Charlie #2
There’s a chorus of ugly laughter, all of them talking at once. I hate them, and I hate Constantine, and I feel stupid and useless and in pain. My nose leaks blood down my chin, pooling sticky under my jaw, and each inhale sizzles, the copper taste burning deeper.
They take turns, like it’s a game. Sometimes it’s a slap or a punch, sometimes just a boot heel pressed against my ribs until I can’t breathe, or a fistful of my hair twisted so tight my scalp screams and strands are ripped out.
Once, Stubble jams his thumb into the broken cartilage of my nose and holds it there, grinding back and forth, grinning as I convulse and try to scream.
In between, they go back to the folding table.
They drink, they smoke, they shovel food into their mouths from a cardboard container.
The sound of their voices, drifting and overlapping in the stale air, is somehow more humiliating than the pain.
I am nothing to them. Not a threat, not a challenge, just a thing to be used for leverage and boxing practice.
I lose track of time. My head feels like it’s been stuffed with wet sand.
When I try to move, even just barely, my entire body shrieks in protest. My cheek is sticky with blood, but it’s dried now, crusted around the tape and the split on my nose.
My mouth is still covered, my lips tacky and numb where the adhesive has sucked all the moisture away.
I can barely breathe; every inhale rasps hot through my ruined nasal passages.
My thoughts flicker between scenes—Niko, my Daddy, looking down at me fondly as he fastens a diaper around my hips; Niko and how concentrated he looked as he was making my bracelet; Niko holding me after I was sick; Niko’s hand stroking through my hair; Niko telling me he loves me…
And of course, in the cruelest, most devastating move, my heart tells me, “You love him, too.”
I do. I love my Daddy.
I need my Daddy.
I really, really need him right now.
Stubble stands as I’m still coming to terms with this realization, stretching his arms above his head. This time, he brings over a half-empty bottle of vodka. He crouches and waves it in front of my face as the others circle.
“You drink?” he asks, tilting the bottle so the clear liquid sloshes. “Here is a Russian tradition. After the fight, we drink as friends.” He grins like he’s sharing a secret. I try to shake my head, but I don’t even have the strength to make it convincing.
Longhair pins my shoulders with his knees, and Baldy grabs the side of my head.
Stubble produces a box-cutter from his pocket and slices a ragged piece of tape from my face, yanking it off in one brutal motion.
I hoarsely scream, or at least try to, from the sudden burning pain.
My lips come apart in a sticky, bleeding mess.
Stubble uncaps the bottle and shoves the mouth of it against my lips, his other hand digging into my jaw and forcing it open.
The stink hits harder than the punch, and I jerk my head to the side, but Baldy hauls me upright by my hair, and Longhair’s knees dig in harder, pinning my arms. The glass neck is then forced into my mouth.
I try to spit. I try to gag. They tip the bottle vertical, and it floods my throat in one fast, drowning rush.
Liquid blisters its way down to my stomach, cold and burning at once.
The pain in my nose is nothing compared to the fire that blooms behind my eyes, and I retch, but they don’t let go.
They force another mouthful, then another, laughing as I convulse and cough and vomit most of it back out.
My chin and shirt are instantly soaked, the vodka stinging every cut on my lips and face.
“Good boy,” Stubble says, wiping his hand on my hair, like I’m some kind of dog. “You love your mouth being filled, don’t you? Look at this cocksucker, boys.”
I want to shout at them, to scream, but my voice is gone, burned out. All I can do is hack and shudder as the taste of ethanol and old pennies drips down my chin.
The world tilts with queasy, nauseating slowness.
The concrete floor swims, the edges of my vision pulsing.
My body is trying to go into shock, but the sickest thing is that the vodka actually helps.
I don’t even find it in me to be scared about what will happen, given that almost all my meds come with caution warnings about mixing them with alcohol.
I’m just sorta curious what they’ll do if I have a seizure.
They set the empty bottle on the floor beside my head, like a trophy. Then Stubble plants his heel on my chest, pinning me in place, and leans down so close I can taste the cigarettes on his breath.
“You know, Charlie,” he says, “we’ve been talking about you. We wondered—what’s so special about you?” He gives my cheek a little slap, laughing as it makes my head roll. “How does a guy like you get a man like Nikolaus Makris wrapped around his finger?”
Longhair lights a new cigarette, eyes bright in the dimness. “I bet you’re real good with your mouth.” He sticks his tongue out, waggling it lewdly, and the others howl.
