"This Won't Hurt"
by Mark West

It was three weeks before Christmas and Tim and Alex were propping up the bar in their favourite pub looking for targets. The night was almost over and nothing had happened - except that Tim was beginning to get a stomach ache -
when their luck appeared to change. Coming through from the lounge were two girls, chatting loudly and amiably to one another. The first was a tall brunette in her mid twenties, wearing a lime green dress and with legs that went on forever. The other was shorter - only coming up to her friends shoulders - with blonde hair and a round, friendly face. She was wearing a tartan cardigan and what looked like a kilt.

"Here we go," Alex said, leaning close to his friend.

"Maybe," said Tim - never keen to be too optimistic. He and Alex had known one another for years though no-one could fathom their friendship. Tim was an office clerk, a slim, weedy, malnourished looking individual whilst Alex was a mechanic, large, beefy and so full of himself people wondered why he didn't shit brilliance. With Alex providing the
initial interest with his rugged good looks and Tim doing the charming, they picked up women on a regular basis and, because of a slight problem Tim had, they were always on the pull. Neither of them spoke about this problem and,
as it went, nobody found out until it was too late.

The girls walked over to the bar and stood next to them. Alex waited for them to order and then leaned over and said; "Hallo girlies."

Tim cringed. This was a lost cause altogether and his stomach was starting to sear with heat, like a very bad case of heartburn. It was all he could do to keep the agony from his face. However, to his surprise, the brunette turned to Alex and said, "Hello yourself. Who're you ?"

Alex stammered a bit and said; "I'm Alex and this is Tim. Who're you ?"

Tim smiled at the blonde girl as the brunette said; "I'm Zoe and this is Jenny." He looked at Zoe and her eyes flashed as his met hers. He didn't know what it meant but it scared him a little.

"So, what are you doing then, Zoe ?"

"Having a drink," she said and at this, Alex laughed like a donkey.

"Would you like to go somewhere else ?" asked Tim, surprising himself with his own initiative.

Jenny looked at him and smiled. "That would be fine," she said and when the bar closed they all walked out to the car park.

"So, where do you wanna go ?" asked Alex.

Zoe leaned on her Escort and smiled at them; "We're a bit kinky, me and Jenny and we like old graveyards. How about you ?"

Tim and Alex exchanged a glance and Alex said; "That'll be fine, any in particular ?"

"The one just outside Gaffney is nice," said Jenny, "how about there ?"

"I don't know where that is," said Alex, "we'll follow you."

"Why not come in our car ?" said Zoe. Tim smiled, this was going to be easier than he thought.

They got into the back of the Escort and sat glued in their seats, hanging on for dear life as Zoe navigated hair-pin bends and blind junctions at a speed far beyond the legal limit. They reached the old graveyard ten minutes after leaving the pub - a journey of about fifteen miles.

The graveyard had not been in use for more than thirty years and looked it. It was bordered on all sides by a twenty foot high brick wall that had vines, brambles and ivy crawling all over it. The entrance was an old wooden door that had once been closed by a large, formidable looking padlock though someone had taken a crowbar to it and snapped it neatly in two.

Zoe parked next to the door and the two girls got out, holding their seats forwards so Tim and Alex could get out as well.

"I've never seen this place before," said Tim. He was wishing that he hadn't bothered coming - the pain in his chest was getting so intense now it felt as though he was going to die. The last thing he wanted to do was keel over in front of everybody and have them all laugh at him.

"You'll love it," said Zoe. She locked the car up and walked over to the door, waited for Jenny and then they went through. Tim and Alex looked at each other and ran after them.

The inside was in worse repair than the outside. Unsymmetrical lines of gravestones spread from where they were standing to the far wall. The only sources of light came from a street lamp on the far side and a smaller glow from the house next door to the graveyard. All they could see in the light reeked of decay and disinterest. The gravestones were
so old and decrepit that most of the stone had dropped away from them and what little writing was left on them was obscured by ivy. In the centre of the plot was a small, dank mausoleum that looked dark and menacing and the
two windows that faced them appeared to stare - as though to demand to know who would dare break the sanctuary of the dead. Tim, in spite of himself, shivered.

"Right, do you want to split up or go together ?" asked Zoe, hands on her hips.

"Split up," said Alex, answering through experience.

Zoe reached over, took his hand and they walked around behind the mausoleum. Tim stood in the dark looking at Jenny - smiling at her shyly.

"I don't bite," she said and giggled. She leaned over, took his hand and led him over to the other side of the graveyard where the next doors house lent them the shade of a huge oak tree.

As they walked, the pain in Tim's chest got harsher and began to creep up to his head. Within a dozen yards, his head was pounding and felt as though it would split open at the slightest excuse. As he felt his eyes start to burn and his ears pop, he put his hand carefully into his pocket and felt the loving coolness of the scissors.

They reached the wall and Jenny sat down, carefully laying her skirt so that he couldn't see anything. He stood, rooted to the spot, swaying slightly as the pain in his head and chest reached breaking point.

