Granted

The dicks kept coming.

Penises. Hundreds of them. With wings. Fanged and venomous.

Colonel Ahab shouted a command. “Use the shotguns. You’ll bring down more than with a pistol.”

***

Derrick held his daughter’s hand. It was his custody weekend. He had taken his daughter Wendy to the zoo. Four year old Wendy loved the zoo. She wanted to go there all the time. Derrick brought her there as often as he could.

***

Captain Hicks saluted his commander.  “Sir. There are more of them flying in from the southeast.”

Colonel Ahab gritted his teeth. “That’s the direction of one of our biological warfare facilities. These damn things might be ours. Contact the general.”

“Sir, what should we do until help comes? Half our soldiers are out of action.”

“It’s that damn poison. Who thought up these pricks?”

The Colonel wished he and those under his command had been given more information about this ‘military security emergency’ from the start – and had been provided with a better range of weaponry.

***

Wendy stared at the elephant standing in its enclosure.

“Look daddy, it’s taking a poo.”

Derrick nodded towards his daughter.

“It sure is. It’s a big one.”

Wendy looked up at her father. They were still holding hands.

Wendy said, “Elephants pooping looks funnier than when the giraffes do it.”

Wendy loved watching animals poop. Derrick thought that was the only reason she liked to visit the zoo. To watch the animals poop.

He chuckled in silence.

Four year olds, he thought. Pooping, peeing, and farting are the funniest things in the world. He smiled realizing that jokes on the same subjects still turned up in books and movies from around the world. He concluded, “We all must still be four years old inside. Part of us anyway.”

***

Captain Hick rushed to where Colonel Ahab was standing. He saluted his superior officer.

“Colonel, sir. They have brought us flame throwers.”

“It’s about time someone did something right,” said Colonel Ahab. “Get ’em up to the front. Burn those wieners to a crisp.”

***

Wendy was sitting on a bench finishing an ice cream cone. She had seen monkeys poo, wildebeests poo, giraffes poo, elephants poo, eagles poo, a polar bear poo. She had even taken a poo herself in the family restroom with her dad waiting outside the stall, ready to help with clean up.

“Where do you want to go next?” her daddy asked.

“To see the kitties.”

Derrick cleaned his daughter’s face and hands from the cone with help of a napkin he had wetted in a water fountain.

They walked together towards the lion exhibit.

***

Colonel Ahab sniffed. “The air stinks like a fraternity barbecue.”

“Yes sir,” confirmed Captain Hicks.

The Colonel asked, “Are there more incoming?”

“No sir,” said Captain “The enemy is heading towards the woods southwest of our position.”

Colonel Ahab took a moment to confirm this with his binoculars.

“Good,” he said. “Maybe those dicks will get caught in the webs of those huge spiders I hear the lab boys are raising there. I swear, it seems like the top brass throws money at any idea that could possibly kill people. I miss the old army. Machine guns, tanks, napalm, cluster bombs, and nukes. This ecological biodegradable stuff sticks in my crawl.”

Colonel Ahab paused. He turned towards Captain Hicks. “You didn’t hear that. That’s an order.”

“Hear what, sir. Were you saying something?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

***

When they finished with the lions, father and daughter headed to the Big Cat House.

Wendy looked up at her daddy and said, “I like the fluffy ones best. Except for their poop.”

Her father asked her, “Which animal had the best poop?”

Wendy stopped walking. She put a finger on her chin. She seemed to be in deep thought.

“The chimpanzees,” she pronounced.

“Good thing we ducked.”

***

General Quinn read the brief report from Colonel Ahab about the status of the clean up operation. Can’t trust these egg heads, he thought. Biological warfare can not be left to anyone who did not go through boot camp and served alongside others in uniform. There was no reason to put soldiers at risk without good reason. Top Secret my ass. I don’t care what level of clearance was involved. The soldiers sent to take care of the mess created by the lab coat crew should have known what they were going to face.

He picked up his phone. “Get me Director Langley at Covert Facility 7586.”

The general planned to give Langley an ear full about security at his labs.

***

Wendy oohed and aahed at the cougars, jaguars, leopards, and tigers.

“Daddy, can I have one?”

“Not one of those,” he told her. “They are too big for you. If you want I will talk to your mother about getting you a kitten.”

A metal door opened in a wall behind them. A man and a woman in white smock coats emerged. Wendy turned and saw them. She also glimpsed the staircase that went underground before the door slammed behind them.

Wendy pointed to the people who had come out of the door.

“Who are they Daddy?”

Derrick took a look at where Wendy was pointing.

“They look like doctors or scientists. They probably keep the animals healthy or study them so more can be known about how best to care for them.”

Wendy pulled on her father’s arm until he squatted down. When he did, she whispered in his ear.

“That’s what I want to do when I grow up. Take care of the big kitties. But don’t tell mommy. She wants me to become a lawyer.”

Derrick smiled. He remembered all the things he wanted to be as a kid before he grew up and became an accountant.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered back to his daughter. “I won’t tell mommy.”

***

Ray Wallach, Ph.D., could not stop laughing.

“I can’t believe it. We got the research grant.”

Lulu Zhang, another Ph.D., shushed him. “Remember security rules.”

Both worked in the secret lab under the county zoo.

They could not talk about it at lunch. They had to wait for dinner at his apartment. Then they could both laugh about their good luck.

***

“I guess the government will pay for anything that might kill potential enemies,” said Wallach over take out at his place.

“A tiger-gorilla gene splice!” Zhang chuckled. “Like that is going to work. Still, if they are willing to give us the money to look into it, we might as well cash the check.”

“We only got the grant because of that rumor about the Russians working on something like that. You know how it is. You have to keep up with the Ruskies.”

“I thought the rumor was they were working on a bear-tiger-cossack soldier?”

