The Sadist's Bible

by Nicole Cushing

  novelty into the equation. His torture never changed. Every week He came to visit her and inflicted the same sadistic routine.

  Melted her lips together so she couldn’t scream.

  Lopped off her arms with the sheer power of His thoughts.

  And His body was literally on fire (but wasn’t consumed). His cock was literally on fire (but not consumed). And He shoved it up her ass and then up her cunt. And the sour, smoky stench of her own burning holes made her want to faint, but she couldn’t. And

  each hole would be blistered and scorched from the flames, but that didn’t stop Him. And His cum was like boiling oil that commingled with the weeping of her blisters. And His

  kisses were like the stings of a jellyfish. And His touch turned her skin into black carbon and gray ash. And He’d slap her and punch her and fracture her ribs. And she should’ve

  passed out, but she couldn’t. And she wanted to die, but she couldn’t.

  And when it was all over He’d heal her injuries, and He’d whisper in her ear that

  He’d be back next Sunday to do it all over again. And for the rest of the week Lori would relive it all in her nightmares.

  Her baby’s father was God. God fucked her. God punished her. It was said that Hell was the only place that provided eternal separation from God, so Lori would arrange

  things so she would go there. Even if the suicide wouldn’t land her there, the homicide

  surely would. And the baby – His baby, who should have never come into existence

  anyway – would be put out of his misery.

  Yes, she would fuck God over. Kill His offspring. Cheat on Him, with a woman.

  Escape. Maybe even manage to humiliate Him in the process. All of this would turn out

  to be a magnificent “fuck you” to the Almighty.

  The only question was, could she pull this off? There were risks of getting caught.

  Yes, He could read her thoughts. He knew her every desire. But she wasn’t His only

  concubine. He’d told her she was only one of many. He couldn’t keep tabs on all of them

  at once, could He? If she was lucky, He’d be paying attention to the others during her

  escape.

  But first, Lori would have to go to Mom and Dad’s house to take the baby away.

  That would be a treacherous step in the journey. Mom and Dad would fight her. But she

  knew she was up to it.

  But no, don’t think about such chores. Chill the fuck out, girl. Chill. The. Fuck. Out.

  She had a couple of Xanax pills in her nightstand. She reached in and found them.

  Took them. And her head started to grow softer and lighter. And the world started to

  grow softer and lighter. And she let out a sigh, as the chemicals seemed to erase the entire concept of God from her head and render the world a more palatable place. And she

  started pinching and twisting her nipples to get back into the mood. It took about a half hour to reach full arousal again, but it worked. She had a renewed ability to look upon

  every square inch of her flesh as a potential epicenter for orgasm. A renewed ability to look upon herself as something more than a victim.

  Mmmmm... She ran her fingers down along her labia and felt her hips buck up

  involuntarily to meet the strokes. Yes, she would think about all the worrisome aspects of this later. Now was the time to focus on getting off.

  There were several scenarios she played through in her head as she slipped fingers

  inside herself.

  In the first scenario, they’d hang themselves in separate rooms. The second was

  hotter, though: they’d hang themselves right next to each other. Maybe even jill each other off. Maybe their orgasms and death throes would be intermixed. The blood in their bodies wouldn’t know what to do. Maybe it’d rush up to the site of the strangulation and turn their necks purple. Maybe it would rush down to their pussies, instead.

  Maybe, Lori thought, the only way to ensure they both got off would be to bring a

  third person into the picture. They could hire a whore to get them off while they died. She let the tip of her finger graze her clitoris. Damn, that would be hot. They’d make sure she was young – nineteen, twenty. The younger, the better the chances she’d agree to

  something so extreme. The younger, the better the chances she’d be scarred by it.

  Traumatized.

  Fuck, yeah.

  Her hips bucked up. Legs splayed out.

  Yep, the younger the whore, the less-prepared she’d be to handle all of this. The

  younger the whore, the better the chances that Lori and Ellie would live on as a series of recurring nightmares inside that whore’s head.

  She licked her lip. Her soul simmered.

  Fuck, yeah.

  They could live on as traumatic nightmares that would haunt the whore at three a.m.

  Just like Lori’s nightmares haunted her each night. The whore’s nightmares would awaken the john dozing next to her, Lori imagined. He’d look at the clock while she was

  moaning and tossing in bed and decide it would be best that he left. He’d find the money he’d paid her and take it. Maybe take the girl’s whole stash, if he could find it. Yes, that would be what would happen. She and Ellie would go to Hell, but they’d live on (in a

  way) here on Earth, in a whore’s nightmares. They would, in a way, be cheating God and

  the Devil at the same time!

  Her brain surged to a rolling boil. She felt thrown in and out of her

  body...experienced a sense of flipping in and out of time.

  She let out furtive groans and squeals. She did not want to be heard by the man in the

  apartment downstairs. Death shuddered inside of her. Noose. Hanging. Whore. Licking.

  Escaping. Escaping! So tight. Fuck, yeah. Fuck, yeah. Fuck...

  ...yeah.

  * * *

  The adulterers were both fools, of course.

