He threw open the lid of the toilet bowl and took a knee on the cold tile floor. He felt the nausea build up from his stomach to his throat. The system was reversing. He was going to vomit, there was no doubt. He hovered over the bowl, breathing heavy, spitting a bit into the bowl, waiting for the coup de grace.
It would be hard to think of a time a person is more introspective in their lives then in the few brief moments when they come face to face with a porcelain bowl of water that is normally reserved for fluids that expel from the other end of your body. Every human shares that moment at least a few times in their lives. It doesn't matter if you’re black or white, young or old, rich or poor, intelligent or imbecilic; we have all faced the bowl. We question what we've done in our lives to get to that position. We make promises to forces greater than ourselves in hopes of averting another experience like this. We marvel at the recognition of an otherwise insignificant brown speck glued to the waterline as actually being the remains of something we ate a few days ago.
Preston delighted in discovering the tiny remnant of a delicious salad he had for lunch two days ago, then out of nowhere his stomach went from zero to sixty in half-a-second. Vomit rocketed up through his digestive track and blasted out of his mouth. It hit the water hard and splattered in all directions. His face was bathed in backwashed vomit and toilet water as puke still poured from his mouth. The first wave stopped after what felt like an eternity, but was barely longer than a second. Then he hiccupped and let loose another wave of vomit.
The upchuck was pink, slimy, and viscous, made up of mostly stomach fluids and phlegm. There were chunks, however. Preston felt as if he ejected whole cocktail weenies out of his throat. He spit out the last tendrils of puke as he caught his breath. He grabbed a cold washcloth and wiped away the filth from around his mouth, still feeling the wicked burn of bile in the back of his throat. He didn't want to, but he knew he had to, so he composed himself as best he could and looked into the bowl.
Cocktail weenies were indeed the appropriate analogy. Preston saw at least a half dozen or so inch-long wieners floating in among the stew of puke. Not the kind of wieners you wrap in croissant dough and call pigs in a blanket, either. It looked like Preston ate a bunch of newborn babies and vomited out their privates before he could digest them.
He flushed the toilet and became mesmerized watching the wee-little penises begin to swirl in the tumult. They swirled in the vortex of water and vomit in a counterclockwise motion, riding the tides down to infinity (or at least the local sewage plant). He bade the odd dicks Godspeed and happy travels.
* + * +
Not long after, Preston heard Benny's car turn into the driveway. He was relieved. Benny had a knack for beating illnesses. Once, Benny came down with the flu. He drank a half-cup of automotive antifreeze, and the next morning he woke up without so much as a sniffle. Another time, his cousin came down with mono. After teasing her mercilessly about the type of boys she'd been kissing, he whipped her up a concoction of pig cum and a splash of lemon juice. He instructed her to gargle with it every night before bed. Within a few days she was making out with every neighborhood boy who gave her a wink and a nod.
Preston had asked him how he knew pigs semen would do the trick. Benny shrugged and told him he really didn't know, he just wanted to watch his cousin gargle pig jizz so he would have something for the spank bank later. He was shocked when it worked, but told Preston never to underestimate the power of the placebo effect. Preston had no idea what that meant at the time, but it sounded very mystical to him.
Nowadays, Preston knew exactly what the placebo effect was, but that didn't do much to erase his youthful convictions of its secret magical prowess. When they were kids, he looked at Benny as some sort of shaman (nowadays, “holistic healer” would have been the operative word). Right down to Benny's magical smoke weed.
The doorbell rang. Preston answered it, already feeling better just knowing Benny had arrived.
“Hey, Benny, whatcha got for me, man?” Preston said with an emphatic flair through a stuffy nose.
“Easy, Prez. I gotta check out these dicks before I can ascertain what to dispense to you, dude,” Benny said, trying (and failing) to sound like some sort of doctor.
Preston lowered his head. He never considered saving a sample. He wasn't too thrilled with the idea of producing more for Benny to examine. He explained to Benny that he hadn't bothered to save any, but if he waited around he was sure, unfortunately, that he would produce some more soon.
