The Seventh Aria

The Seventh Aria

By Brewt.Blacklist

September-October 2011

The Observatory

IT WAS as busy a day as usual, but that didn't stop me from stopping to gape. I couldn't believe what, er, whom I was seeing. It was The Trips. Right here. I didn't think they could even be alive by now, but large as life itself, here they were here in the diner. At my table. Together. I thought at the very least that by now, they would completely hate each other.

"Good morning, ladies. What can I start you out with?"

"Coffee, please."

"No, Joyce, you can't. Water, please."

"Water."

Joyce nodded her head as she dropped it. "Water, please."

They hadn't recognized me, and I was busy enough that I couldn't stop to chat just yet. When I brought the water back, Bonnie finally recognized me.

"We know you, don't we? You're, uh, Alex, Albert, um, no, Alan. Claire's brother, right?"

"That's right. It's good to see you all again. It's been a long time."

"How is she?"

"She's…she's fine." I lied; they could tell. It was ironic that if she had succeeded in joining The Trips, the highest imperial clique from that wretched excuse for a school, they might have been The Quads. Actually, that was kinda funny.

"Right. Take care it, Joyce. It's your turn."

Joyce Liston stood and took my hand. "They'll order in a minute. Come on." She led me to the back of the restaurant. "Is this where the bathrooms are?"

"Yeah."

She opened the door to the men's room, leading the way. My hands were sticky.

"You'll have to forgive me, I really don't remember you. Your sister, yes. Would you turn around please? Put your hands on the sink, that's it. Look at me." She put her thumb from her right hand into her mouth, making it obvious she was sucking it. "Mmmm. Would you arch your back a bit for me? Good. Hold still, and look at me."

I looked into her face, not being able to see her eyes under the sunglasses, but I knew that somewhere under there, she had something dead about her. I could feel her fingerprints down my back under my belt, pulling my shirt out a bit, then continuing its downward path into my underwear. She traced the space between my asscheeks, getting my back to arch a little harder.

"That's it. Almost there." That was her thumb, what she was looking for, ah; she touched my asshole, and I could feel the pressure crank up. Pushing her hand further down so she could launch the pull up, and there, she was in. "Okay, we're there now. Does it hurt?" I shook my head. "Good. Look at me. Let me get a little more in, there. I think that's what we're lookin' for, isn't it?"

I started panting a little; she was rubbing on my prostate, sending shivers up my spine.

"Is that gonna to be enough, or will you need somethin' more?"

"What do you think?"

"Sure. Of course, I seem to've outfoxed myself; I don't have enough free hands at the moment. Wouldja like to help?"

"No."

She took a deep breath, and set about trying to open my pants with one hand and her teeth. Just the way I liked it from way back when. Can't remember me, my ass.

"Uh. Uh. There. Hold still. Can you lift your leg a little so I can get…thanks. Mmmm. Mmhhh. Mmhhhngk ngyk ngyk ngyk ngyk."

It was passable, as blowjobs went, but not really. I thought she'da been better at this by now. She kept the pressure up in my asshole, and she kept the pressure up with her mouth. Shit, no good, I wasn't even half-way erect yet. "Alright, alright, that's enough. Ugh. Move. I have no idea where your mouth has even been this morning." Maybe that's what was bothering me. I pulled my pants up and stepped back from her.

She lifted her hand, looked up at me, and put her thumb in her mouth.

"Nice try, gutter cunt." Wrong hand.

Deep breath. "Ya can't blame a girl fer tryin', can ya?" She kept trying to get up and hadn't yet figured out I was keeping her down: my foot was on her skirt.

"Yes, I can." I kicked her in the boob to keep her down, hard, twice, and knelt over her. That got her attention. "Let me see. Ah, this is the right hand. The right one. Open up."

Despite her struggling just to breathe now, she managed to look up at me with the sweet look of fear; I didn't even need to see her eyes to know they were scared, disgusted, and full of dread. I moved her hand to her face, and forced her thumb, her dirty thumb into her mouth.

"Sssuck."

Revulsion crossed what little of her face I could see, and her mouth started making the motions I demanded. I held it there, watching, pulling her hand up to inspect a time or two, only to shove it back in until I was satisfied.

"So. Am I to take it you guys didn't bring any money today?"

"No, sir." She was still trying to avoid barfing as well as put on a show.

"And what, you thought this little performance would be enough to get me to cover the tab today?"

She hesitatingly nodded.

"And how do you think that went?"

She repositioned herself to my feet, and started kissing my shoe. There was a plead about her that radiated up from her back.

"And when did you three eat last?"

"Day before yest'rday." Little motions broke the air above her that if I wanted to believe, could be classed as subservience.

Hmmm. Decision time. I could lord it over them if I feed them, or I could burn some bridges by sending them on their way. It was extremely gratifying to have one of The Trips kneeling before me, willing to do whatever I could think up in order to get a basic human necessity. Could probably get the other two into doing things as well. Made me wonder why they picked me over any other waiter in town. Probably because they thought they could get through to me because of Claire. But then again, these three went so far out their way to distress and embarrass me way back when that part of me never wants to see any of them again.

"Alright, fine. Go get what you want." She threw herself around my legs with a shaking that could be construed as gratitude. "Go on."

"Oh, thank you, Alan, thank you, thank you." I had to push her off me. When I got to the kitchen, I asked the one of the other waitresses to take care of the girls, and told the cook they were old friends; I'd cover whatever they ordered.

The Trips cooed and oohed and blew little kisses at me when I would get within eyesight of them until they got ready to leave; then they at least had the decency to come find me.

"Thank you, Alan!" they managed to get out within a similar timeframe; nowhere near in unison. They all waved their hands a couple inches, in tiny fists that were not aggressive, from side to side--- "Go Railsplitters!" ---also not in unison. But they did seem relieved to be leaving, fed, without the usual sense of being put upon.

Gotta fix that.

"Come back tomorrow, girls. I'll bring a yearbook, for old times." Their faces did manage to fall in unison, with little nods that were finally in sequence as they trudged out into the snow they were nowhere nearly appropriately dressed for.

When I found the cook, I asked, "So how much did they spend?"

"Fifty bucks, after your discount."

"Hungry little tramps, eh?"

"Hope they're gonna be worth it to ya. They were absolute cunts to Arlene, so you owe her big time. If they come back, you take care of 'em."

I found Arlene smoking out back. It was cold.

"Oh, my god, who were those bitches!"

"The Trips were some girls I knew back in school. I was surprised they still had anything to do with each other. It got a little rough there toward the end."

"I will never wait on them again; I will quit before I have anything else to do with them! God, they were terrible!"

"I'm sorry; let me make it up to you." I kissed her long and slow, and it wasn't enough. "Wanna come over tonight? We can play with Claire; maybe take some shit out on her. The Trips liked her."

"I am in. Jesus Fucking Christ." She took another long slow drag before I went back in.

I GOT off late and found her right where I left her, as if she could go anywhere.

"You are not gonna believe who came by the diner today, sis. The Trips Themselves showed up, and they were hungry."

Claire looked up with a look of interest, a look she hadn't had in months. Her Vow of Silence kept her from commenting or querying or investigating or discussing, but that didn't stop me from understanding what she wanted to know.

"Yup, all three of 'em. Irene, Joyce, and Bonnie. Bitches actually didn't look too bad, especially, ya know, considering. Let's see, uh, Joyce, yeah, Joyce, she really botched a blowjob to get some food. Apparently, they aren't exactly…doing well. I fed 'em anyway, Arlene took care of 'em, and they were their usual haughty selves to her. Hope ya don't mind, I said she could come by, maybe vent a little."

She made the little huffing sounds she was allowed; her stomach should have been fluttering like she was afraid.

"Ya know, she doesn't really like it when I, uh, express my adoration for you. So maybe we can get that in before she gets here. You won't say anything, will ya?" I smiled at my little snicker as I climbed up on the bed, taking my pants off on the way, finding my way into Stephen's Gift, and set to exerting myself.

"I want you to cum for me, sis. I know you can do it; I want you to do it now. God, I love doing this. I don't care what Arlene says, I will never give this up. I'm going to do this for the rest of our lives, you know it doesn't matter how much porn I see, it doesn't matter how often we do this, it doesn't matter what anybody says, I love getting my cock all the way on up in there, screwing, banging, boffing, balling, doing it, bumping uglies, coitus, sexual intercourse, exchanging precious bodily fluids, the wild thing, a roll in the hay, phallacizing you, making whoopee, fornication, incestualizing you, dancing on the mattress, boinking, breeding, I love fucking you, fucking you, fucking, fucking, fucking, fuck fuck fuck FUCK! FFFUUUCCK!!!! AHH! AHHH! AH Ah AAngh hhh hh. Hh. Yeeah. That was great, we'll do that again. Oh, yeah baby, we'll do that again. Was it good for you?"

As usual, Claire didn't say anything, except with the small tear in the corner of her eye. I licked it; I love licking that one silly tear she still gets even after all this time. "Cat got yer tongue? Will I ever get tired of that joke? Thanks, sis. Love you." I kissed and then licked her on the cheek, wiggled her Vow a little, found my pants, and started in on dinner. Cat food for my girl, here.

ARLENE BROUGHT wine, dessert, and a bag she wouldn't let me peek into, the bitch. I love surprises, but I don't love surprises being held out in front of me, taunting me, nagging me, teasing me. She loves 'em. "What's in the bag, Arlene?"

"A surprise."

"A present? For me?"

"No, but I think you'll like it anyway."

"Is it a girly thing?"

"Actually, it's a manly thing. Sorta. But it's for your girly thing. Is she joining us for dinner?"

"No, her dinner stank too much to eat in here with us. She ate already. Come on, what is it?"

"You just get to wait. Those sluts you threw at me today really took it out of me, and I need to get back to being in a better mood, or I'll take all my toys and go home. So keep your pants on."

"Oh, don't say that."

"You know, I can tell you've had them off already this evening."

"And just how do you know that?"

"The brat in the back room smells like she's had a man recently, and unless you rented her out today---no?---that really lowers the count of possi-fucking-bility here."

"Hey, familial rights."

"I'm just sayin', if you didn't let me express my frustrations with that circumstance on her as much as you do, I probably wouldn't let you get away with it. Just sayin'."

