Richard Laymon - Island

I had the keys in one hand, the razor in the other.

One quick slash with the razor…

Even if she deserved such a fate—and she did—I couldn’t do it to her. Not this way, surprising her in the dark. For one thing, she was a woman. For another, it would’ve been cold-blooded to kill her except as a last resort, to save myself.

Wesley’s snoring had stopped.

Instead of slitting Thelma’s throat, I pushed my left fist against her body. It met warm, yielding skin. Her hand fumbled with my fingers. I opened them and she took the keys. They jingled a few times, then went silent.

“Mmmmm?” Wesley asked.

“Nothing, honey.”

“Mmm.”

A few seconds later, he was snoring again.

I heard a couple of quiet clinks—Thelma setting the keys down somewhere, I suppose. Maybe on the mattress behind her.

Still clutching my belt with one hand, she used her other hand to rub the front of my shorts. Then she slowly slid my zipper down. She reached in.

Something like that should’ve gotten me hard really quick. But I was damn scared, and Thelma wasn’t quite in the same class as the other gals. In fact, I might’ve been just as horny if she’d been Wesley. I was shrunk up so small I’m surprised she could find what she was hunting for.

She found it, though.

And started working on it.

I remembered the time by the campfire, and how she’d tried to split me with a razor.

The same razor I was holding in my right hand while she squeezed and stroked and pulled on me.

I knew she didn’t have a weapon, this time. Not in her hands.

One hand held me by the belt, the other by the dong.

Reaching out with my left hand, I found the top of her head. I caressed her short, damp hair. I slid my fingers in and held on. Then I felt along the side of her head with the wrist of my right hand.

I located her ear.

I put the razor against it—in the valley between the top of her ear and the side of her head.

The hand inside my pants quit trying to arouse me.

It took hold.

“Let go or I’ll cut you,” I whispered.

“I’ll rip your cock off.”

“Just give me the keys, and I’ll get out of here.”

“In your dreams, dickhead.”

Wesley was still snoring.

“I won’t hurt you,” I whispered. “I’ll just go.”

“Fuck me,” she whispered. “Fuck me, and maybe I’ll let you have ’em.”

You’ve gotta be kidding, I thought.

“Right now.” She gave me a gentle tug.

“I can’t. Not with him there.”

“Want me to wake him up?”

“He’ll wake up anyway if I… do what you want.”

“Who knows? Let’s find out.”

“How about somewhere else?” I suggested. “If we go to a different room…”

“Here. Right here beside him.”

“Just let go of me and give me the keys. Please?”

“That my razor?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Wanta shave me?”

“No.”

“You sure? I haven’t had a nice, close shave since I lost it.”

“Since you tried to kill me with it.”

“If you aren’t gonna give me a shave, how about putting it away?”

“I’m going to cut off your ear if you don’t give me the keys.”

She made a quiet, laughing sound. “Go on ahead, then.”

As I started to think about doing it, she said, “If you had the guts to go around cutting people, me and Wesley’d be dead right now with our throats slit open. You’re just too nice a fella for that sort of shit.”

“Think so, do you?”

“I know so. And anyhow…” She gave me a squeeze. Not hard, but hard enough. It made me flinch, gave me a sick feeling. “I got you by the nuts, boy. You’re gonna do what I say. Now, take that razor away from my ear, or I’ll scramble your eggs for you.”

I hesitated.

She squeezed harder.

Maybe I should’ve gone ahead and sliced off her ear when she did that. Instead, I groaned and bent over a little, trying to ease the pain.

“Okay,” I whispered.

I lifted the blade away from her ear.

The hand holding my belt let go. It brushed against my belly. “Give,” Thelma said.

“What?”

“The razor.”

“How do I know you won’t cut off my whang?”

She laughed softly. “You won’t be much good to me without it.”

“Okay,” I whispered.

I could hardly believe that Wesley was sleeping through all this. My luck wasn’t likely to continue forever, though.

I tried to concentrate on what I needed to do.

“The razor,” Thelma said.

“Let go of me, and I’ll give it to you.”

“Think I’m an idiot?”

“It’ll be a fair trade,” I whispered.

“Long as I’ve got hold, you’re gonna do whatever I say.”

“You’d better let go,” I said.

“The razor.”

I let go. I’d been holding a lot more than the razor. It seemed like about a gallon. I opened up on her.

She still clutched me for a second or two. Probably not sure what was going on—what was that hot liquid squirting all over her hand and up her arm? Then she must’ve figured it out. She went, “Yuuuuuh!” Her hand leaped away. “You bastard!” she shouted.

I was probably catching her in the chest, so I reached down and gave myself some elevation.

“Westley!”

She got his name out. A moment later, she began to sputter and spit as I hosed her face.

I backed off fast.

Wesley sat up in bed. “What… ?”

“Get him!” Thelma squealed. She sounded as if she’d lost her mind. “Kill the little shit!”

I couldn’t wait around to finish what I’d started. I couldn’t manage to quit, either. So I whirled around and ran for the door, still squirting.

From behind me, I heard thuds and voices.

“Who?” Wesley asked. He sounded mighty damn scared. “Who was it?”

“Rupert!”

“He’s dead!”

“My ass!”

Just outside their door, the wet floor sent my feet sliding. I gasped and flapped my arms. My legs flew out from under me. My butt whammed the floor.

Behind me, Thelma was still talking. “He snuck right in here. Had my razor. Gonna slit our throats!”

“You sure?”

“Yes! He peed on me, the little cocksucker!”

I was still peeing. My shorts were drenched.

My feet stuck out into space. I pushed myself forward. My legs lowered. My feet found a plank of flat, slippery wood, which I figured to be the second stair down from the top.

“The keys!” Wesley blurted. “He got the keys!”

“I got ’em,” Thelma said.

“You sure?”

I switched the razor to my left hand, reached up with my right, grabbed the banister, and pulled.

“Right in my hand,” Thelma said. “He had ’em, but I got ’em away from him.”

On my feet, I looked back toward the doorway. Thank God Wesley and Thelma had decided to have a discussion instead of a hot pursuit.

“Good going,” Wesley said. “Here, give them to me.”

The way they were thumping around in the room as they talked, I figured they must be grabbing stuff. Not just the keys, either. Weapons, more than likely.

What if they’ve got flashlights?

I took a step down. My feet skidded on the wet stair. I might’ve fallen again, but I kept a good grip on the banister. In the meantime, I was still going. You can’t just shut things down at the drop of a hat, not if you’ve been holding it a while, and especially if you’re scared. Anyway, I’d probably only been at it for half a minute or less even though it seemed like ages.

Somewhere along the way, my tool had gotten out of alignment with my open fly. Which meant I’d been splattering the insides of my own shorts. A lot came back at me, the rebound drenching my groin and spilling down my legs and soaking my socks.