CHINESE TORTURE

Thanks to Jason for the idea

I hated this place. When my mother was showing me through the rooms of this shabby two-stored house I felt my stomach turning inside out. A common bathroom upstairs! She said it's for me, she would use the bathroom on the ground floor. A tiny kitchen with rusty sink and the oven that seemed mossy with grease. But I clenched my teeth tight - at least for her. She looked so happy - for the first time for many months I saw her so light and smiley, with her golden hair loose and tangled. And, besides, there was nothing I could do. I made my choice when I followed her here.

"Oh, poor Alexander," she stopped abruptly in the center of the wretched living-room and kneeled in front of me. She always did it - as if I still was a little boy. "It is not so bad, is it? I know you are not used... but it will work out, believe me!"

"Sure, mom," I said.

We even didn't have a phone! The next day when I woke up - and she was already gone - the first day of her work - and thought about calling Eugene or Jeremy I found out I would have to walk two blocks to the booth. And while I was doing it I understood suddenly that there was no reason to call them. I would hardly come to their neighborhood today - so far from here it was. And - they were no match for me anymore.

I was supposed to find new friends at my new school. One of the last days I heard my father and mother arguing in sotto voce in the library; as always their voices for some reason grew lower and tighter where other people would scream and curse. Well, my mother screamed several times on my memory - my father never did.

"You could let him at least get a good education!" his words were almost mellow - but neither she nor I were deceived with it.

"He will get it. It doesn't depend on school. It depends on him. Well," with the conversation going to its end she became more compliant, "it is temporary with the school. Now I can't stand taking anything from you, Wu, but, maybe, with time..."

She didn't know he didn't have any time.

On the last evening my father called me to his study. I saw the handkerchief in his hands more often than ever - and he wiped his lips carefully with it.

"You know, Alexander," he looked in my eyes with the intensity I never noticed in him, "you have to say only one word and you'll stay here."

"Yes," I nodded. I didn't have tears any more - and it was good - I didn't want him to think that I could cry as a baby. "But she needs me. She is not strong. She needs somebody."

"Well," he said. "But if you ever need me - ever - you know what to do. And you won't refuse to take anything from me, hey?"

I showed my mother the thick sheaf of money when we were at our new home already. She didn't say anything - just frowned and pushed the money away. I understood - it was what she told about, it still was too early. The time didn't come yet.

Instead of my friends I dialed my father's number.

"Can I speak to Mr. Chen please? It's his son calling."

"Ah, Alexander!" Dorothy recognized me. "Sorry, he has people right now. What if you call about... six thirty?"

"Oh, well," it was time when my mother had to be at home already. "Just give him my regards."

It was a stiff bright day - more apt for the middle of summer, not the last day of August. I walked back slowly, knowing that I would have the whole day in front of me - the whole day of loneliness that was not like anything else I felt at home - with my books, music, puzzles and models - but forced loneliness - because there was nobody I could go to.

There was a young man sitting on the porch of the house next to ours. The street was absolutely empty, so, I couldn't help noticing him. He was doing nothing, just sitting, with his bare pale-golden arms stretched and hanging limply between his knees.

He was not a man, actually - a school senior, I guessed - slender, straight-shouldered and dark-haired. He wore a sleeveless faded T-shirt. He had to go to the same school where I would come tomorrow.

It made me recall how my mother embraced me yesterday - her tender hands brushing my hair and her eyes looking at me as if she didn't ever see me before.

"You don't look like a Chinese at all, really," she whispered. "Not at all."

Yes, I was supposed to make friends at my new school. I walked past my own house and stopped in front of the big boy on the porch.

"My name is Alexander Chen, I am your neighbor, right?" I stretched my hand to him and smiled, even though he didn't look at me.

The boy was handsome - tanned smooth face, sleek brown hair and long lashes that didn't flutter when my shadow dropped on him. There was a long pause when I was standing with my hand reached out and feeling that I probably played fool right now.

Then his curved wings of lashes flew up suddenly - and two greyest eyes in the world looked at me. For some reason they seemed to me the most unhappy eyes in the world, too. He didn't take my limping hand or said his name. He asked:

"You don't have a cigarette, do you?"

It was futile what he asked me - did I look like a smoker? - but somehow I felt he was not seeing me standing in front of him. He would probably ask the same anyone, even a dog, if it happened to shield the sun from him. I couldn't explain it but the realization of this suddenly moved me.

"Wait a moment," I said. "I'll bring."

I dug into my mother's open pack of Galoises Blonde and pulled out three cigarettes. I doubted if she would notice - but with the things like this you never know. And I didn't want her to think that I was smoking, to fret her mind about it.

The guy didn't go anywhere. And there was no more animation in his face when I handed him the cigarettes. If the grimace he gave me was taken for smile anywhere - I didn't want to live in such a place. Then he patted himself for some light, sighed, got up to his feet and went to the house. I stood alone in the empty street feeling so strange that it was almost funny. Oh, yes, funny! I made myself chuckle. I was making myself until I really felt like laughing. I walked back home - and when I was almost at my porch I heard the door of his house opening - but I didn't turn back.

It was the first evening on my memory when I didn't read anything. I was sitting on the window-sill in my room looking through the glass at the descending twilight. I made some supper of the semi-cooked things I found in the fridge - and it was good that I did it because when my mother came she was no good for anything. She ate blindly and was lying on the sofa in her room now, with the wet rag on her forehead. It was the first working day in her life, for all I knew.

A couple of hours ago my boy-neighbor's father came home - well, I could guess it. He was a significant man who amused me - admirable in his own way - so huge. At least six feet three and about three hundred pounds of weight, burly, almost all muscles, with only his grotesque beer belly looking really fat. He could be a builder or something like this, I supposed - because his clothes was well-smeared in some white powder. In about an hour after his coming I saw my morning acquaintance coming out and going down the street in his stiff, very straight walk.

The thing was that I could deceive my mother. I could hide it from my father, even though sometimes I felt he was seeing me through - but I didn't avoid saying it to myself. I was afraid of going to school.

* * *

They didn't like me. Neither the teachers nor the children. I felt it at once, from the first lesson, even though I tried to show them how hard I wanted good terms. We had learned some material already at my old school - and I was really eager to help.

It was passable, however, until the lessons were over. And when they were over four of them met me in a hundred yards from the school building.

"Hey, Chink! Come here, China-man!" it took a little time for me to realize that they meant me. They made faces and stretched the corners of their eyes slant. One of them was Afro-American.

"Show us monkey tactic!"

They were referring to some movie they watched yesterday on TV - the one I didn't happen to see. I stood quietly, telling myself that it was alright, there was nothing unusual. Even in my previous school there was some initiation for new boys. There were some teachers passing by but they seemed to give less notice to it than to the dogs growling. Then all of a sudden one of them sprang to me and kicked me with all his force between my legs.

"Do you like our kung-fu, bitch?"

The pain was ferocious. I think my eyes bulged out with it - but I put it away for a spell - while I rushed to him and sent my fist into his nose. Ouch! It was like dry cookies crushing under my hand. I felt blood splashing on my fingers. The kid yelped - and another kid stuck his fist in my kidney.

I kicked and swung my hands. I managed to get rid of two of them - whining on the ground - but two others were more insistent. It was a mess. I beat them - and they beat me; about a half of the strokes missed the aim - but so were mine - and the half that I had were like hammer blows. They brought me down and while one of them was kicking me on my bottom body the other sat on my chest and poked his fist in my face. My mouth was full of blood and I was choking in it. They didn't stop having me down - and after a while I was not sure they would stop ever.

It was almost unreal when the beating suddenly quitted. Through the blood film in my eyes - I had my forehead gashed - I saw a tall shadow over me - and the one who rode my chest was raised up into the air.

"Well-well-well," another voice - the voice I didn't recognize at once spoke over me derisively. "A fair game? Isn't it a new guy at our school?"

