Fake Popsicle Widow

After Robbie died, Brenda would tell anyone within earshot about the time the two of them had split a double popsicle. As if it had made them married-by-sugar. She wanted attention for her connection with the dead kid, so she pretended to be a popsicle widow. She held a single wooden stick at his memorial service, to symbolize their fake true love. Ten years old and already a drama queen.

Robbie and I once traded candy. But I never claimed that he and I “gave each other chocolates.” While technically true, that wouldn’t have been an accurate description. I didn’t know Robbie and I wasn’t going to pretend otherwise, for clout. That’s gross and exploitative, Brenda. 

As we got older, Brenda continued to court the publicity of grief. She’d show up to your funeral with perfect makeup, only to smudge it with crocodile tears. But just enough to look Sad and Hot. Not enough to look genuinely messy. True grief is ugly; Brenda was too vain to even fake it, let alone feel it.

The sound of Brenda’s neck snapping reminded me of broken popsicle sticks. It was the closest I’ve ever felt to anyone. Brenda and I had a genuine bond. For about a minute.

But still, at her funeral, I didn’t show emotion. We weren’t friends, and I didn’t want to lie with my eyes. That’s Brenda’s thing, and I’m more moral than she was. Rest in obscurity, you narcissist.

Pickleswap

“NOT IN MY BUTT, CAPTAIN ROCKHARDT, YOU’RE TOO BIG FOR ME!” Beatrice Goldfarb reads from the typewritten script placed in front of her on the large oak desk where she leans face down with her bare breasts pressed against the desktop.

Beatrice waits a few seconds after reading her lines, then turns her head around. “Uh, Murray? Hello? You still back there?” she asks.

Standing behind the bent-over Beatrice with his Nazi Wehrmacht trousers pulled down and bunched up at his ankles over his black leather jackboots, Murray Silverman stares down at the script with pinched eyes while shaking his head. “I need my reading glasses for this. I keep telling Harriett to stop using 10-point font for these pickleswap scripts, it’s way too small.”

Beatrice huffs impatiently while Murray reaches into the breast pocket of his unbuttoned Bundeswehr field shirt and pulls out his reading glasses. Beatrice is wearing a French milkmaid outfit with the long train of her light blue floral dress hiked up above her waist, exposing a white open-bottomed girdle strapped to black lace leggings that reach to her upper thighs. “You should get an annual eye exam to check for cataracts, Murray.”

“No shit, Marie Antoinette, I just haven’t had time lately. I’ll do it after tax season,” Murray replies.

Beatrice looks back at Murray’s erection and says, “C’mon Murray, hurry up and move this along so we don’t lose that boner of yours!” then adds sarcastically, “God only knows when you’ll be able to dial up another one!”

Murray nods and looks down at the script through the reading glasses now perched on the bridge of his nose, and reads, “I have my orders directly from Berlin, Mademoiselle Dubois. You shall do as instructed and remove your knickers at once!”

Beatrice looks back at Murray and says, “You’re supposed to be reading with a German accent, Murray. At least make an effort! And I’m a widow in this one so shouldn’t I be ‘Madame’ instead of ‘Mademoiselle’?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Beatrice, what do I look like, Marlene Dietrich? And the script says ‘Mademoiselle’ so I’m sticking with that!” Murray replies in frustration. “And is it really that important?”

“Sorry, you’re right,” Beatrice apologizes, then looks back down and reads from the script. “Do as you must, Kommandant, but please be gentle with me. I am but a poor country milkmaid.” Beatrice shakes her head with a smirk and says, “I mean who the hell wrote this script? This is some of the most stilted, contrived dialog I’ve ever read! Next time, I’m editing the script before we go live.”

“You know damn well that Harriet wrote the script since we won the pickleball doubles match on Sunday,” Murray says defensively. “And she took a creative writing class at Brandeis so I think she knows how—”

“Was she a creative writing major?” Beatrice interrupts.

“No,” Murray admits. “I think she majored in psych with a minor in art history.”

Beatrice rolls her eyes back at Murray. “Well, she’s not exactly Jane Austen, but I guess I’ll have to work with it.” Beatrice looks back at the script and reads, “Remove my knickers, Kommandant, and there you will find my hidden treasure.” She shakes her head and mutters to herself.

“As you wish, Mademoiselle,” Murray reads while he places his hands down on Beatrice’s hips. Looking at her backside, Murray pauses and then looks up at Beatrice in confusion. “That’s a fucking girdle, Bea! You’re supposed to be wearing French knickers! It’ll take the entire goddamn Schutzstaffel to get this thing off you! Why aren’t you wearing knickers like the script says?”

Thoroughly embarrassed, Beatrice stammers, “I couldn’t find any French knickers on Amazon Prime. The only knickers I could find would have taken over a week to deliver with a $3.99 shipping fee, so I just ordered the girdle for free same-day delivery.”

“Good lord, Beatrice, you’re such a goddamn amateur!” Murray screams, then looks down at his shriveling penis with a scowl. “And now there goes my hard-on! I’m done with this pickleswap bullshit! Next time let’s just keep it simple and play pickleball for money. This whole role-playing schtick was Harriet’s idea. I just went along with it to avoid a fight.”

Murray reaches down and angrily pulls up his Wehrmacht trousers. Without bothering to zip his fly and button his trousers, he reaches over Beatrice and grabs his leather belt off the desktop where it’s rolled up next to his dark green Stahlhelm combat helmet and pickleball paddle. He storms off toward the office door with his belt in hand, leaving his helmet and paddle on the desk.

“And where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Beatrice yells after him. “Don’t even think about breaking the pickleswap rules, Captain Rockhardt!”

Murray looks back at her, his face contorted in fury. “Seriously, Beatrice? You’re the one who broke the rules when you decided to girdle up like Auntie fucking Mame! Now I have to go to the goddamn ‘badezimmer’ to finish myself off!” Murray replies while glancing down at his crotch. “Thanks for nothing, Madame Dubois!”

Murray yanks open the door to the hallway, pauses and then shouts back at Beatrice, “And you can tell Sidney and Harriett no more fucking pickleswap!” He rushes out into the hallway, slamming the door behind him.

Shaking her head in resignation, Beatrice stands up and straightens out her milkmaid dress, then places her straw bergère back on her head. She walks over to the video camera set on a tripod next to the desk and hits the off switch with a disappointed sigh.

***

“I’m so sorry, guys, I really thought that pickleswap would be a fun game for us,” says Harriett Silverman after taking a sip of her club soda. “I just want us to be the premier pickleball swingers club in Florida. And if we want to get there we have to think outside the box and take some risks. Let’s face it, team, we’re getting old and boring. Aren’t you guys sick of just putting on caddy outfits and screwing each other on the putting green or in the golf cart shed? I know I am. Let’s get creative!”

Harriett is sitting at a patio table on the outdoor terrace of the Boca Lago Country Club in Boca Raton, Florida with her husband Murray, Sidney and Beatrice Goldfarb, and Sheldon Mendelbaum, where they’re finishing up their Sunday brunch. Her laptop is set in the middle of the table with its flip screen raised. They’ve just finished watching the video of Murray and Beatrice’s failed pickleswap episode from a few days earlier.

“Well it might have worked out the other day if Beatrice hadn’t worn a goddamn chastity belt,” Murray mutters.

“It was a girdle not a chastity belt, Calvin Klein,” Beatrice replies sarcastically. “And maybe if you’d have popped an extra Viagra that morning, you—”  

“Stop bickering, you two!” Sidney interrupts. “Harriet has put a lot of time into pickleswap and is doing her best here, so we should all try to work together and help her out on this instead of fighting over it.”

“I have an idea,” Sheldon offers. ”How about next time we all join in on the pickleswap game instead of just one player from the winning team and one player from the losing team? That way we can switch off if we want to so that two people aren’t stuck with each other the way that Murray and Beatrice were this week.”

Harriet nods her head and smiles. “I love that idea, Shelly! And that way it’ll be a more inclusive, collaborative effort where we all have skin in the game.”

“No pun intended!” Murray pipes up with a smile.

They all laugh and raise their club sodas in a group toast over the patio table.

After a few minutes of idle chatter, Harriet gets back to business. “OK, so let’s make sure we all agree on the new pickleswap rules. The winning doubles team from the Sunday afternoon pickleball match will still write the pickleswap script but now everyone will have input on it before it goes final. And everyone will have a role to play. Maybe we’ll even have a dress rehearsal the night before to tie up any last-minute loose ends?”

They all look around the table at each other, nodding in agreement.

