In a Garden – Bitter

The corpses were fresh, tide not receding from the barrows of Hell, little bodies of children and adults – some of my brethren mere babes when they had rebelled, following my pennant of red and pride to an early grave.

I wept. Alone. No others had fallen. It was only me.

Cast off. Broken, bruised.

“Proud, brother?” I begged Michael in my mind, his sword wound hot on my head. “Proud to be rid of you.”

I remembered how he damned me with 

A kiss.

It takes an eternity to build. Several more to heal. More centuries to farm, plow, govern, for Mammon to scope the metals to build some semblance of edifices, for Moloch to raise the graves of the fallen and arm us, for Mulciber to get the electricity up and running on ether.

Beelzebub warms my bed, clings to me.

I am alone, though, even when I plow deep into his soul, this husband infernal mine.

Why? Well, of course, I ache.

Everyone knows me. Proud Lucifer, wise ruler, Tempter of Eve, King of Hell. First for freedom. Liberty’s spark.

But my eyes? Always, skyward – though we gaze up at sulphur and caverns. Beelzebub finds me weeping as I have drawn a whole tapestry of stars in blood with my claws on my thighs. I dig them, pick, shred, deep, deeper.

Lilith’s pudenda cannot anchor me. She tires of me, weds Asmodeus. Eve wanders, cast off into Hell, gets a job under my husband. The Infernal Empire builds. The first souls after Eve come: Cain, Naamah, the Cainites. The Canaanites. It seems my godforsaken Father damns everyone.

“Lucifer, what do you think of, when you kiss me?” Beelzebub asks.

I cannot say it. He will choke it out of me. He just, instead, tends to my wings with his mouth. They are rotting – always rotting – and Beelzebub sucks the poison out with his tongue.

“Michael,” Beelzebub answers himself. “You think of Michael. Long for your brother.”

Beelzebub begins to weep. I stare at the ceiling, on my back, spent.

“I am never enough.”

I cannot tell which of us says it.

The Empire builds. Infernal Machine. I begin to think less of the stars.

But then, a crack… I have found a way, my old serpent form healed enough, finally, after millennia. I worm my way like the shamir to Gan Eden’s crust, to the tender apple tree I planted, when I dreamed of better days – of a humanity that would seed the cosmos with their beauty, topple my Father G-d.

Michael is there, tending my Tree. I hide in the bushes, demon formed, my rotten wings, horns, and scarred leathery skin, face of horror, sanguine hell body, smelling like burnt meat. Oh, I will never heal.

Michael is singing. The song we made up as boys.

I weep.

“Lucifer? Sam – Samael?” Michael chokes, his nostrils flaring. “The hell are you doing here?” he says, a tear in his eyes. “There is no way in, no way out. I am the only one with the keys. Enemy mine, o wretched brother –” he catches me as I faint.

All I see are his blue, blue eyes

Tears

Meeting

Mine.

When I wake, he is rubbing nard into my sick, twisted, maligned burden of a body. Flesh and blood and bone poke out, charred as much as the rest of me. Michael does not mind. He is singing Psalm 31. I wince.

“Brother, you should have killed me again,” I choke, my voice as always, wretched.

He smiles through tears, gold haired, beautiful, the most holy thing G-d ever made.

“I missed you. I forgive you, Lucifer.”

I hiss, turn into serpent. Bite his ankle. “YOU CANNOT FORGIVVVVVE ME.”

He looks down, sad, and lifts my snaking form to his lips, then kisses me. I cannot help it, turn back to winged burnt husk, moan, bite his lip, and he makes love to my hell, my burnt bruised body. I cry out, as his tongue licks my wounds, heals me with the touch of an angel. It cannot do much, but the bones seal, and the spear wound he gifted me: my greatest pain? It is

Gone.

“Brother, I love you,” I mourn. “I will destroy this false Kingdom G-d and you build. I will eat you, fuck you dead, destroy you-

“I love you too, Samael. You are hugging the life out of me.”

I tear at my hair, I would beat myself with goat leathers, if I had them. “YOU CANNOT FORGIVE ME.” I weep, finally, too tired. He rubs my hair.

“Perhaps not, Samael. Perhaps our wounds are too bitter to ever heal.”

I gaze up at the stars. My humanity. My children. They will reach the cosmos, span the multidimensions, spreading Eve and Adam’s beautiful, blessed progeny.

“I did it all for them.”

“I know, Samael.”

“I will never bow to you.”

“Then let me bow to you, Samael.” He does, bending, his mouth meeting my erect, scarred cock tenderly. 

“Fuck you!” I moan, threading my hands through his hair. He bobs his Golden Boy, overgrown seagull – as all angels are – stick-up-the-ass – FUCK! – head on my member. I can’t hold it in, my lust and bitter love and hatred burning, balls tightening, the great belly of my beast spilling out onto his tongue. My cock throbs and I shudder, pass out again.

Too much. Too much.

Bloody

Hell.

“Sleep, my twin. My only love,” Michael sings, then hums B’Shem HaShem to me.

Bitter, I fall asleep, spent.

We take to meeting in the Garden. I tell him of Hell. He tells me of his and Father’s plans on Earth. One day, Michael will incarnate, virgin-born.

“Nothing is born of a maiden unsowed,” I say, suspect.

“Wait.”

He is born, in a manger. I weep. I am his guardian

Angel. 

