The Place in Between Read online

  Today:

  Juan, Mary and I are standing at Parade Rest, over in the corner. We are straight up digging this crazy scene. We are now well deep within the bowels of Hell’s Mouth. The exam room is unusually warm. In fact, it is more than hot enough for nakedness. On the bed she lay. Bubblegum is an egg-layer in her late teens and a good bleeder. She lay unmoving on the examination bed. Bubblegum is trussed up pretty like a nicely glazed holiday ham. The hen turned out to be the perfect carrot, after all.

  The nocturne eyes her closely, savoring the sight and smell of her. He is the hombre de la hora and he is dying to get a taste of her. Bubblegum is moaning softly, pulling oxygen in and waiting for her snacks. She gyrates gently against her soft restraints.

  “More,” she softly pleads, “Give me enough to make all the bad go away.”

  The Good Doctor is on the other side of the subterranean exam room, nodding his head at her. He shall give the lovely hen what’s coming to her, no worries. He makes his way purposefully toward Bubblegum.

  “There are proper procedures to follow, my beaked beauty,” The Good Doctor informs her as he pulls off his floor-length lab coat and wraps it around a wire coat hanger. “There are no short cuts. Not in good medicine, anyway.”

  He hangs up his coat. Then, he loosens his tie and undoes his shirt. The Good Doctor kicks off his loafers, unbuckling his belt as he walks toward Trudge & Drudge. He follows his huge, pharmaceutically enhanced erection. The conjoined twins stare out of three eyes, at some unknown subject at some unknown distance. The eyes are all the same: washed out, milky-white, baby blues. The Good Doctor stops in front of their cage, where they sit mewling and drooling out of their two mouths and slopping down their one chin. He discards the remainder of his outfit and slips on a lovely gold sequined ball gown. Being a special occasion, I suppose, the mad scientist decides to dress for dinner. He ties back his salt and pepper dreadlocks, tugs up his gown and sticks his pecker into Trudge’s mouth. Drudge’s over-sized tongue laps sidewise at it. The Good Doctor takes a silver pen casing and scratches at the dandruff on the twins’ aircraft carrier of a melded cranium. Their sparse hair is liberally coated with powerful Uptown. He pushes and shoves the mostly white dandruff powder into a tiny pile. The Good Doctor bends at the waist and snorts it up. He puts his head back inadvertently popping his cock out of Trudge’s suckling, toothless mouth. The Uptown hits The Good Doctor like a Bolivian Bullet Train, lighting him up. He disappoints the poor, neglected twins when he steps away. They mistakenly think it is dinner time. It is not. The Good Doctor’s ejaculation is being reserved for his sweet little furry pussy cat. He’ll get someone else to feed Trudge and Drudge. For good measure, he sticks an index finger into Drudge’s ear. He digs around a little, finally getting the gold. He retrieves a golden brown gold-piece, which The Good Doctor smears evenly and all around his fingertip.

  The Good Doctor heads back to where Bubblegum lay and the nocturne waits with Juan and Mary and I. He sits on a plush divan, close enough to get a good view to a kill. The Good Doctor whistles low and a tabby patterned cat arrives, flouncing in like it is being called to supper. The cat sidles up to The Good Doctor and jumps up on his lap. She appears to be a bit smaller than the average house cat, but she is definitely a thousand times more special than an ordinary feline. This exceptional cat is made from the DNA co-mingling of feline, monkey and The Good Doctor’s own dead wife that he had brought with him from Bogota. Sweet, little, furry, pussy cat has an extra-long thick tail with a functional gripping appendage at the end. The tail mimics a tree-swinging monkey’s, and is used for both gripping and for balance. The cat also has a long and lovely, lithe body with finger indentions that match The Good Doctor’s grip perfectly. The face of the special clone has the whiskers and fur of a cat but with human eyes of stunning emerald and the full, plump lips of The Good Doctor’s long lost loved one. Her lips peel back to reveal sharp, feral teeth, but with a thick, flat and wide pink human tongue. The back of the cat’s throat has tonsils. Once you get past those, your cock would then be massaged by the cat’s gastro-intestinal tract which just so happens to have the exact DNA image construct of his dead wife’s juicy twat. The inside temperature is a precise 38 degrees Celsius. The extra warmth is just like kissing sunshine.

