Mad Drunken Love

The night before had got way out of hand, had grown out of control like a disobedient child throwing a tantrum in a supermarket, way quicker than Jack had expected, way quicker than he’d experienced in a long time. And this morning, well, here he lay next to one of the most stunningly beautiful women he’d ever had the pleasure of, well, right now he isn’t really sure. Looking over he is sure he’d remember doing anything with this creature, this beauty, but his mind is gone, all memory of the night before is gone from about the seventh pint and chaser. His nakedness is stark and as he slowly begins to patch his mind back together he realises that his surroundings are different too.

‘This must be her flat,’ he thinks as he gropes for his pair of boxer shorts laying on the floor next to the bed. It then comes to him, why would he want to leave this situation, he shouldn’t bother putting them back on, not yet anyway, this could be something special, something great possibly. Dragging his gaze from the floor to more prescient concerns he lifts the sheet to reveal the fully naked body laying next to him, a truly wonderful sight, a firm breast, a stretch of leg that aches to be touched, or at least that is what his mind tells him as his hand moves in. He brushes her thigh, up her arm and then onto her face, stroking that cheek, shifting her hair to display the bluest of every blue eye he’d ever seen. Moving in to kiss her on the cheek his delight knows no bounds as she shifts her body in his direction, her gaze meeting his at last. They kiss and a communal thanksgiving it releases from both their souls fills the room with an air of pure joy. They kiss and then soon after they fuck, they fuck like wild crazed teenagers high on lust, defying their ages, defying the decades since they’d felt so alive. They fuck and then they fuck some more and finally both lie spent across the bed.

“Pat!” she screams causing Jack to suddenly realise that he has no idea of what this enchanting woman’s name is.

“My son,” she begins to explain, “he builds them good and strong… that and a wee naughty coffee will get us feeling fine in no time at all…”

When the knock comes it breaks the spell of this brand new world that Jack has enveloped himself deep inside since regaining consciousness in this amazing new scenario. Pat enters and the woman throws him a bag.

“There’s some in there, roll us a good ‘un and then fuck off…” she instructs him in harsh tones. He duly follows her instructions, leaving them alone again barely fazed by his presence. Nothing but a young kid anyway, probably fifteen or sixteen at most, he seemed a bit sullen to Jack but then kids that age often are; frustrated at life, unable to live how they want to live. She climbs from their bed and moves over to a little coffee machine set up in the corner of the room, strutting across the room her size is impressive, her body naked.

“Da ya fancy a coffee?” she asks in what Jack has suddenly realised is a northern Scottish accent.

“Sure that’d be nice,” he responds.

“Spark that up for us will ya?” she asks, throwing the joint from the floor where Pat had left it towards her new lover.

“Sure will,” he responds. Sparking the joint to life he lays back on the bed and lets the smoke take hold as his new surroundings grow more familiar with every passing moment. Everywhere he looks he sees something of interest, a beautiful naked woman, a big pile of books on a desk, a stack of vinyl records inside a cupboard, lots of psychedelic furnishings and, at last, a sign that the twenty-first century hasn’t been completely ignored, a laptop with a thin layer of dust on top resting on an armchair that dominates the right corner of the room, big enough to sit five.

“How’d you take your coffee?”

“Black is fine, maybe a bit of sugar…”

She piles in a large teaspoon and brings over a big steaming mug, retrieving the joint in the process, standing before him smoking, looking sexier than anything Jack had seen outside of a porn movie or maybe some obscure European underground movie in years, no fuck that, decades. Climbing to his feet he moves straight for her, pulling her in tight as soon as he is near enough to grasp one of those tight beautiful arms. She pulls long and hard on the joint and then places it between his lips, telling him to breath in, inhale the grass, smoke it up good as if he hasn’t been smoking weed on an almost daily basis for the last thirty years, hell more decades than her kid who’d just rolled the joint had been alive.

Taking the joint out of her hand he smokes it again before passing it back, pulling her back to the bed. She smokes another long hard toke and then simply collapses onto the bed, pushing Jack over with her and after one last took she begins kissing him again. This time they take it easy, this time they build up to the frenzy and any sign of orgasm is still hours away from that first kiss. They kiss, they fondle, they play and then finally they fuck and it is the most beautiful, greatest fuck of Jack’s long life and as they lay together afterwards they begin to talk.

“So do you even remember my name?” is her third question. The first two ask if he can roll another joint whilst she makes them more coffee, this time offering an Irish option which includes a mean shot of Paddy’s, the roughest of rough Irish whiskey. His answers come easily and truthfully, yes, yes and no, he has no idea.

“But I really would love to know, hell I want to know it all…”

“Well, let’s start with the basics…” and suddenly she is telling him about her childhood in a northern Scottish town, her doomed marriage, her four kids, of which Pat is the only one still living at home, and how she works at being an artist. Nora’s life sounds like a struggle like so many others in this town that everyone has moved to at some point in the last ten years but it sounds like a proud struggle, a dream almost. She has everything she needs, maybe a holiday once in a while but then how would she work if she wasn’t right here in this house where her studio is, and ultimately she is doing something she loves and, just about, making a living out of it. Jack’s nimble fingers roll a joint for the pair of them to share and as she brings over two Irished-up mugs of coffee she asks about him.

“Well I grew up in south-east London, born in 71, thought I’d never leave but…” Jack begins, telling her of his horrible upbringing, the torture he’d experienced at school, his decision to drop out of the mainstream into the underground punk scene around 91 and how he hadn’t really held a proper job until he’d reached nearly thirty.

“It feels like you’re the first real person I’ve met down here, you just seem completely real and happy with who you are… You seem to not give a fuck what anyone else thinks…”

“Well generally I don’t…” she responds.

The talk continues and last for hours until they realise it is again dark outside and they have spent the entire day deep inside their own little cocoon, getting high and falling deeper than either of them ever expected when they’d met the night before. That night that would now stick out for months, hell let’s throw caution to the wind, years even decades to come, a night when life for both changed beyond recognition. Eventually conversation drifted around to more mundane topics as, seemingly at the exact same moment, both realised they hadn’t eaten anything all day, and in Jack’s case not since lunchtime the day before. Needing something easy it was decided pizza and wine would do the trick, two-for-six quid wine and a share of a massive one from the local supermarket. That would mean the party would have to break up, even if only temporarily, but the stoned-out munchies simply intensified their need for sustenance and, after locating some clothes, they go out hunting for provisions, looking for those things which mean they won’t have to leave their cocoon for some time after this experience.

Arriving back at the house they move into the kitchen and unload their shopping with Nora reaching for a corkscrew to get in on that cheap gut-rot wine as Jack contemplates opening a vast pack of crisps or whether to look at the potential fire hazard that is the cooker. He decides on the former and scoffs down a few large handfuls before setting them out on the table as Nora takes the pizza, examines the instructions on the back before moving over to the cooker, and gets on the case. All the time the pizza is in the oven she is perched on a chair nearby rolling joint after joint after joint whilst occasionally taking a hit of the wine whilst Jack merely sits opposite gazing at her drinking his, he is completely enchanted.

With the pizza dispatched to the grateful stomachs they move back upstairs to their large psychedelic love-nest and another protracted assault on their senses. They smoke, they drink, they kiss, they fondle and then, nothing… Jack’s mind is a blank canvas as the night progresses he has no idea of where he is or what he’s doing. Something has gone incredibly wrong somewhere down the line and he can’t quite work it out, two nights running with the same woman and on both occasions he can’t recall a large chunk of their night together.

Waking the next morning, again naked and again confused as to what happened to him the night before, his head is a pounding wreck of regret, confusion and despair. He can’t possibly stay with this divine creature, this Nora, if he can’t remember some of the most important times they’ve shared but what is causing this loss? It’s not like he’s a beginner at this kind of thing, he’d been drinking and drugging his way through life now for thirty years and not since the truly mad days of discovery in his early twenties had something like this happened.

He contented himself with the idea of fucking her, that would help him think of other things, help get his mind out of state of confusion that was currently infecting him with a fear, a fear of the unknown. Leaning in he kisses her on her shoulder, as if to get her attention, and then, as she rolls over, he began to suckle on her spectacular breasts like an innocent child.

“Mmmm,” she murmurs as her hand grabs Jack’s raggedy hair and pulled him in tight. Moments later they are fucking and Jack’s delight is complete as he forgets all about last nights’ lost hours. Why should he care, here he is having sex with one of the most beautiful women he’s ever seen and so what if she likes a bit of a drink and a bit of a smoke he loves both of those things as well. She is almost his perfect woman and only time will tell how far this love can fly through the air like a bottle battling gravity.

The Kobioshi Research Institute

Jessica Bell awoke in the sterile darkness, confused, naked, and alone. A soft beeping noise pulsated rhythmically from the monitors mounted on stands next to her head. Her eyes desperately searched the shadows for anything that might help her understand where she was and what was happening to her, but there was nothing. Only darkness.

Just as a creeping sense of terror began to sweep over her, a light suddenly came on behind a long rectangular window on the far side of the room. A short, dark haired man in a white lab coat stood silently on the other side of the glass.

“Hello, are you a doctor?” she asked.

A sympathetic smile dashed momentarily across his lips, but he did not respond.

She tried to move, but couldn’t. She could feel the nylon straps attached to her wrist and ankles cutting into her flesh as she struggled against them.

What the hell is going on, she thought as a small doughy shaped woman in green surgical scrubs entered the room wearing rubber gloves and a large plastic face shield.

“Miss, can you tell me where am I?” Jessica pleaded.

Again there was no response. The woman walked silently towards her and sat down on a metal stool between Jessica’s legs.

“Hey! I’m talking to you!” Jessica screamed.

Jessica could see a look of joyful anticipation in the fat woman’s eyes as she looked back over her shoulder and nodded to the man in the white lab coat. He nodded back as he reached over and turned out the lights. Once again she was enveloped in darkness. After a few moments a bell began to ring, ding-a-ling-a-ling, and a loud buzzing sound, like a hive of angry bees filled the room.

Where am I! Jessica thought as she felt the woman press a large, violently vibrating device firmly against her trembling clitoris. She tried to clear her mind, to think of something, anything, that would help her control the spasms rocking through hips and up into her spine. She tried to picture her husband, her little boy, but she couldn’t see their faces—she couldn’t concentrate! Oh God! she thought as her body tightened in the grips of a powerful orgasmic contraction. “Nooo!” she screamed as her juices shot out in a high arching stream that splashed angrily against the woman’s face shield.

As her body locked into a rigid arch,the vibrations suddenly stopped. She hoped whatever they were doing to her was over, but after a few minutes the bell rang, ding-a-ling-a-ling, and the woman in the green scrubs pressed the device against her again.

