Despite the outrageous proposition, Einar’s expression seemed almost ... encouraging. Benevolent, but in a verymeasured, calculated way. And it did the strangest things to the temperature of my blood.
“Fuck’s sake, just say you’ll skip dinner, mate,” Dave murmured next to me anxiously, pulling my attention away from the undue ache deep within my body.
“I’d choose flogging myself,” I told him, the voice hitching in my throat. “Except knowing Einar, I don’t think he’d be willing to do that to me.”
“Yeah, a real gentleman that one. As chivalrous as they come.”
“You’d be surprised.” I shrugged.
“I’m going to need an answer,” Einar urged Lucas, but not with impatience, and the stern lines in his face were less severe than they had been moments ago.
“I ... uhm, I’ll take the fl ... the man’s way out.” Lucas’s voice shook very badly, and he only looked up briefly before crashing his sight back to the ground.
The whole room seemed to have let out a choked breath. Dave groaned to my left, and to my right Monika squeaked quietly and covered her mouth with her hands.
“Then let’s get it over with.” Einar touched the boy’s shoulder as if in encouragement, although I suspected the gesture was diplomatic rather than compassionate. “Fin, Russ, grab him.”
They did, each holding one spindly arm. They peeled the tee off Lucas’ back and Einar took off his belt in the meantime, the sound of undoing the buckle loud in the silent hall.
“This is tense,” I choked out, leaning forward and pressing my elbows hard into the table.
I wasn’t alone. Nervous murmurs rose up the hall as people fidgeted in their seats. The anticipation of what was to come couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, but it felt as if a whole eternity had passed ...
Before Einar finally positioned himself behind the boy, one end of the belt firmly in his hand.
Before he extended his arm back, then brought it shooting forward with precision that seemed impossible given its velocity.
Before the first bloody welt bloomed on Lucas’ pale back.
It took precisely two vicious blows for the boy to start crying, loud sobs quaking his body. Then it took two more for Monika to join him next to me. I wrapped an arm around her shoulders without taking my eyes off the horrifying spectacle.
“Fuckin’ hell.” Dave breathed hard through his nose. “Fuck him and his carrot and stick policy. This is sick.”
And it was, not only because of what Einar was doing, but also because of the seemingly practised proficiency with which he was doing it. There was no hesitation on his part, not a trace of anxiety. I already knew that just as he made a point of never sounding unsure in conversations, it was also his custom to appear steadfastly confident in all his undertakings. But still, his ability to inflict pain without wavering made my toes curl in a sensation that was not as unpleasant as it should have been.
We had all been familiar with his brutish strength, but so far had never seen it used to harm an uninfected person, one who could feel its effects fully.
By the seventh lash, most people in the hall had looked away from the scene, some covering their ears to escape the shockingly loud cracks of leather against skin and the convict’s despairing wails. Lucas’ legs wobbled so badly he would have collapsed to the ground if it had not been for Russ and Finlay supporting his meagre weight.
After the eighth blow, he begged Einar to stop in a voice that was so shrill it sounded pre-pubescent.
Dave’s hand had been gripping my own, the tangle of our intertwined fingers resting on my thigh, and at this point, he squeezed so hard that I winced.
Einar paused, hesitating, and I could tell from the way his lips tightened that deciding what to do next was a struggle for him. Carrying on despite Lucas’s pleas would have alienated his supporters, if the savagery of the penalty hadn’t already. But not delivering that penalty in its entirety would, in his mind, equal appearing infirm and weak, and that he would want even less.
“You got this far, man. It would be a shame for it all to have been for nothing. Stick with it now, and I’ll make the last two lighter.”
Of course, I should have known already that Einar could be relied upon to always come up with the most politically passable way forward. In this case, it was convincing the boy to change his mind. Lucas howled in response but nodded to signal his continued acquiescence.
It made my insides melt like butter to see how true to his word Einar was, the following two blows being markedly less audible and leaving behind nothing but red marks that didn’t bleed on the pale skin. Lucas stopped weeping almost immediately after, rubbing his eyes furiously to dispel the last tears, as Finlay rolled the fabric of his T-shirt back down to cover his injured back. Released from Finlay’s and Russell’s grasp, the boy turned around to face his tormentor, and the latter approached him and spoke to him too quietly for anyone to hear. Whatever he was saying, Lucas was nodding in agreement, the soft hair quivering at the top of his head like fragile glass blades in a breeze.
“I say we leave and never come back,” Dave seethed.
“But babe, he did give him a choice.” Kevin beat me to my counterargument from across the table. “Lucas agreed to this.”
“A choice my ass. The bastard coerced him by calling it theman’s way out... to an eighteen-year-old boy that’s like saying you’re not man enough unless you go along with it.”
Dave shook his head, his brows drawn together in a frown. The sharply downward tug of his normally upturned lips told the intensity of his upset.
