The Sins of the Leopard

I was 19 years old and not long out of school. I was working with my father in a factory downtown. He more or less ran the place and got me in with him to keep me from lying around the house and wasting my time. He was the hardest working man I’d ever met, and still is to this day. I couldn’t measure up to his prodigious work rate. I didn’t have it in me. Then, like now, all I saw was waves of scattered ass I couldn’t get with and a dead end on every road. A cruel thwarting of dreams and row of slowly closing doors. The factory was dusty and cold and owned by some brothers from Turkey who had come to this country to make good and ended up somewhere around the middle. They worked hard, too. I was a daydreamer and a loafer. All I wanted to do was write and be left alone. Not too much has changed, really. Whenever I bristled at some aspect of the job or the day that I didn’t like they just kept on saying ‘welcome to the real world’ like I’d arrived at the airport of some new destination. What the fuck did that mean, the real world? My Dad kept saying it too and it pissed me off. Where did they think I’d been living these past two decades?

So, there I was lugging boxes onto delivery trucks and trying not to let my father down. They were sex obsessed, these Turkish brothers, and that would be all they’d talk about all day long. Who they’d fucked, who they were going to fuck, and who the best fuck they’d ever had was. I was still awkward and useless around the ladies back then. Later I’d get daring and lucky. The sun even shines on a dog’s ass some days. But back then I couldn’t catch any sun ortail if I’d wanted to. And I did really want to. So, when they’d ask me who I was fucking and who I’d fucked, I’d grin in great discomfort and mutter some useless remark that trickled out of me like weak piss. I didn’t even have the flair to be a smart ass and say I’d laid Marilyn Monroe, or some shit like that, the way I would do now. I was uncomfortable in that world of men. It was a whole new language and way of being, and I neither understood nor cared to understand, how to operate in it. I was really a tragic case, looking back on it. They would just laugh and go back to talking about fucking while I slinked away to lug more boxes.

One night the younger of the brothers, Nazmi, the only man who ever came close to working as hard as my father, had me stay behind late to help him clear a large delivery out of the way before another one came the next morning. They were running out of storage space but had big ideas so were loading up on cheap stock while they could. Nazmi would work the factory most of the day and then go off to work in a pizza place they had recently bought until around 2am. Then he’d be back at the factory bright as a button, talking about who he’d fucked in between. I kinda liked Nazmi. He was the guts and the brains of the operation. Him and my father. The oldest brother, Arkun, was work shy and not too bright. The middle brother, Mohammed, was a mixture of the other two. But Nazmi was the driving force. That night Nazmi and I lugged boxes for hours; way after my father had gone, even. Every now and then he would nod at the huge walk in fridge that held all kinds of meats and trays of drinks and let me pry open a crate of cold Coca Cola, handing him one while I thirstily drained the other. We were sweating and covered in the kind of muck and dust that comes from lugging boxes around a factory floor all day. Outside it had gotten dark. The place looked different at night, all the other factories bathed in the eerie orange glow of the streetlamps. We finished our drinks and lugged some more. Eventually we were done. Either we were done or even Nazmi had finally had enough.

“Come on a-sunshine” he’d smile wearily, scooping up his keys and putting on the alarm but leaving everything else until morning, “let’s go home.” They were some of the best word I’d ever heard.

We jumped into one of the white vans I spent most of my day loading for deliveries and pulled out of the yard. Nazmi was always the life and soul of the place, very focused and smart, very driven. Alone, though, I always detected a kind of sadness in him. Could be he was just tired. Either way, he would never say much when he drove us home. It was winter and cold outside. He turned the radiator on and the heat filled the van immediately. Instead of heading home the usual route Nazmi drove a different way tonight, and I wondered aloud where we were going. Was there more work to do, I asked, trying to sound like I’d be ok if there was, but secretly hoping that there wasn’t.

“No. No more work” he said, to my relief. He looked at me. “You’re all baby batter. You’re a smart kid but we need to get some of that cum off your brains. You need to be a man, like me or your father. You need to be clear and clinical and sharp. We need to get that cum off of your brain so you can grow up.”

I dribbled another useless comment, as I was wont to do at the time. I realised we were in the seedy side streets of Union Street, next to the bus depot and the closed down auto repair shop. There were no orange streetlights around here.

“What are we doing here?” I wasn’t so much worried or confused as tired and hungry. I was off the clock and out of work. I wanted a shower and something to eat.

“Just looking a-sunshine. Just looking. Whatsamatta? You don’t wanna fuck a hot woman?”

Well, I did and I didn’t. I did, but not one of thesewomen. Plus, I really wastired and hungry. I’d worked all day. She probably wouldn’t be getting the best me I could have offered. Not that it mattered. Two pumps and a squirt would have been the best I could have mustered back then no matter what the time of day. Kids are horny bastards and eager to get started. They don’t care about performance or what their grade was. It’s only when you get older you start to care about shit like that, and then perhaps a little too much. Nazmi drove slowly around the corners and peered into the shadows.

“You a-scared a-sunshine?” he asked

“No” I replied. I actually wasn’t. Why would I have been?

Eventually he put his foot on the gas and we eased back out into the centre of town, heading for home. He hadn’t seen anything he liked.

“Don’t worry” he said with a wry smile, lightening up again. “Tomorrow we’ll go to Amanda’s.”

That had done it. I was too beat to worry about it when I got home. But once I woke up it was all over my mind;

‘What and where was ‘Amanda’s?’

All next day I thought about it and imagined it to be all manner of places, but fairly certain which one it would be. When Nazmi showed up for work he was his usual smiling self. He never mentioned anything about last night or tonight and nothing in his demeanour around me even suggested it had happened. My Dad would have killed him if he’d known. Would have killed me too, probably. I kept quiet for all concerned. Besides, I thought, Nazmi was full of talk. All three of these brothers were. They can’t have been getting as much pussy as they always said and, even if they were, now I knew where it was coming from. It didn’t count, to me. Any idiot could pay for it. It wasn’t real.

Still, that night, with my father headed home and what seemed like hundreds of wrapped kebab meat to move, Nazmi and I got to work, our hands getting greasy and stinking of donner meat, me pulling the Coke cans from the fridge. Eventually he looked at me and said

‘Are you ready?’

I shrugged, trying to play it cool. I just wanted to go home again and watch T.V, play some music and laze around.

But we were going to Amanda’s.

We didn’t drive where we had done before. Instead we headed a little way out of town, passing farms and all the rural areas I’d pass if I was helping do deliveries with Maurice, the dim-witted delivery driver who drove the vans we filled all day. After what seemed like a long time but was probably only ten minutes we came to a building with its light on. It said ‘Amanda’s’ on the window and right away you could see it was a hair salon. What the fuck are we doing now?I grumbled to myself with an empty, surly stomach.

Nazmi led the way. When we got inside, he smiled and exchanged hellos, obviously on familiar terms. Right away I saw a girl around my age, helping another woman cut an old ladies’ hair, but really just standing around ineffectual and looking bored. She looked at me and our eyes met before we both hurriedly looked away. She seemed shy and my stomach did that cart wheel flip I’ve since come to learn means you’re about to fall into a world of trouble. She gave off this confident vibe but seemed nervous and shy. She had this pretty brown hair, long and shiny, falling onto the shoulders of a grey cardigan. She had on blue denim shorts and black leggings, chipped black nail polish. She had the deepest, most exotic brown eyes I’d ever seen. I instantly felt weak and a little sick. Then another woman, older, perhaps in her mid-30’s, emerged as if by magic from behind some door I hadn’t even realised was there, and embraced Nazmi with a smile. I saw the younger girl fleetingly look at the scene before her eyes darted over me and back to what she was doing. I understood right away from the similarity between them this was her mother that was greeting Nazmi and me.

‘Come through, come through’ she smiled, ushering us both through the door she had suddenly emerged from. The girl quickly looked once more then turned away.

We were in some strange red corridor that had two rooms to it; one immediately to your left, the other up ahead on the right. The woman closed the door behind us and engaged in some pointless chit chat with Nazmi as he took off his coat and scarf. I just stood there, unsure what to do and out of place.

“Choose a room” the woman said. I had gleaned by now that this was Amanda.

I looked at a beaming Nazmi. Not wanting to walk any further in this strange place than I had to I turned to the white door immediately on my left and, swallowing hard with a dry throat, tentatively opened it. Nothing happened. I peeked nervously inside, and then Nazmi burst into laughter over my shoulder and yanked the door shut.

“It’s ok a-sunshine, we’ll take this one.” He brushed past me with a laughing Amanda, and then closed the door on me with a smile. Standing there alone and not knowing what I was meant to do, I waited a couple minutes, hearing giggling and groaning coming from the other side of the door Nazmi had went through. I looked up at the other door on the right. Was I supposed to go in there? I didn’t know. Why hadn’t he explained it to me? He’d fucking brought me here and not even explained the rules. Twice I went to step forward and changed my mind. Eventually I turned and went back through the door we’d come through, back out into the hair salon.

I felt like an idiot, embarrassed and awkward. I was pissed off at Nazmi for bringing me here and making me feel like this. Was it some game? Had he even meant for me to get laid? I went up to the young girl and, out of not knowing what to say and wanting to make her understand I was a good guy, said ‘I didn’t do anything in there.” The fact that I’d only been through there two minutes probably told her that. Or maybe it didn’t, I don’t know. I was new to all this. She looked at me blankly for a few seconds and then put her hand out and said ‘I’m Natalie.’ I took it and felt that flip in my stomach again.

“Claire” she suddenly said to the other woman, the one actually doing the hairdressing, “I’m taking my break.” Claire didn’t seem too bothered, not bothered enough even to reply. Natalie turned and began walking out of the place, out onto the street, leaving me feeling heavy footed and marooned. Then she turned around.

“Come on then” she said, looking right at me and holding open the door. Another flip. I was really in trouble now.

We walked a short way in the dark, away from the light of the shop until we reached the entrance to a grassy area. We climbed over the locked fence and stood on the gravel and mud. Natalie lit a cigarette and exhaled into the cold, damp night. My heart was beating out of my chest and my mouth was dry as cardboard.

“So, you work with that guy?” she asked, looking directly at me.

“Yeh” I replied, unsure of what to say. “Only part time, though. I’m trying to write a book. Might join a band.”

She nodded slowly and I felt like an idiot. How the fuck did I know what girls wanted to hear or thought was cool? A brief silence passed between us there in the dark.

“Do you think your dreams mean anything?” she then asked, holding the cigarette between two fingers and fiddling with her necklace with the other three.

“I, er, I dunno. I guess I’ve never really thought about it.” She nodded again and I silently cursed myself for not thinking of something better to say. Eventually she finished smoking and we headed back out of the field, back onto the street and towards the light of the shop. It hadn’t happened. I felt sick. I felt like I had just failed some sort of test.

We stopped outside the shop and sat on the roadside. She still had a few minutes of her break left.

“Do you have any gum?” she asked. I did. I always did and handed her a piece. I watched her chew it for a few seconds then take it back out of her mouth, wrapping it around her index finger. Then she leant over and began to kiss me. I kissed her back and it lingered there for a few seconds. Then it got heavier. Then she pulled away.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, nervous I had done something wrong. She stood up abruptly, ready to leave.

“You kiss like your father” she said coldly. Then she headed back inside.

I sat there a few seconds, stunned and reeling, before quickly standing up. I felt dazed and my mind was swimming. Before I could follow her inside Nazmi emerged onto the street, zipping up his fly and grinning broadly.

“You ready a-sunshine?” he said, noticeably happier than earlier, lighter in foot, heading to the drivers’ side and cheerily pulling out his keys. In the harsh light of the shop window Natalie had returned to work. Everything seemed to be going on as normal, but nothing felt the same.

We got in the van and headed for home.

