When the boys were through they put me, still naked, in a room by myself.

I didn't know this at first. I couldn't open my eyes, and my ears were still ringing with the sounds of the shouting boys and my own screaming. For the past two hours I had known nothing but sensation, searing my senses, rendering me fit for nothing but howling and tearing at my restraints.

I slept, and when I woke I did open my eyes. The room had three cots in it, a table and two chairs, and a counter with a sink, a small refrigerator, and a microwave. The yellow walls and orange scoop chairs reminded me of an employee break room in some outpost of industry. To come back from the kind of ride I'd been on—and the coming back was a miracle, I knew that much—to a room as plain and dumb as this one struck me as hilarious. "They've got to be fucking kidding me," I said out loud, though my voice was nothing but a squeak and a croak.

I opened the refrigerator and found bottles of water and fruit juice. My hands were still trembling and a pint bottle of tomato juice was almost too heavy to lift. Once I got a grip on it, my knees started to go. I had moved too quickly, stood up too fast, and now I sank to the floor. I lay on my back on the linoleum, staring at the strip of fluorescent lighting overhead.

The room, the cots, the refrigerator, even the tomato juice—this had all happened before. I had been in this room before. As soon as I got up the strength, I stood and pulled open a door that was painted the same yellow as the wall, right down to the doorknob. Inside, a toilet and sink and shower stall, which I knew would be there.

I drank the tomato juice, and from a bowl on a table I took an apple. A bunch of white grapes. I sat in one of the chairs, but it wasn't comfortable enough to ease my aching ribs, so I sat on the edge of a cot.

Now I could see something I hadn't noticed before, on the counter next to the refrigerator. Of all things it was a feather duster, a ridiculous feather duster with a white plastic handle. The feathers looked as if they had been made in a factory, then dyed an orange color that lived nowhere in nature.

My memory had it this way: I had been brought to this place in the morning. First I had been turned over to the children, then the men and women had taken charge of me, then the horny teenaged boys. Then I had been pushed into this room. But I had seen this room before. Therefore, this wasn't my first day here.

How long had it been? A few days? A week? A month?

It was hard to keep thoughts together. Very carefully I stretched out on the cot and closed my eyes.

Next thing I knew the door was being unlocked. A wave of dread swept over me: they were coming for me again. But as I raised my head I saw another naked man being pushed into the room and the door shutting swiftly behind him.

He crumpled to the floor, twitching and moaning, his arms and legs trembling. When he rolled over onto his back I could see only the whites of his eyes under his half-open eyelids. His mouth was open, his lips swollen and parched, and he made a sound like heavy breathing or panting which I soon recognized as laughter-the almost silent, insane, unstoppable laughter of a man who had been mercilessly tickled by many hands for a very long time.

I regarded my new cellmate with fascination and pity. I knew that there had to be other captives at the Compound besides myself; one victim would never be enough to satisfy this crowd. But I could not remember seeing another captive or sharing this room with one. Of course it made sense to throw us in together. Even several captives in one room wouldn't have enough collective strength to cause trouble. I could barely stand up, which was more than this new man could do.

He was a young man, taller than myself—over six feet—and unlike me he was black. A dynamite physical specimen, too, like so many black men I'd admired, usually from afar. Covered with sweat and cum, he might have just been released from another gang of teenaged boys. When I seemed to have enough strength and coordination I sat up, slowly, and swung my legs over the side of the cot. I walked—baby steps, but at least it was walking—to the sink and filled a paper cup with cool water. I tried to carry it to my cellmate without spilling any, but my hand trembled a bit and I lost a few drops.

"Here," I said, lowering myself painfully to the floor. "Here's some water."

I might as well have been talking to myself, he was still in a deep delirium. Getting back on my feet was as difficult as squatting down but I managed it, then stood there holding the paper cup of water, not knowing what to do. Would his helpless whispered laughter ever stop? Finally I couldn't look at his tortured face any longer; I titled the cup and let the water pour down onto his unseeing eyes and parched lips.

That jolted him, brought his dark eyes into view. They scanned the room, and his relief was so great to find that he wasn't being tickled anymore that he let his head fall back to the floor, untwisted his tangled legs and began slowly waving his arms up and down, like a kid making snow angels. I knew how he felt: the red marks from the restraints around his wrists were still vivid, and it was so good to be free.

