The Storm Giants (9 page)

Chapter 19
: Playing it too Close to the Vest

Kerri
watched Everett make his preparations. He was dressed even bummier than usual, as if intending some kind of urban survivalism.

He told her the location of his buried caches of cash – as if she hadn’t known where each one was as soon as he dug it.

He explained one more time how he had to leave for a bit to take care of business. He tried to imply that it was no big deal, but she wasn’t deceived.

Rick was here
of course, and Norm would be coming as soon as the ER released him. She took cold comfort in that.

Her
brothers had protected Kerri from schoolyard bullies, and before she’d met Everett they’d always grilled her prospective dates. Any guy that failed their inspection disappeared and never bothered her again.

N
ow Rick was frankly terrified. His eyes glittered whenever he thought no one was looking.

Like the growers
, her brothers considered themselves top dogs. People treated them like royalty, there was a bottomless supply of new hard bodied gold diggers filtering through on a regular basis, and they never had to face any real opposition. The worst Norm and Rick had encountered before this were human cockroaches scuttling around the back woods looking to rob a patch or three.

The brothers
had no experience with hit squads out for blood, or organized teams trained in trade craft. They were in over their heads and they knew it.

Everett
had always been there for her, hanging around like a big paranoid attack dog frantic for his pack’s safety. Now his past history had come calling. He thought it safer to take the fight away from home. His leaving was the only move they had.

Everett
finished his preparations and walked out the door, his mind racing too hard for goodbye even if farewells had been his way.

Brother
Rick sat next to the front door. That fat barreled DeLisle rifle was cradled in his lap, the one Everett brought to the house earlier with no explanation as to how he got it. She didn’t want to know.

“Everyone’s got the word
,” Rick said. “Fervus already caught a few trying to sneak around the back road. Don’t worry, they won’t trouble nobody again.”

“How’d you know they were involved?”
Everett asked.

“
Fuck ‘em in the neck. They were strangers. Even if they weren’t involved, they probably did something to somebody sometime. To hell with being discrete. Scorched earth is thorough enough for this neck of the woods.” Rick returned his gaze to Everett. “You told her what’s going on?”

Everett
looked back at Rick like he was a house pet that just took a dump in the middle of the living room carpet.

“You play it too close to the vest
, brother in law,” Rick said. “Kerri’s not flimsy, she needs to know and it’s not my place to tell her.” Rick’s tone tried to be firm, but mollification drenched his voice.

“Not his place
,” Everett said, but then knuckled under to her brother for the first time in Kerri’s memory.

Everett
turned to her and said, “Let’s go inside for a sec.”

And then
Everett told her something from his childhood. He told her about Doctor Dauffenbach. As he spoke, Kerri found his face growing younger and younger in her mind, taking her along as a fly on the wall.

Chapter 20
: Far, Far Away

Of course
young Everett was nervous his first visit to Doctor Dauffenbach. Most people are when they go to a new dentist. That was no shame for a 14 year old boy.

Everett
climbed the marble steps to Dr. D’s office. Birds sang, a plane buzzed overhead. Not a cloud in the sky as he crossed the threshold into that cool dim interior.

In the gloom of the wa
iting room, the receptionist posed behind her desk like a work of art in a museum. A cold, aristocratic blonde wearing a subtle dash of what he later learned was Chanel No. 5. As a horny young boy Everett saw she was beautiful, but she repelled as much as she attracted him even then. She told Everett that Dr. Dauffenbach was ready for him, and ushered him into the back.

Dr.
Dauffenbach stood next to his dental chair, an old man way past sixty, or even seventy. His white coat was so stiffly starched that it could have been some sort of corset forcing him to stand erect. His head was close cropped on the sides but topped with silver hair slicked straight back, above a round red glistening face.

He
looked Everett up and down with piercing blue eyes and grinned, displaying more teeth than any human being had a right to possess.

"So
,” he boomed in a voice too jovial for the circumstances, “I understand you like the candy too much, ja? Well, sit down and we will make everything good."

Dr. D
shut the room’s door and locked it as Everett climbed aboard the over sized chair. Doctor D wandered around the room gathering various pieces of equipment, the nameless steel implements clinking together in his hand as he hummed a light hearted tune full of summer and cheer.

When all was in order
, he came to stand next to Everett. His belly rubbed against Everett’s arm as he grasped a controller dangling from a cord.

"First
the lights.” With a click, the overhead dimmed to blackness as the working light came on behind Doctor D’s shoulder, transforming his red face into a harsh montage of light and shadow.

