by Ryan Schow
Two girls she vaguely recognized (one from a Noxzema commercial and the other from a weekly Disney show that was on about four years ago) entered the kitchen each with a tray of plates. Both girls were naked, and on the plates was what looked like poop.
Actual freaking fecal matter.
Sabrina’s olfactory senses roared to life, confirming that the plates did, in fact, hold wet piles of shit. One of the girls looked offended. Noxzema. And Disney’s eyes were watering, but only slightly. She might as well be a zombie for her lack of concern over the affair.
“Head in back,” Disney said to Sabrina. “Take a left, then go down the hallway five doors and take a right. The bathroom is on the right. You’ll see Lennox Carlisle, a fat white man from CNN, and maybe someone else or two waiting outside the door. Collect their offerings and meet back here.”
Sabrina just stood there until Angelica gave her a nudge and said, “Go, Sabrina.”
“Go with her,” the Disney girl said to Angelica, irritated now.
They walked naked through the home into the back where there was a line of only three more celebrities, Lennox included, waiting to use the bathroom. They all had small white plates in their hand. Lennox barely even noticed her.
She stood with Angelica, waiting for…their offerings. Jesus, is that what these people call their crap? Offerings? Like anyone would want it. At the rate things were moving, if Sabrina didn’t go 5150 this evening, it’d be a Christmas miracle.
When the A-list actress Julianne Barowski from the blockbuster horror film Wiccan walked out of the bathroom naked holding a plate with a steaming pile of her own crap on it, Sabrina’s nose went wild, but she barely showed it.
Julianne handed Sabrina the plate and said, “I’m sorry to hear about your brother,” like they were old friends. Then she looked the girl up and down with hungry eyes, smiled and walked down the hallway to join the others.
Julianne didn’t even mention her mother.
Only her brother.
Sabrina’s eyes were watering by now. Lennox wouldn’t even look at her, not that she cared. And the fat man? He went into the bathroom and shut the door while Sabrina held Julianne’s plate of crap as far away from her nose as she could.
“Don’t do that,” Angelica whispered.
“It stinks.”
“I don’t care, it’s rude.”
“I’m holding a plate of that woman’s crap and you’re telling me the way I’m holding it is rude? Are you kidding me right now?”
“That’s not crap,” Angelica said, looking back and forth between Lennox and her. “That’s an offering.”
She tried holding her breath as she thought about Julianne’s apology. Why didn’t she say she was sorry about Sabrina’s mother? Deep down, however, she knew the answer. It had to do with sacrifice and what was demanded of her. Tavares was murdered while her mother was an offering. One was lost to an act of violence, the other given freely.
Inside her head, circuitry was crossing, wires were sparking, her system was threatening to collapse. She was flipping from sane into the insane, just as Lennox said she would. This is no rational world.
Looking down at Julianne’s poop, she was thinking, these people aren’t human.
Inside the bathroom, the toilet flushed, hands were washed, and out came the fat man, naked now and handing her his offering. His wiener was shriveled and gross, nearly hidden beneath a pale flop of belly, topped with a wiry grey bush that should have been attended to earlier if he had a scrap of dignity, which apparently no one did, since she was holding now two plates of crap.
Julianne’s poop was foul, to be sure, but this guy’s could peel the paint off the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling. Revulsion boiled into her throat at the idea of this man being naked in front of her, of him getting to see her naked, too.
Jovially, this fat sack of smashed assholes smiled and said, “The beer makes it strong,” and she took him at his word, walking the plate into the kitchen (gagging, eyes watering) where the two girls were waiting. Noxzema and Disney. A cook took the plates from her, eyes averted from her privates, then scooped the remaining brown piles into a large whisking bowl where he stirred them all into a larger more manageable ball.
On the stovetop grill, a seared Filet Minion was warming. Beside it were large pans of steamed vegetables. Broccoli and carrots. In one oven were two dozen chicken breasts and in the other oven was baked bread. Angelica came back, gave Lennox’s poop to the chef.
“That’s the last of it,” she said.
She expected the cook to say something like, “Thank Christ,” or “I was beginning to wonder,” be he took the offering dutifully and went about his business, unbidden. He folded the remaining feces into the already large shit ball, then double covered it with saran wrap and slid it in the industrial sized refrigerator like it was cake batter, or the dough for brownie bites.
One of the kitchen staff handed Sabrina a tray of champagne flutes and said, “For your rounds.” And so, with her stomach in her throat and her respectability tarnished, she walked out to the guests and breathed a sigh of relief when she found that, like her, they were all in a perfect state of undress.
When you’re one naked person among dozens, technically, you might as well be dressed. She didn’t want to stand out, so she didn’t. The crazy thing was, to everyone around, this was normal. As in no one seemed uncomfortable.
When dinner was ready, the service was normal except for the fact that she and the rest of the wait staff were told not to speak to the guests, only to nod and be proper hostesses.
After dinner, where the guests were talking up a storm and laughing amongst each other, Sabrina was told to collect the dinnerware, which she did. Julianne Barowski stopped her though, the first to acknowledge her since the reception began.
