by Todd Gregory
Any words of protest Tommy had died when he looked at the dark blue eyes and a devilishly handsome aristocratic face framed with an impeccably neat red beard and mustache. The embers smoldering in his eyes showed he tolerated no defiance and would be swift to deal out retribution to those who tested the limits of his patience. Tommy positioned himself in his arms so he wouldn’t touch his damp clothing. Tommy was familiar with the odor of blood and bone. His lean body and clothing sang the stench proudly. A squat building rapidly came into view, and the man paused long enough to open a side door. It was almost as if he had taken one giant step forward. Tommy grew increasingly nauseous from the distinct odor of blood and the intense patch of shadow that swirled about him. A single light illuminated a long, narrow staircase. He remained silent as his savior leaped up the stairs, then paused long enough on a landing to open another door leading into a room illuminated only by the white light leaking out of two gigantic clicking movie projectors.
He set Tommy down in a worn, but comfortable wing chair, and after removing his jacket, took a step back to examine the young man. Tommy watched him through half-opened eyes.
“What a lovely sight you are,” he sighed with disgust. He removed his gloves. “Might as well get started cleaning you up. I don’t need you whole, but I do need you in working condition.”
Tommy watched as he tossed his damp gloves onto a nearby table and with a taunting promise dancing in his eyes, licked his fingers as he approached him. Tommy shrank back against the chair, but it provided no safe haven against his rescuer’s steady advance.
He paused long enough to grab Tommy’s left arm. “I don’t have time for you to waste in hysterics. I need to get you to the drop-off site, and time is running out.”
His hot breath brushed against Tommy’s cheek and ear. “Watch closely and learn to enjoy.”
“No!” Tommy screamed, but his weak struggle proved useless. With a surgeon’s delicate skill, the man split open a vein on Tommy’s arm with his fingernail. He traced the path his fingernail had taken with his tongue. The painful throb of gushing blood immediately stopped and was replaced by a warm, pleasant tingle. Tommy sighed in release as the blaring pain from his bruises and injuries were momentarily numbed and replaced with a euphoria he desired more than escape, regardless of who offered it to him.
His still nameless rescuer released his arm and stepped back. Tommy hastily pulled back his arm and examined it. Only a thin white scar now remained. “Who are you? What are you?” he managed to say in a whisper, still savoring the fading euphoria the saliva had brought him.
“Darren Frazier.” He took another step backward and bowed. “I’m the sole proprietor and projectionist of the Starlite Twin Family Drive-In Theatre.”
Darren came forward again and leaned against the arms of the chair. With Tommy’s face almost touching his, he smiled and displayed his razor-sharp teeth in the façade of a friendly smile.
Tommy found himself trembling from a combination of fear and desire. He wanted to run his fingers across those glistening teeth and suck out every second of intense pleasure each droplet promised. “And what use do you have for a badly battered, practically useless car thief?”
“I need you to help me find Roger, my partner,” he said. “He’s been taken from me.”
In an unconscious gesture of frustration, he ran a tired hand through his hair and moved away from the chair. His back was to Tommy. “He was in a car wreck about a month ago and after a quick examination the rescue workers discovered his connection to me. They took Roger to a rehab center designed to break the bond between us. I want him back. I need him back.”
Darren walked over to a nearby table and picked up a picture frame. He had a sorrow-filled smile as he walked back over to Tommy and handed him the photograph. “My beloved, Roger.”
He turned away and Tommy felt a pang of sympathy for Darren as he studied the photograph. Tommy could see Roger’s sorrowful brown eyes reflected a deep love for the person on the other side of the camera.
“Breaking people out of institutions isn’t my specialty,” he said. His gut instinct warned him that Darren wasn’t being entirely truthful about Roger’s incarceration. His only choice was to keep Darren talking and try to ferret out the truth while seeking an opportunity to escape.
“Why not get a lawyer to spring Roger from wherever he’s being held?” Tommy set the picture frame down on his lap and waited patiently for a response.
