Dynamics of a Human Heart Ch. 02

"Sam, we need to go, NOW!" Miranda hissed.

"Hey Misshhy," Sam slurred, slinging an arm around the other girl and exhaling fumes into her face that nearly had Miranda gagging "Look everyone," she turned to face the others, "It's Misshy," she belched and then put a hand over her mouth, "Oops, sorry."

Miranda was rapidly reaching the point of truly fed up, "Samantha, you and I are leaving now!"

"Oooh, look everyone, mommy's upset!" Sam attempted to focus on her lover, "Well, tell you what, Misshy, as long as I am stuck sitting in this chair, I get to drink as much as I want of whatever I want!" she said with a very stubborn set in her jaw that Miranda knew all too well.

Sam did a good job of keeping her spirits up about everything most of the time, until she drank. Then it seemed like a floodgate of repressed bitterness, anger, and depression came flooding forth and she quickly proceeded to spew venom on anyone and everyone within range.

"Yeah, Misshy," one of the guys said as he reached out, "Come have some fun with us."

Miranda backed away hurriedly, hands up in an awkward attempt to defend herself. The others just laughed. Sam lurched out of her chair trying to grab at her; one of the guys present stuck out an arm to keep her from falling over and in the process groped both of Samantha's breasts and took his time about it. Sam didn't seem to notice; she just kept laughing and trying to grab Miranda.

Miranda's head began to spin; she couldn't think straight or find her feet.

"You know what you need, Mishy?" Sam yelled out.

The other girl turned to face her, "What Sammy, what do I need?"

Sam giggled again in a way that Miranda didn't find funny or attractive at all.

"You need," she enunciated slowly, "A big....fat.....cock!"

The table roared in laughter, Sam included as Miranda felt her cheeks flush in humiliation and tears started to leak down her face as she pushed herself away and just ran, ran away from all the ugliness her lover was hurling at her.

"Oh come on, lover lighten up," she heard Sam call after her.

"Yeah, c'mon back China," one of the guys added, "C'mon over and 'me love you long time!'" he howled after her, grabbing his crotch.

Another roar of laughter, including Sams, was still echoing in Miranda's ears as she fled. She shoved her way through the crowd as best she could, her slim frame bouncing off people like a deranged pinball.

A big fat cock, Miri, you need a big, fat, cock.

Miranda started to cry as she ran, making it even more difficult to not fall over. Sam was the last person to say things like that; even if she weren't her lover. Sam's preference for women had always been rock steady. She only said it to because she was drunk and the only way to deal with the fact that she was hurting was to hurt Miri.

Moreover, she'd succeeded.

Finally, weaving and stumbling, Miranda put her back against a stairwell, slid to the floor and buried her face in her hands as hard, painful sobs wracked her frail body. Tears now flowed freely as she started digging her nails into her skin, so she could focus on external pain and ignore how she felt inside.

"Miiiri!!!"

Miranda jerked up and pushed herself to her feet unsteadily and she searched frantically for Sam.

It didn't take long and what she saw caused her blood to run cold.

Sam, not looking like she was having nearly as much fun, was being hoisted like a prize trophy by several men. Only men. And they were bringing her upstairs....for some private time. For one, very ugly moment, Miranda narrowed her eyes, rimmed red in anger and humiliation.

Having a tough time, Sammy?

She shook those thoughts. This is not who she was. More importantly, Sam wasn't that kind of girl. Not really. She wasn't perfect, but she was hers and she loved her.

Miranda made eye contact with the other girl; her blue eyes were wide and terrified. Miranda looked around frantically, what could she do? Call the police? Campus security? Go after them? There were five of them; they'd kill her or worse. She didn't know anyone here.

In times of panic, it's strange what the brain focuses on: even now, watching her lover being trotted away like a sacrificial lamb to be gang raped, and amongst all the noise and stink, she was still able to pick up on a single scent.

The scent of fresh cut wood, leather and something bitter.

It couldn't be...

"Aces over eights, lads. Please pass all your bread to the front so that I may collect it more easily."

You have got to be kidding.

Miranda looked around hurriedly and found a poker table, surrounded by four, very angry looking college kids with a dwindling pile of cash in front of them, a large pile in the center and a fifth man with his back to her. He was dressed in the same white shirt and black slacks she'd seen him in earlier, his tan coat was thrown over the back of the seat.

