Chapter 19
A gentle thumb in a nitrile glove pushed one of Danny’s eyelids up, exposing his eyeball. There was a very bright light, and then darkness. His other lid was lifted, and the very bright light moved to that side.
Someone was shining a penlight in Danny’s eye. He tried to think who would be shining a penlight in his eye, then realized that it must be a doctor or an EMT and relaxed in his seat. His nose was bleeding, a slow trickle that Danny knew meant it was broken. He hoped they would set it so he didn't look fucked-up when it healed. The game was hard for guys that weren't pretty; they had to be extra sweet to new talent so as not to scare it off until it was broken in properly.
He couldn’t move his arms. Had he been in an accident? He hoped the cunt had told the doctors about his penicillin allergy.
No, his arms were attached to the chair he was sitting in. Had he been arrested? The restraints felt like handcuffs. He tried not to wiggle his broken nose; the crust of dried blood around it itched like crazy.
Then the smell of pepper spray reached his nostrils, and he knew he was still in the nightmare.
The penlight pulled back. Danny blinked fiercely until the spots faded and looked around frantically. It was still too dark to see clearly, but he thought he could make out a block and tackle in the corner, a leather spanking bench with restraints…
He was in the playroom in the attic of his house.
“Love the decor, Danny,” a tired voice said.
Fucking Beckett. Danny could just make him out, stepping back into the shadows and slipping the flashlight into his pants pocket.
Danny tried to leap to his feet, but he succeeded only in toppling to the floor, along with the hard wooden chair into which he’d been strapped.
“Easy, old son. You’ll do yourself a mischief that way,” a second voice said. It had a British accent. It sounded amused.
Two pairs of hands picked up the chair and righted it. Someone switched on the overhead light. Danny looked around his attic. Beckett and a skinny guy in a gray longcoat were standing over him. There was a brown girl examining the hanging restraints with what Danny glumly recognized as professional interest. It took him a minute to recognize her. She had distracted him so Beckett could...
Danny broke into a cold sweat.
The black guy crouching next to the brown girl was getting little bottles of stuff out of a suitcase. They looked like the precursors Danny had seen people use to cook meth. Danny couldn’t figure out what was wrong with his vision for a minute; the black guy looked distorted, and Danny figured he’d hit his head harder than he thought until he realized with a twinge of embarrassment that the guy was a little person, like Peter Dinklage or Wee Man.
“You’ve got more ‘andcuffs in this ‘ouse than exist at any police station I’ve ever ‘ad the misfortune to enter,” the guy in the longcoat said. “I’m impressed.” He sounded like something out of Peaky Blinders, and his smile was the same species of friendly, like the actors who played Tommy Shelby’s boys on the show. He didn’t look like an actor, though. He looked like one of Tommy’s boys would really look, like the kind of hard man Danny had long aspired to be.
Danny didn’t say anything, and he avoided looking into the guy’s eyes.
The guy produced a pair of EMT shears from the pocket of his coat and snip-snip-snipped the air. He was wearing purple nitrile gloves. “Do you buy your safe sex gear ‘olesale?” he asked, still in the same friendly tone. “I only ask because we found boxes an’ boxes of gloves an’ rubbers in your ‘all closet. There were ‘alf a dozen pairs of these safety scissors in your bedroom, too.” He snipped the air again and waggled his eyebrows. “Warms my ‘eart, the degree of care you take with your partners.”
Beckett walked around from behind the chair and regarded Danny from above. At some point while Danny had been out cold, he’d changed into a thick red plaid wool flannel shirt. Outrage flowed into Danny from some hidden reservoir. “You better take that shirt off, asshole,” he said in a menacing voice, not caring that the missing incisor turned shirt into thirt, and asshole into athhole. “It was expensive, and it’s mine.”
