by Mike McCrary
I sit.
I ask about filming. It is unsettling that was my first question. Not, “What?” or “What the fuck?” or “What the fuck are you fucked-up motherfuckers doing?”
Oh yeah, there will be therapy.
Choke motions to the two cameras mounted on tripods on either side of the rubber sheet. I can live with the camera placement. I might have gone in a slightly different direction, but I’m not going to complain.
Not now.
He places my cap with the mounted GoPro on my head. I adjust it, making sure the settings are correct.
Whatever is about to happen, I want it recorded.
Choke hands me a Gibson acoustic and instructs me to play. Not sure when I told them I played, but they know nonetheless. Haven’t kept up my guitar chops over the years. I mean, I play occasionally, but as with many things in my life I once cared about, they’ve faded into the background while I chased other pursuits I perceived to be a superior experience.
I know two songs.
I play “Wish You Were Here.”
As I start to play, Choke moves over so he’s standing behind me. I’m shaky at first. Chords crunch and rattle. I let myself off the hook; it’s understandable. Ruby and Boone stand face-to-face on the sheet, glistening under the light. They are both in great shape. Carved from stone. Each of them wears many scars. Souvenirs from their work, I’m sure each has a story. Tats galore. My eyes naturally gravitate to her—she’s gorgeous in a very specific way—but I can’t help but notice Boone has a bit of a boner in the works. A half chub at the moment, but well on its way.
Slightly inappropriate.
Choke claps his hands.
Ruby and Boone grab at each other, trying to lock an arm around a neck. It’s now clear this sheet was not for the easy cleanup of my execution but more of a makeshift gladiator ring. Ruby takes a step back and throws a quick jab, landing a pop to Boone’s right eye. He smiles, backhanding her. She spins, comes back with a leg sweep. Boone drops.
Choke slaps the back of my head.
I notice I’ve stopped playing Floyd. I begin to play again.
The fight between Ruby and Boone begins again. More intense, more serious now, as if a switch has been flipped in both of them. Boone has his hands around her throat. She shoves her slick, oiled arms up and through his, jamming a thumb into each of his eyes. He drops back. Ruby found her rage switch. She throws a strike, landing a hollow crunch from her fist to his ribs, then rips an uppercut under his jaw.
She’s winning.
I keep playing. Chord progression is shit, but they don’t notice.
Choke says to me, “Siblings fight. It’s natural.”
I pause, then pick the song up again. I’ve lost my place, but I know the end of the song has to be close. Thick sounds of skin landing on skin punctuate my strums of the guitar. As if the beating is being timed to the music. I’d forgotten about the horrible family tree. A lot has happened in the last few minutes.
Brother and sister war in front of me.
“Harry used to win all the time,” Choke says. “Boone and Ruby hated losing to him. Big brother and all that that implies.”
Ruby lands a flat-hand strike to Boone’s throat. The blow closes his eyes. He gags.
My song is over. A look from Choke. I start in with “Over the Hills and Far Away.”
The notes seem to fuel Ruby. She even glances my way. Her nipples are hard as a rock, poking through her oily bra. So is Boone. His erection sways like a flagpole in a hurricane as Ruby keeps at him, alternating punches, most landing.
Can’t describe how messed up this is.
Boone absorbs her fists. He’s not even trying to block them anymore, looks like he’s about to fall. There’s a real fire burning in her. It’s obvious. Bloodlust within reach. She wants to put him down.
Choke whispers into my ear. “She’s falling for his trap. She’s aggressive. Too aggressive. She and I have discussed it.”
Ruby lands flap after flap of body shots like a machine gun.
“Father’s words fall on child’s young deaf ears,” Choke says.
Crack to Boone’s nose.
“I try not to take it personally,” Choke says.
Smack of an elbow to Boone’s cheek.
“Sometimes, as cliché as it is, Daddy does know best.”
As those words leave Choke’s lips, I stop playing.
Boone grabs Ruby by the ears and yanks her forward, planting his forehead to her nose. She bounces backward, tumbling, sliding a bit on the oily rubber. Boone dives, wrapping her up in a textbook wrestling move. A submission hold.
Now that I have a second to process, the math makes sense.
Wish it didn’t, but it’s all confirmed now.
They are a family.
Harry, Boone, and Ruby are brothers and sister.
The children of Choke. A bona fide crime family.
Choke moves from behind me. “Okay. It’s done. Ruby, you have lost…”
Ruby does not accept this outcome. Her face slams to red. Eyes wide. Ruby rage just kicked in. She roars, spins, and slips through her brother’s grasp, landing on top on him and laying down a rain of hurt. Bursts of aggression exploding from her every limb.
Knee to the balls.
Elbow to the eyes.
Palm to his nose.
All leading up to triple-jab to the face that leaves Boone motionless for a solid two count. The smile on Ruby’s face is huge. The smile of the victor in the battle of the siblings. Boone comes to, struggling to his knees, face racked with disappointment. He just lost a fistfight with his sister. Boone looks to her and she at him. There’s something going on.
He’s upset. He shakes his head no.
She shakes her head yes, saying, “Don’t.”