"Are you asking me to choose?"

"Not at all. But I'll probably be a bit harder on her because of your, uh, relationship with her. I'm sure it's all her fault." She smiled and winked at me.

"That's what she's here for. Is it time?"

"Oh, for Christ's sakes, you're worse than a kid at Christmas."

"It is Christmas every day in here. And Mrs. Claus is…so generous." I winked back.

"Okay, okay, I give up. Let's go."

We waltzed into my sister's room, dipped, kissed, and rejoiced toward our martyr. She wasn't happy to see us, as if she ever was. She'd been kinda depressed lately and the lining to her cloud had tarnished a bit.

"Arlene has a present for you, Claire. Hope you like it." I could not stop grinning, because I knew, whatever it was, we would be incredibly grateful for the Vow of Silence. It was the only way to get her to shut up; the blathering, the endless ceaseless relentless endless blathering babbling burbling. Even if it all was on the quiet side. Bleah.

Arlene brought her bag---my bag? for me, right?---up, and put it back down. "Can we turn her over?"

"Yeah, if you want." We struggled around a bit to get my sister on her stomach.

"I don't understand why you bother to tie her. It just makes doing things like this harder."

"I like how it looks."

"Not like she's going anywhere."

"Oh, crap, who could that be?" The pounding from the front room was loud, strong, booming, disruptive, could have woken the dead. I pulled my pants back up across the living room to get it, funny how they'd gotten all the way down there, which made the attack on the door even more vehement.

"Alright, alright, coming, just a sec." I pulled the wood, and practically threw myself across the threshold. "Stephen!" I, uh, may have dropped my hold on my pants.

"Dude, c'mon. Not on the stoop. Get inside, you fool."

"How have you been!" I had my arm around him as he billowed snow in, and we both cheshired and stumbled our way into the back. "Claire! Look who's here!"

She, of course, did not turn. Stephen reached for her, and gently rolled her onto her back, holding her face like he was going to kiss her. He looked over his shoulder. "Really, Alan? Really? Can I please take that thing out?"

"Sure." Had to laugh.

He reached back to his love's wide-eyed disbelieving face, and released the valve on the inflation gag, and pulled her Vow out carefully, like it might scratch her. She turned her head up to him and broke down into an earnest well-earned cry.

"Oh god, Stephen!" She whispered as loud as she could amidst the gasping and heaving and gulping. He took her into his arms that she properly slumped into, bawling the soft little whimpers she could make.

"There, there, sweetie, you're alright, I'm here, I'm here." They rocked a while. Arlene and I looked at each other like we were intruding, like our plans had just changed, and tried to turn out of the room. "No, no, kids, hang on. Did I interrupt?"

"We were just going to play with her a bit. It can wait."

"Oh, for Pete's sake, stay. She needs people to play with her, to pay attention to her. I'm sure she'd love whatever you had in mind, maybe after I get what I had in mind over with."

I could see Claire's eyes darting around to find his as he played hoppity skippity up her torso with kissings and little blowings which got her to smile, and when she latched onto them, she slowly nodded between sniffles. Her face was a mix of rapture and anguish and pent up emotion and anger and need.

"I missed you, baby," she whispered out.

"I missed you, too, sweetie. Brought you something." He let her back onto the bed, and reached down for his bag, knocking Arlene's over. "Would you please take these ropes off her, Alan? The one thing she doesn't need is to be kept from moving, you moron."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." I set out to start untying my sister, nodding for Arlene to come help.

"Be right back." He left the room and we heard some rummaging around where we had just finished eating, like the dishes were getting shuffled and clanked around. By the time the commotion ended in the next room, we'd gotten her out of the hon kikkou, the matanawa and the ryo-tekubi, and back to lying down. "That's better. C'mon, sweetie. It's in the dining room." He picked up our little invalid and carried her to the dining table. She was so happy, she probably just wished she could put her arms around him. She did nuzzle her face into his neck, and was kissing him tenderly as he sat her down into a chair, pushing her up tight against the table. He reached around, and laid her breasts up to be resting on the table top.

In front of her on the table was a 2x4, a hammer, and two nails. Her face fell as she couldn't move or turn away or even wiggle.

"You know what I want, don't you honey?"

Her lips quivered as she performed one of the two major motor motions she was capable of. She whispered something I didn't understand.

Stephen did; his hands stroked the sides of her face. "The only thing you can do is feel, Claire-Bear. So, for the little time I get to spend with you, I want to make sure you feel things you will never, ever, ever-never forget." And with that, he picked up the hammer and one of the nails, positioned her nipple to be on top of the board, and swung.

No question; she felt it. Her head went up as far as she could get it, her jaw dropped down as far as she could get it to go, and the exhale would have been a scream if she had the use of her vocal chords. She heaved and wheezed a few times before he repeated himself with a second bit of metal, a coincidentally second breast, and the rest of the scene repeated itself. It was inspiring to see this man do the one thing to his woman she couldn't bring herself to say no to, no matter how many times or ways he did it. Never mind that she couldn't do anything to stop it.

Arlene clutched my arm as she cowered a little behind me, peeking around, fascinated, chewing on my shoulder. I could smell how excited she was; her complaint of what she caught a whiff of earlier seemed trivial by comparison.

Stephen then proceeded to assault her tits directly with the hammer, raising bruises and contusions and discolorations and inducing swelling and getting more exhales out of my sister as he beat her, mutilated her, defiled her, and mashed and mauled her with the maul. Her hair flew about as Stephen's Mjollnir sang it's brutal song.

He turned the hammer around and pulled the nails out, bending them. "Can't have that." He put the first nail down on top of and perpendicular to her nipple, then proceeded to tap, no, smash it back into shape, crushing flattening breaking pulverizing her nipple underneath. Then the other one. Claire lost sanity, as did we all.

Arlene pulled my hand back between her legs and broke the ice, grinding against it, inducing me into an action for her, squeezing, rubbing, pinching, forcing my way in, pushing cloth.

Claire was hyperventilating, and Stephen forced her head up to look at him, drinking in her expressions, her pain, like he was sucking blood. "Tell me you love me, Claire. Tell me. Say it." She didn't have enough faculty to do his bidding, so he squeezed what he had been damaging, turning his fingers white, inducing another violent round of oxygen exchange. "Say what I want to hear now."

"Hhhhlllhhhvvvhhhoooo!" The most noise she'd made in a couple weeks.

He pulled her head to him, like he was comforting her. "That's my girl."

Arlene couldn't wait any more, and dragged me to the floor; she ripped my pants down, then her panties, "Do me, do me now, you bastard!"

Not a problem. She was deluged, I was rampant, and our act was feral. We were not quiet.

Somewhere in there, Stephen got my sister back to her bed. We got to where we could hear him shouting as we slowed; I offered to get some drinks.

"Oh, god, baby, strongest shit you got," Arlene moaned as I popped out of her; I dripped on her enough to keep her mind where I wanted it before I stood to look for glasses and wet goods. We finished a few swallows of absinthe, enough to get the green fairies to fly, before the bellowing from the other room died down enough for us to hazard a look.

Claire was spread-eagled out, eyes glazed toward the ceiling, and Stephen was languidly pushing his hips into her juncture; the fog in the room was quelling. We clinked our glasses, holding up the other two for the couple. Taken, shared, enjoyed, the settling eventually got quieted down to Vow of Silence levels.

My friend had worked his way behind my sister, getting her to sit up and lean back into him. He stalked and played with her new marks, nibbling her neck. "Tell them what I said, darling."

Claire swallowed, took a couple breaths, apparently steeling herself, and hoarsed out in a whisper that would be sexy in bars. "I love you all, and, and---" she turned her head toward him, obviously weeping.

"You can do it." He pushed on her tits, getting her face to quiver; she rolled her head back and tried to kiss him. He let her.

She caught a little more of herself, and continued. "K-kindly do with my useless b-body as you wish. I am your docile servant. I am a filthy, worthless cunt, and deserve all the punishment you can give me. St-start tonight." Her head dropped back into him, and she should have been shuddering, but couldn't.

"You are so beautiful, honey. I do love you." He slid out from behind her and laid her back down, re-arranging her, keeping her legs spread wide. "I gotta go, you know that there's a lot of work to do to keep my girl here going, but I'll be back soon, to take care of you some more." He kissed her passionately on the lips, swatting some other lips she had; she kissed him back as well as she could. "I love you, Claire. Don't forget that." He stood and dressed as he exited, pulling me out of the room with him. Arlene went to the quadriplegic and embarked on petting her. Yeah, there; she was fascinated.

"Dude," he said quietly as he made for the door, "you are nowhere near hard enough on her. When is she in therapy next?"

"End of the week. The doctors are encouraged she can finally move her head some; still think it's weird she can feel but not move."

"Do they inspect her much?"

"Naw."

"Then you can do whatever the fuck you want to her. Try breaking some fingers; girl needs whip marks, man, not rope marks. I mean, I know you bang her, but what she really needs is to have someone really go to fucking town on her. Haven't you noticed? She digs this shit, digs it with a capital 'G'. Put her through her paces. Step it up, my friend." He patted the side of my face, and my sister's itinerant husband trudged out and faded into the night.

I trundled back to find my girlfriend still comforting my girl, mulling my twin fortunes. No, wait, triple---The Trips are coming back to see me tomorrow. Life is pretty fuckin' good; growing up just might be worth the trouble after all.

"And what was it you had in mind for her this evening, my dearest?"

"Well, nothing to match this. I just brought a dildo to stick up her ass."

"That's not a bad plan, as long as your hand goes in with it. Need a smoke?"

My beloved sibling made one of the two motions she could do with her head.

Appointments

I DECIDED it had to be worse to be called down here when you're a parent. When you're a kid in school and get the call, you either did something or someone said you did something, and you either did it or you didn't; you could either defend yourself or not. Lots of possibilities. When you're a parent, there's no defense; your offspring's in trouble and it's bad. I felt bad for my mother getting called out from work; I wished I had something to assure her about.

"You can go in now, Mrs. Hanson, Irene," Miss Boggs smiled as if nothing was wrong at all and went back to her photocopying.

"Ah, good afternoon, Mrs. Hanson. I am so sorry to have to have called you down like this. It wasn't something I felt we could talk over the phone about, so I appreciate you taking the time to come in."

