Chapter 4

The beautiful brunette with the longest legs in the world smiled down at him, her piercing green eyes fixed on Hutch's crystal blues. She licked delicately at her lips as her nails raked delicious red furrows down the blond's chest. Her breath was warm against his neck, her body heavy against his own. Her nails caught at his skin making him gasp at that pleasure/pain sensation that left him breathless. He wriggled his body, thrusting his hips upwards, grinding them into the woman so that she let out a mew of excitement and her hands plunged lower so that they clawed at his belt. Patiently Hutch allowed the woman to unbuckle the belt to his jeans and insert her hand into the warm depths. He would have helped but his own hands were immobilised, somehow held fast away from his body and the confinement added to his excitement. Her fingers brushing his overheated cock felt so good that for a second he wondered if he would be able to maintain control and he breathed deeply, fighting the sensations coursing through his lower body.

Hutch needed the woman to slow down. He wanted their love making to last. He wanted to surround himself with hedonistic pleasures. He tried to grasp her wrist, to stop the assault on his centre and yet try as he might he couldn't reach her, his hands attached to something else.

'Mnnn' he moaned. 'Stop...'

'Aww. Sounds like he likes it.'

The man's voice penetrated Hutch's clouded mind. A man? Watching? What the hell...In his dream he had been alone with the brunette. In his dream Hutch had been in a beautiful bedroom, the four poster bed hung about with heavy claret coloured satin drapes. There had been no-one else with them and yet the man's voice seemed close – too close. Foggily, Hutch struggled to open his eyes, intent on telling the spectator to go to hell. The hands continued to work across his groin, not inside his pants, but grazing the butter soft corduroy of his jeans across his cock sending lightening sensations up into his lower belly.

With returning consciousness came the pounding headache. This wasn't how love making was supposed to make him feel and Hutch rarely suffered from headaches. Migraines were something that tormented his partner, but not him.

Starsky!

Panic began to set in. Where the hell was...

The pounding in Hutch's temples settled to a dull thud as his memories returned and he relived the last moments of the confrontation at the motel. Starsky, unconscious on the ground; four men surrounding him; two holding Hutch by his arms as he fought to get to his buddy. The Sheriff... A fist...Darkness.

The flaxen haired cop opened his eyes and stared at the younger of his assailants from the motel. Clyde was squatting between Hutch's outstretched legs, his eyes fastened on Hutch's face as his hand stroked across Hutch's groin. The look on Clyde's face told Hutch that he would have gone much further had the blond not regained consciousness.

'What the hell?' Hutch's voice sounded dry as sandpaper and he coughed to clear his throat as he fought to bring his legs together. The dream he'd thought was so real still hovered at the back of his mind and now he realised that, far from being restrained and seduced by the raven haired beauty, he was sitting on the ground with his back against the wooden wheel of a cart, his wrists pulled wide and tied to the rim of the wheel. Out of reflex, Hutch pulled hard against the bindings. Of course they were solid, tight enough that Hutch could no longer feel his fingers and the course hemp rope was chaffing against his skin.

Clyde licked his lips. 'It's more excitin' when they struggle.' His hand once more strayed towards Hutch's cock as the blond tried his best to bring his legs together and stop any further assaults. 'Go to hell' he blond rasped.

'You first' Clyde grinned.

'This one's no fun at all.'

Clyde's young friend sounded pissed that he wasn't allowed the same fun as his buddy and it was only at that point that Hutch's brain caught up with the present. If he was here, tied to a cartwheel in some run down hay barn... Starsky. Where was Starsky? Hutch followed Clyde's eyes as the deputy Sheriff looked across the barn towards his friend.

'You aint doin' it right. No wonder Lisa Mae left ya Jed. Give him a kick. Wake him up a bit.'

Hutch watched, unable to move as Jed stood by the side of the dangling brunet. Starsky was obviously unconscious. His body hung limp and boneless, his wrists fastened high above his head to a meat hook hanging from a rope suspended from one of the rafters of the barn. Starsky's head lolled forwards, his chin resting on his chest. His blue denim shirt was open to the waist showing a large blue bruise around his neck from the Sheriff's baton. Jed reached out and took one brown nipple between his finger and thumb and nipped hard. He got no response from the painful stimulus and shook his head. 'He aint never gonna wake up.'

'Take your filthy hands off of him' Hutch yelled. 'You stay away from him.'

'Like you can do anythin' to help' Clyde snorted. 'You aint goin nowhere mister. You're my little puppy now.' As if to reinforce the words, Clyde's hands went to Hutch's belt and started to work at the buckle again. Hutch bucked, trying to get enough leverage to dislodge the young Sheriff from his place but instead his actions seemed to encourage Clyde more.

'Look how he's askin' fer it' he grinned at Jed. 'He's a real whore.'

'Clyde, leave him be.' The deeper voice of Kaleb the Sheriff cut through the air like a whip. 'And be nice, we have visitors.'

With a frown Clyde got to his feet and turned to face his Dad. 'Can I have him afterwards Pa?'

'If there's enough left, maybe.'

'Silence' A heavily French accented male voice echoed around the barn and for the first time Hutch had a chance to see who was accompanying Kaleb. A tall, dark skinned man stood in front and to one side of the Sheriff. He wore a business suit, open necked white shirt and shiny patent shoes. His whole appearance seemed so far removed from the bucolic picture of the haybarn and yet Kaleb, Clyde and Jed all seemed to shrink back from the man's presence.

'Papa Noir was ready. He knew I was comin' fer him' Clyde said almost reverently.