Baldy—his face looming and his breath sour—leans in and yanks my head upright, making the world wobble. “We should have shoved the bottle up his ass instead,” he says. This gets the biggest laugh yet, a wet, barking sound that echoes off the warehouse walls.
Sunglasses, still seated at the table but watching with interest, says, “We do that later. First, we find out if he’s worth all the trouble.” He taps the side of his nose and then, with one gloved hand, mimics a fisting motion that makes the others break again into cackling hysteria.
They start riffing. Every boy-puppet, boy-whore, sugar baby, schoolboy slut, or pussy-boy joke they can come up with. I have to close my eyes because if I look at any of them, I’ll start trying to scream again, and I know it won’t come out.
They get bored with the jokes after a bit. Or maybe they just want to change gears, because Stubble crouches down, wipes the sweat from his brow, and flicks at my shirt.
“We want to see what all the fuss is about,” he says.
My brain’s moving in slow motion, but even I know what that means.
I start to shake my head. He nods, almost as if he’s glad for the drama.
Baldy and Longhair each grab a side of me, and Stubble uses the box-cutter to saw my shirt from my shoulders to my navel.
Shreds of fabric hang off me, sticky with blood and vodka.
The blade nicks my chest, and I jerk, but he just laughs.
“Pale. Soft,” Longhair says, running his hands over my chest in a way that makes my skin crawl. “No muscle. See? Like little girl.” He flicks my nipple with one dirty fingernail, and my whole body tries to curl away.
Baldy pokes at my stomach, grinning. “He has some fat, but I think it’s nice. Gives you something to hold onto.” He pinches my side, hard, grinding the flesh between his knuckles.
I can’t make sense of the world anymore, or even of my own body.
The hands are everywhere—groping, squeezing, stroking.
Every time I think they’re done, another finger jams into my ribs or an elbow grinds down on my arm.
I want to disappear. I want to die. I want to be asleep inside Niko’s arms, with nothing in my skull but his heartbeat.
I want Daddy, I think through tears.
“You know what I think?” says Longhair, sucking his teeth with a greedy hiss.
“I think he calls him Daddy for real. Listen how he whimpers.” He bends low, his nose nearly touching mine.
“Call me Daddy, huh?” He gives me a hard slap, and I don’t even flinch; the pain’s a background noise now, like the whine of the lights.
“I bet he comes real pretty, too,” Baldy says, and plucks at the waistband of my jeans. “Whoa! He’s actually wearing kiddie underwear. What the fuck? Look at this shit.” The men laugh again, but with a new, nasty excitement as they watch Baldy start yanking down my pants.
Stubble leans in and tears the ruined shirt the rest of the way off me. He grabs the waistband of my dinosaur-print training briefs, jerking it up so the elastic bites deep into my hips, and I let out a sob. “You like that, don’t you? Our little American princess.” He shakes my head up and down.
Longhair cuts the briefs off of me. I’m exposed, and the sudden slap of air is so cold it shocks my knees rigid. All of them stare. My face burns hot enough to outpace the pain in my nose. I squeeze my eyes shut.
“He even shaves,” Longhair announces. He runs a hand over my bare hip, presses hard enough that my skin dimples, then slaps my thigh with a sound that echoes. “Little baby bitch boy. That’s who you are for your Daddy, huh? Makris likes fucking little kids?”
“Probably lets him do anything,” Baldy says, grinding his heel in a tiny circle on my ankle.
“What do you think, princess? You let Nikolaus fuck you raw, or do you make him beg for it?” He grabs my chin, mashing the bruises there.
“Maybe you like it better from the other side.” His thumb stabs into my mouth, prying my teeth apart, and he spits directly onto my tongue.
The taste is bitter and sour. I can’t keep from retching. But then there’s a hand over my nose and mouth.
“Don’t waste it,” Stubble laughs. “Swallow, like a good girl.” And I do, because I have no choice. They all howl. At least the hand gets removed.
Sunglasses sets his own drink down and stands, finally, coming over. “Why we only talk? I see two holes.” As he gets close, he starts to pull his fly down.
The zipper’s rasp is my panic’s starter pistol. I don’t even realize I’m screaming until my own voice cracks and breaks, pathetic and shredded, but it’s enough to make them pause. Or maybe it’s the new echo of heavy shoes on the warehouse floor.