The Check-out Kid44 min read

Where I work there are plenty of people the customers never notice. People remember Jeannie at the switchboard or the salesmen, mainly. Or the juniors like me, or the boss. Still. I guess everyone knows there have to be cafeteria workers and custodians and secretaries in the pool to make it all happen, you know? Well, even though I know other places are the same way. I’d never given thought to all the guys behind scenes in the supermarket, the ones you never see because they’re not at the registers or in your way stocking shelves? Never before today, anyway. Never. Jesus. What I want to talk about. Amazing! And, you understand, weird. Anyway, I think, I call it very weird.

I always shop at the same supermarket, K’s. It’s big and clean and the produce is fresh and crisp with no little holes or brown edges, and the check out lines there never build up the way they do at S and S. And well neither the customers nor the help there are rude the way they’ve gotten at S and S the last couple of years. I mean, even in the parking lot the cars there tear around, wrong way and inconsiderate… and inside! Old biddies bussed in from Senior Citizens’ stand blocking all the aisles with their carts, blinking at nothing and mean as hell if you want to get by… Well but that’s not what I’m about today.

At K’s, over past the bakery section and just before the refrigerated juices right near the store-baked bread there’s a pair of big swinging doors for the staff, into loading and storage, the sort of doors everybody sees but nobody notices, not needing ever to use them—yeah, like the behind-scenes people! Sometimes big racks of food come wheeling out and then you watch not to be run down, but otherwise…

Today I looked up just as I was turning past those doors, I don’t really know why. Did he sort of whistle, the hissing way you do and no one hears you except the guy you mean? He’d know how. It was Sal—or Vince or Jamie or whatever; I’d looked at his ID badge once, but I couldn’t think, right then. It was him anyway, the kid with the relaxed sexy face, those eyes that must have been smiling since he was a little baby, but now the puffs underneath are dark because he’s Italian, and his hair is funny in that highschool which-ever-team style with the extra length in the back, short otherwise? One day last winter he was the check-out when I was short thirty-two cents, which I find embarrassing, and he looked at me when I said I had to void something, all mad, and asked me how much. When I told him he gave me the kid-fresh look and said forget it with his hand, and I’ve cared about him ever since, even knowing him straight and off-hand and maybe not real considerate and probably knowing not much about anything… He’s dark and tight-sprung and looks sex-smart and very clean, and he’s got that direct gaze shot from under the brows—and lately I’d noticed when he gave me change he’d press it right into my palm, not looking into my face… Yeah, I liked him.

So he was standing holding open one half of the swinging doors, and I looked up only I’m sure because he did something and then he beckoned to me. Yeah no shit he did! He stood there and his cute hand went up and he made for me to come over to him. Did I tell you his eyes under those black brows are green? Green! And the smile-things under his eyes shadowed dark, and his tough straight lips not making any googoo at me because his eyes were doing the job.

I went over, carrying my red plastic store basket, and I said “What?”

He said, “C’mere!” very softly and personally, his eyes direct at me, and his hand and fingers were still making the beckon. And like a fool I went right over, through those doors. As if he were irresistable, my one-time male! And I pushed through those doors not thinking if anyone might notice, and he backed up to give me room.

I said, “What?” again, and that was the last thing I got to say.

I’ve got a book I sent for, a collection of reprints on making bombs—guerilla warfare?—and attacking sentries and taking prisoners and all. It’s got great photos showing how to secure them after you get them. That’s why I got the book. Those pages are from an army instruction manual, and they teach our troops how to use three kinds of gag—one with two handkerchiefs, one with a stick (and a lump of turf, for Lord’s sake), and one with pieces of adhesive tape (they do recommend stuffing his mouth first with your handkerchief; you get the idea men in uniform don’t use Kleenex much). Construction for each kind is described in official, quite serious, goofy detail. The guy in the photos faces you, his eyes above each new gag looking patiently off to the side. He’s a soldier, and I guess he’s not supposed to mind having his face fooled around with.

It was an ambush. The doors swung closed behind me on those spring-type hinges, and somebody who must have been waiting right next to them grabbed me from behind—at the elbows, yanking them back so I dropped my basket of vegetables. But I wasn’t paying any attention to that because he was also dragging me into a dark corner of the store-room, and somebody else was there down by my left knee pulling me off balance while Mr. Back-of-me hooked around my right leg, hauling at it with his. Meanwhile my friend from the doorway was advancing on me real fast, in front. His intent eyes gleamed up from under those brows, and just the shiny edges of his teeth in a tight little smile. I saw that much, and he white cloth in his hand moving up quick, before everything got lumped together in crazed sensations of assault and my struggling and panic, so that I didn’t even hear much after the first few seconds when it was his voice murmuring for me to relax and let it happen…

His hand was clapped behind my head and neck and clenched there while he thrust and packed his soft, dry hankie into my startled open mouth. I gagged and tried to bite and howl, and he chuckled and tucked it all in neatly with his fingers. Then he let go and took another hankie from the guy down to my left, one all-ready, rolled and folded up, and he tied it around my head into my mouth.

