She smelled of sex. It was mind numbing. Her lipstick had pulled outside of the confines of her lips, dragged out onto her chin and various places it obviously should not have been. Her eyes lightly rolled back into her head leaving no doubt that she was under the influence of a litany of psychotropic drugs. Her chest heaved as she moved in my direction. she flipped her hair back. A flash of glistening metal. She had been modified. A shaft of medical grade stainless steel implanted directly behind the right ear. At specific intervals a dose of a high quality derivative of MDMA was injected directly into the ventral tegmentum. I’ve often wondered if Fritz Haber’s intent was to aid in the creation of mindless sexual automatons for the personal use of the rich and powerful in the 21^st century.

In my line of work I have often had the misfortune of running into individuals such as this young woman. She once had a life, plans, dreams and family. Now her dreams consisted of heavy petting and hot violent copulation. The first time I encountered one of these poor souls I was not aware of the reality of the situation until my pants were around my ankles and she was bent over the hood of my Chrysler. Her screams were, I’m sure heard in the next province as I took core samples. Once I understood that her advances were not made at the behest of my stunning good looks I was appalled and even a little hurt. I held her down and unscrewed the reservoir of drugs from her skull. I now know that there is no going back for these people. The unspeakable acts that are performed on these young women are only tolerated under the influence of massive quantities of massively expensive drugs. The girl I liberated is now spending the rest of her life in a maximum security mental institution. The last male guard assigned to her cell block was found with his cock manually removed and forced into his lower intestine. I suppose it’s arguable that she was better off before I got to her.

I was standing in one of worlds best known underground members only sex clubs. I struggled to keep the whiskey in my glass as a lovely young lady who may have once been a literature major savagely pawed at my meaty parts. Just another day at the office. Lawrence Bishop was a revolting meatball of a man. I smelled his cheap cologne before I saw him. The irony that this man could buy and sell entire countries and yet still insisted on wearing the most inexpensive cologne available was not lost on me.

“Stacy! Come here!”

Bishops voice was all at once commanding and nauseating. Stacy’s head snapped in his direction as her hand froze on my manhood. Her eyes again began to burn with unexplainable passion as she sauntered over to Bishop and ran her hands over his elephantine chest.

“You will have to excuse Stacy here. If it has a cock she wants a piece of it.”

“If she didn’t you might never get laid Bishop.”

Bishop threw back his head and his numerous chins jiggled as he let out a horrendous gurgling laugh. Stacy looked up at me hungrily as she pulled Bishop’s flaccid lesion covered cock out of his pants.

“That’s why I like you Evan’s you don’t pull any punches do you, you old son of a bitch?”

I turned away from repulsive scene next to me and looked at the bartender as I drank down the rest of my whiskey. I needed to get this over with and soon.

“McCarthy sent me Bishop.”

Bishop ran his meaty paw through Stacy’s matted hair while I watched reality sink into his thick skull. I caressed the handle of the knife in my jacket pocket.

“And what precisely does Mr. McCarthy want from me?”

The bartender poured me another drink. Bishop continued,

“You can tell him he can have his daughter back if that would make things right between us.”

I swallowed the whiskey feeling it warm my stomach. I turned to face Bishop trying to avoid taking in the vision of Stacy suckling at his mutilated cock.

“You and I both know it’s too late for Stacy to go back. She can never truly go back.”

In one deft move I pulled my blade from my jacket and plunged all ten inches into Bishop’s non existent neck. Blood sprayed across the room spattering various stunned rich and powerful men. He fell to the ground clawing at the crimson gash. I bent down and pulled the knife from his body allowing more of his vital juices to splash out onto the floor. I wiped the blade on his 10,000 dollar Fioravanti suit and lit up a 5 cent smoke. I made my way to the door as Stacy continued to ravish the corpse of what was once one of the most powerful men in the world.

It wasn’t really a bar per say. More of a box with booze in it. The walls were permeated with the stench of pathetic dying souls spending hours upon days staring into the bottom of a glass. Hope had left this area long ago. Hope cannot gain a foothold on floors which have been on the receiving end of blood and vomit so many times. In all reality I should not have been here. My heart told me to turn and leave. My soul clambered to escape from my asshole but my mind had other plans. Places like this always fascinated me in an entirely morbid way. What makes death, sorrow and failure stink the way it does? More importantly does my fascination come from the awareness that this is precisely the kind of place I will end up?

I slid onto a stool and lit a smoke. The bartender positioned herself in front of me. She was smoking as well. However I was not eight months pregnant. Her eyes were as dead the fetus which pushed against the inner wall of her womb. I ordered a well whiskey. Had I been in the Midwest I would have made it a rail whiskey. I’ve seen enough blank stares from bartenders in Baltimore to know that they don’t speak that left coast jive out there. She poured an ungodly amount of whiskey into a glass and narrowly avoided dropping her cigarette ash into my booze. I took my drink and sauntered over to the juke box. Horrible little bars like this particular shit hole inexplicably have the greatest juke boxes. If you’re going to drink yourself to death there might as well be some good tunes playing. At least that’s what my old man said to me the day before he gutted the mail man with a bread knife. I dropped in a few quarters and kicked back the rest of my drink. I could feel it burning a hole in my esophagus as it slid down to my stomach to do battle with my soft parts. D4, Got To Give It Up by Thin Lizzy. A6, Hot Blue And Righteous by ZZTop. B9, Whammer Jammer by The J. Geils band. Three bands whose legacy does not do justice to their true past. J. Geils being the best example. Before they sullied their name with the atrocious pop shit pile that was Centerfold they had self respect, they had balls. The J. Geils band played white boy blues based rock and roll harder and faster than the Stones with and endless supply of the best drugs. Yet for most folks they will forever be na na nuh-na na na. Fucking tragic. Shitty speakers cracked and buzzed to life as I walked back to my stool and ordered another whiskey from the walking death incubator.

Perhaps it was the effect of the shit booze I had been drinking all night. Whatever it was I didn’t hear him walk up behind me until it was too late. He had the shaft pushed up against my kidney. I casually turned to see the drunken mad man holding me at bay. His grizzled beard retained chunks of food which may have been there for hours even days.

“Don’t fucking move kid”

Even it I wanted to I don’t think I could have. I was paralyzed by the stunning stench leaking from his mangled maw. The smell said words his mouth couldn’t,

“I hide rat carcasses in my mouth so my mother can’t take them away from me again”.

I looked into his eyes and found the usual. Pain, desperation, a deep longing for rightfully illegal sexual acts. But what if anything did he want from me?

“What can I do for you old timer? There’s no reason to bring your piece into this.”

“I can’t help it kid. It talks to me. It wants me to do things. And I can’t FUCKING LEAVE IT AT HOME!”

I looked down to inspect the talking firearm and found something that in hindsight was none too surprising. There I found this crazy sweating old man’s discolored crooked cock pushed into my belly. I looked back up at the manic old man and I could see the palpable confusion and fear in his eyes. I turned back to the bartender and ordered another drink. It was going to be a long night.