Shank

Before

Demon.

Fuck, I missed that rat.

The stuffed one that I’d given to the kid was named after my own pet rat. Demon had been with me a long time. So had all his babies. But, really, they had been my babies, and that was what I had called the hundreds of offspring Demon had produced.

The babies had had their own room at the prison. They’d fed on our inmates while they were still alive or dead, whichever I decided they deserved at the time.

They’d had a perfect life and delicious food. I’d made sure of that.

But Demon hadn’t been like his children, nor had he lived in the same room as them. He’d stayed in mine, and he had been my fucking partner in crime. He’d observed all the inmates I tortured. He had seen my cock get hard and the cum spill into the pools of blood. He’d hung out with Beard and Diego. He’d watched while I fucked Toy. Just like the kid and his rat, Demon had come with me wherever I went.

We had more in common than I’d thought.

When the kid had come to live with us, I’d told Beard he needed to get the kid a pet. A live one. So, I had gotten a cage, put one of the babies inside it, and stuck it in the nursery. After only a few hours, Tyler had thrown the cage away and set the rat free on the beach. She’d said it carried diseases, and she hadn’t wanted her son around it.

What about what I wanted for our son?

That was a question I’d asked her once when we were alone.

I remembered her hand slapping me in the face and, “Don’t you ever say that again,” had spit from her mouth.

She was such a feisty cunt.

Since she wouldn’t let the kid play with a real one, I’d bought him a stuffed rat during one of my trips to the States. And, when I’d returned, I had given it to him in front of all the guards, so everyone could see his gift, and they would all notice if it went missing.

That had infuriated Tyler.

Her anger made me happy.

So did the news that the kid had taken the rat with him when he left the prison. They’d fled in such a hurry without much time to pack or grab all the essentials; therefore, I never thought the rat had made the cut.

But, back then, I didn’t know what had been taken or left behind.

I just knew that I’d lost.

The kid.

Toy.

Demon.

And everyone else in my life.

Christ, I didn’t want to think about those memories. I’d done enough of that shit during my time in this prison. Fortunately, the kid hadn’t asked about those days. He’d asked about someone I enjoyed as much as blood.

My Toy.

I’d always preferred men to women, and I’d tasted plenty of both until we got together.

But no one had ever tasted anything like Toy.

I could endlessly talk about him. I just didn’t want to talk about the end.

That part hurt way too fucking much.

It had been a while since I went back to that beginning, and my cock was already getting hard as I began to rewind things in my head.

I reached across my blankets to the pile of paper, grabbed a sheet, and started writing.

Was I the kind of guy who was capable of love?

Based on everything I’d told you, you probably assumed I wasn’t. I could understand why you would think that way, and before Toy, I hadn’t thought I was either. But, once I met him, I had feelings that I’d only ever gotten from blood, and that was fucking confusing.

It’d all begun when I was back in San Diego, during a weekend off from the prison. I’d flown home to spend some time with my father. He was short-staffed and had asked if I would help out.

So, I was in the Gaslamp Quarter, dropping off a few bags of pills to one of the bar owners, and that was when I saw Toy. He was outside the bar I was at, feeding pigeons the ashes from his cigarette. It was one of the hottest things I’d ever seen.

But Toy was somewhat of a mess. It was a cool day, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. His jeans sagged low on his crack, and there was a chain hanging out of his pocket with nothing attached to it.

What fucking guy wears a chain with no wallet?

A broke-ass one or one who doesn’t give a shit.

My Toy was both.

I stood inside the bar, watching him, until he ran out of ash. Then, he stomped out the cig and started walking. Something, I wasn’t sure what, made me follow him, and I stayed a few feet behind as he headed down the sidewalk. I was hunting him, like I had done before I built my playground, and it was the biggest turn-on.

It didn’t seem like he had anywhere to be or a destination in mind. He never stopped to catch his breath, never checked out a menu from one of the restaurants, never spoke to anyone he passed.

He just walked.

And I followed.

I had no fucking idea what I would say to him whenever we ended up speaking. I just knew I couldn’t leave without hearing his voice.

The chance happened sooner than I’d thought.

On the other side of the crosswalk was a bench. As soon as Toy made it across, he stopped behind it, leaning against the backside of the metal armrest. I paused at the entrance of the sidewalk, my feet balancing on the curb.

