“You don’t look like the kind of guy who’s easily pleased.” Fleur shakes the cloud of her red hair to free the man from Padma’s third tit. She succeeds, like always.
“Wow, and where do you come from?” The man from Marseilles jumps, taking the bait. Fleur is not one who goes unnoticed, even amidst the fever of naked bodies that go up and down like a neurotic tide: an apocalyptic version, vulgar and stoned, of The Turkish Bath by Ingres, with tons of extra flesh.
“Well, you know, from a secret trapdoor under your feet . . . this is the hour when the bar pulls out its best stuff.”
The two Indian monkeys withdraw immediately, getting up from the table, going off to rub themselves against other drunken customers; all it took was a glare from Fakhr, standing behind his crescent moon-shaped counter a few meters away. Fuck.
Fleur comes closer to the Marseillaise, who is wiping his wide forehead with a handkerchief. She charms him with the tissue paper pallor of her face, which allows all the parallels and meridians to concentrate around her big black eyes. A close-up onto an oasis of greenery and springs in a desert of fucking nothing: This is always the impression that Fleur releases in the thoughts and testicles of the customers. The scarabs of pleasure with their sclerotic wings, eager to fly again one day, begin to run with their hot tiny legs along the man’s back. He is ready to jump into the void, into any hole, as long as Fleur is there waiting for him.
“Don’t call me Marseillaise—name’s Serge. And yours, beautiful?”
“My name? A hundred credits to learn it. Just think how much the rest is going to cost you … Marseillaise.”
The bait is deep in the man’s throat now, and he looks at Fleur with his tongue hanging out. He is ready to spend all his wages for that goddess, the four thousand credits that have just been uploaded to his account to buy name, thighs, breasts, pussy, and ass: In short, everything that is hers.
Serge is the sous-chef at Le Miramar, his forte is the bouillabaisse, of course. They say that his secret consists of adding chopped celery and walnuts to the dish, which he uses together with saffron when cooking the fish in the pan, then mixes everything together and creates an unmistakable Provincial soup. Who knows how many scorpion fish, gurnard, mullet, and crabs have passed through his big, strong, and generous hands. The same hands that now begin to reach for Fleur’s legs that are accidentally rubbing against his.
“Hey, stallion, keep your hands to yourself and dry your forehead, you’re staining my dress … we’ll do the math later …”
Fleur can’t finish her sentence. She is looking toward the counter to give Fakhr an Okay, the prey is trapped, but then she sees Mirabelle approaching her man, whispering in his ear. He smiles lasciviously, with the sneer of someone who’s tasted the first course and can’t wait to have the full menu. Mirabelle bends beneath the counter to get a stack of trays; the bitch doesn’t miss the opportunity to nibble at Fakhr’s cock, which is exploding inside his striped pants.
“You’re going to pay for this, asshole, right here and now …” Fleur thinks aloud, but Serge hears her, misunderstands, and quickly answers, with a smile as big as one of his ovens: “Anything you want, baby, looks like you’re running the show tonight …”
Fleur bites her lips. She tries to keep her cool and think about the business at hand. She nervously touches her dilithium ring, twisting it around her middle finger. Okay, first of all she needs to get rid of the Marseillaise stallion, who is about to lie down on the floor to lick her thighs. Then she’ll think about Fakhr, that well-hung bastard.
“Well then, let’s get out of here, Marseillaise.”
Fleur drags Serge across the room, the sound of her high heels wakes an old customer from her apocalyptic torpor, a woman who’s fallen asleep with her face in a puddle of tequila, her right calf has been nibbled on by someone who snuck under the table and seized the opportunity for a light blood-snack.
Fleur and Serge pass quickly in front of the counter. Fakhr sees them and smirks. Mission accomplished, he thinks. Fleur responds by staring into his eyes for a few seconds, biting her lips purple, and then she disappears with her new friend. They’ll meet at home, as always, once Fakhr ends his shift at the Croix Inversée.
Hunting and a midnight supper are a heretical ritual for the two bastards. Meat for dinner, like the privileged few in the city, the cannibalistic elite who have adapted to the status quo caused by the global pandemic of edible animal protein. Predators, be they rich or poor murderers, reign. And they still eat meat. Who knows what delicacy Fleur will be preparing tonight, Fakhr thinks, licking his lips in anticipation. Meanwhile, he can devote himself to Mirabelle; his hot mistress’s workshift is about to end. He has to hurry if he wants to pound her again in the kitchen tonight. He must take advantage of the fact that his tigress is not around. But where the fuck has Mirabelle gone? He doesn’t see her in this mess, in this port of forgotten souls and sharks of all races with their oblique fins ready to raid and to strike.
Even among sons of bitches there is competition.
