1

My name’s Les Littleton, and I’m a porn star.

Not that anyone would know it, of course. I’m only in the movies from the neck down.

I’m a Sensory Observer; what some lesser informed individuals glibly refer to as a “fucksuit.” My job is to have sex with the hottest girls in the industry—and be sure to have a damned good time doing it—while every sight, smell, sound, taste, and feeling is recorded for the Jackers who line up around the corner to buy this shit. It may sound like easy work, but it’s not. It’s my responsibility to provide customers with the most comprehensive and enjoyable sexual simulation experience money can buy, and my commitment to my craft is evidenced by my body of work. If you’ve ever busted a nut on Mindseye, chances are good that it was my dick you were fucking with. Done the deed with Precious Peirce, Ashley Humps, or Hannah Storm? They work with me exclusively.

I’m a no-bullshit guy. If a girl’s having a “not-so-fresh” day, I’m going to tell her about it. Jackers, they don’t shell out good money to eat virtual pussy that smells like yesterday’s tuna casserole, and it’s my responsibility to make sure that never happens. Quality control is as big of a part of my job as maintaining good wood, and the girls appreciate that. Sure, it may be a little embarrassing for your S.O. to halt production due to a vaginal fart or sweaty armpits, but could you imagine the potential fallout of letting a million fans experience the horrors of Lezlee Strongbox’s uncontrollable nervous gas or Monica Mounds stomach-churning meth-mouth just because your S.O. wasn’t confidant enough to suggest a digestive aid or a breath mint? A slip up like that is what ended Trini Towers’ career, and
resulted in her giving a farewell hummer to the business end of a Remington auto loader. I don’t want that sort of thing on my conscience.

That sort of attention to detail, that’s what makes me one of the most requested S.O.s in the business.

And that’s how I met Random Sutton.

I’d just wrapped a weeklong shoot on an ass-worship flick called Spank Me Softly, Fuck Me Hard when I got the call. I planned on taking it easy for a few days, maybe catching up on some of the Hollywood Jacks I had piling up, or even watching a 2-D. I never got business calls at home—that’s what my agent was for—so when the phone rang, I answered with a cursory “yo.”

“Mr. Littleton?” The voice on the other end was tin-thin, a hint of an accent I couldn’t quite discern, which bothered me because I was usually pretty good at that sort of thing.

“Yeah, this is…” I replied. “Who’s this?”

“My name is Sutton,” the man said. “Random Sutton. You’re a hard man to track down, Mr. Littleton.”

Was it British? Dutch? No, not Dutch…

“How did you get this number?” I asked, just as interested in hearing his answer as I was in getting another sampling of his accent.

“A mutual friend,” he replied. “Jane Horowitz?”

South African. Definitely South African.

“Jane…no, that doesn’t ring a bell.”

“I’m sorry, that’s her given name,” Sutton interjected. “You’d probably know her as Mercy. Mercy Merrimac?”

“Mercy! Oh, Yeah, sure. Shit, I haven’t seen her in…wow…two, three years? She married that rich old fucker, the investment guy from TV.” I hummed the jingle from the company’s commercials. “What was his name?”

Sutton laughed. It sounded like wind through a baby’s skeleton.

“That fucker would be me,” he said.

“Oh, shit,” I mumbled through the chunk of foot lodged in my mouth. “Sorry about that.”

“Oh, no apologies necessary, Mr. Littleton,” Sutton said. “But, since I’ve got you on the proverbial ropes, perhaps I could ask a favor of you?”

“I guess that would depend on the favor,” I replied.

“Of course, of course.” There was a long pause followed by a fit of thunderous coughing. When he finally came back on the line, Sutton’s voice was reduced to a brittle croak. “I’m terribly sorry, Mr.
Littleton. I’ve been…ill, you see.”

“That’s…that’s…geez, I’m sorry,” I said, maybe a little too dismissively. Truth was I didn’t care; I was more interested in what he wanted from me. “You mentioned a favor?”

“Ah, yes,” Sutton said. There was another long pause before he dropped the bomb.

“I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind sleeping with my wife?”

2

Being a good S.O. meant getting a lot of “special” requests; independent stuff, shot “off the grid”, free of the red tape, restrictions, and regulations of Mainstream. Once Mindseye went public, the
government stepped in and set limits on what you could and couldn’t do on a production. Everything from the volume of ejaculate applied to a woman’s face in the “money shot” (no dollops bigger
than a quarter, and certainly nothing above the nose) to the amount of time an S.O. could observe a dilated sphincter following anal intercourse was unblinkingly monitored and rigidly scrutinized by a
group we called the Spunk-Nazis: a small army of all-too-eager government stooges assigned to each production. If you wanted to bypass the Spunk-Nazis, you had to shoot off-grid, and shooting off-
grid meant selling Dark.

The government would have you believe that Dark Jacks were all snuff, bestiality, and kiddy porn; reprehensible stuff that I’m sure existed, but I’d never had the misfortune to come across. The reality
was that, while just as illegal as a donkey fuck flick, the majority of Dark Jacks were usually nothing more than the same sort of extra-dirty porn viewers had grown accustomed to long before Mindseye
and the government’s “grooming” of the industry. If you were into the real fringe stuff—bukaki, hardcore bondage, suffocation, watersports—you weren’t going to find that sort of flick in any slick,
upscale Jacker Station or the electronics department of your local big box store. No, if you wanted to experience the virtual agony of a high heel shoe grinding into your scrotum or the sweat-slick butt
ocks of a 300 pound woman draped over your face like a piping-hot meat mask—all stuff that the government deemed in poor taste, even for pornography—you had to shop Dark. That meant trolling
grimy flea markets, dealing with paranoid street vendors, or hoping the box of “scented candles” that you ordered from that internet vendor in Malaysia made it past customs, and, even then, there was
no guarantee that you were getting a quality product, if even a Dark Jack at all.

I knew this one guy who shelled out a week’s salary for a night of the hot nasties with a well-endowed she-male and ended up on a virtual tour of Mount Rushmore. He was so keyed up for the experience that he apparently blew his wad while staring up George Washington’s left nostril. He said it was one of the best orgasms he’s ever had, but, still; caveat emptor, friends, caveat emptor.

I’d never worked a Dark. I’d heard the money was good, and I’d been tempted, sure, but I did all right doing things on the level, so I didn’t see the point in risking the fines, the legal hassles, and my uni
on benefits for a few extra bucks.

At least, not until Random Sutton called me.

There was a whole other side to Dark; real stealth stuff, so far off-grid you couldn’t buy it at all; homemade, one-of-a-kind Jacks, privately filmed and funded by and for a privileged few. It was a
whole new movement, really; big-budget “home movies” for the smoking jacket and mink stole crowd. There weren’t a lot of people on the planet who could afford it—the ticket on a decent Mindseye
production rig ran in the high six figures—but if anyone had that sort of disposable income (not to mention the sort of cash it would take to bust my Dark cherry) it was Random Sutton.

The limo veered off the main road, navigated between two absurdly tall granite pillars, and slowed to a halt at an intricately welded wrought iron gate. The driver held out his hand, and, after the lasers
of the sentry cam put on a little light show on his palm, the gate slowly swung open, and we proceeded down a seemingly endless road lined with all manner of shrubbery pruned into perfect circles and squares—horticultural re-creations of the Sutton Group’s logo.

The driver hadn’t said two words to me since he’d picked me up at my apartment, but I didn’t mind; the liquor cabinet was well-stocked with the sort of booze I’d only read about in fine-living
magazines—you know; the rags you find in your doctor’s office waiting rooms, alongside titles like Porsche Enthusiast, Private School Journal, and Fleece the Middle Class Monthly—and I was too busy knocking back shots of Hennessy Ellipse to talk to anyone anyway.

The estate loomed in the distance, a stone giant twice the size of the high school I’d almost graduated from, fronted by a reflecting pool the length of a football field. The limo shook violently, sending a half-full glass of the $1800 dollar-a-bottle cognac spilling into my lap as we hit the cobblestone half-circle that served as the Sutton driveway. A gaggle of men in pristine powder gray jumpsuits attended to a meticulously well-cared for collection of cars—four identical black Rolls Royces, a red custom-built sports car that looked like something out of The Jetsons, and a metallic silver Bentley—that sat lined up against a row of garages. A few yards away, parked crookedly alongside the front steps, sat a pussy-pink vintage roadster, replete with rhinestone-encrusted dolphins dangling from the rearview mirror, fuzzy white seat covers dotted with sparkling
red cherries, and a license plate that read HOTNESS. It was the kind of car a trailer park girl would buy if she hit the lottery. And from the looks of things, Mercy Merrimac had hit it big time.

