Blood Bound Books

Presents

STEAMY SCREAMS

Anthology of Erotic Horror

Edited by Jack Burton

LIFE TO THE LIFELESS

Lawrence Conquest

At 9:45pm on the 24th of September 2010, after twenty-six years of happily married life, the spark between Sally and Jim Macmillan went out. There had been no prior warning, no gradual fading of their affections for each other—it simply disappeared with all the finality of someone turning off a light. One moment it was there, the next moment it was not.

Surprised and concerned, husband and wife lay together in their suddenly too-narrow bed and tried to figure out just what had gone wrong. The last of their three children had recently grown up and left the nest. After years of feeling like guests in their own house, Sally and Jim finally had the freedom to attend to each others’ needs. This was the moment they had been waiting for. So what had gone wrong?

“Do you still love me?” asked Sally.

“Of course I still love you,” replied Jim, his tone suggesting that the very idea of doubt was absurd.

“Prove it then,” Sally responded, prodding a finger at the shrivelled lump of flesh that currently lay lifeless between his legs. Jim’s flaccid penis failed to rise to the bait. It appeared to have slipped into a coma. “You can get pills for that, you know,” said Sally, turning her back to him.

Jim assured his wife that he would visit the doctor the very next day. There was nothing to worry about, really. She’d see.

But Doctor Macready told Jim that the little blue pills weren’t available on the National Health Service, at least, not for someone of his age and condition. Of course, he could write out a prescription, but Jim would have to bear the costs himself. “That’s quite all right,” Jim replied, reaching for his credit card, but that evening’s events didn’t go as planned. When Jim tried making love, it wasn’t Sally that he saw, just a bottomless money-pit gaping open beneath him. Jim may have had the heart of a lover, but he had the soul of a miser. The moment was lost. Other measures were called for.

They tried dressing up. Role-play. Jim would don a stick-on moustache and toupee before driving out to pick his wife up from some pre-arranged seedy spot. Anything to add to the charade. A steady stream of scantily-clad policewomen, nurses, French maids and nuns were soon seen entering the Macmillan household. Neighbors raised eyebrows. Complaints were voiced. They needn’t have worried. It was all to no avail.

Husband and wife tried watching blue movies together. Pornography of every flavor that the cable company could provide. Jim would squirm in his seat like a man in the dentist’s chair, pulling at his too-tight collar and painfully aware of his dearly beloved sitting beside him. For her part, Sally seemed to be indifferent to the displays of sexual prowess before her. “Hasn’t she got lovely nail varnish?” she’d say during one obscene close-up. Or, “Do you remember my sister used to have wallpaper like that?” as bodily fluids arced across the screen. Jim wasn’t sure if she was trying to put him at ease or had some kind of roving blind spot. Either way, the very last thing the movies put him in the mind of was sex.

Catalogues were consulted. Orders for devices that buzzed, purred, tickled and teased were placed. The postman soon found himself struggling under an avalanche of plain, unmarked boxes. Multi-colored machineries of joy soon filled every spare surface in the Macmillan bedroom, their plastic noses ranged at the sky like exotic miniature rocket ships. The devices were tested and tried. But, despite the cunning of their designers and their many diverse shapes, not a single one could fill the void that lurked in Jim Macmillan’s soul.

In desperation, Sally even tried arranging a threesome with a casual acquaintance from work. After a futile five minutes, Jim just lay there and let them get on with it.

Nothing they tried seemed to make the slightest bit of difference. Jim’s libido remained indifferent, aloof.

Mr. Macmillan apologized to his wife a thousand times. He did love her, truly he did. He began to show his affection in other ways, ways that he hadn’t since their marriage was newly minted. Jim began to bring Sally flowers. He made her breakfast in bed. He wrote silly, sentimental poems and slipped them into her handbag. They went on endless dates: to the park, to town, to shows.  Jim telephoned Sally from work, on the hour, every hour, just to see how she was. He complimented her endlessly on her appearance and attire.

And it wasn’t enough. A certain coldness seemed to creep into the Macmillan household. A chill in the air that no mere words could subdue.

By day, Mr. and Mrs. Macmillan began to avoid each other in a careful ballet. Aware of the strain on their relationship, they hesitated to touch each other, each fearful that the other might break.

At night, they lay awake in the dark, their bodies close but never touching. Sometimes Sally wanted to reach out a hand, to touch her husband, for comfort if nothing else. But somehow it wouldn’t seem right. The house was empty, the doors were locked, but, when night draped its shadow over the house, the couple no longer felt alone. They felt as if they were being watched.

A silent intruder had slipped between husband and wife, some nameless presence that had crept in from the cold. They could feel its formless fingers caressing their flesh, leeching the heat from their limbs, planting the seeds of doubt in their minds.

One night, somewhere between waking and sleep, Sally half-opened one eye and looked the intruder full in the face. It was laying there in bed right alongside her, close enough to touch, its outline limned in blue-lagoon moonlight. It was the exact same shape and size as her husband, only shrouded from head to foot in white. It turned its sightless eyes upon her and let out an awful moan.

Sally stifled a gasp. The ghost of a still-born relationship lay between husband and wife, a loveless spectre that haunted the sheets.

* * *

When Sally received the phone call a week later, it took her several seconds to fully recognize the voice of her husband. She had been staying with her sister in Nuneaton, desperate to escape the chilly atmosphere that now pervaded the family home. After a tearful parting, the last thing she expected was to hear her husband sounding like this. The years appeared to have fallen away from Jim. He no longer sounded like a forty-six-year-old man grown somber from the weight of years. He sounded like a little boy. A little boy who has just re-discovered a favorite toy.

“It’s back, Sally! It’s back!” the high-pitched voice cried down the phone.

“What’s back, Jim?” Sally replied.

Her husband sounded giddy with excitement. “The spark, Sal—the spark!”

Jim went on to tell Sally how depressed he had been without her. How he had moped around the house like a ghost, with only his memories of her for company. Jim had tried to numb his brain in the wash of cathode rays night after night, watching everything, seeing nothing. Until that moment when a random news item broke through the fog. That was it! Jim thought. This was what he was waiting for. A means to recover his libido at last!

“What was the answer?” asked Sally wearily.

But Jim wouldn’t tell her. Not over the phone. She’d have to see it in person. He’d already had a trial run and the results had been very impressive. Sally should come home tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow. Pack her bags and come right home. He’d have a surprise to show her, alright. He’d already booked the week off work. He needed to make up for lost time.

Jim Macmillan had some serious loving to do.

* * *

Sally smiled as the taxi threaded its way through the familiar streets of Ealing. The sun was out, the birds were singing and she was going to see her husband again. She stifled a laugh as she remembered the madness of the other week. How she had awoken in the middle of the night and, in her confusion, mistaken her husband’s sheet-shrouded form for that of a ghost. The very idea! She must remember to tell Jim as soon as she saw him. She couldn’t wait to hear him laugh again.

The taxi cruised to a halt and Sally stared in amazement at the Macmillan family home. Her time away had somehow seemed to invest the humble semi-detached property with a new vitality. It looked warm, inviting—safe. Nothing evil could ever happen here. Looking at it now was like seeing it for the first time. She remembered their wedding night so many years ago, how Jim had gamely carried her over the threshold. Huffing and puffing, but above all laughing. Sally smiled at the memory, and felt a sudden warmth welling deep inside her, a faint echo of the lust of that long-ago night. Well, they say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, Sally thought philosophically. So why shouldn’t other parts of the body be similarly affected?

Sally hurried to the front door, eager to see her husband again, desperate to feel the warmth of his embrace after so many loveless nights. She slipped her key into the lock and crept quietly into the house. He wanted to surprise her? Well, she’d surprise him! She’d creep through the house, find him and throw herself upon him before he even knew what was happening. No time for words now. Only love.

And yet, despite her best intentions, Sally Macmillan’s efforts were in vain. Her husband was nowhere to be found. Jim wasn’t in the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom or spare. In a flash of inspiration, Sally raced to the garage, but only the bulk of his car waited silently in the gloom. He must have gone out on some errand, Sally thought, and contented herself with this for several hours. But when darkness fell, she checked the house again and found something that stopped her cold.

His shoes. His size-nine leather shoes, slightly worn with age but polished with all the dedicated care that only an ex-army man could bring. They sat there, next to his slippers, in the front hall. How had she not noticed them earlier?

Sally had shoes. She had an entire cupboard filled with assorted colors and styles, for every possible season and event. But Jim, sensible and spendthrift Jim, had only the two pairs: his indoor slippers, and his outdoor shoes. She was looking at them both. So how could he have left the house without them?

Perhaps he’d simply bought a new pair, she thought. Yes, that was it. Obvious, really.  Sally tried to ignore the other voice in her head. The quieter voice, but the one whose whisper was so much more insistent. The voice that said Jim had slipped down the stairs, broken his neck and been carted off to the hospital in his pyjamas. She really didn’t need negative thinking like that.

* * *

In the end, Sally found her husband’s corpse strung up in the bedroom wardrobe.

Jim was hanging up amongst the shirts and trousers, as though his body had been just another garment to discard at the end of a tiring day. One of her stockings was tied tight about his neck, whilst the other end of it looped about the coat-hanger rail. Another stocking ligatured Jim’s hands together behind his back. Sally couldn’t see Jim’s face. It was partially hidden behind a semi-transparent Sainsbury’s shopping bag. All she could make out was his mouth, which was open in a silent scream. If she looked close enough, she could even see the drops of moisture that peppered the inside of the bag. The remnants of her husband’s final exhale, captured for all eternity.

Apart from the bag over his head, Jim was completely naked. Sally stared at her husband’s corpse with a growing sense of hysteria. At least one part of his surprise plan had worked. His erect penis pointed at her like an accusing finger, rigid and cold.

* * *

In the days that followed, Sally drifted through life like a ghost. She went through all the daily motions of life—shopping, cooking, eating, cleaning—yet she felt increasingly disconnected from her surroundings. Her senses had been numbed. Anaesthetised. In some curious way, it was as if it had been she who had died, not her husband.

Sally thought about Jim constantly, her mind replaying the discovery of his death time and again, as if by doing so she could somehow undo what had been done. She tried to banish these thoughts, to think pleasant thoughts instead, to remember the good times. But her husband’s smiling face was obscured in her memory, his features occluded by a semi-transparent plastic bag.

All she could think of, time and again, was his strangled body bucking in the air. Jim’s hips thrusting forwards in a cruel parody of sex as his air-starved body fought for life. His erect penis thrusting violently at nothing, impotent at the last, dying in the very moment of its new-found life.

Despairing of reality, Sally tried to find solace in drug-induced sleep, but no refuge was to be found. Her husband waited for her even in this unreal state, his final moments in her presence cruelly replayed as a mocking farce.

In Sally’s dream, as in life, Jim’s body had been laid out for formal identification at the police morgue, a plain-clothes officer waiting at a respectful distance to one side. However, in life, where his face had been the only part of him uncovered, the opposite was true in her dream. Jim’s body was naked, but his face still remained hidden behind plastic, one of Sally’s tights still tied about his neck like a too-tight cravat.

In her dream, Sally tried to look closer, to make out the man behind the mask, but her husband’s features resolutely failed to resolve. It was as if Jim’s face had become void in her memory, as if this were some insignificant trifle unworthy of remembrance. Only his penis seemed worthy of that accolade, its proud head jutting aimlessly up at her its final resting place.

In Sally’s dream, it seemed entirely logical for her to disrobe. After all, wasn’t this why she was here anyway? Not to identify the body, which any idiot could do, but to honor it? Sally turned to stare at her police escort as if daring her to object. The bereavement officer met her eyes for a brief second, then shyly turned away.

Sally focused her attention back on Jim. She clutched at him as she climbed atop the corpse, twisting and pulling to gain purchase on his meat. Jim felt so real. How could he be dead? The thought that all these years of growth would soon be reduced to ash, to a mere handful of dirt to scatter on the wind, it all seemed wrong. Far more wrong than the act she was about to perform.

Sally gripped the familiar length of her husband’s cock and guided it inside. His penis was as cold as death, but she would warm him on his way. She began to ride up and down upon his shaft, their bodies punctuating each meeting with a meaty slap. Soon Sally was panting with exertion, her efforts gifting his corpse with the illusion of warmth.

In her dream, Sally closed her eyes and gently rocked her way towards orgasm. And suddenly, she felt him. Jim’s corpse was clutching gently at her buttocks, his spiny fingers kneading into her flesh. Rock-a-bye baby, she thought, willing a mother’s gift of life upon this lifeless corpse. Her husband’s body began to buck and jerk beneath her, pushing itself into her with an urgent need of its own.

Sally laughed and opened her eyes. Her husband was here with her, pulled back from the brink by the strength of her love. His recently deceased body seemed to glow with a healthy vitality, droplets of sweat peppering and sheening his flesh. More than that, Jim seemed to be regressing through time. The wiry grey hair upon his chest became blackened and coarse, whilst long submerged sandbanks of muscle were exposed by a rapidly departing tide of flab. Still riding her husband, Sally reached her hands up to her own face, and felt the wrinkles of age being swept clean by the backwards hand of time.

Sally smiled down at her now youthful lover and reached down to remove his mask.  Jim was moaning within its suffocating embrace, his sexual exertions transformed into a single word repeated over and over: a plea, a prayer to his one true Goddess: “Sal! Sal! Sal! Sal!”

* * *

When Sally awoke, the bedroom was dark. With a guilty start, she realized she had been touching herself, clutching at the warmth of her body, the only heat left in this cold night. The ghost of a nightmare fluttered by her—something about Jim—only to slip from her grasp before she could fully catch hold of it.

A sound from downstairs brought her back to reality. It sounded like someone calling. Someone a thousand miles away, the voice muffled and faint.

Sally sighed and tried to get back to sleep. But the moment was lost. Her mind, now awake, fastened upon the distant sound as though awaiting some prearranged signal. And there it came again, a muffled syllable repeated over and over, but closer this time. Now it sounded like it was coming from inside the house. Downstairs, in the hall. Rising slowly now, the voice was punctuated by the muffled creak of foot against stair.

Angry at her own overactive imagination, Sally sat up in bed and flicked on the bedside light. She pulled herself from beneath the covers and flung her dressing-gown about her. Rising to her feet, she threw open the bedroom door, eager to see her nightmares evaporate in the harsh glare of reality.

Instead she stopped, dumbfounded, at the sight that awaited her. For there, standing in front of her upon the landing, was the figure of Jim Macmillan.

Sally tried to tell herself that she was still dreaming, but this reality could not be denied. The figure that stood before her was nothing like the erotic fantasy figure of her dream. No easily roused sleeper this, but a gone-off, loathsome thing that belonged in a grave. Jim’s naked flesh appeared marbled and grey. The veins on his naked body stood proud, as though trying to uproot themselves from his skin. A dark sheen of blood seemed to have gathered about his head, painting the deflated plastic that still shrouded him a dull crimson. My husband looks like a toffee apple, Sally thought deliriously, and started to cry.

Sally stumbled backwards into the bedroom. Her husband followed after her, his movements unnaturally fluid and lithe. Only Jim’s penis seemed affected by the touch of rigor mortis. Its swollen length thrust before him like the prow of a ship. Backing away, Sally found herself flat against the far wall. Jim stopped before her. Her dead husband’s expression was unreadable beneath his mask of plastic. Jim reached up and pulled the bag from his face, and Sally finally began to scream.

She tried her best to struggle as Jim lifted her in his arms, but he had always been the stronger. He carried her to the wardrobe, ignorant of her pleas. Sally cried for help, desperately hoping that a neighbor might hear, but the words died in her throat as Jim pulled a stocking tight about her neck.

As Sally struggled for breath, her vision began to fade. She became aware of her heartbeat, roaring louder and louder in her ears. How long did she have left? she wondered. How long until she joined the abomination before her in death?

And then, the strangest thing happened. Despite the nightmare before her, despite the rapid approach of her own mortality, Sally felt something moving deep within. Something was blossoming inside her, some fragile flower flickering into being at the very moment of her death.

Staring into the vacant gaze of the corpse before her, Sally Macmillan put her hands between her legs and felt the spark.

DIRTY LITTLE FISH STORY

Tonia Brown

Buster hated fishing. He’d hated it his whole life, but, like clockwork, every Friday night, he dragged his fat ass down to the lake to put the boat in the water and drop a line. It was his old man who did it to him, ingrained this idea that real men fished. Well, actually the old fart used to say that real men did three things: fought, fucked and fished. Buster hadn’t been in a fistfight since Dale Clemet broke his jaw five years ago. He also hadn’t been within licking distance of a pussy since that same night, so he reckoned there was only one thing left for him to do to prove his worth as a real man.

Fish.

Which he hated.

At least it was a peaceful hobby. Nice quiet lake. Quiet boat. Quiet line. Quiet fish. Fish didn’t nag you. They didn’t boss you about either. When fishing, there was no one to talk you into spending your whole paycheck for a little slip of a nightie that she wasn’t gonna have on for more than five minutes anyway, with the assurance that she wouldn’t fuck you again until you got it for her. No one to invite you over for the whole weekend while her husband was supposed to be out of town, then cry rape when said husband came home a day too early and caught you banging the wife’s gong. Yeah, fishing was a swell enough hobby. Better to chase a fish than chase that stupid old cunt. There was very little difference in the smell, and if you happened to put your dick in a fish, you didn’t end up with your jaw broken.

Be that as it may, Buster still hated fishing.

He supposed he hated it for the same reason he did it in the first place: ‘cause his old man loved it so damned much. Buster didn’t hate his dad. No, it was more like the other way around. On a normal day, which is to say just about every day, Dad never had more than four words to say to Buster, and those went something like, ‘hand me another worm’ or cricket or chicken liver or whatever bait they were working with that day. Buster didn’t want to hate his dad—no young man really does—so he spent his youth cultivating a loathing disgust for even the very thought of fishing instead. Then Dad died, and all Buster had left was his hatred for fishing and the family boat. He soon learned that old folks passed on old adages because there was so much old sense in them.

In this case, old habits were very hard to break.

For a time, it was just him, the boat and the usual lonely Friday night fishing fest. And lonely it was. Lake Jackson was enormous, so big you couldn’t see one side from the other. A guy could set out in his craft and lose sight of the shore before he knew what had happened, which was just what he liked about this body of water. Buster supposed he could have stuck to the popular spots, made fishermen friends and spent those Fridays swapping tales of conquests and not being so lonely. But he had gotten to where he liked other folks even less than he liked to fish. Well, there was that and the fact that he didn’t want to share his secret spots with other folks.

Specifically, other men.

The truth of the matter was simple. Buster’s dad didn’t just teach the young lad the merits of good fishing while spending night after night on the waters of good old Lake Jackson. He also taught the kid how to work a pair of binoculars, and which kinds of lake folks didn’t think to pull the shades at night. It was a sloppy education in the female body and the deeds of sexual congress. Now, as a man, Buster certainly didn’t need to stoop to the act of peeping when he had the Internet full of porn back home, however, once on the lake, he found again that old habits were indeed very hard to break. With a line in the water and a hand down his shorts, Buster kept his habits hard.

Until, one evening, his habits changed.

The better part of this particular evening was spent watching a busty forty-something MILF get fucked up the ass with a strap-on by a woman so identical that the pair could have passed for twins. The sight of this sin drove Buster to almost tear a hole in his pants in an effort to get to his pecker. He came twice at the display, less than an hour apart, which was a record for him. Then, the bitch ruined it by going ass to mouth on her sister, shoving the strap-on down the girl’s throat without so much as a swipe at the thing with a tissue. That put Buster off his nut for what he thought would be the rest of the night.

So back to fishing it was, which led him to a little island on the north end of the lake. Catfish loved to stick to the craggy areas of the coves, so he trolled his line slow, dragging it along the bottom, wiggling his worm and waiting for those damnable bottom-feeders to pick up on his bait. He was so focused on the hated act of fishing that he almost didn’t see the shimmer of a woman’s pale skin shining in the moonlight.

Buster did a double take at the sight of so much exposed flesh in the distance. Was it? Couldn’t be! He grabbed his knocks and brought the small island into focus. It was a woman all right, and not a stitch of clothes on. The island itself was just a few feet across, just enough for the woman to stretch across with a little room to spare. The chick was quite a young thing, couldn’t have been more than twenty, if that old. She had a knockout figure, too. Big tits, flat tummy, wide hips. Her neatly trimmed bush said she was a natural blonde too, or at least she took the time to make the carpets match the drapes. Little Buster strained against his trousers as Big Buster leered at the display. Who was she? And what in the hell was a woman as beautiful as that doing buck-ass naked on the rocky shore of some random isle in the middle of a lake?

Buster knew better than to ask such things aloud, because what the Lord giveth and all that garbage. He just set to peeping and diddling and doing his best not to make a sound, lest he frighten the poor girl away. But she wasn’t going anywhere. Didn’t move much either. She just lay real still, on her back, with her legs spread wide and those perfect breasts pointed heavenward, which was just where Little Buster was headed.

After about an hour, both his arms got tired, even with switching out his stroking hand, and it was then he got a bit worried about the woman. She wiggled once or twice, shifting her weight about like she was trying to get comfortable, but she never moved more than that. Buster, who was now thinking with the big head instead of the little one, eyed the landscape a bit, but couldn’t make out a boat, or raft, or her clothes for that matter. He started to think maybe, just maybe, something untoward had befallen the pretty young thing. Perhaps someone had brought her out here earlier in the night, had his way with her, then left her stranded. There was a good chance that she might not be lying out, all naked and pretty, just for him stare at and jack off. There was a good chance that she might be in genuine trouble.

His dead dad could have lit a fire under Buster’s ass and he wouldn’t have moved much quicker. Buster hightailed it from the scene as fast as his oars could carry him, lest he be associated with the possible crime. The fishing line was still in the water when he started rowing for the southern shore, but he let his best rod drop into the murky depths rather than hang around to cut the thing free. Buster arrived back at the dock in record time and was huffing and chuffing as he dragged the little boat back onto the trailer. His heart was still jack-hammering when he fired up the truck and sped away. He didn’t really calm down, didn’t really draw a deep clean breath until he was back at his farm, miles away from the lake. That night he swore off both the despicable act of fishing and the peeping that went with it.

His resolution lasted a week. Buster checked the papers every day, just to make sure that no one saw him leave, and in the hope of finding out who the hell the poor girl was. There was nothing, not a peep in the papers about him or the woman. Maybe she was just out… what was it Carla used to call it? Moonbathing. That was it. Carla liked to moonbathe. Buster always thought it was weird, but Carla wasn’t his wife, so what did he care? Carla was Dale’s problem, but the woman on the lake was Buster’s dream. He decided it was safe enough to chase that dream all the way back to the lake.

Three weeks came and went with Buster spending every free night at the lake. And there she would be, spread out across the rocky ground, as if she were waiting for nothing more than him to come and spend his seed at the sight of her. More than one night, he had trouble finding the woman, as well as the island. He supposed he must have gotten turned around; it was easy to do on such a big lake. He would just row and row until either he got tired of rowing or she all at once appeared, island and all, like a ship parting the fog. Buster always left his lady fair just before sunrise, worried that the sunlight would give away his shameful deed.

Over this time, he developed an idea of who she was. It was obvious when one thought about it for more than a few moments. She must have been the daughter of one of the lake folks. The debutante of some rich family who snuck out each night, stripped on her private shore and swam all the way out to the island, where she would rest for the night, drying out before her swim home again. Sure. That explained it all. The lack of boat. The lack of clothes. Her incredible figure. Sure. That was a reasonable explanation. Wasn’t it?

Buster also fished between peeping sessions. He refused to go to the lake with the sole purpose of leering at some naked chick, so he always packed his usual fishing fare. Sometimes he fished before he sought her, sometimes after. Sometimes he would jerk off, fish a bit, then come back for another turn. He even made a game of it, refusing himself the sight of her body or the pleasure of an orgasm until he caught a decent-sized bass, or a catfish, or a perch. His freezer was full before the first week was out. Which was kind of a shame, because not only did he hate to fish for fish, but he hated to eat them, too.

At the end of three weeks, on another lonely Friday night, Buster decided he was tired of just watching. The woman was everything he had ever wanted in a mate. Sure, there were other beautiful women in the world, but none as fine as his mysterious moonbathing beauty. Sure, he didn’t know much about her personality, but he didn’t really want to know anyway. Personality equaled nagging, and he didn’t want a nag. He wanted a shag. Now. Tonight. It was time to call off his pussy ban. Five years of pulling his pud by his one-some had finally gotten old.

Buster found the island early that evening, and the mystery woman was there as always, the steady object of his oversexed desires. At first he panicked, rowing his little boat to his usual hidey hole where he could hyperventilate in peace. But as he looked to her resting in the distance, the need to meet her rose up in him like the swelling tide. He longed for her, much more than just to touch or taste or even sink himself deep inside of her. He just wanted to be near her. He craved her proximity. He was drawn to her, the moth of his desire pulled to the glow of her skin, the sheen of her sex, the sight of her perfect body shining like a white flame under the light of the full moon.

Plus, he was kind of hoping, if everything worked out, he would get to fuck her.

God, did he ever want to fuck her!

Buster closed his eyes as he whispered his well-practiced lines again. “Ahoy there. I saw you while I was fishing and wondered if you needed any help. Would you like a ride back to the shore?”

Would it work? Probably not, but Buster would never forgive himself if he didn’t at least try. He looked to her again, or rather her pert tits and velvet puss, then swallowed hard as he put his back to his dream and rowed into the moonlight toward her shore.

The oars cut the water with expert hush. Buster had spent so long trying not to alert her to his presence that he almost forgot to make noise on purpose. As he drew his vessel closer to her, it dawned on him that he was, in all essence, sneaking up on her. A few yards from the shore, he slapped the water with his oars, relishing the ensuing splashes for the freedom they gave him. He was here, damn it! He was here and she was going to see him for the first time, and hopefully not the last.

The splashing oars didn’t faze her. Buster turned in place to see his buxom beauty ignoring his watery pleas, remaining her usual stoic self. He hit the water harder, doing his best to splash and make all manner of noise as he rowed to her. But no, she didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe she did. Maybe she noticed, but was just too cool to care. Maybe she knew a man was approaching her by boat but wasn’t willing to interrupt her moonbathing long enough to see if she knew him. A woman who was so comfortable in her own skin that she didn’t mind showing off her body to a total stranger? It was possible. Especially a woman as beautiful as her.

This last thought hit him with the realization of a thousand little ugly truths. She was beautiful. Much too beautiful for the likes of him, an underpaid textile worker with the IQ of a loaf of bread and all the charm of a rabid weasel. What was he thinking? She would never, ever go for a man like him. No way. No how. Buster wasn’t an ugly man, but he was by no means a handsome one. At best he was average. Well, he used to be average before the split jaw left him with a scar across his face as long as his prick.

Buster centered himself and reminded his bruised ego that this was the right thing to do. He also convinced himself that this was what she wanted. Surely she wouldn’t just lay about in her altogether if she didn’t want someone to look. She had to be a… what was it Carla called ‘em? An exhibitionist. That was it. She was an exhibitionist, and he was a voyeur. It was a match made in heaven.

He drew upon this idea, steeling his nerve as he called out, “Ahoy there! I was fishing and I saw you and I wondered if you needed me?” Buster winced at his words. What was the use of practicing them for days on end if you were just gonna flub them when that special moment came at last?

The blonde didn’t respond. In fact, when he turned to look, she hadn’t moved at all. She still lay there in silence, eyes closed, as if he hadn’t said a thing. Maybe he wasn’t loud enough? Or close enough? Nonsense! He was practically on top of her. Well, he wished he were on top of her. And inside of her. God, he wanted to be inside of her so bad!

Buster took her non-response as a good sign. Not saying ‘go away’ was just as good as saying ‘come closer, you hunk of a stud.’ Wasn’t it? Sure! In Buster’s hormone-fueled mind, anything was possible.

He rowed his boat right up to her island and called out, “I’m sorry to bother you, but I thought you might need a ride back to shore.”

No answer. A normal man might have taken this as an insult, but not Buster. He smiled wide at her lack of refusal as he rowed the last few feet to land his boat right on her shore. Shaking with excitement, Buster stepped out of the boat, over the small row of jagged rocks that lined the shore. His sneaker sank with ease into the wet sand, lending him little footing as he clambered out of the craft.

Giving her one more chance to say no, Buster asked, “Ma’am? Can I help you? I couldn’t help but notice you didn’t have a boat. I have a boat. Can I give you a lift?”

Two things occurred to him at her lack of refusal.

One, she was even more beautiful up close. Her hair was waist length, and spread in a fan around her head. Her face was a delicate ensemble of features, and her skin was pale to the point of being translucent. But he didn’t care about her hair or face or skin. His gaze flicked back and forth between those big boobies and that thatch of curl down below. Her breasts were stunning, but her pussy was even better. It pouted at him, begging to be stroked, petted and, most of all, fucked.

The second thing that came to him was the fact that she was out like a light. Buster thought carefully about this. What kept her from responding? Was she on drugs? Could be. Or maybe she was just so exhausted from the long swim, she was in the deepest sleep he had ever seen. Whatever it was, Buster had a choice to make.

Would he rouse her, then try to arouse her?

Or would he try to grope her as she slept?

He grinned with the wild idea. Could he? Could he really sneak up and fiddle with a girl in her sleep? He had seen such things all over the Internet, but could he do it for real? One more longing look at that pouting puss, and he knew the answer was yeah. Yeah, he could do it for real.

Buster crept to her side, wobbling on the unsteady footing of the sandy ground. As he drew closer to her, his confidence waned. She was going to wake up and find him with his hand in her cookie jar, and it was going be another Carla incident all over again. He was lucky to escape with just a broken jaw last time. Carla had to drop the sexual assault charges after Dale found those pictures of her with a mouthful of Little Buster and a smile on her face. Should he tempt fate again just for a lick of that tasty lolly spread so prettily at his feet?

Oh, hell, yes he would!

But just to be sure, just to excuse himself the burden of what he was going to do to this unconscious woman, he asked, “Hey, you awake?” She stayed silent, filling him with even more bravery. “I was thinking I might go down on you a bit.” She didn’t object, so he pressed on. “I’m gonna eat your pretty little pussy. Would you like that? Just lay there nice and still and don’t say nothing if you think you’d like that.”

Of course, his dream girl didn’t move a muscle.

Which gave him all the permission he needed.

Buster loosened his slacks, giving Little Buster a bit of well-deserved air. His cock was hard just from the prospect of touching the woman. He stroked himself, ever so lightly, as he fell to his knees between her wide-spread legs. What a sight that lay before him! Such a woman, all primed and raring to go. Seemed a waste to spend time on oral foreplay when she wouldn’t be awake to enjoy it anyway. As Buster pulled on his aching cock, he decided that he would skip the appetizer and go straight to the main course.

He leaned into her, placing a hand on either side of her waist, flat on the ground. It occurred to him, somewhere in the back of his small mind, that the island wasn’t made of sand, but of something else. The ground was soft and wet and rough to the touch. Rough but not sand? Sure, why not? Buster pushed this thought out of his mind, replacing it with the prospect of his first fuck in five years. He lined up his cock and thrust himself home.

And nearly came on the spot.

“Holy shit,” he whispered.

Her puss was as tight as a fist, gripping him with such power, he almost checked to make sure he wasn’t in her back door. Buster gritted his teeth as he held himself inside of her for a moment. Sure, she might not have been awake, but it wouldn’t do his delicate ego a lick of good if he came before the first thrust. At length, he was ready to fuck her and fuck her good. He shifted his hips, trying to unsheathe himself from her heat so he could plunge her depths again, but found instead that he couldn’t move. He was stuck to her, inside of her, and she wasn’t letting him go.

For a second, he thought it was the result of his overactive hormones. That maybe he was so swollen with need and she was so tight with inexperience that there was nothing better to do than just come and be done with it. He took the pretty thing by the hips, intent on getting a better grip as he tried his best to hump her. Yet the moment he touched her skin, he was affixed to her. He couldn’t lift his hands from her hips, couldn’t pull his cock from her cunt, couldn’t wiggle his groin free from her groin. It was as though she were made of some kind of glue instead of luscious lady bits.

As he was held there, helpless and horny, the island about him began to shake.

The girl beneath him trembled, quivering from head to toe in time to the shivering ground. Buster, who was doing his best to keep his wits together, finally lost it. He screamed for help as he struggled against her. But the more he wriggled, the more he writhed, the more he got stuck into her. Like some seductive tar-baby, the sleeping beauty pulled him to her, skin for skin, until Buster was trapped in full atop her, screaming for his life.

All the while, the island moved and shifted. The lake roiled, the water slapping the shore with boiling waves as the ground quaked. Giant boulders and razor-sharp rocks burst forth from the shoreline, surrounding Buster and his sticky sweetheart in a sweeping arc. Then the island rose! Up, up, up into the sky it took Buster, lifting him into a hover over the lake itself. Above him, there fell a dark and chilling shadow. Something the exact shape and size of the island was dropping over him and closing fast! And that’s when Buster knew. His mind tried to warn him, but his cock wouldn’t listen. When he first got to his knees and touched the ground, he knew it wasn’t just rough with sand.

It was rough just like a tongue.

Buster stopped struggling and laughed aloud when he realized that after years of despising the act of fishing, after years of working his lines, trolling the shores and reeling in his catches, he had finally fallen for someone else’s bait. His mystery woman had lured him onto the tongue of some great beast. Hell! She was the tongue of some great beast! And there he was, stuck to the bait, ready to slide down the thing’s gullet and into the oblivion beyond. His last thought, before whatever the hell it was swallowing him did indeed swallow him, was this:

Buster fucking hated fishing.

PINS AND NEEDLES

Jacquelyn Summerset

“Which path will you take?” the bzou asked. “The Path of Needles or the Path of Pins?”

“I’ll take the Path of Needles,” said the girl.

“Why then, I’ll take the Path of Pins, and we’ll see who gets there first.”

