by Jasper Bark
Table of Contents
Foreword by Pat Cadigan
Stuck On You
Taking the Piss
The Castigation Crunch
‘Ill Met by Moonlight’
How the Dark Bleeds
Mouthful
Haunting the Past
End of the Line
Dead Scalp
Afterword by John Llewellyn Probert
Acknowledgements
Copyright
STUCK ON YOU AND OTHER PRIME CUTS
JASPER BARK
Kindle Edition
Published by Crystal Lake Publishing
www.CrystallakePub.com
Table of Contents
Foreword by Pat Cadigan
Stuck On You
Taking the Piss
The Castigation Crunch
‘Ill Met by Moonlight’
How the Dark Bleeds
Mouthful
Haunting the Past
End of the Line
Dead Scalp
Afterword by John Llewellyn Probert
Acknowledgements
Copyright
To Veronica, my long suffering wife,
I’ve been stuck on you for so long, you’re never going to shake me off.
And to my daughters Freya and Ishara, this is as much as you’re allowed to read of this book until you’re a LOT older, or I’m dead!
FOREWORD
PAT CADIGAN
I wasn’t ready for Jasper Bark the first time I met him.
I had agreed to do be part of a group reading in a Waterstones book shop in central London. It was a book launch, under the aegis of This Is Horror. I didn’t know about This Is Horror events—specifically, I didn’t know they were hosted by a congenial wild-eyed madman named Jasper Bark, and I didn’t know that Jasper Bark obviously had some mad professional skills in the area of performing. Many writers don’t, and why should they? Writing’s creativity calls for concentration, attention to detail, and the fortitude to continue working without immediate applause. A thousand people may buy your book in a week; if two of them send you fan mail, it’s extraordinary (unless you’re Stephen King and really, who is? Besides Stephen King, I mean).
But some writers have a streak of greasepaint in them, so to speak, and Jasper Bark is one of them. I enjoyed his flamboyant, somewhat over-the-top introduction to the evening, welcoming the audience to the reading and informing them—warning them—that “This is horror.”
The book being launched was by Joseph D’Lacey and, as there were vampires involved, someone had made blood fudge—i.e., dark chocolate fudge with a generous amount of red food colouring. It looked great to me. Jasper, however, had a problem with it. Something about sugar. He took a bite and choked so badly that he had to retreat to the green room during Joseph’s reading. I was worried. Back in the mid-1980s, I became someone’s mother and those instincts have never gone away. I tiptoed over to the Green Room to look in on Jasper, afraid that he might be lying on the floor and turning blue, unable to call for help.
Fortunately, he wasn’t alone, although he and the lady with him were both startled to see me. They were standing several feet apart and she put her hands behind her back quickly, but I didn’t think any of that. I was mostly worried about Jasper. When he assured me he was fine, I tiptoed back to my seat to catch the rest of Joseph’s reading. Jasper reappeared just as Joseph finished and sat down so he could begin the interview.
Only Jasper really didn’t look very good at all. He looked sick, definitely not like he could actually interview someone. Worse, if memory serves, Jasper also tried another piece of fudge. It didn’t go down well. In fact, it didn’t go down at all—and suddenly Jasper was writhing on the carpet, apparently having convulsions. I jumped out of my seat, horrified, trying to remember first aid for seizures and wishing I hadn’t turned my phone off so I could dial 999. Assuming I could even find my phone in my purse.
And then all at once, Jasper was back on his feet and he was attacking Joseph. My jaw dropped. Jasper’s wild eyes were practically popping out of his head and he had his hands around Joseph’s throat while he made these crazy, animal-like noises. I remember wondering what kind of convulsions would cause a person to physically attack someone.
I didn’t catch on until Jasper tried to bite him.
And even then, I didn’t realise until I caught sight of my husband in the audience; he was laughing. So was everyone around him but really, my husband was the tip-off. He is a sweet, compassionate soul who does not laugh at people having convulsions. I had been had.
Jasper, meanwhile, had dragged Joseph away in vampiric frenzy. Stage blood had splashed on the poster for the event and I was still trying to get my head around the fact that someone would go to such incredible lengths to put on this kind of show at a book launch—at a reading in a bookshop. And, omg, I had almost ruined it when I had gone to the green room to check on him. I had walked in on him while he was having his ‘sick’ make-up applied, and nearly caught her with pancake and sponge in hand. That was why he and the lady with him had been so jumpy.
So there you have it—Jasper Bark got me. And I loved it—it was one of the best readings I’ve ever been to.
I always love it when people really get into their material in a big way, when they decide to go for broke. Which brings me to this collection of stories by the very same wild-eyed Jasper Bark.
Chances are he is nowhere nearby so you are in no danger of him pouncing on you and grabbing you by the neck. Can’t say the same, however, for the stories.
The material here is horror and Jasper has really gotten into the material in a big way. He goes for broke. In fact, some of these stories redefine broke, and then go beyond it. A few of them you may not be ready for. But that’s all right because they’re ready for you. All of them are ready for you. Jasper knows just how to get you.
