by Gregory Ashe
“I get off at 11:30. I’m not really into this scene, but you can choke me, pull my hair, slap me a little if you want.”
North blinked. “That’s not really—”
“Your buddy, then? You want me to print his ass red? I can borrow some toys.”
“Maybe Shaw wants to print your ass red.”
Mohawk laughed and sipped the whiskey again.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“I bought you a drink. Let’s hear it.”
“You mean you really don’t know he’s only got eyes—”
A deep voice interrupted. “You’re asking about Mr. Brueckmann?”
North turned and found himself at chest-level on the other man. A very massive chest-level. North had to crane his head to meet the man’s hooded eyes. The guy had gone for bulk over tone, but it was a hell of a lot of bulk.
“I need to talk to him.”
“About?”
“I’m selling Girl Scout cookies.”
The rumble in the big man’s chest was so low it was almost sub-audible.
“Vacuum cleaners?”
“Cutco knives,” Shaw said from behind North. “If I could just borrow your shoe for a minute.”
“Funny guys,” the big man said.
“Thank you,” North said.
“So many people don’t appreciate us,” Shaw said.
“We’re living in benighted times,” North said.
“It’s not like we practice,” Shaw said. “We don’t even have time to practice. It’s all just natural talent, but think what we could do if—hey.”
The big man turned away.
“It’s about Mark Sevcik,” North said.
The big man stopped. He put a walkie to his mouth, listened, and turned. “He doesn’t know any Mark Sevcik.”
“Are you sure? He doesn’t know a Mark Sevcik who owns a video camera?”
The question came from Shaw so fluidly, so incisively, that a frisson ran up North’s spine. That was the real Shaw, the one who was so brutally, complicatedly smart that even he wasn’t really sure why he understood things sometimes. But then he did things like that, right there. A question that made the big man clench the walkie so tight his knuckles popped out, white and scarred.
The big man spoke softly into the walkie again. Listened. Then, “Come with me, please.”
“Did you hear that, Shaw?” North said. “He said please. Isn’t that impressive?”
“Don’t let it go to his head,” Shaw said. “I bet he wasn’t fit to be around after he learned how to pee straight.”
“Probably because he was peeing all over everything.”
“Pups and pigs and pee.”
The big man walked off.
North threw his partner a look, surprised at the smile ghosting across Shaw’s features. When Shaw noticed the attention, he shrugged and took off after the big man.
With a swipe of a security card, the big man opened a door at the back of the club and led them up a staircase. On the second floor, music still pounded, but the wet sponge smell faded, and in its place came familiar, office smells: toner, coffee, furniture polish. Sure enough, the stairs opened onto a suite of offices. The big man led them to the end of the hall, knocked, and walked inside after a voice answered.
The office looked like the set from a 90s legal drama: chunky wooden furniture—desk, liquor cabinet, bookshelves—and lamps that might have once looked sleek and futuristic and now looked like, well, they were left over from the 90s. There were even two potted ferns that looked sickly under the fluorescents. There was a back door to the office and a wall of cabinets, both of which North took special note of.
Behind the desk were two men: one, a toothpick ginger, was naked and kneeling. Judging by the puffy lips, the spittle glistening on his chin and chest, and the hint—just visible from where North stood—of his erection, North had a pretty good idea what they had interrupted.
The other man was more interesting. He wasn’t particularly impressive physically, but he had an air of authority about him that had nothing to do with the leather he was wearing, nothing to do with sex games or plastic whips or fuzzy handcuffs. This man, who massaged an impressive bulge as he studied them, might enjoy dominating other men, but North was willing to put money on the line that sex was very much a secondary part of that. This man was dangerous.
“I don’t suppose one of you is going to finish what Timothy started.”
“Lee Brueckmann?”
The man stood, letting the chair roll back, and planted a boot in Timothy’s chest. He pushed lightly, and Timothy scuttled backward, his face flaming, his dick bobbing. The man followed him around the desk and then caught a handful of ginger hair and tilted the boy’s head back. He slapped him once, and the boy moaned. The second time, harder, split the boy’s lip.
