Fortunate One

“Hey baby, come take a ride in my T-bird.” Jimmy took the last drag off his smoke and tossed it on the ground near the little cutie’s blue sandals. He scoped her body from that sparkly pearl polish on her toes up to her high waisted short shorts. He paused at her knit tube top, which matched her sandals, and settle on that unimpressed frown she wore on a pair of juicy pink lips, which were wrapped around the red plastic straw of a Slush Puppy cup. He licked his lips, thinking she probably tasted like cherry slushie and cotton candy too. 

That’s how most of the high school girls tasted in the summer time, and they all smelled like cheap drug store perfume, heavy on the coconut and tangerine. He liked that just fine. Trashy was his world, and these young ladies didn’t have enough life experience to know that a man living in his car and drinking Jack straight from the bottle was bad news. 

Jimmy had two things going for him. One, his good looks. Like James Dean and John Travolta were lovers then some how one of ‘em pushed out a puppy. And two, he had the gift of the gab. That was thanks to his uncle, Tony the Wop. His whole family were wops, if he was being honest, but he didn’t do honest so much. He liked to fancy himself one of them hispanics from across the border. The girls liked them better. Something about them being seen as ethnic instead of grifters.

The girl pulled down her Ray-Bans and gave him a gander. Jimmy flashed his teeth. He liked to show off his gold caps so the girls knew he had money even if he didn’t. 

“Who you calling baby?” she said. 

Jimmy cut the engine. John Fogerty belting “It ain’t me,” over the radio fell into silence. The distant tinkling sound of the merry-go-round and drunk carnival revelers filled the car.  

“Well, I fancy that’d be you, baby. What do you say?” Jimmy stroked the leather seat beside him like he was caressing a woman’s thigh. 

“Not interested. Thanks.” But she didn’t budge just the same.

“And why not?” Jimmy craned his neck, taking a gaze around the drive-in parking lot, then behind her to the fair. “You telling me these jock boys with their varsity jackets and heads square enough to shove in a socket got more to offer than Jimmy? 

“Jimmy is it? I heard of you. You come into town creeping on high school girls.” 

“Creeping, huh? No. You got a look about you. That blonde hair like a halo.” He crossed himself. “I wouldn’t steal an angel from the lord and savior. Now, I don’t know what you heard about me girl but I just wanna be friends. My intentions are pure.” 

“Mhm,” She mumbled skeptically and crossed her arms. “Like they were with Carolyn Deary?”

“Can’t say I know that name.”

“How about Hannah Jeffrey?” 

“Not that one neither.” 

The girl rolled her eyes and looked like she was fixing to walk off.

“Look baby, you got me wrong. I swear. Come in my ride, we’ll have a nice private chat and clear things up straight.”

“You wouldn’t try to take advantage of me?” 

“Cross my heart, baby girl. Anything you don’t want, I ain’t offering. I mean, you might just change your mind, and I’m not gonna promise I can say no to you. Because oof…” Jimmy made like he was outlining her body with his hands. 

“Aren’t you 25?”

“I seen 26 summers to be exact, but I can’t see how that means nothing.” 

“Maybe ‘cause I’m jailbait.” 

“Like Carolyn and Hannah?” 

“Thought you didn’t know them.” 

“I don’t. Look your age don’t bother me.” 

“It should.” 

“Tell you what, we drive up to the old mill, look out on the valley, pop a little Jack in your slushie. We’ll have a good time.”

“Daddy told me not to get the car with strangers.” 

“Daddy ain’t here baby, and you’re big enough to make that decision without daddy’s help. I can tell.”

“Think so?” She put her hand on her hips and flashed him a grin. She liked that.

“Oh I know. Come on baby what do you say?” 

“Maybe I am, but maybe my answer would be, no thank you mister.” 

“Ooh what I gotta do to get you in my car, huh? Didn’t you hear from your girlfriends Jimmy’s a lot of fun?” 

“I heard you gave Hannah the Clap.”

“Ain’t true. None of it.” 

She leaned against the car. Jimmy reached out and stroked her shoulder. She shrugged his hand off like he had leprosy. “You been framed, huh?” 

“Yes, ma’am. I am an innocent man.” 

“Innocent, huh?” She leaned her elbows on the window frame and popped her head in the car. She gave Jimmy a sniff and assessed the car’s interior.

“Everything check out? Yeah, she’s a cool ride. Smooth too. Come give her a test run, baby.”  

“You even know who I am?” 

Jimmy scratched his chin. “Billy or Betty. Something like that.” 

“Bobby. Bobby Sue Constance.” 

“Yeah, that’s right. See I knew that. You coming, baby?” 

“I tell you what, Jimmy. I accept your invitation and go for a ride, there’s two things that’s gonna happen.” 

Jimmy slammed his fist on the steering wheel and squealed.   

