body horror | Unsettling Stories

The Quarry

I can’t remember the last time we’d had such a hot summer. All the beaches were packed. You couldn’t find a shoreline that wasn’t teeming with people. Most summers, we would’ve been right there with them. This last school year, though, had been rough. We’d had an inordinate number of encounters with bullies, and the last thing we wanted to do was put ourselves in a place where they’d almost certainly be.

That caution came with a price, of course. We were sweltering. Fans did nothing. Every time we opened the freezer to grab a chunk of ice, we’d get yelled at for letting all the cold air out. It seemed like everything we did, it only served to make us hotter and more miserable.

My brother had an idea that sounded pretty great to me. There’d been construction going on near the old quarry that was on hold for some reason. Donny said he’d been snooping around there the week before and he noticed there was still a lot of water from the spring floods that’d gotten trapped and hadn’t dried up yet. Plus, the quarry was deep enough to be in its own shadow; the walls went up at least 30 feet. It’d be a climb to get down and back up, but it was worth the risk if it meant getting a break from the heat.

We hopped the fence and stared down at the water. It looked pretty damn refreshing. The way down was steep and rocky, but Donny and I were both pretty agile at the time. We went slowly, despite dripping with sweat and coating ourselves with dust and bits of gravel. When we got to the bottom, it was already a relief. The air was ten degrees cooler and the shade provided a welcome reprieve from the mid-day sun.

There was a long branch near the edge of the pool. Since the water was murky, we didn’t want to take a chance and dive in. Both of us remembered how Leon Hollis broke his neck back in 3rd grade. Neither of us were going to make that same mistake. I reached in with the stick and pushed down and around. It felt about two or three feet deep. I let out more and more of the branch into the water and felt the soft, muddy ground underneath. We couldn’t do a proper dive, but we sure as hell could jump in. That was all Donny needed to hear.

In the blink of an eye, Donny had stripped out of his clothes. I hadn’t even finished saying, “Jesus Christ, Don, don’t take your fucking underpants off too!” before he was stark naked and mid-air in a bellyflop position. He crashed into the still water, sending out a massive wave to soak the muddy shore. I was untying my shoes when Donny spluttered to the surface. He looked different.

Donny’s pale body was covered in a mosaic of black and brown shapes. I mean covered. He was more brown and black than he was white, and as he staggered toward me with his arms out so they wouldn’t touch his sides and his legs bowed so they wouldn’t rub together, I realized what they were. Leeches. Hundreds – maybe even a thousand – leeches.

He began to scream. It was a shrill, high-pitched shriek that I’d only heard from girls on the playground at school, but with them, it was only while they were playing. The sound coming from my brother was one of abject terror. As he screamed, he formed the words, “help me” and moved closer and closer to the shore, away from the water. By the time I’d gotten over to him, he fell on his back into the soft mud, his head inches from the shore.

I stood over him, unsure of what I should do. He began rubbing his hands over his trunk, trying to unlatch the things from his belly and chest. Blood smeared as their bodies burst under his touch. My horror stunned me for a moment, and as I stared with shock at my brother’s body, I noticed details for the first time.

There was a leech stuck to his left eyeball. It hung down about 3 inches, its body fat with blood. The eye was red and angry looking and Donny was blinking furiously, and probably unconsciously, to get the thing off. One leech was attached to the head of his penis and there were seven on his scrotum and perineum. Under his arms were the remains of at least six that had been smashed as Donny rubbed and pulled at the ones on his torso.

Finally, I snapped out of it and began raking my nails across the creatures that covered my brother. He was a red mess. I tried to pick up my pace, noticing how, even under the shroud of blood, I could tell Donny was getting increasingly pale and weak. His arms didn’t move much anymore and his screams had devolved into wheezes.

I ran back to where we’d left our clothes and returned with a large beach towel. I wadded it up and scrubbed Donny up and down, not caring if I crushed the things instead of just removing them. They needed to die, and quickly, or else I was certain my brother would be exsanguinated. I rubbed his face and chest and legs and feet until there was nothing left pulp from their devastated bodies and the smeared blood they’d stolen from Donny.

I knelt next to Donny and tried to get him to focus. I told him I was going to run for help and he was going to be okay. His good eye moved to meet my face. “Back,” he muttered.

“Yes, I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I assured him, and got up to run home.

Donny grabbed my ankle in his weak fist. I stopped and looked at him impatiently, not understanding how he didn’t see how time was a factor here.

“Back,” he said again. “My back.” He exhaled a long, low breath. He didn’t move or say anything after that.

A column of frost coalesced along my spinal cord. With great care, not wanting Donny’s face to sink into the mud, I turned my brother over and screamed. On his back were two leeches, each the size of a watermelon. No longer trapped between the mud and Donny, they detached their proboscises, each of which were as long as my middle finger. Then, with their bodies full and their appetites sated, they began the slow crawl back into the water.

