Games Boys Play (10 page)

Dylan smoked his cigarette.

Eventually, Dylan said, “So, you want to do something like this again sometime? Or should I wait and ask you after you’ve had time to process it?”

“Jesus. Yes. Definitely want to do something like this again.” Brian bit his lip, smiling, thinking back to not being able to get free, everything completely out of his control. “Yeah. Definitely.”

Chapter Thirteen

After Dylan left, Brian laid out his choices: shower, sleep, swallow more water, eat, jerk off… His gaze lit on his MacBook lying closed on the couch.

He hadn’t sat anywhere soft since the first knock at his door. Dropping onto the comfort of the couch, he pulled the computer into his lap, curiosity gnawing at him while the computer woke up and regained its Wi-Fi connection.

No open programs.

He fired up Chrome.

No history.

Safari.

No history.

Firefox.

No history. None. Not even his own from earlier in the day.

He didn’t know whether to scowl or grin. He cursed Dylan out loud. He wouldn’t be surprised if Dylan hadn’t browsed
anywhere
on his computer, had just cleared all the histories to make him wonder where he’d been.

No fucking history in
any
browser.

That devious fucking asshole.

Chapter Fourteen

His cell rang. Licking the last of the applesauce off the back of the spoon, he headed for the coffee table. A photo of Dylan smiled up at him from the phone, that quirky, reluctant half smirk. He thumbed the call on. “Hey.”

“How’s your Saturday looking?” It was Monday now, nearly a week since they’d seen each other.

“Saturday… Which Saturday is this—oh wait, yeah.” He slipped the spoon into the dishwasher. “The fourteenth. This is the Saturday I’m going to that art gallery thing Trey’s doing.” Trey—and art galleries—weren’t Dylan’s cup of tea.

“All right. Another time—”

“I should probably be back by, I don’t know, one? Two at the latest. If you feel like doing anything that late.”

“Would
you
feel like doing anything that late?”

It was kind of a silly conversation: when you typically woke up at two in the afternoon, one in the morning was just early evening. “Sure, why not?”

A short quiet played out on the other end of the line until Dylan said, “Okay, shoot me a text after you get back to your place.”

Chapter Fifteen

Brian stood off to the side of the gallery with a can of PBR in hand, smiling politely, the strange rhythmic soundtrack Trey had picked out for his show oddly fitting for the things going on in the dark room inside Brian’s mind: the thump of a shoulder against a wall, the thud of knees hitting a floor, the clatter of boot heels kicking wood as he fought to get free before he could be restrained.

“Good crowd, huh?” Trey said, clapping a hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah. Congrats. It’s not really the subject matter I was expecting from you, though.” He’d squinted at the portraits lining the gallery’s walls, looking for irony, sarcasm, or caricature, but they had all been painted in full earnestness.

“You’re staying for the reveal, right?” Trey asked.

“There’s a reveal? What are you revealing?” He wondered how rude it was to ask what time, exactly, the reveal was supposed to go down.

Trey winked. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”

As soon as Trey wandered off to speak with other guests, Brian slipped his cell phone out and checked the time. Just past eleven.
Note to self: art shows are not a way to quickly pass time
. He emptied his can and added it to the display that was being built ad hoc in the center of the gallery. After a restroom break, he forced himself to start conversations with people—any people. Asking their opinions, finding out where they were from, who they knew in common. Anything to keep his thoughts out of the dark helplessness that waited for him, anything to keep it from pulling him inside of himself, like a silent maelstrom.

Shortly before midnight, he noticed people coming to stand silently beside each of the canvases hanging on the walls, people he hadn’t seen milling in the crowd. A Latino woman with gray streaking her black hair stood beside the portrait of a smug-looking bald white man, a corporate executive Brian recognized but couldn’t put a name to. A young Asian woman stood by a portrait of a red-state senator—also a woman—who was popular with Fox News. A white guy with a faded ball cap took his place beside Barack Obama. A tall black man, his back straight, his chin high, stood alongside Michael Bloomberg’s likeness. On and on around the room, someone new came to stand beside each of Trey’s portraits of men and women with power and money. The Koch brothers, Henry Kissinger, a series of old—and sometimes not so old—white men he didn’t recognize, their names given underneath each canvas, along with the number of deaths Trey held each portrait’s subject to be personally responsible for.

