The Bride Stripped Bare

by Rob Bliss

  “This must be done, my sweet. You enter her and I enter you. That way a magic family baby will form through your seed as it washes across her barren womb. Now fuck her—and fuck hard!”

  Gord slowly pushed himself back into Elizabeth, and Venus matched his thrusts. They were like a locomotive picking up steam until they found a rhythm, and the force of two people rammed into Elizabeth’s quaking body.

  The victim wept and muttered “no no no no” under her tears, eyes closed, face turned away from the double-backed beast writhing on top of her. Bile rose up my throat, my tongue tasted stale, and my forehead burned as I looked away. The tenseness in my limbs lost, I was a puppet in Gitch’s hands, and I wanted him to strangle me where I stood. He chuckled in a baritone beside my ear.

  My head bowed as I sobbed, eyes blinking as tears fell. Through a watery gaze, I stared at the mosaic patterns of the vest and jacket I still wore. Wishing I still had a knife.

  Then revelations came to me. Gord still wore his vest and jacket with, presumably, a knife up his sleeve. That was a small hope, but useless if I couldn’t get out of Gitch’s armlock. Yet the massive man didn’t wear a vest and jacket. Was there something in the designs that held magic? I had assumed that only the three men in the wedding party had been given them because they were our wedding ‘uniforms.’ But maybe there was a greater reason. As I had experienced before, being the groom had its privileges. Did those extend to a privilege of magic as well?

  I turned my eyes back to see Gitch looking down at me. “I am the groom,” I said through a squeezed larynx.

  He smiled his teeth, two of them gold, two silver, two copper along the top row. The bottom row of tiny teeth appeared to be made of black wood. Ebony.

  “Yes, you are,” he returned matter-of-factly.

  “Let me go. Obey me.”

  Shook his head. “I obey the bride. We are a matriarchal family, in case you hadn’t figured that out by now.”

  With both hands, I grabbed his arm and pulled. Moved my grip to his wrist and clenched a fist, used the increased leverage and managed to pry his arm from its choke hold. I coughed, able to breathe better. Fear was in his eyes. I had discovered something he had hoped I wouldn’t—like using a magical knife to cut magical bonds. The jacket and vest gave me power over my captor—a lesser family member to the groom.

  My grip slipped, so Gitch tightened his renewed armlock. But not for long. I folded both of my hands together to make a club, swung it over my shoulder to land on Gitch’s nose, then jammed an elbow into his stomach. Weakened, his hold loosened. I grabbed his arm and twisted it, bending him over double. Kicked his face repeatedly with my cloven-hoofed boots.

  A gold, two silvers and a copper fell to the floor. A stream of blood spat in stuttered lines from his mouth. I kicked his face again and all his teeth fell to the floor, the ebonies spilling like popcorn. I pushed him up to standing, to see the gore of his mouth and face. Half of his nose was ripped down to the cartilage, a split branching off of his upper lip to halfway across his cheek.

  The shoes did their damage better than I had hoped. And Venus was too preoccupied to hear a thing, her back to me and my victim.

  I grabbed a twist of Gitch’s shirt and threw him like a rag doll over my shoulder. His body somersaulted through the air and smashed through the wooden matrix of four windows and was gone. Cool night air blew into the room.

  Venus heard the crash and felt the wind. She leapt off her lover, the thing between her legs spilling whitish-yellow fluid as she steadied herself on her feet then dove off the bed, claws open, flying at me.

  I ducked out of the way as she smacked down onto the floor. Gord climaxed into his sister, fluid washing out of Elizabeth to soak the bed, his hard penis still inside her, his body collapsing to crush her. He shivered out the remainder of his orgasm. I had to ignore the profane sight and raced for his arm and sleeve.

  Venus got to me before I could get to him. She flung me backwards by the hair, slamming my head to the floor. Flipping me onto my stomach, she straddled me, started trying to pull off the jacket.

  “Discovered a little secret, did we, Chris?” she said, trying to pull my arms out one at a time. I kept hands tucked under my hips, holding the jacket tight across my chest. “It was a gift from the family. But I don’t think you deserve it when you use it to turn on your own kind.”