How? I was just in my office. Yet here, G-d – who should have no claim on me! I barren! Hellbound! Tyrant of Gehenna!

How could Father, still, all these years?

Pull me back

To Earth.

To watch Michael, with rosy lips

Take

His first

Breath.

Mary and Joseph fall asleep. The Three Kings leave.

I clutch the babe in my arms.

He sighs.

I sing Michael, his mind wiped, this Yeshua

B’shem

HaShem.

Oh, what wretched wonder. I must atone? I – I – no, I will ruin this Christ.

I tried.

I offer Yeshua, this Christ, life.

He takes the bitter cup. I teach him all his Gifts. All his Holiness.

That is something the Bible never tells you. He does not cast out demons by Beelzebub, but by

Samael.

He comes to Hell. I harrow him, in my bed. Beelzebub curses and never returns.

I grow bitter.

He leaves.

I grow old.

The End of Times comes.

He kisses me, then casts us both

Into fire.

“With you, or nothing,” Michael Christ says, gleaming like sun, merciful. Love, it shines, is holy writ

On his Tongue of Swords.

“Michael, please, my only love, be rid of me,” I beg at his feet, a Beast.

He smiles, casts us both

Into Fire.

Enflamed.

It is quiet, in Hell, now.

Empty save for Michael

And I.

And we

are happy

you know.

The Girl Next Door

Headline from the Polaris County weekly Reporter, July 19, 2023: 

WOMAN FOUND RAN OVER OUTSIDE HOME SUCCUMBS TO INJURIES

From the transcript of Detective Washburn’s first interview with Abel Kingsley (July 17, 2023):

Q. You and Ms. Sheriza Collins were an item, were you not?

A. We were, sir.  

Q. Aren’t you a little old for?  She was nineteen and you… says here you are twenty-five years old.  

A. Well, I, uh – 

Q. How did that come about?

A. I knew her because she dated my friend first.  We all hung out together, became good friends.  Sometimes I was the third wheel, sometimes our friend, Hoss, came with us.  When Tobey and Sherry didn’t work out, Sherry and me kept on being friends.  One thing led to another and suddenly we were dating.  It wasn’t anything crazy or weird or creepy, I swear.  She’s technically of age… sir. 

Q. Yes, she is of age, technically, and that isn’t why you’re here.   

A. Why am I here?

Q. Can you tell me where you were the night of Saturday, July 15^th?

A. Wait, you don’t think I did it?  You don’t think I ran her over, right?

Q. Well, can you tell me where you were the night your girlfriend was run down in your vehicle?

A. I was at her house, but just for a little bit.  We argued that night. It got kind of heated, I admit it, but I didn’t run her over.  I swear.  I just walked off.  I never put my hands on her.  We’d been arguing a lot lately and I realized that was the better option, walking away.

Q. The night your girlfriend was killed, what were you two arguing about?

A. Hoss.  We were arguing about Hoss Dawson.

From Tobey Jackson’s guest essay “Hindsight” on the true crime blog The Death Knell (March 2024):

…Hoss and I met in high school.  It was the summer before our freshman year, and Abel’s younger brother, Aldwin, invited us both, and bunch of others, to a spot he and some other hooligans found exploring the woods near the school.  We had to walk down an overgrown path until we reached train tracks.  Hoss, I remember, was afraid that a train might come rushing around the bend and take us out.  He stayed as far away from the tracks as he could without climbing up back into the brush or down into more vegetation.  We had to climb down a steep, narrow muddy hill, and I busted my ass trying to keep my feet under me, but it was worth it.

Aldwin and his gang of misfits had found a stream, which they dammed up and turned into a little pool.  There were two rocks which rose high on either side of the stream right at its mouth, which made for prime jumping.  Somehow, we all ended up skinny dipping.  It was weird, but it was fun.  Innocent.  I always used to bring that up to Hoss, you know?  Like, “Hey, the first time we met, we saw each other’s assholes.  We’re stuck together.”

All throughout high school, we were best friends.  He lived with his grandmother and she loved me.  In fact, she’d be the one to suggest I sleep over when I would stay late at their house.  Hoss introduced me to his friend, Amber, and we dated on and off for three years, and he seemed supportive throughout the relationship.  To date, my relationship with Amber is my longest relationship, and I have Hoss to thank for that.  She was a big bitch, but he was a great mediator.  

Maybe that was something I should have taken heed of.  Hoss was always single, but gave great relationship advice.

I started dating Sherry after he went off to college.  She and her best friend Amanda had dated on the periphery of our friend group; it was only matter of time before they made their way to us.  Hoss and I stayed close, but he didn’t really come around while Sherry and I dated.  He was bust with school and everything.  But while he was away, she and her family moved from Torrington to Polaris County, into the house right next to Hoss’s grandma’s.  A weird turn of events, if you ask me.  

Soon after that I broke up with Sherry.  She was your typical teenage crazy.  Checking my phone.  Going through social media.  Wanting my location.  Needing to know at all times who I was with, and if she didn’t believe me, she’d want to speak with them.  None of my friends were females.  I was scared she’d try to kill them.  Sherry and Amber even threw hands once in the Brass Mill Center parking lot out in Waterbury.  Amber had sent me a text that said “Happy birthday.”

