Strange Landscape

by Tony Duvert

  we’ll take care of you just you wait and see Simon is dreaming and his body stirs beneath the sheets he can hear the soft breathing of his neighbors who are all fast asleep then a sound of naked feet pattering Still two more who are shag-assing it out of here thinks Simon or thinks Claude we could be orphans we could be inmates in some horrible asylum somewhere with some sly smooth-tongued director and his bitch of a wife who gives us nothing to fill up our bellies they beat us all the time and then I lead yes an uprising I’m a hero yes and one night I say to all my buddies

  ninety-eight ninety-nine one hundred

  okay hit the road

  is it safe going this way? François tentatively sets one foot down timidly

  no not there there’s a vase there move your foot over more to the left François yanks his foot back then essays a tiny side step And now?

  Try to remember more cautiously François moves the side of his right foot along the parquet trying to feel if there is any object directly in front of him he raises both hands high for balance swaying back and forth like a tightrope walker finally setting that right foot down again seeing that nothing has shattered letting the left one come to stand alongside it as well but oh so cautiously

  so what do you think of China? asks Yann a lovely country wouldn’t you say?

  oh wow I’m breaking something I can feel it if you ask me I think this is a real shit-ass game that’s what I think of your China! advancing once more but only with the right foot stopping abruptly Oh there’s something here it’s the blue decanter isn’t it?

  you must be having visions there’s no decanter there

  no you’re just saying that so I’ll step right on top of it and break it to bits one foot swaying moving around in the void

  but where has it gone then? I know I just touched it

  you didn’t touch anything he’s a real riot isn’t he guys?

  yes I did you must have pulled it out of the way if you keep shifting all this shit I’ll never

  Dominic suddenly gets a brainstorm he comes up smoothly alongside the blind boy and puts his own right foot against François’ left the two shoes rub then move immediately away from each other

  now what was that? sounding very alarmed

  it’s that giraffe figurine remember there having been no such objet d’art of course be careful now or you’ll step right on top of it Yann says you wouldn’t want to squash such a precious thing to bits now would you? he can hardly get the next sentence out without collapsing in a fit of hysterical laughter You’re not in the center of the room anymore move your right leg to the left about eight inches no nine’s more like it

  what? like this?

  no don’t back up you idiot! careful there behind you

  then I’m already at the corner where the little teacups are?

  yeah the teacups but you have to jump over them you can’t maneuver between them there’s not enough room

  but what comes after them? if I jump where will I land huh?

  in the cellar they would do what to them in that cellar both that old bastard and his wife stripped of their clothes and they would force Marco to suck them off eat their assholes eat their shit the old guy also has to drop a turd or two into his wife’s mouth he can’t manage it a few farts is all he’s able to bring forth they turn then to the old cunt Piss all over his face pull out the plug and let your reds drown him but she can’t piss either and it’s not her time of the month if she still has those things I brought some of Marco’s whips along we’re all of us standing in a circle the biggest and heftiest among us each with a whip in one hand and how we make them bleed the old bag is told to bite off Marco’s dirty little prick with her teeth Marco’s the kind of young bruiser you love to hate I’d say to him Your hour of reckoning has come at last and he’d start shaking all over begging me we have all sorts of clever apparatus that cold snooty bitch chains attached to all four of her extremities and then we tighten the winches cranking them while her legs spread farther and farther apart finally cracking open her pussy yawning so wide we’re able to shove a spiked club into it each spike having been rubbed earlier with Spanish fly to drive the old cunt wild

  it’s so big China François has already traveled four times around the grand salon unknowingly finally they take off his blindfold he doesn’t notice at first how all the bric-a-brac had been carefully set in one long row at the farthest end of the room then when he finally understands what a chump he’s been he doesn’t make a sound doesn’t crack a smile doesn’t even complain he’s too confused he’s about ready to break out bawling highly satisfied Yann is already dreaming of other tricks to play on François who henceforth will be his favorite little victim darling scapegoat as he himself was theirs when he first arrived here they all straggle back upstairs to the dorm eyes heavy with sleep the big guys are still down by the river battling it out with the town kids

