Vengeance

The Dominican Republic – July, 1980

The old man squinted against the bright Caribbean sun. Once, when he was much younger, he had been a serious fisherman. Now, what hair he had remaining was snow white and though he still took his boat out daily, it was more to be alone with his memories of the past than for any other reason. His hands and back ached too much for him to pull in the lines all day. Today, he had just dropped two lines haphazardly over the side of his boat, not expecting a single strike and considered himself lucky to get a strike at all. The bonito would make a fine dinner for himself tonight. It wouldn’t taste quite as good as when his missus was alive – but, she’d done gone on five years back, and he got along pretty good on his own cooking. The old man didn’t know why he scanned the water one last time before pulling up his last line – it wasn’t like he was going to follow the fish like he did in the old days – but he took one last look around just the same. He almost missed it – something bobbing in the swells that shouldn’t be there – a lifetime at sea told him that whatever it was wasn’t natural to the water. The old man retrieved the Ziess glasses his doctor son had bought him and double-checked the thing bobbing in the water. The glasses showed the old man how right he had been, he got a quick glimpse of an outstretched arm bobbing on the swells. A quick slice of his gutting knife sent his hook and sinker to the bottom as the old man powered up the boat and headed for the body in the water.

Ten minutes later the old man had a line around the body and was using his hoist to bring it into the boat. At first the old man was afraid life had already fled the body, but he quickly detected a flicker of life still burned. Setting his course and tying the wheel into position, the old man pushed the throttles to full before returning to the body on his deck. He worked hard at blowing life from his tired old lungs into the tired young lungs and was finally rewarded when the body under him coughed up a bellyful of salt water and started retching. For the first time, the old man got a chance to study the body on his deck. Up to now, all he had been able to tell was that it was a white boy he had found out in the water. Cradling the boy’s head in his lap, the old man tenderly dripped fresh water over the cracked, swollen lips and studied the boy. He was naked except for a scrap of cloth twisted around his middle like a diaper. A long, deep gash ran down the young man’s face on the left side of his face from the hairline all the way down to his chin. Another gash ran from the corner of his mouth all the way back to his ear. The old man knew knife wounds when he saw them – even knife wounds the fishes had chewed on a bit. From the look of the close cropped blonde hair, the old man guessed the boy must be a sailor who had fallen overboard – but what was a sailor boy doing nearly naked in the water? The old man decided guessing wouldn’t get him anywhere and sure wouldn’t do the poor boy any good. He got busy and dragged the young man into the shade of his small cabin, placed bandages on his injured face, and concentrated on setting a course for home. He shook his head sadly, regretting he’d never gotten around to getting his radio fixed – normally, he couldn’t stand all the chatter, but today it would be good if he could radio back to shore and have someone waiting on the dock when he got back.

Halfway back to shore, the young man opened his eyes and looked about as frightened as the old man had ever seen anyone look.

“Easy, mon.” The old man said, as if talking to a little baby. “Everyting, gwine be irey. Be takin’ you to hospital, mon.”

“Where are you taking me?” The young man asked – his accent clearly American.

“We be headed to Port Redemption in da Dominican Republic, mon.” The old man said. Those words seemed to relax the young man and he slept for the rest of the trip.

As the old man’s boat eased towards the dock, he shouted for one of the boys to run up to the tavern and place a call to the clinic that served as hospital for the area. Have his son, the doctor, come down here right away. Twenty minutes later, the old man’s son had the white boy tucked away between clean sheets. The doctor was amazed that the young man had even survived -–he'd obviously been in the water for days and had been undernourished before entering the water. He’d been able to stitch the two ugly knife wounds closed, but wasn’t a plastic surgeon and knew the young man would carry disfiguring scars on his face for life. What was more bothersome was what the doctor had found while examining the young man – someone had surgically removed the young man’s genitals.