Fakhr has finished his shift, the glass door of the Croix Inversée opens, sliding on its rails, showing him South Paris 5 cloaked by night. The stagnant air slams his face, condensing on his moustache and nose. It’s so damn hot, no matter what time of day it is. He walks up the usual stairs of Rue St. Antoine, kicks an abandoned Vagyx extractor, a makeshift pregnancy test used by whores. The small tube bounces toward the knees of a homeless man camped out on his own personal square meter of Hell, busy tearing out his yellow hair, one by one, and cursing everyone. Fakhr turns right; the Seine reveals itself with its invisible crust of solitude and shadows of big rats on its banks, busy dragging their dinners to the shore, down to their dens, food that’s still wearing pants, whose hands and fingers desperately cling to irregular protrusions of Roman brickwork in a futile attempt to free themselves, to delay the end, to steal an extra day or two in that rotten repetitive Samsara. They are those who’ve been fucked by the night, and they are many.
Fakhr caresses the Darden injector hooked to his belt, his little portable flamethrower. If there’s one thing those beasts hate, it’s fire, apart from the bitter flesh of druggies.
He passes in front of the old Church of the Holy Trinity, transformed into the most celebrated porn show in the neighborhood. A large luminescent rubber phallus covers the skeleton of the ancient slender steeple, which towers over the crumbling rose window of the Renaissance façade. Fakhr stops a moment to admire the continuous variations of color displayed by the horny, twenty-meter long synthetic totem. He waits for the summit to activate its automatic water jet, which sprays fake sperm in a large radial pattern up into the black sky.
He resumes his fast pace and within five minutes reaches the narrow and sloping sidewalks of Rue Bodard and the smashed building where he lives with Fleur. The lights of the apartment on the sixth floor are all on; his predatory partner is waiting for him. Midnight dinner.
“Hey, you did things in style tonight!” the Egyptian calls out soon after he’s closed the door.
The oval table in the living room looks like it’s been set for a special occasion: The mottled tablecloth sparkles red, orange, and blue under the crystal glasses, the ones from long ago, with their thin, transparent bellies already half full of white wine. Fleur must feel inspired tonight; she’s opened the precious bottles of Montrachet that he had bought. In the middle of the table, the highlight of the evening: an elliptical dish in Nortex alloy, full of small bite-sized morsels of meat, covered with a layer of fried eggplant. The reflective edges are trimmed with green beans and rohu eggs.
“Eggplant? Green beans? For fuck’s sake, did you buy this stuff in Nova Scotia? These things cost a fortune. What have I done to deserve all this? I know, you want my cock … I bet that’s the minced Marseillaise under that eggplant, eh? I hope it’s as tender as I imagined he would be; he had a good look about him. Have you already tried him, honey?”
Fleur walks into the living room, b
eaming, wearing the wedding dress she had been hiding in the closet for more than two years. Her boobs flash out of the white silk dress, an altar worthy of worship. The bodice shines of dilithium crystals sewn together in the form of vortices, microscopic satellites at the mercy of chaos, attracted by the gravity of her hips. The tight, glossy skirt frees the fabric on one side, with sharp fringes at its extremes, leaving her left leg bare all the way to the groin. No jewelry, her hands still stained with cold blood up to her wrists, a cobalt glaze. She says nothing, simply looks him in the eyes and bites her lip.
Fakhr just stands there with his mouth open; his cock is waking up between his legs: She really looks like a goddess. “Christ, if this is a proposal, there’s no better way to present it!” He immediately gives Fleur his handkerchief to wipe the blood off her hands; that too is a little ritual of theirs. It would be a shame to stain that nice dress.
Fleur passes the cup of wine to her stallion, and then takes hers; an anthropophagous toast while the meat is waiting on the warming tray. Fakhr downs his Montrachet, chews the titbits, swallowing ecstatically, commenting on the dishes, all the flavors of the food prepared by Fleur, as she chews those precious human proteins with more enthusiasm than usual, continuing to remain silent. The Egyptian follows her lead. He’s having fun, only thinking about the moment he’s going to fuck her, without even taking off that hot wedding dress; not until his stomach is full, though.
The walls of the hall begin to spin, Fakhr thinks he’s drunk too much wine: Fleur’s face merges with the background, her piercing black eyes multiply, and they are everywhere, staring. His nose bleeds, he feels the warm fluid dripping down his neck, lowers his head to see it flowing onto his pants, which slowly absorb it. When he finally manages to raise his eyes, he realizes that the room has not stopped spinning; now he thinks he is seeing tiny butterflies, the color of cobalt, moving into space, toward him and away. A spiral tunnel opens under his chair, seeming to lead to strange and deep crevasses. He tries to hold on to the tablecloth but is sucked away, down into the unknown chasm. The sound of chains, a horrible creaking, the dark, and then a blinding flash of light. Fakhr covers his eyes and tries to focus on the shadow hanging in front of him, which continues to swing left and right. What the hell did I drink that fucked my brain up like this? Where’s Fleur?