“Always finish what I tell you to do. Even if there are interruptions.”
The real lesson, North knew, wasn’t for Timothy. The real lesson was for North and Shaw. This man wanted them to see what he could do.
“Take him,” he ordered, and the big man hauled Timothy out of the room. Then, facing North and Shaw, he planted his hands on his hips. If anything, his erection had only grown, and to be fair, the man didn’t have anything to hide. “I’m Master Brueckmann.” He adjusted the sleeves of his leather jacket. “Who are you?”
“Santa Claus,” North said.
“The Easter bunny.”
Brueckmann didn’t smile. He didn’t frown. He was older than North had first realized, late forties, early fifties, but trim and muscular and radiating that intense presence. As he studied them, he walked closer.
He stopped in front of North. “You have a lot of potential.” His hand brushed the front of North’s jeans, and North grabbed his wrist and twisted. Aside from the flicker of pain in his eyes, though, Brueckmann didn’t react.
“Looking is free. Touching is fifty cents.”
“I’m free,” Shaw said, “but you have to take me out for ice cream after.”
Brueckmann nodded, and North released him. Brueckmann threw another careful, studying glance at North, and then he smiled.
“You like ice cream too, huh?” North asked.
“I know exactly what I’m going to do with you.” Without another word, Brueckmann stepped over to Shaw. He studied Shaw the same way he had studied North. His eyes raked up and down Shaw. And the longer he looked at Shaw, the more he looked at Shaw like that, the hotter the ember in North’s gut flared. He just kept looking. And looking. And looking. And North started thinking he could put Brueckmann’s head through that big, clunky desk like it was papier mache.
With another smile, Brueckmann drew a short leather flogger from his jacket. He thrust it under Shaw’s chin, forcing his head up and back, and something feral inside North snapped and lunged, pulling at the end of its chain, wanting to put Brueckmann through that desk so hard there was a Brueckmann-shaped hole in it, cartoon style.
“Don’t touch him.”
Brueckmann didn’t look at North, but his smile grew. He forced Shaw’s chin up higher. Shaw wasn’t resisting. Shaw wasn’t doing anything. Maybe because he’d swallowed too much hippy bullshit. Maybe because this week Shaw was a pacifist. Maybe because he was processing, his favorite fucking word in the English language. That feral part of North yanked at the chain again, threatening to break loose. But the cold, rational part of North’s mind told him to wait, no matter how hot that ember in his gut burned, because Shaw was just so goddamn smart.
“Your ass is manageable. I can do something with that ass. But your face.” Brueckmann clicked his tongue. “We’ll have to have you in a pup mask, of course.”
North acted without thinking about it. He slapped a hand against Brueckmann’s chest. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do next—just a punch, maybe, but that Brueckmann-shaped hole in the desk sounded very promising—but before he could do more
than catch a handful of Brueckmann’s jacket, the older man was in motion. He twisted, pulling North off balance, and slid behind North. A blade whicked out of Brueckmann’s sleeve, and steel whispered along North’s throat.
“I told you,” Brueckmann said low into North’s ear, “I knew what to do with you.”
Chapter 15
The steel against North’s neck was cold at first, then warming to the heat of his skin. His mind was attuned to the rasp of Brueckmann’s breath, the way the knife scraped against the stubble on North’s throat and the horror in Shaw’s eyes.
Then a hand clamped down on Shaw’s shoulder, and the big guy from downstairs tossed Shaw sideways like a toy soldier getting kicked across the playroom. And North couldn’t do anything but watch as the big man’s toss carried Shaw into a chair. Shaw rolled over it, his legs going up and scissoring once like this was goddamn vaudeville, and then he hit the ground hard. He wheezed and rocked slightly, trying to get up, before the big guy planted a boot in the center of Shaw’s chest and pushed. North would have sworn he could hear Shaw’s ribs creaking.
