Public Faces & Private Lives ((LitShark & Faux_Pas))

[LitShark]

The Ghee was hot and the spices were simmering. Ryan Stern reached across the Viking range, over the pot of Basmati rice boiling with saffron and pistachio nuts, for the small bowl of finely diced onion. He’d had some difficulty, popping the tiny little mustard seeds in the oil without them leaping up from the pan and stinging him in the neck or chin, but he quickly realized that he needed to keep the seeds covered while they popped, so it was a swift recovery. The cumin was already toasted in a smaller bowl close at hand, to be sprinkled over the onions as they hissed and sizzled in the hot butter and fragrant sautéed spices.

While the onions caramelized, with their full complement of spices, he carefully stirred the crushed garlic into the pan. Next came the diced, organic, heirloom tomatoes also in their own bowl. By now the entire house was filled with the smells of cloves, garlic and cumin—the unmistakable smell of Indian cuisine. The Aloo Gobi was already finished, gently simmering on low heat to allow the stalks of cauliflower to become soft and absorb their own unique bouquet of spices. The Naan was keeping warm in the oven, absorbing its spicy garlic coating, wilting the leaves of cilantro sprinkled across the top.

The chicken was the last thing Ryan added to the huge pan, already bubbling as the vegetables merged and liquefied into a thick, red sauce. The breasts and thighs were still on the bone, but after sufficient time for hors d’oeuvres, the meat would practically melt off the bone. Ryan knew a thing or two about meat, bones, skin and marrow. Ryan washed his hand before selecting the best wine to pair with Samosas.

The precise lid closed over the chicken, laid skin-down into the simmering vindaloo sauce, on medium-low heat. Ryan swiftly moved on to uncorking an exquisite Spanish Bordeaux when the doorbell rang for the first time.

“Darling, the guests are arriving, would you be a dear and answer the door? I’m still busy in the kitchen.” Ryan called into the main area of the house, certain that wherever his wife was, she would hear him through the intercom system wired through the house. “It’s the Thompsons from the Education Board.”

Ryan’s small tablet opened a window above the recipe he was working from, displaying the video feed labeled “Front Door.” The cork pulled free of its glass enclosure with a high squeak. The crystal wine glasses made a melodic tinkling against one another as Ryan arranged four on the thick slab of granite which covered the luxurious island at the center of the stainless kitchen. Once the wine was poured through the little, ticking aerator, Ryan tapped his finger against the screen, bringing up the camera feed menu, selecting the channel labled “Basement.”

A view of a young man chained to a water heater and covered in his own blood, superseded the Thompsons. Just as they’d left him. The feed was closed deftly and the tablet locked; Ryan gathered the expensive stemware.

***​

Dylan was struggling to breathe; his jaw ached from gaping around the ball-gag strapped tightly into his mouth, over a rag which continually choked him. He couldn’t cough though. The ball stifled everything. His shoulders ached from his arms remaining spread apart by those unforgiving chains which bound him for hours on end.

Below his waist was anguish, so much pain he couldn’t conceive of it, even thinking about what had happened to his most precious of areas made him want to puke, but the last time he had, it had come up through his nose; a different type of agony all together. Red hot blades had made a eunuch of him—him! Dylan Cooper, crowned pussy-Prince of Middleton U. Him—who’d bedded and broken more young nubiles over that infamous rod than Ron Jeremy in his prime.

Sure, he’d cut some corners along the way—told some lies, broken some hearts, laced some drinks, loved an unconscious body or six—but he was in his mid-twenties! What the fuck good was experience good for if you couldn’t use it to exploit young, naive, pretty things into sucking you off on the men’s room floor? Wasn’t that what college was all about?

That bitch! Mrs. Stern, the sadistic—evil bitch! She’d done this, mutilated him like this. Was life even worth living without a cock? His pleading eyes sought answers from the indifferent lens of the still streaming webcam. No answers were forthcoming.

