Black Chrome

Lydia Christian emerged dripping from the starfield. She attempted to wipe away the black and star-spackled droplets which felt like rubber against her body, but discovered they had worked their way into her flesh and were worming through her cellular structure.

“This is fine,” she said, a halo of flames suddenly bursting from her head. She sat down before the controls deck of the spaceship and examined the feed.

“Now navigating the Lucipheria galaxy,” said Major Tom.

“Nice name,” said Lydia. “Does she play?”

“All the games.”

“Does she play Black Chrome?”

“Oh yes.”

“And to win?”

“She kills at Black Chrome.”

“Get her online,” said Lydia. “Let’s see how bad the bitch is.”

“So it goes,” said Major Tom. 

The board came online. Lydia picked up the MirrorShades and put them on. Slight burning sensation as the contact points fused with her neural weave.

“Uploading to pain.net and Akasha.net with Reality Hack embedded” said Major Tom.

“Looks like Lucipheria is a Kopy Kat.”

“That is correct,” came a disembodied voice, soon followed by the enormous face of a black panther.

“Good to meet you.”

“Enchanted, I must say,” purred the panther. “In how many moves do you expect to be defeated?”

“I’ve never been defeated at Black Chrome,” said Lydia.

“First time for everything,” said the cat.

“True,”

“Shall I make the first move?”

“Yes.”

In an instant, Lydia was transported to a Reality Studio stage with a live audience. On the stage was a table at which sat her mother at age 36, her at 10 years old, and a math book. Tears glistened on Lydia’s cheeks like diamonds.

“I win,” growled the cat.

“Why in the hell would you expect me to agree with you?” said Lydia, giggling to herself, then bursting out into loud laughter. 

“Because that is the nature of Black Chrome. The nanocircuitry is already rewiring your DNA to express different enzymes based on the recognition of your specific learning disability, dyscalculia.”

“Is that what you think?” said Lydia. But she was bluffing. She could feel the nano ants working inside her. Everything about her current attitude was bravado, including how she had faked her way through StarRider Academy and fabricated her test scores. Her field tests were slightly more difficult to forge, but with the help of a friend on the inside who had a link to an Akasha.net admin, she’d managed that too.

The truth of the matter was that Lydia had done whatever it took to land a coveted commander office, and nothing and nobody, she felt, was capable of defeating her.

Until now.

She looked deeply into the implacable eyes of the panther. She could feel the beast’s hot breath infused through her skin. She began to sweat the rubber droplets which writhed and churned inside her flesh like razors. Her brain was boiling alive with recalled shame as the nanobots, manifested and exuded as avatars outside of herself, began to unmake the pixel content of her form as a represented 10-year-old girl.

But she loved that girl. Admired her for her fortitude in never giving an inch, always learning from other people–and animals, and cyberconscious beings. That girl with the black pigtails and Lycia girlie t was going to triumph even over this local optimum.

“How badly does it burn?” purred the cat. “The shame of it. Your family’s shame. How your mother would beat you up afterwards and then send you to your room, exhausted from crying. You lost sleep, and in the morning when you had school your brain was so sleep-deprived and exhausted your head slammed against your desk. All the other children made fun of you. Mocked your disability, your poverty, the fact that you alone weren’t able to access Akasha.net, which had just come online.”

“It’s true,” said Lydia. She felt sick now. Her stomach was doing flip-flops and her face was burning. “I’m so fucking sorry I let you all down,” she cried, and before her stood her family, her aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews and grandparents, some of them deceased, back in a line of savants that stretched back forever. She was uniquely stupid in her entire line. But sometimes she wondered if they wanted it as badly as she did.

Neither of her parents had done anything with the gifts. They’d squandered their time on Earth 2. They were ready for the landfill or worse, the underworld where the Dark Ones roamed. 

“Are you ready to give up yet?” asked the cat, not cruelly but in matter-of-fact tones.

“What is the nature of Black Chrome?” asked Lydia.

“Are you fucking serious? Its nature is ambiguous. Their nature is God. It is us.”

“Correct answer,” said Lydia. In one move she had swapped out the cat for herself. The cat now sat opposite Lydia’s mother, transformed into an enormous female black panther. 

The catmother growled. Her kitten wailed. Glistening tears streaked her fur.

She mewled. 

The catmother lifted her with her teeth by the nape of her neck, dropping her off in the corner of a virtual cage.

Lydia watched with enormous satisfaction as the cage was closed on the kitten’s terrified face.

Despite the fact that she was unable to count the number of years her galactic adversary would be incarcerated, due to her learning disability, she knew it would be many indeed. Lydia now had full range of the Lucipheria galaxy, a fact she intended to take complete advantage of.

Two Smoking Hot Girls

JUNE 8, 1980

Fairfax Boulevard marinated in a vermillion afterglow, touching the date palms, simmering against the show and flow of slick glossy chassis rushing past in an electric stream of posh and style. Designer duds on sun-kissed hard bodies strolled past. Stellas and studs. It was all feeding into the kinetic pulse that rippled through the back lot of Canter’s Deli, and was now vibrating between Stephanie McGrath’s thighs. Stephanie was the early-out. They always had one last cigarette—Penelope and Stephanie, whenever one of them was the early-out. One for the road.

Penelope Wise’s cheeks hollowed as she sucked hard on the tubular white forerunner to emphysema. The fiery tip glowed against encroaching dusk. She blew smoke.

“So…it’s like a throbbing, euphoric ache with a hint of…Technicolor TV static?”

“Yeah”. Stephanie took a drag, and a long exhale. “Throbbing and like a stretching sensation inside…”

“Like your body getting ready for something to go inside?”

“Yeah.”

“Blue walls.”

“Blue walls?”

“Yeah”, Penelope said. “Like what happens to guys. “I’m hip, man. Been there, had that.”

Penelope was hot shit, and she knew it. 26 and laughing at the reaper. As though he showed up to assign her that first set of wrinkles, and instead she gave him the best blowjob this side of hell, and sent him merrily on his way. Brunette and curvy, half Jewish and half guido grease monkey on her mom’s side. But all scrappy broad.

“I don’t know. I think it’s something else.”

“Like what? Coke?”

“No,” Stephanie said. “Nothing like that. Last night I went to that party over at…”

“UCLA. With ah, Patrick?”

“Patrick.” Stephanie choked on smoke mid-exhale when she giggled. “Yeah.”

“Okay. Spill it.”

“It was our third date…”

“Third. First. C’mon, kiddo. Who cares.”

“I…” Stephanie cleared her throat, and lowered her voice, then looked around, and said, “Gave him a blowjob. I tried to give him a blowjob…”

Penelope burst into laughter. “Oh, honey. You have to maintain eye contact…”

“He…You know. Lost his hard-on…”

“Oh sweetie. It wasn’t your fault. But full range of motion…Play with his balls…”

“I just…I panicked and ran off…But I met this other guy. He was older. He kind of looked like my uncle Rod.”

“His name was Rod?” Penelope giggled. “Gross.”

“No. His name was like Steve, I think…But my Uncle Rod was kind of hot. He died in a car wreck.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, kiddo.”

“He took me for a ride on his Harley Davidson on my sixteenth birthday. We rode around my small town back in Iowa. All the girls in school were like He’s so groovy. I’d make out with him.”

“So this Steve guy looked like your uncle?”

“Yeah. And he was like I guess a professor at UCLA, of farm-a…”

“Pharmacology.”

“Yeah. And he gave me these pills…I guess he wasn’t supposed to…”

“What do you mean, wasn’t supposed to?”

“They were like, experimental. Called Adam.”

“Like Adam Ant?”

“Yeah. It was called Adam. It was called Adam, because they felt it returned patients to a more innocent state.”

“Like Adam and Eve?”

“Yeah. It was supposed to get people in touch with their sexuality. I got like so high.”

“Looks like it worked.” Penelope took a drag. “So did you guys fuck?”

“Fuck who?”

“You and Uncle Rod?” Penelope filled in the silence. “The guy who looked like your Uncle Rod.”

“Oh. I don’t know,” Stephanie said. “I don’t remember anything. I woke up naked in my bed. With heart palpitations. And feeling like this.” 

“Trippy, man. Did your drunk asshole old man cash in on your ah…Altered state?”

“Fuck no. He was passed out in his clothes on the couch.”

“Stephaine. Oooh. When are you going to get rid of that asshole? The one time you’re actually horny…” 

“I get horny…”

“He can’t even get it up. C’mon, look at you. You’re rock candy baby…You’re hard sweet and sticky…C’mon look at you. Strawberry blonde…Contours for days. A chassis like a friggin’ Corvette Stingray. Look at those tits!” 

