Fog by Jeff Mann.pdf

other books by

Jeff Mann

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A History of Barbed Wire

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Ash: Poems from Norse Mythology

On the Tongue

Bones Washed with Wine

Essays

Binding the God: Ursine Essays from the Mountain South Edge: Travels of an Appalachian Leather

Bear Loving Mountains, Loving Men

fog

FOG

A Novel of Desire and Reprisal

Jeff Mann

FOG: A NOVEL OF DESIRE AND REPRISAL

utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy-ing, microfi lm, and

recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the

publisher.

Published in 2011 by Bear Bones Books,

an imprint of Lethe Press, Inc.

118 Heritage Avenue • Maple Shade, NJ 08052-3018

www.lethepressbooks.com • lethepress@aol.com www.BearBonesBooks.com • bearsoup@gmail.com

ISBN: 1-59021-359-9

ISBN-13: 978-1-59021-359-9

Set in Hoefl er Text, Berylium, and Warnock.

Interior design: Alex Jeff ers.

Cover artwork/design: Fred Tovich.

This book, in whole and in part, is a work of fi ction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are

the products of the author’s imagination or are used fi ctitiously, and any re-semblance to actual persons,

living or dead, business estab-lishments, clubs or organizations, events, or locales is entirely

coincidental.

acknowledgments

Portions of this novel appeared in Taken by Force: Erotic Stories of Abduction and Captivity , edited by

Christopher Pierce, and in Kept Against His Will—Taken by Force Volume II: More Erotic Stories of

Abduction and Captivity , edited by Christopher Pierce.

For Christopher Pierce, Steve Berman, Sven Davisson, and Ron Suresha. Many, many thanks for your

ongoing support!

My gratitude as well to Alex Jeff ers, who designed the in-terior, and Fred Tovich, who designed the

cover. Thanks for making such a handsome book!

ONE

Life being what it is,

one dreams of revenge.

—Paul Gauguin

chapter one

JANUARY IS THE month of mists. The cove’s full of white this morning, making fuzzy shapes of the

spruce trees surrounding the house. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that someone had plastered the

windowpanes with translucent paper, that we were moored inside a pearl. The glass of the pane is frigid

beneath my touch. Winter’s dedicated to invasions, insisting on its right to enter whom it will.

The fog’s pallor continues inside. The pale body on the bed is silent yet, and still, as if carved from

cloudy quartz.

The only movement this sleeping sculpture makes is the almost imperceptible rise and fall of breath.

White, white, wrapped, here and there, in strips of silver-gray.

He’s been out for many hours, a chemically induced unconsciousness that’s held over two days and

several state lines.

My fi ngers still chilled by the windowpane, I bend down and caress his bare belly. Smooth, solid, warm.

Skin satiny with youth. I drop to my knees by the bed, kiss his forehead, and suck gently on his hard little

nipples.

“Rob,” I whisper. “Rob Drake.”

Jeff Mann

No response. I sigh, rise, and settle into a rocking chair to wait. The air is very cold. I’m thankful for my

rag wool sweater, the heat of the coff ee cup in my hand.

Soon my partner Jay will be home for lunch. Soon Rob will wake. Until then, I want simply to sit here in

this silent, fog-swathed house and watch our captive sleep.

JAY DROPS THE Sonic bag on the kitchen table and un-peels his army jacket. His real name’s Jeff , but

I’ve learned to call him Jay. Jay and Al: we’ve been coaching ourselves for a year now, ever since this

plan began in earnest, to call one another by pseudonyms. We don’t want to give Rob any auditory

evidence, in case we decide one day to let him loose, which is a big If. A pit in the forest fl oor is a more

preferable denouement, as far as Jay is concerned.

“Drake still out?” asks Jay.

I nod, dumping out the bag’s contents: fi ve containers of tater tots, fi ve foot-longs.

“That extra’s for him. Feed him when he comes to.”

I nod again. I do a lot of nodding around Jay. Have ever since we met in that D.C. bear bar. Something

about his brawny frame, intense eyes, bushy black eyebrows, and deep voice always seems to make him

convincing and make me obedient. From ex-con’s drinking buddy to ex-con’s lover to ex-con’s

accomplice in a kidnapping. Not the smartest series of moves I’ve made. Nevertheless, here I am sharing

a house with not one but two men I feel passionately about.

Jay and I sit in silence for a good while, chewing on our dogs, before I say, “You know, it’s really chilly

in here, and I—”

Jay interrupts. He does that a lot, as if trying to spare me from articulating yet another stupid thought. “I

want it chilly.

I want him to suff er. If you’re cold, put on another layer. I want that little shit shaking and whining. No

blankets. Don’t 4

fog

coddle him, Al. He isn’t a guest, he’s a captive. You know what his father did. Just ’cause you think he’s

pretty…okay, I think he’s pretty too…but he isn’t your sweet boy, he’s my tool. Okay?”

“Yes, Jay,” I sigh. I need to toughen myself, I know. Jay has reminded me time and time again that Rob

deserves what he gets. Sins of the father, and all that.

That’s when the noise begins upstairs, behind the thick door of the back bedroom, the ragged cries that

Jay’s handiwork has so eff ectively muffl

ed.

Jay grins and takes another bite of his second dog. “Sounds like our boy’s up.” When I rise, Jay grabs my

forearm. “Sit down and fi nish your lunch. Let him roll around a little and wonder where the hell he is. No

one can hear him out here.”

As usual, I obey. I sit down and dip a tater tot in ketchup.

The noises continue, shouts for help dammed up by rubber and tape. We move to the living room to share

one of Jay’s hand-rolled cigarettes. “You’re right, Al. Sure is cold in here,”

Jay says. “Maybe tonight we’ll start us up a fi re.” He pulls an afghan over our laps and leans back into

the couch’s plump pillows. The noises continue, dull thump of a body hitting the fl oor, bare heels

drumming hardwood. Jay puff s out a series of smoke rings and smiles. Mists swirl like curdled silence

beneath the spruce. The noises pause, then continue: hap-less pounding, stifl ed cries, glass shattering.

“Don’t have to be back to work till two today,” says Jay, snuffi ng the cigarette.

Stretching out on the couch, his head nestled in my lap, he slips into a nap. I stroke his worn, stubbly,

beloved face and listen to Rob’s fear. Distant, muted. Sharp edges wrapped in gauze.

chapter two

HALF-HOODS, JUST IN case Rob ever manages to dislodge his blindfold: black leather, with eye-holes.

We look pretty frightening in them, and, as Jay likes to point out, fright is what this foray into abduction is

all about. Our prisoner’s yelled and thrashed on and off through Jay’s lengthy nap, but the silence

prevailing now behind the padlocked back bedroom door indicates that he’s worn himself out.

Jay unlocks the door and eases it open. Rob’s no longer on the bare mattress where we left him. He’s

lying on the fl oor on his side, blindfolded and gagged, bound hand and foot, back against the far wall. His

chest’s heaving, his head’s raised and cocked toward the sound of our entrance. Signs of his struggle

scatter the room: mussed throw rugs, a tipped-over chair, a shattered lamp.

“Here’s our boy,” Jay says sweetly. “Active little shit, aren’t you? Broke a lamp too.” He rights the

furniture, then strides over and, without a word of warning, kicks Rob in the gut with his steel-toed work

boot.

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