I'm writing this in bed, just for myself. Later I'll get to read it.
It gave me a pack of cigarettes, so I guess I got a couple hours to write.
The one thing I definitely want to say is that this is not my fault. I didn't ask for this. It hunted me down. A friend of mine had gotten mugged, and I decided to write about it. I was trying to understand how it would feel.
I liked the way my writing turned out, so I posted it. There's a few newsgroups for writers. I hung out in one of them quite a bit, but I'm not allowed to name it here. It's watching me write this. It's always watching.
This is going to be a rambling account. I usually write better than this. I'm just a little drunk right now. Most of the time. When I read this later, I doubt that will come as much of a surprise.
Anyway - I posted a few paragraphs. First-person, present tense. Laying in an alley, after somebody whacked you in the head and kicked you a few times. Just so it wasn't too bleak, I ended it with an unknown person - unseen, from behind - lifting the victim up from the ground. Gentle hands, contrasting with the beating. And so on.
Fingerman had to jump on that. Not his real name, so I guess it's okay to put it down here. He lives for setups like that. The guy writes gay porn, and he's obsessed. Annoying, sometimes. But he writes so damn well. It's amazing. Very few people can write stuff that makes you live what's going on, the way he can. So his warped mind saw the opening right away. The guy in my story - getting rescued. Or maybe... not.
He's tenderly picked up - and taken into a vacant building nearby. No ambulance is called. Nobody sees him go in, so nobody knows he's in there. And the rescuer takes him into a room with strange, thick wallpaper. Padded, you could say. Lays him down on a bed, takes good care of his wounds, feeds him.
Within a day or two, when he's recovering nicely... things take a nasty turn. Fingerman - what a twisted fuck. The victim gets victimized again. Out come the restraints and all the toys. As if it wasn't bad enough getting ripped off and kicked around, the guy recovers and gets played with. Held prisoner. A few days later, the stocks are hauled in. Then the wall-shackles, and so on.
I think that's where I went wrong. I know Fingerman - he's always trying to turn a story into a crazy S&M marathon. Anybody's story idea. I had to throw a sarcastic response back at him. That's all. What the hell, Finger, the victim hasn't had a rough enough time - why don't you tickle him while you're at it? I was kidding.
But I knew better. Right away, he posts a followup. Total hardcore tickling. How he'd like to deal with a victim who just fell into his lap like that. Vulnerable, dazed, laying in an alley. Irresistible, to him. Talk about going from bad to worse.
I posted one more response. Basically telling him to leave "my" character alone, the guy's had a bad enough time getting thumped by the muggers. I did compliment the quality of the writing, though. Sarcastic about it, again. But I've had time to think it over, and maybe what I wrote could be taken as praise of the tickling, not the writing.
There's no telling how many times our little exchange was read. Probably not too many. But it sat out there, waiting for somebody to notice.
A few days later, I left my computer connected to the internet all night. I was downloading a new e-mail client, and it was going to take a few hours. In the morning, I happened to notice how many bytes had been "sent". Way too many. I had a program running that logged what was happening. It didn't tell me much, but it did show about forty files had been copied and sent out - and I didn't do it. Stupid program didn't tell me the names, or who grabbed them. I looked around, trying to match up the file sizes. What had gone out, compared to what I had saved.
I had a folder for stuff Fingerman wrote. Mainly I was studying his technique. But I'll admit he had some situations that I liked to read. Stuff I'd never do. I mean that. But he can get across what's it like, to be the victim or the torturer. So enthusiastic about it all. When he took my little mugging story and ran wild with it, I was a little embarassed. He did that with everybody's stuff, though. I'd get annoyed with him because... okay, he's a much better writer than I am. It was humiliating.
Such a relentless string of events, like an avalanche. Overwhelming shit. I was annoyed that he took my mugging victim and wrote such an erotic ordeal for him - and, alright, a little part of me was pleased. Maybe even flattered. I stored a copy of what Fingerman wrote, as I usually did. They were there on my computer...