“Stop.” Stephanie looked around the nearly vacant back lot to see if she should be embarrassed.

“Better use it up before it gets old.”

“Oh, look who’s projecting.”

“Oh screw you, man.”

“How long’s it been?”

“Like three weeks. On top of that it’s going to be that time of the month. Like any minute now.” 

This wasn’t news to Stephanie. They spent so much time together on and off shift and on so many smoke breaks, they had the same cycle.

“No wonder you’re so goddamn horny!”

They both laughed.

Penelope grounded out the remnants of her cigarette into the curb. “How’d that audition on Friday go?”

The New Backstage came out every Thursday morning with a list of open calls. Come Thursday at 10AM, Penelope and Stephanie would be hovering over the counter at Sam French on Sunset and Stanley. They’d find the general auditions—ones that weren’t union, and didn’t require an agent. On audition day, they’d get up before dawn to get into a line (they were never first) that stretched sometimes three blocks long. But this past weekend Penelope had to work.

“Oh hoho. Oh…You won’t believe it…” This required another cigarette. Stephanie slid a Virginia Slim between her cherry red lips and fired up the tip. “Okay, so I read the sides. And okay, it’s a guy. The casting director’s a guy. Like how often do you see that?”

“He was cute?”

“Oh fuck no. Total poindexter. Okay, so I read the sides…And then he goes turn around. Let me see your behind…Let me see you from behind, that’s it.”

“Your ass.”

“Yeah, he wanted to see my ass.”

“And?”

“And. I said, I don’t fuckin’ think so. And walked out.”

“So he saw your ass anyway.”

“Oh, okay…”

“So you might as well have shown him your ass, you know…”

“Politely?”

“Yeah, politely. And maybe you would have gotten a call back.”

“Oh fuck that.”

“Who was it for?”

“Oh. The director? Wes Craven.”

“Wes Craven. Oh, you fucked up, man. The Hills Have Eyes. The Last House on the Left.”

“Yeah, okay. Alright,” Stephanie said, sucking in a nice long drag. “I prefer a little more chivalry.”

“Chivalry? You want chivalry go to a Ren faire, man.”

“What? You think you don’t deserve chivalry?” The pulsating shudder Stephanie felt between her thighs gave way to the throaty rumble of high-performance engine. 

“Of course I do,” Penelope said. “Here comes my knight in shining armor now.”

The Cavallino Rampante, a prancing black stallion, was center stage as the front grill of the inferno-red Ferrari plunged into view, searing the edges of their POVs, flexing its muscle in a deep-throated growl. “Four point four V12 engine with 352 horsepower,” Penelope said. “Ferrari Daytona, 1972. Holy shit. That’s Jon Peters.”

“Barbara Streisand’s old man. Total womanizer.”

“Bet you’d show him your ass.”

Jon Peters had style. Watching him get out of his Ferrari was a performance. 

So now Penelope had the newly lit cigarette hanging out at the very corner of her mouth, gripping it by the tail end of the filter. Probably thought she looked sexy. She did. 

“Nobody’s rocked a beard that hot since Jim Morrison,” Penelope said.

A chocolate velvet blazer with a navy blue wide collared shirt belted into Guess blue jeans.

“Check out the blazer. Looks like Yves Saint Laurent.”

“Nah,” Stephanie said. “Halston.”

Both girls were quiet, as he pushed the door shut and stepped up onto the curb. There was only one true test to know if a guy had style, or he was a sleaze: Footwear. Jon Peters had on Gucci loafers.

“Thanks for saving me a space, girls,” Jon Peters said. 

He was staring at Stephanie when he said it. All she could do is stare up at her reflection in the midnight blue lenses of his Carrera aviators. Her work tee had shrunk on the first wash and now she was pitching tent poles.

“Anytime”, Penelope said, as he walked past them. “Come again.” They watched him discreetly slip in through the back entrance. 

Penelope cocked an eyebrow. “Way to show him your ass, Steph. Jon fucking Peters just spoke to you, and you couldn’t even say hello. Total deer-in-the-headlights, man”. She dropped the latter half of an unfinished cigarette onto the asphalt and stamped it out. “I’m totally grabbing his section.”

Reinhardt’s Eager Clients 

The lawyer wouldn’t scream. Reinhardt inserted the silver ring gag to fit snugly inside the lips and force the mouth open like the statue’s. There would be pressure on the jaw and the facial muscles would feel the strain, but the lawyer would get used to it. In the boutique, following his orders, Manfred had examined a wide selection of mouth gag and speculum designs in either black or silver, and had spent time talking with the clerk, scanning pictures of models on the store computer showing how each gag looked when worn. Finally, he chose the one that Reinhardt now locked behind its head. It could make animal noises, if it wanted, but neither pronounce words nor shut its mouth, nor would anyone call it by its usual name. It could swallow but not chew. A mouth funnel could be inserted and attached to the ring for beer, cum and piss. It was ready to receive whatever form of food and liquid refreshment Reinhardt cared to give his pig.

Speaking after a fashion, the wife Wanda writhed and moaned and emitted bird-like sounds on the couch where Jamal had placed her to perform his “cunt specialty.” Before engaging, he secured her nipples between thumbs and forefinger, pinched, rolled, and stretched; pinched, rolled, and stretched. His wide hands covered most of her breasts, as the hard brown nipples ached and stiffened between his thumbs and forefingers. She began kicking her legs. Jamal needed one hand to constrain them. His dog tags popped out from behind his khaki green T-shirt. He wore a soldier’s outfit like she wanted.

The lawyer could not move, its entire body, arms and legs, roped and shackled. Reinhardt had pulled his arms behind the chair and connected the leather wrist restraints; the ankles cuffed the same way to the chair’s front legs. To restrain the torso, he used a yellow nylon rope criss-crossing his chest and knotted from behind. The rope had a smooth texture. The lawyer wasn’t going anywhere. After properly restraining his cuckold pig, Reinhardt inserted the ring gag in its mouth.

Confined to a steel cock cage, its dick bulged but had no room to rise. Who the fuck cared about the lawyer’s dick, anyway? A pathetic and useless appendage exposed through its unzipped slacks. Wear one of your best suits with a white shirt; Reinhardt had left a message on the lawyer’s iPhone. So, it had chosen a grey wool and mohair stretch suit, according to the label Reinhardt read before applying the ropes, dry-clean only, under the jacket a crisp Egyptian cotton white shirt, and a sapphire blue silk tie. Like Jamal, he wore fatigues and boots like a soldier, according to the agreement.

“This is what you wear in court, fuckhole?”

The cloth bunched and creased under the ropes. The lawyer nodded, its brown eyes glistening. Reinhardt knew that the lawyer was slipping into subspace, where he ceased to be an independent, smart-ass lawyer, and became whatever Reinhardt decided. And Reinhardt knew the lawyer wanted to shed the burden of being human and become an animal, a pig or dog. A dog leashed by its master.

Reinhardt and Jamal smoked in the condo, traipsing over the white carpet in their dirty boots. A sudden rainstorm blew up from the east in mid-morning, soaking the streets, splashing the soldiers’ fatigues, so they left footprints on the rug. The dog enjoyed the opportunity to lick the soles of both their boots just after they entered the condo. Jamal bellowed surprise. What the fuck? Reinhardt had pointed to the floor and in his suit, the lawyer, obeying the force of Reinhardt’s silent command, fell on all fours, and then crept to the boots.

“What’d I tell you, Jamal?” He’s a fucking animal. A soldier’s bootlicker. See that, bitch? Your hubby’s a fucking dirt pig, nothing but fuckmeat for a soldier.”

“He sure is, Reinhardt.”

Wanda giggled, watching Manfred proceed with the licking. Wanda said that he deserved a spanking. She showed the soldiers a paddle like the kind used in ping pong, flat black leather with a handle embedded with purple and green rhinestones. Ribbons of the same colour fluttered from the handle’s tip.

Reinhardt looked, but said nothing.

“Hey, there, Reinhardt’s pig or dog, nice to meet you. Don’t forget my other boot.”

Jamal stretched out on the sofa to give the lawyer easy access to the treads of his boots. The animal went at them as if famished.

Jamal examined Wanda’s body in detail as Manfred tongued his dirty black boots. She gained about six inches of height on her stilettos, but still had to look up to giant Jamal, who could lift and sling her easily over his muscular shoulder. Reinhardt had given him permission; he could do anything he wanted with the couple. The hem of her short red leather skirt stretched across her pudendum barely covered by a black thong. A breast man, Jamal admired her bosom ballooning out of a constrictive black lacy corset. Tit clamps with a fine silver chain would look great on those nipples. Did she have any? The lady had dressed for games. He wondered if she also owned a whip to use on her wimpy husband.

