Edward Lee: Selected Stories

by Edward Lee

  But when?

  “Look—what’s your name? Kelly Ann?”

  “Kari Ann,” she sniffled.

  “Your brothers. They’re going to get rid of me too, aren’t they?”

  More sniffling as she nodded, gulped.

  “How come they haven’t done that already?”

  “Oh, they will, just as soon as they’re finished.”

  “Finished with what?”

  “Yer car.”

  So that was it. Probably stripping the car down, for parts, Gray calculated. “How much time do I have?”

  “’Nuther day, probably. It don’t take ’em long. Then they-they’se’ll git rid’a ya. But if yer lucky…”

  Gray’s eyes widened at the suggestion of hope. “What, Kari Ann? If I’m lucky, what?”

  Her eyes were red from crying. She wiped her nose. “If yer lucky, they won’t git rid’a ya right away. They’ll keep ya around until they git another car.”

  Gray thought he got it. Jory and Hull were forcing the girl to bring victims back to the house. Then they’d chain the poor bastard up here and use him for sexual relief for as long as it took them to strip the car down.

  “If ya—you know,” she began. “If ya do ’em good, then they probably won’t kill ya right away.”

  The realization, however grim, came as no surprise by now. It made sense. Homosexual sociopaths. I’m only worth keeping alive for as long as I’m a good fuck and suck…The more effectively Gray entertained them sexually, the better chance there’d be that they wouldn’t kill him until the next abduction.

  It looked like Gray would have to be a good bitch.

  “Where am I, anyway?” he asked. “Some back room in the house?”

  “The attic,” she said.

  Gray looked at the room’s one window, then remembered the single window in the dormer-like room at the back of the house that he’d noticed when they pulled up. That window must be this window…As he recalled, it overlooked an area of the backyard surrounded by plank fencing. I’m upstairs. So how do I get out? Again, his only hope was the girl.

  “Jory and Hull—they’ve been abusing you, haven’t they?” he started. “Incestuously, I mean.”

  “Oh, no,” she answered. “Just blow jobs’n fuckin’ me in the ass. Hull says that ain’t incest, on account of no come goes in my pussy.”

  Oh, so that’s how it works.

  “But after they started doin’ the car thing, they took ta fellas more, so they’se don’t do stuff like that ta me anymore. They just beat me a lot.”

  “And the father of your daughter,” Gray went on. “Didn’t you say—”

  She looked down in shame. “Well, I’se lied ’bout that. Just said I got raped so’s you’d feel sorry for me. He was some fella I been seein’, but when I gots knocked up, Jory’n Hull kilt him.” Then she broke out into more tears and hugged him. “I’m so sorry. It’s juss that I’m so scared all the time, I have ta do what they say. I cain’t let ’em kill my baby!”

  “That’s all right,” Gray consoled. “I understand. You had no choice. But maybe in some weird way, this is all a good thing—us being brought together.”

  “What-what’cha mean?”

  Make this good, Gray warned himself. “I can tell you’re a special kind of girl. You’re the kind of girl I’ve been searching for, for my whole adult life.”

  She looked up, teary eyed. “Yuh-yuh-ya really mean that?”

  “Of course I do. And I can only imagine what kind of life you have here…with your brothers.”

  “It’s pretty bad,” she sniffled. “But I gots ta do what they say so’s they don’t hurt my baby.”

  Gray took her hand in a performance worthy of an Oscar. “I understand all that, and it’s okay. Any woman would do the same thing—they’d have no choice. But there’s something I’ve got to tell you, Kari Ann, and I mean this. I think—I think I’m falling in love with you.”

  Her gazed groped for him, confusion merging with something that had to be hope. “We should be together,” Gray continued. “I make a lot of money, Kari Ann. I could take you away from all this. But you have to help me.”

  “I-I couldn’t—”

  “You have to unlock this chain from my ankle, and when you go back downstairs, you have to leave the door unlocked. Then I’ll get you and take you away from this place, you and your daughter. Then you’ll have the kind of life you deserve.”

  She started with her waterworks again. “My brothers’d whup me! They probably kill me.”

  Gray whispered soft. “But that won’t happen, Kari Ann. Because they’ll never know. You won’t have to worry about your brothers anymore. I’ll take care of you, and your baby. It’ll be wonderful.”

