Circle Jerk

by catt dahman

  Jake called her colorful names and finished with, “And your boobs are fake…silicone…fake, fake, fake.”

  Julia snickered and said, “Vinnie, you were a joke, thinking I’d lower myself to someone like you. Mike, I like that you get this. Lovie, you were a never-ending source of anguish, so tormented and weak; I talked you out of suicide only so I could drink more of your suffering.” She giggled. “You should have watched your kid better. It really was all your fault.”

  Lovie burst into tears, rocking and wailing. Jake tried to comfort her and turned to call Julia more names.

  “You truly entertained me, Andre. The grieving was lovely. Ruth, I didn’t get to know you, but I know you’ll make this interesting. Same for Nick. You both were just great to raise the IQ of this group. Kim, wrong place at the wrong time, dear. Once I saw how you looked at me and heard you flirting, well, I had to bring along someone who desires me.”

  “I don’t. I hope you are hit by lightning, go straight to hell, and find yourself spending eternity as a demon’s toilet licker.”

  Julia couldn’t talk for a while as she laughed. She tried a few times to go on but couldn’t. Then she said, “Terri, you really got my toilets clean. I learned well, so I can take care of the toilets in hell if I go there.” She laughed again.

  Kim covered her ears.

  “Owen, I savored your problems. My goodness, but you were full of mental problems. You can’t see me wink, but I am while I say that I figured out about some of your other little secrets. Prissy talked a little more than you thought she would. You two are sick little people. Seriously. And Mattie, you silly, dear old whore….”

  “Yeah, I didn’t talk to ya cause I knowed you was a bad one. I could tell.”

  “Yes. Of all here, you were the most perceptive. How fun is that?”

  “We have been afraid. We can go now, yes?” Carina asked.

  Julia sighed, “No, you can’t go. You need to accept this, and get with the experiment. The facts are clear. You are stuck here…forever…for the rest of your lives…except for the two who participate and are let go. The winners, you know. You are hungry. You aren’t leaving so that leaves only one solution. I don’t see how I can be much clearer. Your disbelief astonishes me.”

  “Astonishes you?” Ruth laughed bitterly, “well, Lady, I’m just a little pissed off, so be astonished all you wish. I find it difficult to imagine that you’d let fourteen people die here.”

  “But all of you won’t die! I know that some will fight for life and do whatever it takes. I want to see who that will be. All of the fourteen, I hope you won’t die. But as far as calling my bluff, you’re saying that maybe I am not willing to go as far as killing, right? Or letting people die? Did you miss the part when I said that two subjects were hit too hard and died before coming to the cages?”

  “I heard that, Julia,” Mike cut in, “that’s discouraging for us to hear.”

  Julia told them, “It’s rather discouraging that of all of you, Vinnie is the only one who is entertaining me. We have to get this going. Carl has a treat for a few of you. I’m sorry I play favorites, but enjoy. Before I go, Owen, some secrets are entirely too close. Remember that, dear.”

  Julia spoke no more.

  “Bitch,” Skot yelled at her.

  “You watch us?” Mike asked.

  “Cameras to the computer. Yeah. Even in the dark. She likes to see the rough stuff.”

  Carl walked over and pushed something between the bars of Lovie’s cage. She was scared to reach for it, but by the light, she thought she knew what it was and was pleased. With her one hand free, she took the object and shook it. It was a thin cotton blanket, small, but still welcome. She immediately wrapped herself in it.

  The blankets were small and thin, but they were warm. Kim took hers eagerly, suppressing the urge to thank Carl. In the dim light, she saw that Nick and Andre looked at the blanket with eyes full of envy; she didn’t apologize but wrapped it around herself.

  She watched Carl.

  He paused in front of where he thought Skot’s cage was and tossed in a baggie. Skot erupted in curses and screams, and he tossed the baggie back out. Carl picked it up and walked around. He threw it into Vinnie’s cage.

  He tossed one into Jake’s cage and waited.

  “What the…oh, my God. What’s….” Jake leaned to the side and heaved, but there was nothing but stomach acid and water to vomit. He didn’t touch the baggie.

  “What is it?” Nick asked. He was very afraid to hear the answer.

