by Louise Krieg
He stepped around the corner, and then looked back into the room. They were in the same spot. Staring.
Okay, very creepy, but still.
Nagging thoughts began to pester him while he got cleaned up. Were those two really interested in him? The two of them, falling for his simple geek charms on the same day, just like that? What were the odds? Actually he could pretty much factor the odds in his big brain and they weren’t very good. If they weren’t into him, though, then why would they be all over him like that…
No. It couldn’t be the fortune teller. That old woman with her mumbo jumbo and her pipe and her weird mumbling. There was no such thing as gypsy magic. No way that a spell would make two very different women want to crawl into his bed…and couch…and on the floor…the kitchen table…um.
No way could that be explained by magic. Ridiculous. Sasha and Audrey must be into him for who he was. It was the only thing that made sense to him.
They were gone when he got out of the shower, dressed and ready to go, and he figured that they were going to get ready at their own apartments. After all, showing up to work in the same clothes was a big taboo, right? Especially for women. Not that he didn’t want to shout to the world about what he’d gotten last night, but he didn’t exactly want it to be spread around the office, either. No sense getting anyone in trouble at the vaunted offices of Jansen and Howe.
So, he smiled, and locked the door behind him, and whistled his way to work.
He did his work in his cubicle all day, fixing coding problems and resetting passwords and whatever else the company needed from him for the day. All the while, his thoughts were on last night, and on what might happen tonight. There were a few things left on his list of sexual fetishes that he wanted to try yet. One woman who was incredibly submissive, and one who was a closet dominatrix. Well. That did lead to a lot of possibilities.
He was hard all day long, just thinking about it.
Around lunchtime he snuck his way up to the second floor. He figured he would drop in on Audrey, and then Sasha, and confirm their date for tonight on the sly. Only, when he got there, Audrey’s front desk was empty. When he asked someone passing by, the guy just shrugged and said she never showed up for work today. No note. No message. Weird he said, because one of the junior associates did the same thing. Sasha something.
Tom stood there long after the guy was gone, trying to figure out what was going on. Both women didn’t come into the office. Were they embarrassed by what they had done? Did him leaving them there at his apartment this morning make them realize they had made some sort of mistake?
Hot lead twisted into his guts. It couldn’t be over between them just like that, could it? One wild night together and then they just ignore him again.
No. No way. He was not going to let that happen. They were into him. He refused to believe it could be anything else. They were just sleeping it off. Sure. It had nothing to do with a spell cast by a con woman selling love potions out of her hole-in-the-wall shop. Making a bee line back to the elevators he took out his cellphone and pulled up both Sasha’s and Audrey’s numbers from his contacts list. Being in IT had its advantages. He had people’s e-mail addresses and cell numbers and a lot of other information he probably shouldn’t.
In this case, he had the phone numbers of the two hottest women he knew.
Writing a single text to both of them, he sent it off. Meet me at my apartment. Now. Need you both.
After a moment’s thought he erased the “both” at the end and just left it as need you. That made it more personal.
Then he called his boss and said he still wasn’t recovered from whatever he’d caught yesterday. So. He needed another day. After that he went straight home. This was going to be settled today. It was him the girls wanted. They weren’t being forced to sleep with him by a spell or anything else. This was what they wanted.
It was what he wanted, too.
Outside his apartment, he hesitated. Was that a sound he’d heard inside? He put his ear to the door, and then shrugged it off. No way. He locked up this morning. No one else had the key. Just him.
Unlocking the door, he went inside and tossed his stuff on the table and pulled out his cellphone again to check for an answering text. Nothing, from either girl. This was crazy. Where were they? He did have their addresses—thank you IT gods—and he could just drop by at either of their places if he wanted. Maybe he should. Was that being a stalker? No, he was just worried about them. That’s what it was. Yes. That’s what he would do. The girls needed him, after all.
Pain blossomed at the back of his head and he only had enough time to realize he’d been hit with something very hard before the floor rushed up to meet him and the world went dark.
Chapter Four
He came to, still in his own apartment, sitting in a kitchen chair.
In the middle of the living room.
Tied by his hands and feet to the chair.
Naked.
Audrey was kneeling in front of him, as naked as he was, slowly sucking her way up the inside of his leg. When she felt him stirring, she bit the inside of his thigh.
“Ow, hey that hurts. Um…ow…ow!”
She bit down harder, bracing her hands on his legs for leverage, and he saw her eyes roll up into her head as she clamped down hard enough to draw blood.
Tom screamed. He couldn’t help it. Waking up like this, to this gorgeous woman…chewing on him…what was going on?
“Shh,” he heard Sasha saying to him as her hands smoothed around his neck from behind, and then down his chest. Her cheek nuzzled his, and her tongue licked his face. “Shh. Just trust us. Just let it happen. We want you, Tom. We want you. Let us have you.”
Audrey’s hand cupped his balls, and squeezed. Tom’s scream turned into a squeak.
