After (52 page)

“When I'd had a minute to get over it, my dad sort of laughed and congratulated me, then he went to take his turn. I watched him get his dick out—not hard, yet—then he grabbed a fistful of the girl's hair and start rubbing his flaccid cock against the girl's face and mouth. Then he told her to suck it. She took him in her mouth and went to work, pliable and earnest. As soon as he was the least bit hard, my dad got both his hands on her hair and started fucking her mouth, brutally, and a look I'd never seen before came over his face, like he hated that girl he'd never seen before. Like he'd kill her as soon as fuck her. He looked like a monster.

“But,” Artel's eyes flashed up, and he met Nix's gaze for a second before going back to staring at the floor, “watching his dick pistoning between her lips, hearing those wet sounds, even hearing her gag, my dick was already getting hard again.

“Dad kept at her for a while, and then, still holding her down on his cock, he asked me if I was ready to go again. I don't think I said anything, but he could see I was hard. He pushed her away and told me to get her on the bed and get on her.

“Without me touching her or saying anything, she got on the bed and laid back, and I went and climbed over her. And I remember not really knowing what to do. Really, I was that dumb. That innocent. And she pulled her knees up on either side of me, and still I was just holding myself over her, half worrying over not knowing what I was doing—knowing my dad was watching, maybe laughing at me, which was a strange thought, because my dad was never like that—and half starting to really notice her. You know, all the time, growing up, everything I heard had me thinking of women as something so different. Like another species. Something alien. But that girl under me, looking up at me, was like the boys I'd known. Like me.

“Then I heard my dad, 'Jesus, kid, are you really that clueless?' I felt this sickening panic, then. Knowing what my dad expected of me, while this other feeling rose up in me, a bad, scared feeling something was very wrong, without knowing what it was, or why it felt so bad. My dad's voice was like some kind of background noise, then.

I don't remember what he was saying. Just giving me shit. And the girl under me put her arm around my waist, and with her other hand, she guided me, until I was inside her. I think that poor girl actually felt sorry for me.

“Once I was inside her, instinct took over. I pushed myself into her, and it was so different from how it had felt when she'd used her mouth on me. My need was so urgent, my body wanted to pump, hard and fast. But my brain was fascinated with her.

Each time I moved, there was an echo of what I'd done in her expression. Changes in the sound of her breathing, the pressure of her hand on my back.”

Artel looked up at Nix.

“I don't kid myself that I was giving her any pleasure. It's just that I felt, suddenly, intensely, how what I was doing was happening to this other person.”

Then his gaze sank down to the floor again.

“I didn't get the big picture, though. At all. Feeling her responding to my body just added this rush of heat to the physical pleasure I was feeling, and slow as I was trying to go, it was over in a couple minutes.

“I liked lying there with her, looking at her, feeling her warmth, the weight of her hand on my back. But almost as soon as I'd stopped jerking over her my dad said,

“Move over, champ, and let the old man have a go.” Her face changed. She was afraid of my dad. I wanted to stay with her, because it felt nice, and because I felt bad, her being scared of my dad, but I pulled away from her. Got off the bed.

“My dad climbed up, tugging at his flaccid dick, and straddled her, making her suck him again until he was hard enough, then he fucked her. It went on and on, his desperate, jerky pumping, harder and harder the longer it went on. By the time he finally finished she was damp and limp, and her face was sort of blank.

“I felt sort of sick and sad, and wanted to go. But then my dad says something about how he has a surprise for me, something about saving the best for last. 'You can get it up for one more go, can't you kid?'

“Then he tells her to get on all fours and this look of real, miserable terror comes over her face. I really didn't know what my dad had in mind, what made her sort of crumple like that, but suddenly I wanted to turn and run out of that room.

“I didn't, though. When she'd turned over and my dad shoved her head down on the mattress so her ass stuck up in the air, when he told me to come over, I went. He grabbed one of her legs, down by her knee, and yanked her legs open.

