DOA III

by Bentley Little

  The phone rang in her hand and she nearly dropped it into that disgusting hole. God, how would she ever get it out? She couldn’t imagine reaching her hand down into that gap, moist and earthy and unknown.

  The phone rang again. It was Eric.

  She didn’t want to answer it, but it rang again and again and finally she did. She had to. Who the fuck was she to resist? She peeled a bit of a Coke poster off the wall, revealed a sliver of whatever was painted beneath. She didn’t say anything.

  “Suzy?”

  The sound of his voice was familiar and awful. It wound into her ears, clutched at her heart.

  “Suzy, don’t hang up. I’m so glad you answered. I’ve been so worried about you.”

  She trudged up the crooked basement stairs. “Oh, poor you. So worried.” She found her purse, rummaged out a pack of smokes.

  “What have you been doing? Where are you? When are you coming home?”

  “I’m fine. It doesn’t matter where I am. And when I’m coming home is up to you.” She sat on the back steps, stared into the forest. The leaves were starting to fall, the branches bare and cold without them.

  “I’ll come get you anytime. You have to come back. I know you will. We belong together, you and me. You’ve been gone long enough already.”

  “Did you fire her?” She lit a cigarette and tried not to cough.

  “Suzy, are you smoking again?”

  “Who cares?” She blew smoky O’s, an old trick she was happy to see she could still do. Through the haze, she realized there was a little hut or… something that she hadn’t noticed before, out in the woods. A shed. It must be a shed.

  “I care. You know that.”

  “Did you fire her?” Her voice was sharp. “Did you?”

  She could hear him breathing on the line. He was trying to think of a way to make it sound better. “I can’t do that, honey. She needs the job. Besides, what would my boss say? She’s a good worker. How would I explain it?”

  “How will you explain it to me?”

  He didn’t answer. He always had an answer for everything, but he didn’t have an answer for that one.

  She should hang up, end on a powerful note, but she couldn’t help herself. “Are you still fucking her?”

  He hesitated again. She could picture the look on his face. Eyebrows folded into concern, a smile tugging on his lips, urging her to forgive him. Before he could say anything else, she cut him off. “Forget it. Call me when she’s gone.” She hung up. Again.

  She rubbed her eyes. She was so fucking sick of crying. He didn’t deserve her tears. He didn’t deserve anything from her. So why did she keep answering his calls, and why did she keep checking her phone when they didn’t come?

  Fuck it. She stubbed her smoke out. Her phone rang again and she tossed it on the step. She should check out that shed. Maybe she could find some wood or something to board up the hole in the basement. Maybe she could distract herself for at least a couple of minutes.

  She hopped off the step and into the trees, where branches snatched at her hair and mud sloshed onto her slippers. The woods yawned open to reveal piles of rock and dirt. The overgrown grass abruptly gave way to bare earth. There was no shed, just a huge slab of stone, balanced atop a jagged staircase that reached nearly to her bust. What the fuck was this? It must have been used for something at one point in time, but now it was broken and disused like everything else around here.

  Something else to complain to the landlord about.

  She climbed the stairs. The top was stained with rust. She ran her hand over the surface, smooth and warm. It must have been baking in the sun all afternoon. She sat down, dangled her legs over the edge, lit another smoke. From this angle, she could see a pile of disturbed earth, nestled beneath a tree. Some attempt at gardening?

  The tree was hideous, dead, coated with black rot. Maybe they had been trying to dig it up by the roots and just gave up. Her eyes lazily traced the curves and angles that jutted out every which way. A hammer laid atop the pile of earth, from the same set of tools as that dagger—its handle was shaped into a massive phallus. Someone had carved something into it once, but she couldn’t make out the letters, they were all jumbled together. It reminded her of something. Something wordless. She felt it, deep in her gut.

  The rock seemed to move, pressing up against the seat of her jeans. The warmth and firmness felt good. She shifted and the seam of her pants rubbed against her crotch. The breeze was warm for fall, but her nipples stood to attention. She pressed against the rock, felt a wetness grow between her thighs.

