The Rosewood Institute

by beltedone

  “Good. Now, whatever happens after you leave here, I want you to remember a few things. You are not that addict or the injured surfer. You are who you decide to be right this minute. Right now. You let your past rule your present. Bad, very bad. Invent a new life for yourself. And don’t let the world tell you that you can’t. The only rules are the ones that work for you. I think you ought to get down on one knee and propose to 9. Don’t let him get away.”

  “I think you’re right, Miss. He’ll make a lovely bride,” she giggled.

  “And you’re okay with that? Running the relationship?”

  “What we have is great and works for us. Who cares what we call it or what other people think. I’m happy and so is 9.”

  “I think what you needed was 9 and what 9 needed was you.”

  “Yes, Miss. Did you find a family that would take both of us?”

  “I am working on it. Now, go back to the guests and entertain. After that performance, you will be in demand. Don’t wear yourself out playing bad cop.”

  6 smiled at Lady Victoria and left to go to the playrooms.

  * * * *

  9 had just entered the steam room, hoping to sweat a few kinks out in the warm, moist environment before going to the guests when a tall, naked, thin man came out of the mist like a specter.

  “Right on time, boy. You gave an amazing performance tonight. You will be a wonderful addition to my stable. You and the girl both. I’m going to make you my head pussy licker (he said pussy like poosy). I’ll chain you to a wall on your knees. You’ll eat, sleep, and shit there. But most of all, you’ll lick girls’ pussies for the rest of your life. When you die, I’ll dispose of you and find another boy to chain to that wall.”

  “No thanks. I’m under contract to Lady Victoria. So is 6.”

  “That will change soon. Now, come here. I always break in the boys. It is your time to know pain.”

  “No, thanks.”

  Sergi went into a Russian martial arts crouch.

  Naked, 9 could see how strong and hard he looked. 9 took up the pose that Wang taught him that was taught to the North Korean military’s best recruits, arms up to block face punches and protect his middle.

  “North Korean, isn’t it? Our Russian Sambo style of fighting has borrowed many moves from that style. We emphasize fluidity of motion and using an opponent’s force against him. Your method is quickness and explosive power. It should be an interesting match.”

  And 9 had quickness and explosive power. He attacked with lightning speed with a flurry of strikes to Sergi’s face and midsection. The punches to Sergi’s stomach just bounced off his hard abs. He skillfully blocked the kidney strike that would have incapacitated him. Dancing on his feet, 9 backed away from the brute, trying to think how to beat a brick wall.

  They circled each other in the close confines of the steam room.

  9 was furiously trying to find an advantage, but there was nothing in the room to use. Wang had taught him that anything from a towel to a rolled up magazine could be lethal in the right fighter’s hands, but there was nothing to use.

  9 tried another flurry of punches to Sergi’s face.

  He blocked them with his hands and arms, grabbed 9’s arm and in a motion as fluid as a ballet dancer, flipped 9 on his back.

  When 9 tried to get up, Sergi used his off-balance posture to run him, head first, into a tile wall. Stunned, he barely got away before Sergi finished him with a punch that landed on tile and not between his shoulder blades.

  Sergi made a lunge for 9, who tried to back up but was not fast enough. He was upended onto his back. Sergi tried to drive his fist into 9’s face, but 9 moved his head at the last second. Sergi cursed as his fist went into the tile floor.

  With Sergi distracted by the pain, 9 rolled forward between Sergi’s legs and drove his fist into Sergi’s crotch.

  Sergi screamed and bent over.

  Finally, 9 had found a soft spot on a hard, well-trained body. 9 was on his feet in a split second, jumping up and driving his head into Sergi’s chin. Sergi was rocked backward. Again, 9 had scored. Now for the knockout. In a split second, 9 imagined the killing blows. With Sergi’s hands down and unable to block, he’d deliver a series of fast, powerful blows to Sergi’s sternum. When he was gasping for air, 9 would finish him with a knife blade strike to the trachea. Once again, 9 thanked Wang in his mind for the training.

