Toys and Tentacles

There was no indication that the social contracts had ended and lawlessness began. At first, it was only a creeping suspicion, paired with the Mardi Gras-esque celebration of its residence in these city streets. No one warned me what I was getting into when I passed the invisible threshold. There should have been a guard or something to keep the rabble like myself out.

I am rabble, I will admit. There's nothing special about me. I wasn't born rich and I don't have connections or insane talent that might grant me access to a place like this, not like I wanted to be here. Nor was I a great and innocent beauty the likes of which I had to wade through just to find my way back.

Truly, my arrival was a mistake.

Before I could turn my car around and leave, the celebrations had become thick on the streets, so thick, I was forced to park my hunk-a-junk and hoof it to find somewhere to stay, if I could. I was largely ignored by the passerby, finding it strange that one woman had her breasts exposed, with another woman neck deep in them while several men watched. I averted my gaze and continued, content with the fact that it was an anomaly.

My first stop was a convenience store, or what must have been a convenience store at one time. Rather than a pay counter and an underpaid employee, two individuals, a man and a woman, almost entirely naked, danced for a small gathering of hungry-eyed old men. I might've considered that I stepped into a strip club by accident. I was only searching for someone to answer my questions, so when all their heads turned towards me, I froze.

Two individuals came in behind me, loud and angry. Hands shoved me aside and into a display of dusty sunglasses, while the new arrivals ran their mouths at the strange crowd. One of them had a gun. Bullets exploded from his AK and mowed down both the entertainers and the entertained equally. The assailants laughed among themselves as their victims fell. But the worst part was, though I was a third-party spectator to this slaughter, was the look on the woman's face. She'd not feared the shooters, but donned a great sadness as bullets ripped her bare chest open.

The tip of the hot rifle seared my throat, and the assailant asked, "Player or toy?"

Tears had formed. I didn't know what to say. What sort of question was that? How could they kill with impunity? I tried to stutter out an answer, my limbs shaking, likely bleeding from my elbow where I'd landed, and unable to muster a coherent sentence.

Before the assailant decided what I was, his grinning buddy clapped him on the shoulder. "Not a toy yet, motha' fucka'. Let's roll."

The burn of the gun was gone, and so were the assailants.

I rose to my knees on trembling limbs, averting my eyes from their destruction. I found myself out on the street once more, this time, with blood on my conscience.

But the world outside was the same as I'd left it. It seemed as if no one had heard the gun go off, or didn't care. The shock of the murders drove me to the safest

looking

building on the block. It was tall and new, with a garage at the highest level.

When I entered, still shaking, men in suits shouldered by me, offering accusing looks as they passed. People in brilliant costumes and beautiful gowns, or nothing at all, also passed without acknowledgement. And at the center, there were two women that looked about as bored as secretaries should be.

They screamed normalcy in a world tilted upside down.

Even as I approached, they reeked of supreme disinterest at my existence. That also felt normal. My voice was thick with tears when I spoke. "Hello, please, you have to help me. There- there was a shooting right outside."

The first defining moment was the lack of change in her expression. It shook me almost worse than the massacre itself. "The cleaners are already on it," she said, waving me as if I were a pest. "If this is your first time here, why don't you have an escort?"

"E-escort?"

She rolled her eyes and issued a disgusted scoff. "

Yes

, an escort. Jesus, these newbies can be fucking slow, huh?"

Her partner laughed even as she picked up a phone to rectify my situation. "Thanks, Leon," she said, offering me the same dismissive annoyance. "One'll be out in a minute."

I was stunned again by the harsh language by such a professional woman, as well as their offhanded reference to a 'cleaner'. At that moment, I was beginning to understand the gravity of the situation, but not entirely so. I still clung to the doubt that I was dreaming, or I'd fallen into an alternate reality, because the reality I knew would never allow for such baseless chaos to flourish.

A dark man in a dark suit stepped out from a side door and came straight to me. "Good evening. They told me you needed an escort."

I glanced in the secretary's direction, was staunchly ignored, and turned back to my 'escort'. "I- um. I don't think I'm supposed to be here."

He offered a generous smile, flashing beautiful teeth. "Let's get you sorted out. Is this your first time? Perhaps you got separated from your group?"

