Inflictions Read online

  Get used to it, he thought.

  One of the valets opened Mekisha’s door and she emerged, adopting her stuffily friendly, pseudo-humble demeanor for her show tonight. That’s what Munroe now considered her public forays, her pitiable groveling for recognition and acceptance.

  He entered the main lobby of the hotel where people flowed like dust motes from one place to another, asking directions, dragging luggage, and talking too loudly with friends, family, and long-absent acquaintances. A banner sporting the old school colors of blue and white hung on the right wall of the lobby, welcoming the Salem High School Class of ’92. Faces passed in a flux, a few of which Munroe recognized, but none who seemed to recognize him.

  Mekisha appeared beside him and snapped, “You could wait for me, Mr. Courteous.”

  Munroe barely acknowledged her. He turned and followed the flow of the crowd toward the ballrooms. Mekisha frowned but followed.

  The main ballroom was nice in its own right, with large contemporary doors and adornments, and a coatroom flanking it to the right. A trio of women sat behind an eight-foot-long table accepting tickets, looking at a list and checking off names. He recognized two of the three women. Gianna Reed, who must have a different last name by now judging by the boulder on her left ring finger, was still pretty and shapely, and the years were kind to her. Janet Beauregard, on the other hand, was now a wreck. Her tiny frame now carried at least sixty extra pounds, and her once long light-brown hair was traded for a bobbed bottle blonde, bordering on yellow. What hadn’t changed was her effervescent personality; she giggled, tittered, and flirted, and rekindled memory-sparks in many eyes.

  Munroe and Mekisha moved forward and Gianna looked up and beamed her talk-show host smile.

  “Hi,” she said, her greeting directed at Mekisha. “I’m sorry. You look really familiar, but your name slips me by twenty years.”

  “He’s the alumnus,” Mekisha said, jabbing a thumb toward Munroe. Gianna looked at Munroe as if she hadn’t noticed him there.

  “Oh, okay,” she said, displaying dazzling teeth. “And your name is?”

  “Munroe Dolan, also known as Mundane Doldrums, but you can call me Inane Boredom. All that is for certain is that you don’t remember me.”

  Gianna’s award-winning smile faltered like a brownout, but returned before it lost power. She unconsciously slid a large pair of scissors away from Munroe.

  Figures, he thought.

  “Well, you’re right,” she agreed. “But with sixteen-hundred students, many of us didn’t cross paths.”

  “Until twenty years later.”

  “Right!” she said perking up, as if what Monroe had said was strikingly profound. She located their names on the list, fished two name badges from an index box, and handed them to Mekisha.

  “Have a great night!” she wished as Munroe and Mekisha walked away.

  “That was totally humiliating,” Mekisha complained.

  “What? That they didn’t recognize the famous photographer?” he asked.

  “No. What you said back there.”

  “The truth can be humbling.”

  “Self-debasing isn’t attractive,” she said.

  “Why should I start being attractive now?” he said, barely restraining a sneer.

  “What’s gotten into you today?”

  Munroe stopped and regarded her. “What’s got into me today? ME?” He spun on a heel and started across the ballroom, heading for the bar.

  He felt Mekisha thoughtfully watching his receding back as he walked away from her. She’d never seen him like this before. He wondered if she finally felt some respect for him. He doubted it. Mekisha followed.

  Munroe ordered a double scotch on the rocks and kicked back the whole thing in two gulps. His face contorted as the fiery liquid burnt its course. He regained composure and ordered another.

  “What are you doing?” Mekisha asked. “You don’t drink.”

  “I don’t?”

  “No.”

  “Well, meet the new me,” he said.

  Mekisha eyed him warily. “What’s going on?”

  “You wanted to be here, so we’re here,” he said with a forced vibrancy edged with nastiness. “Let’s have some fun.”

  He took off again, heading for the building crowd. “Let’s see how much of an impression I left on Salem High School, my Alma Mater.” He thumped his slender chest emotively with a balled fist.

  Munroe approached a group of men and women standing as if around a campfire. He extended his hand to a tall, rugged man with vivid blue eyes.

