Appalachian Galapagos (35 page)

"I'm you, you insane fucker," Forrest's voice purred from Kevin's lips.

"No," Kevin said, feeling himself disappear into his mind. He felt himself dying inside. "Oh my god—"

"Yeah, partner," Kevin said out loud to himself with Forrest's voice. He felt his voice change back over to normal. "You're a fucking demon or something." The voice switched back over to the drawl. "Oh god, don't even go there. Don't you think
inventin
' me was enough? Now you want to say I'm some demon? You're
amazin
' in your creativity, partner. Look around you. Look at what you've done. It's time you took some responsibility, my man."

Ned had died, his eyes staring into the pool of his own blood, his hand curled around the bullet wound in his stomach.

"You lost it today at work when the private detective showed you the pictures of that man fuckin' your wife, remember?" Forrest's voice said from Kevin's lips.

"
Oh my God
," Kevin whispered, closing his eyes tightly. "
Oh my God
." His voice smoothly shifted to Forrest's. "Oh yeah, partner. Pretty damn rich, ain't it? Almost like one of them picture shows."

Forrest laughed, a booming sound of menace and glee, Kevin's tears running into his open mouth. Kevin let his gaze move downward and he watched the blood pour from his wound. He was still laughing when he died.

Friday Morning

The solitary figure whistled, filling the night with the haunting melody as he stalked slowly along the suburban street. It wasn't a song, but a single short chorus repeated over and over, monotonous to even the wind which seemed to increase its whining clamor as if it was powerful enough to still the dissonance. Even the earth and the elements with their millennia of practiced manipulation, were unable to silence the melody. It was the engine of supernatural destiny, the instrument of perfected pain and forced redemption.

He halted in front of a two-story ranch house and turned as if to admire the manicured lawn and kidney shaped plots of zinnias, colorful but tinged with the silvery death of the nighttime sun. His eyes went directly to the upper left window which was cracked to let in the sweetness of the night air, framed by rose lace curtains. He sat his bag, old fashioned and covered in crimson velvet, down on the sidewalk beside him. His posture was
statued
perfection, hands stiffly down at his sides, straight-backed, broad shoulders, and just a slight tilt of the closely cropped head.

When the sun rose, punching back the night and casting its healing rays across the city, he was still there.

When the children leapt off their porches and hurried their bicycles into the street and off to school he was still there.

When the mailman passed him pushing his burden of correspondences in a three-wheeled cloth cart, he was still there.

And he was ignored by all as he stood watching for life within the window of the girl who lay sleeping within.

It was as if he wasn't even there, whistling, standing, waiting.

...whistling the chorus of his namesake song.

Thursday

It was ten by the time she swept into the club. Ignoring the long line of wannabes, she winked at the bouncer as she sashayed by. She flipped up the back of her black skirt, revealing a tight ass—a promise that he wished for, but both knew would never be fulfilled.

The band was already into their second set and the black-lit square in the center of the club was filled with several dozen dark-shrouded bodies gyrating to the techno-industrial grind that blasted from the ten speakers scattered throughout the club. The bar, tables and couches along the sides were filled with a menagerie of victims, bouncing, their lolling and eager heads attached to bodies that begged to be taken.

Hannah paused to revel in the wash of sound and sweat and heat within the place that was her real home. Not the house her parents cared so much for, but this bastion of sexual energy that always recharged her dull system. She was more than a regular, she was a
Ring Master
, and the tattoo in the shape of a chained heart on her left shoulder was her pass to ecstasy. She had blown the owners for a full month to obtain that special sigil, and it guaranteed her the
free
part of her freedom, and besides a few favors now and again, this playground was now hers to play within.

She sauntered through the crowd, ignoring more salutations than she returned. Her goal was the far back corner where those she termed friends lay around on red velvet cushions, other
Ring Masters,
all. By their barely contained energy, Hannah could tell it was almost time for the show.

"Right on time, Love," said a lithe blonde, her body hugged by a rubbery suit. She leaned forward and placed black painted lips to Hanna's red, a heady welcome culminating with a flourish of tangled tongues.

"Fuck. I thought I'd never get out with my sister screaming about her boyfriend and my mother stalking around the house avoiding my father. It's so bourgeois. So fake.
Suz
, fetch me a drink, will you,
Luv
?" she perched on her stool, ignoring the newest member of their group who was scurrying off to fulfill the command.

"So," continued Hannah, "Do we have a full house?"

"That we do," replied Angie, a heavy-busted brunette. "How you ever find these guys and make them do it, I'll never know."

Hannah regarded the other girl, noting her pinched features as if nature had squeezed too much into one face. She liked the people around her to have faults. It made life so much easier.

"It's a gift,
Luv
. You just treat them like they're special for a while and they'll end up licking your feet."

"Here you go, Hannah,"
Suz
said, bouncing back with a shot of
Cuervo
. "Anything else I can do?" she asked hopping from foot to foot, eager to please.