 

Fried Chicken

The entire wall had to be bulldozed because of me. You see, I’m overweight. It’s glandular. I couldn’t fit on the toilet between the sink and the wall in the bathroom. Instead of moving the sink, the contractor told Grammy that it’d be cheaper to knock down the wall. Grammy’s a miser. She didn’t want to pay for it. To save money, she hired a company that took an entire week to complete the job. The workers were filing in and out of my bedroom to get to my bathroom, invading my private sanctum without pause. I didn’t have a second to myself. It was the worst week of my life.

Only after a serious accident did my grandmother take the necessary steps to get the job done. I warned her that this would happen. I kept complaining about it. She’d avoid the topic every time. Grammy and me, we fight a lot.

I have bowel problems. I have to take a shit constantly throughout the day. Back and forth, eight to ten times a day, I waddle over to the toilet from my bed. It’s the only exercise I get. I have a heart condition that prevents me from engaging in any kind of physical exertion.

So I was sitting on the toilet and I had to squeeze my way between the sink and the wall and it was getting harder and harder to take a dump that way. I had to shift my weight over to one side whenever I wiped my ass, leaning heavily against one of my butt cheeks to reach under there. This caused the toilet seat to snap loose in the back and slide across the top of the bowl. My scrotum hangs down really low. It’s a long, distended, purple sack that droops down to my knees.

I have huge balls. They were hanging down into the toilet water when this happened. (I’ve grown to like this feeling. It cools me off. And when my bollocks start to warm up I know I just did my poo.) So my nuts got snagged between the seat and the bowl, right? My scrotum was torn. I’m lucky my yarbles didn’t get chopped off altogether. I had to have an operation and get my nut bag sewn back up.

Since I couldn’t fit through the front door, Grammy paid a construction crew to remove the roof of our house. I was transported to a special hospital via a chopper and an airlift. My ball sack had to be packed with ice and gauze. I got into an argument with Grammy when I got home.

“You dumb, dried up, old cunt!” I yelled. “If you had listened to me first and fixed the motherfuckin’ shithouse, I wouldn’t have had to go through all this bullshit! What do you got rocks in your fuckin’ head or something? I’m fuckin’ traumatized by that incident! And now look at what you made me do! You made me spill my god-damn piss all over the fuckin’ floor!”

I have a weak bladder, you see. Grammy brings me half a dozen two-liter bottles of pop every day. I piss in the empty bottles over the side of my bed after finishing them. This saves me more trips to the latrine. Grammy made me so upset that I accidentally knocked one over. I looked down at her while she wiped up the spill on her hands and knees.

“Did you get me my god-damn magazine, at least?” I asked her.

She did. She left it in the other room. I had her go get it for me. It was a copy of ‘Teen Vogue’. Not the greatest read, but it featured a sexy twink on the cover. I heard Grammy squeezing the urine out of the rag into the sink in my newly renovated bathroom as I fiddled with my penis in bed, imagining the blotchy skin of my hairy belly rubbing against a squirming blob of naked boys, their lips and limbs lightly brushing up against my hard nipples.

“Feel my girth, you sniveling bastards!” I hissed under my breath. “I bet you kids think you’re hot shit in high school. You get all the beach bunnies, don’t you? Hitting on all the girls with tan skin and athletic builds. Ungrateful, little pieces of shit. I’ll give you something to remember…”

I pictured the tight cheeks of one of the boy models splayed open as my uncircumcised joust turned his sigmoid colon into an excavation site.

Grammy’s doddering nearby was distracting me from the chore at hand. “Finish up and get the fuck out, Grammy!” I bellowed over my shoulder. “And don’t forget the chicken and the sewing bag and my insulin! Your baggy ass is harshing my mellow!”

My favorite morning talk show was on. The crowd on TV was jeering in the background. A pair of wenches with bad perms were pulling each other’s hair. Their public quarrel had escalated into a full-on cat fight. The audience was going wild.

Grammy stopped at my bedroom door before turning around. Sheepishly, she ventured to ask if I’d reconsider the bedpan. The invisible referee of silence held us apart momentarily. The bell rang in my corner and then I let her have it.

“You know I have diarrhea!” I retorted. “I already have to sleep with sugar and crumbs in the bed every night! Poo gets all over the sheets when I use the bedpan! What do I look like a fucking animal to you?”

For brunch and dessert I go through two boxes of butter sticks daily. My snacktime ritual entails putting a bowl of Splenda and a bowl of mayonnaise beside me on the bed. One stick at a time, I dip the butter into the mayonnaise first and then the Splenda. It might sound gross, but it’s a truly delicious snack if you ever get a chance to try it. It also makes a mess. My sheets are covered with mayonnaise, granules of Splenda, bread crumbs, and chicken grease stains.

I love chicken. I eat five jumbo size boxes of fried chicken a day. Every time I dine, I spread out all the individual pieces of chicken on my naked belly while I’m lying down in bed. I dress them up in doll clothes that my grandma tailors for me specifically for this game. The wings, the breasts, the legs – all the chicky wickies get their own shirts and pants and bonnets. I have all types of accessories like swords for them to fight with and spatulas so they can flip burgers. I give them cute names like Rupert and Mildred. There are hundreds of different games I play with them throughout the day but Little Red Riding Hood is pretty popular.

I rub the oily chicken around my scrotum and the underside of my pecker until I get hard. My erect member soon becomes a tree for the wolf to hide behind in wait for Little Red Riding Hood as she saunters over the yellow hill of my tummy. The drumstick in red garb is then pounced upon by the breast or thigh playing the wolf. I make squealing and growling noises as the Big Bad Wolf forces himself on the little girl, rubbing the two pieces of chicken together as if they’re fucking. Then I stuff them in my mouth, bones and all, chewing on them ravenously as I bring myself to climax.

“No, I don’t think you’re an animal,” my grandmother replied. “It’s just that… It’s getting harder for you to get around with your weight and…”

“I didn’t want to hear this since I just got out of the hospital, but you may as well say it, Grammy. Go on! Get it off that flabby chest of yours! I’m nothing but a fat, worthless faggot! Is that what you’re trying to tell me? I can’t help it if I’m fat! You know what the gastroenterologist said, what my therapist says! I eat as a way to nurture my inner child – the little, baby Oompa Loompa inside of me who never found love! It’s not my fault that I’m sick! What are you going to do? Throw me out into the street? Force me to suck cock for a living? You hate me! You hate my guts! I know it!” I bawled. Tears poured down my chubby cheeks. Snot dripped out of my nose and into the hairs of my mustache, as coarse as the legs of a fly.

“I’m too tired to get into this right now,” Grammy sighed. She left. She wasn’t even sympathetic to my situation. Grammy only thinks of herself.

I stopped crying in due time. I looked around the quiet bedroom. It reeked of sweat and urine. Dust and cobwebs were starting to take shape in the corners. Grammy was slacking on her cleaning. A half-empty bag of pork rinds was sitting on the coffee table. I wanted to finish them but didn’t feel like getting out of bed. I found a graham cracker near my pillow and nibbled on it while removing the chicken from the warm buckets. Grammy didn’t skimp on the sides that day.

“Look!” I said with a smile to a leg and a thigh dressed like Snow White and Peter Pan. From their cardboard container I poured some chicken nuggets out onto my stomach to share the stage with their famous parents. “Congratulations! You’re a happy couple! Look at all the babies you had!” I proudly proclaimed.

Kabukicho Date

The pencil’s point follows the eyelid, colouring it dark red.

Finishing touches, the devil’s in the details.

She can do it automatically, without even thinking. The hand’s still, while her body’s being molded, mutated into what the customer wants.

She can think of anything else. It’s natural, like breathing.

Saho Tamura, 35 years old, can hide her true self and become 23-year-old Rin, or Rin-chan as everyone calls her, in just 20 minutes while she thinks of anything else except what she’s putting on her face.

She knows how to entertain, she knows how to chat, she knows how to make a man spend all his paycheck without even letting him lay a finger on her.

But not tonight.

It’s been 6 months since she realized that it’s time to pull off the mask.

It’s time to quit.

It’s becoming harder and harder to work at the IVY, one of many, maybe too many of Kabukicho’s host clubs. Younger flesh comes in, fewer costumers require her specifically. Her habitués are starting to get married or worse, asking for more, and that’s a line she was never able to cross.

Until tonight.

His name is Yuji Kobayashi, another grey and dull salary man who suddenly took an interest in her. He usually came once in a month, then started once per week, then twice.

A woman who flirts with men for a living knows when a guy falls in love.

When presents are getting more and more expensive.

When he keeps sending you emojis for no reason on a regular basis.

Maybe it’s time to settle.

According to him, he works for a big firm, he’s fun at times, and he’s not a drunken swine like their regular costumers.

Not like many, too many men she had to deal with.

You’re getting old, Rin-chan, she mumbles to herself, staring at her beautiful visage in the mirror.

Green contacts, dark red lipstick and eyeliner, and a nice, Murasaki violet dress over a black bustier with some pushup features. Earrings with a crystal pendant, gold wristwatch, high heels, and long, painted nails.

Everything about her is fake.

Rin-chan is ready to come on stage.

Saho leaves her be, just for a short while, just a little longer.

She grabs her coat and exits her apartment.

It’s starting to snow now, foggy weather giving the neon a nice glowing aura.

“Is it ok if we meet in front of Mister Donut. At 9 PM?” he asks.

“Fine, Yuji-kun, I’ll be there,” she agrees.

Catching a cab from Sendagaya, she begins to regret not having chosen another meeting place. It’s just a block away from IVY.

And a costumer seeing her with someone else might create some issues.

The cab driver leaves her in front of the Ichibangai, the red arch, landmark of that place of chaos and nightlife that is the Kabukicho.

The familiar noise is comforting as she walks down the alley.

Some lowlife guys stare at her, but not for very long. They know she’s not an outsider, she is part of the local fauna.

As she approaches the Mister Donut, she calls an old friend:

“Yelllo?” Masao answers, almost immediately.

“Ma-kun? Are you busy?” she asks him.

Masao was just a street thug when she started working at the IVY. Now he’s got his own family, one of those calling the shots in Kabukicho these days.

And she knows he’s got a soft spot for her.

“Naw Saho-chan, what’s up?”

From his side she can hear a truck passing by, blaring a VANILLA jingle. Then the music of the Don Quixote store. He must be nearby, just a block or so away.

“I’m meeting with someone, tonight, and… you know… I’m not feeling really safe.”

Saho didn’t really know how to put it without sounding paranoid. But Masao knew some things about her. When they were both young, drunk, and depressed, she had told maybe too many things to him.

Things that could drove a sane man away from a beautiful lady.

“Where are you now, sweetie?” asks Masao.

“In front of Mister Donut. He may be here in, 15 minutes, I don’t know. I took a cab, he may come via train. You’ll see me but… can you just…”

“Yeah, understood. I’ll just keep my distance, and if he tries some shit, I’ll bash the brains out of his skull, awright?”

“No… just, intervene, he’s my costumer at the club, but…”

She hesitates. It has always been hard to tell Masao’s real feelings toward her from time to time.

“Yeah, no problem. Check your right, see me?”

Saho turns and sees a man at distance, near an all-male host club, in a white suit and black shirt. His shirt is half unbuttoned, showing much of his tattooed chest. He’s got no umbrella. People try not to bump into him.

He waves at her.

Saho smiles and waves back, feeling a relieved sensation.

“Ok, it will just be a matter of half an hour,” she tells him. “If I don’t make any sign of trouble after a while ,you can go on your way.”

“Yeah, understood, sweetie. Just cut me some slack if the guy has some cash on him. Or else you may invite ME to a night out. We have to marry some day,” he chuckles.

Is he serious? Saho never understood his sense of humor.

“Promise, Ma-kun.”

Suddenly she spots Yuji coming up the street. It’s clear that he’s nervous. He’s put on his best dress shirt and holds a package in one hand.

Another gift.

Bet it’s another set of jewels, a Collier, maybe.

“Gotta go, Ma-kun. Thank you!”

Yuji sees her, approaches and smiles. He smiles like he’s seeing something he’s been looking forward to for a long time.

“Rin-chan, good evening,” he greets her, trying not to stutter.

