The Skin Show (19 page)

Andy
stared between her legs. The slopes of her thighs hugged the outer walls of her
moist ingress. Tears wetting his eyes, he moaned. It was so beautiful, the soft
opening into her. Small and wet. He wanted to be inside…
needed
to be. 

Victoria’s
hand appeared above her thigh, sliding down. Her wrist rested on her bald pubic
mound. Her middle finger dipped over the top. 

“Oh…man…” 

Andy
had trouble breathing. Sweat dribbled down his sides, under his arms. His penis
ached, pulsating.

Victoria
continued to play…

He
was standing up before he’d even decided he was going to. 

“Where
are you going?” Karen asked from down low.

He
wanted to tell her but physically couldn’t do anything other than walk.
Forward. He tried to look back at Karen, beg her to grab his legs and hold him
in place, but he couldn’t.

He
stopped at the stage. If he were to reach forward, he could stroke Victoria’s
calves.

She
sat up, panting, her face a twisted mask of intense pleasure. 

“Lay
with me, Andy…”

He
felt tugging at his belt. Heard it jingle as it was unclasped. Glancing down,
he saw his own hands working at the buckle. Earlier, sitting at the front of
the club had been nearly too awkward for him to bear. And, look at him now:
fighting to free his penis from the confinement of his pants.    

Victoria
stopped handling herself and reached out. She gripped Andy’s pants and shoved
them down his legs. Bunched around his ankles, he kicked off his shoes. Then he
stumbled out of his pants. He realized his socks were still on, so he quickly
leaned over and snatched them off. 

He
stood up straight, pulling his shirt over his head as he rose. Before he’d
gotten all the way out of it, Victoria’s mouth had suctioned around his penis.
With a few pulls of her head, her lips escorting him, she had him climb up on
the bed.

Victoria
led him as if this was his first time, and in many ways, it was. She rolled
over him and onto her back. Her legs, bent at the knees, were spread wide to
grant him access. Supine before him, her caramel-tinted skin gleamed under a
sweaty sheen and glittery flakes. 

“Put
it in…” she said.

He
obeyed. She gasped a moan. Her walls clasped snugly around him, sheathing him
like a clenched wet fist pulling him deeper. Victoria threw her legs up,
draping them over his shoulders. He felt the balls of her feet patting him on
the back. With her hips angled up, he fitted his hands under her buttocks,
clenching soft dunes of flesh in each.

Victoria
looked out to the crowd. “Do you see him?”

Scattered
moans rejoined. 

“
See
him!?!” 

They
did. 

“He
has given himself to me just as I have wanted! Now, will you give yourselves
just as well?”

More
moans.

“Then
take what I offer you!”

Naked
women began to file out from backstage one after the other. They marched into
the crowd.

“When
we link together, we become the same breath! Your skin will be our skin, your
seed will be ours and we will be as one!” 

Andy
should have found her speech to be odd, yet he did not.

“I’m
yours,” she told him.  

Andy
slammed into her while simultaneously pulling her against him by her rump. The
sounds made when their flesh connected were like punches. Soon Victoria was
screaming. Her breasts shook and bounced on her chest, flinging up and down.
Each time he plunged into her, she grunted a raspy moan. He’d never felt so
hard, so
big
.

Something
began to tickle the underside of his penis. It felt like tiny hairs, swirling
around him, entwining his penis inside of Victoria like ultra-thin strings. He
knew he should be frightened by this, but somehow he also realized it was
supposed to happen. 

Their
gentle tickle felt great, pushing him closer to his release. The tiny fibers
constricted, seizing his penis. He moaned. They kept him tangled inside in an
intense hold. He looked at her, confused. Sweat pelted down from his face,
dripping shallow puddles into the concave of her neck. 

Victoria
smiled sweetly at him. “Are you ready?” 

“F-for
what?”

“To
give yourself to me.”

“Um…”

“Are
you?”

“Yes.”

 “Squeeze
my breasts as hard as you can.”

He
gripped them fiercely. Victoria let out a gasping shudder. Her breasts filled
his hands, too big for him to appropriately clutch.

