Saturday, October 5, 2024

Fearsome! Darkest Corners - Preview

 

Late October fog rolled in, heavy and thick, over the wooded reaches of Darkest Corners—but not nearly as heavy and thick as what was about to come pouring out of Tucker Leeds.

Nested between the ancient pines, creaking at the end of a long, dirt road, Tucker’s ‘trailer of sin’ was far out of sight from the rest of the forested community. It was an isolated and lonesome shack, to be sure. Still, compared to the rest of the forested nightscape, Tuck’s bachelor pad—haloed in Christmas lights—was an eerily welcoming and warm oasis. Not that the young man who lived there, he himself the subject of many whispers and sideways glances from the townies, had much company to offer these days.

Fact was, there was just something spooky about Tucker Leeds and that hidden away trailer at the end of the lane.

The world outside Tuck’s trailer was gloomy and mysterious, but inside, the gentle glow of a TV—and even more Christmas lights—illuminated the 23-year-old redneck wunderkind’s realm of the disorganized. On this side of midnight, Tucker was just about ready to settle in for a cozy, late October evening spent with his two favorite pastimes: watching pro wrestling…and jacking off to the former.

Despite the cramped confines of Tucker’s living room (which also doubled as his bedroom) he never failed to lose track of the remote control. “Aw, dang, I better record this shit,” he grumbled to himself, his fat, boxer-tight butt sticking out from beneath the stained and lopsided sofa (which also doubled as his bed). Tucker brushed aside a year’s worth of accumulated dust, power bars, crushed beer cans, and too many condom wrappers to count (and an actual ‘used’ condom to boot). He found the remote, but not before bumping his head on the way out.

“Motherfucker,” he cursed, rubbing his mop of ‘ginger-adjacent’, sandy blonde hair beneath his lucky trucker hat—an embroidered dog pawprint accompanied by the text ‘GOOD BOY’. The statement wasn’t merely words Tucker liked being moaned breathlessly into his ear, but the name of his small, moving company business; what kept the lights on. Barely.  

With remote in one hand, a fresh beer in the other, and a bowl of Halloween candy wedged between his crotch, Tucker spread wide his thick legs and leaned back into the comfort of the couch. He hit the record button his cheap TV set and waited for the magic to happen.

Tucker was just in time to watch the camera zooming onto the arena’s entrance arch, where purple, sparking pyrotechnics announced the arrival of Tucker’s wrestling crush: Ricky Baron, the champ with the belt slung over his wide shoulders. The lean, mean, yoked out stud with the buzz but and purple briefs exploded through the flames. Baron, with all eight of his washboard abs, threw his hands out to the audience with his patented ‘worship me’ pose.

Tucker had no choice but to obey, especially with oiled up Ricky wearing his bulging briefs and thigh-high, laced, black boots—perfect for stepping on nerds. “Fuck yeah,” Tucker moaned, drooling. The candy bowl in his lap shifted forward with the poke of Tuck’s hardon, so he took the hint, unwrapped a candy bar and pushed it between his lips, imagining that it was the meat inside his TV boyfriend’s packed trunks. Halloween was close at hand, but Tucker figured he wasn’t going to get many trick-or-treaters anyway, so no harm opening up the stash now.

Badboy Baron, snug briefs riding up his crack, scowled at the audience and stepped through the ring ropes. He climbed the turnbuckle and held up his belt—his glory—for all the crowd to witness. Ricky Baron roared, a young lion hungry to sink his claws and teeth into his challenger.

Mouth full of corn-syrupy caramel, lovelorn Tucker sighed. “I wanna’ be the belt around your waist, Ricky baby,” he said. The match hadn’t even begun yet, and already Tucker was reaching beneath his candy stash, playing with the the sweet spot beneath his sweets.

 Next on screen came the big, bad contender vying to take Ricky Baron down. With an entrance that was more menacing than flashy and bombastic, the hulking shape in the black leather duster jacket lumbered in on a wave of shadowy mist. With long, wet, jet-black hair dripping down his hairy pecs, the handsome incarnation of death itself opened up his robe to reveal an oiled, hirsute, hard body of muscle wrapped in black trunks and boots. Looking like a cross between the leader of a biker gang and an evil country singer, The Hunter signaled to the audience that he intended to make muscle boy Baron his next trophy.

“And here comes ‘Mr. Bigtime’ himself,” the announcer said in his thick twang, while The Hunter stalked down the aisle towards his target.

Tucker swallowed, out of fear and arousal. “Whew! He’s massive. Look at that beard, too. C’mon, daddy!” This matchup was turning out to be both one for the ages, and one for the tissue box on Tucker’s side table (a milk crate).

Tucker reached over and grabbed the lube that was sitting next to one of the jack-o-lanterns Tucker had carved out in his downtime. Tucker had bestowed the unlucky pumpkin with a dopey, orgasmic ‘gooning’ face.

The two wrestling heels—pretty boy and handsome beast—stared each other down in the center of the ring, faces, bulges, and chests pressed together in quite possibly the most homoerotic display to ever grace Tuck’s TV (that wasn’t actual porn). At the same time, Tucker’s right hand grabbed onto its own ‘opponent’ lurking in Tucker’s underwear. It was shaping up to be a beatdown.

Just as the action kicked off, both on screen and on Tucker’s couch, the tell-tale, instantly recognizable sound of branches breaking underfoot outside ripped Tucker’s attention towards the trailer window. He stopped, slowly pushing his hog back into his boxer briefs, and looked out the window. But the black square of night refused to give up its secrets. Tucker assumed the uncanny noise had come from a raccoon or some other nocturnal animal scurrying about its business.

Then, just as he was about to turn back to his fun, Tucker saw the shadow pass over his window. Whatever had cast it was large, and definitely not shaped like a bear.

The hairs on Tucker’s neck stood on edge. His ears prickled.

A thud from somewhere in the back of the trailer alerted him to the presence of something that most definitely wasn’t a ‘little, forest critter’ skulking outside the trailer.

With his bodily priorities shifting towards ‘survival’, Tucker’s own ‘little critter’ deflated into a sizable, but neutral state in his boxer briefs. Quietly, Tucker picked up the remote and paused the broadcast stream. “Sorry, boys,” he whispered to the men frozen mid-grapple on TV.

I locked the door, right? Was Tucker’s first thought. He waited. He listened. He cast a glance at the 12-gauge racked over of his many vintage slasher movie posters. Tucker hadn’t yet touched his pa’s ‘security’ gift, loaded with rock salt, in some time. He hoped he wouldn’t have to break that streak tonight.

Tucker swallowed, channeling his wrestling crush’s courage by cracking his neck to the side, just like Baron always did before he laid into some jobber. Tucker knew shit-all about hand-to-hand combat, but he did know a thing or two about shootin’…

The cheerful lights wrapped around Tucker’s trailer offered only a small circle of vision outside the window, and the fog that had rolled in diminished visibility further. All Tucker could make out were the dark, gangly shapes of the forest trees, swaying eerily in the Autumn breeze.

Tucker whistled to himself, satisfied that his nerves had spooked him, and nothing more. “Guess it ain’t nothin’ but jump scare weather out there tonight, huh, Tuck?”

The creature lunged at the trailer window, filling it with its ghoulish visage—that of a sickly tinted cross-breed of a horned goat and horse’s head, elongated and full of teeth. The hideous beast pressed its terrible claws to the glass and opened its mouth, licking the window with its serpentine, black tongue and extending its leathery, black wings towards the abyssal sky.

Tucker frowned. “Oh, it’s just you.” With an eye roll and an irritated snort, Tucker unlatched the window and opened it up, letting in the fresh, pine-scented air. “Damn it, JD,” he sighed. He looked at the trail of drool running down the glass. “I just cleaned that!”

The voice that came out of the demon’s mouth sounded more suited to a face behind the counter of a deli or gym desk in Hackensack, rather than a denizen of hell. “What’s doin’, little ‘cuz!”

The monstrous entity held up a dainty, white box tied with red and white string—dwarfed by JD’s sharp claws. “I just flew in—can’t see shit out there tonight with the damn fog. But I picked you up a little somethin’ somethin’ from Vitello’s on the way over. I know, I know, I’m your favorite devil in the whole damn world.”

“You’re also my only devil.” If there was one thing Tucker’s best friend, human or otherwise, was always going to bring to the trailer, it was food. Being ‘raised right’ Tucker graciously accepted it. “Well, bless your black heart,” he said genuinely, sticking his neck out the window to survey the balmy night air and the impenetrable fog. “Hmm. Soupier than an Irish out-house out there tonight, huh, big fella’?”

The demon shook its goat-like head in agreement. “Clammier than chowda’, brother. To be real with you, I mostly came by just to use your shower. But…I also wanted to check up and make sure my little ‘cuz was alright. Because…you know what a fog like this usually brings out to these, don’t ya?”

Tucker winced. I just wanted to blast rope and go to bed, not deal with dog-gone Hidden shit. “Trouble,” he groaned. “I reckon you ain’t the only Hidden motherfucker raisin’ hell—literal or otherwise—the next few nights, so close to the ‘All Hallows’ as it were.”

“Best night of the fuckin’ year,” JD said, fist pumping the night air. When he saw that Tucker did not share in his hellish enthusiasm, the Jersey Devil folded his wings taught against his back and cleared his throat. “Well, you know the drill. We may be blood bros, but I can’t just let myself in.”

“Because you’re a demon?”

“No, because I was raised with some fuckin’ mannerswise guy!” The fearsome behemoth scowled, crossing his veiny arms across his hairy chest.

Tucker smirked. Truth be told, he was glad for a little company tonight. “Well, y’aint gonna fit inside lookin’ like that. You’re gonna need to Shift, sugar.”

JD’s glowing, red eyes narrowed, even as his sharp teeth fixed into a grin. “And who’s gonna help with that, you sexy little’ stinker? I need some aether boost if you want me to put on my ol’ monkey suit.”

Tucker rolled his eyes and stuck his face forward. “Okay, but no tongue this time, you hear? Mister?”

The snaky appendage in question slithered around the demon’s lips, jokingly, before he obeyed. “Alright! Pucker up, sweet cheeks.”

Just like when you used to practice on your teddy bear, Tucker reminded himself, squinting and pressing his lips to JD’s muzzle. Thankfully, it was the first part of the beast to ‘turn’, becoming a far more a manageable, pleasurable ‘human’ mouth.

Admittedly, the guido from Gehenna was a pretty damn good kisser. As both summoner and summoned locked lips, the brand on Tucker’s bicep—an abstract, goat-horned sygil in the crude shape of a heart—glowed electric violet, matching the same luminescent tattoo engraved on the demon’s right pectoral.

JD ‘Shifted’ slow, a reverse ‘werewolf transformation’ that saw his gray flesh become ‘tanning salon’ bronze, and his coarse, capric hair replaced by smooth, moisturized skin. Cloven hooves turned into white, gym pumps stuffed with sport socks, and the demon’s uncanny, equine flanks were replaced by a snug, denim fit over a thick pair of legs that seldom skipped their designated gym day.

The leathery, bat wings that had shepherded JD from the East Coast folded in on themselves and flattened against a broad, muscular back. They shrunk and seeped into his flesh and transfigured themselves into very ‘tribal’ inspired tattoos that framed JD’s wide backside from collar to slender waist. A tight, white tank top threaded itself from fibers spun of aether, clothing the Hidden One further.

Tucker took his mouth back, sizing up JD’s transformation from winged hellion to the type of guy who would probably text ‘u up?’ to Tucker at 3 AM. Unfortunately, Tucker loved the look.

Collard with a gold ‘fuckboy’ chain, and topped with a backwards, red baseball cap fitted specially to allow JD’s horns to poke through, the gym rat cryptid rolled his thick neck side to side in adjustment. “That’s better,” he sighed.

Tucker had known JD since his eighteenth birthday, the first time he’d summoned—or rather, inherited—the supernatural stud with the motor-mouth and muscles. Still, Tucker found his heart skipping a beat whenever JD Shifted into ‘hunk mode’. “You dyed your hair,” Tucker said, trying very hard not to make it sound like a compliment.

JD lifted his cap off his horns and ran his hands over his buzzed, bottle-blonde hair. It would have looked terrible on anybody else, but with JD’s copper complexion, muscles, chin strap beard, and ‘wise guy’ persona, it just worked. “Fresh cut. You like?”

“Get inside,” Tucker commanded.

“Sweet!”

Neary tipping the trailer over, JD boosted himself up the window, knocking Tucker over as he pushed himself rather gracelessly inside. JD landed flat onto the floor with an ‘oof!’.

