The Chosen

^PROLOGUE

Zyra withdrew the ice pick from the man’s throat. Her big eyes widened, sparkling. She loved to watch them bleed out.

“Ooo, lover,” she whispered. “That’s sweet.”

The naked body thrashed between her legs. Zyra leaned over and pinned him down, to watch his death throes more closely. Each raving beat of his heart emitted a thin jet of blood from the puncture, most of which shot up onto her breasts. She’d timed it just right—she liked irony: the points of three matrixes all touching at the same precise moment. It seemed to give the deed more meaning. It seemed to give it truth.

“Come on, baby,” she’d said earlier when they’d come in. A dump, she thought, glancing around. Lamplight blazed to reveal smudges on the walls; the room smelled of grease and old fried food. From a dark velvet portrait, Elvis sneered.

The redneck burped, fascinated as he pawed her impeccable physique. Zyra kicked out of her jeans, peeled off her top, and then hauled his pants off. She felt excited and hot. She straddled him right there on the tacky do-it-yourself carpet tiles.

“That’s right, baby. You just lay back and let Zyra make you feel real good.”

He beer-burped again, struggling under her to get out of his flannel shirt. Crooked teeth showed through his grin as he looked up. “You shore got yourself one hell of a killer bod, hon.”

Killer bod, she reflected. She could’ve laughed.

“Oh, yeah…yeah,” the guy began blabbering; Zyra promptly reached around and inserted him into herself. Not very big, she lamented. In her line of work, of course, she was used to much bigger, but he’d do. This was business, after all.

Her spread buttocks slid down, deepening the meager penetration. She thought of riding motorcycles as she leaned forward and ran her hands over his hairy, fat-layered chest.

“Good gawd, hon.” His eyes bulged in ludicrous ecstasy. A ball of lint filled his navel. “You shore’s shit feel good. Ain’t had me a scrap like this in a coon’s age.”

A coon’s age? She massaged his fatty pectorals as though they were breasts, while her own breasts swayed before his stupid, cross-eyed, redneck face. Poor little lover, she thought. He wouldn’t last long; they never did with Zyra. “That’s it, baby, that’s it,” she cooed.

His big rough fingers fiddled with her nipples. They plucked and pinched. His hips began to tremor; his face looked like a twisted balloon. Not yet, she commanded herself. He began to groan. Then—

Now.

Zyra’s climax released in a burst of vivid, hot spasms, when she felt the redneck’s own climax unleash. Ooooooo, she thought.

That’s when she jammed the ice pick into his throat.

He attempted to scream but succeeded only in gargling. Zyra smiled and held him down—she was a strong woman. He bucked beneath her like a just-gelded mule.

From the tiny puncture, the streams of blood emitted with a considerable velocity—it reminded her of a squirt gun. Squirt, squirt, squirt, on and on. This bizarre synchronicity fascinated her: his ejaculation exiting in time with his blood…

“Ready for my surprise?” she whispered. This was not a reference to the ice pick—as if that weren’t surprise enough!—but just another aspect of her demented lust. Weren’t writers always writing about sex and death? Zyra viewed this as a…literary pursuit…to further her orgasms as uniquely as possible—during the final convulsions of his life.

It seemed thrillingly perverse!

When she was done, she whispered, “Hope it was as good for you as it was for me.”

She leaned up. Blood dripped off her nipples. On a silly impulse she placed both hands in the center of the redneck’s chest and pushed down once very hard. A thread-thin stream of blood launched out of his throat and shot across the room. Wow! Zyra thought. The blood drew a high line along the wall and hit Elvis in the eye.

“I’d love to stay and chat, baby, but I’m afraid it’s bye-bye time for you.” She jammed the ice pick deep into the base of his skull and jiggled it around. The redneck stiffened once, gurgled a final objection, then died.

Muffled thumps beat from the bedroom. Zyra smiled when she heard the stifled shrieks. Lemi was in there taking care of the redneck’s little girlfriend. They’d come onto them at the bar, some frowzy hole called the Crossroads. Peanut shells carpeted the sticky floor; a country and western band ineptly twanged chords from the stage. “We all’s swingers,” the redneck had offered after the second pitcher of Carling. “How ‘bout yawl? Think ya might like ta come back ta our place fer a little partyin’?” “Sounds good to me,” Zyra had said. “Sure,” Lemi had said.

“And it was plumb one rat nass party,” Zyra now mocked. She was always talking to herself, or to dead people. “Thank ya much, yawl.” She sauntered nude into the bedroom. Lemi’s muscles tensed as he wrapped duct tape around the girl’s mouth. He’d already tied her hands behind her back. “Christ, Zy. You sure made a mess of yourself. Get cleaned up, will you? We’ve got to pop this blow stand.”