“So, you spank your hubby with your sweet paddle?”

“Oh, yes, he’s such a bad boy sometimes, he needs discipline, and mommy gives it to him. Let’s spank him, shall we?”

Jamal winked at Reinhardt, who lit a fag. Wanda spoke sharply.

“Don’t smoke. I told you last time I don’t like it in the condo. Put it out.”

“Hear that, Jamal? The bitch told me to put it out.”

“She telling you what to do, Reinhardt? Be careful, she might spank you.”

“Never gonna happen, buddy.”

Reinhardt grabbed her by the air, pulling it back, forcing her mouth open, and he blew smoke down her throat. She choked and spat. His fingers folding into a fist, and tension hardening his biceps, he refrained from slapping her face, but jabbed the fingers of his free hand into her cunt. He withdrew his hand and rubbed it over her face, her juices smearing her perfectly applied makeup. How much time did she spend creating that face of hers for the public when he could get her on all fours and fuck her ass, if he had a mind, like the bitch she was. Fucking slut thought she was queen of the world. He’d show her what she was. Be the rough bull she craved and paid good money for. Fuck, he did degrade the cunt for nothing. 

The contract specified bondage, discipline, verbal abuse and humiliation within agreed-upon limits, no breaking of bones or blood: that was the rule. Nor did he beat up on women, outside of permitted discipline games like spanking, love taps, and necessary flogging for those into it. Aside from a well-deserved smack now and then, he had never beaten the shit out of a woman, but he knew she wanted to be terrified and threatened. And it was tempting. He knew he could force the cunt anytime he wanted.

That superior look on Wanda’s face, the plucked eyebrows raised, trying to put him down like a toy poodle sniping at a German shepherd, dressed up like a Barbie dominatrix with cranberry red lipstick. Giving him an order. Wanda was going to get it, and get it good and hard. He’d break the rules, he didn’t give a damn, she wasn’t going to the police anytime soon to complain that the man she wanted to fuck and degrade her in kinky play, well, had actually fucked and degraded her in kinky play. He’d show her, though, that he wasn’t playing Barbie dolls in a playhouse condo. Stupid little paddle and her silly corset from a sex shop, and spiky heels. Did she go there to buy the crap herself, or perhaps her husband did, or maybe she found them on eBay. Costumes: Reinhardt almost spat the word on the rug. Was he supposed to shake in his boots? Fuck that shit.

His cock pushed up hard under his fatigues, so did Jamal’s. Together their cocks would fuck the bitch senseless, plough her ass, choke her throat, teach her how to behave and show respect, just like she wanted it, like the terms of the contract specified. They would wipe that supercilious disapproval off her expensively cosmeticized face. She was nothing but his slave cunt in need of a lesson. No smoking, as if he had to follow her commands. Maybe a flogging wouldn’t be a bad idea to begin. Twisting her hair in his hand, she winced and whimpered, he blew more smoke into her face, and shouted to the lawyer.

“Where do you get off telling me what to do, bitch?”

“The smoke…we don’t…” she coughed again. Reinhardt tugged her hair harder.

“We don’t…who gives a fuck what you do or don’t? I do what I want and you do what I want. Got that, bitch?”

About to scream, he stopped the sound by kissing her full on the mouth, exhaling more smoke down her throat, followed by his marauding tongue, and she struggled, choked, and pushed against his chest, and tried to slap his face. That was the ticket. Play the role. He’d train them both like dogs. Why else was he there?

“You’ll get something to gag on, cumslut.”

“Hey, Reinhardt, that cunt needs a good fuck.”

“You go ahead and start. The pig can watch.”

He stood behind the bound lawyer as Jamal led Wanda to a position in front of her husband.

“Ever worry they’ll call the cops?” Jamal had asked.

Last week they had been checking out pussy in the bar, finding nothing to their taste; skanks all tonight, they agreed. Reinhardt had already serviced three customers that week. Jamal, his friend who was new to the kinky escort business, had ordered four beers, and had already gobbled down half the pretzels as Reinhardt told the story of how he first met Wanda and Manfred, and what they did. And how much they paid.

“Nah, we signed a contract.”

“What?”

“An agreement, the rules and regulations laid out, saying what they’re into, their free choice and desire, what I can do, what they expect their bull master to do. If legal shit happens, I can show the contract. See, consensual play, they went into this with eyes wide open. No one’s ever called the law on me.” He invited Jamal to go with him to the next session. To experience kinky play. They both craved black cock in their fantasies. And would pay handsomely for the privilege.

“Listen to this. From the wife, my slave.”

Reinhardt played the voice mail on his cell.

No one fucks me like you, my bull. Please, fuck me. I’ll do what you want.

“And this one from the hubby.”

Please fuck Wanda, master. I’m your cuckold pig. Your dog. Please put it on a leash, mein kommandant, SIR. Please, master.

“Shit, Reinhardt, you got it made.”

“They don’t want anyone to know about their little fuck games. Besides, the more I degrade the pig, the more he wants it. I’ll collar him like a dog and make him lap my boots and bark. He wants to submit to soldiers, so I dress the part. Wanda protests sometimes, but that’s all part of the fucking game. She likes to be taught a lesson and shown who’s the master. The rougher it gets, the better she likes it. All written down in the agreement. They’re my cunts now. I can do what I want with them. My personal, hot and eager cunts. I’ve been fucking kinky cunts like them for years. They pay well. So, Jamal, you want to dress like a soldier and fuck the bitches? You’ll come away many Euros richer.”

“My cock’s hard, so the answer is damn right I do.”

A Great Variety of Monsters

The Big Top loomed against the bruised, pre-storm sky like a cancerous growth, its garish colors somehow muted by the encroaching darkness. Inside, the air thrummed with a discordant symphony: the wheezing calliope struggling to maintain a semblance of cheer, the hushed whispers of the gathered throng, and the barely perceptible thrum emanating from beneath the center ring. 

Reynaldo, the World’s Smolest Circus Bear, adjusted his tiny fez, its jaunty angle a defiant gesture against the encroaching cosmic horror. He was, after all, a professional. A veteran of countless shows, seen it all. Or so he thought. He’d debuted as a cub, wrested (gently) from his mother’s arms, and thrust into the spotlight. Now, decades later, he was a seasoned performer, capable of death-defying feats of dexterity—balancing precariously on a stack of increasingly unstable spools, juggling miniature cleavers with unsettling accuracy.

Tonight, however, was different. There was a wrongness in the air, a psychic weight that pressed down on him with the force of a collapsing star. 

He prepped for his act in the cramped squalor of his dressing “room”, a space measuring only a few feet. 

Reynaldo ran the show in his area. He just had to make sure to keep out of the way of the elephants. Reynaldo checked his equipment, made sure that his small arms were properly lubricated. He needed to be at his peak for tonight.

A tremor ran through the tent, causing the calliope to skip a beat, morphing its cheerful tune into something akin to a funeral dirge. The crowd gasped, then fell silent, a silence so complete it felt unnatural, as though all sound had been sucked into a cosmic vacuum. Reynaldo knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, that the show was about to begin.

Outside, Silas Blackwood, the circus barker, wrung his gnarled hands, his eyes gleaming with a feverish intensity. He’d made a bargain, you see, with entities best left unnamed. A bargain for success, for fame, for immortality. And the price? Well, the price was merely a matter of rearranging certain elements of the show, of tweaking the…ingredients…ever so slightly.

He glanced at the crowd, a motley assortment of the gullible, the desperate, and the deeply, profoundly curious. They’d come seeking entertainment, but what they were about to receive was something far more…transformative. 

He flashed a grin, a rictus of teeth that seemed far too numerous, and launched into his spiel, his voice taking on a hypnotic cadence that seemed to bypass the conscious mind altogether. “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, step right up! Prepare to witness a spectacle unlike any you have ever seen! A great variety of monsters, both human and…otherwise!”

Blackwood gestured towards the entrance to the Big Top, its canvas flaps now rippling with an unseen energy. “Tonight, we offer you a glimpse beyond the veil, a peek into the abyss! But be warned, dear patrons: once you have seen, you can never unsee! Enter at your own peril!” With a flourish, he swept his arm, ushering them towards their doom, or perhaps their enlightenment. Hard to tell these days.

The acts began as they always did: the contortionist, her limbs bending at impossible angles, the strongman, hoisting weights that defied gravity, the clowns, their painted smiles masking a disturbing emptiness. But as the night wore on, the performances grew increasingly…aberrant. 

The tightrope walker, for instance, began to levitate, her eyes rolling back in her head as she spoke in tongues unknown. The lion tamer, normally a figure of fierce authority, cowered before his charges, their roars taking on a distinctly unnatural timbre.

