Blood and Sawdust

by Jason S Ridler

  Maybe it would just be easier cranking out the continuing adventures of Batboy, he figured, though it was a harder job to rub in Dad’s nose. What was lower on the cultural gutter? Tabloid press or pro wrestling? Hell, wasn’t it the same old shit? And is that what I really want? Just some brag-happy job to shove in the old man’s craw? Like he gives a shit what I do anyway.

  Christ, he thought, I really know how to piss out a good feeling. Tonight was not the night for big decisions. It was the night of small victories. And the celebration was about to begin: tonight’s winner will get some complimentary suicide nachos, and then roll his fat ass home.

  He zipped up, tried on a smile, and left Batboy where he stood. When he returned, she was sitting at his booth, glasses at the tip of her fine nose. “I was starting to worry you’d fallen in the hopper.”

  The automatic response system he’d developed from six years at the store triggered in him. “Can I help you?”

  She smiled. “I think so.”

  “Where’s the Fonz?”

  She sighed looking up at the ceiling. “Off to ride his motorcycle by himself. Looks like I should have backed the dark horse.” Rachel came by and placed a square glass with two cherries and lots of ice in front of her. “Thanks,” she said, without taking her eyes off Milkwood. “Are you leaving or should I stand?”

  He sat, fumbling for something to say, so he inhaled and caught her scent. Warm, sweet vanilla.

  “My name is Larissa.”

  His first name died on his lips. Everyone knew Francis Mace. Son of a jobber, failed historian, occasional Tuesday night drunk and trivia king. But tonight, before her, this wasn’t good enough. Tonight, he said. “Milkwood.” Mom had given him that middle name, after a brand of dog food she got Maizy. Loved the sound of it, she said, but then never called him anything but “FRANCIS!”

  “Congratulations on that victory, Milkwood.” She said the name slowly, like it was working the muscles of her mouth. “Since you got that last answer right, I just had to see you.”

  “Oh? Why is that?”

  “Well, you did call my name.”

  It took a second for his beer soaked grey matter to catch her drift. “Larissa Ashmolean?”

  She slowly speared a cherry with her long pinky nail. “That’s right.”

  “You’re related to the Museum family?”

  “The cross I bear,” she said, feigning distress with the back of her hand on her forehead, then brought the cherry to her smiling lips.

  The Ashmolean’s were crazy rich aristocrats from Britain, the kind that didn’t leave their home unless it was on a private jet to places like Morocco or Dubai or the French Riviera. She’s lying. Some rich kid wanting to fuck with the fat champ. But Milkwood couldn’t bring himself to break her spell. “Really? What the hell are you doing in Kingston?”

  “Killing time, mostly, before I go back to New York. Too many boyfriends chasing me down.”

  She giggled and he realized that she was gently swaying in her seat and the pink of her cheek was blush on pale skin. Drunk? His critical mind sparked once. “Thought all the Ashmolean’s were based in Oxford. When did you lose your accent?”

  She swirled her ice. “Perceptive and smart. I like you.” She smiled and damn if he wasn’t smiling back, worrying how dirty his teeth were, and enjoying the look of disbelief he caught on Rachel’s face from the periphery. “I’m from the American branch of the family. The kind that actually goes out and does things instead of putting all the cool stuff in a vault.”

  “Oh?” he said, feeling his balls grow a little bigger. “What kind of things?”

  Her lip twitched. Then she slugged back the drink, and crunched the ice in her mouth as if it were snow. She inhaled. “All kinds of wonderful, dangerous, and blissful things.” She swallowed the ice. “In fact, I’m looking for a new artifact that’s supposed to be in this city. A rare breed of…” she snorted. “Not that you’d be interested.”

  “Yeah, I would. I’m a historian.”

  Her green eyes were wide. “Really?”

  He nodded, hoping no more follow up questions were coming, since by historian he meant he had a BA and read a lot, making him an armchair, amateur, freelance nobody.

  “What field?”

  “Military history,” he said, sternly. “Mostly twentieth century. Though I have a love and interest for the ancient world.” God, it sounded pretentious.

