In The End, Only Darkness

by O'Rourke, Monica

  Jimmy’s hand was down his pants, as usual. If that old wives’ tale about growin’ palm hair from playin’ with yourself was true, Jimmy would look like the fuckin’ Wolfman by now.

  He looked up at me. “You haven’t had her in a long time, man.”

  I shrugged. “You go ahead, Jimmy. I know you—”

  “You giving me permission, fuck-face?”

  “Naw, man, I didn’t mean nothin’.”

  He grabbed hold of my neck with his huge free hand, pullin’ me toward him. He was only a few years older than me—I think he was twenty-six—but he was so much bigger. He’d played football in high school. That was really the only reason he had managed to graduate. Played varsity. Linebacker, I think. He was still as big as a fuckin’ tree.

  “Fuck her. Do it now.”

  I nodded, but the truth was, I wasn’t much in the mood, you know? It wasn’t like that first night, with all the excitement, with my adrenaline flowin’, her fightin’ and screamin’.

  It was a mess now. I didn’t wanna rape her. I’d really had enough. I mean, I wasn’t stupid about it. I figured when this was all over, I was gonna be spendin’ some time back in prison. I hoped it was for kidnapping and rape, though, and not as an accomplice to murder. I still couldn’t do the right thing and help her escape, though. I guess I was more of a pussy than I had hoped.

  Right now, the least of my problems was my limp dick. I felt like now I was gettin’ fucked. By Jimmy.

  I looked over at Joey and Mookie. They were lookin’ the other way.

  Jimmy stared me down. He crossed his arms over his massive chest. And he waited. And I could see the madness in his eyes.

  I unzipped my fly and pulled out my dick. Lookin’ at her lyin’ there, spread-eagle, really helped of course. Hey, I was feelin’ like shit, and I was scared, but I’m a guy, you know. I don’t always control what my tool is gonna do. In fact, I think I never know what it’s gonna do.

  She smiled at me. That was the worst of it. Smiled like a goddamned lover, like this was consensual. It kinda pissed me off. She spread her legs for me. I was strokin’ myself, feelin’ it gettin’ harder, and all that time I was gazing into those penetrating, forgiving eyes.

  I leaned over and climbed on top of her; she moved around a bit, tryin’ to position herself. She whispered in my ear, “I didn’t want to hurt you. You must believe that. Remember it.”

  Hurt me? What the fuck—

  I forced myself inside her, hard, and she cried out. I was angry, real angry, but I’m not even sure why. She just pissed me off. She was too compassionate. It wasn’t normal, man. It was like … like she was raping me.

  I fucked her hard, as hard as I could, smashin’ her fuckin’ head into the radiator. I wanted to hurt her, see? To wipe that damned forgiving smile off her face. Shit, I don’t think bleach woulda taken that smile off her face.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t want to hurt you. But this is your fault now. You had your chance to make it right.”

  I slapped her across her face right after I came. I was breathin’ hard, and I suddenly realized I was in pain. My dick hurt. Not real bad or nothin’, cause I woulda noticed that. It just kinda … stung.

  I pulled out and my dick was covered in blood. “Oh, Christ,” I moaned.

  “Oh, fuck,” Jimmy said to me. “Got her period?”

  I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure what had just happened.

  But I didn’t think she had her period.

  Jimmy, of course, was more aroused than ever. I think he’s part rabbit, that asshole.

  “Move,” he said to me.

  I moved.

  Jimmy pulled his dick out of his pants and moved slowly toward the bed.

  “Enough,” she said. “I’ve had enough! When the hell do you plan on stopping this?”

  He was genuinely surprised by her outburst. “When I’m good and goddamn ready,” he said.

  “I’m telling you right now, you motherfucker, don’t touch me again. This is the only warning you get.”

  He laughed, laughed hard. He shook his head. “I’m gonna fuck you, then they’re gonna fuck you. Then we’ll all fuck you at once. Then I’ll cut off your tits and fuck the hole.”

  She stared at him without saying another word.

