TRIGGER/CONTENT WARNING: descriptions of sexual assault; gore; physical and psychological abuse and manipulation.
I washed myself as well as I could. The sting of cold water reminded me that I was alive. For now. I wasn’t sure if that was something I should be thankful for. They were coming for me. For what I did.
#
That morning on Monday six months ago was another dry Malaysian August. The monsoon season was still several months away and the afternoon was bright and sunny. A droplet of sweat trickled down my back as I sat silently watching the interplay between my sister Rabiah and Encik Norman, the manager of the shelter facility.
The post-pandemic days were still wreaking havoc as the world attempts to adapt itself to the new normal. I had lost my job due to being hospitalized for Covid-related complications and my pre-existing lupus. It went without saying that I lost my lease, and as Rabiah was unable to put me up we settled on me boarding at this shelter facility. I suppose shelter facility would be a broad description for this place. It houses people afflicted with terminal illnesses as well functioning as a halfway house of sorts for recovering addicts. All who happened to be HIV-positive. I admitted I looked at Rabiah askance when I learned that last bit of information.
I am not what you would call a cozy person. In all honesty I find people extremely trying, if not outright detestable. Shaking hands was about as much as I could handle. A jovial slap on the back would earn the offender a withering glare from me. Being in a crowded lift it was all I could do not to slip my pen out of my pocket and start stabbing the other passengers. You get the idea. To the outside world, I have perfected the appearance and mannerisms of someone shy and retiring. And now I will be surrounded by sick people—all of unknown provenances and backgrounds.
Sick people, I told myself. I should be in good company.
Oh, the irony.
I made sure to swallow my laughter at the thought and paint on a face of polite attentiveness. The slightly raised eyebrows, a quirk of the lips at Encik Norman’s humorous comment—a comedian, he isn’t—and a slight nod at appropriate times.
There was a room down the hall with the smell of piss with a faint whiff of bleach coming from it. From the earlier snatches of conversation, I surmised this to be the dorm assigned to the disabled inhabitants. I wasn’t sure if I managed to hide my revulsion but judging from the way Encik Norman’s face didn’t waver from his toadying expression I would guess it passed muster.
I was given the key to my locker and shown to my room. I made short work of unpacking and had everything squared away quickly. I slipped my sweat-dampened T-shirt over my head to change into something more comfortable. I was in the act of stepping out of my jeans when I heard a knock on the opened door of my room.
“Hi,” came a male voice, following the knock. I turned to see a man in his early thirties. He was handsome and leanly muscular. His eyes were that rare hazel some Malays were lucky to be born with. “What’s your name?”
“Call me Benji,” I answered, using my nickname to create distance—something tells me these people are not ones you want close. “And you are …?”
“I’m Samad, head caregiver,” he returned, his eyes lazily skimming over me, pausing for several seconds at my brief-swaddled crotch—as if playing into my expectations. Apparently, he liked what he saw. He smiled, adding, “Just dropping by to say hello.”
I bet you are, I thought to myself. This one’s a predator.
This is another aspect of dealing with people that I loathe. The endless, pointless social dance of empty niceties and hollow platitudes. The obligations. The rules. The expectations. As a newbie I expected there would be the usual round of ragging—hazing to you Americans—as the older inhabitants pursue me with invasive questions to assuage their curiousity at the arrival of fresh meat. I did not miss the sidelong glances from them when I undressed in my room—I was lucky to have a room to myself. The benefits of paying, if I were to hazard a guess.
Samad gave me the grand tour and I appreciated the curve of his jeans-clad ass as I followed him around. The facility consisted of four buildings, roughly categorized by their purpose such as administration and dorms. The latter includes a quarantine section for patients who would inevitably take ill at one point or another. The mess hall and kitchen, along storage and workshop rounded up the collection of buildings. I also learned that the more ambulatory patients like Samad and his colleague Kamarul were tasked as caregivers—trained and certified, I hope—as well as the facilities custodians.
Interesting, I thought. No direct oversight by the Ministry of Health. Only random audits done by the Welfare Department. An insulated and isolated environment where things could happen without anyone knowing about it anytime soon.
“Is that an orchard?” I asked, pointing behind the collection of buildings to a sizable growth of trees.
“Rambutan and durian,” he said, glancing at me with a smile. “You might want to close the door next time when changing,” he added. “My room’s across yours.”
I laughed. “I’m not shy,” I told him, bumping his shoulder with mine.
“I can see that,” he retorted. “Well, just be careful,” he cautioned. “Some of these guys haven’t been laid for a long time.”
“You one of them?” I teased.
He coloured at that. Hah!
“Are you okay with being a kitchen helper?” he asked, changing the topic.
