"Bleeding Jesus
on his fucking cross. What in good glory’s name do I think I’m doing?"
These were the thoughts,
the handy little words of advice that flitted through the mind of our hero. And where was our hero? Our
hero was sitting in a little town named Nothing, located in a state called Nihility, in a country
that went by the name of Obliteration. Yes, Henry was sitting in a tiny little shop called Stainless
Studios Body Art, which happened to be located along the main street, the "downtown" section of Nothing,
if you so desire to call it that. As these precise thoughts flew through his mind, he was sitting in
a large and rather comfortable chair, his wallet quite empty of the seventy five dollars that he had
brought, a new brochure titled "how to take care of your piercing" resting easily in his pocket. His
eyes were closed; his tongue was sticking straight out of his mouth in an insane parody of the child
version of the middle finger. A clamp was on his tongue, in an earnest and valiant attempt to cut
the blood supply off from this strange and weird muscle that extended halfway down his throat and was
home to millions of taste buds. Henry’s muscles shivered gently, as if in anticipation of some great
pain. Some classic, no bullshit about it, Grade-A, A-OK, fierce and unwavering pain. Yeah, that kind
of pain. You know of which kind I’m talking about.
Through his mostly closed eyes, Henry saw
the big piercing dude remove the needle from it’s sterile packaging, prepare the towels and get the piece
of metal ready. "This guy is a real work of art", Henry thought to himself, looking at the man’s beautiful
tattoos, the intricate flow of dragons and skeletal figures that covered every available scrap of skin
on this man. The privacy curtain rustled a bit, and a head peeked though. It was the lady at the counter,
who had taken his money and rang up the bill, just after Henry had weakly announced "One tongue piercing,
please". She smiled softly but quickly at Henry, they were about the same age, and turned to the big
dude and asked, "Do you mind if I watch?"
The big dude grunted, and looked up from his preparations,
and muttered, "Why?" "Well, you know that I just dropped out of school, he he, that shit is for losers
anyway, and even though you have me tending the front counter, just taking money and telling people ‘one
minute, please’ (she said in this in a high, mocking falsetto voice) you know that all I want to do is
to shove those needles through people myself!" She said this all with a grin in her eyes, while carefully
watching Henry sitting with his tongue sticking out. Henry looked back at her, the entire time, trying
really hard not to feel like a fool.
"Sure, have a seat, have a look-see at this piercing here,
but don’t think I’m gonna do any explaining to you during the proceedings, because I’ve had a rough day
today, gonna have a rough night tonight, and I don’t much feel like talking now." He grunted, and got
right back to preparing the tools of the trade.
"Oh thank you Soooo Much!!", she said, turning
to Henry. Wow I’ve never seen one of these done before, I’ve always wanted to get one, but never actually
have, but that’s OK, because my ex-boyfriend has one and *WOW* are they ever good, I’m trying to convince
my current boyfriend to get one, because, well you know, they are so good!" She said this all in a bright
high-pitched flourish of speech, her eyes twinkling with that little thing called FLIRT. Henry made a
courageous attempt to nod wisely at all she was saying. He was scared shitless inside, from anticipating
the pain of the piercing and the aggressive flirting from whatever the hell her name was.
The
big dude announced that he was ready, and that it would soon be the point of no return. He asked Henry
if he was sure that he wanted to go through with it. What’s her name was looking on intently. Henry nodded
weakly again. The big dude grunted, and got straight to work.
Well, to make a long story short,
twenty minutes later, Henry was sitting down cross legged outside the shop, sitting there right on the
sidewalk with his back up against the wall of the shop, and a cigarette dangling in his fingers. His
tongue was rapidly approaching the size of a large German sausage, but at least that horrible nausea
was fading back a little a bit. "I didn’t puke", Henry thought to himself. "I didn’t puke, and I didn’t
make a fool out of myself, and hell, that counts for something." These thought, these repetitive thoughts
about not making a fool of himself, repeating themselves around his brain, they would have gone on forever,
but What’s Her Name stepped out of the store, and gently rested a hand against his shoulder. She looked
down at him.
"You did well, you know. A lot of other people would have chickened out, or at least
have gotten all scared and jittery. But you really did well."
Henry looked up at her, and smiled
a little bit. "Oh, thanks for saying that." He wrung his hands together, desperately trying to figure
out something intelligent and witty to say. What’s her name instead took care of the problem, by leaning
down over him and lightly brushing his lips with her own. She smiled at him, and began to walk away.
