Before we get started, a word of warning. This story was originally supposed to be published in an anthology about offensive superheroes. It was the brainchild of my friend, Zeb Carter, who recently passed. There isn't a single solitary publisher who would accept a story like this, so I thought I would share it all with you. But please be advised, this was meant to be exceptionally fucked up. If you want a trigger warning, I suggest all of them. This will put horrible questions in your head, questions you don't want to answer and will probably make you wish you hadn't read beyond this point. If it sounds like this story might not be for you, here's your chance to back out.
Some of you may have read my book, Blood, and you might be reminded of Lucifer Robinson. The guy you're about to meet is that guy's twin brother. They're triplets, actually, and their older brother is the worst of the bunch. Pray you never meet that guy . . .
This warning will be represented at the top of each of these posts, just in case. This story is dedicated to the memory of Zeb Carter. Thanks for being having the balls to run with this lunatic story. And to those of you who knew him, yes, I am referring to that.
Martin Peck looked
across the hospital bed to the skeletal old lady staring back at him. He took
in her canyon-like wrinkles and her foggy cataract eyes, magnified by glasses
with lenses as big as Frisbees. He saw the tangled mess of tubes running from
her to the machines keeping her alive, and he tried his best to smile.
Here we go again.
Betty McVicker
rolled down the blanket with her tree branch arm as far as she could, a doughy
flap of loose skin hanging from her bicep like a hornet’s nest under an eave. When
she realized she couldn’t go any farther she grabbed a handful of her gown and
pulled it up, revealing a bald and puckered pussy, labia sagging down far
enough to tie in a knot. She pulled her lips back with two fingers, showing off
a tunnel he could probably shove his fist into.
He grimaced and
thought of the money.
She spread her
legs as far as they would go, and Martin crawled up on the hospital bed between
them, his pants already open, his cock pointing out like a blind man’s cane. Without
the boner pill he’d popped an hour ago, he wouldn’t be this hard.
Just before he
pushed into her, she coughed in his face, filling his nostrils with her stale
milk breath. He turned away from her so she wouldn’t see him gag. A bit of
sound did escape him, though, and to
cover it up he tried to make it sound sexy.
“You ready for
this?” he whispered.
“Fuck me, Martin. Jump
these old bones.”
None of these old
ladies were good at sex talk, but they thought they were being seductive, like they
thought they needed to give him something to look forward to. The only thing he
looked forward to was the end of this job.
He held his breath
and touched the tip of his dick to her loose pussy. It puddled around his
glans, and he fought the urge to pull the flaps up around his dick like a sock.
Stop thinking like that. She can’t help that
she’s old. Just . . . just get through this. Try not to be an asshole.
He eased in, surprised
by her level of wetness. Ladies her age usually needed lube, but she was
greased up and ready to go. Maybe she’d used a bit of K-Y before he arrived.
Some of them did.
He pumped away
between her legs, trying not to put too much weight down, fearing that he might
break her. She tried to wrap her legs around him, but she no longer had the
strength or range of motion. Instead she tightened her thighs against his hips,
as if trying to crush him between pillows. He wondered how long since someone
had done this for her and decided it must have been back during the Reagan era.
Didn’t old people keep track of time by presidential administrations?
Her talons went to
his shoulders, and one of them eased up to wrap itself in his hair. Dry fingers
scratched at his scalp, and he once again had to remind himself of the money.
Finally, after
nearly a half an hour of effort, he felt that familiar burning sensation in the
base of his dick. His movements became more vigorous, and finally he stabbed
himself into her as far as he could and felt his convulsing orgasm fill her up.
He braced himself
against the bed for a moment, feeling the last of his cum ooze into her, and he
pulled back. As he left her body, she put a flaky hand over her gaping vagina,
as if afraid his semen might escape. All things considered, she probably was.
He rolled out of bed—careful
not to hurt her—and went for the box of Kleenex on the night table. He cleaned
himself off before stuffing his soft penis back into his pants and zipping up.
As he buckled his belt he noticed that Mrs. McVicker held out a wad of money to
him. He counted it all and then shoved it in his pocket, turning to leave.
“Thank you Martin.”
She wheezed, panting and out of breath.
He cleared his
throat, but he couldn’t bring himself to face her. “Anything to help out a nice
lady like you.”
-
Outside the
hospital Leviticus Robinson leaned against his long white limo, rolling an
ornate walking stick between his fingers. His thin frame swam in a dapper white
suit, and his long white hair snaked down his back in a ponytail. His pale face
seemed lost in the brightness of his surroundings, marked only by his sparkling
blue eyes and a red slash of mouth beneath an aquiline nose. A cigarette burned
from a long black holder sticking out from the corner of his grin.