  Claude or Simon orders Yann who has returned disguised as a girl to perform a striptease in the form of a belly dance the scene represents the tent of a war lord the barbarian ensconced on a pile of motley pillows smoking aromatic herbs his warriors and his favorites ranged around him and directly before him now stands the captive slave girl with her proud mien and defiant flashing eyes the war lord more and more enthralled by the young maiden gets a hard-on that stretches his filthy gamy-smelling leather breeches to bursting a deathly silence as all stare first at that swollen shuddering crotch then at the graceful rhythmical movements of that wild young creature who dances ever dancing her haughty look not that of an innocent child any longer but of a knowing woman the war lord suddenly stands and seizes the maiden by the wrist dragging her into his dark tent the young girl struggles protests but the barbarian laughs cruelly heart tight within his chest with a longing greater than mere lust blood pounding like drums in his ears rod stretching out so rigidly before him that the excruciating pain could be that of a horde of ravenous wolves chewing upon its shuddering flesh ever hungrier for its life-giving juices his desire now a mixture of wrath and seething agony and panic as that animal within him stretches snarls howls burying its sharp claws so deeply they emerge through his flesh taking possession of him completely a thick black blood burns in his veins bubbling his breath reeking and in his eyes a deep but dazzling darkness slashed through by ever more rapid lightning flashes of primeval bestial hunger hypnotizing those of the slave girl Claude hugs Yann fiercely crushing the young girl to his chest hurting her and his tongue savors the delicious taste of blood spicy and hot and raw he forces the young maiden to masturbate him she executing quite clumsily the long up and down movements frail fingers not nearly long enough to clamp fully around that immense rod he stuffs his own hot fist between the child’s legs grabbing with frantic fingers the tiny vulva and even tinier anus in that same grasp bruising them with those steely claws this young virgin whom his violent caresses bewitch flames rending her cheeks while the barbarian grabs up a fistful of her hair forcing her to her knees shoving her face into his smelly crotch she will suck him never stopping until the gouts of thick white fuck in sharp jolts hemorrhaging will inundate her throat or her eyes then afterward both bodies rolling upon the ground the young girl shivering cunt maddened by those eternally groping fingers at last ecstatically accepting his pain shoving her own body up against that powerful crotch fountain of life both of them by now covered in dirt in sweat sticky with blood their teeth and nails have caused to spurt forth the maiden begging for more and more until satiated the barbarian grunts kicks her roughly out of his tent ignoring her cries and she finally stumbles back to her native village finding it razed to the ground not a soul left and she sits there crying out her shame and her rage and her love beneath the light of a cold moon Yann played his role extremely well everybody agrees he is sporting a revolver Colt 1851 model that Claude promised to give him along with four rolls of caps repeater cylinder you can shoot twenty caps without ever reloading Yann on his bed keeps pulling the trigger making the caps explode while the bigge
r guys continue playing Huns only now they are preparing to invade the chateau of Douches and already the Duke of Douches is surrendering himself handing over that old douche bag of his wife to the conquerors the bed to Yann’s left is occupied by a blond boy he has gray-green eyes the color of mint he’s so handsome as he lies on his belly reading an adventure novel he sets it down when another fellow ambles across the dorm and asks him to make a fist so that he can measure his biceps they’re now having a biceps contest the boy reading the adventure story is named Claude he doesn’t have the thickest biceps but all the same the arm he bares is beautifully formed

  make a fist once more let me see Claude tightens his fingers within his palm bending his arm at the elbow and the other kid gives a whistle remarks Not bad

