“You pulled yourself out. Normally I would bring you out slowly. But remember what I said the first time we tried this? That you would be able to come out anytime if you needed to? That’s what happened. So now you know that you can.”
I breathed in and out rapidly, panting like a damned dog. I had been there like it was fucking yesterday. That motherfucker, the low-voiced one who I had no memories of. He was right there, over me, and I was focusing on his forearm, his blank forearm.
Nothing. Nothing stood out. At least not yet.
I had to go back.
I didn’t want to, but I had to.
“Take me back, Doc.”
“Are you sure?”
I nodded. “I have to. There has to be something.”
* * *
No beach this time. I was back in that dank cellar, Low Voice over me.
Still detached, seeing the bird on his blank forearm…
Look around, an inner voice said to me. Look around and see what’s here.
His left forearm was blank. He was wearing all black. Black short sleeves, like always. Always black with black masks. The only one who sometimes wore something different was the third one, the follower, the lemming.
I’d never seen the other two in anything but black. Sometimes T-shirts, sometimes wife-beaters. T-shirt today.
Though it pained me to do so, I forced my gaze from the invisible fiery bird on his left forearm. I couldn’t see much. He was on top of me, so my visual field was limited. His hands. Fingernails oddly clean and well kept. Long thin fingers, but nothing unusual. I looked over to his other hand, his other arm on the right side.
“Yeah, bitch, I’m getting ready. I’m getting fucking ready.”
“Lube him up good for me,” Tattoo said again.
Bile rose in my throat, but I swallowed it down. I didn’t want to get beaten for throwing up.
I’d throw up anyway. I always did. But I was usually able to wait until they left.
His right hand looked the same. Long fingers, clean fingernails. Forearm was also blank. I let my gaze wander up to his upper arm.
And now he wasn’t wearing a T-shirt anymore. He was wearing a black wife-beater. How had that changed?
I was going crazy. Bat-shit crazy. My mind didn’t know what was real and what was unreal anymore. Walls closed in on me at night, the bird emerged and taunted me. It all seemed very real.
So it made perfect sense to me that the T-shirt had turned into a wife-beater. His upper arm was right at my eye level.
And then I saw it.
A patch of darker skin. A birthmark, on the inside of his arm, very close to his armpit.
It was shaped like something I’d seen before.
An odd shape. Where had I seen it?
“Ah!” He groaned, thrusting.
And then relief.
It still hurt, and I knew it would only be mere seconds before someone else was abusing me, but for these few sacred seconds when he slid out of me, I actually felt relief.