Chapter 12: Meat on a Hook

The beating somehow led to Sylvester getting put in the game, but John put off asking. The dread of hearing Sylvester confirm he was responsible outweighed the want to know. Besides, none of the recruits ever talked about their crimes. None asked or volunteered the information. By the time the DI called “lights out,” an unspoken agreement had formed.

The weight of the day pulled on John’s eyelids. After he had collapsed into his unfamiliar bed, the WarFace still beamed light into his perception. The menu, listed down the right, tempted him with the promise of more questions answered, but John would have to play with it later. Sleep was all he wanted.

Is this going to happen every time I go to sleep? Don’t know if I can get used to this.

John put the WarFace out of his mind and concentrated on slowing his thoughts. As if on cue, the text dimmed and disappeared. Exhaustion pushed his weight into the unfamiliar mattress. His fatigue smothered consciousness like a heavy pillow over the face of a terminal patient.

Will I dream?

John had touched the surface of the obsidian pool of sleep when a grunt from the bunk below pulled him right back out. His eyes flew open. The recruit beside him slept flat on his back, snoring away. A groan came from underneath.

Whatever. If Sylvester wants to sacrifice sleep to have a wank, good on him. It’s been a stressful day. I’m too tired to care.

When John shut his eyes, the WarFace was back. He might as well have been staring into the noonday sun. John tried slowing his thoughts again.

The next grunt came out with a shudder. Something was wrong with Sylvester. John leaned over the edge of the mattress. Sylvester lay on his back. The skin around his eyes was wet. The blanket hid his hands.

John furrowed his brow. “You okay?”

“My,” Sylvester sniffed the wet snot emerging from his nostril, “my dick,” he said, the words coming out like a moan, “doesn’t work. Like, it doesn’t get hard. Doesn’t even feel good at all.”

Limp-dicked morons. The DI called us limp-dicked morons.

John reached down the front of his shorts. He gave himself a few tugs, but nothing moved. There should have been at least a little blood flow, a chub, the beginnings of an erection. Sylvester was right. It was nothing but a wet hunk of meat in his hand.

“What the hell? Come on.” John rubbed harder. Nothing.

“Where the hell am I?” Sylvester said, sobbing loud enough for all to hear.

The door at the far end slammed open. “Who the fucking fuck isn’t tired enough to sleep?” The bearded DI stood in the doorway wearing his campaign hat and the same undershirt and underwear as the rest of the recruits. He wore his boot unlaced. “Who the fuck is stupid enough to keep everyone up?”

The DI flipped on the lights. Almost everyone bolted up in their beds. John squinted. The WarFace was nothing compared to the florescent lights above his bed.

“Attention!”

Everyone who was awake enough scrambled in front of their footlockers. Sylvester wiped his eyes and straightened up.

“Get that asshole up.” The DI pointed out the sleeping forms still in their beds. “Get that fuck stick up.” His stopping had become all too familiar already, and it was only the first day. “Who is the diseased mind who wants to make this day any longer?”

Sylvester wasn’t doing well, and it was obvious from looking at him.

John took the bullet. “Sir, this recruit, sir!”

For a sizeable man, the DI sure moved fast. He appeared in front of John. For a brief second, the remanence of tears on Sylvester’s face distracted the DI.

“Come with me,” he said to John in the most normal speaking voice any of the DIs had used that day.

Between the rows of weary and drained recruits, John plodded behind the DI’s heavy footsteps. The other recruits kept their eyes front, wavering on their feet, faces long with exhaustion. Most fought to keep their eyes open. They would blame him. He’d have to deal with it later.

The DI held the closet door open. “You get to experience the infinite joy of cleaning the barracks floors while you keep your fellow recruits up,” he said in his regular bellow once again. “Get yourself a bucket and washcloth, recruit.”

John did as he was told.

“Fill it with soap and water.”

John turned the faucet on as far as it would go. He winced as the spray caught him in the face. The fatigue made him slow and jittery. A single footstep echoed from behind. John caught Elroy straightening back up out of the corner of his eye. It looked like you had almost passed out.

“Keep your mind on the task at hand,” the DI crossed his thick arms, “not on who you’d like to fuck.”

The same exhaustion that had almost put Elroy on the floor dragged on him, too: his arms, his shoulders, even in the depths of his brain. Every cell in his body screamed for sleep.

Am I tired or is it game making me tired?

“You’re going to do what we call motor boating, and it ain’t done between two beautiful titties.” The DI tapped the floor with the sole of his boot. “Put the bucket down and drop the washcloth on the ground.”

Like a zombie, John followed his orders. His arms trembled. Any will to resist had long since vanished.

“You push that little washcloth all the way to the far edge of the barracks. When you’re done with that, you’ll push it all the way back until the floor is god damn spotless.”

John kneeled and dropped his hands onto the cloth.

“Ass up!” The DI’s boot tapped John’s crotch.

A fiery ache shot up from his bruised testicles. The game didn’t allow for sexual pleasure, but it excelled at simulating pain. John straightened his legs. The ache in his crotch mixed with the pain in his lower back.

The DI’s boot pushed on John’s ass. “Get motorboating, recruit!”

John pushed with his legs. The washcloth glided along the floor until the suds ran out. The ache in his back grew with the resistance along the floor.

“Oh, and I want to hear motorboat sounds coming out of your mouth while you do it.”

He pressed his lips together and blew like a kid playing race car driver. The boots of his fellow recruits coasted by. Though the sight of a grown man driving a washcloth around must have looked ridiculous, no one laughed. John panted, the motorboat sounds shorter and shorter with each breath.

How did I end up here?

The ache transformed into a stabbing pain. No matter how strong his heart was, the limits of human anatomy remained. Through the physical agony, that slap his mother delivered echoed through his consciousness.

I ran; that’s how. From Leadership. From the Easterbrooks, from Frantzisca and Oly. I ran.

John reached the far wall. He took a breath to estimate how many more passes it would take to do before he could rest again. Maybe twenty. More like thirty.

I refused my station in life and got punished. I won’t run anymore. So be it.

John stuck his ass up in the air again and pushed.

A leader I am.