Author: Edward Lee; Christine Morgan
Date: 2023-11-06 08:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror
Description: Trophy-wife besties Doris, Janet, and Marj are living the good life. They’ve got it all -- rich lawyer husbands, big houses in an upscale neighborhood, fancy cars, shopping trips, Sunday brunches. Lately, though, they’ve begun to suspect there’s trouble in paradise and the trouble's name is Isobel Rigby, the gothy, sexy young widow at the end of the block. When they each discover evidence their husbands are fooling around, who else could it be? More importantly, what do they do about it? The obvious answer, of CUNT-KICK THE WITCH BITCH! From the depraved minds of Edward Lee and Christine Morga
Publisher: The Evil Cookie Publishing

CUNT-KICK THE

WITCH BITCH

Edward Lee

Christine Morgan

CUNT-KICK THE WITCH BITCH

©2023 by Edward Lee & Christine Morgan

All rights reserved.

First Edition

Cover, layout and interior

K. Trap Jones

All persons in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance that may seem to exist to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This is a work of fiction.

www.theevilcookie.com

Throughout the history of our illustrious human race, there have existed many witches of notoriety:

The Witch of Endor, for instance, who, at the command of King Saul, summoned the ghost of the prophet Samuel (and received some very bad news for his efforts).

The Witch of Stockholm, Malin Matsdotter, who, upon being burned at the stake, did not flinch, scream, nor make so much as a sound in protest as the flames devoured her. Instead, she only smiled.

Catherine Monvoisin, the famous poisoner and abortionist of 15th century France, who concocted evil elixirs from the fetuses her calling purveyed.

Mrs. Mothersole, the Witch of Fenstanton, whose corpse was filled with potions and grimoires when she was buried after her execution and said booty-stuffed corpse was later absconded with by unknown parties.

But the witch of whom this story speaks is contemporary, and has been called by some The Witch of Largo.

Or, as she was more commonly known by a few of her nearest neighbors, “that hosebag cum-dumpster at the end of the street.”

Isobel Rigby was her actual name, though she often went by Izzy. Unusually moon-pale, especially for the Florida climate, she sported long glossy raven black hair, penetrating dark eyes, the bone structure of a goddess, and was, in a word (or two words, actually), what men called a “brick shit-house.”

No, let’s make that three words:

“brick motherfuckin’ shit-house.”

The sight of her, out mowing her lawn in black denim cutoff cheek-splitter shorts, obviously braless beneath a skimpy tank top... or in her driveway, washing her sleek silver Lexus wearing nothing but a fishnet swimsuit with only the tiniest of patches to cover—mostly—large plum-colored nipples and define rather than conceal what surely had to be a clean-shaven mons... yes, the sight alone had caused several cul-de-sac fender benders, resulted in the accidental destruction of two mailboxes and a decorative planter, and landed the paperboy in the hospital after he pedaled smack headlong into the rear of an idling UPS truck, whose driver was so hypnotized he barely heard the impact.

All the housewives, obviously, hated her.

Not, they insisted, because of the aforementioned “brick motherfuckin’ shit-house” thing, or the various associated vehicular mishaps. No, they insisted, it had nothing to do with any of that.

Nor, they insisted, did it stem from any rumors and speculations regarding Izzy’s suspiciously young widowhood, and the way her husband—no more than forty at the time, healthy and athletic and so physically fit he’d turned his own share of heads when he’d mow the lawn, bronzed and shirtless—just suddenly up and dropped dead with no warning. Total fluke. Surprise heart attack, stroke, aneurysm, something; fine one day and gone the next. Leaving the bereaved Isobel, the house and all its contents, both cars, and a substantial amount of money, all free and clear.

Nope, insisted the housewives. Wasn’t that. Wasn’t jealousy of her looks, or her fortune, or her freedom.

Was, as anyone with eyes or good sense should be able to see, because she was a goddamn witch!

Always wearing black—even before being widowed—with “gothy” makeup, lots of silver jewelry of intricate design and fitted with weird gemstones. The way she never tanned, let alone got sunburned; with her alabaster complexion, she should have fried like bacon. At night, her windows flickered with what could only be candlelight, the curtains just sheer enough to let some through but too opaque to allow anyone to peek inside.

Not, of course, that any respectable neighboring housewife would have tried, pressing her nose-jobbed botoxed face to the glass. Or, at least, not admitted to such.

Those who had been in the house reported it redolent with incense and whiffs of strange, smoky herbs. They reported occulty-looking trinkets displayed on the shelves—crystals and chalices, ornate figurines, thick books perhaps better described as ‘tomes.’

Also, lest further proof be needed, she had a cat. A great shaggy ebony-furred brute with eyes that seemed to glow the yellow-orange of those old sodium streetlights.

Witch.

She was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a goddamn witch.

***

Of a late Sunday morning/early Sunday afternoon, at a pricey little place pretentiously named Tavern on the Green, the shaded patio provided a moderately cooler refuge to the typical muggy summer day, while affording expansive views of Largo’s premier golf course and adjacent country club tennis courts. White wrought-iron tables with circular glass tops dotted the long, curving terrace, surrounded by matching white wrought-iron chairs with discreetly patterned—none of that garish, gaudy shit, please and thank you—pastel cushions. Vases of fresh flowers stood at attention upon the center of each table, while waiters and waitresses in cool but crisp linen uniforms bustled back and forth.

China and silverware clinked. Classical music poured softly from hidden speakers. Conversations murmured, interspersed with occasional laughter. Mimosas, Bloody Marys, and aromatic white wines accompanied quiches, croissants, eggs Benedict, coconut-cardamon French toast, fruit salad, and assorted pastries.

Brunch, in other words.

Or, as Janet Brill liked to say, “It’s brunch, bitches!”

Janet was the feisty one of her key trio of acquaintances, whose husbands were all partners at the same prestigious law firm. A lean and angular non-natural redhead, she favored short carefree hairstyles, perhaps excessive amounts of turquoise or emerald eyeshadow, acrylic nails, and tight sheath dresses in bold diagonal stripes. She had been telling people she was thirty-five for at least seven years now, and nobody dared dispute her.

Marjorie Penson, by contrast, was softer and rounder—too round, she would often bemoan, even as she poured more syrup onto her French toast. Fluffy chestnut-brown curls framed her dimpled, somewhat chipmunk-cheeked face; it’d been cute when she was a teenager but caused her no end of annoyance now. The neckline of her flowy floral sundress revealed a hint of ample cleavage, and the skirt fell to just below her equally dimpled knees.

Doris Donaworth, their third, was running late, but they’d started without her. Of them all, Doris had had the most work done; everything lifted, nipped, and tucked to a fare-thee-well. The combination of her prominent breast implants and the asinine platinum-blond beehive she refused to be rid of made her look, as Janet had pointed out, like the gum-smacking alien bimbo from Mars Attacks.

But, speak of the devil, there came Doris now, weaving through the brunchy bustle, beehive towering. A ruffled off-the-shoulder blouse made sure everyone had a good view of her diamond-encrusted necklace as well as her tits; a hip-hugging pencil skirt gave her that same Mars Attacks alien bimbo sashay.

Today, though, Doris did not seem her usual plastic-perfect self. Her brilliant smile—more implants—was absent, a sort of glumness veiled her eyes, and... and were those worry-lines creasing her brow?!

“Doris!” Marj sprang up. “What’s the matter?”

“You look like someone shot your dog,” Janet said. “And you don’t even have a dog.”

Sitting down with a sigh of dejection, Doris signaled the waiter for wine, ordered the fruit plate and an egg-white omelet and a chocolate cream-filled croissant, and then turned to her friends and dropped the bomb.

“I think Gary’s having an affair.”

They gasped.

“Gary?” cried Janet. “No way!”

“Why on earth would you think that?” added Marj, eyes wide.

“Well...” Doris fidgeted with her napkin, suddenly evasive. “How often do you blow your husbands?”

Janet and Marj blinked, and they looked at each other through a startled pause.

“Um... damn,” Janet replied, after a moment’s thought. “I haven’t in, like, years. I hate having it in my mouth. I mean, have you even really looked at a penis? It’s the silliest-looking thing in the world. And I can’t stand sucking it. There could still be drops of piss.”

“Months, now that I think about it,” Marj said. “He just stopped asking. Stopped asking for handies, too. And he never wants to, you know...” Her voice hushed to a little-girl whisper. “...fuck. He’s afraid I could still get pregnant, and he’s never wanted kids. Calls them ‘crotch-goblins.’ Though, a while back, he did ask me to...” She caught herself abruptly, blushing bright red. “Well, never mind.”

“Fuck that nevermind, Marj,” Janet said, leaning forward with interest. “Out with it. We tell you our shit, you tell us yours.”

Marj’s gaze went everywhere but at the two of them. “He asked me to put a Twizzler in his dick-hole.”

Doris spat out her wine. “He what?”

“Are you shitting me?” Janet almost choked on her Bloody Mary. Then, grinning, she leaned closer yet. “So, did you do it?”

A syrup-coated fork fell from Marj’s hand with a tinkling clatter. “Of course not!” she cried.

“Bullshit!” Janet whooped. “You did! I can tell when you lie! You stuck a Twizzler in Stewart’s dick!”

Several fellow patrons turned their heads, and their waiter almost fumbled Doris’s chocolate croissant. He recovered, deposited the plates, and beat a hasty retreat, turning away too fast for them to see if he was smirking.

“Say it a little louder, why don’t you!” Marj groaned, ducking her head. “And that’s not even what we were talking about anyway.”

“Yeah, okay,” Janet relented. “Doris, what’s the deal?”

Doris’ bare shoulders slumped, and even the impressive peaks of her ta-tas seemed to droop despondently. “Well, we hadn’t done anything in a long time either. Like, sexually. I mean, he used to be all over me. I know he’s been under a lot of pressure at the firm, but... I get paranoid sometimes. A couple nights ago, we were both in bed and I got to thinking. Here I am, million-dollar house, brand new BMW... I have this whole great life all because of him, but what does he get out of it? So... I thought I’d give him a surprise blowjob.”

They goggled at her, Marj wide-eyed, Janet crinkling her nose a bit in distaste.

“What?” Doris said, defensive. “Most guys would like that, wouldn’t you think?”

“I guess...” Marj trailed off.

“And?” Janet prompted. “What happened? Give us the deets!”

“I was about to... I pulled the covers down, pulled down his boxers, was about to put it in my mouth and start sucking, but...” Shaking her head, she looked away.

“Damn it, Doris! Don’t leave us hanging! You don’t start a story like this and then just stop!” Janet shot Marj a glance suggesting the same applied to dick-Twizzler tales; sooner or later, the truth must be out.

“It... his dick... it smelled funny. Smelled like... like pussy. And I know it wasn’t my pussy, because the last time we had sex was, hmm, the night of the Super Bowl.”

The table fell silent. They sipped at their drinks and picked at their food.

Finally, Janet, setting her glass down empty but for melting ice cubes and a celery stalk, spoke up.

“Well, fuck,” she summarized. “That’s a problem. Are you going to divorce him?”

Doris blanched. “Divorce him? Then what the hell would I do?”

“Yeah,” said Marj. “We’re all sort of in that same boat, aren’t we? Our rich husbands give us the life of Reilly: fancy cars, fancy houses, ritzy vacations, and we don’t have to do anything. Hell, we don’t even have to clean; we have maids for that!”

“Let’s face it,” Doris said. “I’d be shit out of luck. We all would. We’ve got no skills.”

“Yeah,” Janet admitted. “My MRS degree is in fuckin’ art history. I couldn’t get a job at a car wash with that.”

Marj downed another mimosa. “We’d have to work in McDonald’s or 7-Eleven or something.”

“Fuck that!” Janet smacked the tabletop. “Can you see me jacking fry baskets? Fuck up my nails? Shit.” She glowered at the golf course, and the dense Florida greenery beyond. “What Doris just said is making me think. Our lives are gravy trains, and we gotta keep it that way.”

“Maybe we should start being more assertive, so our husbands think we’re still hot for them?” Marj suggested, then winced in the visible hope nobody would bring up the Twizzler business again.

Janet, though, just pensively nodded. “We need to fuck their brains out, so they won’t need to stray.”

“Amen to that,” Doris said. “Gary’s dick smelling like some other girl’s pussy is my wake-up call. I’m not about to be traded in for a younger model. We gotta stop taking things for granted.”

“You said it,” Janet said. “From now on I bust Larry’s nut every night, whether he likes it or not. He won’t have any sperm left for any other bitches.”

Marj took a long, contemplative pause. “Maybe it’s not other bitches, just another bitch.”

Janet and Doris turned to her.

“What are you saying?” asked Doris in a slow, careful manner.

“I just... it... well...” Marj hesitated. “The reason I mention it is, this one time, I looked out the kitchen window and I saw Stew leaving the Rigby place...”

“Izzy Rigby?” Janet exclaimed. “That goth cunt better never even look at my Larry; I’ll give her a fuckin’ two-by-four shampoo!”

“I asked him what he was doing over there,” Marj continued, “and he said Izzy asked him to replace one of her spotlights out back. Helping out, you know. Being neighborly. I didn’t think anything more of it at the time, but...”

Janet brought a manicured hand to her mouth. “About a week or so ago, I saw Larry over there. He said he was just taking over a letter of hers that got delivered to our mailbox by mistake. It sounded okay then... but now?”

“It sounds like bullshit,” Doris said. “Our husbands are cheating on us with that hosebag cum-dumpster!”

They all stared at each other for a weighted, drawn-out eternity. But, once again, it was Janet who broke the silence.

“So… what are we gonna do about it?”

***

Vigilance and keen calculation were the first steps they decided on.

They had to be sure.

The very next night, when Marj’s husband Stew got home from work—two hours late, by the way—he immediately took a shower.

Which was peculiar; usually, he showered in the mornings.

And, while he was in the shower, she heard a car motor and looked out the window to see Izzy Rigby’s silver Lexus pulling into her garage.

He comes home two hours late from work, then SHE comes home from who-knows-where five minutes later? Marj did not like the undertones of that.

Stew came out of the bathroom in his Williams-Sonoma robe, toweling dry the little bit of hair he had left.

Marj walked over to him, smiling lasciviously, and said, “There’s my big bad sexy lawyer husband...”

Stew shot her a funny look. “Huh?”

She opened his robe and felt up his man-tits, then slid a hand further down.

“Marjorie, what the hell are you doing?”

“It’s high time you had some R&R,” she purred, teasing at his cock and balls, warm and still damp from the shower.

Stewart looked like he didn’t know what to think, and only stood there as she sank to her knees and took him in her mouth.

She sucked for a disproportionately long period of time, but his dick wasn’t getting the message. It just lay there like silly putty.

She sat back on her heels and looked up. “Honey, is something wrong?”