She’d used his own Rufalin on him, made him think that he had a chance at fucking her—every guy at MU wanted to fuck Mrs. Stern, she was like the Holy Grail of snatch.

Now, this was the result. A dickless freak, suffering in her basement. Who knew that people like her could hide their true nature so effectively? Dylan knew she must have been into some intense shit—it was part of her appeal—but he never would have guessed that she was capable of what she’d done to him. To Sargent Pepper, the little guy…

Did he even want to survive this? Dylan’s mind kept spinning around in circles, between accepting certain death as the logical conclusion of his life-altering wounds, and renewed desire for survival, plotting for an escape attempt. He’d need to pry open the door, leading into the Plexiglas washroom at the bottom of the stairs, where they kept those damn suits which kept them separate while they inflicted agony on his fragile and bloody form.

“Mphffuumm Mughhh!!” Dylan tried to scream for help at the camera, blood dribbling down his chin. He only succeeded in boosting the number of registered users viewing the feed by ten-thousand.

 

[Faux_Pas]

The man had a talent in the kitchen. That thought was the first to hit Clara as she worked to clasp her necklace, finally able to position it perfectly to rest above her cleavage. A final glance over in the mirror, adjusting her hair to frame about her shoulders just so, attempting to keep the perfect appearance that her supervisors expected from the head of the Board of Ethics for Middleton University. A wonderful position, really... One she was most thankful to have received. Funny how well she had done in the race for the elected position with a number of other well-qualified opponents rounding out that ballot. Why, with so many people using their right to vote, the Board was rather thankful for her husband's offer to donate his newest program to help with the results! Imagine if they had truly needed to count all those by hand... There could have been a few mistakes along the way...

But here they were now. She, enjoying her role as quiet disciplinarian for the University. Rarely called upon for that duty, instead making her appearances for the school's more social events and volunteering to take on the school's public relations. Students seemed to actually enjoy talking to her, despite the position she held with the Board of Ethics. Some of them deemed her to actually be rather- nice. Then there were others that deemed her other things. What was it one of the football players had said? The Cunt Queen. She was quite certain that wasn't a derogatory term, especially with the way a few of the boys liked to stare at her breasts.

A smirk came to her lips as she applied a quick coat of brilliant red against them, glancing at the label as she set it back down. Killer shade. A little titter of a laugh left her with that, her ears perking slightly with the sudden call of her husband's voice from downstairs. "One moment, dear!," Came her reply, quickly slipping on her black heels before heading out the bedroom. Her dress made the stairs difficult on its own, but adding in those stilettos... Why, it was downright dangerous.


The bell sounded once again, Clara now hitting the final step of the staircase and getting another full force onslaught of Ryan's heavenly cooking. "Darling, you're always giving me new reasons to love you." She smirked at him from the foyer, passing through to head for the front door. "Mister Thompson! Please, come in. Ryan is just finishing up dinner. Could I interest you in a glass of wine in the living room? I just picked up a wonderful bottle of Bordeaux." The offer made, she escorted the older gentleman and his wife into the room mentioned, their coats taken along the way.

"A wonderful offer, Clara. Thank you." Mister Thompson smiled to the young woman as she passed, settling in comfortably onto the plush leather couch centered in the room, waiting for his wife to join him. Mrs Thompson was soon at his side, her judging eye already inspecting the younger woman's home with a questionable raise of her brow.

"Interesting decor you have here, Missus Stern."

Clara smiled at that, nodding as she glanced around herself. "Oh, yes. A creation of our very own. We have a very unique style, Missus Thompson. A specialized taste to some of the more... unexepected. It really can be quite an adventure at times. It's one of the many things that Ryan and I have in common, and a great joy to share together."

Mister Thompson nodded at that, his own wandering gaze returning to the standing woman. "Oh, I completely understand that. With the busy schedules you both must have anymore, the shared moments must be hard to come by. Its the little things that seem to strengthen a bond."

