Contents

Wren

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Wren

by Bingo

Note: This is a story for adult readers.

Read other stories by Bingo at http://www.asstr.org/~Bingo/

Chapter One

When she was fifteen she imagined herself borrowing her dad’s drill and hole saw and sneaking into the boy’s locker room after school. She was sure the toilets’ stall dividers were plywood just like in the girl’s locker room.

Her fantasies always included her getting caught and by whom depended on her whim of the moment and desire for humiliation. Older men were a mystery — large, hairy and strange. Younger boys, fifteen-year-olds for example, were smart asses with pricks who always got her in trouble.

When she was sixteen she decided to be a nun, even though she wasn’t Catholic, and abhorred most forms of sin. Okay, she didn’t honor her parents, and okay, she did covet. But secretly.

When she was nineteen she’d dropped out of, or was kicked out of (depending on to whom she was talking), college. Her parents kind of knew. Maybe. Until she had to tell them she wanted to travel and do things. Good luck doing this in 1954.

Wren was about 5’4”, taller if she stood on her toes which she liked to do, brown haired, had regular features, wasn’t pretty because she wasn’t cute like that, what some men saw as beauty. She hardly ever smiled but when she did it was noticed. Wren wore dark clothes, carried a rucksack and had adventures.

Leaving town, like tonight, was usually a necessity. Cops, for some reason, had her pegged for trouble right from the get-go. Sometimes she was asked to leave a town before she’d even had a chance to get to know the place.

She stood by the two-lane road and stuck out her thumb. She was in Georgia somewhere and hoped she was heading north.

Eventually a car stopped, just beyond her. As she ran to it, rucksack held to her chest, the door popped open. “Get in,” a voice said.

“Thanks,” she said.

The car took off, swinging the door toward her. She slammed it closed as the car got back on the road with a splash of gravel.

“Pick a station,” he said.

“Anything you like?”

He was quiet for a moment as he drove, not looking at her. “Good question,” he said. “Hot chocolate, sunsets over water and not getting shot at.”

“Me too.” Wren turned on the radio and a Mexican station came on. “This is good.”

“Rock and roll. Fast girls like rock and roll.” He grinned at the road. “Fast girls like stuff they shouldn’t like.”

“Like what?”

“Turpentine. Say it.”

“Tur-pen-tine.” She let the syllables drop one at a time.

“Medium fast. Kiss on the first date, do you?”

“Sometimes.” She paused. “Sometimes I drink my hot chocolate and wish something better’d come along. You know. A guy who likes sunsets.”

“Over water.”

“And other stuff.”

“Not getting shot at. You forgot that.”

“I forgot that.”

“Where are you going?”

“New York City.”

“Going to become an actress?”

“Doubt it. I like this song. I know someone there.”

“I’m not going to New York.”

“That’s okay.”

“What’s a nice girl like you?”

“Run out of town.”

“No visible means?”

“Or invisible either. If you were hoping a five spot would buy a good time, forget it.”

“How about a Franklin?”

She thought about it. “You’re okay and everything. But no.”

“I don’t have a Franklin.”

“So you’re not missing anything, are you?”

“It’s after sunset. What do you do after sunset?”

“It depends.”

“Shock me.”

“Sometimes I like to take my clothes off and let people take my picture.”

“More than medium fast. Maybe not quite well done.”

“You want to take my picture?”

“I would if I had a camera.”

“You don’t even know what I look like.”

“Who cares?”

“Sometimes I let people do stuff to me while they’re taking pictures.”

“Let me see. Do stuff.”

“Whatever pops in your mind.”

“I don’t have a camera.”

“I know. It’s too bad.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“What are you thinking of?”

“I don’t think you’d do it. You seem like a nice girl.” He grinned at the road. “Besides, I don’t have a camera.”

“Be theoretical.”

“If I had a camera, then you’d.”

“Precisely. Pretend.”

“I don’t like to pretend.”

“Maybe if you pretend hard enough it’ll come true.”

“I’ll get a camera. The good fairy will give me a camera and we won’t have to pretend.”

“Probably not.”

“You’d take off your clothes.”

“Sure. That’s what I do when you have a camera.”

“And I could tell you something.”

“And I’d probably do it. I’m a fool for shutterbugs.”

“I’m not a shutterbug.”

“Pretend.”

“I could tell you to go upstairs.”

“You’d bring your camera with you.”

“I want to watch you finger yourself.”

“That’s easy. Try something harder.”

“I want to take off my belt and whip you.”

“Sure you’re not a shutterbug?”

“Maybe I need to tie you up first. What’s your name, by the way?”

“Wren. Stupid name. My mom’s a bird watcher. What’s yours by the way?”

“Ward.”

“Ward, I think you could do that too.”

“Because why?”

“Hot chocolate and sunsets.”

“I’m a romantic, I know. It’s too late to buy a camera.”

“How far are you going?”

“Good question.”

“Maybe we could get a camera in the morning.”

“What about New York City?”

“Ward, I’m not in a big rush or anything.”

“Because I live about a mile from here and I’m not going any further tonight. Let you out soon?”

“Spend the night?”

“You don’t know me, sweetheart. Wren. And I don’t have a camera.”

“I could sleep in the car.”

“You could. But I’m married and I don’t think June’d like that.”

“Won’t know till you ask her.”

“I don’t need to ask her to know.” He pulled off the road. “You can get a ride from here.”

“Turn the light on so I can see you, Ward.”

The light came on. Ward was in his forties, beginning to run down. He needed a shave and a haircut and to lose a little weight. He faced straight ahead.

“Ward, look at me.”

He turned to her, eyes moving as he studied her.

“Want to drop me off somewhere and pick me up in the morning? Take me somewhere? Maybe you have a friend with a camera.”

“No cameras anywhere, sweetheart. Nowhere at all.”

She pointed. “The belt you wanted to use?”

“It was an idea, that’s all. A whim.”

“Take me home and I can sleep in the car and your wife’ll never know. Promise. Then you can take me somewhere. Bring your belt. Some rope. A camera.”

“I don’t have a camera, girl.”

“Sure?”

“Nice meeting you, Wren.” He turned from her.

She opened the door. “Nice meeting you too, Ward. Thanks.” She got out of the car, closed the door. The interior light went out and the car pulled away, slowly.

There were no streetlights here. She went off into the weeds and peed, came back and waited by the side of the road, rucksack by her feet.

There weren’t many cars on the road. Being Georgia it was a warmer fall than up north. Her army jacket was enough to keep her warm. She’d wait an hour and then begin walking. The stars twinkled in the clear night sky.

The hour was almost up when a car pulled over, stopping just past her. The door flew open. “Get in,” said a voice.

She held the rucksack on her lap as she closed the door.

“Sure the car’s okay tonight?”

“Ward?”

“Yeah, I’m back. I think I know where to get a camera tomorrow.”

“Good for you.”

“You’ll behave yourself.”

“Until you get that goddamn camera and then watch out, Ward. I’m a bad girl.”

Ward gripped the steering wheel hard as he drove. “You just be good until I tell you.”

“And then watch out, Ward. Tell me what you want to do.”

“Honey, I want to go to New York City with you and take lots of pictures, but it’ll be just tomorrow. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow will be exciting.”

He parked by a small house in a neighborhood filled with small houses, some still with their lights on.

“You have to do your duty, don’t slam the doors, Wren. You’ll be quiet,” he said.

“I’m okay here, Ward. Thanks.”

“Sure. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“With your camera.”

“Sleep tight, kid.”

When he came to the car in the morning she was gone. It wasn’t until he was pulled over for speeding a couple of months later that he found the photograph in the glove compartment. He nervously pushed it away and found the registration for the motorcycle cop. Afterwards he looked at the picture, said, “Oh,” and put it in his billfold, folded in half.

Chapter Two

She finished her coffee in the diner and left. She didn’t mind men eyeing her or being outrageous and wouldn’t mind a day or two of fun however it came, but this town didn’t feel right and she had no intention of spending the next ten years chained to some cowboy’s bed for fun and games while the wifey was feeding the chickens.

At a gas station stuck out in the middle of nowhere as near as she could see — a light pole illuminating the pavement around the pumps and a lone light in the window — she decided to stop. All around here was clear night and she was tired of walking.

Inside, the young man reading a comic in a battered old upholstered chair intently ignored her. She spent a dime for a coke at the machine, popped off the cap and leaned against the wall. “Good book?” she asked.

His eyes met hers briefly and he resumed reading.

“Must be good.” She sat on the floor next to the rucksack. “Okay if I spend the night here?”

He turned the page and shook his head.

“Know some place better?”

He hooked his thumb toward the door between them.

“Texas is a real friendly place, isn’t it? I could like it here. All the special attention, down home feeling.”

He turned the page.

“People going out of their way to make a stranger feel welcome.”

“We close in twenty-three minutes.”

“Are your toilets open or do I need a key?”

He ignored her.

“I’ll be back in a jiffy.” She went around back which was unlit. Felt a door and tried it. Locked.

“Well, young lady,” she said to herself. Wren walked a few feet away, dropped her jeans and did a half squat. After pissing hard and fast for a minute, she bounced her ass to drip dry.

Back in the station she sat next to her rucksack and watched the attendant read.

He was in his early twenties, cap and jacket on. The jacket was red with white sleeves, like it had been his school jacket. There was no letter on it. Dark hair, cut short. The light was too dim to tell if his fingers were grimy or not. Since he looked otherwise clean, she figured his hands were too. A point in his favor. A loafer’s heel had a split seam. He set his comic on the desk and stared at her.

“Where do you go when you want to get laid?” she asked. “Unless you have a girlfriend, of course. Or don’t. You know. Not a place. Some girl around here?”

He didn’t blink.

“A behind the barn sort of girl. Who’s easy to sleep with. You know what I mean.”

“Why do you ask?”

“I figure if I can’t stay here, since she’s so kind, maybe she’ll put me up for the night.”

“I doubt it.”

“So you do get laid. Once a year or perhaps more often. Not too often or you’d be nicer. Where do you live?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Are you always this hard on us poor girls?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“What would I have to do to stay here or sleep with you? I put it badly. This isn’t a proposal or anything, just asking.”

“We close in fifteen minutes.”

“And?”

“No.”

“You have a sister?”

“I’m busy. Why don’t you bother someone else?”

Wren stood. “Buster, what is your problem tonight?”

“I’m busy. Scram.”

“Let’s see.” She dug into her pocket and picked out a handful of change and a crumpled bill. She counted and said. “Know where I can get a room for one dollar sixty-seven cents? One of the dimes is Canadian.”

“Scram.”

“I have some neat tattoos. I got them in New Orleans. You must have heard of New Orleans, in spite of the fact it isn’t in Texas. You haven’t? Let me show you.” She took off her jacket and rolled up the cuff of her work shirt. “See?”

He grinned at her. “You are some sort of crazy, aren’t you?”

She walked up to him, arm outstretched. He grabbed her wrist and jerked her forward. “Some flowers. So what?”

She touched the tattoo on her forearm. “Aren’t they nice?”

“They’re fucking tiny.”

“You were expecting something bigger? I’m a girl, cowhand.”

“It’s not that obvious.” He let go of her wrist. “You can’t stay here.”

“Your place or hers?”

“You don’t know me from Adam, little girl.”

“You’re right. I don’t know you at all. Is there a reason I shouldn’t have put forward the proposal? Perhaps you read too much in it?”

“Scram.”

“You walk to here. I didn’t stumble over a Cadillac in back.”

“Nearby.”

“Try a whole sentence and be nice.”

He almost smiled, got up and brushed past her.

She leaned against the wall by her rucksack as he closed up — shut off the pumps, turned out the light on the pole from inside, took the receipts from the drawer and put them in a zippered bag.

“Come on. Out of here.” He pushed her out the door. The light inside off, he locked the door and pocketed the keys.

She followed him as best she could; he had better night eyes or just knew the way so well it didn’t matter he couldn’t see.

Five minutes and she saw a light go on inside and him close a door.

“Friendly Texans,” she muttered to herself. When she got to the door stoop she waited a minute and then knocked.

He stood in the doorway, jacket off, in his t-shirt. She couldn’t see his face, but could feel the heat from the room.

“Can I spend the night and maybe have breakfast in the morning, pretty please?”

He grabbed her jacket and pulled her close. “Scram.” He shoved her back and shut the door.

She knocked and shouted. “I could give a fuck if you had a pecker shot off in Korea, can’t get it up except for virgins, just do oncers, or are still a virgin. It’s cold out here.” She gave the door a kick.

