Nate's Evil Exploits

* * * * *

After losing his shit at Savage Palace, a high end sex club in London, Nate finds himself locked in one of Spain's abandoned prisons with a group of hungry sadists.

* * * * *

Nate was dreaming. In his dream his mother bent over him, waking him from sleep. He knew he must be small, because he hadn’t slept in a proper bed past the age of ten.

“Get up Nathan, get up sweetheart, mummy needs you to help her with something.”

Nate obediently pulled back the covers and got out of bed, clutching Mr Bear to his chest, the stuffed toy dressed in blue striped pyjamas that matched his own.

His mother led him by the hand into the lounge where her dealer waited.

He woke with a start on a hard bunk bed, the mattress under him made of some foam apparently designed to simulate concrete.

His eyes burned as he tried to bring the room into focus, succeeding in making out four walls and a barred window. If there was anything else in the room, he couldn’t see it.

His whole body ached as he sat up, his head fogged from the heat, his mouth dry. He put a hand to his lips to find them chapped and bleeding.

He blinked to clear the sleep from his eyes and looked around again. He’d been wrong—the room wasn’t empty. There was a toilet and a sink.

He’d been in prison once or twice in his youth, mostly in holding cells, and this had the same vibe... but was subtly different somehow. Despite the stifling heat, there was an earthy smell in the air he associated with tiled floors and basements.

He looked down and realised he was dressed in a bright orange top and trousers. And obnoxiously orange canvas shoes.

How the hell had he got here? His last memory was a grimy snapshot of a blue, padded room. There was something else. Something bad. He could feel it in his gut. Either he’d seen something bad... or done something bad.

He fought with his frayed mind, struggling to put fragments of memory together in a way that made sense.

A voice rang out from the corridor outside his cell.

“Párese y haga frente a la pared!”

Nate could see a short man standing in the corridor through the window in the metal door.

While Nate knew very little Spanish, he caught the word ‘pared’, and knew it meant ‘wall’, and figured from the man’s tone of voice that he was to stand up and face one.

He got up and placed his hands against the wall and the guard unlocked the cell.

“Ponga sus manos detrás de su espalda!”

Nope. He had no idea what any of those words meant.

The guard clouted the back of his head, then forced his hands behind his back and fastened them together with handcuffs.

Of course. He should have figured that one out, really.

The man began to rail at him in Spanish and Nate shook his head.

“I don’t understand! No entiendo!”

The man stopped speaking and grabbed his arm, pulling him towards the cell door.

The guard led him past rows of cream-coloured metal doors, escorting Nate through another locked door into an administration block.

He pushed open the door to a small room that held a square table and two chairs, and forced Nate to sit, securing his cuffed hands to the back of the chair.

“Stay,” the guard said, annunciating the word with derision.

He locked the door as he left.

Nate looked around, searching for anything he could use as a weapon, but the room held nothing useful. No windows. No convenient items that could be pulled off the walls and used as weapons, no air conditioning vents that he could escape through. It was almost as if whoever had designed the prison hadn’t wanted people to leave.

How the fuck had he ended up in jail? What the fuck had he done? And why couldn’t he remember any of it?

He heard voices outside the door and a short time later a large man pushed it open.

Nate shrank down in his chair as he strode into the room.

The guard locked the door behind him as the man sat opposite Nate, pushing his chair back to accommodate his girth.

Colin rested his hands on the table, his eyes shining with dark joy.

“That look. That look! It’s all been worth it to see that look.”

Nate stared at him, his heart pounding.

Colin placed a gun on the table in front of him.

Nate fixed his gaze on the weapon, almost dizzy now with fear.

“Now, I’m not going to hurt you,” said the big man, his broad Manchester accent like fingers pressed against Nate’s eardrums. “Unless you fight me. If you fight me, I shall hurt you very, very badly. Do you understand?”

Nate stared at the gun.

“Do you fucking understand, you fucking chav scum?”

Nate’s eyes slowly lifted to meet the other man’s gaze. “What did you call me?”

“That’s what you are, ‘innit’? A fucking council-housed, violent piece of shite, from a family comprised entirely of shite.”

Nate fixed his gaze on the wall behind Colin.

“After you fucked my marriage up the arse, I went rifling through your past like the shit-stained copy of the Sun it turned out to be. How you must hate your mum.”

Nate kept his gaze on a point past Colin’s shoulder.

