The Skin Show

by Kristopher Rufty

  Karen checked the time on her phone. “Five more minutes until Victoria performs. Apparently you don’t want to miss it.”

  Andy felt a chill run up his spine to the back of his skull. “Oh yeah?”

  “What do you think she’s going to do?”

  “Honestly, I have no idea. Sugar said she’s the boss, so I imagine it’s going to be good.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Doesn’t the headliner have to steal the show from the opening act?”

  Karen smiled. “I certainly hope so.”

  Andy liked how she’d looked just then, like she was up to no good. He leaned closer to her. “Me too.”

  He turned away from Karen. Neither of them spoke. He took frequent drags off the cigarette, sipped restlessly from his beer. As he contemplated things, he began to realize he didn’t know much about Karen. Sure, she’d shared some personal stories with him, but he had no idea the kind of person she really was. She’d seemed so timid when Alexia had been toying with her, and now she acted as if she was having a good time with everything.

  Probably one of those things where she’s being someone she’s not while far away from home. But once we’re out of here, she’ll be the old Karen again.

  Andy didn’t actually know who the old Karen was. But, she intrigued him, made him want to learn all there was to know about her. Hopefully that would get to happen.

  Alexia came and gave them fresh drinks, but didn’t hang around to chat. Other nude servants provided fresh refills for their customers as well, but there were no displays of perverted affection from any of them this time. The entire room seemed to be heavy with anticipation.

  He glanced down at his cigarette and saw there wasn’t much left above the filter. He puffed a delicate drag, and felt heat on his lips. This one was done. He stamped it out in the ash tray.

  Strings of an acoustic guitar plucked a melodic progression. An electric guitar began to solo on top of the acoustic riff. Andy knew and loved this song.

  Metallica’s Fade to Black.

  It had been his anthem when Nicole dumped him. And, he hated to admit even to himself, the song had saved his life more than once on those pathetic nights before he’d quit drinking, and in a drunken haze had contemplated suicide.

  Fog began to roll across the stage, spiraling and swimming across the wooden floor. It slithered up the sides of the bed, as if trying to pull it down through the floor with ghostly fingers. Andy could taste its dry, powdery flavor. It coated his tongue in magnesia-like film. He drank some beer hoping to get rid of the taste. It didn’t help.

  It took no time for the stage to become engulfed in a peasouper cloud. The overhead light slowly faded on, a bright orb of pink behind the fog. A dark blob of a shape appeared behind the feverish swirls. A figure began to materialize: tapered shoulders, curvy hips, streaked black under the light.

  Victoria.

  His stomach felt like it was being rung like wet laundry.

  The fog drifted through the room, clearing the stage just enough that he could see her. She was already on the bed, balanced on her knees with her legs folded under her. Her bare breasts hung high on her chest, springy and large, the nipples tiny dark pins. She had a wink of a navel on a paper flat belly. There was no hair on her groin, just a smooth patch of flesh between her thighs. Her dark skin seemed to glow against the black-as-night color of her hair.

  No…even the night isn’t that dark.

  Andy had never seen such black hair. Coal would look pale in comparison. As dark as it was, it was still a sleek and glossy mane in the rose-tinted luster around her.

  Victoria’s eyes were narrow, hooked at the tips like askew tear drops. They flicked in Andy’s direction, their stare floating through the haze and immediately finding his. He knew she was staring at him, and he didn’t dare look away. He couldn’t even if he tried. She had him locked in place.

  Like walking up on a coiled rattlesnake alone in the woods.

  A corner of her mouth arched.

  Watch me, her eyes said clearly in his mind. The voice was a multi-toned whisper deep in his brain.

  “Think that’s her?”

  Andy heard Karen’s question but he was afraid to answer. He didn’t want to miss any of what Victoria wanted to show him. Even nodding a response seemed too great of a risk.

  See my hand? That same whispery voice reverberated through his head. It sent a chill down his spine that was quickly replaced with the swift arising of his need.

