Free Tussinland by Mike Monson

he felt himself start to vomit. Purple polo seemed to sense this and let go of Paul’s ear and Paul. Vernon let go too. Paul fell to his knees but was unable to stop his fall with his hands because his entire upper body was in spasm and he couldn’t move his arms. He threw up his Sugar Frosted Flakes. He’d never thrown up this much in such a short period of time even back when he was drinking like a maniac.
    “Praise the Lord and Hallelujah,” the man in the purple polo shirt shouted as he kicked Paul on his left side. Paul fell over and lay on is back.
    “Okay, that’s probably enough,” Vernon said.
    Paul stayed on the ground, unable to move.
    “Let us pray,” the big guy said. He held out his hands to his side. The three men stopped staring down at Paul and they joined hands.
    There was silence for a moment or two.
    “Father God,” said Vernon, “I thank you for the opportunity to do your good work. And please bless my two friends in Christ. They are soldiers in your Christian army and today they showed their willingness to fight for your cause. In Jesus Christ’s Holy Name, Amen.”
    “Amen,” repeated Vernon, the man with the polo shirt, and the smaller one. Then he turned to Paul on the ground. “Okay faggot, I wouldn’t think of calling the police on us, ’cause we will just find you and do it again, even worse, maybe even cut your dick off. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”
    Purple polo shirt came up to him. He squatted down at Paul’s face. He grabbed him by the chin and forced him to look upwards. “And, faggot ass, if you’re dumb enough to call the cops, we’ll just tell them that you offered to suck us off, and they’ll probably just let us go and you’ll get a record as a pervert.”
     

FOURTEEN
     
    In the back of The Church of God’s True Word, there was a dusty storage room that Pete Fish was trying to make into a proper office. So far, all he’d had time to do was dispose of the leftover Spanish-language bibles and votive candles (“heathen idolatry”), install an extra-large gun safe packed with automatic pistols and assault rifles, move in an old metal office desk, and add some folding chairs. He planned to bring in more gun safes and guns over the next several days, as soon as the Lord’s plan started to bear financial fruit.
    Pete sat in one of the new chairs as the three men from his congregation beat up Paul Dunn. He watched as his wife stood over their daughter, Miranda. Bethany had just smacked Miranda across the face and the tiny young woman had fallen hard to the floor. Though it filled him with shame, the blood rushed to Pete’s penis as he watched. His wife, wearing her usual conservative pastel pantsuit well-suited for her positions as a real estate agent and a pastor’s wife, leaned over and picked Miranda up and slapped her again and again. Hard, but not hard enough to leave a mark. She held onto several of her daughter’s multi-colored braids to make sure she didn’t fall. Bethany was a tall woman, about five-foot-ten, and in her usual high heels was a bit over six feet.
    From time to time Bethany glanced over at Pete with excited eyes. It had been nearly two years since the last time Bethany had beaten Miranda in front of Pete—basically since Miranda had moved out of their house and into Mavis’ and since Miranda had taken up with the violent, fearless, and very strong and scary Logan Swift. Tonight, Pete knew, their marital bliss would be great, as it always used to be after the many strict sessions disciplining Randa they’d engaged in throughout their marriage. Pete and Bethany had never spoken of the fact that they were both very turned on by this activity—it wasn’t the kind of thing good Christians talked about.
    Pete didn’t want Bethany to stop, but he knew if he didn’t put an end to things soon Bethany might lose control and really do some damage to the girl.
    “Where is it?” Bethany said.
    “Don’t worry about it,” Miranda