Big-Dic Bottom

Author's note: This series contains (occasional) descriptions of rough and forced sex, some of which crosses the boundaries of consent. If this is not up your alley, please click elsewhere! All sexual contact described occurs between adults aged eighteen years and older.

Part 9.

I was out of the shower and inspecting the black eye the ginger had given me when he punched me in the shed yesterday. My mind flashed to the sight of him--his red, tear-streaked face as he balled his fist and hit me. It was a real shiner, all right. Worse than the one he had given me at the beginning of the summer. That had also been in the shed, I realized.

That fucking shed

. Thank goodness my parents were still out of town. I didn't want to have to explain another black eye.

I was still pressing at the periphery of the bruise on my face when I heard the phone ring. I walked, naked, to the upstairs hallway phone.

"Hello?"

"Paulie? Is that you?"

Hearing Mario's voice on the line sent a kind of shock wave through me. Throughout the course of events over the last day and night, I'd pretty much completely forgotten about him. About how hurt I'd felt by him, his big arm draped around Amanda at the restaurant yesterday.

Jesus. Was that just yesterday?

"Mario?" I said.

"P, where have you been? I've been tryin' to call you all night and all morning. Are you OK?"

"Yeah."

"Where were you?"

"I was... um, out."

There was a charged silence on the phone.

"Out? Where?" Mario said.

A lump formed in my throat, hearing the hurt sound in his voice. But I pushed through it to speak.

"What's up, Mario?" I said. I glanced at the clock. It was only ten. I wasn't due at work for another hour.

"It's Stacy, P. She's hurt."

I felt a chill seize my stomach. "What? What happened?"

"Her ex. That guy Ben. He beat her up last night--knocked her out. She's at the hospital, P. I was trying to let you know, 'cause I couldn't get over there to see her. I was, uh... You know, I just couldn't..."

"You were drunk," I said.

"P, I'm at work now," Mario said, ignoring my comment. "I can't get away."

"I'll go," I said.

"Don't worry about work today, I'll get Jeff to cover you. Just... make sure she's OK, P?"

"Yeah," I said, and I hung up.

~

I walked into the hospital room, trying to be quiet. Stacy was lying on the bed with her eyes closed. I hesitated, not wanting to wake her up. But as I approached the bed, she opened her eyes and turned toward me. The entire right half of her face was black and blue. I walked toward her, holding out the bouquet of lacy white flowers that I had just purchased downstairs, at the gift shop.

Stacy started to chuckle, but then winced and clutched her chest--clearly in pain from trying to laugh. When she spoke, her voice was cracked and broken-sounding.

"Oh, Paulie, you shouldn't have," she said.

I set the bouquet on the windowsill and sat down in a chair next to the bed. Stacy tried to angle her bruised face away from me.

"Don't worry about it," I said, turning to show her my own black eye. "I got one, too."

"Seriously?" she said. "You can't let me have my moment?"

I chuckled. "At least yours matches your hair," I said.

"Don't make me laugh, Paulie," Stacy said, grimacing.

"What happened, Stace?" I asked, after her pain seemed to have passed.

Stacy shook her head and reached up to dab at her nose with a tissue. There was an IV in her hand.

"He showed up again at my grandma's place, that son of a bitch. Beyond wasted. He was pounding on the door--I was afraid he was gonna break it down, and my grandma was there, so... so I went out to try to talk him down. And then he hit me. Just kept hitting me, until I blacked out. When I woke up, there was an ambulance, and they brought me here."

"Jesus," I said. "Did anyone call the cops?"

"The cops were here, at the hospital. They talked to me when I got here. I told them it was Ben."

"Did they arrest him?"

Stacy closed her eyes and swallowed. I saw tears start to flow down her face.

"No," Stacy said. "They said that Ben was at some bar the whole night with his buddies. His friends--they told the cops that Ben was with them all night, that he never left."

"And the cops believed them?"

"They said it was my word against theirs. Apparently Ben told them I was crazy... that I was seeing all sorts of other guys to punish him for leaving me. That I must be trying to blame him for something someone else did to me."

"Seriously?" I said. I was shocked.

"Yeah. One of them--one of the cops--I know him. His name is Kevin. Kevin Johansson. He's a real piece of shit. He was friends with Ben in high school. I thought the cops were here at the hospital to help me, but..." Stacy sniffed and fiddled with her plastic hospital bracelet. "Fucking hell, I really need a fucking cigarette," she said.

