Woom: An extreme horror

by Duncan Ralston

  The baby kicked her several times in a row as she stood, as if fending off an attack with karate. Grinding her teeth against the pain, she pressed her free hand flat against the wall tile and raised her left leg onto the rim, still holding the wire with her right hand.

  Vaguely, above the splashing water, she heard John Lennon moaning for two or more of his fans to come together over him, and assumed it was a sex reference. Everything was about sex these days. Mary thought it was no wonder the psychopath had felt compelled to do what he had to her.

  She fed in the wire. In a moment, it struck something firm and spongy. With no concept of her inner workings, she supposed she must have pushed it in too far. The baby must have been close. Mary gave it one last hard push, felt the flesh inside her part and the wire move freely before stopping again.

  The baby kicked wildly, shifting around much more than he ever had before.

  Relieved, Mary twisted the wire, moving it back and forth, hoping to snag him and drag him out of her. Pain erupted in her abdomen, and Mary lost hold of the wire. It remained hanging out of her, wobbling like a doorstop as she tried to steady her breathing.

  The first drops of blood dripped from the end of the wire and splashed pink into the water below. Overcome by a sudden grand terror, Mary slowly lowered her quivering leg as more blood began to pour out of her, thin and running down her inner thighs, mixing with the water at her feet. Using both hands to grasp the wire, she tried to pull it out as gingerly as possible despite the violent tremors in her fingers.

  It wouldn't budge.

  She tugged, and another sharp pain flared, far worse than the first. The bottom of the tub looked like feeding time at the shark tank. Mary felt woozy, like she might pass out at any moment. The way she saw it, she had two choices: pull the wire out and potentially bleed to death in this tub, or leave the wire inside her, dress around it (she felt certain it would end up poking out of the bottom of her skirt, like a thin metal tail), and somehow get herself to the hospital.

  She imagined the doctor's impatient glare. She thought about what his older white nurse would think of her, a black woman with a coat hook in her vagina, giving herself a back-alley abortion like some common street trash. Who knows? They might even assume it was a sex thing. Everything was about sex these days. No one knew it more acutely than Mary.

  No—she would have to get the wire out herself.

  The baby struggled as she pushed the wire deeper inside of herself, as delicately as she could muster with her fingers shaking so badly. She couldn’t tell which side of the wire was barbed. She hoped, as she pressed the metal against what she assumed was her cervix, that she'd done so with the smooth side.

  And she pulled…

  The wire came out of her with a springy twang, bringing more blood with it. But it was out. She was free.

  Breathing a prayer to Jesus, she bent to put the warped hanger on the toilet seat.

  As she bent she slipped on the slick ceramic floor and fell forward. Her head struck the tile and she slid down the wall, her forehead striking the hot water knob, splitting open, her front teeth smashing against the faucet. She fell into the tub, but even though the water was shallow, there was no saving Mary. She was already unconscious by the time she landed face-first in the running water.

  ANGEL FELT SHYLA'S body shudder through the hand he used to work the dildo. "That story made my pussy want to shrivel up like a salted snail," she said.

  "Do you want to take a bweak for a while?" Angel asked, and bit his lip, hoping she hadn't caught his unintended lapse.

  "How about forever?"

  "Hmm. How about a ciga— a cigarette?" he said, deliberately forming the word to preserve the R.

  "That might help. Grab my purse?"

  Angel got up and handed her the purse from the bedside table. As she reached into it, the dildo slipped out of her a notch, still inside her up to the top of the eleventh ring: ten inches deep, five inches wide. He'd lucked out when the agency sent Shyla. Her cunt was an absolute marvel.

  The other women, even those who'd had several children through natural birth, had only been able to stretch the girth of a baseball bat or a liquor bottle. Shyla, by some miracle, could stretch so wide he thought she might be able to accept what he had to give her.

  Her gifted pussy would allow her to receive his gift to her.

  She lit two cigarettes, handing one to Angel, dragging on the other. He thanked her, still staring at her beautiful vagina. She exhaled a wispy gray cloud. As her belly shifted, the dildo stayed put.

  "Was the baby okay?"

