Lester's Keeper

8) Lester's World Inverted

Panic exploded within him. She knew. How the hell had she known about the camera? And what had they done to him?

"Its a good thing we don't serve alcohol, Mr. Latroy. It seems you can't even handle a strong cup of coffee."

The bitches drugged me!

The wild figure towering above him beckoned to someone in the direction of the main floor. She turned her attention skyward and above them he heard the undulating metallic whine of a pulley being released.

Something emerged out of the blackness above them, swaying as it descended, glinting as it neared. As she reached for it and pulled it to her by the chain it hung from, Lester realized with growing terror that the thing falling from the ceiling was a honed and rugged meat hook.

What the fuck?!

She knelt at his feet, heavy hook in hand. He felt his pants being pushed up roughly about his shins. She pulled his shoes and socks free and tossed them aside, cupped her left hand beneath his calf and pushed it upward off the floor. His leg stretched out limp before him and he watched in terror as she brought the hook close and placed its point gently against the delicate indented flesh between his Achilles and his ankle. The tough steel was cold and its point brought pain even without pressure. She looked up at him from her position with a smile. "I should stop Mr. Latroy. You've learned your lesson, right?" He tried everything to call out that he had.

Yes! Stop please!

Only a low guttural groan would come. Surely she would stop. She had scared him enough, embarrassed him enough.

She smiled. "Don't worry about speaking Mr. Latroy. I know the answer. You had chances to turn back tonight and you took none of them. The fact is that pigs like you don't change. Not ever. I consider myself an expert." She steeled herself.

Oh Jesus, FUCK! Please, no!

She jerked the hook laterally. It glided through the skin behind the tendon and emerged smeared and bloody from within his torn flesh. Agony flared along Lester's leg and warm crimson began to stream from it. His groans were greeted by renewed momentum but they only grated through his vocal cords, barely carrying. She regarded him with wide, excited eyes and reached across for the second foot.

Please no. Oh God, PLEASE!

He sent panicked pleads to the muscles of his leg, implored his foot to retract from her hold but it hung lifeless before him. The helplessness and the fear overpowered and nauseated him. He was dimly aware a spreading warmth about his crotch as his bladder released.

She tensed and pulled and the hook ripped through his leg birthing a fresh round of failed screams to collapse within his throat behind its scaffold of standing tendons. A layer of sweat had risen all across him, soaking the fibers of his clothes and rolling from his still, strained face.

She regarded him with a look of mock regret. "If you think that was painful, I have some very bad news for you, Mr. Latroy." She turned toward the floor and beckoned once more to an unseen party. Whatever was happening was far from a joke. Far from simply teaching a lesson. She had to be insane. What would she stop at? His mind swirled.

For a moment there was silence, and then ballistic pain filled him. The sounds of the pulley called from above them, drowning out the dry, guttural roar within his throat. His feet and legs jolted upwards and he slid across the floor by an inch. The sound and the agony came again and his feet rose higher, pulling him across the floor in another increment.

When the pulleys sounded and the pain erupted for the third time, his vision jerked violently and the world was inverted as his head dragged across the floor and he was pulled into the air by his punctured ankles, the pain searing over and through him like all-consuming flame. He swung and spun as his body blazed pain and then her hands were on his legs and the pulleys above were moving and she was pushing him outwards, guiding him with her as she descended the steps and joined the other figures upon the exhibition floor.

Agony tore through his ankles and legs in waves and his vision spun and swayed as he swung at the chain's end. Indiscernible figures stirred in the gloom. Others appeared in sporadic islands of dim illumination, naked, sometimes glistening, always turned and silent and staring like curious animals. Would they try to stop this insanity? Surely someone would step in? One of the men perhaps?

The chain whipped in fine arcs as it bore him, sending fresh bolts of pain coursing through him with every movement. At the center of the floor she stopped suddenly and roughly gripped his belt with both hands to brake him. She stepped back, allowing him to rotate and sway in open space at the mercy of momentum and gravity.

His eyes darted about the scene before him, craving any sight that might enable him to make sense of the dire scene. It was the women that he noticed first, abandoning the stations or cubicles they had occupied and slowly advancing toward him. There appeared to be no urgency in them. How could they not be shocked by this? They disappeared and reappeared from the dappled gloom of the place, each partially or wholly naked. Their eyes remained fixed, their features still, their voices silent.

Before the advancing line of women he saw two individuals at opposing outer edges of the room. Each stooped and worked at the floor then stood and advanced a few steps at a time. He strained to discern the purpose of their movement and then saw the floor covering they lifted and pushed. As they moved, the carpeting gathered before them in a growing roll, revealing harsh grey concrete beneath.

As the advancing line of women reached him the roll of floor covering disappeared behind him, opening the floor beneath him, industrial and cold, a shining chrome grate covering a drain beneath him. The women surrounded him.

He saw their toes, painted and manicured in the low light. In the interstices between the naked figures he saw something else approaching from the gloom. He heard the fleshy footfalls on the hard concrete as they approached and he squinted to make out the approaching figures. Something was wrong with the image before him, although he could not identify the exact source of the growing dread in him.

Sweat, rolled into his eyes and he blinked furiously to clear his vision. The picture before him, already dark, became blurred and kaleidoscopic. As he fought to clear his vision, he saw the figures bearing down on him, closing in. His eyes rolled in their aching sockets. His eyes worked to gain acuity and suddenly he saw the approach of the men.

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