(Not much "action" in this one, FYI)
#133: young enough, healthy enough, and smoking.
He hits the mark - the most remote and poorly lit location on the mall's perimeter - and the cone is released.
Eight feet of plexiglas, a yard wide at the bottom. Big hands holding it down, silhouettes of dark against the night sky. Nothing on the inside to grab onto.Flick. A display window lights up, maybe ten feet away. He looks at it wildly. A mannequin is held a few feet in the air, horizontal. By hands. Just hands - big white cartoon gloves, much like the ones doing something to the point of the cone above his head...
Hiss. He can't reach the top. Some kind of tank above the cone. His hands can't block the whole opening. Ether, or something like it, coming in. He drives a shoulder into a side wall, then the other wall. Again. The cone doesn't even rock.
The mannequin bobs a little. Gloves at the ankles, fastening something black around each...
Other hands curling around the bare feet, riding up and down.
He thrashes out of instinct, getting light-headed. Scrabbles at the sides...A last shove or two, without effect.
Other gloves saunter down, cupping the mannequin's knees, sliding up and over the inside of each thigh...
Beating at the plexiglas, he coughs and buckles, going down.
Their catch, trapped after a wait of 104 minutes, grunts and opens his eyes slowly, hopefully.
Sees the rods right away, starts tugging, tries to twist around and see the back supports. Takes in the height, the floor a good five feet under him. And looks all around - empty store pad, apparently long vacant, only a emergency light box to illuminate this...
Sucks on the cig that's been between his lips, lit for him while he was conked out, and looks over the table at his side: the ashtray holding a dozen or so butts, his wallet and its scattered contents, and four packs of 'Boros (not his), with an open soft pack about half-gone.
Drifting closer, into view: gloves. Only three. An eighth of the total waiting to rub him. He tugs, pushes at the frame. His legs are pinned, the rods don't move, and the cuffs bolted to the rods are still snug.
He drops the smoke, fights harder. A bunch of gloves come into view, making a rough circle underneath him.
He was chosen partly because of the frame size. An excellent fit, and far too sturdy for him to damage, unless he shows some abnormal strength in the next ten minutes. He won't be any trouble as he tires.
He stops trying to rattle his cage for a second, breathing hard, and sees the gloves. Shiny, puffy, all set to go. And he looks at each wrist cuff again, none the worse for his thrashing. His eyes flick over his nakedness, all unguarded and reachable.
In the shadows, he didn't see the boxes...vodka, whiskey, vitamins, meal bars, jugs of water. A few dozen batteries for the "back breakers" - the motorized toys maddening enough to deserve the title. A dozen time-tested manual devices, a big handful of rubbers, jars and bottles of creams and lubes. And the metal cigarette case full of pills - E, speed, 'roids and a muscle relaxant that tends to leave 'em real nicotine-hungry.
He didn't know yet that it would take a few days to learn how to play him really well. Or that being a couple thousand miles from home doubled his hang time.
What he did know was what he could see - the most urgent item being the ten hands inching up to him. And they had him strapped up well enough that he couldn't get away.
His breathing was shallow, his tugging fairly frantic as a single glove broke ranks and came up.
Making for the table... A confident, bulgy hand curling around the pack of cigarettes. No creases, fat fingers, pure white...
The other gloves stopped a couple inches from him. He stared, looked again at the hand shaking a 'Boro out, and nodded desperately -
And saw a pair of hands rise over his feet, arcing gracefully down to his soles.
"No - no," he stuttered. "Not -"
Clasp.
Contact. Satin.
He contracted. They moved.
Braying, arching a little, eyes slammed shut, he twisted his torso way to the left. Crude, lusty laughs.
His feet wouldn't rotate at all. The gloves hugged his midfeet with their palms and pressed in, sliding up and down at a moderate clip. He hooted and continued to squirm.
Other hands closed around his calves and crept up toward his meat. Wild roars resulted.
When the next two dug into his ribs, his lunge snapped the buckle on the right wrist cuff.
His hand flew over his crotch, pulling and shoving the gloves away. Eventually, he started flailing at the other wrist cuff.
Two sets of fingers started massaging his neck. That fazed him. The crotch gloves pulled off, and his hand tried to protect his left side.
All the gloves stopped. He fell back and panted, sweat rolling from his forehead. He'd just started tugging at the restraints again when one of the gloves stuck a smoke in his mouth, and another immediately pushed his chin up. He snapped his head back and forth. The glove fell away.
The fifth cigarette stayed. He let it hang. At least they weren't rubbin' him, and now he could concentrate on pulling harder.
A hand cruised up with an open matchbook, and another struck one, brought it his way. The others lifted off his skin. He sucked in hard, worried, still panting.
Before he was done, a glove closed around his free wrist. Another was squeezing his forearm as the match was waved out. They pulled. Exhaling fast, he fought 'em. A couple more cartoon hands joined in, slowly extending his arm out again.
Another hand bobbed up with a few feet of rope. He thrashed; they won, circling and knotting, tying his wrist down. A glove shook the pack again, and he saw he'd dropped the new smoke...
He got four more 'Boros while a few hands huddled over something in the darker corner. He tried continuously to pop another strap or at least loosen up his roped hand. As he squinted and huffed smoke, they brought over another black strap and circled his bicep with it.
Wider strap, thicker, with bolts being tightened down. The rope was unknotted, and the new strap was slid down. A half-dozen gloves helped.
Rope off, strap snug. He couldn't bend his wrist.
Immobilized.
Another smoke to study it, test it out. One more, and they replaced the cuff on his left wrist. They checked their work, and the rigidity of the rods.
Gloves gripped his feet again.
Hysterics. Writhing and howling.
Four, six, eight more gloves took their places, steadily diggin' in and sliding heavily all around.
30apr97