scheme of things. So
there’s no reason to delay the inevitable, and you can begin your
work as a Stroker.”
“What’s a Stroker?” Brian asked quickly, eyes wide
as he looked at the hypodermic. There was no real aversion to
needles, but a keen awareness that strange ones often contained
things that could do bad things not only in the short term, but
permanently. The man wasn’t bothering to answer as he approached
Brian, who instinctively contracted his muscles away from him.
Above him, he could sense the rope like it was his own skin, even
feeling the friction of the beam as it rubbed against the fibers
where they passed over. “Sounds somebody likely to go blind, heh…
”
The weak joke seemed to take the man by surprise.
“Why, yes, that’s exactly what you’ll be doing, Mr. Stanford. You
will be masturbating your filthy little penis all day long, secure
on a mildew covered mattress we’ve got set up for you in dirty
little crack house. Eventually the diseases, malnutrition, or just
another Stroker will end your life for you, but not until you’ve
provided us with a goodly surge or two of this Power that you don’t
know what to do with.” He finally smiled, now, the tiny marble eyes
registering a maniacal satisfaction as he looked at Brian, and
lifted up the needle so that it glistened in the yellow light of
the single bulb. “This is just the start of the long, sad end of
your wicked life, Mr. Stanford. But fear not—or fear, it makes no
difference—you will be blissfully ecstatic through the whole
process. We don’t, after all, want to make you unhappy.” The smile
grew wider, a predator sure of his prey. “We just want to use you
and then get you out of the way for the next happy bit of
scum.”
“So it’s… some kind of special drug? Supposed to
make me into a sex maniac?”
“Nothing special about it at all. It’s simply a
variant of heroin. Enough to get you hooked, blow out your pleasure
receptors, and then we add a little special bit to make you
desperate to feel something, anything again. So you begin stroking
that filthy little penis,” he said it like a mantra, nose wrinkling
and his voice rising as if it was an effort to speak of such a
thing, “more and more. And you will get a few surges, but they
won’t be as sweet as this injection will feel. But there will be
someone there in the house with you, someone who will become your
very best friend, the supplier of this sweet little black juice,
and he’ll help keep you happy and stroking. For a while.” The man
frowned, as though something of mild concern just occurred to him.
“Hmmm. You may last a bit longer than most. You seem to recover
rather quickly.”
That’s when Brian realized that yes, he did feel
almost completely normal, far from what one would expect from
having a door blown into his face. His mind had cleared the effects
of the unconsciousness almost completely, leaving him with a sharp
hyper-realistic clarity that seemed to bring out the textures in
the room, the damp shine of the sweat on the yellowish skin of the
man’s forehead, the swirling black liquid under the cold glass of
the hypodermic, the woven soft tension of the rope drawing his arms
up and connecting him, somehow, to something that seemed just out
of reach, something that was—
Powerful .
The rope was connecting him, just as it had with Vashte, to power.
It was like an antenna, and Brian realized that he could use it to
amplify and –
Push. It
was instinctive, and he knew somehow that if he really thought
about it, he would lose it, but that same awareness that was
sensing the rope could be twisted, used to give a little push, a
force of denial to the man’s progress forward. It was tenuous, like
pushing with hands full of tissue paper… but it was a lot of tissue
paper, and it served, for a moment, to slow the sallow man’s
progress.
Brian could tell, though, that it
would only last a moment. There was no time to plan; he simply had
to act.
there’s no reason to delay the inevitable, and you can begin your
work as a Stroker.”
“What’s a Stroker?” Brian asked quickly, eyes wide
as he looked at the hypodermic. There was no real aversion to
needles, but a keen awareness that strange ones often contained
things that could do bad things not only in the short term, but
permanently. The man wasn’t bothering to answer as he approached
Brian, who instinctively contracted his muscles away from him.
Above him, he could sense the rope like it was his own skin, even
feeling the friction of the beam as it rubbed against the fibers
where they passed over. “Sounds somebody likely to go blind, heh…
”
The weak joke seemed to take the man by surprise.
“Why, yes, that’s exactly what you’ll be doing, Mr. Stanford. You
will be masturbating your filthy little penis all day long, secure
on a mildew covered mattress we’ve got set up for you in dirty
little crack house. Eventually the diseases, malnutrition, or just
another Stroker will end your life for you, but not until you’ve
provided us with a goodly surge or two of this Power that you don’t
know what to do with.” He finally smiled, now, the tiny marble eyes
registering a maniacal satisfaction as he looked at Brian, and
lifted up the needle so that it glistened in the yellow light of
the single bulb. “This is just the start of the long, sad end of
your wicked life, Mr. Stanford. But fear not—or fear, it makes no
difference—you will be blissfully ecstatic through the whole
process. We don’t, after all, want to make you unhappy.” The smile
grew wider, a predator sure of his prey. “We just want to use you
and then get you out of the way for the next happy bit of
scum.”
“So it’s… some kind of special drug? Supposed to
make me into a sex maniac?”
“Nothing special about it at all. It’s simply a
variant of heroin. Enough to get you hooked, blow out your pleasure
receptors, and then we add a little special bit to make you
desperate to feel something, anything again. So you begin stroking
that filthy little penis,” he said it like a mantra, nose wrinkling
and his voice rising as if it was an effort to speak of such a
thing, “more and more. And you will get a few surges, but they
won’t be as sweet as this injection will feel. But there will be
someone there in the house with you, someone who will become your
very best friend, the supplier of this sweet little black juice,
and he’ll help keep you happy and stroking. For a while.” The man
frowned, as though something of mild concern just occurred to him.
“Hmmm. You may last a bit longer than most. You seem to recover
rather quickly.”
That’s when Brian realized that yes, he did feel
almost completely normal, far from what one would expect from
having a door blown into his face. His mind had cleared the effects
of the unconsciousness almost completely, leaving him with a sharp
hyper-realistic clarity that seemed to bring out the textures in
the room, the damp shine of the sweat on the yellowish skin of the
man’s forehead, the swirling black liquid under the cold glass of
the hypodermic, the woven soft tension of the rope drawing his arms
up and connecting him, somehow, to something that seemed just out
of reach, something that was—
Powerful .
The rope was connecting him, just as it had with Vashte, to power.
It was like an antenna, and Brian realized that he could use it to
amplify and –
Push. It
was instinctive, and he knew somehow that if he really thought
about it, he would lose it, but that same awareness that was
sensing the rope could be twisted, used to give a little push, a
force of denial to the man’s progress forward. It was tenuous, like
pushing with hands full of tissue paper… but it was a lot of tissue
paper, and it served, for a moment, to slow the sallow man’s
progress.
Brian could tell, though, that it
would only last a moment. There was no time to plan; he simply had
to act.
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