Autonomy: a novel Read online

  A real class act.

  He drained a bottle of malt liquor in one swig, then nodded at Scout. “Glad you could come, babe.”

  Lelila giggled.

  Scout put her hands on her own hips. “I’m not your babe, she is. Unlucky her.”

  Lelila pushed her onto the couch next to the jerk. “Lighten up.” She handed her a fresh bottle of malt liquor, after twisting the cap off for her. “Live a little, home skillet!”

  The couple hadn’t had the place long enough to fuck it up, but Scout imagined the house in six months to a year without a mother to clean it—it’d be a real dump. The malt liquor was a pleasant surprise, going down her throat like bitter soda, strangely refreshing: one of those summer beers with lemon in it.

  “Here, dude,” Mack said in his best Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey voice while he handed her the fatty. “Take a hit.”

  Scout shook her head.

  Lelila shocked her by sitting on her lap, bare legs on bare legs, her perfect apple bottom atop Scout’s vagina. The latter had to fight off the lesbian arousal so vehemently, it was like Nordic warriors before the crying martyrs.

  “Don’t be such a pussy,” Lelila cried. “Take a hit.”

  “Yo,” Mack let out while turning up the rap on the stereo, the beat a soundtrack of destruction. “There’s no Mommy or Daddy to snuff out the party.”

  That’s what I’m afraid of.

  Scout took a hit, almost coughing up a lung. “Smooth,” she croaked.

  Mack and Lelila laughed out loud, his chuckle sounding like a retarded stoner, hers like a drunken cheerleader.

  “Isn’t this great?” Lelila chirped.

  “Yah, wonderful.” Scout took another swig of the lemony fluid to wash out the taste of the bitter herb.

  Mack bounded up like a hurricane, knocking over the ash tray in the process. He fist-pumped, what an idiot. “Let’s give her the grand tour! Woo-hoo!”

  Lelila rose and pulled her out of her seat after Scout picked up the joint threatening to burn the first carpet they owned.

  “Woo,” Lelila cried. “Party hearty!”

  ***

  The bathroom was too small, the guest room devoid of a bed or any furniture. As Scout followed Mack down the basement stairs painted black, the malt liquor made her dizzy. Lelila had ordered Scout to go behind him into the depths, saying she was going to get more party favors, and Scout could never say no to her.

  “Whew-hew,” Mack cried. “This is the catacombs!”

  Heavy-metal posters covered a room carpeted in black. Mack turned on the stereo and Dio rang out. He reached into the cooler and handed her a couple more malt liquors. A strobe light rocked the Casbah down in the depths. Scout wondered why Lelila hadn’t followed them. A cheetah-skin comforter lay atop a king-sized bed.

  This is messed up on so many levels.

  Mack said, “C’mon, babe! Drink up!”

  “I said I’m not your babe!” Scout turned around and saw Lelila, a goddess, standing in front of the closed basement door, holding the latch behind her back.

  Mack’s twisted grin showed yellow teeth, and he got in Scout’s face. She was surprised the molars weren’t sharp.

  “Oh, I’m afraid you are,” Mack cried.

  From behind her, Scout heard a lock latch. Lelila clomped down the stairs in her heels.

  Scout wheeled on her. “Why did you lock the door?”

  Lelila tore a bottle out of Mack’s hand. “Lemme show you how to drink this shit, homie.” She downed the whole bottle without even wiping her chin.

  Monkey see, monkey do. Mack did the same with the next one.

  Scout balled her hands into fists and stomped on the floor. “I said why did you lock that door!”

  Lelila laughed at her and shrugged. “Why not?”

  Mack was belly laughing as he reclined on the bed.

  Scout did her best to scowl at Lelila. “I wanna go home.”

  “This is home now, beeootch,” Mack cried, jumping off the bed.

  “Time to get freak-a-deek,” Lelila said.

  The bottom fell out of Scout’s life as Lelila and Mack rushed her and tackled her, then dragged her toward the bed.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Scout scanning the room, horrible images, sounds and smells pouring into her cerebral cortex, the pentagram poster on the door at the top of the steps, “The Last in Line” blasting from the stereo, the dank smell of mildew, Iron Maiden’s The Number of the Beast poster on the wall, one thick glass window near the lone unlit light bulb in her new prison, a black light poster of the grim reaper, his glowing eyes surveying the bloody mess.

