THUGLIT Issue Five

by Chris Mattix

  "Get the fuck inside, don’t say nothing and everything will be fine."

  Duck sighed and backed up slowly, hands up. "Look man, you need money you can have it. Just leave. Y’all ain’t gotta do this, not tonight."

  The Flore brothers moved like twin ferrets, squeezing their skinny bodies around Rip and Duck to duct tape the big man up. They got around his wrists, and giggled.

  Duck’s eyes never left Rip’s face. "You don’t want to do this kid. Shit ain’t gonna end well."

  Rip jerked his head, greasy sweat popped out on his forehead and ran down his face in stinking rivulets. "Put tape over his mouth."

  Jimmy was as tall as Duck and slapped the piece handed to him over the other man’s mouth. They were all jittering, and as they prodded Duck into the hall they heard the shower turn off.

  "Jimmy, get this motherfucker on the floor in the living room. I gotta go see about the girl."

  Duck went along, as though he already knew what was going to happen.

  As Rip entered the bedroom, he took a deep breath. The steam rolling out of the master bathroom smelled intoxicating; it smelled like vanilla and fancy girl things. Naked and dripping, Kiki stood next to a tall dresser fussing with her nipples.

  "The fuck are you doing?" Rip hadn’t meant to say that out loud, it just came out.

  Kiki looked up at him, frowning. "Who the fuck are you?"

  She turned to face him fully, hands on her ample hips. His dick got hard when he saw that she had been straightening silver rings in her long dark nipples.

  He smiled at her. "I’m your new Daddy. Get on the bed."

  He gestured with the gun and she moved sideways, giving him her profile, his eyes widened when he noticed all the cash.

  "Yeah baby. Get on the money."

  Her face lost all expression and she got on her hands and knees. She spoke low and calm. "Don’t."

  Rip grinned at her. "Don’t be like that baby."

  In the living room, Jimmy had inexpertly taped Duck to a chair and the Flore brothers were busy looking through everything they could find. Something about it felt off to Jimmy. He was nervous. He hated robbing people who could look at him. They could ID him and he didn’t want to kill anybody.

  While the twins cavorted in the pretty things, Jimmy realized that Rip was alone with the pretty girl. It occurred to him that maybe Rip would let him have a turn. He checked Duck once more and walked back to the bedroom, he stood in the doorway with his mouth open.

  Kiki was on all fours, her naked bottom was jiggling at Rip while he watched, bent at the waist.

  "Yeah baby, I see your little rosebud winking."

  Jimmy unconsciously dropped a hand to his crotch, he could see little flashes of wet secret pink. He licked his lips, imagining what she might taste like down there. He felt jealous again. He wanted to go first, but was too scared to say anything.

  Rip meanwhile was involved in trying to both hold on to the gun and manhandle his dick out of his pants. He frowned and leaned his cheek against her ass. "Promise me you won’t try nothing and I'ma be real gentle with you. You are too fine. What are you doing with that jack-off, can’t even protect you. Uh, Jesus girl."

  She rolled her eyes. "Be nice, you won’t have to fight for it."

  Rip took that as his go-sign. He moved to put the gun on the dresser while he was dropping his pants. He stood behind her, looking at the view of her round ass, the money down under her pussy.

  As she reached between her legs with one hand, she turned her head and Jimmy locked eyes with her. Her big brown eyes were so cold and so calm, the hand stroking his crotch turned into a protective cup. He felt his balls shrink up. His bladder tightened, and a memory rolled into his brain that made him want to cry.

  When Jimmy was fourteen and got caught shoplifting, his mother had done the sensible thing and taken him to one of those Scared Straight programs. He had been marched into the county jail and they knew…the inmates knew the way every apex predator knows when they see prey.

  At heart, Jimmy was a deer; he was cute and almost pretty, but shit scared of everything. It was why he liked meth more than any other drug—it made him feel like a predator. But that look… He almost whimpered. It was the look of the one quiet inmate at the jail who had looked at him, then gestured him forward with one finger.

  "Come over here."

  The guard shoved him and the skinny man leaned in close to the bars. He spoke low and calm.