Saho smiles back. This time, the smile is somewhat forced. She has become Rin once more.

She pretends to be surprised.

“Yuji-kun! I’m so glad I’ve seen you. You look absolutely charming tonight.”

Maybe a little forced acting, but it’s her character.

Yuji lowers his head bashfully. “Oh thank you,” he giggles in response, “I… just threw on what I found in the closet.”

Lies. Saho can see from a mile that his clothes are brand new.

Smiling, she offers him her hand. “Let’s have a walk, shall we?”

He nods. “Okay.”

His hand is damp with sweat. It’s like holding a rotting peach.

They both share her umbrella. She’s taller than him. She’d never realized that. They’d always been sat together before.

Choosing such high heels might have been a mistake.

Saho turns, sees Masao following them from a distance. Their eyes meet, and she nods at him reassuringly.

He stops, flashes her one of his weird smiles, then turns and walk away.

Looking back at her date, this timid guy with a brand-new suit and the little bag he’s holding, Saho feels as if she’s come to a crossroads.

Yes, Saho, settle down, become a housewife, a mother. Stop working at the Kabukicho. Leave for the suburbs.

“How was your day? Yuji-kun?” she asks, her voice becoming higher pitched. Man always loved that.

“Oh… my little brother had an accident during a soccer match. Broken tibia,” he explains. “I visited him at the hospital in Chiba. He was depressed, never seen him so down”

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. I hope he will get better soon.”

“Do you have a little sister, Rin-chan?” asks Yuji.

Rin doesn’t have sisters, doesn’t have a family. Rin’s the perfect little creature of your dreams, she thinks to herself.

Saho on the other hand, did have a little sister… once.

“No, Yuji-kun, I am an only child.”

In her head, the stench of urine and the taste of motor oil on that man’s hand overtakes her. His words, “This one’s too old for me, take the other one,” echo through her mind.

She attempts to shove it down. Deep down.

“So, Rin-chan, do you wanna go get a drink somewhere?” he offers. “I know a great place around here.”

Under the neon light, his face turns from blue to red, red to blue, blue to red.

His hand is so sweaty.

Inside her head, Saho suddenly wakes up. She’s not Rin anymore.

“How about we go to a hotel?” she says, her voice falling half an octave. “We can drink there, too.”

It’s as if all of her make up has suddenly been wiped off in one stroke.

“Ehh?” Yuji seems shocked. “You mean a… a…”

He cannot say it. The word is “love hotel”, where you pay by the hour, no questions asked.

“Isn’t that what you want after all, Yuji-kun?”

Yuji remains flabbergasted as Saho just stares at him. His mouth hanging open, lips twitching but no sound comes out.

“I want it too, Yuji-kun,” she adds, more softly. “Let it be a special night.”

Yuji blushes and agrees.

They approach the first love hotel they come across, hand in hand, in plain silence.

While Rin seems enthusiastic and also a little nervous (a scene for Yuji’s sake), Saho is screaming internally. She just needs to run away.

She wishes for Masao to come back, maybe in a rush of jealousy.

Maybe telling her, “I love you sweetie, fuck this asshole, come with me.”

She pushes these thoughts deep down again.

Come with me. That’s all she remembers about that afternoon long ago. After that, pitch black.

Reiko died, the next day at the hospital. Internal bleeding caused by perforation.

Saho somehow had managed to survive.

In their hotel room, Rin kisses Yuji softly, crawling on top of him in bed. His hands are shaking as they move all over her body.

“Rin-chan… I want you,” he moans.

He’s nervous. She can hear his heart pounding without even putting her head against his chest.

“Is it your first time, Yuji-kun?” she asks.

He freezes, trying not to panic. Then, he just nods his head bashfully, trying not to look her in the eye.

Rin just smiles in response.

“Let it be special, then. Yuji-kun, let me do something special for you.”

Rin unzips her dress, letting it slide down, revealing her bustier and stockings. Yuji can only gasp at the sight of her smooth, bare flesh.

She stands above him, slowly lifting her leg and dangling a foot before Yuji’s face.

“Suck it, Yuji-kun.”

The man opens his mouth and begins sucking her toes as ordered. She closes her eyes for a moment, trying to feel pleasure, slowly sliding down her stockings.

“Stop,” she suddenly tells him.

Like a good slave, Yuji stops.

She uses her stockings to tie Yuji’s arm to the bedposts.

“Is this sadomasochism?” Yuji gasps. “I don’t want to feel pain…”

Rin shakes her head to reassure him. “No pain.”

Inside her head, Saho hears a younger version of herself screaming “It hurts!” Beside her, Reiko, screaming like a lamb being slaughtered.

Meanwhile, Rin-chan stares down at Yuji, letting her panties slide down to her ankles.

“They are already wet for you, Yuji-kun,” she whispers.

Saho trembles in excitement. She takes her panties and drapes them across Yuji’s face, covering his eyes.

“Your smell is… wonderful…” he mumbles from behind the silky fabric.

Saho looks around the room they’d rented, which had a few ‘extra’ options. There are two pairs of handcuffs, an assortment of vibrators, and various other torture devices. She can do whatever she wants to him.

She pulls down Yuji’s pants, exposing his hairy, erect cock, already oozing precum. Should she touch him in just the right way, he would climax right there on the spot.

Still wearing her panties for a mask, Yuji is on the brink of hyperventilating.

She cuffs his ankles to the bedposts, rending him completely immobile, helpless.

“Rin-chan… Please… I want you,” he keeps on repeating.

A younger Saho hears those same words in a different manner:

I want your little mouth, you little bitch. You’ll love it, suck it now!

Years ago, she’d gagged as he penetrated her throat, nearly puking as his partner forced himself into her other end as well.

Saho grazes Yuji’s glands with her fingernails. He gasps, startled by the sensual contact.

“This is my hand, Yuji-kun,” she whispers in his ear.

Saho/Rin bends over him then, her mouth closing around his cock. Tongue slowly circling his throbbing flesh, she withdraws and starts licking the tip, slurping up Yuji’s precum while he moans in pleasure.

“And this is my mouth, Yuji Kun…”

She senses he’s about to come, moaning and writhing against his bonds.

“And guess what this is?”

All at once, Yuji’s cock is inside her.

She begins rocking back and forth, eliciting more moans from Yuji along with some unintelligible words.

“I’m… I’m cu… cum”

Abruptly, Saho stops.

“Not yet!” she hisses, leaning down to bite his neck before starting to ride him again.

“I said no pain, Rin-chan,” he stammers, gasping for air beneath her panties.

“I decide what to do,” she growls in response.

She bites him again, harder this time. Yuji screams in pain, struggling to set himself free.

“Please, STOP!!!”

Saho’s teeth sink into his flesh once more. This time, blood pours out.

Yuji begins screaming in agony.

Just for this little blood? Reiko had almost bled dry before they were through with her.

“STOP, YOU BITCH!!!”

By this point, Saho is not only wet, she’s positively drenched.

She bites him once again, ripping out his throat in the process. With blood smeared across her perfectly made-up face, she wolfs down the wad of ragged, gristly flesh and goes for more.

While Yuji slowly dies beneath her, Saho feels her own orgasm coming.

With one last bite, she begins screaming in pleasure, her juices mixing with Yuji’s blood upon the sheets.

Saho shudders, breathless and spent.

Her vaginal muscles contract around still-erect Yuji’s cock.

In a moment of lucidity, Saho glances behind her, catching her reflection in the room’s mirrored wall.

For the very first time, she sees herself as she is.

And she is beautiful.

She screams instinctively as she resumes her carnal act, humping Yuji’s lifeless body while consuming still more of his flesh.

On the nightstand sits a beautiful package, containing a very expensive Collier.

Paid To Party

Tammy bobbed her head in time with the rhythm of the pounding beat coming from the club down the street. Partly because she liked the song and partly because she had nothing else to do. It was a slow night. The words from the LMFAO song floated towards her. In it, the singer denied practicing Tammy’s chosen profession.

The irony was not lost on her. She was desperate, not stupid. Though some who’d never been in her situation may beg to differ about the latter proclamation. The black Corolla sedan drove by for a third time. Tammy wondered what some of these men (and women too sometimes) got from window shopping. This business didn’t really facilitate a ‘try then buy’ option and there sure as hell was no refund policy. Finally the car came to a stop at her feet.

Woo-hoo! The red-head wins again!

The other women paused to look in her direction. There was always an uneasy relationship among the members of the oldest profession. They wanted to get as much ‘work’ as possible but it was understood that everyone needed to go home with some money. On top of that, they also knew that if something happened to one of them, it would affect the workload for all of them. People liked to conduct their illegal activities safely. The women looked on half envious of the attention and half curious about her welfare.

Tammy sauntered over to the car, working her curves for all they were worth. One good thing about being new to the streets is that she hadn’t started to lose too much weight yet.

“What can I do for you sugar?” asked the cashier turned prostitute trying to avoid sounding like every hooker in every movie ever made.

“How old are you?”

Oh goody. One of the freaks.

“How old do you want me to be?”

Oh God. I AM one of the freaks.

“15.”

Pervert.

“Well actually 15 turning 16.”

Uh-huh. Because THAT made it so much better.

“Okay. I can do that for you honey. It’s $50 for a handjob or blowjob. $200 for full sex.”

“What about all night?”

What the hell?

Some alarm bells went off in Tammy’s head but then she remembered that old saying about beggars.

“Uhm…$5,000.”

The man didn’t even flinch.

“Get in.”

They drove for about 20 minutes before he pulled over to the side of the road. Tammy’s alarm bells were at full volume now but he only took a package from the backseat of the car and handed it to her.

“You need to put these on.”

Please don’t be a Catholic school girl uniform…

It wasn’t. It was a pink blouse with frilly sleeves and a scooped neckline. There was a pink tulle skirt with pink leggings to match. Pink ballet slippers were at the bottom of the box. It may actually have been better to wear the uniform. She put them on anyway. They were an imperfect fit but she tried to make the ensemble work. She found it odd the man looked away from her while she changed. When she was done, he drove off again. Tammy was not surprised when he pulled up to a large two story house. She had found the bigger the house the lonelier the occupants. The multitude of cars in the driveway, however, did surprise her.

“Uhm…I don’t do gang bangs.”

The man grimaced in disgust.

“That’s not what this is.”

He left the car while a confused and cautious Tammy followed tentatively behind. The door swung open to reveal an almost palpable darkness. As Tammy’s eyes struggled to make sense of the silhouettes of the room, they were blinded by the sudden brilliance of light.

“Surprise!”

Her patron pushed her firmly into the room even as her vision was struggling to adjust. When it did, Tammy’s confusion deepened. Strips of glitter splattered decorations drizzled from the living room walls, flittering and reflecting the harsh white light. A large pink and purple banner dominated one wall with its declaration of HAPPY 16th BIRTHDAY!

There were several people scattered around the room. Most of the men and women were well dressed in tailored suits and extravagant gowns worthy of the fairytales Tammy had read when just a girl. At the end of the room, past the crowd, Tammy saw 4, no, 5 other girls who wore clothes similar to her own.

Tammy stopped a few feet from an enormous dining table that was burdened with a large spread of food. A monstrosity of a cake emerged from the centre, a visual cacophony of frosting and sprinkles. Before she could turn around and ask what the hell was going on, her solicitor started to clap his hands to get everyone’s attention.

“Ladies and gentlemen! If I could have your attention please? Thank you so much for coming to our special girl’s birthday party. I’ll be your host for the evening. Now that she’s here, we can begin.”

The man pulled out a chair at the head of the table for Tammy. As she took a seat, the other ‘girls’ took their seats at the table as well. Now that she could get a better look at them, she was sure they were in the same profession and predicament as she. The ‘host’ began handing out name cards so they could “get to know each other better’.

Awesome.

If she had known she’d have to play nice with others, she would have asked for more money. He had said it wasn’t a gang bang but clearly it was going to be some weird orgy deal. She grimaced internally. The only thing worse than trying to convince one person that she was having fun was trying to pull off a group delusion.