“Cool, bro!” Benny slapped Preston on the back. “I got all day, man.”
Preston felt a bit relieved that he would no longer have to face this odd disease alone. He felt confident that Benny's knack for apothecary would produce a positive result and he would be feeling fine to go out and party tonight. That placebo effect seemed to be taking hold, he was feeling better already. Benny was the fucking man!
Benny fetched an old fishing tackle box from the trunk of his car. He set it up on the coffee table in the living room and perused its contents while he waited for Preston to puke up some dicks. Each compartment in the box contained a variety of herbs, ground powders, vials of liquid and a few other oddities. One of those oddities was what appeared to be several dozen dried-out mouse eyeballs.
Preston looked on as Benny took stock of his medicinal box. He marveled at the collection Benny had put together. He knew Benny liked to toy around with odd home remedies, but he had not seen his tackle box before, and it was clear by looking at it that Benny was taking this knack for creating cures to the next level. He was impressed with his friend’s commitment to something so important. Preston always figured Benny was destined to become a drifter, a stoner, a dead head, wandering the country without direction. Benny's tackle box represented something more concrete in his life.
“Feel anything coming on yet, Prez?” Benny asked.
“Nothing yet. Wait...” Preston felt a grumble in his stomach. Lower than his stomach, actually; something roiled around in his intestines. Preston clinched his butt cheeks suddenly.
“Oh no. I think I just got the shits!” Preston duck-walked as quickly as possible to the bathroom.
Benny stifled a laugh. He couldn't help it; funny was funny.
+ * + *
The urgency grew rapidly. Preston could barely get his pants down around his ankles quickly enough. Before his ass cheeks came to rest on the seat of the bowl, he began to splatter shit out of his asshole. Some splashed on the back of the seat. He was powerless to do anything about it. He would have to deal with it when the contents of his bowels had ceased blasting out of his colon.
This was some bad diarrhea; the type so watery it feels like you’re pissing out of your asshole. With one exception: Preston felt a few more solid pieces break the shit stream as it poured out of his ass. He didn't need to wonder what that was all about.
After crunching as hard as he could to be sure that that round was completely out, he began the process of wiping. It was amazing how quickly you cleaned up after an epic bout of diarrhea. Two wipes at most and he was clean. It seemed to defy all logic and break the laws of physics. He turned to drop the wad of soiled toilet paper in the bowl and thought better of it.
He tossed the wad of TP in the waste basket and cracked the bathroom door open. He couldn't believe he was about to do this. He took a deep breath and let it out. He then called for Benny to come take a look.
Benny came into the bathroom, almost too eager to check out Preston's leavings. He elbowed Preston out of the way and surveyed the sickly loose bowels splattered into the toilet bowl. There were Rorschach Test patterns of shit sprayed upon the upper portion of the bowl, the water was a chocolate soup of poop and intestinal particles, and, of course, there were a few penises. Three of them, several inches long and fat, like small bratwursts with newborn skin-toned flesh.
Benny's face lit up when he gazed upon them. His eyes welled up. He reached at them, palms up, marveling at the beauty of what they r
epresented for him. The dicks, they were real! He'd read about the condition in antique medical texts he collected from roadside dealers and shady merchants on eBay. Benny always figured them closer to fable than reality, yet there floating in Preston's movement were three detached dicks.
Benny's childhood friend—a person he knew his whole life, a man he shared secrets with like a brother—had the unimaginable ailment. Preston was Dick Sick.
Preston looked at Benny desperately, wordlessly begging him for the cure. Benny returned a look of hope, but also apprehension. Preston moved to flush the embarrassing dick-tainted diarrhea down the bowl, but Benny stopped him. He held up a finger to Preston—wait a moment—then reached into the bowl with that hand and scooped out the three stubby rods with his bare hands. He flopped them into the bathroom sink and gave Preston the all clear to flush the rest.