  “Hi, Peter Couture,” Munroe said with the effervescence of a talk show host. “Star forward of the Salem Hurricane’s basketball team. I’m Munroe Dolan,” Munroe pointed to Mekisha. “This is my wife Mekisha, she’s a slut.”

  He included the rest of the group with a sweep of his arm, not acknowledging the gasps from the woman or the mortified look on Mekisha’s face.

  “Inquiring minds would like to know, do any of you remember me from our years at Salem High School?”

  They all regarded him with a mixture of expressions from horror to amusement. Some did not respond, some shook their heads, and Peter Couture answered, not without a fair display of haughtiness, “No, am I supposed to know you?”

  “Hell, no!” Munroe said with mock horror, as if the question were preposterous. Mekisha tried to pull him away from the crowd, but he yanked free and continued. “You see, I am The Ultimate Bore—have been all my life. My wife, who happens to be a noted photographer and likes to gang-bang her male models while I’m at work, thought I’d have fun tonight with a bunch of schoolmates who never knew I existed, or couldn’t have given a shit if I were dead or alive.”

  Humiliated and offended, Mekisha started to walk quickly away. Munroe grabbed her arm. “Stupid bitch, thinking that way, huh?” he said, to the crowd or Mekisha, it was hard to tell.

  He pulled Mekisha behind him, leading her haphazardly through the ballroom while she tried to maintain a semblance of poise. Finding his quarry, Munroe stopped beside a very attractive woman with Cherokee features.

  “Ah,” shouted Munroe, causing the woman to start. “Tara Jean Beyer!”

  “It’s Norway, now,” she corrected.

  “So you married ol’ Danny after all! I’m Munroe Dolan, Dean of Drab, Duke of Dismal, and Master of Monotony.” He offered his hand as Dan Norway walked up and handed Tara Jean a mixed drink. “I was wondering, do you, by some glitch in the cosmos, remember me?”

  She looked between Munroe and Mekisha, uncertainty and unease knitting her brow.

  “I think the name sounds familiar, but I don’t think so.” She turned to Dan Norway. “Dan, do you remember a Munroe Dolan?”

  Mekisha tried to remove her hand from Munroe’s again, but he held tight. Dan seemed to search his memory for a while and his eyes brightened.

  “Wasn’t he that pathetic little worm I dared you to date for a week so we could win a bet?” he said.

  “Correct!” Munroe blurted, pointing at both of them.

  “Oh, that was you?” Tara Jean asked, reddening.

  “It sure was, and I’m still pathetic!”

  Mekisha yanked again, and Munroe yanked back. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said with syrupy mockery, “This is my wife Mekisha. She likes to drink cum like water, but never mine. She hates mine. But I’m sure she’d love yours!” he said to Dan Norway.

  “Okay, buddy,” Dan warned. “I think that’s enough.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” said Munroe. “Hey, you know what else she likes other guys to do, but never me?” He pulled open the front of Mekisha’s dress exposing two large and distinct nipples. “Nipple chewing!”

  Mekisha thrashed at Monroe, but he grabbed a nipple hard between two fingers and pulled her to him. Before anyone could react, Munroe drew out the scissors he secreted from the ticket table, and quickly snipped off Mekisha’s left nipple. It was actually harder than he expected, her flesh resisting the blades unti
l the final freeing snip.

  Mekisha shrieked and backed away, covering herself. When the pain hit her, she collapsed to the floor, sobbing, while blood pooled onto her lap.

  People, overcome by curiosity, closed in. Dan Norway advanced on Munroe, who smiled at him, popped Mekisha’s nipple in his mouth, and stated chewing ardently as if it were a big chunk of Hubba Bubba. Munroe raised the scissors threateningly while Salem High alumni watched, some silent, some crying. Two more men moved toward Munroe, nearly catching him from behind. He dove after Tara Jean Norway, grabbing a handful of her silky black hair. Wrapping an arm around her neck, he held the scissors to her temple, and backed away from his dumbstruck classmates.

  “You owe me one,” he said into her ear as they backed toward a corner of the ballroom. Munroe sat at a table, his back to a wall, pulled down his fly, and pushed Tara’s face to him. “You know what to do,” he said, pushing the point of the scissors against her jugular.

