That was the roughest day of my life. My physical wounds were not too bad. The tattoo, buttocks covered in welts, testicles dotted with tiny blood blisters from being constricted and bound, a few odd bruises, probably from manhandling me around. But worse was the amnesia.
N.B. A PARAGRAPH HAS BEEN REMOVED HERE BECAUSE OF POSSIBLE READER SENSITIVITY ON THE WEB. NO, IT WAS NOTHING SEXUAL.
I felt like him now. I drank moderately to quell my shaking hands, but I kept finding myself holding Lex, wiping tears out of his fur.
I had been violated in every sense of the word. But what would I do? Barge into Scream’s house and risk getting put under again? Kill someone? I wasn’t a killer, until maybe now. Call the cops? Not even worth thinking about.
I remembered Jayne’s askance handling of her rape. She would be who I would turn to. And, of course, she would hear only what I felt was sensible to tell her.
It took hours to pick up the phone. Hours as I clawed at my memory for the whole story and received only vague glimmers. Ariana’s laughing face. Tasting her luxuriant body. Fucking her with animal savagery. Seeing her taken by other men, dark, muscular men who throbbed with lust. Taunting, heavily oiled women. Faces like masks. Bodies intertwining, genitals mingling, like some scene out of a carnal Hell. I remembered drugs held under my nose, vapors that made me think I was going to die, but making me harder and ever more virile. I remembered riding crops and howls of pain and strange couplings and over it all the resonant pounding of a huge drum, screams and laughter. But, it was all through a fog as thick as wool. Whatever drug I’d been given had rendered my life a blurry dream.
I remembered manacles, pain, acts I could not, would not, name. Service.
I remembered the pictures of Al Stirling.
* * *
Jayne was happy to hear from me. It took her a few moments to realize this wasn’t a mere social call. When my voice cracked, she said she would come over.
I had showered and dressed, but she still told me I looked like hell when she walked in the door. She had brought a bottle of Canadian rye whisky. I took this to be some measure of her realization of the seriousness of my call. She figured her usual champagne wouldn’t make the nut.
She poured a couple of stiff shots and, as we drank, I recounted an edited version of my tale. “So you got laid, but good,” she said, trying to make light of it. “These things happen. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve been mauled trying to get a job....”
I showed her the pictures from
“I don’t know. They’re a lot cleaner than what I recall happening, but, I’m not sure about my memory. Maybe I’m making it out to be more debauched than it was.”
“Like maybe you had a good time?”
“There’s that possibility. But, I doubt it. My overwhelming sensation is one of being violated. Of manifest unpleasantness. And what right did anyone have to do this?” I showed her the tattoo. She clucked and I suggested that she call LaVey and ask what the tattoo in that particular location meant. I was also toying with the idea of asking for a revenge spell.
“You realize that there are undoubtedly pictures of you engaged in these acts, maybe film.”
I nodded. Of course, there would be.
“And you think that this is all tied in to the baby mutilations?”
“It has to be. That’s what
“You’re in this some kind of deep,” she sighed.
“I can’t just walk away from this.”
“You couldn’t now even if you wanted to,” she said. And I realized with a shiver of terror how right she was. Whether I liked it or not, I was in their web.
* * *
Jayne called LaVey and described the tattoo. When she hung up, she told me, “It’s an initiation mark. Its location is so its easily concealed. Nice of them to worry about your cosmetics.” Then she looked worried. “He says it means whoever did it has a part of your soul.”
“Literally?”
“He says so. But you’ve got to realize that he has a vested interest in this sort of stuff. I’ve learned that most of this stuff is symbolic.”
“Most?”
“Well, I have seen some things that defy explanation.”
“Like what?”
“The deaths of those who have crossed me.”
“So you think these curses work?”
“I know they do.”
“Maybe I should get Mr. LaVey to whip one on these bastards.”
“You could. But it’s not like they tried to kill you or anything.”
I didn’t say anything. I felt that they had tried to kill some part of me, and they may well have succeeded. “You say you’ve done it.”
“I’m a more vengeful person than you’ve ever seen.”
“I think maybe I’ve become a little vengeful myself.”
Lex sidled over to Jayne and rubbed himself against her stockinged leg.
* * * *
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