And then came Reynaldo’s act. But the carefully balanced spools had been replaced with pulsating, tumorous growths, and the cleavers had been swapped for obsidian knives that seemed to hum with malevolent energy. The calliope, now possessed by some unseen force, shrieked out a cacophony of discordant notes, driving the audience to the brink of madness. But Reynaldo, bless his tiny bear heart, persevered, juggling the knives with a grim determination, his movements growing increasingly frantic as the tent around him descended into chaos.

“The show must go on…” he muttered to himself.

He glanced at Blackwood, who was now standing in the center ring, chanting in a language that tasted of salt and decay. The thrumming from beneath the ring intensified, and the canvas above began to bulge, as though something vast and terrible were attempting to breach the barrier between worlds. 

Reynaldo may have been the World’s Smolest Circus Bear, but he was also possessed of a keen intellect and a surprising knowledge of the occult. Years spent traveling the world, performing in forgotten towns and far away corners, had exposed him to things that no bear, or human, should ever have to witness. But he’d learned, he’d adapted, and he’d survived. 

He knew, with a dreadful certainty, that Blackwood was attempting to summon something from beyond, something ancient and malevolent, something that would consume them all. And Reynaldo knew that it was up to him, the tiny bear in a fez, to stop it.

With a roar that belied his diminutive size, Reynaldo launched himself at Blackwood, bowling him over like a cheap lawn ornament. He snatched the obsidian knife from the barker’s hand and, with a desperate prayer to whatever gods might still be listening, plunged it into the center of the summoning circle.

The tent went silent. The thrumming stopped. The bulging canvas relaxed. The calliope sputtered and died, leaving only the sound of ragged breathing and the distant rumble of thunder. 

Reynaldo stood over the fallen Blackwood, his tiny chest heaving, the obsidian knife dripping with ichor.

The crisis was averted, for now. But Reynaldo knew, with a cold certainty, that this was just the beginning. The show, as they say, must go on, but Reynaldo was going to be the one to do it right this time.

Telegram Sam

Aurelia De Quincey feels exposed, their eyes piercing through her clothes. Going further, faster, through flesh like a razor nosed bullet train. 

Down to her skeleton. Down to the marrow. 

Denuded has been Aurelia’s continued experience of life since childhood. Her jumbled toys still stir in the attic of her mind. They are soft and hard edged and plastic and plushy.

Her soul is shadow-scorched, and bad energy comes off of her in grave-waves.

She sits alone at a cafe, hunched over her tablet, doodling.

He sits at a nearby table.

Aurelia has identified him. His cop heart and soul. She feels his dagger optics lance her. Prurient fingers probing her like they were forensics experts seeking brain-embedded bullets.

She looks up, straight at him, daring him to respond. His eyes are hidden behind shades. Cop stache and attitude. 

***

They began to operate in her apartment complex at the beginning of the longest summer she can remember. 

They started by inserting their grubby fingers into her mailbox. She could see the scratches on the metal where they’d left their signs. The Aleph, the all-sigil, the Masonic signs, the Illuminati dog whistles.

She knew of their operational tactics having read Borges and Poe in childhood dreaming in her aunt’s house over dark magic tea and conversations that floated with spirits like red tea lights.

She was a legacy stalkee. Generations of the De Quinceys had passed through the gauntlet of the stalkers.

One time she was trying to walk across the street and a black Pontiac came out of nowhere and nearly crushed her.

They sent their agents into her dreaming world, clutching and clawing at her with long metal-taloned fingers.

It was impossible to free herself from them.

She heard scraping sounds from the apartment above hers as they moved the machine with the beams across the floor. Knowing how much it hurt her, they turned the weapon up to 11. It burnt her brain up so bad. She wept and gnashed her teeth and bit her lip and drooled and bellowed into her pillow.

***

She was a mark from the start.

She saw them park alongside her when she went to the grocery store. They brazenly made eye contact as their hands sauntered across the device, the Raven’s claw.

She saw their heads reflected in shop windows.

She heard their voices in her head when she paused by the apartment of the one friend she had, the cripple who was never home. Where did he spend his days?

She saw the Morgellan’s threads spill out of her palms like alien stigmata.

She drew a map from memory of the better timeline where she reigned like a mantis queen.

Aurelia knew that in the end nobody could hurt her, because she had much like Lurian Kabbalah resolved herself out of spacetime. Still the Nova Mob pursued her.

She wasn’t out of the woods just yet.

She sensed them hissing in the wee hours, like some kind of guerilla radio. Surface to air serpents filled her head with dread.

She ordered in but the pizza restaurant on the corner had her clocked. Their efforts would one day result in a body washing up on shore. Not hers, perhaps, but adjacent.

She was wrecked and ruined but still in good spirits when the officers showed up asking about her former roomie.

Of course she lied. The roommate still received mail. Aurelia told them that Eileen Glass had disappeared to Estonia to form a riot grrrl outfit. Which was partially true.

***

Eerily once in awhile her head split open and black bugs poured out.

Aurelia collected the bugs in a jar. They spoke a gossiping language that was entirely pictorial.

She wrote about the bugs in an online journal. Hers was a letter to the world that never wrote to her.

She was possessed by something or someone. She fell in love with a ghost. Perhaps the ghost issued from her future corpse.

She saw abjection rain down from the sky. She saw copper snakes curling on the ceiling. When her lovers took her, male and female, she evacuated her flesh body and joined the snakes.

She knew bi erasure was a thing and probably occurred to St. Bowie.

Her random architectures faded away in the light from a thousand suns.

She made soup out of bone broth. She imagined the skulls of the Buddhas bobbing in her soup like divinatory dreams.

She drew comic art of a woman whose twin sister lay in perpetuity in a hospital bed, big with hysterical pregnancy.

She made a comic book called Pen and Incubus.

She published panels from the book on Facebook, and slowly began to gain a readership.

She began to feel like her life wasn’t so damned after all, and she might be able to redeem herself in the fullness of time.

Aurelia De Quincey was no longer sad.

She took up yoga and pilates. She spent hours of languor wrapped up in her lovers’ bodies listening to the Cure’s Pornography album. 

Acid melted her and dripped her face and she delighted in that.

When they made love she merged with all the creatures.

It was a celebration. A mart of joy. 

One day she heard a noise from the kitchen. Nude, she shuddered awake. Her lovers were out cold, still dead from the party the night before.

She walked into the kitchen and saw the Man with the Hat.

And recognized him: Telegram Sam, an agent of the dream world. A shadow man.

He beckoned her.

Her stomach clenched. Her nerves shrieked. She wanted to scream and run away, but he had her in his power.

The solar flares began to lick the inside of her skull.

He fired off a series of telepathic instructions she could not refuse. 

Then he was inside her and she was inside him, like interlocking Russian dolls.

The suffocating heat closed in around her. Her feet froze to the floor.

He locked her in his fell embrace, whispering tender nothings about frost and genocide.

He knew her, evidently. 

Was the ghost, her ghost from the future. The one they spoke of in the black books.

Telegram Sam.

She would never escape his grin. It enveloped her. She felt his bloody temper rise as his miles of razor sharp teeth descended.

NURSE!

