by Keene, Brian
Chuck opened the door to a teenager of high school age on the porch. He was a few inches taller than Chuck, more than six feet. He seemed strong in a wiry way. He wore a T-shirt with a completely unreadable band name. A grin instantly disappeared from the boy’s face when he saw Chuck.
Well, screw you too, Junior.
“Yes?” Chuck prompted.
“Uh, hi. My name’s Eric. I’m just going around seeing if anyone is looking for help with chores.” The smile didn’t threaten to reappear. The kid seemed either disappointed or maybe even a little pissed off.
Chuck had already decided the little bastard wouldn’t be getting dime one from him. “Sorry, but I think we’ve got everything covered.”
“Look, dude, is your wife here? I’d like to talk to her.”
Chuck began to wonder which would truly be worse—a visit from Flavia or an aggravated assault against a minor charge. “Nope, dude. Just me, myself, and I. And we’re getting along just fine, thanks.”
Eric rolled his eyes. “Okay, man, whatever. Just trying to help out.”
“You could be a huge help by beating your feet right now,” Chuck said. He slammed the door, blocking out the stupid look on the little punk’s face.
What the hell’s wrong with kids anymore? Lucky I didn’t rearrange his face for him.
He hurried back to the couch and the laptop. He didn’t want to get busted invading her privacy, and time was of the essence.
The second tab was much less quaint than Bum’s Rush. The clip was titled Horseplay. A grimy woman in tattered clothes masturbated a horse to orgasm while a couple of similarly attired males caught the massive effluvium in a punch bowl. The one to consume the most semen would receive a sleeping bag and a box of wine. The trio began to pass it around, sipping the creamy concoction with notably less enthusiasm as the number of rotations increased. Chuck wondered how they could even keep score with this system. Male Hobo #2 was the first to puke. The woman sank to her knees before the milky puddle to lap it up, evidently on her way to being the big winner.
Chuck clicked out of that one. It was wretched, yet he’d hung in there much longer than he would have believed possible. He knew his wife loved animals, but this was beyond the pale, to say the least. It suddenly seemed awfully sinister that she had taken the dogs with her.
Dickey was humping the air right near my face and my mouth was open. He ejaculated in my mouth!
She’d blamed it on the house. Sure. What else would you say in that situation? Yep, Chuck … it’s exactly what you think it is. Sorry, baby.
Was this what it was like to watch somebody go insane? Had the warning signs been there all along and he’d somehow missed them until she started hitting the real freak milestones?
She needed fucking Prozac or something in a bad way.
He planned to put the laptop back to hibernate but then noted something the tab revealed when he’d clicked out of Horseplay. The still was of yet another bum, surprise, surprise. There was a telltale brown bottle of cheap alcohol on a table beside him.
The clip was called Peel Slowly and See.
Against his better judgment, Chuck clicked play. There was a chair beside the table with the brown bottle. The man staggered around to it. He wore brown corduroy pants with a length of rope for a belt. He untied the knot, and the pants dropped to his ankles. He collapsed into the chair without any semblance of grace, utterly shit-faced. He seized the brown bottle, which he’d already emptied. Chuck jumped when he abruptly shattered the bottle against the table and lifted up his shirt to reveal his penis. The camera drew in closer.
Turn it off, Chuck, he thought, but another part of him argued, come on, he’s not really going to do it.
Even if he didn’t do “it,” there was no reason to keep watching, but Chuck made no move to stop it.
The bum brought the jagged neck of the bottle to his partially erect organ. He cupped one side with his palm and mashed the bottle into the elongated skin, instantly opening a spurting wound. He sucked in air but did not seem deterred in the least by pain. He grew fully erect. He curved the bottle around to where the neck faced him and pushed it forward. The glass pushed his penis into his belly, slicing a red grin at the base of the member. Then he dragged it up the length of his girth all the way to the head. He cried out with this incision, but it didn’t even seem like anguish so much as exquisite pleasure. Blood oozed from the crooked mouth he had created and continued to jet in excited spurts from the first cut on the side.
