I Eat Meat
Whoosh! The spiked whip cracked through the air, digging into Romeo's back, chipping out bits of skin.
"Fucking devil! Sly as a cat!" Satoshi screamed for the millionth time as he raised his arm to go for another strike at his prisoner. Romeo had his hands tied up and hooked to the roof, dangling like meat in an industrial refrigerator.
"How did you like it, you fokken sisterfucker!?" Satoshi bellowed, letting out a thick stream of smoke from one corner of his mouth, a Cuban cigar sticking out the other end like he was Popeye high on spinach.
"Kill me already," Romeo groaned. He was in so much pain that he had become numb to it. Instead, he had started feeling hysterical. Insane.
This feeling emboldened him. After all, if he was going to die in this dungeon, then he had nothing to lose. He might as well torment his tormentor.
"Fuck you! I should have bent you over and clapped your asscheeks instead!" an emboldened Romeo spat without a care in the world, adding fuel to the fire.
"What you say, boy??!!" Satoshi bellowed, his eyes so wide they could have dropped out of their sockets.
He dropped the whip and folded his shirt sleeves.
"Imma show you what these hands do."
He proceeded to pound Romeo's face to a pulp.
By the time he was done, Romeo was a bloody mess of flesh and bone, dangling unconscious.
Satoshi stepped back to admire his handiwork, unsure if the boy was dead.
"Make sure he lives," he said to the watching guard, then proceeded to go up the stairs.
Minutes later…
Satoshi, having already showered and changed into clean clothes, hopped into the driver's seat of the Chevy Camaro.
"We take the back route," he said to Chun Li, his driver and most trusted bodyguard.
Chun Li threw the car into reverse and headed for the rough road, driving like a madman.
In the trunk…
Romeo woke up.
"Fuck!" he cursed.
He had hoped he was dead. It didn't take long to figure out that he wasn't. He quickly recognized where he was. Too many times, he had shoved some poor bastard's head into that trunk as they took him out to the woods for a quick trip into a shallow grave—usually on Satoshi's orders.
"At least it's almost over," he thought.
It wasn't long before the car screeched to a halt, sending the faint smell of burning tires into the trunk.
Seconds later, the trunk popped open.
Romeo squinted his eyes as he was hit by blinding light from a bright torch. It made his eyes hurt, so he raised his bruised arms to shield them—earning himself a flood of insults and a whack on the head.
Satoshi barked orders to have that devil dragged out of the car to the auctioneer stage.
Romeo was yanked out of the trunk by two men wearing valet uniforms. He instantly knew where he was.
He was now nothing more than a commodity for sale. A piece of meat.
Live by the gun, die by the gun.
His weak frame stumbled past the back entrance of Quiver Lounge. His nostrils stung from the thick smoke hanging in the air. He was roughly pushed into the crowded bar and led to the center podium.
On a raised platform stood an overweight man with a hammer.
He started announcing the bid for one Diablo Gato, Satoshi's rabid dog…
He proceeded to describe him as young and handsome, with a thirst that would quench the thirst of a desert dweller—whatever the hell that meant.
Looking around, Romeo could see the usual characters.
The real-life fishers of men. The dealers in the underground slave trade.
He locked eyes with Ivan the Terrible, the most notorious of them all.
Ivan eyed him from head to toe before licking his lips like he was looking at a piece of meat. He finished snorting a line of coke off a woman's cleavage.
The clearly high-as-fuck Ivan then got up and walked up to Romeo. He came so close that Romeo could smell his expensive, musky cologne mixed with recently consumed roast beef. So close that they could practically hear each other's hearts beating.
"Scared stiff. Just like I like them," Ivan said aloud.
"I am a meatitarian. I eat meat," he then whispered menacingly into Romeo's ear.
Romeo knew he was fucked. Literally.
"Lord have mercy on thy booty!" someone shouted from the crowd, followed by careless laughter.