Kimberly's Capital Punishment

by Richard Milward

  It’s not the cleanest of cuts. My head dangles for a few seconds, like a heavy medallion, before gravity takes hold and snaps the remaining tendons. Then, I accidentally boot it across the sawdust.

  Suddenly, all my senses go haywire. The shock of having my head detached from my body sends me into spasms of panic, existential anguish and skewed perception. I watch in disbelief from the corner of the cage as Lucifer lifts Kimberley’s head from the silver platter. As he screws it roughly into the blood-spitting socket where my neck used to be, I feel the room spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning. My decapitated Kimberly head spins in time with Lucifer spinning my Kimberley head, until we both see sparkles, and black out simultaneously.

  WHIP!!

  When I regain consciousness, I’m upright again, being shagged halfheartedly by my father. Being 25% Kimberley and 75% Kimberly, I have 25% of Kimberley’s consciousness interfering with my own thoughts, though it doesn’t detract much from the fact I’ve got my father’s cock inside me. FUCKING CUNT! Kimberley screams, subconsciously, stating the obvious.

  My new head has bad breath. I plug my mouth with my ponytail, trying not to whimper. Flickering on the silver screen, the clock’s only down to 18:22. I must’ve only been out cold a couple of seconds.

  I shift my wrists in the shackles. I’ve been trussed up against the Death-Cap Mush-Room, with two pairs of pink, furry handcuffs. I bite harder into the greasy bit between my teeth. Behind me, my dad pumps away, gasping sadly with every thrust.

  FUCKING CHILDCATCHING CUNT! announces Kimberley’s subconscious. I’m not sure who it’s directed at.

  If I shut my eyes, mind-power can help desensitise me. Just as I imagined the Raggiana tailfeathers were maggots, so too I can imagine my dad’s cock’s merely an indecisive tampon. The only trouble is when Barry repeats, ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’ after five minutes of fucking. I’m tempted to look over my shoulder and put a finger to my lips, to silence him, but I don’t want to give him the wrong impression.

  Watching us closely, Lucifer’s having a whale of a time. He juggles my old, charred Kimberly head, before throwing it out of the cage door. It lands with a dull crunch in a dinghy full of gaunt, rabid dogs. Then, it quickly disappears.

  After wiping his paws, Lucifer unsnaps the megaphone from his utility belt, switches it on and holds the mouthpiece to my lips. I bite the ponytail even harder. The muffled creak of Barry’s penis cranking in and out of my dry fanny is amplified throughout the volcanic amphitheatre. My cheeks wobble, but still no sound comes out of my mouth.

  ‘FUCK

  IT!!’

  Lucifer squeals, either as encouragement, or in exasperation.

  To get Barry more in the mood, Lucifer dabs more ‘Hellucinogenic’ serum on the barbs of his whip, then goes at him like a rampant jockey, flogging his flabby buttocks. The hamster screams again:

  ‘FUCK

  IT!!’

  Definitely encouragement, that time. Barry ends up deep-penetrating me; his pelvis jerking forward with every whiplash. Behind my head, he keeps making a sniffling sound, which can only be crying. Then, out of the sniffles, come some words: ‘If it, er, if it helps, love, I’m … I’m not really your dad.’

  The whipcracks fall silent. The crowd edges even closer to the cage. I turn my face towards Barry, but my lost expression can’t quite express all the questions that need answering when someone says something like that to you.

  ‘I mean, I’m not your biological dad,’ Barry carries on. ‘If it, er, helps things, I, er … shit. I’m sorry, darling. I shouldn’t have sssssss …’

  I glare at him, urging him to explain himself. Barry stares back at me, red-faced and remorseful. Men are never any good at reading women’s emotions. Unsure whether to keep shagging me, Barry leaves his crooked cock inside me as he explains. ‘A … well, maybe it’s best you c-can’t talk. God. I’m so sorry – me and Mag should’ve said something. Mag, she lost three kids to cot death, see. We were at our wits’ end. We thought it was something up with our genes. We were … well, there was this awful court case, which I won’t get into, but we were left with a … a load of trouble. Ehm, we d-decided to apply for … for an adoption. And that’s where you come in.’

