Shane and Carmen: The Novelization Ch. 03

Shane nodded.

Harvey drained the last of his coffee. "Come on, let's get the hell out of here. There must be a 7-11 around here somewhere."

***

Over the next four months, Harvey took Tommi/Shane to lunch half a dozen times, and Shane had begun to actually look forward to their meetings. Shane discerned that in some unspoken way, Harvey was lonely, and simply wanted companionship. Why he had no companionship or no friendships in the rest of his life she didn't know. Maybe he just liked effeminate boys like Shane was pretending to be. Perhaps he saw himself in Shane -- or rather, in Tommi, maybe he was once himself an androgynous kid on the hustle. Unlike Shane, Harvey liked to talk, but like Shane he seldom spoke much about himself; mainly he liked to teach. He educated Shane in the mysterious ways of delicatessen, and they talked a lot about music of all kinds. In some ways it was like they were dating: Who's your favorite band? What's your favorite color? O. J. Simpson, guilty or innocent? Okay, never mind that one, Shane was vaguely aware of the case but didn't follow it. But Harvey was quite pleased when Shane/Tommi told him her favorite band was Led Zeppelin.

"Oh, really? Outstanding!" Harvey said. "But answer carefully. For the full set of Samsonite luggage and a chance to return next week, which song is the best Led Zep?"

"Oh, shit," Shane said contemptuously. "Kashmir. No question."

Harvey beamed. "One of the very few Zeps where they brought in outside musicians," he said. "A friend of mine was one of the violinists. Although they did a lot of the strings on the Mellotron."

One day as he dropped Shane off, Harvey said, "Wait a minute, Tommi." He opened the glove compartment as she stood at the curb. He pulled out a small packet and removed from it a business card. It had Harvey's name and phone number on it.

"Here," he said. "Keep this in your wallet. You ever get in trouble, need something, give me a call."

"Thanks, I will," Shane said.

One of Tommi's other regulars was an asshole named Eddie who had grabby hands. Eddie was about thirty years old and thought he was hot shit, but he wasn't. The first time he picked up Shane he'd agreed to the handjob but after Shane got in the car and they drove to an alley, Eddie said he wanted a blowjob, and would blow Shane in return. Shane said no politely but firmly and they bickered for a while. Finally after Shane threatened to beat feet Eddie relented and got his handjob, but he wasn't happy about it. He spent a lot of time telling Shane about all the famous Hollywood actors he'd sucked off. Shane didn't know who half of them were, or if any of them were even gay, but she knew a bullshitter when she heard one.

Eddie came around two weeks later, and after Shane had made him promise to be good she realized when she got in the car he'd been drinking. That was by no means unusual among Shane's clients, but it often made her tricks mean or troublesome. Eddie went straight for Shane's crotch and had actually managed to get a hand on Shane's strap-on before she smacked his hand away and got out of the car as he lunged toward her. She slammed the door on him, almost clunking him on the head. She told him to go fuck himself and before he could come after her she was out of the alley and walking down the sidewalk. By the time he drove to the end of the alley and looked both ways, she had disappeared.

Then Shane made a mistake. Two days later she and Clive had smoked a couple of joints before leaving the garage, and were moderately stoned. Clive picked up a trick and got in a car and was whisked away. A few minutes later Shane saw a car coming slow down the block, the driver looking. She watched him go by and a minute or two later he came around the block again and stopped in front of Shane. What Shane didn't know was that the marijuana had dulled her creep radar, either that or this guy just didn't give off vibes. But he seemed reasonable and Shane made the deal with him and got in the car. They drove to an alley and just as the car came to a stop Eddie came from behind a Dumpster, yanked open the passenger door, and slugged Shane. She went right out cold.

Shane woke up in a crummy motel room. It was still daylight, and her head hurt like hell. She'd been stripped of her clothes, everything but the strap-on. She had a handcuff on her right wrist and a piece of rope tied to the other loop of the handcuff led behind the head of the bed and was tied off somewhere. The result was that Shane was on a tether about three feet long. She had a gag of some sort in her mouth. Eddie sat next to her on one side of the bed, and the driver of the car, whose name turned out to be Mike, sat on the other side. They were both naked, too.

Eddie held a knife in front of Shane's face, making sure she saw it.

"Didja have a nice little nap, there, Tommi?" Eddie asked. "Good, good. We want you well rested, because we're gonna have a little party, you and Mike and me. You wanna have a nice little party, Tommi?"

