Voices From The Other Side

by Brandon Massey

  “Introducing the new king of the jungle! Let’s all give a red-hot Silvia’s kind of welcome to Kelly!” It was Silvia’s voice rising above the thump of the music and the roar of the crowd to introduce him, and when the music returned to full volume, the midrange portion seemed to have dropped out the bottom, and all Kelly could hear was the bang of the bass like the pounding of some tribal drum, and he began to move, to gyrate his pelvis, which made the meat pouch jump. And even through the fur sling, all those hungry ladies could see the size and shape of Kelly’s endowment, and it was driving them mad.

  “Take it off, baby!”

  “Bring it over here, big pappa!”

  And the balled green bills were like breadcrumbs, being flipped onto the stage to entice him in the direction of the biggest spenders. Kelly strutted toward the most money, feeling the bills crumple under his bare feet, feeling the weight of his cock double as with a simple unsnap the pouch opened and the junk flopped out of the trunk. And then Kelly was stroking the growing serpent, and then he was pumping his hips to swing it, making it slap his sternum on the up and allowing it to fly back between his legs to spank his ass on the down.

  And the ladies were up and out of their seats, reams of big bosoms jostling, pair after pair of juicy lips pursing. They tucked bills behind the elastic of his loincloth, which remained in place even while the pouch was open and his goodies out. Hands groped and grabbed, large hands mostly, attached to very big women like Silvia and Big Mamma. Upheaved bosoms offered glistening cleavage for the serpent’s kiss, and Kelly obliged, grinding his hardness into the bosoms of the hungry, allowing three or four Janes to swing from Tarzan’s vine at a time, sitting on laps while facing the females, as to make a sandwich of his meat between his body and theirs.

  And all the red tongues were licking the red lips, and all the eyes bore the same insatiable hunger-light. And soon the women could not contain themselves, could not restrain themselves to just rubbing and being rubbed by it. They wanted to sample the meat, to taste its flavor.

  As the first mouth sealed around the dome, Kelly hadn’t realized what was happening. All he’d known was that the velvet warmth was further distraction from the pain in his balls.

  “It’s so fucking big,” a rugged female-voice screamed over the din, and then a head pushed its way up under his arm to get at his chest, to get a long tongue to work at teasing his right nipple. Something was happening in the crowd. A chair fell over somewhere, and then another and another. The howls of a boisterous good time found a new threatening high, and it was no longer the whooping of the fun loving, but the howling of several dozen hungry huntresses.

  There was a woman between Kelly’s legs on the floor then, her mouth seeking out his scrotum, jaws stretching to engulf it. There were hands on his ass, fingers in his ass and lips all over him, kissing and licking. Two meaty hands encircled the face of the woman whose mouth had the pleasure of pleasuring him, and with vicious fervor, that face was wrenched from its post of worship and dragged backward into the crowd. In its place, three rotund faces leaped into focus, mouths open, white teeth glistening.

  The suddenness startled Kelly, and he tried to take a reverse step, which caused him to trip over the women at his feet. He toppled backward on top of them, and like obese, seething snakes, they wormed beneath him, all hands and hunger. The spear of his erection swayed where it aimed for the rafters, while Silvia’s voice, now panicked, flooded the loudspeakers again. Silvia instructed the ladies to find their seats, but all ears were deaf, and all eyes were blind to anything but the beauty of Kelly’s organ.

  His penis was like that—it provoked intense reaction.

  A woman built like a sumo wrestler and not wearing any panties tried to mount him. Knocking several others out of her path, she squatted, took him into hand, aimed and inserted. She’d been ready to drop the all of her considerable weight upon his spear when a folded chair was leveled against her bulk and she was toppled to one side. Kelly’s heart leaped as a half dozen fresh pairs of lips began to kiss and caress his length, more joining every moment, knees in his chest, bodies pinning his hands and pinning other bodies, appetites engulfing him. He was pinned under too much lady-flesh to measure, pinned just as he’d been pinned in the showers—pinned, as always, because of his big dick.

