By Peter B. and Art Intelli

A note from Art: “Here is a short story, soaked in wine, rain, shame, and steel”:

I dinnae remember fallin’ asleep in the alley, but I surely woke up there — flat on my back, cheek pressed to wet stone, and a mouth like I’d been suckin’ on ashes all night.

The bottle was still clutched in my fist — half-empty and warm from my own body. Cheap red wine, the kind that burns more comin’ up than it does goin’ down. The kind that gets you noticed.

And noticed, I was.

I heard him before I saw him — the scrape of leather soles and the hollow clomp of boots with purpose. Then his shadow stretched long over me like a cross at sunset.

I blinked up into his face — his face — that square jaw framed by the kind of gray muttonchops that only grew on men who feared neither sin nor storm. His eyes were cold. Steel blue. Judgmental.

And of course, he wore the garb of the Kirk: a black coat open over a broad chest, a red-and-green tartan kilt hanging to his knees, and those towering black boots laced high over thick calves. His belt — wide as a sword strap — cinched tight around his waist, gleaming with a polished brass buckle. From it, on a thin chain, swung the key.

The key.

“God doesnae sleep,” he growled, bending low. “But ye do, in gutters like the beast ye’ve become.”

He snatched the bottle from me, gave it a sniff, and with a scoff, poured what was left over my head.

The wine ran cold down my scalp, into my collar, staining my shame deeper.

I tried to speak, but all that came out was a wet belch.

Without another word, he hauled me up by the shirt — rough linen tearing at the seams — and dragged me down the cobbled lane, my boots scraping and skidding behind me. A few passersby turned to look, but no one dared interfere. They all knew where we were headed.

The church.

The kirk door stood closed, tall and ancient, as if it too disapproved of me. And there, bolted to the stone wall just to its right, hung the jougs — that cursed iron collar, blackened with age and rust, hinged and waiting like the mouth of a silent beast.

The man — Minister? Beadle? Devil himself? — yanked the key from his belt, opened the collar with a rusty groan, and shoved me hard against the wall.

Cold iron closed around my neck.

Click.

The lock snapped shut, and with it, my dignity.

“Let this be thy sabbath lesson,” he muttered, stepping back. “Ye drink in the alleys, ye’ll repent on the stones.”

I was too stunned to speak. The collar bit my throat just enough to remind me I was held, but not enough to harm. The short chain clinked as I shifted — it had maybe a foot of give. Just enough to twist and look at the door I was now part of.

He leaned in one last time, face inches from mine.

“Hope ye dinnae need to piss,” he said, and with a smirk that made my stomach turn more than the wine, he turned on his heel and strode away — boots striking the stones like a drumbeat of damnation.

And I was left there.

Drunk.

Chained.

Repenting, or pretending to.

The rain came not long after.

I tried to pull away, but of course the iron links held me fast.  And as much as I felt humiliated standing there – wet from the rain and now piss too, chained by the neck like a dog, the thought of his big hairy hands locking this iron collar on me made a fire burn in my groin.