Chapter 7: Released
By the time the trunk opened again, Jason was just about ready to pass out. Between the stale air and the smell of pee, he had been taking shallow, dizzy breaths for longer than he could keep count. Had it been an hour or six hours? Jason wasn't really sure. But when that trunk popped open and fresh air came rush in, his energy--or maybe just his panic--came surging back.
"Please!" be blurted. He hardly noticed that Cathy shrank away from the noise, loud as he was in her ear. "Please--just let us go," he begged. "We won't be any trouble, I swear. Please..."
"Relax, little dick." It was David, the man who had held Cathy back in the alley. "This is where you and your date get out."
He didn't wait. He reached in and pulled Cathy up, out by the shoulders. Cramped and tired as she was, she still fought a little, shaking him off as he pulled her to her feet. It was dark out. Jason climbed out after her as soon as he could. His muscles screamed with pain. He had been stuffed in that trunk for too long, unable to movie. It almost didn't matter that he was naked. He still stretched.
No one was watching him. They were in some sort of parking lot, a big parking lot. There was a field nearby, with high security lights above it, but the parking lot itself was mostly dim. There was no sign of anyone else. Only their car--and another car. Jason blinked. Drew, the man with the camera before, he was leaning against the other car, which had its lights on. The headlights shone right on him and Cathy. She held one arm over her chest, and the other arm below her waste, covering herself as best he could. Jason instinctively held himself in the palms of his hand.
Their car door slammed shut, and Jason turned to see Carry climbing out of the driver's seat.
"Carrey wanted to dump you guys in nowhere, maybe in the middle of the woods or something," David said. "He said that would teach you a lesson about keeping your tits in your shirt or something."
"It would," Carrey muttered. He slunk over to the other car.
"But I talked him out of it, you see," David said, looking back and forth between him and Cathy. "Drew figured letting you stew in piss for a little bit was more than enough, right? And Drew's right too. But I figure, we better leave you the car, right? Because we don't want you feeling like we stole your shit or anything. You can have your piece of shit car back. We're good dudes, right?"
He waited, looking at Jason. Jason nodded. "Yeah," he said. "You're good dudes."
"Yeah. So, you're going to have a drink with us, to show there are no hard feelings, and then we're going to drive away, and then you can get the fuck on with it."
Cathy's teeth were chattering. "Can we just go?" she said. "Please? It's late. We're sorry."
But Drew had already leaned up off the other car with two beers, tall drinks they must have picked up from a gas station somewhere along the way. They were tall cans that fizzed as the man cracked them open.
"You can't tell me you're not thirsty after a drive like that," he said. "Come on. You must want something to wash the taste out of your mouth," he added, looking at Cathy, who still tried to cover herself.
Jason eyed Drew suspiciously. The man was smirking. He looked over to Carrey, and then to David. They all shared the same expression. Bloodshot eyes, funny little grins. But they all looked tired, too. It was late. The game was probably over. Still, Jason wasn't sure.
Cathy was, though. She took the tall can of cheap alcohol and took a long swig. She spat and coughed as the men chuckled. "That's disgusting," she said.
"Drink up," Carrey said, and he lifted his own can. Jason realized they all had their own beers.
This was it. This was the whole thing. They had bullied them and stripped them and pissed on them like some demented fraternity prank, and now they were having beers in the parking lot like at the end of some college hazing. He didn't like beer, but he took it from Drew and sipped it while he watched, to prove that he could be a good sport. Anything to end the night faster. He could play along.
"Go on," Carrey said. "Don't be a pussy."
It tasted a little like gasoline cut with kerosene, but he choked more down. It was not good, but it a necessary evil, to show that he could be a good sport.
"Little dick," David chuckled. "Like his dinosaur name, you know. Little Dick? Little Foot? From the movie?"
Drew laughed. "Sure man. Whatever."
Jason blushed like a schoolgirl. His whole life was arranged around hiding his shame, his tiny-cock micropenis shame, from everyone. Everyone but Cathy, who seemed more than okay with it. Now these guys knew, and they were exactly the worst type of people to know. Bullies. The best way to handle it was to ignore them as best they could--except for the way his body kept betraying his shame. He could pretend he didn't care, but blushing was a giveaway.
"You guys be nice," Cathy scolded. "It's a medical thing."
That only made the three of them start laughing again.
Cathy took another long, defiant pull from her can. “See?” she said, her voice gaining a shred of hardness. “No hard feelings.”
Jason felt a wave of gratitude. She was changing the subject.
“Attagirl,” Drew said, nodding appreciatively. He cracked open another can from a case on the hood of their stolen car and handed it to her without asking. She took it with a reluctant expression and nodded.
Jason watched as he sipped at his own drink, hypnotized. The headlights from the other car etched her in stark relief. Beer foam glistened on her upper lip. Her posture had changed; the cowering hunch was gone, replaced by a tired, almost defiant slump. One arm still hung loosely at her side, not bothering to cover herself anymore. The alcohol was helping her relax, at least. He took a deeper drink. The beer burned the back of his throat, but Drew was right. It tasted better than actual piss, by a thin margin.
Their bullies seemed interested in Cathy, who was drinking quickly.
“Thirsty, huh?” David said, his eyes gleaming.
“You have no idea,” Cathy mumbled, and took another swig. The alcohol seemed to be working fast on her empty stomach and shattered nerves. A slight, unsteady sway touched her stance.
“Finish that one,” Carrey said, his voice losing its playful edge, becoming a command. “And then we'll be done. Scouts honor.”
Cathy’s eyes flicked to Jason. His glasses were gone, so everything was a blur beyond the intense pool of light, but he could see the pale oval of her face. He gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. It was just a twitch of his chin. Do it. Please. Just do what they say.
She saw it. She lifted the can high, tilting her head back, and poured the rest of the beer into her mouth. Some of it escaped the corners of her lips, tracing new lines through the dried piss on her neck and chest, cutting clean trails down to her stomach. The men whooped. David thumped the side of the car in applause.
She dropped the empty can. It clattered on the asphalt, spinning in a lazy circle.
“Happy?” she asked, her words beginning to slur just a fraction.
David smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. “Getting there.” He looked at Jason. "You about done, man?"
Jason nodded. His beer was just about gone.
He reached out and clapped Jason on the shoulder, a jarring, friendly gesture that made Jason flinch. “Seriously, kid. You did alright. Didn’t cry too much.”
It was ironic, Jason thought, that he would use the word kid. Jason was sure they were all barely eighteen or nineteen apiece, and younger than him by a year or two. But they were taller and fit and alpha male types. Of course they would call him a kid. Drew was already walking back to their car, tossing his empty can into the passenger seat.
“See you around” he called over his shoulder, not even looking back. He slid behind the wheel of the other car.
Carrey gave them one last, long look, his face unreadable in the shadow beyond the headlights. He shook his head slightly, as if dismissing them from his thoughts permanently, and walked around to the passenger side. David was the last. He lingered, digging in his pocket. He pulled out Jason’s glasses. One lens was cracked, a spiderweb of lines fracturing the world. He held them out.
“Here. You must be fucking blind without these, right?”
Then he turned and jogged to the idling car, swinging himself into the back seat. The door slammed. The engine of the other car revved once, a deeper, healthier rumble than their own. The headlights swung away, blinding them momentarily before painting the cracked asphalt in long, sweeping arcs. The car rolled forward, gravel pinging underneath its tires.
Neither of them moved. They stood frozen in the sudden absence of its headlights, the darkness rushing back in like cold water. The red taillights receded, two malevolent eyes dwindling into the distance down the long, straight access road. The sound of the engine faded, eaten by the vast, flat night.