“Close enough,” said Wallach. “If a rival nation starts doing odd research our government throws money at the same thing. They probably do the same when we start programs to look into iffy areas of science.”

“Like all of the money thrown at psychic warfare research during the cold war.”

“Yeah. Like that.”

Zhang shook her head. “None of it is going to work. At least I don’t think so. Still, it might be interesting. The research could lead to the development of new techniques or discoveries that could be useful in the future for real scientific research.”

“I hope so,” said Wallach. He added, “Then again, who knows? Maybe it could work. We might be able to develop an engineered warrior that pumps gas and eats Frosted Flakes, or something like that. In any case, we can give it our all for the next five years, until the grant runs out. By then we should have made enough to buy a house and get married.”

Zhang smiled. “I guess it will be worth it then.”

***

Colonel Ahab and Captain Hicks attended the funeral of each of the soldiers under thier command that had died, according to the public record, in unspecified training accidents.

Ahab would rather have been thrown into hand to hand combat with one of those tiger-gorilla soldiers of the future that the brass had briefed him on than to have had to go to all those funerals.

“It ain’t right Hicks. It ain’t right. I should have been a soldier in the days of cavalry warfare, raising the black flag, taking no prisoners. Looting, burning, and slaughtering, or getting slaughtered. A real man can’t fight with science. All a real man can do is blow up a lab.”

“What are you saying, sir?”

“Nothing,” replied Colonel Ahab. “I am not saying anything. This is all incoherent bullshit from an old soldier tired of witnessing unnecessary deaths of soldiers under his command. Battles with no ribbons, no medals, no official records. They die with no chance of glory, without the possibility of earning even a footnote in history. No chance of becoming legend. These days there are too many secret fights no one will ever know about against enemies you couldn’t really explain to the public even if you were permitted to talk about it.”

“I hear you, sir.”

“No you don’t Hicks. You don’t hear me, because I have not said anything. We have never talked about anything. We never do.”

Captain Hicks smiled.

“Sorry sir. Did you say something? I wasn’t listening.”

The Colonel slapped him on the back. “Captain Hicks, you didn’t miss anything cause there was nothing to hear.”

***

General Quinn cleared out his office. The Secretary of War And Fitness had made it clear he had to leave. Quinn had hoped to stay in the army for five more years. Under past practice he would have gotten another promotion in that time frame, meaning a bigger pension when he became a civilian. But that was not to be. He knew that Dr. Langley had backing for what his facility did, but had not known how high up that backing went and how strong it was.

***

A few months later, Wendy was playing with her new kitten at her mommy’s house. Her mother was talking with a guest in the living room. It was a new friend of hers that she had met through an online dating service.

“Oh, Captain Hicks,” said Wendy’s mom. “You are such a card. I never knew a man in uniform could have such an odd sense of humor.”

“Comes with the territory. Besides, I am not in uniform now. That means I can relax a bit.”

A radio was on in the background. A live concert was being aired. Both had been looking forward to it. They were both fans of marching music.

Captain Hicks was filling two glasses with wine when a news alert interrupted the concert broadcast.

“This is an emergency announcement. A factory with government contracts has caught fire in Cecil County, six miles from Elkton. Explosions have been reported. Hazardous chemicals may have been released into the air by the explosions. An air quality warning has been issued. Residents in the parts of northeast Marlyland and neighboring Delaware are being encouraged to stay indoors with windows and doors closed until further notice.

Captain Hicks turned pale. He had a fair idea as to what facility was involved.

“Are you okay?” his lady asked. “Do you know people who worked there?”

Hicks asserted control over himself. “I’m fine Patty. Don’t know anyone there, but I do know someone who likes to do star gazing at night. I will check on him later to make sure he isn’t outside somewhere with his telescope. Wouldn’t want him to be exposed to toxic fumes.”

“You are right dear. We don’t want anyone outside if the air is really bad tonight.”

***

Breathing was probably the least thing to worry about. When Colonel Ahab made a decision, he always saw it through to the end. No matter how bloody it was.

It certainly was bloody for him. A piece of metal propelled by one of the explosions had severed one of his legs. Another piece of shrapnel that had once been infrastructure had ripped a gash in his side. He wasn’t going anywhere. There was no way to stop bleeding out.

He heard more explosions in the distance. Not as loud as the earlier ones. He wished he had planned better. It was too late now to finish what he had started.

The lab facility had not been completely destroyed as he intended. It was only severely damaged. Containment areas had been breached, not eliminated. Death was escaping in sizes ranging from microscopic to that of an SUV.

It was too late. There was no chance for a do over. Colonel Ahab’s last thought was that he should have used something stronger than C-4. Maybe a series of missile strikes followed by napalm.

The Colonel was long gone by first light. He was lucky in that way. He would not have to experience the clouds of bacteria and fungal spores, carried on the winds, or the carnivorous vaginas, fearsome bandersnatches, and larger, worse things, that were about to reek havoc throughout the county. Nor would he have see the news headlines later blaming him for possibly starting Armageddon.

Kat Zen Jammer vs. Kandy Fontaine, Slutty Kaiju Detective

Former San Francisco Sexpert turned Buddhist porn star Kat “Zen” Jammer (also lead singer of Kat Zen and the Kulcha Jammers) passed out in a flood of fluids. Kandy Fontaine, former FBI agent turned Slutty Detective and often Kaiju Monster Stripper leaned over her with a crop whip.

“We’re not through yet,” she told the semi-conscious Jammer. “I still need some discipline ‘cos bad grrrl.”

Kat murmured something incoherent and put up a feeble paw. “I’m too blurry to wield the whip now,” she said. A trickle of drool rolled down her cheek. “Besides, didn’t you have a date with Today’s Tom Sawyer? Wasn’t he going to hook you up with some bio-snuff? And hey, while you too are at it like mad monkeys having mad monkey porn sex, could you save some in a can or whatnot for me?”