That damn shadow before his eyes finally stops, assuming sharper edges. Now he can see everything, even if he cannot move a muscle or swallow his saliva. He looks up slowly, following the rings of the chain hanging from the ceiling, seven, ten, fifteen, then he finally sees the eyeless face of Mirabelle, his favorite whore, with her tongue sticking out, her tits gray and livid; farther down, the ugly stump of her right leg, severed cleanly, from which small drops of blood fall to the floor.
Plik, plik, plik.
While Fakhr is slowly pissing his pants, Fleur’s tongue licks his ear, the voice of his partner is suddenly back: “You always liked that bitch, right? Tonight, you’ve finally tasted her … inside. Her flesh is so delicious, don’t you think?”
The man feels tears slipping down his face, and then something sparkles, almost blinding him. It is the steel hook that Fleur is passing before his eyes, making it spin in the air.
The notes of Kozmic Blues resound again in the slaughter room.
<<====>>
AUTHOR’S STORY NOTE
I wrote this story listening to Kozmic Blues by Janis Joplin; Her voice sometimes plays a role as an invisible protagonist of my stories, and once again it came in the tale, passing through a small crack in the wall between reality and fiction. I imagined a pair of cannibals who share love and lust, who prey on human flesh to continuously cross the threshold of pleasure. Their hunting ground is the Croix Inversée, a bar on the outskirts of a future, dystopian, cruel Paris. Fleur and Fakhr, the pair of lovers, they will discover new flavors, this time, and the spice of jealousy which will season a new frenzy. There are always new thresholds to be crossed, passionately, and you’re in the right place.
SELECTED POEMS FROM BROTHEL
STEPHANIE M. WYTOVICH
From the Bram Stoker Award winner Brothel
Publisher: Raw Dog Screaming Press
______
B LIND OBEDIENCE
You’re still and you’re blindfolded
arms bound with my satin sheets
and I need you to be quiet,
but I want you to beg;
Now shhhh …
and listen to me close,
I’m going to have you now
and I need you to do
exactly what I say, when I say
now kiss me,
kiss me
and tell me you love me,
then get on all fours,
and let me hear you
scream.
BROTHEL
There’s a brothel in my hand and it’s open for business,
providing me with pleasure while I pay it with my pain; I close my eyes and see,
see for the first time as immeasurable desires wake
inside me, screaming, panting: legs spread apart,
arms open wide, lips pursed, parted. The women are my
invitations, the men my RSVPs, and I’ll accept their summons
to come, to stay, to eat and drink the fruits and juices of the sweet gardens
in front of me—pulsing, dripping, rich with
honey, sweet with wine.
My mouth is open and I’m ready to inhale,
ready to swallow, and they’ve promised
they’d fill me, that they’d keep me nice and full;
I slip my fingers through the front door and
I’m met with a warm hello,
as I’m taken inside—as I’m taken—and I
think I’ll stay here for a while, locked inside
my brothel where the animals like to breed.
VICIOUS GIRLS
Creatures,
creatures are what they are—
violent Eves, rotten apples,
victimized damsels, Salem witches;
they bit the snake that fed them
drank his poison,
pulled out his fangs
and now they bleed,
they bleed once a month for his death,
the death of the devil who cursed their wombs
for they are vicious,
they are venomous
they are women, and they will wait,
patient and persistent,
ever-enduring
and damned
and they will sing,
sing in covens, sing in brothels,
sing for men,
sing for whores
and their words will kill
they will damn
they will puncture
for they sing with lips,
lips not of mouth but of sex
sex that weakens, that confuses,
that traps
and once they have you
have you between their legs,
they will kill you,
they will eat you,
and they will love you
the only way
that they know how
GRATIFICATION, SCARIFICATION
I took off my shirt and slid onto his lap
Get inside me
He kissed me soft, bit my lip and pulled
Make me bleed
He smiled and took out the knife,
grabbed the back of my neck, licked my throat
“beg for it”
I gasped, pleaded with my eyes, my dark fuck-me-eyes
and he cut my black bra down the front,
threw it against the wall—
the blade inched across my chest
spilled my rubies while I came hard
against his thigh.
Back arched, tits out, I laughed
Mark me, brand me, make me yours
He slid two fingers in my mouth
Made me show him how I
suck
“you already know you’re mine—
but I’ll make sure you never forget.”
MISCARRIAGE
The child twisted inside me
desperate for escape;
It broke its bones,
shed its skin,
used my blood as lubricant
to slide out between my legs;
It/he/she made its/his/her appearance,
silent, static
a premature suicide
a stillborn angel.
YOUTERUS
You
are inside me,
me/ me and you
and you tear us,
you hurt, you claw,
you rip your way out
I bleed/ bleed strong
bleed red
it hurts, but you come,
you breathe
you tear us/
tear me
in half.
HARDCORE
Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volume 2 Page 15