  “You’re not my kind, bitch,” I growled.

  Got my knees under me and stood, reaching for the bedpost to hold myself up as Venus clenched her legs around my waist and rode me. We each had our magic, but was it a fair fight?

  Hand over hand, I walked to the edge of the bed, Venus spun around to clutch onto my back, trying to wrench the jacket shoulders off me. She got one sleeve off. I dug into Gord’s sleeve and pulled out his knife. He awoke from his orgasmic delirium and tried to get the knife. I stabbed his hands but didn’t draw blood. May not have hurt him but shocked him enough to pull his hand away from the knife. He didn’t know yet the magic he wore.

  With Venus clawing my face, my eyes squeezed shut, I felt for the binding around Elizabeth’s wrist. Leaned down hard on the knife to speed the sawing of the blade, quickly snapping the restraint.

  Stumbling blindly along the bed, I felt Venus kicking her shoes into my stomach, but the wind wasn’t knocked out of me. I grabbed one of her hands and plunged the knife in. She laughed and taunted me to stab the other hand. Felt my way to the post at the foot of the bed, hacked and slashed at the binding until I felt it snap back. Three of Elizabeth’s limbs were free, though I didn’t know how she could help me in my fight. She wasn’t family, didn’t wear magic.

  A magic cloak. The white bear fur of Venus.

  I followed the bed frame around to Elizabeth’s last restrained hand. She called to me, pushed against her brother, fought him, but she couldn’t heave off his bulk. He laughed as she screamed, gloated how he was still inside her, spilling sperm, drowning her womb with his seed. If she managed to fight him off, she would never fight what was just starting to grow inside her. She’d have to carry that for life.

  “You can never get rid of the family you’re born into—or that is born inside you,” he laughed at her. Then he said to Venus, “Am I making you proud, baby? Can things go back the way they were? I’ll do anything for you.”

  I hacked at the final bond as Venus raked fingernails across my eyes and face.

  “Then fucking help me stop him, you piece of shit!” she yelled at Gord.

  He slipped from his sister and dove at me. I fought his hands, felt for his face, jammed the knife into his eye. Then Elizabeth leapt on him and clawed at his face, pulling him away from me. Venus leapt on me from behind. I reached back and grabbed a fist of her hair, slashed the knife over my head at anything. Sliced off a strand of hair as she held on with her legs and still rode me. The hair dropped from my hand and I had an idea.

  I jammed the knife into her stomach and twisted, but that just made her angrier. Her hands kept trying to rip off my face. I left the knife inside her in order to use both hands to pry her hands off my face. Held them away long enough to open my eyes and look around the room, see where I was, what I was facing. As I had hoped, a candle in one of sconces shined in my eyes. I ran with Venus on my back, then spun just before hitting the wall so that she took the slam. Grabbed the candle and pushed it over my head to where her head loomed.

  Her hair caught fire. She screamed and I spun, trying to pull her legs from my waist. The pain of her burning head loosened her grip and she dropped to the floor. Rolled on the ground and smacked at her head trying to extinguish the fire, wailing with the voice of Hell.

  I kicked the bitch in the tits.

  Still with the candle in hand, I jumped on Gord, pulled him to the floor, lit his vest and jacket on fire. Mine was still hanging on by an arm. He screamed like a demon.

  I grabbed Elizabeth, pulled her off the bed. Threw the candle onto the satin covers and prayed the thing would burn. As we sped for the door
, I stooped down and grabbed the white bear cloak. We raced out the door and left the new groom and his bride burning in their bedchamber.

  — | — | —

  PART 3

  — | — | —

  Chapter 17

  As Elizabeth and I ran down a flight of spiral stairs, a deep howl followed us—an earthquake from the throat of a beast that shook the walls and floor. Sparks cracked in the air and we felt electricity crawl across our faces, tingle the backs of our necks. We stopped on the stairs and looked back up from where we had come.

  “Was that your wife bellowing?” Elizabeth asked as she took the bear cloak from my arm and wrapped it around her nude body.

  “She’s not my wife…anymore,” I said, sticking my free arm through the vest arm hole and jacket sleeve, making sure they were both tight around me.

