Brave New Worlds

and Lou was on top of me, forearm across my throat.
    "Booby booby booby booby," he said, all blubbery lips, and then he kissed me. Well, he bit my upper lip. He bit it to hold me there; he nearly bit through it with his canine teeth, and my mouth was full of the taste of something metallic: blood.
    The sounds the Boys made were conversational, with the odd laugh. Royce squealed like a pig. It always hurts beyond everything the first time. It finally came to me that Royce wasn't gay, at least not in any sense that we would understand. I looked up at the camera, at its blank, glossy eye, and I could feel it thinking: these are men; this is what men do; we are right. We are right to do this to them. For just that moment, I almost agreed.
    Lou got up, and Charlie nestled in next to me, fat and naked, white hairs on his chest and ass, and he was still beaming like a baby, and I thought: don't you know what you've done? I tried to sit up, and he went no, no, no and waggled a finger at me. It was Lou's turn to go through him. "Rear Admiral, am I?" asked Lou.
    When he was through, Charlie helped me to my feet. "You might as well have a piece," he said, with a friendly chuckle. Lou laughed very loudly, pulling on his T-shirt. The others were shuffling back to their beds in a kind of embarrassment. Royce lay on the floor.
    I knelt next to him. My blood splashed onto the floor. "Can you get up, Royce?" I asked him. He didn't answer. "Royce, let's go outside, get you cleaned up. " He didn't move. "Royce, are you hurt? Are you hurt badly?" then I called them all bastards.
    "It was just fun, man," said Harry.
    "Fun!"
    "It started out that way. He shouldn't have hit people. "
    "He didn't want to do it. Royce, please. Do you want anything? Is anything especially painful?"
    "Just his ass," said Lou, and laughed.
    "He'll be OK," said Charlie, a shadow of confusion on his face.
    "Like fuck he will. That was some way to say thanks for all he's done. Well? Are any of you going to give me a hand?"
    Harry did. He helped me to get Royce up. Royce hung between us like a sack.
    "It's that fucking poison you make, man," said Harry to Charlie.
    "Don't blame me. You were the first, remember. "
    "I was just playing. "
    They began to realize what they'd done. He was all angles, like a doll that didn't work anymore.
    "What the fuck did you do?" I shouted at them. He didn't seem to be bruised anywhere. "Jesus Christ!" I began to cry because I thought he was dead. "You fucking killed him!"
    "Uh-uh, no," said Gary. "We didn't. "
    "Pisshead!"
    Charlie came to help too, and we got him outside, and into the showers, and he slumped down in the dark. I couldn't find a rag, so we just let the lukewarm water trickle down over him. All we did was get him wet on an evening in November.
    "It's cold out here, we got to get him back in," said Harry.
    Royce rolled himself up onto his knees, and looked at me. "You were there. "
    "I wasn't part of it. I tried to stop it. "
    "You were there. You didn't help. "
    "I couldn't!"
    He grunted and stood up. We tried to help him, but he knocked our hands away. He sagged a bit at the knees, but kept on walking, unsteadily. He walked back into the waiting room. Silently, people were tidying up, straightening beds. Royce scooped up his clothes with almost his usual deftness. He went back to his bed, and dropped down onto it, next to Tom, and began to inspect his shirt and trousers for damage.
    "The least you could have done!" I said. I don't know what I meant.
    Lou was leaning back on his bed. He looked pleased, elbows sticking out from the side of his head. "Look at it this way," he said. "It might do him some good. He shouldn't be so worried about his little problem. He just needs to relax a bit more, try it on for size. The worst thing you can do with a problem like that is hide from it. "
    If I'd had an axe, I would have killed him. He knew that. He smiled.
    Then the lights went out, without warning as always, but two hours early.
    There was snow on the ground in the morning, a light dusting of it on the roof and on the ground. There was no patter. Royce did not talk to the cameras. He came out, wearing his jacket; there was a tear in his shirt, under the armpit. He ate his breakfast without looking at anyone, his face closed and still. Hardly anyone spoke. Big Lou walked around with a little half-grin. He was so pleased, he was stretched tight with it. He'd won; he was Boss again. No one used the showers.
    Then we went