“Those are the most amazing tits ever,” the woman said, eyes on Sabrina’s chest. She reached up and rolled one of Sarina’s nipples between her fingers and said to the Oscar winning actress sitting across the table from her, Rain Reed, “Do you remember when ours looked like these?” Both women laughed and nodded, and Julianne moved from her nipple to her breast, gently squeezing it, then cupping it. “Amazing,” she said.
“Thank you,” Sabrina replied, and everything stopped.
The place fell into total silence.
A dry, icy heat rolled across Julianne’s face. The woman lashed out, slapping Sabrina across the face with all her might then screamed, “DO NOT TALK, DOG!”
That was the last time Sabrina spoke to the guests that evening.
4
Sabrina told herself, all you have to do is survive. Forget that she stepped into the most offensive version of the Twilight Zone known to man. Forget that chilling in the fridge was a God-sized communal turd-ball. Forget that everyone was butt-freaking naked and she was basically a slave to their whims. Their dog.
All these things, after her vicious encounter with Lennox earlier, made her wonder if she could survive this. It was dessert, however, that did her in. When that happened, she knew that when she left for the evening, she would be forever changed.
As in forever ruined.
When she cleared the rest of the guests’ dinner plates, silent, her face scorched with shame around these people who might one day be her equals. She walked into the kitchen and found the chef using an ice cream scooper inside the giant ball of raw crap. Her nose rebelled against the scent. Those emotions that hung so preciously in the balance that evening started to crumble. Her sanity became a fragile, cracking thing. Down the hallway, Sabrina heard a baby cry. She couldn’t be sure, but then it happened again. The crying. It sounded like an infant.
Who in their right mind would bring a child into this disgusting environment?!
She turned to Disney girl who was no longer zombified and said, “You know this is my first time, right? Doing offerings, and being, you know…not clothed.”
“I do.”
“Can you please tell me why the fuck we’re
serving poop to our guests?”
The chef had the poop scooped beautifully onto a lovely set of dessert plates, garnished with mink leaves and a dusting of powdered sugar.
Disney made a face, then said, “Keep your voice down.” She pulled Sabrina aside, her tone a notch or two above a whisper. “This is not a topside world you are allowed to talk about. It’s an underworld reality. Like a secret society. If there are opposites of everything in life, this is the darkness to the world of light. Be respectful.”
“I don’t understand.”
“This is a small society of likeminded elitists dedicated to not only their craft, but to the one who fulfills their every desire. For shit’s sake, Sabrina, didn’t you see the pentagram carved into the table?”
Sabrina nodded, struggling to make sense of it all.
“Don’t you hear that baby crying?”
“I thought maybe I imagined it.”
“What did you sacrifice before gaining access to this marvelous, righteously insane world? Your mother, right?”
Sabrina looked away.
“I gave them my step-brother,” she said. “He was four. This is more sacrifice.”
Now she looked up, held Disney’s big brown eyes, saw the same lifelessness in hers that Sabrina saw in her own every time she found the courage to face the mirror.
“What about you though? What did you personally sacrifice before signing your way into this life?”
“My body,” Sabrina mumbled.
“You gave up the gravy,” Disney said a bit too casually. “Me, too.” Then after a moment’s pause, less frantic and more sympathetic, she said, “How many men?”
Sabrina couldn’t hold her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“None of us do, but it’s now our reality, sister. You want that twenty-million dollar payday? How about a shoe line, a clothing line, your own perfume? How will you pay for that if not with pieces of your soul? So how many?”
“Seven, plus Garrison Rich.”
She looked surprised.
“I took five before I lost consciousness. And I never had Garrison. Jesus, how was he?”
Her face fell flat with shock. “Are you kidding me?”
“No, seriously,” Disney said, like they were trading idle gossip. “People talk, but is he as good as they say he is?”
“I’m not sure what you want me to say. On a rape scale of one to ten, I’d—”
“It’s not rape,” she said.
Even though Garrison had given her a choice about the men, and about himself, she really didn’t have a choice. Not after he offered up her father’s freedom. Not after he said that her career, i.e. her life, was on the line. With him, she would know wealth and unhappiness; without him, she would know poverty and unhappiness.
Best to choose wealth.
So no, technically it wasn’t rape, but it wasn’t dinner and a movie, either.
“It’s your offering. A sacrifice. Don’t you get it, Sabrina? If you want the riches, if you crave the spotlight and all it has to offer, in Hollywood you ink your deal with the Dark Lord, and then you keep Him happy with your sacrifices. It’s the stock and trade of our society.”
“So I’m told.”
“Welcome to the big leagues, girl. The dark side of them anyway.”
Just then, the mean Polish woman rolled in a small silver garment rack on wheels. It was basically a rolling four foot square frame where traditionally you’d hang your slacks and blouses. At first, Sabrina gave it no notice, but then she saw the four lengths of rope draped over it and dread set in like a nightmare unfolding.
“These people have everything,” she heard herself saying from far away, “and we feed them poop for dessert?”
“Nobody wants to eat their own shit,” she whispered, “but they do because it is a sacrifice. They must sacrifice their dignity to please Him. They must forgo their ego. And they’re left naked because once upon a time our bodies were our secrets to share with only those we loved most, but now they’re laid bare in all their flattering or unflattering glory. We give up our modesty as a sacrifice to please Him. You once had your virginity. Did you give it to someone you love?”
