“I watched where he parked his car, then went a little further on and stopped out of sight, then doubled back on foot. They were there, alright, four of them, dressed in white like Joe said, and with the hottest looking man I’ve ever seen in my life. Joe wasn’t their only client—there were blokes coming from all sides, lining up to hand over their money, and they were looking at these… things…like they were Angelina Jolie and Cleopatra and Helen of Troy all rolled into one. But I could see their true likenesses.
“Sure, they all had pretty faces and big, perky breasts, like you’d expect a hooker to look. But they all had talons too, massive ones, like bear claws.” She holds her hands apart to demonstrate the length. “A couple of them had horns sprouting from their temples. One had little horns, and the other had big spiralling ones like a ram’s. One had clawed feet, like a vulture’s. And Eisheth, the one that Joe went to…she had a tail. Long and thick, with a fleshy little fork at the end of it, which she used to put down Joe’s pants and…”
For a moment I think she’s going to start crying again, but no; by the look on her face, she’s rendered momentarily speechless by blind fucking rage.
“He handed over some money, and then they did it, right there in the street! And all the while the other three whores were servicing their clients too, giving them hand jobs and blow jobs and I-don’t-even-know-what-you-call-it-jobs, and sometimes even taking on two or three men at a time. There weren’t just having sex with these men, either—by the time they’d finished, it looked like a mass murder crime scene, what with all the blood from the biting and the scratching. I don’t know how some of those men managed to walk out of there. I stayed hidden until it was all over and the men had left, and then…well, the next part is the worst.
“Remember the gorgeous man I mentioned earlier? Well, he stripped naked, and the women all went to him literally dripping with semen, and they kind of…” She wrinkles her nose in disgust. “Well, it looked like they were depositing it on him, or in him, or…I don’t know. It was all hands and mouths and cunts and arseholes, going up and down on his massive, throbbing…”
By now I don’t know whether to be aroused or repulsed, so I go for a bit of both, tucking my chair in a little more snugly under my desk to hide my growing erection and taking several gulps of water from the glass I’d offered Glenda.
“And then?” I manage to squeak. Glenda heaves a big sigh and looks out the window for a moment before replying.
“I suppose I may as well tell you,” she says. “It’s not like I have any dignity left. When the women had finished servicing him, I came out of my hiding place and approached him. I had nearly one hundred dollars in my wallet, and I’d seen an ATM a couple of streets away if that wasn’t enough. I couldn’t even remember the last time Joe and I had had sex, and I was so mad at him, I would have slept with damn near anybody just to get revenge. And this man was so handsome, and I thought…I hoped that if I offered him enough money, he just might…”
“Did he?” I ask, although I’m not sure that I really want to know the answer.
“No,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. “He said that only his wives take payment, and that twenty years ago he would have gladly obliged me, but now…now I’m too old.”
As shaken and stirred as I am by this fresh confession, I can’t help but parrot my usual schtick. “Age needn’t be a barrier to a satisfying sex life…”
She cuts me off with a wave of her hand. “Save it, Adam,” she says. “Are you going to help Joe or not?”
I pretend to give her question serious thought. “It’s not that simple, Glenda,” I explain. “I’m not saying that I don’t believe you, but the Medical Board would require me to state that Joe is a risk to himself in his compromised medical state. And in order to do that, I’ll have to witness this…abuse first hand. “
Glenda falls for it hook, line and sinker. She snatches up a pen and notepad off my desk and scribbles something down, then tosses the notepad to me.
“Here’s the address.”
***
I can see why Joe neglected to mention the tail. I almost don’t notice it myself, I’m so fixated on that perfect set of big, high, round tits. The nipples, teased hard by the chill midnight air, strain against the translucent white fabric of her gown. She approaches me, smiling slightly, and it’s like she’s moving in slow motion, every sway of her hips imprinting on my brain. Her tail swings languidly from side to side, and I wonder where she gets such realistic looking props. Tail Lady is flanked by three other equally well-stacked friends, so it looks like I’m going to have a choice of delights. Usually I prefer to watch high level kink rather than participate in it, but I’m here now, so…
“And you are…?” she asks.
“Adam,” I murmur, eyes fixed on her chest. She gives off a faint odour of stale sex and sulphur, a scent that I find strangely arousing.
“Did you say Adam?” says the ravishing brunette on her right. “My first husband’s name was Adam. He was a complete tool.” With that, she turns her perfect nose up in the air and stalks off in search of more appropriately named clientele.
“Don’t mind Lilith,” Tail Lady explains. “She gets a little sensitive sometimes.” She extends her hand, and I shake it, marvelling at the silky texture of her cool skin. “Now, Adam, what brings you here this evening?” Her smile says she knows exactly what I have come for, and that she can’t wait to get down to business.
“Umm…Joe sent me.”
“Did Joe tell you the price?” she says.
“Ah, yeah, he said you were…inexpensive.”
“Inexpensive?” She laughs, and the sound makes my cock throb painfully. “Well, I suppose if you value it so little…” I have a vague sense that we are talking about two different things; nevertheless, I take a twenty dollar bill out of my pocket and hand it to her.