  I wonder why Barry thinks this would help me out. Which is worse: being shagged by your dad, or finding out you’re adopted and being shagged by your foster dad? Either way, it still smells suspiciously like incest. One more black-comedy clang of a cymbal in the cacophonous skronk that is Hell, the home of pointless violence.

  ‘We got you when you were a toddler,’ Barry continues. ‘You were a blessing, love. See, it took so long for the court case to … b-blow over. Ehm, well here’s the thing, see: your mam and me were innocent, of course, but we got accused of negligence, because of all the cot deaths.’

  Finally, Barry allows his knob to flop out. I wonder if he’d planned to give me this speech when we were all alive, or whether the plan was to keep it a secret for ever.

  ‘You understand we didn’t do anything,’ Barry stresses. ‘It could’ve been anything. Anyway, the case blew over, but there was still this hassle over our application, for the adoption. Finally, they, er … they found us this Irish couple. Apparently, you were one of seven sisters. But the family was so poor. The dad was this old gravedigger. And the mam was unemployed. And so she couldn’t cope, with the seven kids. So she started giving them away. And, and we were desperate.’

  With a lump in my throat, I’m suddenly hit by a horrible sense of déjà vu. My mind flashes back again, to the first time I met Donald, when he told me he had a daughter called Kimberl(e)y. At first, I thought he was just saying that to butter me up. Then, more recently, I thought he was on about Kimberley.

  All this time, was he on about me?

  As we stand there, shattered and bent double, Barry goes on to describe the moment he and Mag first saw me, in Belfast City Hospital (not Middlesbrough General, as my mam and him originally made out).

  They had a choice between me and my twin sister, Anastasia, but chose me on the strength of my ‘darkly intense’* eyes. Anastasia was sent to a couple of postal workers in Dagenham, Mr and Mrs Clarke, who, in a cruel twist of fate, also died when she was in her teens. Following their death, Anastasia – who had always hated the name, and had developed a kind of dissociative identity disorder in her infancy – took to calling herself Kimberley (with two ‘e’s), in memory of the twin sister she’d never met, or spoken to – until that fated day I stepped into the Wethouse. She always resented being separated from her twin at birth, or so I gleaned, from 25% of my subconscious:

  FUCKING SUPERIOR CUNT, Kimberley – or, rather, Anastasia – announces.

  I shudder, as my memory creeps back to the time Donald was intimate with me and a bubbling shower curtain. To my left, Lucifer bears a three-way smirk.

  ‘Seriously, though, you were perfect when we saw you,’ Barry carries on, half whispering, with his shoulders hunched. ‘I … I hate to drop this on you, here. I hope me and Mag gave you a better life than what you would’ve got. I mean, God knows what you would’ve ended up like, if you’d gone elsewhere.’

  FUCK OFF, screams Anastasia/Kimberley, before retreating back into the shadows of my subconscious, for good.

  I feel ill. Luckily, it’s possible to cry silently, though it means letting your nose drip. I dribble liquid shoelaces from my nostrils, completely worn down by Barry’s revelations. I hardly have time to digest all this heartwrecking information before Lucifer pipes up again:

  ‘This is all

  very interesting, mate,’

  he spits at Barry,

  ‘but young Kimberly’s

  got a task

  to fail.’

  I glance baggy-eyed at the clock again, through the tears. 9:57, it says. Five or so seconds later, the clock ticks to 9:56. The bastards – it’s a trick clock! Enraged, I point up at the screen, unable to put my point across in words. Lucifer just stares back at me blankly.

/>   ‘Don’t worry, love,

  you’ve got plenty

  of time for

  more fornication,’

  the hamster remarks, before introducing more special guests. He WHIP!!s Barry in the groin, causing him to crumple on the sawdust, then points into the cyan sky, where I can see a small, distant dot growing into a whirlybird seed, then a Frisbee, then a fan, then a helicopter. Pasted on the side of the chopper are huge block capitals, black on red: ON HIRE FROM HELL HOLS AND HOSTELS LTD.

  The clock ticks to 9:55 as seven figures descend from the helicopter, on separate winches. Mr Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday wave at the crowd from their individual ropes, dressed like typical sex tourists: sad old Mr Tuesday wears sandals, with a cardigan flopped around his shoulders, while Mr Wednesday and Mr Friday have plumped for clashing Hawaiian shirts. And all seven of them are severely sunburned.