  Bloody mess indeed, Mack punching Scout after she’d kicked him in the nuts, Lelila slapping her and holding her down, Scout trying to slug her best friend with a haymaker, Mack grabbing her fist and helping Lelila keep her down.

  Everyone breathing hard, the cool air a portent to what chilly events were about to take place, a brown recluse spider crawling on the wall, the fiddleback arachnid making Scout wince.

  The nightmare had begun.

  ***

  “Let me go, you bastard and bitch!” Scout wept. She did her best to glare at Lelila. “I thought you were my best friend!”

  Lelila spat on her face, and the spittle ran down Scout’s nose. “You lick that up, ‘best friend’.”

  The ultimate humiliation; shock brought denial that this was even happening.

  This is a nightmare, and I’m gonna wake up any minute now and be safe in my room.

  Mack scowled at her. “Settle down, beeotch. We just wanna have a little fun with ya.”

  Scout bawled. “I hate you, both of you!”

  “Stop struggling or I’ll knock you out!”

  Scout knew he’d do it, too, as crazy as he was. Would it do any good to fight? Maybe if she could entreat them, play BFF, they would see the error of their ways and let her go.

  Lelila stroked Scout’s red hair. Sweat slicked Scout’s face and body. She didn’t know how Lelila could stand it.

  “Now, Scout,” Lelila said, “I know you’ve thought about swinging both ways.” She giggled. “Don’t tell me you’ve never had a fantasy about what it would be like to have me.”

  “Or me,” Mack added.

  Her stomach turned. “I’d rather have sex with a dog, Mack.” As much as Scout tried to sound tough, it came out whiney. Her cowardice would have to be eradicated if she were going to get out of this alive. She’d have to face her fears and be smart.

  Scout said, “Listen, we go to church, and it’s a sin to have sex outside of marriage—you know that—and …”

  “Shit.” Mack laughed like a madman. “Ain’t none of us in this room brainwashed, Scout. Maybe you ought to know that.”

  Lelila stroked her face. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I’ll be gentle.” She moved her face close to hers as if to kiss her.

  Scout screamed and kneed Lelila in the stomach. She doubled-over and retched, seeming out of breath.

  That’s when Mack clocked Scout.

  The lights went out.

  ***

  In her dream, Scout wandered the streets, having found a way to escape the nightmare in the couple’s basement. She cried out to everybody, desperate for someone to help her. Most kept walking, but all had something embedded into their right hands that she didn’t comprehend. It looked like they’d had surgery between the index finger and the thumb.

  Finally, she found a group of people who would talk to her. So glad to find someone to converse with, Scout thought she’d cry out with relief, but she held it back, not wanting to appear crazy. They explained what was going on. The sodium-arc lights on the street spotlighted her plight, the dark figures surrounding her like a cult, dark shadows that reached out to her from the dingy, old buildings behind them. She shivered in the chilly night air. She was in the south side business district of the city of Mowquakwa, right next to the Bombers’s stadium, a minor league team. A player hit a home run and the crowd
cheered, which was eerily symbolic of what was happening in her waking hours.

  As the crowd around her pontificated about their new leader …

  … Scout woke. Sweat now shellacked her, her hair matted against her scalp. Her head pounded like Excedrin headache number thirty-nine; jabs of white-hot pain screamed on both eyes where she’d been violated with fists.

  Mack and Lelila were working on her.

  Outside, it stormed so vehemently Scout thought their city was being bombed.

  Her friends were crazy, and this was probably the end of the line. Scout would die before her future could start. She’d kissed her parents’ asses for nothing. No college for dead girls.

  Lelila kissed her full on the lips, and Scout now knew it was useless to fight. That would get her knocked out again. She’d heard from her father—an ex-Golden Gloves champion—that too many blows to the head could kill brain cells, leaving her stupid and unemployable if she ever broke out of this dungeon.

  Mack unclasped her skirt.

  Lelila’s glossy lips brought stings of arousal into Scout’s loins, and what good was it to resist now? She was trapped, their sex slave until she figured out a way to escape.