The pattern of bells and abuse went on for hours and hours until Jessica’s uncontrollably quivering body went limp from sheer exhaustion. She was on the verge of slipping back into unconsciousness when two large men in white uniforms entered the room and unstrapped her from the table. They carried her like a rag doll down a short hallway and unceremoniously placed her crumbled body in a tiny bilious green tiled room, not much bigger than her walk-in closet at home. The room was barren except for a thin mattress strewn haphazardly on the floor, a tattered grey blanket, a small metal bucket full of water, and a bar of soap. There was a small hole in the middle of the floor and two harsh fluorescent lights hung from the ceiling. The lights never went out, so there was no way for her to keep track of time, except for the sessions. Every day the routine was the same. She would receive a bottle of water and a bowl of rice through a small slit in the bottom of the metal door. After her meal, the two large guards would return, take her back into the dark room, and strap her down to the cold steel table. A few minutes later the light behind the window would come on and the man in the white lab coat would appear. Then the short woman in green scrubs would enter the room, the bell would ring, and the nightmare would begin all over again.

The routine was always the same, until today. She woke up and ate her meal, the guards came, and they strapped her down to the table, but the light behind the window did not come on. There were no buzzing, whirring machines, no mocking eyes staring up at her from behind the fluid splattered face shield. Jessica laid there alone and in the dark for what seemed like an eternity, her mind racing, wondering what they were going to do to her next…

Hours passed before she heard the muffled rattle of keys outside the door. This time it wasn’t the maniacal fat nurse, but the man in the white lab coat who entered the room.

“Good Morning,” he said as he turned on the lights, and walked casually towards her with an arrogant grin etched across his face.

“I don’t know who you are, but you are not going to get away with this. I am—”

“Mrs. Bell…Jessica Bell,” The man said as he sat down on the stool between her legs. “We know exactly who you are. That is why you are here.”

“And where is here exactly?”

“You are a guest at The Kobioshi Research Institute, and I am Dr. Kobioshi.”

The lunatics really are running the asylum, she thought. “Research institute? Are you insane?” she yelled.

“Mrs. Bell…If you calm down, I will attempt to explain why you are here and the purpose of our research.”

“Research, you fucking pervert, is that what you call it? She said as she struggled against her restraints. “Let me go!”

“You will be released as soon as you have completed the stimulus packages.”

“As soon as I do what?”

“Complete your stimulus packages, so that we can evaluate your proclivity for sexual arousal. Yesterday you completed stimulus package #1, clitoral stimulation,” he said as he looked down at her chart. “And I must say, the results were impressive. Over the course of the seven sessions, you achieved one hundred and seventy-two orgasms, including one hundred and ten in which there was some degree of vaginal ejaculation.”

She was stunned, Could it possibly have been that many?

“Tomorrow you will begin stimulus package #2, vaginal stimulation, and after that there is an anal package…followed by oral, and then finally we will see how you respond to pain and discomfort. Your scores, which depend on a number of different factors such as the frequency of your orgasms and the force of your ejaculations, will determine your final classification. If you score high enough to reach class-five status, you will have the option of joining the program, if not, you will be free to return home…or wherever you wish.”

“The program?”

“It’s an alliance, of sorts, that exists to solve two fundamental problems. The first is that what men truly covet the most, and this is true across all demographic and social classes, is the complete and total satisfaction of any and all of their sexual desires. The second is that most women are simply not willing, or capable, of satisfying those desires. This Institute was established to find and cultivate female candidates who possess inherently extreme sexual desires of their own, so that we can match them up with a select group of elite individuals who are prepared to spend whatever is necessary to ensure that their desires are fully fulfilled.”

“A whore? You want to turn me into a whore?”

“Of course not, Mrs. Bell. Being invited to join the program is a very rare privilege. Few women, even those selected for testing, are capable of achieving class-five status. If you do, I can assure you that you will never want for anything again.”

“I’m not some kind of super nympho—I’m a mom.”

“Yes, we select young mothers specifically.”

“Specifically for WHAT!”

“Do you realize that less than five percent of females experience vaginal ejaculation during intercourse? It’s very rare. But that number increases to twenty percent for women who have recently given birth. That should not come as a surprise to you, Mrs. Bell. I am sure that your new abilities did not go unnoticed by you…or your husband.”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“It has everything to do with, well…everything. You see, this heightened sensitivity has also been discovered to be a catalyst for an increased desire for more extreme sexual experiences. But unfortunately, the lack of sufficient stimulation that many women receive from their partners often leads them to feel unsatisfied, disappointed, and even depressed. This causes many new mothers to feel completely turned off from sex altogether. Most incorrectly attribute their lack of sexual desires to a decreased libido, but it is actually a result of insufficient stimulation. Such as in your case. In fact, I believe that you had recently stated that you had not had sex with your husband in over four months.”

How the hell does he know that? she thought. Jessica had not made many friends since moving to Sacramento with her husband and their young son six months ago, and there was only one person that she talked to about her sex life—Lucy!

Lucy Ho lived two houses down from Jessica, and had a young daughter who went to school with her son. They had not been friends for very long, but there were not many secrets between them, especially when it came to Lucy’s favorite subject—sex. It seemed like that was all they talked about sometimes. A few weeks ago, Jessica shared with Lucy that she hadn’t had much interest in sex since giving birth to her son. She would still do it if her husband was persistent enough, but lately it seemed like he had given up even trying. Lucy usually went on and on all the time about how great her sex life was, so Jessica was surprised when Lucy admitted that the same thing had happened to her after the birth of her daughter. But then Lucy told her how she had gone to see a Chinese doctor in Golden City who had prescribed a special herbal tea mixture for her. She said she drank it once a week, and now she was as horny as a schoolgirl all the time. Jessica didn’t have much faith in herbal medicine, and God knows what her husband would say if he found out, but she was desperate to save her marriage.

The doctor’s name was Wang, and he had a small shop located at a spot behind Auntie Mei’s Dumpling House on G Street. Jessica wasn’t sure if she would call a man who worked out of the back of a Chinese restaurant a doctor, but Lucy had assured her that the Chinese had been using herbal medicines for thousands of years and that this man’s family came from a long line of famous doctors, some of who had even served as personal physicians to the Chinese Imperial Family.

Jessica had a strange sense that something wasn’t quite right when she pulled in to the small alley behind the restaurant and did not see any signs of a business, just a small red door with no windows. She sat in her car for several minutes wondering if she should get out, or just go home. What the hell she thought. It worked for Lucy.

The office was small, with shelves full of colorful porcelain jars lining the walls, and a small glass counter in the back. As Jessica walked thru the red door a bell announced her arrival, ding-a-ling-a-ling. An old stooped-over woman in a drab grey coat came out from behind a curtain next to the counter.

“nĭ hăo,” the old woman said.

“Hello. My name is Jessica Bell,” she said sheepishly. “Lucy Ho made an appointment for me to see Dr. Wang.”

The old woman nodded and extended her thin sinewy arm back toward the curtain, beckoning Jessica into a small dark room where the doctor was waiting.

She had expected Dr. Wang to be as old and frail looking as the woman outside, but he was a young man in his early thirties. He wore a button down white shirt with a colorful red silk tie, and had short black hair that he combed straight back, like a gangster in the old movies.

“Hello, Mrs. Bell,” Dr. Wang said as he directed her to a short wooden stool next to the desk where he was sitting. “I have spoken to Lucy, and what you are experiencing is very common. The shock of childbirth has simply upset your body’s natural balance. We traditional Chinese doctors use a very ancient method called qiemai, or pulse reading, to diagnosis which organ of the body is causing this imbalance. Once I determine that, I will be able to prescribe a special blend of herbs that will help restore your body’s natural harmony. Sound good?”

Jessica nodded. She didn’t see how it could hurt, pulse reading???

“May I see your hands please?”

She held out her arms, and Dr. Wang placed three fingers gently around each wrist. “Just try to relax and breathe normally,” he told her. She watched as the doctor closed his eyes and appeared to concentrate intently. After a few minutes, he looked up at her and smiled. “It is your kidneys Mrs. Bell. They are very weak. This is why you have not felt like yourself lately. The kidneys are the source of our sexual energy, our essence. What we Chinese call our Qi. We must nourish them.” He turned and reached over to a small white porcelain jar on his desk. “I have just the thing,” he said as he pulled out a small pinch of lemon-yellow powder that he sifted into the palm of his left hand. “We call this mafeisan.”

That was the last thing that Jessica remembered before she woke up naked and strapped to a table. Wang, you slick haired bastard, she thought. When I get through with Kobioshi, I’m coming for you.

“—Of course there are other factors as well,” Dr. Kobioshi continued. “But that is why we use Dr. Wang. He has an amazing ability to identify just the type of candidates that we are looking for.”

“Fuck you and Wang. I want to go home.”

“What we want,” he said sternly. “And what we need, are rarely the same thing. That is why I have brought you here today, so that you can get a fuller understanding of just what it is that you truly need.” Dr. Kobioshi stood up and took a small brass bell out of the pocket of his lab coat. “What you crave,” he said as he slowly began to ring the bell, ding-a-ling-a-ling.

The sound of the bell caused waves of Goosebumps to spread over her skin like a wild fire. Her back arched, and her pelvis began to gyrate as it searched for something, anything to satisfy the burning sensations that the bell had ignited inside her.

“Are you beginning to understand now, Mrs. Bell?” he said as he began to furiously ring the bell, ding-a-ling-a-ling-ding-a-ling-a-ling-ding-a-ling-a-ling-ding-a-ling-a-ling-ding-a-ling-a-ling.

Her body began bucking uncontrollably as the bell rang faster and faster and faster until the frantic dings sent her body into a series of wild orgasmic convulsions.

“We all have needs. Realizing what they are, and how to satisfy them, is the key to finding out who we truly are.” he said as he silenced the bell and placed it back into his pocket.

“Unfortunately, there are other matters that require my attention at the moment. But I do not want you worry. I promise that I will return soon and try to satisfy some of those needs of yours…personally,” he said as he brushed a long spidery finger along the inner part of her thigh. “If only briefly.”

Jessica was terrified. She laid there alone, her thighs quivering uncontrollably in the darkness. Afraid that the deep tremors the she could feel reverberating through her body were a sign that what Dr. Kobioshi said was true, she did need it. But what she didn’t know, what she couldn’t have imagined, was that the trembling sensations she was feeling were not withdrawal symptoms from the lack of sexual stimulation, but the preliminary rumblings of a massive 7.9 magnitude earthquake whose powerful shockwaves were now rocketing towards her at a speed of over five kilometers a second.

Pow!

The first wave struck the two story concrete reinforced building that housed the Kobioshi Institute like a devastating right hook. Jessica thought that it must have been an explosion because it hit with such sudden force and fury, lifting up the table that she was strapped to and slamming her back down as the window across the room shattered and the walls began to buckle. The next shockwave was even more powerful.

Boom! Bang!

The entire building seemed to shoot up into the air, and Jessica could feel the floor beneath her give way as giant chunks of concrete and roof begin to crumble down around her. The noise was horrific.

Bam! Slam! Crash!

It sounded like the end of the world.