  "The day you come in here boy, I will fuck you until you think you got a cunt and then smear your brains all over these walls." He smiled a smile that spread like oil across his craggy face. "Shit, you already mine ain’t you?"

  Jimmy felt the tears roll down his face, his heart stopped and his bladder throbbed. He had clutched his balls then too, nodding slightly.

  "Yes sir."

  The whisper had been enough, the guard hadn’t heard and the man cackled, then started yelling.

  "Goddamn right you are, pussy. You is already mine, you hear me? Mine. You got my name tattooed on your fine little narrow ass."

  The guard jerked Jimmy back and slapped the bars.

  "Get back asshole."

  Jimmy had nightmares about those eyes even to the last time he had slept. Cold. Calm. Unreasonable. Shark eyes.

  Time did that thing at that moment, slowed itself to where Jimmy could take in each horrible detail.

  As Jimmy desperately tried to find his voice, Kiki rolled over and shoved something into Rip’s pale belly—three quick, short, sharp jabs. Jimmy tried to scream. Rip fell and she heaved upwards and hit Rip in the chest with the palm of her hand. He went sprawling and hit the wall. He slid to the floor with a metal nail file sticking out of his gut.

  Things sped up and Rip started screaming.

  "You fucking cooze, you fucking dirty cooze you stabbed me you bitch."

  Moving like a cat, she didn’t cover up but casually sauntered to the dresser, picked up a big hard backed book and hit Rip in the face with it. Blood sprayed everywhere. His face seemed to burst like some kind of foul balloon and Jimmy felt his bladder let go and the heat of piss against the palm cupped at his crotch.

  Rip slumped over, his pants down, blood streaming from three puncture wounds in his gut, his nose flattened against his pocked zitty face.

  "Oh god, oh no, oh no..."

  Jimmy was whimpering. He didn’t hear himself. He saw nothing but her eyes, they filled his entire universe and froze him with the cold. In the middle of his fear, he fell in love.

  "Come here, mouse."

  Her voice was low, Jimmy obeyed. He wanted to crawl.

  The moment Rip screamed, Duck easily slipped his bonds inside the living room. The Flore boys stopped mid-rummage and looked at each other without realizing that Duck was coming up behind them.

  "Oh-"

  "-shit."

  They turned to run and ran smack into the huge man. Their job had only been to secure him. What they had neglected to do was make sure the ends of the tape weren’t loose.

  They failed and knew they had failed.

  Duck clamped his hands around each of their throats, shaking his head. "Y’all done fucked up now."

  One brother squawked and the other squealed. Chuckling, Duck knocked their heads together hard enough to stun them and dropped them in a tangled heap of long skinny limbs. He sat back down and waited, keeping an eye on the dazed brothers. He tilted his head, listening. "Baby you okay?"

  There was a beat then she called, "There’s blood on our new duvet cover."

  In the bedroom, Jimmy had a handful of maxi pads and was busy trying to stick them to Rip’s bleeding belly and not look up at her nakedness or into the barrel of the pistol she had pointed at his head.

  "Get his pants up."

  Jimmy winced, wrestling Rip’s pants up and using the waistband to hold the maxi pads in place, realizing as he was getting the dirty jeans up that Rip had the hairiest balls he’d ever seen.

  "Now, drag his ass
out of my bedroom. Go on."

  She thumped him on the top of his head with the gun and it gave him the tiny bit of adrenaline he needed. His high was long gone and there were tears and snot on his mouth. He didn’t dare wipe it away. He dragged Rip’s body down the hallway, muttering curses and trying not to shit himself.

  In the living room, the Flore boys had come to and crouched in the corner like scrawny feral cats.

  Duck rose and walked over to Kiki. "Come on baby, give me the gun."

  She pursed her lips. She looked up at him, and after a long silent moment, she started to make a noise.

  Duck shook his head. "Nope give me the gun woman."

  She frowned, looking kittenish and pretty. She sighed and gave it to him.

  He kissed her forehead.

  That tender moment cut through Jimmy’s fear and he blurted, "You are a nice couple."

  Kiki started for him and Duck caught her around the waist. "Nope."