  The truth was, she did want Lelila, to run her fingers through her long raven hair, to caress her tanned hardbody, to have an orgasm from the strokes of her best friend.

  Mack was another matter.

  Lelila slid her some tongue while pulling off her halter top. Scout hated herself for loving the unholy abomination, but what could she do? She’d been taught this was wrong since she was a toddler. Yet here she was, against her will, with no way to escape.

  She would lay there and endure it and, perhaps when Mack joined in, go to another place in her mind as she’d heard so many minors did when becoming victims of rape.

  Mack removed her panties. Scout wanted more than anything to kick him in the face. That would just make him angrier, though. Lelila pulled away from her mouth and kissed the freckles on her chest as she removed Scout’s bra. The hot, wet smooches made her sex tingle.

  Scout became soaked when Lelila put Scout’s left breast into her mouth, sucking voraciously as she looked her in the eye. It felt so good for her “best friend” to slobber on her member.

  Lelila pulled up and giggled, then laughed.

  “Woo-hoo,” Mack cried. “Par-tay!”

  “You’re our little party girl,” Lelila cried. “Damn, you taste fresh.”

  Scout sobbed as Lelila and Mack stood and disrobed.

  “This is rape,” Scout said. “It’s a crime. Think about what you’re doing. If you let me go now, I won’t call the police. We can forget this happened.”

  Mack shook his head while forking her the evil eye. “‘Fraid not, sister. See, we don’t care about gettin’ in trouble. We’re gonna live, live, live till we goddamned die!”

  Lelila flashed a crooked smile. “We gangsta. We all about it. When I said we were gonna party like rock stars, I meant it.”

  Tears gushed from Scout’s eyes. “Please don’t rape me. I’m your friend. If you do, I’ll never forgive you.”

  Mack grinned. “We’re G’s, babe. We just told you we don’t give a shit.”

  Lelila’s nude body was amazing—the body of Venus with arms—tanned, natural-breasted, a triangle of black bush above the pink lips of her sex, not an ounce of fat on her. The girl sunbathed. Every part of her was tanned.

  Mack made her sick, his huge schlong bobbing off his stomach, his white skin like bleached bones. The thought of going all the way with him made her want to vomit.

  Lelila flipped her midnight curls behind her back, her pouty lips and wide eyes telling Scout everything she needed to know about what was about to happen. Again, Scout became aroused.

  Then a horrid thought occurred to her.

  “How long are you going to keep me here?” Scout asked.

  Lelila shrugged. “As long as we wanna.”

  “I’m diabetic,” Scout whimpered. “I need a shot every day. Well, it’s not a shot, but a puncture. It’s in my purse.” This was true, a fact she didn’t share with many people because she had enough social handicaps as it was. She looked up at the basement window. The sun had gone down, and the strobe light and evil music was a symphonic metal concert from hell.

  “Calm down, sweetie.” Lelila moved her lithe body toward the bed. “I’m gonna do you better than anyone ever will.”

  Scout keened as Lelila positioned her sex a few inches over her face. The vaginal stink almost made her puke, the stench a cavern of dead bats leading to a black abyss. Mack spread Scout’s legs and parted her labia.

  “P-p-please don’t,” Scout said. “P-p-please!”

  “You’ll love it.” Lelila sat on her face, suffocating her.

  Mack entered her, rupturing her, for she was a virgin. Warm liquid trickled from her sex. She knew it to be blood. The scent of Lelila’s vagina was so rancid that Scout puked, the loamy discharge making her “bestie” raise her sex so she could watch the vomit gush into the air like a geyser. She bore a wicked grin, and the devil was in her eyes. Then she perched back down on her visage.

  Lelila slapped Scout’s cheek. “Eat it, bitch!”

  Mack thrust into Scout’s sex with the strength of a bull. Someone might as well have bored into her with a stake.

  As she ran her tongue around Lelila’s vagina, Scout went to a better place, her ninth birthday party, when her dad had given her a little electric car so she could cruise around the yard, her mother clapping and laughing.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Scout lay sobbing, wishing she was dead, or that she’d never been born. She wiped her face with the bedsheet where Lelila’s discharge had soaked her visage.

