On The Edge

by Daniel Cleaver

  “I reckon.”

  “It’s tempting,” unbelievably he weighed up the option. “But it’s the gradual beating, the different varying amounts of pain,” his eyes widened in lust. “And the senses trying to keep up with the hurt.” He stood right in front of me, invading my space and screwed his eyes shut.

  “I ain’t gonna do it, now get outta my face.”

  “Or what?”

  “I’ll make ya go.”

  “But that’s what I want yuh to do.”

  He was really annoying but I couldn’t get up enough steam, I had no beef with him, but he was irritating, like an annoying bug. I gave in and put my hand in his face and pushed him out of my way, but he was so feeble he went flying.

  “Yes,” he hissed, “that’s it.” He ran back toward me, I sidestepped him and he crashed into the wall. This was getting ridiculous. He tried to throw a punch, which I blocked effortlessly. He went to kick me, but it was so half-assed that I was able to catch his foot. I couldn’t tell if he was being pathetic on purpose or this was how he really attempted to fight. He hopped on one leg trying to balance himself. I threw his leg up in the air and he fell onto his back.

  “This ain’t right, yuh meant to do what I ask, not make me look stupid.”

  “What, beating ya black and blue don’t make ya feel stupid?”

  “Yuh ain’t supposed to refuse a reasonable request.”

  “It ain’t reasonable.”

  “It’s not like I’m asking to fiddle with kiddies or nothing.”

  That caught my attention. “What do ya know about that?”

  “Oh, I ain’t supposed to say.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I saw it once, down the end room in,” he made punctuation marks in the air, “‘The Pleasure Dome’.”

  “The Pleasure Dome?”

  “It’s where they auction the ‘product’. If she’s a genuine virgin, they display her on the stage, while the participants bid on her and then she belongs to the highest bidder.”

  “How did ya get in?” I asked.

  “I went in with a pal, yuh have to prove you can meet the minimum requirement fee.”

  “Which is?”

  “I think a grand will get you in, but the bidding always goes higher.”

  I shook my head in despair.

  He smiled slyly. “We shared one once.”

  “What?” I asked slowly, knowing I wouldn’t like the answer.

  “Me and my pal,” he said, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “We shared one.” He grabbed his crotch and licked his lips.

  “How do ya mean?”

  “How do yuh think? Oh, brother, yuh ain’t never experienced nothing until you’ve popped the cherry of a young ’un.” He grinned, revealing blackened teeth. “Sweet.”

  I had to look away not to show my revulsion.

  “Boy, when that cherry goes pop, along with the screaming, I tell yah, it is the bestest –”

  I punched him so hard I felt his head rattle. He staggered back into the wall, knocking a painting down as he went. He shook his head and spat out one of his remaining teeth. He felt the others and I saw blood on his fingers. I couldn’t get it out of my head that this little worm had molested a young child and was bragging about it. I saw a red mist and grabbed him by the collar and headbutted him. Not my best because he moved slightly, which was a good thing because I didn’t want him passing out, I wanted to beat him, but keep him conscious to feel the pain, even though paradoxically I knew that this was what he wanted, but I was lost in the moment. I brought my knee up into his groin and he groaned in pain, although after a while it sounded more like pleasure. He slipped down the wall, then recovered and straightened and smiled at me. He was enjoying this! I kept imagining that poor kid and took a step back and aimed a hefty kick at his groin. I could at least put him out of action for a long time if not forever, which would be a good thing. My boot connected with his genitals and he was lifted off the ground by the force. He dropped to his knees and howled. His screech of pain was not as satisfying as I expected because I knew deep down that, somehow, he was deriving pleasure from it. He held himself and rubbed furiously at his injured groin, until a smile appeared. Oh Jesus, he was getting an erection. He stood stroking himself and grinned again, showing his blackened teeth, stained red. I elbowed him in the face and his head ricocheted off the wall.

  He signaled to someone behind me and I realized that the bouncer had decided it was time to intervene. The hillbilly made ‘back away’ gestures to the heavy. He said, “Everything’s cool, I’m fine, this is what I want.”