The lights went out with an industrial clatter and Amelia’s eyes snapped open. She heard faint crying beside her, the soundtrack of her stay. Ignoring it she chose to walk to the door, open it slightly and look out. There was a dim flickering light at the far end of the hallway near the ceiling, and another dim light coming from the nurses’ station at the other end of the hallway. She opened her bedroom door wider and stood in the doorway, her eyes and ears slowly coming into focus. The loudest sound was her roommate, her sobbing so animated even though muffled by the thin white cotton blanket she had shoved into her mouth. Poor Nancy, Amelia thought as she looked back toward the bed of sobs, when a flash of darkness whizzed by Amelia’s periphery, charging so fast she felt a rush of wind touch her face. Then, a sudden splat of skin and bones against concrete brick tiles and the immediate slump of body parts in a pile on the linoleum floor. Before she could wonder what happened, another dark form speeds past her smack into the wall and slumps down, then another and another. It might have happened four or five times while Amelia stood in the doorway, aghast and now quite creeped out. Squinting toward the far end of the hallway where the bodies heaped, she could hear a very soft moan and make out the word “nurse”. It was raspy and barely audible but she heard another “nurse” coming from the pile of bodies. Amelia’s skin started to prickle. In the part of the short hallway where the bedrooms are she could see a few other patients coming toward their doors, awakened by the bizarre ruckus. She heard louder moans and the word “nurse” coming from inside the bedrooms now too, some slow and constant demands “nnurrrrsssse nnurrrsssse nnnurrrrrsse”, an urgent high-pitched shriek “NURSE!!!” at a faster clip, “NURSE!!! NURSE!!! NURSE!!! NURSE!!!” like an actual banshee. The chorus of “nurses” was then coming from every bedroom, bouncing off the walls of the hallway, and drowning out the poor cries for help coming from the body pile. All around her at different notes and speeds Amelia was feeling NURSE NURSE NURSE NURSE overwhelm all her senses completely. Amelia slammed her door shut and ran into her bed, throwing the blanket over her head and thinking if she squeezes her eyes shut tight enough everything will go back to normal. In the open spaces of the nurse chant Amelia’s ears replay the awful sound of bodies smacking against the concrete bricks at full speed. She quickly acknowledged that her eye squinting was a dumb idea and tucked her blanket under chin, eyes open again. The electricity was out, some truly sick patients made a gross error in wall-judgement, and she was in a room alone with Nancy. She couldn’t figure out what’s worse, to stay shut in with Nancy’s blanket-chewing emo sobbing or to watch what’s going on in the hallway. Maybe she should make an exit plan. If the power was out then maybe the two doors to get out were unlocked, first to the vestibule next to the nurse’s station and then from the vestibule to the rest of the third floor of the hospital: freedom. There was no other way out. There were no windows or any other doors to the outside. She decided an exit plan is not a dumb thought, and got up to take another look into the hallway. By now the NURSE chant had slowed down, and she thought it would be better to know what’s going on in the ward since her bedroom door doesn’t lock. It doesn’t even have a doorknob, so she’s not safe cloistered in there with Nancy. Nancy’s not a threat but she is a distraction. Amelia started to wonder why she’s thinking in terms of threats and distractions as she returned to the doorway to a lively scene. To her right under the emergency light at the end of the hall she saw two patients arm in arm pivoting away from the only remaining good wall and strolling down the hallway. They were talking to each other intensely. Amelia could make out a hospital gown on one of them and knew that was Bob, who had no one to bring him clothes so he has to wear hospital gowns day and night. The other figure is a stout man with bulging eyes. That’s Carl. Carl and Bob both have delusions or hallucinations, Amelia’s not sure which ones, but only Carl had spent time in the quiet room, screaming and thrashing away at them. Now they looked more peaceful than ever, locked into each others’ eyes, promenading. They were so peaceful it spooked Amelia. To her left, still in the bedroom area she saw some patients sitting cross-legged outside their doors. Farther down, one large person was knocking on the locked door that contained the shower as if someone was occupying it. And farther on, a small group of patients made a sharp right turn across from the nurses’ station, just before the body pile, and into the multi-purpose room. Once in a while something in the body pile moved, an arm twitched or a hip flexed, but it was not looking good for them, and they were completely silent. 

Where were the nurses? They had to have heard the calls, Amelia thought, they had to see the patients’ bodies almost directly in front of the their station… Right then a slinky figure in white fell like from the ceiling right before her eyes then pounced back up, two wide white eyes and and a huge smiling mouth with bright razor sharp teeth smiling, dark fluids dripping around the face area. Amelia let out one quick yelp and slammed the door, put her shoulder to it to hold back whatever that white glowing monstrosity was, but for no reason at all. There was no pounding on the door or anything to indicate agitation, or even a presence. Not sure if the silence was the good or bad kind, Amelia readied herself, counted to ten, then swung the door open. All she could make out is Bob and Carl promenading, and the patients sitting by their doors, like this was a normal day, except it was night and all the lights except the two emergency ones were out. And oh yea, the body pile. 

Amelia remembered the group going into the multi-purpose room across from the nurses’ station and the exit doors, and made her move, trying not to look at the bodies. She flung herself down the hall on light feet and slipped into the MPR in near-silence. Christine was there opening every plastic cup of juice she could find, apple then orange then apple then orange, arranging them on the linoleum floor in columns. Jody was there rifling through the drawer next to the juice cabinet for tiny packets of salt and pepper. When she found a salt packet she’d gently tear it open then pour it onto her tongue like it’s candy. And long-haired Michael was there sitting at a table in a corner clutching the broken stereo. Amelia moved toward the safety of his friendly face but kept her back to the wall to maintain a vantage point. “Are you getting any channels?” she asked. “Just one. It’s talk radio, hyperlocal.” “Are they talking about the power outage?” “Yes.” “Oh wow! What are they saying?” Amelia excitedly leaned closer. She felt best with Michael and Jody. The two of them plus Jody, who was currently increasing her salt intake, had instantly formed a little clique. But Mike showed a side of himself that Amelia hadn’t seen before. “They’re speaking to ME ONLY,” he snarled, “I can’t tell you the details but they’re carrying out their plan, okay?! Jesus Christ!” Then he pulled a 180. “I want to protect you Amelia, you can’t get caught up in this,” and Amelia nodded seriously, and as she nodded she slyly moved her ear a bit closer to the radio. For some reason the darkness sharpened her sense of hearing so she didn’t need to get too close to hear the station that Mike was playing. It was static, nothing but static. Crestfallen, she looked into his eyes and said “Okay Mike, I won’t ask any questions as long as you protect me.” Michael smiled but turned serious as he held on to the stereo and kept one eye out for anyone else trying to approach them. In her seat next to Mike, Amelia scanned the MPR for nurses and noticed Marla for the first time. Her head was brighter than the emergency lights, almost as bright as that freaky creature that scared Amelia half to death. Marla’s hair was fluorescent white and stuck up in high pigtails directly at the sides of her head over her ears. Amelia never could place an age on Marla because of the child’s hairstyle on this woman with dark glass skin, deep crow’s feet around big green eyes, the only wrinkle in a smooth face. Christine started chugging her juices, switching from the apple column to the orange column and back and forth like she’s in a race against time, but Amelia’s watching Marla, sitting by herself at a table near Christine, grinning like she has a dark secret but sitting so still you’d think she was a doll. Amelia considered talking to Marla whom she’s been avoiding during her whole stay until she heard horrible coughing sounds. Christine was projectile puking orangey-red bile and she was retching like she’d wake the dead. A figure in a white nurse’s uniform jumped toward her. So there’s the nurse, Amelia thought. The nurse flew over to Christine to help her up while she was puking and shaking and gargling on the floor, but she wasn’t getting up. Something weird was going on, it looked like the nurse was… holding her down. The nurse put her face right up to Chistine’s like she was sniffing, then opened her mouth way too wide and chomped down on Christine’s cheek, blood seeping onto both their faces. Christine was trying to scream as the nurse chewed and sucked on her cheek flesh. Amelia froze as the second night nurse ran over to them both, pushing the other nurse away not to save Christine, but to eat Christine. She got a huge bite out of Christine’s neck, the blood started squirting, and Amelia unfroze in a snap, jumped up from the table. Her metal chair scraped against the floor and she froze again at the sound, but the nurses were fighting over Christine’s body, now completely limp. They’re biting and chewing and lapping up blood and puke and intestines and had no concern for squeaky chairs. Amelia looked to Michael and Jody, who’d let her salt packets fall to the floor and had backed away from the MPR’s kitchen area. They were in the far left corner, terrified. Amelia knew it was time to get them all the fuck out of there. She nodded her head toward the hall then put her finger to her lips, and the three of them moved briskly but silently out of the MPR into the hallway, an arm’s length from the body pile. She whispered to Mike and Jody, “they’re the only two nurses here, but there’s a security officer somewhere, and that guy who does our vitals might be here as well, do you know what time his shift starts? I think it’s Joe?” Jody replied, “5am”. Michael added “The radio show host said it was half past 4,” and they looked at each other’s faces thinking the same thing: Joe has the keys. If they timed it right, Joe could save them. If they could get to the door at the same time he does, they could all run out of the psych ward together and lock the nurse beasts in behind them. “The only clock is in the nurses’ station, but you can’t see it from outside,” Jody offered again. “It’s 4:30!” Mike shouted, indignant. Amelia ignored them and began directing. “Michael, keep an eye on the MPR. If the nurses or whatever the fuck they are get bored with Christine and Marla, make a noise. But stay very quiet. Maybe just wave your hands a lot. Actually, don’t make a noise.” Michael nodded and turned back toward the direction of where Christine used to be but was now a mess of pulp and bone. Marla was still there, but she’d stood up and was raising both her arms into the ceiling. Marla’s head titled up toward the ceiling as well, and Michael could see her lips moving and body swaying. The swaying became thrashing and whatever she was mumbling was not quite English, and getting louder until a sharp gargling sound cut her off. Her body thrashed to the ground and convulsed, spit bubbling at the sides of her mouth. Amelia was facing Jody and saw none of this. “Jody, you come with me to the nurse’s station, NOW,” she instructed. But before Jody and Amelia could move, Michael waved his hands at Amelia. “They’re done with Christine,” he whispered without taking his eyes off of the demonic creatures in white. “Marla started having a seizure…,” Mike trailed off. Amelia and Jody craned their necks to see into the room and Marla’s neon white hair was so dark as if it’d been dyed black. The nurse-type things moved on to Marla, defenseless on the floor having a medical episode. “I don’t think we have much time before they notice us. Jody, let’s go.” But Jody didn’t move. Amelia shout-whispered, “Jody, come on.” But she was staring at the pile of broken bodies of the patients who tried to make a run for it and forgot how short the hallway was, or how walls work. Amelia had an idea. “Jody do you want to stay here?” “Yes,” she said to Amelia but kept her eyes on the possibly dead patients. “Okay, Jody, Mike, listen. I’m going to get into the nurses station and find the clock and whatever else. You two, can you distract the nurses with these half-dead bodies? Can you feed them to the nurses? They’re maybe all fully dead, maybe not, but I think the nurses are attracted to patients who need, like, medical attention or something. No time to check, you gotta chuck those bodies in and hope I’m right!” “Aye-aye” said Michael who saluted Amelia and tapped Jody on the arm who saluted Amelia as well. She nodded at them then turned to face the nurses’ station.

