Masochist: A Contemporary Young Adult SciFi/Fantasy (Swann Series Book 4)

by Schow, Ryan

  Titan would be proud. Romeo would give him high fives. He wasn’t sure if he could live with himself, though, and this was what kept him from having sex with Becky so soon.

  In the end, he realized he never had a choice. Not when she served him drinks. It was Adam Bomb, 151 Florida Bushwacker, the Brain Fart, Green Death, Titty Excretion (one third Butterscotch schnapps and two thirds Mountain Dew—they both burped for like fifteen minutes after this one), and Dog House Dew.

  They were in her room one floor down from his. She was on the bed in an expensive silk robe and he was in the chair overlooking the strip.

  Laying stretched out on her side, almost all her leg and half her shoulder exposed, she said she was “a bartender in training.” Brayden thought she was pushing forty, at least, not that you’d know it. Her face held barely a wrinkle.

  She said, “Brayden, darling, you’re going to be the guinea pig for the kind of exotic party drinks I plan on making when I officially become a bartender.”

  He looked at her as if to say, oh yeah? His head moved too fast for his eyes to follow and for a moment he got dizzy, but he shook off the effects of the alcohol fast.

  She said, “When some Lego-haired faggot and the baby slut on his shoulder get all cute and ask for a Sex on the Beach, I’m going to be like, ‘That’s so nineteen nineties. You should try an Arkansas Razorback, or a Big Bad Voodoo Cooler.’ If they don’t know the drink, but it sounds cool, you charge more. That’s just how it’s done. Plus, if they’re not chumps, they’ll tip more.”

  “Makes sense,” he heard himself saying.

  The idea of being with this woman held a certain carnal lure for him, but he also felt dead inside because he didn’t want her the way he still wanted Abby. Abby was life; Becky was a warm hole and a drink.

  Becky said, “I’m leaving my husband, but only when I know my drinks. Can’t support myself on alimony alone. And I don’t want to be a waitress, or a stripper.”

  She leaned backward, grabbed a sheet of paper, then sat up and handed it to Brayden. It was a list of drinks she’d printed out and was studying from.

  Flipping her styled red hair over her shoulder, she said, “Go on, call ‘em out.”

  “Bulldog Cocktail,” he said, reading off the list.

  “One and one half ounces Cherry Brandy, three quarters ounce Gin, juice of one half lime. Shake the mixture with ice, then strain into a cocktail glass and serve.”

  “Fuck Me Like a Beast,” he said.

  “Okay,” she replied, opening her robe to reveal her total and complete nakedness.

  “The drink silly,” he said. By now, his heart was wild, and it was damn near impossible to remain chaste. Anymore reluctance on his part and she was bound to think he was a back door lover of the non-female type.

  Running her hands up the insides of her thighs, she said, “One half ounce Tequila, one half ounce Midori melon liqueur, one half ounce Chambord raspberry liqueur, one part OJ, one part pineapple juice, a splash of Grenadine, all topped off with Bacardi 151.”

  “Holy crap, you’re good,” he said.

  “You don’t even have a clue,” she replied in her most seductive voice. By now her fingers were drifting lightly over her perfectly shaved vagina.

  She knew the ingredients of the Bleeding Orgasm, Pimp Punch and the Swamp Frog, but she couldn’t tell him all the ingredients to the Turkey Trot (which was easy: Cranberry Juice, 7-Up and Wild Turkey), the Wet Snatch (which was harder for sure: Ice, Tequila, Vanilla Syrup, Coconut Milk, blue raspberry juice and pineapple juice) or the Fuzzy Pissbomb (Peachtree schnapps and Mountain Dew, an easy one).

  “I should have had that last one,” she said, disappointed. By then her robe was all the way off and she was all muted tan lines and subtle curves.

  So finally he took her…for the next three days straight. And that’s how he learned how to truly please a woman. She taught him so very, very much.

  Forcing Abby out of his mind as best as he could, he stood in front of the bed and did what she called “The Butterfly.” They were in bed only seconds when she intertwined their legs and said, “This is the Seated Scissors and it’s how I stay in control and you just let me work you.”

