Monday, February 16, 2015

Erotic Horror For Insects & Even You: "Mosquito Dance."

I am in-between projects, having sent off first stage edits for my novel, Riding the Centipede--should be out in May, if all goes as scheduled; I'll be posting teasers and what-not before its release--to my editor/publisher last week.  So, in these times, I sometimes wander through works in progress and even go over some finished work for amusement.  I believe I have found the main piece to work on now, with perhaps a couple of backburner pieces to dip into as well.  Anyway, that's when I re-read an older tale, "Mosquito Dance."

It was originally published in a tiny, pocket-sized magazine called, Wicked Hollow, about 11 years ago.  Often when I go back and re-read stuff, it might bring a smile, but it's usually not where I am now.  But this one, amid a world getting wet and/or sticky over the Fifty Shades movie--I have no interest; I like my erotica in a more hardcore vein--might bring amusement to those of you into erotic horror.  Especially since it veers into BDSM a bit.

I'm going to post it as is, though if I were to do some touch-up, I would definitely get rid of many of the semi-colons.  Probably more work than that, but I'm not really going back, I'm moving forward.

So, for your amusement, arousal...and revulsion, here's "Mosquito Dance."

(And, yes, apparently 'amusement' is the word of the day...)

 
***
 
 

Mosquito Dance

By John Claude Smith

 

 

 

     Propped on the ridge of his ear and scattered on his pillow, they did not attempt to draw blood from their sleeping host.  They had grander designs.  As he slept, eyes darting under fleshy shields, deep in the throes of some imagined adventure, they extended the parameters of all known rationale as they attempted communication.  Rubbing insect bodies and converging as one, purpose honed, motivation aligned, they opened lines of transmission subtle yet intense: subliminal.  Connected on a level of sounds unheard by the conscious mind, they suggested, they persuaded patterns within his unrestrained mind.  At optimum mental vulnerability the “message” (tampering) slithered into a cavern of sub-consciousness, planting a seed.  It was their first controlled exertion, their success contingent on many installments, nurturing and prodding into fruition; into action.

#

     “Not again,” Stacy said, stepping into the shower, the sharp definition of her lithe figure shifting through kaleidoscope-like distortions via the ice crystal glasswork of the shower door.  Roger was oddly mesmerized.

     “Roger?”

     “Yes, again,” he said, snapping like a slingshot back to reality.  Another night, just like the previous two weeks’ worth, of weird, indecipherable dreams had left him groggy and reticent.  Dreams that vanished the moment his eyelids flickered open, the residue of which would evaporate in a swirl of meaningless mind dust down a drain in the back of his brain, replaced with iron rod stiffness in his muscles and joints, and a prevalent, all-encompassing hunger--a relentless need for food.  On every occasion he’d gotten himself breakfast (and a feast at that) before Stacy had even arisen.  The weirdest part of all, though, was how on at least three occasion it almost seemed as if he’d awakened in the kitchen gorging himself. 

     “Poor baby, “interjected Stacy from the shower, steam adding a foggy, television version of dreaminess to the proceedings. 

     Her condescending lack of true sympathy pricked his ire.  He conspired to envision her mock demise in his head.  Stretched and stripped on a rack, he vigorously lashed at her with a whip, raising welts and blood—

     Whoa!  Where did that come from?  He shook his head, jostling loose the absurd debris.  He slipped out of his shorts and into the shower, unexpectedly aroused by the perverse fantasy: the descent into sadism. 

     “Oh,” started Stacy, eyes drawn to his sudden intrusion and beaming erection.  “I don’t think there’s enough room in here for the three of us,” she said, trying to regain her composure.  Roger pulled her close and kissed her hard, her slick, soapy body teasing his flesh.  The bar of soap slipped from her grasp.  Composure would have to wait.

#

     The memory of the morning lingered in his thoughts throughout the day.  Not the shower sex, though it had been quite inspired, but the peculiar prelude.  The mental retreat into bondage and discipline had touched him in a way he would never have thought possible.  He contemplated long on the subject, realizing that the key for him was not so much the infliction of pain as the tantalizing theft of her mobility, her freedom; she was rendered less than slave.  The quintessential piece of meat; more an object than a human, an object he could use, abuse, pleasure, or punish at his own discretion.  He’d always thought himself a straight arrow when it came to sex, never deviating from the established norm.  Fantasies, especially something of this extreme nature, had never played a major role in his canon of mental stimuli--he was plenty aroused by the promise of flesh to even consider such macabre inventions.  And yet…

     He scratched for reasons: despite feelings to the contrary, maybe he was bored. One year with the same woman (and monogamous, too), this was definitely his longest relationship to date.  Maybe his body and brain craved something else.  He deliberated the possibility of having an affair to abate his desires but ended up batting that option right out of the ballpark.  Stacy was all he’d ever wanted from a woman: intelligence, humor, and a body to melt Antarctica.  A superficial want, but nonetheless, one he catered as necessary.   