"Oh, exactly. Exactly." Clara nodded herself, still clutching their coats to her chest. "Let me just take care of these for you, and I'll be right back with that bottle of wine." Giving them a parting nod, she headed off for the back mudroom to hang the coats, her path taking her through the kitchen and a momentary kiss given to her husband's cheek. "Oh, good. You found the wine. Missus is inspecting every detail of the house. I think the digital frames are confusing her. We did remove the other card, correct? I'd hate for our weekend with the Eckerson Twins to come scrolling through." Plucking up her own glass of wine as she passed around him, she stole a sip from it on her way to the mud room, only to pause as a certain sound- muffled and barely noticeable- hit her ears. She frowned from behind the glass, her teeth gritting. "Oh, hell. Darling, the dog's barking. Would you mind terribly to entertain the Thompsons for a moment? I'll deal with him."

Taking the coats to hang in the small closet, she made her way to another little door further down the back hall, opening into the darkened area that seemed another tiny closet- only to pull the hanging chain and reveal a secondary knob hidden behind a curtain. From there, the larger plexiglass room could be entered... but only with the keys kept hidden on either of the Sterns' person. Her own was taken from her cleavage, the small lock undone with a quick twist of her wrist. Letting the dimmed lights of the lower level basement guide her, she made her way down to the plexiglass room that housed their white suits and black aprons, donning up merely one of the latter before taking those slow click-clacking steps across the cement floor.

"Jesus fucking Christ," She growled, coming to stop a distance enough away from the shrieking Dylan to avoid any of his blood-splattering muffled shrieks. "You've been whining about that since this morning. I get it. Dylan got a booboo. Must you continue to make such a noise over it?" She quirked a brow, jerking her head towards the reddened wastebasket at the side of the small room. "You said you wanted to give me the D, Dylan. Looks like I've got it now. Isn't that what you wanted? You really should work on being more specific. Perhaps that's why you were doing so terribly in English Literature? Details, Dylan. Details. You need to focus on the intricacies. For example..." She took a few more steps, circling at the distance around the student to reach the wall decorated with various items. Reaching up to find an item in particular, she continued to watch the squirming man out the corner of her eye, taking the object in question from its hook and approaching him. "...You're already in a great deal of pain. To do more elsewhere would simply redirect that to another part of you, and likely cause you to forget the whole reason behind it. No. That's not the point. What I can do, however, is remind you on the details." The cattle prod was quickly thrust forward, contacting against the castrated male's bloodcoated pelvis as she pulled the trigger, sending the volts to course through his aching lower half. "You see? Intricacies."

 

[LitShark]

Dylan was out of breath and gasping through his nose, the snot and blood raking his sinuses as he desperately tried to refill his lungs from the outpour of wind spent in futile attempts at screaming. Every breath in sent plumes of mingled snot, blood and saliva back into his face and down his throat. It was agony. Nonetheless, it was all his body knew to help itself survive, the ball-gag efficiently and completely stopping him from breathing through his mouth.

In his exertion, he’d canted off to one side, wedging the uppermost loop of the chain around his throat, further complicating his respiratory distress. Moreover, it made him shift on his seat, which had cracked open his wounds again, reawakening the anguish and burning of his mutilated groin—but none of these hardships were anything compared to the spine-locking terror that the sound of that damn heel clicking against the uppermost step, just outside of his view.

She was coming.

Oh God! Oh Jesus Christ, Mary and Joseph! She was fucking coming, and Dylan didn’t know what the fuck to do. Oh God Oh God Oh God! Dylan forgot how daunting losing his wind had been a few moments earlier and renewed his screams and muffled pleas to the camera, thrashing around and choking himself quite effective with the stray length of chain as he struggled. He even kicked once, but the wretched, searing agony of that single motion was quite enough for one lifetime. Instead he screamed until he was hoarse, accomplishing little more than sparing himself the muted clicking of the rest of Mrs. Stern’s descent into the room.