“The carpet fibers are greenglowing and licking muh pores,” said Kandy from a million miles away (but, given conditions of Quantum phys-ed-ics, right next door…her pussy was dribbling quantum foam as she spoke languorously, then sped up until she sounded like Bugs Bunny huffing helium).

“I sort of lost the…narrative thread,” said Kat Zen. “But what-evahs.”

“It did unravel,” returned Kandy, a quick volley that bounced around the room, hit the tips of some gack-infused carpet fibers, did a meta-watusi and returned, chastened and reformed, to rehab, heads hung low-brow).

The two alphabet wimmen lay side by side. Kandy began to dwindle and virtually disappear until her head sunk further into the carpet and her pores got rockem-sock-em gackified.

“I do believe there’s some bio-snuff in there as well,” she said.

“I thought bio-snuff leaked and became ambient…whatever is in there must be weak ginger beer.”

A knock at Kandy’s apartment door. Instinctively reaching for her Glock 9.

“I’ll blow a motherfucker’s brains through his occiput,” she purred.

“Holy shit, lady…” came a garbled voice on the other side. Then the knocking renewed, but more tentative.

“Today’s?”

“Yeppers, that would be me. But hey listen, Kandy, I don’t feel like having my brains blown through the back of muh skull today. For one thing, shit hurts and it takes me at least 72 hours and a metric shit-ton of bio-snuff to revive, providing we generate enough through orgone entanglement.”

“That’s the word I forgot earlier. The one that goes with Quantum.”

“Whatever…are you going to let me in?”

“Ok ok ok. You want Kat Zen? We could have a three-way.”

“All right.”

Like a savage, unhinged, erotic game of Twister. Their bodies clenched and clinched. Mostly Kandy went down on folks, enjoying Today’s fearsome long pole and Kat’s remarkably savory pussy juices. They soul-kissed together, went to the bed, tried bondage except whilst being edged, Kandy went into a feeding frenzy and ate one of Kat’s eyeballs a la the late Jesus Gonzales.

“Ow!!! Bitch what the actual fuck?”

“You’ll regrow it, cunt. With enough bio-snuff ov course. And we have generated sufficient. Today’s, did you remember the can? Not the Pringle’s can…or the tennis ball can.”

“I brought a can-do attitude.”

“What the SHIT,” screamed Kat. “CUNT. HAIRY UNRIGHTEOUS PILLAR OF CUNTY CUNT HAIR FROM HADES. CUM BACK HERE.” But Kandy was halfway to Kaiju Land and had head-burst through the ceiling, incinerated and devoured the burnt n’ krispy remains of their upstairs neighbor and was beginning to chow down on her roommate Karl when the door shattered and the po-po burst in. Kandy grew even bigger, and a wall of flames burst out, turning the men in blue into black-roasted drippy tenders.

Today’s attempted to inch out the door, pushing aside a wad of partially-burnt copper in the process. More police came in. Kandy put up an Irving Klaw. More flames, more kaiju mayhem. Flickers of Kathy Acker motorcycle began to inlay themselves recursively down her spine; her head was replaced with a part parrot, part-cyborg fun pack and became embedded in a Mondo narrative involving fun pocket dimensions. The narrative grew extra-cloudy. Robert Crumb crawled in hot on the trail of a big-ass woman…Janis Joplin followed wailing “Ball and Chain”…the edges of the comix panel caught fire…Kat’s eyeball started its own comix series…Kathy Acker rewrote the narrative featuring her motorcycle…the parrot ascended to the dictatorship and merged completely with its cyborg counterpart…the narrative detonated in a massive fireball and blew Tokyo away…and orange ya glad this nightmare is over? Again.

Thee End.

No Party for You

Lawrence approached the big, black doors.
“Good evening, sir,” the guard said, holding a clipboard. “Name, please.”
“Lawrence.”
The noise of a party going full swing could be heard behind the closed doors.
The man scanned the papers.  “Do you have a reservation?”
“Dr. Thomas was going to make it.”
“Sorry. Don’t have it.”
“Anything you can do to let me in?”
“Do you have your Death Certificate?” the guard asked.
Lawrence stood silently.
“Not really, but I’m sure it’s coming soon,” he mumbled.
The guard smiled faintly. “Would you like me to put you on the waiting list?”

Melvin

Melvin was a local poet and a boring one like most. He would read his sad bullshit poems and stories in the back corner of the coffee house where they had the AA meetings and poetry readings while the other boring poets and drunks threw back stale donuts and coffee and stared off into space. Sometimes one or two of them would applaud weakly or offer a word or two of encouragement or constructive criticism with all of the zeal of a couple of flies fucking.

Everything changed when he worked up the guts to read a story from his younger years where he was driving around Las Vegas in a convertible drunk with a hooker who was so high on speed that she was scraping her shoes on the stars. When he got to the part where he considered himself an engineering genius because he was able to figure out how to piss with an electric buzzing prostate massager up his ass people starting throwing their donuts. Some got up and left all in a silly little huff. Others heckled him including one that offered “well if this is poetry I’m a supermodel.” Finally, a reaction. He was beginning to think they were corpses.

After a few weeks had passed, Melvin got the idea to up the ante and start hanging local politicians from the windmills down by the lakefront and call it art. He figured that worst case scenario he would get arrested and make the news. Fifteen minutes of fame just like Warhol talked about. But then again Warhol was a quack. Melvin once dreamed about fucking Warhol in his ears. They were tight and soupy.

His art project was lauded as cutting edge, the next big thing. He wound up on the cover of the little local arts variety paper. He walked by the same coffee joint and this time the poet who was most definitely not a supermodel came out and asked Melvin to autograph her copy of the paper.

