The Dream Virgin

by Don Quine

  Some eunuchs became managers for his criminal enterprises that he operated in seven states, not just up in the Colorado wilderness home base.

  Even though the Eunuchs were treated special, Reimer and Fred were Daddy-O’s only children with Mommy-O, so they were treated extra special.

  Over the years Mommy-O developed a bad case of meth mouth and when she died of cancer five years after Fred was born she told Daddy-O to promise to take care of their children. Never let any harm come to them to them unless they really deserved it, then Daddy-O could dish it out as he saw fit. She told him, “Daddy-O, I’m not comfortable with Fred and Reimer playing with the slave kids, they could be a bad influence, don’t you agree?”

  Daddy-O agreed with Mommy-O who was older than him. She was tall, blonde, and beautiful even with her bad mouth, and she was the only person Daddy-O ever pretended to love, so he did his best to agree with her and follow Mommy-O’s last wishes.

  He also tried to teach their children to be masters of their fate.

  Daddy-O did a good job, because when they got into their teens, Reimer and Fred didn’t have to work at liking screams, didn’t have to fake them anymore. Screams became something they got off on.

  Just like their Daddy-O.

  They also got to enjoy a lot of different drugs growing up and watching horror flicks. Mommy-O felt the pot and pills and psychedelics helped Reimer and Fred understand that the things they did that they felt might be bad were really good to do in the big scheme of things.

  Daddy-O was going to make a very special documentary movie about the benefits of torture and wanted his two kids to do research; wanted them to become experts on inflicting and measuring pain.

  So having them cut up animals was a good way to start. Then you work your way up to human screams, which were truly amazing.

  It’s why cheap horror films made big money at the box-office. And just like with the animals, the young were best. They could let out fantastic screams, especially girls who had a thing for vampires.

  But if you wanted to get into people screams, you had to clear it with Daddy-O first. You needed to find out who the people were, were they alone or with someone. Did they lose their way in the wild?

  You had to know how to talk and tell someone it could be dangerous camping out in the vast Colorado wilderness, that it was important to know which way to go; there were predators. Then you take the people up to some trailhead for them to see where things were.

  Where no one could hear the screams.

  After you did them you’d fix a fire, cook up a breast or a thigh. Then make sure when you’re done that the body got gutted to give the bears and birds and scavengers a strong scent to sniff before you split. Make sure to chop off the head and hands and bury them at least ten miles away.

  That’s the reason why Daddy-O kicked Reimer’s ass out of the commune when he was fourteen. The idiot offed and ate a lost camper in the northeastern section of the Powderhorn without asking permission.

  Daddy-O thought Reimer was a problem from the time he was five and was still pissing his pants; it’s why he had to shape him up so often.

  Now it was time to ship him off.

  Daddy-O already taught Reimer what he needed to know to earn a living. It was time for his son to stand on his own two feet, see what a life of crime had to offer. So Daddy-O put Reimer to work for one of his gangs in Las Cruces who imported south of the border slaves and guns from El Paso.

  The problem was Reimer couldn’t keep his slaves in line or his weapons count straight and he freaked out at the dumbest shit; assaulted a jogger on the road who flipped him off for driving too close to the bike path.

  No matter what gang he worked with, Reimer couldn’t keep his shit together. So after a couple dozen years of constant fuckups, Daddy-O had to accept the fact that his son was a failure.

  Then the Lake Meadows mess with some bitch getting blown up cooking crank, pornos tapes in a tree, getting caught with the bitch’s kid by a Native American sheriff.

  Daddy-O was sick and tired of having to hear about problems with Reimer. Bailing him out of trouble.

  It was time for him to try some hard time.

  Daddy-O wasn’t worried about Reimer taking care of himself in the pen; hopefully a stretch would straighten him out, smarten him up some.

  As much as Daddy-O wanted to forget about him, leave him in some stink hole, Mommy-O would never forgive him if he didn’t watch out for their boy no matter what.

  So Daddy-O had the Indian cop killed.