“Here
it comes,” she said. 

He
felt a faint tap at the head of his penis. Another soft wire, a solitary
hair-thin tentacle, circled around the tip, teasing and tickling.

Andy
began to shake. 

Then
the slithering fiber entered him through the urethra.

And
kept going. 

Andy
screamed, not in fright, however, but total enjoyment. 

It
continued to delve, going all the way to the dam that held the flood of his
release. 

He
looked out to the club and saw the patrons had decided to join them. They’d
broken off into groups, various men grouped with a tendered woman in eager
orgies. Not only did Andy see the women from the back among the naked throng,
he also saw the servants partaking.

The
couple Karen had gotten the ash tray from was now naked. The man was still
seated in his chair, now shirtless, his pants clinging to his ankles. The woman
had straddled his lap, impaled on his penis, her mouth an opened chasm of moans
as she eagerly thrust her hips. Alexia was with them, shoving her breasts in
their faces, making them stop kissing each other so they could kiss them.

The
room was a wriggling mass of sweaty flesh and moans. Nudity filled the room,
mixed with slapping sounds of hard sex, the musky scents of orgasms and
arousal.

Only
one thing stood out from the rest.

Karen.

Still
fully-clothed, she sat in her chair, head bobbing up and down as though it was
too heavy to keep up. Her eyes flickered. She looked like someone struggling to
stay awake. 

Then
his penis erupted in a flurry of stings. His body stiffened as electric
currents joggled through him. He tried to pull away, but sharp blasts of pain
paralyzed him, keeping him in place. He screamed.

Wondering
why Karen wasn’t coming to help, he looked back to where she sat. She was still
there, but instead of watching in an intense licentious fascination, her head
was leaned back. Mouth opened, she looked like she was snoring.

She’s
sleeping!?!

Andy
looked at his arm, watching as the skin changed shades, going from slightly
tanned to pallid and sickly.

“What’s
happening to me?!”

He
looked down at Victoria. A coy grin stretched the corners of her mouth. Her lips
continued to spread, reaching all the way back to her ears. The jaw went slack,
dropping open as a forked tongue curled out.

A
pair of horns ripped through each side of her forehead, spiking like tiny
pyramids. They reeked of sulfur and putrid fertilizer.

Andy
was alert, senses enlightened by the pain, and enraged because of his weakness.
Everything he’d accused Danny of came at him in raucous flurries. He understood
that Danny was never the source of his problems. He was. Andy was no different
than his baby brother. No one had forced him to submit to Nicole’s temptations.
No one had threatened his life if he didn’t turn his back on his brother,
severing their relationship. Every decision he’d made throughout his life had
led him to this moment.

He
could have changed so much. All the opportunities he’d had to be a different
person and he’d chosen to coast along, as invisible to everyone as possible.
Maybe if he’d gone to church when his parents had begged him to…if he’d read
the Bible.

Andy
wished he could go back to when Nicole came begging for his help. He’d tell her
to leave him out of it and call the cops. 

It
wouldn’t have helped, though. He’d been doomed from the start. Victoria had
known he would succumb to her advances, so she’d chosen him. She’d dangled the
carrot in front of his face and he’d gladly followed where it led him. 

How
could he have succeeded with such odds against him?

Ulcers
began to boil on Victoria’s skin, crackling, oozing thick juice that resembled
tobacco spit.

He
tried to scream but sobbed instead.

It
felt as if he was flooding out all the way from his brain. 

Karen
held her hand and shook it. Stinging grains of rice seemed to be pumping
through her fingers. Flexing them, the tips throbbed with sleep. Her eyes felt
gross and sticky, as if they’d been glued shut.

Had
she fallen asleep, or passed out? 

She
looked at the stage. The bed was empty.

Where’s
Andy?

Sitting
up, she put both legs flat on the floor. Her left leg felt heavy and tingled
with dull painful jabs. How long was it propped up?

