by Edward Lee
Augie looked at him forlornly, a rare expression. “Look, man. I’m sorry.”
“Great,” Brice replied, smirking.
“I don’t know what got into us. We got carried away, we fucked up. Sometimes…I lose control.”
Brice subdued himself against the excruciating fact. “Don’t talk about it. We act like it never happened.”
Augie nodded solemnly, then looked up, noticing something, and smiled. “Here comes your future ex-wife…”
Sarah May wended around some tables and sat down with them. She looked undeniably distressed.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi, Sarah May,” came Brice’s bright response, but then he noticed that she had obviously been crying. “What’s wrong? Are you all right?”
The shapely waitress wiped her eyes and sniffled. “Oh, Brice, I just got the worst news…Someone up’n raped my cousin Babba tonight…”
Augie’s face petrified, Brice tensed up. “My God, Sarah May. I’m so sorry to hear that…”
“Yeah, that’s really terrible,” Augie added.
“And that ain’t even the worst part,” Sarah May went on, diddling with a napkin. “See, she were retarded, thirty years old but only had the sense of someone five. Way it looks is someone snatched her and did it back in the woods, then just left the poor girl there. She managed ta crawl back to Tick Neck Road. It was her brother Loger who found her as he were drivin’ by…”
Brice’s eyes popped a little at Loger. He touched her hand. “I hope she’s going to be all right.”
She began to sob outright. “See, she were bleedin’ real bad on account’a she were a virgin. Loger was drivin’n her to the hospital fast as he could, but just a few minutes later…she died. Bled to death.”
Sarah May broke down in tears, crying outright. “We’re so, so sorry…” Brice attempted, but inside he was roaring with rage. He uselessly put his arm around her.
Augie gulped. “Yeah, you have our deepest condolences…”
Brice could think of nothing to say. What could he say? All he could drum up was, “If there’s anything we can do…”
Sarah May had jaggedly recomposed herself. “I ’ppreciate your concern but, naw, ain’t nothin’ no one can do now.”
“I hope they caught the scum bag who did it,” Augie ventured.
“Probably never will,” she said, sniffling. “Probably just some creeker or meth-head passin’ through. Babba was conscious some of the time ‘fore she died but she couldn’t tell no one who did it ’cos she never learnt how ta talk…”
“Damn,” Brice said, but was thinking Damn YOU, Augie!
“My manager let me off early tonight,” she continued, “but I need a stiff drink before I go break the news to my grandma—”
“I’ll buy you one right now.”
“Naw, not here,” she said. “Lemme get my things, then we’ll go across the street to the Crossroads where there ain’t all this racket.”
“Sure thing,” Brice said, and then Sarah May departed in utter despair.
Augie and Brice exchanged terrified glances.
“I—” Augie began.
Brice could barely repress his rage. He snapped, “Don’t say anything.”
Loud, uncomfortable moments ticked by, filled with a silence that Augie would normally have filled with his off-color observations. He knew better than to push levity now. After a couple of minutes, he finally looked at his watch, disconcerted. “Where the hell is Clark?”
“Yeah, it shouldn’t take him this long to get cigarettes. I’ll call him—”
Augie shook his head. “Don’t bother. His cell battery’s dead.” He slipped out his iPhone and poked at the screen. Brice wondered why he needed the phone if they wouldn’t be able to reach Clark, but then he heard canned chortling and an unpleasant sound like something caught in a garbage disposal.
“What the hell are you watching?”
Augie didn’t look up. “Just checking the Hock Party video. They’re never going to believe this back home! Oh, Dora won by the way.”
Brice winced. It wasn’t a garbage disposal; it was somebody hawking up another phlegm oyster for the girls. Maybe Augie himself. “Jesus, please tell me you’re kidding!”
“What’s wrong? Just good clean fun. Clark could barely hold the phone steady.”
“Why the hell would you all record…” Brice trailed off. A wave of acid rolled in his guts as an obvious conclusion occurred to him. “Please tell me you idiots didn’t…didn’t film anything else tonight.”
