Games Boys Play (11 page)

“Hands on the floor.
Now
.”

He had to let go of the intruder’s wrist to put his hands on the floor. When he did, the intruder let go of his hair. His scalp throbbed.

He wiped his forehead against the side of his arm.

It was a short way to the table. As he neared it, the intruder grasped his hair again—”Up.”—and yanked.

He winced, grabbing the edge of the table.

The black backpack from last time sat unzipped on the coffee table. His own belongings—MacBook, notepads, pens, coaster, bills he needed to pay—had been removed. He glanced around, but they’d been completely cleared out of the area. He wondered how long Dylan had been here, waiting for him.

“Up against the table.”

He shuffled till his thighs met its edge. A curve of dull gray peeked out from the open mouth of the backpack. He was hit with a tactile memory of duct tape welding his wrists together behind his back, and his throat went dry.

“Jacket off.”

It wasn’t zipped; he shrugged out of it, the air cool against the hot dampness of his shirt. The intruder tossed the jacket on the couch. “Empty your pockets.”

He drew his wallet and phone out, set them on the table. In his front pockets he had a few coins and some lint, which he set on top of his wallet.

“Hands on the table.”

As he complied, the intruder sank to his knees behind him. The gun’s muzzle dug against the back of Brian’s neck, sending shivers up his scalp.

The intruder began frisking him with his free hand, feeling up his side, in his armpit, across his chest, down his stomach. Brian’s heart raced.
How far would he go?
Panic was creating more room at the front of his jeans, thank God. The intruder’s chest bumped his back as he stretched his arm down to pat one of Brian’s front pockets.

Brian closed his eyes, gritting his teeth.
The Verve discography, starting with the “All in the Mind” single in March 1992…

The intruder swept his hand across Brian’s belt, then down to palpate his other pocket.

And then in June…

Dylan’s hand passed businesslike over Brian’s crotch, bringing a hot rush of blood to his face.

And then in June…

Without even a squeeze, the intruder pulled away, using the same hand to go up his other side. Brian let his breath out as his other armpit was felt up, his shoulder, the length and breadth of his back, the leather of the glove sliding easily across the cotton of his T-shirt. His belt pulled against his stomach as the intruder shoved his fingers into Brian’s waistband, then loosened as they came back out to go over the outside of each back pocket, between his legs, down the inside of each thigh.

His cock was responding to the intimate yet impersonal sweep of the gloved hand, and the fact that he couldn’t for the life of him remember what The Verve had released in June of 1992 wasn’t helping.

And then he wasn’t being touched at all anymore. At some point, even the gun had moved away. “Find what you were looking for?”

“Put your hands behind your head.”

He straightened, bringing his arms up. The intruder was right behind him, close enough for Brian’s back to bump his chest.

He laced his fingers together behind his head. Air licked the bare skin at his waist, where his shirt rode up.

The intruder scooped Brian’s phone, wallet, and coins off the table and into a pocket of the backpack.

Brian’s chest tightened as the gloved hand zipped the pocket shut, closing some of his most crucial belongings within it. The intruder set the backpack on the floor and came around behind him again, pressing against Brian’s back, reaching around his waist, feeling for the buckle on Brian’s belt.

Shit.

He gripped the back of his head as the intruder worked his belt open.

Shit shit shit
. He tipped his chin up, his eyes sweeping the ceiling, wondering—worrying—where this was going.

With two tugs, the belt zipped free of its loops, leaving the ghost of a friction burn around Brian’s hips.

The buckle jingled as the intruder took hold of one of Brian’s wrists, Brian’s fingers being dragged free of each other as that wrist was brought down, out, then behind him, where the intruder pinned it against his back.

“Bend over.”

Heat swept Brian’s face. The intruder grasped the back of his head and shoved him. He dropped his free arm to the table to brace himself, his ass bumping the intruder’s hip.

“All the way.” The intruder leaned forward to knock Brian’s elbow out from under him. His weight pressed down on Brian, and Brian’s scalp went cold as blood surged to other parts of his body.

