by Jeff Strand
“I won’t,” she whispered.
“I know,” he said. “You’re not—” Her mouth found and silenced his, chasing all thought of words away with her kiss. Matt let his hands wander over her waist, her back, not daring to go further … but longing to. Unlike all of their previous encounters, this was real, and he did not want to overstep his bounds. Neither did she, as she kept her tongue in her mouth and her hands above his waist, kissing him with careful desperation. When she finally pulled away her face was still flushed, her brow furrowed. “What?”
“I think,” she began, then took a gulp of air. “Technically I’m still a virgin.” Matt felt his heart lurch.
“You want me to—” he stopped himself. She was already nodding.
“I can’t think of anyone in the world I trust more than you,” she said. “Isn’t that the most important thing? Trust?”
“More important than love?”
Emily smiled down at her knees.
“I’m not ready to talk about love just yet,” she said. At this, Matt almost laughed.
“Okay,” he said. “What are you ready to talk about?” His fingertips touched her wrist, tracing just under her sleeve. Her shuddering inhalation gave the same answer as her words. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, but we’re gonna do it right this time.” He kissed her lightly, hand in her hair. “This time it’s for real.”
“You’re not helping my nerves any.” Her voice was soft, an admission.
“We don’t have to do anything,” Matt said. “We could just talk. Whatever you want.” She took his hands in hers and drew them up to her face, kissing each one before placing them on her waist. Her hands traced up his arms to his shoulders, then his neck, his face. Matt turned his head and kissed her palm.
“I want you,” Emily murmured. “That’s all.”
Matt nodded. It was the only reply he could muster. She was so beautiful. He traced his palms up her sides and spread his fingers, letting his thumbs graze her breasts. Her back arched and her hands moved to his shoulders. Her fingers were tense against him. When he leaned toward her, her hands paused before letting him come. Nerves. It had to be. She had said in no uncertain terms that she wanted this. But if that was true, then why was she moving with such uncertainty?
“Are you okay?” Matt asked her, letting his lip trace her jawline.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
“For what?”
“I can’t stop thinking about it,” she said. “I’m sorry.” Matt sat back. There were tears in her eyelashes, but none on her cheeks. There was a funny sort of resignation in her eyes. They were eyes that had decided she was better off a virgin. This gave Matt a small flutter in his chest, something like dismay.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asked.
“I’m not normal.”
“That’s not really an answer.”
Emily was staring at the floor, but her hands were still on him, fingers gripping the hem of his shirt. “I don’t understand why you don’t want to stop,” she said, so softly he had to lean in to hear her. “I don’t understand why you’re not asking me to leave.”
“I don’t want you to leave,” he said. He tried to kiss her cheek but she drew back, meeting his gaze. Her eyes seemed darker, a forest green compared to the previous spring.
“But why?” she asked. “You should be running. You should. You have no reason to try anything with me. Nothing will ever change.”
“What needs to change?” Matt sat back on the couch. He thought about reaching for his beer, but he just couldn’t find it in him. “You’re perfect.”
“I’m one lapse of conscience away from being a serial killer,” she retorted. Their bodies were no longer touching. Somewhere along the line they had both pulled away.
“If your face when you killed me is any indication then that makes your conscience a very impressive one.”
Emily didn’t smile. “What if it breaks?” she asked. “Where does that leave you?”
Matt got to his feet. The girl he was looking at now was the same, scared girl he met on the train. Though she contained traces of that other girl, the one he had met briefly in the restaurant, that girl was not here now. He didn’t take time to consider his next step. He couldn’t, he knew, or he’d change his mind. Without a word, he walked into the kitchen. He came back out with the largest kitchen knife he owned.
“Let’s find out,” he said. A little noise escaped her throat then, not quite a scream but not far off. Her hands rushed to her face, and then to her lap, clenched tightly together. This was not a defensive pose. With a shock, Matt realized that she truly was more afraid of herself than she was of an armed man. He set the knife on the coffee table in front of her and sat back down.