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I think I’m having some kind of medical issue.

Maybe one of you can offer me some advice? I don’t have insurance and I can’t afford a trip to the ER. It doesn’t seem life threatening, though, so I might wait it out. I’ve always been a bit of a hypochondriac and I bet I’m just overreacting. Still, if anyone is interested in coming over and checking me out, just send me a message. I’d really appreciate it.

I was walking through the wooded area behind my home and I found this weird gray stuff oozing out of a rock. It was shiny and made me think of jellied lead. I’d never seen anything quite like it before. Since I moved out of the city ten years ago, I frequently walked around the many acres of woods near the house and never saw anything weirder than a squirrel eating a dead hawk. So this was new to me.

I took a branch and poked at the stuff. It resisted a little before it broke open, causing a more liquidy version to flow out from inside. I grabbed a smaller stick and scooped up a tiny bit of the stuff and walked back to the house. Part of me was worried that it fell from a plane or something and might be a toxic threat to the environment.

When I got home, I scraped the goo onto a dish I never used and threw the stick in the garbage. I shone some light on the plate, and I swear, the stuff moved a little. It’s not like it jumped up and made scary tentacles or anything like that; no, it just kind of spread out in a weird way. Almost like how jellyfish try to hide in the sand when they feel threatened. After I killed the light, it gradually reassumed its original shape. My guess was that the heat from the lamp made it melt.

I decided to wait until tomorrow morning and bring it to the local university just to be on the safe side. I don’t know what it was about the stuff, but I was really, really uneasy around it. When I left for an hour or two and went to the store to get groceries, I returned to find the plate empty and a streak of gray grease going off the plate, across the counter, and onto the floor. There wasn’t a trail indicating where it went after that.

Honestly, I was a little freaked out. I bent down and looked all over the place and never found the stuff. But it found me.

At first, I thought the sensation on my bare ankle was just a mosquito, so I slapped at it without thinking. Obviously, looking back, that was the wrong idea. The gray stuff spread out all over my palm, then the rest of my hand, then my arm, side, chest, back, and the rest of me. Long story short, I’m completely covered in the gray substance. But here’s the thing, and it’s why I’m not particularly worried: it feels amazing.

I know, I know, it sounds weird. But in all honesty, I’ve never felt anything like it. In fact, I was so taken by the sensation that I went back outside, over to the rock where the stuff was, and pulled as much of it off as I could and brought it into the house. Now, like I said in the beginning, I do think I’m having some sort of medical issue. It’s definitely not something I’ve ever experienced before or even heard of, so I think it’s important to get checked out. But still, I can’t get over how great the experience is. The stuff smells wonderful, too. And right now, as it spreads over my tongue, it tastes better than anything I’ve ever put in my mouth. Please, anyone who might be interested in investigating either for their own curiosity or as a medical precaution, just leave a message right here and I’ll give you directions to my home. I’d be so happy if someone came over.

Please. Come visit me. Come visit us.

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Roo

roo

I’ve lived in the same house for 40 years. After Ralph passed and I was left alone for the first time in three decades, I turned to my neighbors for comfort. They provided it in spades. I was honored and brought to tears by their kindness. Not too many places would make sure a lonely old man was taken care of. I’m surrounded by wonderful, beautiful people.

I took on the role of a grandfather to some of the neighborhood children. I was more than happy to babysit; Ralph and I always wanted to adopt but it wasn’t permitted in our state. So, having the opportunity to be a formative figure in the lives of these children was a great privilege. It made me feel like I was getting another chance to do everything that had been denied to me. I wish Ralph could’ve been here to take part. Still, I know he’s watching with the same love and pride he expressed every day he was alive.

One girl, Madison, formed a particularly strong connection to me. Her father was out of the picture. Her mom, Helen, who was forced to work full time, was rarely home during the day. Helen had always been the most supportive and loving of the neighbors after Ralph’s death, so when I had the opportunity to help with Madison and watch her during the work day, I was more than willing.

I started looking after Madison soon after her 10th birthday. She fell in love with the collection of toy kangaroos all over the house. Ralph was born in Australia and I always used to call him my little roo – especially when he got excited and his accent became more pronounced. On his birthdays, I’d give him some type of kangaroo toy. They’d been gathering dust after his passing and I was glad Madison could give them some life again.

Years passed and Madison started to grow up. I worried she was becoming depressed. She never had very many friends in school. She’d come straight over when her day was done and do her homework while waiting for her mom. Her mood was less bubbly than I’d remembered. Part of it, I’m sure, was her age. Adolescence is tough for everyone, let alone someone with a difficult family life like Madison. Still, I worried about her. She was perfectly nice to me and was never rude or disrespectful, but she’d withdrawn. She didn’t watch television with me anymore after her homework, either. She’d just sit on the floor in her kangaroo pajamas, which were far too small for her at that point, playing with Ralph’s figurines. Just like she did when she was little.