"A-are you Leon?"

"Rich, actually. It's a pleasure to meet you..." He waved a hand for me to introduce myself.

"Beth," I said out of entrenched propriety. "Where- am I?"

"It'll probably be best if I show you." Rich held the byzantine glass door for me, stalling the traffic. "What have you seen so far?"

My core was growing cold from witnessing a slaughter, so I told him that, as coherently as my stuttering, shivering body could. Even as I spoke, I heard the scream of a woman in pain. Laughter from several men followed.

My escort ignored it. "It's an uncommon fetish, to be certain. We don't often get guests with that sort of demand, but it's not unheard of. What about you? What gets you off?"

The remaining heat drained from my face. "Get's me- off?"

"Sure, that's why you're here, right?"

"No, I- I took a wrong turn. I'm not... I'm not part of

this

."

Rich's smile broadened. "That's alright. You're here now. We just have to figure out now if you're a player or a toy."

"What- what does

that

mean?"

"It means," he said, guiding me through the thickening crowd on the sidewalk. "-that we need to know how much social capital you have, and where that puts you on the scale. Players get their pick of the toys available to them, to do with whatever they want. If you've got enough social capital, or at least someone with enough to vouch for you, then you can have your pick of whomever interests you, barring other players, of course." The devil smiled at me through Rich, polite and genteel, without the slightest trace of malice.

I stopped in my tracks.

He cocked a brow. "What's wrong, Beth?"

My stutter arrived again. "I- I can't- this isn't- I'm not a-"

"It's alright," Rich said, rubbing my back. "No one is allowed to touch you with me here. We'll get you sorted and you can be on your way after the crowd dissipates."

Social capital

. Those words clung to me as he led me through the crowd onto a less populated walk. Buildings were erected for the sole purpose of pleasure or pain or whatever sick games these people were interested in. I hadn't yet come to terms with the notion that someone had gotten their rocks off by gunning people --

toys

-- down.

The whole system hinged on this 'social capital', I quickly learned.

"Here we are." He held another door for me, leading to a quiet buffet room with only three patrons gorging themselves in the far corners of the establishment. He sat my stunned ass down with all the gentlemanly airs one would expect from a dedicated manservant. "Help yourself to the food. There's no charge here."

My gut shriveled, and I couldn't imagine eating anything. "What about the- the social- thing?"

"They're already working on it. The moment you came into the city, we got a profile for you. We just have to wait it out and see what the results are. Please," he said, signaling to the menu. "-order whatever you'd like."

Cautiously, I picked up the menu. The words made sense individually, but my fright leaded my brain so it slogged through the words until true horror pierced me. There were things on that menu I would never repeat, the stuff of my nightmares even now. With my senses heightened in fear, I began to notice, too, that the patrons were feasting on those very same dishes.

I threw my chair back and stood, wavering, resisting the urge to vomit.

Rich stood, too, snatching up the menu and hailing down a black-suited waitress. "Ah, I'm so sorry. You should've only seen the clean menu. Here," he said, offering me the new menu the waitress had brought. "These should look more familiar."

I gripped the back of the chair with white knuckles, taking in shallow breaths. How could I eat anything after seeing such monstrous culinary creations?

Evil

was the only word for it. I shook my head at Rich when he insisted.

All I knew was I needed to get out of here. Soon.

But I didn't even have time to plan my escape when the restaurant door flew open, and an entourage of men entered. They were all in suits, some more generously built than others. All but one, who headed the group with a keen eye and a commanding presence. Even the gorging cannibals looked up from their plates to gape.

I

was the only anomaly, so it followed that his gaze landed on me, first. Bright curiosity illuminated his green eyes, a hard edge, like a knife, cut through me as if I'd been dissected for his viewing alone. Then the gaze passed on, and I was left gutted and speechless.

Rich kept apologizing over the menu. He'd seen the newcomers, certainly, but his only focus was me. I couldn't hear him but for the fact that the head suit had done all but skewered me in front of everyone. At that point, I was content to find my car and weep until I could drive out of here.

In the course of thirty minutes, I'd seen murder and rape and cannibalism and events that are still locked away in my mind, never to be thought of again. I know I simply won't be able to handle the remembrance.

