The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 16

by Stephen Jones

  He looked back at Louise imploringly, but she hadn’t moved and her face was impassive. Next to her stood the boy he’d discovered in the shed, flour white and spindle thin. His impossibly gaunt body draped incongruously in Louise’s waxed jacket. He was smiling, his white skin almost glinting in the late afternoon sun, as Louise draped a maternal arm across his shoulders.

  Dusk was drawing in over the verdant expanse of Flatland Marsh, coating the swaying figures with a deathly paleness that began to mask them from view. In the barely visible distance Tom could just about make out more thin figures, bleached of colour as if washed up on a shore, swaying like reeds over the flat land.

  Louise was all but invisible now, and as Tom looked down at his own body he realized that he too was losing his natural colour; becoming one with the children of the marsh.

  CHRISTA FAUST

  Tighter

  CHRISTA FAUST LIVES IN Los Angeles with her Boston Terriers and too many high-heeled shoes.

  She has been writing dark fiction for over ten years, and her novels include Control Freak, Hoodtown, Triads (with Poppy Z. Brite) and media tie-in projects such as A Nightmare on Elm Street: Dream-spawn, The Twilight Zone: Burned/One Night at Mercy and Friday the 13th: The Jason Strain. Faust’s short fiction has appeared in several anthologies, including Millenium (aka Revelations), the Hot Blood series and The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories by Women.

  “I originally wrote this story for Jeff Fazio when he was working on the Showtime television series The Hunger,” reveals the author. “He had optioned my other Hot Blood story ‘Skin Deep’ and was interested in more erotic horror.

  “I have always been leery of the intensely punitive attitude in most so-called erotic horror and stories that consistently punish bedroom adventurers for straying from the sexually correct seem both dull and narrow minded. I wanted to give Jeff a story that involved SM and bondage, but not in a purely negative light.

  “In ‘Tighter’, things go horribly awry, not because bondage is wrong and bad, but because we perverts are susceptible to human flaws like greed and selfishness just like the average norm. Unfortunately (but unsurprisingly), it was too intense for The Hunger. Luckily, Jeff Gelb and Michael Garrett snapped it up for Strange Bedfellows: The Hot Blood Series.”

  VEGAS AT NIGHT, all glitter and neon like smashed candy scattered across the desert’s endless dark. Visual cacophony of a thousand billboards, all competing for the mayfly attention span of feckless tourist hordes. A thousand entertainers, a thousand hustles. Comedians and singers, wannabes and used-to-bes. Animal acts and acrobats. Strippers and showgirls and drag queens. And Persephone.

  In one of the older casinos, a tarnished relic from the days when Vegas was still strictly for grownups, Persephone does Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Two shows on Saturday. In the dimly lit lounge, she appears with flashpots, clad only in a golden g-string and tiny, star shaped pasties. Her makeup is theatrical, all eyes and lips, and her body is fiercely muscled, slicked with oil and dusted with glitter. Over the ageing PA system, a honey-voiced announcer speaks.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourselves for the most daring, death-defying escape ever witnessed. Just as her ancient namesake descended into the underworld and returned unscathed, so will our modern day goddess kiss death on the cheek before your very eyes!”

  A curtain is parted to reveal a large water-filled tank, hypnotically backlit by hidden green and blue spotlights. Then a single golden light washes over Persephone as a pair of young men nearly identical in their forgettable perfection approach her from either side. They are oiled and glittered like Persephone and just as close to naked. Each bears an armful of heavy steel chains and thick, locking cuffs. The audience watches in uncomfortable silence as Persephone is meticulously bound, arms locked behind her back, torso wrapped in unyielding steel, legs woven together and ankles locked and fastened to a heavy hook lowered from the ceiling. Her face is serene, but her eyes glisten with some manic ecstasy in the seconds before she is blindfolded by a gold silk scarf. One of the boys lifts her in his arms as the other turns a large, theatrical crank to raise the hook, higher and higher until she dangles upside-down, suspended above the audience’s expectant heads. The tank rolls automatically forward until it is positioned directly beneath her.

  “Now as we all know, it takes only three minutes for the human brain to die from lack of oxygen. But in as little as two short minutes . . .” A dramatic pause. “. . . irreversible damage may be sustained.”