The door shot open and he jerked her inside. “My rucksack.”

“Fuck your rucksack, you sorry piece of shit.” He slapped her.

She held her throbbing cheek. “You can hit little girls. So what?” After a pause, smiling up at him, she said, “I have other tattoos.”

“And every disease known to man.” He spun her and shoved her onto the couch. “Not a peep from you. One word and out you go.”

She nodded, taking off her jacket. She folded it and set it at one end.

He came back with a sheet and threw it at her.

Since he was waiting she unbuttoned her denim shirt. She undid the sleeves and took it off. Wren hadn’t worn a bra or panties for a year now and was used to it. At first the rubbing nearly drove her crazy. She stood, undid her jeans, kicked off her shoes and slid the jeans off her legs. One of her socks had a hole in the heel; the socks didn’t match. She folded her clothes and set them on her jacket.

She couldn’t tell what he was thinking as he watched her. She lay on the couch, on the sheet and watched back. He took a dollar bill out of his wallet and threw it at her.

Wren watched him leave the room, heard him run water, make noises in the back. The house wasn’t big, looked to be fifty years old or more. Board floor, wide molding and a chair rail. The heat came from an oil heater under a window. He went outside for a minute, came back, stayed somewhere else in the house. She could smell onions and meat frying.

He brought her a plate with a hamburger on it, sat across from her, by the heater, eating his, watching her.

She finished the burger, set the plate on the floor and grinned at him. “If you can fuck like you make burgers, I’m in luck.”

He smiled at her, finished his burger, wiped his hands on a paper napkin and set his plate on a side table.

She had four tattoos. One on each forearm and one on each thigh. The artist had liked her and hadn’t charged her a dime, joked about going in the hole on this one. She opened her legs, leaned back.

He stood, came to the couch and tugged at the sheet by her. “Get up.” When she was too slow, he jerked her up.

She let him pull her after him through the house. A kitchen and a dark room to the outside. “Hey, I don’t.”

“I told you and I meant it, sweetheart.”

They went into a shed that was lit by an oil lamp resting on a shelf by the door. He pushed her onto blankets spread on the floor. “You’ll wish you’d kept your clothes on. Facilities outside. Water’s in a bowl over there. Stay still.” He took a jumble of rope from beside her and tugged her wrists together, crossed.

Bound, quickly and quietly, wrists and ankles, he grabbed a fist full of her hair and held her. “What’s your name?”

“Wren.”

“Cute. Mine’s Brad. I can be a holy terror. If you mess these blankets, you’ll wish you’d never come across me. Understand, Wren?”

She nodded.

“Need to go?”

She nodded.

“Then go.”

She crawled outside into the cold as far as she could, peed and crawled back inside the shed and waited.

He held her down as he stroked her cunt. “If my hand falls off in the morning you’re a dead girl. If not, maybe I’ll find a use for you.” He was rough for a moment, then said, “Put your wrists between your knees.”

He bound her ankles to her wrists, checked the ropes and rose from his knees. After rolling her onto her side and covering her with the blanket, he stood in the doorway, blowing out the lamp.

“Brad,” she said. “You do have friends, don’t you?”

She thought she saw the flash of his teeth before he shut the door. A moment later she heard the hasp against the wood and a lock click.

Chapter Three

Wren swallowed without choking as his orgasm spurted in her mouth. His groin, after a moment’s stillness, bumped her a couple more times and he released her head. She fell back onto the blanket looking up at him.

“Dog shit,” he said as he zipped up, “we have to come to a basic understanding. Not a peep out of you or I’ll thrash you to within an inch of your life. Don’t doubt it. If you’re a good girl and I decide to let you leave, you can have your clothes back. Your bag is mine — partial payment for rent. Any complaints?”

She wiped her cheek with her bound hands and shook her head. She wished he’d shut the door when he came in. It was cold out there.

“Come on in, then. Breakfast’s waiting.”

She started to rise.

“You’ll crawl, dog shit.”

She settled onto her hands and knees. With her bound wrists she had a hopping gait as she followed him to the house. Daylight made the house much closer than it had seemed last night. Clapboard with peeling white paint, an oil tank and small square cement porch in the back. Brad waited in the screen doorway for her. The yard was mown patchy grass on sandy soil, surrounded by tall weeds. She couldn’t hear any noise of traffic or nature and out of the shed the wind bit her bare skin cruelly.

He held the screened door open for her, let it bang against her heels, shut the door behind her. “In the living room, dog shit.”

She had to pee, didn’t look up at him as she passed. She wondered what the penalty would be if dog shit had an accident.

Three guys sat on the couch enjoying the oil heater. She settled next to it. So far Brad had been fifty percent predictable, worth putting up with. His friends were utterly predictable and okay as far as things went.

She didn’t plan on staying forever and when she left she was going to take her rucksack with her, Brad or no Brad.

“Hands,” Brad said, standing between her and the men.

She raised her wrists and he untied them. She wondered at what they thought they saw. A girl, yes, but with some value added — negative in this case. Whore. Slut. Tramp. Trash. She settled on her knees and faced them. Captive. She wondered what these cowboys’ forefathers had done to Indian maidens they’d captured or found huddled at the rear of the trading post.

“Make it quick, dog shit. After breakfast you’re going back to the dog house.”

She’d let the three men decide what that meant but they weren’t saying much. The fat one in the center was prone to giggling, that was all.

“I need a collar and a leash for you, don’t I?” He grabbed a fist full of hair and pulled her toward the blond at the closer end of the couch. She held Brad’s wrist as she crawled on her knees after him. He shoved her face into the crotch — unwashed and smelly jeans — a smoker. “There’s your bowl, honey. Start eating. Scott, you’ll find she’s okay, not great, but she doesn’t waste a drop either. Good girl.”

He mashed her face down onto the prick she’d gotten out of the jeans.

It was a decent prick and once Brad had stopped fooling around she was able to get it in her mouth. Somebody, Brad or Scott, controlled her head as she sucked. Scott came in her throat when she wasn’t ready and in a bad position and she choked; come came out of her nose.

“Bad dog, bad dog,” Brad yelled and began slapping her hard.

She coughed, hands by her nose cupping the come, bright stars of light in her eyes. Her rear and back stung from Brad’s blows. After Scott’s prick slid from her mouth she slurped and licked the come from her fingers.

Brad jerked her head back so she looked up at him. “I’m a mind to send you out without any more breakfast.”

She reached for the giggling fat man’s crotch as she pled with her eyes to Brad. She couldn’t tell if he was playing or not which was perfectly fine with her. He slapped her face and pushed her down into this one’s flaccid lap.

“Where’d she come from?” She guessed it was Scott asking.

“I bought her from a salesman who was passing through.” Brad’s hands left her head and someone else grabbed her ears.

“He’d found her drunk out of her skull in the back seat of his car one night, at a joint north of here, near the state line. She’d obviously been fucked a lot already, was stark naked and not able to put up much resistance.”

The fat one’s prick was a babe swaddled in greasy blubber. She moaned as she sucked and as he twisted her ears.

“He put his two cents in, at least that’s what he said. The next morning, sober and sore, she had some story about a boyfriend getting back at her for fooling around and begged to be taken back home. As far as he was concerned she was too good a thing to pass up, naked and more or less willing, you can see she isn’t resisting a lot. So the salesman kept her, used her to make a few bucks, leaving her at a house when he was home weekends.”

The fat man’s pelvis jerked as he came, squashed her nose painfully. Brad’s hand on the back of her head kept her on him as she swallowed. “How’d she do, Luther?”

“Is she supposed to do that? You know?”

Brad pushed her into the last lap. “She’d better do that if she wants breakfast. Speak, dog shit.”

“Please,” she said softly.

“Enough of that, dog shit.” She got a swat on the back of her head. “What did I tell you about begging?”

The man’s knuckles were scraped — some old wounds almost heeled, some new and still weeping. He drew his hands back so she could open his pants. The backs of his hands were covered with thick black hair. This one smelled of leather and piss.

“So anyway, the salesman’s old lady found out about the bitch and he had to dump her. Thirty dollars from the till which I need to make up before going to the bank or old man Roberds will kill me.”

She choked on this one too. He was energetic and forceful.

“Thirty dollars,” the giggly voice said. “What if she doesn’t want to do this?”

“Fuck, Luther.” Brad grabbed her hair and thrust her up and down on the fat prick. “You don’t ask, you don’t put up with objections of any sort, you just do it. And to a girl like dog shit here, this is heaven.”

Wren was retching violently when the prick shot its load.

“Bad dog,” Brad screamed. He held her head down on the prick. “Bad dog.”

She backed away from the couch, face streaming with tears, snot, come and spit. Wiping her face with the back of her hand she heard Brad’s belt being pulled free of his pants’ loops.

She couldn’t be silent as he strapped her, saying, “Oh. Oh.” with each blow as she rolled on her back. A hand grabbed her cunt and squeezed as her legs were being whipped, Brad screaming, “Bad dog, bad dog,” and she came, heels kicking the floor, back arching.

Brad stood over her panting. “Go back to your shed, dog shit.”

“Ah.” She shuddered involuntarily, gasping for breath convulsively. “Ah, ah, ah.”

“Luther, she could have left the salesman any time she wanted, clothes or no clothes. Tell me. What would any of you done? Done what she told you she wanted? Or known, instinctively what she was and what she really wanted or she wouldn’t have been in your car, nude, drunk, and fucked by so many she was covered with their spunk. The guy she two-timed her boyfriend for must have been something else. No tears, no shame, she wanted to run back to his arms. I said back to your shed, dog shit.”

She didn’t play any games, not a look, wink or grin back at the men on the couch. She crawled from the room, out the door into the cold yard. She found a place to piss and shit, found some dried leaves to wipe herself, and closed the shed door after her.

The water in the bowl was icy and made her teeth ache as she drank, then she crawled into the blankets.

She could barely remember their faces, remembered Brad’s voice better than his face, except for his pale eyes, unreadable, as he watched her. She wanted to touch herself but didn’t dare; her skin was on fire with wanting. Instead, she gently felt the welts of the strap, tender, so tender she didn’t need to actually touch them to feel her finger’s closeness.

Some time later the door opened and four dark shapes stood outlined by the clear sky. “See, I told you she’d be here,” Brad said. “Dog shit, these fine, upstanding citizens have rented you for the day, until I get back from work this evening, and you’ll do anything they ask. Understand?”

She nodded, not looking at them.

“And you, my friends, remember. Here or in the yard, and nowhere else. If you attempt to abscond with her, I’ll hunt you down with no mercy. And no mercy if she gets you to put her on a bus. She’s only pretending. You like it here with me, don’t you, dog shit?”

She nodded, raising her eyes to his shape. She smiled, a brief, tight smile, hoping it made her seem less than willing.

“She’s all yours.” The shape walked away.

“Close the door,” the fat one, Luther, said.

“We can’t see if we close the door,” someone said. Scott?

No this was Scott; he said, “There’s a lamp here.” The other sounded almost like him; for her he had no name.

The lamp was lit. “Close the door,” Scott said.

“What are you doing?” Luther asked.

The blanket was pulled away from her. “Getting ready to get my money’s worth,” the one who wasn’t Scott said. “What does it look like I’m doing?” There was a rasp of metal and cloth and then he was on her.

Chapter Four

She was woken by the sound of someone in the shed. It was pitch-black but cold so she knew the door might be open.

“Wren?”

A match flared and the lamp was lit, the wick adjusted. Brad stood over her, a smile on his face. “Come in and have some dinner.”

She uncurled from her warm spot in the blanket. He waited as she got to her hands and knees, bare skin reacting to the cold air.

“Inside.” Brad left her, the lamp still burning.

She took a moment to pee in the yard and crawled to the back door. She peed because of the cold, not because she’d drunk much today. Her stomach was used to short periods of hunger; she’d gone for a day or more without eating in the past year. That didn’t mean her stomach ever gave up complaining.

She let herself into the house, went into the kitchen were Brad was making burgers. He turned and smiled at her. “You must be hungry.”

She knelt at the door, noticed for the first time his new shoes, brown leather shiny where not dusty with light colored powder.

“They weren’t too rough on you today, were they?”

She shook her head.

“You look like you’re in one piece. No marks or signs of abuse.” He turned back to the stove and flipped the two patties in the frying pan. “Did you like it?” He wasn’t looking at her when he asked the question.

