She then took off her bra, revealing her small but sinuous breasts. I was frozen for a moment by the front door. I desired her so much. Kya reached over and took me by the hand, paused oddly for a moment, as though she were contemplating her next move, and then led me to her bedroom.
All good things come to an end, I always hated that idiom, but it’s true. We were happy for a year of our two-year relationship. After only six months, she periodically moved her belongings in one at a time, and two months later, we did the exact thing I said I would never do, we wed. She had some trepidation at first. She liked her apartment, and the proprietors, an affable gay couple who lived right upstairs from her, treated her well, but I eventually lured her away and convinced her to be my wife. The wedding was just a small gathering of friends, and neither of us dressed up, but it was fun nonetheless.
I loved having her with me every day. It took some getting used to. I had always been alone, and even though I was the one who urged her to live with me from the very beginning, she was always the one who was the most comfortable.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want her there. For some reason I just felt anxious, as though I didn’t deserve her, and one day, if I did the wrong thing, made the wrong gesture, or said the wrong words, she would finally realize this. A year into our relationship, she brought this up, stating that the only time she felt that I would open myself to her was during sex. I didn’t agree with her, and I became rather defensive. Even resorting to some bizarre Freudian psychological projection where I blamed her for being closed off. We didn’t really talk for a few days after that, which reminded me of being a teenager again, navigating the difficult relationships with my family.
Neither of us really dealt with it. We just picked up where we left off, as though nothing had ever happened, but things were never really the same. Damon tried to play the interventionist in our relationship, even though it probably wasn’t his place. The both of us welcomed it because he was able to put things into perspective.
He was also instrumental in getting me to be more social, and at least once a week, he would force me to go out to bars or parties to help curb my shyness. Most of the time, it was hit and miss. I would cling to Damon and follow his lead. Then, one day, he told me about a gathering that would be taking place at a big house overlooking Lake White. A successful lawyer named Martin Kerns owned it.
According to Damon, he came into the Lee house quite a bit to have cocktails after work. Damon said that the affair was casual, even though the man seemed, at least from the sound of it, to be a bit more bourgeois. Damon told me Kerns said it was something he would never forget. I then asked if I was invited, but Damon told me it shouldn’t be a problem. On the night we both went out, he seemed very excited.
I asked Kya the night before, which was a Friday, if she wanted to come to the party since she hadn’t gone out with us in a long time, but she told me that she had made plans with Stephanie, a friend from work who rented the chair right next to hers. Damon picked me up in his Ford Taurus around eight forty five, and the small city of Destiny, Ohio was painted with the usual colors of Saturday night. People walked the slush-covered side streets, draped in coal-collared coats of varying varieties. Most of them were either young or relatively young, and they hovered under blazing beams of spotlights or multicolored neon.
This caused the snow on the ground to reflect like the gleam from a lighted mirror, and the small trees, which were planted on the sidewalk, were frozen over, looking like strange ice sculptures growing outward from the concrete. This weather was rare in Ohio. The winters were remarkably mild for the most part. Damon found it odd to hear the sound of slush rumbling from under his tires. Once we started to leave the guiding lights of buildings and streetlights, it was nothing but the headlights of cars leading our way.
The mild snow coming down flew towards our window. It looked to us like a slew of speckled moths committing simultaneous suicide dives at our windshield, only to crash and become liquefied. As we drove by Lake White, it was nearly frozen over, though it was hard to tell from far away, the ice seemed thick and hardened. The mansion was up on a long, sketchy hill that seemed to catch and contain all the snow that fell.
Damon slowed down a little bit, but not much because he didn’t want to end up sliding back down the hill. The cars in the parking lot were few. I can’t even recall just how many, eight, perhaps nine, and the mansion itself was big but decrepit.
The outside had certainly seen better days. It looked like one of those Tudor style homes built in the 1930s during the height of the American steel industry. I pictured, purely for my own amusement, the spirals at the top blowing eastward, as though it were a strange piece of minimalist art. We stepped up to the front door and rang the bell. Emanating from the other side was the thumping sound of music.
“Can they even hear us?” Damon asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied. Standing there, I started to grow cold. Damon pushed the doorbell a few more times. Moments later, the arcane looking door handle finally turned, the door swung open, and Martin Kerns revealed himself. He was wearing designer jeans and a perfectly pressed black shirt.
“Damon, how are you?” he replied. He then extended his hand to Damon, allowing me to see the gold- tone Seiko watch on the wrist of his right hand. He didn’t notice me for a fairly prolonged amount of time, but when he did, there wasn’t a look of overwhelming excitement on his face. In fact, he gave a look of being slightly put out, although, looking back now, it was stunning how quickly he wiped it away, replacing it with a smile that was the most sincere I think I’ve ever witnessed.
“Welcome, you guys, have fun.” We stepped into a long entranceway. On the left side of us was a staircase, and on the other side, a long hallway where the music of White Lions’ song Wait came flooding its way in.
“Would you like anything to drink?”
“No, I fine, but thank you,” Damon said. I replied the same.