  An oversize stopwatch is unveiled. The space on the clock between two and three is painted blood red and the number three has been replaced with a skull and crossbones.

  “In 1953, the Great Gambini attempted this very stunt. They pulled him out after two-and-a-half minutes . . .” Another dramatic pause, stretching out to infinity in the hot space above the audience’s expectant heads. “But it was too late. Will the lovely Persephone make the history books, or will she just be history?”

  A drum roll and Persephone plunges, headfirst, into the water.

  The clock starts, a sharp, metronomic ticking like a nervous heartbeat while a subtle web of low, disquieting music insinuates itself between the seconds.

  All around her video screens light up. Each screen shows a close-up of a different body part. Her narrow, elegant hands. Her chain-wrapped midriff. Her sculpted ankles and delicate feet. Her lips, spangled with tiny silver bubbles.

  Persephone struggles beneath the water. Her skin is pale, gleaming and her blonde hair floats, weightless around her face. The chains that bind her glint and flash. Time continues to pass and she seems to tire. The audience is on the edge of their seats. It is as if no one dares to breathe until she can breathe with them. Inside the tank, she has gone completely still. Her attendants sell it with nervous faces and hands tightly clenched, one eye on her motionless form and one eye on the ever-advancing clock. The ticking hand hits the red and the audience’s hearts are pounding, palms sweating. A full thirty seconds pass. One of the boys starts toward the tank as if to free her but his companion restrains him. Then, in a single, serpent-smooth move, her muscles flex and ripple and the chains fall away, sinking to the bottom of the tank. She bursts upward in a rush of bubbles and frantic applause as she rips off the blindfold, triumphant.

  In the front row to her left is a young man. Hard eyes set in a rough, ugly-sexy face. Bald head and thick sinewy arms ending in blunt wrestler’s hands. From the stage, Persephone fixes him with a gaze resonant with hunger and frank invitation and he holds it, doesn’t look away. She gives him a small, suggestive smile and slips behind the curtain.

  Backstage, Persephone sits before a mirrored vanity, burning. An insistent heat boils beneath her skin, radiating outward from the deep pink grooves left behind by the cold steel chains. Desire pounds its fists between her legs and she has to clutch the edges of the vanity, stealthy sparkles dancing at the corners of her vision. It is always like this, has been since the first time young Persephone (just plain old Peggy back then) wound a piece of oil-stained rope around her wrists in her father’s tool shed, heavy, honey-thick sunlight pouring in through the dusty windows to caress her sweat-glossed flesh as she strained against her bonds, pretending. Pretending that she was captured, pretending that she could not escape, that her bones could not fold up and flatten like the bones of a weasel sliding under the hen-house door. She would wind the fraying rope around her hips, down between her legs and she would lay on the cold and filthy cement struggling, straining against the rope, until the friction brought its own fierce release.

  But it was never enough. Sitting here now in her sad little dressing room with desire devouring her from the inside out, she knows that pretending will never be enough. The sharp, firecracker orgasms that hit her like rabbit punches as she struggled against the cruel chains on stage only made it worse. She pulls her gold satin kimono tighter around her body. It seems to take far too long for her assistant to fetch the man from the front row.

 
; When he arrives, she does not let him speak. A glitter-nailed finger against his thin lips, and then her own hungry mouth, and he responds with harsh strength, sledgehammer hard against her belly. There is an impatient wrenching of clothing and then his chest is bare and her kimono is pooled like golden water around her feet. A touch of glitter remains on her skin, flashing under his rough, clutching hands. She sighs and grips his wrist, moving his hand from her breast to the grooves the chain has left across her ribs. When he runs his fingertips experimentally over the corrugated surface, she shudders, a thick sound welling up like blood in her throat. Her heart is pounding between her legs as her hand flashes out like a cat’s paw, nails raking across his chest, across the face of a grinning tattooed demon.

  “Bitch!” He grabs her wrist, grip vice-tight, but not tight enough. She slips loose, too easy. Showing her teeth, she lashes out at his face.

  He is fast, catches both hands and wrenches them behind her back. She is faint with desire, wet flush of heat between her legs.