“Roger is outside legal jurisdiction, and I don’t know where he’s being treated for his so-called malady.” Darren turned back around and Tommy studied the anger that burned in his eyes.
It reminded Tommy of the anger a child would express when being denied a favorite toy. “Your battered body will guarantee you admittance into the shelter, once I provide an additional touch or two. I’ll drop you off at one of their lookout points, and once you’re inside the shelter, find the address and give me a call.
“After you’ve called me, your obligation to me will be done and you can go on your way. And Roger will be entwined in my arms once more.”
Tommy stiffened and nearly blacked out from the pain the effort had cost him. “Granted you rescued me from that son of a bitch, but I’m not the Marines, and I don’t owe you any special favors.”
His rich laughter, filled with an uneven mixture of bemusement and annoyance, poured into every nook and cranny of the office. Darren smiled and began advancing toward Tommy. “Your fingerprints are littered all over the Mustang.”
“So?” His fear was increasing by each racing second. Tommy did his best to maintain his best poker face.
“The son-of-a-bitch is dead.” Darren said it so simply. His ear-splitting smile was terrible to behold. “I tore him to shreds, and wore gloves while doing so.”
“There were other witnesses,” Tommy weakly protested. His heart roared in his throat. He desperately wanted to down a cold beer to soothe the speed at which his heart thundered away.
“I think it’s a simple trade-off. Help me find Roger and I won’t turn you over to the police for murder.”
Tommy resisted the urge to make a rash dash for freedom that lay beyond the office door. He knew Darren would have probably anticipated such a desperate attempt and would be alert. Instead Tommy shifted uncomfortably in the chair as his thoughts swirled in desperation for any conceivable way out of his predicament. His wired brain could not think of a way to escape.
A damp finger caressed Tommy’s swollen eye. Warm desire induced by the contact of Darren’s saliva on his skin hazed his thoughts. A sigh escaped his lips as Darren’s finger slowly followed the curve of his cheek down to the base of his neck.
“Please,” Tommy weakly protested. “I can’t think clearly.”
“It’s not so bad a trade-off,” Darren murmured. “A couple days inside a clinic with hot meals and showers. A temporary roof over your head. I’ll even throw in a finder’s fee of a couple thousand dollars. It’s probably all you would have gotten for the Mustang anyway.
“Oh yes, I’ll even destroy the car to get rid of the incriminating evidence. Such a shame too. It’s such a beauty.” Darren’s saliva-tipped fingers moved underneath Tommy’s shirt collar, and Tommy felt himself being swallowed up by the intense pleasure he experienced as Darren’s touch began arousing his nipples and other parts of his nineteen-year-old body.
“Anything.” The weight of Darren’s continuing advance caused the last of his faltering defenses to crumble. “I’ll agree to anything for more,” Tommy whispered.
Roger’s picture fell to the floor, and the glass within the frame shattered, but Darren and Tommy were way past caring.
Snatches of hurried conversation and piercing flashlight beams roused Tommy from the dreamless state he had buried his numb thoughts and body in. He tried to stretch and open his eyes to identify his surroundings with a rapid visual sweep, and met with limited success. Sharp objects impeded his hands from exploring, and his still swollen eyes would
only open wide enough to let woefully thin slivers of moonlight in. It was the smell of rotting vegetables and meat that identified his surroundings. Darren had caused Tommy to soar to heights of ecstasy he had never experienced in his few brief sexual encounters with guys and girls, but had read about in the soft-porn romance novels he occasionally lifted from bookstores; and then he had abandoned him in the pick-up site for the sanitarium—a garbage Dumpster.
“Josh, in here,” someone shouted. A wandering beam from a flashlight snared Tommy’s eyes and he raised an unsteady arm to block the powerful light. “I think we found ourselves another one of the companions!
“Hang on, honey, I’m coming in,” he told Tommy. Paper, cans, and glass crackled and crunched under the weight of the person who jumped into the Dumpster. Tommy tried to avoid him by inching into a corner, but a cardboard box blocked his retreat. He whimpered as each crunch of garbage brought the stranger closer. He wanted to continue the spell Darren’s deft hands, tongue, and teeth had forged on his body.