And he even got another one, for God’s sake, from Mr. Behind-me, and used it to blindfold me. One more minute and they’d clicked metal cuffs on my wrists, in back. And then, as if they’d been holding their breaths, I heard them sigh and relax. Somebody slapped somebody on the back and a voice went Great! Good!

Me, I was having trouble enough breathing, and I was disgusted at being suddenly forced to mouth that soft wadded thing I couldn’t spit out. And I was smothering in their unfamiliar personal smells—it was like having my face jammed deep into their warm pockets. My mouth was stuffed with the kid’s stale nose rag, all compacted thick against my palate and tongue, and bound snug inside my muzzle… And then they pulled some kind of black hood or bag over my head and it got even harder to breathe, so hard I had to concentrate at it, and I let them lead me several steps, not knowing in which direction, not able either to hear anything. They made me step up over something as high as my knees and shoved me down into a squat, then into sitting on the floor, and they tied my legs together and made me lie down with my knees drawn up. Feeling sides with my shoulders and legs I realized I was in a trunk or crate without room to stretch out full length. And they were closing the lid! I could tell that, from the change in the air, and I called out to them to stop. Only what came through was just a muffled noise, and they didn’t pay any attention. The box was shut then, I felt that. I pictured how happy they’d be, dancing around and congratulating each other…

That army manual informs student soldiers that a gag will prevent a prisoner from crying out. Yes, sure. Of course no one bothers to tell them how the prisoner feels, besides unable to make big noises, about his saliva quickly soaking the cloth full wet so when he has to swallow he knows whatever he’s sure is inside the gag gets sucked down too, and how his jaws ache—up in the hinges by his ears, and how even the cloth strip bound over his face and around his head gets damp and irritates the skin around his lips. Well, and there’s also a nice picture on how to hog tie a man, with the happy comment printed alongside that if he struggles it’ll strangle him, but there’s nothing about his fright and the cramping and finally the dizzy, blind terror becoming a crazy obsession, crowding away all sense. It makes him wriggle and jerk and bang and roll side to side, and bang and bang! I kicked and stamped and used my knees and elbows and my head, chewing and snuffling…

And that’s when he was back, the boy, sitting me up and supporting me with his arm around my shoulders.

Not to comfort me, you know. “You better stop that, you hear me? Stop it!” He growled it, close to my head. “You want me to knock you cold? Or you want me to just hold your face like this until you smother unconscious… want that?” I was trying to pull my head away from his hand, trying to catch my breath, and I couldn’t. He was talking into my ear, explaining. “What this is about, so you know, is we’re kidnapping you! Yep. We’re gonna hold you for ransom!” He let go of my face at last. “You’re worth lots and lots of money. We know that. We checked. I followed you home and I saw the house and all… Now you’re gonna be good and keep quiet. OK? Remember!” And he laid me back down and closed the lid and then he was gone.

Insanity!! Me? What kind of checking could make them think there was money? And who’d pay a nickel ransom for me? But I didn’t laugh. I couldn’t even think. The handcuffs and the rope around my ankles were tight—not biting viciously, but they held me in pretty much one position the whole time, and I couldn’t help straining against them, and after a while I was aching everywhere and beginning to spasm painfully in my calves and the tendons behind my knees. My back just above my asscrack was stiff and sore. Even the blindfold pressed uncomfortably against my eyeballs…

Grate! Lurch, slide, lifted into a wavery ride seasick floating, and then after a minute thunk and thunk and jiggle. And I heard the slam of a metal door, maybe a car trunk, or a van door. And we drove away.

Every bump and jolt of the car slugged my back and sides and I slid and rolled helplessly on the rough wood, and I was holding my head up as best I could, moaning uncontrollably. I couldn’t tell how long or far we went, but I clenched frantically every moment of the ride, wailing for it to end.

But I was sure where we’d be then, and didn’t want to get there, either. These crazy kids would have invented a dungeon, some place abandoned and remote, and underground. I knew. Some dirt-hole all dank and cold, and when they pried me out of the box they would chain me there, up against the stone wall. I could see it, the uneven gray cobble-stones slick and shiny with moisture, and dim air damp and fetid with stagnation. I’d lean hard into the cold iron chains trying not to touch that wet wall, thinking of the ooze and the small alive things scuttling and crawling along the slimy crevices, venturing onto my clothes if I had any on, their multiple legs and jointed bellies fuzzy on my skin…

And what might these boys do to me there, to make me tell them how to get the money? Money I didn’t have! What crazy, medieval persuasions would they revive, as I howled into the wet darkness and then as they grew ever more fierce in their impatience and fear of being caught? And, when they finally realized they’d made a mistake, that all the risk had been for nothing, what would their angry panic make them do to me?

