Out of summer boredom, have un-abandoned the mess of a novel that is Happy Hour.
This is a rewrite of a rewrite of a chapter that was one called "Fergus".
Enjoy!
**
I saw Crystelle on the blue line, the other day. I didn’t recognize her at first. Not in that bright red, terrycloth sweat suit, with a neat black layer of fuzz on her head. No, I’m used to seeing her in a hospital gown, her scalp as bald as the moon. So I wasn’t sure if the girl I saw was really Crystelle. I watched her cling to the pole by the door, her meaty thighs swaying, back and forth with the rhythm of the train.
She was short and dark and strong like Crystelle, but I didn’t know it was her until I noticed the eye. That awesome eye: cloud white, without a colored spot or pupil. The eye I used to love to run the tip of my tongue across when the nurses weren’t looking. So slick and salty. Mmm.
Crystelle didn’t see me watching her from the other side of the train car. In my head I wrestled with the idea of getting up from my seat, walking over and saying, “Hey Crystelle, what’s up? How you been since you left the loony bin? Great! I’ve been good, too. Still taking my meds…”
But I knew it wouldn’t go like that. We’d probably both feel horribly awkward if we talked here on the train, as creatures free to enter and exit the sliding el doors as we please. Because we’d only remind each other of the time when we couldn’t, when all doors were locked around us, indefinitely.
This is Washington, the recorded el voice said in his canned enthusiasm. Crystelle got off the train and strode down the stairs to the red line, disappeared below the platform. I was relieved of the inner debate. I had lost my chance to say hi to my loony bin lover, to prove to myself those blurry months at the state hospital really happened and it wasn’t just a trick of my mind.
The train clicked away from the station, the lights of the tunnel flashing, like it was a moving nightclub. I continued my ride up the blue line to Wicker Park, where my boyfriend lives. And yeah, I said boyfriend, not girlfriend or Master. A lot has changed since last summer, when I went nuts. When I saw the net of hexagons spread across the ceiling of my room at Master’s house and the worms slithered out from the 6-sided divides. When the Lake said to jump in her waves and drown and the cops found me howling, naked on the beach. That stuff doesn’t happen anymore.
Most days, I feel sane, a little numb from the mood stabilizers I swallow each morning. But for the rest of the train ride after seeing Crystelle, I was haunted by the lingering muscle memory of what it’s like to be captive: the stiffness of your skin, the painful clenching of your lungs, an inner throbbing, like your spirit is madly pounding at the walls of your body and trying to flee. That’s what it’s like when you don’t hold the key to your exit. That feeling brought me back to the night I met Crystelle.
**
It was my first night at the state hospital. Snacktime. The patients were standing in line for apples. It was such a normal thing for such a strange place. I mean, they could’ve been waiting at a supermarket checkout counter, if it weren’t for their gowns and slippers.
Since I was new, I’d been given my apple first and was sitting alone at a table next to the line of patients. The eating room wasn’t much, just a few round tables and stackable chairs, like a miniature school cafeteria.
That whole place looked like a school: tile floors, institutional yellow walls, fluorescent lights. I watched the line of patients and realized that like in school, they were broken away into cliques. There was a clique of young men at the back of the line. Their eyes were hard, but fatigued. Tornadoes trapped in pill bottles. I could tell they were tough motherfuckers before they got put here. A clique of old ladies stood in front of them, their shoulders and faces twitching from decades of anti-psychotic meds.
At the front of the line were two young women. One was a pretty black girl, around my age. Short and bald, she had this violent energy swimming around her. Yep, that was Crystelle. Her smile flashed like a city skyline dipped in venom. She seemed like she didn’t mind being locked up, the way she laughed and joked with the other patients in line. One of her eyes was all white, a milky marble floating in its socket. I thought that was cool. I’ve got a thing for eyeballs. I wondered if Crystelle liked girls. Something about the mental hospital always made me horny. Hell, something about everything made me horny, back in those days.
The woman next to Crystelle was a little older, maybe in her 30’s. She had ivory skin contrasting her long, black hair and I wondered where her 7 dwarves were. The nurse at the front of the line handed her a crisp, red apple. I wanted to yell out, “Don’t eat it, Snow White! It’s poisoned!” But instead the woman cradled it in her palms, like a trophy and gave her acceptance speech.
