That little action made me positive Wayne was lyin’ ‘bout not doin’ this, before. Maybe he hadn’t with a guy like Shayes, maybe it was just that college kid or with some punk he picked up in a bar or off Santa Monica or even paid to let him do it, but he’d done this, before. I mean, I could palm all the other crap -- the careful plannin’, the wild imagination, the way he wanted the string him up -- all of it on just bein’ caught up in the idea of it. Even after his story, I couldn’t have said for positive he was lyin’ to me. But knowin’ how to keep this guy from lettin’ hurl an’ doin’ it without much of a thought -- he’s had practice. What’s weird is, that calmed me down. An’ it made me even more careful when I was around him.
He kept hold of the bandana as I picked Shayes up to carry him out. The cop struggled a little -- not much -- but I still felt strong carryin’ him into the shed. He’s not exactly a little guy, an’ holdin’ him like you do a bride -- I even felt...oh, I dunno, just plain powerful. It was all good. From the shape of his legs to how smooth an’ healthy his skin felt to even the hair on his calves ticklin’ the hair on my arm -- it was all just right. An’ havin’ the side of his butt pressin’ just above my crotch, it got me close to shootin’ in my briefs.
Shit, y’know, I -- I could tell this was gonna be too fuckin’ good. It was gonna be like that first kid an’ that guard at Mid-State, Carter. An’ I -- I knew I shouldn’t be feelin’ like that. I mean, I’m straight; I really am. I love pussy an’ need the feel of a chick in my bed, at night. An’ I knew, even then, I knew I was headin’ over the edge. I knew I should’ve stopped myself, right then. But I -- I -- I couldn’t; swear to God, I couldn’t. It was like I was addicted to some kind of drug an’ all I could think about was my next fix. Like some low-life junkie piece of shit an’ that ain’t me. That ain’t me. But even as I was thinkin’ all this, I was still carryin’ him into that shed. An’ I -- I couldn’t stop. ‘Cause deep down -- way deep where you never even think to go -- I needed to own him. An’ I couldn’t do that till I owned him whole.
You couldn’t have convinced me of this at the time, but now I can see that I was completely, totally an’ absolutely out of control. I was workin’ like off auto-pilot or like I was some fuckin’ puppet bein’ carried around by invisible strings attached to its own brain. An’ that brain wasn’t at all interested in anything normal or human or acceptable, anymore. It just wanted to be fed some ice cold revenge an’ it’d keep yankin’ at me till it got what it wanted.
An’ that made me one scary motherfucker.
Even to myself.
Chapter Six
This was the first time I’d been in Wayne’s shed. Shit, it was the first time I was really in his back yard. When he’d been talkin’ ‘bout makin’ the shed over, he only showed it to me through the slidin’ glass doors that lead to a two foot wide patio an’ two inch patch of grass between the condo an’ the fence. I think it used to be a garage, since it was big enough for two small cars. There were two windows an’ one door, all inside the fence. The wall facin’ the alley was solid an’ covered with ivy, an’ it crouched in a corner of the yard as if it was leanin’ against the fence an’ just darin’ you to make it leave. It looked nice an’ plain an’ simple, almost homey, not like a prison. But hey, that’s what it was gonna be.
The gate swung to the right an’ the door was there on its left, already ajar. Lenny kept the gate open as Wayne guided me in, usin’ the bandana to keep control of Shayes, then we slipped into the shed an’ Lenny closed the gate an’ joined us inside.
I dunno what I expected, exactly, when Wayne told me ‘bout what he was gonna do to the place -- but what I saw stopped me, cold. First I saw the bed -- a big unfinished-wood four-poster jammed against a wall, its mattress covered with a ratty fitted sheet, nothing else. Handcuffs were connected to each corner post an’ laid out nice an’ neat, waitin’ to be clamped onto Shayes’ wrists an’ ankles. An’ two leather restraints were fastened to a thick dowel that ran between the head posts, to keep his hands above his head some of the time. It made me stop an’ blink at how harsh it looked.
Then I noticed a heavy steel cable hangin’ in the middle of the room. It had a ring on one end that wasn’t completely closed, an’ it slipped through a couple of hooks in the ceilin’ then connected to a sort of pulley bolted to the floor in a corner opposite the bed, so you could raise or lower how high it was. Beside that was a solid wooden chair, an’ next to that was a four-foot tall metal sawhorse padded with leather. An’ then coils of rope on the floor. An’ then some rolled up foam rubber pallets. All nice an’ neat.
The walls were covered with all kinds of misshapen bits of foam in all sorts of colors -- gray, yellow, pink, white, you name it -- even over the windows. They covered the ceilin’, too. Both Wayne’s an’ Lenny’s
