Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 23:21:26 -0500
From: Thomas Carver <thomascarveriii@gmail.com>
Subject: The Reeducation of Thomas Carver -- Part 1 of 2

The Reeducation of Thomas Carver: Part I

[Note: This is plot-driven, frequently somewhat dark, and a bit
dialogue-heavy.  It covers a gamut of fetishes including kidnapping,
degradation, humiliation, watersports, philosophy, and occasional sex.
Please don't use it as a guide to action.  This is entirely fiction.  As
far as you'll ever know.]

I

	I had been wrestling with this idiot for three days.  And it looked
like tomorrow I'd wake up and wrestle with him some more.
	"I need your numbers," I said, dispensing with pleasantries.
	He stared up at me, doughy face and splotchy cheeks.  "Oh, hey,
Tom, yeah, the numbers.  I'll have them to you by three."
	"Three when?  Because I doubt it'll be three today.  It wasn't
three yesterday.  It wasn't three the day before."
	He laughed.
	"I wasn't joking, Dave.  If I don't have your numbers by -- fuck
it, two days ago, then the quarterly report is late.  And that means I lose
my fucking job, Dave, and if I lose my fucking job because of your lazy
ass, I won't just take your career down with me.  I'll take you down with
me.  And by that I mean I'll kneecap you, Dave.  Do you know about
kneecapping?  It's when you put a gun against the back of your knee and
. . . "
	And so I ended up in anger management class, with a two week
vacation to follow.  And certainly no promotion anywhere on the horizon for
me.
	Class taught me a lot of things about active listening, which means
nodding when someone spouts hippy bullshit in your face.  Then I went home
and had a nice vacation to look forward to.
	On the second day of my nice long vacation I decided to do some
real therapy for anger, and go fishing.  I hadn't done it in ages, so I got
some bait and drove out to this farm I used to go to, chatted with the
farmer a bit, paid him a crisp fifty, drank his wife's lemonade, and spent
the whole goddamned morning and much of the afternoon pretending to fish by
the river while killing a prodigious quantity of beer.
	On the way home, I felt a hell of a lot less angry.  And a little
buzzed from the beer.  You can drink a lot of beer in an afternoon, and I'm
the sort of guy who plans ahead.  In fact, I figured, why not take
advantage of the lowered inhibitions and have a real vacation?  I lived
alone, so I called my neighbors from the car.  "Can you watch my house for
me?" I asked.  "I'm going out of town."
	"Sure."
	And that was that.  Fuck packing, fuck planning.  I hit the
interstate and found myself, sobering off and having second thoughts,
somewhere in Michigan.
	To refresh my courage, I pulled into the parking lot of one of
those bars with a wooden porch and a light that says "Bar."  I drank with a
few depressed looking Michiganers, Michigonears, or something.  They mostly
ignored me, except for two somewhat out-of-place skuzzy street-kids who
kept taking turns staring at me every time I stood up.  I gave them the
"sup" eye roll, and they looked away, and one put on his sunglasses.
	Hey, I thought.  I have a half a tank of gas, I'm -- some miles --
from Chicago, it was nighttime, and that jackass was wearing sunglasses.
Hit it.
	It was still hours before closing, but if I hit the road now I
could get to Illinois before dawn, have a chunk of Chicago deepdish that
was too manly to be called a slice, and then sleep.  I wasn't tired,
particularly, so why the hell not.  That's exactly what I did, pulling into
a rest stop right across the Illinois border to drain.
	On the way out from doing my business, I noticed that a white van
had pulled up to block me in to my spot.
	"Son of a bitch," I muttered, my anger coming back stronger than
before.  I banged on the driver's side door, but no one was in it, though
the engine was running.  I could hear voices coming from the back, so I
walked around and pounded my fist on the back doors.
	"Hey, asshole," I said, "You blocked me in, you dickhead.  I have
to get on the road."
	The doors flew open and two men poured out.  The surprise knocked
me back, and one of the men -- the smaller one of the two, a wiry guy
dressed all in black -- darted behind me and grabbed my wrists.  I had only
a brief glimpse of him, and for a moment I thought had a skull instead of a
face, but then I realized it was one of those face-kerchief things that
douchebags wear when biking or whatever.  The other guy, much larger than
Skull and just wearing a cheap ski-mask, shoved something in my ribs.
	I'm not ashamed to say I pissed myself.  I had never been tazed
before, and it wasn't the kind of thing that keeps you continent.  For a
long time, it seemed, I had no control of my body.  They shoved a cloth bag
over my head -- it smelled like a locker room -- and crammed me into the
back of the van.  The big bull of a man sat on my chest, and the little one
tied my wrists.  Someone else drove.
	When I could breathe again and didn't think I was dying, I tried to
struggle, only to get a boot to my rib from -- I assume -- Skull.
	"Stay the fuck still, asshole, or you'll eat more electricity,"
Bull said on top of me.  I could feel his body move as he laughed.
	"Should do it anyway," Skull said.  His voice was higher.  He
sounded young.  "He wiggled like a fucking fish.  Fucking hilarious."
	"Fucking pussy pissed himself."
	"Yeah, and you're sitting on it."
	"Yeah, well, he'll pay me back for that."
	"Oh, fuck yeah."  His hands grabbed my face through the bag.  I
could just see the outline of the skull through the weave.  "He's gonna be
a lot of fun."
	There's something kind of awful about the sound of masking tape
coming off its roll.  Skull wrapped it around my head, pushing the bag
against the whole top of my head above my nose.  I could breathe, still, of
course, but there was no chance in hell I'd see anything.
	They drove for about a half an hour, and I spent that time trying
to control my rage.  I didn't feel any fear, really -- just rage.  I wanted
to rip these fuckers apart for ruining my vacation.  But I was helpless.  I
was handcuffed, my legs were tied, and I was blind.  Worse, I had at least
two-hundred pounds of muscly idiot pressing a hard-on against my back.
	When they stopped, they picked me up like a rolled-up rug and
carried me out of the van and into a building of some sort, down a flight
of stairs, and then I heard a door.  People were talking upstairs.  There
were more than three of them, then.
	They sat me down, and a cold blade slid between the tape and my
temple.  They pulled the bag off.
	A young black man stood in front of me, Skull and Bull behind him.
I memorized his features, knowing that if I was going to get revenge it'd
come from being able to describe them to cops.  The young man had a scruffy
beard, short curly hair, and a scar on cheek like someone had once sliced
it with a dull blade.  He was wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt that
said "Christian Men's 5-K Charity Run."  He was smoking a cigarette and
stared at me calmly for a few seconds.
	"Process him," he said.  "I'll be back."
	He turned and left.
	Bull pulled off his mask.  He looked like a college football player
who had deliberately delayed graduating to play for another few years.  He
had shaved his head -- maybe because he was going bald -- but he still had
boyishly soft features.  His eyes were cold blue, though, and he did not
smile.  In fact, he didn't seem capable of it.  He was wearing gray
sweatpants and a hoodie.
	Skull, on the other hand, had long dirty blond hair, by which I
meant the hair was dirty, not that it was dirty blond.  He had a tattoo on
his neck.  Why did criminals get tattoos?  So stupid.  It made them really
easy to identify.  This one looked like a skeletal hand reaching up to his
face.  Ah.  A motif.  I wanted to rip it off his body, and maybe I would,
someday soon.  Make him fucking eat it.  He was wiry, like he had muscle
and bone without any fat.  He was dressed all in black, in some sort of
almost paramilitary shit that he looked like he got at a thrift store or
something.  Even the boots looked too big for him.
