The gag was pulled down over his head and it fit right where it should, the ball squeezing between his fangs and forcing shit open even farther. With a quick jerk, the leather strapping tightened across the back of his skull and the buckle was fastened until it dug into his scalp.
It was a perfect setup: The suspension and the choking confinement did their job, spurring on his adrenaline, making his body strain in so many different ways.
A barbed corset was next, the contraption not going over his shoulders, but around his torso, the metal points on the inside of the leather bindings sinking into his skin. Butch started with the strap right across the sternum, and then it was a case of sequential squeeze, down, down, down ... until from V's rib cage to his stomach to the tops of his hips, concentric circles of bright white pain tingled into his spine, shooting north to the receptors in his brain and south into his rock-hard cock.
Oxygen whistled through his nostrils as there was a brief calm of no-touch, and then Butch was back with four lengths of rubber strapping. For an amateur, he had great instincts: Both the ball gag and the chest harness had stainless-steel rings that hung inch by every inch, and clearly the cop was going to put them to good use.
Working steadily, Butch slipped hooks through the gag's fixtures and stretched the tubing down, attaching it on the front and the back of the corset.
Which effectively locked Vishous's head into the forward position.
Then Butch gave him a swing and sent him on a little merry-go-round. In his frozen state, it was a mind f**k and a half, and it didn't take long before he wasn't sure whether he was moving or the room was on the ride: Things passed by one after the other, the bar, the door out, the worktable ... Butch ... the bed, the glass ... then it was back to the bar, the door, the table ... and Butch -
Who had walked over to the hanging whips and chains.
The cop just stood there, his eyes locked on Vishous.
Like a train pulling into a station, the rotation grew slower and slower until it stopped altogether ... with the pair of them facing each other.
"You said no rules," Butch gritted out. "Do you still mean that."
With no way to nod or shake his head, V did what he could with his feet, moving them up and back on the floor.
"Are you sure."
When he repeated the motion, Butch's eyes glittered in the candlelight - as if there were tears in them. "Okay, then," he said hoarsely. "If that's the way it's going to be."
Butch wiped his face, turned to the wall, and then walked down the lineup of toys. As he approached the whips, V imagined the spiked fringe cutting into his back and his thighs ... but the cop kept going. Next were the cat-o'-nines, and V could just feel them lashing his flesh ... but Butch didn't stop. Then it was the nipple clips and the barbed, stainless-steel cuffs that could be applied to ankles, forearms, the throat....
When each section was passed, Vishous frowned, wondering if the cop was just being a tease, and how unimpressive was that -
Butch did stop, however. And his hand reached out -
V moaned and began to thrash against the binds that held him aloft. Eyes peeling wide, he did what he could to beg, but there was no moving his head and no way to speak.
"You said no limits," Butch choked out. "So this is how we're going to do it."
V's legs spasmed and his chest started to scream for lack of oxygen.
The mask the cop had chosen had no holes in it, not for the eyes or ears or mouth. Made of leather and stitched together with thin stainless-steel thread, the only way oxygen got in was via two mesh side panels that were far enough back so that there was no leaching of light - and the air would be circulated across hot, panicked skin before it went through the mouth and down into the lungs. The contraption was something V had bought but had never used: He'd kept it only because it had terrified him, and that was reason enough to own the thing.
To be robbed of sight and hearing was the one thing guaranteed to make him lose his f**king shit - which was precisely why Butch picked the mask. He knew too well the buttons to push - physical pain was one thing ... but the psychological stuff was so much worse.
And therefore more effectual.
Butch walked slowly around and out of sight. With furious paddling, V tried to get himself repositioned to face the guy, but his toes couldn't quite manage good purchase on the floor - which was another success of the cop's strategy. To fight and squirm and get nowhere just heightened the terror.
On a oner, it was lights-out.
Jerking uncontrollably, Vishous tried to fight, but it was a battle he was going to lose: With a quick yank, the mask went tight around his neck, secure and going nowhere.
Mental hypoxia set in immediately. There was no oxygen to be had, none coming through, nothing -
He felt something on his leg. Something long and thin. And cold.
Like a blade.
He went utterly still. To the point where his previous exertions swung him back and forth on the chains above him, his body a statue suspended by twin strings of metal.
V's inhales and exhales inside the hood were a roar in his ears as he zeroed in on the sensation below his waist: The knife traveled slowly, inexorably upward, and as it went, it moved to the inside of his thigh....
In its wake, a liquid trail welled and eased down over his knee.
He didn't even feel the pain of the cutting as that blade headed for his sex: The implications were that much of a sucker punch to his destruct button.
In a flash, past and present mixed, the alchemy ignited by the adrenaline pumping through every vein he had; he was instantly ripped back through the many years to the night when his father's males had held him down in the dirt at the Bloodletter's command. The tattoos had not been the worst of it.
And here it was, happening again. Just not with the pliers.
Vishous screamed around the ball gag ... and kept at it.
He screamed for all he had lost ... screamed for the half male he was ... screamed for Jane ... screamed for who his parents were and what he wished for his sister ... screamed for what he had forced his best friend to do.... He screamed and screamed until there was no breath, no consciousness, no nothing.
No past or present.
Not even himself anymore.
And in the midst of the chaos, in the strangest way, he became free.
Butch knew the moment his best friend fainted. It wasn't just that those dangling feet went still; it was the sudden relaxation of all that musculature. No more straining in those huge arms and massive thighs. No more pumping of that big chest. No more ripped cords in the shoulders or down the back.
Butch immediately took the spoon he'd gotten from the kitchen off V's leg, and likewise stopped pouring the lukewarm water out of the glass he'd grabbed from the bar.
The tears in his eyes didn't help him loosen the hood and pull it free. Nor did they make removing the immobilizer setup simple. And he struggled with the ball gag especially.
The corset was a bitch and a half to get loose, but however desperate he was to get V down, it was vastly easier to take everything off when he had a three-sixty to work with. And soon enough, the brother was bloody, but unencumbered.
Over at the wall, Butch released the winch and slowly lowered Vishous's tremendous, inanimate body down. There were no signs that the change in altitude registered, and the floor made an impact only so far as it collapsed V's loose legs, those knees bending up as the marble rose to greet his butt and torso.
There was more blood when Butch released the cuffs.
God, his friend was a mess: The gag's straps had left red welts on his cheeks; the corset's damage was even more pervasive; and then there were the wrists that were torn ragged.
And that was in addition to the condition the guy's face was in, courtesy of whatever he'd slammed the thing into.
For a moment, all he could do was brush V's jet-black hair back with hands that shook like he had palsy. Then he looked down his friend's body, to the ink below the waist, and the flaccid sex ... and the scars.
The Bloodletter was a shit beyond measure for torturing his son as he'd done. And the Scribe Virgin was a useless planker to have let it happen.
And it had killed Butch to use that horrible past to crack his friend wide.
Except he hadn't wanted to beat V physically - he wasn't a pu**y, but he did not have the stomach for that. Besides, the mind was the most powerful weapon anyone had against themselves.
Still, tears had been rolling as he'd taken the spoon and put it against the inside of that leg - because he'd known instantly the extrapolation that would be made. And he'd been well aware that the lukewarm water would really cement the dislocation from the present.