Posted by hisdinner on June 23, 2003 at 10:48:16:
In the Dregs
by hisdinner
Mara was in the Dregs tonight. Again. Almost time for last call, and the men around her were getting surly, competing for the bartender's attention, shouldering their way around her as she sat at the bar. She winced as a burly drunk mashed her foot against the foot rail under his steel-toed boot. Mara extricated her foot and drew it up, rubbing it a bit, till she caught sight of the appreciative leers from a tableful of skinheads. Smoothing down her skirt, she glanced around the bar. The Dregs felt dangerous. The place hadn't changed; Mara just wasn't so numb anymore. She hoped Philip would get here soon, so they could go.
Two weeks ago Mara had been stirring her drink, sitting in a corner spot at the bar. She was dressed to kill. Or dressed for killing. Mara wanted some brutal stranger to smell her craving and take her out. Mara wanted out, all the way to oblivion. She dreamt most every night of being taken and torn apart. Somehow it had seemed so right, once she'd reached this bottom-dwellers' place, to just stop searching for the white knight, and seek out the wolf. She was sick to death of broken relationships; she was sick of sly selfish men who promised marriage and kids and dogs and turned into louts as soon as she'd blown them. Mara was mortified that she needed men so much that she'd fallen for their lies, again and again.
Her last man, Donald, had topped them all. He'd met her in an Internet chat room, wooed her with the most extraordinary banter, hit her every button just as surely as if she'd given him a roadmap..and convinced her to move here, to this smudged-gray city. She wouldn't listen to her friends who urged caution. This man had touched her very soul; she needed him like air. Their phone calls had only reinforced her urgency. Mara burned hot, fueled with the distilled intensity of cyberlove. Mara was a nurse; she could find work anywhere. Her blood was pounding and her body ached for this man she'd seen only in jpgs. So once again, Mara stepped off the cliff. She threw her wardrobe into a rental car and turned in her apartment key. Mara rode a thrumming high of anticipation for 200 miles and finally arrived at Donald's door.
The man who opened the door was every bit as good looking as his pictures. Mara beamed in recognition. She admitted to herself that, deep down, she'd been prepared to meet someone who only shared the same species. She tried to hide relief under a big smile as he drew her in. Her last doubt destroyed, heart leaping, Mara followed him, prepared to step into that life of bliss they'd played out so many times in cyberspace. Then Donald introduced Mara to his wife, Shelly. Turned out the only thing Donald hadn't mentioned was that he and the missus wanted a third, some willing girl to do their bidding, a little helpmate to fuck and use to try out their rack of sadistic toys, then set to cleaning up their house.
So two weeks ago, she'd wandered into the Dregs, a bar as dingy as its name. Mara was flummoxed, stunned as much by her stupidity as by Donald suddenly possessing a wife. Mara walked into the dim bar, unaware of her surroundings; she just needed a drink. She stood out in this place because she wasn't flashy. Her gently fitted suit and muted colors contrasted sharply with the belly-baring halter tops and orange and black spiked hair of the girls who shrieked and squealed around her. The men eyed Mara's glossy hair and her nearly hidden curves and figured she'd had car trouble. She crossed the floor as soon as her eyes adjusted, slipped onto a high barstool and ordered her first drink. There were five lined up before her and at least that many men jockeying for position after she'd downed the first one. At the Dregs, there was always room for fresh meat.
Mara thanked the guys in ripped t shirts and tattooed chests and tried for once to act disinterested. She grimaced, remembering Donald's last sarcastic shout as she fumbled with the rental car's lock. "Bitch, you don't know what you're missing!" But Mara thought she did. She hated herself for being envious. Envious of Donald and his wife? This cyber Romeo and his creepy, Domme wife? But see, they had each other, Mara sighed, and that was reason enough. As she drove off, part of her wanted to turn back, to prove she had that open mind that Donald said she lacked. Should she give it a try? Mara shook her head and kept driving, but tears made her vision blur, so after a couple blocks she parked the car and stepped inside the Dregs to clear her head. She knew she'd reached the bottom if she was actually considering it. Could she be some perverted couple's sex toy? No wedding ring, no babies, no husband loving her? " I must be the most pathetic fool on earth," Mara decided. "A couple drinks, I'll get a room somewhere close and call the hospital tomorrow morning. They'll take me back."
