Vile Men Page 6

Her hand falls away. “Excuse me?”

  I draw another breath, losing hold of my stance. My fingers grip at the door-frame, turning white against the trim.

  “I’m your landlord, Jonah.”

  “No, you’re not,” I say. “You know exactly what you are.”

  Her lips purse, her eyes glistening for a split second, but then she blinks and replaces her look of fear with the dark-eyed glare of a woman sucking me inside of her.

  “Do you want me to kick you out of here? Is that what you want?”

  “What I want is some fucking air-conditioning,” I say.

  She leers, easing back a step, creating distance again. She sighs and crosses her arms. “Start paying your rent on time. Maybe I can help you.”

  Just like that, spit out, all chewed-up and red.

  She turns walks back to her car. She starts the engine and glares as she drives away. Behind me all the heated air from the house tries to escape. Coiling my shaking fingers into my fist, I take a step outside, where it’s colder, where there’s some kind of relief.

  My footsteps throb all the way down 12th Street, the air thick in my lungs. The night fills in by the time I get to the park by the river. There’s a woman in the arena parking lot, loading up her SUV, a fucking soccer mom in denim shorts and a pink shirt with a collar, her dark hair in curls. I watch her and feel the heat building. My strides widen, footsteps sounding heavy in the dead space of the empty parking lot. It’s so late. There’s nobody around. She turns just as I approach, but she’s not fast enough to counter my tackle, not strong enough to push back when I shove her against the car.

  I pull back a fist and it happens so fast, the hard sensation of my knuckles hitting her jaw.

  She pushes at my face, her nails tearing my cheek. Her voice wails an animal moan, its pitch filling me with adrenaline. I punch her again and yank at her leash of tangled hair, covering her mouth, hauling her away from the car. Her feet drag gravel over all the white dividing lines of the parking lot. She stumbles when I get to the boat launch, and I pull her down the wooden boardwalk to the slough.

  My feet sink into the sand. She loses her balance and I shove her down. I climb over her, press my knee into her chest. She tries to scream and I hit her harder, saying, “Shut the fuck up, shut your fucking bitch mouth.”

  The dark’s festering: her face is a blur. Everything’s a blur, but it doesn’t matter who she is. All I want is to punish her, and I keep asking myself one question.

  What’s the worst thing you can do?

  I ask her, “Are you scared, bitch? Are you fucking scared?”

  She doesn’t answer. Her moan deepens, and it gets stronger and more agonized the harder I hit.

  A tingling sifts through my fingers with each strike. I punch at her chest, at her throat, her face, this jackhammer sensation making me curl my fingers, pull my arm back, bring my fist down again and again. The tingling stings with wet heat and I grip at her hair with my opposite hand, making tangles, tangles, everything tangled up because I can’t even breathe anymore. There’s only the world going black, and my voice is an ocean calling her a fucking cunt.

  You fucking cunt, you greedy fucking useless cunt.

  You, you, you.

  This is you, isn’t it?

  You’re pushing your elbow over this whore’s throat and you’re undoing your pants because you know it’s the worst possible thing you can do. Her throat pulses against your hand. Her heart’s beating and it’s shaped like fear. Your dick isn’t even hard and you tell her, “Suck me off and it’ll be over faster.”

  She only moans. You climb up and shove your dick in her mouth. She tries to suck it, but her mouth feels like nothing. You can’t even recognize her face because it’s filled with red. She’s a plastic gas can leaking fuel, weak and flimsy, and you hold her down while you stroke yourself, get yourself hard, because sex wasn’t what you were thinking about, but this is just the worst thing you can possibly do to her.

  You rip her shorts: tear them down. She’s not even struggling when you spread her legs. It’s so easy and she just takes it when you spit on her cunt and shove yourself in. You choke her, pushing your weight onto your hand. You’re staring her down and she knows her place and you’re telling her, “That’s it, bitch, that’s it, that’s fucking it.”

