Phobias

by Ryan Horvath

  Calvin was very obviously being plagued by nightmares. Miedo’s sedative, coming from a steady drip into an IV bag, did nothing to stop the dreams. They were necessary to build Calvin’s adrenaline.

  Miedo eyed the young man as his eyes fluttered, hands twitched, and face scrunched. He then looked at where Heather was hovering motionless. Soon these two would be in a waltz of phobias together and then, after, they would both be broken.

  And all the evidence will point to Mr. Star Miedo thought, and laughed.

  “Idiotic revenge-driven fool,” Miedo said aloud and shook his head. His own thoughts of revenge against Holly seemed petty compared to Mr. Star’s sordid story.

  Holly was more of a “now we’re even” situation.

  Miedo checked Calvin’s restraints and watched his victim’s heart beat inconsistently in his horror-dream-ravaged state for a few more moments on the monitor before he left his captives alone.

  ~~11~~

  Heather’s stomach growled angrily as she listened to the departing footsteps. She was grateful, as grateful as one in her situation could be, that the madman didn’t come and talk to her again or touch her soft flesh with that most hateful part of the male anatomy. But she’d felt his eyes studying her.

  Heather pointed her toes down into the unknown oblivion she was hovering over. She stretched her legs as best as she could and hoped to make them as long as it took to reach the floor that she was told was ten feet away. But it was impossible to extend herself, of course, so the floor might as well have been ten miles below her. The thought of such a height made her heart accelerate and, though she had to be bordering on dehydration, sweat broke out on her brow. Heather tried to move a hand to her face, as she’d tried so many times already since she got here, but her arms remained tightly pressed around her body.

  She felt her claustrophobia and acrophobia begin to wax their way into her consciousness. They were going to take over and send her into a panic attack. She’d already had one attack since being strung up like a side of meat. Shortly after Heather arrived here and found herself bound and hanging with no access to her eyes and random loud noises going off around her, she went into full stage panic. She writhed and squealed; she cried and snot dripped from her nose. She urinated all over her legs and feet. After she did that, the loud noises subsided and she heard appreciative laughter from behind her. She felt a needle puncture her skin and that was when the man, monster, whatever he was, introduced himself to her. He told her he’d given her a mild sedative and that she needed to try to calm herself. He took her pulse with a hand that was hot to the touch. He instructed her to relax and let the medication work but assured her that he would be pushing her phobias, which he described as a delicious quartet, as far as he could and beyond.

  As her fears flooded panic into her and Heather felt herself losing her grip again, she heard a soft groan of distress from nearby. Even though her captor left, she still wasn’t alone.

  Heather worked a tiny amount of saliva into her stale-feeling mouth and used it to wet as much of the small space as she could. “Hello?” she said weakly. “Please help me,” she eked out. But she got no response.

  “Whoever you are, you’re not in any better shape than I am, are you?” Heather croaked. For some strange reason, this caused her to giggle and the panic ebbed.

  But it only ebbed for a moment. When Heather heard the groan again, she knew it belonged to a male and the panic started to flare again. It wasn’t that Heather hated men in general. She just hated what motivated them and, in her mind, that was the wretched thing between their legs.

  And before she knew it, Heather was drawn into herself.

  ~*~0~0~*~

  Heather hadn’t always abhorred male genitals. In fact, when she was fourteen, she was introduced to her first erection and took to it quite eagerly. While she was fourteen, fifteen, and into sixteen, she rather enjoyed sex and, though she only had two regular boyfriends during that time, she never missed an opportunity to have a good roll in the hay when it presented itself. She certainly wasn’t known as a slut by the other kids at school. She really cared about the first boyfriend and really loved the second until he slept with another girl.