Sasha licked his lips, and then her teeth nipped at his chin and he was suddenly blubbering, begging her not to bite him there. “Not the face please not the face please don’t…”
He felt Audrey’s finger jab up between his testicles, and he froze as much as he could with her mouth still sucking at his blood and Sasha’s teeth starting to graze the slope of his neck where his jugular was and the stabbing, choking pain in his crotch.
His penis stood tall and erect through it all, somehow turned on while he feared for his life.
Audrey shifted positions between his legs. She knelt there, looking up at him, his blood on her face. “Sasha told you to shush,” she ordered him. “If you’re a good boy, we’ll make this feel good. If you’re a bad boy, well…”
Her lips slid over the tip of his cock, down deep, and then deeper, and as she cupped his testicles in both hands she slid up his length again, scraping her teeth along the thin skin the whole way.
He was whimpering now, because he knew what would happen if she chose to bite him now, bite him there, and he nearly fainted when she got right to his tip and sucked him there and squeezed him between her teeth.
Then she was off of him, and he could breathe again.
Sasha whispered in his ear. “We want you.”
“F-fine,” he stuttered. “Untie m-me and we c-can do what w-we did last n-night. I’d like that. W-wouldn’t you l-like that?”
Audrey slapped him, right across his manhood, sending painful vibrations through his gut. “I want him first.”
Sasha snorted. “if you have him first there’ll be nothing left of him. “Let me have him first.”
Tom couldn’t believe this. Women fighting over him should be a dream come true. This was a nightmare. “Please,” he started to beg.
Audrey slapped him again. “You shut up, unless I tell you that you can speak. Fine, Sasha. You want him first, you take him. Just leave me something.”
She stood up and stepped away from him and Tom nearly threw up in relief. If Audrey was going to be that rough with her sex then maybe she wasn’t the woman for him. He could just let Sasha do him and then claim he was too tired for Audrey. Yeah. Sure.
&nb
sp; He watched as Sasha came around him, naked and dark and steamy with desire. She straddled him and then braced herself with his shoulders to lower herself onto him, inch by inch, until he was in her and she was arching her back and then throwing her head forward into his neck and moaning softly. There, he thought. Yeah, that’s better. Even being tied up like this was okay as long as she…as she…
Her lips suckled at his ear, and then her teeth tore into his flesh.
He screamed as she rocked herself on him, tearing off his earlobe and sexing herself to an intense tremor that curled her toes and wracked her whole body.
Tom felt the pain. He felt the blood pouring down his neck. She took a bite of him! Oh, damn oh damn oh damn damn damn she bit off part of his ear! They didn’t just want him…they wanted to eat him! They were going to eat him!
When she got off him, spitting out blood and wiping her mouth with her arm, she leaned in close again. He cringed, terrified that she was going to take another bite out of him. Instead she smiled, and whispered into his ruined ear. “Thank you for that.”
Sasha pushed Audrey aside. “My turn.”
“What do you want from me?” he screamed, his voice unnervingly high and cracking with tight emotions that ranged from horror to disgust to abject fear. “What do you want!”
The two women froze. They stared at him. Audrey was caught in the motion of reaching for him, for his softening male member and his bloody leg. They stood there still as statues, their eyes riveted to him.
“What do you want?” he said through sudden tears. This couldn’t be happening. This was insane! “What do you want?”
A new voice caught his attention. A raspy voice accented by Italian heritage. “They want what I want, Tom. Don’t worry. Let me explain. Ladies, please move.”
Sasha and Audrey both stepped aside obediently, their eyes still on them, their scent still carrying a desire for sex. Behind them, Madame Toufou stepped forward, leaning on her cane. Her clothes were just as colorful today as they had been yesterday. At least she wasn’t smoking on her pipe, Tom thought crazily. The landlord would never give him the damage deposit back if she got ashes in the carpet.
He was losing his grip, he realized. He was bleeding from his leg and his ear—she bit his ear!—and he was too scared to think straight. “You,” he managed to say. “What are you doing here?”
Madame Toufou cackled. “When you were in my shop I saw that you have personal wealth. I desire that, Tom. That is what we want from you.”
“You…you’re robbing me?”
“Oh, don’t be so crass,” she barked. “I gave you a night you will never forget for as long as you live, correct? That was what you wanted. A night with these two. I have delivered. Now, I want something for myself.”
“But I paid you!”
“You did, yes, but I know you have more. I want it, Tom. You hide a large part of your money from the IRS. I saw that in my reading of your aura. That means it is in this apartment. Tell me where you hide the money, Tom, and I will leave.”
“What about them?” he blurted, his voice still strained. “Why are they doing this?”
Madame Toufou frowned like he was annoying her. “Ladies, please kiss each other.”
Sasha and Audrey stepped off to the side, together, and obediently pressed their blood-stained lips together, moaning with pleasure as they squirmed against each other’s nakedness and kissed with passion.
“There,” the old gypsy woman said to Tom. “Do you understand now?”
Tom’s jaw dropped open. The pain became a distant concern as the reality of his situation hit him. This was why the two women had suddenly become interested in him. It was a spell. Madame Toufou was controlling Sasha and Audrey. It was impossible.
Yet it was real.
She snapped her fingers in front of his face to get his attention back. “Tell me where the money is. Now.”