I hopped up and straightened like a spring right on my feet. I got the idea that the fight was over - but I hated the thought to lie like this, beaten up, on the ground. I swayed a little but stayed upright.

"Fuck!" the kid that stomped on me was cursing and spitting and eventually he managed to get free and run. There was the big boy - my neighbor - in front of me - and it was him who turned out to interfere.

I was coughing the blood out. My nose hurt so badly that I was sure it was broken - at least it bleed incredibly abundantly. My lips were split, too. The big boy stood in front of me now with his hands behind his back. He was smiling. He was not a listless thing I saw yesterday any more, I even could hardly believe these were the same lovely grey eyes looking at me.

"Is everything okay with you?" there could or could not be some concern in his question.

"Oh, come on!" his big friends were hailing him. "Leave the kiddy alone, we'll be late to the game!"

"Hey! Do you hear me?" he snapped his fingers. He was asking me! What would he say if I snapped my fingers at him yesterday! But he was right in a way - I was incoherent. Humiliation was coursing in freezy waves through me. I was strong - I always believed it! I was one of the best fighters at my school - and now they bedraggled me! I was so dizzy that I was afraid I would puke - ugh, to make the things better. I couldn't stand imagining myself like this - shedding blood and so dirty, under the accidental protection of the big guy. What would my father say? That I've lost my face, no?

"Do you have a kerchief?" suddenly his strong hands groped me - the same way as he groped himself yesterday searching. He drew the kerchief out and tried to wipe the blood off my face - only smearing it worse, frankly speaking. I was still silent. But when he touched my nose I came to life. I stepped back from him so sharply that he dropped the kerchief on the ground. I didn't bend to take it. I just turn away and walked from the school yard - stooping, however, to grasp my bag that was lying like a dead cat in several feet from us.

"Wow!" I heard his amused voice behind my back.

"Will you go or not?!" some of his friends sounded pissed off. "Come on, guy, you are so queer sometimes!"

At home, when I washed off the blood, the damage turned out not to be so bad. My nose was puffy and bright-pink and I had a darkening mark under my left eye - a forthcoming bruise - but I felt much better being clean and with my clothes changed. I even trained some smile in front of the mirror - a painful one, I have to say, with my lips still bleeding.

And I felt like I made a mistake. Well, I did it unintentionally - I simply was too perturbed to react sanely - but the boy just wanted to help me. Without him I would probably get really injured. I still was hurt and sick inside thinking how they overpowered me - but I tried to cling to any other thought that could distract me - and I thought about my neighbor.

It was quite soon after I finished to fuzz with myself when I heard him coming home after his football training. I took the first hundred-dollar banknote from the bunch my father gave to me - well, my mother didn't want it - but she didn't say I couldn't use it - and went to the supermarket. With a box of Anthon Berg sweets - the cashier looked at me with such an expression that I guessed I was the first purchaser of this kind of things for quite a while - I walked back and knocked at the door of my neighbor.

He didn't open. I knocked again and waited - and at last he opened the door - gee, I got him from the bathroom, I understood - he was only in his pants and with his hair wet, his shoulders covered with a towel - and he looked at me as if I was a ghost.

"Hi!" I didn't give him my hand any more - and besides I had the box behind my back. I was not going to suck any more - as far as I could help it - in case he was going to show me the exit. "I just wanted to apologize. I was rude today, wasn't I? And - thank you, by the way."

All through my speech there was the strangest expression on his face - as if he even didn't start processing what was happening. I was almost going to turn away and leave when he suddenly stepped back and let me in. His slim back was straight and very tensed when he walked in front of me to the room. Then he turned to me - and when there was enough light to see me he gaped.

"What? Am I gross?" I thought it was the best way to go through it - to find fun in it. He paused a little - and then there was one more smile he gave me - an easy smile that didn't touch his eyes.

"Don't you even doubt it!"

"Want a choco?" I stretched the box to him suddenly. I could say it surprised him. He looked like he was waiting for some foul thing from me - oh, well, not from me - I was just a small boy against him - but from something outside me.

"Thanks."

We tore the cellophane cover - and then it was easier. I didn't know if he liked chocos - perhaps he appreciated cigarettes much more - but he ate it and I ate, too, and he said:

"I am Mike. And you..." his straight brows slid together in a little frown. "Alex, right?"

I blinked. Nobody called me Alex in my life.

His house was built the same way as ours - well, I guess every one in the street was - but while mine was though pitiful and half-uninhabited his was messy in a way the house is messy without a woman's hand. I knew somebody was taking care about it - perhaps Mike himself - but there were these 'dusty rabbits' in the corners I read in a book about but never saw - and the sofa was filthy for years and so on. No wonder, actually, I didn't see any woman entering or leaving the place yesterday when I was at my watch.

Mike put his shirt on and we sat for a while consuming the chocos. At last I dropped my eyes to my wrist and stood up.

"Your father is going to be back soon, right?" it seemed to me his face changed a little - as if some light was switched off in it. I had some idea that the old man would probably come tired after his work and he didn't need any neighbor kids messing around there. I walked to the door when he hailed me.

"Alex, look... You know what? Maybe, if you walk to school with me tomorrow your mates wouldn't get under your skin any more?"

"And your friends?" I knew they were coming for him - I saw it today.

"Come on!" he shrugged.

"Thank you. I appreciate it."

He laughed.

I felt terrified imagining what my mother would think when she saw my battered face. But when she came she was even in a worse condition than yesterday - and I managed to hide my face well enough while she was pecking in her plate - and after the supper she just dropped into the nap.

I spent the evening thinking about Mike - mostly because it helped me stop thinking about the bastards who offended me today. And when I did think about them I couldn't help imagining the most terrible tortures applied to them - every heart-freezing torture I've ever read about in the old book I had at home - an ancient, eighteenth-century book of Chinese tortures. It was written by some mad missionary who spent his life in China and it had a lot of unforgettable prints illustrating the text. My father told me it was a bunch of lies, the Chinese didn't ever use these methods - but all the same it had its impression on me.

And it was not fair towards the poor kids to deal with them this way, I knew. They were just kids - what they could be responsible for? So, I thought about Mike.

Mike was better than his word. I walked to school with him and his buddies and when one of them - the same - or not - who was pissed off with the delay yesterday - tried to drop something about me being 'colored' he just said to him to shut up. It didn't make my own class-mates love me - but they didn't try to mess with me any more either. And their silence - I could stand it, really.

* * *

I watched Mike's training, sitting on the stand of the school stadium. Football was not my favorite kind of sport - all these big guys crushing against each other - but I enjoyed looking at Mike. He was gorgeous - smart and fast and strong - well, for me he seemed the best guy on the field. When they left to the showers I walked around waiting for him.

It took a lot of time for him to emerge - all his friends were gone - and if I didn't know for sure I couldn't miss him I would think he was gone, too. When he did come out there was a bit of surprise in his eyes.

"Alex? I bet you're gone!"

"Did you want me to?"

"Hell, no!" every time when I saw this his pretty smile on the face that looked even more tired with his tan gone there was something like a palm fisting on my heart.

"I thought, maybe, we could go to Minnie's?"

I knew I was awkward saying it - but what could I do?

"Okay," he nodded.

The place was such that my father wouldn't step his foot in - but it took only a couple weeks for me to get used to it - to start enjoying it. We took our shakes and other stuff and settled at the table.

"I wonder where do you take this money from, kid."

Mike worked three evenings a week and on Saturdays but I supposed he was giving the most part of his money to his old man.

"Oh, well," I really never told him. "My father gave it to me."

"Your father?!" I don't know why there was such amazement on his face. I guess I heard a bit of irony even - but I just nodded. "A wealthy guy, huh?"

"He is the vice-president of Union Construction International, Inc." I guessed it sounded awful. It took a couple of seconds for Mike to process it. Then his expressive brows flew up.

"My old man worked for UCI, until they kicked him out."

"That's the thing," I said.

"You don't take me in?"