  She showed him the Shake and Bake, the Double Kangaroo Sloppy Pocket, the Clogged Blowhole.

  She said, “Who wants to do it Missionary style when you can do a Grumpy Yelper, or the Cincinnati Bowtie?”

  She asked this while she was doing a line of blow off his big boy business.

  “You want a bump?” she asked with a caked nostril, to which he said, “Hell, no.”

  She shrugged her shoulders then did another line. “Sex is always better if you’re bombed out of your mind.”

  Which she was.

  At night, she’d clean up nice for dinner and drinks. She was thirty-nine. He said he was twenty-five, and she was either too high or too drunk to suspect differently. When people asked if her son was old enough to drink, she’d say, “If he’s my son, we’re in trouble because we’ve been doing the kind of shit that’s illegal in most states.” She said this with a bit of a slur.

  Pretty soon it got embarrassing.

  Then they’d go back upstairs, she’d hand him the list and he’d test her on drinks: The Witch’s Clit. The Red Death. The Purple Jesus.

  They reviewed her dictionary of sex and sexual practices: The Frothy Walrus. The Rusty Trombone. The Cleveland Steamer.

  All twisted and memorable, all next-level degrading, all part of his education on how to truly wreck a broad in bed.

  At least, that’s what she told him when he confessed to not knowing squat about sex. He had to come clean at some time, and she was crazy enough and horny enough to not hold it against him.

  “You get yourself a little college tart, and you do the things I’ve taught you these last few days,” she said, “and it’s all over for her. She’ll be too disgusted and enchanted to ever stop thinking of you. Not with what you’ve done, not with how she felt. Not at all. With what I’ve taught you, it’ll be like Fatal Attraction, but in a good way. No boiling bunnies.”

  When he woke the next morning, he did so quietly. Becky was snoring lightly when he left the note on the pillow beside her. It said: “You were a godsend, an angel. You wrecked and educated me in ways I’ll never forget. I adore you for that! Thank you.”

  And that was when he left the insatiable, red-headed she-devil and all her adult promiscuity behind. Downstairs with his bags, he checked out, then left the Wynn for good. Well, maybe not for good, maybe just for now.

  When he arrived at Titan and Romeo’s bachelor pad unannounced, he was given a hero’s welcome. The first thing he said was, “I need sixteen uninterrupted hours of sleep.”

  Then, somewhere between the front door and the bedroom, he said, “What I have to tell you guys, it’s going to change the way you see me. It’s going to change everything.”

  “For starters,” Romeo said, “that new nose of yours looks pretty goddamn amazing.”

  Oh yeah, that.

  Beautiful Alien

  1

  The Mexican guy with the fake ID’s, when I see the finished product, I can’t help thinking he’s freaking legit. Netty gives me a look that says, “Told you,” and I’m looking at her like, “Uh, let’s take our illegal shit and get the f*ck out of here.”

  It’s painfully obvious I’m not cut out for criminal behavior, even though I seem to have the bad mouth for it.

  But the good news is, we leave without getting raped. And our organs, they’re intact and residing happily in our beautiful bodies. Breathing shallow, fighting off a ferocious sweat, I’m half expecting a slew of undercover cops to converge on us with guns, dogs and cameras. But nothing happens.

  Exactly squat.

  Still, as we’re heading down to the Audi, there’s that chicken shit little voice in my head saying go bitch go! even though it’s all quiet from street end to street end.

  No guns. No dogs. No cameras.

 
It’s just me and Netty. Two stupid girls with dreams of hitting the club scene four years early. Which is exactly how girls like us get into trouble with older guys. Then again, I tell myself, this is also how young girls’ dreams unfold.

  It’s as we’re leaving Richmond that Georgia calls. My phone is on Bluetooth, so I answer over the speakers in the car.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey,” Georgia says, sounding different today, not so robotic. Like whatever she’d gained in being home, away from Gerhard, maybe it was doing her some good.

  “Georgia,” I say, my voice pleasant because she sounds good, “how are you?”

  “Better,” she says, monotone with hints of a personality lying in wait. “I’m glad you answered.” Her tone wasn’t screaming with sincerity, but she felt more real than before. More…human. “I needed to talk to a friend and you’re the one I remember most.”