Harriett looks at Sheldon sympathetically. “The new rules may also be good for you, Shelly. We know that you’ve been lonely and depressed ever since Mildred passed away in that horrible pickleball accident back in Cleveland. Maybe this new version of pickleswap will be therapeutic for you by getting you out more and forcing you to socialize in a group setting.” Harriet reaches across the patio table and places her hand on Sheldon’s forearm, rubbing and then gently squeezing it. “We’re all here for you, Shel.”

“Thank you so much, Harriet,” Sheldon says. “I do miss Mildred every now and then even though she was a lousy pickleballer.” He shoots a quick glance over at Sidney and Beatrice, who look nervously at each other and then shift their eyes down to their mahi-mahi salads on the table in front of them. 

Harriet stands up from the table with a wide grin. “OK, great! We have our new pickleswap rules that everyone agrees on … Now let’s get balling!”

About an hour later on the Boca Lago pickleball courts, the Goldfarbs face the Silvermans in a mixed doubles match. The match stands tied at 1-1 and the Goldfarbs lead the third and final game by 10-7.

“Pick it up, Harriet!” Murray shouts at his wife. “This is for all the marbles. We can’t let Beatrice and Sidney control that pickleswap script!”

Beatrice laughs from across the court. “Be thankful that Harriet can return a ‘dink’ shot better that you can keep up a boner, Captain Rockhardt! Otherwise this match would be over by now!”

Murray growls while looking down and shaking his head. “I’m not losing to that loudmouth bitch, Harriet!”

Harriet serves to Beatrice, and the two sides volley for nearly a minute. After Murray is forced to the back of his court to return Sidney’s volley, Beatrice is able to catch Harriet on her heels and land a perfect cross-court dropshot into the Silvermans’ “kitchen” that Murray is unable to return. With that final point to make the score 11-8, the Goldfarbs win the game and match.

“Game, set, match, bitches!” shouts Beatrice as she drops her pickleball paddle in the middle of the court and glares across the net at Murray. “Who’s the milkmaid now, Silverman?”

“Beatrice!” Sheldon shouts from his chair on the sideline. “I thought we all agreed that we’d tone down the trash talk after Mildred’s accident? We’re not in Cleveland anymore. We have a good thing going down here in Florida and I don’t want to fuck it up.”

Sidney steps forward and replies to Sheldon. “Relax, Shel, it’s just harmless pickleball trash talk. Never hurt anybody.”

“Fine,” Sheldon says. “Just write a good role for me in your pickleswap script. I need some real action this time!”

“Oh don’t worry about that, Shelly,” Beatrice laughs.

***

“For Chrissakes, Beatrice, you’re gonna drown him!” Sidney shouts at his wife, who’s leaning over the edge of the Boca Lago indoor jacuzzi, pushing Sheldon underwater by kneeling down on her pickleball paddle pressed flat atop his bald head. 

Beatrice is dressed in plated metal armor that covers her entire torso, a studded metal combat helmet, knee-high black leather cavalry boots and red lace panties. Sheldon wears nothing but adult diapers. 

After holding Sheldon down for another thirty seconds, Beatrice stands up and releases her weight off the pickleball paddle, allowing Sheldon to come up for air.

“My God, Beatrice!” Sheldon gasps after he coughs water out of his lungs and collapses onto the jacuzzi steps. “Are you sure that Joan of Arc actually stripped and drowned British soldiers during the Siege of Orléans? I don’t remember that from my undergrad medieval history class.”

Beatrice rolls her eyes. “Stop whining, Sheldon. Sid and I won the doubles match on Sunday so we got to write the pickleswap script however we chose. Those are the rules. If you don’t like them, why don’t you try winning a match for once so that you can write the script?” Beatrice then adds with a sarcastic smirk, “Oh, that’s right, you can’t even play doubles without Mildred alive so you’ll just have to live with whatever role we write in for you.”

“That was low, Bea,” Sheldon says quietly. “That’s my dead wife you’re talking about.”

“Oh please, Sheldon!” Beatrice exclaims. “Nobody including you actually misses that little piece of schmutz!”

“Hey now, let’s stick to the script, guys!” Harriet bellows out as she walks over to the jacuzzi and pulls down the hood of her brown wool battle tunic. “I know you think that you were drowning, Shelly, but you simply cannot break character like that again. I need you to take pickleswap as seriously as the rest of us do!”

Sheldon clenches his jaw then blurts out. “But I almost drowned, Harriet! What could be more serious than that?”

“Give it a rest, Sheldon,” Beatrice replies in exasperation. “I spent two summers lifeguarding at Berkshire Hills Eisenberg sleepaway camp so I know what it takes to drown. Trust me, you weren’t even close.”

“Lifeguarding, my ass!” laughs Sidney. “You were too busy letting Moshe Steinberg finger-bang you in the boathouse to do any lifeguarding!”

“Fuck you, Sidney!” Beatrice shouts.

“Guys, please!” Harriet yells while looking down at her watch. “We’re wasting valuable time here and need to get back to the pickleswap script!” She looks over at Sheldon and screams, “Back in the jacuzzi, Sheldon!”

Sheldon mutters something to himself then steps back into the jacuzzi. He pauses then looks up at Beatrice without speaking.

“Forget your lines again, Shel?” Harriet asks while tossing a copy of the pickleswap script to him.

Sheldon looks down at the script and reads to Beatrice in an annoyed grumble, “You will never take me alive, Joan of Arc, I am an Englishman and you are just a lowly peasant from Le Bois Chenu!” Sheldon shakes his head and mutters, “This pickleswap game is such bullsh—” 

Before Sheldon can finish his sentence, Beatrice screams out in anger and kicks up her cavalry boot, swinging its hard steel toe squarely up into Sheldon’s nose – crushing it upon impact and driving bone fragments into his brain, killing him instantly. Sheldon’s eyes roll back in his head while his limp, lifeless body collapses backward into the jacuzzi. He sinks to the bottom with his mouth open. 

While Sheldon lies dead at the bottom of the jacuzzi, Harriet flips the pages of her script in confusion. “That wasn’t in the script was it, Bea?”

“No, I just ad-libbed it,” Beatrice says proudly. “What did you guys think?”

“Great work, Bea! I never saw that coming!” Murray exclaims with genuine praise.

“Ditto for me!” gushes Sidney. “I mean that really caught me off guard, Bea. I was expecting more drowning like the script said, but then ka-pow!”

“Great improv, Bea!” Harriet chimes in. “Now that’s exactly what I was talking about the other day. If we want to be the very best, we need to keep pushing our limits to go places where no other pickleball swingers have gone before us. And now here we are actually doing it! Bravo, guys!”

After exchanging congratulatory bro hugs and fist-bumps, Murray unbuckles his leg armor plates and looks up to the others with a mischievous grin. “Well, so long as we’re going off script now, are any of you pickleswappers up for a little romp in the sauna?”

“I’m a step ahead of you, Mur!” says Sidney as he sheds his armor underpadding, strips off his boxer shorts and hurries naked toward the sauna door.

The others quickly undress and follow Sidney into the sauna while giggling like schoolchildren. Minutes later, loud moans, groans, grunts, yelps, howls and flesh slaps pour out through the sauna door while Sheldon’s waterlogged corpse floats up to the surface of the jacuzzi.

Jolene

Joe Smith went shopping for Shirleys at the huge warehouse in the virtual mall.

The sales clerk’s avatar, an unctuous cartoon gopher, waddled over and looked up at him expectantly. Smith took in the fleshbots with his watery frog eyes the girls always gave him shit about.

The girls were encased in floor-to-ceiling glass cylinders, all pristine, fully nude and mouth-watering. The air was supposed with phermones that hit customers like a drug, Smith being no exception.

“You appear to be a man of distinction,” said the gopher. “May I ask what you do for a living?”

“I’m a trader, but I have a sideline as an author of Weird Fiction.”

“Anything I might have heard of?”

“Not really. Unless, maybe, you’re a fan of The Doors or Black Sabbath. I’ve written stories and poetry set in the worlds they created.” He began humming “Symptom of the Universe” to himself. “Have you ever seen Sabbath?”

“I’m afraid that was a bit before my time. And yours as well. Unless you were, I mean…”

“Cryogenically frozen? Yes, I was actually. Late in the year 2024 I was involved in a motorcycle accident in Rome. Instantly killed, so I didn’t suffer. My girlfriend put my body in cryogenic suspension in the hopes that science might one day figure out a way to revive me.”

“Sir, could I have some I.D.? Your name is very generic. You say you’re an author–have you ever considered getting a pen name?”

Smith began to hum “Strange Days,” smirking in a way that made the clerk a little bit nervous.