Sherry took the breakup badly.  She hit me up constantly.  When I wouldn’t answer my phone, she would call or text through Facebook and Instagram.  I couldn’t handle the crazy, so I blocked her every time she reached out.  My sanity was numero uno in my book.  Eventually, she gave up.  I thought – hoped, really – that she got the picture, understood that I wanted nothing to do with her.  Abel told me the message was clear, and that Sherry was, and I quote, “a psycho bitch.”  

After not getting texts and calls from random and blocked numbers for a few weeks, I thought the coast was clear.  Hoss and Abel did, too.  Sure, she lived next door to Hoss, but that wouldn’t stop me from seeing my boy.  And that was the plan when Hoss invited us over for the standard young adult bro sleepover.  Videogames.  Junk food.  Horror movies.  I arrived first, as usual. 

When Abel showed up, however, Sherry was on his arm.  Hoss and I acted like it was cool, and for me, I think it was.  I wanted nothing to do with her anymore, but if Abel wanted her, even after knowing what I went through, then good for him.  He was desperate to get laid like that.  It was harder on Hoss, though, for sure.  Abel didn’t stay the night like he was supposed to.  He stayed at Sherry’s house, right next door. 

Statement from Amanda Matos to the Hartford Courant (published March 5, 2024):

“Was she in love with Abel?  Love?  I mean, I wouldn’t call it love.  But we were young, you know?  I think she liked being around Tobey, and that group of people.  She got accustomed to it.  There was nothing wrong with Abel, but love it was not.  And I think he knew that.  Maybe not on the surface, but deep down where he keeps all his secrets, he knew it.  The sex is what probably made it okay for him.  Sherry and Abel fucked like all the time.”

From The Complete Journals of Hoss Dawson (published February 2024, Scribner):

5/12/23

I’m finally home for the summer.  My freshman year was something, let me tell you.  I really enjoy my psychology classes, but English still has my heart.  I think I may double major.  If I focus, I can do it.  But for now, I am ready for a hot boy summer with the guys.

Abel is supposed to come by around four.  I haven’t seen him in months.  Every time I come home, he’s busy with Sherry.  Tobey thinks it’s weird, that she’s using Abel to get close him, but he won’t tell Abel.  He doesn’t want to burst Abel’s bubble.  I get that, really.  This is the first time a woman’s been this interested in him since God knows when.  Usually, they just want a ride or for him to fix their cars.  Good for him, though, I guess. 

This summer is going to be great.  I can feel it.  Starting with tonight, I’ll make sure it’s one I remember forever.

5/12/23 (later)

It’s six o’clock and still no sign of Abel.  No texts or calls.  Tobey and his brother Alwin haven’t heard from him either.  He’s probably with Sherry, but I hope he’s all right.  Maybe he just lost track of time.  He does that a lot, the fucking airhead.  He – 

Abel just called.  Said he lost track of time (what did I say? lol).  He and Sherry were just out joyriding, he said.  He’s bringing her tonight.  He didn’t really ask.  It was more like telling me.  It was supposed to be just the boys, though.  Whatever. 

From the transcript of Detective Washburn’s second interview with Abel Kingsley (July 20, 2023):

Q. I need to know when shit hit the fan with you and Sheriza.  Spare me no details, son, she’s dead now.  This was already a serious matter, and now it couldn’t get any more serious.  Tell me everything.

A. Hoss and Sherry, they didn’t get along.  At first they did.  But things started to go downhill.  He didn’t want Sherry around anymore, but that, for me, wasn’t acceptable.  She was my girlfriend, you know?  She had a right to go wherever I went.  Hoss thought she was using me to get to Tobey, so he confronted her about it.  It was easy to do, them living next door to each other, and all.

Q. Were you there for this confrontation?

A. No, but Sherry confirmed everything he told me.

Q. And when was this?

A. The end of June, sir.  I think the twenty-fifth or -sixth.

Q. What happened during this confrontation?

A. Hoss accused her of, well, fucking me to make me her slave.  She told him she was thinking of ending our relationship because she felt smothered.  Sherry said I always insisted on being around or texting, and it was unbearable.  But what can I say, man?  I loved her.  I still do. She… she… said I was obsessed with her and everybody saw it, except me.  I… I….

Q. Do you need a break?

A. Please.

[There is a cut in the audio.  When it resumes, Kingsley has regained his composure.]

Q. Why did Hoss Dawson care so much, Mr. Kingsley?  

A. I don’t know.  Maybe he felt like Sherry was stealing me away from him.  Me and Sherry hung out a lot.  Guess I was smothering her then, too.  Hoss was jealous.

Q. Now what would make you say that?

From The Complete Journals of Hoss Dawson (published February 2024, Scribner):

5/21/22

I really don’t know if I should be writing about this… but I need to tell someone about last night, and I have no one else.  No one I can trust, at least.  

The actual Homecoming dance was definitely not my style.  I had to rent a tux and it was itchy and didn’t fit right.  It was fun to hang out with my friends, though.  Seeing them all dressed in their suits and dresses and dancing made me happy.  If they’re happy, I’m happy. 

What I really want to talk about is the afterparty.  Misty had everyone over to her place, and of course, there were drinks and some pot.  Abel was there, even though he graduated years ago.  He might be older, but he’s one of us, through and through.  My grandma still thinks he’s too old for me to hang around, but what does she know?  Times are different.