“Should be fine,” I shrugged. “When do I start?”
“Is tomorrow too soon?”
“Nope.”
“I’ll bring you to meet Ariffin tomorrow. He runs the kitchen.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
I was put to work the next day but I couldn’t say that I minded. Ariffin was quite the gossip and soon had filled me in on the goings-on and the informal power structure of the shelter. It would seem that Samad had the run of the house as it were. His clique were more or less his enforcers and the more recalcitrant inhabitants would soon find themselves on the receiving ends of their fists. While he did not come right out to say it, sexual favours—whether voluntary or coerced—were the desired currency. I remarked humourously that Samad wouldn’t have to travel far as I’m right across him.
I decided that I would be wise and align myself to where power lay here.
Ariffin gave a small uncomfortable laugh at my remark and immediately changed the topic. I made sure to keep tabs on him throughout the day. As I suspected he would, I saw him in a whispered huddle with Samad and his clique. I made a show of passing nearby and felt almost giddy at the glances tracking my movement.
I wanted to laugh out loud. This was like taking candy from a child.
I had expected Samad to come to me soon.
That was my mistake. I had not expected his hungry, blatant need.
I did not expect him looming over me nude and hard, waking me up from my sleep. I also did not expect the press of his fingers around my throat as he roughly stripped me out of my shorts. His hazel eyes were narrowed, as if daring me to scream—the slight increase of pressure around my throat an unspoken warning. There was the brief sharp stab of discomfort as he forced himself inside me. In the quiet dark of my room his quiet gasps accompanying his urgent thrusts as he drove himself onwards chasing his pleasure was almost deafening. I think he was surprised when I grabbed onto his ass to pull him even deeper inside me, uncaring of his rough handling. He finished with a groan, emptying himself inside me and exited just as quickly. Only the slickness of sweat and the smell of our combined release proof of what had happened.
He became more aggressive—both outside of our assignations and during. Usually he would ignore me, pretending that he had never forced himself on me. It was game we all know and play—he wasn’t gay; he was just horny and I was a convenient outlet. He mostly kept out of my way and interacted with me minimally, unless there was an opportunity for verbal digs. His words would then ring—coarse and bullying. Short of calling me names outright, they were words that made his clique grin and look at each other knowingly. I contended with catcalls and wolf-whistles from the rest of Samad’s cronies. However, he would be solicitous during Encik Norman’s visit, almost fawning as he practically bent over backwards brown-nosing the clueless man. He and his clique dissemble well enough, based on my observations.
Petty inconveniences also started cropping up—my coffee mug went missing only to resurface in Samad’s room, caked with coffee dregs. Then there would be my snacks pilfered or my clothing missing from the clothesline. Being felt up surreptitiously by him or members of his clique. Fucked in the store room. Sometimes he would bring the other caregiver Kamarul and they would take turns on me, me bent over a table while they railed away. Or he would have me service Imran, another member of his clique. I think they thought I was afraid to blow the whistle on them. Why should I? There were better things to blow, after all.
The weeks sped past, turning into months. As if becoming a long-standing arrangement, he would come. Sometimes every night. His fingers no longer circled my throat. Sometimes they brushed the side of my neck. Or they would grip my hips during his hurried see-sawing motions, while he was lost in his lustful frenzy. I would beg him to get me off and he would oblige with a cruel smirk as he stroked and played with me until I shuddered and quaked in his arms. He wouldn’t kiss, pushing me back roughly if my face moved closed to his. He enjoyed the feeling of superiority, that I existed for his pleasure and convenience. He would call me his slut and I let him. I played the part he had assigned me, nuzzling and rubbing myself hungrily against him. . I admit that I was testing the boundaries, pushing at them to see if he would bend, or break. I stroked his ego. I didn’t care how it looked. I was his punching bag in his mental gym.
Despite the transactional manner of our nights, there were times when he was comparatively relaxed after he had finished. It was as if his release unburdened him of his cares. During these unguarded moments he would be surprisingly sweet—even during the day. On those days, the sex later at night would be mind-blowing.
I was the moth caught in the flame of his naked lean form and hazel eyes. His heat consumed me, and I let it batter at my shuttered cold black core. He left me scorched.
Damaged.
What he unloaded was a time bomb ticking away with each beat of my heart, caused by our unprotected nightly interludes. He brought me to the doctors on the sly after our first month and the result came back positive. The HAART meds he got for me kept me more or less healthy. So far, I remained undetectable—save for the simmering rage at what he had done. He warned me to keep quiet about what he did. He told me this was the only way, that he likes me but he can’t let it be known that he was crooked.
Broken inside. Ruined.
Sick.
He had no conception what those words meant. I nodded during his confessions and let him spend himself inside me again and again. His sickness—his ruin—now mine.
