I shouldn’t be in here. Not much of the place is off limits to us, but his place…well, it goes without saying that we’re just not allowed in. My mother once said curiosity would kill me, but her prophecy will only come true today if he catches me. My luck has held so far. It got me here despite everything going on out there. Really, if I have to die I would have it be his way. Quick and final. I don’t want to still be once I’m gone.
He doesn’t have as much in the way of belongings. I’d expected a leader like him would have everything that could still be used. I mean, he does have the dart board and the pool table, the TV, DVD and the generators to use them. And the bar. He has that, too.
But it’s all out there where other people can see that he has it. Symbols scattered around this battered old factory to show the man has status. Power. Look at me, they say, the world is fucked beyond comprehension and I can still rack up and shoot pool if I want to. I’m owning this shit.
His room, though, the place where he sleeps alone and not with one of his handful of wives, is frugal in comparison. A bed, single not king, pushed up against one wall. A chest of drawers to its foot, a hanger on the barred window where I imagine his leather jacket hangs while he rests. A small desk with a plastic backed chair on the other wall with a waste paper basket to its right and…
Oh my God! I can’t breathe. Can’t think straight, can’t take my eyes off it. It’s not even eight feet away from me, the closest I’ve ever been and ever hope to be. I can’t believe it’s just there, leaning against the wall just as others like it would be in teenager’s bedrooms all over the country. There is no mitt clutching a ball on the desk beside it, though. Just it. Her. His beloved.
It looks so innocuous when it isn’t in his hand. It looks like exactly what it is. Well, until I shift my eyes from its handle -the handle his hands have held! – and follow its dinged sides all the way down until I see the tangle of jagged metal wrapped around the end. And even then, it still looks more protective than offensive. Poised there, ready to be scooped up and swung in self-defence.
I know this isn’t the case, though. We all know what it’s for. He does use it to defend himself, but it isn’t just for that. He is judge, jury, and executioner and this is his punishment for the condemned.
Though I know I shouldn’t, I take a few steps closer. Six feet away, I can see that it has a light sheen. Oil, maybe? He takes care of it, it would seem. A few more steps, four feet away. I don’t want to, but I lean in a little, looking between the metal prongs to see if there’s any evidence of his brutality. I realise I had my breath held only when I release it. No. There is nothing there to betray the uses he puts this thing to.
More steps and I’m there. Crouching down before it, fingers reaching, flexing inches away, but not touching. I’m not brave enough to touch. If I’m honest with myself, I’m stunned that I even let myself in here, never mind let myself this close to her.
But I want to. My whole being wants to reach out and touch it, just once. I want to feel the warmth of the wood, the harshness of the metal spikes. A steady beat throbs between my legs at the thought of having my hand where he had his. Not on a door handle or a rail, but somewhere personal. Sacred. Intimate.
Oh, this barbaric thing! The outlet of his anger, frustration, fear and cruelty. For a man to be as he is, he needs to be cruel. Even he would tell you that it’s a kindness. My fingers touch it and I gasp. If he found me here, would this be the kindness he showed me?
I don’t realise that I missed a door at the back of the room until I hear someone clear their throat. Do I dare turn around? Telling myself that it’s not him, that it’s one of his inner circle, I take a few steadying breaths. They’re a waste of time, he knows I’m terrified. Can probably hear my heart alternating between painful racing and stopping altogether.
He coughs again and I squeeze my eyes closed. The tips of the fingers that touched her tingle as I turn to face him. There’s no way he could have seen that I was touching her from where he stands, but I wipe my fingers against my skirt, afraid that there’ll be some mark of evidence there, some stain to show my violation.
When I open my eyes, I see him. Leaning in the doorway to a makeshift bathroom. He is wearing a white t-shirt and black jeans. No socks or shoes. There’s a white towel around his neck and I can see his jacket is hanging behind him. I see all of this because I can’t look at his face. Doing so will be accepting my fate and I’m not ready to do that yet.