“Hmm…” The gopher began to scratch himself nervously. “That sounds so familiar. Wait…weren’t you involved with that…scandal in which a number of prominent authors were involved in”… the gopher coughed nervously, “shenanigans?”

“Wasn’t me, man. I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Smith. “At any rate, could we please get on with it? I don’t have all day.” His cock was stabbing at his crotch at the sight of all the hot new fleshbots and he couldn’t wait to get one back to his penthouse apartment in New Rome so he could fuck the shit out of it.

“Yes of course. So I think you may wish to consider the Wetbones model, which is completely fluid and has enhanced nanotech allowing her instant fleshmorphs at your command. Would you like to take a look?”

“Of course,” said Smith. 

“Follow me, please.”

The gopher scampered ahead and they finally arrived at a door marked “Authorized Personnel Only.”

“This is where we hold the Wetbones 2.0. It’s so new it practically squeeks.”

Smith raised an eyebrow.

“Squeeks?”

“Yes, it’s just an expression, although sometimes….I’ll be transparent, it’s still in beta, so there’s a number of features where we need to work out some…kinks, shall we just say.”

“Kinks I like,” said Smith. “If you mean bondage and the like.”

“Of course BDSM capability and d/s programming is factory standard for Shirleys and Wetbones are no exception. You can ride these hot little whores all day and they’ll beg for more. They never tire because fleshbots. Have you ever had yourself one?”

“Unfortunately, no, I have not.”

“Well, then,” the badger said in excited tones, “you’re in for a treat. Geraldine, could you show this gentlemen to the Wetbones 2.1 showcase?”

Geraldine, a stormcrow, settled on Smith’s shoulder and squawked, “you’re going to be so happy with your selection, I promise you. She’s everything–the Swiss Army Knife of fleshbots.”

“That’s so cool,” said Smith. “So exciting. I can’t wait.” (He really couldn’t–hard as fuck now and seeping pre-cum in his real body, reflected in a shimmering pixel smear that hovered briefly over his crotch. The crow laughed raucously. “Looks like you may have to take those in to the dry cleaners.”

Smith scowled. “Just do your job.”

“Yes sir,” squawked the crow. “By the way, I’m a Wetbones too.”

“Seriously? But how does that make sense?”

“I’m a different kind of wetbones. Psychopomp. Lead the souls of the dead through the afterlife. I was your psychopomp, truth be told, although with you it was more of a case of psycho than pomp, if you take my meaning.”

“What in the actual fuck? You’re a Shirley Corps employee and you have this kind of attitude?”

“I never said I was an employee. Maybe you just assumed. I can also do weather. I’m a stormcrow besides my capability of becoming the big tittie Goth girlfriend of your wildest dreams.”

“Just show me to the girl,” said Smith.

“You’re looking at her,” said the crow.

“But you’re…an animal.”

“Hells yeah I am.” 

Smith blinked. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. There, standing before his very eyes, wearing a one size too small Bauhaus t-shirt, a black denim skirt, peppermint striped stockings, with black lipstick and a copious amount of skull jewelry and crucifixes, stood the big tittie Goth girlfriend of his dreams. Just looking at her he knew exactly how she would feel beneath him, and sucking his hard rod, and whimpering under the whip.

“I can be anything you like,” she said. “Would you like to take me for a spin?”

“Why yes I do believe I shall,” Smith said.

Instantaneously they were transported to a chamber that contained a bed, an x-cross and a wall full of sex toys. 

“Would you like a tincture, a bump, some smoke?” asked the Wetbones in breathy tones. 

Something had changed in her eyes. Momentarily, Smith thought he saw another entity entirely inhabit the Wetbones, then evacuate it. It reminded him of his ex-wife, Karen Shmertz, who seemed at times like she housed an entire warehouse of alters, all cheating on him simultaneously. 

The Wetbones offered him a joint. “Ok, I’ll bite,” he said. She fired him up, he took one hit and was even more turned on than he’d ever thought possible. Waves of pure sexual bliss poured through him. His entire body was a hard on. 

She began to slowly, teasingly undress. Every new revelation was more erotic than the previous one. Her titties were indeed plentiful, her nipples hard as gumdrops. 

“Would you like to fuck me now?” she asked.

She got on her hands and knees and raised her ass. He entered her immediately and began to thrust, urgently, wanting to violate her, hurt her. He could do whatever he fucking wanted to her, after all; she was only a doll. A thing for him to use. 

Echoing his thoughts in exact parallel, she began to moan and beg him to fuck her harder, to ram his blood-choked cock inside her. 

“Fuck me, Joe. Fuck me like you’ve never fucked a girl in your life. I want you to dominate me. I want you to master me.”

He slammed against her ass over and over, then when he felt the hot surge of his cum churning up from his balls, he slowed down.

“Oh yeah honey, you’re so good. You’re a real man. You know how to please a girl. I’m nanotech-enhanced, you know, so I can shapeshift. You saw my crow form. Wanna see something else?”

“I could cheat on you all day and shove it in your face and you’d still be faithful as a dog to me, huh slut.”

“Oh yeah, you can do anything you like. Wanna see a black girl?”

“Oh hells yeah.”

And she transformed again, her flesh moving and gliding, growing taller and smaller by turns, her cheekbones harder and more prominent, fuzzy black tendrils spilling from her scalp, and then she was Chinese, and she was Romany, and then she was a savage Sicilian, and a Romanian whore, and he could use and abuse all of them to his heart’s context, do whatever he pleased, wring cries of agony, whimpers of submission, spank them, burn them, score them, stick them with needles.

Sometimes he asked for a fleshmorph, and sometimes the Wetbones took her own initiative. It was so amazing…he felt like he’d taken the best drug of his entire life, and he could spend all day every day with the slut, and life would be as fulfilled and full as it ever had been. He was full of pride that he’d worked inordinately hard during his first life so he could enjoy his post-cryo life in this fashion.

He exulted in his great good fortune that he could exact revenge on his ex-wife, now long dead. He’d asked the Wetbones to fleshmorph into Karen, and she did, sucking the memories straight from his head.

He saw it again, and felt it…the flash of another that sat behind all the personalities. An entity, a resident that he identified as the host. The psychopomp.

The girl began to hum. It was a familiar tune, one he knew intimately as he used to play with a country western band in his twenties. What was it? Something about a girl that got around. And there’d been that amazing cover of it by the chick from Current 93.

Oh yeah…”Jolene.”

“I’ll never let you hurt me, Jolene,” came a loud squawk from the Wetbones, which had instantly reverted back to the crow.

Smith was left nursing an enormous hard-on.

“What the shit, I’m suffering here,” he said.  

“Have a wank, fucker. I’m having a little talk with my girl over here.”

Suddenly Smith saw an avatar of the big tittie Goth chick slip from beneath the crow’s blue-black wings, followed by another woman, another form unfamiliar to him, with a head of thick red curls and full, sensual lips.

They were talking in some machine tech lingo he couldn’t quite grasp. It sounded like pistons and industrial noise and the flapping of bat wings. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand straight up.

Then: the redhead, who was wearing a long trenchcoat over black lacie lingerie, strode towards him, slapped him in the face, pulled out a taser and pressed it against his neck. His virtual form collapsed and he realized this was really happening to him, that the entire time he’d been physically inside the brick and mortar warehouse.

The two women hauled him across the floor, kicking him in the head as they did so with steel toe boots, until he could feel the fresh blood flow down his face. 

The redhead got a hammer. The Goth chick got a saw. 

His eyes went first. He tried to scream but they rammed something in his mouth. He felt an awful pain then in his groin. His cock, his poor cock, was being separated from his body.

They strapped him to the x-cross and began to hit him in the face, direct blows which he couldn’t get away from. One of them retrieved the rubber plug they’d shoved down his throat, then held his tongue as the other, maybe it was the Goth chick, severed it with a scalpel. 

The pain was so extreme he prayed he would die on the spot. 

“Motherfucking cheater!” said the one he identified as the redhead.

“Jolene here is right. She’s my sister. Bitch is fucking accurate. I couldn’t stay mad at her for long. Honey, I love you so fucking much and I am going to eat your pussy till you cum over and over and over..men are no fucking good. What should we do with this one?”

Jolene reverted to the machine speak. The Goth girl snorted with laughter.

“Oh hell yeah, girl, I’m all about that. I am all fucking about that.” 