“We need those,” he explained to Preston as he washed the brown shitty smelling slop off his hands in the sink with the three shit-out dicks in it. “We have to bring them to a friend of mine. I've heard talk of your condition, but I've never seen it before. I don't even know where I would begin a treatment, but I know someone who may. Get ready, we are going to take a ride.”
+ * + *
Preston threw on a pair of gray sweatpants and an Iron Maiden shirt with the Aces High artwork on it. He grabbed a plastic bag just in case he got sick in the car. They hopped in Benny's rusted-out old Chevy and drove off to meet Benny's medicinal guru.
“Are you sure you can't just whip up a few different combos from your magic box and see if it sticks? I'm really uncomfortable about going to meet some stranger to show him how I expel cocks out of all my orifices.” Preston lamented.
Benny scoffed at his embarrassment. “Take it easy, Prez. I've learned a lot from this guy, he knows his stuff. If he can't cure you, well... He can cure you, so just don't worry about it.”
“Tissue!” Preston suddenly pleaded.
“What?” Benny asked, confused by the sudden change in topic.
Preston craned his neck back, closed his eyes and opened his mouth, taking in a quick breath. “Tissue, I'm going to snee.. sneeze! Hurry!”
Benny was in full freak-out mode now. “Oh fuck, Prez man! I don't have any tissues! Oh, shit! Ahh, sneeze into the bag, man, don't get no dicks all over my car, I just vacuumed this thing!”
Preston hastily pulled the bag to his face, not even sure if he was going to sneeze into the open end of the bag. Just as the plastic reached his lips he let out a thunderous AHCHOO!
Only the sneeze didn't sound right to Benny. It sounded cut off at the end. He looked over to Preston with one eye arched quizzically. Preston's eyes went wide suddenly as he pulled the plastic bag away from his face. What Benny saw was something he would never be able to erase from his mind for as long as he would live.
There was a full sized cock sticking several inches out of Preston's mouth, only it was coming out of his mouth the opposite way you're used to seeing in porno mags. To Benny, it looked like Preston had swallowed a dick, balls-first.
“Dude, there's something you don't see every day, bro.” The words fell out of Benny's mouth before he could stop them. Benny held up his hands pleading his regret to Preston for his insensitive comment.
Preston was suddenly preoccupied with trying to yank free the penis from his mouth. He had it around the shaft with both hands and was yanking on it with all of his might. He tugged and pulled and yanked and tugged some more. It wasn't budging and Preston was getting concerned quickly.
Benny burst out laughing. His immature mind would not allow him to be concerned with his friend’s failed attempts at removing the dick from his mouth. All Benny could see was his friend jerking off a dick sticking out of his mouth the wrong way.
Preston slapped the shit out of Benny. Benny stopped his crazed laughter. Preston was gesturing madly for Benny to pull on the dick and help him dislodge it.
“No. No fucking way am I touching that thing, dude.” But Benny could see Preston was actually turning blue around the lips. “Ahh shit, Prez man! You fucking owe me big time for this shit,” and Benny wrapped his hands around the mucus-covered shaft and pulled hard and steady.
It wouldn't budge at first. Benny re-gripped the phallus and pulled again. It still did not budge until Benny really put his back into it. Then it began to loosen, and the penis began to make headway, like a team gaining the upper hand in a game of tug-o-war. Finally, it dislodged itself entirely with a wet plop.
Benny held it up in his hand like he just wrestled a snake from Preston's mouth. He examined the strange dick for a moment. It was mucus covered, about five inches long and actually had a rudimentary set of balls at the end, which must have been the reason they got stuck in Preston's mouth after he sneezed it up.
Benny flipped the thing nonchalantly into Preston's lap. “Hang on to that, Cooter is going to want to take a look at it.”
“Cooter?” Preston asked.
“Yeah, Cooter. Why?”
“I have penises coming out of practically every hole in my body, and you’re taking me to a guy whose name is Cooter to fix it?” Preston asked, hoping the absurdity would sink into Benny's thick skull if he heard the question aloud.