“Alright everyone! Our party guests will have their meal here while the rest of us mingle.”

The announcement didn’t seem to be up for debate so the girls picked food from the spread before them. Their eyes flicked about the table hesitantly, gauging who would be brave enough to dig in. Tammy poked at a large turkey leg with her fork.

Are they planning to drug us?

She picked a piece of the succulent meat from the bone and bit into it. Saliva sprang from her mouth as she chewed and the meat slid easily into her belly.

She nodded at the other girls and they slowly bit into the food they had chosen. Tammy washed the meal down with apple juice rather than wine before finishing her meal with a generous slice from the odious cake.

As the last bite of cake disappeared from the last girl’s plate, the host moved in to get them to a smaller table in the living room. Colourfully wrapped boxes sat before each chair. Being closer together allowed Tammy to get a size up the girls with her. She noted their name tags and tried to assess any qualities of note.

Maxine had the road weary look of someone who had been on the streets for a long time. She hadn’t always been a prostitute and she wouldn’t be one forever. She was clearly one of those people who did whatever she needed to from one day to the next. Maybe tomorrow the petite brunette would be a drug dealer.

Amy was even fresher than Tammy and looked to be the youngest of them all. If she had been asked the same question as Tammy, chances are she had answered honestly. With a change in clothes, the unblemished skin, blonde hair and stormy grey eyes would be at home shopping at the Gap.

How the hell did she end up here?

Darby was a drug addict first and a prostitute second, maybe even third depending on whether or not alcohol abuse was on her list of vices as well. Tammy didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that Darby was in need of more than just food. She was fidgety and absent mindedly scratching at her skin like someone suffering from Morgellon’s Disease. In spite of that, she still kept her lanky frame in her chair.

Janet looked bored. Tammy could tell that it wasn’t an act either. They may have been close in age but clearly Janet’s experiences had been different from hers. This…thing, whatever it may turn out to be didn’t faze her. Not yet. Somehow those hazel eyes had seen stranger things. She was just minutes away from rolling her eyes and twirling the fringes of her afro.

Finally, there was Dora. Now why did Tammy doubt that was her real name? So she was not only likely the oldest in the bunch she was most likely the most cautious. She didn’t even want them to know her actual name and clearly wanted them to know that it wasn’t her real name. It hadn’t been challenged so Tammy guessed that it didn’t matter. Her vigilant blue eyes continued to scan the crowd. Whatever was coming next, she was determined not to be taken by surprise.

“Gifts and more gifts for guests!” the host declared, “Our guest of honour has the largest gift as per tradition and she will open hers first.”

Tammy cautiously unwrapped the long box, thoroughly determined not to be shocked by whatever depraved sexual favours the perverts had put in front of them. Her hand trembled above the soft paper lining the box. If this were a sexual favour, she didn’t want any part of the type of sex they had in mind. She pulled the 10” hunting combat knife carefully from the box. It glinted menacingly and she hefted its weight while wondering if she had the strength to wield it. She didn’t know why she would need it but Tammy vowed that it would only leave her hands if her breath had left her body as well.

Everyone else at the table stared at her. The knife had even gotten Janet’s attention. A hush fell over the room as the other girls picked at their presents. Maxine tossed her switchblade expertly from one hand to the other and settled back into her chair. She was clearly at home with the weapon. Amy held a large bottle of pepper spray gingerly with two fingers as if she had been given a grenade and was deathly afraid of blowing everyone up. Darby held a small dagger, pushing the end against the tip of her finger. Tammy couldn’t tell if the disappointment on her face was because of the sharpness of the blade (or perhaps the lack thereof) or the fact that there were still no drugs.

Janet frowned at her box before dumping out a handful of throwing blades.

Finally Dora took the lid off her present. Her mouth hung open. She appeared indecisive about taking out her weapon. Tammy could almost feel the expectation of the crowd pressing against them. Dora reluctantly pulled the weapon out. She had gotten a gun.

Why the hell did she get a gun?

“Goody! Now that everyone’s opened their gifts, it’s time for the really fun part of the evening to begin. We have a series of challenges lined up for our lovely guests and fabulous prizes for the winners!”

Why did this guy suddenly sound like the announcer from The Price is Right?

“All of you unsuspecting prostitutes, come on down!”

“At the beginning of the night all of you would have negotiated a little fee. Well if you emerge as the winners of the game, we will multiply that figure ten-fold. If you lose, well you get what you deserve. If anyone tries to leave…there will be consequences.”

He paused to point at the armed men standing by the door.

Where had they come from?

“Ladies, our first game is an old party favourite. Truth or Dare. You may refuse to complete a task but there will be a price. Is that clear?”

Everyone nodded. The man stopped pacing the length of the table and stood beside Tammy’s chair.

“Maxine. You first. Truth or Dare?”

“Truth.”

“Very well. How many men have you slept with?”

She didn’t miss a beat. “47”.

He scanned her face for almost a minute then apparently decided it was the truth.

“Amy. Truth or Dare?”

“Truth.”

“Where are you from originally?”

“California.”

“Hmmm. I almost wish I had added a Part 2 to the question. Nevertheless, we’ll move on. Darby. Truth or Dare?”

“Truth.”

“Of course. What drugs do you take?”

Darby looked around nervously and cleared her throat.

“Uhm…heroin. Cocaine sometimes.”

“Ok. Janet, please surprise me. Truth or Dare?”

“Dare”.

“Oh thank God! Janet, my saviour! I dare you to use one of your blades on a target of your choice.”

Janet picked up one of the blades and held it in her palm trying to gauge the weight of it. Giving up any pretense of familiarity, she threw the blade into the wall behind her. It seemed to stick for a little while and then fell to the ground. The host retrieved it and tossed it back into Janet’s small pile while patting her on the shoulder.

“And now you know. Dora! Truth or Dare?”

“Truth”.

“What’s your real name? We’re all curious.”

As if lending merit to his words, the small crowd of spectators leaned closer.

“I change my mind. I choose Dare instead.”

Really? Over a name. Was she undercover royalty or something?

“Ah well this is even more interesting. Are you willing to pay the price for the change Dora?”

“Yes?” She cleared her throat. “Yes, I am.”

“Splendid. Duke?”

A tall young man left the crowd and went into a separate room. Unlike the rest of the crowd, he was dressed casually in a red shirt and black pants. He reappeared with a glass canister the size of a large chocolate tea tin which he placed in front of Dora. He pried the lid off with gloved hands.

“Now Dora. Before you is a tin of mildly concentrated acid. Since you have declined the first challenge, your dare is this. I dare you to hold your right hand in the solution for 30 seconds.”

Dora sniffed at the canister and stared at the host with widened eyes.

“I…uhm….think it would be better for me to answer the question.”

“Another switch Dora? If you wish. Take this pen and paper. You can write it down for us. Duke?”

Once again the young man stepped forward as Dora reached for the pen and paper. She quickly scribbled her name and handed the paper back to the host. She had barely relinquished her grip on the paper when Duke splashed some of the contents of the canister on the right side of her face. The host was unfazed.

“Hmmm. Meagan. That’s a much nicer name than Dora.”

Initially even Dora was too shocked to react. Tammy looked around frantically at the persons surrounding them. Their faces were aglow with glee. She could tell they had been expecting something like this. Dora clawed at the patches of her face that sizzled and burned. Her high pitched screams echoed as skin melted to expose bone. No-one moved until the host summoned Duke again with a flick of his wrist. He applied a creamy solution to Dora’s wilting face and her scream simmered to a whimper. She reminded Tammy of a wax figure slowly melting in the summer sun.

“Okay. Now for the birthday girl. Tammy. Truth or Dare?”

“Truth.”

“You sure? I wouldn’t want you changing your mind like Dora over here.” He flashed a smile at the crowd. “Or would we?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

Tammy swallowed. She could lie but Dora’s perforated face was a very persuasive argument against that course of action.

“I stole some money from my workplace when I was a cashier. I framed another girl for it and she was fired. Eventually they found out that I had lied and I was fired too but they never re-hired the girl I had set up.”

“Hmmm.”

Tammy held her breath as the man gazed at her. Finally he clapped his hands and moved away from her.

“Well that was certainly a scintillating start to our night’s activities. Let’s move on to the next game shall we? This is another one you may have heard of. It’s called Seven Minutes in Heaven. Ours has a little twist of course.”

Of course.

“For this little adventure, two of you will go into the adjoining room for 7 minutes. All you have to do is survive. The winner will be whoever can walk out of the room unassisted. Judges?’

Duke stepped forward accompanied by a young girl in a light blue shirt and matching pants.

“First round: Maxine and Darby.”

Both girls got up and headed towards the room. Maxine paused at the door for Darby to precede her. Foolishly Darby complied. Maxine quickly jabbed her switchblade twice into Darby’s side before she had even crossed the threshold. Darby yelped and grabbed at her side. Her legs gave way as blood spurted out darkening the bright pink skirt she wore. Duke and his companion carried her into an adjoining bedroom.

“Bravo Maxine! Well done!”

The crowd applauded with the host. Maxine rewarded them with a crooked smile and a small bow before returning to her seat.

“Round two! Dora and Janet.”

Janet looked pitifully at Dora while Dora’s one good eye flitted across the room. Janet started to protest.

“Look. I don’t know about this. I mean…”

The sentence died on her lips when a bullet from Dora’s gun burrowed through her brain.

Tammy waited expectantly for the host to call the proceedings to a halt. Instead the entire room broke into thunderous applause. Tammy could have sworn there were tears in the eyes of some of the women.

What was wrong with these people?

“Oh my God! Excellent work Dora!”

He raised his hand in an obscene high five which Dora feebly returned. Duke and the young woman dragged Janet’s body away smearing the floor with her blood and brain matter. Tammy stared numbly at the splatter left on the nearby wall.

“Well this is going even better and faster than I had planned. Let’s go Tammy and Amy. It’s your turn to dazzle us!”

Amy grasped her pepper spray for dear life while Tammy gripped the hilt of the hunting knife until her knuckles ached. She didn’t want to hurt Amy but she had no plans to die tonight. Not in this hell hole. She headed to the room well before Amy so there was no chance of Maxine’s type of cheap shot.

By the time Amy found her way into the room, Tammy was already standing to the back of it, knife in hand. Amy walked slowly towards her and then gave Tammy an almost imperceptible smirk. In a flash, Amy had cart wheeled her way to Tammy. She wasn’t even out of breath when she started swinging. Tammy could barely keep up with trying to block the punches without losing her knife.

She struggled to remain vigilant since she knew Amy still had her can of pepper spray but her hand slipped under the unrelenting onslaught of Amy’s little fists. Her eyes started to sting before she heard the tell-tale spray. Tammy wasn’t playing anymore. She started to slash the knife wherever she thought Amy might be. She was always one step behind.

She forced herself to calm down and focus. Before long she could pick up a pattern in Amy’s movements. The next time Amy hit her, Tammy shoved the knife in the next place she knew Amy would be. She expected Amy to yelp from being nicked but was rewarded with the unmistakable squelch of the knife piercing flesh.

Shit! I can’t see!

Tammy couldn’t tell what she had done.

“Amy? Amy!” she yelled.

Tammy let go of the knife and heard a dull thud. She dropped to the ground and felt around for the body. Her fingers brushed against the tips of Amy’s boot. She ran her hands slowly up Amy’s body starting at her legs. The knife was buried in Amy’s stomach. Warm liquid slithered under Tammy’s hand wherever she touched.

The timer went off and she could hear feet coming towards her. She had no choice. She yanked out her knife knowing the serrated edges made more of a mess coming out than they did going in.

Sorry, Amy.

Duke’s companion escorted her to a bathroom to rinse her eyes. Her vision was still a little blurry but she could see Amy’s blood on her hands well enough. She still saw it when she took her seat back at the table even though her hands had been scrubbed raw. The host gave her a sombre look.

