Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28266772-20170322170153

''This has been in the work for a long time now. Most of my stories take a few months to get to the third draft which is normally when I feel confident enough to post them. Any advice would be appreciated. I'm at the stage where I've spent so long on this it's like the words have lost all meaning.''

-

Aaron stopped just short of the doorway to his house. As a young man he’d never felt like he could understand his father but now, guiltily stowing away the image of some boy—half his age—bent over the front of his car, he wondered if this was how his old man felt. His father always fucked the secretary and he’d come home and smile and kiss Aaron’s mother without much hesitation. Aaron wondered if he was ever as expertly calm and committed to the lie as his father was. He wondered if the old man had stopped each day, just short of the front door, and collected himself like Aaron did now.

“Hello darling!” he cried as he entered his home.

There was silence.

Aaron didn’t even bother repeating himself. He huffed and then walked through the living room and out to the back door. The dog was gone; it was clear Darren wasn’t out getting groceries. Aaron took off his sunglasses and began to pull off his gloves as he looked around for signs of some note. Darren had shot people dead but he was still, at times, a shockingly strong analogue to Aaron’s petulant and pithy mother. She too had spent much of her own marriage making declarations.

“Never again,” she’d scream while clutching some groggy pair of underwear she’d found in the car. “You’ll never see me again Lenny Millbrock, and you’ll be sorry for it!”

For a moment Aaron considered the fridge as he looked for Darren’s own proclamation but it was not there either. That worried him a little but he couldn’t get too upset. It was important that Darren be allowed to play out his extended game of upset and fury, though. Clearly he wanted Aaron to worry about him, hence why there was no note, so Aaron had to worry. Sitting down on his sofa and removing his boots Aaron chuckled a little before considering which infidelity it was that Darren was upset over, and which particular friend had decided to let it all out.

-

“Keith! Keith!,” The manager screamed at the top of his voice, oblivious to the woman less than a foot behind him. He jumped as he turned and caught a glimpse of the woman who’d been evidently put-off by his shouting. “Oh shit! Sorry ma’am!” he added.

Keith emerged out of the breakroom just in time to see a woman with hair like a shock-victim walking away in disgust from his manager; she wore a sequined orange top that caught Keith’s eye but he quickly focused on the short pudgy man smiling apologetically at her back. He wore suspenders and a hat with “Chimmy’s Chums!” printed in bold white letters across the cap. He looked a little concerned as he turned back to Keith and muttered,

“Didn’t know there were still customers in this place.”

Keith shrugged.

“Look,” the manager stopped to quickly do one final scan of his surroundings, “there’s a code brown in the ball pit. Best time to clean that up is now, just after we close.” Keith let out a groan which may or may not have been audible from within his mascot outfit. “You’re the best guy for the job,” the manager noted nervously.

Keith had time to keep, but he decided to just nod before gesturing back to the break room with a fuzzy paw. “Of course!” The manager cried. “Feel free to get changed. Wouldn’t wanna get the Biddly Bear outfit messy! We uh… we only have the one.”

Keith turned and re-entered the breakroom. It was offset by a single flickering bulb that was the loneliest spotlight on the saddest stage in the whole world. He began to slowly clamber out of the crusty and unpleasant costume. He kept the head for last and left it on as he stared at himself in a nearby mirror. His underwear was yellowed to a point where he wondered if they’d ever been white, and he wore thick woollen socks had stiffened from weeks spent sweating in a hot place in a hot part of a hot desert. And of course there was that sad little grey vest.

He found it tossed aside three years ago and fell in love with it, though it was a good two sizes too big. The musky smell it gave off heartened him each day. He gently pressed his hands against the greasy, thickening, fabric of the vest and felt the damp of a day’s work pressed into the space between the threads. He smiled and began to slowly lift the base of the vest up. He felt, although he couldn’t see, a few feint hairs running up to his naval. He traced the path out slowly, up to his bellybutton, and then back down to—

“Keith,” the manager muttered, staring through the mirror at the unusually tall and gaunt Keith who still wore the twisted, grotty, cartoon bear’s likeness upon his head. The manager fumbled as those blue eyes glared back at him in the reflection. “I’d appreciate it if you could…”

Keith turned around and revealed an enormous erection pressed against the ‘y’ of his y-fronts. With a deep, audible, inhale he nodded slowly from behind the bear mask, whose innocent stare held the manager in a trance. Keith answered in a terrible quiver,

<p class="MsoNormal">“I’m on it.”