Over the course of the next week, as the young man grew stronger, he remained steadfast in his refusal to talk about what had happened to him. Repeated attempts by the doctor and the police failed to get the young man to explain what had happened to him or how he had come to be in the water. The blonde American would get a fearful, hunted look in his eyes and refuse to speak at all. A week after being found, the young man asked if he could use the phone to make a collect call and spent over an hour whispering into the phone. Four days later, he was gone. He dressed in borrowed clothes and simply walked out of the clinic one night after the doctor had gone home. His disappearance was as sudden and mysterious as his arrival. Both events, and the gradually spreading word that his manhood had been removed from him gave the locals their own little mystery to talk about on dark nights. Eventually, the story grew into a local myth and was used to frighten children as they were told of the bogeyman who might snatch them up one dark night and cut off their “parts” if they didn’t behave.

London, December 2000

Knight traced his index finger along the puckered scar running down the left side of his face as he watched the video of the young man with the mane of thick auburn hair. There was no doubt about it – the youth in the video, Fletcher Balfour was handsome. His looks went beyond handsome – he was by anyone’s standards a pretty boy and it was obvious he knew it. Knight remembered back twenty years when the same thing could have been said about him. But, that was before he met Duncan Balfour – young Fletcher’s father. His name wasn’t Knight in those days – but, the person he was before meeting the senior Balfour died suffering pain and degradation at the direction of that sadistic bastard. As the essence of the young man he had been died, the man who took the name Knight was born.

What had started out as an innocent summer adventure with three other college boys crewing on Fletcher senior’s yacht had quickly turned into a living hell. He remembered how his head seemed to become lighter and the dizziness after drinking the drugged beer Balfour had served them at dinner the night after leaving the port of St. John’s. He remembered waking up the next day and the feel of the chains on his naked body. He remembered the humiliation of being dragged up on deck naked and forced to his knees as his sun-bleached blonde hair was buzzed from his head and the rest of his body shaved smooth as the other three college students watched in shock, knowing they were next. It must have been the residual drugs in their system that made the four of them passively accept the shearings. Knight knew that was the case for him, because he resisted everything else that happened after that. And all four of the kidnapped young men knew exactly what was about to happen to them because Duncan Balfour took sadistic delight in describing his plans. He got off on watching frightened handsome young men cry like scared little boys when he announced that the doctor aboard the one-hundred and sixty foot yacht was going to castrate each of them. Knight felt sick to his stomach and almost did retch all over the deck.

The other three captives started blubbering and begging, as soon as they heard Balfour’s plans for them. Standing on the open deck, their arms tied behind their backs and legs shackled to a leg spreader – they all felt helpless to prevent what was about to happen. The doctor’s assistant walked up to the first of the college students, an Elastrator in his hand and the band already in place. The assistant smirked as he grabbed the young man’s scrotum and pulled it tight. The college student’s sobs rose higher until he sounded like a little girl as he tried to twist from side to side. The assistant pulled harder on the young man’s sac and worked the band over the scrotum, placing it as close to the captive’s body as possible. As soon as the poor guy felt the band snap into place, he peed all over himself. The sight of the other captive blubbering and peeing all over himself made Knight feel even sicker. Suddenly, he found a rage building up inside him and he surprised everyone by straining against his bonds, snarling savagely.

“You do this to me and I’ll cut your fucking heart out!” Knight screamed, his teeth bared wildly. “I swear to God, I’ll get you.”

Finished with the other three, the doctor’s assistant stood in front of Knight – that superior smirk still on his face. He leaned forward and spit directly in Knight’s face, feeling sure he was safe from retaliation. Knight butted the jerk savagely with his head, feeling and hearing the bastard’s nose break. Before the assistant could react, Knight butted him again, splitting the assistant’s cheek open. Things moved quickly after that – crewmembers swarmed all over Knight holding him immobile as they delivered blows to his kidneys. Once order was restored to the deck, Balfour stepped forward and casually reached out to take Knight’s thick, eight inch penis in his hand. He hefted the organ admiringly, examining it expertly.

