Grimoire Diabolique

by Edward Lee

  Rosser said, “Okay.”

  Maxine’s pudding-face rejoiced. She jiggled her kid. “Did you hear that, Shots? Mr. Nice Man is gonna give us a ten-spot. Ain’t that nice’a him?” She waved the kid’s pudgy hand again. “Say thank you, Mr. Nice Man. Thank you, Mr. Nice Man!”

  Jesus Christ…

  “Any time yer ready, hon.”

  Rosser looked sheepishly down each side of the road. It was perfectly straight and perfectly deserted. He could see a mile each way. If anyone drove by, he’d be able to hear them long before they got close enough to see what was going on.

  It’s no big deal…

  Maxine remained seated; Rosser stepped up. His penis felt numb, it felt like a small, shriveled up twig of flesh incapable of registering sensation—due to the recent assault of unwholesome imagery—but Rosser knew he could fix that.

  He’d just close his eyes and think about the blonde.

  He unbuckled his pants and lowered them and his briefs to his knees.

  “Ooo, sugar, that’s right. Just put it right in Maxine’s face. I’ll give you a cock-suck you’ll never forget. But, I hate to tell ya this. Ain’t ya forgettin’ something?”

  “Oh, yes, of course. The money. Sorry,” he babbled and handed her a ten. She stuck it promptly into a pocket on her dress…and began to play with his testicles.

  The grubby fingers were callused, not particularly pleasing, but then she began to run the tip of her tongue across his glans.

  This gesture was particularly pleasing.

  Rosser put his hands on his hips, leaned back a little. Forget who’s doing it. Just let it be done. The frame of mind was working. He closed his eyes, thought about the blonde. It was the blonde’s hand cupping his balls. It was the blonde’s tongue laving circles around the rim of his penis. His erection sprang, hard as it had ever felt.

  “Ga. Ga-ga. Ga.”

  Rosser opened one eye and looked down. The baby was grimacing up at him, still girded by his mother’s arm. Where the infant’s leg sprouted from the diaper, Rosser could see a line of shit. Jesus Christ, the kid’s diaper is full. A big yellow piss stain was evident too.

  “Ooo, honey, what’s wrong?” the woman said in between sucks.

  Rosser erection was losing a few notches. “Do, uh, do you think you could set the baby down? He’s, uh…distracting me.”

  “Oh, Shots is just fine where he is—”

  Rosser couldn’t summon a way to say: Look, if you don’t mind, I’d prefer not to get my blow-job with my DICK a foot away from your kid! It’s negligent! Mother’s aren’t supposed to suck dicks with their baby’s watching! And the little fucker is staring right at me! But he just didn’t have it in him to say that. Concentrate, concentrate! Eyes closed again, his mind full of the blonde. Yeah, yeah… Oh, man… Those big, pouty lips, running up and down his shaft. Sun-blond hair tickling his thighs. Long tan fingers tracing his balls. Full turgidity returned an instant later. His hips began to quiver; his climax was just a few throbs away. And on the next stroke, just when Maxine drew her mouth back to his glans—

  The baby grabbed his penis at the root.

  “Jesus Christ!” Rosser winced, jerking away.

  “What’s wrong now, hon?”

  What was wrong? “Your baby just grabbed my dick!”

  The erection deflated.

  “What’re you all wound up fer?” Maxine asked. “He’s just a li’l baby.”

  “Ga. Ga-ga.” Then the baby picked his nose and tried to wipe it on Rosser’s thigh.

  “He’s seen me givin’ fellas head before, and fuckin’ too. Ain’t no big deal.”

  It’s child abuse! Rosser pushed out his hand in abrupt jabs. “Look, look, please. Keep the baby’s hands off me!”

  “Awright, awright,” she agreed, perturbed.

  Of course, it would’ve been easier to just say to hell with it and walk off, but Rosser was pissed. He’d gone to a lot of trouble, a lot of annoyance (and a lot of revulsion) to get this far. He wasn’t a quitter. He was bound and determined to have his orgasm. Just put your dick back in her mouth, think about the blonde, and come!