<p class="MsoNormal">-

<p class="MsoNormal">“So he’s not in the state?” Aaron asked.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Don’t… just don’t…” Craig replied. “Look, Aaron, he’s really upset. And I don’t make it my place to meddle—” Aaron let out an audible snort and there was a momentary pause from Craig whose silence radiated contempt. “That man loves you!” he cried suddenly. “One day he just won’t come back.”

<p class="MsoNormal">Aaron laughed.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Craig I do a lot for that man, he may look like some precious saint from the outside-in but he is no such thing.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“He ain’t fuckin’ twinks behind billboards on the damn highway!” Craig screeched.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Ah,” Aaron stuttered. “Now, let’s not… what happ…” Aaron fumbled for a few more words before finally sighing. With a hint of fatalism he added, “He’ll forgive me, this time.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“No shit,” Craig affirmed dryly before repeating, “this time.” Aaron stood by the phone while looking out at the empty doghouse and let the silence continue. He knew his actions were indefensible. “Anyways,” Craig added coquettishly. “Will Daytona be coming out tonight?”

<p class="MsoNormal">Aaron smiled.

<p class="MsoNormal">-

<p class="MsoNormal">Daytona Wilds was a skag-queen. She’d first been told what she was during a moment of quiet in a nearby gay-bar just after she’d moved to the city over a decade ago. A good friend of hers—the much, much, older Sally Lenore—sat her down and patiently explained the ins and outs of a culture she was new to. She wasn’t entirely sure what it meant and was a little disappointed to see pictures of hairy men in dresses when she’d asked for examples. Hours before, while leaving the house for the first ever time she’d stopped and admired her legs in the fish-net stockings and genuinely thought that she looked better than anyone else ever had.

<p class="MsoNormal">Sally had laughed, when hearing of this insecurity, and said,

<p class="MsoNormal">“But darling, you do look good.” And yet the sentiment was lost on Daytona who rubbed her hand against her chin and felt the unmistakeable growth of hair she’d missed during the shave. She looked over to Sally and saw the fat, mole riddled witch’s chin of an old effeminate man clad in a giant purple wig. Sally’s sagging liver-spotted tits were depressingly natural. Daytona didn’t want to be one of those drag queens. She’d caught glimpses of tittering hairless angels running through the club hither and thither in high heels and thought she looked a little bit like them. She was a fool to think that was true. Daytona towered over the dance floor in her heels and clambered around haphazardly using Sally like a crutch.

<p class="MsoNormal">She didn’t want to make Sally feel bad though and smiled while saying,

<p class="MsoNormal">“Thank you.” And then she wondered if hobbling around with Sally on her arm all night had marked her out as an oldie in a place filled with young men who were all—and as a policeman Daytona was sure of this—underage. Dwelling on this she felt only more pathetic. At this stage Darren emerged from the club howling in laughter with Craig. Darren, pausing from his revelry with Craig, quickly noticed his husband sulking on the nearby curb and walked over to greet the newly baptised Daytona with a hug and a kiss. He silently reshuffled Daytona’s wig and told him the taxi was on the way.

<p class="MsoNormal">The ride home was bittersweet. No matter how much Darren told Daytona he was proud of her, Daytona only felt a sense of failure. But, then again, Daytona would one day look back on the entire night as a moment of pride. She’d served in the military but had never really felt brave until that night, and her and Darren shared a moment in the taxi home that was intimate and romantic and the sort of memory Aaron held onto each time he tried to resist temptation in the coming years.

<p class="MsoNormal">In the six years since Daytona had become something of a seasoned veteran, and in the process she’d learned a bit more about herself. She’d become a little more comfortable with the label skag queen and even kept her moustache though she’d taken to trimming it into a thin pencil-line. She could lip-sync, a little, and would occasionally get up on the stage to do so. But for the most part she enjoyed just sitting in the crowd, surrounded by people like her, and watching others fail or succeed in front of the most vicious crowd of hecklers the world had ever known.

<p class="MsoNormal">No, Daytona Wilds would never titter along the dance floor like some sort of forest nymph. She would never be able to storm onto stage and flaunt a confident energy, or a sharp wit, but she could still sit by Sally—who played the piano for the bar—and pass judgement amongst friends.