“Nice cock you’ve got here,” Balfour observed, casually. “A young man in the brothels with a talent like this could expect to be very comfortable indeed.” Balfour turned to the doctor. “Don’t bother banding this one.” Knight almost smiled in relief hearing those words. “Cut everything off – dick and balls. Go ahead and nullify this one.” He turned to the others, raising his voice. “Let this be a lesson to the rest of you – submit and accept your fate and you can expect to be treated well. Resist and cause problems and you will be punished harshly.”

If Balfour had expected Knight to wilt under that threat, he was wrong. Knight struggled against his bonds and the hands of the crewmen holding him back, screaming curses and threats as he was dragged to the infirmary and strapped down to a table. His feet were strapped into stirrups and spread wide as other crewmen placed straps across his chest and forehead, effectively immobilizing the struggling college student. Eventually the doctor entered, dressed in surgical garb. He approached the table and was preparing an anesthesia mask when Balfour entered and stopped him.

“Local only doctor,” Balfour said coldly. “I want our young friend to be wide awake and see exactly what his resistance has cost him.” He motioned for the crewmen to lift the head of the table so Knight was staring down at his recently shaved groin. Balfour whispered to one of the crewmen, who nodded and left the room. He returned moments later with a red ball gag and forced it into Knight’s mouth. “That should keep our young guest quiet as he watches his punishment.”

Balfour prevented the doctor from using any lubricant on the catheter he was preparing to slide through Knight’s urethra. The burning pain was unlike anything Knight had ever experienced – he thrashed as much as his bonds would allow him, muffled screams escaping from behind the ball gag. Everyone in the room was sure those screams contained more hollow threats and curses. Once the catheter was in place, the doctor began a series of injections around Knight’s groin. It didn’t take long before the young man’s groin went numb and the doctor began his work, cutting into the smooth flesh with his scalpel. He worked expertly, demonstrating this wasn’t the first time he had performed this unspeakable operation, dissecting through the layers of flesh, fat, and muscle to entirely remove all traces of the young man’s penis. As much as he didn’t want to watch the horror being inflicted on him, Knight found he couldn’t take his eyes off the operation for long. Twice he glanced over at Balfour and found the man smiling delightedly at the procedure. Knight realized the wealthy man was enjoying himself and getting an erotic thrill watching a handsome young man stripped of his manhood. At some point, Knight passed out and the next thing he knew was when he woke in a cabin, chained to a bunk with the other three captives staring apprehensively in his direction.

Looking down, Knight saw he was naked – heavy bandages covering his mutilated groin. Turning his head from the frightened stares of the others, Knight tried to ignore the throbbing pain he felt and at the same time clear his mind. He knew he needed some time to recover his strength, while figuring out what the weaknesses of his captors were. As much as the thought sickened him, Knight decided he had better pretend to have had his spirit broken in order to gain an advantage. He didn’t realize it at the time, but the seed of hatred Balfour had planted in him was growing and taking him closer and closer to a darkness he hadn’t even realized was in his soul. The darkness grew more intense and malignant with each new indignity he suffered at the hands of his captors. Each of the crewmembers went out of their way to point out his lack of genitals, laughing at him and teasing him. It was hard for Knight to hang his head and pretend submission when what he really wanted to do was smash his firsts in their leering faces.

A week after his mutilation, he once again found himself strapped to the table in the surgery – his legs strapped into the stirrups and spread wide. The doctor removed the bandages and stitches, praising his own work and at the same time reminding Knight what an impressive penis he had lost. Leering savagely, the doctor unbuckled his belt and opened his trousers. Pushing his underpants down, the doctor leaned over Knight and grabbed the college student’s nipples, twisting them ferociously. Knight bucked and twisted both from the pain blazing across his chest, and from the indignity he knew was coming. The doctor’s eyes glazed over in lust as he thrust his engorged penis violently towards Knight’s vulnerable ass. He had no interest in having sex with the college student – he was interested only in raping an unwilling and helpless victim. He thrust his hips back and forth, working Knight’s virgin ass violently, screaming like an animal when he climaxed. Knight thought he would be released from his bonds at that point, but found he was wrong. Instead, the doctor left him strapped to the table announcing that the young man’s hole was going to be available to everyone on board – everyone with a cock, that was.