  The carving on the hammer was so detailed.

  Jesus Christ, she was getting horny. Pathetic. It had been ages since she had gotten laid. Even the last few times she had fucked Eric, she could tell his mind just wasn’t in it.

  Maybe she should go to the bar downtown and pick someone up, bring them back to this shitty rented house and fuck them. But it would be just her luck to run into someone Eric knew. Then she would have to explain herself and honestly, it was far more likely she would bring someone back here and end up crying because they weren’t Eric. It was his familiar body she wanted in her bed.

  What the fuck was she doing out here anyway?

  The rock pulsed beneath her cunt. She tore her eyes away from the hammer, tossed her cigarette and went back to the house, feeling even worse than before.

  “Have you heard from Eric?”

  “Only every day.”

  She heard the click click click as Mom snapped her tongue against the roof of her mouth, sending shivers of annoyance up Suzanne’s spine. “Why don’t you just come home?”

  Why didn’t she? “I can’t, Mom.” Eric could still turn things around. But she was so tired of being stubborn, of waiting for him to make the right choice. What was there for her back home? Move back into the room she had spent her childhood in, get a shitty fucking job, try to figure out who she was without Eric. She blinked tears away.

  “I’d love to keep helping you, honey, but I can’t afford to wire you any more money. If you want a plane ticket home, that’s one thing, but I can’t just keep sending you money every week. You need to figure out what you’re doing.”

  What the fuck was she doing? She couldn’t go crying back to Eric just because she had nowhere else to go.

  “I have to say, Suzy, as sorry as I am for you, I’m not surprised this happened.”

  “Is that so?” The words tasted bitter on her tongue.

  “You know how you two got together in the first place. He’s too old for you, anyway.”

  It was true. Everyone told her it would happen. A man who leaves his wife for a younger woman is the type of man who will leave the younger woman for his secretary. And now here she was, all alone, with ten lousy years of memories to keep her warm at night. “He might fire her. He misses me.” He wouldn’t fire her. He would keep fucking her and whatever Suzanne did, she couldn’t change that. “Never mind. Can we talk about something else? Anything else?”

  “Sure, honey. What have you been up to lately? Are you looking for a job?”

  “I’m fucking miserable, Mom. I have not been looking for a job.” “Are you getting out of the house at least?”

  “I’ve been walking,” she lied.

  “That’s good. It’s important to get some exercise. That’s bound to get you feeling better. What are you up to tonight?”

  “I don’t know, I might tidy up or something. Read. Watch TV.”

  “Oh, your father’s home. I better get going. Remember, call me anytime. There’s always money for a ticket home.”

  She hung up the phone, listened to the silent house. She flopped back on the couch and flipped through channels. The colors and shapes blurred, made her eyes heavy. Another exciting evening.

  The moon glared through the window bright and angry, and Suzanne woke up confused. Springs from the couch dug into her side, and the TV droned some bullshit infomercial. How long had she been asleep? She fumbled for her phone,
couldn’t find it. Her head felt light, strange, and a dream danced through her consciousness, just out of reach. Something red and wet and ripe. She could smell that scent from the basement.

  Something about the basement.

  Something about the walls.

  Had she seen something behind the posters earlier? Or had that been part of the dream? Her mouth tasted sour. The solution to something dangled just out of her reach.

  Moonlight dribbled down the walls, surreal waves that made her feel dizzy.

  She stumbled into the kitchen for a glass of water. For something to clear her head. The basement door loomed open, and the smell was so strong. She was halfway down the stairs before she knew what she was doing. She yanked the chain for the light, and it swayed, revealing thick tears in the haphazardly hung posters. A faded strip peeled away as she watched.

  Weird that they had covered this up. There was a mural on the wall, and it looked clean and fresh, much nicer than the shitty posters it had been covered with. Fresh, but old fashioned. People, dozens of people, faces... and so much skin. They were all naked. Something religious?