She gathered many needles on her way to her grandmother’s house. Her arm was full of the track marks that proved it. And here she was in her own little world yet again. She couldn’t find the wolf this time, though she was looking for him. She never found him when she was looking for him. She picked up the red coat she left draped on the back of the chair and stumbled out the door. The cottage seemed to shift and bend till it resembled a rundown apartment building. She didn’t know what was real anymore, but she knew she wanted the wolf. He made her feel good; made her feel warm and safe. Not like her grandmother, she never felt safe there. She was a tool to make money… locked in a dark room made to service the woodsmen whenever they pleased. She closed the coat (cloak) around her and continued to walk on, pushing her dark red hair out of her face. The moon hung full over the concrete forest throwing a surreal light over everything. She pulled her purse (basket) close to her side as she walked and sung. Her eyes dark with eye shadow were over bright and she looked about her.

“What’s going on, Red?” a familiar voice called. Yellow eyes gleamed in the dark… her wolf… She smiled and approached him slowly. His lips, moist with booze, brushed her face gently. “Where are you going, Red?” he asked gently.

“I’m going home…” she whispered. He frowned. That beautiful muzzle pulled downward in a snarl and he looked up at the moon.

“You’re cold… ” he said darkly.

“That’s why I’m going home where it’s warm.” She kissed his cold nose and ran her hand through his shaggy brown mane. “Why don’t you walk me home, Wolfie?” He looked away again and smiled slyly.

“I have something else to do tonight.” He stepped back into the shadow of the stone trees.  “I’ll catch up with you later, Red.” She frowned wanting to hold on to him, but the opium night took him away.

“Are you hungry?”

“Yes, I am, Grandmother.”

“Then cook the meat that you’ll find on the shelf. Are you thirsty?”

“Yes, I am, Grandmother.”

“Then drink the bottle of wine you’ll find on the shelf beside it, child.”

It was late when she reached the door to her home. Her grandmother lay on the couch unmoving. She seemed splotchy, swollen. Her old gown seemed torn and dirty. Her eyes stared up in terrified passion. The couch seemed to shift to a rock in a field and back again. There was a chuckle behind the couch almost a growl of joy. As she moved closer, her wolf stood up towering over her.

“Isn’t it time, Red? Don’t you want to be free?” he asked her. His muzzle and chest were wrong. They seemed sticky and red. A glint of metal in his hand made her shiver; was it fear or was it anticipation? When he smiled, she felt like she would be gobbled up. “Give your wolf a kiss…” he whispered. She walked over to him and let him wrap his arms around her. She could taste blood.

While she was eating, a little cat that was there said,

“For shame! A slut is she who eats her grandmother’s flesh and drinks her grandmother’s blood.”

When she finished her meal, the bzou said, “Are you tired from your journey, child?

Then take off your clothes, come to bed, and I shall warm you up.”

His hand roamed over her, ripping her cloak open as he kissed her throat and nibbled her chin. She could feel his nails dig into her arms as he pulled her closer. Her clothes became less and less and she could feel his want. She ran her hands through his fur and pulled him closer. He wanted to devour her, and she wanted to let him. She was riding the needles and she didn’t want to ride alone anymore. He pulled her down to the floor behind the couch and stood over her. He placed something long and metal on the couch and removed his clothes slowly; exposing the animal he was; a wolf wearing man’s clothes. He knelt down and slipped her shell-pink panties down over her shapely thighs; with his long tongue he began to taste her, to clean her of the foulness of the woodsmen. He raked his nails across her thighs as he ate her; his tongue trailing up her belly to her breasts. Her basket lay on the grass forgotten. She wanted him, she wanted what he promised; animal passion.

She says to him, “Grandmother, how hairy you are!”

“The better to keep you warm, my child,”

“Grandmother, what big arms you have!”

“The better to hold you close, my child.”

“Wolves mate for life, Red. Did you know that?” For life… She could do that, she could get lost in this place. He spread her thighs apart with his knee and speared her. His thrusts screamed of need and purpose. She rocked back and forth against him; he was her true high. The worlds seemed to collide in her mind, he was the wolf; he was the man. She moaned gripping his mane as he bit her throat hard enough to hurt. He rose to his knees pulling her with him and just like that she was riding him. He pinned her arms behind her back grinding against her, while he bit at her nipples playfully. She could smell torn flesh and gunpowder; she could smell their sex spilling onto the blue shag rug. She rode him harder and harder, squeezing her walls around him.  Her wolf… come to save her from the open world and take her into the woods with him. She cried out again and again never wanting it to end. He pulled her hair hard, thrusting upwards with finality. The acid moon poured over them in the clearing as he pumped her full. She collapsed backwards in his arms getting her fix, coated in sweat and blood. He pulled her close and kissed her full red lips.

“I’ll tie your ankle with a woolen thread so I’ll know just where you are.”

said the bzou.

On the path of needles they became one. They would stay in this dark garden forever, and nothing would touch them. The shadows were theirs and she was free.

* * *

Author’s Note: 1. Bzou basically means werewolf, 2. parts in italics come from the pre-Perrault version of Little Red Riding Hood.

SHADOWGIRL

KV Taylor

She’s always been there, at the foot of the bed—squatting like she wants to look small, unassuming—ever since I was a little girl. She changed as I grew older, and that’s why I believed them when they said she wasn’t real. At first, she was as dark as the shadows, her eyes glinting red in the glow from my nightlight—a leftover Christmas bulb that bathed my room in a festive, sanguine glow. I tried to get up and run to my parents’ room; back then, I could never remember that when she appeared, it meant I would be frozen to the spot. As I grew older, she became paler or darker than the shadows of my room, with long hair, then bald, with green eyes, then violet, then back to red. Always watching, always waiting.

In high school, I would sometimes wake up with her sitting on my chest, my lungs as frozen as the rest of me. I couldn’t even cry, but the urge always passed quickly. By then, I was old enough to know it would pass. I would fall asleep again, and she would be gone in the morning.

But she never really was. She clung to me like a film, like some oil a hot shower couldn’t dissolve. I was sure they could see her glistening on my skin as I wandered those halls, backpack over one shoulder, heart on my sleeve. I was sure that was why they looked at me like that, like I was some insect in a jar, like I was less human, less real. Why I spent my time in the corners alone, why they never even bothered to make fun of me.

Like I was just a shadowgirl at the end of their world. Uncomfortable and inexplicable. Just a bad dream.

It changed in college—no, it changed when I met Ariel. The party was loud, dark; Ariel lingered in the corner. Something about the way her eyes sparked green in the flashing lights lit me up inside. Her arms and legs, an elongated body pulled in on itself, trying to disappear into the cracking fraternity wallpaper. The shadow she cast was familiar and heart-sickening. I couldn’t stay away.

I went home with her that night. She pressed rum-flavored kisses into my lips, kissed me like a girl, sweet and warm and careful. Her cool, dark hands tugged at my jeans, slipped beneath my shirt, and brought me to life. With her mouth against my neck, open and hot, I wasn’t a shadow anymore.

But that’s wrong, isn’t it? I knew her; I’d known her my whole life. The one who’d been watching me, waiting for me all this time. She didn’t make me real: she was just as unreal as I.

It was our type of real, though. The days flew past, the nights were for us. “May,” she’d tell me, “May, I love you so much.”

And I’d say, “I’ve loved you forever. I’ve loved you since I was five-years-old.”

She’d laugh and kiss me, and we’d fall asleep like that, tangled up.

And then, one night, I woke to find two of her: one at my side, stretched out long and elegant, breathing. I felt the weight of her presence in the dark—though I couldn’t turn my head to look—and knew she was in her place. And the other her was at the foot of my bed, curled in on herself like a coiled snake. Her eyes were amber, that was the difference, and the rest of her still dark as shadow.

She, the Other Ariel, watched. I watched too, because there was nothing else I could do. Frozen as always.

She moved—she had never moved before, not once. Unfurled like a silk scarf, first climbing to her knees, then going down on all fours, stretching out toward me and arching so her backside was high in the air. Catlike. I felt her hands on either side of my calves, making small indentations. I felt Ariel still breathing beside me. My heart thundered so loud I wondered how it didn’t wake her up.

The Other crawled forward, up my indifferent body until she straddled my hips. All shadow, made of shadow, no clothes but no nakedness either, just that sick-familiar face and a pair of eyes I’d known forever, staring down into me. She sank lower—the cool, fleshy inside of her thighs, the place between her legs warm against my belly. Breath on my face, scentless, like barely-there wind.

She lowered her body onto me completely, her mouth met mine. Hard, demanding—

Not like Ariel at all.

But in that moment, I could move again—I could feel—and my hands went instinctively to her sides. Shadowy, yes, but her skin was real and sweet against my hot sweat. Fire started in my blood, racing to my center. I rolled my hips under her, unthinking.

The first sound she’d ever made in almost two decades: a growl deep in her throat. Her tongue found mine and she arched her back again, the heat between her legs increasing, pushing at me, ravenous. She closed off the kiss yet stayed near enough that I could still feel the wetness of her lips on mine and said, “Is this what you wanted?”

Her voice echoed in my head, hollow and insubstantial. Goosebumps broke out all over me in spite of the summer heat.

Ariel breathed beside us, silent and sleeping.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered.

She slid her hand beneath my shirt, franticly. Her fingers searched the round underside of my right breast, then found my nipple. She pinched, and I rolled my hips again, biting back a groan. The soft t-shirt raked against my skin, against the newly hardened tip of my left breast, as I writhed. The sensations were fever-sharp, sending shots of heat and light downward, making me swell.

“You’re mine. You’ve always been mine. You’ll always be mine.” She crushed into my mouth again, squeezing with her thighs and fingers until my blood boiled. “But you’re all grown up now. So I’ll give you what you need, May.”

“But you are her—”

She moved lower, raked her tongue over my nipple, heedless of the shirt and still tweaking the other. Then she closed her lips around it, sucking, using her tongue until my shirt was as wet as my underwear, and I couldn’t stop myself from sighing out loud.

Ariel rolled over to face the wall.

The Other sat up slightly, pushed my shirt up so she could rest one palm flat on my belly. I rolled beneath her, begging, the heat in me overwhelming. “You are her.”

But I was trying to convince myself, not the Other.

She put her free hand between us, inside my underwear, and rubbed at me—not gently, but hard, demanding. I spread my legs, wanting her closer, harder, watching her shadowy elegant body writhe on top of me—the small round breasts that made my mouth water, the roll of her smooth hips, the tightening of her stomach.

The way she swallowed, the moonlight pouring through the window. The way she made me hers.

It happened at least every other night. The Other came, she told me I was hers, she fucked me so completely that it was all I could do not to scream and wake up Ariel. Fucked me so completely that when I looked at Ariel in the light, I felt almost nothing. Affection, but almost motherly, devoid of wanting.

It was a dream, though, all a dream, like my parents used to tell me. There was nothing at the foot of my bed, and shadows aren’t real. I’d done nothing wrong; I couldn’t help what my mind made up in the dark.

But Ariel knew, somehow. It was barely a month before she drifted away, and I didn’t try to keep her. The magic was gone, the thing that made us real together had been shattered. And there was nothing to tie me to the world out there—nothing like the thing that tied me to the bed at night, the thing that made me come alive.

And so it wasn’t her, it was me. It was always me, or maybe the Other, but she can’t help what she is, either. And it wasn’t the doctors here—wasn’t their fault I wouldn’t eat their food or take their medicine, my complete indifference to their white-painted walls and their beige carpet and lulling therapy. It’s not their fault my body is folding under the strain, or that all I can think of is darkness, sleep, her arms, her hands, her thighs, her cunt. If I wanted to give up Ariel for it, the only person I ever recognized, what makes them think I don’t want to give up myself?

She tells me it’s not giving up. That I’ll always have what I want from her. That death is just the beginning, when you belong to someone, to something like her.

I’ve loved her forever—since I was five-years-old. Of course I believe.

THE LIBIDONOMICON

Gregory L. Norris

Rain lashed the house. The thick, clotted drops clung to the outside of the misted-over attic windows, reminding Barry of sweat. Adding to the image was the attic’s smell, a heady blend of old books, musty air, and the occasional ripple of a man’s cologne, drifting up from one of the boxes or trunks entombed within the eaves untold decades earlier in the New Englander’s mysterious past. The muggy weather mixed it all together into a carnal, narcotic scent.

Barry had discovered the collection of grimoires inside a steamer trunk that had also boxed in a peculiar smell. Unlike the usual aroma of old paperbacks, library books, and yard sale finds, these exuded an odor of perspiration and sin. One in particular, a leather-bound volume with a mottled gray-pink hide, felt oily to the touch.

Five of the books were traditional hardcovers, at least in outward appearance, though written in languages he didn’t recognize. One, its indigo cover decorated in a spiral pattern of gold leaf, looked German. Barry had taken two years of German language in high school. Though some of the writing sparked familiarity, he couldn’t translate a full sentence despite retaining a decent amount of words and phrases. Another was filled with sexual pictographs and hieroglyphs.

The leather bound book, wrapped in a square of exquisite silk, held its secrets from Barry’s prying gaze. Age and isolation had conjured a waxy, pale pink resin from within, gluing the pages together. To force them apart would likely damage the book beyond repair. Barry sensed it was valuable; the most-valuable of the thirteen books in the trunk. It had to be. Simply touching its pallid, gray-pink cover sent equal parts excitement and revulsion through his blood, the latter leaving his stomach feeling like it had taken a punch while the former made his cock swell.

For the second time that rainy afternoon since entering the attic, Barry fumbled his loose-fit jogging shorts aside. His balls spilled out, hanging full and heavy between his spread legs. Bracing an eave with his spine, he worked his cock free. At twenty-eight, he hadn’t suffered such demanding erections in a decade. Since finding the books, he felt eighteen again and knew that with just a little extra effort, all he needed to do to get his cock sucked was to lean down, extend his tongue, and both of his heads would meet, an act both selfish and sacred.

Barry cast a furtive glance toward the book filled with hieroglyphs, opened to a page that showed a trio of rudimentary human figures, all male if the swollen genitals jutting between their legs were an indication. The three formed more of a triangle than a circle, the traditional geometry for an oral chain. Mouths were aimed at dicks. At the center of the human triangle, a giant inhuman eyeball sat open, observing. Barry wasn’t sure why this particular image made his flesh sweat and his cock leak. Memories of his one and only threesome to date, held in the woods behind his uncle’s house so very long ago, rose fresh in his thoughts.

Barry sighed. The warm breath teased the sensitive flesh of his cock, now so close he could take it between his lips. And he did.  Mouth met tip. While one half of his body moved lower, the other wiggled higher. The head of his cock and an inch or so of steely shaft pulsed over Barry’s tongue. Only in his mind, it wasn’t his but one of the dicks from the woods. He’d gone down on himself regularly since finding the terrible, wonderful books.

Barry sucked and tasted his pre-cum, salty and bitter at the edges. Smelling the musty sweat of his pubic thatch and balls lit his skin on fire. The sweat… the attic was doused in perspiration and haunted by the ghosts of past sex. The kind of sex that had few, if any, boundaries. Sex that had teeth.

For a startling instant, the vision became strikingly real: him, David, and Jamie, naked on that tatty old army blanket someone had left in the woods, all of them high on the hot summer stink of their male bodies. There’d been many configurations on that long ago afternoon, though none spent in the wicked triangular pose that promised such intense pleasure. Between suckles on his cock, Jamie spoke in a garbled foreign language.

The itch in Barry’s cock doubled and then, without warning, his balls tightened, unloading the first blast of come across his tongue. Barry swallowed, struggling to keep up. One large shot slipped free of his lips and fell between the rafters, fresh ejaculation added to all the now-stale loads deposited there in decades past.

The stink in the attic burned in Barry’s lungs. The air had grown almost too hot, too ripe, to breath. Perspiration cascaded down his face and legs. Despite two climaxes since tromping up the stairs, one pumped directly into his mouth, his cock hung hard and heavy, wanting more, and his balls loosened up, aching for further release.

The books. He wanted to gaze through them again and enjoy their wickedness. Instead, he tucked his protesting dick back under cover and piled the antique books into the trunk. Touching the leather bound grimoire with the mottled hide and the resin-soaked pages again nauseated and aroused him. By the time he lugged the steamer down the narrow staircase to the second floor landing, his cock had unintentionally rubbed itself to the verge of unloading a third time.

Barry silenced its complaining and finished the job in the shower, where he washed away the external grime coating his body.  Not long after he emerged, pondering the internal, the doorbell rang.

His name was Nickolas Kantemir. A dealer in rare books, he had answered Barry’s post on a blog about the collection in the steamer trunk. The lone sentence was both vague and promising.

I know what you’ve found.

Barefoot, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, Barry padded down the stairs and opened the front door. Twilight had fallen, welcomed in early by the rain.  Standing between the threshold and the dusk was a column of darkness in the shape of a man, its back turned toward him. The muggy breeze swept up, rich with the man’s clean scent, a mix of summer rain and pine trees. Barry sucked in a deep breath, exhilarated for reasons he couldn’t at first identify.

The man turned, and Barry’s next breath came with difficulty. A classically handsome face with sapphires for eyes, dark hair one length longer than that of most professional athletes, and a mouth too tempting to ignore materialized out of the shadows.

“Barrett Manning?” the man asked, his voice a musical baritone.

Barry choked down a painfully dry swallow and nodded.  He somehow found his voice and answered, “Yes. And you’re Nickolas?”

“Guilty,” the man smiled, flashing a length of perfect white teeth, and for one blinding instant, all Barry could think about was kissing that mouth, and being kissed in return. Kissed everywhere, shuddering as it grew intimate with his flesh. Earlobes and instep, throat and toes, nipples and asshole and even places far beneath skin and muscles, places normally inaccessible to another man’s mouth.

“I’m here concerning the Langston Collection.”

Barry realized he’d fallen under a spell. Blinking, he regained some of his composure. “The books, of course.” Then a wave of worry crashed over him. He sensed his cock had grown stiff—if it had ever softened following his shower, which he doubted—and that if he looked down, the tent in his jeans would be capped by an expanding wet spot, damning proof of his guilt. Worse, what if the vision standing outside on the top step noticed?

“May I come in?”

“Of course, dude. Forgive my rudeness. Please, come in.”

Something in the man’s face changed. He glided into the house, graceful yet masculine. His hypnotic male scent deepened, but as he passed out of the shadows and into the light, Barry noticed the man’s pallor, ashen-gray, pink around the edges. The illusion was there one moment, gone the next.

Nickolas Kantemir wore a spotless black button-down shirt under a leather jacket. One shirttail hung out of his jeans in that jaunty, modern style. Old hiking boots on big feet, faded blue jeans.  The man was stunning in an understated way.

“Can I take your jacket?”

“You can take my cock, Barrett.”

Barry’s eyes snapped fully open. “What?”

Nickolas’ lips curled into a seductive smile.  “I said you can take me to the collection.”

Barry had heard the man wrong; he’d only heard what he wanted to. Watching the man’s smile, he realized Nickolas’ lips never once moved as he spoke. Perhaps he’s trying to hypnotize me, Barry thought. Or seduce me… which Barry couldn’t have wanted more.

“So, about this Langston Collection,” Barry said.

“Ford Langston was a professor of antiquities from Midlothian University, in the town of Avonmoors, Massachusetts, and a notorious sexual deviant who secretly—and not so privately in some instances—sought to explore every act of sensuality and lust known to man. He was obsessed with experiencing sex on every plane, not only physically but the metaphysical as well. Soul sex.  God’s sex. Every sacred and sinful kink and bent ever conceived.  And in order to obtain that goal, he assembled a collection of the rarest books on the subject. Arcane, forbidden books which became known as the Langston Collection.”

Barry glanced around the simple New Englander, half of it in desperate need of updating. “If it is this Langston Collection, what was it doing in my attic?”

Nickolas half-smiled and, inwardly, Barry reacted fully.  “Perhaps some of Ford Langston’s research took place here, in this very house. Do you know anything about the history of the place?”

Barry shrugged. “I’ve only owned it for a few weeks, but there are some strange smells up there, and I’ve found claw marks on some of the walls.”

“Maybe the previous owner or tenant was one of his many conquests.”

“You mean lovers?”

“Sure, that works.”

Silence fell between them, warm and awkward. The central air conditioning felt nonexistent, though Barry sensed it whispering over his arms.

“I thought the books might be valuable,” he rambled. “That I could sell them and use the money to fix up the place.”

“Valuable? Oh, yes, very. If they really are the Langston Collection, you’re sitting on a fortune.”

The heat in the room doubled. “Fucking-A.”

Nickolas placed a hand on Barry’s arm. The connection was powerful, icy and electric. Barry gasped, suddenly aware of his nipples as they stiffened into hard points beneath the thin cotton of his shirt.

“No; books A, fucking B… ”

There it was again, that teasing frankness. Dumbfounded, Barry said, “This way.”

But Nickolas was already a step ahead of him and navigating the staircase to the dark room at the top.

Barry caught the intensity in Nickolas’ sapphire eyes, which glinted preternaturally in the wan light cast by the spare bedroom’s lone lamp.  The other man knelt between the open trunk and the mattress and box spring sitting on the scuffed hardwood floor in what Barry envisioned as becoming the guest room some day. He leaned forward, enough that Nickolas’ shirt pulled free of his jeans, exposing a patch of furry skin just above the crack of his ass. The dude had gone commando, and Barry’s cock pulsed.

“Are they—”

Nickolas withdrew the indigo book with the gold leaf spirals. “The Callae Cardera, painstakingly recreated from scrolls found in canopic jars at the infamous Walled Lake in the shadows of Castle Hayne. Das Buch Des Dunkel Lebenz… roughly translated as ‘Book of Dark Passion.’ The Taos Testament… ”

The handsome man grunted something under his breath as he lifted an oblong book from the pile.

“Zettle’s Diary. An exploration of unholy sexual rituals with those abominations known as the First Gender. The Insatiable One, Yiig Y’Reka… tentacled Toth Helote… Watan Ranssae, the Dark Lover and Romancer of Fallen Souls… these incantations were believed lost following the destruction of the Third Reich.”

“So, is this the Langston Collection?”

“Only if The Libidonomicon is here.”

Barry parroted, “The Libidonomicon?”

“‘The Book of Lusts.’ Think of it as something of a dark Karma Sutra. The original text was written in human blood, by the Mad Hungarian, Adolfo Ardeshin. Subsequent copies were even more meticulous in their creation, bound in the flesh of his unwilling victims.”

Nickolas froze, and Barry’s heart galloped.

“What is it?”

Nicholas drew the silk-wrapped volume from the trunk. His hands shook as he unwrapped. “Can it be?”

A buzzing undercurrent of electricity infused the air.  Barry’s arms broke in gooseflesh. His cock pulsed.

“Of all these treasures,” Nickolas said, his voice taking on a haunting echo. “You are the most priceless.” Then he faced Barry directly, a glint in his eyes and a surly grin on his lips. “I can say with certainty that this is the Langston Collection.”

Nickolas clutched the pinkish, gray-skinned book against his chest and stroked it. Though Barry initially dismissed what happened next as a trick of the room’s poor light, he swore The Libidonomicon quivered. The book made an undulating motion, like a snake, as though the pages were pulsing from within.  Pulsing, like Barry’s cock.

“So… you interested?” he asked.

Nickolas’ grin widened. “In the books? Very much so. But also in you.”

The wine in the air, which had steadily built in Barry’s ears since being touched, crackled out. And the book, The Libidonomicon, puffed and shrank against Nickolas’ chest, as though taking breaths.

It had only happened once, in the deep green woods behind his uncle’s house. Dave and Jamie were a couple of local guys, friends bored out of their skulls during an otherwise unremarkable summer. A couple of no-good punks, he’d been told, but that wasn’t true. In the woods, they’d been great, at least so much as Barry remembered. Though not to be repeated physically beyond the one time, that sweaty, dirty afternoon proved to be unforgettable, fodder for a decade’s worth of jerk-off fantasies.

Barry thought of them again as Nickolas maneuvered him onto the nearby mattress. The pill-covered quilt felt scratchy beneath his naked spine, like that old army blanket in the woods, which had likely been somebody’s picnic castoff. The scent of pine hit his nostrils strongly, more nostalgia than Nickolas, he imagined. Nickolas, so handsome, moved on top of him. But in the murky near-absence of light, it was Jamie he saw. Jamie was a brute of a young man, probably now married, divorced, and living with one female friend or another in a long succession of meaningless lays since that long ago afternoon. If he wasn’t in jail serving time, that was. Barry hoped Jamie thought about their day in the woods, too, when he jerked off or was buried balls-deep in a choice pussy or ass.

Barry blinked and the face now belonged to Dave. Dave was the handsomer of the two and the dirtier-minded of the boys his uncle had labeled no-good punks. He’d also been the one to incite the dance steps that ultimately led to their conga-fuck beneath the pine trees; often, Barry had thought about seeking Dave out on the internet. Dave, who was also probably married and still playing around with men, cuming and making them cum. Oh, to cum…

Dave-Nickolas sighed, washing a cool breath across Barry’s throat, and the scintillating shudder cascaded down his chest to his abdomen; lower, engulfing his cock in concentric waves of pleasure. A fortune, Nickolas had said. Barry was about to become rich, thanks to the Langston Collection. Of course, Nickolas would take possession of the books. This very night, in fact.

“You are beautiful,” Nickolas said, his voice throbbing with an echo even more distant now. “Can you comprehend how very long I’ve searched for you, my love? Or the lengths I went to in order to reunite with you, after that charlatan of a dark priest stole you away from me?”

Dave hovered over him, but his mouth never moved, and the voice professing its undying love was speaking at some length’s distance. Barry summoned his strength and looked. The illusion of Dave who’d been Jamie a minute earlier dissolved in a swarm of black dots. Turning his head required more effort, but when he did, Barry saw the book, placed on the bed, expanding and contracting, as though breathing. And something else.

The lamp had been switched off, but candles had been lit, fat and waxy ones that exuded a bitter sexual smell. The only other light in the room came from the section of the floor where the steamer trunk sat. The lid sat open; an unnatural glow, part indigo, the rest a mix of crimsons and greens, emanated dully from within, as if from the arcane books themselves. He knew the texts were valuable, but at that moment, he also realized they were different from other books. Dare he think it? Dangerous.

A shadow passed between Barry and the books. It stirred the sexual tang in the air, a stink of fresh sweat from a man’s ripest, most wonderfully male destinations. Barry’s pulse quickened.

“What… what are you doing to me?” he managed.

“Making love,” Nickolas said between scattering chilly kisses down his throat.

Barry moaned. Whatever protest he thought of making died in a rush of exquisite sensations. Nickolas’ lips clamped to his throat.  Pain flickered. All else was ecstasy.

They were naked, skin pressed against skin, their chemicals mixing liquidly as sweat mingled with sweat. A man’s sweat could be so powerful, so intoxicating.

Nickolas sprawled out on the bed, his body as magnificent as Barry imagined. Every detail came clearly: the neat T-pattern of hair superimposed over a muscular torso; fur-ringed belly button, a full nest of dark curls above a swollen uncircumcised cock; low-hanging balls; moderately hairy legs; big feet, sexy in ways Barry hadn’t considered possible before this night.

Nickolas’ lips, full and pink… no, crimson… in the room’s muddy light, beckoned him with a smile.

“Y’toth Ve Zetha Sog.”

“Huh?” Barry asked. The voice in his head wondered if he’d misunderstood, or if Nickolas was speaking in one of the tongues from the ancient texts.

“I said that you have my permission.”

“For?”

“For whatever you want.”

What he wanted, Barry thought, was to be there again, to know the kind of unapologetic release he’d experienced that summer in the woods with Dave and Jamie. The kind of hardcore, primal sex one man can only experience with another. Sex so dirty, so wrong, outcasts throughout human history had written forbidden books about it. Sex rarely spoken of, but also never forgotten.

Their lips met, and Barry knew that Nickolas would give him all that he wanted. The black and the blessed; the hallowed and the unholy; from head to toe and everywhere in between.

Slowly, Barry’s mouth descended. Chest to stomach, lower into that thatch of male-smelling curls. His mouth encircled Nickolas’ cock, and taste ignited on his tongue, deceptively pure at first.  The longer Barry suckled and savored it, the more sanguine it grew.

“Hebbe… Alane… Raema… Amiot… Suggs… Braye!”

Barry glanced up. The words from a lost language ricocheted through the shadows around him, but the lips of the handsome man he fellated didn’t move. He closed his eyes only to suddenly be transported there again, onto the army blanket in the woods, only…

The old blanket was different, stained with a dark, moldering circle at the middle. Feathered skeins decorated the top of the circle, like eyelashes, thought Barry. The stain at the center of the army blanket resembled an eye.

He lay across one side, at an angle, canted toward the other, naked. Nickolas was posed in a straight line, his face at Barry’s ankles. And on the blanket’s far side, in the last space of the geometry where a third male body should be to form a triangle, was The Libidonomicon.

The book, no longer pallid and gray, had taken on a rosy complexion. Its shape altered before Barry’s wide eyes, stretching out into an oval. The circle at the heart of the triangle, too, had changed. A two-dimensional line drawing of an eyeball now stared up at him.

“W’Tenue… Shrout… Kohl-Theda!”

The book inhaled, and with a liquid, languid slither, put forth an arm.

“Come back to me, my love. Back, through the pages… ”

An arm first, and then a cock. A lone, pink tentacle stretched out from the resin, hooded and moist.

“Yes!” Nickolas sighed. “Live again!”

Barry only saw the abomination briefly. Without warning, the room went dark, and he smelled the acrid wisps of smoke from the blown-out candles. Nickolas moved beneath him, crawling upward in a slithering motion, until his muscular body encompassed Barry’s possessively. The other man’s lips returned to his throat; given his paralysis, Barry wondered if they’d actually ever left. How much of their sexual fumbling was real, and how much had he imagined?

“Nickolas?”

The mouth on Barry’s throat sucked harder in response.  Cocks ground together. A finger invaded Barry’s asshole.

“What are you doing to me?”

The finger became two, filling him while searching for the trigger of sensitive nerves buried deep at his prostate. Nickolas kissed, chewed. Barry moaned. A guttural sucking sound teased his ears.

The fingers found their target, and Barry started to unload.  Something warm and wet engulfed his cock. A mouth? The only other mouth in the room was at his neck, feeding. Curiously, the thin flicker of pain added to his pleasure, and Barry’s cock continued to ejaculate, and the shivers and ecstasy engulfed him without abating, a tantric wave that showed no sign of slowing.

Through that inhuman pleasure, Barry somehow focused on the book, that vile text bound in human flesh, and how it had seemed to come alive beside him on the bed. The mouth on his cock sucked, and the fingers inside him wiggled… if they were actual fingers.

“Feed, my love,” Nickolas whispered. “Feed on the young and the living, until you are whole and back with me again, after these many centuries apart.”

Barry’s climax, growing more painful with each second, ebbed. This level of sexual stimulation wasn’t possible to maintain, he thought, because it wasn’t natural, wasn’t human. Neither were the two horrors draining the blood and the life out of his body, he realized, Nickolas and the body being reborn out of the book, right before his dreams of the woods faded, and the darkness claimed him.

HAG RIDE

Eden Royce

Frieda stood in the kitchen’s fading light with a chopping knife clutched in one hand. The dinner on the table laid untouched, ice-cold and bathing in congealing fat. Her cinnamon coloring disguised the angry flare of heat in her cheeks. Still, she knew yelling wouldn’t get her husband’s attention, so she forced a calm tone into her voice.

“Why aren’t you staying for dinner? I made your favorite.”

“I told you, I got to go out.” Henry came out of their bedroom, buttoning up his good shirt and tucking it into the slacks she had taken her time to press that morning.

“Out where? You can’t eat dinner with your wife before you go? Give me some of your time?”

“Thought I just gave you some,” Henry laughed, his tongue grotesquely pink against his smooth ebony face. He waggled his long, limp penis at her before he tucked it into his pants.

“Good thing you put that away. I was going to lop it off.”

“You wasn’t gon’ do that to this valuable piece of merchandise.”

“I wanted to spend some time with you. Just us. Like we used to.” Tears threatened to fall from her maple syrup-colored eyes.

“A man needs some time to hisself, baby. I told you that long time ago.”

“I know, but…”

He took a pick from his back pocket, the metal one with a balled up fist for a handle and ran it through his short, tight afro. In the hall mirror, he patted it with both palms to even out the ‘do.

“You never said where you were going.”

“Goin’ out with the fellas,” Henry said. “Relax and get a couple drinks.”

“You look mighty nice for a night out with Butch and that gang. You promised me no more sleeping around, Henry.”

“I know, baby, I know. Don’t you worry ‘bout nothing.” He kissed her cheek and grabbed a pork chop from the platter before heading for the door.

“When are you gonna be home?”

“Late, baby. Real late.”

* * *

Frieda parked the aging Chevy at the edge of the dirt road leading to the marsh. She sat in the driver’s seat with the window down and breathed in the sulfurous scent of pluff mud and sea grass. Although the marsh teemed with life, loneliness pressed in on her like an unwelcome suitor in the dark.

She walked along the water’s edge toward the small house nestled in the marsh’s protective embrace, unafraid in the blackness. The moon parted the dark in shifting layers as clouds crept across the Carolina sky. As the toe of her shoe hit the porch, the front door creaked open.

“Evening, Big Mama,” she said.

Big Mama was barely on the right side of six feet without shoes. Her massive bosom filled the doorway like shells in a double-barreled shotgun. Her hair, fluffy and cotton white, stood out against pecan tan skin.

“Lawd, Frieda. You here in the middle of the night? I know what this must be. Come on in.” The Gullah accent, born on the coastal waterways of the Carolinas, was musical as it fell from her dark, unpainted lips.

The muggy night gave way to the cool marsh breeze fluttering through the thin curtains. Frieda sat at the rough-hewn table in the middle of what served as the cabin’s kitchen while Big Mama bustled around in cabinets and muttered under her breath.  She returned to the table with two jelly jars filled with rose-colored liquid.

“Big Mama, I—”

“Drink some of this first.”