"What did the doctors say? Are you OK? When can you leave?" I asked her.

"Later today I think. They're still waiting for a scan or something."

"I'll wait with you," I said, "Mario let me off of work."

"I called Mario last night, after all that police shit," Stacy said. "But you know how he was, Paulie."

"Yeah, I think they all went out to Gio's," I said.

"And you didn't?"

I looked down at the floor. "No," I said.

Stacy gave me a long look. "So who gave you the shiner?" she asked.

"Remember my neighbor?" I said.

"The guy with the little dick?"

I chuckled and Stacy chuckled, and we both winced from the pain.

"That's the one," I said.

"And...?"

"And... it's not important Stace. Just something stupid. I'm more worried about you," I said.

"Hmm," Stacy said, turning her face away and looking back at the ceiling. "Well aren't we a pair?" she said.

We were quiet for a while, listening to the hustle and bustle in the corridor before I said, "Hey Stace... what are you gonna do?"

She blinked at me and I saw fresh tears in her eyes. She reached out for my hand, and I took it, taking care not to brush against the IV.

"Paulie, I'm scared," she whispered. "He's said he's gonna kill me."

I felt rage boil up. My ears started to burn and my heart was thudding in my chest. But at the same time, gears started turning in my head. Maybe it was the ordeal that I'd just been through--the assault I'd endured in the shed, and then what had happened with son #1 at the cabin. All the pain and confusion. Or, maybe it was seeing Stacy lying here in the hospital, bruised and scared and tiny-looking in the starched white bed. In any case, something steely and hard started to take shape inside me. My mind flicked through a series of cold calculations. Things began to click into place. I reached for Stacy's hand and gave it a firm squeeze.

"No, Stace," I said. "He's not."

~

Stacy and I talked quietly in the hospital room until an orderly came in with Stacy's lunch. After she'd choked down a few bites of yogurt, her hands shaking, I scouted the hallway until I saw all the nurses were occupied. Then Stacy and I sneaked out through a door on the side of the building to have a smoke. She was limping in her gown as she wheeled the stand holding her IV bag, but there was a wiry determination in her gait that even being hospitalized couldn't snuff out. After absconding back into the room, we talked some more. At about two, a nurse came to take Stacy for a scan. Afterward, we waited for the doctor to come by.

"Hey Paulie, come here," Stacy said, pulling her purse from the side table of the hospital bed onto her lap.

I scooted my chair toward her. She pulled a shallow tub out of her bag and opened it, then scooped up a fingertip of creamy-looking goop. She dabbed it on my cheek and rubbed it carefully across my bruised skin.

"We're almost the same foundation color," she said, dabbing more cream onto my face. After a few minutes, she turned my chin one way and then another, then ran a soft-bristled brush with some powder over my cheeks. She handed me an open compact to look in the mirror. My black eye had disappeared. I looked healthy, with an almost artificial rosy flush on my face.

"Wow, magic," I said, smiling at her.

She turned the compact to her face and started applying foundation to herself.

"My mom taught me how to do this, you know. How to cover up a bruise... how fucked up is that?" she said. "I told myself I'd never...

ever

have to do this. But--here I am."

The doctor came in, then, with the results of Stacy's scan. He barely made eye contact as he spoke and he was gone in less than a minute.

"Nothing broken, no internal bleeding, no brain damage," Stacy repeated, after he left. "Not that I necessarily

want

any of those things, but damn. Even more reasons nobody will believe me."

"Hey," I said, "it's gonna be OK, Stace. We'll take care of it, right? You still good?"

"Yeah," she said.

"You sure you don't want me to be there when you talk to him?"

"That would fuck everything up."

"I could hide."

"No, it'll be fine Paulie, I know him. I know how he'll be. He'll be calm, and he'll be sorry. He's always a big baby after he hits me."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

I drove Stacy back to her grandma's place and then drove home. I parked my truck a ways up the block from my house and across the street. I glanced at the neighbor's house. There was no discernible activity there. Then I hustled into my house, trying not to linger outside for any more time than necessary.

~

A short while later, the phone rang. It was Mario. He asked me how Stacy was and I told him that she was doing OK--that I'd gone to the hospital and taken her home. He seemed relieved.

"Thank God," he said. "What about the boyfriend?"

"Ex-boyfriend," I said.

"Yeah, that asshole," Mario said.

"Nothing," I said, "the cops didn't do anything. They made it seem like Stacy lied, his buddies said he was with them all night."

