by Aaron French
Spiders swarmed from his ears, headed skywards, hid in the crevices of the badly plastered ceiling, observing the macabre events as they unfolded like rotten petals on a decaying rose. Their teeth chattered ominously. How they sung to him, a dark, dark lullaby.
There in the room, out of eyesight, a girl danced. She was naked – not of clothes, but of skin, of flesh. Of dignity. Of morality. In her hands, a metallic sheet reflected fractal visions of bloody horror: not least, his head upon a silver platter. Silent as Cicero after the shearing of his tongue. But what did he care? She wasn’t the object of his affection. Ignored, she spun out of existence, a Whirling Dervish, engulfed in her own flaming importance. The aroma of her peachy soul, gravitated for a moment in time that he could only pray was real. Nothing was now certain.
The rumour of his own demise was greatly exaggerated – even with the incessant drone of that drill reverberating around the inside of his mind, increasing in greater volume as his heartbeat. This was a memory from his past, when he was younger, much younger... but what did he know? The electricity in his brain didn’t flow smoothly anymore, the synapses weren’t connected, disjointed, suggestive fragments of what was, what is. Now only a calculated guess – didn’t know if it was truth, but it suited him – the boundary of his fear.
“Be gone!” he whispered. Or at least he thought it was him. It could have been the arachnids that mimicked his voice, speaking as one. Was there a difference? Not really, most of this was made up anyway. A modern myth, someone else’s warped imagination. A dark fairy tale – not in any forest but the streets of Paris. A Montmartre studio. A platform on a disused Metro station. A stroll down the Rue Bellot. Lost in hazy tobacco smoke, a half-drunk absinthe. The grimace of a well-used whore, the corpse of a can-can dancer lying mutilated in the alleyway behind the Moulin Rouge. Jesus saved me, tattooed onto her thighs. Yet he had to keep reminding himself that this was just fiction because what was happening right now was so evil, so wicked, so immoral that he didn’t dare risk a deeper breath.
He closed his eyes and counted to ten. Unas. Duo. Tres. Quattuor...
The Deceiver hid deep within her. He focussed on her, lying under him. She wasn’t the Fairy Godmother nor was she the Wicked Step-Mother. She was worse. Much worse. The Big Bad Wolf. His eyes stared wild. This was a chance to re-invent himself. She obviously had. The thunder and the rain exploded around him, calling as he marched towards the storm – figuratively at least, for something was holding him down, smothering his emotion – except for hate, that was far too strong to be choked.
A sly smile danced across his lips. This made perfect sense: he was the Woodsman with a silver axe. He had the power to chop her from her pedestal. He had to kill her. The ending was as simple as that. He had to rid the world of her once and for all. Tragic, but he took a deep breath and repeated his mantra: I can do this, I can do this!
I don’t want to make the same mistake. I don’t want to be the same mistake.
Breathe again. Count to three.
Love in splendid isolation.
You left me in a darkened room... The clever man is the one who knows how to save his soul... In your shadow... the burning bush.
He ignored the beautiful voices, their false promises. None of what they said were his business anyway. Meant for someone else. He had to be patient. It would soon conclude and then (only then) he would know Divinity. He would be a Novice no longer.
Weapon in hand, with one mighty cleave, he took a swipe. Though heavy, the axe swung lightly through the air. Hit its target with one sickening, deafening blow. A lump of flesh sliced clean off. The bleeding wound. Sizzling in the foul heat. He wiped his face with the back of his bloody hand, the viscera staining his skin. He could feel it quickly approaching: the Black Wave of Melancholy.
When it hit him, it hit him hard and fast between the eyes, the centre of his forehead. The third eye. The rush of tidal water, the Tsunami of Desolation tried to force him from her. He held on for dear life. He was a limpet, a vacuum, a vampire, draining away her very essence. A storm was raging. A clash of skin and bone, the flesh as a battlefield.
“I AM THAT I AM!” he screamed above the melee, lowering his head and waiting for the tempest to subside. Why had he fought it? Surely, if this was what he had wanted then he should have swum in those waters? He shook his head, attacking his own outburst. He wasn’t powerful on his own. Not yet, not without the Rapture. He was on a raft, the ship destroyed. There was only he and the other cannibals. He put one hand to his face, waited for their first bite.