Augie finally looked up from the phone. “Huh? Oh, you mean…no, of course not! Never even crossed our minds.” He held up a hand in a scout’s honor gesture. “Hand to God, bro. Besides, these fucking bumpkins wouldn’t know an MP4 from an IED.”
This was probably true. Brice hadn’t seen the perpetual blue glow around town of people hypnotized by their phones while real life happened all around them. New York sometimes looked like everyone glowing in the aftermath of a nuclear strike.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Augie dared quietly. “Clark said she was all right, and the guy’s a doctor!”
“Shut up, Augie!” Brice snapped. It was all he could do to keep his voice down.
I’ll hit him if I look at him another second.
He let his eyes do a sweep of the club, trying to calm down and breathe. A natural redhead hung upside down from one of the poles onstage, clinging with both hands. The bar was nestled between her D cup breasts. They slumped to either side. Men whooped and cheered as she spread her legs wide apart into a near full split. At an adjacent table, a raven-haired dancer pulled aside her G-string to the slobbering delight of a guy wearing an honest-to-God engineer hat. Across from him, his friend’s face was buried in the backside of a blonde grabbing her ankles.
“Clench it good and tight, darlin’!” Brice wasn’t sure which of the men said this.
Augie and Clark could have had any of these women in here, and they wouldn’t all be trapped in this nightmare. But no, they had to have Backtown. Augie needed his down and dirty.
Christ. The next few days would be the longest of his life. He still wasn’t sure if he wanted to tell them about what Stoody showed him. They’d probably insist on getting the hell out of there then. Or maybe not. Augie would probably want to see for himself, might even want to film the body. Or worse.
Come on, buddy bro, it doesn’t get much down and dirtier than this! And best of all, we can’t kill this one!
Stoody sure swore by it. T’was the best feelin’ I ever had in my whole blammed life.
More of that sickening episode threatened to replay in his head. He couldn’t help but notice the fair skin of the redhead on stage, almost as pallid as the girl Stoody showed him.
Ya don’t know what’cher missin’, man!
PAP! PAP! PAP! PAP! PAP!
Every thrust like the pounding of Brice’s pulse, cannon-like in his head. He shook it vigorously to try to clear away the awful memory.
The door opened up front. Brice expected Clark to step through at last and swivel his head around to find them, but it was some dude with a ridiculous beard that could have nested a bald eagle.
“He could still be at the store,” Augie offered, without conviction. “You know these yokels prattle on forever if you let them. Or maybe he went across the street to that other bar by mistake.”
“No, we specifically told him to meet us here. He wouldn’t confuse it with a place full of naked women, would he?”
They shared an uneasy glance.
Augie leaned over the table, his fingers talon-like around his iPhone. “Brice, I’m not liking this!”
“Calm down. He drank a lot tonight, right? He probably went back to the motel and passed out.”
Augie’s voice registered as a fierce whisper, barely audible over the merriment of the nearest table. “Yeah, but what if he didn’t?”
Brice grit his teeth. “Calm down!”
They couldn’t do somethin
g stupid now and behave in a manner that seemed suspicious. The gentlemen closest to them probably had no earthly idea Brice and Augie existed as their attention was absorbed by the strippers (“Make it wink, honey!” enthused one of the men, still mesmerized by the posterior so adroitly displayed by the blonde dancer), but they needed to keep their act together.
The panic in Augie’s eyes faded a little and he settled back into his seat. His phone continued to play the video of the Hock Party. Brice recognized Dora’s voice, tinny through the speaker but plenty loud enough: Cain’t you spit no better ‘n that, you damn pussy? You couldn’t drown a gnat with that pitiful loogie! Then another hawking, like a car engine that didn’t want to turn over.
“Will you shut that thing off?” Brice urged. “You’ve got beautiful women all around and you’re watching nasty trailer trash swallow spit!”
Augie tapped the screen and put it away, a little morosely. He drummed his fingers on the tabletop, checked the door again, and sighed. “Where the hell is he?” he muttered.
