memories of a shooting gallery

you know we’re surrounded, right? look at it this way. famine, plagues, diseases, natural disasters. they’ve all been explained in theories, in books, by smart people. they don’t exist because they’ve been explained. we live in a trouble-free society, up until a smart dude from the future writes about the problems that plague us and we learn about them if we’re not dead and the whole things starts all over again, more problems eradicated because we know what causes them and fuck them, man. starvation is caused by hungry multinational corporations taking advantage of people living in poor countries that were harvested and abused by imperialistic colonizing nations that needed cheap labor force. it’s been fucking explained, we don’t need to bother, we have the explanation and the solution. theoretically. who gives a fuck about reality. it doesn’t matter, does it?

Stephan had entered one of his oh so many motherfucking soliloquies and all we could do was listen because we were too damn high on something to punch him out. he blabbered on and on about the evils of explaining, like it was something he could control, or something we were responsible for. none of us cared. in our high, he was highly amusing.

when the tanks fired the first shots, no one moved. missiles razed down buildings and thousands of corpses littered the streets, praying for someone to bury them before the unholy monsters violated their righteousness. no one moved, because the flames leaped high, burning god’s throne and god didn’t stir a muscle; why would he, after all, like he gives a damn. we stared at corpses being raped by hungry mongrels and we knew we were next and we refused to act. 

Aphrodite brought some sanity in the beginning. the med student, the one that tried to save us from the purge of the drug. I remember she came to me with a practiced speech about junk and its consequences. I listened, because her breasts were two magnificent, firm melons begging to be eaten and her legs long and thin, just the way I like them, yet I’d never quit dope because I needed the numbness. life sucked enough the way it was, I couldn’t go back to sobriety, I tried it for a few weeks and it fucking sucked hairy horse balls. the med student with the good intentions became an addict and we shot from the same needle. we fucked too; we didn’t care about prolonging our lives, we had absolutely nothing to live for.

Stephan had grown up in the suburbs, loving family, many friends. prom king too, if I recall correctly, and had been accepted to the ivy leagues. he never went. he wanted to visit other places, see other people, feel other things. he did. in africa, somewhere in the jungles, he tasted some drugs, then he found opium. finally, meth, the baddest bitch alive, got a hold of him; never let go. I cook his ice, so he won’t slice my throat in the dead of the night, like he did to Nick and Piper. I’m safe, because I’m not an agent of the invading aliens that want to turn earth into an amusement park.

from where we sat we couldn’t see the flesh-eating bugs, but they were there, or so we were told by the screaming deadmen shambling around with their noses or ears or eyes missing and they trotted away; we stayed. it was the flesh that kept our souls trapped, perhaps losing our skin would liberate us. nothing happened, the homicidal bugs never came for us. we were too rotten, they said, we had nothing nutritious to offer. we made peace with them and helped them find more victims.

it was easy to find more people; in every church, in every school, in every 7/11, there was one, or twenty, longing for salvation. we offered it, abundantly. we were there, all the fucking time, hidden in a needle, at the tip of a dirty glass pipe. we couldn’t hide but we were tough to find. here it was, the moment of truth, when the priest had a taste. a man of the cloth converted in seconds. ever since, only three-headed demons visited his dreams and the screams, oh the wails breaking the dead of the night were ghoulish. he’d work up a sweat, shoot, then go back to sleep. till one night I grew tired of his shrieks and cut his tongue. next morning, he preached to us using sign language. he lost his hands the same afternoon. finally, he lost his cock. he was still alive, but would gawk into nothingness with his gouged eyes and would smile his toothless smile every five damn minutes. till someone got tired of him, I can’t remember who, and shot him in the head. even the remnants of his brain decorating the dirty wall smiled and preached. we had to clean up the mess and we did because we couldn’t live near anything that reminded us of the greener field we had rejected when the first angel abandoned heaven, thus commencing the story of the world.

we wrote the books too, the stories retold countless of times, in countless of versions. we were the first, the ones who said let there be light, and we never thought of the consequences. how can gods be so reckless? it’s easy, power comes with responsibilities but our minds were numb and we didn’t know. 

Stephan blathered on again, another nonsensical monologue until someone finally shot him in the head. his destroyed cranium kept on talking and we stomped it until there was nothing but splatter on the floor and on the walls. we never cleaned it up. the bugs got it for us. we just stayed, idle. 

the needle was hot when it entered the vein and cold when it came out. the mind was always numb. the dragons dancing in the living room were real but could not breathe fire ‘cause they were too tired to do so. all they wanted was to dance and they did, they performed the charleston for us and we laughed and applauded. then they died, on the spot, when snipers took them out. 

we were once again spared. we begged for death, quick or slow didn’t matter, but nothing happened. we saw it all, the destruction of everything, the explosion of the universe, and what else have you, yet we remained. Stephan couldn’t preach, the dragons weren’t there to dance for our amusement, and when Aphrodite took her clothes off and posed as the ancient goddess she was, we all raped her, and she enjoyed it more than she should and we lost our hardons because her moans were of ecstasy.

the bullets came through the window and the door and the men in black barged in. PARTY’S OVER MOTHERFUCKERS!!!! they bawled and started shooting blindly. we sat still, hoping for the bullet that would spell salvation. never came for me. the others were dead, I was alive. Aphrodite lay on the floor, naked, covered in cum, begging for more. the men in black did her a favor and fucked her in front of me.

I wasn’t naked. I never raped. I just shot. they were done. and dead. the men in black became nothing more than shadows with no substance. she guffawed. she got up, got dressed, kissed me. it was just us…it felt right.

we shot again. what happened? we asked each other, then cackled.

it wasn’t over. it’s never over. 

another needle heated.

nothing else made sense. only the returning dragons that did a waltz for us, then we killed them, cooked them, ate them. 

finally, we danced the tango, with needles hanging from our arms.

A Toenail Thing

“SORRY, I KNOW I’M NEW AT THIS, BUT ISN’T THAT CANNIBALISM?” I ask Carol through the mouth opening of my black latex bondage hood as I turn my head around to look up at her. Before she can answer, I add, “And if it is cannibalism, how does that fall into any of the BDSM categories?”

I’m lying on my stomach on a crumpled bed in a cheap dingy Motel 6 suite while Carol sits comfortably on the back of my bare upper thighs with her bent legs firmly straddling my hips. She wears shiny black thigh-high faux leather boots attached by garter straps to a tightly-laced black vinyl corset. In her right hand she grips the shaft of a braided black leather flogger, now rested at her side after our light warm-up session, while holding silver metal nail clippers in her left hand. After I turn my head around, she thrusts the nail clippers into my face and snarls at me.

I joined this BDSM dating website just a week ago after a long spell of unsuccessful online dating through more mainstream sites in the two years since my divorce. Though I’d never tried BDSM, or anything too kinky, I’ve always been drawn to pushy domineering women (and vice versa) so I figured BDSM may be my bag. After a little internet research, I registered on the site as a “sub” (submissive) seeking a relationship with a “dom” (dominant), hoping for a match. Carol is my first date.

Carol is angry now and glares down at me through the small eye openings of her face mask. “Do you even know what BDSM stands for, you submissive little bitch?” she asks me harshly while raising her right hand and flicking her wrist so that the leather tails of her flogger fly back behind its neck.

“Yes,” I reply eagerly. I’m exhilarated and energized by the threat of another flogging. “I googled ‘BDSM’ last week before I registered on the website; it’s an acronym for bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism.” My heart rate picks up in excitement and anticipation as I watch Carol brandish her flogger.

“You forgot domination and submission, you fucking imbecile,” Carol barks at me while cocking her right arm and readying the flogger for another downward attack.

I acknowledge her with a quick nod. “I understand, but domination and submission are redundant of other letters already in the BDSM acronym so they’re included under the D and S letters for discipline and sadism. It’s just cleaner that way instead of having duplicate letters.”

Carol rolls her eyes at me with an exasperated smirk while lowering the flogger to her side. “OK, Wordsworth, so which of those BDSM letters are you?”

I think about this for a moment, then reply, “Well, like I said, I’m new to this so I’m still trying to figure out which BDSM subgenre suits me best,” then add, “But under any conceivable definition of the BDSM categories, I really don’t think that cannibalism qualifies.”

Carol purses her shiny black glossed lips then nods in agreement. “OK,” she responds hesitantly, “But it isn’t really cannibalism per se if I just want you to eat my toenails and not any actual body part.”