The color drained from Chuck’s face.
It’s special effects … it’s gotta be. They made it look like a guy turned into a werewolf in The Howling twenty-something years ago. A realistic dick execution these days would be child’s play. There’s probably something like this in one of those Eli Roth movies.
The bum slightly rotated the neck and carved up his full length right beside the last cut, and then he did it again to the opposite side so now three wounds gushed. The bottle slipped from his fingers and shattered on the floor. He made pincers of his thumb and index finger and lowered them to his mutilated sex. His hand shook with tremors, but he managed to seize the flap of one wound. He tore the skin in a downward motion, opening a deeper cavern of crimson gristle. Now the blood poured out in a stream into the matted fur of his scrotum, with rivulets dripping off the edge of the chair. Arteries continued to pump projectile sprays like a rapid-fire lawn sprinkler. He grabbed a corner near the base of his penis and pulled it up like the address label on a package.
Chuck didn’t close the browser—he slammed the laptop shut and bolted up from the couch like it had turned into a rattlesnake.
“Jesus Christ!”
Why would she look at anything like that? Why would anyone?
He went to pour himself a drink in the kitchen. His hands shook like the hobo’s in the video. He spilled whiskey on the counter.
Doing anything special with the bottle when you’re done, Chuckster?
He slammed back the shot and poured another.
Naturally his cell phone vibrated in his pocket at that moment. He checked the screen, momentarily forgetting that he had been dreading this.
Marshall’s Gardening calling.
For only the fifteenth time today, in addition to twenty-seven text messages. He’d have enjoyed the constant vibrating of his phone so close to his groin were it not for the ball of acid in his stomach that swished around every time she attempted contact. He’d deleted the voice mails and texts without listening or reading, playing it all very ostrich-like, but Flavia wasn’t going away. If she ever discovered his new phone number, he estimated she’d wait approximately twelve seconds before trying to ruin his life. He could get his number changed, but so many clients contacted him that way, and he wasn’t sure he had them all saved on his phone or in his e-mails. He’d be potentially throwing away money, not to mention Arrianne would find it suspicious.
If she’s still sane enough for things like that.
“Fuck it,” he said. He wanted the distraction, needed it even. He hit the talk button. “Yeah?”
“I’m very, very disappointed in you, Papa Bear. You’ve been ducking my calls all day.”
“We don’t have anything more to say to each other, Flavia. I made that clear.”
“But you answered just now, didn’t you, baby?”
Chuck drank the other shot and blinked the ensuing tears from his eyes. “Look, it’s over, okay? I shouldn’t have done any of this and I’m sorry you got hurt.”
She laughed. “I’m sure you cried yourself to sleep last night over hurting me.”
He decided not to tell her she was the furthest thing from his mind after last night until she’d initiated Operation Barnacle on his phone this afternoon.
“So I guess your wife isn’t boring you all of a sudden?” she asked.
“You could say that,” he deadpanned.
“She bored me just hearing about her. Like you married a Quaker or something.”
&n
bsp; “I didn’t make her out that way at all,” he said.
“You said she wasn’t interested in sex anymore. And if she ever was, she didn’t want your cock anywhere near her mouth.”
“But I still love her,” he said. Don’t I? “Besides. Things are different.”
“Oh, I’m sure. I’m not stupid, Chuck. You got what you wanted from me, and once you got it you hated me for doing it. Same story with all men.”
“I don’t h—”
“If I’d let you fuck me in my ass like you hinted, you’d have tried to leave even sooner after you’d got your fill.”
“My wife lets me,” he said. “She’ll do anything now.”
And I’m beginning to think literally anything.
“So what if she does? I’ve seen her picture in your wallet. She’s got nothing on me and you know it.”
Certainly not your modesty.
“You can’t name any flaw for me at all, can you?” she challenged. The tone implied he’d better not, but Peel Slowly and See was way too close to the front of his memory to not throw down the gauntlet and give it a bigger push to the rear.
