Black Water (2 page)

***

Earlier, Smoke had purred little girlie come-ons at the wrong fella—the booger hidin’ behind the Cypress that woulda had top billing in a circus sideshow. A six-foot-three, two-hundred-and-ninety-four pound, near-brain-dead mulatto with saggy, hairy titties bigger than most women. His name was Mule, and he had ever bit the smartness of a mealy bug. He was probably forty-five, fifty years old, clad in filthy, raggedy old coveralls, and smelled of pig shit and stinky armpits. He was damn near bald and had huge, bulbous brows like an under-cut, flash-flooded riverbank, lending credence to the theory that Neanderthals hadn’t just died out but rutted with Cro-Magnons of low standing.

But the thing that stuck out most about Mule was what didn’t stick out at all. A nose. Didn’t have one. Not a hint. All there was was a jaggedy hole in the front of his face from just under and between his eyes down to a floppy top lip as useful as eyelashes on a snake that waggled over his mouth when he tried to talk, which, thank God, wasn’t often. And, as one would expect, there was a different story from everbody that had ever seen him about how it come to be. Some had the idee he was born without one. Possible. It happened occasionally. Some slid out the chute shy an arm or a foot, stubbly half-legs with little flippers instead of feet. Nubs for fingers. Some born blind or deef. Harelip. Mute. Cross-eyed. Dead. The often-talked-about-but-never-actually-seen double-headed. But the skin around it was badly scarred, puckered, indicating there’d most likely been one at some time. One of the best stories was that it’d been gnawed off by rats when he was a youngun while he slept peacefully in his crib. That was a real good story, and the visions created by such a thing could keep almost anyone well stocked in teeth-gnashing nightmares for quite a spell, but it seemed unlikely abody could sleep through their nose bein’ chawed off by rats, even if they’s a youngun.

Another story that got a lot a mileage was that his mama and daddy shared the same last name, but not because they’s married. By the laws regarding relationships, that made his mama his aunt, and his daddy his uncle. Which made Mule his own first cousin. That coulda answered some of the questions about his intelligence, or lack of, but it still left considerable possibilities about the missing proboscis.

When Mule knew he was gonna come in contact with people, he had the good sense to fasten a dirty rag over his face to hide the cavity. He kept the two top corners of the thing tucked up tight between the brim of his floppy hat and his head, but loose in the front to allow for just enough dip so he could see. It made him look like a hold-up bandit, but it was better than staring at a hole that allowed you to look right in the front at the juicy parts of a body’s head. He spent a lot of time re-situating the rag because it kept slippin’ down. The front of it was always wet. If you had a nose you could snuff up snot and such, but if you didn’t, it just ran free.

Well, hoping to make a coin or two, Smoke tried workin’ him, but lucky for him, and as she was about to find out, very unlucky for her, he lacked the cranial accouterments to be sirened in deep. Seeing pretty quick she was wasting her time, she’d set off for more susceptible prey, but not before she’d stoked the embers in the furnace of Mule’s crotchal area.

Mule jumped out from behind the tree, planted his feet, hauled back his rock-chuckin’ arm, and launched the thing. That son of a bitch smacked her in the right side o’ the head, just above the ear, just as she was turning around, and knocked her into the water. He got to her before she could shake it off, grabbed her around the middle, clamped her up in his armpit, and, gigglin’ like a three-year-old, started to lug her off.

Smoke kicked and scratched and clawed, bit his hands and anything else that got in range, the whole time screamin’, “Let loose o’ me, you fat son of a bitch!” It didn’t make any difference, though, ‘cause there wasn’t nobody around to hear, but she wasn’t gonna give up without a tussle. Grab a cat, even a full growed one, by the nape o’ the neck like its mama did when it was a kit, and most times it’ll quit squirmin’—just hang there with its eyes scrunched back like a Chinaman and its tail tucked up between its legs to protect the dainty parts. But Smoke wasn’t a cat, and this was the first time abody’d ever had their hands on her, and she didn’t like it a little bit. No matter how Mule grabbed her, she thrashed and scratched so fast it looked like she had five arms and six legs. Unfortunately, one o’ them five arms reached up and jerked off the nose-hole-hidin’ rag. If she thought she had somethin’ to scream about before, she took one look at the ugly pit in the front o’ Mule’s head, cried “Aaaagggghhhh!” and went plum nuts.

