Jason Frost - The cutthroat

He had been a big boy even then, with a thick body that had no particular shape. It wasn't fat exactly, but neither was it muscular. No clothes seemed to fit right. It was a misshapen blob of flesh, formless like his name.

For a couple years the coach pleaded with John to try out for the team, but he always refused. He could see no profit in banging heads and eating dirt. Not compared with what riches awaited him in the silent lockers.

At first, the members of the team had teased him, calling him Fatty, Blimp Boy, and such. It didn't bother him much; at least it was better than John Smith. But once, after a particularly bad practice in which the coach had really chewed their asses off, they'd come back cranky and surly and ganged up on John, trying to force him into the shower with his clothes on.

John Smith had not wanted to go.

Before the coach finally came in to investigate the ruckus, John had broken the quarterback's thumb, twisted the halfback's ankle, cracked the center's ribs, and bruised a tackle's eye. The worst thing that had happened to John had been a torn pocket on his shirt, which his mother sewed that night during The Fugitive.

Breaking the thumb had been the most fun. He'd straddled Tom Jenkins' chest, pinning his arms to the concrete floor. Then, while fighting the others off, he'd yanked back on Tom's thumb so hard the web of skin between the thumb and index finger tore. Bone ground against bone like squealing brakes until the thumb snapped. Tom's scream bounced eerily around the shower stalls.

John had not been punished by the school. After all, he had only been defending himself. Nor did the team members try to gain revenge. The coach's only reaction was again to encourage John to try out for the team.

But John had learned a valuable lesson. About himself and others. He learned that he was not afraid to administer pain to someone else if necessary. He realized that he could just as easily have snapped Tom Jenkins' neck as thumb. It didn't matter. He felt no guilt.

And he learned that public displays of power go a long way toward controlling others. Before the incident, although he'd been ranked third in his class academically, no one had paid any attention to him. But after word got around school of what had happened in the showers, no one called him any names again. Younger boys talked to him with respect and awe. Older guys nodded hello. Girls giggled and whispered, but with curiosity.

The second childhood memory was about sex.

His first time.

It was after a football game. They were celebrating their 27-14 victory over arch-rival University High. The party, as usual, boasted a couple kegs of beer that some of last year's grads brought, and some joints supplied by Dennis Bedlow, proud holder of the worst attendance record in the school.

The party was at Valerie Rhinehart's house because her parents were at a fat farm for the weekend. Valerie, the head cheerleader, had been dumped last week by Tom Jenkins after going steady for two years. She got drunk almost immediately, threw up on Tom's date, and passed out in the bathroom. A couple guys carried her up to her bedroom, discussed jumping her, but chickened out. That's when John went up.

He had never had any kind of sex, except masturbation, and he hadn't much enjoyed that. Dating had never really interested him. The idea of spending money on someone you didn't know very much seemed stupid. Where's the profit, the payoff? It had to be more than just ejaculating. He could do that by himself and it didn't cost anything. If there was something special, he wanted to know about it.

Valerie was still in her cheerleader outfit, the short skirt folded up revealing long athletic legs. One of the guys had jokingly placed her Snoopy doll face down between her legs. John plucked it away, tossing it onto the floor.

What if she wakes up? he wondered, and a strange thought bloomed in his mind: I'll kill her. As simple as that. No malice or hate or fear or desire. Just a fact.

It didn't take him long to work her cheerlead-ing panties down her legs, though he had some trouble unhooking them from her ankles. Valerie shifted once, but her eyes remained closed, a slight snore puffing her lips.

He dropped his pants to his knees and climbed onto the bed. No point in getting undressed himself. This shouldn't take long.

He poked his finger into her vagina, which was warm and wet. Sticky, he thought, like spilled Coke. He grabbed his penis, which was semistiff, and plunged it into her.

He pumped against her for several minutes, stopping once to rearrange her legs because her knees were starting to chafe against his wide hips. He continued pumping for several more minutes, but nothing happened. He started to pull out.

Valerie's eyes opened.

Concerned that she might scream, his hand reached for a pillow. Smother her, I guess, he thought, surprised at his own calmness.

"Don't stop," she whispered, licking his ear.

He dropped the pillow and continued moving against her. She panted in his ear, which annoyed him. He liked her better unconscious. Finally he felt the semen boiling through his penis and shooting into her.

"Yes, yes," she gasped. "I want it in me. All of it."

He wanted to giggle. Such a corny line. The trash she must be reading.

He got up quickly and pulled up his pants.

"Don't go," she slurred drunkenly. But when she jumped up to stop him, she swooned and dropped to her knees. She barfed on the Snoopy doll.

John left her kneeling next to her bed like someone in prayer.

He'd learned another valuable lesson that would guide him through his later life. He didn't like sex. It had no effect on him. He tried it again a few times at intervals of a couple years, but to his relief, it never got any better. The realization was thrilling, as exhilarating as rolling in snow. It made him invulnerable to women. And it gave him plenty of time to pursue other interests, namely money.

Those interests eventually led him to the presidency of DataStat, an information warehouse that other computers were able to tap into, for a fee. In the course of his rise to power, he had several times found it necessary to impose the lessons he'd learned as a child. Two competitors were killed at his request to allow a profitable merger. An argumentative lawyer lectured to him about ethics in front of his vice-presidents and in midsentence received a bottle of Perrier across his cheek in reply. The surgical restructuring of the face was paid for by the company as was the partial disability for eighty percent loss of sight in one eye. It was reported as an industrial accident. No one ever questioned his ethics again. Aloud.

As the years passed, his millions of dollars hadn't changed his attitude about his name or about sex.

But since his adventures in the Long Beach Halo, he had changed. Not just in his hideous face, which he almost enjoyed now, as if it were a mask behind which he could retreat. But other things had changed, in his body. He couldn't sleep. One or two hours a night was all he could manage, and sometimes not even that. It was not uncommon for him to stay awake for three or four days at a time. He didn't feel especially tired-in fact, just the opposite. He was bursting with excess energy, always restless, always on the move. It had made him impatient, quick to sudden flares of temper. He felt like a nuclear reactor on the verge of a meltdown.

Angel had suggested the rubber band around the wrist. An old home remedy to help people quit smoking. Whenever they craved cigarettes, they would snap the rubber bands against their wrists. Aversion therapy. That's what Rhino did when he felt his rage boiling at the back of his brain, flames crackling behind his eyeballs. Sometimes it worked and he would be in control again.

And sometimes it didn't work.