"I'll get you some more water." I filled the cup again, and as I brought it back he seemed to comprehend me for the first time. His narrowed gaze and cautious smile made me think that he'd never run into another prisoner, either. He took the water in his trembling right hand, gulped it down, and raised the cup, his eyes asking for more.

When I came back with more water he had raised himself to a sitting position, and I could tell that he had more questions than he could find words for. He drank, wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and managed to ask, "Hey, how long you been here?"

I shook my head. "I've been trying to figure that out myself, just now. I was thinking I'd only been here for a day—one incredibly long day—but now I think it's been longer."

"Oh, man." His voice was still little more than a broken whisper. "I think I've been here a long time, too, but I ain't sure anymore. My mind"—he made a few circles with his index finger at his temple—"it comes and goes. You know?"

"I know. What's your name? I'm Rand."

"Duke." He raised a huge hand, wincing as he did so—sore ribs, no doubt. His hand trembled but his grip was still strong, in keeping with his powerful build. Guys like us learned the hard way that muscles were no defense against ticklishness.

"How did you get here?" I asked.

He shook his head sadly. "Dude named Granger."

Hearing that name was as much as a shock as getting a cupful of water in the face. "Granger? He brought you here?"

"No, crazy young cracker in a pickup truck brought me here. That Granger, he was behind it, though. Must've been."

"So you went to see Granger," I said, "just like I did."

Duke was still shaking his head. "Oh, yeah. I saw his ad. Thought about it for weeks. I didn't know what to do, but every time I thought about…what he said he'd do, my dick would just about bust through my shorts."

"I was the same way."

He looked up at me as if I didn't understand. "No, you see…it started with my sisters. My two older sisters. All my life, while I was growing up, they used to tickle the shit out of me."

"Well, I never had sisters or brothers," I said, "but I had tormentors, all right. I think it's bound to happen if you're real ticklish."

"Ticklish? Shit! I'm more than ticklish." He was still shaking his head as he talked, and I wondered if he had gone through his whole life that way, looking down, shaking his head. "I'm fuckin' disabled, that's how ticklish I am. Didn't take my sisters long to find out, either. See, they used to babysit for me. My folks would be going out all the time, and the minute we were alone Brenda and Janessa would have me down on the floor—stripped naked, man, they didn't give a shit—and start ticklin' me all over and never stop, no matter how much I screamed and shouted."

As if it had heard its name, his dick twitched just a bit. I had tried not to look, out of some sense of respect or decorum—as if decorum is relevant when two naked prisoners face each other. Respect wasn't an issue, either, because the more I glanced at his long, smooth, circumcised dick, the more I respected it. I ran my hand across my mouth and stepped back, feeling my own much-abused dick start to twitch.

"When I grew up, and Brenda moved away from home, Janessa was always ticklin' me. Then it was Janessa and her husband Duane, my brother-in-law. She got him into it big time, and on Sunday afternoons they used to tie me to their bed and tickle me for hours. All three of us naked. Sometimes Janessa would jack me off, like my sisters always used to do, but that Duane, he liked a little more than that. He'd lay on top of me, suck my dick while he's tickling my ribs, and Janessa at the foot of the bed tickling my feet. Sometimes she'd tickle Duane's feet too. Man, Janessa tickling Duane's feet, telling him to tickle me harder if he wanted her to stop, and he's digging into my ribs and sucking my cock, the three of us all tremblin' and shakin'…shakin' like we're about to blow."

By now I couldn't hide my erect prick. I knew, I knew that helpless passion for being tickled, and could picture clearly, even after everything I'd been through—the fear and humiliation, the unendurable physical torment—three beautiful black people whipping themselves into a frenzy. And exhausted as he was, Duke's prick was getting hard too, curving up from his groin; so I wasn't totally ashamed to say, softly, "Sounds hot."

His eyes looked off as he shook his head. "Hot? Shit! It was so hot I don't know why we didn't fuckin' melt."

"Sheer torture, but it turned you on anyway."

"Oh, hell yeah." He reached down and stroked his dick, just once, like giving minimal attention to a pet that was showing off. "But Janessa and Duane split up a few years ago, and she moved away and he got into some other shit…so I knew what to do when I saw Granger's write-up. My dick told me what to do."