Melvin took the paper from her without saying a word and went home to his crummy apartment. He sat down on the shitter and took a large, steaming oatmeal and beer crap. He then reached for the paper and wiped his ass with his own face.

Laureate Of The Spanish Main

It was open poetry reading night at the Skull and Artichoke, a mangy tavern near the wharf in Marcus Hook in the colony of Pennsylvania. Many unsavory seamen were in there, draining tankards and sipping from cups with little paper umbrellas.

It was nearing intermission. Sigmund Sigmundson was finishing a recitation of his latest epic about catching and eating cod. He was given polite applause when he was done.

By chance two strangers were sharing a table. One was in his forties. In other worlds, an old man. He was large, hairy, and battle scarred. The other gentleman at the table was young, thin, and relatively clean shaven. Both stank like outhouses.

With the poetry on pause, the two fell into polite banter, in between attempts at groping the pock marked ladies serving drinks and whatnot. 

The older man introduced himself. 

“Aargh. I be pirate. Hurting from arthritis and scurvy from sailing the seven seas. But I am also a poet known in all the ocean lanes and in many lands I raided. I rob, rape, burn, and kill. Pillaging you could say is one of my skills. In my down time as Captain, when I an in my cabin, I compose verses as true to life as all the blood I’ve spilled. I always give the crew of a vessel I encounter a choice. Painful death, or surrender of their ship and booty, plus purchase of a hundred copies of my books, and mandatory attendance at a reading by yours truly. I offer the same terms to any town or city I attack, although I increase the number of copies of my books that are required to be purchased. In this way I have earned dual fame throughout the world as a dreaded cutthroat and as a more dreaded versifier.”

The young man’s eyes brightens. He asked, “Would you be Captain Fergus McDougall, author of “Fourteen Months Of Butchery Under The Southern Cross”?

The captain puffed out his chest.

“I be the same my lad. What be your name and how did you come by my book?”

“My parents named me Hector Johnson, but my friends call me Rutabaga Johnson.”

“What a terrible nickname. If you join my crew I could give you a better one quick.”

“Like what?”

“I’d have to think about it. How is Rutabaga the Bloody, or Scurvy Johnson, or One Eyed Johnson  – of course you would have to lose an eye to earn that name.”

“I don’t know,” the young man said. “I am not sure any of those names would suit me. I am not sure I want to be a pirate either. I get seasick easily. I see myself more as a highwayman in the future. Sort of a land pirate.”

“Not a bad trade,” Captain McDougall replied. “I will give you that. Now tell me how you came across my book.”

“One morning I rowed out to a sandbar with a friend to dig for clams. We found a man there buried up to his neck. Crabs had eaten part of his nose and a little from one of his ears when we found him. We chased off the crabs, dug him up, and found he was naked. The only thing on him was your book, hanging from his neck on a rope.”

“Hhm. Where would this sandbar be?”

“Off the coast of Harmer’s Town in the colony of Maryland,” said Hector.

“When abouts did you find him?” the captain asked.

“It was sometime in June, around 1703.”

McDougall nodded.

“Ah, that must have been Edwin Cliveden Watts. He wrote a terrible review of my book in a journal. Tracked him down I did. Gave him the punishment he deserved. Too bad he survived.”

“Not for long,” Hector assured him. “He caught smallpox a few weeks later.”

The captain laughed.

“As the Bard said, all is well that ends well. Now tell me what you thought of my book, assuming you read it.”

 “Of course I read it,” said Hector. “I loved it. But you have to understand that the only other books I had read for comparison beforehand were the Bible, a book of sermons, and a book on basic math.”

McDougall scratched he beard.

“I can see why you loved my book. Poetry by a real pirate must have been much more interesting than your previous reading material.”

“You are right Captain McDougall. Nothing I had ever read compared to your blood thirsty and lecherous verses.”

McDougall smiled.

“I write it like it is. No flowery lies. No Greek or Roman gods. No morals getting in the way of what I need to say. Have you read any poems by other writers since then?”

“I have,” Hector told him. “They all seem rather dull after reading your work. The all sounded like ffete upper class school boys.”

“That’s what most of them are. Do you have a favorite poem of mine?”

“The one about the noble woman that you carried off from Peru.”

The captain closed his eyes. A huge grin formed on his lips.

“That was a wild month or so at sea. A series of escapades worth remembering. Want me to sign my book to you?”

“I wish you could,” the youth explained. “The problem is I don’t know have it anymore.”

“What happened to it?”

“The first time I tried being a highwayman it got stolen from. You see I carried it with me everywhere. I chose an itinerant preacher as my first target. I had heard how much he pocketed from passing a collection basket when he was in my town. Turned out he was a bit of a highwayman himself. Quick with pistol and sword. I had to give him everything I had to keep my life. Your book, my purse, my boots, my coat, my pistol, my horse… It took me a long while to make up for my losses.”

The captain shook his head. He let of a sigh.

“It is a sad tale, young Rutabaga. I only hope that rascal of a minister did not burn my book. Ministers tend to do so. It hurts me to the quick. Only so many copies were printed.”

“I share your hope,” Hector aka Rutabaga said. “I had vowed there and then, after my disgrace, to one day track him down, avenge my honor, and reclaim your book.”

The captain slammed a fist on the table.

“To hell with your honor. Honor does not matter much in the real world. Think of it as optional. Focus on getting the book back. No need to kill or be killed if you can avoid it.”

“I will take your advice to heart, Captain. I swear to follow your advice.”

Captain McDougall liked the sound of the lad’s response. He leaned forward.

“Now, here’s a question for you. Do you write any poetry?”

“Sorry, no sir. I have thought about it, but I haven’t picked up a pen. I don’t think my ideas are good enough. Especially after having read your collection.”

