The Flesh Cartel #3: Choices

come from, so perfect and soothing he could practically feel the shriveled tissue in his mouth and throat expanding again. He drank more. More. It spilled up his nose and down his chin and cheeks and chest and set him to shivering, but he didn’t care. More, until even his toes and fingers seemed to rehydrate, and at last he slumped, sated, against the chilly porcelain, roused himself just enough to use the toilet as it was intended, and then fell back into the blackness of sleep.

    It took a long time for Mat’s conscious mind to emerge from the haze of pain he’d been floating through. When it did, he found himself lying on his front on the doctor’s examination table, arms restrained behind his back, a hand on his neck pinning him down flat.
    “. . . no serious internal lacerations,” the doctor said, and Mat vaguely felt gloved fingers slide out of his hole. “So as far as I’m concerned, if the client puts that . . . thing back in, he’d be liable for any damage caused to his own property, not us.”
    “Instructions were to debase as we saw fit,” someone said. “I kind of like that thing. Got him so loose I could probably shove my whole forearm up there.”
Jesus fucking Christ, you fucking sicko . Mat’s stomach cramped, and he clenched his ass reflexively.
“Three days until pickup. If you’d like, I can give him a laxative and an enema, flush him out completely. Client wants him fed, but the flush-out will give you time to . . . indulge your kink.” Mat could hear the doctor’s raised eyebrow on that last bit. Struggled, though he didn’t know why he bothered. Couldn’t escape, would never escape, and all it earned him was pain—the hand on his neck tightened, and something heavy and sharp lashed across his ass. Again, and again. Someone’s belt, maybe. His gut cramped again. His ass still hurt beyond all reason, outside now as well as in. He couldn’t believe Dougie had done that to him. That Dougie had had to. Had been able to. Was torn between thinking God, the poor kid and Jesus, I don’t know him at all.
Mostly the first, though. He knew the second wasn’t fair, but anger was rarely rational. Dougie had just done what he’d thought was necessary to keep them together. But God, he wished that when Dougie made those tough, terrible decisions, it wasn’t his body suffering the consequences.
His little pity party got interrupted by the hand on his neck shifting to his biceps. He was hauled upright by his bound arms to sit on the edge of the exam table, pain flaring sharp enough in his wrists for him to notice it over everything else.
“Drink this.” The doctor thrust a pint-sized plastic bottle full of chalky-white liquid to his lips. Mat’s jaw clenched automatically, but then one guard grabbed his head in both hands and another jabbed the pressure points on his jaw to force his mouth open, and another hand pinched his nose closed as the doctor poured the foul liquid down his throat. It was swallow or choke, so he swallowed. And kept swallowing, until the bottle was empty.
“Shackle him above the drain and come back in a few hours. He’ll be ready for you then.”

    Dougie woke up dead. Dark and cold and silent as a tomb. And as alone, too. He’d been in here for . . . God, ever , it seemed like, deaf and blind and mute and alone, and Mat hadn’t come to visit his grave so he was probably dead too.
    Except dead people weren’t supposed to be able to cry, and he was pretty sure they shouldn’t be so hungry, either.
Scritch scritch scritch.
Dougie lurched upright, numb everywhere but his throbbing jaw and the patch of skin near his hip where something had—
Scritch.
He scrambled back into a corner, drew his knees to his chest and batted at the floor with both hands. Something skittered across his ankle and he swatted at it—
Scritch scritch.
His shoulder this time. His hair. His scalp. Something skittering in the blackness. He swatted again. Again. Stumbled to his feet and stomped and stomped and there was nothing, nothing , the noise on the edge of his hearing had gone as surely as the phantom brushes across his skin. His pounding heart slowly settled as he eased himself, eyes wide but blind, back into a huddle in a corner.
Jesus Christ help me, I’m going mad.
But hey, maybe madness wasn’t all it was cracked up ( ha-ha ) to be. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Better, perhaps, to be insane than to be so aware of how alone he was. And how scared.
And how very, very