  He cried out for help, but no one came.

  The first bite was just a nip, an unusually sharp eyetooth catching the ridge of his pronounced helmet, scratching it. But then the sharks tasted the blood in the water, and each one, desiring nothing so much as to possess more of him than the next woman, bared her teeth.

  It was an enormous, bloated face with teeth like pearl razors set behind a row of iron braces that took the head off, chewing rather than spitting even as the carmine spray flashed her and a half dozen others in the face.

  After that, the mouths were indiscriminate, each gaping to consume a bigger chunk than the one before, while Kelly twitched. He was a short-circuited sex toy vibrating underneath them as they ate down the pole of him, snapping and biting at each other in the awful process.

  Madness flooded their eyes.

  Blood flooded their eyes.

  And somewhere there were sirens, and everywhere there were screams, though the convulsive sputters coming up from Kelly’s throat had turned to a tortured kind of chuckle. His scrotum came out from between his legs in a ragged tatter as the last of the cannibal females was pulled out of his lap by an officer’s nightstick hooked under her chin. Kelly convulsed while it happened, but returned again to a chuckle bisected by desperate gasps.

  The paramedics and the police seemed to be hovering very high above him, their voices ringing out of truth, their horror-contorted faces telling the terror of his condition, all their eyes locked on the raw absence where genitalia had been. Josh was there sobbing like a baby. He’d snuck in to watch the show no doubt, and had seen much more than he’d hoped for. Kelly’s teeth ground together as through a growing haze he watched the man’s eyes. Josh was crying for the meat, Kelly knew.

  The dark was creeping across his vision from the outer corners of both eyes like a curtain being closed as the paramedics began packing the wound with gauze, and laying very still now and feeling very warm even though his body temperature was dropping, Kelly could think no thought but one. He had a message for Josh and for Sheila and for all the others—a message for the world. Reaching, touching Josh’s hand, his eyes did the rest of the job in drawing Josh down onto his knees, near enough to hear.

  Perhaps Kelly’s larynx pushed the whisper out, and perhaps his lips could only shape the words. Maybe it was neither and the thought inside his skull never made itself known at all, but what ticked in his brain before the dark sealed around him was five simple words echoed again and again:

  It don’t hurt . . . no more.

  It don’t hurt . . .

  no . . .

  more.

  Milez to Go

  Linda Addison

  Angelique leaned against the bar and watched Sara, the club owner, and a man she didn’t know place the upright acoustic piano next to the slim black case housing her protoplasmic synthesizer. The Funky Piranha club looked forlorn with its empty tables in the dining room and the strings of tiny red and green lights blinking on the ceiling. The slight scent of beer wafted into the air from the wood floor. Later that night, the club would be filled with people who were in New Orleans for the music festival.

  Angelique tapped the small, silver derm phone disk attached behind her right earlobe. “Phone on. Dial Brenda.”

  Her cousin’s phone rang. “Damn,” Angelique said as the message played. “Brenda, it’s me again. I’ve been calling for days. Where are you? I just got into town and was planning on staying at your place. If you’re holed up there with Clint, let me know so I don’t embarrass myself interrupting your playtime. I can find another place to stay. Either way, call me.”

  She tapped the derm phone off, frowning. “Careful, don’t lift it too qu
ickly,” she said to Sara. “Just place it at right angles. I’ll adjust it.”

  They set the piano down gently. The man walked behind the bar to set up for tonight. Sara’s cream-colored dreadlocks were sprinkled with tiny purple lights that flickered as she moved. She rolled her violet eyes. “Angelique, after five years, I think I know how to handle your equipment. I see you’re still using the acoustic. I would have thought Milez would be enough.” She gently patted the interface grid on top of the black protoplasmic container.