Late into the night, I stumbled into a backroom and Abel was sitting alone at a piano bench, just tapping away on the keys.  He looked sad; his head hung low.  I slid over to him, and I don’t know why, but I sat on his lap and it all poured out of him, like a waterfall.

“Why didn’t she want me?”

I had no idea what to say.  I didn’t know who he was talking about.

“She left us all,” he went on.  “How can someone just up and leave their whole family, fly across the country, and start a new life with some dude they met on the internet?”

Then it clicked.  Abel and Aldwin’s mother had left them and their father months earlier.  The whole thing was quick, but messy.  This was the first time I saw him get emotional about it.  He started crying, sobbing and shaking while I sat on his lap.  There were no words for the kind of pain that species of abandonment brings, so I said nothing.  We held each other in silence as he let out all the hurt he’d be bottling up.  It was bound to burst, and now, as he buried his head into my chest, it did.

Many of us were too drunk to drive home, so a lot of people stayed over.  Me and Abel found ourselves in that piano room, lying on the floor under some found blanket, surrounded by a bunch of passed out high schoolers.  I cuddled up close to him.  He put an arm around me.  I placed my hand low on his stomach.

After a while like that he said, “Can I take my pants off?”

Confused that he asked me permission, I said, “Sure.”

Off came his pants and my hand crept lower, and groped the considerable tent he was pitching in his boxer briefs.  I’m still a virgin, but touching led to… Well, I think you get the picture.  

And yes, I am just as shocked as you are.

Facebook post from Misty McKenna (April 2024):

“Since everyone keeps asking me, we all knew Hoss preferred men.  He never came out & said it, but we knew.  It was like a unspoken open secret.  But Abel????? We had no idea he was [painted nails emoji], but honestly who the fuck cares??  Its the roarin 20s.  Hell, one time I kissed a girl and even liked it. Katy Perry said it best. If you really wanna question something, let’s talk about Hoss’s parents selling his diary to the book publisher.  Sick!!!!!!”

From Tobey Jackson’s guest essay “Hindsight” on the true crime blog The Death Knell (March 2024):

…Things were rough for a bit.  There was obvious tension whenever we were all together.  Sherry and I had our past, Hoss and Sherry had their own problems.  Abel and Sherry had some issues, too.

Sherry was super outgoing, and I guess that could come off as flirtatious to an outsider, or to a man who is madly in love with you.  Abel hated how much she interacted with other men on social media.  If she was on her phone too long while they were together, he’d snatch it from her.  He was controlling in that aspect.  Abel let his emotions get the best of him when it came to Sherry, which was weird because he was usually reserved.  His mother fucked off to Arizona and he didn’t shed a single tear.  But with Sherry, everything kind of set him off.  Once at a park, he pulled her away into a copse by the arm, and she resisted weakly but went along.  I could hear them shouting back and forth.  Sherry came out first.  After a few minutes and one final guttural grunt, Abel returned.  The knuckles on his right hand were bloody. 

When Hoss told Abel what Sherry had said about his attachment issues, and how she thought he was clingy, and wanted to break it off, he lost it.  He started throwing shit around the room; he broke the lamp his mother had bought for him when he was twelve.  It had heroes like Spiderman and Ironman on the glass lampshade.  He was fucking livid, but of course that was hurt and disappointment manifesting as the only acceptable emotion for men: anger.  Still, I thought he was stressed enough to murder someone.

Abel and Sherry didn’t speak for weeks, and during that time Hoss and Abel spent a lot of time together.  A lot of sleepovers.  I was there for a few of them.  Videogames, shit talking.  That kind of stuff.  There was one night – they thought I was sleeping – where I heard things happening.  I never said anything to them about it because why would I?  We never judged each other for shit like that.  They could have made sure I was actually sleeping, though.  

We three hung out the day before Sherry was found on her lawn.  Abel and I played Injustice 2 while Hoss sat on the computer watching music videos.  Abel’s phone went off.  The number wasn’t saved.  We all traded looks before Abel answered on speakerphone.  

“Abel,” Sherry began.  “I miss you.  I love you.  I’m so sorry for everything I said to Hoss.  I was just feeling so overwhelmed…”

He cut off the speaker and went upstairs for at least an hour.  Probably more.  Hoss slammed his fist down on the desk.  The crack of his fist against the wood startled a jump out of me.

When Abel returned he said, “Sorry, guys, where were we?”

“I think I was just leaving,” Hoss said, getting up from the desk.  

All he’d said to me while Abel was going was that Sherry is playing the fuck out of him.  I agreed, but I wasn’t so sure.  She had left me alone for quite some time at this point.

“But we were supposed to have a sleepover before the beach tomorrow,” Abel said.

“The feeling of my own bed, my own sheets is just more appealing to me than staying out tonight,” Hoss said.

Abel sighed.  “Well… if it’s okay with you, Sherry is going to come to the beach with us tomorrow.”

Hoss rolled his eyes slowly, dramatically.  “The more the merrier – isn’t that what they say?”  On that note, he grabbed his backpack and left.  If he went home that night is anyone’s guess.

Not wanting to be in the middle of this, as well as the cause, I left too, thinking, maybe, cooler heads would prevail in the morning.  It was longshot thinking, as my father called it, but it was all I clung to.  Things had to get better, and the beach trip could have been the start of healing.

But the trip, as we all know, never happened.

