John

The locked barrel in the doorknob snapped as it was forced beyond it's tolerances. The door swung open, and a taller figure stepped into the dressing room. He wore relaxed blue jeans and a dark hoody with the hood pulled up, obscuring his face. "I wont take much of your time Jimmy." A soft deep voice rumbled.

Jimmy went pale as a chill ran up his spine at the sudden intrusion. Not that one could tell under all the makeup.

"Relax bud." The figure continued. "I ain't here to hurt you."

Jimmy relaxed somewhat but turned cautiously back to the mirror eying the big man warily. "Zip me up Sugar?" He asked with a hint of his usual flair.

John snorted and reached forward to secure the back of the gown.

"Sweet Jimmy always has time for his biggest fans!" Jimmy purred suddenly and fluffed his wig suggestively. "And you are by far one of my biggest..."

"I got something else in mind." John rumbled. "A favor."

"Oh Sweet Jimmy is all about doing favors." The tranny purred as he stepped into his platform stilettos and strapped them on.

"Two ruffs come in to the 'Clam' every Friday night and I want you to see if you can get them out back later."

Sweet Jimmy made a kiss at the mirror before touching up and invisible flaw to his mascara. "Sugar, once I share a little of Sweet Jimmy's chocolate kisses, ain't nobody gonna every go back." He bragged. "But why don't you tell me what you really after honey." He stared evenly at the reflection of the man behind him.

John drew back his hood and saw the tranny's eyes go wide. Jimmy whirled around facing him in alarm and stood to touch his scarred face. A lifeless glass retina stared back at him from the man's left eye socket. "Oh baby!" He crooned. "Who did this to you?"

John tolerated the touch for a second before stepping back out of his reach. "Let's just say I gotta score to settle with Pauli and Sal."

Jimmy gasped as he recognized the names. He was all to familiar with the two violent men. He shook his head fearfully. "Oh no! Sweet Jimmy done had his share of those two. Ain't no way I wanna go getting wrapped up with that again." He also wept. "They likes to hurt people yo."

"Oh I know Jimmy." John soothed. "All I'm asking is for you to get them out back. Promise them anything. And I promise you they will never hurt you or anyone else ever again." He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a roll of cash. He tossed it onto the vanity. "For your trouble."

***

The parking lot behind 'The Bearded Clam' was dark and unpaved. Cars, trucks and motorcycles lined the outer perimeter of the lot and the only light to be had was from the nearby streetlights that shown over the front and side of the building.

The back door opened allowing the loud heavy base thumping music to pollute the still quiet beyond. Jimmy swayed drunkenly outside, followed by the two mob enforcers eager to partake in Sweet Jimmy's charms.

"Oh my, Sweet Jimmy is so hot tonight!" The transvestite howled as he twirled away from the two ruffs, pulling a cigarette pack from his cleavage. He held a smoke up suggestively and smiled demurely at them both. "One of you boys have a light?" He purred.

Sal and Pauli had followed him out into the middle of the lot and stood impatiently as he shrugged and lit his own. The flare of the lighter temporarily blinded them as they grumbled together about getting a piece and going back in.

"Well—well—well." Said an ominous voice from behind them. "If it isn't Pauli and Sal. How's it going boys?" They turned around startled as a dark figure emerged from the shadows of the cheap dive.

"Hey!" Pauly shouted angrily. "Who da fuck are you creeping up on us like that?" His hands were balled into fists as he prepared to beat the crap out of the stupid intruder.

"Ah. Don't you remember me Pauli?" John asked as he walked forward to stand right in front of the gay thug. He pulled back his hood, but the lack of light did little to illuminate his battered features. Only a faint glimmer reflected off of his robotic eye and he grinned back at the uneasy mobster.

Sal quietly tried to step to the side in a flanking maneuver, but John reacted with hypersensitive reflexes, grabbing the shorter man by his throat, and pulling him forward as he grasped Pauli by the neck as well. Their heads made a sickening thud as they impacted with each other, and the two men collapsed at his feet.

Sweet Jimmy lost all pretense of being a woman as his cigarette fell from his mouth. "Holy Fuckin shit dude!" He cried out in shock. "Damn! Who da fuck are you man?"

"Don't you worry about it Jimmy." John said softly. "You just go on back in there and try real hard to forget all about this okay?"

"Uh huh..." The skinny black man nodded with wide eyes and beat a hasty retreat for the seedy bar's back entrance.

***

It was early morning when Pauli groggily returned to consciousness. The fresh ocean air and the loud cries of the seagulls confused him for a second as he tried to take in his surroundings. Something was off about... It came to him in a split second, but his bruised head took much longer to process his situation. He was seated naked over a cold wooden beam. Sal slumped in a similar position directly across from him, so they faced each other. His bare feet were dangling in the sea water, and he recognized a forest of black tarred pilings surrounding them, a pier high overhead. He was tied against a piling behind him, and he felt the pain of raw cuts as the barnacles dug into his flesh. He was gagged and his hands were bound in front of him. Then he looked down between his legs and his eye's flew open as he screamed in terror through the gag. His penis was stretched out before him and held to the tarry beam beneath his buttocks with a large nail that had been driven through the shaft just below its head. Sal was positioned exactly the same across from him. He became aware of the pain as soon as he realized it and when he tried to move the agony only intensified.

