“You made us love you. Say it… Say it!” she screamed.
“I’m s-s-s-sss-sorry,” Richard whispered, his voice squeaking as it forced air out of his lungs. He could hear a hissing sound escaping the claw wounds in his torso.
“There, that wasn’t hard now, was it? We’re making progress, but you’re not there yet, man-whore. Oh no, I’ve got a lot more pain for you.” The voice was once more than of the womn in white. The dark chocolate skin of the sixteen-year-old classmate who had taken Richard’s virginity in an empty classroom during lunch on a Friday afternoon began to disappear. As she faded the woman in white returned. Yet her face was not quite as complete as it had been. She was old. Loose skin clung to her face, drooping in wrinkled jowls. Her teeth were twisted fangs, browned and yellowed from years of neglect. Her body too had changed: her pert, full breasts had now become sagging bags of rotting flesh. The nipples were black and festering, and they lactated sour milk the colour of concentrated pus.
“Well done, my lover. I see why they wanted you. Can you feel it building?” she asked as he began to rotate her hips once more. “Oh God. Here it comes, baby. Fuck me… fuckmefuckmefuckme!” She screamed in a manner that made Richard think of Linda Blair’s character in The Exorcist. She came, and came hard, her entire body tensing up in ecstasy the same way Richard’s had tensed with pain. It was then that he felt the snap. Her ravenous snatch took that last bite and severed his penis from his body. This new wave of pain shot through him like an adrenaline burst and Richard threw himself around on the bed. His wrists and ankles bled as he tried in vain to rip himself free from the shackles. The deep puncture wound in his chest continued to hemorrhage blood onto the bed.
The woman sat back on the bed, het feet planted on the mattress, her knees pulled apart to give Richard a good view of the show.
He looked down between his legs and saw nothing by a small bloody stump where his penis had once been.
Richard screamed…
…She laughed.
Richard raised his eyes and looked at her. Her face was filled by a smile so large it couldn’t possibly be faked. Richard couldn’t help but look down, and vomited when he saw the multitude of teeth that jutted from her engorged lips. They chewed on his penis with gusto with a sound akin to eating raw celery.
When he came to Richard sat up with a start. His hands grasped at his chest, his groin: everything was still there. He laid back, his body caked with a cold sweat. He could smell urine but didn’t care.
“It was just a dream… It was just a dream,” he repeated in a small voice. His chest burned as if he had just run a marathon. He gasped for air.
“You tell yourself that, sweet cheeks, but truth is I just ain’t done with you yet,” the lady in white said. Richard looked up and there she was, walking towards him, her nightdress falling to the floor. This time, when she straddled him, her body changed to someone else: Nancy Thomas, the daughter of his father’s business partner. Another one of his conquests.
Richard had no idea how long his torture continued. Each time he was ripped apart only to pass out and wake up as good as new. Then it would begin again. Sometimes his genitals would be flayed during a session of heavy bondage, the next day – for he thought of each session as being one day – they would be eaten in large chunks. His penis severed, bitten, cut, burnt, ripped, and pulled. Each time Richard would break sooner and sooner, apologizing for what he had done although she – his Lady in White – could tell when he meant it. When he had had enough. The pain never stopped, and as the days turned to weeks Richard was taken through every girl he had ever had. The stream of scorned lovers seemed endless.
Until…
Richard opened his eyes; he remained still, for he knew he couldn’t escape even though she had removed his bonds after the first few days. Looking around the room, Richard saw the walls had darkened yet another shade; they were now a deep red. Every day when he woke it was different, going from off white to pink, darkening in colour. Richard had long ago realized that the goal was for them to be the colour of blood… his blood. Maybe then it would be over; perhaps only a few more days, Richard thought to himself.
The lady in white appeared – the young (hot) version. She was pale, translucent, as if she were fading as his time with her drew to a close. She walked towards the bed, the sway of her hips lost. Her negligee still clung to her skin, but today she left it on. There was no need for her to change: his time was done. She had been told, the walls were full, and her superiors had decreed that time was time and the judgment was to be passed.