	"What do you guys want?" I asked.
	"We want you," Skull said, "to shut the fuck up and do as you're
told."
	"You can't do this to me."  Criminals didn't have a monopoly on
stupid.
	This time, when Skull jammed the stun-gun in my belly, I don't
think I pissed myself, but I did cry.  They put me back on the chair.
	"Ready to listen, asshole?" Bull asked.
	I nodded.  Christ, that hurt.
	"I'm going to take off your cuffs and manacles.  Those are the
cuffs on your feet."
	"I know what manacles are . . . "
	His meaty hand smashed, open palmed, against my cheek, rocking my
head back.  It wasn't a stun gun to the gut, but Jesus, that stung.  He
opened a drawer and pulled out a handgun.
	"If you talk again without being asked a direct question, I will
just shoot you.  We can dispose of your body.  No problem.  We've done it
before."
	That quieted me down.
	"Now," he said, "I'm going to take off the cuffs and manacles.
Then you're going to do everything you're told, no questions asked.  After
that, Adam will be back to give you the rundown.  Do you understand me?"
	I nodded again, and that seemed to satisfy him.  He gave the gun to
Skull and started undoing my cuffs.  "If he makes for the door or anything,
just take out one of his knee.  Or his balls."
	I stood up slowly, carefully rubbed my wrists, and didn't even look
at the door.
	"Take off your clothes," Bull said.  "Real slowly.  Throw each
piece on the ground in front of you, then nudge it toward me with your
foot.  Start with your shoes.  Do you understand?"
	"Yes."
	I did as I was told.  The room itself was a cinderblock basement (I
figured), painted in institutional green and gray.  It had an open shower
in one corner, a table and heavy metal chair with manacles on the arms on
this wall next to it, and a row of doors on one side.  At the other side of
the room was a disconcerting bed with leather restraints on the ends, like
one sees in a psychiatric ward.  It had some concerning stains, and it
looked like the legs and arm restraints were on separate parts that could
be moved about.  There was also a metal door in the wall, like the trash
chute in an apartment building, and as he took each item of my clothing and
removed any cash or valuables, he tossed it into the chute behind the door.
My shoes, my socks, my jeans ($200!) and my shirt.  Undershirt.  Underwear.
	It was cold down here naked, my feet bare on the cold cement floor.
	"Turn around, put your hands on the back of the chair, and bend
over," he said.  I saw Skull take a black nitrile glove from the table and
work his long fingers into it.
	"You're giving me a cavity -- ? Fuck, sorry, sorry, I didn't mean
to talk."
	I turned around and put my hands on the chair as ordered, and I
heard a tube of lube cough and spit obscenely behind me.  At least he was
using lube.
	"Relax," he said, and then giggled, which did not induce
relaxation.  His long fingers probed my asshole, and then he slid one in, a
single quick movement that made me gasp.
	"He got anything up there?" Bull asked.
	"Yeah, I think so."  The finger sawed and probed.
	"What?"
	"My finger."  Skull cracked up and pulled out of my ass, leaving me
gasping again.  The glove snapped off his hand, and I felt it slap against
my ass as he threw it.
	Skull put on a fresh pair of nitrile gloves, and picked up what I
thought was another stun gun for a moment.  I held my breath, then realized
it was an electric shaver.  "Bend back over."
	He ran it in my ass crack, then had me turn over and roughly shaved
off my pubic hair.  Fortunately, I didn't have much anyway.
	Why the hell would they want to shave off my ass and pubic hair?
Or, for that matter, do a cavity search?  Who the hell did they think I
was?
	I knew better than to ask.
	The door opened just as Skull was finishing yanking my balls this
way and that while he buzzed at them with the clippers, not being all that
careful if he nicked them.
	"Sit," he commanded, then ran the clippers over the hair on my
head, even my eyebrows.
	Great, now I'm sure I looked like a real idiot.
	The stairs were blocked from view of the room below by a thin wall,
but in a few moments the young man from before turned the corner.  He had
changed out of the incongruous t-shirt and jeans, and was wearing
trackpants and a plain white t-shirt bright below the mocha skin of his
face.
	The metal chair was cold on my ass.  Everything in the room was
cold on my everything, for that matter.
	"Finished?" he asked.
	"Yup," Skull said, putting down the clippers and taking off the
gloves.
	The young man addressed me.  He couldn't be over twenty years old.
How could he be in charge?  Bull was older than him, although maybe not
very smart.
	"My name, as far as you're concerned, is Adam.  You will never need
to know the names of my associates, of which there are a number.  What is
your name?"
	"Thomas.  Thomas Carver."
	"You'll probably never be called that name again."  He paused, but
I kept silent.
	"You are in a rather odd situation," he said.  He sounded like he
was imitating the villain in a bad movie, but his accent was Chicago suburb
-- not urban -- and his face was just too young.  "You are under my
control, and the control of my associates.  Are you an American?"
	That question took me back.  "Well, yeah.  Aren't you?"
	He didn't react to my question.  "Americans have rights, but you do
not.  Not any more.  You have obligations.  Requirements.  If you are good
and quick to obey and do not question what you are told to do, you might
gain privileges.  Or you might not.  If you are bad, by which I mean you do
not obey any of my associates -- which is to say anyone you will meet from
now until the undisclosed future, because if you're meeting them they're
mine -- you will be punished.  Privileges may be taken away.  Pain may be
administered.  Understood?"
	"Yes."
	"You've been hit with the stun gun.  You know that hurts.  That is
not even close to what we will do to you if we want to, understood?"
	"Yes."
	"You are not in control.  There is no contract here.  Understand
that.  If you obey, you may be granted privileges.  Or not.  You may be
punished for disobeying, or just for our amusement.  I'm afraid some of my
friends are a bit sadistic."
	"Okay," I said, but what I felt was boiling rage at this
humiliation.  It was stupid, puerile -- shaving my head?  Sticking a finger
up my ass?  My fraternity did worse than this to me.  And when I had the
slightest chance I was going to grab that gun off the table, or the knife,
or both, and butcher these fuckers and carry their fucking heads to the
cops.  They'd give me a fucking medal.
	"Do you have any questions?  That, by the way, is not something I
ask often.  Consider it your first privilege."
	"What is it you want from me?  Money?  'Cause that's pretty easy
and this can all be over quick."
	"I have quite a lot of money.  I don't need yours."
	"But what, then?"
	He just cocked his head a bit.  "So, we have just one last thing to
do before we can wrap up here," he said.
	Skull handed him the box of gloves and the tube of lube.  "We need
to do a cavity search," he said.
	"But he just did that."
	Immediately, Bull stepped forward and grabbed my arms, pulling me
down over the chair.  "Wrong fucking thing to say," he growled.
	"I told you," Adam said, handing back the tube of lube without
using it, "that if you obeyed and did not ask questions or make demands,
you might get privileges, but if you did not obey, if you questioned any of
us, for anything, you would be punished."  He roughly held my ass-cheeks
apart, spat between them, and started pushing his fingers -- not just one,
but at least two, maybe three -- into my hole.  Fortunately, some lube
remained from before.  But it still hurt.
	"You didn't listen.  You are one stupid piece of shit," he said,
pushing his fingers into my asshole.  "Stupid.  Because now you're starting
off with nothing.  Worse than nothing.  You're starting off -- " he pulled
his fingers out and shoved them immediately back in, "-- by making me -- "
and again, he thrusted, deeper this time, "-- angry."  At each thrust, I
gasped, and the last one was so hard and deep that I couldn't help crying
out a little.
	He pulled out, but Bull still held me.