Henry stared mutely at her, wondering if he should say something to her. Henry decided not to. He
was shaking a little from the piercing adrenaline rush and the encounter with What’s Her Name. Well,
Henry got up and stretched a little, letting his tense muscles unwind and relax a little. He got off
along his business, he went home. Ate. Dressed. Went out, to the Thrush Hermit.
The Thrush Hermit
I know what you’re thinking. You don’t even have to open your mouth; I can see the question
burning on your lips. You’re wondering what the Thrush Hermit is. To answer, I want you to picture this
town, Nothing U.S.A. Nothing is a shitheap. Plain and simple are the key words. It is a small town,
with twenty or thirty thousand souls. The buildings were built after the war, and their style reflects,
the simple squat cubic frames, which were designed for the hardcore middle class, raising the family,
working the job, keep on truckin’. The people are solid, stolid, earthy and "moral" to the core. Conformity
is the way here. Conformity is the LAW. Have I explained enough? Do I really have to get into the
story about how Marsha Strodnam was screwing around with the handsome neighbor, and subsequently caught
pregnant? Or how her father had beaten her and then cried, and of how her mother would barely speak
to her anymore? Of how she was made to wear a garter stretched way too tight in order to hide the growing
baby, which eventually caused a miscarriage? Hey how about the story of Erick Stellar, who had taken
to painting his nails black, wearing kohl around his eyes, and not eating anymore. Eric went to school
everyday, not looking or speaking to anyone. His old friends were just totally baffled. Erick used
to get beaten up at recess, the rather large white bread tall and lanky blonde haired jocks dragging him
out of the smoking pit and beating the holy shit out of him. It was a sad case, indeed. Erick ended up
taking a bite from the business end of his father’s handgun, one fine morning. The Stellar family was
devastated, I mean, they couldn’t even show their faces in church without being looked at rather strangely.
My point is, life has it’s ups, and downs. Stupidly philosophical, but the truth nevertheless.
Nothing was a regular little town, in that it’s had more than its fair share of crime, smut, pain and
hedonism. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just that Nothing would cover it up in a
blanket of sweetness. But there is still everything else. And they hung out at the Thrush Hermit.
Thrush Hermit was the extent of the scene in Nothing. It was an old converted warehouse, on the other
side of town, the small industrial district. The streets leading up to it were lonely at night, because
of course, all the workers went home at night, to their families. People, lonely and shunned people met
there at night, even if there was no band showing, and no money to buy any more cheap beer. I guess it
was just a place to relax, to be among your own for a little while. Everyone, and I mean every type of
deviant person eventually wound up at Thrush Hermit, to ease the pangs of loneliness and alienation.
There were the piercing phreaks, the punkers, the wiccans, the Goths, any combination of the above, and
even a few Sk8ter dudes thrown in for good measure. The place itself, you walk in, turn the corner, there’s
the bar. Across the room, a bunch of chairs and tables, and a small stage on the opposite wall. Almost
every available square inch of surface area in he place was filled with graffiti, the magic marker marks
and the chiseled in letters and phrases from a generation of minds. The place was nothing special by
anyone’s standards, just another live music bar, which could be found by the dozen in any large city.
The people were nothing special, just the random and disassociated youthlings that can be found anywhere,
any city or any town, any time, any place.
Henry walked into the Thrush Hermit. About now, some
three odd hours after the tongue piercing, poor Henry’s tongue was all swollen up. The barbell that was
his jewelry felt like a malign presence in his tongue, a cold slimy and utterly alien object in his
mouth. It was swollen so badly that Henry could barely speak, and if he did, it was the short broken
and utterly painful phrases of the recently tongue pierced. As he walked in, a cloud of smell hit
him, it was the pheromones and the cigarettes, fried food and beer, all mixed together into one powerful
olfactory assault. There was no live band that night, but there was the house system, which was playing
some weird song, hard and crazy, yet strangely melodic. Henry thought about it a little, but he couldn’t
place it. It sounded like a strange mix between Helmet and Bjork. Go figure.
That night, at the
Thrush Hermit, he met her and she met him, amongst the crowds and the music, the smells and the bright
flashing lights.