“Hey! You can’t
park here!”
Leviticus glanced
up from his reverie and saw a bulbous security guard huffing and puffing his
way toward him. Mirrored glasses seemed plastered onto the guy’s sweaty pig
face above a greasy mustache. His uniform barely contained him.
“Move it along!”
Leviticus smiled.
“I’m waiting for someone.”
The guard blew a
gale of rancid coffee breath at Leviticus’ face and jabbed a finger into his
chest. “This is a lane for ambulances only. You need to get this thing out of
here right now.”
Leviticus leaned his
walking stick against the door, and without warning he yanked the sunglasses
off this guard’s face and jammed the cigarette into his eye. The guard screamed
as his eyeball sizzled.
No time for mercy.
Leviticus threw his knee into the guard’s groin, and as he doubled over, tongue
lolling out of a lifeless expression, the pale man picked up his cane and
whipped it across the guard’s face. Without skipping a beat Leviticus moved
forward and stepped on the guard’s throat, leaning in slightly.
“I detest rude
people. Usually my patience is Christ-like, but if I were you, I’d apologize.
Right now.”
The guard
struggled as he felt his windpipe come closer and closer to being crimped shut.
He tried pushing up on the offending shoe, but unsuspected strength kept him
pinned down.
Leviticus relented
and moved back. “I know talking now will be difficult, so let’s dispense with
such niceties. Please remove yourself from my presence.”
The guard
whimpered, the fight in him gone, and he crawled away, one hand clamped to the
damaged eye, his ragged breath louder than the construction workers down the
block.
“Faster!”
Leviticus shouted. “I’m sick of the sight of you!” And he kicked the guard in
the ass, foot to crack, like it had been planned for decades, blueprints and
all.
Just then the man
he waited for stepped out of the hospital. A little below average height, he
sported a head of thick curly hair, and Buddy Holly glasses amplified his beady
brown eyes. Feminine lips poked out of a well-trimmed goatee. Yes, this was
Martin Peck, all right.
Martin paused when
he saw the guard dragging himself towards the sliding door into the ER. He
didn’t know what was going on with the poor bastard, but at least it had
happened in a convenient place.
And then he saw
the pale man with the million-watt smile.
“Martin Peck? I’m
Leviticus Robinson, at your service.” He offered a bow with great flourish.
“Uh . . . do I
know you?”
“Not yet, but I
think we’re about to be good friends. I have a business proposition for you
that will be very profitable for everyone concerned.”
Martin frowned. He
knew exactly what this Leviticus character wanted. Martin didn’t exactly
advertise his services, but word got around. “I have a job.” Trying to dismiss
the stranger.
Leviticus offered
a sympathetic smile. “If you come with me and listen to my spiel, you’ll get a
thousand dollars, even if you decide to walk away, and believe me, you won’t
want to walk away.”
“A thousand
dollars?” Martin fingered the five hundred in his pocket and thought it could
use company.
“That’s right.”
“Just to listen?”
“Indeed.”
Martin nodded.
Fuck it. Why not?
Leviticus stepped
aside and opened the back door of the limo, gesturing for Martin to step in.
Martin ducked down
and slid across the leather seat, and as soon as he could see the interior of
the limo, he couldn’t help but stare. Inside, the car was impossibly bigger
than the outside, and he couldn’t help but think of Snoopy’s doghouse. Or maybe
that call box the guy from Doctor Who flew around in. Glancing around he saw an
office, complete with a large oak desk, art on the paneled walls, potted plants
everywhere, and a fish tank that took up the entire wall on the side that
should have looked out at traffic.
Colorful fish with extravagant fins drifted through the water, oblivious
to the puzzle they lived in.
Leviticus slipped
in next to him and closed the door. “Like my office?”
Martin couldn’t
answer him at first. These surroundings had stolen his breath away. “I’ve never
seen anything like it.”
“It’s not much,
but it’s home. Have a seat.”
Martin thought he
already had a seat, but then he realized that Leviticus had meant one of the two
chairs in front of the desk. The pallid gentleman hung his walking stick on a
coat rack and made his way to the mini bar in the corner.
“Drink?” Leviticus
asked.
Martin sat in one
of the chairs. “I guess.”
“Whiskey?”
“Sure.”
Leviticus poured
two and placed one in front of Martin. He then eased behind his desk and took a
sip from his glass. “Down to business.”
Martin just looked
at his drink. “Sure. What do you want with me?”