In an instant, she is on me; she hauls my pants to my knees, hitches her skirt up around her waist, and with an extravagant sigh, slides herself down on my cock.
There’s another thing that Joe forgot to mention. It hurts.
Entering Eisheth is like plunging into a bath of ice water. I try to pull out, but I’m stuck fast. My teeth begin to chatter with the cold, and Eisheth stills them with her mouth clamped over mine. Her teeth are unnaturally sharp, and they pierce my lips. Blood intermingles with spit and trickles down our chins. Mercifully, her talons are embedded in the brick wall at my back, but her prehensile tail roams over my body, delivering stinging little slaps wherever it finds bare flesh. She inhales, and it feels like she is vacuuming my guts out of my body.
I come harder than I ever have in my life.
She drops me unceremoniously on the pavement and I slump to the ground, too drained to move. I lie there for a while, gathering my strength, watching Eisheth and her equally freakish colleagues go to work on their other clients who are shuffling zombie-like from the shadows. One poor bastard turns up in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank on the back, and Eisheth flicks on his parking brake and straddles him in the chair. Presiding over it all is their pimp, an unreasonably tall, blue-eyed blond Adonis dressed in a midnight blue suit tailored so sharply you could cut yourself on it. Smarmy-looking prick is so handsome, he doesn’t seem real.
Maybe he’s not real. Maybe Eisheth slipped some hallucinogenic drug into my mouth when she was damn near chewing my face off. Maybe I’m imagining everything. I giggle. I’ll just close my eyes for a little while, and when I open them again, this will all be over.
***
I get a message on my phone from a disturbingly jubilant Glenda. Joe is dead. The funeral was a small affair for family only, but I’m welcome to attend the memorial service next Tuesday if I want. Oh, and I can cancel all future appointments for her as well as Joe. Apparently, the money she would have spent on therapy is going to be better served taking herself on a holiday to Kenya.
No matter. I can manage without a client or two. My visits to Eisheth cost little (l
ast week I paid her with a digital watch with a flat battery, the week before it was a handful of coins I’d found down the back of the couch and a used bus ticket), and truth be told, these days I have fuck-all energy to deal with clients anyway.
I check the clock. 11.23pm—nearly time to leave. I give myself the once-over in the bathroom mirror before I go. Not that it makes any difference to Eisheth; she’d fuck me if I was dipped in pig shit and rolled in broken glass. The shadows under my eyes are getting so dark, it’s starting to look like someone has punched me repeatedly in the face. I grimace at my reflection and check out my teeth. My gums have been bleeding a little lately, and some of my teeth feel loose in my mouth, a fact that probably should worry me but somehow doesn’t.
I launch into a coughing fit and spit up blood into the sink. I go off into a trance for a few minutes, staring at it and thinking how the spray pattern and the contrast of the bright red colour against the white porcelain of the sink is almost pretty. Then I come around.
I wouldn’t want to be late for Eisheth.
F Is For Furcas
Lies Under Skin
D.T. Griffith
He sat there, barely breathing, eyes fixed on the hood of his car. What the hell just happened? Sour stomach, sweating. Robert dragged his hand across his forehead grazing his eye sockets, one felt caved-in, distorted, painful to touch. He swiped both cheeks and chin. He held his trembling hand outward to catch the moonlight. Blood. A lot of it. He overcame his trepidation and looked at the rearview mirror; four deep cuts ran from his chin up through his cheeks and ending in his hairline. His left cheek was black and bloodied, inflamed and irregular, the swelling continued upward to his damaged eye.
“Where are you…old man? You…did this to me.”
Twisting against the stabbing pain in his right collarbone, Robert turned to examine the backseat. “Not here. Or anywhere.” He pulled on the door handle, it was locked. The automatic locks stopped working. The windows would not lower; the passenger and rear doors must have locked shut too.
The heel of his shoe found his smartphone among the loose papers on the floor half-under his seat. It lit up as he grabbed it expending what little energy he had. Difficult to focus on the intense blue-white glare of the touch screen, he managed to find the phone app through a series of well-rehearsed thumb gestures and dialed 9-1-1.
“I’ve been in an accident. Hit a deer…I think,” he told the dispatcher between shallow breaths. “No one here…just me…other guy disappeared.”
“Sir, is someone else with you? Is he okay?”
“No one else. Just me.”
“Are you okay sir? Are you hurt?”
“I think so…yeah…can’t get out.” He stopped to catch his breath and clear the metallic taste from his throat. “Bleeding.”
“Sir, what’s your name?”
“Robert Stockdale…on route nine, I think…some wooded area…south of eighty-four…in a ditch.” He paused for a few more short breaths. “Silver Toyota.”
“Are there any other vehicles involved?”
“No.” His voice cracked. He wanted to scream.
“Do you see or smell smoke?”
“Nah…can’t open…doors.” He grew impatient as his brain faded. His hands and legs were growing numb and cold.
“Can you move?”
“Nnnah…not much.” He studied his left hand. The wounds on his face corresponded with the blood and skin under the nails, he realized.
