Ryan Harding - Genital Grinder

“Just help yourself,” Sammy said, irritated.

Von took the script from Sammy and crumpled it up. “Hell with it. I’ll make something up.”

“Couldn’t be any worse. Follow the subject with the predicate and it’ll already be a vast improvement.”

Greg peeled back the Tupperware lid and sank his spoon into a nearly gelatinous concoction of crimson slop and glistening lumps. He filled his mouth with it, grinning idiotically. “Fine eatin’ here, Sammy. What is this, some kind of cobbler?”

“I believe the medical term is ‘spontaneous abortion,’” Sammy replied.

Greg’s grin froze on his face. He looked down at the bowl again, first seeing his rather awe-struck reflection caught by the light above him, and then the true texture of those lumps he’d first taken to be cobbler crust. The truth seemed obvious now. He prodded it with his spoon and discovered a runny film at the surface of the glop, like pond scum.

The amniotic sac . . . or what passed for it in its premature expulsion.

“There may be a few morsels of the placenta left,” Sammy said, matter-of-factly. He could have been talking about the reds in a bowl of M&M’s.

Von had paused with the phone in his hand the instant Sammy said “spontaneous abortion.” He finally dared to speak. “You mean some whore had a miscarriage and squeezed all that slop out of her joytrail? And you tossed it in a bowl and froze it?”

Sammy nodded. “That’s about the size of it.”

Von processed this for a few seconds. “Well, hellfire, Greg, why’re you just standing there staring like that freak in Sleepaway Camp? Get me a spoon, too!”

Greg, hand held over his mouth, surrendered the bowl and spoon to Von without a word. He looked rather green around the gills.

“You’re kidding, right?” Von asked, staring at the bowl. “I ain’t using this spoon after you. You just had a dick in your mouth, son! I don’t want no part of that.”

“I rinsed my mouth out,” Greg protested slowly, as though afraid more than words would escape through his lips if he spoke too fast.

Sammy intervened. “Are you two gonna debate dental hygiene all night, or are you gonna get this Rochester bitch on the horn?”

“Right now I’m a bit more interested in how you got ahold of this here tasty little de ssert,” Von said. He dipped a thumb into the mess on the outer edge—where Greg’s spoon probably hadn’t explored—and slid it in his mouth. He sucked at it thoughtfully, one eyebrow arched, then moaned approvingly. Some of it remained smeared around his lips like clown make-up.

“How I wound up with a puddle of abortion in my refrigerator? It’s kind of a boring story, really.” Sammy shrugged, but agreed to enlighten. He could have been talking about vacation slides from a trip he hadn’t really enjoyed. “I zapped this primo slut with my stun gun when she left the library, then brought her here. Slapped some meat down on her in so many different ways, I could have made my own cookbook. After a few weeks, her belly started expanding. I figured she was just bloated, but after awhile I realized there was a little Sammy on the way.”

Von frowned. “How do you know she wasn’t already pregnant?”

Sammy paused. “You know, I didn’t even really consider that. She may have been carrying some stranger’s child, at that. Well, I sure am glad that worthless skank is dead now. Got what she deserved.”

“She’s dead?”

“They don’t make ‘em much deader. I was pounding away at her ass like a jackhammer, and then I hear this tearing sound, right? So I pull back and look down, and there’s this . . . Remember how the Play-Doh Factory had that thing where you cranked and all the stuff came out in four or five different clumps? It was like that, it just started oozing out of her and dropping on my lap. Kind of lukewarm. And I was thinking this was all a bit tragic cuz it was my kid—or at least I thought so at the time—o I tried to do the gentlemanly thing and hurry up and finish my nut, right? But she wasn’t making it easy on me. All that thrashing around and resisting—hell, it’s probably what cost her the little bastard in the first place. It was messed up, though, ‘cause it was like every time I sent the battering ram home, more of that shit would squeeze out. To make a long story short, I went off, she went out, and the rest went in a Tupperware bowl to be served to—” He paused here, as though stopping himself from saying more than he intended. “For a special occasion.”

Von caught the subterfuge. “Let’s talk more about the noises in the attic.”

“Yeah!” Greg echoed. “You got cops up there, waiting for us to make our ransom demand?”

“Yes, Greg, that’s precisely it. With a basement practically wallpapered in women I’ve raped, tortured, and killed over the past seven years, the police couldn’t wait to use me to put you two crime lords out of commission. I’m getting a key to the city after your trial.”

“Hey, wait, let’s calm down a second, guys,” Von said. “Can’t you see this whole dick caper thing is tearing us apart? This should be one of the happiest nights of our lives.”

“Von’s right,” Greg said. “This is getting out of hand. I didn’t really believe you had cops up there, Sammy. Sorry.”

Von hoped he hadn’t truly believed it, but he had his doubts. There was something more important than that, though. “And now that we’ve established that no one is trying to short-change no one else, what can you tell us about the attic, Sammy?” he asked.

“I can tell you you’ll never see the inside of it if you don’t make that phone call. Wait a second, though.” He left the kitchen and returned a moment later with a cell phone. “Last one I grabbed had this on her, probably so she could call someone in the event of an emergency. Looks like she wasted her money, wouldn’t you say?”

“It still works?”

Sammy handed it to Von, who saw the display was indeed lit up. “Hey, speaking of the recently abducted, we’ve got a present for you in the trunk, Sammy. Assuming she hasn’t suffocated.”

“Same thing happens to her either way,” Sammy assured him. “She can wait.”

Von punched in the Rochesters’ number. “You boys ready to become millionaires?”

Greg looked more like he was ready to puke, but gave a thumbs up anyway.

Celia Rochester answered on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Good evening, Mrs. Rochester. Have you heard from your husband recently?”

“Do you know what time it is? If you’re trying to sell me something, it’s against the law to call this la—”

“Ma’am, I’m not trying to take your mon …” Von stopped short. “I mean, I haven’t broke the law …” He stopped short again. “Look, this probably isn’t what you think it is.”

“Whatever it is, the answer is still the same. He’s not here. He’s away on business.”

Von laughed. “Is that what he told you? I regret to inform you he was actually seen in the company of cheap women this evening at a local establishment called the Electra Complex.”

Her voice turned hard. “Was he indeed?”

“Yes, ma’am, and—”

“That son of a bitch! That depraved, immoral, perverted little son of a bitch! He promised me never again!”

Her voice was now loud enough that Greg and Sammy could hear her clearly. Von held the receiver away from his head.

“Well, ma’am, I—”

“If he was here right now, you know what I’d do?”

“No, but—”

“I’d take a meat cleaver and chop him off. I’d dice his little cock into shish-kebab, that bastard—”

“In that case, I have some good news for you, ma’am. You see, we already took care of that for you.”