Chapter 16
They told Timothy that watching the television was a privilege, but it was really used to further torment him. Seeing his sister in the recording with Clive and Gus was enough to cause Timothy intense hurt, but that wasn't enough for them. The blood that flowed into his penis when the recording became pornographic, caused a terrible warp in his brain.
“They know all about your feelings for your sister,” said a shrill male voice.
When his hand masturbated to the pornography, one of the goofy male voices made boorish and comical sounds of physical pleasure, which weighed down Timothy's brain beneath nerve pain. The ejaculation made him feel dirty and drained.
A deep and raucous male voice sighed with satisfaction and said, “Sweet pee turd. I finally got my precious pee turd. I deserve stuff for waiting so long. I deserve it from you every day, but you shouldn't be able to see your sister. You should have to watch doggy porn.”
“Yeah,” agreed one of the shrill voices. “You should have to fuck a dog.”
“You need to pee a turd in a dog's arse, because you wouldn't like that. I deserve that for letting you see your sister. I deserve to make you like sex with a dog.”
The voices went on tormenting him until the recording ended. It was the first time he'd seen his sister since she'd been taken and he hated knowing she had lost her virginity like that. He wished he could just die to erase the pain of his existence.
The next day Clive brought in another recording and he said, “You need to watch this and see what a real writer is.”
“I will.”
Once Clive had left, Timothy played the recording. It was an amateur recording from within an auditorium full of spectators. The spectators were seated before an empty podium on a stage. A young man with boyish good looks and an athletic build walked onto the stage and stood behind the podium. There was light applause.
“Thank you very much,” said the well-dressed young man. “My name is Bryan Scott and I'll be reciting some of my new poetry this evening.”
Timothy could tell what was coming and a hollow pit formed in his stomach. The plagiarist recited Timothy's poetry verbatim. He hated seeing a plagiarist, who looked like that, getting credit for his poetry.
Later that day Clive returned. “Assume the position,” he ordered.
Timothy sat down in the chair and Clive secured the manacles around his wrists and ankles.
“Are you willing to admit you're a plagiarist now?”
“Yes,” replied Timothy. “I'm a plagiarist.”
“Why did you do it?”
“I don't know.”
Clive smacked Timothy's face with the palm of his hand, turning Timothy's head to the side. “Liar! You know exactly why you plagiarized him. You did it to impress girls.”
“Yeah.” Pain spread across Timothy's cheek where he'd been hit. “I did.”
“Bryan Scott is a best-selling novelist and poet. He was already getting girls before he started writing books. He does it for love of the craft. How did you plagiarize him?”
“I don't know.” Timothy thought about the novel he'd written, which nobody showed any interest in as he braced himself for another blow.
Clive smirked and pulled out the pincers and the lead. “It was the astral police. They gave you all the ideas.”
“We did give you the ideas for our writings,” claimed a shrill voice. “We deserve stuff for being so helpful with it.” Every time they claimed they deserved something from him, an oppressive weight pressed down over Timothy's brain matter. The weight continued pressing inward with their jabbering as Clive inserted the lead into Timothy's urethra, forcing him to groan with pain.
The next day Clive returned and ordered Timothy to follow him elsewhere. It still hurt to walk and Timothy limped along as best he could. “Stop slowing me down,” Clive commanded. Pain shot through Timothy's legs as his body quickened pace. They took the elevator between levels and walked through some halls until the surroundings began to look familiar again.
They entered the ghostly auditorium with the phone booth in a corner, ascended onto the stage, and went behind the curtains. Backstage there were various props scattered around and a staircase leading up onto a scaffold. Timothy followed Clive up this staircase until they reached the top.
Clive stood beside a square cage, which reached up to Timothy's waist. Timothy's apprehension at the sight of it turned to despair as Clive unlocked the cage, opened it, and said, “Climb in.”
The cage was a very tight fit and Timothy's limbs were already beginning to cramp within moments of entering it.
“I'll be back,” said Clive.
“Now you know what that veal felt like,” said a shrill voice.
“Yeah. You deserve this for eating veal, you spoiled rotten brat.”
The shrill voices continued jabbering the entire time, speaking of veal in particular to accentuate his pain and hopelessness. Every time they mentioned having eaten veal, he could feel a force warping his brain with the inhumanity of what was done to calves in the preparation of the veal he'd eaten.
Timothy waited in the cage for what must have been hours. At first his limbs were in excruciating pain, but eventually they grew numb, leaving him to suffer the chronic nerve pain from the shrill voices.
His eye lids drooped and he went into a semi-conscious state.
The cage was moving.
Timothy opened his bleary eyes. Then his surroundings went from darkness to blinding light. He rubbed the gunk from his eyes and realized he was hanging from above the stage in the ghostly auditorium. There was a crowd of females in front of the stage, applauding as a group of young men came onto the stage. The young men were all dressed as Clive had been, the day he'd first assaulted Timothy, with cloth bandages around their fists.
One by one they each strutted around the stage like roosters and then they stood front and center to recite one of Timothy's poems, before returning to the group. With the end of every recitation the girls broke into applause and voiced their adulation.
When Clive took center stage, he held his bandaged fist high and said, “This is what we give to sex offenders.” His voice sounded even more machismo than usual as he said, “They're all Devil Kings. Unaware of evil approaching he came and that bastard devil felt no shame when he raped her without warning and she fell beneath that heartless sting. His penis was like a mallet pounding her soul flat beneath that devil king and she would obey his edict to lose face, but the klansmen have him up in that cage.”
The girls gave a round of applause as Clive returned back to the group.
“I love you!” A voice stood out from the crowd.
