"How do you determine the radius of a circle?"
"Aw hell. I don't know -"
Shiny tan gloves move - lowering just a few inches - and take hold of Bret. They torture his sides. Ribs, thighs, armpits. They're tickling him.
He whoops and chortles. Rocking a little, back and forth. Oh stop, he wants to scream. The oil. It's horrible. The oil - and the fingers. Oh please, stop.
His wrists are taped to the bedposts. Tugging, making fists...
The gloves stop tickling eight minutes later.
He laughed so hard, tears ran down his face. His hair is soaked with sweat. A condom catheter has kept the bed dry - twice.
His chest heaves.
The questions started coming three hours ago. Today's questions.
He woke up in here yesterday morning, tied to a chair...
When his breathing slows down, a glove brings him a bottle of water. He gets a few swallows, and it takes the bottle away.
He looks at two more hands, holding a pile of index cards. They hang over his belly. Always there. A few of the cards have been dropped between his anchored feet. Not nearly enough...
"Alright, Bret."
He closes his eyes.
The voice he's hearing is a that of a guy, maybe his age. The dude sounds like he's ticked off at Bret. There's a odd flatness about the voice, even though at various times it's sounded bored, and sarcastic. And cruel. He can't figure out why it sounds a little off. Or, for that matter, why it sounds as realistic as it does. Bret hasn't seen anybody at all.
By now he's given up trying to figure out just where the voice is coming from. All he knows is that it's not human.
He pulls at the tape holding his arms out. One good pull. And he stops. Nope. Just too worn out... until the gloves tickle him. Then his fuckin' skin wakes right up. It's wide awake when they're on him -
The gloves drift toward his feet.
Bret desperately wants his legs to move. Really move. Out of the way. But they're tied down.
No, he thinks, aw don't.
The fingers get ready.
"This one's simple. A triangle is made up of three angles. What number do you get when you add those angles together?"
It's a trick, Bret thinks, swallowing hard. Oh no. A trick. Think, dammit. "Wh- What kind of triangle?"
The gloves sink a little closer.
He hears a disgusted sigh. "Any triangle, Einstein."
That doesn't sound right to Bret. Oh, shit, it wants a number. Dammit, he thinks, I don't know... "Ninety?"
The gloves continue tickling.
He wails, and flops around slowly. The laughter busting out of him is sounding pretty hoarse...
The fingers tickle for nine minutes.
The gloves are hanging over his shins... and knees.
"What's the shortest way to connect any two points on a sphere?"
He knows this one! So relieved, he giggles suddenly - and stifles it. "A straight line."
"Right." One of the gloves takes the card, and drops it.
Fluttering down to the bed. He wishes there were a lot more cards down there -
"Back to eight minutes, then. True or false - a vector can be used to determine the circumference of a circle."
"False!" he barks. Hopelessly guessing -
"That's... right," the voice says suspiciously.
Bret kicks out a relieved sigh.
Another card drops down.
"Seven minutes. The bottom number in a fraction is called the denominator. What's the top number called? Such as, the one in one-half?"
"I don't... understand the question," he pleads, stalling for time, trying to kick his heels together.
"Yes you do," the voice says. "Answer it."
"Uh..." Dammit, dammit. Factor? Rater? Something-rater. What goes with denominator? Numerator? Diverator - or is it divisor? Go with numerator... no, he's not sure, he just doesn't know - shit, shit...
"N- Divisor."
The gloves continue tickling.
Later on, he has a run of bad luck.
"Nine in a row," the voice says contempuously.
Gloves are just over his feet and his armpits.
"You know what happens if you miss this one."
An hour - a horrible, deep, impossible hour. An hour that refuses to end -
He just nods.
"And it's even simpler than a geometry question... Okay, jock. What is the cube root of eight?"
Next to his head, another pair of gloves is shifting a little. One of them holds a bandanna. His gag.
If he misses this one, oh shit -
I can't do cube roots under these conditions, he wants to yell. Four? Four times f- no. Too high. One isn't right. Is it a whole number? What if it's one of those long-ass numbers with a point and all those digits -
"Answer."
Three. No - two. Is it two? Cube... cubed. Cubes have three sides -
"Three?" Please -
The gloves continue tickling.
"Naaaahhh! Ah haah hah waaaah t-t-two! Two! Tooooowhooo hooo hoooolggh."
They tie the gag, and then those gloves lay on his collarbones and start massaging... in the way that really tickles.
Bret thrashes as hard as he can. Bellowing these totally wracking laughs, right into the gag.
He gets a long break after that full hour, nonstop. Starting hard, then they ease it way back, they get him off - he's really fucked then, because he's so much more ticklish...
It's the worst. He can't even believe how bad it is.
Yesterday there were three hours like that.
Bret chews on a cold burger. A sense of hopelessness is haunting him. It's confusing, faraway, but always there.
He's not a math major or anything. Football scholarship. The voice already knew that. It told him before he could get it out. Fucker knew all about him.
The glove brings the burger close, and he takes another bite.
Bret didn't see how it could know about his geometry final. He told his coach, of course. And his mom. They were not pleased. Math just sucks - and the teacher is a real prick. Hates jocks...
He was already on thin ice. He had to pass geometry. That fuckin' exam. A forty-seven. The professor had it in for him, alright.
And here he'd just broken the conference record for pass interceptions. So damn close to getting in a bowl game. He'd told the professor that. What was he supposed to do? If he hadn't hit the weights so hard, no way he would've had a season as good as this.
And he meant to study...
Gloves rustle the bag, getting another burger out. Unwrapping it.
