Family Tradition

by Edward Lee

  James masturbated frenetically as he cried, “Piss on me, Mommy! Piss on me!”

  ««—»»

  Bess, at the very least, had been half-right. She believed it was her destiny to come out here and die. But half-right also meant half wrong, didn’t it?

  She’d die out here, all right, but not by her own hand. To girls like Bess, there was solace in suicide. No solace tonight, however. Not for Bess.

  As her consciousness returned, she remembered a nightmare. In the nightmare she was drowning in crystal-clear water. Her huge limbs paddled frantically but she simply couldn’t keep her head above the water. Just as her lungs would dispel her final breath, though, someone was saving her. Someone had grabbed her by the hair and was pulling her up. She could breathe again! Was it Mavis who’d saved her? No, it couldn’t be; Mavis couldn’t swim either.

  An angel, then. Yes! In the nightmare, it must’ve been an angel who’d saved her from drowning. Once ashore, however, she looked into the angel’s face and thought, Aw, fuck!

  It was decidedly not an angel. Instead it was a huge, bearded hillbilly with rotten teeth.

  Bess let her memory click back a few more notches.

  Aw…fuck…

  No, it was not and angel, and it was not a nightmare.

  It was all real.

  As real as the boat hook from which she hung naked by lashed hands. As real as this long dark barnlike building she now occupied. And as real as—

  “Aw, fuck!” she shouted.

  Unpleasant scents in the air seemed to meld with other scents that were absolutely savory. Bess heard a crackling: a fire somewhere. High tiny windows afforded the barn’s only light. Among the barn’s bizarre contents (some large metal drums, a large hole in the ground from which fire issued, bushel baskets full of fruit and vegetables, a fireplace bellows, a plastic bucket full of what appeared to be fish filets) was something more bizarre than anything Bess had seen in her life.

  A canoe with a man’s head sticking out of it.

  The canoe seemed to be covered over with something. Sheets of metal?

  “Hey!” Bess shouted to the head. “You there, you…head. What’s going on here?”

  The head moved, looked at with an insane glint, and began to babble. But then:

  “Bub-buh-Bess?” a voice spoke, and it did not come from the head sticking out of the canoe.

  “Mavis!” Bess shouted. “Is that you!”

  “Yes!”

  “I can’t see you!”

  “I’m over here—he tied my hands together and I’m hanging from a hook!”

  “Me too,” Bess said. “The redneck who dragged us out of the water.”

  A silence ticked by, then, sniffling, she said, “Bess, you’re my best friend! I’m sorry I called you Jabba the Hut!”

  “I’m sorry I called you an anorexic nerd,” Bess confessed. “And I’m sorry I said Duchovny sucks. He actually wasn’t bad in Playing God.”

  “It’s all my fault! I feel so bad! We would’ve killed ourselves just like we planned if I hadn’t chickened out.”

  “No, it’s my fault. If I hadn’t started fighting, we never would’ve fallen out of the damn raft.”

  “What are we going to do!” Mavis shrieked. “Who was that man? And what is this place?”

  Poor Mavis, Bess thought. The girl was so naive; she couldn’t think past David Duchovny and a fantasy world of alien invasions and government conspiracies. The real world, Bess knew, was full of perverts, rapists, and murderers, and she had a terrible feeling that all of the above applied to the bearded man who’d dragged them from the lake.

  “What is this? A barn or something?”

  “I think so,” Bess replied.

  “And what are all those baskets and things? Apples and vegetables, it looks like. And what’s that fire for in the hole? What are those big metal drums?”

  “I don’t know, Mavis. Get a hold of yourself. We have to think of a way to get out of here before that bearded guy with the rotten teeth comes back.”

  As the afternoon had drawn on, the light from the high windows moved slowly toward the back of the barn or whatever this place was. Bess squinted, and in the most dolorous increments she noticed something familiar against the rear wall.

  An old gas stove.

  It was then that the most abhorrent realization occurred to her. This place was more than a barn and more than a psychopath’s den.

  It’s a kitchen, she realized, and that’s when the door swung open.

  ««—»»

  “—still cain’t believe it!” Esau enthused as he followed his big brother into the cookery. “Ashton Morrone, the world’s greatest chef! Fishin’ in our lake!”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Enoch grumbled. “I hope you charged ’em fer parking and hookups n’ all.”