“I’d like to thank Dr. Littleboy for prescribing my Xanax, Nurse Bigfoot for this lovely apple and you, Crystelle,” she turned toward the girl with the cool eye, “for waiting with me in line.” the woman wiped a fake tear from her cheek. “Thank you, thank you all.” She spun on her slippered feet, her hair whipped her shoulders, her bathrobe trailed behind her like a ball gown. I could tell she was the queen of this place.
Crystelle, the guys at the back of the line, and even the old ladies all burst out in a wild fit of cackles at the Queen’s acceptance speech. Being locked up sort of frees you of certain inhibitions. Why not laugh like a loon? Everyone already knows you’re crazy.
The big, blonde nurse, who I guessed was Nurse Bigfoot yelled, “Quiet down, or no movie on Friday!” She handed Crystelle an apple and Crystelle, still giggling, followed the Queen toward the tables.
I was hoping they’d sit with me. I needed attention, conversation, interaction to prove to that I still existed. Even when I was locked up and drugged, basic parts of my personality remained: my need to be at the center of the action, to be on display, to have everyone like me and want to fuck me. Later, Dr. Littleboy would tell me I have Borderline Personality Disorder and that’s why I brought home strange men I met on the el train, why I gave myself to my Master and why I would hallucinate.
With a swish of her bathrobe/ball gown, the Queen settled into a chair at the table next to mine. She motioned for Crystelle to join her. They raised their apples to their mouths and bit. I smiled cutely at them and kind of waved, but they didn’t wave back. Instead, they studied me with crooked expressions, like I was a science project or a museum exhibit. The Queen laughed and said something I couldn’t hear. But I read one word on her ruby lips: shot.
I knew they were talking about me. I’d been given a shot that afternoon. I didn’t fight it and make the nurses call the guards to restrain me. I calmly bent over and let them slide the needle into my butt. I was too tired from the Lake, the cop station and the ambulance ride to struggle.
All new patients get a shot, since they’re usually pissed and ranting, “I don’t belong here! Let me go!” The shot makes you too groggy to care about anything, too groggy to be crazy. It makes your muscles loose like boring penises and your mind blank. Like, it didn’t seem to register in my head that for the next few months, my entire world would be limited to this hospital ward, these few rooms and I’d be video-monitored 24/7 by unforgiving, psychiatric eyes.
But I wasn’t seeing any hexagons or worms and I couldn’t hear the Lake calling me, anymore. At least the shot was good for that.
And I can understand now why Crystelle and the Queen laughed at me. At that point, I probably looked all fucked up and loopy with my eyeliner smeared raccoon style, fading blue hair and blood-shot eyes, tattoos peeking out from beneath the sleeves of my hospital gown. A freak dethroned, a prized sex-toy stolen and then tranquilized. My vanity, my ego was blocked.
I can explain it this way: I was a just a creature, then. A violent, but pacified creature. A zoo tiger, or a caged eagle. A creature enjoying her prey, the way her teeth broke the crispy skin of an apple. That single act of violence on that shiny piece of fruit was all I knew and had ever known, in that moment. The crunch, the separation of the apple’s molecules echoed throughout my bones and foggy head. The sweetness of the fruit juice tickled the inside of my lip piercing. I couldn’t care much about anything else but the apple. Not about if Crystelle and the Queen wanted to be my friends, not about if Master was mad or hurt that I was gone, not about if the Lake was disappointed that I didn’t drown in her, after all. My mind was too foggy to focus.
When I finished my apple, I peeled my elbows from the sticky table, meandered around the line of patients, eliciting lusty, glazed-eye stares from some of the younger guys. I guess I looked hot, even in a hospital gown. I tossed my apple core in the trash and headed down the hallway, toward the dayroom.
**
The dayroom is called the dayroom because it’s where you spend most of your day, in the loony bin. Being a state funded hospital, the dayroom was simple, barebones. There was a U-shape of wooden chairs with vinyl cushions, like those in a doctor’s waiting room, only bolted to the floor so patients couldn’t heave them at nurses’ heads while in a psychotic rage. A table was also bolted to the floor, in the middle of the U-shape of chairs.
On top of it was a small and ancient TV set, with rabbit ear antennas. It flicked back and forth between an infomercial and two shiny looking reporters. It slices, it dices, it fshhhhh… warehouse fire on the southwest side, we join Dan Marco on the scene fshhh… save up to 80 dollars a year on kitchen utensils fshhhhh… it’s blazing up good, Carrie. The infomercial man carved a raw potato into a perfect spiral, which faded into flashing fire trucks, then back to a lovely plate of French fries. My stomach gurgled. That apple was not enough.