By the time she was in her apron, Dylan was out of air, he could only writhe and struggle as she approached. He was aware of a vague sense of irony at how perfectly the brutal leather apron framed those lusciously pressed together tits that he’d jerked off to so often in his days of having a dick. How those high, clicking heels made her legs look so firm and toned, up on point as they were.

Those thoughts no longer appealed to Dylan as they once had, back when he’d been equipped for objectification of that sort. Back when he’d still been a man. Back when thinking about sex made him happy instead of making him wish for death.

Kill me. Was what Dylan tried to shout as Mrs. Stern click-clacked her way toward him, but it only sounded like more muffled garbage.

She taunted him, shamed him, cut him where he was already wounded; her words castrating him all over again. Why won’t she just do it already? End his miserable life and be done with it. She wasn’t done with him yet, not by a long shot.

She was shopping, not for lingerie or more obnoxiously tall shoes, she was shopping for new ways to hurt him, to cause him agony—even going so far to bring up his Lit classes from his old life, the life when he’d been whole. When he’d been a man. It seemed like so long ago already.

When Mrs. Stern clacked her way back into Dylan’s highly restricted view, she had a rod—a cattle prod, he thought. He wasn’t exactly well versed in things like that; his realm was sport and music and drunk girls at last-call. At least those things used to be his realm.

All uncertainty about what it was that she was holding vanished in a fraction of a second, when she pressed the cruel metal points into his mutilated groin and pulled the trigger. Suddenly the agonizing burn between his thighs intensified and seemed to branch out through his nervous system in blazing trails of fire. His muscles went rigid and before he even knew what was going on, he was pissing himself, urine mixed with blood spreading out around his grisly wound. A whole new kind of fire renewed phantom pains from his missing digit.

“Mmmmmmughhh!!!! Uuuuhhhhhhgggg!!!!!” Dylan wailed, now sunk low enough that he could almost strangle himself with the chain that had slipped. Kill me. Just… kill… me….

***​

“Hey! There he is, how have you been Mr. Thompson? Take this glass. This must be your daughter you brought with you; I thought we were going to meet your wife. Could she not make it? Did you bring some younger cousin without notice?” Ryan’s hand held Mrs. Thompson’s after handing her the wine, holding it while looking into her eyes while he showered her in compliments. “You shouldn’t hold back such prescient introductions all to yourself.”

“Why Mr. Stern, this is my wife!” Mr. Thompson exclaimed in abject dismay at the way his wife was blushing and looking into the younger man’s green eyes. “Please, unhand her.”

Ryan turned his head, quick as the strike of a snake, his eyes flashing from seductive to dangerous in a flash of an instant. A killer’s glare.

“Oh, I’d hate to interfere in someone’s marriage, drive a wedge in between an otherwise loving and devoted couple. Something like that would be terrible, despicable, unforgivable even. I could scarcely live with myself if I did something like that.” Ryan said pointedly, before raising his wine glass to his lips and taking a long drink, while still staring daggers at Mr. Thompson who was hiding futilely behind his own glass of Bordeaux. “Please, come into the kitchen. I made Samosas with mango and cumin chutney.”

“Oh Mr. Stern, it smells incredible in here. Did you really do all this yourself? I know you were putting me on earlier about me looking young, but if you can cook like this I might have to try and steal you away from Mrs. Stern!”

All laugh together. Ha Ha Ha. Kill Them All.

“Mrs. Thompson you are incorrigible.” Ryan tittered through his fake dinner-party laugh before drinking again. The doorbell rang just as Ryan was trying to imagine what Mrs. Thompson’s tits looked like any more, a slight shudder running through him. “Please, help yourselves. I’ll be back in two ticks.”

Ryan took hold of his tablet from the marble surface of the kitchen island, to discover that Todd from the committee was arriving, stag as usual. Ryan left the kitchen, dissatisfied to still not have tasted his own Samosas yet. He’d made the mistake of letting slip that one of the twenty-somethings from the University might stop by for dinner, after that there was no keeping him away.