"Do I?" I never had any reputation of a liar.

"Then why don't you live with him?"

I told him why. It was not that I had to split my heart open in front of him - but, well, the thing was I wanted it.

"And he has leukemia. My mother doesn't know about it. She wouldn't leave if she knew. But he forbade me to tell her."

"And when my mother left she didn't take me with her," he said.

I never heard his voice sounding like this. A sudden dull ache in my chest rose up. I clenched my teeth. He didn't look at me. His eyes were down, on the plastic cup on the table - and on his hands clasped together - and I saw the knuckles of his fingers becoming white.

"Maybe, she thought you would be better with your dad."

"She thought she would be better without me!" his voice grew louder. I reached out my hand. I couldn't help it - I put my palm on his hands. Partly I expected his to shake it off at once - but he didn't. "I was twelve. I just came from school one day - and she was not there. Only a bit of paper on the fridge."

"You don't know where she is?"

It was the first time I was touching him, actually. If not to mention the first day when he was wiping my nose with the kerchief. His hands were warm and smooth - bones so tangible under his fine skin. I felt his fingers hooked tightly under my palm.

"Why, I know. I wrote to her. She doesn't answer. She is married, you see. A lorry driver. She has children. Joshua and Therese."

I couldn't make myself ask where he knew it from. I just moved my palm a little, as if patting him - only not patting - I think he didn't even notice it.

It was then when I saw it. Under the sleeve of his shirt - some dark imprints on his skin - five round spots - four together and one a bit away. And even though I didn't see anything like this before I suddenly realized what it was - it was the trace of a hand.

My mouth became dry. Mike didn't say anything any more - but all I could do was to stare at the bruises on his forearm. I would understand if it was left by a gloved hand - why, on the field they were excessively (to my mind) cruel to each other. But it was not. It was the same bad - but it was not a game trace. It looked like his tissue was mashed. It made me want to touch him there - but I knew I couldn't do it. I knew I couldn't afford to gaze like this any more, too - if I didn't want him to notice. I swallowed. He looked up at me - and I said hastily:

"What if we go to my place now, huh, man?"

"Why not?"

I never invited him to me before - but it turned out to be even easier. If I had any notion that he would be taken aback with our meagre way of living - my father's house was still too fresh in my memory - then he was not. I showed him my puzzles and my models - Cutty Sark and Santa Maria and Atlantic Star - not purchased models; I made every detail of them myself, cut out of wood - and he liked them. I never could believe I would feel so happy in my house as I felt now.

* * *

It all happened too quickly. Mike had the ball - and there was a guy from the other team closing on him - and one more from behind - and then they smashed into him from both sides and all fell on the ground. There was a mess of white and crimson uniforms - and I heard a cry of pain - I even didn't know whose. But when these two guys got up it was Mike who stayed on the ground rocking in pain.

The school doctor said it was okay, just a bruise, and told to rub the gel into his knee - but his game was over. His buddies walked him home. He was limping badly - worse and worse by the end - and I jerked and swore to myself and put under the question the competence of our old medicine guy.

At home I left Mike for a while to run to the drugstore for the fuckin' gel - and when I was back he was in his bed, pale and in sweat. I dissolved a couple of pills for him and while he was drinking I took the blanket away.

His knee seemed twice of its size and of dark-purple color. He said something like he would manage himself - but I was not going to listen to him. I knew he wouldn't do anything - not with his knee looking so puffy and incredibly tender.

"Take a deep breath, man!"

I put a little gel on my palms - freezy-cold at first and suddenly burning a moment later - and pressed my palms to his leg.

"Oh, come on, come on, I know it hurts, I know!"

I was speaking some more things - the things my father usually told me when I was in pain - like: you can stand it, you are strong - but I doubted if Mike heard me. When I glanced to his face I saw him with his eyes screwed up shut and his face looking like a gyps mask. I tried to be gentle - as far as I could. And I was gentle - it was not difficult for me being like this to him, to my Mike. He didn't cry out - he was a man - he even didn't moan once.

I rubbed the gel in - and then I felt him relaxed a little, maybe, the pain-killers started working. His muscles were not so taut any more under my hands. His skin was smooth. There was some dark down on his thighs and shins - so very soft. I ran my hands over it - it was slightly tickling on my skin.

"Is it okay now?" I asked. "Is it better?"

"Yeah," he whispered.

I sat with him. If he told me to get out I would go - I wouldn't be insulted or something - or even if I felt he didn't want me to be there - but he didn't do anything. He just half-sat in the bed with his tilted face seeming almost waxen and his eyes shut.

We didn't speak. He had to be too exhausted to speak - and I felt too much to chat with him. I wanted to touch him again. To caress him with my hands, feeling how strong and warm he was. I would like my palms to have some miraculous healing power - so that I could fondle him and it would stop hurting. I had the strangest idea about touching him with my lips, pressing my face to his knees.

What I did do was to put my fingers on his ankle. Perhaps he was dazed - he didn't shifted. I patted his smooth skin, every second afraid that he would push me away - but he never did.

Then there was his father entering the house. When I heard his voice from the door I just jumped. Not with the roughness of it.

"Hey, pussy, where are you?"

I looked at Mike. It was a tactless thing - a moment later I understood - but I couldn't help it already. It was like his father's ghoulish tone sent the load of high voltage through him. The look of his wide-opened eyes startled me - the expression of a cornered animal.

"Playing hard to get, bitch?" the guy bawled. Mike groped for the bed as if he was going to get up. He couldn't, not really. He pulled the blanket on himself hastily while his father was ascending the stairs.

"Fuck!" the man seemed even bigger when I saw him close like this. His smelly shirt was barely buttoned on the huge belly - and I could see the hairy patches between the buttons. "What are you doing in the bed, cunt?"

I blushed. I felt my cheeks getting so scarlet that they burnt. I couldn't believe he was speaking like that - to his own son, in my presence. Because he noticed me. On the half of his phrase his mouth slid crookedly as he was watching me. I stared back at him. Even to glance at Mike was unbearable. I was ashamed so badly - and I could only imagine how mortifying it was for him.

Dave didn't wait for Mike to say anything - and as much as I felt I needed to say what happened I knew I didn't have to interfere. Then he paid attention to me

"So, what is it here?" I shivered with the syntax of his question. "A little Chino boy? What the fuck is he doing here?"

He was not sober, I realized. The reeking of beer was almost intolerable.

"Don't you know my buddies are going to stop by today?"

Actually, they did stop by already - I heard their voices from downstairs. If Mike was pale before - he looked ghostly now.

"Dad..." I never heard him speaking like that. It made me cringe inside.

"Get out, Chink!" the man yelled. "Fuckin' shitty colored ass will stick around at my home when I come from work!" he muttered.

I was dumb. Never in my life any grown-up person insulted me so. I walked to the door on wooden legs.

"Why don't you kiss your pussy friend good-bye?" Dave was mocking me behind my back. "A nice little buddy you have, Mikey boy! Why don't you go friends with babies, huh?"

I was sick by the moment I reached the bottom of the stairs. There were six or seven men in the living-room, all gulping beer. Their glazed eyes didn't stop at me when I passed by.

I heard the party going on till after midnight. Anger was making me swoon. They didn't care about Mike - how much he was hurt - how he needed some rest. Oh, no, his father didn't care - I got it even excessively clear. It was the first time when I felt I hated Dave.

* * *

In about a week Mike felt much better. He was limping, of course, but he could walk to school without problems. It was his football that was out of question - and I have to say I didn't feel too unhappy about it. A couple of trainings he watched from the stand - but I felt it was aggrieving him, so, I tried to persuade him not to do. Now we went home together almost every time.

I found it strangely difficult for me to come to his house after what happened with his father. I never said it, of course - never said that every time when I thought about Dave I had the creepiest feeling; they say it is a goose walking on your grave. Well, we spent time at my place.