“Well that concludes this game. Congratulations to our winners. You’re one step closer to your prizes!”

Duke brought Darby back to her seat. She cradled her heavily bandaged side while shooting angry looks at Maxine. Maxine just shrugged and smirked.

“Alright ladies. Our next game is our own very twisted version of Spin the Bottle. Don’t worry, you won’t have to kiss anyone.”

There was a chorus of ‘boos’ from the crowd. Tammy tried not to glare in their direction.

“Instead, I will place a few cards on the table with tasks to be carried out. I will spin the bottle and the person selected will choose a task. Unlike Truth or Dare, completion of the task is mandatory.”

The host placed the cards on the table face down. Tammy counted eight possible choices. She tried not to guess what they said.

“Whoops! It seems we’re missing a bottle for our little game. A little help please?”

One of the guests poured the last of his champagne into a glass and handed the empty bottle to the host.

“Thank you sir.”

He spun the bottle and it stopped at Tammy. Crap. She slowly reached for a card.

REMOVE A BODY PART OF YOUR CHOOSING.

Tammy had to read the card four times to make sure the pepper spray wasn’t still interfering with her vision. The host read the card over her shoulder.

“Ha! Talk about the luck of the draw.”

That drew some snickers from the spectators. Tammy made her decision quickly. She had come this far, she would survive this game. Everyone watched as she removed her left shoe. Without hesitation, she hacked off her small toe with her hunting knife.

She bit her lip against the pain flaring in her foot and her stomach clenched at the sight of blood squirting unto the floor. Still, Tammy wouldn’t give them the pleasure of enjoying her pain. She inhaled deeply, dammed her tears behind firmly closed lids before gathering napkins on the table to wad against the wound.

“Wow! What a girl, ladies and gentlemen!”

There was a smattering of applause.

Guess I didn’t make them too happy this time around.

The host spun the bottle again and it landed on a pale, shivering Darby. Tammy didn’t know if she was shivering from drug withdrawal or blood loss but could tell that each movement caused pain to radiate through Darby’s body. She had to grasp her card with both of her trembling hands. A sob escaped her lips. The host read the card above her head and smiled.

Darby gingerly grasped her dagger and took a deep breath. She moved swiftly though her face was contorted in agony. Her dagger was in and out of Maxine’s thigh like a machine pulling the core from a ripe apple. Maxine screamed obscenities and her hands moved frantically to staunch the bleeding but blood spilled through her fingers. Tammy leaned over to read the card.

COLLECT A CUP FULL OF BLOOD.

Darby held her drink cup under the squirting wound while Maxine barely held unto consciousness. As the cup filled with the crimson liquid, the crowd muttered about who the ultimate winner might be. It all made Tammy sick to her stomach especially as her toe stub continued to throb. Finally Darby put the cup on the table, her face a mask of defiance aimed at anyone who might judge her.

“What? It didn’t say it had to be my blood.”

Maxine muttered, “Bitch.”

“Indeed it didn’t Darby. Indeed it didn’t.”

The bottle spun again and found Dora. Her hand was already wrapped around her gun. She chose a card without hesitation. Her mutilated face no longer allowed for much movement so it was impossible for anyone to guess what she may have been thinking, Her hands touched her face gently and a collective gasp was heard around the table as she ripped off her right ear.

Though it had been only somewhat attached since the acid attack, it was still a sight to behold. The singed flesh tore away easily as if were a simple broken nail to be removed. The area barely bled. Dora held the bit of flesh in front of her good eye before tossing it on the table. Darby looked away and dry heaved to the side.

For once the host had no comments. He spun the bottle again. It landed on Tammy.

What the hell?

She was about to protest but decided against it. What would be the point? She said a silent prayer and picked a card. She held her instinctive reaction in check. She needed to be stealthy. She removed her other shoe and stood, trying to avoid putting pressure on her injured toe. She drove the tip of her knife into Dora’s right eye.

A hush fell over the crowd as Dora screamed and Darby sprang from her chair with the speed of a deer who knew it had been spotted by a hungry tigress. The host picked up the card and showed it to the crowd.

“You were right Jeffrey. It is more fun if the cards aren’t specific. Imagine the boredom of having to watch her remove her own eye!”

The man who had supplied the champagne bottle raised his glass in acknowledgement. Tammy threw up all over the table as she removed her knife from Dora’s eye. She wanted to say she was sorry but she wasn’t sure it would be true.

The bottle was in motion again. It landed on Maxine but she was now unconscious. The host slapped her lightly on the cheeks but there was no response. Her chest rose and descended slowly so they knew she was still alive.

“Ah it appears that Maxine is having a little trouble picking her card so dealer’s choice then eh?”

The host flipped over the card closest to him. A smile crossed his face.

“Well now I think we all know that if Maxine were able, she wouldn’t do this to herself. Unfortunately for her she has no say in the matter but the task still needs to be completed. Any volunteers?”

Nobody moved. Nobody even breathed.

“No? Alright. Maybe if we sweeten the pot a little bit. An incentive so to speak. Whoever completes the task will get a well needed bonus in our next and last game. Any volunteers now?”

There was a flurry of activity around the table but Tammy had the advantage. With two swift hacks of her hunting knife, one of Maxine’s hands had been separated from her body at the wrist. The rest of her hand slipped lazily from the table leaving a thin trail of blood. The wound dripped into the already murky puddle by her chair. The savage action only elicited a brief moan from the barely aware Maxine.

“Congratulations to the birthday girl! Doing what had to be done.”

The host cast a glance at Maxine. Seemingly satisfied that she was still alive, he continued.

“Alright. I think it would be best to move on to our last game while Maxine is still tethered to this mortal realm eh? This game is a personal favourite and all you ladies have to do is cast a vote. Tammy, as promised, you have an advantage. You get to vote for Maxine so any vote you cast will count as two.”

He paused for that to sink in, Tammy could feel the hard stares from the other girls but she didn’t care. She needed to survive.

“The game is called M/S/K. Basically you ladies will vote for who will endure the challenge that each letter represents. These will be explained on the ballots you are about to receive.”

Duke appeared and handed out the papers and pens. Tammy of course received two ballots.

“Vote well. You have 60 seconds to decide.”

There was the click of a timer. A key on the voting paper revealed the letters M/S/K stood for MAIM, SCREW and KILL respectively. The seconds ticked by and Tammy wondered if it really mattered who was voted to endure what.

Her stomach roiled at the thought. She quickly wrote her choices.

She would maim Dora.

How much worse could things possibly get for her anyway?

Kill Maxine.

She was gone whether they killed her or not.

And Darby would be screwed.

Hopefully only in the manner she was already used to.

The other ladies scribbled furiously just in time to meet the shrill bleet of the timer.

“Okay. Ballots please.”

The host took a moment to mentally tally the votes.

“Firstly, there’s a tie for the MAIM category so I will have to be the tie-breaker. Tammy, in spite of your efforts, you have been voted to be maimed.”

Tammy glared at Darby and Dora.

Bitches.

“Secondly, Darby has won the SCREW category.”

A murmur went through the crowd. Tammy hoped it wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

“And for our final category…”

He summoned one of the guards with a wave of his hand. Dora gasped and started to cringe but the bullet wasn’t meant for her. A perfectly round hole appeared in the middle of Maxine’s forehead. Tammy sighed. At least all the girls had been on the same page with that.

“Alright ladies. You’re next.”

A man from the crowd approached Tammy with a shiny scalpel.

“Choose.”

She almost didn’t hear him over the thundering of her heart.

“What?”

“You have to choose where I remove the flesh.”

Tammy pointed to the inside of the upper part of her arm. She had yet to meet a client who cared about anything below her chest or above her waist. Later in life, a scar in that area wouldn’t matter to anyone.

He rinsed the area with an antiseptic solution and started his incision. Tears ran from Tammy’s eyes and halting screams hiccupped from her throat. She closed her eyes but eventually morbid curiosity won out and she watched the man remove a precise 1-inch wide line of skin and flesh that ran from the top of her armpit to the beginning of her elbow. Already blood was running down her arm and pooling on the floor. He wrapped the area loosely with a crude bandage.

Having watched Tammy’s challenge, Darby was led into an adjoining room to complete hers. Four men went in shortly after. It didn’t take long for the screams to start but at some point Darby went quiet. Only the men’s grunts could be heard through the door.

Tammy didn’t know how long it took, but eventually the men left the room. She got a glimpse inside before the door swung closed. Darby’s naked body laid spread eagled on the bed, her arms restrained with handcuffs. Real handcuffs, not the flimsy things you can get at the kinky stores. The sheets were soaked in blood.

“Ladies and gentlemen! It’s been a long night but we have our winners! Ladies, thank you for participating and please enjoy your prizes! Duke?”

Tammy listened to the thunderous applause and didn’t want to think about everything that had happened. Everything that she had done. She stayed in that state of disassociation as Duke cleaned her wounds more thoroughly, gave her a bath, dressed her wounds and then finally dressed her. When he was done, he led her to an adjoining room where she saw the host again. He embraced her warmly as if she were a long-lost relative.

“Tammy! I had certainly hoped you would make it! Here is your reward as promised, as well as an extra something for being such a good sport.”

Tammy wondered if he had said the same thing to Dora. She looked at the stack of cash on the table beside him. Her days as a cashier told her that it was at least $150,000.

In the movies, at this point, the main character would feel a crisis of conscience over taking the money. In Tammy’s reality, however, she wondered how much money she would have ended up with if she had asked for more to begin with.

“There’s a car outside waiting for you. It will take you wherever you want to go. Enjoy your prize, Tammy, and all the best for the future.”

Tammy nodded her head, stuffed the cash in the bag provided, and stumbled out the door.

Outside, the sun was already starting to come up.

As promised, the driver took her home. On the way there, she began to make a list of all the things she would finally be able to afford.

Once inside the house, Tammy dropped the bag of cash and slumped against the door, heaving a deep sigh of relief.

Man, what a night…

“Hi Mommy.”

It was then she turned to see her daughter there beside her, still rubbing the sleep from her little eyes.

“Hi Baby!”

She knelt down and wrapped her in a tight embrace, the light of her life, her reason to live.

As she held her daughter close, she tried to forget all about the horrible people she had met the night before.

She wondered if giving them her home address had been so smart after all.

Massive Retard Dong

Mrs. Awaited the next thrust, laying on her back in the bed as the massive strange dick rammed deeper into her.

“Choo-choo!” he said as he thrust.

“Aw yeah! FUCK yeah!” Mrs. responded.

“I’mma choo-choo in’a tunnel!” he said.

“You’re goddamn right you are!” Mrs. said as she grunted in ecstasy.

Had she been paying attention to anything but the fourteen inches of idiotic dong slamming into her, she might have heard her husband’s car pull in the garage, the front door slam shut, the footsteps coming up the stairs, the out loud complaint of, “You didn’t sweep today either, huh, you lazy bitch?” and the turning of her bedroom doorknob.

(Note from author, at this point while writing the story I received a phone call from a crying person informing me that my grandfather just died. I immediately continued writing this)

The door opened, and in walked Mr. in his sweat stained suit and tie. He stood, looking at the googly eyed, drooling imbecile that was mounted on top of his wife. They both blinked as they looked at each other.

“I’mma choo-choo!” ‘tardy said.

Mr. stared at him in disbelief, then looked down to his wife.

“Um, yeah….he’s a choo-choo. Hi hon.” she said and gave him a meek, guilty half smile.

Mr. blinked once more, then in a flurry of motion he jumped onto the bed, swinging a wild flailing punch into train boy’s left eye, then a knee to his chest, knocking him off his wife, off the bed, and onto the floor. Mr. jumped on top of him, sinking his knees into choo-choo boy’s shoulders, pinning his arms down, as he unloaded a tornado of punches into his dopey face.

Now bloody, still smiling, Mr. grabbed train boy by the neck, pulling him up as he stood, shaking him so that his oversized retarded head rattled like a bobble head. “What do you got to say now, motherfucker?” Mr. growled as he squeezed tighter.

