The Perfume Burned His Eyes

Smitty was also a member, and now they wanted to draw me into it as well. Fresh meat, new blood. Maybe they wanted to offer me up as some sort of sacrifice. They did that kind of thing, the cults, didn’t they? I had heard of devil cult rituals that were practiced in the abandoned water tunnel of a heavily wooded park in Yonkers—Oscarmeyer Park, or something like that. I had been there, it was near my cousin Gregory’s house. I never went in so deep but Gregory did and he saw the bloodstained stone altar and the 666’s and upside-down crosses painted on the walls of the tunnel. My cousin said the stuff was painted with animals’ blood, but his best friend Emil’s older brother Gizzy knew some of the people in the cult and he told Emil that there was a big plan among the network of cults in New York and New Jersey to begin human sacrifices in the name of the devil and virgins would be the first to be sacrificed. The girl on the screen looked like she was about to cry and I think the fat man spit on her. Why did Veronica spread her legs even farther? Couldn’t she tell what a piece of shit Smitty was? I was a virgin but Gizzy had told Emil who told Gregory it was girl virgins who would be the sacrificial lambs. Was Veronica a virgin? How could I not know the answer to this question? The girl in the movie was small-framed and narrow-hipped and the men were so much bigger than her. Smitty kissed Veronica and she put her hand on my groin but I didn’t like it. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. This was not how I imagined it. Did Smitty put something in my drink? Yes, I took the pill but I’d tried a quaalude before and it didn’t do this. Was it LSD, and I was tripping? The cult sold drugs to fund its operations, that’s what Gizzy told Emil. Was Barry the Dogfucker in the cult? That seemed like a satanic thing to do, sex with animals, sex with children, right? Did the girl in the movie get paid or was she just acting like she was being forced? Was she just acting like she was gagging and choking? Veronica’s hand has gone from my groin to my hand and she pulls it to her breast. Smitty is kissing or licking or biting her neck. Veronica guides my hand up underneath her shirt and I touch her breast for the first time with no barrier between my skin and her skin but I feel no pleasure, no lust, no love. I feel only fear and I don’t trust her anymore. I want to get up and leave, both of us should get the fuck out. Smitty has taken off his shirt, his sunken chest and white-paste torso give off a smell like the flame on a stove. The two men have tied the girl’s ankles and wrists with extension cords. They turn her over. Veronica turns and kisses me. I feel nothing. I open my mouth and she’s inside it but I’m not there. I feel like I’m in the corner of the room watching the three of us. Veronica takes off my shirt and throws it to the floor. She pulls my undershirt over my head then twists it tightly so it’s thin, long, and taut like rope. She wraps it around my neck from behind, pulls me to her, and kisses me again. I look down at the hair on my chest and notice it’s about the same amount that Smitty has. He’s watching me. He took his hands off Veronica and though his head is facing the screen, his eyes are on us. Veronica’s skin is white like cream or fancy china or snow before it gets wet. I hate ELO and will despise them forever. The cult has members of all ages and their main focus apart from the cultivation of personal power . . . Wait . . . that’s what Veronica said about witchcraft. It’s all witchcraft. All of them witches. Who said that? Yes. Their main focus apart from the cultivation of personal power was sex, perverted sex, in groups, in rituals, on an altar, in a tunnel, in the woods, or in a church-like setup in someone’s house or basement—best of all would be in a real church if they could find one. Gregory and Emil scared me when they said these things. They said that dogs howled from deep in the woods, they were property of the cult, and they would be sacrificed on certain holidays, not holy days but unholy days. The day after Christmas, I think Emil said. He said they did things to kids too. Smitty was standing near the screen and part of the movie was showing on him. It was the top of the girl’s head and it was almost directly on top of Smitty’s head like a double exposure. She was like a toy, like a doll in the hands of the two men. Veronica put my hand under her skirt where she had rolled down the pantie part of her stocking and I felt her for the first time. Smitty lit a cigarette and something smelled like ammonia. I think I was hard but I was so scared. I was convinced people were coming and once I was unconscious they would put me in a sack, like a mailman’s sack, and take me. Take us. She didn’t know, did she? She couldn’t be a part of it. The girl in the movie looked like she was screaming in pain. Smitty was sniffing from a little dark brown bottle. It looked like a bottle of iodine. He was only wearing underwear now and was touching himself with his head still turned away but his eyes right on us. Veronica was warm between her