He felt the man’s cock thicken, felt the hard body pressed against his backside go rigid, and then he felt the warm explosion in his loins as his attacker ejaculated inside him. Farrad could not stop crying. When his violator began to beat him, punching and kicking him, Farrad was beyond caring. He hoped the man would kill him.
XIV
“Fuck that bitch! My lawyers will eat her alive. That fucking slut won’t get a dime from me!”
“She’s not after money, Michael. She’s pressing criminal charges. You’re going to be tried for attempted rape.”
“That’s bullshit! We were in a sex club! On a goddamn S&M farm for Christsakes! She wouldn’t have been there if she didn’t want to get fucked!”
Michael’s father shook his head, placing his palm against his forehead and closing his eyes.
“Something is not right with you, Michael.”
Michael smirked.
“I’m just fine, Dad.”
“No, you’re not. You need to see a therapist, a psychiatrist. I’m not going to have my son turn into some kind of rapist or serial sex murderer or something!”
“You’re overreacting, Dad. Me and Farrad just went to a fetish farm to check it out and see what it was like. Chicks go there to live out their fantasies of being overpowered and dominated. I was just giving that bitch what she wanted. Who knew she was going to freak out like that? It doesn’t matter anyway. I told you, I’ve already got a lawyer on this. Nothing is going to happen. You’ll see. I might even sue that bitch for what she did to my sack. They had to sew it back on!”
Michael Evans Sr. looked his son in his eyes, placed his palm against the boy’s cheek, then ran a hand through his own thinning hair, before dropping his head into his palms and letting out a sigh that appeared to empty his body of all vitality. He wilted into the brown leather recliner he was sitting in, looking as if he’d aged thirty years in a matter of seconds.
“Maybe something should happen. Maybe you should go to jail.”
“Dad!”
Michael looked at his father.
“You don’t mean that.”
Michael Sr. seemed to diminish even further, folding into the plush brown leather recliner, collapsing in on himself.
“Maybe I don’t.”
Michael nodded. He patted his weary father on his stooped shoulders.
“It’ll be okay, Dad. You’ll see.”
Michael bent and kissed the bald spot on his father’s bowed head, turned and left the room. He snatched a thin windbreaker from the coat rack, protection against the chill breeze and late night fog. It still amazed him that it could be seventy degrees during the day and drop into the forties at night when the fog rolled in. To Michael, the weather in San Francisco was every bit as fickle as its citizens. He grabbed a bottle of Grey Goose vodka off the bar, took a swig, and carried it out with him to his car.
Michael’s cell phone rang as he stepped from the apartment and hurried to the black Porsche parked at the curb.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Farrad.”
His voice sounded hoarse, weak. Farrad trembled, choking back sobs. Michael had never heard his friend sound so…weak, so defeated. Pussy. Some guys just couldn’t take the heat. Threaten them with prison and they fell the fuck apart.
“What’s up, bro? You all freaked out about getting arrested? I told you, my lawyers are the best in the business. They are handling it.”
There was a pause. A strangled sob. Then a whisper.
“Someone…a big black guy…he attacked me. He…he…did things to me.”
“What kind of things? What are you talking about? Where are you?”
“I’m in the hospital. Watch out, man. Be careful. I-I think he might be coming for you too. I think it has something to do with that whore from the fetish farm. I gotta go. The cops are here.”
The phone died and Michael immediately turned, expecting someone to be creeping up behind him. The street was empty. He climbed into the car, slammed the door shut, locked it, and shifted the Porsche into drive. Only then did he feel the chill breeze on the back of his neck. His hairs stood on end and icy tendrils of fear clawed his spine.
Michael turned and noticed two things simultaneously. His rear passenger window had been busted out and there was someone in the back seat...someone very large with a knife. Michael jerked forward, startled, terrified. He pulled the door handle and stepped one leg out onto the pavement. That was as far as he got. The man grabbed him by his hair and jerked him back into the seat. Michael yelled. His cry choked off suddenly when he felt the cold steel against his Adam’s apple.
“Shut up and drive.”
“Don’t kill me!”
The blade cut into his skin and Michael yelped. A warm wet trickle dribbled down his neck.
“If you don’t shut that fucking door and put your foot on the gas, I’m going to give you a second smile. You got that shit?” The voice was deep, gravely, angry. It didn’t have a hint of bluff in it. If anything, it sounded like the man was doing everything he could to restrain himself from slitting Michael’s throat.
Michael obeyed, closing the door and driving farther into the park. The man frisked him quickly, roughly. Michael wept like a child.
“No gun? You’re a cocky son of a bitch ain’t you? You rape a woman and it never even occurs to you that someone might want to retaliate?”
“D-d-don’t h-h-h-h-hurt me, duuuude. This was...this was just a misunderstanding. I didn’t mean to hurt her. We were all just having fun. She wanted it. I’m telling you, she wanted it.”
There was silence from the back seat. Michael looked into the rearview mirror and could only see a dark silhouette, a shadow that was darker and more solid than the other shadows.
“You hear me, dude? I didn’t do shit!”
“Don’t call me dude. Turn left right here, motherfucker.”
The man guided him through a series of turns down familiar streets, finally leading him into Golden Gate Park.
“No way, man. I’m not going in there!”
“I’m going to make this real simple, Michael. If you do as I say, I won’t kill you. I’m going to hurt you. I’m going to hurt you a lot. But I won’t kill you. But if you fuck with me. If you don’t do exactly what I say, I’m going to gut you like a fish. You’ve only got a few seconds to decide how this is going to go. Then I start making you bleed. I didn’t kill your little sidekick and I could have. But I promise you, if you don’t do exactly as I say, I will cut your fucking head off, slice open your belly, and decorate this nice eighty-thousand dollar sports car with your internal organs. Now, drive!”
Michael stepped on the accelerator and piloted the Porsche into the park.
“Turn off your headlights.”
“But...I won’t be able to see the road.”
“There’s a full moon. You can see just fine. Turn off your fucking headlights.”
Michael began to tremble. He felt some mild relief knowing the man hadn’t killed Farrad. Whatever this man had done to him, Farrad was still alive. It had been less than an hour since Michael had spoken to him. But Farrad said the man had done “things” to him. That’s how Farrad had put it. “Things.” As if whatever was done to him had been too terrible to verbalize.
Sobs escaped Michael’s quivering lips. He began to snivel and weep as his imagination conjured up visions of castration and other, more terrible forms of genital torture. He’d once seen a picture in a body modification magazine of a man who’d had his penis split in half, a row of rings pierced through each side. Michael’s testicles shriveled up tight against him, a whimper escaped from his lips.
“Stop the car.”
They were in an area of the park that wasn’t visible from the main road. The dense trees and other foliage formed a thick canopy that blocked out the stars and moon. The streetlights didn’t reach this far, so the darkness was absolute. No one would see them and no one would hear them. Michael could hear the sound of crashing waves from the San Francisco Bay. It was an isolated, lonely sound. A hopeless sound.