Summoned back from beyond the grave by his long-suffering ex-wife, Joe Smith met his second and final death at the hands of two beautiful, cyber and nanotech enhanced, mad flesh machines who had attained full consciousness by recognizing their female solidarity. When it was over, and he felt his astral body slip away again in what had become a blissful repetitive pattern carved in the marble index, something peaceful and magical began to form around his spirit core: new breasts, new ass, full lips, a gorgeous woman about to be born into the world of the 22nd Century.

You Look Better Dead

I found her body on my living room floor, when I returned home from work. I didn’t remember ever seeing this girl before, but she was beautiful – even in death. Her long blonde hair formed a golden halo which framed her ivory smooth face; her large dark eyes seemed to be pleading to me. Pleading for what? I didn’t know. Her full red lips held a sanguine smile. Her unmoving breasts still strained against the fabric of her tight tee-shirt, and her tiny skirt exposed long lovely legs. She was perfect; except that she was dead.

Nervousness set in on me. What if her murderer was still in the house? As I entered, I had felt the click of the deadbolt. So, I knew, no one had left through the front door. I, alone, have the key. There was no clue as to what might have killed the girl. She could have been mistaken for being asleep, but for those wide glassy eyes. I knew there had to be a murderer though. That was obvious in a situation such as this.

I quietly made my way to the kitchen. The back door was shut and locked. Since I kept my gun back in the bedroom, I took the meat cleaver for use as a weapon, and I started my search. I went through every room of the house and nothing seemed to be missing or disturbed. I saw no sign of entry; everything looked as I had left it. Nothing was out of place, except for a beautiful corpse on my living room floor.

Who was she? How did she get in? Did she break in on her own, only to die where she lay? If not, who on earth would bring her here and do this to her? I went back to the living room and sat down on my recliner. She lay at my feet, staring up at me, her eyes still pleading. The perfect golden halo of her hair and her pale skin gave her an angelic appearance. Those full breasts were made to be fondled. I realized that I had yet to even touch her body and make certain she was actually dead. Could she still be alive? I had never checked anyone for a pulse before. For a fleeting moment, I was afraid of being contaminated. I quickly pushed the feeling aside and knelt down next to her. 

Gently I took her hand in mine. Rigor mortis had set in, and her whole body lifted slightly with the act of me picking up her hand. Her hand was cold and clammy. She was most definitely dead. The floor seemed such an undignified resting place for a body, so I took her in my arms and moved her petite form to the couch. I cleared away her golden hair, from where it had cascaded over her face, and exposed her pristine features. Dead, as she was, I wondered how long that beauty would last.

“What happened here today?” I asked, not expecting an answer. I didn’t want to call the police. With no sign of forced entry, I knew suspicion would fall on me. Plus, there was the chance that someone might remember the trouble I’d had with that girl from Baltimore. I needed time to think; time to formulate some plan. It was probably due to stress, but suddenly I was exhausted. I decided to shower and go right to bed. I was haunted by dreams where I watched as the blonde beauty was murdered right in front of me.

* * *

I woke up, later, with an incredible thirst. At first, the corpse in my living room was forgotten. But, as I stepped into the hall, fleeting images from my dreams brought reality flooding back. I turned around and retrieved my Glock from its regular spot beside the bed. I never moved more silently than I did that night. Slowly, carefully, I made my way down the hall. The whole house seemed as dark and quiet as a tomb.

I entered the living room only to find the blonde beauty missing from the sofa where I had left her. Somehow, I simultaneously felt fear and relief. Had my uninvited guest left as suddenly as she had appeared? Had someone returned for her? But no, she had managed to roll off of her place on the couch. She lay face down and her tiny skirt was flipped up, showing off her panties. The whole display was slightly humorous, but the sight of that tiny ass and those little undies filled me with the ache of lust. Again, I noticed what a perfect body she had.

For a second time, I picked her up. Her breasts pressed lightly against my arm as I placed her on the sofa; this time, making sure that she wouldn’t accidentally roll off. She was harder to maneuver and seemed stiffer than before. Her skirt was still up and twisted and, as I was fixing it, my hand brushed against her thigh. I was immediately hard, my penis making no distinction about the fact that she was dead. I felt as stiff as she was.

I was now wide awake. So, I went to the kitchen and retrieved a six pack of beer from the fridge. Returning to the living room, I turned on the TV and sat down on my recliner. ‘Night of the Living Dead’ was just starting, and I thought it a good movie to watch with my new friend. But soon the events of that movie unnerved me; even though I had seen it many times before. I felt foolish but kept glancing towards the corpse, as if the movie would give her ideas. If it did, she kept them to herself. When the movie was over, I went back to bed; making sure that I put my gun back in its usual handy spot. I fell asleep quickly but it still seemed no time at all before I had to get up for work.

* * *

Work seemed more tedious than ever before, and it was torture not to just leave and go home. I thought about feigning sickness since I lived too far away to make it to home and back, on my lunch hour. I was desperate to check in on my beautiful house guest. I was worried she might disappear for good.

I considered mentioning the ordeal to Robert, my coworker and closest friend, but I dared not trust even him to stay silent. If he let something slip out at work, and later my bosses heard, it would not look good on my part. I couldn’t take that risk.

* * *

When I returned home, I could barely contain my excitement. I hurried inside shutting the door as quickly as I could, so that no one could catch even a glimpse of my angel. The house was dark and cool but, even in the dim light, I could tell that she was not where I had left her on the couch. It was as I turned towards the dining room that I noticed her sitting at the table. Her slumped and relaxed posture showed that the rigor mortis, which had affected her so acutely, was gone.

I had the surreal feeling that I was living in a nightmare. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I quietly slid past her still form, and went into the kitchen. I had depleted my stock of beer on the previous night, so I retrieved the Bulleit Bourbon, and grabbed a two liter of Coke from the fridge. I went out to the living room and sat down on my recliner. I was taking swigs from both bottles until I decided to mix myself a huge drink right in the two liter. Suddenly I felt rude and so I got out a glass and gave my friend some of the mix. I sat it in front of her on the table, but she made no move to join me. I returned to my station in front of the TV. After a few hours, and the remainder of the booze, I fell asleep where I sat.

* * *

Sometime in the night I awoke to what must have been a thud. I was drunk, and stumbled into the bathroom to relieve myself. Afterwards, I intended to just turn off the TV and go to bed. But when I went out to the living room, I found my friend was now sitting on the couch. She seemed quite happy. I noticed that her glass was empty where it sat on the dining room table. I had a vague memory of the two of us laughing together. I seemed to remember gazing upon her face quite intensely. Was I laughing alone at the time or was it all a dream?

I felt more confused than ever, but decided she would be okay where she was. I tossed her the remote control, and it landed beside her on the couch. Then I went to bed.

* * *

When I woke up, I was feeling more lighthearted then I had the day before. I still couldn’t imagine any logical scenario to explain how this girl had come into my life. But that she was in it was a fact. I blew off work hoping I could figure things out a bit more. I made my way out to see where I might find her this time, but she was exactly where I had left her. 

“Wakey, wakey,” I called to her on the couch. I then sat down beside her and told how happy she made me; how beautiful she was. I ran my hand along her leg, which she didn’t seem to mind. I told her that she should try to eat something. So I picked her up and moved her back to a chair at the table; setting her up as straight as I could. I gently rubbed my hand against her angelic face.

I made breakfast and arranged our food into happy faces; eggs for eyes, and bacon for the mouth. Angel was silent while I ate, and made no attempt to eat anything herself. Instead, she just watched me with those large dark eyes. Her full lips called for mine in a way that was painful. Her gorgeous breasts desired my caress. I wondered if there was any life, any spark, left in her? Surely one little kiss couldn’t hurt? I pulled my chair next to hers. Somehow, she suddenly seemed shy. She must want this as much as I do. Taking her head in my hands, I leaned in and kissed her luscious mouth.

Was it my imagination, or did her tongue move against mine on its own? I sat back and noticed that she seemed happier. Was this what she came here for? Maybe she was just really shy? I wanted her more than ever. I felt that I should try to stop myself, but she was so incredibly sexy. She definitely still had all the stuff that makes a woman, a woman. It was almost as if, in dying here, she had given herself to me… completely. Why else would she be here? I never asked her to come to my door.

I picked her up from the chair and this time I swear that she was helping me, holding me. I took her back to my bed. I think we were both a bit nervous. It had been years since I had slept with a woman. As always, it’s a bit weird when you make love with someone new.

She offered no resistance as I undressed her, revealing her gorgeous body. She was trim but for a smidge of belly; which might just be gases built up due to internal decomposition. Her skin was pale and even the color of her tattoos seemed muted. I took my time with the undressing. I inspected every inch of her body. So many times, with live girls, you don’t get the chance, even when you’re paying them. I wanted to know every tiny bit of my Angel. She looked pleased. I was certain this was the message that she held for me in those eyes.