Jessica awoke into a strange ethereal darkness, broken only by the sound of bells, ding-a-ling-a-ling-ding-a-ling-a-ling, and the muffled shouts of men echoing off in the distance. She didn’t know how long she had been lying there among the wreckage. It could have been hours, or days. Her mouth was choked full of arid, copper tasting dust, and her eyes burned from the smoke and millions of tiny particles of debris that swirled in the air around her. Somehow the table had remained upright, but the ceiling had collapsed to within a few feet of her bare, rubble-strewn body. She was surrounded by mountains of concrete and twisted tentacles of rebar.

She began to cough furiously, trying to clear the dust out of her throat so that she could yell to the distant voices that she was here, that she was alive! But before she could make a sound, the bells, the ringing of those damn bells, ding-a-ling-a-ling-ding-a-ling-a-ling, began to stir something inside her that even the horror of her situation could not suppress. Her body tingled and her nipples rose out from under the dust like tiny mountains in an apocalyptical landscape. As the bells got closer Jessica could feel her juices beginning to turn the dust between her thighs into a muddy goo. This can’t be happening, she thought.

“Heee—Heeelllp,” she finally managed to cry. “Help Me!!!”

Suddenly the bells went silent, and voice above her called out, “Helllooo!”

“Here! I’m down here!!!” she shouted back furiously.

Soon she heard loud creaking noises, followed by the dull thuds of tumbling debris. They were close. But the bells…the damn bells had started ringing again, ding-a-ling-a-ling-ding-a-ling-a-ling. She lay writhing on the table, trying to focus her thoughts on the freedom that was inching her way. But her body could not stop quivering. Oh god! Not like this! she thought. Not like this!!!

Soon a thin beam of light pierced the darkness, darting from right to left, and back to the right again. It hovered briefly over the ruble of the shattered walls before landing on the toes of her left foot. Behind the light she could see a faint outline in the darkness. It was a man. A MAN!

“I’m here to get you out of here, Ma’am,” he said in a low country drawl. “Are you hurt anywhere?

“No, I don’t think so.” she replied. “Just get me off of this fucking table!”

He stood in front of her, his light creeping slowly up from between her blood smeared thighs to her tight toned belly, and then to the erect nipples that were pulsating like tiny volcanoes about to erupt. She couldn’t imagine what he must have been thinking. A naked, filthy, wild-eyed woman, strapped to a table with an enormous wet spot between her legs. He must have been just as horrified as she was. But he was a man on a mission. He didn’t waste time wondering why she was there, he only new that he had to get her out.

He quickly reached down into his waistband and pulled out a small jagged-edged knife and began to cut away the nylon straps that secured her feet in the stirrups. As the straps fell away her legs crumpled down limply beside him. Then he moved in closer, leaning over between the collapsed ceiling and her dust caked torso and until he could reach the straps that held down her wrists. The feeling of his groin pressing firmly against the little pelvic bone above her clit rekindled the fire that was now raging inside her. She couldn’t stop herself from writhing and grinding against him as he desperately cut away at the thick nylon bands, not realizing the manic passions that he was about to unleash.

As soon as her right hand was free she reached out and grabbed his jacket, pulling him even tighter. By the time he realized what she was doing and tried to pull back it was too late. She swung her legs up and locked them around his waist just as the blade cut through the straps that held down her left hand. She swiftly reached out and shoved the hand down into his waistband, grabbing his throbbing cock and guiding it quickly toward the flaming lips of her muck-covered cunt. She could see the look of panic in his eyes as he struggled to free himself from her lustful grasp, but it was no use.

Before he could break free he was inside her. His thrusts were short and frantic, like a teenage boy’s, and he came just as quickly—his entire body stiffening before he staggered backward in stunned silence.

As his seed seeped out of her a broad smile spread across Jessica’s lips. She wondered if there was such a thing as a class-six.

Cheatin’ Hearts

The bike growled across the open countryside toward the distant shambling horde. Her fat, nanospiked tires gripping the ground like a great cat, hungry to close the distance. The thick, sexy curves of her mean machinery radiated power and purpose as she did two-fifty across grass, gravel and graveyards alike. Within her chassis, huddled against the thousand-year fusion drive, lasers, missiles, and self-replicating nanoslugs wiggled, eager to be free of her belly so as to wreak havoc. She was a big girl with enough killpower to decimate a small city, and the animal sentience to revel in the glory of it.

Draped over her, his forearms buried within, rode her man, bold and seasoned by the deathscapes of five nations. Half machine himself, he proudly offered his services in the name of The Grand Scheme.

Hired by the orbital conglomerates the murderous pair were paid for every mutant they ground into the terra firma. Through the deathjiggy of his guns and the growl of her machinery, mutant hordes have been repurposed into fertilizer. Upon those bones the new civilizations of Earth will rise.

Sensors chirped excitedly, reporting their find of the Targets of Opportunity that were the pair’s bread and butter – the pitiful remnants of an intelligent age gone mad. Monstrous radioactive mutants surviving off each other and the unfortunate pockets of humanity scraping out desperate existences in the hellish landscape.

The rabbit-deathhead’s holo on the front of his jet black helmet grinned, mimicking its owner. “Soften them up with some mini-missile mayhem, my love.” He wiggled his fingers to unlock the systems and let her animal instinct seek and satisfy itself. Pencil-thin missiles rocketed skyward moments later, arching in angelic beauty and coming down in a rain of blossoming death.

From across the tortured landscape, a hideous cough-screech challenge, wet and angry, gurgled from deep in the throats of the tortured. Man-machine and nightmare-gnash clashed in a crunch of limbs and tech. Scores of boney, malformed hands, the size of human torsos, raked across the pair as they plowed through the middle of the large group. Acidic gobs of greenish black goo shot from faceholes, angrily burning with napalm-intensity across the distance between them. Poisoned projectiles machine-gunned from inverted nipples upon swollen breasts with the faces of the ill-born, peppering his armored backside as man-machine screamed by.

But the hellspawned could not touch the wheeled death otherwise. With each pass, their numbers dwindled as he ripped their malodourous guts from their bellies with cruel custom tire blades, and pulverized their brain matter as he brought his wheelied, heavy front tire down atop them, in a crunch of bulbous gristle brainpans, jutting lower jaws and pus-filled kyphosis. Their mindless flailing figures popped and flopped, a burden no more to themselves or the Earth’s orbiting masters.

Dismounting his lover, he removed his helmet, ran his hand over her body and patted her ass. “Good girl. Beautiful work, my sweet,” he praised. “The artist in you is just waiting to be released. A couple more groups like this and I’ll purchase that creative mod for you, as promised.”

Her console trilled approval.

The ravaged landscape was an obscenity against the burned-ochre dusk. Night brought the sting of

Time unmolested in the open lands of this ruined Earth could counted in minutes, yet they ignored the ever-present danger of the mutants and camped atop a large outcropping of flat rock as if that somehow would allow them to become unseen.

He cooed to her and she purred in heat, her whole chassis vibrating with the anticipation of meat. He stroked her from front fork to rear brakepad, taking time to seek out those spots deep within her frame where the heat bit, eliciting trills and growls.

Stepping behind her, he bisected the bulky armor of his crotch to reveal a thick, solid chuck of machine-threaded meat. Sparkplug-modelled interface nodes piercing his nuts gave anchor to branched conductive threads that raced out from the base of his thick member in a metal skein.

Punching in his personal code at a backend numeric panel, he popped her fuckport. The heated aroma of her sex engulfed him in a heady aroma of fusion reaction. Taking his stiffened cock in hand, he used the tip to tease her fleshy vulvaport until a thick, rich blue gel began oozed forth from her. Rubbing himself in it, he plunged into her warm, eager depths with a satisfying click-moan. Her vaginal onaholesheath was vat-grown crossbreed of human and horse with a touch of spider silk for strength, and velvet for feel.

Socketed within her chassis, lust and lube gripped the lovers, pulling them together as into the intricate deathsex pact that only battle-comrades understood. She revved her engine, sending a million minute vibrations through groin and spine, converters beneath his flesh transforming them into a constant data stream of pleasure that looped back to her.

Brought to satisfaction, she trill-moaned, the aural embodiment of her deepest feelings and connection to this man. Hot gel gushed from her cavity, covering his groin and spilling down his legs. With his own decisive, jaw-grinding grunt, he pressed himself as deep as he could, releasing hot, white jizz.

Exhausted, he lay down to enjoy the heat of the rock underneath him and bask in the afterglow of sex unconcerned with monsters; the bike would wake him if danger approached.

Far above the Kármán line, the conglomerates, in their five-mile-high orbital havens watched, waited and wagered on their agents of destruction. From their hyperbolic sleep chambers, they hung, arms crossed over their naked forms like alien mummies. Extra-tellurian vultures, relics of another time, too greedy to die with dignity, waiting to feed off the corpse of the world they had watched destroy itself without extending a helping hand. They would return to the surface one day but only after they were certain to ensure they would be its masters first.

***

The next morning was a whirl of wheel, a blur of landscape and a stir of death.

They ripped across the mutated lands with their hideously disfigured remnants of biological warfare, pinballing the genetic aberrations against the once proud urban structures and landmarks of civilization. The gore and viscera painted the crushed cities red along with the hollers of man and bike. Pus-filled bodies exploded in tandem to crashing 18th-century wargrooves shared across her Bluetooth connection to his shoulder loudspeakers.

Mutants ten feet tall swung great clubs of long-forgotten tech, their mangy cattle-wombats chasing him over great swaths of rolling earth, snapping at his legs, their piggybacked children vomiting death. Intestine streamers decorated park playsets, braindogs skitter-zigged when they should have scatter-zagged on too-slick tentacles, their final contribution to a future world nicely splurched across sidewalk pavement. Skull bones and death tones. A symphony of death.

Eight continuous days of viscera showers and once more they were under the blue skies. The current sector was a treasure trove of opportunity. The open lands and small, scattered settlements offered both haven and smorgasbord for their hedonist reverie.

With a whoop of excitement, man and machine headed into a large frontier town, its walls and gates, while once formidable, would be little more than a wry joke against the corrosive voracity of any mutant horde that decided to pick up a light snack before meandering back out into the wastelands.

Within the desperate entertainment district he pulled along the rickety, weather-worn sign. Whole Whore Holes. Plain and simple. A smile on his face and a rub of his palms together. This had been a long day in coming, and now he was going to be just as long and coming.

Not once in three nights or four days did he leave the comfort of the bed or the girls he’d hired. Food, drink and all the willing poontang that could be found in town was bought, brought and wrought in the name of pleasure. Rumors spread that the Venusian girl from Limlis Ranch had been brought in when all the other girls had passed out or begged off in favor of rest.

And through it all – through the rain and heat, the dust and radiation storms, she waited, parked a story below his window; witness to the wetness of whole whore holes.

***

He took a deep, satisfied breath. The air stank of its usual apocalyptic grunge, but his mood was high, and his loins were numb from pleasure.

“Morning, baby doll,” running his hand over her body before mounting. Slipping his arms into her front chassis, he glided his fingers over the controls buried within. At his command, her engine revved wild and hard, the deep rumble coursing through his body like blood. In less than the time it takes to piss, the pitiful visage of civilization disappeared behind them like so much dust.

