This Town Needs a Monster

by Andersen Prunty

  “That girl you were with the other night, did you like that?” she asked as casually as if I didn’t have my mouth on her pussy.

  I pulled my mouth away, looked her in the eyes, and said, “Yeah, but she wasn’t you.”

  “Keep working. You don’t have to answer my question. Besides, we both know this is as much of me as you’re getting.”

  I took her clit into my mouth and began suckling it, running my tongue down to taste more of her juices.

  “Anyway, she’s dead. The cops found her this morning. She had semen in her vagina and ass. They’re still waiting on the contents of her stomach but they’ll probably find some there too. They found her in Veterans’ Park. Probably looks bad for you.

  “Your friend, Travis, Barcie, that girl. I’m starting to think a few photos of you banging the local racist’s girl are the least of your worries.”

  I should have felt anxious or panicked but I really didn’t. The difference between those photos and the deaths was that I was guilty of the photos.

  “So you should probably be careful about what you do, especially in regards to me. I haven’t asked you to do anything too bad. Just provide some content, that’s all. Provide the entertainment at a party. Nothing major. But eventually I’m going to need you to do something bigger.”

  I was barely listening to her and it didn’t really make a lot of sense anyway.

  “So I’ve got something very special I need you to do.”

  I sucked and licked her harder, snaked my tongue as far as I could within her, pretending she was enjoying this, like she was capable of getting pleasure out of anything that didn’t involve sadism.

  “I have a client who has some special interests that don’t involve pussies.”

  I froze. I guess I was wondering how long it would take to get to this. I wasn’t attracted to other guys. I had nothing against people who were, it had just never been my thing, despite having more opportunities with men than women. I probably could have even done it if I had more or less a passive role. But knowing the crowd Dawn seemed to hang with, I didn’t think I’d want to subject myself to the degradation it would most definitely contain.

  I took my mouth off her and said, “Let me fuck you and I’ll do it.”

  She pushed down her skirt, smiled sarcastically, and said, “Wow. That’s pretty pathetic. And no. Besides, you’re not who I had in mind although it’s nice to know you’re still so egotistical that was your first thought. You’re too old.”

  I motioned toward her lap, “I wasn’t finished.”

  “No. You were.”

  I shrugged.

  “Okay. Well, he wants the meeting set up at his house in two days. I’ve already agreed to it so my back’s kind of against the wall. But I’ve been busy so I need you to find someone. I guess you know what happens if you don’t. And I had so many plans for you.”

  I adjusted my cock and tried my best to think of some way out of this.

  “I don’t really know anyone.”

  She licked her lips and stared out the front of the car. She tilted her head to one side and her lips pulled back in a slight smirk.

  “I’m going to give you the time and the address. As long as there’s a dude there who isn’t a hideous monster, he won’t really care. But here’s what you have to do: watch it. Just so you know what you’re selling someone else into.”

  “I’ll do that,” I said, wondering if I should have hesitated.

  “So I’ll pick you up around then and we’ll watch together. I’ll make popcorn and invite friends. I’ll text the details to you. Now get the fuck out of the car.”

  Recruitment

  Kren stood with his hands on the countertop, a joint tucked behind his ear. A video played on his phone in front of him but he wasn’t watching it, just staring vacantly into some middle distance.

  “Hey, man,” I said, “want to go out back and get high?”

  He snapped to the closest thing he came to attention and said, “Right on. This place is fucking dead.”

  We went out the same way we had before. This time he took off one of his shoes and used it to keep the door from shutting all the way. He reached into the pocket of his company issued smock and brought out a lighter and baggie of pot.

  I reached out and plucked the joint from behind his ear. He didn’t even flinch.

  I held it up in front of him and said, “Magic!”

  “Awesome!” He smiled ear to ear. “Customers never get me high!”

  “I got it . . . Never mind.”

  “Spark it up!”