Ruby looks over to Choke as if asking for some help. Looking for some parental intervention. Choke nods, acknowledging the situation, and throws a glare at Boone. Boone looks away, shaking his head again.
Choke claps his hands and says, “Boone. You lost. I’d expect her to take care of you if she lost.”
Boone seems to be thinking of fighting it but decides not to. Defeated, he nods. Ruby removes her underwear, and while never taking her eyes off me, she lies down on the rubber sheet.
Ruby spreads her legs then snaps her fingers.
Boone goes down on his sister.
61
Now, I don’t claim to have the healthiest of family relationships.
My brother and I are strained at best. I’ve tried to ruin Alex’s life on more than one occasion. When my father was alive, we fought constantly. I’d like to think we reached some level of respect before he passed. My mother drifted under the radar of reality, operating as if everything was fine, no matter if it was or not.
Of course, there’s always the thing I don’t talk about.
Having said all that, I cannot recall a time in my life, or in anyone else’s I’ve ever known, where siblings engaged in hand-to-hand combat and the loser had to satisfy the other sexually.
I’ve seen a lot of strange things.
Fucked-up things.
This? This one is a new one.
After Boone finishes Ruby off with a fist-clenching, screaming orgasm, she peels herself off the rubber sheet and leaves the room. She was careful to make sure I was watching the whole time. I would never be so bold to claim I know everything about the female orgasm, but I’m not sure if she was faking it or not. She put on a big show, perhaps for my benefit, somebody new to show off for and all that, but what the hell do I know?
It’s as if they’ve done this before.
More times than I’d care to know about.
Not completely sure what happens when Ruby loses or what used to happen when Boone and his brother, Harry, fought.
Boone wipes his lips and rinses his mouth out in the sink. Choke explains to me that he never allows the kids to engage in penetration. Apparently that’s crossing some sort of line. A boundary issue withi
n the family. “Penetration is for creating a child. Everything else is recreational release. This exercise was created to help with fight training and tension release. Two birds, you see.” He sighs, thinks, then continues, “I’ve penetrated women on three occasions and three only. I handle things myself at other times. Urges. The weakness of being a human male.”
I can only stare at the sweat, oil, and bodily fluids scattered like a map of Southeast Asia on the rubber sheet.
Ruby returns dressed in an oversized Band of Horses T-shirt. Her hair is wet, having rinsed off. She begins to fold up the rubber sheet from the floor. Boone helps. It all seems very ritualistic, as if this is a normal event.
This is not a normal event.
Boone finishes folding the sheet and goes to the kitchen, mixing a fresh Rabbit for his father. Ruby stuffs the rubber sheet into the trash. The cops should have fun with that one. They must not care about the DNA thing, or they have a plan I don’t know about.
I know it’s just a matter of time before they are going to want—
“Payment,” says Choke.
“Yeah?”
“According to our agreement, you owe us the second portion of your payment.”
“I know.”
The cameras are still getting all this. I’ll need to deal with this footage later. Mentally noted. Hope Alex will know to cut that “payment” part out if it comes to that.
Choke grabs me by the cheeks, squeezing way too hard. “We will sleep now, and tomorrow you will take us to that second payment. If it’s not what was promised, then you go into the bag.”
My potential future flashes before my eyes: me, another poor fucker stuffed in a bag, dropped in the cave, stabbed into oblivion, bleeding out into the dirt.
“It’s yours, Choke. No need to threaten me,” I say.
Choke releases my face and walks away.
Ruby extends her open hand toward me. “You’re with me. I get first watch.”
62
Ruby leads me into a dark bedroom cut up by shards of moonlight.
A guest room, and not the guests the owners had in mind when they received an offer on this house. When they had that first walk-through of their new home, they never in a million years envisioned this group stopping by. We are the worst-case scenario.
There’s a small bed against the wall. Ruby pulls down the comforter and sheets, pats the bed, inviting me in. As I lie down, Ruby removes her T-shirt. The light from the moon catches her body perfectly. Her face is framed perfectly. Too perfectly. So much so that I’m feeling uncomfortable.
This is all very cinematic.
I’m uncomfortably enjoying the view. My weakness for gorgeous disasters is front and center. Tisha and all the others like her. Like they were all around me, tapping me on the shoulder—remember us, big boy? You like us a lot.
She tells me to take my clothes off.
She places a tripod with a camera at the foot of the bed.
She tells me she’s going to fuck me.
63
She fucks me.
Fucks the hell out of me.
She was angry. Completely understandable, if I was only able to perform heavy petting with siblings my whole life, I might be a little miffed myself. The problem is she decided to take all of this out on me.
I’m sore.
I can’t stop shaking.
What is it about mentally compromised women and me? I’m not going to say I hated all of what just happened, but I can’t help but feel a little dirty and, well, concerned that one of these three people is going to kill me for the penetration.
Can’t help but feel I was the one who was penetrated. I won’t call it rape, but I was more or less attacked by someone with access to weapons, and truth be told, I didn’t really have much of a choice.
She’s curled around me like a smiling snake. Her tattooed arm lies on my chest that heaves up and down. Much like the bucket of chicken a few days ago. Or was it a few weeks ago? I don’t even know the date.
