Bottle Full Of Scorpions

by John Dominick

  I would have given anything to do what he was doing.

  I would have given my life.

  Her hands fumbled with his jeans and boxers and pushed them down over his hips. He kicked them off, then got up on his knees and pulled at her shorts. She lifted her ass up off the floor, and both her shorts and her underwear came away.

  God oh God oh God, my dick hurt so bad.

  Her ass was perfect against the cement, the most beautiful curve you could imagine. At the base of her belly, where her legs joined her body, a dark little puff of curls glittered in the moonlight.

  She opened her legs and Craig moved over her, bracing himself on his forearms. He positioned his legs over hers, and then he slowly eased himself inside of her.

  She gasped.

  My heart felt like it was going to break.

  After a few seconds, his ass moved up in the air, slowly. Then back down, slowly. Up, then down. Up, then down.

  Her hands were clutching at his back.

  He started to move faster.

  I could see her breasts jiggle back and forth, like they were disconnected from her body.

  I reached a hand down to my pants and pressed lightly against my cock.

  Pleasure shot up and down my whole dick. I pressed harder.

  They were fucking. This was the first time I had ever seen it.

  It was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen my entire life.

  And I would have given the rest of my life if I could have just been the one fucking her instead of Craig.

  She started to breathe faster and moan a little bit, like she was sighing loud.

  Craig kept quiet as he started to ram into her a little bit faster…and a little bit faster…

  There was a wet slapping sound, like smacking your stomach lightly in the shower.

  I could smell something in the air, a scent like B.O., but sweeter. Damp and sweet.

  She started saying things under her breath. Like, “Oh God…oh fuck…oh Jesus…oh fuck…”

  Hearing her say that…it drove me crazy. I couldn’t stop myself.

  I carefully…and very, very quietly…unzipped my own pants. Bit by bit, so slow…by the time the zipper was halfway down, the head of my cock was bursting out of my fly, harder than it had ever been my entire life. The tip was already soaked with that clear, gooey stuff that comes out before you actually jizz.

  I started to touch myself.

  Her breasts were jiggling and shaking like little earthquakes were rumbling through them. Her ass was moving up off the floor a little as Craig pulled out farther and farther, and pounded deeper and harder into her.

  I grabbed my cock in my hand and started stroking it up and down, imagining that it was her pussy around me instead.

  Her mouth was open, panting, her lips glistening in the moonlight. I could hear her words louder, a deep whisper now, “Yes fuck me fuck me harder fuck me fuck me – ”

  I imagined she was saying Yes fuck me Ben fuck me harder Ben fuck me Ben fuck me –

  Craig reached up and put his hand on her shoulder, then slid her across the floor towards his hips.

  Her lips disappeared, and her eyes showed up in the gap in the cans. She opened her lids halfway and rolled her head to the side – towards me.

  Before I forgot that I wasn’t supposed to be watching, our eyes met.

  She screamed.

  34

  Everything happened all at once.

  Craig pulled out of her and leapt to his feet. “WHAT?! WHAT IS IT?!” he yelled.

  Noelle scrambled away, knocking over cans with a clatter. She held her arm to her breasts, trying to cover them up.

  Jon jolted awake, mumbling, “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  Kristin just screamed.

  Craig squinted at the bunker doors, as though he expected to see a bug had slipped through and was about to kill them both.

  Then his eyes found me.

  Cold terror was rushing through me, turning my stomach sick. I tried to stuff my dick back in my pants, but it was still too hard, and my pants were too tight. I reached down for the zipper –

  Craig looked down and saw my dick hanging out, and a blazing light of hatred went off in his eyes.

  “YOU SICK MOTHERFUCKER!” he screamed, and kicked me hard in the ribs. Thank God he didn’t have shoes on, or he would have broken some bones. As it was, even in bare feet, he goddamn near punched a hole through my side.

  Then he did it again. And again.

  “MOTHERFUCKER! YOU SICK MOTHERFUCKER!” he kept screaming as he kicked me over and over.