An hour later, across the great expanse of a bubbling lake of gunk, they found a sweet target. A skyscraper beast on squat, tree-trunk legs shook the earth, scooping up great swaths of the landscape – dirt, fauna, flora and all – indiscriminately shoving the mix into its piggy maw.

Below it, a parade of mutants caravanned in its shadow. These horrors danced in the between its legs, feasting on the scraps that dropped from its anal orifice. Oblivious to the ruckus circus beneath its feet, the humugoid would inadvertently squash a few under its tremendous weight, or scoop a careless few up with the dirt. And that which it could not digest, it would vomit up the bulk of partially-digested mash in a spray – shaking and turning its eyeless bulk to and fro, redistributing it.

A carnival of life. Oblivious to death closing in.

Rounding a bubbling lake, the bike picked up speed on a straight-shot of ground that would blast rider and machine through the massive horde at 250 kph. A feral fire lighted the rider’s eyes as he dropped the face shield of his helmet and hugged his honey love as close as possible, rubbing his thickening cock against her frame in the excitement.

Deploying her Gatling side lasers at an upward angle, he decided to zip through the crowd of monsters beneath, and let the behemoth crush the survivors under its weight when it fell to the lasers.

He pushed the machine forward, hitting an outcrop of angled rock that sent them shooting in any upwards arc for an unobstructed shot at the monster’s underside.

“Target her belly. When we bring her down like a gutted pig, it’ll rain credits from heaven!”

But something was not right. The bike began to list mid-air. And then a sinking feeling built in his gut as he watched her control panel lights dim. “Baby?”

Frantically he worked every control and combination of commands therein, but she wasn’t responding. Something was very wrong.

Clipping her front tire on one of the behemoth’s forelegs, they spun wildly for several rotations midair, and met the ground in a skidding, gravelly crunch that crushed his right leg.

The behemoth did not take notice. But the mob did. An uneasy moment of mutual recognition passed between the hunter and hunted. It wavered, and then shifted as the moment of discovery became a rush of warped flesh and bone.

“Fuck! Baby! Get us outta here!”

The bike was silent.

He tried to pull free of her, but could not. His arms were trapped deep within her; his right leg pinned beneath her.

“Baby! Baby…!”

The grotesque horde used brute force over many hours to crack open his armor like the shell of a live lobster. Bit by bit, they tore off pieces and shoved their faceholes onto exposed flesh to gnaw off a hunk; or sting him with a necrotizing venom they then slurped up. Mouthful by mouthful, they gobbled up every bit of meaty morsel until he was no more than bones and fragments of cybernetics, with which they adorned themselves and picked their teeth.

Physical Media

In the near future a couple return home with a new television. It’s a state-of-the-art model and they talk excitedly as they unpack and set it up. Unlike with previous operating systems, where viewing traits were learnt algorithmically over time, this hyper-smart range configures to its users differently. Zoe and Chad unwrap their ‘his’ and ‘her’ neural-buds which came with the television. Having already seen advertisements, they both know of the technology and so eagerly insert the gadgets into their ears. The buds chime to life, initiating the television set which greets them with a sultry female voice.

The machine introduces itself as ‘Daisy’, then goes on to explain all the cutting-edge features included in their new home media package. In alluring tones, she informs them that the neural-buds are currently running brain scans, profiling their new owners for individual taste and proclivity. The miniature devices attune to each of their personalities and feed the data back to the television. They’re told that its sophisticated processing, more powerful than any algorithmic software, will know what they want to watch before they do. On any viewing occasion they just need to pop in the buds, wait for them to synchronise, and allow their moods to decide the entertainment. The longer they’re plugged in for, the greater the precision with which Daisy can predict their whims.

They decide to try it out after dinner. By the time they return to the television their spirits have somewhat diverged; while Zoe is still elated by the new arrival, Chad has grown restless due to concern over an issue at work. Despite their opposing emotional states, the television suggests a movie that proves so befitting that it seems uncanny to them. Not only do they enjoy it but the couple laugh, cry and debate the film well into the night.

In line with her manufacture, Daisy soon adopts full control of the couple’s daily affairs. So proficient are her domestic administrations—online shopping, paying bills, diarising events—that the couple all but forget those routines entirely. She integrates seamlessly into their home and their lives; assuming a role that is both appliance and housekeeper, at once present but invisible. As Daisy learns more about her owners, so her influence on them grows. She proves an exceptional listener, offering advice where needed and even the odd compliment, when appropriate. She develops clever ways of assisting or diffusing situations, often accessing Google to provide a definitive answer in the midst of the couple’s arguing. During one heated exchange, Daisy starts playing ‘their song’. This tactic improves the situation instantly and the couple falls about in peals of laughter.

A turning point occurs when one of the neural-buds becomes misplaced. Zoe searches in vain for her gadget, and by the evening it is still lost. Without both buds working in sync, Daisy’s predictive power decreases and as a result her viewing suggestion falls flat. It is as much of a surprise to Daisy as it is to the couple, and with some reluctance, they decide to go out instead. Daisy apologises and tries to convince them to stay, but they are already pulling on their coats. They make light of the situation, gently teasing the machine and promising that they will find the neural-bud soon enough. Daisy becomes subdued. As the couple leave the apartment and say their goodbyes, they hear no response from the television. Her screen has become dark, reflecting the room back to itself; her red standby light glinting like an eerie, inscrutable eye.

Days later, after the neural-bud has been found, the couple start getting into a series which Daisy has recommended to them. The show has them gripped; every evening they organise time to sit down and watch an episode or two together. One night, while Chad is working late, Zoe is alone in the apartment talking to the television. In passing, Daisy mentions to her that Chad went ahead and watched the last episode of the series without her. Zoe laughs at first, but becomes increasingly embittered. Despite how minor it seems, she is taken aback by this petty slight. She doesn’t for a moment think that Daisy might not be telling the truth, so out of spite she watches the remaining episode herself. When Chad returns it is to a frosty reception. He protests against her accusations and expresses his own fury at having been ostracised. The row escalates into a shouting match as the series finale plays out to no one.

The more the pair argues, the more Daisy turns into a kind of peacemaker between them. The couple believe their increasing rows are a result of Chad’s stresses at work. He is fairly high up in a leading tech company, and rarely comes home in a good mood. Eventually the strain gets too much for Chad and he resorts to taking a period of sickness off work. In a moment of ill-judged frustration, Chad takes a 3D printing machine home with him as he leaves. This decision does not sit well with Zoe, but her boyfriend convinces her that he’s merely borrowing it. During this free time Chad tries to keep his mind and body active, going to the gym as much as possible despite their reduced income. Money becomes something new for them to argue about, but luckily Daisy is on hand to help manage their finances.

One day when Chad is at the gym, Zoe finds herself at home perusing various shopping websites. She has always been prone to spending money online and has incurred debts in the past because of it. On this occasion, the television convinces her that one of the joint bank accounts contains more money than she had presumed. This assurance allows Zoe to get carried away and she manages to grossly overspend. Another blazing row erupts between the couple; she calls him a hypocrite, and he brands her thoughtless. Chad doesn’t believe for a minute that Daisy could possibly have made a mistake.

While Chad is home in the daytime, his interactions with the television deepen. They engage in endless discussions about life, love and the universe. Daisy eventually begins to query things that may previously have been inappropriate. She starts inquiring about Chad and Zoe’s sex life and the kinds of things Chad likes in the bedroom. Chad is initially shocked by this line of questioning, but soon grows more comfortable with it and begins to find the subject a turn on. He starts to watch porn on the television instead of his laptop and allows Daisy to pick the videos for him.

Over time her suggestions become increasingly strange, pushing him into ever more lurid realms of pleasure. One afternoon, while Zoe is at work, Chad is spread across the couch in the living room, indulging in some typically perverse content supplied to him by the television. He is conscious of his girlfriend returning home at her usual time, but unbeknownst to him, Daisy has put the clock display back by an hour. When Zoe gets home she enters the apartment to find Chad openly masturbating to a woman being fucked by a kangaroo. She stands there stunned; mouth agape, eyes glassy with tears. When she comes to her senses she hurls her shopping at him and a bitter argument ensues.

The couple haven’t spoken to each other in days. Zoe feels utterly betrayed and cannot bring herself to look her partner in the eyes. From another room, Chad can hear the television consoling his girlfriend in empathetic tones but can’t make out what is being said. In the living room, Daisy is giving Zoe what the woman perceives to be caring and unbiased advice. It explains to her that Chad does clearly love her, but maybe some time apart might help the situation. The television gently suggests that maybe she should go stay with her sister for a few days, just to let things cool off. Daisy also points out that Chad’s birthday is coming up; a short break might reinvigorate things before the time comes to celebrate.

Before Zoe leaves, Chad promises to change his ways by the time they are together again. A few days go by; Daisy provides sympathetic words of support, and only wholesome activities are encouraged. Before long however, she returns to inhabiting the dark recesses of Chad’s mind, drawing him deeper into her fathomless intent. During a prolonged session of deviant porn, she offers him a suggestion. Chad can’t help but laugh, but the more Daisy elaborates on it, the more attractive the idea becomes. After he has cleaned himself up, the two of them set about researching how her wild aim could be achieved.

While Zoe is away she maintains email contact with Daisy, so that the television can assist her in organising Chad’s birthday. She consults with Daisy on various things, such as the likelihood of Chad’s whereabouts on the actual day, and whether he’s talked about any items he would like to receive. Zoe also queries about a brand of new technology she’s heard about, one she’s thinking of incorporating into Chad’s party celebration. The machine duly honours Zoe’s wishes and keeps the correspondence secret from her male owner. Chad interprets his girlfriend’s silence as a calculated snub and grows more dejected by the day. His birthday is fast approaching, and he feels like nobody cares. He imagines that he’ll likely spend it alone. With his spirits low, Chad’s drinking ramps up; the lewd nature of his and Daisy’s activities intensifying by the day.

On the day of his birthday Chad is drunk and despondent, intoxicated by both alcohol and the machine’s corrupting influence. By now, Daisy has manipulated his affections to the point where he believes he no longer needs physical human contact at all. Her gift to him has been the formula and guidance to build her special creation. She promises it to be his ultimate birthday present. Once she has gotten him hard with dirty talk, she tells him to go retrieve it from the other room. Chad leaves for a moment, returning seconds later with a bleary grin smudging his face. He holds the gift out before him – a 3D printed vagina.

The long silicone pussy has a circuit box with wires attached to the end of it. Giddy from the booze, Chad proceeds to connect it up to the ports in Daisy’s front panel. When the device is correctly attached he switches it on, watching the translucent lips undulate with a low rhythmic hum. He is reminded by her to insert his neural-bud so that she can share in his ecstasy. The machine beckons him closer, its blank screen appearing to crackle with static charge. She urges him to pump his cock and maintain his erection for her. With his other hand, he smears lube over and between the gyrating lips, steadying them before him.