  The hand in question slid up a thigh, kneading across her belly. It continued to travel higher, steering over the slope of a breast. Found a nipple, twisted.

  Andy felt the stinging pinch deep inside of him as if it had been his nipple that she was messing with.

  Like?

  He nodded.

  “Andy…?” He heard Karen say. Her voice was thick and shaky.

  Victoria twisted even more. The skin wound around the coin of her nipple. If she kept going it might tear right off. Her neck tensed up, her breathing intensified, but she didn’t break the stare. Her facial expression never faltered.

  She took the other hand and did the same to the other nipple. Now she began twisting and turning in contrasting directions, tuning them like dials on a radio. She quivered a long sigh.

  Andy moaned at the back of his throat.

  Victoria gave them one more turn. Her mouth twitched, bottom lip trembled. Her eyes were squinted into a pout as if she might start crying.

  Want me?

  He strained not to answer.

  Do you?

  “Are you all right?” he heard Karen ask.

  “Yes,” he whispered, answering them both.

  A wicked grin parted Victoria’s lips. She slid her feet out from under her, then scooted back on her rump. Raising her legs up, she slowly spread them, keeping them stilted as they lowered to the mattress. Then, bending at the knees, she propped her feet on the edge of the mattress. Spreading herself wide. For him.

  Andy stared between her legs. The slopes of her thighs hugged the outer walls of her moist ingress. Tears wetting his eyes, he moaned. It was so beautiful, the soft opening into her. Small and wet. He wanted to be inside…needed to be.

  Victoria’s hand appeared above her thigh, sliding down. Her wrist rested on her bald pubic mound. Her middle finger dipped over the top.

  “Oh…man…”

  Andy had trouble breathing. Sweat dribbled down his sides, under his arms. His penis ached, pulsating.

  Victoria continued to play…

  He was standing up before he’d even decided he was going to.

  “Where are you going?” Karen asked from down low.

  He wanted to tell her but physically couldn’t do anything other than walk. Forward. He tried to look back at Karen, beg her to grab his legs and hold him in place, but he couldn’t.

  He stopped at the stage. If he were to reach forward, he could stroke Victoria’s calves.

  She sat up, panting, her face a twisted mask of intense pleasure.

  “Lay with me, Andy…”

  He felt tugging at his belt. Heard it jingle as it was unclasped. Glancing down, he saw his own hands working at the buckle. Earlier, sitting at the front of the club had been nearly too awkward for him to bear. And, look at him now: fighting to free his penis from the confinement of his pants.

  Victoria stopped handling herself and reached out. She gripped Andy’s pants and shoved them down his legs. Bunched around his ankles, he kicked off his shoes. Then he stumbled out of his pants. He realized his socks were still on, so he quickly leaned over and snatched them off.

  He stood up straight, pulling his shirt over his head as he rose. Before he’d gotten all the way out of it, Victoria’s mouth had suctioned around his penis. With a few pulls of her head, her lips escorting him, she had him climb up on the bed.

  Victoria led him as if this was his first time, and in many ways, it was. She rolled over him and onto her back. Her legs, bent at
the knees, were spread wide to grant him access. Supine before him, her caramel-tinted skin gleamed under a sweaty sheen and glittery flakes.

  “Put it in…” she said.

  He obeyed. She gasped a moan. Her walls clasped snugly around him, sheathing him like a clenched wet fist pulling him deeper. Victoria threw her legs up, draping them over his shoulders. He felt the balls of her feet patting him on the back. With her hips angled up, he fitted his hands under her buttocks, clenching soft dunes of flesh in each.

  Victoria looked out to the crowd. “Do you see him?”

  Scattered moans rejoined.

  “See him!?!”

  They did.

  “He has given himself to me just as I have wanted! Now, will you give yourselves just as well?”

  More moans.

  “Then take what I offer you!”

  Naked women began to file out from backstage one after the other. They marched into the crowd.

  “When we link together, we become the same breath! Your skin will be our skin, your seed will be ours and we will be as one!”

  Andy should have found her speech to be odd, yet he did not.