<p class="MsoNormal">-

<p class="MsoNormal">Sublime Terra was something of a travelling act. People spoke of her in a way that had her up there with the legends like Divine but no one really knew what it was she did. How she was supposed to be a ‘travelling act’ Daytona simply did not know, given that she did not travel, but she was reticent to voice any doubt given the glee in all of her friend’s eyes.

<p class="MsoNormal">“She’s literally the funniest bitch I have ever seen!” cried Invicta, one of Craig’s friends.

<p class="MsoNormal">“And oh my God the impression she did of…” gasped Craig with a hand to his chest. “Do you remember…?” he sputtered while laughing hysterically, “Do you remember…?” he tried to say it once more but could only mime the rough outline of a big hat on his head.

<p class="MsoNormal">“That fucking hat!” cried Invicta in a squawkish revelation. And then both her and Craig screamed with laughter. Daytona was most certainly used to loud and high pitched noises in Putin It Away but even she felt a little put off by the noises coming from her friends.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Ladies please,” she said, with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “You’ve got to explain.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Oh no!” Craig declared. “No no no no! You’ve got to see her for yourself. You can’t get that kind of humour second-hand.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Then why are you giving it to me?” Daytona bit. Craig’s smile drifted,

<p class="MsoNormal">“I know you don’t like ‘in-jokes’ but you’ve got to lighten up a little.”

<p class="MsoNormal">Daytona grimaced and looked up at Invicta who was already looking elsewhere for company.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Invicta, darling,” Daytona cried causing her to turn around with a fake smile. “Invicta darling,” Daytona continued, “please don’t go. You’ve got to tell me how you managed to book Sublime.” Invicta’s head tilted, aware she was being a somewhat patronised, but she took the bait anyway.

<p class="MsoNormal">Invicta prattled on and Daytona struggled to look interested. She had a terrible reputation as a stick-in-the-mud; she didn’t want it to overtake this particular night so she endured Invicta’s endless list of friends of friends of friends of partners of exes of friends and so on until, finally, Craig appeared with some drinks in hand. Sally too ushered herself in from some distant corner with a sombre look upon her face. Daytona would have asked after her but she had no time. Sublime had suddenly appeared on stage.

<p class="MsoNormal">Aaron could offer no exact estimate, but in heels Sublime was easily over seven feet in height. She was like a rake. As she made a gentle sweeping arc with her arm, revealing hands bigger than most men’s heads, Daytona saw the tendons in the elbows, knees and wrists of this daunting creature visibly strain like cables on a forklift. She was a giant and Daytona tried to find some sign of stilts but in a split dress it was easy to see Sublime’s long equine legs. She was large, but not bulky; thin and gaunt, but far from fragile. She had thin lips smeared awkwardly with orange lipstick that matched her ill-fitting sequined dress. And her piercing green eyes were sunk in a deep red-black mess of clumpy mascara and eyeliner.

<p class="MsoNormal">She never smiled.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Spinach is a bit like anal sex,” she said in a baritone rumble. Her voice was so low it ceased to be a single continuous sound, but was instead sounded like the clicks of an echolocator. The kind of voice reserved for heavy smoking men with severe throat infections. “The more you have it as a child, the less you’ll like it as an adult.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“I’m kidding,” she rumbled onwards. “I’ve never eaten spinach.”

<p class="MsoNormal">More laughter, and Daytona let out a chuckle mostly due to sympathy with the crowd.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Is Sally here?” Sublime groaned, turning her eyes to the corner where the three friends were sat. Sally smiled in a way that Daytona recognised as uncomfortable.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Hello Sublime,” Sally smiled.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Oh my,” Sublime replied. “Everyone give a cheer for Sally. She’s a veteran of more than a few wars. She knew Divine back in the day. I heard rumours you were a stunt double, isn’t that right Sally?”

<p class="MsoNormal">Sally smiled, already aware of the coming joke.

<p class="MsoNormal">“You know that scene? Everyone knows that scene,” Sublime continued. “Where Divine eats the dog shit. What you may not know is that Sally was a stunt double for that scene. Oh yes,” Sublimed growled as a gentle anticipatory chuckle rumbled through the crowd. “She was the dog.”