“Well, you ruined mine,” Beckett said simply. He squatted down and grabbed the sides of Danny’s head so he couldn’t look away and stared into his eyes until Danny’s face twisted up with fear. “Getting shot hurts, Danny,” he said at last. “Even for me.” His snobby drawl had the edges of a low, angry growl, but Beckett didn’t seem like he was about to explode. Danny realized that even under the current circumstances, he still couldn’t imagine what the guy looked like when he lost his temper.
Beckett let go of Danny’s head and stood up. “Where’s Lisa?” he asked.
Danny looked over at the black guy—the little person, who was shaking one of his bottles rapidly, and then at the guy in the trench, who winked at him and snipped the air with the shears. “Are they gonna torture me?” he asked miserably.
Unexpectedly, Beckett smiled. He shook his head and chuckled to himself, like all of a sudden everything was okay.
“No,” he said.
The British guy came over and cut Danny’s tee shirt off him with the EMT shears, quickly and efficiently, like he’d done it before. The black little person handed the British guy the bottle. The British guy took it and held it out to Danny. “I want you to take a swig of this an’ swish it around real well, then spit it out, orright?” he said.
“What is it?” Danny squeaked.
“Industrial-strength antiseptic mouthwash,” the black little person said mildly. He had a low, pleasant baritone. “I put a little mint essence in there so it don’t taste too bad.”
“You’re lying,” Danny said, thickly, tears welling up in his eyes. “You’re gonna make me drink Drain-O or some shit.”
The British guy rolled his eyes and tipped a little liquid from the bottle into his own mouth so Danny could see. He worked it around in his mouth for a minute, spat it on the floor, and leaned over and breathed wetly in Danny’s face. “Minty,” he said. “See?”
Danny nodded fearfully. The guy smiled reassuringly and held the bottle up to Danny’s face. “There you go,” he said. “Swill that around, right?”
Danny gingerly did as he was told. It did taste like mouthwash, but mint-flavored peroxide rather than Listerine. He gargled and spat on the floor. “Why did you make me do that?” he asked nervously.
The British guy just smiled. He leaned forward and gently sponged the blood from below Danny’s nose with a moist towelette, working carefully so as not to hurt him, then sponged the tears from his cheeks.
Heath turned to the girl in the leathers. “Puddles?” he said.
The girl took off her motorcycle jacket and hung it from the coathook next to the door. Danny's mouth fell open—she was fucking breathtaking. Like, one of the hottest chicks he’d ever seen. He took in the tracery of fine scars up and down her arms, like she’d cut herself up with a razor, and the one thick keloid zipper scar that ran up the inside of her left forearm. He’d seen those before. It wasn't his specialty, but Danny was affiliated with suppliers who cultivated the really discerning customers, the ones who exclusively preferred obviously damaged goods. In that niche market, cutting scars and suicide attempts bumped the value of the goods up by twenty or thirty percent rather than representing a liability; Danny knew major players who would make a fucking prime hourly off her. His estimation of Beckett increased to the point of awe. He wondered what the man charged for a piece of that tight little package. He bet it was a lot.
The girl stretched luxuriously, so he could see her flat stomach under her bustier, flipped her braid over her shoulder, then came over and straddled him. She looped an arm around his neck and rested her other hand on his chest, rubbing his pectorals, and made a noise like “Mmm.” Just the way she made that noise had Danny breathing hard, even under the circumstances. She flashed him a dazzling smile. “The mouthwash was so I didn’t have to taste your breakfast,” she said softly.
She had an accent, Indian or Pakistani or something like that, but Danny didn’t have time to ask where she was from (or where she’d been all his life) before she pressed her lips to his and gently slipped her tongue into his mouth.
She must have had a sugar cube under her tongue; whatever it was laced with hit him like a slow-moving dump truck. It was like heroin and Molly blended with some kind of designer euphoric, and it sent his train of thought someplace blissfully slow and sticky. He felt like he was floating and flying and falling at the same time, and he never wanted it to end. He whimpered as she pulled back from the kiss.
The girl made eye contact with Beckett. “You need to ask him questions now, maithili,” she said, smiling gently up at Beckett as she began to rock her hips expertly. “He’s not going to be able to answer them for long.”
