Are you awake, Dennis? Dennis? Are you awake? Time to rise and…shine, Dennis!

Ah, there you are. Good morning, Dennis. How are you feeling today? Still a little sleepy? Yeah, well, you won’t be for long. Do you know what’s in your mouth, Dennis? Do you? Take a moment and try to figure it out. Don’t worry, take your time.

You can’t? Hmmm. Well, it’s a light bulb, Dennis. A fucking light bulb that’s hooked to a wire that’s hooked to a dimmer switch. And yes, the dimmer switch is right here, with us. Yes, it’s me and a couple of others who are watching you, Dennis. Right now, as you can tell, the bulb is not lit. But soon, Dennis, very very soon it will be. It’s a high-intensity bulb and it’s in your mouth. We strapped it there with some of that trusty Duct tape, along with your hands. But you already know that, don’t you. Of course you do.

Dennis? Are you listening, Dennis?

Good.

Ok, here is what we are going to do. We…well, I will ask you a series of questions. Dennis? Are you still listening? It is crucial that you are listening to what I am saying, Dennis. Dennis. Listen to me. Don’t fuck this up. If you fuck this up then you fuck yourself up. We don’t want that at all. We’re not in the business of fucking people up, Dennis. Okay? So listen well and you won’t get fucked up.

Okay then.

Each question I ask you will require a yes or a no answer. Obviously, Dennis, you cannot speak. That fucking bulb in your mouth and all. Yeah. I know. You’re scared as fuck, scared like a child who’s going to get his ass beat by some bully. Oh, Dennis, Dennis, Dennis. Let me assure you that getting your ass beat is far more preferable than what can potentially happen to you now. And we truly hope it doesn’t have to happen, Dennis. Honest! I mean, who in their right fucking mind wants to burn the inside of someone’s mouth with a fucking high-intensity light bulb? Do you think I do, Dennis? Do you?

I didn’t think so.

So.

Shall we start? Are you ready, Dennis? Do you want to take a moment and prepare yourself? I would offer you a cigarette, or a…beer…or…something…but…well…you know.

All right. You look to be ready now. You know what to do.

Question number  one.

Is your name Dennis Pratt?

Good.

Question number  two.

Are you thirty-seven years old?

Okay, great. You’re doing fine thus far, Dennis. Uh,  Dennis Pratt, thirty-seven years old.

Question number three.

If a girl showed you her vagina in public, would you look at it?

Dennis? Did you hear the question? Dehhhhhhhh-nissssss?

Dennis. Don’t make me ask a question twice. That would not be good for you, trust me. I’ll let it go this time, but…

Again. If a girl showed you her va—

Okay, Dennis. Thank you. You are doing very well. I’m impressed. Keep it up.

Question number four.

Did you kill Ted Gunderson?

Dennis. Dennis, Dennis, Dennis, Dennis. You were doing so, so, so, so, so well!

I told you, Dennis. I told you the rules. How does it feel? Just warm? No pain yet?

Good. And again, we are not here to cause you pain. We only want the truth, Dennis. The light is warm now, but as you can probably figure out it will naturally get hotter. The glass will warm up considerably and your mouth will become very uncomfortable. You should have told us the truth, Dennis, then this would not have happened, now would it? That’s rhetorical, of course.

Okay.

One thing I didn’t mention.

Once the bulb is lit, it cannot…will not be turned down.

So. Lies are no-no’s, Dennis. NO-NO’s! 

It must be burning a little by now.

On to more questions.

Question number five.

When you killed Ted Gunderson, did you place his body in the ground at 2386 Market Avenue, specifically directly behind the shed in the backyard?

Dennis! Fucking stop it! I guess you fucking want your tongue and gums to be burned to a crisp, is that it? Huh

QUESTION NUMBER SIX, DENNIS!

DID TED GUNDERSON FIGHT FOR HIS LIFE AND DID HE TELL YOU HE HAD A FAMILY AND DID HE PLEAD FOR YOU NOT TO SHOOT HIM IN THE FACE AND END HIS LIFE? DID YOU, DENNIS? YOU FUCKING BETTER ANSWER THIS ONE CORRECTLY, DENNIS!

DENNIS!

DENNIS!!

DENNIS!!!

DENNIS!!!!

DENNIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well.

I don’t know.