Tucker looked down, getting an eye full of JD’s muscle butt and devilish bulge busting out of his tight jeans. It was only by the grace of magic that JD’s thread didn’t rip off his hard, shapely body.

While JD got his act together, Tucker opened the fridge, ignoring the month-old pizza boxes and Tupperware teaming with new ecosystems. “Can’t you use the front door like a normal person?” Tucker said, stuffing the pastry box into the fridge. Tucker shouldered the fridge shut.

JD stood up, his horns just barely grazing the ceiling. He sniffed, eyeballing the chaotic trailer. “Er…you been good, ‘cuz?”

Tucker, who was not in any way related to JD, shrugged. “Hornier than a rat in a brothel pantry, JD,” he said, glancing at the wrestlers and their glistening muscles on the TV screen.

JD’s otherworldly green eyes (no longer otherworldly red) fell upon the brawny brawlers. “Aw, freakin’ sweet—is the fight on?”

JD shoulder-checked Tucker onto the couch and picked up the remote, taking control of the entertainment. He knocked the bowl aside, scattering bite-sized candy bars over an already dirty carpet. “Ah, and it’s my boy, randy Ricky!” JD winked at Tucker. “He’s a mean one. Scoot your boot, bro, there’s enough room for both of us!”

As if Tucker had a choice. JD’s bulk dominated the couch, squeezing Tucker into the corner. Trapped between sofa and demon, Tucker had little say in the matter. JD unfroze the action, just as The Hunter Irish-whipped Baron into the ropes.

JD played with the gold loop in his ear—which, Tucker was intimately aware, was not his only piercing. Grinning at the action on set, Tucker’s devil was still able to make conversation. “So…how’s your mother? Did you tell her ‘hi’ for me?”

“She says you’re a bad influence,” Tucker mumbled.

“That’s a fuckin’ lie!”

Tucker smirked. It was. On screen, Ricky Baron turned his bounce from the ropes into a deadly drop kick to the Hunter’s hairy, hard gut. “Fair ‘nuff.” Truth was, JD—despite his demonic nature—was a ‘nice boy from up the block’ when it came to charming moms, especially Tucker’s. Which made sense, of course, as JD had been a longtime ‘family friend’ for generations.

Because: while Tucker’s Pa coached Gridiron, Tuck’s mama, on the other hand, was known to be a real witch. Albeit a perfectly charming one. Tucker’s ma, you see, taught a much more obscure ‘sport than her ex-husband’—the occult. While Tucker’s brothers were becoming state football champs, Tucker learned the dark arts from his beloved mother.

Which is why Tucker had moved to Darkest Corners, one of the most active communities of ‘Hidden’ kind, i.e. cryptids, unknown beasts, entities, and so-called ‘fearsome critters’. While JD wasn’t a ‘local’ character, beings just like him made their homes all over the country in ‘thin places’ like Darkest Corners—for better or worse. Hardly foreign or even alien, Hidden were native to the wildernesses and woodlands, but they straddled the planes of existence for both the sake of their own survival, territory, and for sustenance. Hence, their often-invisible nature, and their propensity for inspiring clueless humans across the ages, huddled around campfires, to whisper ‘frightening’ encounters with Hidden kind.

For the Hidden were everywhere and nowhere. From the diminutive and charming, to the monstrous and flat-out bizarre, the Hidden were as diverse and numerous as the stars in the night skies they hunted. Still, a few rare, everyday ‘losers’ like Tucker—blessed with unusual gifts—could not only ‘see’ them but also facilitate their manifestation on the earthly plane, via pacts signed in blood and spirit. Though the nature of the agreement and manner and frequency of ‘summoning’ varied from summoner to summoner, the symbiotic relationship between human and Hidden was precious and rare.

Tonight, Tucker found it mostly annoying. He nudged JD in the ribs. “Scootch your big ass over, I’m smushed here!”

JD reacted to The Hunter slamming Ricky Baron’s vulnerable back into his spine in a vertebrae-crunching backbreaker. “AW YEAH!” JD shouted sadistically. “Pretty boy’s gonna get cracked open like an egg.”

Tucker pushed JD harder this time. “I’m gonna crack you like a damn egg if you don’t give me room.”

JD stiffened his back and turned his head menacingly towards his blood-bonded human. “Oh, yeah?” he said, with a wicked grin, showing off his mostly human teeth—save for his demonic, fang incisors. He took Tucker’s challenge and hooked his massive arms around the smaller man’s neck, pulling Tucker into his body and shoving his poor, pretty face into JD’s hairy, ‘off-tanned’ armpit.

That’s how Tucker learned that JD had not applied deodorant that day. His moans muffled by JD’s pits, and neck buckling under the pressure of a demonic bicep, Tucker squirmed, and his nostrils filled with sweet, infernal musk. “Mmmmff!”

“Talk shit and get put in the pit!” JD laughed. Fortunately, he let go, leaving Tusker gasping and desperately trying to claw ‘demon jock’ stench off his face.

This moment was a perfect encapsulation of their relationship, ever since Tucker’s first summoning had blood-bonded him JD, branding them both with their mutual tattoo. Despite their pact, JD was still technically a demon—a variant of Hidden—who by nature enjoyed torturing, teasing, and making mischief for humanity. Thankfully, JD’s antics were on the less deadly side, more frat boy than infernal. JD, who had grown bored of scaring hunters witless in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey (for fear was but one way certain Hidden ‘fed’) found his arrangement with Tucker and his family a whole lot cushier. For Tucker, he was both bully and protector, somewhere between longtime friend and frequent fuck-buddy. Tucker had grown used to JD offering him a cannolo in one hand, and ‘noogie’ or ‘five-for-flinching’ with the other.

Rubbing phantom pain from his shoulder in remembering the last time JD had playfully decked him, Tucker almost envied the wrestler on screen pounding the canvas, while The Hunter put him in a twisted, tendon-ripping Boston crab. “You gonna’ stay for Halloween, demon-breath? It’s a big ‘feasting’ night for you, right? Scare some trick-or-treaters?”

The hunky demon demurred, shrugging his boulder shoulders, and helping himself to a beer from the cooler next to the sofa. “Just thought I’d swing by to check up on yous,” he said, biting the cap and twisting it off with his teeth. He spat it in Tucker’s face.

Tucker flicked the cap away. He turned his eyes away from the violent action on screen. Ricky’s beautiful face contorted into a rictus of pain as The Hunter attempted to snap his spine off as easily as JD had twisted the cap.

“Something tells me you knew it was gonna’ be a foggy one tonight,” Tucker said, not bothering to mask his suspicion.

Subtext: fog usually heralded the arrival of a new cryptid in town; something about the way displaced aether from tears, or ‘portals’, burned up the atmosphere, creating condensation. Or so Tucker’s ma had told him. Fog brought in the ‘Drifters’, as other Hidden Ones sometimes called them. Usually, they were a harmless breed—‘just passin’ through’.

But not always.

Hidden Ones like JD were territorial breeds on their own home-turf, and so the demonic lunkhead rarely shared the spotlight with others like him. But Darkest Corners was a special place. The town upheld a longstanding ‘truce’, an agreement between Hidden and humankind that stretched as far back as the tribes who still watched over the land. The Darkest Woods were a designated safe haven, a neutral mingling grown where a Nightcrawler could kick up its weary legs and shoot the shit with a Skunk Ape.

But, just like any good ‘roadhouse’, Darkest Corner needed its bouncers to keep away the riff-raff, and this is why partnerships such as JD’s and Tucker’s were paramount. Tucker was certainly not the only ‘gifted’ human in Darkest Corners, but he still had a duty to perform. Typically, Tucker preferred staying as uninvolved as possible. Usually for good reason.

Well, one good reason anyway, as JD was about to rudely remind his buddy. “Well, it’s no big deal,” the demon jock sniffed, deliberately extending his arms, resting them atop the couch to take up even more space. “I’m sure we can leave it to our favorite golden boy to break in the new blood, right?”

Tucker groaned. He knew for whom JD was referring. “Whatever.”

“You see much of him lately?” JD asked, arching a shapely eyebrow. “Or…anybody?”

Tucker answered by gesturing broadly to the trail of potato chip bags and soda cans littering the trailer.

“Sheesh,” JD said, biting his lip. “Not even a little sloppy hookup?”

The dating apps around Darkest Corners offered the slimmest of pickings. They also did not guarantee a late-night Romeo who still had all of his teeth intact.

“I mean, it’s pretty damn obvious you’re not dressing to impress,” JD said, tugging at Tucker’s boxer briefs. “These are cute, but like, where’s the sexy underwear?”

“I didn’t know you were coming,” Tucker shot back, defensively. “It’s not like I’m always wearing a cute, little jockstrap like you.”

JD gesticulated wildly. “Bro, I literally gave you that plump, juicy ass only for you to do nothing with it!?”

As much as Tucker was loathe to admit it, the devil wasn’t exaggerating. As a wide-eyed, fresh-faced lad with a brand new, demon pact, Tucker’s first (and last) magical request from JD was to ‘make him thick as fuck’. Tucker had meant his whole body.

That’s when Tucker learned that devils took advantage of the details. JD ‘twisted’ Tucker’s desire, planting a smooch on Tuck’s butt (now forever marked with an embarrassing ‘kiss’ tattoo in the shape of JD’s lips), making his ass the thickest part about him. Tucker’s ‘wagon’, never failed to snatch the attention of would-be suitors, but it also usually grabbed unwanted stares from everybody else, every time Tucker went out in public.

Tucker had been spending the last few years of his life trying to play catch up, pumping up the rest of his body. The free weights doubling as trip hazard in the center of the trailer walkway were testament to this endless endeavor; Tucker’s attempts to ‘untwink’ himself. Despite a cornfed upbringing, Tucker never managed to follow in the footsteps of his three brothers (all of them burly football players) which is probably why his mama took him under her dark wings instead.

At twenty-three, Tucker had consumed enough protein to give him a somewhat thick build that was more baseball player than Gridiron beefcake, but his six feet, several tattoos, and demonically endowed dumptruck made up for it.

There was nothing doing about the face, however. Tucker unconsciously glanced at himself in the mirror hanging off the bathroom door. “I’ve just had a bit of a dry spell,” Tucker lamented. Far from the grizzled, quad-driving ‘good ol’ boy’ neighbors he’d grown up alongside, Tucker never lost his babyface. With his gauge earrings, a beauty park on his chin, and pair of great, big doe eyes, Tucker had the look of twunk starring in a porno about truck drivers. Incidentally, trucking was not far removed from Tucker’s actual profession.  

While JD acted like a big, dumb guido jock, he was still several hundred years old and keenly observant. He drew an invisible line between the lube tube on Tucker’s nightstand, the tissues, the sweaty men grinding against each other on the TV, and the tent in Tucker’s pants. “Not dry,” he said, “but solo. Hey, ain’t nothing wrong with that. Especially with these two sexy fuckers tearing each up on TV. Hell, I’d touch myself too.”

Tucker took the hint. He watched JD slowly move his hands to the bulge of his jeans and rest it there. Tucker looked up to see JD smiling knowingly at him. “You ‘hungry’, big guy?”

JD responded by slipping his other hand beneath his belt, down to his crotch. “Starving, ‘cuz,” he said. He focused back on TV. “And horny for some violence.”

“Fuck yeah,” Tucker growled in agreement. Given the green light, so-to-speak, he resumed rubbing himself. Though his attention was now squarely focused on the two beefcakes attempting to break each other in the sweaty ring, Tucker leaned in slightly towards his big friend. “This one’s a ‘Death by Piledriver’ match,” he said, pointing out the open casket resting on a platform outside the ring. “You know, for Halloween. The winner becomes the new champ.”

“Oh yeah?” JD said, slowly rubbing his crotch. “What happens to the loser?”

“He goes in the coffin,” Tucker said, nonchalantly.

The demon was aghast. “He dies!?”

Tucker rolled his eyes. “No, JD, it’s staged.” He paused. “At least, I hope it’s staged.”

Ricky Baron probably hoped the same, as—on screen—The vicious Hunter squeezed the sweaty man’s head between his pillar quads in a humiliating position that left the champion with his butt sticking out in front of the camera, and his trunks riding up into his shapely ass.

With matted, tangled hair covering most of the heel’s bearded face, turning him into something not unlike JD’s true form, The Hunter glided his thumb across his neck in a ‘slitting’ motion, signaling Baron’s doom. He grabbed Baron by the waist and inverted him, so that handsome Ricky’s terrified face and desperate shouts of ‘no, God no!’ could be viewed and heard by the horrified crowd.