When Madison was 16, she got a boyfriend. Her first one, as far as I knew. I didn’t like him. At all. He was your typical teenage tough-guy type; a chain-smoking, foul-mouthed loser. There wasn’t anything I could do about it, though. Madison wouldn’t bring him over and I think she sensed I didn’t approve. But it wasn’t my business. I told myself years before that such situations were purely between Madison and her mother. Only if I felt like Madison was in danger would I interfere.

Madison spent more and more time with the boyfriend and less and less with me. The house grew quiet again. The other children I’d taken care of had grown old enough to watch themselves. Their parents stopped by every so often for coffee, but my general person-to-person interaction was far less than I’d previously enjoyed. I was lonely.

One night, Helen came to me in a panic. Apparently, Madison had admitted to using drugs. Helen had no idea what kind or anything like that, but she was terrified for her daughter’s safety. I tried to reassure her that there had to be something the school could do, but that was when she told me the other half of the story: Madison was pregnant.

This floored me. I’d seen Madison around town over the last few months and I’d noticed she’d gained some weight, but it never occurred to me she might be pregnant. Now her drug use was even more worrying. We tried to figure out a plan together and the only thing we could agree on was that the school had to know. Even though the local school system wasn’t the best, they had to have some resources dedicated to problems like these.

The school did nothing. Madison’s reckless behavior continued. Helen was too terrified to notify the police because she feared she’d be put in a foster home. I, too, was clueless. Time went by and the rare times I’d see Madison in town, she’d be stumbling around drunkenly with her idiot boyfriend, her protrusive belly an obscenity against the background of her intoxication.

On a late afternoon in February, I was leaving the supermarket when Madison spotted me from across the parking lot. She wasn’t with her boyfriend, thankfully. She rushed up to me and gave me a big hug. She didn’t seem drunk, but she had to have been on something. Her pupils were dilated and her words were slurred as she said how much she missed me. Then she asked if she could come over later to see the kangaroos. I told her that would be wonderful and that I missed her.

At some point around 7, Madison came over. I ushered her in quickly; it was way below freezing outside and she looked ill. I could tell she was high. She shuffled in without saying hello and went to the mantle where the kangaroos stood. In a singsong, childish voice, she talked to them. When she was 11, I thought that type of thing was cute. Now, though, knowing she was under the influence of something that was poisoning not only her, but the baby as well, it was far less adorable.

I walked up to her and asked if I could take her coat and if she’d like some tea and chocolate cake. She didn’t reply. She just kept talking to the kangaroos. I sighed and sat down on the couch, waiting for her to either snap out of it and talk to me or leave and hopefully go home to her mom.

Madison went down the line of the kangaroo toys on the mantle, saying “I love you” to each one. Then she walked back, doing the same thing in reverse order. Then she faced me. “I love you too, Michael,” she cooed, a thin smile cracking her pale face. “But you know what? I love Roo most of all!”

Madison dropped her heavy coat to the floor and I screamed. A gaping wound had been carved across the top of her belly. The blue head and chest and right arm of her baby stuck out from the opening. “Look at little Roo,” she said weakly. “Such a good little Roo.” Madison tried to hop toward me, mimicking a kangaroo. The limp head and arm of the child flopped back and forth with the movement.

“Sweet little Roo. All warm and safe in his pouch.”

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Bags

I was ten when it happened. My tenth birthday. I was in the woods with my uncle and father and they were making sure I knew how to shoot. Before I could hunt deer, I had to show them I could hunt bottles. By that, I mean I had to hit ten bottles from ten feet away, using ten bullets. It wasn’t much a test. I could’ve done that when I was seven. My guess was they just wanted to do something special with the number ten. I would’ve preferred ten cakes.

Thanks to my well-placed shots, the first three bottles exploded in glittering, green shards. Against the sullen backdrop of the sun-punctured gray sky and the forest still recovering from last year’s fire, it looked hauntingly pretty.

Even though I’d worn my ear protection, I felt discomfort in both my ears. It wasn’t the normal ringing I’d encountered before, though. It was a painful buzzing, like flies were trapped by my eardrums.

I looked over and saw my dad and uncle both rubbing the area around their ears. They’d taken out their plugs and looked uncomfortable and confused. I pulled off my own and asked what was going on. Dad shook his head and said he didn’t know.

“Mother of fuck!,” my uncle exclaimed, prompting a burst of giggles from me and a slap upside his head from my dad. But then we saw what had caused his outburst.

The seven remaining bottles were floating. They stood, motionless, three feet above the rocks where they’d been placed. The buzzing intensified and the three of us cringed. It was like a colony of bees had descended on the quiet forest.