“I know,” Beckett said.
Danny didn’t understand the note in the man’s voice, or the look in his eyes, which was a curious blend of angry, pitying, and achingly sad, none of it directed at him. But Danny was past caring about Beckett. He groaned urgently; his erection was so hard it hurt.
“Danny, where’s Lisa Carver?” Beckett asked. He paused. “Pardon me. Where’s Ronnie?”
Danny sighed. “I dunno, man,” he said honestly. “I haven’t seen them since the night you came over. The cunt drove me to the dentist and they were gone when we got back. They took some clothes and some of their stuff, but not their phone.” He thought for a minute. “I just want to say I’m not mad at you anymore, Mr. Beckett,” he added politely. He smiled shyly. “Your girl’s so sexy.”
Beckett blinked a few times, then nodded seriously. “Yeah, her body’s a drug,” he said. He turned to the girl, who was unhurriedly rocking her hips in a rhythm that was driving Danny deliciously insane. “Make it permanent,” he said. “He doesn’t need to come down, ever.”
The girl smiled up at him. “They never do,” she said in her soft lilt. “Only you did.”
Beckett’s expression was unreadable. “Well, I’m me,” he said. He stepped back and nodded to the girl. “Go ahead and work up a sweat.”
The girl reached back and undid her braid. She shook out her hair, which went all the way down until it brushed the floor, and began to grind on Danny in earnest. It was heaven. He didn’t even mind that his hands were cuffed and he couldn’t show her his appreciation. She rubbed her cheek against his, then bent down to nuzzle his neck. Danny groaned and licked her collarbone. Her sweat tasted so good.
There was a tickle against his bare, shaved chest, then a pinchy feeling that made him jump. He jerked back from the girl’s embrace. It felt like something small and insistent had…bit him? He had had the house fumigated when they moved in, but had there been bedbugs on the chair he’d set up in the kitchen? He'd got it at the Salvation Army, after all. He hoped it was his imagination; the goddess in his lap shouldn’t sully herself with vermin.
There it was again! Danny couldn’t keep from yelping. Something had bit him!
This time it really hurt. And it felt like there was something crawling up his ankle and into his pant leg. And another something.
Oh, God, it was in his ear!
Danny began to thrash back and forth, frantically, desperately. Beckett and the British guy held the chair still so he didn’t fall. The girl licked his earlobe, lifted her head, and smiled at him.
“Are you okay, Danny?” she asked him, her hips keeping up the same slow, steady rhythm. She sounded amused. “Is something wrong?”
Danny screamed as a brood of earwigs dropped from her open mouth and landed on his bare chest. Their tiny legs tickled his neck as they scurried up toward his face. He stopped screaming and clenched his mouth shut tight, and one of the bugs ran into his nose while the others crawled into his ears. The girl laughed delightedly, and a huge millipede climbed out of her throat and tasted the air before falling from her tongue onto his leg.
She kept laughing, a gentle, pleasant sound like tinkling bells. A parade of fat Madagascar hissing cockroaches flowed from her mouth like liquid. Brown recluse spiders peeked out from behind her eye sockets and crawled onto her eyeballs, descending from silky strands of cobweb down onto his lap. Swarms of pale, flabby grubs with thick pincers scuttled up his body toward his face, into his nose, between his lips, through the gap in his teeth.
Danny screamed again, and this time he didn’t stop screaming. The bugs were already in his mouth, wriggling in his throat, stinging his tongue and feasting on the soft flesh of his palate and the insides of his cheeks.
Like…at that point, why not scream, right?
I'm not reading this, I'm *watching* it.
You've done it again man! This was just about as horrible as you promised! And it couldn't have happened to a better guy than our own Mr. Dandrew Date.
Danny does occasionally exhibit a surprising conscientious streak, though--respecting Ronnie's pronouns even in his internal monologue, and Heaven forbid he characterize Clorox with such a crude slur as "midget." He's a true believer in his own righteousness, you gotta give him that.