The Hunter bounced once, playing with his prey, then bounced again, before finally leaping into the air. It would have been an almost beautiful spot of choreography, if not for the brutal outcome that followed. The Hunter brought all 300 pounds of muscle down onto the mat, with Ricky Baron’s head aimed at the canvas.

WHAM!

“OHHHH!” Tucker and JD both reacted at the same time—but, far from horrified, the vicious move on screen only fueled their mutual sadism. JD was the first to glance sideways at the wet spot forming on Tucker’s obvious erection, pushing out his tight boxer briefs so hard that the hem line no longer sat across Tucker’s slim waist.

JD kept his eyes hungrily on screen, watching as a snarling, animalistic Hunter shoved away the ref from checking Ricky Baron’s twitching, unconscious body. The Hunter cupped his claws under Baron’s chin and lifted his drooling, eye-swirling face off the mat. The Hunter propped it up for the camera to zoom in on. The beast pointed to the folks at home—almost directly JD and Tucker—and then at Ricky, whose eyes fluttered. “Behold my dark work,” The Hunter annunciated with every bestial growl.

“Fucking brutal,” JD said, licking his licking his lips, stroking himself with one hand and Tucker with the other.

Tucker’s eyes matched his half-conscious crush’s on screen. They fluttered at the devil’s slow, deliberate touch. “Fuck yeah it is,” Tucker said, with a playful laugh that concealed his sadism-derived arousal. There were different methods of whetting JD’s appetite—and sustaining his ability to manifest/keep form on ‘top side’. While scaring the shit out of unsuspecting humans fed JD well enough, there were more effective methods.

The nice, and most unlikely method was what Tucker’s church-goin’ Pa called simple ‘good works’. That was, helping out folks in need, be they human or Hidden; assisting little, old ladies across the street, or chasing away foul-tempered Hiddens from the holler. JD genuinely enjoyed those. Being born ‘top side’ to old Mother Leeds (Tucker’s ancestor) some hundreds of years ago, JD did not share the malicious nature of his hellish brethren. He could be mean. He could sure as hell be scary. But he was hardly evil.

But he wasn’t exactly ‘pure’ either. The other method of ‘feeding, a guilty pleasure that he and Tucker both shared, was pure ‘sin’. Specifically, it was engaging in deviant, freaky (consensual) sexual activities. For that reason, the beefy demon never turned down a good ol’ bating session with his buddy. In fact, JD and Tucker could hardly keep track of so many long, wasted hours into the night simply putting on a good old-fashioned porno, or a wrestling match, or just ‘gooning’ out with each other; legs wrapped around the other, stroking mindlessly away. These marathon sessions tended to leave Tucker spent, JD full, and both of them satisfied.

“Wait a second,” JD said, while on screen the ref failed to pull The Hunter from putting his opponent in a limp camel clutch. The demon unbuckled his belt and tugged off his jeans.

The cherry red pouch of a jock strap burst out of JD’s jeans like a bat out of hell. Thick, dick root fully visible, JD’s tool rivaled the beer bottle right next to him on the crate. Tipped with a dark, wet, gooey spot, JD’s demonic cock bobbed and pulsed up and down, like its own separate entity.

JD caught Tucker’s hungry eyes attaching to themselves to it. The horned and horny devil smiled and grabbed it, wiggling it up and down. “You like?” He asked. Then, he held up his massive arms and flexed his biceps, grunting as he flexed hard. His cock responded by bouncing up and down.

Tucker’s own cock answered with a spurt of precum so thick that it leaked through his bulge and dripped right onto the dirty carpet. He pushed his face into JD’s pits, willingly this time, and gave them a quick sniff.

“The hats and socks stay on,” JD said. He slid his palms slowly, erotically, down the curves of his pierced pecs, down across the ridges of his abs, and into the valley of his jock strap. “Got it?”

Tucker agreeably adjusted his cap. “Yeah.”

Grinning wickedly, JD pushed his face over towards Tucker, demanding another kiss. “Then give me another wet one, cuz.”  

Tucker laughed with mischief. He willingly obeyed. The playfulness ended when their lips met. The first kiss was soft, but the next one was hungry. Forceful. JD dug his nails into the back of Tucker’s neck and forced him forward. The demon licked and lapped his buddy’s mouth, and Tucker did his best just to keep up, breathing.

Without warning, JD reached into Tucker’s underwear and yanked his uncut, wet, hog out into0 the fresh air. JD stroked it while he forced his tongue inside Tucker’s mouth.

Finally, he pulled away in rapture. JD sighed, nodding to the TV.  “Let’s edge ourselves stupid to this pretty boy getting cracked open.”

Tucker agreed. He didn’t even need lube. He happily stroked his glistening clock, biting his lip as he heard the sound of wet skin rubbing together.

In the ring, The Hunter resumed his violent assault, turning the wrestling match into something more like the horror movies memorialized in poster form on Tucker’s trailer walls. The beast was so brawny that he had no trouble lifting Ricky up by both boot ankles. The champion swayed like a weakening pendulum, back and forth above the mat. A long strand of drool escaped his open mouth, while the commentators and audience members all screamed in terror.

“I dunno’ man,” Tucker said, smiling as he stroked away, “I’m not sure I like seeing Ricky’s neck at that angle.”

“Yeah you do,” JD growled back. “We all know that ‘Good Boy’ stitched onto your hat is just a cover, brother. Let the darkness in,” JD said, as he pulled down his jock to free his beast. It flopped out, rude and veiny, between JD’s huge thighs. The metal on the piercing threaded through JD’s slit glinted light back from the TV screen.

Despite seeing JD’s impressive cock many times before, Tucker couldn’t help but drool at its release. JD caught Tucker’s neck in a gentle headlock, pulling him into his chest and forcing him to take in the unfolding violence.

JD whispered evilly. “Watch your crush get his head popped off like a fucking daisy.”

This time, the Hunter added insult into deadly injury by stuffing his victim’s head into his trunks. JD made a crass remark about it being ‘the last thing Baron would ever get a whiff of’ before The Hunter jumped up and SLAMMED Baron’s skull into the canvas again.

Baron was a good seller. His body buckled backwards, convulsing. His legs played open for Tucker and JD to ogle his bulge and taint.

Despite himself, Tucker felt his cock twitch. He grimaced.

“Look, look!” JD said, tugging on Tucker’s neck to steer his attention back to the TV. “He’s gonna fuckin’ waste him. Don’t blow your load, now.”

While JD started giving his cock long, deep strokes, The Hunter grabbed Ricky Baron by the boot and dragged his useless body towards the ropes. This time, the monster slung the handsome wrestler over his shoulder and climbed the turnbuckle, while security scrambled to the side of the ring and the medical team looked on, all of them knowing this was either going to be a very long night for them…or a very short one.

Seized by an evil fury, The Hunter threw back his long hair and rolled his eyes into his skull, turning them white. “WITNESS IT,” he roared, spraying spittle. He tucked Ricky Baron into his legs again and jumped off the ropes, straight into the open casket.

The coffin collapsed shut, breaking the table, and falling to the cement. Everything was bedlam. The crowd freaked out, and The Hunter sat on the ground, emotionlessly…until Rick’ limp hand dangled from the half-opened coffin lid. A slow smile crossed The Hunter’s lips. While the EMTs rushed to the casket, terrified of what they might see when they opened it, The Hunter snatched the belt from the ref and walked over to the site of his fallen foe.

The evil heel placed his hand on the coffin lid, almost affectionately. Then, like a bouquet of mourning flowers, he laid the belt atop the lid and simply walked away, while the ambulance sirens blared. It hadn’t even been about the belt, or the victory. The Hunter had just wanted to break something beautiful.

Tucker did everything he could to delay his orgasm. “Fuck yeah,” he said, his soul blackening to match that of the evil, victorious heel.

JD sneered cruelly, playing with his cock. “Rest in peace, Ricky Baron. Loser.”

“He’ll be back in like a month wearing a neck brace,” Tucker assured his friend. He sighed, looking down at his dripping member.

“Looks like we have unfinished business,” JD said, planting a quick kiss on Tucker’s lips. He sat up, cock bouncing in the breeze. He turned and gave Tucker a fantastic look at his bubble butt. “Let’s make some more room.”

Tucker happily switched off the set and adjusted the sofa, converting it into the mattress he slept on every night. Eagerly, Tucker got on his knees and looked up, affectionately, into his demon friend’s green eyes. Tucker masturbated, and let his tongue hang out of his mouth like an eager puppy waiting to be fed.

JD didn’t exactly take the hint, but he offered pleasure just the same, crawling on the mattress and getting onto his knees. “You wanna’ wrestle too?” JD asked, pressing his knuckles to the mattress like a gorilla prostrating. He stuck out his butt and assumed the position.

Tucker smiled, even though he knew JD would crush him in a fight (again). “Well, I do love wrestling my demons.”

JD sat upright, with all his pretty muscles and handsome face for Tucker to admire. “How’s about we wrestle with our cocks?” He said, tugging on his nine-inch monster.

Tucker answered the challenge by shifting forward on his knees and playfully batting his hog against JD’s club, causing both of their veiny tools to leak onto the bed, just like poor Ricky Baron had drooled on the canvas.

JD grabbed Tucker around the shoulders and pulled him into a soft, gentle frot, with JD’s cock dominating Tucker with firm brushes and prods, back and forth, sending pleasure through each of their them. He paused only to tongue Tucker’s mouth and lips.

Tucker’s body and soul replied with sound. “Mmmm.”

“You’re close,” JD said with a squint, laughing boyishly. An idea crossed his mind. He tapped his horn, adjusted his fitted lid, and leaned over the bed towards the nightstand, giving Tucker a good look at his massive quads, and spread cheeks. Either unintentional or deliberate, JD’s leathery, lack tail lifted itself up, unveiling JD’s smooth, pink hole.

JD looked like a bodybuilder porn star, with his beefy, tattooed back arched and his calves hugged by sport socks and sneakers. With his muscle ass puffed out in front of his buddy’s face, it took everything in Tucker’s power to keep himself from burying his nose in JD’s tight, puckering hole and letting that demon beefcake’s wicked tail wrap itself around his neck to keep his face fastened tight. Tucker knew JD’s unusual properties intimately, and one whiff of demonic pheromones would probably tip Tucker over the edge and cause him to burst. He didn’t want that, especially because JD would not only tease him relentlessly for his pre-ejaculation, but he’d also press Tucker’s face into the spent puddle, making him lick the whole thing up as ‘punishment’.

JD grabbed the carved pumpkin on the nightstand. He looked into its dopey, ‘orgasming’ expression, and then turned his mischievous gaze onto Tucker, who kept on playing with himself, content to ‘ride the wave’.

“Let’s keep things on theme,” JD suggested.

Tucker closed his eyes. “Whatever,” he replied, not really in the headspace to puzzle out JD’s esoteric rambling. “I’m harder than a damn oak tree here, JD.”

The buff demon pressed his fingers into the bottom of the pumpkin, tearing open a gash. He flipped the desecrated jack-o-lantern upside down and, like so many bottoms that Tucker had watched JD viciously gape open before, rammed the lube into its cavity, squeezing viscous fluid into the pumpkin’s mushy base.

“Hey,” Tucker cried out, with a sad whine. “That’s my jack-o-lantern!”

“Not anymore,” JD sneered. He spread his legs across the bed, turned the imperiled pumpkin’s face towards its creator. With a grunt, JD and shoved his demonic cock into the gourd’s gooey depths.

Wet, slick, sucking sounds accompanied the buff gym bro’s thrusting. “Now it’s a jack-off lantern!” He proudly declared, eyes swiveling and mouth agape in masturbatory glee as he fucked the pumpkin raw.

Tucker’s arousal turned into rage. His mouth gaped just as widely as the hole in his poor pumpkin creation. “You…YOU dick!”

JD stuck out his tongue. “You love my dick,” he said, thoughtlessly pounding away. Tucker watched the demonic jock thrust in and out of the gourd, trailing cumm and orange, stringy innards and—somewhat disgustingly—a pumpkin seed now glued to JD’s tree-trunk dick root.

“Ffffuck,” JD growled, shivering, while all of his muscles contracted involuntarily with raw lust. He moved the pumpkin and his body towards Tucker. He looked like a frat boy lost in the sauce. “Come on, little ‘cuz, don’t you wanna’ give it some rough, wet love?”

Tucker looked down. Behind the carved smile, JD’s wet, cock throbbed an invitation for his ‘buddy’ to join on in the fun.

“Man, that’s so weird.” Tucker sighed. He shrugged. “Okay, I’ll try—OH FUUUCK.”

JD wasted no time sliding the wet gourd onto his buddy’s erection. Tucker found it to be strangely, instantaneously satisfying, like an organic flesh light or masturbatory tool.