I really don’t know what I could have done. I tried to make things easy for you but all you could do was make things worse. It was easy, Dennis. Easy as pie. But no. You just sat there and burned your own mouth as we increased the intensity of that high-intensity bulb. Now look at you. Lips, tongue, everything burned, your face a mess of singed flesh. Did you really have to bite down on the fucking bulb, Dennis? Well, maybe I would have done the same thing, but really. What did you think would happen? Too bad for you.

Oh yes.

I completely forgot.

You’re dead.

Silly me.

By Jeff Callico

The sun slid lazily downwards in the northwest, encroaching darkness spreading its tendrils across the midsummer sky. The road was near-empty of traffic, and Dean shrugged his shoulders as yet another car passed without stopping. At this rate they would never make it to Inverness. The roadside grit stung his nostrils as he stepped back on the greasy grass verge.

‘Why won’t these bastards stop?’ Gwyneth sounded as if she was close to tears.

 ‘They think we’re going to rob them or kill them.’

‘What?’ laughed Gwyneth, her nose-stud glinting beneath the darkness of her hair. ‘Bad things only happen to hitchhikers, never to drivers. Everyone knows that.’

‘Whatever,’ shrugged Dean. ‘We need to do something.’ He thought for a moment, then his eyes lit up with an idea. ‘I know,’ he said, in a burst of enthusiasm. ‘Why don’t you jump up and down in the road and wave your hands, like you’re in trouble?’

‘Okay,’ said Gwyneth, but with doubt lingering on her face. ‘What if they get mad, when they find out it’s a trick, and drive off?’

‘We don’t need to tell them it’s a trick. We just tell them we got into an argument with some nutter and that he chucked us out on the roadside.’

‘Right…’ muttered the girl, only half convinced.

A dull rumble in the distance interrupted their debate. Dean stepped back from the roadside, brushing back his lank brown hair. ‘I’ll stay out of sight,’ he said.

The noise grew louder, too loud for a car, or even a single lorry. A convoy thundered past, a circus procession without elephants, engine roar instead of music, going to town somewhere in the deathly still of the night. Dull lights hung open-eyed from the spider-arms of restrained rides, waltzers sat stacked up behind wooden ramps, grinning faces leered in spray-paint as they slid silently by. A cavalcade of lorries passed, each one carrying parts of an amusement ride in autopsied fragments, limbs poking skeletally into the night air or shrouded beneath tarpaulins. Bundled tents were piled up high like body bags, and then came the caravans, some brightly painted and others gleaming chrome in moonlight. Most were dirty with road-grime.         

After a few minutes, the convoy passed, leaving dust hanging in its wake.

 ‘We wouldn’t have got a lift anyway,’ mumbled Dean.

‘Look, there’s a minibus’ Gwyneth pointed along the road. A pair of headlights glared at them from the south, growing larger as they got closer. She jumped up and down, clapping her hands. ‘We’re saved!’  

‘Remember the plan,’ grinned Dean. ‘I’ll get back on the verge.’

Gwyneth staggered out into the headlight glow, waving her arms, and the vehicle slowed. It was a minibus, grimy with age and cobwebbed with rust. The window slid down.

Dean climbed up the verge and approached the passenger window. Then he laughed helplessly. The minibus was full of clowns.

‘What do you want,’ growled the nearside passenger, frowning at Gwyneth beneath the grease painted grin and two prongs of yellow hair. ‘Are you in trouble or something?’ He glared at Dean. ‘What’s so fucking funny?’

Dean laughed again. ‘Sorry,’ he giggled, ‘it’s just funny, clowns in a minibus. Shouldn’t you be in a little car or something?’

‘Shut up,’ hissed Gwyneth.

 ‘You think we dress like this all the time?’ grunted the passenger clown. ‘We’ve just been at a fucking stag night. Cash in hand, and no questions asked.’           

The tears poured from Dean’s eyes as he convulsed in hysterical laughter. ‘I’m … sorry …’ he wheezed. ‘It’s just … so fucking funny …’ He leaned on the minibus door for support. ‘Have you … got … big shoes on?’          

 The clown’s eyes blazed in anger and his hand jerked as the cigarette burned down to his fingers. ‘Fuck!’ he yelled, battering out the smoldering embers in a shower of sparks. ‘This shit is polyester!’

 That was too much for Dean, who burst out in a frenzy of uncontrollable giggles. It was also too much for the clown, who punched Dean in the face with a vicious right hook.

