The Artists - 17. Love and Death

He looked up into her face as she rode the thing strapped to his thighs. She hadn’t wanted to wait until the weekend, so they were doing it now. He could see she was nearing another orgasm by the way she held her eyes shut and gritted her teeth. He remembered seeing that earlier when they were working themselves up enough courage to put the thing on and put it into her body. She’d said she wasn’t a virgin, having used similar devices before, but when he watched her the first time, he knew she was lying. The blood confirmed it.

He was on top the first time. “I want to do it the regular way, first,” was all she said when he said he was too heavy for her. Truth was, he was too heavy for himself and thought his arms might give out causing him to fall on her. He ended up standing at the edge of the bed with her on her back.

To start off, she had him finger her down there. That was when the first waves of nausea overtook him. They kissed and he sucked on her nipples while his hand busied itself among her damp parts until she stopped him and gave him a little anatomy lesson. “This is my clitoris, clit to you rough guys. Push around it with the ball of your hand, yeah just like that. When I’m close go in with your fingers for a little direct contact. That isn’t the time for roughness, though. Be gentle and I’ll go through the roof. That’s where I pee. You can leave that alone. And, that my dear boy, is where you’re going to put your thing when you get one. In the meantime, I’ll have to settle for artificial.”

It looked so unnatural, so grotesque he couldn’t imagine putting his face and tongue down there. He was relieved she hadn’t asked, as the sogginess of his hand in that place said a lot about what he would feel inside. She came hard on his hand. “Put it in, put it in, now,” she demanded and he placed the lubricated head of the thing against that spot she’d shown him.

For all her insistence she wasn’t a virgin, something down there didn’t want to be violated. Maybe it was the thickness of the thing; maybe it was the stiffness, or its inability to flex like the real thing. Whatever was causing resistance suddenly released with a wincing whimper from Tiffani. Casey pushed on in until the thing wouldn’t go any further.

He stood there at the edge of the bed with the backs of her legs up against him and the thing sunk deep inside her. He looked down and saw a spot of blood on the sheet. She opened her eyes and they questioned him for his delay in starting. He pulled back a couple inches and thrust back in, being careful not to go as far in as he was in the beginning.

Now, it seemed to be total pleasure as his hands gently caressed her small breasts and his fingers intermittently pinched and massaged her hard nipples. She seemed to like that as she moaned softly each time his fingers tightened around either or both of the little nodules of hot flesh. Suddenly, her eyes flashed open and she smiled down at him as her orgasm enveloped her. She practically fell onto him, writhing in pleasure as muscles contracted in a dance as old as time.

He wanted this to be him. He wanted to know what it felt like to feel so much pleasure at one instant, but all he felt now was pain from the thing pressing against the pathetically small nubbin of flesh that was supposed to be his penis; and, he felt a revulsion that he was doing this with a girl and he had to do it this way because of his deformity. He couldn’t be certain whether he was more disgusted because he was truly gay or because he had to use a dildo to make the other person feel like he was contributing something to the act.

“Did you come, this time?” Tiffani whispered in his ear.

“No,” Casey said.

“Do you want me to suck it?”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

He didn’t care at this point whether he came or not. All of this had been for her. Well, most of it. Some of his willingness to do this had been in response to Six’s unwillingness to make love to him. He wanted to know once and for all whether he could respond sexually to having a dick up his ass, but Six wasn’t going to do it for some reason he refused to explain.

“Look, Casey, I’m not interested in fucking you,” Six whispered to him at breakfast. “That’s a big step and I don’t think I’m ready to go there, right now.”

Casey felt betrayed by Six’s feelings toward him the previous night. He thought they were going to do it in the morning, but when he awoke to get ready to go down to the kitchen, Six had already left.

Now, lying under Tiffani as she slowly made up her mind whether she was going to fellate him, Casey wasn’t certain how he felt about Six. The boy was good looking enough to be in any men’s magazine in the world. If he tried hard enough, Six could be on television or in the movies. His dick wasn’t overly long, but it was long enough for him to get into porn, probably as a bottom.