He’d had enough of the caterwaulin’, so he helt her out with one hand gripped around her throat so tight it cut off her air, her already bugged-out eyes bugged out even futher, and with his free hand gave her one good whack, slappin’ her unconscious. That made her a whole lot easier to handle. He laid her on the ground, readjusted his nose-hole-hidin’ rag, straightened out his coveralls, picked her up, slung her over his shoulder like of sack a spuds, and carted her off.

It was still dark when she come to and found herself laid out on a thin, scratchy mattress thing stuffed with itchy horsehair and moldy corn husks, with a headache, a bloody nose, a sore jaw, a bump on the side of her head, and a ringin’ in her ear. She was butt naked and latched around the neck with an iron chain securely bolted to the wall post. Seeing the door was open, she jumped up with escape on her mind but hadn’t yet noticed the length of the chain and nearly yanked her head off. It only allowed enough room for her to sit up on the cot. Real quick, she flipped herself around, braced her feet on the wall, got a grip with both hands on the chain, clamped her jaw down, and pulled t’beat the band. The only thing that accomplished was rubbing burns on her scrawny little neck and her hands. Her head would come off her shoulders before that chain come off the wall.

Mule sat bassackards on a chair at a rickety table in the middle of the room, with nothin’ on but a greasy undershirt, slicing chunks off a raw patater with a big old knife, watchin’ her struggle. The knife wasn’t much more than a dull blade with two pieces of wood for a grip, leather-wrapped and cinched with thin strips of rawhide. He sipped and dribbled a homemade alcoholic concoction from a dented tin cup and pushed the patater chunks in what she determined was his mouth below the God-awful ugly hole in his face where his nose oughta been. A coal oil lamp in the middle of the table obstructed his view so he moved it to the edge. He leered at her girl parts and nodded his head in appreciation of the fine job he’d done locking her down.

With all that going on, it took a minute before she realized she was sore ‘twixt her legs. She saw the rusty color of dried and sticky blood smeared on the soft insides of her thighs and the scratchy thing impersonating a mattress. It was then she realized she’d been done to, and as bad as she was hurtin’, determined Mule was sportin’ more than a two-finger-and-a-thumber. She was horrified that the noseless, fat piece of shit sittin’ halfway across the room shoving patater into its face had stuck his weiner in her.

Mule’s gut jumped like a hog in a sack when he chuckled, nodded, and pushed another slice of patater in the hole. She felt bile rising in her throat, but, forgetting she was chained and nearly hanging herself again, hung her head as best she could over the edge of the cot and threw up on the floor. She was now officially a woman. Got that way by an old man. A fat one that smelled of pig shit and stinky armpits. With a hole in his head where his nose oughta been.

The next few days, Mule did to her whatever come to mind. He was somewhat limited by the length of the chain, but he seemed to have quite an imagination when it come to dreaming up ways to poke pussy. And with good reason. A thousand times over the years, he’d fantasized about stickin’ it in a human woman, but what with the hole in his face, he couldn’t even rent one by the hour. Even a used-up whore would go without before spreadin’ her legs for him. Being that he was getting older and uglier ever passing day, lived out in the middle of nowhere, and had no financial prospects to speak of, he hadn’t had a lot of experience with the opposite sex.

Well, that wasn’t quite right. Sex he’d had, and quite a bit of it. Just never with his own species. Smoke was actually his first adventure with a human female—he’d discovered it was all he’d hoped it would be and was intent on making up for lost time.

On the very first day she learned he had a tendency to bite, but trying to fight him off just earned her his huge, calloused hands clamped around her throat until her face turned blue, her tongue stuck out, and thousands of sparkly little lights twinkled before her eyes, then everthing went dark.

With her unconscious, he could probe and explore the wonders without all the bothersome squirming.

More than once she had come to, licked clean with painful whisker burns on the inside of her thighs. The source, not somethin’ she wanted to think about.

Ever time he come on her she fought like a turpentined cat. She woulda been a lot better off playin’ possum or gettin’ throttled into blessed nothingness. Conscious or not, though, he was having a great time. If he’d known a human girl could be this much fun, he’da caught one a long time ago. Hell, this one was so much fun, he was giving serious thought about snatchin’ up another one. Next time he was in town, he was gonna buy another chain, one a little longer, and keep a lookout for another human.