So when we stopped at last, and the box with me inside was dragged out and lugged and I braced against the empty motion especially when they stopped to rest and dropped it down suddenly. I kept waiting to feel cold damp as we descended to where the dungeon waited. But, then, we didn’t go down at all—it felt more like up a little instead, and they put the box down sooner than I’d expected.

Even through the blindfold and the hood I could see light when they took the lid off. “Wait’ll he sees this!” one of them said. The bag was yanked off, and hands passed behind my head and I could feel his warm breath as he leaned close, working on the knot. And then he snatched the handkerchief away—and as I blinked, behind the kid’s grinning face I saw my own kitchen ceiling!

He sat back, laughing, and I saw the other two faces, kids like him, all smiling happily at me, as if they’d planned the surprise to amuse me. He said, “Well, you didn’t think we could keep you at one of our houses, huh?” I struggled to try to sit up, mumbling and coughing into the sodden rag in my mouth, and I must have looked very sad because they stopped smiling and hauled me out of the box.

They leaned me against the counter since my legs didn’t hold me up standing alone. I looked at the box, a big packing crate for I don’t know what kind of produce or meat or packaged goods. With me inside it must have been heavy for them, and awkward. I thought of that, yes. Don’t ask me why.

“If you promise to keep quiet, we’ll take that gag out,” he said, his face serious. “And then we can go sit down and talk.” He reached up. “Promise?” I nodded, naturally, and he reached around for the knot. “Oh ugh,” he said when he fished out the wet lump. He plopped it onto the counter with the other two, his young mouth contracted.

“The laundry machine’s back there,” I told him. Funny the stupid things you say sometimes, but he picked the things up and went and dropped them in. I looked at the others. I didn’t recognize them from the store. Maybe not, anyway. I wasn’t sure. They were both his age, and sort of like him, not in features or coloring, but in being neatly lean built like minor-league athletes, maybe. That is, they looked eager and quick and nervy, and as if they smelled clean close up because they showered a lot and scrubbed their genitals good. One of them got down and untied my ankles, and when the green-eyed kid came back he unlocked the handcuffs. I wiggled my arms and legs and rubbed them and stamped around, trying to get the circulation back.

We sat down together in the parlor, as if they were my friends, and I tried to think how to deal with them, how to make them understand without getting them scared or angry or for God’s sake panicky. I said, finally, “You know, this house is it for me. I don’t have any cash reserves. At all. You know what I mean?” They looked at him. He was the leader I guess, the team captain. He smiled like one now, not at all believing what I’d said.

“I knew you’d try that.” He stated it quietly. And he folded his hands and waited. After a minute when I didn’t say anything more he flicked his eyebrows and gave a little sigh. “Don’t you realize we can make you tell us? I’m pretty sure nobody saw us bring you here, and we can take our time with you.” He stared earnestly at me, his eyes bright under the black brows. “You understand me?” he said. “We can do anything we want to you.”

I hung onto seeing them as young ballplayers. Sportsmanly.

So I said, “Yeah. Well, you won’t, you know. You’re all three clean-cut as shit.” I informed him of that. “None of you would even know what to do. And even if somebody told you what, you couldn’t. You’re nice guys.” I believed what I was saying. So I was astonished to see from checking their faces that I was probably absolutely wrong.

Their expressions hadn’t changed, alert and intelligent, but that was just it—what finally hit me was how unmarked by experience these faces were, how little of it they’d ever taken in, how unlikely their fresh features had been contorted in remorse or uncertainty, or even in reflection. That might come later, but I guessed that would be too late for me! I began to be cold afraid of them and their reckless innocence… But then I rushed past that thought, and I said to myself, yeah but look at them, they’re just a bunch of cute babies!

Having waited quite patiently, he explained things to me. “We’ve planned this very carefully. I told you that. I’ve watched you for months, and I’ve followed you here, and I’ve checked your daily movements… I know you very well. Now, you don’t know anything about us, at all. You’re all wrong about us being afraid to use tricks on you. And I really, seriously, advise you not to make us prove that to you.” He smiled his little-boy smile at me and shrugged. “Maybe yeah you’re right I haven’t done much of this stuff to anyone, yet. But I’m real interested in trying it. Believe me?”

“Let’s show him!” said the one with short-cropped red hair. He leaned forward, and I knew he wanted to put his hand down his crotch and rub, just thinking what he meant. I moved my eyes to the third, and he was grinning, too.

The captain ignored them but remarked to me, “You see how wrong you are about us being boy scouts? Now, let’s talk cash and transfer papers and powers-of-attorney, shall we?” When he followed my hidden glance at the front door he chuckled at me. “No, no, mister. You’d never make it. And I’d have to hurt you to teach you not to try it anymore. Slap you around? Yeah, I would!”

“Look,” I said.”I believe you now. OK? But you’re wrong. I’m sorry. I just don’t have what you think…”

He nodded. Not to me. To them.