“Matt, don’t,” she said.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” he replied. His breathing was shallow, tense. He forced himself to take a deep breath.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said. Her eyes had settled on the handle of the knife, carefully pointed in her direction. He could see the telltale flush returning to her face. It took everything he had not to touch her.
“Then don’t.” Matt heard her breath catch and felt his heart stop. Emily’s right hand crawled forward with all the grace of some delicate insect, extending, almost floating, toward the weapon he had placed in front of her. He knew he had made the right decision. He hoped he had made the right decision. There was a twitch in her hips as her fingers closed around the knife. He imagined that she was feeling the same electric jolt that he felt in his body when she met his frightened eyes with her terrible greens. She turned those green eyes on him now, uncertainty and arousal boiling together behind them. He couldn’t speak. He could only nod and hope against hope that he wouldn’t regret the gesture.
First, Emily slipped off her shoes. Her feet weren’t bare under her heels, as he had expected, but covered by very short socks, ones that did not even reach her ankle. Black. She pulled her knees under her body and turned to face him. Matt didn’t move. The knife was still in her hand, her knuckles white against the black plastic. The thumb of her left hand traced over the blade, testing its sharpness. Her tongue darted over her lip. She reached for him and it took everything in him not to flinch, but she just took his hand onto her lap.
The blade made its first contact with his palm. He gasped, but kept still. This was real. Unlike the previous times, this was real. Emily mumbled something comforting, but it was too soft for him to make out. It hardly mattered anyway. Her face spoke more loudly than her voice ever could. She was lost in it, the lines she was tracing on his body. She didn’t break the skin, not yet anyway, but his body was alive with the power of the contact.
She could.
That was all that mattered. She could. She pulled the knife away and they both started speaking at once.
“Can you—”
“Are you—” He stopped himself. “I’m sorry, go ahead.”
Emily bit her lip. “Can you turn and face me?” she said. “Like on the train?”
“Sure,” Matt said. The request surprised him, but he complied, doing his best to keep his movements even. Not too fast, and not too slow. But she was on his lap before he had fully settled. The knife was at his throat and her right hand was untying his tie. His left hand was pinned to the couch and he was uncertain what to do with his right, desperate to touch her but afraid to do it.
She managed to get his tie off and shirt unbuttoned with one hand, the other pressing the blade against his skin just hard enough to threaten. Her fingers dug into his freshly bare stomach with enough force to make him moan. When she pulled her hand away he saw that she had left him with a few pink marks where her nails had been. Her face was pinker, flushed with some combination of arousal and shame. Matt felt himself quaking under her blade, and hoped she felt it too. His fear was something he wanted her to have. He offered it to her as a gift. And she took it, with gusto.
The knife traced over
his body, bloodlessly devouring every inch of skin it could find. She traced the pointed tip over his neck, which remembered being slit, and his stomach, which recalled that it had twice been torn apart. The memories of the pain he had felt were almost sensations themselves. The desperation he felt to never experience that pain again became an ache in his chest. Right hand still pressing the knife against his throat, Emily moved his one free hand to her waist. Then she took him tightly by the chin.
“Emily …” His voice sounded garbled as he tried to work his jaw within her grasp.
“Touch me,” she breathed. Matt’s hand slipped under her shirt and up her side. His hand was not on her breast, not yet, not without permission, but it was high enough that he knew she was not wearing a bra. She forced his head back and he moaned. It was very nearly a moan of pleasure. Her blade traced the underside of his jawline up to where her hand held his face. Her shoulders rotated, placing her breast in his palm. It was almost too much, the cacophony of sensations she was handing him, but still his body reached for more, squirming under her and pressing his hips into her thigh. She felt him there and matched his movements with a rhythmic undulation of her own. The blade in her hand traced down the center of his throat, his chest, ending at his stomach.