Coach kept yelling that Bret could be ineligible next year, but he didn't see how that could be right. His senior year? No way. The scouts were already real interested. And he was not gonna do another summer class. They had double practices in the summer, he couldn't go to fucking math class too.
At least he had another chance. The coach leaned on the professor. Makeup exam, the day before the semester starts. If Bret knuckled down, and got with a tutor -
Shit.
Some tutor.
A latex hand brings up a high-protein drink, shaking it hard...
His mom was relieved when he told her. It'll be okay, I just gotta get a tutor, so I'll stick around here during the break. If I don't pass that exam in January...
She and his stepdad were going to Palm Springs. He told her not to worry, really, he was a big boy, he'd go to Lamont's house for Christmas dinner, and be back home to do the gift thing at midsemester break.
The thing is, Bret didn't actually tell Lamont he was coming for sure.
He'd joked with his roomie, and his dorm R.A., about picking a hot, slutty tutor. A week of cramming now, another week before the exam to, heh heh, bone up. Cram her all week. Bone up on this...
It was maybe not the right thing to joke about, after he and Anita had disappeared for almost a whole week over Thanksgiving. That was a fun week.
He drank the shitty vanilla protein shake, not taking his eyes off the nearest set of gloves.
Bret plays football. He has no trouble getting laid. He's got a rep. Total horndog. He can have any chick he wants. Take her away for a week and never get out of bed. His coach knew it, his mom. His buddies. Everybody probably thought they knew what he was up to...
Except he wasn't getting any.
The gloves were, though.
Nobody would wonder about him. He kept hoping Lamont, maybe - but he never came out and told Lamont yeah, I'm coming, I'll definitely be there.
Ol' Bret, he must've just met up with another chick. Alright.
He doesn't even know where the hell he is.
A water bottle is next. Gloves crack the cap, and unscrew it. Usually that's the last thing - Shit! A few more minutes, now, to make sure he doesn't puke or anything, and the voice would ask him another fucking question...
He got as far as the tutoring office. That's what sucked - he was really gonna do the right thing. Somebody cool, he hoped, who liked football. Tell him what would be on the test. All he wanted was a seventy. He had to pass -
But the tutoring office had just closed, at five, so he promised himself that first thing in the morning he'd get up and go back. Coach had already checked - some tutors hung around during the holidays, so it was just a matter of paying 'em extra. Which would be no problem. He had it all set up, in his head, before he even got to his car.
And then he woke up here. Dammit.
It seems like a week already, since they started tickling him. Semester break just started. Bret refuses to believe this torture is gonna just keep going on and on.
Nobody's really gonna wonder where he is for a month...
He lays there, panting like a bull. Grinning.
Triumph.
Bret just gave 'em the right answer - after an eighteen-minute tickling, yet.
Last one. He could weep, right there. All the cards are laying on the bed. That pair of gloves is empty, because he got the last question right.
Oh. Yeah. Fuck, yeah. I did it, he thinks. Let me go. I am so glad...
The assholes still hang up there, a yard over his cock. Fuck you, fuck all of you, I did it. I answered all your damn questions right. Bret's voice is shot, but he thinks it anyway. I showed you.
Even though they wore out his voice, the questions kept coming. He had to whisper.
Man. They kicked his ass...
A glove brings him some more water. Cut the tape, I'm done. I'll drink it myself... But it holds the bottle for him, like always.
Didn't think I could do it, did you?, he thinks. Oh, yeah. It's over. They're gonna cut me loose, and maybe I can grab one and rip it to pieces. This one's close enough. Giving me water - real helpful. Pumping me off. Fuckers.
He likes picturing how the latex would stretch between his hands. Rip apart. That thought had kept him going, sometimes. Getting back at 'em...
It's not enough revenge. Not very satisfying. If the voice belonged to a guy, he'd really enjoy beating him down within an inch of his life. Ripping up gloves doesn't really do it for him, especially since he's seen boxes and boxes of 'em here.
It's, like, the eighth day since they started. Tutoring him. Assholes. Flipping him over every other day... Creeping under him, when he was on his belly. Rubbing his ass.
Seems like he heard some of those questions fifty times before he finally got 'em right. Eight days, to answer a couple hundred questions. That's pretty lame. It threw some real easy ones in there, too -
The water bottle is taken away. Bret tosses his head a few times, to get the sweaty hair off his forehead.
Screw 'em, he's gonna play pro ball. He'll never need to figure out the volume a fuckin' sphere can hold. Never.
Let me go now, he thinks, catching his breath. You're never gonna catch my ass again. Pervs. Tickling me -
A few gloves pick up all the cards. Cards I got right, he wants to taunt 'em. Fuck you.
He looks up at the ceiling. Scowls at it. He's not gonna stare at 'em anymore. Just cut my fuckin' hands loose... One hand, and I'll pull the ta-
Bret hears something.
A dull snap. Familiar sound. Rubber band, maybe?
He opens his eyes. Easy. Stay cool. All done. Taking a breath, he scans the room.
Two different packs of gloves are oiling up.
Fear shoots through him.
"No," he whines. "No no no no. I can't..."
The cards are gone, though. They picked 'em all up. He answered every damn question right, eventually. He did it. Why are they getting ready to tickle him again? He did what they wanted. This isn't right. It's not fair!
He shakes his head, and watches a pair float over from the other direction. No oil on 'em.
It looks like they're gonna park themselves right overhead, where t-
One of them is holding a big stack of cards.
"Trigonometry," the voice says slowly.
Bret gulps, and tears spring to his eyes.
30sep01