Lana ached everywhere, inside and out. The stink of semen clung to her. She had vomited so much in the shower that her belly felt mercifully empty. She had not taken the blindfold off. She didn’t want to see them again until she was clean. She faced the wall and let the sound of the water deafen her, but still she heard the door as it opened and closed, and the footsteps approaching across the hard floor.
“Hurry up. We have things to do.”
It was Terry’s voice. She would never forget that voice, even if she lived to be an old woman. He had whispered such terrible things in her ear as they’d used her body, entering every orifice. Such terrible, terrible things. He’d spoken of Hailey, and how she looked. He’d talked about her daughter’s young body, and what he would like to do with it. The words he’d used had been ones she’d heard before, many times, but in the situation she was in they became something new: another language, and one that expressed only depravity.
These were surely not men; they were animals. Beasts. They had no souls, no morals. They were demonic.
But, no. They were just men: Bad Men.
She fumbled for the taps and turned off the flow of water. Then, wincing as her limbs burned with pain, she took off the blindfold. Then she turned to face the one-handed man who had defiled her. He was fully clothed and his prosthetic was fixed back in place. He was once again wearing both of his black leather gloves.
“Put your fucking clothes on.” The contempt in his voice was almost as hurtful as what they’d done to her. Almost, but not quite. Not at all, if she was honest. That was just another lie to tell herself, a flimsy barrier to wedge between her and the memory of what had been done here in this shabby little basement room she would always think of whenever she heard the word ‘hell’.
The door opened again just as she was putting on her blouse. She watched Bright walk in as she buttoned it to the neck and smoothed out the collars.
“So, are we done?” Her voice was hoarse. Her throat felt like it had been filled with cement. “Are we square?” She shuffled forward. Each tiny step made her thighs blaze, her crotch burn, her torn anus clench, and set off a series of dull explosions deep inside her lower abdomen.
I’ll need to get checked out, she thought. For STDs. AIDS.
This grim note of reality, even more than the acts she’d been made to perform and submit to, threatened to tear her apart. The aftermath — the thought of the countless small, intimate and desperately embarrassing tasks she would need to undertake before declaring herself clean and safe — were like daggers in her belly.
“Well?” She was amazed that she still possessed enough strength to raise her voice. She certainly wouldn’t be able to raise her hands to defend herself if one of the men chose to slap her again. Such physicality was beyond her right now, at least until she started to bruise.
“For now,” said Bright.
Terry laughed softly, but when Bright glanced at him he fell silent, and then lowered his head and left the room. He shut the door quietly behind him, as if that one look had caused him to fear even the slightest sound.
The games were over.
Bright was once again wearing his suit, but was not wearing any shoes. He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out a fat cigar — probably Cuban, thought Lana, madly, focusing on absurd details rather than the larger canvas of the picture taking shape before her. He lit the cigar and took a long drag. Smoke trailed from his lips; Lana thought it moved too slowly to be real.
“What do you mean?” Her hands dropped to her sides. She felt boneless, as if the men had filleted her on the bed. “You promised.” But she knew that any promises made by such a man were subject to the whims of his fancy. She’d been a fool to let herself believe that this would make any difference to her situation, but what else did she have to cling to other than foolish belief?
“I promised you nothing,” said Bright, looking at the cigar in his hand. The tip glowed bright red, like a single devilish eye. “Consider this visit a down payment. The way I figure it, you’ll have your debt cleared in, say, six to eight months. Even quicker if you bring the girl along next time. Nice and tight and pretty, isn’t she? I’ve seen her through the school gates, playing with her little friends. I think my friends would like to play with her very much.”
Lana knew that she should rush him, maybe go for the throat, the eyes: attack the soft parts, just like a cornered rat. But it was futile. He was too strong, and had always possessed the upper hand. Right from the start, he’d played her along, upping the odds until she came to him and offered him exactly what he wanted and could have taken at any point, if that had been his choice.
But Monty Bright did not want to take; it was the very act of offering that turned him on, made him shine.
Where’s your compassion?” she said, failing to penetrate his armour. “Where’s your basic human decency?” She hated the desperation she heard in her weakened voice, but it was all she had left to offer, the only thing she could dredge up from inside her poor, defiled wreck of a body.
Bright walked towards her. He was shorter than she remembered; he barely came up to her shoulder now that she’d put her pumps back on. His skin looked soft, malleable, and his eyes protruded like boiled eggs from a face as flat and round as a polished plate. Bright’s shoulders were hunched; his posture was awkward, as if the years of self-abuse disguised as exercise had mutated his basic geometry. He slowly raised his hands and began to slip off his shirt. He still wore the wetsuit underneath, as he had done during her ordeal, and she stared in horror as he slid his fingers under the neck of the garment and began to peel the material downwards, as if he were calmly removing a layer of skin. He extracted his arms from the rubbery suit and rolled it down towards his waist.
“For that, dear Lana, I’d have to be human.”
The blindfold and the wetsuit had prevented her from seeing anything before, and most of the time her arms had been pinned down or back behind her, but his naked torso was a mass of lumps and abrasions. More and more of this was revealed as he continued to drag the garment down over his belly. The malformations looked like ripe tumours: they dangled in grapelike clumps from beneath his armpits, clustered around his nipples and made a ribbed embossment down the faint seam of his hairless belly.
Even now, after everything she’d gone through, Lana felt sick to the stomach.
There were small mouths in there, amid the globules and curlicues of flesh, and bright little eyes that blinked uncomprehendingly. A nose or a sex gland twitched; snot or semen spilled from its shiny, puckered end. Here was a whole community of beings, perhaps even the physical representation of the souls of people he’d consumed as repayment for debts even greater than her own, loans whose rate of interest was infinite.
“Bring the girl next time,” he said, smiling around his cigar. “I’ll show her a whole new world of hurt.” The cigar’s fiery red eye winked: just once, but it was more than enough to ensure she got the message.
PART THREE
Faces
“The things you do have begun to repel you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“SO, FRANCIS, DO you have anything you’d like to tell me?”
They were back in Monty’s office. Boater was standing on one side of the desk while his boss poured two glasses of fifteen year-old Glenlivet on the other side, from the comfort of his chair.