My poor penis.
She might have broken my boy.
“I knew you were the good one,” she says.
At least she’s not throwing up like J-something. I look down at my sore, aching member and say, “Thank you.”
Even at a moment like this, I still think about the couple in that room.
“Have you thought about what I said, about letting those people go?”
“They’ll be fine,” she says.
Can’t decide if she’s brushing me off, changing the subject, or what. There’s a part of me that’s yelling inside my head, You’ve done your part, man. You brought it up twice. What the hell? You’re all good with this.
I turn into her, forcing eye contact. “Promise me they will be okay.”
“Of course.”
“Please, just say it.”
“They will be okay.”
I lie back feeling slightly better—like my mother just lied to me to get me to shut up, but better. Raising the covers, I look down, trying to inspect my throbbing boy.
“First time I saw you, I just knew,” she says.
There are dark spots on the sheets just under my balls.
“I knew you were the one,” she says.
Trace amounts of that dark something. I touch what’s left of my dick, getting some of the dark on my fingers. I know what it is.
“I hope Choke knew it too,” she says.
I rub my fingers together.
“You were the one to be my first. The first to penetrate. The only one I would let in.”
I know what’s next. Penetration is for— “Creating a child,” she says.
* * *
PART III
“I love those documentaries where everyone is fabulous and always perfect.”
—Katy Perry
64
After an extended moment of silence, Ruby left the room.
I’d call it a pregnant pause, but you know—class.
Not sure I even allowed her last statement to enter into my brain.
Boone was up next to watch me. At this point, I just hoped he wasn’t looking for me to end his penetration-less life too. No, he just stood at the door and watched me quietly. I hope to hell he doesn’t know what just happened between me and his sister. It’s one thing to have sex with a man’s sister, but I have to believe that fucking a man’s sister who also happens to be a member of his sexual-release fight club takes on a whole new level of protectiveness.
If he thinks I’m going to go to sleep, he’s nuts.
Boone is a prime candidate to kill me while I slumber.
Pretending to snooze, I work up a mean fake snore.
65
Big breakfast the next morning.
Smells of a morning feast fill the house with the hints of pork and hazelnut coffee. At the center of the table are eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, strawberries, and blueberries all laid out family style. Family style. I try not to snicker, or cry, at that one.
Boone pours me a steaming cup of coffee and offers me cream and sugar. I take them both. Ruby serves me up a plate piled high with a bit of everything.
I wonder if they will be serving the owners of the house anything while they’re tied up. Try not to think of their evening. Mine was strange, no doubt, but theirs had to be worse. Assisting a psycho in losing her virginity right after her brother got her off has to rank pretty high on the list of things I thought I’d never do. Tisha was not sane, but she never killed anyone—fairly certain she didn’t—and I was without question not her first.
“Where are you taking us today, Jasper?” Choke asks with a mouthful of eggs.
Does he know about his precious little snowflake riding me last night?
“I’m not sure where we are right now,” I say.
“Where is the second payment? Give me a place,” he presses.
Ruby places her hand on my crotch under the table, giving it a squeeze. I try not to jump from my seat or yelp.
Choke slams hi
s palm to the table. Breakfast jumps. “Where is the money, Jasper?” He places a 9mm on the table. Swallowing, I tell him we need to head to Los Angeles. He orders me to be more specific. I tell him there’s a rental storage place near LAX. I give him the address and the name.
Ruby rubs me with purpose.
To call this uncomfortable is an understatement. Boone is inhaling his breakfast and is thankfully not paying attention, but Choke is all over me. Ruby eats her food while looking away, faking her disinterest in the swelling taking place in my pants.
I have no idea if Choke knows about last night, but I hope to all that is holy in the world he does not. Looking at his eyes, I cannot get a read. He is obviously concerned about the money, but I can in no way determine if he knows about the sex.
Ruby continues her work.
I wish she’d stop.
Not the time or the place.
It’s become clear our time together was not a one-nighter to her.
I fight to focus on unsexy things. Like, say, her insane father sitting across from me with a gun on the table. Maybe if I can get my dick to deflate, she’ll think I can’t keep it up and move on, realizing I’m the wrong one and not the one.
It’s not working. Hard as Stonehenge.
Choke breaks his stare, focusing on his breakfast. “Perfect,” he says. “Why don’t you finish your meal and then let Ruby help you reach orgasm in the shower. We’ll get going after that.”
66
Ruby helps me reach orgasm in the shower.
I still don’t know if Choke and Boone know about last night. That whole penetration thing really seemed like a big deal to Choke. I can’t believe he would just gloss over that one. Seems like he values hand jobs as a polite courtesy, like a high five or a bow in certain Asian cultures. Anything is possible with these people, but I just don’t know where his head is on the issue.
I don’t know much actually. I have no idea where we are, how far we are from LA, or what the plan is.
Before Ruby took me into the bathroom, I heard Choke talking to Boone. I overheard “The Massive” again, along with something about the Shaw gang. Choke told me earlier he would explain the beef with Shaw but wasn’t terribly specific about when.