  After the breakup with the second boyfriend, at the end of last summer, a new man’s face presented itself in Heather’s life. She first saw him waiting outside the gymnasium and chatting with some of the football players as they left the locker room following practice. The team had a new coach. She remembered it being announced but when she heard it, she didn’t care much. Now that she saw him, she suddenly did care. Unlike the coach that just left, a man perhaps well into his seventies, this new coach had to be in his late twenties at the oldest. And he was what she considered “drop dead gorgeous.” He was around six feet tall. He had sandy blonde hair that looked freshly barbered and his face was smooth and free of any blemishes except for a small scar on his chiseled and dimpled chin. His eyes were a captivating shade of blue that almost mesmerized her. Heather pegged his weight at around one hundred eighty pounds and she thought that was just poured into clothing that was skin tight on him: a Polo shirt that stretched across his broad chest and a tight pair of those shorts that only coaches seem to be able to wear that allowed her to notice he probably had more between his legs than either of the two boys she’d been with thus far.

  She stared hard as she walked by him and, when he looked her way and did a double take to look at her again, Heather flashed him her best smile which he returned before he forced it off his face and blushed deeply. Heather giggled at how cute he was for being embarrassed to notice her and as she continued on her way; she cast numerous looks behind her and smiled as she saw him continue to watch her.

  A few weeks later, Heather came across him again in his office after the football team was gone. She’d just been getting ready to head home after a long study session in the library and needed to go to the girls’ locker room to get a sweater she’d left in there. She had to pass his office to get to the locker room and saw him. Once in his office, she decided to get chatty. She learned his name was Tim Rock and that the football players liked him so much as their coach they were calling him “Coach Rock Star.” They talked about hobbies, interests, and the school. She found out he had a full time job at a pharmacy and that he was coaching the team because he loved it and didn’t have a wife, girlfriend, or family to fill his time.

  Once Heather found out he was single, she became almost intoxicated with arousal. Perhaps it was the forbidden-ness of getting involved with an older man, a member of the school staff, or both, but she was powerless to resist her urges. She advanced on him, kissing him and tearing at his clothing. And rather than resist, as a part of her expected him to, he eagerly responded.

  Their first encounter lasted nearly two hours. Heather was pleased to find she’d been right about his endowment and took him in every way she could think of, and relished it. He climaxed four times and gave her an astonishing eight orgasms of her own and, when they were finished, his office smelled primal.

  Heather and Tim continued their relationship; hiding it from the public, of course, and it lasted strong through the fall, winter, and into spring.

  But it was spring when Heather’s life took a wrenching U-turn.

  She met Tim at his small bungalow that was well-concealed from his neighbors by an abundance of mature trees. She often came to his house as no one really knew who she was. Once inside, rock music was playing and they made small talk before they began making out and fondling and undressing each other. When they were naked, Tim asked Heather if he could try something different. Heather saw the way his manhood bobbed in anticipation and had to admit she was curious so she asked what it was. Tim only wanted to tie her up. She didn’t think that was so strange and she said yes to him. He quickly and excitedly grabbed a white rope and looped it through the headboard of the bed. He then snatched her wrists and quickly bound them. And he bound them tight. He pulled the rope until it was taught and secure
d through the headboard.

  Heather began to protest that it was too tight and she was uncomfortable but Tim was in a state like she’d never seen him: eager, lascivious, hungry. As she shouted for him to stop, he plunged himself savagely into her. The music suddenly seemed to blare in her ears and sounded hundreds of decibels louder than it had been seconds ago, giving life to her first phobia. Not being ready, Heather screamed at his intrusion and tried to resist but he was much stronger and, with her wrists tightly tied, she couldn’t use her hands to resist him. She yelled and struggled and tried to resist but his weight pressed down and into her and she felt like she was buried underneath him. It was then that her claustrophobia was born. She begged him to stop, told him he was hurting her, but when she looked into his face, she saw he was lost in his lust; overcome with it, and he probably couldn’t hear her. The only plus side was that she could see and feel he was not going to continue this for long.