The captain gave his table mate a gentle punch in the arm.

“All you need is more life in ya. Then you will have plenty to write. Good or bad it will flow from you. Same as your water does in a privy.”

“Do you really think so?”

Captain McDougall tapped his temple with a finger. 

“Hector the Bloody Rudabega, I know so.”

That was all the time they had to chatter before the second part of the evening’s program began. 

Midway through the second half of the program, Captain McDougall excused himself. He winked towards Hector of the Unfortunate Nickname, and said, “I need to fill the ocean.”

On his way to find a comfortable wall outside, he signaled to one of his crew who was there listening in awe to a sonnet about growing potatoes. The crew member followed his captain outside.

Banana Charlie was a tall man with a broad chest and muscular arms. He whispered to his captain, “Are we aiming to set sail now?”

McDougall replied in a low voice, “Not yet Banana Charlie. I have a task for you.”

“What is it?”

Captain McDougall rested his arm around Banana Charlie’s shoulders. He whispered in his ear, “After this reading is over, I want you to follow the lad that has been sitting at my table. When you have a chance to get the jump on him, clunk him on the head. Once he is out cold, gag him, tie him up, carry him to the dinghy, and wait for me.”

“Did he offend you?” asked Banana Charlie. “What do you want us to do to him?”

“Calm down Banana. He has done nothing bad. Even praised my poetry. Read one of my books he did. Been a highwayman too, or tried to be. So, I offered him a chance to join the crew. Turned me down. Well, he is going to join anyway. For his own good.”

“Ya think he’ll make a good pirate?”

“Maybe,” said Captain McDougall. “I can’t be sure of that. But I know he’ll never become a poet worth his salt if he stays on land. There might be hope for him if he turns pirate, even of that happens under threat of death.”

“What if he still refuses to be part of your crew?”

“Hah,” scoffed the captain. “He will won’t say no. I’ll ply him with rum and books of my poetry. That will change his perspective of life for the better.”

Banana Charlie agreed, “You do know how to lead wayward youths farther astray.”

The captain chuckled. “You could say it is one of my talents. I believe in this fellow. He’ll come around to our way of thinking. When he does, he’ll become someone I can talk to during those long nights at sea. He read my poems, under no threat of death. And he liked them. God damn it. He liked them. It will all work out. Wait and see.”

Just Desserts

Preparing this headstrong whipped dessert, she thought about the year he nicknamed it “anniversary tart,” and how — when it didn’t come out right— his temper distilled there till the dining room turned to ice and the chair legs left black-blue marks. How his fury bloomed in her sleep like toxins that blocked the sun.

These scenes worked the muscle memory in her hands as she punched down the dough, then argued it into the deep pan. Two hours of heat forced the crust to play a protective role for the tender filling, which slowly released its sweetness. Later, while slicing it, the crimson of his manly parts flashed angrily as if caught in the act. His tenderized flesh tasted savory. Methodical chewing increased the atmospheric pressure. And her saliva was like a settlement of snow, tamping down the rough patches of a long road.

Dead in Hollywood

As I pull the final box out of the back seat of my car, I bump the door shut with my hip and glance up at my new apartment complex. It was old and looked like a good storm could knock it over, but after sleeping in a shared attic bedroom with my brother for two years, this place was a paradise. I push open the door and begin making my way to the third floor. The building had no working elevator, which made moving by myself a nightmare, but it’s over after this box. 

Apartment 33 is at the end of the third-floor hall on the left. The hall was dark, and I couldn’t see much, but I could hear insects chittering, and what I assumed were rats clawing at the insides of the walls. I made it to the door and nudged it open. Unlike the hall, the apartment was completely lit up. I already wasn’t keen on the dark, but also, I wanted to keep as many of the creepy crawlers out as possible. There’s not much in the world I hate more than bugs, but still, this is better than the alternative.

I toss the box on the futon in the living room, which is the first room you walk into. I can’t help but feel like the layout is awkward. There was the living room, and on both sides of it was a door to a bedroom. I only needed one bedroom, but this was all they had. Then, at the back left of the living room, there was an entryway to a small kitchen. When I say small, I mean I don’t understand how anyone could actually cook anything in there. That was fine though, I don’t eat anything that I can’t microwave. Then on the back right side of the living room, there was a bathroom. 

The bathroom was my least favorite room because it was honestly just fucking creepy. The floor was missing tiles, and there was bare concrete where they should’ve been. There were several holes in the walls. Some were clearly made by fists, but others were much larger. The bathtub was an old claw-foot tub, and the inside was stained a dirty yellow color. There was a window above the tub with a beautiful view of the truck stop across the street and the dumpster. Welcome to Hollywood, I thought, and laughed. Who knew California was just as shitty as everywhere else? I can’t put my finger on why, but I know in my bones that something is wrong with this place. At least this room for sure. 

I suddenly feel very lightheaded, so I sit down on the toilet, hoping it will pass. It does not, so I pull the unlabeled bottle of pills out of my pocket and pop two of the tiny football-shaped pills into my mouth. Within a few minutes, I feel like I can stand up, and I’m completely mellow. Last year, at the ripe age of thirty, I figured out one simple truth about myself. I fucking love any kind of benzodiazepines. Alprazolam, which is what I just took, is my favorite by far, but any will do. Any time I feel a little anxiety, I take two. Any time I want to have fun, I take four. Come to think of it, that would make unpacking much better. I pop two more and head back to the living room. 

I sit on the futon and go to open the box that’s closest to me, but before I can, I begin to hear crying. It sounded like two, maybe three, small children crying. These walls must be paper thin, I think before ripping the box open. Video games and movies. There’s nowhere to put them yet since I haven’t put together any furniture, so I decide I should start with that instead. I make my way to my tool bag, which is by the spare bedroom, and as I get to it, the crying has become so loud that it sounds like it’s actually coming from inside. The thought freaks me out. It definitely needs investigating, though. I take the hammer from the bag and decide to bring it along. This room was empty this morning, but the apartment door was unlocked all day, so who knows? Could be squatters. 