On the floor, the axe became a snake which slithered into a corner and waited.
“Behold, I am He who is He,” the severed head muttered.
Vespers
“You should not let a sorceress live.” – Exodus 22:17
He slowly peered through the slits of his eyes. Something had changed. The Scorched World altered. Someone had dared turn the page. Someone dared rewrite the story. He wiped the sweat from his skin.
He was now in the kitchen. Standing over the hob, the frying pan sizzling. A rasher of bacon in the oil. Love. He was smiling. Sometimes love comes around. He shrugged. The smile became a frown. No. This had nothing to do with love. It was hate. Pure hate. Black, nasty, undiluted hate. Evil. His senses were in the grip of a hurricane. Those corpses that sat at the table behind him, they would go hungry now. Their heads spiked on the candelabra mouthing the same phrase over and over again: Sunt Mala Quae Libas, Ipse Venena Bibas.
He tipped the food into the bin. What was the damn point? He looked heavenwards for an answer. He wasn’t sure what he got in return but one thing was true, it wasn’t solace.
This is my blood, this is my body.
On the ceiling, the spiders moved as one. They were the shadow. The velvet blanket. The silken cassock of the Black Pope. The stench of putrefied damsons hung in the air like a heavy curtain. They offered no hope, only Anguish.
The kitchen dissipated around him, vanished in a puff of smoke.
There was a burning sensation in his groin. Not pleasant. He looked down, at where he was joined with the woman. Where they were one. He was now a tourist in the waking world.
“Will this never end?” he screamed. The Prince of Pain clicked its fingers and the world melted. His elongated but stumpy fingers grabbed the TV remote. Ran his tips over the buttons (now the backs of corrupted beetles). Stop. Rewind. Pause. Focus. He had to keep control, keep telling himself not to lose it. Not when he was so close. On his lap, by the fire. The Book. So much of him in it now. His skin had become the very pages, his bones ground down with the blood to form the ink to write the words that foretold Death of Ages. Dragging him to the Unquiet Grave.
On a nearby table, a candle burned. He brought it close. This was the fuse. He knew he had no choice. End it now. END IT NOW! He put the flame to his hand, but instead of catching fire, he snuffed it out. Really, though, would he have done it? – He knew he didn’t have the guts – but he tried to convince himself that he did. He wasn’t ready to travel. Just affected by the hyper-reality he had created. That the walls now bled an aching black viscous liquid that seeped into the Book did not worry him. He had been woven into the fabric of this Labyrinth of Agony.
The voice inside his head spoke: Turn the page, what do you see? What do you read there? Close the Book, CLOSE THAT BOOK! WHAT ARE YOU READING FOR? IT AIN’T GOING TO GET YOU NOWHERE, YOU JESUS FREAK!
Now was the time to cease dreaming as a ghost. Now was the time to stop being the body buried in the undergrowth, amongst the weeds, the compost. Now was the time for resurrection.
The internal thunderstorm woke him from his fugue. Somewhere a door slammed shut. Wait a second, that last part, did it really happen? Was it his imagination? He traced those stumps along the sentences. Where letter followed letter, where word followed word. In the beginning... He rested the Book between his legs, clapped his hands as if casting an incantation.
A world (but not necessarily the world
) reformed about him. Hit him like a brick between his eyes, smashed his nose, cut his lips. The blood dripped down his face. Over his chin and onto the floor. Red roses grew, offering a warm embrace. Old wives’ fish tales. Though this wasn’t a tale – he had to be clear. This was real life. Time to spill his balls.
Though his own bones stretched to breaking point, he groaned in what some called ecstasy as he lowered himself back onto her. Into her. Into her dry, cracked hole. Begone, Satan. He grunted loudly and encouraged by his own spunk, he thrust hard into her, yanked hard on the wire that was wrapped taut around her face. It wasn’t her mouth that grinned broadly, as the metal cut deep into the flesh. Gaping wounds in her cheeks. Was it this that had given him a hard-on as tall as Mount Sinai right there and then? Well, damn it then, he wasn’t going to let it go to waste!