  Munroe eyed his peers watching him, awarding intimidating glares to anyone who looked ready to act.

  Tara Jean’s head bobbed on Munroe’s lap, working her way around the sobs and coughs, which only intensified the pleasure for him. He looked at Mekisha, still doubled over in pain, but now standing. Her tear-streaked face was now ashen and devoid of emotion.

  A commotion arose to Munroe’s right as a cop, gun raised, emerged from a service entrance, another from his left. Munroe shot his load just before the bullet hit him.

  Munroe rested his arms on the crossbar of his prison cell and looked at the worn smoothness of the floor outside. Because of crowding, there were now four inmates in cells originally intended for two and the nearness could get a little cloying, if not downright smelly. The crossbar started to hurt under his elbow; he shifted.

  He’d been in for two years of a six-year reduced sentence. Attempted murder charges were dropped due to his actions being not deemed as premeditated, and from mental duress by Mekisha’s blatant infidelity was accepted as a trigger. At first, her accusation of betrayal was considered speculation, but Munroe’s lawyer, via a good detective was able to provide proof that Mekisha was unable to resist the carnal lure and submitted pictures of a bandaged Mekisha in sexual suspension between a red-haired giant and two other men.

  Munroe heard Kenny say, “Hold him still.” Two men secured both of Munroe’s arms to cell bars, and he felt the ripping pain of Kenny’s dick jamming up his ass. He felt like a baseball bat today, and the bitch of it was, he was getting used to it. He rested his head against the bars, trying to lose himself elsewhere while Kenny plunged like a giant piston.

  We don’t use any KY here, nosiree Bob.

  Kenny clenched, withholding the telltale noises of a muffled guttural release, and slammed inside for one last paroxysm, driving Munroe’s head soundly against the bars. Kenny withdrew, freeing a torrent of warm liquid to cascade down Monroe’s inner thighs. Whether it was cum or blood, Munroe wasn’t sure, he just waited for the end. Boomer released Munroe’s right arm, unzipping as he moved. After him was Carlos.

  It wasn’t lost on Munroe that there were three men, just like Mekisha’s triad. Call it irony, call it poetic justice, hell, call it chicken-fucking-soup, he still felt she—as usual—got the better deal. She lost a nipple. Big freaking deal! They couldn’t sew it back on seeing he swallowed it when the bullet hit him, but at least she still got to choose what dicks entered her. He was the loyal and moral one and she got the spoils. There’s justice for you.

  “It blows my mind,” Kenny said, “that you did what you did because you felt like you was boring.”

  “That’s what I said.” Munroe stayed where he was, he knew the circumstances ended much more favorably if he didn’t resist.

  “Hell, we don’t find you boring at all,” Boomer said, and slapped Munroe’s ass soundly. “Don’t we boys?” The trilogy laughed raucously.

  Munroe couldn’t fight the little smile that touched his lips. He gripped the bars and waited for Boomer to shove fire up his ass.

  A Perfect Man

  Jake Forbes stood in the middle of his kitchen, staring numbly at the tattered pink and white paper that he held between sausage-like fingers. On it, barely visible numbers were printed in a ghost of blue ink: 6-9-17-18-23-28.

  He stuffed a Sunny Doodle in his mouth and foolishly swallowed the dry pastry whole. He coughed explosively, spraying it across the room, and then focused his dull and bulbous eyes on the newspaper spread across the kitchen table. In the lower right corner of page two, a small framed box labeled Monday Night’s Numbers held the same series of numerals: 6-9-17-18-23-28.

  He compared the numbers for the fourth time, his sluggish mind diligently composing a truth.

  This was Something Big.

  He had never won Something Big before, although he had won Smithy’s annual “Lube, Brake & Tube Steak” raffle four years ago. At the time, that seemed like Something Big, since his 1972 Dodge Polara—a rolling nightmare as huge and prehistoric as the woolly mammoth—had been more in need of last rites. It still was, but winning that wasn’t Something Big after all. Hell, that wasn’t a shining turd compared to this. Jake was the winner of the tri-state lottery, worth more than twelve million dollars. Another Sunny Doodle disappeared. He chased it this time with a big slug from a two-liter bottle of Coke.

