by Brian Bowyer
“Bath salts,” the man said. “Stuff will send your mind to another planet.”
Kinsey said, “I’ve never taken bath salts.”
The man lowered his gun, but the woman kept her gun pointed at Kinsey. The man said, “First time for everything. Come on. Let’s go sniff some bath salts.”
The three of them walked over to the log.
“Have a seat,” the man said.
Kinsey did. The man sat down to the left of her and the woman sat down to her right.
Kinsey used their chopped-in-half straw to snort a line of bath salts up each nostril, and then the man relieved her of the album cover. The intensity of the drug hit her almost immediately. She had snorted coke before, and smoked crack, and shot up crystal meth (occasionally at the same time), but these bath salts were more powerful than all three of those drugs combined—sort of like a combination of those three highs mixed in with an acid trip. The hot night seemed to grow suddenly cold in the best way possible. She felt as if ice-cold water were shooting through her veins to her extremities and then up into her brain, like electric shocks. And she saw every little detail of the night with perfect clarity. It was like she could not open her eyes wide enough. She felt as if she were moving at an incredibly high speed even though she knew that she was sitting motionless on a log. “Holy fucking shit!” Kinsey said. “This shit is awesome!”
Time passed. They took turns snorting bath salts off the album cover. At some point, the man began kissing Kinsey. His mouth tasted awful, but he had a gun, so Kinsey just went along with it.
When the woman noticed what was happening, she became agitated. She got up and smacked the man across the back of his head. “What the fuck?” she said. “Why you always fucking with other whores?”
“Who the fuck you calling a whore?” Kinsey said.
“Calm down,” the man told the woman. “You know I like a little bit of variety from time to time.”
Kinsey saw Douglas step into the clearing. He had managed to free his wrists from the duct tape. He walked right up to the log on which they were sitting. “Master,” he said, “if I don’t get some whiskey soon, something very bad is going to happen.”
The man said, “Who the fuck are you?” Both he and the woman were now pointing their guns at Douglas.
“This is my boyfriend,” Kinsey said. “I told you we were playing hide-and-seek.”
The man lowered his gun. “Well, we ain’t got no whiskey, but we do have some bath salts if you want some.”
The woman lowered her gun. “You’re an awfully good-looking man. What’s your name, sugar?”
Douglas didn’t respond.
“His name is Douglas,” Kinsey said.
The woman put the gun in her waistband at the small of her back. Then she chopped out two lines of bath salts on the album cover. She stood up and handed the straw to Douglas. “Here you go, sugar,” she said. “Knock yourself out.”
Douglas quickly snorted a line up each nostril. He just stood there and didn’t do anything for a couple of seconds. Then he screamed: “Jesus fucking Christ!” After that, he immediately began doing jumping jacks.
The woman looked over at the man, who still had his gun in one hand and an arm around Kinsey’s shoulders. “You like variety, you piece of fucking shit?” the woman said. “Well, I like a little variety, too.”
The man shrugged and began kissing Kinsey again. She didn’t stop him, but she kept her eyes on Douglas and the woman. The woman put the album cover back down on the log. Then, while Douglas continued doing jumping jacks, she unbuckled his belt and pulled his pants down, freeing his large penis, which was already partially erect.
“Good lord,” the woman said. Then she got down on her knees and put the head of his penis in her mouth. That was when Douglas stopped doing jumping jacks. He shoved the woman backward onto the ground and began ripping off her clothes.
The man took Kinsey to the ground and got her naked. After that, all she saw were the stars in the sky as the man fucked her while holding the gun to her head for maybe ten or fifteen minutes. She also listened to the woman scream while Douglas evidently ripped her in half with his massive penis. The woman only screamed for about five minutes before going silent, however, so maybe the size of his penis had stopped bothering her. Or maybe Douglas had simply fucked her to death. Kinsey didn’t care either way, but at some point, she did begin wishing that the man would hurry up and finish so she could snort some more bath salts.