All Casey wanted was Six’s dick; his hard, stiff dick probing his hole for that spot all the porn stories spoke about. He wanted to know if he was gay enough to simply enjoy the act; whether he came or not wasn’t an issue. He wanted to know if it would be pleasurable for him to have another guy come in his ass.

“Will you tell me when you’re ready to come?” Tiffani asked as she removed the thing.

“Yeah, if I have time,” Casey said. “Sometimes it sort of happens sudden like.”

“I don’t want you to come in my mouth,” Tiffani said as she came back up and lay beside him.

“Then don’t suck my little cock,” Casey said.

Suddenly, a thought came into his mind, a disgusting thought.

“If you want to make me feel good and maybe come, too,” Casey said, “strap that thing on and fuck me in the ass with it. We might as well make use of that clit stimulator because it sure wasn’t doing anything for me.”

“You want me to fuck you?” Tiffani asked with a grimace.

“Look, I’m gay. I admit that, now. I can’t get off doing it with a girl, even if she’s really attractive to me and you are very attractive to me, but that isn’t enough to get me going, so I want you to ease that big thing into my butthole and take my virginity just like I took yours.”

“I said I wasn’t a virgin.”

“Then, why the blood?”

“There was blood?”

“Look at the sheets right there where we did it the first time and don’t tell me that’s because you’re on the rag.”

“Oops, caught again. How do you want this?”

“Same way I did you the first time.”

Karl stood outside the old lady’s house listening to his heart pound and smelling the perspiration on him. He hadn’t had a bath in so long he couldn’t quite remember when he last washed properly. He was going to get a bath tonight and a change of clothes, too. Tomorrow was the day the Bitch was going to get a bullet in her pretty little head and, as his mother always told him, “you should always have clean clothes in case you’re struck by a car and have to go to the hospital. You don’t want to be embarrassed because you have dirty, smelly clothes when you could’ve changed.”

The person inside the house—Karl knew her only as old Mrs. Miller—had to be at least ninety years old. He was in his neighborhood, but this house was two and a half blocks over from his own. He remembered her as an easy mark for Halloween candy. He’d parked the car around the corner and had walked up the alley as if he belonged here.

He put the hunting knife he’d bought for this night in the door jamb and forced the bolt. There wasn’t the slightest creak to the door as he slipped inside. The old lady’s bedroom would be through the kitchen and to the right.

He was nervous as hell and was concentrating on keeping his bowels from exploding in his pants. He knew he didn’t have to shit because he’d used a laxative. He’d been using laxatives since that first time so he wouldn’t shit his pants when he killed someone, but tonight it was going to be different. Tonight he was going to jump on the old lady and stab her in the throat and then sever the arteries and veins in her neck.

When he came out of the kitchen he saw that she was still up watching television. It was an old movie from the Thirties; she’d have been a young woman then. He crept up behind her, grabbed her hair with his left hand, and with his right drew the knife from behind her left ear around to her right. As he did so, the old lady’s head was pulled back further and further as tendons and muscles were severed, too.

There was a slight whimper and gurgling. Then blood began spurting out of the severed arteries. He let go of the head and it flopped over at an odd angle. He pushed the body over onto the sofa seat so he didn’t have to look at her.

Suddenly, Karl vomited and as he was retching he felt whatever was in his bowels explode into his underwear. He definitely wasn’t going to make it as a murderer if he kept shitting his pants.

He stripped out of his clothes and went into the old lady’s bathroom.

After a quick shower, he put clean clothes on and left everything, including his dirty clothes, for the police to find. As he stepped onto the back porch, Karl saw flashing blue lights over where he’d parked his car. Well, it wasn’t actually his and he was certain the c-store clerk he’d killed wasn’t missing it that much, but it was stolen and obviously it was now found. He needed another car.

