Ad Nauseam (15 page)

The glasses were empty now, and Chad leaned back on the bench, pants around his knees. Lily dragged her teeth up the underside of his cock, causing him to groan. It should’ve hurt, but everything felt wonderful and electric. His head spun as she sucked at him, his eyes trying to focus on the people around them. In the next booth, a fat businessman lay sprawled while a blonde bounced on his face, squealing each time she landed. A threesome was happening on the floor at his feet, though he had a hard time concentrating enough to figure out the players, and who was doing what to whom. The whole room was alive with writhing bodies, the smell of sex mingling with the sweet smell of smoke.

The music stopped and the voice of the DJ boomed over the crowd.

“The spoons!”

The waitress returned with a silver object in her hand. It looked like a large melon-baller to Chad, the edges wickedly sharp. She set it on the table and pushed between them, pressing Lily back into the bench with a hungry kiss, her ass in Chad’s face. He reached out to trace the lines of her vulva, his finger sliding between the slick folds of flesh with ease as he rose up to his knees, almost falling over on shaky legs. Lily groaned as the waitress buried her face between her thighs and growled, her eyes glazed, a dazed expression on her face. The whole room seemed to tilt, but Chad welcomed the shift. It felt like his whole body was fluid and fire with bolts of pleasure shooting out from his groin as he slid his cock into the woman.

The waitress glanced over her shoulder and grinned, a savage look on her face. For a moment, it seemed the flesh on it blurred into something demonic, skeletal and cruel, visible for only a second before she returned her attention to Lily. Chad shuddered but continued on, pumping for all his worth, not bothering to look at the stranger who slipped one thick, spit-slick finger between his cheeks to circle his asshole. He came with a roar and fell back against the cushion, watching the scene with pleasant exhaustion.

The waitress sat up, pulling Lily with her so the three of them were thigh to thigh on the bench. Without a word, she retrieved the odd spoon from the table, scraped it down the inside of her leg. Chad shook his head to clear it, watching in open-mouthed awe as the young woman scooped a chunk of flesh from her leg with a smile, offering it to Lily’s waiting mouth. The wound was bloodless, as if she were made of pale clay instead of flesh and bone, a pale, golden light revealed beneath her skin.

Lily swallowed with a sigh of pleasure, her eyes glowing with the same amber light as she looked across the woman to Chad, her mouth slack.

Chad shook his head again. This shit was crazy, but it didn’t seem quite as wrong as it should. Somewhere in the back of his mind an alarm sounded, and an old man’s voice screeched something about not partaking of the flesh, but he ignored it, accepting a smooth chunk from the woman’s belly with all the reverence of an alter boy’s first communion.

The taste exploded across his tongue, sweet like honey and musky. Like nothing he had tasted before, filling his whole being with need.

He wanted more, and she obliged, the spoon dipping over and over, the offering of her flesh disappearing into their mouths with increasing speed.

Chad couldn’t get enough, the warmth inside his body felt like living light and danced across his every nerve, ending in orgasmic intensity. When the woman stood and pressed the spoon, still remarkably cool despite her touch, into his hand, he knew what was expected of him and turned to Lily.

His entire world shrank down to just this moment, this booth, and Lily’s soft body. He wanted to cut a new entrance in her, one that no other man had ever used.

They squirmed against one another, making and breaking connections at the mouth and crotch, nothing existed but fingers and tongues and his cock as he carved at her flesh. It came away easily, like ice cream, like butter, and they both consumed it greedily as the rest of the room retreated, until there was nothing more than moans and whispers and the liquid sounds of sucking and fucking and carnal bliss.

Throwing the spoon down with impatience, Chad attacked her with his mouth, biting and chewing as Lily’s squeals of delight joined the chorus of physical pleasure.

***

A shrill train whistle blew and afternoon sunlight stabbed his eyes, threatening to make Chad’s head explode as he awoke on a rough concrete floor. The throbbing in his head was so intense he felt nauseated.

He slowly sat up in a room he didn’t recognize. He was naked from the waist down, and his cock felt raw and abused. His mouth was dry, and there was a coppery taste in it that made his stomach churn. He rolled onto his side just in time to unleash a stream of bitter vomit onto the floor.