I flash Carol an empathetic smile, then try my best to ease her obvious discomfort without being patronizing. “Well,” I explain patiently, “I never took an anatomy class but I do think that toenails are considered a body part. I mean, think about it, they may not have nerve endings or sensitivity but they couldn’t exist without a human to attach to – right?”

Carol nods coolly, reluctantly acknowledging my sound logic. “OK, but going back to the BDSM categories, if the point is to inflict pain on me when you remove my toenails, then I think that’s either sadism or masochism even if the eating part is technically cannibalism.”

I nod politely then ask as diplomatically as possible, “Well, if you want me to inflict pain on you, then why are you handing me nail clippers? Aren’t those supposed to clip your nails painlessly instead of just ripping them off your toes, and thereby inflicting pain? I don’t mean to be difficult, Carol, but it just seems like me using nail clippers on you is antithetical to the whole BDSM routine.” I pause then add, “And also, if you’re the ‘dom’ and I’m the ‘sub’ in this scenario, then aren’t you the one supposed to be inflicting pain and not me?”

Carol looks down at me silently. Her large brown eyes – so fierce and confident just moments ago – now look sad and doleful like a puppy lost outside in the rain.

Unable to restrain myself after sensing Carol’s vulnerability (and smelling weakness), I pounce like a jungle predator: “Carol, I don’t mean to be rude – and I’m sorry to be so forward – but have you ever done this before?”

Carol blushes deeply and turns her head to avert her eyes from mine. 

I feel Carol squirm uneasily on top of me and sense her embarrassment like a sharp pang in my chest. I feel horrible knowing that I’ve humiliated and disrespected Carol in her “dom” role, and I can tell that I’ve violated some cardinal rule of BDSM etiquette. Maybe this isn’t my game after all.

Thinking quickly, I do my best to backtrack and rehabilitate myself with Carol. “I’m so sorry, Carol, I don’t mean to be a prick, I’m just new to this – it’s literally my first date since I joined the BDSM website – so I’m still not really sure how it works. If you’re still feeling your way along here too, that’s totally cool – we’re both taking this journey together, like exploring a new city that we’ve never visited before.”

Carol relaxes and I can feel the tension drain from her body. She pulls off her face mask and looks at me with a shy grin. “Actually, yeah, I am new to this. It’s only my third BDSM date. The first guy made me slap him with a hog crop then peg him with this silicone strap-on that he brought to the hotel in his backpack, and the second guy cut himself on his ankle spreader bar then just ran out of the room.” 

She sighs deeply then continues, “But they both felt so sure about what they wanted that I didn’t feel comfortable asking them to do my toenail thing,” and adds, “With you I just felt so much more relaxed and confident, like I could ask you for anything and you wouldn’t judge me.” 

Tears begin to well up in Carol’s eyes. She ungrips her leather flogger, which falls lightly onto the bedspread, then raises her right hand to her face and wipes the budding tears from her eyes before they can cascade down her flushed cheeks.

I turn over on the bed then pull off my bondage hood and lay it beside me on the bedspread so that Carol and I are facing each other. I reach my right hand to her face and gently stroke her cheek with the back of my fingers. “I get it, Carol, I really do – and I’m sorry to make you feel so self-conscious and uncomfortable. That’s really not my intent.”

Carol lowers her face and gazes down at my bare chest while nodding slowly. She reaches her hands out and removes the small metal clamps that she’d fastened to my nipples during our warm-up session. I feel a warm tear drop from her face to my solar plexus and watch it trickle down over my side, gaining speed as it passes over my rib cage then onto the bedspread. “Most guys I meet just aren’t into my toenail thing, so that’s why I joined the BDSM site. I just thought maybe I’d meet someone who’s more open to it.”

I take a deep breath then say, “I thought we really hit it off at dinner – we both love sushi thai and had so much to talk about with our careers and goals and hobbies and everything – but the whole BDSM part of this date is kind of going off the rails and not how I expected.” I add, “Honestly, I don’t even know what to expect, this being my first time and all, but I don’t want this to ruin our date. I really do like you and I hope that you like me. Maybe we can just hit the rewind button and start this part over?”

Carol nods her head vigorously in agreement while wiping her eyes again. She looks relieved and refreshed. “I feel the same way, I really like you and don’t want to screw this up over my toenail thing.”

I smile up at her, pleased with myself for reviving her spirits.

Carol raises her eyebrows then asks with renewed vigor, “Wanna go back to my condo to watch a movie?”

“Sounds awesome,” I reply with a reassuring grin, “Any specific movie in mind?”

“Of course,” Carol replies with a suggestive smile, “Edward Scissorhands … I really like him.” 

A few hours later, we’re at Carol’s condo after stopping on the way for gelato. Dressed back in our civilian clothes, we’re nestled together on her living room sofa watching the final scene of Edward Scissorhands, which Carol is thoroughly enjoying. She turns toward me and lifts her far leg over my lap then begins to grind her crotch against my thigh.

“I love this part,” Carol whispers into my ear as she begins to grind harder, “The way that Edward uses his scissors to save Winona Ryder is so fucking hot.”

“Right!” I agree enthusiastically. 

The movie ends after Edward stabs and kills that what’s-his-name nerd kid from Breakfast Club (and Sixteen Candles and Weird Science). As the credits begin to roll, Carol purrs into my ear while continuing to grind my thigh, “Wanna play Edward Scissorhands?”

“Sounds great,” I reply. Though I’m not quite sure what this game entails, I don’t want to be a buzzkill again after our date was barely rescued earlier at the Motel 6. Everything is going well now, but I know that can change on a dime with Carol if I say the wrong thing.

Carol beams at me then jumps up from the sofa. “Cool!” she exclaims, “Just stay here while I go put on my dominatrix outfit and get my scissors!”

“Carol, that’s OK,” I say before she runs off to her bedroom. “You don’t have to bother changing your clothes—,”

But before I can finish my sentence, Carol quickly pivots then strikes me with a hard open-handed slap across my face, which immediately stings while my face burns hot. “I’m the one giving the orders, you fucking slave! Now you’ll sit there, keep your goddamn mouth shut and wait for me like mommy’s little boy-whore!”

I curl up on the sofa and nod to her dutifully with my best sad-eyed Edward Scissorhands face, reminding myself to stick to my submissive role in Carol’s exciting new game.

A few minutes later, Carol exits her bedroom decked out in a skintight full-body black vinyl catwoman suit and a new face mask with feline ears protruding from the sides. She struts into the kitchen on black stiletto heels and opens a drawer beneath the marble countertop next to the refrigerator. She looks and then rifles furiously through the drawer with both hands. After about a minute of searching through all her kitchen drawers, she pounds her fist against the countertop and bellows, “Goddamnit! I can’t find my scissors. I must’ve taken them to work and left them there!”

Carol enters the living room, looks at me sternly with the nail clippers that she now holds firmly in her right hand, then points them at me. “I guess these’ll just have to do. Now sit up and take your shirt off!” she commands me.

“Wait a minute, I’m confused,” I say, “Aren’t I supposed to be Edward? And even if you’re Edward, he never used nail clippers.”

Carol nods silently to herself, walks back to the kitchen then returns holding a large carving knife in her right hand with the nail clippers in her left.

“A kitchen knife?” I ask, barely able to conceal my surprise.

Carol clearly is frustrated and looks at me impatiently for a moment before responding. “It’s a knife, why does it matter what it’s supposed to be used for?” Her voice quivers when she shouts out her next command, “Now just shut the fuck up and strip!”

I’m unable to subdue the laughter that escapes my throat. “But Carol,” I explain in between laughs, “There are special BDSM knives and daggers. Nobody uses kitchen knives. I thought you just wanted to poke around, not carve me up like a pot roast!”

Once again, I push too far and let my mouth get the best of me. “And you still have the nail clippers! Carol, is this whole Edward Scissorhands game just a ploy to get me to eat your toenails again?”

Carol’s face reddens like an electric stovetop while she looks up to the ceiling and  screams something unintelligible, then flings her knife and nail clippers across the room at the wall. She drops to the floor with her hands pressed to her face, then turns on her side and begins to weep uncontrollably in front of the sofa.

I hop up and lift her onto the sofa, where she lies down then hugs her knees to her chest and curls up into a ball. She rocks back and forth in this fetal positon while her weeping intensifies.

I wrap my arms around Carol’s shoulders and feel her shaking like a poodle while her violent sobs continue. I try to calm her down with quiet soothing shhh whispers.

After a minute or two, Carol’s sobbing slows down and she looks up at me with tear-stained cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m just so fucking bad at this. I’ve never used a knife on anyone before, but watching Edward just gave me the idea and got me in the mood.”

