The skinny guy’s frown turned right-side up again, and he said, “Well, I honestly don’t know what got into me. I mean, I was watching you pinching her nipples and grabbing her ass. Then when you started to jerk off in front of her… I just lost it. You were shooting your load all over her stomach and I went to work on her with the knife. I guess I was thinking back to when—”
“When what?”
“When that bitch, Cynthia, called my dick ‘little’, remember?”
“Yeah, man, I remember.”
“Killed me, man. I didn’t want to even try with another girl till now. But when I saw this hooker tied up to a pole just like Carol had been in her parents’ basement, and then throw in watching you rub your chub, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I figured you were busy in the front, so that’s when I started to slice the sides of her ass and tits a little. It was quite fun, if you wanna know the truth.”
Amy turned her gaze towards the fat man. A wide smile stretched across his stubble-covered, pockmarked face. He looked as happy as a father watching his son ride a bike without the training wheels for the first time. He then slapped the skinny one on the back. Hard.
“See man, I knew you could do it. ‘Popping your cherry’ doesn’t always have to mean fucking a bitch for the first time. Sometimes it can mean having them suck you, jerking off in front of them and shooting your wad all over their face or wherever, sticking your fingers inside their pussy or ass, whatever. Then… sometimes it can mean even more fun things than getting butt-assed naked with a whore and messing around with her. Oh yes. Sometimes, you just wanna get naked and rub her shit a little and then fucking kill the bitch and dump her still-warm body in an alley somewhere and…”
The fat man turned his gaze from his friend to Amy. Her eyes opened wide. She wanted to say something, anything, to convince him to not kill her. She wanted to say, “Yes, I’ll fuck you both for the price of one, OK? Just please don’t hurt me anymore” and “I swear I won’t tell a soul about tonight, OK? I promise. I just wanna go home and go to bed. I won’t even ask for the price of one, OK? Just fuck the shit out of me any way you guys want and I’ll get you both to blow your loads for free, OK? Please? Pleeeeeease!” But nothing would come out of her mouth except for a tiny sob.
She sniffled a few times and looked back to the skinny man. Maybe she could convince him and he in turn would persuade his friend that killing her wasn’t worth it, but her pussy was. That she had the best pussy this side of the river and that she could suck a golf ball through a garden hose – just like what all guys want out of a good woman: to fuck, suck and shut the fuck up. She could be their perfect woman, right here, right now, if they would only be so kind as to free her from the hot steam pipe she was tied to. Then she would promise to give both of them the best night of their sexual lives. And Amy believed it, too, as she thought it. She knew she was the best. She was The Little Whore That Could. But, she couldn’t get her mouth to form any words to say to the skinny one, either.
She wanted to break down and cry but didn’t know if that would only anger the men even more, so she closed her eyelids tight to stop the tears from forming and rolling down her cheeks. She felt the anger build inside her. She couldn’t stop it – by tear or words, it had to come out.
That was when she blurted, “Whatever chick you were talking about was right. You do have a little dick! And you… oh you, you fat piece of—”
The big man started laughing at the hooker’s outburst. The skinny man did not. He had a scowl across his face that she had never seen on a man before, not even from her former pimp she worked for on the streets, before getting hired by Miss Jena’s Escort Service. That was when Amy knew she was doomed to end up like the poor girl she had heard about before on this side of town.
She was now that girl.
But then her fate seemed to change at the feeling of something biting her left big toe. Before she opened her eyes, she figured it was going to be one of the guys nibbling at it. But, oh no – it was a big, filthy black rat.
Amy’s eyes snapped the rest of the way open and she screamed. The rodent continued to chomp away at her bound feet. The tubby man laughed even harder. The skinny man bent over and snatched up the flesh-eating rodent, then smiled as he held the bloody-mouthed creature in one hand and stroked its grimy fur with the other. It made Amy want to throw up instead of scream.
When the thin man stopped petting it and inched it towards her face, she wished she would have.
*
Amy always knew the risks of doing the kind of work she did, but before now had been one of the lucky ones (besides a few beatings by her aforementioned street pimp) who had survived all the crazies that ordered up escorts at all hours of the night, in all parts of the city. She had even visited this side of town a time or two, although this was her first time visiting a John in this particular neighborhood – where a couple of dead girls had been found over the past few years. But crazies could be anywhere, and Amy knew it: the grocery store, a church, in a house with a cheating husband while the wife was away on business and he could do things with her that his wife never allowed, a dark street where a homeless person could jump her, a passing car from which a homeboy could mow her down, and, apparently, in an apartment building with two weirdos with a rodent fetish.
“Wh-what you gonna with that thing, mister?” Amy managed to say after she finally stopped screaming. She couldn’t do anything about the tears now. They were streaming down her cheeks and falling off her chin and hitting her bleeding breasts. The droplets splashed onto the floor without a sound.
“Well,” the skinny man said, really speaking to her for the first time, “didn’t you make a remark about my ‘little’ dick?”
“Well yeah, but—”
“But nothing!” the skinny man screamed into her face.
Amy cried even harder with the man’s sudden outburst. She watched through tear-filled eyes as the naked fat man waddled over to the couch and sat down. He grabbed his turtlehead-penis with one hand and started working on it.
