In the Heart of Darkness

by Reinke, Sara

  He froze when he heard the bathroom door squeak on its hinges, then quietly close. For a long moment, there was only the ragged sound of his own breathing inside the mask, but through the tiny air holes cut into the snout, he detected a familiar scent.

  “Every time I turn around, you’re causing trouble for me, mišiću.” Nikolić said.

  Julien turned his face toward the sound of his voice. “So sue me.”

  “You busted up my lab, killed more of my men,” Nikolić said. “And my girl, Anna…you messed up her face.”

  “She’s still got her tits. Put a bag over her head.”

  “And always with the smart-ass mouth.” The tone of Nikolić’s lent itself to a bemused smirk. Julien heard the rustle of fabric as the big man folded his long, thick legs beneath him, squatting down next to him. “It’s almost time for the Draka.”

  “I’m not fighting.”

  “Oh, but I say you are.” Nikolić’s hand fell abruptly, heavily between Julien’s thighs.

  “Get your fucking hand off me!” Startled, Julien twisted in recoil and fell onto his side, smacking his head and shoulder hard enough against the floor to leave little pinpoints of light dancing momentarily against the backdrop of his blindfold.

  Nikolić reached for him again, his fingers curling around Julien’s cock through the front of his pants. “But I thought you liked it like this. I mean, I know you’ve fucked women before, but your preference is this, no? A man’s hands on you. His mouth. Or at least, one man’s hands and mouth.” When Julien’s eyes widened in surprise beneath the mask, his breath catching in a sharp gasp, Nikolić chuckled. “Oh, da. I know your secret now…your weakness.”

  Julien felt him tug against the front of the mask, and then the blindfold panel fell away. The sudden shift from darkness to bright lights hurt his eyes, and he winced, clamping them shut. Then he heard Mason’s voice, soft and somewhat tinny, and his eyes flew wide again in bewildered alarm.

  “I love you,” he heard Mason say.

  Nikolić had his cell phone in hand, holding it out in front of Julien’s face. To his surprise—to his horror—Julien saw the grainy image of a digital surveillance recording, one that appeared to have been taken from a camera hidden in the ceiling of the room at the brothel in which he’d been held prisoner. He saw Mason on his knees in front of him as he sat, chained to the pipe, on the floor. Mason held his face between his hands, and had his forehead pressed against Julien’s.

  “Don’t say that.” The sound of his own voice in recordings had always sounded alien to him, like that of a stranger. “I’ve done so many things…such awful things, Mason. I don’t deserve—”

  When Mason kissed him onscreen, Julien couldn’t suppress a groan of dismay. He’d felt so vulnerable in that moment; for once, he’d given in to that vulnerability and allowed himself the luxury of that kiss. Now he railed at himself for his foolish naïveté—still alive and well, and getting him into deeper and deeper shit all the time, even now at two hundred and forty years of age. Of course Nikolić would have had him under surveillance, even chained and bound as he’d been. Wouldn’t he have done the exact same thing had their positions been reversed?

  Stupid, he thought. Stupid, stupid—how could I have been so goddamn stupid?

  “There is more than one way to skin a cat, no?” Nikolić remarked. “And I’m willing to bet more than one way Dr. Morin will prove useful to me.”

  “No!” Julien cried, stricken.

  “I liked the story you told me about your brother, though,” Nikolić continued. “The one who died. Victor, was it not? Phillip, he told me about him. He said Victor was an ass.”

  His father’s words echoed in Julien’s mind, Lamar’s threats against Mason, brutal and unveiled: It would be a shame, would it not…? To disrupt a life so perfect…so blissfully unaware? …I will keep him naked and chained like a dog in my cellar for the remainder of his days, and for every act of defiance you offer me, boy—every argument or contrary plea—I will violate him anew.

  Only this time, Mason was already a prisoner, as completely, utterly, and hopelessly at Nikolić’s mercy as Julien. And no other threat but this was needed.

  “Don’t hurt him,” Julien said. “You son of a bitch, leave Mason out of this. If you touch him, I’ll—”

  “…do nothing.” Nikolić cut in. “Not without my permission. Not anymore. You don’t feed without my say-so, piss without my say-so…” He slid his hand beneath the waistband of Julien’s sweatpants to grip his cock firmly, skin on skin. “…come without my say-so. You belong to me now.”