  For all their talk about the pleasures of the flesh, they actually lived in their heads: in a world of conjecture, rationalization, might-haves and should-haves and maybes.

  When they chatted or swapped naughty photographs online, it was as though they’d

  entered a wee pocket of time and space hidden away from sunrise and sunset and toil and obligation. Their ideas about death (like their ideas about life, like their expectations of sex) were influenced by fantasy rather than fact. Dewy-eyed delusions.

  Lori, in particular, was almost-comically ill-informed about so many things. She

  thought she might somehow escape my notice, but I am infinite! Her little brain couldn’t fathom the idea of omniscience. I only allowed her to proceed down this path as a way to further maximize her torture (and because I found myself a bit intrigued by the woman she planned to die with).

  Likewise, she was clueless about the habits of prostitutes. They do not, typically, fall asleep in the arms of their johns. If they’re with a john, they’re working. Like vampires, they sleep by day.

  And both women were clueless in regard to suicide.

  Had they performed even a cursory search on the Internet, they would have found

  articles attesting to the foolishness of hanging. They would have read testimonials from E.M.T.s discussing how accidental decapitation was, perhaps, the most merciful outcome.

  They would have read the reports of bodies found with fresh, frantic scratch marks on their necks and chins – signs of a struggle to get out of the noose, signs of too-late second thoughts. They would have found out that death usually came from some combination of suffocation and interrupted circulation of blood to the brain. They would have realized that the hanged have no energy for orgasm. They’re too busy dying.

  The Escape from God

  Ellie yearned for the open road. Jesse reminded her far too often that he’d miss her.

  She let him hold her. Let him kiss her and grope her. She feigned gro
ping back, while a

  hunger for Lori gnawed at her. She imagined what Lori’s tongue would feel like as it

  worked its way from her thigh to her pussy. But now Jesse was saying something she

  didn’t catch.

  “What’s that, honey?”

  “I said, do you need any money for tolls?” Jesse, the responsible one, always carried cash. She hadn’t bothered finding out if there were any tolls between southern Indiana

  and West Virginia. She decided to err on the side of caution. “I’ll take twenty, if you have it, sweetheart. That should be more than enough.”

  The house was like a pressure cooker. Jesse’s presence exerted pressure on her, to be

  sure – the pressure of guilt for the affair she was about to undertake. Guilt for the

  impending sin of making love with another woman. But guilt for the impending suicide,

  too.

  In five days he’d know her soft words and embraces were lies.

  It wasn’t just Jesse’s presence, though, that made her feel ill-at-ease. The house, itself, was claustrophobic in its rural upper middle classness. The porcelain cherubs on the coffee table. The wedding pictures. The crisp neatness. The rose-colored loveseat.

  The paintings of the Falls of the Ohio. The paintings of Jesus. The photographs of

  mothers and fathers and siblings and grandparents and cousins on the walls. The way

  they were like an assembly of generations hovering over her with grim expectations.

  “Yes,” they seemed to say, “we’re so glad you had the decency to get married. But what

  about children? Where are the baby pictures to hang on these walls alongside us? Breed.

  Continue the chain.”

  Expectations unmet. Pressure. Enough to make Ellie feel clammy. She cleared her

  throat. “Time for me to go, love.”

  “I suppose,” Jesse said, “I can’t keep you here forever. The trade show beckons.

  Give me a call when you stop for the night.”

  “I was, well...I was thinking of driving straight through.”

  “Aren’t you leaving a bit late in the day for that?”

  “I’m sorry...”

  “Sorry?”

  “I mean...I always try to leave for trips early. But I never get my act together to leave early.”

  “You ask me, they should’ve paid for a train ticket. By the time you add up the gas

  and the expense of the hotel, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to drive all that way.”

  Think fast. Think fast. Think fa – “Makes all the sense in the world, if you want to squeeze two trips into one. They want me to give a presentation to a company in

  Cincinnati that’s in the market for a new barge. Their office is along the way.”

  “And they can’t just meet you at the trade show?”

  “Well, you know how these companies are.”

  Jesse shook his head. “They don’t treat you good, Ellie. You know that, right? I

  don’t see why you can’t do a lot of these pitches over the Internet. Isn’t that what Skype’s for?”

  “I-I’m sorry, Jesse. I’ll put my foot down after this. No more traveling. At least not

  for a while.”

  “Promise me you’ll stop and get a room tonight. You don’t need to be on the road all

  that time.”

  He was correct, of course. It was already five-thirty. It would take about six hours to

  travel to the Hillbriar (not counting bathroom and meal breaks). She’d been up, doing

  laundry and last minute packing, at five a.m. (It was the best time to smuggle the noose out of the basement and into her bag.) She’d be ready to go to bed after just a few hours on the road.

  Things never came together as planned.

  She’d had too many loose ends to tie up before leaving. On top of all the packing and

  laundry, she’d indulged in having lunch with Alice, the co-worker she was fond of. The

  one Ellie suspected might also…

  * * *

  They’d both ordered grilled chicken sandwiches at Big Boy. Their hands grazed

  against each other when they both reached for the check. (They’d forgotten to ask for

  separate ones.) Alice insisted on treating. Ellie felt herself blush. She giggled.