“It’s OK, it’s OK,” I whisper softly into her ear while gently caressing her hair. 

Carol’s sobs subside while I massage her arms and shoulders to loosen her tension. After a few moments, she looks up at me in embarrassment and says, “Sorry I’m such a hot mess tonight. I’m trying too hard to fit into this dominatrix role and it’s just not happening for me.”

I smile back at her while giving her upper arm a gentle squeeze. “Tell you what, why don’t we just shelve the BDSM play for tonight and take a bottle of wine out onto the balcony? It’s a beautiful night.” I nod my head toward the balcony with a wink.

Carol sits up on the sofa and looks out the sliding glass door to the balcony, then turns back to me with a smile. “Sounds perfect,” she says with a quiet sniffle. She stands up from the sofa and walks to the kitchen where she pulls a bottle of wine from the refrigerator and takes two wine glasses from a wood cabinet above the countertop. She walks over to the balcony door, looks over at me with a grin and nods her head toward the balcony. “C’mon, let’s go outside.”

I walk over to Carol and take the wine bottle from her so that she can use her free hand to open the sliding glass door to the balcony while holding the wine glasses in her other hand. We walk out onto the balcony then sit on cushioned chairs on either side of a small patio table where Carol sets down the wine glasses, take the bottle from my hand and pours us each a half glass. 

I raise my glass and nod to Carol to do the same. I look out over the balcony rail into the starry black night sky then turn back to Carol with a soft smile. I extend my glass toward hers and toast, “Here’s to our first date, and to your toenail thing.”

Carol giggles as we clink glasses and says, “To our first date, and the end of my toenail thing. I’m over it.”

We both turn our heads to look out past the balcony and sip from our wine glasses. I move my hand across the patio table and place it atop hers on the armrest of her chair. We sit quietly and enjoy the comfortable silence while taking in the beautiful night. 

My heartbeat slows down and I close my eyes. I feel perfectly calm and at ease. I open my eyes when I feel Carol’s soft warm lips gently kiss my cheek. I look over at her with a smile.

Carol leans up in her chair and moves the patio table forward so that she can pull her chair next to mine. She rests her head against my shoulder. “I’m so glad I met you,” she says as she raises her soft brown eyes to mine.

I squeeze her hand as we drink our wine and gaze out into the serene night sky.

Neither of us speak a word.

Tippytoe

It’s always the young girls. The new hires. They are the ones who haven’t learned yet that filing a complaint doesn’t do anything. They think their voices matter. That just because they speak, people will listen. No one is listening. 

I place a plastic container of storebought oatmeal raisin cookies on the counter in the breakroom. The clamshell crinkles like it might crumple in my hands. Grace comes in, always a little late, smelling of freesia and powder and hair that has been heated and sprayed and twisted into pleasing shapes, all smooth curves.  I always make sure I am early for work, the first car in the lot in the first parking spot, even if I am a little rumpled. I turn to her and offer her a cookie. Her nose twitches in distaste, which she tries to mask with politeness. 

“Oh! No thank you, Martha. I don’t like raisins.” She pulls back from me, recoiling.  I look down at my outstretched hand holding a cookie out to her.  My fingers look gray and grubby next to her skin, nails cracked with something brown caked under the longest one. To my horror, I realize it’s blood. I’d awakened with a bloody nose this morning in the dry air of my house, cat hair heating to a kindling in the furnace vents. I thought I had cleaned my hands properly, scrubbing until the skin practically cracked under scalding water, and yet there was the blood.  I withdrew my hand, tossing the cookie in the garbage and tucking the tips of my fingers into the back of my waistband out of sight. I reflexively looked at Liv’s nails. Smooth. Peach. Feminine. Like a doll. I almost reached out with my other hand to touch hers, to twist her skin roughly beneath mine, but with a startle I remembered to stop myself. Grace seems to be holding her breath, letting out a long sigh as she turns towards her cubicle. She has this way of walking on her tippy toes like a mean little cat or a shitty child.  

It seems no matter what I try, it is never right. Never the right cookie. Never the right clothes. Never the right thing to say. Always with the blood under the nails and not the peach nail polish. I try to imagine peach paint on my fingernails clashing against my ruddy skin. No one wants to see peach nail polish on a woman with clotted pouches of flesh under her eyes and knuckles cracked to bleeding.  

That afternoon we have a team meeting. All the employees go to the conference room and sit around the big oval table with the dinged-up edges surrounded by swivel chairs, and we drink Tim Horton’s coffee out of a box and paper cups. My younger colleagues think it’s funny to call it Timmy Ho’s, which I find classless.  The screen at the front of the room reads “Third Quarter Strategic Planning.” Our boss, Charles, a stiff man in a stiff blazer stands at the head of the table flipping through a folder with spreadsheets to hand out to all of us. He dims the lights and starts the presentation. 

Grace sits a few seats down from me, and as the presentation gets on, I stand up and make my way out like I am going to the bathroom. I have been waiting for weeks for an opportunity like this. It’s like it is meant to happen. I pull my scissors from my cardigan pocket. Grace’s hair is draped perfectly over the back of her seat, and with one smooth movement, I snip a long, coiled curl and cup it in my fist. She darts her eyes up at me when I go past, but she hadn’t heard the snipping sound. I can tell. Brody cocks a smirk at her. They hate me, but they don’t know what I’ve done. 

In one of the bathroom stalls. I unfurl my fingers to look at the soft dark hair in my hand. The lights are so bright in here and everything so white that orbs of light pulse at the periphery of my vision, the floaters in my eyes set off like star shine. The neat little whorl looks like a rodent pet in my palm. It had started to stick to the sweat in my first, but that’s okay. I touch my nose to it and breath in. My own hair smells like old cooking oil. I have never understood how girls get their hair to smell this fresh. It’s almost as if they weren’t even living things, incapable of decay. 

I don’t know where else to put her hair until I get home, so I shove the pretty lock down in my underwear. I just tuck it in the front there. I want all the hairs to stay together, and my pocket is too big and loose. At least here it will be out of sight and kept tight. 

As I wash my hands and straighten my sweater in the mirror, I imagine how Grace’s face will look when she realizes a chunk of hair is missing. The way her mouth will fall open. The way her hands will claw at her hair, checking to see if anymore is missing. A stupid, “What the fuck?” will come out of her mouth. Such a dumb phrase from the plump little lips of very dumb girls. I can’t help but smile back at myself in the mirror. I might be ugly, but at least I’m smart. 

When I get back to the meeting room, the presentation is wrapping up. The lights come on, and Brent is looking at the back of Grace’s hair, his forehead bubbling up in guttered lines of confusion, his beady predator eyes squinting behind his cheap, ironically large glasses. My face goes hot, and I look around for something to do to look busy. I start cleaning off the napkins and paper cups from the conference table.  A small group is gathering around Grace to inspect her hair. Heads are shaking back and forth. I head back to my desk and bury my face in my computer screen, busy, busy. 

When the end of the workday comes, I slowly pack up my things, making sure to head by the break room to throw away the cookie container. To my surprise, it is still full. A stab of shame passes through my chest. I tried to do something nice and not one person cares or notices. Walking through the office holding my rejected cookies, I see Grace in Charles’s office, her hands gesturing like my own marionette. She points to the spot on the back of her head where a large chunk is missing. I bury a smile. Our manager looks bored, his eyes drifting to the clock on the wall. Time to go home. Time for a drink.

In my car, I pretend to look busy, like I am looking at my phone. I wait there as Grace tippytoe-walks to her perfect little car. New. Clean. The trick when following someone is to let them follow you first. I back out of my spot, timing things just right so she will be the car directly behind mine. I drive slowly out of the parking lot, nice and normal. Not too fast, not too slow. She’s in my rearview mirror, safe in her box. When I see her turn off, I do a U-turn in the darkening streets. Again, it seems fortuitous that there are no other cars around, and I proceed down the road where she had turned. Soon enough, there she is in front of me on the little two-lane road. Her head bobs along to something poppy on the radio, her shoulders doing a little shimmy. I pull up close behind her and turn on my brights so she can’t see me. Her speed slows. I bet her road rage is prickling at the nape of her neck where her hair is missing. It has been a bad day for Grace. She sits up straighter in her seat. She is trying to make me angry by going too slow, but she doesn’t know I like this kind of game. I don’t care if she brings her car all the way to a stop, just me and her out here on this road after dark. 