“Ugh…” train boy grunted in pain. “Choo…choo…” he struggled to say, as his blood dripped out of his mouth.

“Oh yeah? Well can trains fly, huh asswipe?” Mr. growled in fury, as he dragged the boy over to the bedroom window, flung it open and tossed the poor ‘tard out.

“choo…CHOO!” Mr. and Mrs. heard him scream as he flew downwards, followed by a wet and boney splat as his head collided with the concrete driveway, cracking open and scattering what scant brains he had.

Mr. turned and glared at his wife with accusing, furious eyes.

“So…how was work?” Mrs. asked, sheepishly smiling.

“You fucking…” Mr. growled, shaking his head in fury. “…How could you?”

“Aw, come on hon, I mean…I just met him at the park, and he liked talking about petting zoos and coloring books and I thought that was sweet,” she said.

“Oh my god…” Mr. said, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples.

“And it’s like, I saw that thing just bouncing around in his pants the whole time…and I dunno, I just couldn’t help myself!”

“What…what thing?” Mr.’s eyes snapped open.

“You didn’t see it? I mean, that fucking mong was packing at least fourteen inches, probably more!” she said, her eyes becoming wide and she held up her hands as if measuring a fish to give him a general idea of the size.

“Really?” He said and blinked. He turned around and looked out the window, down at the body now laying in his driveway, the pool of blood forming around its crushed retarded head, and the prominent fourteen inch erection still strongly protruding from its crotch.

“Jesus,” he said.

“Yeah, I mean, sorry hon but I can’t just pass on something like that!” Mrs. said. “I mean, and I thought real hard about this too, but I don’t think it’s considered cheating if it’s with a retard!”

He pulled his head out of the window, reluctantly ripping his fascinated gaze from the magnificent retard dick in his driveway, and looked back to her. “Huh,” he grunted, mulling her reasoning over in his head.

“I mean, he was basically just a dick with a tiny little brain attached to it. Like, it’s not cheating if it’s with a dildo, and I bet you most dildos have a smarter brain working them than he had! So come on…don’t be mad!” she pleaded.

“What uh, what was all that about choo-choos?” he asked.

“Oh that, well that’s how I had to explain it to get any sort of a decent hump out of his dumb ass,” she said.

“Hmm,” Mr. grunted, as he looked back out the window at Dumbo’s giant erect dick which was finally starting to deflate as the blood drained out of his crushed head. “You think umm…umm…well….I guess it’s a shame he’s dead now cause like…” he said.

“Well, I mean, we could find another one, I did a little research online, most of them are supposed to have big retarded dorks like that,” she said. “Why, what are you thinking?”

“Umm, well, I was just like thinking….I dunno, I mean…it’s…it’s not gay if it’s with a retard, right?” he asked.

“Oh, no way! Totally not!” she said.

“And uh….we can kill the next one too, right?” he asked.

“Oh no problem, yeah! I mean I don’t think it’s even murder if it’s a retard either!”

“And uh…let’s get Chinese too,” he said.

“You want a Chinese retard?” she cocked her head in confusion and asked.

“No! Chinese food! How the hell do you expect to find a hung Chinese retard? You dumb bitch!” he said.

“See…now this is exactly what the therapist is always talking about. I’m working with you here, I’m negotiating, I’m actualizing your needs, and you are always downgrading my worth!” she started up with the dumb bullshit she learned in therapy.

“Ok whatever, shut up!” he cut her off. We’ll talk about it later, let’s just go fuck and kill another retard then get Chinese food, before it gets dark!”

“Ok hon,” she smiled. “Oh, you want to see if we can find one named Chu?”

He glared at her.

“Aw come on, that was funny! Ok screw it, let’s just get going,” she said and off they went. K, whatever, done, finit, enfin, I got to go to a goddamn nursing home and look at a dead old man now, later.

Squeaky v Clem

(Catskill New York, 1969)

(SQUEAKY)

She sees the masses fluttering around her, sharing one face, and just one brain. Charlie referred to the type as “untapped potential”. He could tap them, he would have tapped every last one of them. All of them here, in one place. This was supposed to be it! “This is where Charlie would have saved the world”, she thinks about the audacity of sending GOD to the penitentiary. Her enterally polygamous matrimonial king. His orders, delivered to her through neuropathic Morse Code.

Before her awakening, before meeting Charlie Squeaky would have been another body-in-the-face here. Just dancing and doing drugs without realizing that she was already a drug. Getting fucked in a Portopotty by two deaf Amish runaways, while Jimmi Hendrix plays the National Anthem on his electric guitar. Using words like “groovy” without the slightest bit of malice. But Squeaky met Charlie. He fed himself to her, and she consumed him. She would be his wife, and his other wives were her sisters. Her sisters brothers, were her brothers. She had a big close-knit family. When her brothers and sisters were murdering Sharon Tate and the ‘Anti-Christ’, Squeaky was giving Charlie a back rub/footjob hybrid, and taking short breaks to feed him grapes. When Charlie was apprehended, Squeaky Manson carved an ‘X’ into her forehead, and shaved every hair off her body. Squeaky could no longer touch Charlie, but she could always hear him; and she talked to him.

Squeaky is not here for the peace, the love, or the music. She is here to be an exterminator. This is not the summer of love; it’s the summer of the dead rat.

(CLEM)

He started taking LSD regularly in high school. After dropping out, Clem made a promise to himself that he would be a rockstar. Clem would sleep only once a week, spooning his guitar. He lived his life in a semi-coherent autopilot. Clem woke up one morning, and he was a part of a cult. He was an accessory to murder; and when he got arrested alongside Charlie, and is brothers and sisters, he knew where Shorty’s body was. Shorty’s body was buried at the Spahn Ranch, near Venice Beach. While coming down off a two-year acid binge in the slammer, Clem had the divine realization that he was not cut-out for prison. He ratted on everybody, for everything he could recall. They let him walk.

Clem immediately ghosted his parole officer, took a mouthful of LSD, and headed for the Catskill Mountains, in a vanful of vagabonds he met at the park. Clem thought that Woodstock would be the perfect reset-button for his soul. He would woo a female or two with his guitar-playing, and finally be recognized as a rockstar. “By day-three of the festie, everybody will be so in awe of my talent. Word will spread, and they’ll probably invite me up onto the main stage to open for The Who”, the spun-out space-case thought to himself”.

Clem approaches a group of five half naked flower girls covered in mud. He attempts to serenade them by strumming three out of tune chords in an off-tempo manor, and singing nonsensical lyrics he wrote about a turtle and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich he ate once. Clem keeps his eyes closed while preforming, visualizing dancing pixies and dolphins spitting rainbows out of their blowholes. When he finishes his song and opens his eyes, the girls were gone.

(Clap! Clap! Clap!)

Clem turns around to see one female that he never wanted to see again. Squeaky is facetiously applauding Clem’s terrible song. Clem’s eyes open wide enough to tare a hole in his face, and he turns pale.

“Clem! Clem! Clem! Long time no see, baby brother. I’m surprised to see you here. Hmmmm, you know… shouldn’t you be in prison, Clem?”, Squeaky asks.

“Oh, Hey sister! Um, no. Nope. No! Prison? No, not me. They (uh) determined through (uh) legislation and shit that I was innocent”, Clem says, shaking in his tye-dye.

“Innocent? You? Ain’t that special.”, Squeaky says with a smile. Squeaky tells Clem that they’ve got some catching up to do, and to follow her to her car. Clem tries backing out, stating that he was just here for the music.

“Don’t even think about running away from me, Clem. Family’s everywhere, we are never alone”, Squeaky says sternly. Clem looks around and sees the one sinister face of Woodstock 69. Did Squeaky come alone? Clem sees assassins everywhere he looks. His paranoid bare feet follow behind Squeaky’s bellbottoms covering her bare feet. Two distinct sets of footprints in the mud. Nobody’s wearing any fucking shoes.

Squeaky coheres Clem into a stolen blue Punch Buggy and forces him to eat another 10-strip of LSD, without much resistance on that end. She drives off the dairy farm that hosted Woodstock, and up a twisty road, into the Catskill Mountains. Dusk is setting, and the pink and black skyline memorizes Clem, who is riding high, as it gets ever darker, and the Punch Buggy ascends. Squeaky lectures her brother about loyalty for the whole ride, until the car reaches an inconspicuous flat. She parks and removes a revolver from under her seat. Squeaky spins the chamber, locks it into place, and as Clem screams in terror, Squeaky puts the barrel against her own temple, and pulls the trigger… click

“God is disappointed in us, baby brother. He said that one of us betrayed him. He said it was one of us. One of us, baby brother. When God is upset with me, it makes me feel like garbage. Even when I did nothing wrong. It makes me want to kill everything! He told me that this is how he will know for sure who the traitor is… Your turn.”, Squeaky rants at Clem, while handing him the revolver.

Clem is now living in a cartoon world of melting darkness penetrated by satellite rainbows. He subconsciously follows orders, spinning the chamber and locking it in. If he pointed the gun at Squeaky, and pulled the trigger, he’d of had a one in six chance of blasting a bullet through her bald head, ditching the body right there and the car at the bottom of the mountain, and then hitch hiking back to Woodstock… But if he played Charlie’s game, he reckoned that he could prove to his sister that God was wrong. Then he reckoned that she’d have to except the possibility that maybe Clem is God. Then he reckoned he’d be jamming with The Beach Boys, have 100 wives, and then Clem would be the Son of Man. Clem sticks the barrel of the gun to his temple, and tells Squeaky that he’s always loved her.

(BANG!)

Squeaky tosses Clem’s carcass off a ledge, and deep into a canyon, where he was eaten by mountain lions, who ended up tripping balls and having a shared identity crisis. She drove back down the mountain, and returned to Woodstock, allowing Charlie to view all that untapped potential through her vicariously.

Six years later, Squeaky Manson pointed a gun at Gerald Ford, and attempted to assassinate him, wounding a secret service agent. She was paroled after serving only 34 years in prison.

WE BOYZ NO MATTA WHUT, MY TINY LITTLE SON!

Yo, like Poe, I was drinkin’ a cask of amontillado.

With on-fleek boyband music rising up the hill from the amphitheater below, I held the cask high to take a deep draught as I watched a beautiful girl dancing on the twilit grass—barefoot and nymph-like; pale, lithe arms waving and weaving like albino serpents; shoulders swaying; white daisies and baby’s breath woven into long, lush, black hair plaited in an arabesque waterfall braid; pomegranate-like breasts sheathed in the wispy chiffon of a boho-chic dress, breasts jiggling a jig all their own.

One of the girl’s friends took her by the hands—they spun each other around, heads tossed back, laughing with Dionysian abandon.

Deep in my cups—or cask, I should say—I struggled to maintain balance as I pedaled my dank unicycle over to these girls, my cask of amontillado balanced precariously on my head as I focused all my energy on avoiding an embarrassing topple onto the ground. But I’d seen and shared enough Dat Boi memes on Facebook over the years to know that I’d be okay so long as I held out my arms like the wings of an aeroplane.

I rolled up to the raven-haired girl just as she and her friend unlocked fingers. Not one to waste time, I commenced pedaling circles around her; just as the male peacock parades its tail feathers to capture the attention of the female, just as the male sea turtle circles the female in a courtship dance, so did I show off my sick uni skills. The girl danced on, though now she turned with my revolutions, following my orbit around her heavenly body with a wary sidelong eye.

Her smile vanished; she was all arched eyebrow and unimpressed duckface now.

Damn, I thought. Best pull off a sick uni trick real quick or your gonna let this one get away, slice. So I attempted a 180-degree hop-spin. Now, had I successfully executed the trick, I would’ve segued into pedaling backwards, and the shit woulda been hella sick. But like I said, I was FRIGGIN’ INEBRIATED. As such, I tumbled mid-spin, landed hard on my ass, the cask of amontillado breaking apart as it struck the ground, spilling its sweet, golden contents out into the grass like a cracked egg.