He doesn’t speak to me, but comes closer, somehow managing to strut even though the room is barely long enough for him to fall into a stride. I’m not breathing again. Just standing here, breath pressing my lungs against my ribs, as he walks in circles around me. Once, twice, the third time deviating to the right to snatch her up before making a fourth circuit.
He swings her as he moves. Taps her against his leg. Each turn around me brings him that little bit closer and I find myself edging away. Moving closer to the door first, then the bed when he stills and thwarts my escape.
I feel the metal frame against my calves, then the threadbare mattress, then I’m sitting on it. And he’s looming in front of me, staring, making me retreat until my back hits the wall. Spikes. Spikes against my shin, tapping softly. Against my knee, the tops of my legs. I part them because if I don’t the spikes will pierce my skin. I part them wider and wider, encouraged by the tick-tocking taps of her bouncing from fleshy thigh to fleshy thigh.
I’m laid bare. All of me. He’s looking, smiling that cocky, wicked smile. The bed shakes with my shudders when he shows me to her. I feel her, cold and hard and barbed, prickling my soft lips, one spike pulling the right one to the side so he can see a little more.
I want to be ashamed. It’s clear by the look on his face that he can see how wet I am. What happens to me when my wetness touches her? When this thing that has done so many terrible things gets my arousal all over it? Will he show me his wrath? Will I feel her bite?
Getting to his knees, he confuses me by turning her around. Look at him, gripping her at her most violent end. So confident that she won’t wound him! She is just the tool, though. He is the power.
I watch him drag her handle up my leg, watch her tugging at my skin, lick my lips when she disappears beneath my bunched-up skirt. Her tip touches me and my hips rock involuntarily towards her. Towards him. Stealing a look at his face, terrified that I might have broken the spell, I see that he’s no longer smiling. Amusement has been replaced by concentration and something else.
That something else deepens when he pushes her and her tip breaches my cunt. I wriggle down as he pushes harder, moaning softly when I feel her handle slide inside of me. Though I want to hold his eyes as he thrusts slowly, I find my eyes settling on his bicep. It flexes and pulses with each movement. My mind shows suggestions of how it might move as he swings her, how it would be at its tightest at the point of impact.
“Fuck!” I gasp, rocking in time with his thrusts. Sliding down on her when she’s at her deepest in a bid to take her deeper still.
Bizarrely, he takes off my left shoe. Then my right. I wonder what he’s doing as he straightens my legs, leaving her buried inside of me, and when I realise, I cry out. But his glare silences me. Hands on my ankles, he bends my knees until I can feel her barbed spikes digging into the soles of my feet.
“You wanted to hold her,” he says with a friendly smile, “So hold her. It’s either that or she gets to hold you.”
What else can I do but what I’m told? I cringe and groan, pushing my feet against the metal, feeling it digging in, digging in, pop, pop, pop, puncturing my skin spike by spike. Once I’ve got her in my bloody grip, I lift her and hold her up.
Is this what he wants?
No, it isn’t.
With a wave of his hand he motions for me to carry on. Excruciating pain rolls up my legs. Wet, warm blood weaves its way through her wires as I bend my knees and lunge forward, fucking myself, bleeding myself, hating myself for setting foot in this room.
Tears pool in my eyes but I fight them. Sobs build in my throat but I choke them down. I want to scream, to pull the bat from my cunt and swing it at his head. My mind offers me images of me doing just that and the surge of courage it gives me makes me look at him. And I see that he isn’t looking at me. Not at my face, anyway. His gaze is fixed on my cunt, his mouth is open, and his arm is shaking vigorously.
Oh my God! He’s…
Oh my God! I’m…
He rears up and my cunt clenches around her handle as he spurts over her barbs and my feet. I don’t know whether my cries or his grunts are louder. I don’t know whose orgasm is wetter. But I do know that, in the last five minutes, my infatuation with the man in charge has turned to love. But it isn’t just him. Not really. I wasn’t sure before, but I know now that I love Lucille, too.