But Mara didn't called the hospital the next day. She woke with a pounding head, alone in her motel room. She showered and dressed and wandered around the strange town, telling herself she was just being a tourist; heck, as long as she was here she might as well explore the place. She drove mindlessly, she told herself, but somehow, she always ended up across from Donald's place. She sat in her car, staring at the windows, willing him to come out, but panicked at the thought of seeing him again. She drove off and returned again, the next day and the next. She spent her evenings in the Dregs, numbing herself with drinks while the regulars edged in closer, sniffing her scent.
The fourth day, Mara found herself outside Donald's house again, caught up in a mire of rationalization and achy need. She felt dazed, and she couldn't say what it was she wanted to do. The door swung open and she saw the man emerge. Mara gripped the door handle, and her body bent to duck out of the compact car just as she heard Donald speak. "Shelly! Take the baby to the car while I run the garbage out."
And out she came, his harpy wife, toting a pale, thin girl against her leather-clad hip. Shelly screeched at Donald, "Hey, that's her over there, you see? She's been spying on us all week! Tell that fucking cunt to clear out, Donald! Fucking Miss Priss, too good enough for us!" Mara panicked and fumbled the key in the ignition She jammed the compact into gear and sped away, face burning. She heard Donald cursing her as she fled.
She got drunk that night in her motel room. She passed out early, splayed across the bed. Mara dreamt of brutal men with clubs and knives marching into her room and tearing her apart. The line of these men stretched out in her dream in an endless zigzag, each one a brute, each one a killer, each one intent on ripping, shredding, tearing her apart. She knew with that certainty that only comes in dreams that they would each have their turn destroying her. She watched helpless as brutal men reached for her with huge grasping hands ready to rip her to bits. She jerked awake and sat upright in her bed, still feeling the thudding tromp of a hundred voracious monsters coming to her bed. She quaked. She lay back down and squirmed, replaying the images. Mara conjured up those wolf-men again. They gripped her roughly; they tore at her sex. Mara touched herself and imagined huge hands pummeling her breasts as huge cocks raped her. She pictured four monstrous men holding her stretched wide for forty more to punch and pierce and fuck through, till she was ripped in two. Mara thrust her fingers inside herself and came in wrenching spasms.
She couldn't sleep anymore. She wanted that dream again, and it wouldn't come. She wanted more. She couldn't bear looking at herself. She went on excursions to the local shops and found the clothes that the other girls wore. She thought about dying her hair, but it was too much effort. She drank instead, and watched television. Afternoons became her time to masturbate and summon up the images of the wolf-men, of all the monsters who would come and rip her apart. She longed for them. Each evening she wandered into the Dregs. She ate cheap greasy bar food and stared up at the TV. When the men approached, she spoke only to the ones who looked most dangerous.
One night, Donald came strutting in with a fifteen year old whore, collared and attached to a dog leash. His wife kept tapping the scurvy girl with a leather crop. Before the bartender made Donald take the underage ass outside, Donald had spotted Mara. He did a double take, then pointed her out to Shelly, who eyed her up and down and sneered. Mara didn't care anymore. When Donald started laughing at his wife's remarks, Mara gave them flipped them off, then turned back to the biker fondling her tits. Donald jerked his pieces of ass out of the bar, glaring at Mara over his shoulder.
Mara just drank and whispered her needs to the wolves around her. After gulping down their beer, they'd mutter something like, "Hell yeah, I'll snuff you while you're suckin my cock, bitch," then they'd wander back to Mara's room and have hot angry sex. She'd beg them to beat her. She'd lie, half off the bed, splay-legged and sobbing, "Please, just fucking kill me!" But those men were no more faithful to their words than her lovers had been. They'd slip out muttering, "This crazy-ass chick's a total painslut." Word got around.