	"Give me the stun gun," Adam said, his voice cold and not trying to
sound like a movie anymore.
	I wrenched against Bull, but he was too strong.
	"Take your fucking punishment," Adam said.  "Take it like a man
instead of a little whiny pussy."
	I couldn't help it.  This was my only chance.  But Bull was too
strong.  I could see the tent in his sweatpants.  This was turning him on.
	It was decidedly not turning me on.
	And then, Adam shoved the stun gun right against my wet asshole,
and I blacked out.

II
	I came to in a small room, again made of cinderblocks, but these
were painted black, with recessed lightning near the ceiling that dimmed
and brightened on an apparently random schedule.  There was a metal,
one-piece toilet in a corner -- thank God -- but nothing else in the room.
I was curled on the concrete floor, shivering.  They kept this room pretty
damned cold.  To warm up I stood, my asshole raw and burning, and walked
around the room.  I could walk across the room in four strides in each
direction.  That was it.  The door had a handle but didn't work for me.
I'd find out later it worked for them.  I had no idea why, although I
theorized that they had a chip or keycard or something that triggered the
mechanism.
	A black, small room is disorienting, and I didn't know how long I
was there.  The toilet and the door were the only two features of the room
to fix on.  The door had a small window, with a slider covering it on the
outside.  It was metal.
	I realized after a while I was hungry.
	It's hard to explain what happened next, because you can't convey
it in writing.  Imagine that you do not know what day it is, or if it is
day, or how much time is passing.  Nothing indicates where you are or when,
no sound from outside the room.  And you're hungry.
	Will you be fed?
	Or will you starve to death in this room?
	I mean, they had to feed me, right?  They wanted something from me.
	Or did they?  Bull said they'd kill me without a second thought.
	Who the hell were they?
	How long was I out?  For that matter, how long was I conscious?
	How much hungrier am I than I was?
	I'm really hungry.
	Will they feed me?  Or am I going to die here?
	They have to feed me, right?  They want something from me, don't
they?
	Do they?  How do I know that.
	Maybe they're just getting their jollies watching me die.
	Are they watching me?
	Yes, small round bumps in each corner.  The panopticon.
	I'm cold.
	I'm hungry.
	They have to feed me, right?
	I mean, they must want something, right?
	Right?
	You can just cut and paste that as many times as you like.  About
five hundred pages should do it.  You can always take a break to beg at the
little bumps in the corners, hoping they are cameras.
	Then you could cry for a while.
	Get angry.  Call the bumps names.
	Cry.
	Apologize.  Beg.
	Promise.
	Rage.
	Cry.
	Maybe, improbably, sleep -- or something like it.
	Then, finally, the little window opened.
	"Hey, here's the drill," Skull said.  "Back away from the door.
Turn your back to the door.  Put your hands on the wall with your fingers
spread above your head.  Spread your legs."
	I jumped up and did as I was told.
	The door opened, and I trembled with excitement.  Food?  I smelled
something, maybe.
	"Cavity search time," Skull said.
	Fuck.  What?
	"I -- I need to eat something.  I'm not questioning anything or
mouthing off, please, please don't say that I am.  I just -- so you know.
If you want to feed me, I need to eat something."
	"Food's a privilege, and bothering me with your fucking life story
isn't something you get privileges for, faggot.  Spread 'em wider."
	He shoved his finger up my ass, seemed to check the burns and put
something on them.  Or so I liked to think.
	I heard the glove snap off his hand.  "Good," he said.  "You were
too fucking talky, but you did what you were told.  Shut up next time, and
you might make one of us happy enough to do something nice for you."
	I wasn't going to beg.  My anger came back.  "Fuck you," I said,
"I'll just fucking starve, then."
	He didn't say anything, but the door closed.
	A bit later (I never know how much time passed between events, or
even if they're all in the right order, so just assume that things happened
about a hundred years apart, because that's what it felt like), I was still
telling myself that I told that asshole off just fine, and I would starve
to death, who the fuck cared, I wasn't even that hungry anymore.
	I realized I needed to piss.  I went to use the toilet, aimed at
the water, let loose a stream --
	And then rolled around on the floor clutching my dick.  It felt
like someone had kicked me in the nuts.  I moaned in pain, and I had pissed
all over myself and the floor when I fell back.  Fucking hell.  They had
electrified the toilet!  I had just shocked the hell out of my dick.  Why
the hell?
	Oh.
	Punishment.
	About a million years later (possibly a day, considering I was now
quite thirsty too -- which would kill me faster, cheerful thought), the
room smelling of the piss I had sprayed around when shocked, and my stomach
no longer hurting so much as giving up, the little window opened again.
	"Drill."  It was Skull again.
	I stood, a little lightheaded, and spread my fingers on the wall.
I was so cold my fingertips were numb, but I made them as straight as I
could.
	The door opened, and again I thought maybe I smelled food.  My
stomach started hurting again, as if reminded of the reality of starvation.
	The snap of a glove.  A finger up my ass.
	"Turn around."
	I did as I was told.  Skull was still dressed in his thrift-store
paintball paramilitary shit.  Pads on elbows and knees, all black.  "Do you
have anything you want to say to me?" he said.
	"I'm sorry," I said, in a voice I didn't even recognize as mine.
	"I do not accept your apology.  You pissed me off.  That's not
smart, faggot.  You're nothing to me.  I have nothing invested in you at
all.  If you live or die, so fucking what, it's just a body to bury."
	"I know.  I'm sorry."
	"Prove it."
	"I don't know -- I'm really not mouthing off, seriously -- I don't
know how you want me to prove it.  Tell me what to do."
	"Show me how sorry you are."
	I dropped to my knees, painful on the hard, cold concrete.
"Please, please accept my apology.  I know you don't have to, and I know
I'm worthless to you.  But please."
	"Maybe you could make yourself a little bit useful."
	"Yes, I'll do whatever I'm told.  I'm just so hungry."
	"My boot is scuffed.  Polish it."
	I went to rub it with my thumb, and he snorted.  "You are useless.
Not with your hand, dumbass."
	I didn't even hesitate.  I tried to rub my tongue on his boot, but
it was so dry, and I was so thirsty, I couldn't muster the saliva.
	"Look at me, faggot," he said.  "Open your mouth."
	I did was I was told.  He hawked obscenely and spat a large, thick
wad of phlegm in my mouth.
	"Roll that around and get your tongue wet."
	I gagged -- the grossest part was that my stomach woke up again,
feeling something thick and salty in my mouth, and I wanted to swallow it
and puke it up at the same time.  But I coated my tongue with it before
swallowing it, where my stomach seemed to regard it with cautious optimism
and mingled horror.
	I licked his boot for a few moments, rubbing my tongue on the
smooth black leather, and he snorted laughter down at me.
	"You are one pathetic faggot.  But you made me laugh, and that's
cool.  You get a choice.  You can have one privilege from me.  Either you
can have your toilet back, or you can have a bowl of oatmeal."
	"Oatmeal, oatmeal, oh god please oatmeal."
	He laughed at me again.  "Fuck, you are pathetic.  One minute
you're all 'I'll tear you apart you bastards' and the next you're all 'Let
me eat your snot, I'm just a worm.'"  With that, he left me there on my
knees, still muttering "oatmeal."
	But a few minutes later, he came back with, as he promised, a bowl
of cold, congealed oatmeal, at least a day old.  He dumped it out on the
floor, to mingle with my cold piss.  "You don't get the bowl.  That's
mine."
	Who the hell cared.  I ate it off the floor before he was even out
of the room, shoveling it in with my hands and then licking what remained
off the ground.