  He put it back in. He thought about the blonde. He imagined her hands all over him. She was cooing in his ear, licking his neck, whispering adorations with her perfect bare breasts pressed against his chest. She was straddling him, her sex tight as a mouth itself, slowly drawing up and down over his erection. She was drenched, her own excitement for him undeniable. Now he was thrusting up, her breasts bouncing, her vagina clenching. She was sighing her bliss to the air, her eyes wanton slits.

  Then she panted, “I love you, I love you…”

  Rosser shuddered, ejaculating into the fantasy’s loins which were actually Maxine’s white-trash mouth. The semen blurted out of him, and now that he thought of it, it was very good oral sex.

  Corey would’ve been proud of him.

  Maxine pulled her mouth off. Had she swallowed? Rosser had heard no evidence of expectoration. When he looked at her, her expression seemed nonchalant, but…she kept her lips tightly seamed, as if deliberately holding his sperm inside. Post-climactic loss-of-breath diverted Rosser’s focus; he wasn’t paying much attention, but he was paying a little. Maxine, it seemed, continued to hold the semen in her mouth. Then she began to lean over—

  What is she doing? it finally occurred to him.

  —toward the baby.

  As if on cue, the baby looked up, as though the strange gesture were familiar. Just as strangely, Rosser thought of a chick in a nest opening its beak when the mother landed with a worm.

  The baby’s fat-swaddled face beamed in elation.

  Then its mouth opened.

  Maxine brought her lips an inch from the baby’s and began to—

  Rosser slammed his eyes closed. Oh my God, oh my God! He would not allow himself to watch what he knew the mother was about to do…

  “There, Shots!” she exclaimed. “Tum-tum full now?”

  The initial shock locked him up; he was a root in the ground, in the cement. At first he didn’t even believe what he’d seen. But when the baby—Shots—began smacking his lips with a big fat baby-smile, Rosser knew it was true.

  “WHAT DID YOU DO!” he bellowed.

  Maxine gave him the most absurd look, as though she’d done virtually nothing out of the ordinary. “It’s just come. It’s good fer him. He’s a growin’ boy and he needs to eat. I feed him all my trick’s blow-jobs, just like my mama done fer me, and my daddy too.” That look on her face lengthened. “Mister, you are one weird guy.”

  Rosser’s shock persisted. He frantically yanked his pants back up. “It’s child-abuse, for God’s sake, if the county child-protection services knew—” but then his complaint was severed, by two things: One, a wet splat! and, two, something impacting his chest. Well, make that three: the unmistakable smell of human feces.

  “HEY!” he shouted and jumped back. He glared at the baby.

  Glossy strings dangled off the kid’s chin. Shots grinned at him—a grin that could only be described as evil. The child had scooped some excrement out of the diaper and flung it on Rosser.

  Maxine chuckled. “Oh, he’s such a li’l devil, ain’t he? Always throwin’ his poop around.”

  Rosser stood aghast. The waste wasn’t particularly solid, more like warm chocolate pudding, or mousse. Creamy. Smacking noises caught his attention next. He looked at Shots again and saw his little fingers playing with a few strings. The kid cackled greedily, then pointed a spermy finger at Rosser.

  “Ga! Ga-ga!”

  I’m…absolutely…mortified, Rosser thought.

  Maxine was grinning at him, but it was a lascivious grin if anything. She was tweaking her nipples through her top. “I gotta tell ya somethin’, handsome. Suckin’ dick makes me horny as a bitch in heat, and after that blow-job, I am ALL fired up fer you. Git them pants back down. I’ll get’cha hard again in a jiffy, then you’s kin fuck me.”

  Rosser’s shoulders slumped as if his
collarbones had turned to rubber. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “Does it look like I’m kiddin’, cutie? Come on, I’se serious. No charge, neither.” She looked at him and licked her lips. She pulled her knees back up, raised her hem, and bared the entire nightmarish mess that was her vagina. “Come’n get it.”

  “There is no way. There is no circumstance that exists on the surface of the earth that could compel me to have sex with you.”

  She blinked, uncomprehending. “Huh?”

  “Let me put it another way, since you clearly don’t understand the English language. I would rather die than put my dick in you.”

  Another blink, then the obese face reddened. When she lowered her knees, her big, corn-riddled flipflopped feet smacked the cement. The baby started crying.

