ROHYPNOL BRIDES
BY SIMON LOGAN
A collection of fetishcore short stories
Copyright © 2006 by Simon Logan
Cover art & design copyright ©2006 by Simon Logan
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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The Antibiotic Pilgrimage of Prophet-X
The room was mostly bare, a single mirror the only thing breaking up the monotony of the cold concrete. There was a table and three chairs and she was bound to one of the chairs.
The cuffs around her ankles were linked to those around her wrists which in turn were wrapped around a metal bar in the chair. The chains were taut enough to restrict her from almost all movements and so all she could do was tense when the room’s only door opened and closed behind her. She did not so much see or hear as feel the presence behind her and it was the same as the one that had secured her to the chair earlier.
Her head hung low, long dirty-blonde hair falling in front of her as she tried to keep her breathing steady. Two immense black boots appeared in front of her.
“Look at me,” a strong, hoarse voice instructed.
She shifted slightly in the chair, squeezing her eyes shut. There was nothing she could do, nowhere she could go.
“Look at me!”
And this time he grabbed her hair and pulled her head back so hard and fast that it sent a splinter of pain through her neck and shoulders. She cried out in shock.
The man was in full uniform—the chunky matt black musculature of SWAT gear, a utility belt laden with both offensive and defensive weapons, shining black gloves which he now held her head with. He had removed his gas mask, however, and a broad, stubbly face was revealed with light blue eyes shining in the deep pits of his sockets. She could see the beads of sweat on his forehead like tiny marbles when he leaned forward.
She fought to remain still, to not react. His gloved finger traced the line of her jaw.
“Do you know what happens now?” he whispered into her ear.
A shiver ran through her, her heartbeat now racing, her entire body screaming for escape.
The man lifted his leg and with one of those huge boots he pushed her chair back away from the table. She was suddenly aware of how the chain linked bondage held her legs apart and she felt the desire to squeeze them shut, but she knew it would be no use.
“Please . . . let me go . . . ”
“You had your chance to talk,” the man said in a thick Slavic accent. He nudged the bruise on her shoulder where her blouse had been torn away. “No more talking.”
And to that end he removed his utility belt, laying it down on the table before them and methodically removing everything from it. First the heavy-duty baton, then two canisters of spray, a pocketful of white pills, a small sewing kit in a black container, some ammunition, some razor blades.
“What are you doing?” the woman asked. Her voice was barely recognizable as it shivered with fear.
The man pressed the utility belt over her mouth and then pulled it tight around the back of her head, wrapping it around once more before snapping the buckle into place. The woman’s eyes widened with fear as what was perhaps her final ability to protest was removed. She breathed in the thick odor of rubber and leather as he leaned over her.
He lifted the baton from the table and she tensed instantly, the chair almost jumping out from under her. She shook her head because it was all she could do.
Her clothes were torn in places but still intact. One-handed, he ripped her blouse from her, then her skirt and he smiled when he saw that she wore no underwear. Little scars and bruises decorated her pale skin. He touched her thigh just above her knee with the cool tip of the baton and she jumped as if she had been struck by it. Moved it up her quivering leg.
Her eyes were firmly closed now, whatever whimpers or noises she might make smothered by the belt around her head. She felt the broad shaft of the baton nuzzling between her legs and shifted in the chair in a pointless attempt to get away. It parted her further then pressed at her pubic bone.
The sensation disappeared and for a moment everything was still.
Then suddenly the chair she was tied to was grabbed and she was tipped forwards violently, her body slamming against the old wood of the table, breath blasted from her. She looked back in time to see the man raise the baton high above his head and swing it down in a single, violent motion and she cried out through the belt as the chair was shattered and for a moment it felt like it was her spine that was being broken.
The man chopped away at the remaining fragments of the chair, kicking them away as they fell to the floor. All that was left were the rods of the armrests and uprights that she was chained to and a single plank of wood that held it all in place.
She lay slumped face-first over the table, unable to turn or move because of the restraints, her body held in a slight curl so that her exposed backside was presented to him in the stark light. She made unidentifiable noises through the gag.
He hit her with the baton, gently, across one buttock. He waited for her body to relax again before he hit the other one. Then he adjusted her positioning slightly, centering her more against him, raising her.
He parted her buttocks with one gloved hand then slid a finger along her labia, spreading her moisture along their lengths. The finger went inside, moved around. Holding her lips apart with thumb and forefinger, he touched the end of the baton to her.
The woman jerked away but he had a hold of the remains of the chair with his free hand and held her firmly in place. Inserted the baton an inch inside her, out again, in again. The woman bucked but couldn’t do anything more. He pressed it in further with each subsequent thrust, twisting it slightly as it moved in, twisting it back again as it came back out.
He used the moisture that now coated the implement to soften her anus, to coat it and once again she began to buck. This time he let her, for a few moments, before he struck her with the baton across the buttocks then shoved it inside her again.
He left it there as he turned her onto her back, breaking one of the wooden rods so that he could maneuver her bondage to one side and so that her legs were bent at the knees and spread.
Her eyes were open once more and she was staring straight at him as he unzipped himself. Placed a thickly gloved hand on each of her knees. Moved down her thighs, towards the baton still lodged inside her. She managed to get herself onto one elbow as he lifted her legs higher, onto his armor-plated shoulders. He took her buttocks in his hands and raised her enough that his erection was pressing at her anus, knocking against the protruding end of the baton.
She shook her head, droplets of sweat flying off of her and her entire body clenched when he penetrated her. He began to fuck her, holding her off of the table with one hand and moving the baton inside her with the other. It felt like her entire abdomen was slowly filling with him, jostling around inside her. The smooth film between her vagina and rectum was firmly massaged by the end of the baton and his thrusting became faster.