“Let’s go,” Dad said, grabbing my hand, and we started walking back the way we came.

Then the world ended.

My father and uncle were hoisted into the air. I shrieked. Their eyes grew wide with fright and they held their rifles in deathgrips while pointing them in every direction in a futile attempt to threaten whatever was assailing them. I remember how my dad looked right before it happened. The instant before.

A one of the levitating bottles flew with impossible speed. It struck my dad in his open mouth and shattered. Glass stuck inside his devastated gums, tongue, and cheeks. My uncle, now screaming, was met with the same hideous assault. Both wailed around the glass impaling the soft tissue of their mouths while I tugged at my dad’s leg, trying to pull him back to Earth.

30 years later, their screams haunt me more than the sight of their blood. But blood poured. Blood gushed. In a haze of uncomprehending horror, I watched as the shards extracted themselves from the mouths of the men and began to carve. Lips were amputated. Cheeks were excised. Flesh dropped to the forest floor. The buzzing in my ears reached an unbearable level, and with a sharp cracking sound, everything went silent.

Deaf, I huddled against a large tree and sobbed. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the violence. In a noiseless, surreal nightmare, I saw the glass carve their gums down to the roots of their teeth. Their heads jerked forward in a powerful movement and teeth exploded out of their skulls and into the sky. I followed their trajectory and saw, for the first time, a patch of dull, green light behind the gathering clouds.

I looked back at my father and uncle. They’d stopped moving their arms and legs and trunks. The violent forward motion had to have broken their necks. My uncle’s eyes gaped and darted in every direction, but Dad’s were on me. They expressed pain, but something else, too. It was comfort. Even in the bloodbath, he wanted me to know it would be okay.

It wasn’t okay.

The green light intensified and I saw the outline of something – that’s still the only word I can use – something – in the sky. The first thing that came to mind was Medusa’s head. It had a spherical center and countless, serpentine spires jutting from it at every conceivable angle. Liquid patches of light traveled between the spires, and as it descended, I felt the buzz which had deafened me vibrating my hair and fat.

It reached the treeline. It was the size of a house. My dad and uncle had their eyes on it as their ruined mouths wept. The spires stopped mere feet away from the three of us. A sliver of green shone on the two men, and they began to shake wildly.

If they hadn’t been paralyzed from the tooth extraction, the shaking would’ve ensured it. They flopped like electrocuted ragdolls pinned to a corkboard; arms, legs, hips, backs – all contorting in ways that would splinter and pulverize their bones. My father’s knees bent forward, hyperextending until his toes were touching his hips. My uncle’s lower jaw swept back and forth. There was no conceivable way they were still alive.

With a sense of resignation, I realized I couldn’t move. I was pinned in my position, helpless to do anything but stare at the carnage. I assumed I would be next.

The green light flashed red. The tattered clothing on my relatives split and fell to the ground. The glass, which had dropped to the ground after finishing with their mouths, took to the air again. It sliced through their bodies in long, deep incisions. The red light intensified, and I watched as their splintered, fragmented bones were hurled from their bodies toward the liquid light on the spire-studded object. In a final, hideous act, their eyes dropped from their boneless sockets and pulped brain matter followed them.

Two motionless bags of flesh hung in the silent forest.

If I passed out at that point, it wasn’t for long.

My eyes opened to the sight of the husks of my uncle and father being prodded by one spire each. Skin flopped back and forth. Any remaining blood rained onto the floor of the abattoir nouveau below them. The light had shifted from red to something else I’d never seen before. It was as if they were trapped in a beam of shadow; it wasn’t perfectly black, but dark gray.

Black fluid began to drip out of their skin. It puddled in the mess of blood and organs on the ground. Their flesh wounds began to close. The dripping slowed, then stopped. The bodies started to regain their original shape.

My despondent resignation grew teeth as fresh fear suffused my small body. The skins were full again. The arms and legs moved, as if they were being tested. Eyes sprouted from the empty sockets and teeth filled their mouths. After a couple minutes, they looked exactly like they had before they’d been murdered.

Exactly.

Everything blurred after this.

I remember them slowly descending to the ground. I remember their mouths moving as if they were talking to me, but in my deafness, I heard nothing. I remember trying to run, but being stopped; stopped and held against the chest of the thing who looked like my father. The twinkle of concern in his eyes was gone.

I was carried through the forest to our house. I remember Mom starting at the sight of my nude father and uncle entering, but then I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was in my bed. It was the day after my birthday.

As I said above, it’s been 30 years. I am still deaf. Everything continued as if nothing had happened, other than a freak accident due to a combination of a misfiring shell and my shrugging off of my hearing protection right beforehand. I even told Mom about it all, and she just stroked my hair and told me it must’ve been a terrible nightmare.

There was no warmth in her eyes.

