Free A Human Element by Donna Galanti

his arms. "No one will hear you scream up here. This is a haunted place. Your screams carry away on the wind, right, Kami?"
    "Right, brah. People too scared to come up here at night with the ghosts of our ancestors roaming about."
    "Yeah, and we like to hear your screams, but just to be safe we shut you up anyways."
    A knife tip pushed painfully at Ben's lower back. He tried to shrink into the rock. The rough surface cut into chest and arms and thighs.
    "Be still or I'll cut you good," Koko growled in his ear.
    The large Samoan sliced down the back of Ben's underwear and ripped it from his body. The jagged rock edges pressed painfully into his private parts. He tried to raise his bottom away from the rock to alleviate the discomfort.
    "Ah, my friend, I like that." Koko sighed in Ben's ear. He rubbed Ben's naked bottom and reached between his legs to massage his balls.
    Ben flung himself about on the rock like a crazed animal, pulling at the ropes. They were so taut he had only an inch of leeway. Blood oozed down him as he scraped his naked skin across the rock. But the stakes held fast. He couldn't budge them. Koko laughed deep and long and held his balls tight. Ben stopped his flailing as the pain in his scrotum increased.
    Deep anguish surged through him. Had he escaped his foster father's advances only to be gang-raped here by these Samoan monsters and thrown off the cliff to a spiraling death? He heard about one suicidal man who had survived jumping off the Pali lookout. The wind had been so strong it blew him back. It was like the hand of God picked him up and placed the man gently back down. Perhaps Ben would get so lucky and be spared as well. He might not want to live after these two had their way with him though.
    He closed his eyes and forced himself to find a dark place with peace and no pain. The two men continued to taunt him, but they echoed far away in a tunnel. He held his breath, willing himself to pass out. The wild wind of the mountaintop raged around him and shrieked in his ears.
    One of the men pulled Ben's head toward him. Ben pulled away, squirming to fight him off. "Hey, sailor boy, if you no fight it will be better for you in the long run, eh? Then again, I like the ones that squirm."
    "Yeah, keep squirming, man. My big man Kami here is real hung. He'll fill you up real good and then it's my try."
    The two men laughed, their voices picked up by the wind and carried off.
    Ben was in hell. He didn't know why he had to suffer. But this would be the end of his pitiful life. Here on this Hawaiian mountain it would now be over. Humiliation, repulsion, anger, and pity for himself consumed him as he lay sprawled across the rock. Finally, he wept. The tears burned him as they seeped around the duct tape over his mouth.
    "Yeah, you cry, my little wahine ." Koko leaned his heavy frame onto Ben, crushing him into the biting rock. "You no longer a virgin after I'm done with you."
    Two hands held his buttocks open. Ben tucked his head and shoulders in tight to brace against the penetration that would rip him apart. Then two loud cracks shot out over the howling wind. The hands fell away. He let out a huge sigh, dizzy from holding his breath.
    Ben opened his eyes and craned his head around to see what had happened. Under the bright moonlight the outline of the two big Samoans rose up from the overgrown road. They didn't move. The wind whipped the giant leaves of the banyan and guava trees about like sails on a great clipper ship. The buzz of traffic from the new Pali road carried up to him from below. He scanned the area. What had happened? Who else hid out there? He pulled at the stakes. His hands shook as he tried to break free.
    "Forget it, kid, they're held down in cement," a deep voice said. "These stupid locals make up these playgrounds just to mess with us haoles ."
    Ben swallowed the saliva stuck in his throat and focused on his surroundings. There stood the green-eyed man, hidden in the swaying banyan trees.