Then I was on the floor, and they were ripping my pants down and I cried out and got a jolting slap and a calloused hand tight over my mouth. My bare legs were wrenched apart, and I was sat on, and I pushed and punched uselessly at a confusion of arms and bodies and legs holding me down.

“You can’t stop us, see? I can do anything to you. I can even touch you where you’d be ashamed. Like this? Feel it? Feel what my hand’s doing? I can make sick things happen…” He was jacking me! “I can keep it up. I can make you come! You can’t stop me! And if I do that you might as well be dead, you’ll want to die… cause you’ll never be able to want anybody but guys like me, ever again!” He rubbed me up and down, roughly, squeezing hard. “Shall I make you crazy? Make you queer? Want that?” He stopped pumping me. “Now,” he told his friend. “Let him talk,” and the hand moved off my face. “I can’t think of anything much worse happening, can you?” he asked me, eyes wide in question.

I breathed.

“I can,” the redhead whispered. “We can fuck him. One after the other. And then we can cut off his balls.” He looked at me, his eyes bulged.

“No,” murmured the quiet one, the third. “Not just that. First we’ll beat him on his balls and pound on them and twist at them…” His breathing was harsh, and I craned back to look at his fevered gaze and at the light on his sharp teeth. He noticed me looking and grinned. “That would really hurt,” he told me.

“Let me up. Please,” I said to the check-out kid. “I won’t try to get away.” He nodded and waved them back and we all sat down again, me with no pants on. I said, trying to keep my voice quiet and calm. “You guys are very young. You don’t know what’s going on, really. The way you’re talking, what you really want to do to me…”

“Shut up and talk sense,” the boy said, his eyes narrow and mean with understanding. “First of all, tell us where you keep your check-book. And bank books. Do that and nobody’s gonna hurt you. Just tell us where.”

“Look. Why don’t you just fuck me and go awa—”

He strode over and slammed an open hand across my face, his jaw gritted tight and his mouth twisted. “I’m not calling you any names, hear. Yeah. I could feel what that was you were doing in my hand. Forget about that and just talk!”

My mouth was dry with fear. I looked past his face at the others. They looked wary, not like they wanted him to stop, just they weren’t sure what he planned next. And he said, “The bedroom must be down there. Let’s take him in and work him over.”

They dragged me down the hall and threw me across my bed. I said, “Please don’t…” and one of them said, “Oh my, please don’t please!” in a whiny sissy voice.

The check-out kid climbed on top of me and sat on my belly, facing away. I looked at his trim jeans-ass, feeling rough denim and the wedge-weight of his lean solid rear.

This time his hand shoved my cock aside and he grabbed my scrotum. Taking a quick half-twist to trap the balls, he closed down on it, hard. “See if this convinces you,” he muttered, and he squeezed my nuts once-twice-three times in a sharp percussive rhythm. I opened my mouth, gasping and then beginning to howl, and the redhead stuffed it full with a faceful of my own tee-shirt and then mashed me shut with the rest dangling out. I gawped. And the kid twisted and kneaded at my testicles, grunting with the emphasis. And I writhed and screamed, and I could hear someone laughing overhead at the noises I was making… “Look at the way he’s crying!” the laugher chortled. “‘And I think I heard him fart! You’d better watch out he doesn’t shit…”

“Oh shut up!” He let go and shifted himself all the way around to look at me, and he reached over and pulled the tee-shirt out of my mouth. I couldn’t stop yelling and retching, and he put a hand over my face. But he did it gently, and his face came down closer. When I could focus I saw his eyes there, serious and big.

The two holding me down were still exchanging snickers and he said again, “Shut the fuck up!” He stroked the side of my face, now that I was just moaning and sobbing.

He said quietly, “You’ll be OK. Just breathe deep. Try. That’s right. Easy.” He glared at the redhead. “You guys are really rotten, laughing like that. That hurts terrible. You know?” Then he leaned down next to my ear and whispered. “You won’t believe this, but you’ve got one hell of a big hard-on now. It was even getting in my way back then…”

I stared into his eyes.

“Hey! Make him tell about the money. Aren’t you gonna make him tell?” He glanced up and said Of course I am. Give the guy a second, huh?

He was squatting lightly on my stomach and he pushed himself up straight with his hands on my shoulders. “I am gonna make you talk, you know,” he said to me. “I’ve studied up on how to torture a guy. You’ll be a crippled mess if you don’t believe me.” He slid his hands onto my chest and let his fingers rest there, the edges of his thumbs sawing absently on my nipples. After a while he said, “You’re breathing pretty normal again. Now, you wanta tell us where things are?”

“Shit!” the quiet one said then. He shoved roughly at the kid. “Lemme in there. I’ll beat it out of him!” I held the kid’s eyes, gazing at him desperately. He said, ”You know I’ll have to let him try that. Get up and show us now.”