He reached towards her and she drew away, but he grabbed her hair and pulled her head closer to him, then took her neck and began to squeeze. Fucking her and squeezing her neck.
He was staring right at her as he did so and she stared straight back.
The intensity of the feeling inside her kept growing and she felt as if she was filled with movement, as if an entire group of men were fucking her. She still struggled against the chains, but she knew now that there was no point in resisting, there was nothing she could do. She was exhausted, sore . . .
She felt the man suddenly clench her tighter and his movements became ever more frenzied, his grip on her throat strengthened, choking her, the air starting to fizzle around her, her head swelling, they both elicited primal growls, until with one final thrust that shoved her back across the table it was over.
Her muscles shook, shivered, and she could feel the tiny pulses of his orgasm and moments later the cool trickle of semen.
The man withdrew and stepped back.
The woman was drape-splayed across the table, red marks on her thighs where the thick padding of his uniform had battered against her, and several cuts too. Her chest heaved with the effort of recovering the breath he had squeezed from her and she was pulling at the belt still around her mouth, trying to free it.
The man stalked away towards the door, then stopped. He reached into one of the pockets concealed in the SWAT vest that he wore and pulled out a key. Dropped it.
The high pitched clatter it made bounced from wall to wall in the little cell.
He left the room.
The corridor outside was low and thin and curved slightly so that the bulbs that lit it were only visible for a few meters in each direction before they vanished from sight. They were deserted. He leaned against the opposite wall and lit a cigarette.
A few moments later he held the cigarette mid-draw as the cell door opened and the woman slumped into the doorway. She was naked save for the cuffs that were still around her ankles, having discarded the ones around her wrists and the wooden bars of the chairs. Her hair was a mess, her body glowing with bruises old and new. A small trickle of watery blood traced her inner thigh.
“You okay?” the man asked.
She was rubbing her neck gently, flinching with pain every now and again. She coughed, spat, coughed and there was a little blood in her phlegm. “Fine,” she said. Then smiled. “Shit.”
She laughed and the man smiled.
She wiped her lips and held up the baton. “I think this is yours.”
“Let me in you asshole. It’s fucking freezing out here.”
“Show me your face properly,” a voice said, emerging from an electronic box attached to the wall at the side of the apartment door.
“Aw come on. You know who it is. Let me in!”
Then, just in case, the girl looked up at the hanging basket above her head. Concealed amongst the fake ivy, she knew, was a tiny camera.
She shivered, nervously looking along the landing. There was nobody there but she could hear the ever-present of noise of teenagers causing trouble and it was usually just a matter of time until a lone female was spotted in the high rise.
There was a series of clicks as latches were released and Juan’s face finally appeared as he opened the door a crack. “Come in,” he said, allowing her just enough space to get into the apartment and no more. He had a quick glance outside, then closed it, refastened the security locks.
“What are you doing here? I thought you had classes today.”
“I cut ’em. Got to see my Community Release Officer this afternoon early so I thought I’d take the scenic route to get there. Anyway, I wanted to see you.”
There was a bong on the coffee table amongst the junk food wrappers and aluminum drink cans, a roach issuing its last wisp of aromatic smoke.
“I’ve told you before not to come over here without letting me know first. It’s too dangerous. I could have come over to your folks’ place.”
“Maria’s there just now.”
She flopped herself down onto the sofa, pulling some magazines out of the way first—hardcore porn, self-defense and weapons. She flipped through the weapons one to the sales ads at the back.
Juan was third-generation Mexican, his features barely acknowledging his heritage, though he always wore a traditional Mexican military shirt with accompanying bandana tied around one arm. The shirt has been his grandfathers, one of Emiliano Zapata’s original banditos.
“You got anything new to show me?” she asked, standing abruptly and walking towards a small door.
Juan jumped in front of her, grabbed her hips. “No. Nothing.”
“Nothing?” she asked, eyeing the door over his shoulder. She made a move to get around him and almost made it but again he grabbed her, harder this time.
“Watch it! You’re hurting me!”
She snatched herself free, rubbed her bruised wrists.
“You can’t go in there just now, that’s all. I’m in the middle of something and . . . you can see when it’s done.”
“Fine, whatever.”
“Hey, I’m sorry,” he said, reaching out for her. She let him wait for a few seconds as she continued to rub her wrist then took his hand. “But there are some things it’s safer if you don’t know.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?” she asked, pressing herself against him.
“Well I can’t tell you that . . . ”
“Oh yeah?”
Unbuttoning her blouse, opening it for him. Hand around the back of his neck and up through the mop of oily black hair.
“Yeah,” he said, smiling now.
She unzipped his fly and reach inside. “You know I have ways of making you talk.”
“Is that right?”
His eyelids fluttered at the movement of her hand. She was moving backwards, towards the bedroom.
“That’s right.”
She leaned in and kissed him, then knelt before him. His hands went to her head, gripping her hair and pushing her mouth onto him.
“Fuck . . . ”
She undressed as she sucked on him, slipping off her skirt and shirt, her underwear, then lay back on the bed and opened her legs. He leaned in towards and entered her and she tipped her head back as he fucked her, staring back at the guns that were mounted on the walls above the bed. They were in immaculate condition, most never having been fired, gleaming in the afternoon light.
The opposite wall was draped in camouflage netting, and when she rolled over and straddled Juan, she stared straight at it as she moved against him. His hands went to her small breasts, down her waist, across her hips.
“Tell me what to do,” she said.