     So what was the deal?

     Through the compounding confusion, he aligned the possibility of adding some spice to his sex life, seasoning it with a pinch of bondage.  He stared at the pencil he was tapping on his desk, entranced by the clockwork rhythm and stunted pendulum swing, oblivious to Miss Crockett’s buzzing, his concentration a prisoner, shackled by shadows in limbo, impervious to anything but the tap tap tapping tick tock tick tock tick tock--

     And just as abruptly the insistence of the buzzing, a call from the real world pulled him back from his mental hiatus.  He punched her in.

#

     As they undressed for bed, Stacy moved in and pressed against him, raising goose bumps and a twitch in his loins. 

     “What got into you this morning, stud?”

     Roger played the idiot.  “What do you mean?”

     Stacy harrumphed.  “You know exactly what I’m talking about.  Don’t play dumb with me.”

     Roger implied innocence and ignorance through a façade of wide-eyed naiveté.

     “Oh, you weren’t playing?”

     Their unabashed laughter confirmed their genuine contentment in each others’ company.  Contentment was swiftly banished by the wily maneuverings of lust.  They kissed, a fusion of mouths and tongues that further enlightened nerve endings, appealing to the erogenous fleshscapes their bodies presented.  Unbeknownst to himself, more as a reaction than an action, Roger held Stacy’s wrists tight against her sides.  A surge of animal aggression, of something primal, surfaced to dictate the path of the evening’s endeavor, a more physical manifestation of the fantasy that had coaxed him to arousal this morning.  Roger’s hands secured her wrists behind her, his fingers locked like fleshy handcuffs.  She struggled, but in earnest her struggling only served to enhance her anticipation, as evidenced by the plying of her lips and legs.  He worked her toward the bed, shifting her immobile arms from behind to above; their bodies tumbled in a heap of tangled flesh.  He rubbed the meat of his thigh against her moistness; her legs embraced him, demanding more than feeble flirtations.  She wanted nothing less than the full embodiment of his passion in her.  Roger promptly fulfilled her desperate gesticulations, and yet felt as if he could do as he pleased.

     Or could he?

     There was something deeper that drove him, an internal chain of command that seemed most elusive, evading his conscious prying by dipping him in and out of conscious control; he was driven to perform, but not totally of his own volition.   His muscles clenched, his will lapsed, fluctuating between his rule and the subversive inclinations of…something else.  It did not hinder his mobility, the act of which he was indelibly bound, but it escorted him for seconds and minutes to a mind stripped of character, an ebony wasteland--a fugue state--that, despite its scoured, lifeless soul, he found rather intriguing … when he slipped back to conscious control.

     (tick tock tick tock tick tock tick…)

     Well into the morning they finally ceased and slumped together, sweaty and spent.  Sleep was swift to upend them.

#

     If joy was a part of the progression their insect bodies would have danced a jig; instead, they lit on Roger’s ear and pillow, flitted above his head, and danced with determination.  They’d evolved, but that evolution was hinged on a purpose.  Somehow they’d learned and understood the sublevels of communication, of language, of manipulation; but they were insects, and as insects there was only one objective they harbored as important, only one conceivable obligation any purpose could hold.  The insect world’s politics and proclivities are geared toward the simple cadences of instinct and urge; of survival.  In their world, survival meant food.

     Dance they would, until it was time to dine.

#

     What followed was a sojourn into the heart of carnal depravity; an odyssey of saliva, sweat, semen, and strength.  It was an excursion into the musky loins of sexual obsession, sexual addiction. 

     Before, their sex had been satisfying, or so they thought.  Now it was necessary, Stacy’s wanton aspirations transforming her into the perfect whore.  Roger was outwardly her equal, but inside … oblivious--but driven.  They were selfish, unapologetic in their individual quests, not for the imminent orgasm, but for the one that followed.  And so forth.  The circle spun tighter, each feeding off the other’s ecstasy, always wanting more.  