  We headed down the stairs until it stopped at a landing. Hallways and doorways branched off in every direction. I could only assume we were on an upper level and needed at least to get to the ground floor to escape the house. Inch by inch we’d have to find our way out, hoping we didn’t get more lost than we already were. And hopefully not meeting any family, all of them distracted by the party.

  What sounded like a wall smashing, wood splintering, echoed from the top of the stairs. I picked a direction and Elizabeth and I raced away from the staircase landing, and whatever was coming down it.

  We stepped around a corner that led down a narrow hallway out of view of the staircases. I stopped her and said we should take off our shoes—the heavy metal clopping we made on the wooden floors echoed loudly enough to easily give away our retreat.

  We stooped down to get a better look at what we carried on our feet this whole time. Strange characters, or runes, I’d never seen before were scratched into the black metal, a low heel and a split toe which neither of us could feel with our toes. They were practically vacuum-sealed to our legs, just above our ankles. Tried to pry them off for ourselves and for each other, but they wouldn’t loosen without taking our feet with them.

  We would have to keep our steps as light as possible, stay on carpet when we could, walk slowly and hide to let any danger pass. If we could wrap something around the shoes to deaden their horse-like clop, that may have helped.

  We winced with every step as we ran down the hall, leaving a clatter in our wake like falling pots and pans, until the wooden floor ended in a circular room, coincidentally covered by a thick bear skin. From one of the largest, fattest bears I’d ever seen. Its head still attached, about the approximate size of the head of a great white shark.

  Elizabeth and I scrambled away from the yellow fangs of the beast, its thick red tongue about the size of a man’s arm lolled out of its mouth. The ceiling of the circular room was a terraced wooden cone with no windows, and there were no windows or doors in the room except for the one we had come through.

  We started patting the walls, hoping for a hidden doorway. But we had taken too long to figure out the shoes.

  A bellowing voice that was a cross between a woman’s scream and a bear’s growl howled at our backs. Through the open doorway we saw Venus stepping slowly to the door, her body filling it. Hair burned off, eyebrows gone, half of her scalp textured with bloated bubbles and charred skin, an ear melted like wax, the burn reaching down one side of her neck, exposing tight tendons, to end as a scorch that twisted the flesh of her left breast.

  Still sticking out of her belly was the knife I had taken out of Gord’s jacket sleeve.

  Through her legs we could see a man cowering on the floor. A bloody black hole where one of his eyes used to be. Naked but for a few patches of vest material welded to his skin, hair burned off with an eyebrow melted and raised into a permanent inquisitive expression, his entire head baked sunburn red, legs as black as tar, the bear fur gone, the metal shoes still encasing his feet but also melted up his shins. Venus must’ve let Gord burn a little longer. Astounding he wasn’t dead. But my mind tabulated quickly what I saw. The shoes couldn’t be burned off—fire only increased their melt up the leg. But the vest and jacket could be eroded by flame.

  And Venus could be hurt!

  “The cloak looks good on you,” she said to Elizabeth, words wheezing out with her smoky breath. “You better keep it on…you’re going to need it where you’re going.”

  I edged over to Elizabeth, wrapped my hand around her arm to make contact, to go with her wherever Venus was going to send her.

  “Oh, don’t worry, hubby,” Venus said, glancing at where my hand rested, “you’re going too. You picked the right room. But don’t ever say I didn’t give you a fighting chance. Prove your worth, and I may still be merciful. Your genes still have worth, even if your conscience doesn’t.”

  She pulled the knife slowly out of her stomach, a pencil of blood flowing out with it, and threw it into the room. “Enjoy hell, you two.”

  The door slammed shut, locking Venus and Gord out, locking Elizabeth and I in. I tried the door, but it wouldn’t budge. Scanned the walls and ceiling, waiting for what was coming next. I clasped my arm around Elizabeth’s waist.

  The floor shuddered and trembled as the back of the bear rug raised up in a great hump. Its head lifted off the floor, mouth gaping twice what it had when lying on the floor. It was just skin and fur, but it came alive. Its claws distended and curved, arms wide to touch almost from wall to wall.