My mother hadn't even succeeded in sitting down before the bomb hit.

"I'm afraid we've had a bit of an incident, and Irene here was involved. Now let me first of all assure you that no one actually got injured, and no charges are going to be filed. So that much has gone well for us."

"Oh my god, what happened?" She fell into the chair.

"Another girl was attacked in the boys' bathroom, and Irene was there. In fact, she participated."

"What?"

Dr. Prentiss took a big breath. "Do you know a Claire Darrow?"

"Yes, she's one of Irene's friends."

"Irene and two other girls had her stripped and were holding her down on the floor of the boys' room. There was a long line of boys going into the bathroom, and the boys that were actually inside had their pants off. It was unclear as to whether they were going to rape Miss Darrow, or if they were just going to humiliate her by urinating on her. Her parents have taken the stance toward the latter, and have chalked it up to hazing."

"This is impossible."

"I assure you, it isn't."

"No, I mean it isn't possible for Irene to be involved with this."

"Mrs. Hanson, I'm the one who caught them. It, unfortunately, is true."

"I don't know how, but somehow you are mistaken." My mother looked longingly at me, and took a deep breath of her own. "Irene has been raped."

Dr. Prentiss sat back and considered a moment. "I don't believe I knew that."

"So you see, she couldn't possibly be involved in this."

Another moment of consideration passed in the minefield disguised as an office.

"Actually, it is not uncommon for sexual assault victims to act out what had happened to them. Have the police caught him yet?"

A very long uncomfortable silence passed. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

"We've not…gone to the police."

"I see. Is there something I need to know?"

My mother looked at me trepidaciously, unsure if she should say anything else.

"Irene." I looked at the principal, not wanting to answer her.

My mother, thank god, did it for me. "She…she said it happened here. At the school."

Dr. Prentiss's gaze shifted, thank god for that, too, toward my mother. She didn't say anything, but her gaze drilled into my mother until her soul was exposed; I could see it.

"In the cafeteria." My mother's head tipped back a little, issuing defiance.

The Principal's eyes narrowed a little. "And how do you know this?"

"I've been going to therapy with her."

"I believe that is a good thing. Irene," and the lasers were back to me, "who did it to you? You can tell me."

I shook my head, dropping it.

"She is terrified of retribution. She'll tell us when she's ready, when she feels safe enough. That's what the therapist said."

Another long uncomfortable quiet was eventually broken by Dr. Prentiss. "You said in the cafeteria. I'd like to ask some things, if I may---not to try to pry into an affair you've decided is private---I merely want to ask if this sounds familiar."

My mother and I swallowed with an audible gulp in unison.

"The attack, I take it, happened at lunch. And no faculty intervened, in fact, they participated. And there wasn't just one boy involved, it was all of them. And several other students were attacked as well, not to mention female members of the faculty. And it went on most of the day. Is…that what happened?"

My mother's eyes went wild and I could see her blood pressure go up, closing over the borehole to her soul. "You knew?!?"

"Please. Nothing like this has happened. That would suggest I was in on it, wouldn't it? I can assure you, that is not what is going on here. And, if I may add, it wasn't just once, was it Irene? In fact, if you were to ask her, she'd say it was going on every day. If we were to walk down there right now, we should see it happening, according to the story."

"She's…suggested it happened more than once. What is going on? How do you know all this?"

"If you would like to go down and look, right now, we can. You can bring the police, if you wish. We can surprise any classroom you like. Because I'm sure she's mentioned atrocities happening in class as well."

"I am not understanding anything here."

"I am so, so sorry, Mrs. Hanson. This is one of our school's dirty little secrets. We try every year to stop it, but it's like it is in the air here. Quite a few years back, now, one of our teachers wrote a story, to try to deal with the wholly inappropriate frustrations he was having with the students. It wasn't a very nice story; he broke all standards of decency with it. It was the most disgusting thing you could ever read. It was, it was a sexual tale, filled with rape and torture, and all the things we look to civilization to do away with. He was reprimanded for it but he then wrote another one a few years later along the same line. We fired him. Unfortunately, the stories got out. Another one was written by yet another teacher later on, a woman this time, and the stories keep getting regenerated, year after year. We can't get rid of them."

"Wait, are you trying to tell me that what happened to my daughter was just a story?"

"We don't know what to do about them. The stories are the Shame of the Railsplitters, a horrible disgrace. Ineffectual boys are granted a mysterious power over the girls in school, which they use to, and I don't know how else to put this, well, the girls are enslaved to do---things---for the boys; little bastards get away with it. Disturbing disruptive distressing difficult sexual things. It is all despicably perverted, and absolutely not what happens here. For some reason, these over-the-top tales have captured the mindset here, and we try, time and time again to confiscate copies, and to have better education about their subject matter, to induce some decency and enlightenment here, but they keep coming back, like literary vermin."

"I don't know what to say," my mother said. Maybe not, but she couldn't hide the words 'Jesus Fucking Christ' from flashing on her face.

"Your daughter has not been raped. She has read a story that disturbed her, and has been acting out as though the story were real. Which is, I believe, a different problem for you to deal with at your therapy sessions. Again, I am so sorry it has come to this." Dr. Prentiss's fingers intertwined. "Unfortunately, there is the matter of she did in fact do to her friend. And for that, she will be suspended for three days."

And it was over. My mother's head was hanging as she found my hand and stood. Dr. Prentiss stood, I stood, we all stood. I stuck to the chair, and felt my skirt not want to leave.

"I want you to come see me first thing Monday morning, Irene. We'll get through this. It will be alright. I will take into account that she's already in therapy as a positive thing here. I would like to speak with her therapist, though, if I may. Apprise him of, I'm sorry, him or her, of this…development."

My mother told her who I was seeing.

"I will see you on Monday, Irene. Take care of yourself." And when I looked back into the principal's office for the last time on our way out, I saw the truth of all this come out.

The bitch smiled, and winked.

MY MOTHER wouldn't have anything to do with me for the rest of the day, except to ground me to my room. She cut off my internet, took my phone, my TV, then even my computer, and basically interrupted my access to the world. She went through my drawers, my bookshelves, my closet, taking out anything that even might be construed as bad. She didn't get much. I'm really a good girl. Okay, some smokes.

"I've made an appointment with Dr. Elbert tomorrow," was the only sentence pronounced at dinner. Every time I tried to say anything, she tut-tutted me back to silence.

I cried myself to sleep.

The next morning, my mother came into my room to tell me to get up, that we were going to see our therapist. The silent treatment continued unabated all the way into the shrink's office.

"Ah, good morning, Mrs. Hanson, Irene. Before we get started, I want you both to know that I heard from a Priscilla Prentiss yesterday afternoon concerning Irene. I believe she's the principal at your school, isn't she, Irene?"

I nodded. I hadn't looked up at him yet.

"She spoke a bit about what has been going on. Do you want to say something about this, Irene?"

He didn't hear me the first time, so I had to repeat myself. "I didn't do anything."

"That's not what she says."

"I'm sure it isn't."

"You must admit, well, you don't have to, of course, but her story makes more sense than yours has been making the last few months. The idea that there are daily rapes happening at your school, sanctioned by the administration, is fairly incredible. The idea that you have read a story that had that idea in it and have been projecting it into your world is much more likely, wouldn't you agree?"

I didn't move a muscle, but I could feel my mother nodding next to me. "And now this unfortunate business with your friend---Claire? Is that her name?"

"I…didn't do anything to her, either."

"Mmm Hmm."

"Really! I didn't even see her yesterday! You have to believe me!"

"I think this is more than talking about it can do. We need to put her on some medication, to try to tamp down some of the delusions, maybe help her with the paranoia. Come back and see me at the end of the week."

My mother picked the prescriptions before we got home. An added benefit, at least for her, was that the drugs put me to sleep. So rather than stay home with her errant daughter, she simply knocked me out, doubling up on the dosages. I slept for five days, and dreamt of mirrors, flying and fairies, missing my appointment with Dr. Elbert on Friday.

MONDAY MORNING came bright and early and way too early and my mother still wasn't talking to me by the time she left me off at school, leaving me back where I started.

"You're late. Come in."

I stepped into Dr. Prentiss's office from the waiting area.

"I have some notes for you, but first things first. Are you alright?"

I nodded my head as I sat in the chair in front of her desk. Dr. Prentiss sometimes substituted in History class for Ms Pitcher.

"I'm so glad. No, no, get up. We have places to go, things to do, people to see. Let's walk while we talk. Let's see, we talked a bit about Egypt and Sister Hildegard, if you can believe there's a connection between them."

"I…no."

"The ancient Egyptians used crocodile dung as a contraceptive. Seems it actually serves as a spermicidal; sounds dreadful, doesn't it. And Sister Hildegard in the Middle Ages discovered that if she processed enough human urine, that also had contraceptive properties as well. We use the same hormonal compounds today in modern contraceptives. Now. Why would a woman in her right mind even try to find out whether or not crocodile excrement would work as birth control? It seems a fairly dangerous idea, to me."

"Sounds gross."

"Yes, yes, of course. And, of course, it was obviously a punishment for some poor woman to have crocodile poo pushed into her vagina, and the punishment for her man was to go get it. Puts a whole new twist on the idea of getting the shit fucked out of you, doesn't it?"

I didn't like where this was going.

"Yessir, pussy full of shit, get it all fucked out of you, and she didn't get pregnant. An astute observation on the part of the Egyptians."

I didn't like where this was going at all. Nor was I sure who she was talking about.

"Now, of course, we don't have any crocodiles around here. Unless you count what I know the kids call me that they think I don't know about." She smiled a sickening grin. "Ah, here we are. There is, though, something we do have an abundance of. After you."

She was holding the door open to the boys' bathroom.

"I said, after you."

I swallowed, and stepped into my doom.

"I'm sure you remember your accomplices from last week." The bathroom was filled with boys, none of whom had their pants on, only a couple whom I recognized.

"Gentlemen. Our fair Miss Hanson has volunteered her services for your morning needs for civilization. Do oblige her offer."

The nearest boy behind me, Roy Barnes, grabbed me into the middle of the room, and forced me to my knees.