  In that moment, Jimmy realized two things.

  First, that Kiki really was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen up close, blood spattered and sputtering or not.

  And second, he wanted to have that kind of intimacy with a girl like her. More importantly, he realized that if Duck hadn’t been there she would have killed every one of them.

  His asshole clenched and he let out a low keening moan.

  Duck moved Kiki and pointed back at the bedroom. "Go on, go get the blankets in the wash and get cleaned up. I’ll take care of this."

  Kiki gave Jimmy one more cold shark look, turned on her heel and stalked into the bedroom. Once she was gone Duck shook his head again. "Put him down. You two come over here."

  The boys did as they were told.

  The three of them stood there shaking, Rip was moaning and coming around.

  "Here’s the deal kids. You are going to take your friend here to the hospital. Tell the ER it was a deal gone bad, he got in a fight, whatever. You ever come back here, my wife will kill you. Probably with her bare hands. Our anniversary is tomorrow and you limp dicks already fucked it up."

  Duck picked up Rip as easily as a man lifts a toddler and hustled the others out the front door in front of him. He dug Rip’s keys out of his pocket, handed them to Jimmy. "Go get the car."

  Jimmy took off like a shot.

  The Flore boys looked at each other and darted off into the night like the shit weasels they were.

  Jimmy, sobbing and fighting the liquidity in his bowels, jumped into the truck and pulled it up to the curb where Duck waited, holding Rip.

  Duck dumped Rip in the back seat and leaned in the open driver’s window. Jimmy squealed and cowered.

  "Calm down kid. Look, get off the shit. You ain't ‘bout this life. Remember this, you got me?"

  Jimmy started crying even harder. "Yes sir. Yes sir. I’m sorry sir. Please tell Mrs. Duck that she’s really beautiful and I’m sorry."

  After that night and several interviews with the police, Jimmy ran to his mother and spent two months holed up in his childhood bedroom kicking his habit and having nightmares. He heard a while later that Rip got killed. He never saw nor heard of the Flore brothers again. Duck’s admonition to get off of the shit stuck for a while. Until he met a line he couldn’t say no to.

  Jimmy survived. He spent the remainder of his life afraid and waiting for the night he would go into the wrong strip club and see that magnificent ass and those cold calm eyes. In a drunken fit of paranoia, he had ‘Property of Killer’ tattooed across his ass and he waited. Kiki, never found him, but when he got popped for felonious assault with intent, he went to prison.

  Even when he was marched to his block and his celly called him Pumpkin, he wasn’t nearly as scared as he was when he saw her eyes. For a little while he thought he would survive.

  The apex predators did what nature tells them to do. Jimmy died with the taste of an old gangster’s wrinkly nut sack on his lips and tears on his cheeks. As the big scary world greyed out around him, he had enough time to moan her name.

  "Kiki, Kiki, Kiki."

  One More Day Can't Hurt

  By Justin Porter

  He played his fingers across the mother-of-pearl inlaid arabesque of the wooden box. These old twigs, he thought, old twigs across the surface of something lovely. Had they ever been good fingers or were they always just old twigs?

  Always have an exit strategy. An older soldier's advice while they shared a raw potato during a break in shelling, the last two men in a trench of bodies, the harsh bite of the tuber and the flash of the knife as they cut it into tiny pieces to make it last. The moonlight overhead seemed like a blasphemy and the cold had sharp teeth, but at least it masked the tang of the dead. Always have an exit strategy, Ralphie, the old soldier said and laughed, handing him the last of the potato as they waited for daylight and for a rescue they both knew was not coming.

  Now, all these years later and alone in his single room, he opened the box and looked at the nickel fittings of an old syringe nestled in the velvet lining like a viper in a feather bed.

  "Exit strategy." He whispered before closing the box and picking up his proper rig. 1941 was a long time ago, he reminded himself as he tied off with his belt, one more day can't hurt. Warmth washed over him while he rolled down his sleeve and lit a cigarette, holding it in his teeth while he slipped his coat on.