As the limo ground to a halt, I managed to pour myself one more glass of the good stuff before the driver threw open the door and ushered me out. I swallowed the drink in one gulp, and tossed
the leaded crystal glass back onto the limo’s floor as if it were an empty Styrofoam cup. I wiped my mouth on my coat sleeve and stumbled up the steps toward a pair of ebony doors that slowly
swung open, revealing a stout, Latino maid. She balanced a gleaming silver tray with a single champagne flute in its center, its fizzy contents probably worth more than she made in a month.

“Meester Sutton will join you on the veranda.” She purred that last word like a well-tuned chainsaw.

I picked up the glass, threw back the champagne in a single gulp, and carefully placed it back onto the tray. “Thanks.”

The maid glared at me like I’d just bitten off a kitten’s head.

“Follow me,” she said curtly, and shuffled off with astonishing speed for someone saddled with such stubby legs.

She led me through a maze of dimly lit hallways littered with paintings, sculptures, and all manner of knick knackery, all tied together by the common theme of complete and utter tastelessness.
Beautifully ornate antique frames housed velvet paintings of bullfighters and flamenco dancers, badly drawn pencil portraits of Elvis Presley, and one of those hideously morbid prints of deceased
movie stars and musicians sitting around the counter of some sort of heavenly diner. Jim Morrison ate fried chicken next to Humphrey Bogart, while Marilyn Monroe slurped coffee with James Dean and
Janis Joplin.

John Wayne dined alone.

Even in death, he was an asshole.

A life-size bronze statue of a muscular man endowed with a horse’s penis sat bookended between two lighted curio cabinets, each filled with at least a hundred different colored glass unicorns, miniature ceramic shoes, and bone-white figurines that looked like the ghosts of children with Down’s syndrome, each with blushed cheeks and disturbingly cherubic smiles plastered across walnut-shaped heads. Around the next corner sat a trio of life-sized carousel horses, with homely overstuffed rag dolls perched on each of their saddles.

Beyond them lay the cavernous maw that led to the veranda.

The maid ushered me over to a small marble table, pulled out a chair, and motioned for me to sit. “The Meester will be with you shortly,” she said.

I pointed at the empty champagne glass. “I’ll take another one of those when you get a chance.”

She nodded, turned, and darted off toward the house in a flurry of hushed Spanish profanity.

As I basked in the tranquil beauty of Sutton’s golf course-sized backyard, the hush was broken by the buzz and whine of what sounded like a remote controlled car. I turned to see an elderly man zooming toward me on a motorized cart, his bathrobe flowing behind him like a red velour vapor trail. He came to a halt just inches shy of the marble table, clicked off the engine, and thrust a gnarled appendage at me.

“So glad you could make it, Mr. Littleton,” he said.

I shook his hand. It felt like a dead trout wrapped in silk.

“Not a problem,” I said. “Hell, just the booze was worth the trip.”

Sutton smiled, and, when he did, his face puckered like a cat’s asshole. “Good, good,” he said. As he started to climb out of his cart, I stood to offer him a hand, but he waved me away. “I’m old, but not that old,” he said, gingerly lowering himself onto the chair across from me. “This…contraption…” He nodded toward the cart with no small measure of disgust. “It’s just for getting around the house. My Jane, she insists that I use it.”

“So…will she be joining us?” I asked.

Sutton shook his head. “No, no. She’s down at the tennis court. Today’s her lesson. Besides, even though this is her…gift…to me, I felt that the initial business was best left between us.” Sutton’s gaze
drifted down to a pair of balled-up fists in his lap. “She did tell me to give you her love, however, and says she’s looking forward to…working with you again.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. I just nodded, forced a reassuring smile, and looked around nervously, hoping that the maid would hurry the fuck up with my drink.

“Obviously this isn’t easy for me,” Sutton croaked. “Asking—Lord, paying—another man to make love to my wife, I mean, I can only imagine what you must think of me.”

“Hey, if it makes you feel any better, people in my line of work, we get requests like this all the time.” It wasn’t quite true, but the ghost of a smile the statement put on his face made me feel a little
better about what I was doing there. “I mean, a lot of old…um… mature gentlemen…when they can’t, you know, get it…you know, get it going…” I illustrated the point with pops, whistles, and a wiggling index finger. Sutton looked on with what appeared to be a mixture of amusement, confusion, and simmering rage.

“Mr. Littleton,” he interrupted, “I assure you that my desire—our desire—to make this Jack has nothing to do with something as simple as an inability to get an erection. Christ, there are pills for
that. ”

Sutton got to his feet, and started to fumble with a balled-up knot on the sash of his robe.

“For this, however, there is no such remedy.”

He threw open his robe and, all at once, I felt a little liquid seep out of nearly every orifice in my body, followed by a shrill, girlish scream I’d not thought myself capable of.

He stood before me, a mass of dusky, baggy flesh, all squashed grape nipples and veins and arteries. The remnants of a once-healthy belly reduced to a sagging flesh bowtie that draped over
what should have been his genitals, but was now nothing more than a gaping black chasm of necrotic flesh stuffed with wads of yellowed gauze bandages, and framed by a mottled, swollen donut of
freshly sutured skin. A filmy plastic tube protruded from its center, and ran down Sutton’s thigh to a plastic bag sloshing with urine as dark as triple malt scotch. Another baggie protruded from his lower
abdomen, half-filled with what looked like balls of brownie batter floating in a cup of coffee.

So caught up in the horror of the sight of Sutton’s disfigurement, I’d hardly noticed the smell; a sweet and sour chemical odor that, once fully realized, filled the back of my throat with a sizzling pool of bile and Crystal.

“That stink is the cancer,” Sutton said. “It started in my testicles. The doctors said they’d never seen it spread so fast.” He waved a hand toward the manse behind him, mercifully letting his robe fall
closed. “All of my money, the best medical minds in the world, and this is the best they could do for me.”

“I’m…I’m so…” I couldn’t find the words.

Sutton wagged his finger at me. “No, no. I’ve learned to accept it,” he said. “And my Jane—oh, she’s…she’s a rock, you know? She’s been so good…so good about everything.”

“So, this Jack, it’s her way of…”

“It’s her way of giving herself back to me,” he interrupted. “It’s not just the sex; it’s the closeness. I miss that the most. That’s why it’s important to me that this be done…tastefully. I want you to
make love to my wife. It can’t just be a ‘fuck.’ I need it to be more than that. I also want to be there, while it’s…happening.”

“What, you mean watch?” I asked.

“No, Mr. Littleton. I mean there,” Sutton said. “My people have assured me that I can ‘take part’ in the experience as it’s being recorded. Is that a problem for you?”

I shrugged. “Well, no, not really. I mean, I’ve never performed ‘live’ before, but it’s been done. Still, wouldn’t you rather wait until it’s mixed and mastered? I mean, a raw Jack…it can be kind of…
boring. It’s in the editing that my performance really, you know, shines.”

Sutton shook his head. “No, no. I don’t want any of that. I want this to be a completely genuine experience. No sensory enhancements of any kind. I want real sex, not some special effects wizard’s
interpretation of the act.”

“Sure, I mean, yeah, that’s totally doable, but I’m not sure it’s going to feel like you remember it feeling. I mean, I’m not in love with your wife so…”

Sutton cut me off. “That’s why you’re here. Jane says you’re the best in your field. She says that if anyone can give me what it is that I’m looking for, it’s you.”

“Well, I will certainly give it my best, Mr. Sutton,” I said.

He winced.

“I’m sure you will, son,” he said. “I’m sure you will.”

3

It was no accident that folks called the place Greasy Nick’s. The owner, a perpetually sweaty bearskin rug of man, with body odor you could almost see, was famous for the way he prepared his Coney
Island hot dogs. He would arrange the buns along a hairy forearm, lather them with three-alarm spicy meat sauce and an inch-thick slab of mystery cheese product, and then drop the whole shebang onto a dirty orange tray coated with a sheet of wax paper. Three bucks bought you four, six bucks bought you ten. The beads of perspiration that rained upon them from his forehead came at no extra
charge. It wasn’t healthy, but it was cheap and plentiful, and tasted damned good as long as you didn’t mind plucking the occasional short and curly out of your teeth.

Sitting there, eating sweat-soaked, hair-flecked hot dogs off of a dirty tray didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense. After all, I was waiting on one of the richest women in the state. I should have been cracking lobster claws and scooping up caviar by the ounce, but this was where she wanted to meet, and, seeing as how I was now working for her husband, I wasn’t going to argue.

I was on my third Coney when Mercy Merrimac’s pussy-pink roadster pulled up alongside the rows of orange fiberglass picnic tables. She slipped out the car, tugged her miniskirt down to mid-thigh length, and waved at me. Heads turned, but only for a moment. This city teamed with money and celebrities, and the locals were usually unimpressed. Besides, unless you were a lucky old-school Jacker (Random Sutton had long ago made sure his wife’s catalog was no longer available to the public), Mercy Merrimac was just a pretty face in a town full of even prettier ones.

“Heya, Mercy,” I said.