"Fucking hell," Mario said.

"Yeah, it's fucked up," I said. "Stacy is pretty scared."

There was a moment of silence on the line, then Mario spoke again.

"Hey P, tonight... you and Stacy should come over. We'll all hang out. I don't want Stacy sittin' there, scared at her grandma's place, OK? Will you bring her over, P?"

"Yeah," I said. "That's a good idea, thanks Mario."

"What about you, P?" Mario asked after a short silence.

"Me?" I said.

"Where were you, Paulie? I thought... I thought that you'd come over last night. I called you after I heard about Stacy. I called you. I called you a bunch of times."

I didn't answer. I felt a hot mass in my chest when I thought about Mario. Him with Amanda, and the way he'd shrugged at me when I said I wasn't feeling well.

"Paulie? Are you there?" I heard a loud clattering noise through the phone and the chaos of voices at the restaurant.

"Yeah, I'll see you later," I said, and hung up.

~

I told myself that I needed to stay awake and alert for the phone call, but given what I'd been through over the last day or so, I was completely spent. I showered and ate and changed my clothes, then made myself a coffee to try to stay awake, but it was useless.

I laid down on the bottom bunk of my bed so that I could get to the phone quickly if it rang. As I drifted off, my mind cast back over the last twenty four hours. It hadn't even been a full day since I'd been strung up in the shed next door, and what happened with neighbor daddy and the ginger. What they'd done to me... and then getting rescued by son #1, and then... the cabin. The fire... The tea... The salve...

~

The ringing phone lurched me out of deep sleep. I sat up in groggy confusion, panicked, knowing that I needed to get the phone but not remembering why. I stumbled out of bed and fell forward onto my hands and knees. My hands and wrists rang out with a sharp pain that brought me back into the present moment. The phone kept ringing. In a flash, I leaped up and ran to the hall. I cleared my throat, then picked up the receiver.

"Yeah," I said, trying to make my voice sound low and gravelly.

"This Ricky?"

"Who's this?" I said.

"I got your number from my girl," the voice said.

"Yeah, and?" I said, trying to sound annoyed.

There was the sound of rushing traffic on the line.

"She said you could hook me up."

"Oh she did? With what?"

After a moment of hesitation, he said, in a hushed voice, "Hey, I'm looking to push some dope. I can probably get..."

"Yeah, yeah," I said, cutting him off.

We spoke for less then a minute more, then I hung up the phone and took a deep breath, trying to calm my racing heart. There was still fuzz in my head from having been so deeply asleep, and I went over what I'd said, trying to find any fuck up, but... I think I'd said what I needed to say. Everything was in order. I took a few deep breaths and started to calm down.

I went into my parent's bathroom. According to the note on the refrigerator they'd left me, they'd be coming home tomorrow, Friday. I worried for a moment that maybe they'd come home early. I hadn't spoken to them once since they'd been gone. They hadn't called from my sister's house the whole week.

Well. Maybe they had

, I thought. I hadn't exactly been spending a lot of time at home. Every night at Mario's, and then... I shook my head.

No, Paulie, stop worrying.

In my parent's big mirror, I tried to re-cover my bruised face with some of my mom's makeup. It didn't look as good as when Stacy did it, but I thought that I did a passable job. I doubted Mario would notice. I thought about Mario, and his concerned, puppy-dog expression. I didn't want there to be any undue distractions tonight.

~

When it was finally dark outside, I hopped up onto my bunk bed and looked out the window into the neighbors' yard. The daddy's truck was still parked in the driveway, but I didn't see any sign of activity in the house aside from a light in an upstairs bedroom.

As quietly as I could, I opened the sliding door in the living room and stole across our deck to the edge of our yard, to where the big trees stood that ringed the perimeter of both our yard and the neighbors'. I moved through the trees as quietly as I could. When I got to far edge of the neighbors' yard, to the shed, I saw that the door had been left partway ajar. I let out a sigh of relief. I used my shoulder to nudge the door open wide enough to step inside. The stink of the shed brought back the acute memory of being strung up, the feel of the rope on my hands. My heart started to race as I recalled the panic of being in here, just last night.

It was nearly pitch black. I dropped to my knees and felt along the floor, working in an expanding radius, hoping against hope... suddenly, my gloved hand knocked into something--yes. I had it. For a moment, I was completely still inside the shed, smelling the dust and the gasoline, remembering what had happened here. Then, I was back on my feet and back out into the night.