“Now
we make ourselves comfortable." With a penetrating hum the chair leaned back, adjusting itself so Everett was in the position of a helpless infant with head lower than feet, looking up at Doctor D’s shadowed face.

Doctor D
said, “You know, dental work is quite costly. The most expensive part is the anesthetic – the Novocain. If you would be willing to let me work without Novocain, it would save your parents quite a bit of money. You do want to save your parents’ money, don't you?"

"All right
,” Everett said.

D
octor Dauffenbach picked up his drill and triggered it. The drill spun with an alarming whir. "This will hurt. If the pain should prove too great for you to bear, you will raise your right arm and I will stop. Yes?"

"All right
,” Young Everett repeated, staring at the drill in dawning realization.

"Good.
Open wide." He hunched over Everett, blocking out the light as Everett stretched his mouth open as far as he could.

Everett
heard the scream of the drill for a moment before it was in his mouth. The drill touched the target tooth and he felt the charred bits of powdered crown flying away, smelled and tasted the rot of the cavity. As the drill dug into the defenseless pulp, it was as if a white hot needle pierced Everett to his very core.

His
entire mouth tried to cringe away from the invader to no avail, and his body jolted into stiffness like a soldier at attention. His right arm shot straight toward the ceiling in a trembling ram rod salute.

Doctor D stopped and withdrew
the drill. "That could not have hurt so soon. Are you a sissy boy? Are you weak?"

"No
,” Everett said. “I’m not weak.”

They
resumed the work. Everett’s nerves twanged like guitar strings with every change in pressure or angle of Doctor D’s virtuoso drill. Doctor D hummed and muttered under his breath as the pain brought a sheen of sweat to Everett’s face.

At one point Everett
looked up at his tormentor. Dr. D was sweating as well, and his eyes shone. Almost Everett understood – but he was too young, too young.

Everett
’s hands clutched the unyielding armrests and his shoulders rose toward his ears. It was all he could do not to squirm out of his seat.

But as the drilling progressed
the pain seemed to move, to withdraw from him. He wasn’t numb. He was hypersensitive as ever. Rather, the pain was still there but . . .
separate
from him. He tried willing it further away and his efforts worked. By the time the drilling was done, there was no longer any pain to be felt.

The filling material squeaked against the enamel as Do
ctor D packed Everett’s wounded tooth.

Dr. D
auffenbach raised the chair and brought his large hairless hands together in a meaty, business like clap. "So. This will be our little secret, ah? Your parents pay less each time we do it this way – so long as you say nothing."

For the th
ird time that morning, all Everett could say was "All right."

His
clothes were drenched in sweat, and trembling happened as he swung his legs off the chair. He stood, white faced and swaying – a limp noodle, drained and exhausted.

Doc
tor D was smiling as Everett left the room. As he stumbled out the door into the hall, the blonde was right there, directly in his way.

He collided full length with her and
felt her breasts flatten against his chest. He smelt how Chanel No. 5 reacts with a woman’s scent. Their faces were inches apart, and she stared into his eyes with lips parted. Mortified despite his dizziness, Everett left the building without looking back. He felt her eyes on him the entire way out.

Everett
had to stop once on the walk home to vomit in the gutter. The sun still shone, the birds still sang, but not for him.

He
didn’t tell his parents. There are consequences beyond consequences after all.

That night he had his first wet dr
eam in which the blonde was an enthusiastic participant. When he awoke to change his shorts, Everett had to rinse his mouth to get the taste of blood out.

His
next appointment with Doctor D was a week later. There was dread, but curiosity as well. Everett wanted to see if he could control the pain as he’d started to before, see if the agony could be pushed further away from himself this time. He wanted to see the receptionist again, if only to sneak glances from a safe distance.

He reclined
in the dental chair looking up at Doctor D's backlit face as that insectile drill descended to bite. Pain blossomed inside the tooth Doctor D picked for that day.

It was
, if anything, worse than before. Everett writhed in the chair, the whine of the drill stabbing into his ears as he reached deep into self for the place the pain called home. He found the crimson root of it, studying it as if it belonged to someone else and didn’t matter.

The tortured nerves inside the tooth expanded to become
Everett’s whole world. He visualized grasping them with the mind like a handful of jangling piano wires and – sent them away again. The pain was no more than a balloon bobbing on a string, distant and separate from him. He had controlled it.

Doctor
D’s breath came in hoarse gasps as he focused on his drilling. He became aware of Everett’s smug gaze and pulled the drill away. "So. The puppy believes he is stronger."