“No, baby, no; you’re great. It’s just… this Leventhorp case is a pressure cooker and it’s got me so stressed out–”

“Want me to get a Twizzler?”

“No, no–”

She displayed her right pinkie finger. “Pinkie up assie?” Which was something else she had not told her besties about, and hoped she never ever had to. But, whatever it took…

“No, thanks, hon, I’m bushed.” He urged her to her feet. “I gotta grab some food and then hit the hay. Big day tomorrow.”

After smooching her on top of the head, about the least romantic thing a guy could do, he went to the kitchen to microwave his leftover dinner.

Well that’s a fine how do you do, Marj thought. She followed him and poured herself a glass of wine. No guy DOESN’T want head... Maybe I give lousy blowjobs...?

But he’d never complained in the past.

Stew ate quickly, put his dishes in the sink, and absently patted her shoulder. “I’ll be back to normal once this damn case is over,” he said. “Goodnight, love you!”

And then he went to their room, got into bed, rolled over, and started snoring.

Damn. I wonder how Janet and Doris are doing...

***

Janet, as it happened, was faring no better.

She had surprised her husband Larry by meeting him at the door wearing a racy negligee, but all he said was “Nice duds, babe. Hey, how about a whiskey sour? Long day, you know? Oh, and sorry I’m late again, it’s this damn Leventhorp case.”

She tried to walk as sexily as possible when she went to the kitchen to make his drink, but she couldn’t help but fret.

Have I lost my looks? Am I a bow-wow?

It couldn’t be. Guys—even younger guys, like the pool boy—still eyeballed her with regularity. The mailman always said hello with a big smile, and then glanced right at her crotch; ever since the day he’d knocked to get a certified letter signed for, and she’d been wearing skin-tight leggings, he always had to check for panty lines and camel-toe.

So then: Fuck that! I’m still good-looking and I know it!

She took off the negligee, leaving her in nothing but Christian Louboutin high heels, and took Larry’s whiskey sour to him in the living room.

He was sitting in his armchair with his feet up.

“Here’s your drink, honey,” she said in a honey-sweet voice, setting it on the end table beside him. Then, striking a provocative nude pose, she asked, “Like the scenery?”

But, lo, the only scenery Larry Brill could’ve been appreciating just then was whatever black void or dreamscape existed behind his closed eyelids; a moment later, he was snoring like a thousand-pound hog.

Of all the fuckin’ bullshit... She chugged most of the whiskey sour herself, and knelt at the side of his chair. This’ll wake him up, she told herself.

She unbuttoned Larry’s pants, unzipped his fly, and pulled his cock out through that ridiculous “trap door” in his Fruit of the Looms.

Dead meat, she thought, fondling it in her hand. Like a baggie full of pudding...

She worked the limp shaft, then traced her fingertips around his cockhead, but...

No-go.

Damn it, I HATE sucking these things.

What woman wouldn’t? So gross and demeaning, gagging on it when the guy invariably wanted to fuck her throat, damn near choking, risking pubes caught in her teeth… let alone the expectation of having to swallow the salty load…

Yuck.

But, she supposed Doris had a point… the best way to kindle his desires and wake him was by doing a little “mouth-love.”

Here goes...

She leaned over, parting and wetting her lips, but then—

Ugh! Fuck!

—she smelled a very distinct odor rising from his junk.

And, no, it wasn’t dick smell, it wasn’t sweat, it wasn’t urine.

It was the smell of pussy.

Same exact thing that happened to Doris...

***

Now, speaking of Doris, she raised a suspicious brow when her husband came home—two hours late, as well—muttering vague excuses about being exhausted by something called the Leventhorp case, and went straight to bed without even bothering with a drink or dinner.

“Good night, hun…” Doris could scarcely reply.

She poured a glass of wine and stood by the front window, peeking out at the other houses, glumly wondering how things were going for Marj and Janet.

The Rigby place sat dark, but for the muted tell-tale flicker of candlelight. All too easy to picture Isobel Rigby in there, bare-ass moon-pale naked, kneeling on a pentacle rug or some such witchy shit. With that fucking horrible yellow-eyed cat of hers looking on. The one time, trying to be polite, Doris had tried to pet it, the furry devil-bastard had hissed and swiped at her, drawing blood. Goddamn thing.

Thinking of Izzy did nothing to improve her mood, but did firm her resolve to get to the bottom of whatever this mess with Gary might be. She was not about to see her marriage, and her eminently comfortable lifestyle, put at risk. Certainly not because of some tramp!

She finished her wine in two large gulps and marched into the bedroom, determined to get some results. Or, at the very least, some answers.

Before adjourning to bed, Gary had evidently undressed in a rush, leaving his clothes in an indifferent pile on the bedroom floor. Never mind it consisted of one of his $3,000 Brioni suits.

Men, she thought. What slobs.

Frowning, Doris picked up the slacks and jacket and started putting them on hangers so they wouldn’t get crumpled.

Then she noticed a single stray hair on his charcoal-grey suit jacket.

The hair was nowhere near Doris’ platinum blonde.

It was very long, very glossy, and very, very, very black.

***

Several texts, a few hours, and some prep work later, they gathered in Janet’s backyard, geared up and revved up and ready to roll.

And dressed like ninjas, or as close as their stylish wardrobes would allow. Dark hues, loose-fitting, easy to move in—okay, fine, yoga pants; they were wearing yoga pants. Sensible slip-on flats. Long-sleeved tops. Sunglasses. Cloth masks left over from that pandemic nonsense. Head-coverings: a navy-blue Marlins cap snugged down atop Janet’s dyed-auburn wedge; a fringed silk indigo-and-violet kerchief tied pirate/gypsy-fashion around Marj’s chestnut curls; some voluminous cashmere scarf-shawl semi-flattening Doris’ beehive and knotting under her chin.

“We look ridiculous,” Doris complained.

“I hope nobody sees us,” said Marj.

“Nobody seeing us is kind of the point,” Janet snapped. “Or at least, nobody recognizing us.”

The house next door to Janet’s was currently vacant, the previous owners—just the most adorable pair of gays—having moved to New York. The house on the other side of that belonged to Isobel Rigby, and the owners of the house on the other side of that were on a six-week cruise. Privacy fences separated the yards, while a higher and more solid retaining wall curved along the rear edge of the properties, marking the boundary of the cul-de-sac, and, indeed, the boundary of the neighborhood/housing development. Beyond it, a grassy slope led to a canal, on the other side of which was a verdant sprawl of as-yet-untamed Florida marshland.

At almost-midnight on a Monday, all was quiet but for the usual nocturnal noises and distant city-sounds. A dog barked, but in a bored and sleepy way. Someone’s automated sprinkler system kicked on—hssssss-chk-chk-chk-hssssss. The air hung still and humid, cooler but not by much.

“Right,” said Janet, brisk and brusque and businesslike. She unlimbered a heavy-duty nylon pack from her shoulder. Opening it, she doled out pairs of nitrile gloves like doctors wore, mini penlights, rolls of duct tape, folding pocket knives, and tasers.

“Oh my God, really?” Marj examined the taser, biting her lip.

“Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.” Janet patted the pack with a satisfied cheshire-cat grin.

“What all have you got in there, anyway?” Doris asked.

“We gotta be ready for anything,” was Janet’s cryptic reply. She hefted a fistful of small sewn-shut leather sacks filled with sand. “These are coshes, by the way. You grip it by this end, give it a swing, and whack, right on the head.”

The others gaped at her.

“What?” she said. “What did you think we were gonna do, go over there and tickle the bitch?”

“I don’t know about this,” Marj fretted.

Janet tucked one of the coshes into her waistband. “Come on, look. Look at the evidence. They each get home two hours late from work, each with the same lame-ass excuse about some case or another—”

“Leventhorp,” Doris said.

“Yeah,” Janet went on. “And, right around the same time, Little Miss Goth Titties also rolls in? For all we know, they were having a four-way bang-a-lang-a-ding-dong at that no-tell motel over by the bowling alley!”

“No,” grimaced Marj. “No, not at the same time, no, that’s just, eew, gross!”

“Three dicks, three holes, why not?”

“The filthy whore!” Doris grabbed a cosh. “She likes a four-way, I say we give her one!”

“Damn right, that’s the spirit!” Janet looked at Marj. “Well? What do you say? We teach her a lesson? Or would you rather let her be the one to stick Twizzlers up your man’s peehole?”

Marj’s face darkened nearly to maroon. “I wish I had never told you that,” she grumbled, but she also took the proffered cosh.

“Fuck, yeah!” Janet zipped the pack, shouldered it, and slapped them high-fives. “Let’s do this thing!”

The privacy fences may have been okay for privacy, as far as providing a token flimsy visual barrier so people could sunbathe topless or skinny-dip with plausible deniability. They were, however, utter shit for security; the panels could be lifted and shifted with minimal effort to create makeshift gates.

Which was precisely what Janet then did, accessing the vacant house’s backyard in a matter of seconds. She led the way, followed by Marj, with Doris bringing up the rear—as if by unspoken agreement that someone had to make sure Marj didn’t wuss out. They skirted the drained pool and covered hot tub, repeated the process with the fence on the other side, and found themselves looking at Izzy Rigby’s shadowy garden of winding paths, decorative statuary, mirrored gazing balls, and a fair amount of atypical-to-the-region plant life among the zinnias, hibiscus, and birds-of-paradise.

“Think any of this shit is poisonous?” Doris wondered. “Hemlock or something?”

“She grows her own catnip,” Marj said. “I heard her telling Lois Parker.”

“I bet that’s not all she grows-her-own of,” said Janet, eyeing a little greenhouse.

“Catnip,” scoffed Doris. “That cat of hers is a fucking monster. What do we do if we run into him?”

“Give him a zap,” Janet suggested casually, surveying the dark windows.

“Oh, no, not the kitty, we can’t zap the kitty!”

“Marj, please,” Doris said. “Don’t be such a marshmallow. Damn brute tore my arm to ribbons! I almost had to go to the E.R.”

“Forget the cat, okay?” Janet squared the pack on her shoulders. “I’ll go first. Count to five, then Marj, then five again and you, Doris. Got it?”

Without waiting for confirmation, she darted into the yard, running fleet and crouched over.

“Is it just me,” murmured Marj, “or is she enjoying this a little much?”

“Shut up and go.” Doris gave her a push.

By the time they’d joined Janet on the back patio—which was covered with a phases-of-the-moon and constellation awning, had matching padded lounge chairs, and a really nice gas firepit—she’d already jimmied the latch on the sliding glass door as if she’d done this sort of thing a hundred times.

“No alarm system, either,” she whispered. “Stupid slut.”

“Maybe she uses her maaaaagic,” Doris said, waggling her fingers all spooky.

“Stop,” pleaded Marj. “I know the witch stuff’s a big joke, but it still freaks me out.”

Inside, unsurprisingly, the floorplan echoed the layouts of their own homes, and they had no trouble navigating it despite Izzy’s Addams Family choices in decor. Big into ebony clocks, tapestries and wall hangings, candelabra, cabinets of curiosities lurking in gloomy corners, and other arcane whatnot; she kept the exterior in line with the community regulations, but indoors was another matter.

Marj shivered. Doris rolled her eyes. Janet ignored the Haunted Mansion ambiance, taking silent but purposeful strides toward where they all knew the lavish master suite would be located.

It did smell, as expected, of incense and old books and exotic spices… but overlaying those scents was the incongruous aroma of buttered popcorn, as if Izzy had microwaved herself up a packet of Orville Redenbacher for a bedtime snack, after a hard day fucking their husbands to floppy flaccidity.

Aside from the muted ticking of the clocks, a furtive feathery rustle from a cloth-draped birdcage, and their own shallow breathing, the house was almost preternaturally silent. They could no longer hear the hssssss-chk-chk-chk-hssssss of sprinklers or anything else.

“We shouldn’t be here,” Marj mouthed, holding her penlight below her chin the way kids did when telling scary stories.

It was not a good look for her, seriously emphasizing her chubby-cheekedness and highlighting more than a hint of what was well on its way to becoming a double-chin, but neither Doris nor Janet had the heart to tell her so at the moment. Janet just waved a “quit it” gesture at her and she turned the penlight back off.

They made their way down the short hall on tiptoe, Doris especially expecting that goddamn cat to explode out of nowhere in a classic jump scare. She’d probably piss her pants if it did, expecting it or otherwise.

But the cat, evidently, was above such trite maneuvers. Uncontested, they reached their destination, where the door stood partly ajar.

The bedroom, somehow, proved even shadowier and quieter than the rest of the house, which frankly didn’t seem possible. As if light and sound were simply absorbed and subsumed. Floor to ceiling blackout curtains obscured the windows, thick plush carpet covered the floor. It managed to simultaneously convey the impressions of solid opacity and a total void… as if stepping through the doorway would result either in a bone-jarring stone-wall collision, or falling forever through starless empty space.

Which is basically a roundabout way of saying the room was dark as shit, Hand-in-front-of-your-face dark. Pitch dark. Black hole of Calcutta dark. Satan’s asshole dark. Pick your metaphor. It was fucking dark in there.

Fucking dark, and fucking silent.

Silent enough to raise goosebumps on the three intrepid midnight intruders, making them falter and second-guess. Was the Rigby bitch even home? They hadn’t seen her car leave, and bet your ass they’d been keeping their eyes open all evening, along with checking in on the blissfully snoring and slumbering cheating dickheads they’d married. But she sure wasn’t snoring. Or, if she was even there at all, breathing heavily enough to be heard.

Then, like the psycho dude in that Poe story, Janet clicked her penlight to the faintest, pin-thinnest beam, angling it slowly into the darkness. And, again like in the Poe story, it fell directly upon its target.

Only, the target wasn’t some creepy old fucker’s cataract-raddled glaring staring eyeball. It illuminated Isobel Rigby, supine and sound asleep in the middle of a king-sized bed. Completely uncovered, completely unclad, and—as has been previously averred, a “brick motherfuckin’ shit-house.”

Against the obsidian sheen of black satin sheets, her long midnight hair was all but invisible, but her moon-pale skin just about glowed with its own pearlescent light. She slept on her back, with one supple leg extended and the other bent at the knee, affording them a clear view of her clean-shaven mons and the fine, soft folds of her delicate pussy lips. Her full, firm breasts with their large plum-colored nipples lolled on her chest. Her unlined belly dipped in lissome concavity before swelling into the sumptuous cradle of her hips and pelvis. Her left arm lay along her side, palm up, fingers loosely curled. Her right was tucked partway beneath her pillow, lost in the disarrayed skeins of her hair.

A vision. A sculpted goddess. A fairytale princess a la Tim Burton, if Tim Burton did gothic erotica.

Or, to put it another way, remember the naked space vampire chick from Lifeforce? Like that, only moreso.

A “brick motherfuckin’ shit-house” for sure.