I didn't want to think about Granger or the events of the past…few days? A week? A month? Instead I let myself look at Duke, naked, spread out at my feet. For a black man he was quite hairy, a thick pelt spread across his pecs. His beard and mustache were overgrown, unkempt, but if I squinted I could see how he must have worn them once, trimmed close, setting off sensual lips. I raised a hand to my chin and discovered, much to my surprise, that I now had a beard, too. When had I last seen my own face? Somewhere even in that stupid, sterile room there should have been a reflection, some surface to give me back at least a part of myself. I checked the tiny bathroom again to make sure: no mirror. Nothing in the kitchen area, either, except for the blank dark face of the microwave. I was turning back toward Duke, ready to try to find some way to ask him how I looked, when we heard it.

It was a scream. A scream to rip out your spine and pack ice in its place. And it was more than enough to bring us back to the reality of our situation. As we stared at each other Duke's mouth sagged, his face lengthened into a melancholy look that seemed, weirdly, to suit him, and his voice deepened with despair.

"They're gonna tickle us to death," he said.

All the strength fled from my knees, and instead of helping him up I was sinking, sinking to the floor by his side, my head spinning. "Wait," I said. "Wait, wait…."

His eyes rolled in panic. "Oh, man, we're gonna die."

"Shut up. Shut up for a minute." I was as scared as he was, but talking about it would only make it worse. "We're not gonna die. We can get out of here."

Duke shook his head. There were tears in his eyes now. "Shows how much you know. Ain't you seen the guards?"

"I haven't seen anything but grinning faces and hands."

"Well, you'll see." He raised himself onto his elbows so he could look at me without straining his neck. "Dudes in camouflage. With rifles, man. As if that fence wasn't enough, with all that razor wire shit along the top."

I saw what Duke described, dim memories surfacing. The men in camos, the razor-wire fence, so out of place in the countryside, steel barbs against a blue summer sky. "Don't," I told him. "Don't talk about that stuff."

"Man, don't let 'em catch you." He blinked, looked around the room as if there was some menace lurking even here. "We shouldn't be talking like this."

His paranoia not only fed my own, but also made me angry. I swatted at the air in frustration. "We're already fucking prisoners, what more could they do?"

"I'm telling you." With some effort his raised his head higher. "I ain't told you yet, but here it is. There was this dude who tried to escape, see…."

In my agitation I interrupted him again. "Who? Did you know him?"

"Naw, I just heard about him from this other guy I was put in with once, like I was just put in with you. Anyway, the dude tried to escape, and they caught him, those guys with the camouflage and shit. They did the worst to him."

"What?" God Almighty, what could be worse than what we'd already suffered? I pictured bayonets tearing at flesh, a naked man shred to pieces.

He swallowed, hard. "They turned him over to Jared."

That name stirred some association in my fevered brain, but I couldn't quite place it. "Who's that?"

"Jared Junior," Duke said. "Sometimes they just call him Junior."

One drop of sweat trickled down my back. Jared Junior. Junior. "Jesus Christ."

"You know the story?"

"I guess I know enough of it."

"Man, once they put you in with that crazy fucker, nobody ever sees you again."

"Is he really crazy?"

Duke nodded, slowly. "They say he's kept in a straitjacket all the time, except when somebody's brought to him. He picks up where the rest of 'em leave off." He raised a finger to his temple. "They say he gets inside your head, man. And you can't get him out."

If I weren't already on the floor I would have sunk to my knees. Even my stomach felt weak under the weight of the fruit and water I' d had. "How do you know all this?"

"That guy I was put in with that one time? Name of Franklin? Poor kid, he was only nineteen." Duke's voice, already weak, sank to a whisper. "He was one of them."

"One of. . . ?"

"He was one of the crackers. Just another farmboy, like the rest of them, except he must have done something really bad. They turned on him, made him one of us."

One of them. One of us. It was the language of war, of terror; and it was our language now, mine and Duke's, the only kind of talk that made sense here. But war and terror also meant strategy. "Maybe this kid Franklin was just a plant," I said. "Maybe they were trying to psych you out by putting him in with you."

"Naw, man. He wasn't no plant."

"How do you know?"

"'Cause he died. He died, man. That's all I can tell you."

We sat in silence for a few minutes. Duke looked as miserable as I felt, but we had moved close enough for my bare leg to touch his. Even in these bizarre circumstances I was grateful for the intimacy. In another life, Duke and I might have…. He looked up at me again and swallowed hard, and I was ashamed of myself for letting my thoughts drift. Duke had been here longer than me, had been tortured more than me. He was a broken wreck.