Lying in misery as his heaving gut calmed, Chad struggled to remember the night before, bits and pieces of memory causing his head to spin. He recalled a hooker. Lily? And some sort of club. It all came rushing back in a flood, causing him to bolt upright in another nauseating wave of pain.

“Oh shit,” he groaned, gathering his bearings as his head continued to spin. He was in what seemed to be a long-abandoned building. The floors were heaped with trash and dirt, and the windows were boarded over, the glass long gone. A train whistle sounded again, making him think he was near the railroad yard.

But that was impossible. He’d been on Maple, and that was miles away from the railroad. Chad squinted to inspect the shadows around him, and realized he wasn’t alone. A naked woman lay a few feet away, her narrow back to him.

“Lily? Is that you?”

The woman didn’t reply.

With sinking dread, Chad pulled his pants up and buckled his belt, crawling across the rough floor to where she lay, unmoving.

“Are you okay?”

Chad prodded her shoulder. As he touched her cold skin, a voice jabbered incoherently in his head, and he knew before he rolled her over that she would be dead. She flopped onto her back and Chad screamed, a high-pitched sound that echoed back to him as he fell on his ass. Rocks and glass gouged his palms as he scuttled crab-like away from the body.

All of one breast and much of her thighs were gone, exposing raw, red tissue and gleaming bone. Her abdomen had been clawed open, her dull, useless organs drying in the air. In some places he could see where the tool had cut away the flesh clean, but other places looked gnawed on, the edges rough and
chewed.
Lily’s face had not been spared the ravaging, as her lips and much of the surrounding cheeks were torn away, leaving the tendons and fascia beneath.

Her blue eyes stared off, the film of death already formed upon them, and her bloody teeth seemed to sneer at him, blaming him for what had happened to her. As Chad watched, a fat black fly landed on the surface of one eyeball and began to crawl around.

He puked again, this time not stopping until each heave produced only a foamy stream of dark, bitter bile. But even as he retched, memories of the club assailed him and he felt a longing to be back, to immerse himself in that pure bliss one more time. His groin tingled with anticipation. He spit in the dust, trying to get the taste from his mouth.

I killed her. I fucking killed her.
Chad thought, his head cradled in his hands as hot tears flooded his eyes.
And I fucking
ate
her.

Chad’s stomach churned again and he splattered his shoes with a fresh bout of acid, surprised there was anything left in him. He wasn’t entirely shocked to realize he was half hard from the memories.

Panic rose to gnaw at his chest, his heart pounding furiously as he considered what he should do. He was in an abandoned building, next to the corpse of a hooker he’d killed and eaten, far from his home and car. He half expected to hear the whine of sirens and the banging of cops at the door, as if his guilt was being broadcast through the atmosphere and straight to the nearest station.

“Calm down.” Chad said, trying hard to make his body obey, his pulse still racing. “You’re a lawyer. You know about crime. Look at this as a crime scene.”

Taking several deep breaths, Chad closed his eyes and counted to ten. When he opened them, he tried to survey the scene with a critical eye, letting the voice of his law experience speak in his mind.

First problem, DNA from his saliva, semen, and god knew what else.

It’s okay.
The voice reasoned.
Your record is clean. They won’t have your DNA on file. Besides, if you’re lucky, she won’t be found.

Witnesses.

Everyone at the club was engaged in one or more illegal activities. They won’t be volunteering anything. The street was abandoned during your walk. No one knew you. If anyone saw you, you won’t know unless they come forward, but in that section of town, people don’t trust the cops.

Did I leave anything behind? He began to check his pockets and wallet.

Keys. Phone. Driver’s License. Credit Cards. Cash. Looks like it’s all there.

How to get home.

Walk. Not too fast, not too slow. Do nothing to attract attention. When you get to a better area of town, you can call a cab and go home. Throw your clothes and shoes in the trash compactor. Shower and shave and act like none of this ever happened.

