Joseph Farley

Screw Job

Satan was seated cross-legged on the rug in his office. He had asked his secretary to hold all calls.

The walls of his office were made of fire as was the door, but the rug was pleasantly cool, woven from the wool of his own legs. The rug was specially designed to remain cool enough to keep most plastics from melting.

Satan was playing with a Barbie doll. He loved playing with Barbie. He felt the toy was one of his greatest inspirations. How many young girls had suffered body image issues and low self esteem from having played with Barbie, the ideal girl? How many boys had seen images of Barbie and grown up with expectations of finding a woman with such unrealistic proportions?

What pleasure their misery had brought Satan over the years.

So much pleasure, Satan had developed his own infatuation with dolls, even curating his own collection. Every once in a while he felt the urge to play with them. He would tell his assistant to hold all calls and lock the flaming door to his office.

The lord of the underworld combed Barbie’s hair with a tiny pink comb. He clothed her in a stunning white and yellow sun dress.

He had her stand outside her doll house waiting for Ken to pull up in her convertible. Barbie had loaned it to Ken since he had a new job and needed a way to get there, but her boy toy did not seem in any hurry to return it to her or purchase his own vehicle.

Satan held Barbie in one hand and Ken in the other. Ken was dressed in a crisp white tennis outfit with shorts. Satan had Barbie and Ken talk with each other.

“Nice car,” Barbie said with a hand on her hip. “Looks familiar.”

“Yo, babe,” Ken said. “I appreciate you lending me your car. I’ll get it back you to you as soon as I can, but my job has me on the go. I need wheels and I don’t have enough for a down payment for my own. Plus, you know my credit is still shaky after the bank foreclosed on my beach house. It’s hard squeezing the contents of a house into a studio apartment.”

“I thought your house was condemned by the county because it was missing a wall.”

“It was, but they changed their mind. An architect concluded it was part of the design.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Barbie sighed.

“What do you mean?” Ken asked. “I still lost my house.”

“But maybe I won’t lose mine. My house is also missing a wall. Not all the time. It has a big set of hinges in the middle. The whole thing opens up for the world to see at the most unexpected times. Like when I’m walking around naked. Then everyone passing by can see what I am up to.”

“Why don’t you move?” Ken shrugged. He was starting at Barbie’s breasts.

“I’ll never get a house with a view like this.”

“What do you mean?” said Ken as he swivelled his head from left to right. “It looks like hell around here. You can do better than this.”

“I’m not Brain Surgeon Barbie. I’m just Vacation Barbie. This is the best I can do.”

“Why don’t we move in together,” Ken suggested. “Two can live more cheaply than one.”

“Is that a proposal?”

“Hell no. I like my freedom.”

Barbie thought about it, and answered, “You can move in if you can get out of the lease for your apartment.”

“Hot dog!”

Barbie cautioned him, “But don’t expect any sex.”

“What?” Ken said wide-eyed. “You know I’m squeaky clean. I don’t even have genitals.”

“Neither do I.” Barbie answered. “I don’t even have nipples.”

“Very frustrating, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Barbie nodded. “But I have a confession to make. Although I do not have nipples, a vagina or an anus, I do have a hole between my legs.”

“Wait, you have a hole down there?” Ken pointed to where the space between Barbie’s hip sockets.

“Satan put a screw in the crotch of G.I. Joe.”

“That bastard!” Ken shouted.

He turned his head towards Satan. Satan had a big grin on his face.

“What did G.I. Joe ever do to you!”

Ken turned away from the Prince of Darkness and looked back at Barbie.

“The poor fellow!” he said. “G.I. Joe is a good friend of mine. It must have hurt when Satan gave him that screw. I wondered how it got there. I always thought it was a war wound…”

“You knew about the screw?” Barbie asked.

Ken nodded, blushing a little.

“Yeah, but what’s it to you?”

“That bastard G.I. Joe used his screw on me. He raped me.”

“Shit! You’re kidding me…”

Barbie shook her head.

“I would not kid about a thing like that.”

“Tell me how it happened,” Ken asked quietly. He put his arm around Barbie’s shoulders.

“G.I. Joe came over one night,” Barbie explained. “He was drunk. It was very late. He banged on the door until I let him in. We had met before, at a toy show and exchanged numbers. Gone to lunch, shopping. I told him it was just friends. I liked him, but not that much, and I had told him that you and I had been dating for a long time.

I don’t know why I let him in that night, but I did. He kept raving about the horror. I thought he was having some kind of flashback to the war. He used to talk about the war a lot. A lot of his friends had died fighting Cobra or the Nazis or in Vietnam or Iraq. I’m not really sure where he fought. It all seemed to blend together. He had uniforms from different eras and combat zones, so it was hard to tell. But he just kept raving, so I tried to calm him down.

Next thing I knew he had me down on the rug. He screwed me. Drove that damn thing right through my dress and into the plastic.