“What?” Spoken breathlessly, Juan’s eyes foggy with pleasure.
“Tell me what you want me to do,” she repeated as she climbed off of him.
He seemed puzzled for a moment then when he finally spoke his words were more a question than a statement. “Get on your knees?”
From the look on her face he thought he’d said the wrong thing until her eyelids closed, her head dropped, and she did as he had asked. She moved in front of him, pressed the side of her head down onto the bed, let her arms lay beside her, palms up, her ass high in the air.
As he began to fuck her again, she stared at an A1 sized poster of Che Guevara smoking his customary Havana that had been taped to the wall beneath the window. She closed her eyes and imagined that it was the revolutionary himself fucking her, pressing her face into the stale-smelling sheets, but before she could disappear into the fantasy Juan withdrew and she realized he had finished.
Afterwards, she waited until he had drifted off to sleep in a haze of marijuana and afterglow, then got up and quietly left the bedroom, still naked. She lit up a joint as she walked amidst the military and revolutionary paraphernalia that was scattered like shrapnel around the room. Painted on the rear wall and currently illuminated by the waning sunlight was the Zapatista war cry Everything For Everyone—And Nothing For Ourselves.
She picked up one of Juan’s magazines and absently flicked through it, then found her eyes drawn to the locked door of the spare room. She turned another page absentmindedly, drew once on the joint, held it. She let it out slowly as she crossed to the door. It was locked, but she knew the key was beneath a Chicano carving on the shelf beside her and took it.
She paused for a moment to check that Juan was still sleeping then opened the door and stepped inside. The room was small and made even smaller by the junk that filled it. Shelves lined one entire wall from top to bottom and were stacked with plastic boxes and trays, tattered books and electronic manuals, old computer circuit boards and more. In the corner was a worktop which had attached to it the room’s only light but she left it off. Large pieces of paper littered the worktop and she squinted to try and make out the diagrams that were printed on them. They looked like circuit designs.
A sudden noise made her jump and she dropped the piece of paper and the joint simultaneously. She spun around, expecting to see Juan in the doorway but there was no one. Instead, that noise again.
Her phone.
“Shit.”
She ran from the room, pulled the door shut and shoved the key back under the carving, glanced at the clock as she dived for her bag. 5pm.
“Shit, shit, shit . . . ”
“What’s that fucking noise?” Juan asked blearily, appearing in the bedroom doorway.
She pulled her phone out and glanced at the number that appeared on the readout. “It’s my CRO. Aleksakhina. Shit.”
She held the phone until it had rung out, then ran to the bedroom and began to dress again. “I have to go. I’m fucking late.”
“So what? Blow it off.”
“I can’t, I can’t! If I don’t turn up they tell my parents and then all hell breaks loose.”
“Fuck ’em.”
“You don’t understand . . . ”
Juan shrugged. “Fine, do what you gotta do. I’m going back to bed.”
She ran all the way to the police station and made it there by quarter past, throwing herself along the corridor towards Aleksakhina’s office and into the man himself. She slammed into him almost head first and he had to grab her to keep her upright. He smelled of hot dogs.
“You’re late, Nina,” he said simply. He pronounced it, through a thick Soviet accent, Neen-ya.
“I came as quickly as I could,” she panted.
“I called you.”
“I didn’t realize. My phone was in my bag.”
“Why didn’t you call me if you were going to be late?”
“I was going to, I . . . ”
“I called your school. They said you hadn’t been there all afternoon.”
“I . . .” She had no answer.
“We’re going to need to talk about this, Nina. But not now. You’ve missed the appointment and I have another client.”
He motioned to the cheap seats outside his office and the girl sitting there. She was dressed in a short rag-like skirt with a thick pink stitching through one side to hold it together and a torn t-shirt that clung to her like a needy baby. Her head was shaved around the sides, teased into a Mohawk up the middle, her eyes sunken into her skull with an over-abundance of kohl. There was a strange semi-translucent device around her neck and scarring was visible beneath it. Multiple piercings; several tattoos.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Aleksakhina. It won’t happen again. You don’t have to report this do you?”
“Later, Nina. I told you already, we will discuss this later. Now go home.”
Once she had disappeared around the corner of the corridor, he turned to the punk girl sitting in the chair. He gestured to the open door of his office. “Katja, please . . . ”
Then sitting down in front of his desk, staring at the slowly rotating blades of a battered old wall-mounted fan. Katja crossed her heavily booted legs and propped them up on the desk.
“Down,” Aleksakhina snapped immediately and slapped at her feet.
Katja mumbled something under her breath as she sat properly. “So who was the rich bitch?”
“None of you business. What is your business . . . is this.”
He handed her a small folded pamphlet.
“What’s this?”
“Read it.”
She scanned it for a few moments, shook her head. “You can’t be serious.”
“It’s a good program, Katja. It will help you talk about any issues you might have with . . .”
“I don’t have any issues,” she said.
“. . . your condition,” Aleksakhina finished anyway. He leaned forwards and steepled his fingers under his chin.
“And I don’t have a fucking condition.”
She threw the pamphlet at him. It caught in the air and fluttered off to one side.
“You also don’t have a choice,” Aleksakhina said calmly. “The parole board have already given you enough chances. The only thing stopping you from going straight to prison after that last incident was the fact that for some reason they believe your condition to be the root of your problems. You deal with that, and everything else sorts itself.”
“Is that what you believe?”
“I guess there’s only one way to find out isn’t there?”
He picked up the discarded pamphlet and gave it to her once more. “Last chance, Katja. It’s either this—or prison.”
The punk girl rolled her eyes, sighed.
