Chapter 2: Chapter 2
The detective’s words hung in the air of the stale office. Trending. The word felt small and plastic, utterly incapable of containing the seismic ruin of his life. John just stared at the grain of the metal desk, the blanket coarse around his shoulders.
“We have the perpetrator in custody,” the detective continued, his voice careful, neutral. “He’s not talking. Just laughs. Says you wanted it.”
John flinched.
“Did you?” The question wasn’t an accusation, just a box to check on a form.
“No,” John whispered. Then, stronger, “No.”
“Your pants were torn open from behind, Mr. Riley. There were… fluids.” The female officer shifted, her tablet screen dark. “The video footage from the tunnel is inconclusive on initiation. It looks like you were waiting there. Alone.”
“I was just sitting,” John said, the words ash in his mouth. “I was tired. I… I saw something. A rat. Or I thought I did.”
The detective exchanged a glance with his partner. A ‘rat’. Sure.
They asked more questions in that flat, procedural tone. Did he know the man? Had there been any prior contact? Any suggestive messages? Each question was a scalpel, delicately dissecting his credibility, constructing a narrative where ‘MVP in Secret Rendezvous Gone Wrong’ was just as plausible as ‘Victim’.
“We’ll need your phone for the digital forensic team,” the detective said finally, standing. “You can follow up with your own lawyer. The DA will be in touch.”
“Am I free to go?”
“Where would you like to go, Mr. Riley?” the woman asked, not unkindly. It was the most devastating question of the night.
He had no answer. Home? The cameras would be there. A friend’s? He pictured their faces, the awkward pause, the unasked questions. The team hotel? A hysterical laugh bubbled in his chest. He swallowed it.
They left him there with a card and a case number. The door clicked shut. The silence was absolute, and inside it, the wet, sloppy sounds played on a loop in his head. You taste like a secret.
He didn’t know how long he sat, shivering under the blanket despite the room’s warmth. The hum of the fluorescent light was the only sound.
“Well now. That was a bit of a show, wasn’t it?”
John’s head snapped up. Lucky was perched on the edge of the desk, one leg crossed over the other, picking at a thorn under his fingernail. His coal-chip eyes gleamed with merry malice.
“You,” John breathed, the word full of hate and a terrible, clinging hope. “Fix it. Undo it.”
“Undo a wish?” Lucky chuckled, the sound like dry seeds in a gourd. “That’s not how it works, slugger. I’m a facilitator, not a regret-eraser. So. Did you like it? Getting your ass ravaged by a man? Your fantasy, made flesh and spit.”
“It wasn’t my fantasy!” John shouted, standing so fast the chair screeched back. The blanket fell. “Not like that! Not in front of… not like that!”
“Details,” Lucky waved a gnarled hand. “You wished for him. You wished for real. You didn’t specify a privacy clause. I’m a literalist, me.” He leaned forward, his grin widening. “The question is… was the core of it true? Did he make you forget? Even for a second?”
John’s face burned. In the eye of the hurricane of violation, there had been a nanosecond of pure, shocking sensation, a wire tripped in his brain that had nothing to do with consent or publicity. The shame of that was the deepest cut.
“Take it back,” John pleaded, his voice cracking.
“Can’t,” Lucky sang. “But I can give you a refresher. Since the cops interrupted. A proper taste of your consequence.”
Lucky snapped his emerald fingers.
The door to the office opened. The man walked in. The same man. His hands were free, no cuffs. His denim jacket was stained, his eyes fixed on John with a single-minded hunger that made the air vanish from the room. The door swung shut behind him, locking with a definitive click John hadn’t even known was there.
“No,” John whispered, backing up until his hips hit the desk. “No, no, no.”
The man didn’t speak. He just came forward, his movements economical, inevitable. John tried to dodge, but the man was faster, stronger. A calloused hand grabbed the back of John’s neck, the other seizing a handful of his uniform shirt. He was spun, bent forward over the cold metal desk, his cheek pressed against a forgotten incident report form.
“Please,” John begged, tears of humiliation springing to his eyes. He tried to push up, to twist away, but the man’s weight was an anchor, pinning him effortlessly. He was an athlete, strong, but this was a different kind of strength, fueled by something beyond physics.
The man yanked the torn remnants of his pants down again.
John squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for a different violation. It didn’t come.
Instead, he felt the hot, wet, flat stroke of a tongue, from the base of his spine down. A low, appreciative groan vibrated against his skin.
“Even better the second time,” the man mumbled, his voice thick. “Saltier. Knows what’s coming now. Tenses up nice.”
John tried to arch away, to buck him off, but a heavy arm slammed across his lower back, holding him fast. “Stop! Get off!”
The man ignored him. He feasted. It was sloppy, voracious, obscene. The sounds were amplified in the small, sterile room—loud, wet, sucking noises, grunts of effort, the man’s nose digging in deep. John could feel spit slicking his skin, dripping. He clawed at the desk, his fingers scrambling for purchase, finding none.
“Tastes like panic now,” the man narrated between laps, his words slurred against John’s flesh. “Like fear-sweat and ruined cotton. Muscles quivering like a rabbit’s. Perfect. Pink and clenched up so tight, then gives way. Like melting.”
“Make him stop!” John screamed, turning his head to where Lucky watched from a filing cabinet, swinging his tiny boots.
Lucky just smiled. “He’s just enjoying his gift. And yours. Be careful what you wish for, John Riley. He’s part of the package now. A permanent fixture.”
The man lifted his head, breathing heavily. A strand of saliva connected his lips to John’s skin. “Permanent,” he echoed, a dark promise. “Gonna find you. After games. In parking lots. In your fancy apartment. You’ll always be listening for my steps.” He dove back in, his tongue pushing insistently. “Gonna describe every inch of you. To you. To the world. My own personal all-star.”
John sobbed, his body betraying him with a helpless shudder as the man’s relentless tongue found a rhythm that was both torture and a twisted parody of intimacy. The curse wasn’t just the act. It was the narration. The ownership. The eternal, hungry audience of one.
Lucky hopped down from the cabinet, his work seemingly done. “He’s yours,” the leprechaun said to the man, who didn’t pause. “And you’re his. A forever thing. Have fun, slugger.”
With a last, jagged grin, Lucky vanished, not in a puff of smoke, but by simply ceasing to be there.
Leaving John pinned over the desk, the man’s face buried in him, describing the flavor of his downfall in a low, relentless, slobbering monologue that promised this was only the beginning.