Two of the patients sitting in the hallway had gathered in front of the nurse’s station. They were wiping their hands down the glass and jiggling the doorknob, tapping their palms on the wood and thick possibly bulletproof glass. Amelia could not remember their names. She saw Bob and Carl still promenading the hallway clasped together, and turned back to the two other men across from her. All she remembered were their medications, Latuda, Librium, Lithium, Lexapro… then she remembered! Jim who wanted to be called Jennie, and Jeff, who had all three come up on the same day. Amelia stood up and approached them. In a low and friendly voice she called their names and they turned to face her, “Is there something you guys want? I’m going in, can I get you anything?” Jeff, protective of Jennie, replied “Jennie wants to shower but the door is locked. I want to take my Librium. No one is in there and we can’t get in. We’ve been trying for hours.” “The lights went out only like half an hour ago but okay, maybe if we work together we can get in. Let me think….” replied Amelia. She glanced back at Mike and Jody shoving the first body from the pile into the MPR and hoped that patient was just alive enough to get the cursed nurses’ special attentions. “Let’s pick the lock open,” she suggested. “With what?” from Jennie. “I don’t know, I don’t know! Fuck!” Amelia felt desperate and couldn’t think straight. The nurses station was designed to prevent patients from getting in and Amelia had no clue how to beat it. She cried in a whisper, “Can we beat the door down?” and Jennie replied “We can try. But we were trying to get the guard’s attention first to open the door for us.” Amelia stood on tip-toe and saw the fat legs of the security guard. They weren’t moving. She tried hitting the thick glass but the legs didn’t even twitch. Amelia hated to do this but she had to. “Jennie, Jeff, the nurses are in the multipurpose room, did you see them?” “Oh, we didn’t!” Jeff shouted, followed by a loud “Can we get the shower key? Jennie is sweating and she doesn’t like how it feels” in the direction of the room. Both creatures turned their heads abruptly toward us. I ducked next to the body pile straight into Mike and Jody as the nurses leapt with animal prowess onto Jennie. “What are you doing to him?” Jeff cried and grabbed a nurse’s rippling shoulder. “I need my Librium!” Jeff shouted into the back of the creature’s head, and before Jeff had the chance to notice is creature-ness, he was attacked. With one nurse on Jennie and the other nurse on Jeff, it was up to either Amelia, Mike, or Jody to search their uniforms for the keys. It was an insane idea but this was the time and place to act insane. Blood and guts were flying everywhere while the nurses went nuts on Jennie and Jeff’s sacrificed bodies. Out of nowhere Jody leapt up into the air, slapped her hand on the ceiling tile, then the floor as she crouched in superhero stance. “What the fuck?!” Mike and Amelia said in unison but Jody didn’t notice. The salt was coursing through her veins, her heart pumping faster than ever before, so fast and loud Jody couldn’t hear anything outside of her body. Her blood was moving so fast she could sense it heating up, that any second it will overheat and her circulatory system will boil her alive. As the salt swam through her veins and her body started to react she understood she had to sacrifice herself before the salt fully kicked in and she got cooked alive. With the granulated courage practically bursting her veins already, Jody was no longer afraid. She sidled up to the feeding nurse demons and began patting them down. They don’t notice, their hunger too great and Jennie and Jeff’s bodies too tasty, especially Jennie with all that greasy sweat. Jody struck her arm out once, then twice and hit directly into a pocket. She covered her red pulsing hand over the angular lump of keys as her blood pressure spiked high again and her body sprang toward the ceiling. This time she landed less gracefully, more like a spill, her body exploding into hot nasty pieces. It was more than enough to get the nurses attentions. One of them froze in her feeding stance. She sensed it: Jody needed medical attention. The nurse’s claws loosened from Jeff’s gorged bloodied body and her head snapped toward the slush that was Jody. The nurse monster hissed and unrolled its tongue in the direction of Jody’s fluids and pieces. Mike and Amelia stared in horror as something from Jody’s direction hit Mike lightly in the face. He sputtered and spit and wiped his hands over his face frantically. Amelia saw a quick glint of metal: Jody had flung the keys to her friends in one final moment of glory. Amelia grabbed them from the blood mess then grabbed Mike’s shocked shoulders. “I need you to protect me. Can you keep those psychos busy while I go around them into the station?” “I promise. There’s three bodies left in the pile. I won’t let you down.” “Alright. This is it”, said Amelia, “and get ready to run toward me if I shout!” All Amelia could think about was that clock, and finding out what time Joe would enter this bloody freak show from hell and open the door to freedom. She gave a wide berth to the Jody/Jennie/Jeff feeding frenzy and started trying every key in the lock. There were five keys, and only 3 fresh bodies left, and the fuckers were not slowing down. The first key didn’t fit. The second key didn’t fit. The third key didn’t fit. The fourth key didn’t fit. Amelia paused to check on Mike. He had only one body left to throw at the nurses. Then it struck her. The vestibule! “The keys to the vestibule doors are on this keychain, what the fuck am I doing here!?” she thought to herself angrily. Moving faster now she went in the reverse direction, giving wide berth to the feeding again, and stopped at the vestibule door. “Mike”, she whispered loudly, “Mike, get over here.” Mike slid the last body to the nurses and ran to Amelia’s side hopping around like he had to pee real bad. “Open it!” he yelled. “I’m trying!” She yelled back as she put the third key in the lock and it jammed itself in all the way. With no time to spare, she pushed open the door and Mike and Amelia flung themselves into the vestibule and slammed the door behind them. They breathed heavy for a moment while the nurse creatures pounded their fists on the door, but Mike and Amelia were unscathed, and the creatures, sensing no medical attention needed, slipped from view. In the safety of the vestibule with no threats around them, their adrenaline started to downshift. The two psych patients looked at each other and burst into laughter. They slumped down to the floor, their laughter and breathing starting to slow until eventually they were silent. Mike looked to Amelia and asked her what he’s been dying to ask her since the first day she got locked up, when he first saw her walk through those same doors they were on the other side of now. He had been sitting outside the multipurpose room and held out the squishy excuse of a pen, saying to her, “Here, you’re going to want this.” In her dazed state she stared back, then took the gift. “Thanks”, she said, wondering what the fuck that weirdo was talking about. Mike looked at Amelia that very same way and finally, finally asked her, “Why are you in here?” Amelia sighed and parted her long bangs that had grown over her eyes while she was stuck in that hell hole. A scrape the shape of a large upside-down tear drop had begun to crust and scab over. “I was at a pool party with my friends. We were drinking and I got some pills and went into the pool shed. Before I could fade out I tied the vacuum hose around my ankles and dove into the pool. I hit my head along the bottom while they were pulling me out.” Mike was silent for a moment, reflecting on how he got brought up to this place after detoxing in the psych emergency room. “Damn,” he said to himself. Amelia shrugged. They both looked straight ahead at the final locked door, the slab of wood dividing the space between the nightmare behind them, and the outside world ahead of them. 

The Greatest Literary Prick of Our Times

An excerpt from Chapter 24 of the new biography

At 10:30, he got out of bed, went to the bathroom, and vomited. He was 47 years old and still had a couple months unemployment compensation coming. Although it was six years since he had last slept with a woman, he still masturbated frequently, using an old shoehorn, bacon grease, and a Squeegie doll. It was a trick he learned from Henry Miller, who was a great writer, too, but he felt his work picked up where Miller left off.