I am reaching that point though. The one where I must decide if I am going to go through with this or not. Right now, she doesn’t know it’s me behind her. Nothing has happened. Yet. Sure, she slandered my name to our boss today. I might get called into his office in the morning for a chat, though I am good at playing dumb. Wouldn’t be the first time. But right now, I have a choice to make. I can pull over and let her continue down the road to her safe little apartment with her pet cat, her roommate, and her Tuesday night television. Or I continue this game just a little bit longer. I need to commit. Because when I do, she will have to see me. I think of the way she looks at me every day like I am vile, the way she whispers and giggles with Brody like I don’t understand I am the butt of all their jokes, the way she tattled on me to Charles. 

I imagine the road unfurling in front of her headlights. I imagine just about how far she can see. I know all the roads in this town, and Grace couldn’t have chosen to drive down a more perfect one to get home. Again. Fortuitous. I begin to edge my little Honda hatchback over the double yellow line to start to pass Grace. I press the gas pedal hard with my sneaker, my car lurching forward, my grip tight on the wheel. I want to get right beside her so I can look over and make eye contact one last time. I’m there. This is the moment. I look over at her. She looks back. That expression on her face tells me everything I need to know. Her face shifts from anxious and angry to pure hot disgust. 

I give a little wave and then slowly start to edge my car closer to hers. I move over a little bit. She moves over a little bit. There is a big curve coming up. It is risky for me because I can’t see if there are any oncoming cars to smash into me head-on. The way the day has gone though, I know that isn’t possible. This is supposed to happen. Something out there other than me wants it just as much as I do. I move closer, just inches away from her driver’s side door. She doesn’t have much room to move. I am almost entirely in her lane now. One more little shift closer. Two of her tires find the edge of the pavement. The ravine isn’t directly at the edge of the road, but there is enough of a slant to the shoulder that once she starts to lose control it is all in my hands. She holds the steering wheel with both hands as her tires start to pull off the pavement. Gravel shoots from her tires like buckshot. I easily follow the curve in the road and keep my eyes on the white line. It is tempting to watch. I want to. But I hear her car rip through the guardrail and then silence as it dives through the air. 

Should I go back and check?  Make sure she is dead?  It seems risky. Only a matter of time before another car comes along and notices the hole in the guardrail, the fresh skid marks. Someone will call it in soon enough. Maybe that someone is me. 

Greed-Aid: Press Release

In an era where billionaires struggle to launch themselves into space on mere pocket change, Greed-Aid stands as a beacon of hope for our beleaguered corporate overlords. This star-studded spectacle aims to raise awareness and critical funds for entities that barely scrape by on billions in quarterly profits. The event will feature a lineup of heavily-sponsored artists performing their greatest hits while wearing logos so large they’re visible from failing corporate satellites.

“We’ve seen countless charity events for trivial causes like hunger, disease, and climate change,” says event organizer John Q. Greedhead, adjusting his solid platinum tie pin. “But who speaks for the corporations? Who stands up for the holding companies?” The concert promises to be a transformative experience, with ticket prices starting at the modest sum of one worker’s annual salary.

Greed-Aid will take place in the recently renamed Amazon Prime Gardens (formerly Central Park). The event will feature special VIP experiences, including “Trickle-Down Seating” where wealthy attendees can literally sit above the masses on suspended platforms, allowing their champagne spillage to rain down upon the common folk.

All proceeds will go directly to helping corporations maintain their essential services, such as luxury board retreats and algorithmic employee replacement programs. “It’s time we recognized the real victims,” Greedhead continues, dabbing his eyes with hundred-dollar bills. “Have you seen the price of corporate jets lately? It’s heartbreaking.” 

The public is urged to dig deep into their rapidly depleting savings to support this crucial cause. As our corporate benefactors face the unthinkable prospect of slightly reduced profit margins, we must ask ourselves: if we don’t stand up for billion-dollar companies, who will? 

For more information about how you can help preserve the endangered lifestyle of the 1%, visit http://www.greed-aid.con or contact our platinum-level customer service team at 1-900-CASHGRAB (calls billed at $999.99 per minute, with all proceeds going to executive bonus protection programs.

About Greed-Aid: Founded in the offshore tax haven of your choice, Greed-Aid represents the ultimate evolution of charitable giving – upward mobility of wealth at its finest. We believe in the power of music to open both hearts and wallets, primarily wallets. Our mission is to ensure that no corporation ever has to face the indignity of paying their fair share of taxes or providing living wages to workers.

Contact:

John Q. Greedhead III, Esq.

Chief Exploitation Officer

Greed-Aid Enterprises LLC

Phone: 1-800-FUK-PEPL

Email: golden.parachute@greed-aid.con

Remember: Your support today ensures a brighter tomorrow for those who need it least.

Dividers

I don’t know where I am, but I know I need to go somewhere else. 

I press down hard on the gas pedal and feel my car speed up from 60 to 70 in a second. The broken divider lines painted in the middle of the road pass faster and grow closer together. No cars are approaching from front or behind. I gun down harder on the gas and watch the speedometer hit 80. The divider lines begin to form an unbroken continuum as I accelerate. 

In the distance I see a pair of bright white headlights coming toward me. They grow bigger and brighter as they approach. My speedometer hits 90 and the oncoming headlights begin to illuminate the inside of my car.

I close my eyes.

When I open my eyes, I’m sitting in a bar at night. The only light comes in through a window pane from a tall street lamp in the parking lot. The other bar patrons are just dark silhouettes huddled together at tables spaced across the room with a few more seated at the bar. I see a staircase ascending upwards in the far corner of the room. The first few steps are dark and unlit but the next few steps are dimly lit by a light coming from upstairs. I can’t see above those steps but I want to see what’s upstairs. I stand up from my bar stool and walk toward the staircase but all the bar patrons stop what they’re doing and look at me. A lightbulb above me turns on and shines directly down on me. I must be the only visible object in the room. Everyone can see me. I know the other people are there but I can’t make out their silhouettes while the light above me grows brighter. I have to squint and shield my eyes with my hand to see in front of me. I turn back to the bar and see the bartender looking at me and whispering something to a patron sitting on a bar stool who also turns to look at me.

I walk up to them and say “I’m lost.”

They look back at me and nod their heads in unison but say nothing.

I turn back around to the barroom. The tables are still there but the people are gone. The door to the staircase is closed. I’m alone now.

I close my eyes.

I reopen my eyes and I’m back in my car with the gas pedal pressed to the floor. The speedometer passes 100 and the road dividers are now solid double parallel lines unbroken in space or time. The approaching headlights are now so close and bright that they fill the entire inside of my car. I have to look down to avoid being blinded.

I’m still lost but now I know where I am.

I jerk the steering wheel hard to the left and cross the divider lines.

All goes dark.

Enter the Dragon

Courtney stared at the number written on the piece of paper she held in her hand, which her best friend and partner-in-crime Becky had given her. 

Dare I? she wondered, her eyes flitting to her mobile phone, which lay on the bed beside her. I mean, I was complaining pretty hard to her about the lack of action my pussy’s been getting. She sighed. Things haven’t been the same since James passed away. Not to mention this damn pacemaker I had fitted. Who has heart problems in their 30s? A widow, clearly. 

She closed her eyes and thought about the conversation she’d had with Becky that morning during their Monday coffee, cake and catch-up ritual. 

* * *

“Look, I know a guy,” Becky said, sat at Courtney’s kitchen table. “He’ll sort you out. Trust me,” the blonde bombshell with balloon-like knockers continued. “He’s not the brightest tool in the box, but my God . . .”

“Yeah? Hmm, I don’t know. I mean, I have my toys,” Courtney said. “And Buttons.”

“Christ, you just said you’re gagging for wood! Your tabby cat and toys can’t provide that. Dragon definitely would though.” 

“Dragon? What sort of name is that?!”

Becky scoffed, rolled her eyes and laughed. “To be fair, I didn’t get it at first, but it’s because he has a giant cock.”

“Ah, like a dragon’s?”

“No, because he’s draggin’ on the floor!”

Courtney spat her coffee and howled with laughter. “Oh, you bitch, Becky,” she said, coughing and spluttering, wiping the remnants of hot drink off her chin. “I’ve never heard that expression before.”

“Honest to God, it reaches his knees. Boy’s a freak show.”

“You’re something, girl.”

“I heard he fucked a cross-eyed girl so hard once, that her eyes became straight.”

Both girls laughed.

“But he’s thick, you said. A bit slow?”

“Oh, the lad’s going backwards, he’s that slow,” Becky said. “When I first chatted with him, I told him to come over and hose me down with that giant prick of his. Unfortunately, I left out the ‘giant prick’ part in my message, thinking he’d know what I meant, but he turned up with a bar of soap and his garden hosepipe, ready to wash me down, thinking it was a kink.”  