And I struggled onto my feet and led them into the study and got out the check book. He grabbed it and flipped to the balance entry, then turned to me looking puzzled.

“I told you,” I said wearily. “And that envelope has all the cash I’ve got in the house. Look in there.” I sat down and watched him count it out. He turned to me with an ugly look of suspicion.

“I’m not gonna fool around anymore,” he said. “We’ve taken a big chance snatching you, and it’s not gonna be for nothing. Hear me?” He stamped over and squatted to bring his face level with mine. “You wanta live through this or not? It makes no difference to us.” Looking at his face with all the youth drawn out of it, I lay back, tired and hopeless.

“You think I’m a fool,” I said to him. “You think just because I’m scared I’ll believe you just want money and this’ll be all over. I’m not stupid. I know you’re gonna kill me in the end. It won’t matter what you find out or if you keep thinking I’ve got money.”

He stared at me. “But we will let you go! Honest!”

“You can’t. I knew that as soon as you took off the blindfold. Even before. From the beginning, because I could recognize you, and identify you. You’ve got no choice.” I glanced at the others, then back to him. I felt tired to death and sick and ashamed. “Why don’t you just do it, then?”

“We never thought of that at all! I never expected… You could come with us! We’d spend it on a really big time, and you’d get to like us. We’d be your friends! It would just be like a gift, and fun together…” He looked confused and lost and frightened.

“Bullshit!” the quiet one said. “Maybe you didn’t think of it but I sure as hell did!” Looking at his shining face, I saw the expression of a lunging wolf expanding his eyes and his tightly stretched mouth, “It’s easy! Now I see you’re so scared, just listen! When we’ve got what we want, we just put him back in the box, tied up good. You won’t even have to touch him, you baby. I’ll do it. Then we’ll put him out in those woods back there, way in where it’s mucky near the river. Even if he doesn’t keep quiet nobody’ll hear him. And in a few days he’ll be all done. And no one will find him. Ever.” He grinned. “See?” Before I turned my eyes away from him he nodded at me in a friendly way. “You’ll just rest there in peace, buddy man.”

“God!” the redhead muttered. “You’re a fucking crazy. Look at your face!” He stood facing the wolf. “You’d just let him wait out there, and die from starvation or something? A few days? God! And you were planning that all along when we just thought…”

“For Crissake! OK!” said the wolf impatiently. “Then we’ll just stick a plastic bag over his head, cinched up snug, and it won’t take so long. He’ll go real fast. That satisfy you?”

The kid wasn’t listening to them anymore. He took me by the arm and led me out into the hall and back to the kitchen. The big box was still sitting there and he kicked at it idly. He turned to face me and put his hands on my upper arms and stood close as if what was happening to us was without his thinking at all.

“Pick up that telephone there and call the police,” he said. I stood motionless. “Just do it. Hurry. They’ll be out here in a minute, and I’m not sure I can control things.”

I just put my hands on his waist, at the sides. I was still feeling so very tired—it wasn’t because I wanted to hug him or anything. I just did it. I said, “No. I’m not turning you in, not as if you’re like him or the other one either.”

“It was my idea. I planned it. I was the one who followed you home, and I talked them into the snatch.”

“I know.”

“I called you into the back room. I gagged you while they were holding you.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry now,” he said, “It was a dumb, kid idea.” Then he glanced behind me. “God. They’re here. It’s too late.”

“You guys making out or what?” one of them asked. He hooked his forearm slung across my throat and yanked, I couldn’t see which guy. “Listen. He’s gotta have other bank accounts. And we can make him sign those papers. Twist his nuts again and make him cooperate.” When the kid did nothing he raised his voice. “Do that! We’ve gone too far to stop now!”

“Forget the nuts.” I knew which one was talking now. “I’m onna gouge out one of his eyes. That’ll make him understand we’re serious. Here. Get out of the way.”

With a furious, disgusted grunt the kid threw himself at him and slammed him against the wall as the wolf struggled, crying Wimp! Faggot! And the kid kept beating him against the wall, knocking his head so violently the framed print came crashing down. He said between his clenched teeth, “You calling me names you sicko? You think you can mangle him and we’ll just stand by… and then you’d murder him! You should be the one ending up in the box out there. You should! You want that? Do you, you dumb bastard?” There was blood on the wallpaper now. “Gouging his eyes out, you… Well I wouldn’t touch yours, cause I wouldn’t dirty my hands… and I’d want you to see what’s happening while we lugged you out there. I’d wanta watch your face when we’re closing the box on you!”

“Hey, stop. Stop it!” the redhead was calling, trying to pull them apart. He glanced worriedly at me, but I was so drained I wasn’t even thinking of getting away. I just watched the three of them struggling as if they were in a play, not even one with me in it.

But finally I walked over and put my hand on the kid’s shoulder. “Stop.”

He let the boy slide down the wall and sit thump against the baseboard. He said to me, ’Call the police.”