  Molly. In Julien’s mind he could see the interior of his father’s library and that same smug smile on Lamar’s face. He could see Jean Luc holding out the whip for him, his mouth silently moving, forming the cruel taunt. It was funny how easily that iron clamp of dread closed once more in his gut. It had only turned loose of him since Julianne had screamed the news of Lamar’s death into his ear, yet there it was again, tightening through his groin, settling in his gut and twisting taut already with sickening tension.

  “Get your hand off me,” he said, struggling to prevent his body from responding, to stifle his most primal of physiological reactions even as Nikolić began to stroke him up and down, coaxing him to an unwilling—but unpreventable—erection. “Get your goddamn hand off me!”

  But there was nothing he could do; he could no more protect Mason than he could stop Nikolić’s sexual assault—or his own body’s reaction to it—and to his dismay, he realized that he’d never been able to. He’d always been the good little doggie, first whoring himself to strangers to pay for Aaron’s medical care, and then to his father to pay for Mason’s safety. He’d been Lamar’s slave—his bitch—and now he’d be Nikolić’s.

  “No,” Julien pleaded, closing his eyes, gritting his teeth. He clenched his fists so tightly inside the restraint sleeves, he could feel his nails digging in deep, drawing blood from the meat of his palms. “God, please…!”

  “That’s it,” Nikolić murmured as he worked his cock faster, harder. His voice had grown rough, his breathing rapid and sharp. “That’s it—come on. Come for me.”

  “N-no…!” Julien uttered a soft, ragged cry as, despite his protest, his body yielded against his will, and the bitter climax shuddered through him like a febrile chill.

  “That’s it,” Nikolić breathed again, as, at last, his hand fell still and he drew away. For a long moment, he simply knelt there, nearly panting, while Julien curled onto his side, drawing his knees up to his chest like he always had when he’d been a child and had wanted to make himself small—although it had never proven quite small enough to hide from his father’s belt or his wrath.

  Whenever one of his johns had finished with him in Boston, he’d longed for this same futile security; whenever they’d fucked him and paid him, their scattering of coins glinting in the moonlight atop his bedside table, and he’d laid there alone in the dark like a discarded scrap of paper, aching, exhausted, lonely and ashamed, he’d wished not for death, but to disappear; to simply fade away among the shadow-draped corners of his rented room and not be. It had been a long time since he’d felt that helpless, that hopeless…but like a well-worn and familiar slipper, he slipped into those emotions all-too easily once again.

  “This is a good look for you,” Nikolić said as he rose to his feet. Reaching down, he tugged at the front of his pants, where the outward swell of his own arousal strained against the zipper of his fly. “Broken at last.” He lifted his hand, glancing at a glistening spot on the back of his knuckle where semen had spattered. Lapping it away with the tip of his tongue, he dropped Julien a wink. “I like it.”

  Julien closed his eyes, his body rigid with shame and disgust, as Nikolić turned and left the bathroom. Where only moments ago, he might have mustered defiant resolve, in that moment, all he felt was the crushing weight of humiliation and despair. He was no more than a rent boy again, just as he’d always been; a good little doggie tet
hered to the lead of a new master.

  Oh, God, just let it be over soon.

  * * *

  A match had gotten underway, and that kept Mason’s babysitter, Miloš, entertained. More importantly, it kept his hands off of Sofiya and to himself, where they belonged. While he was busy standing at the rail, alternately cheering and cursing in Russian, Mason scooted his chair even closer to Sofiya’s.

  He said her name, but it only drew her reluctant gaze for a moment. She wore a dazed expression on her face, but he couldn’t tell if she was upset or if it was from the wine. “Are you…?” he whispered, more mouthing the words than speaking aloud. “Did…did he…?”

  He couldn’t finish. Jesus Christ, he couldn’t bear the thought; didn’t know what he’d do if the man had sexually assaulted her. When she shook her head, he felt a rush of relief, though whether for her or for Miloš—who he’d pretty much decided he’d castrate with his bare hands if he’d touched Sofiya—he wasn’t sure.