  “You ain’t got no right to be so shitty ta me!” she railed, her voice rising. “I’m a respected woman round these parts—”

  Rosser rolled his eyes.

  “—and I won’t stand fer bein’ treated like that. So you git down on yer knees right now’n fuck me!”

  “That won’t be happening,” Rosser said, nose crinkling at the shit-smell from his shirt. “That’s an impossibility.”

  “Then gimme more money!” she demanded.

  “No. I already gave you money.”

  “Why you prick! You asshole!” she began, her face nearly crimson now. The baby was crying in force, in machine-like bursts.

  “Who do you think you are!” Maxine continued, “treatin’ me like common tramp!”

  Rosser rolled his eyes.

  “Well, I’ll show you, I’ll show you—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Rosser said. She’s flaking out. I’ll just leave. It’ll only take me a half hour to get back to Luntville. He picked up his dollar-store bag, turned to leave—

  “Oh, yeah, I’ll fix your wagon, buddy.” Now she was on her feet, the baby left to squall on the bench. “You just watch.”

  She bumbled toward him, flipflops snapping, tits jumping. At first Rosser thought she was going to assault him, but instead she edged out of the shelter, maniacal. Rosser just stared at her.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  She stood in the middle of the vacant road, waving at something. That’s when Rosser noticed that the vacant road wasn’t vacant anymore.

  The next bus was coming.

  Maxine ludicrously jumped up and down in the road, waving her hands. Each time she landed, her fat jiggled in ripples.

  “Help! Help! Hurry!”

  Rosser was totally off guard. “What-what are you doing?”

  “Help! This man molested my l’il baby!”

  WHAT! “I didn’t do anything of the sort!” Rosser shrieked at her. “You’re the one who spit my semen in his mouth! Stop it!”

  “Help! Hurry! Child molesterer! Child molesterer!”

  The bus was getting real close, and the driver would have a radio. And call the police, he realized. “Just stop it! Here, here, I’ll give you more money—”

  “Fer-GET it, ya prick. I’m gonna fuck you up!”

  Rosser tried to calm down. If he ran away, it would appear to the driver and passengers—material witnesses—that Rosser was guilty. If he stayed and stood his ground to dispute the allegation, he’d be more credible than she, right?

  Then he looked at the baby. Shots was sitting back up in the shelter, waving pudgy arms and flinging more excrement. But his little fat and thoroughly atrocious face told all. Cloudy white blobs were still ringing his mouth.

  Fuck!

  Rosser ran.

  The area seemed so wide open but then he noticed a decline off the road. He trotted down. He dared jerk his gaze behind him and saw the bus had already stopped, the driver and several rather rough-looking passengers coming out the door as Maxine wailed, “He molested my baby, my poor li’l Shots, right here in the shelter. I tried to stop him but he said he’d kill me—”

  Oh, that’s just terrific! Rosser thought.

  “Jerked off right in my baby’s face, he did!”

  “Look at that! Damn if she ain’t right,” a passenger exclaimed. “Poor kid’s face is covered with jizz—”

  “I’m calling the police,” the driver yelled and went back in the bus.

  “Ain’t gonna be no need fer no police,” another, bigger, passenger assured, “not if we find this sick fucker first—”

  “There! There he is!” Maxine shouted. She pointed right to Rosser, who was in the decline but his head showing. “Get him! Make him pay fer the horrible crime he done to my baby!”

  Several figures began to run after him. Rosser hightailed it faster than he ever had in his life.

  Lower into the decline, the woods began. He thrashed through brambles, leapt over tree stumps, tore through the forest. Deeper, it occurred to him that he had no idea where he was going, only a general inclination of direction. It also occurred to him, quite quickly, that he was not in the greatest physical condition. His heart hammered, he grew winded, and his knees and ankles began to ache—My God, I’ve got to rest!—but a surge of adrenalin dumped into his blood when he heard more thrashing behind him, the rapid footfalls of several men.

  “Daggit, Jory. I’se think I see the monster, right down yonder past them trees!”

  “Shore’s shit do, Judd! We’se’ll tune that sick bastard up real good!”

  If those hayseeds catch me, they’ll lynch me right here in the woods! Rosser kept running.