  And seconds later, she heard his breath go silent, felt him withdraw from her, and felt a splash of his semen against her belly before he plunged back into her and finished his orgasm, something he had never done before without wearing a condom. Heather despised the feeling of his organ twitching inside her like she never had before and her next phobia was born while Tim moaned above her.

  With ire, she stared into his face, his big, dopey, orgasm, satisfied face as he withdrew from her and moved back and sat on his lower legs. The music continued to pound in her ears as Heather felt his seed cooling on her body. His eyes were closed as he continued to savor the ecstasy he was in. Heather saw his large erection had not subsided in the least and her rage, hate, and fear for the thing that just violated her exploded like a supernova. Just as Tim opened his eyes and started to speak, Heather bared her teeth in a snarl and kicked a foot as hard as she could between his legs.

  Tim’s organ wasn’t made for the assault she returned on it and she saw it bend at an angle it had never been intended to bend in and she felt it make a popping of some kind beneath her foot. Tim howled in pain and drove his hands to his crotch, but touching it only made it worse and his hands flew back. When they did, Heather was able to see where the penis had bent. A horrible red-black bruise was quickly spreading from where the shaft had just been bent. A small amount of blood started to ooze from the urethra. The sight of the blood made Tim screech. He turned his head and vomited violently and, when he did, he fell off the bed and hit his head hard on the floor. He went silent.

  It took Heather over an hour to wriggle free of the ropes and when she did, the flesh on her wrists was raw. She found Tim on the floor in a puddle of his vomit. She looked at his penis, something she’d once thought was beautiful and had taken a lot of pleasure from. It was now grossly discolored, swollen, and easily one of the worst things she’d ever seen in her life. Her eyes darted away from it and, as she was about to check him for a pulse, she saw his chest rise and fall with breath.

  Without touching him, she used a dish towel to wipe his congealed DNA off of her and quickly put on her clothes. She left his house feeling like a fragment of the person she’d been when she arrived.

  Heather never saw him again after that. But three weeks later, when her period was late, she knew she wasn’t done with him yet. A quick home pregnancy test confirmed his assault got her pregnant. A week later, she had her best friend take her out of town for an abortion.

  Once outgoing, vibrant, and optimistic, Heather was now a fractured, dehumanized phobic.

  She needed therapy.

  Of course she did.

  And she got it. And it worked. It worked for a while, anyway

  ~*~0~0~*~

  But now she was here. Hanging over the unknown being subjected to a phobia that rode in on the coattails of the others.

  The man nearby groaned again. The groan was obviously a sound from sleep, but to Heather, it sounded amplified, almost cacophonous. And to her it sounded laced with lust.

  Heather wondered what the man was here for. She shuddered at the thought.

  Her phobias dumped adrenaline into her blood stream.

  ~~12~~

  By the time they pulled back into the Anoka County government building where the morgue was located, Chad’s head was throbbing. He didn’t think he’d ever wanted a drink as badly as he did at that moment. Sure, there were times when he needed a drink to get through something, but right here and now it was all about desire.

  He stared out the window at the nondescript building as Terry slipped the car into a parking space. It was late enough that they were able to get pretty close to the main entrance.

  In addition to desperately wanting to take a pull or five off his trusted bourbon bottle, Chad was anxiously apprehensive about the latest news the medical examiner had for them. It couldn’t be good. A county medical examiner doesn’t call a detective about a toxicology test and tell him to come see something unless it’s bad news. Chad sighed softly and got out of the car.