He went back into the house and started looking for car keys, but they weren’t anywhere he looked. He found her purse and when he dumped out the contents, he didn’t find any keys. He went out into the garage and saw the old lady’s’58 pink Cadillac. She’d been famous in the neighborhood puttering down the road at a crawl in that huge thing and Karl knew he couldn’t slip away in the night with it. He’d have to find a car elsewhere.

“What’s wrong with you this morning?” Euphorbia asked as Casey walked into the kitchen favoring his right hip.

“Nothing,” Casey said as he pulled at his underwear.

“Nothing my ass,” Euphorbia said. “You finally get fucked?”

“Do I have to say?” Casey asked. He thought he’d be happy. At least he wasn’t overjoyed, since that wouldn’t happen until a guy did him for real, but happy was going to work this morning. Except, he had an itchy irritation down there, like he scratched himself or something; which wasn’t possible because they used lots of lube and he didn’t see any rough spots on the thing.

“Damn stupid kids, that’s all you guys are,” Euphorbia said. “Come on, drop ’em. Let’s see what you did to yourself. Did you at least make certain Six used a condom?”

“We didn’t need one,” Casey said. He could’ve been nervous, but no one else in the house was going to wake up for at least another hour.

“What do you mean, you didn’t need one?” Euphorbia asked. “Come on, bend over and spread your cheeks.”

“It wasn’t a real cock,” Casey said. He’d promised Tiffani not to say anything about what they’d done, but it seemed to him Euphorbia was going to get it out of him one way or another.

“You’re bleeding from your anus,” Euphorbia said. “Did the other person at least trim their nails before lubing you up?”

“No,” Casey whispered. This was getting to be very embarrassing.

“Well, I’m not sticking my finger up there to see how much damage was done, so I guess you’ll have to stop over at the campus clinic.”

“Do I have to?”

“Listen, little boy, you’ve got a scratch inside somewhere. If that scratch gets infected you might end up with a fistula and, trust me on this, you do not want a fistula and you definitely don’t want to go through the surgery to get it fixed. Now, who was the perp?”

“Do I have to say?” Casey asked. He’d promised. She’d threatened to kick him in the nuts. She’d do that and more.

“Was it Tiffani? Did she finally get her dildo? Obviously, you’re not getting what you want from Cheri or Six, so you convinced Tiffani to screw you with a dildo?”

“Yes,” Casey whispered. “It was kinda good and I came, too.”

“Figures,” Euphorbia said. “Pull up your pants and go sit in a tub of hot water, as hot as you can stand. Here’s my key card. Oh, and you’d best put some herbs in the tub, too. Use the bottle with the blue label, it will help the itching.”

Casey hoped Tiffani wasn’t going to get into trouble over this. He, also, hoped she wasn’t going to kick him in the balls for telling Euphorbia. It had been nice, though, and, for him, it confirmed what he already suspected. He had to be gay. To enjoy being fucked, even though it wasn’t a real cock and the other person was a girl who was also getting off by having her clit rubbed by the thing, was the most beautiful experience he’d ever had. It was as if he were meant to be fucked.

Strangely, though, he didn’t feel the need to have Six, or Cheri for that matter, do him, now. He’d had his fuck and it felt so good he came. Frankly, he could go on doing it with Tiffani, but they’d probably have to get a new thing for her because she wasn’t going to want to use the one that had been up his butt. They’d washed it thoroughly, but it still had a funky smell.

Tiffani walked into the kitchen and immediately knew something was wrong. Casey wasn’t there and Euphorbia was staring at her.

“What?” Tiffani asked. She wanted to appear innocent, but with Casey not there something was up.

“Was he bleeding when you finished?” Euphorbia asked.

“I noticed a little blood, but didn’t think much of it since I bled a bit, too,” Tiffani said.

“I suspect you bled a bit because you were a virgin, right?” Euphorbia asked.

“Well, yeah, I guess,” Tiffani said, uncertain where this was going.

“Boys aren’t like girls, they’re not supposed to bleed when you do that to them,” Euphorbia said.

“Where is he?” Tiffani asked. “Is he in the hospital, or something? It didn’t look too bad so I didn’t say anything.”