“Sir, can you identify any landmarks to help us locate you?” The woman’s voice thundered in his ringing ear, he yanked the phone away. “Police and medics are on their way,” he could hear her say as he tossed the phone on to the passenger seat. “Can you please tell me what’s around you? This will help them locate you.”
He pressed his head against the headrest ignoring the dispatcher’s voice. “No more,” he moaned. He slid his right hand into his front pants pocket and pulled out the Zippo he carried for cigars with the guys after their meetings. He could still smell the brandy-dipped scent on his shirt from earlier.
“Sir? Are you there? I need you to stay on the line. Sir?” The seat cushion muffled the dispatcher’s concern as the phone lay face down.
“You shouldn’t do that,” a baritone voice said. “She’s trying to save you.”
“Huh?” A spark of adrenaline charged his fatigued mind. “Where…are you?” he twisted once more to peer behind his seat, his brain jolted a few inches the opposite direction, seatbelt catching his bruised and bloodied throat. Nobody there. He grabbed the left side of his head and pressed on the swelling.
“I am out here. You could have saved yourself long ago, but you didn’t. We’re done.”
He couldn’t determine the direction of the old man’s voice. He could make out the grunt of his horse and hoof steps on the blacktop leading away.
“Sir?” The dispatcher’s voice broke the quiet. “Are you there? Are you able to respond?”
Dizziness. He dropped his head to one side to rest, still twisted around. The seatbelt slid over his lacerated face as he picked up his head, emitting an involuntary yelp. Robert faced forward again; defeat weighing heavily on what little rationale remained unscathed. “No more.” He extended his trembling hand to the phone and ended the emergency call.
He flicked the lighter and stared at the flame. No more, he thought. Tears further inhibited his vision as the flame shown in double in his left eye amidst bright flashes of white. He tossed the burning lighter on to a disheveled newspaper sitting on the passenger seat floor.
Cradling the back of his throbbing head in both hands, he repositioned it against the headrest. One last study of the blood and scraps of decaying skin under his fingernails, he knew he couldn’t live like this anymore. The missing shame, the compulsions, the selective guilt, lack of control. It worsened over time. This night was overdue, he concluded having given in. The old man was right.
A gray fog of electric charges consumed his vision. A similar gray noise overcame his inner ears and a rush of heat swarmed behind his eyes and throughout his cranium. His eye socket throbbed at levels he never realized were possible. A warm saline and air-cooled sanguine mixture streamed down his cheek, some into his mouth, following the contours of his jaw and down his neck. Appendages fell limp. The campfire-like smell of paper kindling burning relaxed him, reminded him of camping in the Catskills as a kid. His raw frigid flesh invited the growing warmth. Eyes closed, he sank into his seat and shut down.
* * *
Several hours earlier Robert left the Marriott parking lot in Albany with his luggage packed neatly in the trunk. The monthly sales team meeting and dinner had concluded, he could finally head home. It was sunset, summer having ended early, he felt. Everybody felt it. Cold and rain became the norm on Labor Day weekend and any chance of an Indian summer was lost, as crisp October had set in a few weeks early. He loved this drive through the Catskills as autumn came into full bloom; he loved autumn. But all this rain?
Well rested, a few margaritas on the rocks no salt at dinner with the gang, hardly enough to impair him. He was ready to head home to start the weekend and spend time on the boat with his new wife, Kayla, whom he hadn’t seen since Monday morning. Beautiful time of the year on the Hudson he always told people new to the area. “New England has the market on autumn locked down,” he would say with well-rehearsed exuberance, “but Westchester along the Hudson is the place to be if you want the full experience.” He boasted about the infamous Sleepy Hollow being in the region and the seasonal events celebrating all things Washington Irving and Halloween. It was a wonder among his colleagues why he never pursued a career in local tourism.
It felt like five hours of driving in near pitch black when he exited the highway and drove away from the busy off-exit pocket community of hotels and chain restaurants. The earlier evening’s rain had left a gloomy dampness on the environment. No stores or gas stations for several miles as he knew, just woods, reservoirs and ponds, an
occasional overgrown empty building that once housed a blue collar business, and unlit winding state routes that follow the rocky topography of foothills and old horse trails created centuries earlier. The night seemed endless and fed his impatience of getting home to spend the night with his wife. He pulled over in a turnoff of broken blacktop and gravel. His bladder ached. Engine idling and high beams on, he left the door open and walked around a large puddle to the shrub line at the base of a rocky wall and unzipped his khakis.
The pattering of urine landing on wet leaves interrupted the deep quiet. No insect noises, no bats or owls. No passing cars. Just the textural hum of his car’s engine. Peaceful night. I could stay out here all night, he thought.
A familiar hollow thud up the road interrupted his trance. Then another echoed off the wet surfaces. Soon followed by others in a steady pattern of four. “A horse,” he muttered, “out here and at this hour?”
His momentary endorphin rush from relief cut short as he turned to look up the road, he resituating himself and zipped his fly in the process. The volume of the hoof steps increased.
“Strange,” he whispered aloud walking to his car.
“Who’s strange?” a baritone voice carried on a gentle breeze asked.
He stopped and looked around. “Someone there?”
“No one,” the voice replied. Another cool breeze followed.
The Demonologia Biblica Page 7