  No, not religious. She yanked more posters down, and wondered if she was dreaming again.

  The landlord was a pervert, or whoever lived here before her was a pervert. It was a giant orgy. Maybe he would be pissed she was ripping these posters down, but they were so fragile they practically flaked away in her hands. Hell, just since this afternoon they had started falling apart.

  The smell got stronger. It was so familiar, the way it wormed into her brain. Damp and musty, a sex smell. It made her think of Eric. Her gut twisted painfully.

  It must have taken forever to paint. Complex configurations of men and women, cocks and pussies and assholes and tongues, licking and sucking and fucking, wet and sweaty and frantic. Every position you could imagine was displayed. Who would go to the trouble to paint this?

  She tried to swallow. Her throat felt tight and sore. She had torn the paper down in a frenzy, and now she regretted it.

  One character repeated itself throughout the mural. He was beautiful. Tall and blonde and smiling, his body as hard and glistening as his enormous dick. The rest of the figures were a little more stylized, their faces indistinct, but he was rendered in loving realism—especially his throbbing cock. Much bigger than Eric’s. Despite herself, she was getting wet. She had always wondered what it would be like to take a huge dick. The figures in the painting seemed to enjoy it. His grin nearly split his face in two as he shoved it into every available hole. The artist had captured a certain charisma in that smile, one that fluttered butterflies in Suzanne’s belly.

  She had never been one for pornography. Eric had wanted to watch it with her once. He had even suggested they make their own. She hadn’t done it, but maybe if she had, maybe if she had been a little more experimental...

  Maybe if he had made her feel a little more comfortable.

  Maybe there was more to her than that vanilla side.

  Her eyes scanned the painting. Men with men and women with women and women with men and everywhere she looked, that beautiful man with the huge penis, everything hard and firm and beautiful.

  Her hand slipped inside her blouse.

  Two women bent in front of a line of men, their sweet faces surrounded by massive erections. Wet, glimmering parts spread out. Legs scissored across each other. Huge hands on buttocks, leaving behind imprints. Crooked smiles. Heavy breasts and small breasts and dainty little tongues licking swollen clits. Faces buried between thick thighs. Faces blurred, indistinguishable in their pleasure. Swollen cocks ready to burst, mouths twisted in pleasured screams, pubic hair lush and shining.

  Suzanne slipped a hand between her legs. So much naked skin, so many hands and legs and nipples and pussies. Asses laid across altars, pointed in the air, inviting. Her vision swirled, coalesced on an altar and that beautiful man, penetrating women in turn, one after the other, sliding his cock in and out, in and out. Suzanne thumbed her clit, slowly at first, then faster.

  His huge cock throbbed and gleamed and he was ready to come, and so was she.

  No.

  Something was wrong.

  The scent let up, a breath of fresh air, and her head cleared and all that wet pleasure became something else. Suzanne whimpered, and her vision sharpened suddenly to pick out details she hadn’t noticed before.

  The smiles were more sinister than she thought. Some of the women held knives, gleaming with redness so wet she felt like she could reach out and touch it. Pussies spread open, ripped too far, gaping puzzles of flesh torn all the way to their assholes. Their faces were contracted with pain, not pleasure, but still they writhed against each other.

  It was horrid, grotesque. They pulled out knives, made new holes to fuck and tore each other apart. Men smiled around wet mouthfuls of flesh. Women impaled themselves on wicked branches from trees, and that beautiful man in the centre of it all, atop the altar—and fucking Christ, was that the stone and tree from the backyard?

  This was some kind of joke. What kind of person would paint this? How had she not seen this? Sick guilt churned her stomach. Suzanne pulled her sticky hand out of her panties and heaved herself up the stairs, slammed the heavy basement door behind her. She didn’t stop until she was outside, cigarette in hand, blinking back tears.

  Even she deserved better than this.