“No. Come with me and I’ll show you the other checkbook. Will a thousand be enough to keep them off you?” The redhead stared at us, his mouth slack.

“Forget it. We’ll take the truck back to the store and hope nobody noticed.” He told the quiet one, “You get up.”

“He said a thousand!” the redhead cried, but the kid just looked at him and he shut his mouth.

At the door the kid stopped and looked at me. I said, “Will you come back?”

He shook his head. “I’m not gay.”

When they were gone I took a shower and put the print back on the wall and scrubbed the blood marks off the wallpaper. Then I managed to lug the wooden box down into the cellar, wondering why I even wanted to keep it.

But I was still dull tired, sad and confused. I wasn’t feeling lucky to have survived, and I wasn’t angry, not willing to call the police, not even afraid any one of them might return. The few bruises I could see weren’t enough to put medicine on. I doubted they would leave any lasting marks.

Then, strangely, I wasn’t surprised when I heard the door open and the footsteps, and then saw him standing there looking at me. I guess maybe we both smiled.

“I’m not, you know.”

“I know.” I got up and went to him. “Is that what you came back to say?” I put my hands on his shoulders and felt his hook onto my belt, in back. But I heard the washing-machine click stop, and I let him go. “I forgot. Come here while I put them in the dryer. Afterwards you can pick out yours.” He watched me put the collection of hankies in the dryer. “You can take them theirs when you go back to work.”

He said, “You’re a nut,” and I said, look who’s talking. But when the buzzer went off he took his out and stretched at it a couple of times, studying it interestedly. “I gotta admit I enjoyed putting this in your mouth. Doing that made me hard.” He looked up at me shyly.

“Yeah. And you said I got hard when you were squeezing at me down there. Funny?”

We went back and sat down in the living room. He said, “You didn’t call the cops. Did you.” I said what the hell for?

Then I asked, “Did you really enjoy wrenching at my balls? Did you get hard then too?” He scowled and looked away. I said, “Hey, this is me asking. You know I like you.” He turned away, muttering why do you have to ask that.

Then he said, “Yes! Yes, I did. I also liked hearing you try to scream with the gag in your face.” He glared at me. “So, what’s wrong with us, you and me? Are we sicko like my friend Reg?”

“He’s the eye-gouger, right? No, we aren’t,” I said. “He’s gonna always be different. He’s a pig. I’m sorry, but I think you know that. You wouldn’t have gotten any erection sticking fingers in my eyes. Pulling in the gag and listening to the funny noises doesn’t mean you wanted to do anything like that. You weren’t gonna rip my nuts off, either, not really.”

“No,” he said. “But I was hurting you. You were crying.”

He was looking down at the floor, knees apart, his hands laced together above the space, and I traced the smooth shape of his hair with my eyes.

“Tell me about that torture stuff you looked up.”

He raised his face, looking angry and he muttered, “I don’t want to. It was just shit I read. I didn’t mean I could really do it.” But he was remembering, and I saw the bulge in his pants as his penis hardened. I smiled at him. His face was flushed, and after a minute he took the wrinkled hanky and wiped at his nose and chin He stuffed it in his back pocket hurriedly, shy again.

“Some of it was awful.” he said softly, his face averted. “One thing was to take a guy’s finger and slit the skin and meat and peel everything down slowly, like a banana, making him watch it happen. Or they’d cut his whole finger off, one knuckle after another. Those things were for getting information out of him when no one would ever see the prisoner alive afterwards, so nothing mattered. There were lots of mutilations. Terrible things.”

I wailed.

“But they had other things, though, things to do that wouldn’t leave wounds or marks but that would hurt like crazy… “ He looked up at me. “Things to do to a guy’s genitals. They were terrible too.” Now his eyes were eager, almost pleading. “They said you could even slick a needle right up into his nut!”

“Um,” I said. The boy leaned his face toward me, searching mine for any sign of disgust. I looked at his clean hair and mouth and his unmarked skin, and at the clear whites of his eyes. I went over and sat on the floor by his legs and put one hand on his knee. He didn’t flinch, and leaned my face there and sniffed at the clean boy-smell of his pants-leg. I turned my head to glance at the fullness up behind his fly. He was very bumpy.

“You’re looking at how it makes me feel, thinking about it,” he said. “I do feel sexy about it, yeah. And yet I’d never want to hurt a girl down there like that, you know?” He put his hand on my head and rubbed lightly. “I guess that makes me queer after all. You think so?” I was afraid to look at his face.

I said, “Um.”

He sighed, not in a very worried way.

“Would you want me to torture you a little? Now?” I did check then, and he was looking at me with the wide eyes of an angel.

“Aren’t you supposed to be back at work?”

“Or do you want to torture me? I think I can take it. I owe you…” His face was blazing with embarrassment, but he was stubbornly determined now to say these things.

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll turn you into a gay? Remember?”