  Mommy-O believed in an eye for an eye. But Daddy-O was miffed that he had to pay the hit man from Tucson so damn much to make the death appear like an accident.

  Not skin the cop alive like Reimer wanted.

  When Reimer knifed a lifer over a sandwich and got put in the Ding Wing, Daddy-O decided it was time to bring him home. Keep him busy at the commune; help with the livestock, chop wood.

  It took a good long while, but with Fred’s help they busted Reimer out singing Jesus Loves Me and quoting from the bible.

  Now they had to keep him tucked away and out of trouble until Daddy-O finished dealing with some business matters. DEA drones and the Chink gang in Vancouver who hadn’t paid for their last cache of weapons.

  Things should be wrapped up come Labor Day, then he’d bring Reimer back home. Until then, Daddy-O was counting on Fred to keep her eye on him, check out his video blackmail scheme and see if it made sense.

  Make sure the Pigs kept him off the streets and out of sight.

  Unlike Reimer who brought him nothing but problems, Daddy-O was proud that Fred grew up knowing how to make a decent living in Oregon, buy herself a home in a nice neighborhood.

  When Daddy-O asked Fred why she picked Oregon to settle in, she told him she’d heard it was The Beaver State and she was good at hunting up the real pretty young ones.

  Daddy-O loved his daughter’s sense of humor.

  CHAPTER 37

  Like the dickheads before him, Sonny woke from the spiked marijuana joint to find himself tied to the steel chair, naked and coherent enough to see the tray of surgical instruments on the table next to him, a sound-measuring meter and mic dangling a few feet from his face.

  Fred was stretched out naked on a nearby chaise longue.

  Makeup helped hide the childhood scars on her ass from Daddy-O’s whippings, and she looked sexy playing with the vibrator.

  The steel chair Sonny sat on had a large absorbent pad under it.

  Fred explained to Sonny that he had two options.

  She told him she was going to cut off his balls.

  Fred pointed her dildo at the meter dangling in front of Sonny and said that if Sonny screamed loud enough, begged for mercy, pleaded to God, whatever it took to make the meter hit the top where the red line was, then afterwards, Fred would give him pain killers, stitch up Sonny’s scrotum and send him on his way with two grand, one per testicle.

  Option two was Fred would first slice off Sonny’s fingers and toes, then his balls, and if he weren’t already dead from blood loss or cardiac arrest, then she’d cut off his dick and shove it down his throat to choke on.

  One way or the other, Sonny was getting gelded.

  Like all the dickheads, Sonny cried and chose the lesser of two evils.

  Not that it mattered.

  Once Fred got going, she didn’t stop cutting until the last little scream petered out.

  She took breaks to get off and when she did she thought it was maybe time to trade in her Cyberskin dildo. The soft skin material was amazing, but tore easily and looked a little discolored.

  Organized and methodical, Fred cleaned Sonny up in less than an hour. Stuck the bloody pad and the dickhead’s remains in a knapsack that she tossed in the Security van parked in the garage.

  She drove to the crematory that the Pigs us
ed.

  Like usual, Fred gave the Joe a hundred bucks, traded jokes, and watched Joe slide Sonny in the oven.

  Fred didn’t share her personal life with anybody except family. Her decade-long relationship with the Doctor was all business. The Doctor and Fred reached an understanding based on mutual respect for their approach to carving out a niche in the sex slave trade. Fred had a lifetime of experience in human trafficking; the Doctor had international contacts that paid dearly for the Doctor’s jeweled dentures. Fred and the Doctor became good friends over the years that they worked their trade and made millions.

  You never ran out of street orphans looking for the kindness of strangers who had drugs and beds. It was sorting through the horde of wayward girls to find the pretty ones that took the time and know how. Their successful working relationship was the only reason the Doctor let himself get involved in helping Fred get Reimer out of prison.

  That and the fact that Daddy-O was Fred’s father.

  CHAPTER 38

  There were seventeen bathroom photographs; 3x5s that showed blurry faces with names written neatly at the bottom on the photos in black ink. Fred shuffled them around in some kind of order while the Doctor spoke.