My mother, my father, and my uncle still live on the same street. I live across town. I don’t see them very often. They express great sadness at this and message frequently, but I can’t forget what I know happened – what I know wasn’t a dream.

Over the years, there have been clues. Every so often there’d be a newspaper article about strange lights in the sky or messes of blood and organs found in the forest. They’re things that are always explained away by auroras or animal attacks. Weird stuff, but not anything that’ll make people think more than twice.

Five years ago, I was on my way to the supermarket on my bicycle when my chain fell off. I pulled over onto the sidewalk to fix it. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw another cyclist crossing the street. Then a car made an illegal turn and the cyclist had to swerve out of the way. He fell onto the ground. I looked up and realized it was Dad. He was picking himself up. A small gash had appeared on his elbow. Greasy, black liquid trickled down his arm.

He saw me and smiled. Then he looked at his arm and sighed. He lifted the bike back onto its wheels, walked up to me, and signed, “your mother and I miss you.” He hopped on the bike and rode away.

I just stared at tiny black drops on the pavement.

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Bubbles

aliens

I was getting my hand stitched up in the ER last night when a series of rapid beeps sounded on the intercom, followed by an announcement of “ABD, code A, bay 1.” Every doctor and nurse in the area stopped what they were doing and rushed to the main ER entrance. They got there just in time to meet the ambulances.

I couldn’t see anything, so I waited. I figured there had to have been a serious accident. My phone rang. It was Lucy, my wife. She asked how my hand was. I told her they were still stitching it up. I apologized for getting blood all over her bagel, and she laughed and said she told me not to cut it that way.

There was a pause while Lucy answered one of the kids’ questions in the background. Then she came back on the line and asked if I saw that really bright light about a half hour ago. I didn’t know what she was talking about, so she went on.

“It was crazy bright – the whole sky was this weird, pastel pink color. Then it turned white. It almost hurt to look at it was so bright.”

“Huh,” I replied. “Maybe it was a UFO.” I craned my neck to see over the mass of people still huddled by the ambulance bay. Still nothing.

Lucy laughed. “Yeah, must’ve been aliens.” She said something to one of the kids again, then came back on the line. “Ok, I’m gonna go. Joey said he’s about to throw up.”

I said goodbye and ended the call. The commotion on the other end of the ER was growing as more people from other parts of the hospital had gotten there. Something smelled terrible.

I covered my nose and mouth with my shirt and stood up. I walked over to the window so I could get a better look at what was happening. The crowd had thinned slightly. I saw a few nurses running off, probably to pick up supplies. At the end of the hall were two gurneys with medical personnel hovering over them.

The smell got worse and I gagged inside my shirt. One of the gurneys began to move as someone pushed it down the hall.

I stood in the doorway and watched. As the victim came into view, my eyes widened. It was a young woman, covered from head to toe in what I could only describe as bubbles. Some were as small as a pea, others were the size of a grapefruit. They all throbbed and pulsated from some pressure inside them, and every so often, one would tear open and weep yellow fluid onto the gurney. The smell was overwhelming.

They pushed her into the room next to mine. I could see everything from the window in the wall. They didn’t bother closing the curtains. I heard the other gurney being pushed by and glanced over at it. A girl, maybe 12 or 13. I shuddered.

I directed my gaze back at the person in the adjacent room. The doctors were popping bubbles to insert an IV. Fluid oozed onto the floor and I used every bit of self-control I could muster to avoid throwing up.

The woman’s eyes were wide and darting back and forth. It was an expression of terror. Terror and agony. As if sensing my stare, a thin stalk slid from the center of her left eye. The doctors shouted and backed up. The stalk elongated a little over a foot, and its tip grew a bubble of its own. The bubble expanded and the weight caused the stalk to droop. When it was the size of an orange, it stopped growing. It hung like an obscene fruit.

There was a yell from the room where they’d brought the other victim. I assumed it was for the same reason. On the other side of the window, more stalks emerged in a cluster from the woman’s other eye. All of them produced bubbles like a bunch of grapes.

My phone beeped. It was a text from Lucy. “Can you go look outside? It’s that light again!”

As if on cue, every light in the hospital went out. The emergency lights clicked on for half a second, then they went dead. There was nothing – nothing but the stream of pink light coming in from the open ambulance bay doors.

I stepped in the hall and asked, to no one in particular, what was happening. I doubt anyone heard me, because the light shifted from pink to white, accompanied by a blast of noise I can only describe as static. It caused me to clasp my hands to my ears and retreat backward into the room, where I cowered in the corner.

I saw shadows passing in front of the white light reflecting off the floor. Bizarrely-shaped shadows. They moved in a way that was both jerky and fluid, like jelly suspended on bone. The shadows darkened as whatever was making them got closer. Doctors and nurses in the next room shrieked, and there was a flash which silenced them. Then, two feet away in the hall, harshly illuminated from the back by the piercing, white light, I saw it.