Courtney scoffed. “Nobody’s that stupid.”

“Trust me, he is. But Jesus, he knows his way ’round a love tunnel. He screwed me inside out, and I think that’s what you need before your big trip away to Tinseltown Island.”

Courtney cupped her coffee mug and nodded. “Well, I could definitely do with loosening up.” 

“Here’s his number,” Becky said, writing it on a piece of scrap paper. “Tell him I sent you.”

“Got a photo of him?”

Becky produced her phone and began scrolling. “Pretty sure I . . . Ah-ha!” she said, turning the mobile to Courtney. “Hunk, right?”

Courtney eyed the picture, spying the large, topless and broad guy, who had shaggy blonde hair. “Beautiful.”

“Yeah, but try not to look at the dent in his head. There’s a metal plate there.”

“What happened?”

“Kicked by a feisty sheep during shearing season. Lucky to be alive, really.”

Courtney’s mouth formed a perfect O. “Poor thing. So, he’s a farmer?”

Becky nodded, eyes darting to the clock on the wall. “Shit, that the time? I need to shoot—I have a hair appointment in town,” she said, swallowing the dregs of her coffee and standing.

“Could you send me that photo, please?” 

“Sure. Must dash!”

The snapshot had pinged through to Courtney’s phone hours later as she lay in bed, and she was unable to resist breaking out her vibrator after examining the picture of the golden-haired stud. 

“Damn, those chest muscles,” she had said, imagining Dragon throwing her around the bedroom. With her free hand, she moulded her pert tit, teasing and pinching the nipple. As one part of her dildo had stimulated her clit and the other plunged her pussy, she climaxed for a fourth time. 

Spent, she lay there, thinking how much she missed sex. 

“Fuck it,” she said, reaching for the number, her hands shaking.

But, as much as she wanted to reach out to Dragon, she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it and had found herself staring at the number until the digits were seared into her brain. 

* * *

Courtney looked at the paper and thought about it again.

“It’s just sex,” she said, biting her lip, envisioning Dragon pounding away at her. A kaleidoscope of butterflies erupted in her gut, her pussy beginning to awaken for more. “Christ, I’ve got such a horny, naughty kitty-cat.” 

The fingers of her free hand slipped between her legs, her mind overtaken by an image of Dragon bending her over her bed, his tongue lashing her from back to front.  

Do it. Do it now, while you have the mind to, a voice whispered inside her head.

“It’s almost midnight,” she muttered, her breath trembling. 

Then, a wicked thought came to her: I’ll text him. Tell him there’s a key to my front door under the welcome mat outside. 

She sent the message.

With a giggle, Courtney threw the bedcovers to one side and stood on trembling legs, her thighs shaking. After steadying herself, she rushed downstairs, took her door key off the bunch, and placed it under the hessian doormat out front. 

Heart pounding, she thought for a split second about retrieving the key. No, never mind. If Becky vouched for him, that’s good enough for me. 

With a titter, she rushed back upstairs to see if he’d texted back. Her face lit up when she noticed the screen to her phone flashing. With a trembling hand, she opened his message: Sure, I can do that for you. See you in the morning. Dragon. Xx

Oh, God. I can’t believe I’m doing this, she thought, heading towards her shower to clean up and trim her pubes. 

When she was done, Courtney got into bed, naked, and tried to sleep. But her mind raced, thinking about waking to the touch of his rough, farming hands. His face buried between her thighs or his mouth nibbling her tits. She squirmed.  

Stop it. She turned the light off and wriggled down in her bed. I’ll never sleep at this rate, she thought, feeling her clit pulse. 

That was the last thought to cross her mind, as sleep took her. 

* * *

An acrid, choking stench awoke her with a cough. Trails of black smoke filled her bedroom. 

“The hell?” she said, bouncing out of bed, sleep and drowsiness lost. She grabbed her gown and slipped her feet into her slippers. 

Sunlight poured through her window. 

Jesus, how long have I slept? 

She rushed out of the room. When Courtney reached the top of the stairs, the smoke alarm located there kicked in, and she had to stand on tippy toes to turn it off.  

She ran downstairs and checked all rooms, finding nothing out of sorts until she arrived at the kitchen. Upon entering it, she spotted a plume of fumes snaking from the oven—the source of all the smoke and commotion.

Before her, sat at the table in coveralls plastered with cow shit, was the behemoth called Dragon. He tore at something ravenously.

She gasped, taking in the heinous scene. Is that . . .? 

It was.

She fell back against the door, the handle jabbing her in the small of her back. The wind sucked from her and she was unable to move.

Dragon held the remnants of Buttons up, snapped off one of the feline’s charred legs (which he’d stripped like a fucking piranha), and ripped into it with his teeth, devouring flesh, blood and gleaming bone as though he were eating ice-cream. 

Done with the leg, he smashed his hands into the cat’s gut, ripping and tearing, shattering the ribcage, shoving partly cooked innards and intestines into his mouth. Blood, gristle and grease splashed everywhere. His huge, chewing maw was a gory mess. 

“Mmm,” he said between mouthfuls, giggling a hick-like, hiccupy laugh, which would have sounded goofy in a different scenario. Dargon licked his fingers and went back for more, pulling the tabby’s tail free and chewing through the sinew and muscle. 

Courtney wanted to vomit, her stomach twisting, as a fresh, hellish smell hit her. “What the fuck are you doing?” she screamed, her face and neck turning red, then purple. Veins protruded from her forehead. 

Pain exploded in her chest and rushed down her arm. 

“You said your pussy was naughty and unruly, that it was playing up, and that you wanted me to come over and sort it out. Teach it a lesson. ‘Eat the fucker,’ you said.” He shrugged and grinned. “Well, I am. The fucker won’t be giving you any more grief, darlin’.” 

He stuffed handfuls of Buttons into his slobbering mouth, whiskers and all, as Courtney slipped down the door she’d collapsed against.

Her heart gave out, her face twisting into a painful, frozen scream.   

Iron Fist

The club’s neon sign buzzed and flickered like a dying insect, casting sickly purple shadows across Joe Oroborus’s face as he watched Kandy Fontaine saunter through the entrance of Club Euphoria. Her leather jacket caught the light, transforming ordinary street grime into a constellation of sin. Behind her, Princess Cherrypop’s flame-red hair created a bloody halo that seemed to pulse in time with the industrial music bleeding through the walls.

Joe’s cybernetic hand twitched, sending sparks of pain up his arm where flesh met metal. The implant had been acting strange lately, picking up phantom frequencies, whispering things in the dead of night. Sometimes he caught himself having conversations with it, his organic fingers tracing the chrome joints while the artificial ones spelled out messages in a sign language he never learned.

Kandy noticed the spasms, her FBI-trained eyes missing nothing. “Your tech’s got the jitters again,” she said, sliding onto the barstool beside him. “Maybe you shouldn’t have gotten that upgrade from that back-alley clinic.”

Princess Cherrypop leaned against the bar, her alabaster skin almost translucent under the strobing lights. “The one run by that doctor who disappeared after the incident with the flesh cubes?”

The music shifted, became something darker, more visceral. Joe’s artificial hand clenched involuntarily, crushing his glass. Blood and bourbon mingled with shattered crystal, but he couldn’t feel the cuts. The hand was moving on its own now, fingers dancing across the bar top in precise geometric patterns. Princess Cherrypop’s eyes widened as she recognized the symbols. “Those are the same markings we found carved into the walls of the quantum computing lab after the massacre.”

Kandy pulled her service weapon, but kept it low, hidden beneath the bar. The other patrons seemed oblivious to the horror unfolding, their bodies swaying to the rhythm while reality began to crack around the edges. Joe’s mechanical fingers were leaving trails of light in the air now, tear-tracks in the fabric of space-time.

“It’s not an upgrade malfunction,” Joe managed through gritted teeth. “Something came through when they installed the new neural interface with cybernegative twisties. Something old. Eldritch, even. Something that’s been waiting in the spaces between binary code.” 

His artificial hand lunged for Kandy’s throat with terrible purpose, but Princess Cherrypop was faster. She slammed a crystalline vial onto the bar, and the air filled with ozone and the smell of burning circuit boards.

The hand froze mid-strike, trembling. Shapes began to emerge from the chrome surface, faces screaming in silicon agony, bodies twisted into impossible Möbius strips of flesh and metal. The entity that had been riding Joe’s circuits revealed itself, a thing of angles and edges that hurt the mind to look upon.