  “Tighter,” she whispers, grinding her hips against his muscular thigh.

  His fingers dig into her flesh, forcing her arms up higher behind her back.

  “More,” she breathes, nearly begging.

  “Are you crazy?” He frowns. “You want me to break your wrists?”

  “You can’t,” she says, and before he knows what is happening, she is free again, slipping away to dig through a drawer in her vanity. When she turns back, she is holding a length of rope.

  “Tie me up,” she says.

  His frown deepens and she is afraid that she is losing him. She pulls him close and kisses him again, deliberate fingers teasing him back to full erection.

  “Don’t you want to fuck me?” This a throaty whisper punctuated by a flick of her tongue over the curve of his ear.

  “Hell yeah.” His voice is thick with lust, his dark eyes mean and hungry.

  She holds the rope out to him. Breathing like a bull about to charge, he takes it in one hand, gripping her upper arm with the other. He turns her away from him and begins winding the rope around her wrists.

  “Tight,” she says between clenched teeth.

  His fingers are clumsy with the knots. She slips loose as if shrugging off a too-big jacket.

  “Come on!” she says. There is an edge of desperation in her voice. “Do it tighter.”

  He tries again, but she can tell his patience is rapidly eroding. Frustration like broken glass in her throat as she finds the rope slipping off like water, even though she was willing to hold on, to pretend.

  He is angry now. He throws the rope away.

  “Fuck this,” he spits. “I don’t have time for this bullshit.”

  “Please.” She is begging now, hating herself for it but begging anyway. “Please. I need it.”

  He shakes his head.

  “You need help,” he says, grabbing his rumpled T-shirt and buttoning his jeans. “How can you want to be tied up when so many women are abused for real? It’s crazy.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” She knows she has already lost, but she’s angry now. Angry at him for making her feel like some kind of pervert. “I like to be tied up because it makes me feel good. It’s that simple. How can it be wrong to make somebody feel good?” She steps closer, giving it one last shot. Still naked, she pitches her voice low and seductive. “We’re both consenting adults. How can it be wrong if we both want it?”

  “You want it, not me.” He turns away. “I’m outta here.”

  She wraps her kimono around her body and rushes after him.

  “Wait, please . . .”

  But he is gone, down the long dim corridor and she is yelling after him, cursing and then fighting tears as she leans her forehead against the wall.

  “Your clock is fast,” a voice says and Persephone turns, startled to see a man leaning against the wall beside her. He is not handsome, strange green eyes amplified by clunky glasses and a body too thin beneath unfashionable clothes. She can see a long, shiny scar inside his left wrist, suicide ghost peeking out from the cuff of his ugly jacket. He holds what appears to be an artist’s portfolio.

  “What?” She frowns and looks away from him, wondering how much of the scene he witnessed, feeling the thin heat of shame crawling under her skin.

  “Your clock, in the show. It says three minutes, but it was really only two minutes and forty one seconds.” He smiles and she creases her brows, annoyed.

  “Yeah, well, I can hold my breath for much longer than that,” she says. “It’s just that these days, three minutes is a long time for the marks to sit there waiting. I want to make it long enough for them to think it’s dangerous but not long enough for them to get bored. What’s it to you anyway?”

  He shrugs. She notices that his eyes are not just green, as they seemed at first glance, but actually a strange kaleidoscopic cluster of emerald and pale grey. Fascinating, but she looks away, still shrouded in her own frustration and shame.

  “My name is Kevin,” he says shyly, looking down and away. “I really enjoyed your act and I wanted to show you some of my work.”

  He starts unzipping the portfolio when one of her security guys shows up.

  “What the fuck?” The muscle takes Kevin’s elbow. “I thought I told you to get lost, pal.”

  Persephone isn’t sure how to feel about this but hey it’s just as well since he’s probably some kind of weirdo stalker. Then the unzipped portfolio spills photos out onto the ground between them and everything changes.

  Each photo shows a naked woman bound. But more than bound, they are works of art, sculptures in the medium of glossy red rope and tender flesh. The designs and patterns formed by the complex knotwork flows over their skins like the symmetrical characters of some exotic forgotten language. She kneels down and touches the image of a particularly intricate design, heart gunning in her chest and between her legs. Although she doesn’t know what she was expecting, she is disappointed when her fingertips find only the flat slick texture of a photograph.