  You hit her again and again, each strike followed by her guttural moan. You take her, pull her hair, drag her toward the river and push her face into it, washing yourself, washing the evidence away. The water’s so cold and dark that it’ll eat her alive and that’s the worst thing, the worst possible thing, because she didn’t even have the chance to prove otherwise.

  You leave her there. You walk away. And for the first time you feel a breeze blowing, cooling the sweat on your face. You exhale and it tastes like gin, its strength chilled over rocks. You walk home and the pavement feels like ice under your feet. It feels like coming, because you haven’t been able to for weeks and that’s what relief feels like.

  I’m in the bathroom, putting gel in my hair and combing it back like I did that night at the bar. My phone rings. It’s Mark. “I know it’s your day off,” he says, “but I picked up a job near the airport and I know you need the money.”

  He offers to pay for lunch at the airport, and I meet him there with scratches on my face and scabs on my knuckles.

  “What happened to you, man?” Mark asks.

  “Bitches be crazy,” I say, because he seems like the type and he laughs.

  “Your fists, too?” he asks.

  “It was a rough night at the bar,” I say.

  “Oh yeah?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I say, and that’s the end of it.

  He reaches behind him, tries to scratch at the peeling burns on his back.

  On the table there’s a copy of the newspaper, an article on the front page in bold black: Woman assaulted, raped at McArthur Park.

  It tells me everything I can hardly remember: the woman, the victim, how she was found unconscious, barely breathing, how she’s currently recovering from multiple injuries: heavy bruising, a split lip, broken teeth, a broken rib, a fractured jaw.

  All of it’s a blackout in my head, and all I remember is approaching her from behind, her dark hair and her Jeep Cherokee, the same car my mom used to drive. The article uses the term “anger rapist” because that’s apparently what I am. It says I might strike again. The warning words speak in my head like a voice, like how the Bible used to speak to my mom, saying, “You’re pervasively angry” and “You’re aggressive and violent,” and “You are Jekyll and You are Hyde.”

  There’s a picture, a composite sketch, clear lines defining sunken jaws and dark eyes, my hair greasy, uneven. I lick my lips. A drop of sweat beads on my forehead and I’m wondering, “Is that what you look like?”

  The article says that every woman should be aware of you, this pencil sketch of you, one woman’s memory of her night with you.

  “You okay?” Mark asks, still scratching, still unable to do anything about his position in life.

  I look up and fold the paper, covering the article. The air conditioning kicks in above us, its white noise cooling the sweat. “I’m great,” I say, and a smile forms on my face that takes no effort to make.

  MASTURBATING MEGAN'S

  STRIP MALL EXHIBITION

  Agroup of fresh-faced boys walked into the store, their cocky laughter filtering through the city’s largest selection of adult movies, toys and novelties.

  Strip Mall: Strip down to your naughty side!

  I pressed my pelvis against the stool behind the till. Leaning over the counter, I asked to see their ID’s. Each one of them handed me their cards, their eighteen-year-old fingers shaking and sweaty.

  “Is this your first time here?” I asked.

  They nodded, shoulders tight, voices muted, the expanse of Strip Mall before them. The boys spread out and wandered solo between the aisles. I focused on one kid with a shaggy haircut and dark-washed jeans. He r
an his hand along the shelves, fingers just inches away from the movies.

  The clock ticked above me, the only sound in the store that made my heart throb against my chest. I lifted my skirt and pressed my bare crotch against the stool. Its cold metal surface forced me to draw a breath.

  The shaggy-haired kid picked up a DVD, his smile widening, the awkwardness spreading. “You guys wanna rent My Ass Is Haunted?”

  The boys grouped together again. Their laughter overpowered the sound of the clock, ruining the moment. I pushed my skirt down. My fingers clenched over the hem, nails scratching against my bare thighs.

  The clock kept ticking, an endless lack of relief.

  The boys took forever, taking turns hitting each other with the whips and paddles from the bondage bargain bin. I sat on the stool, my gaze on the door, fingers rapping against the counter, restless sweat breaking out on my forehead.

  I heaved a sigh when Steve arrived. The boys looked up, their gazes glued to his small stature as he walked toward the BBW section at the back of the store.