She’d learned the dark one was called Doer, she guessed that was his last name. Doer, Luther and Scott were okay. Pretty unoriginal and without much imagination. Did she like it? She wouldn’t have traveled to Texas just for that. She could get that anywhere, anytime. It was a pity none of them had much staying power.

“Did you?” Still not looking at her.

She shrugged her shoulders. Okay, I guess, was what it meant.

He turned toward her and frowned.

She shrugged again.

“You can talk, you know.” He waited.

“It was okay, I guess.”

“You have a nice voice, you should talk more. And smile more.”

She cocked her head at him. He put the two cooked burgers on a plate in the oven and started on another two. He faced her while those cooked. “You don’t need to stay there on the floor. Take a seat.”

A new pair of shoes made Brad a different man. She stood by a chair; he shook his head. “Better wash up first, don’t you think?”

The bathroom was dark like the rest of the house. She clicked on the light, a fixture over the mirror. Water ran in the toilet. The mirror didn’t show her anything new. She filled the sink and used a washcloth and soap to clean herself. Her knees and hands were dirtiest, plus the leavings from earlier. She washed her face and used her fingers to get the worst tangles out of her hair. An earring was missing — unlike most women her ears were pierced; it had been gone for some time now. Before New Orleans at least.

Her history wasn’t dependent on dates — it was structured by locations — Savannah, New Orleans, Texas coast and north, were the most recent ones. Plus all the small towns with no name.

“Dinner’s ready,” Brad shouted.

She dried her hands a second time and left the bathroom, turning out the light. He pointed to a seat at the small table in the kitchen with a place set for her — another chair and placemat were across from her.

“Upsey daisy,” Brad said, fingers dancing under the hot plate between oven and table. He said the same bringing his own plate.

“Just okay, I guess?” Brad watched her from his sat. “You need to tell me. And this morning?” He grinned.

“Better,” she said, reaching for her burger.

“Two things before you start. One,” his voice changed. “The hamburgers aren’t garnished yet. Two, who the fuck said you can use your hands?”

She let her hands fall into her lap. “Sorry.”

“Dog shit, when will you ever learn? Not a peep. Remember? Don’t move an inch.” He left her.

His new shoes must pinch. She waited, enjoying the warmth, only a little afraid.

“This,” he said behind her, “is sorely needed. Lean forward.”

She felt him brush her hair from her back, forward, so it fell around her face. He strapped a leather collar, it smelled new, around her neck. A leash, cold chain, was fastened to the collar, and the leash end was tied to the chair. He gave the leash a jerk and she sat upright, staring straight ahead.

“Hands on the table.”

She placed them on either side of the plate, palms down.

“Look at me.”

She turned sideways and up. He held a black bladed kitchen knife.

“Good. You’ll be punished, dog shit. Don’t you dare move.” He lurched forward with the knife. The knife came down and chopped her burgers in quick, short strokes. Then he gathered her hair, stroked it, and hacked it off, tossing the clump onto her plate.

She was frozen stiff, thinking, I can take whatever you do to me. I can take it.

He cut her hair haphazardly, tossing handfuls onto her plate, over her hands or onto her lap.

“And this,” he said, standing opposite her, across from the table. He slashed her workshirt, stabbing and dragging the blade, cutting only on some of the blows, the knife was too dull to cut cloth, or hair for that matter, without sawing and force.

He tossed her workshirt aside. “Your name is dog shit. You don’t talk. You’ll never wear clothes again. You’re a sorry fuck at best and fucked you’ll be until it pleases me to get rid of you. You fuck up again I’ll carve your face. Understand?” He smiled, laid the knife on the table. “Understand?”

She nodded.

“Good. I’m glad you’re enjoying your brief stay here, Miss dog shit. We aim to please and please and please. And when we’re done with you you’ll fucking well know how to behave, suck and fuck. Like a proper young piece of dog shit. Understand?”

She nodded. She realized she was shaking, about to cry.

“Good. Final garnish and then you’ll fucking eat every bite.”

He stood by her, took her hands and held them behind the chair back, forcing her forward. He wrapped the leash around her wrists, lifted her head and spat on the plate covered with hair.

She waited, counting; it was twenty-six when he shoved her face in the mess.

“Eat, goddamn it.”

She tried to find bits of burger and bun with her tongue, choking on the hairs. She didn’t raise her eyes, concentrated on looking good, even though she wasn’t eating, to Brad.

Brad didn’t talk while he ate. She heard him get up, get something from the refrigerator, pop a cap and she was sure she smelled beer.

She didn’t need a shirt to leave. She’d like to have her clothes and rucksack but if she needed to flee stark naked she could. Hoping this was all a game Brad was playing, she’d stay the night and see.

Brad left her, face down on her plate, and went into the living room where he watched TV. She heard him laughing in the other room.

Once a hair got in her mouth she couldn’t get it out. Her mouth was full of hair.

“Hey, dog shit,” he said.

She raised her face and listened.

“Come here.”

She got up as best she could, knocking the chair over backwards. She knelt unsteadily and walked on her knees, arms behind her, still leashed.

“Good girl, you piece of shit. Over here.”

He undid the leash, pushed her forward onto her hands, so she faced the TV. She heard him undo his pants, say, “A little ketchup,” and he forced himself into her ass.

She gasped, fell forward onto her elbows as he fucked her, felt the tug of her leash and raised up onto her hands. The hairs in her mouth made her gag; she tried spitting them out.

“Doer said he’d give me a hundred, cash for you.” His prick jerked in and out of her. “Think you’re worth it?” His fingers dug into her hips as he finished. Her ass shot him out when he was soft.

“You sorry piece of shit. Clean me off.”

It took a moment and a tug of the leash to realize what he wanted. She turned around and saw his prick, slimy and limp with red in his pubic hair. She could smell the ketchup.

“Do it.”

She licked him clean as best she could while he watched TV and laughed. He shoved her away.

“Go lie over there and play with yourself.”

She looked up to his face, saw his eyes, pale, watching her. She lay on her stomach, fingers under her and masturbated while he watched.

The room was almost too hot to be in.

Chapter Five

“Honeybunch, get your ass in here.”

Wren’s collar was locked to the bedstead’s foot. It had been an uncomfortable night for her, nose to the dusty floor.

Brad came into the simple bedroom — bed, dresser, closet without a door. “Dog shit, what’s keeping you?”

There was nothing she could do or say. Rather, she could say a lot but knew better. Brad slapped her ass a couple of times, to get her warmed up for his friends no doubt. She could hear Luther’s giggles and others’ voices.

Brad released her from the bed, refastened her collar, and said, “Before you go. You can nod your head yes, but you can’t shake your head no. They and I want to see eagerness to please. Don’t let us down. Hear?”

She nodded and followed him, crawling on her hands and knees, led by the leash.

“What did you do to her hair?” Scott asked.

“She fucked up. She won’t fuck up again, will you, babe?”

She knelt by his feet keeping her head down.

“Will you, babe? Oh fuck, you’re pathetic.” He jerked the leash. “No breakfast this morning. She wants it up her ass. Don’t you, dog shit?”

She nodded, looking up to the three friends of Brad. They were slightly less astonished than yesterday. She thought they probably didn’t have such opportunities as she offered very often.

Brad cuffed her head lightly. “You can go in dry or use the crisco over there. You like it dry so it hurts, don’t you, dog shit?”

She nodded and tried to imagine what they saw and how they saw it. It? Her. It was her body, her face, her ass but somehow removed from her. She was a spectator and golly she wanted to cheer them on.

“Ah,” Luther said. “What if we want to do it normal like?”

“You dumbo,” Brad said. “She wants you to hurt her. Like this.” Brad slapped her breast with the end of the leash. “You like that, don’t you, dog shit?” He waited.

She looked up to Luther and nodded. He blushed as if he only now noticed she was bare assed naked.

“Show them.” Brad nudged her with his knee. “Show them what you are.”

Wren didn’t have to think too hard. She rose up on her knees, off her ankles, and masturbated, used her fingers roughly to fuck herself, while her left hand pinched and slapped her tit. She let her head fall back, mouth open and moaned.

Luther giggled as she slapped, pinched and fucked herself.

“Watch this,” Brad said.

She was pushed over onto her back, legs opened, and she resumed fucking herself. Brad slapped her tits hard, pinching and pulling her nipples. “Harder,” he said.

She slammed three fingers into herself repeatedly, pelvis rising for each thrust. “Harder, I said.” He pushed her hand away and pinched her clit.

She wanted to scream, raised her hips and felt his belt strike her. She shuddered through the strapping, lay quiet and limp as he rolled her over.

“Throw a cushion here.”

Brad lifted her middle and left the cushion under her raised ass.

“Get the dish towel from the kitchen.” Brad slapped her rear. “She wants you to do anything you want. She likes it. Cocks up her ass, spunk down her throat. Beat her, slap her, piss on her, and she wants more.” He shoved the end of the towel in her mouth. “Don’t you, dog shit?”

He was close. Not on the barrel so he’d win the prize, like her undying affection. He didn’t understand her, her wants and needs and desire one iota. She nodded and moaned.

Whoever was first used crisco, much to Brad’s derision. Then Brad was gone and they took turns, trying to be rough like Brad but without spontaneity or flare. As she fucked back she could hear pounding and other noises from outside.

What Brad didn’t understand was that for her, just being like this in a room with men was enough. Being called names, made to perform, being struck like an old rug enhanced what was happening, but that wasn’t her impetus, her fantasy. Being exposed, a movie screen where they could watch whatever movies were in their heads. Wren as whore, Wren as masochist, Wren as a pitiful, defiled object.

When Brad came back she was alone on the floor feeling an intense need to use the bathroom. Fucked three times this morning and no one had felt the need to say I love you or kiss her. They could have gone on forever as much as she or Brad cared, though he didn’t like not being in the center of attention. Otherwise he’d be keeping her all to himself, and displayed to his friends not so extravagantly. He’d be keeping her to himself and spend more time fucking and less time talking. So far she was only mildly impressed.

“She bore you?”

“We’re just taking a break, Brad,” Scott said.

“That’s the first time I ever did that,” Luther said.

Something hit her. “Dog shit, that’s your new stick. Fetch.”

She rolled off the cushion and found a three-foot piece of broom handle, painted bright yellow, rounded at one end, cut straight through on the other.

“What do you think you’re supposed to do with it, dog shit?”

“I think I like her pussy better,” Luther said. “I don’t think sticking it in her ass is clean. You know?”

“Get her to clean you off, Luther.” Brad waited by the couch. “Well, dog shit?”

She stuck the rounded end in her cunt.

“You’ll play fetch whenever you’re in here and not otherwise occupied. Fetch and clean Luther, you fucking whore.”

She held the broomstick in her as she crawled to the couch. Between Luther’s knees, she used one hand to hold the stick, the other to open his jeans, not looking at him.

“If you’d been good, you’d be getting breakfast this morning.”

She nodded as she licked Luther’s prick. She’d never minded tasting herself though she’d met some girls who hated it. Wouldn’t lick a cunt or swallow come either, thought it was dirty. Or lick a prick after it’d been in a cunt or ass. She didn’t mind.

Brad jerked her leash. “Leave your stick. I have something to show you.”

She crawled after him into the yard and the three friends followed them. She went into her shed — her shed, not the shed anymore. Her shed, where he shut the door and locked the hasp.

She really had to go to the bathroom.

A click and a four-inch square of light showed. “Over here, dog shit.”

She crawled to the square opening, raised up to look out.

“I don’t trust my friends not to abscond with you. I think Luther’s falling in love. Which is sick, Luther, sick.” There was laughter. His pale eyes glowed. “Anytime this hatch opens, dog shit, you’re on call. Ass, mouth, snatch, whatever they want, whenever they want it.” He left the opening. “See how it works? Drop a quarter in the can, open the hook, drop the flap and tell dog shit which part of her sorry carcass you want her to fuck you with.”

She heard a coin fall into a metal can and an erect prick pop through the opening.

“Ass,” he said.

She wondered what he’d do if she ever refused. Downright refused. He’d throw a tantrum for sure, but what else? He couldn’t make her. Not really. If he killed her where would he be? Without his punching bag, girl friend, a toy for his friends. Who were watching him succeed or fail in his humiliations of her.

She pressed her ass onto his prick, bent over, hands on her knees. She did the best she could, bouncing, since he didn’t move.

“You need lessons in fucking.” He left her.