<p class="MsoNormal">The entire crowd burst into hysterics and even Daytona suppressed a smile while looking guiltily towards the subdued Sally. The poor old queen continued to sit and take abuse for a few minutes before Sublime moved onto other parts of her set. Within half an hour there wasn’t a soul in the entire club who wasn’t clutching their stomach in hysterics, barely able to move or breathe as Sublime rattled off hilarious one liners with the smooth confidence of a professional seductress.

<p class="MsoNormal">No one would ever remember what they did, or didn’t do, that night in the company of Sublime Terra. Most people would hold onto it as a night of elation and euphoria; remembering only half glimpsed jokes and queer moments of ecstasy. Daytona, however, woke up the following morning riddled with anxiety. Over and over again she saw only a brief repeating moment; it was a second of eye contact with Sally who rocked back and forth over her piano laughing with lipstick smeared over her face, tears streaming down her cheeks, and blood flowing freely from her nose.

<p class="MsoNormal">-

<p class="MsoNormal">“No one’ll wear it now,” Keith heard them whisper. “If it was bad before it’s going to be ten times worse since he wore it.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“I know, right?”

<p class="MsoNormal">“I heard he jacks off in it.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“With the little kids right by?”

<p class="MsoNormal">“God,” one of the voices guffawed. “I bet.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“That’s bullshit, Gav would never let someone like that work here.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Gav,” the other voice whispered. “Doesn’t have a choice. He’s terrified of the guy, we all are, and no one even knows who hired him!” From somewhere in the corner someone laughed.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I bet his mascot isn’t even official. The little creep just showed up one day and hung around the kids long enough until we all thought he was meant to work here.”

<p class="MsoNormal">Keith stared down at the gaudy golden ring he held in his hands. He didn’t like it so he turned to his side, to the right of the toilet on which he was sat, and placed the ring alongside the discarded fingers of Sally’s right hand. He looked over them for a moment before picking up a severed pinkie, the nail painted bright purple to match Sally’s wig, and tearing away the remaining ring.

<p class="MsoNormal">He liked this one so he put it with a different collection to his left. Keith was shocked that Sally had composed her outfit with an array of, otherwise, tasteful and beautiful jewellery. He suspected they’d been inherited from an old beard, or possibly a mother, for on their own, or even in a controlled combination, the jewellery was clearly expensive and quite tasteful. It took effort to mismatch the numerous trinkets the way that Sally did and Keith had a modicum of respect for this work-ethic.

<p class="MsoNormal">   Thinking about this Keith ran his tongue between his upper lip and teeth and caught the remnants of an old toenail which he removed quietly; it too was painted purple on one side, but on the other was a pallid yellow with splotches of dried-blood-brown. He smiled; he’d underestimated Sally. She worked hard to look exactly the way she wanted, and she’d put up a surprising fight the night before. He held the fleck of toenail between his thumb and forefinger for just a second longer before dropping it to the floor and turning his attention back to the voices outside.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I feel kinda bad for him,” a young girlish voice said, prompting Keith to grimace and flush with anger.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Don’t,” another sniped. “He may look a wounded gazelle but the boy’s a nasty piece of work.”

<p class="MsoNormal">Keith smiled and continued listening as he mindlessly thumbed through the rest of Sally’s belongings. “I saw him reduce Gav to tears once. He went in and I heard shouting and Gav ran out in hysterics.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Good God,” a voice replied. “Gav’s a bastard! Who could make him cry?”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Keith,” Gav muttered having clearly having just entering the room. “Keith’s not some bullied geek, leave him alone and he’ll leave you alone. You can ask him to clean up shit, vomit, semen, snot, bile… he’ll do all those gross jobs. In fact, I think he likes to do them. But other than that, just back off and give him a wide berth. He’s been here longer than any of us, longer even than the company that runs the place.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Wasn’t it opened in the forties!?” A young woman asked.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Fuck knows,” Gav said, possibly shrugging. “No one knows. Just… Keith’s been getting more attention than he deserves lately. Leave him be.”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Thank you Boss,” Keith purred, emerging from the cubicle. There were about five young men and women, in various stages of undress, glaring at him. In the centre was the fat, poorly moustached, face of Gav the manager (whose real name, Keith knew, was Charlotte). At least one of the young men who’d worked at the restaurant for a few years instantly grabbed his backpack and silently walked straight out of the changing rooms, trousers still flapping behind him on one leg. Keith was flattered. He towered over those that remained and caught sight of a young, fresh faced, blonde girl. “Hello,” he said with a smile as his eyes made contact. “You are…?”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Beth,” she said nervously looking to a nearby friend for support, but whoever that girl was she was dressing with a furious speed and almost ready to leave.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Don’t look to her Beth,” Keith gently growled.