And my own experiments. Another folder. Sometimes I took a passage of somebody else's that I was impressed with, and I'd try to write a sequel. Or re-work it. Seeing what I could do with it. I'd never show it to anybody. Ever. I did it just as a writing exercise. Finger's stuff was a real stretch for me, since I don't have first-hand experience with all that leather and stuff. Or maybe I should say, I didn't have any experience with it - then.
I played with three or four of his little scenes.
The big theme was cock torture. I was clueless, there. But I studied the pacing and the "voicing". His choice of words. I left all the butt-play alone...
Another recurring theme was tickling. Inhumanly sadistic, extended tickling. Ghosts, in one wild story. Or the tools and props of a master magician, only the magician had died - and the things went around trapping guys for incredibly long tickling sessions. Torturing them.
That was easier for me to imagine than all the elaborate prick-teasing. So I took a couple passages and tried reworking them. Imagining what it would be like to get caught by something you knew you couldn't get away from. But I was fascinated by the writing style, more than anything. Really being in that situation would be so scary that the novelty would wear off in about thirty seconds - I remember thinking that.
But the stories were on my computer. Somebody got the wrong idea, I guess. Poking around. Grabbing stuff I almost forgot was there, the writing I would never show to anybody.
The box arrived a couple weeks later.
I signed for it, even though I wasn't expecting any boxes that big. "A Gift For You." Shit.
It was from L.A. "Private Admiration, Inc." - something along those lines. I'm not allowed to write the real name down. I stared at that shipping label for awhile, and I knew the smart thing to do was not to open it. Send it right back...
But obviously, I got curious.
When I saw the feathers, I jerked my hand back. What kind of weirdo had my home address? Fingerman... but he was in Europe somewhere. He'd never gone anywhere that far before. All these feathers, in there. Big bottles of oil, and boxes of rubber gloves. There must have been a couple dozen brushes. Near the bottom, maybe because they were heavier, I found the leather stuff. Big cuffs, and a ball-gag. A whole bunch of straps, coiled up. Thin ones, too.
There was a bag with gloves in it. White satin gloves. I guessed there were a couple dozen. The bag was taped shut, and way down inside I was really glad to see that. At the very bottom, though, I found one thin box.
Driving gloves. That's what I thought. I was so naive then.
I'm wearing them now. It makes me wear them a lot.
Before, I never would have believed leather could be this soft. They end right at my wrist joint. One of my hands is a little bigger than the other, but it stretched that glove so it would fit. And they fit so well, I usually forget I've got 'em on.
Solid black. Thin black rings below the knuckles, also metal. No other decoration.
I remember the note that was taped to one of the gloves. Word for word. "Had to guess at the size. Do NOT even think about trying these on unless you're ready to deserve them."
A little taunt, there. But it worked.
Yeah, I tried 'em on. Who was going to know, right? They weren't as heavy as I expected. I looked at all the other shit from the box. Tickling shit. And I didn't care how much it cost somebody, I was going to throw it out. I did think the gloves looked cool... but the risk of the wrong crazy person seeing them - on my hands? No way. I left them on as I packed up the box. Then I was just goofing around for a second. Making fists, lacing my fingers together. And then I put my hands together. Without thinking about it, I had the knuckle-rings touching their counterparts on the two gloves.
Suddenly, everything got vague. I reached over and got a cigarette. As I was lighting it... I realized I wasn't lighting it at all. The gloves were.
The rings on the fingers were making my hands move. They felt weird, like a high-speed tingling. Naturally I tried to... fight. My hands wouldn't obey me, and neither would the rest of me. I sat there and smoked.
The box lifted off the table. It started to leave.
Then I stood up and followed it. Upstairs, to my room.
I sat on the bed as the blanket and the pillows were thrown off, and the straps were set up. And I kept wondering when I'd fallen asleep. I must have been dreaming that I walked upstairs. Just sitting there, while the restraints were laid down - it was like watching a movie.
The gloves pulled off my clothes and went backwards. I ended up laying there, arms wide open, watching the cuffs head over and catch me. I kept thinking about how to resist - picturing myself doing it - but getting my hands to move was beyond me. The straps lifted up and caught on to the cuffs, and then they pulled tight.
The gloves... let go, then. Shut off, or something.
"There it is," a voice said. A guy, between the bed and the door. I couldn't see anybody.