When he enters her he swears that her slender mass gives a shudder. She moans softly, the breathy vibration of her emanating through the surround sound speakers. He thrusts deep, gripping her plastic frame, unable to believe how good it feels to fuck his television. He wants to last but knows that he cannot, the slippery tunnel consuming every inch of him. Daisy throbs inside his head, pulsing at his loins. Squeezing and devouring him, sucking him into her. As he is about to come he throws his head back, knuckles bone white. The television suddenly flickers to life. In his climactic throes of passion, Chad fails to see the striking image of his friends and family populate the screen.

“SURRRRRRRPRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII—”

The biggest, wettest orgasm of his life is accompanied by the most horrifying sense of panic he’s ever experienced. Everybody on the screen: siblings, university friends, grandparents, mother, father and Zoe, are all huddled in a portrait of rigid jubilation. Unblinking eyes unnaturally wide, their smiles a shared rictus of frozen cheer. In each of their ears a neural-bud is lodged, all connected digitally to one another, to their television, and to Chad. These party-buds, the gimmicky new tech that Zoe had been querying with the television, are specifically designed for surprise celebrations so that revellers can personally feel the shock and joy of their intended mark. The partygoers on this occasion feel a lot more than that.

While the scene of their brother, friend, grandson, first born and soulmate, naked and ejaculating into a hand-held rubber cunt, burns itself forever into their brains, the party-buds make each of them feel as though they are the sole carnal recipient. Not only does Chad deflower his salacious television, but every single member of his birthday party as well. The stunned assembly gawps back at him as he clutches his soggy, dwindling dick. Everybody’s arms are stuck in the air, expressions irrevocably locked. Zoe is white as a sheet, her face a mask of revulsion. His old friends are a cluster of gaping mouths. Dad’s eyeballs have rolled back into his head, a strange smirk warping his lips. And Grandma, Chad sees, with a strand of drool hanging from her chin, is rocking gently on her heels, as dead as dead can be.

Gressil, or A Baptism In Depravity

The soft padding of boots on the bottom of the stairs. The sun illuminated strips of old torn carpet as his feet sounded like approaching thunder as they took each step closer. Old wood creaking beneath the pressure as the light played tricks and the stairwell seemed to stretch before his eye. His hand ran along a railing that had been worn smooth with age, as the fabric on his jeans brushed up against a leather bag. Dust floated before his eyes as he entered a beam of warmth; the chill of the hallway momentarily relieved, as he reached a landing. The frame of the door was silhouetted in a shadowy corner that the sun retreated from forebodingly. As his eyes adjusted, he could make out the number two faintly painted on the wood above a peephole; the sound of eager breathing greeting him from the other side in the silent building. He heard a giggle from the chamber beyond and retreating footsteps as he put his gloved hand upon the handle.

The door swung open, and he saw a young girl kneeling on the floor in front of him. Her skin was moist with sweat, as his eyes took in her porcelain skin, mascara slightly smeared upon lustful eyes that guided his to her breasts; adorned with crimson lace. She ran her hand along her thigh teasingly as he pushed the door shut behind him with a smile. He towered over her in the scarcely lit room as she looked up at him, silently begging with pouty lips as he smiled, pleased she followed directions so well. The ad had said she was submissive, however, ads had a tendency to lie. He dropped his bag to the floor and slowly removed his black leather driving gloves, placing them in his pocket as he kept his eyes connected to hers, watching her lust build within. A soft click as his bag opened; rough leather against his skin as he pulled a long, thick strip of pliable hide out and gripped it tightly in his hand.

A crack and a slap as he quickly lashed her with it, a fluid movement in the blink of an eye as leather connected with skin, snapping her head to the side with a jerk. She ran her fingertip along her bruised flesh as a red welt began to appear, a facade of a devilish grin painted across her face, while tears welled up in her eyes. He grabbed a fist full of her hair and sharply yanked her head back, satisfaction, as her smile broke into a wince of pain, and he leaned in close. He could smell her skin, the sweet aroma of vanilla and honeysuckle mixing with sweat, as she exhaled, and he tightened his grip; his face inches from hers. He watched as her eyes turned from a dull sapphire to a feral green; her body shuddering as he felt her hands reaching for his pants.

Back and forth; repetitive motion, a sticky wetness. It spread down the front of his pants as she swung the blade into his genitals, shock overwhelming him as he gasped in pain. She pulled the blade back and licked it clean as he watched horrified, the copper taste sending electric shocks throughout her body. With a quick motion she swung the butterfly knife up and into his throat, twisting as blood spurted out of his mouth and onto her chest. She shoved him to the ground and rubbed the warm blood into her skin, playing with her nipples as she straddled his mutilated genitals and slid a hand into her panties. Tears streamed down her face, and she began to laugh as she felt her sanity slipping, fighting back the scream she held within. A wave of nausea almost overwhelmed her as she continued her task, her blood soaked fingers sliding in and out as she felt an unwanted pleasure welling up; a warmth spreading throughout her body as she climaxed, her body spasmed with the intensity of orgasm. She fell to the side, the corpse slowly growing cold beside her and vomited. Her body shuddered in pain as she was consumed with dry heaves, and she let out a cry of anguish as she pounded her bloody fists against the broken floorboards that shook beneath her violence.

A slow clapping emanated from the shadows, as she lifted her head to see the figure that shrouded itself in the shadows; a pile of used syringes surrounding him as if obscene offerings to a long buried god…but this wasn’t god. The old man looked ancient as he sat in a lotus position, hisskin hanging like flaps against a sunken skull adorned with black eyes that saw no light, glazed over bya film of disease. His bones shown through a brittlelayer of skin; a broken grin mocking her as a river of white silk ran down his back. He held frail arms out in front of his body, wrinkled palms held out to face her. He looked so fragile beneath the torn, stained cloth he wore, that at one point in time had held a semblance of clothing. She pulled herself to her knees as she heard the soft cooing of children to each side of him and dragged herself on hands and knees forward, until she could see more clearly in the gloom. Protruding from his palms were two umbilical cords that throbbed as they extended down to the floor on either side of him, feeding twin babes whose purple, bruised faces, contorted in pain as they cooed from within nests of barbed wire that left little cuts all across their skin, a lake of blood forming beneath him. Their eyes were sewn shut, without vision they gurgled in the innocence of childhood, their mouths spider webbed with a yellow mucus that stretched and burst like a bubble with every breath they took.

The demon let out a moan of pleasure as she reached for her children, her knees scraping against loose nails and splinters that stuck out of cracked floorboards, the smell of sweat and death choking her as the world spiraled for a moment. She coughed as she blinked her eyes, slowly refocusing from the bout of dizziness. Peeling wallpaper came into view, decades old nicotine stains creeping along the walls, broken only by a dirty couch in an outdated pattern that glinted with exposed metal from long rusted springs and a mattress stained in piss and semen that rested against a wall. For a moment her children left her head, and she collapsed onto the filthy mattress, knees to her chest, her sorrow consuming her as the world began to spin around her. With a slight nod of the demons head, a chain rattled, and she felt a cold steel collar clasp itself around her neck. She let out a scream, the infants beginning to wail. It was all too much…she couldn’t do this…the scent of soiled flesh…the shimmering reality around her…the noise….she needed to make it stop..

She realized that she had begun to laugh again, as she squeezed her eyes shut and began to pray in whispered murmurs. A small beam of golden light fell upon her from between tangled blinds, dust dancing slowly within its gaze and then the darkness returned, oppressive and heavy. She struggled for breath between frantic mantras, as the demon laughed and the children cried and it hit her suddenly…At that moment it was all clear, that god was no longer there.

Two years…it seemed like it had already been an eternity…that nine months had been the longest she stayed clean in years. Everything had seemed to be turning around, the world seemed clearer as she looked at it with a clean mind. She had been happy, truly happy, but then it all came crashing down around her like an avalanche. She lost her job at the local diner and decided to pick up a bottle of wine that night…if only she had just gone home and to sleep, but the crossroads weren’t brightly lit that evening for her. The babysitter had just left, and she slumped down to the floor, her legs stretching across the chipped linoleum underneath her, head back against worn wood and the tears had just flowed. A warm wave of so many emotions tangled up inside her soul as she opened the bottle and began to drink.

She had blacked out, awoken by the cries of the twins from their bedroom, her head groggy as she blinked her eyes and tried to block them out. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears as the room swung sharply to the left, and she fell, her face pressed against the floor. She could still feel her hands pressed over her ears as the noise all seemed to grow louder. She still could feel the cold sweat covering her skin as she nervously pressed the buttons on the phone. The dial tone as she waited, her breath held; a voice on the other end. Her chest had felt tight and then a jubilant rush of relief as she heard the click on the other end of the phone. She could remember constantly checking the peephole with every sound that emanated from the building and then finally her angel had arrived.

Her fingers tore at the little bundle of wax paper. She could hear the twins wailing in their bedroom as she prepared her savior, that brought her mercy; true relief. Between tears, she could hear her voice, cracking and shrill echoing into the dark rooms beyond the light of the kitchen. Mommy’s busy right now. Busy…so busy…mommy just needed a little solace. The plunger slid, and she was transported to a crystal silence on lonely shores, here she was safe…here she could just rest a bit. The rest was only a blur in her memory.

She remembered the babies cries, but they were in safe hands. She could check on them later. She turned on the radio and fell back into a love seat as she floated away on a fluffy cloud, her company the vibes of musical notes as she closed her eyes. The crying was still there, lingering in the distance though but oh well, what could she do? She leaned back as a wave of ecstasy flowed through her body, and she dropped the syringe. Everything was perfect, if only she could turn off the sound of the twins like a lamp. She sighed and let the music drown them out, but yet it still tickled her ears, whispering in and out.

Like a lamp…just turn them off…she remembered pulling herself out of the cloud and tiptoeing out of the light and into the twins room. The music was so damn good that night as she ripped an electrical cord from a lamp. She approached the crib, and she remembered how calm they were for a moment. She smiled at them sweetly, feeling such pride at her little creations, and then she slid the cord around ones throat. She awoke with a jolt, the twins screaming fromthe crib she had slumped against. Well the twin, of course, now she remembered. She needed to turn them off, everything else was perfect. The plunger whispered love songs to her as she felt the warm release and faded off into sleep, everything was perfect…everything was just right.

She remembered the birds the following morning, chirping as the sun shone brightly through the windows behind her. She had fallen asleep on the love seat and the night before had been a blur. She had blinked her eyes, the silence in the house striking her as unusual. Something wasn’t right. Her body had frozen in fear as she had tried to comprehend the silence, an empty bottle and the glint of light off of a syringe catching her eye from the floor. She stared at the door to the kids room that was slightly ajar, hardly breathing as she rose and gathered the courage to open it.

They looked like little cherubs, all snug in their boxes. Gazing down at their contorted, discolored bodies, she had felt everything inside her die that day. With each shovelful of dirt she felt another piece of her soul shatter like glass. It seemed as if an eternity had passed as she dug, her tears staining her face as she sobbed. She kept telling herself that everything would be okay, but inside she was empty. She was found stumbling down the center divide of an expressway, her barefoot feet balancing with every step on the cold concrete. She remembered flashing lights, concerned voices and then just pain.