Rich seated me again, promising that the food would be properly prepared and not... contaminated... with the other dishes being made. He insisted, likely trying to delay me from bolting from the establishment.

One of the patrons that had been here when we arrived stood from his plate and ambled over to us. He was massive, overfilling his custom-made britches, and I knew the red stain on his shirt was not ketchup. "Player or toy?" he asked with a grin.

"It's to be decided, sir," Rich said in my defense. "You'll have to choose someone else."

"Looks like a toy to me." The big man grabbed me by the arm and dragged me against his fleshy stomach. Another fat hand found my hair and yanked my head back, so I was forced to look at him. "Got some good meat on those bones, princess. You know they have ovens back there big enough to fit a hog? Ever been bound and gagged? I swear it's a heap of fun. For me, at least."

Rich put a hand on his arm. "Sir. She's not fair game yet."

A surprisingly quick, fat elbow connected with Rich's jaw, sending him reeling back, though he popped back up right away and tried to disengage the cannibal.

My breath was coming fast now, trapped in this cannibal's arms. He shoved me to the table and put all his weight on me, slamming his oversized lips against mine as if to suck the life out of me. I writhed ineffectually as he made a mockery of the kiss, his hot meaty breath rising the bile in my throat.

Somehow, he managed to turn me round under his weight, ripping my clothes off in great tears. Other patrons, especially the new group, were watching the spectacle with different shades of interest. Rich's protests were ignored by the patron, who was using my own shredded clothes to bind me, squeezing my flesh painfully until I was curled into a naked ball on the table, unable to squirm at all. Tears blinded me, and I wondered if this was it.

A fat hand clapped my bare ass, while fingers delved inside me without regard to my muffled cries.

"This is entirely inappropriate, sir!" Rich kept on, but the patron wasn't listening.

"Inappropriate, my ass," he said, shoving a third finger deep inside me, jamming irreverently. "She's a toy, plain as fuckin' day. And I want 'em soft when they go in the oven, or it ruins the meat."

He's done this before

, I thought in horror, remembering the sad resignation on the woman's face who was gunned down. They knew. They all knew their fates. These 'toys' with little social capital, and no one to vouch for them.

I couldn't stop a moan when he stuck a finger in my second hole, hating this wretched cannibal and his greed that demanded my life. I squeezed my eyes shut, praying to no one at all to be saved from this sheer human evil.

A commanding tone broke the man's rhythmic violation of me. "You're impeding on my guest."

The cannibal withdrew. "And who the fuck are-"

A blast exploded, and something big hit the floor. My core throbbed where his fingers had been, my skin icy where his sweat was still cooling. When a hand touched me, I jumped, even in my bound state, and let out a muffled cry. "Calm, pet. I wasn't going to let that insipid glutton eat you."

Tears of relief and fright slid down my cheek, and I opened my eyes to see a face I recognized from the group of newcomers. The green-eyed man that had stunned me with his gaze alone.

"I'm sorry sir," Rich said, brushing down his suit. "She's still not decided either way."

"I'll take it from here, Richard. Thank you."

My bindings were cut and my miserable body was released. I ripped the gag off and sucked in a fresh breath, realizing I was seated entirely naked on the table. Some of the patrons still stared. The cannibal was lying facedown on a growing pool of blood.

Rich offered a polite nod and left me with the player.

He'd saved me for his own lecherous interests, I was certain of it. I cupped my breasts for modesty's sake and hung my head. "I didn't mean to- to come here. It was an accident. Please," I begged, daring to meet his gaze. "I just want to leave. I won't say anything."

The green-eyed man offered a humored smile. "It was ridiculous for your escort to bring you to this venue, of all places. The patrons don't often have self-control, which is why they're

here

. Come," he said, shrugging off his dark jacket and draping it over my shoulders. "I doubt being eaten is at the top of your list of fetishes." He helped me step down from the table, and I avoided the cannibal's corpse on tiptoe. "I take it this is your first time here?"

My core quaked, and I couldn't speak.

"You've had a fright. Likely a few. Let's get you somewhere comfortable."

His entourage followed us out of the establishment. The crowd parted for him, eyeing me with more curiosity than before. Some ogled at my nudity, others offered looks of pity or resignation. When my ankle failed me, I was scooped up into his arms.

