Henderson stood there for a few moments, waiting for his cock to return to some semblance of normal. His thoughts were, paradoxically, of completion. He had completed the task of saving his men, but he had also completely surrendered to his tormenters. If more of his men’s lives were to be put at risk, he hoped he would be forced to save them again in the same way.
He absolutely did not want to face his men. Surely some had figured out what might actually be going on, but there was nothing for it. He had to figure out how to handle this and fast. He couldn’t let his men become part of the sado-masochistic scene in his head. He fought the urge to cover himself with his hands, and instead tried to muster up the feeling (or absence of feeling) he would have if he were just coming out of the shower back at the base. No big deal. He finally turned and headed toward the cage. He had about fifty feet before he had to come up with an approach. With about twenty feet left it came to him. His shoulders relaxed. He knew what to say.
He entered the open door to the cage and the guard outside clanged it shut. The men were all standing, watching him expectantly. He knew them all well. He knew where they came from, their family situations, their military records. But it was clear that now they’d begun a journey of knowing him in an even deeper way. He took a deep breath and sat down gingerly on the splintery wooden bench, the only one in the space, and leaned his forearms on his thighs.
He paused for a moment to watch MacKenzie apply the two band aids DeAngelo had been given to his neck. DeAngelo caught his eye and pressed his lower lip up in a sort of inverse smile, conveying thanks and apology and sympathy, reminding Henderson that much more was at stake than his or his men’s self image.
Then, “OK, guys, pull up some dirt, have a seat and listen up. I think these people want three things. He lifted his forefinger. They want entertainment. They’re gonna get it and there’s nothing we can do about it. He lifted his middle finger. They want to leave you leaderless. They want to destroy all respect you have for my authority. Well, I’m not resigning. Three,” he lifted his ring finger. “They want to destroy your morale. One way, of course, is to put you all in fear for your lives. Will you be picked next? Beaubain and Miller and DeAngelo were legitimately terrified.”
He paused and gently bit his lip, to take a moment to process some emotion. It was sadness. He was sad at the loss of his nearly seamless public persona. He suppressed a sigh and continued.
“It would be crazy to tell you to relax, but I think I can say that I’ll rise to the task of protecting you.” His wry smile was met, not by chuckles, but with sympathetic looks and smiles.
“I may be over thinking on these last two things, but that’s my guess. But, whether that’s their plan or not, we’re not going to let that happen. You’ll have had a lot of different reactions to what happened out there today.” He tilted his head toward the amphitheater. “That’s OK. The way not to lose morale, not to fall apart, is for all of us to accept our feelings. Did I expect to get a hard-on from having a dildo shoved up my ass? No. I did not. But there’s nothing to be gained by running from what you’re feeling. If I want to deal with it later, when we get out, fine. But I’m not giving these guys the benefit of making me upset or guilty or demoralized. And I want you to do the same.
“I know you have a whole host of feelings. Some were aroused and are now feeling guilty. Some were aroused and are not feeling guilty.” He smiled in acknowledgement of the two openly gay men in the group. “Some of you were nauseated. Whatever you’re feeling, it’s OK, because, you know what? We’re human! We accept our feelings. And we take charge of our actions. We thank you nauseated ones for taking charge and not throwing up in our home.” Scattered smiles. “If you need to jerk off, just wait for dark and go for it. But while we’re here we don’t get involved in personal attachments, or angry acting out. Accept our feelings. Control our behavior. OK? Repeat after me, ‘We’re human!'” Almost all did. “Work on it.
“We need to keep busy, and one thing is we’ll do a half hour of calisthenics twice a day, once after breakfast and once after the ‘entertainment hour.’ It’s a good way to release nervous tension. Barbo, you’ll be in charge of calisthenics. If you decide on jumping jacks, I’m going to invoke executive privilege and do something else, like sit ups. There’s just so many assaults on my dignity I can handle,” he chuckled.
McSpadden spoke up. “Hey, Loot, while you were out there a bunch of us thought it might be a good idea if we stripped down too, sort of for solidarity, you know? But the guards out there,” he motioned in the direction where a few guards were gathered out of site, “they put a stop to it.”
Henderson smiled. “Sounds like a brilliant idea to me. Too bad you couldn’t implement it.”
Later in the afternoon he gathered them around again. “Men, we have to stay occupied and focused on things outside of here. I have an idea to address that just a little bit. Each day we’ll do three things. First, we’ll play a game between two teams, divided equally among us. Second, we’ll figure out the logistics of having the losers reward the winners when we get out of here. You’ll have to take into account that we might not all be physically together forever. Third, you’ll invent a game for the next day. To get you started, I’ve invented the game for tomorrow. We’ll divide ourselves into two teams and will all stand on one foot. The team of the last man standing is the winner. Finally, tonight you need to invent a way to reward the Remainders when we’re back home. The Remainders are those guys who were never on a winning team. The logistics of rewarding winners will be recorded in an imaginary log, one page per day. We’ll need to review the log regularly so we can refer to it when we get back to base.”
“Hey, Loot.” The gravelly voice was MacKenzie. “This is stupid. No way am I going to play games like standing on one foot.”
“Sorry, MacKenzie, but this is an order,” he said in a conversational tone that belied his words. “If you decide you want to disobey orders in this hell hole, then we’ll just deal with it back at base.”
That night, being in a desert like environment, the temperature dropped precipitously. Henderson was curled up on the floor, trying to sleep, but the cold was getting unbearable. They had been told that if anyone gave him clothing, they would be shot in the gut. They would die slowly. If Henderson was given clothing and the donor couldn’t be identified, someone would be shot at random. His teeth began to chatter uncontrollably, the sound clear to everyone in the group.
McSpadden whispered to his neighbor. “Angstrom, come over here.” Then he crawled over to Henderson and said, “Loot, turn on your stomach.” Henderson did so and then McSpadden said, “Angstrom, lie down next to Henderson like I’m doing. Put your leg over his and your head on his shoulder. Put your right hand on his head. Link your fingers in mine so we can relax and our hands will stay in place. That’s the best way to warm someone up. Keep the scalp warm. And Malmstrom, lie down so the soles of his feet are pressed into your stomach.” Slowly the warmth penetrated their uniforms and reached Henderson. “Thanks, guys,” he mumbled and fell asleep.