It didn’t happen all of a sudden. Henry was peacefully sitting at the bar, watching
others make pleasant conversation and flirts with the bartender. His expression was as if he was mildly
pleased, a half-filled beer rested lightly in his hand, and two empties were in front of him. Things
were good. There was a party around him. Hell, there was even a little party happening inside his ever
so slightly drunken head. People were around, and Henry felt as if he could suck up their social energy,
their good times and fond memories, and be happy from it. What an interesting concept, for all you shy
and/or recently tongue pierced. This story, it rambles, does it not? Well, I’m only doing it because
I want YOU to get into MY mind. Enough said. To continue…….
Henry was sitting peacefully at the
bar, watching other people talk, and sharing their good times. And he didn’t see her all of a sudden,
it was instead more of a reckoning, a simple awareness brought about only by time, the image of her
slowly burning all the way to the inside of his mind. One moment she was a half-formed mental reflection,
the next, She was sitting there. And who was She? What did she look like, that she could demand attention
of Henry so damn much?
She was, she was, …….. words can not express, they simply cannot do justice,
to her image.
She sat there, at a table, smoking a cigarette, and an opened but still full bottle
of beer in front of her. It was a normal table, and what looked like a Winston Light cigarette. A waitress
stopped by her table, and took the still full bottle and replaced it with another. The girl put a
one-dollar bill on the table, and the waitress went of to take some more orders from a sordid looking
group of Goth people, without even looking at the money on the table. She looked around quickly with
her eyes, as if she feared some sudden interruption, and then looked at Henry. She didn’t look at him.
At first her eyes were wide and unfocused, her eyes were looking through him. Then her eyes narrowed,
and she began to see Henry. She saw him seeing her. Confusing, isn’t it? As their eyes made electric
contact, sparks jumped and Henry, being a bright lad, soon got to thinking, "It’s me, I’m the only
one who can see her. The others can’t see her. She exists in a haze to them, they cannot truly see her.
I can see her. And because I can see her, she can see ME." His mind was buzzing around in a strange
little way, the simple delight of understanding the ways in which they saw each other was totally mind-numbing,
at least for the moment. They were still gazing into each other’s eyes, not a lovey dovey gaze mind
you, but more like a gaze of morbid fascination with each other. She was beautiful, fully and completely.
A long time passed, at least an hour, until Henry broke free from this mysterious trance. He
looked up quickly, staring again at the familiar crowd that normally decked out the Thrush Hermit. He
realized that his throat was very dry, and that he had forgotten to swallow for the entire time they
were staring at each other. And the small barbell that went through his tongue was still quite uncomfortable,
and quite alien. Henry closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he ordered another beer from the
bar, which he proceeded to drink in one entire draught. Henry was scared, you see. He was scared that
if he would look back to where She was sitting, she wouldn’t be there anymore. Instead, he closed his
eyes again, to try and remember what she looked like, as if he would never be able to see her again,
ever. Her image, She, the goddess, was truly burnt into the back of his eyeballs, burnt into the memory
of his mind. Henry had absolutely no problem in letting his mind slide and become loose, to let the image
of her fall back into his conciseness and let her image totally fill his waking intellect.
She
was white. Her face, her hands, her neck, they were all white. Not Caucasian, but *white*. Her skin was
not pink or tan. Just white. Her hair, a light blonde that ran softly down her shoulders, her hair almost
white as well, too match her beautiful white skin. Her eyes, were a bright and glowing blue, which seemed
to reach out and demand attention. Her face was lovely. She was beautiful. She was maybe thirteen years
old, from the looks of her. Henry’s mind was blown, just shot. How could the Thrush Hermit let such an
obvious minor through their doors? It didn’t matter, Henry thought to himself; nothing mattered to him
except the lovely vision of her, the sight of her perfectly white face. Henry’s mind faltered for a moment,
and he realized that all this time while he had been thinking of her, she might have gotten up and strolled
off into the empty night. She might not even be there any more! He looked up sharply, so quickly that
he pulled a muscle in his neck, so quickly that the barbell through his tongue jerked up and banged the
roof of his mouth, causing him to wince in pain. His worst fears were realized. She was no longer there,
only an empty table and chair where she used to sit. It was futile, utterly hopeless. He hadn’t even
said one word to her. And after all, Henry realized with a start, what was he supposed to have said
to her? "Uh, hello there beautiful but incredibly young thirteen year old girl, I am totally captivated
by your presence. Uh, can I buy you a drink?" The words sounded stupid even as Henry spoke them inside
his head. It was hollow, utterly pointless and stupid. I mean, Hell! She was only thirteen years old!