  And he raped her. Was on top of her in a flash, and what happened next happened so quickly, I thought I’d missed it. I wish I had. But I’d been watching, entranced by what was going on, absently wipin’ blood off my dick with napkins. I was stunned by her sudden display of anger and aggression.

  When he entered her, he thrust once, twice maybe, and when he tried to pull back again, she held him tight. Her hands were tied, of course. She was holding him with her cunt.

  The he started screaming. And I mean screaming, like a girl. He pushed against her, slapped at her, punched her face and neck. Blood was pouring down, soakin’ into the bedsheets. It looked like it was pourin’ from their bellies. There was just so much blood.

  “It hurts!” he screamed. “It’s fucking biting me!”

  Her face was stone, her body thrusting and spasming, and he was jerking and shrieking on top of her. Horrible sucking noises came from between them, from their crotches rubbing together, like they were trying to pull each other down a drain. Slurping, grinding sounds coming from her pussy.

  Then he was thrown from her, as if he’d fallen back from a gunshot recoil. He landed hard on his bare ass.

  There was a jagged, bloody hole where his cock used to be.

  It was still hanging out of her, pulsing and throbbing like it had a life of its own. It looked like a bloodstained vibrator. I couldn’t tell if she’d been injured, because she was completely red below her stomach, and she was coated in gore. I couldn’t help but stare at her pussy, at the thing sticking out. Somehow it was still moving. A crunching, chewing noise was coming from her crotch. I swear I saw a flash of teeth down there.

  Jimmy was lying on the floor just screamin’ and cryin’, blood gushing from his cleaved pelvis. His instant sex-change operation. His face had gone a shade of white I didn’t know existed. Whiter than paper.

  Then he goes quiet, just like that. Don’t even know if he’s dead. Haven’t checked yet.

  Joey and Mook never moved a muscle, not one fucking inch. Both of ’em just sat and stared, their mouths hinged open.

  “Untie me,” she said to me.

  I didn’t move at first. I looked around the room, taking it all in. I heard either Joe or Mook get sick, heard the retching, then smelled the vomit. Don’t know who did it. Maybe both. I don’t know why I didn’t lose my lunch. I guess maybe it hadn’t all sunk in yet.

  “I said untie me!”

  This time I ran right over and untied her. She pulled out Jimmy’s dick with a slurping, oily sound, like a clogged drain after being rooted clear. She tossed it on the floor beside him.

  She looked at me for a long time. I was terrified. Shit my pants. I don’t remember doin’ it, but it was there, sure enough. I know someone else didn’t come along and fill up my boxers, man.

  She took her clothes from the shelf where they had sat for weeks and she got dressed. Blood still trickled down her legs, and she wiped at it with a small part of the sheet that was uncovered with blood. A very small part of the sheet. It was pretty much saturated throughout. Then she pulled on her pants.

  “What happened?” I whispered. I looked at my own penis. I had wiped away most of the blood, and when I looked at it, I knew why it had stung before. It was covered with tiny teeth marks.

  Why had she waited until now to do this? Why didn’t she escape right away? And how did she manage to—

  But I didn’t have a chance to ask her my questions. Maybe that was lucky. She didn’t exactly look like she was in the mood for twenty questions.

  This was bad, boys. Real bad.” She slipped into her Nikes. “I haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do about it.” She stepped over Jimmy’s body, trying to avoid the bill
owing pools of blood. “Remember what I said. This isn’t over.”

  She smiled, and ran her filthy hand across my face.

  Then she left. Just like that.

  So here we are. Me and Joey and Mookie and Jimmy. We thought Jimmy was dead, but he’s still squirmin’. His penis is still on the floor, right beside his knee. You can’t imagine how funny that looks. We can’t even take him to the doctor. How the fuck would we explain it?

  I wonder what she meant when she said this wasn’t over.

  I wonder what she meant.

  I’m so scared I think I shit myself again.

  Dancing into October Country

  He danced into town on scattered leaves, orange and red and yellow flourishes blowing a path along the streets and sidewalks. Dizzying swirls of crumbled and dried cut grass, the sweet-hay smell caressing the air like gentle finger strokes.