  “A hand. A human hand that’s been hacked off. Jeez. What kind of monsters are you?” Jake screamed at Carl who never reacted. He felt his mind breaking open and giving up, as it had a year before at the daycare fire. He was losing it and fast. He blinked and refused to try to fight and be strong. He quit. The chopped-off hand sent his mind reeling.

  “Vinnie? Same thing?”

  Vinnie didn’t answer. He just stared at the baggie in his cage.

  Jake wanted to toss the baggie away, he wanted to scream and curse more, but he found himself staring at his own baggie. He had worms. He had a hand. He began to cry softly. His leg ached miserably where it was stretched. His head hurt. He was cold, scared, and tired. He heard Lovie weeping.

  He cried because he realized that despite his humanity and resolve, he didn’t toss the baggie away. He didn’t trust himself to touch it. He watched it and drooled. He realized he was drooling, and it made him very nearly insane. He wiped his eyes and chin several times, crying harder. He didn’t know when he had broken or how.

  Carl walked around as if playing a new game and decided whom he would pick, but he had orders. He knew. He let them wonder. He tossed Mike a baggie of flesh, freshly flayed and of undetermined origins.

  Carl grinned. Julia would be excited that most didn’t toss the baggies back. He hoped she was watching.

  Going the opposite way, he threw a bag into Lovie’s cage, Prissy’s, Ruth’s, and Andre’s.

  He walked away and vanished from view. “Bon appétit.”

  “Why’d the dyke whore get a blanket and some food? What’s up with that?” Mattie asked.

  Lovie glared, “I’m not a dyke. Shut the hell up. You want the finger in the bag? You can have it.”

  “I don’t eat no people,” Mattie said as she spat outside her cage to make a point. In front of everyone, she took the vial, used a long pinky fingernail, scooped up some white powder, and snorted it. “Ahhh. Better.”

  “Coke whore,” Skot said.

  “Hey, I’d go for that right about now, and I’ve never used drugs,” Mike admitted as he watched Mattie. “That’s bad, but it’s true. Jake, come on, stay strong. We need you.”

  Owen thought about what Julia said. The envelope said he would not want to live if he opened it, but he didn’t want to anyway, not like this. The body parts proved two people had died and were considered food. It wasn’t a stretch to believe everything Julia had said. They were there to be eaten or to eat. Or both.

  Prissy, his own sister, was across from him and had yet to say anything. How could she sit there and say nothing to him? He needed her to give him direction. She must be terrified to know they were both here and unable to say anything; she was just scared, he figured. He was, too. He wasn’t sure he could take much more.

  It was dark, but he opened the envelope carefully, and he could see well enough. It said to open if he didn’t want to live, so he opened it. Why would he want to live when he and his sister were expected to eat other people or be eaten? Owen figured that was a no-brainer.

  People didn’t get him. He was a loner who lived in his parents’ basement, and Prissy lived upstairs. Owen was fat, ugly, and dull; he knew that. Only his sister gave him comfort, and he wished she were close, holding him, and maybe doing the things with him that they were not supposed to do.

  His face flushed pink.

  At first, Owen was flummoxed. The first picture was of Prissy and a woman that he didn’t know. No, he
recognized her, but she was in the shadows, and half of her face was cut off by the picture; her face was slightly turned. Prissy wore the normal clothing that Owen was familiar with: some stretch jeans and a big lime tee shirt, and he saw that her hair was brushed off her face in a slightly greasy mess. He saw her long, curved nails and sixth finger. To him, she was different and very beautiful in her own way.

  The second picture was jolting to Owen. It was taken from the side of a room and showed the first woman’s back and her arm raised. In her hand was a whip. Prissy was on the bed, tangled in pale blue sheets, naked, and her face was both contorted with pain and enthralled with delight.

  Owen could see Prissy’s entire nude body. It was not sexy, but obscene. The other three pictures were all of Prissy, nude and in various sexual poses and positions, being humiliated and abused, but in none did she look unhappy.

  Nausea and rage filled Owen. How could she pose for pictures like these? What had she been thinking?

  He went back to the first picture and looked at it again. He saw something important in the background. He squinted to make out the details, but he wasn’t stupid, and he took the clues from the photo. “Terri, where do you live?”

  “In a trailer on the outskirts, yanno. Big dump heap of a trailer, but it’s mine and better’n nothing. Why? Whatcha lookin’ at?”

