//Hi guys, thanks for reading. It's my first go at a story with rich background and characters, so I appreciate any feedback you can offer. I hope I can set the right pace and mix the details about Tom's background and state of mind with the actions he has to endure. Get in touch at paradox_88@outlook.com
Chapter: 1
It's easy to have fun as a 19-year-old French backpacker in Bangkok, and Tom certainly was trying to let it live up to the expectation. He enjoyed all the city offered him thus far: Tasty street food, the splendour of the grand palace, the social contrast that became apparent on a long tail cruise that took him through small canals and the extreme hospitality of the Thai people. After a long day of cultural activities, it was now time to explore the nightlife.
After plenty of meaningless encounters on the earlier legs of his trip through South East Asia , Tom had decided not to pursue sex anymore. Picking a major for the new school year was the main objective now. After dropping out of his French literature study at the Paris university of Sorbonne, this trip was supposed to be all about his future.
But that didn't mean he couldn't go out and get a drink. His hostel was right at the centre of Bangkok's backpacker area, but Tom preferred to mingle in a more local scene. He got into a taxi and asked to be taken to Ratchada Rot Fai 2, a fairly new night market the guy at the check in counter of the hostel promised him was still mostly undiscovered by tourists.
"Why are you going to Ratchada", the taxi driver asked. His English sounded good, especially for a Thai taxi driver. Every time Tom tried to take a taxi, the hardest thing was trying to explain to the driver where he needed to go. Even a famous hotspot like the grand palace didn't seem to ring a bell for some of them. That his telephone was stolen in Cambodia made things worse, because now he couldn't use a local sim card to look up translations or help with directions. Also, Tom's French accent didn't help, but the low level of English of the Thai people surprised him. With so many tourists in Bangkok, you'd expect at least the taxi drivers to communicate properly.
Tom told the driver he was looking for a more authentic experience, after spending most of his time with backpackers for the last two months.
"You look like a smart guy, why do you go to a night market ? They're the same everywhere. If you want to meet interesting Thai people, you should go to Silom. That's where the students and the business men are."
Tom looked at the driver. He was a typical small Thai man, with dark, neatly combed hair and glasses that were so transparent that they were barely noticeable. This was not a playboy trying to get a kickback for bringing well spending customers to one of the many shady bars that offered ping pong shows and girls to take back to your hotel room. Also, Tom knew that Silom was a big, well-known street, in the middle of the city. It didn't sound like a scam.
Tom thought it all over, realising the importance of the responsibility his parents entrusted on him. Not a lot of parents would allow their 19-year-old son to backpack through South East Asia for three months, without a predefined itinerary. They even financed the trip. And when his phone got stolen, all they said was `don't worry about it and stay safe'. But Tom also knew he had to take some risks once in a while if he truly was to have a unique experience, so he told the driver to take him to Silom.
After a twenty-minute drive, the taxi stopped on the side of a very busy street. There were plenty of people, so there was nothing to worry about. No dark back ally and no intimidating bouncers in front of the bars.
The taxi driver pointed to a door that was barely noticeable between the big office buildings. "Tell them that Prakuchit drove you here. It will not get you a discount - it's not that kind of bar - but maybe it will help you start a conversation." The last words of the driver made Tom feel safe and a little bit guilty that he had doubted his intentions.
The interior of the bar had a sophisticated look, with leather chairs, low light, a bookshelf and a liquor collection behind the bar tender that suggested they might only serve traditional cocktails and whisky. The bar didn't look like the kind of place that should be on the to do list of someone on a backpacking budget, but Tom decided that he'd at least have one drink before heading out again. There was a group of well-dressed Thai people, probably students, in their early twenties. Seeing them made Tom instantly aware of his own outfit. He was dressed for the market, wearing a loose v-neck and shorts. Fortunately he was wearing shoes instead of the usual flip-flops, but he wasn't sure it'd be enough to let him stay.
"You can't wear that in here," said the bartender who had walked up to him and was moving his eyes all over Tom's body .
"I'm sorry, I was planning to go somewhere else but my taxi driver... Prakuchit, he told me this would be a nice place for me to meet educated Thai people ," Tom replied.
I n his apology, Tom's presence remained firm. Even when being asked to leave, Tom's indifferent air made it clear that he would not feel rejected by such a decision. The bartender waited for a more eager plea, but swiftly realised he wasn't going to hear it from this tall boy with the French accent. Tom saw a curious look in the bartender's eyes, that was triggered when he had mentioned the name of the taxi driver, but seemed to intensify by the second.