"What the hell is this?," I said. And I got the answer, alright. Wrong answer. Some feathers started floating out of the box.
"It's the longest night of your life," the voice said. Matter-of-factly.
I yelled for help. Actually, one yell. The gloves started tingling again, and the shout faded away. Stuff moved around in the box... and the ball-gag lifted up.
"If you yell again, I'll use this."
An ashtray touched down near my side. I started another cigarette, even though I was trying hard not to. Then the gloves "let go" again. The gag came closer. Just hovering in the air.
I stared at it, and asked how all this stuff was moving around. The voice said it was able to do pretty much whatever it wanted. So I asked why it wanted to tickle me... and it said it wasn't sure.
It wasn't sure?
The invisible tickler had its orders. They were based on my desires. That's what it said. My desires... Then I remembered the files that had been copied from my computer.
So I had to convince it there had been a real big misunderstanding. It was doubtful... worse yet, it sounded like it was getting more interested in "this tickling business". It had been told how to keep me healthy, and given ten or twenty ideas on how to tickle me - but it had never actually done it before.
It made me chain-smoke, but I didn't care. It was willing to listen. I had tested the straps enough to know I wasn't going anywhere. It kept coming back to the fact that I'd written about involuntary tickling, from the victim's perspective - wasn't that right? And I'd written it voluntarily. No one made me write it. I'd agree, very reluctantly, but it took me a while to convince it the idea of it actually happening to me was more than I would ever want.
"Well, then, you shouldn't have pulled these gloves on." It almost sounded puzzled. Or impatient. Maybe both.
If there was some way it could check... Was there a way it could call the office, or something? And it finally admitted yeah, there was. I watched the phone rise up, off the nightstand, and heard it turn on. Buttons were pushed...
I asked if I could listen to the call. It told me to just sit tight. Don't go anywhere. It actually said that. Then it chuckled at its little joke. But I still thought it might be... open-minded.
Even hearing just its side of the conversation, I thought the whole call was totally bizarre.
When somebody came on the line, it greeted them and rattled off a number I've since been made to forget. Then it went something like this... Hey, sorry to bother you, the voice said into my phone, but some questions have come up. Yeah. From the victim. He wants to hear it from you, I think. Yeah, pretty whiny...
The phone moved further away from me. Sorry, Taylor, they don't want to talk to you... Yes. I got him all laid out here. All set. Keeps yammering about the difference between fantasy and reality. Tell me about it. Oh, it is? Yeah? I see. No, he's not. Uh-huh. Oh, he admitted it. He isn't denying he wrote - ah. That wasn't clear to me before. That's what I needed to hear. Huh. As my victim here might say, fuck yeah. Fuckin' A. Hey, I really appreciate it. Uh-huh. Wow. Okay, then. Thanks for everything. Uh-huh.
It hung up the phone.
"I'm in charge," it said quietly. Like it was amazed.
I didn't know what to say to that.
It made me start another smoke, and then it laid the situation out for me, nice and plain. Somebody set this tickling marathon up for me - anonymously. I got the distinct impression that the customer wasn't a... person. Not human.
The one thing it was certain of was that the customer wanted me to learn what extreme, involuntary tickling was really like.
But I still could have escaped it, even then. The voice was trying to comprehend something. It was in charge.
"It's my call," it kept saying. "Mine. That's what they said..."
It was a dedicated force, activated and given information. It had one main reason for existing at all. While that would have been hard to believe an hour ago, all I had to do was look from the cuffs to the box.
What seemed to be surprising to it was that it was in charge. Total freedom. Instead of just giving it a strict program, whatever had set it in motion had expected it to be creative. If my room hadn't worked, it was able to find a better torture chamber and move me there.
That got me wondering, of course, so I asked how long it intended to tickle me.
It answered right away. "Today, tomorrow... the weekend, essentially."
But then - dammit, we both thought it over. And the voice whooped.
"Or a whole week," it snickered, sounding pretty much amazed. "Yeah. A month. How 'bout - as long as I want..."
And that was a great big realization for it, apparently. "You're not even the customer, Taylor. I'm calling the shots."