"Do you have what I asked you to bring? Very good; if I may." The Crocodile stood over me. "Irene. Darling. I'm making this easy for you today. Swallow the end of this." She had a rubber tube in her hand. "If you don't, you can wear this instead." In her other hand was a pair of lines of metal that I understood immediately what they would be used for: they would spread my mouth open, and hold it that way.

"Oh, dear god, please, no…"

"Pity. Roy, force this tube down her throat. Now."

Roy grabbed my head and started shoving the tube into my mouth. "Swallow it, cunt."

"Language, Mr. Barnes."

"Sorry, Dr. Prentiss." With that formality out of the way, he went back to the act of force, holding my nose shut, putting more and more of the tube into my mouth. "Swallow it, and I'll let you breathe."

"Much better, Mr. Barnes."

My struggling grew more desperate, and I felt other hands holding me, tying me, and my course was narrowing to what was in my mouth, oh no, oh god damn it, I had no choice. I started to move the back of my mouth and my throat, and I started to get the tube down, down, I was ready to gag, and suddenly I could breathe again. Apparently, I had enough of it in to make their point. I followed the tube with my eyes to the other end, and there was a funnel. I struggled; the binding didn't offer a lot of give.

"Come, come boys, single file, one at a time. Roy, see to it at ten o'clock she makes the transition to the girls' room. Don't forget the mandatory assembly at noon."

I couldn't help making noises; I could still breathe and do those. I wailed. She leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. "Tomorrow, my dear, we will probably be a bit less dignified about it all. Do away with the tube, use the spreader gag, that sort of thing. So you have today to get used to it. I'll talk to you later. Mr. Barnes, you might want to get some tape. Help hold things together here for you." And she strode out, leaving me alone in a room of pantless boys, boys who had caught her lecture on misconstruing medieval contraceptive practices. A forest of erections were pointed at me. Needy things, erections.

Roy took his due as the leader and grand poo-bah; he opened his pants, the only unopened ones in the room, yep, that was his cock, alright. I'd had an acquaintanceship with it at homecoming. He held the other end of the tube, the end with the funnel on it, and the sounds of liquid falling on plastic started horrifying me. I shook my head like a wet cat; it didn't do any good. "If I'da known you'da done this, we might have had a better time at the dance, don'tcha think?" I couldn't concentrate on what else he was saying, I was too busy noticing something warm in the tube against my lips, in my mouth, the back of my mouth, my throat, oh god, I could feel it in my stomach, which immediately turned. The laughter rippled around the room over my revulsion at what I understood he was doing, what they all were going to do. "God bless our favorite reptile. Pissy Prissy came through again. Who's next?"

I wanted to die. Didn't get to. Yet.

DR. PRENTISS came into the girl's room later in the morning, at the insistence of Harold Stanton. Roy sent him out to get her.

"I don't know what you're so concerned about."

"Well, she was pukin' up, and chokin', and I kinda think she started ta drown."

"Let me see. Are you alright, darling?"

I didn't nod my head. I could hardly sit there.

"I must say, Mr. Barnes, I am quite impressed with your ingenuity here. The tracheotomy will certainly allow her to keep breathing no matter what we put down her throat, and it gives me an idea for something to do at the end of the assembly. A big finish, as it were. Take all the tape off, and pull out the tube, and let her disgorge herself as much as she wants. Do point her at a toilet; we don't have time to have her clean it back up the right way right now." And once again, I watched her leave me in a lavatory.

I hate throwing up, but it was the happiest moments of my life to be expelling everything I could in front of the boy I had once toyed with having soft feelings for. I just wished he was in my way, so I could barf piss all over him. He and Harold got me cleaned up enough to take out to the assembly; we were late, I still smelled bad, my hands were still tied behind my back, and the crowd was the last thing on earth I cared about, fuck popu-fucking-larity. I just wanted to go home and curl up with a good sedative.

"…And Miss Hanson here is going to demonstrate the strength of the human spirit for us. Boys, bring her here."

I was still kinda dazed and hadn't quite come to yet, until something flashed in front of my eyes; it took a couple more seconds for the pressure to register around my neck. I was being pulled up. Pulled up by the oh my god they're they're hanging me! I stretched as far up as I could, and it pinched like a motherfucker, and suddenly my feet were wiggling kicking dancing running around and the ground was gone and shit I'm going to die I wanted to just a little while ago but that doesn't stop the panic mommy mommy please don't kill me please no please please please Hail Mary full of…

I wasn't dead.

I wasn't dead, and my feet were not on the floor, and my neck was bent, and I struggled but, but, I I I could breathe. As I realized I wasn't dying, I was breathing, my head hurt anyway, I could see everyone sitting there with their mouths all open, I was b-breeeathing through the hole Roy had put in my chest my throat when he thought I was drowning he saved me he saved me then he saved me now I was still alive thank you Roy thank you thank my god what was I saying. It felt awful to not be breathing through my mouth, but I could do it and I was grateful and I think I cried a little and I know I cried when I could feel the ground under my feet hallelujah, I can go on living some more, it isn't over ow ow ouch the rope was being pulled from my neck and I gasped the gasp of relief to get to breathe normally anyway, I think I was grinning, I had triumphed over death, and let myself crumple to the floor.

"Stand up, dear. Come on." Dr. Prentiss was helping me up, and I was amazed to find I could stand and I leaned into her, god save me, I leaned into her. "Wave. Smile. Atta girl." She addressed the crowd with her arm around me. "You don't know what you can or cannot do, ladies and gentlemen. You're tougher than you think you are. Irene here had no idea she could do what she's done today; just imagine what she can do tomorrow!"

I tried to scream, but nothing came out. There was thunderous cheering and applause.

She held me up as the crowed murmured about as they left: that was awesome, had to be faked, how'd she get that twat to sign up for that demo. It was hard to hear what she was saying to me over the noise. "You're coming home with me tonight, young lady. I believe we have a crocodile experiment to work on."

My mother didn't believe this story, either.

The Crocodile

MY SWEET Jesus, how I hate Patricia Pitcher. Little tramp sooo thought she was going to be Pat Pratt; at least he had enough sense to reject that little split-tail. It was disgusting how she threw herself at him, goading him into his doom. And it is such a mixed blessing now; I still have to put up with the tart, but I can wreak my vengeance on her anytime and every time I want. Think I'll call her over tonight.

"Hello?"

"Tonight." Click.

Let's see, what else do I need to get done today. Ah yes. The Rapp slut. I touched the intercom: "Miss Boggs."

"Yes, Dr. Prentiss?"

"Please call Herman Samoff down to my office."

"Yes, ma'am."

I managed to get to the ladies room and be civilized before that little ne'er-do-well managed to drag his sorry ass in.

"No sense of hurry today, Mr. Samoff?"

"Ms Pitcher had a hard time letting me go today, ma'am."

"I see. And what was the topic in History today?"

"Grass-shut."

"Ah, yes, Gratiot, a favorite topic of our dear Ms Pitcher. She had a great---oh, I don't remember how many greats---grandmother incarcerated there during the Civil War. A rich neighborhood, amazing that they had a dungeon. Well, maybe not so. Dreadful conditions for women in prison. Even today. Prisonerhood strips all their humanity away. Take off your pants."

"I…I beg your pardon?"

"Didn't you hear me?"

"I…uh…"

"Right now, you are my prisoner. And what I want from you does not even qualify for de minimus harm. Do it now."

"W-whyy?"

"I want you to masturbate, my dear. Right here, right now. You'd best begin, as I want you to finish at least twice before I bring a certain Bonnie Rapp in, at which point in time we'll see what we can do about violating the Eighth Amendment." I winked sloowwly at him; the lights finally went on. He grinned an idiot grin and winked back, even though his idea of a wink was with both eyes.

That gave him something to think about while he executed my commission; he was actually showing some enthusiasm for the task. Now, where was my to-do list? Miss Rapp, Mr. Samoff, Ms Pitcher, yes, this was turning into a productive day.

"You can't possibly be ready yet." He lay before me, still with an erection. "I want that disgusting thing to be as it should: limp. Again. Again." Yuck. Should make him lick it up, but that might just be what he's been missing in his young life.

"That's about as far as I'm gonna get, Dr. Prentiss."

Ach, finally. "Miss Boggs."

"Yes, Dr. Prentiss?"

"Please call a, uh, a Bonnie Rapp down to see me."

"Right away, ma'am."

I looked over at the almost-weary toy on the floor. "You can't possibly be tired of this yet."

"No, ma'am. Uuhh." Still had one left in him. The Miracle of Youth.

"Good god, take this tissue, dear lord, take three, wipe yourself off." I hoped it would be enough; she was going to be here any moment. "Put your pants back on, and sit down. Try to think of England, baseball, mother---no wait, scratch that last one, I've seen your mother---whatever it takes to put a young man out of the mood. Better? Let me check." I leaned over the desk and reached for his pants, yes, yes, nice and non-useful to a girl in heat. It would have to do, and it would for sure be short-lived.

The announcement at my door came in time for me to sit.

"Ah, Miss Rapp. Good of you to come by. You do know Mr. Samoff, don't you?"

She hesitantly nodded. The bastard didn't stand; I just didn't know what kids were learning these days.

"Very good. But I'm afraid it has been brought to my attention that you are a bit of tease, young lady. And, the reports coming to me indicate that our fine young man here has been the brunt of a great deal of it." I waited for her eye-size to change. "And you are here to rectify that little problem. Unbecoming of a lady to inflame young men without the intent of handling the fire they inspire, don't you think?" And there; her mouth fell open.

"Stand up. I said, stand up. Put your hands here on my desk." I came around to her side, and whispered in her ear. "Don't you fucking move, Bonnie Rapp. If you do, you'll be taking over Irene's chores tomorrow. Do you understand me?" I waited until I couldn't wait anymore. "Answer me."

"Ye-yes, ma'am. Not a muscle."

"Herman. Darling. Come lift this, see what she has on under here." He stepped up, and lifted her skirt. I sat where he had been; it was warm, praise heaven, it wasn't moist.

"I did not expect you to be so modest, Miss Rapp. Herman, get the scissors out of my second drawer there. Cut these abominable granny panties off. Not even I would be caught dead wearing these garbage bags. Did your mother buy them for you? No, wait. Your father; no doubt thinking such armor would protect his precious from what boys want. I'm surprised there isn't a chastity belt on under them. Spread your legs a little more, dearie. Herman, put your hand under here. Little more, there, there. Tell me what you feel."