««—»»
Clark could have been forgiven for thinking he had a concussion, because he woke up seeing quadruple. The grins on them varied slightly, but four of the five faces hovering above him were otherwise identical. He looked from one to the next, brow furrowed, probably expecting them to coalesce into one figure. They remained separate. Each was a demented sculpture of delight and anticipation, a Mount Rushmore of the head humping elite.
The fifth face was unlike the others in both its appearance, as well as, its complete lack of mirth. Clark’s eyes narrowed against the harsh fluorescent light of the room, then widened in recognition of the mayor, Eamon. He tried to say something, but a gag rendered the words about as comprehensible as a dental chair confession.
Clark was roped to four corners of a table. He strained against the bonds, but they showed no sign of give and the table barely shuddered with the effort. The Larkins Brothers flanked each side, with Tucker and Clyde to the left and Gut and Horace to the right. They had the eager look of young boys who’ve stumbled on a stockpile of nudie mags.
Eamon towered above Clark at the head of the table. He leaned his face over Clark’s, both men upside down from the other’s perspective. “What we’se gonna do now, son, is called a raw-ballin’.”
Tucker pounded the table. “Cain’t just kill ya lickety-split!”
“Naw, that’d be too easy, too fast,” Gut agreed.
At the announcement of “kill ya,” Clark thrashed like a death row inmate receiving his final volts. His head whipped violently from side to side, and a word with a passing resemblance to “help” hummed repeatedly behind the gag.
Clyde poked him in the chest. “Fer what you done? You need ta feel some high ‘n mighty pain first.”
Horace held up a metallic object. He pushed his thumb into it and with a snikt!, a triangular blade peeked from the end like a jagged tooth. Clark’s eyes popped wide open at the sight of the box-cutter. He bucked against the table, chewing on his gag.
“Git them pants down,” Eamon ordered.
Gut and Clyde reached for the buckle and fly. Clark squirmed, but they had his trousers and boxers dragged to his ankles in seconds.
“Will you lookit that,” Gut said. “He ain’t got him no hair on his ball sac!”
They all marveled over Clark’s smooth, hairless genitalia, which looked desperate to hide under the glare of the fluorescent lights. His penis drew back like someone inside him was turning a crank.
“You mean he’s all growed up and ain’t never been through pub-erty?” Tucker asked.
“Naw, I bet he’s one of them fellers ‘at shaves it all off,” Horace pontificated. “Buncha them boys from the cities do it now. I guess they’se worried about lice and such.”
Gut shook his head. “Ya ask me, it’s bad enough fer girls to do that to their selfs.”
“It shore is,” Tucker concurred. “When you peel off their paynties and it sounds like yer tearin’ Velcro, a man knows he’s in for some good eatin’!”
They all nodded their agreement to this sage wisdom.
Horace pointed. “Lookit him! We barely touched him and he’s already cryin’!”
Sure enough, Clark’s eyes were shiny as tears rolled down the sides of his face. His muffled blubbering continued.
“Well, now you boys see how sensitive it makes a man to not have no hair on his works,” Tucker said solemnly.
“It’s downright embarrassin’, is what it is,” Gut summarized. “We should at least give him a reason for carryin’ on like that.”
Horace leaned over Clark’s supine form and took hold of the scrotal pouch. He yanked it up to expose its underside, mashing it down against the root of the penis. Clark flinched when he held the box-cutter to the skin.
“This part ain’t gonna hurt all that much,” Eamon assured, even as he paced around the table for a better view of the testicles and blade. “What we do, see, is first we cut a slit in yer ball-bag.”
Horace’s hand jerked and the box-cutter sliced a divot as long as his pinkie finger into the tender skin of Clark’s scrotum, revealing what looked like the yolk of an alien egg. It was a palette of primary reds and yellows, a network of glistening meat. Blood sluiced from the incision to either side to his thighs, trickling into a small pool on the table. Clark yelped through the gag, fists pumping once again at his restraints like he was trying to pound an invisible wall.
“Then we pop yer nuts out through the slit, so’s they’se hangin’ raw,” Eamon continued.
