Have Spacecat, Will Travel: And Other Tails by John Hartness (top ebook reader .TXT) 📕

after. Look at what you panted after like a dog. Look at what you betrayed your family for.”

Herman squeezed his eyes shut, wondering what the whore was babbling about. He had no family, not since she died all those years ago. He betrayed no one, lusted after no one. He was a lion, a predator, a hunter. Not a dog, some stupid pack animal.

He felt her hot breath on the side of his face even through the mask. “Open your goddamn eyes and pay attention or I will carve off your fucking eyelids.” His eyes flew open, and she smiled again, suddenly the coquette she had been just moments before.

“That’s better, baby. Good boy. Now you get a treat.” And she kissed him, wrapped her mouth around the ball gag in his mouth and shoved it farther into his mouth in a choking French kiss. She held the kiss just long enough for Herman to start to thrash against the ball gag, then she skipped away, twirling naked through the apartment.

She vanished from view, and when she twirled back into his line of sight, she held a plastic yellow and black toolbox. She set the toolbox on the scarred surface of the kitchen table and opened it. She hummed a little tune to herself as she pulled several X-Acto knives, a pair of needle-nosed pliers, a roll of duct tape, and several unmarked squeeze bottles of liquid from the box. She arranged her tools and bottles and walked over to the refrigerator. She opened the door and took out a large pack of hamburger meat. The whore walked over to Herman and slit open the package with one of her knives, dumping the entire soggy, cold clump of meat in his lap.

“Now you just let that sit there and keep you company, Herman, while I do my work.”

Herman tried to talk around the ball gag, tried to ask the whore what she was doing, but she just turned back to him and waved the knife in front of his face. “No-no-no, Hermie. No talking. If you try to make any noise, I’ll have to carve out your voice box, and who wants that? I certainly don’t. Now behave.” She flicked out her hand, and Herman felt a thin line of fire burn across his chest. As she walked back to the table, he looked in the mirror and saw beads of blood running down his chest where she had sliced him with the razor blade.

The whore cut me! She hurt me! I’ll kill her slowly for that. Just for that, I’ll make it hurt. That, that, that bitch! Herman was shocked. He never swore, not even to himself. This whore must have really shaken him to get him to even think that word. He leaned forward as far as he could, trying to rock the chair back and forth to maybe break the chair and free himself.

The whore turned back to him and strode over to him, the rings in her nipples bouncing with every step. Herman tried not to look, but he could stop himself. She glared at him and said, “I told you to behave!” Then she drove the X-Acto knife into the back of his left hand, pinning him to the wood of the chair. The small razor tip slid between the bones of his hand, followed by the dull cylinder, jamming through tendons and muscles as the tiny blade slid through his flesh into the soft wood of the chair. Herman’s eyes went wide as the initial blunt pain of the stabbing quickly transformed into an inferno of agony that radiated out from the back of his hand and sent lightning bolts all the way up his arm to the shoulder. He tried to scream, but with her standing right there, he didn’t dare. All he could do was open his mouth and breathe rapidly, then she poked the ball gag even deeper into his mouth and he felt his throat convulse. He was caught between trying to breathe, trying to scream, and his gag reflex forcing him to retch, all while thrashing against bonds that gave not a millimeter. Tears poured from his eyes and snot bubbled up from his nose and started to stream down into the corners of his mouth, making him retch even more violently.

The vicious circle spiraled Herman deeper and deeper toward panic until finally he began to hyperventilate. Cindy pulled back her hand and rocked Herman’s head to the side with a vicious slap. The shock and pain brought everything to a halt, and suddenly his breathing was back under control. His hand still screamed, and he still wanted to vomit from the pain and disgust at the snot rolling down his face and leaking past his lips, but the ball had moved enough that his gag reflex relaxed, and he no longer felt completely frantic. Of course, there was still a psychotic naked whore looming over him, but at least he could breathe a little better.

Cindy walked over to the table, grabbed a cloth, and came back. She gently wiped away Herman’s tears, dabbed the sweat from his brow, and cleaned his face. “There, there, Herman. You’re just fine. You’re going to be okay,” she crooned, crouching in front of him and taking his face in her hands. “Now you don’t need to be a bad boy, do you, Herman? You don’t need to try to get free, because you can’t. That chair is bolted to the floor, and you’re tied up like a Christmas goose, so you just sit there and be a good boy, and this won’t hurt a bit.” She smiled then, and kissed his forehead, and brought his head to nestle between her breasts.

Herman could smell her perfume, and beneath that, the musky scent of her, and he started to swell. The lump of hamburger in his lap twitched, and Cindy jerked back. “Having naughty thoughts again, Herman? Well, that’s the kind of thing that