by Lee, Edward
Shit.
The women there don’t care what you do to them. I don’t just mean spanking and candle wax and the stuff you can get at any BDSM club; I’m talking biting so hard that you draw blood. I’m talking about beating them to the point where you leave the place not sure if they’ll ever walk again. It’s allowed! Everybody’s cool with it! They watch you do it, dude!
It sounded unbelievable. No, Brett didn’t think he’d ever want to beat a woman severely enough to leave her permanently disabled, but the thought of letting himself loose in that environment, one where there was no judgment no matter how loud the screams, had appeal beyond anything else he could imagine doing in his lifetime.
And yet two uptight assholes standing in front of the door were keeping him from living out his fantasy.
He didn’t have a backup plan. He’d never considered that showing up with an attractive woman and greasing some palms wouldn’t be enough to get him in. Should his bribe have been more? Should he have brought two women? What was it going to take?
Screw it. He’d just ask.
Even though it had literally been less than a minute since he left, it was difficult for him to find his way back to the Painfreak entrance. He must’ve been so pissed off that he took a wrong turn, although he couldn’t remember taking any turns.
But he found it again. The tiny Asian guy and the big bald scarred dude were still there, not looking busy. Brett grinned to show that there were no hard feelings as he walked over to them.
“Be straight with me,” he said. “What’s it going to take to get me in there?”
“You’ve already been given that information,” said the Asian man.
“How much? Throw a number at me.”
“You’re wasting your time and ours.”
“Did I offend you with the hundred bucks before?” Brett asked. “If so, I apologize. I don’t know the going rate. Give me a number and we’ll see what we can work out.”
“I’m going to ask you to leave. If you do not heed my request, you’ll be forcibly removed.”
“No. I don’t accept that. You said I could get in with a referral, right? Well, give me a starting point. Just point me in the right direction and I can get somebody to vouch for me, no problem. There’s no reason to make this difficult.”
“We do not make these decisions based on their ease or their difficulty. There are rules. Inflexible ones. If you cannot abide by them, perhaps Painfreak is not for you.”
Brett wanted to punch the little fucker. Knock a couple of his teeth out and then barge right through the door. Unfortunately, though Brett was confident in his ability to take out the small guy (unless he knew Kung Fu or some shit like that) he could easily envision a scenario in which the larger guy twisted his arm behind his back and not-so-gently escorted him away from the building.
“No way we can resolve this, huh?” he asked.
“It would not appear so.”
Brett didn’t think that dropping to his knees and begging would do any good. Though he wasn’t going to give up, for the moment he had to accept that he was pretty much screwed.
He walked away again, cursing under his breath.
Okay, he could figure this out. If he saw somebody else’s mark, maybe he could forge it. Or perhaps he could talk to one of the existing patrons and get them to give him a referral, or at least a solid lead on how to get one. All he had to do was wait around for somebody to come out of the club.
He leaned against the alley wall, took out his cell phone, and began to play Angry Birds.
Forty-five minutes later, nobody had walked past him. He wouldn’t be in any hurry to leave Painfreak either, but the club had to have some in and out traffic, didn’t it? Patrons had to leave eventually. Where the hell was everybody?
This sucked.
Nothing had ever sucked more than this.
This sucked on every conceivable level.
He wanted to punch the brick wall hard enough to shatter his goddamn fist.
He should’ve just taken Denise up on her offer to let him slap her around a bit before he screwed her.
Sure, he could find another hooker, but he was always paranoid that he might be propositioning an undercover cop. It was bound to happen eventually, and it wanted it to happen later rather than sooner.
He might as well give up for tonight. Fuck his life.
««—»»
“Have fun with the guys?” asked Maggie, his fiancée, as he walked into their apartment. Her idea of fun was staying in her pajamas and binge-watching television shows on Netflix.
“It wasn’t too bad,” he said, plopping onto the couch beside her. “What’re you watching?”
“Fuller House.”
Jesus Christ.
««—»»
Just before Brett was about to slide into her, he gave Maggie a kiss and smiled. “Want to try something different tonight?”
“What were you thinking?”
“Doggy-style?”
Maggie sighed. “Come on, Brett. You know I think that’s demeaning.”
“It’s not, though. It’s fun. If you’d try it, you’d like it.”
“I’m not some porn tramp. If you want me to be on top, we can do that, but if you want to make love to me you have to look me in the eyes.”
“All right, never mind. Missionary’s fine.”
««—»»
As Brett wandered through the dark alleys the next night trying to figure out where the fuck the entrance to the club had gone, he knew that Painfreak couldn’t live up to the experience he’d imagined. It simply wasn’t possible for anything to be that awesome. He was headed for extreme disappointment, but though he knew this on a conscious level, he couldn’t think of anything but Painfreak.
He’d pay anything to get in. He’d even blow those two guys, providing no video evidence was posted online. If they said he had to break every finger on his left hand…well, that might be going too far. Or it might not. He doubted the subject would actually come up.
Finally, he saw the Painfreak entrance. His hopes that there might be two different and more easily bribed doormen out front were quickly dashed. Same Asian guy, same bald guy, both wearing identical suits to what they had on last night.