Brad continued, “So she’ll be here waiting and fair game for anyone with a quarter. Anyone, tell everyone you know. If she’s not here, though, don’t fucking knock on my door to see if she’s available. Understand? The whole high school football team and I don’t care. But if anyone knocks on my door, she’ll be off limits forever. I have better things to do than peddle her sorry ass. If she were pretty it may be different but you’ve seen her. Who’d want to fuck a cunt who plays with a broomstick all day long?”

The hatch closed.

She really needed to use the bathroom.

The hatch opened, a coin went into the can and Doer said, “Cunt.”

By the light of the opening she saw a rusty tin pail in the corner and a roll of toilet paper. She pressed her cunt, bent over, ass to the opening, onto the prick. When he thrust he banged into her shed wall. It was almost pitch black again. She could hear Luther giggling outside, wondered if Brad had gone back inside. Perhaps he had a good comic to read or something.

Another quarter and Luther was next. She was torn between her need and the waiting bucket and Luther’s prick. “Mouth,” he said.

She grabbed Luther’s prick and sucked, took it as deep as she could while he giggled outside. Breakfast won out and she hoped Luther’d be quick.

He was and as she swallowed her morning gruel, she realized she’d know who these three were, and Brad, but all the others would be complete strangers. All? She wondered how many there’d be and how long Brad would play this game.

Chapter Six

In 1948, when Wren was thirteen, her brother was home from the army like lots of boys. He didn’t seem particularly eager to get a job which bothered her parents; didn’t bother her one bit. She liked her brother even if he called her a pest.

Dave, her brother, and two friends Sal and Hawk were working on the jalopy in the garage behind the house. The jalopy didn’t run and it was driving Dave crazy. Having his kid sister underfoot being a pest didn’t help his mood any.

Dave set his beer on the workbench. “Why don’t you go somewhere and do something?”

She gave her sweet innocent look. “I want to help.”

“You’re underfoot all the time. I can’t think.”

“I’m staying out of your way like I said I would.”

“You think the battery’s dead?” Hawk asked.

Dave was tall and broad chested, sandy haired, brows almost white. Hawk was shorter and rounder and didn’t dress well. Wren thought his clothes stank. Sal was skinny and had a huge Adam’s apple. Sometimes he drank too much. They all drank too much; the dustbin was filled with empties.

“No, the battery’s not dead, stupid.” Dave pushed off from the wall and leaned into the engine compartment. They could hear him mutter.

“Think you could get us sandwiches?” Sal asked Wren.

“No sandwiches,” Dave said from the engine compartment. “Until we’re done here. It should run.”

“Sure the battery’s not dead?”

“Want me to turn the key?” Wren asked.

“Hey don’t,” Sal said.

Wren turned the key and Dave shouted, “Damn.” He jerked her from the driver’s seat. “Who said you could do that?”

“I’m just trying to help.”

“Out of here. Take her and shut her up, will you.” Dave finished his beer. “I can’t think with you in here.”

“Come on, kid,” Sal said, taking her to the room in back. When the garage had been a carriage shed, the room in back had been a stall for a horse, with a feed room attached with a door to the outside onto the alley.

Hawk grabbed a couple of beers.

“Convince her,” Dave said. “We don’t want her around here anymore.”

Hawk winked at him. “I still think it’s the battery.”

It was close to an hour later when Dave found the broken wire, spliced it together and started the old Ford. He turned off the engine and waited for Hawk and Sal and when they didn’t come, went to the back.

Sal was holding Wren down as Hawk fucked her. Her dress was torn and thrown up and open, she lay on her back, legs spread, a rag stuffed in her mouth. Hawk stood as he thrust; she lay sprawled on a stack of old tires.

“Jesus Christ, that’s all I need,” Dave shouted. “That’s my sister you’re getting pregnant.”

“Sorry, sarge.” Hawk withdrew. Her thighs were smeared with blood and come.

“Shit, Hawk. We’re not overseas anymore.”

“Hey,” Sal said. “If she gets pregnant, we’ll put her in a bag and drop her off the bridge. Problem’s solved.”

“Cute, wiseguy. I got the car running.”

“We heard.” Hawk used Wren’s dress to wipe himself. He patted her leg with the fabric ineffectually. “I didn’t get to finish, sarge.”

“You’re fucking stupid, Hawk. Whose idea was this?”

Hawk and Sal shrugged.

Dave left and came back with a beer. “Shit, Wren. You should never have been in here in the first place.”

She looked up at him, rag in her mouth.

“You’ve grown some, haven’t you?”

“Big for her age. Sixteen?” Sal said.

“Thirteen. No, Wren. You stay right there. Shit. If you assholes got her pregnant I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“In a bag, off the bridge. Easy. She’s thirteen?”

“Thirteen.”

“Do they get pregnant at thirteen?” Hawk asked.

“They do, just as pregnant as when they’re sixteen.” He tossed the empty bottle in the corner. “Fuck, Wren. If you get pregnant, I’ll kill you. Understood?”

She didn’t move.

“And if you tell mom and dad I really will put you in a bag and toss you off the bridge. Well. I’m going for a drive. Anyone want to join me?”

Sal said, “We were hoping we could, you know?”

Dave pulled the rag from her mouth. “Not a peep out of you. Not one word or you’re fish bait. And you two,” he turned to Sal and Hawk, “don’t get her pregnant.” He left them.

Sal and Hawk turned her over and tossed a coin to see who’d first fuck her butt. Sal won of course. He always won.

* * *

The next day they had the front tire off, trying to figure out what caused the shimmy. They’d been drinking and Dave was jumpy, had been jumpy all day. He jumped when there was a knock on the door.

“Pretend we’re not here,” he said.

The door opened and Wren came in.

“Shit. You scared Dave.” Hawk said to Dave, “You been having those dreams again, Sarge?”

“Shut up, stupid.” He turned to Wren. “Why are you here?”

“I want to help.”

“Jesus Christ. Don’t you have anything better to do?”

“Let the kid stay,” Sal said. “You okay?”

“Sure,” she said. “I can take it. I want to help.” She was nervous, her fingers twisted around each other, she couldn’t keep her hands still.

“You didn’t tell anybody?” Dave asked.

“Of course not. Why should I?”

Sal elbowed Hawk.

“Keep out of our way.”

She stood by the workbench.

“Hey, kid,” Sal said. “I need a beer.”

She looked for the bottle opener.

“Fun and games after we get the shimmy figured out.”

Wren handed Sal an opened beer. She raised her eyes to his and smiled.

“We-oh.” Sal said. “Your sister is a cute one, Sarge.”

“After we’re done, you two.” Dave slapped her arm. “You shouldn’t have come back.”

“Why not? I’m not stupid, you know.”

“You’re stupid for coming back.”

“Lay off, Sarge. She’s here and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Don’t get her pregnant.”

“We got that worked out, don’t we kid?”

She stared at Sal.

“And you, Wren, over in the corner. Not a word from you until we’re done.”

“She can bring us beers and tools and stuff if we ask nicely, can’t she, Sarge?”

Dave threw his hands at her and walked back to the jalopy.

Sal gave her nose a squeeze as he walked by. She sneezed.

* * *

1951, Dave was dead and who knows whatever happened to Sal and Hawk. They were all assholes and shits. Still, she wouldn’t have gone back if something hadn’t happened, pleasure, pain, humiliation, all jumbled up — nothing she could ever recapture with boys her age. Not that she wanted to, really. What she wanted couldn’t be explained except as a hankering.

From Georgia to Texas when she was hitching to New York. Obviously a wrong turn somewhere. Not accidental, Coq had told her there was someone she needed to see in Texas. She had a name and a town.

Texas was a big state and so far no one had ever heard of -----------. She was thinking of stopping somewhere, finding a waitress job or something. An apartment even. Maybe find out where ----------- was. But the idea of spending weeks and weeks and weeks in nowhere Texas was impossible to consider.

That day six years ago was filled with a jumble of impressions she’d never sort out. They were layered and interwoven and just thinking about it would bring something fresh to mind and she thought about it often, especially when she was younger. The windowpanes thick with dust, the taste of the rag in her mouth, how big Sal and Hawk were. They were physically much bigger than any of the boys she knew. How their minds seemed to be off elsewhere while they did those things to her, took all her virginities. They hurt her carelessly, handled her casually. On that stack of tires so the bands of black were indelible on her back and front and legs for days.

The blood, the taste, the feel of them in her. Part of the time she was outside watching. Part of her was thrilled at the idea of being in a bag, carried about, dumped in the back seat of a car, exposed but seen by no one, and not knowing if they’d really do it.

What made her go back was the inability to not go back. She would have died if she couldn’t have gone back even if they’d never done anything more to her. Which they did, for a while at least, Sal and Hawk and then their friends and eventually the boys at school too and then just the boys at school though it wasn’t the same. If her parents had found out, if they’d forbidden her, she’d have run away or something. Killed herself, not out of shame, but because she’d not be able to discover and be who she was.

Plus the way it felt was indescribably good, and for a moment sometimes she had all of their attention.

Chapter Seven

Brad hadn’t been in a good mood when he woke close to noon. Wren wasn’t either but there was little she could do about it. Brad could do all sorts of things, and he did.

She wasn’t sure when the last one had been by last night. She’d heard Brad briefly talk with them, take the change can and leave an empty in its place. It impressed her that he had so much faith in the honorable intentions of others, even though yesterday, or maybe the day before, she wasn’t sure, he’d finally determined not everyone paid.

It was impossible to explain to him she had no idea whether or not they’d left their money. The sound she’d heard could just as well be a stone or a quarter. A quarter taken from the can and dropped back in, or a penny in its stead.

The ones who tried the lock, tried to pry boards loose from the siding, tried to tip her shed over, poked her with sticks, or thought her shed was a urinal, weren’t his concern.

Noise was his concern. How much was in the can of change after a day, the cost of her dog food which was outrageous.

So this morning she was woken by the sounds she’d gotten used to, assumed her position and that was that. Brad was too busy or mean to tell her she’d been a good girl. Too busy to dump her bucket or get new toilet paper. Too busy to replace her urine-soaked (not her pee) blanket or at least hang it out to dry.

More importantly, he was too busy to take her inside for his friends, or himself for that matter, too busy to let her play fetch or be creatively sadistic with her. Too busy to hose her off since when? Day before yesterday, three days ago? Though it could have been yesterday. Everything was dreamlike for her.

She thought but her thoughts were disconnected from each other by the interruptions. She hadn’t heard Luther’s giggle for days now. Or was it yesterday? She couldn’t remember when Luther had last vaselined her because of the rash.

Brad shooed away the kids with the sticks, unlocked her door and looked mad as hell. She rose to her knees and waited for whatever he wanted to do to her.

“You’re a fucking mess, Wren, and it stinks in here.” He jerked her leash. “Outside.”

She waited by her shed, noticing but not looking at the kids with the sticks, four boys and a girl, watching her from the edge of the yard.

“Go away,” Brad said to them but they didn’t shift a foot. He tossed the reeking blanket over the clothesline, straightened it so it hung properly. “Time to wash you,” he said.

She waited on a bare spot in the center of the yard, while he turned on the spigot and fiddled with the nozzle. The water that hit her was cold after the sun-warmed initial blast. He sprayed her all over, making sure her crack and her cunt were clean and then her mouth, letting her drink for a second before he shut off the hose.

The only mercy was the day was warm.

“Go inside when you’re dry.” He left her after coiling the hose and glaring at the kids.

The looks on their faces got her. These were ten-year-old kids and their roles were already set. Boys with sticks, the girl with open-eyed wonder, a raging curiosity. The girl licked her lips a lot and paid focused attention to the tallest boy, a pale, raven-haired kid who looked like he might grow up to be handsome. In a few years, Wren was sure, the girl would have a bored, jaded look and the boy would have a good start on becoming a public drunk.

When she went into the kitchen Brad was sitting at the table counting the change from last night, stacking the coins in little piles. She crawled to her bowl and waited.

“Go get your stick,” Brad said, not looking up from what he was doing.

She crawled to the living room and found the yellow broomstick where it had been left last, over by the TV. She dragged it into the kitchen.

“Fetch,” Brad said. He got up and poured himself a cup of coffee.

She heard men’s voices outside as she rolled onto her back and inserted the broomstick into her cunt, the cut-off end swaying above her in a tiny circle.

“Ten dollars and change,” Brad said, getting up. “Goddamn it.”

She heard him yell into the yard, “We’re busy. She’ll be back in an hour.” He slammed the door and stood above her. “Fucking dog shit. Coffee’s cold.” He splashed his cup on her. “Lick it up.”

