The Flesh Cartel #3: Choices

as if he honestly believed Mat even could.
A plate of chicken cut into bite-sized pieces. Mashed sweet potatoes. Peas and carrots. Real fucking food. And a plastic spoon to eat it with.
“Eat,” his new friend said. “Or else I’ll bring you back in to see the good doctor, and he hooks you up with a feeding tube.”
“I can’t.” The plug. The plug. The plug.
“Yes, you fucking can. You can do anything with that plug in that you could do without it, except take a shit, I guess.” And then, to prove his point, he grabbed the spoon, shoveled up a pile of peas and sweet potatoes, and shoved it into Mat’s gaping mouth. Held Mat’s jaw shut until he swallowed, then swallowed once more against a surge of pain-induced nausea, trying to keep the food where it belonged. “Now eat .”
Hands shaking, Mat took the spoon for himself. Ate a bite. Did the sickly double swallow again.
“Listen. Your new owner wants you fit and well fed, and you’re gonna get there one way or another. I need to go now, because I’m the driver on this pleasure trip and we’re already behind schedule. So here’s how it’s gonna work. When you’re done with this plate, licked-fucking-clean done, these associates of mine are gonna let you sleep it off in the bed at the back. Until then, they’re gonna hold you sitting here with that plug so far up your ass I can see it in the backs of your eyeballs. Fight them, and they’ll crank it so wide your damn colon will leak out. You took—excuse me, your brother gave you—seventeen turns of the screw at the auction without any damage. You’re only on six turns now. They’ve got plenty of room to go. Your choice.”
Mat nodded, for the moment defeated. “Where is my brother?” he tried.
“Exactly where he needs to be.”
He left. The RV rumbled to life.
Mat ate.

    Dougie’s ears perked in the vacuum of black, heart jumping in his throat. For a second, he thought he’d heard something. A door slamming closed from three blocks away. There, again—a faint, nearly sub-audible whisper of voices. A sigh on the wind. Or maybe just in his head. God knew he was losing his mind. By the time they came for him again— if they came for him again, if they hadn’t forgotten him, abandoned him, left him here to die—there’d be nothing left of his mind. Nothing left of the person he used to be. Which was most certainly the plan; he’d read all about the use of sensory deprivation as torture. About how it increased suggestibility. And if it came to that, would he be able to resist them, or would he give in to their control over him completely, a slave in the truest sense?
Another sound. And a vibration now, too. Definitely not imagining it—or at least, if he was, the delusion was thorough. The floor lurched beneath him. He banged into the padded wall, felt acceleration in his belly. Oh, right—RV. He’d forgotten. He was in an RV. They must be going somewhere, the faint deep buzz and vibration coming from the engine. To his new owner’s house? Was Mat here somewhere? Maybe in another cell like this one? Had he seen another door in the RV when they’d shoved him inside? He closed his eyes—not that it made a difference; it was pitch-black either way—and tried to remember. Couldn’t.
He reached down, stroking his own body, trying to connect with something, anything , to prove he was still physical, still alive, that he really did exist. Maybe I’m a ghost , he thought, despite evidence to the contrary: the feel of his own heaving chest under his palm. They killed me and I’m a ghost and this is limbo, and they sent me here for hurting my own brother.
As if on cue, he thought he heard Mat scream. Distant again, so distant it all had to be in his head. Just guilt, that’s all. Guilt and insanity. Mat wasn’t here. Wouldn’t want to see him again anyway. Not after what he’d done to him, how he’d hurt him. Raped him, tore him open, made him scream and beg and held him still to make him scream and beg some more.
He’d become no better than the guards who’d hurt them. The men who’d taken them. The woman who’d sold them.
The man who’d bought them. What kind of person bought someone else?
What kind of person allowed themselves to be sold?
Maybe Mat was free right now. Maybe Dougie didn’t deserve to be.

    They didn’t actually let Mat sleep it off. At least, not for a while. But then, he hadn’t exactly expected them to. Oh, they took him to bed, all right, and they