Midnight came, and nothing happened, the men and women standing quietly alongside the portraits, hands folded, faces passive. Eyes straight ahead.

Brian scratched the back of his neck, working out just how long he should stand around and wait before giving his regrets.

At 12:03, the rhythmic pounding coming through the PA system stopped. Some of the crowd picked up on it right away; others were absorbed in conversation. Little by little, even those people began to notice the quiet and look around, wondering what it signaled.

The room grew weighty with expectation.

A glissando of chimes sounded, fading into silence.

As one, the men and women standing by the portraits turned and lifted the canvases from the walls, held them out for the audience to see, and then put their fists through the portraits they held.

A woman in the audience cried out in delight.

A patter of clapping grew to applause.

The portraits were hung back on the walls, the faces of rich men and well-styled women obliterated.

Brian was thinking that, after whatever happened tonight, he’d tell Dylan about this and see what he thought. He’d either laugh or roll his eyes.

At quarter past twelve, he slipped into the crowd gathered around Trey just long enough to touch him on the shoulder and tell him it was a great show.

On the road, traffic was no problem. He turned onto his block at 12:46, leaving him—he thought as he climbed the stairs—time to take a leak and get a drink of water before texting Dylan.

That’s what he was still thinking about when he unlocked his door, forced his key out while he was standing in the hall, and stepped into his apartment.

Chapter Sixteen

He flicked on the light and elbowed the door shut, his mind already halfway to the bathroom. The scuff of a boot heel bristled the hairs on the back of his neck. A chill broke through him. As he started to turn, a hard hand grasped his elbow.

His fingers opened in surprise, and his keys landed with a clunk on the floor. “Hey—”

Another arm came around, yanking him back against a hard body. Leather fingertips grazed his throat.

He grabbed hold of the arm at his chest with his free hand, but the intruder had the better leverage.

“Get the fuck off!”

The gloved hand clamped over his mouth, mashing lips against teeth, filling his nostrils with tobacco and bike exhaust.

He dug his fingernails into the leather, trying to pry the hand away, but the intruder had other plans: he wheeled Brian toward the wall and shoved him against it. The extra momentum of the intruder’s weight caused his hip and cheek to bang hard against the drywall. His heart beat like a double bass. The fingers that had grabbed his elbow to begin with slid down to his wrist and clamped around it.

The hand against his face gripped harder as the intruder said, “Keep your fucking mouth shut.” Low and rough and right up alongside his ear. Brian squirmed, blinking, heart hammering.

The glove pulled away.

Traces of tobacco were bitter on his tongue as he wet his lips. He turned his face to the wall, forehead and nose pressed against it, and slid his tongue across his lower lip again, savoring it.

One of the intruder’s shoulders pushed against him briefly. When it shifted back, cold metal came to rest against the side of his neck, making his nerves tingle. A soft exhale crossed his lips.
We’ve been down this road before
. Even the pressure of the wall against his waking cock was pleasantly, thrillingly familiar.

He shifted, seeing if maybe he could slide out.

The intruder pulled his arm behind him and jerked it up, forcing a yelp out of him. Feigning anger, he hit the wall with his free palm.

That caused him to be dragged away from the wall, his feet tripping over each other as he tried to stay standing. “Shit.” Without thinking, he grasped the intruder’s hand, then realized he was clutching the hand that had the gun in it.

In for a penny
… He hoped it was still the cap gun as he wrestled it away from his chest.

It was easier than he’d have thought—then he realized why, the intruder letting his gun arm go slack so he could force Brian’s other arm higher up his back, propelling him forward.

He ducked his head aside, his shoulder taking the hit against the wall.

The intruder wrenched his gun hand—and the gun—free of Brian’s fingers.

Between the metal barrel butted against his temple and the torquing of his arm up behind him, Brian was forced to his knees in front of the wall.

“Grew some balls, did you?”

“Fuck you.”

“Shut the fuck up, and get on your feet.”