The homemade liquid scorched her throat and she coughed, but the burning cleared her head. The swirling thoughts she’d brought to the cabin solidified into a concrete block of determination. She took another sip while her godmother pulled a cheroot and a lighter from her generous bosom. The sweet scents of tobacco and clove danced entwined.

“What Henry done now?” The wicker chair creaked as Big Mama settled her bulk into it.

“Same old. Still cheating. Staying out all night. I’m tired of it.”

“Mmmph.” Rings of smoke dissolved in the air.

“I’m married. I shouldn’t have to bump around in that house alone all the time.”

“That why you got married? To never be alone?” Her snort made smoke shoot down from her wide nostrils like an enraged bull. “I got news for you, chile. Alone you come in this world and alone you go out. Nothing gone change that.”

“I got married because I love him. I just want him to love me back.”

“Henry love you in his own way.  But that ain’t the way you want, huh?”

“I can’t live like this.”

“You still a beautiful, young woman. Find yourself somebody else. Don’t let no man be the death of you. Not like your Daddy was to your Momma.”

Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. “I don’t want another man. I made a promise before God and everybody and I will not leave Henry.”

Big Mama tapped ashes in a chipped china teacup. “He ain’t worth the heartache. You better off alone.”

“I don’t ever want to be alone again. I hate it.”

“You sure it not his ding-a-ling you missin’?”

“That’s not the problem.” Her face heated under Big Mama’s intense gaze.

“No shame in it, girl. You supposed to like going to bed with your husband. That what make him feel like a man. But it seem your man like going to everybody else’s bed.” A look of sympathy crossed the heavy woman’s face. “You can’t change him. You married him that way.”

The heat in Frieda’s face blazed. Henry had been late for their wedding. Big Mama and Francis, her fourth husband, found him drunk in a motel room with a street girl. Only Francis’ cool head kept Big Mama from killing Henry right then. She’d pulled a derringer from her bra and pointed it at the naked couple. The girl screamed and held the crusty motel sheet to her nude body and ran for the door.

Big Mama grabbed her arm and whispered something in her ear before letting her go. Then she waited while Francis cleaned Henry up and they headed for the church.  Frieda and Henry were married an hour later.

“I can’t change him, but you can,” Frieda said.

Big Mama extinguished the cigar and drained her glass of wine, but said nothing.

Frieda rushed on, “You can fix it so he never strays from me again. You can put him in a jar or something. I’ve seen you work root. That’s why people are scared of you.”

Big Mama laughed. “They scared ‘cause they think root worse than voodoo.  Ain’t true. They both dangerous, in the right hand.” The chair groaned as Big Mama leaned back and looked at the ceiling of what had once been slave quarters. “Puttin’ his spirit in a jar don’t stop no man from cattin’ no ways. Only one thing can do that.”

“The Hag.”

“Right. And the Hag ain’t nothin’ to play with. Not even for me.”

“But you can do it.”

“Oh, sure I can do it. But I ain’t.”

Frieda got up from her chair and knelt beside the woman who’d taken her in after her mother’s death. “Big Mama, please. I don’t know what else to do.”

“Leave well enough alone.”

“I love him. I need him.”

“You ain’t gonna let this go, huh?” She shook her head and a sigh fell from her lips. “Lawd, that man’s thing must jump up and do a dance inside you.” She fingered the damp, pulpy end of the cigar. “I can tell you this: if I send the Hag after him, ain’t no telling what gone happen.”

“She’ll take all that extra energy of his. He’ll have just enough left for me.”

“That what supposed to happen. But I jus’ call her. Ain’t no way to control her. She do as she please.” Her pause lasted several loping heartbeats. “And no man ever the same after she done with him.”

“I understand.”

“When is your woman time?”

“It’s here now.”

The two women sat on the hardwood floor of the cabin with moonlight illuminating Big Mama’s mis en place for the ritual. Two piles of sea salt, a wad of Henry’s coarse hair tied with butcher’s twine and six blood smeared candles sat next to the refilled juice glasses.

“This your last chance, Frieda. Think this through.”

The younger woman’s face remained resolute. “I’m done thinking.”

Big Mama nodded and lit the first candle. Murky shadows danced to its flickering. When the final candle began to glow, she spoke. “Get me a hidin’ man.”

Frieda smoothed her shirtdress and tiptoed out to the marsh, her Keds squishing in the soft, dank mud. The moon was a smile in the darkness as she looked for a stalk of seagrass leaning heavily to the ground. Finding one, she crouched to complete her task, her feet sinking deeper into the cool, black muck. She plucked a conical shell from the crisp grass and hurried back inside.

Big Mama placed the open end of the shell against her neck and hummed low in her throat. The hum filled the small room, vibrated across the floor to imbed itself in Frieda’s chest and infuse her limbs with its eerie, toneless rumble.

She pulled the shell away from her throat and Frieda saw a small, pale crab, stirred by the vibration, peek out of the shell. Big Mama yanked it from its home and pulled a switchblade, slick with sweat from the depths of her bosom. In one motion, she opened the knife and skewered the frightened crustacean to the floor before it could scuttle away. Henry’s clump of hair covered the crab’s death throes. She took a gulp of the caustic wine, spat it on the gruesome pile and touched a candle to it. It burned, not destroying the wooden floor, while both women took up the humming again.

Wind came, strong through the curtains and the hovering shadows coalesced into a swirling ash grey mass.

“She here.  Be ready with the salt.”

The grey cloud moved around the calling space, stopping at each candle, before it slunk between the two women to examine its sacrifice. Satisfied, it slid over to Frieda and swayed like a cobra. She could feel a presence inside her mind, inside her chest and she gasped as it probed at her most tender heartaches. Crushing memories rushed to the surface of her psyche: Henry’s countless betrayals, looks of pity from the local women, laughter from the men. Frieda’s chest seized. She gasped for breath as scabs, new and old, tore from each emotional wound. It delved deeper in its search and tears grew behind Frieda’s fluttering eyelids. Her chest heaved and shook with impending sobs.

“The salt. Throw the salt!”

Frieda’s arm shook with the effort of tossing the small handful of salt over her left shoulder. While most of it found its way down the front of her dress, enough landed behind her to end the Hag’s internal quest. The smoky funnel whirled and danced with its newfound knowledge.

Brought to the surface again, her pain crystallized into diamond hard resolve.

The ache eased enough for her to gasp, “Make him stay with me.”

The whirlwind roiled with fervor, covering the wine-soaked crab carcass in its dervish. When it finally moved, only the switchblade remained. The coil of ash rose in the thick, muggy air and hovered above the women. One word came from the twisting center’s eye.

“Agreed.”

It extinguished each candle, then dissipated to leave the women surrounded by darkness and the scent of charred sulfur.

* * *

“Hey, Henry.”

“What’s happenin’, my man?” Henry’s palm met his friend’s in an intricate succession of slaps before he sat on the next barstool in the smoky lounge.

George “Butch” Dempsey took a sip of scotch and turned a shrewd eye on Henry. “Same old, same old. Working till I die.”

“I hear that.”

“What you doing here, anyway? Ain’t this your anniversary night?”

“Shee-it. I was wondering why Frieda was so hell bent on having dinner with me. Shoulda known.” He ordered a boilermaker from the bartender and rubbed a broad hand over his face. “How you remember my anniversary and I don’t?”

“’Cause y’all got married six years ago on Janey’s birthday and I never forget Janey’s birthday.”

“Right, right.  How she doing?”

“Janey? Oh, she has good days and bad days. Starting to be more bad days. But her mama’s with her. Give me a few hours rest.”

“I couldn’t be sick like that. You know, live my life sick. I wanna go quick. Don’t want nobody giving up they life for me.” He glanced at Butch. “I don’t mean nothin’ by that, what you do for Janey is good, it’s—”

“Yeah, I know.” He drained his glass and stood. “I better get on home.” But he no longer had Henry’s attention.

“Uh-huh.” Henry’s gaze was fixed on a woman at the end of the bar. He rose from the barstool as though she’d bid him, picked up the shot glass and the bottle of beer.

“Where’d she come from?” Butch frowned at the sly smile on the strange woman’s lips. A chill crept through his bulky frame and gooseflesh grew on his meaty arms.

“Don’t know. But I’m gonna find out. “

“No, I mean, she wasn’t there a minute ago,” Butch said.

“Then she come through the back door.” He shook off the hand Butch placed on his shoulder. “You disturbing my groove.”

“You need to stay away from that one. She seem… freaky.”

“That just what I’m hoping. Catch you on the flip side, man.”

“Henry, wait.”

But Henry didn’t respond. He had the scent and nothing could get him off the trail.

Butch watched his friend approach the mystery woman. He started forward to intercept him and the woman looked up, straight into his eyes.  Her grey-blue gaze, startling against her tawny skin, held him fast.

All ambient sound from the crowded bar faded. Butch felt himself grow hard and the throbbing ached like a wound. His skin itched like it was covered in dirt. He dug his short nails into his arm with ruthless fervor. Angry welts rose up and still he raked his flesh, unable to get rid of the feeling that she was on him, in him, crawling around.

He yelped when his blunt nails broke skin. The mental hold loosened and he was able to move. Without another glance at Henry, Butch pushed through the throng of people and ran from the bar.

The woman was chatting with the bartender as Henry strolled up. “Hey man, give the lady here another one of what she drinking.” He gave her hourglass figure a lingering once-over. “I’m Henry. And you sure is foxy.”

“And you’re a little cocky.”

“You got me wrong.” He took a long pull from his beer then pointed toward her with the bottle. “I’m a big cocky.”

She almost choked on a sip of strawberry daiquiri, but it turned into a spurt of laughter. “I haven’t heard that one before.”

“What’s your name?”

“Does it matter? You’ll only forget it afterwards.”

He leaned closer and her fragrance glided over the smokiness of the bar, a tangy mixture of sea air and citrus fruit. “After what, little mama?”

A coy smile accompanied her words. “After tonight.”

“Now, how you know what gon’ happen tonight? I might decide to take my time and court you.”

She shook her head and chestnut ringlets brushed her bare shoulders. “It’s my last night in town.”

“You got people here?”

“No, it’s a business trip for me.”

“Business? What kinda work you do?”

She ran her tongue over her straight, smooth teeth. “I make people over.”

Henry nodded. “Hair and makeup and stuff. Cool. Cool.” He downed the shot of whisky. “So, this your last night, huh?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“That’s a shame.  Guess I’m gonna have to work fast.” He slapped a ten down on the counter and stood.

“Not too fast, I hope.”

* * *

“You must make some serious bread. This ain’t no cheap motel.” Henry strolled around the expansive suite, whistling at all the extra touches. Fresh flowers stood in crystal a vase on the side table next to an overflowing fruit basket.

“I like to be comfortable when I travel.” She tossed her clutch purse on the bedside table.

“This ain’t comfortable. This is… nice. Real nice.” The sound of a zipper yanked his gaze back to the bed. She stepped out of the purple satin puddle at her feet and stood, clad in only a black strapless bra and panties, in the middle of the room.

“Well, don’t stop now.” He unbuttoned his own shirt and tossed it on the floor as he strode over to her. She nudged him toward the king-sized bed.

“Why don’t you lie down and watch the rest?”

“Oh, yeah. I like that, baby.”

Henry lay down in the middle of the bed and watched her reach behind her back to unhook her bra. Her high breasts sprang free from their confines and he salivated at the sight of her dark, hard nipples. She climbed onto the foot of the bed and crawled up Henry’s body, her grey-blue eyes laughing with challenge.

She straddled his waist and ground herself against his hardness as she brushed her breast over his lips. He opened his mouth and sucked on the stiffened tip. Warm liquid flowed into his mouth and after his initial surprise, he suckled harder. He tried to pull her closer, but his body resisted. It trembled with the vain effort of movement. His eyes widened.

“No, Henry. You don’t get to touch me.” Her silky voice darkened as her milk soured in his mouth. Lumpy curds drained down his cheeks. He gagged, tried to turn his head and spit, but his lips were fused to her slick flesh.

“You asked me what my name was,” she said as her fingers stroked his throat, forcing him to swallow the thick pap. Her swollen nipple popped from his mouth when she leaned back to remove her brief panties. “It’s Eldra.” As the silk slid down her thighs, fat drops of her vaginal fluid fell onto the crotch of the panties, bleaching the fabric a sickly yellow-white.

Eldra draped the ruined underwear over Henry’s face, ignoring his gurgled protests as the caustic fabric burned his skin. “But you may know me better as ‘The Hag’.” She slid down to his crotch, bristly public hair like needles in his groin as her talons ripped through denim and exposed the length of him. She squatted, her legs wide and her nether lips open to expose two rows of glinting silver-white teeth.

His scream bubbled through the lumps in his throat as she lowered herself onto his stiff penis. Eldra shoved her fingers into Henry’s open mouth, turned the panties into a putrid gag as she rode him with demonic wildness while he lay immobile, unable to stop the flesh-rending fuck.

Hours later, Eldra climbed off his limp, wasted body. She gave an impressed grunt. “Ooh, Henry. You’re still hard.” She took the mutilated penis in her palms and gripped it, holding the flayed pieces together. Her salt and citrus scent filled the room as she lowered her acidic mouth again and again.

* * *

“We patched him up the best we could, Miz Frieda.” The young nurse said before she opened the door to Henry’s room.

Frieda whispered, “How bad is it?”

The nurse hesitated. “It’s… uh… He’s been asking for you.”

“Frieda? That you?” Henry’s voice was high with panic.

“I’ll be at the desk if you need anything.” The nurse made a hasty exit.

“Frieda, please. I need you.”

She rushed to his beside and pulled back the dividing curtain. Her breath caught in her throat as she looked at her disfigured husband, small and shriveled in the middle of the hospital bed. He reached out a shaky hand to her, his eyes wide and white and staring.

Frieda heard him crying out for her as she whirled and fled the room.

“Please! Don’t leave me. Frieda!”

PHANTOM DEPOSIT

Larissa Alloway

The bank lobby was dark, half-hidden in shadows. A winter storm had blown in around three o’clock. It looked like a nice, soft snowfall at first, but, just before closing, it had intensified. I toiled at my desk, rushing to finish closing duties before I got stuck at the bank.

Snow collected rapidly in the corners of the windows, adding an eerie sense of isolation to the lighted island of my desk. I felt jumpy and wished I had all the lights blazing, not just the floor lamp to my left.

No need to be paranoid, Viv. You can handle this.

The other bank managers hate closing. They find dealing with the tedium of balancing accounts and locking things up for the night boring. For me, the ordered world of the bank—assuring balance and that everything is in its place—provides armor against the chaos of the rest of the world.

The sound of the snowstorm brushing against the windowpanes and the act of counting the money in the drawer lured me into a trancelike state. I was finishing up with the last drawer--all the coins in neat rows on the desk, the currency separated by denomination with the presidents’ heads all facing the same direction--when the phone rang. I jumped as the silence was shattered, knocking the coin towers across my desk.

“Damn!” I grabbed for the phone. “This is Vivienne.” I spoke sharply, distracted as I tried to resort the coins.

Static buzzed through the phone lines, but I thought I recognized my bank manager’s voice on the other end. Steve’s words came through like Morse code, in stutters and stops, but I could pick out words like ‘emergency’ and ‘closure.’ Then the phone line went dead, cutting the static off abruptly. I stood at the side of my desk, holding the phone until it began beeping.

After carefully setting the receiver back into the cradle, I crossed the lobby once again to peer out the windows, the heels of my shoes making staccato taps on the wooden floor. They echoed in the large room, a reminder that I was all alone.

The snow didn’t seem very deep and actually appeared to be slowing, so Steve probably hadn’t been talking about road closures.

But what had cut off the phone service, then? Maybe the storm was worse than it looked.

I peered out the window when I felt light pressure on my shoulder. I screamed and jumped away, spinning around to face the lobby. I was shocked to see David, the new night officer, who had started at the bank several weeks ago.

“Jeez! Where did you come from? You’re not supposed to be here.” My voice sounded thin and out of breath. Feeling foolish, I leaned against the window, my legs weak from the adrenaline rush.

“Relax, I didn’t mean to scare you. Steve asked me to come down and make sure you got out of here okay. Didn’t he tell you?”

“No. Well, maybe. He just called, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. The phone lines are all broken up.”

Out of all the bank officers, David was the youngest and the best looking, with soft black hair, deep brown eyes and smooth caramel skin. He probably lifted weights every day, because his body was tight and muscular.

He looked at me, a small grin playing around his mouth. I smiled back, not immune to the warmth in his eyes. Although I wouldn’t say I’m bad looking, I’m not the kind of girl someone like David would ever be interested in. Smart, gorgeous men very rarely notice shy, awkward, average women.

I looked down at the floor. “Well, let’s get out of here, then. I was just ready to put away the deposits and do the last run through before setting the alarms.”

As I headed for my desk, I realized that David wasn’t moving, but remained by the window. I looked back at him.  “Are you coming?”

Shrugging, he strolled across the lobby. The way his body moved reminded me of a wild cat prowling the jungle, all heat and muscle. Our eyes once again locked and a different kind of warmth spread through my body, a fire settling in my pelvis.

Embarrassed, I turned back to my desk. “I’m almost done,” I repeated. My self-consciousness growing, I dropped quarters as I tried to put them into coin wrappers. Knowing David had to be thinking I was an idiot, I tried to get a grip on my libido.

I took a deep breath which caught in my throat when I felt his hand on my shoulder. My head swam for a moment, and I vaguely thought I might fall, my knees once again refusing to support me. His fingers lightly brushed the nape of my neck. I almost whimpered as he gently turned me toward him, his fingers reaching up and curling into my hair.

Unbidden, I leaned my body against him and pressed my hips against his. I could feel his excitement. When I lifted my face to meet David’s, there was a heat in his eyes that seared me, erotic flames licking through me. My thighs tingled and a warm blush spread over my skin. As he touched his lips to mine, I thought, This can’t be happening, but as our kiss deepened and our lips twisted in passion, I quit thinking altogether.

Coins scattered all over the floor as David lifted me onto the desk. Cradling my head with one hand, his other stroked an electric trail from my knee up my inner thigh, lightly brushing over my waiting need. I gasped at the intensity of my desire, but his hand had already continued over my stomach, pulling my shirt over my breasts. As he lowered his head to lick my exposed skin, I felt myself grow wet. I reached for his waistband, but David grabbed my wrist firmly and secured it behind my back. He lowered me the rest of the way onto my desk, my back arching over our arms. As he released the front closure on my bra, I shivered with anticipation.

His lips tantalized the nipple closest to him. The breath and heat of his mouth caused me to flush, my blood racing. Moving on to the other nipple, David sucked gently, sensuously. I arched my back even further, desperate to feel his mouth devouring me. David started sucking harder to match my growing intensity.

A low groan escaped from him, a feral noise of need. I helped him pull my skirt up and this time, he allowed me to undo his pants. His hands slid my satin panties down my hips. Reaching between my legs, he caressed me, lightly touching my sweet spots. I cried out as he reached inside me, teasing me with his fingers.

“Oh, God.” The whimper I had contained earlier slipped out. My body dropped back onto the desk. In a fluid movement, David pulled my hips to the edge of the desk where he was standing and used his own legs to push between mine.  My whole body trembled as I sensed he was losing control.

I needed him inside me.

I grabbed his hips and pulled him into me. His shaft was hot and smooth. He slid in deep, filling me with his throbbing heat.

He stroked my breasts, rolling the nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. A shudder rippled through my body. I clutched his shoulders, nibbling on the solid muscle.

My eyes closed, I focused on the warm, tingling sensations I felt from his cock sliding in and out, in and out. Together, our breathing became ragged and David grabbed the curve of my hips, helping to orchestrate our rhythm. Barely able to control my body, the need for release grew until, finally, an explosion of pulsating waves rocked me. David followed shortly and we collapsed together back onto the desk.

Lying on his chest, I began to giggle. His eyes still closed, David stretched an arm over his head.

“What’s so funny?”

“I just never would have thought anything like this would happen, ever, in my entire life.” I sat up, kissing his lips quickly as I reached over him to retrieve my shirt and bra. “I’m going to go to the bathroom to straighten myself up,” I said.

David just nodded and looked like he was going to sleep.

It was while I was in the bathroom that I realized exactly how much trouble we were in. I could barely hook my bra. The video surveillance tapes probably caught our entire encounter.

My exuberance transformed into a dark knot of fear in my stomach. I splashed water on my face, but it didn’t help. I walked back down the hall toward the lobby, my stomach churning.

My mind raced. I tried to think of solutions that would get us out of this mess. I began talking to myself, although I was whispering, more than talking. “Maybe we could somehow damage the tapes. But wouldn’t we get into trouble for that? Maybe we could rewind them and tape over them. Do they have ways to check if the tapes are tampered with? Or, is there a live digital feed somewhere? If that’s the case, then we are in really big trouble.”

I put my hands to my heated cheeks. “Oh, God! I am so out of my league.”

Entering the lobby, I didn’t see David anywhere. I stood confused for a moment, and then figured he must have gone to the restroom as well. I debated waiting for him but decided to go ahead and check out the surveillance cameras.

I jumped when the front door swung open. Steve burst through, snow sticking in his hair and to his wool dress coat. I stared at him, my mouth slightly open in shock, as he battled the wind to close the door. Once the lock was latched, he crossed over to me.

“Vivienne, are you ok?”

My heart thudded in my chest. “I’m fine. What are you doing here?” I struggled to keep my voice calm.

“The roads were closed and I had to turn around. I called to warn you to get to a motel and not try to go home tonight but when the lines cut out, I got worried and came back to make sure everything was ok.”

“Thanks for your concern, but David is here with me and we were just getting ready to leave.” I’d have to deal with the surveillance videos later. I looked at Steve with a self-assured smile that I certainly didn’t feel. He returned my smile with a puzzled look. “Who’s David?”

“David, the new night officer? You asked him to come after me?”

“Vivienne, what are you talking about? David was killed in a car accident last week while you were on vacation. He can’t be here.” Looking into his eyes, I could see fear. “Is there someone in the bank right now? We’ve got to go—they might be armed.”

I tried to explain that Steve was wrong about David, but I couldn’t form the words. He quickly wrapped my coat around me, and I meekly followed him out of the bank and into his car, where he called the police.

When the police arrived, the only footprints visible in the snow were mine and Steve’s. Although they did a complete search of the building, the detectives found no one. Even the surveillance tapes were no help. I needn’t have worried about them, as whatever had caused the phone lines to break up had interfered with the security system. From the point of the phone call on, only static was recorded.

To this day, I still don’t know what happened. If I think about that night at the bank, I feel overwhelmed with the questions that linger by David’s strange appearance. So, I don’t think of it. Not much, anyway.

MOFFAT BOUND

Jason Andrew

You must wonder how we came to this. Your pupils are dilated. The effects will fade soon enough as the venom is flushed through your bloodstream. Listen and learn, Little One. It started with the nursery rhyme.

The boys loved to tease me with spiders but were always disappointed. My unfortunate surname combined with my father’s profession continually encouraged them to try. Rare is the daughter of an entomologist that does not learn how to handle a small Parasteatoda tepidariorum.

How many generations of children in this town were sung that ridiculous nursery rhyme in the warm comfort of their cribs never knowing the true meaning of that ditty? Their generational memories of countless boys chasing girls through the schoolyard and impressing them with an Oligochaeta Annelida, better known as an earthworm, led them to try time and again. They swarmed around the girls with the enthusiasm of Dicrostonyx torquatus; mindless lemmings, drowning themselves in a mad rush to see new land.

I learned early that I was different than my classmates. My eyes rolled impatiently while the girls wailed and cried and giggled, turning their cheeks to hide the demure blushing from the disgusting boys with snotty noses and filthy hands that tugged at our pig-tails. Their lack of proper hygiene bothered me more than the Parasteatoda tepidariorum. Arachnids are known to be quite clean. I merely turned the next page in my book and hoped the smell would wash away.

The potency of the male adolescent libido is powerful, especially when frustrated, and these boys were not easily dissuaded. My obvious lack of interest did nothing to mute their interest. I reached puberty first amongst my peers. My black hair thickened, its luster showing that I was healthy. My body transformed over a summer from a collect of straight lines and angles to soft curves demonstrating my new found sexual maturity. Yes, I’ve noticed the slight coloration of your cheeks and the subtle release of pheromones. I know the effect I can have on you.

I found my pleasure in my studies and, on rare occasions, alone. Mother worried that I would never find a suitable husband and forced me to attend dances and mixers. Father understood me best. “Melissa, there are all manner of creatures in nature and just because answers are not apparent, does not mean that the world lacks them.  You do not have to make any choices you are uncomfortable with.”

High school provided a larger ecosystem to conceal myself. Beasts instinctively sense rivals for desirable mates. The boys sat next to me during lectures and occasionally attempted juvenile schemes to peek under my skirt.  This is not said with pride, merely to explain. I became a pariah amongst the girls, with few friends. It suited my needs.

My pleasure was found in my studies and, on rare occasions, alone in the dark. The year before graduation, I discovered a surprising talent with the violin and Father hired a student tutor from the University named Susan. She was unlike any other person my age that I had ever met.  Susan had read Proust and spoke three languages. On our last session before summer break, we kissed under the stars and I began to consider the potential needs of the flesh.

The soft white smoothness of her skin felt like I was skimming my fingers over a bowl of cream and milk. I twirled my fingers around her golden locks and closed my eyes, living for once purely in the moment. We shared our breath in-between our kisses. I felt alive.

She did not return to school that fall and I had my senior year to survive. The year started much like any other, with but a single exception. Carl Harper declared his love for me on the school steps the first day and would not be dissuaded. He followed me from class to class and insisted upon carrying my books. He was an athlete of some sort. I could never remember which sport.

I had almost completely forgotten about him by mid-terms. Doctor Stevens allowed me to study in the biology laboratory after school. I had just finished cutting the frog for the vivisection when strong hands wrapped around my waist and lifted me into the air.  Frightened, I pulled my arms back striking him in the nose. I pulled my book from the table and slammed it into his face.  Drops of blood dripped from his nose to his lips.

And then, I felt the urge. I kissed him. Surprised that I had finally shown an interest, Harper froze. The blood sparked against my lips. He pulled away from me and thereafter avoided me. Disappointing.

I did not consider the matter again until three years later in Advanced Biology in Doctor Rathlin’s class. She spoke of the body like it was a symphony. I proctored as many of her classes as possible, simply to stare into her sparkling green eyes. It took weeks to realize that this foreign impulse I was experiencing was desire. Seduction had not been a skill I had learned or needed before. I didn’t care. I simply wanted to be near her.

Doctor Rathlin accepted my attempts gracefully and with a sly smile. She knew everything that I would say before I had thought of the words. Every movement felt planned and natural. My resolve did not last long.

It was a clear starry night, much like this one that I knocked tearfully upon her door. She answered the door in the thin silk nightshirt. Her thick curly auburn hair was braided to one side. I had only one thing to say. “I love you.”

She smiled. “Of course you do.”

She led me by the hand to her bedroom. It was an empty barren room except for the steel framed bed and the white mattress. “Sit.”

I did as she commanded. I could no more refuse her than you could my orders. She undressed me slowly taking pleasure in my submission. She bound my arms and legs with thin strands of silk that seemed to appear out of the air. Doctor Rathlin pushed me back into the bed and kissed my lips.

My body was bound. I was helpless. Frozen. Hers. “Do you still love me?” Doctor Rathlin asked.

I blinked my acknowledgement.

I thought of the name Rathlin. It was the name of a cave in Scotland. Legend had it that Robert the Bruce learned how to fight the English from a spider in that cave.

She kissed my neck, my breasts, and everywhere else she desired. “I knew you would come.  I felt the stirrings in your blood. We’re a lot alike, Sister.”

I had so many questions, but I couldn’t speak. She bound me with her silk and the pleasure. I could only endure. “Do not struggle, Little One. It will only make the experience more intense.”

Her skin and flesh started to bubble. Her white skin, dotted with lickable freckles, moved and pulsated with a living will. How had I not noticed before that her entire body had been made of Parasteatoda tepidariorum?

The spiders crawled over my flesh. They tasted me. It was a million kisses from my head to my toes. I thought that the waves of my satisfaction would never end.

I woke in the morning to an empty apartment. Doctor Rathlin had left the University. I was alone.

I thought to put that night aside like a beautiful dream. I realized that my body had changed. I was stronger, quicker. My hands learned to spin the fine webbing. The better to bind you with, Little One.

She passed her genetic materials to me and then, I suspect, died somewhere alone. Homo Vampirus Aranea.

I have always been patient. I wanted my first time to be special. Months passed before I found you. You have everything I could ever want. Baby blue eyes that remind me of my first kiss; soft lips and skin that smells of baby powder.

Do not struggle, Little One. It will only make the experience more intense.

KILLER NAILS

MP Johnson

Some men kept their fetishes in their closets, where they remained unfulfilled. Chelz Dobbs chose a different route. He turned his into a career, into an art. Foot fetishists got jobs at shoe stores. Chelz’s fetish may have been a little less conventional, but a career path existed nonetheless, and he followed it. Long fingernails turned him on, so he became a nail technician and manicurist. He became a nail artist.

He hadn’t become just any nail artist, though. After years of making sacrifices and struggling at grimy West Hollywood salons, he had become Leilani’s manicurist. Yes, that Leilani. The blonde diva. The nineteen-year-old, leather chaps wearing, four octave belting singer of Mad Nite Love and other multi-platinum brain stickers. That Leilani.

Leilani wandered through his studio, examining his work. His skillfully designed nails graced the fingers of disembodied mannequin hands, some of which were frozen in stiff pageant waves, others as if reaching to pick ripe fruit from a tree. He followed her, hands in the pockets of his jeans, looking more like a college kid hired to paint houses in the ‘burbs than a beauty school grad getting paid to tend the talons of celebrities.

The studio lights had been painstakingly arranged to maximize the gleam coming off the surface of each curved nail. In fact, his work—displayed museum style on a dozen short white pedestals—was the only thing in the room that gleamed. He had chosen off-white matte paint for the walls and hired people to dull the hardwood floor. Nothing else in the room could catch light, nothing to distract eyes from his art.

Leilani zeroed in on one design. The color on these nails stood out from the rest, a rich gold and wet green that blended perfectly, yet somehow remained distinct. It had a metallic sheen, but not as coin cold as the minx nails technique his peers had recently fallen in love with. He still had trouble describing it, the closest match he had seen being the shell of a tropical beetle on display at the museum. It seemed unworldly, and rightly so, considering its source. He hoped Leilani would keep walking.

She clapped her hands and exclaimed, “These are perfect. This color is totally unreal, but it will go with my dress for tonight’s show. I want!”

“No!” Chelz snapped. Catching himself, he softened his tone and added, “I’m all out of that color.” He hoped she’d buy his bluff. He had forgotten to take the piece down after designing it for a porn star he had worked for a few days before. She had declined in favor of pale pink, the boring bitch. He couldn’t give the design to Leilani. She had been good to him and his work. He needed to keep her around.

“Chelz-ee,” she cooed. “Remember when I found you working in that sweatshop of a salon in West Hollywood?”

Chelz nodded. He knew where this was going. She had held it over his head before, this idea of hers that she had made him. She hadn’t made him. If she only knew.

“Weren’t there others working there? Aren’t there, in fact, thousands of nail artists wandering the streets of Los Angeles right now who would kill to be in your position?” she asked, hands on hips, smiling a smile so true it had to be fake.

“Fine. Whatever will make your pretty little hands happy,” he said hesitantly, avoiding eye contact. “I’ll get everything ready. Go over to the station and make yourself comfy.” Chelz pointed to the table in the corner of his studio.

His studio also served as his apartment. He unlocked the door adjacent to his bedroom and opened it just wide enough to squeeze through. Locking it behind him, he looked at the pig lying on the hardwood floor. Chelz called the creature, covered in fine hair, a pig because of its bulk and its pink flesh. But the similarities ended there.

When he found it, he had been chasing his escaped cat through the alley behind his old apartment. Chelz thought he had stumbled onto a pile of dead dogs stripped of fur, until he noticed it breathing. Through one of the many tuberous pustules lining its back, it choked a glob of fluid onto his cat’s paw, fluid unlike anything he had seen before. Chelz had known right away what to do with that fluid, even before the pig had told him—in its wordless way—that it could help him, as long as Chelz helped it.

The pig had been smaller back then, able to use its six stumps to carry its weight up the steps to Chelz’s apartment. Now, it couldn’t move on its own. Couldn’t even lick the sweat and grime from the wrinkles of fat at the bases of the tubes, which drained into buckets on the floor. Chelz grabbed one of those buckets and frowned. Empty. The spigots had all but dried up. He only found one bucket with enough liquid in it.

Chelz didn’t like the idea of using it on Leilani, but he knew it needed to be done. If he waited any longer the pig might starve, might stop fulfilling its end of the bargain. And then Chelz would find himself back at Do Me Nails with the chirping Koreans. They didn’t get him. Like so many of his clients, they thought he was gay, gave him sideways glances and whispered, not that he could make out anything they said.

“I’ll feed you soon,” he whispered to the pig.

The pig snorted through a single cavernous nostril. Dislodged from the hole by the vibrations of the noise, a gob of dry muck tumbled onto the floor. When the pig’s tongue came out to reclaim what had been lost, Chelz left the room.

“What’s in there?” the diva asked.

“Trade secrets,” Chelz said, holding up the tin bucket of his special polish.

He sat across from Leilani at the manicure table. Holding her pale hands in his, he removed the chipped candy apple red polish he had applied last time. The look didn’t suit her. She had passed through a phase that involved covering herself with as much bright red as possible, from hats to heels. The acetone smell of the nail polish remover crowded the air between them. He hated that smell.

“I’m so nervous about tonight’s show,” Leilani said.

“Why? It’s low key compared to your usual shows.”

“That’s the problem, Chelzee. There’s no production to hide behind if something goes wrong, no dancers, no video screen. All eyes are on me.”