“Yeah?” JD asked, cockily, going to pound-town on the gourd. “Come on, buddy, wrap your legs around my thighs and let’s fuckin’ goon out together.”

The remaining shreds of Tucker’s dignity forced him to say, “This is so nasty.” But the pleasurable, wet, warm sensation around his cock didn’t lie. Tucker’s face broke into a stupefied, dopey-eyed trance.  “But…it feels so good.”

Tucker’s initially cautious thrusts in and out increased rapidly. He bounced his butt up and down on the mattress, pushing his pelvis forward and back. He attempted to match the rhythm of JD’s long, deep, strokes, but he was much more eager. JD had always been the more virile, controlled one.

“Stay with me, little ‘cuz,” JD whispered. He embraced Tucker’s moaning, groaning, slim body, bringing him forward. “Big bro’s got you. I’m gonna hold you in my muscles. Look into my eyes.”

Tucker felt his sanity and spiritual wholeness slipping away with every wet thrust as he and JD violated the gourd together. “You should never…look into a devil eyes,” Tucker said, weakly, his vision starting to blur and his prostate beginning to tighten.

JD smiled. “MMmmmm. This devil thinks you should.”

His emerald eyes took hold of Tucker, putting him in a state of sexual catatonia, a waking wet dream. Tucker lost control of his sensed. His body, on autopilot, did the work. The animalistic thrusting in and out with JD, filled the apartment full of wet, squelching echoes.

It would have been absolutely vile…if it didn’t feel so damn hot.

Completely helpless, just like his defeated wrestling hunk, Tucker couldn’t see that JD’s demon tail had slipped from behind his back and curled itself around Tucker. With the smaller man wedged between JD’s monstrous biceps, he couldn’t wriggle free from the devil’s grip if he tried.

Tipped like the head of a spear, JD’s naughty, ribbed, fully lubricated tail tickled and prodded Tucker’s winking hole.

Lost in ecstasy, Tucker barely noticed. “Oh fuck,” he said, breathless, bouncing and thrusting deeper into the gourd. “What…what are you doing?”

JD leered sadistically down at Tucker. “Putting my tail in your tail,” he said.

Tucker’s eyes widened in worry…and his hole followed. Like a rubber sex toy, JD’s devil tail forced open Tuck’s cheeks and anus, burying itself a few inches deep.

Tucker moaned so loudly that his voice cracked. “GAHHHH!”

 “All nice and plugged up,” JD said, panting in his rut. “You know I love your creamy, fat ass, Tuck. There’s a reason I gave it to you.” JD’s pecs shimmered with sweat. The cheap, plastic lights hanging overhead turned his fake tanned muscles into polished bronze. “How does that feel?” He grunted, forcefully. “Tell me.”

As much as Tucker wanted to look upon his beautiful monster man, all he could see was the dark insides of his own skull. JD’s prehensile tail pushed smoothly into Tucker’s prostate, while the jock’s tool forced its fat head tip—and piercing—against Tucker’s cock. Rubbed in, and rubbed out, JD was working Tucker to the brink.

“It…feels so fucking good!” Tucker cried out. Captured by sexual madness, the human became the demon. Tucker thrusted deeper, tearing up the pumpkin from the inside and madly frotting against JD’s thick cock.

JD released the tight grip on Tucker’s back, allowing him to lean back and allow his buddy to take a good look at them both in the mirror.

Tucker barely recognized himself. He watched, his own voyeur, while he and JD absolutely tore into their new toy.

Tucker felt it coming on fast and hard. His hole gripped down on JD’s tail. “I’m gonna…”

JD clawed down on the pumpkin, burying his nails into its skin and pulp. His fuck rhythm increased, tearing chunks out of the gourds innards, and rubbing up against his friend’s cock. “Let’s give this jack-o-lantern a nice, gooey grin.”

Tucker’s eyes rolled out of his head long enough to latch onto JD’s hungry, predatory stare. As the mutual, masturbatory pleasure took hold of them both, JD’s intense face softened, becoming a mindless, open-mouthed smile. Tucker joined him, tongue hanging out. This is what he imagined Ricky must have felt getting his skull rocked and brains scrambled by The Hunter.

All of JD’s muscles contracted and expanded, just as his tail bullied Tucker’s swollen prostate into bursting its reservoirs. Human and hellion gripped each other, cheek to cheek and cock to cock, holding on and riding an almost painful wave of pleasure together. Their faces matched that of the hapless jack-o-lantern they tore apart from within.

“NNNNGGGGGAAAAAHHHHH!”

SPLAT! The gooning jack-o-lantern face happily regurgitated a creamy, viscous wave of intermingled cum. White fluid poured out of the pumpkin’s mouth, leaving it dripping and desiccated. JD and Tucker’s cocks had murdered and mangled the poor gourd to a pulp, slasher style.

JD’s tail slid out of Tucker’s ass, making him yelp in a blink of pain. Still connected by the mushy mass between their legs, Tucker, and JD both leaned back, panting, bodies dripping sweat and secretion. When either man, satisfied, had finally regained oxygen, they locked eyes and laughed.

“Fuck,” Tucker said, giggling and wiping the sweat from beneath his cap. “Fuck, dude.”

“I know,” JD playfully answered back, teasingly jiggling his cock inside the collapsed gourd, making it wiggle and wobble. “Fucking nasty and fucking HOT!”

Despite his better judgment, Tucker was inclined to agree. “That felt good,” he said. He looked down, to find most of his pelvic area and inner thigh soiled wet with orange chunks, milky-white good and pumpkin seeds. “But the clean-up…”

Said cleanup (which will not be detailed here) took place in due course, jocks and briefs refastened to their respective hunk.

“Let’s take a shower,” Tucker said, falling back onto JD’s chest. He laid into his body, using his tender muscles as a couch. “After a minute.”

Glowing, JD inhaled and exhaled, watching his buddy’s head rise and fall. He reached down and took off Tucker’s hat, all the better to affectionately ruffle his friend’s matted hair. “In a minute,” he repeated. Suddenly, he pushed Tucker off his body.

Tucker landed, unceremoniously, onto the floor. Annoyed and sore, both inside and out, Tucker looked up. “What the hell, J—”

The muscle hunk pressed his finger to Tuckers lips, silencing him. The lackadaisical demon’s expression became stark. Determined. Wordlessly, he pointed to the trailer’s front door.

Something was out there.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

With nearly cartoonish timing, Tucker and JD exchanged wary looks. “But what serial killer is polite enough to knock?” Tucker whispered, rationally.

JD threw his hands up. “Bro, I’m a literal monster and I’m polite.

Debatable, of course, but Tucker took JD’s point at face value. Slowly, Tucker got off the floor and walked towards the door, with JD close behind him.

The half-naked demon puffed out his chest. “At least I know how to piledrive a motherfucker now.”

Tucker placed his hand on the latch. He hesitated. He waited. Then, he opened the door.

A creature’s massive shape filled the doorway. Fortunately, it wasn’t a demon, or some other aberration. In fact, the bear that stood upright on two legs was very much at home in Darkest Corners.

“Evenin’ Tuck,” Briggs said, adjusting his overalls, the straps hanging tightly around the furry beast’s chest. Like Tucker’s hat, Brigg’s denim overalls were branded with the ‘Good Boy’ moving company log.

“See, it’s just Briggs,” Tucker said, nudging an annoyed JD in the ribs.

The curious and affable bear tilted his head in an attempt to look over Tucker and JD’s shoulder. “Er…what you boys getting’ up to, tonight?” Briggs tilted his muzzle up and sniffed.

“Nothing,” Tucker—wearing only his boxer briefs—said, pulling the door closer to obscure the messy, trailer interior. “JD’s in town for Halloween and we’re just watchin’ a little wrasslin’ is all.”

Briggs looked like he very much doubted that. But, being a gentleman and a native resident of Darkest Corners, he didn’t push the point. “Sorry to bother you,” he said. “But I was in the area, and I figured I should give you a heads up, on account of safety and all.” The bear gestured down the lonesome road, towards the sound of an idling truck—likely his own.

Tucker already an inkling. He felt JD’s ‘I-told-you-so’ stare boring a hole into his back. “Is this about the fog?” Tucker asked.

“It most certainly is,” Briggs said. “Boy, something big and bad has come into town and made short work of the Squonk Holler. Their burrows are completely decimated. Even the Sheriff don’t know what to make of it.”

Confused, Tucker raised his shoulders. “But who would bother with them little critters? They don’t trouble no one.”

“That’s not all,” Briggs said. He lowered his voice. “Whatever’s out there got the jump on The Wild Hunt and roughed them up good!”

The Wild Hunt tavern, named for the gang of otherworldly bikers that frequented the seedy watering howl, was not the sort of place casual residents or out-of-towners visited. Even JD looked taken aback by the statement.

“Sorta’ reminds me of how a new inmate jumps the biggest guy in the yard,” Briggs said, before quickly adding, “Not that I’d know, o’course.”

Tucker rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Here I was, hopin’ to have a quiet evening. Well, Briggs, what did the Wild Hunt boys say to ya? Sure as hell had to be some witnesses left to the tell the tale, right?”

For a mercy, Briggs nodded. “Any guys not already taken to the ER at St. Solomon’s say that whatever it was that done it, was big and very, very bad.”

“That…don’t narrow it down none,” Tucker said.

Briggs scratched his fuzzy neck with his paw. “Look, I’ll let you boy get back to…whatever it was that you were doin’. But with it being almost Halloween and all, when the weird shit comes out to play, I thought you two needed to know about it.”

“Thanks, Briggs.” Tucker, distracted, paused. “Hey, I’ll let you know when that new gig comes in, okay?”

The bear nodded and turned away. He got as far as the row of cheap, plastic ghost decorations at the bottom of the trailer porch before he pivoted his big, bulky body around.

“Oh yeah, there’s already someone of your…gifted nature on the case.”

Tucker grimaced. “Don’t tell me.” He refused to look at JD. He could practically hear his shit-eating grin widening.

Briggs smiled. “Yup. Our favorite daring, do-gooder. Warren Rising Sun himself.”

Without hesitation, Tucker whipped around and grabbed onto JD’s thick forearms. “Shower and get your clothes on,” Tucker said through his teeth, frightening even a demon. “We’re investigatin’ this shit.”

Monday, September 23, 2024

Chrono Crush Volume 6 -Sneak Peak- T LOC VS. Gigolo Jaguar

Round 2

VS. Gigolo Jaguar

 

The intense bouncer at the door barely gave Axel or Billy a second glance. All Axel had to do was mumble the phrase, “Don't be swayed by the songs of the siren,” and he and Billy were permitted to pass.

Five minutes later, in a badly lit back room, reeking of stale tequila, Axel and Billy slammed down four cases of water bottles onto the counter.

It’s like I’m in a drug deal—so exciting! Billy thought to himself, once again failing to comprehend the gravity of the situation. Outside the room, he felt bass throbbing like a heartbeat through the building. Which was odd, as Billy couldn’t hear any actual music.

“Construction work?” Billy asked his biker babe, who ignored him in favor of the eccentric individual counting up the illicit cases of water.

The ‘buyer’ was a skinny man dressed and made-up in the image of a 17th century, Rococo fop—right down to the garish, caked up makeup and smeary rouge. He took a drag from a cigar and puffed out golden smoke.

“This it?” He grunted, the voice not at all matching his appearance.

Axel shrugged. “That’s it.” He flashed his eyes towards Billy, who had sworn not to utter a peep during the ‘transaction.’

The proprietor in green silks eyed the contents, and grinned—mouth full of gold teeth. “Someone’s mom is gonna love you,” he said. He seemed pleased.

“Everyone’s mom loves me,” Axel said, winking. “Especially yours.”

“Fuck you,” the man laughed. He nodded politely, to Billy. “Who’s the gringo?”

“That’s my gringo,” Axel said, suddenly yanking Billy into a tight—and not at all unwelcomed—headlock. “He’s with me, King Luis, don’t worry.”

The King held up his hands, defensively. “Hey, hey, I don’t ask questions!” He jerked his thumb towards the door, plastered with a gratuitous pin-up girl calendar. “You want a drink, or what?”

“I gotta’ deliver a case to Sancho’s boys,” Axel said. He patted Billy firmly on the shoulder (perhaps a little too hard). “Billy, go play. Enjoy the night life. I think your 2020’s brain could benefit from a little future shock. And King Luis?”

“Yeah, boss?”

“Make sure to keep an eye on him.”

