by Ray Wallace
"Goddammit... Goddammit!" he yelled at his dick as he paced about the room. It giggled and jumped about from side to side. "What the hell's going on here? Why are you doing this to me?" But there was no answer. His penis didn't speak, never had, lately it would just laugh and refuse to cooperate. Brian could not think of anything worse that could possibly happen to him. For, truth to tell, he was a bit of a sex addict, had been ever since the first time he had gotten laid at fifteen years of age. It had seemed that at that moment something had awakened in him, a deep hunger, an undeniable need that could only be fulfilled in one way. By having sex. Lots of it.
"I'm losing my fucking mind," Brian decided after a few more minutes of pacing. "Gotta calm down, think about this." And so he finished undressing, sat naked in the easy chair next to the sofa, leaned back, turned on the TV, flipped by a few insipid programs, paused for a moment on one of the movie channels which was showing Evil Dead 2. He had probably seen that movie a hundred times in college, wasn't in the mood to watch it tonight though, needed something stress free, flipped over to ESPN. Women's bodybuilding. Good enough.
He reached out to the end table, grabbed the pack of smokes and the lighter there, lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply. "That's right, my man. Just take it easy. You've been under a lot of emotional strain lately, what with the impending promotion and all. It's perfectly understandable. Don't worry about the gambling debts. The promotion will allow you to pay them off. Take a chill pill, stop trying to force things. Your dick does not have a mind of its own." He let out a little chuckle. "It's a part of you, an extension of you. You are the master of your libido. Always have been, always will be. So just relax and don't worry so much."
This little soliloquy and half the cigarette seemed to be doing the trick. He felt calm, was actually able to concentrate on the television, on the muscle bound woman posing on the screen. He hated it when women got all built up like that, didn't think this chick could turn him on in a million years. "Probably get it ripped off if you stuck it in her," he said and laughed aloud. It felt good to laugh.
Then he heard the other laughter.
He looked down, saw his dick, now fully erect, staring back at him.
"Sonofabitch!" he screamed. "You motherfucker!"
Before he even thought about it, he brought the cigarette down, pressed the lit end onto the head of his penis. Then he screamed in earnest.
*
Two more work weeks came and went with his boss continuing to drag his feet on the promotion he had promised. "Soon, Brian, soon. Just hang in there. Good things come to those who wait."
He wanted to strangle the old bastard.
Sex wasn't Brian's only vice. There was the wagering too, most of it done at the local horse track. And in the few months leading up to his sudden impotence he had gone on a bit of a losing streak, now owed a certain bookie of ill repute a rather sizable sum of money. Every day he expected a visit from a pair of goons, baseball bats in hand, ready to do a little number on his kneecaps. He needed that promotion and the raise that came with it in a bad way.
All he said was, "Yes, sir. As soon as you think I'm ready."
The waiting was killing him.
Friday evening, on his way home from the office, he stopped by the newsstand, picked up the new copy of Rearview: the Magazine for the Discriminating Butt Lover. He grimaced at the clerk's knowing smile, paid for the magazine and hurried home. The burn mark on his penis was now a scar, still a little sensitive, but healed to the point which should allow him to masturbate for the first time since the cigarette incident. Yes, there had been pain but it had been worth it. For two weeks now the tiny laughter had been silent.
A short while later he was home and in his bedroom, kneeling naked on a pillow on the floor, a glob of Vaseline in hand, Rearview open on the bed before him. He was flipping through the pages, looking for the perfect posterior - his favorite part of the female anatomy - all the while massaging the lubricant onto his flaccid member.
"Come on... Come on..." he muttered as his penis offered not the slightest twinge. He made his way all the way through the magazine, his irritation quickly turning to anger. A tiny twittering sound started to emanate from his crotch. "Oh, man..."
And then he was at the back of the publication, the part with all the ads. Phone sex numbers. Penis enlargement creams. Porn videos and websites. And that's when he saw it:
"STAY HARD!" one of the advertisements shouted in bold letters at him. "Europe's leading impotence fighter has cum to America. Just two tablets daily and you'll be able to Stay Hard as often and as long as you like. Only $49.95 for a month's supply! Money back guarantee!! No doctor's visit required. Must be over 18. Order now while supplies last!"
These statements were accompanied by a picture of a nude man at least seventy years old smiling and giving a thumbs up while the face of a well proportioned blonde woman was buried in his lap.
No doctor's visit? Brian hated going to the doctor. Sounds good to me.
The next day he called the toll free number, purchased two bottles of Stay Hard with his credit card. It arrived in the mail on Thursday of the following week.
*
"I think it's time that you were taught a lesson," Brian said to his disobedient penis as he stepped out of the shower. He grabbed a towel and dried off, walked over to the sink, wiped the steam off the mirror on the front of the medicine cabinet. He looked tired, dark rings circled his eyes that had never been there before.
The promotion still hadn't been announced. Thoughts of beating his boss to death with a tire iron danced through his head.