"I want to ask you something," he said now. His ask sounded like ax.

"What is it?"

"I'm dead serious, man. Believe me?"

"Why shouldn't I?"

He swallowed again, as if words kept getting caught in this throat. Finally he said, "I want you to do it."

"Do what?" Even as I asked, my spine went cold again. "What are you talking about?"

He didn't speak till he was sure my eyes were meeting his. "I want you to do it," he said again, but this time he spread his arms, just slightly, revealing more of his tender sides, his ribs, his armpits—leaving no doubt about what he was asking me to do.

"Tickle me to death, man," he said.

I jumped as if he had thrown off fire. "Jesus Christ!"

He stirred, agitated by panic and need. "Do it, man," he said. "Do it! I'm half dead already, and I'd rather have you finish me off than those motherfuckers out there."

"Chrissakes, you don't know what you're saying." Still shaky, I got to my feet. It was urgent, very urgent that I put some distance between us and, at least for now, not even look at him.

"I do know what I'm saying. You're different from those sons of bitches."

"Well, then, how can you ask. . . ?"

"You could do it out of kindness."

I had to look at him then. "Torture is torture, Duke. It's cruel either way."

"No, it ain't." His eyes were begging. "Listen to me. There's a spot on my ribs…on either side…they all know about it, even the little kids. That's the spot that'll kill me someday. But you could do it now. Put me out of my fucking misery."

"You're talking crazy."

"But don't you see? They keep damn near killing me, time after time, but they let me live so they can torture me some more. Help me, man!"

No one with a heart could ignore his desperation. Still I turned away. "No. I can't do it."

More silence. For the first time I wished I'd never laid eyes on Duke. I sat on the edge of my cot—how revolting, my cot, as if I belonged here, as if anything in this place was mine—and stared at the floor. Finally I said, "You should get some rest. Grab one of these cots." I stretched out, and closed my eyes, hoping to get some rest, maybe a few more moments of oblivion, before they came for me again.

"You could do it," he said.

I didn't open my eyes. "Don't bother me."

"I know you could. Because I could. I did."

I looked at him then, but he had turned his head, as if in shame. "What did you do?" I asked.

"That kid, Franklin. I tickled him to death."

"Bullshit!"

"No, man. I had to do it. He begged me." He turned his eyes toward mine, and they were too sad, too genuine to doubt. "They were going to turn him over to Junior. He couldn't stand the thought of it, it was driving him fucking crazy."

"Jesus Christ, Duke."

"With him, it was his feet. I used my nails on his soles till they bled."

"Oh, Christ." I didn't know if Duke meant it was the kid's feet or his own fingernails that had bled. I didn't want to know.

"Please," Duke said. "I'm begging you, just like he begged me." He rolled over on his side and extended a hand, as if he were only asking me to help him up. "They know, man. They know I killed Franklin. They ain't said anything, but God help me, I think they might turn me over to Junior. I can't take it!"

I threw myself down on the cot, facing away from him. "I've got enough to think about now to give me nightmares for the rest of my life. Thanks a whole fucking lot."

Silence. Then Duke mumbled something like "Okay," and though there was hurt and resentment in it I felt the subject was finally closed. I lay my head on my pillow and tried to think of nothing. It didn't last, though.

"Oh, I get it," Duke said. His voice had a different tone, as if he had just figured something out.

"Duke, I told you. . . ."

"You don't like black."

"What?" Amid all the horror and disgust and fear, I was surprised to find anger surfacing again.

"You don't want to help a black man." A sneer in his voice now. "You're just another cracker."

I stretched my arm out, aimed a warning finger. "You don't want to be saying that to me. Really, you don't."

"Why not? It's the damn truth, cracker!"

I raised my admonishing finger and rubbed my temple with it. It was not good, the way my blood was stirring. "You really, really don't want to be saying this."

"One more nigger in trouble, one more point for whitey."

"God damn it!" Tired as I was, it was enough to get me on my feet again. "You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Why do you think I went to Granger in the first place? It's because I'm crazy about black guys, I'm fucking helpless about them. Always have been." Seeing that sneer on his lips, I got down on the floor again, right by his side. "And you, you're…."

"What? Say it!"