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  a tribe it must have been years ago huge blunt house so squarely set on high ground sallow yellow walls all of them free as birds sometimes it’s a chateau outside a village sometimes a villa overlooking the Atlantic identical asylums they are still there they are us and we are a child’s lovely innocent face he had taught himself to whip using both hands alternating them in order for the muscles of one not to become disproportionately developed muscles beneath the skin rippling skin itself so clear and fine made golden by the sun but the buttocks remained more pale they loved such asses they ate them up both outside and in the children are not ass-eaters his ours if

  blockhouse on the beach left over from some war

  leaving returning covering once again leaving a long white jagged line of froth waves splashing lapping and the wet sand turning brown turning black shimmering with mineral flecks as soon as each wave ebbs sand absorbing that last film of water and growing lusterless but bulging upward footprints no longer quite clear their edges smudged the water has glazed them night now no other sound except this undertow echoing through the silence of bedchambers of walls separating the slumber of children spreading out rocking peacefully above them

  a sun too brutal so they decided not to hike all the way to the beach preferring the rose garden instead rosary of flaming flowers bushes planted all along a rim of hill which later turned sharply downward facing open meadows wooded groves covering entirely an esplanade that served as a terrace the roses themselves have long since tumbled down gone to seed

  they had no conception how their house was constructed if they knew each little corner each hidden recess moving through all of its long corridors so easily they did so out of an unconscious memory of where their footsteps had led them earlier the rooms never quite matching merging into each other then coming unstrung circling before their eyes cascading past like a succession of cars on a train or a series of Chinese boxes falling to the floor they were as merry as artful there as a carload of monkeys loving each other mouths fluttering smacking each other’s pink cheeks

  the sea black and furious the ocean raging upon rocks they are frightened on such days taking cover beneath the sweet-smelling branches that adorn the hill the incline here so very steep a stairway has been carved out of the earth dirt packed down and each riser reinforced by a wooden plank held in place by two wooden stakes one at each end upon the heights the ground is thick and grassy but another path has been etched out leading all the way down to the bottom of its other side path packed down here by the bottoms of so many trousers soles of so many sneakers rushing headlong eroding it deeper and deeper curving sides

  they climbed back up the earthen stairs reached the plain the far country the hinterlands or rather the heights of the rose garden enclosed on all four sides by balustrades of stone marked here and there by openings where flagstone staircases caving inward collapsing led them down toward facing this quadrilateral tall rose bushes thorny brambles all entangled but they can still make out the fissure though now completely covered over with vegetation roses gone to seed where the land began to slope downward once more then the house and the garden with its broken colonnades and further beyond that the gray strand winding all the way to that wind-driven blue-colored ocean curving out upon the horizon

  and to cross the farthest rim of that rose garden as if taking a perilous giant step over the partition of some labyrinth cutting one’s path through a hedge of thorny stems and pungent petals until finally the only way is to get down on all fours pushing oneself face downward into this sinister tunnel where insects buzz

  they punch him on the mouth knock his head back the wall resounds each time his skull hits it they tie him up they will return here night after night to cut off first a half-inch of skin from his belly using a pair of tailor’s scissors one blade of which is jagged at present the muscles directly above his navel are all that are yet exposed in two months they will have reached his pubis in six months his toes in a year they will have stripped bare his entire face as well and when finally he will be completely peeled like bark off a tree his once pink flesh the color and texture of tanned leather they will open him up oh so carefully not damaging any of the blood vessels nor cutting any of the nerves and they will then bone him as easily as one does a fish that mass of inchoate meat left in a heap upon the cement floor he will not be able to whack off anymore his member all his extremities a kind of rubber as he slowly liquefies oozing himself outward in all directions he will be dreaming dreaming oh light as air as dandelion down

  sea spume a cloud passes a child swings his belt like a lasso and hits his target bull’s-eye oeil-de-boeuf window and the others hurl themselves down the stairs one atop the other hurl themselves finally on a beach nothing had happened to him to them

