My Ex-Wife Said Go to Hell

by Zurosky, Kirk

  “The boil!” I exclaimed. “I completely forgot about it!” In the chaos, the last thing I had been thinking about was the pus-spewing entity occupying a prime spot on my ass. I reached back and gingerly pulled a piece of the seaweed off my posterior to let the strangely silent boil get some air, wincing as I waited for my not-so-favorite pus spitter to utter some obscenity-laced tirade to ruin this incredibly pleasant moment. Miraculously, I saw only the smooth olive skin I had come into the world with. The boil was gone, ironically excised by the Winter Witch’s familiar. Being in mixed company, I patted the seaweed back into place.

  “The what?” the mermaid asked.

  “Just a nasty old curse, courtesy of the Winter Witch,” I replied. “It is a relief to have it gone, as entertaining as it was!”

  “We need to get the seaweed off you,” she said, reaching for a strip. “If you tarry in it too long, it turns your skin a lovely shade of bright green—permanently. And I don’t think that is your color! Here, hold still, I want to make sure you are completely healed.” She rolled me on to my side, facing away from her, and gently pulled the seaweed from my body. Her soft hands caressed my back, bare backside, and legs, and it was all I could do to not make a sound hinting at the pleasure it gave me.

  “All right, that is great,” she said. It sure was. “Everything looks good to me. Now lie on your back,” she said, and I readily complied. “Your wounds seem to have healed amazingly quick, even for a vampire.” She looked at me a little oddly, and I wondered if Persephone’s gift had translated in ways I had not discovered. The truth was that I had never in my life suffered wounds that severe. Even that blasted faerie Pansy had gone a whole lot easier on me!

  The mermaid reached for my chest and drew the seaweed from it, thrusting herself out of the water and onto the beach, rising up on her golden tail. I could see her skin ended a few inches below her navel, and from there lustrous golden scales that sparkled iridescently in the blue light took over all the way to her life-saving tail. Her hands moved down to my abdomen, touching it ever so softly, and I could feel my manhood threatening to burst through the seaweed that bound it. Had the mermaid ever seen such a thing?

  I had never seen a mermaid up close, let alone a merman, and frankly did not know how they propagated their species. Down came the wrap and up I came, but the mermaid gave no reaction, continuing to unwrap me until I lay fully naked on the sand with her on my side. She thrust with her tail slightly and landed at an angle, her delightful breasts resting atop my chest and her face even with my own. She looked down at my excitement. “You still seem to have a good bit of swelling,” she said. “And it’s all red. Do you think it is infected? Because I can get some more seaweed and wrap it up for a while.”

  “No, no,” I replied. “It is normal for it to look like that when . . . I am . . . uh . . . happy.” I paused. How could I tell this mermaid that I was aroused by her? The awkwardness of this situation was beginning to cure me of my “swelling.”

  “Are you feeling sad now?” she asked. Before I could answer, she reached down and curled her hand around my manhood and stroked it. “Oh,” she said, watching the effect of her hand. “I like it much better this way when it is happy, and now it looks positively overjoyed! Now, I think you need to make me happy.” She leaned forward, and brought her lips to mine and kissed me softly.

  I had no idea what she had in mind—I had not actually noticed any parts on her that could accomplish her happiness—and believe me, I had looked. But as she rubbed me, she began moving her tail side to side, and in a burst of white light, her tail changed into a pair of lithe, white legs. Mystery solved—for framing her womanhood were the same beautiful curls that she wore upon her head. She straddled my legs, and I could feel the warmth of her womanhood pressing against me.

  “That is better,” she said. “Much, much better. Do you like my land legs?” She squeezed her legs against mine and ran her fingers up and down my chest.

  “Matter of fact, I do,” I said. I reached up and pulled her to me, bringing her lips to mine and licking the barest hint of salt from them. I kissed her ever so deeply as my hands found her breasts and pinched her nipples, and she pushed harder against me.