Mara was leaning on her elbows, sitting at the corner of the bar when Philip approached her. She snorted when she saw him. "He reminds me of me, when I first came here," she thought, taking in his conservative jacket and tie, pressed slacks and polished shoes. "He must be lost." Philip took the stool beside her and nodded and smiled at her as if she were still the beautiful, manicured girl who'd wandered in only a week ago. Mara sat up and tugged the hem of her tank top, so that her breasts peeked out a little more. She turned to Philip and smirked at him and shook her head and said, "You can't save me, Reverend, I want to go to hell."
Philip smiled, a quiet gesture in a peaceful face. He leaned forward, put one hand on her arm and said, "I know. I've come to take you there." He looked into her eyes for one beat longer, steady and sure, then leaned back on his stool to wait for Mara's response. Mara was rocked. Her fingers left a row of dimples in the cushioned bar rest when she recovered enough to release her grip. She shook her head, trying to clear a week's worth of house vodka out of her system. She stared at Philip. He gave her another friendly nod and then he held out his hand. She took it. They left together, and they hadn't come back. The regulars argued about it. Some figured he was her husband, that he'd finally tracked the bitch down. Others thought he was the law, that maybe she was charging for it now, and he was here to get his piece or take her in.. That pissed off everyone, that Mara might not be putting out for free anymore.
Mara and Philip had been together since they'd left the Dregs a week before, except for a few hours this tonight. But that first night, a week ago, Philip had taken Mara to his place on the river, a quiet place that smelled like pine and cedar. They'd hardly spoken on the car ride to the outskirts of the city. By the time they reached his house, Mara wasn't sure whether she'd imagined their whole interchange in the bar. Philip had maintained a respectful distance between them in the car, even though she'd begun to lean down over his crotch to administer the customary car-job all her recent dates had expected on the way to her motel. He simply caught her chin and shook his head and said, "Later, hon." Instead of being humiliated, she was enthralled by his dismissal. His tone didn't say, "You're a skanky whore," Mara decided, it was more like, "Let's do it back at the Casbah."
Mara curled low in her seat and studied Philip. He looked professorial, she decided, a lot like the sexy older guys who'd given the lectures in the Humanities building on the campus where Mara had got her RN. Yes, she thought to herself, and he has that self-assurance about him that professors always have. Mara remembered her first heartbreaking crush on her anatomy Prof. He'd loved her blow jobs, under his desk. His next tutorials had waited outside while she earned her A. But he'd given her a B instead and started avoiding her in the halls. Mara sat in the car and shook her head. With Philip intent on late night traffic, she spent a few minutes reviewing her lost lovers like beads on a rosary. No matter whatever she did, they wanted more. One wanted her to be younger. Another wanted bigger tits. Most of them wanted her to tolerate their other women. Usually they couldn't put their finger on it, they just got tired of her. And it didn't matter how cultured or how crude they were, Mara realized. The guys from the Dregs had rejected her wishes just the same. She was still alive, wasn't she?
The car rumbled over a cattle guard and brought Mara back to her present situation. She jerked upright and studied him again. Philip looked like a professor, all right, Mara thought, but hadn't he just offered to kill me? She couldn't reconcile his appearance with the monster men that tore her apart every night inside her head. But what if he was the real thing? She thought about the Ted Bundys of this world; they lured their prey in just like this. Mara's heart stuttered in her chest. She was shocked, suddenly, startled that his physical appearance and his suave demeanor could have made her forget the very reason she was in this car.
"He's promised to kill me, " she thought. "and I'm acting like I'm on a date. He said he knew what I wanted. He said he was going to take me to hell." Mara bleated out a nervous laugh as they reached Philip's house.
They'd parked outside a one story house sheltered by tall trees. Mara followed Philip from the car, crunching down a gravel path to his darkened home. She realized that his appearance, his manner, his scent had resurrected feelings she'd thought she'd stomped out. This man was appealing. She wanted him. She wanted him to want her. She wondered if he knew all that. She wondered what kind of fool she was to think that this man cared anything at all about what she wanted, and what she thought. Philip flicked a few switches and soft recessed lighting revealed a cozy room full of couches and chairs surrounding a fireplace. "So normal," Mara thought, "What am I doing here?"