“Are you sure? I’ve got everything. My kitchen’s huge. I’ve got Cognac, Evan Williams Bourbon, several different wines and beer, but if you want anything harder, you’ll have to go into the ballroom. People have brought their own stuff. I’m sure they’ll share with you.”
“I’m fine,” I replied nervously. Damon shook his head in agreement, looking just as nervous, which was strange, he was always fearless.
“You have a great place.” Damon said.
“Join the party. It’s even better inside.” He pointed down the hallway. The image of him doing so vaguely reminded me of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Down the hall was a large door that creaked when we pulled it open. The music was so loud that I couldn’t even have a thought about what I was seeing. Even though the bass was blaring, about six of the thirteen people in attendance were just sitting around drinking and smoking pot. The people on the dance floor didn’t seem to realize they were alone.
They conducted themselves as people usually did at gatherings, by staying in their own little worlds, and congregating with the people they knew most. I looked at Damon, and he seemed to be scanning the room with his eyes, smiling confidently at the people around him. A few minutes later, he finally met a person with whom he was familiar. However, I didn’t know her. Her name was Melissa Cardel.
She worked at the cosmetics counter at the mall, and just like us, this was her first time at the party. In her hand was a forty-ounce bottle of Bud Light, her second one. We could see that she was tipsy. She was giddy with laughter Damon introduced us, and I shook her hand politely. It was hard for any of us to speak because of the loud base sound of the music, but we managed to carry on a conversation nonetheless. After about five minutes, I withdrew myself from the conversation and began looking around.
Kerns was walking through the crowd now with a beautiful woman wearing a tank top, high heels and a miniskirt. She seemed excited and nervous, but there was a hint of something else. Fear, apprehension, or perhaps a plethora of emotions even she couldn’t acco
unt for. Her facial features mirrored this. The woman’s visage was ghostly white, revealing itself even in the dim light. She feigned a smile whenever someone would greet her. Nevertheless, she always seemed to be somewhere else. I figured it must’ve been Kerns’ girlfriend.
Everybody seemed to know him. Some even bowed to express their adulation. Melissa invited us to meet her friend, Mark Brennan, a tall and buff personal trainer who had Kerns as a client. It was his first time as well.
“There’s a surprise”, he said. “Kerns always reveals a strange surprise at gatherings like this.”
“Like what?” Melissa said.
“I don’t know. We’ll have to see.” What surprise could this egocentric man truly have in store? I thought, unable explain why I didn’t like him. He exuded a kind of hubris that I despised but couldn’t rationalize. The party continued for another twenty minutes, before the music finally cut out. Then the people dancing stopped. Some people shouted to turn the music back on.
“What the hell?” I said.
“Don’t ask me,” Damon replied. A spotlight suddenly beamed down on all of us, its reflective glare shining gleefully off the ballroom floor. It caused me to turn away until my eyes could adjust. After that, there was a long pause. Then the spotlight found its way to the back of the room. Kerns was standing on a small stage, a grin on his face. The young woman wasn’t standing in the center with him. She was off to the side. I could see her shadow just barely reflected. Behind us, the door slammed.
The crowd turned. I turned. Ten large men locked and secured the door. Some people gasped, others laughed nervously. I didn’t know quite what to feel, and when I looked over at Damon and Melissa, they seemed to be resonating the same feeling.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Kerns began. I promised you something incredible, something you’ll always remember, and I plan to deliver. Since you are seeing for the first time, I’m going to pre-warn you. What you see here today should have a profound effect on you.” Five people in the audience looked around guardedly, but once they saw that most people were planted firm and staring forward, their unease seemed to subside.
I, on the other hand, felt nothing. I still found him to be an egotist, a man who couldn’t help believing that the world would stop revolving if he demanded it to do so. Kerns grabbed the tender arms of the young woman beside him. At first, it seemed that she didn’t want to budge because it took a moment for her to slip into the spotlight. Her eyes immediately gazed straight ahead, but she looked blind, at least at first, but when her eyes began to adjust to the light, she looked melancholic.
“This beautiful young woman has offered herself for this exercise, and for that I, as well as you, should be eternally grateful. It is because of her that you get to experience the beauty of barbarism without the burden of sacrifice…at least not yet. You are all privileged. Remember that. I want you to look upon this woman with reverie. I want you to look upon her as a conduit to your dark enlightenment; I want you to look at her as the liberator of that part of you which society says must remain suppressed… so without further ado.” Kerns bowed to the woman and took his leave from the grayish white light, moving out of sight for an extended amount of time.
After a long hesitation, the woman began to remove her miniskirt, slowly, exotically, as though she were attempting to seduce the audience. She then removed her shoes and tank top. There was nothing underneath. She stood naked and alive under the blazing orb like phosphorescence. Suddenly, however, a fragment of blackness began to eclipse part of the light in the background. At first, it seemed to move stealthily, as though it were some strange optical illusion, or some figment of my imagination, but then a body revealed itself. I could see the elongated shadows produced by the feet. The body was that of a skeleton, linked together by a series of entangled muscles, tendons and veins. From far away, it looked like a costume one would see in a Mardi Gras parade, but as I continue to watch, it became that much more believable.
“The makeup job is incredible,” Damon said.