For the rest of the day and long into the night, crewmembers entered the surgery to take advantage of the helpless young man. Most came alone, but some came in pairs – verbally abusing Knight as they repeatedly raped him. The light streaming in from the porthole dimmed and finally disappeared as the sun set and darkness fell. Eventually, one of the crewmen entered the room and began unbuckling the straps that held Knight down. He announced brusquely that it was time for the dickless captive to be returned to his cabin. Knight decided this was his best chance for escape – as soon as he was on his wobbly feet, he grabbed the crewman by the neck and butted him hard with his head – once, twice, three times. He brought his knee up viscously into the crewman’s groin, hoping like hell that his knee had crushed the other man’s testicles. The crewman went down, hitting his head on the edge of the table Knight had been strapped to all day long. The man’s eyes rolled back in his head and he remained motionless on the floor, blood flowing from a nasty gash on his head.

Knight searched the room for something to wear – the crewman was at least two sizes smaller than Knight. Not finding any clothes his size, Knight contented himself with ripping a sheet into strips and wrapping it around himself like a fundoshi – the diaper-like wrap worn by Sumo wrestlers. On the doctor’s desk, Knight found a jar filled with licorice bits. Knowing he couldn’t be picky, Knight stuffed his mouth full of the candy, barely chewing it before swallowing and refilling his mouth. As meals went, the two mouthfuls of licorice weren’t much – but, in the circumstances it seemed as good as a feast. He washed the candy down with a couple of large gulps of water and stealthily made his way from the room. His plan for escape still unformed in his brain. He thought if the chance presented itself, he might be able to get the inflatable dingy over the side and join it in the water. If luck was with him, it might be hours before he was noticed. If that wasn’t possible, he’d be satisfied with a life jacket. Anything was better than staying aboard the yacht.

He managed to sneak to the open deck without being noticed and was feeling rather good about himself, when suddenly everything went wrong. From behind him there was a shout and then two pairs of hands grabbed him and tried to throw him to the deck. Knight fought wildly – throwing punches, kicks, and biting out at anything in his reach. The commotion attracted the attention of everyone else on board and soon footsteps sounded all over the boat. It didn’t take long before Knight found himself pinned against a bulkhead, facing a glaring Balfour. Defiantly, Knight spat at his captor – covering the man’s face in saliva and blood.

Balfour didn’t shout out, but his eyes burned with hatred as he slowly lifted a hand and wiped his face clean. “I knew I was making a mistake with you, pretty boy,” Balfour hissed. “Still, I had hopes of breaking you – even without that impressive cock of yours, you would have been in demand. That pretty face of yours would have had certain of my clients willing to treat you very well indeed.” Balfour held out his hand and one of the crewmen produced an evil looking knife. Without a second’s hesitation, Balfour reached out and slid the knife across Knight’s lips. His grin turned feral as he slid the knife between the college boy’s lips and slashed all the way across Knight’s cheek to his ear. Knight screamed in agony as the blade tore his cheek apart, his teeth showing through the ugly gash. Balfour wasn’t done, though, raising the knife again he slashed downward ripping Knight’s face open from forehead to chin.