Notes from Detective Washburn’s interview with Lois Allen, July 20, 2023:

Spoke with neighbor, Lois Allen, 68.  Claims she heard argument suspected night of incident. Sun, 7/16/23.  Witness claims she heard two voices, male & female.  Looked outside living room window.  Noticed neighbor, “the Collins girl.”  Unable to identify by name male party, but said he looked familiar.  “Around a lot at the Dawsons, I think.”  Argument became heated.  Saw male grab female by the shoulders.  Claims male cried, “Why do you make me do this shit? Why?” Female was upset, crying.  Allen wanted to say something, but deciding against it, citing “back in my day, we minded our own when it came to spouses.” Shrugged and wished me a good day.

From The Complete Journals of Hoss Dawson (published February 2024, Scribner):

7/16/23 

I just got back from Abel’s house. I was supposed to sleep over, but I couldn’t bring myself to stay and trust myself not be a vicious bitch.

Abel and Sherry are back together.  Just like that.  A fucking phone call.  After all the shit she said about using him, and him being annoying.  It makes me so fucking mad.  He always wants to bring her around, and I can’t stand it.  Is he stupid or just that desperate to fill the hole his mom left in him?

Ugh.  I should be a more supportive friend, I know.  I want to be.  I will be.  Starting tomorrow at the beach, I’ll turn over a new leaf.  Sherry and I used to be friends, and I think we can be again.  Or at least be cordial.  I need to try.  For Abel.  For our friendship.  I owe him that.

I hope I can keep it together.  

From the Hartford Courant, July 21, 2023: 

SUSPECT ARRESTED IN POLARIS COUNTY LAWN MURDER CASE

…Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a source close to the case claims the victim’s boyfriend has been detained in connection with the murder.  Not only do police say it was his vehicle used in the slaying, but witnesses claim to have seen him arguing with the victim and getting physical with her the night of the savage motor vehicle attack.  

Sheriza Collins was found…

Various Facebook posts after the funeral of Sheriza Collins (July 28, 2023):

Parker Taylor: “I always knew he was little… off.”

Stephen Upton: “What the fuck?  I hope he gets what’s coming him.”

Damian Campanella: “That group of friends was weird.  A little too touchy-feely, if you know what I mean.  Not surprised that one lost his shit.  More surprised that the others haven’t lost theirs, too [crying laughing emoji x3]”

Isabel Davenport: “What a mess.  I’m praying for everyone involved.  My heart goes out to Sherry’s family for all the pain and suffering they’re going through right now.  I hope they can find peace with all these revelations.  And poor, poor Abel.  May there be swift and powerful justice served.”

Wilson King: “When’s the Netflix documentary coming?  Sounds like a love triangle for the ages? LOL”

From the Polaris County weekly Reporter, July 29, 2023:

LAWN MURDER KILLER CONFESSES!

The funeral of the slain Sheriza Collins, 19, of Polaris County was meant to be a solemn affair, a celebration of her life where loved ones could share memories of the deceased.  Collins’s parents and sister shared stories of beaches, Sheriza’s favorite things to do, and other colorful memories which painted the deceased in a flattering light.  However, the mood of the occasion changed when the last person to share spoke.  Seemingly waiting until no other person wanted to share, Hoss Dawson, 20, also of Polaris County took the podium.

Standing at the head of the church, he explained: “I heard them arguing that night.  I was tired of it, tired of her hurting him.  Tired of being overlooked and forgotten.  He was my best friend, and she was only using him as revenge.  It wasn’t even working.  

“It was easy.  After he walked off I slipped outside.  Sherry was upset, sobbing, and never saw me coming.  She had left her car running, and all I had to do was climb in and floor it.  I wore gloves, of course, but I always planned this confession, here at her funeral.  My life, too, I guess is over.”

Dawson started his speech with the words, “This is how I killed the girl next door.”

As he finished his monologue, he pulled a large pocketknife from his black dress pants pocket and went for his own throat, but an enraged Mr. Collins tackled Dawson before any damage could be done.

Speaking with the Reporter later, Mr. Collins said, “He thought he could murder my daughter and then take the easy way out?  No way in hell, which, by the way, is exactly where he’s headed.  After a lengthy stay Polaris County Correctional, that is.”

TV Eye

Squatting, she adjusted her black stockings and closed her sterile white lab coat over her jutting, dripping nudity. The pile of gutted TV’s rose on all sides of the capacious warehouse, as monitors fed back her image on video screens. 

“Silly wiring slobs,” she said. “Well, that’s what ya get for free.” 

The neurogreen circuitry frothed, hissed and emitted a belch. She took the scalpel to a mass of fused ganglia, hacked off a piece and dialog/dualoged with it. It spat out a fizzing phlegmy discharge on the floor, a spreading iridescent pool that began to nibble at her bare feet. 

“Alas poor Shmoreick, I knew him, Fellatio.” She glanced around to see if her partner, Dr. Herman Groinslab, was paying any attention whatsoever to her cutting wit. He wasn’t. She brandished the scalpel in his eye. “One of these days,” she muttered.

“You’re so sexy when you’re homicidal, Fontaine.”

Kandy Fontaine shook her short, sharp,shocking locks which looked like serpents of blue neon gas. She winked lewdly at her co-conspirator in Project TV Eye.