  “Oh, shore! N’fact, Mr. Morrone hisself gave me a brand-new hunnert-dollar bill!”

  That perked old Enoch up. Older and wiser, Enoch was bereft of his brother’s youthful enthusiasms. Money’s what they needed. Propane weren’t free, and neither was gas fer the trucks and that blammed server fee for the fancy satellite tv. And considering Grandpa Ab’s appetite, Enoch was drivin’ to town three times a week fer the things Esau needed for the viddles. Spices and flour and condiments, bottle after bottle of olive oil and canola oil and sesame oil, and every other kind of blammed friggin’ oil, couple pounds’a butter’a week, couple pounds’a lard—all on account’a ’cos Grandpa Ab liked Esau’s fancy cookin’. Sure, Grandpa Ab was worth it, and he deserved to have what he wanted. It’s just that it’d be a whole lot cheaper’n simpler if Grandpa could get by on canned store-brand spaghetti like Enoch and Esau generally did.

  “Well that’s good about the hunnert, boy,” Enoch approved and closed the door behind him. Esau set down six stacked homemade pie crusts on one’a the tables, then turned on the propane tank fer the stove. He began to boil a large pot of water. “One’a the gals I hauled out’a the lake had a couple hunnert on her too,” Enoch continued. “But that city chef and his friends—just you make sure to squeeze as much cash out of ’em as you can. Fuck, we’se gotta make a livin’ too, ya know. Fancy big city chef, you’d guess he had money.”

  “Oh, they’se richer’n shit. You should see the boat they got, and one’a them big Winnebago things like a house on wheels! Dang straight they’se rich. Wouldn’t expect the finest chef in the world ta be poor, now would ya?”

  “What’s them there pie crusts for?” Enoch asked.

  “It’s been a while since I fixed Grandpa Ab up some cobbler. It’s his favorite.”

  “Hmm,” Enoch grunted.

  “Gimme a sec,” Esau said, “whiles I pump another bellyful into our friend here.” He approached the canoe and the ludicrous insane head that seemed to sit atop it. The head babbled incoherently as Esau filled the bellows from the bucket of his spicy cornmash. “Shee-it, the fella’s got some spunk. This is his fourth week, ain’t?”

  “Yeah,” Enoch grunted.

  “Usually they up’n die after three. Bet his liver’s big as a basketball by now—it’ll make the best pate on toast points fer Grandpa Ab. See, Enoch, that’s how the Frenchys do it, they tie a farm-raised goose to a board’n just force-feed it cornmash fer weeks. Makes the liver real big’n sweet. I’se learnt about it on Ashton’s show!”

  Enoch frowned. He was sick of listening to Esau’s fancy-cookin’ talk. “Just git on with it, will ya, boy?”

  “Here comes lunch, fella,” Esau promised, jamming the nozzle down the canoe-head’s throat. He slowly drained the bellows. “There. That hit the spot?”

  The head lolled and babbled, corn mush drooling from his lips.

  “See ya fer dinner, buddy!”

  “How long’s all this gonna take?” Enoch asked. “Wrasslin’ comes on at 5:05 on TNT, and I don’t wanna miss it. Flair’s grapplin’ DDP fer the title.”

  “Aw, not long.” Esau grinned, briskly rubbing his dirty hands together. “Now show me these t
wo splittails ya fetched.”

  Enoch walked him over to the first stall.

  “Aw, shee-it, Enoch. Ya done brought me another rack’a bones,” Esau complained, appraising the long skinny white thing hanging there. “I seen fatter vanilla beans!”

  “Quit’cher belly-achin’ and look in the other stall…”

  Esau loped around and stared. “Holy cracklin’ crawdads! That’s what I called a mountain of pork!”

  “All that meat’n blubber,” Enoch observed, “I figger she’ll last Grandpa Ab fer a full week.”

  “And then some!” Esau elated. “I can do me all kinds of great things with a pig this size!”

  The naked girl hung there like a bloated sack full of suet. “And lookit the giant titties on her! Man, I’ll be able to make me the biggest pot-stickers in history!”

  But when Esau reached forward and squeezed the dough-white bags of flesh, the girl suddenly kicked out with huge legs. “Don’t touch me, you crazy redneck!”

