Beast
Len Kuntz
Spring 2010
Spring 2010
She realized the problem had become insurmountable when she began masturbating on the way to work. Bus passengers got suspicious, so she took out a loan and bought a beater car, something she’d not ever have imagined herself in.
Red lights were the biggest obstacles, that glowing cabernet eye a beacon daring her to finger fuck herself. And so she did, several times, in fact. Her record was six orgasms before her first smoke break at nine.
She dated but it wasn’t like that, not what you think at all. This was a compulsion that had nothing to do with sex. It was her burden, her cross, and for some ungodly reason God had tagged her with it. No, she didn’t want any man touching her in that way. The mere thought of a penis disgusted her. Could there be a more grotesque organ? What had God been thinking when he designed that particular repulsion?
No, she dated so people wouldn’t think her odd. She knew doing it for that reason was shallow, but she openly believed all people were shallow, everyone desperately hoping for good gossip about themselves.
Where would it end? She had always figured suicide. There was no other way to tame the beast which, day by day, grew stronger, hairier. She adored fantasy movies far more than romantic comedies because in fantasy—like “Lord of the Rings”—the hero or heroine could be killed but retrieved from the jaws of death, sporting fresh energy and often a more marketable hairdo.
In the end, however, love got in the way of things. His name was Rupert Woodstock, an account but not bookish at all. Rupert was dreamy, creamy. He wore his hair long and oiled so that it seemed to change colors like an oozing lava lamp.
Rupert was smitten then smutten. That was his made-up word for it, clever fellow. Watching her masturbate was a greater thrill than intercourse could ever be. It was hysterical, preposterous, dark, molten and addicting.
“What will we do when I’m older?” she asked him.
It was a legitimate question.
Rupert stared at her, his forehead sweat-soaked from what he’d just witnessed.
“Whatever it is,” he said, “I want to be there for it.”
She found his clinginess appealing then invasive, pathetic and worn out.
“How much do you love me?” she asked in a bold dare meant to set the record straight once and for all.
“I’d do anything.”
“Anything? You’re serious?”
He claimed he was and so when she plunged the knife through his chest she had nothing to feel guilty about as it was no different than if she’d told him to commit suicide for her, only she was doing all the heavy lifting. The thing was his surprise told her the truth, exposing his lie. He was as selfish as her and of course that was saying something. The beast was hers alone and it needed both food and freedom.
It took quite awhile to clean up the mess, nothing as slick and easy as mobster movies. And then what to do with the body (you don’t want to know.)
The worst of it was the beast’s impatience. She heard him growling, felt his claws scratching her tender parts. “More, more, more. Now, now, now.”
In a span of just a few weeks, her relationship with the beast had gone from flirtatious, to an obsession, to admiration, to exasperation, to fear, to confusion.
Was the beast an independent entity, or was it her, a part of her, something that had always been there? And what could possibly satiate it?
She held the knife she’d just cleaned. Her face glinted back to her in the silver blade.