He opened the medicine cabinet, pulled out the bottle of Stay Hard from where he had stashed it the previous evening. The pamphlet that had come with it had instructed him to take a couple of tablets every morning. He opened the bottle, popped the purple pills into his mouth, washed them down with a handful of water from the sink.
"There," he said, staring smugly down at his rebellious member. "Try and fuck with modern science."
Then he left the bathroom, got dressed, and went to work.
*
A week passed.
His prick was working perfectly.
He had tested it half a dozen times since he started taking the Stay Hard pills, would kneel in front of the bed with the new edition of Tons o' Buns and turn to that perfect ass on page thirty-four. A glob of Vaseline, a minute or so of manipulation and bam! Full erection. He nearly cried the first time his libido responded the way it used to. After the sixth time he sat down and wrote a letter to Stay Hard, told them what an amazing product they had.
Another week went by.
His need for the real thing, for the release only actual sex could bring, outweighed any lingering nervousness he still harbored. One of the secretaries at work had had his eye for quite a while now. Having spoken to her on more than a few occasions, Brian was fairly confident that she had some interest in him also. Her name was Gina and she had long, brown hair, was somewhat shy, came across as a "good girl" which added to Brian's attraction to her. He had his theories about the "good girls," most notably that they tended to be animals in bed. Two-and-a-half weeks and a dozen successful masturbation sessions after receiving his bottle of Stay Hard, Brian asked her out.
*
"This is a beautiful place," said Gina as the maitre d led them to their table.
"It certainly is," Brian had to agree.
Expensive, too, but Brian was feeling good. No, great, to be perfectly honest. The previous day he had received the promotion. His debts to the track would soon be a memory. His penis was under his own control again. The tiny laughter was becoming a distant memory. He was going to get laid later that evening. Either Gina was putting out or it was call girl time.
He was ready to celebrate.
"A bottle of your best champagne," he told the waiter, a squirrelly little guy with a thin mustache, moments after they were seated.
"Isn't that a bit pricey?" asked Gina. He was havin
g a difficult time keeping his eyes off her low-cut blouse and the ample cleavage it revealed.
"Only the best, I like to say," he told her with a smile as he imagined burying his face in that chest, between the long legs he had taken every opportunity to look at on the ride to the restaurant, then rolling her over...
He heard muffled giggling.
"No!" he said aloud without even realizing it.
"Excuse me?" asked his date.
The waiter's arrival with the champagne kept him from having to offer an excuse for his outburst. Suddenly he wasn't feeling so sure of himself. He accepted a glass of the proffered beverage, swallowed it in one gulp, motioned for a refill.
More giggling.
"Are you all right?" Gina asked.
"I'll be right back," he replied and set his glass down at the table's edge, made his way hurriedly to the men's room.
"No fucking way," he muttered over and over as he walked to the furthest stall, ignoring the attendant's curious glance. Once inside he unzipped his Armani slacks, pulled down his boxers, hissed at his laughing prick, "You are not going to ruin this for me!"
He thought that the medication and the promotion had done the trick, that his mutinous member had been completely quelled. But apparently he had been wrong. During those recent stress filled weeks it seemed that it had become its own person with its own will. And it had waited until now to fuck with him again.
"Oh, you think so?" Brian asked of it. "Think you're gonna keep me from getting some of that ass later on tonight? Well, we'll see about that."
He pulled out his wallet and removed what had been the corner of a plastic baggie, emptied the four purple pills it held into his hand. After dry swallowing all of them - he choked a little but managed to force them down - he took a deep breath and said, "Now, hopefully, there will be no further trouble." He pulled up his boxers, zipped his slacks and left the bathroom.
She was sitting there, reading over the menu as he approached, looked up as he neared the table.
"Everything all right?"
"Fine, fine," he said and forced a smile. I've got this... I've got this... he told himself, like the little train who could, the words becoming a mantra.
He was right up next to the table, grinning more than a little maniacally down at Gina, was about to take his seat when he heard a clink! followed by the sound of liquid splashing down onto the floor.
Looking in the direction of the sound he saw immediately what had happened. His dick was rock hard, harder than it had ever been, pushing against the restraining fabric that covered it, threatening to break free. His champagne glass had been at the table's edge. The very sizeable, very noticeable bulge in his pants had knocked it over.
The laughter coming from that bulge seemed to drown out every other sound in the room.
*
That's how the date ended. Gina had actually looked horrified, had insisted that she would take a cab home. It seemed that she really was a "good girl."
He said not a word all the way back to his house, let the laughter roll about the interior of his car.
Before long he was standing in the kitchen of his nice little one-story house, pulling off his pants, his boxers, reaching for the knife rack next to the refrigerator, for the biggest knife there.
His penis shook with hysterics right up until the end. Then Brian was holding it up in the air over his head, blood running down his arm, dripping down onto his face, pooling on the floor between his feet.
"Who's laughing now?!" he screamed in triumph. "Huh? Who's laughing now?!"
Then he collapsed to the floor and he laughed and laughed until the room dissolved into static, faded to black around him. And that's where they found him, a big smile on his face, the knife gripped tightly in one hand, the withered remains of what he had cut from his body in the other.