Trying
to think, she found it hard to. But, it definitely seemed like there was a gap
in time that she couldn’t recall no matter how hard she tried to think about
it. Her body felt strange to her, as if its limbs and skin were somehow new to
her and hard to decipher. Her mind was unclear and dopey.

I’ve
been drugged.

Seeing
the glasses of whiskey sour on the table, she realized she hadn’t finished any
of them. If she had, she might have been out for a week.

Karen
lightly slapped herself a couple times to get the blood flowing through her
face. It helped. Her eyes didn’t feel quite so heavy now. She bent and
stretched her arms, making the blood pump through them. If she could get her
heart rate up, she just might be able to burn off the fatigue.

Turning
around in her seat, she stretched her back. The prickly pull of her muscles
caused her to shudder. She glanced at the room behind her, started to look
away, but whipped back.

Her
breath snagged her throat.

What…in
God’s name…?

She
couldn’t comprehend what she was seeing. Her mind wanted to shut down as it struggled
to process the scene before her.

The
servants, once naked and hurrying through the crowd with trays and booze, had
merged together. Their backs to each other, there skin looked as if it had molded
together, forming a totem pole of naked slimy bodies. Shoulders blended
together in doughy mounds of flesh, as did the backs of their heads, tangling
their hair into a giant bushy hillock. Their once lovely legs had hardened and
stretched into flesh-colored roots. Tentacles sprouted from between their legs,
from their nipples, and extended throughout the room. Attached to the end of
each tentacle was a female customer spreading their legs around the tip, heads
leaned far back and moaning. All that showed of their eyes were the whites. Some
women were on their backs on the floor, others hadn’t moved from their seats,
but
each
of them had given themselves to the unexplainable thing. The
men hugged the grotesque collage of woman, naked and thrusting against it.
Karen watched as their pale asses flexed and relaxed with each powerful thrust
of their hips. It looked as if a giant tub of petroleum jelly had been dumped
all over. Their skin gleamed and made soft squishy sounds as they wriggled
against the creature’s clay-like skin.

Karen
felt the burning rise of whiskey in her throat as she stumbled to her feet. The
backs of her calves knocked against the chair, turning it over. It landed with
a sharp clatter.

No
one seemed to notice.

Pulling
her eyes away, she discovered something even more unbelievable. The women who’d
come from the back had changed…into winged creatures. Fuzzy strips cascaded the
flimsy annexes, fluttering with each pulsing color of their skin. It was like
watching drink being poured into a plastic bag as a murky fluid flowed through
their body. Torsos had shrunken to withered trunks. Pretty faces had altered into
elongated maws, pointy chins, and gnarly lips grinning around sharp teeth.

And,
between each of their straddling legs were truncated bodies. Their craggy
withered skin, pectorals like deflated bladders, hair the color of spider-webs
capping heads of agonized faces frozen in terror. Yawning mouths cocked to the
side, and eyes that were empty narrow slits like cuffs on a sleeve missing
buttons.

Corpses.

There
was a suctioning sound to her right. She spun quickly enough to catch one of
the men drop off the congregation of rotted flesh. When it landed on the floor
with a hollow tap, Karen saw it now matched the men pinned under the
bat-creatures.

Syphoned
dry like an empty juice pouch!

Opening
her mouth to scream, she was silenced by a wrenching moist tear. Slowly, she
turned to her left where another winged being crouched over a body. This corpse
belonged to a female; though the only evidence Karen had of this were the red
viscera humps where breasts should be. The creature held out a pelt of skin,
the backside coated in blood as if it was red adhesive, before her like it was
a dress she was contemplating purchasing. Lemon-colored hair dangled from the top
of a rubbery head that now looked more like a cheap mask.

Karen
bit her tongue to hold another scream in. So far, nobody had noticed she was
awake and moving around. She wanted to keep it that way. Shaking her head, she
tried to fight the numbing shock wanting to suppress her. If she didn’t try to
ignore the absurdity of what she’d seen, it would lock her senses up. That
almost sounded all right, but it wouldn’t do her any good if she became
incoherent.

