“Yeah. That would be the tetrodotoxin extract taking effect. It’s a paralytic agent, the same base voodoo practitioners use to make zombies. You can’t move, but you’ll remain conscious. I slipped you a couple roofies, too, just to make certain. That’s important, because people, whatever their role, should enter into things with their eyes wide open.”
Tara’s lamb-like mewling began in earnest, following Samson as he left the room. Her protests increased when Samson crossed the room to remove the Japanese tanto knife from the stand of samurai swords.
“I guess this brings us back to cutting the covenant.” Samson stood between her legs. “The two parties kill an animal and cut it down the middle. Then they lay the halves opposite each other and walk between them as they make a vow: ‘May God do this and more to me if I break this covenant. This is a blood covenant and cannot be broken.’”
Samson slid the knife from its sheath and placed it between her legs. A true Samurai was said to be able to sever limbs, heads, and even cut an enemy in half with one clean stroke. Unfortunately, Samson was not a true Samurai. The blade wasn’t as sharp as he had hoped. He made a mess of Tara’s body, carving repeatedly at her pelvic bone, trying to cut her in half, reducing her sex to a bloody ruin as he brought the blade down again and again as if he were chopping a block of wood. Her eyes were wild, screaming soundlessly, trying to do the work her paralyzed vocal chords could not manage. He hacked and slashed through meat, bone, and organs, wielding the blade more like a hatchet than a knife. Her breath quickened, chest rising up and down, panting like a dog. She was going into shock from the pain and blood loss. Her body began to convulse violently, thrashing on the floor like a woman in the grips of a titanic orgasm, saliva and blood foaming up out of her mouth. She had bitten through her bottom lip and it unhinged on one side and hung down her chin, giving her a lopsided grin. Fat bubbled up like bright yellow popcorn from the gashes and avulsions he’d chopped in her flesh. Samson dropped down onto all fours, his stomach heaving desperate spasms against his spine as he regurgitated the last vestiges of his stomach contents into the widening pool of blood.
Samson was still dizzy when the spell of nausea subsided. Saliva mixed with vomit dripped from his mouth and chin which he wiped with the back of his fist before gripping the hilt of the tanto knife in both hands. He rose to his feet, his stomach threatening to revolt again as he studied the butchered meat between Tara’s thighs. Samson sucked the scalding bile back down his throat, then turned and snatched the sword from the mantle. It was sharper, heavier. He swung it in a wide arc down at Tara’s groin, wielding it the way he’d seen it done in countless movies as a boy. He turned his head as blood and bone flew into the air when he wrenched the sword from her groin for another strike, trying his best not to throw up again. He had no idea at what point Tara finally died. When he had last peered into her eyes as he hewed at her pelvis with the tanto knife, she’d still been completely conscious, eyes still trying their best to convey their pain and terror as if she thought to reach some last remnant of humanity within him. By the time he’d gone for the sword, she’d begun those corybantic convulsions, growing still only after he’d chopped halfway through her pelvis. Her chest had continued to rise and fall until he'd cut well up into her abdomen, breathing out her last breaths as her bisected intestines spilled out onto the floor on either side of her.
The ribcage was considerably easier.
Images reverberated in his mind—the echo of the knife cracking into her, the sword slicing through the meat of her breast and bursting ribs, the sight of her organs spilling out of her divided torso and her head falling free from her neck. It took nearly twenty minutes but he managed to cut her completely in half and separate her head from her shoulders. Chunks of strawberry red pulp spattered his arms, face, and chest.
The horror of what he’d done slowly sank in. He knew that he’d had to do it, to save his brother. If there had ever been any hope of him one day entering heaven, he’d surely ended that with his…offering. He’d have to come up with something better for his next meeting with Jacque. Perhaps he’d forego cutting him in half. He knew he wouldn’t have the heart for that again; it was just too damned messy. The main thing was the spirit of the law, the contract and the blood. Death for life. Twenty for one. You live and learn.
Samson was confident that the effete little photographer would sign the contract. His loneliness trailed like a palpable fog around him, one that none of his expensive perfumes and makeups, his airs and affectations, could disperse. He’d sign the contract and Samson would cut his soul from his chest.
A surge of exhilaration swept through Samson as his stomach settled. He had broken the final commandment, had completely defied the will of God. He took a moment to wonder if perhaps he was starting to enjoy the ego boost he got from having someone sign their soul over to him, the feeling of power he was enjoying now. Samson began to wonder if he was really still in this for his brother. He had to admit that even as revolting as the process of dismantling Tara’s body had been, killing made him feel like a god.
16
“Is this thing for real?” Jacque barely let a few days pass before calling Samson to set up another date. He made a show of examining the contract again.