“Hot dog, girly. You got it. What do you need?”

“I’m choosing where we go for our chit-chatting.” 

“Fair enough.” Jimmy was already thinking about pulling that periwinkle tube top over his neck and wearing it like a collar while they tested the suspension. He leaned over and opened the passenger door. 

“You listening, Jimmy?” 

Jimmy popped his head back over to the drivers side.

“You still standing there? Get in girl.” 

“You haven’t heard my second conviction.” 

“Sounds a touch churchy but shoot.” 

“No kissing. No cuddling.” She leaned in and ran her fingers down his nose and shoved one in his mouth. “And no caressing.” Jimmy let out a sweet little whimper like a puppy at the teat. She hooked his bottom lip. “Understand, baby?” 

“Uh-huh.” Jimmy nodded. 

Bobby Sue dragged her fingernail out of his mouth.

“Good, I’m young enough to get you tossed in Folsom.”

Jimmy sucked his lip and tasted blood. Watching that fine little vixen strut around the front end of his T-bird, Jimmy’s heart started flapping in ways it never had before. She dragged that nail across the hood and kept her eyes on his. He didn’t care none if she scratched the paint. This girl was his kind of woman. 

She crawled in and blabbed on about going this way and that. Jimmy went through the motions, turning the wheel when she said, stopping at a red light when told, nodding the affirmative while she smirked and sucked that slush puppy. Jimmy was busy eating up the way her shorts crawled up her thighs like panties, and thinking about the trouble they could cause if he convinced this sugar plum to run off with him. Jimmy had never considered taking a girlfriend, but Jimmy and Bobby. Now, that had a nice ring to it. 

Now don’t be a fool, Jimmy boy. This girl’s pushing seventeen. Maybe. Ooh but the way she lifts her brow when she glances my way. She’s no angel. No sir. She could be my little devil. 

“Cut the engine right here, Jimmy.” 

“Well then, we’re in an alley, baby.” Jimmy peeped the light flickering over a rusty metal door, looking like the back entrance to a slaughter house. The far end of the alley was walled up with bricks. No doubt, this place gave him the creeps, but he had to admit it was cozy. 

“Not quite as romantic as the old mill, baby.” 

Bobby threw off her belt and put her feet up on the seat. She sucked the last of her slushie noisily and grinned.

Jimmy’s eyes went places they shouldn’t with a girl saying “no touching” and the like. He wiped his mouth. “Ooh girl. You’re asking me to break my promise, aren’t you?” 

Bobby kicked off her sandals. Those bare feet slithered across the seat then wriggled around his leg like a python. 

“I have done no such thing.”

“What are you playing, little lady?”

“I’m getting you into trouble.” She pressed her foot into his manly business.   

He moaned. “Oh mhm, you are, girl.” 

Jimmy took a gulp of Jack. The warmth spread through his chest and tingled his head. He passed the bottle to Bobby then massaged her foot. She held the bottle out, wagging it from side to side. Not taking a drink. Just watching him with a naughty grin. 

Jimmy crept over, sliding his hands up her thighs, and laid a kiss on those cherry lips. She shoved her tongue his mouth and twirled it around like an expert. 

“Ooh girl, you’re delicious like strawberry cream. I wanna taste the rest of you.”

“I said no, Jimmy,” she whispered. 

“Your body’s telling me something else, baby.”

He went in for another kiss, to which she obliged. 

The alley exploded with light like an asteroid burning up in the atmosphere. Jimmy cocked his head like a rooster and felt his retinas sizzle. Blinding white like search lights. They started to dance around the interior of the car.  

“What in the hell you suppose that is, baby?” Images of little gray men pranced through Jimmy’s head. He was not a man to lose his cool but this was something.  

The passenger door opened behind Bobby. One of the spotlights blasted Jimmy directly in the face. 

Bobby. Were they stealing her for one of them experiments? 

Jimmy pawed around trying to keep hold of his little treasure. No way space men were stealing this morsel from him. He found her breasts in the confusion and said, “Bobby, baby, you feel me?” 

A hand closed around the collar of Jimmy’s shirt. The damn space men had infiltrated the drivers side too. An arm wrapped around his chest. The grip was firmer than he expected from someone who spent all their time on a space ship. Jimmy squawked. 

“Shit, help me, girl. Them aliens got me.” 

Bobby didn’t scream. She didn’t kick up a fuss. Nope, the girl sat there giggling. 

The landing lights shifted behind her and Jimmy saw a face. Not a green sickly face with black bug eyes over a pinched, lipless mouth, but a thick black mustache and a peaked cap. Bobby looked at Jimmy and smiled. She handed the bottle of Jack to the officer behind her and said, “Hey Daddy.”

“Hey Honey. What kinda trouble you get into?” 

“None Daddy, but this big man was looking to do impure things to me.” 