  “You’ll have to take it somewhere private,” the bouncer said. I took a swift look at the guy, getting on for six feet six of pure muscle. His shoulder muscles joined straight to his head just below his ears, no neck to speak of, and I wondered where he bought his shirts and his collar size had to be around thirty inches. “Come with me, they’re not using the ‘Dome’ for a while.” He led us to a room at the end of the corridor. He put a code into the keypad, which I managed to see and he let us in. There were probably twenty seats, positioned in a semicircle around a low circular stage. “This is where they do it,” grinned Hillbilly Willy. “I heard sometimes they peg her out spreadeagled onstage, naked, y’know, so we can see the goods.”

  Whack! Another blow to his chops, he staggered and I aimed a punch at his kidneys, he twisted slightly and I caught him in the ribs and I felt one snap. Good, I thought. It was the least he deserved. He fell onto one knee. “It makes sense, don’t it, when yuh think about it?” he said with a soppy grin. “No more interfering with a young relative or neighbor, who even after they take yuh money and swear they won’t tell, often do.” He coughed up some blood and he continued as if we were on the same page. “Or yuh groom a little ’un on the internet. Nine times out of ten when you meet up with them, it’s a grown man. Still, it could have been the cops, I guess, which only really leaves a daylight snatch when the urges get too much and all the consequences that’d bring.” He felt his ribs and winced. “Yet here, for say two thousand bucks, yuh can satisfy all your urges, with a lovely little darling, whatever yuh heart desires. No chance of getting caught neither. They clean up after; no getting found out, and no DNA evidence left behind. Well worth the money, wouldn’t yuh say?” He grinned and I’d never felt such loathing for a fellow human.

  I swiftly elbowed him in the temple and he was out cold before he hit the deck. I followed up with my cowboy boot between his legs and hoped I had ruptured one of his testicles and put the no-good sonofabitch out of action, or at least left numbnuts with a pair of numb nuts.

  * * *

  The bouncer charged in. “Don’t leave blood on the stage, they’ll be here soon, you need to leave.”

  I strolled back along the corridor, taking deep breaths and waiting for the red mist to clear. I leaned against the marble balustrade and looked down on the gathering in the entrance hall. I recognized one or two of the so-called good and great of Hollywood, with not a care in the world, knowing that their peculiar kinks were acting out for them and would never make the press.

  Hmm, we’ll see about that, I thought. I spotted a few more stars of the TV screen and one of the few directors I knew because of their tendencies to court the press. I shook my head with despair and knew I somehow had to wangle my way into the Pleasure Dome. I made my way down near to the room and the bouncer held out his palm upright in front of him. The signal was clear, no way. I sat on an opulent velvet sofa nearby and a chubby, sweaty-faced man joined me. He was in his thirties, already prematurely balding and trying to disguise the act with an unbelievably bad comb-over. Peculiarly, he had a small mouth, that looked like a bow. “Are you waiting for the ‘Dome’?”

  I nodded. He whipped out his camera and showed me the screen on the back, he pressed a button and a short video appeared seemingly to show a naked girl no more than fourteen. “What the hell?”

  He took my tone to mean I was impressed. “Good
, huh? Plenty more where that came from. These were taken at an under fourteens water ballet class. They spend most of the time with their heads under the water and their tushies in the air, plenty of time for me to video the results!”

  “No one queries your presence?”

  “Why should they query my presence? I’m their coach,” he announced proudly.

  “Not the parents?”

  “Hey, we’re the State champs. I have hundreds of prepubescent girls begging me to take them on the team. I mean, who’s going to suspect me? No, as long as their kid’s winning, they don’t care what else is going on. Besides, I only video, I don’t touch.” Then he grinned. “Well, not the older ones, if you catch my meaning.”

  “Don’t the older kids suspect? They must know that you shouldn’t be filming them?”

