Back inside the cabin, Brad brought them two glasses of wine. He handed Paul one of the glasses and said:
“I’ll be right back.”
When he closed the bathroom door behind him, Paul looked at the glass of wine.
He moved silently. He took the wine to the basin and poured it down the drain.
He refilled it, went back to the bed, and took Brad’s glass for himself, leaving his fresh – but unwashed – wine glass for him.
The surprise picnic, the walk in the woods. All the preparation Brad had done, the lengths he went to for the special night.
Brad came out of the bathroom, and again Paul was struck by how beautiful he was.
The perfect body and the perfect face. The perfect smile and those dancing eyes.
Paul smiled. He’d do his part. He would smile. He would wink. He would stay on script.
Brad sat down on the bed, leaned back and motioned for Paul to sit next to him.
He sat down, but then Paul lost his cool. Everything felt overwhelming to him… the disappointment and the anger and the anxiety and the desire and the loneliness all converged in a kind of raw panic. Brad moved quickly behind him, hugging him closer and rocking him.
“Hey… are you okay, guy?”
His voice was so gentle. As if he were a caring father speaking to his child.
Paul let himself be held. He lay back against Brad, snugly. For a moment he felt happier right here and right now than he could be anywhere else on earth.
That was perhaps pretty twisted.
“Are you okay, Paul?”
Paul rubbed Brad’s chin with the top of his head, and Brad chuckled.
“I’m okay,” Paul said, but Brad, of course, read him.
“C’mon,” Brad said, folding himself around Paul and hugging him tightly. Gently kissing his neck, he asked: “What’s wrong?”
“Just a little overwhelmed.”
“By this? Us?”
“Yeah. And everything. I’ll be okay in just a bit.”
“You know what I see?”
Paul shook his head.
“I see a guy who had to get too strong, too soon. I see a guy who won’t forgive himself, who’s too hard on himself, who kicks himself when he’s down. I see a guy who won’t let himself go. Give himself over, release all that. C’mon – just let it all go.”
For a while Paul let the words hang in the air. Letting himself go… giving himself over… releasing? That sounded so wonderful.
“Yeah, but I want to,” Paul said, in as casual and playful a voice as he could muster.
“Do you? Can you, though?” Brad was running the back of his hand softly along Paul’s arms. How did he do that? How did he read physical cues so well – as if he could read Paul’s mind, as if he could anticipate every yearning that Paul might have had.
“I can try.”
Brad interlaced the fingers of both his hands with Paul’s..
“Let’s just lie together a bit. Skin to skin. Just the two of us.”
Paul stood up and undressed, and Brad lay back watching him.
At first Paul felt a little shy. But then he let his clothes drop, as if it was a second skin that he shed to reveal his being, as it was, totally exposed and open.
He then rejoined Brad on the bed and helped him to remove his clothes too.
“Do you trust me?” Brad asked him.
Paul kissed his neck in response.
“Hey, guy, do you trust me?”
Paul smiled at Brad Jensen. “Sure,” he said.
Brad got up – moving out from behind Paul, sitting up and then standing up in a single movement that was as graceful as a ballet. He produced a rope from beneath the bed and swiftly tied Paul’s hands. Paul let him.
The rope trick, again.
One hand to the radiator heater. The other to the bed.
“You just need to let go,” said Brad. And there was a kind of cruel excitement in that voice.
Paul said nothing, closing his eyes. That little concoction of Brad’s should have started kicking in.
Brad leaned all the way forward and whispered: “Do you feel me?”
Paul kept his eyes shut. The knots on his hands were tight, but they had not been tied by someone who knew how to tie knots properly. The rope bit into Paul’s skin as he tested the ropes. Brad tapped Paul’s chest until he opened his eyes. Then Brad shook his head.
“Do you feel me? Here with you. The two of us, just breathing.”
Paul could feel his own heartbeat as well as Brad’s. They were both beating rapidly. And yet Brad’s voice was slow, measured, deep, considered.
“I think I get you. I think I get you better than anyone else.”
And Paul supposed he was right … mostly.
“I think I know what you want. I love you. You know that, right?”
Paul closed his eyes again, and felt a heavy rope placed around his neck. Brad closed the noose, and Paul could feel his air being cut off.
Brad pulled hard on the rope until Paul gasped.
“I’m doing all of this because I love you.”
Paul opened his eyes.
Love. What could Brad know about love?
Brad produced the syringe.
“You’ll be feeling a little weird by now, Draker. That’s some love going through your veins. And I think you’re ready to hear what I really see.”
Paul kept himself perfectly still and his expression completely deadpan.
“I see a faggot that thought he could get away with killing a fifteen-year-old boy. Alex Keegan, you remember him? I saw a piece of shit that thought he could kill my brother and get away with it.”
Paul closed his eyes again.
Brad slapped his face a few times rapidly.
“Open your eyes, you fucking faggot. Open your eyes and look at me.”
Paul kept them shut.
Brad struck him hard across the face. A punch this time, not a slap.
“I said look at me!”
Paul opened his eyes, but didn’t focus them so Brad would not know that he wasn’t drugged at all, but in full command of his faculties.
