The Flesh Cartel #9: Trials and Errors

his hand on the knob before he realized he couldn’t face anyone out there right now, not while he was still being a bad boy , not until he’d been punished for it, punished but good , forgiven and taken back into the fold.
    Which just left the bathroom. Dougie went inside and slammed the door behind him. Turned on the shower. A good hot soak always did help him think, and at least with the water running, he had no chance of hearing those awful little noises Mat might make.

For one long, horrible, vomit-inducing minute, Mat had actually thought Dougie was going to go through with it. And then he’d felt like absolute shit for being so relieved when Dougie didn’t. This was what he wanted, wasn’t it? For Dougie to give in to Nikolai’s desires? To not suffer anymore?
    But it seemed that even not suffering was its own form of torture, a torture that maybe didn’t hurt as much as punishments and consequences , but chipped away at you just the same. He couldn’t sit by and let that happen to his brother. Nikolai’s logic sounded okay in theory, but that was what Nikolai did , just kept talking and talking and talking until you believed what he said, until you accepted his worldview as your own. Guys like Roger weren’t happy in their submission, they were dead inside. That wasn’t happiness, that was numbness. And maybe if your only options were numbness or pain, you would choose numbness, but at what cost? And what if your only options weren’t numbness or pain? What if freedom was still on the table?
    Yes. They could get out. Mat would save them. Dougie still had some piece of himself left, but it was a light going out fast, flickering like a fluorescent bulb on its last legs. Mat had to get him out of here. God, if only he didn’t have this fucking gag , he could talk to him, tell him everything. Tell him about his deal with Nikolai, tell him he was sorry, tell him he loved him more than anything, more than his own life, and he’d save him even if he had to die trying.
    But he supposed that was why Nikolai had gagged and tied him in the first place. The fucking bastard. He’d promised to let them see each other; he hadn’t promised to let them speak to or comfort one another. He hadn’t promised not to turn their meeting into another torture—to the contrary, in fact; he’d warned Mat to be careful what he wished for.
    I should’ve known. I should’ve seen this coming somehow .
    Now if he could just get out of this fucking chair. He was pretty sure he understood why Dougie hadn’t untied him, why Dougie probably wouldn’t untie him. No mistaking the confusion, the torment in his brother’s eyes. The self-recrimination. The helplessness. The desire to please Nikolai, the fear of failure. This whole setup might’ve made Dougie question, but it wasn’t going to make him risk more than that. So Mat would be stuck in this fucking chair all night, wouldn’t he. Probably end up pissing himself. He balled his hands into fists and twisted his wrists again, glad for a moment of the penis gag to bite down on when pain flared breathlessly sharp in his torn skin. Nikolai would punish him for doing that to himself, but he didn’t fucking care, wasn’t even afraid of the serum, not if it meant he could get his hands free, get this gag off, talk Dougie back to him, back to sanity, to resistance, to escape.
    No dice, though. The rope was thick, the knots solid. Maybe if his skin got slippery enough and the ropes wet enough—enough sweat, enough blood—he could pull his way free. How much time did he have left to try? Dougie’s room, unlike his own, had a clock for some reason. Six thirty. Dinnertime.
    He went back to flexing and torquing his wrists. Ignored the pain, ignored the trembling in his overtaxed muscles, ignored everything but the goal. He thought maybe the left rope was starting to feel a little looser. Not enough to pull free as of yet, but progress was progress. Keep at it. Don’t think. Just do.
    It was after seven when next he looked up, breathless and bloody, unable to continue without at least a few minutes of rest. His body had had enough, arms and chest and back muscles so overtaxed he could barely move. The pain was starting to poke through his concentration with barbed hooks. And Jesus, was Dougie still in the fucking shower? What was he doing in there? Why was it taking so long?
    Was he . . . was he okay?
    Oh God, what if he wasn’t okay? What if he wasn’t okay and it was