  I gasped as she took me inside her. I realized that I didn’t even know her name. She leaned back and began rhythmically thrusting down on me with her hips. I realized that I didn’t care what her name was. A moan escaped those full soft lips of hers, and I could feel the wetness of her pleasure bathing me. I realized, squeezing hard on her firm buttocks as she rode me, that I should have asked her a whole lot of questions. Her screams of pleasure reverberated around the grotto, and her hands dug into the sand next to us. I realized I didn’t care about the answers to those questions. Her pleasure built, rolling like great waves and crashing on me with warm, foamy delight. I realized that time and time again I had gotten myself in trouble doing this so wonderfully pleasurable act. I felt my own tidal wave of joy cresting ever so powerfully, and she sensed it, riding her own wave of pleasure with me, and we screamed out in unison as we reached our apex together. She collapsed upon me, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath. I realized as I fell into a deep slumber that I did not care one damn bit about how much trouble I just may have gotten myself into. Two words—worth it.

  I awoke many hours later, and she was gone. The only trace that she had been there were small footprints leading from the sandy beach to the edge of the lagoon. I smiled to myself as I was usually the one beating a hasty retreat after an encounter such as this one. I rose to my feet and brushed the sand from my buttocks. I was feeling quite used by the mermaid, but I couldn’t have been happier. We both got what we wanted, and she departed without requiring anything else from me. Now, that was a perfect relationship—I thought for a minute—unless there was something I did not know about doing it with a mermaid at high tide, or in the sand, or after being wrapped in magical seaweed. Blast it! Why were women so damn complicated anyway?

  I saw a path that led from the beach to an alcove, where I discovered a cache of clothes, weapons, and a few bags of gold. I was going to have to get passage from Lundy Island to Bristol, and then on to London to get my gold, and then pay Justice a visit and see if there was anything he could do about the arrest order, and getting me time to see my daughters. They would be on the cusp of womanhood now, and being fed who knows what mindless drivel by the Howler and the rest of the Blackheart clan. I sure hoped that Jova was still with Cornelia, and maybe, just maybe he had told them that I would never ever have left them.

  For a moment I considered going to Lancashire to confront the Howler and Angus but stuck to my original plan. I would be a fool to beard the alpha Pack leader in his den. Angus probably had half the werewolves in England guarding the perimeter to Lancashire County. Plus, I had no guarantee that the Howler had not spirited the girls off to some undisclosed location far away. So to London and then to Immortal Divorce Court I would go.

  I dressed quickly, finding clothes that, oddly, fit me just perfectly. Was this mere coincidence or a knowing present from that beautiful mermaid? I sighed. It would have been nice to give her a proper goodbye kiss on those salty lips of hers, but that pleasure was not to be mine. Armed with a trusty sword and blunderbuss, I found a path leading upward that terminated in front of a circular rock set on a strange lever. I pulled the lever, and the rock slid open, revealing a copse of trees and thick underbrush.

  I stepped into sunlight and bright blue sky. The Winter Witch’s hurricane was gone, but I could see down to a small pocket beach, where a number of vessels crammed in just offshore with repairs aplenty being made to the damaged crafts. It was destruction that I was ultimately responsible for because of my selfish actions. I climbed down to the beach and blended in easily with the rest of the survivors of the hurricane, and after a few days of good, clean, hard work, hired on to the crew of an English merchant ship bound for Bristol.

 
I could not believe my good fortune. No one asked who I was, or where I was going, or even for any gold for passage. All they wanted were my willing hands and strong back, of which I freely gave. It was my penance and my disguise all at once. I was amazed at how, in the face of such utter disaster, mortals could come together to achieve a common goal—survival.

  But when I got to Bristol, I saw anything but good fortune. I made my way inland, heading toward London, and all around me were signs of great flooding and misery. From the looks of what I saw, hundreds of people must have died in the flooding, all of whose blood was now on my hands. My heart was heavy. If this trip to Immortal Divorce Court returned me to Hell, there surely would be some tortured and rather angry souls to greet me for some personal payback. I passed a ship, easily fifteen miles inland, and wondered if it was the one that I had tried to save in, perhaps, what now was a futile act. If only I had done more. Actually, if only I had done less and acted honorably, and not consorted with the Winter Witch. So I decided to do all I could and again lent my back and hands, and when I could not do that, I gave my gold to all who were in need that I passed on the way to London.

