The Flesh Cartel #1: Capture

not to hiss as pain flared hot and slick between his legs.
    The van slowed, veered right. An off-ramp maybe? The turn grew sharper, like a clover leaf; Dougie rolled limply across the rubber floor, face-first into Mat’s cage, rattling it hard. Mat moaned. Dougie still couldn’t meet his eyes—filled with shame just at the thought of it, though who knew why, it’s not like any of this was his fault—but he looked at Mat’s bowed spine, his straining arms mashed against the top of the cage, blood still dribbling from the cuts the zip-ties had left on his wrists. He was far too big for that cage; he actually looked more miserable than Dougie felt. Had to be to have been reduced to vocalizing his pain. He didn’t even do that in fights when he got his ass kicked three ways from Sunday.
    Maybe Dougie could beg the men to let Mat out. Make a deal, a trade. Offer to blow them, like Mat’d done. Surely a willing suck was better than one taken by force?
    No. If they sensed weakness, they’d exploit it. They’d use Mat against him. Better to let them forget Mat existed.
    A toe prodded Dougie’s side experimentally. Stay limp. Play dead.
    “Well this one’s not gonna be much work for Madame. Stick a couple dicks in his ass and he’s like a fucking blow-up doll.”
    “He’s not passed out, is he?”
    “Naw, his little eyeballs are rolling around like a spooked horse’s.”
    “Well in that case . . .” A hand on his shoulder, another on his hip, wrenching him onto his back. Fingers squeezing hard at the hinge of his jaw, a cock at his lips, a body settling between his thighs. He squeezed his eyes closed and opened his mouth. Let his legs fall limp, face burning at his weakness, his acquiescence, at the traitorous, spineless thought screeching through his brain: I’ll give you what you want, just please don’t hurt me anymore.
    The tears started again. He hadn’t realized they’d stopped.
    The men hurt him anyway. Far, far too much, and the begging words in his head began to spill from his lips, over and over and he couldn’t stop them, hated them, hated himself, hated these men more than he’d ever known it was possible to hate.
    “Oh pleeeeease don’t hurt me!” they mimicked in high squealing voices as they pounded into him, singly, in pairs, two in his ass and then two in his mouth at the same time, cutting off his cries. “I’ll be good! Boo hoo!”
    But he clung to the one consolation amidst all the shame, the humiliation, the agony, the misery: At least Mat was okay. At least they were leaving him alone.

    Somehow, Mat fell asleep. Or maybe he just passed out from pure exhaustion, or blacked out from trauma or pain, or whatever the hell explanation made more sense than taking a catnap in a fucking dog cage while thugs were gang-raping his brother. All he knew was one second he was listening to Dougie crying again, throat hoarse from rough use, and the next, he was wrenching awake under a crashing tsunami of pain. He’d never felt such awful muscle cramps in his life, not even when Darryl had pushed him an extra ten miles in 90-degree heat in a fucking sweat suit. And Jesus, he had to piss. He realized the van had stopped moving, pried his eyes open, and immediately wished he hadn’t. Dougie’s head lay just inches from his, face slack and stained with tears and cum, lips swollen, eyes as glassy as a doll’s. He wasn’t blinking. If he saw Mat at all, he didn’t acknowledge it.
    Mat tried to say something, call his name, tell him to hang on. But he was a fucking coward, couldn’t do it—couldn’t face the possibility that Dougie wouldn’t answer him. Couldn’t answer him.
    He was breathing, at least. There’s always hope as long as you’re still breathing, Darryl liked to say.
    Mat clung to that like the chain-link of the ring after a too-hard knock to the head.
    “Thank fucking God that’s over.”
    “Are you kidding me? We just spent ten hours enjoying a six-figure piece of ass, and you’re happy it’s over?”
    “Carsick.”
    “Up you get, hole. Time to meet your maker.”
    Oh, that last one wasn’t spoken among themselves. A hand fisted Dougie’s cum-streaked hair and yanked him upright, but none of his limbs seemed to respond. His body dangled by the hair, his eyes rolling back. Please let him be passed out , Mat thought, because it was surely better than being awake for whatever was coming next.
    Someone was fiddling with the lock on Mat’s cage.
    “No,” another