“No,” Marty said. “I, um, I want to, I just don’t know how. I mean I know how, I’m just not very good at it.”
Trixie shrugged her shoulders, telling Marty that it didn’t matter, and puckered her lips again.
Marty ran a hand across the back of his neck. His mouth suddenly felt dry, his tongue thick and heavy. This was it, his chance to kiss a girl and - nerves be damned - he wasn’t going to miss out on it.
“Okay.”
He wiped his palms on his pants and walked over to Trixie. He stopped a foot away and realized the distance was too great for them to kiss, so he inched in closer, his eyes bouncing back and forth between her eyes and chest.
“So, ah, how do we do this?” Marty said.
Trixie giggled and put a hand on his shoulder. Her touch felt good and had a calming effect. She gave his shoulder a light squeeze. She moved her hand up to his neck and massaged the muscles there for a moment before cupping the back of his head and pulling his face toward hers.
It was happening!
He really was going to kiss a girl.
Marty wasn’t sure what to do so he closed his eyes. He felt Trixie’s full, soft lips press against his, and they felt great. He could feel her make-up, too, but that did little to diminish the moment.
This kiss didn’t last long and he opened his eyes when Trixie pulled away from him. He saw that she was puckering her lips again and he realized that she was telling him to do the same.
“Oh,” Marty said, feeling a little foolish, “Right.”
He did as she asked and closed his eyes again. Her lips met his again, only firmer this time and with more passion. He felt her mouth part and her tongue on his lips. Instinctively, he opened his mouth and let her tongue in to find his.
It felt weird at first and Marty almost pulled away. But he didn’t, he got used to the feeling rather quick, and started to enjoy it. Besides, Trixie still held on to him.
As Trixie smeared her face paint and salvia on Marty’s lips, she pressed he breasts up against him and wrapped her other arm around him. Marty’s excitement and hardness increased, which he didn’t think it was possible as he was already rock hard. He wrapped his arms around her, his hands settling between her buttocks and the small of her back, and she pressed herself against him, causing him to moan.
Marty began to return the kisses, letting his tongue venture out of his mouth and into Trixie’s, and their kisses became fervent as a result, and sloppy. Not that either minded.
Trixie broke off, pulled her head back, but didn’t retreat. Instead, when Marty, who didn’t want the kisses to end, leaned in for more she pushed his face down into her cleavage. She held him there, rubbing her breasts on his face, reached down with her fee hand and began to massage his bulge.
Everything was happening so fast that Marty couldn’t process it all, so he stopped trying and just went with it.
He had no idea what he was doing but that didn’t seem to bother Trixie. The soft flesh of her breasts felt cool upon his face and he began to kiss and lick them, mimicking the guys he’d seen in pornos.
Her hand on his hard member, even though his pants were between the two, was the greatest thing he had ever felt; way better than his own hand and certainly better than Greg’s hand that time they’d jerked each other off. He moaned again.
Trixie moaned, too; and ran her fingers through Marty’s hair.
She tipped her head forward and began to nibble on his ear. Marty moaned even more, his knees weakened. He assumed this is how people felt when they said they were melting.
The passion and the rubbing and the nibbling and the melting all came to a grinding halt when Trixie bit Marty’s ear.
He yelped and tried to pull away but Trixie still had a hold off his head and his ear. She’d latched on like a rabid dog that didn’t want to let go of its prey. He could feel blood rushing from his ear, dripping on the side of his face. Tears burned his eyes.
“Let go you crazy bitch!”
Trixie giggled.
Marty balled up his fist with the intent of introducing it to her ribs but when he drew it back Trixie ground his ear lobe between her teeth. The pain was intense and caused him to cry out.
She eased the pressure once he lowered his hand.
“Somebody help!”
Marty hoped his cry for help carried through the door, down the hall, and around the corner to the layaway desk. He hoped that help was already on the way and that they would bust down the door and rescue him.