The scraggly fop tut-tutted, shaking his powdered wig as he opened the door, letting in a Pandora’s box of sound. “I’m a bartender, not a babysitter,” he bemoaned. He relented, however, when Axel threw him a dagger with his dark eyes. “Fine, my good prince, as you wish! If he gets into trouble though—it’s on him.”

Billy was all nerves and separation anxiety, feeling much like it was the first day of school and he was about to say ‘goodbye’ to dad. “I dunno about this, Axel. I don’t have reception in this decade, so I can’t look at my phone and ignore people at the club like I usually do.”

“You’ll be fine,” Axel said. “If somebody offers you something, be it in liquid, capsule, or candy form, you do not take it, got it? If you want a drink, make sure it’s only King L who pours it. Lastly, do not leave this place without me, okay? I’ll be back in about an hour and a half, give or take. Meet me by the bar, aye?”

Billy saluted the lather-jacketed stud. “Yes, sir.” He looked behind him, at the strange, scrawny man and the abyssal corridor of even stranger music. “Do…I really have to go?”

 

If Billy had to describe the loud, alien melody pumping through Sirena 6’s light-stripped innards, it would be something like ‘dark synth Mozart’. Harpsichords and organs accompanied cold, New Wave melodies. The DJ—a gas-mask wearing ghoul on a ceremonial altar swinging from the ceiling by chains—alternated between this bespoke genre, a fusion of techno-metal, and more ‘recognizable’ Mexican dance beats, from bachata to reggaeton.

Billy stared blankly at the DJ’s floating booth, which looked like a ‘biological’, boney pipe organ from out of an H.R. Geiger at piece. The ‘organic machinery’ aesthetic carried across the rest of the dark nightclub, with its vaulted ceiling in the shape of a rib cage.

In the belly of this techno leviathan drifting through darker waters, Billy felt smaller than small. History had served, and saved, Billy so far, but now he was out of his depth.

This must be karmic payback for every time I felt like I was smarter than a samurai or gladiator just because I knew what an ‘internet’ was. Now? I’m the caveman.  

A glowing school of hologram fish darted over Billy’s head, distracting him with surreal beauty and wonder. The holograms—which, upon closer inspection, seemed comprised of individual ‘cubes’ of light—broke apart and reformed into clusters of floating moon jellies. It was easily the coolest thing Billy had ever witnessed at a night club (without the use of drugs, that is) but everyone else in the room barely reacted to the alien lightshow.

Billy sized up his fellow patrons. The crowd of zooted club-goers with their jerky, spasmodic dances were dressed like cheerier versions of the demons from Hellraiser; ‘cyber goth’ by way of anime girl. Despite their cold stylings, the patrons of Sirena 6 were hardly standoffish. A girl with snake eyes, fangs, and color cycling (!) hair smiled toothily at Billy as he skirted past the dance floor.

“Love the vintage, jock look!” She said, clear as a bell, despite the music. Billy wasn’t sure what acoustic sorcery was at work here, but it wasn’t Eros’s translation spell. The club music, while ‘loud’, didn’t rattle his ear drums or threaten him with fleeting tinnitus. In fact, Billy wondered if he was actually ‘hearing’ the music at all, or if it was being projected directly into his brain. He decided he would ask Axel about this phenomenon later.

Which was all to say that the vibes were odd and alien and dark, but they were hardly menacing. For the first time since the highway chase, Billy felt his shoulders slacken. With nothing better to do, Billy lost himself in the weird groove and attempted to match the rhythm of the ‘seizure dancers’.

“You are easily the worst dancer I have ever seen,” came a sugary, excitable voice that Billy assumed could only have been directed at him. “I LOVE YOU!”

The white boy dance moves never fail. Billy turned around to find he’d been cat-called by…well…a cat robot. At first pass, anyway. They wore a half-mask that covered the entire top half of their head, stopping short at the nose. The helm was in the shape of a mechanical feline, with motorized ears and big, LED eyes that appeared to emote in real-time—transforming from ‘cat’ mode to ‘hearts’ and then back again in a flash of rainbow. Their mouth was painted with fluorescent purple lipstick, and their sharp chin and cheekbones could have doubled as deadly weapons.

“Umm…thanks,” Billy said. “I’m new here.”

The cat person’s eyes turned. ‘! __ !’. “Obviously! Hey, relax. SpecOps usually turns a blind eye to this place—provided The King has bribed them this month, anyway.”

So, it was an underground venue. That much was certain the moment Billy had walked through the door. “Is that why women are allowed to be here?”

“Lol you’re so gender! Everyone is allowed here, my guy. So, don’t you worry your pretty, pasty head. You can lay down your hair and be your gay-ass self.” The cyber raver lifted their hands up, curling their fingers in mimicry of paws. “I’m Remediox!”

Finally, the first normal person I’ve met today. “Billy!” He mirrored Remediox’s cat stance, which was well received judging from their electronic eyes shifting back into pink hearts. “And…how…am I hearing you, exactly?” He pointed to his ear.

‘? __ ?’ . “Uh…because I am talking to you?”

“Yeah, but the music? I can hear the music just fine but it’s like we’re speaking at normal decibels.”

Remediox scratched the side of their helmet. “What? Do they not have psionics where you’re from? Anyways, I saw you were with Axel. You must be his squeeze of the month, and I hope he’ll be pissed when he finds out I told you that. So, that would make you a tourist, a water runner, or some kind of black market techy. Maybe all of the above?”

“Tourist, Billy said, scanning the crowd for signs of Axel by trying to zero in on a man who was slightly short and very wide. Billy nodded for Remediox to follow him to the bar.

“Why the fuck did you come to Technotitlan?” Remediox asked. “By the way, do you want a drink?”

Billy fully trusted Remediox, but he also remembered Axel’s words of caution. “Just water, if you don’t mind.”

The diminutive cat person scrunched up their face. “I’m generous, but not that generous. How about a margarita?”

Billy’s eyes darted to the electronic, drink pricing display over the bar. He didn’t know the value of a ‘neo peso’, but if their value matched the Mexican currency he remembered, then that meant—

“Twenty dollars for a glass of water!” Billy blurted out. “And I thought drink prices were highway robbery where I came from.” Resigned to the ways of the future, he shrugged. “Oh well. At least liquor is cheaper.”

Remediox turned to the bartending King Luis and ordered two drinks, which they indicated in numerical form with their ever-changing LED eyes. They paid for them with their ID band.

Remediox handed Billy an inverted lightbulb full of glowing, pink fluid that he supposed was meant to be a ‘margarita’. “Isn’t the US supposed to be in some kind of golden age?” They clinked glasses with Billy, their eyes reading out the words ‘SALUD’. “That’s what they say anyway. Not like we get news from outside the cybernetic iron curtain, other than the shit we hear through Xibalba. By the way, what’s your avi? I’ll add you.”

They were speaking too quickly for Billy’s troubled head to catch up. He eyed the pink fluid and wondered what it might do to his stomach if he imbibed. “I’m sorry, I’m still trying to make sense of…a lot right now. What’s in this drink again?”

“Tequila soda. You seem stressed. You want a hit of lacryma to calm you down?” Before Billy could hope to answer or ask how tequila could ‘glow’, Remediox was struck with an exclamatory thought.

‘!__!’ “Oh, zonks, the fight is starting soon! Come on, you want to see something really visc?”

Billy didn’t have a chance to refuse. He’d already been taken by the hand (or paw), dragged deeper into the digital inferno that was Sirena 6. “Visc?”

Remediox’s eyes transformed into ‘eyeroll’ emojis (at least some things about the near-future were consistent). “Visceral. Come with me, my little white rabbit.”

 

It was a smaller room than the dance hall, and the overhead lighting was so jarringly bright in comparison that it took Billy a moment or two to adjust to his surroundings. The downward sloping tiers of benches reminded Billy of the gladiator amphitheater in Serge’s time, but the focal point of the arena was the roofless, caged dome over a pro wrestling ring.

Billy’s stomach flipped. Or maybe that was the tequila working. “What’s this?” Billy asked. I feel like Tina Turner is gonna come out and start singing any second now.

The seats were already half-full, with more attendees filing in from the wings to join the impending spectacle. Remediox led Billy to an open seat in the front row, which was probably the last place Billy would have chosen.

“Don’t tell me they banned blood lucha in the States?” Remediox said. “Oh, I know they’re seats, but we usually just stand.”

Billy flinched. “Blood what?” He peered into the fighting cage, finding that the chain link mesh was somehow translucent up-close.

“It’s a blood lucha pit, obviously.”

Billy’s shoulders slackened. “Oh, I love lucha libre! By which I mean, I love luchadors.” Billy failed to notice he was starting to drool. “Their trunks are always so much tighter and skimpier than the American wrestlers. Plus, I just assume they’re all hot since you can’t see their faces. I just wanna’…I just wanna’ squeeze their butts.”

“Ha! What? Hasn’t been any of that corny, fake circus stuff in a long while.” Remediox shrugged. “Maybe they still do it in the States though. My new friend, this is the real shit.” Naturally, Remediox’s eyes turned into smiling poop emojis (which the author has chosen not to detail here).

“Oh…” Billy bit his lip, realizing he was probably about to watch some graphic violence. “So…sort of like MMA, I take it?” The tell-tale panels embedded in the ring floor, as well as the machines latched at each corner of the cage, told Billy he was woefully optimistic about that assessment--

--which was solidified by Remediox giggling mischievously. “Watch and wait, my friend.”

Billy waited, and watched, and when the techno-metal music blasted over the psionic waves, the audience matched it with an eruption of rowdy excitement. A concealed trapdoor in the center of the ring erupted with smoke, heralding the arrival of a muscular figure caped out in gold, white, and green feathers, half-drag queen, half-shaman, but decidedly veering towards the ‘peacock’ masculinity of an old WWE hype manager. His shining body was covered from head-to-toe in gold body paint.

The feather boa around the buff man’s neck came to life, turning into a serpentine dragon that took to the air and circled the arena, while the crowd absolutely lost their shit. There was something of the ‘Aztec high priest’ about the flamboyant host, though devoid of any true, ceremonial meaning. Billy guessed he was not a contender, but either an emcee, the ref, a promoter, or some combination of all three.

Remediox confirmed as much. “That’s Elio El Dorado. He used to be a fighter, but he’s retired. They say most of him is actually made out of solid gold prosthetics at this point, but I think it’s just a rumor. It’s thanks to him that Felix Roko turns a blind eye to ‘degenerate hives’ like Sirena 6.”

“So, it’s only a conditional fascist dystopia?” Billy asked, out of the side of his mouth.

“Heh. The only thing that trumps hate is money, my friend.”

The gilded master produced a traditional microphone from the folds of their regal robe. “All you freaks better make some noise!” he growled, to which the crow obeyed. “There’s ten—TEN—alpha points on the line tonight! Tonight’s match is scheduled for three falls—decided by knock-out, submission, emission, death, or dismemberment.”  

Billy blinked. Emission?

The lights in the arena shifted hues, a spectacular sunset of orange and red. El Dorado took to the mic. “Now, introducing our first opponent!”

Golden snow, or dust, drifted from the arena ceiling. A curious blend of heavy metal synth and ‘sexy’ saxophones heralded the entrance of the hulking beast who rose, in the same fashion as El Dorado, from the depths of the ring. Half of the cage glowed red to signify the brute’s ‘corner’.

Billy’s jaw dropped. “Oh…HIM BIG.”

Big indeed was the golden-caped monstrosity clawing his way from the gilded abyss. With a mask like a jaguar’s head, the bulky beast tore away his cape, unveiling a body that would have made Zack Wyder’s body-builder bullies quake in their posers. Shocking—and most titillating—of all, was the fighter’s gear, which did little to cover their intimidating, delicious physique. While the luchador wore the traditional kneepads and boots, their ‘trunks’ were nothing more than a jaguar-printed ‘cock sock’ that only half covered the glaringly erect whopper of an appendage, girthy dick-root highlighted by a spiked, golden cock ring.


The juiced-up stud knew what he was packing. He roared and flexed his biceps and pumped his pecs for the audience, gyrating his hips to swing and bounce his barely concealed ‘weapon’, jiggling like erotic gelatine and in danger of poking the emcee’s eyes out!

Even Billy was scandalized. “That’s quite possibly the sluttiest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said, clutching his chain lock. He grinned devilishly. “I want to be him.”

Billy’s reaction did not escape his Remediox’s notice. “Hehe. Yeah, Jag has that effect on those with guy-junk. Thankfully, I have an allergy to meat-headed jerks.”

Billy, however, did not.

While the roid beast clawed up the side of the cage to hype the audience (his bulge entirely too big and thick to fit through the gaps of the chain links, thank goodness) El Dorado announced the showboating challenger.