  “Don’t we all?” she said. “Well, Dr. Milkwood, how lucky to have found a man of your calibre. No wonder you beat poor Thomas black and blue. Would you like to be the first to see the treasure I’ve found? I’d love to get your opinion on its value.”

  Then they were off, into the dead streets of Kingston on a Tuesday. They turned a few heads in cars, the perfect ten-star beauty and the maybe-three-on-a-good-day schlub, drinking the night air with big smiles and laughter. Being close to Larissa was a heady brew, akin to a waking dream, a rush of endorphins, and intoxicating as the liquor on her lips.

  Milkwood’s brain raced as they shared small talk and jokes. He held her arm, like in a movie, walking toward wherever she was leading. This is it. It’s actually happening! Christ on a cross, what are the odds! I’m the luckiest moron on the pale blue dot…

  A dark thought tugged—

  Get away. Come on, man, use your head and look at the facts! This is a pure beauty. The kind that Hollywood creates with airbrushes and crash diets, and she’s real and talking to you, of all people. Something is wrong. Run. Run like a thug with a bullet on his trail—

  She pulled him north, across Princess Street, away from the main drag and into the Heights, where thugs of all shapes and sizes were probably just getting ready to prey on stragglers for shit and giggles.

  “Where are we headed?”

  “Oh, to my car. This place is a bit of a zoo for out-of-towners. I’m sure you can protect me though.” She laughed. “Don’t suppose you have a few black belts or something?”

  “Um. No.” The gutless coward, the sap who wanted to run away from this magnetic women, was quashed by one single thought: I can’t let her walk down that street alone. Even if this is some prank, or Larissa is nuts. Still, his guts wavered.

  “I bet you’re wondering what made me sit down at that table, chat you up?”

  “It had crossed my mind.”

  “I’ll tell you, Milkwood. But you must promise not to tell anyone else. Okay?”

  “My lips are sealed.”

  “All right, come closer.” She pulled his ear to her lips and whispered. “Want to know a secret?” Her breath sent chills across his neck as the words slipped into his ear. “I love to fuck winners.” She bit his lobe and pulled, and soon they were walking into the dank part of town like two lusty lambs trying to avoid wolves, the click of her heels on concrete like a homing beacon for bastards of all shapes and sizes…

  He didn’t car; this was the most dynamic, thrilling, and stunning moment of his life and he was going to enjoy himself from pillar to post, just like Dad did on the road, cheating on Mom wherever he went, only Milkwood had the high ground here. He wasn’t cheating on anything, and—dare he think it?—he doubted she was the marrying kind.

  They walked on, and the streets were dead and windy. Larissa stumbled back into an alley, pulling him by his tiny wrist. “It’s just down here.” Her grip was strong.

  “Really?” It was narrow, lined with rickety fences with barbed wire tops. “Looks dangerous.”

  She looked back at the dark, wet alley, then faced him with a flickering smile. Her eyes went wide and the smile became joyful. “Indeed.” She pulled harder. He let her—

  And then she thrust him against the wall and kissed him hard, teeth and tongue lashing his soft mouth, hurting in a wonderful way. She tasted like sweet liquor and iron. Feebly, his little hands worked their way over her breasts and she smiled. “Harder, my treat.” She bit his ear lobe. “Tear me apart.”

  And he tried, pulling apart her blouse, but only o
ne button popped. She laughed then tore it to shreds herself, like Superman, exposing dark nipples on bone white skin.

  “Suck it, baby.”

  He did. She moaned hard, gripping his hair, pushing him closer. “God, that’s it. Harder. Bite it.” He did, gently, and she swallowed her screams, nails digging into his skull. Her passion was flaring his own, making his knees week and his cock hard as granite, his mind so swirling with pleasure a parade of nuns could have walked by and he would not have stopped.

  “That’s…that’s it. Harder! Bleed me. Bite!”

  He did, and his mouth froze against the wetness that touched his lips. A burning cold sensation flooded his senses. She’s bleeding, for real, into my mouth—

  He pulled away but she shoved him back.

  “Drink it.”

