Saints live in flames; wise men, next to them—EM Cioran
On Friday I brought in the birthday hats, the birthday cake (3 tier), gave Anna her own plastic spoon and tied a cloth bib around her neck with a drawing of Bert and Ernie.
I poured us both a styrofoam cup of soda (I bought the off-brand) and I handed my slave her cup and said:
"Happy Birthday!!"
She looked at me odd and said, "It's not my birthday."
"Well," I said, "is your birthday in the next twelve days?"
"Oh. No," she said.
"I figured we better celebrate now."
My slave looked at me with ultimate defeat—exactly the emotion I hope for at this stage.
But she raised her cup a tiny bit and said, "Happy birthday."
"That's the spirit!! Let's celebrate!"
And I turned on the TV to Scary Movie—which if you don't know is a spoof comedy on horror films. It stars Anna Farris—my favorite—and has a great gag where a homeless guy asks Farris for a dollar, she hands him the sandwich from her lunch, and as she walks away he throws it at her head and says, "I said a dollar, bitch!"
It's great comedy.
Anna poked at her cake.
"Go ahead!" I said. "It's not poison! Don't you like strawberry shortcake?"
"Did you make this?"
"Yes I did."
"It's not bad," she says with her mouth full.
And I watch my Anna eat, clamped only at the ankles, practically a free woman—just a little girl on her birthday eating cake.
I tell her what she looks like to me.
"You're sick," she says—again with her mouth full.
I take my fork out of my mouth as if to say: What?
"That's what you imagine me as? Some eight year old wearing roller skates—your daughter/whore at a birthday party—with icing and cake and the whole nine yards? I bet you have sparklers in each piece of cake, don't you? Pink and white Strawberry Shortcake socks or My Little Pony or little pink bows on white..something simple like that? And what? After she's done skating with her friends you take her into a bathroom stall and bend her over the toilet and fuck that little eight-year-old pussy as if it was your own!! Is that it?"
I put my plate down on the workbench.
"Something like that, yes. Would you like a different movie?" I say, picking up the remote.
"No! Please. The movie's fine. It's fine. I like it."
" 'Cause I can change it if you'd like something a little more..graphic."
"A guy is impaling another guy's brain with his dick through his ear—this is graphic enough."
"Ok," I say, and I pick up my cake and eat in silence.
"Are you hurt?" Anna says.
"A little."
"Why?"
"Because all you think of me as is a child molester."
Anna cracks up.
"That's what hurts your feelings!?"
"I just thought we knew each other better than that."
"You want to get to know me?" Anna says. "Then take off these clamps!"
"What would you do if I did? Would you make love to me as if we were a real couple?"
"I might. But you'll never know, will you? And don't worry, I know you're way more than a child molester. No, you keep child molesters in your back pocket. You're a fucking Swiss Army Knife—is that what you want to hear? A Swiss Army Knife of fucked. Nine million years of therapy wouldn't help you and why do I even care? You made yourself this way and you want absolution?"
I chuckle.
"What's so funny?"
"How does a 24 year old from Lehighton PA know the word absolution?"
"Because I read the dictionary, motherfucker! You think just 'cause I wear blue stars on my nipples that I'm stupid."
"No. I never would have caught you if you were stupid."
"What was it about me? What did I do wrong?"
"It was your eyes, Anna—you can always tell a person by their eyes."
"What could you tell?"
"That you were smart."
"What else?"
"Compassionate."
"I bet those two did it for you."
"Pretty much."
"Well shame on me."
"No, no, it's not shame on you. It's your birthday! Eat your cake."
"The conversation is making me nauseous."
"You want some soda?"
"Fuck you. Fucking generic soda. You want to kill a girl, you buy her a Coke."
"No one's ever told me that before."
"You musta killed some stupid girls."
"I killed all kinds."
"Well, maybe we can get back to the movie, 'cause I don't like to talk about killing on my birthday."
"Sure."
"That's ok with you?"
"Whatever you want."
"Whatever I want until you decide to stick a drill up my cunt."
"No, I promise I won't stick a drill up your cunt today."
Anna cracks up.
"Listen to yourself say that!!"
She cracks up some more, finishes her soda, holds the cup out.
"More."
I pour her a full cup of my generic soda.
"You know," she says as she drinks, "maybe you should have been a film director. You obviously have an interest in movies and—you know—as a director you would have a smaller body count."
"I wanted to be a director," I tell her.
"No shit?"
"No shit. Ever since I saw The Last Picture Show as a kid. I knew there was someone behind the camera, telling everyone what to do—that was obvious to me just by watching the movie—and I wanted to be that person."
"Why didn't you go to film school or something?"
"I asked my dad if I could go to film school."
"And?"
"He hit me in the mouth with a meat tenderizer. See here?"
I show her the place on the upper left side with no teeth.
"Why didn't you ever get 'em fixed?"
" 'Cause it's just cosmetic and I don't get into cosmetic shit."
"Well excuse me."
"I'm sorry. I didn't get them fixed because I kinda like to have something to remember my dad by."
Anna draws back.
"You didn't kill him, did you?"
"No, I wish. He died from drinking gin."
"My mom's an alcoholic."
"I'm sorry to hear that. It's a terrible disease."
"So you subscribe to the disease model?" says this young woman.
"I didn't mean it in a technical way. I just mean it's a terrible affliction."
"Yeah, well, she can stop anytime she wants," Anna says. "Anytime her kids become more important to her than a 24 pack of The Silver Bullet. If I had kids—if I ever got the chance to have kids—I would not-drink just because of them."
"You have younger siblings?"
"Yeah."
"They still live at home with her?"
"Unfortunately."
"What about your dad?"
"Oh, he's there. He has his own substance of choice."