So don’t fasten your seatbelt—it won’t soften the impact. Don’t even try to brace yourself. Just go with it and if you’re kinda haunted by some of the things you’ve found in here... well, that’s what you came for, isn’t it? This is horror, Jasper Bark style. No one gets away unscathed.
Hell, they won’t even let him back into Waterstones.
STUCK ON YOU
CHAPTER 1
Ricardo came to with the pain. He was lying on top of Consuela, his chin pressed into her naked shoulder. He lifted his head and blinked his eyes into focus.
Consuela didn’t move. Her skin felt cold and clammy beneath his. Her eyes had rolled up into her sockets and her lips were drawn back.
Ricardo realized two things. The first being that she was dead. The second—that he still had his cock in her. He retched violently, his stomach heaved and he vomited all over her face.
It was getting dark, the ground they were lying on was damp. The still warm vomit was steaming in the evening air. It stank of stale beer and stomach bile. Ricardo gagged and tried to roll off Consuela.
A sudden searing pain in his stomach and loins prevented him. He cried out, trying to reposition himself so the pain would stop but it just kept building, shooting through him in growing waves. The agony became so great he couldn’t even scream or sob anymore. He just gasped convulsively in silence until his body shut down and he passed out again.
CHAPTER 2
The blackness began to fade. Ricardo felt as though he were resurfacing from a watery depth that no light ever reached. His mind struggled to make sense of the welter of sensations as he approached consciousness. It was like the moments just before waking when the dream you’re having struggles to accommodate the sound of an alarm or another person stirring in your bed, buildi
ng them into the scenario before the spell is broken and you open your eyes.
Ricardo felt a burning pain in his crotch and imagined that he’d penetrated a bonfire. The flames leapt higher as he thrust himself into the blazing mass. The pain and the flames were too intense. He didn’t want to wake just yet, to face what they really meant. He wanted to hover just a little longer, unconscious, where they couldn’t touch him.
As his waking mind became more aware of itself, Ricardo started to search for recent memories. What was happening to him? How did he come to be here? Why was he in so much pain? He needed to find the answers before he could wake and deal with the situation.
CHAPTER 3
The first thing Ricardo recalled was the blinding flash of light. There was a deafening crack that came with it. Like the sky had just shattered and the air around him had been torn apart.
There had been rain before that, light and refreshing. It relieved the humid air and made the night warm and moist like Consuela. She’d moaned and shaken beneath him like the thunder that crept up on them from afar.
They really should have listened to the thunder but it came up on them so quickly. Ricardo had been too distracted by Conseula, by her soft warm curves and the way they yielded to him. Then it had struck, as fast as lightning. No, it was lightning. They’d been struck by lightning.
CHAPTER 4
The sudden memory jolted Ricardo awake. Without thinking he tried to sit up and instantly regretted it. He fell forward against Consuela and bit her shoulder with the pain. Her cool flesh tasted of his vomit.
Ricardo lifted his head with great care and turned to look over his shoulder at his butt. The skin around his coccyx was charred black and so swollen it had cracked and peeled. That was where the lightning had struck. It must have passed through him and into Consuela. She’d acted as his insulation. That’s why he wasn’t dead.
Ricardo placed his hands either side of Consuela’s head and pushed himself up, as far as he could without hurting, so he could examine his body in the fading light.
The skin was missing from his most of his stomach and Consuela’s. What little there was looked white and leathery. The rest of both their stomachs were nothing more than raw exposed tissue, red, wet and agonizingly sore. Across both their chests Ricardo could see curling burn marks, like blistering, red fronds, where the lightning must have discharged.
The shock of what had occurred was too great for him to take in at first. He’d been viewing the damage quite dispassionately, as though he wasn’t in any way connected to it. As he looked down at the angry, suppurating wounds it began to sink in. This was his body. His once beautiful physique. He was scarred for life. He was never going to be the same.
Ricardo felt himself go cold and he retched again. Only bile came this time, burning the back of his throat. He began to cry. This wasn’t fair. Why had this happened to him? Oh God it was so painful. He couldn’t stop himself from shaking. His arms gave out and he fell forward onto Consuela’s cool body.
More tears came at the random cruelty and unfairness of it all. He pressed his face against Consuela’s bile soaked cheek and hugged her for comfort. Her body smelled rancid from the vomit with an underlying odor of burnt pork. His self-pity disappeared, melted by anger and revulsion.
He tried to pull himself out and roll off Consuela again. This time he was more careful but the pain was still unbearable. It wasn’t just his raw flesh rubbing against hers, his cock felt like it was caught in a vice. Her muscles must have spasmed and seized up. They were clenched tighter than a fist. It must have happened when the lightning struck.
Adam, a med student friend of Ricardo’s, once mentioned something about this. They were getting drunk and swapping horror stories. Penis captivus was the term Adam had used. He’d even shown Ricardo a youtube video of some Kenyan guy who’d gotten stuck in another man’s wife. The Kenyans put that down to some witchdoctor shit, not a lightning strike. Either way it was a rare occurrence. Probably as rare as getting struck by lightning while you were boning someone.