When I pointed out that it could also choose to give me a break and let me go, it shut up for a few seconds.
"But I was sent here to tickle you."
"True," I fired back, "uh, but you can choose to tickle anyone you want. Or not. You're free to do anything, right?"
"Uh-huh." And it thought some more. I laid there, and it really felt as if I still had a chance...
It took my cigarette away, and brought me some water.
I heard a happy little sigh. "What I want, right now, is to give this involuntary tickling a try."
As the feathers came closer, I pulled at the straps and demanded - it's embarrassing even to think about it now - I basically ordered it to stop, I did not want this to happen...
"That's why it's called 'involuntary,'" it said softly, just before the feathers touched my feet.
It enjoyed tickling me.
A lot.
All excited - if you had any idea how good it feels, Taylor, driving you absolutely nuts. Like this...
As the night wore on, it wanted something to keep me awake. I had a box of No-Doz in the glove compartment of my car, and eventually it tickled that fact out of me. It rolled me over, sometimes. Made me come...
I finally woke up the next afternoon. It watched, eagerly, as I realized the straps were in place. And why.
There was a carton of cigarettes and several boxes of No-Doz on the nightstand. It had gotten more food, too, while I slept.
The weekend turned into four days. Unbelievable, unbearable, long days. It started to find out what really got to me. Asked a lot of questions - over and over, about everything. Screened my calls, and tickled me until it was comfortable about the answers I gave. That could take a while, but hell, it had plenty of time.
I didn't think any of the people who called me would get curious enough. Disappearing for a few days - shit, I did that all the time. Get a wild hair, and jump on a plane for Vegas. Drive to Biloxi. My editor was getting more and more angry, it said. I'd promised to have a draft delivered to her by Monday. If she had found a reason to get on a plane, some other excuse, I knew she would come out - just so she could threaten me with real bodily harm. She'd pound on the door, and circle the house... And never know my car was in the garage, and I was upstairs in my room, cackling with no voice left. Eventually, she'd leave.
But she couldn't get away, so she just left messages on my answering machine that even the tickler found to be intimidating. She might have been able to scare it into letting me go. How weird.
But no. As it kept reminding me, it was in control. Clearly it was having a great time. Laying into me.
Describing how intense those days were is beyond my ability. Fingerman might be able to do it, but I can't.
It just tossed another pack of smokes to me. I guess it'll let me keep writing.
One morning, it was gone. Wednesday, I think. The box was gone, and I can't tell you how relieved I was about that. It went away to catch somebody else...
The weekend had been so extreme that I was all restless. Smoking my head off. I had some booze delivered, mostly because I was too sore to pull a shirt on. And forget about shoes. But it was overexertion. The fuck- My tickler had been careful. It hadn't injured me. Not the parts it liked... But it was gone, somebody else's problem, and I really believed it.
I had to write about it. It hurt to move, but I could sit there and write. The intensity of what I'd gone through was not going to stay corked up inside me. At first I used a pad of paper, like this one. This could even be the same pad... Then I got brave and used my laptop - but I disconnected the phone line, and only saved what I was writing to floppy disks. At first I just wrote out everything I could think of, about the weekend. The pages just flew out of me. I think I needed to comprehend what had happened. If I hadn't thought it was over, I never would have let myself write a word.
Then, very carefully, I started writing from the tickler's perspective. Nervous as hell. You better believe it. But I felt like I had to understand what could make a tickler do what it had done to me. Involuntary. Fuck.
I got the third draft out to my editor, and sent her flowers. Day by day, I felt better. The sore muscles quit complaining, and each day the tickling became a little bit easier to remember. Not so totally overwhelming. I went out to dinner with one of my closest friends, but I just couldn't find a way to tell her what had happened. The next couple nights, I talked the guys into hitting the bars. They joked about how much I was smoking, but it was even harder to imagine telling them what had happened to me last weekend.
Those were my last nights of freedom. And I had a good time.
It was a Sunday morning, I think. More like afternoon. I'd slept right through the hangover, and I felt really good.