I sometimes found myself torn between crying and laughing maniacally at the memory of those assignations during lone moments in my room. Above all, I was enraged. Samad—and his cronies—infected me. Then discarded me after each use. They did it because they wanted to feel power, to be in control in a world that saw them as trash. They got what I would have been only too happy to give had the situation been different. Unfortunately, it was not and they took it anyway—leaving me with only their filth now swimming inside me. But everything has a price.
And they were about to receive their bill.
Imran was the first to go. He was from Indonesia, here illegally. An anonymous tip to the good people at the Immigration Department sorted that particular dangling thread. I was almost sorry to see him being led away by the immigration officers. He may have been party in my sexual coercion, but he had been gentle during those nights when it was his turn—considerate, even. He even bottomed for me willingly, even enthusiastically—so this was a kindness I paid in kind. Indonesia has similar free healthcare for HIV-positive patients so he should be fine. He would be blacklisted by Immigrations so he could forget about returning to Malaysia.
For the next part in my clearing the playing board, I spent some time observing Kamarul. He was Samad’s pet rat, gnawing on his leftovers. He was a simple man. Emphasis on simple. He would egg Samad on with crude, filthy recommendations whenever Samad brought him along during our meets in the store room. Sometimes in my dreams I kept seeing his glazed, slightly crazed dark eyes as he watched me choke on his cock. Once, when Samad left us to use the bathroom, he spat on my face. He was rough, his grip in my hair frequently made me consider seriously about biting down hard. He was highly oversexed, and will drag me into the store room during the day for his use whenever he was horny. I learned from Ariffin that before I came along Imran was regularly used by Samad and Kamarul. I also learned that Imran had had taken a liking to me to the point that he would refuse both their advances. That made Kamarul jealous. As I had inadvertently deprived him of his regular fuckbuddy, I became the replacement.
I remarked on it once to Samad. His response was a glare and I was told that I should be thankful it was only them I was made to service—that I could be whored out to the others. He was rough and raging that night. There were traces of red swirling down the drain in the bathroom floor when I was washing up afterwards.
In this powerplay I had removed a piece of theirs from the board, but they had drawn first blood.
#
I finally allowed my darkness out. The dark thoughts had been percolating in the back of my mind for as long as I could remember. They started out as pushing a playground bully into the path of an oncoming car, or drugging someone so I could have my way with them. Sometimes they verge on the Byzantine—elaborate romance scams schemes to obsessive stalking. I have played along the edges of these thoughts to keep my hand in. My neighbour never knew about my night-vision binoculars, and the slashed tires of a particularly disagreeable colleague went a few ways to still this restless, roiling black tar simmering within me.
But now …
#
Kamarul had a fondness for bakso—Indonesian meatballs. He was also fond of stealing food, whether from the kitchen or from other patients’ lockers and plates. It was a happy coincidence that I was assigned as a kitchen helper. It gave me access to all sorts of tools, such as a mortar and pestle. After days of planning, the finely ground-up glass from a burnt-out lightbulb was mixed into a batch of specially-made bakso. All of which made itself down Kamarul’s gullet.
It took him several days to die.
Samad left me alone in the weeks following Kamarul’s funeral. Perhaps he was feeling somewhat lost with two of his hangers-on gone. I almost rolled my eyes at that. There’ll be plenty more parasites where they came from. However, while he distanced himself physically his frequent, heated, sidelong glances telegraphed differently. I waited patiently. Inside though, I was gnashing my teeth. The sex had been getting better. He had been less abusive during our nights together before Kamarul’s passing. More at ease, although he still wrestled with his own demons—the ones dressed in neon pink tutus. I kept my face calm and successfully repressed the urge to laugh at his turmoil. I played his willing captive; it was no hardship. But now with two of his cronies gone there seemed to be a shift in the social structure.
It kept me on edge, this uncertainty. Without his nightly visits and the needy, heated grip of his lust I felt unmoored. I admit that I had grown comfortable with how things were. Of being used by him. Of seeing the pretty boy bully as a hypocritical predator—even if it was only me who saw him exposed as such. I reveled in how my apparent debasement gave him a sense of power. The image of his dilated, glazed hazel eyes, along with his gasps and the low groans of his release fed that black hungriness I carried in me. They stilled the roiling black tar bubbling inside my heart, that scalded my nerves with unreleased need. His control over me gave me control over him. I had gotten under his skin, made him addicted—this time to me. But the millstone that was him was now missing from my neck and I needed him to yoke me back to where things were.
That night I decided to tip the scales. It was midnight, an hour after lights out. In just my kain pelikat I approached his door and opened it without knocking. He was in bed, on his back in a pair of ratty sweats. The blanket had been thrown aside. I knelt next to the bed facing him and placed my right palm on his lower thigh, just above the knee.