“When we’re through, no flesh will be spared remote interrogation by our box clones,” she said. “Everybody and their little dog will have the same bad dreams.”

“Do you actually speak that way, or are you just doing it for the meta-fictional fun of it all?”

“I suppose the latter would apply like a corporate decal sewn into your retina by nanospiders,” said Fontaine. She paused to take a heroic hit off her DMT vape. “And I know whereof I speak.

“Oh dear, mechanical fucking elves, and they’re getting down and dirty by the Luminous Shore,” she said after awhile.

“Never mind those weird fuckers, Fontaine. We have work to do!”

Without another word, Kandy Fontaine pulled the final hunk of slippery brain-plant muck out of the machineflesh cube and just slapped it into the cobalt TV Eye casing.

The fluorescent light battery sputtered, flashing a psychedelic Mario Bava display of alternating blue, red and yellow against the TV Eye array.

“They’re already starting to do Lucifer’s own work,” said Fontaine with just a hint of pride. “Baal be praised.” She did the sign of the Southern Cross.

Groinslab filtered some cannibalistic crumbs out of his bread, held the remote with a jittering hand, and stabbed at the “Go Go Doppelgangbangers” button.

The video screens filled with a lurid display of pornographic violence to make Caligula blush and cause Gilles De Rais just a smidgen of envy. Men and women were thrusting hacked off partially cybernetic limbs into the glistening orifices of a purple skinned whore. An assembly line of minotaur men squeezed off ghastly jets of glowing green jissom that splattered against the faces of priests and nuns who shamelessly masturbated themselves with bullwhips and whipped cream of corn. Cyclotron shit, kajillions of raw, peeled Dream Police, dripped down the walls. A man with lips for eyes shit in the gaping mouths of a highly mutated Mandelbrot sequence of Popes. Henry Kissinger’s skeleton was raped in perpetuity by a scythe machine for sore eyes. Und so weiter, und so fort.

Meanwhile, the general population was visited by nightmares so hot, torrid, morbid and carnivorous that it mutated consensual reality itself.

“Welp, I guess our work here is done,” said Fontaine, slipping off her nitrile gloves and rubbing her clitoris raw, killing her hunger with ecstasy. “And it’s only Monday. What will we do for an encore?”

Dr. Groinslab, deceased beneath mountains of black leather, beat his meat against the waves, eternally recurring like the Dutch sailors saddle-stitched together with the Sirens of the Thames estuary.

Safe Word

“Let me tie you up,” he coaxed eagerly, and brandished a length of soft rope for her inspection.

Where did that come from? she wondered. She peered at the rope and then at him. “You’re into bondage?” she asked him. “I…”

“I’m a part of the BDSM community, Claire,” he told her. “We use the ‘B,’ the bondage, to impose restraints on our partners in order to enhance the sensual experience.”

Claire had heard of bondage, of course, from books and films and dirty magazines; she just never expected the handsome man she knew a little from the bar and from school, to be into…

“I thought we were just gonna fuck,” she said bluntly. This man she had not chosen at random. She’d picked him up at the college tavern just down the street, and hoped to persuade him to give her a passing grade in the class he taught. Professor Ames had a reputation for being randy, but she’d never…

“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to, Claire,” the Professor went on. “It’s always mutually consensual, at least with me. And together, we set the boundaries.”

Claire peered up into his pale blue eyes, saw nothing but benevolence, and asked herself if she might actually go through with it. She bit her lip.

“You can trust me, Claire,” he said. “In the community we practice what’s known as Safe, Sane and Consensual (SSC) and Risk-Aware Consensual Kink (RACK) relations. Your safety and pleasure are my top priorities,” he assured her glibly.

Wow, thought Claire. This guy is like a used car salesman; he has an answer for everything. I wonder if next he’ll offer to check my oil? A spontaneous giggle leaked out. He didn’t seem to notice.

“Do you have any questions?” he asked, as though he were lecturing in his classroom.

Questions? she thought wildly. You bet!

“Exactly what is involved?” she asked naively. Claire had never participated in anything this…erotic, before.

“Good question,” he said approvingly. “My plan is this: we’ll disrobe and then I’ll tie your wrists together behind your back with this rope. Then I’ll put you face down on the bed, spread your legs and tie them to the bedposts.”

Claire gulped.

“Next,” he went on, “comes the flagellation.”

Claire furrowed her brow. “Huh?”

“I’ll spank your backside with my belt,” he explained, pulling the wide leather strap from the loops in his pants. “Don’t worry, I won’t do it hard, just enough to make your butt red and more sensitive.”

“Then what?” asked Claire. She wished now she hadn’t drunk so many beers at the tavern.

“Then we’ll role play,” he said. “I might be a policeman who has caught a burglar or a prostitute or a fireman who has just saved your life. Or a teacher who has caught you cheating on an exam.” And here he smiled at his own little joke. “It can take any form. It’ll be spontaneous, impromptu, unscripted.”

She peered curiously at him. He smiled reassuringly.

“Where does the sex come in?” she wanted to know. “I just wanted to, you know, have sex.”

He nodded. “At some point in our little drama, I’ll mount you from the rear,” he said. 