“No, he’s down soaking in my tub,” Euphorbia said. “Did you apply the lube down there?”

“Yes, and I put some inside, too,” Tiffani said. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Look at your nails honey, they’re little daggers not meant to go into soft, tender places on a boy’s body,” Euphorbia said.

“What do I do now?” Tiffani asked.

“Go with him to the clinic and hold his hand while he explains to the nurse what’s wrong with him. You can nod your head if you want or you can say, holding up your long, sharp nails, that you poked him when applying some lube to his butt. You just let them figure out the rest. Hey honey, I told you to sit in the tub.”

“I had to take a dump and it won’t stop bleeding,” Casey said. “I put some toilet paper down there to sop it up, but the clinic doesn’t open until seven-thirty. I got to go to an emergency room.”

“You have your insurance card?” Tiffani asked.

“Yeah, why?” Casey asked.

“I’ll take you, it’s my fault anyway,” Tiffani said.

“But, what about Euphorbia?” Casey asked.

“Go with your girlfriend honey, I have breakfast to cook,” Euphorbia said.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Casey said as he turned to follow Tiffani.

“She’s your girlfriend if she fucks your ass,” Euphorbia said.

Karl walked into the parking lot at the apartment complex mostly looking for a victim who’d be easy. He needed a car, but he didn’t need a three hundred pound lump of fat that might fall on him. No, he was looking for something young, maybe skinny, too.

He was out in the open so he had to consider how he was going to take it down. Maybe a stab in the back near the kidneys would take it unawares so he could go for the neck to take it out. He felt for his knife and then remembered he’d left it at the old lady’s house.

He didn’t want to resort to a bullet; he didn’t have that many left: one for the Bitch, one for Mommy, one for Daddy, and one for himself, only if he had to do it that way. He had every intention of making it look like he was going to shoot a cop and let the rest of them take him out.

As he was contemplating this, he heard an apartment door close. He watched her in the dim light of dawn. She was perfectly small, wasn’t paying the least amount of attention to anything other than her text messenger, and seemed to have “Pick Me I’m A Victim” written all over her.

He watched her approach the parking area and stop at a small red foreign something. It wasn’t the kind of car he preferred because he knew he wasn’t going to fit, but he didn’t have a choice. He needed a car to get from the college to his home and down to Daddy’s office.

After unlocking her door, the victim stopped for a moment to text someone. Karl came up behind her and slammed the butt of the pistol down on top of her head. She didn’t even scream as she fell to the pavement. He took the keys from her hand and got in the car. Even with the seat all the way back it was very uncomfortable, but he started it up and backed out, feeling the front tire roll over something, maybe an arm, leg, or even her head. Karl was beyond caring. He had a Bitch to kill.

“What did you say to the nurse?” Tiffani asked. She was sitting in a chair behind Casey so he couldn’t see her. “You didn’t tell her what we did, did you?”

“If you’re so concerned about what I should tell them, stay here when they come in,” Casey said. He’d been totally embarrassed by the nurse when he had to take off all his clothes, put on one of those hospital gowns, and lie on his side with one leg up so she could look at the trickle of blood leaking out of his ass. She’d given him a bunch of “uh huhs” and “this isn’t goods” so that he wasn’t certain what was going on.

“The doctor will be in shortly to talk to both of you,” the nurse said as she left.

“Did you tell her what we did?” Tiffani asked, again. “God, this is so embarrassing.”

“What’re you worried about? I’m the naked person here with his ass exposed so anyone can see it. Is the door closed?”

“Of course, silly,” Tiffani said.

There was a knock on the door and Casey heard it open. He hoped it was the doctor, just the doctor.

“Well, well, what have we here,” a voice said.

Casey turned his head and saw another woman, plus the nurse who’d been in earlier. He felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment. He knew she was going to stick a finger up his ass.

“You two’ve been playing around, huh?” the doctor asked.

Tiffani mumbled something. Casey didn’t say a word.

