Nawashi

by Gray Miller

  As he isometrically pulled at the ropes, he realized that while he couldn’t feel his fingers, at the same time, he somehow was aware of the ropes. He didn’t dare look up, lest he give the sallow man the idea he was contemplating escape… but at the same time, he didn’t need to. He knew where each loop passed over each other, where the rope was folded over in a bight to wind the loops together between his wrists. With a start he realized that he knew more than that, he could sense the rope rising up over his head, where it passed over a rafter and down again to the left, where it was wrapped to a boat hitch.

  The room was dark, except for the single bulb, and the ridiculous stereotype of the torture chamber situation actually made him feel a little indignant. Somehow the lack of effort to go beyond the pulp-fictional interrogation situation seemed insulting to his aesthetic sensibilities. The man was still hunched over the table, mumbling under his breath as he clinked and clanked something that Brian had no doubt was going to be unpleasant.

  He closed his eyes, trying again to explore his awareness of the rope, visualizing it as a glowing tendril not so much binding him as somehow connecting him. Connecting him to… what? He tried reaching, not with his body, but pushing his awareness out, further, and as he did so, not only did the shining glow of the rope in his mind brighten… but there was an answering flicker of warmth from the series of healing scars still criss-crossing his torso in intricate whorls, the patterns left by Vashte reacting somehow with the connection towards which the rope was drawing him.

  But he couldn’t quite reach that last inch to complete the connection with whatever it was, and abruptly the pudgy man turned and pushed his glasses up across the bridge of his nose. He raised his other hand up to the light, and squirted a little black liquid out the end of the hypodermic he held there. “The thing is, Mr. Stanford, I believe you. And those two are really not terribly important, in the vast scheme of things. So there’s no reason to delay the inevitable, and you can begin your work as a Stroker.”

  “What’s a Stroker?” Brian asked quickly, eyes wide as he looked at the hypodermic. There was no real aversion to needles, but a keen awareness that strange ones often contained things that could do bad things not only in the short term, but permanently. The man wasn’t bothering to answer as he approached Brian, who instinctively contracted his muscles away from him. Above him, he could sense the rope like it was his own skin, even feeling the friction of the beam as it rubbed against the fibers where they passed over. “Sounds somebody likely to go blind, heh… ”

  The weak joke seemed to take the man by surprise. “Why, yes, that’s exactly what you’ll be doing, Mr. Stanford. You will be masturbating your filthy little penis all day long, secure on a mildew covered mattress we’ve got set up for you in dirty little crack house. Eventually the diseases, malnutrition, or just another Stroker will end your life for you, but not until you’ve provided us with a goodly surge or two of this Power that you don’t know what to do with.” He finally smiled, now, the tiny marble eyes registering a maniacal satisfaction as he looked at Brian, and lifted up the needle so that it glistened in the yellow light of the single bulb. “This is just the start of the long, sad end of your wicked life, Mr. Stanford. But fear not—or fear, it makes no difference—you will be blissfully ecstatic through the whole process. We don’t, after all, want to make you unhappy.” The smile grew wider, a predator sure of his prey. “We just want to use you and then get you out of the way for the next happy bit of scum.”

  “So it’s… some kind of special drug? Supposed to make me into a sex maniac?”

  “Nothing special about it at all. It’s simply a variant of heroin. Enough to get you hooked, blow out your pleasure receptors, and then we add a little special bit to make you desperate to feel something, anything again. So you begin stroking that filthy little penis,” he said it like a mantra, nose wrinkling and his voice rising as if it was an effort to speak of such a thing, “more and more. And you will get a few surges, but they won’t be as sweet as this injection will feel. But there will be someone there in the house with you, someone who will become your very best friend, the supplier of this sweet little black juice, and he’ll help keep you happy and stroking. For a while.” The man frowned, as though something of mild concern just occurred to him. “Hmmm. You may last a bit longer than most. You seem to recover rather quickly.”

  That’s when Brian realized that yes, he did feel almost completely normal, far from what one would expect from having a door blown into his face. His mind had cleared the effects of the unconsciousness almost completely, leaving him with a sharp hyper-realistic clarity that seemed to bring out the textures in the room, the damp shine of the sweat on the yellowish skin of the man’s forehead, the swirling black liquid under the cold glass of the hypodermic, the woven soft tension of the rope drawing his arms up and connecting him, somehow, to something that seemed just out of reach, something that was—

  Powerful. The rope was connecting him, just as it had with Vashte, to power. It was like an antenna, and Brian realized that he could use it to amplify and –

  Push. It was instinctive, and he knew somehow that if he really thought about it, he would lose it, but that same awareness that was sensing the rope could be twisted, used to give a little push, a force of denial to the man’s progress forward. It was tenuous, like pushing with hands full of tissue paper… but it was a lot of tissue paper, and it served, for a moment, to slow the sallow man’s progress.