"I…I don't feel anything."

"Try again." Buffoon.

"I mean…she…she's shaved."

"Do you know who shaves their pubic hair? People who expect their pussies to be seen. I don't believe yours is, is it Herman?"

"Uh, no ma'am."

"And yet yours is, you little trollop. How is your erection, Mr. Samoff?"

"I don't have one, Dr. Prentiss."

"Not quite the effect you were hoping for, is it, young lady? Herman, in the same drawer you got the scissors from, you will find a metal ruler. Miss Rapp here needs it administered to her. I trust you can do the honors. Don't move, you little floozy."

Herman Samoff's enthusiasm for striking his classmate's posterior was enchanting. She really had to have gotten to him to get this kind of reaction out of him. If she was a girl he actually liked, I do believe he would have balked. By the time he drew blood, noisy blood, I stopped him.

"And how is that erection coming along, Mr. Samoff?"

"It's needy, ma'am."

I looked down into the teary eyes of the girl. "And that, young lady, is how you induce some combustion in a man. Not by demeaning him, but by letting him demean you." She sobbed heavily.

"Dr. Prentiss?"

"Yes, Mr. Samhoff?"

"She…she's wet."

Halle-fucking-lujah, her body's permission was what I was waiting for; my heart lifted. "Fuck her in the ass, Herman."

The boy threw the girl to the floor, and did much more than simple gentle loving anal intercourse: he raped her viciously, and she screamed appropriately, promising him the requisite anything to try to get him to stop. It brought me the gratification of an educator to see young people growing up right before my very eyes. When he finished, I advised him on how to have the lady at hand minister to his next needs with her mouth, pointing out how, if she was hesitant or unyielding or contrary to this idea, he would be more than welcome to administer my ruler to the area she was so anxious to have be seen, or another spot or two we could think of. As it turned out, she was quite receptive to the notion. I had him try his hand at a couple of other spots on her anyway, cutting up some more rags in the process, to help reinforce the idea that surrender was to be her new ambition, her new creed, her new aspiration that she would pursue at all costs with his aid.

The happy couple---well, half-happy, and in truth, I was a little fuzzy on which half was happy---left my office with lesson plans, a ruler I'd been trying to get rid of, and some scraps of foolish paternal protection that would serve to occupy her mouth, when he had no other uses for it.

WHEN I got home, late with a sack of dinner groceries, Patricia Pitcher was kneeling on my doorstep, facing the door.

"I can't help but notice that you're dressed."

"Yes, mistress."

"Well, aren't you going to do something about that?"

"Right away, mistress."

When I checked back on her 10 minutes later, she was indeed in the necessary state of undress, facing my door, on her knees. I congratulated myself on the choice of a wrought iron grate for a doormat; her clothes and her car were nowhere to be seen. "You may crawl in." She crossed the threshold, and kept her nipples dragging on the floor, just the way I liked them. "Kitchen. You may tape your heels when you get there."

"Thank you, mistress."

I watched her keep her thighs apart on her way through to make dinner, and set up to remind myself that I hadn't heard her say 'mistress' enough tonight: she was down at least one.

"Wait. Is what I want where I want?"

"Yes, mistress."

"Show me." She straggled back to me, lay on her back and spread her legs. I was satisfied.

"Go take them out. And bring me a drink."

"Yes, mistress."

I relished the whimpers from the kitchen as my education kicked in to try to amuse me while I waited: Pretty Patty Pitcher's Pulmonary Pillows Polished Priscilla's Pine; Prissy's Prim Petite Pigeon Practices Pulling Painfully Placed Pussy Pins Producing Palpitating Panic like a Persecuted Prostitute Prior to Preparing a Potluck for her Paramour. Not perfect, but it would do.

A few minutes later she crawled in with one hand up above her head, holding my martini. Her going was very slow; she was always in danger of spilling. It was quite amusing watching her try to balance the drink, drag her breasts, keep her legs apart, crawling, my god, no wonder men can't look away from a woman crawling, no matter how badly they do it. She at least remembered the double-stick tape on her heels: still clean.

"Ugh. Too much vermouth. Turn around, spread your cheeks." I had already planned on having the first one be a failure, no matter what she brought me. I took the school funnel from my end table---hhmm, disgusting thing, school property in need of a good tongue washing; maybe later---poked it into her offering, and poured a little of the drink in: she'd be drunk almost immediately. If I'd poured the whole thing in, we'd be taking a trip to the emergency room. Not that I don't want to have her spend more time there, I just didn't want to go tonight. I poured the rest in her hair. Her crawling was more amusing as she went back to try again, running into the couch, door frames, I wished I'd had a camera, and she slopped a lot around on round two as well. She at least finally got the drink right: six parts gin, one part vermouth, thank you Mr. Lehrer.

"Is this too hard, sweetie?"

"I'm sssorrrry, mistress."

"I don't care. Stand up." She stood on her toes, wobbly, tense. I let her stand and stared at her as I knew she hated; her own insecurities would serve to undo her this evening. "Look at me." She had to lift her head; whatever fantasy she'd had about being an obedient slave girl was about to get taken away from her. "Pick up one foot, please." Her shaking started in earnest. "Higher. Higher." She finally bent her knee, and had to rest one foot on her thigh to keep her center of gravity in the right place. Her ankle closest to the floor wiggled; she would not last long like this.

"Describe your last masturbation session." This always was hard for her to do, and her response was what I expected.

"I haven't done…that since the last time." A pause long enough for nomenclature guilt to set in. "M-missstresss."

"So, tell me about that one. And Look. At. Me."

She swallowed twice, trying to keep her balance, psychological and physical. "I was here; you ordered me to. I didn't like it."

"And what did you think about?"

"I…" She clammed up, closing her eyes. Her down foot wiggled harder and she dropped the up foot to try to keep from falling.

"Pick your foot back up, Patricia. Open your eyes, and tell me what you thought about."

Her lips trembled. She rapidly inhaled a half-dozen times, way too shallow to do any good; she was about to panic. "Him." She could hardly pronounce the word. She was about to cry, having completely forgotten the title she owed me. Three, four, five, Jesus Fucking Christ, it was beyond mattering now. I had other things to do.

I stood and put my arms around her; she was experiencing a personal earthquake. I whispered as quietly as I could as I kept her from toppling us both, "You know he's not coming back for you."

That was all it took. She dissolved again like I had stabbed her, which, of course, I had. I let her weep a moment or two---collapsing onto her heels, sticking herself to my floor, which I would also use for another excuse later on to make things worse---before I started in on the plan I really had for her for the evening. "Did you find the cigarettes in with the groceries?" She nodded amidst the blubbering. "Go get them. And the lighter." She made sticky sounds going back to the kitchen, ach, I was going to have to start taking notes on everything she did wrong. At least she came back the way she should, after her little yelp of realization floated through.

Vernon Pratt smoked, which is why I picked this for her to do to herself tonight. Having her masturbate as she's putting them out on herself was an act she would agree to be wholly appropriate, an act she could drive herself to do until she burnt the house down. Getting this whore to torture herself is worth all the tea in China. There is no doubt I could get her to kill herself in a grisly and horrifying fashion, but until we can work out the details of getting the Resurrection to happen on demand, I would just have to put up with what I can get her to do to herself just shy of that little inconvenience.

I swear, I will never, for the rest of our lives, allow anything to happen to interfere with the hurt I intend to inflict upon this cunt. Never ever ever never, so help me God.

"Patricia?" She looked up at me from the floor she deserved to be close to. "All of them." She nodded somewhere between sorrow and relief, and set about her chore.

Dinner can wait.

A Letter Unanswered

MY DEAREST Darling Patricia,

You are such a dear! Thank you so so very very much, I accept. We'll run away together, never to darken these hallways again with our shadow, and retreat into the woods. I know of a place in the middle of nowhere that is remote and isolated; absolutely beautiful. No neighbors on any side of us, for miles. And I shall do to you what you offered, all day, every day. We will have to get a dog. Promise. Soon.

All my love,

Vernon

DEAR PATRICIA,

I've still got some arrangements to wrangle. Come by the house after dinner, hag's got meetings, so we'll be able to play. How do you feel about needles?

Vern

DEAR PAT,

That was so close last night! I can't believe she got home early; thank god you had the wherewithal to have parked a ways away. I've got the rest of your clothes; come by when you get the chance to pick them up. If I'm not here, they're in my lower left drawer in my desk.

I truly love you, young lady. I keep wishing I'd found you a quarter century ago. Of course, you were just a baby, and how would we have known back then? I guess it just took a little aging and growing up, on both of our parts, and the fortunes of fate to blow us together. That, and the staving off of random pedophilia until enough kink would cultivate to suit you. I used to be a nice man; I have no doubt, you were never a good girl.

Speaking of blowing, are we on during your free period today? I think there's still some unfinished business from last night we need to get through. I've got some saline for your breasts, and a fresh hypo. I'm hoping your sweater is tight today; give the boys something to think about this afternoon.

The cabin I've got picked out for us has willows (for your tits!), good solid birch trees, the land has sticky thistles, rocks, snow, pine trees---and hence, pine needles and pine cones (think of where those can go!)---everything mother nature can offer us to do to you, my love. And do it, we will. Every excruciating fantasy you have ever had is about to come true for you. I think we'll be ready by the end of the week. Hang in there.

I can't wait!

---V. Pratt

HEY P,

Just a little tidbit to help tide you over your day. Keep your expectations nice and low; it is clearly not my best. Had a bit of a rush on it, you-know-who has a habit of coming by to see what I'm doing.

Workout

by Vernon Pratt

Pigs sweat.

Pigs sweat, men perspire, women glow.

Me? I sweat. I am a pig.

He has me go the gym every day, rain or shine, in sickness and in health. I don't even get my birthday off. An hour a day, two on weekends, and be sure I take something out of me every time, find something else that is needing to be aching by morning, and work it to damn death. The stair-climber today; it kicks my ass hard, every time. No matter how much time I throw at the treadmills or the ellipticals, the stair-climber has me panting like a slut in minutes.