Douglas entered her field of vision, looming behind the man in the moonlight. He was naked and covered in blood. He snatched the gun from the man’s hand and tossed it into some weeds. Then he pulled the man off Kinsey and slammed him onto the ground. Douglas descended upon the man. Seconds later, the man started screaming.
Kinsey got up and quickly put her clothes on. While getting dressed, she saw Douglas sink his teeth into the man’s throat and tear out his Adam’s apple. He swallowed it. Then he began eating the man’s face. The man tried to resist, but his efforts were ineffective, and his screams started to fade.
Kinsey slung her duffel bag over a shoulder. Then she walked over to the woman and looked down at her. The woman was dead. Her throat had been torn open and her whole face was gone.
Kinsey walked over to the log. Douglas’s pants were on the ground. She took the cash from his pockets and his wallet and put all of it in her duffel bag. The album cover, too, was on the ground. The jar of bath salts was on top of the album cover. The jar was still nearly full. Kinsey screwed the lid on the jar and put the bath salts in her duffel bag. Then she picked the dead woman’s gun up off the log and walked back over to Douglas.
The man was now dead and Douglas had eaten almost all of his face. Kinsey let him finish. Then she aimed the gun at the back of his head and said: “Turn around, dumbass.”
Douglas turned around and looked up at her, covered in blood.
“You ready to go drink some fucking whiskey?”
He smiled. “Yes, Master. I’m ready to eat more human faces, too.”
Kinsey lowered the gun. “Excellent. I’ll introduce you to my roommates, Billy and Steve. One night, they spiked my booze and fucked me. I told them I’d pay them back, so I’ll spike their booze and tie them up and you can eat their faces. Get dressed.”
Douglas got dressed.
Kinsey found the keys to the van in the dead man’s pocket. “Billy and Steve always keep plenty of whiskey in the house. You ready?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Excellent. Let’s go.”
They walked over to the van in the center of the clearing. Douglas climbed in on the passenger’s side and Kinsey got in behind the steering wheel. She started the engine and drove them out of the forest. Then she put the van on the road and headed back toward town.
They went to the house she shared with Billy and Steve on Cherry Street.
ORCHIDS IN BLOOM
Every night at nine o’clock Mitchell walked through a back alley behind the building in which he lived, past a smelly ravine and an old church that was now used as a flophouse for prostitutes, down past rows of small stores that were mostly barbershops and liquor stores and pharmacies, and found a seat on a stool at the bar in a little nightclub called The Never Better Lounge.
Mitchell was in love with the bartender. Her name was Marla. She was about his age, in her mid-twenties, and—like Mitchell—she had never been married. Also like him, Marla didn’t have any kids. He knew her from both the lounge and from around the neighborhood, as she lived not far from his building in an apartment with her brother and her brother’s wife.
Mitchell knew that he was a very good-looking man. Women liked him, but he rarely liked them back. He didn’t have time for women. He spent most of his time either looking in a mirror and practicing his lines, or driving from one audition to the next.
He had plenty of money in the bank. He didn’t have to work for a living, but he knew that he would one day be an actor. When women asked
him what he did for a living, he told them that he already was an actor.
The only women he saw with regularity, however, were the hookers in the brothels that he frequented. Until recently, the prostitutes had been enough to please him. But then he had fallen in love with Marla, and now he wanted more.
According to his oracle bones (the skeleton of a turtle that had been telling him the future since Mitchell was a child), Marla would be his lover soon.
• • •
“She isn’t here tonight,” the man tending bar told Mitchell. “She called off sick.”
He appeared to be about forty and Mitchell had never seen the man before. “Marla isn’t here?”
The man rolled his eyes. “I just told you that. What can I get you?”
“A gin martini.” Mitchell knew that his night was now ruined by Marla’s absence, but he figured that he might as well get drunk.