Dean slumped backwards, his lips split into a red grin. His head cracked wetly onto the tarmac and the look of shock fled from his eyes as blood flowed sluggishly from his nose and ears. Gwyneth screamed hopelessly into the silent night. The clown looked at the split knuckle on his outstretched fist with puzzlement on his face, as if it was a squirting flower that had malfunctioned.           

‘Shit!’ The clown looked down at Dean’s face, grinning vacantly up at them with blood-painted lips and nose, livid against his powder-pale face.  The youth was either dead or dying in silence. ‘What do we do now?’           

‘You’ve killed him, you daft cunt.’ Driver Clown was the most sober of the troupe, but not by much. ‘You’re going to fucking jail.’          

 ‘So are you, if you’re breathalyzed, you stupid bastard,’ hissed the passenger clown, now Killer Clown. 

 ‘We’re all screwed, man,’ said another clown, with green-dyed hair and a glazed expression. ‘We’ve got enough dope in here to fuck up a hospital and we’ll be dead if we lose it.’

 ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here then!’ Driver Clown grabbed the gearstick, but Killer Clown grabbed his arm.

‘What about her?’ Six pairs of eyes stared at the sobbing Gwyneth. ‘She’ll tell the police, and we’re not exactly hard to pick out in an identity parade.’

‘Why not kill her?’ The voice came from one of the backseats, a red-haired clown who looked like Queen Elizabeth the First. Vivienne Westwood flashed into Gwyneth’s frozen mind. ‘I’ve got a fuck-off sharp knife,’ he added, with a vicious grin.

Despite a murmur of disapproval from the passengers, that evil gleam of teeth broke the spell. Gwyneth turned and fled, running into the bleak blackness of the moorland.

‘Get her!’ yelled Killer Clown. The six clowns piled out of the front, side and back doors in a roar of clattering metal.

They didn’t have big shoes on.  They ran fast, capering in flapping clothing of all colors, white, red and harlequin patchwork. Psycho Clown was in the lead, grinning wildly in the moonlight, red hair wobbling, blade glinting in his hand.

Gwyneth ran for her life, breath hitching in her chest, her lungs clenching like fists as they sucked in acid-cold air. Ahead was a tree-line, looming in the darkness, and she was convinced she would be safe once hidden. She glanced back over her shoulder. The clowns had fallen back, out of breath, with Psycho Clown and the green-haired Dopey Clown in the lead. Killer Clown was bent over double, wheezing and coughing and Driver Clown was dashing back towards the minibus. She allowed herself a smile of relief, prompted by the adrenaline surge and the closeness of the forest.  I might just make it out of this… Then, her foot found a heather-hidden hole, and she fell sprawling forwards, mossy grass muffling her scream.

She struggled to her feet, but the clowns fell upon her. A wickedly-sharp knife flashed in the air and she closed her eyes in terror.

But the blade never fell.

She opened her eyes, slits at first, then one at a time.

Four powder-white faces glowered at her.

She tried to speak, but words would not come and her lips flapped silently like a landed fish.

‘Don’t kill her,’ said the green-haired Dopey Clown, gripping Psycho Clown’s knife-clenched wrist. ‘Just don’t kill her. We can’t do that.’

‘What else can we do,’ hissed the red-haired clown. ‘Let her fucking go? With her boyfriend dead back there?’

‘Maybe he isn’t dead,’ said the third clown, frowning beneath a frizz of white hair, peering through a pair of grandfatherly half-moon glasses.

‘Here comes the others,’ said the fourth clown, who was made up like a harlequin, his face a blank white oval with a single black teardrop. ‘It looks like they’ve been checking him over.’

The two other clowns, Driver Clown and Killer Clown, leaned over Gwyneth who shivered like a trapped rabbit.

‘He’s fucked,’ said Killer Clown. ‘The bastard definitely ain’t breathing.’

‘You’re fucked, you mean,’ said Driver Clown. ‘Why did you have to punch him anyway?’

‘The cunt nearly set my suit on fire,’ wailed Killer Clown. ‘I was provoked!’

‘We’re all fucked,’ said Dopey Clown. ‘We need to get out of here with the stash and before the cops breathalyze that twat.’ He nodded in the direction of Driver Clown.

‘What about her?’ Psycho Clown pointed at Gwyneth with his knife, his painted mouth curved downwards in outrage, eyes glinting in the moonlight. ‘We can’t just fucking leave her!’

‘Can we not just tie her to a tree?’ Granddad Clown looked mildly concerned behind his glasses, in contrast to the outrage pulsing from some of the other grease painted faces.