Assault rifles, handguns, old grenades. Flags, badges, patches. Camouflage netting and maintenance manuals.
Nina was at the end of one of the isles that ran the length of Benny’s, a semi-legal army surplus trading store that was housed inside the burned-out shell of a car repair garage. The outer walls were lined with corrugated steel and graffiti, the windows blocked off so that only the grungy strip lighting illuminated the place inside. She’d been there for around half an hour, aimlessly browsing the shelves, picking up and flicking through the photocopied ’zines of collector’s groups, running her hands over the ridges of body armor. She was still pissed off that Aleksakhina hadn’t even given her a chance to explain herself properly, but the fact that her parents were both still uncontactable for another week meant that at least she had the chance to smooth things over before they returned.
It was then that she heard the main door sliding open and the man walked in.
She moved up the aisle and past a handful of other customers whose expressions betrayed the usual what-the-hell-is-a-girl-like-you-doing- here feeling, trying to make it seem as if she were still just browsing. The man she watched wore black from head to foot as he had all the other times she had seen him and crossed to the counter where Benny was watching live news coverage of the sand-blown war that had been raging for the past few weeks.
Nina went right to the end of the isle then crouched down and absently examined a bucket full of old, damaged gas masks that were on special offer. She leaned towards the men to try and catch their conversation.
“. . . should be here by the end of the week . . .” Benny.
The TV was blaring with gunfire and bomb blasts now and the man’s whispered voice was drowned out for a few moments.
“. . . got this stuff . . . more expensive than I had planned . . . ”
“How much?” she heard the man ask. She poked her head around the corner slightly and could see his large, scuffed black boots. Their steel toes were poking through the worn leather.
“. . . bring it out to your car for you?”
“I can manage. I’m looking for something else . . . ”
More explosions, the sound of people screaming.
“The hell is this?”
Nina eased another look around the corner but caught Benny’s eye this time and quickly went back to the gas masks.
“. . . medical device . . . Balkans and Russia used them . . . tracheotomies performed . . . shrapnel bombs or land mines . . . ”
“And what did you say these things were called?”
Nina strained to hear what the man was saying.
“. . . what I can do.” Benny. “But if it’s military issue, I can get it for you. Write it down for me . . . look into it . . . this stuff for now?”
Then the sound of the till being rung up and the clatter of objects in a large container that the man in black picked up. Nina peered around the corner and Benny was staring straight at her past the man scribbling something on a notepad.
“Can I help you with something?” Benny said sharply, flashing his teeth.
The man looked around and Nina stood, feeling like a deer that had just emerged in front of two hunters. She randomly selected one of the gas masks and took it to the counter, deliberately not looking at the man that was right next to her. She could smell the hot rubber of his boots and the vague scent of motor oil.
“Just this,” she said. She could feel the man’s gaze. “But you can finish serving him first.”
She stole a sideways glance at the man and he was dark and square with a fine layer of jet black stubble across his jaw. He looked from her to the gas mask she was buying.
“This is my private number,” the man said, shoving the note towards Benny. “Don’t use the usual one.”
“No problem.”
The man picked up the container from the counter and made an odd, slightly submissive gesture towards Nina, as a servant might a young mistress. Then he turned and left.
“This all?” Benny asked once he was gone.
“And . . . and a roll of electrical tape,” Nina improvised and pointed to the items high up on a shelf behind the counter.
Benny pulled out a small stool to be able to reach the tape she was wanting and put the two items in a plastic bag for her. He told her the price and she gave him the credit card her father had left her.
“Thanks,” she said, flashing him as sweet a smile as she could manage.
Once she was out in the daylight again she reached into her pocket and took out the scribbled note the man had left for Benny.
Claudia was in the workshop welding when Oxide returned to the warehouse, the rest of them laying around on the ratty sofa that had been scavenged and left in the mostly-bare main room. He dumped the box onto the floor and immediately everyone got up and started raking through it. Inside were the fractured limbs of body armor, some small arms, empty CS gas canisters, rubber bullets and various electronic and mechanical bits and pieces.
He went into the workshop and watched Claudia work for a few moments before touching her shoulder in between blasts of the oxyacetylene. She flipped the welder’s mask up, her face shining with sweat beneath it, her eye makeup running down her cheek. She was still wearing her uniform from her shift at the hospital earlier that day.
“You get everything?” she asked.
“Most of it. A few pieces will be in later in the week, Benny says.”
She nodded. “Good.”
“How are you feeling now?”
“At least I can sit down now.”
She smiled that awkward smile of hers.
“You’ll be okay for Friday?”
“Of course. I’m just working on some plating for it just now. Is everyone coming?”
“I’ve put the word out,” Oxide said as he scanned the sketches and designs that were pinned to the walls of the workshop. “But I’ll be keeping it tight for now. I’m thinking we should do something big at the end of the month though.”
“Big how?”
“Not sure yet. Let me think about it.”
“Well you’d better give me plenty warning if you’re needing shit done. And how about we get through Friday first before you start planning anything else?”
“Maybe. Hey, look, I’ve got some place else to be this afternoon so I’ll catch up with you later on tonight?”
“Can’t. I’m working again tonight. Anyway, where has someone like you got to be?”
“I just need to check out a few things for Friday,” he said. “I’ll be back later.”
Despite the size of her parent’s home and despite her having the place to herself, save for the house staff, Nina still felt as if she had no privacy there and so had moved all of her stuff up to the top floor. It had once been an attic and so had a lock on the door which was the only access point, a lock which only she had the key to.
She stood now in her bedroom, the contents of the bag from Benny’s tipped out onto her bed. She reread the note.