“I lost it to my casting director.”
“We all lost it to our casting director when we were children.”
“We’re still children.”
“Barely.”
“I was sixteen,” Sabrina said, feeling that welling of emotion getting the best of her.
In her head, a thousand mouths were screaming. Millions of fingernails were raking down millions of chalkboards.
“I was thirteen,” Disney replied. “Yet we both gave up one thing for another. You sacrificed the sanctity of your body for your first television show, not knowing the offering wasn’t going to a casting director but to Him. You sacrificed your self-respect when you let those eight men ravage you, but you did it for Him, for what He has to offer. And you sacrificed your mother not just for a job or a chance in Hollywood, but for the ultimate treasure, the twenty-million club. Everything glittery and glamorous, all the shiny things your little black heart desires.”
“So long as I give Him my offerings.”
“Yes.”
“Who is He?” Sabrina asked.
She looked at Sabrina for a long time, wordless, then said, “Lucifer, of course.”
Down the hall a door opened and a baby was crying, then a door closed and the wailing became muffled once more.
“We need to get these people their dessert,” Disney said, eyeing the Polish woman. “Don’t bring this up again. The things we do and say now, they can have serious repercussions.”
The four girls delivered the cold poop soufflés to the guests, who took to their sacrifice with forks and smiles. Sabrina couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She sacrificed her mother, for this? To be a slave and a whore to these people? The happy shit eaters?
And she was their dog?
When she returned to the kitchen, there were two dozen bejeweled ice picks, all laid out in a row, all sharp and shiny and ready for disbursement.
Following Disney girl, Noxzema and Angelica, she delivered the ice picks to their guests, setting them on the table beside their right hand, like an extra fork or a dainty coffee spoon.
In the kitchen, her nose still burning and offended, she said, “What’s next?” to which Angelica said, “The rejuvenation ceremony, then the blood orgy. Didn’t Lennox tell you any of this?”
She gulped hard. “Did you say blood orgy?”
“You didn’t think we were just the wait staff, did you?”
“We have to have sex with these people?”
“No, you get to have sex with these people,” she said, grinning like she couldn’t understand a single emotion Sabrina was having. “Rather they get to have sex with you.”
Just then a well dressed, pock-faced man with a softly hiccupping infant cradled in his arms strolled into the kitchen. He was an ugly thing, made uglier by the beauty of the child. The naked infant was working a pink pacifier. She wanted to cry for the child. It shouldn’t be here.
When the man started tying ropes around the infant’s legs, the pacifier fell from its mouth, its face turned red and it started to scream.
“What are you doing?” Sabrina asked the man.
“Preparing for the rejuvenation ceremony.”
“Rejuvenation?” she asked.
“They stick it, then drink from it,” the man said over the infant’s shrieking. “It’s wonderful for the spirit. You can’t believe how good you feel with a belly full of new blood.” He said all this while securing the ropes around the child’s legs.
This son of a bitch was hanging it from the garment rack?
Securing it spread-eagle style?
Horror shot through her, congealed her center. The child’s screaming made everything worse, amplifying her agitation. For a second, she felt her stomach shift, then move. She had to swallow hard to keep from puking. What she could no
t control, however, was the blood loss to her face. She felt drained. Pale.
Sabrina reached out, touched the child. The man frowned. He struck her arm, then gave her a sturdy shove.
“Don’t touch the sacrifice,” he snarled.
Disney and Noxzema pushed past her, helped the man tie the infant upside down to the rolling rack. Right then the ice picks made sense. These people were going to sacrifice this child in a Satanic ritual meant to rejuvenate them and to please the Dark Lord.
No way.
No. Freaking. Way.
5
Swirling in her head in some other universe, dizzy, the entire world a surreal, slightly tilting landscape that was altering her sanity at the DNA level, Sabrina excused herself and padded quietly down the hallway to a room where everyone’s clothing was gathered professionally and respectfully by the host.
She found her dress and purse. Not her shoes. It didn’t matter. She had no problem leaving them at this point. Peeking into the hallway, making sure she was alone, she fished her cell phone out of her purse and dialed Brayden.
She didn’t realize how badly her hands were shaking. Or how close she was to throwing up. Brayden answered on the first ring.
“Sabrina?” he asked.
Whatever was keeping her sanity in check the entire evening broke open and she started crying uncontrollably.
“Brayden?” she sobbed, “I need you. You have to come get me, these people are insane!”
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know. Henderson. By a golf course. Dragon Ridge I think it’s called. I’ll leave my cell phone on, can you track it?”
“I can.”
“How soon can you get here?”
“I’ll leave now. I’ll text you when I arrive.”
“It’s not a place you can come in to, but I need to know when you arrive. The second you arrive. I’m going to be running to you.”
“It’s that bad?”
Sniffling, pulling herself together with this plan, she said, “It’s worse.” Pausing, thinking of the baby, about what those disgusting creatures were about to do to it, she said, “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Brayden, these people are fucking evil.”