  Esau grinned. “And she’s still got some spark left!” He rammed his fist into her mouth, knocked her out cold. “There, that oughta simmer ya down, Fattie.” He kneaded the great flops of her breasts, plied the enormous coaster-sized nipples. “Enoch,” he called out. “Get that toothpick over to the table and make her start eatin’ the fruit.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Enoch groaned.

  “Meantimes, I’se’ll get the fat one dressed.”

  Enoch took Mavis off her hook. “Fox, is that you?” she warbled. Enoch flipped her over his back like a long noodle, then flopped her onto the prep table. The slam roused her from her delirium and she was screaming. “Eat this fruit,” he said bluntly, “or’ll carve out yer cunt.” He slapped a meaty, callused hand on her throat, squeezed. “Understand?”

  Wide-eyed, Mavis nodded rapidly.

  One of the bushel baskets was full of apples, pears, and peaches, cut into crisp, neat wedges. Enoch grabbed a handful of wedges and crammed them into Mavis mouth.

  “Chew.”

  Mavis chewed, vigorously as a chipmunk scarfing seeds.

  “Swaller.”

  Mavis gulped the first load down.

  Enoch spent the next twenty minutes doing the same, force-feeding fresh fruit into the skinny girl’s yap. She chewed and swallowed, chewed and swallowed.

  When the bushel was depleted by a third, Mavis, exhausted, released a long exhale, fruit pulp smearing her mouth. “Please, please,” she begged. “No more—”

  “More,” Enoch informed her and stuffed more and more fruit into her face. While tending to this fairly tedious chore, he looked around and saw Esau fiddling with the big pot on the stove, adding various spices to the boiling water.

  “What’choo doin’? I thought you was gonna prep the fat ’un.”

  “I am,” Esau assured. “Need the right combo’a white, cayenne, and crushed red pepper.”

  “Fer what?”

  “Hot links. You know how Grandpa Ab loves hot links.”

  ««—»»

  Sheree had never come so long and so hard in her life. Each repeated orgasm struck her like a physical blow. Her civilized senses spun away, leaving only the bare, sweaty, sex-needing animal cringing in greedy pleasure.

  She lay back in the Winnebago’s floor, her legs raised and widely parted. Carol knelt between them, leaning over like an intent gynecologist, gently revolving her fist within the stretched circumference of Sheree’s vaginal barrel. Simultaneously, Carol’s tongue laved Sheree’s olive-sized clitoris.

  Each crush of sensation pin-pointed to an avalanche of spasming pleasure; Carol’s subventions had turned Sheree into an orgasm-machine.

  Her legs tensed, her toes flexed toward the ceiling, and off went another one, deep demolition in her cunt. Over the fifteen-year career in porn, she’d been fucked, sucked, prodded and probed and licked and skewered by dildos and stuck up the ass thousands of times. But in all of that, she’d never, ever come like this. In fact, until now, she had no idea that the limits of orgasm could stretch this far.

  On her swollen clitoris, she could feel Carol’s sultry whisper: “One more time, one more time, baby…”

  And one more time it would be. Carol accelerated her devilish expertise, the velvet buzzsaw running on high as her fist continued to revolve to and fro and back and forth. Sheree always wondered if it was hype or if there really was such a thing as a G-Spot. Well…

  Now she knew.

  Her back arched, her chest heaving. Her nipples felt like hot rivets. This last and best orgasm felt like something actually spewing out of her. At once she imagined herself as a man, with a great big cock, spurting line after line of sperm into the air.

  When it was over, Carol carefully removed her hand. “I guess you liked that, huh?” she coyly remarked at the small sink. She washed off the gleaming shellac of K-Y Jelly and vaginal gloss.

  “Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph…”

  “Don’t tell me that’s the first time you’ve been fisted.”

  “This was the first time,” Sheree wheezed. She lay limp on the floor as if beaten down by cudgels. Her pleasure had exhausted her, had wrung all of her energy from her nerves like water from a dishrag. “Christ, that was good.” It was even a major effort just to raise her head and look up.

  Carol was drying her hands with a towel, her demin skirt still on but her halter pulled up over her perfect 36 D’s. Once Ashton and Bob had puttered off across the lake in their boat, it had been all of two minutes before Carol had dragged Sheree into the Winnebago, stripped her, and got to sucking her pussy. Carol hadn’t even taken off her own clothes; their lust had lit in an instant. She’d splayed Sheree out and gotten right to work.