<p class="MsoNormal">“You’re…” Beth stuttered. “You’re uh…”

<p class="MsoNormal">“I’m naked,” Keith finished her sentence before looking over to Gav who was sweating and trying not to look at the foot long cock that swung haphazardly, slapping either thigh. “Gav’s a fan,” he gestured towards the manager and smiled. “I have to use duct tape or else it distracts him. He’s prone to staring, have you seen him staring at you, Beth? Gav stares… a lot. He’s caught between worlds and no one really knows. He craves cock and pussy but not quite in the same way. God…” Keith strained the last word through an extended lower jaw, hissing it like an over-stated whisper, “what Gav would do for a cock like mine, or any cock for that matter.”

<p class="MsoNormal">Beth stuttered wordlessly and shook her head noticing all too late that the room had grown lighter by at least three people. It was only with the fiercest of courage that Gav managed to step in front of Keith preventing the sleek man from closing the distance any further. Keith stopped though he refused to break eye contact with the young girl who was now shaking.

<p class="MsoNormal">“beth,” Keith said. “I have guests on the way, a most handsome man, a policeman, a good man. I could use a feminine eye, I’d like you to say which colour you prefer.” The gaunt naked man snapped his hand forward and gripped the throat of Gav with a fierce strength that lifted him off the floor. The few people left in the changing room tried desperately to grab onto Keith and pull him off but there was no luck; nothing they did slowed the giant as he walked effortlessly forward with the manager held off the ground by six inches, parting the people like Moses parted the sea. When he was in front of the young girl he took his other hand and slid two of his ungainly fingers down Gav’s throat.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Purple,” Keith purred as he removed a severed finger with a long plastic nail painted lilac from the fleshy gullet of Gav’s open mouth “Or teal?” he added as he did the same once more with a digit painted an elegant blue-green. He then dropped Gav and let the fat man gasp furiously as the others tried to help him. “Darling,” he said running the cold flesh of the severed finger along Annie’s exposed collarbone. “I need an answer. My guest will be here soon.”

<p class="MsoNormal">-

<p class="MsoNormal">Aaron had been driving back from the desert, having been out on patrol, and towards the city’s suburbs when he spotted the strangest thing. It was a low-hanging nothingness in the skyline of the city. It blinkered for a moment, straining alive with some two-word phrase, but quickly died and became a pitch-black curiosity on a skyline dominated by glaring light. Aaron had faint memories of a children’s restaurant somewhere in the area. It must turn its lights off every night, Aaron thought, but he still couldn’t help but feel drawn to it. There was something grotesque about the absence. It was a totalitarian nothingness, the kind he’d never noticed before. It was inconceivable that it was a part of the ordinary skyline. It looked like the city had been shot.

<p class="MsoNormal">He thought it must be some kind of power outage so he drove towards it, slowly, hoping to get a sense of the situation. In truth though, Aaron just wanted to avoid going home. Every time he shut his eyes he saw the over-sized teeth of Sublime Terra glinting from his bathroom mirror, or waiting outside his kitchen window, or hiding beneath his bed. He was legitimately afraid. Sublime Terra incited something primitive in him and he was so desperate to avoid an empty house he drove out of his way towards the black spot in the hope that a blackout might delay going home for even just an hour. It was as he approached the street and saw that only one building was without light that he started to question whether there was any blackout at all.

<p class="MsoNormal">He kept going towards the empty lot and suddenly found his eyes caught by a flurry of movement. Out of nowhere a naked girl, weeping profusely with thick black lines of mascara cutting vertical lines down her cheeks like a jester, sprinted towards his car. She seemed oblivious to the fact that she streaked nude across the tarmac. Rather, Aaron distinctly recognised the fear in her eyes and the purple wig of Sally’s that she clutched in one hand.