Gut and Horace both did the honors, each taking hold of one of the newly created flaps in the scrotum and manipulating the testicles through the divide in the pouch with a great deal of squelching as tissue rubbed against tissue. Dual sacs the color of bubblegum protruded through the opening, each embedded with the hieroglyphics of stretched veins. A stalk of bruised-looking flesh tethered Clark’s exposed balls back to the pocket like a bungee cord. He mewled miserably.
Eamon and the Larkins surveyed the handiwork a moment, enjoying a rare view unimpeded by any pubic growth. The extruded testicles shifted slightly as if nudged by their appraisal, the overhead light reflected in the slick surfaces.
“Good job, fellas,” Eamon said. “Tucker?”
Tucker nodded and took his leave from the room. There was a good deal of noise through the open doorway, but none of them were particularly concerned about any of their goings-on being overheard. Tucker disappeared through a door to the left and then returned a moment later. He now carried a metal pot, which he brought to the table. There was steam rising from it, trailing back into nothingness. The pot continued bubbling after he set it down, a dark, thick substance like oil.
Gut pushed the door shut to block off the background noise. The best part was coming and they wanted to be able to hear it.
“Now, what we got in this here pot is a quart’a molasses,” Eamon informed Clark. “It’s been bubblin’ down fer a while so’s its good and hot. See, when ya cook it down some it gets nice’n thick, and it holds its heat a lot longer than boilin’ water.”
Tucker took the grip and tilted it slightly. A dollop slipped from the pan to strike the table just inches from Clark.
“Now this part, son,” Eamon continued, “is gonna hurt.”
“Hold still,” Tucker admonished.
Clark did no such thing, but he didn’t have much of a perimeter for escape maneuvers. A gyration of his hips tugged at the cord depending from his divided scrotum, but barely slid his rubbery looking testicles a few inches along the table. Tucker slowly tilted the pan above Clark’s crotch.
“Just dribble it at first, Tucker,” Eamon advised. “We don’t want him passin’ right out. Just dribble it over them raw nuts.”
A trickle of syrupy fluid eased over the rim of the pan to the vulnerable tissue below. The molasses crackled and hissed as it spattered, striking the testicles like droplets of barbecue sauce. Steam rose from the scalded flesh.
Clark bucked against the table with anguished shudders, capable of only muffled vowel sounds. By this point he was practically running in place, heels pounding the table top in agony.
“Little more now,” Eamon prompted.
Tucker obliged with a dip of the pan until there was a prominent sizzling sound above Clark’s stifled caterwauling and torture percussion. His eyes looked only inches from popping out of the sockets altogether, filmed over with the tears of his suffering.
“Eeeeeeeeeeeee-yeah!” Gut whooped, and his brothers joined in the revelry, elated by this display of genital singeing.
For his own part, Clark did not.
“The dick now, Tucker,” Eamon said. “We cain’t forget about the dick.”
“No, sir!” Tucker agreed. He led the trail of molasses from the testes and up along the tethering cord until the burning goop began to trickle upon the slumped appendage on Clyde’s belly.
This time, Clark’s convulsions were seizure-like in their intensity. The table legs thunked the floor as they bounced in his frenzy. His eyes pinballed in all directions, as though the ceiling would award him a release from agony if he could just find the hidden escape up there.
“How’s that feel, son?” Eamon asked. “That feel good? Huh?”
In several places, the penile skin bubbled, popping and sputtering. A portion of the head liquefied, running down the shaft like molten wax. It revealed an angry red algae-like tissue within.
Eamon grabbed both of Clark’s cheeks between his thumbs and forefingers. He squeezed and shook them, eliciting a sound that tickled the Larkins Brothers as downright masturbatory. “That feel as good as when you was fuckin’ my daughter ta death?”
On cue, Tucker upended the rest of the pot over Clark’s dick and balls, splashing his belly and thighs. The molasses steamed like boiled noodles poured out in a colander. The cords of Clark’s neck stood out like rubber bands as he screamed, a sound that was barely recognizable as human any more.