  “Okay,” I say. “But I have to tell you you’re on speaker phone with me and my friend Netty.”

  “Hi,” Netty says.

  “Oh, hi.”

  “Is that okay?” I ask Georgia.

  “Yeah, sure,” she says. She takes a deep breath as I listen, and then she says, “I have to get away from my mother. She’s like a skittish cat around me and it’s making me bat shit crazy.”

  “I know the feeling,” I say with a laugh. “I left my father’s house and I’ve been staying with Netty in San Francisco for the last week or so.”

  “Really?”

  The fact that I can hear and feel a hint of surprise in her voice reassures me. Last we spoke, I wasn’t sure she’d ever again be the same person I knew at Astor.

  “Yeah. Did something happen? Something good? Because you sound a lot better now, and before…you didn’t…you didn’t sound like yourself.”

  “Who did I sound like?”

  “I don’t know. Like the walking dead version of you.”

  “Yeah, well, I set my parent’s favorite plant on fire and for whatever reason, my soul woke back up. Like burning that plant was somehow a good thing. Although I still don’t feel right.”

  “You set her plant on fire?”

  Beside me, Netty looks at me and raises her eyebrows, a slight disbelieving grin playing on her mouth.

  “The plant seemed important to her, more important than me, so yes, I set it on fire.”

  Who can say for sure why the words came out of my mouth, but they do: “Come stay with us. Even if we have to rent a summer place. You need to be with friends.”

  Perhaps it was the way she cared for me when I was stumbling painfully, blindly through my transformation. She was my guardian angel. A true friend. To return the favor in her time of need seems right.

  “That’s why I’m calling,” she says, her voice sort of empty and full at the same time. Perfectly unreadable.

  “I’ll ask my mother,” Netty offers, “but it should be fine. If you don’t mind sharing a room with Abby.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  In the end, Netty’s mother said, “The more the merrier,” and that was that. I handed Irenka five hundred dollars for food and rent, to which she smiled and said it wasn’t necessary. I told her I was no freeloader. Besides, I could hardly believe my other best friend would be here in two days.

  After Georgia’s mother said yes, back at Netty’s, I have to admit, I’ve been too excited to nap. But that’s exactly what I need.

  I only puked twice in martial arts class this morning, but my limbs are shot, and my body carries with it the syrupy warmth of recovery. The bruising and abuse today was monumental.

  I’m sparring two hours a day now, and Sensei Naygel, it’s like he’s stretching my limits by the day. Trying to break me, trying to make me invincible. Me being superhuman, for him it’s a reason to reinvent the wheel, to really push the boundaries. How he can cut me and just watch it heal, he is still enamored. He said he’s never seen anything like me before. I think he wants to know if this beautiful girl is an alien. Ha! Not a chance.

  When I finally get into bed for the night, after all the excitement has worn down, I close my eyes and let my body go, falling fast towards sleep. Just before dozing off, I realize this is the first time since Rebecca was taken that I feel excited about something, about anything! I’m growing stronger, bringing my friends together, and before long, I’m go to get Rebecca back with me, too.

  And then, things will be just perfect.

  Wicked Perversions

  1

  Three weeks after climbing into an incubation canister pumped full of his own specific rejuvenation and DNA regeneration serum, Wolfgang Gerhard’s new body was ready. Seeing him was nothing Arabelle could have prepared for.

  She appraised the new lines and curves of her former boss and savior’s body one detail at a time. She marveled at the muscular structure, unable to pull her eyes from the perfect specimen. She felt like a voyeur. Like she was seeing gorgeous, shameful things that weren’t supposed to be seen. Her heart and body responded with a sensation best described as lust.

  Fear sprung unexpectedly from that lovely bud of desire.

  By all rights, Arabelle was a pretty Ukrainian woman. A veritable catch for most men. Looking at this new person, however, she realized he was too handsome for her. Even transformed, she was not beautiful enough to be with him.

  Too perfect were the lines of his face, the curve of his jaw, the renewed thickness of his hair. Too impossible was the purity of his skin, the perfection of his hands, feet and limbs.