~

When I pulled up to Stacy's she was already outside her trailer. She got in the truck and stared straight ahead until we we'd been driving a few minutes.

"You got the call?" she said.

"Yeah."

Stacy pulled out a cigarette and lit it, unrolling the window to let the smoke out.

"How did it go, with him?" I asked.

She didn't answer.

"You OK Stace?" I said, glancing over at her, worried.

"Yeah," she said.

"He kicked the shit out of you, remember?" I said.

"Yeah," she said.

"The cops didn't do anything."

"Yeah."

"He's dangerous, Stace."

"I know, Paulie."

"We're still good?"

"Yeah. Just drive."

~

I parked around the block in my usual spot when we got to Mario's. At this hour the houses on Mario's block were all quiet. I led Stacy through the back lots and then around the fence into Mario's back yard, and then popped his back door open the way he'd shown me--the way I'd been doing all week.

We went inside. It was about 10:30 PM. Mario wouldn't be home for a while. I went to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water for myself and then handed one to Stacy.

"Well you certainly make yourself at home," she said, giving me a look. Then she frowned at the water bottle. "I think I need something stronger than water, Paulie. Is there any beer?" she said.

"C'monnn, whaddya take me for?" I said, swelling myself up and strutting back to the refrigerator like Mario.

Stacy smiled, half-heartedly. I pulled out two beers and we went to sit in the living room, amid the scattered empty bottles and cans that were strewn across the coffee table and the floor. I walked to the corner to turn on a lamp. A familiar soft yellow light filled the room. I sat down on the couch and tipped the beer back, taking a long swig. Stacy held her beer, but didn't drink it. She just fiddled with the label, which was peeling away from the bottle, wet with condensation.

After a few minutes we heard heavy footfalls on the front porch and then the swing of the front door.

"Paulie? Stacy?" Mario yelled into the hallway. I heard him toss his keys into the bowl on the table in the entryway.

"In here," I called.

"Hey, hey! My main dude and dudette," Mario said, bounding into the kitchen and going straight to the cabinet to pull out a bottle of whiskey. Stacy and I gave each other a quick look. He poured himself a tall glass.

"Who wants booze?" Mario said, grabbing two more glasses.

"We helped ourselves to a beer," I said.

"Boo," Mario said, frowning and walking into the living room. He hated to drink liquor alone, if there were people around, and I hoped it would be enough for Stacy and me to nurse beers while he hit the hard stuff.

He walked over to Stacy and put his hand on her head, gently.

"How's my little number two?" he said, using the nickname she hated.

Stacy swatted his hand away, playfully. "Still kickin'," she said.

"Yeah, I can see that," Mario said, smiling. He looked over at me. "Hey, P," he said. The hurt, puppy dog look came over his face. I saw that his eyes were glassy--likely, he'd already been drinking for a while at work.

"Hey," I said, dropping my eyes from his gaze.

Being around him again was making my chest tighten up uncomfortably. I looked at his big baseball mitt hands, remembered the feel of them on my body, on my face and lips. Here in this space, the smell of him and this house, all of the sex that we'd had here, how we hadn't been able to keep away from each others' bodies. And then I thought about him with his arm around Amanda, squeezing her shoulder the same way he squeezed mine. I swallowed another sip of beer and tried to quell my erection.

Mario looked back at Stacy and they started talking about what had happened--the hospital and the cops. Encouragingly, Mario was really putting away the whiskey. After a while, I glanced down at my watch. Well, my dad's watch. I'd put it on to wear tonight. It was almost eleven.

Shit

. We needed to move things along. Stacy saw me check my watch and we made eye contact. Mario was talking about how the hospital had "royally fucked up" once when he'd taken his grandmother to the emergency room, letting her wander off when she was clearly suffering from dementia. Stacy held up her hand, shushing him. She put her hand on her head.

"Shit, guys, you know, my head still really hurts. I'm totally fried. I think I just need to lie down."

She kicked off her shoes and laid back on the couch.

"Yeah, yeah, no worries, Stace," Mario said, getting up. I saw him take a few lurching steps back toward the kitchen. I got up, too.

"Let's let Stacy get some rest," I said.

Mario nodded at me and we walked into the kitchen. In the living room, on the couch, Stacy put her arm over face, blocking her eyes. Mario switched off the kitchen light and then turned to me and grabbed my waist, pulling me to him. I let him hug me into his big, soft body. After a moment, I pushed away from him and whispered, "Upstairs."