“She was scared. Genuinely scared. I started to see that her fear was what had my dad so worked up, and my sick feeling was getting worse. But I sat there, on the edge of the bed, with my dad on the other side of the girl telling me to watch while he fingered her ass. Every time he pushed his finger into her she let out this small, pathetic little cry, and I wanted her to stop and be quiet, because it seemed like her sounds were just getting Dad more excited.

“After a while, when he'd had enough of fingering her, Dad said, 'Go on, kid, take her for one last ride.'

“I didn't want to. My stomach felt so bad I was afraid I might actually get sick. And in that room, with that girl, my Dad seemed like this crazy stranger. I'd never seen him like that, never felt scared of him like that, before. I knew my dad had paid a lot of money, and I felt like if I didn't do what he expected, he'd be ashamed of me. And I was too young, or just too dumb, to see that his being ashamed of me would be something to be proud of. I wanted my dad to love me. To be proud of me. I wanted him to think I was a man, like him. So I got on my knees behind her.

“He told me what to do—to fuck her the regular way first so my dick would be wet enough to go into her ass. So I did that, went into her cunt from behind, and she stayed down, soft and quiet like she'd been with me the whole time. But when I pressed the head of my cock to her other hole, she went all stiff. I'd gone into her cunt so easily, but my cock didn't just slide into her ass. I pushed against her opening, and she made this little whimpering sound and jerked away a little. It seemed so difficult, I was worried I was doing it wrong. Dad said something like, 'A tight little ass like that's a little work getting into, but wait 'til you see how it feels.'

“I felt cold and weird, but knew we wouldn't be leaving 'til I'd gotten Dad's money's worth. I tried again, pushing the tip of my cock into her, and now her body yielded, and I pushed through. The girl let out a yelp and jerked away so suddenly I wasn't inside her any more, and scurried away, to the other side of the bed. My dad laughed and said something about how she was perking up now, that it was more fun that way, that I'd have to hang onto her if I was going to get my way.

“I just wanted to get it over with and get out of there. I went around the bed and reached for her, and she didn't try to get away or put up a fight. She just let me position her back on her knees and move up behind her. But when she felt my cock poking her ass again, she jerked away. This time I caught hold of her. Now she started really struggling, thrashing and kicking back and trying to claw her way away from me. Her struggling like that, the feeling of grabbing hold of her, holding her down did something to me. Like a fight at school, or a race, all this adrenaline pumped through me. I forgot my nausea. All I felt was how hard and wanting my cock was, and the more she thrashed and the harder I had to hold her, the more I wanted inside her. I heard her starting to cry, but I didn't feel bad for her any more. I belted her against me with one arm and used my hand on my cock to get into position, and went into her. And then I fucked her, hard, until I came.

“The second I finished I felt it. I'd been running on some weird, dark rage. I felt sure my face had been how I'd seen my dad's—like a monster. Mean and ugly. The nausea came back over me, and my hands were shaking while I got dressed, and the girl was lying there on the bed, curled up on her side, not crying now, but just staring at the wall like we weren't even in the room with her anymore. I finished dressing as fast as I could and rushed out before she turned and looked at me.”

When Gareth ran out of story, he looked up at Nix, waited for judgment.

“So,” she said. “I'm not the only one who's tempted to run away.”

“I didn't tell you that hoping you'd hate me. It's like being glad you saw what I did to Dorset. Glad you know I get hard, sometimes, being near you. It would be a kind of betrayal, me having you imagine I don't want to touch you. And if you come to...like me, be my friend, thinking I'm something other than what I am, what's the point?”

She was mute.

“Maybe someday you'll tell me something about who you are.”

After a long silence she said, “So, what—that was the last, the only time you used a woman?”

“No. There have been other times. I was too much of a coward, in the beginning, to risk defying my dad. The Order. But that was the only time I've been that sort of monster with a woman. Since then, I save the monster in me for the men.

“After the time at the hotel, I wanted to forget the whole night, forget that girl's fear and how I'd hurt her. Forget seeing my dad like that, and feeling afraid of him. But I couldn't stop thinking about it. Studying, working, eating, trying to fall asleep at night, the images from that night forced their way into my head a hundred times a day. And every time I felt my face like that monster's mask, and I'd feel my face go hot and red. When I got tired of trying to forget what couldn't be forgotten, I finally started to think about it.