	And then, my stomach satisfied and, to some degree, my thirst as
well -- then, the shame hit.
	I had, as he said, eaten his snot, licked his boot, begged on my
knees, eaten off the floor, licked up my own drying piss.
	Shame, let me tell you, can be worse than a stun gun to the
asshole.  Shame doesn't fade.  It doesn't heal.
	Skull was right.  I wasn't as tough as I wanted to pretend.
	But shame can also be a gift, if you use it right.  Shame can be
the beginning of wisdom.  But that was a lesson that would come later.

 III
	So now I had food to eat off the floor periodically, but no
clothes, no toilet that didn't zap me when I pissed, and nowhere to sleep
but on the cold concrete floor.  Not that I could sleep, really, because it
seemed whenever I dozed off, it'd be time for a cavity search (why the hell
were they so interested in my asshole?) or Skull would scream "cardio" at
me until I ran around the room, while he slapped at my ass and laughed at
me.  Or sometimes, Bull would come in and kick me awake, without saying a
word.
	I figured out how to go to the bathroom.  I'd piss in my cupped
hands and drop it in the toilet, which prevented getting shocked.  Shitting
was harder, but I figured out I could scoop it up and do the same, if I
wasn't squeamish about my hands.  It was better than letting it stink, and
the toilet fortunately flushed itself.  I didn't have to touch it.  No long
term solution, but -- I may not have long term to worry about.
	I tried to figure out how long it'd been, but it could have been
weeks.  I figured out that I had taken several shits, but the stress would
have probably screwed up my regularity (even if the oatmeal did the
opposite).  I had eaten several times, but who the hell knows what sort of
schedule they were using.  Probably none at all.
	I figured maybe I had been in a week, but it was impossible to say.
	The sleep deprivation and caffeine withdrawal gave me a constant
headache and a sour stomach (eating off the filthy floor probably didn't
help that much, not to mention the smell in my cell).
	In fact, lack of sleep was screwing with my time sense, my mood,
and my ability to concentrate, not that it mattered since the most
interesting thing I had to concentrate on is throwing my own turds in a
toilet that wanted to Green Mile me.
	I was surprised, then, to find myself waking up.
	Not with a kick or a shout, or a finger up my ass, or suddenly in a
jerk on the cold floor, but genuinely waking up.  I hadn't slept long, but
I had slept.  What had woken me up was the sound of the door opening, and a
person I'd never seen before stepped through it.
	Frankly, he looked a bit like I felt: rough around the edges.  He
was dressed like one of the street kids that hang out at the train station.
He wore tight jeans worn soft by dirt and time, probably never washed, a
grimy t-shirt, a flannel shirt over it, and a filthy bandana around his
neck.  His greasy hair stood up in random spikes, and he had the sparse
beard of a 18 year old without the time or opportunity to shave often.  He
set his filthy sneakers gingerly on the floor, avoiding residue of food and
other crap.
	In my head, I named him Grunge.
	"Up," he said.  "Time for a shower."
	I got to me feet, swayed a bit, but got my balance.  Sleeping
seemed to have made some of my discomfort worse; maybe I was just more
aware of it.
	He held a stun gun and popped it a couple times as a warning.
	"I'm not putting the cuffs on you," he said, "so you can try
something if you want.  Or you can do what you're told and maybe find out
that your life doesn't have to suck this bad."
	"I'm meek as a kitten," I choked out.
	"Good.  You also stink like shit."
	From you that means something.  Did I say that aloud?  I wasn't
sure.
	If I did, at least it didn't hurt a shock or a punch.  Instead, he
grabbed my arm with one hand and walked me to the open shower.  I stepped
inside and he cranked the water to ice cold.  A bottle of generic
dish-wishing liquid was outside the stall, and he picked it up and squirted
me with a steam of soap.
	"Scrub."
	I did as I was told.
	First I washed the shit off my hands and arms, worked from my head
down.  I didn't care that it was like being stabbed with icy needles and I
couldn't breathe under the frigid water.  Frankly, as cold as it was, at
least it was clean.  I took the risk of opening my mouth into the stream of
water and drinking it as I washed.  Finally, for the first time since
arriving here, I felt hydrated and awake and clear-headed.
	He turned off the water, threw me a ratty old towel.
	I dried myself off, and before I could wrap the towel around myself
he took it away from me and tossed it on the table.
	Then he led me to the chair, sat me down, and locked my arms and
legs in place.
	"Wait," he said.
	Right.
	Maybe fifteen minutes later, Bull brought in a small folding table
and a picnic chair.  He unfolded both, glared at me, and left.  Skull
followed him with a tray.  A steaming brass coffee pot, two mugs, a couple
covered containers.  He set it on the table, and the smell of coffee was
immediately overpowering.
	Holy shit I wanted a cup of that.  Or two.  Or twelve.
	Adam came in, dressed more or less as before.  Different t-shirt,
maybe the same track pants.  I was still trying, in some part of my addled
brain, to register details for the cops.  And also, probably as a cure for
boredom.  They were the only interesting things I ever saw.
	He sat down on the picnic chair, poured two mugs of coffee.  He
opened one of the two porcelain jars and pulled out a few ice-cubes, which
he threw in one drink.
	"It's time we had a talk," he said.  "And I think there's no reason
not to be civilized about it.  But hot coffee in the face hurts, and it
hurts me a hell of a lot less than it'd hurt you.  The last time it
happened was the first, and that guy screamed for three days while we
steamed off his skin.  But, to avoid the risk, and the mess, I'm going to
have to cool your coffee.  Iced coffee for you.  Barbaric, I know, but --
you're not a very civilized man yet.  Or a man, in my book."
	He waved his hand to Grunge, who unlocked my hands but not my legs.
	I took the cup, sipped the coffee, and nearly sobbed.  It as so
fucking good.
	"What do you say?"
	"Thank you," I croaked.  It had to be psychosomatic.  No way the
caffeine could work that fast, but damn if my headache wasn't going away.
	He was so young, so weird.  His manner wasn't exactly feminine, but
it wasn't early twenties American male doofus, either, even if his clothing
was.  He talked like a sixty year old man from another country, but his
accent was midwestern American all the way.  It was probably affectation,
but what a weird one.
	"I have to ask you some questions," he said, "and I want you to
know that when we're practicing civilization like this, you can ask me
questions, which I may or may not answer.  You can also speak freely, as
long as you remain civilized.  I don't mind an occasional crudity, but if
you start heaping abuse on me and mine, it's back into the shithole with
you."
	"Yes, sir."
	"Good.  Now, first, the boring questions, but these are the test
questions that determine if you can be trusted at all.  They're easily
confirmed, so if you lie, you go back to the shithole and you can lick the
crust off the floor for food because you won't get any of mine.
Understood?"
	"Yes."
	"You had this card."  He pulled out my debit card.  "What's the
PIN?"
	"3322."
	"And you have online banking with this bank?"  He held up my
checkbook.
	"Yes."
	"Your username and password, please."
	"Tcarver22, and the password is dJ8kp7e."
	"Capital J you said?"
	"Yes, can I write it out?  I don't want you to think I'm lying if
you got it wrong."
	Grunge pulled a small pad of yellow post-its out of his grungy
shirt pocket, and a stubby blue crayon.
	"Here."
	I wrote down the username, the password, and to be safe, the PIN.
	"You have a house in Michigan.  How is your mortgage?"
	"Uh.  Fine, I guess.  About sixty grand to go."
	"Good job.  And so young.  You must be driven."
	"Yeah."