Jimmy felt like he’d taken a bullet in the chest. This girl was bad, badder than him, no doubt. Two officers pulled him out of the car. One of them saying to Jimmy, “you must be some kind of stupid parking out back of the station.”  

They dragged his ass around the trunk toward the street. He craned his neck trying to catch one last look at that naughty vixen.

Bobby’s father, chief badge on his hat, helped her out of the car. The beating in Jimmy’s chest came to a full stop. 

Look at me baby. You’re gonna break my heart.

Bobby sashayed around the back end of the car like a pointy tailed succubus and tossed Jimmy a smirk. 

Jimmy fought the arms around him but it was useless. He resigned himself and screamed, “Bobby Sue, I love you.”

The Flu

Sunday morning Bob set the kitchen clock behind an hour like Lisa, his wife, had asked him, moments after she gave him a blow job, while he sat at the kitchen table having his morning coffee. He wanted to come on her face, but she wouldn’t let him because she had already put her make-up on for the day. Instead, she lifted her shirt and let him pop on her tits with a paper towel in hand.

On Monday morning, the same time he left for work every day, he noticed there was something different, but it didn’t register that it was darker, the sun was barely up. Bob’s brain felt lazy, slow to fire. He had stayed up way too late watching dwarf porno online. Most men had fantasies about a threesome with two women. Bob’s fantasy was to make love to a pretty little woman with stubby legs and a hairy bush. He fantasized that she was passing through town with the circus.

Late Monday afternoon his manager told him not to work too late. Bob groaned and continued to stare at his computer screen. “I got to get this done,” he said.

“It’s a full moon tonight,” the manager said.

“I know,” Bob said. Everybody knew. They announced it all day long on the radio, before and after every commercial break, before and after the news and weather, and before and after every song. Any idiot knew there was a full moon tonight.

Bob’s phone rang. He answered quickly. “Bob here.”

“It’s dark out! You’re still at work?!” Lisa screeched.

“What?” Bob said. “I’II be right home.” He hung up the phone, and quickly logged off his computer. “Bob, you dumb shit!” he yelled at himself. How did I forget that it was no longer daylight saving? What kind of stressed-out moron forgets a thing like that? Me, that’s who. Stress. It plays on your mind in many subtle and covert ways. It sneaks up on you and causes disaster, sometimes a heart attack, sometimes a stroke. This time the danger is much different.

Bob had no one to blame but himself.

“Don’t stay too late. Remember. It’s a full moon tonight,” his manager had announced over the intercom after lunch.

No shit dumb ass.

Lisa called him around four o’clock in the afternoon, “Make sure you leave before dark.” 

“I know, got to go. Busy. Love ya.”

Now, a couple of hours later Bob walked out of the building into the light of the full moon. It was sharp and bright in the clear, crisp autumn night. Conversations from the day buzzed around his mind. His coworkers, George and Monica had prattled on about the Flu and everything everyone already knew about it. How it makes you emotionally and physically hypersensitive. It turned the mildest mannered individuals into violent psychopathic sex fiends who would be in their glory if they could beat you after they screw you, or even vice versa. That was how it got the nickname, FFF, Fight and Fuck Flu.  

“Awe, sonofabitch,” he in uttered, and all the implications of his blunder came into focus. This was bad, very bad. “You get me out of this one, God, and I’ll…” Bob didn’t want to commit to church every Sunday. That was unrealistic, and God knows that would be a lie. “I’ll, I’ll. . .” The list was too long and unattainable. “Please God,” was all he could say. 

Bob ran to his car, the hard leather soles of his shoes cracked on the street and echoed through the buildings.

Damn these shoes! Why didn’t I wear my sneakers? Those with the FFF have acute hearing. He was the fastest runner in high school. From then, his fitness had gradually gone downhill until this moment when he labored out of breath with every weak stride.

About a couple of blocks away, he heard the howl, the excruciating half-human bleat of someone inflected by the FFF. Bob knew how fast they could run, the distance they could cover in a hurry. The mutation caused by the FFF with the catalyst of the full moon made them physically superior but not immortal.  It was very similar to lycanthropy, being a werewolf.

No distance was a safe distance.

Terrified and exhausted, Bob limped to his car. 

I’m not going to work tomorrow.

The car beeped when he unlocked it. It sounded as loud as church bells to those with the FFF.

His hand was shaking, so he found it difficult to put the key in the ignition. A deep breath gave him a momentarily steady hand. The car started, and he was on his way home. Things were looking up. Before he pulled onto the street, he popped open his glove box and grabbed his 9mm pistol.

On a normal day of the week, there would be traffic, others commuting, but tonight because of the full moon, there wasn’t a car in sight. Without stopping, Bob turned left on a red light onto Hwy 14 across the marsh towards home. The full moon looked brighter in the dark marsh. 