“Come on,” Chuck said. “You like Busta Kapp, for Christ’s sake.”
“That’s the best you can do?” She laughed like it was absurd, but he could tell he’d really pissed her off. “Lots of people like him. Bust in Yo’ House was number one on the Billboard charts for three straight weeks! He won a Grammy for ‘Skrate Up Thug’! You’re the weirdo here, not me.”
His bemusement faded. She’d called Arrianne ugly last night and he’d dismissed it as jealous rage, but what she’d said a moment ago was a lot more specific.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “What do you mean you saw her picture in my wallet? I never showed you that.”
“Oh, you do pay attention to what I say. How sweet. No, I got a good look at everything in there when you went to the bathroom without your pants.” She was silent for a beat. Then: “Even your new business cards.”
Peel Slowly and See suddenly didn’t matter to him a bit.
“You know”—he heard the smile in her voice—“the ones with your new address and everything.”
***
“Let’s go for a walk, Ben.”
The bum gave her a strange look. Okay, so every look he directed at her or anyone else was by default a strange look. The gnarled old son of a bitch had an extra level of strange encoded in his DNA that set him well above the national average. But this time his expression conveyed a degree of wide-eyed perplexity that imbued his oddness with an almost comical quality. He blinked rapidly, and a corner of his mouth twitched a few times. After a few moments of staring at her like a brain-damaged imbecile, he shifted in his seat and craned his head slowly around, taking in the empty stretch of rural road and the densely wooded area beyond the road’s shoulder.
He closed a hand around his dog tags, holding on to them like a Catholic woman clutching a strand of rosary beads. The tags did seem to hold a talismanic quality for him, which was none-too-surprising given the likely significance of what they represented in his life. “I done walked a good spell already today. So unless you’re kickin’ me out, I’m good. Done had enough exercise for one day.”
Arrianne smiled and put a hand on his knee. “I don’t think you have, Ben.”
“Please stop calling me Ben.”
She kept her smile in place and dug the tips of her fingers hard into his bony knee, making him wince. “You know what, Ben? I think you’re afraid of women. I think you’re afraid of me.”
Ben grimaced as she again intensified the pressure on his knee, but he said nothing.
Arrianne laughed. “Yes, you’re afraid of women. The prettiest pussy you’ve ever seen was on the bottom half of a blown-to-shit gook bitch. I’ll bet that’s because hers was just about the only real-live pussy you’ve ever seen up close and personal.” She giggled and relaxed her grip on his knee a notch. The reason for the giggle was two-fold: she was getting an incredible kick from so easily intimidating the confessed mass-killer and corpse-fucker, and because of the massive hard-on tenting the front of his threadbare jeans.
“I’m also willing to bet that gook pussy is still the only pussy you’ve ever fucked. Isn’t that right, Benjamin?”
He let out a breath and clutched his dog tags harder. “You think you know all about me, but you don’t know nothin’. Ain’t nothin’ a man like me has to fear from the likes of you. I got bigger things to worry about.”
Arrianne giggled again and pointedly eyed his swollen crotch. “I don’t know, baby, looks like your biggest concern right now is me.”
“I’m damned. Got things after me. Shadow lurkers. They taunt me. Toy with me. Laugh when I’m tryin’ to sleep. I’ve spent every day of my life since the ’Nam tryin’ to stay one step ahead of ’em. That’s why I ain’t had time to fuck no women.”
Arrianne smirked. “Right. You keep telling yourself that. I know the real truth.” She reached across and pulled the door handle, popping open the door on his side. She couldn’t help grinning at the way he recoiled from her. “Here’s what’s happening, Ben. We’re going into the woods, deep enough to ensure no one will see or hear us. And then we’re gonna take our clothes off and fuck like wild animals.”
She grabbed her purse and got out of the car, moving to the shoulder of the road while the bum remained in the shotgun seat and tracked her progress with his googly, twitching eyes. When he still made no move to join her, she pulled the passenger side door fully open and ordered him out in her sternest voice. Her tone made Dickey whimper and elicited some concerned yaps from the pup.
