Jayne & the Satanists --Chapter 11

There is a dark corridor you slip through on strong drugs. A passageway where you check your sense of self at the door and become something other. Whatever happened to me in that corridor was full of dark personages, sleek seductive sexuality and amorphous vague bodies like satin shadows. I know I had sex many times, couplings previously undreamt, and, through it all, rang Ariana’s laughter, imperious and disdainful. Her voice commanding and sharp as the lash I felt many times. I was imprisoned, bound and forced. There was no more sense of the outside world, only loins surging with urgency, vast releases and dark humiliations.

* * *

I came to feeling a rough scraping on my face. My eyes squeaked open and, even in my grogginess, I realized it was Lex ministering to me. I tried to move my arms and they banged into something. My eyes slowly came into focus in a dull light. I made out the steering wheel of my car. I heard Lex begin his roaring purr. I figured he knew that I was going to live, even if I had no certainty on the subject.

During a half-hour, I pulled back into the world. Checked my watch, it was five a.m. The neighborhood wasn’t familiar. I opened the car door and heaved onto the asphalt. I’d had worse hangovers, but not many. I stank like a monkey. I concentrated all my energy on getting Lex home.

Once I started driving, I saw that I was only a few blocks from my pad. I crawled the Rambler there and managed to carry Lex through the front door and spill some kibble on the floor before I lurched to my bed and faded away again.

* * *

I got to the phone after over a dozen rings. It was Hy, wondering why I hadn’t shown up yet. I begged off sick, telling him that I had been working on the mutilation story and had been on an all night stakeout. Yes, I told him, I was sure it would generate some copy soon. He remarked that I sounded hungover. I said I hadn’t been drinking, but had been roughed up when I’d gotten too close to something. This seemed to cheer him and he told me to get in as soon as possible. I said it probably wouldn’t be today, but I’d be in extra early tomorrow morning.

I felt incredibly bad and reached for my tried-and-true-hangover cure: a room-temperature beer. As I nursed that, I took stock of myself. I ached all over and had a particular pain under my left armpit. Lex sat quietly on my bed watching me, making small sympathetic mews when I moaned.

I stripped on the way to the bathroom and, when I reached the mirror, I lifted my arm. There was a gauze bandage on my left side. My stomach roiled. Carefully, I removed the bandage. There, still bloody and puffed, was a tattoo the size of a silver dollar. It was a pentagram, the lines drawn thin as thread.

I had been deeply violated. I washed with a soft washcloth. I didn’t think iodine would be a great idea. I rubbed my shriveled genitals and smelled the sex on my hand. When I sat on the toilet, I felt a pain and a horror like I had never felt before. I held my head and sobbed uncontrollably.