  As the reality of the numbers dawned on him, his system numbed and his bladder let go. His bank account balance and his pants were the first of many changes about to take place in Jake’s life.

  The following two weeks went by with a blur of anonymous, doleful faces appearing at his door, looking like beaten dogs. A parade of anxious charity representatives, long lost “friends,” and self-aggrandizing financial advisors, marched to his house seeking any monetary morsels Jake was gracious or foolish enough to abandon. Of all the people in the human train that passed by his house, the most disturbing to him was the last of three women who claimed to be his long-dead mother. In response to his lack of recognition, she inaugurated a string of obscenities like a hyper-active auctioneer. She reminded him so much of his own dear dead mother—so haunting and endearing—it made him teary-eyed. She had even spit the same way.

  Jake’s mailbox, which was ordinarily as barren as a nun’s womb, practically bulged with literature and offers. There were pamphlets from institutions alleging that wealth and salvation were synonymous and fliers suggesting how his newfound fortune could be most prudently spent.

  Within the first week he was forced to change his phone number to an unlisted one, and it appeared he would have to do so again if he desired anything comparable to sleep.

  For Jake the irony was laughable. The same telephone that lonely and simple Jake Forbes answered maybe three times a month, hoping for someone—anyone—to speak with, now rang incessantly for lonely, simple, but rich Jake Forbes. Thanks to six ordinary numbers, Jake was able to resign from his prestigious sixteen-year position working for the town. No more spiking trash, shoveling tar into lake-sized potholes, or dragging lawnmowers along median strips.

  He surveyed the mountain of mail collecting on his kitchen counter—very different from the usual smattering of bills and circulars of the pre-fortune days. He extracted two chocolate-frosted donuts from a ravaged box on the kitchen table. They vanished in one bite. Now that he had deposited the first of his annual checks, Jake had contemplated calling one of the financial advisors whose overly-embellished letterheads littered his puny kitchen, but today he would make his first major purchase without the advice of a financial professional. He would finally get rid of his part-dropping, belt-burning trash can of a car, which was long overdue since the car was nearly as old as he was.

  Four hours later, Jake was the proud owner of a brand-new, fully loaded and excessively priced Hummer. He shook hands with the ecstatic salesman, whose glee was as poorly tethered as his belt-stretching gut. He flashed his teeth at Jake like a TV evangelist and Jake offered the auto evangelist a half-melted bag of Goobers, which h
e hastily refused. Jake considered transferring the contents of the Dodge Polara into the Hummer, but took only the box of fig bars from the front seat. He bade the offensive barge a tearful farewell, opened the door to his new indulgence, and tossed the fig bars on the passenger’s seat. As the door closed, his eyes happened upon something in the window he always dreaded seeing … his reflection.

  To say Jake was as ugly as a toad was a gross injustice to amphibians, for Jake was easily less appealing than barnyard sludge, and mildly less offensive. With doughy skin, an oily complexion, bulging and watery red-rimmed eyes, and a nose that appeared to have been crushed by a hammer, Jake ranked in the looks category behind E.T.

  He had seventy-five extra pounds that gathered like sweaty bags of oatmeal in all the wrong places. He had a prominent stagger from a compound fracture that robbed two inches from his right leg. Jake’s father had run him over with a tractor while trying to move the family outhouse. It had taken more than three hours to find a doctor with a strong enough stomach to help pull Jake out from under the tumbled structure. His father swore until his dying day that it was an accident, but Jake clearly recalled his father saying they were going to play Chase the Jake. Overall, Jake was pathetic enough to make a mama warthog cry.

  Jake maneuvered the truck past the beaming salesman and to the end of the car lot. He ventured a glimpse in the rearview mirror, feeling repulsed by the sight of himself. It was futile. All this money and he was still destined to go through life alone. Even his pets ran away … or attacked him.

  He pulled onto the street and then slammed on the brakes as a numbing realization hit him. An oncoming driver lay on his horn, flashed the finger. Seeing Jake, he panicked and swerved desperately into the dealership’s car lot. Prospective buyers and salespeople scurried and dove for cover.