Bob’s risk was less now. Those with the FFF didn’t go after fast moving vehicles, even as crazy as they became. His next worry was when he got home. He would have to slow down to pull into the driveway and into the garage, and that’s why the gun was next to him. Bob heaved a sigh of relief, thinking he would probably get home safe, as the song Riders on the Storm came on the radio, and it eerily became background music to his life. 

Up ahead Bob saw something on the road glittering in his headlights. He was on top of it before he realized what it was. When he saw the jagged edges of broken bottles, it was too late. His two front tires blew violently and immediately, so he pulled his limping car to the side of the road.

“Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!” Bob groaned. He squeezed the steering wheel until his body shook with self-loathing. Then he banged on the dash one time for good measure. “God, you must want me fucking dead!” He yelled at the ceiling of the car. He grabbed his gun and checked the clip. It was full. He looked up and gave a disgruntled, “Thanks.” Then he dialed 911.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” the female voice asked.

“My tires blew on Highway 14 as I was crossing the marsh. There are shards of glass all over the road.”

She didn’t ask what he was doing out on a full moon. There was no judgement. “Are you in imminent danger at the moment?”

“Do I see anyone with the Flu? No, not yet.” He didn’t tell her he was armed, because he didn’t have a permit to conceal and carry.

Then the dispatcher said, “We are getting multiple calls about broken glass causing flat tires. We believe it’s those with the Flu causing this. I need you to keep your lights and radio off. Make as little noise as possible, and we’ll get an officer there as soon as possible.”

“Busy night?” Bob asked.

“Always on a full moon,” she said.

“I lost track of time at work. Forgot it wasn’t daylights savings.”

“You’re not alone. Be safe sir. Good-bye.”

Bob didn’t like her “good-bye.” She said it like no one would hear from him again.

He quickly texted his wife to let her know his predicament and that he didn’t call because he had to be as quiet as possible. 

“Oh, no,” she texted with a sad emoji.

“The police are coming,” he texted back.

She replied with a smiling emoji.

In the distance, Bob couldn’t tell how far, he heard a chilling howl. It cut loud through the heavy dark. Bob looked at the clock in his dash. Only fifteen minutes had passed since he left work.

The car felt stuffy, so he cracked open his window to get a little fresh air. The buzzing cacophony of insects in the marsh sounded very loud to him. The howling stopped, but there was the shuffling sound of feet on the asphalt road near the car. Bob stared intently into the darkness, but before he saw anything, there was a rap on the passenger side of the car and a strained gravelly voice called his name through the crack in the window. “Hey, Bob.”  

“What the fuck!” Bob startled and pointed his gun at the window. 

“It’s me, George from work.”

“What the hell are you doing out here?” Bob rolled down the window to talk to George, but when he took one look at George’s bulging eyes, slobbering jowls, and pins of coarse hair all over his face, Bob rolled the window right back up.

“Roll down the fucking window!” George shrieked. 

“You got the Flu, George.”

George pounded and pawed at the window. Bob waited for it to break, ready to shoot the moment it did. George gave up on the window and kicked the door. It pissed off Bob as much as frightened him.

“Stop kicking my goddam car!” Bob yelled.

“Come on out, so I can fuck you in the ass and cum on your face, you pussy!” George yelled and leaped onto the hood of the Corolla. George’s vertical jump impressed Bob, since George was a chubby guy that moved like a sloth at work. But Bob knew it was the FFF that gave George the spring in his step.

“Get off my car, George,” Bob ordered and pointed his gun at him through the windshield.

“Go ahead, shoot,” George dared. “If you miss, the windshield will still break, and I’ll be standing over you with my dick in your mouth.”

“I won’t miss,” Bob said. He stared into George’s pus-filled yellow eyes and felt sorry for him.

“It doesn’t matter anyway. You’ll have the Flu soon anyway,” George snickered.

“What?” Bob asked.

“She fucked you too, right?” George slurped and drooled onto the hood of the car. 

Bob shivered from the chilly reality of the situation. 

“Who?

“You know who. Pammy-poo that’s who,” George tittered then snapped. A shot of fury jolted through George’s fevered body. Dirty infected hormones multiplied and blasted through his veins.

“Oh shit,” Bob said. He had not used a condom when he had sex with Pam. 

“Oh, shit is right, buddy boy,” George said excitedly. “But she sure was a good fuck, wasn’t she?” 

Pam, the woman from the Milwaukee branch, came to town to give a seminar last Friday in the Sunset Hotel conference room. Later in the bar after a couple of drinks Pam whispered to Bob, “I know you want to fuck me.” Pam was short and chubby with stubby legs and small breasts. She had a cute bookish face with big glasses. Her dress suit was gray and drab and all buttoned up, but when she tossed her clothes off, and Bob saw her bushy dirty blonde snatch, he got as hard as concrete. She was as close to Bob’s dwarf fantasy as he had ever come. Bob was so turned on by her, he popped twice, one in the mish position with her heels pinned to her ears and the other from a voracious blow job. Afterwards, Bob took a quick shower to rinse her off before he went home. While he was in the bathroom, she yelled, “I’m going back down to the bar.”