“It’s just you and me here, Draker. And I want you to beg me to kill you. I want you to admit what you did. And then I’ll end you, quickly. But if you don’t admit it – I’ll torture you for hours. And no one will ever know what I do to you, here. You will die slowly and painfully. And no one will be able to help you. So it’s your choice. Will you confess?”
Brad was on top of Paul, his face a cruel snarl, his eyes alive with a kind of frenzied, bloodthirsty look.
“I see a guy who is delusional. A guy that thinks someone like me can debase myself and lower myself to give a shit about something us stupid and ugly as he is.”
Paul swallowed, but, as he did, Brad pulled on the noose again and Paul began to choke.
“I see a guy who wants someone to put him down. I see a guy who knows nothing but suffering, that deserves nothing but suffering. I see a piece of shit faggot who thinks he’s a real tough guy.”
Paul focused his eyes, and Brad frowned when he saw the calm awareness in them.
Still, it took a few moments for him to understand that Paul was not out. Paul used those few moments to smile.
Brad looked at the ropes around Paul’s hands, and then back to his face.
Paul could see him think to himself: Doesn’t matter, he’s tied up.
But before he even finished the thought, Paul exhaled quickly and moved.
Chapter 22
Mine
Brad barely saw Draker move, it was so fast.
Draker moved with unbelievable speed and ferocity. Brad had no time to react, or even to register what was going on. There was the sudden blur of movement, inhumanly fast, and then
the bedpost hit Brad’s face.
The pain was blinding and almost at once Brad felt warm wetness gushing from his nose. It was blood. Draker had broken his nose! But before the outrage could settle in, Draker swung his legs and changed position with Brad, pinning him underneath.
The whole reversal felt instant.
How did he do that? How did he get both hands free?
One moment, Brad was sitting on Draker, pinning him to the bed – his arms tied. In addition, Brad kept his gravity directly over Draker, pinning him, making escape impossible.
But then, it felt as if the world suddenly flipped upside down.
Draker had both hands free, and the sky and the earth switched places, and the bedpost hit Brad’s face… and then he was underneath Draker.
Suddenly, instantly – Brad was underneath Paul, pain blasting from his nose in all directions, engulfing his entire head.
He also felt pain in his shoulders. Draker had somehow gotten Brad’s arms twisted behind his neck overhead.
How?
Brad wanted to scream in rage, but found there was no air in his lungs.
When he did manage to breathe in, he choked on some of his own blood… and the sickly-sweet metallic taste of his own blood made him gag. He could barely draw breath.
When the breath finally came, the oxygen felt like it was burning into his lungs.
Brad tried to start punching – except he found that his arms would not move. Only when he became aware of his arm did he feel the strange numbness. The numbness seemed to radiate outward from two single points on the inside of his biceps.
That was also strange. Two points on the muscle of either arm, burning with what felt at once dull and intense.
With Draker pinning him down and his arms immobile, Brad couldn’t resist or fight when Draker tied each of his wrists, exactly where he had Draker tied before.
By the time Brad felt the feeling and the movement return to his arms, Draker had him completely immobilized.
Brad could not get over the speed. A complete reversal, in an instant.
He looked at Draker’s hands, seeing blood on both of them.
His hands looked strange, limp and twisted.
Then it all dawned on Brad. The rope tore the skin from his wrists and his hands when he ripped them from the knots. And his thumbs folded in over his own hands. He somehow dislocated both thumbs – that’s how he got out.
“What…” Brad began to yell, but Draker punched him in his solar plexus, and the air left Brad’s lungs again.
Pain shot throughout his entire body – a dull but deep pain that pulsed from where his chest and his stomach met, and radiate outward to the rest of his body.
In no more than two, maybe three seconds, Draker had completely turned the tables.
Draker produced the .38.
Brad looked at the toy gun, and smirked.
Draker placed it right next to his head and pulled the trigger.
The shock was instant. The gun was no toy, it discharged right next to Brad’s ear. The wood splintered right next to his face, and he could feel shards of wood hit his face.
The gunshot stung his ears for what seemed like an eternity. He could smell the gunpowder, and the smell combining with the taste of his own blood nearly made Brad retch.
Draker didn’t have his toy. He had a real gun.
If Draker not only found the gun, but replaced it with a real one, he must have followed him when Brad prepared the cabin. The startled deer he saw when he was done setting up the scene… Draker had followed him along.
Draker got up and moved to the foot of the bed. There, he tied both of Brad’s ankles to the bedposts.
Brad felt panic rush through him. He wanted to scream and fight, but his nose was bleeding so much that all he managed to do was swallow a mixture of blood and snot. It was nearly impossible to breathe.
Brad forced himself to calm down, glaring at Paul, who simply stood next to the bed, naked, motionless and expressionless. He lifted both hands up in front of him, as if he was praying. Then he pulled his hands apart and slammed them together. Brad could hear two simultaneous pops as Draker’s thumbs popped back in.
Draker had known. For how long, Brad couldn’t tell.
Brad’s mind started racing. He was thinking of what he could say to get himself out of this.