Does the man even own another pair of clothes?

She was still uncertain as she approached, she couldn't see his face. In one gloved hand, he was casually twirling a long, walking stick, painted purple, green, red, and every other garish color in the spectrum. However, it was in his right hand that convinced her it was the man from earlier: he crushed out a spent cigarette onto the table, alongside a very large pile of additional cigarette stubs and proceeded to light up another cigarette, all without breaking stride.

"I need your help!" she yelled at him as she came up on him from behind slapping a hand on his shoulder and starting to pull.

"OW!" Miranda cried out in pain, she jerked her hand back; he had burnt her with his cigarette! It was over before she even realized it had happened, quick as a bee sting.

"Hands off the merchandise there poppet," he said calmly as he began to deal cards in rapid fire to the other players.

Miranda sucked at her hand for a second, then gritting her teeth, she grabbed the man forcibly by his jacket and spun him around to face her.

"Now!"

The blonde man looked up at her casually, still shuffling his cards in his hands, cigarette dangling from the corner of his as he regarded her with those mirrored sunglasses.

"What's got your knickers in a twist?" in a tone that oozed condescension.

"Hey, limey," one of the players snarled, "you gonna talk to your girlfriend or you gonna play cards?"

Without turning away from Miranda, he held up a stalling hand, "Cool it, yank; still plenty of time in the evening for me to take all your bees and honey," he said as he gestured at the other man's dwindling pile of money, "have no fear."

He turned back to the girl, cards and cigarette in one hand, twirling his gaudy colored stick in the other, "Now-"

"Hey you stupid son-of-a-bitch, I'm talking to you!"

But the man appeared to be ignoring him as continued on with Miranda, "So, what's your bloody problem?" he demanded.

"Samm-Samantha," she corrected, "Got really drunk and these guys are going to take her upstairs and try to have sex with her?"

"What, the blonde bird in the trolley?"

"Yes."

"Well, then those blokes probably aren't going to have to try very hard, will they? If you can't land a drunken gimp when you're five-on, then you'd best pack it in."

Miranda's mouth sagged open even as the man turned away to face the players, "New round, jacks or better to open," he eyed the other players smugly, "Now then, who's turn is it to raise?"

"PLEASE!!"

"I open with twenty dollars," the player on the left said.

"What, did your allowance get cut or something?"

"I need your help!" Miranda cried.

"See twenty and raise twenty," said another player. The older man just scoffed in derision and shook his head.

"I'll see your forty and raise same," the last player said.

"Well now, this is a cute little piece pot, isn't it? Right adorable" the costumed man sneered, "But I think it needs to grow a pair," he pushed a wad of cash into the center of the table, "A hundred dollars makes a man out of this tiddly pot," he gave a cruel grin to the other players still twirling that stick in his left hand,

"Now then, come and have a go if you think you're hard enough."

"I'll let you do things to me, if you go help her," Miranda said very, very quietly. All the other players, college guys, jerked their heads up at that and started becoming very interested in what was happening.

He shook his head, gesturing with his cigarette to the other players, "There you are, Binty," he said, coughing again and clearing his throat, "three strapping young men ready to ride to your rescue and liberate your fair maiden before she's violated in every one of her god-given orifices."

Miranda looked at their hunger and shivered,

"I have money!" Miranda yelled and she did, quite a lot actually from her research grants and publications.

He just gestured at the money in front of him, "Well, so do I buttercup, four hundred dollars and change."

Miranda's cheeks flushed red as she slowly hiked up her dress, both hands white knuckled until just the slightest hint of pale hip was showing.

The Englishman saw it, shook his head, and gestured to his cards, "Look poppet, unless you have the fourth Margaret to keep her three sisters here company...," he said while gesturing at his cards,

Two players groaned in dismay and folded.

"...you've got nothing in your knickers I want. Your boo brought this on herself. Never get into a situation you can't walk out of," he shrugged slightly, "so to speak."

Miranda cast about desperately, she didn't know what to do; she was so scared, for herself and Sam. He wouldn't take money or sex, what else could she do? She floundered within herself and found something; a small, irritating part of her mind. The part that had claimed her last masturbatory fantasy and that rattled around in her head like a pebble in her shoe and that made her stomach clench in anxiety.