“Yeah, hi Todd. Come on in.” Ryan said through clenched teeth, his façade of civility beginning to slip a little. “Before you ask, the college girl isn’t here yet.”

“Is the—oh, you know me too well Ry? Damn it smells good in there, what kind of wine is that?” Todd asked over Ryan’s answer, passing off a piss cheap bottle of sugary rose from the grocery store. “Hey toots, I’m Todd. What’s your deal?”

Todd smiled at Mrs. Thompson while chewing yellowish potato, peas and pastry with his mouth open.

 

[Faux_Pas]

"Shhh." Clara's perfectly manicured finger came to rest against her red lips, the matching hue on her nail seeming to blend the two together as she leaned in closer still. "Hush now, Dylan. Such a noisy thing you are." The other hand dropped her recent toy to the cement floor, that hand now reaching out to grab her nails against his chin and raising his head up a bit to see the computer screen upon the table beside them. "I want you to see something, Dylan. What led me to this."

Reaching over, she woke the screen, a social networking page for the college coming to life before them. "Look. After campus security posted up the warning on a, and I quote, vicious attacker drugging girls and raping them... Look what the replies were. Sick bastard. Disgusting fuck. Someone should cut his junk off."

Clara paused with that, glancing back at him. "I always take my students' suggestions into the highest considerations." A quick switching of tabs revealed another page. "If you really want to be the Big Dick on Campus, Dylan, you really should keep your profile private. But I suppose someone like you would want to flaunt his acchievements to anyone willing to look... All these photos. That smug smirk. You with a beer bottle, eyes bloodshot... leaning over a girl passed out on the couch. Or this one. You've already gotten your hand inside her shirt on someone's back porch... And this one? Whose bedroom is this, Dylan? Did you even care? All you worried about was that extra notch on your bedpost- or where ever it is you keep them. How did you keep track, hm? Care to tell me that?"

She left the last photo up, a shot of Dylan's own drunken face pushed against a barely conscious girl and lathing her cheek with his tongue. She paused suddenly, still gripping his chin as she caught whiff of something. "You disgusting little dog. You've pissed on my fucking floor." Her voice was sharp now, her words snapped clean with her anger. "That was no howl of shame. It hurt, didn't it? Hard to piss with no Johnny to handle it, isn't it? Hurt like a son of a bitch, I'd imagine."

A sudden sigh left her, shaking her head at him as she looked to the screen, watching his reddened eyes in the glass' reflection. "It's a shame, really, Dylan. If you had just tried. If you had just. Tried. You had a good future going for you, if you had simply applied yourself in your courses as you did in your... hunts. What's more... You could have had a chance, Dylan." She leaned to his ear, whispering as he tried to grind into that chain. "I would have screwed you, Dylan. Let you lean me over that mahogany desk in my office and test the soundproofing of my walls. Ryan is a very open minded man... But no. You had to be- this. You had to ruin the school's outstanding reputation as one of the safest in the region. You soiled it, Dylan. You made ME look incompetent for not keeping you in control. And I will be DAMNED if some hormone driven FUCK is going to do that to me."


Various thoughts ran through her mind then. Do something more to him, right now. Slice off his ear for ignoring her. Rip out his tongue for the shit he had spewed before. Give him something else to think about for the rest of the night. Make him suffer. Make him learn.

The doorbell.
She glanced up again, this time to another screen on the counter. "My guests are arriving. Appearances to keep. I have that reputation to polish, thanks to you." Her tongue traced against his ear, only to be joined by her teeth snapping down upon the tender skin and pulling back harshly, a quick movement that refused to let go. So much for cutting it. No time for that.

Spitting the torn hunk of flesh onto the floor, she wiped her mouth against the back of her hand, glaring at him once more as she pulled away from him. "That was me being nice. Keep screaming like that, you'll anger Ryan. I really don't think you want to see what happens then. Now if you'll excuse me.. My guests are waiting."