“Emily,” Matt groaned. He did not know what it was that he wanted to tell her. Perhaps he wanted only to remind her that he was still there. She placed the cool flat of the knife against his skin and leaned in to kiss his neck, pressing the weapon tightly between their bodies. Her body was still in motion, rubbing herself on his pants. Matt let out a breath. He needed to hold it together, at least until she was done with him. He couldn’t just lose it right there like some teenager. But the stimulation, coming from all sides and in all types, was not making it easy. “Emily,” he gasped her name again as she tugged at the skin of his neck with her teeth.
“Is that okay?” she murmured into his ear.
“God, yes,” he managed. She bit him again, harder this time. Matt could feel his pulse straining against the grip of her teeth. He thought about her sinking her canines into his soft flesh and tossing back her head like a wild animal, tearing his throat open and bleeding hot red all over her body and his couch. He should have shuddered at the thought. He wished he could return to a time when that kind of thought made him shudder. She released her hold and he felt her body curl against his. The knife was still against his skin, but her other hand was tight around his shirt and her movements were catlike.
“Okay?” she asked. Matt nodded and watched as she stepped out of her panties, leaving the rest of her clothes on. The urgency in that small detail nearly put him over the edge. She couldn’t even wait long enough for them to get undressed. She mounted him, but before he was allowed to enter her she pressed the knife to his throat again.
“What if I told you,” she said. “That if you come I’ll kill you?” Matt looked up at her. There was something in her eyes now, an earnestness that he recognized from the subway, from their first meeting. He swallowed hard, feeling the bite of the metal against his skin.
“I’d believe you,” he said. Emily nodded, but she didn’t say it. As she fucked him though, one hand on his chest and one on the handle of the knife she had not removed from his skin, he could not forget those words. What if she meant it, even though she’d only said it in the hypothetical? What if she meant to kill him when he finished? There was fear in his eyes. He could feel it there like a mist in front of his pupils, clouding her face and softening her beauty to something even more otherworldly. He let it float there for her to see. Because even through the haze he could see what his look of terror did to her.
By the time he felt close to finishing, she had come three times. The little cry of panic he gave as he neared his climax was enough to drive her to a fourth. He had forced it down, held it back for so long that when it finally did come it was one of the most powerful orgasms he had ever experienced. She stopped not long after, and waited until the afterglow faded to move again. He knew she was waiting for him to come back down, so that he would know what was happening to him. Her fingers laced through his hair and her blade pressed to the underside of his jawline. The sound that slipped between his lips was a high whine. Without any further contact, Emily came for a fifth time. Then she let him go.
Matt’s body sagged back and he almost laughed as he heard the knife clatter to the floor. He was alive. He had managed to get through it alive. She had managed to get through it and leave him alive. She leaned into his chest, nuzzling and kissing at his neck gently. Every once in a while he felt teeth, but they were always quickly withdrawn, as if she was reminding herself to be gentle. After a while, he took her by the shoulders and pushed her upright.
“You didn’t kill me,” he said. He meant it to sound triumphant. But there wasn’t an ounce of self-righteousness left in him. He was too tired, too spent, too relieved.
“I didn’t,” she said. There was pride in her voice, but there was disappointment there too. How long could she keep it up? How long could she go on fucking without killing?
Matt smiled and kissed her softly, turning a laugh into a pained cough as she bit his lip.
How long?
That, strangely, was something he was willing to find out.
KING SHITS
BY CHARLES AUSTIN MUIR
_____
1
For Clay Haller, pain was another delivery. Like anything else he transported across thousands of miles of open road. It was a job, like driving 11 hours or calling his dispatcher or backing his 53-foot trailer into a tight dock. But unlike his other deliveries, pain was a secret load, a shadow operation within the one he got paid for.
His war against King Shits.
According to the Internet, a King Shit was someone who overestimated his importance. The seven men across the street were real big shots, if muscle defined importance. The blazing sun painted their torsos pink and copper, ridges and bands of armor forged with gym machines and steroids. To passersby they made a startling sight, quaffing from plastic cups and 40-ounce bottles in front of a bungalow. Not even old ladies and minors escaped their drunken taunts.