For a timeless, spellbound moment, they could only stare.

Then Doris shrieked, “Steal my man, willya, bitch?” and leaped at her, and it was fucking on.

***

Janet, by then in full-tilt action movie spy thriller mode, would have stopped her, or signaled her to wait. The idea of the cunt being shamming, gripping a pistol under the pillow in her hidden right hand, had a powerful hold on her mind. Izzy, having known they were there all along, would whip it out, baring her teeth in a savage grin, and plug Doris dead-bang in the forehead, blowing her brains out the back of her beehive.

But Doris, once she got going, was too damn fast. She’d seized Izzy by an arm and an ankle and yanked her clear off the bed—the combo of satin sheets and milky-smooth skin helping facilitate the motion—before Janet could so much as blink.

And Izzy, it turned out, hadn’t been shamming. She’d legit been sound asleep, waking with a start and a yelp as Doris hurled her nude, perfect, “brick motherfuckin’ shit-house” body to the floor.

Thanks to the carpet, her hard landing made no more than a muffled thump. Janet caught a glimpse of her wide, confused, astonished eyes in the hectic wavering of the penlight.

Marj gasped, squeaking painfully on the inhale. Perhaps by accident, she squeezed her penlight on, adding its thin beam in a way that only made the darkness dance crazily.

Doris, meanwhile, dropped knees-first onto Izzy’s midsection, eliciting a coughing, winded grunt. She groped for her cosh and swung, the sand-filled leather meeting the side of Izzy’s head in a glancing blow.

“What the—?” Izzy began.

“Don’t let her talk!” Janet dove onto the satiny bed like a kid with a Slip-n-Slide, shot across the mattress and off the side, and landed on the struggling tangle of both Doris and Izzy.

“I can’t see for shit!” Doris griped.

Another wild swing of the cosh missed Janet by inches; she felt the whoosh.

“Hold her! Just fucking hold her already!” Clutching a sheaf of Izzy’s hair, Janet twisted it into a kind of thick cable, pulled it across the lower half of Izzy’s face, wedged it into her open mouth, and essentially gagged her with it.

“Uh fuh?!” Izzy managed.

“Skanky cunt!” Doris swung the cosh again and connected a good one that time, not knocking Izzy out but at least stunning her for a few seconds.

“Get the pack!” Janet barked at Marj, who stood deer-in-the-headlights. “Marj, get the pack, there’s a ball-gag in it, and restraints!”

“There’s a what?” shrilled Marj, though at least she was moving, opening the pack and rummaging its contents.

In short order, chaotic and confused wrestling grappling short order but short order nonetheless, they had a dazed and semiconscious Isobel Rigby secured, a red rubber ball-gag lodged in her yap, its vinyl straps buckled tight around her head. They had her blindfolded as well—okay, it was a sleep mask; so what? it worked! And bound hand and foot, with an assortment of everything from zip ties and duct tape to black velcro restraints and fur-lined cuffs.

Izzy writhed on the carpet, only able to sort of twist and wormy-squirm. She huffed rapidly through her nose, which was bleeding because at some point in the tussle it had been forcibly introduced to Janet’s elbow. Bruised and disheveled, she could only make stifled plaintive bleating noises.

“Jesus fuck,” panted Doris, sitting with her back braced against the side of the mattress.

“Damn,” Janet agreed. “Good job, though; we got her.”

“Is there, um, something you’d like to share with the class, Janet?” asked Marj, shaking the pack.

“Huh?”

“Remember the other day when you were all ‘we tell you our shit, you tell us yours’?”

“Hey yeah,” said Doris. “You wanna explain why you just happen to have a ball-gag and restraints?”

“Pretty sure there’s butt-plugs and a strap-on in here too,” Marj added.

“Oh, don’t you judge me, Team Twizzler!”

“No, seriously!” Doris leaned forward. “You and Larry are…”

“Can we just drop it for now?” Janet aimed her penlight at Izzy. “Slightly more important stuff to deal with here, yeah?”

On that, they could hardly argue, returning their attention to their captive, forming a triangle around her prone form.

Izzy had gone still, listening avidly. She knew who they were, had to know, even without their sloppy mistakes of using names. Then again, well, if they were here to teach her a lesson about fucking their husbands, it’d help for her to know exactly which husbands she was being taught a lesson about.

“Okay, listen up, you hosebag cum-dumpster,” Doris said, giving Izzy’s hip a none-too-gentle nudge with a foot. “We’re aware what you’ve been up to, and it fuckin’ stops right goddamn now, got it?”

“Yeah!” Emboldened, Marj stepped up and delivered a little kick to Izzy’s bound ankles. “You stay away from our men!”

“Think we wouldn’t find out?” added Janet, digging the toe of her shoe corkscrew-motion into Izzy’s ribs. “Think we wouldn’t notice your dank pussy stank on their dicks?”

Isobel writhed and squirmed some more, and began bleating again. Protest, denial, apology; didn’t matter. The gag would stay on, as much to keep her from speaking as screaming for help. If anybody could even hear, given how soundproofed the house seemed.

Anything she had to say would be lies and bullshit at best anyway. And, if there actually was anything to the witchcraft rumors, the last thing they needed was for her to, like, cast a spell or put a curse or a hex on them.

“Always out there dressed like a slut!” Marj ankle-kicked again, more like she meant it.

“Wiggling your ass!” Doris stomped the sole of her foot onto Izzy’s hipbone.

“Shoving these tig ol’ bitties in everyone’s face!” Janet did a lowkey underboob punt, which made Izzy’s entire pectoral superstructure wobble.

The taunts spilled out faster, the blows landed harder.

“Suck their cocks, too, cocksucker?”

Stomp!

“Do them all at the same time, one in each hole?”

Punt!

“I bet you even let them eat you out, pervert!”

Kick!

Janet paused, glancing at Marj. “Wait, you don’t like to be eaten out?”

“Eew no; who’d want that?”

“Well,” said Doris, philosophically, “a lot of guys just aren’t good at it. Ever tried with a woman?”

“What?!” Marj grimaced hideously.

“Whoa heeeyyy!” Janet crowed. “Dorrrrrisss!”

“I’m not saying I have—”

“You’re not not saying it either, though! Guuurl, do tell!”

“I was in college! So what?”

“Giving or receiving or both?”

“Oh my God, you two are so gross!” Marj kicked Izzy’s knee so hard it canted sideways, making the bound woman wail through the ball-gag. “Can’t we just deal with this hussy and go home?”

“She’s right,” Doris said, and stomped Isobel’s trim white belly as if trying to leave a footprint in the snow.

Izzy bucked and gurgled.

“Careful,” said Janet. “If she pukes, it’ll shoot out her nose.” Then she sideboob-kicked and set off a modified Newton’s Cradle reaction (you know, those executive desk toys with the spheres clacking back and forth).

“Let her fucking choke on it!” Doris did another stomp.

Kick, stomp, stomp, kick!

Bitch, whore, tramp, tart!

As Izzy uttered stifled moans and screams, rolling back and forth on the carpet, trying to curl into a ball to avoid further punishment but only making an ideal target of her lusciously ripe and white full-moon ass. Which then, rather quickly, began to resemble the actual moon even more closely, blotched with dark bruises in irregular shapes like the lunar seas.

Marj, who had evidently gotten over any earlier reticence or hesitancy in favor of becoming a furious vengeful harpy, suddenly bent and ripped the velcro restraints from Izzy’s ankles, drawing an outcry from Janet.

“What are you doing? Don’t untie her!”

“I want to kick her right where she deserves it!” So saying, she flung Isobel’s legs apart, stepped up, and went for the fifty-yard field goal.

That cutie-boy Jason Sanders of the Miami Dolphins would have been proud.

The sound of the impact was both meaty and squishy, reminiscent of a chunk of tenderloin (fittingly) being walloped with a mallet while someone simultaneously took a sledgehammer to a watermelon. The force of it sent seismic gelatinous tremors outward from the epicenter, rippling Isobel’s flesh. And the sight of it…

“Eeee-yowtch!” screeched Doris, doing an involuntary whole-body flinch.

“Aaaugh!” Janet agreed, reflexively squeezing her knees together. “Holy shit, Marj!”

Imagine, if you will, a mound of risen but unbaked sourdough. Soft, pale, rounded. Now imagine punching it. Really driving your fist into it. Splitting it, splaying it open. Releasing a gusty expulsion of yeasty gases.

Only, in this case, the soft pale mound was Isobel’s pubis, and the fist was Marj’s dainty swim-shoe-clad size 6. Which, as Marj quickly realized, to her horror and revulsion…

“I’m stuck… my foot’s stuck… oh jeez—help, help—my foot’s stuck!”

...was lodged several inches deep into Isobel’s vagina.

“What do you mean, stuck?” Doris yipped.

“It’s stuck in her pussy!” wailed Marj, who overbalanced and bounced to the carpet on her ample backside, foot still firmly wedged in place.

“That,” declared Janet with something akin to awe, “is goddamn brutal.”

“Get it ooooouuuuuut!”

Marj tugged at her own leg, joggling Isobel. Her foot made squelchy noises. Rivulets of blood, inky in the glow of three crotch-focused penlights, trickled over her swim-shoe and along Izzy’s inner thighs.

Izzy herself, after a single monumental convulsive jerk, had gone limp, presumably passed out from the shock and the pain. Even a 6, which is on the smaller side of the women’s shoe size bell curve, is quite a bit longer, and a great deal girthier, than the average penis, and doubtless a rude, crude, unpleasant surprise to have abruptly rammed up your hoo-hah.

In the end, it took Janet holding Izzy’s body in place while Doris hooked her arms around Marj from behind to help pull, before—with an even squelchier, sloppier noise—Marj’s foot popped free like a recalcitrant cork from a bottle. This was followed by a more copious initial blood-blurt, then a slowing crimson ooze.

As Marj gibbered and squicked, trying to peel off her swim-shoe without actually touching it, Doris and Janet risked a closer penlight inspection of the damage.

“You know on the cooking shows when they spatchcock a chicken?” Janet asked rhetorically.

“Looks more like fresh roadkill to me,” Doris said. “You sure did a number on her, Marj.”

“Eew eew eww ick ick ick, I got some on me!”

Janet slid Doris an evil side-eye. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Damn right I am!”

They were up and at it before you could say ‘cunt-kicking contest,” laughing maniacally, taking turns. And not just cunt-kicking, but cunt-stomping, too; Doris brought the stomp on fast and furious, piledriving her heel into the pulped and soggy mess that had, until recently, been a quite lovely example of the female genitalia. Janet, meanwhile, aimed a bit lower, as if trying to battering-ram Izzy’s taint, breaching the barrier dividing vaginal canal from anal passage.

Marj, either recovering from her personal trauma or having some crucial circuit finally snap in her brain, sprang back up to rejoin the party. Which, from a distance, might have resembled some spastic combination of grape-treading, Texas boot-scootin’, Riverdance, and trying to squash a swarm of cockroaches.

The sounds continued to be wet and mulchy, both grisly and gristly, punctuated by the occasional krak! of fracturing pelvic bone and deep resonant pok! of dislocating hip, accompanied by the spluttering burble of ruptured internal organs and released bowels. These latter, of course, adding the pungent reeks of piss and shit to the already overpowering slaughterhouse stench.

That final touch proved too much for Doris. “Oh, phew!” She staggered backward, fanning a hand in front of her face. “That is nasty; I swear I’m gonna hurl.”

Janet and Marj also stopped their curb-stomp cunt-kick cha-cha. They, like Doris, were wringing with sweat, blood-sodden from the knees down, and liberally splattered from the knees up. All of their shoes were caked in gore, congealed clots, and lumpy globs. No aerobics class, hot yoga, or Peloton workout had ever been like this. Cardio, core, and leg-day.

“We broke her pussy-bone,” Marj said. “I heard it crack.”

“Broke, nothing,” said Janet. “We fuckin’ pulverized it!” She pulled down her mask and spat on Isobel. “Good luck stealing anyone’s husband now, bitch!”

“Yeah, no kidding; like to see her try,” added Doris. “They’ve got prettier potholes along the old county road.”

“I guess she learned her lesson, alright.” Frowning, Marj bent over the motionless woman, then poked her shoulder. “Isobel? Izzy Rigby? Hey, wake up, can you hear me?”

“Uh, Marj…” Janet shifted her weight from foot to foot, with more squelchy sound effects.

“What?”

“Oh, fuck,” Doris said in a tone of dawning realization. “Is she…?”

“Dead?” finished Janet. “Sure seems that way.”

“No,” insisted Marj. “She’s not dead, she can’t be dead, we didn’t kill her.” She grasped Izzy’s shoulder and shook it, once again sending gelatinous tremors through her impressive mammarian promontories, but eliciting no other response.

“She’s not breathing,” Janet pointed out.

“We… do we… should we call an ambulance or something?” Doris ventured.

“An ambulance? Are you nuts? Look at her! What would we tell them, she slipped in the bathtub and accidentally pulverized her own pussy into sludge? Used a live grenade for a dildo and, oopsie? What the fuck would we tell them?”

“That… we… found her like that? There was an intruder?”

“Jesus, Doris.” Janet removed her Marlins cap, raked fingers through her hair, and replaced it. “Cops may be dumb, but they’re not that dumb.”

“And look at us!” Marj regarded herself; even with the dark clothes they’d chosen, they might as well have hung bit signs saying GUILTY around their necks.

“Well, we’ve got to do something!” Doris shouted. “We can’t just leave her there!”

“Calm your tits,” Janet said. “I’ve got an idea.”

***

Now, the astute reader will have probably already guessed where this is going, and there better not be any sass about authorial interjection as if it’s some kind of a bad, lazy, or unprofessional thing; freakin’ JRR Tolkien did it in the barrel scene of The Hobbit, so just keep your wisenheimer remarks to yourself.

As was described earlier, the neighborhood in which this stirring scene of righteous wifely revenge takes place is a cul-de-sac, one of those suburban-type upscale planned community housing development streets with no outlet at the other end, but a sort of wider roundabout, and the houses following it in a curve. In this particular case, the back yards of those houses are separated side-to-side by privacy fences, but bordered along the rear edge by a higher wall.

Beyond which, as you were already informed, a grassy slope descends to a canal, and then a verdant sprawl of as-yet-untamed Florida marshland. Though it likely won’t be long before it’s drained and bulldozed and turned into condos and mini-malls, because such is the way of progress.

Anyway, long story short, when faced with the problem of what to do with the woman they’d just cunt-kicked to death, Janet’s suggested solution was both easy and obvious. Heft her dead ass over the wall and across the canal. Chuck it into the marshland. Let the gators and scavengers do the rest. Piece of cake.