Trixie let go of his ear but clamped her hand down on his now flaccid penis.
Marty’s eyes went wide and his hands went down to pull Trixie’s hand free. Before he could do so, however, she flicked his wounded ear causing him to howl with pain.
Again Trixie giggled.
When Marty first heard that sound ten minutes before, he thought it was cute, sexy. Now it was neither, now it was vile. The purple smile he had found warm and welcoming, now smeared and tainted with his blood, had become menacing.
“Why...” Marty, his face contorted by the pain, swallowed and tried again. “Why are you doing this?”
Trixie answered Marty’s question with a wink and backed him over to the stall in which she had been hiding. She picked up her umbrella and motioned at the stall door with it.
“Open it yourself,” Marty said.
Trixie squeezed and twisted. The increased pain made Marty reconsidered and he reached behind him and opened the stall door. She forced him into it and, when the back of his knees met the toilet, he found himself sitting on its lid.
Marty’s hands went to his crotch as soon as Trixie relinquished her grip. Though her hand was gone, he could still feel it down there, twisting and pulling, and the pain it caused in his stomach.
“Please,” Marty said. “Please stop. Please let me out.”
Trixie shook her head.
“Why not,” Marty said. “Why are you doing this to me?”
Trixie pointed her umbrella at him and opened it. The top, he now saw, was black with a purple swirl on it, which appeared to decrease in size when she spun it.
For a moment Marty was wondering if Trixie was trying to hypnotize him, then she detached the lower portion of the umbrella’s handle, exposing a long, skinny blade, and let the top fall to the floor.
“No…”
Marty ceased to speak when she slid the tip of the blade slid into his nostril. She didn’t cut him or push it in deep; she was only telling him to be quite and not to try anything funny, he got the message loud a clear.
Marty watched with blurry eyes as Trixie stepped out of one of her heels, which she kicked over to the next stall, pulled the stocking off her leg, balled it up and held it out to him. The thought of resistance came to mind but the sharp blade in his nose killed it, it wouldn’t do him any good to say no. So, he reached out, took the balled up stocking, and stuffed it in his own mouth.
Pleased with his obedience Trixie patted Marty on the top of his head. He no longer desired her touch and wanted to pull away from it.
Trixie giggled that now familiar giggle and flicked her wrist. The sharp edge of the blade cut through the wall of his nose.
Marty’s screams were muffled by the stocking. Blood poured from the wound and splattered on his lap. He went to stand but stayed seated when the edge of the blade found his wounded ear. His muffled screams went on undeterred.
The blade cut through Marty’s skin and cartilage with ease, like a knife through butter if you want to be clichéd about it. He grew light headed, his sight dimmed, but he could see his ear as Trixie dangled it before him.
Marty stood, wobbly on his feet, slipped in his own blood and fell towards Trixie. He didn’t see her raise the blade but he felt it as in entered his body. His knees gave way and he fell onto them, the long knife buried deep in his stomach.
Trixie pulled the blade free and used her bare foot to push Marty backwards. He landed on the toilet then slid off of it and onto the floor.
/> ~~~
Trixie unzipped her dress and let it fall from her shoulders.
She unpinned the hat from her hair and let that fall too, removed her bowtie. She stepped up to a sink; the same one Marty had used to wash his hands twice, and rinsed the blood from her blade.
Once it was clean she set it aside to dry and washed the blood from her hands and the makeup from her face. Once all the traces of both were gone she dried herself with the rough paper towels offered in the automatic dispenser.
She left the used up towels on the floor and walked over to the trash can in the far corner. She removed its lid, reached into it, and pulled out a plastic bag containing clothes: pants, hoodie, and shoes.
When she was dressed and had brushed out her hair with her fingers, Trixie retrieved the top of her umbrella, reassembled the handle, and put it in the plastic bag followed by her dress, hat, heels, stockings and bowtie.