  Sheree leaned up on her elbows, beads of sweat tickling down her breasts like hot, wet ladybugs. Her hair lay across her face in damp strings. The best orgasms of her life certainly bid reciprocation.

  “Let me do you now,” she offered. “Get the K-Y.”

  But Carol gave her the strangest expression, a look pregnant with confusion. “I want you to do me, but…”

  “But what?”

  The expression lengthened. “Jesus Christ. You don’t know—”

  Sheree’s forehead creased. “Know what?”

  Carol stepped forward. “This,” she said, and then she pulled up her tight denim skirt.

  There, staring Sheree in the face, was the very last thing she’d ever expect to find between Carol’s legs: a large uncircumcised cock.

  — | — | —

  Chapter Seven

  When Bess had yet again regained consciousness, the nightmare was not over. Indeed, it was only beginning. Her thoughts pin-wheeled backward, and she remembered when not one but two humongus rednecks had come in to this kitchen of the abyss. The younger one had begun groping her, and that’s when Bess had shouted at him, and after that…

  He’d knocked her unconscious with a single blow.

  When her eyes flicked open and finally focused, she looked back around. The older and larger maniac had Mavis lain across a table and was smashing what appeared to be chopped fruit into her mouth. Evidently it was a lot of fruit, because Mavis’ ordinarily rack-skinny stomach pushed out like she was six months pregnant.

  “Hey, spinach-chin!” Bess yelled. “Leave her alone!”

  The man simply glared at her, kept mashing fruit into Mavis’ mouth. But in response to Bess’ objection, his throat rumbled and then he spat.

  The wad of phlegm, large as a golf ball, sailed across the air and—

  Yuuuck!

  —hit Bess right in the eye.

  “Pipe down, ya hog,” the man told her. “Looks ta me like you gots more things ta worry ’bout than yer stringbean friend here. Like that gut-cut.”

  Bess, as she hung from her hook, didn’t know what he was talking about, but at the same time he’d said it, she finally became aware of the sharp, ripping pain at her mid-abdomen. She looked down at her distended belly and couldn’t help but notice the six-inch-long gash
and the blood seeping out of it.

  “But don’t’cha worry none, Fattie,” the man added. “My brother Esau shore knows how ta do a gut-cut right. It won’t kill ya…”

  Bess gaped at the wound.

  “The killin’ comes later,” she was told. “It’ll be nice’n slow.”

  Then another man (his brother, she assumed) walked into Bess’ field of vision. He went over to the table, patted Mavis’ bloated abdomen. “Dang,” he exclaimed. “This little twig et dag near half the bushel!”

  “She shore did. So’s what I do with her now?”

  “Just let her set a spell, digest a bit. Then we’ll be ready.”

  “Dag it. I should’a figured I’d miss wrasslin’.”

  “You won’t miss much,” the younger one said. Now he was at the fire pit, stoking it with a metal rod. “Go ahead’n fuck her. Might as well have a go, huh? Why waste pussy when it’s there?”

  The older one glanced at Mavis’ convulsing white body. “Naw. Shee-it, you know I prefer fellas.”

  “Hey, a nut’s a nut, Enoch. Stick it up her ass if ya don’t like gash. Git’cher pecker brown.”

  Enoch cast a second glance. “Naw. I’d rather beat off, er poke a sheep. Shee-it. Fuckin’ this here skinny thing’d be like fuckin’ a bone.”

  “Suit yerself,” Esau replied. “I’d fuck this big ’un ’cept—shee-it! I’d need ta roll her ’round ina pile’a flour ta find the wet-spot!” He scratched his crotch, eyed poor Mavis on the table. “I guess we’re ready. Enoch, flip her over—”

  Enoch did exactly this, while his uncomely brother grabbed a wooden saute spoon. He put Mavis in a headlock, jammed the spoon down her tongue and pressed. In a great urping splatter, Mavis vomited up several plumes of partly digested fruit into one of the pie crusts. He slid across another crust, pressed, then out came more fruit puke. Esau continued the process until Mavis little belly was empty and all the pie crusts filled.

  Atop each tin, he lay several circles of uncooked biscuit dough. Then he placed all the crusts on a tray and slid them into the oven.