Now, arguably, they could have set fire to her house, blamed it on an errant candle—the departed was indeed known to have lots of candles—left her body there to burn, and called it good. But other factors, like whether the fire spread to endanger their own homes, or whether the fire department got there in time to find any tell-tale evidence, etc. etc., would have been a deterrent to such an option.

Ergo, marshland body-drop it was, with the codicil they’d figure out what to do about the crime scene itself at another time. After they’d gotten rid of their clothes, tools, weapons, and Janet’s secret arsenal of kinky sex-toys. After they’d showered and scoured and scrubbed every inch of themselves with those Lysol wipes. After they’d washed a few Valium down with a pitcher or two of Mai Tais to get their jagged nerves under control, and then crept to their respective beds beside their respective blissfully slumbering unaware husbands.

From there, well, they’d just have to see how it went.

***

So, they did.

They paid for it the next few days, too; that was for sure. Along with the standard muscle aches and joint pain from so much strenuous exercise, they’d each managed to fuck themselves up in various ways.

Doris, for instance, must’ve tweaked something in her lower back when initially yanking Isobel out of bed and hurling her to the floor; the next morning, she could barely hobble around. She told Gary she “slept wrong,” the catch-all excuse. He, running late for work, just told her to take a couple Advil as he gulped his coffee and rushed out the door.

Marj, meanwhile, woke after Stewart had already gone, to find her right foot entirely swollen and purple and throbbing like hell. A visit to Urgent Care later, along with a lie about tripping on the front porch steps, and she came home with a temporary cast on two broken toes. Plus an orthopedic support boot, a few tabs of Percocet, and instructions to keep it elevated.

As for Janet, during the process of lugging Izzy’s body into the marsh, she’d been bitten or stung or scratched by or brushed up against something that triggered one fuck of a bad reaction. From ear to shoulder, she was covered with puffy, itchy red welts, against which neither calamine lotion nor hydrocortisone cream did a damn thing. Larry, worried it might be contagious (though really just driven nuts by her constant tossing and turning and furious efforts not to scratch), slept in the guest room the rest of the week.

Obviously, all this prevented them from getting together, and certainly from going out or engaging in any of their usual activities. They tried to maintain an ‘act normal, act casual’ facade, though, and communicated by carefully-worded calls and texts.

And, of course, kept diligent watch on the neighborhood, especially the Rigby house. Waiting for the inevitable queries or remarks about whether anybody had seen Izzy lately, or perhaps the police to show up, or an entire investigation complete with crime-scene tape and newsvans crowding the cul-de-sac.

None of which happened. Since Izzy had, aside from her lawn-moving/car-washing burlesque shows, had pretty much kept to herself socially, so everyone must’ve just assumed she had gone on vacation without saying a word. Not as if she’d ever asked any of them to water her plans, or check her mail in the past. Nor did she have so much as a weekly maid service, let alone a live-in housekeeper, like the Parkers did.

Newspapers piling up might have hinted something was amiss, but, a.) people forgot to put in a delivery hold all the time, and b.) who even had paper delivery anymore? How archaic! An accumulation of boxes from Amazon, Fed-Ex, and UPS might have similar effect, but thus far, didn’t seem to be a concern either.

There was, though, the matter of the cat.

Marj, in particular, fretted about the fate of the poor orphaned and abandoned kitty. Doris opined she hoped the devil-bastard starved. Janet didn’t care one way or the other, except to point out they hadn’t seen the cat anyway; for all they knew, it could have died months ago, or run off, or Isobel got rid of it. No sense worrying about something so frivolous as that.

“The important thing,” she reminded them, “is making sure nobody ever suspects a thing, and making sure we keep our husbands fuck-drunk and happy, so this bullshit never happens again.”

Easier said than done, given none of them were exactly in a state, mood, or mind-set for sexual athletics until they’d recovered from their various ailments and injuries. By which time…

“Gary didn’t get home until almost eight o’clock last night,” Doris reported, when they finally all felt well enough to meet up at Mucho Margaritas the following Thursday.

“Oh my God, Stewart too!” Marj bit her lip. “He said he got caught in a meeting—”

“Still citing that damn Leventhorp case?” Janet said grimly. “Larry fed me the same line.”

“And…” Doris glugged down a brainfreeze’s worth of frozen tequila slushie. “I found another long black hair on his sport coat.”

“But, but, but,” stammered Marj. “We, we, we, we—”

Janet shot her a glare, and she subsided. “We’re not going there.”

“No, right, sorry.” Abashed, she nibbled fitfully at a tortilla chip.

“What if…” Doris pursed her lips. “What if we… were wrong?”

“Bullshit!” Janet declared. “We weren’t! They were all cheating, and we knew it!”

The other two shushed her, glancing around, but the other patrons were fully engaged in their own margaritas, chips and salsa, shrimp tacos, and lively conversation, as Jimmy Buffett poured from the overhead speakers.

“Maybe it wasn’t her?” Marj suggested meekly.

“I found her fucking hair!” Doris hissed.

“Well, but… do we really know for sure it was hers?”

“What the shit are you saying, Marj?” Janet leaned back and crossed her arms. Her voice was low and venomous. “You saying they’re having it off with some entirely different black-haired bitch, and we cunt-stomped the wrong one?”

“Right, I should take it to the lab and have them run DNA tests on it?” scoffed Doris.

“Wait, you mean you have it?” Janet asked. “The hair sample?”

“This one, not the first one.” She fished into her purse and set a baggie on the table.

Sure enough, coiled within it was a strand of very long, very glossy, very very black hair.

“But it’s not as if I could take it into a lab,” Doris continued, “Not without a bunch of questions.”

“Who else do we know with hair like that?” Janet gazed into space, absently scratching at her still-puffy neck. “Most of our maids are Cuban; you don’t think—”

“Mrs. Alvarez is like sixty years old!” Doris said.

“Then what about the younger girls they sometimes bring in?”

“Uh, hey…” Marj said hesitantly. She had opened the baggie and taken out the strand of hair. “This, um, I’m pretty sure this is horse hair.”

“What?” Doris and Janet blurted.

“I grew up in Wellington; it’s basically the equestrian capitol of the world. When I was a teenager, I worked part-time as a show braider. I must’ve braided a thousand manes and tails. This is horse hair.”

“How the fuck—?” began Janet.

“Why the hell—?” began Doris.

“—would Gary have horse hair on his coat?” they finished in unison.

Marj’s eyes widened. “The Leventhorp case!”

“What?” they chorused.

“The Leventhorp case!” she repeated. “The one that’s been stressing them out so bad! Stewart was going on about it the other day, and I was only half-listening—because, you know, Percocet—but the Leventhorps are from Sarasota, and their big mess of a lawsuit has something to do with the racetrack there!”

A long moment passed as Janet and Doris let this news sink in. Jimmy Buffett had given way to the Beach Boys—Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama. Some college girls at a nearby table were celebrating one of their number’s 21st birthday. Several generations of a vacationing family were arguing about where to go tomorrow. Nobody was paying their trio a bit of mind.

Which, frankly, was just as well, because Doris set her palms flat on the table and leaned forward, sore back or not, with a deadly glint in her eye. “Are you implying,” she said coldly, “that my husband is fucking a horse?!”

“No!” bleated Marj. “Just, the stable or racetrack is where the hair could have come from—”

“Okay, whatever,” said Janet. “But, even forgetting the horse hair, the fact of the matter is, they’ve been fucking someone! Remember the pussy-stank on their dicks?” She paused, and turned to Marj. “Does horse pussy smell like human pussy?”

“Oh my God, are we really having this conversation?”

“You started it with the horse stuff! So, does it?”

“Well… no… I don’t think so… I mean, I think we’d be able to tell the difference…”

“What, you never got a good whiff while you were right there braiding their tails?”

“Janet! Gross! I didn’t go around sniffing them! Trust me, it was bad enough when they’d fart or poop!”

“Well maybe we should have taken a good whiff of Izzy’s pussy before we stomped it into mincemeat!” Doris fumed. “Then we’d know for sure if we could rule her out!”

A waitress who’d been approaching to ask if they needed any refills halted and did a slooooow fade.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” groaned Janet. “We gotta stop talking about this, especially in public!”

***

It wasn’t as if his wife was unattractive. Far from! She was quite attractive, in her own way. He knew he was luckier than plenty of men, whose wives had blimped up or really let themselves go.

She still put in the time, went to the effort, looked damn good, gave him nothing to be ashamed of when they were out together. If she wasn’t a nubile coed like the girls who flocked to Florida every Spring Break, well, okay; he was hardly a young stud fratboy himself anymore.

And if she wasn’t a “brick motherfuckin’ shit-house” piece of struttin’ dynamite like a certain widow down the street, well…

What mattered was, she was his wife. She’d been good to him, done good by him. They’d built a nice, comfortable, successful life together. With the house and the cars and the money and the respect; without any rugrats to muck it up.

God, just the thought of having to shell out for dance lessons or braces or college made his butt pucker.

No, he had a sweet deal, and he knew it. Appreciated it. Maybe he didn’t show it as much as he should have, but didn’t that also kind of go with the territory?

Time passed, the years took their toll, and after a while, it just began to seem kind of… same. Things weren’t as fresh, as exciting and new. Sparks fizzled; flames dwindled. People fell into habits, or ruts. Became complacent. Routine.

Got, in other words, bored.

Hey, it happened! So what? Call it a midlife crisis if you had to, but after enough years of monotony, what red-blooded guy wouldn’t crave him some strange? Nothing serious, certainly nothing to dump his wife over—God, no; he was a lawyer, he knew how those stories went! But, a tawdry fling here and there, the odd spot of action when he attended a conference out of town, a tasty sidepiece…

Shit, who could blame him?

When it was right there on display, on offer, his for the taking? No strings attached? Hot and ready, as the Little Caesars ads said?

Besides, his wife wasn’t really into the whole sex thing much anyway. At first, hell yeah, they couldn’t get enough of each other. Several times a day, in every room in the house. Fucking their way across half of Europe on vacation. Groping each other in the theater balcony during a production of Les Mis, and her blowing him in the car on the drive home. Earning their Mile High badges standing up in the cramped confines of an airplane bathroom. Sneaking upstairs to do it during his uncle’s wake, while the rest of the family drank and waxed maudlin.

As the years went by, though, they’d just, gradually, done it less and less frequently. Couple times a week, then once a week. Maybe a special extra session on his birthday, or their anniversary. Or maybe not. More hassle than it was worth. They were busy people with busy, active lives; shoehorning rote sex into their schedules was no way to keep the home fires burning.

By now, he got the sense she was only going through the motions, approaching it like it was yet another tiresome household chore he had to beg for or nag her about or guilt-trip her into. Even on the rare occasions she initiated, he could tell it wasn’t because she wanted to. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d let him go down on her, or had a real-deal orgasm he could be a hundred percent sure she wasn’t faking.

All of which, frankly, didn’t do much for the ol’ libido, or ego. Maybe he no longer had the stamina and verve of a guy in his twenties… maybe he’d succumbed to a bit of ‘middle-aged spread’ brought on by fine dining, fine liquor, and not hitting the gym as often as he should… maybe his hairline wasn’t what it once was, not to mention the grey… but men needed to feel desired, too.

Being with someone who made him feel that way really put the lead back in the pencil, okay? Being with someone who went at it unabashed and enthusiastic… someone not only willing but eager to do some of the stuff he’d previously never imagined himself doing… the kind of stuff you saw on the internet…

Damn right, he was going to go for it. Ride that sexy, sexy wave as long as it lasted.

If it didn’t kill him, first. Honestly, between carrying on the way he had been, and stressors at the office, it was a wonder he hadn’t already had a heart attack or stroke or developed an ulcer.

It was, all considered, probably just as well his tasty side-piece hadn’t been available most of the week. He could use the down time to rest and recover, and concentrate on work. This Leventhorp case really was kicking his ass.

***

Now, hang on a minute, you might be thinking; someone fucked up. The preceding bit doesn’t specify which of the husbands it is. Gary? Stewart? Larry? Could be any of them!

Exactly.

Could be any of them.

Could be, with merely minor variations in specific details, all three of them.

***

By Sunday brunch—“It’s brunch, bitches!”—they’d each recovered from their assorted injuries and maladies, and felt presentable enough to be seen in polite company. Marj was free of her boot, Doris no longer hobbled like an old lady, and Janet’s puffy red rash had subsided.

It also really did seem the Leventhorp case was to blame for much of their husbands’ late hours. With the first big court date looming, as well as new developments linking the racetrack to organized crime and local politicians making the media take an interest, everyone at the firm was in a pressure cooker.

“Do you think, maybe, just maybe,” Marj began timidly, poking at a custard-filled strawberry crepe, “we overreacted a little?”

“Let’s not do this here.” Janet gave Doris a look. “Since some of us don’t have inside voices.”

“We’re outside,” Doris responded tartly, indicating the terrace around them.

“You know what I meant. The other day at the margarita place—”

“I tipped that waitress a hundred bucks to mind her own business.”

“Well, and you kinda threatened to contact Immigration,” Marj said.

“I didn’t threaten… I just… hinted. Anyway, who cares? She’ll keep her mouth shut, and nobody would believe her anyway.”

“I sure hope you’re right,” Janet said. “Even if our husbands are lawyers, we don’t need the hassle.”

“Did we, though?” Marj resumed. “Overreact, I mean?”

“Probably,” Janet admitted. “Worked, though, didn’t it? I don’t know about you two, but the past few nights, I’ve fucked Larry ragged. Even bit the bullet and sucked his dick twice.”

Doris nodded. “I jerked Gary off in the shower, let him fuck my tits, and we did it doggy-style while watching The Queen’s Gambit.”

“The chess show?” Marj asked.

“The chess show with that hot chick, whatsername,” Janet said. “How about you, Marj? Any kinky Twizzler action lately?”

She flushed and jabbed a strawberry, impaling it on the tines of her fork. “Would you please stop with that?”

“Fine, whatever; come on, dish. You and Stew been gettin’ bizzy?”

Not meeting their eyes, Marj nodded. “I… I… even sat on his face.”

“Whaaaaaat?” bugled Doris.

“Inside voice,” Janet hissed, then grinned at Marj. “Thought you weren’t into that.”

“He… he asked if I would, and… well, I kind of had to, didn’t I?”

“Attagirl.” Doris raised her wine glass.

“How was it?” Janet pressed.

“All I could think about was how my tummy must look from that angle and whether I’d, like, suffocate him. It was soooo embarrassing. Then, when we actually, you know, fucked, he wanted to leave the lights on.” She shuddered and shook her head.

“Gary’s weird like that, but the other way around,” Doris said. “Prefers the lights off most of the time. That’s why I had to ambush him in the shower and in front of the TV. He says doing it in the dark’s more romantic. Stupid, right? I mean, he paid for all this—” sweeping her hands over herself in an encompassing gesture, “—so he oughta be able to see he’s getting his money’s worth. He’s weird about mirrors and video, too.”