  He wiped his sweaty face with a handkerchief. “Ah, that’s the clever part. I have a camera hidden in my gym bag, lets me record everything, ha ha!” He smiled lecherously. “Works like a dream, see?” He showed me another moving shot: the girl looked so young and happy and was quickly changing her clothes. I had to look away, luckily, he could not tell from behind my dark glasses. “That shot is from a hidden camera in their changing room. I’m going to see if I can interest the gentlemen in the room into subscribing to my website, where they can purchase these videos and some stronger stuff.”

  I felt nauseous in the pit of my stomach. “The distribution would make ya kinda vulnerable.”

  “No physical distribution. Not with the internet, no postal delivery required. Instant download. They pay with a credit card and stream it to their computer. Simple.” He forced his business card into my hand. He was making this too easy for me. “Well, I’m also hoping for some financial backing so I can make it a full-time occupation. This sort of stuff would net a few million a year easy.” He looked pleased with himself as if he’d found a cure for cancer or something.

  I wondered how the Vice Department managed to keep up in the fast-moving technological world and realized they were fighting a losing battle. No matter how many they caught, there would always be someone to take their place and not always within our own borders: they could be Russian, Japanese, or Brazilian – anywhere in the world. My heart sank but at least I could try to close down this band of reprobates.

  He kept on flicking his camera screen, moving the pictures on. I feigned interest but could no longer look and made a mental note of all I could about him so we could meet again outside of the protected walls of this mansion. I watched the various men and one woman, a silver-haired producer, Sylvia Maine, or something, I think. She was famous for light chick flicks and children’s comedies, filter into the Pleasure Dome. The schoolteacher went over touting his wares, showing them his footage, and several looked interested and took his business card. I surreptitiously snapped them on my cellphone and would pass them over to Vice for identification. The teacher sat back down next to me, shifted his weight to get more comfortable, and put his camera in his gym bag. I saw a wad of cash and realized that he was also going to bid on the child and did not care what happened to her afterward. I asked, “Are ya bidding, man?”

  “Frigging A, the movie version of that would be priceless, plus it would be double money.”

  “How do ya mean?”

  “I’ll video me popping her cherry – that’s the Holy Grail of the Lolita connoisseurs, with perhaps the exception of –” He drew a line across his own throat, grinning.

  “Ya talking snuff?”

  “Oh yeah, big bucks for that, mind you, it’s not as lucrative as it was, thanks to all the rapes and beheadings coming out of the war zones being posted on the internet for free. But there’s still a vibrant market for top-quality US snuff movies, yet this is purer, you know?”

  Purer?! I held my temper in check when I spotted a roll of cash inside his leather gym bag and that was going to be my way into the Pleasure Dome.

  “Hey, any chance I can watch that footage again, y’know, somewhere private?”

  “Ha, I told you it was hot. Do you need to beat off? I get that. Um, I’m not going to let the camera out of my sight, I’m sure you understand, it cost me big bucks but it was worth it to get HD-quality photos.” He looked around. “We’ve got time, come on.”

  He led me to a restroom lined with four cubicles on one side and a large mirror on the other surrounded by lights, reminding me of a starlet of yesteryear’s dressing room. He opened the end door and he followed me in. “Huh?” I managed to mutter, wondering what he had in mind.

  “I told you, I’m not letting the camera out of my sight, but don’t worry, I won’t look. You do what you’ve got to d –” With that, I elbowed him in the throat, crushing his larynx. His hands went up to his throat and he dropped to his knees unable to breathe; I used my forearm to smash him in the face and felt his nose break, his head smacked back against the tiled wall and he was out cold. I yanked the memory card out of his camera snapped it in two and flushed the pieces down the toilet, I took his bankroll and rummaged through his gym bag: there were ropes, gags and restraints, and I wondered what he had in store for the poor girl should he have won the auction. It was too grim to contemplate. I used his own props to tie and gag him, sat him on the toilet, locked the door from the inside and clambered over the cubicle, straightened myself up, swallowed hard and made my way to the Pleasure Dome.