  “I’m yours,” she told him.

  Andy slammed into her while simultaneously pulling her against him by her rump. The sounds made when their flesh connected were like punches. Soon Victoria was screaming. Her breasts shook and bounced on her chest, flinging up and down. Each time he plunged into her, she grunted a raspy moan. He’d never felt so hard, so big.

  Something began to tickle the underside of his penis. It felt like tiny hairs, swirling around him, entwining his penis inside of Victoria like ultra-thin strings. He knew he should be frightened by this, but somehow he also realized it was supposed to happen.

  Their gentle tickle felt great, pushing him closer to his release. The tiny fibers constricted, seizing his penis. He moaned. They kept him tangled inside in an intense hold. He looked at her, confused. Sweat pelted down from his face, dripping shallow puddles into the concave of her neck.

  Victoria smiled sweetly at him. “Are you ready?”

  “F-for what?”

  “To give yourself to me.”

  “Um…”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Squeeze my breasts as hard as you can.”

  He gripped them fiercely. Victoria let out a gasping shudder. Her breasts filled his hands, too big for him to appropriately clutch.

  “Here it comes,” she said.

  He felt a faint tap at the head of his penis. Another soft wire, a solitary hair-thin tentacle, circled around the tip, teasing and tickling.

  Andy began to shake.

  Then the slithering fiber entered him through the urethra.

  And kept going.

  Andy screamed, not in fright, however, but total enjoyment.

  It continued to delve, going all the way to the dam that held the flood of his release.

  He looked out to the club and saw the patrons had decided to join them. They’d broken off into groups, various men grouped with a tendered woman in eager orgies. Not only did Andy see the women from the back among the naked throng, he also saw the servants partaking.

  The couple Karen had gotten the ash tray from was now naked. The man was still seated in his chair, now shirtless, his pants clinging to his ankles. The woman had straddled his lap, impaled on his penis, her mouth an opened chasm of moans as she eagerly thrust her hips. Alexia was with them, shoving her breasts in their faces, making them stop kissing each other so they could kiss them.

  The room was a wriggling mass of sweaty flesh and moans. Nudity filled the room, mixed with slapping sounds of hard sex, the musky scents of orgasms and arousal.

  Only one thing stood out from the rest.

  Karen.

  Still fully-clothed, she sat in her chair, head bobbing up and down as though it was too heavy to keep up. Her eyes flickered. She looked like someone struggling to stay awake.

  Then his penis erupted in a flurry of stings. His body stiffened as electric currents joggled through him. He tried to pull away, but sharp blasts of pain paralyzed him, keeping him in place. He screamed.

  Wondering why Karen wasn’t coming to help, he looked back to where she sat. She was still there, but instead of watching in an intense licentious fascination, her head was leaned back. Mouth opened, she looked like she was snoring.

  She’s sleeping!?!

  Andy looked at his arm, watching as the skin changed shades, going from slightly tanned to pallid and sickly.

  “What’s happening to me?!”

  He looked down at Victoria. A coy grin stretched the corners of her mouth. Her lips continued to spread, reaching all the way back to her ears. The jaw went slack, dropping open as a forked tongue curled out.

  A pair of horns ripped through each side of her forehead, spiking like tiny pyramids. They reeked of sulfur and putrid fertilizer.

  Andy was alert, senses enlightened by the pain, and enraged because of his weakness. Everything he’d accused Danny of came at him in raucous flurries. He understood that Danny was never the source of his problems. He was. Andy was no different than his baby brother. No one had forced him to submit to Nicole’s temptations. No one had threatened his life if he didn’t turn his back on his brother, severing their relationship. Every decision he’d made throughout his life had led him to this moment.

  He could have changed so much. All the opportunities he’d had to be a different person and he’d chosen to coast along, as invisible to everyone as possible. Maybe if he’d gone to church when his parents had begged him to…if he’d read the Bible.

  Andy wished he could go back to when Nicole came begging for his help. He’d tell her to leave him out of it and call the cops.

