Strasser was standing near him, beside the girl, one hand holding the glass, the
other pushing one of the smooth white globes of her buttocks.
He said thoughtfully, “Now which shall it be, anal or vaginal passage? Difficult
to choose. If the former it will at least mean that Kelber’s animal lusts will
not remain entirely unsatisfied, if for only a short, time. Kelber has often
been known to make the best of a bad job, Ryan. He is, I fear, not very
discriminating in his tastes. If the latter, of course, I doubt that even Kelber
would care to try his luck where something as voracious as this little brute has
already been.” He inclined his head, looked down at Ryan. “What d’you say, Ryan?
Back or front, hmm? No answer? How very churlish.” He licked his lips. “Front, I
think.”
He placed the lip of the glass against the broad full cheeks, and began to push
it under the girl toward the dark cleft, tipping it gently upward as he did so.
Ryan struggled like one possessed of many devils. His head jerked back, his
chest bulged. He could feel the tendons and veins on his arms spring out like
corded cables. He was screaming, shrieking, but no sound came out of his mouth.
Strasser glanced down at him, smiling with his mouth but not his eyes, and
tipped the glass up some more. It was now almost horizontal. The beetle began to
scurry along the smooth curved path until it had about reached its goal. It
stopped, antennae quivering. Then it scurried on remorselessly, at last reaching
flesh, a portion of buttock fringed by coarse red hair, short and curly, just
glimpsed. The antennae extended toward the white skin as though testing the air.
Presumably satisfied with the intelligence it had gathered, the insect began to
move slowly, inexorably, out of Ryan’s sight.
Squealing, frantically nodding his head, adrenaline flooding through him like
liquid fire, Ryan managed to inch himself forward, heaving those guards atop
along by the sheer strength of his frenzy.
Strasser looked down at him again, regarded him thoughtfully, coolly, gauging
his surrender—then rammed the glass hard into the girl’s rear, at the same time
flipping its mouth slightly upward, the sudden movement catching the beetle, the
lip of the glass tossing it into the air. It curved high, legs scrabbling at
nothing, and for a split second seemed to hang, weightless, at the peak of its
parabola. Then gravity took over and it dropped. Strasser neatly caught it in
the glass and beamed in triumph, as though he had just performed a particularly
knotty conjuring trick. He gave the glass and the box to Kelber.
He said, “Excellent. Take him out to one of the trucks. The girl, too. Dress
her. These…” He waved an arm at J.B. and the others, then frowned in thought. “I
was going to say, kill them. But no. Take them downstairs. One of the cells.
I’ll deal with them personally when we return.”
Ryan felt himself gripped under the armpits and dragged to his feet. He needed
that. Right now he felt incapable of supporting himself on his own. Strasser
caught up with them. The gaunt man with the skull face reached out and grasped
at the gag in his mouth and tore it out. Ryan gasped, swallowed, grunted, spat
out bits of rag that still clung to his teeth and his tongue and his lips. He
gazed up at Strasser, his chest heaving, his eyes blurred.
He cracked, “You’re dead, Strasser… dead…”
“No, no, no,” said Strasser, leaning forward and tapping him lightly on the
chest with a bony finger, his tone mildly amused as though he were speaking to a
fractious child, “you’re dead.”
THE HEAVY STEEL DOOR THUDDED into place. The face of the man Krysty Wroth had
booted, still blood-smeared around the mouth, appeared in the barred opening,
another of the guards behind him.
“Think I’ll have me the slinky black bitch, Ferd,” said the man with the bloody
mouth. “Ain’t had black meat in awhile.”
“Y’know,” said Hunaker to Samantha, “I bet that dick’s prick when it’s hard is
about as big as my pinkie. I betcha.”