“I’m Doctor Chavez and I’m going to give you a rectal exam,” the doctor said as she came around to Casey’s side of the bed. “We’re going to have to look inside to see the extent of the damage. Either of you wouldn’t want to volunteer an answer right now, would you?”

“Well, you see, we were, you know, going to do something and I needed lubrication,” Casey said. He hoped Tiffani was going to jump in and help, but went ahead. “That was last night and well it was okay last night.”

“Did it feel good?” Doctor Chavez asked.

“Well, yeah, because you know I’m gay and it’s supposed to feel good, oh shit, uh, I didn’t mean to say that.”

“Sure you did, kid,” Doctor Chavez said. “But you didn’t have a boyfriend so Miss, uh, I didn’t get your name.”

“Tiffani.”

“So Miss Tiffani has this thing and both of you figured it was just what’s needed,” Doctor Chavez said as she walked back around behind Casey. “Your nails are too long to be sticking in a boy’s butt. If you’re going to be doing anymore of this, you need to trim those nails back to nothing, keep them smooth, wash your hands or wear gloves, and for god’s sake find him a boyfriend. Penises do a much better job than whatever you two were using.”

“Is this going to take long?” Tiffani asked.

“Honey, this could take all day,” the nurse said. “Do you have to be anywhere?”

“I have a class at eight,” Tiffani said. “We both do.”

“You’re going to miss it,” Doctor Chavez said. “This is going to be uncomfortable Casey.”

“Oh, god!” Casey exclaimed as he felt something bigger than a finger being pushed into his rectum.

Eric hated being late to class to the point where he prided himself for being on time for at least the past ten years and probably further back than that. Of course, it was being raised on a farm that did it for him. Cows simply do not tolerate anyone coming late to milk them. They get irritable and bitchy and are liable to shove you up against a wall or another cow if you weren’t careful.

He didn’t have to worry about students getting bitchy. If a professor was ten minutes late to a class, the students simply got up and left. There was nothing more embarrassing than coming into an empty classroom and realizing it was your fault. He could remember doing that once back in graduate school.

This morning he was late. He and Kevin had a fight, a big fight over something silly. Thanksgiving break was next week and as usual it was always Kevin asking, “What are we doing next week?” The answer was always the same, “We have students to watch, we have a house to watch, and it depends on what Euphorbia, Jim, and Bob were doing.” With Bob dead and Jim off in New York, their options were pretty slim. Plus, he was dying and hated when Kevin came up with things he hadn’t done before as if he wanted to do that stuff before he died.

The problem was he didn’t want to wait for the lingering death of cancer to overwhelm him as it slowly spread to vital organs. He knew men who’d wasted away and didn’t want to go out like that; except, what was he going to do? He wasn’t the kind of person to take a gun to his head, wrap a cord around his neck, or jump off a bridge. He definitely didn’t know anyone who had access to the kind of pills he needed to go to sleep and never wake up. There was poison, of course, but would any of them offer a peaceful death. He wanted to die quickly.

As he was walking across campus to Biddly Hall considering his options and feeling a bit sorry for himself for exploding in front of Kevin, the movement of a young man ahead of him looked familiar. The strut was unmistakable. It was Karl Klein, Tiffani’s ex-boyfriend, the guy who beat her up and was now wanted for a number of c-store killings. He had to act fast because it was obvious Karl was headed for Biddly Hall, too. Tiffani was in his eight o’clock class. Eric dialed 9-1-1.

After spending an indeterminable, agonizing moment waiting for the next available operator fully aware his call was important to them a man’s voice came on, “Emergency Services, how can I help you?”

“Yes, this is Professor Parker at North Park College. I need the police.”

“What’s the nature of the problem, sir?”

“Karl Klein is walking toward Biddly Hall. I’m about thirty yards behind him. I’m fairly certain he’s going in the building because his ex-girlfriend is in there.”

“Yes, sir, I’ve contacted the North Park Police and they are dispatching a response.”

“I think he has a gun because of the way he’s walking with one hand in his coat pocket.”