	"Speaking of jobs, when does your boss expect you?"
	"I have no idea what day it is."
	"From when we met."
	"Two weeks," I said.  That could have been a place to lie, but it
actually didn't even occur to me.
	"Any family?"
	Again, I could have lied.  "No.  Parents are gone.  I was raised in
an orphanage.  Dating no one."
	"Wow."  He sipped his coffee.  "We picked well.  Do you know why
you have no one?"
	"No."
	"Yes, you do."  He gazed at me expectantly.
	"I'm really sorry, but I don't."
	His tone didn't change at all.  "It's because you're a worthless
piece of shit."
	"Oh."
	"You're going to record a few calls for us, and give us a few
numbers.  You're going to record one for your boss.  You're far away from
your home, so who's watching your house?"
	"Neighbors."
	"You're going to call them, too.  Tell them you're going on an
extended vacation.  You might even put the house up for sale eventually."
	"So, basically, cut all ties for anyone who might look for me."
	"Yes."
	I closed my eyes. "I'm going to die here, aren't I?"
	"Maybe.  Depends."
	"On what?"
	"On how we feel about you."
	I actually laughed.  "I think I know that.  You think I'm a
worthless piece of shit."
	Again, his tone didn't change, as he dropped a sugar cube into his
coffee and stirred.  "Oh, no, that's not opinion.  You are a worthless
piece of shit.  You're a faggot pussy piece of garbage and every moment
that I don't shoot you in that stupid waste of flesh you call a brain is a
moment of profound mercy.  The fact you don't kiss my asshole in gratitude
is just further sign that you are a piece of shit, unaware of how merciful
I'm being."
	He was a fucking sociopath.  With a gang.
	"More?" he said, holding up the coffee.
	"Please."
	He poured in some ice, poured coffee over it.
	"Thank you," I said.  "You know.  For the coffee and for not
killing me."
	"You're welcome.  And I won't make you kiss my ass today."
	Grunge spoke up.  "Can I make him kiss mine?  That sounds
hilarious."
	"You can do whatever you like.  You, unlike him, are worth
something.  You're a man, and he's barely an animal."
	"Sweet.  I've got some crusties in the hair back here that he can
chew off."
	"I know you probably won't answer this," I ventured, "but -- why
are you doing this?"
	"You're not even capable of understanding that yet.  When you swat
a dog with a newspaper, you don't read him the headlines.  You just swat
him.  And you're not even as good as a dog, because a dog is an animal and
you're barely that."
	Suddenly, and to even greater shame than I felt eating Skull's snot
or having their endless fingers shoved up my ass, I started sobbing.
	"He's crying," Adam said to Grunge.
	"Pussy."
	"Yes, but it's also a sign of self-awareness.  Why are you crying,
pussy?"
	"I don't want to die."
	"Why not?" he asked, like I'd turned down more coffee.
	"I -- I want to live."
	"Corollary is not explanation.  What do you have to live for?  Your
house?  Car?  Lack of friends?  Lack of family?  You were in a shit bar in
a shit town because you had a shit life."
	Wait.  They had picked me up at the rest step.
	Suddenly, Grunge looked familiar.
	"You were following me?"
	"You were chosen a while ago."
	"What the fuck?  I'm sorry, shit, I didn't mean -- " I clamped my
mouth shut.
	Adam, to my relief, just laughed.  "Lack of sleep messes with your
ability to censor your thoughts, doesn't it?  Valuable.  Yes, we followed
you, researched you, watched you."
	"Why?"
	"It'd be like explaining the electoral college to a labrador."
	At least I'd stopped crying.  He actually had a point.  Yeah, I was
miserable and cold and in a hell of a lot of danger, but -- this is going
to sound absolutely batshit crazy -- it was more interesting than waiting
for the quarterly numbers from . . . shit.  What as his name?  Doug?  Dave?
	"You're not just here to torture me."
	"A glimmer.  Now, granted, we will be torturing you.  Sometimes,
from your perspective, just because it's fun for us.  Sometimes as training
for my boys.  Sometimes, because you fucked up.  But that's a means to an
end, ultimately."
	"What end?"
	"Higgs boson to a chihuahua."
	"If you have a goal, you're not going to kill me."
	"Bad reasoning.  What do they teach at Beloit College?  Not logic.
If you serve our end, we're not going to kill you, but if killing you will
serve our end, well, we might."
	"You've done this before."
	"Yes."
	"How often?"
	He grinned.  "More than twice."
	"How many people have you killed?"
	His smile faded.  "Enough.  Finish your coffee.  When he's done,
put him back in his cell.  Bring him a mop and a bucket to clean up with.
Hold a gun on him.  He's looking perky and might take a notion to come at
you with the mop, and if he does, shoot to kill him."
	"I'm sorry if I offended you," I tried to backtrack.
	"Oh, don't misunderstand.  We're just finished.  We'll record those
messages and send them later, and that'll be a chore out of the way.
You've done well, and pretended to be a person.  The toilet won't try to
kill you anymore, and maybe you'll even get a special privilege tonight."
	I mopped the cell out, while Grunge held a gun on me and talked
about how itchy his ass was and how he really needed to find something nice
and soft and wet to wash with, like maybe my tongue.  But he made no move
to force me to do it; it seemed to amuse him just to talk about it, thank
God.
	I also gingerly tested the toilet with a finger, and found it safe.
There's something a hell of a lot more civilized about sitting down to
shit.
	Then, later (night?  Really, was it night?) Skull dropped off an
air-mattress.  It was flat, filthy, and I had to blow it up myself.  It had
what were clearly cum-stains and a few other things I didn't want to think
about, but who gave a shit.  I lay down on it and realized how sore the
concrete had been making me.  Paradoxically, the relief from the constant
pain made the pain sharper for a while, but then I drifted off to pure,
wonderful sleep.

IV
	It didn't last.
	An air horn in a small concrete room is really loud.
	I was up and vertical before I realized where I was.  Grunge was
there with someone else new, another dirty looking young man with bright
green hair and several rings in his nose, one in his lower lip.  I
christened him Punk.  He was the one with the air horn.
	"Out," Grunge said.
	Each of them took a side, and they half-walked, half-carried me out
into the main room and over to the bed with the straps.  They strapped me
in and worked the mechanism to swing the arms and legs out, opening me up
spread-eagle.
	"Open your mouth," Punk said.  "Wider, stupid."
	Grunge stuck a gag in my mouth, a rubber nozzle that went between
my teeth, pressed my tongue down, and flared out into an open flange
through which I could breathe -- and they could put pretty much anything
they liked.
	Punk took the razor to my balls and head and -- swinging the
mechanism to push my legs up -- my ass crack again, even though they hadn't
grown much.
	I heard the door open to the upstairs, faint voices, a TV?  Then
footsteps, and Adam came down the stairs, holding a leather briefcase.
	"You want to wheel that table over here?" he said to Punk, who
moved the table by the showers over near him.  "Thanks."
	He plopped the briefcase down and snapped the clasps.
	"So, we've got some options here," he said to the other two.  "For
example, we can use this."  He pulled out a small butane torch and lit it.
I tried to get away, but couldn't.
	"Open your fingers," he said, but I couldn't do it.  I squeezed my
hands shut, screwed shut my eyelids.
	"Do it."
	I shook my head.  I felt intense heat on my fist, near my pinky.
It stung, but then disappeared as he pulled back.
	"The upsides, you see, are intense primal fear.  The downsides,
permanent damage.  It's expensive and time-consuming to clean up.  Strictly
amateur hour."