“Maybe he’s self-conscious,” Marj said. “Some people are, you know. They hate feeling on display or being judged or having to put on a show.”

“Yeah, well,” said Janet, “some people like to put on a show. Play games, get adventurous, roleplay, spice things up.”

Doris huffed. “I just don’t get that. Pretending to be someone else? Pretending to be with someone else? I’d be insulted.”

“Bitch please; what do you think he was doing while banging you from behind watching that hot chick on the chess show? And, what, don’t you ever imagine it’s Idris Elba or Chris Evans on top of you? Or underneath you? Shit, I’d ride Idris Elba like a rodeo star!”

“Inside voice,” Doris clapped back, jerking her head at a neighboring table of white-haired dowagers, who had paused in their own brunching.

Janet aimed a cheesy apologetic smile their way.

The dowagers smirked and returned to their meals, but not before one of them, a tiny angelic grandmotherly type, leaned over and stage-whispered, “Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, dearie. I’d spit my dentures out for him so fast!”

A strawberry slipped from Marj’s fork and plopped to her plate. Doris snickered. Janet popped finger-guns and a nodding wink at the little old lady.

Moments later, the dowagers’ entire table was engaged in a lively debate over the relative merits of stars such as Harrison Ford and George Clooney to the heartthrobs of yesteryear, like Cary Grant and Clark Gable.

“See?” said Janet, turning to Doris and Marj. “Hope for the future, right there. Some day, that’s gonna be us.”

Doris whipped out a compact mirror and checked for crow’s feet. “Not some day soon, if I have anything to say about it.”

“If you and Dr. Schmidt have anything to say about it,” Janet amended for her.

“Damn right!”

Marj cleared her throat. “So, I’m guessing, neither of you think we overreacted?”

They shrugged.

“Even if we did,” said Doris, “who cares? Like Janet said, it worked. We got our husbands back—”

“Except for Gary fucking the horse,” Janet said.

“I’m gonna take that celery stick out of your Bloody Mary and jam it so far up your nose—”

“Kidding, kidding, jeez. But yeah, point is, everything should be fine now. We’re in the clear.”

So saying, she ordered another round of drinks, had a bottle of white zinfandel delivered to the dowagers’ table, and they all enjoyed the rest of their Sunday brunch.

***

Sunday night, though…

Marj surfaced to the sound of Stewart muttering and mumbling. She rolled onto her side, hitching up on an elbow, and peered at him by the ambient glow of the digital clock on his nightstand. Behind closed lids, his eyes moved fitfully, deep in the throes of dream-sleep.

“Yeah, pinch them,” he said. “Pinch them harder. Twist them.”

At least, that’s what she thought he said, but she must’ve misheard.

“Harder! I’m a bad boy, a dirty bad boy!”

She sat all the way up. In so doing, she noticed a distinct bulge under the covers on his side of the bed. His head lolled side to side on his pillow. He wetly smacked his lips.

“...feet, lick your feet, suck your toes…”

“Stewart?” she whispered, prodding his shoulder.

“...filthy dog, your filthy dog, whatever you want, step on my balls…”

“Stewart?!”

“...miss you so much, God please… put my tongue up your ass…”

He groaned, his hips bucked, and a long sigh escaped him. His body relaxed into the mattress. The bulge under the covers subsided. She peeked—she didn’t really want to, but she had to—and sure enough, the front of his pajama pants sported a spreading damp spot.

Eew, gross, did he really just…?

Clearly, he had.

A dream, though; it was only a dream. No big deal. Everyone has naughty dreams from time to time. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean he was thinking about… her.

Nonetheless, she suddenly shivered, going goose-bumpy all over, with the unmistakable sensation of not being alone. Of being watched. Regarded by a mean, hostile presence of malevolent intent. Clutching a sheet to her bosom, she slowly scanned the room.

It was too dark to make out much more than the familiar shapes of furniture, and the thin nightlight rectangle outlining the bathroom door. Then, a subtle movement caught the corner of her eye, and she turned to catch a fleeting glimpse of a shadow slipping away from the bedroom window.

Marj gasped. Her first impulse was to, like a little kid, lie down and pull the sheet over her head and close her eyes tight and wait for everything to be okay. Her second was to shake Stewart awake and make him check for prowlers, while she waited with phone in hand and 9-1-1 already pressed.

She went with option number one, and as she gradually drifted back to sleep, felt certain that, by the morning, she’d have forgotten, or be convinced she’d imagined, or dreamed, the whole thing.

Meanwhile, across the street…

Janet stirred irritably, aware of a none-too-subtle pawing at her tits.

Jesus Christ, again?

But then, she’d brought it on herself, hadn’t she? Getting Larry all worked up and hot for her, reminding him what a smokin’ piece of ass he was lucky to have married… was it any wonder he now couldn’t get enough?

Shit, he’d already, earlier that night, spooned with her until—surprise, surprise—he popped another boner. Which, since she was so damn sexy and he just couldn’t help it, as he told her, it was therefore her responsibility to do something about, right? So she had; it hadn’t taken more than two minutes. Then he was back to contentedly snoring, while she rubbed out a quick one, imagining riding Idris Elba like a rodeo star, before dozing off.

Now…

The pawing, becoming more insistent.

Maybe if she feigned sleep, he’d get a clue and leave her the hell alone.

Maybe not, since she then felt the weight and pressure of a body crawling onto hers, as she lay flat on her back.

Really, Larry? Fuckin’ REALLY? she wanted to say, though couldn’t quite bring herself to speak.

Or move. Or open her eyes.

The pressure intensified, bearing down on her ribs, making it hard to get a good deep breath. Blanketing. Smothering. Pinning. Crushing. As if, instead of lowering himself fully atop her, he was hunched up, crouching directly on her chest.

The pawing intensified as well, into a kind of greedy, kneady groping. He needed a manicure; must’ve been chewing his nails to splinters what with all the work stress. The pointy edges pinpricked and scratched at her skin.

If I WANTED a nipple-piercing, she tried to say, sarcastically, but still couldn’t speak or move.

Or breathe… it had become a genuine labor to haul air into her lungs. She found herself wondering, didn’t they used to torture people this way during the Middle Ages? Laying a plank on them and them piling more and more rocks onto it until they died? She was pretty sure she’d read that or seen it on Game of Thrones or something.

Get the fuck OFF me, she wanted to demand. And would it kill you to lose forty pounds, you fucking hippo?

Of course, she couldn’t say that either.

Right when she thought her ribcage would cave in, the weight lifted. Lifted all at once, as if vanished, and she could see and move and breathe again.

“What the shit, Larry?” she panted, twisting toward him.

Where he lay fast asleep, not having so much as shifted position.

Three doors down…

Having to get out of bed in the middle of the night to pee was, in Doris’s opinion, one damn compelling argument against the existence of a kind and omniscient God.

She did her best to ignore it, hoping the urge would pass, but of course that only made it more urgent, and all she could think of.

Finally, giving up, she threw back the covers and padded barefoot across the carpet, naked except for a novelty oversized-tee with High Maintenance printed on the front in sequined calligraphy. The lettering stretched to distortion over the augmented peaks of her personal mountain range, preceding her as she navigated her way to the bathroom.

When she wiped, she also caught a dollop of Gary’s nutmilk that had taken its own sweet time oozing downstream. Her pussy felt productively tender; he’d really gone to pound-town on her.

Of course, she’d had to goad and just about shame him into it. He’d been all set to take things nice and slow, with an abundance of foreplay and frequent pauses to kiss and fondle and pillow-talk.

“Ain’t nobody got time for dat,” she said to herself.

If she wanted him to go faster and harder, ram her like a jackhammer, blow his load, and conk out exhausted, then, dammit, that was what he was gonna do. Sexbomb or not, a girl still needed her beauty sleep.

She flushed, washed her hands, and inspected her reflection, thinking it might be time to schedule another appointment Dr. Schmidt to do something about the lines in her forehead. Then she flicked off the bathroom light before opening the door to—

JUMP SCARE!!!!

—something leaping at her out of the darkness, something fire-eyed and feral, hissing and spitting like a basket of cobras.

Being a jump-scare, it of course was the fucking cat, Isobel Rigby’s huge devil-bastard of a beast.

But, at the moment, Doris was too startled to appreciate it, seen as how she had an angry mass of fur and muscle latched onto her High Maintenance promontory, hind claws digging in so deep for purchase they risked puncturing her implants, front claws swiping at her face.

Doris shrieked, stumbled backward, slipped on the bathmat, and went ass-over-teakettle into the tub. Later, she’d be thankful it was fiberglass rather than porcelain and she hadn’t cracked her skull; right then she had more pressing problems.

Such as this fucking cat trying to shred her skin off!

By the time Gary switched on the bathroom light, the cat had bolted and was gone, leaving Doris crying rivers of both tears and blood.

***

“What the actual shit-fuck-shit?”

Thus was Janet’s eloquent summation when, Monday morning after their husbands had all left for work, she and Marj converged at Doris’s house in response to her text.

“The cat did all that?” asked Marj. “Isobel’s cat?”

“No, it was some other witch’s giant pissed-off black-furred hell-monster,” snapped Doris.

Who looked, let it be said, like someone who’d crashed face-first into a shelf of champagne flutes, minus the shards of broken glass. Several of the slashes had required stitches, she was slathered in antibiotic ointment from hairline to neckline, and her loose top revealed gauze pads taped in place over ugly gouges furrowing her tits.

“Did you have to get a rabies shot?”

“A tetanus shot, and they told me to follow up with the owner to see if the animal was vaccinated.”

“Uh, that might be tricky,” Janet said.

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“Well, but what happened?” Marj glanced around. “How’d it get in? Did it get out? What did Gary say?”

“Yeah, what did you tell him?”

“I don’t fucking know.” Doris lifted a hand mirror, as if the damage might have magically healed up already, grimaced, and set it back down. “I was too freaked out to care. He didn’t see the cat, but he was all set to go over to the bitch’s place—I put a quick stop to that, you better believe it.”

“Good,” said Janet. “Last thing we need is anybody nosing around over there. I’ve already heard some people mentioning not having seen her all week. Sooner or later, though, someone’s gonna check. We’ll have to deal with that when we get there.”

“How?” Marj wrung her hands. “This has all gone too far!”

“What are you talking about?” asked Janet. “It’s just a damn stray cat now. If it shows up again, we call Animal Control, or… hit it with a shovel, who gives a fuck?”

“But what if… what if it’s not just the cat?” Marj gulped. “Last night, there was a shadow at my window. I thought it might be a prowler, and was all set to wake Stew, but then it went away.”

“So?” Doris shrugged. “Probably a tree branch blowing in the wind.”

“Yeah, we got enough to worry about without losing our shit over shadows or freaky dreams,” Janet said. “Speaking of which, though, I had a doozy, like this big heavy weight pressing down on my chest so I could barely breathe.”

“But see, that’s what I’m saying… what if it wasn’t a dream? What if the shadow at my window wasn’t nothing? What if it’s all connected? The cat, too. Connected to… to Isobel, and… and what we did?”

“God.” Doris tried to pinch the bridge of her nose, encountered ointment and a stinging scratch, and winced. “What, then? Izzy really was a witch and is… is…”

“Getting revenge on us from beyond the grave?” Janet finished.

“I know it sounds kooky—”

“Marj, listen to me.” Janet strove for patience, despite a strong impulse to grab hold of her and shake some sense into her soft-hearted ditz brain. “Even if that was possible and true, she deserved what we did to her, okay?”

“Did she, though?”

“She damn well did!” Doris chimed in. “Have you forgotten, she fucked all our husbands?”

Marj started to cry. “What if we were wrong?”

“How could we be wrong?” Janet flung back.

“Maybe it wasn’t her! Maybe she was innocent!”

“Damn it, Marj,” Doris sighed. “This is getting us nowhere.”

Janet nodded. “Yeah. What matters is—”

“I fucked Gary!” shrilled Marj, then buried her face in her hands and commenced sobbing hysterically.

Janet looked at Doris.

Doris looked at Janet.

They looked at each other for a long time, as Marj made with the waterworks.

“She didn’t just say…” Doris began.

“What she just said?” Janet finished. “I think she did.”

***

It took Janet almost twenty minutes and a cup of tea with a knock of bourbon poured into it to get Marj to calm down enough to be coherent.

During which time, Doris paced the kitchen, glaring and glowering, clearly on the verge of going all-out ballistic. But she kept it to herself, letting Janet pry out the details, even when said details revealed it hadn’t been a one-shot indiscretion. Rather, it had been an ongoing affair stretching clear back to the Fourth of July barbecue and block party last summer.

“Everyone else was drinking and dancing and getting all wild,” Marj said, tearfully avoiding Doris’s baleful gaze. “We just… you know I’ve never been much of a partier, and… and, well, neither is he… so we just got to talking, and… discovered we had a lot more in common than we’d ever realized, and…”

And, as the story goes, one thing led to another, until before long, they were having clandestine sessions of afternoon delight once or twice a week. As Gary spun a web of lies to his colleagues about client meetings and dentist appointments, while Marj spun a similar web to her friends about shopping trips and charity work.

“Where did you get together?” Janet asked. “At your house? Surely not here—”

Doris made a noise somewhere between growling and grinding her teeth.

“His… his brother’s got a little beach cottage they keep meaning to turn into an AirBnB—”

“That absolute turdnugget!” Doris exploded. “I kept asking him to take me out there for a weekend and he kept having a bunch of excuses! Now, I find out it was to cover him boffing one of my own besties? Son of a bitch!”

Marj cowered.

“Hey, chill,” counseled Janet. “Okay, yeah, he’s an absolute turdnugget, and maybe we jumped the gun a little to assume he was having it off with Izzy when he was really having it off with… I can hardly believe I’m even saying it… Marj… but, the fact remains—”

“The fact remains, we killed her,” Marj blubbered. “When she wasn’t even guilty of everything we thought we were killing her for. I’m so sorry, Doris! I just… I just couldn’t say anything… I was… I knew you’d be upset… so I stayed quiet and… and let you think it was Izzy, when it was me all along!”

“I ought to twist your stupid fat chipmunk-cheeked head right off your neck,” Doris said, with deadly menace. “How you could do such a thing, running around with my husband, behind my back? Letting me blame someone else for it… blame her so bad I helped cunt-stomp her to death?”

Janet lifted her arms like a football referee. “Let’s not go nuts here, huh? Look, if it helps, I’ve been fucking Stewart for, like, six months now behind Marj’s back.”

Doris stopped short.

“Wha… you… wha?” stammered Marj.

“It’s true.” Janet took a slug of bourbon straight from the bottle. “Turns out he’s into the kinky shit, right? Being on the receiving end. Which is why I have all those sex toys, the dildos and buttplugs and the strap-on and stuff. And why I laughed so hard about the Twizzler thing; he had not even mentioned—”

In an abrupt move, Marj dashed the contents of her cup into Janet’s face. “You… you tramp!”