This wasn’t happening.

The table was hard under his chest and cheek.

“Give me your other arm.”

He moved it backward until the intruder’s thumb caught hold and held it against the first. He shifted back a little, not wanting to bump his ass against Dylan again but needing to move his hip bone from digging into the table.

The belt buckle jangled above his back.

The edge of leather brushed his wrists, and then it was encircling them, loose at first before pulling tight. He flexed his fingers. The intruder’s thighs moved against the backs of his as he brought the leather strap around and up again, then worked the tongue through the buckle.

The intruder pushed up, using Brian’s back for leverage, and got to his feet.

Brian tugged his wrists.

The belt held.

His fault for telling Dylan about how he’d used his belt in the bus bunk.

The intruder nudged Brian’s leg with the toe of his boot. “What’d you drink while you were out?”

“Huh?”

“While you were out. How much did you have to drink?”

“A couple beers.” Not even good ones. He turned his head, saw his couch but not the intruder. “Why are you here? What do you want?”

The only response was rummaging in the backpack.

Then he was being pulled up by his hair. Something dry and spongy scraped his cheek, his lips. The intruder’s gloved hand pushed it against his mouth.

Brian tried to turn his face away.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

Whatever it was, it smelled like foam. Like a Nerf ball, maybe. It probably
was
a Nerf ball, dug out of Dylan’s old room in Patty’s basement.

He shook his head free, or the intruder let him shake free—that possibility came to him just as the intruder’s finger and thumb caught his nose, then pinched it shut.

Fuck.

He tried to shake that off too, but from behind, the intruder had a good grip.

The foam ball pushed against Brian’s closed mouth.

Fuck.

He kept his teeth clenched but let his lips open so he could drag air in through his teeth. As quickly as his lips got out of the way, though, the foam pushed in to fill up the space.

He bucked his hips, causing the table to shift forward. The intruder’s weight leaned on his bound arms. The front of his hoodie hung down into Brian’s fingers. He closed his fist, grabbing hold of the fabric, but it didn’t get him any purchase. He tried to reach higher and grab hold of skin too, but he couldn’t quite reach.

He was getting no air.

He was trying to breathe in and
nothing.

His body started panicking, bucking.

The table slipped forward a few inches, pulling their upper bodies with it. His intruder planted a foot on the floor to push more of his weight onto Brian, practically climbing onto Brian’s back.

The rock-hard ridge that jammed against his ass was unmistakable, and Brian’s cock throbbed in response as he fought to get free of Dylan’s hands.

His head felt like it was expanding inside an unforgiving steel ball.

He couldn’t even breathe
out
. Everything was just stopped. His lungs might as well have been stone.

Fuck. FUCK.

His mouth opened almost against his will, just half an inch, but the foam, with the unrelenting pressure of the intruder’s hand, pushed inside, cutting off his air again before he got more than half a breath in.

He made a choked sound in his throat.

The pressure on his back shifted as the intruder leaned down.

“Do you have anything you need to say?”

He shook his head violently. It didn’t dislodge the intruder’s hands, but it got his answer across: he was
not
safe wording this shit. Dylan could call a time-out when Brian passed the fuck out, if it came to that.

The body on top of him leaned harder. The foam was going into his mouth, like it or fucking not.

And he really, really needed to breathe. Dark spots floated and shot across his vision. He made another strangled noise. His hands were clenched so hard his nails were cutting crescents into his palms.

He could
not
fucking breathe.

He gave up. Gave in. Forced his jaw open, allowing the foam in.

Wanting
the foam in, filling his mouth.

The intruder let go of his nostrils.

He was so greedy to suck in air that he put up no fight at all as the intruder pushed in the last of the foam ball, where it expanded to its full size, like a soft fist taking up all the room in his mouth.

The intruder left him lying on the tabletop, gasping through his nose, breathing in his own acrid sweat, feeling his shirt damp against the table’s surface.