“What the hell is this,” I replied, trying not to show the fear in my voice.
“I don’t know, maybe it’s some kind of sex show.”
“Oh yeah, Kya’s gonna love this.”
“Hey, I didn’t know this was gonna happen.”
I was tempted to turn around and close my eyes, but the voyeur in me wouldn’t let me move an inch. I think Damon felt the same. Our minds were fixed on the exhibition in front of us. The corpse image on the stage began to lick the woman’s shoulders. Even from far away, the tongue looked sickly and sodden. He moved his way down her back to her buttocks. The strange woman moaned with what seemed to be both fear and felicity. Once he reached the back of her heel, he moved to the other side, as though he planned to taste every inch of her.
Then, starting at her toes, he worked his way up, occasionally biting her, once on the knee, her left thigh, and on both of her nipples. She struggled each time, as though she were a moth trapped in the mouth of a bird. She was expecting something worse that didn’t come. This was revealed by the look of relief on her face.
“Hurry up and wreck that fuckin’ pussy,” a well-dressed man with a Don Corleone haircut said. Some other men and women in the crowd cheered on his demand. Others just looked on. The skeleton on stage was at her neck now, looking as though he were attempting to romance her, or stall some inevitability which was about to take place. He was playing the audience, and it was working. He had the power to manipulate without even saying a word.
“Come on, baby, pull that skeleton dick out,” a woman shouted, laughing hysterically, but I could no longer turn my head away to look at the crowd. My heart started to race and I knew something was about to happen. I tightened my fists, unable to withstand the suspense.
It was as though I was watching an engaging play and couldn’t wait for the revealing climax. His tongue began to creep up the side of her face, seeming to have a mind of its own. The woman’s eyes grew wide, and she took in a deep breath. Even from far away, I could see the desperation in her breathing. The last flickering flame of a destiny she wished she had not chosen. Once he reached the line dividing her four head and hair, he stopped again. Moments later, she let out an earsplitting scream. It jolted the audience, but they felt that it was part of the show, but then her head began to bleed. Blood ran liberally down on her face and chest. She then fell down on her back purely out of shock. The corpse bent over, pressing his face against hers. No one could see because they both were turned away from the audience. The woman continued her screaming, and I could see blood flooding the stage. I stood in shock. Damon did as well. We sat wondering if what we had seen was real.
But it couldn’t have been. A man like Kerns would never have done this in front of everyone. It was an elaborate hoax, right? Like a vulture dismantling a piece of carrion on the side of the road, the skeletal figure in front of us continued to prey on her. The thick layers of her flesh were being broken open, not easily though, the skeletal figure labored hard and meticulously. She wasn’t screaming anymore. The skeleton then forced her legs open and began feasting on her sex. It was then that I felt myself getting an erection.
Quickly, I drew my legs together, as though I were a teenager who couldn’t control his hormones. Her body just rocked back and forth, and her arms and legs flailed limply. For a fleeting moment, it reminded me of my brother’s body on the bed, but the image left as quickly as it came. Life at that moment seemed to strip itself of any meaning I had given it. My mind reverted to a philosophy class I had taken in college. We were studying The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, and I felt at that moment that I had been stricken with what Camus called the truth of the absurd. I tried briefly to turn away from the image and saw that the others were doing the same thing. A series of competing emotions welled up in me. My gaze eventually returned, however, and I witnessed once again that collage of the grim surreal. Then the lights went out, every single one of them. The world was black.
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nbsp; The floating images of the former lights flashed across my eyes. One would think this a scary proposition, but a wind of relief blew over me. I heard the panicked voices of people, feet scuffed the floor, and I felt a sudden jolt of pain as I was knocked off balance.
I tried to catch myself. My arms flailed, but I was pivoting on my heels. Then I fell to the floor. People tripped over me sporadically, and one of them managed to achieve a boot to my face. I felt the immense pain sift from my lips to the right side of my cheek.
The lights then flickered, looking at first like the blue-green flash of a glowworm. Before shining brightly upon my face, it flashed epileptically for a long period.
“Jesus,” Damon said. As he looked down at me, I could see that his pupils were wide saucers. “You’re bleeding.” I felt around my face, eventually reaching my top lip on the right-hand side. The blood was sparse, so I figured it must’ve been a slight cut. Damon helped me off the floor.
“Thanks,” I said. Some of the people who had knocked me over were battling the ten guards to escape. Then, a voice rose from the stage. At first, it struck me as a siren, but it was only Kerns trying to calm people down. The blood on the stage remained, Kerns didn’t seem to care that his leather tuxedo shoes were stained or not. The skeletal figure and the poor young girl were gone. It had happened so quickly.
“It’s all right everyone. It’s all right.” The people clamoring to get out the door began to cease their fear driven rebellions. They looked around them after that, into the air, from side to side, as though they were field mice in fear of famine stricken hawks. Eventually, with his soothing words, he was able to calm their concern. However, for the rest of the party, the young woman and the man in the skeleton make up never revealed themselves. It amazed me that so many people just accepted this, even though I could tell there was a fear that still remained. Damon and I didn’t talk to each other after leaving the party.
9 Tales Told in the Dark 15 Page 6