Chad looked at Lily, discarded on the floor like trash. He felt bad. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, but right now the fact that she was a hooker was his biggest break. Even if the cops found her body soon, they probably wouldn’t put too many resources into finding her killer without a family breathing down their necks. He felt like a bastard, but was grateful she was one of the city’s disposable souls.

“I’m sorry, Lily.” He turned away but stopped when something caught his eye. Her hand gripped a piece of paper. His heart began to pound once again, making him dizzy with the thought of how he had almost left behind the one clue that could link him to the scene. Careful not to touch her, he pried the paper from her grip. It was exactly what he had feared, the ticket stub the old man at the pawn shop had given him.

Turning it over in his hand, Chad saw the address on the back now read 311 ¼ Oxford Drive, though the creases seemed to be in the same places, and the wear made it look identical to the other.

Hell, that’s almost in my neighborhood.

Chad’s phone vibrated in his pocket, startling him, and he dropped the ticket. Grabbing the phone, he looked at the caller ID. It was Elliot. He flipped the phone open.

“Elliot . . . ”

“Hey man! What the hell happened to you last night?” Elliot’s voice was loud as usual, full of enthusiasm.

“Sorry, Elliot. I didn’t mean to ditch on you like that. I wasn’t feeling very well.”

“Sure. Sure. You met some little hottie while we were dancing and left with her, didn’t you?”

“No.” Chad glanced at Lily, and feelings of disgust and desire warred within him, causing him to shudder. “It wasn’t a woman. Listen, Elliot. Now really isn’t the best . . . ”

“Sasha wants me to ask you if we’re still on for tonight?”

Chad bent to retrieve the fallen ticket, his mind barely on the conversation.

“Tonight?”

“Yeah. The bachelor party. You know. The one you’re supposed to be throwing your best friend.”

“I don’t know, man. Something’s come up—”

“Chad, you can’t back out on us now. Sasha’s hoping you’re going to take us to a strip club. Maybe one of the really sleazy ones on the East Side.” Elliot chuckled, and Chad could imagine him winking at Sasha in the background.

Turning the ticket over, Chad stared at the new address, realizing it wasn’t the only thing that had changed. Visions of Lily and the woman last night flooded his mind, quickly replaced by memories of him and Sasha fucking like animals on the couch while Elliot slept in the next room. He thought of how cold Sasha had been when she broke it off with him. He thought of how much Elliot meant to him and the heartbreak he would suffer when he learned what a slut his new wife really was. He imagined the two of them fucking her at the same time in a sticky booth at Club Carnal. Then he thought of the spoons and a room full of people, taking out their most primal desires on one another.

He knew what he needed to do. He
wanted
to do it for Elliot, after what Sasha had done to him, but mostly he wanted to be back there just one more time. One more night of unearthly bliss and he could save his best pal from what would only result in a nasty divorce.

“Yeah, Elliot. We’re still on. But it won’t be some cheap strip club for
my
best friend and his fiancé.”

Chad looked at the scribbled handwriting on the back of the stub. ADMIT THREE.

“I have somewhere much better in mind.”

LUNCH DATE WITH LOA LOA

“Mr. Hanks? Dr. McDonald will see you now.”

“Thank you.” Mark stood up from his seat, tossing a well-worn copy of
National Geographic
onto the waiting room’s coffee table. Following the pretty, blonde nurse, he wondered if she would be impressed if she knew he had taken some of the pictures in that magazine.

I doubt it,
he thought, thanking her once again when she showed him into an exam room. Ordinarily he would have taken the chance and brought it up anyway, but he was too preoccupied for any attempt at flirtation.

Another nurse knocked before entering, this one much older and far less attractive, her salt and pepper hair cropped short and her face cast into a permanent frown.

“Please roll up your shirt sleeve, Mr. Hanks.” She stuck a thermometer in his mouth, then strapped the blood pressure cuff around his bicep and pumped it brutally tight, her fingers pressed firmly on his inner wrist.

“So what brings you in today, Mr. Hanks?”

“Dere’s a womb in ma aye.” He muttered around the thermometer.

“I’m sorry, what?” She released the cuff and scratched some numbers on a pad of paper, finally glancing at Mark, who raised his eyebrows and pointed at his mouth with his free hand.