We lay right on the carpet in the living-room, eating ice-cream and playing checkers. Mike was dragging his cigarettes. It was making me look at his hand and his mouth, how he brought his hand to his lips - so startlingly vulnerable on his strong handsome face.

"Give me a drag, okay?"

He laughed while I reached out my hand for his cigarette and then caught my wrist. I wrestled slightly against his tough thin fingers. He rolled on his back without letting me go.

"Aren't you too young for smoking?"

"And what about passive smoking?"

I looked at his grey-pearl clear eyes recalling how the side of my hand brushed against his cheek accidentally. Suddenly there was such a great feeling overwhelming me - so violent that I couldn't move any more. I just flopped down limply. He let me go. I put my cheek on the carpet and whispered:

"Oh, Mike, if you only knew... I am so happy we moved here, so happy!"

I never had any friend like him - never in my life. It was so still in the room. I was silent - and Mike, too. Then we heard my mother coming.

She looked at us with her usual stare last time - a little wildly. We scrambled on the floor getting up hurriedly.

"It's Mike, mom. He lives next door, he is my friend."

"Good afternoon, Mike," her voice was flat.

When he left and I entered the kitchen she spoke to me. It was so long time since she spoke to me - and she even didn't move to kneel as she did before - inert on the kitchen chair.

"Alexander, my poor boy. It is not that I am appraising your friends, you know. But why?"

"What?" I stared at her.

"Isn't he too big for you, I mean?"

I was thinking what would be a right move.

"He defended me when my class-mates wanted to bash me, remember?"

Her eyes flickered. I still felt cold when I recalled how she took my blue eye then.

"Oh, of course," a deadly tired voice; tender as always. "I can understand why you want to call him your friend. But why does he want it? I know you are bright, Alexander, but he is... how many years older than you? Is everything okay with him?"

I felt my cheeks getting so blushed that it brought tears to my eyes. It didn't help even that her words were not sarcastic - just weary. Didn't I ask it myself? Didn't I ask this question almost every day? How I could be so lucky to be with Mike when he had his big friends and everything? It seemed to me he liked to be with me. It seemed to be he felt tranquil when I was near.

I went out of the kitchen. She didn't say anything to stop me. With my peripheral sight I saw her head lolling back tiredly. There was Mike's cap and his pack of cigarettes and the lighter on the floor. I picked them up. I felt like clasping them to my chest. He was gone - gone till tomorrow - but I still had his things.

Oh, and why couldn't I see him once more today? A sudden thought stroke me and made me giggle. It was easy. I could do it. I could drop to him for a moment and bring him his possessions. I knew Dave was in already - but he wouldn't come to open the door surely, he was not this kind of person.

I slipped out of the house and walked to their door. I knocked and knocked - and nobody came - and I might have guessed they were not there - but I saw the kitchen light in the window. Well, it was a silly thing what I did. I had to go home if I was not welcome. But I just pushed the door.

It was dozens of times I dropped to Mike like this, without any warning, when he was alone. I thought they could watch TV. I don't know what I think. But I came in.

And I heard it at once. Not TV - their TV was turned off, actually - and the sounds were going not from there. It was from kitchen. I heard Mike's voice.

I knew it was Mike's voice. There was not much left in it - but I still could recognize it - so... faint and high and full of some unexplainable expression - of suffering?

"Dad, please..."

I froze stone-still. Even my breath was caught in my throat. No sound from me. The only other sound was - I heard it when I came in - was some strange loud panting. As if somebody was saying with every exhale - 'hack! hack!'

And there were some very soft steady slaps accompanying it.

He was beating him! His father was punishing him for something, hurting him. Like this, in silence, with only his breath to hear. In the kitchen.

"Ooh, God..." Mike's voice was a sob.

I felt like fainting. The cap and the cigarettes were clenched to my chest - and I gritted my teeth not to give out a sound. I didn't dare. I couldn't let them know I heard them. That I heard Dave punishing his big and strong son so that he made him cry out in pain.

My cheeks were as hot as oven doors - and my heart was hurting me. But I was noiseless when I turned on my heels and left the house.

* * *

I didn't sleep a minute this night. Every time I close my eyes I heard it again - the soft slaps and Mike's pitched voice asking to stop it. It was making me jerk. Dave... How could he do it? To Mike, to my Mike, so good and smart and manly! What did he do to make Dave do it? With some cold feeling I realized that he probably didn't do anything - like he didn't do anything when Dave came home and bawled at him so nastily. It was just that Dave wanted to do it - and Mike couldn't do anything to prevent it.

Ooh, why should it being happening to Mike, of all? Pity was wringing my heart out.

When it was time to go to school I couldn't make myself wait for Mike at his porch. The house looked so hideous for me that I was about to lose my breakfast. It seemed to me I could hear the terrible sounds of mellow slapping again. I couldn't puzzle it out. Which way he was hurting him so much to make him whimper? It was driving me mad. I dashed along the streets, well aware that it was the first day in many that I was not going this way with Mike.

Was it that I was betraying him? I was hurt so much that I could hardly keep away from tears sitting at my desk. How will I look in his eyes? He didn't know that I knew. I was afraid I would give it out. I would prefer to die than humiliate him like that.

He came up to me during the break.

"Am I late today? Or did you oversleep?"

He didn't look any bit different from how he was every day - and what I thought about was how often it was happening to him. How often he met me in the morning after his father punished him the night before? Did he know Dave would do it when he was leaving me yesterday? And the nastiest thought was corroding my mind: that's what was wrong to him? That's why he was so different?

"Hey!" I think I had quite an expression because suddenly his voice became alert. "What's the matter, man?"

I was speechless. I believe my face was ugly because I tried to hold my tears in. I only shook my head. I reached for my bag blindly and handed him the cap and the cigarettes. I knew I surprised him, almost shocked.

"Thanks but..."

I turned away from him and walked to my classroom. As he was going away from me on the first day I met him.

He was leaving for home alone. I stood on the school stairs - and there I saw him, in a hundred yards far, walking slowly, limping to his injured leg. His shoulders were as tense and straight as always.

It was then something broke in me. I didn't cry out - but I rushed down the steps and ran after him - and even before he turned to me I hooked my arm around his elbow and pressed my face to his shoulder.

"Gee! You are pretty weird today, you know?"

I didn't answer. I was shaking so badly that it was like a fit. How could it be the same voice that was imploring his father yesterday? But it was the same voice, my Mike's voice.

I didn't stand. Tears flowed out of my eyes.

"Alex! Man, is there anything with your father?"

He couldn't say any more wrong words. He was asking about my father while his... Dave, damned fuckin' bastard, how he dared?! I was in more pain I could imagine. We stood in the street with Mike and I felt his warm hands groping me - was he looking for a handkerchief again?

"Look, they'll think I hurt you!"

I couldn't do anything. I stuck my face in his chest suddenly. I knew I was smearing him. I wrapped my arms around him - so that even if he wanted to he couldn't push me away so easily.

He didn't push me. His arms were limp along his body - but he just stood while I was crying.

* * *

When I saw the buddies of Mike's dad approaching the house I felt like my heart was about to jump out of the chest. I prayed silently, without calling the God's name. It will be okay for him today, I thought with some feverish hope, whatever else but his father would be too busy with his friends to touch him. I looked and looked at his house. At last, when it became dark, I skipped down from the window-sill and slunk to the door.

Now I would like to say there was something surreal. I didn't have any formed thought or any premonition except the pain that was kind of gnawing in my heart. I walked to Mike's house and pushed the door deliberately slow. I was really careful to enter in secret.

What I saw was so shocking that I find it almost impossible to verbalize.

There was about half a dozen of men in the room - and every one of them had his genitals exposed. Their zippers were wide open - and their thick shafts of flesh of different length and diameters, rigid with blood, dark and heavily veined, were pointing in the air under various angles. The heads of a couple of them were glistening with the liquid that was seeping out of them - and one of the men was squeezing and rubbing his organ, pinching the head of it between his thumb and forefinger. Their cocks started in the hairy bases, with mushy dark shadows of their testicles thereunder.