  “It was hard to get a decent print off those video files. My techie said all those years of back and forth, cold to hot temperatures, the muck and the mildew, we’re lucky to see anything.”

  “No worries,” Fred said. She bunched the photos together, stuck them in a briefcase that had special slots for her Colt .44 and a switchblade.

  “Outside of a Randall, an Ingrid, and a Helen, most faces we can’t I.D,” the Doctor said.

  “So you agree a little recognizance makes sense?”

  “I do,” said the Doctor, lying.

  “Good. I’ll drive up to Lake Meadows, snoop around, see what’s up.”

  “It’s a long time since you’ve been up there in those short skirts, the college co-ed looking for fun. Barely twenty-one.”

  “It was fun trolling the bowling alley bar, finding wayward babes with false IDs at the dances and the special events.”

  Fred assumed her co-ed role, voice changing, body adjusting to a sexy swagger as she said, “I’d flash two airline tickets, then say, ‘Hey, you up for a free trip to Hawaii? I was gonna treat Michelle for her birthday, but my roomie came down with a case of mumps can you believe it?’ And they’d ask if I went to Washington State U and wanted to see the tickets.”

  Archie the houseman came out of the kitchen and served the Doctor a sandwich and iced tea. “Sure I can’t get something for you, Miss Fred?”

  “I’m good, Archie,” Fred said. Archie nodded and went back to the kitchen.

  Fred had mixed feelings about the houseman, didn’t particularly like fags. But Archie did conduct himself like you’d want a servant to.

  The Doctor excused himself, took a bite of the BLT and reminisced. “Getting the business up on its feet, all those happy hour spots you worked in Boise and Portland before you discovered Lake Meadows. You brought in, what was it, two jobs a month?”

  The Doctor washed the sandwich down with some tea.

  Fred said, “I could have brought you lots of scruffy stuff, but pretty beavers aren’t easy to come by.”

  “I’m not complaining, Fred. I’m just saying that once you found Lake Meadows, we started doing a couple of jobs a week. Town wasn’t a resort town like now, still had the funky feel, had a rep for being cool and hip, go up there on the weekend and get it on.”

  The Doctor finished the sandwich, wiped his face with a red linen napkin, edges stitched in green. “Then your brother showed up.” The Doctor looked up to let Fred know no offense was meant. “Fred, again, I’m not saying it’s anyone’s fault, but Reimer shows up, needs a helping hand, you offer him the Raedeane intro, and only two months in town he screws the pooch!”

  Tired of hearing about the lost goldmine, about her brother being a fuck up, Fred said, “Reimer’s always been a little high-strung, but he can focus when he needs to. He got Raedeane to tell him about Perry’s last wishes, got the videos which may be worth something, only know if we check it out,” Fred said.

  The Doctor said, “Fred, truthfully, are you feeling good about this blackmail idea? I ask because honestly, it’s something I don’t have a clue about.”

  The list went into Fred’s back pocket as she stood up to go.

  “I’ll see what’s going on.”

  The Doctor tried to sound offhand when he said, “You haven’t been back there since the incident, have you?”

  Fred said, “No. When I found out the sheriff lost control of his truck not long after he put Reimer in the pen, I figured it would make me too upset to go back. Such a terrible tragedy. Driving off a cliff to your death. He was a good cop they say. Town hero.”

  A sardonic smile crossed Fred’s face. “I saw where they built a memorial to the redskin close to where he went off the road. Big totem pole,” Fred said.

  “Accidents happen,” the Doctor said, certain it was not an accident.

  Wanting to wrap it up and have Archie give him some head, “Maybe you’re right,” said the Doctor. “It’s been over eight years since we’ve been there and Lake Meadows has become a tourist Mecca, blackmail doesn’t make sense, perhaps other possibilities exist.”

  “I’ll play a tourist from the coast, pocket full of credit cards in her Gucci bag,” Fred postured.

  “You’re a role-playing wonder, Fred.”