"I'm sorry I got you generic Coke."
"It's ok, but, I mean, there's certain things you have to get the name brand."
"Like what?" I asked, and looked at her, and she was beautiful.
"Like Cheerios—you have to get the name brand. Off-brand Cheerios is butt—not worth eating. Whereas if you're buying Raisin Bran, the off-brand will do. I don't know what it is but off-brand Cheerios have a seam around the outside edge of the torus and that seam alone is enough to make off-brand Cheerios..well..ass."
"What else?"
"Uh..orange juice you need a name brand. And never from concentrate. If you buy OJ without pulp you need to check your testicles 'cause..you know.."
"What?"
" 'Cause you might not be a real man, that's what. So?—You buy pulpless orange juice or the thick stuff?"
"I don't drink orange juice."
"What the hell do you drink?"
"Water."
"From the tap or bottled?"
"From the tap."
"You are the most boring person on Earth..except in one way."
"I like to think of it as specialization."
"Well, this is really fun, Matthew—sitting back and conversing with the man who is going to kill me. I can't think of any other way I'd like to spend my un-birthday. You got any more movies in there?"
"Sure. I got everything. What do you want?"
"How about some of those movies of girls in their last moments of life?"
I turn to her.
"Out of what purpose?"
"To see what I'm headed for."
"Anna.."
"Do me that favor? Will you? All this birthday stuff is fine but you have failed—if that was your goal—to make me forget why we're both here. I'm not your little roller-skater girl. I'm not your wife. I'm not your girlfriend. I know that, ok? So roll the fucking tape."
I nod.
I scroll through my file server.
There are hundreds of girls listed by name.
Some duplicate names.
I go down to Lucy.
"Lucy?"
"Lucy."
"That's her real name?"
"Yeah."
My finger hovers over the last file in her folder.
"Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Yes," Anna says, knocking back the rest of her soda.
I press play.
The screen fills with a rock field. Dust. Boulders. Going on forever.
"Where is that?" Anna says.
"You'll see it."
"What's on the rocks?"
"Bodies."
"Oh."
So in front of the camera is little Lucy—
"This is before I raised the age limit," I say.
"I see."
—and Lucy is stumbling forward, having trouble with one foot.
"Lucy, stop. Turn around."
The camera tilts down and Anna can see that one of her shoes has a hole in it.
Klack!
Now there's a hole in the other one.
Lucy screams out—the camera tilts up roughly, diagonally catching Lucy holding her hands over her mouth.
"Turn around."
Lucy doesn't move.
The barrel of my Glock comes into the picture, pointed straight at little Lucy's head.
"How old is she?"
"Eight or nine."
Then it's me in the picture: "Turn around. Walk straight forward. See the rock to your left. The close one. That one right there. Yes. Sit on the rock. Take off your shoes."
A sequence of the girl excruciatingly taking off her shoes over feet with bullet holes in them. She can barely do it. When her shoes come off she is bleeding through her socks.
"Take off your socks."
She strips them—they end up inside out.
She's shivering like she just got out of a swimming pool.
"What are you gonna do?" she says.
"Take off your shirt."
She does.
"Set it by your socks."
She does.
"Take off your jeans."
The little girl shuffles them off, pulling them painfully over her injured feet.
"Fold them. Put them on top of your shirt."
The little girl does.
She's sitting on this rock in nothing but a pair of white panties.
"Take those off."
She shakes her head.
"You can either take them off for me or I can take them off for you. You remember what happened the last time I had to take them off for you?"
And this little girl, my little Lucy, takes off her panties and I can see her tiny cunt, just a pair of hairless lips, just a slit between her legs.
"Now fold your panties and put them on top of your jeans."
My little Lucy does.
"Lie down on the rock and spread your pussy."
The camera moves in on Lucy's pussy and I watch Anna as she looks at the footage. She sits perfectly still and doesn't let on if she's shocked.
"Keep your pussy spread, ok—you're a good girl."
Then the sound of my jeans unzipping.
Then the camera is roughly on Lucy's face: I was gripping her right shoulder.
Lucy screams.
"You're hurting me!"
"Don't worry, Lucy, it's almost over."
The sound of my breath, heavy, and I remember exactly what her pussy felt like—that unnaturally smooth cavern of a little girl, so tight that it forms tiny cuts all along her vagina when a grown man puts his dick in, and that's what hurts her so much. Plus I was banging against her cervix in a too-small pussy and that hurts too.
Lucy's screams filled the crate where Anna and I sat in our birthday hats, with plates full of strawberry shortcake and styrofoam cups of generic soda.
"Stop!!! Matthew!!! You're hurting my vagina!!!"
"But your vagina feels so good to me."
"I think you're ripping my stomach!!"
"I'm gonna fix your stomach right after this."
And I grunt, and I grunt, and I cum all in that little bitch's vag and there's so much cum—it's been days since I came—that cum seeps out between my dick and her vag and you better believe I got a shot of that with my camera.
My cock drips cum just thinking of fucking that cute little dead girl.
Anna looks over at me to see my face in a mask of ecstasy.
I point to the screen and Anna looks back.
It's quick: the camera catches my dick pulling out and then runs up the short length of her body.
She says, "Can you fix my stomach—"
And then Klack!
The tiniest hole entering the underside of her chin and exiting through her forehead.
Then cups and cups of blood, pumping out of the holes in the little girl's head.
Her head has fallen back on the rock.
I stand.
The camera takes in a view of her whole dead body.
Still.
Then the landscape of a rock field, somewhere in South Dakota—somewhere only I know of.
Pre-dawn oranges and yellows stripe the horizon.
And there are bodies, in various states of decomposition, on every rock you see.
I click the remote and the TV in the crate goes black.