“What, who are we today?” Richard asked.
She said nothing as she idled up to the bed, climbing onto him. Her eyes were fixed on Richard and she heard his question, but today she was not in the mood to talk.
“I asked you a question. Who are you today? I’m sorry; I never meant to sleep you. I understand now that I was the destructive point in your life… all their lives. Even the successful ones, those that are still alive and living a good life. Is that enough? Tell me what to say,” Richard half commanded and half pleaded.
“Poor puppy, your time here has reached its end, I have come to judge you – so play nice. For I and I alone get to decide which chamber you are sent to, so bite your tongue,” she said, and then, moving with the quickness of a striking snake, she kissed him. It was a passionate kiss, a lover’s kiss. Her entire face melted away, once again revealing the ugly truth beneath her attractive exterior.
She broke their kiss and bit into Richard’s tongue before he opened his eyes. A mere heartbeat later her face was back to the beautiful woman in white.
“Who are you?” Richard mumbled as his mouth filled with blood. After what felt like years of abuse Richard had built an affinity with the woman.
“That doesn’t matter. Today is the last day you will see me. I am here to judge you. Your crimes were heinous, maybe not in the eyes of humanity, but your thoughtless fornication was a crime against the eyes of...” She paused, swallowing as if something was caught in her throat. “Your God,” she said weakly.
“What?” Richard began.
“I know where I’m sending you. Somewhere not related to your overactive penis, but a chamber that will address your wastefulness, your belligerent spoilt attitude and wanton disregard for those less fortunate. But first, let me give you a taste of real pleasure, just a final reward…” Her words trailed off as she kissed her way down Richard’s stomach, stroking his skin with her curled, blackened fingernails, although they curled around on themselves and formed a sharp point, looking more like a scorpion’s tail.
Richard tensed, grimaced against the stinging pain as her claws effortlessly sliced through his flesh, peeling it away in thin strips like the tab around a packet of biscuits; take it all the way around and he package spills open, exposing all the goodies stored within. She licked and kissed the wounds, lapping at the blood that flowed into her mouth. She looked up at Richard once, as her mouth began to envelope his throbbing – and once again reattached –penis.
Richard screamed, his teeth clenched so hard his jaw began to cramp. His eyes sealed so tight that he saw stars. It felt as though a belt sander had been turned on and applied to his cock in an effort to smooth out the ridges.
“You may be done here, but I get one more day of you all to myself. See, you’re something special; they’re all talking about it, the ones deeper down; the powerful ones. They don’t tell us, but we hear the rumours, and I’ve just got to have a taste of you myself,” she said as she then resumed her sensual, grating fellatio.
The pain was intense, yet not unbearable. Rather than the white-hot agony of the physical torture it merely felt as though her jaw was not opened far enough and so her teeth scraped against his skin, like a tired hooker at the end of a long day.
“Wow, for a sexual tormenter you’re really not very good at this,” Richard groaned. He raised his head and looked down at her. His penis was dotted with blood, a few small dots here and
there like a chin after shaving with an old razor. He tried to jerk away but she held him in place with one powerful hand.
“Oh, I like to take my time. I’m gonna suck you dry, baby,” she said with a smile, and this time when her face changed it stayed that way. Thick, pulsing, purple veins marked her back like an atlas. Her mouth devoured him and with each abrasive stroke she made Richard could feel another layer of skin being stripped away.
The blood flowed, leaking from the corners of her mouth, but her tempo never changed. With an assured rhythm, the demon known in her section of the underworld simply as Margeth worked Richard’s penis like a lollypop. She could feel it getting smaller and smaller in her mouth. It didn’t soften but shrank. His blood tasted strong; different to anything she had ever tasted. She knew it was wrong; there would be repercussions for sampling him, but sometimes, even in the pit – not that this was the pit, not even a suburb, more like a satellite town – the rules sometimes had to be broken.
