Work Text:
I am young when it happens, knee-deep in the trenches of early adolescence.
The muted, lingering warmth of summer in its death throes hangs heavy over my shoulders as a childhood friend whose name I’ve long forgotten covers his eyes and starts counting, and the rest of us scatter through the woods like cockroaches when the lights come on. I run, ducking under low-lying branches and catching myself on all manner of thorn bushes, losing my footing on a hill of tangled grass and wildflowers and tumble all the way down.
At the bottom, I find her.
She’s wearing a sundress the same color as a robin’s egg, pale blue and speckled with dirt. She’s barefoot, lying face-down in the grass, her hair long and beautiful, splayed around her head like a shroud to preserve her dignity.
I have never seen a dead body before, but there is something about her that makes me feel strange, and I realize that what I am looking at is unique and special.
“Hey,” I say, sort of whispering it under my breath. I hear my friends up above and far away, twigs snapping under their sneakers. “Hey.”
She doesn’t move, not even a little like when someone sleeps so peacefully they could be mistaken for dead by those who don’t know what to look for.
There is no mistaking the real thing.
“Hey,” I whisper again, but it’s friendlier this time, more of a greeting than a call for attention. I don’t know why I say it, but I feel like I should. I feel like she appreciates that. I kneel beside her and notice all of the flies swarming her, skittering up her arms and over her back, mating on her skin. There are ants in her hair and they crawl over my hands when I gently turn her over.
The memory becomes a dream and the dream becomes a fantasy, one that replays itself in my mind’s eye every night for the rest of my life.
*
The chair hits the floor and I wake up frightened, disoriented, and screaming, unable to twist and catch myself with my hands. A shockwave of pain travels from the back of my head through my entire body and my vision blurs.
“You awake yet, buddy?”
It all comes back to me, quick and merciless, and I feel like vomiting.
“I let you sleep in a little bit,” Strade says, looming over me with something in his hands. I don’t get a good look at whatever it is, eyelids fluttering as my head throbs, but I don’t see a metallic glint.
That doesn’t really mean anything, though. I know he’s creative.
“Bet you’re hungry by now.”
Something clinks softly against the concrete floor—a plate or a glass—and I crane my neck in curiosity, trying to see what he brought. He moves to block my view, leaning down so his stupid smile takes up my entire field of vision.
“Not so fast,” he chides. “We’ve got some important things to talk about first.”
“Like what?” I ask, startled by the hoarseness of my own voice. I sound almost as bad as I feel.
“Well, for example,” he begins, ducking out of my line of sight briefly, and my entire body tenses in terrified anticipation when I feel his hands on mine, sliding over my wrist. I realize he’s untying the leather straps, which brings more confusion than relief. “We need to decide what to do with you.”
“We?” I echo. When my legs are free, he moves away, but I remain glued to the chair as though in fear of retaliation for breaking some unspoken rule.
(I’m not afraid of that, though, because I know his rules by now. I know him better than he thinks I do. Better than he wants to believe.)
“Of course,” he says pleasantly. “This isn’t the sort of decision I can make alone, you know. I need you to participate.”
“What if I don’t want to participate?”
He shakes his head and laughs quietly. I see the slightest twitch of irritation at the corner of his mouth.
(He thinks I should know better, and I do.)
He grabs my wrist, blunt fingernails digging into my skin. It feels like he’s considering tearing open a vein and watching me bleed out on the floor.
(But he will stop himself because he has plans. I know he does.)
“You will participate,” he says, yanking me upright out of the chair. I’m unsteady, light-headed from the hit to the back of the head and sitting up so suddenly, and when he lets go, I collapse onto my stomach. My face burns with shame when I hear him laughing, his boot pressing into my back. “You have no choice.”
(When he hurts me, I will scream. He knows that.
It’s only when someone stops giving any reaction that they truly lose all value.)
“First things first, though,” he says, and I feel just the slightest pinprick of cold steel on my skin as he presses the knife against the top of my spine and slowly drags it down, slicing off my shirt. “I brought you a little snack, but you’re gonna have to prove to me that you deserve it.”
I turn my head to the side, pressing my cheek against the cold floor, and it feels nice. I feel overheated, feverish, even. I wonder if I’m coming down with something. My gaze flicks up to the array of blades and saws hung on the wall, most of which I recognize as items that rotated in and out of the discount bin at the store.
