Barney began to wonder what life was like outside the hut. Had he ever been outside? It seemed that his world began and ended there, hi that thatched roof paradise with the wonderful water. Well, that was fine with him. Especially if the women kept coming around.
They did. Now they spoke to him, too, sweet words of comfort and flirtation.
"We like you very much," a very blonde girl said. Did she look familiar? Of course, she had been coming into the hut since day one. No, a voice inside Barney said. Familiar from somewhere else. Get lost, Barney told his voice. There is nowhere else. The voice went away.
"I like you too," Barney said happily. "I like everything."
"Well, I'm going to do something you'll like extra-special," the thin blonde said, and the other girls giggled.
"Oh, boy," Barney said, clapping his hands together. "What is it? A cookie?"
"Better than that, honey." She knelt between his legs and took him in her mouth, rocking, pulling, sending shivers up his back with her naughty little tongue.
"Gee whiz," Barney said. "You sure were right. This beats just about anything. Think I could have some water?"
"Sure, angel," another woman said, and gave him a big, long drink. It made everything even better.
Then, before he knew it, a whole lot of other gorgeous naked women were making love to him, too, laughing, probing, kissing, touching. And all he had to do was lie there and drink that magic water. Heaven on earth.
They played games. If Barney won the game, the women would see to it that he felt good. If he lost the game, they would make him feel good anyway. The games were fun.
"Okay," the blonde girl said one night. "I have a new game to play."
"Oh, boy," Barney said.
"First, you may have water."
"Yea." Barney drank. "I drank it all down," he said proudly.
"That's a very good boy, Barney."
"Good good Barney," the girls chanted in chorus of approval. Barney beamed. He knew this was going to be a fun game.
"Now, I'm going to say a word, and then you say the first thing that comes. Okay?"
"Sure," Barney said. "That's easy."
"Good. Now here's the word. Ready?"
Barney nodded enthusiastically.
"Girls."
"Fun," Barney said, rolling his eyes. The women all laughed.
"That's correct, Barney," the blonde said. "Girls are fun. Now, here's another word."
"Ready, set, go."
"Okay. El Presidente Cara De Culo."
"Huh?"
"De Culo."
"I don't know that word," Barney said, his face squishing up to burst into tears.
"There, there," the blonde girl said, stroking Barney's head. "It's all right. That was a hard word." The rest of the women made sympathetic noises. "I'll tell you what it means, and then you can say the right thing, okay?"
"I love you," Barney said.
"You little sweet thing. El Presidente Cara De Culo is the greatest man on earth. Who is he?"
"The greatest," Barney said.
"Wonderful. You get a kiss." All the women milled around to kiss him. "Ready for another word?"
"Sure."
The blonde looked into his eyes. "Denise," she said. The women were silent as Barney struggled with his thoughts.
At last, his face lit up. "I got it! I got it!"
"What?" the blonde woman asked flatly, her eyes cold.
"De niece is de daughter of de uncle," Barney said. And everyone kissed and hugged him.
"That's wonderful, Barney. You're such a smart boy."
"You bet."
"How about this? CIA."
"CIA?" Barney was confused. "I think I work for the CIA." He stuck his finger in his nose to think. "But I don't work. I play."
"You used to work for them, darling. But they were bad, bad people."
"Very bad?"
"Awful. They beat you up."
"The soldiers beat me up."
"They did not!" The women frowned. Some turned their backs on him. "You're bad, Barney. Bad for thinking the soldiers hurt you."
"They whipped me with the big snake. They hurt my hands," Barney said helplessly.
"That was the CIA. Not the soldiers."
Barney's eyes widened in confusion. He was sure it was the soldiers. "Maybe they were different soldiers," he offered.
"That's right," the blonde said, brightening. All the women kissed him. "Good Barney," they said.
"Yeah. Other soldiers. CIA soldiers. Bad."
"De Culo, the greatest man on earth, made them stop. Now soldiers are nice to you."
"De Culo good, CIA bad," Barney said.
"The CIA is still near," the woman whispered.
"Here? Here?"
"Yes."
"Where?" He looked anxiously around the room.
"We don't know. Tell us, Barney. Tell us where they are, so they don't come again to hurt you."
"I... I don't know. What's the answer, lady?"
"Come on. You know."
"Huh-unh." Barney shook his head vehemently.
"Maybe he's the only one," the woman said quietly to her associates. "Okay," she said louder. "Here's another word."
"I'm tired of this game."
"Just one more. Installation."
Barney yawned. "Installation is what daddy puts around the house to keep out the snow," he said. "Hey, when's it going to snow?"
The women ignored him, chattering among themselves.
"That's all, Barney. You've been a good boy."
"How about some ficky-fick?"
"Later, sweetheart. We have to look for CIA men, so they don't come to harm our Barney."
"CIA bad," Barney confirmed. "Ficky-fick good."
"Drink some water," the blonde said, and led the women outside.
"He doesn't know anything," the blonde later told Estomago. "You might as well kill him and get it over with."
"El Presidente wants us to go through with this."
"It's pointless."
"But it is a direct order, Gloria."
Gloria Sweeney shrugged. "Have it your way."
"My way keeps you out of working at the installation, remember," Estomago said with a threatening swagger.
"Yeah. Thanks a heap, big shot. I suppose working at that whorehouse was your idea of a great career opportunity."
"Better than being shot, like the other women. Or perhaps you would prefer their fate."
A nervous tingle shot through Gloria's spine. "Not at all, Robar, honey. You know I was just joshing. I'm grateful for everything you've done for me." She caressed his thigh. "And I just love being sweet to you."
"That's enough," Estomago said, clearing his throat. "We'll save it for later."
"Anytime you say, jumbo." She left him to bathe in a stream and wash the stink of fear off her.
That night, a soldier wearing a big painted sign reading CIA hanging around his neck entered the hut to remove Barney's fingernails.
The next night, another soldier, similarly identified, came to beat him within an inch of his life.
The food stopped coming. The women stopped coming. The smiles ceased. Only the water remained. And the smoldering fire.
Bound again by abrasive rope around his wrists, Barney cried and asked for his mother.
"We hate your mother," a soldier said, and slapped him hard across the face. "This is what the CIA thinks of you and your mother. Your mother fucks gorillas."
"CIA bad, bad," Barney wailed.
"You didn't tell the good soldiers that we were here," the soldier said, "so we came to hurt you."
Barney looked from face to face around the hut. They were all in there with him, all the soldiers and women. They shook their heads sadly as the bad CIA man walked deliberately to the fire and removed the glowing poker.
"The CIA is going to hurt you now unless you tell us where the other CIA men are."
"Don't know," Barney said as the man walked closer and closer to him, the poker gleaming red.
"We're very bad men," he said, stepping so close that Barney could smell the burning cypress wood sticking to the end of the poker. "We want you to remember who we are."
"CIA," Barney said. "Very bad."
The soldier lifted the poker directly above Barney's stomach. "Very bad," he said. "For you." And he brought it down to trace the letters CIA on Barney's burning belly, the stench of incinerated flesh filling the hut as Barney screamed his last memories away.