“Honestly, I’m impressed. Most kids from your background would be living in a squat with a needle shoved in their arms by now. But not you. No, not you. ‘Lloyd.’ That’s your mum’s surname, isn’t it?”

Silence.

“You’ve no idea who your father is, do you?”

Silence.

“And you’re what now, twenty-six? Earning the same salary as I am? I’m guessing your resume stinks like a used whore.”

“I earned my degree,” Nate said coldly.

“I’ve no doubt, with that pretty mouth of yours.”

Nate met the other man’s eyes. “Are you done?”

Colin laughed. “Not by a long shot.” He leaned forward, his fingers resting across the gun.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me?”

“Unleashed your latent homosexuality?”

The gun smashed into Nate’s jaw, leaving a taste of blood in his mouth.

“Word to the wise, backchat counts as ‘fighting me’.”

Nate tongued the place where his cheek had smashed open against his teeth, fear vibrating through his body.

“Do you know where you are?”

He said nothing.

“Answer the question. Be respectful, and I’ll be gentle.”

Nate closed his eyes and swallowed. “We’re in Spain.”

“Very good!” the big man boomed. “And do you know why we’re in Spain?”

“Because it’s a long, long way from London.”

Colin sat back in his chair, turning the gun over in his hands. “It is indeed, lad, it is indeed. And more importantly, no one knows you’re here.”

Nate was nonplussed. “How did I end up in jail?”

Colin sneered. “Grow up, Lloyd. You may hold money in contempt, but for people who haven’t lied themselves rich, it still gets the job done.

Nate didn’t bother to point out the obvious hypocrisy in that statement. But it still didn’t make sense. Unless...

“Málaga II. This is Málaga II.”

Málaga II was one of Spain’s empty prisons, abandoned after it was built without ever having housed a single prisoner.

“You’re a regular Doctor Watson aren’t you, lad? I have an understanding with the man who has the contract to keep this place in working order. He was kind enough to lend me some lads to help make sure you get the real authentic prison experience.”

Nate swallowed hard, his heart hammering against his bruised ribs. His bruised...

“Alec. Where’s Alec?”

Colin smiled. “I have something different in mind for your little friend. He’s not a bad lad. He showed real potential before you led him astray.”

“What are you going to do to him?”

Colin leaned forward and put a hand to his cheek, mimicking Alec’s accent “

Oh my days!

” He snorted. “Do you actually care?”

Nate realised in a flash of clarity that he did.

Colin searched his face and smiled. “Well. Isn’t that sweet. Perhaps I’ll let you watch.”

“Watch what?”

Colin got to his feet and rapped on the door.

“Watch what?”

Colin left, and the guard gestured for Nate to stand.

“Vamonos! Vamonos!”

“Yeah, yeah,” muttered Nate as he got to his feet. “I’m coming.”

* * * * *

Colin left him alone in his cell for the rest of the day. By evening, all Nate could think about was food.

In desperation he’d drunk some water from the sink and instantly felt ill, but it was still better than dying of thirst.

The temperature in his cell had to be in the high thirties, the air so hot it almost hurt to breathe.

He lay on his bunk, delirious from heat and hunger, and thought of Alec. The last thing he clearly remembered was entering the club.

He’d been coked up. He’d been fucking

coked up

and now this. What the fuck had he been thinking?

Maybe Colin was just bluffing, just fucking with him. After all, Nate hadn’t hurt him. Not really. Sure, he’d humiliated him... and maybe his arse would have been a bit sore for a few days... and maybe his wife now thought she’d married a B&D leather daddy, but Nate hadn’t

physically

hurt him.

But the way Colin spoke, the dark glitter in his eyes... Nate knew that look, had seen it in the mirror many, many times. Colin was going to take him apart piece by piece and he was going to take his time.

And Nate had pulled Alec into the path of this sadistic psychopath.

A tear trickled down his face and he angrily wiped it away.

It shouldn’t matter to him what happened to the kid. Alec was just another rent boy, just another street slut opening his mouth for anyone to deposit their load in for a quid. He meant nothing. He was everyone’s.

And what if Adeel had treated you with that much contempt? What if he hadn’t got you clean, got you off the streets, got you into school?

He knew the answer to that. He’d have been dead before his eighteenth birthday. He’d known it at sixteen, seen the end of his life bearing down like a rushing train, walled on all sides by impossible choices, destined to drown in the filth of his existence.