"Tim," said Jenny slowly, "are you alright ?"

He put his hand into his left pocket and slowly, using his fingers before they seized up altogether, put the guitar fingerpicks onto his index finger and thumb. When he realised that the girl was talking to him, he nodded.

"Why don't you sit down next to me then ?"

He slowly did as he was told, moving with patience so as not to allow his head to explode. As soon as he was down, Jenny shifted her body around and put her right arm over his left shoulder.

"Kiss me," she said.

It had all started a year ago, at the party of one of Alex's neighbours. They were standing in the kitchen getting drunker and drunker, checking out the single females in attendance. One had come in, her little black dress askew, her hair falling into her eyes and she had tripped. Without thinking, Tim reached out to catch her and she looked up at him lazily.

"Thanks, I was going then."

"Do you want some fresh air ?" He hadn't meant it as a come-on but that was how she'd taken it, giggling at him. He and the woman went out into the garden and made their way over to a wall of conifers, stepping over other coupling bodies on the lawn. He took off his jacket and spread it on the floor and watched as the woman fell onto it in an
undignified heap. He sat beside her.

"I'm Lou, pleased to meet you," she said and laughed at her own rhyming.

"Tim," he said and shook her hand. Her skin was soft and smooth.

"You a friend ?"

"Of a friend. I came here to drink, be merry and meet someone named Lou."

She looked at him and smiled. "You're a real charmer, aren't you ?"

"I try to be."

"Kiss me then."

They kissed hard and then Lou guided his hand under her dress. Without breaking the kiss completely, she said, "How are you with pain ?" and he slid his hand under the elastic of her panties. He heard her intake of breath and then she bit his tongue. He broke the kiss and pulled away.

"Don't stop," she said as he wiped blood off his lips.

"You bit me."

"It's part of the fun. I like to be hurt."

"Really ?" he said, astounded. He'd heard about people like this but never expected to meet one, much less be about to shag one behind a wall of conifers.

"Tim, I want you to hurt me. It doesn't matter what you do, someone else will have hurt me worse. Please, dig your nails into me, bite me, hurt me."

"Are you sure ?"

In answer, she pressed his hand to her breast and said, "Squeeze as hard as you can. Dig in your fingers."

He did and started a new chapter in his life. He left Lou, lying under the conifer, sobbing and bleeding. The thrill of it had changed him, made him want more and he began to experiment. Alex had been disgusted at first but then he saw the craving that Tim had, psychosomatically, developed he agreed to help pull the girls.

Things had taken a turn for the worse in late August. They had met a couple of girls at a club in Haverton and taken them to the quarry in Chaton. Tim and his date had walked down to the waters edge and sheltered behind the hull of a rowing boat.

"Be gentle with me," the girl said, fluttering her eyelashes at him.

"Don't worry," said Tim.

He was already wearing the guitar fingerpicks and, when she was close enough, he dug them into her shoulder. Her scream, loud and full of pain, was lost as he clamped his mouth over hers and bit down on her lips to keep the sound down. Blood ran into his mouth, the smooth coppery taste sliding down his throat like vintage claret. He bit down harder, the blood began to flow quicker and the fight began to die off in her arms even as they thrashed about, hitting him in the belly and on the shoulders.

He moved to the side and pushed her down. When she was lying flat, he picked her head up and - before she had time to think about screaming - he rapped it on the floor twice, hard and she was unconscious. He sat back and wiped the stray droplets of blood from his mouth and smiled. With gentle fingers, he slid the straps of her dress over her shoulders. Underneath, she was naked and he ogled the soft whiteness of her skin, teasing her right nipple with one of the fingerpicks. When he found that he had gotten himself into a sufficient state of arousal - and with his blood
pounding in his ears - he took the scissors out of his pocket and put his fingers through the holes.

"This won't hurt, my dear," he said and quickly made two small cuts in her neck. At first, there was a flood of blood and her body jerked and then the flow calmed down as her body went still. He laid down beside her and put his mouth over the incisions he'd made.

Within five minutes the flow was dead and his sucking wasn't getting any more out. He moved away from her and wiped the blood from his chin with the back of his hand. He leaned over, kissed her on the lips, said; "Lovely, darling," and then kissed her exposed breast. The blood began to pound in his ears again (did it ever go away ?) and he snapped his mouth shut, his teeth tearing into the flesh around her nipple, severing it from her breast. He quickly stood up with it in his mouth as the blood reached a deafening crescendo in his ears.

He stood, stock still, staring up at the sky and swallowed the nipple whole. The pounding, the searing intense heat in his chest, the splitting ache in his head - they all stopped and all he could hear was the soft hooting of an owl and the barely audible beat of his heart. For the first time since meeting Lou he felt alive and he wanted it again, wanted to
feel like this every day. It was like the greatest orgasm in the world, ten fold and it was all so easy.

"Are you alright ?" said Jenny.

"I'm fine. Come on, come back here."