A pig-slut.

My chest aches way down deep, the way he likes me to report that it does. My knees don't hurt they way they used to, but my chest can't ever seem to quite adjust to the altitude here. Vacations at sea-level are like magic, I can breathe so well. But up here in the mountains, not so much. Quitting smoking didn't even help.

As I stagger up the relentless steps, 40 flights so far, Jesus Fucking Christ, it's only been fifteen minutes, I remind myself what is waiting for me when I get home. The conversation that led me to take this action here, because it is going to happen. Tonight.

"To crack a rib. Actually break it. There's no splinting, no casting, no way to support it, and the pain will simply not go away. What will that take?"

"Well, a hammer, I'm sure. Like a ball-peen."

"So if we wanted to crack one someplace interesting, say, behind a breast, would a masonry chisel direct the force tightly enough to ensure an actual break, and not just a deep bruise?"

"I suppose it would."

"Perhaps we should practice."

That was six weeks ago, just before we practiced. Imagine my surprise to find he already had everything he needed for this little operation. The mark the chisel left was wide and actually left quite the scar; the crack was enough to get my attention, and our physician's, not to mention the insurance company's. They were not pleased. I screamed myself hoarse the first night when he leaned over and put all his weight on me, on my new break, and he reported that I contracted around him when he was inside me like I never had before. I needed to know that, to remind me when I wavered.

It still throbbed, but no longer incapacitated me as I panted like a whore when I ran, or when he fucked me, or when he whipped me. He is probably getting a bit bored, so the offering will have to come sooner rather than later, if I intend to keep him.

Thirty minutes, 70 flights, I was slowing down, and I could hardly lift my legs. I stumbled; one of the trainers came by to ask me if I was okay, shutting the machine down. I assured him that it's just been a bit longer than I intended since I was last on one of these. Sweat, slut-sweat, pig-slut-sweat was pouring down my face, under my arms, my palms---ooh, cold sweat there---under the breast that was looking forward to its evening, and between my legs, my god, it looked like I might have had an accident. He helped me up and pointed me toward the showers; I was too tired to refuse and actually spent a little time in the hot tub, trying to get my knees---surprise---to stop carrying on about their displeasure. When my time was up for the day, I trudged out to my vehicle, and trundled my way home. I convinced myself I was ready: sooner would be better than later.

He had done up the dining room special, candles, ropes on the table, cane, whip, hammer, chisel, ball gag, everything a sacrifice needs for a splendid night of torture, including the utterly incongruous sounds of Gilbert and Sullivan. I confessed my sin at the gym.

"Well. Maybe we'll do two."

Talk to you soon,

Love,

---V

DEAR PRISCILLA, You Sanctimonious Slutty Whore-Cunt,

I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you.

Take it all; I have no use for any of the stuff, or you, any more. Ever. Keep the damn cat. Good-fucking-bye, you bloody bitch.

Vernon Pratt

DEAREST PATRICIA,

Tonight. I've got everything lined up. Meet me at the station.

---V.P.

VERNON?

Where were you? I waited and waited! What's going on? Call me!

---Pat

Armada

AND AGAIN.

The line is still long, it will probably take the rest of the day, never mind coming back for seconds. At least, they tend to not take very long: I am grateful for merciful amateurs.

And again.

They are still working on entrance number one, it can't be too much longer before the realization dawns on someone that there are other ways in.

"I expected more from you. I don't believe you are doing anything besides just laying there." "Something should be done." "This isn't quite what I had envisioned." "Yeah, isn't this supposed to be better?" "Not much different than taking care of myself." "Yeah, this sucks." "Roll her over."

Here it comes.

"Get under her. Make her do the work, at least."

I rolled over rather stiffly, took a deep breath, and splootched the previous guy's deposit on to the next one.

"Oh, god. Yuck. Filthy."

"It'll serve as lube. Isn't that what you wanted, a gutter whore? Just relax." I was risking a beating by talking back, but said beating was inevitable anyway. "There you go. Isn't this good?" And now I needed to act, and fuck, on top of swallow my pride. I tried to not look them in the face, but it was unavoidable; neither was the next request.

"Kiss me."

And again.

"Gentlemen, I believe you are missing an opportunity here. Girls can take care of more than one of you at once. The evolution of human females seems to have had that idea in mind as an integral part of survival; the female who could take care of all the men in the cave had a greater opportunity to reproduce. We all owe our existence to sluts, not girls who say 'no'. See? Here, here, here. More ways in than any of you have shaken your sticks at yet."

Well, that little cat is out of the bag. Cats. Ow. Couldn't she have mentioned how to make it easier, even for them? I suppose not; the blood will serve to ease their way soon enough. Ow. At least, I can stop kissing the guy underneath me. Ow. I don't know how many more sets of braces I could stand to put my tongue on. Ow. Small mercies. Ow.

"Pinch her nipples." "Spank her ass." "Pull her hair." "Choke on this." "Stop crying, it's supposed to hurt." "I want you to cry; I like that."

And again. They turned me around, so I would be facing up. Another round or two of insults and contradictory instructions.

"Young man! Put that out!"

Harold Stanton dropped the cigarette to the tile floor and ground it out.

"God damn it, Stanton, don't you fuck this up for us. No smoking!"

"Language, gentlemen! I swear you'll all eat soap for lunch for a week if it doesn't improve around here. And besides, that is not what I said." Everything stopped, and I even got my head away from the little boner beside me and turned toward her.

"S-sorry, Dr. Prentiss."

"I said to put it out, and you did a piss-poor job of it." Nobody moved, and then she did the thing that truly damned me. She nodded her head, ever so slightly toward me. "Try again."

Harold's hands were shaking as he lit back up; he looked back to her for the guidance he obviously needed, and she repeated her lesson. Another slight nod. He wheeled about, and stubbed the drag out on me, breaking it, getting me to yelp. He turned back to his his m-mentor.

"Dear god, Mr. Stanton. It is a good thing you are in school, I might have to hold you back yet another year." She let that sink in one last moment before pronouncing my sentence. "Third time is charm, Mr. Stanton. Now get it right; take your time, no sense in rrrushing."

Harold was looking at me with another lit cigarette dangling from his lips by the time I could tear my eyes away from the referee; I could feel them drying out. He took a long slow inhale, reddening up the end of his weapon, getting the little crackling sound it made to reverberate over the hush. Slowly, slowly, he pulled the spike from his lips, and lowered it toward my abdomen.

"Hold her down, boys." And suddenly, I was tied with human ropes, chains made of hands. I hyperventilated as it descended, and the boy underneath me---the one in my ass---started groaning. Even though they look small and innocent and innocuous and don't cause cancer or bad breath or make you cough or give you yellow teeth or cause infertility or cause birth defects or kill anybody anywhere ever, there's one small fact about cigarettes that always gets glossed over by the anti-smoking campaigns.

They are made of lava.

Harold Stanton induced a diaphragmatic abdominal hernia along the transpyloric plane in me with that first effort, just above my belly button, along with the accompanying requisite scream I was none too happy to deliver. Some of my education got eradicated.

"That was much better, Mr. Stanton. Now. Did you bring enough for everyone?"

No no please no god no no more jesus fucking christ no no I can't I can't no no please…

"I've got maybe a dozen."

"Very good. Packs, I assume."

"No, ma'am. Just a, uh, dozen or so cigarettes."

"Pity. Very well. The first lesson you all learned in school was sharing. Back to basics, I always say."

By this time, I was struggling as hard as I could, and even managed to kick hard enough get one then two sets of hands off me, and twisted as much as I could, like a cat, finally even getting off the cock underneath me. I threw myself at the floor over the drain, as if it could help.

"PLEASE! Dr. Prentiss! I'll do anything! ANYTHING!"

The Crocodile leaned down and put her sticky icky hand on the side of my face. "Of course you will, my dear. I never had any doubt." And Court was adjourned, the appeal a failure. Verdict: slaughter.

"That! Was! Great! Y'all gotta try that!" The young man I had the honor of fucking my ass when the brimstone fell was carrying on like he'd been on a roller coaster. "Really? Me next!" "Me, too!" "I wanna go again!" "Me!" "Me!"

"See what a fine job you are doing, young lady? Seems to me that nice young Stanton boy---Harold?---should have the next honors. They are, after all, his dirty habits he's spreading around the room." She looked up. "Mr. Stanton! I must admonish you to quit smoking. It is a filthy disgusting addiction; they are very bad for you. And giving cigarettes to your classmates---there may be some detention for you, young man." Then back to me, quietly, so no one else could hear: "You seem to have garnered yourself some fans. Don't disa-fucking-ppoint them."

I screamed at the top of my lungs, nothing coherent. I felt all the hands in the room manipulating me and moving me around toward my new fear in life; I couldn't move a muscle, there were just too many of them. After they had forced Harold's cock into my ass, and some other kid I didn't even recognize into my pussy, the lighter made the rounds. I started with the hysterics, the begging, the pleading, the worthless prayers.

The Mistress of Ceremonies had to raise her voice. "Mercy is one of the finer qualities of civilization, gentlemen. Don't draw things out unnecessarily. Be sure to extinguish all of your sins here all at once."

Hell rained down on me, with all the anguish and torment and suffering it could muster. I spasmed until I stopped; they re-arranged themselves again with two other people penetrating me, and the inferno raged again. And again. And again. And again. Somewhere in there, my thumbs started getting stuck into assholes, massaging prostates with all my extra jerking around. I didn't care. And again. The bukkake had kicked in for real, and my only hope was that they'd soak the cigarettes enough to make them unlightable. And again. By the time they all started pissing on me, I had enough burn scars to make the salt content in the urine render my ability to express myself fall back on the evolutionary ladder to somewhere in the caves.

"HI, SWEETIE. How was school?"

"Oh, fine."

"Learn anything today?"

"Nothing exciting."

"Pity. Dinner's at six. Go wash up."

Radiant Gifts

IF HE wants me hungry, I will not eat. Let me starve.

If he wants to hurt me, I will let him. I'll help.

If he wants me to lie, or cheat, or steal, or kill, or take the fall for him, I will do all these things.

If he wants me to get another girl for him, or a boy, or whatever, I will procure for him all that he desires.