     Sex had become a pure, visceral religion of which they worshipped with uncompromising fervor.  Their pulpit was a mattress adorned with stained, drenched sheets.  They explored a vast array of sexual deviations, all within the shameless sanctuary of their condo, much to the delight of leering, salivating gods.  Their meshing was flagrant, aggressive by design, forsaking caution in the clinch.  Fingernails, teeth, bruises (hickeys discreetly hidden now creeping above collars and below hemlines), spanking, hitting; anatomical acrobatics better left unsaid.

     And there had been…light bondage.

     A prelude of things to come: a culmination of insect insistence.

#

     (tick tock tick tock tick tock tick…)

     Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, ThursdayFridaySaturdaydaydayTuesdaydaydayFridaydaydayday--the days had lost their importance, had in fact lost their individuality.  They were to be endured, running on the exhaust of reflex motions to give an air of effort while Roger and Stacy recharged their mental and physical batteries.  But when darkness dripped they lapped it as if it were an elixir, revitalizing their souls and the impetus therein.  The endless nights continued, their existence defined by the fathomless forays into total sex.

     (tick tock tick tock tick tock     …)

     It happened swiftly, a natural step up the ladder of their ever expanding repertoire.  Stacy didn’t mind in the least when Roger gagged and bound her spread-eagled to bedposts and frame to better facilitate his assault, his desecration; crucified for the watchful gods dancing in the shadows.

     A sacrifice.

     (tick tock tick tock tick          …)

     The walls shifted, sprang to life, a miasma of insect activity and agility cultivating the improbable.  They fluttered and danced, engulfing Roger’s head in a swarming fugue both inside and out.  Revulsion knotted at Stacy’s throat but she managed to ebb the flow before it reached the silk scarf stuffed in her mouth, her face awash in shock and disgust.  The scene before her teetered on madness: the walls had, in their own strange way, carried out the function she had curtailed, vomiting insects from the paint and pores, nooks and crannies, wrenching them from unseen mouths.  Ominous shadows, deeper than the night, convulsed

     (tick tock tick tock               …)

     into life.  Her nakedness, her complete nakedness, the flesh in which she found refuge and expressed passions, was laid open for the whim of whomever or whatever wished to trespass.  Under these conditions all the headway she had made disclaiming inhibitions crumbled by the wayside; she felt dirty, obscene, and very vulnerable.  She caught a glimpse of the glimmer in Roger’s eyes amidst the tumultuous black cloud, like a motel’s neon declaration of the heart and conduct within its leering walls: vacant.  She almost thought he was blind.  Or worse…

     Roger rose from his perch on her, the mosquitoes crackling with intensity, weaving frenetic currents around him.  In the darkness

     (tick tock tick                     …)                       

     that had become their cohort in corruption, Stacy could vaguely make out the astonishing commotion addressing Roger.  She watched him listlessly slip into his jeans, a shirt, and sneakers, his movements the antithesis of the swirling turbulence.  Terror embellished her as futility settled in.  She was helpless, made to watch Roger’s trance-induced pantomime, as if he was

     (tick tock                         …)                          

     hypnotized, brainwashed, under foreign influence, his control…gone.

     (tick                              …)    

     He left.

     Death would have been kinder.

     (                                  …)

#

     The harsh fluorescent lights bled into the gloom, pulsing ever brighter; layers of light peeled away the darkness like idle fingers picking at a scab.  Disorientation meandered in to grab him by the shoulders and shake him, not willing to relinquish its transient existence yet.  His initial thoughts were of searing discomfort, followed by a roll-call of questions.  Where was he?  How did he get here?  What was he doing here?  Where’s Stacy?  His heart pounded furiously, his blood surged.  He squinted, eyes adjusting.  He was parked on a nondescript side street.  On the passenger seat was a half empty box of chocolate donuts, an unopened bag of tortilla chips, and a six-pack of generic beer, of which three were drained.  He remembered the inspiration for none of this. 

     He raised his arm toward his face but his wrist was oddly naked; he never left the condo without his watch.  He glanced toward the dashboard, eyes still blurry, finally focusing on the digital clock there.      

     4:35 a.m.  Where had all the time gone?

     What was going on?

     Urgency implored haste.  He had to get back to the condo, had to get some answers.  He pressed the pedal floor-bound and screeched from the curb, scattering the refreshments from their roost in the passenger seat.  He didn’t care.  He had to get home, had to get there soon.