Late 90s field two-break trach. kit w/ in-built surgical edge.
Then his phone number.
She had already gone through most of her military and police equipment catalogs but had found nothing like what he was looking for. She had found out from one of her encyclopedias, however, that it was a medical device used in the Balkans and Chechnya to administer ad-hoc tracheotomies. It looked like a plastic collar with a small spout at the front and a detachable blade. The blade would be used to make an incision then the collar buckled in place around the patient’s neck, the spout sliding into the breathing hole that had been cut.
Interesting enough, but no stranger an object than many of the other things that were available if you knew where to look.
She picked up the gas mask she had bought earlier. It had a split up one side of the rubber, but apart from that was in good condition. She already had many masks, of course, and all of them in better condition than this one, but now it had a latent connection to the man with the steel toe-capped boots. She slipped it over her head and stood in front of the full-length mirror by the window. Turned. Turned.
Then she reached behind her back and undid the clasps to the dress that she wore, let it fall to the ground. She took off her bra, then slipped her underwear down her legs.
And she turned again, this time naked. She swept her hair away from the mask, then in front of it, examining herself from each angle. She leaned forwards, put her hands on her knees. Her breathing was echoing around her, her vision misting rhythmically.
She imagined the man behind her, still dressed in black but with body armor and a similar mask on. His gloved hands on her hips, drawing her onto him, sliding her along him.
Then straddling him, running her hands over his Kevlar musculature, fucking until orgasm hit her like a nail bomb.
Even the building looked like a fucking joke.
Square and low with metronomically-spaced windows of an exacting size, plain grey like a bomb shelter.
“Can’t believe I’m doing this . . . ” Katja mumbled to herself as she climbed out of her car.
A burnt-out neon sign above the entrance read TRN Research Clinic. Next to the door there was a notice board with TRACHEA SUPPORT, 8PM written across the top of it.
“Fuck.”
She went to open the door but before she could it burst open on her and just about knocked her over. Piling through it, two men. One, security of some kind, had a hold of the man’s shirt and threw him to the ground. The other man skidded and rolled to a halt.
“I’ve told you before!” The security shouted at the man. “Keep away from here or I’ll call the fucking cops! Is that clear?!”
The man held up a hand without looking up.
“What do you want?” the guard asked Katja, still pumped up and probably assuming she was just a vandal or urban terrorist. Then he noticed her collar. “Oh . . . It’s just inside. Third door on the left.”
She hesitated for a moment, a last-minute thought to ditch the group and fuck the consequences crossing her mind but something about the look the guard was giving her and the fact that the strange man was still lying in the parking lot encouraged her in.
The group had already started, about seven people seated in a circle in the middle of the room. Some of them were attached to small machines bolted on to trolleys beside them, others had drips. The room was chemical white from top to bottom and so were the uniforms of the two nurses that stood in one corner.
Everyone turned and looked at Katja when she entered.
“Are you . . . Katja?” This from a man sitting amongst those gathered, his status delineated by the lab coat and name badge that he wore.
Another hesitation as she took a breath. Then, “Yes.”
“You’re late,” the man said simply.
“I know,” she said, and sat in one of the free seats.
“I’m Dr. Nieto,” the man said as he scribbled something on the clipboard he held. “Perhaps you’d like to introduce yourself to everyone and then they can do the same for you, since this is your first time?”
“Look, here’s how it is,” Katja told him. “I’m here because I have to be, because I was told to be, not because I want to be. Now I’m all for people helping each other out if they’re too fucking stupid to figure something out for themselves but personally, I’m not interested. So I think this whole thing will work a whole lot fucking better if we just keep out of each other’s ways. I’ll attend the group because I have to, but nobody said I had to take an active role.”
A nervous whisper fluttered through the rest of the group, but Nieto looked unfazed. No doubt Aleksakhina had told him what to expect.
“That’s not how it works, Katja. We require more than just your attendance if you are to be a part of this group, regardless of why you are here. And I’m sure your parole officer would be interested if you were to be causing me trouble here.”
“What trouble? Are you threatening me?” Katja said, leaning forward in her chair. Nieto was a slight man with a shaven head to hide the fact he was balding. His shoulders were rounded, his posture stiff.
“I’m merely . . . informing you, my dear,” Nieto explained.
“My dear?!” Katja snapped, getting quickly to her feet. “Don’t you fucking patronize me! I don’t have to listen to this!”
“Oh I’m afraid you do,” Nieto said as she stormed towards the door. “You can’t leave, Katja.”
She stopped, turned, sneered at the collection of out-patients looking back at her. “Just fucking watch me.”
The security guard was still lingering in the corridor when she stormed out and he looked as if he was going to stop her leaving but she was past him before he could do anything. She booted open the entrance door and stalked out into the parking lot, had to stop at the first car she saw because her breath was suddenly catching in her throat. She slumped over the car’s hood, hitting her chest across her breastbone to dislodge the blockage then spat, spat, spat to get rid of the oily residue that was clogging her.
She gripped the hot metal and fought hard to steady her breathing again.
“Good fucking timing,” she said to herself. Wiped her lips.
She crossed the lot to her car and climbed in, her heart still trip-hammering. She keyed the engine and nothing happened. Again. Nothing happened.
“No.”
Again.
Nothing.
“NO!”
“Are you okay?”
“Jesus!”
She jumped so hard at the sound of the strange voice that she almost hit her head off of the roof. “What the fuck?”
The man standing by her car crouched down so that she could see him properly. It was the one she had seen being ejected when she had arrived.