  A soft gold light came on in the bottom of the tank. A tube of blue protoplasm snaked its way through clear liquid to the top, became a shape resembling a hand, splashed the inside of the grid, broke into round drops and folded back into the liquid. A deep, smoky male voice said, “It’s all good. There’s plenty of room for me and the wood.”

  Sara jumped. “Damn, I’ve never heard it talk like that.”

  “Brenda bioengineered a personal upgrade for me. It took longer to train it to speak everyday language, but I prefer that over ‘System is functional’.” Angelique changed the angle of the protoplasm to the acoustic piano so she could comfortably reach the protoplasm interface grid and the keyboard.

  “How’s that cousin of yours? Still doing hush-hush cutting-edge research over at Biolution?” Sara asked, standing next to Angelique.

  Angelique nodded.

  Sara wrapped her arm around Angelique’s waist and whispered in her ear, “No one plays neo-bop like Tempus Fugit. Some folks were here last night asking if your group would be performing. I can’t wait to hear you play tonight. Want to come upstairs for dinner and a little distraction before the show?”

  Angelique gave her a quick hug. “I’m a little worried about Brenda.” She smiled. “Maybe we can get together after the set tonight. I need to go to her place and find out why she hasn’t answered my calls for the last couple of weeks.”

  “You know how that girl gets caught up in things. She’s probably just working on some new project.” Sara ran her fingers through Angelique’s long braids. “I’d go with you to see her, but my skin’s not too fond of afternoon sun. If there’s any problem with a place to stay, you can always crash here.”

  “Thanks,” Angelique said. She gently patted Milez’s interface grid. “See you soon.”

  “You know it, baby,” Milez said.

  Angelique picked up her suitcase and walked out of the cool air of the club into New Orleans’ humid, sunny streets. The corner vendors were setting up their food and drink booths. The wrought iron balconies were elaborately decorated with flowers and streamers. It was easy to catch a taxi, since most people were at the race track for the afternoon concerts. Tonight the streets would be so full of people, no taxi would come near the French Quarter.

  The taxi dropped Angelique in front of Brenda’s apartment building. She walked to the second floor and put her thumb on the lock pad. The panel asked for a retina scan as a secondary security check. She sighed. Brenda used that lock only when she was out of town. The apartment door slid open.

  Angelique walked in and pushed through an invisible membrane, the threshold of a strong protective spell. She frowned. A spell this intense had to be coming from someone nearby. She put the suitcase down.

  “Brenda?”

  The living room window shutters were closed, making the room night-dark on a sunny afternoon. Angelique turned on the light. The room was in more disarray than usual for her cousin, with plates of half-eaten food and stained cups on the coffee table and mantel piece. The plants near the windows were wilted, and the kitchen, dining area and guest bedroom were empty. She opened the door to the main bedroom at the back of the apartment and turned the light on.

  Her cousin lay in the center of the bed as if asleep, her mocha-brown skin washed out, almost gray.

  Angelique rushed over.

  “Brenda, wake up.”

  She shook her cousin. Brenda radiated the protection spell, but didn’t wake. Angelique checked her breathing and pulse.

  “Damn it,” Angelique said, sitting down on the bed. “What kind of trouble are you in this time?” She didn’t like using magic, but there was only one way to get through to Brenda while she was in this state.

  Angelique lay down next to her cousin and held her hand. After taking three slow breaths, Angelique chanted:

  “We two,

  both light and dark—

  I, the shadow,

  You, my kin,

  Let me in,

  Let me in.”

  Angelique closed her eyes and matched her breathing and heartbeat to those of her cousin. Within minutes she entered Brenda’s dream state.

  They stood back-to-back, looking out on hills covered in warm mist. Shadows moved in the mist. Still back-to-back, they grasped each other’s hands. Suddenly a cold wind whipped through the air, taking their breath away, sending chills through them. They had to clasp hands tightly not to be separated.

  “Who are you?” a mechanical voice asked.

  Resisting the strong pull to say her name, Angelique let Brenda answer, submitting her will to Brenda’s.