  "He survived. Once her two hours were up, the desk clerk came into the woom—room," Angel corrected himself, "and found her in the tub. She was braindead by the time the paramedics arrived. She died in the hospital a few days later.""

  With a scowl, Shyla said, "I don't mean to be rude, but… did I just hear a lisp?"

  "It's not—" Angel shook his head. "—it's not a lisp. A lisp is when you pronounce S like T-H."

  "Right, sorry. What is it called then?"

  "Speech therapists call it rhoticism," he told her, "or derhotacization. It took me a long time to master saying my Rs for some reason when I was a kid. But it's not a lisp."

  "Okay. I mean, you seem fine with it now."

  "It's usually fine, just… sometimes it comes out when I'm stressed."

  "Well, it could be worse."

  "Could it?"

  Shyla shrugged. "It's just something you say. Could be worse. I mean, it could always be worse, right? You could have been born brain damaged. You could have… I don't know, been born with two heads, or a little arm."

  "Phocomelia," Angel said. "I don't think it would be that bad. Aside from only being able to jerk off with one hand."

  Shyla snickered. The room sat silent until she noticed the traffic out in the street, and turned toward the blinds. "You know, I always wanted to be a mother," she said.

  "Oh?"

  "Mm-hmm. Never happen though." She shrugged. "I'm kind of okay with that."

  "Why not?"

  "When I was younger, I… well, a lot of damage was done to my lady parts, and I had to have an emergency trachelectomy."

  "Trachel—?"

  "—ectomy. Removal of the cervix."

  "Ouch," Angel said.

  "It wasn't that bad. Expensive, though. My dad went into debt to pay for it, that's how come I started doing this. I was bleeding internally. We had to get it done. Only problem is, it didn't heal right. So now I've got an extra deep vagina."

  "That doesn't seem like much of a problem to me."

  Shyla shrugged. "Well, it's hard to feel satisfied by an average-length penis when your pussy just goes on forever."

  "Like the Delaware Aqueduct," Angel remarked. "I'm sorry to hear that, Shyla. Maybe we can rectify that today. Tit for tat."

  "And tat for tits." Shyla grinned, cupping her heavy breasts and squeezing them. Her cherry red lips formed an O as Angel pushed the dildo deeper. "Bad angle," she grunted, and Angel pulled it out a notch.

  "Sorry," Angel said, getting up from the bed to sit in the chair opposite. "What's the weirdest thing a client has ever asked you to do?"

  "I mean, this is up there, don't get me wrong." Shyla winked. "Kidding. Let's see, there was the diaper guy, and the pee drinker…" Her eyes alighted. "Oh! There was that guy who was into queening."

  "Queening?"

  "Facesitting," she explained.

  "Oh," Angel said, and fell silent.

  "I can't believe I forgot," Shyla said. "The sub lies on his back, and the dom sits on his face, covering his nose and mouth with her pussy and butthole so he can't breathe. The woman is in complete control, except like most BDSM stuff there's an out, a safe word, but with facesitting it's a little different. The guy can't actually talk because he's being smothered, unless he's a pussy whisperer or something. So he's got to tap out—you know, like in a wrestling match?"

  Angel nodded, listening intently, smoking fa
ster so the minty tobacco would smother the strong chemical smell that arose from his memories.

  "So this guy, he was really into facesitting, so much that he had this thing he called a 'smother box'—" Off Angel's quizzical look she explained, "Basically it's this nice wooden box with a pillow on the inside, and a hole on the top like the ones on a massage table. This thing was really elaborate. I'm pretty sure he made it himself. It had all kinds of engravings on it, too. Like ancient Chinese and Indian pornographic etchings. I don't know if they were replicas or just something he had someone do for the box. Maybe he did them himself, I don't know."

  "That's dedication."

  "That's what I said. Anyway, aside from the smother box, he wasn't all that out of the ordinary. You know, no obvious red flags."

  "Red flags?"

  "Danger signs. 'Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.' Although I charge two-hundred and sixty, and I usually expect a tip," she added with another wink.

  "Danger signs—like what?"