I plopped down on one of the chairs. A mildew smell rose up from it. I watched the TV. My shot hadn’t worn off yet, so I was still too numb to mind how the screen flashed between two stations. In fact, it made perfect sense to me. The slicing-dicing potato machine and the warehouse fire were definitely connected in some way. The other patients watching the TV seemed to realize that, too: a few old fogies, too crazy and tired and drugged up to stand in the apple line with the others. They nodded and drooled at the potato machine and the fire.
The infomercial’s 1-900 number faded to an image of the burning warehouse and an old Latina woman next to me yelled out, “Jorge, mijo Jorge!” and I knew I’d find the secret soon, how the potato machine caused the fire, when a voice behind me said, “There comes a point when you’re eating state apples and watching a broken TV and you tell yourself, never again.”
I whipped my head backwards to find the source of the voice. It was a young guy, tall with buckteeth and gold eyes. A nightmare bunny standing behind my chair.
“And then it always happens again.” he went on. “You always end up back in the dayroom.”
“Oh yeah? You come here a lot?” I answered, without really looking at him. My eyes had gone back to the flickering TV screen. Fire, potato machine.
“Yup, it’s my 7th time!” the guy said, as if he was proud of it.
“It’s my first.” I said.
“Really? First time here? You look a lot more crazy than that.” He grinned and his buckteeth seemed to grow. They were vicious, bloodthirsty. Animal teeth. Despite my chemical calm from the shot, I felt threatened.
“Who are you to call me crazy?” I snapped. “You’re stuck in here, too.”
“I’m Fergus, the task force against evil. I keep evil out of Chicago.” he beamed.
“What the hell?”
“Let me ask you something, blue-haired girl.”
“My name is Aqua Lula.” I lied. It’s not my real name, but the name the Lake called me when she asked me to drown inside her.
“Okay, Lula, let me ask you something. What if you get out of this hospital and go to a party and this group of people, these well-dressed beautiful people come up to you and they say they’ll give you anything you want, if you let them put their mark on your wrist. Would you do it?” Fergus touched his wrist and widened his gold eyes.
“What kind of question is that? They could get me anything I want? I guess I’d do it.”
Fergus’ frowned and shook his head. “It’s been nice talking with you, Lula. I don’t think I’ll be talking with you anymore.” He began to walk away.
“Wait!” I called. I didn’t want to be alone again. “It’s just a little mark on your wrist. What’s wrong with that? I bet you’d do it.”
“I did.” Fergus thrust his wrist in my face and I saw the rosy, cross shaped-scar. Then he grabbed the back of my chair and leaned toward me. “Hey, you look so familiar. Did you used to hang out by Clark and Belmont? I think I’ve seen you there.”
I rolled my eyes. He’d just given me the all purpose pick-up line for goth/punk/freak chicks in Chicago. It’s a safe assumption that a girl with blue hair, tattoos and a lip ring has hung around Clark and Belmont before.
“I was involved with some bad people down there.” Fergus continued. “You remind me of them. You have those kind of shadows in your eyes.”
“What kind of shadows? What do you mean?” I rubbed my eyes. My fingers were smudged in black make-up.
“Have you heard of the restaurant, Clarkes?” Fergus changed the subject.
“Yeah…”
“I broke a cop’s ankle there.”
“Sweet!” I smiled. Maybe he wasn’t trying to hit on me, after all.
Behind him, an old woman limped out of her bedroom. Her lips pumped up and down, sucking on her empty gums. Wild, white clumps of hair sprung from her head. She had her gown undone in back. I was surprised at how firm her old, brown butt cheeks were. Curly, white fuzz surrounded the crack.
Fergus heard the stick-stick of the old woman’s bare feet on the tile floor and turned around to watch her. The patients in the chairs around me did, too. I got the impression this woman served as the hospital entertainment.
“I run outa pannies. I need some pannies! Size 9 Hanes. Some pannies.” The woman barked at Nurse Bigfoot, who had finished handing out the apples and was now at the nurse’s counter, pouring Haldol into little, plastic cups. It was almost medication time.
“Miss Carol, get back in your room and I’ll bring you some panties.” Nurse Bigfoot said.