The bum heaved a big sigh and maneuvered his way out of the car. He reached for his duffel bag, but Arrianne slammed the door shut. “Did you just try to ditch me, Ben?”
“My name’s Brad. I don’t wanna ride with you no more.”
Arrianne gripped him by an elbow and steered him toward the line of trees beyond the road’s shoulder. “That way, Ben. Into the woods. Walk ahead of me.”
He shook his head. “I don’t like this.”
“I don’t care.”
He eyed her with palpable suspicion and cast another searching glance up and down the road. “Why ain’t there no cars out this way? There should be cars.”
She gave him another nudge toward the woods. “Quit stalling. Go.”
He shook his head again. “No.”
She removed the .357 from her purse and aimed it at his chest. “Yes. Go.”
Another tired sigh, followed by another desperate, yearning look at the empty stretch of road. “Shit.”
Arrianne laughed. “Story of your life, I’ll bet. No one around to look out for you. No one who gives even one little shit. Go.”
This time he went.
She followed him into the woods, paying no mind to the louder sounds of canine distress emanating from the car. The dogs would be fine. What she had in mind shouldn’t take too long. She maintained a distance of about six feet as she trailed the bum into the woods, keeping the gun aimed at the center of his back. A distant part of herself registered alarm over the dangerous notion that had taken root in her head over the course of her conversation with the damaged old vet. This part of her recognized the impulse as alien. It was a thing she would never contemplate doing in the normal course of things. Hell, it would never even occur to her. And if it had occurred to her, she would have felt an instant repulsion.
But she wasn’t herself right now. That much was evident. Pleasuring herself with the man’s slimy old upper-denture plate was only the most extreme aspect of an overall disconnect from her normal, more civilized state of mind. There were more subtle nuances involved. The way she had callously—and repeatedly—referred to the blasted-to-smithereens girl from the bum’s tale as a “dead gook bitch,” for instance. Such a phrase would normally elicit disgust from her when spoken by another person. She had never been prone to racial slurs, much less in so vile a context.
There could
be only one explanation.
Lucy.
It was shocking to think the dead woman’s perverse influence extended beyond the house, but the radius of influence seemed quite wide. She had been mostly free of it during her time at Wally Ochse’s scummy abode but had begun to feel it creeping back in the closer she got to home. She supposed it was possible reading and handling Lucy’s diary had enhanced the spirit’s hold on her. She also thought it likely something larger than a mere haunting was at work here.
Bottom line though—she didn’t much care.
Maybe her desires originated in some way from the dead woman, but knowing this made them no less intense or thrilling. She felt delightfully wicked. Debauched. It was nice to really let go, to shrug off the constraints of modern society and embrace something more primal. This was also evident in the way she savored the feel of the gritty earth beneath her bare feet. She felt one with nature, but not in that sensitive, hippy-dippy, tree-hugging way. The truth about nature was that it was raw, wild, and violent, and so was she now.
“Stop right here.”
The bum’s shoulders sagged as he came to a reluctant stop and turned around to look at her. He fingered his dog tags again and regarded her with eyes that looked clearer and saner than before. “You’re one of them, ain’t ya?”
Okay, scratch the “saner” part of that equation.
Arrianne smiled and arched an eyebrow. “Oh? Do you think so?”
He nodded and made a weird snuffling sound deep in his throat. “You’re one of them shadow devils. A devil wearing a temptress mask.”
The report of the gun made Arrianne’s ears ring.
The bum’s right knee exploded where she shot it. The bright bloom of red alone was nearly enough to bring Arrianne to the brink of orgasm. It was so beautiful. So right. Destruction of flesh was an intoxicant without rival. Ben—or whatever his name was; she was becoming confused on that point—pitched over, landing on his back as he clutched his ruined knee with shaking hands. Tears spilled from his eyes as he howled his agony, a sound so large it seemed to fill the entire forest.
