The strikes were slow and lazy, but with immense power in them. Even in the condition I was in, I tried to escape, I pulled at my bonds with my unbroken limbs, moaning at each strike, until eventually, my voice left me and I couldn’t even twitch. My back, buttocks and thighs were a throbbing mass of pain by the time he was done. I could feel the blood running down my sides, cooling on my skin and soaking into the blanket beneath me.
I lay on the bed, finally unable even to twitch at his strikes, the world fading in and out around me. Drey leaned his greasy form over my body a final time and whispered, “Enjoy hell, Mason. Say hi to your mom for me.”
Slowly and methodically, Dreyven packed up everything, including the camera. The pain in my body was so intense, I could hardly comprehend what was happening, but kept hoping to mercifully pass out. Ricky always gave a person one last fuck, and once he had his release, he’d put a bullet in my brain. I saw Drey shoulder his bag and leave the room, without so much as a backward glance. As the door shut behind him, I knew the end was near, at least.
“You were a bad, bad boy, Mason,” Ricky said, his voice soft, low and deadly. “And you know what I love to do with bad boys.”
I had nothing left. No fight, no resistance. I knew, deep down in my soul that I was going to die, and I accepted that fact. I had seen what Ricky had done to “bad boys” in the past, and while it churned my stomach, I could only hope that it would be over soon.
My sight was still messed up – some things I could see clearly, others were blurry and out of focus. I could vaguely make out the outline of Ricky, standing by the dresser, but then I heard it. A click, awhoosh, then a hissing sound, and I knew what was coming next. Ricky loved to play with fire. I’d watched him burn the face off a girlthey thought had been stealing from them. It didn’t matter that it had been her pimp stealing, Ricky and Dreyven took it out on her.
Ricky’s torch went everywhere with him in the trunk of his car, and I could see its silhouette on the dresser across from the bed. I could smell the ozone-like stink as he adjusted the torch to a bright blue flame and could hear the crackling as he heated his branding tool. My eyes focused for a moment on the small R-shaped brand that glowed white hot as he waved it back and forth over the flame. I’d seen it used on other people before, which had been enough incentive for me to make sure I never gave him reason to use it on me.
Somewhere, somehow, I dredged up the last shreds of my strength and tried to move away from him as he stood next to the bed. He laughed at my futile efforts and simply wrapped one hand almost gently around my broken arm and squeezed. The pain was enough to make me heave again. While my body spasmed at the pain in my arm Ricky released it only to reach out and roughly spread my cheeks. I felt the flesh of my ass burn as he jammed the brand against my body and smelled the sizzling stink of burnt hair and skin as the red-hot metal connected with my flesh.
I found my voice again and screamed, the noise rapidly turned to a rasping moan and I wished desperately I could fall unconscious, but the pain was too insistent. I felt the tug of my scorched flesh as it stuck to the iron when he pulled it away, then heard the tink as Ricky dropped the brand against the top of the dresser.
Ricky looked down at his work and nodded in satisfaction. I knew his silence was a sign of even worse things to come, but the haze of agony and fear were too much, and I couldn’t even respond as he untied my arms and dragged my body to the end of the bed. I knew I was going to die.
All I could do was moan as I heard him unzip his pants and felt him shove his cock inside me with one long stroke. I had been used so long and by so many that he had no problem forcing inside me.
The pain was still intense, so violent on top of everything else I had already suffered, it tore a ragged scream from me, and I felt something tear deep inside my belly. Nausea roiled my stomach andsomething hot and wet began to drip down my thighs and pool under me, soaking the already disgusting mattress.
“Fuck!” Ricky yelled, pulling out of me. The room started to spin.
I still couldn’t see much, but one memory I would treasure for the rest of my life was the shocked fury on Ricky’s face when the door to the hotel room burst in and the first bullet hit him in the shoulder, spinning him around, his deflating cock flapping as he spun. Everything was a blur, popping sounds going off around me, a blur of light and color flooding the dark room, burning into my eyes. Then silence.
Then a visual etched into my brain. Ricky’s head slumped against the bed near my face, a neat round hole right between his eyebrows, and a single drop of blood trickling its way down his face. Through the smell of burnt gunpowder, I caught a whiff of that heavenly smell again--that vanilla and amber smell. My White Knight. My Dark Angel.
“Goddamn fucking leg. Took me forever to get back here,” his voice growled. It was my heavenly-scented rescuer, his cane in his left hand, a gun in his right.
He turned and shut the door as well as he could. The rusty hinges hadn’t been able to withstand the force of his blow. I felt a tear roll down my nose and sink into the already blood-soaked blanket. He hadn’t abandoned me after all.
I felt his hands, strong and firm, untie me all the way and turn me over on the bed. They then began to do things to my body. Not assault me, like what had happened with the other men, my rescuer seemed to be… taking care of me? I didn’t remember anyone taking care of me since I was a baby. The thought somehow turned my tears into sobs, interrupted only by horrible rounds of retching as the blinding pain flashed through me.
“Shhhh… Kiddo, it’s going to be okay,” my rescuer said as he worked on me, his hands strong and confident.
“Dreyven…?” I managed to groan questioningly. I was pretty sure I was a dead man, but I couldn’t let my savior get caught by Dreyven.
“The fucker’s gone. I saw him drive off in some beat up old Dodge when I was on my way back,” he said, tearing some kind of tape withhis teeth and wrapping something against some of the worst injuries on my back. I moaned as he moved to work gently on my broken arm. His fingers felt strange, rubbery… Was he wearing gloves? I tried to blink and clear my eyes but couldn’t get my vision to clear up. “I’m sorry I don’t have anything for the pain,” he whispered. I didn’t care about the pain. Pain I was used to. It was his kindness I couldn’t understand.
“Why…?” I tried to ask. “Why’d you… come back?” I managed to whisper.
A gasp escaped me as he laid my arm down on the bed next to me. With quick, efficient moves he bound my arm to something I couldn’t see. A sob escaped me, half fear, half pain as he gently set my arm down, turning his attention to other parts of my body. A fiery something… Anger? Shame? Burned up through my chest as he continued his ministrations. Tears began leaking from my eyes, blurring my eyesight even further.
“I came back because I said I would,” he said, as if,duh, that was the only answer there could be. I shook my head, or at least, I tried to. The mere effort caused another bout of retching. Each time I spasmed the world seemed to turn black. He pulled one of the bandages away from my body, and even with my shitty eyesight, I could see it was covered in blood. The room reeled around me, and he must have thought I was passing out, because he patted my face gently.
“Hey kid, stay with me. Stay with me! Talk to me! What’s your name?”
“M’not… a kid…” I managed to gasp out as he pressed something against my ass, the pain causing me to heave again, but I collapsed backward after the spasm passed.
“Okay, Okay,nota kid,” he said grimly, his hands continuing their gentle ministrations. “So, what’s your name, Not-A-Kid?” His body remained silhouetted against the sun from the doorway and windows, and while I heard the concern and attempt at levity in his voice, I still couldn’t see his face.
“M-Mason…” I stuttered, my remaining teeth chattered. Despite the hot summer sun pouring through the window, I felt so cold, as if all the warmth in my body was being leeched away. “M-Mason Malone.”
“Okay, Mason,” he sighed, looking me over, then taking something off his hands – I was right, hehadbeen wearing gloves – those blue medical ones you’d see people wear on hospital shows. In the distance I could hear sirens getting closer. I saw him stuff the gloves in his pocket, then levered himself to his feet.
“I have to go, Mason,” he whispered, “I hate to leave you like this, but you need a hospital right now,” he muttered, and almost to himself added, “And I really don’t need to go to jail.”