“It’s Jane, now.” She smiled coyly as she sat down beside me, crossing her legs and giving me a fleeting glimpse of the nothing she had on under her skirt.

“Yeah, well, you still look more like a Mercy to me.” I coughed.

She shook her head. “Random doesn’t like that name.” She produced a gold cigarette case from her handbag and flipped it open, revealing a dozen pencil-thin smokes with floral designs on the filters.

“You used to smoke Marlboro Reds.” I laughed.

“I used to do a lot of things,” she replied. The smile faded from her face, and the tears soon followed. “I juh-juh-just…d-d-don’t nuh-nuh-know who…I am…anymore.”

I’ve never been much good to a crying woman. Sure, I’ve had to calm some nerves on the set, talk the occasional girl through a tough scene, or lie and tell them it wasn’t their fault I couldn’t get it
up, but this, this was different. This was real. Mercy Merrimac—aka Jane Horowitz Sutton—was hurting inside, and all I could do was sit there and pat her on the back like I would a wounded Labrador.

“You don’t know what it’s been like,” she said. “It’s…it’s just… so hard!”

I kept on petting her and tried my best to sound soothing. “I know, I know. I mean, it can’t be easy seeing him like this.”

“What?” she croaked.

“I’m just saying that seeing someone you love suffer like that, I mean, I just can’t imagine…”

Mercy turned to me and laughed.

“I’m not crying because he got cancer, you stupid asshole,” she said.

“I’m crying because the bastard survived!”

4

I tried to tell myself it wouldn’t be murder.

Random Sutton was an old man; a sick man. If we did what Mercy said, if we did it the way she’d planned, it would just be nature taking its course.

“I want to fuck you so hard that the bastard’s heart explodes,” she said.

She reminded me of the scene we did on her first “feature” Jack, Have Mercy on Me (an actress knew she’d hit the big time when her name became part of the pun in a title). Just the thought of it made my own chest ache.

“Mercy, you’re talking about…killing a guy,” I said.

“I’d be doing all of the work,” she cried, rubbing her hands together nervously. “All you’d have to do…is just…just keep up. Just keep up and, I promise you, you’ll never have to work another day in
your life.”

“I don’t know, Mercy, I mean, this is just…”

She grabbed my wrists and pulled me toward her. Her face was a mess of swollen eyes and runny mascara. Bubbles of snot popped in her nostrils, and threads of silvery spittle webbed her lips tog
ether. Even in that state, she still looked hot as hell.

“I know what I’m asking you to do…to be a part of. But if you knew the truth; if you knew what he’s put me through.” Mercy let go of my wrists and cradled her head in her hands. “You…you wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me,” I said.

We spent the next hour huddled beneath an overpass around the corner from Greasy Nick’s, a rare Los Angeles rain spilling down on either side of us, while, underneath, we had our own private waterworks. In that hour I went from being scared, to sad, to sick, to downright fucking pissed off, and, in the end, it wasn’t just the money that made me decide to go through with it.

It was what Mercy told me about the real Random Sutton that truly sealed the deal.

That frail old man I met on the veranda that day—that sad-eyed and sentimental cancer survivor with the big oozing hole where his junk used to be? It turned out he was one hell of an actor. All of his
talk about love and dedication and loyalty, the things he’d do for his wife. He didn’t mention the part about locking her in their bedroom for a week because she came home late from a spin class, or the
daily workout regimen and liquid diet he forced upon her so that she could maintain her figure. He didn’t say anything about the beatings and humiliation, or speak of the “private parties” he held
where he watched, laughing while his rich friends each had their turn with her.

She cried when she told me that the Jack I was hired for—the one he claimed was her gift to him—was actually slated to be this year’s Christmas present to his board of directors; after he got a
taste of the quality first, of course.

It was when she started to hyperventilate, as she tried to tell me what he made her do with his accountant’s Rottweiler, Blitzkrieg, that I came to the conclusion that Random Sutton was one twisted fuck who truly deserved to die.

5

The limo arrived five minutes early, giving me a bit of a head start on the cognac. I would have finished the bottle had the driver taken the freeway, but he knew better than to engage that clusterfuck at this time of day and took the back roads, dumping me on Sutton’s doorstep a few drinks shy of oblivion. Two men in matching black everything greeted me, as I stumbled out of the back of the limo, and ushered me into the foyer where Sutton’s maid waited, eyeing me with the requisite amount of disdain.

“They’re not ready for you,” she said, knocking me back into an uncomfortable wooden chair. “You wait here.”

She click-clacked off before I could ask her for a drink, but I doubted she would have brought me one, anyway.

I sat there for at least a half-an-hour, my ass throbbing in protest, when a ruckus erupted in the other room. I peered out of the foyer long enough to catch a glimpse of Mercy arguing with one of
the security goons as they roughly escorted her upstairs. I started after her, but a hand the size of a lion’s paw dropped upon my shoulder and scooped me back into the foyer.

“Mrs. Sutton’s having a…difficult…morning,” the guard said in a voice deep enough to loosen my stools. “I’ve been told to apologize for the delay.”

“Difficult, huh? Um, okay, but can I get a drink…you know, while we wait?” I asked, hoping to ward off the encroaching sobriety.

“Absolutely,” the guard said. “What would you like?”

“Oh, I don’t know. How about a hundred-year-old scotch?” I laughed.

The guard pressed a finger to his ear, lowered his mouth to his lapel, and mumbled something into his chest. He nodded several times, mumbled something else, and then turned back to me. “The
oldest we have is a ‘37 Macallan Royal. Will that be acceptable?”

“Well, I guess that’ll have to do,” I said.

He nodded and mumbled into his chest again. In the time it took the guard to crack each of the vertebrae in his neck, a reedy old black man appeared in the doorway. He had charcoal gray hair so
closely cropped to his ebony dome that it looked sprayed on, and he sported a marshmallow-white servant’s outfit that made him look like that old black chef on the Cream of Wheat box. He presented
me with a glass of booze bottled three years before my Granny Littleton was even born, waited until I took a sip, and then smiled a pink, gummy smile as he bowed his way out of the room.

“Smooth,” I said.

The guard offered a single affirmative nod.

I lowered my still-throbbing ass back onto the impossibly small chair and wondered aloud why anyone would own such a thing, let alone pay good money for it. I shifted around uncomfortably for another fifteen minutes before the maid returned and whispered in the guard’s ear.

“Mr. Littleton?” The guard stepped aside and motioned for me to pass. “They’re ready for you.”

6

Prepping an S.O. for a Mindseye production used to be a fairly involved process, but they’ve streamlined the shit out of it in the short time the tech’s been around. These days all you need to do is drop a couple of nerve stims, inject the sub-dermals behind your ears, run a quick test of the levels, and go for it. The old man had contracted some hotshot university outfit for this Jack, with super high-end gear, some of it real bleeding-edge stuff I’d never even seen before.

I was brought into Sutton’s room, told to disrobe, and assured that Mercy would be joining me shortly.

“What, no fluffer?” I asked, only half-jokingly. The techs looked puzzled by the request so I waved them off. As I sat on the edge of the ridiculously soft bed and tugged myself to a respectable half-
hard, a distorted voice hissed through a small speaker on the nightstand.

“Very good, sir. The readings in here are almost optimal. Would you mind just…um… giving us a second to make some calibrations?”

“What, you want me to stop playing with my dick?” I asked.

“Umm, yes sir. If you could…err…stop…that would be great.”

“That’s all you had to say, bro,” I said.

“Okay, you may notice a bit of…”

The rest of his words were drowned out by a loud hum that gave way to a searing pain I can only describe as a million ice cream headaches all at once. The next thing I knew I was lying on the floor
halfway across the room.

“Jesus Fucking Christ on a unicycle, what the hell was that?” I cried.

“Sorry, sir. Just a little glitch in the syncing software.”

“A little glitch?” I said, climbing back onto the bed. “Just watch it, will ya?”

“It should be fine, now.”

Mercy finally entered the room, wearing a long, silk robe that she immediately discarded, and sat down beside me.

“Something’s wrong,” she whispered.

I rubbed at my temples. “You’re telling me. That frat boy in there nearly fried my fucking skull.”

“No, not that,” she whispered. “I mean, look at all the extra security here today. I can’t even walk around my own house! I wanted to ask Random what the hell was going on, but they wouldn’t even
let me near the bastard’s study.”

“Yeah, I saw that,” I said. “They’re your security goons, too, aren’t they?”

Mercy laughed. “Yeah, right. Like I have any kind of say. In the end, everyone works for Random Sutton.” She ran a finger down my cheek and winked. “Even you, doll.”

“Yeah,” I whispered. “For now.”

“For now,” she whispered back.

“Okay,” the tinny voice buzzed from the speaker. “Mr. Sutton is prepped and ready. We’ll be merging the feeds momentarily, Mr. Littleton, so if you two…want to…umm…get started, that’d be…uh…great.”

