dead weight, and she clearly needed support as the group escorted her to a stone table in the middle of the room, behind the pole she’d been tied to.
They lifted and laid her on her back. Damia took Mark by the elbow and led him to the table. “Now comes the fun part,” she said. Mark didn’t like the way she emphasized the word
“You’ve made your mark on her backside, but now you must make our mark on her front. She will forever be marked as a sacrifice to NightWhere.”
Mark looked at the hermaphrodite with total incredulity. He held up the knife. “Are you suggesting that I cut her with this?”
“Not just cut her,” Damia clarified. “You will follow the pattern we have drawn on her belly. And please don’t make any mistakes…you only get one shot at something like this.”
“I’m not going to stab somebody,” Mark said. “I could kill her!”
“Don’t stab too deep then.”
The Watchers moved and stood in line on either side of the table. The woman lay still. Mark held the tip of the knife to the top of the spiral snake. His hand shook visibly.
“Cut her,” Kharon commanded. “Use her flesh as your own. She is nothing. Clay to mold. Make her in our image.”
He’d come this far and already had turned the woman’s back into a bloody, torn mess. If he could keep his cuts very shallow, he wouldn’t hurt her too badly. And then this nightmare would all finally be over. Mark took a deep breath and pushed the edge of the knife against the woman’s skin. It resisted only for a second, and then the blade sank in. The blade was
He moved it a few inches, beginning to make the first arc, when Kharon stepped forward and put a hand on his wrist. “Cut her, don’t tickle her.”
“I don’t want to kill her,” Mark said.
“She is aware of the risk. Press harder. I want to see her flesh part.”
Mark’s heart beat harder, and he felt the tears well up in his eyes. He had done a lot of things in his life that he was ashamed of. He had done a lot of things that he really didn’t want to do.
Nothing had prepared him for this.
Mark pressed the knife in farther, and the woman on the table moaned. The blood flowed out from around the blade now, heavily. Drips poured over her side and spattered the rock slab.
“Much better,” Kharon said. Then he began to speak. The words were guttural, foreign, but the rest of the robed figures apparently knew them. They soon joined in, until the small room echoed with the sound of chanting in unison.
To Mark, the words sounded evil.
He pressed the knife along the snake drawn on the woman’s belly, and gulped as the blood flow increased. He could see the flesh pulling apart under his knife, opening an inch deep to reveal her insides.
Sweat poured down his sides and tears wept absently down his face.
Mark cut.
And then the knife seemed to disappear inside her as he pulled it around the final curve near her belly button. Blood sprayed out and pooled across her middle, before flowing to the table. The woman screamed faintly beneath the burlap, and Mark could see the pink of her guts inside…the blade had slipped through her dermis to breach her belly.
“Oh shit,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
He drew the blade out and stepped back from the table.
The chanting rose to a fever pitch as the woman’s cries grew. At last Kharon raised his hands, and the room went silent.
“She is ours,” Kharon announced, as four of his followers went to each corner of the table. “Now make her yours.”
Damia suddenly curled around Mark’s leg, brushing her breasts against him. With a cool hand, she stroked his penis, which despite Mark’s wishes, instantly grew erect.
“Take her,” Damia said. “Use her for your pleasure.”
Mark shook his head. “No, I can’t. We need to get her a doctor-one of those cuts is too deep. She’s going to bleed to death.”
Kharon shook his head. “She will have no help until your defilement is finished.”
Mark hesitated, and then realized that the only way to end this was to go through it. Protesting would only lengthen the time it took to get help.
He put his foot on a step at the foot of the table and crawled above the woman. “I’m sorry,” he said again and again as he positioned and pressed himself inside her. She was warm and wet. Lubricated by her own blood. As he pushed his body against her, the blood flowed faster from her belly, and Mark’s own stomach was quickly coated in the sticky warmth of her blood.
“Make her yours,” Damia urged. “Take her deeply.”
Mark stared at the black-painted breasts and the red snake cut below them and felt his cock respond to the horror in a way he would never have guessed. He was incredibly hard now, and his motion increased as he surrendered to the primal act. The woman groaned with each thrust, and soon Mark’s own moans joined hers, and he let go, spasming again and again until he was gasping for breath.
When at last he pulled back, the blood had smeared across all of her stomach and chest, washing much of the black paint away. He could see the true color of bloody, tan skin beneath the crimson.
“Get her a doctor,” Mark demanded.
“There is just one more thing you must do,” Kharon said. “Stand and wash her clean.”
“Give me a washcloth then,” Mark said.
There was laughter.
Kharon shook his head. “You were washed clean by all of us not so long ago. You have the means. Use it.”
Mark knew instantly what he meant. He shook his head. “I’ve done enough.”
“Her defilement is not complete until you have shown her how low she is to you. Worthy only of being your receptacle. Do it now.”
“I want to see Rae,” Mark said.
“When you finish here,” Kharon said. “Not before.”
“Jesus Christ,” Mark whispered.
“Not here,” Damia laughed. “I told you that.” With her hands she pushed him to stand upright above the bloody woman on the table.
“Wash the night from her,” Damia said. “And she will be reborn to NightWhere.”
Mark struggled to do as they demanded. But nothing came. He remembered all of those times he’d stood at a urinal and been flanked by men on either side and found it impossible to go…and sometimes had left without doing anything, only to return five minutes later.
He closed his eyes and tried to focus. And eventually…he felt his tubes open. When at last he released, he opened his eyes and watched his penis dissolve the black paint from the woman fully. It washed away even faster than it seemed it should have, until the woman on the table was no longer painted in anything but her blood and Mark’s piss. Kharon walked to the head of the table and untied the burlap sack from around her head, as his helpers released her arms and legs.
“I promised you that if you completed the three levels of NightWhere, you would see your wife once more,” Kharon said. “Here she is.”
Mark looked down in horror as Rae’s face stared up at him from the bloody mess he had made of her body. Her brow was creased in pain, but there was a trembling smile on her face.
“Oh my God, Rae, I didn’t know.”
He dropped to his knees and put his hand on her hair. “I would never have done this if I’d known it was you.”
“I know,” she whispered. “That’s why they covered my face. I wish that I could have watched.”