My initial thought of jelly suspended on bone wasn’t very far off. Six ossified tubes carried heavy, segmented portions of sloshing, semi-transparent sacks. The first thing that came to mind was the body of a jellyfish. Bubbles and waving stalks decorated the entirety of its trunk and it walked by, either not noticing me or not caring about my presence. It reached the room of the other victim. Just like before, there was a scream, a flash of light, and then silence.

The light outside went dark. The sound stopped. The emergency lights in the hospital clicked on.

I scrambled to my feet and looked through the window at the room next to me. The doctors were writhing on the ground with burns on their exposed skin. The burns didn’t look life threatening. But the woman on the gurney was gone. Nothing was left but the sticky, yellow fluid on the floor.

“What the fuck was that?!,” I yelled, and banged on the window. The person who’d been stitching me up got off the floor, came back into the room, and asked me to sit down so he could finish. A nasty burn on the bridge of his nose wept tears of lymphatic fluid down his mouth and chin.

“ABD code,” he said. “Abduction. We’ve trained for them, but it was the first one I ever saw. They’re not supposed to come back for the abductees, though. I wonder why they did that.”

I sputtered and asked, “You..you people have dealt with this? How isn’t this going to be on the front page of every paper?”

“Well, you’ll forget about it in a couple hours. Everyone will. Better write down what you remember so you can tell your friends. You’ll recall something happening, but you won’t remember what it was.”

I looked at him, stupefied. “So how could you train for something like that? And how do you know it was your first one if you can’t remember?”

He shrugged. “It’s just what I was told. And good point about that other thing.” He paused and I saw a series of nearly invisible, faded scars around his hairline. He smiled and nodded. “Very good point.”

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Far Too Much Sex

“My wife’s going to be the death of me.” The thought preoccupied me for almost eight weeks. All she cared about was sex. And it’s not like I’m some kind of Adonis or even particularly good in bed, either. Something just clicked one day and she became utterly insatiable. I’m 90% sure it’s because of that vegan diet we started two months ago with all the mushrooms and stuff, but the diet’s effect on me was nothing compared to how she reacted. She never seemed interested in analyzing the reasons. She just knew what she wanted, and that’s all there was to it.

At first, I thought it was great. She’d be waiting for me in bed when I got home from work, we’d have a few minutes of fun, and that was that. For me, at least. Dianna, it seemed, needed more than I could give her. I felt pretty bad because I wasn’t able to provide it.

I know part of my terrible performance had to do with my diet. It’d been awful. Since I’m so busy with work, I’d been stress eating fast food and other processed garbage. Even though I was eating the vegan stuff too, I’d supplement it with Burger King. I’d gained weight, I felt awful, and I was tired all the time. When Dianna’s insatiability became apparent and my own inability to satisfy her was weighing heavily on my confidence, I set out to get healthier. I mean, it was the least I could do; not only for Dianna, but for my own well-being.

It’s worked, too. The last week has been incredible. I’ve taken time off work. I’ve exercised every day and all my meals are healthy, vegan, and loaded with good stuff like kale and quinoa and tons of local mushrooms. I think Dianna was pleased with the positive changes in me, although her sex drive was still astronomical and hard for me to match. I felt better about myself and I enjoyed our lovemaking a lot more. There was just less pressure, if that makes sense.

Last night was our anniversary, so I wanted to do something special. Something non-vegan as a treat. I made steaks with portobello nouveau and peppercorn cream sauce. I remember laughing to myself as I reduced the pan sauce and plated our meals. Dianna always used to be allergic to mushrooms. Deathly allergic, in fact. I don’t know what compelled her to serve them for dinner a couple months ago when we started doing the vegan thing, but the difference it made was staggering. Ever since she went to bed that night, she’s been a different woman.

I brought our meals up to the bedroom. Dianna was waiting for me. She looked beautiful. Sexy, too. She was sprawled across the bed on her back, presenting herself to me. It was her favorite position ever since her sex drive skyrocketed. I told her to hold her horses; she could wait until after dinner. She didn’t reply, but she let me feed her bits of steak and mushrooms. I emptied her perfect mouth of the food I’d put there at dinner the night before and replaced it with our anniversary meal. My head spun with love and affection as I carefully pushed a piece of juicy steak down her throat. I marveled at how the hot meal warmed her mouth.

After dinner, I could no longer resist my wife’s allure. We made quiet love in our candlelit bedroom. When we were finished, as I was tucking her into bed, I noticed small growths in her armpits and behind her ears. I turned on the lights and looked more closely. Tiny, stringy mushrooms. New life. I smiled. We were going to be a family.

