sex for the blankets and stolen rations. Most importantly, sex so he would never have to end up in Roderick's cage.

Bad sex was worth that.

*I will be writing about three story lines at all times, right now I am working on The New World, The Boy from the Sea, and Shy Jared. Please comment on any mistakes I made. Thank you!*