“Hey!” She swiped tea and bourbon from her eyes. “What’s the deal? It’s no different from you and Gary! If he’s not getting what he needs at home—”

“Oh, well then, in that case!” Doris rounded on Janet, fists on her hips. “I suppose you won’t mind that I’ve been fucking Larry!”

***

A stranger just passing by, seeing the elegant senior couple strolling hand-in-hand while their other hands held the ends of leashes leading to the collars of two pampered and fastidiously groomed purebred Maltese, could have been excused for doing a double-take and wondering what the hell Sir Ian McKellan and Dame Helen Mirren were doing in Largo, Florida, of all places.

But it was only Archie and Lois Parker, taking their cherished pups Chenille and Meringue for a leisurely mid-morning constitutional. Their house, on a spacious corner lot with exquisitely maintained landscaping, almost could be called a mansion, and had been featured in magazines. They had a live-in housekeeper, a full-time gardener, a full-time cook, part-time assistants to all of the above, and a pet groomer on-call, as well as a ‘vehicle caretaker,’ whose primary responsibility was looking after Archie’s pride and joy, a black-over-burgundy 1959 Bentley. Lois, more modern-minded, upgraded to a new Porsche convertible every other year; the current one was goldtone, purred like a cheetah, and, also like a cheetah, went very fast.

So, basically, even by the standards of these rich upscale suburbs, the Parkers were, to put it bluntly, stonkin’ loaded. They were also, in seeming direct contrast, really nice. Not to mention, thoroughly happy together, and still totally in love, even after sixty years of marriage.

Residing here as long as they had, they’d seen many families come and go, and begun to view themselves as sort of honorary fairy godparents to the neighborhood. Benign but semi-distant overseers, kind, helpful when needed, occasionally indulgent, but generally non-intrusive and non-judging. Great supporters of the arts, they were generous benefactors to several galleries, theaters, and concert halls. Having no children of their own, they’d established a foundation to provide scholarships to talented but underprivileged students.

Cynics insisted nobody that rich could legitimately be that nice, and had spent decades waiting for the other shoe to drop, the dirty laundry to air, the sordid truth to be revealed. Thus far, though, no dice; more than one of said cynics had drunk him or herself into an early, bitter grave over it.

Because, you see, they really were that nice, that happy, and that much in love. As well as hale, healthy, trim, and quite attractive. Strange, yes, but true.

Archie and Lois chatted as they strolled, still having plenty to talk about, sharing frequent little flirtatious entendres and affectionate gestures. Chenille and Meringue pranced along, appearing to levitate on their flowing skirts of silky white fur, the way such breeds did. Although the dogs sniffed amiably at anything in range and loved to frisk and be petted, they never barked or growled. And—hand on a Bible—no one had ever seen them hunch to tinkle or poo during one of these excursions.

Passing the Rigby house, Archie glanced at it and made a thoughtful ‘hmm’ sound, then asked, “Darling, have you heard from Eleanor lately? Seems a while since I’ve seen her around.”

Lois gently squeezed his hand. “Isobel, darling.”

“Pardon?”

“Isobel Rigby. You’re thinking of the Beatles again.”

“Ah, so I am. Of course. Well then. Yes. Isobel.”

“And no, no I haven’t, not for over a week. I suppose she must have gone out of town, although I don’t recall her mentioning it.”

“Perhaps she’s met a new fellow,” Archie suggested. “It’s been, what, three years, after all?”

“Mmm, closer to four now, but could be. Such a lovely girl, such a shame to be widowed at such a young age. Or she might just be at one of those conferences she goes to. What was the one in New Orleans?”

He chuckled. “Some occult symposium, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, yes, I remember now. Do you know, I had her read my palm once?”

“Oh? What did she tell you? Some tall, handsome rogue going to sweep you off your feet?”

“I daresay that already happened a long time ago.” She paused and went up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “No, she told me my love and my lifeline were both exceptionally strong, and inexorably intertwined.”

Archie lifted their joined hands, turned hers over in his, and kissed her palm. “As if one needs a fortuneteller to know that!”

On they went. Their little dogs did not do any of the ominous warning sign foreshadowings you see dogs doing in horror movies all the time; no whining or shivering in the presence of evil, no baring their teeny teeth at the witch-house, no pulling at their leashes, nothing. Just trotted on their merry way.

As they neared the Donaworth place, however, their chipper canine moods changed. They hesitated, ears pricking, heads cocked, dark eyes fixed on the house.

“Why, what in the world—?” Lois began, looking at the pups. “What’s the matter, babyloves?”

“Do you hear something?” Archie cocked his head as well. “Sounds like—”

Before he could say, ‘yelling’ or ‘shouting’ or whatever he might have said, the Donaworths’ front door slammed open and a three-way free-for-all chickfight brawl erupted across the porch and onto the lawn.

Doris Donaworth herself was one of the combatants; the other two were Marj Penson from up the block and Janet Brill from across the street. And yes, they were shouting all right, shouting and yelling and screaming curses vile enough to make the well-kept green grass wither and yellow beneath them. They were also hitting, slapping, hair-pulling, clothes-tearing, and throwing whatever porch decor and yard bric-a-brac they could get hold of.

“My word!” gasped Lois.

“I say,” Archie agreed. “Hardly something you see every day, is it?”

***

When all was said and done, the air clear and the dust settled, each of the three women agreed not to press charges. Nor did they want the counsel of their lawyers; their respective lawyers—to whom they were married—were so far in the doghouse they risked emerging in Dog Narnia.

The quiet cul-de-sac had never witnessed such a spectacle, with police cars and paramedics, profanity, violence, and partial nudity. Even a newsvan showed up, drawn by the enticing prospect of catching well-to-do white people kicking up a rowdy shitstorm for a change. Lookie-loos flocked in from blocks around, the neighborhood grapevine spreading the juicy dirt fast and furious. Many a cellphone-recorded video was uploaded, to many ‘wow’ and ‘laughy-face’ emoticon reactions.

Before dinnertime that evening, it seemed the entire state of Florida, most of the nation, and a considerable portion of the world, was avidly soaking up the sordid details of this triple cheat-a-thon, with internet wits making memes and Venn diagrams and flowcharts depicting who was married to whom and who’d been fucking whom.

It was, especially for an otherwise sleepy slow-news-day Monday, a sensational flash in the pan. The Parkers and their pups, as key on-the-scene eyewitnesses, became instant media darlings, eliciting numerous ‘heart’ reactions and memes of their own, and were quickly besieged by offers of agent representation, talk-show interviews, commercial endorsements, etc.

All of which, of course, being the genuinely nice people they were, the Parkers declined, stating they had no wish to capitalize on such an unfortunate situation and sincerely hoping the parties involved could work things out for the best. Crazy, right? Anybody else would have milked that celebrity cash cow dry! Some people. What are you gonna do?

At any rate, the quiet cul-de-sac got more than quiet that night. With some of the houses already unoccupied due to vacancy and vacation (and a certain “brick motherfuckin’ shit-house” having been ignominiously cunt-stomped and dumped in the marshland, though hardly anyone knew about that), and three of the houses held in the stone-cold grip of the most epic Silent Treatments ever unleashed upon humanity, a single fly’s fart would have echoed like cannonfire.

Even the balmy Florida climate could do nothing against the chill hanging over the street. And inside those three houses in particular, the mood was downright frigid. We’re talking, Ice Age frigid. We’re talking that scene in The Day After Tomorrow where the helicopter guy opens the door and gets immediately flash-frozen kind of frigid.

The three husbands were exiled to guest rooms or couches, while the three wives barricaded themselves within the master suites. Any objections—on the grounds that they had all been cheating, too, and were therefore hardly innocent parties in this mess either—were vehemently overruled.

Rumor had it divorce attorneys were circling like sharks, or like vultures (though, tbh, it was more like the way seagulls swoop down en masse on some unsuspecting bozo with a crisp fresh piping-hot carton of fries). Friends and acquaintances who hadn’t been in touch for ages were suddenly reaching out in ‘concern’ and ‘support’ (or, tbh, because they were titillated by the scandal and wanted the inside scoop).

Amid so much activity, no one paid much attention to a big black cat skulking about.

The cat, however, paid very close attention indeed.

***

Marj, wracked with guilt and shame and remorse, cried herself to sleep and then cried herself awake again.

She hadn’t meant to have an affair. It was just… well… what with Stewart and the Twizzlers and the ‘pinkie-assie’ business and everything… when all she wanted was to be cuddled and held and made slow tender love to, with the lights off so she didn’t have to be as anxious about her tummy or thighs… and it turned out Gary was of similar mind, tired of Doris with her artificial perfection obsession and ‘High Maintenance’ needs… was it any wonder they’d have found comfort and solace with each other?

Likewise, she hadn’t meant to hurt Isobel, let alone kill her in such an awful and gruesome way. She’d just… gotten caught up and carried along… and been too afraid of confessing and ruining marriages and friendships. She was a marshmallow, and she knew it; weak and meek and timid, and now an innocent woman was dead and six other lives were falling apart.

And for Stewart to have gone to Janet for his perverted cravings?! One of her besties? The wife of one of his own besties, and work colleague? Janet, with her bag of naughty BDSM tricks?

Images filled her mind of Stewart, strapped down, gagged and blindfolded, while Janet spanked him, pinched his nipples, stepped on his balls, and butt-fucked him seven ways from Sunday with a ginormous knobbly dildo.

The bastard! The bitch!

And him daring to give her that hurt, sulky, betrayed look as he headed for the guest room!

Part of her yearned to go to him, apologize and forgive, make up, and try again.

Another part of her yearned just as strongly to go to him and bash his head in with one of his stupid golf trophies, then stick that up his bottom and see how he liked it.

She tossed fitfully, cried some more, and was contemplating the pill bottle which had a few Percocets left in it, when, once again, shadowy movement at the window caught the corner of her eye.

This time, she rose from the disarrayed bed and went to look, to see if it was a prowler, or only a tree in the wind, or what.

A dark shape looked back at her with lambent yellow-orange eyes.

Her heart skipped a beat. Then she realized it was the cat, Isobel’s cat. The one who’d attacked Doris and clawed the holy bejeezus out of her face.

But it didn’t appear hostile or threatening now. It blinked at her, and mewed a kind of sad, lost little mew. Its front paw patted at the screen.

The poor thing… probably scared and hungry and confused… left all alone to fend for itself for over a week… missing its person…

She choked up again, sniffling, wiping at tears. This was also their fault, her fault. Yet another life falling apart, because of lies and secrets and sneaking around.

“Hey, kitty,” she cooed. “Hey, kitty-kitty, who’s a good kitty?”

The cat mewed, low and plaintive.

If she could detach the screen from its frame without starting the cat, maybe she could bring it inside, get a can of tuna…

The screen came loose easily enough, but the cat hopped down into the yard. Marj leaned halfway out the window, making coaxing noises. “Nice kitty-kitty, it’s okay…”

It warbed inquisitively, fluffy tail curling into a question mark, and did not run away.

“Here, look,” she said, hiking her nightie and hefting a leg onto the sill. “I’ll come out and get you, and you’ll be safe in here, how about that?”

“Mmmrrrrrrr?”

“Good kitty… nice kitty…” She clambered through and stood in humidity-dampened grass, extending a hand and rubbing her fingers with her thumb in a beckoning gesture.

The cat watched her warily but let her approach to just almost not quite within touching distance, then sidled a bit further. Marj followed, other concerns pushed aside, intent on doing something, however minor, to try and atone for her horrible misdeeds.

Step by step, they crossed the yard, toward the shed where they stored the lawn mower and other yard and garden stuff. A couple of times, Marj was able to get close enough to touch the cat’s thick fur, and on one occasion it bumped its head against her hand before shying back. Encouraged, more determined than ever, she pressed on.

Whew, though, but the shed had a mildewy, mulchy, vaguely rotten smell; maybe a bag of fertilizer or plant food had split open? Also, the door was ajar. The guy from their weekly groundskeeping service must not have latched it after his last visit.

“Awww, kitty,” Marj said sympathetically. “Is this where you’ve been staying? You poor baby!”

Sure enough, the cat slipped through the doorway. Feeling worse than ever—this was no place for an animal, among the shelves of weed-killer spray and insecticide!—Marj stepped in…

And a damp, clammy hand clamped over her mouth.

***

Janet told herself she was too fucking pissed off to sleep. Which may have been true enough—she was major-league pissed off—but she also knew she didn’t want to admit to any other emotions.

Such as, say, fear. Not fear of legal troubles, or her husband, or losing her friends, or even possible jail time if shit really went south; all that, she could deal with.

The dream she’d had last night, though? The dream of the crushing, pressing weight pinning and immobilizing her? Rendering her helpless? A paralyzed, helpless, simp-ass victim?

Yeah, that was what had her unable to close her eyes, but better to dwell on the anger and fury and sheer seething hate. Better to dwell on the urge to march to the living room, where Larry had bedded down on their luxurious sectional sofa, yank his cheating cock out by the roots, smack him across the face with it until he begged for mercy, and then feed him the severed chunk of tubesteak. Or bask in the satisfying memories of the earlier melee, when she’d landed some exceptional shots, including a vicious two-fisted titty twister on Doris’s ridiculous bazoombas.

She’d given wussypants Marj a fair share of bitchslaps, too, when Marj came at her all mad about Stewart. Really, Marj should have been thanking her; God knew the ninny never could have kept up with his needs on her own. If she flipped her tits over a Twizzler, she’d lose it completely should he beg to have her funnel a live garter snake into his dickhole.

Definitely better to immerse herself in those kind of thoughts, those kind of fuming, vengeful, violent thoughts. Thoughts that proved she was tough, strong, fearless, and capable.

As for Isobel, well, uh, oops, their bad. But even if the gothy slut hadn’t been screwing their husbands, she surely had been screwing someone’s. Or was into even worse stuff, sacrificial bloodplay wanna-be satanic stuff that’d make what Janet and Stewart got up to at the no-tell motel by the bowling alley look normal by comparison.

Like any of that occult bullshit could possibly be real! Poser cunt.

The covers felt too heavy and restricting. She went to kick them off…

...but couldn’t.

Her legs refused to obey her will. So did her arms. So did her entire body, when she tried to sit up. As if, not only were the covers too heavy, but they’d been tucked in extra tight all the way around the mattress.

Except she also couldn’t even move her head, couldn’t lift it from the pillow or turn it side to side.

What the shit oh shit oh no not this damn dream again, how can it be this damn dream again when I’m wide awake?

And she was wide awake, she was sure of it! Eyes open and everything!

Just… unable to move… with a massive inexorable weight pressing on her, pressing her deeper into the bed. Making it hard to breathe. Causing her ribs to ache.