  The children gleefully – innocently – chased after him and his colorful bag of magic tricks and candy. “Follow the Halloween man!” they cried, laughing and skipping and excited because Halloween was a time of candy and costumes and surprises and tricks, of no school and no homework. Halloween was freedom, and Halloween was youth.

  Halloween Man transformed gaily colored balloons into poodles and parrots and twisted goblins, and when the children accepted the creations they were met with vile grins and outstretched claws that reached and grabbed and stole their pleasant dreams and ate them like candy.

  He skipped down the street like an overgrown child, his pastel clothing shimmering and shining in the midday sun that heated the tar and warmed young skin. “Catch me, catch me, children!” Halloween Man cried, running fast, faster, too fast for the children to keep up, always just out of reach, always just that unbearable distance away.

  The children fell to their knees and sobbed, wanting to catch the Halloween Man, the one who held the secrets, who understood the passage of things, who eagerly wanted to share his knowledge.

  But he was just too fast.

  Still, then children chased, as children always do, believing that they would be the one to finally catch him and his passing fancy. A short-lived celebration that only the very young can understand.

  And for those rare few fortunate enough to finally catch the Halloween Man, those rare gems, ostracized by those who don’t understand even though they pretend that they do, they are the ones who will track the Halloween man into oblivion and beyond, following in his footsteps like lemmings out to sea.

  Feeding Desire

  with Jack Fisher

  In the Age of Rubens, Diana would have been considered a goddess.

  Unfortunately, she was not alive in an era when fat was regarded as beautiful but during a time when thin is in.

  For Diana, being thin was about as far away as Europe and not nearly as attainable. Folds of flesh covered a frame that, after worms and maggots someday feasted on her corpse, would prove to be of medium bone structure; meaning she would never be dainty or petite no matter what her weight; nor on the flip-side would she ever try out for women’s rugby.

  But rugby wasn’t on Diana’s mind. Food was. Though she had no desire to perpetuate the myth that all grossly obese people got that way because they obsess about food, or that they’re all lazy slobs without self control. Diana, being bed-ridden because of her rather rotund body had little else to do all day and night other than to watch television—and eat. Those were her two constants, and her two pleasures.

  Diana lived in a studio and spent her life sprawled on a pullout sofa that hadn’t been in its original position in half a decade. The sheet beneath her wet and stained flesh was filthy with crumbs and feces smears that she couldn’t quite reach to wipe away. The sheets hadn’t been changed in months.

  The task was certainly doable but required four people to help. They had to roll her over while the bedding was pulled out and the new sheet added, then rolled to the other side of the mattress on a frame that screamed at the shifting of her precariously balanced weight. Four people to have to ask for help, and then somehow not die of embarrassment when they arrived. Friends or relatives who would nod and smile kindly but secretly wondered—and Diana knew what they were thinking—how could she have gotten so goddamned enormously fat? At her age yet. So young, so much to live for, has her whole life ahead—

  So the sheets rotted beneath her and the apartment rotted around her. Mounds of garbage birthed new forms of life, moldering away for days at a time until Candida her housekeeper came in on Thursdays. Diana couldn’t make it to the incinerator chute—hell, just getting to the bathroom ten feet away was a struggle. Most days she only managed a single trip.

  Chinese food for dinner. The delivery boys knew the routine. The front door was never locked—an insanity in Manhattan, but she had little choice. Besides, what did she have that was worth stealing? TV, computer. They were replaceable. Diana came from a wealthy family and could afford to replace missing items. Could afford a life of doing nothing. Her family, frustrated at Diana’s size and her indifference, wanted desperately to help and had sent her to specialist after specialist. Or had sent them to her. At first Diana tried dieting, then tried more extreme procedures like stomach stapling, but all ended in failure, and her family’s insistence that she seek professional mental help was ignored. Hiding behind her girth had become comfortable, and now she was content to live life as she was.

  Breakfast was a quick call to the Stuyvesant Square Deli. Lunch, same. Dinner, whatever she was in the mood for. Life had become even better once McDonald’s started delivering.