“What do I have to do?” I ask, and I wonder if I sound as resigned to him as I do to my own ears, flat and despondent and hopeless.
He chuckles. The serrated edge of the knife bites into me as he cuts away the rest of my shirt and moves on to my pants, carelessly (or carefully) slicing a little too far and making me hiss in pain. “You have to show me you can be good,” he says, enunciating as though I’m a child who might misunderstand if he speaks too quickly. “This is important. If you’re very good, you might even get to live.”
I fight the terrified shiver trying to give away my fear. “I hope so,” I tell him, “because my coworkers are going to start wondering if I suddenly stop showing up.”
Strade removes his boot and grabs my shoulder, forcing me to turn over and look at him in nothing but my underwear. I can’t meet his gaze, but I can tell he’s smiling. I feel his eyes moving over my body. “Oh, you’re not going back to work,” he says. “You might tell someone what you’ve seen down here.”
“I haven’t before,” I insist.
He sits down and straddles my legs, flashing the knife where I can see it. I take in every detail, every curve and sharp angle, and I think I already know what it’s going to feel like. “Things have changed, though,” he says, and his smile falls, “haven’t they?”
I can’t claim that what I see on his face is sadness. Maybe disappointment would even be too strong a word. But there is something there that is hesitant about this, that is still having doubts that this is in his best interest.
I reach up, touching a hand to his forearm and feel his muscles tense beneath my fingers. “They don’t have to change,” I say. Maybe I even mean it, if only in a childishly optimistic way.
Strade beams, a smile even brighter than what I woke to. He takes my hand, fingertips tickling my palm in a frighteningly intimate gesture.
Then he grips my wrist to hold it steady. “You made such a fuss about your hands yesterday,” he say. “It was a little annoying.” I’m already shaking. I know he can tell, because his smile widens. “I’m going to hurt them again, and this time, you aren’t going to complain. You can scream, of course, but don’t tell me to stop.”
I’m breathing heavily, struggling to get enough air as panic sets in, but I can’t panic now, I can’t.
(I look again, briefly, just past Strade’s head and at his wall of bloody and misused home improvement tools, knowing that it’s still too soon and I’m still too weak and he’s still too focused.
I have to play the game.)
“Can you do that for me, buddy?” he asks. “And don’t just say yes because you think I want to hear it. Tell me honestly.” He drops the lighthearted tone for a much more frighteningly serious one. I’m struck by the irrational thought that maybe he doesn’t want me to fail.
“I-I can,” I say, my voice lacking any certainty or conviction, but he gives me the smile that I once thought was reserved only for strangers
(though really that’s not the case. He looks happy because he is, whether from pleasant conversation or ripping out someone’s fingernails).
“Alright,” he says, voice low, a faint blush creeping to his face. “Then let’s get started.”
*
She’s motionless like a doll with no will of her own. Her head lolls back when I hold her in my arms, and a clump of maggots falls from her open mouth, glistening in the fiery light of early sunset. Her eyes are gray and sunken into her head, and there are things living beneath her eyelids, writhing and bulging underneath.
For some reason, her lips stand out to me. Maybe because they’re vaguely reminiscent of a living person’s, just a bit pale, cracked and bloody but otherwise intact. I’ve never really thought about kissing someone before, but now…
Now….
(What would have happened if my friends came running then, tripping over tree roots and rolling down the hill, stumbling onto this moment? What would they have said or done?)
I hold the back of her head,
(gently, now, gently, because strands of her hair catch on my fingers and I pull them out by mistake; I tell her I’m sorry)
I stroke her cold hands,
(dirt and blood caked under her fingernails. Who were you, my dear, before you were this? How did you come into my arms?)
I hold her, closely, and the stench of decay fills my nose,
(sharp, acrid, sickly-sweet, bloated roadkill and fly-covered fish, cloying and musky and intoxicating)
and I press my lips to hers—
*
Strade plunges the knife through my hand, slicing flesh and muscle, grinding against bone, straight through the top and out through the palm, and my entire arm seizes up in his grasp as I scream and struggle to pull away, and that only drags the blade further through my hand, making the wound wider.