“From Veracruz, with seventy-eight Alpha points—all of which he’s stuffed inside his thong, it seems—he’s the callous jungle cat with an endless appetite for sex and violence. GigoloOOOOO  JagUAAAAAR!!”

In reply to the sound of his own illustrious name, the Jaguar back flipped off the cage with grace unexpected of such a massive build. He landed with cat-like precision, oil exploding off his bulging pecs, and continued his march around the cage, beating his chest, flexing his biceps, and—of course—flinging his meat sword side-to-side to rile up the crowd. When he was sufficiently gassed up, the monstrous fighter snatched the mic rudely from El Dorado and pointed his finger menacingly at the audience.

“And I don’t appreciate that snide remark about stuffing!” snarled. His voice was deep and resonate, no doubt amplified by the psionic sound waves and the sheer amount of DNA-twisting. muscle enhancers coursing through his throbbing veins.

Gigolo Jaguar snarled with passion, pointing to the audience, and hungrily licking his lips. “I’M A BAAAD KITTY—COME AND PET MEEEE!”

His half-concealed cock throbbed of its own accord, swinging like a metronome. “This body ain’t natural, but it’s alllll real, my pretty, little kitties!

“That’s right, you ROAR for your big beast! And once I’ve smeared this ring from corner to corner with the pussy-bitch who thinks he can out muscle this jungle god, I’ll let some you lucky kittens stroke, worship, and SUCK my great, golden swooooorrd of conquest! And don’t forget about all this tasty TAIL either!”

Gigolo Jaguar pivoted on his boots to flex his rippling back, but more importantly, jiggle and contract his giant, muscle-ass. A tapered, tail g-string, swallowed in the crevasse of his glutes, swung proudly from beneath Jaguar’s spherical, statuesque butt. 

“Hmmm,” Billy thought ponderously, stroking his chin—even as his own erection threated to poke a hole through his briefs, “the man makes a convincing argument.”

Either from roid rage—or just because he was an asshole—Jaguar shoved the mic back into El Dorado’s chest, nearly toppling the emcee over and sending him back into the cage. “Uh, thanks, Jag. And now for his opponent, allllll the way from Monterey…”

The arena hue shifted from glorious gold to a cool, blue-green, which washed over the crowd like water. Billy felt something against his skin and looked up to see that it was now raining indoors. “Is this another hologram thing?”

Playfully, Remediox nudged Billy, as if to say, ‘now you’re catching on’. “With cerebral haptic stimuli,” they added, but Billy could only guess what that meant.

Instead of rising dramatically from the ring, the new contender appeared, more traditionally, from an entrance arch opposite ‘his’ side of the cage. Needing no cape, the fighter’s body—though nowhere near Jaguar’s enormity—was just as formidable.

The luchador’s energy was also completely different. He burst forth with a literal splash, backflipping into an illusory puddle, and raising his hands to the heavens in smiling triumph. The wet, neon rain god summoned a flash of lighting and a peel of thunder, which raised the electricity in the room tenfold.

El Dorado tested the limits of his vocal chords, and the microphone’s integrity. “T LOC!”

T LOC responded kindly by putting his hands together and bowing deeply for the arena. And, in typical, tecnico fashion, he struck his own heroic pose, putting one arm over the other across his chess in an ‘x’ shape—which also activated all the intricate lightwork on his gear.

“That’s a big pop!” Billy said, over all the excitement. Gigolo Jaguar was ‘drool-worthy’, but his opponent brought a certain, ineffable ‘something’ that made Billy wish his eyes could do what Remediox’s LED ends could do and transform into heart shapes.

Even among the adrenaline-soaked atmosphere, Billy noted the distinction between the heel, stalking his corner of the ring and glaring at his oncoming rival, and the ‘good boy’ shaking hands and high-fiving all his fans on the sidelines. One was happy to be admired from afar, refusing to engage with the filthy commoners, while T LOC out here was most definitely a god of the people. The fighter walked confidently and deliberately down the aisle.

Billy swallowed, trying to imagine the touch of his own tongue as he licked T LOC’s boulder shoulder, or worshipping his banded bicep. The fighter’s long, wet hair hung over and around his pectorals, like a curtain framing a masterpiece. His gear was a neon explosion of electric purple, cool blue, and deep gold accents. The luchador’s trunks and boots, connected by straps, bound across his meaty thighs, were a fusion of futuristic militarism and Aztec motifs. Even his mask recalled the nature of the old gods, with fang-like adornments framing the opening around his mouth, and radiant, glowing eye-shields.

Billy figured he was right on the money about the inspiration, especially as soon as T LOC stopped short of the ring and locked eyes with his opponent for the first time. T LOC’s illuminated eye shields, flashed from gentle violet to intense blue. He struck a most-muscular pose, roaring and sticking out his longue tongue to intimidate his nemesis, like a warrior of eld.

Giant, jaguar cock be damned, Billy decided right then and there who he was throwing his energy behind. 

T LOC’s side of the cage flared bright blue, and dematerialized—not unlike Officer David’s helmet—allowing the masked warrior safe passage. Gigolo Jaguar made to lunge at him, but T LOC didn’t so much as flinch at the attempt at intimidation. Instead, he nobly extended his hand. Jaguar swiped it away in disgust.

“I don’t think he likes me,” T LOC sneered. He ran to his side of the cage, scurrying all the way to the top (giving Billy vertigo in the process) where he extended his hands towards the crowd. “BUT YOU GUYS LIKE ME, RIGHT!?”

The noise, bright-eyed faces, and ululations that followed suggested yes, they did.

Billy’s heart skipped a beat as T LOC threw himself back and upwards into a literally death-defying, spiraling somersault though the air, where he landed on his feet—superhero pose and all—with a thundering crash. The stunt put Jaguar’s earlier dive off the cage to shame.

Billy couldn’t take his eyes off T LOC, or the action. “I forgot how much I loved wrestling! But how does he not break all of his bones doing that?” he asked Remediox.

“Splice,” Remediox answered.

Billy lifted up his cap and scratched his head. “Is that like steroids?”

“Steroids plus. Gen-modding is a whole art and science, dude. All customized. In blood lucha, every fighter is allowed a certain formula enhancement of their choosing. It’s supposedly regulated, but everybody knows about the dirty deals behind the scenes.”

Who’s everybody? Still, Billy understood the concept. “Superhero juice, basically.”

Remediox laughed. “Well, to a point. I don’t think there’s a formula that allows you to throw, like, fireballs.” They paused. “At least, I don’t think there is…”

Billy tapped his fingers against his chin. “Hmm. If I could get my hands on it, could it give me a big cock like Jaguar’s? I mean, not that I have any problems with my cock as it is.”

“Yeah, definitely.”

“Noting that for later…”

Back in the ring, T LOC and Jaguar faced off. “Let’s skip the shit-talking,” T LOC said, foregoing the mic. “You already know what I want.”

Jaguar growled. “To be the champion, little boy?”

“Heh.” T LOC grinned. “No, I want the champion. I want to face a real god.” He pushed his chest against Jaguar’s, causing both of their muscles to ripple. The height distinction between the two men was obvious, with Jaguar dwarfing ‘LOC by at least a foot, yet T LOC’s charisma made him more the giant. “Not some oversized, oversexed kitty cat.”

I am a god,” Jaguar huffed back. “No bigger cat in the jungle than THE jaguar!”

Which was, zoologically speaking, patently untrue. Nevertheless, Gigolo Jaguar pushed the point by pushing something else against T LOC. He swung his spotted, cock sleeve against T LOC’s bulge. T LOC’s bulge, generous in its own way, responded in kind.

T LOC gritted his teeth. “You mean, no bigger PUSSY!”

The audience gasped. Billy bit down on his fingertips. A sick burn, to be sure.

The incensed, muscle freak with the even freakier appendage beat his chest in raw, jungle fury. “GRRRR!” He roared. “I’LL CRUSH YOU, PRETTY BOY!”

DING!

And then, they were off! Jaguar grabbed onto T LOC in an attempted arm drag, but the smaller fighter was speedier, riding along with the momentum and using the dumb wall of muscle as a springboard to flip over Jag’s head and catch him by the back. The audience gasped and hollered at this gymnastic feat. Overhead, the holo-cubes materialized out of the aether, forming the opponent’s names and current ‘Alpha points’ (whatever those were) mid-air, in addition to a two-minute countdown. It reminded Billy of the arcade fighting games he played back home.

While T LOC had the gymnastic advantage, he immediately ran into the weight discrepancy. T LOC wrapped his hands around Jaguar’s thick waist (putting him in an interesting crotch-to-ass predicament) but couldn’t lift his opponent. The big, brute was far too beefy to manage.

“What’s wrong, wet boy,” Jaguar laughed. He turned around and WHALLOPED T LOC with his fist, a sick and twisted haymaker that sent the lighter opponent soaring straight into the cage. Billy winced. The audience groaned.

Remediox squealed with excitement. “I just LOVE violence! Big, meaty men, slapping meat!”

And with the Jaguar, there was plenty of meat to slap. Jag arrogantly pumped his round pecs, sublimating oil. “Hahaha, hungry for what real power tastes like?”

The obnoxious bully grabbed and brandished his boner like a club, slapping the dazed T- LOC’s abs with his bethonged tool.

“I’m gonna make you worship it.” Jaguar sneered. “I’m gonna scramble your brains so hard you’re not gonna know anything else but to serve my cock as your new god! You like the sound of that?”

T LOC had him exactly where he wanted him. “You like the sound of this?” he said, dropping to the knee and shooting forward into a brilliantly executed double-leg take down. The colossus with the colossal cock tipped over sideways, and gravity did the rest.

T LOC scrambled to wrap his own intimidating quads and legs around Jaguar’s arm, hoping to put him into arm bar. El Dorado (who did, in fact, double as referee) dropped to his knees in anticipation of a possible submission!

“Can’t stroke your cock without an arm,” T LOC hissed. “You give up, you big bitch?”

Jaguar snarled in reply. “It’ll take a lot more than that to break ME!” All of his veins throbbing in full activation of his muscles, Jaguar flexed so hard that he broke T LOC’s grip, throwing him off his body. Jaguar righted himself onto his feet and reached down to scoop T LOC clean off the canvas.

“Before I introduce you to the ‘Golden Sword’,” he shouted, “how about I introduce you to the mat!” One grunt later, and the ‘roided cat body slammed T LOC with forceful impact. Even Billy, watching from a safe distance, felt the blow.

T LOC gasped. “Ugh!”

“Now, you’re mine.” Jaguar turned on his bootheels and ran to the cage, springing off of it to muster the momentum to deliver a deadly elbow drop—or cock-drop, as it were.

BAM!

The monster collided with the mat.

At the last second, T LOC rolled out, earning more hype and esteem from the excited crowd. He struck his signature, heroic, cross-armed pose for his fans.

Of which Billy now counted himself among their number.

Billy had been so glued to the action that he barely noticed the holographic countdown was nine seconds away from reaching its terminus.

He poked Remediox in the shoulder. “What happens now? The match can’t be over, right?”

Remediox turned their head slowly to Billy. Their LED eyes displayed two, black skulls against bloody red. “Now’s when the REAL fun begins!”

Billy didn’t like the sound of that. And, speaking of sounds…

DING!

The fighters ignored the chime, instead colliding into an intense grapple. Jaguar had more muscle, but T LOC’s strength was just as potent. The grapplers grappled, and the cage around them sparked to life, with tendrils of visible electricity shooting off the circumference of the ring.

“That’s…dangerous as hell,” Billy stammered. He knew about ‘ring outs’, electrocuting your opponent was something new!

“Just you wait,” Remediox laughed, sadistically.

The trapdoors around the fighters, struggling for dominance, flipped open to reveal their deadly contents. Each cardinal direction called home to a different danger. A tongue of flame jetted upwards from the south-most section, insinuating a fiery end for whomever fell into its hellish depths.

The western floor panel pulled back to reveal a bed of electrified nails. A rack of assorted dangerous weapons (as well as what Billy swore was an actual dildo, or vibrator) rose up closest to the fighters in the eastern portion of the ring, while a metal box demarcated with the word ‘SPLICE’ occupied the remaining spot.

A knot formed in Billy’s stomach, just as he turned green. Talk about a boner killer. “I came to see hot, sweaty mean grinding on each other, not a death match with actual death!

“I’m going to tear up that back!” Jaguar said, pushing T LOC dangerously closer towards the bed of sparking daggers. “Right before I tear up that ass! That’s right, we’re gonna give these folks a real show. I’m gonna rip you APART FROM THE INSIDE!”