“I’ll be heading home. It was nice seeing you,” Bob laughed. He wondered how long it was before she brought George up to her room. Even before someone went through their first full moon transformation, the infection caused nymphomania. 

George dropped his pants and exposed the purple head of his erection. He massaged his balls and slapped his dick against his belly before he wrapped his hand around it and stroked it vigorously.

“Stop it! Stop it! Or I swear to God, I’ll shoot you, George!” Bob knew what was going to happen, and it happened sooner than he thought. He hardly had a chance to react before George was ejaculating all over his windshield with three hefty ropes.

“Oh, baby!” George bellowed. “There ya go motherfucker, take it all.”

“You asshole, George. You were an asshole before and you ‘re asshole now,” Bob said.

“You want asshole? I ‘II give you asshole,” George said, and as an encore he turned his ass towards Bob and sprayed muddy light brown diarrhea all over the windshield. It gushed out in one huge spurt.

Bob gagged. Irate, he jumped out of the car and shot George three times in the chest. The gunshots blew George off the hood of the car. Bob had to walk around to the other side to see him. George was lying on the ground, pants at his ankles, and his dick was still erect.

“Oh man, you didn’t have to shoot me,” George groaned. “I was only having a little fun. I wasn’t going to hurt you. I just wanted a little piece. I’m horny as hell.”

“You would have fucked me to death, George,” Bob said. He still aimed his shaky gun at George.

“Am I going to die?” George sobbed. 

“I don’t know. I think so,” Bob said. 

“Could you do me favor?”

“What?” Bob asked.

“Suck my cock?” George asked with a raspy laugh and placed his hand over his crotch before he died.

Bob stared at the moon and heard the ear piercing sirens approaching. He felt a little tingle in his groin and the urge to kick someone’s ass.

The Second-Hand Painting

‘Not much gothic rock, is there?’ Ophelia said, placing a CD on the counter.

‘We only stock what people donate, dear,’ the old woman replied. ‘I could check the stockroom?’

‘Yes, if you wouldn’t mind.’ She watched the cashier hobble away.

Ophelia swept her nail-bitten fingers over the mood rings and slid one onto her wedding ring finger. It shifted from blue to amber under the shop’s dreary light.

From above the counter, painted green eyes watched her. She gazed at the portrait of a rugged gentleman dressed in a black frock coat. He stood tall beside an ornate chair, and his scarlet lips twisted into the grin of someone who knew her darkest secrets. Fucking eerie, she thought. I must have you.

‘I’m sorry, dear,’ the cashier said. ‘No more CDs.’

‘Never mind.’ Ophelia pointed. ‘How much is that painting?’

The cashier turned and removed it from the hook. ‘There’s no price on it, dear. I don’t think it’s for sale.’

‘Nonsense,’ she said. ‘It’s all for sale.’

‘There’s always a price,’ the cashier said, scratching her chin.

Ophelia snatched the painting by its ornate, gold frame and inspected it. ‘Did the tag fall onto the floor?’

The cashier wheezed as she bent over to search for the price tag.

Ophelia scribbled a number on the back with her eyebrow pencil. ‘Oh, here it is,’ she said. ‘Two pounds.’

‘A bargain,’ the cashier said.

Ophelia returned to her shabby apartment building. In the hallway, Albert stopped her.

‘Doing a bit of Christmas shopping?’ he said. His blubbery lips curled into a smile that revealed his nicotine-stained teeth. ‘I hope you didn’t spend too much on me?’

‘Albert, you got the rent?’

‘Yes, I got it,’ he said. ‘But you’re looking too skinny, so I brought you some homemade lasagne.’

Ophelia unlocked the door, and he followed her inside.

He set the plastic container on the coffee table. ‘Need me to hang that painting?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ll manage.’

‘Oh, don’t be silly. That’s a man’s job,’ he said. ‘You want it in the bedroom?’

She propped the painting against the small couch. ‘No, it’s going in the hallway.’

‘Well, it’s decided,’ he said. ‘I’ll fetch my hammer.’

The night came with relentless, drumming rain. Ophelia settled into her dinner routine with a horror film.

‘I have a special treat for you, Mister Nosferatu,’ she said, and forked sardines from a tin into her cat’s bowl. Her black Siamese devoured the pungent fish as Ophelia dug into the lasagne.

In the television’s flickering light, she plucked a curly dark hair from a mouthful of bland béchamel sauce. She examined it and gagged. That’s the last time I accept anything from that frog-faced fucker.