The tech counted down from five, Mercy and I shrugged, and, with the sort of enthusiasm most people reserved for tasks like mowing the lawn or doing the dishes, we started to fuck.

We kept it nice and slow, just like we’d planned it. Mercy writhed about beneath me, running her hands over herself, kneading her perfectly sculpted breasts, pinching and twisting her nipples. She
let out some throaty moans, a couple of catlike mews, and even threw in an exaggerated shriek of ecstasy or two. She may have been away from the industry for a while, but she hadn’t missed a beat. It was a perfectly executed foreplay session, with lots of flickering tongues, probing fingers, and the obligatory five minutes of him-’n-her oral stimulation. It was all perfectly soft and loving and boring
as hell; just the way Random Sutton wanted it.

Then Mercy pinched my shoulder.

Twice, like she said she would.

It was the signal.

I rolled onto my back, and Mercy climbed on top of me, slipping me inside her, hips gyrating, gaining momentum.

It was on.

The idea for the “Cowgirl Blitz” came to Mercy during a promotional tour for one of her first Jacks. She was the featured dancer at a seedy topless honky-tonk in Bakersfield called Wiley’s Pork ‘n Pussy Revue—Boobs, Beer, and BBQ. The place featured a mechanical bull the locals called Triturador De la Bola—the ball breaker—that Mercy rode naked on a liquor-fueled bet. Not only did the little cowgirl manage to stay on the bull for the full two-minute ride, but she came eight times in the process.

She called it the best fuck she’d ever had.

When it came time to shoot Have Mercy on Me!, she wanted to try and replicate the experience for her adoring fans—with me standing in for the bull, of course. We’d spent days rehearsing what would be the Jack’s “grand finale”, as well as what Mercy hoped would become her signature “move.”

Tragically, the Cowgirl Blitz would not catch on.

Have Mercy on Me! was pulled from the shelves within two weeks of its release after more than three hundred consumers reported everything from dehydration to exhaustion to full-on cardiac arrest as a result of the Jack. The director was fired, the editors were blacklisted, and, at the time, it looked like the end of Mercy’s career. However, when the news hit the mainstream media, her popularity soared, and, after the requisite amount of hush money fell into all the right hands, Have Mercy… was re-cut, repackaged, and reissued with a boastful red warning label (despite the fact that the Cowgirl Blitz had been all but completely edited out), and a new tagline that proclaimed Mercy Merrimac as the owner of “the fastest hips in the west!”

Now those hips were back in action, and picking up steam. Pelvic bone ground against pelvic bone, and, with every thrust, a feral grunt escaped her. Her eyes locked with mine as her breasts spun
wildly out in front of her, her nipples blurring into purple/pink halos that hung in the air before me. The air grew thick with the smell of us. The bed shook, the headboard pounded against the wall, the
box spring squealed in protest. My heart raced as our sweat-slicked bodies slapped together with superhuman rhythm: Thwak-thwak-thwak-thwak-thwak-thwak-thwak-thwak…

I could feel it in my temples, my jaw; every inch of me throbbing. And I could feel Mercy, too. Down there; pulsating all around me.

And then I felt something else; something in my head. It was as if the back of my skull had opened up, and something was crawling around inside.

Something cool.

Something dark.

Something wet.

And then came the black.

7

There are 22 bones in the adult human skull.

Judging by what was left of Mercy Merrimac’s face, more than half of hers were reduced to powder.

She lay on her stomach, clawed and bloodied, chunks of flesh torn from her neck, breasts, and abdomen. Her arms and legs were bent at impossible angles; her head twisted 180 degrees so that her
shattered chin rested upon a shoulder blade. Mercy’s eyes stared back up at me, oozing out of their shattered sockets like soft-boiled eggs, balancing on beveled fragments of cheekbone that protruded
through nearly transparent skin.

I held my trembling hands out in front me, bloodied up to the elbows, frayed skin revealing the glistening white bone of exposed knuckle. A chunk of an incisor lay lodged into the meat of my palm.
Clumps of hair and blood were gathered under my fingernails. My mouth tasted of copper and salt. As I ran my tongue across the back of my teeth, I felt the tickle of bits of fibrous flesh wedged between
them.

Panic welled inside of me. I scurried off of the bed, and fell to floor in a heap of gore-soaked sheets. My arms and legs twitched. My spine sizzled. I got to my knees and felt a spasm in the pit of my
stomach. A geyser of blood and glistening oysters of half-digested tissue splashed out onto the hardwood floor before me.

I got to my feet, and bounced against the walls as I shambled down the hallway. When I reached the top of the stairs, inertia did the rest, sending me tumbling ass over tea kettle down the steps unt
il I found myself splayed out on the cold marble floor of the great room.

As I lifted my head, I heard what sounded like a hundred guns cocking at the same time.

“Easy, gentlemen,” a familiar voice croaked. “Lower your weapons.”

Sutton stood at the entrance to the great room, swimming in a checkered hospital johnny that draped over his withered frame. His hotshot university Mindseye techs stood on either side of him, each
trembling like they’d stumbled into a cave full of vipers.

“What is this, Sutton?” I nodded toward the guards.

“A simple precaution, Mr. Littleton.” Sutton hobbled toward me, motioning for the guards to put away their weapons. “They’d warned of the potential for residual psychosis following a merged Jack. Especially one…so intense.” He stood above me, now; the stink of him burned in my sinuses. “I couldn’t have you running around tearing up the place, now, could I?”

“You son of a bitch,” I hissed. “I thought you said you were just gonna strangle her? You beat her to a fucking pulp!”

Sutton smiled. “I know, I know. I’m sorry, son. It’s just that I felt so strong. Stronger than I’ve felt in a long, long time.” He held up his hands and balled his fists. “I’m afraid I just got…carried away.”

“Carried away. Right.” I spat a dollop of glistening red saliva onto the black and white marble floor. “You fucking ate her, man!”

“Mr. Littleton, you of all people should understand the importance of good showmanship!” he cried. “Was it a little over-the-top? Perhaps. But my friends—they think they’ve seen and done it all.
This, however, is something I can be fairly certain they’ve never experienced. I’m giving some very bored, very jaded individuals a nearly priceless gift.”

“Nearly?” I asked.

“Mr. Littleton.” Sutton winked. “Everything—everyone—has a price.”

That was the second time he’d said that to me in two days.

The first time was that night after Mercy came to see me.

He’d had her followed of course; even she knew that.

She just didn’t figure on him listening in.

Sutton didn’t deny anything she’d told me. As a matter of fact, he’d seemed downright proud of it. He even giggled a little when I mentioned the Rottweiler, the sick fuck.

What it boiled down to was that he made me the better offer, plain and simple. Mercy, she’d never have gotten his money, anyway; Sutton assured me of that. If he died, she wouldn’t see a penny
of it, and neither would I. That would’ve made me worse than a murderer.

It would’ve made me an unpaid murderer.

8

It’s been going on six months now.

I’m still making Jacks, but just to keep up appearances. It’s getting harder to explain how I can afford to live the way I do on an S.O.’s salary, but I figure I’ll put in a few more months, and then
disappear before the IRS catches on.

Disappearing’s easy; just ask Mercy Merrimac.

I still haven’t changed my mind about Sutton. The man’s a creep, and he deserves to die. The thing is that men like him, they only die when they’re ready to die. And he’s got people on the payroll to make sure of that.

It’s just like Mercy said. In the end, everyone works for Random Sutton.

Even me.

---

Order Gratia Placenti: For the Sake of Pleasing from Apex Publications.

The rain pounded on the roof of the Durango like a thousand impatient fingers, cascading down the windshield in a stream of such volume as to render the wipers useless. It was like staring at the world from behind a roaring waterfall. A fierce wind rocked the truck like a baby’s cradle, and whistled through the door seals.

Lex Daly sighed as he stared down at his cell phone.

No tower.

Not that he expected one.

Not out here.

More than an hour had passed since the Durango chugged, coughed, and sputtered its way onto the soft shoulder of this narrow road posing as a highway between cornfields and neck-high grass. It was over an hour since he scurried out into the soaking rain to perform the obligatory check under the hood. He tapped a few things, hoping to shake something loose, and then cursed himself for bothering. He had about as much business under the hood of a car as a bus driver had performing open heart surgery. Now, as he sat here waiting for the satellite gods to line-up in some sort of divine configuration that would afford him a signal on his cell phone, he shivered in his rain-soaked khakis and wool sweater. They clung to him like a clammy second skin.

Lex turned on the Durango’s heater. It spewed forth a stale, lukewarm breeze that chilled him more, so he slapped at the fan control and shut it off. The radio still worked – three stations, anyway. He settled on talk radio as the other two offered a choice between fire and brimstone evangelism and country music; not the modern shit-kicker stuff, but pure old bluegrass that popped and hissed like it was being played off of the original warped 45’s. Under normal circumstances he’d have chosen the music, but stuck out here in the rain, in the middle of nowhere, and with the first light of dawn hours away, he welcomed the reassuring voices of the talk radio station.