I choke on profanities and clutch at my forearm, unable to even make out Strade’s face through my blurred vision, eyes burning with tears.
“It’s hard, isn’t it?” Strade coos. “I can tell you’re struggling. You want to beg me to stop. But you’re being so good right now.” He lets go of my wrist and touches my face, cupping my cheek and urging me to look at him.
He turns his hand, twisting the knife.
I wonder if he’ll kill me if I pass out.
“You remember how I said I wanted a dog?” he says with a wistful sigh.
I wonder what he’ll do with my body, if he’ll throw me in the trunk and take me out into the country where the wildflowers are growing on the bones of everyone who’s come before me.
“Something attentive,” and his face is red now, his eyes are half-lidded and glazed over and his thumb is rubbing my lower lip, “and obedient.”
(I wonder if he’ll bury me beside her.)
He’s tugging the knife out of my hand now, slowly easing it back through the hole he made, but his jerky movements still make it catch on my skin on the way out. Strade lifts the knife in front of my face, showing me my own blood and flesh coating the blade.
“Let me see the old you,” he says, “the real you. I know you’re in there. I know you’re afraid. That’s okay.” He cups my chin and forces me to open my mouth, and I freeze when the gore-covered knife slides in, resting on my tongue. “Lick it clean. Show me how good you are.”
*
I hear my friends calling my name.
I hear them running the wrong way.
I close my eyes and I pretend I don’t hear a thing.
*
“Go on,” Strade urges, getting impatient.
I shiver and run my tongue carefully along the underside of the blade, smoothing over the grooves.
“Yes,” he hisses, grinding down onto me, the knife shifting as his fingers begin to tremble. “That’s very good.”
The taste is heady and overwhelming, a mouthful of copper and skin, and I try not to choke when something stringy and sinewy slides down my throat, I tell myself it’ll be over soon.
*
Her lips are unbelievably soft.
It doesn’t seem real.
How could anything be this soft?
My mouth molds perfectly over hers. There’s the slightest give as they press back against her skull
(I think she is playing hard to get).
and I’m surprised by how nice she tastes, her mouth cool and sweet. I wonder if I’m dreaming, but the fly larvae that squirm against my tongue tell me this is real.
When I pull away, we are connected by a thin string of cloudy saliva, maggots falling from her lips and mine.
*
The knife shifts, slicing up the inside of my mouth, and I choke on a sob as the taste of blood grows even stronger. Strade’s brows knit together in a mockery of concern.
“Oh, buddy, you were doing so good,” he says, shaking his head. “But then you had to go and get distracted. You can’t clean it when you’re bleeding all over it, can you?”
The serrated edge of the knife runs along my tongue and I gasp, certain he’s going to cut it in half, but he slowly removes it. I rub at my sore jaw and move my tongue over the gushing cuts on the inside of my mouth that sting and throb at the contact.
Strade drops the knife, reaching down to unbuckle his pants, and dread washes over me.
“I bet you were fantasizing about something else,” he berates me, sliding his pants down around his hips, his cock freed and bobbing in the open air. “You started to look like you were enjoying it. But I know you better than that. I know what you like.”
(He’s close already, he’s shaking, he’s clutching my head with both hands and he’s not thinking in the long-term, but I can’t yet, I can’t.
I’m still too weak to stand.)
The head of his cock prods at my lips, hot and slick, reeking of his sweat. He pulls my hair to make me gasp and forces himself inside my open mouth. “You’re disgusting,” he sneers. “Thinking about fucking a corpse, right? You’re sick.”
I hold onto his hips to steady myself and try to pull back far enough to breathe, but he keeps me from going too far, forcing me further down his cock. He hits the back of my throat and I shiver violently, trying not to gag.
“This is nothing,” he taunts. “I’m asking so little of you right now, and you can’t even do this right. You’re really not good at all.”
(I can’t breathe, my nose is pressed into his crotch and it’s too hot and I can’t breathe)
He tilts my head and makes me meet his eyes, and he warns me in a low voice, “Bad dogs get put down, you know.”