Only his profile showed, his eyes focused on the ground, as he said, “I must have something you want because I shoulda lost you by now.”

“You interest me.”

“Why’s that?”

“Maybe it’s the chain. Or the ass crack I’ve been staring at for the last ten blocks. Or the scratches on your back.” They were red and deep, and I could tell they’d come from a human. “I want to leave my own set of marks on you.”

He finally turned around, and we made eye contact. “What kind of marks?”

Jesus, he’s fucking hot.

His looks wouldn’t scream at someone who was searching for perfection. Toy’s face was far from that. The scars on his cheeks told me he’d been in several fights. His nose had been broken and never properly healed. But what made him so goddamn sexy were his eyes and the lightness in his expression. Toy looked at me as though he already trusted me, enough so that he’d first spoken to me without even turning around.

No one did that.

At least not someone who valued their life.

Nothing about me was trusting or carefree. I thrived on control, and so did the men I worked with. I needed to spend some time with someone like him. Someone light. Someone who didn’t need anything from me.

“I want to take two metal hooks and pierce them through your flesh, right over the top of your shoulder blades,” I said. “Then, I want to clamp you to a set of wires and raise you into the air. While blood is dripping from the holes in your back, forming a pool on the floor, I want your dick to be in my mouth. I want your cum on my tongue. I want to swish that shit between my teeth like it’s fucking mouthwash, and then I want to spit it into my hand and wipe it onto my face. I don’t care if it stinks, if it peels, if it irritates my skin; I’m not washing you off. Before I let you get dressed, I want to mark you by biting Ss all over your body.”

I expected him to take a swing at me. I didn’t even know if he liked cock or if he was only into pussy.

But he didn’t raise his fist at all. What he did next made me want to bend him over the bench and shove my cock in his ass, bareback.

He said, “I’m ready. Let’s make it happen.”

He then started walking again. Only this time, I led.

That was my boy.

He didn’t need to think; he just knew.

And it made my dick even harder for him.

For a while, I would only see Toy when I came back to San Diego on my days off. That lasted about a year, and then the prison started getting busier, and I wasn’t able to fly to the States as often as I had before. In the time between our visits, I found myself wondering what the hell he was up to, where he was sleeping, who he was fucking. I was getting angrier, more violent than I already was. My father, the shrink, told me it was my mind’s way of missing Toy.

My father was probably right.

I just knew I didn’t like having those feelings.

So, I explained to Toy what I did when I was out of town—a topic I’d avoided until now—and I offered him a job.

He took it immediately, and he became one of our sweepers, meaning he cleaned out the cells after the prisoners were executed, he prepared food when the guards were too busy, he tossed the limbs into The Pit once they were severed off. He did all the bitch work, and he never complained.

When he wasn’t working, he was in my bed, constantly trying to please me.

And I found myself with the strongest desire to nurture him.

Toy had been on his own since he was sixteen. He’d learned to fend for himself, to survive on practically nothing. It was time someone spoiled him, and that person was going to be me.

Things were smooth for a while, but they didn’t stay that way.

Toy had a rough time handling what went on at the prison. He drank a lot and took a shit-ton of pills. They made him feel carefree again. They made him forget. They made all the death tolerable.

The cocktail almost killed him.

More than once.

But there were times when the combination of the liquor and pills made him so carefree that I took things extra far, like the night he told me his teeth got in the way of sucking my cock. If Toy wanted his teeth out, I’d make it happen.

And I did.

I took a hammer and knocked out the two front ones. Jesus, he gummed my dick like nothing I’d ever felt.

It wasn’t enough for him.

He wanted to feel my flesh between his tongue. The only way to make that happen was to saw it in the middle, stopping halfway down. He said it was for him, so he could please me in a way he couldn’t before. But the torture I put him through, the blood that drained from his mouth, was all for me. I covered myself in it. Coated it over my cock. Then, I came right in the pool of it.

It made me so fucking happy, and I hadn’t even killed him.

I’d ripped out plenty of tongues in that prison. I’d just never split any of them, so I didn’t know how long it would take to heal. Within a few weeks, he was able to test it out. Now, both sides could move. They could wrap; they could rub against my shaft.

Nothing had ever felt better.

I loved it.

And I loved him.

Fuck, I still do.