Right then, Crystelle and the Queen stepped into the dayroom and stood by the nurse’s counter. They noticed Miss Carol and her undone gown and were howling and slapping their thighs.
“Ohh man, there she goes again!” Crystelle said to the Queen. I gushed between my legs at the sight of Crystelle’s colorless eye, shining under the fluorescent lights like a magical hard-boiled egg.
“I need some pannies. Some pannies. Size 9 Hanes.” Miss Carol repeated and hobbled back to her bedroom. Fergus returned his spacey gaze to me.
“So tell me about the cop.” I asked him.
“Well, I was involved with the Satanic ministry.” Fergus touched the slug-like scar on his wrist. “But then I found Christ.”
“Oh.” I said, disappointed.
“I spent two years in Cook County jail. It seemed God used to favor me. That the strength of my light could burn away the demons, but now…” he trailed off.
“Yeah?” I asked half-heartedly. My thoughts drifted to my Master. I pictured him searching all over for me: in the dungeon, in the coffin, under the bed. Lines of worry and rage pinched his glassy blue eyes. He probably thought I ran away. I wished I could tell him I didn’t, that I never would. I was captured.
“I don’t know if you know this.” Fergus lowered his voice. “But the Beast is growing under Belmont.”
“The Beast?”
“And Satan’s staying at the Abbott Hotel. I went over to visit him, once.”
“And?”
“He told me to go to Clarke’s and spread his word. I was going from table to table and preaching.”
“So what about the cop?”
Fergus grinned, baring his rabbit teeth. “That, I will save for another day. Once you prove yourself to me, Lula.”
“What?”
“Good night.” Fergus said and shuffled toward his bedroom. I noticed the TV had stopped its flickering. It was focused on the infomercial channel, now: a beanpole woman in an ugly, purple leotard was strapped to a torture device/home workout machine.
Behind me, Nurse Bigfoot called, “Everybody line up. It’s medication time.”
I heard the Queen cheer, “Oh goody! Happy hour!” ¶ 1:53 PM 10 comments
Right now, I am way to close to the main character and haven't had enough adventures of my own to really authentically write a journey-type story, which is what this novel wants to be.
I will pick it up again, one day. I promise
Now back to writing my usual somewhat erotic magical realism. ¶ 6:17 PM 15 comments
The walls were not white there, as you’d expect. They were more of a stale yellow, like a bathtub that had hosted too many golden showers.
It was my first night. It was snack time. I was at a table in the eating room, munching on an apple, still numb from the shot I’d been given earlier. My muscles were all loose like boring penises. I didn’t even care where I was. I was just a girl in a hospital gown, enjoying the way an apple’s skin was breaking beneath her teeth.
Of course I had these images in my head of Master stomping through the warehouse, opening every closet and coffin. Dropping down to his knees to look for me under the bed or under a table. He’d think I was hiding, that’s all. Trying to earn myself a spanking. I wanted to let him know that I was captured. I would never run away.
I could’ve asked the nurses to let me use the phone. But there was a crooked line of patients waiting in front of them to get their apples. I watched three ladies at the front of the line. One had her bathrobe draped around her shoulders like a cape. She was almost regal, tugging a plastic comb through her long, black hair. The woman behind her was older, gray-haired with gigantic glasses covering half her cheeks. She kept tensing her shoulders up like she was really nervous. Then there was a girl who looked about my age. She was dark and bald and she had this smile that popped right off her face. I noticed that one of her eyes had no pupil. It was all white. Just a milky marble under fluorescent lights.
The three women chatted like they were secretaries at a water cooler. Well, secretaries on lots and lots of anti-psychotic meds. Not thrilled to be where they were, but smiling still. And twitching a little. And wearing booties with rubber pieces on the feet, so they wouldn’t slip on the dirty tile floor.
The nurse passed an apple to the black-haired lady and she accepted it proudly, gently, like she was winning a trophy. With her shoulders held high and her chin up, holding the apple like it was fragile. She turned for the tables and I had three empty chairs at mine. I was hoping her and the other two would sit with me. They all seemed safe enough. And I can’t stand eating alone.
But she sat somewhere else. The old lady and the girl with the cool eye sat with her. I decided to finish my apple quickly, then go in the dayroom.