‘It’s the middle of fucking nowhere,’ said Dopey Clown. ‘You might as well bloody kill her!’

‘That shit only works in films, anyway,’ said Psycho Clown impatiently. ‘We can stab her, make it look like the boyfriend did it, and then they were hit by cars or something.’

‘We could take her with us.’

The words were lost in the argument which was spreading like a bushfire, flames crackling in the still night air, Psycho and Dopey arguing with the greatest passion.

‘We could take her with us.’ The harlequin spoke more loudly this time.

The others stopped to listen.

‘What do you mean?’

‘We’ve got enough dope to tranquilize her for months.’ There was something about his geisha-powdered face with the single teardrop, which chilled her to the core. ‘We could make her part of the act.’ His deep-black eyes locked with her own, and the true horror of his placid moonface lunacy pierced her mind. The dope will keep her smiling and we could make sure she never ever speaks again.’ He knelt down beside her. ‘Someone bring up some dope, and put that boy into the bus.’ He spoke in tones of gentle authority, turning towards Psycho Clown. ‘And give me your knife for a minute….’

The others held her arms and Dopey spiked her arm with a syringe. The tongue writhed like a slippery snake as the harlequin sliced through the root and the muffled screaming turned into an insane gargle as he turned her head gently to one side, allowing the blood to flow freely. He realigned the knife slightly and sliced up between her jaws, skin flaps hanging in the blade’s wake as she gurgled incoherently through her new grin. He propped her up gently on his lap, holding her as the heroin hit home.

She looked up at the moonlight, which shone on her pale face, and then her stare relaxed and she gurgled in contentment, the ragged wound of her mouth spreading wider, blood seeping around her lips and chin.

‘There,’ said the harlequin, with the slightest hint of a smile. ‘What a grin she’s got now.’

By Iain Paton

http://blackdogstories.wordpress.com/

She was breathing deeply now as her bones started to crack and she couldn’t help but think this could have all been avoided, somehow, if she wasn’t a lustful creature eager for the fuck.

Cal loved her softly and with tender hands, cradling her breast in his large bed as they watched horror movies and she moaned. Her back would arch and would invite the pleasure that always made her bounce a little higher, her copper mane elegantly tossed in the moment. She was bored and in want of adventure, touring the ashy back alleys that smelled of rotted meat and sour milk, vomit and spilled urine. She longed for dirty needles and the thrill of driving while she could hardly see through blurred intoxication. Prostitutes with rich red lips and torn thigh high stockings, held up with safety pins. The pimps screaming their product advertisements to the gentlemen clientel who drove slow enough, you knew they were looking for tight place for their dick to fit. The tame touches of Cal were none of these temptations.

She left him after that final good-bye in the embrace of shortened sighs. She loved him, yes she did love him like she had never loved any man who ran fingers through her tangled mass of red hair, pulling slightly, but not enough to hurt. The first time she slapped him during their love-making he threw her off, but she jumped back like a ravenous beast determined to dominate. Perhaps the wild creature was always lurking in her shadows, just beneath the surface, the first
layer of epidermis. Cal knew it, she thought, that’s why he tried so persistently to subdue and assure her of safety, but he knew that she didn’t want that. He must have known. So she left. She wrote a note while he slept that expressed her regret at the mode of this dismissal and explained that a face to face good-bye would be too difficult. She took her leave and disappeared into that powdery night.

Something answered her then and there, the instant, it seemed, when her heels clicked down on to the path for lost souls. She was invited in the half-moon light by a man who loomed handsome and cringeworthy. She took the proposition to follow him into maelstrom and the steps of hell paved with all her restless dreams. In a warehouse club with androgynous patrons, suckling each other in a sinister way, they drank real absinthe. Lit the match and sugar, let it fall in the poison, gulp it down. The first desperate kiss was a horror show of mutilation and massacre. They enacted the seven deadly sins upon each other: lusting for the flesh, glutting themselves on feasts of orgy, pridefully denying their enjoyment, greedily satisfying their pleasure crusade, exacting wrath of the fury with violent thrusts and turns, coveting each other’s orgasms, and slothfully wallowing in passion spent. She did not know who he was, the being that ripped her flesh like tissue paper and raped her body with anger and desire, but she allowed him to violate her, with a green cloud of fairies thick in the air, she surrendered.