  *****

  Rhoda's high heel shoe tapped time with the jukebox against the foot rail of the bar, matching the ticking clock that none of them could hear. But Ralphie could always hear Rhoda's shoe and see her hair across the bar, no matter how crowded—red out of a box like blood in a dirty sink. Rhoda who drank whiskey sodas and stuck out her pinky like a duchess, Rhoda who never looked at him, Rhoda who was sitting there with another man.

  "I ever tell you about the time I was stuck in that trench during the war?" Ralphie asked the bartender as he poured a couple more amber fingers into Ralphie's glass. "Yeah, Ralphie. But you can tell me again."

  "I don't wanna bother you. I tell that story too much anyway."

  "It ain't a bother. Go ahead."

  Ralphie paused to watch Rhoda flirt with her new admirer, looking like even the docks had spit him out in his pea coat and ragged cap. She giggled into his collar like a schoolgirl while he stared over the top of her head at nothing and Ralphie wished she were staring at him, especially now that he was telling his story.

  "They’d had us pinned down with shells, but stopped after a while. We figured maybe they thought we were all dead. It was just me and some old soldier left alive in that trench, don't even remember his name, and we were eating this potato. Goddamn potatoes." Ralphie chuckled and sipped his whiskey, watching in the bar mirror as Rhoda took her gentleman by the hand and led him to the door.

  The bartender shook his head when the door had shut behind them.

  "She's taking him around the back, huh?" Ralphie asked.

  "Tell me about the trench, Ralphie."

  Ralphie stared at the door. "So we finished the potato and the sun came up..."

  "I thought it was nighttime?" The bartender poured himself a glass and leaned his elbows on the bar.

  "What?"

  "Last time you told this story it was nighttime."

  "Shit. It was? I must have told it wrong. It was daylight, sun bright as you like."

  "Okay."

  "I'm not lying."

  "I know that, Ralphie."

  "You think I'm a liar."

  "Ralphie, no. Just tell the fuckin' story."

  "Alright. Cuz I ain't lying. I ain't a liar. So we waited and waited. Couldn't hear anything. Not even birds. I'd have prayed to hear birds, even a crow, because it would mean the enemy wasn't coming, but nothing, not a sound. I knew they were coming and you could see that old soldier did too. And he tells me..."

  "Always have an exit strategy?"

  Ralphie chuckled. "I tell this story a lot, huh?"

  "I don't mind, you're a hero. Here." He refreshed both their
glasses.

  "And he starts telling me about the prison camps where they take us when they catch us. Tells me not to reach for my weapon when they come over the lip of the trench. Both of us hoping that they decide to do that and not just shell the field for another day or spray mustard gas or toss a grenade over the side. I stopped listening. Just praying in my head and I forgot all the prayers I know so I had to make one up. Nerves were shot, you know?"

  "What’d you say?"

  "What?"

  "In your prayer, what’d you say?"

  Ralphie chuckled. "Think it went something like ‘Dear Lord, don’t let these fucks toss a grenade into the trench."

  They laughed together, but stopped when the door opened and Rhoda came back in alone, askew right down to her lipstick.

  "Your friend leave, Rhoda?" Ralphie asked.

  "Fuck yourself, Ralphie."

  "Jeez, I was just asking."

  "Yeah, well don't. Barkeep, get me another drink."

  The bartender built her drink. "All this time you never bothered to learn my name."

  "Your name's not important." Rhoda said.

  It was late and there didn't seem to be any room left in the air for stories. Ralphie settled his tab and went home to fix, figuring maybe he'd look at the other syringe for a while before bed but drink and the dragon pulled him down. He was sorry to see the morning come even after dreams of stacked bodies, fires and screams.

  The screaming and burning dead.

  *****

  Ralphie staggered out into the day, hunting down a breakfast of Luckies and coffee. He added a pair of eggs as an afterthought, butter-slaked toast as a parting remark, forcing the food down in some leftover soldier’s impulse or even a junkie's knowledge about what one appetite does to another. He smiled at the blonde behind the counter, too young for dishwater but with a well-oiled scowl and he wondered if she was just off a night shift.

  "Ain't got a smile for a war hero, sweetheart?"