  That is when he felt the sap strike him hard on the head, and he was down for the count.

  Melina, Sergi’s date, said, “So, quite the he-man. You can’t take a sissy.”

  “He was as fast as an annoying cockroach. I had no idea I’d be dealing with someone who could fight like that.”

  “Do what you have to, and let’s get out of here. This place and its vile decadence bores me.”

  “When I am done with this one’s ass, he will walk in pain for a week. He needs to be taught a lesson, and I am the man to do it.”

  “Just do it. I want to stop at the club before I go home.”

  A few hours later, Tun was pouring water on 9’s face to rouse him. He hurt in about twenty places. “What happened, 9?”

  “Sergi, that fucking bastard, worked me over. Ouch! My ass. And I think he raped me when I was out. I’d like to take a baseball bat to that motherfucker. Where is he?”

  “He left hours ago with that stupid whore he brought, thanking Lady Victoria for an enjoyable evening. If I’d have known he was abusing you, I’d have beat him to a pulp. Let me help you back to your cell. You can rest, and if need be, I’ll get a doctor in about your rear. I should tell Lady Victoria about this.”

  “Thanks, Tun. Damn that hurts. What the hell did that asshole use for lube? Hot sauce?”

  Tun helped 9 back to his cell.

  The next morning, 9 awoke to dead silence in his cell. There was no wake-up music from the speakers, no rustling and clanging. He noticed that his cell door was unlocked, which was usual to say the least. 9 got up gingerly and as careful as possible not to flex his sore and possibly torn rectal muscles.

  He stumbled down a corridor, going to see Lady Victoria to see if something was the matter. Along the way, he noticed one of Wang’s knives sticking out from under a napkin on a table. 9 was a bit surprised that Wang would have left it there but things get misplaced or forgotten during the wild going’s on at the Institute. 9 picked it up and being he was naked with no place to put it, used a trick Wang taught him to stick the knife to the back of his forearm. That is when he heard the noise in a playroom and went to investigate. What he saw and did then changed his life forever.

  FINAL CHAPTER -

  Sergi’s Return

  For 9, it all came down to this moment, standing in front of this brutal thug and standing up for what he loved. The experiences at the Institute, the good ones and the bad, had taught him an important lesson—he learned to care. Numb his entire life, constantly told he was not good enough, he had slowly become un-numb. Something had snapped at the pony-training facility where 6, beautiful 6, had reciprocated his love by standing up for him. In the dirt and heat of that evil place, someone had decided that he was worth being beaten for. He could never go back and be the person he was.

  He watched as Victoria struggled on the Andrew’s cross and 6 was lashed prone to a rack. What could he do with Roma, his henchman’s gun pointed at him? He’d always been a mouse among tigers. All he knew was to run away. There is an old saying, “Never bring a knife to a gunfight,” and he was there with only the throwing knife concealed behind his arm.

  “Sign the papers, bitch,” Sergi shouted, and he slapped Victoria hard across the mouth, drawing blood that she immediately spat back at him.

  “Sign the papers, and I let you live.”

  “I sign, and you’ll kill me. I know your kind. By the way, you hit like a girl.”

  Sergi answered Victoria by driving a fist deep into her stomach, knocking the wind out of her and causing her to wretch.

  “Not so cocky now, are yo
u? But you might go to heaven or hell with all your body parts if you sign,” Sergi smiled at the bound Mistress.

  “You see, in my country, we have learned a great deal about the fine art of torture. The KGB has published manuals on it. I have read most of them and published a few myself. There is an art to it. First, we will take away your senses. Slowly. I will start with some pain to your major nerve centers then your hearing or eyes, take away your tongue. Finally, your fingers. You see, you will be permanently taken away from the world like you did to your clients here. We will leave you trapped in your body, unable to see, hear or communicate. By the time we get to the third or forth finger, you’ll sign. They all do. Save yourself the pain.”

  9 was horrified by what he was hearing. Victoria had expertly used deprivation to strip away the crap in 9’s and 6’s lives. Now, it would be used to destroy her.