"You're…beautiful." I reached out then, I had to touch him, had to. Very lightly I grazed his side with my fingertip.

His whole body quivered. In a different voice, one without calculation, he cried out: "Ha, ha! Oh shit, don't do that!"

"Sorry! It was just a touch…." Yet I couldn't keep from touching him again, in just the same way. I loved the look of it, my white fingers against the deep, deep color of his skin. Again he laughed, and he wasn't putting it on: he really was that ticklish. With both hands now I tickled along either side of his navel, and he erupted into a full-fledged giggle that rose in pitch as I let my fingers play all over his smooth hard abs.

"I get it now," I told him. "You were just baiting me, weren't you? You were trying to get me mad, so I would tickle you. Admit it!"

"No! Naw man, no…!"

"Admit it!" I moved my fingers to his groin, where his beautiful black cock was lengthening, thickening again as I tickled on either side of it, down to his balls, down to his inner thighs. "You were trying to get me mad on purpose!"

He was laughing so hard he couldn't speak, but when I looked at him he shook his head in denial. It made me furious, but even in my angered state I knew I was getting turned on as well. I had never tickled a man before, not like this. And I'd never had such a hot black body all to myself. I watched, as if from afar, as I crawled down the floor towards his feet.

"No, man!" It was all he could do to speak. "Not my feet!"

"Yes, your feet, motherfucker!" I lay atop his legs and gave my fingernails the run of his soles. The effect was immediate, I felt the jolts going through him as he gave in to full-throated laughter. "Are you gonna admit now that you made me mad on purpose?"

Panting, he shook his head "No."

"Okay then." I got up, went to the small bathroom, took a washcloth and moistened it under the tap. When I returned he was still panting from the effects of the last attack. "You were laughing a little too loud, my friend," I told him as I stuffed the cloth into his mouth. "This will take care of that."

He resisted, but soon enough I had stuffed the cloth completely into his mouth as his eyes widened with fear. When I turned back to his feet again I was moaning from both anger and lust. I wanted his black feet, more than I'd ever wanted anything in my life. I attacked his soles with my fingertips again while I used my tongue on the tops of his feet and the toes. I couldn't get enough of those smooth soles or his long, brown toes—soon I had them in my mouth, sucking on each one as if my life depended on it. Even the smell of his feet, a smell that was both clean and sweaty, drove me mad. And all the time my fingers tickled and scratched and tortured his soles.

Duke was too weak to struggle, too weak to even try to take the gag from his mouth. But he was shaking all over from his stifled laughter, his fists flopping uselessly on the floor. As I stepped up the intensity, licking and even biting the soles of his feet now, he was not only laughing but screaming.

"You haven't felt anything yet," I said. The transformation was now complete, I had become someone else, a crazy man with a hard dick and fingers itching for wild, sustained tickling. My thighs trembled as I straddled him and reached my fingers deep, deep into his armpits. "I'll tickle you the way your sisters tickled you. The way your sister and brother-and-law tickled you, when you were tied up and helpless. They weren't crackers, were they?"

Tears ran down his cheeks as I buried my fingers deep in his pits, the flesh searing hot, the tightly coiled hairs teasing the ticklishness of my own fingertips as I worked them hard. Panic filled his eyes, panic that grew as his muffled screams grew in volume and he could do nothing more than sway weakly back and forth, like a rocking chair losing its momentum.

"And what about me, Duke? You want to be put out of your misery, but who's going to help me? Who's going to put me out of my misery when there's hardly anything left of me? I ought to just keep tickling you, man, just like they do-tickling you to death, only not quite. Over and over, never stopping…."

His face was a mask of fear and agony. The gag distending his cheeks made him look even more grotesque. And it got worse as I moved my hands down a bit, toward his upper ribs. His fingers stretched and spread, they would do anything to stop me, but he couldn't even lift his hands from the floor. His dick was hard, yearning towards his belly.

"You will move those hands," I told him. "You're going to bring yourself off. Or else."

I kept tickling his ribs as his weak, trembling right hand found his dick. Grasping it seemed to take extreme effort.

"I remember what you told me. There's that spot on your ribs, the one that'll kill you. But I'm not even looking for it yet. You're going to cum first."

He shook his head violently.

"Do it! Come on!"