(It doesn’t matter)
*
She is cold, but I am warm enough for both of us. Beads of sweat roll down my neck in the sweltering heat, dripping onto her skin as I tug at her sundress,
(just to see, just to see, I swear, I’m not stupid, I know better than to go too far)
one of her breasts spilling out of the cup of her bra, her underwear soiled and filled with a wriggling mass of carrion-eating beetles.
*
“You’re doing it again, aren’t you?” Strade murmurs, thrusting sharply into my mouth and I take him the best I can, I relax my jaw and let him slide over my tongue. “You’re trying so hard. I guess that counts for something.”
His cock rubs against the bloody gashes, making my eyes roll back in my head in agony.
*
I drape myself over her, cradling her face in my hands. I sit over top of her legs and rub against her. The mass in her panties makes soft, chittering noises.
She is not looking at anything, but I feel like she’s looking at me and her eyes are full of longing. She has been waiting here, just for me.
“I’m here,” I whisper, and I take her hand, lacing our fingers together. I have to hold on tight or her arm will flop against the ground, lifeless, but no less beautiful. “I’m here.”
I think she whispers back, “Take me,” and every other sound in the forest becomes little more than a dull murmur in the distance, inconsequential.
I tell her I will.
*
Strade suddenly shoves me off of him, and I fall back on the floor, staring up in confusion as he reaches over for the object he set down earlier, a plate with a chocolate-covered protein bar in the middle. He doesn’t speak, his eyes fluttering shut as he strokes himself, his hand sliding down his blood-covered shaft, and he comes violently, hips snapping against the open air.
He drenches the plate in his cum and my stomach turns as I listen to his breathing even out, short gasps turning to soft laughter.
“There you go, buddy,” he says, nudging the plate closer to me.
I swallow nervously.
“Go ahead. You earned it.”
I feel his eyes on me as he slides his hand over his cock a few more times, coating his hand in blood and semen.
“Upset stomach?” he asks.
I shake my head, unable to bring myself to speak.
He tugs on my shoulder, urging me to sit up, and sets the plate in my hands. “You’ll feel better if you eat something.”
My face is hot with shame. My mouth is throbbing. He leers at me but he’s regained composure, waiting patiently for me to eat, because he knows I will. I can’t afford to disobey now.
I take the protein bar between my fingers, holding it carefully by the edges where it’s still clean
(not that it matters)
and raise to it to my mouth. Strade doesn’t even blink, watching every subtle twitch and shiver in my body as I take the first bite.
(Bitter chocolate, stale grains and cum. I almost start to heave, but it’s easier to stop myself now.
I’m used to feeling disgusted.)
“You might make a good dog after all,” Strade says, absently patting my head as he gets off of me and tucks himself back into his pants.
He leans back against one of the tables and he just stands there, watching, with an unreadable expression on his face. He isn’t smiling anymore. I think he might be starting to worry.
(This can’t last. Even if we both want it to, for very different reasons, it can’t.
He looks at me now and he can’t pretend I’m as clueless as I was the day I saw something beautiful in his trunk.
I don’t know how much time I have left.)
*
We lay side by side in the grass, staring at the sky together. I don’t want to leave her.
“Will you be here tomorrow?” I wonder aloud. “Will you still be waiting here for me?”
She doesn’t say anything, but I feel I know her well enough that I can tell what she’s thinking. Her glassy eyes watch the clouds pass. “I will wait forever,” she wants to tell me.
I take her hand in mine.
I have never felt love before, but I know what it is like now.
But when I come back again, I can’t find her anywhere. I fall to my knees and I cry, my voice echoing off of the trees and dissipating into the night.
I have never been betrayed before, but that is the sort of pain that grips my heart.
She lied to me.
*
Strade ties my ankles together and binds my wrists behind my back, leaving me on the floor, but he doesn’t tie them very tight. I know him. It’s on purpose. It’s like he wants me to twist and writhe until they’re loose enough that I can inch over to the wall and struggle to my knees, looking across the table at all of the things just left there for anyone to take.
My fingers close around a knife, the perfect size to hide under my body until I need to use it.
(What does it mean that it was left there within reach? What does he want?)
I think I hear the basement door creak open just as I’m falling asleep, light from the first floor trickling around a silhouette at the top of the stairs, but it never moves. I hear it shut again.
(He wants the same thing I do;
to feel what we felt back then, one last time.)
*
(I never, ever forgive her.)