Chelz carefully filled the gaps between her cuticles and the bottoms of the inch-long acrylic nails, gaps created by the inevitable growth of her natural nails. The smell of ethyl methacrylate swirled around him, much sweeter than the nail polish remover. He loved how gorgeous his work looked, how much better it looked than the cheap press-on nails he had talked his girlfriends into wearing back in high school, before he talked them into giving him hand jobs, usually successfully, thanks to his clean cut, athletic looks.

He remembered the first and last time he had tried to explain his fetish. Kirstie Mickelson had asked him why he never wanted intercourse. When he explained, she had called him a fucking weirdo and punched him in the neck before jumping out of his car. After he graduated from beauty school, he made trades: manicures for hand jobs. He had found that much easier than dating. Looking at Leilani’s hands in his, he wished he had the guts to ask her for a trade. He would have liked her to touch him.

Shaking the thought, he asked, “But isn’t the crowd only a few hundred people?”

“That makes it worse!” Leilani started to gesture, but Chelz held her hand tight so she couldn’t move while he worked. “In an arena, I see the crowd as one mass, like the blob or something. With small crowds, it’s too easy to focus on faces. If I see someone not smiling or looking distracted, I start to wonder if I’m off, and if I start to wonder, I risk losing the song, which is possible since I’m mostly going to be doing new stuff that I don’t entirely know yet.”

“Come on. They’re there because they love you,” he said. “You’re there ‘cause you’re the best and you know it.”

“Awww… Chelzee, you’re the best!”

After the acrylic fills had set and dried, he filed the tips to a tight, rounded point. This was his canvas. He adjusted the table lamp, bit his lower lip in concentration and got down to the most important part. He applied an initial coat of his special polish. The stuff was watery, not being a professional grade cosmetic, after all. For it to come to life, he needed to add several coats.

Chelz remembered first seeing that color across his cat’s paw. His head had immediately filled with ways to use it. He knew he had to get the pig up to his apartment. Even though it had been smaller then, it hadn’t been willing to follow. Chelz grabbed his cat and ran to his apartment to find something to lure the pig in with. While digging through his fridge, his cat went crazy. It tore itself apart. He had never been attached to the cat, hadn’t even named it, but the scene freaked him out enough that he forgot what he had been doing. He collected the pieces of the cat in a dust pan and brought them out to the dumpster; the pig had been waiting for him on its feet, tongue reaching for the remains of the cat.

“Wow,” Leilani said as Chelz added the final coat. “I can’t even describe that color. It’s like a gem I’ve never seen but definitely want. What’s it called?”

Chelz shrugged and set the bucket aside. He pulled out a bottle of jet black polish, traditional polish. Opening it, he took a deep breath through his nose. The smells of chemical beauty still tickled his brain. As a teenager, the scent of an open bottle beside his bed had been enough for him to get off. That was before he had started dating, before he had gone to school and learned his profession and started making trades. Almost a decade had passed since then and so much had changed, thanks to the pig.

He applied the polish to the base of each nail. Using a clean white rag, he smeared it out just a little. The final effect looked like black flames emerging from the nail bed against the unworldly, metallic sky that covered the rest of the tips.

Despite his ulterior motives and despite the help he had gotten from the pig, he truly believed his art had merit. None of his peers did work like him, not Russo and not Tina W. If his art came in a traditional form, it would appear in the best galleries in the country. As it stood, his galleries were the walls of teenage girls. On these walls, posters and pinups of Leilani and other celebrities he had worked for found homes. His favorite: a shot of Leilani’s face, blonde hair pulled back, puckered lips painted blue, eyelids low over sultry green eyes, hands on cheeks, each curved and square-tipped nail a slightly different shade of silver. It had graced the cover of Rolling Stone before being turned into a poster. The thought of it still warmed his crotch. His art had benefits.

After a few minutes under the dryer, Leilani held her nails out for inspection. “These are amazing.”

“Aren’t they?”

“And to think you almost pulled the old ‘I’m out of that color’ routine.”

“What was I thinking?” Chelz asked, following her to the door.

On her way out, she put her hand on his forearm and opened her mouth to say something. Before she could, Chelz grabbed her hand. He wanted to hold it tight, feel its warmth while he still could. Seeing the look of surprise in Leilani’s eyes, he panicked and pulled her hand to his chest. That wasn’t where he wanted to put it, but he knew he couldn’t put it where he wanted to. Not yet.

“Your hands look so hot. Can you feel my heart beating faster?” He asked in a goofy voice, playing up the cheesiness of the comment for a laugh, but his heart really did beat faster.

“You goofball. You’re so great.” She pulled her hand away and flashed her nails.

Chelz suddenly regretted what he had done. He wished he would have talked her into a different style. She wouldn’t have replaced him. Hell, she would have loved whatever he had done for her. She always did. He easily could have found someone else to wear that color, to appease the pig.

As she walked out the door, she added, “Come to the show tonight.”

“Oh, I definitely will.”

After she left, he wandered around his studio. Picking up one of the mannequin hands, he ran its smooth black and red nails across his cheek, into his mouth. He pulled it out and put it back on the pedestal, stopping himself before he went too far. He took another sniff of the bottle of black nail polish. The scent intoxicated him, sending tingles down his spine, down to his groin. The scent had been much stronger at the West Hollywood salon he used to work at and sometimes, he missed the lack of ventilation.

He looked around at what he had now, amazed at how far he had come since he started using the pig’s gift, since Leilani’s personal assistant had stepped into the salon and hired him on the spot. He knew he hadn’t done it on his own. He knew the pig had fulfilled its end of the bargain, delivering Leilani to him after he had given the pig what it needed. Still, he deserved it. He had spent enough time doing boring manicures for whores, trannies and tranny whores.

He had made sacrifices.

That night at the Zero Club, Chelz made his way backstage. The trendy nightspot held a few hundred at most, all of whom had paid a couple hundred bucks to see the diva preview a handful of songs from her forthcoming album. The smaller venue was better suited for tonight’s events, planned and unplanned. The fewer eyes, the better, as far as Chelz was concerned. Plus, the bouncers weren’t letting cameras in. That meant no recordings, no evidence that could come back to haunt him. Not that anyone would ever be able to trace anything back to him anyway. They never had before.

“You made it,” Leilani greeted him at the side of the stage, taking his hands in hers. Instinctively, he lifted them to his lips. He kept himself in check, gently kissing the back of each. He did so slowly, allowing himself time to pore over the smoothness of her pale skin, the perfect parenthetical wrinkles around each knuckle. He skipped past gold rings to her fingertips and the long nails.

“You got through the day without a chip.” He let her hands fall away.

“I was super careful, Chelzee. I didn’t even wash my hands after going to the bathroom because I didn’t want to chip them turning the water knobs,” she explained enthusiastically. After a pause, she added, “Just kidding.”

Chelz laughed. He would miss her sense of humor. He would miss her warmth. He would miss her. Telling himself the pig would deliver another celebrity to fill his client list didn’t help his building sense of loss.

“Enjoy the show,” she said, as her intro music came on. She stepped onto the stage. Under the spotlight, she blew a kiss to the crowd. Chelz imagined that kiss floating past her soft palm, making its way over her diminutive digits and then engulfing those gorgeous nails, taking them in, becoming one with them.

“Hello!” She giggled conspiratorially. The first song started with a distant tenor sax boiling below words whispered into the microphone, releasing some of the old school rhythm and blues flavor she told Chelz she had been aiming for with her new music. The flavor disappeared quickly, replaced by the cold beats that dominated all modern pop, her voice the only thing to warm them up.

She pulled the microphone from its stand. In her black high heels, she took command of the stage, becoming larger than life by raising her knees just a little higher as she walked, by making each gesture just a little grander.

As the song built, Leilani put her hands to work. The fingertips of her right hand danced over her microphone as if it was too hot to hold. Her left hand caressed the air during a soft part of the song, eventually settling comfortably on her hip, nails gleaming under the white stage lights for the briefest of moments. Then her hand flew up again, high above her head, fingers spread wide as if reaching for all the energy released by her singing, trying to pull it back.

Chelz considered her the perfect vehicle for his art. All the other singers he worked with let their hands hang dead at their sides. Not Leilani. She was one of a kind. Chelz realized he couldn’t let her go. He could find some other way to keep his end of the bargain with the pig. He ran onto stage, ready to snap the nails off her fingers.

He didn’t even get close. A security guard grabbed him, pulled him back and put him into a headlock. Leilani didn’t notice his attempt, and neither did the crowd. He struggled against the guard’s grip, getting nowhere. His failed attempt made what happened next all the more difficult to watch.

At the start of her second song, a ballad, Leilani placed her microphone back on its stand and sang, “We are through… I’ll never miss you.” She placed her hands over her face, as if to mask the flow of tears, a melodramatic gesture that matched her lyrics. When she pulled her hands away though, she revealed the reality of the gesture. Tears pulled eyeliner down her cheeks as she sunk the metallic tips into the flesh above her eyebrows. Her voice tilted off pitch and then vanished as she dragged her talons through her skin, up her temples and then down. Struggling, as if cutting tough steak with a butter knife, she tore her left cheek off and tossed it to the stage floor. She gave up on the right, letting the flap of skin hang limp. Blood trickled from the wounds, brighter and wetter than her red lips.

She stared at her bloody hands, at the skin bunched up on the underside of her nails and opened her mouth as if to scream, but remained silent. The crowd did not. People rose to their feet, looking at each other, confused. Perhaps they thought this was part of the show. The security guard who held Chelz didn’t. He undid the headlock and ran, muttering, “Fuck this,” on his way to the exit.

From deep within the diva’s scratched face, eyeballs fought their way through muscle fibers, struggling to find a spot on the surface. Dozens of them, some as small as peas, others as large as baseballs, emerged, their matching green irises expanding and contracting like heartbeats. From where Chelz stood, her skin appeared to be boiling.

Her nose swung to the side and then dropped off. Eyes took its place, popping from the nostrils. Framed within her teased blonde hair, eyes took over her face. Only her lipless mouth remained. Whimpers emerged from between her too-white veneers, barely audible over the crowd’s screams.

Chelz had forgotten how horrible the process was. He wished he could stop it. This wasn’t some whore of a B-movie actress. This was someone he had spent time with, someone who supported his art. He cursed the pig and he cursed himself.

Leilani scratched her face again, raking the rounded points of her nails through the eyeballs, knocking some loose, cutting some open. From these gashes, more eyeballs bubbled to the surface, wet with pus. She fell to her knees, crying louder now, tearing out curls of hair that stuck to her hands amidst the blood and flesh.

Stage managers and members of Leilani’s crew ran back and forth in a panic around Chelz. Some yelled into cell phones. Some cried as Leilani disassembled herself. Eyeballs rolled free as she plucked them from her face, slicing and digging with her nails, making room for more to rise to the surface.

When she finally collapsed, Chelz gathered himself, pushed his loss aside and calmly walked onto the stage. Nobody noticed him as he pulled a garbage bag out of his backpack and scooped up as many eyes as he could. Nobody noticed him as he took out a butcher’s knife and chopped off the diva’s hands, nails still intact.

He had liked Leilani. He had liked her a lot.

Chelz entered his studio, his home. He breathed in the chemical smell of beauty. Another scent infiltrated his nostrils, one he didn’t like nearly as much. Kicking off his shoes, he wandered into the room that held his trade secret. The pig smelled like breakfast left out for days, bacon and eggs festering on a crowded kitchen table. He wondered if he should hose the pig down. It had never smelled like this before. Maybe he was too late. Maybe the pig was dying and this was the scent of death. Although the thought came with a sense of relief, Chelz wasn’t ready to let the pig go yet.

He reached into his bag and grabbed a handful of eyeballs. The pig caught their scent and its body rumbled in ecstasy. Its sideways slash of a mouth opened, revealing teeth like smashed cinder blocks. The pointed pink tongue slithered past them, reaching out to Chelz. He tossed an eye and the tongue snatched it out of the air. Instead of pulling it into its mouth and swallowing it, the pig used its tongue to crush the white orb against the front of its teeth. The sphere collapsed and its yellow juices trickled down the tongue into the pig’s mouth. It made a wet purr.

Chelz tossed a handful of eyes directly into the pig’s mouth. The flesh tubes swelled. When they began oozing, he put a bucket beneath each and left the room.

He took Leilani’s right hand out of the bag and put the other, along with the rest of the eyes, in his refrigerator. In the kitchen sink he washed the blood off the hand. He used a vegetable brush to clean the flesh from the undersides of the long nails. After he toweled the hand off, it looked as good as new. Cold, but still soft, still beautiful. He took it into his bedroom.

Dropping the severed appendage onto his bed, he took his shirt off. Slowly, he climbed in beside Leilani’s hand— a lover sneaking in after a late night. He lay on his back and pressed the hand against his bare chest. Running his fingertips over hers, he touched those long gorgeous nails, the nails he had made gorgeous. He should have felt good, but he didn’t. He wanted more.

That didn’t stop him though. He opened his mouth and inserted her index finger. He tickled the back of his tongue with the tip of the long, curved nail while he licked the underside of her finger. Pulling it out, he rubbed the slick surface of the nail against his bottom lip. He did the same with each digit until he reached the pinky, which he sucked for a moment before pausing. For once, he wished he had a whole body to play with, Leilani’s body.

Oh, well, he thought. He had known he would have to make sacrifices.

He licked the diva’s palm and unzipped his pants.

BLACKOUT

Kenneth Whitfield

They say if you stay long enough, sooner or later, you will hear someone tell your story. I listen to sincere people telling serious stories in a general way about how it was, what happened, and how it is now. People genuinely grateful to have kept an addiction at bay for days, weeks, months. Even years.

The ones who have been sober the longest usually tell the most general—and frankly, boring—stories. But the newcomers, the ones yearning to be free, to be indoctrinated into the sober and sane society - they tell the best. Most seem to participate in a “Listen to this, mine’s worse!” round robin sort of thing. Sharing tales of desperation, depravity and darkness.

Me? I seldom share anymore. It’s all been said and done in one form or another. That’s what the old timers have figured out. Nothing new under the sun.

So it was just another routine meeting. Nothing special.

And then she stands up.

Newcomers do that from time to time. Stand up. Look at me! But she would have attracted attention even if she hadn’t stood up.

She wasn’t particularly pretty. Dull blonde hair cropped short. Very skinny. Washed out white skin. But she had something. Part was the way she was dressed. Faded cut-off blue jeans that she let ride up, showing a flash of gray thong and a lot of pale cheek. Her loose fitting top, a rust colored version of gold, tied at the side showing a trim belly and dipping low enough up top for glimpses of small boobs with thumb size, rock hard nipples surrounded by large, dark brown areolas.

I liked the way she looks. Familiar. And to me, sexy. Another thing is her large brown eyes. They smolder as she opens pouty, cherry red lips and says:

“My name is Michelle and I have a problem.”

“Hello, Michelle,” several soft voices fade out as metal folding chairs creak; people lean forward, wanting to hear her tale. Should be juicy. Whispering crosstalk in the back, two ladies pass around a pamphlet among other ladies, soliciting phone numbers to give Michelle for support.  The chairman silences the whisperers, bidding Michelle to continue.

“I think I may have gutted a man during sex.”

She has my attention.

“After doing the usual, drugs, alcohol, whatever was at hand, we moved to the sex part. You all know what I’m talking about.”

Several knowing nods and smiles.

“My recollection is foggy. But I remember I kept a fillet knife under my pillow. I was in a paranoid time. A bad place emotionally. Thought they were out to get me. Whoever they were.”

More knowing nods and smiles.

“I just remember that I was… peaking. And he was peaking. And the knife was in my hand all bloody and ropey things that looked like smooth, pink snakes were crawling on his stomach… ”

Hushed silence in the room. She cocks one leg, shifting her weight to one side; posing. Hugging herself. Shivering at the memory. A dramatic effect.

“Our bodies all wet and glistening and reddish pink.”

She crosses her arms underneath her small breasts, nipples straining against the worn fabric. Dingy white pockets stick out from underneath the frayed cutoffs, dirty little rabbit ears. Barely covering Christmas.

Several men shift in their seats, crossing legs, hiding growing excitement.

The chairman looks at her, dumbfounded. The women gathering the calling lists have stopped in their tracks.

I am the only one with a knowing nod and slight smile.

She looks at the spellbound audience, at the uncomprehending faces. Seems a bit embarrassed. Realizes she may have said too much. She shifts her weight, repositions her arms; flashes cheek and cleavage, says:

“I am an addict that has blackouts. I’m not sure what is real anymore except that I use too much and my life has become unmanageable.”

The audience relaxes. Several clap. Some say “Thanks for sharing.” The phone list is presented to her, a token of acceptance and understanding. Please call anyone on this list before you drink or use again. Lots of hugs and a bit of crying from the ladies. We understand.

Bullshit.

I’m the only one that truly understands.

And I know about needing help. Been coming to meetings for a while now. Helping myself and others. Slowly filling that hole inside. The hole I tried to fill with alcohol and other drugs. It’s smaller now, but still there. What a lot of people in the program called the God-hole. And today, seeing and hearing her, I know I can be of service again and fill that hole a little more.

I linger close by as the meeting breaks up. Sipping my styrofoam cup of coffee, blending into the surroundings. I’m pretty good at being a chameleon. I listen as several of the ladies hover around her, offering encouragement and advice. “One day at the time.” “Call before you use.” “You might want to give some thought to how your appearance comes across to others… ”

And especially:

“Be true to yourself.”

They finally drift away; she makes her way to the door. Was she strutting? I follow; catch up with her in the parking lot.

“Michelle?”

She pauses, one hand on the door handle of a dirty and dented lime green Chevette. Bending from the waist, more cheek peek. She doesn’t straighten, allows me ample view time. Posing so natural she doesn’t even know she’s doing it. Turning her head slightly, she softly says:

“And you are?”

I don’t speak. She slowly straightens, turns and fixes me with those bedroom eyes. No matter what the rest of her body has been through—those eyes are beautiful.

And maybe a bit too bright. The way a light will flare before burning out. I stay a safe distance from her.

“Your story. It… it was interesting.”

She smiles, looks away. Shuffles her feet in an embarrassed way. “Oh. Well, I’ve only been clean twenty-eight days and I still have trouble telling reality from fantasy.”

I step closer. “Yeah, I went through that myself. It gets better.”

She cocks her head to one side, fixing me with those burning eyes. She looks me up and down. Grins. “Are you trying to 13-step me? They told me about guys like you in rehab.”

I smile. “Maybe.”

We look at each other a moment. Not awkwardness, just checking each other out. I ask if she would like to get a cup of coffee. The addict’s way of asking someone out for a drink. She smiles, offers to drive.

I listen to her talk about herself. Something newcomers love to do. She tells me her rehab was court ordered. She did some minor time for theft and prostitution, and that was where she began to sober up. It was a blessing. She was really serious about cleaning up this time. She was having all sorts of nightmares and flashbacks. Her past was checkered. But it was past and she was learning to deal with it. Slowly learning to live with it. Her sponsor in rehab encouraged her to share in meetings whenever she was feeling confused and at a loss. She was looking for a new sponsor on the outside. Too bad they didn’t approve of women having men sponsors.

She pats my leg as she says that.

Twenty-eight days. Her brain was still ping ponging in her skull. She was in a fog, high on the pink cloud as they say.

She rubs my leg. I hear her breath quickening. It’s late in the evening and there is not a lot of traffic in this part of town. No much activity. She pulls into a parking lot behind a closed block of stores, stops the car, and grabs my crotch.

“How ‘bout a little cream before coffee?”

My breath quickens as she expertly unbuckles, unbuttons and unzips my pants. She pulls them down to my knees, I lift my butt to assist her.  Her hands are all over me. I feel her tickling my stomach with her tongue. I close my eyes as I feel her gentle tugging, rubbing; her warm breath getting lower, lower…

Then she pauses. Actually holds her breath. She raises her head slightly and looks questioningly as she fingers the scar just below my belly. I think of making a joke about having a Caesarean section—but she knows. She remembers.

“It was real? It was you?”

I share my story. Back then, she was riding me cowboy style. I remember the sting, the funny feeling of my insides being sliced and separated as she slipped the thin blade in. Pulling it across my midsection while never breaking stride. My guts spilling out. I came so hard it took my breath away. White and red body fluids mixing. Her smile looking down on me while she gripped me tightly inside her and I withered and bled out.

Maybe it was shock, maybe all the drugs we had done, but I never felt any pain. She stood up, straddling me, dripping blood and semen—and I just felt spent. Cold. And sleepy.

She’d licked the knife blade. Dramatic, even then. She’d dressed, planted a red kiss on my forehead, left.

I’ve never shared that story with anyone before. Not even my sponsor during my fourth step. After the maid found me and called 911, I just told everyone I had been in a knife fight and didn’t remember much. No one really questioned it after my blood test came back, just told me how lucky I was to be alive and that I really should get some help.

Yeah. Lucky. Right. But—

The meetings do help.

Her hand moves again slowly up and down my member.

My hands tighten around her neck. I squeeze as she pumps me harder, her eyes begin to bulge, those once beautiful bedroom eyes now blood shot and bleeding internally. I hear vertebra cracking as inside her throat something soft gives way, collapses. She inhales sharply, gurgling; a death rattle. Then she is still. She goes quickly. Her thin body frail and brittle. Worn out. Her hand drops away from me, still dry. Her left hand, the one now on the floorboard, relaxes… releasing the thin bladed filleting knife she’d had hidden under the seat.

I’ll be damned.

I pull my pants back on, get out of the car. She looks like she’s sleeping. It will be at least tomorrow before she is found. I walk away, actually feeling pretty good. The hole in me has shrunken a bit.

I head back to the meeting center. The walk will help clear my head. There’s a late night speaker meeting and I should be able to catch most of it. Maybe hear my story.

Again.

A WITCH TO LIVE

James Beamon

“If we but ask Gawd,” Pastor Frye wailed, “forgiveness is ours.”

He saw his seventeen-year-old daughter in the congregation, wearing all black like it was a goddamn funeral. Blasphemy.

Pastor Frye continued, “Acts 13:38 says: ‘I want you to know’,” he pointed a thick finger at Nina Frye, “‘that through Jee-Zus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you’.”

The pastor used to be safe here. She was a witch, and everyone knew it. Now, her presence was both anger and embarrassment to Pastor Frye. Shame.

“Deacon Jones here will lead us in prayer,” Pastor Frye passed the congregation to his deacon. Frye stepped off the pulpit, dabbing the sweat off his brow with a burgundy handkerchief.

The congregation prayed. Nina Frye and Pastor Frye’s eyes battled like the eternal war had found homes in their pupils. Her smile did not reach her eyes. He had no smile.

Their whispers etched themselves over the prayer:

“Why are you here Nina? Ready to receive the Lord’s love at last?”

“Some souls are beyond redemption, daddy.”

“Leave. This ain’t the place for you.”

“It is a place for me as much as it is for you. How do you think I can sit here among you? Daaadddy.” She purred the word.

The prayer was over. Congregation eyes were on Pastor Frye. The women exchanged glances with one another. Hushed conversations snaked their way through the air to his ears.

“Mmmm-hmmmm”

“Heathen girl… ”

“… filled with the devil… ”

“Thank you… thank you, Deacon.”  Pastor Frye’s awkward recovery.

“Nobody. Nobody is beyond redemption. Today we gonna focus on that. If there’s somethin’ in your life you need forgiveness for, Gawd sees that. Gone and change what you need to change. Today.”

He stepped back on the pulpit. It was his command center and his voice commanded allegiance to his request.

“While the choir sings, I want y’all to think. Think about what ya know the Lord wants for ya, what ya can be doin’ to fix what’s broken. You just come on up here to the front of the church and ask the Lord to come into ya life. He’ll fix what’s broken. He’ll heal you; ya just gotta take them first steps for him to come inside.”

The choir sang a slow melody that complimented the organ.

The witch Nina Frye battled with the Pastor Frye. Their stares did the fighting. They talked without speaking.

“It ain’t too late for redemption,” Pastor Frye told her.

“Just because you ask for forgiveness doesn’t mean the taint goes away,” Nina Frye replied.

“You ain’t gotta always belong to the devil.”

“I have been his consort. What does that make you?”  Nina had malice in her eyes and smugness on her lips.

“Gawd still loves you child.”

“You trying to convince me or yourself? You know the book. You know the rules. Your mind suffers under Exodus 22:18. What does your body suffer?” Her smile widened.

The image assaulted Pastor Frye. He had been angry at her. All the divinations in her room. The chants and incense. Rumors of her raging promiscuity. The rituals in the backyard illuminated by the full moon.

His little girl.

He went to her room, that night, incensed with anger. The smell of myrrh from her candles. The low sound of drums emanating from her stereo. Her door was open. She was beyond the sense of decency and privacy that belongs to the good and the Christian.

Nina Frye’s naked body was draped in the smoke from incense, jewels and gemstones. She was on the bed, back arched, her breasts firm as if held in place by that thick smoke, nipples stiff. Her brown skin glowed in the candle light. Her curves writhed to the haunting beat like a charmed snake, enraptured. Her fingers were rubbing her clitoris to the melodic call of the drums. Sweat was beginning to bead on her body, moistening the gemstones and crystals that adorned her body; the stones glimmered in the low light.

Pastor Frye looked on in rage he could not contain.

And his manhood, neglected—forsaken—after his wife’s departure… so many years… pressed against his pajamas for release.

Nina Frye was silent the whole time, in her own world of witchcraft and carnality. She opened her legs to her father, inviting him in.

Anger and passion both run red, the difference impossible to see on nights you stop caring to look. The bewitchment, no, the anger compelled him to climb on top of his young misguided daughter. His rage drove his hard thrusts home inside her. She welcomed his presence with groans each time he buried himself, her legs suspended in the air and rocking wildly from his efforts. When his need was quenched—an angry yell through his climax—his shame forced him to flee.

Goddamn witch. Pastor Frye had asked forgiveness for his transgression. Nina Frye was staring at him, her spell forcing the memory to play. Her stare was black.

Pastor Frye stood on the pulpit, choir singing behind him, daughter in front of him, her eyes devouring. He saw the image of their tryst flicker. Suddenly, he no longer saw himself with Nina. He saw another.

She moaned for him. He fucked blood from her. She moaned for more. His skin, the color of pitch, shimmered in the wan light. It shimmered because it writhed on its own accord.

The shimmering blackness wasn’t skin. They were faces. Thousands of small, charred faces writhing in agony; they were his body.

The devil saw Pastor Frye in the room with them. The Adversary turned and gave the pastor a smile and a nod. The nod was agreement with the pastor’s unspoken assessment of his daughter’s good pussy. The smile welcomed a prodigal son home.

Pastor Frye was sweating profusely now. The witch Nina Frye had him trapped in her stare. The choir was singing backwards. The demon congregation was waiting in anticipation for the feast of tainted flesh that was to come.

ELECTRIC LOVE

Chris Reed

Morgan stood in front of the television, biting her bottom lip, watching the radar, the massive yellow-red cluster heading straight for Genesee County. Within this storm would be the possibility of strong winds, hail, and of course, lightning.

Lightning. The very thought of it made Morgan wet. Her skin tingled, nipples erect beneath her t-shirt. She took one of them between her thumb and index finger and pinched gently as she watched the storm creep across the television screen. She bit her lip harder.

The phone rang. Please let it be Mike, she thought as she picked up the phone and said, “Hello?”

“Are you watching the news?” Mike asked. She knew he’d call. Ever since she told him about the lightning, he called every time so much as a rain shower was in the forecast.

“Yeah,” Morgan said. “Are you ready?”

“Just have to grab my coat and I’ll be over.”

“Hurry!”

Morgan hung up and looked out the window for the third time in the last five minutes. The sky above her apartment complex was growing dark. She went into the bedroom, grabbed a pair of socks from the dresser and pulled them on over her toeless feet. Technically, she wasn’t entirely toeless—her left foot had managed to retain its pinky toe, thwarting the lightning’s attempt to render it completely devoid of digits. But, as deformed as her feet were, she wasn’t disgusted by them. They were a constant reminder of the lightning’s gift. It did more than just steal her flesh that day when she was thirteen and masturbating in the boxcar. It gave Morgan her first and only orgasm. And here she was, ten years later, still searching for her second.

Morgan’s television was permanently set on The Weather Channel as, day after day, she watched the forecast for impending thunderstorms, studying the activity on the radar, praying for the swirls of yellow and red that meant her wait might be over, that her electric lover had returned. She had even considered moving to Oklahoma, to be in the heart of Tornado Alley where violent thunderstorms were an everyday thing, but Mike refused to go. His family was here in Michigan, and Morgan respected his decision to stay close to them, even though it meant that her chances of achieving another orgasm were greatly diminished by her staying here. Of course, she had the option of finding another lover, one who might be more willing to relocate, but Mike was the only one so far who was willing to brave the lightning and screw her on train tracks in the middle of an electrical storm.

Yet so far, they’d had no luck. They had been to the tracks and made love in many a downpour, waiting for the bolt of electricity to caress them, only to return home soaking wet and defeated. Sometimes, Morgan stripped out of her soggy clothes and masturbated for hours, only to collapse on the bed exhausted, unsatisfied. The lightning was the only thing that could bring her to climax, that throbbing surge of electricity coursing through her veins, that thief of toes, rapist from the clouds.

She stepped into her shoes, eyes glued to the television, and watched the roving tempest of amber and magenta crawling towards the county line as she massaged herself through her pants.

The doorbell rang. Morgan hurried to the door, yanked it open and found Mike standing there, fidgeting with his keys. He was always nervous before a storm, but he never bailed. Morgan didn’t know if it was because she was so hot or because he was overweight. Right now she didn’t care. All that mattered was the storm.

“You ready?” he said.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

They took Mike’s truck because it was faster than Morgan’s car. The railroad crossing was just under a mile away and they were there in less than five minutes. They turned down the dirt road that ran parallel to the tracks, bouncing over ruts and dips as the first drops of rain dotted the windshield. The road was reserved for track maintenance vehicles, but they’d visited this stretch of tracks many times before, and only once had they encountered a railroad employee. He had been on his way out, tipping a bottle of liquor, apparently too drunk to care that they were trespassing. They had made love on the tracks that day, waiting for the lightning to bring them to mutual climax. But the clouds rolled past, paying no heed to the naked lovers below and Morgan returned home wondering if it would ever happen again.

Now, after months of waiting, they would try again.

They drove until they were far enough away from the main road to not be seen by passing motorists. Mike parked the truck and they got out. As they trudged up the rocky slope to the tracks, a bolt of lightning flickered in the distance. Morgan started counting. She made it to eight when a peal of thunder stopped her.

“It’s less than two miles away,” she said.

“This is what we’ve been waiting for,” Mike said as he stepped onto the tracks and unbuttoned his pants. They undressed each other as the rain fell harder. Pitch-black clouds loomed over them. Wind bent the trees.

Morgan lay down on her back between the gleaming tracks, Mike climbed on top of her. As they made love, Morgan watched the clouds crawl overhead, barely aware of the jagged rocks digging into the soft flesh of her back. Rain pelted her face as she reached out with both hands and grabbed the railroad tracks.

It wasn’t long before she felt a static presence in the air. She recognized it the same way one recognizes the voice of an old lover. Mike’s body suddenly went stiff, then he began to jerk wildly as the electricity entered his body. His violent pelvic thrusts made Morgan feel like she was being rammed with a jackhammer. Mike’s eyes rolled back in his head and spittle flew from his pursed lips as Morgan cried out.

She was about to cum when Mike flew off her. He landed several yards away, his body hitting the railroad ties with a wet thud. He writhed and moaned as wisps of smoke rose from his skin. The air smelled like burnt meat.

Morgan tried to get up, but she was paralyzed from the waist down. She could see Mike’s mouth working, but she couldn’t hear anything; a terrible ringing in her ears blocked out every sound. Her mouth tasted like it was full of nails, and her head throbbed like her brain had grown too large for her skull.

Through the downpour, Morgan saw a set of headlights coming down the tracks from the direction of the main road. When the lights stopped moving, the driver’s door opened. A man got out, grabbed something from the bed of the truck, and walked up to the tracks. As he moved closer, he became more visible. Rain dripped from his white hard hat and soaked his brown overalls. His black work boots crunched over the shifting rocks as he walked towards Mike. If he was here to help them, he sure was taking his time.

Morgan watched him bend down to check on Mike’s condition. That’s when she noticed the spike maul in his hand.

The rain was thinning and Morgan could see the man more clearly now. He was the same man they’d seen before, the man with the liquor. And she could see what he was doing to Mike. He had taken a railroad spike out of his pocket and had positioned Mike’s right foot so it was flat on one of the ties. He then held the spike with its pointed end against the top of Mike’s left shoe and raised the spike maul above his head. Morgan tried to scream, to startle the man and prevent him from going through with this, but when she opened her mouth, only a stream of vomit shot out.

The Railroad Man brought the spike maul down, driving the six-inch nail through the top of Mike’s foot, pinning it to the wooden plank. Blood oozed out of his shoe and Morgan could hear his screams even over the din of the thunder and the ringing in her ears. The Railroad Man positioned Mike’s left foot in the same manner and drove a second spike through it. Confident that his prey was trapped, the Railroad Man stood up, leaving Mike writhing on the tracks beneath him. Then he turned his attention to Morgan. She flipped over onto her stomach and tried to crawl away, but he grabbed her by the hair of her head and yanked her backwards. Then he rolled her over and removed two more spikes from his pocket.

“Didn’t think anyone was watching, did you?” he said. “I’ve been here every time, parked right over there behind those trees, waiting for the day when that train would come along and put an end to you and your boyfriend’s kinky little fuck sessions. And somehow you always got away. Well not this time.”

“Please don’t,” Morgan whimpered.

But the Railroad Man ignored her pleas and grabbed her right foot. She couldn’t feel it, but she knew what he was doing to it. Moments later the spike maul came down, followed by the clank of metal on metal. He grabbed her left foot, slid another spike from his pocket, and hammered it through the leather of her shoe, down into the wood of the railroad tie. He straightened up and looked down the tracks behind Morgan. He smiled. “There she is,” he said. “Right on time.”

