Siegel, James - Derailed

“You promise, huh? That’s fucking nice of you, that’s real fucking kind of you, Charles. I can take your word on that, huh? You won’t go to the police. Well then . . .”

He waved the gun around in little looping circles, first toward him, then her, then back again. Inky black, snub-nosed barrel. . . .

“Well then . . . if you ain’t gonna go to the police and all . . .”

Lucinda was trembling beside him, shaking like a wet stray.

“Hey, baby,” the man said. “Hey, baby . . .”

“Please . . . ,” Lucinda said.

“How is she, Charles? Better than the old lady, I bet. Nice pussy, Charles? Nice tight pussy?”

Charles started to get up. He was back in the bar and the man was insulting her, and Charles would have to set him straight, to show him what’s what. Except the man pistol-whipped him across the face and Charles went flying back again. Hearing a crack before feeling the pain—first one and then the other, first the sound of his nose being broken, then the nauseating pain of his nose being broken. And the blood starting to seep out on the floor.

“What was that, my man? I didn’t hear you, Charles. What’d you say? You said you can fuck her if you want? Why, thank you, Charles. That’s fucking kind of you. Letting me have your bitch and all.”

“No,” Lucinda moaned. “No . . .”

“ No? Didn’t you hear him say that I could fuck you, Lucinda. ” It was the first time he’d said her name—in a way, it seemed every bit as horrible as kicking them to the floor and stealing their wallets. “That’s what the man said. You giving it to him—you can give it to me. Whore’s a whore, baby. Am I right, Charles? Am I?”

Charles was choking on his own blood. It was pouring down his throat and clogging his windpipe — he was drowning in it, sputtering for air.

“Sit up here, Charles.” The man pulled him up, led him over to the lone chair, which had fluff seeping out of a ripped cushion decorated with a faded floral design. He sat him down on it. “Feeling better there, Charles? Take a deep breath. That’s right—in, out. You’ll want a good seat for this, Charles. Championship fucking, my man. Twelve rounder. You don’t want to miss this.”

Lucinda ran.

She’d caught him by surprise — the man with the gun, lying there trembling like that, and then suddenly springing up and making a run for it. She made it all the way to the door.

She even turned the knob and got it half-open before he reached her and pulled her back in. By her hair. That dark, silky hair that tasted of shampoo and sweat, so soft you could comb it by hand — twisted in his fist as she screamed.

“You want to shut the fuck up, Lucinda. ” He’d put the barrel into her mouth, straight in, knocking it up against her teeth. Lucinda stopped screaming.

Charles was still wheezing through his own blood, dizzy enough to pass out, a white light searing the bridge of his nose. Watching as the man laid Lucinda onto the floor as if they were engaged in some eerie kind of dance, some modern pas de deux, laying her down and standing over her. As he pulled her skirt up above her waist. As he snorted and wolf whistled and slowly, slowly pulled her black lace panties down to her knees.

As he unzipped his pants.

TEN

He passed out, more than once he passed out, but each time the man brought him back, slapping water onto his face, whispering into his ear.

Don’t fade on me, my man. Round two . . . baby. Round three . . . four . . .

It was like bad porno . . . the kind you don’t really want to see, but your friend just happens to have it, so you watch. Even as you pull your eyes away, you watch. The woman with the dog, the scat tape where she swallows it all — sickening, really, can’t believe she’s really doing that, but she is, and you’re watching it. Your stomach churning, your guts heaving, makes you want to throw up, but you have to look at it. Don’t know why, but you do.

Him and Lucinda. Beautiful naked Lucinda and him.

And she was beautiful. As he placed her on hands and knees and put it into her ass. Telling Charles what he was doing, too — keeping up a kind of running commentary. . . .

See, Charles — they love it in the ass. They tell you they don’t, but all whores do.

Telling her to moan for him. Putting the gun up by her head as he rode her and making her moan. Moans of pain, probably, but they sounded like moans of pleasure. Moans were moans. Hard to tell which were which, except for the fact that her eyes were squeezed shut, her mascara streaked and running, and she was biting into her lip until it bled.

And Charles watching, sitting there in the chair as if he were tied down, even though he wasn’t tied down.

See this, Charles — a born cocksucker. . . . That’s right, baby . . . suck that big daddy dick. . . .

The tableaux changed, no longer fucking her in the ass, but standing in front of her, hands cradling her face, that beautiful Lucinda face. And Lucinda choking, gurgling, the sounds spurring him on . . . Oh yes . . . oh yes . . . you watching this, Charles, Charley . . . don’t want to miss the cum shot . . . gotta see the money shot . . . oh yes . . .

And later, Lucinda lying there — how much later? Charles didn’t know, later that morning, later that afternoon. Lucinda lying there covered with sweat and cum, hardly moving. Was she dead? No, she was still breathing, if only barely. Charles looked down at the dried blood on his hands and wondered whose it was, forgetting that it was his, that his nose must be broken.

And now the man was rubbing himself, naked except for his sweat socks and sneakers, staring at Lucinda on the floor and jerking himself. For another round. Round . . . what? Five, six?

“Still with us, Charles? ” the man said. “Hang in there, bud. More to come. . . .”

And there was.

The man taking her again, propping her up against the bed as if she were a marionette, all loose arms and legs, twisting her into his vision of lewd. Legs up by her ears, hands spreading herself — giggling at this. Taking his time, placing her just right, an inch here, an inch there. Lucinda slack jawed, just a prop, a blowup doll.

And Charles decided to give it one more shot—not him deciding, his machismo deciding, his reptilian cortex, maybe — pushing him up off the chair in the general direction of the man who was about to rape Lucinda for the fifth or sixth time.

The first thing was — he was dizzy. It was blindman’s buff and he’d been spun around the room like a top and couldn’t tell which way was which. He staggered, he teetered, he wobbled — the man not even aware of him yet because he was still positioning Lucinda and had maybe forgotten that Charles was even in the room. So Charles eventually righted himself and actually made it all the way over to him. He grabbed the man from behind, around the neck, and squeezed.

He squeezed for all he was worth, he squeezed like there was no tomorrow, a virtual death grip of steel. But the man calmly, almost lazily, stood up and sloughed Charles off him as if he were dumping garbage onto the sidewalk. Charles ended up splay-legged on the floor, wondering what happened, as the man grinned and shook his head.

“Charles . . . Charles . . . what the fuck’s the matter with you? Giving you the show of a lifetime. Championship fucking—you’ve never seen fucking like this. And this is the thanks I get. Shit. I ought to kick your ass, Charles. I ought to kick the shit out of you.”

Charles mumbled something back at him. What did he say? He didn’t know. . . .