What I'd done. Why I'd done it. About that girl, and why she should be stuck in that shitty little room, a parade of monsters like my dad and me coming through every day to hold her down and make her cry.

“For a while, I tried to make myself feel better, trying to believe my dad, the other men, how they talked about women and the fucking parties. Like it was the natural order. But the sick feeling in my stomach wouldn't let me. I was still clueless, but I knew it was a big lie to make us all feel all right about everything.

“After that night, too, there was something different about my dad. And it seemed like, all of a sudden, I just never saw him smile again. He started drinking, which he'd never done much before. Everything changed, between him and me. He avoided me, avoided looking at me when we were together. And all that just made me even more sure it wasn't just me. The whole thing was messed up. Wrong.

“Then, this one day, we were walking through town, and we saw there was a crowd gathering. My dad tried to hurry me along past, but these three guys saw us and hollered for us to come over. So we started to head that way. And I saw there was a woman. Heard her. Screaming. A pack of men were ripping her clothes off while the rest were shouting and laughing.

“I looked over at my dad, and that second, I saw his expression shift from fear, horror, to that monster's mask. He turned, and when he saw my expression he caught my arm and told me to come on. But I couldn't. That woman's screams, the way the men were laughing, it terrified me. Already I felt like I was going to throw up. I jerked away from my dad, and ran.

“I guess he went. Took his turn. When he came home, he cornered me. Told me I could get away with that once, but the next time, he'd make sure I went and acted like a man, not some goddamned switch. And then he explained to me, what that meant.

What they'd do to me, if the town labeled me switches.”

The sun had sunk so low, Artel had become a shadow on the wall, dark and still.

“Then, maybe a month later, they caught three runaways, and there was a branding party. When I tried to beg off, my dad shoved me against a wall and hit me in the face. If I didn't go, he said, if I didn't let the men see me fucking the runaways, they'd brand me switches, and I could spend the rest of my life in a little room sucking cock and getting fucked in the ass like that girl we'd done on my birthday. So I went, and I did what I was expected to do.

“And while I was there, I watched. Saw how a lot of the men wore that monster mask like my dad's, how their pleasure only came when the women would cry or scream, or when they would laugh with the other men, doing their best to humiliate.

There was one guy—I won't even tell you the things he did that day, though I know it wouldn't shock you. I just watched him, the whole time thinking he didn't deserve to live.

“After, every time I saw him in town that nauseous feeling would come up in my belly. At night I'd try to fall asleep, but I'd keep seeing what he'd done, how the woman had cringed and cried. And I started to fantasize doing to him what he'd done to her.

When I imagined him crying and begging and screaming, I felt the nausea, but underneath was this euphoric rush.

“And then one night I jerked off, thinking about it. After, I couldn't fall asleep because I'd decided I'd actually do it. My brain was making plans, too busy to sleep.

And a few nights later, I broke into his house and did it. And when I was done, I dragged him out into his front yard, tied him to a tree, naked, down on his knees, an old cop's night stick stuffed up his ass and my cum splattered on his face. The next day, they found him and branded him. And I knew, because of me, he'd never be able to do a thing like that to a woman again.

“After that, every branding, I'd go. If I got called out, cornered, I'd do my part, as humanely as I could, and I'd pick someone. There was always a group that was nastier than the regular crowd, and more often than not, one sick fuck was the ringleader. Next chance I'd get, I'd go to his house and do my best to turn every shitty word and act I'd seen him use at the branding back on him, then string him up somewhere public, so he'd get found and branded.”

All his words, the damp disappointment, the jagged rage, the loss, the terror churned in her gut. She felt sick.

“I only told you all that,” Artel said, looking at her, now, “hoping, like I said, to be honest with you. Because I want you to know who I am. And because, I guess, after what happened today, I'm scared you're going to leave. I don't know if I thought telling you that could make you stay, or if I just wanted, for once, to be able to tell someone.