Rough knuckles caressed Tommy’s cheek in a gesture of reassurance. “I need to check you out before I move you out of here,” his rescuer told him. He gently eased Tommy’s head aside to expose his neck. “Get the kit ready, Josh!” His voice was a bittersweet mixture of disgust and pity. “He got his taste of juice within the last hour or two, I’d say.”
Callused fingers probed his neck. “Holy shit, Josh. It was his first taste. He’s still fresh!”
He picked Tommy up from the refuse and carried him over to the open Dumpster door. He was transferred over to Josh’s waiting arms and placed on a ready gurney. “It’s going to hurt a little, but I need to get some fluids in you,” Josh told him.
Tommy watched in silence as he swabbed his arm down with an alcohol wipe. Josh searched for a plump vein on Tommy’s arm and found one right away. “Now, this might hurt for a moment, but afterward you won’t feel a thing.”
Tommy tried to bolt from the gurney as Josh prepped an intravenous needle, but with the patient skill of a seasoned veteran he held him down and placed his arms and legs in restraining straps. “Now hold real still so you won’t get hurt,” Josh cautioned him.
“No! Leave me alone. I want Darren!” Tommy screamed as the needle pierced his arm and entered the readied vein. He screamed again as he felt his blood boil from the fluid the intravenous bag was pumping into his ravaged body. Tommy’s screams died as he sank into oblivion.
*
Brilliant daylight flooding in through open window blinds jolted Tommy awake.
He was in a hospital room. His skin felt raw, as if someone had scrubbed him down with a wire brush. He raised a hand and ran it through his dirty blond hair. It had been washed and cut short. His beard stubble had also been freshly shaved away.
“Ah, good afternoon, sleepyhead! I was going over your records, brief as they are, so I didn’t see you wake up. Feeling a bit hungry? I’ll call up a plate from the cafeteria, and while we’re waiting for it to arrive, I can get some information on you for our records.”
Tommy turned to face the chubby man who was speaking to him. The desire to leave the hospital room and be with Darren again fueled the claustrophobia growing within him, but Tommy remembered why he was there and what he must do in order to gain his freedom and another taste of Darren.
“I need to make a phone call,” Tommy said. “I have to let my boyfriend know I’m all right. Can you give me the address for here? I know he’ll pick me up right away.”
The chubby man smiled sadly and shook his head. “I’m sorry, hon, I can’t do that. If we’re lucky, you’ll soon be free from any influence he has over you. You’re lucky. You managed to come to us only after one taste of juice. Drying out should be easier for you than it has been for our past patients.”
Tommy carefully propped himself up on the bed and quickly studied the man who sat patiently waiting for the expected next round of pleas and shrill threats. Past experience with escapes from youth detention centers and runaway shelters had taught him not to volunteer worthless bits of personal data so quickly. It was always best to let the goody-two-shoes social workers think each soul-wrenching revelation resulted from hard won trust. Tommy would only cast suspicion on himself if he immediately played ball.
Despite the warmhearted, fatherly appearance of the man, Tommy suspected he would know a line of crap when he heard one.
“Will I get something to eat if I tell you my name?”
“Provided it’s a proper introduction. I’m Chris Newsome. I was one of the very first patients here. Now I’m director of patient admissions.”
“I’m Tommy McDevitt. When can I leave?”
“I’ll be honest with you, Tommy. We have never treated anyone who had just one taste of juice. You’re going to be a challenge for us.”
“I’m rather a hungry challenge right now,” Tommy said. He slowly lay back on the bed.
“One chicken dinner coming right up,” Chris said. “Afterward, if you’re feeling up to it, perhaps you would like to take a walk around the clinic and acquaint yourself with the surroundings and some of the ongoing therapy sessions.”
“Can I go outside for a stroll and some fresh air?”