  “Leave him,” she tells the guard.

  The guard’s eyes ask her if she’s sure, but she dismisses him with a quick nod of her head. When they are alone, Kevin kneels down beside her and starts gathering up the photos.

  “Did you do this?” She licks her lips

  He nods.

  “The knots, I mean . . .”

  He nods again. His quick green eyes have not missed her reaction but he seems nervous, blushing.

  “Can you . . .?”

  He reaches out and takes her hand, running his thumb over the ligature marks across her wrist and looking into her eyes.

  “Is there somewhere we can go?” he asks.

  Her apartment is small but meticulously neat, generic, like a hotel room. Posters for her act are the only personal touch.

  He has a tightly woven, lidded basket like the sort a charmed snake might rise out of. When he sets it down on her bed and lifts the lid she sees that it is full of rope. Not the cheap cotton clothesline that she keeps hidden in a drawer beside her bed, but an amazingly rich, reddish-purple cord like something an 18th century madam might use to tie back her velvet curtains. She plunges her fingers into the neat coils, their texture fine as satin, as the tender skin inside her mouth.

  “Undress,” he tells her.

  She obeys, stripping down in seconds and standing naked and trembling as he lifts the rope from the basket, seeming to test its weight in his hand and draw strength from its heft. She is amazed to see that it is all one length.

  His shyness seems to have evaporated as he assesses her body with a speculative eye. She can see the possible knots mating and combining in his head. Long minutes pass and she grows restless, impatient, until finally he pulls her to him and begins to weave a complex web across her torso. She loses herself in the beauty of the design, hypnotized by his nimble fingers.

  The rope caresses her, squeezing her breasts and her waist and tormenting her swollen clit wi
th a single fat knot that grinds against her with the slightest movement. He wraps a tight cinch around her elbows, pulling them together behind her back until they touch and she gasps, shamelessly working her hips against the rope. Her wrists are last, tighter than ever and as he steps away from her, there is a moment of explosive joy, a moment where she strains and struggles and cannot get free. But it is a fleeting moment as her rubber joints twist and shift beneath her skin and she can feel it slipping away as she pulls, pulls, pulls and then the ropes around her wrists fall away and a thick spike of disappointment slams through her as tears fill her eyes, the beautiful design gone to useless slack around her. She wants to scream, to smash everything. She wants to tear into her own flesh and rip out her flexible, treacherous bones. But then something happens, something that makes her scalp crawl and her eyes go wide.

  The rope is moving, flexing and tensing, gliding over her with amazing speed, faster than his fingers, wrapping her up like a constrictor’s prey. And the knots, twisting and reforming into exquisite designs and haunting symmetry like the blueprints for some profane cathedral. Tighter, too. Tighter than ever and she is breathless, burning. The final knot winds itself, macramé perfection against her pounding heart and she is caught again. There are scant inches for struggle but as she strains and pulls and thrashes, the rope moves with her, seeming to anticipate every escape, only to wind her tighter. For the first time, after a lifetime of escape, she is really, truly caught and it feels so good, safe somehow, like a lover’s arms. Her heart and her pussy and her soul open wide as the most exquisite surrender washes over her, washing her clean like the tears that he kisses from her cheeks. She is in love. She is his.

  Later, she is sleeping beside him and although his arm is going numb beneath her, he doesn’t want to move. Like when a beautiful and arrogant cat curls up in your lap, he is afraid to disturb her for fear that she will go away and never return. He still can’t believe that she is here at all, his beautiful golden goddess. The woman whose insatiable hunger for restraint had drawn him to her like a plant growing toward the sun. She was everything he ever wanted, as if his own missing half had sprung fully formed, Venus-like, from the chaos of his darkest fantasies. After a lifetime of women who laughed at him, horrified women who called him a freak and a monster, here was Persephone, now and forever. She is curled against him, satiated and smelling of sweat and sex and honey, and he knows that all the years of deprivation and shame really have been worth it. When he’d been spent but still inside her and tasting her tears on his lips, she had told him that she loved him. Now looking into her sleeping face, he is finally able to answer.