“Yes, sir, that’s a possibility. Now, the officer should be arriving shortly, so please stay out of the way and let her do her job.”

The sound of dial tone told Eric they were actually sending only one officer, probably to talk to Karl to see if he was interested in surrendering. He’d say no, of course, and she’d probably report back to her superiors that she’d seen the multiple murderer, but he wasn’t interested in coming in to talk about it. That seemed to be the way the North Park Police handled things.

Eric saw only one solution to the situation; he had to act on his own. His artificial arm and hand were not going to be of much use, but he had to do something before Karl shot up his classroom. He dialed campus security and apprised them of the situation. They said they were calling the county sheriff for SWAT team response and to lock down the campus.

Eric suddenly recognized an old feeling from his youth. He’d been in Viet Nam, a second lieutenant only a month in-country, a newbie in the worst way, but unlike a lot of his peers Eric had the respect of his men. He relied on his NCOs, probably a little too much in the beginning, yet he learned what he needed to know and by the end of the month felt confident out in the bush.

Then one dreary, drizzly day they walked into an ambush and his men started dying around him with the horrible wounds of war. Eric had to make split second decisions and deployed his men to establish a perimeter and to start returning fire. Men who were alive were screaming from the pain of their wounds, bullets were whizzing out of the jungles underbrush, and Eric slipped into the numbing, mindlessness of a hero.

The firefight slowly became equalized as his men’s bullets and grenades inexorably began to get the upper hand in the skirmish. Eric moved among his men checking the living, wounded, dying, and dead, encouraging all to put up the good fight or they were all going to die.

What was strange about what happened during this was that Eric didn’t notice at first that most of his arm was no longer there beside him. There was a bloody stump at the end of his sleeve and he had no idea where his arm was. He just kept on doing his job as if oblivious to the reality of the situation. When their medic came to him and told him to get down, Eric couldn’t imagine why.

Now, with Karl going into Biddly Hall, Eric knew a similar situation existed. He wasn’t going to get a Purple Heart or a Silver Star for this; he already had those from the war. No, today he was going to prove that he really deserved the medals in the first place. He was going to take Karl out and if he got hurt in the process, well, that was life and he didn’t have much of one left anyway.

He hurried, but didn’t break into a run. He knew where he was going and was hoping Karl intended on taking the back stairs to avoid anyone seeing him. After all, up until a few months ago, he’d been a student here and there were people who could recognize him as Eric had. Inside the main doors, Eric saw just the movement of someone going up the main staircase. Karl wasn’t acting smart, which meant he was probably using a predetermined script and would be mostly oblivious to people and actions around him. This might just give Eric a slight edge and he needed all the edge to get this done without anyone getting hurt.

Eric walked up the stairs as calmly as he could. He didn’t want to alert Karl, but he also didn’t think he could sneak up on him until the last moment when Karl was going to be looking into the room trying to locate Tiffani. Eric figured he had maybe a couple of seconds between the time he saw Karl and the moment when he would grab the boy and attempt to wrench the gun from his hand without the damn thing going off and accidently shooting another student.

When Eric got to the top of the stairs he saw Karl not twenty feet in front of him bending over as if he was out of breath. Now was the moment when fools become heroes. Eric briskly walked over to Karl as quiet as he could. The boy stood up and looked into Eric’s classroom. He seemed to be having trouble locating Tiffani and that gave Eric his edge.

Eric grabbed the gun arm, down by the wrist, and spun the boy back toward him. A shot rang out and someone screamed, but Eric kept his concentration on Karl’s struggling to get away.

Another shot sounded muffled and Eric felt a burning ache in his gut. He struggled with the gun hand and tried to push Karl against a wall. All Eric heard was the screaming of wounded soldiers as another round came in from the jungle and he felt it go into his chest. How many more bullets were in the gun?

He didn’t have much more struggle left in him, but he heard another round exit the barrel. There was no pain from this one, but he felt Karl suddenly go weak and begin to fall toward the floor. Eric pulled the gun away and tossed it across the hall as he followed Karl toward the polished marble.