  The Good Doctor tears a new little peek-a-boo in his gown and takes out his rock steady. His cat puts her mouth right on it and begins lapping away at his cream dispenser. The Good Doctor grips his pussy. He strokes himself while the kitty purrs.

  “Now this motherfucker knows how to party,” I say. Juan shushes me. I glower, but give in – for now. These motherfuckers better learn to watch their step with me.

  “Get to it,” The Good Doctor orders Mary, who stands right next to Bubblegum. “Let’s get this train rolling,” he states. He moves kitty-kitty-bang-bang up and down while he chews on the Plata wax on his fingertip, getting that Uptown/Downtown cocktail just right.

  Bubblegum’s eyes flutter. Her dark lashes are moist, her beak slightly chapped and clacking; the breath sweet. Her talons stretch and clench, her feather trail wet from wanting. She is beautiful. The heparin-lock IV catheter plunged into a vein in the back of her spine is new and bank. You can see it pulsing.

  Mary taps out the bubbles and jettisons the hen off into another world.

  “Oh, blessed lord,” she moans. When the Plata hits her hardest, the mumbling ceases and the whites of her eyes begin to glow. The pupils are hidden, staring at her. She turns rigid and flushed. Bubblegum is rushing her little balls off.

  “What does she look like inside?” I ask. I can’t help it. With the speed of a cobra strike, I pop out of Juan’s ass and scoot-scoot to the other side of the room. I know I should stifle myself, but I don’t. He doesn’t notice until I’m dumb enough to speak aloud again: “She’s pretty in pink, I bet.”

  Good God, I am such an idiot.

  Juan, hearing this second outburst, glances over to the corner by the twins’ cage. I am standing there. My long, lank hair obscures most of my face and what you can see of it is covered with the wet shite from whence I came. I suppose it’s a good thing I don’t look into a mirror very often.

  “I bet it’s so cute in there,” I mumble. God, I can be so vapid. I must learn to control these outbursts. Fuck. Watch, college boy’s going to order me back now. Just you watch.

  “Fuck,” Juan mutters as low as he can. He doesn’t think anyone in this exam room can see his own personal Jesus. Nonetheless, my timing is as rotten as usual. “Get back in here!” Juan mouths at the shaking, red-eyeballed man, standing and dripping foulness onto the stark white floor.

  “Oh, all right,” I pout. I recognize he’s right. I bow my head and begin to slog my way over to Juan. He already has his chinos tugged down to his ankles. He pulls apart his butt cheeks. Juan looks irritated over his shoulder at me. He looks pissed because I am taking my sweet-ass time with it. He keeps glaring at me until I finally get over there. Juan, squatting, prepares himself for the pressure. Since I see no chance at being allowed to stay out, I part the rectum of my provider and I crawl up and in. Juan stands, gritting his teeth. He zips up his pants and buttons them just as I settle down.

  “You never let me have any fun,” I assert.

  “Shut the fuck up, you,” Juan admonishes. “Now strangle yourself. I want to watch this.” We both turn back to the girl.

  The girl’s breathing quickens, her skin turns bright red with the swell of oxygen pounding her shores.

  The nocturne smiles at the whole delicious scene. He shows clearly teeth that lengthen as the grin spreads wicked wide across his pale cold face. His eyes light up all yellow and beastie-boy.

  “Take her,” Mary tells the nocturne. She walks back to where her man, Juan stands. The Good Doctor is getting himself all lathered up. “She is all yours now.”

  He bends to her. She is down for it, slick saucy and sweet.

  For a moment, the nocturne loses himself.

  The blood, he t
hinks, is sipping paradise. I, on the other hand, wouldn’t have stopped at merely drinking the hooker’s blood. If given the opportunity, that is. Blood isn’t enough for yours truly. I want to raze her and pull the guts out. Put the contents of her abdominal cavity in my clothes and walk around like this. The guts will be squishing and squashing in me knickers whilst I am going about my day to day. What a delightful scene, utterly charming!

  This isn’t Morbid’s show, though. Tonight belongs to the nocturne. And that’s fine, my urges notwithstanding. It took us for-fucking-ever to find him and get him to come with us. We almost gave up.