“You were having some sort of . . . attack,” the man said. He was staring at the collar around her neck, at the little hole in the middle of it.
“I was just out of breath is all,” she said. “Can you get out of my way, please? I’ve got to be somewhere.”
She keyed the engine and again nothing. Silently cursed under her breath.
“Your car sounds a little out of breath too,” the man said. “I can give you a lift if you want. My name is Oxide.”
“Look, whatever it is you’re after I’m not interested.”
“I’m not after anything. I just thought I could help.”
Turning the key, turning the key.
Come on.
“If I need your help I’ll be sure to ask, okay?”
“Of course, I just thought. . . ”
And the engine caught, came to life. Katja revved it hard and glared at Oxide.
She had painted herself randomly with black latex body paint, the sort that solidifies into a smooth rubber skin when dry. It stretched across her stomach and shoulders and her left breast. It wrapped around her legs and ankles and merged discreetly with the platform-heeled boots she wore so that it seemed like a single, constant layer. There were small straps with buckles around her wrists and ankles, another just under her breasts, and a thick collar around her neck.
She said nothing when Oxide entered, remained absolutely still.
He seemed a little taken aback at first, then his mood shifted.
He removed his boots, then his clothes, then opened the top drawer of one of the units next to the bed. He took out a pair of elbow-length latex gloves and slipped them on.
Her bedroom was no larger than the playrooms in the basement that they often enacted a scene in and was filled with a thick cloud of incense. It moved like a crowd of ghosts around them as he knelt on the edge of the bed then climbed onto her.
He ran a hand up along one of her spread thighs, latex on latex, magnetic. Then across her calf where her flesh was exposed, sliding one finger underneath the layer as if it were her skin he was reaching into. She shifted on the bed.
Up her thigh once more to where they met in the middle, his finger exploring the black glistening skein that coated her, pushing at it. It gave way in the centre and he pressed harder. Claudia’s back arched, drawing her away from the mattress.
The skein broke abruptly and his gloved finger sank into her.
She hissed as he moved it around inside her, lowering herself further onto him.
“Fuck me,” she said, and turned onto her knees, her head pressed into the bed and ass in the air.
Oxide peeled away some of the latex over her buttocks, revealing more and more of her. Her skin seemed ice white underneath.
“Wait,” he said, and crossed to the drawer again. He reached into the back and took out something that looked like an oxygen mask with two vents on each side and a plastic ridge across the nose.
He drew Claudia’s head up and slipped the device’s straps over her head, then fixed it in place across her mouth. She felt something cool and plastic settle over her tongue unexpectedly and struggled with her gag reflex for a moment. She flinched when he drew the fixing straps tighter. The mask covered her nose and mouth, the air that filtered in hot and thick and as he knelt behind her and slid inside her she was already finding it difficult to breath.
Oxide had sank his fingers into the latex coating on her hips and now gripped her with it, peeling the edges away, flaying her.
Claudia raised one arm behind her, flailing as if trying to find him and he grabbed it, pinned it to her back. She made a noise that was stolen by the mask and turned slightly to face him. Her face was bright red, her eyes bulging, streaming with fluid. The other hand came up but she wouldn’t let him take it, wriggling beneath him as he fucked then finally she pulled away and turned over onto her back, scrambling away from him.
She snatched the mask from her face and gasped desperately for breath, her chest heaving mightily, threw the device at the wall.
“. . . the . . . fuck is . . . your . . . problem!?”
Oxide said nothing. He reached out to her but she backed away, staggering because of her light-headedness and having to steady herself up against the wall.
“Sick of this shit . . . ” she mumbled as she pulled at the remaining latex.
“What shit?”
“That shit,” she shouted, and gestured at the discarded oxygen mask. “I don’t know why you always have to bring that into it”
“Bring what into it?”
“Where were you tonight anyway? I tried calling you.”
“I was . . . ”
“Oh Oxide, just get out. I’m not in the fucking mood. Forget it.”
She grabbed a robe from the floor and opened the door. “Go on, get out.”
Oxide stood for a moment, then dipped his head. “I didn’t mean to . . .”
“I know,” Claudia said, softening slightly. “I just . . . just leave, okay?”
Oxide did as he was told, picking up his clothes and the mask as he left and walking down the corridor towards his own bedroom. He could hear the sound of video games being played in one of the other rooms, the shouts of those playing them. The sounds of bombs dropping that could have been either from the video games or the TV.
He slammed the door shut behind himself and breathed deeply. Flecks of Claudia’s spittle sat at the bottom of the mask like dew and it made him think of the punk girl’s blood. He placed the mask on a small workbench he had set up in one corner and noticed that his phone was flashing.
There was a message for him.
He arrived at the park half an hour before the message had said to.
The grass was threadbare, the few pieces of play equipment long ago rusted and broken on the ground. There were small gangs of teenagers and addicts hovering around burning oil drums and dumped pieces of electrical equipment, and though they eyed him, his military presence was enough to warn them off. Police helicopters swept over head, their searchlights switched off.
He settled on an upturned bench and was considering how to smooth things over with Claudia once more when a voice behind him said, “Hello?”
He turned and was surprised to see not the large boots, torn stockings and kohl-smeared eyes of the punk girl that he had been hoping for but a blonde with a slim, tapering figure and a long coat. She seemed nervous and displaced within the park’s wasteland.
“I’m not interested,” he said abruptly, and looked past her.
“But . . . I called you . . . ”
Now he looked at her. “What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “I asked you to meet me here. You are Oxide, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Sorry, I thought . . . I thought you were someone else.”
“Oh.” She could see the disappointment in his eyes and realized that he didn’t even recognize her. “Sorry.”