“Please…”
“Don’t ‘please’ me, you slut! I bet this here rat is cleaner than your diseased pussy. Glad I didn’t stick my dick in there. Who knows what sort of infection I’d get. I’d rather stay a virgin forever than—”
“What did you just say?” the girl interrupted.
“I said, I’d rather stay a virgin…”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought you said. Listen,” Amy said, trying to choke back the tears to reason with the man, “I’m sorry for saying something about your manhood. Really, I am. I was just scared, ya know? But now… ooohhh, now, since I’ve got a good look at you and that fine piece of danglin’ meat in between your legs, I think we can make it work. All you have to do is untie me and—”
“Shut up, you dirty lying whore!”
Amy snapped her mouth shut. Her half-baked plan had failed (not that she was all that much surprised) and the tears that had stopped for a minute or two started to flow once again. “Pleeease…”
“‘Please’ nothing! All you whores are the same. You say you like or love a guy and then treat them like a piece of shit. You lie, cheat, steal from our wallets when we’re not looking, and just because you might have some fine lookin’ titties or a nice big ass we can hold onto while we fuck you from behind, you think you can get away with anything. You sluts even think you can insult us and we won’t do a damn thing about it. All you women are whores of one kind or another, either with your mouths or what’s in between your legs. But, you know what…”
The skinny man paused. It was enough time for Amy to glance to her right. The fat man was still stroking away. By the looks of it, he was getting close to climaxing.
“Well, I’ll tell you ‘what’, you skank,” the skinny man continued. “I for one ain’t gonna take it anymore. So… for all the guys you women put down and love to shit all over…”
Amy opened her mouth to say something, anything to try to calm the cra
zed person in front of her.
“…you can…”
The words felt like they were trapped in her throat and she couldn’t get them out fast enough.
“…suck on this, bitch!”
The skinny man stuffed the dirty rat into her mouth. She could feel the thing’s front claws scratching, slicing the tender flesh of her tongue.
Gagging and helpless, Amy looked at the fat man on the couch. White ribbons shot out the tip of his engorged penis. Something hot and wet splashed against her belly. She looked down past the rear end of the rat that was still trying to scurry into her mouth and saw that the skinny man had shot his load all over her stomach.
The fat man shouted from the couch, “See what I mean, man. Getting your cherry popped can mean all sorts of things!”
Then both men started chanting in unison, “Suck on this, bitch! Suck on this, bitch! Suck on this, bitch!”
Through the men’s throes of orgasm, the rat burrowed the rest of its fat body into Amy’s mouth and tunneled towards her stomach.
Lex Non Scripta
Adam Millard
Lex Non Scripta [leks-non skrip-tuh] noun, Law
Latin: Law Not Written – Custom or Common Law
Southampton, Dec 7.—Survivors of the
RMS Amphitrite, which sank shortly after
its departure last month, have declared that
there was ample time to organise a system
of rescue before the vessel sank, but that the
officers and crew abandoned the ship, where-
upon panic ensued…
William Shaw read the article in its entirety three more times before realising the severity of the matter. As he did so, the hustle and bustle of the pub around him continued, its patrons unaware they were sharing a room with a murderer. A soon to be hanged man.
And, worst of all, a coward.
The newspaper – as it was wont to do for purposes of sensationalism – had omitted several key facts of what transpired upon that dreadful night five weeks prior. There was no mention of the two children Shaw had managed to drag from the lower deck, their clothes sodden, their eyes red with tears. He had piled them into a separate lifeboat before promising them that the current would lead them to safety. He recalled the terror upon their tiny faces as they drifted off into the chill darkness; the loss of their parents would haunt them forever. Of course, there had been no news of those two children or whether they had survived. Perhaps they, too, had perished? Shaw doubted he would ever find out.
Likewise, in the article there was nary a reference to the casino door, through which Shaw and his crew could not gain entrance despite their best efforts. A hundred souls had been gambling in that room; a hundred souls had never left that room.
Shaw shuddered; the room felt all at once cold, and yet there was a roaring log fire to his right, its flames licking and crackling as fiercely as they had been upon his arrival at the pub an hour before.
Across the room, laughter broke out. A cacophonous gaiety that both startled Shaw and enraged him, for he didn’t deserve to be surrounded by such happiness, not after what he and his crew had done, the loss of lives they were indubitably responsible for. He should be made to suffer, the way those – according to The Courier – two hundred and seventy-eight men, women, and children were made to suffer.
With his life.
“Anyone sitting there, fella?”
The voice was gruff, and for a second Shaw thought the Devil had caught up with him already and was here to prepare and transport him to his new lodgings, in Hell. But when Shaw looked up he was relieved to discover the man standing before him was one with whom he was already acquainted.
John King was one of the pub’s longest-serving punters, a wise and erudite gentleman whose love for billiards was only mired by infirmity. King and Shaw had spoken upon several occasions, had shared drinks on several more. He had a friendly face, and a friendly face was precisely what William Shaw needed tonight.
The hangman’s noose, with which he had an appointment in the very near future, would not be anywhere near as amiable as the man before him now.