“Now!” Cherrypop screamed.

Kandy moved with the fluid grace of a killer, her gun spitting sanctified code-bullets programmed by techno-priests. The things living in Joe’s artificial hand shrieked in frequencies that shattered every screen in the club. Reality buckled as the entity tried to maintain its hold on our dimension, but the holy algorithms were stronger.

In the end, Joe’s mechanical hand lay smoking on the bar, inert but finally clean. The club’s patrons continued dancing, their minds automatically editing out anything that didn’t fit their comfortable version of reality. Kandy holstered her weapon while Princess Cherrypop swept the dead hand into her purse like it was nothing more unusual than a compact mirror.

“You’ll need a new one,” Kandy said, lighting a cigarette. “I know a guy. No demons, guaranteed. Just good old-fashioned chrome and steel.” Joe nodded, cradling his cybernetic arm. The music had returned to its regular rhythm, but underneath he could still hear echoes of that other frequency, that digital death-jazz that played in the spaces between ones and zeros. 

He ordered another drink, knowing he’d need it for what came next. After all, something had opened that door between worlds, and it wasn’t the kind of door that stayed closed for long.

Parable

Betty lives in the apartments across from Hackley Park, where yesterday a seven-year-old kid found a loaded gun. It turns out the kid found the gun last week, buried it and then came back to show it to his friends. One of the kid’s friends told their parents who told the police. The park is surrounded by yellow crime scene tape. I see people looking up as if the gun fell from the sky like evil manna.

It’s hot in this apartment, the TV is on the religious channel which makes everything hotter. A preacher with white teeth is speaking about the parable of the treasure in the field. 

“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure in a field, which a man found and hid again,” he said.

I live in my mother’s house with my wife. My wife is not happy about it, she said she is chained to the wall of life. We only have one car, and every time I get home, my wife wants to look at houses. We can’t afford a house, we have zero revenue, we have no means. 

The last time we looked at a house my wife caught me stealing a book from the house we were viewing: “Short Stories of O. Henry.” She was in a panic. 

“How can I steal something that already belongs to me?” I said. 

“Huh?”

“All books are mine, the same way some guys think all women were made for them to have sex with, all books were made for me to read.” 

I told my wife I was done looking at houses until she gets a job. She spit at me like a prisoner being led back to her cell. 

My wife is afraid to leave our bedroom whenever I leave the house. She locks herself in our bedroom and doesn’t come out except to use the restroom. She’s the one who wanted to get married, she inflicted this on herself. 

We’re preparing to cut each other’s throat, after only five months of marriage. I gave up everything to marry her. She made her happiness my slave and now it’s my fault she’s unhappy.

“You should see me with other women,” I said. “I make them laugh. I make them happy. I can make any woman happy except you.”

“You do make me happy,” she said. “We need our own space.” 

Every day, my mom and my wife fight over who gets to make me coffee. They both worship me like gold they hide from each other. 

Betty’s TV is still on the religious channel. A preacher with even whiter teeth is talking about the tent of Achan. This channel is counterfeiting religion. 

I try to turn the channel and Betty yells at me. 

“I need God in my life,” she said. “I’m not embarrassed about it.” 

“The advantages we gain over our enemies are not truly our own, but belong to God,” the preacher said. 

“Amen,” Betty said.

Betty and I work at the supermarket together. She works in the deli, in fact she’s heir to the whole department. She’s next in line for deli manager. (We’re famous for our deli.) I work in the meat department. 

Betty’s daughter left Betty a note saying she had to leave for a few days “and please don’t try to find me.” She took Betty’s car. So, I’ve been giving Betty a ride to and from work all week. This is the first time Betty has invited me inside her apartment. 

Betty and I do little things for each other at the store, like holding doors open and taking our breaks together. We even punched each other’s timecard. I even sold her steaks priced as hamburger. I even took time off from work and went to her divorce hearing with her. 

Betty sits me in a kitchen chair and gives me a haircut. Leave me some hair, I said. At the end of the haircut, she rakes her fingers through my hair a few times like I’m a Zen Garden. Before I get up, I look up at her. She’s standing behind me looking down at me. She lets her hair fall on my face. That drives me wild. Betty’s hair is her prized possession. 

Then Betty gets dressed twice, two different outfits like a fashion show.

“Do you like this dress?” Betty said. She said it’s her daughter’s dress, but that she looks better in the dress than her daughter. I’ve never met Betty’s daughter, but she must be around my age (I’m twenty-two). That would put Betty around forty. 

Betty asks if I will unbutton the back of her dress. I tell her I’m going to unbutton everything she asks me to. 

“Never mind,” she said. 

Betty and I roll a bag of weed into joints. Our hands are busy, like dung beetles rolling balls of dung. We light a joint and smoke (the blur is on my brain once we smoke). 

“I have a funny story to tell you,” I said. 

I told Betty about my dream. I had a dream I was a sign artist at the grocery store. 

“I had created all these clever signs for the meat department: John Steinbeck Likes Turkey Necks; Ezra Pound Prefers Ground Round; William Blake Chooses Ball Tip Steak; Stephen King Eats Our Chicken Wings; Charles Dickens Likes Fresh Roasting Chickens; Edgar Allen Poe Enjoys Our Escargot; Nietzsche Eats Our Sushi. Then as I was looking at all these clever signs, I had an epiphany. I came up with a new sonnet form, the butcher’s sonnet. This sonnet was going to change things, going to change everything. That’s when I woke up.”

Betty looked worried. 

“Do you have any food?” I ask. 

I felt like I hadn’t eaten in two days. I found five carrots in the refrigerator. I also found a brown banana. The banana makes my stomach feel queasy, so I go into the bathroom. Betty has a wooden toilet seat. I didn’t get sick. In fact, I kissed myself in the mirror. 

 We left the apartment for a stroll. We’re holding hands, whatever that means. 

Betty is a holy beauty. Betty’s eyes look like church windows filled with sunshine. 

“Now it’s my turn to say something,” I said. “I love you.”

“You have no right to say that to me,” Betty said. But she likes me saying it. 

A fat boy puts both hands above his eyes and stares at Betty like he’s looking into a bakery window. 

We toss one dollar and eighty-seven cents into the hat of a homeless man sitting on the curb. 

We pass the Nims Community Garden, and I stare at the gazing ball. There are people pulling weeds, perverting nature.  

We walk past The Women’s Club, where I’m told they’re trying to rid the city of all phallic symbols. 

I’m a lucky man. Every man we pass on the sidewalk wants to be me, wants to be beside Betty.

“What would you do if you looked up at the sky right now and it said, ‘Will you marry me, Betty?’”

“A message from God? I guess I’d become a nun.”

We duck into city hall, where they have a full-scale model of the city. I pretend I’m bigger than the city. I pretend one hundred cities can fit within me. 

We go into Dreamer’s Bar which used to be called Flip’s Friendly Lounge. Dreamer’s is as dark as a coal mine.

I see someone I know. I didn’t want them to see me but of course they did. Even with the name change this place is still friendly. It’s this double-jointed Christian that’s seven feet tall and has hips like a woman. He lifts me off the ground in an embrace. 

“I never thought I would see you here,” I said. 

“You mean because I’m a Jesus freak? I’m celebrating beating cancer.” He said he had had skin cancer. He said he found out because dogs wouldn’t stop barking at him.

“I’m cancer free. How is your brother?”

“He’s great, he’s married and has three kids,” I said. He listens to me talk about my brother like he’s trying to crack a safe. He used to follow my brother everywhere. He even followed my brother into the seminary. He even tried to dress like my brother. 

“Did you hear about the gun in the park?” he said. 

I nodded. “Hey, this is Betty. Show her your stuff.”  

He bent the fingers of both hands back to his wrist. Then he laced his fingers behind his back and lifted his arms over his head. 

“That’s odd,” Betty said.  

Betty sees one of her most loyal customers. 

“I almost didn’t recognize you without your hairnet,” he said. “I never thought of you as having hair, especially not hair like Venus.” He shakes my hand with a violent grip. He has a suitcase with him. He said he needs to get out of town for a while.

“Where are you going to get your deli ham from?” Betty said. 

“Did you know when the Titanic sank there was seven thousand pounds of ham on board?” this loyal customer said. He’s serious. “Don’t you ever cut that hair,” he said. He’s even more serious. 

We had a few drinks. I drink mine like I’m drinking Betty’s desire for me. 

“It feels so good to be divorced,” Betty said. 

“I’m never getting married,” I said. 