  I rolled over on my side and curled up into a ball. Whatever problem I’d had before with my dick being too hard, there wasn’t one now. It shriveled away inside my underwear.

  “STOP IT, CRAIG!” I heard Noelle screaming. “STOP IT, STOP IT!”

  “What the fuck?” I heard Jon shouting. “What the fuck is going on?”

  “THIS SICK – MOTHERFUCKER – WAS JACKING OFF – TO MY GIRLFRIEND!” Craig howled, kicking me every time he paused.

  He dropped down on top of me, and I felt the first fist hammer my face.

  Then another one.

  My lip split open. I tasted copper in my mouth.

  My gun, I thought. I reached out with one hand, and tried to lift my other arm up to shield me from getting punched again. My gun, I need my gun –

  “GET OFF HIM!” Jon yelled as he pulled Craig away. He still got in another punch, but not quite as hard this time.

  My eyes were all bleary. It took me a second to focus.

  There was my rifle lying on the floor.

  When I reached for it, my hand was black with blood in the moonlight.

  Craig saw what I was reaching for, too.

  “Oh no you DON’T,” he yelled as he rushed forward and stomped on my forearm.

  Like I said, I’m lucky he didn’t have shoes on. Otherwise he would have snapped my bones like dried-out sticks.

  I howled in pain and rolled up in a ball again.

  Craig leaned over and grabbed the gun. I could hear it scraping across the cement.

  “Did you see what he was doing?!” Craig barked. “Did you see that? The motherfucker spies on us having sex, and then he was going to fucking shoot me! Did you see that?”

  “Get the fuck back – Jesus,” Jon said. He was trying not to look at Craig’s dick. “Christ, can you put on some fucking clothes?”

  Craig stepped back, knocking over some cans, and hunted for his jeans.

  I raised my head off the floor. Every inch of my body hurt, but I had to see.

  Noelle had hastily put on her bra and her shorts, and was tugging her t-shirt over her head. Her perfect breasts disappeared as she pulled the shirt down over her chest and belly.

  Kristin had joined her and was squatting next to her, whispering something in her ear. Noelle shook her head, then crossed her arms over her chest like she was trying to protect herself.

  From me.

  “I’m…I’m sorry…” I said.

  It was probably hard to make out what I was saying, between my split lip and all the blood in my mouth.

  “What?” Jon asked, like he couldn’t understand me. Later on I figured out he was just surprised that the guy who’d gotten beat to a pulp was the one apologizing, but all I could hear in his voice was disgust.

  I spat out some blood. Thankfully no teeth.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered as I looked at Noelle.

  “YOU DON’T TALK TO HER!” Craig screamed. He had his jeans on now, and he stalked over towards me, knocking cans every which way, the rifle clutched in one hand. “YOU DON’T FUCKING TALK TO HER, YOU DON’T FUCKING LOOK AT HER, YOU DON’T FUCKING THINK ABOUT HER!”

  He raised the gun up in the air with two hands like he was going to bring the stock down and split my skull.

  I raised my arms up helplessly as I laid on my back. Like I even had a chance at stopping him from killing me.

  Jon pushed Craig and kept hims
elf between the two of us. “Get the fuck back, Craig!”

  “You didn’t see what he did!”

  “I see that you beat the fucking shit out of him, that’s what I see!”

  I pulled myself up to a seated position. It felt like somebody was sticking me with red hot screwdrivers all over my stomach.

  Craig glared down at me. “This skinny little fucked up piss drinking son of a bitch was watching my girlfriend and jacking off!”

  “Yeah, while you were what, fucking her?” Jon asked. “Jesus, dude, seriously, couldn’t you two wait till tomorrow?”

  “He was jacking off to Noelle!”

  “He’s a geek!” Jon shouted back. “And he’s probably a fucking virgin!”

  Every word Jon said hurt worse than what Craig had done to me.

  Because she was listening.

  “He’s been living by himself for months with a couple of titty rags for company,” Jon continued. “What the hell did you expect him to do when you’re fucking her two feet away from him?!”