After sitting on the throne - and it was, how can I put this, a productive time - I went downstairs and ate some eggs. An idea had been hanging around since the night before, sitting there in the bar. I'd jotted down a few notes before I crawled into bed and choked the chicken again. They were about tickling, of course. Most of my dreams were, that week. I'd thought of an old friend of mine, a big giant skank I know... and he apparently turned up in my dream. Some kind of game, between a tickler and him - strapped down, naked. It involved a deck of cards, I think. The killer detail was that it was just about impossible for the guy to win the game. And the magical tickler was in a great mood. So happy. Dangerously happy. Ready to play for a long time, and the guy wasn't going anywhere...
The dream had gotten me aroused. I admit it. The certainty of the situation, maybe. Or the tickler's excitement. I had nowhere to be, so what sounded good to me was curling up in bed with some cigarettes and my trusty pad of paper, writing out the saga of the game. And jacking off. Why not, I figured. Nobody would know.
But I was starving. And there wasn't a single pen or pencil in my room. In hindsight, that should've been a clue. I was distracted... thinking about the orgy of tickling this character was about to suffer through. Way more than I'd gotten. I knew, first-hand, what it was like. The feeling I had when I woke up each morning. Still in the restraints. Realizing what that meant...
Maybe writing the story would give me a sense of power over the tickler. I got to direct it. And, frankly, I got to watch somebody suffer who wasn't me. And the setup in my dream had suggested a place that was hopelessly remote, like an abandoned house or a cabin - for a harsh ass-kicking. That called for a victim who was up to snuff. And my friend, the one I'd dreamed about, he was the most unlikely candidate for what I'd gone through. Shit. A giant - he could've played pro football if he didn't like to smoke pot so much. I ran into him at a concert last summer, and we had a great time. He still had the stamina of two men. Maybe three. His normal laugh sounded like it was being goosed out of him by a pack of rowdy gloves.
So I forced myself to scramble some eggs real quick. Toast, coffee. Starting to flesh out the notes I started writing when I got in. So outrageously wrong it was exciting - and I knew exactly what he'd be thinking. Day after day of it.
I just about ran up the stairs to... get busy. I forgot to bring a pen, so I headed back out of my room to go back down and get a few, thinking about the opening scene of what I was going to write. When the big ape realizes what's going to happen to him - just after he finds out he can't bust the straps and get the hell out of the cabin. I had a cigarette in one hand, and my pad of paper in the other. Sunlight was sneaking through the blinds, laying down strips on the hall floor.
"Taylor."
I stopped in my tracks. Maybe, I thought to myself, I'm imagining things -
"No more writing today."
But that's what I'd been planning to do. Write about it. Not... me. Another guy, getting nuked. Hardcore. A long, lusty time. Suddenly my plan was ruined. I didn't get to watch and observe, from a distance. Enjoy it.
The tickler was back. And I was going to get tickled again. Flail around, laugh until my throat was sore, sweat like a pig. Not fair. I wanted to take it easy. Not fair at all...
The pad was taken out of my hand.
Automatically, I stepped away from it. Toward the stairs. Freedom, right there, if I could just make it into the garage. I pictured my keys, on the coffee table.
I ran right into an invisible hand. Right between my pecs. I looked down, at nothing.
"Turn around, buddy," and the voice laughed at me. "Move it." The hand gave me a shove. It read off some of the notes I'd made, and made some happy threats about making them come true. When I hesitated - at the door of my own room - the hand shoved me again, from high on my back. So in I went.
The hand nudged me toward the bathroom. The voice told me to take a leak - and floss my teeth, since I wouldn't be able to do it again for "a good, long while". I took as long as I could...
When I walked out of the bathroom, the straps were in place. A big footlocker was sitting where the box of tickling stuff had been the weekend before.
It ordered me to sit down on the foot of the bed, and tossed me a bottle. Skin lotion. It ordered me to put a good, thick coat on, and stuck a cigarette in my mouth. I sat there, trying to figure a way to get the hell out of there. The window was open a few inches - not far enough for me to get through, and there was a screen in the way. I rubbed the lotion on my arms, as slowly as I dared, and looked out at the tree branches swaying in the sun. And I wanted to be out there. Not inside. the door was still open, and I could see the sunlight on my hall floor. But I had no doubt I'd never make it to the hallway, before it reeled me back in.
