Hot Blood: Tales of Erotic Horror

MEAT MARKET John Skipp and Craig Spector

A rustling on sheets. The sliding of flesh over flesh, softly merging. Wetness, spreading slowly from the center of the bed. All motion. All flow.

Above, always above, the clock is ticking. Ticking off seconds that turn into hours. Slicing time into measured increments with a sound that cuts like a scalpel's blade. Cutting staccato gashes across the near- perfect stillness of the room.

They try to ignore the ticking. To be lost in the motion.

And the flow.

When Doreen left him, Tom Savich was in some serious pain. His chest ached. His balls ached. His spine felt as though it had been yanked out, bone by knobby bone, then sewn back in the wrong way. His guts felt mangled and ravaged from the inside. His eyes burned. His lips chapped and bled.

In his brain… in all the soft places where he stored his memories of her, his estimates of her worth, his plans of a future together… there were black, puckered holes. They bled so tangibly, so profusely, that he found himself wondering when all thought would be drowned and buried by the copious flow.

Once again: he was in some serious pain.

It was painfully obvious. Anyone could tell that he'd just been hit, and hard. They stayed away in droves: the women, particularly. Tom found that he really could not blame them a bit. He knew how unappetizing he looked.

So he toughed it out. He waited for the wounds to scab over and heal. He gave himself the time and the solitude he needed to recover, to get his bearings, to go out and love again.

It took about a month.

And then his friend Jerry called up to ask if he felt like hitting Dio's after work on Friday. Maybe pick up a couple of sweet little pieces.

'What can you lose?' Jerry asked.

'Everything,' he replied. 'My heart. My mind.'

'Name of the game,' Jerry said.

Moving, now. The ticking, forgotten. Nothing but the waves of passion and immersion. Rushing over them, now, with mounting fury.

As they move.

Tom Savich thought about it. He gave it some intense consideration. The idea simultaneously attracted and repelled, which was pretty much what he had come to expect, considering how much emotional baggage he was carrying around with Dio's name written all over it.

Because Dio's was the pickup spot in the garment district, the stretch of Manhattan that gave Fashion Avenue its name. It was the place where hawkers of overpriced clothing went after hours to find their partners for the night. It was the place where business and pleasure, predator and prey came together in an atmosphere of dim light, alcohol and smoky haze to consummate their endless affairs.

It was the place where Tom first met Doreen, in fact. And Kirsten. And Molly. And the one before that. And the one before that. Ad infinitum. It was the place where he had always gone when the need became too great, because it was designed to meet such needs, and it had never failed him.

The question is, he told himself, do I really need it that badly? It was not a question that could be answered rationally. It could only be measured in terms of scar tissue and hunger. How much of one, to appease the other? And was it really worth it?

In the end, Jerry persuaded him. It wasn't that hard. Tom Savich had gone a month without. He had pulled himself back together, admirably, from a nasty piece of circumstance. The hunt must go on. If he wanted it, all he had to do was go out and get it.

And as it turned out, he really did want it very badly.

More than that: he needed it.

Inside, now. Dark. Deep. Firm parts over firm parts touching soft soft parts, probing deeper. Pushing, pulling. Into each other.

While the clock. Is ticking. Ticking.

Overhead.

Inside Dio's, insanity reigned. By 6:30, there was no more room to stand. Warm bodies vying not only for attention, but for a square foot of floor space to call their own. Large color screens curled over the corners, flashing jump-cut images of perfectly undulating flesh. The big neon clock over the entrance swept round and round, reminding all players of the need for speed. From the balcony, Dio's looked like an army ant farm: a swarm of expensive suits and low-cut blouses, limbs and backs and faceless heads, swaying with the beat, crawling all over each other.

'It's a jungle down there,' Tom said. 'I'd forgotten what a jungle this is.' His eyes flickered between the videos above and the spectacle below and the sweeping, glowing hands; his drink sat, unattended, on the table before him. He might as well have been talking to himself.

'You're just wired, Tommy.' Jerry, too, was staring over the rail; but he grinned, white teeth showing under the flat gleam of his eyes. 'You just need to loosen up some. Get your thumb out of your ass. This is supposed to be fun, remember?'

'Yeah, right.' Down below, somebody had finally scored with the gorgeous blond by the cash register. A dozen men turned despondently to look for other prey. Tom Savich felt suddenly very tired. Of it all. He sighed deeply. The clock swept round. The bodies writhed. The music throbbed on.

'Listen. Killer.' Jerry's tone was derisive, a wee bit impatient. 'I'm not going to babysit you, man. If you're bound and determined to have a miserable time, there's no sign up saying you have to stick around. I just thought you had yourself patched up better than that.' Tom looked over sharply, stung. 'I just thought you were ready to get over that shit.'

'It's just…' Tom knee-jerked, suddenly on the defensive. He found that he couldn't look at his friend for a moment; there was something in Jerry's expression… something ugly and feral… that made him distinctly uncomfortable. 'It's just that this place is such a meat rack, man. I…'

'Oh. And you're above that sort of thing, I take it.' Jerry laughed. Tom felt stupid. Jerry continued. 'Come on, Savich. Cut me a break. The Virgin Mary has never been your patron saint. I've been in this bar with you more times than…'

'It's just been a long time,' Tom countered. 'And I don't see anything that really gets me going. And I just can't seem to feel it.'

'Well,' and now Jerry sat beaming like a Buddha, convinced that he'd finally broken through. 'You might want to start by finishing your goddam drink,' he said, indicating the untouched glass on the table. 'A few more of those, I'm gonna start lookin' good to you!'

And it was true: at least halfway. Though Tom made it clear that Jerry would always be an ugly sucker, he did find that Dio's became far more appetizing about two drinks down the road. He began to loosen up. He began to have fun. He began to ignore the dull pangs that went off, deep within.

And that was, of course, when he spotted her.

Building up. Sharp breaths. Sharp movement. In. Out.

In. Out. Consuming.