Fourteen at the most. Henry sighed, and stood up, leaving a generous tip for the waitress. He walked
out the door of the club, with a strange, and almost lost look on his face. All he wanted to do was to
go home, and fall into bed, and never ever have to worry about waking up again. What a sad life, indeed.
The Rape
Poor old Henry walked out of the club, and onto the street. There were the usual
small groups of people standing, smoking and talking. It was incredible, Henry thought, that people could
stand and smoke and talk about absolutely nothing, pure bullshit, for as long as they do. Simply fascinating,
just another wonderful aspect of the naked ape. Henry walked, he walked away from the club, and down
the empty streets of Nothing’s deserted industrial district. He walked without direction, he just
wanted to walk and walk to forget about everything. He walked without aim for one hour, and then two
hours. Henry clearly realized that he was passing familiar buildings and streets, places that he had
already walked by, on this aimless cruise of his. The weather was slightly balmy and humid, a hot summer
night. Perspiration was raised in fine droplets on his skin, and soon Henry began to feel a little better,
the exercise of walking and sweating a little was clearing his confused head, clearing some of the toxins
from his system, and giving him a slight sense of well-being. Even his tongue piercing was starting to
feel a little better; the swelling had down somewhat in the past few hours.
Suddenly Henry heard
sounds, the clear sound of a conversation being shared, in low and hushed tones. Henry immediately
stopped walking, his muscles tightened and his breath started to come in short and quick breaths.
He clamped his mouth shut, again banging the barbell against the top of his mouth and causing some rather
intense pain, which starting up all the swelling again. Henry put his hand to his chest and told himself
that there was no reason to be this scared, it was only a man and woman talking to each other, perhaps
two lovers taking a quiet stroll in the streets on a beautiful midsummer night. There was no reason to
be scared, Henry though in his logical mind. But then why was he feeling this crazy sense of dread in
the pit of his belly, a feeling that something was going to happen, something deadly but rather exciting?
It was a mystery until Henry, walking around the street corner in a daze again yet again, saw the two
people who were sitting on a bench by a bus stop. The streets were otherwise empty, nobody was about
and it was quiet, so quiet, there was a great sense of isolation here, as if Henry and the two people
sitting on the bench were the only people who existed in the world. A chill, a cold electric shock jolted
though Henry’s body when he saw who was sitting there. The guy was one of the people who had been standing
in a group outside the Thrush Hermit, shooting the shit, or whatever. The girl was the thirteen-year-old
beauty, who was leaning over and whispering into the guy’s ear. Henry stood there shocked, not even caring
if the two of them saw him standing there with a stupid expression on his face. He had known it all along,
that it was Her who had been there. Something was going to happen, Henry didn’t exactly know what, but
he felt as if his life was going to change, and never be the same again. To tell the truth, Henry was
happy, really happy. He stood there, his feet planted to the ground, waiting to see what would happen
between the young man and his date for the evening. He stood there, in plain view of the couple, and
lit a cigarette and just watched the drama, unfold, in all its glory.
She finished whispering
whatever it was that she whispered to him, and she leaned back while taking a package of smokes out of
her pocket, and lit a cigarette. She didn’t look at her friend, but instead cast her lazy eyes to
the street, as if watching the non-existent traffic flow by. But before she turned her eyes back to her
friend, she let her piercing blue eyes rest on Henry for a moment, in a silent recognition of his presence.
Meanwhile, the friend was looking at her with a slightly stupid look on his rather dull face. He had
a look that indicated that he felt lucky for himself, he was happy because he had inadvertently stumbled
upon some great fortune. Henry only wished that he knew what she had whispered into the ear of her friend.
Perhaps it would have explained something. "Friend" turned to her, and he grabbed her face in his hands
and began to roughly kiss her. Henry was shocked and appalled by this sudden act of almost-violence,
but he was rooted firmly in his place, he wouldn’t have been able to do anything even if he had wanted
to. She leaned back a little bit on the bench, letting Friend do as he wished to her, almost as if she
didn’t care, didn’t care at all. But Henry knew different, he could see that she was in pain, strong
emotional pain, even though she was apparently allowing Friend to have his way with her. By this time,
Friend was trying to rip her shirt off, and he was not doing a good job of it, as he was having a fairly
difficult time in undoing the buttons. Friend grunted in frustration, and began to rip at the shirt,
eventually tearing it off in three pieces. Henry was in pain; his pain was almost physical as he watched
this dumb oaf try to rape her, to violate her. As Henry began to feel very bad, and feel as if he couldn’t
take any more of this, and feel like he wanted to break the trance that he was in and run, run away
and go home as fast as he could, she looked in his direction and winked at him. She said with her eyes,
"Wait. I want you to see this. I want you." Needless to say, Henry was back into his dreamlike state
as soon as she had touched eyes with him. Meanwhile, dumb ol’ Friend moved off of her for a moment, and
was in the process of undoing the button on his jeans. That is when the shit hit the fan, so to speak.