Just as an irate old woman engaged the show’s host in a spirited argument over the state’s methods of waste disposal, Lex noticed headlights in his rear view mirror. As the vehicle came to a stop behind him, Lex held his hand up to his eyes and squinted back through the rear window when a sudden rapping on the glass startled him.

“Hey! Ya awright in there?” a muffled voice shouted. Through the rain-streaked window he could see little more than a yellow blob.

Lex rolled the window down. A fat man with a beet red face and a neon yellow rain slicker peered in at him.

“I said are ya awright in there?” the fat man repeated, yelling above the whipping wind.

Lex nodded and smiled, wiping the water from his face.

“Yeah, she just died on me awhile ago. I’ve been sitting here and…” Lex held up his cell phone. “No signal.”

The man nodded.

“Yep, them things never work when ya’ be needin’ ‘em to. ‘Specially out here.”

The man’s lower lip bulged over a wad of chewing tobacco. He leaned forward and drooled out a healthy gob of syrupy brown spit. “You be needin’ a tow, then?”

Lex nodded enthusiastically.

“Oh, yeah. I mean, that’d be great,” he said.

The man nodded, sucked at his teeth, and then spat out the clump of tobacco. He looked up and down the road, and then back at Lex.

“Awright, lemme pull around in fronta ya.”

He walked back to the truck, and Lex rolled up his window, looked to the heavens and mouthed a thank you to whoever might be listening. The fat man’s truck slowly rolled past, and jockeyed to a position pulled in front of Lex’s dead Durango. The other truck’s red running lights bathed the Durango in an eerie red glow. The fat man walked around to the front of Lex’s truck, and then disappeared under the front end. There was a percussive clatter as the man attached the tow hook to the front of the Durango, and, when the man popped back into view, he was standing at the driver’s side window.

“’Kay, it’s all hooked up,” he said.

Lex nodded and smiled. The man stood there and stared back at him impatiently.

“What is it?” Lex asked.

“Well, yer gonna have to ride up with me,” the man said. “Can’t tow when yer in it.”

“Oh, yeah, been a long day,” Lex said, pointing at his own head. “Brain’s fried.”

The driver smiled politely and then waddled quickly back to his truck. Lex pulled his keys from the ignition, grabbed his cell phone, and slipped out into the rain. He sloshed through the ankle-deep puddles and grabbed the passenger door. It swung open and Lex hung on as the wind threatened to tear it off its hinges.

“Christ, it’s like a hurricane!” he said as he wrestled the door shut and settled into the tow truck’s hard vinyl seats. The driver slammed his door shut, and nodded.

“Get’s mighty bad this time ‘a the year. We get worse n’ this. Floods, too. Don’t reckon you see nutin’ like that back in Massachusetts.”

Lex tilted his head to the side at the word. Mayahs-ahh-chew-suds

“How’d you know I was from…?”

“Yer plates,” the man interrupted. Lex smiled wearily.

Of course.

The driver flicked a switch and, with that, the winch began to churn and rattle. Lex winced as he heard a thump that sounded like it came from his Durango. The driver looked over his shoulder at Lex’s truck, nodded, and then shifted the tow truck into gear. As they rolled slowly back onto the road, Lex looked at the driver and extended his hand.

“My name’s Lex. Lex Daly,” he said.

The driver looked at Lex’s hand, and then at his own. He rubbed his grease stained palm along his jeans and shook Lex’s hand.

“Carlton. Like the ballplayer,” he said.

“Carlton Fisk?” Lex asked.

Carlton looked puzzled.

“Naw, the pitcher. Steve Carlton. My daddy was a fan of his back when he was a Cardinal,” Carlton said.

“So you’re a Cards fan?” Lex asked.

“Nah, I ain’t much for sports. ‘Cept, maybe, huntin’,” Carlton said, his eyes focused on the road.

Lex nodded emphatically.

“Yeah, hunting. I’ve never done it, but, well, I hear it’s…um….”

Carlton interrupted. “Not a lotta people have the stomach for it.”

“No, I imagine not,” Lex said.

After a few minutes of silence, Carlton looked over at Lex.

“There ain’t no garages open this time o’night, but my cousin, he’s real good with the cars. He’ll take a look at it for ya, if ya want.”

“Is he a mechanic?” Lex asked. “I mean, it’s a new truck. There’s warranty stuff and…”

Carlton cut him off again. He seemed suddenly agitated. “He’s good with the cars. It’s either that or I gotta take ya all the way back into town, and, well, you’ll be waitin’ until morning, then.”

“Well, I don’t want to wake up your cousin,” Lex said, trying to sound sincere. Fact was, he was alarmed by the prospect of some backwoods Gomer tinkering with his forty thousand dollar truck.

“Nah, Bossy won’ mind. Hell…” Carlton twisted his meaty wrist around and held his watch up to his eyes. “It ain’t even two, yet. He prolly still up.”

Lex sunk in his seat. “Great. That’s…great,” His voice trailed off as he stared out into the darkness trying to think of another way out of this. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet.

“You know, come to think of it, I really don’t want to impose,” Lex said, producing a trio of fifty dollar bills from his wallet. “I’ll give you $150 if you take me back to town. I’ll wait it out until morning. It’s no big deal, really.”

Carlton sighed, and shook his head. “Aw man, I don’t want yer money, mister. I was just on my way home when I happened on ya. It wouldn’a been right leavin’ ya out there in the rain like that.”

Lex smiled and held the money out to Carlton.

“No, don’t be silly. You’re doing me a tremendous favor. Here, take it. Just take it,” Lex said.

Carlton eyed the money and then shook his head.

“Naw, mister. As much as I could use the money, I’m dead tired. I mean, town’s more n’ a half hour back and I ain’t got the energy left in me,” Carlton let out an exaggerated yawn as if to push the point home, and pushed Lex’s hand away.

“Bossy’ll fix ya up. He’s real good with the cars,” Carlton said.

Lex stared down at the three fifties and crumpled them in his hand. He knew where this was going. Carlton was going to take him to some out of the way garage where his cousin would charge five times what Lex just offered him for a fucking spark plug. And then he wouldn’t have any choice but to pay the son-of-a-bitch whatever he asked. That is, of course, unless he wanted to hitchhike his way back to Boston.

“Okay,” Lex sighed, shoving the money back into his billfold. “You win.”

Carlton shot him a puzzled look and then shrugged and turned his attention back to the slick road. They drove on in silence for nearly twenty minutes, before Carlton turned off the road onto a muddy driveway. In the distance, Lex could see the faint glow of a porch light. The rain seemed to let up some as they drove further down the driveway, and Lex could now see a makeshift parking lot full of junked cars surrounding a ramshackle little cottage. The front of the house was lined with empty wood-framed cages covered in chicken wire, bales of soaked hay, and stacks of tires and old rims covered in a ratty plastic tarp that whipped around violently in the wind. Carlton parked the truck in front of the house, and the front door swung open. A stout, bald man with a black sleeveless t-shirt and stained, striped boxers stepped out onto the porch. He held a bottle of beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

“Godamn, boy. You late!” the man yelled.

“Sorry, Bossy. This here fella was stuck back on Rt. 12. I tol’ him you’d take a look at his car, here,” Carlton yelled over the hum of the winch engine as he lowered the Durango.

Bossy stepped forward into the rain, cupping his cigarette, and eyed the new truck.

“Nice ride. New one, ain’t it?” he asked to no one in particular.

“Yeah, I’ve only had it a few months. It just died on me,” Lex said, stepping out of the truck.

“Hmmm, prolly the rain getting’ at yer wires. They do that on these new ‘uns. ‘Specially in rain like this. All it takes is one thing getting’ wet,” Bossy said. “Well, come in and dry off. I’ll get ya a beer if ya like.”

Lex nodded. “Yeah, a beer sounds good. Thanks.”

Lex followed Bossy onto the porch and then stopped to look back at Carlton. As he unhooked the tow cable, he gave him a thumbs-up sign and a baked bean smile. Lex nodded and turned back toward the house. As he stepped through the tattered screen door, the smell of stale beer, smoke, and Old Spice assaulted his senses. The living room was small and cluttered with a pair of battered Lazy-Boys in front of a coffee table covered with empty bottles, cans, dirty dishes and crumpled empty chip bags. An old console television with a bulging picture tube surrounded by a faux wood cabinet sat in the far corner. The theme from The Rockford Files blared out of its exposed speakers. James Garner’s flesh was a sickly green and yellow, as scan lines wiggled their way across the screen.

Bossy came around the corner holding two bottles of beer. Lex didn’t recognize the brand, but he twisted the cap off and took a swig. It was too sweet and a little flat, but it was cold and he was thirsty.

“So, do you think you can fix it?” he asked.

Bossy spun the cap off of his beer with his thumb and watched it as it hit the wood floor and rolled off into the corner.