  He turned his head and looked across the street and down a few business fronts. The neon glow of two side-by-side bars caught his eyes and he suddenly felt mesmerized by the attractive bright colors. They made him think of one of the first bars he’d gone to when he was younger: a place called The Rose. Chad and his best friend from college were fresh twenty-one year olds, and they shot pool and drank beers and shots of Fireball until a pair of alluringly-clad young women came into the bar and then asked if they could join Chad and his friend. The guys, of course, accepted; and they spent the next hour with the ladies drinking and doling out and receiving sexual advances. The four of them left the bar, grabbed a twelve pack from the gas station on the corner and checked into a thirteen-room motel that was within walking distance. Inside the room, the four of them engaged in an alcohol and youth-fueled orgy. Chad and his friend shared the women; the women shared each other, and Chad and his friend even got experimental and shared some stuff between them as well, though Chad would be hard-pressed to admit that to anyone now. But that night had been one of the best nights of his life. He’d felt virile, adventurous, curious, optimistic, wonderful… like he could have, be, and do anything.

  Chad stood on the sidewalk outside the government building wondering how to get back to that life. That life without fear; without guns; without murder of innocents and loved ones; without trips to the medical examiner; without mysterious circumstances. He debated just walking away. He would not enter the government building and would instead cross the street, go in the livelier of the two bars, and invite himself to join a group of four or five of the younger people. And if he was lucky… maybe he would get lucky. Even if he didn’t get lucky, he’d at least get some booze into him.

  “You comin’, man?” Chad heard the younger man’s voice from behind him. Chad was jarred out of his fixation with the bright neon signs and the potential for happiness inside the structures behind them. He turned his head and saw Walt on the sidewalk looking expectantly in his direction. Terry was already at the entry doors.

  Chad looked away from Walt and back to the two bars. He knew he couldn’t turn away from his responsibilities as a widowed husband; especially when the fucking medical examiner calls about your dead wife’s tox screen results.

  Chad’s body turned and started toward the government building before his head and eyes joined it. “Yeah,” he replied to Walt. He thrust his hands in his pockets and headed toward Walt. “I’m coming.”

  ~*~0~0~*~

  Walt turned and looked confused after he got out of the car and noticed Chad didn’t immediately follow them.

  When he saw the haunted look on the older man’s face and traced where his gaze was drawn to, Walt knew immediately. Chad Dean looked desperate, downright forlorn for a drink. Walt was pretty sure he saw Chad trembling.

  Walt pulled his lower lip back with his top teeth and wondered how long it would be before Chad snapped. Walt knew a thing or two about alcoholics. Calvin’s mother wasn’t the only one he’d come across in his eighteen years. Walt’
s maternal grandmother was a vicious, snake-toothed alcoholic. One of his teachers in junior high school got fired for being drunk on the job. And Walt’s first boss at the burger joint he worked at until about six months ago was a nasty drunk who lost his job when the area manager found him fucking one of the subordinate employees in the Dumpster enclosure.

  Yes, Walt had seen his share of adults lost in the grip of alcohol, and Chad Dean was another one. But Chad was different from the other drunks Walt had crossed paths with. Along with Chad’s alcoholism was one or more phobias.

  Walt quickly pondered what that combination might lead to. He wasn’t sure he liked what he came up with.

  Walt was certain Chad was about to walk away from them and head to one of the bars across the street so he said, “You comin’, man?” He saw his words startled Chad as if they broke some kind of Siren song that had him entranced.

  But after one more glance at the bars, Chad started to turn and said, “Yeah. I’m coming.”

  ~*~0~0~*~

  Inside the morgue, Walt looked around.

  “First time?” Chad said almost snidely.

  “Yeah,” Walt softly replied. His nostrils twitched. “It smells funny in here.”

  “You’ll get used to it in a minute or two,” Terry said. “If you don’t, you can wait outside.”

  “No way,” Walt firmly returned. “I might never get the chance to do something like this again. Although… I’m sorry my best friend had to go missing for me to get included on a police investigation like this.”

  “This shouldn’t be fun for you,” Chad admonished.

  “It’s not,” Walt returned and raised his hands defensively. “It’s educational really.”

  “Well, glad you’re learning something,” Chad returned.

  “Not just about the investigative process,” Walt said and cocked an eyebrow at Chad.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Chad questioned and stared Walt in the eyes.