by Kol Anderson
“Please…”
I twisted those fingers harder and he started to cry. “How does it make you feel, Colton?”
“Scared...” he blurted out. “It makes me feel scared!”
“Your brother could be dead for all you know,” I said. “You’re trapped in a prison you can’t get out of. You lost your friends and family, your whole damn life! But all you’re concerned with are these fingers.”
He started to calm down.
I leaned in. “Nothing surpasses pain.”
When I let go of his hand, the look on his face was priceless. He nursed his hurt fingers and stood staring at me, more clueless than ever before. “You don’t have to get it all right this minute,” I explained. “In time, understanding will come to you. I can sense you’re smarter than Jake. You won’t have the problems he’s had, you’re nothing like him.”
“My brother… is he okay?”
“He’s alive. Does that answer your question?”
He didn’t have a response to that. I broke away from him about the same time there was a knock on the door and Mace walked in. He glanced at us both and then gestured to the door. “Everyone’s waiting, sir.”
“Good,” I took one last glance at Colton, saw his confused and frightened form and it was worth every trouble that I had to go through to get both him and his brother here. “I hope you’re ready, Colton.”
He looked more terrified than before. “Ready for what?”
Mace didn’t wait long before grabbing hold of Colton and pushing him toward the exit. “Let’s go,” Mace urged him on and Colton had no choice but to do what he was being asked to do.
And I had to take this all in and just enjoy everything that was happening, how it was all going down and take pleasure in it.
JAKE
I felt like I was dreaming, a really vivid dream. But it was actually a nightmare because they were dragging me out of my peaceful unconsciousness and forcing me to stay awake. The drugs Mace had shot me with were doing the opposite, pulling me back into a state of stupor and staying up was nothing short of torture.
I didn’t know who they were because I couldn’t make out their faces but I knew they were taking me somewhere. I had no say in the matter, because they were in control and I just let myself get dragged through the hallways. They stopped when we were in a small room with three walls but the one in front was a large see through window that covered most of the wall and on the other side was a boy dressed in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. At first it seemed like the boy was rude because even though I was right in front of him and he was looking in my direction, he refused to speak or acknowledge my presence. But I realized soon enough that the boy wasn’t rude at all, that I was standing in front of a one-way mirror and he couldn’t even see us let alone respond to my entering the room. I also realized that I knew this boy even though the clothes he was wearing were brand new and his thin, fragile form showed through the flimsy material of the shirt. The first thing I did when I recognized him was to scream his name and break free of the guard's hold on me. “Colton!” I banged on the glass and they stopped me.
“He can’t hear you,” they said.
I tried get the glass to break but no such luck. A familiar face walked up to me while two of them grabbed my arms and forced me in place. “You didn’t think Weldon was going to let you sit this one out, did you?”
“You fucking piece of shit!”
But Stoll just grinned.
Two men, both strangers, entered the next room and approached my brother. My heart sank. The guards holding me forced me to my knees. Stoll stood there and lit up a cigarette. “This is going to be fun.”
Struggling was useless but I did it anyway when a bunch of other men stepped into the room, about four of them and one of them grabbed Colton’s shoulder and forced him to the floor. “No!!!!!”
But my struggles were met with a sharp blow to my ribs that made me double up in pain. “You can’t do anything, Jake. Might as well enjoy the show.”
WELDON
The view on my large screen TV was breathtaking. And so was the beautiful boy awaiting his fate—a fate that happened to be in my hands. Maybe in another time, another universe, I would have protected him but this wasn’t it. In this reality, the only way for him to get his hands on another living moment where he breathed would be to get past what I’d laid out for him.
I didn’t know the names of those men. They were just strangers lined up by my people to do the job they were supposed to do. They were nameless, faceless strangers as far as I was concerned. But these strangers were about to play an important role in Colton’s life.
I watched as they grabbed Colton and dragged him to the floor. They were trying to get him to take off his clothes but of course the boy was resisting. Didn’t he know how futile that was in his present situation? They grabbed his arms and one of them placed a hand on Colton’s mouth to keep him from screaming while the others grabbed his legs and forced those jeans off him. Colton was crying when they ripped off his underwear and forced him to get naked from the waist down. The t-shirt came off then without much trouble. A beefy older guy in a muscle shirt grabbed Colton and lifted him off the floor. Three of them had to restrain him to hold him in place and the rest of them were busy feeling him up, touching and groping everywhere and Colton kept begging them not to and continued to struggle.
One of the men took out a knife and placed it at Colton’s throat. That’s when he finally stopped resisting. “You want to bleed to death right here?” The man’s heavy voice couldn’t have been more of a threat. Honestly, I’d never seen Colton naked before this and I got to say he was no less perfect than his brother.
“Good choice,” the man said when Colton responded to the threat with compliance. One of the men had a hand on Colton’s chest and he lowered it all the way down to his thighs. The boy looked uncomfortable but hadn’t said a word since the man’s threat. One by one they all touched him, everywhere they could reach and Colton had tears in his eyes but he still hadn’t said a word.
“Look at that we made him cry,” one of the men shouted and the rest of them had a good laugh over it. “We haven’t even begun to do anything yet, boy!”