'Papa Noir...Papa Noir' Clyde and Jed bowed their heads and whispered the name in greeting as though they were in the presence of the Pope.

The man in question ignored the grovelling men and instead walked quietly towards Hutch, his eyes drilling into the blond's. Hutch watched the witch doctor approach, feeling like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a car. He couldn't have moved even if he had wanted to and something in Papa Noir's eyes held him fast, transfixed. Hutch shook his head and forced himself to look away as the man loomed over him.

'Ce n'est pas l'homme.'

'No, he was there, but he didn't touch Mary Lou' Kaleb said.

The tall man cast his eye over Hutch who felt instantly as though his body had passed through a blast furnace. His skin tingled from the gaze and the flaxen haired cop wanted nothing more than to crawl away and hide. Hutch was almost relieved when Papa Noir sighed and walked away, this time towards Starsky's hanging body.

The witch doctor stood directly in front of the brunet and seemed to examine Starsky minutely. He brought up both hands and let them hover over the brunet's frame, close but not touching. The hands skimmed over Starsky's chest and back before dropping lower and finally hovering over the smaller man's groin.

'Il est celui.'

'Uh huh. He's the slimy no good bastard that raped my girl.'

'Il dort. I will wake him.'

'That'll be good. We've been tryin to wake him up all mornin'' Kaleb grunted.

Papa Noir smiled a smile that did not reach his eyes. Slowly he leaned forwards and whispered something into Starsky's ear. The witch doctor stood back and clicked his fingers in front of the brunet's face once. The effect was instantaneous.

Starsky groaned and tension returned to his body. The brunet managed to get his feet under him and as Hutch watched his eyes flickered open, fluttered and then opened fully, resting on the witch doctor's face in front of him.

'Bonjour mon cher' Papa Noir whispered. 'Accueillez au diable.'

Starsky looked around him groggily. His hands burned ferociously from the return of a small amount of circulation now that they no longer held up his body. His head ached desperately and his throat, where Kaleb had held him with the baton felt like sandpaper. His voice was raw and husky when he finally managed to mumble 'Huh?'

Papa Noir smiled gently. 'You are awake. I welcomed you to hell.'

For a moment the bound brunet closed his eyes against the reality of his situation. Starsky had no time to recollect the events of the fight before he heard his partner's voice a little way away.

'Starsk? Are you ok buddy?'

Starsky snickered but the snicker turned into a grunt of pain as his body swayed on the end of it's tether. 'T'riffic. Let me take a guess. This aint the Waldorf is it?'

Papa Noir took a step so that he put his body between Hutch and the brunet cop. 'Look only at me. Listen only to me.' The witch doctor clicked his fingers in front of Starsky's face. '...écoutez-moi.'

Starsky found his eyes drawn back to the tall man in front of him. It was as though the rest of the world faded into shades of grey leaving only the doctor in glorious technicolour. The eyes that stared back at him were black as midnight. The pupils themselves were normal, wide in the relative gloom of the barn, but the irises surrounding them matched the pupils perfectly. Not brown, or blue but intense, inky black that seemed to draw Starsky's gaze like a moth is drawn to a flame. Beneath the eyes a wide nose and thick lipped mouth sat in the blacker than black face. Dobey called himself black, but in truth his skin was a deep cafe au lait. Huggy bear too was brown but not black. There were few men that Starsky could say were truly black. Sure some were dark...very dark, but Papa Noir's skin was almost velvet blue in its intensity and his teeth, when he opened his mouth to speak were also coloured, stained red this time from a lifetime of chewing betel nuts.

'Starsk, look away buddy. Listen to me. Look away.' Hutch's voice seemed distant, far enough away that Starsky could ignore it. Instead he felt himself diving headlong down the deep black pit of Papa Noir's eyes.

The witch doctor flicked his fingers behind him, his gaze never leaving the brunet's, but Clyde saw the direction and moved until his foot was positioned between Hutch's legs once more. This time, he placed the toe of his boot against the bulge in the blond's pants that indicated Hutch was most definitely male. Grinning from ear to ear, Clyde leaned forwards, crushing Hutch's balls beneath his boot and increasing the pressure as Hutch fought to clamp his lips closed. As the pressure increased and the lightening bolts fired behind his eyes however, the pain became so intense that he could no longer remain silent. As Clyde accompanied the pressure with a kick Hutch screamed, a raw, animalistic sound that was wrung painfully from his body.

'He said shut it' Clyde snapped.

Hutch clenched his fists against the pain but the spell on Starsky was broken momentarily by the sound and the brunet broke Papa Noir's gaze and tried to see around the witch doctor's body.

'Hutch. Talk to me bud.'

'Starsk...'

Another kick, this time to his knee silenced the blond and Papa Noir turned his attention back to Starsky.

'Leave him alone, it's me you're interested in' Starsky muttered, although his voice had none of his usual cocksure attitude.

'Oui, c'est vrai. You are the one who roused me from my rest, mon cher' Again the witch doctor reached up and caressed the side of Starsky's face. The brunet felt the touch as though a jellyfish had laid its stingers against his skin. The place burned fiercely as though the skin had blistered and again Starsky was caught in the gaze of those black, black eyes. 'But he provides, shall we say, leverage. You know now that if you do not co-operate, my friends here will have no trouble in causing your blond companion as much pain as it takes to make you behave. Do we understand each other?'

With difficulty Starsky nodded. Captured as he was by Papa Noir's gaze he found himself losing the will to do anything other than to submerge himself in the black eyes. Papa Noir smiled.

'Bon. Then we will begin.'