“My fault. Who are you? How did you get my number?”
“Benny gave me it.”
“Benny who?”
“You know who.”
Oxide remained guarded with her. He glanced around the park, suspicious that this was some sort of trap.
“Benny wouldn’t give you my number.”
“He did. I was selling some stuff to him and he mentioned that you were looking for one of the pieces. A late 90s field two-break trach. kit with an in-built surgical edge?”
Oxide frowned, stood. He towered over her like the high rises towered over the park. It had sounded like she was reading from a catalogue. “What is this? How old are you?”
“Nineteen,” she said, somewhat unconvincingly.
“And where does someone like you come across an item like that?”
“I collect things,” she told him, defensive now. “I know more about it that you probably do.”
“Is that right?”
Nina nodded, frustrated that he was being so difficult. This wasn’t how she had planned it.
“I remember you now,” Oxide said. “I’ve seen you before, at Benny’s. You were there yesterday when I came in, weren’t you? You bought a gas mask.”
“Look, are you interested or not?” Nina replied. At least he remembered her now.
“So where is it?”
“I . . . don’t have it with me,” she stumbled, taken a little off guard by the question.
“Uh huh. Tell me, does it have a blue tip or a green one?”
“Blue,” she said quickly.
“The tip of what?”
She hesitated. “The tip of the . . . blade”
Oxide smiled, relaxed, now that he had caught her out. He gave another quick check to make sure there was nobody else involved in this trap, but he could tell now that whatever it was the girl was up to, she was doing it off of her own back.
“Who are you? What do you really want?”
“I told you already, I have the trach. . . . ”
“Fine,” Oxide said, and began walking away. Fucking waste of time.
“Wait!” the girl shouted, and he stopped. She hurried across to him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lie to you but . . . I know who you are.”
“You said that already.”
“No, I mean I know. I know what you do.”
Oxide stiffened again. He was beginning to feel that it was a very bad idea being in such an open space right then. He was acutely aware of the police chopper circling in the distance, coming back towards the park now.
“It’s okay,” she said, trying to calm him. “I went out with Yuri for a while a few months back. He told me about it.”
“I don’t know any Yuri.”
“Come on, don’t be like that. Yuri Veshkov. Currently serving six for aggravated assault?”
Oxide lowered his eyes. “That one never could keep his mouth shut.”
“It wasn’t like that,” she told him. “We . . . we had the same interests, Yuri and I. Just as you and I do, Oxide.”
“What is it that you want? Really?”
“I want to become a part of it.”
Oxide laughed. “I don’t think so.”
“Why? Because I’m sixteen?”
“You said you were nineteen a minute ago.”
She hesitated, caught out by her own mistake. Then, “Does it matter?”
“Some people would have a problem with it.”
“Some people would have a problem with what you and your group do, full stop.”
And there was something about the way she said it . . .
“Is that a threat?” he asked her, mildly amused.
“Yes,” she lied, then improvised. “Put it this way—Yuri told me enough that I could cause some problems for you if you were to make me walk away empty-handed right now. But I don’t want to cause you problems. I could have done that already and I haven’t. Look, all I’m asking is that you give me a chance. Let me become involved. If it doesn’t work out then fine, you can kick me out.”
“This isn’t a social club,” he hissed. “You don’t just hand over your members fee and get free access to the sauna and Jacuzzi.”
“I know that. Look, I promise that if you really don’t want me around, I’ll go and never come back. But please, just give me a chance.”
“I tell you what,” he said finally, “if you’re so interested, we’ve got something planned this week. Nothing major. You want to come along, fine. We’ll take it from there.”
And for the first time Nina smiled. Nodded.
He supposed on some level the idea had been a psychological prod to see how she would respond. To challenge her.
He’d had it before, people brought along to one of their little parties who were nothing more than your basic militia or uniform fetishists. They hadn’t truly understood or fully felt what it was that the core of Oxide’s group felt.
So when he had swung open the door to the warehouse and presented her with her first glimpse of what they were about and her eyes shone, he knew this one was different.
He’d made sure that she arrived once things were in their full flow so that she wasn’t eased into it and so one of the first things she had seen was a woman in one of Claudia’s customized SWAT uniforms, complete with built-in platform heels, kneeling over a man with blood splattering his face. Behind them an industrial skip was ablaze, the shimmering and blurred figures of three others just visible in the heat-haze.
Oxide took Nina’s hand and led her forwards.
Led her past medical equipment that Claudia had bought and/or stolen with a man plugged up to it all and two women in latex nurses uniforms leaning over him. On the floor beside them, another woman who was either asleep or unconscious, an IV tubing leading to an empty sac that looked like an organ that had been torn from her.
Led her under the immense rotating blades of a helicopter that had been fitted to the ceiling and provided a constant thrumming heartbeat to the proceedings. Past more people clad in body armor and latex, feeding on one another, fucking one another.
“Joining us tonight, Oxide?” one of them said as he passed.
“Later,” Oxide replied, and guided Nina past them and through a large, heavy door at the back of the room.
He closed the door behind them and the background noise of blades and sexuality dimmed. Before them, a long and cold corridor with bare lighting and patches of damp on the walls. Doors were spaced out at regular intervals and there were more sounds coming from within them, moans and the slap of skin on skin.
“Where are we going?” Nina asked him.
“To the workshop,” he told her.
It was the last door and a blast of heat greeted them when they stepped inside. Claudia was on the floor amongst a mass of metal trash and pieces of machinery, an oxyacetylene torch blazing away quietly beside her.
“Hey,” she said to Oxide. “This is her?”