Not happening can’t be happening; has to be a dream.

Was there a fucking elephant sitting on her chest?

How could she be dreaming when her eyes were open and she hadn’t fallen asleep?!?

Her eyes were open, but all of a sudden she wished they weren’t, as the space above her shifted and solidified, taking on shape and substance.

Pallid shape, and damp, clammy substance. Smelling of mildew. Dripping with slime. Crouching atop her in the position of a gargoyle on some medieval cathedral. The heels of its hands bearing down on her sternum with steadily increasing force.

The fear she’d tried so hard to deny resurged in a rush, bringing with it the feelings of immobilization, helplessness, and victimhood.

Scream! Scream for fuck’s sake!

Scream? With what breath? With what working vocal cords? She could no more scream than she could move, flee, or fight! Not with this… this… this clammy, slimy, pallid, monstrous thing hunkered on her chest!

With long, inky-black tendrils straggling around its pale, mottled face. With eyes dark as onyx, eyes devoid of emotion, compassion, or humanity.

With, despite being fairly well waterlogged and bloated, a figure that was, in a word (or two words, actually), what men called a “brick shit-house.”

No, let’s make that three words: “brick motherfuckin’ shit-house.”

Just as Janet couldn’t scream, neither could she speak, let alone utter a name or plead for salvation. Her vision blurred at the edges. Her lungs throbbed painfully for air. Sputters arced between misfiring synapses as her consciousness sought to vacate the premises.

As a final parting gift, though, her conscious did spit up a pertinent piece of trivia related to the origins and meaning of the phrase ‘hag-ridden.’ (Dating from the 1600s, it referred to the nightmarish nocturnal sensation of being ‘ridden,’ i.e. sat upon, by an evil spirit, demon, or witch.)

Janet did not, in the last moment before she slid into unfathomable darkness, find the information particularly useful.

***

The only reason Doris slept was because she found some expired Vicodin tablets, souvenirs from when Gary had to have extensive dental surgery a few years back.

He hadn’t liked them, said they fucked with his head more than they helped his teeth, and sought relief through CBD oil instead. He’d spent four days stoned off his ass, slurping down pudding cups and watching the channel that played reruns of vintage 1970s game shows, and the Vicodin had been relegated to the back of the medicine cabinet to gather dust.

Doris, on the reasoning that the pills might have lost potency due to being expired, threw back four and washed them down with her favorite flavored vodka.

She needed it, goddamn it… not only did her face still feel like it’d been jammed into a paper shredder, the brawl with Marj and Janet had aggravated her previous back sprain, as well as adding new injuries. Fucking Janet, damn near twisting her tits off! And Marj, goody-two-shoes Marj, had yanked clumps of Doris’s hair right out of her scalp, leaving raggedy bald spots!

So, Vicodin and vodka, it was. Vodkadin. Vicoda. Whatever. It gave her the giggles, made her forget all about her pain and the state of her beloved beehive, and had her listing to starboard in maybe twenty minutes.

Ten minutes after that, Elvis had left the building; Doris made it as far as the bed and flopped diagonally across it, one foot hanging over the side, mouth agape in an unbecoming yawp, snuffle-slobber snoring fit to beat the band.

Some unknown eternity later, her senses began sluggishly struggling one by one toward awareness.

A pervasive coldness came first… in fact, forget cold; she was fucking freezing! Had Gary been screwing with the air conditioner again? Her naked skin pebbled with gooseflesh. Her nipples might as well have been lug nuts. On the heels of the cold came discomfort… the surface beneath her felt more like solid stone than expensive memory-foam. Then the prior aches and pains chimed in, joined by a sickly thumping headache and nausea as bad as any of her college hangovers back in the wild days.

A sour, sludgy, totally disgusting layer of half-dried saliva coated the inside of her mouth and throat, crusted dry on her lips, thick and sticky on her tongue and teeth. An underpass-homeless-camp sort of smell infiltrated her nostrils—damp concrete, rust, greasy sweat and pungent B.O., old newspapers, smoldering garbage, stale booze, mold and mildew, a faint hint of decay, and the acrid tang of pee.

What little she could hear was also far from encouraging. The occasional fleshy shifting, dulled metallic clunks, uneven breathing, muffled grunts, slow-leak drips echoing hollowly in an enclosed space. Droning through it all was a shrill and persistent rising-and-falling whine that went into Doris’ ears and hangover-thumping head like corkscrews.

Reluctantly, with effort, she managed to peel her gummy eyelids open, already wincing in anticipation of blinding-harsh light.

She needn’t have worried.

In fact, she needn’t have bothered.

It was tomb-dark, and she couldn’t see a damn thing.

Where the hell am I? she thought.

A hardly original response, but perfectly normal and natural. Nobody would be at their best, under such circumstances, and Doris’s brain matter (never the sharpest to begin with, honestly) was still fairly well soused from the effects of her Vicovodkadin nightcap.

And, overall, a fair enough question. As were its follow-ups: What the blue fuck is going on? Am I blind? Did I overdose? Was I in a coma? Am I in the hospital?

Plus, of course, the additional spiteful thought of: If those expired pills did this, I’m going to sue the ever-loving shit out of the pharmaceutical company.

With effort, she worked her various oral and esophageal components to try and clear the sludge enough to speak. But, once she had, she was afraid to; those weird noises—the shifting and breathing, the grunts and clunks, and most of all that goddamn drilling corkscrew whine—hardly gave the impression of any reputable hospital. Same for the homeless-camp smell, the unyielding surface she lay on, the bare-to-the-air nudity, and the bone-freezing chill.

Oh fuck! Is this the morgue? Did they think I was dead?

But that seemed wrong too… at least as far as the sounds and smells went, if not the nakedness, hard surface, and cold.

Floundering around for some halfway logical explanation, the best she could come up with was maybe a subterranean parking garage, or a basement—both rarities in Florida.

She mustered her nerve and sent a tentative, croaking, “Hello? Is anyone there?” into the darkness.

Immediately, the sounds of shifting and metallic clunking intensified, the breathing grew more rapid, the grunting louder, and the whining shriller, more urgent. Doris cringed, expecting whatever else was in here to fall upon her, heard an even closer metallic clunking, and only then realized she was cuffed at the wrists and ankles.

Or… a dungeon…

***

Which, by the way, are also fairly rare in Florida. The combination of a high water-table, loose and wet soil, and an aquifer system composed of limestone and porous rock make any sort of subterranean construction work a risky gamble.

Much of the state also being prone to flooding, vulnerable to hurricanes, and subject to surprise sinkholes opening up without warning and plunging everything in the vicinity on an express elevator into the bowels of the earth doesn’t help either.

***

But it sure did look like a dungeon, once a ring of candles placed at key points simultaneously flared to flickering life.

It was a circular room, with coarse stone walls and a vaulted ceiling supported by ancient timbers. A curving staircase descended from an arched wooden door at about the halfway point. The floor was made of immense slabs set in an interlocking pattern, held together by a dark, gritty mortar. Rusted chains hung from unseen anchor points high above. From some, cages were suspended. From others, various sizes of metal hooks. From still others, heavy manacles, or the kind of neck-collars that closed with hammered bolts.

Assorted accouterments of medieval torture occupied raised platforms—a rack, a wheel, an iron maiden, a grill laid across a trough of lumpy black coal. There were braziers and whipping posts and stocks. Thumbscrews, scold’s bridles, a Pear of Anguish, a Judas Cradle, breast-rippers, knee-splitters, firebrands, scourges, and heretic’s forks waited at the ready on rough-hewn wooden shelves.

Not, of course, that Doris knew what most of those items were. All she did know, and all she needed to know, was that they could only mean bad, bad news.

The candles illuminating this grim scene were squat and fat and white, engraved with occultish symbols. They sat in small silver dishes, anchored by beds of roughly crushed semiprecious gems, and fragmented animal bones. Their amber light also played over the leering jawbones and eye-sockets of myriad skulls embedded into the walls, arrays of murkily gleaming bottles and jars, polished bronze statuettes of hideously inhuman horned figures…

Witchy-shit, in other words.

This can’t be real, Doris thought. This is a drug thing. I’m never touching Vicodin again. Gary was right; it fucks with your head.

Real or not, here she was, bare-ass naked and flat on her back, with her wrists and ankles cuffed cruciform to ringbolts driven into the floor, legs out straight and arms extended to the sides. .

Turning her head toward the sounds of the grunting, fleshy shifting, and that irritating whine, she saw Janet and Marj, both also naked and both also chained, in different positions than hers.

Marj sat against the wall, arms wrenched at an awkward angle over her head, wrists chained and crossed and affixed to a hook. Ankle cuffs, welded to a stout metal bar, propped her feet so wide apart she might have been attempting the splits. Made the stirrups at the gynecologist’s look comfy by comparison. She was the obvious source of that shrill and persistent high-pitched whine… about the closest she could get to a scream, given the ball-gag distorting the lower half of her face. It wasn’t one of the red rubber safeword/sex-toy kind with vinyl straps, either; it was a baseball-sized crude iron sphere that had been forced in until teeth must have cracked. The corners of her mouth, split in a Batman-movie Joker’s smile, leaked blood. Her eyes were huge, tear-filled, terrified, and desperate.

Janet, meanwhile, hung upside-down and hog-tied from one of the dangling hooks, a length of chain looped behind her bent knees supporting her weight, another length of chain tethering her wrists and ankles near the small of her back. It must have been agonizing. Still, she kept twisting and tugging, as if she could pull off a miraculous Houdini straitjacket escape. Head down, as she was, her face had flushed almost the same color as her hair, though some of that may have been as much due to rage as to gravity’s effects on blood flow. She, too, was gagged, but able to grunt and make guttural throat-noises, which she did even more fervently as soon as the candles lit and she saw the others.

They both fixed their gazes, Marj’s frantic and Janet’s furious, on Doris.

As if she could do fuck-all about this happy-crappy bullshit? As if she had the answers?

Like they needed answers anyway; they already knew.

Impossible or not, it was obvious, and they already knew.

Even before the door at the top of the stairs opened, and a robed-and-hooded figure stepped through, they all three of them knew.

And just in case further proof was needed, robe and hood be damned… there was no disguising a figure perhaps best described as a “brick motherfuckin’ shit-house.”

“Izzy?” croaked Doris, unnecessarily (and rather anticlimactically). Then, absurdly, added, “But… but you’re dead!”

***

Had Janet been able to facepalm, she would have. But her current contortion prevented it, just as the gag prevented her from saying anything comprehensible.

Seriously, though? Seriously, Doris?

Izzy? But… but you’re dead!

Jesus H. cocksucking Christ. Follow it up with We killed you, why dont’cha?

“We killed you!” Doris said.

The gag also prevented her from grinding her teeth. Why, of the three of them, did it have to be her, Doris Ducklips Donaworth, beehive bimbo, to be the only one who could talk?

Then again, it wasn’t like she or Marj would have done much better. Marj would have sniveled and begged and blubbered and apologized, while Janet herself would probably let her temper get the better of her and cuss up a storm.

No, strike the ‘probably’… she totally would.

As Doris continued spouting nonsense, the robed and hooded “brick motherfuckin’ shit-house” descended the dungeon steps in a kind of slow, stately, silent, processional gait. The robe and hood, as to be expected, were satiny black, with an overhanging cowl shadowing the face and voluminous sleeves obscuring the hands, but every now and then, glimpses of pale flesh peeped through. The bare feet, especially, adorned with glinting silver toe-rings.

When none of her conversational salvos elicited a reply, Doris thankfully ceased her yammering, merely waiting and watching. Marj, whose keening whine had been big-time getting on Janet’s nerves for at least an hour, did not cease. If anything, she whined more, blowing snot-bubbles from her runny nose.

A second figure, this one smaller and furry, oiled down the stairs, weaving between Izzy’s legs in that way cats did. How the bitch didn’t trip on the damn thing… Janet wished she would trip, trip and somersault clear to the bottom, breaking her neck, shattering her skull, killing her for real this time.

Because, the only logical explanation was, she must not have been dead when they dumped her in the marshland. Only knocked out. How should they have known? None of them were doctors, for fuck’s sake!

Isobel and the cat reached the dungeon floor with no trips or mishaps. The cat hopped onto the centralmost ugly demony statue, sitting primly between the horns. Head up, ears alert, tail tucked around forepaws, it regarded the chained women one after another. Its creepy yellow-orange eyes caught the candlelight, appearing to shed their own glow.

Doris, seeing the cat, joined Marj in the snot-bubble whiny crybaby category. Her mask of scabbed scratches and stitches, and the rat’s nest wreckage of her hair, made her look like a patchwork rag doll. Well, a patchwork rag doll with giant stupid Barbie boobs.

I shoulda twisted them right off, Janet thought. Bet those’re what got Larry sniffing after her in the first place. Men. Fucking tit-hound pigs, the lot of ‘em.

Moving to the center of the room, where intricately inlaid mosaic tiles formed a star-circle-pentagon design, Isobel stood with her head bowed and her arms folded, hands tucked into the voluminous sleeves. More candles, these slim blood-red tapers set into holes where the floor-design’s angles came together, sprang alight in unison, wicks burning with tall, upright white flames.

A good trick, but only a trick… she’s trying to scare us…

And succeeding, if the squirts of fresh pee and increased sniveling from both Doris and Marj were any indication.

Then Izzy, with one jewel beringed hand, undid the clasps of her garment, letting robe and hood slide to the floor in a satiny whisper. Her black hair fell in skeins around her shoulders, and she kept her head lowered, obscuring her face.

The body revealed, “brick motherfuckin’ shit-house” though it still was, was now far more pallid than pale, streaked with moisture and greenish mildew, as well as blotched with deep grey-purple bruises. Her skin had the softened, loosened texture of someone immersed too long in the bath. Her hips and pelvis rested at an odd, askew angle, a hard rounded bulge on one side suggesting dislocation.

Wet entrails drooped from the devastated gorge of pulped flesh that had once been her groin. Her discolored abdomen somehow looked both sunken and bloated, deeply stamped with what forensic experts might deduce were footprints (women’s size 8 and 1/2, same as all the fancy shoes in Doris’ closet). Other marks, not full footprints but clearly left by the tip and toe of a sporty name-brand athletic shoe with a distinctive tread (women’s size 8; Janet had two pairs, and they weren’t cheap either), suggested someone had gone all FIFA World Cup on her breasts. The large, formerly plum-colored nipples had taken on the hue and glisten of raw beef liver.

Isobel raised her head. Glazed, opaque, soulless orbs filled her eye-sockets. Her chin sagged, drawing her mouth crookedly agape. She did not appear to be breathing, and the scents of mold, marshwater, and decay wafted from her.

Holy fuck, Janet thought (again, hardly original, but understandable given the circumstances). The cunt-stomped dead cunt really IS dead!