“Now you’re talking like a man,” she said. 

Then we walked back to Betty’s apartment.

“I’m not going to have sex with you,” Betty said. 

We walk down Clay Avenue through a little jungle the city calls a Monet Garden. You can hear frogs croaking “watch us go.” 

We walked past a library I know by heart, where I stole The Complete Works of William Shakespeare and Cujo when I was a kid.  

We walked past the synagogue where the Rabbi looks at Betty’s hair and plucks his beard with envy. 

I can hear Betty’s TV from the hallway. This time a female preacher is preaching. She’s talking about Abraham and Sarah. “He talks and laughs as if he had no wife, he hid his wife. One good man in one thousand I have not found,” she said.

Betty’s daughter is home.

“Behold this fool! Is he spending the night?” she said. 

“No,” I said. 

“How long have you been sleeping with my mom?”

“I’m not—I haven’t.” 

“She just got divorced, man!”

“Do you have to be so hostile? Leave him alone,” Betty said. “He’s been giving me a ride to work since someone took my car.” 

“You two smell like dope. So, this is the guy setting my mom’s crotch on fire? Are you my new daddy?”

Betty asks me if I want a drink.

“He doesn’t want a drink. You know what he wants. He wants us to drink. He wants to get us both drunk and fuck us.”

Betty gives me a helpless look. She can’t control her daughter. 

“I’m sorry,” Betty said. “See you tomorrow?”

I nod.

“Looks like no tail for you.”

I nod again. 

I take a step toward the door and turn back to see Betty without her hair, her hair is a wig and is in her daughter’s hands! Without the wig, Betty has just enough hair to cover her scalp. Her daughter sees the horror in my face and smiles. Then she holds the wig high and makes Indian war whoops with her hand over her mouth. 

I go home. It’s two am. The house is asleep. 

I get naked and climb into bed. I push my wife’s cotton panties to the side and have sex with her. My wife takes sedatives (along with numerous other pills), so she doesn’t wake up right away. She’s frightened for just one second. Her eyebrows stretch up like fast-food arches, like she’s afraid for her life, but then she knows it’s me, the man of her dreams. 

I’m making love, not having sex. I’m making love to my life, not my wife. She comes to life beneath me. It’s my life coming to life. 

She pushes against me. I hear the cave woman inside her moaning primitive passwords, she’s trying to slow me down. 

I yank my wife’s hair to make sure it’s real. She slaps me. 

“Motherfucker that hurts!” she said. 

When it’s over I’m neat, I move her panties back to the exact position they were in to begin with, like a painting over a safe.

I go outside where I piss in the rosebushes. I look at the stars like I’m looking at an old photo. I light a cigarette to reward myself. I look at the house to see where I live. I’m going to break my wife’s heart tomorrow and drink my mom’s coffee (they both make terrible coffee). 

Mom doesn’t want cigarette butts in her yard, so before I put my cigarette out on the ground, I make a divot with my heel. I bury the cigarette beneath the sod. I get down on my haunches like I’m planting a new crop, a terrible new seed. I even pat the earth like we’re good friends.

Reinhardt the Soldier

The Thai waitress he had met at the restaurant was small and tight, and it did hurt her initially to adjust to his cock. He was gentle, helping her get used to his length, girth and glass-breaking hardness, but soon primitive fuck lust overwhelmed him and he forced his way in. Reinhardt could almost feel her body swell like a rubber raft getting pumped with air. A strange sound erupted out of her throat, between scream and laughter, as if she reacted to conflicting states of desire. 

Reinhardt wondered if she had rape fantasies, which he had happily helped a few of his male and female clients to fulfill. Of course, everyone denied they harboured such feelings. Never debating the point, he just fucked the way his clients paid him to, regardless of the fantasy. He charged both according to time and scenario. She moaned and cried both yes and no in one syllable, then clung to him, her legs scarcely able to wrap around his broad back as the masterful cock plunged and thrust until it was ready to unload ropes of alpha spunk, so much that it seeped out. 

He didn’t wear a condom; he was disease free and had no anxieties about the cunt he was now fucking. She was clean and, she had assured him, it was okay because; she was on the pill. Not that he gave a shit about any pregnancy. Her womb, her problem. He had no paternal desires or fantasies.

Over the past two days, stopping for delivery pizza and toilet breaks, he had fucked her, not quite to death but close to it. He had lapped and eaten her cunt until his jaw got sore and he became bored. She was limited in her experience, unable to deepthroat, and prone to whimpering and going limp like an exhausted doll. He didn’t even attempt breaking into her ass, nor did she wish to lick his. 

Business now demanded his attention, and he had appointments to make up for lost custom. He paid for a cab to drive her home. She insisted on giving him her phone number. Once she left, he tore it up. Already he had forgotten her name. Taking a shower and dressing in a soldier’s uniform according to the wishes of the clients he was seeing this evening, Reinhardt fondled his dick, feeling it get hard over the cash he’d be earning later in his role as the couple’s demanding and merciless bull.

***

Reinhardt entered the kitchen through the garage door and, as instructed by text, she was on her hands and knees, completely naked. Without removing his leather bomber jacket or army boots, he simply knelt behind her, unzipped and plunged his hard cock into her wet cunt, labial lips already swollen and glistening from the fingering he had ordered her to do before he arrived. He grabbed a fistful of her hair, and leaning over her back he fucked, not saying a word. He wrapped an arm around her neck and pushed her flat on the floor and still fucked her from behind. He told the husband to sit on a kitchen chair in front of her and watch her face, her eyes, and listen to her moaning as she got fucked by a soldier, rape-fucked by a soldier, the realization of her fantasy played out when her husband, who could not satisfy her, was forced to watch.

While boning her, Reinhardt ordered her to tell her husband what she was: “I’m your fuckmeat. I’m your private cunt, your pussy pet, I want your cock, I want you to fuck me, yes, fuck, fuck your little slut bitch slave, fuck me like a slut.” Reinhardt fucked her while still fully clothed and booted, except he had pulled his fatigues down below his knees, and the piece of married fuckmeat was naked on the floor panting and moaning, all the while her eyes blazing directly at her husband, although Reinhardt didn’t think she was in a full state of consciousness. The husband’s own cock was getting hard and he also wanted to fuck her face, but dared not move without his bull soldier’s permission. His own fantasy involved getting fucked and beaten by a soldier, maybe two. Reinhardt thought he could arrange that scenario with a buddy and charge a few hundred euros extra.

Reinhardt suddenly pulled out and dug into her cunt with the fingers of his right hand, pushing them all in, and slowly fist-fucked her until she cried for mercy, and tears of pain-pleasure spurted out her eyes, her mouth wide open. He withdrew his soaking hand and made her lick her juices off his fist. Then he rolled over on the floor and told her to suck his dick, still hard and glistening wet from her cunt gushing all over it, and she buried her head in his groin, slurping and moaning, her body writhing. The husband wanted so badly to fuck her but wasn’t allowed to. Reinhardt pushed her away and ordered her to straddle him, one leg on either side of his waist, her knees resting on his open bomber jacket, his hands digging into her thighs, as she lowered herself on his huge dick, her eyes glazed open, bucking up and down as she jiggled and wiggled on his cock. The husband was still wearing his clothes, his cock hard as all fuck and straining under his pants. He asked: please, Sir, may I fuck her, too?

But Reinhardt didn’t at that time give permission. Only to watch and do what he was told.

Her fantasy, her craving, was to be treated like a bitch slave, to submit to an alpha soldier and fulfill her masochistic fantasies, she trusted Reinhardt because he was safe, discreet, and knew how to realize her deepest darkest desires. And she had read and believed the glowing reports of satisfied clients on his personal website. She wanted a brutal edge to it all, wanted her bull to pummel and fuck her into submission and to come to the hard thrusting of a soldier’s big cock. He wondered if deep down she had a thing for Nazi cock and wondered for a moment if he should have dressed as a Sturmfuhrer. His big cock, thicker than her wrist and long enough to push into the depth of her womb and unload rich, life-giving German seed. Yeah, next time he’ll fuck dressed in a Nazi uniform. 

Later, after giving her a rest, while he stood against the counter, drinking a beer he got from the fridge, and staring at both husband and wife until he was ready, Reinhardt boned her against the kitchen table (her back was on the table, her legs around his waist, his fatigues down to his ankles and piled over his military boots. She moaned and screamed as he gave the bitch one last shove and pulled out, his cock squirting out a shower of man juice all over her husband’s face and shirt. The husband gasped and stuck out his tongue, trying to capture droplets of bull cum. 