In the dayroom, there was a u-shape of chairs, all the same. Wooden and heavy with blue, vinyl cushions that smelled like mildew. A few patients were sitting in there. Others were pacing around the perimeter of the room. At the center of the chairs was a little TV. It flickered back and forth between static and two shiny looking reporters. I sat down and watched. “Warehouse fire,” one said, “on Chicago’s South Side. We join Dan Marco on the scene.”
“Thank you, Carrie. This 8-alarm fire has been raging since 3 this afternoon…” It took a second for the shock to trickle through my body, washing my muscles numb. My lungs sped up. I dug my fingernails into my palms and bit my lip, but it wasn’t until I tasted blood did I fully realize that it was Master’s place on the screen.
I jumped because, right then a voice behind me said, “There comes a point when you’re eating state apples and watching a broken TV and you tell yourself, never again.” I glanced behind me. It was a young guy with buck teeth and gold eyes. “And then it always happens again.” he went on.
“Oh. You come here a lot?” I answered, without really looking at him. I was too fascinated with watching my home on fire.
“Yup. It’s my 7th time.” He said, as if he was proud of that, or something and sat down next to me.
“Oh. It’s my first time.” I said and sucked more blood from my lip. I started to picture the whips and dildos in Master’s warehouse melting. Was Master in there? Do chains melt?
“Really? First time here? You look a lot more crazy than that.” The guy said.
“Who are you to tell me that?” I snapped and forgot all about the burning warehouse.
“I’m Fergus, the task force against evil. I keep evil out of Chicago.”
I laughed. “What the hell?”
“Let me ask you something, red-haired girl.”
“I’m Hela.”
“Okay, Hela, let me ask you something. What if you get out of this hospital, and go to a party and this group of people, these well-dressed beautiful people come up to you and they tell you they’ll give you anything you want, if only you let them put their mark on your wrist. Would you do it?” Fergus touched his wrist.
“What kind of question is that? I dunno. They could get me anything I want? I guess I’d do it.”
Fergus’ lips drooped over his big, front teeth. “It’s been nice talking with you, Hela. I don’t think I’ll be talking with you again.” He got up from the chair.
“What? It’s just a little mark on your wrist. What’s wrong with that? I bet you’d do it.”
“I did.” Fergus thrust his wrist in my face and I saw the rosy, cross shaped-scar. He sat back down. “Hey, you look so familiar. Did you used to hang out by Clark and Belmont?”
“Yeah, sometimes.” I thought back to when I was homeless there and how Master found me and took me to the warehouse. The burning warehouse.
“I was involved with some bad people down there.” Fergus continued. “You remind me of them. You have those kind of shadows in your eyes.”
I wondered what kind of shadows he meant. I wondered where Master was. Did he get out of the fire on time? Did he start it?
“You know that restaurant, Clarke’s?” Fergus asked.
“Yeah…”
“I broke a cop’s ankle there.”
“What? Why? And how?” I smiled. Maybe this guy was sort of cool, after all.
Behind him, an old woman limped out of her bedroom. She had her gown undone in back. I was surprised at how firm her old, brown butt cheeks were. Not a dimple of cellulite or a stray hair.
Fergus heard the stick-stick of her bare feet on the tile floor and turned around to watch her. I got the impression that this woman served as the hospital entertainment.
“I run outa pannies. I need some pannies! Size 9 Hanes. Some pannies.” The woman barked at a tall, blonde nurse, who I’d heard the other patients call Nurse Bigfoot. She was busy pouring Valporic Acid into little plastic cups. It must have been almost medication time.
“Carol, get back in your room and I’ll bring you some panties.” Bigfoot said. Across the dayroom, the three women I had seen in the apple line were cackling loudly.
“I need some pannies. Some pannies. Size 9 Hanes.” Carol said again and hobbled back into her bedroom. Fergus returned his spacey gold eyes to me.
“So tell me about the cop.” I asked him.
“Well, I was involved with the Satanic ministry.” Fergus touched the slug-like scar on his wrist. “But then I found Christ.”
“Oh.” I said, disappointed.
“I spent two years in Cook County. One at Elgin. It seemed God used to favor me. That the strength of my light could burn away the demons, but now…” he trailed off.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t know if you know this.” He lowered his voice. “The Beast is growing under Belmont.”
“The beast?”
“And Satan’s staying at the Abbott Hotel. I went over to visit him, once.”
“And?”
Ohh..things are gonna change:
-First of all, this novel should be called "Hela" rather than "Happy Hour", since the latter is a reference to pill time at the hospital. And I have realized that Hela will be in the hopsital for only a short portion of the book. From now on, it is going to focus more on her journey after she breaks out.