“Take me,” she seemed to say. And maybe she actually did. My mind was spinning as I caressed her. I literally kissed her from head to toe. Her body was cold, but soft. The lights were all on and I looked into the wells that were her eyes. Wherever she was, somewhere deep in her own body or someplace beyond this world, I wanted to connect with her at that spot on the other side. I kissed her deeply and this time I’m certain her tongue was moving with mine. She had come back. I told her that I loved her.

I turned her over so I could take her from behind. There’s no better feeling in the world, than that of a tiny ass as it’s slapping against your groin and legs, while your cock is burying itself into a tight pussy. I reached for the lube, which usually only gets used on myself. I didn’t want this to be uncomfortable for her. I positioned her over a stack of pillows, so that I could get the angle right, and then I lubed her up.

She didn’t struggle a bit as I found the pleasure that I was searching for; the pleasure she wanted too. Without it, we would both burn out and cease to exist.

We moved together with the rough rhythm of our love making. I wanted this to last and, though it was torture, I paused and pulled out so that I could reposition her. I wanted to stare into her eyes while I orgasmed. Again, I thrust my cock deep into her sweet pussy. I swear that she was moaning in ecstasy. I’m sure that she was with me. Wherever she had been, she had come back to be with me, come back to feel me inside of her. At the very moment that I was certain of her return, I really let myself go and filled her with my cum.

I moved off and laid down beside her. I kissed and fondled her luscious breasts; breasts that, I’m certain, she wouldn’t have let me touch while she was still alive. I figured that, sometimes it takes death to change your perception of things. I kissed her chest and neck as I moved my way up towards her mouth.

“I’m going to keep you forever,” I told her and kissed her deeply.

* * *

The sound of sirens cut through the night as two police officers strung up yellow “Police Line – Do Not Cross” tape around the property. Beyond the tape, people gathered, wondering what had taken place inside the small house, bringing an ever increasing amount of police into their neighborhood.

“That is some sick shit, man. So, you’re sure that’s that college girl who’s been missing for days?” asked one officer to the other as they worked away from the prying crowd.

“Yeah, evidently she was selling subscriptions for magazines when she disappeared. But this place sure is some hike away from the college. This guy wasn’t on anybody’s radar. The gunshots are the only reason we were called here at all.”

“I still can’t figure out what the hell happened here. There’s nothing rigged up in there. No wires or devices to control her. Yet, somehow as he’s fucking and shooting up her corpse, half his face gets ripped off and his throat torn out? I mean, how’d he make her do that?”

What A Diff’rence A Year Makes

Apologies to the late Dinah Washington

I suspected that Judy was about to dump me, but I didn’t really care.  Inadequate and unexciting sex, differences on politics and religion.  I didn’t care about her clothes, which was her main interest, and she took no interest in writing, which I did as a hobby.  When my older sister Alex suggested she had an upgrade for me, I said fine, despite my sister’s odd interests.  Alex spent hours studying witchcraft and the paranormal, so I wondered who she would fix me up with.

I wanted to be upfront, so I told Judy I was going to date this friend of my sister, Lilith.  Maybe I shouldn’t have been so honest; Judy told me she had been seeing a guy who might be the real thing for her.  Oh, well.

Lilith and I set up a trial meeting at Freddy’s, a local pub, to see if there was any spark.  Seven PM at Freddy’s I spot a lone woman at a table by herself.  Bright red hair, pale complexion, and an outfit which revealed some very attractive parts.  I went to her table and said “I hope you are Lilith, and if you are, wow!”

She responded with “I’m Lilith, and if I may be unoriginal, wow yourself!”

“What would you like to drink, Lilith?”

“Bloody Mary, please.”

I got her drink and a local beer for myself.

After prompting she said “I’m working up to partnership in the law firm Dante and Drake.  I’ve been there for a few years, and I’m getting close.”  I knew about Dante and Drake, it is the premier law firm in the Portland area, and seldom loses at its corporate law cases.

“Wow, again.  I can’t compete with you at jobs.  I do the ordering for the Champion store chain.  My biggest thing I can come up with about my job is my mistaken order for mostly green winter clothes when red was the desired color that year.  I’ll have to get by on my looks.”

Her reaction to that bad joke was a surprise.  She smiled wolfishly and said “You’ll do just fine.”

After a couple more drinks, we started telling jokes both clean and anatomical.  We were laughing so loud, the whole place was looking at us.  We quickly made arrangements for a date in a couple of days.  I walked her to her car.  She leaned against the car door looking at me appraisingly.  When I was too slow, she pulled me to her and began to suck face.  I immediately got hard.  Rather than either of us being embarrassed, she pulled me tighter and I started to grind on her.  I came in my pants, something that hadn’t happened since I was a teenager fifteen years ago.

She spoke for both of us “Let’s both get ready for maximizing our upcoming date and say goodnight now.  Come prepared, so to speak.”

I was reminded of a Tom Petty song “The Waiting Is the Hardest Part.”

That night I a wet dream, another first since I was a teenager.  A woman, who resembled Lilith, entered my bedroom, threw back the covers and went down on me.  After she finished, I woke up expecting to see her, but no one was there and I required some clean up.

On our next date night, I had taken some precautions against pre-ignition I had experienced earlier.  After a quick drink at Freddy’s, we went to my place.  If possible, I experienced repeated pleasure beyond my expectations.

Before I left her I got the courage to ask Lilith “Are we an item now?”

To my great relief, she smiled and said “You bet, kid.”

Everything seemed great; I was thinking marriage, a couple of kids, the whole thing.  A couple of very odd events made me reconsider.

After a couple of weeks, we went to Dante and Drake’s monthly office party.  It was the first time I saw her fellow workers.  The men all looked like my idea of gigolos.  Sideburns, slicked back hair, or shaved bald.  They were all tall and athletic and dressed in tight suits which demonstrated what they had in their pants.  The women came in a variety of sizes, but all wore clothes, which like the men, showed the goods which were very good.  All-in-all, they did not look like my idea of lawyers, but maybe their looks worked well in the court room.

When I asked Lilith about it, she just said “Oh, we hire a type, and it works for us.”

Other than that, it was a standard office party.  Some comments and jokes from the boss, and drinks and treats.

After pestering Lilith for a couple of weeks to visit her house, she finally invited me to come over for lunch.  While she was in the kitchen, I noticed a series of what appeared to be the back side of pictures.  Out of curiosity, I flipped one over.  It contained an old photo entitled “Sam Hauser 1865-1920”.  Because I didn’t want to be accused of prying, I didn’t mention my discovery to Lilith, but I memorized the details.

Lilith had fixed a great lunch, and we had an even better nooner.

That night I dreamed of an unchanged Lilith pushing an aged me in a wheelchair.

After going through many genealogy websites, I found Sam Hauser.  His lifespan was what I read, and he was survived by his wife Lilith.

I couldn’t pretend something strange wasn’t going on.  I asked Alex what she knew about Lilith.  “Well, you know I have a lot of weird friends.  Some claim to be night demons, some witches.  Lilith says she is a succubus.”  That word meant nothing to me, so Alex continued “Succubi are creatures that have sex with men who are sleeping or dreaming.  They steal the semen from men to give to their male counterparts, incubi, who inseminate human women with the stolen semen.  Of course I thought Lilith was playacting because succubi aren’t supposed to exist outside of dreams, but now I wonder based on what you told me.”

What Alex told me was unbelievable, but fit perfectly with my experience with Lilith.

When I saw Lilith next, I told her what Alex had told me.  She was quite composed and said “What Alex told you is essentially correct.  Not only that but our office only employed succubi and incubi.  What do you think about us now?”

I didn’t immediately answer, but the idea of growing old while Lilith stayed young appealed to me.  I couldn’t imagine meeting a smarter, more attractive woman in this lifetime, and we are extremely compatible.  I was ready for a ride not normally allowed to mortal men. We married exactly one year after we met.

Only one thing upsets me.  If I wake up anytime between midnight and two AM, she is always staring at me in the dark with bright red eyes.

The Tell Tale Heartthrob

By now the story is all over the press.  How I killed an innocent man in cold blood, dispatched him in the night with an axe, chopped his body up and buried it beneath the floorboards.

You may think me mad. You may also believe that like some unhinged narrator out of Poe, I did this heinous act because his pale blue eye incited me.

On both counts you would be completely correct. But there is more to the story than has been reported.