“Stop, please,” Richard groaned through gritted teeth. His brain exploded as white hot flames lit up the darkness behind his closed eyes.
Margeth looked at him, her eyes black. In the centre of each was a red dot. The spots grew and grew until they consumed her eyes. They flickered, as if something was on fire deep inside her demon shell. Margeth jumped away from the bed, her hands clawing at her throat, choking and coughing in wet gargled gasps for air. Her eyes were wide and a pink foam began to leak from her eyes, her nose, her mouth; every orifice had developed a leak. Margeth fell to the floor and Richard could hear her sizzling like meat placed on a barbeque. Smoke drifted from her nostrils and ears in delicate white tendrils.
“You… You don’t ev-e-even know, do you?” Margeth stared at Richard, although he could tell she was blind. Her eyes were swollen. The jelly within each ball bubbled and boiled before they exploded, showering Richard with warm jelly.
Margeth leapt towards him, her claws elongated, slimy lips pulled back to reveal sharp needle teeth eager to take one last bite, and it was then that Richard felt the invisible forces that held him to the bed disappear. Richard sat up, his reactions quicker and more fluid that he had expected them to be. His crotch burnt but he knew, or at least hoped with a vague sense of certainty, that it would heal. The bleeding had already stopped. Richard stood. His body felt strange, like a sailor setting his feet back on dry land after months at sea.
Richard walked towards Margeth, who lay on the floor, curled double in pain, her skin red and flushed as the fire Richard had seen ignite behind her eyes devoured the rest of her. She looked scared. Out of all of the emotions he had expected to consume him should escape ever been an option, Richard had never once run through the scenario using pity as the driving force. Yet standing there Richard realized there was no other emotion that could be more fittingly used to describe what he felt.
Behind him, Richard felt a cool breeze blowing, as if a door or window had been opened. He began to turn when the voice spoke.
“Come; we have little time.” It was a tired, scratchy voice and before Richard could answer he felt a hand fall on his shoulder. He was engulfed with light. Richard lost all sense of direction and purpose and so allowed the light to envelope him. “The poison won’t slow her for long,” the voice said.
Richard had no idea for how long they travelled, but as they rose he passed through several levels of screams, each one separated by a few moments of silence. Richard could not bring himself to open his eyes, not even the smallest of cracks lest it all was a dream and he was still tied to a bed, held by the ropes of hell. After a while the sounds disappeared, replaced instead by silence: a warm, airless silence.
Finally they stopped. Richard felt solid ground beneath him; he felt his legs tense up as his fully body weight was lowered back onto them. It was hot and there was an abrasive wind that scratched at his face and irritated his sensitive new skin.
His crotch continued to throb.
“You can open your eyes now. It’s quite safe.” The voice speaking to him was one of kindness. Richard opened his eyes and felt his body tense in preparation for what awaited him.
Pain; bright flaring pain seared his eyeballs and he clamped them shut again.
Richard raised his hands to his face and then tried again, peering through his fingers, first his left eye, then his right, and then finally both of them. After a few seconds he lowered his hands and stood squinting, looking out from a great height across an endless desert.
“Where am I now? What’s waiting for me here?” he questioned, not fully trusting anything anymore. It hadn’t taken Richard long to accept that he was dead, and he was strangely okay with that fact. What had hit him was the punishment he received; not from Margeth but from himself. Not a day went by that he didn’t recall some moment or incident from his past that he regretted. Emotions felt stronger: grief felt like despair to him, sadness felt like a black heavy depression, seconds felt like hours, and each moment saw Richard slip farther and deeper into his own mental hell until it reached the point where he would almost look forward to the physical pain.
“You are safe,” the man said. Richard turned to face him. He had to squint in order to focus. The light and fresh air seemed to overload his mind. The man was short, much shorter than Richard, and old, at least sixty if he was a day; but then again time seemed to have a strange way of drawing across life’s sky and so the man could well have been older than the earth itself. He was as good as bald and his skin so tanned and weathered by the elements that it looked as if it were made of leather. He wore a long, brown robe like a monk, and in one hand he held a long, thick, wooden staff. The image that came to Richard’s mind was the love child between Friar Tuck and one of the Buddhist monks whose orange robes were famous across the globe.