  “Where have you been?” Miloš exclaimed in delight, and Mason looked up as Nikolić returned to the booth. “The champagne’s almost all gone. We got sick of waiting on your ass!”

  “I had some business to finish up downstairs,” Nikolić replied with a sideways glance at Mason as Miloš embraced him warmly. “A little matter to discuss with your boy, in fact.”

  Julien? Mason thought, blinking in surprise. “I…I wouldn’t call Davenant my boy,” he said in awkward protest.

  “And speaking of the devil dog…” Miloš said, turning back toward the ring, where a new match was about to begin. The emcee had come to the middle of the mat again to announce the fighters; it was already bloodstained in places, and he stepped almost daintily around the spatters and smears. “I think he’s coming up now, da?”

  “Indeed,” Nikolić said as Mason stepped closer to the railing to peer down at the ring below. His heart suddenly hammered, his skin glossing with an anxious, clammy sweat. All he kept thinking of was the night in 1818 when Julien had taken to a similar ring for an equally illegal fight—the Midnight Rounds.

  I can take this guy, Mason. I know it, Julien had insisted, but he’d suffered a knock-out blow within moments.

  He’s going to be killed, he thought in dismay. As he looked down over the edge of the booth, past the glinting coils of razor wire, he saw Julien being led by armed guards into the ring. The black leather dog mask remained over his head, the blindfold in place, but the sleeve restraints were gone, his arms and ankles unbound. As the guards pulled the mask off, jerking it over Julien’s head, he blinked, disoriented, against the dazzling glare from the stage lights.

  “In the red corner,” the emcee called out. “Fighting under the management of Vladan Nikolić and weighing in at one hundred and fifty-three pounds, at just under five-feet, seven inches tall, comes a virgin to the Draka ring…!”

  The crowd went wild at this, screaming and clapping.

  “He’s a mixed martial artist,” the emcee continued. “Trained in karate, kempo, aikido, and Jeet Kune Do, as well as kokawa—Nigerian bare-knuckle boxing, Brazilian Vacón, Phillipino Yaw-Yan, Muay Thai, French savate kickboxing, Krav Maga…”

  The list went on and on, a veritable tongue-twister of martial arts disciplines from around the world. How in the hell can Julien have trained in all of this? Mason thought. He wouldn’t put it past Nikolić for a moment to bulk up that so-called resume to make Julien sound more skilled than he actually was.

  “That’s an impressive resume for a man his age,” Miloš remarked, sounding equally dubious. “He’s all of what…? Thirty years old?”

  Nikolić laughed. “Age is only a number,” he assured.

  “And in the blue corner,” the announcer continued. “Fighting under the management of Pavel Leskov, weighing in at two hundred and ninety pounds, at six-feet, six inches tall, with a record of seven wins and no losses, with five knock outs—Dwayne ‘Goliath’ Garin!”

  The arena erupted in cheers again, even louder this time, as a huge man, almost as broad through the shoulders as he was tall by Mason’s estimation, lumbered through the gate and into the ring.

  Nikolić expects Julien to fight this guy? Holy Jesus!

  “You can’t do this.” Mason grabbed Nikolić by the sleeve. “Stop the match, Nikolić. You’re going to get Julien killed. He’s not fully healed yet. If he takes a hit to his chest on that side, his lung could collapse again, or—”

  “He won’t take a hit to his chest,” Nikolić said.

  “He’s going to die in there,” Mason snapped.

  “This is what he was made for.” Nikolić shrugged himself loose of Mason’s grasp. “I’ve seen what he can do, and it’s extraordinary. He’s extraordinary—his entire body, literally a living weapon.”

  A living weapon? Julien? Mason couldn’t wrap his mind around it. “You’re crazy,” he whispered, shaking his head, stricken. “You…you’re out of your goddamn mind.”

  “Are you a wagering man, Dr. Morin?” Nikolić asked. With a nod toward the ring, he added, “I bet our gud pas there wins his match without taking a hit.”

  “Against that guy?” Miloš interjected, turning to gawk at the towering hulk called ‘Goliath’ again.

