Bad to the Bones(45)
Knoxie gulped, his throat dry. Even Bellamy didn’t know about that chapter in his life. “I have no idea what you’re f*cking talking about, you half-assed preacher. I think you caught the wrong rough and tough biker. Maybe you were expecting a cat named Riker. He’s known for doing twisted things with religious artifacts. As for Asanga being easily duped—you’re right about that. How else could she have lived with you for so long?”
Knoxie was right. Mentioning the name Riker had some effect on the swami’s one good eye. It tightened, flickering like a steely flint. But he continued on, droning his sermon. “I know who you are, Mr. Hammett. You own The Missing Ink on Bargain Boulevard in town. You were an altar boy in Hondo, Texas. And those perverted bible thumpers took an unnatural interest in a delightful, well-proportioned boy like you.”
What the f*ck? Knoxie was thoroughly confused. Not only was his calf stinging like a motherf*cker, but a dark pool of blood was oozing from his boot down the wooden floorboards. He changed the subject away from something he didn’t understand anyway. “Listen, Yogi Fuckwad. My club’s going to know something’s up because I haven’t checked in. I was supposed to call them at five o’clock,” he lied. It was a feeble gambit worth a shot.
Shakti flicked his wrist as though conducting an orchestra. “No, no, no. You have important work to do here, Mr. Hammett. If I’m going to allow Asanga to remain in your presence, I need to know that your chis are evenly balanced. You like to humiliate women. You need alignment. I watched some of those erotic films you’ve made. Not bad, from a technical viewpoint. But the scenes where you tie up women and make them beg you for punishment? My, my. What ironic work coming from a man who had his penis sucked by a priest.”
Knoxie raged. Anger overcame him, blinding him. He bucked and snorted against his bonds. Gnashing his teeth, he snorted hot breaths against his face, his eyeballs bulging. The cult leader only smiled mildly, as though enjoying the sight of a flower. And if Knoxie thrashed any harder, he’d knock over his chair, what little support prevented his arms from being wrenched from their sockets. Bulsara held the other end of the silky rope, and would yank on it now and then to remind him.
Shakti continued unperturbed, as though narrating a nature film. “Yes. You were special to that one father in particular. Yes, he enjoyed your body the most. I’m sure he liked to grab your penis when you were preparing for mass.”
As if to make sure Knoxie kept flailing wildly like a caged tiger, the swami reached out his wand and poked Knoxie in the balls. Knoxie reacted as though stabbed with a hot poker. He snapped to his feet just as Bulsara—as expected—tightened the pulley so much that Knoxie was now just a dancing, impotent puppet.
He knew what the sick swami was doing. It was his “therapy” method—in other words, a tissue-thin excuse to commit any sadistic act Shakti wanted to perpetrate anyway. Literally poke and prod the victim, taunt him with his worst nightmare. Bellamy’s had been the loss of her father, and so they had raped her. Illogical as that seemed to outsiders, to Shakti and his ass-lickers it made some kind of convoluted sense.
“That’s right,” Shakti said soothingly. “Squirm and protest. That’s the best way to break through the wall. Get angry with the priests! Breathe through it! Embrace it!” All the while, he was prodding and nudging Knoxie’s cock nestled in the crotch of his jeans, curiously and experimentally, as if the wand was an extension of his hand and it was really he who longed to fondle him.
Knoxie roared, “What do you want from me?” It was starting to occur to him that he might not get out of this unharmed. The question of who had told this pervert about the priests in his church was completely out the window. His frustration mounted higher when he lashed out with his good leg, hitting the swami’s chair with a front snap kick.
He could only stretch so far though, dangling from his marionette ropes as he was, so the effect was like a puff of air. It startled the swami, who had probably never been on the receiving end of any of his “therapy.” Gasping, he just jerked the chair back a few inches, outside of Knoxie’s jiujitsu reach.
“Want from you?” Shakti said innocently. “Why, I want to be assured you are going to be compatible with my Asanga. I do not want my work with her to be in vain.”
“You threw her away, you complete and total sack of shit! You dumped her on that mesa with the other street people whose names you didn’t even know! You dumped her because she had the nerve to get mad when you impregnated her little sister!”
Apparently Knoxie was enacting some “therapy” on the master now. He leaped to his feet, his mouth set in anger. One gesture at Bulsara and the lackey was winding his end of the rope around a cleat bolted to the wall.
Knoxie knew it wouldn’t help his case to goad the f*cker, but his rage was beyond his control now. This f*cker had gotten away with so much shit in his lifetime. So many people had blindly followed him, thrown their lives away, given him all their worldly fortunes. So many women had spread their legs for this colossal asswad, given up their babies for him, acted like robotic, stoned zombies in their eagerness to follow him.
Now he was importing dope, drugging his citizens, drugging children. He was manipulating the election to favor his kingdom, which would just keep spreading like Ebola. He was selling cheese heroin because he’d spent the money he’d extracted from his people and their heirs. He’d stooped to poisoning a judge, so his outrageous power grab was only becoming sicker.