Hannah took the shot and poured it down her throat from a three-inch height. She passed the empty glass back to
Suz
. As if on a whim, Hannah turned and looked the other girl in the eyes. With a freehand, she touched the cheek and then held the chin for a moment. Then she grinned, her brightness lighting up the space.

"Thanks,
Suz
. You're wonderful."

Hannah turned away.
Suz
sauntered off, a smile growing. She plopped down on one of the empty cushions, crossed her legs and regarded Hanna with fondness, waiting for her next command.

Hannah suddenly glanced down at the pager that had begun buzzing against her hip as did all the
Ring Masters
. All business now, they gathered their things and left by the back door. In a single-file line, they crossed the alley to the abandoned furniture warehouse next door. The only sound in the night air besides the whine of far away sirens were their heels clicking in the silence.

They were greeted by an immense Hawaiian who held the door with one hand while the other counted heads as the girls entered. After the last, he closed the door, locked it in three places and then moved to the front of the group. He led them through a maze of broken tables, couches, chairs and rusted bed frames until they came to another door. With a ring of keys, he unlocked it and held the door aside as they descended the dimly lit wooden stairs.

They entered into a brightly-lit room, crowded to its hundred-seat capacity. This was good. It meant that she and the other
Ring Masters
would take home an easy grand, not including any tips they could create for themselves...and sometimes, it was the tips that made it so much fun. Turning neither left nor right, they filed solemnly by the patrons sitting in their deep cushioned couches. Not only were they being served beverages, but several were being serviced. The
Ring Masters
ignored this, however, everything was invisible to their practiced aloofness. They kept their eyes straight ahead and steady as they wound their way to the bubble.

The bubble was a half-shell of one-way Plexiglas. Its interior mirrored surface was marred only by a single inset speaker, a hole for the wires at the top and the almost totally concealed lines of a small door. All around sat the spectators watching the dull movements of the naked man upon the table, twenty-four wires rising from his body, flowing through the top and diverted to twelve stations, each now manned by one of the
Ring Masters
.

The women separated and each grabbed two six-inch silver grips, each attached to a pulley on the ceiling above them. They turned and faced the spectators. They were evenly spaced. As one, they knelt so as not to obstruct the view from the assembled patrons.

A thin man in a silvery Armani suit stepped hurriedly up to Hannah and whispered in her ear. She nodded once, then released her grip and stood. She paused to alternately smooth the front of her robe and glance across the faces of the audience. The sparkles of anticipation within their eyes heated her blood. She knew that this was to be a great night.

Hannah moved around and, keeping the opening small so as not to change the complexion of the interior mirrored surface, entered the room. Immediately upon her entrance the man on the table sat up, the wires sagging along his torso.

"Hannah. Hannah. I'm scared."

His breath was quick and panicky.

Careful not to tangle herself, she rushed to him and gripped his shoulders. She kissed him hotly, her lips pressing each eyelid and the tip of his nose, encompassing him with her perfectly false love.

"David, my
Luv
. I'm so glad you decided to do it. It means so much to us."

"But it hurts. They hurt," he said, glancing along the rings that pierced is nipples, his stomach, his scrotum, his legs and his toes. A single tear descended from his left eye. "I'm afraid."

"
Ahhh
, my
Luv
. Don't be afraid. I told you. It's not you, it's me. I need this. I need to know that you will do this…for me. I need to know that your love is true."

"These wires...who's on the other side?"

"I'm not supposed to say." She gave him a look with such loving conviction that his face released its fearful tension. "Oh, David. I've been waiting for someone like you for so long. You know my problem. My friends are the same."

"Them too?" he asked, his eyes both wide and sad.

"You have to understand...I tried to tell you...rape makes us feel so, so helpless. This thing you do is like therapy." She leaned in close, her voice carrying into the other room from the secreted speakers. "You have no idea what this means to me, to us."

Emotions flowed across his face, finally coalescing into loving acceptance, beatific in the half-shell light.

"This isn't a test. I'll love you regardless. You can leave if you want?" she let the question hang in the air.

Clouds of concern moved through his eyes as if pushed by the stiff wind of intelligence, changing and reforming. Finally, however, he ignored his instincts and smiled glumly.

"How about if when we're done, we go to the mountains? Just you and me. You know, get to know
us
a little better."

Her grin lit up the small space and gathered him in.

"That sounds terrific, my
Luv
." She kissed him hungrily, her lips pressing his as if she couldn't get enough until finally she stood tall. "Be brave?" She asked with a smile.

"For you? Anything."

The music began ten minutes later. The
Ring Masters
were now wearing floor-length black cloaks, their heads lowered so each face was hidden within the deep shadows of their cowls. As before, they kneeled and faced the audience, the silver handle of each wire gripped in hands that rested upon thighs. Soon, as if by understood orchestration, the wires began to pull. Where the wires were attached to the rings, the skin puckered upwards a few inches as the women pulled their silver grips. There seemed to be no plan, but never more than two wires were pulled at a time. A nipple and a thigh...a nose and a calf...the stomach and an ear...each pull eliciting a small squeal of exquisite pain from David's trembling mouth.