The girl was a lot better than a sow. He could pin her arms down and look her in the eye and see the fear and the pain. Couldn’t do that with a hog. He’d tried to get one of his favorites to turn turtle a couple of times, but discovered that sows was constructed to go in from the back while on their feet. Any other way, the angle was off and his doodle kept slippin’ out. A sow squealed and put up a struggle to get loose, but it wouldn’t actually what you’d call fight back. He even thought there was a couple of ’em that had learned to like it because when he went to mount up, they’d slip their tails out of the way and brace theirselves against the sty rails, grunt and get all wiggly in anticipation.

He liked to think so, anyway.

He laughed, jamming it inside his new plaything, knowing he had a lot more to give than she had capacity to receive. They were proof you could actually shove a quart’s worth of product in a pint-sized jar. It hurt like the devil, but she wouldn’t give him the pleasure of knowing how bad, and that just made him pound that much harder. With her size, age, and meager diet, she hadn’t developed a hint of tittie yet, but that didn’t stop him from pullin’ and pinchin’ on her little pea-size nipples in the attempt to create some. When he pulled on his doodle it got bigger, so he was determined to prove it worked the same with titties. He tried suckin’ on ’em, but with the floppy top lip he couldn’t get a secure lock, so he had to settle for licking.

She bit and spit on him and tried to push him off, but never made a sound, other than to cuss and make nasty, although believable and even probable assumptions about his mother and father. His aunt and uncle.

First thing in the morning, he’d have a go at her, then go outside and work for a while, come back in an hour or two later, eat a patater or somethin’, have another romp, and then go back outside. He had his way with her three or four times a day, but it vexed him she could take it. Ever time he was done with her, he wasn’t happy unless there was blood smeared on the head of his pecker. He even denied her food and water to wear her down, but that just seemed to make her madder. He told her he knew she thought she was better than he was but before he was done with her, nose or no, she’d learn the difference between master and slave and he’d keep it up until she hollered uncle.

“Hell, yeah,” she told him one time, ”I am better’n you, you ugly ol’ fart. I got a nose ‘n you ain’t.” That crack cost her a tooth, a busted lip, a swole-up eye, and an extra hard poking. He grabbed her by the hair, flipped her over on her knees, wrapped his left arm tight around her middle and his right hand mashed her head face down on the mattress, and rammed her from the back until she threw up. It wasn’t as good as a scream or beggin’ him to stop, but it’d do for a start.

One of his favorite tortures was to eat in front of her while she was near starving. One day he was gnawin’ on a piece of meat and she got smart-mouthed and asked him why he’d eat greasy possum when there was a pen full of fresh bacon and ham hocks not fifty feet from the front door. He shook all over and laughed at her like she was stupid and told her that just showed how smart she wasn’t. “Possums’s fer eatin’, pigs’s fer sellin’.”

***

On the fifth day, mellowed by half a jug of amateur-grade embalming fluid, Mule stood at the side of the cot, goin’ at her with nothin’ on but his smelly shirt. Smoke was hissing through her teeth because he had her on her all-fours, his big hands clamped tight on her hip bones, taking her from the back. He liked it like that because he could look down and watch what he was doing. He leaned forward, pushed on the back of her head, and blubbered something that sounded like “Bledown.” When she didn’t move, he slapped her in the back of the head and repeated, “Bledown!” She understood that he wanted her to get down, but at that angle, it hurt a lot more. When she didn’t do it, he hauled off and smacked her on the butt with the back of his hand. That hurt. It felt like her cheek was on fire.

She felt his body twist like he was getting ready to give her another and she dropped to her forearms and put her forehead on the mattress. It musta been what he wanted because it felt like his man part got a lot harder. Half a dozen more pushes and he pulled it out. He wasn’t done, though. Not by a long shot. He just wanted to keep it from goin’ off before he was ready. He was watchin’ it bounce when he noticed her other little puckered hole. Lookin’ at it, just sittin’ there, goin’ to waste, gave him an idea. He started running his thumb down the little gap between her cheeks. Thinking. Picturing. And if it’d been possible, grinning.