Shane glared at him but said nothing.

"Yeah, I felt your hard-on the other day, Tommi. Just for a second. And you know what? It didn't feel like a dick to me. And I said to myself, something ain't right here. I got an idea why our little Tommi won't let me suck his dick. Even when I asked nice and polite and offered to pay. So I said to Mike here, I think we got us a faggot imposter, here, Mike. So Mike, he says, well, we can't have that, now, can we? So we decided to find out, Tommi, whether or not you was a faggot imposter. What a ya think about that?"

Shane glared at him and said nothing.

"So anyway, here we are. And what do Mike and I discover? We discover you ain't got a dick after all, Tommi. All you got is some lezzie strap-on. And you seem so happy with it we're gonna let you keep it. Yep. We got no hard feelings. Of course, we are gonna fuck you. But we don't do pussy, so we're gonna leave your stinky little cunt alone."

Eddie put his knife under Shane's chin so she could feel the point of it. It broke the skin, and she felt a trickle of blood go down her throat.

"I'm gonna take this gag out of your mouth, Tommi, and when I do, you're not gonna yell. Do you understand? You're not gonna make a fucking sound. Do you understand what I'm sayin'? Nod your fucking head if you understand what I'm saying, you cunt."

Shane nodded her head.

"I'm gonna take this gag out and then you're gonna suck my cock, and you're gonna suck Mike's cock, and I'm gonna do your ass, and Mike's gonna do your ass, okay? We're gonna do you fore and aft, but like I said we're gonna leave your stinky pussy alone so you don't have to worry about gettin' in a family way. Wouldn't want to knock up a pretty little faggot like you. So while you're suckin' cock and and gettin' your fudge packed you're not gonna make a sound, at least not any sound that can be heard outside this room. Because if you do, Tom, I'mma gonna cut your throat and me and Mike will be outta here in ten seconds."

Eddie brought his face down to Shane's. "Do you understand me, you fucking cunt?"

Shane nodded.

"You wanna die, you just let me know," Eddie said. "You wanna die?"

Shane shook her head no.

Eddie reached behind Shane's head and undid the gag. Just as Shane was taking a breath of air Eddie slapped her hard, making her head ring.

"That was just for practice," Eddie said. "That was good; you didn't make a sound. Now, open your mouth."

***

They kept her all that day, all that night, and most of the next day until mid-afternoon. They took her mouth and they took her lubed and re-lubed ass, until they couldn't get hard anymore and the cum dripped out of her. Shane cried and moaned and whimpered, and they let her, but she never made any sound very loud. Eddie liked to hit her, and he did that a few times, too. After the first couple of rounds they needed to rest up. Eddie got dressed and Mike stayed with Shane while Eddie went out and got pizza and beer. When he got back Mike had Shane up on all fours and was drilling her ass again while she cried into a pillow. The left side of her face was bruised and turning black-and-blue. Her right wrist was bleeding from the chaffing of the handcuff. Her ass was bleeding, but Eddie and Mike didn't care. When they weren't fucking her they taunted her, making her fist her own plastic cock, pretending to jack off. Shane was crying and it was no fun so they let her stop. They let her have a slice of pizza and a beer, and they ate watching television. Mike laid down on the bed next to Shane and took a nap while Eddie watched television and drank beer. When Shane said she had to take a piss, Eddie brought a small trash bucket that had been in the room over to her and made her squat over it next to the bed while he watched her pee into it just for his own amusement. When Mike woke up he was hungry, so he got dressed and went out for fried chicken and more beer. When they were finished eating again Mike stuck his dick in Shane's mouth while Eddie fucked her ass. Then Eddie laid down on the bed and went to sleep while Mike watched TV and slept in the chair. Shane slept.

In the morning Eddie demanded a wake-up blowjob, cooing to Shane as he came in her mouth. Then he got dressed and woke up Mike, making sure Mike was awake while Eddie went out to get breakfast. Eddie got back with a bag of Egg McMuffins.

"I called Danny," he told Mike, who nodded.