Tim pulled Jenny back down onto him and slid the cardigan over her shoulders, revealing her bra. He caressed her breast gently through the lace.

"You're lovely."

"Take me, Tim."

"This won't hurt, Jenny," he said and brought his hand around, the fingerpicks brushing her shoulder. He felt her fingers close in his hair and she pushed his head against the floor. He tried to move sideways but she rolled over him, her other hand at his throat and lights began to flash at the periphery of his vision. He jerked with his legs and managed to roll sideways but Jenny scrambled across the grass and punched him hard in the belly. He curled up beside a gravestone, wheezing. Jenny stood in front of him, hands on hips, breathing deeply.

"What are these ?" she demanded and held out her hand. His fingerpicks sat in her palm. "What are these ? Were you planning to hurt me?"

He slid himself up the gravestone until he was standing. "Jenny, listen."

She bared her teeth and ran at him, throwing her arms around him in a rugby tackle. The momentum pushed them back onto the gravestone which fell over with a dull thud. They rolled off and across the grave, Jenny throwing punches and trying to scratch him. They rolled onto the gravel path and he threw a handful of pebbles at her face. Instinctively,
she let go of him to cover her face and he punched her in the belly. He couldn't get much force behind it because of the angle but it winded her and her head bounced off his shoulder. He rolled to his left and she flopped onto the floor. He knelt on her chest and punched her twice in the face.  She groaned and was then still.

He got up slowly and adjusted his jacket, trying to steady his breathing. The pounding in his ears was almost overwhelming now and he felt in his pocket for his scissors but they weren't there. He looked around him, assuming they must have fallen out during the fight, but he couldn't see them in the darkness.

"Shit," he said and knelt beside Jenny, keenly feeling the need to feed and stop the pounding. Her right eye was starting to puff up and she was still groaning slightly.

"You bitch," he said and went to bite her neck. She grabbed his hair and pulled. He went over her and she rolled with him, coming up on top of him.

"You tried to hurt me, Tim," she said.

He reached out with his hand, trying to find something - anything - with which to defend himself and his fingers brushed what felt like a brick. He stretched for it and his fingers closed around it and he hit Jenny as hard as he could. He heard something snap and her head almost seemed to bounce off her left shoulder and then she slid off him onto the
floor. He looked at the piece of masonry in his hand and saw that one corner was dark with blood and had a few strands of blonde hair stuck to it.

He got up and looked at Jenny, her neck obviously broken. She was still making groaning noises and, though he was sure that she wouldn't move now - couldn't - he didn't want to take the risk of getting near to her again.  Panicked slightly, he decided to go and get Alex because, after all, there was still Zoe.

He walked through the graveyard, which was eerie in its silence and it unnerved him. There should be some noise, if only the others making what Alex sometimes called night sounds. But there was nothing. However, as he got nearer to where they were, he began to detect a sound. It was a soft, pumping sound accompanied by the occasional groan. He rounded the corner and almost fainted with the sight that he beheld.

Alex was laying on his back, his legs kicking out at obscene angles. His back was arched, his arms were reaching and his head was tilted so that he could see Tim. Zoe was moving rhythmically on his groin and making deep, moaning noises in her throat. As she moved back, Tim could see dark shapes on Alex's shirt but couldn't tell what they were. Zoe then looked up at him and he knew.

"Go away," she said, lumps of meat hanging from her mouth where she'd bitten away parts of Alex's chest.

"Tim," cried Alex from the floor. As he did, Zoe's attention snapped back to him and she reached into her dress. She got out a gleaming, nine inch nail and drove it into Alex's skull, right between the eyes, with a force that Tim wouldn't have thought her capable of. There was a small spray of blood that washed over her face which she hungrily licked up and then she drove the nail in again - further this time. Alex's body was jerking as though he were trying to slamdance and then, on the third stab - when Tim heard the sound of steel scratching on cement - his body jerked once and was then completely still.

Zoe licked the blood from around the hole she'd created and looked up at Tim, moving only her eyes. "You shouldn't have come here, boy," she said.

Tim could neither move or speak and when he heard a sound behind him he whirled around, hoping against hope that it was somebody from Gaffney - or better still, a policeman. He had no idea what he'd come up against but he knew they wouldn't do anything to him with someone else around. But the new arrival wasn't a policeman or a Gaffney resident.

"Hello, Tim," said Jenny. She stood in front of him, her head almost laying on her left shoulder. Her right eye was puffy and closed and the deep wound on her hairline was bleeding down her cheek.

"You made a bit of a mess of me, don't you think ?" she said and tried to smile at him.

© Mark West

Mark West is 31, married and has been writing short horror fiction for the past 10 years or so. He began to submit to the British small press in February 1999 and, to date, he's had 28 stories accepted. These have been in various
magazines (Sackcloth & Ashes, Enigmatic Tales, Unhinged) and on-line (Dueling Minds, The Goblin Muse). Go to his website: www.mwest1.homestead.com

October 2000