He hadn’t said not to fetch so she rolled to her side and got onto her knees, adjusting the stick behind her. Coffee, her first since when? A week ago, two weeks ago, that diner, before meeting Brad?

The coffee was cold, the floor gritty.

Brad sat at the table watching her. “Laura asked me last night about you. She’d heard something and wondered so I told her to come on out this evening. Spend the night. See you in action, see the show. You should be able to make more than ten dollars, dog shit. What’s with all the freebies? I don’t like it.”

She focused her attention on what she was doing, wondering if Laura was a girlfriend. Wondering what would happen to her if Laura came to stay.

“And those kids.”

Brad never touched her except to hold her as she was fucked or to hit her. In her shed she wasn’t touched at all, just an opening for the waiting prick.

Maybe she’d been here two weeks. There wasn’t a way to tell. It was maybe Saturday or Sunday because of the kids. More voices in the yard.

“We’re fucking busy,” Brad shouted from the table. To her he said, “It wasn’t like this till you came.”

The last word. Came. She came spontaneously now. In the middle of sucking or with a prick in her ass. She didn’t need to touch herself, just squeeze somehow and she was off. Her shed had so many scents; it didn’t matter what she smelled. The darkness with the intermittent patch of light was filled with flashing and flaring colors.

She squeezed and the stick thumped the floor behind her.

“If you can’t do better than fifteen today, I’ll whip you raw.” He got up and opened a cupboard.

She lay on her side in a daze, involuntary muscle twitches twisting her body. Overhead was the hook in the ceiling. She’d hung from that yesterday while he whipped her with a strap.

Brad used the can opener and left it on the counter. The can’s lid was still attached, tipped up. He dumped her food into her bowl and she rose to eat.

Sometimes he liked to mash her face down into the dogfood. Today he left her to shout out the back door, “I said we’re fucking busy,” and slammed it.

He paced behind her as she ate from her bowl. “Laura wanted to know if you were any good. I told her for what you do, good doesn’t matter. A hole was what mattered. A cunt open for any prick. That’s what mattered. She was interested, I could tell. Maybe she’ll come out tonight and she’ll see what I mean. If you were any fucking good you’d be worth more than two slippery bits. I’d have my truck and I could take Laura places. She likes to go out. That’s enough.” He jerked her leash. “Come here.”

She crawled to him, wiping her face and licking her hands. He waved his prick in her face.

“Go to it,” he said.

She sucked as he held her head, pulling her onto his prick, into her throat. She kept it there as long as she could, then backed so she could breathe. He let her move away; eventually in the next few minutes he’d control her completely.

In her throat, then out. In her throat, then out. He held her head and fucked. She tried to keep up. He came, held her face mashed against his stomach. She swallowed, impossible to breathe. He held her and she squeezed and came. He released her, wiping his wet prick on her face, over her closed eyes. She swallowed and breathed.

“Go on outside.” He cuffed her. “Go on.”

She left the stick on the floor, crawled to the back door. Seven men and a couple of boys waited by her shed, talking, kicking their heels and smoking cigarettes. They quieted down when they saw her.

Usually they saw as much of her as she saw of them, a four-inch square bit of flesh.

“Hey, girlie, get on in there.”

“Why wait?” another said.

She crawled to her shed, knelt by the hatch.

Brad locked her shed door; she heard a quarter or something go in the can and the hatch opened.

“Cunt,” that one said; his uncircumcised prick thrust into her shed.

She braced against the rough board shed wall, his prick in her cunt. Their movements were limited by the wall between them. She heard laughter, shut her eyes and imagined them standing around her, waiting their turns. Some were dressed, pricks exposed, some were naked like her. A ring of them, interconnected and revolving like clock gears.

His come was dripping from her when the next coin went in the can and another request for cunt was presented. Seven, eight, nine, ten. All in a circle, someone with a camera taking pictures, someone calling her the awfullest slut, and someone filling her openness. Then the next one.

She squeezed and a flash of light went off before her closed eyes.

“She gripped me,” someone said. “Just like a hand.”

Her ass thumped back against her shed wall.

Her cunt dripping, the next one wanted her ass. She wet herself with come and settled herself over the presented prick.

When her shed door was open and she could see, she could see the trails of dried come on the wall, spattered and splashed and dripping from the four-inch square opening.

Chapter Eight

She wasn’t sure how much of this actually happened. Her mind worked that way now — reality and fantasy were indistinguishable. What amazed her was that her fantasies were based on her life, not fun and different things like a Caribbean cruise’s warm waters and tropical adventures. Instead she fantasized she was in a small shed, naked and cold and satisfying long lines of men. Just like her dreams when she was fifteen, but a lot tackier.

What happened was this. Luther came to get her. They were in her shed and he said Brad said she could talk to him. He asked her if she really wanted to be doing these things.

She said, they were halfway between her shed and the house, Luther walking alongside her as she crawled, “I love you.” She said, “I’m open.” She said, “I can make myself come without anyone touching me.” She showed him, lying on her back, arms over her head, body arched and she squeezed.

Luther and she went into the living room where Doer and Scott sat on the couch next to Brad. A girl was with Brad, sitting at his feet, leaning against his legs.

Wren knelt in front of the TV and waited, trying not to look at the girl.

“Show us how you fetch,” Brad said. “You’ll like this, Laura.”

Wren crawled to her stick and lay on her back. Luther helped her by holding the stick as it fucked her cunt.

“Is she retarded?” the girl asked.

“Dog shit’s normal,” Brad said. “More or less.”

“That’s normal?”

“I said more or less.”

“If she’s normal, what am I?”

“Honey, you’re more normal.”

Doer said, “We can tell since you have clothes on.”

Wren squeezed an orgasm, was loud as she gasped and shook.

“That’s disgusting,” Laura said.

“Make her suck her stick,” Brad said.

Luther held the stick for her and she tried to swallow it. She was open. She could take whatever they did to her. She wanted Brad to watch her, not the girl at his feet.

Wren jerked her throat onto and off the stick, her throat making noises and spit pouring from her mouth as the girl watched.

“Why don’t you hit her?” Brad said.

“She’s sick. You all are sick. You screw her?”

“She just lives here and lets them fuck her sometimes.”

“Sure, Brad.” The girl smiled.

“Do you want it up the ass, dog shit?”

Wren held the stick away from her face and nodded. She was open.

This part was always confused. The girl was standing next to her with a belt. Wren’s hands were tied over her head to a hook in the kitchen ceiling near her bowl.

Wren didn’t like this much, this new trick of Brad’s. Scott and Doer were in the corner drinking and talking, not paying attention at all. Luther had a beer but he was a sipper. It would last all night. Brad’s was empty, on the table where he sat with a smile on his face.

This wasn’t Wren’s favorite part.

“Dog shit wants Laura to whip her, doesn’t she?”

Wren nodded and stared at the floor. Brad knew her trick and would want her to do it after the whipping, maybe several times. She wondered if those waiting out by her shed could see her in the lit kitchen, wondered what they thought of her.

Laura was cruel, after the first few blows laughing and hitting harder. Luther giggled and wouldn’t look at Wren. Brad’s pale eyes watched her as his fingers played with the bottle on the table. Wren tried not to call out.

“Scott, get the can from the shed. I want to count it.”

Scott left and Doer sat at the table with Brad. Wren was sobbing and whimpering as Laura continued to whip her.

Scott left the can on the table and leaned against the stove next to Luther. Wren knew by now that all the men were hard and wanted her.

Laura’s blows landed on her breasts and middle, wrapping around her and giving that extra slap. Wren’s solace was that she knew she was prettier than Laura, nicer faced and better shaped. Laura punished Wren’s cunt with the belt, going between her legs or snapping blows directly.

“Who here thinks dog shit needs to have her head shaved?”

“Here,” Laura said.

No one else answered; they held her hair when they used her face.

“Five more and then let her down. Laura, if she wants, can shave dog shit.”

A blow. “Are you?” A blow. “Going to fuck her?” A blow. “Afterwards?” She waited.

“The boys can if they want. She needs to be fed first. They can do that. I have something I want to show you in my room.”

A blow. “I can guess what.” A double blow.

Wren hung from her wrists and twisted her knees, crying as Laura stood by Brad, her fingers in his hair.

“Where is it?” Scott said.

“Where it usually is,” Brad said. “In the cupboard.” He stood and wrapped an arm around Laura. “Come on.”

“I want to watch.”

“Want to join her?”

“Join her? Be like her? No way.” Laura watched her. “No way.”

“Come for us, dog shit.”

Wren jerked, flung her head back and twisted her body.

“She’s faking.” Laura’s eyes didn’t leave her.

“Do it again, dog shit.”

Wren twisted from her bound wrists, head down, her body jerked rapidly back and forth. One time. She paused and squeezed off another. She wanted those outside to see her. To see how happy she was. How she wasn’t abject but empress of the world. Another time and she moaned, head flung back, swinging from her wrists, her body presented to Brad, his friends and his girlfriend.

“Those can’t be real,” Laura said, sounding too sure.

Your boyfriend fucks my ass as I do that, Wren though. He knows whether or not I’m faking. She smelled her food, turned to watch Scott dump the can into her bowl.

“Yuck,” Laura said. “You guys are sick.”

“Are you hungry?” Brad asked.

Wren nodded, tried to stand and couldn’t.

“Take her down, Scott.”

“Aw, why do I?”

“You know why, don’t you?”

Scott grinned in her face, felt her cunt, and gave her ass a slap before letting her down.

She knelt on her knees and elbows and ate noisily. Fingers in her collar pulled her away before she was done. Laura and Brad were gone. Wren smiled up at the others, knowing what they wanted.

They took turns fucking her as she was bent over the kitchen table. She came for each one. They left her to watch TV and she finished eating while she tried to hear Brad and her in his room.

She played fetch in front of the TV while they watched. After a while Brad and Laura came in and Brad said, “Why isn’t she outside?”

“You didn’t say anything,” Luther said.

“When you were done she was supposed to go back out.”

Wren came as Laura watched her. The look was partly disgust, partly something else. Perhaps Laura too had played with herself imagining being taken and made to do things. Having strangers look on her naked while they decide what to do with her.

“This salesman came to the station,” Brad was telling Laura as Luther led her out. Scott and Doer stayed in the kitchen with new beers.

I’m open, she wanted to tell Luther. I love you. I can make myself come without anyone touching me. She knew, though, that it was being here in Brad’s house or in her shed that let her do these things. She was a creation of herself and her surroundings.

Luther locked her in her shed and she wasn’t sure how many were waiting. Not that many; it was late. A coin went in the can and the hatch opened. “Suck me,” she was told. She found the prick by touch and began, her body tingling slowly from the whipping. She didn’t hurt.

She swallowed the come and waited for the next one and the one after that. She pretended she was in her shed and it was light and there was a window, or better yet an open door so they could see her. She had tits and an ass, legs and a cunt. She was pretty enough for what she was.

“She’s in there?” Laura said.

“Want to see? I’ll get a flashlight.”

“What are they doing?”

“She fucks or sucks anyone. That’s what she’s doing. Want to join her?”

“You’re kidding.”

“Ask her if she’s happy. I’ll get a flashlight.”

“Pussy,” someone said so Wren turned around and filled her cunt with waiting prick. Their only contact was a tenuous ring of flesh. She came. When he was done she could feel his come drip down her leg.

“Are you happy?” Laura asked from outside.

Wren nodded. I’m open and I love you. Even if Brad does fuck you.

“Mouth,” someone said.

Chapter Nine

Wren’s tattooist friend was Coq, pronounced by him somewhere between coke and cake, an army vet who drank, told stories, and let her sleep in his attic. Coq preferred men but had used her ass more than a few times in partial payment for tattoos. Afterwards, when she got ready to leave for Texas, Coq told her he still preferred men but she was okay in a pinch. She took it as he meant it.

The attic had one window onto the street and the ceilings were so low she couldn’t stand straight. She thought the last time the room had been painted was before the Civil War. Her lamp was a candle in a Chianti bottle with a strict admonition to be damned careful or she’d set the shop on fire.

Coq slept down stairs, in a room behind the room onto the street where he worked. He ate out, there was a necessary in the back yard, and washed with cold water year round.

The war had taught Coq a reason to drink and to not have big plans. He expected everything to go up in a puff of smoke at any moment with all the A-bombs Russia and we had.