She looked Nina up and down and the young girl felt the urge to hide herself from the woman’s gaze. She had worn a short leather skirt and boots and an army shirt similar to Juan’s because she hadn’t been able to decide between trying to look attractive or openly displaying her understanding of what Oxide’s group was all about. She had briefly considered the gas mask, but had been worried it would have been a step too far. She needn’t have bothered.
“Well, you got this far,” Claudia said, laying down the metal frame she was building. “That’s more than most.”
“What are you making?” Nina asked, kneeling beside the older woman.
“It’s the start of an exoskeleton. It fits onto a person’s back.”
“Can I see?”
Claudia looked at Oxide and he nodded.
“Sure.”
She lifted up the construction and it was like a ribcage with a locking mechanism at the back. She held it over Nina’s head then slipped it onto her shoulders. It was far too big for the girl and so she had to support it with both hands.
“I’m going to add plates here and here and then stitch Kevlar over the top of it.”
“Have you made all of these?” Nina asked, looking at the various costumes and pieces of armor hanging from hooks on the walls.
“Most of them.”
“Why don’t you have a look around?” Oxide said. “See if there’s anything you like.”
He lifted the carapace off of her and the two watched the girl walk amongst the outfits as if she were in a museum.
“You can’t be serious,” Claudia said quietly. “She’s not nineteen.”
“She says she is.”
“And you believe her?”
“I see no reason not to.”
“Look at her. She’s just a fucking army brat. Daddy’s probably a member of the NRA. Nothing more.”
“No, you’re wrong. I was watching her out there. I could see it in her eyes.”
“See what in her eyes?”
“The same look you used to get.”
Claudia said nothing for several moments. “She’s soft, like baby flesh.”
“Don’t be so territorial.”
“I’m not being territorial. But, hey, look, do what the hell you want. If she freaks out, it’s your problem.”
“Of course. Isn’t it always?”
They both fell silent as Nina returned, eyes sparkling.
“Can we go back out now?” she asked.
Oxide smiled at her, then Claudia. “Not tonight, Nina. But I think you could fit in here. We both do. I’ll introduce you to the others, let them know you might be hanging out here from now on. We’ll take it from there.”
“Okay,” Nina said.
Excited and disappointed at the same time.
“Shit.”
Katja saw Aleksakhina’s car parked outside the squat as she approached it but it was too late to turn back. The man got out and crossed his arms.
“Morning,” she said pleasantly and continued past him, adjusting her grip on the groceries she carried.
“Katja,” he said in a harsh, warning tone.
She stopped, turned.
“You’re not really one for rules, are you?” he asked her.
“Rules are great. If it wasn’t for rules, what would I have to break?”
“How about my trust?”
“You never trusted me. People never do.”
“Not when you behave like you have been.”
“Behave?” she asked innocently.
“First of all, storming out on the support group when you didn’t even give it a chance, and secondly, still being involved in that damn band? Katja, have you any idea how much damage that must be doing to your throat?”
She thought of the blood and the intense, burning sensation that had been with her an entire day after the gig. “Uh huh.”
Aleksakhina sighed heavily. “I’m trying to help you . . .”
“Fuck your help!” she snapped at him suddenly, walking quickly away. Aleksakhina followed. “And fuck your stupid fucking support group! I don’t need any of that shit, I keep telling you.”
“You don’t need my help?”
“No, I don’t need your fucking help!”
She reached the gates of the squat and began searching through her pockets for her the key to the giant padlock that secured them.
“Fine, you want to take your chances with the parole board, that’s okay by me. You seem determined to be back inside, so who am I to stop you and I’ve got other clients to deal with that are more willing to try. But I didn’t just come to see you about your behavior.”
Katja found her key and unlocked the padlock. She let the rusted gate swing open. “Really,” she said disinterestedly.
“I spoke to some of the others at the group. They told me you were seen with a man in the parking lot outside after you left.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Katja, look, this is serious. The man you were seen with, the group has had trouble with him before.”
“What kind of trouble?” she asked, curious now.
“That’s not important. Needless to say, I want you to keep well away from him. If you see him again let me know or report him to the police.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“Katja, no bullshit, okay? Just stay well away from him.”
“Okay, okay, fine. I’ll stay away from him.” She slipped inside the gate and closed it behind her, engaged the lock. “Anything else?”
Aleksakhina fixed her with a heavy stare. “Katja, please. For once in your life do as you’re told.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve already told you I will.”
“5pm Wednesday!” Aleksakhina shouted at her as she walked towards the crumbling building that she called home. The great doors opened and one of the other squatters emerged.
“Alright!” she shouted back at him, then slammed the door shut behind her.
It had been over a week since Nina had first been introduced to the others and their initial distaste had begun to thaw. They had taken their turns asking questions about her and she had mostly supplied them with truthful answers, even the ones that weren’t that regular and some that she didn’t recognize at all.
The underground (because there was no other way she could picture it in her mind) seemed to have a core group of about five or six people, at the head of which was Claudia and Oxide. Claudia spent almost all of her time in the workshop constructing new outfits and pieces of equipment for the others and was always fairly off-hand with Nina, though it was some comfort that she was like that with everyone. Oxide, meanwhile, somehow managed to elicit a constant presence whilst at the same time never being around. She always looked out for him of course and occasionally he would chat with her but only for a few minutes at a time. He always had something better to do.
“Don’t worry about it,” Alex said one day. Nina had a hard time deciding whether Alex was male or female—he/she seemed to shift from one to the other with minimal effort on a day to day basis—but in the end it didn’t matter. What mattered was their mutual interest, their obsession.