He turned to her and tilted up her chin and said, "Do you think you might be comfortable here for a few days, while we work things out?" Mara nodded, speechless, and he continued. "You ought to realize how dangerous it is to be asking all those men to beat you up and kill you," he said, stroking her arm with one finger, tapping on her wrist, as his other hand enclosed the back of her neck. He drew her close and kissed her, his lips just brushing hers. She yielded to his gentleness, feeling something twist inside her. He broke the kiss and took a breath, then said, "You're lucky. One of them was fool enough to brag about spending time with you. I overheard him outside the cleaners while I was waiting for this suit." Philip smiled and brandished a plastic bag. "I had to know, so I followed him to the Dregs tonight. I had to see the woman he'd described as 'a fucking angel with a death-wish.' "
Mara swallowed hard as Philip gazed at every inch of her, finally pinning her in place with a level stare. He smiled at her and held her out at arm's length. "You are an angel," he said. "And I want you for myself."
Mara croaked, "For what?" and then she covered her confusion by kissing him. He returned her kiss firmly, lingering to taste her. Philip held her face between his hands, a gesture so simple and tender, Mara sobbed and turned her head away from him. He pulled her to him, stroking her hair as she sobbed into his shoulder. He held her there, stroking her back, murmuring into her hair until she quieted. "Mara, I want you," he said. Philip took her chin once more and tilted her head to his. She hiccuped and blinked, then held his gaze. He said, " I promise I'll give you what you need."
He left her in a daze and walked into the hallway to put away his suit. Mara sat on the edge of a gray couch and wrapped her hands around her elbows and rocked, and thought. Philip made no sense to her. Here was this man who approached her in a sleazy bar and said he'd take her to hell. Instead, he'd taken her here, and let her cry like a baby in his arms while he held her. It was too Harlequin romancy, Mara thought. This isn't real, no more than her cyberDonald had been the same man as Donald in the flesh.
"I promise I'll give you what you need--!" she snorted again, trying to summon up disgust at her terminal naiveté. "This Philip is just setting me up for another fall, " Mara thought. She'd met enough of those overgrown house cat types, the kind of men who liked to play with their prey. Before they killed it. Or in her case, before they disappeared. Killed it! she mused. Does he really want to? Am I supposed to believe he's a killer? The thought of killers chilled her for the first time in days. Mara pictured her wolf-men ripping into her. She tried to insert Philip's face there. It didn't work. Already, when Mara thought of Philip, it was the warm scent of his wool jacket that popped into her head first, and not his offer to take her to hell. Mara's head was mush. But deep down, she wanted Philip to be the knight, and not house cat, and not the wolf.
Philip knew exactly what he was. He was a professional, but not the professor Mara had imagined. Philip had lied to Mara; he hadn't overheard a conversation at the cleaners. He'd been hired by Donald to put a scare into the little girl who seemed to be stalking him. Philip had sat in his little office not three blocks from the Dregs and listened to Donald, frequently interrupted by his loud, overbearing wife, Shelly. The job seemed easy, and Donald had agreed to pay upfront.
Philip was available to serve up papers. Domestic court usually kept him busy, running around town, his .38 casually displayed as he delivered divorce papers and restraining orders. He even took on a bounty case once in awhile when he wanted a road trip, to hunt up errant spouses, to convince a disaffected daddy that he really needed to pay that child support. Single moms needed the help to get money for their kids. He didn't blame them. Philip was a man who earned his living from the cowardice, weakness or ineptitude of his clients. Philip took their money. But Philip had nothing but disgust for the ones like Donald and Shelly. They couldn't clean up their own messes. Philip agreed to take the job; he would get Donald's shrieking wife off his ass by scaring the little bimbo back to whatever town she'd left. So Philip had done a little poking and found out about Mara's new hobby. He hadn't been shocked, but he'd felt a little guilty taking the Donald's money --this girl had moved from stalking Donald, if she ever had, to giving herself away at the bar.