Customers came in all day, but were infrequent, and most commonly were seen on weekends after they’d had enough courage through drink. Wren, when she wasn’t reading upstairs or out with a friend, sat with Coq and they talked while he waited. It was Coq who told her about Texas.

Her current friends, met through Coq, were two men who took her out into the country to a wooded swamp and did things to her.

“Francois and Albert coming by today?” Coq asked. His whiskey was neat, in a tall glass. He talked while working on a sketch.

“They didn’t say.”

“Like them?”

“They’re okay. They’re energetic which is nice.”

He grinned without looking up. “But are they what you’re looking for?”

“Kind of. The mosquitoes are something else again.”

“Go straight for the ass like a faggot in heat.” He took a drink. “Some women prefer chains to rope. Eh?”

“I hadn’t thought about it. Frank and Al are rope men I guess.”

“Darkness to daytime, with a hint of dread.”

“Daytime’s okay. What should I be dreading?”

“That they’ll leave you there. That maybe they’ll kill you for some reason. That they’ll rape you.”

“Frank and Al? Coq, if they didn’t do something to me, then I’d be disappointed.”

“Your honor is already gone.” Coq winked, blew on the drawing to dry the ink. “They showed me a picture of you. Andromeda bound with Perseus to the rescue.”

“From boredom?” She paused, “They have photos of me?”

The drawing he showed was of two hearts, superimposed, one higher than the other, a dagger piercing both and rose leaves decorating their sides.

“How much, Coq?”

“It would have to be money for this. No going into the hole this time, nice as it is.”

“How much?”

“Thirty-five dollars. For you, twenty.”

“I don’t have twenty.”

“You have a twat. Peddle it.”

“That’s sort to icky, Coq.”

“Giving it away free isn’t?”

“There’s a difference. You take care of all the arrangements and I’ll peddle it for you.”

“I’m too busy and alas most of my friends aren’t interested in such merchandise.”

“Your customers?”

“They come here for tattoos. You know that.”

“I’ll think about it. On the street, like the other whores?”

“Other?” He winked at her, reached for his drawing. “I have a new idea.”

“I like to pick and choose a little.”

“Is that what you call it?” He began sketching with a pencil.

“You know what I mean.”

“In prison one doesn’t always get to choose. One associates with someone who has power. It makes life easier.”

“When you’re ready for lunch, let me know. I’m buying this time.”

“Money is the root of all evil.”

“Frank and Al wanted to go places and asked me how much. I told them and they laughed at me. Good-naturedly but, honestly, I’ll never be able to do a decent taxi service.”

“Chains,” Coq said. “A figure of a nude woman wrapped in chains.”

“Sounds beautiful, but this one will be even more expensive than the hearts.”

“Fifty for you.”

“That’s a lot of taxi rides with Frank and Al.”

“You like them?”

“They’re okay.”

“If you’re interested in chains, there’s a man in Texas. He’ll pay you. You could come back and get tattoos.”

“Texas? I’m supposed to be going to New York City. Texas is out of the way a bit.”

“Give me a minute or two. I have pictures.”

“Frank and Al didn’t give me any pictures.”

“You need to put your foot down.”

“I’ll ask them next time.”

“Men who like rope are flaccid. You need someone who prefers chains.”

“If you say so.”

“Francois and Albert are friends and they’re just okay? If I had a schlong like Albert’s I’d be in heaven.”

Wren grinned. “He’s okay, hardly flaccid. At least not around me.”

“In heaven.”

“In my case it’s in his stinking bitch. That’s what he calls me.”

“The odor does take some getting used to.”

“Thanks!”

“How do you like it? This is you.” He held up the pencil sketch. A long-limbed buxom lass had a large chain circling her body, from top to bottom. More rose leaves and the name Daisy underneath.

“Coq, my name isn’t Daisy.”

“Your name would be whatever whoever binds you like this cares to give you. You’d be his. And he’d be yours. If he wants to call you Daisy, that’s it. That’s your name. There will be a reason he calls you that and this reason you will need to find. Nothing will be clear except how strongly he holds you.”

“All that for fifty dollars.”

“Cheap at ten times that price, Wren. Finding the one who owns you is beyond cost or price. I need to stretch.” He left the room.

Wren looked around. The dusty large window onto the street had sheets of drawings taped to it. The only light was from that, at night an overhead bulb and a clip-on studio lamp where Coq did his tattoos. That lamp was bright and hot, seemingly too hot for its aluminum shade and cheap fixture aimed by a wood dowel in back.

Printed textiles hung on the walls beside more drawings of tattoos with prices in crude black lettering.

“I took these as a trade,” Coq said, putting a small cardboard box in front of her. “If someone asks I sell from the box. Not many know or care.”

She took the lid off. It was jammed with photos.

“There’s an envelope in there. From Texas with a name. These are his.” Coq took the box and leafed thorugh the photos. “Here.” He passed a glassine envelope to her.

She quickly leafed through the photographs in the envelope, put the stack down and looked at them one at a time.

“Others are nudes, some pinups, some bondage. But those are from Texas.”

“How do you know?” She was looking at a photo of a naked woman, her wrists in shackles, kneeling, hands over her head. She tried to put herself in the other’s place but it didn’t work.

“They were in the envelope. Here. Write it down so you’ll remember.”

“I’ll remember.” She took the envelope. “S. Jakes. -----------, Texas. No address.”

“In the country you don’t need an address. Pick three you like.”

She took her time. She couldn’t imagine being one of the models but the setting held her interest. Two square wood pillars, iron rings on the whitewashed stone wall, chains overhead. A room filled with frightened, bound innocence. She chose one of a naked girl sitting by the pillar, legs and wrists in shackles, a woman, hands bound high overhead, her dress partially torn from her, and the woman who was kneeling. “How much?”

“Nothing, but you need to leave soon.”

“Are these popular?”

“Not really. These are.” He fanned a short stack of women stripping.

“You have a camera. Take photos of me and sell them.”

“I could I guess.” He put the photos away and closed the box.

“In here or in the back yard.”

“That appeals to you?”

“That appeals to me, Coq. Find a chain and wrap it around me and say I’m the model. Your customers will appreciate your creative license.”

“Don’t put yourself down. You look, as you say it, okay, Wren. With your clothes off who cares. Most men don’t. Their perfect woman is in their heads.”

“I’ll leave in a week. I want to get photos from Frank and Al.”

“And a bit of schtupping.” Coq touched the sketch. “She’s worth fifty dollars, don’t you think?”

“She’s beautiful, Coq. You’re a real artist.”

“And it’s not even noon yet. Go get our lunch.”

Chapter Ten

The guy started yelling, “She got blood on me,” and more. While they were busy outside her shed, Wren took a piss in the bucket, which was getting full and stank as the piss in it fermented. Everything stank in her shed, so much, she couldn’t get used to it. She stank, her blanket stank, the bucket stank and she was out of toilet paper.

Whenever she thought about where she was and what she was doing a moment of confusion set in. What was her life hadn’t always been like this and she remembered bits from a dark past. An awareness, for just a second, of a road through a southern pine forest which went on forever, narrow, straight with intersections every now and again but the car she was in never turned.

Brad used to tell her how much was in the can every night when he had her inside, before feeding her and sending her out again. Seven dollars, ten, twelve, eight fifty-seven, nine even, and once eighteen dollars and thirty-six cents. Five dollars was twenty, ten was forty plus all the others who put in pennies and rocks or didn’t even bother. Say two hundred times a week at least, maybe several times that. A thousand times a month. Numbers that didn’t mean anything since there was no definable past in her life anymore. Incidents occurred in the present, a fucking or a beating, and the present was all she knew.

She did remember the first time with Brad, but that memory was overlaid with all the other times and was blurred.

A key opened the lock, the hasp slammed against the door and Brad stood in the bright light. “Come on,” he said.

She crawled after him, not looking over her shoulder to see how many were waiting for her by her shed. The young girl was there; she did see her, watching, standing just outside the yard in the tall weeds, staring.

Maybe the girl wasn’t really there. Wren couldn’t be sure.

“Inside,” Brad said. “You fucking stink. You know that?”

He made her stay in the kitchen, left her and she heard voices; then he came back. “Stand over there.”

She stood by the wall with no window, facing him.

“Fuck, Wren. You’re a mess.” He pushed her against the wall and felt her cunt. The bloody fingers were waved in her face. “What’s this?”

She drank with her eyes his face, his lips, a glutton for anything after her dark shed.

“Answer me.”

“My period,” she whispered. She hadn’t talked since when, except in her dreams. She talked all the time in her dreams.

“Make me some coffee.”

She looked about the kitchen but didn’t know where to begin. “I love you,” she said.

He slapped her. “Dog shit, dog shit. Whoever gave you permission to do anything except be the town’s fuck hole?”

She smiled at him, crying. It was hard to explain but being touched by him made her happy. She wasn’t sure if he even remembered where she was when she was in her shed, wasn’t sure if he cared. Cared enough to keep her, cared enough to discard her.

“Make me some coffee.”

“I don’t know how.” Anymore. She didn’t know anything.

Brad scratched his bare chest, left her.

She looked out the window at her shed. There were men waiting. She wondered what they thought of their few minutes with her, of her shame.

“Come here,” Brad said. He tugged her leash and she followed, dropping naturally to her hand and knees.

She saw a bare foot with red toenails hanging off the end of Brad’s bed.

“Turn over,” Brad told the woman on the bed.

Wren waited while Brad fucked the woman on the bed. When he was done he pulled Wren up onto the bed and pushed her head down onto the woman’s cunt. “Eat.”

The woman wasn’t Laura, shorter, red haired, heavily freckled, and plump. Wren licked and sucked Brad’s come from her. The woman didn’t move.

Brad left them and Wren heard him hammering outside. “Get off,” the woman said. “Get off me.”

Wren knelt on the floor. The woman dressed, leaving the room and coming back as she put on clothes, a bra, panties, stockings and slip. A dark blue dress that buttoned down the front. The woman came back wearing shoes and said to Wren, “Tell your boyfriend I’ve gone.” The woman left her and Wren heard the door slam.

Not once in all this time had Brad ever used her cunt. He used her mouth most often, but half the time cuffed her ears and stopped before coming. It seemed the longer she spent in her shed, the less she saw him or his friends.

Brad made her kneel in the kitchen as he drank his coffee, watching her intently. His shirtsleeves were unbuttoned and fell back on his arms as he drank.

“I’ve a mind to,” he said. He left her, taking his cup.

She wanted him to bring her stick. She could come without it, only liked it because of the look on Brad’s face when it was in her. His casual interest, easily distracted.

“Come on,” he said. He held a jumble of cotton line in his hand.

She followed, crawling more slowly than he walked, trying to keep up.

He led her to the wall outside next to the spigot. “Your hands,” he said. “Stand up, you fucking slut.”

She rose and offered her wrists crossed, keeping her head bowed. Brad quickly tied them. “Over there,” he said.

There was a hook on the wall of her shed, about six inches from the ground. He forced her to bend, her roped wrists snagged the hook and she was compelled to remain bent over.

Brad washed her as the men watched. The hose’s hard spray went over her whole body but focused on her ass and cunt. She was left to dry, heard more pounding and the men talking.

Sometimes Wren thought, I’m tired of this, and began to make plans to leave. That happened less and less frequently now. She wanted Brad to like her. She imagined them both talking early in the morning over breakfast before he sent her out to her shed. She imagined pleasing him by her diligence and her openness. Brad would take a moment to caress her before locking her shed door behind him and going back to bed. Brad would handle her breasts with a smile, a secret they shared.

She was made to sit on the wood bar, legs fully extended, on her toes. Her wrists were hung from a hook on the eaves of the house high over head and she looked out into the yard. After a moment she had to settle her weight on the wood bar and it cut sharply into her cunt. She rose back onto her toes and stayed there as long as she could.

The bar was supported by legs, four of them, two in back of her and two in front. The lumber was old, brown and sturdy.

“Look at me, dog shit.”

Wren raised her eyes. Brad’s pale eyes stared back.

“Look at them.”

She faced into the yard. The men clustered by her shed. The girl stood off by the side of the house in the tall weeds.

“You’ll say you’re sorry. You’ll beg their forgiveness for dirtying them and you’ll explain who and what you are and for what purpose you were created.”

Created, she thought. “I’m sorry.” She licked her lips and raised off, as much as she could, the bar with the cruelly sharp edges. “I’m sorry and I hope you’ll forgive me.”

Most of the men who used her never saw her. She never saw them.

“Finish it.”

“I.”

“Come for them.”