"Ok, I'll fix you a drink, come sit at the bar." The bartender tried to act as if he had only just decided to ignore the fact that Tom wasn't wearing a smart outfit. They both knew that wasn't true.
The bartender was an Asian man, in his thirties, and was even more fluent in English than the taxi driver. There was barely an accent noticeable. After he served a Bacardi and Coke, he headed to one of the guys that was in the group of Thai students. The guy followed the bartender back to the bar and grabbed the stool next to Tom.
"Hello, I'm Roo", said the boy.
He turned out to be the son of the owner of the bar and said he always liked talking to young tourists who were looking for something else then the many roads that all the tourists before had already paved. The boy confirmed that he and his friends were indeed students, but that was about all Tom got out of the boy. The only things Roo wanted to talk about were the classy customers that the bar normally entertains and the stellar reputation his father supposedly has in the gentleman's scene of Bangkok. Tom didn't really listen. He was start ing to feel tired and losing his concentration. When his drink was finished and he asked for the bill, the boy offered him another drink, "from the house and because you are my guest."
Tom didn't see the harm in one more drink. He would just drink it fast and head back to the hostel. He had a long day of exploring the city behind him, so the sudden tiredness didn't alarm him. It was only until halfway through the second drink when he needed to balance his arm on the bar to prevent falling from his stool. He started to fade in and out of the conversation, which was only the Thai boy talking. He seemed to have discovered Tom's purpose in Bangkok and changed the subject from his father to life goals, or something like that. Tom couldn't keep up anymore.
"I understand you. You want to live, to do something unique."
"You want to find out who you really are."
Tom wanted to leave, but he couldn't move.
"Bangkok has made the dreams of many men come true."
"In order to make dreams of the deserving come true, there have to be servants. You are going to be one of those servants. "
The boy kept talking, while Tom was rapidly blinking his eyes. His skin was feeling extremely sensitive all of a sudden, like a dozen fans all started blowing at his body at once. He tried to regain his focus, was this boy really saying what Tom was hearing? Before he could answer the question to himself, everything went black.
Tom woke up lying on the floor of a room that was completely dark. It felt surreal, as if he was still to wake up from a bad dream. It took him a while to realise some kind of drug was fading from his body, but once he did it became terrifyingly clear to him that this wasn't a bad dream at all. The room in which Tom found himself felt like a sauna, with clammy heat touching his body. His naked body, as Tom now realised, with nothing on it but the cold, heavy feel of a steel chain around his ankle. Tom's predicament caused a sudden wave of panic and he started to scream.
He screamed for minutes and minutes, maybe even longer than an hour, there was no way to tell, before his voice finally gave in. He couldn't hold off the tears that had been urging to escape from his eyes any longer, tears that most others would've succumbed to much sooner. But even while crying, Tom maintained his strength of character. He made no sound and he wasn't broken; this was nothing more than a physical reaction to the situation he found himself in.
Tom closed his eyes, as if it could get him out of the room. He tried to retrace his steps; the hostel, the taxi, the bar. How could he have been so stupid to take the advice of the taxi driver. Such a foolish mistake that he had been warned about so often. Why did he accept the second drink at the bar when he was already feeling tired? Why didn't he just go to the night market like he had planned to? Why didn't he get a new telephone after the first one was stolen while he was sleeping in a Cambodian hostel?
The moment he heard a switch, he was blinded. An unforgiving beam of neon light escaped from the ceiling and filled the room, which he started to see was very small. The chain around his ankle was connected to a mount right at the center of the floor. When his eyes were fully accustomed to the intense light, there were few details yet to discover: The room was almost completely empty, apart from a thin blanket that was rolled up against one of the walls.
But the blanket wasn't the center of Tom's focus. What caught his attention was a cctv camera in one of the upper corners, a dark TV monitor mounted in the wall and the door, especially the door.
Even though the steel door didn't have a handle, it was easy to identify between the concrete of the enclosing wall. The door was built firmly within the concrete, Tom kept scanning for holes or distortions in the steel, but he couldn't discover even the tiniest opening. That was probably also the reason why he couldn't hear anything but his own accelerated breathing.
Using all the power his body had recovered since waking up from his drug-induced sleep, Tom tried to stand. His legs were shaky, but he managed. The room was small, but just big enough to prevent him from touching the walls while standing . The heavy chain around his ankle was just three links long so in order to touch the wall, he had to lie down and stretch his hands. Tom noticed a couple of rings mounted into the wall, but before he could think about the purpose of their presence, the TV required his immediate attention: an image had appeared.