She looked at Henry once more, and snapped. She simply snapped, she snapped, she went apeshit on Friend.
It’s hard to describe exactly what happened, what she did, and how it happened. The main thing
that Henry saw, was that is happened so damn fast. Time seemed to freeze, and what happened, simply happened
so quickly it seemed as if it might not have really happened, as if maybe it was all some sort of an
unpleasant dream. While Friend was undoing his trousers, she backed away from him as quick as a cat,
leaving him with a bewildered expression on his face, as if to say "What the hell?!" She then coiled,
almost compressed her body, she shrunk into herself. Then, she let herself relax, and let her body expand
to its former state. She whirled, she pounced upon Friend like a great cat, her thin arm reaching out
incredibly quick to grab Friend violently by the throat. She squeezed with that tiny hand, she squeezed
his throat so hard and tight that his entire face went white, and he began to make little gasping and
choking sounds. She grinned. Henry watched in utter amazement. Friend could feel nothing but the pain.
She lifted that thin little arm of hers, and lifted Friend a couple inches off the ground and slowly
walked with him to the wall of a nearby empty warehouse. With inhuman strength, she slammed his body
against the wall of the warehouse, causing poor pathetic Friend to grunt with pain. Friend then fell
to the ground like a sack of potatoes, and he lay there conscious but not moving at all, he was watching
her with pure and unfiltered terror in his eyes. If Henry hadn’t been so totally captivated and shocked
by the violence at hand, he would have laughed out loud at the dumb-ass expression on Friend’s face.
She, looked at Friend laying at the ground, and she bent down to pick him up again, but she was gentle
this time, she picked him up tenderly and carefully, although the horror still showed clearly on his
face. She had a gentle, and almost loving expression on her face, as she pulled him close to her, pulled
him to her in a close embrace. Henry watched, dumbfounded, as she opened her mouth, to reveal a quite
normal set of teeth save for two very small and sharp fangs, where her incisor teeth should have been.
She carefully sunk these teeth into Friends neck, right in the area of some rather large veins, veins
that had been raised from her squeezing so tightly on his neck. After she sunk her fangs into him, she
pulled her head back a little, thereby creating two small cuts along the length of his neck. Next, she
pulled her fangs out and fixed her lips onto the wounds, and began to suck at them, like a baby at the
bottle. She was there sucking for a long time, because it must have taken a long time to remove all the
blood from a human body through two small cuts on the neck. By this time, Friend had passed out from
loss of blood, terror, or a combination of the both. In fact, he was dead. She let his body fall to
the ground, and wiped off a little of the blood that had leaked out the side the side of her lips while
she had been drinking. Then she, this little girl who had apparently sucked the blood and killed someone
double her size, walked over to where Henry was standing.
"Are you afraid?"
Henry couldn’t
speak, his jaws were frozen in place, they were frozen with terror. But what’s more, Henry was marveling
at the sound of her voice, as this was the first time he had heard her speak. Her voice was light
but husky; a perfect mix of high and low, silver bells and clouds.
"Don’t be afraid. I wanted
you to see that, you know. I’m not going to hurt you. You were the one in the club, who was looking at
me." There was no tone of accusation in her voice, just the monotonous tone of an obvious statement.
Once again, Henry could not have spoken for the life of him. To be fair, Henry was in shock,
perhaps one of the greatest shocks of his life. She reached up to him, and lightly ran her fingertips
down the length of his cheek and down his neck. Henry shivered, from pleasure and fear mixed together.
"My name is Chantal. I’ll see you around."
Then, she disappears, one moment she was there
and the next she wasn’t. The sane part of Henry’s mind was beginning to understand her ways, and realized
that she hadn’t really disappeared but had instead moved so abruptly that it had been impossible to
follow her movements. Henry stood there for a moment longer, looking at the body of Friend. Then he ran.
As far away as he possibly could.