Several drinks later, he found himself sitting with a woman at a table in a corner of the lounge. She appeared to be at least ten or fifteen years his senior. Despite her age, he thought she was still somewhat attractive. He was pretty sure that she had told him her name at some point, but he couldn’t remember it.
“It’s rare that I ever get out of the house these days,” the woman said, “with my mother being so sick. Do you know what I mean?” She took a drink of whatever it was she was drinking. Her cocktail glass had a little umbrella in it.
Mitchell sipped his martini. “You still live with your mother?”
“I moved back in with her to take care of her. Early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.” The woman finished her drink. “Speaking of which: I’d better get back and check on her.” She stood up. “You should go with me.”
Mitchell sipped his martini. “Seriously?”
“Sure. She’s probably just sleeping, anyway. All she ever does anymore is sleep. We can listen to music.”
“Listen to music?”
“Yes. You like music, don’t you?”
Mitchell shrugged.
“And drink,” the woman said. “I have a bottle of Scotch. Do you like Scotch?”
Mitchell shrugged again. “I guess Scotch is okay.”
“Good. You can give me a lift. I don’t like walking home alone, anyway.”
“I’m on foot,” Mitchell said. “I only live a couple of blocks away.”
The woman smiled. “Then come on. You can walk me home. My mother’s house is just down the street.”
Mitchell finished his drink. Then he got up and walked the woman home.
The ranch-style brick house was painted white with hunter-green shutters. It stood behind a white picket fence. The front lawn featured a sycamore tree. Lights were on inside throughout the house. The woman unlocked the front door with a key and Mitchell followed her inside.
She led him into the kitchen. “Have a seat.”
Mitchell sat down at the kitchen table.
The woman pulled a bottle of Scotch from a cupboard and then sat down across from him. “Do you want a glass?” she said. “I normally just drink from the bottle.”
Mitchell shook his head. “I don’t need a glass.”
They each took a couple of drinks from the bottle. Then she said, “How old are you, anyway?”
“Twenty-five. You?”
She ran fingers through her hair. “Take a guess.”
In the bright light of the kitchen, she looked a little older than she had looked in The Never Better Lounge. He figured she was probably about fifty. “Thirty-eight,” he said.
She smiled. “Forty-six. I’m old enough to be your mother. And speaking of mothers: I’d better go check on mine. Be right back.”
She left the kitchen and quickly returned moments later. “She’s sound asleep. You wanna go listen to music in my bedroom?”
“Sure.”
The woman grabbed the bottle and Mitchell followed her into a bedroom at the end of a hallway.
“My mother’s room is on the other side of the house,” the woman said, “so we don’t have to worry about waking her up. Have a seat.”
Mitchell sat down on the edge of her bed. The woman took a drink and handed him the bottle. Then she turned on some jazz music and sat down beside him. “Do you have any family?” she said.
Mitchell shook his head. “Not in the city. My parents live upstate.”
“Any brothers or sisters?”
“No.”
“Any kids?”
Mitchell took a drink. “No. You?”
“Only my mother. My father died a few years back. His life insurance paid off the mortgage. I’ll inherit the house when she dies.”
“It’s a beautiful house.”
“Yes. My father was an accountant. My mother was an interior designer before she got Alzheimer’s disease.”
Mitchell took a drink and handed her the bottle. “Do you have any children?” he said.
The woman shook her head. “No.” She took a drink. “I was unable to have children. That was why my husband left me, because he wanted kids, and I couldn’t give him any.” She took another drink. “I don’t blame him, though. I don’t blame him one bit for leaving me.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
She ran fingers through her hair. “It is what it is. I’m very lonely, though. I’ve been very lonely and troubled for quite some time.”
She continued talking, but Mitchell tuned her out and thought about Marla. He hoped that she was okay. Her replacement at the lounge had told him that Marla called off sick, and he was worried about her. He hoped that she would be well enough to be back behind the bar tomorrow night. Mitchell decided to tell Marla that he was in love with her the very next time he saw her.