  Sergi leisurely took a flat leather pouch out of his jacket and laid it on the table. He unrolled it to show Victoria the shining surgical instruments. Everything he did was for effect. He seemed to be an expert at creating psychological terror.

  “You know, some don’t enjoy this work, but I have always enjoyed doing it. There is always one problem. How to break the victim? What application of force will destroy the will? In Russia, there was no one better.”

  In a flash in almost mid-speech, he had plucked a probe from the pouch, swung around, and planted the needle-like instrument in Lady Victoria’s shoulder joint.

  She screamed as Sergi moved the probe around to create the maximum pain and left the probe buried deep, bobbing obscenely. Blood dripping from the wound.

  “Not so bold now. Save yourself the pain. Sign the papers. I want all the slaves contracts signed over to me.”

  9 could not bear it anymore. “Leave her alone.”

  Sergi looked over from Victoria to his new property and said, “Shut up, boy. I know you. I used you and took all of you. I used to use your kind in prison all the time. Once I took them, they become docile and always afraid. They did what they were told. In prison, I’d trade your kind for a cigarette or have them permanently changed to women if they were good enough. Did they have to fix your rear when I was done with you? The last boy I used I killed from blood gushing from his ass. It makes a good lubricant. You keep quiet, or you will be next.

  “You have no idea who this bitch is. Lady Victoria? Ha! Professor Victoria Quist, an academic psychiatrist who was kicked out of her university for publishing her theories on using sexual role play to heal borderline personalities. She has been using her own fortune to fund this study and using you all as lab rats in her experiments. Or has she been trying to cure you? Taking you off drugs? Having discussions about your childhood? Either way, a waste of time.”

  9 was shocked. Suddenly, it all made sense. The paperwork she made him sign. The strange, staged sexual encounters. The casual encounters with 6 that led to their strange romance. Had he been manipulated all along like some weird lab rats in a maze environment? “Whatever Victoria is, she deserves better than this. Take her down now.”

  They stared at each other like two gunfighters each waiting for the other to make the first move.

  9 was scared. He wanted to run so bad, his knees were shaking. He stammered, “One thing I have learned from Victoria is that bullies are scared little boys. They hurt out of fear. Did the other boys make fun of you because you were cubby? Did they push you down and call you names?”

  Sergi roared like a wounded grizzly, “You’ll die slowly, and so will the cow on the table.”

  9 did what he had never done before—he did not back down. He flicked his wrist sending the blade on the back of his hand into his fingertips. He touched the tip of the blade with his fingertips and silently thanked Wang Ho again for the lessons.

  Sergi saw the knife, smiled, and said to his henchman, “Kill the fool.”

  Roma raised the gun to 9’s head, and 9 waited for the inevitable gunshot when Wo Tun struggled to his feet and ran at Roma full tilt. They crashed through the window to drop four stories below.

  Suddenly, Sergi was alone with 9, and 9 had the knife. They stared at each other for the longest second in the history of mankind. Sweat ran down 9’s arm.

  “You think you have the upper hand with a puny little blade? I could easily come over there and take that away from you, boy.”

  Finding courage he never he knew he possessed, 9 whispered, “Try, little fat boy.”

  Sergi faked to one side then the other trying to get 9 to commit. When that didn’t work, he reached for his instruments, and in a flash, in one swift motion, threw a razor-sharp scalpel at 9. Time stood still.

  Somehow, 9 knew that cornered, Sergi would strike like a snake. 9 was ready and had thrown his blade at Sergi. There was no hesitation. The blades passed in flight.

  Sergi’s blade buried itself deep in 9’s shoulder, and he went down on his back with a grunt. He expected that Sergi would finish him off when he was done with Victoria.

  But 9’s blade had clipped Sergi’s throat, cutting a carotid artery. Arterial blood poured from the wound, bathing the room in bright red blood before he fell to the floor dead. By the look on his face, it seemed like he was marveling that an insignificant nothing like a sex slave could end his life. He died in shock.

  9 crawled over to 6 and undid her bonds. She got Victoria off the cross and laid her on the ground. Both 9 and Victoria were bleeding profusely. Victoria was passed out.