  ‘Seven bridegrooms

  for one of

  seven sisters!’

  Lucifer quips, thoroughly enjoying himself.

  ‘Unexpected fatal outbreak

  of E. coli at

  the Ristorante

  di Fantasia!’

  he explains.

  They look edgy, visiting Hell for the first time. When my weekly exes step aboard the hamster cage, they’re told to line up by the still-smoking Wheel of Misfortune, while a gaggle of busty dominatrixes fluff them. The dominatrixes lap-dance awkwardly around the lads, with put-on, pouting expressions. Now and then, they slide their hands up their Bermuda shorts. Now and then, the lads ‘Mmmm’ self-consciously.

  I cringe as my weekly exes disrobe, shifting about, surreptitiously comparing each other’s manhoods. Their cocks are in varying states of perkiness, in correlation to their ages. Poor, white-haired Mr Thursday can’t seem to get it up at all, although the fact he has three young daughters belies the dangliness. Perhaps his parts want to be no part of this.

  One by one, the men shuffle towards me. At first, it looks like they’re going to take it in turns to bang me. Technically, I do have seven holes, though.

  I glance up at the cyan sky again in desperation. Two bloodshot moons blink back at me, blankly. Dearest Reader – if that’s you – now might be a good time to end this. While I’d hate to deprive you of a salacious scene involving a seven-man gangbang, I don’t think my body can take it. I might never walk or talk again. And I might be forced to scream out.

  If you shut this book now, we can pretend Hell suddenly freezes over, and we all live happily ever after, paused at exactly 9:36 by the silver-screen clock.

  Then again, perhaps you’re enjoying all this pointless violence. After all, many folk’s idea of Heaven is sports, bloodsports, and observing farfetched hardcore sex.

  Well, it’s your choice. But, if I was you, I’d put this book down right now. Shove it down the back of your bookcase, or bury it in the back garden – then we can pretend I’m not going to be ripped to shreds in the grand finale.

  Please. I’ll give you four blank pages to think it over.

  Oh, hell. So, you’ve decided to read on, have you?

  My heart sinks, as my first weekly ex achieves wood. I blink at the clock. The clock blinks back nonchalantly. I’ve still got 9:29 minutes to hold on. Grudgingly, I take the ponytail from my mouth, relax my pelvic floor muscles and flare my nostrils.

  Go on, then, have your kicks, you pricks.

  Read how awkwardly they mount me, like seven elephants squeezing into a Mini Cooper.

  After a bit of bickering, snooty Mr Wednesday gets dibs on my arsehole, mumbling sinister sweet nothings as he worms his knob in. He cocks his left leg, so basketball-shaped Mr Friday can squeeze in underneath him, turning my labia in on themselves.

  Read how I almost bark, when internet-enthusiast Mr Saturday commences the skull-fucking. He plugs my throat, causing a soundless waterfall of saliva to string out the sides of my mouth. Lucifer listens closely for gag sounds. Nothing gives.

  As a substitute for Vaseline, Mongoloid Mr Monday and musical Mr Tuesday work some of the Hellucinogenic serum into my earholes, before drilling into them with their dicks. The double-pan tremolo effect of their unsynchronised shagging turns the cacophony of Hell into a kind of reckless rumba: the dance of love.

  Meanwhile, the friction between Mr Wednesday and Mr Friday quickly erodes the wall between my anus and vagina, like property developers knocking through the walls of your apartment to create an open-plan shag pad. I hear the elastic of my arsehole snap.

  After a WHIP!! or two to their blushing botties, kind-hearted Mr Thursday and Mr Sunday reluctantly stuff their flaccid cocks up my nose. They daren’t look at me, averting their eyes to the sky. Perhaps it’s remorse – or perhaps it’s that I’ve got a beard and moustache made of hairy testicles, and they don’t want to throw up.

  I think I’m going to pass out. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. While my weekly exes carry on bucking me, the Hellucinogenic serum in my ears reacts with my oxygen-starved brain, transporting me through time and space to a variety of hellish sexual scenarios:

  First, I’m basking on chocolate-coloured mudflats, being ravaged by a bunch of butch, honk honk honking bull seals. The common seals are common as muck, fighting each other for the right to rag my arsehole, rejecting any kind of courtship or foreplay, or lubricant.