Morgan turned and saw the headlamp of a train cutting through the wind-blown rain. She could feel the ground vibrating beneath her. As many times as she had risked her life flirting with lightning along this length of track, she never thought she’d die from the most obvious danger.

“I’ll leave you and your boyfriend alone to say your goodbyes,” the man said.

As he turned to walk away, Morgan lunged at him and grabbed his pant leg, tearing the fabric away to reveal a prosthetic leg.

The man looked down at his plastic appendage. He grinned at Morgan. “That’s what happens when you play on the train tracks. See, even veterans of the rails like myself get careless once in a while. Drink too much and pass out on the tracks. But what you kids were doing, that goes beyond carelessness. That’s just downright stupid, and you need to be taught a lesson.” He stepped off the tracks. “And here comes your teacher.”

The train was only a few yards away when it blared its deafening horn. Instinctively, Morgan rolled sideways and came out of her shoes. Her momentum carried her over the edge of the rocky bank, where she tumbled down into a ditch filled with bushes and briars. Above her, the boxcars rattled past, rocking and creaking. Morgan pushed herself up into a sitting position, unsure of what had just happened, wondering how she had gotten free. She looked down at her stumpy feet and realized the railroad spikes had nailed her shoes to the tracks, but not her feet. It was the first time she ever felt grateful for her disfigurement.

The last boxcar rushed past, rain swirling in its wake. Morgan clawed her way back up the hill, dragging her paralyzed legs through the rocks behind her. Mike’s body lay scattered down the tracks in shapeless chunks and smears of rain-washed gut. The Railroad Man was back on the tracks, examining Mike’s ruined remains as he walked between the rails towards the point of impact.

Morgan dragged herself back through the bushes and onto the muddy road, the sound of her movements masked by thunder. She crawled as fast as she could until she made it to the Railroad Man’s truck. She looked behind her, saw that he was still engrossed in the mess on the tracks, and then pulled herself up into the driver’s seat. Her first inclination was to leave with the truck, to put as much distance between herself and this psychotic bastard as possible, but she still couldn’t feel her legs below the knees, so there was no way for her to work the gas and brake petals. Besides, the sky was still alive with flashes of lightning, and even as the primal part of her brain screamed at her to leave, to get away before this man killed her, her throbbing crotch demanded something else.

Morgan snatched the keys from the ignition and the engine died. She then slid back to the ground, crawled around to the back of the truck and used the rear bumper to pull herself up. She crawled over the top of the tailgate and collapsed into the bed of the truck, which was cluttered with tools. Among them was another spike maul.

She peeked over the side of the truck and saw that the Railroad Man was now on his way back. Because of the din of the storm, he wouldn’t know the truck’s motor had been killed until he saw that the keys were missing. But Morgan wouldn’t let him get that far.

He was close now. Just a few feet away. Walking past the tailgate. Morgan took a deep breath and swung the spike maul over the side of the truck. The steel head struck his face, knocking him backwards. He stumbled, fell to the ground, and lay sprawled on his back, his orbital bone shattered, eyeball destroyed, blood gushing from the hole in his face. His good leg twitched.

Morgan dropped the tailgate, tossed the spike maul to the ground, and then rolled out of the truck. She hit the ground hard, sending needles of pain through her body. But her will to survive kept her conscious. She grabbed the spike maul and slipped the wooden handle between her teeth, then crawled past the dying Railroad Man. She dragged herself up the hill, over the rail and onto the tracks. Body parts were everywhere. Mike’s severed arm lay on the rocks with the hand palm-up, as if trying to cup the rain drops. A leg lay on the opposite slope, a bloody L among the patches of weeds. And there was his head, now just a sack of brains and shattered skull fragments, an eyeball peering up at her from the twisted mass of flesh that had once been a handsome face.

But Morgan had no time to dwell on past lovers, not while her soul mate waited in the clouds. She opened her mouth and let the spike maul fall from her aching jaws. She pulled herself up into a sitting position, grabbed the spike maul and raised it high above her head. Her arms ached from the weight of the tool, but she refused to give up. She knew her lover would return.

It wasn’t long before static fingers caressed her skin. She closed her eyes and licked her lips as the sensation dance down her spine and settled in her crotch, throbbing… throbbing… “Come on,” she whispered. “Come and get me, baby. Come and—”

A horn blared in the distance. Morgan opened her eyes and saw a light on the track. “No!” she cried. She couldn’t stop, not when she was so close. She clenched her teeth and thrust the spike maul higher. Rain lashed her face, the ground shook. Her arms trembled as her shadow stretched out long and thin behind her. And when the lightning finally flashed, she didn’t see it. The train’s light was too close, too bright. As bright as the sun.

DEAD DEANNA

John McNee

I didn’t plan for any of it. I just got in the truck and I drove without thinking about why or what for. And when I got to Buster’s, I just sat there in the lot, hands at ten and two, knuckles white on the wheel, and I waited. I didn’t think, I didn’t plan. I couldn’t get the fog clear long enough. The only thing I knew—all I could feel—was pure, hot rage.

It wouldn’t fade away, it wouldn’t leave me alone. And it had total control.

It was ten when I got there. I sat watching the door, waiting for the place to empty out, for people to go home. It was just before midnight when the last couple stumbled out of the bar, into the last car in the lot that wasn’t hers and drove away.

I climbed out then. There was a toolbox full of blunt instruments in the flat-bed, and a pistol in the glove compartment. I left them where they were and walked calmly through the doors.

All the tables were empty. Ernest Tubb was playing on the jukebox. Deanna was alone behind the bar.

“Hello, handsome,” she grinned. Six hours spent on her feet shilling beers and she looked fresh as the spring. Not one golden hair out of its place. “Shot and a brew?”

I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure what would come out of my mouth if I opened it. So I kept my jaw clenched, crossed the floor and took a stool.

She set a bottle before me. “I’ve been hoping you’d come around,” she said. “I’ve missed you.” She laid her hand on mine and I pulled it back.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” I said, finally finding my voice. It sounded mean.

That feline smile of hers widened and the hand I’d rejected went to her neck, fingers sliding along the collar of her shirt. “Nothing you couldn’t fix,” she answered, hand sliding a little lower. “I’m guessing you finally realized little Lucy never had it where it counts.” She popped a button on the blouse, showed me a little more breast than she’d shown the customers. And she’d shown them plenty.

“Stop it,” I said, not sternly enough.

She cocked her head to one side, looked me up and down, and whispered: “I’ll get the door.”

I gritted my teeth and took a swig from the bottle as she rounded the bar. She didn’t look at me, but did her best hip-sway walk to the door. She was wearing her favorite too-short denim skirt. Any man who dared to watch her long enough would eventually find out she didn’t wear panties. She slid the bolts firmly into place and turned back to me, fixing me with a cool, considered gaze. “Well?”

“You’re crazy,” I said.

She laughed and came back to the bar. “It’s just us here, Ray. You don’t have to keep up the act.” She climbed up onto a stool and sat down on the bar, perched there cross-legged, looking down at me.

“That’s rich,” I said. “You’re the actress. You have any idea what your lies have done to me?”

She pouted and rolled her eyes. “You’re not still angry with me are you, Ray? Can’t you forgive me having a little fun? I’ve forgiven you.”

“You’ve nothing to forgive,” I growled.

She smiled slowly and picked up my beer bottle. “You’re still sore,” she said. “I can see that. But I bet I can make it up to you.” She spun around on her ass and lay down, stretching out on the bar in front of me, blonde hair spilling out over the polished wood. She opened her blouse and showed me the full mounds of her tanned breasts, nipples pert. She hitched up her skirt and put the bottle between her legs, running it along the inside of her thigh. The condensation on the glass left tiny water drops on her skin. In a movie, they would have sizzled away into steam.

“Dee,” I said. “It’s not going to happen. Not ever again.”

She lifted her hand and placed it on my shoulder. I resisted the urge to slap it away. I wanted to make her understand.

She sat up, face coming closer, clear green eyes gazing into mine. “Say it,” she whispered. “Say it so’s I believe it.”

I took a deep breath. “Deanna, you… ”

She grabbed the back of my head and pulled her face into mine. Her mouth tasted of Bourbon. I didn’t fight her. I don’t think I could. She wrapped her arms around my neck and slid into my lap. Her tongue was hot against mine. She pressed her breasts up against my chest. She was tying me up in knots. The rage and the hate were still there, but she wouldn’t let me get it out. She silenced me with her kiss and forced the fury back down, where it stayed, bubbling away in my gut, throbbing at the back of my skull. It’d have to come out some time.

She lay down on the floor and I lay on top of her. We had at it there, in the sawdust and spit.

She pulled my dick out of my pants and laughed to find I was already hard. “Now tell me you don’t want it,” she said.

I plowed into her and she squealed, legs wrapping around mine, fingernails digging into my back. She bowed her head to my neck, bit and kissed. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t bear to look at her.

“Yes,” she said. “God, yes. I love it. Just like that. I love it…”

My left hand was pressed flat against the floor. My right hand was clutched to her tit.

Her lips were at my ear, breath hot and wet. “I love you, Ray. God, I love you.”

My hands moved. All by themselves. I didn’t make any conscious choice. I just let them do… what they had to do.

“Say it to me, Ray,” she gasped. “Tell me. Tell me you love me.”

My right hand sprung away from its perch on her breast and clamped on her neck. All my weight pressed down on it. Her whole body went tight. I lifted myself up on the strength of that clenched claw and brought my other hand over to join it. And I squeezed.

I kept my eyes tight shut, but I could imagine hers popping open, gazing up at me in dreadful confusion. I closed my grip tighter, harder, crushing her neck. I could hear her tensed muscles yielding to the pressure, heard the chokes and gasps spilling softly from her lips and I pressed down harder, harder till there were no chokes, no noises at all. I strangled her till her clawing arms and legs went limp about me, till her arched back fell flat against the floorboards and the pulse went out of her cunt. And I kept on choking her.

And then, sometime later, much later, I finally let her go.

* * *

I never felt bad about it. Not about killing her. Fucking her that last time seemed like a kind of shitty thing to do, but killing her never felt wrong. It had to be done.

I was forty-six when I met her. She was twenty. She was working the late shift at Buster’s road-house and I was drinking myself to death at a corner table. Drinking too much to dull the pain of a collapsed marriage ruined by too much drinking. I was pretty pathetic, but I was too drunk to care and she was too young to tell. Before I knew what I was doing, I’d talked my way into her snatch. And it was good back then. Real good. We got lit up together and she was young and wild and everything I needed.

But it didn’t last. Things like that don’t. I sobered up. I started wanting something more. About that time, Lucy showed up. She got me whipped into shape pretty soon. I knew I didn’t deserve a second shot at happiness, but here it was and I didn’t want to screw it up. It helped that she wasn’t bug-nuts crazy.

You’d think a girl who falls so easily into your lap would be happy enough to fall out again, but it turned out Deanna wasn’t that way. Not by a long shot.

I told her it was over and she took it all as one big joke. For days after, she kept showing up, thinking I’d be pleased to see her, asking why I hadn’t called, wouldn’t be told ‘no.’ When I finally convinced her I’d moved on, she lost it. She was crying, screaming, shouting, lashing out with her fists. Then came the threats, then the promises. I told her to grow up. She didn’t like that.

Lucy started getting phone calls in the night, things’d go missing, she’d get that feeling that someone was following her. She left work one evening to find her car all smashed up. It didn’t take long to work out who did it. Weeks it went on. Only getting worse. Lucy said she could handle anything Dee had to dish out. She was strong. But not strong enough.

I fought her, ignored her, threatened her… I did everything I could to shake myself free of her and she wouldn’t leave me alone. She was always there, wouldn’t let me be happy. Way Deanna saw it, she and I were gonna be together forever, whether I liked it or not. We were soul-mates, bound in eternity. And, yeah, so I smacked her around a little, towards the end.

Well she got me back for that. But good.

She went to the cops and told Lenny Warner that I’d beaten and raped her.

And that did it. I got put in chains and hauled into the station. Word got out. Lucy said she’d stand by me, but when, after a day and a half of pointless interrogation, they finally let me go home, she was gone. “Sorry, Ray,” her note read. “It’s too much. That bitch is just too much.”

And that’s when I got in my truck… and drove to Buster’s.

After it was done, I finished my beer then hauled her body outside and tossed it into the back of the truck. There wasn’t a damn thing but woods and road for two miles in any direction from the bar, so I wasn’t afraid of anyone spotting me.

I drove west and, after a few miles, took a turn off the main road into the forest.

When I found a spot I liked, I dug up the ground and I planted her there.

And tapped the grave level.

* * *

The next day, I woke up from the best night’s sleep I’d had in weeks and reached my hand out for Lucy. Finding her side of the bed empty—and remembering—I reached a little further and grabbed the gin bottle from the bedside table. It was only half drained.

I called Rick at the auto-shop to tell him I wouldn’t be into work, made out like I was down with some kind of summer flu. He was unusually understanding. “Take all the time you need,” he said. That wasn’t like him, but I figured he’d heard about the rape charge and was planning on firing me anyway.

It was too hot to go outside and too claustrophobic in the room, so I spent most of the day sat in the window, neither in or out, listening to the radio and drinking.

Later, when I started to get hungry, I fried some eggs and toasted the last of the bread, then went out to the store on the end of the street, bought a six-pack and a half-pint of scotch and came home. The radio was still on, but I wasn’t listening to it. At some point, after the beer was gone, I turned it off and went to bed.

I lay on my back, staring up at the ceiling, not awake, but not exactly sleeping either. I dozed away the hours in a slumberous state without thought, till I heard the sound of the front door swing shut and soft footsteps on the stairs.

Lucy. My sweet Lucy.

I had to press a hand to my mouth to force the grin away, sat up slowly, blinking back tears to see her silhouette in the doorway.

“Baby,” I croaked. “You came back.”

She stepped forward into the only light in the room, that narrow rectangle of moonlight shining through the open window and revealed herself. Not Lucy.

My first, base response was a split-second of anger. How dare she break into my home! Then I remembered the bitch was dead.

Her hair was a tangled mess, face and chest smeared with dirt, though you could still see the dark bruises on her neck. She wore the clothes I’d buried her in: check shirt, unbuttoned, baring her dead breasts, pale blue and beautiful in the moonlight, and denim skirt, creased, mud-stained and riding up around her hips. Those achingly long legs of hers seemed to shimmer with an ethereal glow, sweeping slowly one past the other, entrancing me with their movement. It was with a dull, listless sort of dawning dread that I suddenly realized she was coming towards me.

So all-consuming was my panic that for a moment the ability to run deserted me. Seemed  my whole body had forgotten how to organize itself and, rather than leap urgently from the bed, I thrashed violently on my back, like a confused upended turtle, tangling myself in my bed-sheets, unable to put my limbs into some kind of order.

I didn’t scream exactly. Nothing so focused. Instead, I seemed to expel great bursts of breath in hurried, heaving gasps.

She might have thought I was trying to speak, because she parted her mud-flecked lips and whispered a reply: “Hello, handsome.”

I rolled onto my belly and scrambled away, only to feel her cold fingers clamp down onto my ankle and haul me back onto the bed. Christ, was she strong! Her jagged fingernails drew blood.

“Oh, no,” I squeaked, pathetically. “Oh, no, no, no.” Like some helpless toddler.

She climbed up onto the bed, on top of me, her legs straddling my hips. Her hands were on my arms, pinning them down, though I made no effort to resist. I don’t think I could.

She bent her head to me and I closed my eyes tight, anticipating the touch of her lips against my neck in the moment before she bit through the skin and ripped my throat out.

Instead of that though, she pressed those icy lips to mine and kissed me. I heard my own voice in my head screaming for me to wake up, to prove this all a nightmare. Her hips began to gyrate as she rubbed herself up against me and slipped a hand under the bedsheets. “I’ve missed you,” she breathed, mouth at my ear, dry tongue flicking against my neck.

“Fuck this,” I said, to no-one and everyone. “Fuck this, fuck this… ”

Her fingers coiled around my dick, finding it warm and inexplicably ready.

“Fuck this!”

She stripped back the sheets and guided me into her. She was rough and dry and cold, but she wasn’t holding back. “I love you, Ray,” she said, grinding on top of me, grinning wide. I saw a woodlouse crawl out of her ear, wander aimlessly over her face. “Tell me you love me.”

“Fuck this!” It was all I could say and I couldn’t stop saying it. “Fuck this! Fuck this!”

“That’s it, Ray. God, yes. I love it. Just like that. I love it…”

“Fuck this, fuck this, fuck this—”

She wanted me to come. She wanted me to make her orgasm. She wanted me to finish what we’d started in the bar.

I tried. And passed out long before.

* * *

I woke with the dawn, surprised I was still alive. My dick ached, like I’d been fucking sandpaper all night. And I wished I had. For a time, I lay staring straight up, not wanting to look round, not wanting to confirm what I already knew, but finally I did. She was sprawled out on the bed beside me, stiff, unmoving… dead. Deader than ever. Dead, dead, dead Deanna.

I suppose other men might have broken down then, wrestling with their own sanity, calling into question everything they’d ever believed, unable to trust themselves or the physical world. Not me, though. I don’t like to waste time over-thinking things.

I wrapped her body in the bedsheets (fuck sleeping in those again), carried her downstairs and out to the truck. My garage was littered with engine parts, mechanical projects and winding lengths of chain. I gathered all the shit together and piled it up on top of her then drove her out to the swamp.

It was still too early for most people to be out and I knew a spot near the water where no-one would see us. I’d taken her there to fuck often enough back when we were fucking. When she still had a pulse. I parked the truck, dragged her body, bundled up with bedsheets and metal out to the water’s edge and rolled her in. She sank fast… and deep.

* * *

I swung by the liquor store on the way home. When I got back to the house, Lenny Warner was waiting for me. The prick always looked too well-rested for a cop. He stood on the porch steps rolling a cigarette as I approached.

“Where’ve you been, Ray?” He didn’t look at me when he said it.

“I didn’t realize we had an appointment,” I replied.

“I was in the neighborhood,” he lied. “Thought I’d swing by. Wanted to ask if you’d seen or heard from Deanna.”

Oh, boy, but if you only knew. “If I never see that girl again, it’ll be too soon,” I said. “And I’m not answering any more of your questions.”

“Not without a lawyer, huh?”

I shifted the brown bag of booze into my left hand and unlocked the front door. “Get off my porch, Lenny.”

“Deanna’s missing,” he said. “Ain’t been seen since two nights ago at Buster’s. She was supposed to lock up, but in the morning the doors were open, all the lights were on, her car was still there but she wasn’t.”

Try the bottom of the swamp. “You saying I had something to do with it?”

“You sayin’ you didn’t?”

“Goodbye, Lenny.” I swung the door shut in his face.

* * *

It was too damn hot in the house and the whiskey couldn’t cool me down. I sat at the kitchen table with a glass in one hand, bottle in the other and never letting go of either, as the sun swept across the sky and finally set in the west. I didn’t move from my chair except for the odd twitch or jump whenever I imagined I could hear Lenny’s prowler coming back up the drive or a soft knuckle’s rap on the door.

Yeah, right. Like she’d bother to knock.

That’s when the bad thoughts started to sneak up on me, there in the kitchen. Thoughts about what I’d done, what I’d seen, what I was doing, whether any of it was possible. What did it mean? Was it real? Was I mad?

“Fuck this,” saying it again. “Fuck this, fuck this,” and drowning all semblance of thought with alcohol. Drink till you can’t think any more. Drink till it’s all numb and easy. Drink till the morning comes…

I didn’t make it till morning. I passed out on the kitchen floor shortly after midnight.

* * *

When I woke up, dizzy, sick, drunker even than when I’d passed out an hour before, my dick was in her mouth.

She looked up at me, smiling with hooded black eyes, leaking filthy gray tears over filthy gray cheeks. Blonde hair slick, matted damp against her head, strands coiled around her neck like thin throttling fingers.

Her head rose and fell in rhythm, blue lips tight around my flesh, mouth so cold she’d numbed my cock. The putrid lizard skin stink from her was overwhelming. I turned my head away and puked—a violent, burning jet of bourbon and bile that broke like a wave across the tiles.

Deanna’s hand moved, rattling chains, sliding under my shirt, caressing my skin with her white, wrinkled fingers. She left a dark smear wherever she touched me.

“No,” I begged, in a voice soft as ash. “No more… ”

Her head snapped upwards and she let my dick slap back against my belly, something more than mucus on her chin. Fluid trickled from her ears, nose and eyes. She raised her naked, water-logged body up to straddle me again, carelessly draping chains across my legs. They didn’t seem to bother her.

She positioned herself over my cock and with two fingers splayed the lips of cunt. Black water splashed out over my crotch in a foul gushing stream.

She opened her mouth and I heard the echo of blood and swamp water bubbling in her throat. “Now,” she rasped. “Now, tell me you don’t want it.”

I couldn’t tell her a damn thing.

* * *

When the dawn came up, I was crouched in a corner of the kitchen, my mind on the pistol in my truck. That was a definite way out. A bullet in the brain could at least put my mind at ease.

But then my thoughts strayed from the glove compartment to the flat-bed and the big bag of tools I kept there. And I thought of the big old saw, sharp and strong.

I stared at Deanna’s gray, bloated corpse in the middle of the floor, still wrapped in chains and vegetation, lying stagnant in her pool of waste liquid, my spent seed lining the walls of her dead womb. I thought of how easily the saw would sink into her flesh, cleave her sodden bones apart, what short work it’d make of that crumpled pile of stinking meat.

I stood, rising dizzily onto my feet, went out and returned with what I needed.

Two hours later, I was six miles outside of town and Deanna was beside me in the passenger seat. Or rather, she was in the foot-well of the passenger seat… in a black plastic bag… in bits.

Wherever I spotted an unguarded garbage can, I pulled up and dropped a little piece of her in. After a few hours driving, she was spread out across more than half the county.

Before heading home, all trace of her gone to rot at the bottom of over a dozen different trash sites, I stopped off at the church to say a prayer for the dear departed. I prayed to God that her soul might at last leave the earth and find peace in the hereafter. And leave me the fuck alone.

Then I went next door to the Christian Center and made their day by buying the whole place out. I bought five bibles, twenty-eight crucifixes, three boxes of candles, holy water and every cheap-ass tacky-looking ornament I could find. I threw it all in the back of the truck and headed for home. Lenny Warner was waiting for me.

Or maybe not for me. Just waiting. That’s how it looked anyway. He sat in the prowler across from the house, smoking a cigarette, looking at nothing in particular. After I pulled up and stepped out, I went up to the porch and stood there awhile, thinking he was going to come over. But he didn’t. He stayed right where he was.

So I took all the crap I’d bought inside and stood at the window, watching him, waiting for him to leave. He didn’t. At last, I stormed back outside and was halfway to his car when I heard chatter blaring out of his radio, saw him flick the cigarette away, and he started the engine up and drove off.

He never looked at me once.

* * *

Cleaning up the putrid stain in the kitchen took a long time, but I did it. Then I went around the house, locking all the doors and windows, barricading myself in as best I could. I put a bible in every corner of my bedroom and nailed every crucifix to the wall. I washed the door and floorboards down in holy water and arranged little plastic and porcelain Jesuses and Virgin Marys on every spare surface I could find.

Then, as the blazing sun went down, I climbed into bed with a bottle of whiskey, the pistol and a bible.

And I waited.

* * *

You might be surprised by how quickly sleep took me. I was so exhausted, I’d been through so much, and even after all I’d seen, I couldn’t help the feeling I’d beaten her. She was gone. Chopped, scattered, to sizzle in the late summer’s blistering warmth, to be dissolved away to sickly mush by thousands of ravenous insects. And, wrapping myself up in the warming comfort of this knowledge, I went to sleep.

I woke up soaked through in spilled whiskey, half the candles burned out, and I couldn’t find the pistol.

And she was at the door.

I felt her before I saw her. Felt the gaze of her shriveled eyes and the chilling blast of night air from the doorway. I turned towards her and saw her limping, lop-sided calamity, towards me, slapping one torn and repackaged foot wetly down and dragging the wilted other behind.

“Mmmmmm,” she said. “Mmmmmmmm… ”

“No!” I shrieked. “Fuck you!” And hurled the whiskey bottle at her. It struck her left shoulder, knocking pieces of flesh loose. They spattered upon the floor with a soft thud.

I tossed the sheets, hunting for the pistol, threw away the pillows and found only the leather-bound bible I’d taken to bed with me. “Mmmmm,” Deanna said, clawing her way onto the bed beside me.

Turning, I swung with the bible, swatting her in her misshapen face, and again. She grabbed my arms in her iron grip and pinned me down. This close in the candlelight I could see the joins where she’d put herself back together, all the pieces going mostly where they were supposed to, but at an angle. That was a little-known fact about Dee—she was a real whiz with a needle and thread. She clambered up on top of me like a crooked jigsaw puzzle.

Against all protestations and struggle, she forced herself upon me, straddling with discolored, lumpy thighs, seeping with ripening pus. Her cunt was one improbably long slit, cutting up across her belly, threatening at any moment to cover me in her leaking yellow innards.

As she rode me, I saw one of her tits had already popped its clumsy stitches and flapped wanly over her navel, useless clump of hanging dead flesh. And then there was her face.

“No,” I cried, as she bent down to me. “No, Deanna, no!” As her stitched and sun-burnt mask peered into me. “Noooo!”

She opened her mouth wide and closed it over mine. Her swollen black tongue slid between my lips, quivered suddenly and exploded… flooding my throat with maggots.

* * *

“Oh Jesus… ”

Reluctantly, I awoke.

“Mother of God in Heaven… ”

Still tasting the rot of her final kiss, the tightness of dried spit and slime over my face.

“My, oh my, oh my… ”

I opened my eyes one at a time, blinking queasily into the morning’s light, and saw Lenny Warner standing at the foot of my bed. Flanked on either side by deputies. Turned out Dee had left the door open when she’d come up. And a trail of bloody footprints to follow.

“Shit, Ray,” Lenny said, hand over his mouth, too much in shock to be much in any mood for retribution. “Just… shit.”

* * *

I went resigned to my death.

The lawyer—cheapest in the county but a real nice guy—did everything he could and I did absolutely everything he told me, but everyone could see there was no way I was escaping the electric chair.

And that was fair. I’d murdered her. I couldn’t deny it. Everything I did, I’d done to myself and, if it was oblivion, then to oblivion I would go, stoic and resigned.

When the time came, I declined the last meal and offered no final words.

Somebody threw a switch… and I died.

Thankful for the embrace of nothing at all.

* * *

When I woke up I was six feet underground, sealed up tight in a cold pine box and Deanna’s lips were pressed against my ear.

“Hello, handsome,” she said.

THE HUNTRESS

Emily Veinglory

Her breasts felt full in that way that meant her blood had started.  We had our usual conversation.

“No, not this time of the month… ”

Indeed, I rarely saw Phoebe at all when she was menstruating; it was as if she was observing some strange ritual of seclusion when she bled.  How it infuriated me to see her least when I wanted her most.

She simply did not understand. Although I kept raising the issue, I never pressed it.  Phoebe was a bright, beautiful and passionate girl and I had no desire to lose her.  But when she left and I heard the shower come on with its muffled patter, it occurred to me that the shower was the perfect place, clean, warm and her naked within.

I dropped my clothes in the hall and stepped into the murky bathroom, it was small and full of steam.  When I stepped into the small shower stall, she looked over her shoulder.  A slight frown creased her pale forehead, but she did not rebuff me.

I felt the soft weight of her breasts in my hands as I kissed her delicate neck.  Her new, short haircut bristled against my cheek.  Every day she seemed to be moving to push her femininity further away, even as I treasured it more.

I let my right hand drift down to her hip and, as I drew her close, my index finger slid over her mound of Venus and into the top lip of her labia.  I knew her body well; I found the soft, small nub of her clitoris and stoked it firmly with the rough pad of my fingertip.  Her whole body softened as my own cock hardened.  I could feel the slickness of her menstrual blood even as the water ran down my hand and washed it away.

I moved around in front of her and she moaned a soft complaint, but went quiet again as I dropped my head to bite and suck softly on her nipple.  The shower water hit the back of my head, but as I knelt, I descended into the foggy zone below the spray.

Phoebe stiffened a little, she had not wanted this, but she was not going to stop me.  My firm tongue delved as my finger had, caressing the soft ripples of flesh and the nub of the clitoris.  Phoebe arched her back and spread her legs for me.  I leaned in and put my hand around the back of her thighs, nestled under her buttocks and kneading the flesh rhythmically.  I lengthened the strokes of my tongue, moving toward the top of her vagina.

The flesh here was less fresh, tainted with the warm elixir of her blood.  I thanked God that she had not yet cleaned herself.  Whilst I always returned to the clitoris, I probed deeper into the vagina.  Soft clots and strings of blood slid under my questing tongue.  The mixed musk of her excitement and her blood made me drunk.  My nose against the soft burr of her clipped hair, the moist air awash with scents, and the taste of her, like syrup of port wine laced with sea salt.

My desires were sated as her passion peeked, a moment of mutual perfection.  It was somehow surprising to find myself back in our small tatty bathroom, with my disheveled girlfriend collapsing into my arms.

* * *

For a few days, I saw little of Phoebe, and when she finally reappeared, she was terse, firm-breasted and somehow different in her manner.  She was unusually attentive; normally, it had been I who paid court to her–and she was almost indifferent at times.  For a while, she was rarely from my side and always keen to let me have her way.  I was cautious around her with her strange new moods.  Almost a month passed with this peculiar tension in the air until one night, all became clear.

“How do you feel?” she asked at night as we lay in bed together.

“Fine,” I said, pulling her close.

I hadn’t pulled the curtain over the sliding door into the back garden.  The glass door overlooked my small lawn and the wooded defile beyond it.  The full moon was all but shuttered by busy, scudding clouds.  For a moment, the clouds parted and the clear, pale light washed over us.

Sudden passion washed over me and I pulled her close.  She kissed me back hard with a clash of teeth, as if she felt the same.

She pulled back… “I was afraid of this,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

She slipped out of bed and I watched her trim body as she went to the door.  She unlocked it and pushed it a little ajar.

“What are you up to?” I chided.

“You will see… ”

As she turned, I saw strange tensions shiver across her skin.  Her neck and stomach jumped with muscles that didn’t seem like they should move in that way and her skin absorbed the moon and took on its uncanny glow.  I felt a sudden ache, a cramp across my whole body from my shoulders to the soles of my feet.  Suddenly, I smelt the unmistakable tang of blood, sharper than I ever had before.

“It’s time,” she said.

She beckoned to me like a pale siren, limned by the beguiling light of the moon—now quite unveiled.

“I tried to tell you,” she said.  “I did not mean for this to happen.  But it does with some—with men like you.”

As I stood, I felt the bones and the muscles of my legs distort and change, but somehow this did not seem wrong—only more right.  My skin pickled with heat, with fine hairs as they emerged uncannily.  I saw the pelt appear upon my arms and the backs of my hands as I reached for her.  But even as I almost reached her I fell, unable to stay upright.  I fell upon my paws.

I heard wolf song upon the wind, as the others came, the others that had fallen for sweet Phoebe’s musky blood.  A big black wolf shouldered the door open and they all came in, greeting me with nose and tongue as one of them.  There was no jealously amongst her followers as we would never again be her lovers, never again be human men–but something more.

Phoebe went out onto the lawn and I went with the others, joyfully sniffing the rich autumn air.

“Now… ” she said.

… the air said, as the baying of my brothers said, as the whispering trees said…

“Now, we hunt.”

She ran ahead of us under the cover of the trees, but we were next to her in moment.  I felt strong and I went into the lead—my keen nose skimmed the ground, searching for the subtle scent of our night’s prey.  Anticipation ran through my body and my teeth ached.  I could almost feel the warm blood in my mouth from the killing bite.

Phoebe laughed joyfully as she ran with uncanny swiftness amongst us and I determined that I would be the one to make the kill and bring the prey back to my glorious mistress.  I howled for joy as I led them all into the deep, sparkling forest.

MOONLIGHT RIDE

Kenneth E. Olson

“I don’t want to die in my sleep, or of old age, or O.D… I want to feel what it’s like. I want to taste it, hear it, smell it. Death is only going to happen once; I don’t want to miss it.”

-Jim Morrison

He’d never planned anything in his life. He never thought you could, really. Shit had a way of happening whether you wanted it to or not, and the best way to deal with that, he found, was to go with the flow. Let it ride. It got bumpy for a little while, but eventually the road smoothed out again. And for the most part, it had gone well—much better than he’d hoped, actually. But lately, things

had become just a little too fucked up. People were on him like flies on shit, and the move to Paris hadn’t changed that.

So, for the first time in his life, he’d had to plan.

“Voulez-vous vivre toujours?” Do you want to live forever?

She poked one slender finger through a loose curl in his long, shaggy, dark hair. He shook impatiently loose from the probing digit.

“Non. J’ai besoin de mourir.” No. I need to die.

“Good.” Her thick French accent whispered in his ear and he felt her hot breath on his neck; smelled the rich, salty scent of her lips. Her firm breasts pressed into his back as she drew her arms around him and pulled him against her. His first impulse was to pull away, roll out of the bed and run back to his apartment. Back to safety. He fought it. He’d worked too hard—planned too well—for this moment to run from it now. If he wanted what she could give him, he had to play the game.

“Zat is very good,” she repeated. The tip of her tongue probed his ear. “We will have ze good time, you and I, non?”

He didn’t reply; just lay on his side with his back to her—this divine, unnamed creature he’d met only a week ago in one of the many darker bars he frequented—watching the neon lights of Le Hôtel Coucher du Soleil spill through the open window and bathe the room in red. A slight breeze stirred the satin curtains. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose, wondering if he’d be able to smell the cool evening breezes any more after tonight. Wondering if he’d care.

“A quiet lover, eh?” she said, lover coming out as the French-twanged lovaire. She drew her bare right leg up and over his, letting her foot slide over his outer thigh and move teasingly down to his own foot. He could feel her pubic hairs tickle the small of his back as she drew herself even closer. His skin broke in gooseflesh as her fingers lightly traced his ribcage, then followed the curve of his hip to his stiffening penis. She wrapped her long fingers around it and he shuddered. He squeezed his eyes tighter.