  It always amazed me how chronic pot smokers could be so animatedly excited about getting high time after time. I had been a cigarette smoker for many years, and while it was an admittedly much lower grade buzz, I rarely if ever expressed excitement about smoking a cigarette, even though I pretty much lived for it.

  I lit it and inhaled deeply before passing it to him.

  “Do you remember what you told me the other night?” I asked.

  “Aw, man, I don’t even know who you are.”

  “My name’s Brad. We got high together out here a few nights ago. You locked yourself out and I helped you get back in. I borrowed that racist pamphlet from you.”

  “Oh, right! That was pretty great shit! Being white is great! Everyone else is horrible!”

  I had come here with a mission and didn’t want the conversation to take too many weird turns. I had to focus. Although if I’d provoked Kren into some kind of racist diatribe, it might have eased my conscience.

  “Well,” I said. “I . . . don’t think you really have to worry about them around here.”

  “Prolly cause of the guy who wrote that book. He’s like a fucking superhero!”

  “Anyway, you mentioned to me that you were pretty sure you were gay.”

  “Yeah, man, did we suck each other’s bathroom parts? I don’t remember.”

  “No. My herpes was flared up pretty bad. But you said you had a hard time finding anyone around here.”

  “It’s pretty dry, man. I used to get beat up just for asking dudes so I decided to stop. Somebody told me I should move to Dayton but I don’t know.”

  “You don’t need to move to Dayton. Besides, there are too many black people there.”

  “Fuck! ”

  “Don’t worry. I think I’ve found someone who’s interested.”

  “Really? Did you pimp me out?”

  “It came up. I told him where you worked. Described you. He knew who you were. He’s interested. Want to meet him?”

  “I guess. Is he cool?”

  “He’s . . . older but, sure, he seemed all right. Into some kind of weird shit.”

  “I’m down.”

  “He wants to get together tomorrow night.”

  “I work tomorrow, man. This sucks.”

  “We’ll just take the money out of the register so no one can steal it. Leave the doors open. People’ll leave money if they take anything, right? Most people are pretty decent. It’ll probably only be for a couple of hours anyway.”

  “Prolly wouldn’t be a problem.”

  “So I can come over around seven and we can ride over there.”

  “Well, I only have a moped, so you’d need to drive.”

  “I think I can get us a ride.”

  “Awesome!” He took another massive hit of the joint. He’d never handed it back to me. I was okay with that. I lit a cigarette.

  Were it not for the fact that I was probably selling Kren into white slavery, I would have felt pretty good about arranging tomorrow evening. Like a matchmaker. As it was, I didn’t really feel good. Unless relieved counts as good. It was something, at least.

  I finished my cigarette and we went back into the store. I grabbed a case of beer and two packs of cigarettes from behind the counter. I anticipated a long night spent alone in my apartment wrestling with dread and felt like the beer would make it a little more bearable.

  As I got close to my building, I thought I
saw Barcie walk into it.

  I thought about calling out to her but didn’t. I just walked a little faster, thinking maybe I could catch her in the hall.

  Once in the building I didn’t see any sign of her.

  I texted Dawn.

  “Could’ve sworn I just saw Barcie.”

  She didn’t respond.

  A few hours later she sent a text that said, “UR high.”

  I didn’t think I was anymore. But I was drunk. Very.

  * * *

  Dawn picked me up in the Mercedes. She drove me to the carryout. Kren was there. There was a customer at the register when I entered.

  “You ready?” I asked.

  Kren had dressed for the occasion. He wore a sleeveless black mesh shirt and skintight black skinny jeans. His hair had an abundance of some product holding it in place about six inches over his actual head.

  “Yeah, man,” he said. “A little nervous.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Let’s empty out that register.”

  Kren popped the register open.

  “I can’t put anything in my pockets, man. Pants are too tight.”

  “I’ll hold on to it for you.”

  He handed me a few stacks of bills and I put them in my pockets.

  “What about the change?” he asked.