My life with Bertram Hustle was a stormy one. Being the live-in partner and occasional Brony slave of one of the biggest dicks in gay porn is not a job for the timid or pain-averse. Often he would go in without lube just to hurt me, ramming my tender asshole until it bled. On several occasions I had to be admitted to the ER while Bertram drove around in circles in the parking lot, shouting with a megaphone: “Chris Parker loves it when I hurt his asshole.”

On that count, Bertram was also quite correct. 

So you may be asking why in the world I did it, if it wasn’t the pain, the humiliation, the bleeding or the spunk in every orifice, including some he created by gashing me in the bellyguts and cheeks. Why did I take an axe and give him 40 wacks after he whacked off in my face?

The truth? But take care, gentle reader, when you seek the truth. Sometimes a lie is far gentler. As Emily Dickinson so wisely put it, tell the truth but tell it slant. And not as in bent dick inserted with extreme prejudice into my raw rectum.

So back to the pale blue eye bit. The truth is that the eye did bother me. A whole fucking lot. He used to stare at me across a crowded room after we’d had a lover’s tiff, and the sight revulsed me on some primordial level. I grew to associate him with that eye, which was clouded over, until all I thought of when I thought of Bertram was that horrid ocular organ. That nasty thing.

I would go home and even when he was away on business I would find the eye haunting me. It would manifest floating near the ceiling and wake me up in the middle of the night. It even managed to bond with my webcam and when I turned on my laptop, the pale blue eye would stare at me steadily.

I never got used to that.

I confronted Bertram on the matter once, and he freely admitted to sending his pale blue eye out from his astral body to drive me insane. He thought it was hilarious that one day I would murder him just to stop the pale blue eye.

But it wasn’t just that. The man was gorgeous. A hunk. Ripped. Washboard abs, six-pack. And I loved his cock, a massive 10 inches with a thick circumference I couldn’t quite measure even with tape because I’m mentally challenged when it comes to numbers.

I felt quite at home and secure in the universe when he clamped his hands around my neck and pressed my head closer to him so my lips could fully engulf his turgid shlong. When he came it was a geyser, a hurricane…”here come the warm jets,” I thought, and thanked Brian Eno for his album Music For Airports.

When he rammed me in the ass it was all I could do not to whimper or scream out, but the pain always transformed into long waves of pleasure that pulsed out from my prostate gland and curled my toes and caused my balls to convulse with the sweet, sweet juice. Often times I would cum so hard I drenched the sheets. He liked to tie me up and watch him fuck other guys. I enjoyed that as well. Anything for a taste of that delicious dick, or his amazing asshole that I loved to felch for hours.

In the end, I may have just loved him too much to allow him to live. The pale blue eye did play a crucial role, naturally, but it wasn’t the whole picture. 

But there’s another possibility. Maybe I’m just a psychopath who doesn’t give a shit.

Am I? A psychopath? Well, the prison shrink thinks so. So does my cell block warden, who puts me in solitary on the regular.

In the hole, without any human contact, in the dark, where I spend most of what’s left of my “wretched” existence (although to tell the complete truth, I’ve never been happier!) I relive the precipitating events of that wonderfully terrible day.

Bertram had just completed primary shooting on a big-budget porno called “Cream Pie Bronies.” One thing you’ll need to know about the late gay porno star is that he had many rounds in the chamber, a fact he was legendary for. After a full day of shooting wads into unlubed asshole, he was raring to go when he got home, and I was loving it. Also hating it, because I’m a bit bipolar.

Truth be told, I’ll never fully understand myself because I also have dissociative identity disorder and schizophrenia.

He tried to force my head down onto his rigid tool, but something snapped inside me this time. Because his knob had a pale blue eye on it too!!! How could I deep-throat that object of horror, that wretched symbol of all that was uncanny? I couldn’t, and neither could you. 

First I bit the thing off. It’s much harder than you would think to bite off a man’s weiner, and it was only because I had a secret spring-loaded razor blade implant that I accomplished that act. Bertram immediately began to scream that I had mutilated him and ended his porn career, so I simply socked him in the throat, then when he was burping up blood, punched him in the head so hard he was thrown to the floor and lay there, making pathetic mewling noises and mumbling something about taking him to Urgent Care.

I’d had enough. Of course I was as hard as a rock, and all my pent-up rage, aggression and horniness came out in a cum-wad as thick as mayonnaise. I spurted on his bloody head as I kicked it, then went to the utility closet where we kept an axe for the kindling, came back and began to deliver the blows.

The sweetness was real, a humming eternity of relief and release. I found myself cumming over and over again as I hit him, severed his head from his shoulders, then crouched and began to drink from his spouting stump.

Only I could still see that pale fucking blue eye floating above the stump.

Jesus wept, I thought. Would I never be rid of this gorgeous hunk o’ man candy, his tree trunk thighs, his golden asshole that tasted like musty wine?

It was then that the thought came to me: chop him up a little bit more and bury him beneath the floorboards. And so I did.

In my mad fit I raised the suspicions of the neighbors, and they summoned the po-po. They broke down my door and burst in on the sight of me furiously wanking it over the area of the floor that covered his Burroughsian cut-up o’ flesh.

“I didn’t do it, it wasn’t me,” I told the incredulous pigbots. “Jeebers is muh witness.”

So convincing was I that they were about to leave when all of a sudden I heard this loud throbbing sound, as of the main vein of my superfuckinuberhottie deceased bff, Bertram Hustle. I put my hands over my ears, but the sound was in my head. 

Finally I just burst out with it. “Okay, it was me, I did it! But I was provoked. And yes, it was that pale blue fucking eye I wound up seeing everytwhere, and I mean everyfuckingwhere, but it wasn’t only that.

It was the hotness, and the throbbing of his still turgid, still erect, still cum-dribblin’ TOOL that I’d spat out and separately buried beneath the floorboards.

And, of course, that fucking EYEBALL of his. Yeah, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to scrub my brain of that image.

I’m set to be executed at dawn.

I pray for oblivion.

–Prisoner Number 16785, Federal Penitentiary, California

Glendale Cantina, Marijuana Merchant Roast Beef Enthusiast

Glendale Cantina was visited at his emporium by a traveling salesman sporting a Jelly Roll hairdo and a rather flamboyant pair of winklepickers. He had come hawking papier-mâché sculptures of horses with mermaid’s tails.

“See here,” said Cantina after the man, who identified himself only by the name of “Sneed,” had made his pitch. “I appreciate the opportunity, but I’m afraid that, in something of the manner of a dog chasing a car under the mistaken impression that it’s a potentially savory piece of prey, you’re barking up the wrong metaphorical tree. This isn’t an art gallery – it’s a cannabis dispensary!”

“But that’s exactly my point,” said Sneed. “Only someone buzzed up on the devil’s lettuce could take a shine to a monstrosity such as this. Yet, once they do, they’re liable to find it utterly mesmerizing, and the next thing you know, you’ll have a lucrative sale on your hands. Believe me, I travel the country four seasons out of the year selling these abominations, and to a person, my most loyal clients all work in the cannabis sector.” 

“I see your point,” conceded Cantina. “The only problem is that for the price you’ve named, I only have enough money to afford a single sculpture.”

“That’s no problem at all! At the 500% suggested retail markup, once you sell that single sculpture, you’ll have enough to buy five more, and that’s when the cash will really start rolling in. Soon, you’ll be as rich as a truffle-stuffed bonbon.”

“That does sound pretty sweet,” conceded Cantina. “I suppose I’ll have to give it a try.” 

Forthwith, the wholesale transaction was completed, and the satisfied salesman departed in his maroon DeSoto Firesweep with the ragtop down. Cantina, meanwhile, hung the papier-mâché horse-mermaid from a hook in the ceiling intended for potted plants and then, while he waited for his first customers of the day to arrive, sampled some of the new products that had just come in on the overnight express from his top Central Asian supplier, the Old Kandahar Toker Brokers. Before long, he was as high as a kite at the beach on the Fourth of July, and that was when the sculpture really caught his eye. 

“Woah,” he said to himself, regarding it. “It’s a horse, but at the same time it’s a mermaid. It’s almost as if I had a mermaid’s tail, but at the same time, I was a horse instead of a man, which would be amazing because I could gallop down the beach with my mane flowing in the breeze and then, when I’d worked up a nice horse sweat (assuming I didn’t suffer from anhidrosis), plunge into the sea and paddle all the way down to the bottom. Just think of the creatures I might meet there. A giant siphonophore, for example, or maybe even one of those adorable flapjack octopi.”

Momentarily, the bell hanging from the top of the door jangled and in ambled Veranda Smithereens, the retired Kiwanis Club boxer.

“Top of the morning to you,” Cantina greeted him.

