David Wiltse - The Edge of Sleep

“He’s had more practice,” Becker said.

“Why don’t I just go to Gold when I have a psychological problem, then, all right? He doesn’t have anything better to do than listen to agents whine about their parents, but you do, John. You’ve got a case to work on, and so do I, so let’s keep it to that. Okay?”

“This has to do with the case,” Becker said.

“I don’t have to do with the case. My history has nothing to do with it at all. And neither does the history of these boys. They are not asking to be kidnapped and tortured and killed. They are not wearing signs on their forehead saying ‘I am submissive, I have been abused before, come and get it.’ ”

“You’re sure of this?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I’m positive.”

“Why?”

“How long has it been since you’ve been with a child. John? How long since you spent any time at all with one? Especially a boy.”

“Not since I was one. I guess.”

“That’s what I thought,” she said. “You’re just working on theory, not reality.”

“That’s my exit,” Becker said, glancing back as the sign for Clamden receded in the distance.

“I don’t have time to take you home,” Karen said. “I’ll be late. And besides, it’s time you met a real boy.”

She danced above him, eyes flashing, smiling so hard it looked like her face might rip. Her blonde hair flew out from her head as she moved, as if even it were electrified by her excitement. To Bobby’s bewildered eyes she looked like a creature from a Disney movie, all fierce animation and wild gesticulation. Like someone creating her own wind. Even her voice sounded like something from a movie, sped up beyond normal speed and crackling with agitation. He knew the words but could not fathom their meaning.

“We’re going to have such a good time,” Dee said. She had been saying it repeatedly since she and the man had brought him into the room.

“I know just what a boy like you likes,” she said. “I know all about boys like you. Oh, we’re going to have fun!”

She reached down, touched his cheek suddenly. Bobby flinched involuntarily although he had already been warned not to.

“Don’t pull away from me,” Dee said. She did not sound angry, but there was to her tone a hint of severity, masked and muffled by her good mood, but still detectable in the distance. Bobby held very still as she ran her fingers across his face.

“Think how that makes me feel,” she continued. “You mustn’t think only of yourself, you know. You mustn’t be selfish. You must think of me, too. Think how Dee feels when you jerk away like that.”

She smoothed the hair which habitually fell over his brow.

“Well,” she said, “you’ll learn. Children are always selfish at first. They have to be taught. Especially boys.”

She whirled away from him again. “Oh, I know all about boys. Don’t I, Ash? Don’t I know all about boys like him?”

Bobby thought the man she had called Ash was about to answer, but she did not wait for him.

“I know all about them.”

This time she grabbed his toe and wiggled it. “All about them.” Something in her tone suggested that she simultaneously chided and forgave him for mischief yet undone.

Dee rubbed his foot through the sheet for a moment, then uncovered his leg as far up as his knee. Bobby was naked under the sheet and he was afraid that she would lift the sheet further, revealing him completely, but he did not allow himself to squirm. As his feet were bound to the bed frame he knew he could not get away from her anyway, but he did not want to be accused of flinching again.

She seemed interested only in his feet.

“Oh, look at these toes,” she said with wonder, as if discovering something amazing on the ends of his feet. “Did you ever see such perfect toes. Ash? Just look at them.”

Ash had been positioned by the door, leaning his back against it as if keeping outside forces from bursting in. Bobby wondered if his parents were out there now, waiting for the right moment to hurl themselves through the wood to rescue him. Maybe they were there with the police. Maybe they were there with guns and, and… he couldn’t think what else they might have, but he was pretty sure that the police arsenal was vast and deadly. He didn’t want this man and woman shot. He didn’t want anyone to hurt them. He just wanted to go home. To be untied and released from the bed, to have the gag taken from his mouth.

Ash came from the door and bent over Bobby’s toes, regarding them as intently as if they were marvelous new growth in the garden, a biological marvel that was sprouting and stretching upwards right before his eyes.

Now was the time for the police to ram the door. Bobby thought. He was afraid to look in that direction for fear the man and woman would see him and realize their mistake, ruining the opportunity. But the door did not move, the police did not come.

All this attention to his toes made them itch with the desire to move, but he didn’t know if he was allowed to wriggle them or not.

Dee took his little toe between her fingers.

“And this little piggie cried ‘whee, whee, whee,’ all the way home,” she said, waggling his toe back and forth gently.

Ash laughed, glancing at Bobby to see if he enjoyed the moment, too. Urging the boy with his eyes to enjoy it.

Suddenly Dee bent forward and took Bobby’s toes in her mouth.

“Ummmm!” She moved her head back and forth as if in ecstasy over this mouth-watering delight. “Ummm-ummm!”

Ash laughed nervously and looked at the boy to judge his reaction.

Bobby whimpered despite himself. The warmth and wetness of the woman’s mouth filled him with confusing feelings. Part of him liked it, part of him felt it was somehow wrong although no one had ever told him so. Maybe the part that was wrong was the part of him, that responded to it.

Dee rolled her eyes up to look at him, her mouth still on his toes, her face at bed level so that she regarded him across the entire length of his body.

There was something in her eyes that Bobby could not name but knew by instinct. A hint of promise. He felt a welter of reactions, but most powerful of all was embarrassment. This stranger should not be treating him in so condescendingly intimate a way. Even if he was kidnapped, even if he was tied and gagged and naked, he was not a baby to have his toes sucked. To be cooed over.

Dee pulled away from his toes with a loud smacking noise. “Better than candy,“ she said. “Sweeter than sugar.” She beamed at him, but Bobby did not respond. Without warning she pressed her thumbnail into the sole of his foot and ran it upwards along the muscle. Bobby’s whole body jerked.

“Oh, he’s ticklish,” Dee said delightedly.

“He’s ticklish,” Ash said. As if they had discovered a wonderful secret about him.

Dee ran her thumb along the sole of his other foot, and again Bobby’s body spasmed on the bed.

“You see,” she said triumphantly. “I told you I knew all about little boys. I know what you like.”

She tickled the tops of his feet now with feathery soft fingers. Bobby writhed and tried to pull away while Dee and Ash laughed in the conspiratorial way of adults who thought they were giving pleasure to a child.

“Oh, we’re going to have fun!” Dee cried.

“Untie him. Ash,” Dee said excitedly. “And take that thing out of his mouth, for heaven’s sake.”

She made it sound as if the restraints were all Ash’s idea.

“He’s not going to do anything silly, are you. Tommy?” She leaned over him, a hand on either side of his body, smiling. Bobby smelled her breath, which was clean and sweet with a faint hint of toothpaste. Then she came too close so that her face blurred, and for a horrible moment he thought she was going to kiss him. Bobby squeezed his eyes closed in anticipation, but instead she rubbed her nose against his.