  Her lower lip trembled. Tears welled freely in her caramel-brown eyes. “I cain’t! I cain’t! I gotta go!”

  Flustered, she grabbed the bucket full of pumpkin skins, then she whisked away, closed the door, and padded barefoot down the steps.

  Why me, God? Gray thought. Why me?

  Gray slept horribly, wakening in the dark from horrific nightmares only to find himself alive in a worse reality. When the moon was high in the room’s only window, he rushed to the bucket, voiding his bowels just in time. His pumpkin dinner soared through him; if felt like he was shitting hot broth. The abrupt discharge splattered against the bucket’s bottom, and splashed back up to dot his rump. Nothing to wipe with, of course, so he dragged himself back across the wood floor, back into sleep, wet-buttocks’d. Later he rose again, to urinate, and—thanks to the single ceiling light that remained on through the night—had no choice but to watch the hard stream of his pee churn foam into the pale diarrhea. The smell of the room made him recall the outhouse at summer camp when he was a boy.

  Birds chirped cheerily at daybreak, sunlight invading Gray’s prison. He heard a racket outside, and voices. The chain, he found, was just long enough to let him get to the window.

  Maybe I can see what’s going on…

  He had to crane his neck but was able to look outside. Down behind the house. From this vantage point he could see into the plank-fence enclosure. There was a garage back there, and a large tarp propped up by tent poles, cover against rain, he supposed. Gray saw several cars within the fencing, including a black-lacquered ’68 Camaro and his own Callaway Corvette with the windshield and glass taped over. What are those assholes doing to my car! his thoughts screamed. They’d painted it cotton-candy pink. And there was Hull in the background, putting on a coat of lacquer with an air brush. More customization had been previously added; silver cursive letters on the back fender read: KICKIN’ ASS, AIN’T TAKEN NO NAMES. Oh, man, Gray screamed. They’ve turned my beautiful car into a dick-wagon! They didn’t even spell ‘takin’ ’ right! It looked like a pimp’s car now.

  Hull glanced over to Jory. “Come on, Jor. Git that cracker cut up’n outa here.”

  Gray’s eyes moved right. “Shore, Hull. I’se just sharp’nin’ the blade.” There was Jory at a grinding wheel, honing the blade of a frightfully large ax. Then he pulled some more tarp up on the ground.

  Beneath the tarp lay a naked corpse.

  “Yeah, this here fella weren’t much good fer nothin’.”

  “Ain’t kiddin’, Jor. Couldn’t suck a peter fer shit.”

  Then came a rubato thwack-thwack-thwack.

  Gray’s belly squirmed as the ax rose and fell.

  “Not like that city fella we gots upstairs, huh? Ooo-eee!” Hull celebrated. “Like ta suck my dick so hard I felt air goin’ in my asshole.”

  Jory grinned, setting down the dripping ax. “Too bads you ain’t inta cornholin’, Hull. Cos that boy? Like fuckin’ a chicken’s how tight’a butthole he got. Shee-it!”

  Now Jory leaned over, stacking pieces of limbs neatly in the tarp. A forearm here, a shin there. Hands and feet. And finally the head.

  And it was a head Gray recognized…

  That redneck I saw the other night, picking up the girl. And that�
��s his Camaro there, only they painted it black…

  Just then, the girl wandered out of the garage, her halter top off. In her arms she cradled a naked mulatto baby sucking noisily at her nipple.

  Hull glared, paint gun in hand. “Git that tar baby outa here, girl! Cain’t’cha see we’s tryin’ ta work!”

  Gray looked harder at the baby. It squalled, naked, in her arms, less than a year old. It looked mostly Negro but…

  Jesus…

  Closer examination revealed morose defects: a Down’s head, one little foot smaller than the other, uneven ears, eyes way too close together. Kari Ann stuck a distended nipple into its drooly mouth, and that quieted it down. But Kari Ann seemed contemplative, her eyes cast to the ground. “But, Hull, I gots ta talk to ya. I means, do we really gots ta kill that city fella? Cain’t we just let him go?”

  “I’ve a mind ta slap you upside the head! Gals shore don’t come no dumber.”

  “We gotta kill him, Kari Ann,” Jory interjected. “We let him go, he’ll tell the cops on us.”

  The girl’s lip quivered. “But what if, ya know, what if he promised not ta?”