“You’ll let them go?”
Madame Toufou blinked at him. Then she threw her head back and cackled so hard she choked on phlegm and began hacking in his face. “You’re worried about them? You should be worried about yourself!”
“I’ll tell you where the money is if you promise to let them go.” He didn’t know where this newfound bravery was from but he felt it fierce in his chest. He needed them to be safe. Even if their night together hadn’t meant anything to them because they were being forced into it, the night had meant everything to him and he needed to know they would be safe.
He glanced at them as they continued to kiss and fondle each other. He had to look away. How did this happen? How could it happen? Was it hypnosis, or a hallucinogenic drug or something?
“Fine,” the old hag snapped at him. “I promise they will be free of me when you give me your money. There. That good enough for you?”
It was going to have to be. “Under the couch,” he mumbled. “There’s a hidden compartment under the couch.”
She nodded, and shuffled off. From where he was tied he couldn’t see what she was doing, but he heard the couch being heaved aside and then the sound of the floorboards being pried up, and then her delighted gasp as she found his lockbox with the twenty thousand dollars in it.
“Good, good!” She cackled some more, and then toddled back into view, leaning on the cane and holding the rectangular metal box in the crook of her other arm. “That concludes our business, I believe.”
She turned to leave. Three steps later, she thumped her cane on the floor hard enough that a boom swept across the room.
“Finish this,” she said without looking back.
In the next moment there were two voracious women all over him, desiring him, needing him, taking him…
Devouring him.
Through the blood and the pain and the intense sexual arousal Tom saw Madame Toufou close the apartment door behind her.
Audrey hit him. Sasha bit into his chest. Their fingernails clawed into his flesh. Their breasts were in his face. Their hands touched him everywhere as parts of him were torn away, as his fingers were broken, as they took him apart…piece…by…piece…
Epilogue
The police arrived a day later at the request of the landlord. A foul odor had been reported from inside the apartment. Death had a smell all its own, the officers would later explain.
Inside, they found the gruesome remains of a man tied to a chair. There wasn’t much left to identify. His head had rolled away across the floor.
At his feet, two naked women lay in each other’s embrace, chunks torn out of their bodies by teeth and hands and methods the officers could only guess at. Their lips were still pressed together.
Pieces of the man, later identified as Tom Henderson a virtually unknown IT geek, were found in the women’s fingers…and teeth…
FRANKIE
STEVE RINKLES
Frankie closed the trailer door and winced when it gave a loud click as it shut. She stood in the cold air in her denim shorts and her brother’s old Van Halen t-shirt and listened. She could hear only the birds slowly waking up in the pale blue morning light. She half-expected to hear the familiar thunder of her daddy’s voice to come through, demanding breakfast and coffee, but he hadn’t seen eight in the morning since he lost his job five years ago, so she felt safe enough. She touched the five dollars in her pocket to make sure it was still there, then she headed towards the woods.
Happy Heavens was enormous as trailer parks went around here, but Frankie had it all mapped out it her head with the quietest routes to anywhere she’d want to go at any time of day or night. It helped that their two-tone rust bucket of a trailer was in the far back, near the woods, with no neighbors. If she needed to go to the store right now, she knew who would still be asleep and who would leave her alone if they happened to see her passing. She knew exactly how to avoid any assholes and do-gooders. It was a five-minute run; speed was important when daddy was out of beer. If she had a half-hour free from chores and had finished her latest library book then she could get
to the playground in the suburb nearby in ten minutes without having to see anyone who knew her. They had fewer swings and only a pretty pathetic baby’s slide there, but Happy Heavens’ playground was where all the dealers hung out, so that was a no-go zone. Her daddy told her she was too old for swings at fourteen. She thought maybe that’s why she still liked them, because he didn’t.
Today, Frankie was headed to the east side of town, so she had to walk through the woods at the edge of the trailer park for a while to avoid a couple of the biggest assholes, then cut through for the last third of the park and come out onto the road safe and sound and unseen.
The circus was in town, and Frankie had never seen a circus.
Nothing much came to Waleska, Georgia, so she couldn’t pass this up. She smiled to herself. She knew it would probably be closed, but she wanted to just see it, maybe even walk around a little.
If there are elephants there, she thought, I’m gonna flip out!
Frankie hopped the fence and landed with a crunch on the fallen leaves that covered the ground. She walked ten feet into the trees to be sure no-one could see her and to enjoy the sound of the birds. She lived with her headphones on, listening over and over to her brother’s old punk rock mix tapes, but she enjoyed the sound of the real world when hardly anyone was awake in it.
A cracking sound ahead caught her attention, but she was too late to avoid being spotted.
“Motherfucker,” a voice came, “I thought we talked about this?”
It was Heinrich. He was nearly twenty, balding before his time and only few cheeseburgers shy of a heart attack. He was dressed in army clothes and he gave a toothy grin. When Frankie saw his air rifle she froze.
“These aren’t your woods,” he said, looking confused, “are they?”
Frankie started walking backwards.
“In fact,” he said, “I remember a chat we had where we discussed this, like, at length.”
If Heinrich was here… she thought.