“What did your lawyers say?” Samson reclined on a velvet loveseat in the VIP room of Club 7, one of the most exclusive nightclubs in San Francisco. Society’s elite packed the room, including a smattering of TV and movie stars, rock, pop, and hip-hop stars, and models like himself, rubbing elbows with businessmen and mafiosos. Everyone seemed to be high on something. A bottle of Moet rested between Samson’s legs, lines of cocaine covered the table in front of him. He casually leaned over and snorted one, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his Versace shirt.
Jacque sat on a recliner next to him with a dusting of cocaine ringing each nostril. His eyes twinkled from the Ecstasy he’d taken earlier in the evening and the cocaine fueled his passions to blinding, manic heights. Two of his usual boy toys hovered in the background casting jealous glares at Samson behind Jacque’s back. Samson flicked them both the finger and then ran his hand down between his legs to seize his cock, brandishing it at them as if it were a weapon. Jacque was so high and so focused on Samson that he misinterpreted the gesture as some type of crude come-on and licked his lips in reply. Samson rolled his eyes and chuckled to himself.
“So? What did your lawyers say about the contract?”
“My lawyers say it’s an air-tight contract. They just aren’t sure what it’s actually for.”
“Just what it appears to be. It is a contract giving me all rights, powers, and privileges, including the right of ownership, of your immortal soul.”
Jacque laughed.
“But you can’t be serious. I mean what does that even mean?”
“It means that when you die your soul won’t go to heaven or Nirvana or fucking Valhalla or wherever it’s supposed to go. It won’t go to hell. It would revert to me.”
Jacque smiled, opening his mouth wide without laughing. His eyes were still sparkling like diamonds in a volcano.
“Soooo, then you’d have two souls? What good would that do you?”
“I’d have much more than that.”
Jacque leaned over and took the bottle of Moet from between Samson’s legs. He drank the remaining champagne straight from the bottle in long gulps until it was almost empty.
“Well, I don’t believe in all of that religious bullshit. When you’re dead, you’re dead. And when you’re alive, you’re alive.”
“Then you shouldn’t mind parting with your fictitious soul.”
Samson took the bottle of Moet from Jacque’s hands, maintaining eye contact the entire time, and drained the last of the champagne.
“To fuck you? I wouldn’t give a fuck if there really was such a thing as a soul. Spending the rest of eternity with my soul in the possession of such a beautiful man would be my idea of paradise anyway. Heaven would be a drag. Do you think
they even fuck in heaven?”
“Probably not. Best to get in all your fucking down here while you can.” Samson produced a hypodermic needle. Jacque’s eyes widened in fear. He shook his head slowly back and forth.
“I don’t do the hard stuff.”
“No. This isn’t heroine. This is to take a little bit of your blood. The contract has to be signed in blood.”
“Oh, Jesus! Are you serious? Honey, you are just too melodramatic.”
“Maybe. Still, that’s the only way you’re getting a piece of me.”
Jacque stared at Samson for a long moment with the hypodermic needle between them in Samson’s outstretched hand. Samson smiled when he saw the first hint of fear break through the photographer’s façade. For a split second the flamboyant fashionista appeared almost sad—his eyes moistened and his bottom lip quivered. Then he sighed and took the needle from Samson’s hand.
“Fuck it. You only live once right? This could be the most expensive piece of ass I’ve ever had. You’d better be worth it. Oh, you know what I heard? I heard that Icon magazine has you in the running for this year’s “world’s sexiest man.” Can you believe that, shit? Now I’ll be able to say that I fucked the world’s sexiest man. What a trip!”
“Yeah. What a trip.”
Jacque slid the needle into the thin blue vein in the crook of his elbow and drew out his blood with an ease and sureness that belied his assertion that he wasn’t into hard drugs. He signed his name on the contract in a theatrical calligraphy and slid it back to Samson. Samson smiled and stroked the blade strapped to his thigh beneath his loose-fitting Tommy Hilfiger jeans. He was so excited that his erection was almost as hard as the knife that had inspired it.
“Let’s go to my place.”
17
Samuel remembered a night, soon after he got his license, when he and Samson were following some girls home after a party. Ostensibly it was to make sure they got home safe and had nothing to do with the fact that the girls were having a sleepover and the brothers were trying to crash it.
The road was four lanes of street and the tract of land it cut through contained overdeveloped lots of expensive subdivisions. Back then, the road was a long, straight, poorly lit stretch, going from two lanes down to one whenever it came to one of its frequent bridges. Samuel knew it well and was used to playing chicken with oncoming traffic, other cars yielding to let him pass. Too late, he saw movement along the shoulder of the road, a black Labrador retriever charging into the range of his headlights. Samson cried out “Watch it!” but there was no time to swerve.
