Sidecar Settlement

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 Author: Gaston Cavalleri.

Title: Sidecar Settlement / G. Cavalleri.

The truck’s hydraulics lasted fifteen kilometers to Bruce’s barn house. Ryan had been dragged from the truck, then shackled in the floorless shed. He woke from his blackout wearing a shirt, minus pants. In the poorly-lit shed, he stood supported by a chain hung from the ceiling. A leather harness strapped Ryan’s torso to the chain and created a pendulum. His wrists were cuffed and elevated so his arms restricted his lateral vision. Ryan’s face drooped from exhaustion as he observed a battered vintage sidecar parked in front of him. Then the bashing of metal began. Ryan flinched forward, but the rusted shackles restricted his movement. He looked at his naked lower limbs, then contracted his pelvic floor.

‘What’s happened to me?’ Ryan cringed.

‘Wake up, sweetness!’ Bruce said. ‘Was it as good for you as it was for me?’

Ryan tugged his cuffs which jerked on the rusted fixtures.

‘I see you’ve still got my shirt on. I think you’ve earned that now.’

‘It’s my shirt.’ Ryan pleaded, ‘Let me go!’

‘I’m almost done with you!’

‘So, now what?’ Ryan groveled.

Bruce grabbed Ryan by the scruff of his neck, wrinkled up his shirt, then bit Ryan’s ear softly and muffled: ‘You keep wiggling that cute little butt like that, and I might just change my mind.’

Ryan shivered anxiously, then submitted to the chains.

‘For as soft as you look, you’re a tough one . . . Snug, too . . . Although I saw that coming.’

Ryan choked and spluttered on his tears. His body melted and hung limp in the restraints.

‘You know we were doing 80 kilometers per hour when you flew off that edge? I’m very impressed.’ Bruce slowly circled Ryan.

‘Take the shirt . . . Just let me go!’

Bruce gently lifted Ryan’s chin and brought their heads face to face.

‘I don’t wanna ruin what we have,’ Bruce said. Then dropped Ryan’s head like a lifeless weight. With the point of his boot, Bruce drew an oval in the soil round Ryan. It was the size of a small pillow.

‘That’s your spot,’ Bruce said, as he drew a second loop overlapping the first.

‘We’re gonna play a game . . .’ Bruce said, with an evil smirk. He stepped to Ryan’s side, then pressed his forehead against Ryan’s temple.

‘I’m gonna leave . . . If I come back . . . and you’re not in your circle, I won’t get in mine. But if I come back and you’re still in your circle . . . Well, I suppose I’ll get in mine.’ Bruce dispassionately walked out of the barn, blankly staring back at Ryan. ‘Hasta pronto!’ he said, then closed the shed’s metal door.

                    * * *

Bruce picked Ryan up in a downright shit-box truck that coughed and spluttered and eventually broke down, with Ryan lifeless in the back. They were outside a small rural city in the north of Argentina. They’d travelled two kilometers before the truck troubles struck. The engine fired, but the truck wouldn’t drive.