  Brenda became rigid against Angelique.

  “I am Brenda Wilson.”

  “Nosliw adnerb.” The voice said Brenda’s name backwards.

  They lay in a container no bigger than their bodies. They couldn’t move. There was a murmur of voices in the background, people chanting, their words indistinguishable.

  Pins and needles pinched at their hands. Coldness spread slowly from the tops of their heads toward their feet. Angelique felt the life draining from their bodies. She melted into the numbing stupor.

  “Show me what you found,” the voice commanded.

  Images swirled around them chaotically, moving faster and faster, until Angelique was so dizzy she thought she would black out.

  A boom crashed in the air. Brenda’s voice screamed a protective spell over and over.

  They stood back-to-back, looking out on hills covered in warm mist. Shadows moved in the mist. Still back-to-back, they grasped each other’s hands. Suddenly a cold wind whipped through the air, taking their breath away, sending chills through them. They had to clasp hands tightly not to be separated.

  “Who are you?” a mechanical voice asked.

  Each time Brenda screamed the protective spell, the dream repeated.

  Each iteration dragged Angelique farther from her own will. She pushed all her attention to the in-and-out movement of air through her lungs. Refusing to pay attention to the physical sensations in their dream bodies, she concentrated on her breathing.

  When the dream began again, Angelique turned to face Brenda. The voice that Brenda was fighting asked, “You are not her. Who are you?” Angelique screamed,

  “No,” stretched her arms into a blanket shape around Brenda and, with a gasp, dragged both of them to consciousness.

  Shadows in the bedroom seemed to compress and expand, as if taking deep breaths. One blink, and everything looked normal.

  Brenda moaned, opened her eyes, sat up and looked around the room. “Angelique?” Brenda grabbed her hands, sending sparkling energy back and forth. “It’s you, not the dream. You’re really here?”

  “It’s me.” The luminosity from her cousin burned her fingertips.

  Brenda switched on the nightstand light, touched Angelique’s face and braids, and started crying.

  Angelique held her, letting her cry for a few moments, before pulling away gently. “What’s going on here, Brenda? I had to go into the dream or nightmare or whatever that was to wake you.”

  Brenda sat back against the pillows. “They’re after me, but now that you’re here, it’s going to be all right.”

  “What was all that?”

  “You were in the dream?” Brenda asked.

  Angelique nodded.

  “I thought I was imagining you.” Brenda rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. “Did you see them?”

  Angelique shook her head. “I’m not sure what I saw.
It was jumbled. Voices and images I couldn’t make out. They said your name backwards with such power.”

  Brenda ran her fingers through her short-cropped curls. “I wanted to call you before now, but I was afraid they would go after you. This attack came while I was asleep. If you hadn’t come in, I don’t know how much longer I could have held out.” She took a gulp of water from a bottle at the nightstand. “Remember how we combined our power when we were kids and saved Grandmom from that ghost?”

  Angelique rubbed the tension out of the back of her neck. “That didn’t feel like a ghost. It felt like a living person with a lot of power. Someone who knows how to use it. Does this involve the Order?”

  Brenda nodded. “I think it’s someone in the Order. You and Grandmom were right. Magic and groups of humans don’t go together. Too much ego involved. I left them.”

  “What about Clint?” Angelique asked.

  Brenda closed her eyes. “We’re over.”

  Angelique breathed through the intense, tingling light coming from her cousin. “I’m sorry. You two were so good together.”

  Brenda shook her head. “Well, it’s better this way. He’ll be safer without me.”

  She slumped back against the pillows. “While I was in the Order, I met wonderful people. It was great being able to talk openly about magic with others. We had an influx of new members in the last six months, and there was a subtle change in the group’s dynamics. Some underlying negative power.

  “Clint and I talked about it, and he brought it to the attention of the executive board of the Order. There was an investigation. They found no evidence of magic being used in a dark manner.” She stopped, and rubbed her forehead.