They started touching his cock and his balls, and Colton squirmed in their hold. They placed a hand over his mouth and tried to get him hard. The boy looked devastated when their stroking and fondling gave him an erection.
“Quit acting like you don’t like it you little shit,” one of them grunted and pinched his nipple hard until Colton was screaming into the other guy’s hand.
One by one they stroked him, one guy after the other, each one of them trying to get him to get harder and it worked. I watched as one of the men grabbed Colton’s cock in a firm grasp. The man’s hand went back and forth, stroking hard and fast until Colton looked like he was about to cum and when he got that close the man stopped abruptly. They all got another laugh out of it and they made Colton go on his knees.
One of them stood in front of the boy, with his fully erect cock and the frightened look on Colton’s face gave me a full erection of my own. When Colton didn’t comply immediately they punched and hit him. I watched the big brawny guy forcing his dick down Colton’s throat while Colton’s eyes watered and he choked and gagged but they wouldn’t let him go. They were all surrounding him, their massive cocks out and each one of them using the boy’s throat like it was a hole to be used and discarded.
All that struggle and the hitting made Colton’s mouth bloody and there were bruises forming on his chest. By the time the third guy was done I was afraid the boy’s jaw might be ripped from its socket and the men must have realized it because they didn’t go any further. Instead, they hauled him back to the floor and two of them grabbed his hands, and the two more on his legs. Colton was back to begging them to let him go but that’s when the big one placed his boot on Colton’s chest and pressed down. “Let you go?” he scoffed. “Boy, we’re just getting warmed up.”
> I decided it was time to go beyond that TV screen.
TREY
Walking into that room wasn’t a coincidence but I had to convince Stoll and the others that it was so they wouldn’t be alarmed. The minute I entered I saw Jake on his knees on the floor with those assholes surrounding him. I felt strangely protective of him. “Everything okay, Doc?”
“I need to talk to Jake,” I said to Stoll. “Why don’t you all stand outside and give us some privacy?”
“I don’t think Weldon would approve of that,” Stoll argued.
I had come too far to back out now. “That’s between me and Weldon, Stoll.”
They waited until Stoll gave the others a signal and then they all walked out of the room. “You have ten minutes,” Stoll said, before he left with the others. “Make it count.”
The minute I heard the door clicking shut, I rushed over to Jake and crouched next to him. He was in bad shape, shaking, shivering, crying uncontrollably. “Jake?”
“He was in that room,” Jake hysterically pointed to the large window to one side. “It’s dark now but he was there… I saw it Trey… they were making me watch!!!”
Sadistic fucks they must have known what it would do to him but I was certain Weldon wanted him to suffer. “They’re just doing it to mess with your head,” I told him. “They want you to suffer.”
“Why?” he cried. “What have I done? What has Colton done? What’s our crime?”
On one side of the room there was a chair. I pulled Jake up and took him to that chair and forced him to sit but he seemed like he was completely out of it. “I have to save him, Trey,” he kept saying.
“Jake, Colton needs you to be strong,” I tried to explain. “He’s going to need you when…”
“When Weldon’s done with him,” he finished for me. “When he’s broken my brother to pieces just like he broke me!!!”
I tried to hug him but he just pushed me away. “Fuck off!”
“Jake, I’m just trying to help…”
“No, you’re not!” he said. “You can’t help me! No one can. No will come to help me or Colton, it’s just me and him like always!”
I understood his anger. I’d be angry too if my brother was being tortured right in front of me and I couldn’t do anything about it. It was frustrating watching people suffer, especially the ones you cared about. It wasn’t easy dealing with all that guilt and remorse that you felt every time you failed at what you’d always considered to be your job, your responsibility. I knew because I felt it too, every time I saw Jake being tormented, mentally and physically, by a guy who had no sense of right or wrong.
When I thought about the Jake I’d met in Zach’s home, it broke my heart. The boy I saw then was unhappy but nothing like what he was now, broken, tortured, heartbroken and panic-stricken, fearing every second for something awful to happen.
“You know he rapes me every night,” Jake said, out of nowhere. “He… he comes into my bed and he… he does whatever the fuck he wants and the fuck of it is it’s not even the worst thing that happens to me here, Trey.”
It takes a lot for me to actually shed tears but I did then. He didn’t deserve what was happening to him. He was too young to have to face living in these circumstances. He was in this mess and it was partly my fault, mostly because I could have saved him when he stayed with me all night and moreover because I hadn’t done anything to help him ever since he had been brought here. Before I could think about what to say to him, the door opened and Stoll walked in. “Your ten minutes are up,” he said and stood next to Jake’s chair. “You need to leave. Unless you’re planning to watch the next show.”
It took a lot for me to control my anger long enough to leave. “I’ll see you, Jake.”
But he wasn’t even looking at me. He was staring at some random point in space, lost in oblivion. Stoll grinned. “I think he’s losing it,” he said, ruffling Jake’s hair and Jake flinched. “Are you losing it, Jakey?”