That made him think of something else he’d read online. An urban myth about a guy and a gal who were going at it on a hillside when they got struck by lightning. The rubber they were using melted and fused them together. Adam had said this would be impossible. The condom’s latex would insulate his cock and even if it did melt it would just shrivel, there was no way it would stick to the gal’s vaginal walls.
Yet here Ricardo was with his cock stuck in a dead woman. It wasn’t right. The anger welled up inside him and he punched the ground. It wasn’t enough. He needed to take his rage and frustration out on something else.
Ricardo looked down at Consuela with her up-turned eyeballs and bared teeth and he practically choked on his resentment. He reared up as far as he could and pounded his fist into her dead face. “Damn you,” he shouted. “Damn you, damn you, damn you.” He hit her twice more but the blows were ineffectual and she was so covered in vomit that his fist kept slipping off.
He heard a bone in her nose crack. Encouraged by the sound he hit her again, even harder, but the blow caused him to topple on to his side dragging her with him.
The physical torment this caused was beyond belief. His whole vision went white as the agony drowned out every other sense in his body. It was too much for him to remain conscious. The last thing that crossed his mind before he passed out was: “How the fuck am I going to explain this to Ellen?”
CHAPTER 5
It was all Ellen’s idea. She had this half-baked notion about setting up a stall at all the trade fairs and county shows around Arizona. It wasn’t as though she needed the money. Her parents were richer than his. It was the romance of being an artisan trader that appealed to her.
So she’d sent him over the border to Nogales to cruise round all the curio shops they have downtown and buy up cheap ‘artesanias’. This was the local name for the handicrafts they shipped in from Mexico’s central and southern states.
Ellen said he had a better eye for this sort of thing than she did because it was part of his heritage, which irked him. His family had been in the States for three generations. Mickey D’s, baseball and the Arizona Cardinals, that was his heritage.
Ellen thought that running a business venture would bring them closer together. It was more than that though, it was also a test. Sending him over the border was her way of seeing if she could trust him.
To be honest even Ricardo was surprised when she’d taken him back. They’d been dating since College and frankly he was bored. He’d started sleeping around behind her back, nothing too serious, just the odd casual lay here and there. He was discrete to begin with but he’d gotten careless over time. Maybe it was over confidence, or perhaps he wanted to get caught, he wasn’t sure, but one stupid text message had sunk him.
Ellen had picked up his phone to order take out and spotted the text. Ricardo hadn’t even slept with the girl but that was enough to arouse her suspicions. She scoured his cellphone, his tablet and his laptop. There was plenty of evidence to incriminate him.
She confronted him in the bath. Threw the phone at his head. Ricardo denied it of course but she had him bang to rights. She even quoted the Bible at him. Numbers 32:23: “... be sure your sin will find you out”. Ellen’s Sunday school Priest had told her that you carry your sins around with you and you can never shake them off. Catholic girls, they never let that sort of stuff go.
When he realized he couldn’t bluff his way out of it he threw himself on her mercy and promised to change. He was almost relieved to be honest. He was never that great with secrets. They had a way of eating you up inside.
Ellen made a lot of stipulations and because he kept to a few of them she eventually relented. The sex got a lot better for a while and a lot more frequent. He guessed she wanted to reclaim him for herself and wipe away the taint of his other lovers.
It seemed like a new beginning for them and he didn’t miss the other lovers at first. But in time things got a bit
stale and that’s when Ellen suggested running a stall. It was another of her grand gestures. She was big on those. Ricardo would scour Mexico for handicrafts, she’d sell them to bored hicks and they’d both reap the profits. At least, that’s how it played out in Ellen’s mind.
Handicrafts weren’t Ricardo’s first choice of import. If he’d had his way they would have traded something far cooler, like deadly species—tarantulas or flesh eating monitor lizards. Some of those things were so rare, or endangered, people would pay through the nose for them. Especially if there was a ban on selling or transporting them into the country.
Ellen was squeamish about that sort of thing though. She had her heart set on artesanias so Ricardo had jumped in his jeep and headed south.
He’d parked up just over the border in one of the Mexican lots. He couldn’t stand driving in Mexico. There were no rules. Nobody stuck to their lanes or bothered with speed limits. They wove in and out of each other without any regard for safety, and the road signs bore so little relation to the turnings that they might as well be from another city.
The afternoon he’d spent wandering the little passageways off the main shopping area left him bored and resentful. He hated haggling with the dried up vendors who took one look at his clothes and his dental work and automatically trebled the price of everything. He rewarded himself with a tour of the titty bars and walked back to his car with a lazy hard on and a pleasant buzz from the cheap beer.
The beer they served in those joints was cold and gassy to hide the fact it tasted like shit. Ricardo belched hard as he strolled into the parking lot and tasted the burritos he’d wolfed down earlier. The locks on his Grand Cherokee clicked open as he approached, like a pair of open arms waiting to greet him. Keyless technology, you gotta love American engineering. The little card in his wallet meant his baby opened just for him. She was more loyal than any woman or dog.