  He scrambled, but her fingers were talons of iron digging into his skull as the frozen taste filled his mouth, his nose and mouth mashed against her, unable to breathe. He mumbled, gurgled, trying not to swallow as her voice went into a sexual moan. “That’s it, baby. Struggle like you mean it.” Laughter, cold and sharp, filled the air as the blood filled his mouth, and his lips would not budge from the wound, it was so hard to breathe—

  Her nails burrowed into his skull like cold blades. “Now swallow!” He resisted until black flies swarmed his skull, it was this or suffocate—

  He swallowed. A hot, Novocain buzz frothed down his throat and hit his belly like a hailstorm. A cold, dark buzz shot out in all directions, as if a web of freezing oil was eating his blood.

  “Oh…oh god,” she moaned.

  The flavour went from sickening to sweet in a heartbeat, the kind you can’t stop eating, and when the first gush was down his throat he took a healthy pull and she screamed. “Fuck!”

  She tore him off her and tossed him across the ally, head smacking a storage unit door and sending out metallic thunder. Gasping, sucking the last of her sweetness from his lips, terrified and excited, he said, “Larissa? Are you okay?”

  Then she was there. On his chest like a cat, knees digging into his shoulders. Her head was lolling like she was waked out on some crazy drug. “I can’t believe…I waited this long.”

  A violent tremor rushed through Milkwood’s blood, racing to his heart as if it were a burning fuse heading toward a stack of TNT. “I don’t…I’m sick.”

  “And with such a fucking loser…” she laughed until her eyes opened and stared at him like burning coal. “You’re my first, Milkwood. You fat, fucking, pathetic shit.” The fuse ran into his heart as she decked him so hard his teeth shot down his throat. Her own teeth were a hot white. The pain echoed and shimmered through his entire body with a wave of shattering sensations until he was terrified to move, for fear it might tear him apart.

  So he lay there as she sat on top of him, glaring wild-eyed. “Just…had to test it on something weak. Just to see.” She gripped his mouth like a vice. “Open.” He did, and slowly pressure oozed from his gums as something poked out from the hole where his teeth had been.

  “Ah! It works. If fucking works!” She raised her hands in victory; her exposed breasts cascaded in the moonlight. Where Milkwood had suckled…there was only a dark nipple, stained, but not bleeding. She rubbed herself like a lover as cats and dogs made twilight howls.

  And Milkwood let out a whisper. “Please, let me go.” Everything burned. He needed a hospital. He needed stitches. He needed something to take the cold burn from his mouth and heart.

  She’d…done something. Something rotten. He was sick. Maybe she was a junkie and had aids. Whatever she was…whatever she had done, this wasn’t fun. And maybe there was no undoing it. He lifted his head. “Let me go.”

  She shoved it down until he saw black stars swirl behind his lids. Her hand gripped his cock from outside his jeans. “Well, turns out you’re not a eunuch, not by a long shot. Mmm, you still want to play?”

  “No!” A surge of terrified strength cascaded through his arms. He shoved her off him as he pulled himself up with the storage unit’s silver lock. He hobbled to his knees, gagging on the night air. He pulled himself up, turned, and his face ran straight into an elbow made of steel. His back smacked the garage with metallic cadence.

  “No fucking way a turd like you rejects me! Understand?” Punches and slaps alternated, rocking the senses from his head. “Hear that, you fat fuck? You don’t reject me. Ever!” In a sad and perilous moment, Dad’s old wrestling matches flooded his head, the old man being whooped apart by muscle-machine men, the Charles Atlas’s of the world, and for the barest of seconds sympathy pierced the thin skin of his heart before everything went cold, but nothing as frigid and terrifying as the sub-zero of Larissa’s voice.

  “Bitch, you’re going to lay down and be good.” She tore his pants down. “Or I’ll tear your fucking head off.”

  When it was done, he lay there trembling, trying to wash the image from his head, the guilt for being erect, the shame at being so powerless…

  “Well, baby,” Lash said, putting on one of the heels that had come off, body perfectly still as she did so. “The test is now done. Looks like I’m as pure as they come…you should feel honoured.”

  Milkwood lay in the fetal position, staring at her despite the fear. “Stop.”

  “Oh, I’m done, baby. And for being such an upstart and awful fuck stick, I’m leaving. Good luck learning to walk on your own. If the wolves of this shitburg don’t kill you for good. Though I suspect they’re as clueless as you.”