He stuck the drill in
Everett’s mouth and dug it deep into the root of the tooth's exposed nerve, pressing deft and hard. The pain came back to stab Everett like a bolt of storm lightning, and his body convulsed with the thunder of it.

Doctor D withdrew
his tool. "That is all the drilling for today."

He filled the tooth and
Everett left the room.

The blonde was waiting
to the side of this door this time, as if having learned from experience. She beckoned to him, then turned and walked away. Everett looked all around, and then followed her.

She led the way down the hall and around the corner. She took his hand and pulled him into a broom closet. She dropped to her knees
, fumbling hungrily at his pants and pulling them down to his ankles.

Everett
was mortified for a moment, every boy’s nightmare of being naked in public flashing before his eyes. Then her nails were digging into his buttocks and her mouth surrounded him to become his entire world. Sensation crashed on sensation as he stared at the mops and soaps and cleaning supplies until he finished with a loud cry.

He leaned against
the wall, pulling up his pants with a feeling of emptiness. She wiped her mouth and repaired her lipstick, and then adjusted her coif in her pocket mirror without looking at him. She left without a word, making him feel like he wasn’t even there. The closet was cold, so very cold.

After a bit
Everett peeked out into the empty hall and crept to the empty waiting room. He heard a woman’s moans behind the closed door to Doctor D’s work station, rhythmic and repetitive. He slunk out of the office.

N
o vomiting on the walk home this time. Everett engaged in lustful wonderment regarding the receptionist. It had happened so suddenly, out of the blue. It was over so quickly. Had it even been real?

Alternating with his confusion and horniness
, Everett was enraged with himself. This was a trial of wills, and he had failed. Doctor D had gotten the better of it once again. However, it was the receptionist he dreamt of that night.

The next visit
Everett spent the entire session staring into Dr. D’s eyes as he dug and probed and twisted with the drill. Everett put the pain inside a well lit little house this time, with himself outside looking in.

He could see t
he pain through the windows. Its lights throbbed and pulsed in the middle of that imaginary room like some obscene Christmas tree, but it couldn’t touch Everett where he stood out there alone in the dark.

It was nothing at all.

Doctor D gave up and put away the drill. He filled Everett’s tooth with a brusque minimum of motions. Standing to leave, Everett hazarded a smile at the dentist. Was this man’s approval being sought?

Dr. D did not smile back.
He clicked his heels and inclined his head in a miniscule bow, which made no sense to Everett.

When
Everett exited the room the receptionist stood at the end of the hall, waiting comfortably. She walked around the corner and Everett followed her to a room further down the hall from the broom closet.

It
was an examination room with table, overhead light and cabinets of medical equipment. She already had her top off and was down to her brassiere. Everett opened his mouth to speak and she put her finger to his lips in a ‘S-s-s-h’ gesture.

S
he unhooked her bra. When her breasts spilled out Everett thought he would faint. She placed his hands on them, placed her hands atop his. He felt her nipples erect as she steered his caresses. Her Chanel No. 5 was overwhelming in its implications.

She disengaged
, gave his arm a sensuous stroke, and turned to step out of her skirt. Hurriedly, Everett shucked his tee shirt over his head. When he could see again she was pulling off her panties. He doffed his trousers so quick, he almost fell over.

He was naked with a woman for the first time an
d he took a long, deep shuddering breath. When he remembered to exhale, it came out as a sigh.

She gesture
d to the examination table. He scrambled to sit on its end. She gently pressed him onto his back. The paper rustled and crinkled beneath him as he squirmed his ass to lay down flat.

She straddled him. H
e felt her smooth mound and almost finished right then. She guided him, taking him in and riding, riding. His head fell back and he thought ‘Now I am a man,’ and then thought nothing for a while.

He figured he’
d be done as quickly as the first time. However, whenever he got close she’d stop riding and clamp her hand around his base until the throbbing eased. It was a long time before she finally let him finish. Her moans were rhythmic, repetitive.

Afterward
she lay atop him, breasts smooshed against his chest. Their faces were almost touching, and her lips were parted. Shyly, he lifted his head to kiss her. She turned her head away so he had only her perfect ivory profile to consider. She uncoiled from him, their separation a ‘plop’ that dismayed him with a sense of loss.

Her back was to him as she dressed
. He knew she was alone in the room again, and ceased pretending to exist for her. She left that arctically frigid room first by unspoken demand. When he heard her cries behind the door on his way out, this time he did not approach to listen.

His dreams that night were confused montages of her nakedness
, alternating with the pain and blood he combated on every visit. Things were all mixed up. Torture led to reward. Pleasure led to pain.