Slowly his hand began to pump his cock. To get a better view I moved down, down…down to his feet. He couldn't even clench his toes as I attacked his soles again, but through the gag he gave a little yelp of panic and started jacking faster. The more I tickled his feet, which were now so helpless they couldn't move at all as I dug my nails into the soles, the faster he jacked himself off. As I watched him I saw Granger too, and all the other black men I had known in my life. Immaculate brown skin sweating in the moonlight, lustrous in streetlight leaking through a pulled shade or the dim incandescence of a bathhouse room; smooth curved dicks of every shade of darkness, dickheads brown, pink or purple, swollen and ripe. Nipples clinging to a curve of muscle or hiding in coarse, tight curls. Navels like darker secrets hidden in darkness. Amid Duke's muffled laughter and grunts of exertion as he worked his cock, I heard another sound and realized I was whimpering, whimpering and whining like a dog as I relived twenty years of desire and torment. And it was with a cry like a wounded dog that I left Duke's feet and leaped toward the counter next to the fridge, grabbed up the ridiculous feather duster and leaped back at him, furiously tickling his balls as he came, his thick cream rising and falling to glaze his hands.

I was crying. Crying from exhaustion and madness. I rested my head on Duke's thigh, felt half of my face sticking to him, my fingers still roaming his crotch, reeking of a lifetime's worth of sweat and cum. When I finally unstuck my face and looked up at him, he was the same as when I had first seen him, his head twitching, sightless eyes half closed.

"Okay, Duke," I told him. "I'll do it now, I promise. It should be easier now that you've cum. Maybe quicker, too." I couldn't stop crying, and as I crawled toward his upper body my face was a mess of tears and snot. I wiped my nose and then the rest of my face on my right forearm. "I don't guess you need this now," I said, pulling the washcloth from his mouth.

His breath was hoarse. Soon it would be a death rattle. I wanted it to be over for Duke, all over as quickly as possible. My fingers moved up his sides, probing, searching his ribs. His labored breath came more quickly, but there was still no consciousness in his eyes, no sign that he knew what was happening. Yet when I hit a certain spot his whole frame shook: "Is this it, Duke? Is this the spot?" I thought I saw a flicker of assent in his nearly sightless eyes, but again it was his body that spoke, jarring as if a current passed through it as I increased pressure. By now he was as helpless as a slab of meat on a butcher block, but he was still living meat, my fingers sending shocks through his system that were no less intense for his inability to make a sound. The merest twitch, the slightest tug at the corner of his mouth or twist of his neck told me what I needed to know: that I was doing what he asked. Gently I lay my head on his stomach, my ear pressing into cold sweat as I pushed deeper, deeper into his ribcage, deeper into a man's body than I had ever gone, seeking out more than the mere connection between skin and nerve: I wanted the secret of life itself, its hidden connection to the soul, and I burrowed toward it as a man who's buried alive would dig for air.

"This is it, Duke," I said. My teeth were clenched against the work I had to do, my fingers ached from pressing and twisting, but I couldn't stop. It would be all over, any second now.

They burst in on us, half a dozen of them or more.

"All right, that's enough!"

The men in their famous plaid shirts and bluejeans, cussing as they moved over us, pulling me off Duke, dragging me to the opposite corner of the room. Kneeling around the body of the black man, asking each other, "Is he dead?" and one of them answering, "Naw, he ain't dead. He'll be in sick bay for a while, though."

Once they heard that Duke was still alive, the men holding my upper arms fitted their free hands to my torso like custom-made torture tools and started tickling furiously.

"So, you want to tickle somebody to death, huh, bud? Suppose the tables got turned, and you were the one who got the treatment? How'd you like that? Huh?"

His taunting wasn't necessary, my screaming laughter and the tears streaming down my cheeks were proof that the fierce tickling was destroying me—as if Duke's ordeal, my merciless tickling of him, had made me even more ticklish.

Naturally the others had to join in. Soon my feet were captured, fingers prying my toes back, exposing my soles to more fingers, and the wicked, ridiculous-looking feather duster appeared between my legs. The tickling short-circuited my brain, I couldn't think of anything beyond begging them to stop as soon as I could draw a breath; but I was aware that they must have been watching Duke and me all the time. And from my vantage point as I lay on the floor with my head thrown back, I could see even through my tears a surveillance camera high in one corner of the room, something that anyone who had not been tortured for—a few days? A week? A month?—would have noticed much sooner.

©2001 Wayne Courtois - Contributor's Bio