Timothy stared in the direction it had come from and he recognized his sister staring at Clive with star stricken eyes. His stomach twisted at the sight of those vacant eyes.
When the show was over, the young men disappeared backstage and the crowd of girls dispersed, leaving the auditorium. Timothy expected the cage to be lifted back up onto the scaffold, but it remained hanging.
Eventually Timothy grew restless and moved a little. Realizing he was in control over his body again, he decided to bust out. At the very least he might fall to his death and end his suffering.
Timothy tried to open the cage, but it was firmly locked.
Then he looked upward at the cable holding the cage.
There was only one option. Timothy shifted his weight back and forth, causing the cage to swing to either side. There was a creaking noise above him. Something snapped and a burst of adrenaline shot through Timothy's limbs as the cage faltered and quickly dropped a couple feet. He recovered his senses and swung the cage back and forth as forcefully as he could. Something cracked in the scaffolding above and in the rush of the fall, Timothy instinctively grabbed the bars.
The cage landed on the stage with a loud crash, stunning Timothy.
When Timothy regained his senses, he realized the cage had burst open. He crawled out and, with aching muscles, he rais
ed himself up into a kneeling position using his fists for support. The crashing of the cage had been very loud. He had to be quick. Grabbing onto the bars of the cage, he slowly raised himself into a bent over position with his aching knees bent. Tingling throughout his leg joints brought them from flimsy numbness back to painful movement. Holding onto the cage for support he placed one foot in front of the other.
He let go of the cage and wobbled toward the railing of the ramp leading off stage. He grabbed it to relieve the stress on his legs.
His eyes turned to the phone booth.
“You're not allowed to speak with her anymore,” said a shrill male voice. The return of the telepathic harassment sent a shock wave of terror through Timothy. “We're your parents now.”
Timothy walked as quickly as he could toward the phone booth in the corner.
“Yeah,” added a goofy sounding male voice. “I'm your daddy and I need you to masturbate right now.”
“What are you doing!?!” somebody asked.
Timothy dismissed the question, assuming it was just another voice in his head. He continued forward with the desperate need to tell his mother the truth. His need to reach the phone booth was so intense that he disregarded the sound of someone rushing on him from behind. All he could see was that phone booth, until he was tackled to the ground.
One of the young men from the stage pinned him against the ground.
A shrill male voice twisted painfully against Timothy's brain matter with a childish giggle and said, “Now you're in for it. They care about us.”
The klansman pulled Timothy to his feet and led him out of the auditorium as the goofy male voice said, “Yeah. You're totally going to get what's for. You refused an order to masturbate.”
“I want my pee turd,” added the raucous sounding male voice.
Timothy was returned to the cell and left to fret.
The sight of Clive entering sent a shiver through Timothy. He dreaded the look in Clive's eyes.
“You tried to escape?”
Timothy's head nodded an affirmative. He expected the worst.
“Well,” said Clive. “I'm gonna give you a chance to redeem yourself. Write something of your own for a change and maybe I won't feed you my shit.” Clive pulled out a pen and a pad of paper.
The gesture relieved Timothy. “Okay,” he said.
Once Clive had left, Timothy realized he had control over his own movements again. The hatred of them wanting more of his writings gave him strength as he pieced together the ideas.
The Mental Platform Reducing Art
The handsome hack reciting gifted verse
Erects a rostrum over dolts amassed
Beneath display obscure, mystique so terse
The girls, impressed, obtrude for spell to cast.
The handsome hunks apart compete in sports
And wash with bleachers softened brain as hard
And cramped for ankles, bone of tail supports
The rushing lights so floods to heart retard.
The true of heart resents the sonnet stained
By mental rostrum over dolts impressed,
Translucent allegory's art profaned,
The virgin lost to ambuscade as guest.
Imagination's trip reduced to show,
Athletic field of force for girls to know.
Timothy enjoyed the distaste in Clive's features, when he read it. “What the fuck is this shit!?!” he exclaimed.
“Poetry.”
“It's shit! I told you to write something of worth.”
“That's how I feel about you and that plagiarist.”
Clive went livid.
“Now you've done it,” said a shrill male voice.
Clive seized Timothy and dragged him out of the cell “You're lucky I don't have any shit to feed you right now!”
Timothy sank back beneath automation control as Clive led him down the hall to a nearby room.
They entered a workshop full of tools. Timothy dreaded the sight of so many instruments of torture.
Clive placed him behind a workbench with a vise at one end. “Put your head in the vise.”
Timothy's body obeyed.
“I gave you a chance to write your own poetry. Instead you wrote shit.”
“I'm sorry.”
“No you're not.” Clive twisted the vise until it pressed slightly against either side of Timothy's head. “I'm gonna make you sorry.”
“Please. I'll do whatever you tell me. Please don't torture me.”
“Will you write something of worth?”
“Yes, I will.”
Clive twisted the vise until Timothy groaned under the pressure of its jaws.
“You can't write anything of worth. You're a plagiarist.”
The jaws further compressed Timothy's head.
“Tell me you're a plagiarist,” demanded Clive.
“I'm a plagiarist.”
“I don't believe you.”
As the jaws of the vise tightened further, Timothy felt and heard a resounding crack in his skull.
“All right,” said Clive. “I hope you've learned your lesson this time.”
The vise loosened its grip. The decompression flooded Timothy's brain with a pulsating rush of dementia. For a moment he welcomed death with open arms, but the initial burst descended into a horrible thudding pain, which consumed his spirit.
The walk back to the cell accentuated the horrible pain gripping his head from either side.
“You couldn't write worth a damn anyways,” declared Clive, before he left the cell.
Timothy lay down on the cot, exhausted, yet unable to sleep, due to the immense pain vibrating within his skull.