The Chosen

“Aw, God…”

“How about you, Paulie?”

Paul’s head raised between the blonde’s canted thighs. He took the spoon, indulged himself of the whitish powder three or four times, then reburied his face into the blonde’s great spread of tawny pubic hair.

Vera watched all this as if watching a traffic accident—in remote horror. They hadn’t even noticed her standing there. The bright light felt raw in her eyes. Past the scene, on the dresser, sat a framed photograph of Paul and Vera arm in arm on the City Dock last Valentine’s Day.

Vera couldn’t even begin to speak. She felt encased in a block of concrete with only two holes through which to peer. Her impulse was to scream, to lunge forward—to react. But her body would not respond to the commands of her brain. All she could do was stand there, immobile as a post, and bear witness…

The blonde looked pallid, the deep lines of her ribs highlighting her malnutrition. A tiny tatoo showed at the center of her throat, a diminutive southern cross. Her bare feet churned in the sheets; her hips subtlely rose and fell against the dutiful attentions of Paul’s mouth. “I’m gonna come again, I’m gonna come again,” she kept murmuring through her stupor. Her wrists strained against the stocking bonds, tendons flexing.

Next the redhead walked around the bed to fetch something. Midstep she stopped and turned. She grinned at Vera.

“Hey, gang. We have a guest.”

The blonde glared. Her breasts looked like nippled pancakes. “Get lost, cunt, unless you want your face rearranged. Find your own blow—four’s a crowd.”

“Now, now,” the redhead toyed. “We can be more polite than that, can’t we? Besides, she’s kind of cute, and I could go for some fresh pussy.” Her blue eyes sparkled at Vera. “Come on, sweetheart. Get out of those clothes. Let’s see how you taste.”

Vera stared back in the sickest shock. Paul’s head came up again, his mouth shiny. He looked at Vera for perhaps a second, seemed to make no recognition at all, then returned again to his oral duties. His tongue churned furiously.

“Don’t be shy. We’re all friends here, we’re good friends. Paul picked us up at Kaggie’s, he even paid for our drinks.” The redhead traipsed to the nightstand opposite, took something up in her pretty shiny-nailed hands. “Or maybe you’d just like to watch first. That’s okay. I like to watch too, like to get real wet and boned up, you know?” Her breasts stuck out like skin-covered glass orbs. She looked healthy, robust; lean but very shapely. Paul continued to maneuver his tongue against the blonde’s unruly thatch. Vera’s stomach roiled at the wet smacking sounds; it sounded like someone eating a sloppy meal, which, in a sense, it was. Vera dizzied at the zeal with which Paul devoured his seedy slat-ribbed companion. “Your boyfriend likes to be fucked,” the redhead proclaimed. “Did you know that?”

The comment seemed cavernous, echoed down from a high, rocky palisade. What did the woman mean? The lewd noises went on, enlaced with the blonde’s loud, slow moans. Then came a sliding, sucking sound, like opening a can of peanut butter, then an even worse slick clicking.

What…what is…

The redhead scooped something out of a big jar. She came around to the foot of the bed—

…what is she…doing?

Vera wanted to scream till her face turned red. Your boyfriend likes to be fucked. She saw now the lengths to which this obscenity would go. Her eyes erratically roved the redhead’s robust physique: the