  The tear through the woods seemed endless. As he progressed he felt more and more lost; he’d deliberately been zigzagging, hoping to lose them. Spider webs stretched across his face, bugs covered him, including masses of mosquitoes. At one point he slipped on something and fell flat on his face: a rotten woodchuck. At another point, when he thrashed through some vines, a yard-long green snake fell on him. Somehow, though, he managed to fling it off without shrieking. Within these woods, the humidity doubled, sucking sweat out of his skin.

  Rosser kept running.

  He stopped when it felt as though his heart would pop, leaned behind a tree. He wheezed in deep breaths that simply didn’t seem to suffice; for a few seconds he feared he might pass out from exhaustion. The most dreadful notion told him that he’d soon be able to hear his pursuers, gaining on him, strong, young men, men who weren’t winded at all but instead bent on vengeance.

  Please, please, God. Don’t let them get me, or if they do, please let it be quick…

  Hugging the tree, he held his breath.

  Listened.

  Nothing.

  Thank God…

  His pursuers had branched off in the wrong direction. A few shouts in the distance verified the absolving observation: the shouts were getting further and further away, until they disappeared.

  Yes, yes. Thank God.

  Finally, luck seemed to be on his side. Another thirty yards through the woods showed him an open field beyond the trees, and the modest valley in which Luntville had been built. When he squinted he could even see Mrs. Doberman’s rooming house!

  Twenty-minute walk and I’m home!

  It would be difficult, but he thought he could make it. He couldn’t stay in town, of course, not with crazy Maxine accusing him of child molestation, but with just a little more luck, he could get in the house, get into his room and retrieve his money, then slip out again and hike to the next town and catch a bus somewhere else.

  It was the only plan he had and it didn’t sound too bad. Maxine had been the only one to see him, and he hadn’t told her his name, nor his address. I’ll get my money and run, he reasoned. And I’ll NEVER solicit a prostitute again!

  He was just about to exit the woods when sharp voices rose. He jumped to the ground behind a fallen log.

  The voices blared with rage and urgency. Male voices.

  “Kin ya believe the sick shit that people do?”

  “Shee-it, brother. A baby, a little baby!”

  The voices…were grimly familiar.

&n
bsp; The Harkins boys.

  The quadruplets….

  “Maxine even said he butt-fucked the baby!”

  Rosser nearly pissed in his jeans.

  “Yeah, boys, he’s one sick piece of shit, but if he thinks he’s sick…we’ll show him sick…”

  “Yeah, man!”

  All Rosser could think after that was two things:

  A mallet-job…

  And a dick-snagglin’…

  “Bet he went in the woods. Let’s go!”

  No!

  “Naw, why would he do that? Bet he went up the main road, to hitch a ride.”

  Yes, yes!

  “Anybody know what the fucker looks like?”

  “Naw, not his face ’er nothin’. Shouldn’t be hard ta spot though, ’cos Maxine said he was wearin’ a button-down white shirt.”

  “Come on, yer right. Let’s head to the main road—”

  Rosser let out the longest sigh of relief when they stomped off. Luck kept blessing him, that or God. He’d most easily be recognized by his shirt (which still reeked of infant excreta, by the way) but he still had his dollar-store bag, with t-shirts in it.

  He changed shirts, waited until the Harkins boys were gone, and crept back to town.

  Just act like everything’s cool, he thought when he got back to the house. Not enough time had gone by for police to begin canvassing the neighborhood for the “child molester.” Rosser did a competent job method acting once he was back inside. Speaking briefly to other boarders, smiling and nodding, acting as thought nothing were out of the ordinary. No one gave im a second glance.

  Once he’d returned to his room, he thought strategically. He’d leave town with a bare minimum—not that he’d arrived with much—but it made the most sense. The money he’d stolen from the company safe and the clothes on his back were all he needed. I’ll just go somewhere else, somewhere far from here. Florida, perhaps, or Texas. It wouldn’t take long. And I’ll wait till dark, easier get out of Luntville, lower visibility. Yeah, then hitchhike out and get a bus. He’d simply start again, this time having learned his lesson.

  He showered and changed, put the money in an innocuous bag, and at about nine p.m., left the room.