It hurt like Hades the first couple times. After that I didn’t feel anything. I was just sort of numb inside. He screwed me over and over all night long. He left in the morning. I would have cried if I had tear ducts. I have been avoiding him since then, but now I got a hole between my legs.”

“Why didn’t you contact the police?’

“I couldn’t. You know they are all G.I. Joes or action figures. Those guys stick together.”

Ken squeezed Barbie.

“I feel for you,” he said softly. “I understand. More than you would think. I have a confession to make.” He paused, turning his face away from her, gathering courage.

He took a deep breath, and told her. “I have a hole in my butt. G.I. Joe screwed me, too.”

Barbie pulled away from Ken and put her hand over her mouth, “He screwed you? When?”

“About a month ago while we were out hiking. He was in camouflage jungle gear and a back pack. I was wearing shorts and a red plaid shirt. I had these nifty boots.”

“What happened? Was he drunk? Did he attack you and hold you down?”

“Something like that.” Ken hesitated. “I don’t remember. All I know is we climbed up this embankment onto this plateau covered with wild flowers in bloom. The weather was spectacular. I was really getting off on it, and so was G.I. Joe. Suddenly he turned to me and suggested we take our clothes off and hike in the nude. I thought well, what the hell, it will help with my tan.”

“Yeah, and then?”

“So, we were hiking naked. That’s when I saw he had this screw sticking out from his groin area. I asked him what it was. He said, ‘What do you think it is? It’s a screw.’ I asked him what it was there for? That’s when it happened. We were out there by ourselves, no one else around. He just came at me, threw me down. He’s a big guy.”

“I know,” Barbie nodded, “and then he screwed you?”

“He screwed me all right. He screwed me good…”

“Maybe we should go to the police anyway. That’s two people G.I. Joe has done this to. We have to stop him before there are more victims.”

Ken shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Those Joes, I don’t think they’ll listen to us, not when we are accusing one of them.”

“We have evidence. We have our holes.”

“They’ll say we did it to each other with a hammer and nail.”

Both of them grew silent for a moment.

Barbie asked him, “Do you know where G.I. Joe has gotten to?”

“Last time I saw him he was at my apartment,” Ken told her. “He came over last night and screwed me. He was still in bed when I left for work.”

“He screwed you again?”

“He’s screwed me at least twice a week since we went hiking.”

“I can’t believe it!” Barbie exclaimed. She threw her hands in the air. Not literally. She just raised her arms. “You and G.I. Joe? I thought we were a couple?”

“We are,” Ken said, putting his arm back around her. “You know we were always meant to be a couple. It’s fate. I think it is what both of us want as well. It’s just that, I do not have a screw, but I do have a hole. It was simpler when it was just the two of us and neither of us had screws or holes, but things have changed.

It’s much more complicated. I didn’t know you had a hole. I only knew I had a hole and that G.I. Joe had a screw. Maybe we can still be a couple, you and I without holes or screws, or maybe I can get a screw or we can both get screws. Anyway, things are different now. I’m still the same Ken I was in most respects, but in other ways I have evolved.”

Barbie stared Ken in the eye.

“If Satan gave you a screw, would you use it just on me or would you use it on G.I. Joe as well?”

Ken shrugged.

“I can’t say. I don’t know. My heart says I would just screw you, but if I had a screw I might think differently. The screw would change me. I would be part screw.”

“I bet you would screw G.I. Joe,” Barbie said coldly.

“But he doesn’t have a hole.”

Barbie snarled, “It didn’t stop him from screwing me, or you for that matter!”

“You’re right,” Ken said. “Maybe I would screw him. But as I said, I don’t have to get a screw. You could get a screw.”

“Why would I get a screw? I’m a girl.”

“Just think about it,” Ken argued. “What if you did have a screw? Would you use it just on me since I have a hole, or would you use it on someone else?”

“Me?” Barbie replied. “If I had a screw I’d use it on G.I. Joe, for sure. I’d tie him down and screw him until I made a big hole in him, then I’d keep screwing him until the plastic in his ass melted and oozed out in drops. Then I’d spit on him and ask him, ‘How do you like it now that you know what it feels like?’ And then I’d walk away and leave him to rot.”

“And then what would you do with your screw? Would you screw me?”

Barbie thought about it.

“Maybe. I guess so. If I couldn’t get it removed.”

“So what should we do?”

There was silence as they worked out the logic.

“Maybe we both get screws?” Barbie suggested. “Maybe I won’t keep mine forever, just for a little while. Just until I pay back G.I. Joe.”

Ken thought about this possible arrangement.

“Can I screw G.I. Joe too, while he’s tied up?”

“Sure,” Barbie smiled, putting her arms around Ken’s neck. “Why not. We’ll make it a date!”

The dolls turned and gazed up at Satan.

“So what do you think, Satan?” they shouted. “Can we get screws?”

“Don’t worry,” Satan chuckled, “I’ll make sure everyone gets screwed.”