There was no love. Only torment and abandon. Only fierce threats of unparalleled mayhem and disaster. She was succumbing quickly to the world of drugs and sin, no longer looking in the mirror at her terrorized face. Those lips of hers were spilt at the seams and her eyes black and yellow. Bruises in the shape of finger marks held definition around her throat, and the moon was not yet full. Sleep was a taunting deception, a fickle whore with no sense of accountability. It teased her. When she found herself at its door, almost completely engulfed, the madness began. There were bodies everywhere, disemboweled, missing faces and limbs, throats torn out, blood drained. Demons with yellow eyes feasted on their organs and hissed her name ‘Delilah‘. She woke up screaming every time.

The moon was a swollen belly, he began to change. He inhaled more drugs and fed her as many different varieties as he could find. Delilah would cry every time she heard his heavy motorcycle boots on the stairs. The small room they slept in had a dirty futon mattress on the floor with a single lamp and cupboard bathroom. They went to the warehouse clubs every night, dining on liquor and some kind of rare meat. He would dance to saturated drum and bass beats and lick the face of a fresh girl. She should have noticed what was happening, but she didn’t.

On the night of the pregnant moon, she felt particularly feverish, so much so that when he came home and touched her she didn’t even flinch. He smiled, a rare thing, and said under hot breath, “Tonight baby, you look beautiful tonight. I’m going out, you have to stay in.” She turned over, laying on her stomach and moaned. “Why . . .” But he was gone, a spectre dissolving into foggy themes of blood shed and injection sites. The window of their flat was small but when she looked up that bright orb seared her flesh and she began screaming. Her hands began to stretch into something like grotesque paws, she fell to her knees gasping for air as she felt the skin and tissue tearing and rehealing into an animal form and her body coated itself with dense red fur. Delilah’s snout protruded and her ears pricked; she was a very large, very beautiful and terrifying wolf. She broke down the apartment door and her night of unbridled chaos began.

The man was sitting by a garbage can holding himself close, trying to keep out the desperate cold that was seeping in through the torn overcoat. Something in the night made his hair stand on end and sent a sharp shiver through his bones, it was not the chill air. He smelled her before he saw her. That deep animal musk of wild unnatural desire and woman’s floral perfume, her scent was intoxicating and absolutely frightening. Like smelling a match and gasoline together, you know the fire will burn everything. He attempted to stand but she was in front of him before he’d even moved an inch. Her ivory teeth gleaming sharp in the moonlight, glistening with hungry saliva. She ripped out his throat as he opened it to scream and the blood fell hot on her muzzle. She buried her face in his belly and began to consume the meat of her first kill, swallowing the smaller organs whole, gnawing on the ribcage, tearing the meat off in strips. When there was nothing much left of him she gave a grim howl, the howl none of god’s creature could raise, its mournful treachery was an octave of annihilation. She bounded out for more blood.

Delilah woke up naked in the grass. Her face was caked in dried blood and a half eaten mongrel lay nestled beside her. Confused and scared shitless, she leapt up and began running towards what she imagined was the apartment. Lucky for her they lived in a decrepit neighborhood where a naked woman sprinting at dawn did not catch much attention. She darted up the stairs to their flat and was surprised to see a fresh door in place of the one she somehow remembered tearing down. Turning the handle cautiously while covering her breast with her other hand, she stepped into the dim room. He spun harshly and grabbed her. At first she thought he was going to rip her own throat out with those still sharp-looking teeth but instead he smiled exuberantly. “How was your first night?”
“Wha . .what?” she stammered.
“Any hot kills?”
“Whats . . .going on . .?” she was starting to cry now remembering the man in the alley and several others she’d butchered under the light of the full moon.
“You are like me now. A wolf. A killer.”
“I’m not a killer!” she screamed violently and pushed him off with more force than she knew possible. He flew across the room and his eyes caught a yellow gleam, the black hair falling dangerously in his face. “What is this? How could you do this to me?!”
“Shut up bitch and be grateful I don’t rip your fucking throat out for that little stunt.”
“Tell me what the fuck is happening, what the fuck is this shit Adrian!”
“I didn’t know if you’d actually been infected,” he said with a simmering voice, anger still radiating through the syllables.
“Infected?”
“I knew last night when you looked sick that there was a good chance it had taken, and that you’d become one.”
“One what?” she almost whispered.
“What the fuck do you think?” he spat at her. “Clearly you’re too fucking dumb to understand the gift you now have and the power that comes with it.”
“You’ve turned me into a fucking monster!” she grabbed a dress from the floor and ran out the door.