-This whole thing will be rewritten in first person. It seems more honest and real that way. It moves quicker, since in 3rd person I have a tendency to detach myself from the characters and overdescribe the scene. I don't know if this 1st person will be directed toward the audience, or if it's Hela talking to an imaginary friend named Vainy Len.
-Alicia's name will be changed to Crystelle. Crystelle and Hela sounds better than Alicia and Hela.
-There will be many more sex scenes.
-Once I named the master Gustav, I truly knew him. He is an awe-inspiring, yet comical German dude who is also a total creep, but you're not supposed to know that yet.
-His friend who they hide with is not John. I don't like that guy. In the re-write, they will hide with Gustav's cousin Rudiger (Rudi for short).
-There are many more changes in my head and my journal, but you'll just have to read them as they come. =)
Okay, now all I have to do is write it. *sigh* ¶ 6:25 PM 1 comments
I couldn’t fucking believe it. He actually did it. My master came to claim me. He actually got me out of that goddamn loony trap. No more dirty walls and bland food and nasty pills.
We ran our asses off. It was hard to do in slippers. We ran through those mazey hospital halls with the guards’ footsteps right behind us, then out the door to this beater car he had stolen and parked out front.
In the getaway car I rolled down the window all the way, stuck my face out and breathed the yummy summer air. At that point, I felt what a bullet does when it pops from the barrel of a gun. A rush of cold and motion. It was all so bright, it was almost cartooney. I watched the roads and houses and trees swish past the window in colorful streaks.
“I should have locked you two in the trunk.” Master said as the wailing of sirens got nearer, like a gigantic squalling infant was stomping our way, crushing parked cars with each barefoot step.
“I can just hear it now.” My master squeezed his nasals shut to do his best Chicago cop impression, “Ehh..he’s a Cahcazhin male, abaht 6 foot 2, turdy yeahs old, wit a twenny yeah old Cahcazhin femayle, a twenny tree yeah old black femayle, boat of um 5 feet tall and wearin’ hahspiddle gahns…”
Alicia and me laughed at that. Alicia asked Master, “Hey man, uh, what’s your name?”
“It’s Gustav. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Get ready girls, we’re gonna ditch this car about…here!” He cut the wheel sharply to the right, stopped the car and leapt from the driver’s seat. I jumped out the car, too, stumbling after Master across a green lawn. They must’ve just watered it, ‘cuz my slippers got soggy.
“Great. I leave them crazies for these crazies!” I heard Alicia say as she shut the car door and ran to catch up with us. She yelped when twigs in the lawn sliced through her slippers and cut her bare feet.
After hopping from backyard to backyard, over picket and wire fences, past scary guard dogs and old ladies in curlers, Master finally quit running. His long legs stopped beneath him like newly dead snakes.
“This is the house. My buddy John lives here. He should be out in a second.” Master pointed up to a white house with peeling paint. A stack of old tires sat next to the rickety porch.
“John? Oh god!” I said. “Alicia, watch out for this dude!” I cringed and curled my lip.
“Whatchu mean?” Alicia grinned. “I be starvin’ for dick!”
“Uh, not this one.”
The screen door of the house swung open. A lumpy figure in a yellowed wife beater now crowded the doorway.
“John, my man, hear those sirens?” Master began, the excitement boiling blue in his gaze. “They’re for us.” He gestured toward me and Alicia. We were still panting from running. The squalling infant noise got louder.
John narrowed his already pinched slits of eyes and leered. “Mmm who’s this here?” He nodded his chin at Alicia.
“That is Alicia. A friend of my dear slave, Hela.” He placed his big, soft hand on my back. I knew I was sparkling under his touch.
“Kay, come on in.” John said in his slight southern accent. He lifted the knob on the screen door. We climbed the porch stairs. A musky stink of dog hair and cigarette smoke slapped me on the nose as we entered the house.
John’s basement was actually pretty cozy, despite the piles of rancid laundry and dog hair all over the couches. Oddly enough, I hadn’t seen or heard the dog yet. Alicia and John were watching the news to see if there was a report about us.
“The first thing we do is get rid of that hair.” Master pointed to my head.
“Can’t we fuck first?” I begged.