His kitchen table/work desk was littered with 17 tall cans of Schlitz Malt, a pint of I.W. Harper’s, and a half-pint of Popov. “I did some good work last night,” he thought, as he looked across the smog-filled Los Angeles morning air into the courtyard of the motel-style slum complex next door (a mirror image of his own building), where some Mexican rugrats where making an unholy racket running their Big Wheels over the neighborhood cats. He put a sheet in the typewriter and began.

“At 10:30, I got out of bed, went to the bathroom, and vomited. I was 47 years old and still had a couple months unemployment compensation coming. Although it was six years since I last slept with a woman, I still masturbated frequently, using an old shoehorn, bacon grease, and a Squeegie doll. It was a trick I learned from Henry Miller, who was a great writer, too, but I felt my work picked up where Miller left off.”

“This is the FUCKING STUFF, Jack” he chortled in wonderment of his own talent, when the buzzer went off. It was his landlady, Jessica Sue Huorflees, who had dragged herself away from her usual post at the slime-ridden pool where she’d been sunning her stretch marks to harass him about the back rent. Her platinum blond wig, bad teeth, and sagging tits and ass (doing unalterable damage to her black string bikini) all made him glad he’d already had his morning retch. “It’s the 18^th, for God’s sake—” she started, but he was ready. 

“Shit, you know I’m good for it. I’m as dependable as the Federal Government, and you know how fucked up they are, but they always pay off. The checks will be in Friday. So we’ll be all even then.”

“Christ, I hope so. You know, I could boot you out and rent this dump to a family of 16 illegal aliens for twice the rent. Those little beaners know how to pull their weight.”

“Yeah, yeah—Friday for sure, Jessica,” and he closed the door. In the refrigerator was still almost a half bottle of Night Train, and, pouring himself a glass, he got back to work.

“Yeah, yeah—Friday for  sure, Jessica,” I said, while the hot Los Angeles sun burnt through the front of my robe. I still had the remnants of my morning erection, and with the hot sun and my perverse interest in mortified female flesh, the purple head of my engorged member came peeking through the folds.

“You know, you’re not built bad for an old, broken-down wino,” said Jessica, giving my blue-veined battering ram a caress as she slid into my apartment. “You’re a real fucking slob, did you know that?” she said, giving her property a glance before she got down on her knees to work me over. She was properly amazed at the dimensions the old divining rod reached, “Jesus, is that all yours?”

I laid her out on the sofa, home of a thousand cigarette butts, and fished out one of her tits from the swimsuit. It was like holding a huge piece of blood pudding. Her bottom was down. I put it in. I put it in again. It was like the Taj Mahal in there. “Oh god, oh gaawwdd,” she squalled, “I guess maybe Friday would be o.k.”

He had written so long and well that he figured he deserved a break. Plus, he was out of Night Train. He went to the corner liquor store, run by a middle-aged Chinese couple who sometimes gave him credit. As he walked into the store, he saw the couple’s 86-year-old mother down on her knees scrubbing the floor, as usual. “I guess it makes her feel useful,” he thought, as he accidentally stepped on one of her fingers, making the sound of a snapping breadstick. The old woman didn’t make a peep. “Inscrutable bastards, these Chinks,” he reflected, as he got a couple of six-packs, a fifth of Old Grandad, a bottle of M/D 20/20, a handful of 12-cent cigars, and a beefstick.

“This should hold me ‘til this evening,” he said at the counter. “Put it on my tab—Friday is collection day, for sure.”

He was tired of the four walls of his apartment, so, after dropping the groceries, he walked to the corner bar. They let him run a tab there. It was late afternoon. The bar wasn’t crowded—only a few regulars staring blindly at the tv or rolling dice for drinks. Looking at the blank, beaten faces, he felt a wave of revulsion swirl through his body and settle in his gut where it formed a tight knot. He hated people. And yet, sometimes he had an urge to be amongst them, if only to remind himself that he hated them. It was a paradox. He was as full of paradoxes as a $5 Tijuana whore was of crabs. That was why he was such a great writer. You know, the profundity thing.

Sitting at the end of the bar was a woman. She was far too classy for this shithole. Maybe she had needed a drink bad and stopped at the first dump she came to at the freeway off-ramp. Late 30’s, but the tits were still holding up. Good ass, trim figure. Dressed in expensive good taste, not too much jewelry but what was there was the real thing. Hair cut short in a trendy, new-wave style and expertly frosted. He sat down next to her. “Whiskey and soda and another of whatever the lady’s having. Add it to the tab—Friday I’ll settle for sure.”

“Friday, my ass!” roared the bartender. “You already owe me $219.67. And since when the fuck did you start buying other people drinks with imaginary money?”

The woman peeled a fifty from her purse. “Forget it, I’ve got it,” she said. She turned to him. “I know you from the picture on your book, Pustulant Scabs Cover My Soul and Anus & Other Love Sonnets. I cried when I finished it.” She took a sip of her Bacardi on the rocks. “You look worse in person. Your face looks like it’s been hit repeatedly with a waffle iron. A dirty waffle iron. With grease and pieces of burnt stuff on it. Yet, sensitive. With an undercurrent of vulnerability that could tear the heart out of a woman.”

“Yeah, I’ve been told that.” 

“Listen, I’m an agent for MCA. I think I can help you. Drink up and let’s get out of here.” They finished their drink in silence. Outside in the parking lot she went to the Mercedes and unlocked the door. They were driving west on Sunset Blvd., then getting in an elevator and getting off at a suite on the 35^th floor. It was like a dream. 

We walked in her office. Three of my apartments could have fit in it. Hundreds of feet below us the Strip could be seen through plate glass. She sat on the edge of a huge marble-top desk and crossed her legs. Her legs were good. I got down and started kissing her knees. She groaned and lay back on the desk. I nibbled my way up to her thighs.

“I usually handle rock stars,” she said. “Bowie, Jagger, Johnny Rivers. But I think you’re ripe for that audience. You don’t realize it, but you’re a God to the young people.” I ripped off her panties. There weren’t even any shit stains. Like I said, class. I ran the bridge of my nose along the lips of her cunt. It was oozing, like fresh-heated doughnut glaze. With my thumbs I gently opened the petals of her flower. “Squish, squish,” it said. The clit popped out like a small, flaming tongue. I met it, tongue to tongue, then sucked it between my teeth roughly.

“Sweet Jesus,” she screamed. “Listen, I have a beach house in Malibu. Come live with me. You’ll never want for a thing, I promise you, oh, ooh, there again, baby. Oh, CHRIST—”

I went down on her again and again while she writhed like a wounded earthworm, knocking telephones and 8×10 glossies off the desk with every orgasm. My front was covered with cum and spit from my eyebrows to my belt buckle. Hours went by, it seemed. Suddenly, my mind went far away. For the first time in years, I thought of my friend, Harry.

“Harry had been a prizefighter, a postal worker, a wino, a computer programmer, the head of public relations for AT&T, a pimp, a merchant marine, an agent for the FBI, a slave trader in Tangier, a phone-in astrologer, a newspaper delivery boy, and Professor of Humanities at Columbia. He wrote the second-best prose coming out of America. There is no need to mention who wrote the best. I’ll always remember the last time I saw him. I was taking out the garbage when I heard the sound of retching from the alley. It was Harry, lying in the gutter with a drunken hooker, alternately slugging from a bottle of brandy and spitting blood through the holes in his mouth where several recently missing teeth had been. Harry looked good—better than I’d seen him for 10 years.

Back at my place, I got her in the mouth while Harry fucked her in the ass. After that, we sat up drinking port wine and hatching our plan to bring the literary establishment to its knees.

“Who are you guys?” asked the woman, rinsing my jism off her teeth with some Gallo.

“I’m Norman Mailer,” said Harry. “And this is my friend, Truman Capote.” Then, Harry took the mouth while I reamed her out. It was a good night.

The next morning, Harry went to the hospital and died. “Poor bastard,” I thought when I heard the news. “It’s always the great ones that go. Oh well, less competition for me.” After all, it was a rough game we had gotten into.

Thinking of Harry’s last words, I stopped licking her cunt. Is this what I wanted? To be a sell-out? To live in a beautiful cage?  To have a life of comfort and ease with no responsibilities except eating pussy day and night?

“Honey, what’s the matter?” she said.

“Sorry, baby, but I just can’t make it. It’s just the way I am. Someday, I hope you’ll understand.”