T LOC responded to this by simply taking his hands back, breaking Jaguar’s balance. ‘LOC kneed him in the gut once, and then followed it up with a two-piece combo, transforming seamlessly from luchador to Muy-Thai fighter. Jaguar doubled back from the killer blows, giving T LOC space, and sparing him from teetering over into the deadly nail bed.

The heroic luchador dove forward into a handspring leap. More unnecessary gymnastics, Billy thought—at first. T LOC shot his legs up like a spring-loaded trap, wrapping his meaty quads arounds Jaguar’s neck. The momentum lifted Gigolo Jaguar up from off his neck and flipped him head-over-tail, planting his head into the canvas.

The crowd buzzed and Billy’s mouth dropped wide open. “Holy shit, an actual hurricanrana!”

With Jag busy counting lights and stars, T LOC dashed to the weapon rack and pulled off an object Billy had only seen previously in museums—a macuahuitl. This version of the Aztec war club was electrified, sparking just as much as the sides of the fight cage. Billy always thought of wrestlers utilizing foreign objects was more heel/rudo thing, but the noble weapon looked heroic in T LOC’s hands.

“This ends now,” T LOC shouted, lifting the electric club high over his head. He brought it down—

But Jaguar had been playing possum—or puma, rather! He rolled out of the way and swept his legs as he did, knocking T LOC onto the ground and thereby knocking the macuahuitl out of his hands.

“You big, blue BITCH!” Jaguar roared, super kicking T LOC right in the side of the head.

CRACK!

Struck silly, the long-haired hero fell backwards onto the mat.

“Couldn’t handle all this sexy beast!” Jaguar exclaimed, while the audience booed him. Just to be a dick (with a giant dick) Jaguar kicked T LOC in the ribs. Only El Dorado’s intervention prevented him from any further assault.

T LOC’s face was turned to the side, with his hair hung over his mask and shoulders, preventing the nervous crowd a closer examination of their hero’s status. El Dorado knelt at the fallen wrestler’s side to check his level of consciousness.

The emcee/ref held his hand high, initiating the count out to K.O.

“That’s one!”

“Hahaha!” Jaguar celebrated his premature victory by ‘helicoptering’ his bulge for the audience, which had somehow grown harder the longer the match went on. “You want me to make him suck it on the wake-up!?”

“That’s two!”

Billy ground his teeth together and cupped his hands to his mouth. “Come on, Loc!” He shouted. “Get up! GET UP!

“Three! Four!”

With a sadistic gleam in his feline eyes, Jaguar stomped over to the splice locker. He threw opened the door and examined the rack of strange, fluorescent potencies. “I need me some more of that good JUICE,” he glowered. “If I’m gonna really grind this wuss into DUST!” His selection decided, Jaguar pulled a fuchsia-colored syringe off the rack and slammed the needled into his giant shoulder, pressing the plunger down.

Meanwhile, T LOC showed no signs of stirring. Only the slight rise and fall of his chiseled back muscles indicated proof of life.

“Five! Six!”

Billy shook his head in confusion. “But steroids don’t work that fast,” he said to Remediox.

“Yeah, but splice does!” The mecha-kitty pointed to the far-less-lovable cat preening himself in the cage. “Watch.”

The chemical transformation was subtle, but instant. Jaguar roared back, his vocal chords growing deeper, while all of his vascularity turned a fleeting shade of pink. His chest, biceps, quads, back muscles all contracted, and then expanded by an inch. The thong holding back all that meat finally gave way, ripping right off Gigolo Jaguar’s body and releasing his meat monster in full. The engorged, girthy member was now almost Priapic in its length and size, constricted only the by the dog-collar of a cock ring keeping its master stiff. Pearls of white precum by way of bloodlust, spilled onto the canvas.

Billy’s jaw threatened to fall off its hinges. “How is this even allowed?” he asked nobody in particular.

Remediox, hardly bothered, was happy to respond. “Geez, what are you, Amish? It’s 2046. Get with the times.”

The splice pumped Jaguar full of strength and adrenaline, but its effects were transparently detrimental. Either from the pain of rapid muscle and tendon expansion, or by way of roid induced psychosis, Jaguar clutched the side of his head in agony. “GAAAAAHHHH!” He roared monstrously. “MUST…DESTROY!”

The decorative eyes on Jaguar’s mask now glowed with hot-pink hatred. Muscles throbbing, and tan skin tinted with a ruddy pink hue, the sexy sadist devolved a bestial posture, clawing ferally on his hands and knees towards his prey (and giving the audience a full view of his rock-hard glutes).

Just as Emilio El Dorado formed ‘nine’ with his lips, T LOC finally stirred, his groan drowned out by the tidal wave of cheers spilling out from the audience. The fighter’s beautiful, wet hair, dangled over his mask while he tried desperately to get back onto his feet. While he wasn’t out for the count just yet, but he was far from safe, especially with a 300+ muscle monster hungrily stalking towards him, destined to land the killing blow.

T LOC tossed his head back, flicking his hair out of his face and meeting death eye-to-eye. “Bastard,” he spat, with spittle mixed with blood dripping onto the stained canvas.

The transformed Gigolo Jaguar clawed down and grabbed a handful of T LOC’s stringy hair, yanking him onto his feet. “GET UP, MEAT.” The booing from the audience only fueled Jaguar’s appetite to destroy, and soon the juggernaut had wrapped both of his titanic arms around the handsome fighter’s midsection, constricting him in a tight, back-shattering bear hug!

Billy could almost hear the strain of muscle and bone from T LOC’s compressed body. Jaguar’s explosive chest threatened to suffocate the fighter, moaning, and gnashing his teeth. If Jaguar’s tank arms didn’t crack ‘LOC like an egg first, the hero hunk was bound for a smothering.

The beefy cat mocked his prey. “Gonna’ wet your pretty panties?” He growled and tightened his grip, squeezing the oxygen right out of T LOC’s lungs, and tightening the metaphorical noose. He drove the point further by grinding his engorged, tumescent cock side to side over T LOC’s bulge, leaving it wet, as if to remind him who was the more dominant, virile man.

The fiend pressed his sweaty mask and mouth, almost intimately, to the side of weakening T LOC’s face. “FIRST, I WILL CRUSH YOUR SPINE,” he roared. “THEN…I WILL RE-ARRANGE YOUR INSIDES WITH MY MASSIVE SWORD! THEN, I WILL THROW YOU INTO THE FIRE PIT AND SEND YOU TO HELL FULL OF MY SEED.”

El Dorado approached the woozy, long-haired hero. “What do you say, ‘LOC? You give?”

T LOC threw his head back again. “Never. I will NEVER GIVE!” A shimmery sheen coated his bronze body, matching the metallic luster of the flamboyant referee. “You…want to splice it up, big guy? I don’t need more muscle to skin a cat.”

Somehow, T LOC managed to free his left arm from Jaguar’s pulverizing grip. Jaguar responded to this insolence with another tight squeeze.

T LOC’s mask obscured his eyes, beginning to roll into the back of his head. Still, he pushed through. “I’m one slippery customer,” he gasped, reaching for—

“Is he crazy!?” Billy shouted from his seat. He watched T LOC’s fingertips spread outwards towards the live-wired cage. “It’s suicidal.”

“No,” Remediox replied, with shooting-star eyes. “It’s science!”

Though Billy deemed the ‘science’ at work here questionable at best, there were likely other, futuristic factors in the mix that escaped his understanding. Nevertheless, T LOC’s gambit went into effect as the wrestler wrapped his wet fingers around the electrified fence. The touch-sensitive cage emitted an audible ‘ZAP!’, the current passing through the fighter and into his opponent.

Jaguar began convulsing. “Wh-wha-GRZRZRZRZZRZRZRZRZRZ!”

The electricity paralyzed Jaguar’s hands, forcing them to contract, thereby loosening his grip on T LOC’s sweat-soaked body. Liberated, the masked warrior let go of the electrified fence and backflipped dramatically out of Jaguar’s reaching zone. In the midst of this dramatic reversal, a sexy, female, electronic voice rang out with a cold: electrified field disengaged. The chain-fencing lost its cool, blue glow.

T LOC landed on his feet and struck his signature, cross-chest pose again. The hero of the hour smiled for his fans, but for his nemesis, he channeled only fury.

T LOC pointed dramatically at the beast, who’d collapsed onto his knees in (literal) shock. “I command the water and the lightning!” T LOC said. He dashed to the cage fence opposite Jaguar and began claiming it as if his life depended on it—and, in many ways, it did. Higher and higher T LOC, all the way to the top.

Billy arched his head back, mouth agape. “Is…is he gonna jump from there?”

And he did. He did jump from there. Not only did T LOC jump from there, but he also spiraled into the air over the cage, nearly colliding with the lights, doing somersault after somersault. The luchador transformed his body into a living missile of electricity (figuratively speaking).

The meteor that was T LOC collided with Gigolo Jaguar with the blast of a thousand bolts of lightning. If the big, bad jungle cat had come into the ring with nine lives, then T LOC’s Stormsault had just wasted at least six of them.

But the beast wasn’t down yet. Jaguar, now positioned on all fours, groaned, while T LOC recovered from his deadly leap. The audience, already foaming at the mouth from the drama, could not believe their eyes!

“The splice giveth,” T LOC gasped. Dripping sweat, and just about to pass out himself, the fighter wobbled over to the weapon rack. “And the splice taketh away. Let’s see how tough you are when I drain your muscle juice from your system.”

Violence was no longer on T LOC’s mind. As the fighter picked up and examined the long, gun-shaped implement with the tapered, spherical ridges, he decided that he’d finish off Gigolo Jaguar in a more ‘’inventive’ fashion.  

T LOC read the lettering on the side of the device. “The ‘Prostate Punisher 3000’? And it’s pre lubed!? Hehe. Sounds like you’re in for a good time, Jag.”

 Billy’s mind registered the proverbial record scratch (or maybe that was another ‘psionic’ auditory flair). “Uh…what? Is he really gonna’ stick that inside his—?”

“OH YEAHHHHH!” Emilio El Dorado shouted over the mic; arms stretched outward to the crowd (who seemed not only unbothered, but eager to watch the unfolding, erotic humiliation). “The god of the ring is about to make it rain, baby!”

“N-no,” Jaguar moaned weakly, tumbling forward, and arching up his bare, naked butt to be received. “But…yes.”

T LOC appraised his prize, gliding his palm down the oiled, sweaty cheek of his defeated opponent. “Awww, I think he wants it. Don’t you, bad little kitty?”

Either the rain god had seriously rattled his opponent’s skull to the point of complacent delirium, or the side effects of Jag’s splice formula had driven him to a submissive need for sex. The muscle cat literally purred, nuzzling T LOC’s pec, and presenting his winking, expanding tight hole for his master. 

T LOC responded by petting his submissive, muscle slut on the back. “Good kitty. You hold that position for me now.”

‘LOC slowly plunged the ribbed tip of the wicked device into Jaguar’s pretty, hungry hole. The machine slipped in with ease, trembling and buzzing upon insertion.

The effect took hold, taming the jungle cat and making him drool with dizzy arousal. “Fuuuucccck. Meeeeeoooowww.”

The vibrator violating his opponent’s innards, T LOC put the finishing touches on Gigolo Jaguar. The fighter knelt down, with his knee pressed firmly into Jaguar's shoulder blade. ‘LOC planted his other boot in front of Jag’s shoulder--flat against the mat--to keep him positioned upside down, with his head to the mat and his ass towards the sky. The jungle cat was going nowhere fast.

“Some apex predator you turned out to be,” T LOC sneered. “The difference between us, is that I don’t bring my opponents pain alone. I bring them pleasure. So, just relax and let all of those spliced up muscles—and your cum—drain completely for me.”

Jag’s body wrenched up against T LOC’s, the victor scooped his arm under Jaguar giant, trembling thigh and took hold of his balls, not to squeeze down painfully but to apply just the slightest bit of draining pressure. With his other hand, ‘LOC began rhythmically milking his prey to perfection. Meanwhile, the vibrator plugged into Jaguar's hole did its work, lighting up the beefcake’s inner nerves, opening wide his anal cavity, and injecting pure stimulation into his pulsing prostate.

Even in the midst of his convulsing, Jaguar managed to drool out a few words of pleading. “M-m-y splice formula...it all goes away if I cum. Ah—ah fuck, it feels too good!”

“Oh man, this isn’t even gonna take long!” T LOC nodded to El Dorado, who was happy to kneel down and do his duty. “Ask him, ref!”

El Dorado was all smiles, completely comfortable with the kink exhibition on display. “What do you say, Jag?” he said, putting the microphone down to Gigolo Jaguar’s trembling lips.

“N-no,” Jaguar mewed weakly. “I-I’m the big jungle cat.”