  The young Asian delivery boy with the fine black hair knocked twice out of courtesy before entering. He stopped in the kitchenette off the front foyer. Diana’s ears perked like Pavlov’s mutts at the sound of the freezer door clicking shut.

  She motioned for him to place everything on the end table.

  He obliged, planting the bag and pulling out the menu. “Sixty three sixty.” Lucky Dragon didn’t run tabs, even for their best customer.

  She handed him seventy dollars. “Keep it.”

  He smiled, nodded, and was gone.

  Alone again. So much for social hour. She’d convinced herself sometime through the years that she really didn’t mind. That it was easier this way, easier than having to worry about relationships, jobs, friends. She considered herself retired now, at age thirty-four. Retired from work that she’d never done, retired from a life she’d never lived.

  She opened the shopping bag and assembled her dinner. Sweet and sour pork. Pepper steak. Chop suey. Moo Shoo pork with extra pancakes. Spare ribs, double order, and a fried dumpling appetizer. Almond cookies. Fortune cookies. Two-liter bottle of Pepsi. A strange and eclectic mixture of smells and colors dripped from the small white containers, chicken and pork and peppers, sweet and vinegary, spicy and tangy. She wiped spittle from the corners of her mouth.

  She ate while her mind and emotions remained numb, sedated and entertained by the massive quantities of food. Hours later she finished the last of it and drifted into an almost narcotic-like stupor.

  The following morning, another call to the deli for breakfast. Half an hour later there was a knock at the door. Only this time, the delivery boy didn’t enter.

  She waited, confused, head craning back on her fat neck, trying to glance back toward the door. “Come in!” she yelled, irritated at this disruption in her routine. Anything that interfered with mealtime annoyed her. “Jesus.”

  She heard the door open, could hear his heavy breathing behind her. Staring, she was sure. Gawking. Having a good, long look. Staring and ogling and absorbing this sickening sight, like sneering at a geek in a sideshow display. She was the fat lady, only fat didn’t quite do her justice. She was the Amazing, Colossal, Humongous Woman, Eighth Wonder of the World! A sight too unreal to imagine. Step right up, folks, and see Diana, the world’s fattest—

  “Come in,” she snapped. “The eggs are getting cold.”

  “I’m new,” he stammered.
r />   “So I gathered.” She was used to the stares, even while confined to her home. Used to stares from an endless parade of delivery boys, repairmen, doctors. It was Grand Fucking Central in her apartment.

  “I-I’m sorry,” he said, his mouth slightly ajar.

  For some reason this one bothered her. Not exactly annoyed her, just made her … uncomfortable. She stared at him with the same vehemence that he was showing her, and she realized the discomfort came from her attraction to the young man. This wasn’t just some delivery boy. This was her Adonis, a decent cut of biceps just beginning to blossom. Legal, but barely. She guessed his age at twenty, twenty-two. Peach fuzz. Baby fat where a delineated jaw line might once appear. Mocha eyes, rich and warm and buttery. An Aryan prince. Probably named Fritz or Helmut.

  This embarrassed her. Mortified her. For the first time in years, she wished she had covered her body.

  He handed her the bill. “Thirty eight and—”

  “I know.” She handed him a fifty. “Keep it.”

  He stared at the money and then stuffed it into his pocket.

  “Thanks,” he said quietly, now staring into her eyes.

  She nodded, feeling the heat spread on her cheeks. “You can leave.”

  “Can I—is it okay if I stay a few minutes?”

  He caught her off guard. What could he possibly want, if not to stare at her, to think up horrible and cruel names, bring stories back to his friends about the inhumanly grotesque blob lounging on east Twelfth Street?

  It was enough of a surprise that she didn’t know how to respond.

  “I’ve made you uncomfortable,” he said, closing his eyes, his brow creasing. “I’m sorry. I just thought you might like some company, at least for a few minutes. I have to get back anyway.”

  He shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “They told me about you. How you … live alone. Kinda stuck in your bed. You know.” He paled, believing probably that he’d said something dreadfully hurtful to her. She didn’t care. “I just thought you might be kind of lonely.”