"So why the hell did I take her home?" Philip asked himself. He paced in his bedroom and delayed returning to the girl. Philip shook his head and wondered why in hell he'd turned charming when terrifying her would have been so much easier. Mara was a lamb! The minute he'd seen her, Philip's judgement had gone south. She was so soft and pure, even under her cheap whore clothes. Philip wanted her that instant, he wanted to scoop her up and take her out and scrub her face and keep her. Philip realized that Don's wife was just plain jealous. "If that little girl had kept showing up at my door, I would have left a tread mark on ol' Shelly's ass getting myself outta there," he thought. Then his expression turned darker, serious. This girl wasn't even wandering, she was jumping with both feet into the darkness. Yeah, he knew the signs, and Mara was the kind of tender girl whose heart could only crack so many times before she decided to finish the job. Or find someone who would. "And I volunteered. Christ!" he said, lighting a cigarette and returning to the girl.
Mara scrutinized his face from her perch on the couch as Philip sank down beside her. "Let's take it slow and start all over now," he said, stroking her shoulders lightly. "Want to start over with me?" He kissed her lightly; she responded, ravenous. Soon they were groping under each other's clothes and slamming their bodies together. Mara murmured over and over, "Yesyesyes." Philip adored her body and her sweetness. He stared at this unexpected prize and was overwhelmed at what he was feeling. He cherished her already. He wanted to keep her for his own. He knew it was crazy, but everything about Mara made him desperate to persuade her to stay with him. He'd never had such a blood-sure reaction to any woman before her, and he didn't want to try and talk himself out of this. He wanted her, craving more of her, even when they were still as one, joined deep and moaning on his bed.
Philip pulled her on top of him as they rolled on his bed. He smiled as he stared at her face, suffused with the wantonness of sex. Mara's body arched as she rode him, and Philip cupped and tugged at her breasts. She was moving hard on him, gasping, panting, about to cum when she cried out, "Hit me! Oh god please!" Philip heard the hunger in her voice. A bolt of adrenaline shot through him, and he struck her angel face with the palm of his hand, then brought it back across, catching the corner of her mouth. A bit of blood trickled down as Mara touched her stinging face with both hands and squeezed him tight inside her as her body shook. Philip came too, unnerved that this sweet girl had got him to hit her, amazed that it had made him cum so hard. He pulled her to him and he rocked her, still joined, wondering just what he'd done, and hoping this would never stop.
"I'm happy!" Mara whispered to herself. She erupted in a fit of giggles that woke Philip. "I can't believe it! I haven't felt happy for so long. Maybe never as happy as this," she said, burrowing into his arms. Philip nodded. He felt idiotic, goofy, childish as he gave into his urges and simply drank her in. In the last week, they'd been inseparable, spending hours finding out what made the other tick, tracing every freckle on each other's skin, ending each evening after Philip finished his business (Mara waiting in the car, filled up with dreams.) Each night, and twice on Saturday, they made love hard and long. The only ghosts that haunted them were Mara's wolf-men. She couldn't be satisfied unless Philip hurt her. She shied away from discussing that one need, too, but each night, she pleaded for his beatings. It sorrowed him to hurt her, but he knew she craved it. He wished he was enough to please her without the pain, but if it meant keeping her, to give pain, then Philip would.
The evening of the anniversary of their first meeting, a week later, Philip took Mara to his office to keep him company as he straightened up some paperwork. "Honey, why don't you go to the Dregs to wait? It'll be another half hour at least. --and they have a TV there, and it won't be so boring," Philip said.
Mara laughed and said, "Sure! Nobody would ever call that place boring. Why don't I get us something to eat? It's late, I'd better hurry before the kitchen closes. I wouldn't want us to miss out on the grease."