He grinned, still blushing hard. “I should never have said that, right? I’ve got it figured now. It doesn’t matter.”

“That’s right. It doesn’t matter,” I told him, and I put my hand between his legs.

He jumped, and his eyes stared darkly at me, a startled young dog’s. When I laughed he relaxed and leaned into my hand a little. But his voice was unsteady as he asked, “Now, what’re you gonna do to me?”

I thought. “I dunno… Hm. Yeah. I guess I’ll force-milk you. Ever had that done?” He shook his head, not even sure what I meant. I said, “Well, as long as you say you can take it… “ He jutted his jaw at me.

We went into the bedroom, my arm around his shoulders, and I helped him undress. Just as I’d known he would be, he was clean, and smelled like a freshly washed baby. Well, no. Not that. I could smell he had fully-grown genitalia. I could see that, too. His penis was still heavy from his memories, scrotum pulled up against him. But I didn’t stare.

“I guess you mean you’re gonna jack me off.”

“That’s not it exactly, you know. It’s forcing you to come, even when you don’t much want to. Like you said when I was on the floor?”

“Oh.” He didn’t see. “Why wouldn’t I want to come? I like that.” He looked down at himself. “OK. Shall I lie down?*

“What did you do with those handcuffs?” I secured his wrists behind his back. He’d have been more comfortable with them behind his neck, but I didn’t want him fighting me off. I licked his nipples and nibbled at them until his breathing grew harsh and he mumbled Please and I could feel him rolling his head from side to side. That’s when I chomped down on one of them and he yelped in pained surprise. “Yeah. You can really take it,” I smiled into his chest. I look his two friends’ laundered snot rags and outfitted him with a standard army handkerchief gag. He eyes above it even looked then like the soldier-model’s, patient and a little worried.

I knelt on the bed between his legs, and deliberately let my face harden as I leaned over him, cold and hostile. I remarked, “If I were you I’d be pretty scared now.” and his eyes widened a little. “Aren’t you? You should be. Remember the things you guys did to me? I’m remembering them.” I dropped my hands onto his belly and made fists and drove them slowly deep into the soft flesh. He grunted, staring up at me. His lips moved under the stretched cloth but he was being tough and silent. His erection was collapsing, though, and I flicked his limp cock up and grinned at it. I said, “I notice you don’t like to come anymore. You want out of here, right? Things are getting too real now? Well, too bad. You’re staying and I’m gonna milk you dry, and I’m not gonna care if you fight it or cry or anything.” I let my mouth stretch and bare my teeth. Then I punched him again in the gut, just a little too hard, and he tried to curl and his eyes were wet as I grabbed his penis and yanked on it and rubbed it brutally up and down. Of course it wouldn’t sprout, and it wasn’t very solid anymore, either. He squinted.

“We’ve gotta get some blood up in there,” I muttered, squeezing and pushing up on the shaft, tight enough so he got purple above my hand and the skin shone all stretched and tight on his pointy tip. I pinched his balls with my other hand, and laughed at his angry expression.

Suddenly he reared up, kicking at me and trying to roll away, and we wrestled for a minute, breathing hard, until I had him pinned. By then he was erect again, and when I looked into his face there was just a hint of awareness before my sneer got him mad-worried again. He was laboring for air through the white army gag, so I pinched his flaring nostrils shut for a second just to enjoy handling his short, beautifully modelled nose, with him glaring at me helplessly. His penis was rock-hard. Trying to snarl nasty, I rubbed it as roughly as I could without damaging him, and in just a few seconds he was wriggling and bucking and then he spurted up at me, his pelvis jerking up off the bed, his wet shiny semen spasming out.

“Once,” I commented, checking his dazed face as he lay there panting. I got a hand-towel and wiped my hands and then his belly and cock. “I hope you didn’t think we were through, did you?” I took hold of his penis again and began to rub it. “And you really do like shooting a lot?” It was still hard, but he shook his head and mumbled at me, uncomfortable and shocked. I laughed at him and stroked it rhythmically as he scowled up and moaned for me to stop. It took us longer this time, and he lay still for a while watching my hand, but then he heaved up and spat his white stuff again, breathing noisy and uneven.

“That’s twice,” I said, using the towel on him again. He flinched resentfully as the rough terry rubbed over his tender cockhead.

“Only twice,” I repeated softly, avoiding his eyes.

When I took hold again he yelped and twisted away from my hand, and I had trouble holding him down even with my knees. So I slid myself lower along his front and leaned on him with my elbows and sucked in his penis, drawing the end down into my throat. And I licked and breathed hotly along the hard rubbery length until I felt him relax under my arms. After a minute or two he got the idea again and began to flex his cock eagerly, so I sat up and grabbed it nice and gently. Still, this time, even with his cock rigid and strong and him finally thrusting it frantically into my hand, he got out only two or three thick, pearly blobs. I wiped him off and ungagged him, and got the cuffs off his wrists.

