Edward Lee - The Black Train

Even his dream was goading him to masturbate. But why not with images of Dominique? Was Dominique one of the women, and if so, who was the other?

Eventually the tongues and hands retreated.

Did he hear a giggle?

That’s when it occurred to him how small the hands on his body seemed…

A lively whistling, then a girl’s Southern drawl whispered through the utter blackness, “Here! Come on! Here!”

The bed rustled a bit; then someone else began to ravenously lick his face. It was frenetic, unabating…

More giggles.

The voice on the right: “Look at him go! Good, good boy!”

The voice on the left: “Don’t lick him there, Nergie! Lick him down there!”

“What a dirty dog!”

This is no dream! Collier’s mind stormed, and he lurched up, shoved his hands through the dark, and pushed two unseen forms off the bed. His legs mulekicked outward, and his heels shot something lean and hairy off the mattress. After a thump! he heard a dog yelp.

He snapped on the bed lamp—

The room stood empty, but…

Bullshit!

The door was ajar.

“I know I locked that!” he stated to no one. He got up uncaring that he was naked, and he closed the door and locked it. “I’m positive I locked it…”

But was he really?

Damn it. He sat on the bed’s edge. He felt his face and chest and, of course, there was no trace of wetness. I gotta get out of this house…

Collier wished he smoked just then, because it seemed the perfect time for a cigarette. Should I leave? Should I just pack my bags right now and get out of here? But he’d barely written anything on the book. And where would he go at this hour? He’d have to pay his bill.

tap, tap tap…

His eyes shot wide. He looked at the door but—

tap, tap tap…

The tiny tapping sound came from the other side of the room.

What in the HELL is going on now?

tap, tap tap…

It was coming from the wall. Low on the wall.

Even with the lights on, he could just make out the peephole.

He switched off the lamp and found himself kneeling at the wall. Now the hole was lit.

He looked in.

He could tell at once that the sleek physique sitting in the hip bath belonged to Lottie. The circle encompassed her spread thighs, belly, and tight peach-size breasts. Oh, Jesus…

The strange girl’s hips writhed in the bathwater, her hand frenetically plying her sex.

Collier’s teeth chattered; he watched for many minutes, even as he thought, She’s knows I’m watching. She WANTS me to watch…

His hand inched toward his own crotch. Not this again, he thought, wincing, but then his face blanked when he imagined what Dominique would think if she knew he was doing this, on the verge of masturbating while peeping on a whack-job exhibitionist.

She’d think I was scum.

He pulled away from the hole and sighed. Madhouse, he thought. A house full of sexual weirdos …But did this solve his most current dilemma? Did Lottie enter his room with a master key and feel him up before slipping away to the washroom? It made perfect sense, except…

There were FOUR hands on me…

And what could explain the final observation, what could only have been a dog lapping his face and chest and, very nearly, lower?

He remained there on his knees for several minutes, and through the wall heard Lottie’s obvious climax, then the hip bath being emptied, then the door click shut. A few moments later, and not much of a surprise…

tap, tap, tap…

It was from his door now.

“Gimme a break, Lottie,” he hefted his voice. “Go to bed.”

tap, tap, tap…

Don’t answer it.

He felt absurd sitting on the floor, in the dark. He was hiding in his own room. But he knew what would happen if he let her in.

A few more taps and evidently she got the message. He heard her footsteps pad away.

You really are Man of the Year, huh? his id voice complained. What kind of MAN says no to a horny woman?

Collier didn’t answer the voice.

thunk!

Collier’s head jerked upright. The sound he’d just heard…had come from the other side of the wall. The bath closet.

Had Lottie returned, to tempt him further with more

exhibitions of her body?

And the next sound? A rapid gurgling…

Collier looked back to the peephole.

A dark blur crossed his pinpoint field of vision. The gurgling sound continued, heightened, then stopped. When the blur moved off again, Collier blinked, and in the space of the blink thought he saw a man… with his head in the hip bath…

Impossible! he yelled at himself.

Another blink, and then he heard a vicious gnawing sound.

Collier jerked his eye back from the hole. He took repeated deep breaths, staring into the dark. Then he jumped up, pulled on his robe, and bound out of the room and over to the bath-closet door.

He paused, hand on the knob.

I know that when I open this door, no one will be inside.

He opened the door and found the small room unoccupied.

Madhouse, he thought again.

He returned to his room and went back to bed, disgusted, exhausted, and no longer capable of considering the latest absurdities.

Go to sleep. I have to go to church tomorrow…

Exhaustion and unease sucked him deep down into sleep… III

Just as the sun sinks, you notice the man hanging by his neck. That’s the first thing you saw when you turned the corner at the bottom of the hill…

Then you blink, and you’re a little girl again.

Your spirit has transfused. Your name is Harriet, and you know this because you read it in your mother’s diary that you kept for five years after she died. You remember: When you were seven, you came back from picking boysenberries in the woods and saw the Indians ripping off her clothes. She was screaming, and the Indians took turns lying on top of her and moving funny. They chopped off the top of her head with a great war hammer, then peeled off her scalp. You were terrified but you knew you must be very quiet. You looked around for your father but quickly saw that the Indians had done the same to him. After that one Indian cut off your father’s thing, too, and put it on a cord around his neck; the cord had the things of many men on it. Another Indian had a curvy French knife—you knew it was French because your father had one just like it. He’d told you once that he got it from his own father, who’d killed lots of Indians in a war a long time ago. In this war, French soldiers gave lots of these knives to the Indians and paid them for parts they cut off of colonists. But anyway, right now this Indian used the knife to cut off the fur between your mother’s legs, along with the skin, and he put it in a bag.

Then the Indians burned the camp, but they never caught you.

You were in a place called the Ohio Territory, and this happened in 1847. You thought you were going to freeze to death that winter but some federal soldiers found you and took you with them. They took you south. You lived in a supply wagon, and it was your job to wash the soldiers’ clothes, and at night they’d all come into the wagon and take turns lying on top of you and moving funny the way the Indians did to your mother.

That’s how it went. You got used to that part. The soldiers always smelled horrible but they gave you food and left you alone most of the time. By spring, they arrived at an army post in Tennessee called Camp Roan.