“I reckon’,” Bossy said. “Long as it ain’t nothin’ too serious.”

Lex nodded and took another swig of his beer.

“In any case, I ain’t gonna get much done in this shit,” Bossy said, pointing outside. The rain had picked up again. Carlton lunged through the screen door, and stomped his muddy boots on the floor. He looked much bigger inside the little house.

“Jeeee-sus!” Carlton said as he slipped his rain slicker over his head revealing a Garth Brooks concert t-shirt. He threw the slicker over the back of one of the lazy boys and wiped his wet hands off on Garth’s face.

“Carlton, go clear off the bed in yer daddy’s room. Give this fella a place to get some shut eye,” Bossy said.

“No, no. I’m fine, really. I mean, once it clears up we can…”

Bossy interrupted him. “It’s gonna be mornin’ soon enough. Hopefully this’ll blow over by then and we’ll get ya’ back on the road first thing. I’m gonna catch a few winks myself, make sure my head’s clear by then,” Bossy said, holding up his beer with a grin. “Don’t want me under that hood half-drunk, now, do ya?”

Lex shook his head. “No. No, I guess not.”

Bossy waved Carlton toward the back of the house.

“Go fix it up for ‘im. Make sure he’s got clean sheets an all.”

Carlton bowed his head as he walked past. It was now clear to Lex why this man was called Bossy.

“He always do what you tell him?” Lex asked as he finished his beer.

Bossy’s smile faded. “Why you ask?”

“Just that, well, he’s a big fella and…”

“He’s as big as he is dumb. And he knows enough to respect his elders, is all.” Bossy said. “’Less he wants a boot up his ass.”

“Ah,” Lex said, nodding as he rolled the empty bottle of beer between his thumb and forefinger. “I see.”

“No,” Bossy said. “I reckon you don’t.”

The blow to the head was sudden and sharp. Lex fell to his knees, and the room began to spin. He felt the beer in his belly work its way up the back of his throat. As he knelt there, swaying, the voices of Bossy and Carlton sounded distant and muffled.

“You hit him too hard, ya dumb fucker!” Bossy cried. “He’s bleedin’ for Chrissake!”

“I hit’m like I always hit’m. Maybe his head’s jus’ soft!” Carlton shouted back.

Lex heard a loud smack.

“Ow!” Carlton yelled.

“Just take ‘im to the room while I find somethin’ to patch ‘im up with!” Bossy shouted, charging out of the room. “She ain’t gonna like this. Not one bit.”

Lex felt something tickling the side of his face. It felt like an ant crawling down his cheek, into the corner of his mouth. Then, when it trickled in and pooled at the side of his tongue, he could taste it; the unmistakably salty, strangely metallic flavor of his own blood. He tipped his head back and saw Carlton standing above him.

“Whaaaaaaa….” Lex gargled.

Carlton slipped his hands under Lex’s armpits and dragged him across the floor. Lex’s head bobbed and bounced with every bump. The top of his head felt cold, yet burned all at once. As Carlton dragged him down the dark hall, Lex’s eyes drifted shut and he slipped into unconsciousness.

*****

The bindings on his wrists were so tight his hands were blue. His feet were bound too, but at least he could still feel them. He was nude, and tied down to musty old mattress in the middle of a musty, empty old room. He’d only been awake for an hour or so, aware of only the pain in his head, the numbness in his hands, and the chill that ran over his exposed body. He hadn’t seen or heard Bossy and Carlton since he’d come to, but he wasn’t in any rush to see them.

While he wanted answers, he didn’t want answers.

Besides, his imagination had already figured it all out for him. These two hicks wanted a plaything. The thought of these two greasy baboons having their way with him was terrifying, but it was what they would do with Lex when they’d finished with him that filled him with both unspeakable rage and crippling fear.

Lex Daly was going to die.

But then those words came to him. The last thing he heard Bossy say.

She ain’t gonna like this. Not one bit.

As visions of chainsaw wielding, flesh eating, “squeal like a pig” backwoods sycophants filled his head, he heard footfalls; creaking in the floorboards. A slamming door, a cough, and footsteps approaching the door. Then a buzzing sound. A whirring.

A chainsaw?

No, it sounded more like…

A blender?

The door swung open and Bossy entered the room. He was carrying a large brown paper bag in one hand, and a clear plastic pitcher that was filled with a brown liquid. A dirty pillow was stuffed under his arm.

“Oh, lookie here. Rise and shine, boy! Breakfast is ready!” Bossy said, squatting beside the mattress. He placed the bag and pitcher on the floor next to him and put his hand behind Lex’s head and leaned it toward him.

“Look, I don’t know what you want or why…I have money. I have a lot of money,” Lex said. Bossy nodded as he stuffed the pillow behind his head.

“Is that so?” Bossy said, clearly uninterested.

“I’m a…lawyer…well…a student, but I have money. My family, they have…” Lex froze as Bossy reached into the bag and pulled out a long, clear plastic hose. “I have friends. People who will miss me!”

Bossy nodded. “Oh, I’m sure ya’ do,” he said as he affixed a funnel to one end of the hose. “I’m sure…you…do.”

“C’mon! Man, what…what do you fuckin’ want!? What can I…?” Lex pleaded. Bossy cut him off.

“I want you to shut yer yap for a minute so I can get this done before Regis comes on, dammit!” Bossy screamed. “Carlton, get me the tape!”

Lex heard the floor boards creak as Carlton stepped into the room.

“What kind?” he asked.

“What? What do you…The kind we always use you dumb monkey!” Bossy fumed.

“You coulda just said the grey kind…” Carlton muttered as he left.

“Look, I promise, just…just let me go and I won’t say nothing. I mean, you can keep the truck, my money, whatever, just lemme go,” Lex begged.

Carlton came back into the room and rolled the duct tape across the floor. It bounced off the edge of the mattress and Bossy picked it up, stretched off a piece, and held it above Lex’s mouth.

“Aww, man, nooommmph….” Lex cried as Bossy slapped the tape over his lips.

“There, that’s better,” Bossy said. “Some peace an’ fuckin’ quiet!”

Bossy reached into the paper bag and pulled out a grimy jar of Vaseline, flipped off the metal cap, and scooped out a plum sized dollop of the stuff which he then rubbed on the end of the hose. Lex’s eyes widened.

“Oh fuck me he’s going to shove that up my ass,” he thought.

“This ain’t goin’ where ya thinkin’” Bossy said, as if reading his mind.

Bossy set the hose down and reached into his pocket, producing a small rusted jack-knife with a yellowed bone handle. He peeled open the blade with his teeth and brought it up to Lex’s face, circling the tip above his eyes. Lex blinked defensively, and Bossy smiled, bringing it down and cutting a small incision in the tape across his mouth.

“Mmmmmph.” Lex tried to speak but he still couldn’t move his lips.

“Carlton, get back here. I’m ready for ya now!” Bossy yelled.

The floor shook as Carlton jogged down the hall and into the room. He walked over and knelt at Lex’s head, and slipped the pillow out from beneath it. He placed a warm sweaty palm over Lex’s forehead and another at the base of his skull, and twisted his head back as far as nature allowed. Bossy grabbed the greased up end of the hose and pressed it through the tear in the tape, rested a hand on Lex’s jaw, and forced the hose into his mouth. Lex started gagging as the tube filled his mouth and began to snake its way down his throat. He began to convulse wildly, as he choked on the hose.

“Damnit, Carlton, hold him down you fat fucker!” Bossy yelled, shoving the hose in with both hands. Carlton pulled his hand out from under Lex’s neck and draped his flabby arm across his chest.

“Okay, okay, it’s in!” Bossy yelled, climbing over Lex. He pushed Carlton’s arm away and straddled Lex’s chest himself, pressing his knees into his shoulders.

“Get the pitcher,” Bossy said as he pulled the exposed hose taught and leveled out the funnel.

When Lex saw what was in the pitcher, he began to struggle again, nearly knocking Bossy off of his chest.

The contents of the pitcher moved.

Carlton quickly tipped it into the funnel, and Lex watched in horror as the brown liquid descended down the hose toward his mouth. Only now he could see that it wasn’t liquid at all, but a mass of small, gelatinous worms that coiled around each other and slithered down the hose as one. He could feel the hose vibrating in his throat as they passed down into his esophagus. His stomach fought back with painful spasms, but it couldn’t hold the creatures back as they squirmed into his belly. Carlton drained the pitcher until every last one of the worms had slithered out into the funnel and then placed it on the floor next to him. Bossy shifted himself down, straddling Lex’s waist, still holding the funnel aloft. The hose was now empty, save for a translucent coat of amber ooze. Bossy looked at Carlton and nodded. Carlton nodded back. And, with one swift move, Bossy tugged the hose from Lex’s mouth. As the tube cleared his throat, Lex tried to suck in a breath, choking on the slimy residue lodged in the back of his throat. Bossy dropped the hose and funnel back into the paper bag, picked up the pitcher and stood above Lex.