On the sidewalk, a hulking bald man from whom the others took their cue intercepted a black teenager. “What up, NEE-gro?” His mock jive-ass falsetto shrilled across the street. Whatever the kid replied, Chrome Dome spat beer in his face.
Clay munched on a gummy bear, watching inside his truck cab. He had been waiting on the light at the head of the street when he decided to investigate these Mr. Universe wannabes. They made quite a spectacle. Since parking on the side street catty-corner to the bungalow, he had seen them harass a woman in Daisy Dukes, menace an old Vietnamese lady and yank the American flag off a drooling man’s mobility scooter. But what he saw at the traffic light prompted his surveillance.
A scrawny, Jesus-bearded dude stumbled down the driveway, coughing blood. One of Chrome Dome’s buddies—a Filipino who looked like Rufio from the Peter Pan movie, but with twenty-inch arms—tossed Jesus Beard in the bed of a pickup truck parked on the street. Three rounds of rock-paper-scissors ensued between him and a mop-headed kid wearing a lifting belt. Rufio beat Mop-head, paper over rock.
As Mop-head drove off in the pickup, someone shouted a line from the movie Road House:
“PAIN DON’T HURT!”
And Clay recalled another line about pain as he circled the block to his present position, a motivational saying, pain is something. He was still trying to remember it when the black kid stalked away, passing a dude wearing a scarf in the ninety-degree heat. Scarf Ace stopped before the Great Wall of Chrome Dome.
Clay zoomed in with binoculars. Chrome Dome gesticulated like a hard-sell personal trainer. Scarf Ace, ashen, shook his head, then pinched up a smile. He followed the others up the driveway through a tall wooden gate. His view cut off, Clay nibbled on gummy bears and waited.
Grabbing the binoculars again, he saw Scarf Ace stagger through the opened gate, sans neckpi
ece and bleeding from the forehead. Right behind him, Chrome Dome swept him up in a bear hug and dropped him into the pickup bed where Jesus Beard had been. Once again, Mop-head lost to Rufio’s paper. Minutes later he returned—wherever he dumped Chrome Dome’s victims, it was nearby.
Pain is weakness leaving the body. That was the saying. Marine Corps ad or something. Since King Shits were made of weakness, Clay thought, what would happen if he tested the axiom on Chrome Dome and Co.’s magnificent bodies?
He got out and crossed the street. A breeze stirred his hair as he walked past the neighboring houses. Eyes straight ahead, he felt the group push without touching him, a psychic bum rush of liquid courage and testosterone. They allowed him to pass, belching and carrying on, waiting for their leader to command respect. Finally a tank of thinly veiled muscle stepped in Clay’s face.
“Hey man, wanna stick fight?”
Chrome Dome stiffened like a point man sensing danger, despite his hundred pounds over the thin, middle-aged nobody reflected in his gold Elvis sunglasses. To feed the man’s beast of self-satisfaction, Clay shrank back a step.
“I, uh, well, I’m afraid I’m not really into blood sport.”
Along with his buddies, Chrome Dome snorted. “‘S’not like that. Gentlemen’s rules. No head shots, no groin shots, no hitting when a man’s down. Just for fun.”
Fun.
As in, pain don’t hurt.
“I’ll even give you a free beer. Come on, Jim Carrey.” Chrome Dome felt his alpha maleness now. Though people often mentioned Clay’s resemblance to the actor, they didn’t also chuck him in the arm with a gap-toothed grin.
“I do like beer …”
“Good man.”
Clay followed Chrome Dome through the wooden gate onto a covered patio. He pretended not to notice the scarf folded in a corner, the abstract floor art made from Jesus Beard’s sputum and Scarf Ace’s head wound. Grabbing beers from a cooler, Chrome Dome launched into a prolegomenon on the art of stick fighting. “Have you ever watched the opening scene from Rambo III … ?” Clay imagined his predecessors withering inside while Mop-head and another bodybuilder slapped each other with rattan sticks. The sight of the seven bare-chested, sweat-oiled beefcakes brought to mind a ‘roided reenactment of the beach volleyball scene from Top Gun.