Leviticus propped
both elbows up on the desk and steepled his hands together like he was one of
those asshole techbros doing an interview. “We heard about your special gift.”
Martin cleared his
throat, and though he didn’t want to drink from his glass, he did. Just a sip. “What
do you mean?”
Leviticus grinned.
“I wouldn’t be so modest if I were you. We don’t know how you can do it, but we
do know that you can cure someone’s cancer just by having sex with them.”
How did this grim
specter find out about him? Martin didn’t know. He didn’t care, either.
Although he did look well-to-do . . .
“You can’t believe
everything you hear,” he said.
“I didn’t just
hear it,” Leviticus said. “I studied
it. Checked and double-checked. My sources are impeccable.”
Martin tried to
figure out what this guy wanted, and he kept coming up with dollar signs. He
glanced around at the room that shouldn’t exist in the backseat of a limo. The
world was a strange place. Martin, of all people, understood this. Whatever
Leviticus was on about, it might be lucrative. Why continue to deny it?
“All right, so
maybe I do have a special ability.
Possibly. What’s it to you?”
Leviticus smiled,
as if to say finally, this idiot
understands. “Good. Have you ever heard of the Great American Boozer?”
Of course. Who
hadn’t heard of the greatest superhero alive? But what did he have to do with
Martin? “Only what I’ve seen on TV.”
Leviticus took a
drink and watched his guest over the rim of the glass. Then he slipped a glossy
picture across the desk. “By day, he’s a normal man, but when he drinks a
considerable amount of alcohol, he becomes the Great American Boozer.”
Martin knew that
part. He’d seen the movies based on the Boozer’s life. Now he looked down at
the publicity still of the superhero and saw a man far more handsome than the
actor who played him. His long dark hair flowed down to his square shoulders and
his perfectly chiseled chest. He wore an amber bodysuit, and his cape flowed
out behind him, his name on the back in the fashion of a whiskey bottle label. In
the picture he stood at the edge of a building’s roof, gazing out at the city
with a thoughtful look on his face that said, this is my city, and I’m looking for an excuse to beat some ass.
“Alcohol gives him
power,” Leviticus continued. “It gives him a bulletproof body and the strength
of a thousand men. It even gives him x-ray vision and the ability to fly.”
Martin looked up
from the file, an eyebrow cocked. “I hear it has its downside, though.”
Leviticus snorted.
“Sure, the next day he’s practically a cripple, but the important thing is,
he’s very valuable to us. Without the Boozer, we’d be in serious trouble. There are other superheroes, but—”
“No one’s as tough
as this guy, right?”
Leviticus
nodded. “Exactly.”
Martin dropped the
folder and, more confident now, took a healthy drink from his glass. He leaned
back in the chair and steepled his fingers, an unconscious parody of his host.
“And he’s the media darling, right? I mean, they based a cartoon on this guy.”
“Among other
things, but who’s counting?”
Martin dropped his
hands to the arm rests. “Cut the shit. Why do you need me?”
Leviticus bent
forward over the desk. “You couldn’t hazard a guess?”
Martin waited.
Leviticus took
another folder from his drawer and slid it across to Martin. “The Boozer has
cancer. It’s in his pancreas, and they can’t cut it out. See for yourself.”
Inside the file Martin
found doctor reports and scans, the whole works. He’d seen stuff like this
countless times over the years, and none of it seemed very impressive. “Malignant?”
“Yes. It’s almost
taken over the whole organ.”
Martin threw the
folder down. It flapped open, spilling papers all over the desk and on the
floor. “Forget it. I don’t do guys.”
Leviticus stared
hard at him, a scowl turning his dazzling smile upside down. “Need I remind you
that the Boozer is the most powerful superhero in the world? And that without
him this world will be an absolute disaster?”
Martin lit a
cigarette—without asking if it was okay—and pointed it at one of the x-rays. “Clearly
he’s not powerful enough.”
A pause. “That’s
cheap.”
“Sure is.”
Leviticus drained
his glass and put it down hard enough to crack the base. “You fuck little old
ladies for money all day. How much cold hard cash will it take to get you to
save the life of the world’s greatest superhero?”
“I don’t do guys.
The end.” As if to punctuate his statement, Martin blew a cloud of smoke in Leviticus’
face.
He didn’t even
blink. “Why not?”
Martin squirmed in
his seat. “I have to draw the line somewhere. No guys. I may be a pervert, but
I’m not gay.” He almost regretted the words as soon as he’d spoken them,
because he knew how it made him sound, and he wasn’t that way. He couldn’t care
less what other people did with their dicks and assholes. He just didn’t want
any part of it, that was all.