“It is a surprise,” she continued, “I thought you would be ze wild man, like in your shows, no? And ze stories I have heard. Well, let us just say you are not quite what I expected.”

“Nothing ever is,” he replied smoothly.

“Oui.  Zat is true. But,” she said, following the path her fingers had traced out with slow kisses, “I knew from ze first time I saw you, you would be one of us. I never dared dream zat I would be ze one to perform ze… transformation?”

Transformation. He guessed that was as good a word as any.  He’d been through a lot of ‘transformations’ in his long brief life. From child to adult, from poor to rich, from man to god.  But being a god hadn’t been all it was cracked up to be. Too many eyes always watching you. Too many fingers always pointing at you. Too many people who always wanted you to be who they expected you to be, and not who you were. He longed to go backward, to become a man again. But that was impossible. He’d spent most of his months in Paris meditating on this fact and had finally come to this conclusion: Once a god, all you could really do next was become a demon. Or die.

Or both.

“You are ready?” she asked, squeezing his penis once—hard—breaking his train of thought. He opened his eyes and turned onto his back, looking down the length of his body at her. She lay on her stomach at a ninety degree angle to his own body, her mouth just above his hip. The red neon from outside washed over her pale skin, dying it crimson. Her eyes and lips were dark coals in the light, and her long black hair hung in satin strings down her face and across her back. A demon hiding in the skin of an angel.

“You have made ze necessary arrangements?”

“I faked a heart condition three days ago,” he said, and nodded to her, “and I’ve chosen my grave site in Père-Lachaise.”

“And a death certificate?”

“I’ll get that tonight.”

She smiled then, and he thought he could see, for the first time, the sharp edges of her canine teeth. She turned away and examined his throbbing member in her left hand. She drew her right hand up his inner thigh and ran one finger up the bulging vein of his hard-on. He shuddered but kept his eyes on the activity.

She must’ve felt the shudder, or perhaps he made a noise of some sort, because she looked up at him and smiled once more. Her tongue came out and licked her upper lip—black against black. She said nothing, but raised the first two fingers of her right hand so he could see the long nails. Then she turned back to her work, bringing the nails down quickly and opening the vein she’d just caressed.

He jerked, arching his back and grabbing the headboard of the bed with both hands, hanging on hard enough to feel the wood press against the bones of his fingertips. The pain was not as bad as he thought it would be, more like the stinging cut of a sharp knife, but the amount of blood he felt flow out and over his balls was still surprising. The sharp coppery smell of his own blood filled his nostrils.

She was on it quickly, though, her mouth covering the wound and sucking, drawing his life into hers. He could feel the blood leaving, like an intense orgasm, only lower and unending.  Settling into the bed, he leaned his head back, eyes closed, and thrust his hips upward. She responded by taking the whole of him in her mouth, still sucking hard enough to keep any blood from spilling. He wasn’t quite sure how he knew this, but he did; just as he knew that, despite all reasons saying otherwise, he would continue to have his erection until the whole affair was over. He’d often heard of the magiks of blood and tantric sex—even experimented with it before—but it was never like this.

It was a long time before she finally lifted her head. When she did, she wiped blood from her mouth and smeared it over his penis. She turned her whole body even with his, placed both hands flat on his stomach and straddled him, poised just above the object of her desire. In the light, she was nothing but a shadow outlined in red.

“Are you ready zen, mon cher?”

He said nothing, but reached out with his hands and placed them on her ample hips, easing her onto himself, his own blood the lubricant. He gasped, startled at the dry cold that surrounded him.

“Is something ze matter?” Her head tilted to the right.

He bit his lower lip, as much to keep himself from saying something as it was from ecstasy. She continued to stare at him until he was able to speak again.

“No,” he said, “Let’s do this.”

There was a brief nod from the dark figure above him, and she slid forward like a snake, hands sliding wetly up his body, leaving oily smears of blood tracking behind. His own hands caressed the fine curve of her back and then moved to the front. He cupped her breasts, firm but yeilding.

“Tell me when,” she said, and began moving her hips back and forth. He countered her moves with his own, slowly at first, then with more and more urgency, gasping with each thrust. He closed his eyes hard enough to make lights dance behind his lids and he felt drunk, and high, like every drink and every drug he’d ever taken was taking control of his body once again. He laid back and let it, losing himself in the moment. There was no life. There was no death. There was only now. Only now.

“Now,” he screamed in pure pleasure. Pressure was building in his loins and he knew that it would soon be all over.

He opened his eyes, wanting to watch, to be part of this, his final moment. He saw her head snap back and turn to the side, her face outlined in the neon light. Her mouth stretched wide—wider than any human’s possibly could—and he could see the fangs glitter red. Then she turned to him again and bowed over his neck. He stretched it willingly for her. Her fangs sank deep, and he felt the pressure explode into her, a small orgasm that grew and spread throughout his body, first warm, then turning cold. Ice cold. Like dead fingers stretching simultaneously down his legs and up over his belly, scratching further upward until it encompassed his heart and stopped it in mid-beat. He laughed, then, long and loud.

“So this is what it is to die!” he cried out just before the iciness gripped his throat and froze him in position, his hands still on her breasts.

He could see, but couldn’t react to, her climbing off him, pulling her breasts free and leaving red streaks on them where his fingers had tightened. She sat on the side of the bed, grabbed a cigarette from the pack he had on the nightstand nearest him and lit up. Smoke rose slowly up from the cherry and circled the air above her.

“Eet will be a moment,” he dimly heard her say. “You are now dead and all ze muscles in your body ‘ave locked up. Rigor mortis is what you call it, no? That will release soon, but eet will be painful. Probably ze most pain you ‘ave evair felt. Eet is also ze last pain you will evair feel.”

She fell silent then, the only sound her soft exhale of smoke. He wondered at the peacefulness of this quiet moment: how many others had died and missed this? How many had wasted Death without tasting her true beauty, without really appreciating what was happening. Most, he figured. Except for people like him and her.

There were more sounds in the room now, he realized. He could pick out the crackle of dried tobacco igniting as she dragged on her cigarette. There was a roach under the bed, its legs ticking away on the hardwood floor, its mandibles clacking in anticipation of food. He didn’t know exactly how he knew this, but he did. Voices filtered in through the window on the wind.  Horns honked as cars barely missed each other on the Rue de Misère below. Somewhere, music was playing one of his songs and he turned his attention away from it. That was the past. That was over.

Beyond the music was something else; a sound he recognized but couldn’t yet place. It was coming not from a specific place outside but from everywhere outside, and it was getting louder. A tumult of inharmonious thuds and thumps, like a thousand thousand low drumbeats.

Or heartbeats.

The realization dawned on him just as his body released with a sudden surge of pain, as if every molecule in his body had been singly yet simultaneously hit with sledgehammers. He threw his head back and howled, an unearthly sound never heard in any stage performance, but still not loud enough to drown out the sounds of the thousands of heartbeats assaulting his ears from beyond the window. His hands shot above him, grasping the headboard in a grip that splintered the wood in huge chunks and rained them down around his thin face. With nothing else to provide purchase against the pain, he pulled himself into a fetal ball on the bed, unaware that he was still holding a large chunk of the headboard in his right hand. He lay in that position for perhaps five minutes, perhaps an hour, until the pain subsided. Still, there was a low constant throb throughout his body and the sound of beating hearts thudded in his ears.

And he could smell them. Beneath the acrid scent of the cigarette smoke, beneath the pungent exhaust fumes and the aromas from the French bistros. Beneath it all. And much stronger. The horrifyingly sweet smell of blood.

“Feeling bettair?” she asked.

He looked up at her, unrolling himself from the ball he was in. She was a crimson shadow, a perfectly formed female shadow, in the neon light. His eyes rolled up the arch of her back and settled on her slender neck.

“Nothing zere for you, mon cher,” she said. She took a final drag off her cigarette and snuffed it out in the ashtray on the bedside table. Was that the same cigarette she’d lit when he’d been locked in place? If so, things went much faster than he thought they had.

“Our ‘earts, they no longer beat,” she turned to him, placing one cold hand on his bare chest. “There ees no blood running through our veins. You are ‘ungry now, oui. But I cannot ‘elp you.”

“My body,” he said, and his voice sounded strange to him.  Deeper somehow, but smoother, too. “My body… throbs.”

“Zat is ze hungair,” she said. “Zat is why you hear ze heartbeats in ze rue. Zat is why you smell ze blood.  Come.  Get dressed. I will teach you to hunt.

“We weel be together forever now,” she said, leaning closer to him. The tip of her tongue flicked his lips. He didn’t respond. He wanted to get away from everyone; to have time to himself again. He’d had too much of too many people hounding him lately. He didn’t want to be with anybody for a long while.

His right fist clenched tightly around something and he glanced down to see the sharp, splintered remnant of the headboard in his hand. He turned his gaze back to her.

“No,” he said simply, and brought the splinter of wood in a high arc and down, plunging it into, and through, her back. He nearly succeeded in skewering the both of them. Unaware of his new strength, the tip of the stake pierced his skin but had lost enough momentum to be stopped by his breastbone. She was not so lucky.

With a piercing howl—similar to the one he’d let loose when he’d regained control of his body—she arched backward and flung herself to the floor. He leaned over to watch her writhing there. She landed on her back, shoving the stake even further through her chest. It protruded at an angle from her left breast. The heart, he knew, had to have been punctured. Even so, there was no blood. Just the raw, dry end of the stake that her hands were flailing at and, despite her strength, finding unable to pull free.

“Apparently, you’re wrong,” he told her. “We can feel pain. Looks like you’re in quite a bit of it right now.”

She didn’t answer, but her eyes turned toward him and her mouth worked like an asphyxiating fish’s. A small clicking sound emanated from the back of her throat.

“How do the dead die?” he asked, more to himself than her. In all the vampire movies he’d ever seen they shriveled to dust when the stake was driven through them. There was also a lot of blood in those movies. Great, gushing gouts of it. So far, it didn’t look like reality had any part in the fiction of movies. Then again, art seldom mirrored reality. That much he’d learned in his twenty-seven years.

She finally stopped moving, her hands falling limply away from the stake to thump heavily to the floor. Her eyes still stared at him, but they were far away and vacant now. Even in the neon light, he could see that. As a matter of fact, as he looked around the room, he noticed he could see quite a few things better now than he could before he’d died. Small cracks in the walls and ceilings stood out in sharp relief, like chasms created by earthquakes. A thin layer of dust clung to every object in the room and across from the foot of the bed on the opposite wall, the cockroach he had heard skittering (and could still hear now, he found, when he concentrated) under the bed was making its way up the stuccoed wall.

Yes, it seemed dead was certainly a better way to live.

“Dead,” he chuckled, vaulting off the foot of the bed and picking up his clothes from the floor. “I suppose I had better tell my wife the bad news.”

QUEEN OF THE NIGHT

JD Stone

At the end of August the wind pushes across the rivers in motions that don’t make sense, bringing with it noxious smells and sights: the sulfur of low tide, the silver smear of muscles as they slide down boulders, the occasional drowned local. Chatter is heard from mouth-less people flooding into cramped tunnels like blood into Manhattan, though if one didn’t live on the cusp they couldn’t hear the dark eloquent sound of the waves as the tide nibbled the shoreline and the party boats filled with slandering drunks soon to dock and ruin any seldom saved sane part of the night.

And then there was Chinatown.

At night, it’s a carnival of alien symbols sparkling gold and red that one could admire until their head exploded, raining bone and brain around, but which the people simply upturned their noses at. Here are the narrow streets where you could step on the cracks in the cement, or the crevices in the cobblestone and never be seen again. Here are the alleyways in which cats rule, sideswiped by nameless factories colored up by hoards of graffiti artists, where the odor of severed fingers still lingered from the machinery with no safety regulations. Here is where the blood of execution style killings stained the walls and dried to a dusty orange.

Pell Street.

Beyond the crevices and the hole in wall restaurants, serving dishes that you thought were chicken but may wind up being that rat you just saw scamper over your shoe, is where the women of the night work. Hidden beneath dank silhouetted clubs, deep inside tenements so cops can’t bust them, is the pay as you go sex trade. The walls here are lined with lengthy mirrors so that there is always a girl reflecting in each corner as she dances; private velvet-curtained booths line the back walls so the men of the neighborhood can jerk-off to relieve themselves before getting rowdy.

This is where Coco worked.

Tonight, Coco watched evil little Asian men pour in from the squalid streets, waving around crumpled singles, pipes in their mouths filled with whatever was the cheapest to smoke, calling girls over to them. She tried to decipher the onslaught of their bickering language through the fine folds of their eyes, between the cracks in their tobacco stained teeth, but failed.

There was mold in this place, too, the rotten kind that formed dark sticky lines between the opaque tiles. Coco thought maybe it was from the cigarette smoke because no one listened to the law in this dark angular Chinatown club. Black lace entwined into the frame of the stage lights on the ceiling, almost to the point of a fire hazard, but once the night got going and the lights filtered through, it gave the place a drunken purple sheen and made the DJ spin very wild music as the girls entered to dance for sloppy mouthed men.

Coco danced here almost every night, fine-boned face and feral female gyrations so swift that no one would ever suspect any deviance in her gender. Dark straight hair, that was faintly, brittle came down as far as her breasts; she had high cheekbones, making her honey colored eyes seem permanently scrunched, and thick rouge lips.

The club came to her after moving out of the feigned perfection of nowhere suburbia, when she tired herself out of sucking the ordinary dicks of the town. She swore then to never be Christopher again. Coco was the exotica that she had hid for too many years.

Dancing was the only way Coco could dream of a velvet pink delta between her thighs, sweet petals that could blossom and make every man admire her as she spread herself around the pole. Being here helped Coco compensate for the evil white snake between her legs, and the sac that held two useless scraps of meat. It was a feeling not even the pills that kept her tits perky could offer.

To Coco, New York City was wide and narrow at the same time—as if all its angles never quite added up to that famed one hundred and eighty degrees—and had the potential to send one into a bleak madness if they tried to calculate it. She licked her finger and put it to her nose, making sure the stink of jizz had faded thanks to the gin. Nothing ever said a quick buck like liquor. She just got done blowing a small, cheese smelling cock attached to a chubby Chinese man that had tailed her all week, slipping obscure amounts of money into her black jeweled g-string when she danced the first half of her nightshift. There were times when he offered her lines of coke spread liberally on the shellacked table; other times he let her eat some of his funny mushrooms as she bent down for more tips. Tonight he got his money’s worth.

The men here treated her like a goddess when she danced for them. Moving her lithe body on that stage took away the annoyance of being born a boy. Here she was the queen of the night. And the rest of the girls felt the same too; though street crawlers to everyone else, they were family to Coco: natural women. They took her on their gaudy adventures throughout the city, initiating her into the night culture. They taught Coco about tricking on the corners, who paid well and who didn’t. They showed her how to flex her body, as if rubber, around the silver pole in the center stage and the benefits of fishnet stockings, the power of baby oil and how it made skin glint like diamonds. They taught her how to reveal just enough of her body so a client’s rum stained lips could kiss her ankles from where she danced, and how to lower her cleavage down the edge of their noses for more money.

The girls also told her how night made their jobs easier: they couldn’t work during the day because they’d surely be arrested. So Coco avoided daylight like some kind of plague, slowly realizing that when people gave her the eye, as if she were some kind of famed painting, it wasn’t from her striking natural beauty, or her angular bones. Though New York was liberal, she was sick of feeling as if she was being watched all the time. Behind the makeup, dark eyeliner and sweet colored scarf around her neck to hide the adam’s apple, people were always able to tell: boy. Day was when the truly mean people of the city flooded the streets and pushed you out of the way just to get to work. Day was when the traffic could crush you like rotten fruit under a boot and no one would give a shit.

After that, her girls began referring to her as Vamp the Tramp because Coco paled quite quickly from her up all night and sleep all day schedule. And there was also her Black Irish heritage. If the ladies weren’t trading tricks or sharing flasks and the occasional hallucinogenic, they gossiped like straight-laced people; the same women who were beaten in public by their pimps, their teeth a thing of the past, smashed out of bleeding gums, and the police turning the other cheek because it saved them paperwork. Coco’s nickname once sparked a thought about the taste of blood, mostly because it was the memories of when she used to cut her wrists, suicide ghosts still fresh, hoping the testosterone would drain from the wounds. She considered a possibility that she liked it, if not just for fun.

Tonight, Coco asked the DJ to play Coal Chamber’s version of Shock the Monkey for her entrance music. And as the metal band finished packing their gear, the clean up crew began to wipe the stage down. When bands played in the club it always made the filthy patrons drink more, which meant better tips.

Coco looked out from the back room. The club was hazy and not too crowded for a Thursday. She could see every little Asian man clasping their hands and clinking their glasses as if waiting for her.

“You gunna kill ‘em tonight, ain’t you?”

“I always do, don’t I?” Coco said.

“Girl, if I had half your body, I’d run this joint.”

Lenithia was the name behind the voice. She was graciously tall, brown, and wore extravagant wigs and frilly dresses each night she danced. Her nose was wide, eyes large and black; it made Coco almost fearful for her androgyny. On the occasion that she and Coco went to the intestinal corners of Fourteenth Street, Lenithia would usually go out bald because her hair had broken off months ago from a freak dying accident. But her topless attire always got her a client first.

“I’m up in a few,” Coco said as she applied the last of her white face makeup and eyeliner.

“Yea, sugar, and guess who’s here?”

“Oh, God… ”

“Yep, your biggest fan!”

He always came to the club on Thursdays. Never did he talk; never did he wear anything other a moth eaten black trench coat, a ratty hat and oddly enough, sunglasses. It was so dark and filmy in the club that Coco never understood why. But he tipped her generously, though never touched her. Sometimes she saw him reaching for his crotch and running quickly to one of the private booths.

Then the music cued; googly synthesizers and crunching industrial rock beats filled the club. The combination of Dez Fafara’s galvanizing tone and Ozzy Osbourne’s razor vocals sent static into its patrons. But the men were as still as dead air, patiently waiting for the Queen of the Night, as the DJ called her, to take the stage.

Coco pushed passed the black silk curtain and entered with one long leg first. Then the men began to whistle. She walked onto the stage in a velvet frock coat clutched tight to her boyishly skinny frame. As the music went into a crescendo, so did she. Her body undulated and it made her strip to her lingerie. Her limbs melted into flaccid twigs, making the pole wrap around them with tight precision. Then she crawled around the stage, whipping her hair back and forth recklessly as the music took her away from the planet and turned her into the queen. She was fed her cash as she spread her legs, feeling up and down her crotch to make the guys gave more. Some of them put money right in her g-string line, others just cupped her ass cheek, but were ghosts by the time she turned around.

Then she moved over to her biggest fan. He was rigid while smoking his joint as Coco stood above him and gyrated. He caressed the straps of her heels with his skinny gloved fingers, and then rubbed her sweat over his lips. He was careful not to let his collar reveal anymore than a sliver of pallid cheek as he placed the crisp twenty on the table. Coco bent down and revealed her tiny cleavage, glistening from the baby oil, just as the girls had taught her, and scooped up the cash.

Then a small acid-tongued Chinese man got rowdy, but Coco ignored him and kept to the industrial rhythm. Hormones, or maybe the drugs and liquor had turned the guy reckless; he reached over and put his tiny finger up Coco’s asshole as he pulled her face to his and forced her lips open with his slug tasting tongue. Before Coco could react she felt his hands release and a spray of warmth bathe her face. The music cut off; her admirer was gone and Coco was left with dead weight on top of her. The bar crew pulled the headless man away. When Coco lifted her hands she was expecting to see a shimmering ribbon of blood, maybe a bone-white tendon from the man’s gashed neck, but all she noticed was the note. It told her exactly where to go.

* * *

Twilight came, absorbing daylight and spitting it back out dark purple, reminding Coco of the club. There were no stars to be seen thanks to the tawdry lights and spiraling buildings, but the moon was orange from her view on the corner where Twelfth Street ended and the dredges of foul people from Union Square skittered her way. Coco’s eyes were bright as a lynx, skin oiled and hair free flowing, pin straight. She wore a shiny green jacket, black pleather mini skirt, thighs and calves hugged by lace leggings. She let her hair cover her tits since the jacket was zipped opened with no bra beneath; a method taken from Lenithia.

The guy from the club wrote to wait here, and she wanted to look good doing it. She heard the dissonant wail of police sirens, probably some punk causing mayhem, or maybe a drug bust in some archaic crack den. The cars and people seemed to be almost moving in on her as if a premonition. They were shadowed and large like black holes in the earth.

In her mind she wasn’t interested to know what this person wanted because he was like the rest of the men at the club, but he had killed for her and that was intriguing enough to find out about him. Then a small black car pulled aside her and as the windows rolled down she smelled the fresh green spice of pot smoke, and needed no invitation to enter.

“You’re from these parts?” the voice asked behind shadow, sucking on the joint.

“A transplant, but yes.”

“I’m not. The name’s Eel.”

“Eel? Like the thing in the ocean?”

“Yes.”

They shook hands and not only did he still wear gloves, but his voice was suave, almost feminine.

“I wear these because some of you girls love to attack with needles and teeth,” he said as he raised his hands. “I’ve seen it done before. But there’s something about you, Coco. You’re too sweet.”

“I am?”

“Yes you are, Vamp the Tramp.”

Coco’s ears folded into her skull like a sad dog. “How did you know that?”

“I go to the club every week to watch you dance. People talk loud.”

Eel moved his eyes into lamplight and although they were hidden behind ridiculously dark sunglasses, Coco saw that they were carnivorous and gem green. They meant something to her, but she didn’t know what.

“What the hell happened last night?” She asked.

“I don’t want any man touching you, Coco.”

She hadn’t heard words like that since she thought she had found love in autumn of 2005. He was a French painter in the city, and as any Frenchman would do, just to be a living fuck you to conservative America, he was dating a woman with a cock. But that only lasted two months because he found out that real pussy was much sweeter.

“My apartment’s in Chinatown,” Coco said, admiring Eel’s dark buzz cut as he took his hat off for her, the way his chin jutted further than his forehead as he removed the high collar of the trench coat, his near to perfect thin face.

“Can I come over?”

Eel turned fully towards Coco and grinned. His teeth were glamorous and flat, the cuspids shaved down into interesting cones, all behind lips as thin as razor wire. He was the most exotic thing she ever saw.

* * *

They wasted no more time on one another. Before Eel was able to kick off his shoes he had Coco in his arms and was pushing her records and sickly looking paraphernalia off the bed. Coco felt enthralled, wild, it had been so long that she almost forgot how to give her body away for free, let alone allow a man to even think about touching her down there; but this felt right. She would have asked Eel to stop—his thin fingers like strands of silk brushing across her thighs and through the holes in her fishnets—but he enchanted her too much.

The way he touched her body was confidant. He knew how to treat a woman, how to connect the pieces of the puzzle that was female flesh. His lips met hers as he undid the zipper on her jacket, sliding them down her exposed cleavage. He licked the V of her collar bone, cleaning all of the wet worry of the night away, sucking at his teeth as if she tasted great, and then nicked her neck with one of his pointed fangs.

“You taste like a goddess,” he said.

For the first time Coco could really see his eyes, how green they were, how fragile. Glittery lights from outside glossed everything in a yellow sheen. It made Eel’s face translucent, teeth gleam. Then there were her nerves at the oncoming spectacle of getting naked, though Eel gave her no premonition of danger. He had been a gentleman from the beginning, his vibe was neither vehement nor prideful, not like the pig men who spit at her if she didn’t sweat enough when she danced, or sucked hard enough when she blew them in the back room.

He unbuttoned his tight black shirt, staring into Coco like an ocean beating against mountains. Coco knew that she could love him, and not like the French painter, or the way she did with the men who paid her. When Eel was down to his wife beater, she saw an unusual bulge beneath as if he worked out a lot. Then he had her head cupped in his hand, licking the smooth curve of her eyes lids, her thin brow and her flushed cheeks. His hand crawled down her legs, spreading her thighs, allowing air to kiss the damp dark between. She felt her crotch swell and snag her pubic hair.

His tongue moved down her stomach, edging closer and closer to where men were forbidden. Eel stroked the nervous tremble away from her legs with his small fingers. Then Coco’s mouth gawked opened from pleasure, and from the command of his tongue licking her like a stamp, a torrid worm trekking her body. Then Eel came up and slid his tongue across her teeth, her gums, and when he finally found hers they melted into epiphany. She couldn’t help but to fall prisoner to him. They had made an unexpected connection.

Without thinking Coco began to pull the wife beater over his head, her needs primal, but he stopped her. NO! She thought. No one had ever made Coco feel so feminine. New urges circulated through her blood vessels and shot them with a quick dose of adrenaline. She raked her nails down his back until she felt his blood well in the furious tracks, until the wife beater ripped in two. He pushed his face into her neck, biting her chin reactively, incisors drawing blood, his tongue invading the wound, lips suctioned to it like a small vacuum. And then she remembered that her nickname obliged her into the curse of those stupid creatures that had wild sex, but were aristocrats and beasts in the books and movies. So she bit him back, just a little bit, and an effusion of liquid red velvet spilled into her mouth. Shock surged from the very corner of Eel’s eyes, until it brought his entire sharp boned face into a frown.

Then Coco saw why as the binding came loose from his body and a very small set of breasts exposed where the ace bandages bound them down. They weren’t big enough to make Coco think of him as feminine, but she couldn’t help not to stare. Eel turned his head away from her, embarrassed. She didn’t want the gender dystopia to spread into confusion and ruin the night, so she found his face and stroked Eel’s tears away. When Coco licked her fingertips she thought it was better than the blood, better than the sweat. It was rich with Eel’s true essence.

“I’m so embarrassed,” he said.

“Don’t be. I still… love you.”

“But… I’m a man.”

“I know, Eel.”

“You’re the one Coco… so special.”

Eel’s face scrunched into shame, but it was as if the turmoil of the predicament inspired him. He grabbed a handful of Coco’s lush hair, twisted in dark ropes from the sweat, and entangled it in his hands. Coco knew that no matter his shell of skin and bone, Eel was no female. Then they were kissing again. She spread her legs as if fairy wings, allowing Eel into her domain and wrapped them around his waist. He lifted her up and she was sitting upon his crotch as Eel thrust his pelvis into her. Coco felt something hard, man meat, she thought, but when her nails ripped away the top of the pant line and fished the inside all she felt was rubber. Still, she stroked it like a real cock, like she had done to countless others. Listening to Eel moan pleased her the most.

Flames escaped from between her thighs, heating up the room. The air innervated with moisture and weighed it down on them like morning dew. Then the tape’s stickiness gave into the wetness of lust, to the labyrinth of trans-love, and her rock solid shaft broke free, bolting upward. Coco’s heart lurched; her body ached with the memory of the anger her clients held for her whenever they saw the bulge. But Eel gave her a dazzling smile, his face flushed with happiness, teeth all white and glamorous and sharp. Everything was just too perfect now. Then he scrambled off the top her body.

“What is it?” Coco asked.

Eel was sitting at the foot of the bed, a long crystal drizzle of sweat mingling in the furrows of blood on his back.

“Eel, talk to me.”

“Did I ever tell you that I’ve never been with a boy before?”

“I’m not a boy.”

“I know. You’re special.”

Coco enveloped him in her arms from behind and licked the back of his neck.

“And did I tell you that I’ve also never been with someone with your abilities?”

“Abilities?”

“Yes, abilities.”

“I don’t have any abilities.”

“Yes you do, you’re a night prowler, aren’t you?”

“A what?”

“You only go out at night, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“I’ve been looking all my life for someone like you.”

When he turned Coco saw the faint fragility of a woman, something that reminded her of the many girls she’d seen beaten by their pimps, like when they could no longer hide that abashed look as they were forced back to work whether with a swollen lip or eye socket, to dance with bruised legs that no makeup could cover. The vamp the tramp reputation had truly gotten around, and now even Eel was confused about it.

“Ever since I was a kid, all I read was the stuff about them.”

“Eel, I’m—”

“My teeth, you know, have been shaved like this for years. It’s safe to be transsexual and like them. It’s not safe to be like me and human.”

“Eel, listen—”

“No, Coco, you listen,” he grabbed her arm and pulled her to him, so close his lips were at her ear. “I love you too.”

No one had ever whispered those words before. The recoil spread into her innards like a wildfire. Realizing that her cock was still hard, ready to offer Eel her cum, she wanted to finish the night. Eel then undressed and the dildo lolled around as if playtime. It was bright blue and thick, much longer than she imagined. There was a sole vein running from the end of the shaft to the engorged head, glazed like candy. Coco wanted to choke on it, to trace her tongue around it and make Eel feel like the man he really was.

But Eel had other plans. He pinned her down and began to lick her concave stomach, swishing his tongue into her belly button until he moved passed her groin and reached her penis. He rubbed his face around the shaft, pulled it back and when he let it go Coco heard a slap. Then he sniffed it loudly and let the single pearl bead of pre-cum rest at the tip of his top lip. Now she wanted him to suck her off.

It was time to take risks.

His mouth went over the head of her cock like a tumescent flesh light and there was a fathomless heat index inside. As he jerked her Eel’s fingers were five little ghosts of pleasure. He ignored Coco when she pulled at his hands and arms, trying to save him from the splurge of orgasm.

“Eel, please, don’t make me… ”

He didn’t listen. Tightening his lips over her dick like a vice, relaxing his throat, he took a deep breath and dived. Coco felt his tonsils, epiglottis, and ultimately the twitter of orgasm. It rushed from her balls and on its way out her entire body went rickety. Then great gooey globs flushed over Eel’s lips and Coco couldn’t stop. There wasn’t a trace of it left after he got done wiping his mouth with his tongue.

“Oh, my God,” Coco said.

“We aren’t done.”

He turned her over on the bed and she inhaled the stink of her own sweat. But before Coco could move, Eel had her legs spread and he drove his face into her ass. She felt the hot verve in his tongue as he tried to get it as far inside her puckered hole as possible. Then his rubber shaft entered—fast—but it didn’t hurt. Eel knew just how to enter her without tearing the delicate sphincter.

Coco found herself aroused again and it made her hand grip her dick. The slap of Eel’s hips on her ass ricocheted in the room, and Coco let out wails that woke all of Canal Street. Then Eel yelled that he loved her over and over, and that he was cumming! Coco raced her hand with his words, beating her dick for another orgasm. Then as the dildo finally tickled her prostate, she spit out more sticky-creamy cum in her hand.

Eel relaxed and she relaxed. They lit cigarettes and made trails of smoke from their mouths meet in mid air. He kissed her forehead and they curled into one another, both semi-conscious with sweet pleasure. Coco looked up at him, and he down at her, and then rested her head on his chest, listening to the chambers of his heart swish and cluck.

* * *

Coco woke up to light filtering through her black curtains. Her makeup burned her eyes, her ass was sore but it felt right. She rolled over to put her arm around Eel, but all she felt was a dent in the mattress and a stack of cash. Then she heard angry sounds from the bathroom, curses and mutters. When she went in Eel was still naked, the dildo stuck to his leg, staring into the mirror. His fingers moved across the wound in his neck a couple of times, poking at it like it wasn’t there.

“Why the fuck am I not dead?” He looked at Coco.

“Eel… ”

“I came here to be like you and I’m functioning in broad daylight!”

“I tried to tell you last night that—”

“Tell me what? That you don’t live up to the vamp part of your name?”

Eel punched the mirror and it burst into silver diamonds. His face looked wrong, angry, made his femininity show.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Coco asked.

“What the fuck are you?”

No answer.

“I asked you what you are, freak!”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I always mean what I say.”

“So then you love me, like you told me last night.”

Eel snapped his head backward and his throat bulged, letting out a guttural laugh. He didn’t stop even when Coco asked nicely.

“You think I love you? I just wanted to be what I thought you were. Now I’m leaving. I left your money on the bed.”

Bulleting words, machine gun speed, left small holes weeping black tears until she was nothing inside but wasteful thinking. She replayed the Eel from last night in her head to calm down, but today he was not the same man. He wasn’t the guy who held her as she slept or the man who had killed for her. His image burned into her skull like a hot wire; she couldn’t hold it anymore.

Then Eel was walking out of the bathroom, snorting his arrogance, and Coco jumped onto his back. He tried to fight, pushed himself into the walls to evade her, but the jagged sliver of mirror was already in his throat, running from side to side. If he wanted a bite, he was going to get it.

Her teeth sank into the skin covering his flayed neck. Eel soon grew vapid as the blood kept running, a fountain of red. She cut and sucked, anger fueled by his mockery. Coco may not have been what Eel wanted, but she knew about revenge, how to protect herself from anyone, and the taste wasn’t that bad. It reminded her of the salt of his tears, tinged with a bit of metal. In turn Coco hoped he got his wish, that the bite was the one he had always dreamed of.

AMONG US

Jenny Corvette

The dead man’s eyes were closed, as dead eyes always were. I found myself wondering what color they were, beneath those glued shut eyelids. Such a morbid curiosity, yet I could not help it. His name was Jerry, at least, that’s what the funeral program said right beneath his picture. He looked much different dead, but then again, who wouldn’t?

I watched enough cable to know what happens to bodies when they die. Aside from the physical reaction of the body’s cells dying, there were all those procedures done by those calling themselves funeral directors, but who were really nothing more than human butchers. Ghastly procedures, if you ask me, hardly believable in the face of the modern funeral. But horror hides. Usually in the basement. And I know that somewhere beneath my feet, terrible things had been done to Jerry’s body.

Not that I cared. I didn’t even know Jerry. I was attending his funeral only because I’m a thrill seeker, living on the edge of life, at least as much on the edge as a 38-year-old divorced woman can get. Granted, I wasn’t exactly jumping out of airplanes, but crashing other people’s funerals produced its own sense of euphoria. Euphoria that Jerry could no longer experience, well, experience in this realm at least. Who knew where his soul was at the moment, and what sort of experiences it might be having.