With bag in hand she walked over to the restroom door and placed her ear against it. She heard nothing, kicked the wooden wedge free. She listened again before cracking open the door and peeking out.
The hallway was clear.
Satisfied, Trixie put her hood up and exited the men’s room.
THE FACE COLLECTOR
Stephanie Ellis
“Do you mind if I join you?”
The voice was surprisingly well-spoken for a customer of this particular establishment, even more surprising was the fact that such a voice would have got this far without suffering some mishap relieving its owner of either purse or life.
Tom stared up in suspicion. Nobody ever sat with him if they could help it; most gave him a wide berth allowing him to drink undisturbed in his own little corner. The man did not wait for an answer but simply sat down opposite.
This annoyed Tom even more as it blocked his view of the door. Even when he was deep in his cups he always kept a weather-eye out in case a quick exit was called for. He slammed his empty tankard down.
“Can I get you another?” asked the stranger, smiling pleasantly at Tom.
The smile did not fool him, it wasn’t real; merely a shark’s smile on a liar’s mouth. The sort of smile with which business was conducted on these trickster’s streets.
The sort of smile that he too offered up to the world.
The bar was full of these grinning, conning fools; the dirt and grime engrained in their personalities as deeply as in the rags that hung from their backs.
A group of coster lads were casting furtive looks his way. No doubt they were already taking bets as to when he would explode, send the strange gentleman packing. He glared at them and they looked away.
He had not come in for company but he had come in to drink and the offer of a free round from anyone was a rarity. It was only good manners to accept, he decided. He would tolerate the man for the time being.
The barmaid came over in response to the stranger’s summons, refilling Tom’s pot and leaving a jug on the table. She hesitated briefly, looking from Tom to the gentleman and back again, her curiosity undisguised but then another customer shouted for her and she left with the air of one who’d been cheated.
Tom knew she had been angling for an introduction, drawn by the smell of money like a hound on a fox’s trail; the other trade she plied, with the landlord’s connivance, was one for which her liar’s smile, prettier than most, was ideally suited.
Tom raised his now full tankard in a gesture of thanks, yet for all his eagerness to drown out his miserable life just a little more, the mug only made it half-way to his lips.
He couldn’t have said what it was that made him pause, only that there was something about his benefactor, something that stayed his hand, warned him he needed to remain alert.
He realised then that he had not really seen his companion’s face but the man wore a broad-brimmed hat concealing most of his features from view and that, together with the fug of pipe smoke that would drift their way, prevented closer inspection.
However hard he tried, all Tom could see were those shark’s teeth.
As if to answer this question of identity, a slender uncalloused hand placed a small card in front of him. Tom glanced down:
Lanius Rettorian
Purveyor of Masks. Collector of Faces. Teller of Fortunes.
The introduction had been made.
“Mr Rettorian,” said Tom, looking from the card to the man. “Are you here to tell my fortune?”
His companion merely smiled at him.
“I can save you the bother, sir,” said Tom. “I have always known my future. It is dark, and it is brutal and it is short.”
“You are certain of that?” asked Lanius.
“As certain as I am of this ale in front of me,” said Tom. He toasted Lanius once more but his smile turned to a grimace as soon as the liquid touched his lips. He spat the drink across the table.
“Water,” he said in disgust.
“Again,” said Lanius, leaning forward, his eyes boring into Tom’s. “Are you sure?”
Refusing to drop his gaze, Tom drained his pot. This time it was his original beer. Perhaps he had too much to drink. He pushed the empty tankard away sending the jug flying. More expectant looks their way.
“Let me buy you another one,” said Lanius. “Make up for ruining your first drink. An apology for playing such a poor trick on you.”
Lanius gestured to the landlord who immediately brought a replacement. Tom was surprised. This was a level of service never normally offered. Then again he knew the innkeeper would already be weighing the contents of the man’s purse in his mind, looking for any way of extracting additional coin from such a customer; the barmaid had failed, time to try another tack. Tom decided to remain a while, hear the gentleman out, after all free drinks were always welcome.