Brett didn’t try to smile as he walked over to them.
“Hello, sir,” said the Asian man. “I take it you now have the mark?”
“Nope.” Brett had a sudden moment of paranoia, thinking that the gun he had wedged into the waist of his pants would go off accidentally, tearing a bloody path down his ass crack. He hoped that it didn’t actually come to pulling a gun on them, but if they were unreasonable, he’d have to do it.
“Then we have a problem.”
“How the fuck am I supposed to get a referral if I never see anybody but you two?” Brett demanded. “It’s not fair.” He was embarrassed by the way his voice cracked. He felt like a little kid about to have a temper tantrum in a grocery store because his mom wouldn’t stop in the toy aisle.
“Fair or not, that’s the way it is, and the way it will continue to be. You’ve taken up far more than your share of our time.”
“Nah, not yet,” said Brett, pulling out the gun. The Asian guy was definitely surprised to see it, but didn’t look quite as frightened as Brett would’ve hoped. “Let me through the goddamn door. Now.”
“That’s not how this works.”
“It’s how I’m making it work. Step out of the way.”
“We can’t change the rules, even to save our own lives. If you kill us, you still will not get into Painfreak. All you’ll have is an additional burden on your conscience along with the vexation of being denied entry.”
“I mean it. I’ll kill you. I am getting in there, whether you cooperate or not. You can step aside, or I can step over your dead bodies. I don’t give a shit which way it happens.”
“Then I suppose our lives are about to come to a tragic, wasteful end,” said the Asian man.
They didn�
��t believe him. Those two dumb fucks had no idea just how desperately he needed what Painfreak had to offer. Brett didn’t completely understand it either, but it was in his head and he couldn’t get rid of it and if he had to murder a couple of arrogant pricks over it that was just the way things were going to have to be.
Brett pointed the gun at the large man’s head, figuring that it would be better to kill him first.
He began to squeeze the trigger, then hesitated.
It didn’t feel like he’d hesitated very long, but somehow it was enough for the big bald scarred asshole to wrench the gun out of his hand. How had he moved so fast?
The large man shoved Brett to the ground. He landed on his butt, cringing as he waited for the man to point his own gun at him.
“Painfreak is not for you,” said the Asian man.
Tears of shame and frustration were beginning to form, and Brett decided not to bother trying to stop them. “Please,” he said. “I’ve got to get in there. I won’t stay long, I promise. I just have to see what it’s like.”
“I’m sorry. You are not welcome. It’s time for you to leave.”
“Please!”
The men said nothing. Brett stared at them for a moment, hoping to change their minds, but he finally accepted that it wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t getting into Painfreak. Ever.
He slowly stood up. “Sorry about the gun thing,” he said, wiping his cheeks on the back of his hand before he turned and walked away.
««—»»
“Roll over,” Brett told Maggie.
“Why?”
“I want to give you a back rub.”
Maggie rolled onto her stomach. Her ass looked great in those cotton panties, and as the man who was going to be her husband, he thought he was entitled to have some fun with it.
He gave her one hard spank.
“Ow!” said Maggie. “What the hell?”
“Just saying ‘I love you.’”
“Don’t do that.”
He spanked her again.
“Seriously, Brett, knock it off.”
“It doesn’t feel good?”
“You said you were going to give me a backrub.”
Brett raised his hand again. What was she going to do, break up with him? Maggie didn’t appreciate how good she had it, and if she had to deal with a sore ass every once in a while, well, she’d learn to cope.
He gave her the hardest spank yet. She let out a sexy yelp.
Then she rolled over, sat up, and punched him in the face. Brett was so surprised that he fell backwards, and then tumbled off the bed, striking his head against the wooden floor.
“I told you to stop it!” she said. “Get the hell out of here!”
Brett touched the corner of his mouth, which was bleeding. “So, what, you’re allowed to hit me but I can’t give you a loving spank?”
“Get out before I call the cops.”
“The cops? For real?”
“I need you to leave, Brett. Right now.”
Brett got up and walked out of the bedroom. He slammed himself down on the couch, grabbed the remote, and turned on the television.
“I need you to leave the apartment!” Maggie called out.
Brett started to protest, then decided, fuck it and fuck her. He went back into the bedroom, grabbed his jeans and shirt off the floor, got dressed, and then left the apartment, slamming the door behind him.
He took a couple of steps down the hallway, cursed, and punched the wall.
Then he punched it again.
And again.
Bones cracked. He didn’t care. It felt good.
He punched it over and over, leaving a red streak on the wallpaper.
Brett screamed in frustration as jolts of pain shot through his body with every blow.
He could hear Maggie next to him, sobbing. She tried to pull him away but he shoved her to the floor, then resumed bashing what little remained of his fists into the dripping wall. He liked that he could see bone.
He cackled with laughter as he continued punching the wall. Sure, he couldn’t get into Painfreak or have fun with his fiancée, but if his arms were mangled and useless, those disappointments would be irrelevant.
| — | — |
Pretty Me Up
————
Michael T. Huyck, Jr.
