The Flesh Cartel #1: Capture

loan shark kidnapping gone bad at all. Three flashes went off. “Very good. Now turn to one side.”
    He did. Three more flashes. Was it a mug shot? There were no lines on the wall. No placard for him to hold.
    “The other side now.” Three more flashes. “And back to the front. Smile for me, nice and bright.” Dougie obeyed as best he could, but it felt more like a grimace than anything.
    The doctor didn’t seem to mind. He snapped the shots, then took hold of a knob on the side of the tripod and turned it rapidly until the tripod sank down, down, down to waist height.
    “Hands behind your back. Show me that lovely cock.” Three more shots. “Now turn your back to me. Spread your ass and let me see your hole.” When Dougie did, the doctor sighed. “I’d like to have a word with the stupid fools who brought you in. This photo’s going to look like a car accident, even after cleaning you up. Maybe I’ll save this one for later, after you’ve healed.”
    Later? How much longer are they planning to keep us?
    Tears sprung to his eyes again. “When do I get to see my brother? Where is he?”
    “Waiting his turn,” the doctor replied brusquely, but at least it was an answer.
    “Waiting his turn for what? What are you going to do to us? Please, just let us go. If it’s money—”
    “That’s enough. Pull yourself together. There, now, that wasn’t so bad, right?”
    Dougie nodded again, sniffling and ashamed. He wanted to stay on the doctor’s good side, maybe because doing so earned him scraps of knowledge.
    “But this part is going to be.”
    The chains in the ceiling lowered again.

    Mat had made it through the first half dozen pictures like a good little captive, but when the doc had ordered him to turn around and spread his ass cheeks, he . . . might’ve responded badly. Heavy #1 still had blood dribbling from his very-obviously-broken nose. Heavy #2 was well on his way to a black eye, and two of his back teeth were lying on the floor about four feet to Mat’s left. He’d really wanted the doctor, but the heavies hadn’t let him anywhere near the guy, and after he’d gone through all the trouble of flattening them both, he’d still ended up on the floor, two leads from a stun gun buried in his chest, the doctor very calmly holding down the trigger until Mat had passed out.
    He woke up in the chains again to a rush of cold water from the showerhead above.
    “You are troublesome ,” the doctor said. He was fiddling with the video camera again; presumably, he’d gotten whatever still shots he’d wanted while Mat was unconscious.
    “Yeah? Let us go and I won’t bother you anymore.”
    The doctor peered through the viewfinder. “Go where? Your old life’s already been erased. Best you forget it. There’s no going back. There never is. Now then . . .” He cast a jaundiced eye at the bruised and bleeding heavies standing sheepishly in the corner. “Six minutes, gentlemen. That’s all I need. Light to heavy, if you would.” Then, to Mat, who was frantically trying to decipher that bit of terrifying he-didn’t-want-to-know, “Just like before. Don’t be shy. Let them hear you.”
    Like fuck I will , Mat thought, but the fact that he didn’t say it aloud spoke volumes to how unnerved he was by these new cryptic orders. Were the two of them going to fuck him now? Light to heavy was a weird way of putting it, if that was the case, but oh well. After that show with the vibrator, he didn’t see how they could possibly humiliate him more. Sex, he could handle. He’d give the camera the same death-stare as before. What he couldn’t handle was the thought that the doctor had done this exact thing to Dougie.
    Don’t think about it. Don’t let the camera see you’re scared. Hate. Hate. Hate. He recited it to himself like a mantra, waiting for the first touch of thick-fingered hands.
    But the touch, when it came, wasn’t with a hand at all. And it wasn’t really a touch, either.
    It was a dull, broad smack across the softest part of his ass. He whipped his head around and caught sight of some kind of paddle, not that Mat had any experience in that sort of thing, but it was flat and hard and felt a little like a wider, heavier version of the wooden spoon his mom had taken to him more than a few times growing up.
    The sheer surprise of the strike almost made him shout, but he clamped his mouth shut hard and released the urge as a heavy exhale through his nostrils, glaring murder and a