No reaction.
I rubbed my palm up and down along the length of his thigh, gently increasing the pressure at each turn. He stirred, his legs spreading open slightly. I was so intent on my ministrations I almost jumped out of my skin when his hands closed around my wrist. I stopped, and met his eyes.
The pupils were blown so wide, the rings of his hazel irises like the corona on a solar eclipse. His hold on my hand was firm, but not rough. He held it in his hands, his fingers against my skin warming the spots they touched. Then his hand moved, bringing my palm to his now exposed loins. I curled my fingers around his length and he pulled at me insistently, bringing me to lean forward and our lips met. It was quick but heated, my head directed gently downwards by the combination of our mutual need and hunger. He swore and went long and deep, crying out as he unloaded in my mouth. He fucked my mouth as he rode out his orgasm, shuddering as he came down from his high.
As the haze of the afterglow faded, he curled his lean form around me, his legs trapping mine. His arms held me possessively.
“Stay,” he told me.
I risked a quick peck on his lips. He stared at me for a long, pregnant moment before returning the peck, closing his eyes as he returned to sleep.
In the dark, I smiled.
#
The Rubicon was crossed, and Samad began to treat me differently. It was not friendship by any stretch of the imagination but he would go out of his way to include me in conversations. His clique made room for me at their table in the mess hall—they would sell their own mothers if Samad had demanded it, so complete was his hold over them. He had started to enjoy kissing during our nights. The kisses were initially shy, like a boy braving his first. Soon they became bolder and grew demanding.
Hungrier.
A hunger I was all too willing to feed.
I started spending my nights in his bed, him asleep with his arms around me. Like a noose around a convict’s neck.
But this is not a story about punishment. Not mine, anyway.
#
It was almost too easy to slip the sleeping pills into the mee hailam I shared with him. The rich gravy from the noodles would disguise any aftertaste. Like the evil queen in Snow White, I made sure his portion was separated from mine with a show of placing them on a different plate and offering it to him. I wished I could say I felt guilty as he helped himself to his favourite dish.
It was only fitting that the condemned should enjoy one good meal before their punishment.
#
I had gone through various scenarios in my head while I stewed and plotted my vengeance. Memories of reading Gone Girl and various Saw movies had given me plenty of ideas. I had decided that expulsion was too kind for him. He would be gone, and beyond my reach while I stayed trapped in this life, with a sword labeled “HIV+” hanging over my head.
No, it needed to be something visceral. Something that he would always see every time he looks in the mirror. Something that everyone could see and remember. It needed to be a lesson for myself, especially. A lesson that showed I was a dark, twisted creature capable of great harm—I had learnt to use that darkness in me like a tool. It needed to be a lesson so he knows the consequences of his actions. It needed to be something he could not look away from.
That last particular part of my dark musings stuck and replayed itself in my head as I plotted. They were turning themselves over and over as I pilfered the sleeping pills from the nurse’s station. The nurse on duty never suspected a thing when I distracted her with a plate of freshly made banana fritters Ariffin had made. All the while, that thought—something he could not look away from—became a litany in mind. And then it hit me.
He could not look …
I know what I would do.
#
It was done. He had woken when the drugs wore off and would have screamed himself hoarse had I not gagged and bound him to the table in the store room. The same table they had bent me over as they took me. This small touch of poetic justice made me smile. I let him thrash and flail, in rage and pain. He could now see—I chuckled at the word—what it was like on the other side. I pulled away the gag.
He didn’t ask why I did it. He was intelligent enough to know why. But he doesn’t know everything. I needed him alive. I wanted to keep playing with him. This time, I would be the one to wrap myself around him so he would stay like he had asked me. Even if I were removed from the board, he would still remain. A broken pawn, or a fallen king—useless, and a liability.
I moved to brush a stray lock of hair from his sweaty forehead but the sight of my bloodied fingers stopped me.
“All things considered, I’d say this has been educational.” I said, wiping my hands on my jeans, leaving rust-coloured streaks. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
He stared at me with vacant eyes.
Vacant, like the gaping void of his sockets.
In the small jar of fresh formalin on the table, his gorgeous gold-flecked hazel irises floated into view.
“You’re right,” he sighed. “I’m ruined.” His mouth trembled, reflecting how I had broken him.
“Not ruined,” I corrected him. “Punished.”
He nodded, mute with pain.
I bent down and kissed him. His lips met mine, going slack as his breathing slowly petered out.
#
I wash myself as well as I could. I am under no illusions of the consequences of my actions. The bill must be paid. The sting of cold water reminds me that I am still alive. For now.
END