I dawdled on the pier’s concrete lip, one fingertip tracing a shallow pock on its surface. There were thrills here, layers of them, but not tonight. Not for me. Instead I had some bullshit headmaster game to play.
I could start it, go on in, but instead I stared across the placid harbor, its surface scuffed by the breeze but little else. I heard waves out past the breakwater and their sound swept me up. I never see water back home. Maybe marching into foreign battles, but we’re usually preoccupied then.
Then there’s these toes—I didn’t know toes back home. They were slim and tender bits, sensations foreign to this clefted chinny. The rest of the man attached to the toes matched, from his stubby teeth to his gangling legs wrapped in a blue second skin of cloth. Searching his skull space, I came back with the name Teddy. I could hear him, but barely. The only words I recognized were called you.
Beneath our feet the dark waters of Los Angeles harbor wafted a natural funk, like the center of the Druj Demana, and that was comforting. It was all comforting, if only because I wasn’t trapped between the academy’s gray walls anymore. Nor was I slinking through the battlefields of Plataea, Teutoburg, or Orléans. Honestly I’d fought in Los Angeles. It’s true. I knew the city of angels well enough. From the dark mountains out east to the yellow gloaming of the harbor’s sodium vapor lights, she was spitted, charred, and ready to serve. Beautiful and vital, I’d say I love her.
The harbor lights left the duotone landscape stark. About me immediately there were different types of man-made stone, the concrete and others, and beyond there was dirt, natural stone, and rails of steel lying in parallel lines. To my left stood a monolithic building hulking pier’s end, its face tainted by the sick illumination. In aged black letters the words WAREHOUSE NO. 1 stained one side of the facing wall, while PORT OF LOS ANGELES was centered near its pinnacle. I stood on Teddy’s soft feet and walked gently toward it. WAREHOUSE NO. 1 was obviously my target.
Inside, between the shadows, I found a wall of pallets and bags spanning the warehouse’s mouth, each stacked precariously on the other and rising over my head. They blocked my view of the rest of the warehouse, so I searched left and right for a way through.
“Behind you,” a voice said. I turned to see two men walking out of the dark beside the farthest opening and into the yellow pool of harbor lights near me. There was one small and one large, with the small one being thin and wearing dark clothing, sunglasses, and tightly-cropped black hair. The large one was little more than a shadow, even in the light.
Not human, I thought.
“Not bad for an academy washout. Did thinking that through hurt?” Not waiting for an answer, the little one motioned for me to present my right hand. I lifted it palm up and the big man motioned for me to flip it, so I did. The little man stepped up and produced a small metal plate landed on the end of a dark wooden handle. He lightly pinched the tip of my middle finger, then stopped and pointed at the faint glow of a bone on my skin. “One of you has been here before, so you know the rules. You’re both free to go in and return to Painfreak whenever you’d like.” He pointed behind me. “There’s the entrance.” I turned to watch a section of stacked pallets rotating out, mechanical parts grated together, to reveal bright blue and deep red lights flashing beyond. I walked in without another look at the two strangers.
The space beyond the door was dark, but it felt immense. The flashing lights momentarily revealed the occasional table and a loose throng bouncing together maybe fifteen meters off, their shapes frozen in the strobe, alternately stretched, crouched, or airborne. Most of the dancers wore masks, at least half of which were a wrinkled face, bushy eyebrows, and a tallis
h coiffure parted right. Off to one end ran a long bar beneath pale blue lights, its three tenders working another crowd, their faces intent and the mouths pressed tight. A sapphire glow stained the bar crowd, masked and unmasked, into monochromatic art. At the near end of the bar three short and rumpled humans stood watching the room, quiet and unengaged. Weird.
Past the far end of the bar a white light faded in and out slowly, which I recognized as a doorway opened and shut. That would work.
««—»»
I was caught during the game of tag, or at least that’s what Teddy said. On the far side of the door there’d been large rooms met by hallways tied to stairwells stringing floors to other floors, and it went on. The floors were concrete, like the pier outside, as was everything else. Pillars rose up from the ground, repeating over and over into the shadows.
I was tagged “it” within the first few minutes by a short brunette with deep brown eyes, olive skin, and a mirthless smile. She came out from behind one of the pillars and slapped me on the back, then jogged off to the right. I tried to follow her, but I lost my way in the repetition of columns, shadows, and interceding players taunting me. Then…nothing. Apparently humans have soft heads, because even the lithe chinny can’t be knocked unconscious. You have to take our head off. But here, inside Teddy, I was stuck with his noggin and that was used against me.
I awoke upright but tilted back, my arms draped out over a crossbar and taped at the wrists and shoulders, while my legs were strapped tightly to the wooden shaft running vertical behind me. A cross. These humans and their damn crosses.
There were others around, nude humans wandering into and out of my line of sight and, for the most part, ignoring me. They all held blades or chains or steel things for dragging and chopping, but there were other bits. One, a handle with a shaft and a flat tip, caught my eye, so I watched as it, and its conveyance, move along. Screwdriver! a voice said. It was Teddy, his voice now louder and easier to understand.