He remembered lying off his face on heroin in a railway underpass, feeling the man’s hands shaking him into awareness. Remembered his fear and resignation at the assumption that those hands meant he was about to lose another part of himself; his realisation that instead they meant kindness and redemption.

A quiet, patient man who barely kept his head above the poverty line, Adeel Farooq had seen a kid struggling with his demons, with no home and no hope. Had taken him in and forced him to get clean, dealt with his tantrums, his stealing, his lies and his violence.

Had sat with him in a restaurant he’d saved for months to afford after Nate graduated and told him he was as proud of him as he would have been if Nate had been his son.

Had died at the hands of homophobic street scum looking for money for drugs. Scum who spoke and behaved like Nate’s mother, who’d treated him as a God-given endless source of currency for her addiction.

He put an arm across his face and gave in to the misery, simply thankful that no one was there to see him cry.

* * * * *

Colin turned up at the prison the next morning feeling deliciously refreshed from a power-wank he’d had, while recounting the terror in Nate’s eyes on discovering he was at his mercy.

Although he didn’t have the patience to go through the security footage, most of which consisted of a man lying on his bunk staring into space, he knew his captive was miserable. He’d made sure of it.

His orders were only to feed him once a day, keeping his calorie intake low so that he’d be weak and starved, but giving him enough that he’d still have enough energy to fight. Colin wanted him to fight. Even if it was a token resistance.

In addition, he’d set up a schedule with the guards to make sure Nate didn’t sleep more than a few hours at a time, while ensuring he was kept isolated to reflect on exactly how fucked he was.

Colin knew solitude was not a friend to a man like Nathan Lloyd, a man who greased around other people like a hungry cat to ensure he always had a warm lap to sit on.

While Nate sweltered in his hot cell alone, Colin sat in the administrator’s office in front of a desk fan with a cup of coffee, and checked his email.

There were three emails in his inbox; two were trying to sell him Viagra and the third was from Ellie’s lawyer. He closed his laptop.

Fucking Nathan fucking Lloyd.

The Ellie Nate had left with him had not been the Ellie he’d married. The woman who’d come down to the dungeon that day in her bathrobe smelling of sex and Colin’s cologne, had radiated power he hadn’t seen in her since her teenage years, and had thought long dead.

He shuddered as he remembered what had happened next. He should never have left those giant dildos lying around.

Thinking about his wife made him hungry to see Nate again, to see how his little caged starling was doing, with its iridescent plumage that made people forget that it was a destructive pest.

He checked his watch. Nate’d had no food in over twenty-four hours, nothing but stagnant tank water to drink, and with any luck, only a few hours sleep. He was curious to see what state he was in.

He took a small walkie-talkie off his belt (cellphone reception was terrible inside the prison) and spoke into it.

“Bring him down to the mess hall.”

He wandered down to the kitchen to prepare the pre-packaged food himself. It was the start of the process Colin thought of as tearing off the younger man’s wings, one glossy feather at a time.

* * * * *

Nate dragged himself off the bunk, his head swimming in the heat, as the guard rapped on the door. He put his forehead against the wall and his hands behind his back and let the guard handcuff him.

His eyes were half closed as the guard led him from area to another, finally pushing him through a set of doors into an empty mess hall.

Nate looked around blearily and felt his knees buckle under him.

“¡Levántate!”

The guard kicked him and hauled him to his feet.

Nate staggered, and the guard cuffed the back of his head and propelled him towards the front of the room, pushing him into a seat at one of the long tables.

He uncuffed Nate’s hands and stood back.

Nate rested his head on his folded arms and closed his eyes. Every inch of him felt as if he was burning from the inside out.

A plastic tray dropped in front of his face and he opened his eyes.

The smell of freshly microwaved slop filled the air.

Colin slid into a seat opposite him. “Eat up, lad. Can’t have you starving to death.”

Nate dragged himself upright and looked at the tray. The food, separated into four different colours of thick liquid, looked as though someone had already digested it. But he knew if he didn’t eat, he wouldn’t survive. And he needed to survive.

He picked up the plastic cutlery and put a forkful of something that might have been creamed potato int0 his mouth. It tasted of nothing. It barely had texture. But it was food, and he was so hungry.

He ate mechanically, promising himself that it would be worth it, that it would take strength to outlast Colin and get himself out of this place.

When he’d finished, Colin grinned broadly.