The alarm clock showed three in the morning. Ophelia writhed in her damp bedsheets. In her dream, the painted gentleman lingered at her bedside. He leaned in, his soft lips brushing her earlobe. ‘I must have you,’ he whispered. His fingertips trailed through her thick pubic hair. She inhaled a sharp breath as his fingers slipped inside her and massaged her vaginal wall with a gentle rhythm. Red patches bloomed across her pale stomach. He climbed onto the bed, and her pelvis arched to meet his erection. It filled her up and sent her heart rate into overdrive.

It was almost ten-thirty when Ophelia woke to the persistent buzz of her doorbell. She dressed in yesterday’s clothes and answered the door. ‘Yes, Albert?’

‘Filia, I must apologise,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have commented on your weight.’ He handed her a bottle of white wine. ‘Here, I brought this for you.’

She spotted the one ninety-nine sticker price. ‘Thanks?’

‘Are you okay?’ Albert said. ‘You’re quite sweaty. I didn’t interrupt you polishing the pearl, did I?’

‘No. The apartment is too hot,’ she said. ‘It’s the radiators.’

‘Well, get the kettle on, and I’ll check the valves.’

As Albert tinkered with the radiator, Ophelia spied on him through the cracked bedroom door. He held her worn briefs to his bulbous nose and slid his fat tongue along the stained gusset. She covered her mouth with her trembling hand and rushed to the kitchenette. ‘Is it fixed yet?’ she called.

‘Not sure,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to call a plumber.’

At night, Mister Nosferatu pawed at the snowflakes swirling past the front window. Ophelia drained her glass of Albert’s vinegary wine and stood before the painting.

‘Visit me tonight,’ she whispered, and wandered to the bedroom. The room spun, her vision fizzed with vibrant colours, and she fainted.

An hour later, her eyes snapped open to footsteps thudding in the dark. She pulled herself off the floor and noticed a silhouette crouched in the hallway.

In a raspy voice, it said, ‘You’re such a disappointment, girl.’

‘As I told you on your deathbed, Mildred, go to hell.’

The silhouette dragged itself upright and stumbled backwards towards Ophelia. Its hand scuffed the wall and created an agonal gasp.

‘You can’t hurt me anymore. It’s all a dream.’

The shadow inched near. ‘I’ll see you soon, child.’

Ophelia scrunched her nose at the shadowy, bloated face of her mother. She flicked on the light. The hallway was empty. She expected to wake up at any moment.

When she realised she was awake, dreaded thoughts carouseled her hazy head. A hallucination. It’s Albert. The food. The wine. He’s spiking me. It all makes sense. I need to call the police. But where will I go?

A faint cry drew her to the painting, now a black canvas. ‘What in the world?’ she said. As her hand slid over its furry surface, bestial teeth emerged and savaged her wrist. She collapsed, wracked by electric pain shooting up her arm.

In the morning, Albert found Ophelia slumped on the bedroom floor. He shook her until her eyes sprang open.

‘Filia, wake up.’

‘Albert, what are you doing?’

‘I came with the plumber. You didn’t answer, so I let myself in,’ he said. ‘You’re cut. What happened?’

Ophelia glanced at the gash on her wrist. ‘The wine glass,’ she said. ‘I fainted and must have fallen on it.’

‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s clean you up.’

When Albert left, stars glimmered in the evening’s lilac sky. Mister Nosferatu pounced onto the bed and snuggled against Ophelia. She stroked his chin. ‘My favourite sweetheart,’ she said.

As time passed, the room grew black. Sweat dewed her forehead. She swallowed the painkillers Albert left her, and her eyelids grew heavy. Such a disappointment, she thought, as tears slipped from her sleeping eyes.

A finger trailed her damp armpit hair and disturbed her slumber. ‘You’re back,’ she whispered, half asleep. ‘Where have you been?’

‘I must have you,’ he said, and pushed his fat, vinegary finger into her mouth.

She spat it out and turned on the lamp. Albert stood naked near her bed. His plump hand lifted his greasy, gelatinous gut, and he tugged at his acorn-sized erection. He snorted as ropes of hot sperm shot against her lips.

Ophelia snapped awake, hyperventilating, as she surveyed the dark bedroom. I need to get out of here. Calm down. It was a dream. It was a dream.

A meaty hand smothered her mouth and forced her head deep into the pillow. Her fearful eyes studied the silhouette bearing down on her.

Its face shifted from Albert’s pathetic snarl to the painted man’s devilish grin, then to her mother’s scabby lips. She kicked and fought, desperate for air, until an unbearable weight crushed her trachea.

Two weeks later, the rotten smell seeped under her door and alarmed the neighbours. The news reported on her murder, revealing that her cat had survived by feeding on her corpse, defleshing her face to the bone.

‘The last girl who lived here loved the apartment,’ Albert said.