She closed her eyes and focused inside her, where the pain was. The orgasm roared out of her, and when she opened her eyes she was hanging from her wrists, sitting on the bar and facing the sky. She’d said something or screamed or something and tried now to lick the spittle from her chin.

“She does that all day in that shed. She can’t control herself. I’d give a hundred dollars to the man who marries her. Finish it, dog shit.”

“Dog shit,” she said. “My name used to be, I’ve forgotten, and now it’s dog shit. I’m a cunt, a mouth and an ass who calls herself dog shit and I’m open for anyone. Please,” she said.

“Please what?”

“It hurts. Please. Another.”

“An hour on the horse and then she’s free all day. Out in the yard, whatever you want to do to her.” Brad said only to her, “They woke me up because of you and now I have to sit out here and make sure you don’t wander off, you worthless piece of shit.”

“Please,” she said. “It hurts.”

“It? It hurts? Who are you talking to?”

“Dog shit’s cunt hurts, Brad.”

“I’m not interested in listening to your whining.” He left her and walked to the girl watching them.

Dog shit, Wren. Dog shit rose onto her toes and wriggled her fingers, trying to disrupt the painful sensation in her hands.

“You,” Brad said to the girl. “If I ever see you here again, I’ll toss you in the shed with her. Understand?”

The girl’s eyes were huge as she stared at Brad.

“Get out of here.”

The girl looked at dog shit and left, wading through the weeds.

The men were closer now. “I bet that hurts,” one said.

“I’ll be back in an hour,” Brad said. He went inside, slamming the door.

One of the younger ones reached to her and pinched her tit. Dog shit bounced on the bar, rose back onto her toes and looked away.

“Here,” he said, turning her face. “Look at me.” He smiled at her. She tried to smile back.

“She looks better than I thought she’d look,” someone said.

The young man kicked her foot from under her and she landed hard on the bar. “She looks like a whore to me. I wouldn’t marry her for a million dollars.” He took out a cigarette and lit it.

“I’ll be back in an hour,” someone said. Several men left.

The young man poked at her with the cigarette and she flinched.

Wren. Dog shit. Wren watched the cigarette’s glowing end as he smoked, standing too close to her.

“You’re a hairy one, aren’t you?” The young man stroked her underarm with the finger holding the cigarette.

Chapter Eleven

She cried when he gave her chains. That was one of her good memories. The wrist shackles were relatively light, at least compared to her leg shackles whose chain had thick heavy links.

The chain between her wrists was long enough so that she had to hold sections in her hands to keep from tripping on it while crawling. Brad, if he wanted shorter sections of chain, would gather it together and insert a padlock. Her ankles or wrists or both could be touching and if desired they could be locked together — wrists to ankles but the ankle chain unshortened, for fucking — or locked to some object like the wall hooks outside, the eaves, the horse or a piece of furniture.

The chains spurred them on to finding creative ways to use her or move her about from room to room, or outside in the back yard. When she was taken from her shed for general use, the chains clearly showed her state to all who saw her. Plus they meant Brad could nap outside and not have to watch over her.

Her cunt was to be untouched, by Brad’s edict, and he hadn’t told her she could come since that time in the yard before the men. Late at night now, when they were done with her and she was truly alone in her shed, she dreamed of fucking. Being unfilled this way, for so long, while being repeatedly filled in other ways, made the loss so much more noticeable. She was separate from her body, a bystander watching a complex performance but unable to appreciate the subtlety and sensations enjoyed by those involved. When she dreamed of fucking it was the same way. She’d wake up and have no memory of what it felt like or what it did to her.

Where before her dreams had been parallel to her experience, equal to what she went through in her waking hours, now she dreamed of the past. Past lovers fucked her and she didn’t feel a thing. All over again she was able to lose her virginity to her brother’s friends and now she dreamed it she was standing alongside, watching the thirteen-year-old lying on the stack of tires, rag in her mouth, as they took turns in her. Or she was in a forest tied to a tree and all she could feel as she was entered from the rear was the tree’s bark as it rubbed her and his teeth as he bit her shoulder.

Her shed was still the center of her pleasure but it wasn’t from taking it in the mouth or ass or the brief periods of solitude. Her shed was the vessel where she was cleansed of impurities. She didn’t look forward to her use because of the pleasure it gave her, there was little, nor for the pleasure it gave Brad, who as near as she could tell could care less. It wasn’t for the men and boys on the other side of the wall, another world far from her. Her use, she discovered, was almost the only pure moment in her life (she didn’t think, plan, dream), when she did nothing but receive.

Outside, when they were watching, it was different from being in her shed. Other sensibilities kicked in, like her desire to be seen. She was the focal point in their midst outside, in her shed she was a void, an emptiness to be filled.

She saw the girl sometimes and was sure Brad had seen her too but he’d said nothing. When she saw the girl, she became the girl watching her. She saw the bruises and welts, the rusty chains, the dirt, the butchered hair and the eagerness with which Brad was followed by her. She’d lost weight and her skin had a dusty smudged look.

Everything glowed. She hadn’t lost orgasms; they’d taken a new, continual form.

She woke to find the girl in her shed.

“Are you happy?” the girl asked.

She could see the girl by the light the girl gave off.

“What is happy?” she said. She remembered Coq telling her that her name would contain everything about her. Accepting that was the hardest. Accepting his callous inattention, his not finding her special or worthy. Not being able to read a book or talk to someone about something important. Not being able to see a sunset or drink a glass of wine or cup of coffeee. “Are you here to join me?”

“I’m just watching,” the girl said. “What they have to give is for you, not me. At least not right now.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirteen.”

“I was thirteen once.” She wanted to touch the girl, show her she was real. “What’s your name?”

“Wren.”

“I had that name once. Now I answer to dog shit.”

“I know. I wish my name was dog shit, too. I hate being called a bird name.”

“It may not happen right away, Wren.”

“Hank said he wants to do to me like they do to you.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“I’m not sure I like Hank that much.”

She wasn’t sure if she liked them or not. Wasn’t sure if it had ever mattered. Perhaps if she’d liked Brad, she’d never would have been put here. “I’m not sure liking matters that much, or love.”

“You don’t believe he loves you?”

“Probably not.”

“Do you love him?”

“Of course I do. That’s why I’m here. I love all of them and I love you.”

“You love him because he put you in chains?”

“Before that I loved him.”

“Because he does those things to you? Does it hurt?”

“Sometimes it hurts a lot. Maybe. I discovered some time ago that I loved them but I couldn’t say why.”

“You don’t care when they do those things to you? You cry out.”

“It hurts sometimes to be reminded what I am. It hurts to remember who they are. Sometimes I forget we’re not the same.”

“Does it feel good sometimes? When Hank does it to me it hurts.”

“It feels good to be open and willing.”

“You stink.”

“I know. The come in my snatch ferments.”

“I thought they weren’t doing that any more.”

“I know. There are stories of holy mystics in the desert who stank, battled demons all their lives and no one understood why they stank.”

“I think something is rotting.” The girl made a face. “You let them pee on you.”

“I can’t control what is done to me.”

“That’s gross.”

She shut her eyes for a moment and when she opened them the girl was gone and someone was unlocking her door. On her knees, she waited, looking up.

“Hey,” Luther said. “Brad said I could visit.”

“Busy evening?”

He shut the door behind, leaving them in total darkness except for his glow. “Someone pee in here?”

“A while back.”

“He said I could tell you you can talk but you’re doing it anyway.”

“I think I know why you’re here.”

“How’s that? He say something to you?”

“No.”

“Lie on your back.”

She lay on the blanket, arms and their chains over her head.

Luther dropped his pants, climbed over her.

“You can’t do it there.”

“Fuck Brad,” Luther said.

She tried to close her legs, move so he couldn’t. His prick entered her cunt and she said, “I can’t talk to you anymore.”

She stood next to the girl and both watched Luther fuck. He was so fat everything jiggled.

Someone knocked on her shed. “Mouth, I said. You awake in there?”

She got up and took the proffered prick in her mouth. He came quickly, but stayed in her as she swallowed and touched his prick with her tongue.

She heard, “You’re next.”

“Ass,” someone said.

She settled her ass onto the short prick.

“I can’t feel anything,” someone said.

“She’s in there.”

“Fuck harder,” he shouted.

She bounced and squeezed as best she could.

“This is what I’ve been hearing about? Hardly seems worth the bother.”

“Take her mouth. That’s worth it.”

“Mouth,” he said.

She licked the prick then used her lips.

“That’s better. Go to it, honey.”

“I heard she’s not bad looking at all.”

“That’s right, honey. What’s that knocking sound?”

“Her nose hitting the wall. Just like a woodpecker.” They gave the Woody Woodpecker cry, like in the cartoons.

He came and laughed. “The damnedest thing. She does this for free?”

“They don’t care. The quarter thing is a joke I heard. I heard she’s his girlfriend but she’s a real whore so he keeps her locked up in his back yard.”

She swallowed the come, heard them leave, talking about her. I’m his girlfriend, she thought. I’m not. She waited for a minute longer in case there were some others. When there weren’t she laid down. He’s going to get rid of me somehow. She thought that and wondered where she’d be able to go after this.

Chapter Twelve

She’d been giving blowjobs to Brad’s friends who sat on the couch and waited their turns. Luther had his hands in her hair and was serious for the moment. Her wrist shackles had been taken off and today was the first day in awhile when she’d been allowed to play fetch or have anyone in her cunt.

Having her cunt filled this morning, in her shed, was extraordinary. She hadn’t been told she could come but it didn’t matter. She screamed because it felt so good.

Brad was off somewhere in the house with Laura. He’d joked about putting Laura in her shed and she’d taken it badly. Scott and Doer liked the idea.

Luther rubbed her ear after coming. She wanted prick in her cunt, her stick, something and was almost ready to beg for it.

“Luther, take me home,” Laura said.

She looked up from Luther’s lap. Laura stood by the couch with her arms crossed. Brad was still in back somewhere.

Doer elbowed Luther. “Give the girl a ride. She asked for it.” Doer pinched her nose. “Over here, lil doggie.”

“Just a second,” Luther said, stuffing his limp meat back into his jeans. “I need to talk to her first.”

“Right now, Luther.”

“Back here.” Luther stood and took her arm. “I’ll take you home in a minute, Laura.”

Luther walked her on her knees, arm held over her head. In the kitchen Brad was at the table reading a comic and ignoring them. Luther said, “I offered a hundred.”

“Her name, Luther, is dog shit. And if you had it in cash I’d have taken it.” Brad turned the page.

She wondered what was going on.

“I just wanted you to know.”

“Luther. I’m waiting,” Laura shouted.

Luther gave her a look, let go of her arm and a minute later she heard the front door shut.

“Go on back, dog shit.”

Someone had turned on the TV. “Go play with yourself,” Doer said.

“Fetch,” Scott said. “Should she have the manacles back on?”

“Probably.”

She knelt holding up her arms. Scott locked the shackles on her wrists.

“Shit, let’s go in the kitchen.” Doer got up from the couch.

“I wanted to be left alone,” Brad said.

“We noticed,” Doer said, “but the bitch needs to be whipped.”

“What’s on TV?” Brad stood.

“The usual shit.”

Doer grabbed the wrist chain and pulled her up. “Over here, sweet stuff. Help me, Scott.”

Scott held her as Doer looped the chain through the ceiling hook. Her toes could just touch the floor as the shackles bit into her wrists.

Brad handed a beer to Scott and they both drank and watched as Doer whipped her with his belt.

“You can come when he’s done, dog shit. We expect a good show,” Brad said.

She watched them as she was whipped, between blows and flinches and through tears. She wondered what would have happened to her if he’d called her something else. What his name for Laura would be if she came back.

She was glad she’d never left.

When Doer was finished, reaching for a beer handed him by Brad, she came. The first time was what she did to herself, the others came on their own, a rolling succession as if floodgates had been opened. When she was aware again, Doer was holding her up as he fucked her, his grinning face inches from hers, his prick delicious to her cunt. She bucked and swung in his hands.

Someone knocked on the front door; Brad said he’d get it. “My turn next,” Scott said. Doer grunted and thrust.

She was swinging from her wrists when she woke. Doer was sitting at the table finishing his beer. Brad was talking to two strangers, dressed all in black, shirts with mother of pearl buttons. Scott put down his beer.

“I need some help,” he said.

“You can do it yourself,” Doer said. He leaned his chair back on two feet so far it slipped. He caught himself and leaned forward.

“I need help,” Scott said.