  “I’ll hold on to that too.”

  He handed me handfuls of change and a couple rolls of quarters.

  I went over to the drink station and grabbed a huge sixty-four-ounce cup.

  “You have a marker or something?” I asked.

  He rummaged around under the counter until he came up with a black Sharpie. He handed it to me and I scrawled ‘HONESTY JAR’ on the cup and, under that, ‘Be back in a few.’ That way anybody doing anything wrong would feel like they were always in danger of getting caught.

  Kren wadded up his smock and shoved it under the counter. We headed for the front door, the cloud of Kren’s cologne hanging around us.

  I got in the back and let Kren have the passenger seat.

  “Hey, Dawn,” he said.

  “Hi, Kren! Brad didn’t tell me it was you we were picking up.”

  “Who’s Brad?”

  She hooked a thumb over her shoulder at me.

  “Oh, right,” Kren said. “So are you guys, like, going out?”

  Dawn laughed.

  “Yeah, he’s kind of old,” Kren said. “But, wait, didn’t you marry Bando?”

  “That’s why I’m driving a Mercedes and you ride a moped. Call it a big head start.”

  Dawn and Kren had a light and mostly evasive conversation about what they’d been doing since high school. It was a pretty short conversation since the place we were going was less than a mile away and in the couple of months they’d been out of high school Kren had only gotten high and worked at the store and most of what Dawn had done was so hideous she couldn’t really talk about it. It hadn’t occurred to me we might actually be watching this in person. It had been my idea to escort Kren there because I couldn’t really see him making it any other way, even though it was so close.

  We pulled up to a gated driveway. The gate swung open and Dawn pulled around to the lush backyard of a Victorian mansion.

  “Aw, man, this is Dr. Weishaupt’s house! You didn’t say anything about Dr. Weishaupt. He’s super old and gross!”

  “You don’t have to do anything,” Dawn said. “Brad can take your place. But, you know, older guy with a lot of money and experience . . . You could learn a lot from somebody like that. I mean, you could probably find yourself doing things like this all the time instead of working in that shitty carryout. How great would that be, huh? Your whole life could be like one big party. I guess I can drive you back to the store if you want me to.”

  He didn’t take too long to think about it.

  “I’ll check it out,” he said.

  “You’ll have a really amazing time,” she said.

  Kren got out of the car and adjusted his tight clothing. I was relieved Dawn didn’t get out after him.

  “We should hurry back so we can watch this,” she said. “You want to get up front so I don’t feel like a fucking chauffeur?”

  I almost opened the back door to move up front that way but an overwhelming feeling stopped me. I didn’t want to step on the ground surrounding this house. I felt immediately relieved I was not the one going in there. I didn’t know if it was the house itself or the guy who lived here, but I felt a sense of evil.

  So I crawled into the front seat.

  “That’s one way of doing it, I guess,” Dawn said.

  As she pulled away I looked toward the house to see Kren standing in front of the back door. I had the thought I might never see him again.

  Dawn drove us back to her place. There were a number of cars in the driveway.

  “The Sheriff here?” I asked.

  “He’s in Columbus for something called sensitivity training.”

  We walked into her house. Voices came from the kitchen. Stasia came out to greet us.

  “Plopsy’s already downstairs with the girls. I made popcorn. A lot of it. I didn’t know if you were serious or not.”

  “I’d love some,” I said. I was starving and a little nervous. Eating sounded like a good idea.

  “Follow me,” she said.

  “I’m gonna go on down,” Dawn said. “It’s probably going to be starting soon. Don’t you lovebirds get into any more trouble.”

  I followed Stasia into the kitchen and loaded up a bowl of popcorn from the nearly industrial-sized drum she’d filled.

  “There’s beer in the cooler there.”

  I grabbed a couple of those too.