Reinhardt exploded spunk and wanted to fuck again, an effect middle-aged married women often had on him. His cum shot out in powerful streams. Especially if they were rich dissatisfied bitches hankering after a real man and craved some rough action. The wife and husband would do anything Reinhardt wanted; he understood that. Look at the guy gathering spunk on his fingers and licking them off. This first session gave him all the info he needed about how far he could go with them. 

Reinhardt stirred, his cock still resting on the vaginal lips soaked with cum. He wiped himself with a tea towel covered with a picture of Prince William and Kate. “Don’t forget to put this in the laundry.” He rubbed it against her husband’s. Then he lifted her off the counter and sat her over his lap on a chair, so close to the husband that he could see his cock hard beneath his pants, and slap his face without moving from his position, if he wanted to. Not yet. Not too much too soon. The wife’s head hung towards the floor, her fine ass ready for use.

“What she wants is what the cunt gets,” Reinhardt had explained to the husband when they had met at the restaurant a while back, Reinhardt having answered the husband’s online ad for a bull to fulfill his wife’s fantasies, and his, and to fuck his wife while he watched. A rough kind of no-nonsense soldier preferred, they both desired. They didn’t want romance.

“She wants rough play, and she gets it. I never do what a cunt doesn’t want. But I can make them want what they didn’t even know they wanted, if you get my meaning.” 

And the husband had also said something about serving, eventually, when he got used to the idea. Reinhardt knew the husband would crawl, beg, and lick his soldier’s boots before getting slapped around and fucked by a man in military uniform, Nazi or not. The hard dick in the husband’s pants and the animal sounds he was making as he watched his wife gave Reinhardt all the information he needed. One day the husband would suck him dry in front of the wife, and become his obedient, cock sucking cuckold, and pay handsomely for the privilege, but first things first. And, of course, the beating the cuck craved at the hands of a soldier. There was money to be made here.

“Now this little cunt wants the slap of a hand on her ass. So, I oblige.”

And he began slapping her ass hard in the kitchen, four stinging reddening smacks. She moaned aloud. “It’s interesting, really, how slapping a firm ass makes the pussy get wetter and wetter until my bitch cunt is moaning and begging for a fuck. Sure, the hand gets a little sore, but what a beauty those red cheeks are, and how easily the fingers slip in her cunt. The good part about spanking is that it lubricates the vagina so my hand can slide in and out easily without causing pain, but she sure feels my fist fucking her. See?”

And he inserted all five fingers in her widening cunt, in and out, staring at the husband all along.

“It’s a pleasure to fist fuck a pussy and hear all that deep breathing and panting and moaning and feel her body buck up to the wrist deep inside her cunt.”

She was begging him to stop in a voice thick with lust, which meant she was begging for more. Reinhardt pulled the hand out, raised it to show the husband how wet it was. He put his hand in front of the husband’s mouth and allowed him to lick her juices off the fingers, practically gobbling as if inflamed by the taste of her bull. His bull, too. Then Reinhardt returned his attention to his wife and probed her pussy with his fingers and said that it belonged to him, just like her mouth belonged to him, and she was his property, all of her, her cunt and ass and mouth were his personal property. All her holes would be used by his bull cock.

“Aren’t they, bitch?”

He made her nod her head in agreement. Ecstasy burned in her eyes, the glow of her body from intense satisfaction and release. 

“See, she likes it, Just the way you want and need it, too, don’t you? 

And he was speaking directly to the husband, who panted on the kitchen chair, so close to Reinhardt that he could smell the odour of fuck sweat and see a stream of cum still leaking out of his wife’s cunt.

“Aah …mmm…I mean yes, yes…”

“Yes, what, cocksucker?”

And Reinhardt slapped the husband’s face, who, face blazing, whimpered.

“Yes, Sir, oh yes, please, Kommandant, fuck me.”

Decrypting the Wizard

The wizard arrived Tuesday with the new tide.

That is to say, something floated in: a medley of zigzags and straight lines, vaguely coffin-shaped.

Until the object could be properly identified, it was placed in a storage facility. There it was held for weeks. When fresh objects deposited themselves on the beach, the wizard was pushed further and further back into the storeroom behind town hall, there gathering dust. Because newer objects had more form and definition, the clerks were much quicker to begin the work of cataloging them. They trundled in boxes on hand carts filled with tackles and bright lures, the odd bottle with a message nobody could decipher (these bottles were arranged around the wizard), hand bones, toe bones and a whole assortment of reeking, waterlogged shoes.

This was a simple fishing village. Nobody had ever seen a wizard, at least that they were aware of. If asked to describe such a being, most of the inhabitants would shake their head and hold up a net, as if to indicate that time not spent fishing was time that could never be recouped. They had neither the inclination nor the background knowledge to verify if, in fact, the thing in the storeroom was capable of sorcery. Its apparent lack of gills notwithstanding.

Months after the wizard arrived, a new mayor was elected in the village. He had been educated in the big city, and found his fellow villagers’ lack of intellectual curiosity appalling.

The new mayor demanded an inventory of all unusual phenomena. The villagers muttered about his nerve, the sheer gall of it. “Sancho Tortillo used to be one of us,” was a line repeated in the cantina and elsewhere, in the middle of passionate lovemaking, in church—like a ritual chant—and even in the cemetery where generations of villagers were buried and new villagers created. They took their women over crypts, and the cries of passion echoed long into the night. Drops of comingled love juice splashed upon the crypts and oozed down through cracks in the stone to where the bodies lay. On occasion, a body long past dust revived, and melancholy dust-wraiths cut unexpectedly dashing figures as they danced their way through town.

The villagers held to tradition like a long-decayed funeral wreath.

Until Sancho took a wrecking ball to the old ways.

When the dust cleared, the mayor had their undivided attention. They stood knee-deep in the rubble, men, women and children, waiting for him to speak.

“I know how many of you feel,” he began.  “You’re asking, what happened to Sancho? We saw him grow up, a little boy who loved fish—the smell, the taste, fried, boiled, steamed, you name it, he would eat it. Later he developed a taste for wine with his fish. And, frankly, got pretty deep into the wine, at the expense of his better judgment. But I’m not here to make excuses for myself—the drunken rages, and the pyromania—or justify my parents’ decision to send me off to school. I studied Management, and Philosophy, and because of these two disciplines, I understood—the wine was for drunken oblivion, the vida loca; whereas the fish was for life. And fire was for cooking. Fish.

“I want the same thing you all do. And I’m sorry about the wrecking ball. But the thing is, changes are coming to our little village. You can’t help but see that the ocean is no longer clean. It’s rank, defiled. Sometimes it glows at night. That zesty iodine smell, the salty tonic winds, smell more like burning garbage. So yes, I did take radical initiative and send an iron sphere through the church, straight down the aisles. I did mash the old graveyard into marble angel bits and ancestral grue. But I did it for a reason. I did it…”

“Excuse me,” said Tortalini Masschechi, one of the most revered of village elders. “Pardon the hoary wisdom—I am an old man, and to the brisk forward motion of the big city I prefer a quiet snack of fish, my young mistress Chantale and the long, lapping waves of the ocean you say is tainted. My nose is not your nose, and perhaps you sniff of the future. But tell me truly, was it absolutely necessary to destroy what it took centuries to create, on a whim? We’re listening to you, Little Sancho. Tell us something our simple brains can grasp.”

Sancho grimaced, and his eyes grew dark and terrible.

“Little Sancho is dead!”

Cries of shock and disbelief came from the crowd. The Widow Panchito fainted dead away. Babies screamed.

“If you had shown any interest whatsoever in matters outside of your back yard, you wouldn’t have just shoved the zigzag coffin thingie into the back storeroom. You would have wondered, analyzed, acquired outside expertise. Now, it is far too late. The wizards are arriving on all the shores of the planet, and when forced to decrypt themselves, they become exceedingly wroth. Yes, you once called me Little Sancho, because I was small and knew nothing of the world. But then I escaped. I went away, and my mind was transformed. I studied with magicians, sorcerers, knowers of the occult. And I became…” Sancho paused, trembling…flames crackled over his body, scorched his clothes and blackened his skin. A tall conical hat rose directly from his skull. His new flesh was made of sterner stuff than that which is bequeathed to mere mortals. He grasped a long rod in one hand and unrolled a parchment with another. On the parchment was a map of interlocking grid lines that pulsed in the darkness that now consumed the village, the crowd and the wizard formerly known as Sanchito.

While some might adduce a moral that fits this little fable of mine, I myself cannot.