  "Well like, do they exhibit odd behavior. I mean, a lot of clients—we never call them johns, that's what cops call them—a lot of them are weird, or socially awkward, but I mean things like, do they try to coerce you into doing things you've explicitly said you won't do. Do they look like a cop, because cops still harass us even when we're not getting our business on the street. Do they," she thought a moment, "do they try to get you to secluded areas instead of their apartment or a hotel. Do they act drunk or high, or do they behave erratically—as opposed to erotically," she added, grinning slightly at her silly little joke. "The guys with the fetish gear and whatnot, we don't usually have to worry about. They're there for the act. Most guys are there for the woman, but the fetish guys… they know what they want and the woman is just an accessory."

  Angel nodded thoughtfully. "You seem to know a lot about people. Are you in school?"

  Shyla grinned. "Paying my way through college, right? Not this girl. You'd be surprised how much you can learn about people if you're paying attention."

  "I don't doubt it. So how could you tell I wasn't a danger?"

  "Well, first off, you called me to a motel, and even though the Lonely has a bit of a reputation, it's a known place. Dispatch probably already checked you off for red flags when she heard where you were staying. Plus, you were specific about what kind of woman you wanted."

  "So are serial killers," Angel remarked.

  "True, but you also said you'd hired from the agency before and didn't get what you wanted."

  "The dispatcher told you that."

  "Uh-huh."

  "I could have been lying."

  "There's that chance, sure. But why lie about that?"

  "I suppose."

  "When I got here, there was a big red flag. For me, anyway."

  "Oh?"

  "You shook my hand. Some guys kiss it, the way men used to, but the first and pretty much only time I've ever had my hand shook by a client he ended up trying to beat the shit out of me while we were fucking, so I've been wary of hand-shakers ever since."

  "Interesting."

  "Also, you're African-American. Light skinned, but it's pretty obvious you're not Latino or Tonawanda Indian, or anything like that."

  "Okay," Angel said with a smirk. "So why was that a good thing?"

  "Well, everybody knows serial killers are mostly white. You're also well-dressed, which isn't necessarily good or bad, but in your case I saw it as a good sign."

  "Why?"

  "Because of the scar."

  Curious, Angel asked, "What about my scar made you trust me?"

  "With the clothes, it gave you a look of vulnerability. I thought a psychopath would be too vain not to cover it up with manscara, especially someone as well-groomed as you are."

  "That's an interesting evaluation. Anything else?"

  "Well, your bag of tricks," Shyla said, nodding toward it, "it was a little off-putting at first. I mean, for all I knew, you had a dead body cut up in pieces inside there. Especially with that smell, when I first stepped in? Woof. But then you took out the lube, and the toys, and I knew you were safe."

  "How so?"

  "Aside from the size of this one, there was nothing out of the ordinary."

  "No smother boxes, as far as you could see," Angel said with a toothy grin.

  "And no diapers, which is a definite plus."

  Smiling, Angel said, "So why don't you tell me about the Smother Man?"

  "Okay," Shyla said, seemingly pleased to get to tell a story of her own. She stubbed out her cigarette, and began.

  (S)MOTHER

  THE SMOTHER MAN opened the door and right off the bat he wouldn't hold my gaze. He kept his eyes down most of the time I was in his hotel room, staring at my tits, or my stomach and ass, and I could tell this was going to be an interesting experience. As far as red flags went, I didn't see anything too off-putting. There was a strange box on the bed that didn't seem like it came with the room, but that was it. I thought it looked like some kind of religious relic, like maybe it had an ancient Bible inside it, or a lock of some old dead Pontiff's hair.

  "What's in the box?" I asked him, and he looked over at the box like he'd forgotten about it.

  He goes, "Nothing," in this quiet little voice like a kid who's been scolded. He wandered over to it and flipped it over, showing me the hole in the lid with a proud smile, flicking his eyes up to mine for a half a second before looking down at the floor.

  For some reason the hole in the top reminded me of a confession box. Like if I peeked inside I'd see Father Dennison, my old priest, looking out at me. That thought really creeped me out, but I wasn't going to let it cost me an hour's work.