  The boys exchanged glances with each other, snickering at Steve, laughing when he picked up Horny Holly Hanson’s Hungry Hungry Humps. Steve turned his head, looking the shaggy-haired boy in the eye. “Something wrong?” he asked.

  The boys shook their heads. They put the whips back into the bin and then mumbled to each other before leaving the store.

  Steve smiled as he walked up to the till. “Rite of passage shoppers?”

  “You couldn’t have waited longer to show up?” I asked, looking down at the movie. On the cover was a curvy woman on all fours, her ass arched up like a cat. I rang it through as the boys’ laughter echoed outside.

  “I didn’t mean to ruin your fun,” Steve said.

  “They weren’t cutting it,” I said, putting the DVD into a plastic Strip Mall bag. “I didn’t want them to be here when Nelson showed up.”

  He shook his head. “I should be offended that I’m not your favourite customer.”

  I looked up.

  “I’m the only customer you actually talk to,” he said.

  “You are my favourite customer,” I assured him.

  He laughed just as hard as the boys. “Don’t shit yourself, Megs. I know I’m not your type.”

  The second hand ticked over the store, timing his footsteps. It was quarter after eleven. I pressed my thighs together, building the tension, the pressure. Nelson walked in and the burning erupted between my legs. I reached under my skirt and buried my fingers in the wetness.

  Nelson’s name wasn’t really Nelson, but he looked like a Nelson, a somber, middle-aged man who tucked his button-front work shirts into his jeans, a man with a wedding ring and faded family pictures in his wallet. He walked slowly through the aisles, taking his time, never looking up from the shelves.

  The clock ticked harder, timing a careful pace toward the hardcore masturbation videos. His shoulders rose and fell, and I rubbed my clit to his awkward selection of a movie. I pushed my skirt back down when he turned and approached the till.

  He placed Scrumptious Stuffed Sluts: Volume 1 on the counter. On the cover was a collage of girls taking on zucchinis and rolling pins and full cuts of salami. He pulled cash out of his wallet, his fingers flinching over the bills.

  “How are you doing tonight?” I asked.

  “I’m fine.” He put a twenty down on the counter.

  I took the bill and gave him his change, my wet fingers brushing over his palm, as the clock’s ticking throbbed between my legs. My toes clenched in my shoes. I rang the movie through and reached for a plastic bag.

  “I have my own,” he said, showing me the reusable grocery bag in his hand. He snatched the movie from the counter and slipped the it inside.

  I tore the receipt from the till but he held up his hand.

  “Have a good night,” I said.

  “You, too!” He wrapped the bag over the DVD and went for the door.

  I lifted a slat over the blinds covering the front window, and watched him unlock his car. He threw the bag into the passenger seat. My hand drifted under the hem of my skirt, my fingers slipping between my lips, over my clit.

  I came to the sound of him driving away.

  I checked the ids of a group of girls who went straight for the wall of dildos and vibrators. They were pretty girls, like the ones in high school, and they ignored me just like the girls in high school did. They never asked me questions, so I made a fist and spoke up like Steve.

  “Seriously, if you guys really want to get off, you need the Magic Wand.”

  One of them laughed. The rest of them turned away, the clock ticking like it used to in every high school classroom, backing all the whispers, the snickers, the hesitant laughs. My throat tightened, but the laughter continued as the girls went through the store. One of them turned back to look at me, her pink lips twisted into a sneer, making me feel like Masturbating Megan all over again.

  In high school, the girls used to huddle close, their voices pitched and pierced, saying, “She’s the girl who masturbates in class.”

  High school was where the clock started ticking, me with no friends, sitting in the back of every room. Somehow it always felt better, hearing the second hand time the awkward silence that followed whenever the teacher asked one of the boys a question. It made me so wet, watching them flinch, listening to their voices stutter. I’d feel the gears of the clock shifting in my cunt and I’d spread my legs under the desk. I’d have to deal with the pressure.

  It didn’t take long before somebody noticed.