<p class="MsoNormal">-

<p class="MsoNormal">As Aaron carefully entered the family restaurant his eyes were caught by the momentary orbit of a bright luminescent purple star projected onto the walls. It preceded an explosion of sound and colour as the whole restaurant spewed back into life. When the shock faded, he was greeted with the full range of sights, sounds and smells that composed the Chimmy’s Chums experience. To describe the mix-and-match assortment of ball pits, fixed-in-place rides that rocked away, weathered arcade machines that endlessly taunted, and wide-eyed animatronics, as unsettling was something of an understatement. Melodic tunes with no more than five or six bars repeated in a painful overlap as their notes and harmonies clashed like some demented choir.

<p class="MsoNormal">“It wreaks of shit in here,” he muttered to himself.

<p class="MsoNormal">He had, quite quickly, made the necessary calls after finding and helping the girl. After being forced to sit and listen to her wretched tales of the hostage situation, which he relayed to his superiors, there wasn’t a man in uniform desperate to make a show of force. And yet, Aaron had chosen to go ahead without waiting for that backup. His decision had been affirmed when, striding forward towards the restaurant, the young girl had mewed,

<p class="MsoNormal">“He’s waiting for you.”

<p class="MsoNormal">Now he was inside his eyes drifted towards the large double doors, made of studded metal and sign-posted ‘Staff Only!’. It drew the eye. Naturally, it seemed like a home for Sublime.

<p class="MsoNormal">He found Gav inside, though he didn’t know the man’s name. He recognised the clothes of a low-level manager though. The short squat and sad individual was curled into a foetal position in the middle of a tiled room that was coated in blood and other things. Aaron noted the bright red suspenders that hugged the fat man’s shoulders as he knelt down and placed a hand on the man’s back. The fat man shuddered and Aaron stumbled backwards. There was a muted screaming, a gagged screech, as the man twisted around and scrambled at his throat. Aaron watched as the chubby manager desperately motioned towards his neck, anxiously trying to do something with it, though Aaron didn’t know what that was.

<p class="MsoNormal">Just as Aaron thought that the man must be choking a hairless forearm punched upwards from his mouth, stretching the lips to a tear. It was an immediately unfamiliar and distressing arrangement of body parts that left Aaron stunned. Somehow, from within, the arm had emerged and in doing so forced the manager to stare upwards at the ceiling as though it held his neck rigid like a rod. But it did not stop the manager’s struggle. His muffled and desperate pleas for help became only more frantic as he tried everything in his power to undo what was happening.

<p class="MsoNormal">This included grabbing the hand and trying to force it back down his throat. For a second his eyes locked onto Aaron’s, and the policeman almost stepped forward to help. But then the struggle suddenly stopped and the manager stood still, apparently aware of some internal motion that Aaron was not. In this second Aaron looked at the torn skin of the manager’s cheeks and imagined just how horrific the pain was when suddenly there was another wet punch, and a second hand emerged from below the manager’s waist tearing past the fabric of his trousers.

<p class="MsoNormal">Somewhere, from within, Aaron heard laughter. Now the fat man’s screams were hysterical, despite the blocked passageway of his throat. There was a limit to what the body could take and he was running around frantically trying anything he could to stop it while the two arms flailed around snatching fruitlessly at the air. The lights flickered and there were two more wet slumps. When the light returned and Aaron’s senses readjusted there were two more arms—another from below the waist, facing forward and near the groin, and one from the manager’s bellybutton and streaked in blood—making for four in total. They were large square palmed hands and the forearms were long enough to be immediately recognisable. Aaron could not understand what he was seeing but he was horrified to thin that somehow, throughout it all, the manager was still alive.

<p class="MsoNormal">But something had changed, some balance of power, and now the hands pushed down towards the ground where they relieved the chubby man of the need to stand up. Instead they supported him like legs. The light flickered once more and when it came back on Aaron saw enough to see the scuttling shape of the manager’s body scrambling away like an insect. Aaron also swore that one of the four hands was clutching a matted bear suit.

<p class="MsoNormal">He un-holstered his gun and followed, operating entirely on an instinctual desire to kill whatever it was he’d just seen. When he left the changing room he found himself faced with a door that was still swinging from the violent motion of whatever had just passed through it. Aaron was a little distressed to see greasy yellow hand-prints sprawled up the side of the walls and ceiling, though at least it helped face up to the reality of what he was experiencing.