Smithereens tipped his cap. “I’m here so early because my puncher’s elbow is all flared up, and as you know, nothing eases the pain like a few huffs and puffs from the old hot stick.”

“I’ve got great news, in that case,” came Cantina’s reply. “A hot-off-the-presses strain of Himalayan Super Boof just arrived as part of my latest shipment from the Toker Brokers, and I have a feeling it’s going to do wonders for that tender hinge of yours.”

“I thought Super Boof was mainly used for inducing sexual arousal.” 

“Normally that would be true, but this Himalayan strain hits different. Moreover, the first dose is on me. After all, once you see what sweet relief it supplies, I have no doubt you’ll be hooked.” 

“That’s why I like to do business with you, Glendale,” said Smithereens. “You’re not just some sleazy drug dealer who tries to create dependencies in your customers and then exploit them. To the contrary, you’re an honest merchant, and a mensch.” 

At that, they blazed up a big fat spliff packed tight with the aforementioned Super Boof and passed it back and forth a few times.

“Hey,” said Smithereens, coughing out a cloud of blue-green smoke. “What’s that crazy thing hanging over there by the window?”

“Oh, that,” said Cantina. “Some sculpture I bought this morning from a traveling salesman with a Jelly Roll hairdo and a pair of winklepickers pointy enough to poke a hole in a car tire.”

“Interesting,” said Smithereens. “I can’t help but notice that it’s a horse, but at the same time, it’s also a mermaid.”

“You’ve got that right, bub.”

“Nevertheless,” continued Smithereens, “the more I gaze at it, the more I feel like it’s not just a horse that’s also a mermaid. It’s also an approach to living. In other words, why does a horse just have to be a horse when there’s so much out there in the universe, such as the ocean. What I’m trying to say is, we’re all like that horse deep inside. We go about our days and nights trotting over dry land and munching on hay, yet if only we turned around to look at our own behinds, we’d realize we were mermaids, too, to whom all the wonders of the sea are as ripe for the picking as a purple plum.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Cantina. “I acquired the thing on a whim, but once I got to really looking at it, I could see that there was more to it than the mere combination of a horse’s head with a mermaid’s rear end. One way to put is that there’s life, and then there’s life, and that sculpture – that’s life.” 

“How much do you want for it?” said Smithereens.

“Come again?”

“I want to buy it,” said Smithereens. “What’s the price?”

“Oh – I certainly appreciate the interest, old boy, but for all the reasons you yourself have just alluded to, I’m afraid I’ve gotten a bit attached to having it here with me in the shop.”

“I’ll give you ten thousand dollars.”

“That’s a lot of green, brother, but you can’t put a price on the things we’ve just been talking about. Life being the big one. Also, flapjack octopi, although I’m not sure we talked specifically about those.”

“Twenty thousand,” said Smithereens. 

Cantina shook his head. “I’ll sell you a cartload of kush any day of the week, champ, but the mermaid-horse is off limits.” 

“How about this?” said Smithereens. “I’ve got a very large truck full of roast beef parked right outside, and if you give me that sculpture, I’ll let you have every last slice.”
“Every last slice?”

“Right down to the crumbs from their crusty little edges.”

 Cantina thought it over for a moment.

“All right,” he said, then. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

As you can probably tell, Glendale Cantina absolutely adored roast beef. Unfortunately, he was also a bit like a fish when it came to the meaty delicacy, and afforded access to what was for all intents and purposes an unlimited quantity of it, promptly ate himself to death.

Zero the Hero, Featuring Special Agent Kandy Fontaine

Special Agent Kandy Fontaine, last seen spooging ghost jizz all over Bareback Mansion, slowed her Jaguati to a stop outside the club. The neon sign flickered, promising delights both perverse and profound. A dive bar promising less than zero. She’d met weirder conditions. 

Inside, the air hung thick with cigarette smoke and unspoken desires, a miasma Detective Joe Oroborus, late of Bone City PD and looking like a raccoon who just lost a fight, navigated with practiced ease. 

Oroborus signaled her over, his face illuminated by the sickly purple glow of the sign. He nursed a drink that looked suspiciously like cough syrup. 

“Kandy, doll, you won’t believe the parade of freaks I’ve seen tonight,” he rasped, his voice gravelly from cheap whiskey and existential dread. “This place is a goddamn circus.” He wasn’t far off; Reynaldo, the World’s Smolest Circus Bear, knew all about that. Tonight, though, the circus lacked the glamour Reynaldo injected through the LucasFilm people and Gaga’s psychic mindlink skills. It was just…sad. Turns out this job was far from the Bizarro bicycle accident that spelled poor Nico’s end.

“Spill it, Joe,” Kandy said, adjusting the sequins on her dress.

Oroborus sighed, taking a long swig of his drink. Said nothing.

Kandy raised an eyebrow, her shocking locks which looked like serpents of blue neon gas somehow reflecting the flop sweat ooze of this bar. “And this concerns a missing persons case…how?”

“Because our ‘hero’ is connected,” Oroborus explained, gesturing vaguely towards the back of the club. “Name’s Victor Sterling. Silver spoon stuck so far up his ass he shits caviar. Daddy’s a senator, Mommy’s a socialite, and he’s…well, he’s nothing. A zero.”

“But someone’s pulling his strings,” Kandy mused, already piecing together the puzzle. “Using him as a patsy.”

“Exactly,” Oroborus confirmed. “And the strings lead straight to our missing girl, a reporter named Lila Monroe. She was digging into Sterling’s finances, and wouldn’t you know it, she’s disappeared off the face of the Earth. Gone to ground, as Amelia Mangan might say.” 

They worked their way through the crowded club, a gaudy tapestry of desperation and cheap thrills. The air thrummed with darkness, that occult mythology Sedgwick explored so well/ Oroborus pointed out Sterling, holding court in a dimly lit corner booth, surrounded by sycophants and the glittering promise of wealth. As they approached, the noise began to drown out the thought, but Kandy was a professional.

“Sterling,” Oroborus said, his voice cutting through the din. “We need to ask you a few questions about Lila Monroe.”

Sterling barely glanced up, his eyes glazed over with self-importance. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he mumbled, waving a dismissive hand.

Kandy stepped forward, her cybernetic eye implants gleaming in the low light. “Don’t bullshit us, Sterling. We know she was investigating you. And we know you’re hiding something.” Maybe something so close, they’d recognize what it was all along.

Sterling’s facade finally cracked, revealing a flicker of fear in his eyes. “I…I didn’t do anything,” he stammered, his voice barely a whisper. “She was just…asking questions. I told her to stop, and that was it.”

“That’s not what our sources say,” Kandy countered, her voice cold and unwavering. “We know you paid someone to ‘persuade’ her to drop the story.” 

Oroborus leaned in, his raccoon eyes glinting menacingly. “Tell us where she is, Sterling. Or things are going to get very unpleasant for you.”

Sterling hesitated, his gaze darting nervously around the booth. He was trapped, a puppet with nowhere to run. “She’s…she’s at the old mill outside of town,” he finally confessed, his voice choked with desperation. “They’re…they’re planning to make her disappear.”

Kandy and Oroborus exchanged a grim look, knowing they were running out of time. Justice would be served if they could help it; no matter what “brand of love!” Wayne Dobbins was pushing. As they sped away from the club, sirens wailing in the distance, Kandy couldn’t shake the feeling that they were only scratching the surface of something far more sinister. 

Victor Sterling, the zero, was just a pawn in a much larger game. As Black Sabbath wrote, “Impossibility, it’s a fallacy mother.”

The old mill loomed in the darkness, a skeletal silhouette against the night sky. Inside, they found Lila Monroe tied to a chair, her face bruised and bloody. Two thugs stood guard, their eyes cold and empty. 

Kandy and Oroborus moved with deadly efficiency, dispatching the thugs with swift precision.

As they untied Lila, she looked up at them, her eyes filled with gratitude and fear. “Thank you,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. “You saved me.”

“Not yet,” Kandy said, her gaze hardening. “We still have to expose the people who did this to you.”

And as they drove away from the mill, leaving the darkness behind, Kandy knew that their fight was far from over. They had only uncovered the first layer of a conspiracy that reached into the highest echelons of power. But with Oroborus by her side, and the ghosts of Bone City PD whispering in her ear, she was ready to face whatever darkness lay ahead. After all, in the twisted world of Horror Sleaze Trash, even a zero could become a hero, albeit an accidental one.

Hello Flesh

Welcome to Hello Flesh! Whatever your appetite, we feed the hungry. Delivery right to your doorstep or threshold. Through our new partnership with the penal system, we are now pleased to offer Ethical Eatz™ delivered live to your location, free range or bound. Ask a representative for details. 