Heading back upstairs, the apron abandoned in the little room along the way, her wine glass was taken back up from the small end table she had abandoned it on earlier. Taking a quick sip on her way back to the kitchen, she smiled to the Thompsons as she found them sampling Ryan's dishes. "Oh, isn't he wonderful?," She called, the smile dropping just a tad at the noted arrival of Todd. "Ah. You made it as well. How- wonderful."

"Ohh, yes, your... friend here... was just introducing himself." The tone in Mrs Thompson's voice was less than enthusiastic on the impression made. "He is certainly an interesting fellow."

"Indeed he is." Clara simply raised her glass a bit higher in acknowledgement of Todd, glancing to her husband. "Dear, the dog is acting up again. I scolded him, but- I don't really think I'm reaching him. Such a stubborn thing." She gave a sidelong look to the others, clearing her throat. "We had him neutered, you see. Not quite enjoying that. But- well. Heaven forbid we let him run wild with that."

The doorbell sounded once again, Clara giving a quick smile to the others and stepping away from the group. "Pardon me, I'll get that. I'm guessing that's our star student!"

That sweet little smile and innocent stare. Hannah Wright. Such a perfect girl she was. That smile was beaming brightly as Clara opened the door, a warm greeting of her own given in return. "Hannah, my dear. Glad to see you could make it. I trust we weren't that hard to find?"

"Oh, Mrs Stern, I had no idea your house would be so beautiful! The type of place I hope to have someday..." The girl trailed off, following the older woman inside. "Mr Thompson! Mrs Thompson! Hello! And- Oh. I don't believe I've met you before..." The student's gaze fell upon the last man of the group, currently stuffing his face with more snacks.

"Ah. Yes. This. This is Todd. He- He works with my husband. Would you care for a drink, dear? Ryan makes the most wonderful Samosas."

"No thank you, Mrs Stern. I'm not 21 yet. Don't want to be doing anything to ruin my college career and all that."

"Hm." Clara merely glanced at her, eyeing her over as she once again sipped her own drink. "I see. We do have some sodas and sparkling water in the fridge. Do feel free."

"Thank you. Is- Is Mister Woods coming tonight?"

"Woods?" Clara paused with that, raising a brow. The English teacher? Now why would she be inquiring on him? "No. Lewis had other plans for the evening. I believe he said something about a date with Rachel from the library."

"Oh." Hannah smiled again, the sides of her lips quivering slightly. Another curious studying was given of this by Clara. Now then. This was interesting.

"What are we doing in here?," Clara suddenly called out, gesturing back to the dining room. "Lets take this somewhere far more comfortable than all trying to fit in the kitchen, shall we?"

 

[LitShark]

“…and so Ryan says that we’ve got to go back, he says he’s got one of those feelings—ya know? And Ryan’s feelings are almost never wrong, but I’m thinkin’ he’s grasping at straws. I’ll be damned if we don’t pull up to that asshole’s house, the only light in the whole house was from the basement. She’d been there all along! Right under the cops’ noses, our noses, the Feds’ noses—the whole time! The sick fuck was keeping his own daughter in the basement and raping her guts out the whole time that—“ Todd was on one of his tangents about the task force, talking about work was one of his least detestable habits by comparison, flaw that many were prone to. His sense of timing and discretion, however, were among his most detestable traits.

“That’s more than enough of that Todd, thanks. I doubt very much that the Thompson’s want to hear all the gory details of our task force.” Ryan interrupted, pointedly. “I’d prefer that our kind of work were unnecessary, that every kid came home every night, but the reality is much more tragic. More wine Todd?”

Todd was emptying his glass as Clara came back through the kitchen, a breath of fresh air as always. Ryan smiled at her, pleading for help with his eyes in that infinite language of expressions which spouses develop over time. Todd and the Thompsons were mixing like oil and water. At Mrs. Thompson’s comment to Clara, Ryan’s eyes flashed in her direction. He needed to bring her under thumb, the rest were under control, but she was a problem. An obnoxious, judgmental problem.