  6 said to 9 who was fading fast, “Honey, that was the greatest knife throw I have ever seen. I’ll never make fun of your party tricks again.”

  9 said, “I was aiming for his chest.”

  6 burst out laughing and hugged him to her.

  The room swam for 9, and he passed out.

  6 felt nothing but a gentle tap and passed out on 9’s chest.

  Lady Victoria was the first to speak.

  “You damn idiot,” she yelled as she struggled to her feet.

  “You were supposed to miss. I paid for a stunt man with knife skills. What the hell are we going to do now?”

  Sergi said, “I’m sorry. His throw was so far off that I had to lunge to the side so he could hit the squib running down my neck. Good thing I ran one there or nothing would have worked. If he’d have hit me in the chest like he was supposed to, none of this would have happened.”

  “Tun, find a towel and put pressure on the wound. Then dress him and get him to the ER. I’ll take 6 back to her cell. We will have to adjust the scenario for their flight. I hope 9 isn’t hurt too badly.”

  Tun bent over 9 with a towel pressed to the wound and said, “Well, at least the scalpel was sterile.”

  Tun knew Lady Victoria was fit to be tied and decided being in the ER and away from the Institute for a few hours was not a bad idea. He picked 9 up like a rag doll and carried him to the clothes cupboard, dressed him as best as he could and got him out of the building to the van.

  EPILOGUE

  Six months later, Victoria strode into her office in her signature form-fitting black latex. It was a bit warm in the building and the latex didn’t breath, contributing to her foul mood. She was angry and frustrated. A weak March sun tried to penetrate the windows on one wall but gave little warmth.

  It had been a very tough session with a subbie who had been abused by an uncle as a child from the time he was six until he went away to college. The man was a sadist who twisted the small boy in so many ways that the man he had become had stayed twisted no matter what Victoria tried. He hated himself so much that he was suicidal and blamed himself for what was done to him. She was at a loss. So many people in pain. The city ached from the pain of its people and still more people were hurt and twisted. Sometimes, it didn’t seem worth it.

  Victoria plopped down in her leather chair and began to sort her mail. Most was junk. In her business, every “toy” store in the universe wanted her orders. That stuff quickly went in the trashcan. Everyone in the business knew the best adult toys came fr
om a small shop in West Virginia with a huge online business.

  There was one small white personal envelope in the pile with an upstate New York return address. She pulled her stiletto out of its holder on the desk and slit the envelope in one quick, sure motion.

  She smiled as she read, “Dear Lady Victoria, greetings from Smith Hollow, New York! Karen and I have had some amazing adventures since we left you with the Russian mob on our heels. We finally settled in a small town near the Canadian border with a ski lodge and no bike shop. The town has great potential for summer mountain biking as there are lots of excellent trails nearby and the cross-country skiing slopes are virtually unused in summer. It is a scenic paradise here with beautiful mountain views, tall pines, and crystal-clear lakes just starting to be noticed by the upscale New York vacationers. Sort of what Vail must have been like thirty years ago.

  “We used the money you gave us to put a down payment on a basement under a bar in town. It is a solid brick building with central stairs up to the bar and down to our space. The back we remodeled into our living space (with lots of soundproofing) and the front we made into a bike shop and coffee bar. Yes, I got my coffee bar. I bake scones and muffins every morning, and the locals and tourists come and brag about the trails they’ve ridden and the slopes they have skied. It is the in place for jocks and pseudo-jocks in town.

  “The best part is Karen is really good at selling bikes and fixing them. She sponsors a BMX team in town, and our late afternoon rides are very popular. My scones may bring in the customers, but the customers never leave without a new bike or accessory. In six months, we have gone from in the hole to breaking even and will turn a profit next year. Karen even negotiated with the lodge to use the ski lift in the off-season to bring mountain bikers to the top of the mountain for an amazing downhill experience. We plan to offer a line of snowboards and snowboard clothing next year. You wouldn’t believe the markup on that stuff.