  Brian could tell, though, that it would only last a moment. There was no time to plan; he simply had to act. Again his body moved, taking advantage of the physical as well as metaphysical reinforcement of the rope, using it to swing his leg up so that his knees bent and landed on either side of his captor’s stunned face, caught in a sudden vice grip as Brian locked his thighs together. The man’s eyes grew wide as he was suddenly faced with the close proximity of that filthy little penis he’d found so distasteful. Brian glared down at him, and his feeling of triumph made him pause and savor the look of terror.

  That’s when he made his mistake. In that moment of hesitation, perched like a raptor over with his hands held high over his head, the man recovered just a little of his presence of mind. Just a little. Just enough to lift the hand that was still holding the needle up and drive it into Brian’s thigh.

  If Brian had been asked to articulate what he thought he was doing when he had trapped the man in his thighs, he would have probably thought of something along the lines of choking the man into unconsciousness. Instead, as he saw the needle rise up and plunge into him, he twisted away from it… and heard the crackling pops as the man’s neck snapped. His body was suddenly pulled straight as the corpse that he now held between his thighs thudded with a wet smack into the floor.

  His hands were still bound tight by the rope, which was somehow becoming dimmer in his awareness, like sheets of gauze were being pulled over his mind, one by one. It didn’t bother him at all. The cold silence of the room, the man dead at his feet, the needle now dangling out of his left thigh, none of it was worrisome in the slightest. Not knowing how or even if he was going to find a way out didn’t cause the slightest concern.

  In fact, his face was stuck in a wide, happy grin, as the waves of warm hot pleasure began spreading from his thigh. He felt great, better than he’d ever felt before. And knowing that it was that black liquid that had done it to him, that was now spreading its malignance through his bloodstream, it just made him smile all the more, because he felt fan-fucking-tastic.

  “Sullivan… ” he whispered softly, into the dark. “Somebody… need a little help here.” And then giggled, because he couldn’t help himself.

  And that was the most horrifying thing of all.

  Whispers in the dark. He’s not really hearing them, he’s not really hearing anything, there’s nothing but his breathing through the rope. His mind has travelled along the line up and out of the miasma of pleasure the drug forced on him and lies somewhere near the r
oof beams of the warehouse.

  How did he know there was a warehouse?

  He knows all the warehouse now, from where he is on the top of the rope. There’s not much room up here, certainly not enough for coherent thought, but that’s ok, he can just be up there, not having to think about the what he’s been through, what he’s done, what the future (daughters, what about… ) may hold, he can just be there on the rope. Far away from that person down below, swaying against the tension in his arms, trying to keep his legs from buckling underneath him.

  His shoulders are starting to ache, but that’s a good thing, because it’s not pleasure, it doesn’t feel good, and that’s wonderful. He’s tired of feeling good, and would like to be able to truly feel as crappy as he knows his body has earned. But there’s still that drowning tide of nebulous pleasure that coats him like oil, and is so very, very slow to drip off…

  Whispers again, turning to shouts. He doesn’t want to think, because thinking is hard when he’s on the rope, and if he has to come down the rope, he’ll lose this nice sense of being, of not having to worry about what comes next. Then he feels the hands on his body, and suddenly he is aware of steel approaching, of someone slicing suddenly into the rope, and he moans a soft protest. Too late, the tails lose their tense life and slither down the side of the beam to thud softly (not wetly, not like sallowman) to the floor. He hears the voices now, and the world of hurt and worry passes over him and into him like a tidal wave of sewage and muck. Suddenly he is aware of the burning in his shoulders, of the biting prick as the hypodermic is taken from his thigh, of the soft agonizing friction of the remains of the rope being unwound from his chafed wrists. He smiles at this, eyes still closed, but it’s not the awful forced happiness of the drug, it’s a tired, joyous smile, and so genuine that it makes Sullivan—for it is Sullivan, after all, who has found him and taken him down, Sullivan and someone with smaller but no less strong hands—wonder aloud, “Drugs and dead men and dangling on the end of the rope for I don’t know how long… what exactly are you smiling about, bucko?”

  Brian smiled a little wider, then lost it as he tried to form the words. “It… hurts.” His voice got a little stronger. “For a while it… didn’t. That was… bad.”

  Sullivan chuckled even as his hands travelled over the exhausted man’s body, assessing the damage. “Here I thought you were a Rope Dom. You’re just a painslut in disguise, aren’t you?”

  Brian’s eyes flashed open at that, anger driving away the exhaustion for a moment, but before he could rebuff the big man, a soft finger was laid across his lips. He turned his head to see who was attached to the other end, and met the intense gaze of a young woman, not more than 20, with eyes as old as the world. She looked intently at Brian, making sure she had his attention.

  “Sullivan’s just being his normal asinine self. Pay no attention. You were lucky; he drove the needle in, but couldn’t inject much before—“ with her eyes, she indicated the lump of polyester and dead flesh that had been Brian’s torturer, “whatever happened, happened. We still need to get that stuff out of your system, and we need to deal with some of the damage that nasty rope did to your poor wrists.”

  Brian mumbled something, and she cocked her head questioningly. It had seemed important to him. “I’m sorry, Brian, I didn’t hear you. What was that?”

  “Not… the… rope’s fault.”