  "Is that a jewelry box?" I asked.

  The guy just shook his head, and I saw some dandruff fall from his greasy hair and land on his shoulders like snow.

  "Well, what is it then?" I go, getting really annoyed at that point because it seemed like he was never going to tell me about the box. I felt like Brad Pitt in that movie about the serial killer, and thinking about serial killers and my old priest was definitely not putting me in the mood to fuck.

  "I call it my smother box," he kind of whispers, and he raised his eyes just enough to dart around the hem of my skirt.

  Looking at the box again, right away I could see how it worked. It was like those medieval punishment things, what do you call them? The stocks, yeah. I could see where the hinges were, and the neck hole in the side. Close the box around the sub's head, and the dom sits on the little hole like on an outhouse toilet.

  "You want me to smother you?" I asked him.

  His nod was so timid I was barely sure he'd made it.

  "Well, okay," I said, "why don't you put it on for me?"

  His eyes pretty much popped out of his head when I said that, and a tiny little smile creeped onto his pimpled face. He looked about thirty-five, maybe forty. He was wearing this ugly sweater, I guess would have called it a Cosby sweater before saying the name "Cosby" started to feel sleazy. A little thick around the middle, but honestly, I figured it was more likely a weakness for Little Debbie snack cakes than a beer gut from the way he carried himself, and he wore his pleated pants so high at the bottom I could see the tops of his white tube socks under them, above a dirty pair of sneakers.

  He plucked the box up from the bed and took it with him to the bathroom. This was a pretty decent hotel he'd paid for, with a sitting room in front and, from what I could see through the bathroom door when he opened it, a pretty large tub. I thought he might let me stay and have a soak if I didn't have to jet off to another client. I wondered what kind of bath balls they'd have in a ritzy place like that. I mean, I make a decent living as an escort, but I don't usually treat myself to places like that. I'm saving up so I can go live some place where the beaches are hot and the guys are even hotter.

  Nope, never travelled outside of the area. Went across the border a couple of times to Niagara Falls, but that's about it. I'm a Buffalo gal
, born and bred.

  When the Smother Man came back into the bedroom, his small pimpled face was sticking out from the front of the box. He looked like a cuckoo clock, and I laughed a little thinking that, even though they tell you on your first day never to laugh at clients. I just couldn't help it. The thought of him going "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" while he stuck out his tongue to lick my pussy just got me laughing, and when I get laughing it's hard to get me to stop.

  Well, the poor guy hung his head, and I realized I'd humiliated him, so I gave him an apology. He just goes, "Don't apologize. I know I look stupid," and honestly, I just wanted to hug the little bastard at that point, he was so sad and cute, even though I couldn't imagine actually hugging him without getting his dandruff all over my nice top, but at least his greasy head was locked inside the box.

  What he said made me understand what he was looking for, though. He was a sub, and he wanted me to berate him. He wanted me to lay down the law, so I did.

  "Get on the bed," I shouted at him, pointing at it.

  He kind of shrank away from me, his head dropping down into his shoulders like a turtle, only it couldn't go far because of the box. He goes, "Yes, ma'am," and headed for the bed.

  "Yes, Mistress," I scolded him, and he repeated it. "On your knees!"

  He goes, "Yes, Mistress," again, and got down on his hands and knees like a dog to crawl the rest of the way to the bed.

  I told him to climb up, and he did. I told him to roll over on his back, and he did that too. Then I moved over to the bed myself and stood with my knees against the mattress, right about where his head was. The thing about these guys who love queening, they need to see the pussy from below. It's like—you know how in movies when someone does the sign of the cross and prays in front of Jesus, and they always point the camera down at the guy praying, and point it up at Jesus? That's what this is like. He wanted to worship my pussy. The smother box was his confessional.

  So real slowly, I slipped off the frilly black underwear I was wearing. I used to have a bush back then, since some guys were requesting it because it was making a comeback in porn but their wives were all still sporting hardwood floors because of what porn told them to do in the '90s. I'd spritzed a real fragrant perfume down there, and it mixed well with my natural smell. I kicked my panties aside and squatted down so my bush tickled his forehead.