"Do it because you're a decent man, the kind of man who won't stand by and let a girl get raped."

The man stopped twirling his stick.

Thank God! She thought to herself.

He turned his head slightly to regard her, "You willing to bet your life and hers on that, lass? Are you that sure of it?"

Miranda took a deep breath,

"Yes," she said with a hint of defiance and a lot of determination.

There was a pause. Then,

"Oh....fuck me!" he cursed.

"I did offer," Miranda replied quietly.

He whirled on her "Don't get cute!" he snarled and she nearly fell over as she jumped back in alarm. He sighed, pushed his sunglasses up higher onto the bridge of his nose and reached down to collect his winnings.

A meaty hand clamped down onto his,

"You're not walking out of here with our money," one of the players barked, "Not before we get a chance to win it back. You want to go play hero, your money stays here."

The other man responded by casually grinding out his cigarette into the man's hand.

"FUCKER!!" the other man yelled clutching at his hand. Unlike what had been done to Miranda, which had been a warning and not terribly painful after the initial shock, the Englishman had put muscle and prolonged, deliberate force into this and had burned the man rather badly.

"Now hear this, tossers!" he began as he gestured to his money with his stick, "that is a pretty pile of four hundred dollars U.S," he held up his stick, "If there is not four hundred dollars U.S. still in said pile when I return, I'm going to shove this bit of hickory so far up your collective arses that you'll be calling out its name later during your evening wank, are we clear?"

A circle of sullen glares was his only response.

"Good, glad to see that college education isn't going to waste," he said with a smirk. He began to turn away then stopped and turned back to them,

"By the way," he started, gesturing with his cigarette to the nearest player, "Archie here's wishing he'd gotten that third seven on the last go-round, but he didn't and he's not nearly a good enough liar to look otherwise,"

He continued to the next player, 'Jughead's got a "Princess's pair": hearts and diamonds, but since they're not a matched set, it's shite,"

He finished by pointing at the third man, the one he had burnt with his cigarette, "And Betty is just praying that I don't figure out that his attempted heart's flush is all cocked up," he leaned in to face the man, "News flash boyo, I have figured it out and so did the rest of the table about five fucking minutes ago."

The Englishman held up his own cards, "So, if any of you prickless wonders want to know whether or not you can trump what I'm holding here, then be my bloody guest," he waved his cards around like they were a weapon,

"It'll cost you this entire pot," he gestured to the money in the circle of the table, "to find out. Or, you can spare yourself the humiliation, give me your money now and make it home in time to beg your old lady for a quickie."

Without looking, threw his cards face down on the table. The men behind him looked ready to explode and Miranda looked stunned.

"What the hell-?"

"Not important," he turned on Miranda and grabbed his coat, and stick, "lead on Queenie; time to go find your bird. They're university boys so foreplay is out," he muttered, "but maybe if we're lucky, they plan on taking turns."

"Thank you," she replied quietly.

"Shut your gob before I come to my senses and leave you both to rot."

Miranda moved to grab his hand as they dove into the crowd, but remembering what happened last time, simply just hurried him along as best her could. She pushed and shoved as best she could through the crowd, but quickly grew winded; between the awful air quality and her own frailty, she just couldn't muscle her way through. She nearly wept in frustration, cursing her own weakness.

"You do realize that we'll never find her this way, right?" He said lighting up a fresh cigarette.

"Do you have any better ideas?" Miranda snapped.

"Funny you should mention."

He plowed his way through the crowd casually "Excuse me. Pardon me. Get the fuck out of my way!" he roared as he pushed and shoved making his way over to the stereo system. He grabbed up a bottle of what appeared to be whisky and took out a book of matches.

Miranda eyed him warily, "What are you doing?"

"Never yell 'fire' in a theater full of idiots, bint," he took a long pull from the bottle and coughed, "Not unless you've got the stones."

He lit the match and dumped it into the half-full whisky bottle, its contents ignited and, without any hesitation; he threw the whole concoction straight into the stereo.

They was a tremendous shriek of tortured electronics and shattering glass as the music died out instantly replaced only by the sound of melting plastic and people coughing or milling about in surprise and alarm.