He should have fucking killed him when he had the chance.
He should have fucking stabbed him with the knife in his sleep.
Or slit his throat.
Draker came back and sat right on top of him again, straddling him and waving the .38.
He pointed the gun at Brad. As Brad realized that his life was now completely in Draker’s hands, he felt as if panic would completely overwhelm him.
“I’m sorry…” he began to beg, but Draker put a single finger on his lips.
“Shhh,” Draker said, and he pulled the hammer back on the revolver.
“Please…”
As Brad opened his mouth to speak, Draker slipped the revolver between his lips. He then jammed the revolver all the way into his mouth, until he gagged and nearly choked.
Brad tried to speak but the barrel muzzled him to the point where all that escaped his lips were unintelligible moans.
“Now let me tell you what I see,” Draker said.
Brad tried the tears, but Draker paid no attention to Brad’s begging. He seemed to just wait out the crying, unimpressed, almost bored.
“Please,” Brad mouthed, the short, stubby gun barrel distorting his pronunciation so that it sounded more like “ease”.
“I see a .38 in your mouth. I see you tied up in your own trap. I see you, miles away from anyone who can hear you, or help you.”
Brad began crying like a little boy.
It felt as if his heart was hammering pain with every beat. It was still not easy to breathe. Draker removed the gun from his mouth, letting Brad breathe. First, he spat a lot of blood from his mouth. He saw three of his teeth fall with the blood and bile.
“Open your mouth, Brad. It’s my turn to tell you what I see.”
Brad calculated his odds rapidly. Perhaps if he played along, he could reason with Draker. Maybe if he waited, he’d think of a plan. Ultimately, because he had no other choice, Brad opened his mouth.
Draker moved the gun’s barrel back into his lips, this time gently.
Draker moved the barrel from side to side in the bloody mess of Brad’s mouth. He also moved it slowly in and out.
“I see a guy who is too perfect to be beautiful. I see a guy that’s so full of himself, he has no idea how the rest of the world sees him. I see a guy that was born bad. One who has done a lot of damage to everything and everyone around him… ever since he had hard-ons.”
Brad kept staring at Draker, trying to keep as neutral an expression as possible. But the blood, sweat and spit stung his eyes so much that he struggled to keep them open. He squinted and frowned.
Draker wiped Brad’s face with Brad’s shirt.
“I see what three girls in Rhode Island saw before they locked you up. I see what Dr Stein back in Devens saw. I see a pervert and a predator.”
Draker knew. Brad started shivering uncontrollably.
“The other day you took a walk to this cabin and you put your little torture stash beneath the basin. When I found it, I looked you up. It wasn’t the sort of thing I would normally do, you see. But I think it was the little blowtorch that convinced me I needed to check you out a bit more than my usual trick – since you think of me as no more than a nice piece of ass. Turns out, you think of most people as a piece of ass. Had a long chat with Dr Stein back in Devens. Told me all about you.”
When Paul saw Brad’s angry reaction, he quickly fist-bumped the gun deeper into Brad’s mouth. Again, Brad couldn’t breathe, the pain was excruci
ating, and he could feel another one of his teeth slop around in his mouth, clinging to no more than a single little strand of skin. The barrel tore gashes in his lips.
“I see a guy with a bad temper. I see a guy that looks at everyone else as if they are prey. I see a guy who thinks I killed his piece of shit brother, even though I didn’t.”
“Please…”
“No, Brad. No. You’ve said everything you are going to say. It’s my turn now, you see? My turn to tell you. You don’t want to speak again unless I ask you a question, Brad. You just want to cooperate with me here, completely. That way you have a shot of walking out of here today.”
Draker shifted the gun slightly and raised his eyebrows. And then Draker shrugged.
Brad nodded.
“You have to say yes, Brad. You can’t just nod.”
“Yes…”
Now Draker took the gun out of Brad’s mouth. He pressed the barrel of it firmly into Brad’s jaw.
“I see a guy who doesn’t feel for others – a guy who, in fact, doesn’t feel a thing. A guy who poses too much when he thinks he’s being watched, and is far too casual walking in the woods when he thinks he’s alone.”
Draker moved the gun from his jaw to his throat.
“I see a guy who believes he is better, smarter, more beautiful than anyone else. A guy who will break hearts and destroy lives without giving it a second thought. I’m right about all that, no? Will you say I’m warm – Brad – or do I have to heat things up with a camping blowtorch?”
Brad began to realize he might not escape any of this. He was used to always being able to find a way out. Maybe use his face, or his body, or a quick succession of convincing lies.
But this time there was no out.
Draker had him completely – he had Brad completely at his mercy and he knew everything.
“I see a straight guy who put himself through a lot to get right next to me… right inside me, in fact. And I wonder why.”
Brad kept his eyes shut, breathing rapidly.
“Calm your breath, Brad. No point performing like a bitch. And you would want to answer me when I ask you things, Brad. Or I will do things to your face that will mean you will never recognize yourself when you look in the mirror again. Ever. So, I’ll ask you directly, and I’ll expect an honest and direct answer.”
Brimstone Page 20