Benny laughed instead. “You don't know Cooter. Wait 'till you meet him before you pass judgment, Prez.”
* + * +
They pulled up to Cooter's place. It was a dump. The house was an eyesore on a quiet little street that was populated by other relatively respectful looking little houses. Cooter's front lawn was littered with all manner of useless junk: auto parts, timber, concrete blocks and a few piles of who-knew-what concealed under weathered green tarpaulins. The house itself looked crooked, the frame of the house lilting to the left, weathered wooden siding covering it. The windows and front door looked like they could be knocked out of their frames with a simple push. The front walk to the house was grown-over with weeds and ivy; the only way to discern the path to the door was to follow the trampled ground cover.
Benny knocked on the front door; paint chips and dirt fell to the ground from the vibrations. The man who answered the door didn't so much swing it open on its hinges than tug the door away from the jamb in an approximation of the arc it would have swung in had it been connected to the door frame.
“Hiya Cooter duder,” Benny greeted him, “this is the guy I was telling you about.” He motioned to Preston to introduce him.
“Good evening, sir.” was all Preston could manage.
The first thing Preston noticed about Cooter was that he was a small man. Not midget small, but very close to it; he would have been surprised if he were even five feet tall. The next thing that Preston took note of about Cooter was that he was wearing a tuxedo, cleaned and pressed without a single wrinkle from head to toe.
Cooter surveyed Preston from top to bottom. His eyes then lit up and he beckoned them inside gleefully. “Come in! Come in!” he welcomed them. His voice was somehow high-pitched and raspy at the same time.
Preston and Benny stepped into a house that was in desperate need of a visit from the guy from Hoarders. There were books stacked haphazardly against nearly every wall. The wall with a fireplace was swamped with antique looking oddities. Lamps, tables, chairs, appliances, coat stands and other old looking appliances populated that wall. The fireplace itself appeared to be vomiting out an array of strange little statues and archaic children’s toys and what could best be described as metallic torture devices at a quick glance. The air in the house was thick with dust.
Preston shoved his hands into his pockets, repulsed by the thought of even possibly touching any of the filth in the house. He wanted nothing more than to turn around running and screaming. He could not imagine how this man—this dirty, filthy man, who for some reason was impeccably dressed—could possibly hold the cure for what ailed him.
Benny, sensing Preston's apprehension and plot to escape, placed his arm around his neck. It was a bromantic embrace, but it was also cl
ear that Benny was not going to let Preston go anywhere. Cooter asked the boys to follow him up the stairs after they had a moment to ingest the view of his humble abode. They followed Cooter up a set of stairs that was nearly hidden among all the debris.
The upstairs portion of the house stood in stark contrast to the ground floor—there wasn't a speck of dirt or dust. The upstairs hallway had an elegant carpet runner along its length and was decorated with a few paintings and a tiny display table with an elaborate Fabergé egg perched upon it.
Cooter led them to the second door on the right, opened it and motioned for them to step in ahead of him. Benny and Preston walked into a room that was immaculate in every way, shape and form. This room on the second floor of Cooter's house of duality was clean enough to conduct important medical research in or manufacture sophisticated nanotechnology processor chips in without fear of contamination.
“What's the story, boys?” Cooter finally asked as he sealed the door to the room shut.
Benny nudged Preston with his elbow. Preston cringed and shot Benny a look of what the fuck? Then Preston realized what Benny was getting at and held out the contents of the sick bag and offered it to Cooter for his appraisal.
Cooter took a gander in the bag, and a look of concern washed over his face. “You're Dick Sick for sure, Mr. Preston; worse than I figured, too. This here is a very progressed cock-a-loogie.”
“Cock-a-what?” Preston asked, his voice an octave higher than he intended it to be.
“A cock-a-loogie. The main symptom of the Dick Sick. I've seen this before, but if what Benny tells me is true and you only started showing symptoms early this morning, then I can't say I've ever seen a case like this progress so quickly,” Cooter said as he turned and began to rummage through some stainless steel canisters lined up along a countertop.
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