  Mason blinked at Nikolić. He’d seen enough of the preceding match to understand this was not the sort of contest in which one walked away without at least throwing a punch or two. Again he thought of the Midnight Rounds in 1818. He still remembered the crack of the Russian fighter’s knuckles as they’d connected solidly with Julien’s chin, and the heavy thud as the younger man had crumpled to the ground. He had the sinking feeling this was going to be even worse.

  “No.” He shook his head. “No, this is crazy.” Curling his fingers against Nikolić’s sleeve again, he leaned closer, pleading. “Stop the match. Please. Julien can’t fight this guy. Just look at him, for Christ’s sake.”

  With a laugh, Miloš clapped his hands. “If he won’t bet you, then I sure as hell will.” He reached beneath his jacket lapel and pulled out a leather billfold. “Your doggie’s going down, Vladan.”

  “I don’t want your money, Miloš,” Nikolić said mildly. “I had something more…interesting in mind for our wager.” As he spoke, he turned to look pointedly over his shoulder toward the back of the booth—and Sofiya, who remained in her chair, her shoulders hunched and trembling. Her cheeks glistened with the tracks of new tears.

  Mason blinked again. “What?”

  “If I’m wrong,” Nikolić said. “I’ll let her go.”

  “What?” Miloš turned to him in surprise.

  “I’ll let her go,” Nikolić said again. “Put her in a taxi, give her bus fare, whatever. She’ll be free.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Miloš’s bright expression soured. “We had a deal, Vladan.”

  “Renege on that,” Mason said to Nikolić. “Give him his money back. Do that, set her free, and yeah, I’ll take your bet.”

  “He can’t do that,” Miloš said, glaring first at Mason, then at Nikolić. “You can’t fucking do that!”

  “And if I win?” Nikolić asked Mason, ignoring Miloš altogether. “What’s in it for me, Dr. Morin?”

  “What did he pay you for Sofiya?” Mason asked. “I’ll double the amount. I’ll triple it—in cash. First thing tomorrow, you and me, we go to my bank and I’ll make the withdrawal.”

  “We had a deal, Vladan,” Miloš protested again. “I already paid you. You can’t just change your mind whenever you damn well—”

  Nikolić pushed him aside, knocking him into the nearest chair. “Triple his price. In cash.”

  “If you win,” Mason added. “But if I win, she goes free.”

  “Agreed.” Nikolić nodded, extending his hand. “Do we have a bet?”

  Mason looked down at the ring again, where Julien stood facing off against his opponent. . Julien’s fighting skills may have improved since the early nineteenth century—he may indeed have become, as Nikolić had noted, a �
��living weapon”—but that son of a bitch in the ring with him was still fucking huge. Even as cut as Julien was, his body nothing but solid muscle, lean and strong, he still looked very small and vulnerable in contrast.

  He’s going to be killed, Mason thought in dismay. But at the same time, he knew exactly what Julien would say—what he’d stubbornly insist on—if he’d been standing there with them and had a say-so in the matter.

  “Yeah.” Reluctantly, Mason accepted the proffered shake, feeling Nikolić’s thick fingers clasp firmly with his own. “We have a bet.”

  * * *

  Ikken Hissatsu.

  Roughly translated from Japanese, it meant one fist, certain death. In the discipline of karate, this was more of a metaphorical than literal tenet. Those who practiced the martial art understood its implication—that a disciplined warrior could effectively end a fight with a single, well-placed, well-chosen blow, no matter their opponent’s size.

  And holy shit, size is going to be a factor here, Julien thought, craning his head back to look up at his opponent.

  In 1957, he and Aaron had traveled to Naha City in Okinawa, an island off the coast of Japan. Here, they’d spent the better part of the next two years studying the principle of Ikken Hissatsu, among others, under the instruction of Sensei Nagamine Shōshin, developer of the Matsubayashi-ryū karate style. He’d been a quiet man, stoic and endlessly patient, the sort Julien had often wished for in a father-figure; one who had put his hands on Julien not out of anger, or in violence, but to guide his movements gently, directing his hands, his legs in strikes to very specific target points, emphasizing the motions of each blow, not just the outcomes, and honing in his impressionable charge a keen attention to the deliberate placement of his strikes that Julien maintained to that day.