Two of them were not just sporting erections, however. One of them was Mike's father - the other, one of his buddies who looked non-descriptive for me, all of them were the same - big-bellied rude men with red faces and bullish eyes.

They had Mike between them. It couldn't be possible what they were doing; I had to be hallucinating. They had him on his fours on the floor, with only his T-shirt on, and his father was kneeling behind him, holding him tight around his hips - and thrusting his belly against Mike's bum sharply and steadily. All Dave's bulk was moving - as if he was putting all his force in every heavy stroke. He was gripping Mike very close to himself - so that Mike's body almost didn't jerk with the mighty pounding, every one blow as strong as a punch. But Mike still did move -and every thrust of his father threw him forward, on the other cock that was stuck into his mouth.

The other guy had Mike's hair in both his hands, digging his knuckles into his head deeply - and he was pulling him forth and back on his penis. I didn't see any bit of his cock when he pulled Mike's face up to him, pressing his face into his thick pubic hair - and when he pushed him back I saw his massive hard cock glistening in Mike's spat.

There were horrible sounds in Mike's throat - as if he was retching. Another sound was sharp, rasp panting that was going from Dave - every his exhale noisy, as if he was pronouncing it - 'hack! hack!' I recognized the breath at once. I recognized the soft level slapping.

My teeth chattered. It was noisy in the room - full of breaths and movements - but for some reason they heard me. Some of them turned around - and while I thought about running in reality I was glued to the place with my faint feet.

"Ho!" one of them said in an amused voice. "Who do we have here?"

I saw Mike's father turning to me. He still had his cock in Mike's ass. His eyes glared - but more than angry he seemed meanly entertained.

"Aw! A little Chink! My neighbor-whore's Chinese brat!" he yanked his dick out of Mike - with a sound that seemed like a wet snap for me. He was stiff. His dick was thicker than my forearm - red swollen paddle, covered in the unspeakable mix of liquids. He stood up heavily resting his hand against the back of his son. "The little bastard of the fuckin' whorish slut but you know her..."

I couldn't breath. I looked at him when he was approaching me - and I knew that my bladder was about to slacken. I moved - I did try to escape - but it was too late. His huge hand grabbed my hair almost tearing them out. He yanked me closer to him in one motion.

"What the fuck you are doing here? Spying?"

I couldn't look at him. I tilted my face up to him but I made my eyes unfocused. I couldn't stand this horrible face snarling at me.

"So, he is your little son's little buddy?" one of the guys spoke up - in a voice so contemptuous that I shuddered. "Do you like to watch how your friend gets it up to his lousy ass and to his bitchy shit mouth? His ass hole is our cunt, you know - and his mouth is our pussy! Did you know it? He likes to have it full and hard."

I almost convulsed. I never felt anything like this - as if a wave of madness was rising in me. I broke loose from Mike's father. I felt my hair tearing out of my scalp. I dashed to the speaker - though he was only a distorted shadow for me, with his mouth opening and quivering. I hit him. I kicked him and clawed his hands and belly - what I could reach - but at the next moment they gripped me. There were two of them twisting my arms. Mike's dad came up to me. Was he going to hit me? He grabbed my shirt and shook me so that my teeth clinked.

"Look here! I said, look here, you fuckin' jerk!"

I saw him picking Mike up from the floor, seizing him around his waist and yanking up violently. Now he held him face to me, clenching his upper arm so that his fingers were gone deep in his skin.

Mike's face was pale as papyrus - except two bright blush stains on his cheek-bones. He didn't look at me. He couldn't keep his eyes open. His face seemed a mask of utter misery. I shamed him so badly! With my coming here, with seeing it.

"If you ever, ever have the idea, you fuckin' scum," Dave was panting hard gazing at me with his bloody eyes, "to tell the police or anything like that, remember what I'll do with your precious Mikey's precious balls."

He grabbed his flabby organ and scrotum in the palm, clenched it in fist and wrenched it out.

Mike gave out a moan - long and hoarse that sounded almost inhuman for me. It couldn't lay down in my mind that Dave did it. To his own son. Tortured him.

"Clear? Is it clear for you, Chink?" I saw him twisting his son's privates again. At last I realized he wanted my answer.

"Yes," I said. "Yes, I won't tell anyone. I swear."

My voice sounded alien for me. Dave chuckled a little and made the sign to let me go. I felt dizzy of wish to come close to Mike, to wrap my arms around him and to cover him. But I knew it would only make the things worse. On the stiff legs I walked to the door and down the stairs.

In the shower I scrubbed myself ferociously, trying to scratch out every bit of this scent from me - I was soaked with it: beer, sweat, the thick smell of hairy crotches. I still felt it.

* * *

They left about midnight. I was looking at the lit windows of the house, hearing from time to time the spills of TV music and their laughter brought to me by the gushes of wind. I saw Dave on the porch, parting with them. He had a beer can in his hand.

I knew it was the only thing happening that could make me lose Mike. Today I couldn't stand his eyes thinking that his father was beating him. How I could hope he would be able to face me?! I let him down. I spoiled everything.

Hatred was making me stiff. But it was not relevant now. I wanted Dave dead - so badly I never wanted anybody dead. But it was another feeling that was piercing me with burning rods. Mike was the one who gave meaning to my life. There was no life for me without him.

My father told me: never do a thing without sleeping a night with it. But what I knew deadly sure now was that if I let the night pass like this I would lose Mike forever. I waited for half an hour more and then opened the window. There was the slant roof above the back door under me - and I slid on it, glided down on my bum - and dropped clumsily on the ground. We had heavy rain yesterday, so, it was not hard. In the dim light I crawled over the fence and reached their house. It was more difficult to climb up than to fall down - but I did it with as little noise as I could.

Mike's window had a gap opened. I raised myself. I almost flopped inside, all together, too much in panting to be gracious. Mike was there. In the darkness I saw him thrashing on the bed, under the blanket, his hand reaching for light.

"God, who is it?!"

There was alarm in his voice but no quietness I was afraid the most of.

"No!" I pushed his hand away. "It's Alex! Don't switch it on!"

"You?!" there was so much disbelief in his voice that my heart flutter. I was afraid he would kick me out in disgust. I never let him time to think it over. I scrambled on his bed and pulled his blanket crawling imprudently under it.

"Alex..." I didn't know what he wanted to say. I grasped his face in my palms and covered his mouth with kiss. I felt his breath and his lips moving - as if he was continuing to speak - but I didn't want to hear it. I kissed him frantically.

It was not a deep kiss; I never put my tongue into his mouth - but I kissed his lips hot and hard. My heart was a burning ball in my chest fluctuating with pain and joy. His cheeks were tender and warm under my palms and I felt his lashes quivering where they slightly touched my fingers.

I knew he could push me away at any moment. Every second I kissed him and he put up with it was like bliss for me. His heart was beating strong and fast against my trembling rib-cage.

"I love you, you know," I whispered right into his mouth; I backed - I needed some breath taken. "You own my soul."

There was just a little sigh from him. He didn't say anything. He didn't order me to get out. I closed my face to his again. His skin felt as I thought it would feel under my lips. He was blinking when I pecked his eyes. I felt the minute roughness of his cheeks pressing my cheeks to them. The sharp line of his jaw was hard under the smooth surface of his skin.

I kissed his warm neck and bare shoulders. His chest was rising and falling steadily and the curls of his chest hair were a little coarse on my lips. I kissed lower and lower, his flat smooth belly with the trace of down going from his navel, his pubic hair, so fluffy and soft and wispy. There was very little of his own scent - he had to take a shower right before. There was slight moistness around his crotch that gave the scent - and I kissed him there.

I felt like I was dazzled when I touched his penis. He was half-hard - throbbing and stirring in my hands - as if it was a small animal. That was when he fought me. His strong hand was slightly wet of my wrist when he took my palm off from his organ. My voice was tight:

"Please, please, let me do it."