  His voice was a dead whisper. “Please, help me.”

  She kneeled, rips in her stockings stretching across her thin knees. “I have. I’ve given you a wet dream come to life and more power than you’d ever know growing fat and old in a bar. Though you’ll be fat and ugly from now until the end of days.” The edges of her smile were sharp and bright. She stood. “Good luck, Milkwood.” Then she kicked his crotch hard enough to send in the stars, darkness, and vomit.

  * * *

  Malcolm stepped into the view path of the busted TV, breaking the malaise of black nostalgia infecting Milkwood’s mind and snapping him back to the present. “She did this to me, kid. And worse. Had to learn all the tricks by myself before the hunger killed me. But I owe her less than zero. And I will not, repeat, not work for her.”

  Malcolm nodded, then coughed and said. “Let’s do it.”

  “Did I just do a soliloquy in my head?”

  “I don’t know what the hell a soliloquy is, but it’s time to stop talking and start listening. Let’s take her money. Then, you can kick her ass. Problem solved.”

  Milkwood ran both hands through his thin hair, then got off the bed. “Kid, she probably has a legion of thugs better trained than this Chuck Norris-on-crack here,” he kicked the army jacket and Malcolm caught it.

  “And they don’t stand up.” Malcolm stood, gripping the jacket. “He wasn’t as fast or strong as you, though he was better trained, and it still didn’t matter. Hell, he needed a weapon to bring you down. And he didn’t seem to heal as fast, either.”

  Milkwood’s next sermon, how first born of sires are the strongest, died when a thought crystallized. “Hold up, kid. How could you have seen how fast he healed? We were moving like bullets and lightening.”

  Malcolm shrugged. “Anyone would have noticed it, if they were paying attention. Anyway, I think she’s only got weak ones around. Is that how it works?”

  Milkwood nodded. Well, no need for the sermon. The kid was smart. Picked things up, even the freaky-deaky shit, faster than Milkwood had. “Yeah. I was her first born, her test bunny, and from what I’ve read I’d be the strongest.” He gulped down a raw, scratchy breath. “But not as strong as her. I don’t know that I can take her.”

  Malcolm beat his fist into his palm. “Then that’s why she wants you. Her strongest to protect her.”

  “Kid, can you think one move ahead?”

  “You mean the tournament?”

  He sighed. “Nope. Shouldn’t we both
be afraid of something badass enough and strong enough to scare her?”

  The warning bounced off Malcolm’s face. “Maybe she’s just desperate. Yeah. She has to be, even if she doesn’t look like it. I mean, she’s looking for you, Milkwood. And from what you just. I bet she hadn’t wanted to see you ever again. But now she does. And she wants you on her side.”

  Milkwood wiped his cold neck where the phantom hole that had healed was still annoying him. “Ain’t gonna happen, kid. Not on my watch. Better luck finding a three dollar bill.”

  Malcolm put his hands in his pouch. “Look, I’m sorry. I really am. That’s some fucking horrible stuff.” His eyes flittered the ground, visibly uncomfortable but trying to get a grasp of the hell that was Milkwood’s origins story. “Maybe there’s another way.”

  “Seriously doubt it.”

  “No, think about it. The worst fighters are the ones who get locked into thinking of being either/or something. A ground-and-pounder who never grapples. A grappler who can’t take a punch. The best solutions are usually some mish-mash and we just need to…” He smiled. “You don’t really need to work for her. Just get paid half, in advance. We use it to make the bet. We get a payload we can both use. She comes looking for you, well, hey you can show her what you’re made of now.” He crossed his arms, smug smile big and proud.

  “And what’s that?”

  Malcolm put the dead vampire’s jacket on, and it came to his knees. “Furry.” His voice broke with the word.

  “Furry what?”

  Malcolm coughed, face bitter. “I meant fury.”

  Milkwood laughed. “I don’t know, kid.”

  Malcolm cleared his throat. “Know what I think? You’re still afraid of her.”

  The laughter died. “The fuck I am.”

  “Prove it.” He did up the coat. “Let’s tap the honey pot, make a mint, and ditch her, the goddamn fringe, and get on with our own shit.”