The Minotauress

'Like I said. You need to see a shrink. But in the meantime, you should probably look into some therapy of a more available sort.'

'And what would that be?'

'Have another beer,' Ajax advised to the best of his clinical expertise.

'Sounds like a good idea.' Dean followed Ajax out of the bedroom, but before he fully left, he eyed the framed wedding photo of himself and Daphne.

And spat tobacco juice on it.

CHAPTER FOUR

In this modern age, the fabric of decency was not safe even in down-home rural America, the land of hard work, an honest buck, and apple pie—towns such as DeSmet, South Dakota. In fact, even here, that same fabric had become as sullied as the ass-rag of Babylon's Whore. Dwindling was the notion of the American Work Ethic, replaced by welfare. Scarce were the wise grandmothers in front-porch rocking chairs, replaced by barred windows. And gone was the universal ideal that honesty was the best policy, replaced by meth labs and domestic brutality. Indeed, even the once-quaint DeSmet had spiraled downward into the domain of Jerry Springer.

And worse.

Little Scotty Nash was only ten years old by the time he'd had sexual congress with four girls—not including his Mom—and though this was clearly sexual congress of the forced variety, Scotty was too young to know the actual entails of the crime called rape. All he knew was that if he dragged a girl behind the school and put his wiener in her, it would feel good. He liked it. He'd learned how to do it just by watching his step-daddy and Mom. These were grown-ups, and Scotty wanted to do what grown-ups did. He wanted to be a Man, just like his step- daddy. He wanted to punch girls in the face and stick his diggler in 'em, lots of 'em. That's what girls were for; the music said so.

The girls he'd done this to never ratted because they knew they'd get whupped, and they'd all been broken in anyway, probably by their daddies. Plus, he told the bitches he'd kill 'em if they told, he'd bust a cap in their heads. He'd pull a Boo-Yah on the bitches!

Scotty's Walkman headset blared the latest rap: 'I'se got demons in my semen, yo white bitch! You'll be screamin' while I'm reamin', how ya like the itch!' Scotty listened to Schooly D., Tupac, R.U. 2 Kuul 4 U., and Badd Blacque Busta Kapp, even though his face was as white as the Lincoln Memorial. He loved the lingo: duh bitches, duh ‘hos, kill duh poe-leece. 'Hey White boy, what can I say? Gonna kill yo' white ass wiff my AK.' Scotty got the rap and dressed the scene, in unlaced pump-up Nikes with blinking lights on the heels, a backward Yankees cap, and pants ten sizes too big for him.

He got it down. Yeah. He tripped it Ice-T style just like a take-no-shit street player, just like a bro' in duh ‘hood. Indeed, and as clear as the proof of Newton's Third Law of Motion and his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Scotty Nash was the first ten-year-old white gangsta niggah to ever hip the hop down Rural Route 2 in DeSmet, South Dakota. Jivin', stepping it out. Bustin' moves.

He didn't have pubic hair yet, but Scotty knew what happened when a grown-up cock busted a ‘ho's pussy. It squirted spunk into her. Of course, Scotty was too young to shoot spunk but he could sure come. He found that out at age four, the first time his Mom jerked his pee-pee off. By five he was doing it himself several times a day. It felt good but what felt better was sticking it in a real live girl, same way his Mom had let him when she was high on crank between tricks. Scotty couldn't wait till he got the dick hair and the juice. The Little Man would just have to wait a few more years till he was a Big Man. Then he'd be jammin'...

'You bring yo' jive into my space, I'll'se bust a cap in yo' white face,' his Walkman rapped.

'Lick it!' Scotty yelled in his cracked pre-pubescent voice. He had his willy out in front of Dawnie Weller, a nine-year-old with a nougat-brown ponytail from Vista View Park. She'd been walking home from the QWIK-MART tonight when Scotty'd spied her in her little shorts and titless top, marching back to her 14' by 72' Silver Stream. Her bag of groceries fell apart when he'd yanked her behind the PROPOSED LAND-USE ACTION sign posted on the vacant lot between Paduana's Guitar Shop and Cooper's Adult Goods. Rats scattered from the pile of garbage he threw her on. He twisted her hair till she squealed like his baby brother Danny the time their step-daddy put a Marlboro out in his belly button. Dawnie's knees scuffed in garbage and dirt; she was crying. 'Lick it, ‘ho,' he repeated, but the excitement had already hardened him to his full three inches, and over his Walkman headset, he could hear the revered words of his hero Badd Blacque Busta Kapp: 'Lick it, ‘ho! Then lick my crack! Once you go black, you never go back!'

Sobbing, she began to lick the macadamia-nut-sized glans as snot glistened from her nose. Scotty's legs began to tremble with the music beating in his ears. His little grape-sized balls constricted.

'Yo' momma's a ‘ho, yo' daddy slams, I'se fuck yo' li'l sister and start to jam!'

But Scotty didn't want to have his dry orgasm just yet. He wanted to have it in her little bald pie. Next her legs were flailing as he pulled off her shorts. Shit fell out she was so scared... but shit didn't bother Scotty, considering how much time he'd spent sitting in it as a baby. Her bare legs were shiny with pee; it reminded him of the water fountain at school, the way the pee was looping from her gash.

'Hey white bitch, you my ‘ho now,' his headset rocked, 'wanna be top dro', I'll'se show ya how!'

Yeah, Scotty thought. Right now he was Badd Blacque Busta Kapp, and he was gonna show this nine-year-old white bitch just how it was done, get her turned, get her on the right track fo' the ‘hood. In fact, this was his destiny! Scotty was breaking in some fresh ‘ho, then she'd sell her ass on the street and she'd give him the money. He could be a pimp, just like Ice-T and Big Mistah K!

He'd be Superfly!

Dawnie began to upchuck now, wriggling in the dirt. Her upchuck smelled like Pop Tarts. Long as an adult's pinkie now, Scotty's dick throbbed hard. He was just about to drop his baggy pants and stick it in the bitch's pie when...

From behind, hands smoothed slowly up his back. Scotty went rigid. Dah pigs! he thought. Dah poe-leece! Where my AK just like Dr. Dre?

But that couldn't be right because the hands slid around his waist across his stomach. Then down.

They were soft, hot hands, and suddenly there was a cooing in his ears. He pulled off the Walkman headset.

'Honey? Honey?' a voice like a babbling brook issued behind him. 'Let me.'

Scotty was lovingly turned around, his pre-pubescent dick sticking out like a flesh-colored piece of chalk. Behind him, little Dawnie Weller ran away, a trail of her pee following her.

But Scotty was enraptured now. Every inch of his Little Gangsta Man skin felt electric, like the time his Mom had been high and stuck his finger into the light socket when he'd been bawling louder than a maternity ward—only this didn't hurt, this felt good.

It felt even better when the soft, warm hands played with his little apricot-pit nuts. Scotty's eyes were squeezed shut, but then some minuscule sense of logic occurred to him: Who was doing this? Who was playing with his marbles?

He opened his eyes.

In the deep shadow of the LAND USE sign, he saw... a woman. A black woman but she wasn't black like an African American, she was... just... black.