  She sat back, thoughtful, looking at Sullivan, who was grinning with the satisfaction of a good “I-told-you-so.” “You were right, Sullivan, I think we’ve got a Nawashi here.” She sighed. “Gaia help him and his. Let’s go.”

  The two of them helped him to his feet, and they walked out of the warehouse into the brightness of the Chicago morning, the tails of the rope still trailing behind.

  Brian actually lost consciousness in the car, his head resting against the woman’s breast as her arm held a blanket around him for warmth. He muzzily woke enough to be able to walk with them when they arrived at a small house set in a neighborhood filled with old-growth trees that, for some reason, had not been chopped down by the developers. Brian didn’t notice much as they helped him stumble into the house, but he did see a tiny cauldron, about a foot high, at the start of the path to the house, and the back of a sort of ceramic clam-shell. As they passed them, he felt a slight resistance in the air, for just a moment, like the feeling of pushing through cobwebs. He shivered, and for some reason the “Walrus and the Carpenter” poem began running through his head. “Sailing ships and sealing wax… ” he muttered in a stream of consciousness blur. His head swerved just enough as they helped him along the path to see the other side of the clamshell, and the nude figure standing just inside of it. He realized it was a sylphlike representation of the Birth of Venus, guarding the entrance to the house.

  Then they were in the door, and there were more voices and hands helping the blanket off of him and laying him down on a (so warm!) comforter spread on the floor. His nose plunged into the soft fabric and it felt so good that there was actually some debate within his body as to whether he should actually try to move and breathe, or if it would be preferable to simply suffocate in downy bliss. The decision was made for him as gentle hands—the same hands, he realized, as had helped Sullivan bring him here—lifted his head and put a crescent shaped pillow under his face, allowing him room to breathe without having to turn his neck.

  The voices sounded urgent above him, and he wished he could help, he really did, but his skin had been filled with barley and was just a weighted sack with the inertia of granite.

  “He’s been marked, Sullivan. We brought a strange marked Man into my house?” The voice didn’t sound alarmed, but rather curous in a clinical sort of way.

  “He’s been more than marked. The bastard’s budding rope mage, a nawashi; the ‘pressors are after him like paparazzi on Presley. Vashte—you know Vashte, tantric slut?” Brian’s tired lips curved into a smile at Sullivan’s characterization of the woman. “She hooked up with him at random, and didn’t have the sense to check before she began her marking. Almost blew herself away, and would’ve burned him out as well… ”

  Brian felt sudden heat on his neck, a glowing warmth that sank through his skin and flesh until his bones felt radiant. His awareness came back again, and he could—no, not see exactly, but he knew—that the woman with the clinical voice had her hand over the nape of his neck. The hand and warmth held for a moment, then was gone. “This healing. It was yours?”

  Sullivan’s voice took an edge of defensive pride. “Yes it was. Took care of him right after Vashte, and while it might not be as fancy as your Wiccan weavings it did the trick, I’ll have you know.”

  “It is adequate. I merely wanted to know so that we know where to begin the re-alignment. Nawashi, you say?” Brian felt the sudden proximity of the woman’s lips next to his ear. “Man. Nawashi. What do you call yourself?”

  He managed to force a muffled “Brian” past his leaden lips, but she seemed to be able to understand him. “I need to know your paradigm, Brian, so that we can heal you before untwisting what the Tantress did to you.”

  Brian murmured something else, and for a moment the woman’s face was puzzled. “Four nickels? Your paradigm is four nickels? What is… ” Then she noticed Sullivan chortling next to her, and her face—but not her eyes—darkened. “Ah. A trickster, too. No wonder you like him, Sullivan.” She looked down at the limp form of Brian again, and said, “I’m glad you have that much strength, Man, but you need to save it. It’s going to get much worse before it gets better.”

  Sullivan grunted. “Isn’t that always the truth?” and was silent again at her sharp glance. She put her hands over Brian again, this time one palm hovering between his shoulder blades and the other over the base of his spine. Again he felt the warmth, but this time there was a dissonance as it seeped into his bones, as the warmth seemed to first travel through his spine, then suddenly meet resistance, tangles in the flow where the energy had no where to go, twining in an
d around itself, tighter and tighter—and where it stopped, it burned, sharp enough to make even his depleted muscles spasm. He flopped once and let out a moan of protest.

  She moved her hands away quickly, a look of concern on her face. “We need to get those knots open, and soon. You’ve still got power in you, and it’s going to start eating its way inward if we don’t help it find a way out.” Again she leaned forward and asked, “What path do you follow? Hindu? Taoist? Not… Christian?” She let out a small smile as his head shook violently. “No, but you used to be. So sad, what they do to their own. Buddhist?” She looked thoughtful as he gave a small nod into his pillow, again muttering something. She heard as if the pillow wasn’t even there. “Soto Zen, des ka? Hmmm..” She addressed Brian again. “You study the rope. Have you learned of such things as meridians and flow of ki?” As he nodded again, she frowned. “Unfortunately; I don’t know of any shiatsu healers close enough to help. But perhaps… ”