“Tasty was it? It ought to be. I added the cream myself.” He squeezed his cock through his jeans.

Nate felt a wave of nausea contract his gut. He increased his grip on the plastic fork in his hand, but before he could stab Colin with it, the big man smashed his hand flat to the table and punched him in the face.

Nate’s head snapped back, his teeth connecting painfully.

He slowly lowered his head, rotating his jaw to ease the pain.

“I warned you, Lloyd. If you fight me, I will hurt you.” He checked his watch. Nearly midday. He smiled at Nate. “I think it’s time to introduce you to the boys.”

“Please, let me shower,” said Nate, his words slurred as he struggled to stay conscious.

“Of course, where are my manners? You’re the lad who likes to smell nice. The lad who likes to wear other people’s cologne. You’re in luck. Your new friends will be happy to help you get clean.”

Nate barely had the energy to register fear as he was dragged to his feet and hauled away to the shower block.

* * * * *

The showers were separated by chest-high partitions, each stall no more than a metre wide.

As the guard pushed Nate through the door, he found half a dozen tattooed men waiting for him.

Colin strode in after him. “Nate, meet Bulldog, Gypsy, Jo Jo, Hancock, Limp Mule and Diego.”

“No nickname?” Nate said to Diego.

“It is my nickname, you fucking racist,” said the man, who was short, bald and muscular, with a moustache and a soul patch. Among other charming designs, there was a tattoo of a swastika on his neck. “My name is Carlos.”

Well, alright then.

Nate ran his eyes over the rest of the men. All of them were barefoot, most of them stripped to the waist.

Bulldog was even shorter than Diego, his face heavily jowled, his belly falling over his belt under a white wifebeater. Tattooed flames ran down his arms, ending in inked bracelets at his wrists.

Gypsy was tall and slim and younger than the others. His hair was pulled back in a pony tail, and his shirt was tied round his waist, showing a chest decorated with a tangle of roses. He watched Nate with a sharp intelligence that did not bode well.

Jo Jo looked as if he might be stoned. His eyes were heavy-lidded, his arms hanging limp at his sides. He looked as if he’d fall over if you pushed him. As far as Nate could see, he was the least-tattooed of the six, with a single crudely drawn skull inked onto his shoulder.

Hancock’s face was adorned with lettering. His forehead, his cheeks, his chin, his neck, all sporting words that looked like Spanish names. He looked to be in his thirties, his hands curling into fists and releasing again as if he was just waiting for permission to start beating the crap out of someone.

But it was Limp Mule that fascinated Nate the most. In his forties, the stocky Mexican was also bare to the waist. He had long hair that fell around his shoulders and a dense, sculpted moustache. His chest sported a tattoo of a donkey. The symbolism wasn’t lost on Nate. Like Gypsy, Limp Mule’s eyes were full of watchful intelligence. He was holding a bar of soap.

Nate considered his options. Fighting wasn’t one of them. The stall walls were made from tiled concrete, and he could easily find his head smashed open if he took on all six men.

He was guessing Colin wanted to see him afraid, humiliated, degraded. But Nate had no intention of giving him the satisfaction.

Colin thought that setting him up in this classical nightmare would terrify him. And so Nate refused to be terrified.

He forced himself to breathe, to stay calm. Colin wanted to see him fight. Nate went inside himself and mentally prepared to do the opposite.

The guard shoved him forwards. “Take your clothes off, perro.”

Perro. That meant dog, didn’t it? A pretty uninspired insult, really.

Under the unwavering gaze of the six Latin American men, Nate pulled his orange shirt up over his head, exposing the last yellow shreds of his ‘Africa’ bruise.

He kept eye contact with Limp Mule as he pulled down his cotton trousers and stepped out of them, then kicked off his canvas shoes.

He held his hand out for the soap. The other man let him take it, Nate’s fingers brushing his palm as they closed around it.

“Thank you... Limp,” Nate said sincerely. Or, at least, with what he hoped sounded like sincerity.

“My name is not ‘Limp Mule’,” the man said in a thick Mexican accent. “My name is Burro Limpio. He just thinks that’s what it means.”

Nate didn’t know what difference putting ‘io’ on the end of the word made, but since it seemed to matter to Burro, he filed it away as important to his survival.

Buck naked, Nate stalked past him and turned on the water, grateful to find it was warm.

He faced the watching men as he started to lather himself, ignoring their stares as he cleaned himself thoroughly.