Knight’s scream pierced the darkness – but it was less a scream of pain than of anger. His words whistled and gurgled through the blood as he renewed his threats against Balfour. Blood flew from his wounds as he thrashed his head back and forth, spattering the crewmen holding him helpless. The crewman to his right released the vise-like grip on Knight’s arm as blood splattered across his eyes. His grip loosened briefly as he raised his hand to wipe away the blood. Knight seized that moment – jerking hard, he ripped free from the others and lunged towards Balfour who showed fear for the first time. Balfour stepped back and tripped over a deck chair behind him, sprawling across the deck. Knight instinctively knew the crewmen would be all over him before he could do the British millionaire any real harm. Instead, he leapt over the man and made straight for the gunwale of the yacht. He jumped high over the side of the boat and into the water.

Knight gasped in shock as the water closed over his head. Kicking back up, Knight’s head broke the water and heard the shouts from the yacht – orders to stop the engines and bring the captive back. Suddenly, Balfour’s voice cut across the other shouting.

“Leave him – let the bastard drown,” Balfour’s voice carried across the darkness. “If he’s lucky he’ll drown before the sharks get him.”

Those words sent the first real fright through Knight – then he decided he’d rather have the sharks kill him than submit to that bastard’s plans. He bobbed all through the night, conserving his strength and, to his surprise, no sharks appeared. He used the rising sun to get his compass directions and started swimming towards the west. He didn’t know if that was the right direction, but it was as good as any, and he thought that was the general direction of land. Time started to play games with him – sometimes it seemed to stand still, and other times it seemed to speed up. Knight quickly lost all sense of time – he didn’t know how long he’d been swimming when his strength gave out and he was forced to try to float, bobbing in the sun. He didn’t know how long he’d been in the water when he felt hands pulling at him. Opening his swollen, sun-tired eyes Knight got the impression of a lined, weather-beaten dark-skinned face framed by sparse white hair.

Knight lost consciousness after that and couldn’t recall anything until he awoke in a ramshackle hospital. He ignored the questions put to him – somehow he was pretty sure no one would ever believe him. One night, when the lone nurse was napping, Knight stole a set of scrubs and just left the clinic. He was pretty sure no one would care to look too hard for him. As he disappeared into the darkness, he adopted the name Knight – the young man he had been died out on that yacht. Knight implied darkness and darkness was his friend now. He’d never be able to show his scarred face in light again without enduring the look of revulsion and disgust from others – he’d seen enough of that already from the black doctor and nurse in the clinic. He promised himself that he would find out everything he could about Balfour and make the bastard pay dearly. The burning hatred in his belly was alien to him, but it felt right at the same time.

Knight learned how easy it was to make a living once you turned your back on any pretense of morals. He cheated and stole with growing ease. Nothing mattered beyond finding a way to survive and make enough money to one day take his revenge. He also started investigating Duncan Balfour – by the time he was done, he planned to know everything he could about his hated enemy.

Balfour wasn’t just some Brit shipping magnate – he was that to be sure, Knight discovered over the years since – but, his main industry was the flesh trade. He hunted down handsome young men and made them disappear from public view, selling them as sex slaves around the world. Over the years, Knight had discovered that Balfour kept some of the young men he kidnapped for use in the brothels he owned. Brothels that catered to the more unusual tastes of his clients – tastes like having sex with castrated and nullified slaves. Balfour’s clients paid top dollar, insisting on only the best looking young men as their sex partners. Balfour prided himself on having the best selection of pretty boys in the underground flesh trade.

In the course of his search for details about Balfour, Knight came to realize that there was going to be a fortune to be made for those who write computer programs. Programming had certain benefits – it was a solitary endeavor. No one needed see his face, and that appealed to him. More importantly, a computer revolution was taking place and he would be able to make even more money than he had originally imagined – people would pay obscene amounts of money to buy the rights to a new program. That appealed to Knight – he wasn’t interested in being famous. All he wanted was the money – lots of it.

Turning his attention back to the video monitor, Knight roused himself from his memories. The memories kept his thirst for vengeance fresh and burning – they were his one indulgence. After discovering the existence of young Balfour, and learning how much his father doted on him, Knight knew the young Balfour was his ticket to the perfect revenge.

To be continued.