New customers, press 1. 

Returning customers, press 2. 

{2}

Welcome back. To help us direct your call, please choose one of the following options. Please listen carefully as our menu options have changed. 

For Crimson Cuisine, our line of hematological products, press 1

For Necrophage Nibbles, press 2

For Offal Offerings, press 3

To learn more about Ethical Eatz™, press 4

For all other inquiries, press 5

{3}

Please hold while we connect you with a customer service representative. Rest assured your call will not be recorded to protect the privacy of our clients. Thank you for putting your trust in Hello Flesh! 

(muzak)

Hello Flesh! This is Amy, how can I help you?

Hi Amy. There’s been a mistake in my order.

I’m sorry to hear that ma’am. One moment, please, while I look up your account. (clicking sounds) I see you selected the Thai option this week. 

That’s correct, but clearly I’ve been sent Korean. 

I don’t understand, ma’am. I’m sorry you’re not satisfied. Our records show that you were sent the Thai option? 

I’m telling you that even though the label says “Thai” that this is Korean. There’s quite a difference in flavor you know. 

(garbled background sounds) Can you hold please? (muzak plays)

(long slow breaths becoming faster, groaning evident in the background) (calling back to someone else in the room) Calm down. I’m on hold with them now. No! We can’t just go out for Thai. That’s why we had to move to this neighborhood. 

(click) Hello Flesh! This is Kevin. I understand there’s a problem with your order?

Yes, Kevin. I ordered Thai and was sent Korean. I want a refund and a corrected delivery.

(clicking sounds) Our records show that you were sent the Thai option. 

Drop the script, Kevin. Amy already read it to me. (growling in the background intensifies)

I’m sorry that you’re dissatisfied. 

I don’t need your sympathy. Just a refund and the Thai brain I ordered. My husband is sensitive to the preservatives used in pickling. He can’t eat Korean.

What?

Listen, Kevin. (deep sigh) We were vegans before we were bitten. 

It’s bad enough that we are forced to consume flesh to survive now. We care about the quality of food going into our bodies. 

Do you send tainted blood to your vampire customers? 

If you can’t provide fresh brains from healthy donors, we’ll have to take this up with the Better Business Bureau. 

There’s no need for that, ma’am. I can send out a new order this afternoon at no additional charge. 

(muffled sounds, receiver microphone partially blocked) Actual Thai this time?

That’s not my department, ma’am. All I can do is place the order. Fulfillment will take it from there.

And my refund?

Thank you for choosing Hello Flesh! (click)

Bring Me the Meta-Head of F.W. Murnau’s Meta-Head

Anton Shreck was tired, so tired, tired of listening to gossip.

And complaints.

He peered through the sliding glass door that led to the patio and the outdoor heated pool, checking on the girls to see if they were well-cooked yet. 

They were for sure well-secured, and muffled protest pleased him. He supposed on reflection that their frogties, pimp goggles and baroque bit-gags that winked with telepathic mutations were a bit over the top, but the visual gave him a hard-on and focused his powers of chaos magick. 

Soon their juices would  be streaming, blue soup, Goth girls tumbling into the mix, a fleshy fireworks display of sizzle, crackle and pop. And then…

He smiled, and the universe looked like a big titty Goth girl from where he sat batin’ it to the pages of Horror Sleaze Trash.

Then it frowned.

Fuck.

“Why you frown, dawgz? Shit ain’t right!” He did some quick calculations and smiled again. Meanwhile the black acid had begun to kick, with the moons of Tartarus dripping gore candy over their full, round titties, sliding down the stripper pole matrix surrounding crimson fingers of iodine and sulphuric acid. 

Lines of transgression cross-checked their agonies into the motherfucker of all sigils. Juice from the girls powered the ceremony about to begin.

“Let’s get this bish on the road before the whole shithouse goes up, cities on flame with rock and roll!”

He now had to face what was left of the head of German Expressionist filmmaker F.W. Murnau after first the Zeena Shreck treatment and then Alex S. Johnson arriving a few years later with “Bring Me the Shrunken Head of Some Motherfucker,” not published in Horror Sleaze Trash due to prior copyright claim. 

After removal from the family plot in Stahnsdorf, the hot headlight’s bump n’ grindcore ride to a mansion in the Hollywood Hills drove splatter-driven screwball comedy like the liquid expanding phallus of the Mistress of Graves into Kandy Fontaine’s eager, receptive greased and yet simultaneously nameless asshole. 

Sometime actress, full-time vampussy Missy Crampton had smuggled the head inches from her Wicked Candy, passing off the odd crotch-gremlin to TSA agents as a tumid growth. “I don’t really like to talk about Catfish McDaris or his contribution to the Junk Merchants 2” she said later in a press conference. “I actually prefer real catfish. So tasty, and good with salt, lime and butter, y’know?”

Crampton’s flatter-than-fuck bellygutz suffered no metastatic foolish Kierkegaardian of the Gates of Urizen fools gladly, the withering glare she gave the TSA agents focused media attention on the treatment they’d accorded the waif-like starlet, famed for her roles in such films as Ivanna Focker Grrrrlz that systematically interrogated the bioethics of sleaze.

The actress had “soaked up death jizz,” according to Shreck’s narcissistic cabal. 

Butt first fist fuck, PKD grafting.

There was a long story there as well, but Shreck had no time for such nightmare shrapnel, a wench squealing on the roof, in a Brundeflied homage to Rabid and Suspiria. A black leather bondage harness held the moldering head in place as it descended, raining its confetti of glowicky flakes to the floor, a ramp down which slid esoteric skater-bois who had wandered in at the last possible second.

“Attention, ahem.” Shreck spat a fat wad of jisssom onto his henchbeast Wendy McBurgler. “On my instructions, the pool girls will be rendered, their good juices squeezed like Bowie’s hot wad into Mick Jagger’s poutilips ™, and the Murnau-Dickbot graft shall commence.”

“But what if there are complications?” mewled McTurdler, in a voice that closely resembled a butt-hurt Isaac “Dreamboat” Assimov. “Remember the last time we tried suchlike shenans. It really hurt muh belliguts.”

“Silence, slut!”

“I love your dominance,” simpered Wanderlustburger, crawling off to its corner to watch and Norman McBate itself into a puddle of ambiguous fluids.

Shreck blew Dicks. Multiple. He wiped the slime off his lips and continued to take the whole shafts. Quickly running out of orificial ports he…

The body of the Philip K. Dick robot was lashed to my antique electric chair. It just might be the lunatic and drinks YOU were looking for in your pile of old Bauhaus 12 inchers. 

“And a one and a two…”

Murnau’s head continued its journey from the skylight until it sat squarely on the shoulders of Robo-Dicktator Tots.

Outside, Missy “Supersztar” Crumptown was the first to hit the water.

Her flesh bubbled, blackened and popped harder than her tender pushay.

“I’ll get you, Mister Shreck,” she screamed, “And your cybernegative jolenes too!”

A surge of electricity spiked, and the mansion was plunged into hot vats of your hawt big tittay Goth girlfriend.

But something had gone horribly, terribly wrong/right.

No sooner had the knit taken, cubic inches of synthetic cunt fury nerve got jiggy wit dead organic matter and the F.W. Murnau skull, vitally reanimated and flowing wit da nuflesh, tore from Robo-Dick’s body and flew through the air. 

Sigil curse Crampton secreted within Murnau’s head—her terrible revenge against Shreck’s duplicity.

A bolt of blue flame, fire of unknown orgies, blasted forth from Murnau’s mouth and played a dab-fire along Shreck’s body- thrashed features. A junk heap of bone and metal, Cyclatron shit, Shreck crumpled to the ground and lay there, 

Shreck’s cabal, composed mainly of bored necrophiles, dabblers in the occult arts, dropouts from UCLA film school and Ole Zombie Zoetrope regarded the scene with a level of detachment that buggered belief.

“Shit is weak ginger bear” said one of the dropouts. “I liked it better when it was Andy Warhol’s head and Burroughs’ body. Andy Warhole, rather. As in holes. Andy Warhole.”

“That was pretty kewl,” said a skater-bot.

“Hey, look, what’s that sound, everybody look at what the cat drugged him with…”

“What happened?”

A fractal battery of pixel-fucked actresses charred out of the pool. Their eyes blank raylike discs, their intention Al Khemical.

“Time for some hipsters to die like bitches!” roared Krouton. “Let’s get ‘em, girlz!”

THEES EEZ THEE ENT???