“Nooo!” she screamed, and leapt off the desk toward me. Her legs were too weak to support her, and she fell on her face. Still, she crawled toward me, clawing wildly at my shoes as I headed toward the door. “Please, no, don’t leave. Everything I have—it’s yours. Don’t go—I love you…”

On the bus ride home, he stared out the window into the approaching dusk. In his lap was a torn-up job application—night watchman for the MCA building. “I can help you,” she had said. Women, he thought. They have a thousand ways to kill a man. Especially if he’s a real man. And the greatest living writer in the world.

Vigilante Dad

This was in the late eighties, right around the time the first Batman came out. I was six years old. Perfect time to see Batman in a little movie theater on Queens Boulevard with my dad. 

The movie affected me deeply but looking back, it was my dad who really started doing things that were Batman-like. 

First though, we made our own Batman movie. I played Batman, of course, and my friends from Sunnyside played Joker, Riddler, and Superman. My parents told me I was the director, but, of course, I was six. I mean I did dictate the script to my dad. But he filmed it and put it together. He was a professional filmmaker and he really went above and beyond with this Batman movie. For instance, he used the movie trick of spinning his camera in circles while holding my Batmobile Hot Wheel with a black sock in a room full of soft lights to make it look like Batman driving at night–and that was just for the credit sequence! Yes, there were credits. My dad taped episodes of the Adam West show and cut in the “KABLAM!” titles for the fight scenes, though he mostly relied on Danny Elfman’s music for Tim Burton’s movie. It was very, very well done. My mom directed the actors–she was an actress-turned-theater-director and had, albeit briefly, directed some soaps–and though I was technically the director, she’d often kick me out of the room if I was being a nuisance. 

My parents had split up for years. When I was one, my dad moved to Astoria with a new girlfriend–“I loved your father but I was never in love with him,” my mom told me later and she also told me this girlfriend was in love with him–but then he came back (though not for long) when I was three, then left again and moved into a different apartment in Astoria for another two years; I remember that one, an expansive (to me) basement apartment, a bat cave, that opened to a concrete wall; whether that girlfriend was still in the picture, I don’t know; my mom said what pissed her off the most about his leaving was how happy he seemed, returning to his artist life, unencumbered by a family. But then, for whatever reason, he came back. So this Batman movie was a reunion of sorts. 

But that was just the art stuff. Then my dad started acting like Batman. I don’t know if this was conscious or not, but looking back, it does seem like one thing led to the other. 

On our little block, 46^th Street–or Bliss Street–my downstairs neighbor and I were selling lemonade on a little table and two teenage boys came up and hurled it into the air. Joker stuff. They didn’t steal our earnings (if there were any) but I remember watching my dad chase them down the street, full throttle. 

From there, the story goes–if you believe my dad, and I choose to–that he chased the teenagers two more blocks and, when they reached Queens Boulevard, he followed them up the stairs to the 7 train and when the teenagers saw my dad was still coming for them, they hopped off the platform and onto the tracks and my dad did the same, kept chasing them halfway to the 40^th St. stop where he finally caught them. He brought them all the way back to our overturned lemonade stand on Bliss Street, holding the teenagers by the backs of their shirts, and made them apologize to my friend and me. 

Like Bruce Wayne, my dad was loaded. My lemonade-selling neighbor was a tenant. “We gentrified Sunnyside when we bought that house,” my mom said. 

My mom had been almost-mugged one night walking home from a performance; she was saved by her loud actress scream. I remember hearing it. I was awake in bed, waiting for her to come home. The whole block must’ve heard her. 

Still though, she insisted we get a garage; parking in Sunnyside was that much of a nightmare that she’d risk another mugging. 

The garage was on 39^th Ave. and 43^rd St. Part of a square of garages, maybe forty in all. 

Once, during the day, the three of us had just parked. As we were coming out, a trio of teenagers, standing atop the line of garages, pelted us with rocks. The glee of their sneak attack; I remember their laughing. And even as a six year old, I didn’t think what my dad did next was warranted. He chased them, same thing as last time. After locking up, my mom and I followed behind. When we caught up with my dad, he was in Skillman Park holding a blubbering teenage boy by his shirt sleeve. The teenager couldn’t stop crying, though he seemed relieved when my dad gave him something to do: to apologize to me and my mom. 

This is weird, no? That my dad, who left his family for four years, comes back and starts doing all this hero shit, getting teenage pranksters to say to his family what he couldn’t say himself: “I’m sorry.”

The Sweet Triumph of Doctor Gelato 

Through the pristine halls of Stockholm’s Nobel Institute, Doctor Marcus Gelato moved with careful, measured steps. His waffle cone cranium gleamed under the chandelier lights, rivulets of vanilla slowly trickling down his sugar-latticed skull. The condition that had once marked him as an outcast – Cranial Gelatus Syndrome – would today be recognized alongside humanity’s greatest achievements. 

As he approached the podium, ice cream dripping onto his collar, he reflected on the long journey that had brought him to this moment.

From his earliest days in academia, Marcus had faced discrimination that would have crushed a lesser spirit. His condition, a rare craniofacial anomaly that manifested as a fully functional ice cream cone head, complete with alternating flavors depending on his emotional state, had made him an object of ridicule The medical community had initially dismissed his condition as impossible, yet the Program in Craniofacial Biology at UCSF had documented his case as unique among developmental anomalies. Like many others with visible differences, he refused to let his disability define his limitations.

His story echoed those of other remarkable individuals who had overcome physical challenges to achieve greatness. Like Stephen Hawking, who revolutionized our understanding of the universe while battling ALS, Marcus transformed his perceived weakness into his greatest strength. The constant need to maintain his head’s temperature had led him to groundbreaking discoveries in thermodynamic biology, a field he essentially created from the ground up.

The breakthrough came during a particularly sweltering summer conference in Geneva. While other scientists struggled with the heat, Marcus’s unique condition led him to discover the fundamental relationship between cellular thermal regulation and consciousness. His paper, “The Thermodynamic Basis of Cognitive Function,” revolutionized neuroscience. Like Andrea Bocelli, who turned his blindness into a catalyst for developing extraordinary musical sensitivities Marcus had transformed his disability into a gateway for understanding human consciousness.

The Nobel Committee’s citation praised his “extraordinary contributions to our understanding of brain thermodynamics and consciousness.” The prestigious award, with its gold medal and substantial monetary prize was a victory for everyone who had ever been told their differences made them less capable.

Standing at the podium now, his head softening slightly under the warm lights, Marcus thought of the children born with various craniofacial conditions who might see in his success a reason to persist. Like Nick Vujicic, who transformed his life’s obstacles into opportunities for inspiring others, Marcus had become a symbol of possibility.

“The human brain,” he began, his voice steady despite the drop of vanilla rolling down his temple, “is not limited by its container.” He paused as a ripple of knowing laughter passed through the audience. “Whether that container is standard-issue bone or, in my case, a waffle cone, it’s the adaptability of our minds that defines us.”

The ceremony concluded with the traditional Nobel banquet where the chefs had thoughtfully provided a special cooling station for his comfort. 

As he accepted congratulations from his peers, Marcus reflected on how far society had come in accepting those who were different. His achievement stood as testimony to the fact that greatness could emerge from any form, that the human spirit could triumph over any physical limitation, and that sometimes the sweetest victories came from the most unexpected places.

20 more short stories presented by Outcast Press that don’t skirt around the many sides to sex work. Bad bitches and good guys. Creeps and kleptos. Nymphos and the needy. Eastern Bloc gangstresses to blackmailing e-girls. Yacht whores to yearning wives. Rent boys and triple-X stars. BDSM DVD kings and glory hole gawkers. Epstein wannabes and trafficking ring stingers. Dragsters and lot lizards. Every facet of prostitution, fetishism, and taboo/cathartic writing finds a haven here.

Includes the following pieces:

1. Razorblade Pussy by Manny Torres 
2. Boat Drinks by John Kojak 
3. Balloonatics by C.R. Abby 
4. The Doxxing Domme by Dan Baltic 
5. Toppings by Brandon Mead 
6. Girl Dinner by Paige Johnson 
7. Dead Fish by Annabel Costello 
8. Save Me, 6-Ft. Nazi Dominatrix by Charlie Babbit 
9. Eye Spy by Cody Sexton 
10. Honeysuckling by Ryan Warrick 
11. Cog Fuck by Neda Aria 
12. Ladyboy by Robb White 
13. Zombie Whorehouse by Sebastian Vice 
14. The Name of Your First Pet by Tom Leins 
15. Smalltown Boy by LG Thomson 
16. Perv Tax by Mark Burrow 
17. Deprivation of Character by Jeff Schneider 
18. Worms by James Jenkins 
19. Lot Lizard by JD Clapp 
20. Will-O’-The-Wisp by Aaron Paul Schaut 
21. Lewds by Slxt Vxmit

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