Master smiled, making creases shoot from the corners of his eyes. “Hel, that faded red shag you’ve got growing is much too obvious.” He grabbed my arm and led me into the bathroom. On the sink was an electric razor and what I assumed were John’s whiskers dotting the faucet.
Master slapped my ass. “Now bend over. Over the bath tub.” I did as he asked.
Soon, I heard the bumblebee sound of the razor, felt a lightness overwhelm my scalp and watched clumps of matted hair collect in the bathtub below me in cherry-colored bird nests.
Master petted my newly bald head. The tiny hairs on my lower back stood tall. From the warm shock of his fingers, and maybe to compensate for the lack of fuzz on my scalp.
John and Alicia’s eyes ticked back and forth from us to the TV news, then back to us.
I was on my hands and knees, Master pressing my lower back down with one hand and holding his belt in the other. His fat cock glided in and out of my ass with the wetness of poo and spit, from when I had sucked on him just a few minutes before. I felt his hot thighs slap against my ass cheeks with each thrust. My butthole stung as it stretched around his swollen dick.
“I promise, I promise, I’ll never get caught again.” I breathed between screams.
“Mmm… that’s a good little slave.” Master moaned from deep in his chest. His voice was like whisky and chocolate syrup. He moved his hand from my back, reached around my side and began to rub my clit as he fucked my ass. The wetness gushed out of me, all over Master’s fingers and dripped down onto the icky brown carpet.
The tightness in my butt, paired with the pulsing tickle in my clit was too much for me to stand any longer. I felt a hot swelling inside me. Master cracked me on the ass with the belt a few times and the sting was electric.
“Uhaaaahhh!” I squeaked and the childishness of my voice sent me twitching into a massive cum. My clit was exploding. It felt like it was trying to jump off my crotch.
As my body loosened, Master started to fuck me harder and faster. The force of him tossed me around like a doll. My big, soft ass smacked his stomach. He let out a low and animal grunt. A rush of warmth erupted inside my butt, like the sweetest diarrhea. Master slowed down and sighed.
I pooped out his cock. My asshole was deliciously sore. I rose to my rugburned knees, turned around and looked at my master. His mounds of muscles were laced in sun-light hairs. His eyelids were hanging low over his dilated pupils. His chest heaved gently.
“I missed you, Hela.” He said and half-smiled. Then laughed and pointed to the couch.
Alicia was naked and straddling John, who was sitting. Her short, brown legs barely reaching around his pasty, bulging sides. With a grinding of her hips, she bounced up and down on his cock. She noticed me and Master looking.
Carol stumbled from her bedroom, wringing a pair of dirty slippers in her wrinkled hands. “Socks! Socks! I need some!” Carol yelled, then stopped and let her bottom jaw fall, exposing the toothless gumminess of her mouth when she saw the man with the gun in the dayroom.
“Alright loonies, I’m in charge here, now.” Hela’s master held up the tiger striped gun. In his thick arms, the massive barrel seemed almost toy-like. “I want you all to fuck shit up. Fight, throw things, crap on the floor. You’re psychopaths, aren’t you?”
Hela’s master was greeted only with the unison blinking of glazed over eyes. He pointed his gun to the ceiling.
“Move!” he ordered and fired a shot. Flakes of ceiling tile rained down around him.
Markus stood and with his meanest thug face sauntered calmly to the television table, wrapped both arms around the small, black box then lifted it, dropped it, sending it splintering into shards of plastic and glass against the hard floor tiles.
Elena’s eyes lit up like fireworks. Her black hair bounced behind her as she ran to the bookshelf, next to Carol’s bedroom. Elena grabbed handfuls of paperbacks, last month’s tabloids, scribbled-in copies of donated classics and tossed them over her shoulders.
“Yipeee! This is fun! I like the man with the gun!” she cheered and heaved a dictionary behind her with both hands. It bounced off Carol’s nappy, gray head with a smack.
“Hey, you watch it you Chinaman!” Carol barked and threw her dirty slippers at Elena, who chucked more books at Carol in response.
At the counter, Nurse Jean fumbled with the keys on the phone.
“Hands up, hag!” Hela’s master pointed the desert eagle at Jean. She raised her plump arms. Her lips began to tremble. Behind her, an office door opened. Two heads peeked out, blonde ones. It was Dr. Littleboy and psychologist Kelly.
“Hey, how ‘bout you two stay in there.” Master said with a leer. The office door shut. Master surveyed the dayroom. Elena was still throwing books. Markus picked up the VCR and held it above his head. Fergus kicked over a garbage can. Used tissues and papers spilled out of it like a cornucopia.