“So,” said Lanius, “your future.”
And Tom listened as Lanius described a comfortable existence as his assistant; fine clothes and good food, easy hours and decent pay. A far cry from the stink and reek of the slaughterhouse. A pretty fairy tale, he thought, a trickster’s story.
“Why me?” asked Tom. “What do you know of me?”
“That you are skilled with the knife. That you get the job done. I also know that you do not suffer fools gladly which makes us two of a kind.”
“Then you must have heard that I’ve been in trouble with the law. Had up before the beak on more than one occasion.”
“So I understand.”
Tom’s suspicions came flooding back; beware the liar’s smile. Too-good-to-be-true offers didn’t happen to the likes of him. His eyes narrowed.
“What I’ll be doing – is it kosher? No funny business?”
“I can promise I’ll not be asking you to do anything I wouldn’t do myself. Naturally you’ll want to think it over but if you do decide to accept you’ll need to come to this address,” he tapped the card, “at 9:00am sharp.”
And with that he was gone, leaving Tom alone with his thoughts and his drink.
The landlord began to shout for last orders but for once Tom did not make his way to the bar, instead he stood up, rammed his battered old hat onto his head and went out onto the old foggy streets of Whitechapel.
There were still people milling about, crews up from the docks attracted by the cheapness of the drinks and the whores; others making their way to work – as by rights he should be doing.
He paused at Jemson’s knackers’ yard. The gates were wide open and a small pool of light spilled out from the slaughter room beyond. A horse hung from the rafters, trussed up for easier flaying of the flesh, its blood gathering in the basin beneath its neck where the artery had been severed.
Such a scene would be repeated at his own yard but Tom felt a sudden repugnance at what his work involved. He knew how that horse had felt as it was lead into the yard, beaten and with nowhere else to turn, able to go only in the direction he was guided.
Tom’s life had been like that lately, his wife watching him, the peelers watchin
g him, his uncle watching him. All watching and waiting.
Well maybe, thought Tom, it’s time I disappeared for a while. Surprise them all when I come back a gentleman. Unless I’m falling for a rich man’s lies.
He turned his steps away from Drovers Row and slipped into the dark, solitary alleyways that would lead him from his current life.
Occasionally he would hear footsteps behind him but if he stopped and looked back he saw no one. Sometimes he would see a shadow, hear a scream, but none of this caused him a moment’s concern. He had danced for the Devil once as a child and he had survived it, he carried the reminder in the form of a scar left by the rope-burn of the noose.
When anyone ever caught sight of it, they would cross themselves and say that the Devil would return to reclaim him; but he had always laughed them off. He had cheated Him before and daresay would do so again.
Occasionally he would remember the darkness that had come for him as the rope had tightened but there had been no fear then and he was not scared now. Death and darkness, he had realised from that time, were his friends.
So he continued to walk and made his way to Lanius Rettorian’s address, arriving there an hour before dawn. He had decided it would do no harm to indulge in a little snooping before he entered the man’s employment.
Tergum House stood glowering at the end of the street, staring down at anyone who turned into that road, challenging them to take just one more step…if they dared.
On either side, a mix of ramshackle buildings provided a miserable guard of honour, some were boarded-up shops, others the lodgings of the desperate. Rats scurried in the darkness but Tom doubted these were the only vermin that lived round here.
He looked again at Rettorian’s house – more mansion than simple dwelling; a gabled monstrosity whose ground floor had been turned into a show room. But this was heavily barred and shuttered preventing him from gauging exactly the health of Rettorian’s business.
The building was set back from the street to allow for the entry of carriages along the smoothly-surfaced drive that curved round in a proud arc. Such customers meant money. Tall ornate railings decorated the drive’s perimeter, a funereal touch that added to the forbidding atmosphere. Not normally one to shy away from any challenge, Tom began to feel uneasy.
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