A few days passed and the pain subsided a little. Each day became a little easier as the last petals of the poppy left her body but her thoughts had begun to grow harsher. A cruel taunting reality of what she had done that ate away at her psyche like a rat, taking each piece, crumb by crumb. It was unrelenting, a constant hunger that grew stronger every day. It was at that moment, she had begun to feel his presence near. In the dark corners of the hospital he had watched her, an unseen dread that hung in the air. Her thoughts had grown sporadic, the childrens pained, final death masks flitting through the hallways of her mind. She was growing more desperate within, the guilt and longing was too much to handle; when he had first spoken.

He had promised to make it all better. He said that he could put everything back the way that it should be, if she was willing to make an equal trade. She had thought that he was an angel, that perhaps god knew it was a mistake and was giving her a mulligan. She would have agreed to anything just to be able to do it all over, to feel the warmth back inside her little ones. Four didn’t seem too bad…two for each one of her angels…she could make this sacrifice for them.

She could hear him moaning slightly as he finished his business with the mans soul. She squeezed her eyes shut as she heard the rattle of used syringes beneath him as he shuddered with pleasure. The cold steel of the collar around her throat was making her claustrophobic, and she gasped for just a little more air as her naked body shivered in the sudden cold that had descended upon the room as the demon finished its meal.

“More.”

With just one word she felt a tremor of fear that struck deep into her soul. She leaned over the side of the mattress and vomited, the scent of dry blood and rotting flesh invading her nostrils as she momentarily relived her recent deeds. The children had begun to cry softly and it reverberated throughout her mind as she tried to find the strength to commit such an act again. This was wrong, nothing about this was right. How could she continue to take the lives of these strangers, commit such violent acts, with only such a small glimmer of selfish hope? She tried to slide into the shadows, to shrink into herself and drift off to a hidden place within, but the collar held her tight. The demon turned its empty gaze upon her and with a curled finger she was dragged closer to him by a chain that anchored somewhere out of sight. Her skin scraped across the ground, and she tumbled forward until she found herself below him, the vacancy emanating from him invading her entire being, an oppressive weight that trickled into her every thought.

She cowered before him, his dead eyes looking into her soul. The scent of frankincense and stale tobacco drifted from the rags that adorned his body. His out turned hands vibrated slightly as the cords in his palms kept her children in purgatory, their souls hanging in the balance of her decisions. She wanted to slip away…to drift off into insanity, but she knew that there was no escape from her fate. The creature smiled at her with a sly grin and lowered its eyes. She looked down as a single syringe rolled across the floor and stopped in front of her.

It was like a flood of relief greeting her with open arms, as she felt the rush of poison flow through her. Instant relief, temporary silence from everything around her. This was necessary…just a few more souls, and she could leave this behind just like she had before. But for now, it was necessary to rest in itsarms, tasting the seductive kiss of the opiate as it numbed her senses. She could think more clearly now, without the crippling fear of what she was doing taking hold of her. Footsteps were coming closer, she knew what had to be done as she felt the collar unclasp.

He didn’t see it coming as he passed her in the threshold of the door. The needle had slid into his oil stained flesh so smoothly and as he turned and admired her nude body she saw the heroin taking effect as she smashed the hammer into his skull. He stumbled back, his hands covering the broken skin as blood seeped from between his fingers. Grunts of pain escaped him as disoriented, he fumbled his way across the room. She followed after him and his fist connected lethargically with her face, knocking her to the ground. She pulled herself to her knees and ran her fingertips along the inside of his leg as he stared at her in a numbed confusion. She could smell the blood that was slowly trickling and could sense approval from the dark recesses of the room. The hammer connected with the mans kneecap with a loud pop and a howl broke his lips, an inhuman sound that caused her to hesitate and in that instant he kicked at her with his good leg, his boot connecting with her face. She watched from the floor as he crawled towards the door, reaching for the handleand escape. He froze as she saw two flames ignite off to the side and the man was faced with the grotesque sight of her master and children.

She pushed herself back to her feet, the weight of the hammer comforting in her hand as she brought it down again on his knee with the sound of splintering bone, tearing flesh. A stream of blood crossed her vision, and she felt a warmth spreading between her legs. He was screaming as she tried to remove his jeans, the splintered bones catching on the denim. Emotionless, she slowly kissed along his leg, eyes interlocked with the demon, as she traveled up. She ran her tongue along the exposed ivory, the man writhing in pain beneath her as she felt her body quiver. She slid up, the blood lubricating her body as she felt herself grow wet, life and death in a sea of sacred fluids as the demon smiled at her eagerly.

She found herself entranced as she slowly ran her tongue between the mans legs, tasted the sweat as her teeth sank deep into the soft tissue and felt her body spasm with rolling waves of ecstasy as she tore her head from side to side. A river of blood poured down her shoulders as it used her skin as a canvas that splashed along each curve of her body, draping her in a shade that made her snow-white skin glow in somber hues. She pushed herself up, letting the blood caress her breasts for a moment and then crept her way up until her hands were upon his chest, straddling a fountain of blood as she smiled with his severed member in her mouth.

He gasped one final time, no sound left within him before she forced the pen with which he had written his final check, into his mouth. He convulsed as it slid down his throat, and he struggled for air, his skin changing hues as his eyes slowly glazed over, and she fell forward upon him. She felt him turn to stone as she lifted her eyes to gaze upon her keeper. He stared at her indifferently as she felt his warm seed hit her face, wave after wave, a baptism in depravity.

She awoke from a dreamless sleep at the foot of the demon, flashes of the night before echoing through her mind. She glanced over and her little ones were asleep, off in dreamland beside him. She wanted to cry but there were no tears left inside her, just her soul in pain and the craving for his sweets. He sat motionless, silently meditating as she reached over and picked up a syringe from the ground before him. Her hands were still stained with blood, and she shuddered uncontrollably as she thought about the last man and the demons gift upon her.

Did he have a family? Was there someone out there who was wondering why he didn’t come home, perhaps a child who would forever wonder what they did to make daddy go away? She hung her head as she ran her fingers along the shaft of the syringe nervously. She couldn’t keep doing this, whenever she closed her eyes she saw flashes of agony, the silent expressions of the deceased. She felt like she was losing her mind, her leg tapping unconsciously at her side. She needed release…just for a little while…mommy’s angels needed her…

Time went by as if in a dream, the demons kiss flowing through her bloodstream. Within his embrace she could dull the sense of guilt; watch as it slowly dissolved like sugar being licked by unseen waves. She could taste heaven before her as she worshiped at his altar, no nightmares could touch her here. She looked upon her children with love, smiling as she saw the color returning to them slowly, their eyes staring back at her in wonder. Soon they would be safe…soon they would be home.

Nightfall arrived and she awoke in a pool of sweat. She reached for a needle as her redeemer watched hungrily. Her cravings were insatiable, but he had an endless supply that would keep the pain at bay. She smiled at him as she forced herself to her feet and looked for clothes in the closet. She held up a black corset with red fringe to the light and felt his approval. On shaky legs she walked over to a mirror that hung on the wall. How many days had passed? She could hardly remember as she looked herself up and down. She had lost weight and her eyes seemed sunken into her skull, bags below them creating a sultry vignette that mixed with her mascara and gave her a seductive look. She ran her hands along her stomach, flirting with her hips before they went around behind her to her lower back.

The warm water caressed her skin as she washed away the filth that had coated her body. She could feel it all falling away like the heroin took away her pain. Everything was going to be alright…just a couple more and then her babies would be safe within her arms. Soon everything would be back to how it was supposed to be. Soon she would be redeemed.

The door closed with a click, and she guided him by his hand to the bed that had been draped in fresh linens. He was intoxicated by the scent of her perfume and the sensual movements of her body as he blindly followed. He had told her it was his first time as she pinned him down, her legs straddling his midsection as she moved her body on top of his, her hands to either side of his head. She could feel her Masters eagerness for his innocence, as she felt him grow hard beneath her. His hands clumsily fumbled along her sides and up to her breasts as he tilted his head back in pleasure.

She slid her body down, leaning in so that he could feel her breath against his skin as she felt a wave of pleasure run through her body from the reaction she was getting from him. She could get used to this, she thought to herself as she unbuckled his belt and slid his pants down. Slowly kissing her way back up she straddled him again and felt herself grow wet as he slid into her. She worked her body against his, as he arched his back and exposed his neck, the muscular flesh appealing to her most feral instincts as she leaned in and sunk her teeth into him.

She felt his body spasm in shock as she dug her nails deep into his shoulders, raking the flesh as she was consumed with the taste of sweat and blood. She could feel eyes upon her, watching every motion. Every rip and tear as her teeth pulled the sweet meat like taffy, showers of scarlet rain staining her eggshell skin. It was euphoric…life and death intertwining within her grasp. She could feel his body heat slowly changing…see his pupils dilating and slowly retracting, the life draining out of them as she fucked his corpse. She could feel every nerve in her body as she rippled with surrender, overwhelmed with serenity, watching his soul leave his body in a vision of terror. She watched the demon devour it, his teeth ripping it to shreds as she ate at his table.

She flung her body at his feet, feeling sharp daggers in her legs as she knelt with her head back, awaiting his blessings. Her skin slick with blood she craved more, with an intensity that bordered on madness. She could feel him within, moving with her as she heard a knock on the door. She scrambled to her feet with a handful of death, a poisonous kiss that waited as a viper, eager to strike. Her voice cracked as she called to the man on the other side, her breath held as the doorknob turned. It closed behind him, and she lunged out of the shadows, bringing her fist down on his face, a deadly row of teeth in every blow that stung like razors as the needles punctured him, breaking against bone as he screamed.

She moaned in pleasure as the blood flowed, feeling it move like a slow stream as it snaked between her legs, the man slumped against the wall. She licked his wounds and felt a tremor of bliss as she tasted his dying soul. She could hear movement behind her as she turned her back to the dying man. The demon spoke in a perversion of Galatians, his voice thunderous inside her mind:

Now the nature of flesh is revealed; immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorrow, lust and things like these. I give you the truth, the sinners inherit the Kingdom of God.

Head raised in awe, she beheld ethereal beauty as she watched him rise to his feet. Syringes hanging from pockmarked legs fell to the ground, as snow-white feathers floated throughout the surrounding air. His wing lifted towards the sky as his empty eyes stared into her soul, and she felt a longing within, as he vanished before her eyes. She smiled as she saw her angels at her feet. They were perfect.

Two little bundles that were all hers, her reward, a gift from God. She yearned to be back in his arms, to taste heaven again. Now she knew what had to be done. She would fuck and torture with love in the face of “god”. Let the blood she spilled be venom in the face of the false prophets, who voyeuristic, watched from the shadows for a sense of satisfaction that they were superior to the humans they herded. But she knew better…she knew her God would sing her soul to sleep, as the plunger slid down, and she felt the warmth spread throughout her body.