<p class="MsoNormal">Outside the hallway, through the doors, it was as bad as Aaron expected. Everything was still alive, the sound was deafening and the bright oranges that streaked the ceiling, and pallid yellow floor tiles alternating with a fleshy blue, blinded him to any singular motion or shape. Aaron’s eyes desperately tracked around the room, searching frantically for some sign of the monstrosity he chased but there were only flecked plastics and dancing lights. Carefully, Aaron walked forward.

<p class="MsoNormal">He paced carefully passed a ball-pit, shining his light over the shapes to see if he might spot one of those grotesque hands waiting for him. He suspected it was a good place to ambush someone, but no matter how hard he looked he couldn’t see anything but the hollow balls that children played with, and he grew concerned that he was falling into a trap and exposing his back. Aaron whipped around trying to see if anything had moved in behind him but there was only the cacophony of the restaurant’s machines.

<p class="MsoNormal">Aaron trusted his instinct and allowed his eyes to wander. He was confident that everything Sublime did drew the eye, whether she wanted to or not. In this instance, Aaron found his attention drawn to the ridiculous animatronics on a raised dais. They shuddered in the centre of a stage surrounded by a semi-circular arrangement of tables and chairs; it was the scene of an abandoned birthday party. Balloons, glowing spotlights behind them, aimlessly floated through the still air like detritus in a fish tank, and Aaron was forced to brush a few aside as he slowly made his way to the central dais. There the strange hollow machines continued to dance in jerky and repetitive motions.

<p class="MsoNormal">Except for one.

<p class="MsoNormal">The blue bear. It moved fluently. More than any of the others it seemed to actually dance. Aaron approached it. His heightened nerves caused his hand to shiver as he drew the firearm closer to eye level but before he was anywhere near ready something gripped his ankle.

<p class="MsoNormal">There, below one of the cheap plastic tables with cake crumbs still strewn across the colourful top he saw the shadowed and terrifying form dwelling in a shadow. Emerging from the dark was a single pale forearm with a hand as large as his head digging its fingers into his ankles. Aaron screamed and struck downwards with the butt of his pistol. The hard edge of steel drew blood and the hand withdrew.

<p class="MsoNormal">Suddenly the shape bucked and threw the table aside revealing itself fully. More arms had torn their way from various holes in the manage—whose eyes now darted with a sad weary fatigue as though he’d accepted his suffering—and raised the central mass up high. Slowly it crawled backwards until it reached the wall behind it. There, against a vertical surface, the spider began to ascend and something finally snapped in Aaron and he fired.

<p class="MsoNormal">It was loud. The shots lit up the room in a series of staccato roars and the spider recoiled. The knot of horrific twisted arms let go of the wall and it collapsed to the floor. Despite his ringing ears, and the endless music around him, Aaron swore he could hear more fleshy thumps as the arms, one by one, withdrew back into the fat man’s body. Maybe it was wrong but some part of Aaron felt good when he saw a change in the chubby man’s eyes. There seemed to be an end to the strain and the tension. He was dead now, as it should be. But the idea he had ever been alive to experience such a nightmare upset Aaron. He could feel his stomach knot as he began to imagine what that must have been like.

<p class="MsoNormal">He shut this out and turned. Something was straining inside Aaron’s mind and he needed to leave but another thing pulled at him internally. By this stage Aaron was in shock. There was no denying it to himself. He needed to go but when he saw it he could not deny it.

<p class="MsoNormal">The blue bear had stopped dancing. It was watching him.

<p class="MsoNormal">Head tilted.

<p class="MsoNormal">That smile.

<p class="MsoNormal">Slowly the arms raised and slipped the furry mittens to the crease between the head and torso. It pulled at the fabric and revealed the alabaster skin of Keith’s scarecrow form. As the bear disrobed Aaron did not doubt he was staring at Sublime Terra, sans drag.

<p class="MsoNormal">“She was castrated at the age of five,” Keith grumbled as he took a final step out of the blue fur that coiled around his feet. “Before us. Before white. Before brown. Something else; an other race of man,” he hissed in an affected effeminate lisp. Aaron raised his pistol and screamed,

<p class="MsoNormal">“Stop right there!”