A blinding bright light comes from the room. Perhaps it seemed brighter than before because the drugs were confusing me, but I was sure they weren’t causing the rest of what I was seeing. Against the center of the wall in front of me, there was a crib. Two children, whom I guessed were around one to two years old, stood holding onto the side of the crib, crying. There were pink flowers painted elegantly all over the walls, and toys on the floor, none of which had been there before. The toys and crib looked old-fashioned; they had to have been antiques. 

Suddenly, I hear another sound coming from my left. I glance over and discover why I thought there might have been three children crying. Someone else had been sniffling. There was a young woman, probably early twenties, backed into the corner, just staring at the children and crying. Her outfit looked as vintage as the other things in the room. Her blouse showed not one bit of skin. Her skirt, while tight, was down to her ankles. She wore no shoes or socks, and this made the outfit seem strange to me. One thing I thought, before even thinking to ask what was the matter or why they were in my apartment, was that she was drop-dead gorgeous. I’m not proud of this, given the situation, but her figure was a perfect hourglass, her eyes were a beautiful green, she had shoulder-length black hair, and the cutest dimples I’d ever seen. 

I glance down at the hammer, which feels foolish now, and toss it back out into the living room. I clear my throat and say, “Excuse me ma’am, are you alright?” There’s no answer. The children begin coughing because of how hard they’re crying now, and the young woman whimpers. I step closer to her. One of the children begins making a choking noise, and the woman starts sobbing and runs for the door. As I’m trying to figure out why she’s not helping the children, or why she won’t acknowledge me, she collides with me. Or, she should have, but there was no collision at all. Her body brushed through mine like a breeze, filling my body with a freezing sensation. I turned to look after her, but she was gone. Then I turned to see that the rest of the room was also empty, dark and gloomy, how I remembered it. 

As I stared at where there was just a crib and two crying kids, girls, I think, because of the flowers, a knock came at the door. I don’t realize it at first. Not because I’m fighting with myself internally about what I just saw, I am, but because it also just hit me how fucking high I really was. The knock comes again, and this time I’m able to partially return to reality. I make my way to the door, wondering what kind of crack head neighbors I might have, and which one this will be. I open the door, and feel the blood drain from my face completely. 

Standing in front of me was the girl I had seen in the spare room. Well, kind of, this girl wasn’t dressed in clothes from the 1940’s. She wore a Dead Kennedys crop top that had a V cut down the center, revealing a fair amount of cleavage. She wore black jean shorts, with fishnets on underneath, and a pair of black Chucks to tie it all together. It was undeniably her, though. Same hair, dimples, eyes, and body. Before saying anything, I looked around to see if there were kids. There were not. 

“Hey,” she said, “are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” I unintentionally laughed out loud at this. “Yeah, hi, sorry, I’m fine. How can I help you?” She smiles, and when she does, I don’t believe there’s a single girl in the world as pretty as her. “Well, my name is Claire, and I used to live here. I felt like taking a walk down memory lane today. May I come in?” I’m going to be honest, I know that anyone I ever tell this story to would think letting the ghost girl in was crazy, but I cannot express how fucking hot she is. “Come on in, I’m Alex by the way.” I offer her a glass of water, and she declines. She takes off a pull-string backpack with a Misfits skull on it, opens it up, and pulls out a bottle of bourbon and a bag of weed. “How much do you like to party, Alex?” She asks, setting both on the coffee table. I pull the pill bottle out and set it down with her stash. “I’ll share if you share. I have something else to throw in as well,” I say with a grin. “We’ll see who can party harder, but first let me change out of these work clothes, and grab my other surprise.” If I was going to have any shot, dirty basketball shorts and a sweat-stained shirt were not the move. 

I excused myself to my room and discarded my dirty clothes. I pull on the black skinny jeans I wore every day, and slip my Choking Victim hoodie on over my head. It might be pathetic, but I feel like matching her punk aesthetic will help my chances. I stop and stare in the mirror, messing up my hair a little on purpose. I pause, trying to figure out what I’m forgetting, and then the light bulb in my head comes on. I go to the dresser and pull out an eight ball of coke from my underwear drawer. Lots of downers on that table out there, gotta make sure we come back up. I also grab my little cutting tray and my razor blade, then head back to the living room. I don’t see her right away, then I look over and find her staring into the bathroom. 

The color was gone from her face this time, as she stared at the tub. Then she looked at me and said, “This room has seen better days, yeah? It really matches the exterior. God, this place is such a shithole. Sorry, no offense.” She threw in this last bit as if I could actually be mad or disagree. It was a shithole. “No offense taken,” I say, and flash her the bag in my hand with a smirk. At that, her eyes seemed to light up. “Well, let’s get down to business then, shall we?” She asked. 

We started with shots, and on the third one, we both popped a pill in our mouths and washed it down with liquid fire. She lit a joint as I cut up our first line, and when we finished with those, she crawled into my lap and took her shirt off. She grabbed me by the back of the neck and pulled me close. We start making out and running our hands all over each other. We are both shedding clothes in the process, until finally, there are no clothes left and she’s on top of me, riding me like a mechanical bull. She grabs my hands and pulls them to her breasts; I squeeze them, and all I can think is this is no ghost. I don’t know what the fuck I saw earlier, but this was real. Before I finish the thought, I move my hands to her hips and slam her down as I explode inside of her. 