Apparently Danny worked third shift and had just gotten off work. He arrived just after Shane had taken a morning piss in front of both Eddie and Mike. He was in his late twenties, too, and seemed unsurprised to find Shane there like that. He stuffed his dick in her mouth, came, sat on the bed recovering a few minutes, and then got ready again. Danny was bi, and had wanted to fuck Shane's pussy, but Eddie and Mike told him no, so he lubed then fucked her ass. Then he got dressed, thanked Mike and Eddie, and left. They watched TV, and Mike went out for food. They ate and then managed weak, dribbly cums in Shane's mouth. When they were done Eddie put his face in front of Shane and said, "See? This is what happens to bad little girls who wanna play faggot." Then he slapped her swollen face again so hard she passed out from the pain.

***

When Shane woke up they were gone, and her wrist had been freed from the handcuff and tether, which were also gone. Her wrist was chafed and bloody. The room was a mess, but who cared. Her head hurt, her face hurt where Eddie had punched her last. She knew she had been bleeding, and found caked blood under her nose. She didn't know what time it was, but the sun was still out. She staggered into the bathroom, put up the toilet lid, and puked. She vomited until she was dry, and then a few times more. She sat on the floor of the bathroom by the toilet and passed out again. This second time she awoke she got up and ran cold water in the sink, carefully patting it onto her swollen face, and drinking some from her cupped hands. She thought she might puke again, but didn't. Only then did she realize she was still naked, as she had been for two days now, except for her strap-on. The bastards had left it on her the whole time, as some kind of sick joke. You want to pretend to be a man, Tommi, well, go ahead, then. Be a man.

She found her jeans thrown into the far corner of the room, and her shirt was on the chair where it had been thrown. She found her underwear under the bed, but it had been ripped and torn or cut off of her, and was worthless and unwearable. She dropped them. There were a couple of pizza boxes, and some bags from fast food chains, and their associated trash. One trashcan was full of empty beer bottles, and the room smelled awful. The other trashcan had her piss in it. There were cigarette stubs in the ash tray, and burn stains on the edges of the furniture. Shane sat on the edge of the bed, her head throbbing. She thought about calling an ambulance, but decided not to. Police were out of the question, of course. She didn't know who to call. There was no way to get hold of Clive. This is why whores have pimps, Shane realized. So the pimps could beat them instead of the johns.

There was a phone on the nightstand by the bed, and Shane would have bet better than even money it didn't work, but she was wrong. It gave her a dial tone. The instructions on the front said to dial 9 for an outside line for local calls only, so she did. She called the "time" service and learned it was 4:22. She placed the receiver back and just sat, recovering, trying hard not to think, because even that hurt like hell.

Then suddenly she knew who to call. She found her wallet, which had been emptied of the few dollars she had in it, and got out Harvey's card. She called his home but got an answering machine. No help there. Where would he be about now? Would he have left yet? Maybe they'd all stopped rehearsal for the day and gone home; if so, she was fucked. Shane picked up the phone, dialed local information, asked for the phone number of the Hollywood Bowl. When she got it and dialed, she got a menu, the usual long spiel, tickets, reservations, driving directions, all the crap. And then at last a "stay on the line" message for a live operator. Shane closed her eyes and thanked God there was a human coming on the line.

"This is the operator, how may I help you?"

"I'm trying to contact one of the orchestra members, they're supposed to be there rehearsing. Have they left yet? Can I get a message to one of them?"

"Hold, please."

Shane held the phone with her shoulder, stood, tried to shimmy into her jeans as best she could. She got them up just as the operator came back. She didn't bother zipping up.

"Yes, they are still here. Who did you want to leave a message for?"

"A guy named Harvey. He's the second violinist, or something like that."

"You don't know his full name? If you don't know him I'm afraid I—"

"His last name is Platt," Shane said, reading it off his card. "I'm just the guy supposed to be waxing his car, okay? There's been a little problem getting it started, and I need to ask him what he wants me to do about it, call Triple A or what. So please tell him Tommi called, and I need some help here, and the number is--" she looked down at the phone where the number was handwritten on the corner of the instructions, and gave it to the operator. "Tell him to ask for extension 17, got it? It's really important. Thank you. It's really urgent that he call, 'kay?"

"Yes, I've got the message," the operator said.

Shane hung up the phone and lay down on the bed. She curled up in the fetal position, hugging her shirt, and tried to block out everything in the world, including the agony in her head, the still burning pain in her rectum, where she thought she might be bleeding from, everything having to do with the last two days. Everything having to do with her entire life, come to that.

Harvey called about forty-five minutes later.

"Hello?" Shane whispered when she picked up the phone.