  walls stained with cries soiled with clouds they are going to look at the sea the beach the rose bushes the fields gathering flowers picking periwinkles there’s an electric fence ten feet high skirting the farthest reaches of the private park if they ever climb up over it to let their nostrils get a whiff of that oceanic air they will toast roast crisp contracted bodies burned and hideous fingers still clutching that iron mesh nobody will ever take them down from their crucifixion drying up crackling the rains of summer finally diluting their ashes and stripping bare their innards so blue-green like the sea at least they call it the sea that line of color on the horizon they are quite free to take long walks but under the trees in the woods there are traps concealed to catch wolves smashing the ankle you could remain caught in one of those for three days or more before you’re finally brought back and beaten to death

  the more unsophisticated make sand pies the cleverer ones erect elaborate chateaux or play house using dolly dinette sets and cooking seaweed dishes on their stoves periwinkle stew quite uneatable There are two bowls for each of you now serve yourselves wait a minute you’ve taken three hand back one

  huh?

  you heard me fork it over lightning flash coffee eclair or you won’t be allowed out anymore

  he walked back and forth in the shade he didn’t give a fuck about not being allowed out any longer he had all these trees and birds inside the park they might be blackbirds the kind you bake four-and-twenty in a pie he’s going to take a look at their nest for he knows how to scale up those thick trunks without scratching his shins yes a brown feathered bird female and three tiny eggs she sits brooding over them while a bigger fatter bird all glistening and black strolls back and forth male and female that’s the way it is in nature well shit on you nature his fist flashes out the female takes off screaming hissing eggs breaking oozing yellow twigs from the nest scattering in all directions Go chirp your silly chirps somewhere else the child mutters his chestnut hair so shiny and short all uncombed falling down upon his forehead nut-brown eyes cute turned-up nose

  the favorites the darlings of the clients had the run of the house all floors their grimy prisoners rounded up from grimy city slums were kept locked in the cellar they sleep upon lice-infested straw too hardhearted even to cry and once a week the handsome young executioner comes downstairs moving among them slowly peering into
each dank corner while they meet his smile with dull vacuous stares he suddenly notices a little kid with outrageously protruding ears a mud-stained urchin who had buried himself beneath the straw trying to make a hole within the cold ground the handsome young boy comes closer the silence becomes too heavy he reaches down and takes the kid’s arm to pull him to his feet and all at once the child gives out a wild shriek he begs resists pleads all the while being dragged along the floor the torture chamber is just on the other side of this stinking sty and all night long the others hear the groaning of machinery the screams and sobs that never seem to end growing more and more shrill as each torture succeeds the one previous after a slight interruption each new device more lengthily applied cleverly calibrated until that final apparatus is reached which rips from childish lungs cascades of sound which are screams no more

  a whip attached to his belt a coiling thong long enough to reach out five no ten feet when they try to escape their legs are striped like those of zebras only here with gashes of encrusted blood running down from thigh to ankle they said of course it was caused by garden brambles sea urchins sharp rocks hardly even conscious of their nakedness they walk out into the breakers sitting down upon the reefs they get all scratched from the force of waves upon rocks tide hurling little pebbles at them when they return they have mercurochrome put on their cuts their buttocks all covered with red spots like those on the cheeks of clowns they point out the funny faces upon each other’s rumps Oh look at him it’s Bobo the Clown No that’s not nice says the old servant woman it’s more like appian apples But what are appian apples? they ask Oh you she answers goodness knows you’ve had them enough times lady apples some call them red and white and hard and sweet little lady apples that’s what his two cheeks look like! he rolled over onto the ground so dazed he doesn’t even cry anymore he staggers to his feet he starts to leave begins sobbing he had stolen some food I’ve forbidden you to cry do you hear? but he cried all the same and received yet another slap across the face and then a third he cried more and more hysterically some beautiful boy took a whip from his belt the other children stood together and watched faces aghast cheeks burning bare-assed back turned outward head resting within his arms against the wall and the whip waltzes and its dry sound hacks through his screams