Zyra shook her head. “It’s blow this pop stand, Lemi. Get your quips right.”

He glanced up from the girl’s shagged head. “What’s a quip?”

So stupid, Zyra concluded. All men were. Her pretty bare feet left scarlet footprints to the bathroom. She showered quickly, turning her face and breasts into the cool spray. “Blub, blub, blub—bye,” she gestured, and watched the redneck’s blood swirl down the crusty drain.

She put her clothes back on as Lemi inspected the girl, who he’d lain out on the bed. He appraised her meticulously, like a housewife fussing over which melon was the ripest at the Safeway. “Hmm,” he considered. He rubbed some of her mousy lank blond hair between his fingers. “What a rat’s nest. We’re gonna have to do something with this.” Then he patted her buttocks. “And I’ve seen better asses, that’s for damn sure.”

“Quit complaining,” Zyra scolded, buttoning her fancy inlaid blouse. “We’re lucky to have her at all.”

“And look how skinny she is—Christ!” Lemi turned her over, frowning. “Practically just skin and bones.”

“We’ll get some meat on her.”

“Hope so.” He gave one of her breasts a squeeze, and seemed more satisfied. “Decent pair of tits, though, for such a lightweight. Firm” He patted her pubis. “Nice bush, too.”

“She’ll do just fine, Lemi,” Zyra exasperated. “How was she? You tried her out, didn’t you?”

“’Course I tried her out. Not bad. Tight.”

Zyra rolled her eyes. “Shit, Lemi, an elephant’d be tight, as hung as you are.”

Lemi chuckled. “She was pretty fiesty at first. But once old Lemi boy got in there with the rig—that took the fight out of her and fast. Not a half-bad tumble, as far as girls around here go.”

Zyra shook her head again. Men could be such pompous assholes, like having a big dick made them special. Zyra figured Lemi had more brains in his glans than his skull. She took a moment to look down at the girl. Zyra tried to feel sorry for her, but why should she? It wasn’t her fault it was a cruel world, was it?

The girl’s eyes bulged in terror, her thin chest heaved. She whined beneath the duct-tape gag as Lemi lashed her ankles and rolled her up in the sheets. “Get the stiff,” he said. “We gotta…blow…this…pop stand.” He scratched his head. “What a dumb quip.”

He carried the girl out to the van. Zyra went back into the living room. That was pretty dumb too. Living room? Dying room, she thought, smiling. She could still feel a tingle between her long, firm legs.

The redneck looked pallid as jack cheese, now that most of his blood had drained out of him. Zyra picked him up by his ankles, and dragged him like a big bag of leaves out of the bungalow.

The air had some nip to it; winter grew close. An errant breeze braced her, whistling through the trees. Zyra rolled the corpse into the back of the van alongside the girl. Then she slammed the doors shut.

“Start her up.” Lemi shivered in his flannel shirt. “I’ll take care of the joint.”

Hurry up! It’s cold! She gunned the van’s engine, cranked on some heat. A few minutes later, the secluded little bungalow burst quietly into flames, flooding the grove with wavering orange light and heat. Lemi jogged back out and climbed in. “Let’s googie, Zy.”

“Boogie, Lemi. Let’s boogie—”

“Googie, boogie, I don’t give a shit. Let’s go home.”

Zyra wheeled the van down the long gravel drive. The flaming house shrank in the rearview, crackling.

Yeah, let’s go home. The main road took them toward the mountainside, into darkness, while the darkness took Zyra’s thoughts away into a silent, inexplicable joy. Every end is a new beginning, she pondered. It made her feel ageless.

“You know,” Lemi remarked, “I really like your hair that way. Glazed.”

“Not glazed, you idiot. Frosted. ” All she could do was shake her head and smile. It was hard to believe that men, however uniformly stupid, ruled the world.

“I can’t wait till things get started again,” he said, and relaxed back in the van seat.

Neither can I. The gagged girl in back shrieked in her throat. Zyra paid it no mind. It was a sound, among many others, that she’d long grown accustomed to. As she drove on, she got lost in more personal wonderings. It was a beautiful night. Crisp. Clear as crystal. The stars looked like a smear of luminous, cosmic spillage. There was beauty everywhere, if one looked closely enough…

Every end is a new beginning.

Indeed, this was their lot. They were always ending, and always beginning again.

The moon disappeared beyond the ridge when she turned up the narrow mountain road, toward home.

— | — | —

_{THE OFFER}