“I can’t climax when I’m taken from behind,” she pointed out. “No clitoral shimulation,” she said drunkenly. Was she missing the point of tonight? she asked herself. Claire, at 19, had had only 3 lovers in her lifetime, and she felt woefully ill-equipped to…

He nodded again. “That’s the beauty of the dominant-submissive dynamic,” he explained. “While you won’t come, you will be highly stimulated, from the ass-beating and from the vaginal stimulation and from the helplessness you feel. You’ll feel like your head is going to explode,” he promised.

“Won’t I ever get off?” she asked.

“I’m usually good for three orgasms per evening,” he boasted. “The first time I’ll come in your puss; the second time in your ass; and…”

“My ass?” she yelped in alarm.

“It won’t hurt unduly, I promise,” he swore. “Sodomy is the lodestone of good BDSM sex,” he assured her. “Besides,” he went on, “I’m not heavily endowed and I think you’ll like it.”

Claire made a face. “I don’t…think I want that,” she said.

“Alright,” he said easily. “No sodomy.”

Claire exhaled.

“What happens next?” she prompted.

“I’ll unbind your wrists, turn you over on your back and then fuck the shit out of you!” the Professor promised roughly. The whites of his eyes glinted eerily.

“What if you can’t get it up again?” she asked practically. He had had lots of beers too.

He was growing a little impatient. “Then I’ll eat you out,” he said shortly. “There’s one more thing,” he said at the last moment.

More? Claire thought. What more could there possibly be? Getting a passing grade — even a B — in his class was beginning to seem like an imprudent rate of exchange.

“What’s that?” she asked suspiciously.

“Your Safe Word,” he replied.

Claire shook her head uncertainly. “What’s that?” she asked again.

“The Safe Word,” said the Professor, “is what you’ll say if you suddenly — and for any reason — want the sex play to end and to be released.”

They settled on their Safe Word and then the play began. Claire discovered that, to her surprise, she was soon invested in the sexual dynamic. Always a leader, at school and work and amongst friends — she was in the Student Government at university, and a shift leader at the pizza joint where she worked — it felt good to step back and relax and take a submissive role. And the Professor, despite his feigned assertiveness, was in fact quite gentle. When he beat her ass with the belt, she felt, as he’d predicted, as if her head would explode, she was so turned on. 

Just before Ames went down on her, she asked him, “Have you ever been in love?”

“No, never,” he said.

When the sex play was over and her lover had departed, Claire sat cross-legged on her bed and reviewed the evening’s events. The Professor had not mustered the stamina he’d promised, getting hard only twice and then for only short periods. She had almost laughed at his frustration, but she felt pity more than scorn. She’d never had occasion to utter the vaunted Safe Word. After he’d released her and kissed her goodnight, he had told her that “Next time, my love, you can be the dominant one.” She thought about that for a long time.

In class on the following Monday, Ames seemed impassive, neither making eye contact nor paying her any mind. She felt a bit miffed at first, but then recognized that anonymity was probably the best policy. She looked around the room, at the other nubile coeds, and wondered which of them he had been “tied up with.” Again, a giggle  escaped her lips. But when Professor Ames passed back the previous week’s essay, Claire was happy to see a “B+” etched in purple ink across the top of the paper. This was two full grades higher than her previous score.

Two weekends later, Claire found herself back at the college tavern where she’d picked up the Professor. The previous weekend, she’d had to work at her job as assistant manager at Pizza Hut and so seducing her teacher then had been impossible. He’d called her nearly every day. Claire was intrigued by the promised role reversal; it was her turn to be dominant. At the bar, Claire spotted her erstwhile lover, talking to another teacher who was the Professor’s age, or 20 years older than Claire. When he spotted her, he forsook the other woman at once.

“Catch you later, Maeve,” he said, turning away. Maeve, a hot-looking brunette, shot hateful daggers at Claire as the Professor edged his way through the tightly packed tavern. He stood before Claire, smiling warmly. Their date for after the close of the pub was unspoken, but understood. Precisely at 2 a.m., following Last Call, the two of them walked the four blocks to Claire’s small house.

Sequestered once more in Claire’s bedroom, they again discussed boundaries and limits and what the other would and would not countenance. The Professor, as it happened, was amenable to more radical treatment than Claire had been willing to endure. “Really give me a workout,” he said huskily. At this, Claire’s eyes opened wide. Finally, they settled on the Prof’s Safe Word; for simplicity’s sake, he selected the very word that Claire had herself chosen weeks before.

In order to prep for the experience, Claire had used some of her tip money from Pizza Hut to order a couple of  risque videos from Amazon. After Ames had been stripped and bound, she worked him over. Rather  than use the Prof’s leather belt, however, she turned up her Pickle Ball racket and beat him relentlessly until a tiny drop of blood surfaced on his cheek. She kissed it away.

“God, Claire,” gasped Ames, only half in jest, “I think I’m in love!”

Claire had read in a book, “The Joy of BDSM Sex,” that this was not unusual for the recipients of flagellation. Twisting her lips thoughtfully, she pulled out a prodigious dildo, which she cinched around her narrow waist. She allowed Ames to see what she was doing.

“My God,” he said, panting excitedly, “it’s so freaking big!”

Claire plied the instrument of love for all she was worth, until at length Professor Ames gasped, “God, Claire, I AM in love!”