“How long have I been dead?” he asked, his voice shaking. Did he really want to know the answer?
“In the time of this world it has been ten years. A lot less back in the world you occupied previously, but still ten years remains a decade,” the man answered.
“Ten years. Fuck no. That’s not possible.” Richard opened his mouth to continue when he realized that the time for such a limited way of thinking was past. “I’m in Hell,” Richard said under his breath.
“Well, not exactly. I cannot take you to where you want to go, but only where you need. Your righteousness must be tested, and you must not be found wanting in order to move on.” The stranger remained standing. One arm held the staff, the other hung by his side. Another gust of warm air wrapped around them, howling a sad, lonely cry, and it made the hairs on the back of Richards’s neck stand on end.
“Who are you?” he asked. “Why did you save me?” The question needed to be asked. Richard wasn’t a saint; he didn’t deserve to be rescued, or so he himself believed.
“I am Jizo, a wanderer of the spirit world. Now you must begin. I cannot be here when you do; the challenge of righteousness must be undertaken alone,” he said, moving his head to one side. It made him look inquisitive and was the first sign of any real life inside his leathered exterior. He looked at Richard. His eyes seemed to burn a hole through his skin; he wasn’t looking at him, or through him, but in him.
“What am I supposed to do? We’re stuck on a mountaintop in the middle of the fucking desert, and what you want me to just take a walk. Some Indian spirit quest or something like that. How am I even supposed to get down from here?” Richard asked, throwing his arms out wide in a sign of his exasperation and growing frustration.
“I cannot help you. Your test is your own; only you can decide its course. I am sorry it must be this way.” He paused for a moment, and looked at Richard before beginning again, adding a second statement: “We will meet again at the end, and then I can take you where you need to go.”
With his words spoken Jizo raised his staff and was gone, and with nothing more than a rush of wind Richard found himself alone.
~
IV
Helen: It’s the Quie
t Ones You Have to Watch
The sound of water running – a small stream or a brook – roused Helen from sleep. It was a peaceful, serene sound, one promoting a quiet, restful place, bordering on idyllic. A cool breeze brushed her skin, her auburn hair, longer now that it was when she had first died, wafted, submitting itself to the will of the wind. She didn’t want to open her eyes, but once she was awake there was little choice left in the matter. The pain would begin and then there was no choice but to open, to see what clever way of torturing her he had come up with this time.
“Good morning, beautiful. How are we feeling today?” a sneering snarl of a voice asked. It was always him. Deep inside, beneath the disguises he wore, it was always him. Luther was the name he had used when he introduced himself.
“Bite me,” Helen answered, spitting the words like a feral cat. Cornered and out of options, she would fight until she had nothing left to give.
“Ooh, now there’s an idea,” he sneered once more. Even with her eyes closed she knew he would be leaning in close to her, his thick lips pulled back, exposing his yellowed teeth. She felt his rancid breath heat her skin.
Helen shuddered. Her mind struggled to keep hold of the sound of the brook running its course through wherever she was. Then, without thinking any longer, she opened her eyes. Luther stepped back, allowing her to look around her. He liked to take things slow – but Helen knew that.
The light hurt her eyes. She was outside for the first time in many sessions. She saw the stream. It was crystal clear and babbled like the picture perfect brook it was. Wildflowers grew on the shallow banks: yellows, purples, reds, their flowers all facing her, watching. They were in a wood, not quite a forest but approaching it. She could hear insects buzzing all around her and the floor beneath her bare feet was carpeted by pine needles, yet the trees were all green. None of it fully matched. All four seasons seemed to be represented as if that somehow made the whole scenario more real. It was the only thing she ever looked for now. The small conflict of details that told her it was just a trick; another one of Luther’s games that would end with her blood being spilt regardless of how she played.
Highway To Hell Page 12