  Without any warning, Craig punched Jon in the mouth.

  Jon staggered back, paused in disbelief, and then leaped forward.

  “STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT!” Noelle screamed. Her hands clutched the air like she was trying to tear it. “STOP!”

  Jon and Craig both froze and looked down at her.

  “Just…stop,” she whispered.

  Jon wiped his mouth, then spat on the ground. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

  Craig glared down at me, the rifle still in his hand. “Oh yeah we will.”

  After a few more seconds of looking real pissed off, Jon lowered himself to the floor. “Everybody just…go back to sleep. We’ll talk about it tomorrow morning.”

  Craig slowly turned away from me, but he kept watching me over his shoulder. He put the rifle on the floor next to where he had been sleeping...and having sex with Noelle.

  Then he started to stack the cans back into a wall, glaring at me the whole time he did it.

  Behind the cans, Noelle slowly disappeared from view.

  This time I didn’t know if she was looking at me or not…because I was the one who couldn’t raise my eyes off the floor.

  We were all silent as Craig finished up the wall, metal clacking against metal, metal grating against cement.

  The only other sound was the bugs at the door.

  I don’t know if it was the screaming or the smell of blood, but there were more of them. And they were going wilder than usual.

  When the clacking and scraping was finished, there was only the flicking of their tails, twice as loud as normal.

  SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA

  Between that sound and the pain all over my face and body – and worse, in my heart – it took me a long, long time to fall asleep.

  35

  I woke up stiff and hurting. It felt like somebody had run me over with a truck, backed up over me, and then run me over again for good measure.

  For a long time I just lay there. Until I heard somebody opening a can of food.

  I turned my head to look. One of my eyes was so swollen, I could barely see anything out of it.

  Craig was using the opener on a can of fruit. My gun was across his lap.

  He just stared at me the whole time, daring me to say something.

  I didn’t. I just turned my head in the other direction and looked at the door while I listened to him make wet noises, picking the pears out of the syrup and slurping them down.

  Tears stung my eyes.

  I wanted to kill him so bad.

  The others started moving. I just watched the crack of sunlight through the doors.

  After awhile, somebody put a hand gently on my shoulder. I looked up.

  It was Noelle, squatting down next to me.

  I looked away immediately, ashamed.

  She held out a can of peaches and set it down on the concrete next to my face. “You should eat,” she said, then moved away.

  At least she doesn’t hate me, I thought.

  It took me a couple of minutes, but I braced one arm under me and finally pushed my way up to a seated position. I sat facing the crack in the doors, my back to everybody else in the room. I didn’t want to see them.

  I pulled peaches out of the can and pinched little pieces off, then put the pieces inside my lips. It probably looked like I was doing chaw, but it felt like I was pouring alcohol over big, raw sores in my mouth. After the pain died down, I would mash the peaches up with my tongue and swallow them. I didn’t actually chew because that hurt too much.

  It must’ve taken me twenty minutes to get halfway through the can. By that time everybody else was finished, and I could feel everybody looking at me. There was this weird silence, like everybody was embarrassed and nobody wanted to speak.

  Except Craig. He probably didn’t give a shit.

  “Alright,” Jon started. He was trying to sound like he was in control, but he didn’t quite make it. “So…we need to talk about what went on last night.”

  “No we don’t,” Craig said automatically.

  I turned around halfway. Real slow, cause it hurt like hell to turn my neck.

  Over in the corner, the girls were huddled together and looking like they would have given just about anything to go picnic outside with the bugs. Anything but be here.

  Craig was looking like he owned the fucking place. The rifle was still on his lap.

  “We don’t need to say anything about last night, except that it’s not going to happen again,” Craig continued.

  He sounded the way Jon wanted to sound: in control.

  Then he smirked at me. “Right…Ben?”

  Like, Right, old buddy, old pal?

  I glanced at him, then I looked away at the wall.

  “RIGHT, Ben?” Craig repeated, angry this time.