A lazy wave came rushing through the pilings and splashed over the cross beam, sprayed his face and chest. Across from him Sal groaned and shook his head. An instant later he became aware of his own terrifying predicament and began screaming through his gag as well.

"Ah good morning boys." John greeted them warmly as he stepped forward to face them both. The water rose up to his hips as he stood by them. "I wasn't sure you'd wake at all and drown on me." He laughed lightly.

The two stared at him horribly, not recognizing the disfigured face and freakish left eye that regarded them with mild humor.

"You still don't recognize your work, eh?" John chided. "Tsk tsk. Tell me, how is Lenny doing after I tried to bite his dick off?" He glanced back and forth at them as sudden recognition dawned on them both. If anything their expressions became even more horrified.

"Ah well I guess you cant tell me much of anything with those gags." He chuckled. He held up an old green glass wine bottle that had been submerged for a long time. Cluster's of barnacles clung to its sides. "Don't you just hate litter? Especially in this day and age when we can repurpose anything?"

He waved it around him gesturing at the pier they sat beneath and the clusters of barnacle and mussels that covered each piling to well above their heads. "Take this bottle for instance." He said and swung it widely over Sal's head, causing him to wince as it shattered against the piling behind him. Glass fell down on his head and into his lap.

"Now this bottle can be used to cut!" He declared triumphantly. "Let me demonstrate."

Sal sobbed through his gag as John grabbed the rope that secured his chest to the piling and began sawing on it with the broken edge of the glass. He was rather sloppy, and several cuts appeared on the man's chest before he managed to cut through the rope, letting hit fall free. "Be careful now." He added. "You don't want to fall off this cross beam and wind up hanging by your pecker." Sal's eyes got wider as another wave rushed over them, reaching higher this time. He grabbed the beam tightly and held on.

John turned to Pauli and began sawing on his rope, talking as he worked. "Dang, the tide is coming in faster than I thought." He muttered loud enough to be heard over the sobs and whimpers. He finished cutting through the rope and it too fell away. Only their hands were bound now and only by a thin twine wrapped several time around their wrists.

John stood back and pointed the broken bottle meaningfully at their nailed down members. "Now you both are gonna have to make a choice here." He said firmly as they stared back at him in terrified disbelief. "You either cut yourself free or drown."

He pointed at their wrists. "You know, I did a lot of bleeding recently and I learned a thing or two as I went through it." He grinned like he had a secret he was just itching to share. "It's real easy to bleed to death from a severed penis. So you need to take certain measures to make sure that don't happen."

Another wave came through, even higher. The water was nearly level with the cross beam now.

"You see that string holding your wrists together, is real small which makes it a perfect tourniquet." He looked thoughtfully at each other them. "You do know what a tourniquet is right?" They gaped back at his desperately. "It's French for turnstile, don't ask me why, I didn't make it up." He shrugged with a bewildered expression. "Anyway, what you want to do is take that string and tie it around your dick, just below where you want to make the cut. And you want to tie it real good and tight, see?" He grinned at each with a maniacal glint to his one good eye. "That way you won't exsanguinate when you free yourself."

Another bigger wave crashed through the pilings and washed over them all, threatening to dislodge the two mobsters.

"Exsanguinate." He said with precise elocution. "That is another cool word. It's not French though. It comes from the Latin 'exsanguintius' which means literally bloodless." He mused loudly to himself before returning his attention to his victims. "But you get the idea." He said. "Now in a few minutes the tide is going to be over your seats there and it's going to be real hard to stay put. So I suggest you work fast."

He looked at the bottle in his hand and then back at each of them. "I'm sorry I only found once bottle so you will have to share."

Another bigger wave came sooner than expected and shoved both of them over suddenly. They both would have toppled had it not been for the firm hands of John who braced them up until it passed. They actually looked at him with appreciation for their rescue.

"Now I am willing to just stick the bottle right here between you two, but it might just wash away." He reasoned. The water was already above the beam now. "So I'll tell you what I'll do." He paused and looked at each man for several seconds. " I will give the bottle to the first one of you who tells me where I can find Lenny and Eleanor." He let that sink in and the two looked across at each other. "Don't think about it too long now boys. Time's a wasting."

***

A brand-new black Lincoln Continental Luxury 4 door sedan cruised down the darkened streets later that evening. It pulled into a sunken garage and maneuvered through multiple levels until it reached the lower executive parking area. It pulled up to a bank of elevators and stopped. The driver got out and held the door for Lenny who in turn walked around the vehicle and held the other door for Eleanor, giving her his hand as she climbed out. They strode arm in arm to the elevator and pushed a button. Once the car arrived the entered and Lenny punched the top button for his penthouse suite. The doors closed and they began to rise smoothly and quietly.

It was somewhat a surprise when the elevator stopped suddenly and open its doors on the fifth floor to admit a large man wearing sweatpants and a hoody. The Hoody was pulled up and he was wearing sunglasses to further obscure his face. Lenny looked on with disbelief as the character turned his back to them and regarded the number pad.