Delilah sped through the broken glass and hypodermic needles littering the streets of unwanted lovers, and she didn’t care. She thought of Cal and his soft warm hands. Regret. She had thought that was only a word for people with weak souls, but here she was thinking about the impulsive mistake she’d made, wondering how this lunacy had happened. She realized half way through trying to puzzle it out that it must have been their carnal lust, the biting and blood-letting that spread his infection to her body. She looked down at her slender form and felt a solid ache for mundane. This was a sentence, a curse, a lifelong stigma, and she realized she couldn’t even think the word for herself without wincing: werewolf. She was a killer, a predator, an evil fucking bitch. Her normal life, or any hope that she might have had of one day having a normal life was now shattered, like the beer bottles she walked through, shiny amber fragments glittering as the tear drops of her demolished existence. He had done it. He had known what he was when he brought her that night to his sex den. Had he smelled the anxious weakness of a girl still in love but searching for something surreal? He must have, because he picked her out of nothing and led her to this. She hadn’t noticed that she had begun to run hard towards a particular destination. When the door opened he seemed unphased by her appearance and simply opened his arms.

Cal was silent after she told him of the painful life she’d been living, the dreary delinquent warehouse with its drugs and fiend music, Adrian and his wretched curse, her bitter change, the events that followed and the brutal aftermath of learning her future. “I don’t think he’ll come after me,” she ended.
“I’ll kill him,” Cal stated gently.
“I don’t think you can kill him.”
“I can fucking find a way to kill him.”
“Don’t kill him.”
“Why the fuck not?!”
“Because I may need him one day.”
“What the fuck for?”
“To tell me about what I am now.” Cal held his breath, rage filling
his usually placid face.
“We’ll get through this,” he said.
“I can’t ask you to be involved anymore.”
“What?”
“I’m dangerous. I couldn’t live or let myself live if I knew I was responsible for something awful happening to you.”
“You’re not alone D, I’m here and I’m not leaving. Nothing you can say will make me leave you. I don’t care what you are, I don’t care about the mistakes you didn’t know you were making. I will help you and I will keep you safe.” He looked at her with deathly serious and merciful eyes. She fell into his arms and was soothed. Maybe there could be life after this curse after all. If Cal wasn’t going to give up on her, she couldn’t let him down by giving up on herself. Suddenly a frigid breeze swept through the room and she all at once felt his presence, his ever watchful presence: Adrian, that leering face, those yellow eyes. She wouldn’t kill him . . . unless she had to.

By Emily Smith-Miller

“You’re gonna what?”

“You heard me, you’re not fucking deaf are you?”

She told him she was going to cut off his dick when they finished their meal. He had prepared the steak himself, and when she came over they sat down to eat  and talk about their day. It was like any other day, but when she told him she was going to cut off his dick, everything changed.

“What are you talking about?” he laughed, forking another bite-sized piece of meat and lifting it to his mouth. He halted it when she spoke.

“Just what I said, Tom. I’m going to cut your dick off and there’s no way you’re going to stop me.”

Tom looked at the morsel on his fork, the redness in the middle, the way he liked steak, medium rare with a little blood still in it. He looked up at her and stuck the meat in his mouth and chewed, slowly, his eyes set on hers. She said nothing in return, just stared back; she had finished her plate, so she waited for him to do the same. Then the mayhem would begin.

He finished chewing and set his fork beside his plate, which still had leftover food in it, some corn and mashed potatoes, a couple of still unforked cuts of steak.

“Cynthia,” he said, trying to force a smile but failing, “I don’t know why you’re saying this, I mean, what…are you unhappy about something, was there something I did wrong, I mean…what…tell me what you mean, I really don’t understand what—“

“Tom. Shut the fuck up. Are you done? With your food? Which, by the way, was lousy as fuck. The steak sucks ass just like you do. I ate it all just to be polite, what my mother taught me to do when people invite you over for dinner, even if they’re total assfucks. And yes, Tom, you are a fucking assfuck. Do you understand what I’m saying, Tom? I spent all day thinking about this, believe me. Like, do I really want to cut his dick off? Do I? Does he qualify? Is he material? Like the others were?”

Tom gaped at “the others” – he stared at her and said nothing.