  Elizabeth screamed and tucked into me, but a swipe of the bear’s claw sent her flying. Hopefully the bear cloak protected her from injury. I swept a hand down and picked up the knife Venus had left. One knife for me, but the claws of the beast were like ten knives. I held the blade in hand like a sword and ran it into the bear’s body, slashed the skin, jabbed in the point, then pulled down with all of my weight. But the skin was too tough for me to get more than a couple of inches tear through it. Then the beast fell on me, its body ballooning over me like a tent, then sucking in, squeezing me into a cocoon of leather and fur.

  I could still hear Elizabeth’s screams and the clatter of her shoes as they circled behind the bear. Knife still wedged through its skin, I sawed the slit and used my hands to pry the gap wider as the knife sliced. I was able to open the hole in the skin enough to wedge my head through. Only to see the bear’s claws hook into the cloak Elizabeth wore and pull her into its jaws. She couldn’t get the coat off her arms before the jaws closed over her, the beast’s head sinking down the length of her body, swallowing her whole.

  I sliced and tore enough of a gap to squeeze through the skin, clenched the knife in my teeth as I climbed the fur up to the back of the bear’s neck, slashed at its face and neck. As I did with Gord, I stabbed one of the bear’s eyes. I figured when attacked by an immense beast, the only chance I had at survival was to go for its eyes. It reared up, pinning me to the ceiling, wedging my arm so that I couldn’t get too good of a stab or slash. But I had hurt it. Its roar rattled the ceiling, breaking off plaster, exposing wooden tiles which then rained down on me and it. The thing spun away from the tiles, ducking low, back on all fours, and I kept my grip on its fur to ride it down.

  The knife hammered into its face and neck at random as it bellowed in pain and tried to throw me off its back. Before it smashed its back against the wall, and me with it, I managed to swing my body off the nape of its neck, but still held onto its fur with one hand.

  But I fell to the floor when it crashed into the wall. The beast swung its maw in the direction of where it must’ve heard my shoes, but I got to my feet and raced behind it. It couldn’t turn its massive body in the cramped space quickly enough. With its back facing me, I jumped back through the hole I had torn through it and kept hacking the knife through its body from the inside.

  Its claw swept at me, tore four gashes across the back of my jacket, but it didn’t reach my flesh. I figured being outside the beast was better than being inside it. Wedged a foot on the tear and swung myself through the hole, put the knife in my teeth again as I climbed up its back. But its sk
in was looser now with the gaping split. It shook me like a flea crawling up its back, rammed its flank against the wall again and again. The back of my head knocked hard against the wall, punching an indent in the plaster. It didn’t hurt as much as it should have. I shook away stars and dizziness, and the knife flew out of my mouth and rattled across the floor. My fingers pried loose from the fur and I slipped to the floor as well.

  The jaws opened like the mouth of an anaconda, yellow saliva dripping from wet fangs, and lowered toward me. I saw the glint of the knife, reached for it, got it in my hand.

  Did what damage I could during the few seconds I was in its mouth before it swallowed me whole.

  — | — | —

  Chapter 18

  I fell through a tunnel of flesh that narrowed enough for me to touch the wet sides, feel mucus on my hands, smell the iron of blood and an acidic tang that burned my nostrils and stung my eyes as I slipped like a morsel of food swallowed by degrees.

  I spread my legs and arms wide to slow my descent, knife in hand, trying to slice a line down the flesh tunnel, but it was too rubbery and covered by a gluey slime for the knife to have any effect. Eventually, the knife and my entire hand and arm up to my elbow was covered in slime. So too my shoes and legs up to my knees, so that even with them spread and pushing against the elastic walls, I slipped down the throat.

  Until I sank through entirely and freefall dropped into a pool of acid. The aquatic muted noise of my splash echoed in my ears as I stopped sinking into the liquid, gaining buoyancy, and popped my head through the surface.

  “Don’t open your eyes!” Elizabeth’s voice said.

  I kept them closed, my arms treading water, spitting acid from my lips. I felt it tingle and burn on my skin and my hair felt like worms roiling on my head.

  “Where are you?” I called, the echo of my voice bouncing off close walls.