By the time he’d recovered enough to move a little and start struggling weakly with his tongue, he was doing it to the
shh-shrrip
of duct tape being stripped from a roll. Another groan rose in his throat and spilled through his nostrils. Turning his head, he set his other cheek on the table to watch a piece be ripped off and hung from the edge of the table beside two others that had already been done. When four strips hung in a row, the intruder got behind Brian and pulled him back up to his knees.

He dropped his ass down onto his heels, working his tongue and jaws to try to force the foam back out of his mouth before the tape could seal it in.

From behind, the intruder smoothed the first piece of tape across his mouth.

The soft noise he made into the foam was one of defeat.

He sagged against the intruder’s chest, giving in as the intruder applied more tape. His cock strained in his jeans, and he didn’t give a shit if Dylan noticed. He didn’t give a shit about anything as he pushed his tongue against the foam, light-headed with the invasiveness of it, the inescapability.

The back of his head rested on Dylan’s throat as he smoothed the tape into place.

Brian didn’t feel like moving. In fact, if they could just sit there for the next hour or so, feeling the rise and fall of Dylan’s chest, Dylan’s hand laid across his forehead, just like it was right now, Brian’s wrists bound together between them…

“Now, what was it,” the intruder said softly, “you were asking a few minutes ago?”

Brian mumbled, “Asshole,” against the foam packing in his mouth. It was a lot more work trying to speak around the foam. A lot harder to make himself understood. He tried out “cocksucker” as the intruder got up, nudging him forward to make sure he didn’t fall backward.

“Piece of shit” wasn’t any more intelligible.

The intruder picked up the table and moved it out of the way, leaving a cleared space in front of the couch.

“I didn’t say you could sit.” He yanked Brian back up onto his knees.

Tightening his throat muscles, he focused on the gag again. Was it okay? Would it choke him? He had to bite down to swallow around it. It took effort. His throat felt clear, though. He felt like he’d be okay as long as his nose stayed clear, and he had Dylan nearby if things stopped being okay.

It would be okay.

The blinds at the door
shusshed
. The door slid open. Outside sounds—street traffic, the hum of a security light, the soft ticks of insect bodies pelting themselves against walls and glass—made their way into the apartment.

It would be okay if Dylan stayed close.

He started to turn his head to check where he was.

“I didn’t say to fucking move.” The voice was right at the door. The rasp of Dylan’s lighter was right at the door. “If you turn your head again, things are going to get worse for you fucking quick.”

His nostrils twitched at the smell of cigarette smoke mixing with night air, all of it invading the familiar stagnancy of the climate-controlled apartment.

“That gives you something to think about, don’t it?” the intruder said. “What could be worse than this right here?”

He stayed on his knees, waiting, minutes ticking by, his ears prickling at each pull Dylan took off his smoke. His chest felt…not tight, but like it was going to expand and expand until it cracked open. He focused on what was in front of him: the rug, the Fender bass in its stand, the loops of cable feeding into the practice amp. The empty paper packet a new string had come in sat on top, torn open. The old string he’d meant to throw away curled off to the side of the amp.

The door to the balcony stayed open as his captor returned to the middle of the room.

Brian chanced a look up at him. If Dylan had pulled his mask up to smoke his cigarette—and surely he had—it was back down now. There was no Dylan here now, just a black shadow retrieving the roll of duct tape from where he’d left it on the couch.

“Maybe we should eliminate the risk of you seeing anything you shouldn’t.”

Brian watched him crouch on one knee in front of him.

“What do you think?”

Looking at the roll of tape, Brian shook his head. Through the gag, he tried to make
please
intelligible as he lifted his eyes.

I won’t look.

Promise.

“Like I said, the alternative is things going very badly for you.”

Please.

“And I know you don’t want things going very badly for you.”

Pleeease.

He didn’t know which he was begging for: don’t put tape over my eyes, or please, please do. There was something comforting about not being to see—almost as if by not seeing, he wouldn’t be seen. He could hide in the darkness.

“So you should think of this as me doing it”—the tape
shh-shripped
, dragging Brian’s attention back down to it—“for your own good.”