  “Oh my God,” one of the girls said. She pointed at one of the dildos on the wall, the big purple one the shape of a fist. “That’s so gross. Who would ever want to shove that up their vajayjay?”

  “For fuck’s sake, just call it a goddamn vagina,” I say.

  The girls look up and stare.

  “Just call it what it is,” I say.

  I took home every movie that Nelson rented. The first scene in Scrumptious Stuffed Sluts: Volume 1 was of a blonde straddling the tapered end of a butternut squash. I pictured Nelson in his basement, the lights out, and the TV volume low. I pictured him dick in hand, his fist clenched, thick with lube while he jerked himself to a finish. I thought about how restrained his groan sounded when he came. I rubbed my clit to the idea of him staining the couch, his relief only temporary, his breath getting frantic when his wife’s footsteps sounded upstairs. I pictured him rushing to eject the DVD from the player, having to hide the case, the evidence, and the shame.

  I never felt so close to him, climaxing with the blonde on the screen. Hot squirt gushed across my coffee table, all over the DVD case. I thought about the jizz-stained fingerprints he’d covered it with and I said his name aloud, my gasps matching the frantic ticks from the collection of vintage anniversary clocks on my bookshelf.

  “Nelson, Nelson, Nelson, Nelson, Nelson.”

  Steve drummed his fingers against the counter to the pace of the second hand. It was half past eleven. Nelson hadn’t stopped by in over a week.

  “Stop it.” I put my hand over Steve’s. His skin was lukewarm.

  “The Internet was made for girls like you,” he said. “You could post an ad, post a video. You’d get exactly what you want.”

  “And what’s that?” I asked.

  “Companionship.”

  I looked down at the counter.

  “You know what’ll happen, right?” Steve glanced down at the cover of Scrumptious Stuffed Sluts. His brows furrowed. “Eventually he’ll cave. Eventually he’ll get tired of energy drink cans and zucchinis.”

  “You keep coming here,” I said.

  “Because I know what I like,” he said. “I keep things simple. He only started simple, and soon enough this store won’t be able to offer what he’s going to need. Soon enough he’ll be jerking it in front of his computer to a Japanese chick shoving cockroaches up her snatch.”

  The clock wouldn’t stop ticking.

  “He
’s an addict, Megs. There’s nothing you can do.”

  I didn’t believe him. I didn’t want to. After work, I stopped by the grocery store and bought a bottle of lube and a cut of salami.

  Nelson came in the next night, looking rushed, frantic. He didn’t take nearly as long as usual to pick out Great American Challenges. The cover had a picture of a girl taking on a purple fist dildo like the one on the wall. He brought the movie back the following night.

  “Was it not good?” I asked.

  He shrugged. His gaze dropped and he looked out at the expanse of the store before turning back to me. “It wasn’t my thing.”

  “What is your thing?”

  “I just, I’m not really...”

  The ticking clock made him sound like all the cocky boys in high school. I pressed myself against the edge of the stool, ground my pelvis against the seat. I leaned over the counter but he didn’t look up, didn’t look at me.

  “You like insertions, right?”

  He braced his hand against the counter and nodded. “Yeah,” he said. His fingers curled into a fist. “I’m uh, well... I’m into that.”

  “I can probably order in something for you,” I said.

  He met my gaze. His posture stiffened. His gaze dropped back to the cover of the DVD case, his lip curling at the plastic toys, fake dicks, simulated pleasure.

  “I’ll dig around. I’ll find something. You want, like, live stuff, right? No animation?”

  He nodded, the slow bob of his chin matching the ticking of the clock. My pussy dripped against the edge of the stool. I shuddered, but he didn’t ask me if I was okay. His fist started shaking over the counter. He swallowed and pulled away.

  “It shouldn’t be too long,” I promised.

  A woman walked in as I was ringing through Steve’s favourite movie, Big Bodacious Babes in Brazil. The woman looked at Steve and then at the movie on the counter, her lips turning a sneer. She had a worn out face and circles under her eyes. She walked toward the till clutching a reusable grocery bag.