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Rediscovering the Newness of Sex

The problem with sex is it eventually becomes mundane. Do anything enough and it’ll become boring and repetitive. It’s silly to think fucking might be different. Obviously, there’s quite a bit one can do to spice things up, and it works – for a little while. Then it stops. Years go by and exciting, new fetishes become dull, standard procedure. By the time I hit 44, I was in a rut. Nothing did it for me. But the desire was still there.

To say I’ve done it all is a bit of a stretch, but I’d gotten pretty close. I’ve shied away from the illegal and illicit, despite frequent temptation. I don’t want to hurt anyone, and I certainly don’t want to end up in jail. There’s no fun in that.

For a little while, I’ll admit to being depressed. I went through the motions – one joyless, soulless fuck at a time. Men and women of every sort passed between my sheets. It always ended up in disappointment.

Then I met Carson.

I’d been with other men countless times, so Carson initially wasn’t anything more than a blip on a radar full of traffic. After we’d finished, however, he sensed my despair. He sensed my unfulfillment. Before he left, he scribbled an address, a date, and a time on a sheet of paper. 27 Hallsworth Hill. October 9th. 11:00pm. He wouldn’t tell me what I’d find there.

My interest was piqued for the first time in as long as I could remember. Two days later, on the 9th, I drove across town to 27 Hallsworth Hill.

The address was the location of large, old, stone house that was in need of some upkeep. Ivy ran unchecked across the gray slabs of its granite face, and bushes, perhaps once sculpted, grew wild and threatened to obstruct the view from the large, first-floor windows. A heavy wooden door with an equally-massive iron knocker stood at the top of the steps. I knocked twice and waited.

The door opened and Carson stood, shirtless and smiling, and asked me to come in. I obliged and followed. The house was beautiful, but very, very old. Nothing appeared to have been touched or moved in decades; when we passed under a dusty, hanging chandelier, part of me was surprised it had electricity running to it.

“I want you to meet my friends, Daniel, Lucy, and Eileen,” Carson told me, and before he opened the door in front of us, asked “I want you to have an open mind, ok?” I nodded as anticipation and mild concern set butterflies in motion within my stomach.

Carson opened the door and we walked into a spacious, sparsely-furnished room. A man, who I assumed was Daniel, was tied to a marble pillar stretching from the stone floor to the ceiling. Lucy and Eileen stood in front of him, kissing one another. All were unclothed. I jumped slightly and almost started to laugh when I heard a goat bleat from the corner behind us.

“How open does my mind have to be?,” I whispered to Carson, as I studied the goat staring mindlessly at the five of us. Carson laughed. “Not that open, don’t worry.” I sighed with relief.

The others in the room didn’t acknowledge Carson’s and my entrance. The women writhed against one another while Daniel, bound tightly to the pillar, watched with lust in his eyes.

“Right now,” Carson told me, “you’re not allowed to do anything but watch.” He pointed to the sofa. “Have a seat. You can get comfortable if you’d like.” With that, he stripped off his clothes and incorporated himself into his friends’ action.

I joined them in their nudity and sat on the remarkably-comfortable couch while the four engaged in basic, moderately-kinky sex. It was pretty vanilla for me, but not unpleasant to watch. Time went by and the four brought one another to the peaks and plateaus they’d desired. For my part, I was getting a little bored. The first half hour was fun because of the newness of the people involved, but with nothing to do other than jerk off, I was ready to hit the road.

The goat bleated again. I’d forgotten about the fucking thing. I turned around and saw it shitting on the floor, effectively killing my arousal in its entirety.

“Thanks guys, it was nice meeting you – I’m going to be hitting the road now,” I called out. Carson extricated himself from Eileen and rushed over.

“Wait, please. We’ve almost started.”

“Started?”

Carson put his hands on my shoulders and gently pushed me back down on the couch. “Started.”

“Can you at least get rid of the goat?,” I asked.

He laughed and rejoined the group and they finished one another off with a decent enough show that I actually found myself getting into it. The four of them knew what they were doing – there was no doubting that.

Lucy untied Daniel while Eileen walked to the small table next to the couch to pour herself a drink. She winked at me and said, “didn’t Carson offer you a drink?” I shook my head. “Jesus, Carson,” she muttered under her breath, as she poured a whiskey-looking liquid out of the bottle into a wide glass and handed it to me.

I looked around for Carson. He was cleaning up after the goat. “You guys aren’t gonna fuck that thing, right?,” I asked Eileen. She looked horrified for a second before erupting with peals of laughter.

“No,” Eileen said, still practically hysterical, “we’re not going to fuck the goat.”

I laughed at the absurdity of it all, but I still needed to know. “Then what’s it doing here?”

Eileen didn’t answer. She just grinned and grabbed me. I jumped a little in surprise, then allowed her to lead me to the pillar like a dog on a leash.

“Do you consent?,” she mewled into my ear.

“Consent to what?,” I grinned, allowing her to tie me to the pillar. It was still warm from Daniel.