"Hello? Who am I calling? I was told to call this number because it had something to do with a problem with my car."

"Harvey?"

"Yes?"

"Harvey? This is Tommi. I ... I'm in trouble."

"Are you in jail?"

"No. I ... Harvey, they did things to me. Raped me."

There was a long pause.

"Harvey ... some guys...beat me up. They did other things. I'm in a motel somewhere. Harvey, I'm in pretty bad shape. I didn't know anybody else to call." Then she lost it. Harvey stayed on the line, listening to her sob. She fought to stop, to pull it together. It took a long time. Fortunately, Harvey was a patient man.

"Har--, Harvey?"

"I'm still here, Tommi."

"Can you...can you..."

"Tell me where you are."

"I don't know," Shane said, almost losing it again. "They kidnapped me. I woke up here. I don't know where I am." And she lost it again. She heard Harvey trying to talk to her.

"Tommi? Tommi? Come on, now, Tommi, Don't worry, I'm coming, I'll find you. Just stay right where you are. This is a motel, right? I'll call this number back and get directions. You're in Room 17, is that right?"

"Yes, I guess so. Please don't tell them I'm here, I don't want them coming here, they'll throw me out or call the cops."

"I won't tell them. I understand. Look, I'll call the desk right now, and then I'll get there as soon as I can, okay? So you just hang tight, Tommi. Okay?"

"'Kay," Shane sobbed.

"Hang on, Tommi, I'm coming," Harvey said.

Shane hung up the phone and got back in the fetal position and cried until Harvey got there over an hour later. Fucking rush hour traffic was just miserable.

***

Shane didn't remember a lot after that. She drifted in and out. There was a knock on the door and she got up and peeked out, saw it was Harvey and let him in. When he came into the room she saw the look of revulsion on his face as he saw the trash, the beer bottles, the general destruction of the room, the stains on the filthy bed. It only took a glance to know what had happened, how bad it had been. Harvey was horrified at her face. Shane still hadn't put on her shirt, which she had clutched in front of her. Now she realized it and started to put it on, not hiding anything. Harvey's mouth fell open the second he realized she had small breasts. Then he saw the strap-on in her unzipped pants.

"You're ... "

"Uh, yeah. I am. I'm sorry. I lied. I misled you."

"Is that why they raped you?"

"Yes. They said they were going to teach me a lesson. Can we get out of here?"

"I guess I can't convince you to tell the police, to report this."

"No way in hell."

"That's what I thought. Your face is a mess, too. Looks like they beat the shit out of you. I think you need to go to the hospital."

"No! They'll report it, call the cops, get the rape squad there! I don't need all that shit, man."

"Can you walk okay?"

"Yeah, a little bit."

Harvey's Mercedes was parked right out front. Shane got in the passenger side and slumped down in the seat with a groan.

"Want me to put the top up?" Harvey asked.

"I don't care," Shane said.

Harvey lived up in the hills in Topanga Canyon, and on the way Shane blacked out, slumping over into Harvey's shoulder. Harvey sensed she was unconscious, not just asleep, and decided that no matter what Shane wanted, he was going to get her seen by a doctor. He knew a good walk-in clinic with a doctor whom he knew personally; she often came to concerts at the Hollywood Bowl, and was a patron, which entitled her to attend private events such as cocktail parties and similar events. Harvey took Shane there. He got lucky and arrived just after 7 p. m., and caught the doctor in the parking lot just as she was about to leave.

"Harvey!" she said as he drove up, stopping behind her car and keeping her from backing out.

"Barbara, I'm sorry, but I've got an emergency. Can you look at this kid for me?"

Barbara Cranshaw came to the passenger door of the car and bent over, looking at Shane and lifting her eyelid.

"Harvey, someone has beat the hell out of her."

"I know. And she was raped, or sodomized, too, probably a lot. She said she'd been kidnapped."

"She needs to go to the emergency room," Barbara said. "This is serious. I think she's concussed. She needs a full examination, a rape kit, swabs, the police, the whole thing. Harvey, you already know all this."

"Yes, but I don't think she'll go. She'll run away the first chance she gets."

Barbara looked at him. "Harvey, I know it's a rotten question, but please tell me you had nothing to do with this."

"No, of course not!" Harvey bristled. "But ... I know her. You can say she's a friend of mine, if you want. Can you help us, please?"

To her credit Barbara didn't take long to decide. "Can you carry her in?"