  What did I do to deserve this? I’ve been a good kid all my life, and now I’m in hell.

  Lelila stroked her hair. “I’m sorry, honey. We didn’t mean it to hurt so bad.”

  Scout turned to face her. “Then why did you do it? Why won’t you let me go?”

  Lelila snorted. “We’re just partyin’. You wouldn’t have done it if we hadn’t made you. You’re such a prude. Lighten up.”

  Scout sniffled. “It wouldn’t have been so bad if it had been just you, but … he … ruptured me-he-he.” The waterworks flowed now.

  This was the worst thing that could’ve happened. I wish they’d killed me instead.

  Scout thought of how she could escape. Maybe blindside one of them while the other was out, or in the bathroom. Then, a ray of hope: her mother knew where she was.

  Crushed hope.

  She’d never given her their address.

  “My mom will be looking for me. She knows I’m here.”

  The cool atmosphere endeavored to comfort her flesh now that she wasn’t sweating with exertion. Police sirens wailed outside the window. She could hear gang language and people yelling expletives.

  Lelila answered, “That’s why he picked a place on the south side where no one would know where we were. Not even our parents know.” She hissed. “I hate them anyway.”

  Scout’s heart lurched. If no one knew where she was, how could anyone rescue her? I may be here for a very long time. “W-w-where’s … Mack?”

  “He’s upstairs fixin’ a ham sandwich.” She chuckled. “Sex always makes him hungry.”

  Scout couldn’t fathom someone fixing a sandwich after raping his girlfriend’s best friend. I knew he was scum, but I didn’t think he was a devil. “I need my insulin.”

  “Oh sure. Where is it?”

  “In my purse, in the living room. Will you get it please?”

  “No probs. In a minute.”

  Scout faced her. “Lelila, he hurt me. I’m bored out.”

  Lelila leaned over and checked. “Yeah, there’s a lot of blood.” She snickered. “We popped your cherry. So. Fucking. Hot!”

  Unbelievable. She was never my friend, more like a fiend, a Satan. Not human. “C-can you at least clean me up?”

  Lelila looked
as if she considered this for a few seconds, then shook her head. “We’ll let it clot. Mack likes you bloody—turns him on.”

  Mack’s loud footfalls clomped down the stairs. He held the half eaten sandwich, chomping with mad abandon, a grin on his face. “Mmm, good.” Of course he talked with his mouth full. He swallowed and laughed. “A hot time on the old town tonight!” Something gleamed in his other hand.

  Scout horridly realized what it was and her brain went into a nervous panic. He held … handcuffs.

  “Catch, Lel’.” Mack threw the handcuffs to his girlfriend. “Chain her to the bedpost.”

  “No, please,” Scout begged, her eyes traveling to the bedpost above her. It was made of wood and had a ceiling, a four-poster bed. “I won’t be able to get up and go to the bathroom.”

  Lelila smiled. “We’ll bring you a bedpan.”

  Oh my God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  “Bedpan?” Mack cried, standing over them and grimacing. “Shit. She can piss in an empty bottle of malt liquor and shit in a bucket for all I care.”

  “Mack!” Lelila scolded. “This is our friend, remember?”

  He let out a belly laugh. “Your friend,” he blurted. “My bitch.”

  Scout bounded up and punched Lelila in the face over and over. She’d taken her by surprise, and she should have done it before he came downstairs. She wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

  Then Mack sat on her face, now in his jeans, suffocating her. She twisted her head to try to get a breath, but couldn’t find purchase. Then he pummeled her into submission, punching her in the stomach a number of times. His fists were bricks.

  “Gonna calm down, cunt? If ya don’t, I ain’t getting off you.”

  Scout “Um-hmmed” from under his bulky ass.

  He rose and she gasped for breath. He made like he was going to clock her, but held back. Scout knew her face must have been ghost white.

  “Stay down and fucking behave or I’ll break your nose and your jaw, give you a black—”

  “Mack,” Lelila cried, holding Scout’s face. “Go get the bottle and bucket. Please?”

  Mack reared his fist back and Lelila flinched. For a sickening moment, Scout thought he’d hit her. Then he relented and nodded after taking another bite of the sandwich. “Sure,” he said with his mouth full again. “Be right back.”