Sex and Murder Magazine

By Lena Judith Drake

Dying's an orgasm.

It's the same loss of control, mindless whimpering and pleading, a quick grunt-cry of a noise; they open up to him, lose themselves. It's real poetic. They don't notice how ludicrous they look.

Cody'll hold the gun to a head, and it'll make faces at him, sounds hitting his ears, streams of babble, tears of eyes, snot of nostrils, and he's the one in control. Stoic in front of the show.

But this one's different. No pleading for family, wife and kids, just this This guy's alone, and he knows it.

Cody's fingers twitch on the trigger for a second, instead of pulling, and he considers carefully.

Maybe there could be an exception just this once.

*****

His jacket pockets are weighted down with Pathetic Boy's life. Cash and grimy change from the drawers, a couple of gift cards with the receipts wrapped around them, a thumbnail bottle of tequila, a shirt from the guy's hamper.

The barrel presses a branding mark into-- uh, Aaron McCalpin's-- temple, but Cody jerks it away.

“You're coming with me.” Cody says.

“W-what the hell do you--?”

“You're coming with me.” Cody strikes him with the gun on the back of the head, but all McCalpin lets out is a repressed exhale, “Or should I kill you?”

“No,” Aaron McCalpin says, “No.”

“Show me some gratitude, then.” 'm making you not alone.

*****

Cody still gets his father's absentee ballots in the mail. Even the dead get suffrage.

When Cody was five, he'd never seen a dead body in person. When he was thirteen, when his father died, he'd still never seen a dead body in person. He stayed in the lobby of the funeral home, didn't go to look or touch or give a kiss on the cheek.

When he was fifteen he hadn't. When he was twenty he hadn't.

When he was thirty he made his own personal corpse with its brains spilled out. It was with his dad's old gun, still licensed because nobody ever notices.

*****

So, sure, Aaron's not weeping like a baby dumped on some stairs, but he is being pretty damn broody. His eyes jab at Cody from the corner, every time he walks by. It's perverse. Cody should do something about it.

Cody's got Aaron's wrists duct taped together, around his ankles over his jeans, too. Not even on bare hair and skin. The basement floor here is carpeted; it's not like it's uncomfortable. So why the knife eyes, Aaron?

If Aaron died, he would still be alone-- the fucker shouldfeel grateful. Everyone dead is alone. The dead rot into each other and become one flesh and one body, but that doesn't make them together, that makes them defiled. The bones don't blend, they don't meet melt molt their bone skins and become each other. The souls go in pieces in jelly jars. The souls stay separate. They can never leave.

Aaron can never leave.

Every time Aaron tries to yell, Cody juts out a foot and gets him in the stomach, so he's folded over himself like a piece of paper. Too much groaning? The bottom of the shoe to the face, so red rubber-prints overlap Aaron's mouth, dirt clumps on his lips and teeth.

His lips and teeth.








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