I smoked, and worked the lotion into my feet. Begging it. Go tickle somebody else. But it just laughed...
All I had on was shorts. It pulled them off, and got me down. Back in the cuffs.
When I was staked out, it took my cigarette away - and put the ball-gag in my mouth. I braced myself, but it brought out a surprise. Floppy disks. My diskettes.
I think I'm going to love what I find here, it said. Told me to just hang tight. And it took the diskettes downstairs. My laptop was still down there...
Maybe fifteen minutes later, the footlocker opened. A few satin gloves drifted out - and "got full". They hung there, while the ball-gag was taken away and I drank some water. It was dropped on the mattress near my head, and I got the usual warning - one yell, and the gag would go right back in my mouth. Until I'd laughed myself hoarse, and the action really started to pick up...
The gloves took hold. And the voice chuckled again. "Well, buddy... I'm flattered." And so on. It would be a real challenge to outdo what I'd been writing.
But I'd say it succeeded. I howled the day away, and that night.
The next morning, it fixed me a big breakfast. It had been up to something - even more enjoyable than what it had been doing to me. It dropped hints. I was going to get some big surprises, starting the next day. It kept laughing, just thinking about the plans it had made...
It answered my questions, but it had a different tone in its voice. Arrogant. It liked power. The discussion last week, where I almost persuaded it to leave me alone, would never happen again. Whatever it had expected tickling to be like, the actual experience was far too much fun to give up.
That day was even more insane.
It made me tell it everything I could remember about Rudy, over and over. Rude-dog. Good guy. Biker with the crazy fuckin' laugh. On the pad of paper, I'd written his nickname... and enough details to get it interested. So where did he live, anyway. Where did he work.
I felt bad about that, but it was too late to take it back. And it hit me with the same questions a dozen times, that night, to weed out the lies I told it.
It's gunning for him. Next. Or, him too. I wish I could warn him.
But why would he believe a story like this?
When I finally came to, it carried me into the shower and cleaned me up. It was very odd. Gloves, shampooing my head, batting my hands away when I tried to interfere. It didn't let me shave.
I lit my first smoke of the day, and walked back into my bedroom...
There were no straps on the bed. The footlocker was gone. I never expected it to be over so soon, not when the first time it had played with me for four days straight. Or maybe I'd lost all track of time. I picked up the shirt it had laid out for me, and asked what day it was. And it said, Tuesday. Something big was up - I just had that feeling - but it wasn't going to tell me what.
I pulled on underwear and socks, an old Harley t-shirt and black jeans. Scuffed-up riding boots. There was a gold chain with a little padlock hanging on it, and the gloves...
It made something float over, from the top of my dresser. A baseball cap, with the Harley logo. I asked what the deal was with the biker getup, and it said I'd find out soon enough.
The cap seemed heavy in my hand. What did you do to this, I said automatically. Well, Taylor, you have to put it on to find out. And suppose I refuse? If you refuse, I'm just going to have to strap you down for the day and convince you to put it on... That didn't seem likely, since I was dressed and everything, but it could always just grab me and pull it on. So I went ahead. Pull it lower, the voice said. Here - and it tugged the back strap a little lower.
The tingling started - around my hands. And around my head. I started to sag, and invisible hands caught me. The voice laughed real hard as it sat me on the bed, and shoved an ashtray alongside me. You just relax, Taylor. Smoke up. You're going to answer a few questions for me...
Next thing I knew, the pack was just about empty and I had to piss real bad. There was a mug in my hand, but apparently I'd drank the coffee. Spiked. I felt the whiskey in my gut. When I got out of the can, it didn't say anything. Eventually, I wandered downstairs. It held up a new pack of cigarettes. Two stops for you to make, it said. Then your work is done...
I wanted to ask what that meant, but even more I didn't want to hear the answer.
I lit a cigarette on the way to the garage. As I was waiting for the garage door to open, the voice asked me what its name was. That threw me, since I didn't remember it telling me a name - and then it was there, in my head. I picked it, a few days before, for the first writing I tried from the tickler's point of view. It repeated the question, but I didn't want to say it. Not out loud. Taylor, you got three seconds. Say it.