  “Girl, you musta been standin’ in the shit line when they’se was passin’ out brains!” Hull roared. “Now git!”

  Jory grabbed the severed head by the hair and bolted after the girl. “Hey! Hey, Kari Ann! Come give yer sweetheart a kiss!”

  The girl shrieked. “Git that head away from me!”

  “Bet if it were some nigruh’s head, she’d kiss it!” Hull contributed.

  Jory chortled, shaking the head. “Come on! Pucker up!” Then he commenced to chasing her around the enclosed yard with it. “Hull!” she screamed. “Make him stop! He’s scarin’ the baby!”

  “Hail,” Hull chuckled back. “Ain’t nothin’ could scare that shit-baby retart critter, but it’s shores scarin’ the shit outa you!”

  “Bet she’se’ll poop herself, Hull!”

  Her shrieks followed her like a banner until Jory chased her out of the yard. She stormed back into the house, the baby shrieking. Hull honked echoic redneck laughter.

  Yes sir, Gray thought. Life’s a holiday on Primrose Lane.

  “Hey, Hull! Gander this!” Jory, then, expertly drop-kicked the head across the yard, where it—thwack!—bounced off the wood-plank fence and landed on the chopped body parts piled on the tarp.

  “Touchdown, Hull!”

  “Shee-it, boy,” Hull remarked, shaking his head. “Youse shore are somethin’. Come ons, we’s finished fer now. Gotta let this lacquer dry ’fore I’se kin put on the next coat.”

  “But what about this cracker I done just chopped up? Should I’se put his parts in the drum so’s we kin dump it?”

  Hull hocked in the dirt. “Naw, it’s kin wait. That cracker fella with the Camaro’s skinny,” he appraised, looking at the chopped body parts. “Wait’ll we kill the city fella, that ways we kin stick him in the same drum. Looks ta me they’ll both fit. Then we’ll dump ’em both the same tam. Tuh-marruh.”

  Tuh-marruh, Gray thought. Tomorrow. They were talking about him. He even saw the large metal drum in the yard, easily big enough for two dismembered bodies. Gray’s gut quaked.

  They’re going to chop me up and put me in that drum. Tomorrow.

  But “tomorrow” lengthened into two more days and nights. Gray supposed the inexplicable reprieve was something he should be grateful for. Hull mentioned that he’d run out of clear lacquer and he wanted ten full coats. This was good.

  What wasn’t so good was how Gray was forced to spend his temporarily extended life. He was promptly sodomized by Jory each night, while having to simultaneously admit Hull’s rank penis into his mouth. The brothers were having a hootenanny, and Gray’s mouth and rectum were the party favors. But he took it like a man: on hands and knees, doing the job.

  Each night, too, he was forced to eat steamed pumpkin. Gray guessed there was more purpose to it than mere cruelty: it produced bowel movements that were essentially liquefaction, the remnants of which left him slick back there, easier to penetrate. After each violation, he’d sit on the bucket and pour forth more pale diarrhea marbled with Jory’s sperm. A terrifying question nagged at him: what would happen when the bucket was full? Would Kari Ann empty it, or would he be dead before that eventuality?

  On the second night Gray noticed threads of blood laying in the septic stew. No surprise there, not after the job Jory had done on him just after dark. He’d been really riled, really ready to get it on, and had plungered Gray’s asshole like a stopped toilet. Hull’s finger-up-the-ass blow job hadn’t been much easier. Hull had been holding back—Gray could tell—staving off his release for as long as possible. Probably thinking about goddamn Randy Johnson, Gray thought. Works pretty well, huh, Hull? Fuck. The nail on Gray’s index finger remained permanently lined with shit. There was no way for him to sufficiently clean his finger—they wouldn’t let him wash (and he wondered if they did themselves), so now the dirty finger haunted him. Any time he’d unconsciously scratch an itch on his nose, that horrible shit-and-spit smell was there. There was no hope.

  Or was there?

  He’d overheard her, hadn’t he? Kari Ann? Trying to talk her brothers into letting him go.

  At least that meant she was thinking about it.

  The third night, they came up twice. It was hard to concentrate with Hull saying “Wiggle that finger, bitch” and Jory saying “Make that cornhole tight!” both at the same time. Jory fondling Gray’s testicles didn’t help. In time, Gray gulped down another liberal dispensation of Hull’s sperm, while Jory came in his ass like a squirt gun.