But what he wanted to prolong was all too quick to come. He concentrated on keeping control, was fast losing it – knew it would only be moments before he would shoot his load. To delay the explosion, he leant down and kissed the torn breast, leant over and spat out the blackened nipple that he’d bitten off with his own imperfect, jagged graveyard teeth.
May the Holy Cross be my Light.
Suddenly he was there. Travelling fast down the Highway of Regret. He clenched his buttocks, tried his hardest to bring her closer into him as the fluids shot forth from his already wilting member. Most of the sperm missed their target, spilling down his thighs, consumed by the sweat from his own rancid body and the dank oils her own flesh had secreted.
Depleted, he attempted re-entry, desiring that erection that would make him powerful again – he had no chance, it wasn’t going to happen, not yet anyway. Sapped was his energy, consumed by the little death. He coughed, then giggled. Here he was, laughing. Who would have thought? So ironic. Blasphemer.
Compline
“Devils can be driven out of the heart by the touch of a hand on a hand or a mouth on a mouth.” – Tennessee Williams
His body racked with guilt. Disgusted with the both of them – he for doing it, her for allowing it. He dismounted and examined himself. Where was the Rapture, where was the Divine Knowledge he was promised? He cursed himself – tricked!
Feeling the urging in his bladder, he yanked forward the poor excuse for a foreskin, hid the bloodied sores and oozing pustules and headed for the bathroom. Dying to take a piss.
Christ. How he winced in pain. His cock smarted, making his eyes water. He had to stand on tiptoes. His urine was flecked with red globules that could only be blood (his or hers?).
He groaned as the stream became simple droplets and the pain subsided. He shook off the last of the drips, his penis snuggled in the palm of his hand. Resting, hiding, nothing better than a winter acorn nestling amongst the twigs.
Pangs of embarrassment throbbed deep in his gut. His cheeks flushed red. Why was he ashamed? Because he was small? Because he was fat? He didn’t know, nor did he really care – it wasn’t as if there was anyone that could see him – why did he feel such indignity? He had wanted magic to happen, but he had been let down. Let himself down.
With growing apathy, he shook some life back into his genitals. Did it really matter how big his cock was? Perhaps yes. Maybe because of his size the incantations failed to work? That the magic failed to conjure? He tried his best to block out the negative thoughts and he’d almost convinced himself that it wasn’t important – it was what was inside that really mattered. The fact that he was rotten to the core didn’t seem to register with him, however.
There was such a foul stench emanating from the toilet that he didn’t really fancy jerking off. He flushed the chain; though the water that filled it wasn’t much cleaner – like raw sewage – he guessed it had come right out from the Seine or the cesspit.
He wiped the drool from his chin, tilted his head. Something had confused him. A noise from the bedroom. His throat was raw, sandpaper dry, but that didn’t stop him calling: “What’s the matter, honey? Missing Papa already?”
He chuckled to himself, but when he laughed like this – it reminded him so much of his own father that he quickly stopped. He didn’t want to be reminded of that sick bastard. It was because of him that he had run away in the first place. Death before Dishonour. His glass heart cracked.
He yanked his ball-sac. His scrotum tightened – a common occurrence when he was frightened – frightened? Why? There was only him and he couldn’t be scared of himself, could he? After all, that would be just damn stupid...
He called again, but back in the other room; she (or whoever it was) wasn’t speaking. Even if she was in a capable state, she would have found it difficult to say anything with that steel ball wedged so deep in her mouth.
Of course, during their bout of lovemaking there had come a point that he had to make sure she was dead. He’d smashed her in the front teeth with the aluminium chain tightly wrapped around his bicep. The small metallic cross that hung there shimmered in the low-light. There was some minor gratification that he’d knocked two of her molars out.
His mind wandered. The taste of vanilla on his lips, the aroma in his nostrils. Outside, on the street, a drumbeat. He tapped his fingers on his chest in time with the sound, but then shrugged – it was all bollocks, wasn’t it? When you really got down to it – what was the big idea? He didn’t mean to start a war, but this – whatever it was between her and him, it had become their own private battlefield. Their sex their choice of weapons, their orgasms: Armageddon.