The woman handed him the bottle. He took a drink.
“Sometimes,” she said, “when I’m drunk and very depressed, I have fantasies about killing my mother to end her misery, and then killing myself to end my own.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes. But I’ll never do it, of course. They’re just bad thoughts, is all. The bad thoughts never last long. Nothing lasts forever, but broken lasts a very long time.”
Mitchell set the bottle on the floor. Then he retrieved a pair of blue disposable gloves from his jacket’s interior pocket and put them on.
“Are you going to kill me and my mother?” the woman said.
Mitchell shook his head. “No. Of course not.”
“Then why the gloves?”
“Other than prostitutes, I haven’t had sex with a woman in a while.”
“Seriously? A man as good-looking as you?”
“Yes. I haven’t had time for women. I’ve been too busy with my work.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m an actor.”
“Are you rich and famous yet?”
“Rich? Yes. I was born rich. But I’m not famous yet. I will be one day, though. One of these days I’m going to be very famous.”
“And you always wear gloves when you fuck the hookers?”
“Yes. Condoms too, of course. But I also like the gloves. I don’t like the feeling of my fingers touching them.”
“But I’m not a prostitute.”
Mitchell shrugged. “I suppose it’s just become a habit.”
The woman laughed. “I like you. I really do. But I don’t even feel like having sex. I just want to be held. Will you hold me? You can leave the gloves on.”
“Sure,” Mitchell said.
They stretched out on the bed next to each other. She lay with her back against his chest and he held her with the gloves on.
“This is nice,” she told him. “All I want is a body to hold, and a soul to love forever.”
“Yes,” Mitchell said. But he wasn’t thinking about the woman in his arms. He was thinking about Marla.
“If you think about it,” the woman said, “staying alive is basically just keeping all the water inside you from leaking back into the ground.”
She said more, but Mitchell wasn’t l
istening. He couldn’t stop thinking about Marla. He was looking forward to seeing her again and telling her that he loved her, but he was also nervous about professing his love for her. The last thing he wanted to do was come on too strong and scare her away. But Marla knew who he was. She knew his name. It was not like they were total strangers. And his oracle bones had told him that she would be his lover soon, so there was probably no reason for him to be nervous in the first place.
At some point, the woman had started snoring, but she woke up when Mitchell let go of her. He rose from the bed. He took a drink of Scotch while she looked up at him. Then he said: “Will you sell me the rest of this bottle? I have liquor at home, of course, but this Scotch is hitting the spot.”
“You can just have it.”
Mitchell nodded. “And for that, your generosity will be rewarded.” He retrieved his wallet from his back pocket. His wallet contained three things only: his driver’s license, his bankcard, and a whole lot of hundred-dollar bills. He pulled the cash out, counted off ten of the bills, and placed them on her nightstand. “There’s a thousand dollars,” he said. “Have a nice night.”
The woman’s eyes were already closed, but she managed a smile. “Thank you,” she said. “You’re very sweet.” Then she started snoring again.
Mitchell left.
He walked home.
He drank some more of the Scotch and thought about Marla. He knew he wouldn’t be going to sleep anytime soon, so he decided to go for a drive.
He wasn’t worried about getting a DUI. He had plenty of bribe money in his wallet if a cop pulled him over. That was one of the reasons he always carried so much cash around. If not for cops and drug dealers, Mitchell probably wouldn’t even keep cash in his wallet.
Although he did like to be able to put a lot of money in Marla’s tip jar every night. And it had felt pretty good to be able to give that woman a thousand dollars in cash for the rest of the Scotch earlier. He enjoyed lighting his little candles whenever he could, pushing back the darkness one act of kindness at a time.
Mitchell drove around the city with a smile on his face. Often he wondered if there was any hope for modern society, if it was going to spiral down into a cesspool of hatred and greed, but then he encountered someone like that kind woman who was taking care of her sick mother at the exclusion of her own happiness, and he found it possible to believe in the decency of human beings again.