  Yr:09.ACE.12n.06

  (The 9th year, After Cataclysmic Events, during the 12th Waning Moon, on the 6th Day.)

  About Three weeks ago:

  Juan and Mary knew that their game was with a nocturne and they were smart enough to be afraid. Even still, they were dying to meet him. He had it all and they wanted in.

  The couple sat in the bar sipping re-hydrated ethanol-squeezing cocktails, just as they had done every evening for almost two weeks straight. They watched the nocturne as he appeared. He just appeared right out of thin air over by the bartender.

  “Did you see that shit?” I asked. No-one answered.

  The vampire handed the nigga a package which vanished beneath the bar top in an instant. It was unerringly the same routine as the last three times. It wasn’t a pattern, exactly, not one that could be fingered, but they knew he would eventually show up because the dealer always did. He had to deliver his drugs. Juan and Mary knew if they were patient and waited long enough, the nocturne would show.

  The small, tightly wrapped package should be Plata if they knew their guy, which they did. The bartender, Steel Ovid, handed over an envelope; cash, most certainly.

  The nocturne peered inside the envelope, checked the denominations, gauging the thickness. He didn’t count it though. The nocturne didn’t need to. No-one in their right mind would be stupid enough to butt-fuck the drug dealing vampire. Even so, he looked like he could use the help of a couple of down motherfuckers like Juan and Mary. You know, to help with the day to day. The young couple just needed a way in.

  The nocturne looked at Steel Ovid. He said something to him that Juan couldn’t begin to hear across the distance of the bar and the slow, deep throb of the hardcore shit that passes for music these days. It was blasting forth from the DJ’s station nearby, making conversation details dreadfully difficult to discover.

  Whatever it was must’ve scared the god-fuck out of the dude, because he stepped back and put his hands up in surrender and fear. The bartender backed up a quick two-step as the vampire leaned in, his long, tightly curling hair spilling in a wave, obscuring his face. The menace in the gesture and what he must have said was full and uncomfortable like a dildo on a church pew.

  Steel Ovid looked frightened, dropping his arms and folding his hands. He lowered his head, nodding in supplication, staring at his feet. Juan could see his quaking even from across the room. The nigga was a big dude, too, really more imposing than even the vampire.

  Steel Ovid was a huge, heavily muscled albino. He had orange corn rows and was festooned with homemade pre-Fall prison ink. Professional tattoos displayed his fight wins. They were all over the place. He was a big and scary motherfucker who had a reputation for immense, visceral violence and the hair-triggered temper to go with it. Folks were as scared of Steel Ovid as if he was a blood-drinker himself. But the poor, scared fuck was not and the nigga threatening him was.

  “My God,” Mary said, watching the scene with Juan, “You ever see that big fucker scared before?”

  “Steel Ovid, no way,” he replied, “Never. It’s interesting though.”

  “For sure,” she spoke, took a quick sip of her cocktail. “No doubt we are looking at the right dealer to hook up with.”

  Juan nodded his agreement, noting how the nocturne stood straight and then in one quick movement, turned to look right at him.

  “Fuck,” spat Juan, his own fear bursting within. That nigga’s eyes were yellow and backlit. They looked like a night hunting panther’s, or a mutated tunnel rat, glowing as they were at Juan.

  Then, just like that, he disappeared. Juan turned quick to Mary. She was still glancing that way. He opened his mouth to speak and saw the color vanish from her face. Her lips quivered and her eyes grew wide. She then backed up and Juan turned to see.

  “Fuck me!” I shouted from within Juan. I’d never seen anything like it in my whole unborn life.

  There the nocturne was, standing right in front of Juan and Mary’s table. Speechless, we stared at the vampire and he right back. And then, without a single word, the nocturne dissolved on the spot, gone without a trace. There was some displacement of air, a slight cold whoosh and that was it.

  It was a few moments before Juan and Mary could breathe. The bartender, they could see, was even more fucked up by his encounter than they. From where they were perched, we could see the Steel Ovid shaking like he had wet hair in a meat locker.

  He turned to the racks of liquor behind him, ignoring customers coming up. He poured himself three big shots of pre-events, top shelf tequila. The bartender, obviously being as nervous as all get-out, was slugging them one after the other. When finished, he pinched the bridge of his nose, shut tight his eyes, leaned on the ledge running below the bottles. He collected himself with a final big breath and straightened up.