A bemused smile graced Chris’s face and momentarily erased the crow’s feet that the toll of years had etched. Tommy cringed as sad eyes replaced Chris’s natural good humor.
“None of us ever go outside. So few ever recover enough to function normally again. And those of us who do manage to shake free from the shackles of the juice don’t risk going outside. Even a day like today, with brilliant sunshine, offers no safe harbor for us.” Chris reached over and gave Tommy a gentle squeeze on the shoulder. “That’s why we’re so excited by your arrival. You may be the first patient from the clinic to go out into the world again.
“I’ll be right back with your lunch.”
Tommy watched Chris depart and reached out for the folder had left on the chair he had sat on. The effort brought on a bout of dizziness and nausea, but he fought it down.
Tommy carefully scanned through each document. All he had learned was that he had been severely dehydrated when they brought him in and was suffering from severe withdrawal psychosis brought upon from a lack of the juice. The memory of Darren’s glistening teeth briefly aroused his body. Hearing footsteps approaching, Tommy quickly replaced the folder and resumed a prone position on the bed. Learning the address of the clinic and relaying it to Darren was not going to be an easy task. All the medical and personal information on him had been written down on paper that offered no written clue to his whereabouts. Tommy knew his best chance of finding the information he needed was getting into Chris’s office.
Chris appeared in the doorway with a covered tray. He rolled a table over to Tommy’s bed and set the tray down. “Eat up, and afterward, if you feel up to it, go exploring and meet some of the people here. There’s a robe in the closet to protect you from any drafts.
“Just follow the yellow line on the floor. It leads to the community room. If you have any questions, just ask someone. Or if you want to talk about setting up a recovery program, the purple line leads to administration and my office.”
“Thank you.” Tommy weakly smiled. Chris beamed at him and departed.
Tommy’s stomach grumbled and he lifted the lid off the tray. Tearing off a piece of chicken, he chewed slowly and thought. He decided to enjoy the meal before searching for the means to regain his freedom.
Chris had been true to his word. Tommy slowly followed the yellow line painted on the floor and found himself in a large community room filled with a variety of people ranging from his age all the way up to seventy. People waved and greeted him, and Tommy smiled and waved back, secure in the role of playing the shy newcomer to the group. He was well versed from living in group homes and with foster parents to know what was looked for and expected.
His agenda focused on bumping into a small, isolated table where a gray-haired woman was humming away as she
concentrated on shaping a wire sculpture of a horse into form. Tommy “accidentally” ran into the table and knocked a few bits of scrap wire onto the floor.
“I’m so sorry,” Tommy said as he picked up pieces of wire from the floor and pocketed a couple for his use.
Startled, the woman looked up. She smiled in relief when she saw Tommy had been the one responsible for the sudden shift of the table. “Oh, that’s all right. You can just leave those scraps of wire on the floor. I’ll pick them up later.”
Tommy apologized again and departed from the community room. He followed the purple line now down a long corridor that led straight to the administration wing of the clinic. Once he located the brass nameplate that announced he had arrived at Chris’s office, he knocked on the door and waited. There was no response. Tommy cautiously surveyed his surroundings. No one was around in the administration wing. He tried the door. It was locked.
Tommy removed the two strands of wire he had acquired from the sculpture table and inserted them into the keyhole. He had the door open before he had reached the silent count of five.
Once inside, Tommy closed the door and raced over to the desk. Chris had been studying a report on how long it took ambulance drivers to reach the clinic from various parts of the city. The first paragraph of the report summed up the study and listed the clinic’s address. Tommy glanced over at the phone. It had a lock on it. The bottom file drawer’s lock was harder to pick. Tommy’s finally gave up picking it and pried it open with a pair of scissors. It contained Chris’s wallet and inside that, a cell phone. Tommy flipped open the cell phone and got an immediate dial tone. The numbers Darren etched into his memory easily came forth and as he waited patiently for him to pick up, Tommy stole a glance out of Chris’s spacious picture window. The setting sun cast the sky in vibrant hues of orange and red.