Everything moved quickly after that. The braking squeal of the tires interrupted by the double thump of something hitting the car. Samuel saw flashes of two bodies coming over the windshield, suddenly feeling worse that he had hit a mother and her pup. Pulling the car over, he watched the taillights of the girl’s car speed off into the night, oblivious to what had happened. The brothers sat there for a minute, Samson’s hand still locked onto the dashboard, having braced himself for impact. Samuel’s heart fired against his chest, pistoning so fast he didn’t know if he’d ever catch his breath again.
“You all right?” he asked with a weak voice. Samson only nodded. They opened the doors to survey the damage. Blood smeared the window and streaks of shit trailed along the car. Wet, rasping winces led them to the brush along the side of the road where Samson found the mother, or rather, what was left of her.
Blood was everywhere; pools slowly formed, Samuel was amazed at the body’s ability to keep going, to fight for life even when all hope was gone. The dog’s breathing was reduced to gasping puffs of steam in the cool night air. Samson knelt beside it, the blood staining his hands and clothes, and put his hand on the poor beast’s chest, letting it feel his warmth and presence until it finally stopped breathing. The sight of his brother, kneeling and covered in blood, haunted Samuel. The picture of both horror and compassion – he looked so lost, so in need of someone to guide him, and Samuel never felt up to the task.
At times like these Samuel wished that his father was still alive. The man had been hard and sometimes even cold but he was the wisest man Samuel had ever known. He told it like it was, even when it was all fucked up. Samuel needed that type of counsel right now, to know what to do about Samson. Consulting with other priests left him feeling like he was some sort of tattle-tale, yet he didn’t want to take it to God in prayer either. As if somehow that wasn’t keeping everything between him and his brother. This was ironic considering he often chastised others in his parish about the ridiculousness of that type of thinking. “You can’t hide anything from God. Your confessions have to be complete and honest.” But he was having a hard time following his own advice.
He cracked open his Bible and began reading, finding himself going over the words without really thinking about them. All he could think about was his crazy brother out there collecting souls to ransom for his life. It was the most outlandish thing he’d ever heard. Samuel forced himself to go back and reread all the passages he’d just read, this time concentrating on the words, trying to force himself to think about the verses. But once again he began daydreaming about Samson, preoccupied with the madness of his mission and one nagging question: “What if it works? What if Sam really gets God to let me off the hook? Would I be okay with that? Would I let all those women lose their souls to save my life?”
It wasn’t his life that he was afraid of losing. It was his dignity. He was afraid of the humiliation of a slow, agonizing death. He didn’t want to break out in rashes and melanomas all over his body and lose weight until he was some emaciated scarecrow so weak and brittle that he could barely stand. Nkosi was his living nightmare. He chastised himself for his pride and tried to read the Bible again, but the tears welling up in his eyes blurred all the letters. He began to pray because sometimes that was all there was left to do. No magic formula, only feeble words, the jumble of nouns and verbs he hoped came together to tilt God’s ear in his direction. He only wanted to be heard, if not answered in the way he’d have liked.
“I don’t want to die like that. Oh God, I’m so afraid. Give me strength, Lord. Give me the strength to endure this test.”
18
“Stop! Stop! Jesus! This isn’t what I wanted!” Jacque screamed.
“But it’s what I want.” Samson smiled as he checked the leather restraints around Jacque’s wrists and ankles. The photographer was lashed to a seven foot crucifix in his basement “playroom” by thick leather cuffs secured with steel bolts. Samson cracked a thick leather bullwhip across the photographer’s back, drawing more blood as the braided tip broke the sound barrier and sliced through his skin, reducing the blood to a pink mist as it tossed the spray back into the air.
“Oh God, God, Jesus, God, no. I can’t take it! Let me down you sick motherfucker!”
“All you have to do is say the safe word if you want me to stop.”
“You didn’t give me a fucking safe word!”
Samson cracked the whip again, spraying more blood into the air.
Perspiration washed down Jacque as he strained against the nerve-rending agony in his back and buttocks. Samson watched the salty sweat run into the man’s wounds, knowing it amplified his anguish. Strips of skin and flesh hung from his back like tattered silk, curled up where the whip had flayed it away from the muscle, cutting deep lacerations whose pain must have run clean through to the bone.
Samson steadily increased the intensity of the torture, slowly letting go of all pretense of consent. A profusion of safety pins pierced Jacques nipples and even more were clustered in his scrotum. Jacque had been okay with that, not issuing a single complaint as Samson threaded each pin through the wrinkled flesh surrounding his testicles. He hadn’t begun to complain until he’d felt the first sting of the whip.
“That’s too hard! You’ll draw blood like that.”
“Relax. I know what I’m doing.”
“What are you doing with that cat? That’s just fo
r show. You’re not going to really use that on me are you?”
Wrath James White and Maurice Broaddus Page 6