  Steel Ovid went back to work just as the Authorities came in to the bar. Everybody quieted right down. They always do when the Indian Army came a-calling. It happened every time.

  It was as if the bar crowd was doused with a big blast of frigid water. It was nearly silent.

  A contingent of the Occupying Indian Army made their way slowly through the bar. They were just making their presence known, being sure to stay away from the rooms in the back. The rooms in the back led down stairways to the bathrooms and other dangerous locales. The Occupiers were smart enough not to concern themselves with that area. They had been thoroughly warned when they teleported to The Harbor to do their mandatory tours.

  The patrons hid any activity that was overtly illegal, but were otherwise left unmolested and to their own demise.

  “Wonder what the blood drinker said to him,” Mary mused as several soldiers passed. She shook her lonely ice cubes at a passing barmaid and was ignored. “Just when I really need one, you bitch!” she yelled after and was still shunned. The Army Captain looked back at her. Mary just smiled at him, as sweetly as she could manage.

  “Shit, girl,” Juan told her, “have mine.”

  “She’s going to get us tossed out on our ears,” I warned through gritted teeth.

  Juan ignored my wisdom and tried some of his own on for size. He handed her his mostly full drink. Juan was dead right and Mary knew it. She shouldn’t be drawing any attention our way. She shut her trap and threw the drink back. The Indian officer soon lost interest when Mary calmed down. He turned from us and kept moving away.

  “Jesus, who knows what he said,” Juan muttered, thinking, getting them back on track. “I mean, shit, baby, motherfucker didn’t say even a word to us and I feel like climbing into a hole and pulling the earth in after me.”

  “Scary motherfucker,” I agreed.

  “Exactly,” Mary chimed in. “What do you think, Papi, should we just forget it?”

  Juan wondered that very good point for a moment. Then he said: “He sure is scary, for real,” he told her, “but he’s our way in.” Mary nodded in agreement. “And once we are in,” Juan continued, “We won’t have to be afraid of anyone else, baby. Not in the whole of The Harbor.”

  “We’d be the big-dick daddies, for sure.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed, “If he doesn’t kill us first.”

  “Still,” she said, “It’s clear he needs our help.”

  Mary pushed Juan’s now empty glass away and reached into her purse. She pulled out and lit a thin, pre-rolled blunt of half tobacco and half homegrow
n Mary Jane.

  “She’s my main thing…” Nothing.

  “He really shouldn’t even be here,” Juan mused, “it’s not safe.”

  Mary pulled hard on the blunt and nodded.

  “Shorties or even the two of us should be flipping shit, not the top dog.”

  “That’s for sure,” she said, handing Juan the blunt. “How are we going to hook him, though?” she asked.

  Juan smoked and thought. He knocked ash on the already very dirty bar floor. “I was thinking of an offering.” Mary looked at him closely. “A gift,” he said.

  “I don’t know,” she responded, taking back the blunt. “I mean, just giving the motherfucker a sandwich won’t do it,” she countered, “He can hunt whomever he wants, true?”

  “Yeah, but he’s exposed and shouldn’t be.”

  “Also true,” Mary agreed. “Oh, shit, wait,” she said, looking back to the bar. “There’s our answer.”

  Juan turned to where she was looking and saw a young comely Plata fiend. The egg-layer moved slow and sexy through the crowd, touching many patrons, speaking slow with a naughty tongue lick of her beak. On and on she went, clucking down the bar, looking for a daddy.

  Juan smiled at Mary’s idea. And even I had to agree. It was brilliant. They looked at each other.

  “But if we gave him the gift that keeps giving…” trailed Juan.

  “We will need some cheese for the trap, baby,” Mary added, gesturing toward the now recovered bartender. “And I know where we can get it.”

  Juan sucked on the blunt again and held it in. He loosed out a big plume and handed it back to Mary.

  “Go and scoop her up,” Juan told her. “Ply the little coop-chick with drinks and a few lines. She doesn’t look like she shoots up.”

  “No she doesn’t,” Mary agreed, “At least not yet.” It was impossible to tell that from where they sat, though. What with her little bent wings tucked up against her large succulent white meat breasts. She carried a small bejeweled clutch tight to her body.