  When Jory inched out, he slapped Gray hard on the ass. “That’s a good girl!” he celebrated. He reached forward and pinched Gray’s nipple. “You’re one great fuck. Fuckin’ you’s like fuckin’ a l’'l school girl.”

  Hull bopped Gray’s temple with his knuckles. “Say thank ya when my brother comp-ler-ments ya.”

  Gray rolled his eyes. “Thank you.”

  “You know, Jory,” Hull said. He remained standing, his overalls still down. “I’se feisty tonight.”

  “Yeah?”

  Gray felt disconcerted when he saw what Hull was doing. He was tugging on his deflated penis. What? Again? Gray thought.

  Hull went on, “I don’t usually fancy to it but I think, I say, I think I might like ta have me a piece’a his ass, too. Ain’t had me a good butt-fuckin’ in a while. Now if I kin just get my dog hard again…”

  Hull kept playing with himself. Gray prayed, Please, please, DON’T get hard again…

  Hull got hard again.

  “Tear yourself off a piece, brother,” Jory said.

  For the love of God, Gray thought. He knew there was no way his rectal cavity could accommodate an erection the size of Hull’s. Something would have to give, the same way as if you stuck a cucumber in a donut hole. Gray’s anus was the donut hole.

  I’ll bust! he thought.

  “Yeah, boy!” Jory rooted. “Git it, brother! Stick that dirty girl!”

  Hull kneed right up and pushed the baby-apple-sized glans into Gray’s asshole. He shoved. Hull’s dick went into his colon, and Gray threw up digested pumpkin mush. It felt like Hull had his entire forearm up there. All Gray could do was squeeze tears from his eyes and shudder.

  “Like that, City?” Hull asked and reached forward to squeeze Gray’s “tit.”

  “Bet he does,” Jory speculated. “Bet he’s gittin’ hard hisself.”

  “Naw,” Hull confirmed. He grabbed Gray’s genitals, which were limp as a handful of Jell-O.

  Hull was rocking, driving into him, back and forth. Gray felt skewered. His mind raced against the pain and monumental pressure. “Aw, yeah, aw, yeah…” Gray was nearly unconscious when Hull had his moment. He came like a Gila monster vomiting, and when he pulled out, Gray thought he was shitting a coffee can. He collapsed and rolled over, exhausted.

  “Sleep tight, hon,” Jory chuckled.

  “This’ll
be yer last nat, boy,” Hull informed.

  “My last…night?” Gray mumbled.

  “I’ll’se be pickin’ up the rest’a the clear-coat tuh-marruh. Then we’ll be finished with yer car.”

  Jory was rebuckling his overalls. “But don’t’cha worry none. We’ll be shore ta fuck ya one more tam ’fore we kill ya.”

  The brothers left laughing, slamming the door behind them. Gray lay paralyzed. Now he knew what women felt like after being raped; it was far more than the physical violation. It was something psychical, too. His soul didn’t matter. He was just a body to be utilized for primal pleasure. He was the Kleenex they were using to blow their noses into.

  And tomorrow they would throw the Kleenex in the trash.

  When they were done “tricking” up his car, they’d simply sell it and would, hence, need a new one. They’d have to get rid of Gray to make room for the next poor sap.

  And now he saw the cruelest truth for the first time. Could he really blame Jory and Hull for their crimes? Could he really blame the girl?

  In truth, no. He could only blame himself. I got myself into this nightmare. It’s all my fault. Nobody’d put a gun to his head the night he picked Kari Ann up. He’d done it on his own accord, for lust, for sex. Because she was available to use.

  God, he thought now. Yes, God. Of all things, his thoughts turned again to his creator. Why shouldn’t God be infuriated with him? This was his punishment, the tables turned. Blood and sperm seeping out of his ass, he thought about his life now in an entirely different way. Gray had willingly turned his back on the way life was supposed to be, hadn’t he? He hadn’t really loved his first two wives; he’d married them for their looks. And his other relationships? Same thing. All the wrong reasons. People were supposed to be together for a reason.

  To be a part of each other’s life, to love each other and have kids and raise them to the best of your ability. That’s what life’s all about, not going to strip joints and picking up hookers. Gray saw it now: if there really was a God, Gray’s entire existence was an offense. He’d chosen irresponsibility over commitment. He’d chosen crude pleasure over morality.