  “Pictures. I didn’t know that you knew my sister.”

  “I, whatcha mean? Look, Owen, these people are trying to mess with your head. They need to be beaten to a pulp.”

  “With a nice whip? Right?”

  Terri looked at Owen, and he saw that it was her. Maybe more messy and tired-looking, thinner, but it was the woman in the pictures with Prissy. He felt hot tears fill his eyes, and he tossed the picture to the side. “She’s all I had. She was mine. I hope you just…die. You knew who I was, and you…just die.”

  “Oh, you sick fuck, I done known about what you and she have did, but that’s sick…crazy. You stupid idiot. I tried to be nice to ya, and you wanna be this way? Prissy? Ya hear your crazy brother? Ya hear him? I’m done being nice if this is what he does to me, saying shit. Owen, she don’t like what you got her doing. She likes what I have better.”

  “She’s MINE.”

  “Nope, ’cause it sure ain’t your name she screams when we have our fun times.”

  Prissy cried out but didn’t speak.

  Owen roared and took the pocketknife from his stash and slammed it into Terri’s foot as hard as he could, stabbing the tender instep. She jerked, bellowed, and squealed as she cursed him, but there was nothing she could do. Her leg just to above her ankle was at his mercy.

  Andre and Nick both yelled for Owen to stop. Kim shrieked.

  Owen couldn’t stop. He stabbed and gouged until Terri’s foot was bleeding all over his cage. He wanted her to feel his pain, and he wanted Prissy to hear her lover’s distress. Let them suffer. He was too tired to stab her anymore, and the anger had drained away as she hollered. He felt better as Prissy screamed, along with her. No wonder she had been so quiet. The little sneak.

  Owen set the knife down. Without a lot of thought, he picked up the shaker of salt and salted Terri’s foot and told her, “Salt in the wounds. Literally.” He guessed they were taken aback that mild, meek, plain Owen could lash out. He laughed. Let them see how malicious he could be when he wished.

  “OhmyGod,OhmyGod,ohmyGod,” Terri blubbered. The pain was so vast, so dark, and so copious that she felt as if she were drowning. She didn’t have those words but thought of it as Big Pain.

  “I have Novocain and a needle, and she needs help,” Andre called. “Kim can pass it to Nick to Terri.”

  Jake spoke, “She has to inject right into the wounds. Terri, can you do that?”

  She wailed.

  “Hold off, Andre. See if she can do it. Don’t give it away yet.”

  Nick had an idea, “Owen, we get that you’re angry, and we have a little idea why. But you can’t do this. You can’t give in and hurt people. Now, listen to me. You don’t want to be hurt, right? You don’t want anyone doing something to you, but if you hurt Terri, then Mattie, who is on your other side, will hurt you.”

  “Huh?” Mattie demanded. She had only wanted the screaming to stop. How this concerned her, she didn’t know.

  Nick went on, “Mattie, Hon, I don’t remember. You have Owen’s foot or hand locked into your cage?” He spoke sweetly and hoped Mattie would figure it out, which was what he wanted her to do. He needed Mattie’s help; of all people, he needed her.

  “His foot,” Mike supplied, ”I can see it well from where I am.”

  “Okay. So, Owen, you don’t hurt Terri anymore and help her by doing exactly what we tell you to do, or Mattie is going to hurt your foot the same way. Okay Mattie, Hon?”

  Hon? Mattie felt stronger and clearer now. She felt great after the cocaine, but she wasn’t suddenly a hundred times smarter. She was still a dumb truck-stop slut who had a bad case of VD that was making her cooter burn like fire as she sat on the metal cage in her own pee. She hadn’t been able to wait for her pee cup. Through her thin panties, the urine burned her personals, her rooter cooter, and her entire butt was burning and stinging.

  What is the hell was the dumb shit white cop flapping his lips about now?

  “Mattie, if Owen hurts Terri, then you can hurt his foot because it’s there next to you. It’s a way to blackmail him with a threat and make him knock it off. You with me? If he stops, then Terri won’t scream, and it’ll be quieter. Get me?”

  She understood that part. She hated the yelling. And her privates hurt, making her irritable. “I ain’t with anybody but myself, but if you want me to hurt him, then I ain’t got no problem with that, Dog,” Mattie shrugged, the cocaine making her easier to deal with now that she was not crying and screaming.