  I found Harvis on the outskirts of his farm, stripped to the waist and wielding a huge axe that he was using to successfully turn the many fallen trees on his property into winter firewood. Old Man Tyler was with him, scooping the wood up dutifully and hauling it off in the direction of the farmhouse. “Need some help?” I said, coming out of the woods behind him.

  “I thought I smelled coward,” he said, not turning to face me. Instead, with several powerful blows of his axe, he proceeded to add to his firewood collection.

  “What are you talking about, Harvis?” I said, walking toward him. Old Man Tyler had returned from his trip to the farmhouse, and speaking of smelling things, indeed he still had not apparently found the time in his busy day to have a moment with some foamy soap bubbles. Tyler tipped his cap to me and waited for Harvis to split some more wood.

  But Harvis spun, axe in hand, and poked a powerful finger sharply into my chest. It was so hard and violent that for a moment I wondered if my old friend was trying to split me into so much kindling. “The woman I get,” he said. “I knew she was trouble when I had her. That is why I never went there again. But your children? Come on. How could you just leave them? What were you afraid of?”

  I grew angry at my old friend accusing me without hearing me out. “I didn’t leave them.”

  “Well, what’s it been, eleven, twelve years, since I have seen you?” Harvis said, still poking me in the chest, which was frankly beginning to hurt, though I stood my ground and felt my fists balling up. Old Man Tyler backed away slowly. The wood could wait until this dispute among old friends was settled. “I know you haven’t been in Lancashire. Jova said you disappeared right after the girls were born. Sounds just like you, don’t you think?”

  I unclenched my fists and calmed down, because it did sound just like me—the old me. “It does,” I said. “But there is a reason I disappeared.”

  Thankfully, Harvis stopped poking me and leaned on his axe. He nodded. Old Man Tyler nodded with him. “Sure there was,” Harvis said. “This ought to be good. Really good. Talk.”

  And talk I did. “My dear beloved wife and her father kidnapped me, imprisoning me with enchanted Immortal Divorce Court chains to the wall of a dungeon below Peel Castle on the Isle of Man. Then the barmaid I had relations with before the wedding turned out to be the Winter Witch. She showed up in the dungeon and found me chained to the wall, tried to cut off my manhood, and when that failed, cursed me with a talking boil on my ass . . .”

  “A talking boil on your arse? Come on,” Harvis said, “that is ridiculous!”

  “You too, Sinister?” Old Man Tyler croaked. “She did that to me once. ’Course she left my manhood alone—she said it was so small it was a punishment all on its own. That wasn’t very nice, was it? I mean, I am part gnome, you know. What did she expect?” He stood looking at an astonished Harvis and me. We did not have an answer for him, so he went back to stacking firewood. Neither one of us wanted to know just how he had managed to have an intimate encounter with the Winter Witch. I mean, when it happened, did he smell just like he did now?

  “Okay, so now the talking boil on your arse has been spoken for,” said Harvis. “But what about the dear Howler and Angus, what did they do?”

  “Well, in typical devious Blackheart fashion, my dear beloved Howler divorced me on the grounds of abandonment and got an order for my arrest,” I said. “Finally, eleven years later, Hedley Edrick showed up and freed me with magical wine from Don Indigo that melted away the enchanted Immortal Divorce Court chains . . .”

  “Oh, Don Indigo,” Harvis said. “Well, that part makes sense.”

  “But on the way back to London by way of Bristol, the Winter Witch, realizing I was still alive, conjured up the Great Storm of 1703 to try and kill me . . .”

  “Aha! I just knew this disaster was your fault somehow.” Harvis surveyed all the fallen wood. “I just had that feeling!”

  “Do you want to hear about my nearly death-inducing battle with the Winter Witch’s demon shark and the gorgeous mermaid who saved me, healed me, pleasured me, and then left me passed out naked in the sand of a hidden grotto on Lundy Island?”

  Harvis laughed. “You are certainly catnip for crazy pussy, my good friend.”