T LOC stroked slower, harder, with a twist at the top of Jaguar’s swollen, leaking, purple-turning glans. “Ask him again!” the fighter demanded. “They won’t be calling you ‘Gigolo’ anymore.”

“What do you say!?” Elo Dorado said, nearly shoving the microphone into the opening of Jaguar’s mask.

The defeated villain couldn’t take it any longer. With a low growl turning into a desperate squeal, the monster became a tamed kitten. “I-I-I giiiiiiive!” Jaguar screamed, letting loose the contents of his balls. His ejaculate exploded out of him in a staggered fire hose of thick, liquid, white ropes. “I GIVE! I GIVE!”

For every blast of spunk, every milky puddle forming on the canvas, Jaguar screeched out another ‘I GIVE!’. Each time, his body mass—and cock—shrunk in size. Billy, close to creaming his jocks himself watching this all play out in front of his eyes, watched Gigolo Jaguar literally deflate like a balloon.

By the tenth, half-hearted, weak ‘I give!’, the Jaguar had been reduced to a scrawny, skinny state, with T LOC now reigning more muscular in comparison. Jag, his mind broken from pleasure, mewled, and drooled like a kitten.

The vibrator fell from Jaguar’s gaping hole, trailing a strand of lube. The device landed with a wet ‘plop’ into one of the deflated stud’s spent cum-puddles. The little man’s cock, once his proudest weapon, flopped to the side like a limp noodle.

El Dorado twirled his index finger in the air. “K.O. by emission!” he shouted. “Ring that bell!”

T LOC’s anthem blared over the speakers while the crowd cheered. He gently lowered his opponent to the mat, doing his best to pull the unconscious, naked, bean-pole out of his own secretions. T LOC stepped over his body and let El Dorado raise his arm to the air as the victorious one. The comparison between the two men couldn’t be starker. T LOC stood, a bronze muscle god with luscious hair (and a proud, bulging victory boner to boot) over the shriveled up, color-and-cum-drained loser twitching beneath him.

Back in the audience, Billy—who likewise cheered on his new favorite luchador—wasn’t sure if he was turned on, or just confused. “It…shrunk!?” He had to confirm with Remediox. “All of him shrunk!? Also, I’m pretty sure that’s now how conducting electricity even works!”

To this, Billy’s cyber cat only shrugged. “That’s splice for you. Don’t worry. It eventually equalizes in the body. Metabolism takes out most of the harmful effects if the formula is right. Once the fighters get backstage, the med teams usually patch them up with a special concoction. Jag will be fine, in time. Isn’t medical tech awesome, Billy?”

It was, but Billy suspected that said tech was probably hard to come by for most of these normal folk spectating. He glanced around the crowd. Beneath the excitement, the people looked tired, dehydrated. While some of them had come into the arena carrying drinks from the bar, Billy wondered how much of it was water.    

The blood sports. The splice. The capitalist police state. It was like someone had taken the tropes of every dystopian science fiction movie and brought them to life in nightmarish neon lighting.

Lucky for Billy, he didn’t have to wait too long to find out the identity of that nebulous ‘someone’. While the med team carried out poor Jaguar from the cage on a stretcher, the holo-cubes above the ring re-pixilated into the semblance of a television screen.

The bald, thirty-something on the floating screen wore expensive sunglasses (that still somehow looked cheap) and smoked a cigar. Billy couldn’t tell if he was naturally tanned, or wore too much bronzer, but he decided the guy’s physical features gave him the unsettling appearance of a cross between a Pitbull and a human penis.

Billy expected the man to greet the audience. Instead, he began…woofing.

“RAH! RAH! OOH! OOH!”

Billy titled his head to the side. “Why is he bark--?”

A good portion of the men in the crowd started enthusiastically barking back. Billy noticed the other people around them shift their eyes, and raise their shoulders uncomfortably, but otherwise they kept their silence.

Billy frowned. “Remediox, I swear to God, if you say, ‘What? You don’t know who angry, sunglasses man is—”

“That’s Felix Roko,” Remediox said, like they’d just been sucking on a lemon.

Those words meant nothing to Billy, so he watched and listened as the pre-recording (at least, he thought it was a pre-recording) spoke to the blood thirsty crowd.

And to T LOC specifically.

“Congratulations from the Top Dog, my good Alpha. You’ve clinched enough points to face the champion this Saturday night. The question is…do you have what it takes to take down the baddest of them all?

The crowed encouraged the sweaty, bleeding, indefatigable T LOC with thunderous praise, and the hero responded by flashing his pearly whites and doing his signature pose. The man on TV dissolved into a heavy metal montage of fire and violence; a glory reel of ‘the baddest of them all’ viciously bodying his opponents.

 Decked out in black, red, and gold, the vicious fighter tossed opponent after broken opponent into the ring’s flaming trap door pit. The fighter’s besequinned mask burned like the sun, and his red-eyes gave him a more bestial, blood-thirsty energy that contrasted T LOC’s cool blue resolve.

“Who’s the scary dom daddy in the red mask?” Billy asked his new friend.

In a hushed, fearfully reverent tone, Remediox said, “That’s Dark Solar. His catchphrase is ‘Break ‘em and burn em. They say he cut his teeth throwing himself onto flaming tables…for fun.”

Billy glanced over at the still flaming char-pit trap in the arena. He swallowed.

The clip reel concluded. Dark Solar, a beautiful fiend, now stared down the barrel of the camera. His deep voice made all the hairs on Billy’s neck stand on end…and his cock twitch.

“Bring me a warrior on my level,” he said, as if he himself was on the verge of combustion, nostrils flaring. In addition to sweat, blood dripped from his chest—Billy was unclear if it was his own. “If you got the balls to step into my ring, then I welcome you…as my next sacrifice.”

It was hard for Billy to tell, but he thought he saw T LOC grinning, narrowing his eyes with determination at his future opponent on screen. Billy knew that expression well. It was the look of a man who wanted very badly to fuck a monster.

The holo-set literally went up in flames (another special effect) burning back to the perpetually sour-faced businessman puffing away at his cigar. “You heard it from my best beast, folks. Should be a match for the ages. And for all you other bad dogs out there, be on the lookout for my new Neuro transmit, which I’ll be launching right after the big match.” Felix took a long drag on his cigar. “And if you miss it, it means you’re a BETA CUCK PUSSY. Roko, out!”

The screen blinked out of existence, and T LOC began his grateful, victory march out of the ring, into the crowd.

The image of Roko’s scowling mug lingered in Billy’s head like a bad smell. As soon as Billy pulled his own hand off his face in frustration and disgust, he sighed and turned to Remediox. “Don’t tell me that third-rate live streamer we just saw, with the ‘hand-over-your-drinks, ladies’ energy is the fucking president of Technotitlan?”

“No,” Remediox gagged, “but he may as well be—considering Everglade basically owns the country. Roko and the President are tight. So tight that Everglade basically makes the laws in this country.”

“My area of expertise is history,” Billy said, “not politics, but I seem to recall Mexico’s constitution being one of the strongest in the world. There were protections for like, literally every facet of society.”

Remediox’s light-up-eyes became two shattered hearts. “It was.”

Billy bit his tongue. Bemoaning the present (or future, as it were) wasn’t going to change the state of affairs. “So, all these guys are fighting in some competition?” He was grateful for Remediox’s patience.

They were happy to explain. “Not all of them. Some of them are criminals who chose the pits rather than being sentenced to virtual incarceration.” Remediox made a disgusted face, which told Billy everything he needed to know about whatever that meant. “Some of them end up being natural talents, but most of them are just meat for the grinder.”

The color left Billy’s cheeks. “Just like the gladiators in ancient Rome,” he mused. Sergius would probably have something to say about this societal regression.

 Remediox shrugged. “It was all Roko’s idea. Apparently he had a mixed martial arts background, but his career went corpse ‘til he took over Everglade. Now, every fighter is ranked. The one with the most ‘alpha points’ points moves up to the Blood Dome.”

“That’s a fucking stupid name.”

“Which one, alpha points or—”

“BOTH!”

“SHH! Not so loud, Billy. Anyways, Dark Solar’s reign is the longest in blood lucha history. But he might have a worthy challenger in the form of our sexy, long-haired hunk who is—incidentally—walking towards us right now ohmigodherecheomeshe’ssocuteohmygoddddd.”

Distracted, Billy whipped his eyes towards the (slightly limping), sweaty stud slowly high-fiving his way down Billy’s lane.

Billy shook his head and refocused himself. Hunks could wait. “So…this shit is real? Do people, you know—”

“Die!?” Remediox finished for him, cheerfully. “Yeah, all the time. It’s so exciting!”

Billy spoke before thinking. “It’s not,” he said, bluntly. “Remediox, I lived and studied in this city for a few months of my life. Granted, that’s not a wicked long time, but it was long enough to learn that the people here are warm-hearted and considerate and communal. And, above all, they wouldn’t let someone like Roko just in and take over. What the hell happened?”

It was only for a moment, but Remediox’s LED eyes dissipated, showing their ‘real’ eyes, dark, watery, and full. “You did.”

Billy felt time freeze for a second. “W-what do you mean?”

The LED illusion snapped back over Remediox’s orbitals. “Well, not you specifically, Billy. But once young Americans—those ‘digital nomads’—started making this place their playground for cheap, they opened the door for scum like Roko and Everglade. I’m sorry if that hurts your white feelings, but it’s true!”

“My white feelings remain intact,” Billy said, gently holding out his hands.

“It’s more complicated than just that,” Remediox quickly added.

A sick idea crossed Billy’s mind. If Eros was the god of love, and he was now missing, could it be that ‘love’s’ influence upon the world had waned or stagnated? Not that Billy’s magical adventures across time and space had endowed him with any particular knowledge of metaphysics, but if Eros had dropped off—chronologically speaking—during the 1990s, the following three decades Billy had lived through, and the slow crumbling of human kindness, now made a lot of sense in retrospect.

But none of that mattered any more, because all 5’8” feet of sweaty, long haired, muscle-bound luchador was but mere inches away from Billy and Remediox. Billy could practically smell him (and he smelled good). T LOC, still noticeably concealing quite a bit of injury, made small talk with a group of fans before moving onto Billy’s row. 

My goodness he’s so handsome. He could look like a nasty foot under that mask, and he would still be handsome. Billy thought he saw T LOC’s head swivel slightly towards him, then abruptly look away (though it was hard to tell because of his glowing eye-shield).

“LOCCCCC!!!!!” Remediox squealed, doing an infinitely cuter version of his cross-fist pose. Their helmet’s read-out displayed raindrops and sparkles.

T LOC reeled back out of genuine amazement. “Woah, that display is so freak! I love it. Thanks for coming out tonight, friends.”

If ‘freak’ meant ‘cool’ in this time and place, then Billy considered himself the freakiest freak of the week. Billy wanted tell T LOC how badly he enjoyed him, how hard he had been rooting for him, and that he was so happy to see him safe.

But all of that came out as, “S-s-show us your cock!”

Which, incidentally, was not the strangest thing he could have said, judging from both T LOC’s and Remediox’s nonplussed reaction.

T LOC bit his lip and nervously played with his strand of matted hair, twisting it around his fingers—which somehow made him even more endearing. “Uh…that’s only for the meet-and-greet,” he laughed. He nodded to Billy. “Have a good night, folks!”

Show us your cock? Billy now wished he really had been smeared across the Insurgentes Skyway. Billy wanted to scream, cry, and throw up at the same time. Instead, he plastered a painful grin across his face and hoped T LOC would put him out of his misery by DDT’ing him into the cement.

“Oh, ‘sup brother!” T LOC said to some fan two seats to Billy’s left. Just as he passed by Billy, he leaned in closer to him. For a second, Billy wondered if T LOC was about to head butt him into oblivion, providing him a sweet release from embarrassment. Billy smelled the intoxicating mix of perspiration, body odor, and deodorant on the winded wrestler.

It smelled like sex.

T LOC whispered. “There’s a training ring in the back of the club. Meet me there in ten and I’ll show you whatever you want, handsome.” In moving his head closer to Billy, T LOC’s strand of hair grazed the side of Billy’s neck, but it was the all-too-brief touch of the fighter’s palm against his cheek, and the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it blown kiss, that brought Billy from the depths of hell up to the highest heaven.

Billy had shoot his shot and thought it had misfired, only to see it circle across the world and hit his target true.

T LOC moved on. Billy hadn’t. J felt like he’d been super-kicked in the face. “Pinch me,” he said, trying not to drool. “I’m dreaming.”

Remediox piped up. “OK!” They did not hold back.

“OW, FUCK!”