#

     The door was unlocked.  That was the first sign that something was amiss.  He never left without locking the door.  He rubbed his bare wrist, reminding himself that normal routines had obviously been abandoned, or perhaps altered.

     Injury.  The word raced to the forefront of his sensory inquisition upon entering the condo.  The place seemed moist with frenzy; something had happened here, something out of the ordinary.  The stench was not death, but it was pungent along the same lines.

     He called out Stacy’s name.  The frenzy hesitated.  He heard, felt, distinctly perceived hesitation.  Something was very wrong. 

      In the bedroom.

     He paced toward the open bedroom door, aware of the nausea rumbling in his gut.  But he had to go on.  Without as yet seeing her, he knew Stacy was hurt.  Raped?  Possibly, but he sensed much more.  He could taste it in the air, thick as phlegm, clotting his throat.  The input he was receiving was totally alien.  But he had to go on.  If Stacy was injured (a foregone conclusion), he must help.

     The doorway was a passage into the gruesome, the surreal: a Gigeresque portrait of sensuality and disease; a rift in reality.  But in this case the sensuality was a memory.

     And this was not a painting.

     His throat constricted from the putrid sight and smell, unable to scream or comprehend; a low gurgling moan passed his lips: the whine of the mentally defeated.  He wanted desperately to repudiate the lies his vision enforced; the lies his vision brandished as he entered the bedroom.

     Hundreds, maybe thousands, of mosquitoes filled the whole of his sight, some in flight, some resting…some feasting.

     On Stacy.

     She was bound to the bed, gagged with some indecipherable material.  Somehow, sifting through the debris of coherent thought, Roger remembered being responsible for her imposed restrictions.  But not the rest.

     No way.

     Stacy’s body was mutilated beyond recognition.  He only knew it was her because this was their condo, this was their bed.  Any traces of the woman he loved were buried under a range of volcano-like mounds, layers of flesh infected and swelling from their excavations.  And still the mosquitoes drank from the frayed edges, dipping into freshly hollowed cavities, some perched in circles and sucking from a particularly potent well while others continued with fresh digs, like drilling for oil.  Of paramount interest to the mosquitoes was her blood engorged vagina; triggered by her earlier arousal, it was an alluring delicacy for their voracious appetites.

     Roger’s legs wobbled, but he steadied himself with an influx of adrenaline strength.  The fatter, feeding mosquitoes, the atrocious coat of which Stacy was adorned, paused.  A message was relayed: the watchers turned their attention toward Roger.  They started to flutter madly, to dance, a convoluted choreography of insect cunning.  When the feeders joined in, Roger felt it.

     A tug.

    A trapdoor in his mind swung open but he flailed and somehow caught himself before sliding down the dark throat into a seething, cavernous belly of blackness.  Still, it yawned wide below him, extending ever wider, pushing to the limits his grasp on what he beheld as concrete as well as the rim he gripped with the memories of clammy fingers--slipping, slipping.  Rough tongues caressed him, but still he managed to cling to reality.

     In the bedroom he stumbled forward, fighting, reaching out as in his head he fought to divert his descent.  His fingers, for the tiniest sliver of an instant, touched Stacy’s bloated foot.  Her leg twitched, a reaction to the uncommon intrusion of her nerve endings as opposed to the repetitious pin-pricking assault that had grown familiar, rolling from right to left.

     She was still alive.

     Injury, not death.  That is what he had sensed.  Rape?  Yes, a rape of her core humanity by these heinous circumstances. 

     Roger fell…into the fugue, swallowed, a conscious as well as subconscious surrender, down, down, down into the ebony wasteland.  The supervision of his self, his own core humanity--disintegrated.

     His. World. Went. Black.

#

     Roger listened as they dictated their ruthless orders.  He listened and understood and was beyond dissention.  He marveled at the audacity they had embraced to achieve their goal, the full extent of their evolution.  They were his elixir, the embodiment of the darkness that he (and Stacy, poor Stacy) had savored.  The bitter elixir.

     They.

     The mosquitoes.

     He also knew what they wanted, what they demanded, as dictated by the diabolical machinations of their dance.                                       

     More.
 
***
 
Delightful, eh?  :-)
 
Was going to post the cover of the issue of Wicked Hollow "Mosquito Dance" appeared in, but blogger is being funky, so can't upload anything at the moment.  Alas...