All this. All this. All motherfucking this, and North just stood there, the blade against his throat because he’d been stupid, gotten drunk, and done what he always did: tried to drown one fucking part of himself in cheap beer so that another part could live. Some sort of erratic nerve impulse ricocheted through North’s arms, his chest, his legs, like a pinball game. He twitched everywhere except his neck. His head stayed stock still.
“Your boy is going to stay right there. Nod if you understand me.”
North nodded.
“You’re going to answer my questions. Then you’re going to take a trip. And you won’t ever bother me again. Nod if you understand me.”
North nodded.
Brueckmann chuckled. “I could make such a nice little sub out of you.” His breath was warm. His breath was moist. A hint of odor that North had noticed now clicked into place: something like silver polish. “You aren’t cops.”
North started to shake his head, and the tip of the blade dug in under his jaw.
“That wasn’t a question. The first thing my subs do is learn only to answer a direct question. Nod if you understand.”
But the blade didn’t drop, and after a moment, North understood it wasn’t going to drop. So he nodded. And he cut open the underside of his jaw on the blade. The blood ran a wet trail down his neck.
“You aren’t cops. And you’re sure as hell not lawyers. So I’m going to ask you a direct question: why did Mark Sevcik send you?”
The blade dropped a quarter inch.
“He didn’t,” North said.
“What are you talking about? What you told Jeremy downstairs—a video. What’s that?”
North took a moment, his thoughts flashing. Brueckmann wasn’t pretending. Brueckmann honestly had no idea why they had come here. Brueckmann must have—
The tip of the blade dug in again, and another runnel of blood trickled down North’s throat. “That,” Brueckmann said, “was a direct question.”
“Mark Sevcik has a blackmail video.”
“Just one?”
The question was so bizarre that North almost forgot to answer. “As far as I know.”
Some sort of internal calculation was taking place inside Brueckmann. The man’s breathing had quickened, and for the first time since he had placed the blade against North’s throat, his hand trembled. Not fear, North decided. Something else. Excitement? That was a bizarre reaction, but nothing else made sense.
“All right,” Brueckmann finally said. “Your trip just got canceled. You’re going to have an all-inclusive stay instead. I want you to listen very carefully. Are you listening very carefully, sub?”
Something had shifted in the room, and North felt his fear for Shaw retreat a few yards. “Yeah, I do all my listening through my jaw, so when you poked those extra holes in there, it really helped.”
“I might keep you a few extra days. Teach you a few things.” Brueckmann shifted, and North realized the other man was hard again, rutting against North softly, steadily. “For now, I just want you to stay and be comfortable. I’ve got a lot of questions for you about our friend Mark. A lot of questions about this video. So I want you to understand something: do you see Jeremy over there?”
“That’s not really an understanding question.”
Brueckmann laughed softly. “Jeremy is going to put his boot on your boy’s neck right now.”
Jeremy’s huge boot slid up to Shaw’s neck.
“And now Jeremy’s going to press down, cutting off your boy’s air.”
Jeremy’s foot came down. Shaw let out a strangled gasp, and he twisted, trying to roll out from under the pressure. Jeremy had leverage and position, though, and he had a hell of a lot more mass. Shaw’s hands raked along the thick leather.
“I’m going to kill you,” North said. His voice came from somewhere else. One of the bottom floors in hell, maybe. Somewhere very, very far off. “Get off him or I’m going to kill you right now.”
“You can do one of two things. You can go through that door right there, right now, like a good little sub. And you can crawl into your new spa suite. Or you can try to do something stupid. But Jeremy’s not taking his foot off your friend’s throat until you’re all tucked away.”
North’s mind raced. How long had it been? Ten seconds? He watched, paralyzed, as Shaw clawed at Jeremy’s leg, as his long, whipcord body flexed and tried to get free, at the helpless terror convulsing him. Fifteen? Had it been fifteen seconds? And how long before Shaw lost consciousness? How long before brain damage? A few minutes, maybe? Less?