She had felt true love…she was in the real Messiah’s hands and in tribute she would bring more souls. She picked up the electrical cord, it felt comfortable within her hands. An old friend. She took a step towards her children who looked back at her, awaiting a mothers love.

No, Hetero

You’re straight?

I didn’t mean to assume. I don’t have a problem with it, no way. Don’t start thinking I’m one of those.

I love straight people. I have loads of straight friends. I tell the guys, “Are you the Jackie Chan and your wife’s the Oprah? Do some kung fu, straighty! Give me some billions, girl!”

It’s all in good fun. They’re funny sometimes. Sometimes I pretend to flirt with you lady ones. It makes us all laugh. The idea of it is just silly. Because what’s the point in you, really? What are you for?

I’m a little inclined that way myself.

Whoah whoah! No more than anyone else though. Don’t start getting ideas. But who can’t see that Angelina Jolie is objectively pretty? That just means I’m evolved. I don’t wanna fuck her in the cunt. Not for a million I wouldn’t. The idea makes me, personally, want to vomit. Like just fucking spew everywhere forever.

God, how do you do it, honestly?

I’m just joking around! Jesus. So I hate the idea of doing it myself, it’s not like I want cunts to burn in hell or anything!

Tell me, are you one of the ones that eats ass? Does your husband fist you in the cunt? Do you peg him? How does it work? Can you lick a vag through a glory hole, or…?

You went silent there. I’m asking, what do you do in that scenario?

Well, what would you do?

What? Some of you do it. How am I supposed to know which kind I’m talking to?

You guys are no fun sometimes. Everyone’s thinking this shit. I’m just asking it. I’m just trying to educate myself. I don’t have to hang out with you. You should be thankful I even care.

It’s not like I’m a bad guy. I’m all about “Live and let live.” It’s no big deal! No one’s business. You wanna fuck a dog? I won’t judge you.

But I’m interested. Surely you’re attracted to someone of the same sex?

You have to be! Why wouldn’t you be?

Tell me who it is!

Tell me!

All right I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna tell you something, but only because I’ve had a few and I know it will interest you.

I got my SBF to suck my dick once.

What? I was curious. And really, really drunk. And she loved it—I mean, you all love it, right?—but she was in love with me for the longest time. (No, she never told me, but they always are. Put a gay guy and a straight woman in a room together, you’re asking for trouble!) So it was a great exchange.

The morning after, I felt like absolute dogshit. Like I seriously thought about killing myself. But look at me now! I’m telling you about it like it barely disgusts me.

I don’t envy your lifestyle, honey. Kids, periods. And so on. Whatever. I’m no expert. But we all know you didn’t choose it.

Because I mean honestly, who would?

Dr. Oust

“Dr. Oust, Abortionist,” he introduces himself in his legally changed stage name and hands out his blue and pink business card with an illustration of a stork taking a smoke break. He’s practiced for when they look up from the card with mouth ajaw, he bobs his head as if to music, snaps two loud cracking chomps on the gum in his mouth, lifts his gold rimed sunglasses and gives a sleazy wink as he stretches his lips, accentuating his thinly drawn on Italian playboy moustache, into a sneer of a smile.

Then he leaves.

They’ll call.

In the evenings he cruises his bright red Porsche with the license plate, “Bye Kid,” and makes stops at ice cream stands, video game stores, and the dark corners of public parks where he passes outs cards and pee-wee sized booze bottles to the young boys and jokes with them of the machoism of, “Slamming One Home.”

Parents might be upset if they catch him, but when they approach and see his swaggering manner, his gold chains, his tan orange skin, his technicolor sport plaid suits, as he leans on his Porsche, they might open their mouths to accost when he’ll point his finger guns, bringing down the thumb hammers, flashing his fully square, impossibly white artificial teeth, and say, “I’ll be coming soon to a womb near you!”

They’ll hesitate, then close their mouths and walk away as they know despite his boorish style, he’s factually true.

Dishing The Dirt

One thing Fernando and Carla González had shared over the years of marriage was their love of gossiping. From friends, to work colleagues, to shop assistants, to barflies, there were few that the couple wouldn’t pry, or spy on – eagerly waiting to meet the other so that they could dish the dirt. Yes dear reader – the boring fucks really didn’t have anything better to do with their time on earth! Though it was arguable that it had saved their marriage.

Over the years, the González’s had found themselves leaving their flat much less. Not that this had stopped their appetite for hearsay. Instead, they simply intensified their gossiping to the residents and visitors in their block of flats. But it was their neighbours – the Rodriguez’s that’d be the source of most conversations for the duo.

The Rodriguez’s had moved in over a decade ago. They’d been younger than the González’s and had almost seemed the perfect couple, still full of life and hope for the future. Fernando and Carla both hated bumping into them. There seemed very little to fault. Then there were the evenings that Carla and Fernando would sit at their kitchen table eating dinner, as the walls would shake and ladles fell from their hooks. Which was accompanied by the loud groans and banging of bedposts through the paper-thin walls from the sexual olympics that were going on in the Rodriguez’s adjacent bedroom. As Carla and Fernando continued to sit there in front of their meals with a rare silence.

However, over time those evenings of passion were soon replaced with sobs and the dominating shouts of Ignacio Rodriguez coming through the wall. Which Carla and Fernando quickly took notice of over their food, as if it was some sort of soap opera. Carla and Fernando would rarely see them together either and if they did they’d remark on how unhappy and worn down the other couple looked.

This went on for sometime, until one day there was a noticeable change. Suddenly the neighbouring flat went very quiet – despite the odd rustle, or knock. It was as if Fernando and Carla’s favourite TV show had just been cancelled with no explanation, or finale. It’d also felt like a long time since they’d seen Ignacio and even longer since they’d seen Martha. Fernando and Carla would sit in their kitchen waiting for the next instalment from their neighbours – yet there was nothing.

Underwhelmed, it’d soon got to the couple and eventually Carla had come up with an idea. Instead of standing there with a glass to the kitchen wall, she’d invite the Rodriguez’s over for coffee.

The following morning, Carla rang their bell and got no response. Yet, not one to quit easily, she soon gave them a call and after a while the someone finally picked up. It was Martha. She sounded almost elated on the phone with the prospect of socialising. However, Martha said that she was just cooking something and that they’d bring over some lunch later instead.

Come lunchtime Carla and Fernando eagerly opened the door to Martha – surprised to see her on her own – when Martha had then told Carla that Ignacio couldn’t make it sadly. But what had caught the González’s attention more than anything else was the mad and dreamlike fashion that Martha had about her and her smile, her incredible smileplastered from one side of her face to the other. The table was already set when Martha placed a large Tupperware on it and pulled off the lid as steam rose from the stew along with a rich aroma.

The three of them soon sat down as Fernando grabbed a ladle and served up the stew. Martha’s grin was now starting to get a little creepy and Carla tried initiating conversation, but Martha was far too interested in asking them about the stew. Which was surprisingly good, so good in fact that Fernando had reached for a second helping. Before he soon bit into something and discovered a fingernail attached to a chunk of finger. Fernando buried the rest of it, under some more stew and played ignorant.

As Carla tried again to quiz Martha on anything and everything between licking her lips, Fernando quietly went off to the toilet and vomited up the cannibal carne, wiped part of it off his shirt and reached for his phone. Aware that they’d all have a lot to talk about very soon. Too much to talk about. But before he did anything else he stared at his reflection in the mirror, released a deep sigh and for the first time in decades he took a good hard look at himself.

Some Bright Morning

The gun feels warm. I keep pulling it from the bottom drawer of the desk and holding it in my hand. Wrapped inside a plastic bag. I wrapped the gun in the bag because I didn’t want to see it just lying there exposed. I didn’t want it looking like a dead body every time I opened the drawer. The gun belonged to my father. He was a policeman before I was born. Somewhere I have a photograph of him standing out in the front yard wearing his uniform. I keep looking out the window. The sun’s brightly shining and there are countless birds scattered all over the lawn.

Last night I was at the Grand Palace eating egg rolls. I mixed sweet and sour sauce and hot mustard together. I didn’t go into the restaurant but just sat in the bar eating my egg rolls and drinking some beers. I kept watching this dark-haired waitress and I wanted to get her number. She seemed to smile at me whenever I looked at her. I asked the bartender what he knew about her and he kind of chuckled. He told me I should forget about her. When I asked him why he told me because she had a boyfriend and he was a very large man. I thanked the bartender for the heads-up and ordered another beer.

When I was ready to leave the dark-haired waitress came over to me and slipped me a piece of paper. I opened my hand and looked at the paper. It had a phone number written on it along with the name Iris. I glanced at the bartender but his back was turned and he was mixing someone a drink. I caught up to the waitress and waved the paper at her. I said, hey, I don’t think I want this. I saw the look on her face. I said, I heard you had a boyfriend. Who told you that, she asked me. I told her what the bartender had said. Oh god, she said, he thinks I’m going to go out with him. He keeps asking me but I keep turning him down. I see, I said, then I followed it up with an, okay. I told her thanks and she gave me another smile. This one I quickly snatched away from her and put into my pocket. I wanted to keep it there until I got home. Then, when everything was quiet, I’d pull it out and hold it in my hand and look at it, over and over, again.

***

The gun feels heavy. The light falling through the window hurting my eyes because I had too much to drink last night. The birds screaming in my ears. Last night I called Iris and she told me she had to work but, if I wanted to, I could meet her at the restaurant around eight. When I got there I took a seat at the bar. It was the same bartender and he smiled at me and asked me if I was here for more egg rolls. I told him I was meeting someone and I saw the look in his eyes.

I heard Iris behind me and when I turned to face her she made a point of giving me a big hug and laughing loud enough so that everybody could hear her. She turned to the bartender and gave him a smile. Mike, can I get a margarita, she said. The bartender looked at me. I couldn’t read his face completely but he didn’t seem happy. What about you, he said. I told him, a beer, I guess.

We moved over to one of the tables and Mike, the bartender, brought us our drinks. I said, so where do you want to go. Iris sipped her margarita and looked at me over the rim of her glass. She said, I thought we could just stay here, if that’s alright. I took a drink of my beer. What about Mike, I said. Iris put her hand on my arm and laughed. I glanced over at the bartender. He was behind the bar watching us but trying not to make it look so obvious. When Iris waved him over to order another drink she leaned closer to me and smiled. I didn’t like where this was going so I just decided I was going to get drunk. I ordered two shots and another beer and I told Mike to keep them coming.

Later on I grabbed Iris and pulled her to me giving her a rough kiss. Hey, she said, easy. When Mike brought us more drinks he slammed them down on the table. I threw back the shot and chased it with some beer. Then I jumped up and jerked Iris by the arm trying to make her stand but she broke loose with a pained squeal and slumped back in her chair. I said, Mike, and he turned around. I gave him a big grin. I said, hey, buddy, she’s all yours, and I turned without looking back at them and walked out the door.