  I thought for a minute. “The mermaid was not crazy,” I said. “At least I don’t think she was, but she left before I woke up, so it doesn’t matter. Anyway, how’d the farmhouse and barn take the storm? And how is that sweet Molly?”

  “Molly is fine other than another litter growing in her belly,” Harvis said. “And the house and barn are fine—nary a scratch. Oliver and I have been making some improvements.”

  “Good,” I said. “I need to pay a little visit to the barn vault and get some of my gold. I need to hire Justice to help me get my little werepires back.”

  Harvis looked around carefully behind me. “That explains why I have smelled faeries around this farm lately,” he said. “I think they are looking for you. Of course, the storm has bought you some time, but they will be back. No one evades the IDC, my friend.”

  “I am not going to run and hide, Harvis,” I said, sniffing the air for a sign of anything other than a big sweaty werewolf and his rather odoriferous companion. Perhaps it was a blessing that Old Man Tyler and his grand funk were waylaying the senses of any that were trying to scent this fugitive vampire. “I am going straight to the IDC. Actually, I am going right to Justice’s office. But if I show up without any gold after the last experience with him, I can tell you that cantankerous demon would probably hand deliver me to the court himself.”

  “All right then.” Harvis put the massive axe over his shoulder and reached for his shirt. “It’s probably best that you don’t greet the lady of the farm. I don’t think she is too fond of you after you interrupted us in the barn, and then—in her mind—left one of her sisters, so to speak.”

  “They hate each other,” I exclaimed. “You’d think she’d congratulate me for leaving that bitch if that was really true.”

  “Uh, that would be a firm no,” Harvis replied. “When there are pups involved, the instincts of a momma wolf overcome sheer visceral hate quite easily. So let’s sneak over to the barn, and you can borrow a crystal to get you as far as the outer gates of the IDC. I have a big enough one to get you through with one, maybe two, chests of gold, but that is about it.”

  “That will have to be enough,” I replied. “If not, I can always try and rely on Justice’s good graces.”

  “He’s a demon and a lawyer, so forget the good graces thing.”

  “Oh, right,” I replied. “Hopefully the gold is enough for him.”

  We walked into the barn, and I realized we were not standing on dirt, but something else entirely. The floor was now hard and smooth and
as white as snow, with drains spaced out in key places and in all the stalls. “What is this stuff?” I asked.

  Harvis shrugged. “Oliver said it is called concrete, with a few choice bottles of wine added to the mix,” he said. “I call it barn rock.”

  “Where is the vault?” I asked.

  Harvis led me to what looked like an ordinary horse stall, and pulled on a rope. I was amazed to see the floor rise up on its own to reveal a hinged staircase that descended into the farmyard earth. I followed him down into the vault and saw gold and jewels piled neatly in storage areas as far as the eye could see. “Wow,” I said. “This is amazing!”

  He led me to a section and pointed to several chests. “These are your share from the goblin hoard,” he said. He handed me a large oblong red crystal. “This little baby should be enough to get you close.”

  I held out my hand, which he clasped firmly. “Thank you,” I said.

  He shrugged. “What are friends for?” he replied. “But don’t let it be another eleven years before I see you.” He smiled warmly. “And yes, I do want to hear about the mermaid!”

  “I’ll be back,” I said. “You can count on that!”

  I sat down on one chest of gold, and put my feet on the other. I felt more focused than I had ever been. I thought of the road on the way to Immortal Divorce Court and remembered the outcropping overlooking the Gulf of Corinth, where I had stopped for lunch so many years ago. It was well hidden and, hopefully, was not presently occupied or fallen into the Gulf of Corinth, or I would be in for quite a surprise.

  I focused on that spot as my destination and, this time, heard no howling vampire Maltese bidding me adieu as the Greek coastline popped into view. The outcropping was empty save for a few gulls that spread their wings and took to the sky, startled by my sudden arrival. I slid the chests holding my gold back into the brush, covered them up as best as I could, and pushed my way through the underbrush to the road. More than a decade of growth made this no easy task, and it was all I could do to make my way silently, but thankfully the road was deserted. Could the faeries sense my presence this close to them? I didn’t have much time. I would have to get this gold and myself to Justice’s office. But how?