How could I know what he was thinking about? I thought I was correcting things - but, maybe, I was doing them worse. Maybe, he thought I was insulting him being so brash.

"You are so beautiful," I whispered knowing that my voice sounded imploring - but I couldn't do anything with it. "So strong. And clean. I need you. I need you, my man."

I can't say how I felt it - his grip was still tight on my hand - but when I moved it he didn't hold me. I put my lips on his organ - so erect now that it lay upright on his stomach. The slightest scent was entrancing me. I took my tongue out and tasted it.

The salt was almost imperceptible under the taste of the soap - but what I felt was hot blood pulsing under the skin. I liked up, along the entire shaft, with a flickering smile on my lips for how long it was. I licked my lips, I took the thing in my hand and raised it a little to get reach it with my mouth. When I took it in it was too much at once.

I couldn't understand how it was - it was just the cap and a little more that I could put in my mouth - and I tried - I tried hard - but it didn't go further. I couldn't make myself let it over my gagging. I just sucked and sucked over some inches of it.

The guy had to shove it to his throat, I understood suddenly. There was no other way. But what this man was doing was pushing Mike's face down on his shaft - and that Mike never did to me. He never fucked my mouth. I wrapped my fingers around his cock. I had a vague idea that I could help him to come like this. And there was his hand suddenly. For a moment it touched lightly my hair and then it replaced my palm on his member. I met it with my mouth a couple of times before we started moving in unison. I knew it was alright now - I felt it. I felt his thighs quivering under my palms.

Mike didn't make any sounds. I didn't know if it was his way making sex - silently, with only his breath a little faster. He pushed my forehead gently - and I understood he was going to come. I didn't let him go. My mouth wrapped around his cock - and I felt it pulsating in my mouth, alive. And suddenly there was warm creamy fluid on my tongue, salty and bitter, of stunning taste. Startled, I tried to swallow it - but it filled my mouth and I knew I was making a mess letting it leak out, down on his shaft. Mike's hand limped before his cock grew flaccid. He let it go. I gulped on his sperm. I lapped hastily on what I poured out. With his cock growing limp I could take more of it in my mouth - and I licked it and under it, licked his balls smeared in his cum. I kissed his crotch and his thighs and his belly until I felt him stretching flat, completely relaxed.

Was it alright? Was I good to him? I remembered from a book I read that these were the worst questions to ask - even though it was a book about a man and a woman. I curled at his legs.

"God, Alex," Mike breathed out - and my heart contracted in apprehension. "Why did you do it?"

"Because you are my man," I said softly. "You are my man and I belong to you."

He pulled me to lie at his side. His hard smooth body was so warm. I was forward enough to push my arm under his neck, so that his head was lying on my elbow. His head was heavy and I reveled in the sensation of my arm getting numb under this weight. I had the strangest feeling - sweet and sorrowful at the same time. Was it only some hours ago when I saw the most hideous things done to Mike? I knew I wouldn't speak to him about it. Even though I knew we were both to face it forever. And I knew for sure one more thing - whatever was happening between Mike and me at night - our day friendship was over.

* * *

I was waiting on my window-sill looking through the exquisite design of the beaded curtain to the street under of me. I was late to school. Mike came out several minutes ago - and I saw him tilting his face up to my window - I don't think he did it consciously. He didn't see me. When I knew he was far away I went down and walked to his house. I didn't stop for knocking the door, simply pushed it and came.

Dave was in the kitchen just in his undies. His fat belly never seemed so repulsive to me as now, when it hung over the edge of his trousers. No wonder - if he started his day with a beer can. He was busying around the table, grasping the lumps of food and pushing them to his mouth, chewing and champing. I didn't feel sick. I felt like laughing. It took a minute, maybe, more for him to notice me. At first he just froze - as if my eyes burnt a hole in his back. When he turned back slowly I could bet he was ready to see whoever else but me.

He even stopped chewing - for a moment.

"What the fuck you are here again?! Your pussy friend is gone!"

Pussy. Cunt. I recalled him throwing these words to Mike's face. Now I knew he meant what he was saying. So, here he was fucking his son? On this table?

I was silent. I just looked at him. His eyes, already red in the morning, looked back at me heavily.

"What do you need from me, fuckin' freak? Want another performance? Too late. I've screwed his sloppy hole already today, chock-a-block, fucked him loose, until he shitted himself! His fuckin' pants must be still wet with my juice!"

Oh, come on, come on, I repeated to myself. I was rigid with the reins I put on myself.

"You know what is it - a man's meat in your ass?" suddenly he changed the topic. He didn't wait for me to answer. "I bet you writhe to get know it. Envy your buddy? Love big white men, huh, Chink?"

I could see he liked the idea. His palm lay on his round belly and caressed it lovingly. I smirked - so fleetly that it puzzled him.

"What do you want, you bitch? Want me to plug you, Chinese whore?"

I shut my eyes for a spell when he moved to me - but I made myself look up again. His bulk was close - and I was overwhelmed with his disgusting smell. It was revolting me - almost to the point of throwing up.

"Speak, you fuckin' doll!" he screamed at me. I saw him lifting his hand up - so slowly that I lost my courage hundred times until he stroke my face with startling force. I fell. I fell as long as the door-porch that was behind my back. My cheek went numb with the slap he gave me. Never in my life any adult man touched me violently. I was sure he broke my cheek-bone.

Dave looked at me as if being a little perturbed. I knew exactly that if I started now he wouldn't do anything to stop me. But I stayed where I was.

"Ooh, fuck! Like mother like son! You want it, dirty slut - you have it!" I hardly discerned his words. He grasped my shoulders and slammed me into the door-porch. He was killing me. It was the clearest thought I had. My mouth was filled with blood - so much of it that it splashed out on my chin. I think I lost consciousness for a spell. Because the next moment when I sensed anything I was on my face on the dusty floor and my bottom part felt unusually bare, with my pants tethering me around my ankles. I shifted. The heavy hand lay down on my neck, pressing me into the floor, crushing my lips against my teeth. The huge body of Dave was behind me. I felt his size, his smell, his shadow falling on me. I stopped jerking. His hand let me go - and at the next moment I felt his fingers digging into my crack. His hands were prying my ass-cheeks open. So wide that I gasped in pain. He was nailing his fingers in my tissue, kneading it hard. His thick finger poked in my anus.

"Fuck you, Chink," I heard his panting voice behind me. "Fuck me if you don't get it fast and dry."

When he stuck his index finger past my sphincter I went rigid. The pain was unthinkable. He grunted with effort. He pulled his fuckin' finger out and shoved it back, making me crying out. I didn't know if he wanted me to cry out. I moved my hand to my mouth and covered it. He was fucking me with his finger, rudely and disorderly. I knew he was scratching me with his dirty nail - but he didn't care.

When he stopped I limped at once. Something inside my belly was trembling thinly, as if a string torn. I breathed deep and fast, horrified with the pain I went through. And then Dave shifted behind me - and I felt a blunt pressure against my bleeding orifice.

Fuck! I almost was not afraid. I couldn't believe he would do it - physically, I mean. His was too big. But he pressed and pressed and tore my buttocks apart - and suddenly with an unspeakable sensation the walls of my hole gave up - and he was in.

"Dad, please..." as if I heard Mike's voice again. I couldn't speak. Even if I wanted to.

Dave took it out. Took it out to thrust again - and this time he went in inches farther than before. New sharp pain - and I felt wet and hot outside. It was blood, I understood. He tore me.

He thrust again and again. I squealed. These were some refectory sounds. He didn't pay attention to them. He didn't stop. It was after five or six thrusts he was fully inside me. I was changing between convulsions and complete immobility. His cock was wet with my blood and other liquids - and still it was sharp as if stuck with broken glass.

"Fuckin' tight little Chinese ass," Dave muttered.

