The Bighead (15 page)

Goddamn, Jerrica,
she thought now, back in her bedroom.
I practically raped him.
She knew it was wrong to seduce a man like that, poising him
solely for her own bent needs—especially someone as simple and
impressionable as Goop. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t do it
again. She couldn’t trust herself not to.

What a mess,
she concluded. She looked at herself in the
mirror, her white nightgown badged with dirt. But when she skimmed
it off she found her body even more sullied. Soiled hands, feet,
and knees, handprints of flowerdirt branding her breasts and belly.
More dirt blackened half her face.
Christ,
if Annie saw me like this, she’d probably throw me out of the
house…

For the third time since arriving, she
showered, let all the detritus of her lust sluice away in the
water. Then she finally doused the lights and lay nude in bed,
thinking, cooling off. The fever had broken, leaving its familiar
afterglow of paling anxiousness. She needed to come again, to buff
off the final edge, but this late she didn’t dare. Her vibrator
could easily be heard with the house this quiet, and even if she
used her fingers, she might sigh too loudly or even cry
out.

Good God, Jerrica. What is
wrong with you?

She tried to objectify, to
excuse herself as she always did.
I had an
itch and I scratched it,
she reasoned,
then, more crudely,
My pussy itched and I
scratched it with Goop’s cock. Oh, yeah, and I guess my ass itched
too.
No, she couldn’t excuse herself, not
really. Sex addict notwithstanding, she was still a civil human
being, and she knew what she’d done was wrong.
I seduced some hick kid who has a crush on me. I
used
him.

She tried to just forget
it, get some sleep. By now, the heat lightning had subsided,
leaving her alone in darkness only vaguely patina’d by moonlight.
The moisture from the shower turned warm on her skin; her fingers
idled through damp pubic hair. Through the wall, she could hear
Charity moaning in her sleep.
Nightmare,
Jerrica deduced.
Poor Charity…

But then she heard something else, not
from the other side of the wall but beyond her bedroom
door.

Footsteps.

Who’s up here
now?

She got up, crept nude to the door.
The footsteps, unbroken in their pace, passed the door and
proceeded. She couldn’t resist.

She opened her door just an inch and
peered one-eyed down the hall. A figure stood at the end door, a
figure in black. It turned momentarily, as if on guard. The exposed
white square of the Roman collar glinted.

The priest. He’s
here.

He glanced vaguely down the hall,
shrugged, then entered his room.

Jerrica reclosed her own door,
squinting puzzlement in the dark. The priest was here—so what? For
some reason, though, the figure’s late-night arrival seemed
foreboding, bidding a strange undertow of dread. Perhaps God was
sending him as an image to remind her of her guilt. Jerrica
shrugged herself then. She didn’t believe in God anyway.

But she must believe in the devil, if
only subconsciously, for what else could explain the dream she had
minutes later when she fell asleep?

She dreamed of rising from
a tarn of steaming excrement; she’d been close to drowning in it,
and when her face finally broke surface, she gagged, hacking up
collops of shit. Squab hands were hauling her forth, to a narrow
brink of hot, slimy sand. But they were not men who were hauling
her out, they were
things,
they were ushers of this demonian realm. With
faces of clay and chisel slits for eyes, they looked down at her,
grinning, chuckling in suboctave delight. And endless ridge of
fire-blackened rock surrounded the tarn. The sky was blood-red,
with a black moon beaming down. Jerrica struggled to no avail. The
ushers molested her with fervency, their fat three-fingered hands
probed her naked, enslimed body, such that in only moments she
wished she could be back in the tarn, to drown in feces. The
chuckles rose, as did luciferic erections. One usher’s hands spread
her buttocks, while another’s monster-cock bulled unabated into her
rectum. Jerrica vomited, screaming. The scream echoed round the
chasm like a gunshot. The stout cock in her colon seemed to grow
with the tenor of her horror. It grew and grew, yes, extending up
threw her guts, until its peach-sized glans was running up her
throat, whereupon it eventually exited her mouth.

—
| — | —

EIGHT

(I)

tap-tap-tap

Charity’s left eye popped
open, the right side of her face burrowed in the pillow.
Morning?
she
thought.
Already?
Sunlight radiated in the panes of the french doors; birds
could be heard, chirping their avian celebration.

tap-tap-tap

“
Charity? You
awake?”

“
Yeah,” came her groggy
reply. “Come on in.”

Jerrica entered through the connecting
door, her blond hair tousled from sleep. All she wore was a single
bedsheet wrapped about her. “I guess we should rise and shine, as
they say.”

“
Who’s
they?
” Charity groaned. “I can’t
believe it’s morning already. It seems like I went to bed about
fifteen minutes ago. And—” Her whole face pinched up, and she
brought a hand to her forehead. “Boy, did I have a
nightmare.”

Jerrica laughed. “Don’t
feel too bad. I’m sure it wasn’t as gross as the nightmare
I
had. Shit. I dreamed I
went to hell.” She made a
yuck
face. “I dreamed that demons were raping me. It
was disgusting!”

This made Charity feel a bit better;
her own pallid nightmare had been spared, at least, of demons. The
rape had been perfunctory.

Jerrica lazily smoked a cigarette.
“Oh, and guess what? The priest is here.”

Priest. Oh, yeah,
Charity recalled now.
Aunt Annie mentioned him yesterday, something about coming to
inspect the abbey.

“
Maybe I can talk him to
taking me to the abbey.”

Charity sat up in bed, rubbed her
eyes. “When did he get inn?”

“
Last night,” Jerrica
answered. Now she was looking out the french doors, into the
garden. “It was about one.”

“
One! I thought you went
right to bed when we got back from the bar. What were you doing up
that late?”