The girl glanced around. ‘Why did she leave?’

‘I’m not sure,’ he said, and rubbed his fat earlobe. ‘I came back from my holiday in Thailand, and she’d gone. Guy troubles, I reckon. You have a boyfriend?’

‘Not at the moment. I’m focused on my career.’

‘What do you do?’

‘I’m a hair technician.’

He ran his hand over his bald head. ‘Can you do anything for me?’

The girl smiled. ‘It’s a fantastic space for the price, Mister Brown.’

‘Call me Albert.’

‘Okay, Albert. I’ll take it,’ she said.

‘Excellent.’ He gave her a thumbs-up. ‘I’ll start the rent on Monday, so you’ll have three days to move in and settle.

‘Thank you. That’s so kind of you.’

‘Not a problem,’ he said. ‘I live on the same floor, but you won’t see much of me.’ He handed her the keys and made his way to the door.

‘Albert,’ she called. ‘What’s the deal with that?’

He turned to her. ‘Deal with what?’

She pointed to the hall’s end. ‘That creepy painting of the man sat in the chair.’

Wedding Gift

After showering, Reinhardt drove his black Porsche to a photo shoot in a luxury condo outside of Berlin: a commercial for men’s body wash. Which meant taking another shower. Following the director’s orders, an old man who wore a brown leather jacket and red foulard, he stripped and showered in a stall covered with Italian marble. Wash your arms and chest, raise your legs one at a time, slowly lather your muscles, finger the foam, rinse off: the director issued staccato instructions. 

The camera followed Reinhardt’s every move, focussed on water dripping down his pecs, back and quadriceps, to be edited and broadcast when the manufacturer chose, after approving the images. He knew his body pleased, hence the phone call from his part time agent, who had also landed him roles in the porn industry and a couple of small movie parts, plus modelling gigs now and then. 

They all paid well, especially the commercials. Not as much fun as fucking but equally lucrative. He enjoyed the shower, moved his powerful physique suggestively, and suspected the woman who operated the camera focussed on his stirring genitals, responsive to the female gaze, even though they wouldn’t appear in the final cut. She was a bright and cheery thing, her hair blonde and loose, maybe too skinny. As he soaped, he imagined her lips around his rising cock. He didn’t attempt to hide it since he was never embarrassed when nature took its course. Besides, a cock hardening at inopportune moments often led to exciting times afterwards, but not today. 

The camera woman, however friendly and seemingly unaffected by his naked body, was all business. When the shoot was over, Reinhardt noticed that she had quickly glanced and smiled at his dick before leaving. He’d miss his gym workout today because he had a busy schedule ahead of him. An artist living in a Berlin suburb, paralyzed from the waist down, had hired him to pose for a drawing session, and then lift him out of the wheel chair, place him on a bed, head hanging over the edge of the mattress, and deep throat him until he shot his load and the man gulped it down. He needed to feed on Reinhardt’s superman strength and vitality, he had said in a text. A three-hour session. 

After that, Reinhardt had an early supper meeting with a middle-aged married couple who wanted a young bull to dominate them, the husband to be humiliated and degraded. He had suggested going to the Alexanderplatz to discuss scenarios and terms of agreement, but they didn’t want to risk running into someone they knew. They agreed to meet at a Macdonald’s a few kilometres from their home. 

His cousin’s wedding in Leipzig was in two days to which he had been invited. Having neglected to buy a wedding gift, he had no time to search for one, but he guessed 200 hundred Euros in a card would suffice. His cousin Hans was a chemistry professor at the University of Leipzig. Reinhardt’s mother compared his achievements with her son’s, and heaved her bosom in disappointment. She had this unaccountable admiration for professors. Having fucked, flogged, and pissed on a few, Reinhardt didn’t share her feelings. 

Hans was marrying an English girl who was doing graduated work in German philosophy. When his mother showed him a picture of the woman, Reinhardt’s felt a tingle in his balls. A redhead, which he loved. He wouldn’t hesitate to fuck her in her wedding dress, if circumstances permitted. He became so entranced by the idea that his cock pushed hard against the constraints of his Calvin Klein underwear. 

In Leipzig, the nuptials were taking place in the famous Thomaskirche, where Bach had been kappellmeister and was now buried. After booking into his hotel, and changing clothes, he drove to the church. Once parked, Reinhardt loitered outside the church doors, waiting for the bride’s limousine to appear, which it soon did. He stepped aside so as not to be in the way, but got a good look at the woman swathed in reams of white silk and tulle, surrounded by four bridesmaids in yellow gowns. He rubbed his genitals discreetly as he caught a glimpse of her pretty face and glimmering red hair before her maid of honour lowered the veil. 