Putting his free arm against the wall, he pressed his face into the crook of it. His forehead was already glazed with sweat, and in the words of his intruder the last time he was here,
“We’re only just beginning.”

“Come on.
Up
.” The intruder yanked him to his feet by a fistful of jacket.

He considered, for a second, swinging his free arm back, hard. His elbow would connect with the intruder’s jaw, something he surely wasn’t expecting.

Something they hadn’t discussed at all, fighting back.

With a kick at his feet, the intruder said, “Don’t make me tell you again. Let’s go.”

Brian let himself be turned toward the living-room area, hands raised, gun nudging his spine. “Listen,” he said, “take anything you want.”

The intruder tugged at his collar. “Move.”

“I have a computer. A cell phone…” The side of his boot trod on his keys, sending them skittering toward the kitchen. “There’s some money in my wallet,” he said as they moved toward the couch.

With a shove, he was thrown to the floor, where he landed on his hands and knees, his shoulder banging the table beside the couch, sending the lamp shade rattling. He looked around his arm, watching the intruder’s legs walk behind him. “Take whatever you want. I won’t tell the police. I don’t even know what you look like.”

The heel of a boot shoved at his hip, hard, and he spilled onto his side, bringing his forearms up to cover his face, his knees up to cover his stomach. “Just finish whatever you were doing before I came in, and go. I promise I won’t call the cops. I haven’t seen you. I haven’t seen
anything
.”

The floor bounced as the intruder strode to the other side of him.

Gloved fingers closed hard around one of his wrists and wrenched that hand away from his face.

He kept his eyes squeezed shut. “Please. I never did anything to you.”

A boot against his shoulder forced him onto his back. The intruder dropped to a one-knee crouch, his weight pressing hard on Brian’s shoulder.

Brian’s fingertips started to throb with blood trapped in his hand from the grip the intruder had on his wrist. Wood scraped his knuckles as the intruder forced his hand down against the floor.

“Look at me,” the intruder growled.

Eyes closed, he shook his head.

The gun jabbed him in the soft area under his chin, forcing his head to tip upward.

He clenched his free hand in the intruder’s hoodie.

“Open your fucking eyes, you piece of shit.” The gun pushed harder. Brian gritted his teeth. “Open your fucking eyes, or I’ll roll you over and splatter your brains across your fancy laminate floor.”

Seconds ticked past, the both of them panting lightly.

The gun dug in harder.

He pushed short breaths out his nose.

Just as the intruder stepped off his shoulder, presumably to carry out his threat, Brian forced out an “Okay.” He squeezed his eyes tighter. “Okay.”

The intruder’s boot came back, heel against his chest, toe leaned against his chin, the smell of dirt and asphalt coming off it so vividly he could taste it. The boot began grinding into the edge of his chin.

“Okay. Okay, okay.” He held his palms out. “Okay.”

He blinked his eyes open. The dark toe of the intruder’s boot loomed above his mouth. There really was a fucking boot on his face. His cock, rock hard, throbbed against the confines of his jeans.

He let his breath out as he relaxed his head back. The boot stepped away.

Shielding his eyes from the light with one hand, he looked up at the intruder. Same mouthless ski mask as before, same black hood, same stark-naked eyes searching his.

“Who the fuck are you?” he whispered.

The intruder straddled him and dropped in one move, pinning Brian’s arms sharply against the floor.

He took a shallow breath, the intruder’s weight pressing against his chest. Another shallow breath as the gun pushed at the corner of his mouth. The electrical smell of flash powder made his nostrils flare. Dylan must have found some paper caps for the gun and fired them off.

“I’m the man with the gun,” the intruder said. “You got that?”

His eyes were wild. Charlie Manson eyes.

Brian couldn’t breathe.

The intruder grabbed Brian by the hair and pulled his weight off Brian’s chest. “Up. Get on your knees.”

Flinching, Brian grasped the intruder’s wrist with both hands and rolled onto his knees.

“Over there.”

He started to shuffle toward the coffee table, one knee in front of the other. The fist in his hair jerked him to a stop, then forced his head forward and down, ignoring the fingernails Brian was digging into the sleeve of the hoodie, the leather glove.