  It wouldn’t have helped, though. He’d been doomed from the start. Victoria had known he would succumb to her advances, so she’d chosen him. She’d dangled the carrot in front of his face and he’d gladly followed where it led him.

  How could he have succeeded with such odds against him?

  Ulcers began to boil on Victoria’s skin, crackling, oozing thick juice that resembled tobacco spit.

  He tried to scream but sobbed instead.

  It felt as if he was flooding out all the way from his brain.

  Chapter Twenty

  Karen held her hand and shook it. Stinging grains of rice seemed to be pumping through her fingers. Flexing them, the tips throbbed with sleep. Her eyes felt gross and sticky, as if they’d been glued shut.

  Had she fallen asleep, or passed out?

  She looked at the stage. The bed was empty.

  Where’s Andy?

  Sitting up, she put both legs flat on the floor. Her left leg felt heavy and tingled with dull painful jabs. How long was it propped up?

  Trying to think, she found it hard to. But, it definitely seemed like there was a gap in time that she couldn’t recall no matter how hard she tried to think about it. Her body felt strange to her, as if its limbs and skin were somehow new to her and hard to decipher. Her mind was unclear and dopey.

  I’ve been drugged.

  Seeing the glasses of whiskey sour on the table, she realized she hadn’t finished any of them. If she had, she might have been out for a week.

  Karen lightly slapped herself a couple times to get the blood flowing through her face. It helped. Her eyes didn’t feel quite so heavy now. She bent and stretched her arms, making the blood pump through them. If she could get her heart rate up, she just might be able to burn off the fatigue.

  Turning around in her seat, she stretched her back. The prickly pull of her muscles caused her to shudder. She glanced at the room behind her, started to look away, but whipped back.

  Her breath snagged her throat.

  What…in God’s name…?

  She couldn’t comprehend what she was seeing. Her mind wanted to shut down as it struggled to process the scene before her.

  The servants, once naked and hurrying through the crowd
with trays and booze, had merged together. Their backs to each other, there skin looked as if it had molded together, forming a totem pole of naked slimy bodies. Shoulders blended together in doughy mounds of flesh, as did the backs of their heads, tangling their hair into a giant bushy hillock. Their once lovely legs had hardened and stretched into flesh-colored roots. Tentacles sprouted from between their legs, from their nipples, and extended throughout the room. Attached to the end of each tentacle was a female customer spreading their legs around the tip, heads leaned far back and moaning. All that showed of their eyes were the whites. Some women were on their backs on the floor, others hadn’t moved from their seats, but each of them had given themselves to the unexplainable thing. The men hugged the grotesque collage of woman, naked and thrusting against it. Karen watched as their pale asses flexed and relaxed with each powerful thrust of their hips. It looked as if a giant tub of petroleum jelly had been dumped all over. Their skin gleamed and made soft squishy sounds as they wriggled against the creature’s clay-like skin.

  Karen felt the burning rise of whiskey in her throat as she stumbled to her feet. The backs of her calves knocked against the chair, turning it over. It landed with a sharp clatter.

  No one seemed to notice.

  Pulling her eyes away, she discovered something even more unbelievable. The women who’d come from the back had changed…into winged creatures. Fuzzy strips cascaded the flimsy annexes, fluttering with each pulsing color of their skin. It was like watching drink being poured into a plastic bag as a murky fluid flowed through their body. Torsos had shrunken to withered trunks. Pretty faces had altered into elongated maws, pointy chins, and gnarly lips grinning around sharp teeth.

  And, between each of their straddling legs were truncated bodies. Their craggy withered skin, pectorals like deflated bladders, hair the color of spider-webs capping heads of agonized faces frozen in terror. Yawning mouths cocked to the side, and eyes that were empty narrow slits like cuffs on a sleeve missing buttons.

  Corpses.

  There was a suctioning sound to her right. She spun quickly enough to catch one of the men drop off the congregation of rotted flesh. When it landed on the floor with a hollow tap, Karen saw it now matched the men pinned under the bat-creatures.