We took our time getting up, still exploring each other’s bodies with our hands. Eventually we put our underwear back on, but leave the other clothes scattered about. She curled up on the futon, and passed out. I consider cuddling up next to her, but go for more coke instead. I begin to wonder if I’m developing a full-on drug problem, as I cut the fattest line I’ve ever seen. I go for the bourbon first, and take a few gulps. I go to put the straw in my nose when I hear a scream from my room. It startles me, and I shoot to my feet, dropping the straw without realizing it. Then there were more screams. It’s Claire’s voice, but she’s still asleep on the futon right next to me. I walk slowly to the door. The distress screams continue, and then a man yells, “Shut the fuck up,” and there was a loud cracking noise, and her next cry was one of pain. I ran to the door now and pushed it open. The man was getting up from the bed and pulling up his pants. Claire was on the bed with her dress pushed up past her waist, and she was sobbing, worse than when I saw her with the children. The man had a belt wrapped in his hand, and when she pulled her hands away from her face, I saw the bloody belt mark on her cheek. “That’ll teach you to tell me no. You’ll never forget me now. My seed is strong.” 

“Alex,” came a sleepy voice from behind me. I turn to look at her, and she’s looking over at the coffee table, probably considering what to do next. I look back in my room, and the scene that was there had vanished. I make my way back to her, and before I know what I’m about to say, I blurt out, “So do you have any kids?” She looks at me blankly for what feels like a long time, and then calmly says, “No, they’re not for me.” Then she looks at my comically large line of cocaine and says, “Are you going to do all of that?” I picked the straw up off of the floor and did all of it. I was going to bow as a joke, but a coughing fit hit me as I bent down, and it sent me to the floor. She reached down and helped me up. As soon as I’m on my feet, the children begin to cry again. Her face stiffens. She says nothing, but stares at the bathroom door. “Wait, can you hear it too?” I ask. She does not reply, but walks to the bathroom and opens the door. I join her in the doorway. 

I look inside and see ghost Claire bathing the two small girls. They’re crying hysterically, and she is as well. She always was, it seemed, at least in whatever timeline this was. My Claire seemed much different. Their screams get louder and louder, and ghost Claire begins to shake. After a minute, the shaking stops even though the screaming has hit a new peak. She says something quietly, and even though I can’t make it out completely, I believe it was, “Please forgive me,” then she grabs both children by the backs of their heads and slams them under the water. I gasp and take a step forward. I see them struggling under the water, and I want to help, but I can’t move. I’m completely frozen, and I mean that literally. I tried with everything I had, and didn’t move an inch. Eventually, the children were motionless too. The scene disappeared, but there was still sniffling behind me. “I told you they weren’t for me.” Her voice was different now. It was older, and when I turned to face her, I didn’t want to be surprised that she had aged at least sixty years, but I was. Mostly because she wasn’t just older. She was clearly dead. A walking corpse. She still only wore the underwear, and I really wish that we would’ve gotten fully dressed, as the visual was disturbing to say the least. “You aren’t a ghost, so what are you?” I ask. 

“That’s sort of complicated, and I’m afraid we don’t have much time now, but I’ll explain as best I can,” she says. “Many would call me a revenant. Which is partly true, but that’s not all. I’m a shifter, as you can see, although I can only take the shape of myself from different time periods. I usually look how you’ve seen me before, but once someone’s fate is sealed, they can only see me for what I truly am. Some would call me a banshee, but that’s not entirely true. A banshee’s cries warn of the death of a loved one, while my cries basically sign the death certificate of all who hear them. In truth, what I am is a walking curse. I prayed to the goddess of curses after that man did what he did to me, and it backfired. Now I’m as you see me, and I will be this way for eternity.” I’m fully aware that she’s mentioned my fate in a negative light a few times now, and as if she could read my mind, she motions for me to follow her. 

She walked to the living room out to the living room and pointed to the floor. I looked and saw my lifeless body lying where I had fallen earlier. “Heart attack,” she said. I wanted to ask why she did this to me, but I could no longer speak. I looked down, and I was beginning to disappear. She read this final thought just like she did the last. Was I communicating with her telepathically now? “It’s part of the curse that I stay here, and as long as I’m bound here, my story will tell itself on repeat to all who enter. This wasn’t personal in any way, Alex. I actually enjoyed your company a lot, and I truly mean it when I say that I wish I met you in my lifetime. I’ve never had a lover as kind as you were to me today. I was pretty much only ever abused by the ones who were supposed to care. You, though — you could’ve saved me, I think, had only you been born in the 20’s.”

There’s so much I want to say, but my body fades fast now, and even quicker than I entered the world, I blink out of existence forever. 

Skeet River

So I shot this mega hot load out my salmon-colored cock that splashed up my chest and neck and chin and even up my motherfucking mouth and nose and my closed eyes got gummed together too but I managed to aim down and away from me and it was like I was holding onto a writhing snake trying to keep the snap away from my tender flesh but either way I was erupting so much and so forcefully that my tub was filling up with the white cream and I would have been scared if not for the fact that I was in ecstasy complete heaven my brain-body tingling my whole everything quivering like a freshly shot arrow so I didn’t give shit one that the cum spilled over the sides of the tub and the foundation of my bathroom was beginning to seize and crack and shit I was seizing and cracking it felt like my soul had been tapped into like I was a maple tree and out came this nut of prodigious amount and I’m now swimming in this thing and wow! there goes the floor everything splashing down into the mud room beneath and now I’m covered bodily in this thing and I can barely use my mouth or nose to breathe without slurping in this cock brewed mucus but hey it’s smooth and sweet like the tapioca my momma used to make so I drink it up best as I can and anyways my hands are still on my stone-hard member and I’m moving it back and forth like a rudder and that’s working remarkably well which I’m thankful for because the mud room is now filling up and jackets and boots and food from the opened pantry next to the coat closet are all floating around me and oh shit there goes the window in the door leading to my backyard and like liquid through a tight funnel I’m expunged out in an explosive wet arc like a diarrhea shit or a red-hot pimple pop and the winter air is no concern because I’m in a womb-like bath of my own creation though it steams the moment the February air meets it and I’m thinking the cleanup all of this is going to take but I’m still shooting can you fucking believe it and this self-made lake congealing on my dead lawn takes on further life and continues to expand and elongate and I try to wipe the dumb smile off my face but I’m still cumming baby and I don’t want to stop and I think it knows I think it has a mind of its own and I just accept that and lean back and enjoy the ride for what it is on skeet river.