When he pulled out I shrieked. 'Hack!' his exhale had this sound when he sent his dick back. I felt his huge abdomen slapping against my bum. He pulled back again. 'Hack!'

Sometimes I saw only blackness. I knew there were moments when I switched out - because I don't remember how he lay down on me - as heavy as if he weighed half a ton. He bit my neck and it brought me to my senses. He was not fucking me slow any more, as in the beginning, but his thighs were drilling now, battering me to the floor.

I felt, however, how he took his cock out of what seemed an open wound for me - all wet and ragged - and flipped me on my back and pushed my legs up over my head. He fucked my hole like this, too.

I know exactly that it was all no more than fifteen minutes. He speeded up several times making me believe that he was close - but he didn't come. I screamed and screamed into my hands. I don't know if he heard me. At last he pressed on me - so heavily that I felt like my legs were disjointed - and even though I didn't feel his sperm he was spurting it. He lay on me - on my doubled body - and he moved some more. I agonized. I couldn't control either my shudders or my whimpers. He lay on me and lay.

When he took the weight of his body away my legs fell on the floor lifelessly. Dave crawled on the floor. He crawled from me. My blood was dripping from his prick. He crawled on his fours. I was dying. I hated it. I was dying - it was all over. He killed me.

He stood up. With dazed eyes I followed him how he got to the table and grabbed the beer can. He emptied it in one gulp. He was looking at me. I didn't meet his gaze. What I saw were his fingers pressing into the tin of the can, squeezing and crushing it into a deformed ball.

He was going to do the same with me, I understood suddenly. He didn't know I was dying. He thought... I could feel how the thoughts were moving in his thick skull. He had raped me. He didn't have to do it. It was nothing like demonstrating the Chink how he abuses his son this way and that. He stepped over the line.

I made my body limp. As thing, as if I was already dead. I knew he looked at me. Then he stepped over me and opened the door of the fridge. And when he stooped there groping for another beer I broke.

I jumped up and strove to the door. My hands were pulling my pants up when I rushed through it, head first. I heard him behind me. I rolled out to the street, picked myself up and ran. I ran - crazily, without feeling anything, without thinking anything.

I stopped only when I was on the traffic road.

I realized he didn't chase me. Even that far as outside the house. But I couldn't do anything. I looked and looked around, in absolute belief that I would see him right now, approaching me, catching me. I was gasping so noisily that it was the only sound I heard. I was half-nuts.

And still there was part of me that was lucid. And it guided me, even when I felt like a mad dog shitting itself with terror. I knew that there was no taxi that would take me - in this state, with blood smearing all over my face. I got to a bus. I knew people were looking at me - but I knew nobody would come up and interfere. I stood. I knew if I sat down I wouldn't be able to rise again.

The guard in the building of Union Construction didn't know me. He was reluctant taking the receiver to say what I told him. Alexander wants to see Mr. Chen.

"He said he'd be in a quarter of hour," the guy said. "You wait."

There were big leather arm-chairs in the hall - and though I knew I would spoil one of the with my soaked pants I collapsed there.

The next thing I remember was that I was in my own room. In my room in my father's house. I lay in the bed - my bed - as I had been doing for all my life. And the pain was gone.

Well, there was something like sharp bites between my legs - and my bones gave me dull ache - but it was nothing. I almost didn't feel it. The window on the left of me was dark. And there was my father standing against this window - and one more man, Doctor Leslie Ming, I recognized him. They were speaking in half-voices.

"Oh, so?" when he felt I was looking at him my father looked at me. "Do you hear me, Alexander?"

There was no anger on his face, just tenderness. Dr. Ming came up to me and touched and turned me a little, asking me if I felt this or that. He patted my cheek before leaving.

"You will be in order, Alexander."

"Bye, doctor," I smiled to him.

When my father saw him off he returned. The handkerchief in his hand was bouncing, wiping around his mouth on and on - and it was the only reason why I sensed his state. I looked at him - just looked, without any expression, without saying anything.

"You will spend night here," he said levelly. "I sent to inform your mother. Doctor put the stitches for you there - everything else is fine. Who has done it, Alexander?"

I didn't have to be careful with my words. I knew them by heart.

"It is my friend's father. He lives next door from us."

* * *

He was in the glass hall. I was aware why my father chose this room - right in the center of the house, round and with the walls of tilted soundproof glass, where he usually had his most significant meetings. I stood on the little stairs leading there from the library and looked at Dave lying spread-eagled down in front of me.

He was naked. It made me so sick that I swallowed and swallowed bitter spat filling my mouth. Well, I saw him pretty much nude already - but now there was something sordid in his bare fat chest and fat shoulders covered with hair. His arms and legs were chained - but his legs were also raised a bit higher, exposing his private parts and rear end absolutely in every detail. His limp genitals hung loosely over his hairy hole.

Dave cursed. He writhed madly and struggled when he was getting fixed in this position - and now he was spilling spat around himself and jerk violently, trying to get loose from the steel stripes cuffing his wrists and ankles. There was no way he could do it - he would tear off his limb first.

"Alexander," my father hailed me from behind. I turned back. There was a slim young man standing at his side. "Van Lee," he introduced him to me. "Alexander Chen."

We changed courteous nods and he started descending the steps.

"Let's go," my father touched my shoulder slightly. There were a small table with drinks and coffee and two arm-chairs standing in the hall. I could barely toddle. But when I was downstairs I stopped.

"Do you want to face him?" my father asked.

"Yes," I said.

He didn't notice me at once when I approached. He was shifting ferociously in the tethers and muttering nasty words in a raw voice. I stood at him looking until he turned his head to me.

"Fuck!" I couldn't say if there was any surprise in his voice. There was hatred for sure. "Fuckin' bastard! I had to tear off your head at first!"

I proceeded to gaze at him. It was not that I wanted to piss him off with my silence - as I had done once - but I was regarding all of this for the last time. I can't deny it - I was scared at my heart. With what was going to happen.

"Fuckin' slut! I'll get you! I'll get you, I promise!" he snarled and tried to spat at me. I stepped a little back. He glared at me as if expecting that I would spat at him, too.

Then suddenly his mood changed.

"Okay, Chink," I could see how his brains were working slowly. "If you want it... But you provoked me, you shitty bastard! Well, anyway, look, maybe, I lost control a bit. I am sorry. Do you hear, Chink, I am sorry!"

It was not what I waited for. I didn't care. What he did to me was only to give evidence to my father.

"When Mike hurt his knee," I started. Was he listening to me? He was. It was his life - too much for him to be inattentive. "Did you do it to him, too?"

"What?!" he screamed. He just screamed without words, half-witted of indignation. "Fuck this Mike! What does he has to do here!?"

I turned away and went to the seats.

It was when Van Lee entered again. He had two men with him. One of them had a tray in his hands - and I saw a bottle of some oil on it as well as a thin long pipe made of copper. The other one carried a cage with a lithe shiny beast squirming in it.

Dave raised his head looking at them. There was the whole gamma of feelings when he howled:

"What is it? What the fuck are you going to do?"

Nobody replied. Two men stopped at his legs. It was just the place where he could hardly see them - and he was craning his neck towards, trying to make a look over his formless bulging belly. Van didn't stop. I saw him taking the little bottle of oil in his hands and pouring some quantity of it on his palm. The keen aroma of jasmine filled the room.

When Van Lee came up to Dave's displayed hole and touched it with his fingers the man flinched madly.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck off! Fuckin' Chinese!"

All his huge body bucked frighteningly. But no matter how he flailed and writhed there was no way he could escape Van's hands.

Van was massaging his hole with slimy fingers. He rubbed more oil around the orifice - softening the skin to the point that when he drove his finger into it Dave even didn't notice it.

I knew the intrusion of Van's fingers was not painful. More than that. I could see Dave relaxing. Maybe, he thought it was the worst what was going to happen to him - or without any immediate threat he just started losing the thread. His head lolled back. Van was working his fingers carefully - and now I saw three and four of them coming into Dave's hole without any resistance.