Then, as if they never existed in the first place, the drums fell silent. Perhaps it was just him exaggerating his own heartbeat, playing tricks with his sanity. He moved his head, stretched his neck.
Suddenly – he had something to say, something he felt was important. “You ready, bitch? ’Cos I got something I wanna give you,” he snarled. “You’re going to take it real deep – I don’t wanna hear a peep out of you either when I do it! I want what I paid for, do you understand? You’re going to hear more than the harps of angels when I’ve finished.”
False bravado. The words meaningless, he knew that better than anyone. If nothing else, it could take up to an hour before his snail raised its ugly puss-filled head. Besides he’d already had his wicked way with her. Did he really want to go through all that again, especially if the miracle wasn’t going to work?
Perhaps it would have been a better idea to throw on some clothes and head down to the bar for a beer? He shook his head no; she was special, wasn’t she? Yes, oh yes, she was very special. He could wait. No matter how long it took. He had to keep trying. Eventually she’d give him what he wanted. What she owed him.
He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the grease-smeared mirror. The sheen of sweat glinted off the glass, bestowing him a halo – though heaven-sent he definitely was not. He was born in an inferno (he still had the scars to prove it) and he knew that the flames would take him back in the end.
Taking each in turn, he strained the muscles in his arms and legs, nodded in appreciation as he felt the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stand erect. His acorn was beginning to blossom again. Just enough blood to offer a sweet salutation.
Another sound. He cursed under his breath. He was starting to get a little pissed off. One hand over his mouth, he hollered like Daddy again. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Stepping over a half-eaten apple, he headed back into the bedroom.
Because of the power ebbing and flowing through his veins, his cock was now growing! He walked with legs apart. Oh yes, he was a man again. No, that wasn’t right. He wasn’t a man. He was a GOD! That brought a grin...
...he stopped dead in his tracks. He crossed himself, lamented a Hail Mary. It wasn’t vanilla he could taste. It was blood. He must have bitten his own tongue.
“Jesus wept,” she whispered.
Matins
“Only divine love bestows the keys of knowledge.” – Arthur Rimbaud.
It took all his strength, all his might, just to keep the meagre contents o
f his stomach inside his body. His hand went instinctively to his anus. His sphincter was winking, signalling something like Morse code for DANGER.
She made some kind of noise, which he guessed came from her throat, but he wasn’t sure. Maybe it was her attempt at humour. He was certain, though, she wouldn’t have the last laugh.
“Why so pale?” She paused, and then added, “Aren’t I what you wanted? Don’t tell me you’re disappointed? Don’t I even get a hug?” She rubbed her stomach. “I don’t know what you gave me, it was certainly powerful stuff. I feel like I’ve slept for a millennium – was it your kiss that woke me?” She cackled madly.
His head was spinning, he had to stop having these visions. She held the ball in her hand. It was covered in blood, spit, mucus, other dark fluids. It reminded him of the apple – did she see the connection? It fell from her hand and rolled along the floor towards him. He stopped it with his foot, not grasping what was unfolding – how the story had changed in only a couple of minutes. He was losing control.
The old woman (for that was what she had now become – a hag!) dipped a finger into her mouldy sex, brought it to her face, wiped the nasty juices on her skin, smeared it onto her cheeks, under her nose – leaving it there to mix with the dried blood, the vomit, the excrement.
He was having problems breathing. It was all getting too much. A pain in the centre of his chest. He wanted to double over, crawl away into a shadow somewhere and hide with the spiders. But he knew if he did that, it would give the impression that she had got to him.
It was obvious, they had tricked him. Somehow during their lovemaking she must have worked herself loose. That was it – somehow she had also managed to untie herself, rid herself of the bonds, loosened the ball from her throat and then just sat there, waiting for him to return from the bathroom. Maybe, just maybe, she hadn’t even been dead in the first place – all this was obviously some kind of elaborate joke. Well, if that was their idea, they had misjudged him and they were going to pay for their mistake.