The modern looking, flat screen TV was mounted in the wall just below the camera that was probably filming Tom this very instant. Both the camera and the monitor were out of his reach. The cables that provided a current and transmitted the images were barely visible and the way they disappeared into the wall was the work of professionals. A shiver went down Tom's sweaty spine while he concluded that he wasn't in a police cell or in the captivity of some amateurs that might ask his parents for a ransom. Someone a lot less bright than Tom would've figured out that this kind of setup could only mean he was in serious trouble.
The thought was confirmed by the image on the screen. It was a picture of Roo, the boy he had met at the bar, the son of the owner. Only in the picture he wasn't wearing his three-piece suit, but an army-like outfit. The violent look in his eyes matched the automatic machine gun he was holding in his hands. In any other situation, Tom would've laughed about such a show-off picture. Now, he realised being shown the image was his captors' way of letting him know there was no escape possible.
The image faded to black before it began showing CCTV footage that had been shot in the bar where Tom was abducted. He spotted himself, talking to his fictive guard. The footage clearly showed that there was no one else in the bar apart from the bartender and the friends of the boy that Tom had been talking to. While Tom was talking to Roo and losing consciousness, the bartender closed the front door of the bar. After the drug had knocked Tom out, everyone that was inside helped drag his tall body through the door at the back of the bar. That's where the image faded to black again.
The new information that the footage had shown, felt like a punch in the stomach. So many thoughts were fighting to be on top of mind, and most of them were reassurances Tom was telling himself to remain calm.
They will come looking for me. They will find me. Tom wanted to think it, but a growing feeling of hopelessness dominated his mind.
The TV started airing again and this time the screen filled with the pinkish glow of naked bodies. From the first fraction Tom knew it was porn. The clip showed two boys, about Tom's age. One was on his knees, sucking the other. The clip had audio and strangely enough it was a relief to Tom to hear the moaning of the boys on the screen. Finally something other than the panic-filled sound of his own breathing.
The clip didn't last long. Within a couple of minutes the face of the kneeling boy was dripping cum and his tongue was eagerly trying to get as much of it in his mouth. The next clip started: it showed a small, young boy bent over a table while an older man fucked him until he came in the boys ass. Several other men, probably in their fifties or sixties, were waiting for their turn to fuck the boy next. The clip took forever, not until all of the 10+ men had spilled their seed in the raw ass of the numb-fucked boy, the clip changed. A naked Asian guy appeared, only his back was visible, he was standing with his hands pushed to the wall. The angry voice of an invisible man shouted something in the background and after a couple of seconds, the punishing sound of a cane hitting the bare flesh of its victim cut through the prison room in which Tom was being held.
As the caning in the clip continued, Tom had goose bumps all over his body. The acts he was watching shocked him, but most of all it was that the Asian boy that had to endure it, didn't make a single sound. As if all sense of pain had been squeezed out of his body. That wasn't possible, Tom thought.
Although the images were horrible to Tom, he couldn't look away, it was the only input he got out of the room, so he had to focus on it.
Dozens of porn clips succeeded each other. All were gay; some of relatively normal sex where boy-next-door types sucked or fucked each other, but most had a dark twist and involved some kind of fetish.
Between some of the clips, the monitor aired the footage that the camera above it was filming. Tom saw himself, plain naked and completely lost. It was only when he looked at his own image on the monitor when h e noticed his penis was hard. It didn't shock him, he was sure the erection was based on fear, like the early boners he would get from watching a scary movie when he was very young.
The porn clips varied in length. Some only showed a brief action, like the licking of a foot, while other clips didn't seem to end. They covered so many different sexual areas that it was like Tom was receiving a crash course in gay sex. He saw intimate kisses, hair being shaven, dildos and fists penetrating, rimming, spanking, two boys that took turns pissing in each other's mouths and many other things Tom had never before seen or even thought about. Oddly enough, the clip Tom found the most ominous was not so sexual at all: It showed a group of six men that were drinking cocktails, quietly speaking to each other and looking at a group of naked young boys on a stage. Almost like they were inspecting them. The boys didn't do anything but stand there. The men were acting casual, like they were attending just another cocktail party.
The footage of this clip was grainy, but the thought occurred that it might have been filmed in the bar where Tom was abducted.
After the sequence of clips had looped four times, the screen faded to black and the neon light that had filled the room disappeared with the same violent motion it had come with. Tom sat on the floor with his hands in his beautiful blonde hair, that normally had such a radiant glow when it was being touched by daylight. Three questions kept running through his mind: Where the hell was he, how could he get away and, if he couldn't, what were they planning to do to him ? In the darkness and silence that surrounded him, there was no peace for him to find.
To be continued...
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