	He reached into the case -- I couldn't see it clearly -- and pulled
out a set of knives.
	"Cutting is classic, and if done carefully, can lead to only
temporary damage.  It does run into a similar problem as fire, though,
namely, the possibility of damaging nerves beyond their ability to feel
pain.  You can threaten someone's eyes -- " He put the tip of the knife an
eighth of an inch from my eyeball, and I held my breath.  " -- but unless
you want the clean-up and medical care, you've can only threaten.  And if
you're willing to take a stab, you can only do it once and when you do the
horror is done."
	He put back the knife, and I breathed again.
	"Just to round it out, we could also use ice -- but ice is such a
-- I don't know?  Bourgeois suburban S&M fake nastiness.  Anything strong
enough to terrify is -- again -- strong enough to do nerve damage."
	"So, physical torture is useless?" Punk said.
	"Limited use.  But not useless."  He pulled out a device, held it
in front of me.  It looked a bit like a dildo, but larger, and made of two
spiraled tubes.  "Plug this in.  So, this is my invention.  This conduit
here is a heating element.  This one next to it is refrigerated.  Either
one alone is, at best, uncomfortable.  But together, the nerves detect only
the difference in the two temperatures.  It's like being burned or frozen,
but without the nerve damage, and it can go on indefinitely."
	He touched the wand to my inner thigh, and he was telling the
truth.  It felt like he was burning my skin off, and I screamed through the
gag, choking on my own spit.
	He moved the wand slowly up and down my leg.  "The nerves recover
quickly, and because there's no real damage it can be applied anywhere.
The soles of the feet -- "
	Burning flesh, falling off my bones!
	"The chest, nipples, armpits."
	He was killing me, ripping my skin off.
	"The genitals."
	The world narrowed into a tunnel.  I couldn't inhale anymore,
because the whole world was screaming in pain.
	"The anus."
	Darkness.
	I heard a voice, far away.  "That's the limit of any physical pain.
Eventually, the body shuts down the mind.  It's part of the body's genius,
of course.  So physical pain has limits."
	"What about psychological pain?" Grunge asked.  "Humiliation.
Degradation."
	"Good.  Far from the nerve damage of physical pain, the
psychological pain can actually be salutary to our aims.  It can reduce the
ego, and all the debris that comes with it."
	"There's got to be a downside."
	"Yes.  It requires planning.  Not everyone responds to the same
humiliation.  This particular subject is surprisingly resilient to some
forms of humiliation, so we need to find others.  Fortunately, we are
creative and resourceful."
	"That's the truth."
	"So do what you like.  No limits.  For that matter, if you wish to
practice physical pain, feel free.  You can use the wand whenever you like.
For that matter, if you feel the need, burn and cut the bitch.  Just remove
bits he won't need."  He relit the torch.  "For example, his balls . . . "
	Fainting sucks.
	When I woke up on my air-mattress, I didn't know how long I had
been asleep.  They may have let me sleep five minutes, or maybe a whole
day.  I felt as groggy as if I hadn't slept at all, and had that
half-in-my-body feeling that lingers for a long time after fainting.
	At least I had something to sit on, and a toilet that worked.  And
-- I checked -- intact balls.
	Count your blessings.
	I sat up in my empty, featureless room, glanced at the eyes in the
sky, and rubbed my eyes.  Christ, that had sucked.  But he had warned me.
Sometimes, he'd want to train his boys.
	At least he didn't cut me or burn me.  I guess I had that to be
grateful for.
	I had a good education.  Yes, an MBA isn't a real masters degree,
but I had a good liberal arts education and I liked to read.  Hell, I had
the time, without much of a social life.  So I knew what they were doing.
I know what these emotions were.
	Stockholm syndrome was the phenomenon when a kidnap victim begins
to feel for and identify with his captors.  I wasn't really feeling that
yet, but it was a matter of time.  I already kind of liked it when they
came for me, because it broke the tedium.
	That might be hard to understand if you haven't been through it.  I
can't convey in writing the dull pain of having nothing to do and no sense
of time, coupled with absolute isolation.  Being tortured at least involved
getting some attention, some human -- sort of -- contact.
	Still, that had sucked.
	So three million years later of dozing and staring at the walls and
gingerly using my toilet -- I still didn't trust it -- the window on the
door opened.
	"Get on the wall," Skull's voice said.
	I did as I was told, spread myself spread-eagle.
	I thought he'd slap my ass and start shouting "cardio."  But this
time he just closed the door and leaned against it.  There was silence, and
I just stared at the wall, only catching him out of the corner of my eye
when I dared to turn my head.
	"Kneel," he said finally.
	Once I had done so, he came toward me.  "Turn around."
	He looked down at me, regarding me curiously.  "What the hell are
you good for, eh?"
	"I don't know."
	"Right.  You don't.  Lick my boots."
	I had done this before.  It hardly seemed humiliating now to run my
tongue over the black, scuffed leather.
	He spat on the back of my head, absently.
	"Christ, you're boring," he said.  "We're going to have to step
this up."  He glanced up at the cameras in the corners.  "Any of you guys
want to have some fun with the bitch?"
	A few minutes later, the door opened again, and Grunge came in.
"Sweet.  Let's party."
	"What should we make him do?"
	"I offered to let him lick my asshole, but he didn't seem
enthusiastic."
	"Fucking ingrate."
	"We should punish him," Grunge said.  "Until he learns some
gratitude."
	Skull kicked me in the chest, not terribly hard but hard enough to
surprise me and knock me down.  "Roll over on your back.  Open your mouth.
Hold it there."  He hocked loudly in his throat.
	"Golf," Grunge said.  "Sweet."
	Skull snorted a glob of snot into his mouth, hocked it into my
mouth.  Then Grunge did the same.
	Each of them took a step back, and again.
	Then again, but this time Skull missed.
	"Totally sweet.  One point for me."
	They played three more rounds, my mouth filling up with thick,
salty saliva.  They made me show it to them, then chew it until they said I
could swallow.  I gagged, but got it down.  Again, this was old hat, just a
bit more volume than before.
	"I win," Grunge said.  "You have to make him beg to lick my
asshole."
	"Aight."  Skull rested his boot, still moist with my saliva, on my
shaven genitals and started to press.  I tried to squirm away, but Grunge
pushed me down with his dirty sneaker.
	Physical pain might be less efficient than psychological according
Adam's teachings, but Jesus, that hurt like a son of a bitch.
	"So here's how it goes.  I want to hear you beg to suck on my
buddy's sweaty shitter, or I crush your balls under my boot.  You'll never
need them again, so maybe that's not much of a trade for you."
	"I ain't showered in like five days, dude, so it's pretty ripe back
there I bet."
	I winced from the pain.  "All right, all right, please let me kiss
your ass."
	"Unconvincing.  I don't hear that enthusiasm that makes me want to
drop trow."
	Skull's boot crushed down on my balls, and a sick pain shot into my
abdomen.
	Okay, yeah, this is going to happen.  "Yes, please let me lick your
sweaty shitter, let me suck your shitty butthairs clean, anything, I'll
tongue the hole, I'll do anything you want, just please stop."
	  "Unconvincing."
	"Oh, God, tell me what to say.  Please, I just want to kiss your
ass, both your asses.  Just press it over my face, smother me in your ass.
Use my face as toilet paper.  God it hurts."
	"He's only saying it because you're hurting him.  He'd never do it
otherwise."
	Skull pulled his boot from my balls.
	I climbed to my knees, clutching at my balls, and pressed my face
against Grunge's filthy jeans.  His estimation since his last shower had to
be optimistic.  "Please," I said, "let me lick it."