  Fear congealed into uncertainty.

  As the canister’s operating system automatically drained the glass structure of its pinkish serum, Arabelle found herself heading for the lab’s only bathroom.

  But for what?

  She felt the weight of Heim’s eyes on her. She didn’t care. She shut and locked the bathroom door.

  Uncertainty spiraled into doubt, which quickly became shame. For all her physical changes, she would always be a ruined woman, the product of a darkly impoverished childhood. The bi-product of a hundred disgusting men. Hundreds. A true vessel of indignity.

  Her face was a beautiful stain on the bathroom mirror. Sadness abounded. She leaned forward, appraised the fine lines around her eyes, scoffed loudly and pulled away. She thought, I can change my eyes, my face and my body, but inside, my soul remains tarnished. Would Gerhard want to change her again? Give her a new transformation? Would he tire of her looking like this?

  Her hair was lush and beautiful, and it bore a lovely shine, but it was not as thick as it used to be. She ran her fingers through it, checked her teeth. Nothing was as it used to be. Even though she was a beautiful woman to look at, she felt the ugliness subsisting inside her like something old and rotten.

  Standing there, trying not to cry, she looked beyond her reflection in the mirror and saw only her past. The abuse. The loss of self. The way she felt fractured, broken and unrecoverable.

  “Whore,” she said as the warm liquid rolled from her eyes. She turned away from the mirror, pulled down her pants and sat down to pee. Using toilet paper, she dabbed her eyes. Tried to collect herself. Her mind went back to Wolfgang. He was the only man who ever really saw her.

  But that man was gone.

  The new Wolfgang was younger looking now, way more attractive. Arabelle was sure he would now pine for the same qualities in a woman. He’d crave youth and purity, not some damaged, washed up whore. Not a twenty-eight year old survivor. Or someone who needed saving from such an unspeakable past.

  When she finished peeing, she wiped front to back, then pulled up her panties and pants and flushed. In her sad, slab of a heart, she knew Wolfgang would want someone new.

  A soft chime just outside the bathroom door sounded. Wolfgang’s machine alerted her to the completion of the final draining process. Heim was in charge of reviving him. Arabelle walked back into the lab, her composure a frail, unstable affair.

  Heim did not look at her this time. He was busy preparing the doctor f
or “re-entry,” as he liked to say.

  Small, silent, lethal Alice stood before the drained, now horizontal glass canister. She could be a doll the way she just stared, unblinking at the naked, unconscious doctor.

  “What were you doing?” Alice asked without looking at her. Her voice was unsettling. So grey and empty, yet so utterly sweet. It betrayed nothing of the telekinetic killer inside. Arabelle clung tight to that one brief moment, the one where she almost forgot about the girl’s more malevolent side.

  “Looking at the age on my face,” Arabelle answered in a cold, distant tone.

  “Why?”

  “Trying to see me through doctor’s new eyes,” Arabelle said.

  “Why?”

  Alice was like that. Most everything that left her mouth was a question. Ever since Alice was left in her care, she seemed only to want answers to the simplest and most complicated questions. All the things she wanted to know! Achhh! She was no mother! She was not a teacher! She preferred silence to noise, isolation to conversation, solitude to company. Alice was the antithesis of happiness. And Arabelle simply did not like people. Especially Alice, in spite of her curious talents.

  If allowed to grow up, the girl would be terrifying. She exuded an air of innocence, of childish intrigue, but she was no innocent. No normal child. Arabelle could not love something like her. She could easily hate her. Hatred was safe.

  But Wolfgang? His past was as nightmarish as hers, but different. Where she was the victim, he was the tormentor. A brutal sadist. Thinking of the man he once was—how he had been a specialist in the inhumane, the incredulous, the ruthlessly malignant—she hoped that part of him would remain lost to this new version of him. He saved her once. If this monstrous part of him arose once more, he would not save her again. The real question was, with Alice’s DNA inside him, who would he be now? To the world? To Arabelle? Looking down at Alice, she wondered if some of the darkness in the little girl had transferred to Wolfgang. She prayed it hadn’t.