  A dozen donut holes and an extra-large café mocha. Not a great use of her last five bucks, but honestly, how far would that five bucks have taken her anyway? A mouthful of chocolate and she was pawing at her phone again, making sure she didn’t somehow miss a call in the thirty seconds she managed to tear her eyes away.

  She should call the landlord. She wanted to call Eric. Why couldn’t she just go back in time and not read the emails? Suspecting but not knowing. Christ. Couldn’t she just have ignored it a while longer, at least gotten a better plan in place? Suzanne dabbed at her eyes with a napkin, refused to meet the eyes of the older couple sitting next to her. Their sympathetic smiles made her want to puke.

  Okay. Deep breath. Call the landlord. The place was a dump, and if she complained, if she threatened to take her complaints further... maybe she could stay in the dump for a while longer while she figured out what the hell she was going to do with her life.

  She fucking hated confrontation. Her chest clenched while the phone rang. And rang. Fuck it. She hung up, groaned, ran a hand through greasy hair. The couple next to her got up and left and she dabbed her eyes again.

  Now what?

  Call mom and give up, get a ticket and try to imagine a new life for herself, or call Eric? Either way she was accepting defeat. She tapped chewed fingernails against the table, brain tugging in one direction and then the other.

  She had a few more days to think about it. Put off the inevitable a day longer. She tossed the rest of the donut holes into the trash.

  She kept her phone in her hand as she walked home. Maybe he would call tonight. Maybe their last conversation was the push he needed.

  The night was still warm, but the moment she stepped into the house, she was freezing. The air was cold and damp, and the basement door was wide open. Suzanne’s stomach clenched. There was no way she had left it open. The landlord?

  “Hello?” Her voice cracked, and she hated the sound of it. She peered down the stairs, into the darkness. The air was moist against her cheeks. She could almost taste it, salty and thick. “Hey, is someone down there?” There was no answer, of course. God, with her luck, there was probably some crazy person down there. Whoever lived here before, whoever painted that weird fucking mural. Maybe she should call the police.

  She held her breath, listened. She didn’t hear anything. She couldn’t call the police. She wouldn’t be the hysterical woman all alone, getting paranoid every time something creaked.

  There was no one down there. But she had to make sure. She groaned, grabbed a knife from the kitchen. Like that would do anything. Like she knew how to use it.


  Maybe the psycho would kill her and do her a favor.

  “Hey, I’m coming down there now. If anyone’s down there... I have a knife.”

  The light played shadows across the walls, and the walls were covered with paint, and there was nothing obscuring it anymore. Just brilliant, lurid color, covering every inch of space. And that smell. Spicy, thick, musty, sexy. Her head wobbled. Her thoughts felt far away. The pictures swam out at her and her eyes couldn’t keep up.

  God, she had never imagined being fucked in so many ways before. Thick cocks crammed into tight holes everywhere. Her own hole pulsed, grew wet. But it wasn’t just cocks going into those holes. It was knives, it was spikes, and she had never been interested in any of this shit before, had never even thought...

  She slid a finger in her mouth, wet her lips.

  No matter where she looked, there was more to see, and He kept smiling at her. At her.

  She reached out to the wall, stroked it, and the faces seemed to look at her. Some of this looked so familiar—that twisted tree out back, and those women, with their knives, thrusting, thrusting into a man, and he loved it, he loved it and his cock spurted cum and the phallic hammer swung and blood rained over the altar.

  Suzanne’s phone buzzed. She shook and yanked her hand from her pants with disgust. What was she doing? Eric was on the phone and she couldn’t answer it, not now, the colors were too bright and something was not right in her head.

  She slammed the basement door behind her. It was sure as hell shut this time, and it was going to stay that way.

  Blood and sex swam in her head. There was still a bottle of wine in the fridge. She curled up on the couch with it, and every time she closed her eyes she could see them writhing.

  Hands groped their way up her thighs, oily wet, smooth against her skin, someone moaned—was it her? Firm hands on her tits, squeezing her nipples, too hard, and it was her that moaned this time. Her cunt was wet and slick, someone was licking and chewing and it was so good.