The girl and her friends laughed and pointed at me as I sat there on the ground looking reeaaaal dumb, my cheeks hot and ruddy with embarrassment. Grimacing, I pounded the ground three times with the butts of my fists so damn hard it hurt. The girl then caught me off guard when she came forward, bent down, offered me her hand. I took it in mine, pushed myself to my feet.

“Um, can I, like, get you a…a dead sewer rat from Afghanistan?” I blurted.

Just as I finished uttering this ridiculous sentence, I executed a loud, smacking facepalm. Christ, I thought. Really, dude? That was the best pick-up line you could come up with? Can I get you a dead sewer rat from Afghanistan?

“Um, I think I’ll pass on the dead sewer rat from Afghanistan,” the girl said, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “But I might settle for a cask of amontillado.”

This made me grin ear to ear. Actually, if you want to get all technical about it, it made me grin even broader than ear to ear; in fact, I grinned so broadly that the corners of my mouth continued moving up past my ears, rising behind and above my temples, traveling up the sides of my head until they met at the top of my forehead, at which point my face fell the fuck off.

But who the hell needs a face when you have a dank uni, sick uni skillz, and a big-boobed hot honey at your side, eh?

After I remounted my wheels—oops, wheel, I mean—I took the girl’s hand in mine, and together we descended the hill to the concessions area, her walking, me pedaling. We got in line at the cask of amontillado stand. After I bought us each a cask, we moved in closer to the stage to check out the band that was playing—a boyband called WE BOYZ 4-LYFE comprising just two members. One member was an armless old man—dude had to be at least ninety—who banged at the bloodied keys of a rickety, old upright piano with his equally bloodied, abraded forehead. The other member of WE BOYZ 4-LYFE was a dead sewer rat from Haiti. It lay perfectly still (and dead) on a drum stool placed at the center of a huge, sprawling, forty-piece drum kit. However, because it was deader than a dog turd sealed in a dog turd-sized coffin, set on fire, and dropped off the Eiffel Tower, the rat couldn’t play drums for shit (or play any musical instrument for that matter [or, for that matter, do anything]), which meant the music of WE BOYZ 4-LYFE consisted entirely of the old man’s discordant, insanity-inducing piano noise—song after song after song of it.

I must say they were quite good. Certainly one of the best bands I’ve ever seen—boyband or otherwise. Nevertheless, after a few songs, we wandered away from the stage toward the surrounding woods where we could better hear ourselves talk.

“You know you left your face back there on the hill,” the girl said after hoisting her cask of amontillado up for a sip.

“Oh, yeah?” I retorted with a scowl, sounding an awful lot like Moe from The Three Stooges.

“Yeah.”

“What’s it to ya?” I said in the same petulant tone.

“It’s nothing to me. But it’s something to you. It’s your face!”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s it to ya? Oh, a wise guy, eh?”

“Listen,” she said, halting and turning to face me. “Why don’t we skip all the niceties, unicycle boy: you wanna get your mitts on these tits or what?” She squeezed her breasts together, expanding her already ample cleavage.

“Um (gulp),” I uttered, wide-eyed. “Yeah, I guess I sorta do.”

“And would you like to peel the frilly pink panties off this heart-shaped ass?” she asked, slapping said heart-shaped ass for effect.

“Er, yes, I suppose I would.”

“Then get me a dead sewer rat from Afghanistan.”

“What? Now hold up a sec, shorty. I already asked you if you wanted a dead sewer rat from Afghanistan. You said no, remember?”

“A girl has a right to change her mind. Get me a dead sewer rat from Afghanistan, or I’ll have nothing more to do with you ever again.”

Shit, I thought. As far as I could tell, the only place I could get a dead sewer rat from Afghanistan was, well, a sewer in Afghanistan.

“Alright. But if I do go all the way to friggin’ Afghanistan to get you a dead rat, where can I find you when I get back to America?”

“My address is 124 Conch Street, Bikini Bottom.”

I scrawled the address on a gum wrapper, pocketed it.

“Well, I should probably get going,” I said. “Looks like I have a long trip ahead of me. I don’t even know how I’m going to get over there. I may have to join the military or something. Hopefully I won’t get killed in combat.”

“Good luck, unicycle boy!” the raven-haired girl said, clasping my hand for a moment before turning away, laughing as she ran back up the hill to her friends.

***

After barely surviving boot camp, I did two back-to-back three-year tours in Afghanistan with the U.S. Army, 76th Infantry Brigade. The sewer rats there were damn near impossible to hunt or trap, and they tended to cannibalize their own dead, so that it was not until the end of my second tour when I finally got my hands on one.

When I arrived back in the States with two Purple Hearts, two missing arms (got too close to a grenade blast during an ambush just outside of Kandahar), a nasty case of PTSD, and one dead Afghan sewer rat, the first thing I did was try to visit the raven-haired girl.

It didn’t take me long to figure out I’d been punked.

Punked hardcore.

See, turns out 124 Conch Street, Bikini Bottom is the address for fucking SpongeBob!

😡

Man, I still can’t believe I fell for that shit! Alack and cursèd be the day I was born!!

***

Six months after I was discharged, the raven-haired girl came to visit me at my home.

“Hi. I heard you were back from Afghanistan,” she said after Higginsworth, my muscle-bound butler, brought her into my parlor. Her face glistened with tears. “I’m sorry I tricked you. I was just having a little fun. I didn’t think you’d actually risk your life to become a soldier and go all the way to Afghanistan to get a sewer rat just to hook up with me. I…I hope you can forgive me. And maybe…maybe we could, like, still go out some time?”

“Sorry, dollface, but you’re a little late. I guess you didn’t hear. See, after I got back from Afghanistan and realized you’d tricked me, I decided to start a boyband. We’re called BOYZ ON FLEEK 4-EVAH. I’m the piano player. I play the piano with my head. The other member of the band is the dead sewer rat I brought back from Afghanistan to give you. He’s the drummer. He plays a motherfucking fifty-piece drum kit. Well, he doesn’t actually play it ’cause he’s dead as dogshit, but who cares? Him being dead didn’t stop us from signing a ten-million-dollar record contract with Sony BMG just last month.”

“You’re in BOYZ ON FLEEK 4-EVAH?” she asked, her mind completely blown. “You guys do that song ‘I Banged Like Ten Supermodels Today. What the Hell Did U Do Today, Nerd? I Bet You Shit Your Lime-Green Nerd-Pants and Then Cried Like a Tiny, Little Bitch!’”

“Yup, that’s us.”

“I love that song! You guys are like the hottest thing right now!”

“Yeah, I know. Hey, you know what? I’m actually sort of on my way out the door right now. See, we’re about to kick off the North American leg of our world tour. Sorry, but I’m gonna have to ask you to scram.”

The girl wept anew. “I’m sorry for how I treated you, unicycle boy. I love you! Please take me with you!”

“You had your chance, dummy. Higginsworth, please show this little trollop to the front door.”

Higginsworth grabbed the raven-haired girl by her arm, dragged her away.

I never saw her again.

Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say.

Humph!

***

As you might well imagine, over the course of the next year, while I toured the world with my boyband, I nabbed more ass than a goddamn Chinese zoo! But after a while, the rockstar life began to wear on me, and I found myself longing to be a soldier again. So I reenlisted, and my superiors granted my request to be put back on active combat duty despite me no longer having arms. Fitted with custom-made boots that contained retractable spring-loaded blades in the soles—thereby allowing me to fight with my feet—I was shipped off to Iraq, where, within four months, I managed to get both my legs blown off.

After recovering from these horrible injuries for three months in a U.S. military hospital, I asked to be sent back to the warzone. Due to my exceptional record of valor and the great physical sacrifices I’d already made for my country, my request was immediately granted. This time they shipped me off to Syria and provided me with a high-tech combat wheelchair controlled using a mouth-operated joystick.

Not one month into my tour of duty in Syria, I rolled over a landmine, blew my torso and wheelchair to smithereens. Luckily, the medics got to my bodiless head in time to connect it to a newly developed, high-tech blood circulation/respiration system specifically designed to keep bodiless heads alive. So, reduced to nothing more than my head, I was sent back to the States to convalesce in a military hospital.

Do you think that getting physically reduced to a head kept barely alive on life support finally took the fight out of me?

Hell no, it didn’t, my tiny little sons!

After a few months, the Army granted my request go back into the fray. Perhaps you’re wondering what possible good could a head kept barely alive on life support do in a combat situation? Again, we must thank the wonders of modern medical science and the latest advances in military technology, as the Army custom-built a motorized, armored, weaponized unicycle for me designed with a sophisticated gyroscope system that kept the thing upright at all times so that I never had to worry about keeping balance myself. In order to ride it, my head was placed into a high-tech, armored, weaponized helmet that locked onto the seat. I controlled the uni with a mouth-operated joystick system integrated into the helmet. Let me tell you, that battle uni was friggin’ awesome, and when I rolled into motherfucking Somalia on the damn thing, I fucked some serious shit up for a while.

Unfortunately, not a month into my tour of Somalia, my sick uni and I were vaporized by a nasty roadside IED. With my head now gone, all that remained of me was, well, nothing. Nevertheless, the Army sent my nothing back home to the States to recover from its injuries.

So, now reduced to nothing, do you think I was finally ready to retire from military service?

Fuck no, I wasn’t, my tiny little daughters and nieces!

Again, and despite me being nothing but nothing, the Army granted my request to continue to serve my country as a soldier. As such, they put my nothing on a plane to friggin’ Liechtenstein of all places (unfortunately, the scenic, little Alpine microstate had been recently invaded by friggin’ Haiti of all countries).

Care to take a guess at what my nothing did to help fight those crazed, machete-wieldin’, Voodoo-hexin’ Haitians after my nothing arrived on the bloody, smoke-billowing battlefields of Liechtenstein?

It did nothing.

Because, unfortunately, when you’re nothing, all you can do is nothing.

As such, my superiors had no choice but to fly my nothing back to the States and give it an honorable medical discharge, which, if I’m going to be completely honest about it, was fine by me, as I was getting kinda bored with the soldier life by that time. What I really wanted to do was get my boyband back together, go on tour again, and get back to nabbin’ more ass than the goddamn Bubonic plague.

So as soon as I arrived back in the U.S., I tracked down my old drummer—i.e., the dead sewer rate from Afghanistan. Unfortunately, while I’d been away fighting baddies in exotic lands, he and the former drummer of WE BOYZ 4-LYFE (the boyband that played the festival where I met the raven-haired girl) started a new boyband called WE BOYZ NO MATTA WHUT, MY TINY LITTLE SON!

What did a boyband consisting of two drummers—one a dead sewer rat from Afghanistan, the other a dead sewer rat from Haiti—sound like? Well, as both members were deader than dried-out white dogshit, neither was capable of making any sort of sound at all, so that every one of their songs was nothing but three or four minutes of silence. Nevertheless, WE BOYZ NO MATTA WHUT, MY TINY LITTLE SON! was friggin’ huge, selling out dozens of stadiums and arenas all over the country during their first U.S. tour.

Anyhow, I begged the dead rats to let me join the band. I tried to tell them that their music was already nothing, so what harm could possibly come from adding my nothing to their nothing, right? But the rats wanted nothing to do with my nothing because, being deader than dirt, they were incapable of wanting or not wanting anything.