He might be able to get free of Brueckmann. He might be able to crash into Jeremy, might knock him off Shaw—might, only might, because Jeremy was a lot bigger than North. But what would happen then? Would Brueckmann put his switchblade into North’s back?
Twenty seconds? Had it been twenty seconds already?
“All right.”
“Say, sir.”
“All right, sir.”
“Say, please sir, may I go to my spa suite now?”
That electric current pinballed through North’s muscles again. “Please, sir, may I go to my spa suite now?”
Twenty-five seconds. Thirty.
“Of course, sub. Go ahead and make yourself at home.”
Shaw was choking, the noise audible as Jeremy played with him, adjusting the pressure on his boot, grinding it back and forth like he was working a pedal. And again, North had the frantic, desperate desire to attack. But he’d let that feral part of himself off the chain just a few minutes before, and that was how they’d landed in this mess. So he sprinted around the desk, yanked open the office’s back door, and charged into the next room.
It was spare and utilitarian: fluorescent lights, a hose coiled and hanging on the wall, a drain in the cement floor. Another door in the back. A shower head suspended in the middle of the room. A toilet in one corner. And, lined up against the far wall, wire dog crates.
Your spa suite.
North didn’t need to be told. He knew, and he dropped onto hands and knees and scrambled into the closest crate. One of Brueckmann’s boots planted against his ass, shoving him forward, and North crashed head first against the crate’s far end. He felt pressure as Brueckmann forced his legs and feet into the crate, and then the crate’s door was closed—North was too big, much too big for the space, and Brueckmann must have really had to lean into the door to get it to shut. And then the click of a lock.
“Good sub.”
North couldn’t straighten his legs. He couldn’t turn around. He couldn’t even fully stretch out his back—he had to arch in the middle, compressing himself. And already his muscles were starting to burn.
None of that mattered, of course. “Where’s Shaw? Show me he’s ok. I want to see him, so get him the fuck in here and show me—”
Wheezing, gasping, choking, sput
tering, Shaw half-crawled and was half-thrown into the crate next to North. His breathing sounded terrible—gaspy and ruined. Possibilities reared up in the blackness of North’s mind: his windpipe had been crushed; he was having some sort of fit; he needed medical attention right now, his airway opened surgically, and instead, he was going to die inside this fucking dog crate.
Another lock clicked.
“I’m going to kill you,” North roared. “I’m going to fucking kill you.” He couldn’t move, couldn’t twist around to face Brueckmann, so he shook the crate as best he could. The metal clamor ran through the line of crates, and the sound was tremendous, but there was also something pathetic about it, something juvenile, that made North embarrassed—humiliated, in fact.
“That’s another thing I teach all my subs: self-control. For now, I think you need to cool down.”
There was a familiar noise: a glug, and then a soft hiss. Then water splashed over North, soaking him as Brueckmann hosed him through the crate’s open walls. He sprayed Shaw too, although North couldn’t really see Shaw—North was crammed too far back in the crate, and he couldn’t turn his head well enough to see. Shaw was still coughing and gagging, though, and Brueckmann kept spraying until the plastic floor of North’s crate had a quarter inch of water.
When Brueckmann spoke again, his voice was very close. “My subs always learn the same thing. If they make daddy happy, they’ll be happy. You can spend a few nights here—cold and wet, your muscles cramped and aching. Or you can be a good boy. Say you’re sorry. Tell me all about Mark. I’ll get you a shower, a real bed, somewhere warm. I’ll chain you, of course, but it won’t be uncomfortable. You have a decision to make. I’ll give you some time to think about it.”
Two sets of footsteps splashed out of the room. The lights went off. The door shut.
Already, North was shivering. The cold crept through the cement, through the thin plastic of the crate’s floor, and it was funny that everything could be so cold when North’s muscles were already cramping and turning to fire.
“Shaw?”
Another of those horrible, gaspy breaths, and Shaw said, “I’m sorry.”