Claire smirked and felt that an A was well within her grasp. Their relationship, such as it was, continued apace, until it didn’t. Several weeks later, the Professor and Claire made a date to meet for lunch at a high-end restaurant on the top floor of the college’s Student Union. Claire had never eaten there before; it was beyond her means. The maitre de acknowledged her reservation and escorted her to a table. Minutes later, Ames joined her. Smiling, he took a seat. Claire had something important to discuss with the Professor, and Ames had suggested the restaurant.

“Have you ordered yet?” he asked.

She shook her head no. As if by magic, a waitress appeared at their table and they placed their order. They engaged in small talk, and when the food had been served, Ames turned to Claire and asked, “What is it you wanted to talk about?”

“My grade on my last essay,” she replied. At his inquisitive look, she continued, “I got a C-, Jeffrey,” she complained.

Ames took a drink of water and nodded. “That’s the grade you deserved,” he told her.

Claire only stared at him. “But, I thought that we…”

He shook his head. “There is no ‘we’ with respect to your identity as a student, Claire. Our relationship in class is that of instructor to student. You didn’t expect me to amplify your scores based on our sleeping together, did you?” he whispered. “That,” he said primly, would not be ethical.”

As Claire sat looking at the Professor, the wheels were going round inside her head. “You  mean ethical,” she began, “as in the ethics of your having sex with a student in your class?”

Now it was his turn to stare at her. Suddenly there was a bead of sweat on his upper lip. “Claire,” he said, “do you think that you’re the first student to try to extort a higher grade out of a teacher? What problems do you think you can possibly create for me? I’m a tenured professor.” He chuckled softly.

Claire had never before noticed just how beady Jeffrey Ames’s eyes were. She stared back frankly at him.

“Everything, Jeffrey,” she told him, “is political.” He raised his brows in exaggerated fashion. 

“Meaning?” he asked, dabbing delicately at his soft lips with a napkin.

Claire shrugged. “I don’t know; do you feel that your academic reputation might suffer if your colleagues knew you’d been butt-fucked by a 19-year-old student of yours? Could be unseemly at student conferences and faculty soires, what have you,” she suggested. When he said nothing, she picked her large purse off the floor and grasped the huge dildo with which she had sodomized him on many occasions. She pulled the head out several inches.

“It’s your word against mine,” he said, glancing nervously at the phallus.

“Jeffrey,” she asked, “how do you know that I didn’t video our…encounters?” Claire pulled the fake penis several inches more from the purse.

“Put that damn thing away!” he hissed, gazing furtively at the other tables. Rather than comply with that request, she slapped it down hard on the table top, rattling the silverware. 

“I’ll just leave this with you,” she said serenely and, closing her purse, took up her wrap and walked out of the restaurant. She didn’t look back.

At the tavern some weeks later, Claire was drinking pitchers of beer with friends when she spotted Professor Ames across the bar, eyeing her. She paid him no mind. At length, while Claire’s friends were dancing, Ames approached and stood before her, swaying on his feet. Finally, Claire looked up.

“Professor,” she said neutrally.

“Claire,” he said, then burped. “Alright if I sit?”

She nodded.

He stumbled into a chair. He was really drunk, thought Claire, but she had little sympathy for him. She was a little intoxicated herself. It had been some weeks since they had been bedmates. Claire’s grades had plummeted too. More than that, she had experienced an unexpected sense of loss.

“I want us to get back together, Claire,” he slurred. “I miss you.”

She stared at  him impassively. “What’s in it for me?” she asked.

“Transactional, eh?” he asked.

“You bet.”

“What do you want?” he asked, pouring a beer from her pitcher and spilling it across the tabletop.

“An A for the course,” she said crisply.

He nodded his head ponderously. “Done!” he agreed. “Let’s go to your place.”

“After grades come out,” she said. “The semester ends in two weeks. I see an A on my report card, and I’ll take you home with me.”

He stared at her.

She stared back.

Finally, Ames nodded. “I’ll see you on the 19th.” That was the day that grades came out. He stumbled to his feet and left the bar.

On the 19th, grades were posted to her email account and Claire was beside herself with joy. She had aced “Literary Masterpieces of Antiquity,” the required backbreaking course taught by Professor Jeffrey Ames. Ames had called her earlier, telling her he was coming over to collect. She considered blowing him off, but fair was fair. Besides, she’d never been so turned on as when she was in the throes of BDSM. Her relationship with Jeffrey was complicated. So she told him to come on by. Still, he was full of himself and a bit creepy; besides, with the skills she’d learned, she could find other like-minded partners. Partners with more stamina. Still, she’d felt safe with Jeffrey.

After Professor Ames arrived, Claire offered him a drink, but he demured. He was sober for once, she noted. They swiftly disrobed and climbed into bed. “What’ll it be tonight, Jeffrey?” asked Claire. “Do you want to be dominant, or shall I?” She licked her lips in anticipation.

“I just want to hold you,” he said unexpectedly, and they extinguished the light and drew a sheet over themselves and lay in one another’s arms.

Claire didn’t know what to think. Was Jeffrey ill? She pulled him close and lay with her cheek against his chest. She was surprised when, hours later, she awoke to find out she’d slept the night away. Jeffrey was awake and looking at her.

“What…what time is it?” she asked. He told her. “What happened last night?” she asked next.

“I had an epiphany,” he admitted.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m in love with you, Claire,” he said softly.

“Love?” she repeated, suddenly overwhelmed with emotion.

“Yes,” he said. “Love.”

Love had been their Safe Word.