I stretched out by him and he sank into me and we lay there, me holding him against my chest hearing him panting and sighing, his blank eyes staring into space. “But I read where it should be possible to get five times out of a guy,” I complained. “Especially a young stud like you. At least five.” He shuddered and dug closer into my arms.

After a few minutes, though, he perked up and leaned his head away to smile at me. He brought it back close and rubbed his mouth over my face, his dark green eyes alive again, crinkled and happy. I stroked my hands along his bare arms. “You aren’t feeling cold are you?”

“No! Why don’t you take your clothes off, too?” He sat up and began unbuttoning me. He could tell how good that felt, and he moved his hands around, shoving and pulling, and I lay still or sat up or stood to help him do the work. Eyeing my smallish sausage, he remarked, “I’ll bet I could make you come five times, easy.” He put a warm hand around my penis. God, that was nice. “I’ll bet I could make you come ten times!” He laughed softly. “Boy, would you ever be sore then!””

I said, “Hey, were you scared at all? I tried to be scary.”

“Yep. You were.”

“I think that’s supposed to be part of it.”

“Weren’t you scared when we put you in the box?”

“Certainly. I was shitless.”

“But you weren’t hard when we took you out. I looked.”

“That was because the others were there. If it was just you I’d have been dripping.” I said it into his face, into his mouth. He sat up slowly, still holding my cock.

“You want me to get you all blindfolded and everything again? This time it’s just me.”

“Sure. Yeah,” I said. “And then why don’t you rape me? I think I’d like that happening to me with my face all tied up. Helpless. You know?”

“You mean I should fuck you?” He looked at me. “I’ve never done that kind of stuff, before…” His face was doubtful.

“Well, you’ve fucked. I’m sure of that.”

“Yeah, with…”

“Right. Well, this is the same action. OK?”

“It isn’t,” he said. “It’ll hurt! I know. I once tried to slick a finger up myself to see whai it felt like…”

“Maybe I wouldn’t mind being hurt… “ But he was frowning now, and I felt him twitch as if he might move away.

His fingers were looser on my thing. He said, “You know, it doesn’t make sense. You know?”

“What doesn’t?” I looked at him, innocently I think.

“That place is for things to come out of, you know? Not for shoving things into…”

“And it’s dirty, right?”

“That’s not it! That doesn’t bother me.” He looked at me impatiently. “It’s just backwards, that’s all.”

“Well we don’t have to do it,” I said quietly. “Let’s get up and I’ll fix us something to eat. As long as you’re not going back to work.”

I sat up. He grabbed my arm. “You’re mad at me.” I shook my head. “You’re disappointed.”

“No! Hey, you warned me, remember?”

“I hate this,” he said, miserably.

I lay back down and pulled him over. “Stop it. Stop feeling like that. It’s me, not you. I’m just feeling funny.”

“Funny?”

“Just gimme a minute,” I said, letting go of him. “I know what to do. I have to focus and wake up… Don’t ask me any questions yet. I’m working on it. I just have to understand that you’re somebody else, a real person else. Once I can do that I’ll be fine and there won’t be anything to feel bad about. Gimme a second more… OK? Yeah, I think I’m OK now.” I looked at him and lay on my back next to him. I stared at the ceiling. I guess I really did say I that many times.

“Good,” he said. “And now what about me?”

“You should do the same thing. Cool down my way. Think how different I am from you… “ And I didn’t notice the expression on his face. I said, “Maybe you should tell me what you think I am. You know?”

“Well—”

Hearing myself too late, I said, “No, stop. Don’t tell me. Please don’t. I’m afraid to hear it. I am, really!”

“How is it you think I can’t see that?” he asked, propped up on his elbow to look at me.

I guess I’m not good at realizing other people have sensitivities too, until it’s shoved into my face. Then it’s a kind of shock. I searched his eyes nervously. He didn’t seem angry, not the way I would have been. Me, I tend to get very upset when anyone underestimates me.

Instead, he look me closely into his arms. Keeping his voice soft and even, he said, “To me you’re just an old man, an old homosexual.” I struggled angrily and he just held me closer, firmly, tightly. He said gently, “Now you’ve heard me say that, and you’re still alive, aren’t you. And I’m holding you and we’re warm and together.” His face swung around close in front, and his green eyes were almost against mine. “I’ll say more. Maybe later I won’t like remembering today. Maybe I won’t ever want to see you or come back here.” His hands held my shoulder blades, his fingertips gripping into them. “But maybe not. We can’t know all that.”

“So,” I thought, or maybe even said, “You won’t hurt my eyeballs or my asshole. You’re just after my life instead.”

He gave me a crooked smile. “At my age,” he said. “Asking somebody to fall in love isn’t considered that sadistic.”

I’d thought he was a dumb youngster, maybe still in highschool. A cute animal with body urges to check out. Nothing much more.

I’ve changed my mind.