As for me, I’ve always been partial to the belief that the soul resides in the blood. And if that is so, Jerry’s soul might well be in the funeral home’s sewer at this very moment, mixing with the souls of so many that had been drained down the basin of eternity before him. The irony of death is that it seems so monumental, yet it happens to us all. Its frequency makes it hardly unique. And funerals are like penises. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.

So why do I go to them, you wonder? It has nothing to do with the dead or with the broad philosophical concept of death in general. But it has everything to do with life. Because, standing in front of a corpse, I felt most alive. At any moment I knew I might be subject to the questioning by a family member or close friend. I felt onlookers’ eyes on me all the time. I knew they were wondering who I was and why I was there, looking at their dead mothers or grandfathers. The bold ones asked me, straight out.

And this was thrilling!

I lied, of course. Sometimes I implied I was a lover of the deceased. If female, I usually had our fake relationship concern pottery class, sewing, or some other womanly hobby. The secret to getting away with anything I said depended on how much information I could gather about the deceased beforehand. If I knew they died from disease, I could claim they never told me. If they were hit by a bus, I could act just as shocked as everyone else. I was a funeral sleuth.

Now Jerry, he was a poor soul. Cancer, and he suffered. I could tell—if I looked hard enough—that his skin was relieved in death. Shocked and burned so bad from radiation, it seemed to have died long before Jerry did. It was probably time for the rest of his body to catch up with his skin. All this I was thinking when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

I jumped slightly. The man behind me was good looking, only a little younger than myself. Somehow, he looked like someone I knew, but I couldn’t place him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “are you okay?”

“Yes. Fine.” Apparently, I’d looked the part of a mourning funeral-goer. It was natural by now.

He lowered his hand and stood beside me, silent.

“Family?” I asked, and nodded to Jerry.

“Friend.” He cleared his throat. “We played tennis together. You?”

“Um,” I said, and this is what I lived for. My blood began to race with my upcoming lie. “He and I had sex on occasion.” I hoped to blush. I looked up to see his reaction and it seemed he was blushing, but I wasn’t.

Several awkward silent moments passed, until he whispered behind me, “How was he?”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, in bed.” I turned around and smiled. Jerry’s tennis partner was staring at the floor, like a child who’d just asked his mother where babies came from. “A lot like he is now, actually.” We both chuckled like school kids.

“Wasn’t much good on the tennis court, either,” he said. “It’s a bit sad, don’t you think?”

“Death is always sad,” I said matter-of-factly.

“So you don’t know him, either?” he said in a loud whisper.

“Pardon me?” I turned around to face him, hoping my face wouldn’t give me away. It never had before.

“It’s okay. Neither do I. We didn’t play tennis together. I’ve never seen him before today. Look among us. Half these people are here just for the free food.” I scanned the room as he spoke. In the room full of faces, I saw distinctive people, many whom I’d seen before. But I didn’t know them. Nor did they know me, but that didn’t stop them from gazing at me, all at once. Looking back down at Jerry, I thought how depressing it’d be to be upstaged at your own funeral by meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Hopefully, my family won’t have to bribe people into coming to my funeral with potato salad and chicken. Roasted chicken. Not the cheap stuff.

“It’s not about the food,” I told him, feeling embarrassed, caught with my hand in the cookie jar, or in the casket, so to speak. “What gave me away?”

“Overcompensation. A woman like you would never sleep with an old fuck like that. Not unless he was good in bed. I’m guessing the only thing that could make him stiff is good old rigor mortis.” I turned to face him, to actually see the words coming out of his mouth. Simply astounding! I couldn’t believe I was caught so red handed, but in catching me, he’d given himself away, too. His familiar face smiled again and looked right at me.

“If you’re thinking I’d rather sleep with a young fuck like you, you’re dead wrong.” I was never one to mince words.

“Nice to meet you, too. I’m Ben, by the way.” He extended his hand, and it was a bit cold to touch. His name, unlike his face, didn’t ring a bell.

“Elaine. Maybe that’s why I recognize you. Were you here last week for Mrs. Hoyt?”

“Actually, no. This is my first time.” Again, he was the embarrassed one, looking to the floor in an almost guilty way. “The others, they told me about you. Said you don’t mingle much.”

“How do they know me?”

“Just by looking. It isn’t that hard to figure out, really.” I thought about it. Crashing funerals had never been about the people to me. It was all about myself, and how I might handle myself if ever the incriminating question should land my way. Now that I thought about it, I did remember these people from other funerals. They were like a traveling book club, waiting for people to kick the bucket so they could have a meeting. But for all of these people I remembered, I couldn’t put my finger on exactly how it was I knew Ben. There was a number of places I might have met him. In a bar. At the hospital where I worked. In my own bed, maybe. I seemed to remember him in a horizontal position. But perhaps that was just wishful thinking. “You look so familiar. Excuse me for being so forward, but have we ever slept together?” I asked him.

“I’d like to think you’d remember, if we had.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just that… ”

“If it’s a pressing desire, we can slip away into the coat closet.”

I laughed until I realized he wasn’t joking. I wanted to wipe that mischievous grin off his face, until I felt that feeling again. That sense of life, of being, of real aliveness that I longed for. Oh, what the hell, I thought. He‘d already caught me thrill seeking, so I needed another outlet for excitement. “Okay,” I said, hoping he wasn’t bluffing. “Follow me.” And I headed away, towards the closet full of the grievers’ coats.

Now this… this was living on the edge! I felt alive like I never have before.

We began kissing and undressing frantically. Several times our eyes met and I knew, each time I looked at him, that I’d seen him before. But somehow I didn’t know his eyes. Those orbs of deep brown I swear I had never seen before. He pushed his cold hands up and beneath my dress, and his body pushed me up and against the dark wall of the closet. I undid his belt, his pants, his zipper. When he entered me, my arms went around his back. My fingertips grazed the cotton of his fabric suit, and it seemed for a moment that they slipped inside and under his jacket.

We rocked against the wall, sweating against each other. The coatroom was dark, but I could see orange lines running lengthwise down his face from his temples. He struck me as the vain sort, but until then I never would’ve guessed he wore makeup. “Elaine,” he said when I began to tighten up around him.

“Ben?”

But he had nothing to say. His orange dripping face kissed mine, and I grabbed onto him tightly. My hands slipped further into his back, almost into his body, as it were.

We reached orgasm together and held each other tight as we did. The moment was beautiful. We felt as one. Together. Passionate. Alive.

“That was great,” I told him when we let go. “But I think I ripped the back of your suit.”

He laughed, grabbed my hand and walked back into the viewing room.

Jerry was still there, hadn’t moved. In our tryst, Ben and I hadn’t missed a thing. The others were there too, watching us as we walked beyond them. I caught a glimpse of Ben as he walked a half step ahead of me. The tear in the back of his suit was no ordinary rip. It extended all the way down his back and once I saw it, I realized I couldn’t have made it.

An older gentleman brushed past me, greeting me softly. I somehow knew he was one of us, so I smiled. But as he stood beside me, I saw that the back of his suit was torn as well. I wouldn’t have noticed it had I not been looking, and it overlapped so as not to expose any skin.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d almost say both tears, and the tears I now saw on the backs of many of the familiar faces, looked like tailor made hems. Like suit coats and dresses had been let out for some reason.

“Ben?”

He turned to face me and when he did, I looked deep into his face. I remembered now. Yes, I knew how I knew him after all. Only I didn’t know him, really. I remembered him lying down, and his eyes closed, lying in this room, in a golden box like our friend Jerry. Ben looked down at me with his brown eyes now open. The others, among us, looked my way and smiled, as if welcoming me to their group. Ben put his hands around my waist, then slid one upwards, and fully inside the slit in the back of my dress. His hand met my skin in coldness.

I no longer felt alive.

THE CLUB

Brad Hunter

Bridgette stepped out of the glass shower; tendrils of steam followed her like ghostly hands, engulfing the tiny bathroom. She breathed deeply, exhaled, and wrapped a white towel around her glistening body; her pert thirty-four C breasts kept the cloth from slipping. Bridgette pushed her hair back, then swiped her palm across the cool glass of the mirror. The condensation vanished in a watery streak, revealing her pale, smooth face and…

Bridgette gasped; it was about all she had time to get out before a hand, clad in a leather glove, clamped firmly over her mouth, stifling any further noise. Staring wide-eyed into the mirror, she saw a hooded figure draw next to her ear, then felt his breath—hot and coarse—against her tiny hairs.

“You scream, you’re dead. You struggle, you’re dead. Understand?”

The instructions were simple. Bridgette nodded—as much as the firm grasp allowed. With the initial shock over, she tested her arms, they were bound tightly against her body by a thick, obviously male arm. Suddenly, with a quick, powerful move, her whole view changed. Bridgette was forced to bend at the waist, her head went down, cheek pressing hard against the porcelain counter; she grunted. At the same time, both her wrists were pulled back and behind her, bound by the attacker’s large hands.

“Agghh.” It wasn’t quite a scream, but she had to release the pain.

Holding both her slender wrists in a single hand, the man used his other hand to push Bridgette’s head harder into the countertop. “Shut the fuck up,” the voice hissed with venom.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m… ” the pleas turned into blubbering. The sobs seemed to bother the man and he gave a final hard push; Bridgette quieted down.

His hand untangled from her wet hair and head, and moved to Bridgette’s towel. He flipped the cloth up onto Bridgette’s back, exposing the cold, still wet skin of her behind. “No! No, please!”

The hand returned to her head, winding up a thick chunk of hair, then pressed her back into the counter. Her breath hitched against the force. The man used his feet to kick apart Bridgette’s legs. She almost slipped on the wet tile, which elicited another grunt of pain. The grunt was returned with further pressure to her skull. Feeling his point had been made, the hand released her hair.

It was hard to hear over the pounding of blood in her temples, but Bridgette was sure she heard the sound of a zipper. Then it was unmistakable as firm, hot flesh pressed itself up against the tender folds of her labia.

It was going to happen, finally; she’d let the hysteria build up in her and then released it in a stream of pleas. “No, no, no, stop! Please, stop!” Her voice was frantic and cracking.

The attacker ripped Bridgette’s arms upward in an unnatural manner. Her head slammed down against the porcelain, hard this time—a direct contrast to the simply firm pressure he’d applied before. Simultaneously, the attacker’s engorged member tore into her, searing her loins. She screamed in pain.

“Agggh! No, shit, stop. Please, God, make it stop!”

Suddenly all the pressure was gone and Bridgette found herself being pulled up and turned around. “I’m sorry, you ok?” the man said, removing the hood to reveal a slightly chubby, red-cheeked man. He put his hands on her shoulders, looking concerned.

“Goddammit, Walter!” Bridgette yelled. “Are you fucking serious?”

“I… I thought,” he stammered, cursing himself for blowing it. “I thought you were hurt. You sounded hurt.” He raised his eyebrows as if the statement would make sense and alleviate him of any failure.

“Of course, I was hurt,” Bridgette said, the volume leaving her voice. “That’s the point, Walter. I want to be hurt. I want to be pushed to the limit.” She stared into his eyes; her voice was disappointed, not angry. “You said you understood. You said this time would be different. I mean,” her voice started to rise again, “of course I need to yell. It makes it real. Yelling is normal in a rape fantasy. That’s why we have the safe words. What’s the safe word, Walter?”

“Apples,” he said, sheepishly, adverting his eyes.

“Apples, Walter,” she said, adjusting the towel to properly cover herself. He really wished she would stop saying his name. He felt like a poorly trained dog. “No one accidently says apples when they’re being hurt. That’s why we use it. If I want you to stop, I’ll say apples.” She breathed heavily as if it would release her stress and frustration. But it didn’t; alcohol didn’t work, food didn’t work, and deep breathing didn’t work. Bridgette knew what she wanted. “Apples,” she said one last time, opening the bathroom door and exiting into the bedroom.

“We can start again,” Walter said, struggling to the put the mask back on, following behind her, wanting desperately to please.

She squeezed her wet hair into the towel and sighed. It wasn’t his fault, really, he just didn’t get it. Not many people did. He volunteered because Bridgette was hot and he wanted action. But they weren’t a compatible match. So far she hadn’t found anyone that was. Even though Walter wanted to sleep with her, the desire alone wasn’t going to make him good at her fetish. “No, Walter. It’s ok.”

He winced at the sound of his name again.

“The mood’s kind of over. I just want to be alone.” She smiled, trying to be kind. She did feel bad about coming down on him so hard, he didn’t know that his second failure was actually the eighth time her role playing scenarios had failed.

“Ok,” he smiled. He took off the gloves and stuffed them, along with the mask, into his back pocket. “Call me, ok? See ya later.”

She waved him off knowing full well that Walter would not be getting a call.

Fifteen minutes later, Bridgette answered her cell. “Hello?” she said dejectedly.

“Oh, you answered. Not a good sign. Guess I don’t have to ask how it went,” Stacy, her friend from college, replied.

“Yeah, don’t bother, there’s not much to tell. Guess it’s frozen dinners alone tonight.”

“Screw that, girlie, there is still time for you to get your ass down here and make something of tonight,” Stacy shouted over the din of whatever club she was at.

“Where?” Bridgette asked with apprehension in her voice. She was not in the mood for clubbing. She was tired of looking for men. Tonight had been the icing on the cake. She didn’t even know what she wanted anymore. Obviously, the goal was a loving relationship. Who didn’t want that? But what was the point of a relationship when the sex always ruined it.

“I’m at Trans.” She strung out the syllables, hoping to entice her friend. “If you’re looking to find a replacement freak for the night, this is the place.”

Bridgette sighed on the inside. She hated that word, she wasn’t looking for a freak, and it bothered her that her own friend used the term. What was so wrong about what she was asking for anyway? People had all sorts of fetishes; why was hers such a turn off to the men she’d fallen for? Yes, Bridgette had fallen in love a few times, only to be crushed when it came to sexual encounters. Relationships were supposed to be built on trust, and when the men would finally ask: what can I do to make you feel great? She always told the truth, and it always backfired.

“You want me to pretend to rape you?” one had asked, astounded. “What is wrong with you? That’s a serious crime!”

“Look, I don’t know, Stacy. I’m tired.”

“It’s only 7:30,” she replied, her voice not as loud as before—she must have moved away from the music.

“No, not just tonight; I’m tired of this lifestyle. I’m thirty, I don’t want to go to bars and drink and dance all night looking for guys. We did that in college, it was fun, but…”

But what? She didn’t know; what did other people do for fun? Certainly there were better things she could be doing than drinking and searching for guys. At this stage, she was ready to resign herself to not being sexually satisfied ever again. After all, was it that important? She could just watch porn to fulfill her fantasies, that’s what other people did. It wasn’t like the whole world was getting off and it was just poor Bridgette that was the only person who couldn’t cum the way she wanted to.

“Oh, please! You just had a bad night, that’s all. You sound like you want to crawl into a hole and die. Jeez.”

“Well… ”

“Well, nothing,” Stacy cut her off. “I was gonna save this as a surprise for when you got here, but it seems to be the only way I’ll even get you here. I ran into someone; he’s the owner of a club that deals with, uh, how do we say, your fetish.

“A club? What are you talking about?”

“A sex club! It’s a long story; I use to know a girl who was in it. Loved it. You always reminded me of her. I would have given you her number, or the club’s number, but I haven’t heard from her in years. We just lost touch I guess.”

A club? Have I sunk to that? Bridgette thought. “I don’t think I’m the sex club type. That feels… ”

“What? Feels dirty? Hell, it’s safer than the schmucks you’re trying to train. These people are tested and protected; it’s a business. It’s got to be safer. Oh, hell, just get down here.”

Thirty minutes later, Bridgette was weaving her way through a sea of pulsating, sweaty bodies; men and women snaking around each other, gyrating to the constant boom of the bass music. Flashing lights swirled throughout the club, illuminating a cloud of smoke that hung about the revelers. Bridgette couldn’t understand the constant haze whenever she entered the club; smoking was only permitted outside and the light misting didn’t seem to come from any other source see could see—no fog machines. Just another oddity of Trans, like its many patrons.

The Goth and jubilant, mixing together. Women and women and men all holding hands—no judging. Triangles of meat, fondling on the couches that lined the walls of the club. Women in six-inch platform boots—laced to the knee—parading around in tutus, followed by men in latex. Piercings and tattoos. All shapes and sizes, and all types of fetishes. All were welcomed; no one judged at Trans. Everyone was sexy in their own way.

Yet Bridgette had never felt comfortable there, despite the supposed acceptance of all kinks. To her, these people were the freaks. Not because they were different. But because they hated the world of conformity; they so hated everything, that they dressed to the very pinnacle of outrageousness just to prove that they were different. To say: look at me! I live freely, I do what I want. As far as Bridgette was concerned, they were just as fake as any other clique she had encountered. She only ever came to this place because Stacy loved it, and of course, she got to people watch.

As she headed for the patio, Bridgette felt the dancers’ eyes on her. In the real world, the man in the dress would have been stared at, but here, in this upside down reality, it was her being stared at; in her plain black dress—although it showed much of her amazing cleavage—she was the odd man out, the freak.

She broke through the back walkway and into the night air, happy to leave the dancing throngs behind her. The music was reduced to a vibration under Bridgette’s feet and up ahead she saw Stacy getting extra friendly with a tall, skinny man wearing mascara.

“Bridge! You made it.”

Bridgette could practically taste the vodka coming off her friend’s breath. Damn, she’s already wasted. “Hey!”

“This is Robert,” Stacy said, introducing the make-up wearing man. They exchanged handshakes, and Stacy continued. “Ok, we’re all going to dance together, but before that, you have to meet this guy over—,” she turned, trying to locate him and suddenly the man was there.

Dressed in a dark gray suit, white shirt, and clouded in a storm of cigar smoke, the man extended his hand. “Ms. Todland,” the man said. “Your friend here has told me so much about you.”

“Oh,” Bridgette said, smiling. She took his hand, it was strong and his eyes were green and welcoming. “Only good stuff I hope,” she giggled.

“Of course.”

“Catch us on the dance floor when you’re done, Bridge.” And with that, Stacy left them to their business, dragging her new found interest back inside Trans.

“So, you work for the… uh, club?” Bridgette struggled.

“Yes.” The man produced a white business card with fine, raised lettering and handed it to Bridgette. “And I think we can help you.”

* * *

After the club, sleep did not come easily for Bridgette. She left early, and the few drinks she had at Trans did little to numb her mind before bed. Instead, she played through a million scenarios in her head, wondering what the right decision was.

The business card sat next to her phone on the bedside table while the man’s charisma and perfectly chosen words danced in her mind. More than five times she had picked up the phone, one time actually dialing five numbers before hanging up.

“We cater to no other kink than what women such as yourself desire, the man had said.”

“Really? I didn’t think there’d be enough demand for such a club.”

“You’d be surprised at how many women have fantasies such as yours. You’re really not alone, Bridgette,” the man had explained to her in a quiet corner table of Trans, far away from the throbbing music and sweating drunks.

“It feels like it sometimes,” she replied, suddenly feeling as if she were talking to a trusted friend. The man had a soothing presence about him.

“But you’re not. And you don’t need to feel ashamed. Our client list is extensive with women from all walks of life. Different ages, colors, & social status, but bound by one common sexual desire. A perfectly normal desire.”

A desire to be taken to the very brink of terror; bound and left helpless at the hands of a strong, commanding presence. But it was more than that. Yes, Bridgette, and women like her, pushed the limits, but it wasn’t for the pain necessarily. Some people got off on the pain alone, but Bridgette wasn’t one. It was more than the pain, although Bridgette could never really pin point it. Never really able to attach words or labels to it. Other people either got it or they didn’t.

Perhaps it was her rigid lifestyle since college; the professional world where she had to remain in control at all times, remain responsible and accountable to her bosses and customers. Maybe deep down she longed to lose all control, relinquish all responsibility to someone else. Or maybe it was the feeling that a man found her so beautiful, so sexy and perfect, that he was sure he was unworthy to approach her; the only way he could get with a woman like Bridgette sexually, was to physically take what he wanted. To ravish her the way he wanted, with no regard for her safety. But those were just theories, she really had no clue.

Bridgette had researched and found that some women accounted their rape fantasies to abuse or actual rape earlier in their life; these women learned that sex was suppose to be a forceful act and grew to embrace the violence of sex. But Bridgette had never been abused, which left her with more questions. And in the end, there was no one answer. No certain explanation.

But the man was right; she wasn’t alone. Whether it could be explained or not, many women had rape fantasies. And whether right or wrong—part of her knew there had to be a screw loose within her; it couldn’t be healthy to want to be harmed—she needed it.

The night’s conversation replayed over and over in her mind while Bridgette tried to sleep.

Too many choices; the ache between her legs cried to be filled. Bridgette’s hair begged to be pulled again and her mouth violated and gagged. And before she realized, the phone was in her hand, and her fingers were walking easily across the buttons.

* * *

There was no cost to women to join. She gave her consent that this was what she wanted and she understood what the club was. After the call there was nothing to do but wait. There was no set time. That aspect bothered her slightly.

But that was the thrill, wasn’t it? What she wanted; the total relinquishment of power. Never knowing where or when it would happen, pushing the boundaries till they nearly broke. And she was finally going to get what she wanted.

And with this knowledge, Bridgette lay in bed, trying her best to stay occupied and not focus on the one burning question that lingered on her mind: when would it happen?

The night passed without incident. And the following morning, Bridgette was early to wake, the weight of her decision pulling her from any possible slumber.

Before even being able to register the pre-dawn haze just starting to filter past the blinds, Bridgette thought of what she had done. Joined a sex club. The words still didn’t feel like her.

Perhaps she was wrong to judge the freaks at Trans, she wondered. Maybe they truly did accept who they were, maybe they were free, just like they said. They had no illusions of what they were. But Bridgette seemed to have mixed feelings about herself; torn between what she wanted and what she felt she was or wasn’t.

And now, before the sun had barely peaked over the horizon, she didn’t feel horny anymore. She wasn’t intoxicated by the liquor and the charming words or the club’s salesman.

“I’ll call,” she said to the empty room. “Simply cancel.”

She wiped the sleep from her eyes, rolled over and reached for the phone on the nightstand. The plastic receiver felt cold against her ear, but even colder, and more disarming, was the silence from the device. She reached over farther and depressed the switch hook with her fingers, released and waited. Still no dial tone. Dead. Her cell phone was in the kitchen charging and—

The gloved hand clamped over her mouth—hard. Her eyes went wide with panic, but before she could move on her own, her body was being turned over—tangled deep within the bed sheets—and she was on her stomach. A body moved on top of her, crushing her further into the mattress.

Déjà vu briefly as she felt hot breath against her ears. The body on top of her was grinding deeper into her, working its knee between her legs. The breathing intensified.

Walter?

The hand on her mouth was clothed in black leather. The steam building in her ear and the pulsating against her backside finally did it; slowly Bridgette’s fear began to melt away. Moist excitement began to build.

Was it Walter, or was this what she had joined for? Really, it didn’t matter. Either way, she was about to get taken, about to get fucked.

Over the heavy panting, she could barely hear the twang of a spring releasing its metal blade, but she heard his voice. “This is what you wanted, you fucking whore. Don’t think about resisting or I’ll make this hurt.”

Her body tightened slightly, the voice scared her, but it didn’t stop her juices from continuing to seep in the bed. It only heightened her anxiety over whether the man was Walter or not. The man was talking too gravelly—on purpose—to be clearly recognized.

Suddenly, the sheet was being cut away from her tangled legs. His hands released her throat, but he continued to keep her pinned with his body weight. Even with her mouth free, Bridgette didn’t scream. She thought about calling out apples, just to stop the charade and see who it was, but that would ruin the moment—and so far she hadn’t been able to enjoy a proper role play yet—, so she remained silent. A strip of bedding went over her eyes, tied tight at the back. Now blindfolded, the man pulled her arms back and bound the wrists in the same manner.

The position was not comfortable, but it wasn’t the kind of pain she’d experienced the other night when Walter pulled her arms backwards. Perhaps he was learning, or perhaps she had made a great decision joining the sex club.

The man was strong, in just a few seconds he was off Bridgette and flipping her onto her back. Hands went around her ankles, she felt herself skidding across fabric, and then nothing. Her ass was free in the air for a split second, her stomach tightened and then she fell. Bridgette let out a grunt as her behind connected with the floor; the blade was suddenly against her neck, cold and hard.

She pressed her back into the side of the bed.

“You have such a pretty mouth,” the mystery man rasped. The next sound Bridgette heard from behind her blindfold was the metallic zipper of blue jeans. A part of her wanted to reach out and grab the man’s bulge, feel its heat and weight in her hands, take her time and please him. But she didn’t dare move. He was in control, and that was what she truly wanted; she would feel him soon enough.

And feel it she did. Warm flesh rubbing smoothly over her lips. Bridgette clenched down as the man tried to slide his cock into her mouth, blocking his entrance. He pushed his rod twice more against her teeth. Bridgette held.

We’ll see how good this guy really is, she thought.

Suddenly the tender flesh was gone and back was the cold steel, this time against her cheek, and a strong hand. The hand forced her mouth open. “There we go. And you better play nice.” The blade tapped lightly against her check, “Or else I’ll give you a new smile.”

The hand and blade left as the man stood up, Bridgette could see the faintest of shadows through her blindfold. She knew it was coming and braced herself just before he plunged himself into her waiting mouth.

Bridgette heard him groan as his thick shaft slid further back into her mouth. He was long and she felt herself start to gag, she tried to bring her hands forward, then realized they were bound behind her. She let her head lean back until it was against the bed, but still he pushed, cutting off all air. Bridgette gagged again, and he slowly pulled out; saliva fell from her mouth and clung in long strands to his rock hard cock.

“You’re gonna learn to deep throat.”

With those words he was back inside her, not too deep though, still comfortable. Bridgette relaxed her throat, and focused on the man’s grunts and moans. She focused on the way his warm cock throbbed inside her mouth. The thoughts made her wet.

When he plunged deeper again, she swallowed him greedily. Taking his thick meat down into her throat, Bridgette massaged his shaft with the muscles of her esophagus. He gripped the sides of her head by her hair and pushed further. The cartilage of her nose pressed against his strong abdomen. He cried out and Bridgette braced herself for the onslaught of sticky cum, but there was nothing. With another cry he wretched himself free and picked her up. He turned her and bent her over the side of the bed.

With one swipe, he cut away the thong Bridgette wore to bed, exposing her backside, moist and vulnerable, to him. He leaned forward and stuffed the panties, wet with her own juices, into Bridgette’s mouth and tied another strip of bed sheet around both her head and mouth. Suddenly, Bridgette felt unsure. A hand over the mouth was ok. You could bite and give the safe words. Now she was gagged.

She tried to speak, to explain, but only muffled sounds escaped. The man leaned over her, his large cock pressing against the skin of her inside thigh. “Can’t have you screaming.”

The man grabbed the top of her hair and pulled her head back, simultaneously ramming himself into her tight hole. Bridgette was well lubricated with her own desire, but she was unprepared for the brute force of the man. She cried out against the cloth in her mouth.

He leaned over her again, cock placed firmly inside her, “This is what you wanted, you dirty whore, remember?”

This isn’t Walter.

Her pussy relaxed as he pulled out, but the relief was short lived. She was doubly unprepared for the pain as the man tore into her ass. Her natural juices, still slick on his penis, were not enough to quell the pain and she cried out repeatedly. Her attempts at safe words did not deter the man. She tried to push the gag off with her tongue, no use. Suddenly, she no longer wanted to be tied up, she didn’t want to be at anyone’s mercy or push the thresholds of pain and pleasure. She wanted to be back in bed, alone, safe.

She kicked back with her legs trying to strike the man, and then the knife was back to her throat, but it wasn’t threatening this time; it was slicing! The pain in her torn anus was muted as the blade drew across her flesh, severing skin. Warm blood began to flow down her neck. Bridgette froze with terror, not even trying to speak. The man pulled out of her and flipped her over. Weak and shocked, she slid off the bed, back into the position she maintained when he had violated her mouth.

Bridgette felt dizzy as the warmth continued down her throat, staining her white undershirt. Her only thoughts were from her friends and family.

Forget what you think you want, really think about it. What kind of a man would want to role play that way with you?

What kind of a person pretends to rape? It’s not just a sexy game. If they could pretend such a thing, they could actually do it. And if they could do that, what else are they capable of?

Not safe at all.

The blindfold was cut away and Bridgette stared into dead eyes surrounded by a black leather mask.

It wasn’t safe, she agreed. She didn’t even have the last pleasure of seeing his face. Not that it would have mattered. He was a monster, the mask only helped to hide his ugliness. But perhaps she was ugly, too. Damaged.

“Don’t pass out yet,” he rasped. “You thought I fucked your throat before, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

With endorphins rushing to the site, Bridgette barely felt pain as the man slid his cock into the bloody slit he carved into her throat. She felt pressure though as her cartilage began to crack, bloating as blood and trapped air bubbled. She faded to blackness just as the man pulled out and sprayed her face with loads of blood and semen.

“You got just what you wanted.” He whispered in her cold, dead ear. “And so did I.”

* * *

“Thank you, Mr. Black. I trust you enjoyed our pick.”

“Yes, perfect. Well worth the club dues. I sometimes ask myself why I pay so much to be a member and then, well, it’s mornings like these that remind me.”

The phone call ended and the charming man from Trans made a second call. “We need a clean-up crew at 1 Lexington Ave. The client is done.”

The man hung up the phone pleased with himself. He had created another perfect match. He only briefly wondered if the women—the thrill seeking, promiscuous women—, longing for the next high, found it when the client was through. They asked him for the roughest sex imaginable, they played with their lives on a daily basis; would this thrill be enough? Enough loss of control for them? Did his club push the boundaries enough for them? If death couldn’t provide it, then nothing would.

SECOND HAND GOODS

Natalie L. Sin

I acquired Bowie when he was fourteen years old. At least we think he was fourteen. Bowie told me that was how old his father said he was and showed me the tattoo on his right hip as proof: 10-4-91. As far as I was concerned, the tattoo only proved that Bowie’s dad was a bigger piece of shit than I had given him credit for.

If there’s one thing I know, it’s shit fathers. Granted, I never met my biological one. My stepfather was the only father figure I ever had. He used to come into the bathroom while I was taking a bath, grab my hair and shove me under water. I don’t think he wanted to kill me. He got off on watching me think I was going to die. A world class douchebag, no question. Next to Bowie’s father, on the other hand, my stepdad was fucking Mike Brady.

Though I never saw Bowie leave the apartment, I heard him getting beaten all the time. More nights than not, I fell asleep hoping the Doberman across the hall would break into the apartment and tear Bowie’s dad’s throat out. Unfortunately, Winky, the Doberman pinscher, was about as lethal as a hamster. I once saw him run away from a squirrel when he was out for a walk with his pothead owner. Calling the landlord wouldn’t have done anything either. The guy never left the first floor, despite also being the building super. Once a month, I slipped an envelope with the rent in it under his door for the privilege of having to fix my own plumbing and cockroach problems.

If I was younger, or more naïve, I would have called the cops. At twenty, I knew better. Assuming any police did show up, it wouldn’t have been happily ever after for Bowie. He would end up in foster care which, based on what I’ve heard, isn’t much better than the situation he was already in. Maybe that was all stereotypes and misinformation, but I wasn’t about to bet on it. Then one day the noise stopped. For three nights straight, I didn’t hear a peep from the next apartment: No beating, no tirades about how Bowie was a fucking waste of skin who was lucky to be alive. Nothing. I figured they moved. Maybe times got hard, and Bowie’s dad didn’t have money to pay the rent. I felt bad for Bowie, and more than a little guilty. When they were in the building, I could tell myself that if things got too crazy I would do something. Having that shred of control let me tell myself I was a decent person. With Bowie gone, all I could do was wonder how much worse life would get for him.

The knocking started on the fourth day. It came from the other side of my bedroom wall in sets of five, with a quick break in between sets. I walked up to the wall, to get the attention of whoever was making the commotion.

“Hello?” I asked.

The knocking stopped abruptly. I waited, but no one said anything back.

“Can you hear me? If you can hear me, knock again.”

One knock. This time I could tell it was coming from somewhere close to the floor.

“Are you all right? Knock once for yes, twice for no.”

I felt ridiculous, like someone in a bad spy movie. Then two knocks came back, loud and firm, and it started to feel a lot less silly.

“Are you alone?” I asked.

One knock. Then two knocks, close to together.

“Does that mean you don’t know?”

One knock. I decided that was enough; I was going over there. On the chance that it was Bowie’s dad, playing some kind of sick joke, I brought my mother’s electric turkey slicer. It was one of the few things she left behind, after my stepdad left and she went after him. That was almost ten years ago, and the checks from the government were still coming in the mail. I considered them the rest of my inheritance.

The door to Bowie’s apartment was locked, but it was a low quality one. The kind that would inspire most people to invest in a dead bolt. Like me, however, Bowie’s dad was cheap. I had the door open in no time, using two flattened soda cans with the ends cut off. The inside of the apartment was eerily immaculate. Everything was spotless, there wasn’t even a stray magazine on the floor, and the whole place had a fresh pine scent. I had passed Bowie’s dad a few times in the hallway and never pegged him for a clean freak.

Bowie was in the bedroom. His wrists were handcuffed behind his back, with the chain between the cuffs looped to a larger chain attached to the heater. Bowie’s mouth was taped shut, leaving only his feet to tap out their rough SOS against my bedroom wall. I could smell urine in the air, though it seemed he was able to refrain from any other bodily functions. Given how skinny he was, it might not have been much of a struggle. He looked scared when he saw the electric knife, so I tossed it onto the bed before I went to take the tape off his mouth.

Bowie said he didn’t know how long he had been there, other than “a few days.” Nor was he sure if his dad had been gone the whole time or if he was punishing Bowie for something.

“This isn’t punishment,” I told him. “This is fucking disgusting.”

I think he fell in love with me right then. I didn’t notice at the time; how do you tell when a fourteen-year-old gives his heart to you? Plus I was a tad distracted with figuring out how to get the handcuffs off. The key turned up in a change bowl, by the front door. Bowie was so light, that I was able to scoop him off the floor and carry him back to my apartment.