What made my throat contract was when his cock twitched. I thought it could be pleasant for him what Van was doing - but it still was shock for me when his limp organ came to life. I dug my fingernails in the velvet upholstery of the arm-chair.

"Ooh," Dave moaned. "Ooh, fuckin' Chinese bitch!"

He winced, however, when Van pushed all his hand into his hole eventually. I darted a swift glance at my father and noticed his slight frown. Well, this tiny clumsiness of Van didn't make Dave lose his erection. I saw his hands jerking again - but now because he wanted to bring himself off.

At last Van took out his hand. He didn't pay any attention to the movements of Dave that were witnessing his wish to go on. The man handed the tray with the copper pipe to Van.

The tube looked thin - about half an inch in diameter - and about a foot long. It was hollow inside - I could see through the orifice in it. Van came up to Dave's ass and pushed the pipe carefully to his anus. It went in very quickly. The skin around his sphincter was so well-oiled and the muscle so stretched that the tube sank in without any resistance.

Dave's eyes bulged out when the tube went in. All his body was shaking and twisting. It was not pain, I realized. It was... suddenly he fountained the shot of sperm into the air. With his teeth clenched he was coming and coming.

"I am always amazed when somebody compares a man to an animal," I heard my father's cool voice. His hand with the kerchief lay quietly on the elbow-rest. "I see a big difference here."

Dave had splashed his belly with his semen - as well as his balls and pubic hair. I guess some of it got to Van's hands, too - but he didn't give out anything in this connection. He held the tube in his palm. Now it was approximately for two thirds in Dave's ass. Suddenly Van turned it - and the tube unfolded.

It was not fixed tightly. Well, what it really was - a kind of copper sheet folded - and now Van started loosening it. Dave grunted. There was some pain when the pipe grew in diameter. Briskly Van added more oil around his hole. He was opening the tube - and it was getting thicker stretching Dave's hole mercilessly.

"Fuck! Fuck! What are you doing to me?!"

There was no expression on Van's face. His skillful hands just worked. When he finished the tube was about three inches in diameter, having deformed Dave's hole to the same width - and there was no any tear around.

My head span. I saw the other man coming to Van with the cage - and he carefully put his hand into it seizing the little beast by the shiny fur on its neck. It was a ferret.

In the utter silence Van brought it to the outer end of the pipe.

I knew what was going to happen, actually. I chose it myself yesterday - and my father said that it was an appropriate choice. The most appropriate, maybe, of all the old missionary book was suggesting.

A ferret is put into the tube in the victim's rectum - and when the tube starts tightening again, the ferret makes its way into the bowels of the executed. The tube is left in the anus to let the animal breathe while it, squeezed by the grip of guts of the human, is digging into his insides to get out.

The sleek little head of the ferret looked almost like a snake head for me when its was turning it from side to side flashing its tiny glassy black eyes. Van pushed it into the tube slightly - and it squirmed in.

I guess Dave didn't see what was happening. And, of course, he didn't know what I knew. He just apprehended something that was going to happen to him when Van was tightening the tube in his rectum again. It all took a while.

When he did feel it starting his eyes went wide. It was as if he couldn't believe it was happening to him.

"What?.." he stammered. With his eyes bugged out he froze for several moments. When he opened his mouth again it was for a scream. "Ooh, fuckin' bastards! What is it?! What are you doing to me?!."

Suddenly his voice dropped. His body starting arching.

"Aah! Aah!" his voice was thin. So thin as I never could imagine in a man of his dimensions. His big belly was rising in the air even more prominently, fluctuating with the violent jerks of his body. "Ooh, God!"

His bladder emptied. The reeking mixed with dizzying smell of jasmine oil almost made me puke. And suddenly I heard a strange sounds - as if little drops were hitting the hard surface. I didn't know where to look at first - and my father guided me gently.

There was blood spilling out of the tube in Dave's rear end - dark and heavy, scattering on the floor under him. The ferret was doing its work.

It was like sitting too close to the scene in the theater - I could hear every breath and every whisper - but when he shouted it was deafeningly loud. He bucked. His thrashes were so violent that the steel stripes on his limbs clinked pitifully. His belly was trembling. Not because of the ferret's movements - I supposed it was still buried too deep inside for us to see. The flow of blood from the tube became thicker. Now there were not just separate drops - but a steady jet.

Dave didn't sound human any more. His screams were either too low, like tamtam, or thin and high, as if it was a hare screaming.

"God... God..." sometimes he choked on comprehensible words. Not too often. His throat was so raw by then that I thought he hurt himself even screaming - but he couldn't help it. His skin got a strange yellowish shade --as if he got some infectious disease - and there were huge beads of sweat rolling down from his forehead. I don't know - maybe, in this moistness there were his tears, too.

With a loud crack his right wrist broke. And at the same moment there was a violent stream of blood flowing out of his penis. The ferret had to get to his urination organs.

"You know that when the ferret is sate it simply falls asleep in the warmth of its victim's body?" my father asked. I jumped. I didn't know it.

"But can it be possible? You mean that it will be sleeping..."

Suddenly Dave's screams stopped. He quitted thrashing. There were bitter shudders going through his body - but he didn't flail as before. His giant belly was sucking breath. So, it was the answer. The only sound from Dave was some slow, painful breathing - like 'ookh! ookh!'

"I think we shall make a break," my father said sipping the last of coffee.

It the garden we sat on the chaise longues looking at the beautiful bright sky in the web of yellow-leafed branches above. Soon after the noon one of Van Lee's men called us back.

The taunting rest of the ferret was over. When I opened the door I was drowned with the screams. They were very faint. Then I understood Dave was choking in his blood.

His left wrist was broken, too, and the vessels in both his eyes were burst. He didn't look human with these two bulging red balls in his sockets. And there was something more weird about his face, something I didn't catch at once. Not the expression of complete madness. It was his hair. His head was grey.

It about three quarters of hour we saw the first evidence of the ferret. It was like a wave under the surface of the skin, rising and falling. By then Dave was already five minutes dead. The blood from the tube in his rectum stopped flowing. When he arched for the last time there was his voice back - and he called, plain and clear:

"Mom! Ooh, mom!"

Then there was nothing to look at. But I couldn't stand up. I saw the little beating under Dave's skin below his ribs - and then there was some dark thick blood pouring out - and in the little hole the tiny glistening nose of the little beast appeared.

Later, in the library, my father put his hands on my shoulders.

"Are you alright? I didn't think you could face it all through. Oh, Alexander, I didn't think I would see you a man," his voice was full of torment and pride. "But I was lucky to."

And I was thinking about the phrase from the missionary book. "No one who sees 'the ferret torture' can stay in his sound mind and good senses."

* * *

At night I held Mike in my arms. His head lay on my chest lazily and contentedly. I smelled his clean hair, soft and fluffy. My fingers were wandering over his face.

It was the right thing that we didn't switch on the light - so, he couldn't see my incredibly bruised body. He hurt my ribs lying like this - but it was the best thing that was happening to me now. His weight and warmth seemed to be moving aside the dark waves of insanity I was afraid were zeroing on me.

"You know, my father was not at work today," he said suddenly. "He is not at home, too!"

Dave's dog-tags I asked my father to give me were hidden reliably - under the glued deck of my Atlantic Star model.

"Maybe, he left you," I answered hoping that my voice was still sounding normal. "Maybe, he got under a car. Maybe, some monster ate him."

"Nah!" Mike stirred and I gritted my teeth with pain. His voice was spiteful and tensely casual. "There are no miracles!"

I caught his hand with my lips and kissed the rough tips of his fingers. He would understand his father wouldn't come back. He would be alright. When he realized that he was free now. He would construct his life how he wanted it. And I was not sure there would be place for me in it.

But every moment I could lie like this with him I was happy. And as long as he still was going to need me I was going to be here.

The End