Philip grinned and kissed her, and Mara trotted down the stairs. When she reached the bar, the usual row of motorcycles lined the street and the music was blaring rap and metal. A couple guys were shoving each other into the wall just past the entryway. Mara ignored them, and went inside, and found a seat at the bar. She ordered some burgers and fries, then turned to survey the scene. Donald was there. Donald was sitting at a corner table, trading obscenities with the hookers at the bar when Mara spotted him. She ducked her head, dreading another confrontation. Her back prickled as she waited, expecting any minute to have his face shoved next to hers, spewing poison. She peeked out every other minute to watch for Philip. So far, Donald was too caught up harassing the whores to notice her at the far end of the bar.
When Philip walked in, she rushed up to him, bag of food in hand, and rushed through their kiss, wincing as she heard the catcalls from the bikers. She pulled Philip outside, and then said, "Donald was in there!"
Philip grimaced and asked her, "Was he bothering you?"
Mara shook her head. "He didn't seem to see us, Philip."
His hand dropped to the holster at his waist, and he realized he'd left the gun back in his office. "Come on, honey, let's get out of here," he said. They hurried the three blocks to his office and up the stairs. The hamburgers filled the narrow hall with a greasy scent as he unlocked the door. Mara peered into the gloom of the hallway. All the other offices were closed and dark. Only the mensroom door across from Philip's office was ajar.
Their little trek had both of them breathing faster. The hamburgers lost their appeal. Philip pulled Mara close and kissed her. "What do you say we clear off this desk and have an appetizer?" he said as he nuzzled her neck. Mara giggled and shucked off her skirt and blouse, so addicted to the feel of their skin sliding together. Philip shoved papers aside and took off his pants and grabbed Mara, lifting her up as she squealed and kicked and placing her back on his desk, where he playfully pinned her arms above her head. She moaned and kissed him. Their bodies melded as her legs wrapped around him and he lay on her, pressing down, heavy and warm. She whimpered as he teased her with his cock, brushing it against her wetness. At last he entered her, and she gasped as he thrust deep. Their bodies moved as one. The only sounds they heard were their own, the rhythmic creaking of the desk, and rapture.
They didn't hear Donald as he stole out of his hiding place in the toilet. They didn't hear him as he slipped through the door and stood just behind the screen separating the reception area from Donald's office. Donald was not stealthy, but they were noisy, and he was fired with drunken cunning and rage. The girl he'd wasted two months' sweet talk on was balling the guy he'd paid to run her out! This cunt, who was too good for him and his wife, was fucking the dick! Donald's hands balled up and he watched them. He hadn't seen the little whore when she'd first come in the Dregs. But he had sure as hell seen her leaving with his private goon! They were practically running out the door, and for good reason! Donald fumed. He'd wanted that girl so bad, played her little role-play games online till he thought he'd puke. Donald couldn't wait to get his hands on those sweet tits---look at 'em! Then the girl had freaked about his wife, and his crazy wife had flipped out about her hanging around! And now the guy he'd PAID to get rid of her had gone and kept her? It was too fucking much to ask any guy to take, wasn't it? Donald felt his cock get harder in his pants despite his rage, maybe because of it. Here I am, watching them screw like dogs, he thought to himself. Fuck that! He turned away and was almost out the door when he noticed Philip's pistol resting on the shelf.
Why the fuck not? Donald asked himself. This Philip's served so many papers, he's got guys pissed off at him all over this town, no one would even think of me, we never went to court. Donald staggered a little, then righted himself, and let his Army training kick in. Been awhile, but he knew his way around a gun, sure. And nobody else even a block within earshot. Donald thumbed off the safety and checked..oh yeah, full load. He got a bead on that animal with two backs, and then he fired. The first one pierced Philip in the side but angled down and got Mara too. Their bodies were tight together, and when he pulled them apart and checked them later, that first bullet had torn right through her heart. Bingo. He took that rat Philip out with one to the head then, while the guy was blubbering and whimpering over the cunt. Her eyes just stared up at Philip, then at the ceiling after Donald plugged the next one into the back of Philip's head. He watched the bodies jerk a little, he waited till he was sure he had 'em dicked. Then Donald left Philip and Mara, their bodies still warm, still joined together, mingling their blood.
Donald figured maybe he'd go back online tonight, and find him another girl.
by hisdinner