  * * *

  I slipped the bouncer a hundred-dollar bill. It was that easy. It never ceased to amaze me that the rich always employed the cheapest labor, not realizing that this was the chink in their armor. Like the saying goes, ‘You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.’ He took the money and stepped aside. The room was in darkness, like a movie theater, making it difficult to see the other bidders. Bruce Matherson acted as the M.C. and took to the stage with a smattering of applause. “Gentlemen and lady . . .” He grinned his best smarmy grin for the benefit of Sylvia what’s-her-name. She smiled benignly at the others gathered and when I made eye contact, I jolted. Maggots poured from the corners of her eyes and from her nostrils and slimed around her face, I could see the real person the one beneath the plastic surgery, the old, wrinkled flesh, the blemishes and age spots: she truly was evil. I could see into her putrid, polluted soul. She was a truly depraved individual. The fact that she was female somehow made it worse: she was a woman, she should be a nurturer and she should want to nurse a child, by instinct, not bidding on this lost child, to do whatever vile act upon her in such a cavalier callous manner. “The highlight of our little gathering, tonight’s auction, is for Melinda, a fourteen-year-old prick tease. She is yours for the evening, alone or with an audience, whatever your preference, so without further ado, I present you with Melinda.” She walked onto the stage, looking drunk or drugged, probably a bit of both. She was wearing an approximation of a schoolgirl uniform, a short plaid miniskirt, knee-length socks, blouse, and her hair in pigtails. She licked on a lollipop, à la Stanley Kubrick’s movie version of Lolita.

  “Look at her, lady and gentlemen, fourteen years of age and ripe and juicy, what am I offered? Who’s going to start? Shall we say one thousand?”

  The rockstar nonchalantly waved a hand, swiftly followed by Sylvia the silver-haired producer. I wondered what she was going to do with a young girl and I shuddered. Thankfully, the dark glasses helped cover my feelings of revulsion and I managed to keep my expression neutral. I had to save the girl, I had no idea what horrors the bidders had in mind for her, yet I somehow knew that after that ordeal, the only way to silence her forever would be to kill her. I had a light bulb moment and made a mental note to see what the ages of the bodies in the canyon were. These sickos had to dispose of them somewhere. The rockstar and the producer chatted amongst themselves and laughed at some private joke. They were blasé, comfortable in the knowledge that they were safe. They acted as if they were at a fashion show, not bidding on the rape of a young child. The rockstar upped the bid, as did the female producer. The bids started to slow around the fou
r grand mark. I felt in my pocket for the roll of cash I’d taken from the schoolteacher and bid the lot, “Eight thousand dollars.”

  The crowd gasped and Bruce Matherson smiled his dazzling smile as if I had won the star prize on his game show. “We have a winner!” He shielded his eyes to see if he recognized me, but money is money and he shrugged it off. “Private or with an audience?”

  “Private,” I replied, making my voice deeper just in case he recognized it.

  “As you wish.” He waved the others from the room with a theatrical flourish and they groaned as they filtered out.

  Melinda sat on the edge of the stage, looking drowsy. When the others had gone, I sat next to her and she flinched. “It’s okay,” I said, soothing her. “I’m here to rescue you. I’m a cop.” She looked at me blankly and showed no signs of understanding. I put my arm around her and felt her trembling. I tried to reassure her but the drugs fogged her brain. Bruce Matherson passed back across the stage and headed for the door to give us privacy.

  “Everything hunky-dory?” he asked me, holding up his thumb.

  “He said he was going to rescue me,” she slurred to my horror. Bruce Matherson’s jaw dropped open. “He said he’s a cop,” she continued.

  Bruce Matherson froze and then after a long pause chuckled. “A cop! Good one. Sorry about her,” he said to me, “she’s a bit . . .” He twiddled his finger by his temple. “You know?”

  “Oh yah, I know,” I said as casually as I could muster and let out a huge sigh of relief as he left. “Come on,” I said to the girl, “we’ve gotta get ya outta here.” I opened the door a crack and the bouncer peered in. “Is there a back way out?”

  He stared at me. “You’re meant to do her in the ‘Dome’.”

  “He’s a cop,” said the girl again.

  I cringed and stared at the bouncer who chuckled at the absurdity and then when I did not argue the point his face dropped. “Look, I had no idea what was going on until it was too late. If I help you out of here, you’ll keep me out of it?”