Page 40 of Hawke

A chorus of chirps could be heard off in the distance as the frogs sang their nightly tune. I’d become desensitized to the abuse forced upon me, but I wasn’t nearly as numb as I’d like to have been. My mind still raced in moments like this when I was alone, the thoughts almost enough to do me in. If only I was stronger, I could save myself because no one else would. The drugs were too much for my system, though.

The amphibious symphony grew louder, the songs signaling rain. I had no idea how far away the storm was, but I looked forward to one, for it was another form of distraction. I was beginning to feel the familiar sensation of pins and needles in my extremities, a sure sign that I was losing feeling in certain spots. Would the weather hold up long enough for the drugs and alcohol to kick in? Or would it send tonight’s buyers to me even sooner?

Various parts of my body began to feel pinched as I waited to find out my fate that night. The mosquitoes were getting their fill of me first, and there was nothing I could do about them, either. Perspiration covered me, and my hair clung to the sides of my face. The wind swept over me like a feather, picking up specks of dirt and grass clippings, most of which stuck to my sweat-soaked body.

“Looks like one hell of a storm approaching,” I heard one of the voices say as the party drew closer.

“These damn summer nights,” another chimed in.

I knew what was coming, but I wasn’t fearful. If there was a way to be hurt, it’d basically happened over the last several months. They could break my body, but never my spirit. The first had proven to be true. The last time I’d tried to escape, I had been left with two broken ribs. The pain had been so great it might’ve been one of the only times I had actually wished for a dose of drugs.

“And here he is,” my mother announced loudly. Her voice was happy and eager, showing no remorse for what her son was about to be subjected to.

Still able to turn my head, I did and my eyes met those of someone I had never seen before. The middle-aged man started to shake his head profusely. “No fucking way, he’s still awake!” He’d turned toward Eleanor Hawkins then, his voice becoming accusatory. “You told me that he’d be knocked out. You lied. I’m out of here.”

My mother, the coke whore that she was, showed more fear in the moment than I had in the last several months combined. The very idea of a buyer walking away and possibly denying her of her own fix for the night was more terrifying to her than the abuse these strangers afflicted on her only child. She rushed over to the stranger, and I could do nothing but stare at the two in disbelief.

“I can fix this. He just needs some more alcohol.” She looked around at the others standing there, one of which had a bottle of bourbon. I recognized Pat. He’d spent countless days and nights at the trailer. Even when the guy wasn’t there for me, I still sensed the thoughts going through his head when he would look at me. The evil in his eyes had always been frightening. Tonight, he could do his worst. “Hold his mouth open, and I’ll give him some of this.”

They moved onto the porch, and though I tried to keep my mouth clamped shut, Pat was much stronger, only needing to grab me by the chin to force my lips apart. Alcohol was then poured into my mouth, the quantity and type making me gag as it burned its way down my throat. I tried to fight it off, nearly choking on my own vomit.

“Drink it, you little brat!” my mother screeched. “If you don’t, you’re going in the hole for two days.” It was what she’d called the ramshackle shed on the edge of the property. I’d lost count of the number of times I had been tied up and left there as punishment. In the winter, I’d pray for frostbite to consume me, and in the summer, heat stroke. Unfortunately, neither ever claimed me. The only things that ever did were the buyers who arrived party after party.

“For fuck’s sake,” was the last thing I heard before pain exploded across my cheek. That blow was followed by another before everything went dark around me as I slipped under the veil of unconsciousness.

Hello, darkness.Hello, indeed.

Bolting upright in the chair, my chest nearly exploded from my rapidly pounding heart beat. I took a few deep breaths as my lungs struggled to draw air into them. Finally, I forced my eyes open. I wasn’t a kid stuck in that life of hell in a damned trailer park with Eleanor and her boyfriend.

I was at Syn, the one place I felt safe. At least until I glanced over and realized I was in the same room with Charlotte Maxwell while she slept. It took me a minute to remember how I’d ended up here, but it soon rushed to the forefront of my thoughts.

We had scened together, which I’d known was a mistake from the start. Charlotte had done everything asked of her, but had gotten defensive when I’d been administering aftercare. I didn’t know what set her off, but something obviously had.

“You’re a monster, Nathaniel. No decent girl will ever want you after she finds out what you do with us.”Florence.Just the memory of her voice was usually enough to send me into a rage.

Charlotte had been hurt enough already tonight, so the last thing I wanted to do was make things worse by frightening her. I had left her alone as she requested, but when I’d gotten back to my office, I had pulled up the room’s camera feed to check in on her. She was still visibly upset, and I watched as she had cried herself to sleep.

I’d decided then that I would go and sit with her. It wasn’t anything I’d ever done with another sub before, but I felt compelled to do it for her. When she awakened, I needed to tell her why I had said the hurtful things I had to her. I tried answering truthfully, but in hindsight, I probably should’ve thought out a better answer. I’d have to make her understand before she left the club.

Charlotte’s submission was a thing of beauty. She had so much potential, and the very idea that she might give up that side of herself because of one scene with me didn’t sit right. I had succeeded in breaking her just as I always knew that I would. I’d warned her, but still, she’d begged me to use her. She had wanted to feel pain, but the anguish in her voice as she clung to the pillow and sobbed into it had nearly undid me.

She’d been out for a while now. I intended to stay as long as it took to make sure she was okay. I’d sit there all fucking night if I had to. Charlotte was still sleeping peacefully, so I knew she’d not wake up anytime soon. I leaned back, then closed my eyes again. Forever in my dreams, it’d be the only time I would see the nightmares.

Depleted of all energy, a now fourteen-year-old me stared mindlessly at the ceiling as Florence crawled onto the bed I was in. My cock was painfully hard, a side effect of the Viagra often forced down my throat. It was different from the other drugs Eleanor would give me, but the results were always the same.

My mother had finally overdosed on cocaine not quite a year earlier, leaving me to be raised by her loser boyfriend, George. He’d met Florence just a few weeks later. Now, the nightmare I’d thought would finally come to an end had simply become one of another kind. The tormentor who’d taken Eleanor’s place was even more evil than my own mother had been. She didn’t want to keep me weak so others could prey upon me, she’d wanted to have her own sadistic fun with me, instead.

When I wasn’t being used as a fuck toy for her circle of girlfriends, I was locked in the basement of her house, devoid of all human interaction, and at times, even food and water. Other than the sliver of light that’d come in from the narrow windows overhead, I spent my days and nights in the dark. The only companion I had was silence, but even it couldn’t shut out the images that flashed through my mind like a slide show, repeating itself over and over.

The dark would never rid me of those memories, nor could it provide any escape. The nightmares stayed with me, day after day and night after night. One hell had been replaced with another. Florence, like Eleanor, would threaten me with that very place, and the longer this went on, the better an eternity there sounded.

Thwack!

“Eyes on me, you dirty, little toy,”Florence would tell me as she smacked me across the face.

When I wouldn’t immediately comply, another blow would be delivered. I barely felt anything anymore at that point, though. She would continue to slap me until finally, I would turn my eyes to her. What I wouldn’t give to be able to wipe the maniacal smirk off her face. On this particular night, it’d been just over three hours since I’d been given the boner drug, and I knew I’d peak when it hit the fourth one.

One hundred ninety-eight. One hundred ninety-nine. Two hundred.

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