Yes, he’d love to fuck Jane in the gown before her husband did. Maybe he could get Hans to watch his bride ravished by his cousin. Hans was a recessive kind of beta male, subservient to his superiors, soft-spoken, limp brown hair, sloping shoulders, and more at home in a library than a party. He’d be easy to cuckold and probably, if he confessed to the truth of his desires, wanted to be. 

Well, Reinhardt could help him realize his deepest, most perverted dreams since Hans admired powerful men, like some academics who still paid Reinhardt to humiliate and fuck them. Maybe Hans was secretly into Nazi uniforms and craved licking his superior’s black leather boots. He had worn such a costume to please a girl he had liked, no money involved, and now had a few customers, male and female, who paid to be fucked by a Kommandant and grovel at and lick his boots. He decided to get to know his cousin better, become a caring friend, dominate the professor of chemistry and freely fuck his wife. Whenever he wanted. A not impossible dream. 

He remembered a porn flick in which he played the groom’s best man and fucked the bride in the limousine before she arrived at the church, having to readjust her hair and veil, his cum leaking out of her cunt. He had loved that scenario. The bitch in that porno also had red hair. Another episode he had watched with the crew: bride and groom kidnapped and gangbanged by four skinheads in tight, blue mottled jeans and high-laced boots, the groom tied up on a chair in an abandoned warehouse, his tie stuffed in his mouth, as he was forced to watch the skinheads rape his wife, still in her dress puffed up like a cloud around her waist. 

So many brides fucked in porn on their wedding day: must be a universal fantasy: one of his favourite scenes depicted a black man, a wedding guest in a tuxedo, hoisting a white bride around his waist in a shower stall and fucking her until her bridal gown got thoroughly soaked, and he left her huddled in the corner like a lump of wet laundry. The astonished groom watching all the time and rubbing his crotch.

Why he was thinking about this, Reinhardt didn’t quite know. Well, he did know, as he thought about sex all the time. And his cock was his guide, the source of his decisions in many ways, unerring in its instinct to choose the right partner or partners, as if there was such a thing as phallocentric certainty like a physical law of the universe. His cock acted according to infallible principles like gravity. As the bride entered the church, it grew bigger and harder. So, the cock knew the truth of the matter. Despite his belief in its truth-telling powers, Reinhardt was intelligent enough to know that his desire was irrational, a mere fantasy and urging of superman virility at the sight of a pretty, red-haired, potentially submissive cunt, whom he could own, if he chose. 

He was master of his cock, master of any situation in which he found himself. Just as he chose to develop his body and keep it splendid and pure, so he could stride with confident authority in the universe of his own making. He could choose to ignore the demands and logic of his insatiable Schwanz, but it was stubbornly insistent at the moment. Even in a church famous for its kappellmeister, where people said all kinds of religious things in which he didn’t believe, the cock wanted action. 

The reception would be held in a hall at the university, and there Reinhardt would dance with his cousin’s bride. He would speak to her warmly, shower her with compliments, and hold her a bit closer than one ordinarily would, and suppress any urge of his cock to fuck on the dance floor. He’d welcome her as the newest member of his family, and he was so happy to know that Hans had married such a beautiful and intelligent woman. He would also reconnect with Hans and become very friendly with him. Hans would always defer to him. 

Even though they hadn’t seen each other for a few years, he remembered how they had played together as boys. Despite being two years older than Reinhardt, Hans always followed his orders and did whatever he wanted. At thirteen Reinhardt had shown Hans his vigorous cock, and Hans, flustered and hesitant, obediently revealed his, less impressive. They had jerked off together, looking at internet porn, and Hans had stroked Reinhardt’s cock and fondled his cousin’s balls. Reinhardt regretted that he hadn’t then persuaded Hans take it in his mouth. What he didn’t do as a boy, Hans would most definitely hunger for as a married man. 

They’d arrange to get together after the wedding. He, Reinhardt, would drive to Leipzig where Hans could show him the university. And soon he’d be inviting Reinhardt to his house for dinners. The images of fucking Jane in the marriage bed in her wedding gown shook him to the roots of his being. Despite the urging of his cock, he wasn’t in a porn flick now where impossible fucks occurred at a whim. Still, he’d shag Jane and give her the generous blessing of his vital seed deep, maybe impregnate her. Of course, properly trained and eager to felch, Hans the professor would beg for permission to suck his bull’s cum leaking out of his Jane’s lovely ass. Or join Reinhardt in the shower to gobble his superman Schwanz and swallow alpha juice like a thirsty pig. 

What would his mother think if she ever knew that the professor, whom she praised to the sky for his academic achievements, had become her son’s worshipping cocksucker and obedient slave? Although it would take time, he could hardly wait to give the couple the perfect gift of his domination, better than Euros. The first organ chords clanged out, not his favourite kind of sound or music. The bridal procession was about to begin. Reinhardt slipped into the church and sat alone at the back, his plans for the future heating up inside his Hugo Boss suit.