  “Hey,” I said. I was going to apologize for spreading the photos of us fucking but stopped myself. I figured she knew I took them but we were both pretty drunk so maybe she didn’t. It was possible she didn’t know I’d sent them to anyone, even though her supposed friend was the one lording them over my head.

  “Yeah?” she said.

  “Never mind.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “Larry’s not here.”

  “It wasn’t that.”

  “Okay. You seem nervous. I thought maybe that was why. I guess we should probably get down there.”

  “Are you—”

  “Not now.” Her eyes flicked up toward a camera and I got what she meant.

  I wasn’t even sure what I was going to ask her:

  “Are you Dawn’s new girlfriend?”

  “Are you being blackmailed too?”

  “Are you a human or a monster?”

  “Are you really a Nazi?”

  I followed Stasia down to the lower level and crossed the rec room. She pulled open a heavy door and held it for me, since my hands were full. My pants were so loaded with money and change it felt like they were about to fall down. I entered some kind of mini-theater, about the size of the few art houses I’d been in. There were maybe twenty-five seats, larger and more comfortable looking than in most theaters. The huge screen flickered on the wall. Right now the only thing on the screen was a well-lit room, which seemed to be some kind of sex dungeon. There were maybe about ten people in the theater. Plopsy sat in the front row like a soft boulder. Most of the others were the young prostitutes. Dawn sat in the middle of the back row. I sat next to her. Stasia sat to my left.

  Eventually Kren entered the well-lit room, followed by Dr. Weishaupt. He was a thin, wraithlike old man. Kren seemed drugged, wandering around the room and looking at the cuffs and chains hanging from the ceiling, running his hand along something that looked like a stainless steel autopsy table.

  “Wow,” he marveled.

  Dr. Weishaupt slowly removed his clothes, methodically folding them and placing them off screen.

  “You’re really into all this stuff, huh?” Kren asked.

  “I think I’m going to have to put something in that mouth of yours to keep those words from coming out.”

  Kren turned away from the cr
oss with shackles he was examining to look at Weishaupt, who stood with his hands on his hips sporting an impossibly huge erection.

  “Get on your knees, boy.”

  Kren obediently dropped to his knees.

  I don’t know how long it all went on. Two to three hours, at least. I dozed off at one point and woke to Dawn jostling me awake. It was still going on. I drank my beer and ate popcorn. The people around me, all women, laughed and responded as though they were watching any feature film at a theater.

  The good news was that Weishaupt didn’t seem to kill Kren. His acts became increasingly degrading and sadistic as the scene ground on. By the time it ended, Kren was shackled to the table, a ball gag in his mouth, completely naked, bleeding and covered with shit (Weishaupt’s) and piss (also Weishaupt’s) and vomit (his own).

  I felt nearly comatose. I stood up and stretched, wondering why my pants felt so heavy, until remembering the pockets were filled with bills and change from the carryout. I still didn’t know if I was going to give it back or not. Probably not unless Kren asked for it.

  “You did pretty good,” Dawn said. “Maybe I should turn you into a recruiter.”

  I wasn’t sure Dawn had ever given me a compliment before.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Don’t get cocky,” she said.

  “What now?”

  “I’ve got some things to do. There are drinks and shit upstairs.”

  Another beer sounded great. And I really needed a cigarette.

  I grabbed a beer from the kitchen and went out to the front porch and smoked a cigarette. The one girl who’d approached me for a cigarette at the party the one night came out and I gave her another one. This time I didn’t even attempt to engage her in conversation. She stood next to me, smoking, and I thought I could smell the machine oil coming from her. Maybe it was just the cigarette smoke. Maybe it was my imagination.

  About halfway through the cigarette, Plopsy trundled out, holding her sizeable stomach. I thought about taking Barcie to the hospital only days before she’d apparently died. I wondered if Plopsy enjoyed having random dead animals shoved up inside of her as well.

  Plopsy seemed like an odd successor to Barcie. Opposite in almost every way. And she didn’t seem oversexualized like the rest of Dawn’s gang.