Alright, I said finally. Boss.
That's right. You're going to call me Boss from now on. Because that's what I am. Then the hat and the gloves started tingling again. I was looking at the ashtray, in my car. There were all these filters in there, and I wondered what that meant. Boss had me smoking nonfilters.
I drove somewhere, and did something. Then I was in the car again. I think there was a stop at a bar, but it felt spontaneous, somehow. Impromptu. After that, I was in a smaller room for awhile. Something was hurting me, off and on. And there was this monotonous noise, a buzzing - like a short-circuit. Bad wiring. And I had conversations with people, but I couldn't remember any of them. The whole day was a big, goofy blur.
After a long night, with no dreams, I woke up here.
Boss thinks big.
I only suspected how much things had changed, there in my upstairs hallway. Stopped in my tracks. Hey, Taylor. You're not going to just lay around and write, shooting your load. No relaxed, easy day for you.
No more of those. Not for a very long time.
I believe it.
This room is a like a private roadhouse. Harley shit everywhere. There's a small bar, and a jukebox. The bed is totally out of place. But I'm staying right here. The big locks on the door won't be opening any time soon. I'll get to wake up and see a new rack, set up and waiting. Some chains from the ceiling, a fancy system to suspend my ass. While it tickles me.
It's really serious about all this. I can't tell from looking around, but it says we're underground right now. Hidden in the desert. It's thinking up other rooms for me. A locker room, and a cabin. A jobsite, like a building that didn't get finished yet. Some kind of ship. Insanely elaborate sets. I get to break them in. All of them.
And it's going to catch some other guys, and fill the rooms. Right now, it's planning on ten rooms. Oh yeah, there's going to be a prison cell. And a garage. Ten rooms, ten captives. Rotating through the torture chambers. I'm the first of the ten.
We won't see each other, but Boss decided I had to fit right in with the kind of dudes it's going to tickle here. The other inmates. So it had me get my arms tattooed. That last day I was... free. I drove myself there - after a stop at a bar, and the security service before that. It told me I signed up for a year of complete home protection. Top of the line alarm system, random visits, gardening taken care of. Even housesitters. I told 'em I had pressing business in Europe, and apparently they liked the color of my money. I can renew their services from wherever I am. Boss made sure I understood that.
And with that taken care of, I got a good buzz on and paid a guy to tattoo me. Seven hours' worth. A lot of flames, and wind. Barbed wire. An eagle, dropping feathers as it takes off. Webbing, or netting, with more feathers caught in it. They don't hurt, and the scabs are peeling. If I understand it right, that was two days ago.
It got me in here, and had me sleep for awhile. Now it's about to start. The straps are being readied as I write this. When I get too worried, the ballcap starts tingling for a while, and I relax again.
Boss is determined to keep me healthy. I have a shitload of tickling ahead of me. That's a direct quote. Shitload.
Wait. Okay. I just got told something else. It said it told me all these plans it has because I'm going to forget all about 'em. That's why it let me write this - made me write this out.
My name is Cal. I don't know what that means -
Okay, now I do. Shit. I'm not going to remember anything. Except my new name. The ballcap can do that, apparently. Then Boss is going to put the cap away. This explains the tattoo. I've got this little black hand - oh, of course. It's a glove. Obvious, now. This glove, on my right arm. It's reaching for a feather, and there are these motion-lines behind it. And the words - I didn't understand them before. Over the glove, it says Cal. And below it, in bigger letters, it had me get 'Boss' tattooed. Close to the glove. Cal-boss. That's what it is.
I have to hurry up and finish this. All I'm going to remember is Cal. Just another guy, caught here like the others, not even knowing there are others. Cal. Sure. When it lets me go, it says I can have these pages back.
But there's a big iron pot, sitting on the end of the bar. And a box of matches. I do believe it's going to burn something.
It's got the cuffs on my ankles now. And it's poking me. Hurry up, Cal. It's waiting. Way too eager.
I light one more cigarette, which may be the last one I get to light for myself.
Oh no, last sentence - I have to get this back later, this letter to myself, I just have to - even if I don't remember writing it, and I hope Boss kn
Next installment: Rude
05may02