“Do…you…consent?,” she whispered, tracing her knuckles over my anatomy.

“I do,” I told her.

“Good,” Eileen smiled. My hands and feet were bound to the marble. I couldn’t move. Eileen dropped to her knees, and my world began to blur.

I closed my eyes and relished the sensation of her mouth and hands, entirely oblivious to the rest of the universe as I departed in a solipsistic whirlwind of hedonic bliss. I felt new pairs of hands and more mouths on me. Sopping, salty fingers pushed insistently at my lips and I allowed them inside to stroke with my tongue. Everyone was moaning. Everyone was sighing. No sounds existed except breaths of ecstatic need.

No sounds other than gasps of pleasure.

Not even bleating.

The unwanted thought of the goat took me briefly out of my haze and I opened my eyes. Then I screamed.

The four friends stood or knelt around me, covered from head to toe with blood and gore. The carcass of the goat was sprawled out on the stone floor, eviscerated and twitching. The scent of its guts hit me a second later, and I retched and struggled to break out of my bindings. The four wouldn’t let me, though. They continued trying to pleasure me, glistening and growing sticky as the hot blood on them cooled and grew tacky.

Daniel took his mouth off me and stood up.

“Trust us,” he said, looking directly into my eyes.

“What the fuck are you doing!,” I shouted at him. At them. The two women worked to keep me in the moment as Carson licked smeared blood out of my navel.

“Trust us,” Daniel instructed again, holding my head in his hands. I stared at his gore-streaked face. There was concern in his eyes.

“Please untie me,” I told him.

Eileen slid a finger inside me and I shouted with surprise and indignity. “I promise you’ll thank us soon,” she whispered.

Helpless and hating myself, I felt my arousal grow as lips and tongues and fingers forced my biology to betray me. The haze descended again and I closed my eyes as the stink of entrails permeated the room and combined with the heavy scent of sex.

A minute or two later, my climax ended the assault.

My eyes snapped open and I glared at the four. They all stood up and smiled. Wide, unsettling smiles.

“Let me the fuck out of here,” I pleaded, my voice quivering.

The smiles took on a patronizing, sympathetic quality. Drooling the contents of her mouth into her palm, Lucy said, “Honey, we’re finally ready to start.”

For a second, I was certain I was about to be killed. This was it. My quest for new and interesting sex had led me to the end of the road. Death. Snuff. My own end for their twisted pleasure. Then the goat screamed.

I yelped as the disemboweled animal’s mouth wrenched itself open. I heard its jawbones crunching and splintering as its mouth widened, its angle continuing to grow until it was a straight line up and down. It screamed again – now a deeper, groaning sound that I felt in my stomach and intestines. I watched in terror as the animal shuddered and convulsed. A series of red, knotted ropes exploded out of its throat and slapped wetly on the bloody stone.

“Fucking let me out!,” I howled. I glared at the four with panic. They were still smiling and staring at me. The goat’s body shuffled across the floor like a hairy, osseous caterpillar; its pulverized bones sounding like gravel with every peristaltic push. It reached my captors and stopped at their feet, almost as if it were a dog awaiting a command.

Finally, one of them moved. Lucy. She held the palm filled with her saliva and the product of my stolen orgasm out in front of the goat’s destroyed mouth. Its nose twitched, and one of the smaller tubes crawled across the woman’s hand. With a disgusting, wet sound, it lapped up the contents. Before before I could blink – before I could shout – the goat erected itself on its hind legs. Its ribcage exploded outward like a metal gate hit by a truck. More tubes, thicker, heavier tubes, writhed inside. And in a blinding instant, it lept against my face.

Everything went white. I floated, disembodied, free from fear. Free from disgust. Free from violation. I was in a pool of warm, white mercury flowing in lazy currents around formless porcelain and glass. It was heaven.

The world returned with a gentle shudder. The carcass of the goat was on the floor, its ropes and tubes deftly manipulating the erogenous zones of my four captors. All animosity I felt for them was gone. All indignity had evaporated. I tried to move my arms and realized I’d been untied. Legs, too. I stretched and watched the spectacle in front of me without any sense of revulsion.

A tube branched off and approached my ear. “Do you consent?,” it whispered. The voice was soft and sexless. Seductive. I hesitated as a remaining pang of concern shot through me. What did all this mean? What was happening? The questions were endless, but the sensation was undeniable. It was the feeling of newness – of blushing, virgin uncertainty. I looked at my four friends and saw the expressions of boundless ecstasy on their faces.

The knotted, red rope was waiting patiently for my answer. Was this what I’d been searching for? To my right, Eileen shuddered as an orgasm passed through her. She looked more beautiful than anyone I’d ever seen. They all did. Each one-upping the beauty of the other with every passing glance. The tube twitched and I smiled.

“Yes,” I whispered. “I consent.” And I opened my mouth.

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