  “Do you have something to use if he misbehaves?”

  Mattie guffawed and reached under her leg, slid off a plastic tip, and jabbed Owen with her hypodermic needle. He yelped.

  “Not yet. If he does it again. Okay, Pretty Lady?” Nick asked. He was a slick talker when he needed to be.

  Mattie flushed and said, “Okay. Yeah, that was a warning was all. That’s alls you needs to knows. Got something else in a vial to be used with the shot, but I ain’t got an idea what it is. It ain’t marked.”

  “Hold on to that for now. Thanks, Mattie. Now, Owen, don’t do something stupid again, or Mattie will hurt you, too. Got me? Say it or….”

  “Or poke, poke,” Matte giggled.

  “I got it. You both suck,” Owen said.

  Mattie laughed hard, and Nick chuckled.

  “I need something so she can get the salt and blood washed off.”

  Kim took two feminine pads, soaked one with water and handed both to Nick. Nick handed them to Terri to hand to Owen.

  Nick said, “Gently wipe away the blood and salt. Use some of your water; it’s what you get for being hateful; do it right now, or Mattie….”

  “Ready to poke right under the big toe nail,” Mattie giggled.

  “You’re all as crazy as Julia and her people are,” Skot said.

  “Clean her foot, Owen,” Nick told him. He watched as Owen glared and rubbed away the salt with more water and then wiped at the blood. Owen then laid the dry pad on Terri’s foot. Nick sent over a piece of rubber tubing to hold the pad in place and explained how to use the rubber so it didn’t cut off her blood supply.

  Andre jumped as something hit his cage and slid through the bars and landed beside him. By chance, he saw Prissy’s arm vanish again and knew she had tossed him something. He opened the plastic bottle to be sure it was as the label claimed. He handed the bottle to Kim who handed it to Nick.

  “Hot damn. Thanks, guys. Terri leaned close to me. Good girl. Drink four big swallows.” Nick gave her the drinks of rum that Prissy had shared.

  Terri lay there and cried. Without a word, Kim took her warm blanket and slid it to Nick’s cage. He smiled at he
r and pushed it into Terri’s cage. “Cover up. You can cover yourself…get warm.” He looked over his shoulder and said, “Thank you, Kim.”

  Skot exploded, “What are you doing? You’re all pissed at Vinnie for stealing, and now you have given that girl a bunch of stuff for her scratches….”

  “Stabs,” Ruth interjected. She had seen it all.

  “Well. You gived it away. Things you may need. Dumbasses. That will come back to haunt you.” Skot had his say, and he leaned back, wanting to sleep.

  “We’re in this together,” Nick said.

  “Are you gonna eat me?” Owen asked Mattie.

  “I ain’t a cannibal, you freak.” She wished he would shut up, or she’d poke him again.

  Owen worked the knife against the metal, sharpening the blade. It had been very dull when he stabbed Terri. “Prissy? Priss? You there?”

  “She’s here. Where’d you think she went? She’s over here crying and rocking. What were you doing, Owen? You and your sister were doing the deed, and she what…cheated on you with this chick, Terri?” Kim snapped. ”How could you? And you stabbed Terri? What’s wrong with you?”

  What’s wrong with you? How many times had Owen heard that?

  “She likes the whips and clamps and blood games like Prissy does. Owen was too tame for her. Sick freaks,” Mattie could see two of the pictures, but as she spoke, the lights went down to half.

  Shadows were all anyone could see. It was better to be in the darkness.

  Lovie said, “I’m so hungry.”

  It irritated most because all of them felt the same and were tired of hearing that.

  “Then eat, Yo. You got a baggie. Eat it, or hand it over,” Vinnie demanded.

  “The…the baggie of….” Lovie couldn’t finish what she was saying. She grabbed her baggie and threw it to Vinnie, hitting his arm through the bars.

  He picked it up and looked at it, squinting and appraising the offering. He tried it, and with a chuckle he said, “Yum. Nah. There ain’t much meat, and it’s stringy and chewy. It ain’t good, but I ain’t as hungry now. With the crackers and your baggie…just hard to suck it off the bone without thinking about it. Tastes like raw ground beef or somethin.’ ”