rubbing on himself.
“Sorry,” she says, flinching, waiting for the shout, the blow, the stinging slap, waiting for him to come after her in his rage. “I didn't know you were home. I called out and I didn't think—'
“That's okay,” he says in his most frighteningly quiet voice. “Uh, come here I wanna show you something.'
“Huh?” she says.
“Come ‘ere.” A quiet voice. His dangerous tone. She is instantly wary, but he is not mad. No anger this time. He does not stop rubbing. On his back in the center of his bed. Wearing only a pair of white Jockey shorts, rubbing away at his crotch, which is bulging as he touches it.
“Huh.'
“Yeah. Come over here.” She walks over by him. Stands beside the bed. He reaches out for her and she jerks away. “I want to ... Come here, goddammit. I won't hurt you.” His hand is out like he wants to grab her. She does not move closer.
“I wouldn't hurt my sweet sister,” he purrs quietly. She is not used to him like this, but he stops rubbing himself and only looks at her so she shrugs and moves over and stands beside the bed. He does not grab her. He cups the back of her bare leg with his hand and just sort of pats her leg as he says, “I want to show you something I have,” but he makes no effort to move.
“What?'
“Something you'll like.'
“What is it?'
“Say, Pretty please show me.'
“Pretty please show me.'
“Pretty please I'll suck your peter show me.'
“NO.'
“Come on. Say it and I show you. Pretty please I'll suck your peter.'
“Huh uh.” She shakes her head. She is plain. Made more so by the awful clothes she wears and the cruelly severe haircut that has left her head a homely cap of ragged bangs. Everything about her is out of step. Out of style. Wrong. The girls at school even tease her about her socks. All the girls in her class wear white socks, but somehow hers are the wrong type and this social gaffe renders her hopelessly and embarassingly declasse.
“Just say it. I won't tell on you. Just say it real fast. Pretty please I'll suck your peter,” this said in a rushed whisper.
She relents and says without feeling, “Pretty please suck your peter,” and to her amazement he pulls back the fly of the tight shorts and the bulge is his penis, which is thick and veined and rudely awake, standing straight up in the air proudly, and he says, unnecessarily, “Now watch,” and he does something with his stomach muscles and the penis waves like a flag and he laughs.
She laughs and says, “God.'
And he says, “Ask it a question,'
“What?” She can't believe this is happening.
“Ask it something. Say, Do you want me to suck you? Say it.'
“No.'
“Come on.'
“I—'
“Ask it.'
“I don't wanna.'
“ASK IT,” he says with some exasperation.
“Huh uh.'
“I won't HURT you, stupid. Look. I'll do it. Do you want her to suck you. Mister Dick?” And he makes the penis wave back and forth like it is shaking its head yes and she laughs again.
“I bet you never saw that before, did you?'
“I gotta go,” she says, but before she can turn he is up out of the bed and he has her and he pulls her back over to the bed. “Come on, don't. That hurts,” she tells him.
He pulls her hair and makes her sit down on the bed with a thump and then he pushes her over on her back and sprawls across her and tries to kiss her.
“DON'T!” She tries to fight him. “I'll tell Mom,” she says, and he pinches her and makes her scream.
“Don't scream again or I'll punch you in the breadbasket,” he tells her, and he is doing something to himself with his hand as he wiggles around on top of her.
“You're gonna get in TROUBLE,” she threatens him, and he hits her in one of her flat breasts with his fist. Not real hard, but it hurts a lot and she begins crying, which eggs him on.
“Fucking crybaby girl. Now let's see how tight that little cunt is.” And she feels him stab into her with a finger and she cries louder, so he slaps her lightly. She is quite afraid of him when he is like this.
“Fucking crybaby,” he pants. He wets his hand over and over and then rubs himself with it. Why is he doing this? she wonders. And suddenly his stiffened part is ramming in between her legs.
“Please,” she begs him. “Don't. Come on, that HURTS.” And her tears flow down her cheeks and he tries to kiss her, a mashing of the faces and mouths together, but she is crying and forces her head to the side and he cannot kiss her, and he cups her mouth with his hand and begins to knead her breasts as he rocks back and forth in her and almost as soon as the pain begins it ends and he is spent and breathing hard and moaning and he has released her mouth and she waits patiently for him to get off her. And this time he tries to kiss her again and she does not move her mouth so that it is a kiss of sorts, at least the mouths mash into each other, but she remains motionless and awaits the next loathsome development.
“Open your mouth and stick your tongue out,” he commands, “or I'll whip the living shit out of you, you fucking crybaby bitch.'
She complies and it inflames him more than he had ever imagined. The POWER. The sexual kick of that awesome power when you control another person. And this was only the beginning.
There is a single eye. An eye alone. This eye watches from the darkness, seeing nothing yet seeing much. If, indeed, it IS an eye, what does it see? From its vantage point it sees shapes, strange outlines, large, shadowy forms, the familiar look of a room. An eye. One eye by itself. Cyclops.
Darkness in the room. The eye has no ears, so it cannot hear the detective on the wooden stairs, wire- cutting tool snapping the wire, breaking the police seal of a crime scene, fumbling for a set of keys. Inserting one. Clicks. Pause. Inserting another. Metal pressure. Movement.
Cyclops sees a frightening sight. A blinding rectangle of the brightest light smashes into view. A bright, dazzling opening of light in the dark outlines of what the eye sees.
A man's fearsome silhouette is framed in the brightness. He is only a large, looming black form in the center of the light. He enters, stumbling. Hand slapping the wall. Fumbling for something. Pause. Another stab into Cyclops's field of vision.
The unseeing eye, if indeed it IS an eye, might see the stabbing brightness of a flashlight beam shooting into the black, sweeping across the long expanse of rooms, illuminating a spot on the wall as the detective finds the light switch.
The flashlight blinks off and the room is bathed in electric light. The interior of a mobile home. Yet not ordinary at first glance. The initial impression of something extraordinary is enhanced by the smell. The stench of the abbatoir. The hideous, nauseating stink of the killing fields. The foul and lingering odor of the hasty burial ground. It attacks the nostrils in a merciless wave of stinging horror that hammers the olfactory sense.
Cyclops watches over this hellish place. 1458-1/2 (Space G) South Utica.
The first thing Jack Eichord sees are the serving trays, but for that first moment the monumental horror of it seizes his thought processes and he cannot focus in on any of it. He looks but he does not see.
Then the wave of shock recedes enough that his mind begins to register.
Cyclops is the first thing he will see and perhaps the last thing he will remember in his nightmares.