If he wants to whore me out, if he wants me to degrade myself before all mankind, if he wants me to entertain him with my death, I will blithely enact all for him, serving as my own executioner, if need be, any time, any place, any way, anyone, anything, anything, anything at all.

I loved Stephen Jamison with all my heart.

He used to go out with Irene Hanson. I wasn't about to let her get him back, so, enemies closer, blah blah. It took a while to get in graces with her, but I finally started to make some inroads. She and Bonnie Rapp and Joyce Liston were the Holy Triumvirate in school; all the guys wanted them, all the girls wanted to be part of them.

"Why do you want Stephen so bad, you silly girl?" Joyce was carrying on.

"Don't you think he's worth the trouble?"

"He wanted horrible things from Irene, right Darling?"

"Oh, god, yeah. He wanted me to do stuff with him a Japanese Schoolgirl wouldn't let her boyfriend do to her."

"Like what?" Oops, too interested.

"Oh, girl, you got it bad. What do you think the worst thing is that a guy could want from you?"

They all waited, and stared at me. "Oh, that was a real question, huh. I suppose he'd want to make love."

They all laughed.

"On…the first date?"

"Claire, you are so wonderfully naïve, sweetie, we don't ever want you to grow up, you know that, don't you?"

"Come on! Talk to me here. What's a girl gotta do to get a guy's attention?" I tipped my head onto my hands, fingers intertwined. I tried to look cute. They all looked at each other, and didn't think I saw the 'oh boy, gotcha' they exchanged. Class was in.

"You've mentioned sex, which is a nice sweet adorable little fear your mother and father have for you. If that's all it took, we could all have a nice time wearing bobby socks. Men are freaks; they want their women to be absolute gutter sluts for them. They are hard on us. They may promise you princesshood, but what they really want is for you to give them everything, and I do mean everything, you've ever been taught to be awful and disgusting and wrong. You think sex with a guy is a big deal? Try sex with everybody you know, for his sake, for his status. Everybody. Can you do that? You do know, don't you, that there's lots of places for a man to have sex with a woman on her person, don't you? And that it's not called making love, or having sex, or getting laid, don't you? It's called fffucking, and when you say it, it better sound like you want to be doing it, right here, right now."

"Oh, and never mind all the lying he will in fact besiege you with daily, you better start learning to put things in your mouth. Guys want to put everything in your mouth. A woman's mouth is not for talking or breathing or eating. It is for entertaining a man. What's the worst thing you can put in your mouth?"

"Oh, my god. You mean, like…poop?"

"Not poop, honey. Shit. And not just a little taste once. Enough to overwhelm you, every day. And not just his or yours: shit from everybody you know, and everybody you don't know. Plan on becoming a human toilet. Dirt is just laughable: shit, piss, sperm, a woman's period, spit, phlegm, vomit, snot, whatever food you hate most, all these things will find their way into your mouth. Your mouth, your hands, your face, your hair, your tits, your pussy, your ass, everywhere on your body. Every damn day. To stay."

"Do you have any dignity? Any self-esteem? Give it up. You will not be a girlfriend, a lover, a treasured pedestaled elevated companion. You will be a trophy, a toy, something that does tricks to be shown off; someone who is expected to have no regard for your self or what anyone thinks of you. Assume you will be naked, embarrassed, humiliated, laughed at, scorned, ashamed, disgraced, ridiculed, and what's more, you will be expected to say that it is okay with you, and that you would voluntarily go through all this every time he wants it. Every single last time, no matter what. And to be of good-fucking-cheer about it."

"You're trying to make this sound hard."

"Babycakes, you have no idea. You think love is a happy thing, a good feeling of fondness, a pleasure? Wrong, wrong, wrong. Love breaks you; it is not the little languishing of loneliness in your room at night while you dream of castles and knights and rainbows and unicorns. A guy's idea is that the truest expression of love that a woman can give her man is nothing short of her being willing to undergo the most excruciating torturous agony you can possibly imagine, on demand. Childbirth is a walk in the park compared to what a man expects. Whenever he wants you to have a discomfort, a woe, a torment, a suffering, an affliction, a tribulation, you'd better be prepared to serve it up with a smile. Can you break your own fingers to entertain him? What if he wants to cut your tits off and eat them? Will you happily let him? What if he wants to cut them off and throw them away, and then pour salt on the wounds and walk away from you forever because you don't have them any more, will your love conquer that?"

I could feel my eyebrows knit one, purl two.

"Do you have limits? Because they need to go away. You need to be willing to let him hit you any way he wants, any time he wants, for any reason he wants. You need to be willing to fuck any time he says, any way he says: girls, dogs, relatives, enemies, people you don't want to have anything to do with, feh, do it. If he wants you to masturbate in front of a camera, in front of your mother, in class, in church, you'd better get your little hand busy. You need to be able to play whatever game or role, sustain whatever blemish or bruise or disfigurement, and induce whatever change in yourself he wants. You. Don't. Matter. Any. More. If he needs the money, you need to be willing to take out the life insurance policy and convincingly die in a gruesome accident so he can collect. What possible limit can you ask him for that he won't want you to break? Hmm?"

There was a lull in the conversation.

"See? You aren't ready to give of yourself, you're nowhere near ready to love, and you sure as hell are not ready for Stephen Jamison."

THE DAY was approaching. The Trips had been putting me through my paces, turning me into a little whore, getting me ready to give myself to Stephen. It was good to have friends. Friends who were willing to abuse the bejesus out of me so I could find true love. They just thought they were getting to do bad things to me, thinking they were tricking me into it, that Stephen wouldn't have any regard for me at all, and I'd just end up being made a fool with a broken heart.

But I knew something the catty bitches didn't.

They were right.

Stephen came by my house to talk to my idiot brother. I found them in his room, and sat at the desk. I put on my best flirty smile, and demurely looked to the floor to wait.

"What do you want, Claire."

"I don't want anything. I'll just sit here, if that's okay." I rolled my eyes up to Stephen, poured on the smoke and took the right kind of deep breath toward him.

"Claire, right?"

I nodded and dropped my jaw just enough to get my lips to suitably part, slowly, from the middle out. They were just the right amount of sticky. Once all the way apart, I smiled just enough to push them back together.

I could see the steel turning molten behind his eyes.

"Alan…" here it comes, "…do you fuck your sister?"

Contact.

"Whhat?" My brother was completely caught off-guard by the whole idea of his secret feelings suddenly being a topic for discussion, and he was appropriately chagrinned and offended at the remark.

"You heard me." Stephen was looking through my clothes, and imagining things happening to my body; I could see it.

"No." One second, two seconds. "Why?"

When Stephen's corners of his mouth bedeviled up oh-so-slightly, I knew, and I gave the slightest nod I could. Another round of heavy water turned into heavy air circled the room. "Wanna?" I mirrored Stephen's smile: he knew I knew. He returned the nod to me, and love was born.

"Isn't that…wrong?" I played with the top button-hole of my blouse, baiting another hook. I lowered my nose toward my left, keeping my eyes on the new man in my life. I found another need for air had set in, a need I utilized to thrust my chest toward the interesting boy, clarifying my offering.

"Suppose it is. What would it take to get you to overcome that little taboo?"

"Well, I, uh…"

"Not you, moron; you are such an idiot, an idiot with a capital 'D'. Her. Claire." He stood, towering over me, asserting his dominance. "Claire. If I told you I wanted to watch you fuck your brother, would it happen?"

"Are we just playing 'what if'? What would happen between the difference of 'yes' and 'no'?" The tension ratcheted up, and I could see the bastard I was going to love the rest of my life rear his head. Game time.

"Claire. Fuck your brother. Right now."

I stood, and started shedding my clothing. "You know I hate him."

"How about that."

Naked, I turned back to Alan, the little gaping twerp, pushed him down onto the bed, and opened his pants. When his boner, yeah, it was just a boner, not a real erection, was standing out and up above him. I took it in my hand, and turned back to face Stephen.

"And why would you do such a terrible, awful, horrible, disgusting thing, there, little lady?"

I dropped the cock and slutted my way across the room to my reason for living. I wrapped myself around him, and drew him down to kiss me, "Why do you think?" I husked in a way that would be sexy in bars, and poured my soul out, into his mouth; I made him wish he was on the bed, until he was desperate to breathe; hang my need.

"Prove it."

"Yes, sir." I turned back, climbed up on to the bed and proceeded to bang my brother blind, deaf and blind, the little dummy. "I hate his guts; there's only one reason this is happening."

"Don't hate him. Tell him you love him," Stephen said.

"I love you." My brother didn't hear me; he was too busy being happy. The person I really intended to hear it did. "I love you!"

It didn't take the little squirrel long. Stephen ordered me to suck his penis afterwards. Price, bill, cost, payment, fee, tax, expense. Easy.

"How was that, Alan? Is she any good?"

"Oh, god, yes!"

"So. Claire. Tell Alan here he can fuck you any time he wants."

I knew this was coming. "Mmm hhhh hhh Alan, you can fuck me any time you want."

"And you'll do anything he wants."

"Anything you want, Alan. Mmm ngyk ngyk ngyk."

"Any time."

"Any time. Ngyk ngyk ngyk."

"Anywhere."

"Anywhere. Ngyk ngyk ngyk."

"Any. Damn. Thing."

I took a deep cleansing breath. "Anything. I'll do anything at all."

"Look at me. Say what I want to hear."

I turned up from my task, my chore, my livelihood, to face him. I whispered with all the foreshadowing I could muster, "I love you."

"Stand up, whore." I stood before my man, hands to my side, as naked as I knew how to be. "We'll see what you're made of. Tomorrow. After school. In the gym." He turned, and left.

I barely whispered anything; I didn't want Alan to hear: "Yes, Master."

"Did you mean it?" I was startled Alan was still here, in his own room, with a freshly sucked, uh, yeah, an erection; I had sucked it into one myself.

Virtue is only triumphant in the theater. I turned and did what I was bade: I groveled before the proxy to my sovereign. "What do you want to do first?"

THE TRIPS Themselves dragged me into the girls' bathroom.

"Are you kidding me? Really?"

"What?" I found my coy.

"Don't be stupid, you little whore. Are you really meeting with Stephen today?"

"Yeah. So?"