Leviticus took it exactly
as Martin had expected. “I see. You’re a bigot. You’d rather have a bunch of
super villains going around killing hundreds of innocent people than fuck one
guy in the ass to save a superhero’s life.”
Martin stabbed the
cigarette out on the desk. “You don’t get it.”
“Explain.”
Ignoring the blackened mark under the smushed cigarette butt.
Martin stared at that
mark and watched the last of the smoke gently rise. “A year ago a married
couple came to me with their life savings. Three thousand bucks, give or take a
few dollars. You know what they wanted me to do?”
Martin gritted his
teeth, and a tear rolled down his cheek. His face didn’t fold in, and he gave
no other indication that he knew he was crying. When he continued his voice did
not sound pinched or muffled.
“They wanted me to
fuck their nine-year-old daughter. She had leukemia.”
Leviticus’ pale cheeks
flared up. He cleared his throat and reached for Martin’s empty glass.
“Refill?”
Martin snarled,
showing off every tooth in his head, nostrils flaring. “Fuck off. Don’t you
understand what I’m saying? Sometimes you need to draw the line.”
“And sometimes God
needs to kill nine-year-old girls?” Leviticus kicked away from his desk and
refilled his own glass.
Martin slumped back.
“I don’t know about God. I’ll tell you what I do know: there has to be a
line, and no one is going to draw it but me.”
Leviticus sat back
down and took a drink. “So I take it you didn’t fuck the nine-year-old?”
“You gotta ask?”
“I suppose
not. Is she . . . ?”
“Still alive? No. Her
parents sent me the obituary when it happened. I think they wanted me to feel
guilty. They don’t get it, either. Even if I did fuck her, could you imagine
how screwed up she’d be for the rest of her life? Is that a life worth living? I
think she’s better off wherever she is now.”
“How noble of
you,” Leviticus said, “to make such unimpeachable judgments.”
Martin stood and
slammed his fist down on the desk. “That’s it. Let me the fuck out of here. Now.”
Leviticus didn’t
move. “Sit down. We’re not finished.”
Sweat ran down
from Martin’s temple and tickled at the edge of his eye. “Just give me my money
and let me go.”
“You haven’t
earned it yet. Now, sit.”
They stared at one
another for a while. More sweat threatened to get in Martin’s eyes, and he
flinched, but Leviticus remained cool as ever. He would never crack, not with a
poker face like that.
Martin sighed and
sat back down. “Fuck it. Let’s get this over with.”
Leviticus smiled and
folded his hands together. “According to my sources, the people you cure pay
you five hundred dollars in cash, correct?”
Martin didn’t say
anything.
Leviticus slid a
suitcase across the desk to Martin, latches out to the young man. “My superiors
are vastly wealthy, Martin. There isn’t anything they can’t buy, and they want
to buy you.”
Leviticus’ slender
fingers picked at the latches, and he swept the suitcase open, revealing stack
after stack of banded greenbacks. “If
you cure the Boozer, we’ll pay you five million dollars.”
Martin couldn’t
believe that he sat in the presence of so much money. The most he’d ever seen
at one time was ten thousand. He couldn’t even wrap his mind around how much
more money than that stared back at him from the suitcase.
He thought about
what all that money could do for him. What he could buy. No more apartment, no
more rattling rust-mobiles, no more eating at fast food restaurants, none of
that.
He reached out for
the money, but Leviticus clapped the suitcase shut and locked it. “Of course,
you’d only get it upon completion of the deed. And since you don’t do guys . .
.”
“Wait.”
Leviticus cocked
an eyebrow. He watched Martin sweat for a while, and he could actually see
Martin’s Adam’s apple dance with a dry gulp.
“I’ll do it,”
Martin said.
Leviticus grabbed Martin’s
glass. “Excellent! Let’s have a drink on it.”
As he turned his
back to the mini bar, Martin wiped at his face and saw his palm gleamed with
sweat. He wiped it off on his pants just as Leviticus brought him a fresh glass.
“Bottoms up,” the
pale gentleman said.
Martin brought the
drink weakly to his lips. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
“I’m glad you are.
I can’t see a world without the Boozer in it.”
Martin put down an
empty glass. “What’s your job, anyway? You’re too good to be an assistant to
the Boozer. What is it you do, exactly?”
“I work to create
a better world, that’s all.”
Martin laughed. “You
have something to do with that guard back there?”
Leviticus
shrugged. “I may have said ‘better,’ but—” He leaned over the desk, grinning.
“—I never said ‘safer.’”
TO BE CONTINUED . . .