She continued as if she were speaking about a shopping day at the mall. “Really, Tom, there was a moment or two when I thought against it. I was like, well, if I cut off Tom’s dick then he can’t fuck me like he wants, he can’t get that fucking cock inside me anymore and oh my god what would he do then? Because as you know, Tom, that’s why I’m even with you, right? That’s why we’re together. So you can fuck me and make me lousy steak dinners and take me to movies that suck so much fucking ass they smell worse than yours when you shove your cock in my mouth. So yeah, before I came over tonight I decided you were finished. Well, I guess the better phrase would be I was finished. And I am, Tom. Finished. With my lousy fucking meal you so kindly made and with you. It’s time, Tom. Your dick will soon be severed and your blood will match the steak’s. Except of course you have human blood and not that of a cow. But for all practical purposes, Tom, you are a cow. Moo for me. C’mon, Tom, I’m serious! Moo for me! I wanna hear you fucking MOO!”

He couldn’t speak, much less verbalize what she wanted. She grabbed her fork and stabbed his cheek, reaching across the table, which was large enough for two, and stabbed him, the fork tines leaving four marks inches from his left eye. Tom grabbed his face and screamed and she forked his other cheek. She crawled up on the table and grabbed his hair and stabbed the fork in his neck, but not deep enough to cause arterial damage, just enough to make him paralyzed with fear and pain and shock. She knocked him backwards then, pouncing on top of his chest, the fork in her fisted hand, then stabbed his hands as he tried to grab at her. She stabbed hands and arms until he stopped the grabbing then stabbed his chest repeatedly. She tore his shirt open, buttons flung to the side, pinging on the hardwood, and stabbed him some more until he was in a deep enough state of shock that he couldn’t move.

“Tom,” she said, her tone mild, as if speaking to a child. “You should have known I would do this. I guess you’re not very perceptive, are you? All those times I didn’t laugh at your stupid fucking jokes, the way I would sneer at you in response. Yeah, and what about meeting your batshit crazy mother? Huh? Remember that? Yeah, of course you do. How she leered at me when I told her about my life – which she fucking asked me to talk about! – and how she took your side against me when you said I could do better? Um, Tom? What the fuck did you even mean by BETTER? I’ve been doing fine, thank you, so fuck better and fuck you and fuck your fucking mother! Fucking whore bitch cunt!”

Tom was breathing but the pain she had administered still had him rendered speechless, unable to speak intelligible words. He just lay there, his pants coming off by her hands, the bloodied fork beside his right calf, just out of his reach.

She got his pants all the way off and yanked down his boxers, a pair of blue and green striped ones she also abhorred: those colors made her sick for some reason. Maybe they reminded her of the sea, which was the one thing she would never enter. Fuck, even a swimming pool struck fear in her.

She had kept the steak knife she had used when they ate. She grabbed it from a rear jeans pocket and placed the serrated blade against his limp cock, pulling it straight up with the other hand and holding it still as she spoke again.

“Tom. Are you listening, Tom? I know you are, you fucking cunt. You fucking mama’s boy who can do no wrong, even if you killed somebody on the street or some shit. Your mama would take your side on that too, wouldn’t she? Well, I’m really tired of talking, Tom, and even more tired of you.”

She cut into his cock, which caused Tom to jolt and scream. He again tried to grab at her with his forked hands, the pain in them suddenly more excruciating now that he had been thrust into a higher state of consciousness, but she pushed the knife in deeper, sawing the serrated edge back and forth, cutting into the flesh of his cock, her other hand pulling at it harder, stretching it, cutting deeper, blood spurting and oozing onto her hands and his balls, the blade red with his blood, which she smiled at as she kept up the cutting of his cock, until finally, through all his screams and failed grabbing with his flailing hands, all his writhing and kicking with his legs, every attempt to make her stop a miserable and pathetic try, he fell silent and motionless but wasn’t dead. She could see his forked chest rising and falling, rising and falling, his mouth still agape, as if he were listening to her at the table, her words carefully considered and arranged just the right way for her purposes.

She held his dripping cock in her hands, severed as it was, and stood. She shook his cock like a wet rag, draining it until it dripped no more. She wrapped it in some napkins, some of them the ones he had used during the meal. His blood from where it had been still seeped out; his entire groin was a huge red mass. She studied his grimaced face for a moment then turned and walked out, dropping his severed penis in her purse.

When she got home, she prepared his cock with the proper preservative procedures, then opened the safe and counted: Twelve. Eight more to go and I’ll be done.    

By Jeff Callico