  Next, I’m on my kitchen counter, mummified in clingfilm. Meaty Stevie carves a hole in the plastic with a biscuit-cutter before going at me with his chipolata, squealing, ‘Die! Die! Die!’

  Next, I’m a corpse. I spit maggots out of my eyeballs, bent over my own headstone, while Donald fucks me in the dog position. He constantly clangs me over the head with his spade.

  Then, I’m back in the hamster cage again. As my weekly exes grow closer and closer to climax, the rumba speeds up. I clamp my eyes shut. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. What follows is extremely difficult to describe, not least because my sensory organs are clogged with cocks. I’m vaguely aware of a white explosion, combined with the smell of sour milk, mild bleach and stagnant pondwater. Warm sludge fills my skull and open-plan genitalia, like Polyfilla.

  I want to cough. I want to croak. Instead, I throw myself onto the sawdust, exhausted. My seven holes dribble raspberry ripple. Round about me, seven dangly trouser snakes eye me, all abashed. Above the cocks, some of my weekly exes high-five each other, pleased with their performances. I lift myself onto my haunches and peer into the toiletwaterbowl. My reflection has no ears, two red wounds instead of nostrils, a Chelsea smile, and sharp slashes like a Union Jack across my face. The murky water becomes polka-dotted with red. I want everybody dead. But they’re dead already.

  The only consolation is the quivering, mirror-image clock, ticking away on the surface of the water. I watch it tick from 0:10 to 0:09 to 0:08 to 0:07 to 0:06 to 0:05 to 0:04 to 0:03 to 0:02 to 0:01, while Lucifer desperately tries to smash the screen with firebolts, screaming obscenities. The crowd are up in arms. The silver screen cracks cleanly down the middle, just as the numbers click to 0:00. Then, everything falls silent.

  Oh, dear Reader, I couldn’t have done it without you!

  Hell’s Bells toll and tinkle throughout the amphitheatre: a reluctant celebration. Lucifer throws down his fizzing trident. Outside the hamster cage, the crowd carry on kicking up a fuss, demanding a rematch. My weekly exes pull up their Bermuda shorts, nervously avoiding the gaze of Lucifer, their legs pinstriped with semen. I post my prolapsed vagina and dangling rectum back into my body, then hobble through the slurried sawdust and into the arms of Stevie. It gives him a bit of a start, but I think he recognises the taste of my breath in his mouth. I hope he can’t taste the blood, not to mention the rest.

  ‘I love you, I love you,’ I whisper in his ear, which is what you tend to say to people after a crisis, and it’s what you want to hear back. Stevie smiles, trying to look longingly into my eyes, but his sockets are still focused over my shoulder at Ed Gein.

  �
�S-s-s-s-sorry for everyth-thing,’ Stevie mumbles. I silence him with another kiss.

  I feel like a low-budget disaster-movie heroine, overcoming all the odds to earn myself a wondrous, slushy, happy ending. After the kissing, I keep my arm around Stevie while I sort out the Heavenward travel arrangements with Lucifer. Part of me wants to pick up the trident and jam it into his nostrils but, in the end, I decide to be nice. I ask the hamster, politely, ‘So, where do I leave from, then?’

  With a sour expression, Lucifer WHIP!!s me softly on my left little toe, turning me back into a size 12, with my old, regurgitated Kimberly Clark head and a polyester work uniform. As far as I can tell, under the shimmering skirt and blouse, my hidden holes are in full working order again.

  I can’t wait to get in the cool of the clouds. It might be better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven, but you never know – they might let me sup Krug champagne on the job. I might even be able to wangle a two-hour dinner break. And a bottomless tips jar.

  ‘Hang on,’

  Lucifer snaps,

  ‘I’m afraid there’s

  one more twist

  to this story.’

  The three heads snicker, unable to contain their excitement. Gradually, the sawdust turns into a kind of quicksand or porridge beneath me, sucking my legs under. I shriek, hoarsely, ‘What?!’

  ‘We were only

  joking when we

  said we could

  send you to Heaven.’

  The hamster pokes its bottom lips out, feigning guilt and pity.

  ‘What the fuck?!’ I scream, as I’m pulled slowly into the whirlpool. Next to me, Stevie sways about, rendered useless again.

  ‘What do you

  think this is?