“How’s it?” asked my wife who came in without knocking, the bitch.

The dildo slid out my ass. Semen pooled in my naval, like milk in a bowl of cereal. I grinned and that was answer enough.

Summer Lust

We all thought Shawn Kiely was sex in a Speedo the summer of ‘87. Adults openly clucked tongues while whispering about the Adonis on the local pool swim team.  We were less subtle; when he walked by the lounge chairs, still wet and glistening in the golden light of late morning, girls would close their eyes and take a long, slow breath, trying to capture his sweet smelling skin over the chlorine; boys would watch too, with mixed parts of jealousy, awe, and a hidden desire to be him or naked next to him in the shower, pulling the cheap white plastic curtain shut, ignoring the metal scraping as the grommets screech across the rod, if only for a brief, tangy, mind-melting kiss. Yet he was either unaware, uninterested, or unwilling. By summer’s end, we came despite brutal heat for one last glance, sigh, and poolside fantasy before the first sprout of hair on his shaven legs popped out, heralding the end of our time with the sensuality that remained ephemeral and palpable. 

The Hungry Guest

Like Dracula, I needed to be invited in, but not for the same reason.

Barry was very chill and didn’t seem surprised when I showed up yesterday at his house without even texting. He said, “Dude! Come on in! Want a beer?” 

Of course I did. And something more.  

We were in the same crime fiction class at the local college, currently reading Raymond Chandler who we both liked. Barry and I had talked about hanging out some time, but a bar was out of the question for what I had in mind.

Wearing our school colors of red and white, he waved me inside the mid-century ranch house that his parents had bought for him. He’d confessed when we first sat next to each other in class that they’d made the purchase so that he wouldn’t have to share a dorm or even a condo with “riff-raff.” He laughed. I didn’t, but I didn’t mind their view of our student body. They had no idea that people like them (and Barry too, of course) were sheep to my wolf.

“Gross, huh?” he said, pointing around the open living room after he closed the front door.

I nodded. The house must have come furnished because everything had a tacky nautical motif: curtains, rugs, lamps, painting, knick-knacks. I couldn’t see that as being his style; he’d never mentioned sailing or boating when we chatted after class.

“Sit, sit, sit. I’ll get the beers.”

I studied him as he padded barefoot to the open kitchen. He was blond and bland but looks never mattered to me. What mattered was that he took hot yoga off campus and had bragged before our fiction class one day about “victorious breath,” being able to keep the same steady audible breathing in and out for a whole session. It supposedly worked to calm yoga practitioners and somehow energize them too. 

Barry was apparently the only one in the yoga class who could maintain that breathing and the instructor often said, “Listen to Barry.” He thought it probably pissed off the women who were far more flexible than him and could even do handstands, but couldn’t breathe the way he did.

I loved the idea of victorious breath, of breath that was a victory because I was a victor. Barry didn’t know that yet.

He brought us two Leffe beer bottles and glasses with the Leffe logo on them and I was impressed. He had good taste.  And probably tasted good too.

Sitting on a couch with an aggressive anchor pattern on the pillows, we sipped the excellent beer and compared the prose style of The Big Sleep to The Maltese Falcon. He was smarter than he looked, which was I guess was like your typical high school jock. 

“But that classroom really sucks, doesn’t it?” he said, shaking his head.

“It’s the worst.”

Fifteen of us, mostly English majors, were meeting twice weekly under fluorescent lights that were so bright they could have worked for torture if they stayed on all day and you were hogtied to your chair desk. The white cinderblock walls made everything worse. Our teaching assistant–the kind who wanted to be your buddy–called out “Welcome to the operating room!” every time he walked in and we dutifully laughed because he was a nice-enough guy. 

Barry was halfway through his beer when he said, “I’m really looking forward to reading The Incredible Mr. Ripley. I want to see whether the movie was true to the book. Not, like, word-by-word. But the essence, the vibe.” 

That’s when I realized he looked a bit like a beefy Matt Damon. 

He set down his glass on the atrocious knotty-pine coffee table and said, “I want to share something with you.” And he seemed to wait for me to respond but I could wait too, and I did. He breathed in deeply before letting out a sigh that was music to me–and more. Much more.

“I’m gay.” He hesitated. “That’s why I wanted to hang out together, because I’ve been wondering if you are too.”

“Well. . .I can be.”

He frowned. “What does that mean?”

I put my beer glass down, moved to his side and said, “I’ll show you.” I leaned in and kissed his red lips softly, then hard, then forced his mouth open and he was utterly helpless. 

When I eventually pulled away, sweat had broken out across Barry’s forehead and his eyes were blinking fast. He was breathless and could barely speak, just the way I wanted him. He needed to feel swept away by passion, unaware that I was actually a predator, a thief, stealing some of his air.

“Shit, man,” he said after a while. “That was awesome.”

He tried to pull me back on top of him, but even though I was rock hard, I wasn’t ready. Sex would be dessert after the meal I’d just enjoyed. I could wait.

“How about another beer, Barry?”

He grinned and said, “Let’s party!”

As he headed back to his kitchen, I reminded myself not to be greedy. I had been running low lately for some reason and needed him to stay alive as long as possible until he died of “natural causes” and nobody would think I was anything more than a friend.