It gave me time to wipe my eyes and assess the danger I was in. Rich was gone, my only advocate in this bastardized getaway, and I still didn't know what my social capital was.

Due to the trauma, my brain began to shut down. And by shut down I mean a great gap of time disappeared from my memory. Through the haze of trauma, I distantly recalled being lowered into warm water, accompanied by several sets of hands that scrubbed and caressed me. The moans were those of women, their gaze fixated on me alone.

I came-to as they were drying me off with the same consideration they'd scrubbed. They revered my body as if theirs weren't superior in every way, expertly teasing my kinky hair into something that didn't resemble a bee's nest. I lost myself to their touch. That player was around, certainly, but after a time I couldn't care, my body surging in response to their tender handling.

A mouth found mine. This one soft and welcome compared to the cannibal's wretched kiss. It was a male's sigh that I inhaled but when I opened my eyes, his were nut brown, not the piercing green I'd recognize, even then.

A hand slipped between my legs, one that did not belong to the man kissing me. It was a woman's delicate touch as she found me already wet. I bucked against the sensation, murmured laughter growing around me as bathers ogled and fondled me.

Brown-eyes broke from the kiss, only to be replaced by one of the females. Her golden skin pressed against mine as she claimed my mouth. It was the sweetest kiss I'd ever tasted, tender yet fierce in its insistence. Someone else pressed their mouth to my sex, forcing a gasp from me. I surged again, only to be caught by several hands, and I wasn't on the silk sheets any longer.

There was flesh behind, below, and above me. I lost myself again, though this time to the greatest of ecstasies. I bit my lip when I came, my core clenching of its own volition. I'd nearly forgotten the chaos that raged outside, focused only on these reverent lovers. I didn't even know their names.

Even as I lay in their embrace, sweating and panting, no one had entered me. I'd not once felt the press of a man's cock against me, as if this were merely a warm-up to some main event. My eyes fluttered as I realized the green-eyed man had abandoned me with these insatiable, beautiful people. I was a knockoff among the genuine articles.

Someone caught my earlobe between their teeth, someone else ran their nails down my thighs, my body flaring with the heightened sensations. And simultaneously I wished to be released from them, while my body demanded more.

But rather than rubbing me to finish, the hoisted me up so I was vertical for the first time in hours. Those reverent hands held and cupped and groped, and bindings lashed my wrists, their velvet interior holding gently and securely. I didn't have the mind to argue this, thinking, perhaps, that this was only another step in their game.

Then the hands were gone, and cool air caressed me, instead. I opened my eyes to find myself alone in a dim, richly decorated room. Furs were scattered on the ground below me but otherwise, the place was empty. I tugged on the bindings, and for the first time since regaining consciousness, fear trickled in. However horrid the cannibal had been, the green-eyed man had incredible influence, which made him that much more dangerous.

When a door behind me opened, I was already weeping.

I squeezed my knees shut against an impending intrusion, but found my womanhood enflamed with the prior passion, throbbing hard between my clenched thighs. I bit back a moan.

The door closed.

I hoped they'd taken one look and left. I couldn't stand the thought of someone watching me while I was hung on display like this, entirely at their mercy. I lowered my head and listened. Even if I cried out for help, I would not get it. I was frightened, not stupid.

There was nothing but silence.

I let out a quiet breath, forcing my wild heart to slow. I'd forgotten why I was passing through this city at all in the heat of my trauma and passion.

"Perfect," a voice resonated from behind me. "But I already knew that."

My heart sank with dread, the heat leaving my face. I rioted against the bindings anew. "Let me go!"

Hands caught me, stilling my pointless struggle, then wandered to my breasts, giving them a generous squeeze. His heady musk rolled over my shoulder as he spoke. "How did you enjoy the bath?"

I shook my head, then shook it again. No words.

A chuckle, another squeeze, and the heat of his body was against my bare back. "You're a toy according to your profile, pet. And you know what that means."

Resignation found me upon hearing the word 'toy'.

"That means," he continued, catching my jaw and tilting my head to the side, so that he had access to my cheek. "-you're lucky I pulled you off the street before someone else got their hands on you. Like the cannibal." He kissed my jaw gently.