  “Been doing it long as I can remember,” Fred smiled.

  Fred walked out of the Doctor’s house thinking she’d do the recognizance so she could tell Reimer she drove up, scoped things out, and didn’t think it was a good idea getting into the blackmail racket.

  Reimer thought blackmail was terrific, but Reimer didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.

  Fred did know her brother would freak if she didn’t at least check it out so he wouldn’t give her some shit, ‘what the fuck I spend eight years in the pen for if it wasn’t to make money off the fucking videos’ bullshit.

  As much as Fred cared about her brother, the only reason she helped him escape from prison was that Daddy-O wanted him out. Otherwise Reimer would still be in the mental ward, which was fine by Fred.

  Now that he was out though, Daddy-O wanted Fred to keep Reimer tucked away safe until he sent for him to come back to Colorado and help tend the commune.

  Make sure the crazy bastard stayed out of trouble.

  CHAPTER 39

  It was Round Seven, halfway before the Crazy Ideas Bash on the Labor Day weekend. Elfri still had a lot to juggle, but was good with it.

  And what a difference six weeks made.

  Take Chip.

  It only took three dream circles before he was able to turn his Terrormares around. No more chopped heads of puppies and kids. The drawings had turned to full-palette paintings starring a young flame-haired warrior with a sack of spikes and a pack of hunting dogs that barked fire and fought a monster made totally out of jagged, plated, false, chipped and rotted teeth. From its chomping head to its gnawing feet, every part of the monster was made from frightful dentures.

  Like locusts, the teeth moved over the monster’s hideous hide, staved for flesh, but regrettably getting a smorgasbord of spinning spikes at the end of the warrior’s deadly drill sword.

  Chip still hadn’t spoke, but he wrote down a name for his young warrior at the bottom of his third painting in small red letters: The Driller.

  It was the first words Chip had written since Reimer abused him.

  Elfri told Leon it wouldn’t be his last and thought Chip’s hero had comic book potential. She checked, and there were a quarter of a million dentists in America with young patients that The Driller might appeal to sitting in the waiting room. See what happens when you floss and brush away the bad germs like Th
e Driller does? Cavities hate The Driller.

  Elfri stopped losing sleep over Chip and he stopped clinging to her so much. He spent much more time in his spider room. With the door unlocked.

  Then there was Oliver.

  Though Elfri buried her feelings for him under playful flirting with Jack, her heart belonged to Oliver. He had seen her new Dream Lovers comic books featuring Slumber and Sky shortly after Elfri showed them to the Nestlings and asked her if they could talk.

  Oliver told Elfri something that blew her away.

  He told her he’d been an active dreamer since he was a child and that he grew up with tutors from diverse fields of knowledge and one of his earliest mentors was a dream master named Jar.

  Oliver said that before bedtime, starting when he was three, Jar began whispering important sleep secrets to him, told Oliver that when he went to sleep he needed to stop by the dream garden and plant some wonder seeds and eat some fantasy fruit and some vision vegetables to feed his imagination, make it grow powerful and run wild. If he didn’t visit the dream garden, Oliver would be hungry when he woke up and he’d forget who he really was, and it would be hard to make his real dreams come true. Jar explained many things to Oliver about dreams, from them being part of the human survival kit that keeps the world evolving, to how dreams show us how to see our futures and chart life’s many courses.

  By the time Oliver was twelve, his dreams manifested Ventures Nest.

  Oliver told Elfri that her drawings of Sky before she ever saw Oliver was called spiritual magnetism and there was lots of going on it in the world. Conscious dreamers who surfed the cosmic sea to incredible places to do amazing things. Einstein, Jung, and Stephen King were some of Oliver’s favorite dream surfers when he was a kid. He still had drawings he did of them, each on their own cosmic surfboard.

  Elfri didn’t say anything for a while, then she asked Oliver if Jar was Tyrone Jar—she figured it must be—and that if it was she had read his Grow Your Dream Garden and Root For Your Nightmares books when she was nine.