Scanning
the men suspending from the totem like ticks from a dog’s ear, she didn’t see
Andy among them. She prayed he wasn’t one of the bodies. In the quick glimpse
she’d gotten of them, she didn’t think any looked like him…not that
any
of
them showed semblance to any kind of human.

Where
are you Andy?

Finding
him was what she needed to do. Find him…then get the hell out of this awful
place.

Doing
that would require her to go through the gross frolicking in front of her.

No
way.

She
turned a quick circle, giving the rest of the room a look over. There was the
big bay window to her right, blocked with flat panels of wood. Maybe she could
break it down and bust the window.

With
what? Her hands? And suppose she got the barricade down, what would she do
about the bars on the outside?

If
I stand here trying to find a way out, I’ll never find Andy.

Karen
looked away from the window, eyes landing on the stage. She saw the curtain
that must lead backstage. Could Andy be back there?

She
gave a quick glance behind her, saw nobody had spotted her, and quickly moved
to the stage. She stepped onto it. The floor of the stage was wooden and popped
as she walked softly but hurriedly to the curtain. With each step, she planted
her foot carefully, keeping the pressure to the front. She felt like she was in
a Scooby-Doo cartoon, sneaking through hidden corridors in search of clues.

Maybe
if she imagined she was in a cartoon, it wouldn’t feel as terrifying.

The
monsters were really bad guys in masks and there were trap doors…

It
was pointless—and silly—to play make believe.

The
curtain was rough and thick, stale with the stench of old smoke. She found the
split, then slipped through. The curtain fell together behind her. She was glad
to have those awful squelchy sounds and gratified moans somewhat muffled. 

It
was dark back here, the only light being from an emergency bulb plugged in an
outlet. Its red glow cast a demonic smolder across the cinder block walls.
Other than a folding table and some wooden chairs, there was nothing back here.

Wait…that
wasn’t true. She spotted a narrow slant, lightly pink amongst the murky red
shadows.
A door?
It certainly
looked
like a door.

Though
the safety light was a low wattage deal, it gave her just enough light to see
by. She crossed the room without any trouble—not that there was anything to
worry about tripping over. The floor was bare, dusty but clean of debris.

 Arriving
at the other wall, her assumptions were proven correct. It was a door. A small
bronze sign above it stated:
Basement.

Now
what?

Should
I try it? What are the chances of the door being unlocked?

The
knob was small and oval-shaped, a keyhole underneath. It reminded her of the old
fragile doors in her grandmother’s house. Even if the door was locked, she
shouldn’t have any trouble getting it open.

But,
there was no need for alarm. When she tried the knob, it turned effortlessly in
her hand. The latch clicked as the tongue was extracted from the catch.

Checking
over her shoulder, she saw nobody approaching. She was still alone back here.
The door opened inward. She kept pushing until the knob on the backside met the
wall. Inching closer, she looked inside.

A
set of cellar stairs led down. Only the first few were illuminated in the red
light. The rest were smothered in darkness. She didn’t have a flashlight, but
she could probably use the screen on her phone to see by. Reaching for her
purse, she felt nothing hanging beside her. Her fingers brushed her hip.

“Shit,”
she gasped.

She’d
left her purse back at the table, under her chair.

Karen
wanted to hit herself for being so stupid. Everything was in her purse: cell
phone, wallet, keys, and all her credit cards—which were way too many for a
reasonable person to own. Her license, with her home address printed underneath
a horrible picture of herself. The image she’d been forced to carry around was
taken just as a yawn struck. Her mouth was starting to part, and one eye was
squinted while the other remained wide. She looked like she was having a stroke
when the officer had snapped the picture.  

Karen
needed
her purse. She couldn’t just leave it behind.

Turning
around, putting her back to the basement, she gazed across the room. The
curtain was a ruffled dark wall ahead of her. Remembering what was on the other
side made her want to remain where she was. The lightless basement seemed a
more pleasant place than what was out there.

Still…she
couldn’t leave without her purse.

Karen
took a step forward. She would have gone all the way had she not heard the
soft, painful cry coming from the dark bowels of the basement.