Coven

the bulge was terrifying to contemplate. Sarah was rubbing against him, moaning. Frid watched from atop the end table, eyes wide as opals. Jervis felt corpse still as he peered on.

What happened after that seemed devil inspired, a mocking one act sex play that somehow knew Jervis was in attendance. This was the girl he loved more than anything on earth, giving herself aplomb to this egotistical German muscle-rack.

In a trance of sadness, Jervis continued to watch as Sarah lay back on the couch. Wilhelm stood feet apart, legs like corded, sculpted wood. He hauled down the tight briefs. Sarah’s eyes widened as Wilhelm posed for her appraisal. “Oh, Willy, it’s huge!”

“No,” Jervis pleaded. “Please, God. Don’t let me see this.”

Sarah leaned forward, lust glowing off her face. All Jervis could see was Wilhelm’s ass and Sarah’s hands kneading the muscled glutes. He could hear the awful sound of what she was doing to him. Lewd, wet smacking. Muffled sounds of delight. Thanks, God, Jervis thought. Thanks a heap.

He began to cry.

Soon Sarah finished with the oral warm up. She lay back again, woozy with lust, shiny around the mouth. “Willy! It’s just so big!”

“Mein stander? Ja? Das gute.” He turned to let her look at it again, offering a full side shot, which unfortunately offered a full side shot for Jervis too.

“My God,” Jervis uttered. “My God.” Then tears slipped off his cheeks as he continued to stare. Wilhelm pushed open Sarah’s legs and mounted her.

He teased her navel with the gorged glans, slapped her stomach with it five or six times. Then he drew it down…

Jervis felt hairs standing out on his neck. This guy’s bigger than a rolling pin, he thought. Where’s he going to put all that?

Then he shuddered. Wilhelm proceeded as if on cue. He sunk it all into her at once, one quick stroke to the hilt. Bam! Sarah went momentarily rigid, then wrapped her legs around his herculean back, riding the sudden, relentless movement. Hot, delighted girl squeals shrilled from Jervis’ receiver; his eye pressed harder to the eyepiece.

Wilhelm went on for more than a half hour. Sarah maintained her excitement with equal vitality. Her orgasms were obvious: multiple vibrating shrieks, legs tensing each time she went.

Eventually Wilhelm withdrew. He grunted like a fearless knight having just shorn down an enemy, and ejaculated all over Sarah in dolphin spurts of seed. When he finished, her breasts, stomach, and thighs shined as if shellacked.

Jervis was falling apart, his eye welded to the telescope. Wilhelm got up and walked briefly out of view. Sarah lay worn and shining on the couch, blissfully spent. Her pink sex gaped. A moment later Wilhelm reappeared, holding a blue garment of some kind.

“Please, God,” Jervis quavered. “No, God. No.”

What hung from Wilhelm’s hand was a blue dress shirt, just your average Christian Dior, about thirty bucks at any men’s shop. But this shirt in particular was one of Jervis’, one he’d left in Sarah’s closet. He’d left it there on purpose, hoping it would remind her of him in the future. The shirt was allegorical, a psychic remnant. It was the last part of him in her living space and, hence, her life.

Wilhelm put the shirt to immediate use, guttering evil laughter. He very efficiently wiped his semen off her breasts, abdomen, and thighs. “I wish Jervis could see this!” Sarah bubbled. Then Wilhelm wiped his cock off as well and stuffed the shirt into the garbage.

Satisfied? he asked himself. Any English major would appreciate the obvious existential symbols here. It wasn’t just a shirt Wilhelm had wiped his cock off with, it was Jervis. The shirt was Jervis.

To end the scene, Frid hopped onto Sarah’s belly, purring. The blasted animal looked directly into the telescope…and smiled.

Jervis collapsed.

He lay there for quite a while. The telescopic scene remained in his mind like a lit ghost. Sometime later he crawled to the wastebasket and threw up. It was a violent, clenching emesis. He’d emptied himself as much from his heart as from his stomach.

He’d wanted the truth and he’d gotten it. Only one thing left, he thought. Dead love’s final flight.

The idea had a sweetness now, like a song, like a nocturne.

You don’t have the guts, his mind told him.

“Yes, I do,” Jervis answered the dark. “Watch me...”

He got up and lit what he presumed would be his last cigarette. He smoked deep. He let the room stay dark, for it should be that way for this. Yes, dark. Sweet, sweet dark.

He pulled the Webley out of the sock drawer. It was cold and heavy. It was big. His grandfather had given it to him on his deathbed. “A young man needs a good pistol,” he’d said, death already tinting his face. The Webley was a unique automatic revolver, British made. Jervis cocked it, inspired by its heavy, steel click. He was proud of his lack of reluctance.

I love you, Sarah, he thought. He put the big machined barrel to his head. I still love you. With all…my…heart.

Jervis squeezed the trigger. The hammer fell shut.

And nothing happened.

“Fuck me!” he shouted. He flipped open the Webley. The cylinder was empty. He rummaged through the sock drawer for his box of .455s, but it wasn’t there. Someone had taken it.

He heard mad laughter in his head, a noise like a flock of grackles. Poor Jervis just couldn’t win. Consciousness heaved up and out, and he collapsed to the carpet like an empty suit of clothes.

««—»»

Wade felt skittish driving her home. How could he sum up an evening like this? Their discussion at the tavern had been very weird, but the kookiest part of all was what had followed at North Administration, where, for two hours, Wade had played apprentice evidence tech. Helping a police officer fingerprint a crime scene was one thing he couldn’t ever recall doing on a date before.

He’d held lights for her as she Polaroided the entire clinic office, and the door, the door frame, and lock. She’d spent considerable time using extreme light angles to locate major latent areas. It amused Wade the way she softly talked to herself as she worked. She’d “dusted,” “taped,” “fumed,” or “snapped” anything of interest. Wade was particularly impressed by her ability to raise prints on the manila file folders and the squashed door knob.

He didn’t tell her about the beer cap.

Lydia lived in an apartment complex just out of town. She seemed played out, pleasantly bequieted as Wade drove on. The breeze through the open t top played with her hair.

This night of contradictions was still flourishing. Wade grew jittery as they approached the apartments. He wondered what she thought of him, really. She seemed to like him, she seemed comfortable around him, she seemed to… That was the problem. There was too much about her that seemed. She was indecipherable. He wondered if he’d even get a good night kiss.

That idea dizzied him. Just a kiss, just one…

“I’ll make it up to you,” she said. She sort of laughed. “Being dragged to a crime scene probably isn’t what you had in mind for a date.”

“Oh, it was…interesting,” he said.

“What I mean is I’d like to see you again.”

Wade almost lost the wheel. “You would? I mean, great.”

“I liked talking to you. I’m sorry I misjudged you. And I really liked the Old Nick.” She pointed. “Here’s my building.”

Wade parked. She was smiling when they got out. Crickets chirruped, and tall bushy pine trees stood by the