T. Johnson - Hold It 'Til It Hurts

The first was the hardest, and he didn’t do a good job, but he warmed to the task, as if someone he didn’t know had stepped out of the shadows and taken over while Achilles sat on the counter to take in the view.

The other dogs were writhing over each other like maggots. He felt stronger, like he had absorbed their spirit. It was as if his entire body was expanding and contracting with their every inhalation. He selected the largest of the dogs, a pit-Rottweiler mix with short ears, a brown snout, and a black brow. To keep it still, he dragged it to the kitchen and used his knees to pin it against the cabinets. The dog shook its head wildly as Achilles plunged the blade into its throat and pushed through. It broke loose and ran into the bedroom, hiding between the mattress and the wall. Achilles tackled it. The dog turned over and scratched him. He was strong. Achilles tucked his head into his arm to protect his face and shoved the scalpel into its eye, up to the hilt. Warm urine and blood pooled at his feet and quickly soaked his shoes. It expelled its last breath and its head lolled to the side, the good eye following Achilles.

The third was easier than the first; its skin was thinner. They wore fear and confusion like long overcoats restricting their movements, dragging behind them, tripping them up. Achilles’s every hair danced like an antenna. The air was water, each breath wind and wave. He felt their motion from across the room, sensed which way they would turn, where they would run.

The fourth he barely saw, automatically squatting a little to drop his center of gravity so he could easily work his forearm under the neck, stabbing and cutting simultaneously, like slicing a tire. It struggled beneath him, the writhing between his legs no more than eddies in water, like he was standing in a river that would soon run dry. As it did, he lay it down gently.

The fifth he chokes with his belt.

He heard a noise in the hallway, stepped back into the shadow of the kitchen, and leveled the rifle at the door before realizing it was only children in a nearby apartment arguing. There was one adult fighter left, and Achilles had just grabbed it when the front door was kicked opened, and a high-pitched voice yelled, “Use the force, zigga!”

A young boy stood in the threshold. Judging by his expression, he’d expected to find someone else in the apartment. He was little, no more than six or seven. He looked at the panting dog at Achilles’s feet, at the rifle, at the other dogs scattered around the room like soldiers dropped where shot. The kid might have felt the way Achilles did when they stormed the Al-Jok stronghold to find it silent, save for the flies, and empty, save for the scores of corpses scattered in the courtyard, like a scourge had run through, like God had delivered some old-time religion, as Jackson put it. That was his saying when someone was dying for a bullet: they were itching for a switching or praying for some old-time religion.

“Where’s Cornelius?” asked the kid. “I thought I heard shots.”

“He’ll be right back.”

“They sick?” asked the kid.

Their eyes met. Achilles nodded “Real sick.”

“All of ’em?”

“No.” Achilles pointed to the bait dogs and the three pit bull puppies, and a dog he hadn’t noticed, the same brindle he’d seen the white kid in the hooded sweatshirt walking a few days back. He picked up the tawny puppy and fondled its ears. “These ones are okay. In fact, they’re going out for a break. You wanna help?”

The boy nodded. “This is like a war movie.”

“Right. Do you want to be in it? Can you be my lookout?” asked Achilles, hoping to keep the kid close until he left.

“For ten dollars.”

A rectangular bulge pressed through the kid’s front pocket. “Are those cigarettes?” asked Achilles.

“One dollar,” said the kid.

They smoked, the kid taking surprisingly deep drags, Achilles looking at the carnage, wondering if he could add two more bodies to the pile. After stubbing out the cigarette, Achilles opened the bedroom window and gently dropped the remaining dogs outside. When they were done, he paid the kid an extra fifteen dollars for what remained of the cigarettes, because kids shouldn’t be smoking. The kid thanked him. “Now I can buy three packs.”

He considered snatching the money back, but there was no point. He put his backpack into Troy’s rucksack, slipped the rucksack onto his back, and stepped out the window. Outside, the white kid in the black hoodie chased breathlessly after the dogs.

On the way to his car, he passed the same prostitutes. They straightened up at his approach, walking tall, kicking their legs forward like swimmers leaning against the side of a pool. The fat one had thick lips and a tempting smile, an inviting moon face and rich brown skin the color of Naomi’s, skin you wanted to lick. Her full and snug breasts sat side by side instead of leaning out for air, but her belly was low and hard, like she was pregnant, too pregnant to fix it. As they passed, the thin one winked. Achilles turned in the trail of their perfume and slipped into a shadowy doorway to watch them. They paraded a few more steps before the thin one looked back and whispered to the pregnant one. They dropped their shoulders, shortening their stride, no longer high-stepping. The one with the belly put her hands to her back, kneading the area around her kidneys. She stepped gingerly. As they turned the corner, she cupped her hands under her belly and whistled. She was definitely too pregnant to fix it. Where would that kid end up?

Back at the hotel he showered, washing the blood off his face and chest and hands and wrapping clean socks around the cuts he hadn’t noticed at the time, the scratches on his hands and arms, the gouge above his eye. He looked almost as bad as the night Bethany tended to him. He slipped into bed, Ines turning at his touch, pressing into him. He gently pushed her onto her stomach, lifting her ass as he straddled her. He emptied the tube of hotel lotion on his dick, spread her cheeks, and plunged into her ass. She tried to pull away. “Why didn’t you warn me!”

Sammy flopped in his bed. She switched to a hushed tone.

He slipped his arm around her neck. “Don’t fucking move.” He worked his way in deeper, his dick growing harder every time she flinched. “Tell me you like it.”

She mumbled and bit his arm. He tightened his grip on her neck, pinching the skin in the crook of his arm. “Tell me you like it.”

She started breathing slower and deeper, her ass relaxing.

“Tell me you like it.”

“I love it.”

The dogs run through his head. Ines bucks back, pressing the top of her head into his neck, her body rippling beneath him, her legs kicking out as she collapses onto her belly. He yanks her hair like a bridle, jerking the reins of the chariot, pulling until her back is arched and her tits jet out like the figurehead of a ship. She snorts, sharp exhalations in short breaths.

“Harder!” she breathes. “Harder! Faster! Faster! Faster!”

The more she says “Faster!” the less excited he becomes, rushing to finish, pace quickening, his eventual grunt of relief lost in the clapping breasts. He collapses. Every time he thinks he’s pushing through a wall, he’s tumbling over a cliff, like that last kid in the music video.

“Is that it?” she asked. He clasped his hands together to keep from punching her.

After sex, she usually lay on her side and pressed her cold feet to his warm belly, and he rubbed them. He reached for her feet, and she jerked away.

As she turned over, she asked, “What happened to your face?”

“I was mugged.”

She sniffed. “By a pack of cigarettes?”

Let her leave. Why was he ever worried about her? He went to the bathroom for a wad of tissue to wipe the shit off of his dick. He hadn’t felt a thing at the time, but saw that his face was scratched much worse than it was at the camelback. Bethany would have taken care of him. The mirror framed a slice of Ines, glowing under the hot blade from the vanity bulbs. She had gained weight, and the freckles made her skin look splotchy in some areas. In others, he wasn’t sure if it was pimples or freckles he saw. She was a stranger to him, which made him feel a stranger to himself, like he was scattering, becoming smoke, like he needed her to touch him all over to reconnect the parts, to make sure he was all there. He needed a message; she would agree. But he couldn’t ask. It’s easy to take what’s wanted, not ask for what’s needed. Sammy was snoring, a million miles away. A bomb could hit, catching them all in this dream. They’d never know.