"Hey!" This is a private elevator friend." He said tersely to the back of the figure. "You need to get out and take the public ones."

A handheld up a black access card which was inserted into the VIP access slot. Then he pressed a button several floors below the penthouse and stood fixed as the doors closed again.

"You got a lotta nerve buddy." Lenny snarled and reached to grab the guys shoulder. He wasn't expecting the other guy to turn towards him suddenly and press the metal electrodes of the stun gun into his throat.

Eleanor screamed as the weapon clicked repeatedly, throwing her lover into a spasm before he collapsed on the floor. She stared back in terror as the man hovered over her and pulled his hood back.

"Hi Honey." John said pleasantly as he removed his sunglasses. "Did you miss me?"

He gave her several seconds to register the horror of his badly scarred face and artificial eye before he activated the stun gun once more and struck it against her bare sternum. Once she collapsed beside Lenny he turned back to the control panel and produced a Fire Access key that he used to redirect the carriage to the Emergency Vehicle deployment area on the first basement level.

***

Lenny woke up to repeated slaps across his face.

"Hey! Lenny! Wake up! It's time to face the music." John shouted at him as he leaned over his crumpled form. Lenny shook his head to clear it and realized that he was bound hand and foot and laying on the floor of a small compartment that seemed to move underneath him. He was also completely naked and shivering from the cold.

"What the..." He muttered. He looked up and his eyes widened at the disfigured apparition standing over him. "Who..?"

"Dontcha remember me Lenny?" John asked happily. "We were so close just a few months ago."

A subdued whimper sounded, and Lenny felt another body shoved into his back. "Ellie baby?"

"Ah. Ain't love grand?" John crooned as he reached down and pulled Lenny up by his face, sitting him against the bulkhead so he could face John's ex-wife. Eleanor was similarly bound and just as naked but remained curled in a fetal position on the cold deck. She sobbed pitifully at his feet.

"Oh c'mon Ellie." He chided her as he shoved her onto her back with the toes of his shoe. "Don't be a spoil sport, tell him."

Eleanor looked up at his terrible face and wept. "Please John..." Her voice was lost in wracking sobs.

"Johnny?" Lenny asked in astonishment. "But you're dead." He nearly shouted. "Pauli and Sal said they fed ya to the sharks."

John tsked and shook his head smiling. "Ah Lenny. You see they screwed up and I accidently fell out of the car onto a public street so they couldn't just come back and get me, see?" He spread his arms in bewilderment. "So they lied to ya." He shook his head. "You just can't get good help these days."

The deck seemed to tilt beneath them and sway back and forth for a minute. John turned away from the two and went to a small ladder than led up to a hatch. He reached through and pulled down a duffle bag. He rummaged around in it before producing to brick sized packaged wrapped in dark plastic. He stuck one on either side of the bulkhead above their heads and pressed a tiny button on each causing a red light to start flashing.

"Wh—what the fuck are you doing?" Lenny asked with an hysterical note to his voice.

"Well you see Lenny, I'm a little pissed." John replied pleasantly. "With what you all put me through and then didn't even have the decency to kill me at the end." He beamed back at the frightened man. "Paybacks are a bitch ain't they?"

He stood over them and gestured around. "We are currently drifting just off the outer banks, in this little cabin cruiser that nobody will miss." He reached back into the duffle and pulled out two cinder blocks that he set on the floor, one beside each of them. He took a piece of rope and tied a cement block to each of their bound feet. "I placed these shaped charges all around the hull so that when I set them off, the bottom will fall right out from under it, with you two along for the ride."

He gloated evilly at their terrified expressions. "Did you know that the great hammerhead shark migrates right through here?" He grinned.

"Anyway. It's been nice knowing you both. I wish I could stay and chat longer, but I have a date with a goddess tomorrow and I will need my beauty sleep."

He climbed the ladder to the hatch above and let himself out as Lenny and Eleanor shrieked in terror and begged for mercy. He peered about in the darkness and saw nothing but empty ocean in every direction, even with his enhanced optical eye piece. He moved to the gunnel and climbed over, dropping nimbly into the gray zodiac tethered beside the yacht. He cast off and pulled the cord on the outboard motor. It roared to life, and he engaged the transmission and began cruising slowly away from the doomed vessel.

Reaching into his pocket he pull ed out the trigger and flicked the switch without a seconds hesitation. The concussion of the explosives broadcast through the bottom of the inflatable and into his feet. If had had looked back he would have seen the small boat shuddered and then simply sink into the waves. It was gone in seconds.

It was nearly two hours back to shore and he smiled into the dark as he contemplated his future. A burden was lifted from his soul, and he once again looked forward to living and sharing his life with another. Monique had left several magazines laying discretely about that featured handsome celebrities and male models with dark eyes and pronounced cheekbones. And the eye could be easily modified to match his existing one, or so the experts told him.

He sighed as the light spray flew back and splashed against his face. He could even tolerate the endless poking and prodding from the Institute staff, for now. They were more than helpful in his personal vendetta. He supposed he owed them that much at least.

The End