***

Marj stopped whining and tried to start screaming instead, but with that giant iron ball lodged into her mouth—her jaw agonizingly stretched, shards of broken teeth jabbing her soft palate, the mingled tastes of rusty metal and her own blood coating her tongue and clogging her throat—the best she could do was a muted, gurgling wail.

She peed herself again, too. Which she’d been trying not to do; her naked splay-legged position was mortifying enough without making things worse. But the sight of Isobel’s battered, slimy, rotting corpse somehow still upright and moving overpowered her wits and her will, and her bladder let go.

Not in a trickle-squirt this time, or even a flood, either. It let go like a broken fire hydrant, spraying high-pressure jets. She wasn’t sure if she also pooped a little, but right then it hardly seemed to matter.

Everything she wanted to say, to apologize and beg and admit how stupidly wrong they’d been, was logjammed behind the gag. She snuffled wet, snotty breaths through her nose. Tears coursed from her eyes, but did nothing to blur her vision as the Isobel-thing slowly turned, as if to regard all of them while giving them a good look at her.

At what had happened to her.

At what they’d done to her.

What they, the three of them, had done to her.

For, it turned out, no good reason at all!

Doris, the only one of them who could have screamed, didn’t; she was too busy jabbering crazy nonsense a mile a minute. Maybe she thought she was plea-bargaining their way out of this, maybe she thought she was making sense. She might as well have been a bleating goat, loud but utterly incoherent.

It didn’t matter anyway. The Isobel-thing stood over Doris for a long, contemplative moment, then did a strangely graceful leaping double knee-drop directly onto her midsection.

The bleat became a blurt, a gouting chunky geyser of puke and blood and bile—and smushed internal organs, for all Marj knew—erupting from Doris’s mouth. Before the fountaining torrent finished splatting to the floor, Isobel was up again, stomping up and down the length of her prone body, causing more vile semi-fluids to blurp out, popping her implants and reducing her prized breasts to lopsided deflating balloons.

Izzy may have, incredibly, somehow still been kind of alive… for Doris, there was no question. Totally un-alive. Marj had seen gutted fish on ice at the supermarket less un-alive than Doris.

Janet was next.

Janet, suspended upside-down and hog-tied, writhing madly but only succeeding in twisting back and forth at the end of the chain, a cross between a punching bag and a human piñata as Izzy went to work.

Only, it wasn’t sand or stuffing that spilled out when the seams split, and it sure as shit wasn’t candy scattering far and wide, with happy kids scrambling to gather up as much as they could.

As what was left of Janet swung in decreasing arcs, dripping, Marj belatedly realized she should have been finding a way to, if not escape, at least end it before Isobel got to her. The prospect of mucal self-suffocation (aka aspirating and drowning in her own snot), which had seemed unimaginably horrible minutes ago, was looking pretty good by comparison.

Alas, no such luck was to be hers.

Isobel stepped daintily over the cross-bar between Marj’s wide-spread, manacled ankles. Her clouded gaze fixed on Marj’s cringing pussy, so vulnerable and exposed.

No no please no God no please, Marj’s mind gibbered.

Izzy drew back a mildewy, slime-coated bare foot, silver toe-rings gleaming in the eldritch candlelight.

She paused, as if savoring the anticipation.

Then, Marj’s groin, being, and entire universe exploded in a rupturing supernova of pain.

***

Cody Jenkins pedaled along his route, the humid Florida morning already making his shirt cling to him with sweat, though the sun was barely peeping over the horizon.

He wished like heck his parents would let him get an e-scooter—he’d even saved up enough to pay for it himself, a Phantomgogo R-1 in fire-engine red!—but they were adamant about making him wait until he was sixteen and had his learner’s permit. Bullshit state law.

They’d no doubt still insist on making him wear a helmet, too. At least he had a cool one now, instead of the dorky-ass thing he’d worn as a kid. And, he had to admit, it did come in handy the time he’d been so entranced by a smokin’ hot goth chick puttering around her garden in next-to-nothing that he’d crashed smack into the rear of a UPS truck.

Someday, though, he told himself, he’d be a grown-up on his own, able to make his own life decisions, and not have to listen to anybody else.

This early, very few people were out and about. Joggers, mostly, eager to get their runs in before the day became sweltering. Lights were on in some of the houses, coffee being made, showers being taken, another day of work and school to be readied for.

He wasn’t a big fan of school, either. Bo-ring. He’d almost have rather stuck with doing the remote learning, the way they had when everyone was going nuts about the pandemic.

Well, except, remote learning didn’t offer nearly as much opportunity to scope the babes, and scoping the babes had become a lot more interesting in high school than it’d been in junior high. Almost all the girls had titties, now.

Grinning at the thought, he chucked some more papers, hitting walkways if not porches more often than not. He did enjoy him some titties, and while there were a bazillion on the internet, real ones in real life were sumpin’-sumpin’ extra. His main goal for the year had nothing to do with passing Freshman English, and everything to do with actually getting his hands on bare boobage.

At the Parkers’ place on the corner—Mr. Parker always tipped twenty bucks, and Mrs. Parker was kinda foxy for an old lady—he swung a right, into the cul-de-sac where all the bonkers shit had gone down yesterday.

Just his luck, he’d missed it; it went down hours after he’d finished his route. He’d had to learn about it on social media like almost everybody else, his phone pinging alerts as he was stuck in algebra class.

Must’ve been a wowser, though. Three MILFy housewives having an apocalyptic bitch-fight, then it turning out they were all boinking each other’s husbands? With police and reporters, and neighbors all getting eyefuls and earfuls of big-league drama? Dang.

Effortlessly keeping track of which residences were vacant or vacationing or had newspaper holds, he cruised halfway down the block before…

What the what?

...spotting something in one of the yards, something broken and bloody…

...too big to be a dog or a marsh-deer, maybe hit by a car or mauled by a gator before dragging itself onto the lawn to die…

Coasting closer, he guessed Halloween decoration, only Halloween was still a long way off.

Finally unable to deny that, yes, it was a dead body, he crashed his bike over sideways in the middle of the street. Whacked his head on the curb, too, and dimly acknowledged, okay, his parents had a point, helmets were good.

He got to his feet and took another look.

Yup. It really was. A dead body, a dead naked body, a dead naked woman.

Titties and all, but just then he’d never been less interested in female nudity, because the state of the dead woman’s titties and other naughty bits was the furthest thing from sexy he could imagine.

Whirling from the grisly sight, his gaze fell upon another mauled corpse on another lawn, and then a third. Each of them more brutalized than the last, highlighted in gory and graphic detail by the lemon-gold light of the rising sun.

Clapping his hands over his eyes, Cody Jenkins began to scream.

***

For the second day in a row, the cul-de-sac became a circus. But this was no rinky-dink carnival sideshow; this was the full three-ring big top affair, complete with parade.

True, the parade was emergency vehicles and newsvans rather than marching elephants and clown cars, the hectic atmosphere was far from excited, and there was nobody selling popcorn or cotton candy, but the overall effect was not dissimilar.

The entire neighborhood was cordoned off and roadblocked, residents ordered to stay in their homes, not permitted to leave even for work or for school. Arriving maids, pool guys, gardeners, and deliverymen were turned away, told to come back later.

The Brill, Donaworth, and Penson houses were so strung with crime-scene tape, they resembled lattices of neon-yellow spiderwebs. Helicopters buzzed and chattered overhead. Tarps covered the bodies on the lawns, though those neighbors who’d responded to the paperboy’s screams had seen enough to haunt their nightmares for years (not that this stopped several of them from snapping pics and streaming videos).

The paperboy himself, having been given something to “help settle your nerves” by an EMT, sat in the open-doored rear of a paramedic truck, the way survivors at the end of action movies were often depicted. His thousand-yard-stare was glassy, his responses slowed, and he shivered despite the sunshine and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.  His parents, at the corner roadblock, were losing their shit, demanding to be let through to see their son. A considerate cop had picked up his fallen bike and moved it out of the way of all the traffic, but the newspapers were pretty much a loss.

In the three yards, CSI crews and teams of medical examiners tried to decipher just what the fuck they were dealing with. The women had been positively identified, yes. The women were deceased, clearly (‘multiple grievous instances of blunt force trauma’ being the preliminary C-O-D cited).

But, although each was in front of her own house, the evidence suggested they’d been killed someplace else, and dumped on their lawns. With no indication of how, no blood trails or tracks. Not a single other blade of grass disturbed, as if the bodies had materialized out of nowhere, or dropped from the sky.

Bruising and abrasion to the wrists and ankles supported the theory the women had been held alive in restraints before their murders. Gags of some sort were also indicated. In Marj Penson’s case in particular, said gag being iron, of considerable size, and wedged into the victim’s mouth with considerable force, unhinging the jawbone and shattering several teeth.

The most perplexing matter was the matter of rot, which had the coroner baffled. The corpses were fresh, within a few hours of death. Postmortem rigidity and lividity had only just begun setting in. Yet, traces of mold, mildew, and samples of decaying skin and tissue had been collected from several of the wounds.

Despite the unfathomable amounts of damage inflicted upon the women’s private parts, cursory examination had thus far found no sign of sexual assault, at least not in the form of seminal residue or foreign pubic hairs. (Under other circumstances, this knowledge might have proved some comfort to the families; really, though, when someone’s found with her pelvic bone not merely fractured, but fragmented like a goddamn jigsaw puzzle, “at least she wasn’t raped” isn’t much of a consolation prize).

The husbands admitted to the various affairs freely enough, and swore to cooperate in every possible way, but vociferously denied any involvement in the gruesome fates of their wives. They’d appeared legitimately horrified and aghast when they’d emerged from their homes in response to the paperboy’s screaming to behold what was on their lawns.

Yeah, right, was the prevailing, sarcastic, unspoken response.

They had to be physically held back from rushing to the victims, by neighbors who watched enough murder shows to know you didn’t go fucking with the crime scene before the police arrived. Especially not when you were obviously the prime suspects, and could just be trying to contaminate the evidence in hopes of muddying the investigation.

If the husbands were, in fact, physically held back with perhaps a bit of what the football refs might flag as ‘unnecessary roughness,’ well… in the greater scheme of things, it may have been overlooked.

***

Archie and Lois Parker were too well-mannered to linger and gawk among the rest of the crowd, but Chenille and Meringue simply demanded extra walkies that morning, forcing them to make another circuit of the cul-de-sac not long before noon. What else could a good pet-momma and pet-poppa do, for their beloved precious fur-babies?

Catching up on the latest developments was just a coincidental bonus.

They noted how the bodies had been removed—‘bagged and tagged,’ as the saying went—to await autopsies. They noted forensics technicians continuing to crawl around on the lawns, with magnifying glasses and tweezers, including one who found what looked to be a blood-caked silver ring, in the grass beneath where poor Marj Penson’s body had lain.

They heard how Gary Donaworth, Stewart Penson, and Larry Brill, still in their sleep attire, got cuffed and perp-walked to a waiting paddy wagon, to ‘take them downtown.’ They saw Cody Jenkins—such a nice boy, always timely with the papers—picked up by his parents, who, fretters that they were, would probably take him straight to a therapist.

They politely declined to be interviewed; the previous day’s media spotlight had been more than enough, thank you very much. Besides, they’d witnessed no more than anyone else, this time, having only ventured out when they became aware of the initial commotion.

As they looped the curve of the cul-de-sac, an unfamiliar car was let through the roadblock at the top of the block. It drove slowly and carefully, weaving through the remaining vehicles, as if whoever was behind the wheel was looking around and wondering what in the world could have occurred in such an upscale, pleasant neighborhood to warrant this much activity.

Then it pulled to a stop at the curb in front of the Rigby place, idling while shadows behind tinted class conducted brief business.

“Ah, must be one of those Ubers,” Archie observed.

The driver got out and opened the trunk, setting a hardshell rollaway suitcase on the sidewalk, as a woman emerged from the back seat.

A moon-pale woman, with long black hair, and the type of figure best described as a “brick motherfuckin’ shit-house.” She wore fishnet stockings, a black miniskirt, a lowcut silky black blouse, and shiny black ankle boots with silver fastenings and cute downturned cuffs.

She reached in for a cat carrier, its fluffy occupant peering through the mesh with lambent yellow-orange eyes.

“Why, hello, Isobel,” Lois said, waving cheerily. “Welcome home!”

Izzy Rigby turned toward them, smiling, all but aglow with light and life and vitality. “Lois! Archie! Did… did something happen while I was away?”

Lois pressed fingertips to her sternum and glanced skyward. “Goodness, I hardly know where to begin!”

Archie nodded. “Let’s just say, you missed all the excitement!”

“Tsk. What a pity,” Isobel said. “You’ll just have to come over later and tell me the whole story.”

Then, cat carrier in one hand, towing the suitcase with the other, she moved in a stately, almost processional stride to her front door, and vanished within.

END

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Edward Lee is the author of over 50 horror, fantasy, and sci-fi novels, and dozens of short stories. He has also had comic scripts published by DC Comics, Verotik Inc., and Cemetery Dance. Many of his novels have been reprinted in Germany, Poland, Japan, Italy, Romania, Greece, Russia, Spain and other countries. He is a Bram Stoker Award Nominee; his Lovecraftian novel INNSWICH HORROR won the 2010 Vincent Price Award for Best Foreign Book (Austria), his novel WHITE TRASH GOTHIC won the 2018 Splatterpunk Award for Best Extreme Horror Novel, and his collaborative novella HEADER 3 (with Ryan Harding) won for Best Extreme Novella.

In 2020 Lee won the J.F. Gonzales Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2009, the movie version of his novella HEADER was released by Synapse Films and is available now on Tubi; several of his novels are currently under option. Header is now available on Tubi.

Lee is a U.S. Army veteran and lives in Seminole, Florida.

Christine Morgan enjoys writing across a variety of genres, as well as bending them, blending them, mashing them up, challenging herself, giving the reader something different, and pushing the limits. Especially when it comes to the weird stuff.

Her recent books have included a return to some Edward Lee style Hell on Earth, with her novel Warlock Infernal (sequel to the Splatterpunk Award winning Lakehouse Infernal) and the novella Damned Lazy (from the case files of Mephistopolis-noir gumshoe Matt Brimstone, P.I.), as well as the collections HorrorSmut, Rip Your Heart Out, and Almost Normal Horror.

She’s currently juggling several writing projects, plus trying to keep up on edit-gigs and reviews, all while going through some major family and life upheavals. Quite frankly, it’s a miracle she’s held onto what little sanity she has left.

At the moment, and for the foreseeable future, she’s staying at her dad’s remote and rustic hermitage in the high desert of Southern California, trying not to think too hard about how one of the nearest neighboring properties apparently is some sort of “religious destination,” whether or not that means creepy cultists, and what to do if it does.

www.theevilcookie.com

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