	They both bust out laughing.  "This is fucking awesome," Skull
said, pressing my face into Grunge's seat.
	Grunge unbuttoned his jeans and pulled them down over a filthy pair
of well-holed boxer-shorts that may never have been washed.  It was beyond
disgusting, but what else could I do?  Besides, it wasn't like I got to
choose what sort of humiliation they dished out.  That wouldn't be
humiliation, would it?
	He hooked the boxers down over his balls, baring two pale round and
almost hairless ass-cheeks and a stink that was almost palpable.  He spread
the cheeks a bit, revealing light curled hair and stained skin.
	I've smelled homeless people on the bus before, and the like, and
they smell like death, but Grunge's stink was different.  It was a stink,
but -- this is going to sound sick.  It was a stink, but not an entirely
unpleasant one.  He smelled like a young man who just had better things to
do than worry about how he smelled.  And yeah, it was gross.  But it wasn't
like the death-stink of a homeless man.  I can't really explain the
difference, and maybe it was a kind of Stockholm syndrome.  I'm not saying
I pressed my lips to the stained skin of his puckered assshole with
pleasure or -- Fuck, I can't explain it without sounding like a perv.
	But I pressed my tongue to his asshole, which was smooth and warm,
bitter and salty.  I inhaled, filled my lungs with his smell, and lapped at
the crusty hairs while the two men laughed at me.
	"He's a fucking pervert."
	"I knew he was a faggot."
	"Total faggot.  How's it feel?"
	"Sweet.  Tickles.  Hey, faggot, suck a bit, apply some suction,
bitch.  That's the stuff.  That's prime grade-A man funk."
	Skull pushed my face deeper into the ass crack.  "Get in there,
bitch, like you love it.  I know you do."
	"Some pieces of shit for the piece of shit."
	"Hell yeah."
	After I lapped his asshole clean, Grunge turned around and looked
at me.  "Hey, faggot, did you like that?"
	I didn't know how to answer that.  "I -- yes sir."
	"I don't give a shit.  You're not even a bitch, because bitches are
dogs.  You're just an object."
	"Yes, sir."
	"But you did a good job, and so you might get a present tonight."
	"Thank you, sir."
	"Thank me for what?"
	"For letting me eat your ass."
	"Aren't you forgetting something?"
	I turned to Skull.  "Can I suck your ass too, sir?"
	"Not right now, faggot."
	They spat on me a few more times, and then left me to my own
devices.
	I want to make it clear that I wasn't gay.  I didn't like guys, and
I wasn't into freaky sex.  But for some reason, I kept thinking about
sucking that ass.  It felt right in a way.  Not erotic, but like I belonged
there.
	Oh.
	They were getting to me.
	They were winning.

V
	Later, Grunge dropped off a pair of extremely dirty and very thin
prisoner's coveralls that didn't quite fit me.  They pulled on my balls
when I stood upright, a hole had been torn into the seat of the pants that
revealed much of my ass, and they itched and smelled.  But Jesus, they were
warmer than being naked and they felt like an Italian suit in comparison to
the cold concrete.
	He also gave me his boxer-shorts.  "I don't know when I last washed
these," he said.  "I don't know if I ever have."
	"What do you want me to do with them?"
	"Clean 'em."
	I glanced at the toilet, and he slapped me across the face.  It was
one of those slaps that surprises more than hurts (yes, I now have a whole
taxonomy of slaps).
	"Not in the toilet water you idiot."
	"Um.  I'm not talking back . . . "
	"Why do you always say that just when you're about to piss someone
off?"
	"I don't want to piss you off."
	Holy shit, that was true.  But worse, I kind of wanted to please
him.  Well, damn, that was just capitalism, right?  Please him, or the
others, and you get stuff.  Like basic dignity, if you count a pair of
assless coveralls that pinched my balls every time I stood up dignity.
	"You're starting to.  You've got plenty of water in here."  He
grabbed lower jaw and squeezed my lips together.  "Get sucking."
	Freud came back to me from college.  So Skull had an anal fixation,
while Grunge was oral.
	"I'll pick them up later.  They better be stain free."
	That was a tall order.  They were crusted with ages of oily dirt,
yellow crusty stains of piss and cum in the front, brown stains in the
back.  They didn't just stink through the nose; I could feel their stink on
my fingers.
	This was the single most disgusting thing, the most degrading
thing, I could imagine.  Somehow worse than licking his ass, because that
at least brought him -- I suppose -- some physical pleasure.  This was just
to humiliate me.
	And they'd be watching me do it.
	And yes, the issue of bacteria occurred to me.  This'd be worse
than just a single dose of his ass; these things were a petri dish.
	I had to trust in my immune system.  It was my only option.  I
couldn't say no.
	Who can, really?
	He left me alone to my job, and I sat on the toilet seat and
regarded the task.  It seems I had two options for where to start: yellow
or brown.  Neither was particularly appealing.  The good side of it was,
the shorts were almost more holes than they were fabric at this point.  The
elastic was dead, and the sides had mostly -- oh, shit -- rotted away.  So
had a lot of the ass, fortunately.  The fabric around the crotch, being
thicker, was more sturdy.
	The most disgusting prospect was the ass, so I started there to get
it over with, shoving a wad of fabric in my mouth and chewing and sucking
the shit-stains out of it.  That was what I had been reduced to: a piece of
shit sucking on shit.  It was bitter, but the taste and smell waned over
time.
	I ran out of saliva and was far too thirsty to continue just after
I finished sucking out the brown stains.  At that point, some food came --
although the prospect of eating something turned my stomach right over.
With it came a large paper cup of water.  I drank that in small sips,
saving some.  The food was on the floor, of course.  Skull had dumped it
near the toilet.  And by food, I mean the same cold oatmeal with some
bitter nasty shit mixed in -- probably drugs.  Whatever.  Again, "No" was
no longer a thing I said.  "No" was something men said.  Even animals could
say "no."  I guess Adam was right about that much.
	I went back to the shorts, and while I managed to suck the cum
stains out easily, the yellow was part of the fabric.  I knew I had to get
the stain out, or I'd be punished.  I didn't want more of the wand, that
was for sure, and I didn't want them to take away my bed, my clothes, my
toilet, my food.
	I stared and sucked, sipped and sucked, until the fabric started to
unravel.  That gave me an idea.  I could get the stains out by eating them
out.  He didn't say the shorts had to be in the same condition, just that
the stains had to be gone.  I started picking threads out with my teeth and
swallowing them, one after the other, using a tiny sip of water when
necessary.  They were salty, musty, and didn't chew well.  I ran out of
water, so I dipped some out of the toilet bowl to keep my mouth wet.  That
wasn't the first time I'd done that, and drinking toilet water was the
least of my humiliations.
	I noticed that the brown in the seat of the pants wasn't entirely
out either.  I had just thought it was, wishful thinking or something.  So
I ate that too.
	When he came back, I was finished.  I had spread out what remained
to dry, but it wasn't much.  I hate eaten maybe a third of his underwear,
and while I felt a little sick to my stomach, I also felt a weird pride in
my cleverness.
	He picked them up, gingerly.  They were still wet.  "Sweet.  You
are one ridiculous little faggot," he said in wonder.  "You ate.  My
underwear."  He looked at me, in what I hoped was a mixture of contempt and
wonder, but was probably just contempt.  "Low.  Well below ass-licking
low."
	"Yes, sir."
	"You are what you eat, so what does that make you?"
	"A piece of shit."