One of the strangers came up to them, gripped her chin and turned her face sharply to the left, to the right. He lifted her lip. “All her teeth?”

“All her teeth,” Brad said.

“It’s my turn next,” Scott said. “I need help getting her down.”

The stranger felt her breasts, stuck a finger up her cunt and sniffed it, smiling he offered it to her. She cleaned his finger.

“What’s she eat?” he asked, turning her around.

“Dog food. Jism for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

He felt her ass, spread her cheeks, fucked her ass with his finger. “I like a girl that eats three square a day.” He offered her his finger and she licked it clean. “Why the chains? She runs away?”

“Chains seemed appropriate,” Brad said.

“Here,” the stranger said, lifting her. Scott unhooked the chain from the ceiling.

“She’s never run. Likes it here. Don’t you, dog shit? Show the nice man how much you like it here.”

She came in his arms thumping his chest with her chin and knocking his head with an elbow.

“Whoa, filly. Steady there.” The stranger set her feet solidly on the floor. “Let’s see her in action.”

Scott pushed her across the kitchen table, slapped her ass hard several times and fucked her cunt. The chain for her wrists was under her stomach and rolled as she moved across it.

“Just you three?” the stranger asked.

“She’s been in the back yard doing anybody who shows up.”

“Neighborly.”

Brad laughed. “Right neighborly.”

“May I?”

“She’s all yours.”

Scott grunted, thrust deep and stilled. She felt his full weight on her back.

“The way I got her,” Brad was telling the other stranger, “this salesman came to the filling station where I work.”

“Turn her over,” the stranger by her said.

She lay on her back on the table, her head hanging off.

“You want any, Mike?”

“Later.”

“He said she’d been left in his car, naked, drunk, well-fucked and sleeping. He tried her out and decided to keep her.”

“Fucking chains.”

“Want us to take them off?” Brad asked.

“No, leave them on if she’s used to them.” The stranger held his prick in her face. “Open wide and keep it open.”

His prick hit the back of her throat and entered. She tried to swallow. He did this again and again, not stopping if she gagged. “Who tattooed her?”

“Someone else.”

“Nice work.” He thrust more rapidly, his groin hitting her face. He pulled out as he came, letting the come cover her chin, lips and nose.

“She talk?”

“She’s mouthy. I told her to shut up.”

“Where’re her clothes?”

“She came to me like that, she’s leaving like that.”

“No problem. Fifty was it? Plus the deposit.”

“A hundred all told.”

“Give it to him, Mike.” The stranger jerked on her chains. “Go wait by the front door.”

Brad was pocketing the money as she crawled from the kitchen. She waited by the door as they talked and laughed in the kitchen.

The room was almost bare. A couch, a TV, a table but no lamp. The only light was from a fixture over head. The wood floor badly needed to be waxed. She remembered how it had tasted the first time. Her stick lay against the wall.

She couldn’t believe he was doing this to her. She couldn’t believe he’d sit there and let everything go, just so he’d be able to read his comics alone. If someone liked him he’d manage to piss them off so they’d leave. Her he’d had to work a little harder. She shut her eyes and tried to pretend the darkness was her shed. They came into the living room.

“Back by Monday morning,” the stranger said.

“Or you’ll lose the deposit.”

“What’s her name again?”

“Dog shit.”

“That’s a stupid name. Girl, we’re taking you to Austin where you’ll be the center attraction at a convention this weekend. Policemen from all over wanting to shoot their wad for a few pesos. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?” He pulled her to her feet. “Stay with us or else.”

She was between them when she left the house. She tried to look over her shoulder but was jabbed in the back, pressing her on.

They told her at the car to lie down in the back seat. Getting in she managed to see the house briefly. The door was shut, a light on in the window and the glow of the TV screen.

The car pulled away and Mike said to the stranger, “You believe that shit about the salesman?”

“You believe he let us take her for a hundred dollars?”

“Can you see his face Monday?”

“He’s not expecting us back,” the stranger said.

“So he’s not entirely stupid. Pull over somewhere so I can try her out.”

Chapter Thirteen

She’d never been sure she’d be able to find it again, but there it was, just as she remembered. She’d only seen the front of Brad’s house twice. Both times at night, dark like this, when she came a year ago and when she was being taken away.

It was the same except she could see by the moonlight a truck parked just off the street. A light was on in the living room and she was sure Brad was alone, watching TV or reading a comic.

The pistol was in her jacket pocket, feeling cold and heavy, amazingly heavy for such a small piece of machinery. Wren’s hand was on it as she walked up to the front door. She knocked and everything she’d meant to say went and she was left alone and cold on his doorstep, waiting for what would happen.

The door opened and she said, “You’ll invite me inside because we need to talk for a minute, don’t we? And then you’ll give me my rucksack and I’ll leave.”

“A gun, no less. Is it loaded?”

She fired into the wood floor. “One down, five to go.”

“Then by all means, do come inside.” He stepped aside. “Dog shit.”

“It’s been a year now and I can’t help but think you could have been a mite more creative.” She pointed with the gun. “On the couch.”

“Honey, we all do the best we can with what we have. You weren’t much to work with, you know.” He sat.

It was too warm. She remembered that. She shut off the TV and leaned against the set. “Just like I remembered.”

“Your stick is in the bedroom. Let me know when you want to play fetch.”

“How’s Luther?”

“Broken hearted but he manages. Scott’s married and has a squalling kid. Doer’s working at Port Arthur. I still pump gas.”

“Impressive. Where’s my rucksack?”

“I burned it and what was left of your clothes after the police visited.”

“No one said you could do that to me.”

“No one said the police had to get involved. It was just a bunch of old crap.”

“My crap. You burned everything?”

“Everything. Out back. Your dog house too. People kept coming and bothering me.”

Her shed. She wanted to see it before she left Texas. She had memories of this room, the kitchen, that night when he cut her hair, the bedroom a little bit, and her shed. He’d been most creative here, when others had been watching.

“You’re a shit.”

“Takes one to know one.” He grinned. “Dog shit.”

She lowered the pistol.

“Everything?”

“There was a journal and some lurid photographs.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not a very good writer but the pictures were swell. I hated to burn the pictures. Tempted not to, but a little bird told me I’d better. All up in smoke. I hated to burn the shed. It was useful to me.”

“You’ve never made a bit of sense.”

“The snapshot of you, I’d know that ass anywhere, tied to the tree and the two naked perverts. That was my favorite. I knew from the beginning who you were.”

“You had only the slightest idea, Brad.”

“There were moments. Remember? Won’t you play fetch for me for old time’s sake?” He grinned. “Dog shit.”

“I see you have a truck now.”

“I blew the engine months ago and it’s sat there ever since. It was fun while it lasted.”

“It wasn’t a good idea to come here. I wanted my rucksack and I wanted to put you in your place. You’re already there and my stuff is gone. No girlfriend?”

“You’re kidding. I pump gas at night. I get laid when I want to but nobody even halfway serious.”

“So my time here was your claim to fame.”

“Many fond memories.”

“You’re such a fuckup.”

“I could say something about you wandering into the station and following me home late at night. What’d you seriously expect?”

“Something better.”

“This is Texas. Sorry, we’re big on big but aren’t that big.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. I have my fond memories. You have yours. Maybe they match. Why don’t you get us some beers from the icebox?”

“I’m not drinking with you.”

“Mind if I do?”

“Go right ahead. We can talk in there just as well as here.” She raised the pistol. “Go on.” Following him she asked, “All you do is watch TV?”

“Read.”

“Your comics.”

“A book now and again.”

“I can imagine.”

“I kept your bowl as you see.”

Her bowl was in its corner. “We’ll sit at the table.” She waited for him to get his beer and sit across from her.

“I liked it better when you were on all fours.”

“I bet you did.”

“Naked with ample signs of use.”

“Most girls wouldn’t take that as a compliment.”

“You do.”

“Do I?”

“Too bad you couldn’t have been prettier, stacked and not such an inept fuck.”

“I’m feeling really let down. Don’t push me, Brad.”

“A hint of violence, dog shit. You’re feeling an urge to gnaw on master’s leg, are you?”

“You stupid fuck.”

“You could have said no any time. Left any time. Done anything you wanted. What you wanted was for me to tell you what to do and to do it to you. I did.”

She remembered his rages, the times he whipped her, the implicit threat that was always there. In his favor there was no apology or begging forgiveness. Against him was how badly he’d misunderstood her. He drank his beer, his pale eyes watching her.

“I could have left, you’re right. Naked and it was late spring and I didn’t know anyone, where I was, or if the next one wouldn’t be worse than you.”

“Ah, the salesman with the naked drunk fucked slut in his back seat. Does he take her back to her home or does he do what he really wants to do? She is passable after all, and after sampling, willing. I was planning to do that for you, eventually. Take you up north. At a bar or club leave you in someone’s car. I hadn’t quite figured out how. Drunk? Bound? Or just willing.”

“You never knew what to do with me.”

“I did the best I could with the opportunity offered and in spite of all your shortcomings everything worked out okay. No one was hurt. We’re able to chat. I have memories, your stick and your bowl. You have memories too.”

“Memories and what I wish I could have called memories. What you didn’t, weren’t able to do.” She waved the pistol. “You’re done with your beer.”

“What if I said I kept a picture?”

“I want it right now.”

“Maybe the journal too. I’d need to hunt around in my bedroom.”

“I can do that.”

“What if I said I didn’t burn your dog house? That it still stands, in all its majesty, in back, the grass dead from all the feet marching in lockstep to use you. Shall we check?”

“I can do that, Brad, without you.”

“But can you, again, play fetch for your rapt audience, eat from your dear bowl?”

Wren remembered him shoving her face into it.

“Or extract the come of thousands? Without me?”

“It wasn’t thousands.”

“It could be if we moved to some better place. You’d be famous.” He grinned.

“I want something else, Brad.”

“Dog shit. You’re sitting there with that frown and you look so goddamned cute. I want to strip you, tie you up, and fuck you with this bottle. Think about it.” He raised the bottle and twisted his wrist.

She raised the pistol and sighted it.

“Go ahead and you’ll never know what I really think.”

“You’re right, Brad. I’ll never know.” She fired the pistol.

He grinned at her and the bottle in his hand did a little jig.

“I could almost like you, Brad.”

“Another name. Less scatological? Hole? Cunt? Town’s fish pond? Tail? Piece? Slut? Whore for quarters? Let’s see. Ummm. Mind’s gone blank.”

She fired again.

He fell from his chair clutching his chest, rolling on the floor in all the din from the shot. He looked up at her, where she stood by the table. “Wren. Please. For a dying man. Please play fetch.”

“You asshole,” she pointed the pistol at him. “I didn’t shoot you.”

He sat up. “It doesn’t hurt to try.”

“I want my journal and photographs.”

“And I want to be in your journal and add more pictures.”

She was tempted. “I can’t trust you.”

“That’s an honest statement. When have I ever done you wrong?”

She fired the pistol almost hitting her bowl. “I don’t trust you.”

“I’m listening.” He leaned back on his elbows.

She’d been hunting all over in Texas for a name and a place and his wasn’t it, this wasn’t it, but for some reason she’d come closer here than anywhere else. She knew there must be better somewhere, and Brad had rather severe limitations in some departments. She’d never thought it would work out and didn’t think he did either. “Boyfriend, girlfriend first. Just that. No doggy shit, no shed, no friends of yours, no being left in a stranger’s car.”

“You’re serious.”

“I said you didn’t understand me. Never did. You were interesting, Brad, when you weren’t boring me to tears. I’m willing to take a chance. First serious misstep and I leave.”

“You always could.”

“Brad, you were the one who got rid of me. I didn’t leave you. I know you were scared at the idea of having me, so you never did.”

“Scared? Interesting.”

“You never seriously fucked me. Luther did.”

“And look at poor Luther now.”

“Actually, surprisingly, Brad, I wouldn’t mind looking Luther up.”

Brad winked. “A threesome?”

“A twosome first before we let things get interesting.”

“And I’m in your journal no matter what? You know, there were pictures taken.” He raised his eyebrows.

She hadn’t known. She wondered when and lowered the gun. “I want them. Copies or whatever. You are already in my journal, Brad.”

“The truck runs. I fixed it.”

“That’s good.”

“You’ll play fetch?” Brad stood.

She tossed a card on the table. “My apartment. You can take me there in a minute. And yes, you can bring my stick.”

He smiled. “An apartment, no less.”

“But first I want to see my shed.”