“We’ll bring ‘er in later. Give this awhile,” he said, and walked across the room and out the door. Carlton looked down at Lex and smiled.

“You just wait till you meet her,” he said, a genuine smile forming on his face. “You gonna love her, I guarantee.”

And with that, Carlton stomped across the room and slammed the door behind him, leaving Lex alone in the dark, musty room.

Except he wasn’t alone.

Dear god, he wasn’t alone.

****

In the dream he was driving again, coming back east from the interview in St. Louis.

He stopped in Fitchwell, Missouri- a small, out of the way town off the interstate.

He got gas, bought soda, ate a microwave cheeseburger, and asked for directions.

A man at the pump showed him a shortcut.

He had to piss. He went back inside.

It all happened like it happened, except this time, he knew something else.

The man who gave him the directions, he did something to his truck.

He put something in the gas tank when he went back inside.

Something in the gas.

Then, he was back on the side of the road and Carlton was there.

It wasn’t raining in the dream, and Carlton wasn’t alone.

Something was with him.

Something beautiful.

And then he was floating. He was floating above Boston.

He could see people on the streets below him.

He floated past them and waved and they smiled and waved back.

But they weren’t people at all.

They weren’t people at all.

They were…

*****

Something shook the floor, waking Lex with a start. It was Carlton. He had slammed the door shut behind him and was dousing the room with a pressure sprayer, coating the walls and floor with a fine mist of something that smelled sweet and earthy, like freshly cut grass.

He looked down at Lex, and seemed surprised to see him looking back up at him.

“Oh, sorry. Din’t mean to wake you,” he said.

Lex shook his head and dropped it back on the mattress.

“She likes it like this. Somethin’ about the wet makes her more comfortable.” Carlton continued as he sprayed. “You should get more sleep. I reckon you’ll need it.”

“Fuck you,” Lex said, except it came out more like phlunklho. It didn’t matter. Carlton knew what he meant and shook his head.

“No need to be cussin’ at me, Lex. She picked you. Wuddin’ my fault,” he said, aiming the wand at Lex. The spray was cold but it felt good on his skin. He had felt feverish since they made him…

…eat.

“You thirsty?” Carlton asked.

Lex looked at him and then at the sprayer.

“It’s just water an’ sugar an’ stuff. Ain’t nothin’ poison in it.”

Lex nodded.

“Okay, okay. Just a little, though. Bossy’d kill me if he saw me givin’ ya any.”

Carlton aimed the wand over the slit in the tape and pressed the head through. He sprayed lightly and the water filled Lex’s mouth. As Carlton pulled the wand back out, Lex swished the water around, moistening every crevice in his mouth before swallowing hard, forcing it past the ache in his throat. He felt something shift in his stomach. At first it was like a tickle; like a feather inside his gut, but it quickly turned into a churning, rolling sensation.

“They don’t like the water much,” Carlton said, staring down at Lex’s midsection. “It’ll pass in a second.”

Lex lifted his head and looked at his stomach. It was swollen and twitching and covered in dozens of pea sized red spots. He felt a growl and a sensation like a hunger pain, but only lower and more intense. As his stomach bulged outward he could see veins throbbing under his skin.

Veins that moved.

Veins that squirmed, and coiled.

Lex shut his eyes tight and let out a shrill, nasally scream. The pain in his stomach spread down to just above his groin and he felt like he was going to burst.

“Jus’ wait!” Carlton yelled. “Jus’ wait a..”

And then, the painful sensation passed through Lex courtesy of a fart so loud he thought he’d shit all over the mattress.

Carlton laughed and waved his hand in front of his face.

“Woo! Boy, howdy, that’s the loudest yet!” He said, clearly pleased with himself.

“CARLTON!” Bossy screamed from the other room.

“Oh man, Oh man, Oh man.” Carlton looked panicked and started pacing.

Bossy threw open the door and stomped across the room toward them, freezing when the odor hit him. The man’s face shriveled like a rose in front of an exhaust pipe and he wound up and slammed a fist into Carlton’s gelatinous shoulder.

“You jack ass! What’d I tell ya’ about doin’ that?” Bossy yelled.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Carlton cried as Bossy’s boney fists rained upon him. “Stop hittin’ me, Bossy! I said I was sorry!”

Bossy shoved at Carlton, but practically bounced off of him, and then stood there breathing heavily. He pointed down at Lex’s stomach.

“You know they don’t like that, but you do it anyway jus’ to hear a man pass gas,” Bossy said.

Carlton chuckled and Bossy punched him in the shoulder again. The fat man recoiled.

“Ow!” he cried. “I’m sorry, it’s just funny is all!”

Bossy scowled at him.

“You clean him up. I don’t want him stinkin’. Wash him up good, and take that bandage off his head. She gonna’ be here soon!”

“Fine, fine,” Carlton said, waving him off.

“Jackass…” Bossy said, his voice trailing off as he left the room.

Carlton stood there and stared down at his feet. He looked up and saw Lex looking back at him.

“What are you lookin’ at!” he scowled.

He lifted the spray nozzle and shot water in Lex’s face, turned, and stormed out of the room.

A few minutes later, Carlton returned. He was holding a large white bucket and wearing bright yellow rubber gloves, and had a ratty looking towel slung over his shoulder. He dropped the bucket next to the mattress and soapy water splashed down its sides.

“I’m here to wash you up,” he said, clearly unhappy about it. He reached into the bucket and pulled out a sudsy face cloth. He slapped it on Lex’s chest and scrubbed him hard, as though he were washing bird shit off the hood of a car. Lex moaned in protest, but Carlton ignored him, shoving the cloth into his armpits, wiping up and down his arms, around his neck, and across his face. When he looked down at Lex’s genitals, he turned his head to the side, dropped the cloth on top of them, and quickly dragged it back and forth before pulling it back with disgust and dropping it back into the bucket.

Carlton pulled the dry towel off of his shoulder, and draped it over Lex. He peeled off the rubber gloves, threw them into the bucket, and then patted down the towel, drying Lex off. Once he was done, he crumpled the towel into a ball, threw it beside him and produced a small aerosol can of deodorant from the back pocket of his overalls. He sprayed under both of Lex’s armpits, made a trail down the center of his belly, and shot a quick burst at his crotch for good measure.

“There, that’s good enough,” he said, as he rose to his feet. “You all ready now.”

Carlton shoved the deodorant back in his pocket, picked up the bucket and the towel, and left the room.

That was when Lex heard Bossy scream.

“She’s here! She’s here!” Bossy’s voice echoed from down the hall. The floor shook below and Lex could imagine the man jumping up and down with excitement.

“Carlton, she’s early! Go fetch yer dress coat and put it on quick!” Bossy cried. Lex heard the rumble of Carlton’s footsteps as he jogged across the house. “You look like a slob!”

Lex turned toward the door. He could see a shadow pass down the hall, and then he heard the creak of the front door.

“It’s so nice to see you again, ma’m!” Bossy said in a well practiced tone. “It’s been too long as always.”

There was no reply. Just the sound of Carlton shuffling back down the hall.

“Hello,” Carlton said. His voice trembled. “I did…”

“We did…” Bossy interjected.

“We did what you asked,” Carlton finished. “He’s the one ya’ wanted. The one ya’ showed us.”

There was still no reply; just the shadows looming in the hallway, the footsteps as they walked up the hall.

Bossy entered first, backward, slowly. He was wearing a tight brown suit with black velour lapels and a gaudy green and red tie. He was smiling, his eyes wide, his hands held before him in reverence of what would come through that door.

Lex’s heart started to race.

Bossy slowly bowed his head, and held his hands toward their offering.

Carlton came through next, draped in a red coat that looked like an oversized preacher’s robe. Lex expected someone to follow behind him, but it was clear that Bossy’s attentions were on him. Carlton turned toward Lex and looked at him. He smiled.

Lex moaned and fought at his restraints as Carlton moved toward him. Bossy circled the fat man like a satellite. Carlton walked to the end of the mattress and turned toward Lex. There was something different about him.

Something glowing.

And then Lex heard the sound.

droom droom droom

It was a deep whirring that started as a faint hum but grew louder and deeper and more intense. It got into his head, and his temples throbbed with the rhythm of it.

droom droom droom

Carlton stood at the foot of the bed and dropped his beefy arms by his sides. He twisted his head in a circular motion, eliciting a symphony of cracking and snapping bones. Bossy came around behind Lex and grabbed his head in both hands, aiming his eyes toward Carlton.

droom droom droom

“Watch!” he said, giddy with excitement. “Watch for it!”

Carlton simply stood there staring down at Lex with the same smile he wore when he walked into the room.

“Come on!” Bossy cried. “Show ‘im! Show ‘im!”