They closed their circle, leaving me out. "We can't let him." "No, absolutely not." "Jesus Fucking Christ."

"What are you bitches blathering on about?"

"Listen. Claire. You are in some serious danger here. Don't go to him."

"Blow me, you motherfucking cunts." My resolve was renown, the stuff of legends. They looked at each other, once around the room.

"Okay, look. We are not going to let him murder you. This isn't a game, it isn't a joke. What do you think he's going to do to you today?"

"I don't care. Isn't that what you three have been talking about? Let the nookie win?"

"We've got to do this to her. It's the only way." Irene was stroking the line on her throat. "He'll leave her up until she's dead."

"I agree," said Bonnie.

"Me, too," said Joyce. "Hold her."

The girl on my left and the girl on my right grabbed my arms and held me upright, stationary, and one of them pulled my head back by my hair.

"It's for your own good, Sweetie." I didn't hear the knife open, but I felt it poke through my neck. "Stop struggling, almost done."

"God fucking damn it, stop! Stttoooopppp!" The quality of my voice changed as the air I was exhaling changed direction mid-word.

"It's the only way. And we're going with you. No choice."

They let me go, I looked in the mirror; I was bleeding, but she managed to miss any major blood vessels, so it wiped away before it got on my blouse. I hated the trache; I was damaged, and not by whom I wanted to do it.

Irene spoke again. "The bastard is enamored with the idea of a woman willingly dying for his entertainment. It's why we broke up; he wouldn't stop hanging me."

When I got to the gym, the girls were already there, along with the boy, the blessed boy who wanted everything from me. Sure enough, linear material was coming down from the ceiling. I wondered how he got it hooked up all the way up there. Nothing was said; I stripped as I crossed the floor and the Holy Triumvirate was standing on the bleachers, hands clasped as though they were praying. I climbed up the ladder toward Valhalla, and put my head in the noose. I broke the silence, ever so slightly: "Do you want to handcuff me, or tie me or something?"

"Stop it!!" I glanced up toward the door; the principal was running toward us. "Nnooo!!"

I looked back down. "Stephen." He looked up at me. "For you." I smiled and winked at him, and took the last voluntary motion of my life. I kicked the ladder away, and fell toward my love. No pardon, no reprieve, no exoneration, no absolution, no amnesty, no liberation, no acquittal. Easy.

THE TRIPS got probation, because even though they didn't do enough to actually stop it, they took steps to try to save my life; it went in their favor. Stephen got five years because of Irene's testimony; if he hadn't done what he did so much to her, it would probably have just been the same deal they gave the girls. Something about how he had to have been the one to attach the rope in the ceiling being circumstantial, but very incriminating. Nothing was mentioned at the trials about whether or not I was doing something voluntarily: the line of clothes I had left never came up. I still couldn't leave the hospital even a year later.

The real monster of it all was deemed to be Priscilla Prentiss. She was charged with pretty much every sex crime known to man, but she eventually got remanded to an asylum as being clinically insane. A textbook psychopath, a true danger to society, she expressed the disorder by forcing others into sexual promiscuity with extreme deviance by whatever means she had: pathological lying, charm, manipulation, the power the school district gave her that she also lied her way into: she had no doctorate. Utterly irresponsible, no guilt, no conscience, she also suffered from endless psychotic delusions. Nobody ever found any evidence of a Vernon Pratt ever existing, whom she claimed to have been married to, or how he left her for another teacher who didn't seem to have any knowledge of him either. Her claim that he wrote horrifying stories about schools torturing girls as general practice was cited as solid evidence of her break with reality; no such stories were ever produced. She was trying to make that mythical school actually happen. And, it came out, that she routinely tortured this other teacher as well, the one who supposedly took her non-existant husband from her. To my best knowledge, she's still there, in the nuthouse. Probably never get out.

As for me, well, I married a prisoner who got off early for good behavior and had three bridesmaids who helped me down the aisle in a wheelchair I had to be tied into; I lost track of The Trips shortly after that. I live with my brother whose girlfriend eventually moved in with us, too; they exact a price for my care. A price my husband insists I pay with joy.

Secretary's Day

"I'M HOME!"

"In the back."

"Hey. How was your day? Mmwah."

"Barely a word to paper; couldn't even spell 'cat' today. But never mind mine. How was yours? Did you get a lot of shwag?"

"Flowers from the new boss; they're in the kitchen with a couple groceries. Took me to lunch. It was tasty and delicious."

"Ah. Well. My lunch was what it usually was: peanut butter and jelly, carrot, banana, bleah. What kind of flowers?"

"Roses. Peach ones. And yes, they're all sticky and thorny, just the way you like them."

"Long? And did you remember cigarettes?"

"Yep. And Yep. I can do more than one thing at once: shop, remember my beloved, remember where I live…"

"Why are you still dressed?"

"'Cause I'm such a bitch. A ball-busting slut. I'm an absolute cunt you should do something about."

"Like this?"

"That's ughh, a start."

"How 'bout this?"

"Step in the right direction."

"Go get your flowers."

"No."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

"Hang on. There. Now will you go get them?"

"No."

"Now?"

"No…no…"

"One more time."

"Yes! Okay! Stop!"

"No."

"God, please! I give!"

"Had your chance. I think a couple more times ought to do."

"Wait, please, too much, too fast…"

"Don't care."

"Oh. Ah. Oh. Th-thank you."

"For what?"

"For stopping."

"Now. About those flowers."

"Yes. Yes, I will go get them."

"Oh, uh, by the way."

"Hm?"

"Solve that other little problem you had when you first came in while you're at it."

"I'll do that right here, right now. For you."

"No, no. You can take everything off out there."

"I'll be right back."

"Wait. You're going like that?"

"I don't understand."

"I want you to drag your tongue on the floor. Both ways. Off you go."

"Bleah. Here are your flowers. Bleah."

"Don't be silly. They're your flowers. Roll on them."

"What?"

"Well, if it was money, you'd want to roll around on the floor on it like a selfish arrogant gutter bitch, so, this is as good as you got, you worked hard for them, now lay them on the floor, and roll around on them. Or do you need some convincing?"

"Ow. Well, they were pretty."

"Mhh hmm. Now bunch them up, give them to me, and lay across my lap. No, no, roll over. Look at me. There. Does that hurt?"

"Yes!"

"Which is worse, here, or there? Can't decide? We'll try again."

"There!"

"There? There? There? There?"

"God yes! Uh!"

"I'm hungry. I think I'll order some food."

"Not again."

"What, aren't you hungry? After your long day?"

"Not like that again, please. I'm begging you."

"You call that begging?"

"I will do anything you want, just please don't do that to me again."

"That is absolutely correct; you will do anything and everything I want. And I'm hungry."

"Can't I just go get something and bring it home? Or wait, I brought groceries."

"Only if you go out dressed like that."

"But I'm not---"

"---That's right. And no cooking. Why don't you, uh, entertain me a bit while we wait, and play with yourself until the food arrives."

"Please?"

"Hop to, hop-sing. Now."

"Ow! Ow! Okay, okay."

"I'm interested in the wonderful flush your breasts get when you're excited. And If I can't have it this way, maybe there's another way we can get them to change color."

"Ah ah ahh jesus ah."

"Don't get carried away too quick, I want you to cum when the delivery guy walks in the door. Oop, there he is. Don't bother, I'll get it. But by god, you'd better fucking do what I want when that door opens, or you are going to have a rough night."

"Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah."

"Hey come on in. how much do I owe you?"

"That'll be nine bucks---Jesus Fucking Christ!---oh, my god. Sorry. Sorry."

"Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah."

"No, no, come on in. She was just FINISHING up. Ah, yes, see? See all the color? That means it was the real thing. Little whore can't get away with faking anything, see how the blush of being em-fucking-barrassed is different? DON'T turn away, my dear, stand up, come here."

"Hhh hhh."

"Would you like to check?"

"I…uh…should probably…"

"Nonsense. Put your hand right here---Look him in the eye, you little cunt!---and see if you like the feel of that. Don't worry about the mess, we have a cure for that---Suck his fingers!---she does that well, doesn't she?"

"Holy shit, yeah."

"Tell me, young man. Is there anything else you might have an interest in having her…sssuck?"

"I don't…know how to ask for…that."

"Oh, noooo---"

"---Shut up, whore!---I'll show you. Let me guess, you're…right handed? Good. You need to get a hold of something on her with your left hand, like this, or this, or maybe even this. Personally, I like THIS!"

"Hhharrgh!"

"Then you take your other hand---it's called the dominant hand, you know---and then you do this. And this. And This! AND THIS! THIS! THIS! THIS!"

"AARRRHHGGHH!!"

"When you UGH start getting UGH a reAAACtion out of HERRR, you're GET---UGH---TING CLOSE! Ugh! Ugh! UGH!"

"ARRGH! Please! Please! Aaahh!"

"THAT'S what you want. Hahh. When she makes that kind of sound, offering you---things---to get you to stop, then it doesn't matter what you ask for, or how you ask. If she has a concern about what you want, she'll tell you all about it. Then you simply start over until her concerns all go away. It's called communication. You try…"

"…AAH! AHH! PLEASE! PLEASE! STOP! I'LL DO IT! JUST TELL ME! OH MY GOD! PLEASE!"

"You, my friend, are a natural. You know what we should do? We should have you give a whirl toward something I know she really hates. It's called a titty-shit. Can you guess how that works?"

"…No. No. No. No. Oh, dear god, no, please, don't, no, please, I'm begging you, what can I give you to…no, no, no have you no mercy why why I can't I can't please kill me instead no…no…no…"

"You know that thing she was doing when you came in? Maybe we can get her to do that while she's doing this other thing, too. And shouldn't she be sucking something by now? I seem to remember hearing something about women bragging about being able to multi-task."

"THAT TOOK longer than I thought it would. Actually glad he's finally gone. Do you still feel like a bloody bitch, my dear?"

"NnnnooOOO!!! AAARRRGH! HHH! HHH! HHH! HHH!"

"Fuck, the food's cold. Should I ask you if you still love me?"

"GOOD MORNING, Miss Boggs."

"Good morning."

"You're in early today. Making copies?"

"Yes, sir; some, uh, reading assignments for a few of the students. Extra credit, you know."

"Ah, very good. Carry on."