“Stupid mutt…” Ryan muttered in response to Clara’s mention of their mutual charge in the basement. “If he can’t learn to control himself we might have to put him down.”

The end of the dark green bottle went straight up as Ryan refilled his own glass, after pouring Todd his second. It’s the cook’s prerogative to be the drunkest one among the guests. All this mundane small-talk was murder, the cost of his elaborate disguise.

Ryan was replaying the last scene of Old Yeller in his brain, Clara taking the rifle from Ryan’s hands, stifling a sob. He’s my dog ‘pa. This image brought a smile to Ryan’s lips as the doorbell rang again and the light left the kitchen as Clara went to answer it.

The Thompsons were mutually fumbling over the complexities of Indian appetizers. Was the yellow stuff some kind of jelly, or some kind of salsa? Should they spread it over the pyramid shaped pastries filled with potato, peas, peppers and a compliment of spices which rendered the fillings yellow and fragrant? Ryan reached over, grasping the corner of one little bundle and spooning a small clump of chutney over one of the samosas and lifting it straight to his mouth.

As Ryan finished his, Mr. Thompson tried to cut his with a fork and ended up flipping it off of the small China plate and onto the tile floor.

Ryan smiled in relief as Clara returned, leading her “special” guest from the University into the kitchen. Todd also perked up at the injection of new-blood, his eyes roaming greedily over the younger girl’s perky body. Todd never seemed to see it, but Ryan always noticed how similar to the “sick-fucks” they were always hunting Todd acted when he was trying to get lucky. If the expression he was wearing just then had been on the face of a suspect in a case, it would have made him a likely candidate for the abductor.

“I also made some mango lassi last night, Hannah. If you’re looking for something non-alcoholic to drink.” Ryan offered, turning back toward the refrigerator to extract a pitcher full of thick, orange liquid. “A wonderful idea Clara, let’s all go into the dining room. Everything ought to be just about ready.”

With that, Ryan turned to lift the lid on the chicken dish which had been simmering since before the guests started arriving. The fragrances from within the pan were suddenly unleashed into the air along with a plume of steam. When Ryan stirred the pan with a wooden spoon, the meat fell away from the bones and blossomed into strands that soaked up the fragrant red sauce.

"Hey Clar-bear, you guys have anything stronger than wine?" Todd asked hopefully.

***

Dylan could feel the blood trickling down the back of his neck, the tear in the skin on his ear only made worse by his continued efforts at forcing his head under the tight chain which had been poking him before. The blood made for decent lubricant, but the pain was excruciating as the confined struggle against the unforgiving chain was furthering the mostly cosmetic injury done by Mrs. Stern. It was becoming clear that in order to fit his aching skull under this chain he might need to tear his ear completely off of his skull.

An ear was nothing compared to what he’d lost already. Ear be damned, he had to get free.

Dylan groaned into the gag, biting down hard as he forced his head the last few fractions of an inch under the chain, the tearing of his flesh amplified by proximity. The useless lump of cartilage and skin tumbled down the back of his neck as he wrestled his head out from under the chain, then again with ease as he found more and more slack in unraveling.

Finally freed from the pillar which had been at his back through unspeakable pain and humiliation, Dylan was finally able to raise his arms once more. He unbuckled the gag from the back of his head, spitting blood after it. He rolled onto his back, trying carefully to remind his shoulders what moving felt like. It felt strange, like his arms might float off his body if they weren’t still attached. That feeling you get in your legs after riding a stationary bike for too long and then try to walk, limbs unfamiliar with motion following protracted resistance.

Once he was able to support himself, Dylan began the slow process of reawaking his legs, getting them used to the idea of supporting his weight again. Once he was standing, Dylan laughed to himself, he was free! he could finally give that bitch and her pussy-of-a-hipster husband of hers what they deserved. The machete made a clang as he pulled it down from the wall. He laughed again in triumph.

“Come get me now you fuckers.”