The whirring sound grew louder. So loud it made Lex’s teeth hurt, and rumbled in his bowels.

droom droom droom

The sound didn’t seem to bother Bossy at all. On the contrary, it seemed to excite him all the more, as he dropped Lex’s head and began slapping at the mattress in anticipation.

“Oh, you sweet thang! Why you such a tease? C’mon! Show us!” He howled.

Suddenly, Carlton’s smile turned into a pained grimace, as his unblinking eyes began to twitch back and forth. His teeth were clenched and bared, and trails of foaming spittle began to flow from either side of his mouth.

droom droom droom

Carlton’s head seemed to vibrate, and his throat bulged under the hanging fat of his chin. Slowly, Carlton raised his arms. They shook as though held down by some unseen weight. He bent his arms in and grabbed at the buttons of the red coat. As he began to undo them, Bossy moaned with delight.

“Yessssss,” he hissed. “Bring it on.”

As Carlton unfastened the buttons on the coat, Lex could see something moving beneath it, around the bulge in the fat man’s stomach.

droom droom droom

It pulsated, and swirled. Carlton undid the third button, and Lex could see something on his chest, beneath the thin tuft of brown hair. The skin was red, irritated.

Scaly?

When he undid the fourth button, the scaly skin gave way to a wrinkled mass of flesh that, at first glance, looked like dark, bruised scar tissue.

“Oh, yer so purty,” Bossy cooed. “So very, very purty indeed.”

The center of Carlton’s bulging stomach was a huge, puckered fissure, surrounded by wrinkled folds of bluish, mottled skin. In the center, amidst a pool of milky, viscous fluid, a coiled mass of flesh swirled just at the edge of the orifice. Lex realized that the humming was suddenly gone, replaced by the sickening wet sucking sound emanating from Carlton’s belly.

“Come on, now, don’ be shy,” Bossy whispered. He held his hands before him and waved on some unseen thing.

Lex took his eyes off of the fat man’s stomach to see that Carlton’s eyes were rolled up into his head. His mouth hung agape, and Lex could swear that not only was the man now asleep, but, judging by the rattle coming out of his throat, he was snoring.

Just then, a slapping sound brought Lex’s attention back to the Carlton’s stomach, as something began to protrude through the fissure. The coiled skin squirmed and parted, as a smooth, slick dome slowly pushed past it. As it forced its way out, more of the milky liquid gushed forward, hitting the floor with a wet slap. Now, the dome thing was fully extended, with a thin trunk of a neck that bent back and revealed its face.

Lex’s heart felt as though it would pound out of his chest when he saw it. The eyes were large and almond shaped-deeply set, widely spaced, and black as oil. Its nostrils were little more than slits that flared outward, oozing forth more of the creamy goop. The creature peeled back its lips, revealing two rows of small, jagged teeth that looked like unpolished diamonds. As its mouth opened, it blew forth a spray of steam that rained down upon Lex’s naked flesh.

Then its eyes changed.

The deep, black orbs parted to the sides, revealing two smaller, dark pupils set against a light green.

They looked almost human.

Almost.

“Do not fear me, for there is nothing to fear. Not anymore, my love.”

When he heard the voice- the sweet, soothing voice, he looked around the room, expecting to see the woman he’d heard Carlton and Bossy speak of, but there was only Bossy knelt behind him, transfixed. Lex turned back toward the creature. Then he realized the voice was inside him.

She was inside him.

“Do not fear, for there is neither the need nor the time for it. I’ve a job for you.”

“What are you?” Lex thought.

He suddenly felt calm.

Safe.

Warm.

“I am what I have always been. It is what you are now that concerns me,” she said. “You bear something of great importance to me. To my kind. They are inside you. Just as I am.”

“What is it that you want me to do?” Lex thought.

“When the time comes, you will know. When the time comes, we will show you. For now, I need you to accept me. I need you to receive…me,” she said.

Lex’s head felt light, and his stomach tickled. He tingled all over, and beads of sweat suddenly coated his body.

“Do you accept me?” She asked.

Lex answered without hesitation.

“Yes. Yes I accept you,” he thought.

He doubted he could have answered any other way.

He didn’t want to answer any other way.

With that, the thing that protruded from Carlton’s belly pushed itself further out, and hung over Lex’s midsection. Its mouth opened, revealing a long, thick, forked tongue that protruded slowly outward. From dime sized holes at the tip of each fork countless tiny tendrils flickered, swirling about the creature’s mouth like fine hairs blowing in the wind. As the tongue ran along Lex’s chest, he felt the tendrils tickling against his skin. They moved about his flesh with purpose, until, finally, they froze and hovered over his chest, his neck, his eyes, and his groin. He could feel a charge in the air emanating from them. Goosebumps formed over his body. A bloom of sweat broke out over his brow.

“This will hurt you. It is necessary,” she said.

“I understand,” He thought.

And then the tendrils struck, burrowing into his flesh all at once, preceded by some sort of spark that sent a shock through Lex’s body. His jaw clenched so tightly that his teeth creaked as they grated against each other. He could taste blood in his mouth, mixing with the bile that rose from the back of his throat. He could smell something burning. He could feel something burning. And as the pain grew, so did the feeling that what he was doing was right.

It was destiny.

He knew this because she made him know this.

And, as he succumbed to the pain and drifted into unconsciousness, Lex was secure in the knowledge that when he awoke, it would be to something big.

Something wonderful.

droooom drooooom drooooom droooooom

*****

And in the dream, he could see people on the streets below him.

He floated past them and waved and they smiled and waved back.

But they weren’t people at all.

*****

“HRRRRRRMISSSSSSTAAAAA?”

clickclickclickclick

The voice was muffled. Distant.

“HRRRRRRMISSSSSSSSTAAAA?”

clickclickclickclick

Clicking… A rapping. It was far away but drew closer and closer and closer.

Then there was warmth on his face, the light…

“Mister? Are you alright in there?”

Lex sat up and felt a pain in his neck that ran down his spine. As he turned toward the window, the policemen frowned at him. Lex squinted at him as the early morning sun assaulted his eyes. He blinked through the pain and rolled down the window.

“Oh, man, I’m…I’m sorry officer. I…” Lex paused for a moment, and looked around him. “My truck…”

The policeman stared back at him.

“What about it?”

Lex tapped the steering wheel with his fingers and then scratched at his mouth.

“I broke down,” Lex said. “I broke down…it was raining…the truck just died…”

Lex thought long and hard. There was something else, but it wasn’t coming.

“I’m sorry to be a bother, officer,” he said.

“No bother. Rain was fierce ‘round here last few days,” the policeman nodded toward the front of the Durango. “S’long as I’m here, want me to take a look? See if we can get ya’ goin’ again?”

Lex nodded and smiled.

“Yeah, I’d appreciate that,” he said as he reached down and popped the hood.

The policeman sloshed through the puddles that surrounded Lex’s truck and ducked under the hood.

Lex tipped the rear view mirror and checked his reflection. His hair was matted down to one side, and his face was red, bearing the imprint of the passenger door’s molded plastic lining. He rubbed his hand across the stubble on his chin, yawned, and flipped the mirror back.

“Try it now,” the policeman shouted from under the hood.

Lex turned the keys in the ignition, and the Durango’s engine roared to life.

“Wow! You’ve got the touch!” Lex yelled as the policeman slammed the hood shut.

“The wires, they was just wet. They do that on these new ‘uns. ‘Specially in rain like we had,” the policeman said.

Lex smiled and held out his hand. “Well, thanks officer…” Lex peered down at his badge, searching for a name.

“Folks round these parts jus’ call me Bossy,” he said with a smile.

Lex paused, feeling something jiggling loose in the back of his memory, but then he lost it and nodded.

“Well, I thank you Bossy. You probably saved me a lot of walking.”

Bossy grinned.

“Not a problem. You take care yerself,” Bossy said as he walked back to the patrol car parked behind Lex.

Lex put the Durango in gear, slowly rolled out of the puddles and back onto the road, and tapped his horn twice. He peered into his rearview mirror and saw the policeman hold up one hand, and Bossy smiled.

Good guy, he thought.

As he drove, a gnawing ache filled his belly, followed by a loud gaseous groan.

“Woah, down boy!” he said, patting his stomach. His stomach responded with another groan, and a long, satisfying fart that filled the cab with a stink even he couldn’t stand.

“Jesus!” he cried out, laughing as he rolled down the window. The crisp morning air flushed out the stench, and felt good and cool. He left the window open and hung his arm out the side.

As he drove he felt good.

He felt better than good.

He felt amazing.

And when he saw the sign for the interstate ahead, he felt a tingling in his stomach that was more than the hunger.

It was anticipation.

He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he was excited about heading back to Boston.

Something was waiting for him at home. And he couldn’t wait to get there.

END

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James Reilly’s story “Something Wet” appears in the Apex Publications anthology Gratia Placenti. Order your copy today.

“The Tow” appears in issue 7 of Apex Digest. Grab your copy from here.