Master noticed Alicia watching the whole scene, too. Cackling and slapping her thigh. “Oh and you, baldy. " he said to her. "Go stand by the door.”
Alicia stopped laughing and widened her eyes, the colorless one gleaming white like a hard-boiled egg. She said nothing and ran down the hall, through the eating area, to the door where she stood by Hela.
Master stepped behind the nurses counter, said to the now weeping Jean, “Sorry doll, would love to stay and raid your pill box.” He pressed the buzzer, then started for the door, where two girls, one soft and pale, the other dark and buff bounced up and down in a victory dance at the sight of his baseball cap and gun.
The guard hit the buzzer. The tall man entered the hospital office: white walls, desk and metal detector. He didn’t wear his leather pants, as Hela had asked. No, this man who faced the metal detector, now wore a baseball cap and corduroys. Somebody’s uncle. A brother. A neighbor. Familiarity’s mascot.
The guard sat behind the desk, hardly looking up from her food as the glass door shut behind the man. She scooped out the insides of her taco with a plastic fork, as if performing some sort of taxidermy, then shoveled the gut-heap of beef and cheese into her mouth.
“Excuse me, sir.” Hela’s master said.
“Sir!?” The guard clamped her hands where her hips should have been. Hela’s master discovered the guard had breasts.
“Pardon me.” He said and curled his lips into a smile, which had never ceased to juice a pair of female panties. “I am here to visit a friend of mine.”
“What unit?” the guard asked, softened by the creamy tenor of his voice.
“D North.”
“Mnh.” The guard flicked a fragment of lettuce from her sparse, red mustache and rose to her feet. “You’ll need to fill out some papers, but first, step through here.”
She positioned herself on the other side of the metal detector. Her squinty brown eyes darting into Hela’s master’s watery, blue ones. Only this plastic rectangle, this hermaphroditic creature in a poo-brown uniform separated Master from Hela. And he would allow no obstructions.
Fluidly, with no words, his hand rose to the guard’s stubble-dotted neck. He closed his thumb and forefingers on her trachea, pressed down firmly, feeling the muscles pump for air beneath his digits, watching the guard’s eyes bulge, then flutter shut.
She fell gently, almost gracefully, onto the dusty tile floor and landed on her side. “Not dead, just fainted.” Hela’s master thought as he stepped around the metal detector.
“’Scuse me, sir?” a guard asked in the hall. “Where you tryin’ to get to?”
“D North.” Hela’s master replied.
“Oh, down there.” The guard pointed over his shoulder, down the blank, white hall with his thumb. “This place is like a maze n’nt it?”
“Yep.”
“Tha’way, all the crazies can’t escape. Heh heh.”
“Wouldn’t want that.” Hela’s master said and started to walk again. Something cold knocked his leg from the inside of his biker boot with each step.
The guard continued down the hall in the opposite direction, toward the office. Both their footsteps clicked and echoed in the empty hallway like a leaky faucet.
Master knew he had about 2 minutes.
“Hela, you have a visitor.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you Snow White. It’s your prince here to wake you up.” Nurse Jean led Hela down the yellow hallway, into the eating area where her master was seated at one of the sticky, round tables. Something bright and alive to mock the dull, worn walls. Hela shrieked and ran toward him, leapt and landed on his lap, nearly knocking him from the chair.
“No touching!” Nurse Jean yelled and rubbed her baggy eyes.
“You heard her.” Hela’s master said sternly.
“But..but..” Hela began. Her master winked. Hela smiled and nodded, knowing this was not the time to misbehave. Nurse Jean waddled out of earshot.
“Hello little sister.” Master crooned.
“Is that what you told them?” Hela slid into a seat across the table from her Master.
“I couldn’t exactly tell them the truth…”
“Yeah. So what’s with the funny get-up? Where’s the gun and the leather pants?” Hela giggled.
Master lowered his tone, “In my boot. And I thought it would be too conspicuous.”
Hela’s face wiped blank, her eyes steamed up like greenhouse windows, her nipples puckered with waves of thrill. “Which one?”
“Tiger stripes.”
Hela pictured her master’s tiger-striped desert eagle .50 wedged beneath the shiny buckle of his boot. “Goodie! That’s my favorite one!”
“Now get to the door and get ready to run.”