Jerrica turned, chewing her lip.
“Well, I kind of…”

“
What?”

Jerrica huffed a sigh. “I
kind of ran into Goop. I went out on the back porch for some fresh
air, and he was there adjusting the sprinklers or something, and,
well, you know.” Charity couldn’t quite believe the implication.
“Jerrica, you didn’t! With
Goop?
”

Jerrica nodded, shame-faced. “It was
just one of those things, I guess. He was there, I was there—then
one thing led to another.”

“
Where?”

“
In the back
yard.”

“
You’re
kidding!”

Jerrica shook her head, spewing
cigarette smoke.

“
But Goop is, like—isn’t he
retarded?”

“
No, he’s a little slow,
maybe,” Jerrica observed. “He’s not
retarded,
for God’s sake. Kind of a
bumpkin is all. And that’s not the problem. It’s obvious, he’s got
a bigtime crush on me.”

“
That
is
a problem,” Charity agreed. She
still couldn’t believe it, though.
Jerrica
had sex…with Goop?
Well, she supposed he
was attractive, in an earthy, unsophisticated way. But she hadn’t
even been here one day! “You sure move fast,” she said, finally
climbing out of bed. She blanched a moment, recalling her lurid
dreams. But then the most unusual question occurred to her. “Can I
ask you something—personal?”

“
Sure.” Jerrica
half-chuckled. “Personal questions are the best kind.”

Charity’s voice lowered. “Was it—you
know—was it…good?”

“
Yeah, actually it was,”
Jerrica responded without a second’s pause. “It was real good. But
it was just a one-night thing, you know, and like I was saying
before, the kid’s hung up on me. It could be a mess.”

Charity couldn’t argue. “You got that
right. A guy like Goop? He’ll be following you around like a little
poodle.”

Jerrica maintained a steady frown at
her predicament. “I’ll just have to steer clear of him, give him
the polite cold shoulder. I don’t want to hurt his feelings, but,
Christ—” She didn’t even bother finishing.

More atypical questions
assailed Charity. She couldn’t imagine why.
How long did they do it? How many times? Did
she…come?

It simply blurted out of her before
she could even think. “Did you come?” she asked.

Jerrica shot her an amused look. She
was obviously not the type to be offended by such a query, but it
was clear she was a bit surprised. “I just told you it was good. Of
course I came. A bunch of times.”

Another pang of jealousy.
Jerrica’s looks, her out-goingness and overall personality already
made Charity feel secretly inept. Now this.
I’ve never had an orgasm in my life,
she thought,
and Jerrica talks about
it like she’s having another cigarette.

“
Enough of this
sex-with-Goop talk,” Jerrica proposed. “We better get our butts in
gear and get downstairs. Your aunt’ll think we’re a couple of
lazies. And I can’t
wait
to meet the priest!”

(II)

The nun was pissing up his
ass…

««—»»

Holy…shit,
Alexander thought.

He jerked up in bed, a bad
taste in his mouth. Perhaps it was a veritable
night
of dreams, an encampment of
nightmares, for Father Tom Alexander had had a nightmare of his
own, from which he’d just wakened. Hideous. Disgusting…

He’d dreamed that he was staked to the
ground, naked, on his belly. His wrists and ankles chafed within
girds of bristly rope. Who had tied him down? And why?
And—

Where am I?
his thoughts struggled.

In the dream, a shadow crossed the
floor. He craned his neck, to glance up over his shoulder the best
he could. Eventually, he spied the figure projecting the
shadow.

A nun.

“
What the fuck is this?”
Alexander demanded in the dream. “Un-fucking-tie me right now,
goddamn it!”

Her voice was a whisper, fragile as
perfume, and vaguely southern. “Though shalt not take the name of
the Lord thy God in vain.”

“
Yeah?” the priest
retorted. “And though shalt not tie fucking
priests
naked to the fucking
floor!”

“
But it’s only a dream,”
the nun pointed out.

“
I don’t give a shit,”
Alexander continued to profane. “I don’t like it, so untie me! I
feel like a fucking idiot tied naked to the floor in front of a
nun!”

But she was a beautiful nun, he noted
in time. Her delicate white hands steepled at her bosom, as if
reciting a standing prayer. She wore a traditional black habit, but
stood in bare feet rather than the expected black clunky shoes. A
lean, pretty face seemed mounted in the open oval of her white
wimple. It was a sedate face, but wanton. Clear brown eyes beamed
down on him, shining in honesty and faith. In reverence to God on
high.

So why was Alexander tied
up?

“
We’ve been cleansed now,”
she said. “We’ve been purged. It feels so good…” Her brown eyes
focused more sharply. “Wouldn’t you like to be purged?”

“
No!” Alexander bellowed.
“I’d like to be
un-fucking-tied!
That’s what I’d like to be!”

She didn’t so much as flinch at his
rant. Instead, she smiled ever so faintly, a nun’s smile, and then
she—

“
You gotta be shitting me,”
Alexander muttered, still peering painfully over his
shoulder.

—
hiked up the skirt-section
of her habit. She wore no typical black legsocks, no linens
beneath. The vision, at once, seemed to bark at him. Two slim,
pretty legs stood spread above him, joined by a bountiful plot of
black pubic hair. Fainter hair trailed wispishly down the insides
of her white thighs, while an even fainter lance rose upward, to
her navel.

“
Ever heard of Lady
Remington?” Alexander said.

“
The purging is upon us,
Father,” her dainty voice embarked. “And it’s upon
you.
”

Holding the bunched habit above her
waistline, she awkwardly stepped forward, behind him. She stood
with her feet on either side of his bare hips, her bushy pubis
directly above his buttocks.