	"Yup.  Good job.  You get a prize."  And with that he kicked me in
the balls and while I clutched at my abdomen and tried not to throw up he
left me to myself.

Part VI
	I sipped the iced coffee.  We had just recorded a series of very
convincing messages to send to my boss's voice mail quitting my job, my
neighbor's cell phone, and a number of other people who might miss me
otherwise.  The list was short.
	"Look at you," Adam said.  "Clothes.  A bed.  A good night's
sleep."
	Well, a couple hours, by my reckoning, but it could have been
eight.  My world didn't have a sun anymore.
	The chair was cold on my bare ass, but at least the rest of my was
covered.
	"You also entertained the boys a lot.  We've been watching what
we've come to call the Ordeal of the Underwear.  It's great.  The look on
your face when you started eating it."
	I knew I could talk a little more freely.  It was one of the perks
that was suppose to make me feel grateful.  Damned if it wasn't working.
But I couldn't think of anything to say.
	He continued.  "Were you aware that, at least according to the
tapes, while you ate the underwear you had an erection?"
	"What?"
	"I said, you had an erection while you were eating my friend's
shit-stained shorts."
	Had I?  Maybe.  I didn't even think about my cock.  When I said I
wasn't gay and none of this was erotic for me, that was the truth.  I
wasn't into S&M or any of that freaky shit, and certainly never fantasized
about being humiliated or degraded by a woman or a man.  I had only had one
homosexual experience, back in college, and didn't like it.
	"I'm not gay."
	"Interesting.  I didn't say you were.  I just said you had an
erection.  Perhaps it was the fabric against your cock for the first time
in a while.  Maybe it was a stress response.  Your sleep schedule is
perhaps a bit irregular, so maybe it was caused by slipping into waking
REM.  Lots of possibilities, but you jumped to me attacking your
sexuality."
	"You keep calling me a faggot."
	"Yes, but not gay.  I have no idea if you're gay.  No, actually, I
do: you're not gay."
	"Right."
	"Gays are human.  No, you're a piece of shit."
	"I know."
	"Do you?"
	"I know what you're doing."
	"What's that?"  He sipped his coffee, smiled into the steam.
	"You're breaking me down.  It's classic brain-washing."
	"You're right.  I'm breaking you down.  But you're a worthless
piece of shit, so you should thank me.  We break down worthless pieces of
shit so we can build something useful on the rubble.  You've heard of
deprograming cult members?"
	"Yeah.  And I think you're a kind of cult.  Although I can't figure
out what you believe, other than getting some pleasure out of humiliating
people."
	He held up a finger.  "Not people."
	"Okay, pieces of shit."
	"You get downright uppity once someone covers your balls up."
	"You said I could speak freely."
	"Sometimes I lie.  But not this time.  I'm not going to punish you
for your mouth.  Some of my boys may take it upon themselves to.  That's
why you ate those shorts, you know.  He didn't think you showed me enough
respect."  He pointed his thumb back to Grunge, who leaned nonchalantly
against the wall, next to Bull who was playing with the stun-gun.
	"Anyway, so, you were talking about cults."
	"Thank you," he said.  "I get distracted.  Yes, so you've lived in
a cult your whole life, and we're deprograming you."
	"What cult?  Christianity?"
	"Ha.  You were no more a Christian than Attila the Hun was.  No,
I'm talking about the cult of pieces of shit.  Useless, mindless, robotic
unthinking automata.  Have you ever tried to teach someone to think?  Not
facts, but real thinking.  You'll get no thanks.  You'll get a cup of
hemlock for your troubles."
	That much, at least, was true.  I thought back to the idiots I
worked with.  Hard to feel much rage for them now.  I'd happily kiss their
cow-like faces.
	"Because they're in a cult?"
	"Yes.  Television, radio talk shows, popular music, advertisements,
the internet -- it's all geared toward teaching the doctrines of the cult.
Now, mind you, there's no leader to the cult, no great conspiracy.  That'd
require thinking beings, and most so-called people aren't.  No, it's just
dumb luck.  A cult governed by economic forces.  Most people are not even
as sentient as the phenomenon of economics itself."
	"And you'll fix that?"
	"Slowly."
	"So now that you're explaining this to me, I'm not a dog being
taught to read the paper?"
	"You're closer to human.  Or rather, you're closer to nothing,
which is at least a step up from being a piece of shit.  I think I've found
what you need, actually."
	"What's that?"
	"Finish your coffee.  We'll talk later."
	It was probably a day or two later, and other than delivery of food
I hadn't seen anyone in that time, or spoken a word to them.  As I said, I
came to almost enjoy the breaking of the monotony, so being woken up by
Bull's size twelve (I supposed) sneaker in my back was at least
interesting.  Then he knelt down on me.  I felt his breath on the back of
my neck, his hands fumbling for his sweatpants.  I tried to fight back, but
couldn't.  He was too strong, too big, and I was weak from lack of food and
sleep.
	He grabbed my hands, encircling both wrists in one hand and holding
them up over my head.  I could smell alcohol on his breath.  "Faggot," he
muttered into my ear.
	Something hot and smooth rubbed against my asshole.  It was greasy.
Pre-lubed.  "Oh, god, please don't do this."  Somehow this was worse than
licking ass, eating spit, chewing up a pair of underwear.
	"You're going to fucking love it," he said.
	He started pushing in to me, but his cock felt three feet wide.
"Open up for me, faggot.  You know you want it."
	I tried to struggle, but he seemed to like that, and the cock
hardened further.  Now, more firm, it could push its way in without my
cooperation.
	In self-defense, I relaxed as well as I could.  I didn't want to
tear myself any worse than necessary while he fucked me.
	And he did fuck me.  At first, it was slow, almost as gentle as a
rape could be.  But then he pulled out, pushed back in at greater speed.
Soon, he was thrusting into my asshole like he was fucking a whore's loose
pussy.  But my asshole wasn't loose.  It was tight and sore and I cried out
with every thrust.  I stopped fighting, hoping he'd go soft, but that did
nothing.
	He wrapped his meaty bare arms around me, rocked me back and forth
onto his cock.  He smelled like beer and cheap body spray, Axe or
something.  His lips kept brushing my ear, but he was muttering a steady
stream of abuse on his bitter breath.
	"Faggot, you like this, you cockhound, you fucking love getting
ploughed by a real man, you lucky little bitch whore faggot.  Take it you
cunt, you useless piece of shit cunt take my cock.  You lucky faggot,
getting a real man to fuck you like you deserve."
	He lasted a long time, it seemed, maybe weeks.  Probably just
minutes.  Finally, he pulled out, then flipped me roughly over, straddled
my shoulders, and dowsed my face in thick ropy globs of cum from his thick,
greasy cock.
	For a few moments he was still, rubbing his softening cock at a
glacial pace.  Finally, he patted my face roughly, smearing the cum around.
"Leave that there," he said.  "Little present.  Lick it up if you want, you
faggot."  Then he wiped his hands off on my front before he got off me.
	I thought he would leave, but he didn't.  Instead, he stood over me
a long time.  He was shirtless, and his bare chest was sweaty and gleamed
in the low lighting of the room.  His sweatpants were still hooked under
his low-hanging balls, and his cock was soft now, almost as bare of hair as
mine was.  He held it in one hand, shuddered a little, and let lose a hot
stream of piss all over me and my air-mattress.  He aimed it at my face.
"Open."
	Without thinking, I did as I was told.  He pissed in my mouth,
shook off on the floor, and put his dick back.  Without another word, as if
I was just a urinal to jerk off in, some machine or object, he turned
around and left.
	This time, I noticed my erection.