T. E. Bakutis, Author

Chapter 01: Why Are We Talking About My Penis?

In his twenty-three years on Earth, Drake had experienced multiple rude awakenings. The cops kicking down his door before dawn because they got the wrong apartment. The cute girl who accidentally kneed him in the crotch the morning after a one-night stand. The time his fire alarm went off because his dumbass roommate used too much cooking oil. This, however, was the first time he’d woken up manacled to a table… while naked.

Just how much had he had to drink last night?

Instead of thrashing in his obviously secure restraints, Drake took stock. He was on his back inside a tall, round tower. A lamp hung off a sloped ceiling three stories up. It provided enough light to show walls of aged brick that formed the inside of an old castle tower.

A closed wooden door sat three stories up, at the end of a set of wooden stairs that wound around the curved wall from where he was. None of this was normal, and his head felt like it was stuffed with cotton balls. Should he scream? Given how scratchy his throat felt right now, he wasn’t looking forward to that at all.

An unfamiliar male voice rose from his right. “Hello? Can you understand me?”

Drake damn near snapped his neck as he looked in that direction. A man stood in the darkness to his right—no, that wasn’t quite correct. Rather, the man was manacled to what looked like a wooden X standing against a dark wall formed of gray bricks. He was also naked.

The first thing Drake needed to see, after waking up strapped to a table, was not another dude’s junk. He focused on the dude’s face. He had a smooth, refined face. Probably a model or something. Also, he had a flat black disc about the same width as a doorknob attached to his chest, on which red LEDs flickered about in odd patterns.

“Who are you?” Drake demanded. “Where am I?” And why are we both naked? he wanted to add. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.

The man on the X smiled, as if learning Drake was capable of speech was a great relief. “My name is Westin, and you are now in a ritual chamber inside Gloomwood Manor. I realize this is distressing, but fear not. If we collaborate and stay calm, we may still escape.”

Drake still felt drugged, and having difficulty focusing on his life before now pissed him off enough that he focused harder. How had he ended up in these manacles? As he struggled for his most recent memories, sensations and visions rose grudgingly from the mental sludge.

As the radio blared and he tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel, the headlights of his truck lit a two-lane highway in the New Mexico desert. There were no other cars out on this highway, not a cop for miles, and the moon was a perfect, gorgeous sphere. It was a good night for a drive through the desert, and as Drake took in the serenity sprawled around him, he pondered pulling off the road and taking in the view before heading home.

A dark-haired woman in a maid’s uniform ran out in front of his speeding truck.

“Sir!” The desperation in Westin’s voice jolted him from the memory. “We have little time before our captor returns. Do you have the ability to open locks?”

Drake was still trying to wrap his head around almost flattening a hotel maid, so he ignored whatever nonsense “Westin” was spouting. Had he hit that woman with his truck? No. He hadn’t pancaked a maid, because he’d swerved off the road to avoid her and then… what?

 Past the broken glass, past his crumpled hood, one of his headlights cut through the darkness. The other wasn’t doing shit. Judging from the way the front of his truck was hugging the thick wooden power pole leaning over his hood, he had run straight into it.

His side hurt. His ribs hurt. Glass glittered all around him, the remains of his shattered windshield, and there was an actual glass shard embedded in his chest. As he tried to touch it, it sliced his fingers open. He was bleeding, and badly. Badly enough he might die.

So he’d hit a power pole by the highway and blacked out, but he hadn’t killed anyone. He hoped. So what happened after that? Had someone found his truck, pulled him from it, and then… chained him to a table in a castle tower? None of that made any goddamn sense.

“Sir!” Westin demanded. “We are in grave danger. I know you are disoriented from travel, but you must push past that unpleasantness and focus on escape. We must escape.”

It seemed obvious Westin wasn’t going to stop badgering him until he at least acknowledged the man’s existence, so Drake decided to hold off on figuring out how he’d gotten here and focus instead on the grave danger. “Escape who, exactly?”

The menacing click of a lock slamming open made Drake jump in his restraints, and Westin’s terrified gasp unnerved him all the more.

“He’s here!” Westin whispered desperately. “Listen. Lord Gloomwood will demand your name, but you must not give it, no matter the pain. With your name, he can dominate you.”

“What?” Drake was now more annoyed than anything. “Why would he want my name?”

Hinges moaned ominously as what sounded like a big door swung open. When the door slammed shut, the whole dungeon shook with a bang that made Drake jerk in his restraints. As he stared up in disbelief, a huge robed figure stepped into view through the open door above.

Drake stared at the tall robed figure standing by his driver’s side door. His wrecked truck sat high, yet this man stood taller. At least six-five. Even in his thick brown robes, it was also clear this man was built like a pro-wrestler.

In the near dark of the cold night, Drake couldn’t see a face inside the raised hood. Just thick brown monk robes and a dark, empty space where a face should be. Shouldn’t there be a face in there? Even roaming wrestler monks should still have faces.

This was that man! That monk! The one who’d approached Drake’s truck after he slammed into that power pole, after he swerved to avoid pancaking a maid! Was this the man who had brought him to this castle tower and manacled him to a table?

The monk’s humming became audible as he descended the stairs with heavy steps, and it wasn’t just that he was disturbingly on key that bothered Drake. This man sounded pleased with himself and life in general, which, given he was descending into a dungeon he owned in which he had restrained two naked people, suggested he was both malicious and insane.

The monk reached the floor of the chamber, pulled back his hood, and smiled as he looked between them. “You are awake. That will make this easier.”

His captor was a tan-skinned, thick-boned man with dark eyes. His beard was a nest of curls that could probably hide a whole family of squirrels. His too-white teeth gleamed as he stared with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Who are you?” Drake demanded. “What do you want?”