Grey cupped his hands around his mouth, "Oi! So, who's off to rape the cripple?"

The dead silence got a little deader.

Miranda managed to pull herself together from all of this long enough to gesture at a stairway. There was Sam with the neckline of her dress torn apart and still being carted about like a trophy, surrounded by a small group of men. She was being passed around like a bottle of cheap booze from one man to the next. They took turns bouncing her on their knees or fondling her breasts. Tears of humiliation and shame cascaded down her face and she knew that the instant they got bored with this they would take her into one of the empty rooms upstairs and where they would begin to do far worse to her.

"That your old lady?" The Englishman asked as he gestured with his cigarette.

"Yeah," she replied, between the men surrounding Sam and this lunatic standing beside her, she was terrified as to what the next thirty seconds would bring.

"Okay, be ready to move." He smirked which drew Miranda's attention to his scar, long and puckered starting at the edge of his month and going nearly halfway up his cheek.

What the Hell did that? In spite of her fear, she was still...curious about the man.

Meanwhile, the man had stepped forward to address the room.

"Now, I am forced to applaud your ingenuity, lad," he called out as he began to clap in a slow, sarcastic fashion, "Bra-vo," he clapped out each syllable, "Bra-fucking-vo. I only wish it had occurred to me to start trolling the Special Olympics for easy snatch."

Miranda's hand flew to her mouth as Sam's eyes went even wider.

"Now, I'm being full-on honest here, mate; it's brilliant; when you can't get a real girl, there's no shame in pillaging the bargain bin for damaged goods."

The men sitting at the table were starting to look very uncomfortable, one in particular; the largest of them and also the one who had been groping Sam's chest, was starting to look angry.

"Granted, I prefer my toys without any assembly required, but that's just me," he continued to taunt, advancing on them, casually smoking his cigarette and spinning his walking stick over his knuckles, "Now my question is: are you going to be making it a habit, harvesting all your trim from the short coach or just on those nights when you can't handle a girl whose parts all work proper?"

The air in the room was becoming charged with hostility and the man was insisting on putting it out by pouring gasoline on it. Most of the men at the table had slunk away from the Englishman's scathing tongue and the looks they were getting from everyone that wasn't staring at the blond man. But the large, angry, one remained and looked even angrier even as Sam began to cry quietly, ashamed and humiliated.

"What are you doing?!" Miranda snarled at him but he waved her off and continued.

"Now, I appreciate a sure thing there, mate, and she's as close to a sure thing as anyone is liable to find but answer me this," his leer became something even more ugly, something hateful, "Will it still continue to bother you that no fully-functional woman will give your Yankee-doodle noodle a proper toss?"

Samantha was crying so hard she could barely breathe with Miranda not far behind her. The dark haired girl marched right up behind the blonde man.

"What the Hell-!" she began,

He silenced her with a finger.

"Wait for it."

And with the bellow of an enraged gorilla, the big man came charging at him.

"Hold this and get out of the bloody way," he said, thrusting his coat into Miranda's hands.

Miranda was in shock as she saw the other man charging at full speed: he was younger than his opponent, nearly twice as big, looked three times stronger and to top it off, he'd gone completely berserk.

Then the girl saw the Englishman grin and her blood ran cold: it was a smile that would frighten the blind.

"And here..." he said with a satisfaction that had the young girl doubting his sanity, "...we go," as he continued to twirl his stick playfully cigarette in the corner of his mouth. He appeared to be completely unconcerned about the behemoth rushing him; just as a fist, the size of a canned ham came swinging at his skull with bone-crushing force.

He ducked the blow and thrust up and out with the stick, jabbing the young man three times in rapid succession driving the hickory stick up into his solar plexus. The young man gasped loudly and began to choke, his mouth flopping open as he tried in vain to breathe.

"And now," the other man began taking the cigarette out of his mouth briefly, "An anatomy lesson." He struck the young man in the same spot again with the stick and he fell to his hands and knees, wheezing, his eyes bugging out in terror,

"This is the diaphragm," he continued, "It controls your ability to breathe. If you injure or paralyze the diaphragm, like say, with a sudden blow," he struck the boy again in the same spot who at this point had tears streaming down his face in equal parts terror and pain, "breathing becomes something of an issue."