  After a few seconds, I shook my head ‘yes,’ real slow and silent.

  “Well, that settles that,” Craig said, and stood up.

  I held out my hand.

  Craig looked down at my palm. “What?”

  I knew it wasn’t any use, but I said it anyway. “I want my gun.”

  It came out heavy and slurred through my swollen lips.

  Craig just laughed real ugly. “I don’t think so. I don’t feel like giving a rifle back to the piss-drinking, masturbating, peeping tom pervert who was watching me with my girlfriend. I mean, can you blame me?”

  I glared up at him. If looks could kill, he would’ve been dead and rotting on the ground.

  He looked around the bunker. “Does anybody have a problem with me keeping the gun?”

  Nobody said anything.

  Nobody looked at me.

  That wasn’t good enough for Craig. “Jon?” he asked.

  Jon paused, then shook his head ‘no.’

  “Kristin?”

  Kristin didn’t even hesitate. “I think you ought to keep it.”

  “Noelle?”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Noelle?” Craig asked again, louder.

  She finally looked up and stared at him. If looks could kill, he would’ve been dead, rotting on the ground, and missing an arm or two.

  Craig just smiled. “Then it’s decided. I keep the gun from now on.”

  Everybody stayed silent after that.

  I went back to eating my peaches and tried not to cry.

  36

  3 cans of spaghetti with meatballs, 35 cans of soup, 52 cans of vegetables, 19 of fruit, 12 of tuna fish. 116 liters of water.

  That’s how much was left after breakfast…and I barely even had any of it.

  They all left after they ate. Craig led the way. Jon asked me, “You feel like going out?”

  If I’d have gone out there and a bug attacked, I’d be a dead man. No way in hell I could run fast enough to get away.

  There’s that joke about the two guys who see a bear. One says to the other, Do you think we can outrun him? And the other one says
, I don’t have to outrun him, I just gotta outrun you.

  If I went outside, I would have been bug bait.

  Even worse, I'd have to be around Craig.

  I shook my head ‘no.’

  Noelle looked back at me as she left, but she didn’t say anything.

  While they were gone, I finished my peaches.

  The temperature started to go up, and up, and up. It was like being in a fucking oven.

  I drank a whole two liters of water. Not only that, I washed myself off. Everywhere the blood had dried, my hands and arms felt like they belonged to a real old man with crinkly skin. I washed them off real good, getting water everywhere.

  Wasted a lot.

  The others probably wouldn’t like that.

  Fuck them.

  Actually, what was I thinking? The others didn’t have a goddamn clue. They thought we were all going to be hunky-dory for weeks and months.

  The food was running out, and they kept eating like pigs.

  So fuck them.

  I was right – when they came in, nobody said jack shit about the water I’d spilled, or the damp stain on the concrete.

  Jon just said, “You look better.”

  Then they got the food and water they wanted and carried it out again.

  2 cans of spaghetti and meatballs. 33 cans of soup. 47 cans of vegetables. 19 cans of fruit. 10 cans of tuna fish.

  108 liters of water.

  We were going to die of thirst before we starved to death.

  If I didn’t kill Craig first.

  Or he didn’t kill me.

  37

  That’s all I daydreamed about the whole time I laid there in the baking heat: killing Craig.

  I thought about grabbing the gun away from him and shooting him. I daydreamed about that one a couple dozen times, each time shooting him in a slightly different place. Shooting him through the heart. Shooting him right in the middle of the eyes. Shooting him in the left eye, then in another daydream, the right one. Blowing off his knee caps and watching him squirm around in the dirt. Shooting him in the neck and watching the blood spew out of him like a fire hydrant. Shooting him in the nuts. Shooting his dick off and watching blood spurt out the stump. Shooting him in the back of the head. Kicking him over, sticking the gun up his ass, and shooting him there – through his belly once, then all the way up through his head another time. Shooting him under his jaw so the top of his head splattered everywhere. Shooting him in the lung and listened to the sucking chest wound as he died. Shooting him in the back and paralyzing him.