“John!” he said, somewhat exaggeratedly. He motioned to the empty chair across the way. “Please, take a seat! Might I buy you a drink?”
Resting his cane against the table and placing a tankard – his own silver tankard, engraved with his initials in beautiful scrolling cursive – down upon it, King declined Shaw’s offer with a dismissive wave. “I shall be up all night on the bedpan,” said he. “No, this is my first and last of the evening, and let’s hope it’s not the straw that breaks the donkey’s back, as they say.” He laughed as he sat, removing a woollen scarf from his neck and a brown fedora from his head.
Shaw was all at once pleased of the company.
It did not last long, unfortunately, for no sooner had King sat himself down than he was tapping at the newspaper with a skeletal and arthritic finger; his nails, Shaw noticed, were filthy with grime. “Terrible thing, that,” he said with a shake of the head. “A tragedy beyond measure. One might only hope that the spineless crew are brought to justice for their cravenness.” As he spoke, spittle flecked the dark, scratched surface of the table.
For just a moment, Shaw panicked. Next King would recall their conversation from the summer in which Shaw had, in a drunken stupor, announced his occupation to the man in order to gain his approval. He wanted King to like him, to respect him, and what better way to gain that respect than to disclose his profession. Captain of a liner was an admirable vocation. Suitably impressed, King had proceeded to buy rounds for the remainder of the evening, until they were both reasonably soused and ready for their respective beds.
Drunk? They were drunk that night. Perhaps King had forgotten. Maybe the old man’s insensate state at the time had wiped his memory clean, and thusly Shaw was still safe sitting across from the old man while his rage grew.
The more King talked, the more Shaw realised that was the case, and he relaxed a little, certain his secret was safe.
“A captain goes down with his ship,” King exclaimed matter-of-factly before taking a long hard slug of his ale and slamming the tankard down upon the table. “That’s how it’s supposed to be. Save the passengers or die trying. No, those men” – he tapped the newspaper article once again – “were lily-livered and unfit to steer a carriage, let alone a liner filled with souls.”
Shaw laughed nervously. “I’m sure they were just frightened,” he said. “Who knows what goes through a man’s head when he is presented with his own mortality.”
It was King’s turn to laugh, and as he did his face contorted into something monstrous. His bare gums were black and glistened from the light of the fire in the fireplace. “A bullet would be my guess, once the Old Bailey gets hold of them.” He laughed again, one eye open and firmly trained upon Shaw while the other was tightly clenched. When he was done – and it took him quite a while to compose himself – he took a sip of beer before continuing. “No, rules are rules,” he said. “The crew of that ship – I can understand why they fled so rapidly, but the captain! The captain goes down with the ship!”
Was that an accusatory tone in King’s voice, or just Shaw’s paranoia? Did the old man recall more from that drunken night in the summer than he was letting on?
If he did, he was being rather cruel, Shaw thought.
“I must be going,” Shaw said as he gathered his newspaper up, finished his drink, and went to stand.
“So soon?” King said. And then, “Oh, yes, that’s right! You like to leave at the earliest possible opportunity, don’t you!” His laughter now was drenched with derision, and it was that moment Shaw realised his former drinking partner knew.
He knew, because perhaps he hadn’t been as drunk as Shaw had perceived him to be that night. King knew that Shaw was accountable for the deaths of almost three hundred people, and all because Shaw had wanted to impress by imparting his honourable career upon the man.
“Please,” Shaw said, barely more than a whisper and leaning into the elderly gent. “Please, don’t tell anyone. Only you know. Oh, please tell me you have not told anyone else that—”
“I’ve told no man,” said King, the mirth gone from his face. “And yet I’m not the only man that knows.”
Shaw’s heart caught in his throat; across the room a glass smashed and a scornful cheer went up about the place. “Who?” he said, so close to King now that he could smell the ale upon his breath and the stale tobacco in his breast pocket. “Tell me! Please!”
“You,” said King. A crooked finger came up, punched against Shaw’s shoulder with a force belying his age and maladies. “You know, and you must live with that. Can you live with that?”
Straightening up – his back cracked as he did so, and he hissed through his teeth – Shaw regarded the man with an amalgam of contempt and gratitude; contempt for mocking him so unceremoniously, and gratitude for letting the news go no further, at least amongst the regulars of The Wild Boar.
“I have to,” he finally said. “For as long as the good Lord allows it.”
And with that he turned and fled the place, never to return.
*
“The captain goes down with his ship!” Shaw said contemptuously as he poured a stiff brandy and tamped his pipe. Who was King to tell him what was expected of him? It was an unwritten law, more for guidance and the peace of mind of the passengers than anything. “Rules! Rules! It’s not even a law, and should they come for me I shall be ready!” He lit the pipe and exhaled a thick, sweet plume into the study.
It was not as if he was responsible for the fire in the ‘First Class’ lounge that had initially brought the liner to a grinding halt and then proceeded to sink her over the course of several hours. If that had been the case, sure, hang me. Tie me to a post and shoot me until nothing remains of my head. I refuse to put up a struggle and will be on my merry way to Hell before you can say Amphritrite.
Fuck the Rules Page 17