“I am Lord Gloomwood,” the man said. “And you are to be my newest slave.”

Oh, fuck that. Drake wasn’t about to become anyone’s slave, but he didn’t have a lot of options at the moment. A still sane part of him knew he should be terrified by all this, but his very real fear was counterbalanced by just how stupid this all was. How unfair.

Why did he have to be the one kidnapped by this desert monk? Why did he end up chained naked to a table? He’d just gone out to grab a six pack and some fucking donuts.

As Drake realized just how pissed off he was to find himself in this situation, he leaned into that emotion. Sheer fucking pettiness. If he was going to die tortured to death in some pro-wrestling LARPers torture dungeon, he would die giving his captor as much shit as possible.

“So you pulled me out of my truck and chained me to this table?”

“I did,” Lord Gloomwood said proudly.

“Because you think you can make me your slave?”

“That is why you are here.”

Drake shook his head in visible disapproval. “Then I’ve got some bad news, pal.”

The monk’s brow furrowed. “Bad news?”

“It’s about all the steroids you’ve been taking. One of the side effects is what we in the business call TDS.”

The monk was looking more confused by the moment. “What are you talking about?”

“Tiny dick syndrome. It’s why your penis is now literally concave.”

“Are you…” The monk now appeared absolutely baffled. “Why are we talking about my penis?”

“Because you chained me to a table instead of taking me in a fight. Only a guy with a tiny dick would do that. So tell me, tiny dick man. Why are you so scared of me?”

The monk’s dark eyes narrowed. “I fear no man.”

 “Then let me loose and see if you can take down someone who’s not chained to a table. Or are you too much of a little bitch to face me without restraints?”

“I have no need to fight you. I have already won.” The monk produced a flat black disc the same size as the one stuck to Westin’s chest. “This is an obedience fetish.”

Drake stared. “Oh I bet it is, you sick fuck.”

“I am going to place this on your chest. It will hurt.”

“Now hold on,” Drake said, as the man approached and the disc began to glow. “I get you’re into this sort of weird shit, but I’m… ah! Aaaahh!”

Drake howled as the disc touched the space between his pecs. Heat seared his chest and core. It felt like he was being burned with a cigarette lighter. When the pain finally snapped away in a flash of red, Drake gasped and collapsed against the table.

The monk spoke again. “Now that you bear my obedience fetish, you must obey my every word. Your body is mine to command.” The man paused. “Give me your name.”

“You must not give it to him!” Westin called. “Resist, my friend!”

As Drake glared at the man who intended to humiliate him, to torture him, to murder him, he finally accepted the ugly truth. He had no way to fight back, no way to resist, except to refuse to give this asshole one more inch. To refuse to give him anything.

Yet holding back didn’t mean he had to remain silent. In fact… remaining silent wouldn’t be near as much fun as fucking with his captor until he couldn’t any longer. So where to start? How to resist? He would start, he supposed, by giving the man an obviously fake name.

“Clint,” he all but growled. “My name is Clint Eastwood.”

He couldn’t wait to see how the old fucker reacted to that.

Still standing upright in the X, Westin gasped. “Oh, Clint. I’m so sorry.”

The robed monk’s smile grew triumphant. “So you see, Clint Eastwood. You have no power to defy me. Now, witness as I force this noble to obey my every command!

Wait just a fucking moment. This man… he’d believed Drake? Just what breed of idiot was he dealing with today? Had this monk lived in the New Mexico desert his whole life?

The monk spun to face Westin once more. “Behold the power of an obedience fetish!”

Drake heard the sound of metal popping. He looked up in disbelief to see that Westin’s shackles had just opened, yet Westin remained standing on the little wooden footpads on the X. The robed man hadn’t touched the manacles at all.

So were the manacles spring-powered? Did the man have a remote stashed away inside his robes? Just how theatrical was this insane monk?

“Westin, step out of your restraints and stand before them.”

Westin, trembling visibly as his muscles seemed to protest, winced as the LEDs in the small disc on his chest glowed. He also stepped out of the restraints and then just… stood there. Even when he had a perfect chance to dodge past the big man and escape.

 “Westin, walk to the sacrificial circle,” the monk said. “Stand there and wait.”

Westin padded off to a darker part of the castle tower. As he did so, Lord Gloomwood turned to Drake once more. “Through the power of my obedience fetish, you must also obey my commands.” The monk raised one hand. “Clint Eastwood! Sit up!”

As the restraints on Drake’s wrists and ankles popped open by remote control, the big monk watched him in silence. After a moment, his brow furrowed. As Drake’s angry and muddled mind scrambled for focus, he remembered how Westin had reacted.

The monk had only just opened his lips to speak again when Drake sat up on the table just like Westin had done. Sitting up was easier than he’d expected. All of the aches and pains he remembered from his wreck really were gone, which… he’d worry about that later.

The monk’s greedy smile returned. “Clint, slide your legs off the table and then stand.”

As Drake obeyed, two facts became blindingly obvious. First, this giant idiot was now laboring under the delusion that he had total control of Drake’s actions. Second… he didn’t.

So while waking up manacled to a table after a car wreck wasn’t great, at least Drake had gotten free without much trouble. This monk’s mistaken belief that he could control people’s minds might even be useful… to Drake. He didn’t know if this man was a serial killer or just the run-of-the-mill psycho, but he did know, now, that this man was a fucking moron.

Drake could not even begin to imagine how stupid someone would have to be to not only accept that he was named Clint Eastwood, but also believe he could control Drake’s body. This was his chance to escape. He might be naked and unarmed, but at least he wasn’t an idiot.

And even he could escape a stupid serial killer.

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