Then that smug, ungrateful, self-important, putting-on-airs, crooked, backstabbing dead Afghan sewer rat was all CRAW! SLAW. KRAW? SLAW! CRAW. SLAW? KLEET KLEET KLEEK CLEEK? m32hdsafd34saklfjdsklafjiojdsiofjdo73afjiowrjeq9fgirj390ghr392gnri9032gnr924n3g9r4n290gKdsanr8gn04fg0ri3nq2fi903emfi90jn34i9fnfg943jng904jn23g90ijn4230gj40235fhg93j0423jg5042j3g054tg54jt045jt90j45390t45902jt9045j5t9g04jt905j490tj4390jdnzsvnseyruiodanfnwue9rfn243nrgvn249ith892nghru94nhgu89rndsfjnkedwofgri9thj45hg542h3g9r4h239fg5rh4392gh594hjgi50w4jgio0r4jmf89ntu4m89thnr89wfhc8nrh43tf8mh4gh3g5hj3mt5j3890tj5490tj43yjjdtj92r3ut8943wjf9rhj329rhj39wfhr893hj9r8h3g89rh9grh89ghr89hgr894h3g89rhefmnwogrnweiognri90g90rewgi90rjgr4tg94gj9t4h3g895h48923gh4892ghr84h2g89h84325435432

THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END

In Defense of the Belt

It was the night John Woodman knocked out Kyle Bradbury in Las Vegas, a stunning head kick half way through the 2nd round. In Chicago the rain was lashing the pavement just as hard, pounding relentlessly on the grey, miserable streets of the town, and we ducked into Bobby’s bar to get dry. Taking off our soaked caps and plaid shirts we swiftly ordered a round of Guinness and dropped into a nearby booth recently vacated by a trendy young couple and proceeded to warm our bones.

“A round of shots, too, Bob!” I yelled. I was amped up and eager to talk.

The result of the fight had left me feeling angry and depressed. I had wanted Bradbury to win. Not just because I’d had money on him to do so, but because Bradbury was great. I believed in greatness, and I always wanted it to endure. He had been the champion for over seven years. I hated to see some things come to an end.

“I thought he had him in the 1st” Joe was saying, swivelling in his chair to hang his jacket on the back, rain dropping steadily and forming a small pool on the floor.

“Bullshit, had him in the first! Bradbury was in total control until that kick, had him beat all ends up on the ground.”

“It didn’t look that way to me” Stu said, leaning back as Bob set his drink down in front of him.

“Yeh well” I scowled, quickly downing my shot, “you weren’t watching properly, then.”

“Yeh.”

I sat staring blankly straight ahead for a second. “It was a hell of a knockout, though” I mused thoughtfully to no-one in particular. It really had been.

We got to talking hurriedly and excitably the way guys always do over sports, each one’s voice getting louder than the last. From over our shoulders, the doors swung open, letting in a blast of wind and rain and noise from the traffic on the street, shutting it all out just as swiftly as it let them in when they fell shut again with a tight, heavy clang.

It was really coming down out there. Four young women walked into the bar and looked for a place to sit. They were still perfectly dry under umbrellas, immaculate makeup and expensive macs. Their carefully crafted exteriors had been preserved. Ordering a bottle of expensive red wine, they sat in the only vacant booth left in the place, right next to ours.

“It’s such a shame we didn’t get to ride this morning. I had Bessie all ready to go. She’d looked tired these last few days. She’d even been off her hay.”

“What time is your writing class tomorrow, Jane?”

“Not until four-thirty. I think we’re going to go in a bit squiffy, Trent and I. You know, for the experience.” She began to giggle.

“That is so decadent of you” the one in the tight grey sweater squealed. They all began laughing and giving each other high fives.

We had been watching them the whole time, the title talk put annoyingly on hold. Joe, a guy who would fuck a puddle if he could, leaned into their table and pointed at me.

“You should talk to my friend here,” he winked. “He’s a writer. Just had his debut novel published last month.”

The four women, who had turned their perfect ponytails with a look of contemptuous dismissal at Joe, now turned with sudden intrigue to face me.

“Gosh” one of them exclaimed, the lead one, the one that was pretty only in a bland and generic sort of way. “Really?”

I was annoyed. I didn’t want to talk about writing. I wanted to talk about the god damned fight.

“Yeh” I replied, feigning politeness. I knew Joe was only using it as an excuse to talk to them with a view to joining their table and then seeing where luck would take him. I wasn’t remotely interested in any of them and looked back up at the screen above the bar that was showing interviews with both fighters. The place was too loud and crowded, though, and I couldn’t hear a thing.

“My name is Jane. This is Emma, Grace and Chelsea. Are you at the University, too? Which class did you take?”

“Class? I, no… I didn’t take any class” I replied distractedly, eyes turned to the screen.

“’Didn’t take a class’?” she repeated with a sort of condescending tone. “How on earth did you become a writer, then? Chelsea, have you heard this?” she scoffed disbelievingly, nudging her nearest friend.

Chelsea had heard, and was looking at me for the answer. Joe was still leaning forward expectantly, like some dumb mutt on heat. If ever a dog pissed against the wrong tree, he was it. Joe was the kind of guy that would roll the dice on any girl he met, figuring there was nothing to lose. But there was. There was always something to lose. He had no chance with women like these.

“Yeh come on” he begged desperately, “tell us how you learned to write.”

I squinted viciously at him and he slunk back in his chair. “Well” I huffed in mild irritation, my voice now strained as I turned back to these awful women, “I got beaten down low, lower than you can possibly imagine. Then I got kicked and beaten. Then I got kicked and whipped some more. Then I had a drink and thought about it for a while. Then I began to write.”

Stu laughed and sipped his drink. Joe looked perturbed; what was I doing??

The one called Grace looked at me with anything but. She was the ugliest one, for what it was worth. Quite big, too, with a cruel little slit for a mouth and ears that sat unevenly on her doughy head. Her mother must have named her ironically, I thought.

“Why do you think that qualifies you to be a writer? It makes you sound more like a bum.”

“Why do you pay thousands of dollars to be taught something nobody can teach?”

I hadn’t wanted an argument, but it was clear it was going to go that way. These women were crude morons with all the charm and grace of finding a hair in your food. They had an air of superiority about them I’d never liked in anyone and showed my friends unnecessary rudeness and disdain. I had seen their kind before. A bunch of spoilt, supercilious bitches who thought money was the answer to every question. I was in a bad mood already. I took another drink, warming nicely to the fight.

“Can’t teach?” Jane scoffed. “Why, of course you can! I got 67% last year on my creative writing module. This year I got 80%. So clearly something happened in between.”

I could hardly believe it. Had I heard it right? Did she really just say that?

“Of course something happened” I said, turning to face her properly now for the first time, my eyes boring into hers. The intensity of my gaze caused her to look away. “You wrote more in line with the rules and the guidelines set down by your teacher and the governing body”, I continued evenly. “That’s what happened. Like a seal that picked up a pen. Surely a girl like you is perceptive enough to realise that much at least?”

I grinned and took another sip. “Not to mention you pay them thousands to attend. They’re hardly going to fail you, are they?”

“Well if a sportsman didn’t have a coach he wouldn’t improve. It’s the same thing.” She was turtling up, getting defensive. She looked flustered and annoyed. Some stand and fight until they’re soaked in blood and there is no battle left to fight. Others don’t have the stomach for it and you can usually tell one from the other right away. These were people incubated in whatever passed for polite society. They had never struggled or been challenged in their lives. Nobody had ever told them ‘no’ or deigned to disagree with them. “It’s the same as anything else” she bleated haughtily.

“No, it isn’t” I snapped. “Writing isn’tthe same as anything else. Writing isn’t a sport. It’s a blood sport” I hissed dramatically, grandstanding now, toying with this soft, easy prey.

“You can’t be taught how to do it in a classroom any more than you can be taught how to rip a man to shreds with your teeth. Any more than you can be taught to eat his flesh and wash it down with wine. No great writer ever paid to learn his craft. You read a truckload of books, live fiercely, remain open and receptive to life and new ideas, then write violently with passion and fire in your gut. You read, you write, you mean it. That’s it. That’s all there is. No tricks, no workshops, no courses.”

Stu grinned and rolled his eyes. I was laying it on thick for sure.

“That’s a naïve point of view” she scoffed back, flailing now for a crutch. “The lecturers provide ideas, tips, structure and feedback…”

“Why aren’t they great writers, in that case?” I cut in. On the screen they were replaying the fight from the start. “If they’re teaching it then why have I never heard of them or seen their books on the shelves? Ernest Hemingway never taught a writing class in his life. Nor took one.”

“I disagree! I’m doing English and creative writing and the workshops are incredibly useful and give you tools to help you create much better stories.” She seemed indignant, petulant, pouting, like a child deprived the pony she had been promised for Christmas. She looked as though she might burst into tears at any second.

“It leads to generic stories, writing where everybody is taught to write in a similar way, according to ‘grades’ and ‘rules’. Whose rules? Writing is not mathematics. It is not a science. All anyone has to do is live, read and unleash their own voice. And either a person can do that or they can’t. I may be a good writer or an average one, but whichever it is I got there on my own, I didn’t pay someone to do it for me” I sneered with all the contempt and bile a person can hold. I loathed these people.

It was too easy. She didn’t have the heart for it. She wasn’t used to not getting her own way and had bitten off more than she could chew. My bad mood was lifting now, though I still couldn’t hear what the hell Bradbury was saying up there about the head kick. Had he seen it coming? Did he rate Woodman now? Did he want his belt back?

She sipped her wine, tried to gather herself and play it cool. “Writing takes practice and guidance like anything else. You wouldn’t become a world-famous sportsman without a coach and mentor, no matter how much you watched other people play. Also, the lecturers frequently have books or articles published. I can give you a list.”

“Spare yourself the trouble. The practice you talk of lies in reading incessantly and writing over and over again until you become good at it. Like I say, nobody taught Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald. Aren’t they generally considered to be some of the best writers of all time. Am I right? Similarly, writers who made a huge cultural impact, such as the Beats or Hunter Thompson, were not ‘coached’. It’s an art and you have to work hard at it. But like Henry Miller said, in the end you either have it or you don’t. I’m not trying to denigrate your course, talent or lecturers; I just can’t see how an original, passionate voice comes from being told how to write in a classroom or lecture hall. The key to any great art is passion and hard work, not ‘tools’ and rules and grades. It isn’t in knowing your allusion from your anthropomorphism or knowing when it’s ‘supposed’ to be used. Those are just terms one could get from a dictionary in any case. Knowing them and how to invoke them does not make a great writer, in my opinion. And if it does, it’s nothing one couldn’t pick up from reading a plethora of books and authors for themselves.”

“Then why do any degree at all?”

“Because you can be taught to be most things, almost everything in fact. But I don’t believe being a writer is one of them.” It was getting tedious now, and I wanted to bring it to an end.

“Some would argue you can’t be taught ruthless business savvy, or how to paint exceptionally well or how to get the best from people and manipulate them. Some people are naturally more talented than others but if you think critiquing and learning, and studying and analysing the way other people write and their process is a waste of time then please carry on.”

Her cheeks went red with rage at that point, and I knew I had her. Joe had long since given up and was talking to Stu about who would win in a rematch of the fight if it were to ever happen. I was eager to wrap this shit up and get back down to business with them. I ordered another round of shots in anticipation. Then I turned back to the girls who were finishing off the last of their wine.

“I didn’t say it was a waste of time. Nothing pertaining to literature that you love is ever a waste of time. I said one can’t become a great writer by taking a course. The history and list of great writers seems to bear that out.”

“Well there are students who took the course that have been published. Numerous times.”

Right! Numerous times. I only had one book out. Take that! She was getting better, I had to admit, like a blind kitten gamely pawing at a ball of wool. Maybe there was some fire in there after all. Maybe there was hope for her yet.

“I’m not talking about being published, neither the lecturers nor the students. Anyone in this day and age can be published. Anyone. I’m talking about being great. There are few if any great writers who took a writing course and there are few if any lecturers who are great writers themselves. That’s my point. That’s just a fact.”

She had begun pulling on her coat.

“Come on girls” she said to her motley clan of nouveau rich troglodytes, “I don’t know why we ever stopped in this horrid bar in the first place.”

“You’re welcome” I said, raising my glass as they prepared to head back out into the rain, their world views a little more rattled than before. They wouldn’t take it on board, though. People like that never do. They strode right past us in single file, not even looking as they left.

Fuck them, I thought victoriously. I turned back to face the screen.

That head kick landed flush again.

Bradbury went down in a heap.

There was a new champion in town.