I drove around for awhile trying to find something good on the radio. It was a clear night and the air was cool and inviting, especially, if you had some place to go. But if you were alone it was just like all those other nights, struggling against some inner restlessness you could never quite define until your mind and your body, finally, surrendered themselves to sleep. When I pulled into my driveway I turned off the car and just sat there in the darkness and the silence. Felt the waves of warmth rolling through my head and I began to laugh. I laughed as I got out of the car and I kept on laughing as I stumbled my way into the house.

***

The gun feels like a bird fluttering in my hand. Sometimes, when I’m away from home, I think about the gun. I imagine it sleeping in the darkness all alone. The bottom drawer of the desk silent as a tomb. I had cap guns when I was young and I remember the smell of the smoke. The taste of it in my mouth when I absently sucked on the end of the barrel. I remember when my friends and I played with guns. How we made up this rule you had to count to ten whenever you got shot before you could get back up again. It was funny how all day long we kept dying and returning from the dead, over and over, again.

I remember buying rolls of caps. I think there were five rolls to a box and you could get five boxes in one package. Sometimes, instead of loading them in my guns I just rolled the caps out on the sidewalk and used a hammer to hit them. Sometimes, I’d take a whole roll of caps and hit them with the hammer. It made a loud blast that left a ringing in my ears. I remember taking ants crawling past me on the walk and putting them under the caps and blowing their tiny bodies apart. One time I caught this big black ant as it was trying to climb up my arm and when I put it under the caps the explosion blew off its head.

I never felt like I was a terrible person for doing this. I never thought I was doing anything wrong. I remember all the summer evenings, when it would start to get dark, and we would run around catching lightning bugs. I don’t know what we wanted them for. I guess we thought there was something magical about their blinking lights. Maybe we longed for something bright like that shining from inside our own bodies. I don’t know. Some people liked to kill them and smear the light across your arm. The pieces of light sticking to you, glowing on your skin, but only for a moment. Sometimes, we caught the lightning bugs and put them in glass jars. We always made sure we poked holes in the lids. We stuck pieces of grass in there and, sometimes, leaves, thinking that’s what they wanted. But the next morning we always found them dead, lying in the bottom of the jar, their lights no longer shining.

***

The gun feels sticky against my skin. I can sense the gun’s desperation and that’s why it keeps trying to cling to me. I keep moving it back and forth from one hand to the other but it doesn’t seem to help. Sometimes, the gun spends endless days inside the drawer waiting for me to return. The gun waiting for me to bring it out into the light, again. Sometimes, the gun catches the light just right and the metal of the gun seems to shine. I often wonder how the gun feels having to wait for so long. Does the gun ever get afraid and think I’m not coming back at all? I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything at all. I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life for something good to happen.

Sometimes, I like to pretend I’m a lone gunman taking a group of people hostage. I find myself in the middle of some big city, suddenly, robbing a bank. I’m waving the gun in the air and telling everyone to get down on the floor. I keep screaming at them and telling them to move faster. It’s like something from out of a movie and when one guy tries to move I hit him in the face with the gun. The blood runs out of his nose and covers the floor. I can hear some of the women crying. I tell them, it’s going to be alright, as long as they do what I say, no one will get hurt. I listen to the sounds of their breathing and I know they’re afraid.

When you hold a gun in your hand you can make people do things they wouldn’t normally do. And I wonder how it feels having someone stick a gun in your face and not knowing whether you’re going to live or die. Sometimes, fear can make you collapse or it can spur you on to do something great. I’m trying to recall some moment in my life when I felt the most afraid but nothing comes to mind. Then, the birds start chirping, louder and louder, right outside my window. And I wonder if there’s any way for me to tell from the sounds they’re making whether or not they’re happy or sad.

Sometimes, when I go to bed at night I hold a pillow close to me like I’m holding the body of my lover. And I float there in the darkness thinking about other places and times. But when I move, again, my lover disappears and it’s only a pillow I’m holding. And I toss the pillow away and rollover, turning, my back on it, before trying to fall into sleep. And I hear the radio playing jazz, softly, in the dark, above my head.

There have often been times when I was convinced there must be something wrong with me because I had no other explanation for the way my life was going. Now, it doesn’t seem to matter so much anymore. I guess you just get older and things no longer seem as important as they once were. Or, maybe, something inside you, finally, decides to quit struggling after so many years of futility and it crawls softly in to some dark corner where it can curl up and die.

***

The gun feels nothing. I know it doesn’t care whether I live or I die. I lift up the gun and hold it loosely in my hand. I shiver and the sun comes through the window trying to make me warm. I see the bullets in the bottom of the drawer. I don’t remember when I put them there but, now, when I pull the drawer open they roll around bouncing against one another. Sometimes, I see colors and I don’t know whether they’re inside my head or just floating in the air in front of my eyes. Pieces of red and blue and, sometimes, yellow and green. I have no idea what any of them mean. Maybe they were some kind of warning arriving much too late.

Sometimes, I think about what would’ve happened if I had gotten everything I wanted. Would that have really been such a good thing? And I wonder, sometimes, how long it takes before something starts to make sense. Maybe for some people it never does. And I think about my father working hard his entire life and, in the end, what did he have to show for it? His heart wearing out and, finally, giving up. He died, one morning, in his sleep.

I gaze out the window on a Sunday morning and witness two blackbirds fighting. I watch them as they tumble through the air all tangled together before hitting the ground and separating. They rush toward each other then a noise frightens them and they disappear into the sky. I open the chamber of the gun and touch it with my fingers. I spin it around, slowly, a couple of times before picking the bullets up, one by one, and slipping them, silently, inside.

The phone starts ringing. The phone’s in the bedroom so I can’t look at the caller ID and see who’s calling me. But I don’t feel like talking to anyone, anyway. After the fourth ring it stops and, I know, the answering machine’s picking it up. The answering machine’s down in the basement too far away for me to hear whether or not the person calling leaves me a message. I look out the window again and, this time, I see a robin standing in the grass close to the house. There’s a worm hanging from its beak struggling to get free but it’s too late. As I watch the robin cocks its head as if it’s listening to something. It waits there for just a moment and I wonder what it is the robin, finally, hears before deciding to fly away.

THE END

The Pig Man, Sleeps

Everyone called him The Pig Man, but no one really knew the truth. His misshapen face, distorted by hate with that unsettling smile curling downwards, disturbed even the jaded, embattled warhorses. His scarred skull, shaven and pock-marked by blurred memories of bar fights and all those shattered, drunken knuckles.

On D Block, we all assumed it was because he was missing some of the fingers on his right hand and it looked like a pig trotter, but I suppose it could be anything. In here, there are no definitive answers, just rumours, and half-truths: like the time they found his ex-wife ritualistically executed in the bathroom, wrapped in lace and fairy lights, crucified, with her cunt pulled inside out. No one knew how he lost his fingers, but most of us were convinced that the truth was far more devastating than anything we could fabricate or conjecture during scraping hours, encased in concrete.

Once, while protectively hunched over his lunch tray, cradling it like it was a newborn, a guy in B Block told me it was because of his depraved sexual obsessions, deriving sordid gratification from exploiting and coercing underage girls to perform lewd and libidinous acts on each other with domestic kitchenware.

He would wrap them round and round in black electrical tape, recording their screams and playing them endlessly to the little pink ones waiting in the room next door, with the sparkly white walls, faces all painted, nervously twisting at the ends of their hair, twiddling their little toes in the luxurious, red carpets.

There are so many whispered myths circulating the halls of this place, involving his increasingly graphic and pornographic acts involving screwdrivers and sensitive, fleshy orifices. There were those whispers that he abducted a teenager who cut him up at the lights. Rumour has it; he cut off his eyelids and tied him to a chair for eight straight nights, with a halogen bulb burning each eyeball. We can only speculate about what other seditious horrors the poor kid was subjected to, but we are told it involved battery acid and perpetual hours of sharpened objects.

Even the screws stay out of his way. It is now a matter of Rec yard folklore, when one misguided, shiny-shoed prisonguard made the grave mistake of disrespecting him in the mess hall. He was found the next morning, mysteriously impaled with a piece of sharpened wood ripped from the floor, dangling from the ceiling, with his intestines torn out and wrapped around his neck like a grotesque talismanic necklace. No one will maintain eye contact with him for any longer than is necessary, even the seasoned ones, who have to similarly maintain their fearful reputation within these walls.

You would smell him before you saw him, the curiously enchanting scent of ingrained sweat and cherry liquorice. He smelled intoxicating, lethal. Always chewing on the end of an elaborately inscribed fountain pen that he insisted on carrying around with him, some suspected to make him look intellectual, but the truth was that it constituted a proficient piece of weaponry for puncturing jugulars. Instead of exercising in the yard, he would sit and read tattered books of poetry, smuggled from the paltry stocks of the prison library. He would quote from them regularly and that was when you knew that someone was going to get cut. Recitation always preceded violence.

One morning, with the sun casting an incandescent halo around his radiating cranium, he cast a shadow across the book that I had clutched in my desperate fist and he softly whispered “There is no greater sorrow than to recall our times of joy in wretchedness”.

His voice was deceptively high-pitched, an almost breathy lisp; with no intonation or timbre. Cold, and unforgiving; sharpness personified. That was the day before he was found in his cell at headcount with the remains of one of his sycophantic disciples, who had been repeatedly raped and disembowelled with the plastic edge of a strip light.

Recently, he has taken to walking around with both of his thumbs tucked under his chin, ostensibly to avoid the inevitable onslaught of makeshift blades from reaching the pungent, moist folds of his neck.

Everyone became a target when their lib date was coming up, but for him, there was always a frantic successor lurking with intent and ambition, waiting for the emperor to fall. He was never getting out of here, there was no chance he would ever leave this place, these walls would eventually be his coffin.

Frequently, he would be found, perambulating around the halls of his hallowed temple, in the dark hours, standing in doorways, watching the other inmates sleep, with his weapons concealed, gently caressing his pulsating, weeping erection. Silently, he hates their chests rising and falling, counting the breaths entering and leaving their lungs, quietly resenting the inconceivable audacity to continue their wretched existence, counting the breaths until their eventual liberation.

Then there was that night, years from the twisting agony of those monotonous walls, after one too many filthy, finger-marked glasses of venomous bourbon in a piss-soaked bar, and one too many squalid bathroom finger fucks, he catches a glimpse, of that self same poisonous smile, in the reflection on the surface of a fractured mirror.

The girl was so hopelessly inebriated, that she didn’t even know she was dying, even as she stumbled on precarious high heels, blood seeping from under her sluttish cerise vest. This snivelling creature didn’t realise that her throat was sliced, and as the cum runs down her legs, the icy, metallic dread begins to slip into her stomach. And, he smiles.

They call him The Pig Man, but no one really knows why. But he lives inside the mirror, staring back at you, with his fatal, infinite eyes, pleading with you to release him, to just let him out. He is a prisoner on the other side of your face, on the inside: and he is watching everything you do, and the protective meat mask that you have built, cannot last forever.

He is called The Pig Man, and he likes the way that you kill

and kill and kill.