<p class="MsoNormal">The sound of his own voice was deafening but Keith seemed unperturbed.

<p class="MsoNormal">“She was a sacrifice. To be one in such a time was to be something of a celebrity,” Keith’s hands moved in a silken manner. He had stopped walking now and stood tall with the bear head still obscuring his face. “They honoured her with wealth and love and drugs and all the things she could ever want. The problem...” Keith said in a slow trail, “was that they forgot to sacrifice her. Tut tut.” He shook his head; a move emphasised by the ridiculous cartoon bear that smiled at Aaron. “She was forgotten. A disaster brought their whole way of life to an end and she was left to rot beneath a building but she didn’t die. Their kind, those ancient angels... Gone now. Worshipped once. But she’s still here. A special kind of power that still rumbles beneath the Earth.”

<p class="MsoNormal">Keith’s emphasis seemed to roll through the very fabric of the building itself. It seemed to distort reality and it pulled at the threads of Aaron’s mind. The figure before him pointed towards the manager’s corpse.

<p class="MsoNormal">“See her power? She occupies all flesh, even yours.”

<p class="MsoNormal">Aaron fired. Keith’s intimidating form crumpled almost immediately.

<p class="MsoNormal">And then Aaron started to choke.

<p class="MsoNormal">-

<p class="MsoNormal">Darren stumbled home. He couldn’t admit it to himself but he felt that this was the last time he’d leave. Approaching forty he finally felt ready to accept what love meant. It was vulnerability. He was broken, and Aaron was too. Nothing he could do would change that he was as bound to Aaron as the moon was to the Earth. He wished Aaron would stop cheating but that wasn’t going to happen. So it was with a bittersweet slant that Darren forgave Aaron on the way home. Still, he felt excited at the thought of seeing him again and this raised his spirits. He’d missed him bitterly.

<p class="MsoNormal">Darren was delayed temporarily when nothing he could do would get Heidi—his cherished Corgi—to leave the car. He left her there, with a window cracked, as he finally gave up and approached the front door. He unlocked it and entered.

<p class="MsoNormal">It took a moment for Darren to process what he was looking at.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Aaron,” he laughed nervously. “What’s going on?”

<p class="MsoNormal">Aaron was squatting on the dining room table, his eyes wide open with a startled terror. Aaron was completely naked and waited, poised, like some kind of big cat. But he didn’t move; Darren couldn’t even perceive the subtlest of shivers. Movement only came when Aaron tensed and began, to Darren’s disgust and horror, to empty his bowels onto the kitchen table. It seemed to coil out like soft-serve ice-cream. Darren went to run forward, desperate to stop the insanity, but when he did Aaron let out a furious almost cat-like roar. The noise was so tense, so on-edge and so strained, that Darren could see the vessels of Aaron’s eyes burst even from the door. He was pushing with such force his nose began to bleed but nothing could stop the endless torrent of now wet and bubbly shit that spattered out like a misfiring car.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Stop,” Darren wept when suddenly the strangest thing happened. Darren had no way to understand it but something started to push outwards from Aaron. There was a final grunt and Aaron prolapsed. Darren gasped, his eyes teary, as he saw his lover’s insides slump into the pile of shit beneath his crouching hairy legs.

<p class="MsoNormal">But it didn’t stop there. More came, and Aaron began to scream in pain. Darren saw the man he loved crumple and empty as though he didn’t have a skeleton. By now the blood and shit was pooling on the floor, creeping towards Darren’s toes, and the occasional organ was pushed off the table to slop onto the ground.

<p class="MsoNormal">And then there was an arm. It emerged from Aaron’s rectum. First one, then another, and as they gripped the table below they pulled until Aaron’s form collapsedwith a sudden sucking noise. What was left was an empty skin and it fell like an autumn leaf onto the misshapen pile beneath it.

<p class="MsoNormal">Slowly, with a poise and finesse reserved only for the darkest of gods, she emerged. Impeccable, and clean, and seven-foot-tall and as familiar as ever with one exception; a single pencil thin moustache stolen straight from the face of Aaron.

<p class="MsoNormal">Darren screamed at the top of his voice and ran backwards as she smiled and flicked her wrist to the right while purring in her low baritone voice,

<p class="MsoNormal">“Sublime.” <ac_metadata title="Sublime - 6500 words"> </ac_metadata>