  “Blushing, Ellie-May?” Alice said. (Alice was always calling her that.) “You’ve

  been goofy this whole time. I think the waiter slipped some rum into your sweet tea.”

  Ellie had started to imagine that they were dating, that Alice was trying to be

  chivalrous by paying. That’s why she’d blushed. But she couldn’t just come out and say

  that. Her hunch that Alice was...not attracted to men...was just that – a hunch. She

  wasn’t...well... certain of where Alice stood on matters like that. Matters like that weren’t intended to be spoken of, out loud. One could only type messages about them...at

  midnight...on the social network.

  “I’m just anxious about my trip,” she said.

  As she’d finished saying that, Pastor Carswell walked in the door (with all the

  arthritic, white-haired church ladies in tow like a sexless harem). She tried to avoid eye contact.

  “It’s hard when they get in that condition,” Alice said. “Harder, too, when it’s your

  uncle, instead of your mom or dad. I mean, if it was your mom or dad, you’d probably

  have been down there months ago, right? You’d have been in the loop about all this. But

  when it’s your uncle and he’s elderly and his kids are dropping the ball like this, well, it’s hard to not go down there on edge. You’ll be in my prayers, and so will your uncle.”

  Of course, Alice would be praying for a man who didn’t exist; a character created by

  Ellie to explain her impending absence to a coworker who knew damn well there wasn’t

  a trade show in West Virginia. Two lies told; each custom made for its recipient.

  Ellie caught a furtive glance of Pastor Carswell. His ears had perked up when Alice

  mentioned prayers and he’d turned his chubby neck in their direction, as far as the rolls of flab would allow. (Like he had some sort of super-hearing that could sense the dropping

  of church lingo even in the din of a crowded restaurant.) If he’d overheard the story about the uncle, complications would ensue. He might talk to Jesse about it, and Jesse would

  ask for an explanation, and then she’d be caught in her lie. Fortunately, the hostess

  greeted the pastor at just that moment and led him to a roomy table of eight, off in a

  corner, a safe distance from her small booth. The delicate web of lies wouldn’t be broken.

  The crisis had been averted.

  * * *

  “Ellie?”

  Jesse had been saying something to her, but she hadn’t replied. When she realized

  this, she mumbled a half-hearted apology.

  “You feelin’ okay?”

  “I guess I’m just, well, I guess I’m just preoccupied, is all. You know, with the trade

  show.”

  Jesse grimaced. “Maybe you shouldn’t go. It seems like this job has you wound up

  lately. You work your ass off for these folks – preparing presentations for them until one or two a.m. Maybe this should be where you draw the line. Maybe there are some things

  more important than selling river barges. You know that we could get by on my salary

  alone, if we needed to. You’ve always talked about how you wanted to get more involved

  in activities at church. You could do that, it wouldn’t be like you’d be sitting on your ass doing nothing. You could keep yourself busy with volunteer work.”

  Panic. He’s trying to stop me. Does he know? Does he know? Does he –

  “No!” It came out louder than she’d planned it. With more bitterness.


  Jesse took half a step back. He looked at her with confusion. With disgust?

  “I, I’m sorry,” Ellie said. “It’s...I mean...we can talk about this. About my leaving the company, I mean. When I get back. But I have to do this. You have to

  understand...there’s no way I’m backing out now.” And she didn’t back out. She gave

  him one last, perfunctory hug and slipped out the door with a quick but clumsy shuffle.

  She marched to their Scion and groaned as she loaded it with her one, big suitcase. It was the car they’d gotten years ago because it could accommodate a family. The car that only ended up accommodating Jesse’s camping gear and her luggage. The car that squealed its

  wheels as it left the driveway.

  She felt self-conscious about the noise. Across the street, the Evensons were

  returning from work. Mrs. Evenson stared at her and frowned. Then her wheels squealed

  yet again, this time as she braked. In her haste she’d nearly run over the Hamiltons’ four year old son.

  The boy looked up at her, wide-eyed, from his tricycle. Mrs. Hamilton rushed out her

  front door to survey the situation. Ellie had no choice but to wait while the boy’s

  sausagey legs worked the pedals of his trike to get out of the street. The mother gave Ellie the hairy eyeball. When the boy had gotten back on to the sidewalk, she started to march out of her yard, toward the Scion. “Hey...” she bellowed. ”Hey...”

  Ellie cringed and pretended not to hear Mrs. Hamilton. The Scion coasted onward at

  fifteen miles per hour.

  “Hey!” the voice demanded, from behind her. “Hey! You come back here! Hey!

  Hey!”

  Ellie kept going.

  “You watch where you’re goin’ from now on!”

  She felt the weight of the near miss on her brow. She forced herself to examine the

  road and the sidewalks – intensely study them – to make certain no other children were in her path. What, she wondered, would it sound like to run a little boy over? Her brain started to stitch together an alternate version of events. Had I hit him, it would have probably sounded like I’d just hit a dog, except for the added noise of the crushed