I hated Stoll then, but I knew he was right. There was something off about Jake ever since that severe beating a few days back. Of course, Weldon hadn’t stopped hurting him which was just cruel. I was worried about his mental state. Stoll was still joking about it when he pulled Jake off that chair and back on his knees. I basically opened the door and found a way out before I had to witness anything that might haunt me forever.
At least I had the option to choose.
Jake didn’t.
WELDON
I stepped into the room and they all went silent. No one said a word but Colton was looking at me. It occurred to me he was confused and needed answers but he wasn’t about to get any. He would have to get used to being in a life that was unpredictable. There were no certainties in life so why should they expect it from me? I was a slave to my needs. As were tons of other people in this world but I happened to be the villain because my proclivities lay in regions that the world considered corrupt. Words can’t stop me. I’m the one who has all the power and the world has nothing. The reason I’m where I am and the reason they are where they are, is the same—I take risks and I don’t give a shit.
I wanted this to excite me to the level where I couldn’t see straight, the way it was with Jake. Every time I hurt him, I became powerful and he got weaker. Every time I gave him an order, I got myself ingrained in his brain as a master. Every time he complied he became more of a slave than before. This is what I was good at, this was my domain. I owned Jake’s head and his body, and I owned his decisions and he was with me and we both knew he wasn’t going anywhere without my consent. And I’d rather he died before I let him leave this place, and before I let him leave me.
When they saw me they all straightened up a bit and brought Colton to me. He had a bit of blood on his mouth, probably from all the roughhousing. I wiped it off his lip with the tip of my thumb and brought it to my mouth. I licked it off and smiled when Colton seemed to look at me with concern. “It’s not fair Colton,” I said. “There’s so many of us and just one of you. Hardly a fair fight, don’t you think?” I turned to the others. “Let him go!”
They did as they were asked but I noticed a tiny bit of confusion. Colton stood to one side of the room, cowering, and shaking miserably. There was a table to one side and there were random items on it, including a rather scary looking flogger. But I wasn’t going to use that, not yet. For now, I had better plans. “Remember what I told you,” I said, walking up to that table. I ran my hand over the smooth surface. “The only way to be free is when the ability to make decisions has been taken away from you.” I walked up to Colton again and grabbed his upper arm, forced him to stand up straight. I tried to kiss him and he resisted. “Do you really want to do that, Colton?”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
He was clearly a fast learner because that wasn’t a statement anyone else would have made after everything that had happened. “Apology accepted,” I said and tried again and this time he gave in. I looked in his eyes. “I want to hurt you, Colton. I want to hurt you so bad no one’s ever hurt you before.” Before he could resist or try to get away, I grabbed his shoulders and dragged him to the table. He started to cry, and I could feel him shaking harder as I positioned him against the table’s flat surface and pushed him onto it from behind. I ran a hand all over his back, all the way down to his thighs and he squirmed. My dick was hard. All it took was some spit to moisten it and I found myself getting swayed by everything around me and mostly by Colton and the fact that he was Jake’s brother.
Impatiently, I entered him and the result was screams from the boy’s throat. My cock felt constricted, that’s how tight he was and it didn’t get much better when I kept pushing. “If you die now Colton,” I breathed out the words. “It would be poetic.”
The screams didn’t die down but they paused for just a while when I stopped. My cum was dripping out of him and a mixture of blood and cum was on my dick. But if he thought that was the end of it, he was wrong. The minute I let go of him, one of the
men came up and did what I had done, and I watched as each one of the tried to become more merciless than the other. I watched until his eyes glazed over and his screams died down.
I didn’t stop them.
No.
I took a seat on the couch and watched all this unfold.
TREY
Compassionate Care For the Terminally Ill said the brochure. The same saying and other banalities were a fancy way of saying this was the place people came to die. In some ways, a hospice is worse than a morgue. At least dead people don’t have sight, they don’t feel pain. This was a waiting room for death and as such provided no real comfort except if you found some solace in the fact that your loved ones weren’t the only ones rotting away.
The nurse showed me to her room and I braced myself. Not that any amount of bracing helped. The minute I saw her, laid out on her death bed a part of me died. I wanted to run. I wanted to pretend this wasn’t happening but I was afraid she might not make it until the next time. So, I had to make every time seem like the last and make sure I didn’t say or do anything inappropriate, anything that would hinder our mutually shared dying experience.
“Hey,” I touched her hair lightly. She never got chemo so she never lost her hair, but it was no longer the shiny and lustrous brunette she had throughout her childhood and her teenage years, the hair she hated because it would never style the way she wanted it. Memories of the two of us playing games in our backyard and watching TV instead of napping came back and I wiped the stray tear before she could see it.
Aubrey opened her eyes. We were only two years apart but she looked like a million years older. Her eyes retained the same glassy look I’d become used to ever since she’d started taking that insane medication they put her on. If I tried, I could still see my older sister somewhere in there, beneath these glass walls that had once been eyes that saw the world with a ridiculous positive energy that I had always been envious of. But gone was that energy, the drive to make things different again. There was just a bit of my sister left and I found it when she smiled at me. “Trey….” She said but it resulted in a coughing fit so I had to wait for her speak. It was hard to not cry and hard to not show her just how miserable I was inside. “I’m glad you came,” she pressed on my hand.