Sam Collins - Chapter 3

Damn wise guy.

Sam almost stumbled over a chair when he tried to get away from the jerk behind the bar. Instead of taking him up on his offer, he had waved a wedding band at his face. A wedding band. In a fucking gay bar.

Did he think he was some green kid who didn't know how to play the game? Sam was fucking 27 years old, a Captain of the US Army for Christ's sake! Okay, make that he was a Captain. What was he now? A pathetic fool trying to get laid in some hillbilly's excuse of a gay bar in fucking Arkadelphia.

"Fancy a drink, pretty boy?" An older guy stared at him from a dark corner.  All Sam could see were sparkling eyes framed by dark hair, a dark beard and lots of dark chest hair peeking out of a white muscle shirt. If only the shirt did cover muscles. That guy sure had seen better days. Sam was down, but not desperate. Maybe he should come back another time, hoping for a more appealing crowd. He thought of his lonely apartment and felt a wave of disappointment wash over him before he addressed the stranger.

"Thanks, but no thanks." He grabbed the back of a nearby chair, missing it by an inch and almost staggered to the floor.

"Easy big guy. You sure look like you need one of those. It'll clear your head." The dark stranger slid the glass in Sam's direction.

"I said no." He turned and headed for the exit.

"Thought so. I knew you wouldn't touch it. Not man enough for something harder than a Mai Tai, huh?" Sam could hear the derision in the guy's voice.

He usually wasn't easy to provoke - that probably came with the military routine and had saved him lots of troubles in his past. But tonight he was way past any mental barriers.

"You know what?", he said and took a seat on the table facing Beard Guy. "Fuck. You." Sam took the glass and downed it in one sip, knocking the glass loudly back on the table. 

"Didn't think you had it in you", the stranger said. "Guess I was wrong." He flashed yellow teeth underneath his dark beard.

Sam stared at him with cold eyes.

"Thanks for the freebie." He lifted himself from the chair and continued to the exit. Where was his damn jacket? He hoped he hadn't left it at the counter. No way was he gonna go back to Mr Happily-Married.

He looked at his hands, strangely noticing how they didn't feel like his own hands anymore. More like someone else's hands. Now wasn't that weird?

A nagging thought in the back of his mind reminded him of his training in bio warfare back when he entered the Special Unit. What did they say about psychoactive drugs? He couldn't remember.

"Lost your way, pretty boy?" Somewhere far away, someone hooked his arm in his and directed him somewhere. Sam couldn't help but trod along, not realizing what was going on. He just saw the world getting darker. Was he falling asleep or just walking into the dark? Who was with him? Someone touched him. He felt a hard surface underneath his back.

Sam's hands tried to get a grip on whoever was manhandling him, but all he could manage was tugging slightly at the other man's clothes. What was going on?

"...so pretty. And so well hung. Guess I'm getting lucky tonight......" The faceless voice scared Sam. For a moment, he lost his usual confidence and started to cry out, but he only heard a soft groan escape his lips.

"No, please. Let me go, please, please, no, no...", he whispered, more to himself, tears running down his face.

The sudden pain almost blinded him in the darkness. As numb as his arms and legs felt, the sudden agony was more than he could bear. What kind of drug was this shit? Couldn't he at least pass out instead of lying here like a living corpse?

The rush of memories that flooded his mind was even worse now that he couldn't go anywhere to escape his emotions.

Sean. Innocent, handsome Sean. He remembered the brown eyes that used to stare at him lovingly in Sam's bed, making him open up more than any words ever could. The things they told each other in those nights. Things they could never share with anyone else. Things that shouldn't be said between soldiers. But Sean was all he had. No life to come back home to, no family happily waiting for him somewhere. All he had was a mother who still cried over her late husband, a mother who would probably never accept Sam the way he was. And a sister who didn't really know him at all, a child's face watching him accusingly the day he left for the Academy. Would she ever forgive him for leaving her behind? Would she accept him the way he was?

The pain of losing the people he had loved was overwhelming. But it was the physical pain he was feeling right now that caused Sam's world to vanish in a cloud of darkness.