I had to keep him. I was afraid what would happen to Bowie, if I sent him away. I told him he could be my roommate, since I didn’t know what else to think of him as. I sure as hell didn’t think of him as my kid and looking at him as a little brother felt creepy. It took forever to convince Bowie that his father wasn’t fucking with him. It was simple science I explained, as weeks went by with no sign of the guy. The human body couldn’t stay chained to a heater indefinitely. Whatever happened to Bowie’s dad, he wasn’t expecting to come home and find his son alive.

Even after Bowie stopped jumping at shadows, there were other problems. Physically, he wasn’t that bad off. Regular meals and a bed to sleep in had him a foot taller and fifty pounds heavier within a year. Other matters required more time and patience: Bowie was completely illiterate, had never attended school, and appeared to have been socially isolated since birth.

I could only do so much education wise. While I did well in school, my parent’s disappearance forced me to drop out and made college a pipe dream. I managed to teach Bowie to read and write, and covered the rest with old National Geographic tapes and a set of children’s encyclopedias that I bought at a thrift shop. Bowie also watched a lot of television. We didn’t have cable, so selections were limited, but he seemed to really enjoy PBS. Cooking shows, in particular, fascinated him.

Since he couldn’t help pay for anything, Bowie did everything around the house. The way he cleaned made Martha Stewart look like a pig in its own filth. My olive green linoleum, which had been installed sometime during the civil war, gleamed when he was done with it. He also cooked, folded laundry, and made the beds. It was like living in a hotel, without the ridiculously small bottles of shampoo.

I don’t know if it was post traumatic stress or self imposed pressure to catch up with other people his age, but Bowie frequently had insomnia. Some nights, I would go for a drink of water or midnight snack and catch him on the couch with the volume turned off on the television. If he was still awake, I would join him and we’d watch reruns of bad talk shows and Court TV. As he got more comfortable around me, Bowie took to resting his head on my lap. He asked a lot of questions, especially during the talk shows. He didn’t get a lot of slang expressions or colloquialisms, having previously been exposed to a tyrant with a limited vocabulary.

“I don’t understand,” he told me one night, when the theme to an episode of Maury Povich flashed on screen.

“What part?” I asked.

Bowie squinted, and painstakingly worked his way around the words “Jail bait teens gone wild.”

“It means the show is about hot girls who are too young to have sex,” I told him. “Or guys. You never know with Maury.”

“How young is too young?”

“It depends on the state. Here it’s sixteen, so you’ll have to keep it in your pants a few more years,” I joked.

On screen, a young girl in a leather skirt called her mother a bleeped out word, probably cunt, and flashed the studio audience. Bowie and I got caught up in the show, as Maury frowned disapprovingly and asked the little tramp why she would want to behave so provocatively. I doubted she knew what the word meant.

Looking back, I can see the arc Bowie and I were on. Day by day, I was simply too close to it. The changes that happened did so gradually, so much so, that I might not have ever noticed them if one day Bowie didn’t decide to take a jump instead of a baby step.

It was October fourth, his sixteenth birthday. Later, I would wonder how long he had been planning what he did. Weeks? Years? Whatever the case, I woke up that morning with Bowie naked in my bed. He kissed me before I could say anything, not that I know what I would have said. I was surprised that he knew what to do with his mouth, and how sure he was of how to move his body. Only his hands seemed lost, like they knew where they wanted to go but not what to do once they got there.

I would like to say that I stopped him, but that would be bullshit. Sometimes, you don’t know what you want, until its tongue is in your mouth. I wanted Bowie to want me. I wanted to feel him between my legs, hot and ready. I came the first time, just feeling the length of him enter me. Bowie told me that he wanted to be everything for me, when I came again and he was still going strong.

“I’ll make you happy,” he promised.

I believed him. We spent the rest of that day in bed, alternating between making love and sleeping. During the latter, Bowie curled into me like a cat. I could see the tattoo on his hip, and a dull rage germinated inside me. It grew every time we kissed, or Bowie came inside me. I tried not to dwell on the dark thoughts, but I was angry.

Fate has a strange way of showing people its approval. If it wasn’t for the local video store going out of business, I wouldn’t have been out of the apartment the day Bowie’s dad came to claim him. I went down alone—Bowie never liked to leave the apartment, let alone the building—intent on picking a few movies up for him. On the way back, I came across a pile of someone’s ‘moving out’ crap on the sidewalk. It wasn’t an unusual sight. Lots of people preferred to abandon personal items and furniture, rather than have to transport it to a new place. Especially if the stuff was junk to begin with.

This wasn’t all junk. There was a bookcase in fairly good condition, a few wastebaskets, and three golf clubs. I didn’t know much about golf, but two of them had skinny heads and one had a big fat one. I took the fat one. I thought maybe I could buy some cheap balls and paper cups to play mini-golf around the apartment.

I noticed the apartment door was slightly open before I got to it. My body tensed, and my pace immediately slowed to cushion my footsteps. When I reached the door, I left the bag of VHS tapes in the hall and turned the golf club around so that the head was pointed up. As much as I wanted to rush in and see if Bowie was all right, I couldn’t be sure who else was in the apartment. They could have guns, which meant I needed to sneak up on them if I didn’t want to get shot.

I heard heavy breathing, the closer I got to the door. I recognized that particular staccato and my jaw clenched.

“Don’t you fucking move,” Bowie’s dad panted. “I’ll break your neck, if you fucking move.”

There was a rip of fabric followed by a heavy thump.

“Did you let anyone else touch you while I was gone?” He demanded. “Did you let anyone else fuck you?”

I was no longer concerned with strategy. I kicked the door open, and entered the apartment with the club drawn back. Bowie was pinned down, in a pile of his own shredded clothes. His father looked up, mouth agape, as I sailed the club into the side of his head. A hunting knife rolled out of his hand, and I quickly picked it up. Bowie’s father didn’t move. My first golf swing ever, and I had knocked the guy out cold.

He woke up in my bathtub, about five minutes later. I had taped his ankles and wrists together, but hadn’t gotten his mouth yet. Bowie’s father gave me a bleary look, which sharpened as soon as he laid eyes on Bowie.

“You fucking bitch,” he hissed at me. “Let me out of here!”

“No.”

I reached for the duct tape, and pulled out a foot or so.

“Did you touch him?” He asked. “Did you put your filthy bitch hands on him?”

“None of your business,” I told him.

Bowie’s father made a gurgling noise and hacked a wad of phlegm at me. I dodged to the left, and it splattered against the side of the toilet bowl.

“Do you know how much I paid for him? I sold my fucking car, and pawned my dead mother’s ring!”

I paused. “Excuse me?”

“Cute little boys don’t come cheap,” the man in the tub sneered.

“I’m not a boy,” Bowie whispered, from where his body was pressed against the bathroom wall.

The man I used to think was his father ran his eyes down Bowie’s body.

“You’ve still got some good years in you,” he told him. “I’ll bet you’re still nice and tight.”

I ripped the last piece of tape free, and slapped it over his mouth. He protested with angry grunts, until I held up the hunting knife.

“Are you going to behave?” I asked. “Are you going to be a good boy?”

He nodded frantically, his eyes wide. I leaned in and pressed a hand against his knee, to keep his leg steady.

“Tough shit,” I told him.

I read in some comic book, a long time ago, that people bled out if you cut their femoral artery. Since I wasn’t exactly sure where that was, I picked a spot on the guy’s thigh and sliced across it. I cut him one more time, for good measure, before I turned the shower on. It helped cover up the noises he was making and washed the blood down the drain before it could stain the tub.

When I turned to Bowie, he had a glazed look in his eyes.

“You don’t have to watch,” I told him, though I knew he would.

He shook under my lips, as I moved them down his body. Bowie was hard by the time I got down on my knees, and he made a grateful noise as I took his cock in my mouth. Muffled shrieks rose from behind me, accompanied by pounding against the sides of the tub. It weakened by degrees, until there was only the sound of water. A moment later I stroked Bowie’s hip, as his cum spilled across the back of my tongue.

THE CRAVING

Charlotte Nevers

Brains. Brains! Braaaaains!

They’re all I can think of. Nothing else satisfies me. Not the air I breathe, nor the soft dirt beneath my tattered, once pedicured feet or the cool, silent nights I wander under. Nothing!

Brains! They’re my only craving, my only desire. The intoxicating smell of the gelatinous organ makes my dead heart and once wet cunt feel alive again.

Alone I’ve been walking under the stars, across this field to only end up with a stomach as barren as the field itself. Nothing in sight, not a hint of… . Wait!

Something in the air, the wind has picked it up. Something sweet yet tangy. Something… . Brains!

Yes, just ahead. A small house, lights blazing in the windows. The aroma is getting stronger. I must reach the brains!

Nothing to see through the first window but an outdated, country kitchen. The second is not much better. The wind is stronger now and with it the smell. They must be along the back of the house.

Yes, yes! The bedroom.

Inside:

The room was aglow with candles. Muse’s Undisclosed Desires played softly in the background. A pale, brunette woman lay sprawled out across the mattress of a queen size bed.

The bathroom door opened and a half naked man came out, hair dripping wet.

“You gonna remove your towel or do I have to do all the work?” the woman asked.

“I was always taught ladies first, so you’re gonna have to wait, Mel” the man grinned.

“Oh, you’re such a tease, Rob. But I do think I like your idea better. Oil me up first?”

“Anything for my baby,” Rob smiled again, taking a generous amount of oil and rubbing it along Mel’s backside. He moved higher and rubbed the knots out of Mel’s shoulders. Rob’s calloused hands never hurt her but enhanced the pleasure of the massages he would give her.

“Can you go a bit lower?” Mel asked.

Rob slid his hands further down her backside. “How’s that?” Rob asked.

“Lower,” Mel cooed.

Rob then moved is hands to her smooth buttock, kneading it like dough.

Mel turned over and gave Rob the sheepish, excited smile that he fell in love with.

“How ‘bout you massage my front now?”

“A little risqué, don’t you think?” Rob chuckled.

“Nope,” Mel said.

Rob poured some more massage oil into his hands and rubbed them together to heat up the liquid. Then, he placed his hands on Mel’s soft, porcelain breasts. They were always his favorite feature of Mel’s, next to her eyes and smile.

He rubbed them slowly, using his fingertips to lightly graze the outline of her curves. His fingers twirled around her dark nipples, pinching them softly once they got hard. Rob knew that with a flick of his tongue he could send Mel reeling but he wanted to take his time.

He carefully moved his hands down her torso, caressing her stomach. Mel’s stomach was once ripped but had lost its tone over the years due to stress and work. But Rob didn’t care. He loved her anyway. They would always love each other, no matter what. ‘Come hell or high water,’ he always said.

“Lower,” Mel whispered.

“How about higher instead?” And with that remark, Rob moved up and pulled his wife’s lips to his.

Their kiss was hot, needy. Their love for one another evident with every breath of air they had to come up and take.

Rob’s hunger for Mel grew with each kiss. His hands started to wander along the front side of her body. He massaged her breasts again and quickly moved down to lick her nipples.

He continued his kisses down her torso and slowly removed her panties. He placed two fingers inside Mel first; feeling her hot, wet pussy pulsate for more.

Then, after he was satisfied she was more than ready, he buried his face in her freshly shaved vagina.

He licked her slowly, running his tongue up and down her outer labia. Mel’s breathing grew heavier and her legs started to shake with anticipation.

Rob moved in closer and starting licking her clitoris, ever so gently. Circling and teasing her clit with his skilled tongue. With every moan from Mel, his speed would increase. Up and down, side to side. His tongue was a slave, Mel’s vagina its master. It needed for more, demanded more.

Just when Mel was on the verge of exploding, Rob slowed down his pace and entered his two fingers into her again, his tongue moved back to her labia. Mel’s juices increased and when he was sure she was ready, Rob moved back to her clitoris. With a final flick of his tongue, Mel exploded.

Rob let her catch her breath for a couple minutes before he moved down again, licking her gently, then faster, giving Mel her second mind-blowing orgasm of the night.

“So how’d I do?” Rob asked.

“Oh, you did just fine. I think the whole county knows how well your performance was tonight,” Mel giggled. “Now it’s your turn.”

“Yes!” Rob exclaimed.

“My goodness, someone’s excited” Mel stated as she pulled down his damp towel.

Rob was up, out and ready to go. Drops of pre-cum already donned the tip of penis in anticipation for someone to lick them off.

Mel moved down to the floor and took her position, Rob’s cock facing her head on. She grabbed the base of his cock and slowly took it in her mouth. Heat and saliva overtook Rob.

Mel moved her mouth slowly, up and down Rob’s shaft. Her hand followed giving her blow job that extra touch. She twirled her tongue around his penis’ swollen head and then licked the length of his rigid member.

Gripping his hips, Mel took him fully into her the back of her mouth. She breathed heavily as she felt his pulsating cock fill her throat. Rob relished in the tight warmth of her mouth. Then, she slowly pulled away and decided to move further down.

Outside:

Oh, that sweet smell!

The smell, so  forbidden. So exotic, only certain people can explore it.

Yes. Yes! Only lovers can explore that smell. Explore the very essence of who we are.

I remember the feel of hands, the feel of hot breath, the feel of soft kisses and wet tongues.

I remember and I want that again. I need that again. My dried up cunt and dead heart can’t survive without it.

I need Brains!

Inside:

Mel slowly sucked on Rob’s balls, sending him to the brink of orgasm.

An explosion of glass sounded in Mel’s ears and she was knocked hard to the floor before she could finish Rob off.

As Mel rose to her feet, the most dreadful sight laid before her eyes.

An undead, red-headed girl wrapped her arms around Rob’s legs and bit down hard on his balls. Rob screamed as she pulled away from him, taking his balls with her.

Mel stood frozen in place, her body gripped in total shock.

The undead girl stood up, cum and blood dripping down her chin and looked at Mel straight in the eyes.

A muffled, “Brains!” was all that was heard from the undead girl as she leapt back out the window, intent on savoring her dinner.

THE B WORD

Rex McGuire

USA, 1983

Mei sat on the bus bench, her eyes and cheeks finally dry of the tears from earlier. All that remained of her emotional destruction was smeared mascara under a bloodshot, vacant gaze. The sun had set an hour ago, buses came and went, but in that time, Mei did not rise; the ten dollars her father gave her remained crumpled in her pocket, she had nowhere to go. And as far as her eighteen-year-old mind was concerned, she had nothing anymore.

Up until this morning, it had all been a game to her. She was young and carefree; things weren’t suppose to be serious when you were eighteen. She was living free, a way her father and mother—if she were still alive—never could. A way the rest of her small, Japanese neighborhood never could. She was living the American way. She had felt like a rock star, it was too bad she didn’t realize how hard stars fell.

Despite having dated Daniel Kim for almost a year, Mei wasn’t in love with him. He was companionship. A true friend more than anything else, but the chemistry wasn’t there, sexually; truthfully, when they finally had sex, it wasn’t hot at all. Mei had expected something amazing, like in the movies, and was sorely disappointed when the act was over. But Daniel was still a cool guy overall, she did like him, and most importantly, her father approved of Daniel. Despite his Americanized name, Daniel was still part of the neighborhood, and like all the families in their barrio tenement, his parents were Japanese traditionalists.

Mei had never considered herself unfaithful or a cheater. She and Daniel were simply dating. Dating wasn’t monogamy, right? It was those type of thoughts that Kim used to justify her actions. But she had been wrong.

* * *

5 days ago

“You know this is a small building. Everyone knows everyone and—”

“Aggh,” Mei interrupted him. “Don’t remind me. I want out of this place. I’m tired of my parent’s ways, this is not Japan, this is America.”

Hiraku smiled, “This is who we are. It’s no different than over on 5th street.”

Mei scrunched her face in confusion.

“On 5th it’s all Jewish families and Jewish traditions. America is a melting pot and these types of communities keep cultural traditions.”

Mei rolled her eyes; he sounded like one of her social studies teachers instead of a kid who just graduated. But that was Hiraku, he was the scholarly pride of his family. While Mei was excited at the prospect of the first summer since high school, Hiraku was already packing for university.

He sensed her frustration and shifted gears. He was lucky a gorgeous girl like Mei was actually hanging out with him, no other girl in the building had a thing on Mei and he didn’t want to blow anytime they could spend together.

“Well, America or not,” he started, “I thought you were dating Daniel Kim.”

Mei stroked Hiraku’s leg, brushing her hand dangerously close to the bulge that was forming in the fabric of his jeans. “We date on and off. Nothing serious.”

Hiraku wasn’t sure if he believed her or not, but the closer Mei scooted towards him—on his parent’s couch, both of whom were at work—the less he cared. And the longer she let her hand linger, the more frantic his hormones became.

“Besides, weren’t you with that Jessica Divers girl from school?”

Hiraku cringed at the name. He and Jessica, as well as Mei, all graduated from the same school. Hiraku had one date with Jessica, he enjoyed it, but after the verbal tongue lashing he’d received from his parents—and the fellow Japanese tenants—it wasn’t worth seeing her again. “That’s different. We went on one date,” Hiraku defended his actions.

Mei only smiled in response and closed the remaining space between their bodies. She wrapped her arm around Chang’s neck and brought her lips to his ear. “I can do things Jessica Divers can’t.”

Mei’s hot breath stood his hair on end. Hiraku’s back arched with excitement as her hot breath was replaced by her even hotter lips. Mei sucked his earlobe, biting gently, then ran her tongue slowly up the length of his cartilage.

“What do you want?” Mei cooed in his ear. She felt his body tighten with her words and she relished the power and control she wielded. A few choice words, kisses here and there and these sheltered Japanese boys turned to putty.

Hiraku knew what he wanted, although he had no idea how to say it. He wanted the same thing he wanted all throughout high school. It was something he’d never gotten except in dreams.

“I… uh,” Hiraku fumbled, unable to speak.

Mei rubbed his bulge again. “You have to tell me or I won’t know what to do.” She mocked pouting as if she were a confused child needing assistance.

It took him a few more minutes of petting before Hiraku worked up the nerve, but once he finally spoke up, Mei had no trouble slowly bobbing up and down on his short, fat cock. She smiled before taking his length, happy with her power.

Her devilishly skilled tongue was too much for the inexperience young man, and before long, Hiraku unleashed his warm sticky load into her mouth. Hiraku sheepishly tried to apologize, but Mei swallowed with a smile, wiping away some over flow from the corner of her mouth with a slender finger. “That was fun,” she beamed.

* * *

When she heard the doctor’s words, it felt like a dream, a movie. Surely, this was not her life; her life was fun and worry free.

* * *

4 days ago

“So, what did you do yesterday?” Daniel asked, going in for a kiss. As soon as the words came out of his mouth, he regretted them. He didn’t really want to know, plus he quickly regretted the kiss as Mei dodged, allowing him to only plant it on her cheek instead of the lips.

“Nothing really. I’ve actually felt a little sick these last few days.” At least part of her statement was true. She had been a little nauseous recently, although it hadn’t deterred her from blowing Hiraku. Perhaps it was the semen, maybe she should change to spitting.

Daniel sighed heavily; he’d been wrong for opening the conversation, but now that it was on the table, he wasn’t about to walk away that easily. He knew she’d been with Hiraku yesterday, at least that’s what he’d been told by some friends—and with some guy named Tommy from school the week before. And these friends had no reason to lie.

“Mei,” he sighed again. Daniel didn’t mind that she went out; he just wanted to know where he stood and to at least be told the truth. “I… I love you, you know that, right?”

“Don’t,” Mei stated firmly. “I don’t want to have this conversation right now.” She wasn’t cheating and didn’t want to be accused of it. She was eighteen-years-old, dating, and she loved sex.

“How would you feel if I went out with lots of different girls?”

She let her face soften. There was an easy way out of this, or at least a way of postponing the talk. Besides, it might prove to be fun. “Come here,” she said, grabbing his shirt and planting a soft kiss on his neck. “Don’t worry about it.”

Mei worked over his neck, feeling his tension melt away. She wasn’t stupid; even if she had fun elsewhere, Daniel was her bread and butter. He offered her a place to hang out when she didn’t want to be with her father in their cramped space. He bought her things, took her to dinner and the movies. Like Hiraku, Daniel was smart and had a good job. In the end, he would be someone good to settle down with, she just didn’t want to settle down yet. She wanted fun. So while Mei wasn’t in love with him yet, she was willing to throw him a bone now and then to keep the gravy train rolling.

“What can I do to keep you from roaming with other girls?” she giggled seductively. “Would this help?” Mei started slowly unbuttoning her white blouse. One by one, until her breasts were spilling out.

“It’s helping,” Daniel said, unable to hide his smile.

Without taking off her shirt, Mei undid her bra from behind and pulled it off; now, either side of her unbuttoned blouse just barely covered up her nipples, leaving the inside of her milk white curves visible.

Daniel felt his cock spring to life.

“I’m sorry if I upset you. You should punish me.” Mei turned and bent over the kitchen table, wondering if Daniel would really do something. Guys like Hiraku and Daniel dreamed big; their conservative upbringing bred wild desires. But they had trouble fulfilling those fantasies in the real world. Dreaming was easier.

Daniel looked around the apartment, half expecting his parents to come back early from work at the store. “Are you serious?” he said, choking on the words.

Mei flipped her skirt up, “Come find out.”

* * *

Mei whimpered into the cool night air. “This is not my life.”

But it was. She wanted to play the games, but she never suspected she could lose. Now, it was time to pay up. Eighteen and pregnant. Worst of all, she had no idea who the father was.

Although everyone had their suspicions, the whole building finally agreed: Mei was a whore. None of the guys would talk or look at her now, and her father was disgraced. Even the white boys from school, who loved to call Mei up, suddenly disappeared in just the three days since she informed everyone she was pregnant.

It was like a brush fire, she thought, the way information spread. How the mighty have fallen.

What surprised her the most was the reaction from the rest of her social world. Her world beyond the run-down barrio in which she lived. She loved hanging out with the American boys from school. And the American boys seemed to love her. In her mind, they fucked the right way, without shame. They way she thought sex should be. Hot and steamy, passionate. Mei thought it would be just her father, Daniel and the building who would shun her after the news. They were traditionalists; she was surprised to find that the Americans, the whites, she had so admired, were just as quick to drop a pregnant girl. With all their modern ways of thinking, it still seemed that no eighteen-year-old male wanted to get tied down with a pregnant girl. Perhaps they hadn’t shamed her the way the building had, but they dropped her just the same.

She chuckled softly from the hopeless irony. The baby was going to be white. She was sure of it. She’d only had sex with Daniel once and he was adamant about wearing a condom. Even the other day, after she bent over the table, had amounted to nothing but oral—same as with Hiraku. Maybe she would have had a chance if it was Daniel or Hiraku’s baby; but as it stood now, she was out. Daniel was furious, Hiraku was terrified that he’d caught some STD—not previously knowing that she’d been with a man—and all her father had given her was bus fare before he kicked her out.

“Be gone before sun down,” he had screamed.

That wasn’t love, Mei thought. Her father was just as bad as the other cultures he defamed. Just as bad as the genital mutilations in Africa, the honor killings in the Muslim religion… killing to preserve honor. She had to laugh. And America was just as bad; the death penalty: killing people for killing people.

It was her last thought before darkness washed over her. She didn’t even register the pain of being struck.

It was still dark outside when Mei’s eyes finally opened. Despite the moon, she could barely discern her surroundings. Her head throbbed and her mouth was dry; she tried to move but felt pressure on all sides of her body.

A shrill voice pierced her ears; Mei winced at the harsh Japanese dialect. She recognized her name and a few other words in the speech, but nothing concrete. She blinked, her vision started to clear, and in the moonlight she could make out several figures standing above her.

Above her?

Mei struggled again. Only her head moved; she tasted sand.

I’m buried. Oh, my God! Where did they take me? I’m buried up to my—

The voice cut her thoughts off, more Japanese words of hate. She caught her name again and the other words were for dishonor, and lechery, or unfaithful. She couldn’t be sure.

“Please, I’m sorry. Help me…” She tried switching to Japanese, struggling to pronounce her words correctly, hoping to reach her captors.

The voice ignored her pleas and continued. Mei knew that these people—five figures in all—, whoever they were, were from her building. She was still too dazed from the blow to her head to recognize the voice.

Could be Daniel.

Could have been anyone, their faces were hooded, further scrambling the voice. Then Mei noticed that the figures were not just standing there; they were moving, but Mei couldn’t really be witnessing what she thought she saw.

She recognized another word, one that only the American boys had used. Something brand new in movies, perhaps? It was a B word.

Mei forced herself to concentrate, strained her eyes and focused. In horror she realized she was right, her captives were fondling themselves, masturbating as they shouted insults at her.

The B word again, Bukkake; but this time, Mei remembered what it was. She remembered just before the first hot load splattered across her face; the man grunted heavily.

“Please, no! Daniel is that—”

A second cry broke her words off and yet another jet of sticky sperm landed on her face; this one hitting her straight in the left eye.

“Aggh” she cried. It burned and blinking was doing nothing to relieve the pain. She wanted to wipe the spunk away, but there was no chance of her breaking free of her sand encasement.

Mei’s sanity shattered as three more loads of man juice, a substance she had once cherished, threatened to drown her. She thought it couldn’t get any worse; then, through sperm-stuck eyelids she saw the blade. It’s steel glinted in the moonlight; a razor sharp katana. Deep below the sand, Mei soiled herself with fear.

She remembered what Bukkake was, what it really was—or at least what it was rumored to be—, back in Feudal Japan.

It was more than just mass ejaculation. More than just public humiliation. Sometimes it even ended in death; death to those who were unfaithful, those who were sexually shameful—cheaters.

And despite what Mei told herself, she was a cheater.

Mei closed her eyes as the blade swiped across the sand. In her vision, the moon turned upside down—the last image on her retina—as her sperm-soaked head rolled across the sand, turning the soft white grains red.

About the Authors

James Beamon writes because he has to… and he can’t find anything worth watching on T.V. But he doesn’t need T.V. when his wife is a muse and his son is amused by the stuff he makes up. And the cat… well, the cat’s not a fan of speculative fiction but has learned to attack on command. James calls Virginia home but his IT work takes him all over the globe. A quick peek into his mind and latest projects can be found at http://fictigristle.wordpress.com

Kenneth Whitfield’s work has appeared in the comic anthologies: Death Rattle, Trailer Park of Terror and When Drive-Ins Attack!, the prose anthologies: DemonMinds and Gone With the Dirt: Undead Dixie, and online at Horror Garage. He currently resides in North Carolina and is working on more dark tales.

Jason Andrew lives in Seattle, Washington with his wife Lisa. He is an associate member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and member of the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. By day, he works as a mild-mannered technical writer. By night, he writes stories of the fantastic and occasionally fights crime. As a child, Jason spent his Saturdays watching the Creature Feature classics and furiously scribbling down stories; his first short story, written at age six, titled ‘The Wolfman Eats Perry Mason’ was rejected and caused his Grandmother to watch him very closely for a few years.

Natalie L. Sin is a horror writing living in the Midwest. Her work has appeared in numerous print and online publications including The New Bedlam Project, The Red Penny Papers, the upcoming Nocturnal Emissions Anthology (Library of Horror Press). When not writing Sin enjoys too much coffee, and Japanese rock.

MP Johnson pukes up stories about monsters and weirdos. He is the mastermind behind Freak Tension fanzine, which covers punk rock and things that eat brains. His horror stories have appeared in a wide range of underground books and mags. Find out more at www.freaktension.com.

JD Stone is the pen name for Daniel Fabiani, a native New Yorker with a bullet mouth and sharp opinion. His stories have been featured in Sins & Tragedies, Pill Hill Press, Library of Horror Press and more. He’s writer currently disguised in scrubs at his day job, but is breaking out as a journalist. You can contact him at: SolitarySpiral@gmail.com.

Gregory L. Norris lives and writes at the outer limits of New Hampshire. A former columnist and feature writer at Sci Fi, the official magazine of the Sci Fi Channel (before all those ridiculous Ys invaded), he once worked as a screenwriter on two episodes of Paramount’s STAR TREK: VOYAGER series. He is the author of, among others, The Q Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Alyson Books) and The Fierce and Unforgiving Muse: A Baker’s Dozen from the Terrifying Mind of Gregory L. Norris (Evil Jester Press, 2011)

Kenneth E. Olson has published the stories “Remember Me” (with artist Chris McJunkin, with whom he also co-created the comic book Ninja Garden), in Dark Horrors Anthology #1 from Arcana Press, “Hope Eternal” (with artist Olli Hihnala) in Mysterious Visions After Hours #1 from Dimestore Press, “Endless Embrace” in Being Magazine and “Depths” on the Stargate website. He lives in Minnesota with his wife Emily, his two children Gage and Morgan, three hamsters, two fish, and a dog named Lucky.  He also believes a raccoon may be living under his deck, but makes no claim of it as a pet.

John McNee is employed as a reporter for a local newspaper on the west coast of Scotland. In his spare time he writes horror fiction. He is a firm believer that the maxim “truth is stranger than fiction” only applies to those suffering from a severe lack of imagination. His work appears elsewhere in the anthologies: D.O.A., Ruthless, and Gospels of Blood, Psalms of Despair, as well as in the online and print versions of Sex and Murder magazine.

Eden Royce is a stockbroker some days and a writer most nights. She tends to “genre-hop” by including horror, erotica, sci-fi, and paranormal mystery in her stories. This is her second Blood Bound Books publication after Seasons in the Abyss. She also has several short stories with Pill Hill Press and erotica with Oysters and Chocolate. Visit her at her website, www.edenroyce.com, where she plans on… well, you’ll see.

Brad Hunter writes extreme horror under various pen names, hoping  no one will figure out just how sick he is. This is his second Blood Bound Books appearance.

Larissa Alloway resides on the plains of Wyoming. She writes flash fiction and short stories of varied genres, and is close to completing her first novel. Phantom Deposit is her second story to be published.

Chris Reed is the author of more than 70 short stories. His work has appeared in a variety of small press publications including Black Ink Horror, Tattered Souls, and Midnight Echo. He is also the writer/creator of the underground mini-comix, Used Addictions and The Adventures of Lil’ Pube, both available on Facebook. When not writing and drawing, he enjoys browsing thrift stores, waiting for hockey fights to break out, and eating way too much pizza.

KV Taylor hails from the foothills of West Virginia, but currently lives in the DC Metro area with her husband and mutant cat. Her short fiction can be found at kvtaylor.com, and her first novel, Scripped, is forthcoming from Belfire Press in Summer 2011. She edits for Morrigan Books and collects The Red Penny Papers in her dining room.

Jacquelyn Summerset is a 29 year old book lover whose time is spent writing, drawing, and searching the dark places of the universe. She hopes to return to school and receive her A.A. in English Lit. and to spend some time in the Peace Corp. You can find her at : http://earthlinglife.blogspot.com/.

Lawrence Conquest is British, which may account for his odd sense of humour. He is also avowedly celibate, especially when it comes to zombies. His story ‘The Face in the Sand’ (published in Night Terrors) received an honourable mention in Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year 2010, and his horror-comedy-superhero novella ‘Feeding Ambition’ is forthcoming from Blood Bound Books.  More info can be found at www.lawrence-conquest.blogspot.com.

Emily Veinglory typically writes gay romance or high fantasy. Sometimes she writes something completely different. This is one of those times.

Rex McGuire lives in The City.

Jenny Corvette is a freelance writer living in Michigan. She’s been published at Ruthie’s Club, Sex-kitten.net, Associated Content, oystersandchocolate.com, raunchytaters.com, and she will have 5 short stories published in print anthologies published by Twin Trinity Media next year.

Tonia Brown lives in the hills of North Carolina with her fantastic husband and an ever fluctuating number of cats. She likes fudgesicles and coffee, though not always together, and has a penchant for Victorian dead things. You can learn more about her and her moniker, Regina Riley, at www.thebackseatwriter.com

Charlotte Nevers is a short, quiet woman with a wild imagination. She mostly enjoys spending her time weaving dark tales in her small, cool office or curling up to a good book with a tall glass of wine.

The Blood Bound Staff:

Marc Ciccarone

Joe Spagnola

Theresa Dillon

Karen Fierro

Special thanks to Richard Ciccarone

Copyright Information

Copyright © 2011 by Blood Bound Books

All stories in this book have been published by the author’s permission. All stories are copyright by their author. Cover art by Andrej Bartulovic.

Visit us on the web at:

www.bloodboundbooks.net

Anthologies from Blood Bound Books:

Night Terrors: An Anthology of Horror

Unspeakable: A New Breed of Terror

D.O.A.: Extreme Horror Collection

Seasons in the Abyss: Flash Fiction Anthology

Rock ‘N’ Roll is Dead: Dark Tales Inspired by Music

Novels & Novellas:

Scarecrow & The Madness by Craig Saunders & Robert Essig

At the End of All Things by Stony Graves

Feeding Ambition by Lawrence Conquest

Monster Porn by KJ Moore

Content

Blood Bound Books
Presents
STEAMY SCREAMS
Anthology of Erotic Horror
Edited by Jack Burton

LIFE TO THE LIFELESS Lawrence Conquest

DIRTY LITTLE FISH STORY Tonia Brown

PINS AND NEEDLES Jacquelyn Summerset

SHADOWGIRL KV Taylor

THE LIBIDONOMICON Gregory L. Norris

HAG RIDE Eden Royce

PHANTOM DEPOSIT Larissa Alloway

MOFFAT BOUND Jason Andrew

KILLER NAILS MP Johnson

BLACKOUT Kenneth Whitfield

A WITCH TO LIVE James Beamon

ELECTRIC LOVE Chris Reed

DEAD DEANNA John McNee

THE HUNTRESS Emily Veinglory

MOONLIGHT RIDE Kenneth E. Olson

QUEEN OF THE NIGHT JD Stone

AMONG US Jenny Corvette

THE CLUB Brad Hunter

SECOND HAND GOODS Natalie L. Sin

THE CRAVING Charlotte Nevers

THE B WORD Rex McGuire

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