- TEST RUN -
Author's note: Here's another one with a sci-fi twist to it. Whether through demonic possession or alien abduction, the idea of being controlled by powers beyond our ability to thwart or comprehend is a terrifying one. For a sufficiently advanced race, there may be no limit to the horrors they could inflict upon us lowly humans. Of course, they might have to run a few tests first to make sure everything goes according to plan...
*
He was asleep when they came for him. Three of the tall, gray, humanoid creatures materialized next to the bed, took a moment to give the couple slumbering there a heavy dose of a hypersonic frequency from a small metal box, to ensure that neither would awake. Then they grabbed the man. His wife never had a clue that he was gone.
They took him back to their spaceship. The craft was a cigar-shaped, silver machine capable of traveling instantaneously from one spot of the galaxy to another by creating a fold in the space-time continuum. It currently orbited the Earth somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean completely undetected by the "sophisticated technologies" of the planet's dominant race. After the man was positioned on a chrome table in the middle of a circular chamber, a beam of light was used to drill a small hole through the top of his skull, directly through the crown. Then a tiny black sliver of something that looked like plastic but most definitely was not was inserted into his brain. A clear, viscous substance was applied to the hole which immediately closed up, looked as though it had never been.
Following this little operation, the aliens lifted the man from the table and brought him home, put him back in bed next to his wife who mumbled something about grasshoppers and cherry pie in her sleep.
And then the aliens were gone.
*
Bob Norton awoke the next day with a mild headache. This was nothing out of the ordinary as he liked to have a few glasses of wine most evenings. A little alcohol helped him to wind down after a particularly stressful day at the office and such days were, unfortunately, more the rule than the exception recently. Some wine, a good book, an expensive cigar... And if his wife wanted to throw in a back rub as well, so much the better.
Sitting up he grimaced at the pain in his head, swung his legs over the side of the bed, got slowly to his feet. He made his way straight to the bathroom, opened the medicine cabinet, grabbed a couple of aspirins, swallowed them with a handful of water from the sink. By the time he walked back to the bedroom his wife, Sheila, was there straightening up the bedcovers. She looked his way and smiled, said, "I thought you were gonna sleep all day."
His eyes traveled to the digital clock on the nightstand: 12:05 P.M. Not since his college years had he slept so late.
"Why didn't you wake me?"
"I figured I'd let you get your rest. You had a long week."
True enough. Three late meetings. Two clients he'd taken to dinner.
No one had said that getting his name on the door at Ellis, Ellis, and Stanton was going to be easy.
Anyway, it was the weekend, a great time to do a whole lot of nothing. Well, almost nothing. He walked over behind his wife, suddenly struck by how beautiful she looked, the way the white t-shirt and the cotton shorts she wore managed to show off her figure. And what a figure it was. Nearly forty years old and that well-conditioned body could still make a man want to do some crazy things. An hour of aerobics every morning. Three trips a week to the gym. Where did she find the energy? He wished she could loan him some as he recalled the weigh-in at his last physical.
He wrapped his arms around her waist, kissed her on the neck.
She giggled and said, "Somebody's woken up in a mood."
"You have a problem with that?"
"Oh, no, not at all."
"Well, that's good because there's a whole lot more where that came from."
By the time he was done showing her what he meant his headache was a distant memory.
*
The day that ensued was the sort of day that made Bob look forward to retirement. Following a slow, deliberate bout of lovemaking he and Sheila took a shower together then went downstairs to the kitchen where they shared breakfast. At least for him it was br
eakfast. He had scrambled eggs and toast, Sheila a turkey sandwich. Afterwards the two of them straightened up around the house a bit then headed outside to relax by the pool. The weather was perfect, not a cloud in the sky. Sheila was a sight to behold in her red bikini, oiled skin gleaming in the sunlight. A man could get used to this, thought Bob with a sigh. No doubt about it.
Later on, though, just before dinner, something happened that a man could never get used to.
Bob was sitting in the den in his favorite chair, feet propped up, a John Grisham novel open face-down on his thigh. He was puffing an expensive cigar, enjoying the moment - the thick taste of the smoke, the peace and quiet - and doing everything in his power to not think about work.
And then something took control of his body.
With a will that was not his own, he stood up, placed the cigar in the ashtray on a table next to the chair, walked over and locked the room's lone door. He made his way back over to the chair, stopped and proceeded to take off his shirt. Once again he grabbed the cigar, puffed on it hard enough to make its end glow yellow. Lifting his left arm high into the air, he pressed the cigar's glowing end into the exposed flesh of his left underarm.
The worst thing about it was that he couldn't scream. Worse than the fact that he had lost all control over his body. Even worse than the feeling that another presence had entered his mind, a presence that apparently had little concern for his well-being, that was capable of just about anything - as exemplified by its current actions. The pain was intense, seemed to go on and on, building up like water before a dam when the sluice gates are closed, a dam that must, at some point, surely break. If only he could open those gates. If only he could scream... But he could not. He stood there in silence, beads of sweat forming on his skin, smelling the sickening-sweet odor of cigar smoke and burning flesh. All he could do was endure.